#for others makes me go a little insane actually

[kirozai]

—BETTER AT LOVING YOU.

Sae has always believed that playing football was the only thing he was good at. Meeting you drastically changed his belief. Sae is reminded again while trying to teach you how to play football, which you fail. Badly… BUT he still loves you nevertheless.

content warnings: established relationship, tooth-rotting fluff, fem!reader, present to past flashbacks pairing(s): itoshi sae x reader word count: 1600+ A/N: idek

PRESENT.

“I don’t get it! Why the hell are there so many rules to a game that's whole premise is just ‘kick ball in goal, win.’” you say defeated.

Sae knew that this wasn’t going to turn out very well, but after your constant pestering for about 4 minutes, he gave in. 

The result?

Pouty you lying on the turf of the empty indoor pitch after about… maybe 20 minutes? After sliding away every single time he tried to pass the ball to you, you seem to have given up. 

“What if I get hit by the ball or something?” you said before.

“Then move on?” he says questioningly.

You did NOT take that well.

With a great big sigh, Sae makes his way to sit near your body and look at your exasperated face. He brushes away the loose strands of hair in front of your face. His eyes trace yours, “mesmerized and in love” the public would describe. 

Well. Sae is not denying any of those allegations.

“It’s fine,” Sae insisted “You're not planning to be a pro football player any time soon anyways.”

“See but if I was anyone else would you be saying that?” you questioned.

“No.” 

“Hmph! See! It isn’t really fine.”

“You’re you and everyone else is lukewarm and boring. Why does it matter that I treat them differently?” He squints at you.

Your mouth is left agape at his response. 

Sae’s lips turned upturned at the sight. You reply with a big grin on your face. It’s always a treat to see your handsome lover’s smile you always say to him.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

PAST.

Meeting a girl being chased by a seagull was not on his agenda this summer.

Sandwich in hand you rain around the empty sandy beach being chased by one, no wait two, hold on now three?! To simplify it you were being chased by seagulls, many, many seagulls.

Sae watches you with curious eyes, head swaying left and right following you as you try to protect your oh-so-precious sandwich in hand. Finally, after much anticipation, you throw the sandwich at one of the seagulls in despair, but he could tell that you were out of breath. Your hands on your knees heaving after much running from the evil sea birds, you whip your head toward the pinkish-maroon head man. 

Sae not being too far away makes out the words falling from your pretty lips:

“YOU! WHY’D YOU JUST STAND THERE?” You point at him accusingly.

Running up the stairs and… pushing him down to the ground?

“Ah. Oops. I didn’t actually mean it-”

And that’s where your sudden story of love began. After the apologies and bickering you forced him to buy you new food as an apology. Sae looks at you with an eyebrow raised, hands in pockets. 

“I’ve seen a lot of fans trying to ask me out, but I’ve never seen someone as stalkery and insane as you.” He says as if it’s a fact. 

“You were literally watching me for the past ten minutes,” you reply blankly.

Seems like Sae can’t argue with that.

He finds out on your little rendezvous that you're here in Spain for vacation and you aren’t a stalker fan. Though Sae questions if that’s true ever so often. Your intentions are clear though, after this, you want nothing to do with him.

Which… is new...

So in your next days in Spain, somehow fate has linked you two together in some of the coincidental places Every. Single. Day. Much to your avail. 

Sometimes it’s bumping into him again on a random alleyway. Others it’s you getting scammed in a tourist trap and Sae is just “too annoyed” to see a tourist get their money taken away.

Except, every practice he goes to now he wonders if he’ll see you again today. His mind used to be filled with only one thing and that was football, but somehow you’ve wiggled your way into his mind.

Maybe even his heart.

His stone-cold expression to you is just a challenge to break the ice even more and you find yourself growing warmer to the emerald-eye man. 

Your odd compliments and your unique character stir something inside of him. He continues to tell himself that this is only temporary and he’ll forget about you after you leave.

Even though.

Even though, he doesn’t want you to leave.

His brain is now filled with more of you than football. He thinks about what he can do to make you smile, to laugh. He thinks about what gifts you’d like next and if you’d like churros more or xuixos.

You ask him questions past his athlete life and ask him about things he likes to do. Unfortunately, he has no reply. He’s known nothing more than football all his life. 

So you open him to the world of, well, everything else. You force him to go on walks with you and visit random tourist places that Sae’s gone to millions of times, but every time with you seems brighter than the last. You teach him about your hobbies and other places you visited. You talk about your home country to him and reminisce about the times in high school. This summer is different, more you.

Time passes by and you two grow closer. Even his teammates see the subtle differences. They look shocked to see that Sae is doing something outside of practice.

At some point, the spontaneous meetings aren’t enough and at one of your meetings, you take his phone and add your number to him with a cute little selfie of you. You always remind him how much of a dry texter he is, but he always replies instantaneously even to your random texts at 3 am.

You’re “bearable,” he says. 

Bearable enough to have you as the only person who can bypass Sae’s Do Not Disturb.

Time slows when he’s with you, always experiencing new things with you.

Time doesn’t stop completely though.

At some point, you have to leave. It’s only summer after all.

And that fact leaves a bitter taste on his tongue.

You, however, don’t seem a bit worried. Sae frowns at the fact.

Until one day before your departure, he asks.

“Why don’t you seem fazed?”

“Hmm?” you say while stuffing all sorts of pastries in your face.

“About leaving I mean,” he says in a hushed tone.

“It’s not like this is goodbye though. We’re still gonna talk duh.” You say as if it’s a matter of fact.

Sae’s taken aback at your reply. He’s used to your random replies but this one seems so.. genuine. You don’t plan to leave this behind, your memories behind.

You don’t plan to leave him behind.

The day your plane departs is probably one of Sae disliked days. You wave at him but don’t say goodbye, instead it's a “See you Later!”

And you leave.

He wonders if you’ll text back if you’ll really keep your promise of staying in touch.

And you do.

You call him when your plane arrives back in your country. You tell him how bad the legroom was and everything else. He’s happy to hear your voice.

So after some weeks of constant calls, texts, and memes, you ask the dreaded question.

“So.. uh.. What are we?” you laugh nervously.

Sae is lying in his bed, it's currently 11 pm, very much past the time he should be asleep by now. 

“Saeeee…??” you drag out.

He furrows his brows, taking in the question. What are you two?

“What do you want to be?” He internally slaps himself at the reply.

“That’s so ominous.” You joke.

“I mean, I don’t know. Does the famous athlete Itoshi Sae have a secret girlfriend on the side right now?” you ask.

“No. Unless…” He trails off.

“Unless??”

“Unless you want to be mine.” He declares.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

PRESENT.

Sae smiles fondly at the memories. He blanked out out of pure embarrassment, but he recalls your reply being something like “Well you better ask me properly!” He remembers looking for flights for you to come back to Spain. And when you do things become official. You stay at his place because it’s “cheaper”, but you both know that it’s just an excuse. You spend time any time you can. He still clearly remembers the day when you called his penthouse your home. 

He knows he’s not very good at a lot of things out of football, but he knows he’s good at loving you. After a couple of years, he made you his wife. The one he’ll always come home to after a game or practice.

“Whatchu’ smiling about huh?” You beam.

He rolls his eyes.

“Did you just roll your eyes at me?!”

“I didn’t roll anything. You should be practicing rolling the ball around right now.” he says dryly.

“You’re so unfunny Sae.” You drag his arm down and topple on him.

“No more football!” You state loudly.

“No more football,” he repeats.

Sae never thought he’d be saying that line ever in his life. He never even thought of marrying anyone.

But sometimes fate can surprise us.

So while football was a bust for you it was still a good time spent in Sae’s egoist mind. Any time with you is a good time in all honesty.

You may not be the best at football, but that’s okay. He doesn’t need another football lover he just needs you to love him

And with this in mind,

Sae is good at football sure, but he’s pretty sure he’s better at loving you over anything else.

[ohbueckers]

HEART OF A WOMAN. we ain’t spoke in so long, probably put me in the past. i can still get you wet, and i can still make you laugh.

01, CHAPTER ONE. OLD SPARKS.

ju speaks. who’s catching my word play for this chapter ooouuu.. i’m having so much fun writing them already and yes, maya’s gonna be a problem (i am just so predictable). pairing. wnba!paige bueckers x fem!oc. warnings. sexual innuendos. kinda content too? idk this fic feeds you all.

present day, may, 2025.

los angeles still doesn’t feel real.

it’s like a whole new game out here, and i’ve been telling myself i can handle it. going first in the draft was wild—i’d dreamt of that moment since i was a kid, but hearing my name called, realizing it was real, felt different. la’s been something else too, this city that’s both too big and somehow feels small once you’re in it. i’ve got an apartment with this insane view too. floor to ceiling windows, sunlight flooding in every morning, palm trees out front like something off a postcard, but it doesn’t quite feel like home yet. i guess i thought maybe it would by now.

the team’s been great, though. down to the vets, the coaching staff, the media team… every single one of them welcomed me like i’ve always belonged here, and that makes things easier. cam threw this party tonight to really celebrate me being here, not just another pr event, but like… i don’t know, like they actually wanted to get to know me better. her backyard’s all polished up. the gates hold up some fairy lights, and the smell of barbecue just tops it all off.

maya’s been around since day one, practically the second i landed here. she’s one of our coordinators—smart, organized, and just enough older than me. stanford grad, of course, which she’s mentioned just enough times that i know she’s proud of it. there’s something good about her. yeah, she’s good. she knows how to handle herself, that’s for sure.

nailea hasn’t been around. i thought i’d see her by now, maybe even catch lurking during one of my practices or just… run into her somewhere. i mean, i’m sure she wouldn’t quit her job because of me. she’s been quiet, out of sight. which is fine. we haven’t really talked since before the draft—if that’s what you’d call it. it’s probably for the best. i don’t think she really wants to talk anyway.

i’m mid-sentence, talking to rae and rickea about their pregame rituals when maya steps up, her manicured hand resting casually on my slouched shoulder like it belongs there. she laughs at something rae says, smiling, and i feel myself ease into the conversation a little more.

rae’s all animated, talking about how she won’t step onto the court without this neon scrunchie she swears by. i’m leaning in to give her grief for it when i catch something in my periphery—someone, actually.

nailea’s here. at my welcome to the league party, maybe just coming by to say she showed up. i’m sure cam would kill her if she didn’t, they got pretty close last year. she looks like she just stepped out of my memories, if you think about that memory everyday.

i suck in, turning in attempt to not make myself seen. then, rae, three jell-o shots deep and definitely feeling it, pats my thigh in excitement and grins wide. “nai! c’mere!” she calls her over, completely missing how i’m trying not to look too invested.

i bite my lip, turning my head back over. i see how she hesitates, and then she looks at me. there’s no emotion, not a single ounce of longing or surprise. she looks at me like i’m nothing. it hurts more than i’d ever admit, but at the same time, i get it. i don’t exactly have the right to expect anything else.

her eyes shift to the others, weighing her options, probably playing out how the entire encounter would go in her head, but rae’s insistence doesn’t really give her much of a choice. she flashes us a grin, though i’m sure it isn’t for me, before she slowly waltzes over.

my eyes follow her like some unconscious habit until she’s almost in reach. as she comes closer, i find myself sizing her up, cataloging the way her hair falls just right, how her shirt hangs off her shoulders. then, out of nowhere, rickea shoves a finger into my ear from my left, and i flinch, turning to see her arched eyebrows silently demanding that i lock in. i don’t question it—i do. a little bit.

“nai handles a good chunk of our pr. she’s doing game day operations this year too,” rae cuts through. she was on some paid internship last year, testing out every role the sparks had to offer to see what she liked. she moved up. got the job.

i don’t know why it stings that she’s doing good without me.

“we know each—“ i begin.

“we went to high school to—“ nai says at the same time as me, and i look at her. rickea is stifling back a laugh beside me, and nai finishes her sentence.

“paige and i went to high school together.” she says, and i stay silent. high school? is that all i am now? a high school buddy?

rae’s grin grows wider, and she’s so excited about it i can barely make out her words. “she’s so great, and basically our backbone now,” she says, nudging nailea’s shoulder. “if it weren’t for her, i’d be late to half my interviews, right?” she laughs, a little too loud.

“guess you owe her then,” i say simply, forcing a grin. nai’s eyes flash to mine, but they’re off me just as quick. i let mine stay, squinting as maya begins to ramble.

“and she makes my job way easier.” maya’s fingers tap against my shoulder, almost like she’s staking a claim. “you ever need someone to keep you in line, paige, she’s your girl,” she adds, smiling at nai, though there’s some unfamiliarity to it. i can tell that they know each other, just not well enough i’m assuming.

nai’s eyes drop to maya’s hand, just a quick glance, but it’s enough to make me hyper-aware of the touch. her gaze returns to my face, a single eyebrow raised in that subtle way that’s more telling than words. like she’s already put it all together, and she doesn’t need to say a thing. instinctively, i shift, shrugging maya’s hand off with a casual roll of my shoulder, trying to mask it as if i’m just adjusting my posture.

nai doesn’t react, but her mouth twitches, a hint of a smirk, there and gone.

she lets out a soft laugh as i lean more against the table now, and i caught the way maya dropped her hand to her side. “i think paige has got it handled.”

i raise an eyebrow, leaning back just a little. “could always use the backup.”

nai’s eyes flash with a quick, knowing glint as she tilts her head, that slight smirk of hers appearing like she’s been waiting for an opening. “backup?” she repeats, nearly cheerful. i hated her tone. “thought you were more into… side options than backups, paige.”

it’s subtle, just low enough that only i catch the full weight of it, but it lands. i let out a low chuckle, stroking my chin and licking my lips. “aight,” i say, swallowing down any reaction, “i set myself up for that.”

maya gives me a sidelong look, sensing the tension but probably not quite getting it. nai laughs softly, a quick, dismissive sound that shouldn’t hit as hard as it does. it’s almost like she’s proud of getting that dig in. i cross my arms over my chest, and for some reason, i can’t contain my own smile.

rickea jumps in then, catching the vibe—or maybe just rescuing me. “anyway!” she says, her voice bright, easing into some story about some mascot switch-up from last year nai had to handle. i nod along, pretending i’m invested, though every part of me is still reeling from nai’s words, her laugh, the way she looked at me like she had me all figured out.

but maybe that’s what she wants me to think.

the backyard’s emptied out now, save for a few stray bottles and a couple of plastic jello cups scattered across the tables. i slide the glass door open and step inside, the house now filled with some low music from a record player. i was planning to find cam, to thank her for throwing this whole thing together. but when i come into the kitchen, it’s nai i see, her sleeves rolled up, forearms wet, scrubbing out a vase under the sink.

she’s focused, eyebrows furrowed just slightly, and i catch myself looking just a second too long before she looks up herself, catching me in the act. she pauses for a moment, her hands stilled under the water before she continues.

“didn’t take you for the clean up crew,” she mumbles, a little low that i almost don’t hear it over the running water.

i shrug, poking my bottom lip out. “figured i owed cam for putting this together,” i say, eyes still fixed on her. “nothin’ like a little gratitude, right?”

she lets out a little scoff, eyes still on the vase, fingers working over the smooth glass, rinsing it under the stream. “cam’s got enough gratitude coming her way,” she murmurs, and i can’t really read the implication. “she doesn’t need more from you.”

the words are light, almost casual, but they land with an edge that sticks. i take a slow step closer, letting the sliding door click shut behind me as i stand by it, almost like i’m stuck.

“well,” i start, beginning to stroll closer with my hands tucked in my pockets, “maybe i’m here because i wanted to check in. see how you’re doing.”

her eyes cut to me briefly, unimpressed. “i’m good, paige,” she says, letting the vase drip dry on a towel, and turning her attention to the next one. “never been better, actually.”

“great,” i say, not breaking eye contact, even as she keeps hers on the dishes, hands slowing just slightly. “then you won’t mind the company.”

she lifts an eyebrow, smirking, and i feel my pulse spike. “company?” she repeats, cocking her head as she pauses, hands resting on the edge of the sink, she says, “i think i’ve had enough of yours for a lifetime.”

i wiggle my eyebrows at her. “aw, don’t be like that, nai.” i can’t help the laugh that slips out, soft and a little cocky. “where’d you pick up all this lil’ attitude at?” i manage to get a little closer with each word until i’m rounding the island. she knows i’m there, close, and trying to ignore it probably.

she sighs, setting the vase down with a clink that sounds just a little too deliberate before picking up the last one. “life has a way of teaching you things. people, too.” she cuts her eyes my way, just barely, still trying to act like i’m not right in her space.

“oh, so now i’m a life lesson?” i murmur, stepping so that i’m almost right beside her, leaning on the counter. “but you’re still here. helpin’ clean up my party.”

she hesitates, and i can see her jaw tense just slightly. “i’m here for cam.”

“cam, huh?” i murmur, my eyes never leaving her. “and what about me?”

she laughs, a little breathless, and it’s the first real sign of her softening. i’ll take whatever i can get. “you’re somethin’ else. you know that?”

of course i know that. she knows i know that, she used to tell me it all the time. she reaches to cut the water off, flipping the vase over on the counter to dry. “good somethin’ or bad somethin’?” i ask, inching just a little closer as i tuck my bottom lip between my teeth.

“depends on the day,” she replies simply, and i can tell she’s trying to occupy herself as she rearranges the glasses.

i smile, facing her as i lean an arm on the counter. “that a challenge?” i lick my lips. “you know i love a good challenge.”

she scoffs lightly, rolling her eyes but staying put nonetheless. “don’t think you’re up for this one, bueckers.”

“oh, i’m up for it,” i counter, following her every move. “in fact, i thrive on it.” i’ve managed to get so close now that i can smell the scent of her shampoo mingling with the faint floral notes of soap. i can’t help but notice the newfound lightness to it too, and i realize she must’ve switched out some old with some new.

“mhm?” she asks, that smirk returning as she finally looks at me. i love when she hums like that, like i’ve got her at loss for words or something. her gaze flicks down to my lips for just a heartbeat, but i catch it.

“yeah,” i whisper, testing the waters. “and i’m pretty good at winning.”

i can see the shift in her expression—the way her breath hitches just a bit. “and what do you think you’re gonna win?” it’s like it took everything in her to say that as she exhales.

i lean back slightly, just enough to meet her eyes fully, but my focus has found her lips again. “you know what i want,” i say, and my voice is almost a whisper. “i think you know exactly what i want.”

there’s a faint smirk on her face as she grips the counter. “no.” she says, seemingly very aware of my intentions as she shakes her head, but doesn’t move an inch.

i let my tongue swarm my mouth hungrily. “just one.” i practically beg.

she leans in, leaving a soft, fast peck on my lips, and i’m afraid it isn’t enough for satisfaction. she’s back staring, and before i get the chance to say anything about it, it’s like she already fought the doubts in her mind as she throws herself into me, lips crashing.

my lips press against hers in that familiar, heady rush that i’d almost convinced myself i’d forgotten. she doesn’t pull away—instead, her hand slips up to my shoulder, the same one maya had her paws on just a couple hours ago, and fuck i can barely bring myself to think about that.

my hand finds her waist, gripping just enough to feel her press against me, her breaths shallow, matching mine. i want to rip her clothes off and take her here, no matter how uncordial that may be, but the universe seems to have other plans.

she tastes like everything i’ve had time to reflect on, every memory i know she tried to bury. i’m rough, hands squeezing her waist so tight like i’m scared she’ll slip away if i let go.

but just as i’m getting lost in her, we’re interrupted by the sound of footsteps. we break apart instantly, spinning toward the door just in time to see cam step in, her eyes widening as she stops short, eyebrows lifting as she takes in the scene.

my tongue darts to the corner of my mouth as i place my hands behind my back awkwardly, as if to keep them from wandering. nai is smoothing out her shirt (the most obvious thing you could do in a situation like this), that guarded look slipping right back into place as she clears her throat.

“paige was just leaving.”

[kimmie2me]

Dynamite and His Player 2

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀𓂅⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Twitch Gamer!Bakugou x AFAB!fem reader

.....

Bakugou glances over at the camera, brows furrowed as he adjusts his headset. "Alright, you extras, get ready to shut the hell up," he growls, his voice laced with annoyance. "She’s real. I’ve got her right here, and she’s playing with me tonight."

You laugh off-screen, causing his chat to explode with reactions. Up until now, they didn't believe a word Bakugou said when he claimed he had a girlfriend. After all, this is the guy known for his explosive reactions when things go slightly wrong. He grumbles, trying to keep his cool, but the slight blush on his cheeks gives him away.

The game loads up, some horror-puzzle co-op that requires a ton of coordination. But while Bakugou’s all business—focused on solving puzzles and surviving—you have other ideas. You’re busy teasing him, wandering off to explore the map, or purposely messing up just to get a rise out of him.

"Can you just—dammit! Will you STOP wandering off?" Bakugou snaps as he watches your character take another detour. "We’re supposed to be working together!"

You grin at the screen, purposely moving your character in circles. "Aw, come on, Suki~ We’re just having fun, right?"

His jaw clenches, and he mutters something under his breath about "not having fun if you keep screwing around." But his viewers are eating it up, laughing at his frustration and flooding the chat with comments like "She's brave for messing with him, LMAO😭😭" and "Bros .4 seconds away from exploding his monitor for the 10 millionth time🪦"

Eventually, he just huffs, slouching in his chair and mumbling, "Fine. Do whatever the hell you want. I’ll just wait here." His expression says he's beyond annoyed, but the hint of a smile peeking through his scowl gives away that maybe, just maybe, he's actually having a little fun too.

Grumpy Twitch Gamer Bakugou Headcanons

...

— Every time he messes up, he narrows his eyes at the camera with that “are you stupid?” glare. Chat spams "IT’S NOT OUR FAULT!” and "WHY R U LOOKING AT US LIKE WE DID THAT??" but he just huffs, “If you idiots weren’t DISTRACTING me…”

— Bakugou’s streaming style is brutally honest—constantly throwing out curses like it’s second nature. If he dies in-game, his go-to is, “How the hell am I supposed to win with this garbage game?!” and he never blames himself, ever.

— He has zero chill. Every so often, he’ll pound the desk so hard that the camera shakes, and one time he punched his mic so fiercely that it cut out, leaving chat in hysterics as he tries to fix it, muttering about “this piece of crap gear.”

— After every gaming session, he gives a review of the game he’s playing—most of which devolve into full-on rants about terrible controls, stupid enemies, and “whoever the hell designed these levels.” At this point, it's an entire essay by the time he's done.

— There are moments when he hits the mute button just to scream or cuss off-mic. Chat sees him red-faced and mouthing words, knowing he’s losing it, which makes them spam laugh emotes to annoy him further.

— Sometimes, when things get really bad, he just simply says "Okay." and goes quiet, leaning in close to the screen with this intense focus. Chat knows that if he’s silent, it’s only because he’s plotting to obliterate whatever got him killed.

— It’s become a running joke with his followers—every time he streams, they place bets on which piece of his equipment he’ll break. He’s replaced his keyboard three times already and had to upgrade his camera stand because he broke the last one during a particularly heated rage quit.

— When he finally beats a level, he acts like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “See? Wasn’t even hard, you just have to not be a dumbass.” Cue the smug smirk.

— Occasionally, in his absolute rage, he’ll end the stream immediately after a loss. One second he’s there, screaming at the game, and then—stream offline.

— Despite all the rage, he’s actually insanely good at gaming. When he goes on a winning streak, chat blows up with admiration, but he barely acknowledges it. “’Course I won—who the hell do you think I am?”

— He has zero patience for backseat gamers. “Oh, you think you could do better? Why don’t you go start your own damn channel, then!” The mods know by now to instantly time out anyone who even hints at suggesting how he should play, and the ban count is astronomical by the end of each stream.

— Occasionally, Bakugou gets so into the game that he goes almost silent, and chat jokes it’s an ASMR session because all they can hear is his intense breathing and muttered curses. “Oi, STOP saying it’s ASMR, it’s not ASMR, you freaks!”

— Loading screens are his worst enemy. Every single time, he glares directly into the camera, arms crossed and seething, ranting about the “stupid long loading times” and how he could’ve “beat the damn game twice by now.” and how "a whole child could've been born by now." Chat watches in suspense because they know the rage is simmering, just waiting to explode.

— If he’s playing a console game, the controller does not have a safe future. He’s thrown it across the room, slammed it on his knee or desk, and even threatened it like, “You’re next, you little piece of shit, keep messing up on me.” He’s gone through so many controllers that his sponsor had to send him extras.

— When he loses in a PvP game, he has 1,001 excuses. “Lag. Dumb luck. Exploiter. The devs nerfed my character, obviously.” If chat calls him out, he just scoffs, “You think that was my fault? Keep dreaming.” And the mods instantly clear out any “L” spam from chat because he’s already dangerously close to slamming his keyboard.

— His channel has special emotes for when he loses his temper—explosion icons, angry Bakugou faces, and even one of his own “ARE YOU FUCKIN’ KIDDING ME?!” face. Chat spams these whenever he starts heating up, which only fuels his fire.

— His viewers love to try and provoke him. Someone will innocently say, “Hey Dynamight, I think you missed something back there,” and he’ll instantly pause, glare at the screen, and say, “I DIDN’T MISS ANYTHING, DUMBASS, WE'RE MOVING ON.” It’s like a game within the game for his followers. (He goes back to check right after.)

— “Easy mode?” he scoffs at the suggestion. “I’d rather throw myself into a fire than play on easy mode.” Even if he’s dying over and over, he’ll never, ever change the difficulty. Chat has tried for months to get him to switch, but he’s stubbornly loyal to “the only real mode” (aka Hard Mode, Nightmare mode or above).

— If he actually wins a match, he’s unbearable. He’ll sit there, grinning and basking in his victory, smirking at the camera with a smug, “And that, extras, is why I’m better than every single one of you.” Cue chat sarcastically clapping.

— He once had a bet with his mods that he’d try to do a stream without cursing or raging. He lasted five minutes before he exploded, screaming, “THIS GAME IS FUCKING RIGGED!” after an unexpected jump-scare. The mods were dying, and he banned half of them out of spite (they were unbanned five minutes later, but still).

— Every time he’s about to start a new game, he’s got this exaggerated, dramatic intro: “ALRIGHT, EXTRAS, prepare yourselves ‘cause we’re about to dominate the shit outta this game. And if I see anyone backseat gaming, you’re banned. Don’t even THINK about telling me what to do.”

— Every now and then, when he dies for the tenth time in a row, he just deadpans to the camera, “I swear to God, I’m deleting my channel after this.” Chat knows he’s bluffing, but they still spam crying emojis like “NOOO PLEASE DON’T” just to mess with him.

— Every so often, when he’s focused on a tough level, he’ll mutter something like, “Okay, maybe you’re not so bad, chat. Don’t tell anyone I said that,” and the comments absolutely blow up with hearts and “WE LOVE YOU, DYNAMIGHT.” He immediately goes red and yells, “Didn’t mean it, idiots!” but it’s too late.

— Once, he rage-quit a game so hard that his entire setup fell silent. He’d punched the desk, and the screen went black. Chat watched in shock as the stream just… cut off. The clip went viral, with an entire 30-minute compilation titled “Every time Dynamight destroyed his setup” He came back the next day, reacted to it, and you already know he gave the video a thumbs down and left a long hate comment.

— His mods convinced him to play a “relaxing, casual game” that was secretly full of jump scares. The first time it happened, he almost flipped his entire desk. He immediately banned half of his mods and told the rest they were “on thin ice.” Chat still laughs about it every time he plays a “cute” game.

[sulumuns-dootah]

WHB characters boyfriend HCs

⟡ Masterlist ⟡

A/N: Written mid October as a way to make myself feel better. Might turn this into a series, if anyone is interested ^^

Characters: Satan, Paimon, Beelzebub, Gusion, Michael

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

Bike rides and bar dates - I can just imagine going for a drive through Gehenna's streets, tightly holding onto Satan so you don't fall off a the high speed (Just like Minhyeok when Juno drove him to school in chapter 6)

Okay, on the theme of bars: kinda funny but I imagne him holding his hard liquor much better than something with little-to-none alcohol

Lots of lovebites and hickeys

Despite stuggling to sleep normally, when you're with him, it's the exact opposite and whenever you cuddle, he's out within minutes

His love language is bullying

During his depressive episodes, you're the only one he'll let near him

NSFW HCs

That horn style might as well be called handlebars, bc you sure will be holding onto dear life ( joke stolen from Trixie Mattel)

He has a thing for when someone rides his boots

Kinda obvious one, but a lot of BDSM in the bedroom

If you're a monsterfucker, he wouldn't mind changing into his other form for you

    ༺☆༻

Shopping dates!!

If you wish to, your relationship can be fully off social media despite Pai practically living on them

Matching stuff!

Loves doing your makeup (even if you don't wear any)

Café dates!

Ultimatelly, you're their new photographer for their posts

Overall the vibe of your relationship really gives me the two best friends who also fuck vibes

Every night is a slumber party!

NSFW HCs

If you get periods, they'll make sure you have all the stuff in the world you might need

And if you require some special attention down there, they're more than excited to make you feel good

I can imagine a lot of roleplay with cute outfits for the both of you

    ༺☆༻

Even when you're not with each other, there's at least a fly following you around to make sure you're okay

His clones do prove useful for more than just sex - putting new fitted sheets onto your mattress? done and done!

Every date is in a new location you never even knew about

Despite his memory being shit, he'll remember all the important and small things: your favorite scent? favorite dish? flower? yep, all memorised or turned into a tattoo on his inner wrist!

Oh, speaking of tattoos... You two get a matching one to seal the deal on your relationship

Instead of proposal with a ring, Beel proposes with a piercing needle and giving you the choice of what he'll pierce (you can even pick multiple spots!)

NSFW HCs

Let's get the obvious out of the way: Yes, he loves eating you out so much he'd spend the next century between your legs

And yes, you can say goodbye to deodorants/perfumes

Surprisingly not into food play tho... If you look any more yummy, he might actually eat you :D

    ༺☆༻

Workaholic baby :(

Like seriously, you sometimes have to cleverly lure him away from his math problems

If you're a student, you've won the jackpot! He might not be an expert in your field, but he knows how to help you learn

Gaming nights with some insane hard puzzle games

A cute scenario: Gus taking off his glasses before leaning down to kiss you deeply

I already mentioned this in my post about confessing a crush to him, but he might neglect you a bit from being so into his work so make sure to sound off and let him know

NSFW HCs

Someone gets a bit hot and bothered after your study session together

Ooh! I absolutely can't forget a good ol' teacher/student roleplay

He's most likely originally from Gehenna bc of how horny he got from the thought of having a headache, so I HC that he'll come seek you out after getting one to fuck the life out of you

    ༺☆༻

His hair is 100% pure silk

Your relationship probably started with Mikey first seeing you and not being able to read you, so he decided to keep his remaining eye on you to see what's the story with you

Somehow ended up accidentally(?) falling for you

He's definitelly the most likely demon to get unhealthily obsessed with his s/o

A lot of attachment issues after loosing God and Lucifer

That mom friend for sure (even literally a mom - kinda makes me wonder how he'd react to all the lesser angels he made giving him Mother's day card)

One daydream plot i came up with is that if I were in Hell and Michael showed up, I'd just pretend to be fully delulu that he's into me, but isn't ready to tell me yet The whole "Aw, you came to see me? Does that mean...? that you're ready to confess to me...?" He'd just get disgusted and leave and then everybody claps

NSFW HCs

Kinda obvious, but he's iffy about sexual subjects at first

Still doesn't mean he hasn't thought a few times about breaking out of his chastity cage

Once you break down his restraints, he's maybe even freakier than some demons in Abaddon

Maybe there's a good reason God locked his angels up

Okay, hear me out: Michael x MC x Raphael (yes, death is almost guaranteed, but what a way to go!)

[aithusarosekiller]

Imagining a pirate au with two infamous ships captained by each black brother respectively and they're forced to join together because they know they're being sought out by a common enemy. They both have reputations for being violent and ruthless but they have a sense of camaraderie and love for their crew so they both go into it expecting the other to be fucking awful only to realise they seem to be the only two pirate ships out there with any level of trust and loyalty. Because of this, it's easier to assimilate because they already work well among their own crew.

And at first they all hate the decision but eventually it becomes a beautiful found family thing where they all find a home with each other and choose to stick together for the rest of their lives. One ship gets badly damaged and they help to save what they can before moving in to the other.

There are so many petty rivals to lovers arcs too. Dorlene both bicker over being in control of arms while trying to ignore the fact they're clearly interested in each other and it drives everyone else insane. MarPanLily have a weird competitive relationship going on that none of them understand but they get strangely protective of each other during raids.

Jegulus take FOREVER to get over themselves because Regulus heard stories of James from word of mouth and James heard about Regulus from Sirius so they've both told themselves for years that they'd have nothing in common and hate each other, only to realise they were painfully wrong when they actually meet and have to talk to each other about course planning.

Something about pirate aus make my fav ships seem so timeless and predestined to me idk. Like other aus are fun but something about meeting under such unusual, brutal circumstances and ending up travelling across the vast ocean together forever feels like peak romance to me even if it would be kinda sucky in real life bc pirates were not a fun happy healthy bunch. Still, the beauty in going to the ends of the world with someone and being apart from society is so beautiful for my little gay ships. Someone do that with me :(

[legally-allowed-to-slime]

okay i think it’s time to talk about the “are we mean?” line from gem (28:16 her pov) which no one else seems to care about and it’s driving me crazy

so. if you watch the actual clip she changes her sentence from “are we th—” to “are we mean”. she also says it with the exact same inflection that cleo used. this gives me the hunch that she had cleo’s line in double life on her head since gem is pretty aware of fandom things and that’s an iconic line. at the same time though, this is a stretch so we’re gonna go ahead with the assumption that those two lines were just coincidentally similar.

at first glance it might seem like cleo’s double life line (“are we the mean girls?”) and gem’s line (“are we mean?”) are entirely similar and about similar circumstances, but if you look a little closer the similarities fall apart

in cleo’s case, they say it after the box boys had died and they were looting their stuff. pearl shows up and confronts them but the pair just laugh and say it was pearl’s fault ren and bigb died anyway. pearl doesn’t really push it either. then they steal more stuff and leave, before cleo says The line. so with this context, it’s pretty obvious what cleo’s asking is a rhetorical question. what happened immediately before would make them, objectively, the “mean girls” (both stealing and ignoring pearl’s concerns). scott is aware, which is why he immediately responds “yes”, with a smile in his voice. because to them, they might be petty villains, but because it’s funny and they’re self-aware, then they can’t be truly villainous, like dl!pearl. it’s a shared bit between the two of them that they’re being catty high school girls, and scott’s response establishes the fact that they really don’t care. they are two partners in crime, giggling after robbing the bank. top 10 i-can’t-remember-their-ship-name moment

gem on the other hand. hers comes after a long episode of telling everyone who passes by to hate impulse and pearl (soup group divorce 💔). moments later ren kills impulse, and gem thinks that it might be because of her. then she tells joel that “we’re winning by just telling other people who to kill”. but the dynamic between scott + cleo and gem + joel are very different. while scott and cleo are equally up to no good, gem is manipulating the social dynamics of the server while joel is off being angry. the difference between joel and gem is like the difference between joel and scott. so when gem asks “are we mean?”, it’s not like cleo asking scott, knowing they can have a good laugh over it. she’s testing the limits, seeing if what she’s doing can tip over into being mean. and joel, not being scott, automatically says “no, we’re not mean. he shouldn’t have been mean to us.” (insane parallels over gem and cleo saying the same thing but joel and scott having exact opposite answers btw) joel functions in a more straightforward manner: if you’re mean to me, then i can be as mean as i like to you. however, he hasn’t been here to witness gem’s social plays. it’s not like scott and cleo where they were both there to commit the crime together. it’s gem standing there with the blood on her knife and asking joel if she’s guilty. and joel, being both loyal and headstrong, denies it.

after joel says that, gem agrees with, “that’s true, he shouldn’t have been mean to us.” she pauses, turns, and then says “you’re right”. joel, who doesn’t concern himself with such mental gymnastics, has already moved onto bigger things, like a parkour course. but in the meantime gem has used her ally’s careless, uninformed response as proof to convince herself that she can’t be being mean, and that what she’s doing to impulse (and pearl) is warranted. while scott and cleo openly acknowledge their wrongdoing (and in doing so dismiss it), gem pushes it down, trying to persuade herself that she’s the good guy. because she can’t be bad, right? the bad guys are on the other side.

and this inner turmoil is obvious. she does concede before that impulse probably doesn’t deserve her slandering, in the same way that scott concedes he can be “mean”, but brushing it off because it’s so insignificant it doesn’t reflect on their actual character. because in the same way as scott, gem is chasing some objective standard of morality, and doing everything on the good side, and if she does something on the bad side then that something is now a good thing, because she’s a good person.

isn’t it crazy how i wrote this much about one line

[oh-no-its-bird]

Been thinking about your team ro time travel and team ro defect crossover and I just. I've been rereading keanblade's stuff recently so i have a very specific tobirama in my head and the idea that he'd take one look at this group of sad dissilusioned young adults/children and be like guess i'm a father of 5 now and rewrite his entire priorities around that. Like, you mentioned in the of team ro time travel you liked the idea of having half hatake tobirama in the mix and i'm an enjoyer the idea hatake tend to just adopt children wily nilly like oh look more pack, I think i will thank you very much. Just tobirama absconding with this entire group that has no incentive to return to their own time and being like i'm the dad now (yes some of them are barely younger than him, no that doesn't change that he's everyone's dad fuck off). He gets to teach kakashi all kinds of hatake things! Show him how to be a little wilder like the hatake of the warring states! If you subscribe to the theory he helped hashirama learn how the mokuton worked he could tenzo with his mokuton. The funniest option is that somehow all of this leads to peace without izuna dying and they werent even trying for that. Like, tobirama just straight up ditching everything to take care of a bunch of depressed teenagers and a kid, over half of which are uchiha, and being SO fiercely protective of his little pack of murder children and the uchiha seeing this and being like. Huh. I thought that guy hated us? He just. Is living in the woods with three uchiha and treating them like his specialest little guys. An uchiha patrol runs across them and tobirama is patting itachi on the head for a good job learning whatever insane jutsu he's currently teaching team ro because those are his kids and of course he'd teach them to be as strong and terrifying as he could. Makes them think. Bonus points if this also somehow leads to madatobi and/or when the village does get built tobirama always looking to team ro before agreeing to any plans cuz they know what didnt work the first time, having not only been affected by it in the worst ways but left because of it in their time. Does this make the village better? Who knows. But they're certainly trying.

Sorry for the long thing, this has just been plauging my thoughts. I dont even know if i explained my idea well it's just been banging around in my brain for too long and i needed it out

Based off [THIS] au about Team Ro defecting from Konoha after Kakashi, having been told the truth of his fathers sabotaged mission and the slander campaign against him by Orochimaru, interrupts Shisui's murder at Danzo's hand, leading to the entire team + Sasuke to flee Konoha-- and then accidentally time travel into the warring states era, years before Konoha was set to be founded.

(This is already long, so the reply is below the cut ->)

OK FIRST OFF IM SO SORRY IT TOOK ME SO LONG TO REPLY TO THIS OOPS I HOPE I DIDNT KEEP U IN SUSPENSE

Woahh Keanblade mention !!! I love their stuff, they have some great fics and I love their brain. I haven't read their fics in a while actually, I should like go brush up on my keanblade lore / characterization at some point

IM YELLING THO IM SO ?? HONORED ?? TO HAVE SPARKED SMTHN IN UR BRAIN ACTUALLY, IM EATING THIS UP I LOVE IT THANK U SM FOR SENDING ME THIS I HAD SO MUCH FUN READING UR IDEAS !! AND YOU SENT ME SO MUCH TOO, SO MUCH FOOD TO DEVOUR ! Thank you for sending them to me I am giving you a little kiss right on ur brain

Tobirama really said "wow I can't believe I have to adopt these guys now"

Hashirama, probably: "Otouto you really dont have to--"

"I can't believe the world itself is making me adopt these sad, lost children."

"Children? Otouto, they aren't exactly--"

"I MUST take them in. I'm FORCED to, even."

"Tobi, no one is saying you--"

"I really have no choice in the matter. There are NO other options for them."

"Tobirama, please--"

The fact that Tobirama is like literally the same age as Kakashi and then they're just barely older than Shisui and Tenzo makes the whole thing so much funnier. It's probably for the best that he didn't try to dad them fr fr bc Im pretty sure the only one here without some form of daddy issues is like. Sasuke. Who is also 7.

(Which could be argued against tbh just depending on ur specific interpretation of Fugaku's dynamic w his kids on any given day)

So I imagine trying to actually parent various members of team ro comes with the risk of accidentally stepping on a landmine and potentially causing incredible violence and years of baggage to explode outward. I love my traumatized shinobi boys !!

Big brother Tobirama my beloved tho !!! Do u think he has complexes about being a big brother I think he has complexes and also that we should totally explore that, send tweet

Tobirama cave hermit arc !!! Madara had his turn, now it's his!

Team Ro really showed up, immediatley got thrust into an (unwilling, unwanted) custody battle, then got fucking SNATCHED by Tobirama before they could try and make a run for it, and just kinda,, decided to go with it? I guess? Fucking gold, actually. How the actual fuck did Tobirama convince them all to stay with him, the world will never know.

The man teleported the group of them into a forest alone, (instantly outnumbering himself) and went "this means I won the custody battle btw." and team Ro just went "I mean its better than being stuck with Uchiha Madara I guess." and went with it

Im not going to lie I fucking pictured Madara stumbling across the cave and team ro yapping at him like little chihuahuas and fucking lost my mind actually, needed to take a second to regain my sanity (in a good way)

Do u think Hashirama yells at Tobirama when he comes back home for publically kidnapping some mystery uchiha (plus others who were not very recognizable and thus do not matter as much) in front of the uchiha clan. Does Tobirama come back home? Does he just decide to become a cave hermit somewhere in the woods with his hashtag found family who may or may not fully want to be there? (they must, to some degree, want to be there-- if only because Tobirama Senju might be talented but he is also 18 at the time and nowhere near the height of his power. And Team Ro is many things, but unskilled is NOT one of them)

I forgot Tobirama knew ab the time travel for a sec and pictured him looking at Sasuke, this little clone of Izuna, and going "Hmm. You look exactly like my rival does and no doubt belong to the Uchiha main house."

"Does this mean you'll give us to the uch--"

"No."

(Finders keepers !!)

"Madara, the most uchiha uchiha in who knows how long before itachi and sasuke came along to give him a run for his money" is so fucking funny actually, I am internalizing that line and will probably suddenly think about it later at work and giggle to myself, I can already tell

If Izuna and Hashirama are both being little bitch boys in this I do need to advocate that they should totally get to kiss and be little bitch boys ✨ together ✨(the hashiizu agenda never dies) (let them begrudgingly get a drink together--though its Izuna who does most of the begrudging--get drunk while whining about their brothers, and then share a very ill advised kiss or two that Izuna will now deny ever happened till the day he dies)

I still think Tenzo should get to bond with Hashirama bc I love them getting to interact, but Im hearing your 'bad brother Hashirama' vibes for this spin off and nodding respectfully, so like. Maybe Hashirama can be sad about Tobirama monopolizing Tenzo, literally THE only other Mokuton user in the world's time, and be mad ab that too? I dont usually write explicitly bad brother Hashirama so I'm not too good at proposing how that could go tbh but I love the soap opera / dogblood drama vibes, it's so fun

I do think that some of team Ro could be useful at the peace talk / village planning meetings if they spoke up !!

Itachi may be young but is clan heir, and no doubt knows most of the modern day clan laws that Konoha would one day put in place, so he can suggest those knowing that it's what they'd eventually land on anyways.

Meanwhile Kakashi is the student of a Hokage, who watched over the shoulder of two different Hokage's, from ages 13 to present, so he absolutely knows a thing or ten about politics and running a village (at least from an outsiders perspective) Which. Actually technically makes him the most eligible / knowledgeable person like. In all of the peace talks when it comes to running a village which is fascinating. I'm jotting that one down to reference later in my original team ro time travel fic actually, there's a lot that can be done with that

ALSO !! If this is the 'team ro time travels to warring states era' au but like, with the team ro that defected from Konoha, they totally have Opinions(tm) about Konoha, which is so fun. I feel like Shisui has the sort of personality where he might actually be vocal about things when it comes to founding Konoha.

The way that the team stood whenthey left the village, Shisui and Itachi were both still majority village loyalists (though their loyalty had been deeply shaken)

Tenzo was high key "whatever my teamamtes say I will follow" but still has Konoha's roots buried deep into his heart.

Kakashi was the most complex-- the only one who it could truly be said was against the village, and for that I think he's interesting to play with and has motivation to get inolved in village making-- or the opposite; Want nothing to do with it.

IM YELLING ACTUALLY AT TEAM RO GENRE CHANGE THTS SO FUNNY

It was actually never time travel, it was straight up dimension travel. They fr went from a grimdark angst fic to a silly fluffy cracky fuckin, blessed eyes au where Tobirama is actually secretly a Good Boi(tm) and his indescribable riz and way with children make Madara forget about the whole mutual genocide thing

(Plot twist: Izuna and Hashirama arent actually bad brothers, they're just not aware of the genre they're in and reacting accordingly to their brothers doing a sudden 180 and ending the war with the ✨power of love ✨ and also adopting several teenagers (some of which are literally their age) who appeared out of nowhere, have no credentials, two of which are technically CONFIRMED BLOODLINE THEIVES (Kakashi willing and Tenzo unwilling, lab grown mokuton stolen from Hashirama's dna is STILL BLOODLINE THEFT, thanks Orochimaru) and are losing their GODDAMN MINDS over the turn of events)

Anyways this whole thing was a riot, I loved it and u are a master at silly fluff and comedy, I had a lot of fun reading what you sent me !!!

Ik u were aiming for silly fun so I hope my additions didnt take anything too seriously, I am in my shinobi politics 'writing everything as being played straight' era, so tried my best to stick with silly fluffy fun time comments instead of tripping and falling into the political implications of, like, a disillusioned with Konoha nukenin Kakashi, at the age where he was near his most depressed and apathetic, who is also technically the most qualified person in Fire to discuss making a village, being let in on village planning with implicit backing from both the Uchiha head and Senju heir. Or how itachi in the original (non nukenin) au was down to kill Madara, but the him in this au now has even more motivation to do it. N other fun implications like that

BUT LIKE I LOVE THE FLUFF I LOVE THE SILLY

politics free zone !!! we are not making eyecontact with the drama bc this is team Ro's vacation, actually

anyways THANK YOU FOR SENDING ME SUCH A WONDERFUL AND DETAILED ASK !!! UR BRAIN IS SO BIG FOR IT, I HAD SO MUCH FUN READING IT AND THINKING ABOUT IT AND IM SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG TO REPLY TO AND I JUST HOPE I REPLIED WELL ENOUGH SDKFJHDSFJKDSHFJSDk

umm and then they all lived happily ever after, the end

[peachyfnaf]

The only people who showed concern for Sun were Solar and Earth, and that makes me sad :( How Moon, Monty and Lunar acted made me upset with them

I'm boutta blow up the whole site with this take- I have beef with Earth too. Not as much as the other three, I will fight the other three, but I think the ONLY ONE actually giving Sun what he needs rn (Basic fucking comfort and affection bc he WAS LITERALLY JUST FORCED TO MURDER HIS LITTLE BROTHER HELLO???) is SOLAR. Solar you're doing great sweetie pie pookie bear honey bun gumdrop tiddly winkle baby cakes, thank you for checking up on Sun so much even though I don't doubt that Nexus' death hurts you, too.

BUT back on my Earth thing- I think Dana said it really well.

Forgive me if this is entirely incomprehensible, not only do I get all my knowledge second-hand it's ALSO like midnight here so I'm writing this out of autistic fury alone bUt, the way Earth handled the "Telling Lunar the TRUTH" ep or whatever it was called did make me go >:/

While it's obvious to us all by now that Lunar did not particularly give af about Nexus, the fact that Earth basically told him that Nexus died, we got her going ":("/her two cents about it, and then she moved onto the topic of Rez/lying to Lunar so fast. It. I. That fr made me go "???"

Chat. Am I insane for have expected a whole ep dedicated to the fam talking about Nexus' death /genq. Because I KNOWWW that they disconnected from him a lot but HOLY SHIT HE WAS STILL NEW MOON ONCE??? IS IT SO MUCH TO ASK FOR FOR ONE EPISODE WHERE HIS LOSS IS THE SOUL FOCUS? HELLAUR???

U can tell I'm sleep deprived cause I've already lost the plot- bUT YES YES EARTH YES. She has 100% become more selfish in the past few months. Which isn't inherently bad bc before she was selfless to a fault, but now it's starting to feel like she went from one extreme to the other..? Everything she does, she does because she wants to get that sweet sweet crumb of Self Validation. Which like. Girl me too, but THAT'S NOT HEALTHY NOR GOOD AND ESPECIALLY NOT A GOOD TRAIT FOR SOMEONE WHO PART TIMES AS A "THERAPIST" TO HAVE???

Her behavior is slooowly becoming much more self-preservative, and while it's happening slowly the signs are definitely There- which FINALLY BRINGS ME BACK AROUND TO THE ORIGINAL TOPIC-

Earth highkey brushed off Sun's feelings too ngl. She 100% did BETTER than O.M, Monty, Lunar yuh, but her check up on Sun was still very brief before she moved onto Other Things and Other People. V.S. Solar who was practically hovering over Sun the entire time- and liyk for good reason!!! Bro was NOT there mentally and only Solar really noticed!!!

Rn this behavior of hers is not a huge problem, just something rather annoying that I've noticed a pattern of, but I'm keeping an Eye on it bc it very much has the potential to become something veeery bad if Earth gets too lost in the "Me, me, me!" Sauce yk?

Okay it's 12:30 here I'm going to bed chat don't crucify me for a Spicy opinion honk shoo honk shoo mimimimi

[amoscontorta]

What are your NSFW Sylus thoughts/headcanons? 👀 bc I'd love to hear you go in depth with them and why u view Sylus the way u do bc it seems like everyone kinda has a different view of him. For instance, a big division I've seen is that there's some people who view Sylus as a switch and others view him as a dom or a service top. It seems like some people get personally offended when their view on Sylus is different from another's unfortunately 😅

I get it, people love Sylus a certain way, but I'll never support people trying to kink shame others for wishing Infold had went in a different direction with him or having kink preferences that might go against Sylus' or even having kinks Sylus might not be into. For me, Sylus is mainly a dom. He loves a challenge bc he gets bored easily, yet he also is very competitive, which is why he isn't gonna wanna lose most of the time. He's stubborn too.

Even in No Defense Zone MC wasn't really in full control. Sylus was ordering her around and teasing the whole time, but he clearly thought it was cute seeing MC want to be a little bit more dominant with him. MC was also obeying his orders. Do I think he likes to be called degrading names when he's eating u out? Sure, I could see that. Likes praise? Sure. Do I think he's gonna let you walk him on a leash and be into pegging? Absolutely not 🤣 but that's just MY opinion on him from everything I've gathered. I think he enjoys letting you have some control, but he's gotta be in the right mood for it I think and he probably has things he isn't into like everyone else. Either way, I'd love to hear ur thoughts on this whenever u have the time ❤️

Hi there. I’ve been thinking about this ask since I got it, and one of the things I know for sure is that I’m going to upset someone no matter what I say. But the whole point of me starting to share my fic and being more active on tumblr is to challenge my social anxiety when it tells me that my opinion isn’t of interest to anyone at the least, or offensive/hurtful at the worst. 

So here we go, my answer under the cut.

So to answer this question, I need to get through a few points first before I tell you what I personally believe about Sylus’s sexuality.

I don’t believe in kink shaming either, and I think that peoples’ complaints about the direction Infold takes the LIs are valid. We all want content that we can really relate to, and if the canon take doesn’t satisfy you, one of the great purposes of fanfic is to fix it for yourself and other fans like you. That’s such a huge part of engaging in fandom and even if I don’t agree that the character would actually do what you make him do in your content, if you write it well enough, if you capture his voice, give him logical motivations, respect the core of the character while you do it, then I can be convinced to enjoy it despite it deviating from canon.

That being said, I love Sylus because of his canon characterization, and I do believe that there are some things he would be into, or not into, based on his dialogue in the game itself.

It’s impossible to answer this question personally without telling you the following: I think it’s insane that we as a worldwide fandom and/or global community have restricted ourselves to a strict BDSM mindset of looking at people as belonging to an inflexible binary of dominant or submissive, with the only middle ground being switch, with formal labels and rules of what a “dom” does, what a “sub” does, and so forth, and the value judgments we place on which label you fall under. And what drives me further insane is how much that binary is tied up in so much misogynist bullshit if we’re talking about hetero pairings with a female MC (the power dynamics of a female sub versus a male dom alone is so often written in such a way that the writer’s internalized misogyny results in literally painful-wince-inducing reading). Human sexuality is so fluid, personal, intimate—I think that the average person’s dynamic and preferences change depending on who they’re with, what stage of life they’re in, what scars they bear from past relationships, and even on a day to day basis, how much energy they have, etc. So although all I seem to see in fandom discourse is dom!Sylus, sub!Sylus, I think that mindset is reductive, especially because even with the shit-tastic translation Infold has inflicted on us, they’ve managed to create an incredibly nuanced character who feels real enough to be human. Reducing him to dom, sub, or switch misses so much of his personality and how much he clearly loves and is obsessively devoted to MC and what MC wants.

 Finally, I think every time we’re discussing fictional characters, it’s important to remember who is writing them, and why. Infold is here to make money. They created LIs with a spectrum of traits to appeal to the widest subset of their targeted demographics. As a result, they’ve given the LIs, at least to some extent, both dominant and submissive characteristics, to appeal to the greatest number of players.

We have memories with Sylus and dialogue that indicate he’s dominant: “I prefer to be the one to take the initiative” when you tap his dick too many times in destiny cafe, his outfit descriptions about him getting a thrill of being a predator on the hunt, of dominating his prey. But we also have the no defense zone where he’s in a submissive position, even if people argue that he’s topping from the bottom in that card. Multiple times throughout the game, he lets you do what you want to him, and then says “are you satisfied? Now it’s my turn,” which points to him being a switch. Like, Infold covered all of their bases not only with Sylus, but all of the LIs to some degree.

Ok, with that context, and using the sort of vernacular that makes concepts easily recognizable even if I hate the labels: I think Sylus is a switch. He is first and foremost a hedonist—he is comfortable in his body, he prefers the finest food, drink, atmosphere, clothing, he wants to be entertained, he is constantly fighting boredom and the ennui of cynical disillusionment with the worst of humanity and being the apex predator. He loves pleasure. It doesn’t matter what form that pleasure takes. And he wants pleasure with MC in particular, because he is written by Infold as that devoted—he has a line in the destiny cafe about no one else touching him so intimately before. He’s willing to learn everything about your tastes, and then use what you teach him to pleasure you and himself. On multiple occasions he says “Oh, I suck at this? Then teach me.” So even if initially he’s shit in bed, he’ll only make a mistake once and then blow your mind on his next attempt. Sylus wants to fuck you the way you want him to fuck you. So if you want to peg him, "well sweetie, I have a prostate for a reason." You want him to choke you with a tie and fuck you like an animal, he’s down. He’s so self-assured and interested in what you want and giving both himself and you pleasure that he doesn’t believe in the “dominant = most powerful, most masculine, having the upper hand, winning” perspective that so many writers in this fandom seem to assign to the term dominant. Conversely, being submissive, or the recipient of penetration, or letting the other take control isn’t a weakness in his eyes. He “submits” because it pleases you, because he enjoys being at your mercy, he’s thrilled to have someone he trusts enough to have power over him, and that someone is you. He trusts you to make him feel fucking good, and if you can do that by putting him on his knees, who is he to say no? If on the other hand, you submit to him, he thinks you’re the most fearless, strongest badass there is for letting a literal killer who everyone else on the planet fears put you in a vulnerable position. The connotations of dominant = strong, superior and submissive = weak, inferior, losing just do not compute for him. I don’t think he’d just think of you as cute for wanting to dominate him. I think he’d think you’re magnificent for daring to try, he'd be incredibly curious how you intend to do it, and then if you truly are a dominant powerhouse, he’d happily drown in the pleasure you give him.

Now, again, this all assumes that you, yourself, are into dom/sub dynamics. Which so many people simply aren’t. And I think if you just love him, and want to have sex with him because you’re attracted to him and want to share that intimacy with him, or you don’t believe that every single sexual encounter has to contain the rigid dom/sub binary or hierarchy of positions, that you experience attraction and sex as two people on equal footing sharing a life and a bed, he’d happily fuck you in missionary for the rest of his life, luxuriating in being able to watch your expressions, of looking into your eyes, of leaning down to breathe in the scent of your neck, and just loving you until you both come and then have a snack and watch something stupid on tv.

Lastly, I do believe that there are some things Sylus wouldn’t be into, no matter how sexually adventurous he is. I don’t think he’d be into degradation, at least towards you: he is not going to call you cruel names, because you’re the person he cherishes the most in the world. I think he’d just straight-forwardly tell you, “Beloved, that doesn’t do anything for me. If you really want me to, I can try,” but you’d know his heart just isn’t in it. He isn’t going to physically hurt you, either in a pain play way or just being too eager to fuck you to properly prep you. Edit: just look at the way this man handles his gun during quality time. He's not going to treat your body with less sensual respect that that fucking gun. If sex hurts for you, he’d feel like he’s doing it wrong, and he’d slow down or try a different approach until it doesn’t hurt, or he’d tell you he isn’t interested in whatever pain you’re asking for just like with the degrading language. If you’re into degradation, with him being the receiver, I can see him being into that because he seems to be so amused by you when you’re mean to him, but even then, there are so many times in game where he says stuff like, “you talk to that person so nicely, why aren’t you that nice to me” or how happy he gets when you do start doing kind things for him, or saying kind things. I think he lives for your praise much more than anything else, but whether you’re calling him names or calling him beloved, both are good, because you’re right there, finally, looking at him, loving him, and he can finally breathe again after so long without you.

And as for how I’m writing him in the current fic: I’m writing him with all of the foregoing in mind, and will be highlighting what kind of lover I think he is for this particular MC. I could just as easily write him being a very different lover, but still in-character, for an MC who is not so damaged and has a much more dominant personality in the bedroom (as opposed to current MC who is pretty much only dominant when killing and withdrawn/timid outside the battlefield, and who enjoys the soft, kindness-driven taking-the-lead loving that Sylus is capable of displaying).

Thank you for coming to my ted talk. And thank you for the interesting ask! Even if I disagree with your or anyone else’s take on him, at the end of the day we all love this character, and what you want or need from him is valid, even if it’s not to my taste or in line with how I view him.

[kotaerukoto]

I just want to say thank you to everyone who is or has interacted with Makoto in times or verses where he hasn't experienced The Horrors. I've been thinking of how irrevocably different things can get for him once things go south and MAN. There's just something about characters whose trauma happens during the story itself instead of being part of the backstory that hits different for me

edit: i love writing him going through The Horrors don't get me wrong I just also like it when he gets a break

[shrimpchipsss]

read Living With a Tiger by x_los !

[paingoes]

ohmygodohmygodohhmygod

thank you so much for letting me ramble im literally gonna go through point by point

ooo this was not an intentional reference to the castle exactly, but it is the same point about the weapons being seen as expendable :D its also meant to foreshadow paris’s (and to an extent, delta’s) concern about lorelai. cause lorelai is out there actually fighting.

yesyesyes. paris has insane anger issues but particularly like. an uncontrollable violence trigger. this is what makes him defective. the living weapon training took too well (re: he’s extremely traumatized from it and cant control his triggers.) and lol paris also wishes johanna didnt heal so fast. 

in the same vein paris genuinely isnt trying to be disobedient here. he only snapped when jo insulted delta, not when she said anything about him personally. he’s legitimately trying to follow his programming but hes overreacting to a non-threat because his programming is fucking busted and makes him hypervigilant

yeah delta was pissed off here. paris just embarrassed him really bad and he wanted him to feel helpless for a second to make up for it. just a second :)

hehe yes !!! rug pull!!! i bet when i said roleswap au you would expect paris to be defiant as a whumpee but he….really isnt. more on this later.

delta only ever kills martino with his bare hands, out of absolute necessity. but yeah he’s a very traditional royal in this. he doesnt like violence and sees it as beneath him. 

yeah :) deltas a very calm and unflappable person. he just had to be in the canon, but i think that kind of stoicism really comes to him naturally. if anything, he’s more emotional with paris than most people, which is what we see here. hes even more collected and impenetrable around other people.

yessss delta gets to keep his friends <3 i like imagining higher class kitty and apollo in comparison to the normal rebel ones. i think kitty is a bit colder, but apollo maintains a lot of his warmth. i also thought it was crazy to write a apollo and paris interaction lol bet u didnt see that coming…

yes paris’s own perceived uselessness absolutely fucking destroys him. this is the “more on that later” i was talking about. it makes sense to assume that paris would be defiant cause his fucking attitude and anger issues are so bad in the canon that you assume it would carry over. and it does! but arguably the more integral paris trait, over his anger issues, is his complete seriousness about his role and the way he gives absolutely everything to it. incredibly important paris trait is that if you give him a job, he is going to take it incredibly seriously and will absolutely torture himself if he feels that hes not doing a good enough job at it. and thats really whats happening here. deltas parents bought him after an assassination attempt — and there have been no assassination attempts since. nothing has even come close. delta protected himself the first time. delta does not fucking need him. the king is talking about what a waste of money he was. paris has such a dire need to feel useful and hes given absolutely zero opportunities to do so here. thats the real torture. 

paris’s vanity is a remnant from canon. poor little prince 💔

oh yeah. delta is INCREDIBLY patient with paris here. part of this is because delta is honestly just a more patient person. but its also because this setting is a lot more relaxed than canon. things are very low stakes. paris is more of a threat to himself than anybody else — and he’s putting his own life on the line when he acts out like this. i tried to write delta to be very fair in this AU in that i think he’s acting very reasonably from his perspective. but ultimately what he’s punishing paris for is displaying PTSD symptoms. so thats the push and pull.

see above. he’s not doing it on purpose.

there’s been literally nothing written about delta’s parents. canon paris says some incredibly mean things to him about delta getting sold to pay off a debt just to hurt his feelings, but its not true. neither of them have any idea what the deal was with deltas parents. delta assumes he was abandoned but i dont know if he even places that much stock into the idea so much as he’s (reasonably) very angsty and touchy about it. so he assumes and likes to indulge in the worst. but its not true. deltas parents loved him a lot and would have never ever wanted that for him. this will come up in rubies at some point but it will probably take a while.

yes delta’s name is delta because his name is delta in canon. ik it doesnt really make sense in this universe but i didnt want to give him another name haha. delta <3

okay yes i couldve explained this better. delta is a royal but this is also him leaning more into like the. spiritual side of his powers. when he gets dolled up in the canon its very often in a kind of religious garb. in this au his role as like. a vestal virgin or a sybil or whatever is more central. hes doing magic with his powers :) it leaves him very vulnerable while hes doing it though which is why hes scared and wants paris to guard.

yes! tbf i dont think paris would normally fight back, just because delta…doesnt hit very hard lol. but he already finds this situation so ridiculous and delta is such a mess at this point its like. “okay. knock it off.” this is more of a callback to the tundra fight than anything else.

yes :) nothing else to say to this but yes. i like aegean seas delta a lot. i imagine what he mumbled was just a curse or something along the lines of “you’re not even worth the effort”

Aegean Seas

Destroyer AU

long awaited roleswap AU. featuring royal delta and (defective!) living weapon paris

delta still has some psychic ability in this AU, but only a moderate amount. its nothing to write home about.

paris doesn’t have any powers, just an incredible capacity for violence. 

(Content: living weapon whumpee, royal whumper, carewhumper vibes, institutionalized slavery, blood, biting, choking, electrocution, choking, suggestive language, background lady whump, clowns, hidden injury, past abuse, past trauma, PTSD triggers, emotional whump, scars, body image issues, war mention, alcohol, non-con touching (nonsexual), conditioning, magical exhaustion, seizure, kinda fluffy?)

“You don’t have to look so upset about it.” Delta twirling the pearl earring around within the pierced fin. The golden bangles of his wrist clicked together lightly at the motion — and all the silver and sea-glass ornaments he wore jingled in time with the movement of the airship. He hadn’t been looking at Paris when he said it, and they were not the only ones in the cabin, but he understood it was meant for him.

“I’m not upset,” Paris said. At least, not as much as he could’ve been. 

Far below, the cerulean sea reflected the sun so that the water itself was blinding. Foam was gathering along the coast — a sure sign of rough waters. On the horizon, the embassy building jutted out from the cape.

~

The ship lowered itself in a hover just by the surface of the beach. Paris slid the exterior door open. He hopped the remaining few feet onto the sand right before the craft finally landed. By way of reflex, he extended one hand back to Delta, who took it without thanks as he stepped down.

The other members of the court soon followed, a handful of advisors and scribes sent to keep the time. With a home advantage, all support had been reduced to a skeleton crew. Paris shifted carefully in between them, eventually settling a few steps behind Delta and a bit off to the right, which he knew was the best sightline he’d get without drawing too much attention to himself.

The path up to the embassy was lined with basalt — and a pretty long walk uphill, considering how many of its visitors were geriatric. At the peak, he again pulled the entrance doors open, taking a cautious look in through the entryway. He felt the familiar weight of the blade tucked up into his sleeve, though he had no real expectation of using it. He held the door open for Delta alone, but deigned to let the rest of the congregation pass through in the same way. He stole a last glance out at the countryside before he pulled the door shut tight.

At the front, Delta’s eyes flitted up in the same clouded concentration he always fell into before the meetings. He refused to take notes, so dedicated to committing absolutely everything to memory. He played all the information back like rolls of film. He waved vaguely at the prompting of his advisors, but it was clear he was somewhere else. 

He only came to when they reached the center. It was a large room, polished, and most everything in it was the soft color of sandalwood. The painted monarch sat perched within the straight-backed chair. His own court spread out in a half-moon around him, all their papers all ready to go. Paris only caught a glimpse of them through the doorway, but the glimpse alone was enough to make him spiteful.

“Watch the entrance,” Delta whispered to him just before they passed through the entryway. Paris nodded and stepped off to the side of the door. 

Soon he was alone in the large hallway. The building was old and its halls were echoing, though not quite as bad as the castle. He leaned back against the wall, wishing he’d brought the cigarettes with him. He passed the butterfly knife idly in between his hands, having no better way to occupy the time. He’d gotten good enough at it that he didn’t even need to look while he did. His eyes still scanned the corridors in the way they’d been trained, sizing up each impotent official or underpaid clerk whose heels tapped down the linoleum tiles. There was no real threat. Nothing ever happened.

The jingling bells warned of her approach before she came into view. He sighed, slipped the knife back into hiding. Jo popped out from the doorway. She was quicker than he would’ve thought, skipping out a few paces before she even turned to see him. When she did, her painted face contorted into an express of unadulterated mirth. She giggled — and the bells of her hat jingled again as she flipped over to stand on her head.

“I was wondering where they were keeping you this time.” Her voice was raised in faux cheeriness. 

Paris watched her carefully — he couldn’t not. The rapid movements set all his nerves on edge. He was sure she knew that. He was sure it was why she did it. He didn’t answer.

She rolled over into a backbend and let her hands guide her up. When she was upright, she was not more than a few inches from his face. She was shorter than him, the difference exaggerated by the heels of his boots and the flatness of her stupid pointy shoes. She rose up on tiptoes to meet his eyes. He could see the glitter against her sclera. 

“No dogs in the house of law, eh?” She stretched one leg up over her head. Her movements continued so fluid and so completely uninfluenced by anything she was saying, as if they were completely different hemispheres of her brain.

“I heard that when the neophytes drop out, they give ‘em a new name and put ‘em out on the street. Painted silver! They spend the rest of their days doing tricks for spare change. Is that true?”

No one ever dropped out. He didn’t answer. She did a back walkover, her speech uninterrupted.

“Or I heard what they’re really doing now is selling all the new grads to Crimson’s West Front,” she paused for dramatic effect, “There’s a famine there, you know. They need new meat!”

She cackled. He stiffened slightly, because that part was probably true. Even if they weren’t getting eaten, a lot of the kids did get bought out for the war effort, and were given no arms when they arrived. They were getting pushed into the meat grinder, literally or figuratively.

She seemed disappointed with his lack of outward reaction. As she rolled onto the floor again, she laid there on her stomach for a second, kicking her legs back and forth.

“You don’t have to worry about that though. I bet he’s nice to you,” She grinned impishly, pushing herself up into another handstand. “I hear he’s nice to everyone.”

She erupted into a laughing fit at that. His eye twitched. He felt the weight of the blade in his sleeve. She looked over to see his expression and her smile widened. She cartwheeled towards him, again landing only inches apart from him.

“People on High Street got a name for him. What was it again? The something wonder? You’ve heard it before, right? You had to. You spend enough time with that whore to-“

He threw her into the ground before she could finish, the last synapse snapping within him. 

The sudden violence got a forced, clipped laugh from her. She did a back roll before he could strike again, sitting up on her knees before she swept one of his legs out. He dropped, but it didn’t slow him down. Nothing could have. He still drove his fist full force into her jaw, once, twice, about as many times as it would take to break it off. 

She didn’t let him get that far. Jo was stronger than she looked and just as quick as he was. She was not downed easily. When he pinned her, she slipped. When her nails reached up to scratch out his eyes, he bit down upon her fingers hard enough to break them. Her blood gushed into his mouth. It was familiar. He didn’t even stop to spit it out.

She elbowed him in the face at the same time she drove her knee up into his stomach — all sharp angles. It was hard enough to knock him off of her and onto his side. Blood poured from his nose. It splattered on the floor right beside her own. She crawled forward on her bloodied fingers, trying to get even. He forced himself back upwards, lunging at her again. He became vaguely aware of a commotion behind him.

“Stop,” Delta said tiredly.

Paris did not stop. No fucking chance. Not now. She was still moving, still breathing, still fucking laughing. His hands closed around the undulations of her throat. 

“Stop,” Delta repeated.

Blood dripped thick and hot from the both of them. Johanna twisted beneath him, her eyes shining like stars. He wanted them barren. He wanted her to stop moving.

“Stop,” Delta said it with no more emphasis than the first two times, but he’d closed the distance between them now. The prongs of the choke collar dug into Paris’s neck, cutting off his oxygen. 

He backed up on his knees, leaning backwards into the touch, the only way he could loosen the chain. But for all the slack the proximity created, Delta only pulled it higher, tighter. No air reached him, even when he’d stopped, even when he had stilled. It kept going. The panic gripped him immediately, tempered only by experienced. Delta wouldn’t kill him. He wouldn’t, he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t, and as soon as he started to think that he would, the chain released. Paris gasped shakily, collapsed down onto his hands and knees. One hand pawed desperately at his throat. Small beads of blood had formed there in the collar’s outline.

He felt the pressure of the chain being picked up and winced, but it did not tighten again.

“Sorry about him.” Delta frowned. “And…sorry about your…clown.”

“Oh, don’t worry about her. She’s had worse.”

And sure enough, Jo sat up again, the wounds he’d given her already half-healed. Her stupid fucking hat jingled as she shook her head clear. The sound was enough to re-trigger the prey drive. He lunged.

Sharp and course electricity ran straight through his body, aborting the attack before it could even begin. All his muscles locked up. He’d built up a tolerance for the dryer sparks, but being tased was rare. It was a different story. He knew the shock only lasted a few seconds, but those seconds dragged out like years. Delta didn’t even say anything, the tips of his fingers retreating from the raw skin of his neck. 

“Here girl,” the monarch snapped their fingers. 

The clown stood up in her wet clothes, skipping happily back into the employ. Paris kept his eyes trained on the empty space in front of him, the blood spots on the floor. He heard their footsteps retreating. The hallway was silent. One of Delta’s fingers was still hooked around the circle of his collar.

“Clean it up,” he said. Paris nodded. The chain went slack and he was alone in the hall once again.

~

“She started it-“

“She is a jester,” Delta cut him off. “She was doing her job. If she didn’t have that healing factor, you would have killed her.”

His eye twitched. Killed her. Kill her. It flared up within him again, without any target. He dug his nails into his wrist to keep from something worse. The anger burning so hot inside of him he thought he might just be sick from it. She’d done it on purpose. She’d got him on purpose, but it shouldn’t have worked. 

“You weren’t there,” he said, the ache of defensiveness rising in his voice. “You don’t know what she was doing.”

“Did she draw on you?” Delta asked, sounding bored. He already knew the answer.

Paris’s face flushed anyway. He gave no reply.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Some small satisfaction crept into his voice, then faded quickly into irritation. “You didn’t have any impetus. Nobody was in any danger until you snapped. And now they know that if they so much as wave a flag in front of you, you act like a rabid fucking animal.”

“I was defending you, you ungrateful fuck!” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. Delta looked up in shock.

“I’m sorry,” Paris amended quickly, retaining at least some sense of self-preservation. He covered his mouth with his hand in a a belated effort to silence himself. It wasn’t enough. He’d been on thin ice before, but that could not be tolerated. They both knew it.

“Why are you like this?” Delta asked. He didn’t say it as an insult. He asked like he really wanted to know.

That only made it worse.

~

The inner courtyard of the Aegean palace was dense with marble and wildflowers. He always thought the statues looked out of place among the foliage, the vines creeping up the legs of the gods as if they’d already been forgotten. The last of the day’s light was held up in the violet clouds. Beneath them, the walls were doused in the cool blue of dusk. The air was warm and wet.

Paris went without prompting, without needing to be forced. He pulled the shirt off of his back, shivering a bit as the scars that already laid there were exposed to the open air. He knelt down by the post. The guard shackled his wrists to the side of it. He rested his forehead against the wood, curling and uncurling his fingers. It made it more tolerable.

He heard the whip crack against the ground as the guard made practice shots. Delta sat off to the side, one elbow propped up against the aluminum garden table, watching without much interest. He’d never get his hands dirty doing it himself. He wouldn’t even know how. 

That idiot guard didn’t know much better. The first strike came down unpracticed, landing diagonally along his shoulder and against the old scars. He pressed his head further into the post, preferring the pressure he felt there to the hot pain that was forming along his back.

It only grew. It layered. It would’ve layered already, in just a single beating, but his body had years worth of them just waiting to be reignited. The whip dredged up the old pain easily. It didn’t split the skin, but he could remember when it had. The thought alone made him dizzy. The pain quickly became all he could focus on. It kept going.

“Please stop,” he said, beginning to get truly nervous now. It’d been going on too long and was pushing up against the bounds of what he could tolerate. His hands turned over anxiously in the solid iron of the manacles. He couldn’t have gotten out even if he tried.

Delta held a hand up. The whip temporarily ceased. He stood up from the table, electrifying the air as he got closer. 

He shouldn’t have said anything. 

“Hm?” Delta asked, leaning down a little, “Stop?”

He could tell that he was feeling vindictive. Delta’s voice took on that soft, too-patient tone it always had when he was furious. 

“Paris, when I told you to stop, what did you do?” he chided.

“…Kept doing it,” he muttered miserably into the post. He hated when he got like this.

“So you do understand.”

“It hurts.” He kept his voice soft, somewhat whiny. It was calculated, but he didn’t have to force it. It didhurt.

“It’s supposed to. I wouldn’t have to do this if you would just listen the first time. You don’t have anyone to blame for this but yourself.”

There was no making him understand. Delta had no concept of what hurt meant — of how much was too much. His own body was unblemished. He’d never bled for anything. 

For as long as he was standing there, the punishment couldn’t continue. They wouldn’t dare swing the whip when Delta was in line of it, god forbid. He took the break for what it was, a few needed seconds for him to catch his breath. Delta seemed to catch onto what he was doing, taking a few steps back. He turned back to the guard.

“Finish up. Gag him if he talks again. He knows better,” he instructed. 

He paced out of the courtyard, retreating back inside the castle walks. He never liked to see the aftermath, either.

~

Delta had been sixteen years old on the eve of his first and only assassination attempt. It had been a failure, in the sense that he had not died from it. It had also been a failure in the sense that the assailant had not even gotten close. 36,000 volts ran straight through his circulatory system before the knife could even fall.

Delta had been uninjured — and in the end, unshaken. The King and Queen were not. They had no other heir.

Paris came as a knee-jerk reaction, dredged up out of whatever trench they’d found him in. He could play nice, when he needed to. He knew exactly what was on the line.

He was passable. The King bought him alone and unannounced. He’d complain for years afterwards that he’d been ripped off.

Paris had glanced up when he was first made to kneel in the throne room. His first impression was that Delta looked awfully calm for someone who had just survived an assassination attempt.

Delta was unimpressed by it, and had been unimpressed by everything since.

~

Almost everything. Kitty glowed blue in the light of the lounge. It was Delta’s favorite room. in the palace. It had been even since he was little. The walls were all made of glass, with thousands of gallons of seawater lying just behind them. Whole shoals of fish reflected silver onto the dark floor. The sequins of Kitty’s slit dress had the same effect.

She was wearing a collar. He didn’t know why he found this so funny. He guessed it could be considered a choker, if he wanted to be generous, but with the ears and the tail, “collar” was the first word that came to mind.

Hers wouldn’t choke her. If he wanted her to, he’d have to do it himself.

She draped herself over the arm of his chair. Kitty was growing into herself so beautifully. Her eyes still lit up at the sight of the fish swimming, just the way they had when they were kids, and he knew she wanted nothing more than to break straight through the glass to get at them. But everything else about her now shone with such a honed sophistication. 

“You’re bleeding,” she said, her eyes widening with concern.

“What?” He blinked. He hadn’t meant to.

But sure enough, a thin stream of blood trickled from his nose just as soon as she got close to him. Delta blushed, a pale blue hue rising up beneath his freckles. It came as a betrayal.

“You’re so predictable.” She almost smiled, pressing a pink handkerchief to his face before the blood could drip onto the soft sheen of his clothes.

The air around him crackled so badly both their hair stood on end.

~

Apollo tread into the kitchen with the golden fringes of his clothing catching all the light. He dragged the kitchen chair out and fell lightly into the seat. He made a soft sound of surprise  as he found Paris leaning back against the edge of the counter. 

“You have to stay up as long as he does?” Apollo asked. He leaned forward against the marble table, rocking the chair from side to side.

“I’m not supposed to sleep at all,” Paris responded flatly, only half joking. It was a bad look for him to be sleeping while Delta was awake, in the same way it was a bad look for him to be sleeping in. That left a very small window for him to get any rest at all. 

Apollo grimaced in sympathy. He placed the empty glass down on the counter. Wordlessly, Paris took it to refill.

“Oh, I didn’t- Is that even your job?” Apollo asked, a blush rising to his face.

Paris shrugged, pouring the last of the bottle out into the glass. He slid it back across the table. 

“You should let me fix that for you,” Apollo offered.

Paris yanked his hand back as violently as if he’d been burned. He thought it was invisible. It hadn’t healed that wrong. It still worked. It wasn’t an impediment. He clutched it to his chest protectively, shielding his wrist with his other hand.

Apollo gave him a knowing look. He stirred the drink idly. The ice made a soft noise as it clattered against the edges of the glass.

“They didn’t splint that for you in training?” He tilted his head.

Paris looked down. He tentatively loosened the grip on his wrist. It’d just been a fall. He’d gotten knocked backwards and he’d needed to stop himself from cracking his skull onto the floor. He’d done it wrong. The wrist had taken the brunt of the impact. He kept it in a splint at night — and when he was alone — but he couldn’t ever wear it around the trainers. He made use with the bandages instead, prayed everyday that medical didn’t come see him. In time, the bones had stitched themselves back together. Not enough, apparently.

Apollo was still staring at him.

“…It’s disqualifying,” he said softly.

“Ah,” Apollo leaned his elbow on the counter. He pressed one finger up against his lips. “Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.”

Paris looked at him gratefully. Apollo took another sip of the drink, seeming to study the swirling patterns of the table’s surface. After a while, he added:

“He wouldn’t mind, though.”

Paris frowned. He didn’t think so either. That wasn’t the point. He couldn’t have his wrist be unusable for a full six weeks. He could not stand to be any more unusable than he already was.

He couldn’t bring himself to say it. He never would. The silence endured. Apollo shrugged, taking the drink back with him as he ducked out of the bright kitchen. Paris drew the sleeve of his shirt all the way past his fingertips.

~

ponyboy: heyyyyy

headrooms: holy shit

headrooms: i thought you fucking died

ponyboy: nope :-)

ponyboy: just busy yk how it is

headrooms: fuck

headrooms: dont scare me like that

ponyboy: sorryyyyy

ponyboy: how have you been

headrooms: im chill

headrooms: i got beat up by a jester last week

ponyboy: lmfao

ponyboy: dude shut up your job is cushy as shit

ponyboy: you wanna know what they had me doing last week????

headrooms: uphill both ways in the snow

ponyboy: i was pushing whole barrels full of petroleum and poison uphill in the coldest day of winter. they didnt even give me gloves until my fingers were already falling off!!!

ponyboy: hey fuck you

headrooms: lol

headrooms: are you good though like actually 

ponyboy: ya i mean

ponyboy: its definitely heating up here but we’re still holding a good position 

ponyboy: they kinda treat me like shit but they also dont want to lose me so im not being sent for the real suicide missions yet <3

headrooms: thats good i guess

headrooms: is vi chill

ponyboy: omg no shes been on her fuckin period lately 

ponyboy: bitch mode

headrooms: lmfao mine too

headrooms: i swear its the full moon

ponyboy: IT LITERALLY IS IDK WHAT HER PROBLEM IS

ponyboy: ughhhhhh

headrooms: i miss you

headrooms: like

headrooms: all the time

ponyboy: i miss you too !

ponyboy: ill let you know if im ever in your corner of the galaxy! i want to see you again so badly <3

Paris winced. If her people ever ended up in his corner of the galaxy, that was a bad, bad sign. Selfishly, he wished for it anyway.

He heard footsteps approaching and quickly slid the phone back into his pocket. He was not quick enough to get rid of the cigarette. Delta paced out onto the balcony in a whirlwind. Little bouts of lighting lit up by his eyes.

He plucked the cigarette straight out of his mouth. His other hand smacked hard against the side of Paris’s skull. 

“Ow,” Paris winced, though it didn’t really hurt. Because he wanted Delta to feel bad. Or because he knew he wanted to hear it. Whichever it was that day. Whichever worked.

“Those are my fucking lungs,” he hissed. The guilt trip hadn’t worked. Paris shrugged.

“Sorry.”

The apology worked better. Delta’s body language relaxed some as he snubbed the cigarette out on the palace wall. He didn’t ask for the rest of the pack. Smoking was fair game, really. It was getting caught doing it that was the issue. 

“Who were you texting?” he asked mildly.

He hadn’t hid the phone quick enough. He tried to play it off.

“Just Lorry.” He looked down. 

“Oh.” Delta’s expression seemed to soften, almost imperceptibly. “Is she okay?”

“Yeah,” he answered automatically. His heart quickened right after. “…Why? Did you-“

“No,” Delta cut off that train of thought before it could really begin. “No news. I was just wondering.”

“She’s fine, then,” he confirmed. As much as she could be.

It was only then that Delta actually looked guilty. He didn’t have to. It wasn’t his fault. Lorelai had been purchased months before Paris had. It was a miracle he was even allowed to stay in touch with her. He knew most of the program’s graduates weren’t half as lucky.

He still wanted the cigarette. He leaned back against the wall, unsure what to do with his hands or his mouth when it was gone. Delta didn’t leave after that, the way he’d expected him to. He pulled himself up onto the railing with a kind of stupid abandon.

The air carried the scent of salt from over the ocean. Down on the beach, two kids flew a white kite right above the waves, blissfully unaware of the peacetime’s fragility.

~

“Keep?” Paris asked, holding up the alligator skin boots. They’d been dyed a shade of ruby red.

“Absolutely not.” Delta shook his head frantically, “Toss. Don’t even tell anyone I had those.”

“I thought they were nice,” Paris muttered. 

He tossed them into the trash pile anyway. He crossed back over the length of the massive closet, pulling another bag off the shelf. This was absolutely, definitely not his job. But it wasn’t like he had anything better to do. He liked anything that did not make him feel like a total waste of space.

His knees hit the ground before he really knew what he was doing. It was a better instinct, though, probably the least harmful out of all the ones he could not control. Delta looked up in surprise, only realizing what had just happened as the King stepped in through the doorway. Delta’s attention recentered on his father. They both acted as like he wasn’t even there.

“Don’t you have a dispatch to be filling out?” Ulysses leaned against the doorway, surprisingly casual in the company of his only son. It was a reprimand, but his tone was still playful.

“I’m fuckin’ working on it, jeez,” Delta snapped. 

“Doesn’t look like it,” the King glanced around the room. Paris flinched a bit as his gaze passed over him, but it didn’t linger long.

“Oh!” The queen Andromeda appeared in the entrance before Delta could even respond, looking excitedly at the gown Delta held in one hand. “I’ve always loved that dress! You never wear it!” 

“Oh my god,” Delta said, “Can you leave me alone.”

She rushed forward anyway, squishing his face with one hand as she kissed his cheek.

“Mom!” He blushed terribly.

She smiled, knowing exactly how much she was embarrassing him. He shoved her lightly back towards the door and shut it quickly before either of them could protest. He slammed his head against it once it was closed.

“You can get up,” Delta rolled his eyes. Paris did, rigidly so, in the same mechanical way as when he’d gone down. He blinked a few times, trying to bring himself back to the present.

“They’re so fucking annoying,” Delta muttered to no one in particular, wiping his face off.

“Your parents are nice,” Paris protested weakly in their defense.

“He beat you with a 2x4,” Delta reminded him.

Paris shrugged. The King could’ve done much worse. He’d snapped at Delta that time — not on purpose. Never on purpose. It was only the nerves firing wrong, the signals getting twisted. He couldn’t help it. But it’d been grounds for immediate termination. Paris got off easy, and had moved on from it fairly quickly. Delta still held a grudge against his father for it. 

“Keep?” Delta asked this time, desperate to change the subject. Paris guessed he was glad, too. Something in him ached awfully whenever they were around.

“Keep,” he affirmed.

~

It was awful. They had to hold court later, had to hold it in ten fucking minutes, and his heart felt like it was about to explode if he didn’t kill something. He paced uncontrollably, snapping at the air no matter how hard he tried to stop it. Delta watched idly from the throne. Not angry. Just visibly unpleased with it all.

“Come here,” he called finally. 

Paris flinched. It was not a request. He tried anyway.

“I don’t…want you to…” he protested weakly.

“I didn’t ask if you wanted it.”

Paris reluctantly approached, kneeling beside the throne. Delta tilted his head, the tiara slipping down a bit as he did so. A soft blush rose to Paris’s face. He pulled his shirt off, then lowered further onto the floor, laying down flat on his stomach. He rested his head against his arm, burying his face. He heard Delta rising up from the throne and settling cross-legged onto the floor beside him.

Delta made that same soft, dissatisfied noise he always did when he saw the old whip scars all along his back. Not his work. The lashes he gave didn’t leave a mark. He didn’t like it when they did. Paris winced.

They were ugly. Paris knew that if the King had caught a single look at the lattice, he’d have never been bought in the first place. Because it was defacement. Because they were ugly. The thought echoed in Paris’s brain every time he caught a glimpse. It was pure vanity. He was a weapon, he knew it didn’t matter, he shouldn’t have even cared about that kind of thing. But he did. He hated them. 

“So tense,” Delta murmured from above him. His hands kneaded into the ridges along Paris’s spine – that strange, analgesic touch. Paris could feel his muscles softening involuntarily, the tension in them forcefully removed.

The urchin spine slid into the center of his shoulder blades. He bit his arm to keep from gasping.

It wasn’t the toxin alone that did it. He knew that because he’d pricked himself with it once, just out of curiosity, and he had felt almost nothing at all. It was the way he used it. 

He didn’t always hate it; sometimes it was almost nice. It was nicer when they did it alone, when he wasn’t forced to take it, exposed on the floor of the throne room. It was viscerally unpleasant to experience against his will. He did not like Delta having that much control over his body. He didn’t want to calm down.

The spine entered again, and he calmed anyway.

It went on like that until all the rigid tension seeped out through his skin like poison, then a while afterwards too. It was gentle, despite everything. He could’ve cried.

“Better?” 

He nodded, though he really just felt hazy. He didn’t think he could even hold a sword anymore. The calm felt intrusive. He was sure he couldn’t move at all, almost limp in the aftermath. He didn’t need to, though. Delta pulled him up a little, trying to straighten him out. He found his position again, on his knees. 

He pulled the shirt back on, roughly. His arms had gone numb; it took so much more effort than it had to take off. He shifted, readjusting so that he was facing the rest of the room this time. It took so much effort just to sit upright then. He felt high.

“Good boy,” Delta said, about a half second before the doors opened. He was only saying it to be mean, but in the moment, Paris couldn’t bring himself to care.

~

Delta yanked his hand away from his face just before Paris could snap it off. Paris hissed in frustration, falling abruptly to the ground. He pounded his fists against the tile. It was all he could do to not fucking kill him. 

“Why the fuck would you do that?” He hissed out through gritted teeth. It was wrong. He was making it worse for himself. He had no fucking right to be talking to him like that. 

He couldn’t help it. He felt like he was going to scream.

Delta watched impassively.

“It’s getting worse,” Delta said. There was real concern in his voice. 

Paris pressed his forehead to the ground, curling up. Anything else. 

“I know it’s getting worse,” he growled.

Delta started to bend down, which was the worst thing he could’ve done.

“Get away,” Paris warned. For fucking once, Delta actually listened, taking a few cautious steps back.

It took ten whole minutes for him to get back to a state where the prey drive wasn’t waiting two inches beneath the surface. He sat up wearily. Exhausted. Fucking embarrassed.

Delta’s eyes were wide, but then, they always were. The rest of his expression revealed nothing at all.

“You need to figure that out,” he announced quietly.

“I’m not doing it on purpose.” Paris buried his face in his hands. “You know I’m not doing it on purpose.”

“That isn’t going to matter to them and you know it.” His voice was soft. Almost sympathetic. “And don’t talk to me like that,” he added, almost as an afterthought.

“Delta…” Paris whined into his hands. It was an undisguised plea. As if the way he was talking was what mattered right now.

“I’m serious. Don’t.” The plea went unanswered. If anything, his voice hardened. Paris watched with some small horror as all the patience seemed to bleed out of him. As if he could afford to lose a single ally.

“Sorry,” he muttered. 

“Figure it out,” Delta said with such sincere urgency that it seemed like now was his turn to beg. He stormed off, unwilling to let anyone else get the last word in.

Paris picked himself up off the ground and put his fist through the nearest wall.

~

No matter what happened that day, he still came crying in the night like a little kid. 

Paris flinched a bit as he was awoken, but not for very long. He guessed he should’ve been used to it by now. Delta stood over him, tugging at his sleeve impatiently, wordless. His eyes shone like beacons in the darkness of the bedroom. His hair was down. He looked so young when he was like this. His look was all pleading.

Paris sighed, letting himself be roused from the bed. He just barely had time to grab the sword before he was dragged out into the hallway. He followed Delta all the way up the stairs, all the way up to his bedroom. He could hear the water trickling well before he entered.

His parents really did spoil him. Delta’s room was probably the most expensive part of the entire palace. Water rushed down from the ceiling in an artificial waterfall, landing into the koi pond that took up a whole quarter of the room. All the rest of the room was crystalline, opalescent. Absolutely cluttered with anything that would shine.

Paris didn’t roll his eyes at the giant seashell that held Delta’s mattress. He’d seen it enough times that it had lost its novelty. He didn’t expect anything less.

“Watch the door,” he begged.

Paris nodded. He knew the drill. He sat down on the floor by Delta’s bed while the sheathed sword rested in his lap. He wouldn’t need it. He knew he wouldn’t need it. Delta was just scared.

Delta crawled up into the bed, arranging himself carefully for the meditation. The low drone of electricity began to fill the room. Channeling again. All the stars had aligned for it.

“παρακαλῶ,” Delta muttered beneath his breath. “παρακαλῶ, παρακαλῶ, παρακαλῶ…”

The incantation began shortly after that. The hair on the back of Paris’s neck stood up. He kept his eyes on the door. He didn’t like to watch.

He’d learned to tune out the rambling, for the most past. He knew Delta didn’t like it when people overheard — and he only let Paris do it out of necessity. It was fine. He didn’t understand any of the Greek. It was only the rapid, manic way he spoke that really scared him. Hushed and quick and ancient. It felt right to avert his eyes for it. It was something he had no business witnessing.

His eye twitched a little bit as he realized just how loud the incantation was growing behind him. The room was getting brighter. He got the awful feeling he always did when he felt lightning was about to strike. It was getting bad this time. It was getting worse than he could ever remember it being.

He turned around.

It was about as bad as he imagined. The light burned and radiated off of him, bright enough to be blinding. Delta was definitely seizing beneath it all. His eyes were shut tight like the power was painful. His hands clutched at the blanket. Paris realized with horror that the bedding was turning blue from all the blood that then dripped from his mouth and his eyes. 

“Fuck,” Paris muttered beneath his breath. 

He should have known better than to wake a sleepwalker.

He regretted it as soon as he touched him. For a minute, he thought he’d really gone blind. The pain exploded in his arm as he was thrown back against the wall. His own body seized with the residual electricity. He gasped, crumbling down into a heap onto the soft floor.

“What the fuck did you do?” Delta coughed up blood onto the floor. Blood or tears poured from his eyes. In all likelihood, it was both. He wiped at them idly, not seeming to be in any particular hurry. It wasn’t like he’d be able to get all of it off with his hands.

He stumbled up from the bed — and immediately fell onto the floor. He crawled the rest of the way over to the koi pond, scooping the water up with his hands to remove the rest of the blood. 

“Why the fuck did you do that?” he repeated, even angrier now.

“You were seizing.” Paris gasped. His arm hurt badly enough that he thought it might be broken. He couldn’t tell. He was still mostly blind.

“I told you not to interrupt,” Delta pressed his forehead onto the stone. He couldn’t even stand.

“You’re pushing it too far,” Paris said. It was all he said. It was all he needed to.

“Shut up,” Delta warned.

“You’re pushing it too far,” he repeated, sing-song.

“Shut the fuck up!” Delta stood up again. Paris knew he meant to hit him, meant to fight him, and suddenly that was what was happening. 

“Oh god damn it, you fucking moron.” Paris blocked his fists with his arms. It hurt a little bit, but not nearly enough to incapacitate. He pushed Delta off with zero effort, which only seemed to piss him off more.

Delta growled, stumbling to his feet. He marched over to the bedside table, pulled out what Paris recognized belatedly as a fucking muzzle.

“Wait.” He tensed up, still not having risen off the floor. “Wait, wait, wait, chill-“

Delta fell messily to his knees, trying to secure it onto him. This time, Paris actually did fight. He caught his wrists. He hated that thing so much. It was the middle of the fucking night, he’d never be able to sleep with it on. He didn’t deserve it. He’d been trying to help.

“Stop,” he pleaded while he still had the ability to. “Come on. Stop. Please.”

Delta sighed in defeat. He dropped the muzzle to the floor — and let himself fall to it a few seconds later. He mumbled something in Greek.

“I’m tired,” he muttered into the carpet. His mouth was still bleeding.

Paris stood up, with a lot of effort, but he was still in better shape that Delta was. He picked him up with his uninjured arm. It wasn’t difficult. Delta was light. He wouldn’t have won the fight he’d tried to start. Paris pushed him back onto the bed, letting him collapse there.

“On your side,” Paris reminded him. Delta readjusted onto his side so that the blood wouldn’t asphyxiate him.

“Fucking goodnight, I guess,” Paris muttered, picking his sword back up from the ground. He picked the muzzle up too, placing it back in the drawer. Should’ve just thrown the damn thing out.

“Stay?” Delta asked.

“Yeah, think I’m good on that.” Paris started to walk out the door. 

“Stay.” It was an entreaty, now. Paris groaned. He walked back, collapsing onto the other side of the bed.

“Not all night. You cry in your sleep. I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you this.”

“So do you,” Delta muttered in reply, already half-asleep.

Paris shrugged. The waterfall was quiet and reassuring. He could stay for that, if nothing else. 

~~~

@catnykit @snakebites-and-ink @scoundrelwithboba @whatwhump

@pumpkin-spice-whump @deluxewhump @fuckass1000 @fuckcapitalismasshole @defire

@micechomper @writereleaserepeat @aloafofbreadwithanxiety @floral-comet-whump @littlebookworm69

@lordcatwich @human-123-person @paperprinxe @whomeidontknowthem @chiswhumpcorner

@bacillusinfection @ichortwine @whump-queen @lumpywhump

@jumpywhumpywriter @sir-fenris @a-formless-whumper

[coern-art-very-cool-and-nice]

sekai au 👊😔

[medi-bee]

These are the guys who have total martial control over the center of the galaxy? are you sure?

[possamble]

realizing im kind of a weirdo about laios and marcille

[twilit-tragedy]

Shoutout to the MDZS donghua for giving Wangxian their secluded home in the middle of nowhere, with a donkey and two bunnies. You dropped this, king 👑