#but also i want the things to be done right and no one else is doin em right

[roosterforme]

"You better not get me pregnant before I graduate from college," you joked.

🫢🤭😍🫨🥵

Now I can't stop thinking about Jake and Darlin' having a baby!! I need details!!!! I bet the trying bit was so good for them! How did Darlin' tell Jake she is pregnant? Also, pregnant sex! I can just see Jake being an even bigger gentleman than before! Just so tender! And their first time after the birth! Pls, if you can and want to, I would love to hear all your thoughts on the subject!

Jake is almost 37 when they get married, and the last thing he wants to do is press her to try to get pregnant. They've had conversations in the past. He knows where he stands when it comes to kids, and so does she. (little bit o' smut)

"You're in control, Darlin'. You say when."

Shortly after he turned 40, Jake is really feeling his age. Gray hairs, laugh lines, lower back pains from sitting in a cockpit for almost two decades. He's not expecting it at all, but one day his wife comes home from work, takes his hand and leads him to the bedroom.

"I have something to tell you," came your soft whisper.

Jake was tired, but he could tell by the way your hands were exploring his chest exactly that you wanted right now. If nothing else, you and he had always been honest about needs and expectations. He pulled you closer to him, inhaling the scent of your hair, and he was about to tell you he was too damn tired today.

But before he could say anything at all, you said, "My period is over, and I'm not starting my new pill pack."

He froze, letting the words sink in. "You're not?" he asked slowly.

When you shook your head and whispered, "Let's see if we can make you a daddy," his entire body responded. His lips were on yours as he backed you up toward the bed until you were laying beneath him.

"You're sure about this?" he asked. "Like creampies for real? Darlin', we've only done this one time without birth control."

You moaned and wrapped your arms around his neck. "That was the best weekend of my life, Jake. Fuck me just like that. No condom, no birth control, nothing. And don't stop until you cum."

He was so excited, he was dizzy. He forgot all about how tired he was as he fucked you like it was the weekend you met.

Months went by, and he kept at it, always letting you take the lead. By the time he turned 41, you were six months pregnant, and he couldn't keep his hands off you.

"I'm already pregnant, Jake," you whined as he filled you up from behind in front of the bathroom mirror. "It's not like you can make me more pregnant."

"I can't stop touching you," he panted, hands gentle on your body. "Look how damn perfect you are."

"Lesson number five thousand," you whispered, squeezing his cock as you came. "Pregnant sex is fucking awesome."

He couldn't agree more. But perhaps the best part was snuggling afterwards with his lips brushing along the back of your neck and his hand resting on your belly. "I can't wait to meet our son."

[arlos-warm-drpepper]

When I think Derek Hale I think insecurity. Unstable. Unhinged. Derek Hale.

I don’t think “got his shit together” at all!! So in this Ted talk I will explain why I prefer when authors write him as the insecure one, and Stiles as the secure one.

Derek Hale was 19. Truly he was a kid in charge of a bunch of slightly younger kids. A kid who hadn’t had any responsible adult in his life since he was 15 (16?) y/o. I do not know how you can look at this kid and think “oh yeah he’s got his shit together”

The guy who went around biting teenagers the second he became an alpha with NO hesitation. As if that was a totally rational and responsible decision to make. The guy who fell for any woman who gave him the slightest attention. Even if they were evilness.

Because ultimately Derek just wanted someone. A pack. A family. Whether that was in the form of a bunch of teenage werewolves (teen wolfs full name hurhur) or an evil girlfriend. He just needed SOMEONE. Because he was lonely. He was lonely and insecure and probably felt like everything he touched went wrong. Because it did!!! And he probably hated himself for that. Probably blamed himself for everything. For Paige (even though that was peters fault), for Kate (Kates fault. Grown ass woman), for Boyd and Erica (NOT DEREKS FAULT!!!), for everything. Hell, probably even for Laura. And it doesn’t help that Scott and Stiles ALSO blamed him for Laura at first.

Stiles on the other hand, he was pretty secure. Sure, at first he was a little insecure when Scott had just became a werewolf and he felt a little less-than. But he got over that quickly. Over it enough that he rejected Peters offer for the bite. He was hard headed, stubborn, and smart. And he knew he was smart. He knew what he had, his skills. He trusted his instincts ten times out’ve ten. He was secure with himself. He knew when something was off, and he was persistent in trying to get everyone else to listen to him. Because if everyone just listened to him, they would be fine. Because ten times out’ve ten, he was RIGHT!!! And he knew it!!! And he was secure enough with himself to go after the most popular girl in school, despite her having a boyfriend (which I NEVER even questioned the morals of, because he didn’t. Because he seemed so sure in that decision. Because he was SECURE in himself!!!)

Derek Hale might have been aware that he was beautiful on the outside, but that doesn’t mean he was secure within himself. That man is filled to the brim with guilt. Guilt over things that aren’t even his fault. There’s no way he doesn’t absolutely hate himself.

Stiles might have guilt over void, but he knows that wasn’t him. That he tried everything to stop void. He knows he isn’t a killer, and that everything he’s done has been for the greater good. He is secure in every decision he makes. And I know that because that’s practically what he told Scott. Some people are human, some people have to get their hands a little dirty sometimes. He knows that. He is secure in that thought process.

Stiles Stilinski is secure, hard headed, persistent. Derek Hale is insecure, unstable, and uncertain. These are facts. So why are you all writing it the opposite???? I don’t want it the opposite. I want Derek to be pathetic and wet. I want Stiles to be fucking confident, assured, SOLID. Because that’s what Derek needs. He needs someone solid, because he hasn’t had that since he was 15. He deserves that.

[moodymisty]

In your fics I see a lot of affectionate terms for the reader being thrown around. So in your opinion, what terms of endearment would each primarch use when referring to their beloved?

Or vice versa, what terms of endearment would the primarchs like to hear from their beloved? either through straight up telling you what to call him or just secretly enjoying the idea of you calling him that

So I actually did a 'what each legion would call you' here but I don't think I've done one for this so lets go for it.

Lion El'Jonson:

He calls you woman, later in the relationship love. You call him Lion, or sometimes love but only if you're alone and he's in a good mood.

Roboute Guilliman:

He uses darling, love, all the typical ones. If he's being a bit of a tease he'll use my lady. You use Guilliman in public, but in private you use Roboute. It actually melts his heart when you say it all softly. Use Robu if you're being silly but he hates it.

Magnus The Red:

Magnus loves to be overdramatic. You're his lady, the stars of his sky, his heart, and a million other even longer things. Besides just Magnus, you can call him your king if you really want to get him going.

Rogal Dorn:

Just your name. After awhile and in absolute privacy, he might call you love. But you'll hear it a few times if you're lucky. Rogal in private, anything else tends to make him get that brickish unimpressed look.

Ferrus Manus:

Your name, perhaps sometimes beloved. Like Dorn he's not a fan of vocal declarations of love. Ferrus, but calling him your Gorgon tends to make him chuckle. He'll tolerate love as well.

Perturabo:

He calls you girl, but also love and doll. There's a 50/50 shot of them having a demeaning undertone also though. You call him lord in company and that is absolutely it. In private, you can call him Bo, or love. You can call him a few other things like Siegemaster or daddy if you're in the mood to not walk for a few days.

Fulgrim:

He calls you love, my dear, darling, beloved, angel, moonlight, anything that is very sweet and dramatic. He rarely says your name. You always call him love and beloved, but there's a sappy romantic tone to it that makes it far more loveydovey than the previous primarchs.

Vulkan:

Besides the typical petnames, Vulkan loves to call you his wife. Anything that really solidifies that you are his and he is yours. Besides the usual myriad of pet names that would make anyone gag, calling him your husband always gets a soft smile. Calling him your drake gets you throw onto the bed.

Corvus Corax:

Besides your name, he might say my love in private, when he's feeling very sappy. On paper however, he is much more dramatic. Darling, beloved, my beautiful night sky. Corvus, or darling if he's feeling sad and needs a boost.

Alpharius/Omegon:

They both just call you love, but Alpharius is the sappier one in private with things like my dear.

Alpharius gets the typical petnames, Omegon needs you to call him by his name.

Konrad Curze:

Love, but it has this very condescending, dark tone to it. It has infatuation in it, but the way he says it almost feels, weird. He gets a bit better overtime. Konrad, mostly because no one else really dares call him that.

Sanguinius:

My lady, My love, My darling, my angel. Anything that has my in front of him. Sanguinius has a very subtle but very deep possessive trait. Your angel, love, you tend to be just as sappy right back at him but without the undertone of possessiveness.

Lorgar Aurelian:

My lady, My love, My (beautiful little) goddess, my stars, Lorgar also has a possession thing, but instead of like Sanguinius it's more religious than sheer ownership. Lorgar, but my lord really gets him going. Father if you don't want to have feeling in your legs the next day.

Mortarion:

He doesn't really refer to you in any way other than just your name, overtime a love or two might slip. Morty, my love, my king, my darling, you are infinitely more sappy than he is. He fucking loves it, even if he doesn't show it. This man is so down bad he would kill his own men for you if you called him your darling lord husband.

Jaghatai Khan:

He likes calling you your name, as well as one or two Chorgoran adjectives that mean sweet things. You always call him Jaghatai. He doesn't mind petnames like love, but high/low gothic petnames don't really have the same undertone of feeling that they would others given it isn't his mother tongue so he's kind of indifferent.

Leman Russ:

Girl, woman, my woman, my girl, my wife, den mother, bitch (fondly), he is very gruff but all of his petnames are said very fondly with a big smile on his face. You always call him Russ, or Leman if he's being a shit. Calling him your wolf is a good way to end up with full body beard burn.

Horus Lupercal:

My love, My princess, he really likes petnames that make you feel like this sweet little thing he holds dear. Calling him Horus, love, darling is fine, Lord Husband is teetering the end of getting your ass slapped (in a good way) Warmaster and daddy is a one way ticket to not getting seen by anyone for a week.

Angron:

None. At best he says your name, or woman/girl. Angron. He doesn't tolerate much else, but overtime he's come to somewhat accept love, but if he's in a bad mood that won't fly.

[halfwayhearted]

Héctor Fort fic where he gets jealous over something reader does and she gets annoyed but also lowkey finds it amusing so she messes around w him abt it. Yeah i got nothing after that, feel free to improvise…

Fall Right In — Héctor Fort.

Pairing: Héctor Fort x Fem!Reader

Summary: You couldn't tell that a man was (obviously) flirting with you. Héctor notices, causing jealousy to ensue.

Word Count: 575+

Disclaimer/s — Man, oblivious!reader, a little tense, that’s it!

A/N: i want yuh, and imma have yuh (bea).

Nothing could ruin the day you're having now.

You were sure of it. Not even when you tripped over someone's ankle and stumbled. A pair of hands grabbed your waist to steady you, letting out a huff. It was... definitely something! Quite embarrassing, but it was over and done quickly.

Or… so you thought.

“Sorry—I wasn’t looking…” you managed to say, letting a smile, a weak one, grace your lips.

The man didn't want you to leave, though you didn't notice. He returned your smile, glanced at Héctor briefly, and then said, “It's all good. I can let it slide. How’s your day today? Going good?”

That elicited a narrowed-eyed gaze from the Fort boy beside you, the look in his eyes deepening when he noticed the man’s hand still hovering over your waist. He wasn’t touching you, so you didn’t even know it was there. Too engrossed in replying to his question, you said, “I… yeah, yes!”

“Good, good,” he trails off, “Me too, you didn’t ask, but… I just thought I’d let you know anyway.”

Your eyes widened slightly in response, “Oh! I’m sorry. I’m glad your day is good! Really… glad…”

Héctor stepped in then, his hand subtly sliding over your waist and gently pulling you closer to him. “Sorry, we have plans we have to get to.” With that, he gave the guy a raised eyebrow and a head tilt before walking away, practically tugging you along, making you look over and up at him.

“What was that for?” You questioned.

He looked down at you with an expression that resembled one thing and one thing only: jealousy. “Are you… are you seriously asking me that?”

“Well! I literally tripped over him, Héctor. The least I could do was engage in his conversation.”

“That wasn’t a conversation.”

“Yeah? Then what was it then?”

He sighed, his grip on your waist tightening just a bit. “He was flirting with you. You couldn’t tell?”

Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Flirting? All he did was ask how my day was… a bit, well, randomly, but still! I think you’re reaching.” Your tone shifted from sweet to annoyed. It was just a conversation; what was he even talking about?

“His hand was almost touching your waist,” Héctor continued, “But you didn’t know that.”

“No, I didn’t. What I do know is that he had to put his hands on my waist to make sure I didn’t fall face first onto the hard floor, okay? It didn’t mean anything. He didn’t mean anything. I promise.”

“It was still weird,” he mumbled.

A smile slowly spreads across your face. “What, Héctor? Should I… hm, trip on someone else’s feet? Maybe, I don’t know, see how they react?”

He shoots you a look. “Not funny.”

“No, it’s not. I’m sorry,” a pause, you take his hand and gently bring it to your lips, giving it a quick, tender kiss, “Hey, okay, it’s just you. So, even if he was flirting, you know I’d leave immediately.”

His lips part, his smirk dropping from his face as the words leave your mouth, “He was flirting!”

That's when a loud laugh bursts out, your hand quickly flying up to stifle it. “I'm kidding! I'm just messing with you. I love you, just you. So... can we go into Ulta now? Or not, like, just let me know.”

“Hah-hah, hilarious,” he retorted, “Come on.”

Likes, reblogs, and comments are always appreciated ^_^.

DT(s) — @pedrilcvr ! ౨ৎ (my beautiful… thank you…)

[d1g1tal-d1ary]

Part 2 of my addicted!Simon headcanon!!

Price always had a lot going on; being the Captain of a Task Force demanded a lot of time, energy and most of all - nerves.

So when one of the nurses on base had pulled him aside and said that she suspected someone stealing Morphine, all he did was nod and call in a meeting. Luckily, everyone had obliged to giving him a urine sample to let it be tested for drugs.

What no one seemed to notice was Simon's eyes staring into nothingness as all he did was pray that his heavy heart wouldn't give his covers away. His head was spinning because he searched for a way out of this - there had to be a way he didn't have to take it. And suddenly his mind started to wander off to you; the only one who'd met him without knowing he was Ghost. The only one who knew he had a problem - a fucking big one right now - and the only one who understood him was you.

One hand tightly gripping the little cup, the other one knocking loudly on your door. He didn't hesitate when the door opened; he simply pushed it open and walked into your tiny apartment.

"Simon?" you asked with a frown plastered on your face. You hadn't expected him - of course you hadn't so all you were wearing was one of your cute pyjamas you avoided to wear around him normally. "Is everything okay?"

"I messed up," was all that came across his lips with a heavy sigh. When his gaze met yours, all he could do was put the cup on your kitchen table and point at it. "I need your help."

You stepped closer and eyed the little cup and when you realized what exactly he'd asked you to do, you shook your head. "No, I'm not helping you fake a drugtest."

"Please, luvie," his eyes studied your face - he reduced the distance between you two quickly and took your face into his rough and calloused hands. "I'll never ask anythin' of you ever again. Just let me keep my job, fuck- it's the only thing that's been keeping me sane all this time."

Of course your heart sank when you heard his pleading and even more so when you looked up at him and you could see the desperation in his blue eyes. After moments had passed - which felt like years for Simon - you'd finally nodded and given in to him.

"I knew you'd understand," he whispered and pecked your lips before letting you go take the drugtest.

You'd never felt so dirty in your life. Pissing into a little cup while Simon waited impatiently outside the bathroom made you feel greedy and so, so worthless. But if you were being honest; there was nothing you wouldn't do for Simon. Of course you weren't supporting his addiction - that was the main reason you had broken up, after all. But he was your Simon. The closest you'll ever get to finding unconditional love.

A few days after Simon had given the sample to Price - he'd been the last to hand it over - the test results finally came. And Price would never doubt his team; they'd done everything together for years at this point, but he could also imagine one of his soldiers having an addiction as it was nothing new.

To his surprise and relief, all the test results came back negative. But looking at Simon's results made him frown - or more so, all he could do was huff at the result.

"You wanted to speak to me?" Simon had stepped into Price's office; not even thinking that it could have anything to do with the drugtest as he knew you hadn't taken any.

Price's eyes never left Simon's form. He watched him intensly as he took the seat across from Price's desk. "Yeah, well, the results came back and since you're L.T., I thought you'd deserve to know before everyone else."

Simon hummed in response while leaning back, silently thanking you again.

"Luckily, everyone's negative," Price announced which made Simon even more relaxed. "But.. The Lab was a bit confused and thought something went wrong as Simon Riley's clearly a male name."

"Captain, I don't think I can follow you," Simon had frowned under his balaclava.

Price barked a bitter laugh as he looked at the Lieutnant in front of him. "They found the hormone Beta-hCG in your piss. You wanna know what that means?"

All Simon could do was nod; unaware of what's to come.

"The fuckin' piss is from someone who's pregnant," Price lowly said. "So now we not only know this wasn't your piss, but I think you two would've been smart enough to know we‘d find out. So, Riley, should I say congratultions?"

Y‘all wanna read part 3???!!! 🙏😭

[padfootagain]

Love in Verses (XI)

Chapter 11: ‘Lived to see you throwing me aside.’

Hi! Here is another chapter! On the menu today: a dinner with Sam and Frank… I’ll let you guess how well this will go… (I hope my choice for Andrew's pic for this chapter gives you a clue...)

I hope you like this chapter! Tell me what you think!

****

Pairing: Hozier x fem!reader (professor!AU)

Warnings: slow burn, angst, hurt, hurt/comfort, tooth-rotting fluff in later chapters, some scenes in later chapters will have heavy sexual themes even if it’s not explicit nsfw description, so minors here

Summary: Your life seems perfect. You're engaged, your career is thriving as you become an assistant professor at Trinity College, and this Andrew Hozier-Byrne you're sharing an office with seems to be a nice guy you hope to call a friend soon. Life seems to be smiling at you... until everything goes sour. When your fiancé breaks up with you, your perfect world shatters. And when your colleague also gets his heart broken soon after, your shared office seems to be a curse rather than a blessing. But Andrew seems determined to mend your broken hearts... Will things finally go according to plan?

Word Count: 2933

Masterlist for the series – Hozier’s masterlist – Main masterlist

Hesitate to call

Lived to see you throwing Me aside. That fought Like nettled fish inside me. Saw you throbbing In my syrups. Saw you sleep. And lived to see That all that all flushed down The refuse. Done? It lives in me. You live in me. Malignant. Love, you ever want me, don’t.

Louise Glück, The First Five Books of Poems

Andrew checked his appearance in the mirror for what seemed to be the hundredth time.

He was nervous beyond reason, after all he was heading to a restaurant to see Sam. And after a long-term relationship, he shouldn’t have felt so troubled by it. But things were different now, things were… complicated, to say the least.

Still, he heaved a sigh, checked his appearance once more. He had let his hair loose, had put on contacts, was wearing a black shirt and some dark jeans. He looked tired, exhausted even. Work was a lot at the moment, he had a thousand things to do. He still struggled to sleep, was still tortured with thoughts and dreams of Sam, of her leaving, of her loving someone else.

November was ending, and with it, the remnants of Andrew’s and Sam’s plans. Plans…

A weekend in Kerry in September. Saimhan with friends. Now, Andrew should be packing. He should be choosing clothes, not for an evening in a restaurant, but for a weekend in Glasgow. A flight late at night leaving from Dublin, another one during the night between Sunday and Monday. And in between, a couple of days just for them, spent eating, visiting museums, seeing the sights, walking around the town. A night in a hotel, one she had chosen, spent on filling their hearts with love and their bodies with lust and desire.

He looked at his reflection again, stared right into his own hazel eyes. They were greener than usual, probably because wearing contacts made his eyes water. He would have been more comfortable with glasses, more relaxed as well, more himself, in a way.

He blinked tears away as a thought crossed his mind, a painful one he wished he could have kept at bay, but he didn’t have the strength for that. Beating himself up was a habit, since childhood. There were thoughts sometimes that formed in his mind that brought him pain, but he listened anyway. Sometimes they were quiet, sometimes they were deafening. These days they were loud and clear.

He went to get his coat, grab his car keys, get ready to leave. He petted Elwood, told him to be a good boy, that he would soon be home. The thought followed him outside his home.

Being himself was never enough for Sam to love him.

Christ, Sam was so beautiful…

It was breaking his heart that they weren’t on a date. As he entered the restaurant, saw her sitting at a table waiting for him, Andrew was reminded of hundreds of evenings spent like this, going on a date in a restaurant, at the cinema, it didn’t even matter where. At the end, they didn’t go out much anymore. Sam always seemed to be too busy for that. At the time, Andrew thought it was only because of her job. Now, he wondered if maybe she had not already started to give up on them.

But he hadn’t. To this day, he hadn’t given up on them…

He kept on admiring her for a few more seconds, until the rest of the table was revealed to him, and the illusion waned. You were there too, facing Frank. The restaurant was posh, he felt a little uneasy in this atmosphere. He wouldn’t have chosen such a place for a date, but he had no doubt that Sam liked it.

He forced a smile as he approached, was greeted warmly by Frank, the first one who spotted him as he approached. You turned on your chair to greet him with a relieved smile, and his heart made a happy jump at the sight of you. He had an ally tonight, he wasn’t on his own…

“You’re late.”

He turned to Sam, his heart dropping again. Her tone was flat, emotionless, and he knew her enough to be aware that it was worse than annoyance. She was angry. He struggled to swallow.

“Yeah, sorry… Had some stuff to take care of before coming.”

She rolled her eyes, knowing it was a lie. Or well, it wasn’t a lie, but the real reason was simply that Andrew was always late. To everything. He couldn’t do much about it; if left unattended, he simply lost track of time. The alarms he had set up had done little to help him tonight. He didn’t add anything, merely took a seat.

“Ha, no worries!” Frank reassured him, and Andrew could tell that he was nervous and willing to make Andrew feel welcome. As a result, Andrew was highly uncomfortable.

“The food looks… interesting,” you commented, trying to drag the conversation away from Andrew, and he was grateful for it.

“The oysters are particularly good!” Frank recommended.

You said nothing, but Andrew frowned.

You… hadn’t you told him once that you weren’t such a fan of seafood?

Indeed, when you chose what to eat, you didn’t follow Frank’s advice at all.

Conversation drifted towards work, and your respective lives. Catching up or getting to know each other.

And Andrew understood Frank’s appeal tonight, as he watched him lead the conversation. He was louder than Andrew ever was, bright, clearly extraverted, longing for people’s attention. He was funny, charming. And handsome, that too, Andrew couldn’t deny that either. His complete opposite. Average height, muscles that threatened the fabric of his sleeves while he passionately talked about his work and moved his hands around, blond with electric blue eyes.

So… that was what Sam longed for? What had made you fall for him?

Andrew tried not to think this way. There was nothing he could do about his physical appearance, his ridiculous height, his gangly stature… there was no need to torture himself over that. He could show that he took care of Sam though. That he paid attention to her. That he loved her…

Because Frank didn’t seem to care all that much. Andrew saw it as you talked about your work, about how nervous you were as you got ready to give your students their first test of the year. And if Andrew was intently listening, Frank was clearly uninterested. He drew the conversation away from your job as soon as he could, offering encouraging words, and quickly moving on. You smiled, but you weren’t fooled. Andrew saw it in the way your gaze saddened, in the way the excitement that had been glimmering there died out instantly. His heart ached at the sight. And when Frank spoke again, Andrew didn’t care.

“Will you set a limit for the length required for the essay?”

Frank grew quiet, frowned. You turned to Andrew, clearly surprised by his question.

“Erm… I haven’t decided yet. I usually don’t.”

“Once a student gave me a twenty-pages long essay…”

“Twenty pages?!”

“Yeah… she was thorough, for sure.”

“Did you read the whole thing?”

“Of course. And now I set a limited word count.”

You chuckled, nodded.

“Maybe I should do that. What about your class about Yeats? Have you decided on a subject for an essay?”

“I’m still hesitating… I want to prepare one about Yeats’s involvement in the Irish Literary Revival… but I could choose one of his love poems about Maud Gonne too.”

You chuckled.

“Why do I feel like they’ll hear a lot about No Second Troy…”

“I love that poem.”

“Anyone who speaks of literature with you for more than ten minutes knows that,” you teased. “It’s a short poem to study, though.”

“Yeah… but that means they would really have to work on each line, instead of simply skipping whatever element they struggle with.”

“True.”

“I feel like it would be easier for them to work on the more political side of Yeats’s work during exam season. The material is easier, and we’ll go thoroughly through the most important aspects of these texts in class. So… I think I’ll ask them to work on love poems at home.”

“Sounds like a good idea.”

You exchanged a smile. When Andrew looked up at Frank and Sam, they had stopped listening and were both eating their meal in silence. Sam was looking at something on her phone, a habit she had developed in the past couple of years.

She hadn’t asked him about his job. She hadn’t asked him if he wrote, how he felt, if he was suffering because of her. Perhaps she didn’t want to hear his answers. Perhaps she didn’t really care. Andrew was starting to have doubts. The more the evening was progressing, the more he realised that she didn’t seem to care. Sam and Andrew had spent years together, but she wasn’t listening as he spoke of his work, of the things he loved most on Earth.

Did she even care at all about him anymore? She used to listen to him talk about music and poetry for hours, back when they were students…

Or did she? She had never liked his own writing, but he thought she listened when he spoke of what he loved, still. She didn’t seem willing to make an effort these days… but then again, they weren’t together anymore. So, why would she?

“I’ve listened to your record, by the way!”

Andrew blinked, looked at you again.

“What?”

“Duke Ellington and John Coltrane. I’ve listened to it.”

He raised a surprised eyebrow.

“Did you? Really?”

You nodded, an excited smile on your lips.

“Of course! I’m going to sound very basic, I think In a Sentimental Mood was my favourite… although I really loved My Little Brown Book too.”

His mouth broke into a bright grin.

“Grand! Like… that’s grand! I’m glad you liked it.”

Frank stared at you for a moment.

“Who are you talking about?” he asked, trying to slither in the conversation.

“Andy recommended me some music! I have a whole list at this point,” you teased, nudging him with your elbow and making him chuckle and blush.

“It’s Jazz,” Andrew explained. “Some of the greatest, honestly.”

Sam heaved a sigh, still focused on her screen.

“Oh… nice,” Frank nodded, although he didn’t sound convincing at all.

“I really liked it a lot,” you went on. “I don’t really have the vocabulary to describe it, like… on a technical point of view, you know? But I liked it. It was very… like… drawing me in, in a way. There was tension, and then once I was trapped in the song, there was so much emotion there… And it’s unusual for me to be so focused when listening to instrumental music. I have a busy brain, I get distracted easily.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. I have a busy brain too… but that’s what Blues and Jazz do to me. They kind of… shush my brain. Make it go quiet.”

“Yeah, exactly.”

“You like music, then, Andy?”

Andrew looked at Frank again, wanted to correct him and ask to be called Andrew… but he didn’t want to seem rude. He didn’t like it, though, how he used his nickname.

“Yeah, a lot.”

“Andy wanted to be a musician, back in the days,” Sam intervened, putting her phone down again.

“Really? What instrument do you play?”

“I sing, mostly… play guitar too.”

“But you didn’t make a career out of it? Not that it’s surprising, it’s a tough field to work in. Most people can’t make a living out of it. Like… there’s so much competition, so few who actually get to make it. It must be a tough life.”

“A few of his friends made it though, and he had the talent for it,” Sam went on. “But Andy is not one to compromise easily.”

Andrew stared at her with a raised eyebrow.

“What do you mean by that?”

She shrugged.

“You could have had a record deal, had you accepted to change a few things about your songs.”

Andrew huffed, he could barely believe his ears…

“There was never an opportunity for me to record my own songs, and you know that. I didn’t want to sing those… attempts at pop hits that felt soulless to me.”

“And you didn’t get a record deal.”

“I didn’t want that kind of deal. I wanted to record the songs I had written.”

She didn’t say a thing, but her thoughts were loud enough for Andrew to guess them.

And then you didn’t record any of those either.

“Why are you saying all that like you’re resenting me?” Andrew asked, and Sam shook her head.

“I don’t resent you, of course! It was your choice.”

“You do sound like it though…”

“I’m just pointing out that you’re not the kind of guy who compromises much.”

He raised an unimpressed eyebrow and huffed again.

“You’re one to talk…” he mumbled.

Andrew spent his time compromising. Had he not compromised when he wanted to take a job in London and had settled for Dublin instead because she didn’t want to move there? When she refused to move in with him and asked for more time to find herself? When she chose most of their topics of conversations? When he barely talked about his work?

He let out a long exhale, took a bite of the overpriced fish he had ordered. He didn’t even like the food…

Sam spoke again, about some stupid tv reality she had been watching with Frank, and you listened even though you hadn’t seen it. Meanwhile, Andrew wanted to talk about music with you again. He wanted to ask you about Duke Ellington, he wanted to ask you what songs you liked, he wanted to listen to you ramble about how music made you feel. Your thoughts were always interesting, he could have talked with you for hours… and sometimes he did.

But he shook himself. He wanted Sam. He wanted to have Sam back, and nobody was perfect. There were some things in Sam that annoyed him or disappointed him or that he didn’t understand but at the end of the day she was Sam, and that was enough for him.

He was quieter throughout the rest of the evening, trying to do some damage control over the couple of tensed moments that had occurred during the night.

But then the conversation settled on the wedding itself, and things turned ill all over again…

“And we need to settle on a cake too! Christ, everything is complicated when you’re planning a wedding!” Sam laughed, while Andrew was tightly closing his fists under the table, until his nails drew crescent marks into his palms, while you looked away in a hurry.

“You know… I thought we could choose a strawberry cake,” Frank said. “It’s a classic, most people like those…”

“Sam is allergic to strawberries,” Andrew answered without thinking.

An uncomfortable silence settled across the table.

“Oh… you didn’t tell me that, babe,” Frank told Sam, who frowned.

Clearly, she had told him before, but she said nothing.

“Well, we’ll choose something else!” Frank shrugged.

“What about your career, then?” you asked your ex, staring intensely at him.

“My career?”

“You… you used to say that you wanted to wait to get married because you needed to focus on your career.”

Slowly, Frank nodded.

“Yeah… that’s true. I used to want that. But… it’s different with Sam.”

Andrew saw the pain that shot across your features. There was so much anger that ran through his veins then…

“Right,” you nodded.

“Like… my work seemed the most important, but now… not anymore. Or… not in the same way. So, why wait?”

“Why wait, indeed…” you slowly nodded while Frank and Sam exchanged a tender gaze, one that made Andrew nauseous.

He looked down at the piece of cheesecake he had barely touched, decided not to eat it. He couldn’t get anything more down…

The meal ended in a quiet mood, with conversations spent mostly between Sam and Frank, but the couple seemed satisfied with this situation. When they disappeared in a cab together, Andrew felt emptier than ever. A shell without a pulse or any other semblance of life…

“Andy?”

He turned around to look at you standing behind him in the street, right before the restaurant. Your frame was illuminated by both the white light coming from the restaurant’s sign and the orange hues of the streetlights.

He caught himself thinking that you were beautiful, had to push the thought away. But you were. You had dressed up tonight, undoubtedly to impress Frank, just like Andrew had tried to impress Sam with his careful choice of outfit. And Andrew was impressed, at any rate. You were gorgeous…

You offered him a humourless smile.

“Tonight was… a lot, right?”

He nodded, letting out a long exhale through his nose.

“You can say that…”

“I can’t say that it went… incredibly well.”

“No… it was… strange.”

“Let’s put it that way, yeah.”

“I’m not sure it helped us make any progress.”

“I’m not so sure either. On the contrary. But we tried, at least.”

Andrew nodded, looked at you as you heaved a sigh.

“You know what I want right now?”

He shook his head, tilting his head to the side as he waited for you to speak again, his hands now buried in his pockets.

“I really… really… want to get drunk. Like… hammered. Properly destroyed.”

Andrew exploded with laughter.

“You know what… sign me up! Getting very drunk sounds nice!”

“Let’s go to my place. I don’t want to be surrounded by people anymore,” you offered, and Andrew easily accepted.

As he followed you throughout the street, he reckoned that at least one thing in this evening could be pleasant, after all.

[suzukiblu]

Man, does Clark panic adopting not count as kon-napping(+ match-napping)?

Oh well, I suppose I won't request anything for WIP Wednesday. Have fun with everyone's prompts. :]

-MBT

I mean it definitely does imo, but I ruled out a bunch of WIP options that technically count as Kon-napping for one reason or another, 'cuz keeping the list to five options is just way easier for me. Keeping open five documents to jump around is just way kinder on the ol' laptop, y'know? Though for you, fren, since you have been an excellent source of inspo/motivation in the past, I will totally give you some panic-adoption I already had written and just hadn't posted yet, lol. 💛

(( chrono || non-chrono ))

“I didn’t call ahead, so–oh, damn, how did I forget to call, it’s practically lunchtime,” Superman mutters under his own breath. Match stares blankly at him. So does Thirteen, but Match can’t even bring himself to be irritated about it, because it’s the only possible logical reaction to be having right now. Or just ever, possibly, in regards to Superman. 

“Uh,” Thirteen says, shifting uncomfortably in the air and still half-behind Match, annoyingly but unsurprisingly. “Like, we could just . . . do this some other time, maybe, we don’t need to, y’know . . . bug ‘em or whatever. Like, we don’t need to do, uh . . . whatever you’re doing all at once.” 

Superman once again gets that strange look that Match would call “pained” on anyone else’s face, then just–sighs, and shakes his head. 

“I should’ve done it already,” Superman says, his voice just barely tight. “For both of you.” 

“I mean–we literally don’t even know what you are doing, man,” Thirteen says, looking frustrated and uncertain. “Like, you said you didn’t want us to go back to Cadmus or the Agenda but like, then you said we should go home even though we were already at the Fortress, and then you brought us all the way out here to your–to, uh–you know, and–” 

“To my parents’ house,” Superman says. 

. . . Match actually should just take Thirteen and go to Cadmus right now. Superman is clearly an irresponsible idiot of an owner, if he’s going to keep telling him these things. 

Really, the only thing Superman’s done so far as his owner is steal him and also dress him up in a little outfit, from a certain point of view, Match realizes, and tries not to grimace at the thought of being, effectively, another damn dog. 

Which–he is that, more or less. Obviously. He’s–a possession. A weapon. A thing. Not–

Just–the same treatment as the dog, short of getting his damn ears scratched. 

It’s . . . 

Are you fucking STUPID? he wants to ask instead of finishing that thought, but that wouldn’t be any smarter–or safer–to do. 

“Uh,” Thirteen says, and swallows uncomfortably. “Uh–yeah. That.”

[vigilskeep]

wait, Minerva "canonically" has a baby?? i want to know everything!! when how what - how does motherhood change her, pls elaborate, srry if you talked about this before, i just love them so much

she does!! i talk abt this less bc i think its self-indulgent jghsskks and that people are less interested in this, but it’s super fun to think about for me

the baby was a surprise, minerva was kind of being stupid about it lmao because she was being less careful than she might have been in the circle, especially because she’s a warden now so she’s less likely to get pregnant at all, without really thinking through what might happen. (i’m sure our local kinloch hold spirit healer companions both had their field days telling her off for this at some point.) but as soon as it does happen she wants the baby so badly. as a circle mage and then a warden she had never really seriously considered it a possibility for herself, but she loves children, and it’s been so long since she had a real family

it’s zevran’s and zevran is in antiva most of the time. i think she has a weird crisis about whether he’ll want anything to do with a baby, and she would despise for him to come back just out of obligation but also what if he doesn’t come back, and she ends up procrastinating telling him for, like, months. just a stupid amount of time. bc she was born to stress her man out and to give her wardens unnecessary grudges against him because they thought he had obviously chosen not to be here because obviously she would have told him. truly when will his suffering end. anyway he’s thrilled when somebody eventually does him the courtesy of letting him know

the baby’s a boy, she names him duncan, it sparks a whole other argument with alistair that we won’t get into here. he gets nicknamed junior a lot, partly bc he’s duncan jr, partly bc of the ongoing joke that he’s the resident Junior Warden. he was very much raised in warden blue since the cradle. because minerva is so busy and zevran is often away, he’s pretty much collectively raised in vigil’s keep by the awakening squad and whoever else gets added to that trusted inner circle. which works out bc wardens don’t often have kids of their own so they all just kind of... share this one lmao. (and possibly sometimes also oghren and felsi’s kid if they stick around?) it’s velanna who instigates this bc that’s what the dalish do and she’s also literally the only one here who knows what to do with a baby so thank the maker she’s here (minerva’s practised with kids but by nature they don’t have babies in the circle)

i’m so thrilled that spellblade is a crow-themed rogue-like mage subclass bc that’s exactly what i always pictured for duncan jr eventually. he’s a mage, his magic manifests very young, but minerva is very strict abt his studies and it has the unfortunate reverse effect of making getting his dad or nathaniel or sigrun to teach him combat much more fun. it works out really bc his magic having manifested is a tightly kept secret so it’s good for him not to have to rely on it

being a mother kind of changes/crystallises a lot of minerva’s priorities. it’s one thing to say, like, i would like to improve the situation for my fellow mages at some point, or, it sure would be nice to live past a warden’s usual limits. it’s another thing entirely to have a mage child and need to make a world that’s safe for him and live long enough to see it done. it ends up being a key issue of her conflict with the chantry between origins and inquisition because nobody’s quite certain what the rules are. obviously if she were still a circle mage any child of hers would be taken away. but she’s not a circle mage and arguably the chantry has no right to a child born outside of the circle, with no sign yet (as far as anyone outside vigil’s keep knows) of magic. (like i say it manifested younger than normal so this is believable even to those who think he will eventually show.) it definitely exacerbates tensions, shall we say, because obviously they can pry him out of her cold dead hands

he’s probably still only quite young in inquisition. six or seven? somewhere around there, i hate timelines. not sure where he is while minerva and her squad are on their quest, but given the very short list of people she trusts that much, i have to say that the most insane answer is likely: he’s in denerim as a temporary ward of the king. probably the first elven kid to be such

[thatonebirdwrites]

Cheating Death Part 2

Part 1 here.

Only seconds after Lena vanished in the portal, the Kryptonite cage melted into the floor. A yellow light pulsed so brightly, Kara had to close her eyes. Light infused her cells and pushed the pain of the Kryptonite away.

Lena's words echoed in Kara's head. How she'd stomped and shouted, the tears on her face, the desperation in her voice. How heartbroken she'd been when she'd said, "No, no you don't get to tell me who I am anymore."

She didn't know what to do. Lena had been hurting and grieving this entire time, and what had she and her friends done? Celebrated her brother's death, ignored Lena's increasingly isolating behaviors, and pretended everything was fine.

It wasn't fine.

Yet, the yellow light. Why had that activated? Was it Lena or the Fortress?

Kara ran through the Fortress to the control panel. She dug into the log and swiftly found Lena's code. It had been programmed to create the cage if Kara asked about Myriad, but then the yellow light was also programmed to heal Kara after Lena escaped. A note was annotated on that section of the code, and Kara's breath caught in her throat.

"I wish I could stop loving you. This hurts worse than death."

Tears dampened her cheeks and she wiped them away. What would she tell Alex? How can she explain any of this?

She didn't want her friends to turn on Lena, and Alex definitely would go after Lena if she knew about the cage. It'd been temporary, and Lena had programed a healing sun-bed equivalent burst for after. That alone gave her hope that she could still reach Lena.

Because even in her heartbreak, Lena did not want Kara dead.

She grabbed the weapon she needed, the same one Lena had used to stop Leviathan from killing Kara, and re-calibrated security. Her tears froze on her cheeks by the time she finished.

Kara flew out of the Fortress and high into the stratosphere. She listened for Lena's heartbeat, but heard nothing at first. Fear clenched her heart. Either Lena hid behind lead, or something terrible had gone wrong since she'd left. She hoped it was the former.

With a heavy heart, she flew to the DEO. Alex waited on a balcony.

"Kara?" Alex said, alarmed. "What the hell happened? Where's Lena?"

Kara held out the weapon. "It works as hoped. Sustained blast will keep Rama Khan down, and then attach the power dampeners."

Alex took the weapon with a frown. "Kara, what happened to Lena? Where is she?"

Kara shook her head. She couldn't voice it. She refused to believe Lena was lost to them. There had to be a way to save her, to bring her back, to repair what Kara had fucked up.

She pressed her hands against her face and flinched when Alex tried to touch her shoulder. "I got to find her," she whispered. "I got to make things right. I got to."

"Kara, I can't help if you don't tell me." Alex's voice held kindness, but Kara knew how quickly Alex could turn to anger. When it came to Kara's safety, Alex might cross a line she'd regret. Kara had done it for Alex a few times.

But with Lena? Kara had no boundaries. Lena held her heart in a way no one else did. She'd talked herself into settling for Mon-el, but it'd never been who she needed.

She needed Lena.

"Kara?" Alex tried again. "Kara, talk to me."

"She's the one who shot Lex." The words felt unreal.

Alex's brow wrinkled. "I thought he died when he fell."

Kara shook her head. "We never found a body or even parts from his suit, remember? If he had a portal watch, he could have gone anywhere."

Alex sucked in a breath. "And Lena was waiting for him?"

Kara nodded. "She shot him to protect us. She's been grieving and hurting all this time, and what have we done? Ignored her grief! Where were we for her pain?" She paced the balcony as fury at herself and everyone around her built up in her sternum. "I hurt her! I hurt her with my lies, and I have to fix this."

"Kara," Alex hefted the weapon. "Maybe let Lena have her space. We still have to deal with--"

"Alex, you didn't hear her!" Her pacing quickened and a groove appeared in the concrete from her superspeed.

Kara should tell Alex, and yet she couldn't. She needed to save Lena from Myriad herself, but to do that, she needed to find Lena. And she still couldn't hear her heartbeat.

She let out a shout of rage, her fist colliding with the wall and shattering the concrete. "I hurt the person I love! I have to fix this. I have to bring her back."

Her rage petered into sobs, and she fell to her knees.

Her, the strongest and fastest on the planet, brought to her knees by a Luthor.

She thinks of all the times she could have told Lena, and how she'd chickened out, afraid of losing her. Afraid of living a life without Lena's presence. Now a Lena-shaped hole had been carved in her chest, and she hurt.

It felt like Kryptonite all over again.

Was this how Lena had felt the past few months? This agony?

And yet, Lena had still helped. She'd still saved Kara's life. Still built devices that helped others. Why Myriad? Why use that monstrous device? Kara couldn't make sense of it. The months of pretending to be Kara's friend.

She should be angry at Lena. Furious at the betrayal, but she felt only grief. She'd started this with her lies, with leaving Lena in the dark. Lena could have helped so much more if she'd been in on it from the start. Then this never would have happened.

Kara sat there, silent, head-bowed long enough for Alex to leave and return with a cup of herbal tea. Rooibos since most other teas were too intense thanks to Kara's supertaste. Her fingers curled around the warm cup.

"I tasked Brainy and J'onn with the weapons. We'll deal with Leviathan." Alex smiled and squeezed Kara's shoulder. "You do what you need to do, Kara. I'm with you, okay?"

Kara nodded numbly. She sipped the tea and slowly became aware of a high-pitched beeping. "Wait, that's the signal watch," she murmured. She put down the cup and listened. It came from downtown. "Lena," she whispered.

Before Alex could respond, Kara blasted into the sky and broke the sound barrier. The crack whipped across the city and shook windows. She landed on Lena's balcony at L-Corp, ripped open the door, and dashed into a dark room. The beeping came from the stairwell.

Horror twisted her gut. She supersped down the stairs, all forty-three flights, until she reached the stairs just below ground level near the door to security.

She threw open the door and the thick scent of iron assaulted her nose.

Eve lay in a pool of blood, no heartbeat. Someone dressed in black lay crumbled near Eve, again no heartbeat. Blood coated the stairs from where Lena must have crawled.

Lena, her Lena, lay motionless, one hand on the top step. For a horrifyingly long second, Kara couldn't hear a heartbeat. She dropped next to Lena and pressed her fingers against Lena's pulse point.

No, there it was.

A faint badum-badum, the most precious sound in the universe.

She could do nothing for the others, but she still had a chance to save Lena. A scan of her body revealed the bullet in her side, how it pierced a lung.

Kara gathered Lena into her arms, and ran through the security sector, hitting each door with her shoulder to wrench it open, until she finally made her way outside.

Lena's blood soaked into her suit, her head rolling in Kara's arms. She held her close and flew as fast as she dared toward the DEO. "Lena, please," she whispered, "please hold on. Don't you dare die on me. Not now. Not like this."

When her feet touched down, she heard Alex's voice shouting about a Rama Khan sighting. Agents poured into vehicles, and the team prepared to leave.

Kara ignored them. She walked through the bustle, and people parted for her.

Alex turned from where she studied Brainy's screens. Her eyes widened. "What the hell...?"

"Please. Help her." Tears clouded her vision.

"Medical now. Brainy J'onn's in charge." Alex grasped Kara's arm and maneuvered her through the mess of the control center. Technicians worked on last minute fine-tuning of weapons, and others manned screens plotting possible vectors. Activity that meant nothing to Kara, not if Lena died.

Not if she couldn't speak her last truth to Lena.

She laid Lena on the medical bed, and Alex ordered her nurses to get an IV in immediately. Kara began to pace, the blood drying on her suit. Alex cut away Lena's shirt and examined the wound.

"She needs surgery now."

"What do I do?" she asked Alex, anguished. "What do I do?"

Alex shook her head. "You can't help with this. Go help J'onn, and wear Lena's anti-kryptonite suit. I'm not sure how long I'll be in surgery."

"Can you save her?"

"I will try my best," Alex said. She refused to look at Kara, and that told her far too much.

Alex didn't think Lena would make it.

"Promise?" the words came out small, plaintive.

"Promise. Now get out of my way." Alex hooked the IV bag to the pole on one end of the bed, and rolled it toward an interior suite. Two nurses followed along with a second doctor.

Kara closed her eyes and listened to the most beautiful heartbeat in the universe -- it faintly hung on, slower and slower with each passing minute.

She couldn't stay and watch the medical team open up Lena. She couldn't.

Instead, she grabbed the anti-kryptonite suit. As it flowed over her, she almost wept again. It felt like Lena hugged her, the suit entirely her design and her nanites.

She flew outside and listened for J'onn. The fight was to the southeast by the docks.

Hadn't Leviathan been targeting Lena? She'd saved her once from them already. Maybe twice if she counted the break-in that had knocked Lena unconscious.

Now Lena was dying, and Kara didn't just want justice for Lena.

She wanted to tear apart whoever ordered that assassin.

The windows shook at the sonic boom, and the ground cratered when she landed.

Rama Khan and another Leviathan member battled J'onn and Dreamer, who had the weapon from the Fortress. Agents, with adjusted weaponry to match the power-disrupting frequency, scattered around the docks.

Kara didn't care about the risk. She didn't care about the Kryptonite weapons the assholes carried.

She crashed into Rama Khan and threw him into a dock building. The wall crumpled. "Did you hire Lena Luthor's killer?" she growled.

Rama Khan laughed and stood with hardly a mark on him and his ridiculous earth-toned suit. "Those who cross Leviathan do not live to tell the tale. Let you now join her, Supergirl." He extended his hand and the ground shook violently.

A blast from Dreamer's gun sent Rama Khan sprawling. Kara sped over and grabbed him by the throat. Her feet she stomped on his arms. "No one hurts Lena and survives," she growled. Her eyes glowed, and she let out a scream of grief and fury.

She blasted him and punched him again and again. Blood gushed from his face, but then he melted into the earth and stumbled into being a few feet away.

Only for Dreamer to blast him again. Kara pummeled him with the rage of a thousand suns. Her vision red, and the land ripped and shredded in their fight. Part of the pier demolished when Kara threw Rama Khan's accomplice into it. Another building fell when Rama blasted Kara into its walls.

Rama Khan slowed, each blast from the gun scrambled his powers long enough for Kara to rip into him until he bled from multiple places. She lost track of the others, so intent on eliminating the one who ordered Lena's hit.

"Kara!" J'onn clamped the power dampeners on the alien. "Kara, we got him."

Kara clenched Rama's neck and looked down to see the cuffs clasped to his wrists.

How much loss could a heart handle? Why did the universe seek to torture her so? Her entire planet, nearly all her friends, and now the woman she loves most -- loss melted through her crevices, filled her with a blinding fury.

She'd fought to keep everyone alive. It's why she needed to be in control, but that obsession of controlling everything, to make sure she never lost, had poisoned her. She couldn't control everything.

She couldn't even save Lena. The thought of Lena dying in surgery, of never hearing her voice again -- even Lena shouting in anger?

Her fingers crunched bone. Rama Khan tumbled from her grasp and hit the ground with a thump, motionless.

Dreamer and J'onn looked at her, but she didn't respond to their words or looks. Agents swarmed around them to secure the site, while Brainy set up the containment unit for Rama Khan and his accomplices. The ruckus roared like the sea in her ears.

She turned without a word and shot into the sky. She flew as high as she could, to where little to no oxygen existed. The fury burned in her, and she wanted to rip herself apart. She deactivated her helmet, turned off its life support systems, and let the lack of air suffocate her and her emotions.

She'd live. She'd always live, wouldn't she? While all she loved died.

She closed her eyes and let herself fall. Air whooshed around her body, screamed in her ears as she hit terminal velocity. For those brief moments, she heard nothing but the shrill wind, the rest of the Earth drowned out in her fall. A moment of release from the endless soundscape.

Halfway to the ground, she righted herself and flew to the edge of Earth's atmosphere. Again she let herself fall. For a third time, she soared high and fell.

Each time she let herself get closer and closer to hitting the ocean. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't outpace her fury at her own actions. At her failure.

This time she hit the water. She sunk into its depths.

Sea life swam around her, the distant calls of whales rippled through the water. What should delight her brought her sorrow.

No, she couldn't die. Her wretched powers, her curse, kept her alive. Kept her isolated from those she loved. Her careful, practiced control meant even in moments of extreme emotion, she still had to make sure not to hug too tightly. And kissing? How many noses had she broken?

All she wanted was Lena. Even if she could never be with Lena, she needed Lena to be alive. To be healthy and happy. Kara could live with just being on the sidelines, right? As long as Lena was alive.

She burst out of the ocean in a shower of sea water. She hung in the air and watched the waves below her. Her ears tuned to her favorite heartbeat, and there it was, faint, far too faint, but still pulsing.

A slither of hope wove into Kara's wretched spirit. She flew back to the DEO, the wind drying the moisture from the sea.

When she landed, Nia met her at the balcony's doors. "Kara," she breathed out as if she'd been running. "Been looking everywhere."

Kara crossed her arms over her chest. "What do you want?"

"It's Lena. Alex said to let you know the surgery is ongoing and Lena's handling it like a pro." Nia met her gaze, but worry painted across her face. "Don't lose hope yet. She may still live."

Kara said nothing. She heard the rebuke in Nia's words, but she didn't regret her actions. For Lena, there was no boundaries. She'd destroy a thousand Rama Khans if it meant saving Lena.

She followed Nia down the hall, through two intersections, and into the medical bay. Most of the beds were occupied by injured agents from the Leviathan battle. It was the surgery room that occupied all of Kara's attention.

Lena's heart beat still in those glass walls.

Kara walked up to them and pressed a hand against the cool glass. Lena looked so pale. So fragile.

The tears returned. Her chest constricted with a Lena-shaped hole that ached with each beat of her heart.

She didn't move from that spot for the rest of the surgery. Kara held vigil in silence, unmoving. She'd given Lena revenge on those who tried to kill her, and now Kara waited.

Waited for hope to dawn once more.

/end part 2

[twoa-plus]

it’s 2:00am and this is more of a character thing than a genuine theory but *claps hands for the drama* same coin theory. what if both of the stans are bill

or like. a parallel to him. like i said this isn’t a super serious theory i’m mostly just back on my character analysis bs lol

so i haven’t gotten to talk abt this much but i am a firm believer in that there is not a superior stan. from a personality perspective this is obviously entirely subjective, but i mean that there isn’t a superior one when it comes to their objective traits and how useful they are

ford is. ford. i don’t really have to say anything here he’s super smart can play the piano or whatever etc etc. however one thing that i will say that i think is important here is that i am like. 99% sure this man has a higher tolerance to The Horrors than other humans do. dude spent 30 years in that portal and came out pretty much the same level of crazy, and we all saw what happened to fiddleford. i know fidds saw bill take off his exoskeleton or whatever but u can’t convince me that ford traveled the multiverse - with all sorts of monsters and non-3d dimensions and god knows what else - for 3 decades and didn’t see some shit that would make anybody else lose it. like at this point u could tell me this guy could have a casual conversation over tea with cthulu and be fine and i’d believe u

as for stan - and i mean this in the absolute best way possible i love this guy - he’s like the world’s most charismatic cockroach. he’s fantastic with people and just straight up refuses to die. for the first point i don’t just mean this in the conman way, when it comes to the people that actually matter stan always manages to win them over in some way or another (soos, wendy, the kids, ford, etc) and one does not simply survive for a decade on the street without needing the occasional favor from someone who actually likes you. “oh but rico-“ man when u’ve been living as a homeless criminal for a decade and the list of people that want to kill u consists of 1 person and the government u’ve done pretty damn well. anyways as for the cockroach point, he’s alive and has his memories. i don’t even have to say much here stan went through all of That, lived through the series itself including The Literal Apocalypse, metaphorically (something something people are just a collage of their life experiences) died at the end of it all and then came back to life. that’s hardcore as hell man. in a less literal interpretation of the “refusing to die” bit, he’s also just. insanely determined. the biggest example is ofc him never graduating highschool and yet teaching himself god knows how much math and science and whatnot over the course of 30 damn years because he just refuses to believe that he can’t save his brother. stan pines is a force of nature i swear

[additional note while im already ranting about this guy, im not a personal believer in the “stan is just as (academically) smart as ford” theory. first of all i feel like this entire theory is kind of rooted in the idea that he has to be/be on the same level as “the smart one” to have value, which is an idea that the stans’ entire backstory is based around criticizing, and i think stan has something just as if not more valuable than freakish intelligence - raw fucking grit. he wasn’t the one to open the portal back up because of some intellectual advantage, he was the one to open the portal back up because he wanted to, god damn it, and best of luck to you if you’re gonna try and stop him.]

anyways as for the same coin thing, everybody knows the stan part. his casual references to the impending apocalypse, “you’ve been buying gold, right?”, him being such a good conman, etc etc. while i’m already ranting about stan’s determination, bill’s got that too - he’s been trying for like thousands of years to take over the world and he just Won’t Stop. point is there’s a lot of character traits they share

(i know in the original same coin post a pretty major point is stan not making a deal with bill, but i think that could probably be pretty easily explained without the need for divine intervention. the only times bill makes a deal with someone without them summoning him first is after he’s kind of left on a loose end with gideon, and everyone knows stan wouldn’t fall for his lies in the first place)

bill also shares a lot of traits with ford, though. both have some kind of physical anomaly (bill’s eye & ford’s hands), both can see/understand things others of their species can’t, they’re both egomaniacs (listen i love ford but the guy has issues), etc. u could even argue that, at least at the time they meet, they have some kind of connection through their loneliness

so. with the theory of “bill was reincarnated to make up for what he did,” what if it wasn’t just stan? what if he was split in two, and his “reincarnation” is both of them? they’re flawed enough to make it a lot harder for either of them to take over the world (ford’s lack of social skills & stan’s lack of freakish academic knowledge), and they have something bill doesn’t - each other.

bill is alone. that’s his whole problem. he killed everyone he loved, treats everyone new he meets like shit, and now he’s Like That. throughout it all, the one thing the stans have always had - even if it was just in their memory - is each other. “oh but ford-“ shhhh. shhshhshshshhsh. shut up. ford has Problems but i genuinely don’t think he ever stopped loving stan. love is weird, first of all, and secondly he clearly never stopped trusting him. no matter what he might say about stan being a liar or a conman or whatever, who’s the one person he goes to when he’s forced to admit he needs help? ford is a weird guy and has an… odd way of showing it but he loves his family just like the rest of the pines and i will die on this hill

i’ve been writing this for over an hour straight and i think my brain is melting but i’m sure at this point u get the idea. both of the stans, together, serve as a parallel to bill, and the one thing they have that he doesn’t is love. that’s what killed him.

something something killing an interdimensional dream demon with the power of friendship and this gun i found

[xetswan]

Twilight- Mortality: Chapter Three, Date Night

(Alice X Reader X Jasper)

[Two] [Three] [Four]

[Warnings: Sexual topics(not much)]

[Filler chapter, doesn’t truly affect the storyline]

That night I ended up going home with Charlie, he drank a little too much to drive and I didn't want something happening to him. He was half asleep the drive home so I was glad when I made that decision. I got him to lay down on the couch and that's where he fell asleep.

After everything I fell asleep in my room. I knew if I stayed up I would have to deal with things I didn't want to. I took advantage of being a Hybrid. Sleeping away my problems was always my answer as a human and now I can do it again.

Very grateful for it too after I woke up to Alice and Jasper in my room going through my laptop. I sigh loudly, earning their attention. "You're awake." Alice announces, coming over to me and peppering kisses on my face. "Yeah, what's going on?" I ask, my eyebrows scrunched. "We got here early. Had nothing to do so we were just checking emails." Jasper tells me.

I raise a brow but honestly I don't care enough right now. I lay my head back down on my pillow. Alice straddling my waist, hugging my torso tightly.

I rub her back gently, going back and forth.

"Has the married couple said anything to either of you? Or anyone else?" I ask them, Jasper chuckles, shaking his head. "They are enjoying that honeymoon." He says, coming over and joining us on my bed.

I smile awkwardly, now just overly worried about my sister. Dying from vampire dick? What a way to go, but hopefully not the way Bella has to go out. Ugh.

I shiver in disgust at the thought.

"Rosalie and Emmett invited us to a double date." Alice suddenly says, Jasper and I look at her as she sits up, still straddling me. "Oh?"

"Yeah, I said we'd be there, it's later tonight." She tells us, I look back over to Jasper who has the same expression. Not very surprised but a little disappointed as it's our first night alone since having to plan the wedding and get everything done for that.

"It's as if we don't see them all the time." I joke, well kinda.

"It'll be nice, a relaxing night out."

"Where are we supposed to go out on a date? Four Vampires and Hybrid. You guys can't eat. We can't play a sport we will literally destroy whatever we play with unless it's baseball." I remind her, crossing my arms. "And I'm sorry but I genuinely do not want to play that." I tell her earnestly.

"You'll see." She gives me a smile that she normally does and here I am actually wishing that Edward was here so I could read her mind.

I also realized that my eye changing color thing wasn't brought up which if that means I have to go on a date for that to still not be a conversation. I will take it. She lays back down, her chest against mine. Jasper laid his head on my arm that he pulled out. I was like their heating pad or something.

I didn't mind it though.

"Swim wear?" I ask, stretching out my arms, checking myself out in the mirror. I was put into a one piece swimsuit with shorts over the top. Its not summer time though so I did not expect this. "Isn't it so cute. We match!" Alice gleams, showing off her bikini and then moving to show Jasper's swim trunks. We were all in black. Somehow all the same exact shade too.

I smile, nodding my head. "We look attractive." I tell her, then go back to looking in the mirror, flexing my arms. "When do we leave?" I ask her, still checking myself out. Noticing certain muscles pop out more with the bathing suit on. "Now actually, let's go." Alice takes both mine and Jasper's hand. It was already dark, it being 11 pm. I wonder if we're just going to the beach.

I purse my lips out trying to guess what we're going to do. We get into Jasper's new car, it being a convertible. I sit in the back, sprawling out dramatically. I notice him glance back to me, shaking his head with a small smile.

"Took you guys long enough!" I hear a voice shout behind us as we get our few things out of the car. We all look back to see Emmett with his arm around Rosalie. Both wearing swimsuits as well. Rosalie wearing a red bikini and Emmett wearing white swim trunks with red kiss marks all over it.

"We're not even late, it's thirty minutes before we said we'd come here!" Alice yells back to the buff vampire who just laughs in response. The couple hurrying over to us. "That's late." He rolls his eyes playfully but it bothers my girlfriend nonetheless.

"All right, all right, let's go have this stupid date." Rosalie attempts to hide her smile, dragging Alice by the arm. All of us following behind them. "What are we doing tonight?" I furrow my eyebrows as we go onto the sand.

"Didn't your lovers tell you, Hybie?" Emmett asks, nudging me. He watched as I didn't flinch. He does it often to see if my strength falters at all. Also with calling me Hybie ever since I turned into my wolf form in front of him. He knew I was a Hybrid, I mean obviously.

"No, obviously not bird brain." I nudge him back but purposefully a little hard causing him to stumble. "No need for the hostility." He puts his hands up in defense. "What ever, what are we doing?" I switch the subject with a smile.

"We are going to swim. Play a few water games." He winks at me, I give him a confused expression in return. "Water games?" I repeat back to him. He puts a finger up to my lips, shushing me. "I've said too much." He joins his girl along with my girlfriend. I stare at the back of his head still genuinely confused. I feel arms wrap around my waist and slightly lift me in the air. I squeal a tiny bit.

"Don't mind him, darlin. We're going to have a good time. No worries." He kisses gently at my neck, now both of us walking. "He... confuses me sometimes. I now know Rosalie can never get bored with that man." I snicker. As we get closer to the water, we get to this large blanket that has candles set up along with blood bags.

"It's our own makeshift picnic." Rosalie clasps her hands together.

"This is cute in a... way." I nod my head. "Let's dig in. I've been waiting for your ungrateful ass." Emmett plops down, grabbing a blood bag. My eyes widen but I begin to laugh. "Sorry." I mutter, Rosalie sits next to Emmett as Alice and Jasper sit on either side of me.

The waves are stopping just before the blanket, the moon was bright tonight. Brighter than the candles beside us. The temperature of the air wasn't bad either for it being autumn. It's been weirdly warm this November. It wouldn't matter to any of us even if it was super cold. "So, thoughts on the wedding?" Alice questions everyone. We all begin to chuckle. We could've figured that was going to be her first question. "I mean we set it up, it was beautiful." Rosalie gives a simple answer. "Exactly." I add in, taking a sip out of my blood bag. It would've been cooler if we put the blood in like wine glasses or something. "I mean like how it went with everybody that showed up. Idiots." She gently shoves me and reaches over to slap Rosalie.

The blonde and I make eye contact, trying not to laugh. "Oh wait before the questions begin, I brought something." Alice pauses the conversation, standing up and speeding off to the car trunk. She swiftly comes back with a bigger bag in it. "What is it?" I furrow my eyebrows, curious.

"Open it." She puts it down in front of us. I go to reach into it but Emmett beats me to it. He lifts out a bottle of wine. His face scrunches up in disgust. "Wine, seriously?"

"There's more." She motions. He goes to reach in but this time I shove him back. I take out a Jack Daniels and I mentally taste it from when I tried it as a freshman. Disgusted I put it down and take out two other bottles. Spirytus Rektyfikowany, a Polish Vodka that is harsh, so I've heard. And Everclear a pure grain alcohol. Both banned from most states. I widen my eyes but they're taken from my hands as Jasper and Emmett cheer. "Don't worry, we don't get hungover." I hear Rosalie say in front of me. "We do however, get drunk off our asses like any other being." Emmett smirks, taking the cap off of the Everclear and the Jack Daniel's. Taking a swig from both bottles.

I shake my head, opening the wine bottle. "Oh there's glasses in the bag." Alice stops me from drinking from the bottle, giving me a wine glass that I don't understand how it didn't break in that bag.

It also irritated me as I could've been drinking the blood from these glasses instead of a bag like a freak. Well either way we're freaks. But I could've been a classy one.

I pour the wine in mine and in one for Alice. Rosalie hands me her glass and I pour some into it, handing it back. "So answer my question now." My girlfriend waves a hand for us to start talking. "I had a blast. Those Wolf mutts are kinda cool. No offense Hybie." Emmett takes another drink of both alcohols. Passing the Everclear to Jasper. "Thanks, bird brain." I snatch the Jack from his hand and take a drink, roughly giving it back. I attempt not to gag but the taste brings me back to horrible memories.

"I had a chill time, nothing memorable." Jasper shrugs his shoulders, lifting up the bottle, I watch as some of it drips down his chin. He goes to wipe it but I stop him, licking it off myself. He hums in response, pulling me into a short kiss. I feel a tiny buzz but I know I haven't drank enough yet.

"I'd say the same thing, I also don't like what that marriage stands for." Rosalie huffs, drinking her wine, ignoring what I just did to Jasper. But I see Emmett smirking at the sight, his eyes kept on me. I give him the finger in an elegant way by scratching the side of my face as I drank the rest of my wine. He snorts.

"I feel you there, Rosie." I sigh out, "but I'd say I had a good time. Truly got to say goodbye to Angela really my only friend I made in high school." I roll my eyes, taking the Spirytus from the bag and opening it. Alice places a hand on my arm. "That's strong, be careful love bug." She gives a short smile. I give her a nod.

"Oh, I saw you with that girl, she had the glasses. Even with glasses to help her see she had her eyes fixed on you. I don't get it." Emmett roars into laughter. Alice glares at him, Jasper squints. He goes quiet but it's now him trying not to laugh. "Excuse me?" I smile, teeth showing. "She was so into you." Rosalie chimes in. "Yeah!" Emmett nods his head. He practically drank most of the Jack already. Splitting the Everclear with Jasper that's almost gone as well. He was swaying. Drunk.

"You guys think that?" I look at both of my lovers who agree with the other couple. "Hm, wouldn't have guessed." I smirk, licking my lips before taking a large drink of the Spirytus. "You already knew, didn't you?" Rosalie asks, finishing her second glass of wine, going to pour a third. I shrug my shoulders in response. Sipping some of the blood after that horrible alcohol.

"She was a good friend, didn't matter to me. I also have two loves of my life. I can't get too greedy." I lean back onto Jasper, and laying my leg over Alice.

It's been about two hours of us talking and joking around over stupid shit before Emmett stands up, having to use Rosalie to keep himself up. She lets him which surprises me. Drunk Rosie is definitely more calm. It's kind of silly to see. Her anger kind of disappears.

Alice is more handsy and Jasper is more vocal. Letting loose. "Last one to the water is... is a loser!" Emmett huffs out, about to use his speed but then trips and ends up falling into the water instead. Jasper gets up, laughing. Following behind but helps him up.

"Man, I think you're the loser." I hear my boyfriend say, laughing heartedly. Something I don't think I hear often. I smile, standing up. "You heard the man, don't be a loser." I kiss Alice swiftly. Running into the water.

The two girls don't rush into the water, only going in to their ankles. I go to say something to them but I get dragged under the water. Hands stay on my shoulders to keep me down. I open my eyes once I register what's happening. I put my arms back behind me and take the legs of my attacker. Lifting myself up, bringing them under water with me. I laugh as I finally reach the surface. Emmett stands up, his drunken self swaying still as before. "It's so on, Hybie." He murmurs, going to attack me again but I move out of the way. I'm definitely drunk but not as much as him.

"You missed!" I laugh out, easily blocking every attack. Splashing him so he can't see me. "Just give up, bird brain!" I yell at him, Jasper cheers me on. Telling me to just attack him. "Never." He huffs out angrily. His large arms almost get me but I get out of the hold quickly. Running over to Alice and Rosalie to save me. I get behind them. He slowly stands out of the water. Standing in front of them.

"Rosie, baby, move." He points, motioning for her to move over. She doesn't say anything but I can tell she made some sort of face for his eyes to soften. "Please, baby." He pleads with her. She sighs. Then in a quick motion I wasn't expecting to happen she pushes me over to him. Getting him to lift me up.

"Rosalie!!! You traitor!!" I screamed, flailing my body around. "I'm sorry!" She laughs back to me. "Oh don't worry, you're next!" I yell just as I get thrown under the water. For the next five minutes it's me and Emmett fighting with one another. Lifting each other up and down into the water. Our bodies repeatedly hitting the lake floor.

The others could feel every time our bodies hit it as well. Forgetting our strength most of the time.

"All right, all right. I'm dizzy." Emmett stops me from getting him again. I cross my arms. "Weak." I mumble under my breath. "What ever." He grumbles, shoving me away from him with a smirk.

After all the rough housing I climb onto Jasper, wrapping my legs around him. Alice and Rosalie were sitting in the shallow part of the water, talking about something as Emmett joins them. Laying his head on Rosie's lap.

I kiss Jasper repeatedly. "Did you have fun, darlin?" He asks me, I bite my lip, glancing back to our set up on the sand and then back to his face. "The most." I nod my head, kissing his lips once more. Jumping up a little bit to get a better position on him. He grunts a little. Holding me closer.

"Was this a distraction from something?" I quietly quizzed him. Laying my head on his shoulder. "No, just some fun before reality hits further." He kisses my neck sweetly.

I hum softly, squeezing my legs around him. "Don't start something right now. I can't hold back with this alcohol. I'll even do it in front of Rosalie and Emmett at this point." I whisper to him softly, nibbling at his ear. He snickers. "Looks like Alice is all for it." He whispers back and I throw my head back groaning. "Stop." I warn him.

"Seriously, you sickos." Rosalie yells at us. We look at her and laugh. "I wouldn't mind." Emmett shrugs his shoulders, his head still on Rosalie's lap.

"Gross, bird brain." I laugh.

Master list

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[fae-morrigan]

Someone put a post (where they admit they straight up dont know these characters lol, and also spell damian as 'damien' so like. yknow.) in the tags saying that if you're a fan of Jon & Jay, you shouldn't buy super son. Well, as the crowned CEO of Jay & Jon, I'm here to tell you guys that you absolutely should.

Super Son did the amazing thing of hitting several marks that I predicted while still managing to surprise me in how they hit them. Which is high praise for any story: A great narrative should be able to both meet reasonable audience expectations (i.e, staying in character, setup payoff) WHILE STILL throwing in curveballs that tell you something new.

There's a lot I want to analyze and get into, namely how I think the rooftop conversation between Jon & Nia is really brilliantly done in what it says about both characters, but mainly I've been thinking a lot about how great those last few pages were and how I think Sina absolutely nails how Jon & Jay's specific issues interact with each other.

Jay's always been a blunt person. From their first meeting back in SOKE 2, hes said what he thinks, and rarely does he try and soften himself. More than that, his bluntness is often a shield from vulnerability, which Jay struggles with the whole scene. It makes total sense, after what hes experienced (re-traumatization at the hands of a friend) that he's displaying that trait again.

Jon, however, is immediately vulnerable. This is the most poignant confession of the issue: Not even in the amazing sequence of Nia helping him make a place in the darkness (look, its back, thanks isabel!) do we get this admission of fear.

And Jay, like always, embraces him. Sidenote, LOVE how they got in the thing Jon does where he's constantly tucking his face in people's shoulders during hugs.

But the moment ends, and we get here. First of all, cold af. I could feel the aura before I turned the page.

Second of all: Jay is totally valid in feeling this way. And it makes perfect sense that he would.

Sara was his everything. Getting her back was one of his main motivations in SOKE. Because of Nia's actions, she died horribly (do you know what happens to a person when they fall from that sort of height? I do. Its AWFUL.) for an unjust cause. Of course he's glad she can't hurt anyone else!

And that's when we get to my FAVORITE PART! Oh how I love this bit. Because like. You understand why Jon's angry- Its a harsh thing for Jay to say! Nia was the one who kept him sane while he was trapped in his own mind! But Jay, like always, is RIGHT: Jon DOESN'T get it. How could he?

Jon Kent will NEVER, ever, be put in this position. Out of universe, his parents are Clark Kent and Lois Lane. They'll ALWAYS come back. Hell, the fact they'll always come back is something Ma LITERALLY says to Jon in SOKE. He will never, ever have to know this pain.

In universe, Jon's a white american. Despite being queer, despite being an alien, he'll never know what its like to be this kind of collateral, delegated as pawns in a greater war for 'freedom'. That is what killed Sara at the end of the day: imperialism.

This next bit hurts my heart. Great job, guys!

For one: Jon claims he's not excusing the mistakes Nia made, but by downplaying it like this... yes he is. But did you catch that part? Right at the start of that bubble?

"I'm going to fight every day to make up for my own part in this."

That's where it clicked for me. Something I had been hoping for since Nicole first called them twin flames.

He's projecting.

Of COURSE he's defending Nia. Of COURSE he wants Jay to forgive her. It isn't just about the fact that she gave him support, it isn't just the dreams, its the fact that... well. If Jay can't forgive her... how could he EVER forgive HIM?

THIS is where the fact that Jon and Nia are so similar as character SINGS. They become mirrors to each other, evaluating their own self worth through the other, at the unintentional expense of the people they've hurt.

Jay's right, though. Again. Its almost like he's the embodiment of the truth or something. He doesn't HAVE to do anything.

When he starts crying though, I immediately was RUINED. This is the first time we have EVER seen him cry before during his entire existence of a character. And its not really even because his mom is dead (though yes, that) and its not even because of the argument. Its because Jay fundamentally wants to be understood, and he's not getting that.

Which is important for the next bit:

I want to first backtrack a bit to Son of Kal El again, specifically, issue fourteen, right here.

Hello, two-panel sequence that succinctly describes these two as characters. How convenient you are for me, a guy analyzing a work that isn't written prose.

Jon isn't good at letting go, for better or for worse. The things he cares about stay with him, and when something or someone tries to exit his life, he clings to them with all his might.

Jay however, both selflessly and selfishly, is willing to let go first if he thinks its better for the other person. To me this line so effortlessly summarizes who Jay is- he's a person who's accustomed to not having things, and will leave before it hurts and he gets too attached.

And that thought is ALL over this scene. Jay, who begins to let go, Jon, who both literally and physically CLINGS to jay, practically begging him to stay.

(Sidenote. This is like, the third time Jay mentions breaking up when Jon starts acting up. Good for you king, keep that white boy on his toes, let him know he ain't all that.)

Every little detail of this four panel sequence is killing me. "My worst nightmare is not having a home with you in it." His greatest desire. The thing that kept tipping him off in every fake reality Nia constructed for him- Jay's absence. Him wiping the tear of Jay's cheek. Jay walking away from him.

But what really gets me is how on this page, Jon talks about them as 'we', while Jay is firmly stuck in 'I.'

This is what made me LOSE MY MARBLES at three in the morning. Just utterly fucking off my rocker in a straightjacket talking to myself.

Because this is what JON wants. But is it what JAY wants?

Jon never asks.

What about what Jay fears? What about the life that HE wants? What if he doesn't want San Francisco? What if the life he wants is the life he HAD before everything went wrong? Jon outright says he wants a fresh start. But Jay, Jay's someone with such deep connections to what he just lost, what he likely WANTS to get back. His country. His mother. His sense of self. But. He says yes.

(Sidenote. FIRST I LOVE YOU WOOOOOOOOOO) To quote my buddy Dami: Oh, the drama of needing a future with someone who can't get over the past.

It is left unclear, by the end, whether or not Jay is saying yes to this because he genuinely wants to, or if he's only saying yes because he doesn't want to lose Jon, too. Jon doesn't stop to question whether or not Jay's only reaching after him because Jon's walking away. We, the audience, are left to ponder that for ourselves.

How much of Jay saying yes is him just accepting that this is the best he's going to get? That he's never going to be understood because nobody wants to understand?

He's an afterthought to Nia, an obstacle at best, and to Jon he's a particularly handsome prop in this little fantasy he has of running away and starting new. He's either not thought of at all, or when he is thought about, it's in the context of how he can emotionally fulfill the other person And you get why Jon did this. He's desperate, he's hurting, he just got tangible evidence that the time he has with the people he loves isn't ever guaranteed. He's been needing space from Clark and Lois for MONTHS because god knows they haven't been fulfilling his emotional needs. In a very real sense, Jay is who he has.

But wanting someone to stay with you so much that you'll... Not even ignore, but just not ever consider what they may want. The intentional isolation, moving halfway across the country away from all support systems. The need to cling to someone.

It reminds me of... something. Someone.

Don't tell Jon I made this comparison. He'll kill himself. Jon and Ultraman ARE similar. They're both such deeply lonely people who cling very tightly and even though it manifests in different ways and even though they have different core thoughts about it. The effect at the end of the day is the same, isn't it?

Is loving Jay not a brutal act of destruction?

There's so many more details about this story I love. Jon & Nia's conversation being vague enough that you have no idea how Jon meant what he told her but you KNOW how NIA took it (girl you can do better hes literally ugly!). Jon breaking a pillar by bonking his head against it (LMFAO). The pretty lies vs ugly truth dichotomy of Jay vs Nia here.

But this one scene, man. This one fucking scene takes the cake. STELLAR work all around. Every panel counts.

This better lead into a full Superman & Gossamer run or SOMETHING or I'm going to have WORDS with DC's editorial staff.

[zahri-melitor]

The thing that actually most frustrates me about Damian's pets is not only that it's turned into a gratuitous menagerie that only show up en masse because it's now turned into 'Damian likes animals, give him another pet' without considering how many he already has, but that the basis of a good story already existed before we ended up where we are today.

The problem is that we wouldn't be in the situation we are today with them if not for Grant Morrison.

Because look, if you read Batman and Robin 2011 on its own, Tomasi and Gleason do a solid job of using Titus as a route to demonstrate Damian's growing responsibility and ability to show affection and connect with Bruce. Titus is explicitly framed as a responsibility, as 'a boy and his dog', and one dog around the Wayne household is pretty common (usually an Ace). It's the opening steps to more story about Damian trusting others.

If Damian loved animals and stopped to play with kittens in alleys and just had Titus at home, we wouldn't be in this situation.

Bat-Cow, and honestly Alfred the Cat, are what caused the problem.

Bat-Cow as a concept is inherent Silver Age ridiculousness (what a surprise from Morrison), but also Damian saving a milking cow who is being sent to an abattoir is far more of a demonstration of what we end up getting, which is what looks like a possessive level of hoarding. Damian not only saves the cow, but wants it installed in the Cave, even though that is a terrible environment to keep a cow in, and there's very little point in having a cow living on the Wayne property. And what annoys me more is that nobody will let the cow just quietly disappear off panel never to reappear again (she's at least now been on a 'farm' since Joker War and Bruce losing Wayne Manor).

Alfred the Cat irritates me in that he's just a duplicate story to Titus, only done with less effort and entirely because Grant Morrison never reads anyone else's work AND Morrison wanted to give Damian a pet to humanise him right before killing him off. Alfred is a narrative device and annoys me because a good editor would have had Morrison just use Titus instead, who could have hit very similar beats, rather than Damian acquiring three separate pets in just over a year of comics, right before dying (and as far as Morrison was concerned, dying permanently). A pet is for life, not just a reward because you're getting killed.

And from there on, it's just turned into 'oh Damian likes animals!' so we get Goliath and Jerry the Turkey (who I believe recently emigrated to main canon in the last few years rather than being in Lil Gotham). And the story doesn't know what to do with so many animals, so they disappear entirely aside from occasional art cameos, Super-Pets stories, and about one story beat ever 3-5 years. He's endlessly going through the story of 'why' he acquired a pet to humanise him, rather than being humanised by playing with a long term pet.

There's also a narrative problem where we never actually ever see Damian caring for his animals (outside of Titus and occasionally Alfred the Cat), but what scenes we do get of people looking after the animals are all scenes of Alfred and Bruce checking in on them because Damian's not available. So while the dialogue in those scenes tends to be 'oh Damian would normally be doing this but'... we don't see Damian doing it. We only see Alfred and Bruce doing it. Or Maya, who's looking after Goliath. And given how often Damian runs off to find himself on an island, a lot of that pet care over the years has been from Alfred and Bruce, because he's not been living at home.

And yes, there's also the issue that Damian And His Pets is rather similar to the self-centred position Damian has on his various clones. He considers his clones his brothers; but the narrative is frequently setting that up in a manner that suggests this is grace that Damian especially extends to them because they are his clones. It's not really grappling with the concepts of extending that care and humanism to people or animals that are not 'his'.

It's just endlessly frustrating to me, because if Damian just had Titus, I think both Titus would appear on panel more often (and thus have more narrative use), and there would be the potential to build further plots out from Titus, if writers wanted to explore the themes around what pet ownership can demonstrate.

[naamahdarling]

.

Stuff under cut.

Anyway, I'm very tired. The Jeebers take work, still. They are so mannerless, just a vast untrammeled wilderness of horrible behavior, and it makes me HAPPY somehow. Their liveliness I guess. Their utter self-possession and minimal reliance on us, their understanding of themselves as cats and not human companions, the solid unit they form together, perfect balance between brave and careful, both stubborn, both bold, never having had to survive for a moment on their own, but so deeply and quintessentially feline in their instincts that I have no doubt that if they had been forced to, they would have easily been able to do so.

I have to alter a great deal of that to make them good companions, but it'll be worth it. Right now they're tiny chaotic roommates who come up to me at random intervals, lick my face for a few moments, and go dashing off to find some other mischief to be in. I sit there on the couch sometimes and watch them race around, skidding around corners, Jasper jumping out at Juniper and starting games, Juniper laying her ears flat and lashing her tail and squinting her eyes, and then going right for his fucking throat, going for the full body tackle, even though she's so much smaller than he is. Getting thrown by him over and over, and not caring, just washing his ears and then starting all over again.

It's good that they're here. It isn't the dynamic or the situation I would prefer, I know I keep saying that, but it's very true. But I still don't regret a single thing. They are unruly and don't do very many of the things that we like our pets to do, but all of that is mostly charming, and the parts that are not will pass.

I've been feeling the urge to do creative things again. I'm tidying up the studio as best I can around the babies, and I'll be able to work again soon. I have one project I'm particularly excited about, and I desperately want to post about it but I can't, because it's a surprise for my boyfriend for Christmas. I've never done anything quite like it, and I'm excited. I also have all of the memorial things for the boys that I need to make. A big box to hold all of their mementos, that sort of thing. And I have a project for a relative that is long overdue. AND there is a really fun thing for myself that will fit in nicely around the edges.

Hopefully I will have the energy and the spoons to get it all done. A lot of the work is going to tug on the heartstrings. All of it, actually, with the exception of the thing I'm going to do for myself. Which means I really should try to do it alongside everything else so I can give myself a break.

[chimakiisane]

I know it's been put off for a long time now but I can say without a shadow of a doubt that the 4.8 public demo will be coming soon.

It's been a while since I've talked about it here, and I want to say that no, I did not forget about it. Life has been a struggle juggling my job, depression, and just burnout from stressing myself out with it.

Because of a particular bug that happened to not only me, but someone else in my development server, I wanted to be sure that this bug won't happen to anyone else. So I took it upon myself to go through EVERY existing map and redo what was needed to fix this issue, that being the entire map and all events within it speeding up and making it hard to progress. Doing this has been exhausting trying to pinpoint what exactly needed to be changed, removed, etc. to make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else. Zone 3 in particular being a major roadblock with how much stuff is in it.

I'm now at the end of where I now plan to have the new public demo conclude, so people will finally go beyond what they are used to with one extra area, Chapter 1. Once I'm done with that, I'll hand the game to my friends for playtesting, fix any issues I missed, and release the new build publicly for everyone.

And since I mentioned it, I want to state now that Chapter 1 is heavily unfinished. I was hoping to get it more polished up, but art block and burnout have been a real pain to deal with, so some things feel a bit jank as they are right now. Perhaps when I finally get my planned vision out for it, I'll update the build for everyone. There's also a couple other areas that are a tad bit unfinished, but not enough where it feels weird.

Just wanted to let everyone here know what has been going on lately, and hopefully people are excited(??)

[dekusleftsock]

I think that there’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what exactly is…happening with Izuku’s character. Specifically in regards to chapter 425.

I’m glad that a lot more people generally recognize that Izuku is not a character that can be read at a surface level, given that he’s both a repressed person with built up emotion of basically everything and also a very glaringly HUGELY unreliable narrator, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I agree with the ways I’ve seen this most recent chapter spoken about.

I see posts, comments, etc with ideas like “Izuku don’t suppress your emotions! Open up with people! It’ll be okay I promise!” When that’s fundamentally not what is happening here.

There’s always always ALWAYS been a distinct difference in character throughout horikoshi’s writing when he is showing that a character is:

A—Avoiding emotions, thoughts, ideas less than ideal for them. Not opening up when they probably should about their problems given that they’ve been handed the space to do so. Just genuinely not acknowledging, feeling, or expressing emotions that they don’t want.

B—Reflecting on the ways they feel about the world, themselves, or other people given their new perspective on a situation. Not outright reaching out to others to talk about these problems/feelings, but instead waiting until the moment they feel they have the most confidence to do so with their new outlook on their own life.

And genuinely, guys, to grab your BkDk attention rn, this is the exact reason why Ochako’s reflection on her feelings for Izuku and thereafter decision to pull away from them WAS NEVER GOING TO END IN OCHAKO EXPLODING WITH HER LOVE FOR HIM.

This was another common interpretation I saw of Ochako and Izuocha for a long time. That because she pushed these feelings away, they were somehow going to explode in this unbelievable way and she would “get the boy” because of it. That her arc would surround accepting her romantic feelings and that she can’t just push away how she feels for a career.

But yk. That didn’t happen. At all. Nowhere close even.

The same kind of goes for Katsuki, allmight, etc. They all had moments in their arc where it was spent genuinely reflecting, and the only reason we as the audience never connected it in the same ways we do ochako or Izuku was ALWAYS BECAUSE the narrative showed their inner thoughts while doing so (mostly because Allmight’s arc after losing OFA and Katsuki’s arc on what it means to be a hero were so intrinsically tied, both starting at the same time and ending at the same time during the final war. And because they were so tied this caused their own reflections, development, and thought process to be broadcasted to us frequently throughout their arcs… to each other. They also somewhat shared aspects with Izuku, but these were cherry picked more often than not, like dvk2 for example).

To us Katsuki never seemed to be.. idk, suppressing his anger in any way because we were always told what he was doing and why (side note: this is why I’ve always thought arguments against Katsuki were so weird, bc unlike characters like endeavor or Ochako he wasn’t like… hiding who he was and how he was changing. Ever. Like the audience knows at all times past basically season 3 what Katsuki is thinking and doing. Like how do you watch this happen, stare me dead in the eye, and tell me how much of a terrible and awful teenage boy he is. Like damn I didn’t think we were this dumb. This is also my theory as to why he’s most popular, his arc is very… in your face if that makes sense). Katsuki’s entire mini arc on reflecting his mistakes and his childhood and his future is spent TELLING YOU that it’s what he’s doing. (I’m referring mostly to the endeavor internship arc, the provisional license exam makeup, and basically everything in the war arc related to him leading up to bakugou Katsuki rising here)

And see, Horikoshi will stare you dead in the eye, tell you “this girl has taken into consideration that she doesn’t want to waste her time training her career focusing on a boy because he kinda caught her fancy”, and y’all will still say that this will explode in her face.

Y’all this is a series about learning how to manage emotions, maturity in relationship to one’s emotions, how to feel an emotion, but in a way that is helpful. Horikoshi isn’t telling you “go buck wild, feel everything all the time and always express it”, in fact he explores why you DONT do that! Through Toga or Shigaraki, they show how grief and anger can genuinely consume you. But he also shows why you shouldn’t just put everything in a box to never look at or acknowledge, or why you shouldn’t just let your grief destroy the world around you, or pretending that some emotions simply don’t exist.

I can’t say this enough, so let me say it now, mha is about the extremes of your psyche. That you should control something, but not too much. Everything can be harmful. Everything can be good.

Izuku is not controlling too much, he’s expressing just enough.

I LOVE shaming this dickhead at all times in all my posts. I love saying he’s an ignorant dipshit with a weird amount of distaste for a girl who just confessed to him. I’ve joked that chapter 348 is basically an entire chapter spent on Izuku calling Himiko a mean dyke. And yet I also believe he’s doing nothing WRONG here.

In fact, I’ll even say that this moment right here?

ISNT EVEN IZUKU DOING THE SOCIALLY APPROPRIATE THING ABOUT IT! But he’s still TRYING to reach out to someone he thinks MIGHT be able to understand. (And frankly, this moment is far deeper than what it’s being made out to be, to me it reads more like an unrequited friendship that Izuku both desires and has thought of them to have, while simultaneously showing the distance Ochako has successfully wedged between them for her own sake. Maybe it was always there though, maybe in weird, miscommunicated Horikoshi fashion, this is a representation of how Ochako always read all those “fun friend hangouts” as a little more than that, and without those feelings the friendship never really held any substance to her in the first place. Where Izuku saw his first real friend at UA, she saw little more than acquaintance)

Simultaneously, Izuku is genuinely reflecting on what it means for the world to change, to be a hero, to live after loss—and trying and failing to gain the connection he desires from individuals who can not and will not afford him that.

Izuku is ready for the world to change, a few select characters are also ready for the world to change (mirio, for example), but not nearly enough are. So maybe I’ll have to take this back if I’m proven wrong and I accidentally looked into this far past what everyone else did for no reason, but I genuinely believe with moments like this

And this

Aand this

That Izuku has come forward with that aspect of his character development. He’s reflecting on his new beliefs, not repressing his emotions for them.