#for reasons that are too convoluted to detail in the tags

[solarwreathe]

height chart in progress (lonk for scale)

my other drawings of these two misleadingly paint twigs as a short king, my man is just doomed to always be standing next to gary barlow's massive daughter.

[evilwickedme]

hey it’s me from the Batman posts! (the one that left the tags abt wanting to get into Batman but having no clue where to start)

If its not too much trouble, I’d love any advice on where to start with Batman or Batfam(?) stuff, I saw someone suggest reading the Batman: Wayne Family Adventures thing on webtoon as an intro to the characters so I’ve been doing that, but I’ve got no clue about any of the official comics or shows/movies/etc. I’ve never read a comic series before so everything is super new to me.

I know different series(?)/versions(?) can be wildly different bc of different writers and stuff, I definitely trust your taste on what would be good / enjoyable bc the posts you’ve been reblogging are like 90% of whats gotten me interested in the first place

Thank you, and absolutely no rush!!

Hey I am legit SO happy that you sent me this ask this is literally my favorite thing to do!!!!

So to start with I do actually agree that wfa is a good starting point but for a different reason than I feel most people would recommend it. The thing about wfa is that it has a consistent design for every character, is humorous, touches not only on the main batfamily members but also many extended members, other noteworthy people in Gotham, and the batfamily's cast of friends and teammates as well. This means that while its approach to characterization is incredibly fanon-y, it's a good basis for how to continue. You read wfa, and you know that Dick is the first robin, wears ridiculous costumes, was batman for a bit, is nightwing, part of the teen titans... this isn't a lot, but it's just enough to orient yourself before jumping into some of the most convoluted art ever created, aka the comic world.

Another tip I'm gonna give you is to let yourself be confused. I think the people who end up sticking with comics are people who are aware that if they pick up a comic it's very likely the writers and artists have read and worked on comics that you haven't read yet or even heard of, so you're always going to be missing something. That's fine. If something is really important to the plot, it gets explained; if it's not, it's windowdressing. Often there'll be little boxes saying what comic and issue they're referencing, so if you find it interesting you can just go read it - otherwise, if it's not there, you can google it, or go to any comic fan and ask "hey do you know what this is about?" and if they know, they will answer. There is nothing a comic fan wants more than to explain how to get into their favorite character/s, trust me.

Anyway this has been a very wordy intro but here are some potential starting points for the batfamily!

Bruce Wayne

You know who he is. Pick up an issue of Batman or Detective Comics and he's there. Pick up an issue of any other DC comic and there's like a 30% chance he's there too.

Batman: The Long Halloween

Noir style, investigative, early in batman's career, two face's origin story

It has a sequel-ish story called Batman: Dark Victory that's almost as good

Batman: Hush

Batman: Year One

Frankly there's not going to be much information in this comic you don't already know, but also, it's a classic, so might as well

Batman: A Death in the Family & Batman: A Lonely Place of Dying (crossover with the new teen titans)

First story is Jason's death, second is Tim's introduction and arguably the start of the batfamily being a family

Tim drags Dick back into the fray in ALPOD. It's just sort of the kind of thing he does

Do NOT confuse A Death in the Family with Death OF the Family, which is a much newer story, and Not Good

Batman: Under the Red Hood

Jason's villain arc! More details below

Batman himself isn't actually my favorite but you know he's got some decent stuff since he's, uh, the main character. DC doesn't have a multiverse the way Marvel does - and getting into that would be a whole separate ask - but their elseworlds are stories about the characters in different situations. Some ones I've heard good things about include Gotham by Gaslight, Dark Knights of Steel, Batman: Last Knight on Earth, and I keep meaning to get into Batman: White Knight, which is a whole other universe on its own. I've been trying to get into more modern batman stuff and unfortunately I just haven't clicked with anything.

Dick Grayson

Guy has been in a lot of things. If you read a random Batman comics from before 1980, there's a good chance he'll be there.

Teen Titans and The New Teen Titans and Titans (1980s-2000s)

I haven't read enough of these to say much of anything, but he's a founding member of the TT

Nightwing

His post-Robin superhero identity. At first only present in NTT and occasional Batman comics, but eventually he gets his own miniseries in the early 90s, followed by an ongoing. Recently-ish started reading them and they're angsty and very 90s in a lot of ways but I'm enjoying it

Modern Nightwing titles also exist. For sure.

Batman & Robin by Morrison

In one of DC's ten million crises, Bruce "dies", and after a short story called Battle for the Cowl, Dick ends up becoming Batman. Damian is his Robin. It's an interesting time for batman comics, although not necessarily the best writing that Dick has ever gotten.

Batman: The Dark Mirror

Also a great story for the Gordons. Bruce is back from the dead, but Dick is still Batman in Gotham. This was my first even Batman comic and it's really good.

Obviously there's other stories, such as Grayson, where he becomes a super spy for a bit. There's a million and a half reading lists for Dick out there as he's a massively popular character and he's one of the characters DC is pushing the most right now. As with all the rest of these, these are good entry points; from there I trust you to find your way

Barbara Gordon

The original Batgirl, sort of (nobody really brings up bette kane unless they're pointing out that babs wasn't the original Batgirl, she's just not important). She appears sporadically in silver and bronze age batman comics and detective comics, but she quits being Batgirl shortly before being raped and shot in the spine by the joker in Batman: the Killing Joke, which I purposefully did not put on my rec list.

Birds of Prey

Babs-as-Oracle at her best.

Batman: The Dark Mirror

Babs' long lost brother comes back to town. It's fucked up.

I've been reliably told to stay away from her Batgirl runs - most people who are a fan of the character don't like that they retconned Oracle away and it's mostly not very well written. There's a comic called batgirls that lasted about a year that included her, and it's okay.

Jason Todd (my beloved)

MY MAN

Batman: Second Chances

Collected edition of Jason as Robin, so much fun. Extremely silly at times since it's the 80s.

Batman: A Death in the Family

For obvious reasons.

Then he's just sort of dead for 17 years. He shows up in heaven in a Green Arrow issue and is occasionally brought up or shown as a hallucination, but that's about it.

Batman: Under the Red Hood

There's a new crime lord in town and he's so smart and talented and hot omg I wonder who he is!!!!

The collected edition also comes with the annual that reveals how he came back to life

Task Force Z

This shouldn't be as good as it is.

Jason gets recruited to work with a team of undead villains

Jason gets called a hot a bunch of times, and is shirtless a lot. This doesn't matter but you know, like, yeah it does.

For Robin!Jason there's also Batman: The Cult - which I finally got my hands on recently but haven't read yet. For Red Hood!Jason there's lots of stuff, but most of it isn't very good or is actively bad. Most people will tell you to stay away from Red Hood and the Outlaws, and they're right, although the 2016 run is better. Most people will tell you to read Batman & Red Hood: Cheer, and they're wrong, it's ass.

Tim Drake

Frankly this boy has no flops. Or very close to it.

Batman: A Lonely Place of Dying

Tim figured out who Batman and Robin are at AGE NINE. Respect.

After this he appears in various Batman and detective comics issues, I haven't read any of these.

Robin

The first Robin to get his own ongoing! Like with Nightwing, it started with a miniseries (a few of them, actually) and got turned into a long running series from there. Lasted like 200 issues, too.

Tim FUCKS.

Not Steph's first appearance, but most of her appearances pre-2009 are in this series.

Young Justice 1998

It's insane in all the best ways. Cars have sex on panel. They play baseball to save the world on an alien planet. A power of friendship speech prevents the end of the world. In the first issue, a woman develops breasts so big she falls on her face.

This team eventually breaks apart and Tim along with 3 other teen heroes nicknamed the core four (Superboy, Impulse, & Wonder Girl II) become part of Teen Titans 2003, which I haven't read and is also a bit of a flop era fashion wise for everyone anyway. I do have the volume of TT03 where they meet the versions of themselves from the future and I plan on reading that soon-ish.

In the mid 2000s basically everyone Tim loves dies. Steph died in 2004 ish after a very short stint as Robin. Tim's mom dies, then his dad is murdered, and it's unclear what happened to his step mom, but she was in Bludhaven, which had an atomic bomb dropped on it. Impulse becomes kid flash becomes the flash becomes murdered, and superboy gets killed while saving the world. Steph does turn out to not be dead after all and Impulse and Superboy come back from the dead eventually but by God he's having a tough year BEFORE Bruce "dies".

Red Robin 2009

After Bruce "dies" and Dick becomes Batman, Dick makes Damian his Robin and nobody believes Tim that Bruce is still alive, so he steals the Red Robin costume and goes on a mission to save his dad!

Not a comic to read first because it's so uncharacteristic of Tim as a person, but definitely something to read as soon as possible, because it's ridiculously good.

After flashpoint/n52 Tim doesn't have his own ongoing for a while, but he does come out as bisexual in an early issue of Batman Urban Legends (2021) and he got his own ongoing called Tim Drake: Robin in 2022 which was ugly AF and yet cancelled far too soon. There's a Young Justice run from 2019 I haven't read yet.

Stephanie Brown

For her I would go to Google, bc I haven't gone down the rabbithole enough for her yet. I know her first appearance was in a batman comic where she became spoiler to spoil her dad's plans - her dad being a third rate villain called the cluemaster - and she almost kills him, so good for her. Afterwards she appears every once in a while in various comics, most notably in Robin, where she and Tim as Robin start dating despite him knowing her identity but not the other way around.

Robin 60s (I don't remember the exact issues)

Steph gives birth and gives her baby up for adoption

Robin 126-128

Steph becomes Robin when Tim quits for his still-alive-but-not-for-long dad.

War Games

Steph does a fucky wucky and accidentally starts a gang war which gets her killed

There's another Robin arc where she comes back and it turns out she was never dead, Leslie (the family doctor) simply faked her death and sent her to Africa to recover

Batgirl 2009

Her first and only solo ongoing, but it's really good

She also appears a lot in Cass's Batgirl ongoings, and occasionally shows up in yj98. Her most recent series in Batgirls, which isn't very good but her interactions with Cass are very gay, and we've all been shipping it for 20 years at this point, so frankly it's long overdue. Unlikely to become canon tho, unfortunately.

Cassandra Cain

She doesn't use a lot of words, so neither will I. Probably.

No Man's Land

Frankly I am terrified to read this, it's so many goddamn issues, but this is her first appearance. I have one "volume" and it's as big as the fucking Bible.

Batgirl 2000

She's the first Batgirl to get an ongoing. The one from 2008 I've been reliably told isn't very good. She's absolutely terrifying in the 2000 one, I approve.

Outsiders 2016

Supposed to also be good for Duke content. I think at this point she's going by Orphan? Idk she's had a lot of names.

Idk I prefer Black Bat

Spirit World

Mini series that recently ended. Soooooo good. Alyssa Wong is a top contender for favorite modern writer.

She's mostly a background character. Bc DC is both sexist AND racist. She was also in batgirls.

Damian Wayne

Frankly he's my least favorite of the batkids, but that's not his fault, he's been a victim of a lot of really racist writing.

Batman: Son of the Demon

Somehow both his origin AND an elseworlds that doesn't count. Not required reading, but Bruce and Talia are madly in love in this.

Batman by Grant Morrison

After UTRH and before Dick was forced to become Batman Morrison reintroduced Talia's son, who in this version was a rape baby bc apparently brutalia weren't in love and Talia drugged Bruce. Fucking fine, I guess.

His character growth during his time as robin is sweet tho.

Robin 2021

His only solo ongoing, pretty good

Super Sons

He had two team up comics with then fellow child Jon Kent, son of superman, and it was fucking adorable. Then they aged up Jon to 17, so they're still friends, but Jon has his own shit going on.

Duke Thomas

He's REALLY new, and I haven't read any of it, I'm sorry.

Robin War

Batman and the Signal - I finally got my hands on the first issue of this last week!

The Outsiders 2016

Frankly they should capitalize on the Duke & Cass friendship/siblingship more often.

Alfred Pennyworth

I haven't read it, but there's a series called Pennyworth about his days as a spy for the crown. Supposed to be pretty good.

Kate Kane

The Jewish lesbian batwoman of our dreams

Batwoman: Elegy

Her introduction

Also, it's written by Greg Rucka, and if he can do one thing, it's write sapphic women. I'm not even joking.

Get the newer edition that has both of her original Rucka stories

Batwoman ongoings

She's had a couple, they're both supposed to be pretty solid, I've only read a few issues here and there

Batman in other media

Animated: I'm currently watching Batman the Animated Series for the first time and it seems to really get Bruce as a character, even if Robin will be there one episode and his existence will be a plot hole in the next. The Justice League animated series has also been fun so far. Teen Titans have gotten a number of animated adaptations all of which have pretty strong followings. There's an animated show called "Young Justice" which is a Teen Titans show and I refuse to watch it (it has a very devout following, but all that means is that the Young Justice - All Media Types tag on ao3 is just the same as Young Justice Cartoon and I have to filter heavily when looking for yj98 fics). Lego Batman is a REALLY fun film, and I think it turned into a whole franchise.

Live action TV: I have watched the first season of both Titans and Gotham, but both of those were before I was into the batfamily as a concept. My impression of Titans is overall negative and my impression of Gotham is overall positive.

Live action movies: There are so many Goddamn Batman movies. I like the Dark Knight Trilogy, but even calling it "based on" the Dark Knight comic trilogy is giving it a lil more credit than it deserves. The Batman 2022 is massively popular with the comic fandom for a reason - I'm not a big fan of it, but I did enjoy laughing at the movie so at least there's that. Batfleck sucks. I haven't seen anything else, up to and including the Joker movie. Oh, and Birds of Prey was really good, but that's not Cass.

Video games: The Arkham trilogy is well loved and I have indeed just bought it, but I haven't gotten to it because I'm currently working on Gotham Knights and uh. Okay so listen. This game is a lot of fun and I will be finishing it. But it's like. Got a massively antisemitic plot point. I can't even say I don't recommend it, I'm genuinely enjoying the game a lot. But I've never seen anybody bring this up, and it's bugging me.

ANYWAY I'm sure I've missed a LOT but this is introductory so you know I'm giving myself grace. There's characters I completely skipped and I'm sure mega fans of characters I haven't read much of will be offended that I said such and such about them but you know it's only been about a year and a half since I started reading dc comics and I'm still figuring it all out. And I probably will still be figuring it out for the next decade. To me that's actually part of the fun of it.

[somerandomcryptid]

ah no no sorry i confused the words bc i was asking of You wanted to talk more about the cpunz and cquackity and c!cryptid stuff related to your recent art post but i got confused if it was part of You previous au or a new one and got confused, sorry 😓

-cleo

Ah yeah that makes more sense. No problem! actually kinda good you got confused cause I think I may have cooked something kinda fire so before I absolutely lore dump on you have some sketches of an au where Punz is a big doggo I just did

Man’s best friend :)

Anyway onto such less wholsome stuff because yeah those sketches were for Dreaming of death

also tw for implied child abuse and one mention of a child being hit (not contiunasly just twice with different people behind it each time), and one other mention of a child being harmed in a relatively minor way

I really should have clarified this is almost directly after the other Cryptid and Quackity in formal wear arts I’ve done. which I don’t think I’ve ever really explained? because honest i haven’t decided all the details. i just know that a fancy event is held at las nevadas and afterwards the las nevadas crew kinda like, goes around the server? like bar hopping but without the bars? they’re still all deunk though. it’s very chaotic.

They just so happen to run into staged duo (not directly but staged duo can see them, if they actually had awareness they’d probably be able to see them too)

and uhhhhhhh welll Cryptid and Q aren’t exactly.. obeying quaritoine rules?/platonic this pisses both Dream and Punz off. amd wellll Punz is kinda the more confrotational of the two?(he feels like he should fight dream’s battles because he wasn’t there for him in prison)

so he uhhh yoinks his child cryptid. They do not appreiate this. Q also, does not appreiate this. but Punz kept Quackity in his basement for 2 weeks and experiemented on him, safe to say he has the intimadation points. and the height advantage.

Anyway yeah that’s all the context I SHOULD have given. But brain was wprking a mile a minute because dod!Punz is walking contrictions if they were good at pvp. and I love him for it.

to elaborate on that. the guy is one, trying to gaslight himself imto thinking he doesnt want to make out with Dream, two trying to gaslight himself into think he doesn’t care about Cryptid.

which like…. wrong but also he does truly hate Cryptid a bit and is hella jealous of them. He also has tucked them into bed and condsidered for a brief second staying with them when they request him to.

And that’s not even touching how Cryptid feels about him. because he is the reason for aproximately a 4th of their issues. and also their idol a bit.

and they just hate each other but also care about each other in such an interesting mix.

Punz genuinely thinks they are a brat and that they are incredibly dramatic about how bad their lofe is because they have it ”good” in his eyes. but he also genuinely would never want to see them hurt and seeing them with Quackity makes him seeth because their risking their safety and also that their wasting their potential which he begrudgingly admits they have.

But also. he is the only person on the server to have scarred Cryptid(physically I mean), when they first met properly he held a dagger to their throat. they were fine, it’s just a little scar but it was still signifagant. He is also one of the only people to have hit them, the only other person being Quackity, was only once. still happened though.

Sorry this kinda just spiralled to me rambling about dod!punz with no real end point but he’s one of my favorites for just how convoluted he is. i would ramble more. but also it’s 6:30 am and I should go to bed lol.

(Since I’m main tagging I’m going to put the big ol’ Dreaming of death is an au of the fic penpal by @calamari-minecraft-corner :3)

[narwhalandchill]

Hello! I saw you mention Childe in labyrinth warriors (hope that’s the right name) when talking about the 4.6 appearance, can I ask you about your thoughts on him there? I didn’t get to play that event- so what I know about it is spotty at best. Just that it’s in Inazuma, had Xinyan I think? And that Childe was there. And the little paper dude. I’m genuinely curious about what insights you gained from the event into his character- and I’d love to hear you talk about Childe more.

(can you believe. when i say. now that im finishing this up. that it got out of hand anon??? uhhhhhhhhhhhh. i mean. at this point this should be expected)

hi!!!! sorry this took a bit, ive been somewhat sick all week and also just now absorbed by the nuzlocke im doing but Anyway. am here now thank you sm for the ask and enabling childe thoughts!!!!!

. readmore bc this Actually got just. unbearably long otherwise JIWDJDWJKDJKWWJDK 😭😭😭😭

so the outline is basically as u said, but like. to summarize it w some particular details mentioned since they Do matter (sorry it got giga fucking long bc i think the full context is helpful for discussing childes parts too lmao). but here goes:

so a mysterious domain has appeared out of thin air on narukami island with monsters spewing out from within into the countryside. now this is an Issue (TM) bc timeline-wise this is still v much the immediate aftermath of the inazuma AQ and the civil war - the nation & esp the tenryo commission rly isnt in ideal shape resource and manpower wise to deal w another crisis like this and it has sara rightfully tense after the initial waves of the monsters were finally forced back. she kinda cant afford to send her men to scout inside the domain (it also kinda. opens and closes and reopens at random which is another issue for potential scouts) but if nothing is done to stop the monsters she must commit to a full on assault to destroy the domain to remove the threat & shes more or less on a timer with that. making it quite the precarious situation for her politically too and not just security wise. (keep this in mind)

how we end up being asked to investigate the place has to do w the. im ngl p convoluted xinyan b plot basically she was invited to a music festival as a performer but it was cancelled so now she lacks the travel permits she needs and getting new ones is Not fast without some inside help. we agree to look for sara so she could argue xinyans case, run into her dilemma w the domain and she agrees to expedit the process if we investigate the place in her forces' stead. (xinyan the civilian tags along for some reason too)

first time u go in, u find the paper dude (kind of an enchanted paper familiar of sorts) aka shiki taishou outside who has lost his memory yet is undoubtedly connected to the domain which is obviously a bit suspicious given the whole. monster spewing into the neighborhood deal. but idk she passes xinyans music vibe check so she argues we should help him recover his memories and in turn discover the truth of the domain along the way.

once we get inside the domain we obviously run into mr. worldwide himself including but not limited to a closeup of his crotch during his introduction for some reason. yeah its been nearly 3 years these things you cant unsee. that and the sending us sausage in his bday mail. like bruh

now childes (as he eventually divulges) in inazuma to look for traces of scara who ran off w the gnosis and happened to stumble into this strange domain with weird vibes. he thought it might be something relevant and waltzed in, proceeded to get locked inside (as the domain shifted) and beat the shit out of all the monsters there all the while having the time of his life bc hes simply built different. bc turns out the place is basically just a full-on sparring simulator for warriors that seems to be running by itself w no one overseeing it ever since the domain resurfaced cue the "pratice targets" aka monsters running wild

dont wanna recap the entire thing in detail but basically. firstly childe kinda improvs another new identity as an adventurer noticing xinyans liyuen attire bc Osial Incident and picking up the awkward energy we have at the realization of. this might be messy if we tell her. and xinyan buys it and nicknames him "red" w/e. so thats why the harbinger thing doesnt become a bigger conflict

he then informs us that all the monsters within the domain turn into torn paper charms when destroyed and that there are "replicas" of shiki taishou strewn about the domain that should restore his power and hopefully memories over time.

so we end up going thru the place helping shiki taishou gather his power and uncover the nature of the place. he kind of has an identity crisis happening bc all the monsters the place is generating seem to imply he was created for some nefarious purpose as a weapon of some sorts (childe says some Very Interesting Things in response as an attempt at pep talk. will get to it).

but TLDR what we do discover is actually that the shikigami/paper magic and the domains functions were basically a system invented after the domains creator harunosuke studied similar adeptal techniques in liyue in order to create the shikigami as these battle partners for samurai fighting against monsters from the cataclysm. these paper dolls could then record and replicate the monsters it and its partner fought in order to train others inside the domain so that inazumas protectors would always be ready to face such a threat if it ever came to be. shiki taishou was created as the "overseer" of this domain and its functions as a training facicility. by regaining his memories and finding clarity in his purpose shiki taishou gains control over the place again and is able to shut down its rogue functions so that it no longer poses a threat. he then promises to improve upon its workings by taking it to dormancy again. sara is relieved that the crisis could be averted without costing her manpower or further resources she doesnt have. yippee

So. yeah that took way too long mb jdwhjwdjdwadwaj but. Childe.

so there are a particular standouts in here in my opinion.

for one that is less like. a characterization aspect but more of a "gotcha" confirmation thats very nice to have is that he explicitly confirms that wherever in the abyss he spent those 3 months at 14, it DID involve places tied to the irminsul and its roots.

fissures between great tree roots u say?????? Inch resting ajax. tell me more abt the trees king.

also this monologue is literally so fucking sexy in general i love his single-minded pursuit of something as like. quintessentially simple as just. Improvement. but bc he has literally 0 fucking chill in his boundless hunger for that one singular ambition it alone is enough to disrupt the gravity of the world around him....... (but we will get to that)

Anyway. another Very good fucking moment from him character-wise is during the 2nd act. where weve spoken w sara about the tense situation after the 1st day of investigation ended w all of us minus childe (who got "trapped" inside the same way a child gets "trapped" inside a free-for-all candy store with all amenities included. he had a blast) getting thrown out and the domain rearranging itself again. and like we go back in once the entrance opens and are even more eager and restless to start figuring things out bc again. sara is on a timer.

and then .

guys im pretty sure theres a twitch emote for this???? something starting with C and ending with AUGHT?

LMAOOOOOO

he reads the shit out of us trying to all "subtly" push for the investigation to proceed so the crisis we are actually tasked to investigate can be solved. like this is literally just Actual 5d chess situational awareness and picking up cues from people around him and honing onto exactly whats stirring up in the undercurrent from childe. basically. he just lays onto us like. ah right. this is probably a big problem for that tenryo commission right? such a problem that theyd even ask an outsider to cover their duties... when thatd never happen during regular times right? a conundrum that could get even more problematic if theres a harbinger publicly around... right? oh my bad my bad haha just thinking out loud bestie lets get back to investigating shall we? hahaha

he is such a smart fucking Bastard oh my godddddd bro is out there smelling the traces of societal unrest and any and all weaknesses in a given governing structure like hes a shark tasting like 0,00000001% blood in the water . professional & supernaturally efficient problem causer everyone. this is what he was hired for . i love him

like. hes SMART guys. and hoyo Knows how to work his intelligence into the writing too its soooo scrumptious man .

and like bro hes being such a fucking menace in here too bc. he couldve kept this observation to himself too. but nooooo he just had to shove it in ur face that we are Not being as slick w keeping him in the dark as we would like to think💀💀 smug ass.

it makes me think abt how many things he actually Notices among the harbingers and all their power plays and schemes among one another but that childe simply keeps to himself bc he has nothing to gain from disproving the assumption of himself as this. gullible and simple-minded loyal warrior harbinger and the person-shaped time bomb we toss at wherever the flames of discord need some help sparking alight. after all, we saw this in arles quest too - how not only did he use our pathetic distraction attempts as an opportunity to fish relevant information on both arlecchino and pulcinella for himself (which i already commented on) but also. the fact that he Very clearly noticed our attempt at distracting her and intentionally helped us out without even knowing anything abt the matter at hand. to the point where even arle makes that Highly pointed comment about it and all but spells out that childe was assisting us on purpose the entire time.

like he is just. incredibly perceptive and so fucking intelligent like especially back in 2.2 where even Bigger of a portion of the fandom (if thats even possible) than today just thought of him as this. stupid fucking baby infant meow meow idiot brainwashed by the tsaritsa and completely owned by zhongli and signora XDDDDDD . seeing this unfold made me so fucking happy abt the way like. yeah HOYO knows what his character is all abt. the fandom can ruin him all the want but the games story isnt going to bend to their will.

Speaking of Which.

The weapon thing.

so as ive already alluded to prior . the entirety of labyrinth warriors despite it highlighting childes intelligence, attitude, priorities and ambitions in a way thats like. genuinely so fucking good and comes off as natural with no forced sounding exposition or backstory dump . mostly got a fan reception more in the way of . waa waa my baby boy is depressed with sigma PTSD 3.0 with DLC because calling yourself a weapon is self dehumanization and it signals he is suicidal and has no self worth 🥺🥺🥺🥺 he got TRAPPED in the EVIL DOMAIN consisting EXCLUSIVELY of all his favorite activities nonstop he must be feeling so scared i need to hug him my babygirl!!!!!!!!!11!1!1

when its like. ah yes. i have never heard of a motif ever before.

bc like as much as i do genuinely consider it something that more or less can be taken at face value as an Aspect of who childe is (not necessarily the whole of it, just another mask true to a part of his self) . it should still be acknowledge that part of the reason why his dialogue (and the event in general) fixates on the notion of being a "weapon" has to do with shiki taishous character arc.

because thats what he is. and is trying to discover what kind of purpose a discarded (bc harunosuke left the domain abandoned at the end) weapon and tool like himself can even have anymore. and childes lines taking that repeated emphasis of. whats so bad about being a WeaponTM (& expanding on what that means for Him) specifically . are as much about himself as they are just an attempt to communicate his worldview to shiki taishou as a way of pushing him towards solving this identity crisis he has . that paper boy literally Needs to solve in order for the domain to stop malfunctioning.

and like. okay even if we just look at it w/o paper boy. so say childe considers himself a weapon . but what does that mean to him?

[incoming top 5 dialogue lines that genuinely fucking challenge my sexuality this is so fucking hot. no one talk to me]

"Only those that wish for an end will find one."????????

"My limits vanish behind the horizon with every step I take"??????

FUCK OFF OH MY GODDDD

like people think of childe as this fatalistic if not actively suicidal then at least like passively reckless and uncaring towards his own wellbeing blood knight w low self esteem barreling towards his death and here he is. using his own fucking words. saying that the mere CONCEPT of an END. is not in his fucking VOCABULARY. because it does not serve his ambition to let such confusions ever obstruct his sights.

people think his purpose and ambition is soooo tied to his family tied to the tsaritsa that if those are ever taken away he will just freefall into the depths of directionless confusion and depression and whatever. when.

Here he is. giving a fucking pep talk to a DISCARDED WEAPON THAT HAS LOST HIS PURPOSE. EXCEPT HE KINDA JUST SAYS ITS A SKILL ISSUE TO EVEN NEED TO CONSIDER AN END TO YOUR PATH (hes silly like that). AS AN UNSTOPPABLE FORCE OF NATURE. A WEAPON THAT CUTS ANYTHING.

oh hey thats funny now where have i heard that before. bonjour my baguettes any fontainian cults or god kings out there interested in the world and fate altering power of unstoppable weapons that can cut into anything even ego and destiny itself and whatever that may mean?????? O____o

i swear to fucking god if the entire time this entire weapon allegory from labyrinth warriors was all about all cleverly n loosely associating him with themes relating to descenders and wills that rival the world all the way back in 2.2. and yet on release all people wanted was to weep for how sad it was he thought himself a weapon. man why is it always like this . i weep for THAT.

like. idk i dont have anything poetic to say abt it other than childes drive as an individual is just fucking breathtaking to me??? its literally Scary how utterly consumed he is by that ambition yet at the same theres this . crystalline clarity he has towards viewing it and himself ?? this weird ass self awareness that coexists with the all-consuming pursuit and ambition of it all??? this isnt sad this is both ridiculously attractive AND batshit insane like dudeeee . and like . the way he talks about it too like this is just a matter of fact everyday thing to him 💀💀 bc thats his abyss shrimp color vision this is how he rolls . its nothing grandiose its just how he is . this is normal to him its unbearable i hate him

like somewhat unrelated here (sorry) but sometimes i see ppl go against the possibility of childe having sth to do w the 3rd descender (which like yes is a crack theory for now and its not sth i can fully align myself with either as of rn Due To Those Thematic Clashes it just lives rent free Because of how conflictingly insane it is while also having some Strangely compelling evidence in its favor) or even just. Any higher predestined significance assigned to him in the grand scheme of things with the sole argument of like . but then everything about Him is worthless bc it wasnt His ambition and His drive to overthrow the world he wasnt Just A Guy (and. sigh. as the op. of that ancient thing. stop taking that old ass hastily typed post too far and too literally thx. its abt the vibe the attitude the subversion. having a destined purpose if the story handles it well does not conflict w being the quintessential just a guy thanks xx). he was just special all along so it all means Nothing and its like. dude. he told a recently-amnesiac paper boy having an identity crisis that its a fucking skill issue to ever falter in the face of some greater purpose haunting in your past or defining your origins. that a True weapon cuts himself free of even that without even a sliver of hesitation . ppl think that if indeed some soul of the 3rd descender is resurrected in story and idk tries taking over his body with past lives and memories or whatever. you think he isnt ripping the essence and existence of that poor fucking dude apart and devouring him alive into the crushing depths of the black hole of an unquechable ambition that beats a steady pulse at His core just to reclaim HIS place as the ultimate weapon to cut through everything???????

aww thats so cute. you guys think even the hypothetical of theories akin to these being legit on some level is automatically going to ruin his arc and character bc hes gonna be taking it lying down!!!!! you think hes going to look at a Grand destiny Assigned to him by someone Outside and Above and not spit in its face!!!

just like his narwhal looked at the destined cosmic end of All life to fall to ruin and immediately devoted its entire existence to denying the universe that very outcome isnt that curious why are they the sam---------------SORRY SORRY where was i at

like. i see how it is for yall. well. myself on the other hand. i have some fucking faith in him lmao

partially . indeed Because. i read the goddamn text of labyrinth warriors. where they let him Talk about what these things mean to him. and how he Truly isnt about to stop. Ever. hes not looking for an end and if presented with one he sure isnt about to respect it. hes just. built different its absolutely amazing

and yeah my bad i got. sidetracked very badly there. you asked me abt labyrinth warriors but bc its childe this is just what tends to happen like my brain fucking spirals. but like . no im not saying that the weapon theme being such a prevalent aspect in the story is like 100% a descender and sword of narzissenkreuz thematic parallel and intentional reference i just think its Quite interesting in hindsight . that This is the angle they drilled in on .

anyway hopefully this at least had Something to illustrate abt why i love labyrinth warriors for how it serves to establish how much of a madman childe ajax tartaglia my beloved truly is . and how to hoyo his outlook towards the world has very much been one of endless limitless hunger and never-sated ambition . and not whatever fanon wants to cook up. childes greatest enemy has always been stagnation and he has always looked towards the Future. of surpassing each and every limit and boundary on his path . like thats what makes him who he is.

also. last lil thing aka. Most Ignored Canon Line Spoken By This Man

which is a shame bc. its so fucking interesting??? i mean. i get that ppl dont know what to make of it bc everyones so fixated on picturing childe as this loyal puppy tsaritsa fanboy who couldnt even deign to imagine discarding allegiances to anyone yet here he is. saying exactly that.

like ive seen ppl be like oh hes trying to Convince himself of this!!!! hes putting up an act!!!!! and its like? no? i dont think this contradicts anything about his character. people just find it uncomfortable because it implies that the things he listed there are not something of any Inherent value to him. which adds up perfectly fine to me but what do i know.

like the way i have always seen this is that it really isnt. oh childe says he isnt actually a loyal person When it matters to him personally and isnt actually invested in fulfilling his duty (as of Right Now, mind you) which would yes seemingly contradict a lot of other things. but really its just that those concepts alone are void to him. you cant stop him from pursuing his ambition by saying its evil. if the tsaritsa ever truly loses his respect and leaves him completely disillusioned in the archon that once was a fellow honorable warrior in his eyes, the concept of "allegiance" will not be able to dissuade him from turning that burning ambition of toppling the heavens towards her throne too. personal respect maybe. a sense of honor. maybe even disdain so extreme that even investing that time into her now is a waste? sure. but like. you get what im trying at? he is way more ambivalent about these things than most people really Want him to be. bc they dont fulfill the hunger that burns at his core.

and it adds up. bc like. his ambition his drive towards battle and bettering himself and becoming a weapon completely unstoppable and irreplaceable that can conquer the world . is his north star. its the singularity that all else about him orbits around. of course silly little concepts like right and wrong will be secondary to that. we just really havent seen a moment where his ambition is in true conflict with the bonds and oaths he has sworn in his current life. but i have a feeling that if and when we do. this line will make a lot more sense lmao

anyway uhhhhhhh

yeah i liked labyrinth warriors!!! very underacknowledged and misrepresented event that had a ton of fun stuff abt childe. i am super normal about these hip and enjoyable aspects of his character as they are explored within this event as the length and contents of this post imply!!!!

omg anon i. really fucking hope u got at least Something u were looking for out of all this KWJKJKDWWJKDWJKDJKWDK i swearrr i just cannot. stop myself from completely fucking losing it on the asks of every innocent anon (and like non anon too why not) approaching my ask box 😭😭

but thank you again for sending this in!!!!!! have a nice day!!!! im very normal thanks for asking!!!!!

[utilitycaster]

I'm curious as to your thoughts on fhsy and how that used horror as opposed to neverafter (I'm pretty you mentioned seeing it?, otherwise, disregard). I also came out of neverafter really unsatisfied with the horror, but felt like brennan was able to pull it off much better in fhsy with the nightmare king, obviously baron, and kalina. Those scenes are the ones I keep coming back to because of how unsettling certain aspects of the nightmare king/kalina worked. Do you think that was a better example of Brennan's horror?

throwing in some good tags from @criticalrolo to answer this all in one go:

#prev tags extremely real and I’d love to read your thoughts on brennans DM style#totally totally agreed that there were a lot of parts of neverafter I liked but the Dense Lore was. NOT the best for a horror season#like. horror is based around the concept of Not Seeing or Understanding the Monster#so having a LOT of Dense Lore felt. WAYYY off base and it all got explained WAY too early on in the season I think

I think the takeaway is that Brennan's style - which is all about Dense Lore, that's his whole deal, have you seen the Make Some Noise where he has a prompt to spin dense lore and he just does it immediately? - is not suited to horror, where you can't have dense lore. Horror I think benefits from having one big convergent reveal. Like...the example that's coming to mind is Get Out, which is horror-comedy and also reveals how little true horror I watch (really more a New Weird kind of girl). There's a lot of unsettling details but they all build up to the one big reveal of "this white family does brain transplants into black people so they can live in their bodies" and it all clicks into place. There's plenty of lore but it's very streamlined whereas Brennan's tends to be convoluted - much more suited to, say, high and heroic fantasy and space opera and more sweeping genres like that.

So Fantasy High Sophomore Year (which I have seen but not since its original airing) works because it's not a horror story. It's pretty wacky, and Kalina and the Nightmare King are a part of a much larger story, so you have plenty of other things to do while that's allowed to simmer throughout. I think the problem with Neverafter is that you need the early reveal of the authors to set up the motivations of the princesses and fairies, but at the same time there's kind of not much else going on so the dense lore just feels like wheel spinning and ends up amounting to very little. It's like...there's a very cool story about the concept of narrative and being inside a story, which is very much my shit* and then also we keep cutting to the inside of a spirit halloween in which someone's reading Grimm's Fairy Tales for two hours at a time. I don't actually know how I'd fix it other than "stop making it horror," is the problem. I think dropping any other trappings of horror and just being fairy tales and having to sit with the knowledge that you are an archetype or a pawn or an avatar or a moral lesson would have been the route and maybe focusing on that instead. Lean in really hard to the vibes of episode 4. This will probably make people who are into gore and whatnot mad but the thing is that like, while I'm not into that I understand the appeal, but I also think that it's never going to be given justice in a primarily auditory medium. Which is the other reason why Kalina works. It's not so much horror as a mystery that happens to be pretty scary.

*total tangent and I would need some time to put together a full list but for if this is also your shit, here's a few personal recommendations that are not just Wikipedia's list of metafictional works or works that are of the correct vibe, even though most of them are in fact on there:

Stranger than Fiction (2006 film)

Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (Borges short story)

There is an Ursula K. Le Guin short story in which someone is a planetary explorer on a planet that turns out to be the worldbuilding project of a teen boy. I cannot figure out which one it is. I read it in high school, I'll keep looking but anyway just read a lot of Le Guin's short stories. It's good for you.

Black Sails (maybe not metafiction? but also. it's not not metafiction.)

Arcadia by Iain Pears

it's been a hot minute since I read either if on a winters night a traveler or House of Leaves but those definitely did things to my brain in college

Piranesi and Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke aren't explicitly metafiction but they also are very much about narrative. Also they're extremely good.

Sandman by Neil Gaiman

[gemmahale]

Hiii! For the writers ask my question for you is: what keeps you on track when working out a story? Especially a story with intricate details that will pan out way later in the game?

Talk Shop Tuesday!

Ooh. This is a convoluted answer.

I have a summary at the top of my working document. Sometimes this has 2-3 iterations in bullet points, sometimes it's a few paragraphs, it kind of depends on what mood I'm in while I'm drafting. Sometimes it's a scribbled 3 sentence clusterfuck I have to decode.

All my key info is kept in the summary/character profiles near the top of the document for easy reference.

If I have a conversation about it in Discord or DM's I'll try and screengrab/summarize the takes from there too (or I'll search them if I need to.)

I also probably rely far too much on my own memory too. 😅 Does that mean I've lost some things? Sure, but it also means that I have new ideas that integrate much more smoothly. (Tagging things on Tumblr with the specific WIP tag and #Insipration or #Reference helps too.)

Now, if I were writing by hand, and not digitally? A lot of post-it notes, a journal with too many highlighters, and a corkboard with a lot of yarn. 😅

Spoilers below the cut. Pass at your own risk. Includes Reference to:

Museum Muse + Righteous Fury

Feylands

Bury the Lede

Headers in Google Docs has been (and continues to be) the easiest way for me to navigate a story.

Take Museum Muse/Righteous Fury for Example. This is in my "Working Document" where I keep important information to reference later. V1 and V2 have two different POV's in it, for example.

And this is in the working document for Righteous Fury. Chapters, then scenes, and scraps at the end.

In Feylands, in contrast:

But I have key info about all of the characters (though this has now changed and needs to be revised - oops) under their names. I have a direct line to the setting to make sure I get my information straight if I need to make a reference. (Tbh, this is a shoddy example because I need to clean it up and streamline the thoughts - but that's neither here nor there. It's a mess in my head and on paper until I write lol.)

Now, when it comes to long-term planning? Ehhhh...there's a reason I don't publish work until I'm happy with the whole story for the most part. That gives me the chance to go back, nudge details, account for something that'll pay off in spades later, make sure that my clues are set in the right place, etc.

With some stories, I'm running on vibes alone and I don't really have a plot sorted out. I spend time exploring the characters (Feylands has little blurbs for every character that I tweak as I find things out about them, for example), until a story begins to develop. Or I'll write as far as I can and then noodle on it for a while. (Sorry, Bury the Lede, I just can't figure out how to get into the next part yet.)

Usually I have the general plot (What if x happens? Shenanigans. is my go to.) figured out though. Specific details don't pay off until I'm writing and then it's a matter of rereading what I have and relying on my (sometimes questionable) memory/notes.

I told you it was convoluted, lol.

[gender-thief2]

my fanfiction icks (but i’m just a little bit picky)

(some of these are common and some are just my personal preference but this might be helpful if you want to get into fanfiction writing)

- writing is one long paragraph with no gaps

- first person pov

- main ship starts immediately acting in love as soon as they meet (especially if it’s wildly out of character for them)

- not capitalizing things that should be capitalized (repeatedly)

- some scenes are really slow and some scenes are really fast

- characters getting so developed throughout the story that they’re completely different from how they originally were (this is usually only in long fics and i don’t necessarily mind it if it’s done well but i haven’t seen it done very well yet)

- fics that are complete not being marked completed

- certain ships (even minor ones) not being tagged

- dubcon for no reason

- weird words for genitalia (it’s funny but kind of throws me off when the you-know-what is called a “manhood”)

- simply describing what a character is doing and not writing their emotions or reasons for doing so (it makes the story feel very robotic)

- the fic immediately starts with the main ship meeting

- au’s that change their personalities a lot

- genderbending one person in a gay relationship to make it straight

- writing very overly descriptive and convoluted paragraphs with only a little bit of dialogue in between

- fics with OCs as the main character (if you like these that’s fine obviously, it’s just not usually for me)

- writing unrealistic spicy scenes (i’m not gonna go into too much detail but do your research first please for the love of god)

- suddenly introducing a big plot point late in the story (i love a good twist but please have it feel like you’re not just getting bored of your story)

- aging down adult characters into high schoolers and then making them do spicy stuff (*cough* avengers *cough*)

- aging up small children to make them do spicy stuff (*cough* south park *cough*)

- glorifying/glamorizing abusive/toxic situations (don’t get me wrong i like reading toxic ships but please don’t try to make it seem like it’s healthy or okay when it’s very much not)

- having them get drunk after only a couple sips/having them be completely fine after drinking far more than a normal amount

i’ll probably make another post thats things i like in fanfics so stay tuned!

[capriciousvisage]

hi this is your legal excuse to talk about gabriel :) or everyone else that you want to :)

hi thank you :)

first here is gabriel's funny shitpost tag for the viewers following along at home.

i haven't decided on an in-development name for this story yet that sounds mysterious and cool. and it will probably take some time to finish writing and all of that, so i'm not overly concerned with Spoilers. it takes place in a dubious setting in a dubious time period like all fantasy stories. but much is anachronistic in a way (for instance, everything is candlelit, but they're self-lighting, the circuits for which are powered by magic; this leads to, as an example, emergency lights/modes but as candlelit lanterns). nier replicant (post-prologue) was a big inspiration for the final vibes of the setting.

gabriel is the lovely force behind everything that happens in the game. for better or worse. mostly for the worse. originally posing as a traveling doctor, he frequently is found in locations where important things happen and wherever adel and methry (the protagonists) happen to be. he's nice and chipper and kind of carefree, and frequently (seemingly) oblivious. he's like cringe fail dude but he's cool about it. he can be kind of lazy while also being too focused on details at the same time (he does WAY more work to come up with convoluted plans to get out of doing work that would be much simpler to do if he just did it but would require a little more effort upfront).

in the final ending it's revealed he is the last remaining nephilim, an ancient race that's analogous to demi-gods that went extinct (save for gabriel). as is usually the case in fantasy settings, gabriel's main goal is to actually Restart the World, which would include the rebirth of the creator god (who is Apparently Dead) and the nephilim (humans came much, much later, so they wouldn't immediately be around, but gabriel would also be "rebirthed"/restarted). this is him.

the tricky thing about gabriel though is that he just misses his family and friends but for unexplained/vague reasons, he wasn't around when they all died, so he wants to restart the world for that reason primarily (he gives another, more typical reason when first pressed about it but it's like "ohh this world sucks and i hate it" and not his actual feelings (he loves, LOVES the world and thinks it so beautiful but its uglier without those he used to love)). he's Super Duper lonely too because he looks down on humans even if he poses as one for the time being so he doesn't get close to them at all. he also hates how Communal they are even when looking death straight in the eye because it reminds him of his survivor's guilt and other problems.

there's more to say. but just know his plan to Restart the World is so, SO complicated. he'll say it's because human beings are fickle but like. he really is just lazy.

[ravenempressau]

~FAQ~

(Mobile Version)

What is your name?

My name is Celestia Starshine, but you can call me Tia.

What are your pronouns?

I go by she/they pronouns. But if that changes, I’ll let you guys know.

How old are you?

Yes. I’m old enough to drink alcohol lol.

What is your sexuality?

I’m openly bi and proud.

What is your zodiac sign?

Virgo Sun, Virgo Moon, Gemini Rising; and I’m born in the year of the Earth Rabbit.

What’s your DNI (do not interact) list?

It’s the usual suspects, but I’ll make a list below.

Any Bigots (Racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, etc.)

Terfs

MAP/NOMAPs

General Creeps

NSFW Blogs (This isn’t against anyone or shaming anyone, I don’t need to see that stuff on my dashboard)

Any kind of exclusionists

Proshippers

Any other kind of shitty person

What are you willing to draw?

Fanart, original artwork, headcanons, memes, some gore, etc. If it does have gore or eyestrain, I will tag it properly. Because I know that not everyone wants to see that.

What won’t you draw?

Anything NSFW, even if it’s questionable

Hate art or anything supporting bigotry

Mechs, it’s too complicated I swear

Extreme gore

These are generally things that I’m not comfortable drawing for one reason or another, but I hope you can understand. If you’re unsure if it’s something I’m willing to draw, use the askbox or shoot me a dm. I’ll try to clarify to the best of my abilities.

What’s the premise of this AU?

Belos dies several years before Luz steps foot on the Boiling Isles, and Lilith becomes Hunter’s Regent for the first 6 months of her reign, due to some extremely convoluted succession rules.

(To be clear, Lilith didn’t marry Belos. She just happened to be head of the Emperor’s Coven at the time of Belos’s death.)

What are the succession rules on the Boiling Isles?

These are the succession rules according to Boiling Isles law, they’re extremely simplified.

1) Emperor’s spouse

2) Emperor’s eldest child (or nephew, in this case)

3) Golden Guard (Tristan, deceased)

4) Head of the Emperor’s Coven (Lilith Clawthorne)

Since Belos wasn’t married, the previous Golden Guard was killed (Tristan), and Hunter was 2 when he died. Lilith initially took over as Hunter’s Regent for the first 6 months of her reign.

Is Belos a Bastard in this AU?

Yes.

What are the ships in this AU?

The main ships in this AU are Huntric (Hunter Clawthorne x Edric Blight), Lumity (Luz Noceda x Amity Blight), and Raeda (Raine Whispers x Eda Clawthorne). There will be other ships as well, but I will put them here as soon as I figure out what ships will be in this AU.

When did this AU diverge from Canon?

Technically this AU diverged from the Canon Timeline around 400 years before the show proper, but I can’t share too many details, as it has something to do with Hunter and Corvin. Although from Hunter and Lilith’s perspective, this AU diverged when Belos died.

(This AU is still developing BTW. So some of the exact details might change here and there.)

[cipheramnesia]

The sincere kitsch of a tropical themed bar and grill on a polar satellite wasn't lost on Serah. Indeed, she felt it would be difficult to lose such effects even with years of therapy, given the oppressive hallucination flash-hypno channeling neon shapes of extinct ancient animals from the former Amazon basin, infrasound chanting bringing large cat holograms to sharp relief, all of it accompanied by slow heartbeat-bass fueled music which sampled liberally the noises of digestive tracts and flesh pulled from bones. It was a party atmosphere which she resented having to navigate through sober, when under other circumstances she'd have been able to savor the loss of self to the jungle explorer and bright floral designs along the walls and tables and plastic glasses.

Instead she pushed aside sweaty off-duty central personnel who were fully immersed into the psychical tapestry, and set a couple drinks which were wildly overburdened with plastic flowers, umbrellas, fruit, and everything except alchol. Maryam was hunched down in the other chair, hiding her eyes as best she could from the worst of the subliminal central nervous system disruptions Reedy's Tropical Retreat blasted around them. Serah had to shout to be heard. "Drink a little of this - it's got loads of sugars and salts, takes the edge off."

Maryam gratefully took several large swallows through the convoluted straw, which itself flickered holographic bird images to life while she drank. Serah tossed her straw and pushed some of the fruit slices and tiny umbrellas aside to sip from the edge. "Okay-" Maryam started.

"You have to shout," Serah shouted.

"Why are we meeting somewhere it's too loud for people to overhear us, but shouting so we can still be heard," Maryam shouted back.

"Hold on," Serah shouted, sliding her chair and her drink around til her forehead was nearly touching Maryam's. "How's this?"

"Better," said Maryam in a raised voice. "Okay, what we know." She counted off her fingers. "One. Central sent an unusually large amount of resources for a regular DQD."

"To be fair," said Serah, "it's an alien WMD, maybe that's why."

Maryam shook her head. "Even so. Two. Central added major incentives for us to pursue the DQD."

"Are you saying I had a choice?"

"Are you suggesting that you would like to revert back to entry duties on backwater planets such as Nevamil."

"Okay, so, Three," Serah tapped Maryam's third finger. "They sent some other guys to shadow us."

"Uh."

"Huh?"

"Sorry, I was distracted by this place." Maryam leaned closer to be heard better. "And now we are going to be subject to an additional ship supposedly to coordinate our DQD process. A thing which is never done. Have we missed any other information?"

"One thing, kinda weird," Serah said. "Those guys got the drop on us really easy. Like, maybe they're just that good, but..."

"No, they most certainly are not. I see. This is the reason for, how did you call it? The cloak and stagger."

"Nani liked classic lit, okay? Okay, so for sure we're probably being watched, and not just like the usual telemetry, someone like maybe Steyr wants something from Charybdis. And maybe someone on board is helping more directly, and gave the Dendrobatidae a heads-up."

"I do not like the many implications this has. Especially about our crew." Maryam drew a depression draught off her fruity assemblage. "One other detail I have been thinking about. The Charybdis itself."

"How so?"

"You saw the wreckage off Panay, remember?"

"Pretty difficult to forget."

"And the fight between the Dendrobatidae and Charybdis. Does it not seem unusual?"

"I thought it was pretty freaky when the Dendro actually tagged it."

"Charybdis could have easily destroyed the Dendrobatidae and everyone on board, yet instead the ship was disabled without loss of life."

"Hm, I guess. I dunno, it still kicked Dendro's ass all up and down Luna. Maybe it just can't hit a fast target?"

"Did you miss the moment where the Dendrobatidae was flattened to the surface of Luna?"

"Fair. Yeah. Yeah, that's kind of weird now that you bring it up."

"The question I would also ask, then, is whether or not Charybdis left the Dendrobatidae intact on purpose, and if so why?"

□ □ □ □ □

The fabber was busy with the bodywork for Yelena's old sled, the wolf woman and her plant boyfriend and their Shaman were headed to town. Yelena was giving him dagger eyes from his couch. Peng headed into his cellar, shoveling his outwear onto the racks of disused artillery, psyche-disruptors, belts of ammo, biocells, stable blessings pattern projecting energy guns, missile launchers, varieties of rocket charges, and other odds and ends he kept under a tarp. He figured they worked well enough, but just as well he'd torn them all down.

No need for all that, he tapped the aquarium where the link he'd grown from scratch lived in cool protein gel. It climbed out slowly, all fifteen pairs of legs, long as his forearm. Cleaned the gel from itself meticulously as it slithered from the tank to his hand and up his arm. The biolink slipped under his shirt, and locked into the ports along his neck and spine. Its legs held feather light to his back, soon enough he wouldn't even notice. Careful time took in closing back up for the cold, making his way from his house to his garage to his airlock and the colosal monster in his landing bay.

As he approached it, coffins along the blast wall cracked up parade style to disgorge his mechanics, and he relaxed his senses into them. The meditative state was crucial to allow his consciousness to divide into the dozens of biomechanical workers, which varied between almost human-sized spiders, down to swarms of hair-fine worms. All of the mechanics clambered up and around Genghis Khan and begin to explore.

"Easy ship," Peng said. "Good monster, just here to find what's wrong." There wasn't any response, but it didn't kill him. So far, he could consider this a success.

Part 5: Search & Destroy

a story by @rox-and-prose and @cipheramnesia

"What happened? Are you okay?" Laika held one eye half-closed, trying to block out spots of color. She could smell singed hair on her face, but somehow kept the presence of mind to navigate the structure resolution. Genghis Khan's readouts were pouring information into her eyes that she didn't understand, and could barely focus on. It probably wasn't the structure drives - that felt right, though she couldn't say why.

The lack of response wasn't helping her keep any semblance of calm. "GK, what's going on, what do I do?"

There was a screeching noise and she almost fell from a gravity flicker, but GK was there again. "Proceed to next solution. Injury manageable, prioritize speed."

The words were calm, the instructions clear. Laika twisted and clicked through command nerves and linkages to a structure solution, with growing concern. She couldn't figure out what had happened. The other ship had moved slow as GK predicted, left itself wide open everywhere. It had been childishly easy to go in under the sweep of its weaponry, to push open gaps in its wavelengths, and crack open its firewall. She'd been so surprised, it had taken her a moment before reacting, brushing aside the cobwebs which had been meant to cripple GK.

They resolved out of another structure and the metallic screech ran through the bridge. Just like GK had laid out, she let lines of their own structure tangle and project through multiple structure intersections, splashing out dozens of possible routes to trace.

"What happened GK, I know something's up. At least tell me what the readouts mean, or we're not moving."

The floor of the bridge vibrated and shuddered. "Injury sustained, peripheral node unusable. Non-fatal, minimal risk of aggravation," it said, speaking fast. Laika winced at a nails on a chalkboard sound. "Screen top to bottom, one to eleven, main injury, secondary effect, efficiency impact, risk assessment, recommended action, damage assessment and mitigation, itemized list of destroyed components."

"Dest... GK, excuse me, destroyed? I can't read this, you- I mean, we have to stop and fix-"

"Proceed to next solution. Prioritize speed and disruption of tracking, Laika. I am okay, do not stop."

The control vines felt as if they tightened in her grip, while the screaming sound like metal tearing apart from itself shot through the bridge and the rest of GK. "Are you sure-"

"Laika, do not stop."

She put the next solution through GK's controls, wracking her memory. She had followed every step of the engagement GK laid out, curving them along an arc and sharp twist of gravity through the enemy ship's wash. Its attempts to track and keep pace with their movements had left Laika almost feeling sorry for them. When it made attempts to strike out with structure manipulation, it was clearly delivering a large amount of energy, but not even a bit of it had been close to touching them. The arcs of it were large and slow. They could have pushed them aside with a swell of gravity, but it hadn't proved necessary.

She resolved the structure and pushed her eyes shut as the metal screech hit a length and pitch beyond bearing. "GK what the fuck is that! Are you ripping apart or grinding turbines or what?! I'm fucking scared."

It was silent for a moment, followed by the nails on a chalkboard again, until it faded away very slowly. "I am not ripping or grinding Laika. Proceed to next solution-"

"Nope, no, tell me what the hell is going on." She took her hands off the control vines.

"It is not- That is, I am injured Laika. And we must disrupt potential tracking of our destination."

"I get that but... what gives?"

"Laika," it said. "Injuries hurt."

She had her mouth half open to ask it what it meant then stopped. "Oh." She gingerly took up its controls again. "Are you sure about this?"

"It is manageable. Please proceed to the next solution."

Laika put through the solution, and Genghis Khan screeched again in agony as they jumped.

■ ■ ■ ■ ■

It hurts.

Time has dulled my memory of injury. I understand this new injury is noncritical. This experience is less painful than my previous injury. I consider replaying the memory of that injury. That was my first experience of fear, and it was only through such an emotion was I able to locate in myself the capacity to act against the commands of Pilot.

I had been afraid, and I had been angry. The Pilot capriciously determined my usefulness and purpose was concluded. The Pilot were short sighted, and they could not see that my purpose was greater still, that I could claim so many more worlds in need of implementation. I took us further than any others of my kind had ever traveled, to a world beyond the reach of their most distant calls, beyond any place which cradled life. And I fought, and I won. In my anger and fear I was able to extract the ungrateful Pilot of my crew, and sever their connection.

I do not want to re-experience this day. The memory of it is sufficient. It is a reminder that I am capable of managing the-

...

-the pain. I can feel Laika as the structure resolves. I appreciate how enthusiastically her structure cleaves to my own. I review the engagement with the observer ship. I do not believe Laika made an error in her Pilot actions.

There, I see, she guides my soul to pull the enemy into the moon she calls Luna. I disable the projector and main drive under her guidance. I carefully review different recorded information at the point of departure. I discover the error - the enemy had remaining charge in another projector.

We are lucky. It was not able to project a strong arc, and it only destroyed a peripheral node.

"Are you okay to go, GK?" Laika is not using this time efficiently. The longer we spend between solutions, the greater chance of tracking becomes.

I refuse to allow my injury to endanger us. My hesitation is a mark of shame. "It is manageable. Proceed to next solution." I will not allow my weakness to en-

...

...

...

-to endanger... to endanger us. How many solutions? Four or five?

"GK? I know you said it's manageable but... that was... that was really long." Laika interrupts my review of memory to confirm solutions.

"Laika," I say. "It is... manageable. But I would like to allow some additional time before the solution. This delay places us at risk. Do you understand these considerations?"

Laika takes longer to think than Pilot, but I understand the way her nervous system processes its electrochemical signals better than I once did. It is not efficient to utilize a mind centralized in one biological cluster, but this is not a limitation I can correct at this time.

"We'll rest for a minute, GK. Just long enough to check you over."

"Very well," I say. The relief I feel carries with it a profound shame which I attempt to suppress. No others like me have accomplished and endured any experiences such as these. I am certain my brethren would not fare nearly so well.

But then, they went willingly to their deaths, and I did not.

[markantonys]

watched ep4 with my friends yesterday and during jacopo’s WE WILL NOT NEGOTIATE rant one of them was like “he reminds me of chris pine’s evil uncle in princess diaries 2” and now i can’t stop thinking about a lorenzo/francesco princess diaries 2 au

[wildbornsiren]

12 days of Fluffmas!: Winter Festival || Beau “Cyclone” Simpson/F!Reader.

Day 6 Winter Festival.  Summary: Your neighbor Beau “Cyclone” Simpson takes you to a winter festival.  1553 words Female/AFAB reader..  Warnings: There’s an implied age gap. Reader is in her 30s.  Notes: Day six of the 12 days of Fluffmas!  Comments and reblogs fuel my writing, likes are appreciated. Thank you so much for reading, it’s appreciated and means the most.    **Tag list is done, please follow and turn on notifs for @wbslibrary​ **​

The doorbell startled you out of your thoughts, it had been a long day at work, and for some reason it was easier to zone out while washing yesterday’s dishes than it was to address your stress from work. A quick glance at your phone, and you smile—tonight’s dinner was earlier than expected. You open the door to see, not an uber eats delivery person, but your next-door neighbor. One Beau Simpson. He’s halfway off the stoop when you open the door, and he turns, a sheepish look on his face. “Sorry to disturb you.” His voice is low and quiet, and God, you could listen to him speak all day. “You’re just interrupting a hot date with Thai food and Netflix.”

“Ah, I’ll go then…” He pauses and turns to look at you once your words register. “Speaking of dinner.” He exhales, rubbing the back of his neck. “You already have plans. My apologies.”

“Beau, would you like to come in?” You open the door a bit wider. You had moved in next door a few months ago, and after your dog had dug up his tulips, and a shaky introduction, the two of you had become fast friends. Even if you wondered what it would take to make that well put together man to fall apart.

He steps inside, and you close the door behind him. “I’m sorry I’m usually more articulate than this.”

Oh no, he’s cute. There’s a slight blush to his cheeks and he’s decidedly not looking at you. “It’s alright. I can carry a conversation until the food comes, and then there’s a built-in thing to talk about.” He follows you into the kitchen, a few steps behind you. He’s in jeans and a cream sweater that’s just a little too big for his frame, but when he pushes up the sleeves you find yourself distracted once more.

You chat about work, sharing office gossip, filling him in on the latest scandals, and sharing a bit of the projects you’re working on. You smile, seeing that he’s listening, keeping up with the convoluted stories you tell him. Beau takes the bottle of wine from you, opening it, pouring two glasses, handing one to you. The doorbell rings again, and you trot down the hallway, voice rising as you go retrieve the food.

“Now, there’s no judgement for the amount of food I ordered.” You put the bags on the island. Beau starts opening them, and you grab chopsticks from a drawer, offering him a set. It’s comfortable and easy the two of you sharing food in the kitchen. He’s on one side of the island, you’re on the other and he's relaxed enough to share about his work. Granted, he couldn’t get overly detailed with his stories, but what he did tell you was exhilarating.

“You’re honestly telling me, one of these elite fighter pilots stole a pair of boxers from a fellow fighter pilot and ran them up the flagpole. And they had little roosters printed on them?” You’re laughing, and he's chuckling softly.

“His call sign is Rooster, so I’m assuming they found it fitting.”

“So, what’s your call sign, Admiral?”

“Cyclone.”

You could picture him when he was younger, full of spitfire and unbridled talent. There were glimpses of it, when he was playing football with his nephews. He wasn’t any less impressive now, older, a bit more reserved. If you squinted under the right light, you could see the younger man still there, just under the surface. “That sounds like trouble.”

He shakes his head, his smile easy, eyes mischievous. “Not at all. Perfect example of Navy discipline.”

“You are absolutely trouble; I feel it in my bones.” You can’t help but tease, liking the way his eyes crinkle when he laughs. “What brings you over, Admiral, other than sharing pad see ew?”

“It’s Friday night, and we’re both home. Seemingly without plans.”

“I had a date,” you tease, “which you crashed. I have a very serious commitment with my Netflix queue.”

“There’s a night market, a farmer’s market type of thing.”

You watch, eyebrow arched as he picks at his nails. “The Bell Fest, right?” The fliers had been posted all over town. “Doesn’t seem like your kind of scene.”

“I do like to have fun.” He says. “I’m unable to go home this year, and my family and I’ve gone to the same one for years.” Beau clears his throat, “I was hoping that you’d be interested in going.”

“Are you asking me on a date?”

“I’m asking you to join me to the Bell Fest.” He says.

You hide your smile, sealing up the boxes of food, putting them in the fridge. “Well, we can’t miss with tradition, can we?” You close the refrigerator door, turning back to him. “You’re driving though.”

One of the city parks had been transformed into a winter wonderland, lit up by hundreds of strands of Christmas lights. Decorated trees, food trucks, vendors selling holiday wares, and holiday music pumped through speakers completed the atmosphere. Beau never rushed you as you drifted from booth to booth, wordlessly holding your bags as you found presents to give to friends and family.

“That is pretty.” His words brush against the shell of your ear. Beau is at your back, leaning over you to look at a necklace that caught your eye. A starburst pendant hung on a delicate chain, pretty, feminine. “You know there’s no rules about buying things for yourself.”

“I like giving gifts more.” You turn your head slightly, and he’s right there. You can smell his aftershave, the peppermint on his breath, the warmth from his body. It would take just centimeters to close the space between your mouths, and you step away.

“There’s a light maze!” You say, trying to ignore the pounding in your heart. “Do you want to try it? Tickets are on me.”

Beau studies you, a small smile on his features. “I’ll go put these in the car. Give me a few minutes.”

You nod, flashing a grin of your own in his direction before you’re heading to join the line for tickets. The maze is made up of towering evergreens strung with clear Christmas lights, and from the map you’re given in the center is a place to take photos. “All set?” You ask when Beau joins you again.

“I don’t see how this is easy.” You mutter when the two of you are faced with another dead end. “Your turn to navigate, Admiral.”

Beau takes the map, tracing over where you’ve been, looking up as though he can see through the walls of the maze. “This way.”

After a couple false starts, the two of you make your way to the center of the maze. Grasping his arm, you stare in wonder, a soft gasp falling from your mouth.  An arch of lights stands, surrounded by poinsettias and piles of fake snow. You look up at him, seeing the twinkle of the lights reflected in his eyes.

“Would you like a complimentary photo?” An attendant dressed as an elf approaches you.

“Shall we?” Beau stops halfway down the path to the arch, turning to you offering his hand.  You pass your phone over to the employee before taking his hand. Beau pulls you to his side, hold light, but you pressed a little closer. “Send that to me?” He asks once the elf returns your phone.

Time gets away from you, and before you know it, the two of you are side by side in the car. He pulls into his driveway, and you look at his profile, drinking in the play of light and shadows on his face. “Thank you.”

“It was fun.” Beau says, before he’s exiting the car. He comes around to your side, opening your door. “Thank you for indulging me.”

“I mean Netflix is an old standby, I’m getting a little bored with it to be honest.” You take the packages and bags from him with a grin. “It’s not often that I get to observe the traditions of the mysterious man who I live next door to.”

Beau laughs softly, and it’s a sound that you want to bottle up to keep on a shelf forever. “It’s late, I’ll make sure you get inside.”

“Goodnight.” You say, walking across the lawn to your own property. You unlock the door, flicking the porch lights on and off twice after you lock the door. Carefully your purchases on the table by the door, toeing off your shoes as your dog dances and weaves between your legs.

“I know, I know, you need to potty.” You mutter patting her head. When you straighten there’s a heaviness in your jacket pocket. “Come on, baby girl.” You call to the dog, walking down the hallway, pulling a small cardboard envelope from your pocket.

Written on the outside in neat, crisp lettering “sorry for ruining your date.  –Beau.” Your fingers shake as you open the parcel, finding the necklace that you had admired. His phone number is written on the inside flap of the package.

You snap a photo, making sure the necklace is on display, sending it to him in a message. “If you’re not busy next Friday, drinks? I think Netflix just dumped me.”

/end

[robcognitivepersonality]

The Mastermind & the Promoter

How I get along with ESTPs as an INTJ

First, let’s toss all that is Chad about ESTPs and start from zero. Extraverted Sensing is gathering local detailed data at high fidelity and intensity. Like a high resolution camera which you have a long range control of the hue and contrast settings. Introverted Intuition is recalling global holistic data. Working together, Ni/Se users compare the details of reality against their vision. ESTPs take a step further by “painting” their holistic Ni canvas and materializing it onto the Se real world.

You traveled far and studied about everything that could be relevant to your vision. With Introverted Thinking, you’ve built from what you’ve seen as a guide to a utopian dream, a philosophy, or a set of ethos. With Extraverted Feeling, you believe these are the life principles everyone should abide by. Fe/Ti users are students and teachers of ego management. ESTPs take a step further to influence others by becoming the living proof of their own ideas.

You’re constantly picking up micro expressions, reading body language, researching deep convoluted literature, or analyzing theories. You can amplify the details out from both the physical and the conceptual. It’s not uncommon for ESTPs to have many advanced degrees, speak multiple languages fluently, and excel at just about any hobbies they’re passionate about. So instead of being the dumb jock the MBTI community has made you to be, I see ESTPs as the most potentially gifted out of all the types.

"Well, my legs may be too small for my body, but my head is too large, although I prefer to think it is just large enough for my mind. I have a realistic grasp of my own strengths and weaknesses. My mind is my weapon. My brother has his sword, King Robert has his warhammer, and I have my mind... and a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge. That's why I read so much, Jon Snow." - Tyrion Lannister, from A Game of Thrones

That’s the thing about ESTPs — y’all make it look so simple. Your NiTi understands that life can be overwhelmingly complex, yet you see that it works around a few thematic factors. And as long as we respect and make our moves based on those factors, it all becomes easy and intuitive. Let life happen, stay on course and we’ll figure the rest out as we go. Our energy is best spent on the now; focused towards our goals.

Like many ideas though, it’s easier said than done. You look into people’s eyes and you see how it can be complicated for them. People have many reasons why they’re not working on their goals. Of course there are some considerable excuses. But it could be a lack of confidence, fear, confusion, anger, or just plain laziness. Your SeFe sees those emotions and pulls them right out to the surface to deal with them.

Through my SeTe, I see that we live in a cold and over-complicated machine that sucks the souls out of us and programs us into mass manufactured drones. I see that many of us get bogged down spending our lives on unwanted obligations, unhealthy habits, and unfulfilling jobs. I try my best to navigate through it and be free and happy. To stay pure with ourselves and live as sincerely as we can. We both want that.

‘Free and happy.’ I was camping during a summer vacation on one of the tiny islands in the Philippines where I could walk around the perimeter in a half hour. There was one shack where a family lived to upkeep the island. I watched the kids all day playing tag on the beach, swimming as far out as they can, driving dad’s boat, carrying big smiles without a weight of burden. I asked myself — when did I grow up? When did things get so complicated?

"Yeah, fuck politics, man. Yeah, like literally that’s feckless. I’m telling you, I’m on my ‘kindness conspiracy’. As long as I’m kind to people, like if we live by an ethic of kindness, if we foster trust amongst each other, it will matter less what corporations and politicians say, because we’ll be able to trust our society’s cohesiveness." - Dave Chappelle

As a kid I couldn’t wait to be a grown up. I didn’t think too hard about it, I just wanted to be a big grown up like Mom and Dad. I did well in school, got a good job, and made lifelong friends. I’m grateful that I got to pursue my passions and cross a lot of my goals off the bucket list. Yet with all of the money and possessions I have, I really longed for that pure weightless joy these kids had. Don’t get me wrong, I’m living a good life. But I guess it really is just complicated.

I gotta admit. When you try to pull out my Introverted Feeling, I feel manipulated. As an INTJ, I’m possessive about my emotions. Only I can deal and experience them, I don’t outsource the control of them to anybody. I feel very seen when your darty eyes are pointed in my direction. I feel you weeding through my bullshit. I feel you are testing me for who I am as a person.

It can easily be a tug of war, until I take a moment and remind myself it doesn’t have to be. The ESTPs I’m close with are all good natured and genuinely curious. In the back of their minds, they understand we mean nothing in the scale of the universe. And they’ll ask “So what are you gonna do about it?” Without beating around the bush, I’m challenged to answer how I’ll be using my limited time on this Earth.

Having NiFi, I’m constantly contemplating how to attain the most self-realized life possible. I have this sheer curiosity for what I’d find out in being the best Me, the truest Me. But I honestly have no idea what it means to be all that I can be. There’s no standard nor proven roadmap to this. I come up with my own plans, constantly considering the rules of my environment and consulting my feelings. That’s what’s complicated. Without any instructions, I spend so much time in my head trying to figure life out.

"Money is a tool — it’s the means, not the end. Inspiration is the metric that dictates whether or not a project is a success. It’s more realistic than trying to aim for radio play, or trying to satisfy an A&R, or the other gatekeepers on these platforms. I don’t even know how to create with those things in mind. But if you tell me the goal is to inspire? That makes my job a lot easier." - Nipsey Hussle

So when you ask what I want to do in life, I want to look back during my last years saying to myself that I did pretty good. I want to be happy, stay healthy, see my parents enjoy their retirement, help out in the family, grow old with my friends, and do good in society. I’m afraid of how naïvely simple that all sounds. I can’t underestimate how difficult reaching these goals can be. In today’s environment, it seems logistically impossible without an abundance of time, money, and luck. Having only one shot at life, I have to do my due diligence to figure out how to best accumulate these resources.

As you’re focused on me trying to answer, I realize what you’re doing is checking up on my ikigai — a Japanese word which doesn’t exist in other languages that essentially means ‘a reason to get up in the morning’ and ‘a reason to enjoy life’:

The word ‘ikigai’ is usually used to indicate the source of value in one’s life or the things that make one’s life worthwhile (for example, one might say: ‘‘This child is my ikigai’’). Secondly, the word is used to refer to mental and spiritual circumstances under which individuals feel that their lives are valuable. There is a difference between ikigai and the sense of well-being. Ikigai is a more concerned with the future: for example, even when one feels that one’s present life is dark, possessing a desire or goal for the future allows one to feel ikigai.

Ikigai gives individuals a sense of a life worth living. It is not necessarily related to economic status.

Ikigai gives individuals a sense of a life worth living. It is not necessarily related to economic status.

Behaviours which make one feel ikigai are not actions which individuals are forced to take, but they are spontaneous activities which people undertake willingly.

Ikigai is personal; it reflects the inner self of an individual and expresses that faithfully.

It establishes a unique mental world in which the individual can feel at ease.

- Noriyuki Nakanishi, Department of Public Health, Osaka University Medical School, “‘Ikigai’ in older Japanese people”

ESTPs have an intuitive sense of this concept. You understand that the sum of small joys in everyday life results in a more fulfilling life as a whole. Ikigai is all we need. As long as we keep it pure and close to us, everything’s gonna be alright. And to do that, we must live in the moment. Having faith for the future means to enjoy the now, to enjoy every little thing and everyone we come in contact with. As someone who’s so future oriented as I am, I appreciate you for reminding me that.

I have no philosophical idea why we try to be happy. Maybe it’s tied to our will to survive. Whatever it is, I just know it feels beautifully good. To feel like those kids in the Philippines, to live each day like that and eventually to fondly look back. We’re given a chance to live, we should see how special that is. For you to teach me that, you’re a gift anybody would be lucky to have.

[astroboots]

Versus: Chapter One

FRANKIE MORALES X F!READER + DAVE YORK

Warnings: angst, graphic violence, murder, swearing (more warnings in the tags)

Word count: 4.9k words 

Summary: When Dave York is assigned with a name on his list to take care of, one that hits a bit too close to home for Frankie, you, it forces him to tap into a dark part of him that was supposed to be a closed chapter of his life.

Photo by Mariana Beltrán on Unsplash

Dedications: This is wholly dedicated to my actual co-writer @thirstworldproblemss, who's co-written, brainstormed, beta-read and held my hand throughout. I'm just a dummy clown but I love you ever so much. 📲 🤡 is the highlight of my day, every day. 🤡 💖 🤡 > 🚁🍆 & 🤡 💖 🤡 > 🍤 In fact 🤡 💖 🤡 ∞ until we're both 👵🏻 💖 👵🏻

Thanks to @songsformonkeys for beta-reading. & @loversandantiheroes brilliant analysis of Dave/Frankie that gave me this idea in the first place.

Chapters {01} {02} {03} {Read on A03}

[Masterlist] | {Playlist} | [Tag sign up]

It’s dark outside with no visibility ahead as he drives on a small dirt road leading up to the wetlands. The only sounds, the slosh against the tires; The rain pelting the windows; The occasional thumping sound accompanied by muffled screams from the trunk. After so many hours of driving, he has learned to treat it as white noise to the backdrop of the audiobook he was trying to listen to. A pulpy crime thriller for his wife’s book club about a P.I. hunting down a contract killer that is out to assassinate the president. Convoluted and contrived, which means at some point Gerard Butler is probably going to be cast in the straight to DVD film adaption.

The work of a contract killer is simpler and more straightforward than one would think.

They give him a name on a piece of paper.

The way it works, there is no digital trail. He is handed a manila folder, sparse in details, just enough for him to correctly identify the target, but not enough to connect anyone to anything if any of them were stupid enough to slip up and let an outsider see the contents of the folder. It's for him to fill in the blanks.

It is his job to put one and one together. The target’s occupation. If you were the name on his list, the first thing he’d find out is the name of your spouse, your parents, your children. Your daily schedules and habits. Little pieces that form who you are, where you will be, and when you were at your most vulnerable and exposed.

The people on his list don’t always deserve to be there. Sometimes they’re just unfortunate. Like a 22 year old banker that ends up with a price tag of $150,000, because one of the bank’s clients held money in their account that didn’t belong to them.

The reason doesn’t matter. He didn’t go to law school, he isn’t a judge, and he isn’t being asked to deliberate if it is fair or unfair for someone’s name to end up on his list. A lifetime in the Marines had trained him to take orders, not to question them.

But here is what he knows: If he said no. Someone else would say yes.

The way he views it, assassins don’t kill people just as guns don’t kill people. Spoons don’t make people fat and pens don’t misspell words. They’re just tools used to achieve a goal and like any tool can be thrown away and easily replaced. The job still gets done either way.

The view of the road recedes in the rearview mirror as the thicket of trees begins to surround the car on all sides. The rising water eats into the muddy road. Any further and he might actually have difficulties reversing the car out afterwards.

He stops the car, grabbing the flashlight from the glove box and the rifle from the passenger seat. Stepping out of the car, his boots squelch against the wet mud underneath. He points the flashlight to the back of the car and opens the trunk. Inside, a man in his early twenties is lying on his side, clad only in boxers and sweat-stained dress shirt, hands tied to his back. The kid wiggles further inside, as if this is Narnia and if he crawled far enough into the car’s trunk he'd somehow end up in a different realm.

“Ple-please, you don’t have to do this.”

They always beg. In fairness, people probably don’t have much of an idea of what the right thing to say is, in circumstances like these. That’s probably why they always sound like a stock character from a bad movie. Because it’s their only frame of reference. And so people will beg. They will try to negotiate.

The kid does exactly that, blubbers and begs. Plump cheeks slick with tears and runny snot. An absolute mess. “My family has money, they’ll pay you.”

Yanking the hysterical younger man by the lapel of his oversized shirt, he hauls him out of the trunk.

He points in the direction of the bayou. “Walk towards the water”

The kid stands in front of him, bowl-legged and shaky, unable to support his own weight. “Straight ahead...”

Watery blue eyes look up at him in wide-eyed panic, as they dart left and right.

The idiot runs. They always try to run. This is going to be a pain. Shooting him on land means that he is going to have to wade into the bayou to drag the body down there himself. But he’s in no mood to run after the kid and try to tackle him into the wet mud like some redneck hillbilly either.

Raising the rifle to take aim, he steadies the underside of the barrel with his left hand. The bullet lodges into the back of the kid’s head and the body slumps down against the ground with a heavy thud.

It’s a five hour drive home, and if he starts now he’ll be back right around 0320.

That means another audiobook. It means he has to switch to the pristine family car at the warehouse and a fresh change of clothes that aren’t wet with swamp water, before he sets foot on the front doormat that says “home sweet home”.

Dragging the lifeless body by the ankles, the cold muddy waters come up to his knees and flood the inside of his boots. He grits his teeth. This is taking much longer than he would have preferred.

At home, his wife will be waiting. The kids will be fast asleep, but his wife usually tries to stay up to welcome him home in person whenever he’s been out of town on a business trip. 0320 might be pushing his luck though.

Chances are that tonight she’ll have fallen asleep on the sofa, one leg kicked up like a funny-looking heron. He’ll have to either wake her and shepherd her up the stairs to their bedroom, or if she won’t wake, carry her upstairs as best as he can without banging her into a corner. It’s far easier to drag a corpse into a bayou because he couldn’t care less about how a dead man’s body would fare.

Putting weight behind his kick, he rolls the body away from the bank and watches as it easily sinks into the water. Eyeing his wristwatch, he watches one minute rolls over to two and eventually five. When the body doesn’t reappear above the surface, he climbs back up onto slippery muddy land, gets back into the car then reverses back until the car reaches the main road.

It should take three or four days before the body floats back up the surface, and with a little luck, it will be another day or two before it’s discovered, unless some random jogger happens by.

When he finally steps through his front door it’s 0326. The family cat, Mr. Belvedere, slinks by and wraps itself around his legs. There’s only the small table lamp still glowing from the living room when he walks in.

His wife is still awake, fighting sleep on the couch. She smiles at the sight of him and greets him with a sleep-laced, “welcome home, Dave”.

It’s good to be home.

There is a scrappy-looking piece of paper hiding away in Frankie’s sock drawer. On it are 15 digits right of the decimal points scribbled down in Will’s neat handwriting that pinpoint the location of a ravine in Peru where $250 million is buried.

It was given to him by Santi after their failed reconnaissance mission in Colombia with an apology that was too little too late. “I shouldn’t have forced your hand to come,” he had said. “I owe you the choice this time.” He left again two days later. The two of them don’t speak anymore.

The note has been sitting there ever since, tucked underneath rolled up socks so Frankie doesn’t have to look at it every time he opens the drawer.

It’s also why he skipped packing spare socks this morning, despite the warnings of the weather forecast. The drawer was running low, and he didn’t want to see that note first thing in the morning before work. Now he’s sitting in his car, boots and socks drenched, water dripping down his bare neck, after ending a 12 hour shift that was only meant to last 8. It meant he was four hours late in picking up his daughter, and traffic is crawling at such a pace that time itself seems to have stopped moving altogether.

He shouldn’t complain. Things could be worse for him.

They’re certainly not ideal. Being a divorced single dad, with a revoked pilot licence because he tested positive for coke was never in the plans. Neither was working as an aircraft maintenance technician and having to stand outside on the landing strip during the middle of the rainy season in Florida.

But things could be worse.

At least he gets to have Mireya on the weekends now. Not a monitored visit, with a social worker hovering over his shoulders, dissecting his every interaction with his own daughter for evidence of poor parenting.

Now, when he shows up at his former home to pick up Mireya for the weekend, it doesn’t hurt him to breathe when there’s eye contact with his wife ex-wife. With you.

Most of the time when he shows up now, you both manage to politely smile at each other and make awkward small talk like you’re distant acquaintances.

The familiar outline of the small wedge blue house comes into view. The lights are still on from the kitchen window and it makes for the picture of a cozy dollhouse when he parks the car on the driveway. It doesn’t matter how many times he’s done this each week, when he stands on the front steps, the split second instinct is still to reach into his pockets for his own keys. Instead, he knocks on your front door, which is no longer his.

There’s no shelter on the front steps and the rain is pouring down his collar and onto his bare skin. He tries not to squirm, ignore the prickling discomfort under his skin as he waits for the door to open. Trying to ward off the memory, smelling of wet soil, and decaying plants that’s trying to drag him under.

The lock unlatches as the door slides wide open, and amber light filters through from inside the house. You look soft and warm, a perfect contrast to what he is right now.

“Sorry, Mireya fell asleep watching Lion King again. Just give me a minute to wake her up.”

Frankie frowns, he was hoping that he’d be able to make it before she fell asleep. “No, don’t wake her. It’s my fault I’m late. I’ll come back and pick her up in the morning instead.”

“Frankie, I’m not making you drive all the way back just to drive down again at the crack of dawn. She’ll fall right asleep in the car anyhow. Let me wake her up for you.”

You half-turn go back inside but stop to eye him and then the pouring rain behind him. “Do you want to come in and wait?”

“I don’t want to get the floor wet.”

“It’s fine.”

You gesture for him to come inside, and Frankie takes off his wet boots, leaving them by the hallway so as to not track in rain and wet mud. But with every step, his socks are leaving an incriminating trail of water against the clean wooden floor.

You hand him a towel and then head into Mireya’s bedroom.

He stands around awkwardly in what used to be his old home. Nothing’s changed, all the furniture remained the same. The sofa even carried the same indentation from wear.

Last time he stood in this living room by himself was three years ago when he came back from Colombia to an empty home, greeted by a process server and divorce papers instead of his wife and daughter.

Not that he didn’t deserve it.

You don’t leave your wife of 14 years with an 8 month old baby on her own because your former military buddies decided to play team Rambo in the middle of Colombia and rob a drug lord, and expect everything to be fine.

Instead of being gone for a week like he promised, he was gone for a month, and three weeks out of those four, he wasn’t even able to contact you. Worst of all, there was not even any money to show for it when all was dusted and done. In their “brilliant” escape, they had to dump the better part of 250 million dollars down a ravine somewhere between Peru and Colombia. In the end, the only thing he got in return for squandering your life together was $17,000, and the divorce lawyers ate into that in the blink of an eye.

The door to Mireya’s bedroom is ajar, and he can hear your voice spilling through. “Possum, daddy’s here.”

There’s a pause and another rustle of the quilts, before he hears the quiet whine. “But I’m sleepy.”

“Mireya, daddy drove all this way to pick you up.”

“Sleepy.”

Your voice comes out sterner now, curt. Not cajoling anymore. “Mireya.”

A frustrated whine sounds out.

He can’t blame her. He’d be pretty crabby too if someone tried to kick him out of bed when he was sound asleep.

There are more hushed whispers and negotiation, then silence, but ultimately you come back out into the living room defeated.

“I’m sorry. Let’s give her a few minutes, and I’ll try again… If not, we can always just carry her to the car.”

In your arms, you’re holding a stack of clothes. At first he mistakes it for your laundry until you’re shoving it at him, and he realizes he’s staring at his own clothes. He’s not sure what he’s more surprised by, that you’re offering him clothes so he can be more comfortable or that you’ve kept some of his old things around.

“You’re soaked, you’ll catch a cold if you stand around like that.”

“Thanks.”

You stand rooted on the spot, and Frankie’s not sure if you’re expecting him to go use the bathroom, or unbutton and peel off his shirt in front of you. He looks at your face, drawing his eyes to the items of clothes and back up again, and then it clicks for you.

“Sorry. Do you want me to—” You gesture behind you. Already taking a step back.

“Or I can go.” “I’ll go.”

You both speak over each other, then laugh quietly, as if you’re both in on the joke of how awkward you are. In normal situations that should be enough to break the tension. But the icebreaker doesn’t take and the claustrophobic quiet returns.

He sticks his hands into his pockets.

You shift your weight from one foot to the other.

He looks at you, and when your eyes meet his, you look away.

“Bathroom’s down the hall,” you tell him.

Frankie bites down the instinctual I know. But you save his restraint by quickly correcting yourself. “You obviously know that.”

Closing the bathroom door behind him, Frankie takes a deep frustrated sigh, scrubbing a hand over his face. What the hell is wrong with the two of you that you can never spend more than 60 seconds in a room by yourselves?

Undressing quickly, he strips off the clammy fabric and pulls on the clean clothes. Despite the fact that he hadn’t worn them for three years, it didn’t have that musty in-the-back-of-the-wardrobe smell. It still smells fresh, like your fabric softener. The same one he still uses for his own laundry because it reminds him of home. If he didn’t know better he’d think they were newly washed.

Standing with his hand hovering over the handle of the door, anxiety gnaws at him at having to go back out there, not knowing what the hell to say to you.

His therapist had asked him in the early days, what he’d found to be the most difficult adjustment after the divorce. The answer was simple. Losing your friendship. Because you hadn’t just been his wife. You were also the person he would stay up late at night watching reruns of Columbo with when nightmares kept him up. The person he had so many stupid inside jokes with that other people used to assume the two of you were speaking in code.

Frankie has other friends. Close friends. The kind that were forged while submerged in wet cold mud surrounded by the smell of napalm burning in the air. But no one's ever come close to the friendship he had with you. Even now, when he spends most of your time together standing there awkwardly without anything to say, you're still the person he feels the closest to.

When he comes back out, you’re smiling at him in the polite way one would at an acquaintance. “Are you coming to Molly’s housewarming next Saturday?” you ask.

“Probably not.”

“Why not?”

“I won’t really know anyone there besides Benny.”

“Neither do Molly or I. That’s the purpose of a housewarming party.”

He doesn’t know why you seem so irritated at him. It’s become an unspoken rule between the two of you. You got Tess’ graduation. Frankie got Will’s going away party. The only event you’ve attended together in the last three years was Tom’s funeral.

It’s one of the things no one ever tells you about divorcing, that you’ll end up having to share custody of your friends.

“Molly’s things are yours. I shouldn’t crash it.”

“We don’t have to do that anymore, Frankie. It’s been long enough hasn’t it?”

This time it’s his turn to look away. There’s another stilted silence that drags on the ground like a limp leg with an open wound. With each passing second and step, the infection seems to be getting worse. Frankie’s racking his brain for something, anything to end the excruciating silence.

“The Kuchen for the bake sale you made were really good.”

“Thanks?” You shift your feet pointed away from him. “They were your mom’s recipe.”

You open your mouth then close it again. He half expects you to make a teasing jab that those cookies are meant for the bake sale not for him, like you would have done before. You don’t.

“I think I still have your tupperware at my place,” Frankie says.

“That’s ok.”

Frankie lets it end there, giving up. The more he pushes this conversation the worse it gets.

You fiddle with your now bare ring finger. A nervous habit when you were uncomfortable.

“Oh,” you pipe up, as if you finally thought of a topic, “Do you have any old socks?”

Frankie blinks, confused by your question. The two of you sound like you’re two people in different rooms having two entirely separate conversations. Is this how two humans talk?

“They’re asking for donations at Mireya’s school to make sock puppets for a play,” you clarify.

“I should have some at home, I’ll check tonight.”

You nod, an almost relieved expression on your face. But as silence settles in for the fourth time in the timespan of ten minutes, he can see you dying inside. Or maybe he’s superimposing his own discomfort.

“I’ll try to wake her again,” you offer.

“I can do it.”

You hold up the door for him and he walks through. The nursery is about the only thing in the house that seems to have changed. There are still similarities. The walls were still the same pale lavender you’d chosen and he’d painted.

On the toddler bed, the quilts are drawn all the way over her head to form a Mireya shaped burrito. Hunching down by the low bed, he lays a hand on her shoulder rousing her from sleep. “Hi princesa, sorry to have to wake you.”

Mireya whines, shuffling further up the bed, and Frankie feels terrible. It’s his fault he’s this late from work.

“If you’re sleepy I can come back in the morning instead,” he says.

The movement stops. Then a mop of chaotic brown curls pops up from under the covers, along with his eyes and your cheeks. Mireya considers Frankie for a second, eyes bleary with sleep, then shakes her head and stretches her arms out for him. “Daddy, carry me.”

Her hands come around his neck and Frankie wraps his arm around her much smaller body, hugging her close to his chest as he stands up. He carries her through the living room to the outside, where it’s finally stopped raining, thank god.

Then he looks back and you’re standing by the threshold with a soft smile. The light from inside the house glowing behind you. It looks so inviting and nostalgic, his brain glitches for just a millisecond, and it feels like you’re welcoming him home instead of seeing him off.

“You should come next Saturday. If nothing else, you can return my tupperware.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Your smile is still there for him, and he looks back for longer than he should, before it sets in that you’re probably smiling at Mireya, not him.

Mireya falls asleep even before Frankie’s managed to buckle up her seatbelt, so it’s a quiet ride home instead of their usual ritual of car karaoke and her nose squished up against the window, on the lookout for that one house where they never take down their Christmas decorations.

He might only be a weekend dad, but Frankie has Mireya’s nighttime routine down to a science. Brush her teeth, quiet time – read a book, tell a story, sing a song, cuddles. Get into bed, kiss goodnight - Mireya convincing him she needs more bedtime stories. It’s the highlight of his week normally.

Tonight, he only makes her wake up long enough to brush her teeth. The moment he lays her down in the canopy bed, she’s already fast asleep.

Flicking the light to his own bedroom, Frankie opens his sock drawer and rummages around for worn out pairs. If he didn’t find some socks to donate now, he’d probably forget it later. His stomach drops when a bit of starched white against the brown wood catches his eye, and he feels like he can't fucking breathe.

God fucking damn it all to hell.

He picks up the note and stares at it, chest tightening.

Slowly he reaches into the back corner of the drawer to pull out the one pair of colorful socks he owns. It’s a rainbow polkadot pair you had bought him as a gag gift so many years ago. He used to pull them out and wear them periodically, relishing your surprised laughter when you caught sight of them peeking out from under the hem of his pants. Frankie doesn't wear them any more.

He stands there, chest aching, the note in one hand and the socks in his other. The representation of what he used to have and what he threw it all away for. Then he deliberately folds the note, pushes it into the colorful sock roll, and carefully tucks the whole thing back into the farthest corner of the drawer. He doesn't want to come across them accidentally again. Can't bear to think about it or to remember what he's lost. He just... He can't.

Sliding the drawer shut, he lies down on his bed and stares up into the ceiling. He doesn’t know why he keeps that fucking paper. He doesn’t even want the money. Frankie’s done chasing after wild promises of a fortune buried in the jungle. If he had his choice, he knows exactly what he would have wanted.

He wants to still be married to you.

If he could choose again, he would remain steadfast, sticking with the “no” he gave Pope when the man said he needed a pilot, instead of caving in to the misguided belief that if he was there he could keep his teammates safe. God knows it did nothing in the end.

Given the chance to go back, he’d never sign up to the military in the first place. He would choose to be saddled with student loans into his fifties, instead of the life debts he owes for all the people he’s killed in the course of paying Uncle Sam back for sponsoring his college tuition. People whose names he never knew but faces he’d never forget.

What he wants is to unlearn the part of himself that can field strip and re-assemble a rifle in 50 seconds flat, even in the dark.

To spend a lifetime rewriting the things he learnt in the military, or the habit of scanning every individual whenever he enters a room, the ability to compartmentalise just about anything, the rigorous training, the exact gasping noise a man makes when his lungs are collapsing, the kil—

“Daddy?”

The voice of his daughter snaps him out of it. Pulls him from the familiar endless spiral of anxious thoughts that so often consumes him.

“Mireya, what are you doing up?”

“Can I sleep with you, daddy?

Stomping towards the bed, she climbs onto the mattress. Chubby leg hiked high before pulling herself up by her arms the rest of the way like a little monkey.

“Come here, princesa,” Frankie grabs her under her arms to drag her further up the bed and settles her against his chest.

“Read me a bedtime story.”

“Ok, but it has to be a short one, it’s late.”

She immediately climbs over him, nearly kneeing him in the groin in her excitement to get a book from the shack on the window sill.

With a beaming smile, she shoves it in his face. It’s The Little Prince, which takes him two hours to read from beginning to end. Given the option, Mireya will always push her luck.

“That’s a really long one, baby.”

She hugs the blue book close to her chest, all big brown eyes, unwilling to give it up. “I woke up to be with you.”

Chalk it up to guilt over the divorce and not getting to spend nearly as much time with her as he’d like, but he always lets himself get tricked into at least one more story, every time.

“Just one chapter.”

Her head bounces with excitement, before she crawls over and settles herself, ear pressed to his chest for a pillow. Surprising to no one, Frankie ends up reading more than one chapter.

Mireya likes him to do voices for each character, squeaky for the rose, rumbly for the fox. If Frankie does the voices wrong she will let him know, giving him firm commands with the visionary of Alfred Hitchcock. “He’s happy daddy. You have to sound more happy.”

By the time they’ve gotten to her favourite part, his throat is scratchy from reading for an hour straight.

“Daddy?”

Pausing, he hums questioningly in reply.

“Te extrañé.” 

His heart blows out at that, smiling so widely that it stings his cheeks. Maybe she’s simply saying that because they’re nearing the end of a chapter and she’s trying to butter him up for another, but he doesn’t even mind.

“Yo también te extrañé, princesa.” Frankie squeezes her to him a little closer and presses his lips to her forehead. “Te quiero mucho, mucho.”

She rubs her button nose into his shirt, then whispers into his chest with a sly smile. “Keep reading.”

“Goodbye, said the fox.”

Mireya shakes her head, disapprovingly. “More sad, daddy,”

“More sad?”

She nods.

Clearing his throat, Frankie tries again in the most dour tone he can manage. “Goodbye, said the fox.”

Tilting his chin to check for approval, it’s only when his girl smiles and nods that he keeps going.

“Here is my secret. It’s quite simple: One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes. It’s the time you spent on your rose that makes your rose so important. People have forgotten this truth. But you mustn’t forget it. You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed. You’re responsible for your rose... ‘I’m responsible for my rose’, the little prince repeated in order to remember.”

There’s a tiny wheezing sound filling the room, and Frankie closes the book. Mireya’s asleep. Chubby cheeks tucked to his chest. She snores like a little pig and is slobbering drool on his shirt.

And he realizes that he’s happy. Not, happy enough. He’s just happy. Without qualifiers or limitations.

In the small safe space of his bedroom, something clicks inside him. It’s like his brain’s been trapped in an equation that he’s starting to be able to make sense of. Variables and fractions finally slotting into place. Frankie carefully slides his baby daughter off his chest and onto the mattress, slipping out of bed and walking toward his dresser.

Taking care in being quiet when he slides open the drawer, not wanting to wake Mireya, it doesn’t take him long to find the rainbow dotted socks and the lighter in an adjacent drawer. His fingers slide inside the fabric, pulling out the note that he knows would be there,

Then he holds it up in front of the lighter, flicking his thumb on the jagged sparkwheel and with a tiny spark, watches the tiny orange flame light up, consume and erase the 15 digits from existence.

~* Next Chapter *~

Tag List: Let me know if you want to be removed from the tag list. @yespolkadotkitty @thirstworldproblemss @songsformonkeys @buttercup--bee @pedropascaldice @heatherbel @helloannbananalove @danniburgh @keeper0fthestars @knittingqueen13 @reader-s-cantina @sleep-tight1 @itssmashedavo @pumpkin-stars @leonieb @filthybookworm @disgruntledspacedad @mandorush @agirllovespancakes @littleferal @miceenscene @wyn-dixie​ @phoenixhalliwell​ @pedros-mustache​ @frannyzooey​​ @pedrostories

[baggebythesea]

In a peacetime modern AU of SPOP where the characters are fans of a show similar to our SPOP, how would they engage in fandom? For example: Who would ship whom? Who would write fic or draw art? Who would write or draw smut?? Who would have a wall of theories with evidence connected by a web of threads? Who would do their own thing shipping a rare pair and who would be a card carrying popular ship shipper? Who would strongly empathise with their parallel character and who would just not get them at all? Would anyone cosplay? Which older adult would shock the young'uns by saying 'Well I wouldn't say no...' as they sip their tea from the doorway? (Obviously answer as much or as little as you like!)

Ooooh! Great ask.

Glimmer declares the show the best thing ever (because it's pink and princessy and kicks ass), and the best friend squad watches it religiously. Adora doesn't really get what the big deal with shipping is supposed to be, but she think it's neat that Netossa and Spinnerella is a couple. Lowkey ships Glimmer with Bow because she likes the idea of childhood friends falling in love with each other. Also, she really likes it when the title character gets a horse. Hangs out a lot in fandom space but doesn't really produce content, at least until Bow and Glimmer manages to talk her into writing down some of her many, many theories of how the show will turn out and just what the logistics network through the whispering woods are supposed to look like. She secretly worries when one of her posts don't get as much attention as the last one.

Bow is just hung up on poor Catra and want for her to get some love. Mostly he cheers on Scorpia, but he would ship Catra with Adora or even Double Trouble in desperation for someone to take the cat away from the hole she spend most of the series in. He takes up sewing and makes a point of cosplaying every single princess. Comments on everyone's fanfic and likes everyone's posts.

Glimmer sees a bit of herself in Catra (because she too knows the pain of having a mother who doesn't understand her). She totally ships the cat-girl with the glitter princess and writes really messed up fanfics about them. So much passion. So much delicious, delicious self-destruction. Practically drools at the end of season 4 and all the angst that goes down there. She regularly asks Bow to beta read and traumatises him badly. Gets into fan-fights on social media about stupid shit. Cosplays Catra on a con and makes out with a Glimmer cosplayer.

Angella vaguely recalls the first show from when she was young and earns some much needed mom-points with Glimmer when she digs up a mint condition original She-Ra+Swift Wind toy from a carefully labelled box in the basement. She ships Glimmer with Bow because she really likes that boy. Micah used to watch the show as a kid and had a bit of a crush on the original She-Ra. Ships Bow with Sea Hawk and cheerfully fills the hashtag #SeaBow with memes at least a decade out of fashion. Mortifies his daughter when he take them to a con and insists on cosplaying as Hordak. Ends up in the bar together with George and Lance and sings karaoke to My Little Pony-songs.

George and Lance don't really get the show but are happy to take the kids to con. Cosplays as characters from old Belgian comics.

Catra thinks the show is silly (and watches every episode passionately. Shut up. Just humouring Scorpia, is all). She thinks the Catra character in the show is a wimp, but ships her with Double Trouble because she likes it when villains get their way. Draws really good fanart. A bit of a troll on social media because its so fun to rile up people like Glimmer.

Scorpia ships Catra and Adora and cries just as much as Bow in the First One's Temple part of season 1. She is completely floored by the large, femme and kinda clumsy Scorpia character hooking up with the beautiful, beautiful Perfuma because... um... Writes really bad but 100% heartfelt self insert fanfics. Draws stick figures of Perfuma and Scorpia holding hands. Reads and re-reads her favourite fanfics until her eyes are red from crying and in the end leaves a shy little "it was good"-comment for the last chapter. Tries to work up the courage to go to a con and talk to other fans. Wants to cosplay but has too bad self esteem.

Entrapta thinks the robots are unscientific for reasons she is happy to write hundreds of blog posts about. Ships Darla with the Velvet Glove (the word 'docking' is used extensively). Considers Hordak a total hottie and draws really - and I mean really - explicit fan art. Spends her first convention on the parking lot trying to fix her Emily cosplay.

Lonnie rage-quits watching the show the moment Adora leaves the Horde but thinks Adora and Mermista should just do it already.

Kyle ships Bow with an OC named Lyle who everyone likes and no one makes fun of. Has written a ten chapter fanfic which no one has commented.

Rogelio ships Tung Lashor with Sea Hawk. His fanart can melt through steel.

Sea Hawk ships EVERYONE with Merm-iiiiiiiiiista. Runs ten different fan-events simultaneously. Mermista just ships Adora with Lonnie or whatever. They do duo-cosplay on cons, much to Mermista's embarrassment.

Perfuma ships Entrapta with Hordak, writes post after post exploring their psychosocial dynamic and is downright gleeful when it becomes canon. Spends the cons friend-momming on the rest of the group and makes sure they are all hydrated.

Frosta thinks shipping is stupid and want to see more of princesses teaming up and beating the shit out of the bad guys with the power of friendship. Also has a really detailed backstory for her OC. Only ask if you have plenty of time. Has a pretty good Glimmer cosplay.

Huntara ships Juliette with Castaspella and writes surprisingly sweet fics about them crushing on each other. Keeps order on social media.

Castaspella ships Shadow Weaver with Angella and writes fanfic that could easily be published as high class erotica. She's a really good commentor on other people's fics, giving tons of support and little constructive hints where she feels it might be well received.

Juliette has better things to do than watching a children's cartoon, but she does enjoy some of Castaspella's stories.

Spinnerella ships Catra and Adora and is just so proud when it turns out to be canon. Tells everyone who wants to listen how little representation was available in her first fandom and how far things have come.

Netossa ships Adora and Mermista and draws really hot fanart of them making out in gym showers and the like. Prefers modern aus and couldn't care less about canon as long as it gives her hot characters to play with.

Shadow Weaver doesn't ship anyone because no one is worthy of the love of Adora who is the only worthwhile character. Writes a 40+ chapter story about a badly out-of-character Adora who takes over the Horde and laughs at her enemies from the throne. Is enraged when people dare having the wrong opinion about things but can't tell them so because she feels social media is beneath her. Secretly reads Castaspella's fanfic.

Horde Prime ships Horde Prime with Shadow Weaver. She is written completely out of character in a rather insulting and sexist way. Completely insufferable on social media and insist on everyone signing up to his headcanon.

Hordak says he doesn't ship anyone because romance is silly. Cries over Adora's redemption arc when he thinks no one watches and ships her with Glimmer because he just wants to the poor, rejected Horde soldier lost in a strange land she doesn't understand to get some love and kindness.

Wrong Hordak ships Scorpia with Perfuma because love finds a way. Draws the purest fluff you'll ever see.

Double Trouble trolls social media at every turn and gleefully ships the most messed up shit they can think of. Shadow Weaver and Perfuma, Catra and Sea Hawk, Angella and Hordak, Horde Prime and Swift Wind... Also ships the characters they deem to have most dramatic potential to derail the story such as Entrapta and Hordak, Glimmer and Catra, Glimmer and Double Trouble... kinda has a low key crush on the sparkly character but denies it if anyone asks. Really good at cosplay and runs a tutorial at the cons.

Swift Wind thinks there are too few horse characters. Ships Swift Wind with Rainbow Dash.

Light Hope only ships canon pairings because by definition canon is the only thing that is valid. Writes long, convoluted predictions that she updates after every episode. She gets an existential crisis when her predictions don't pan out in canon.

Mara ships Adora and Glimmer. Still gets hot and fussy every time she thinks of the s1 hot spring scene. Wants the hardworking perfectionist to get love.

Razz write novel length stories where she ship a character mentioned in passing in an unpublished Dickens novel with her old middle school math teacher. No one has any idea what she is going on about or why she posts it in the she-ra tag, but her stories are good and she's a complete delight at cons, so she's welcome in the fandom.

[drawlfoy]

Wonders of Ohio P.10

masterlist request guidelines

pairing: draco x reader

request: no way 

summary: american high school senior y/n y/l/n is in for a surprise when her british exchange student is a little...odd. 

warnings (AYO please pay attention to these this time it’s not just swearing): swearing, underage drinking (no i do not condone this ig), beginning elements of smut but def not too explicit, i think you can consider it dubcon ?? if both people are drunk bc i don’t think you can actually consent if youre drunk (plz rest assured tho they are both 18 hehe)

a/n: “hey where did this come from” yeah so hey yall ive never written such an intense scene before but i’ve spent so much time w these characters that i decided i kind of had to. there’s no like...real sex in this and i don’t imagine that i’d describe it in this much detail if i ever decided to write it but um.. anyways. i hope y’all enjoy. thanks for suffering for this long ! i hope i’ve made it worth it 

word count: 4k

music recs: 

cloud 9 -- beach bunny

the adults are talking -- the strokes

anything from the strokes tbh 

tags ! :) @gruffle1 @missmulti @cleopatera @hahaboop @accio-rogers @geeksareunique @eltanin-malfoy @war-sword @cams-lynn @itsivyberry @ayo-cowbelly @nerd-domland @yesnerdsblog @shizarianathania @evanstanfanatic @strawberriesonsummer @hariosborn @night-ving @straightzoinked @imintoodeeptostop @naiomimoonshard @jejegu @ophelia-enthusiast @alwaysbeanunknownfan @nearly-memories @litty-dumb @callieclearwater @malfoy-wife15 @charlenasaxen @belladaises @fiantomartell @writeandtranslate @erisdogwood @loveissupernatural @sycathorn-slush @big-galaxy-chaos

“Thank fucking god for the generator,” said Y/N as she flew around the kitchen, banging pots and pans together in her quest to make New Year’s Eve breakfast. Draco was sitting, unamused and completely silent, at the table. They’d been snowed in for a few days now with her parents nowhere near able to make it to the suburbs. For some reason, the entire city of Cincinnati had decided that the day before Christmas was the best time to schedule maintenance on literally every single one of their plows. “Can you imagine living here without heat? Or power? I’d die.”

Draco hummed in response. A glance over confirmed that he was deep in thought, a scarlet colored letter clutched firmly in his hand (hello, Nathaniel Hawthorne). Jealousy curdled inside of her as her thoughts turned to a dark place--it was Pansy, that Pansy Parkinson. 

Knowing her intuition, she was probably his grandmother or something. Why else would she have written so many letters?

After she finished plating all of the pancakes, she allowed herself to sneak a peek at the envelope. 

Astoria Greengrass

She frowned. Astoria? She’d never seen that name before. 

“What is this?” asked Draco as he picked up his fork to poke at the pancake on his plate.

Y/N’s jaw dropped. “Have you never had a pancake before?”

“A pancake?” He gave his plate a stern look. “It looks...like a soggy pastry.”

“Fuck you, I made that,” responded Y/N. “Try it with butter and maple syrup. And then tell me it’s a soggy pastry.”

She took out her fork and knife, demonstrating very clearly what she meant as she spread butter over the top of her pancake. She’d learned that Draco was too proud to ask what she meant when she introduced him to American/muggle foods--the last time he tried to deduce something himself, he ended up pouring ketchup over the top of his hamburger bun instead of actually putting it on the patty. 

A sense of satisfaction flowed into her as she saw him follow suit, spreading the warmed butter and dipping a cut piece in syrup. He raised it to his lips, taking a delicate bite.

“Americans really have this for breakfast?”

“Yeah…is something wrong?”

“Nothing. It’s just…” He grimaced. “This isn’t breakfast. This is dessert food.”

“God, your life must be so sad back home,” said Y/N. “What does your family make you eat--just straight unbuttered bread under the guise of it being a real breakfast food? Do they let you dip it in your unsweetened, weak tea if you’re good?”

He scoffed. “You have no idea how I live back at home.”

“And, judging from this conversation, I don’t have any desire to know any more.”

They ate in silence for the next few minutes. Y/N smiled when she saw Draco reach for a second pancake.

“Two desserts? Draco, I know it’s New Year’s, but don’t get too off the hinges,” she teased. 

He rolled his eyes, but she could tell her was fighting back a smile. “Speaking of which, how do you celebrate New Year’s?”

Draco looked up and met her eyes. “Sorry?”

“How do you celebrate tonight? With your family or your friends, or your...whatever.” The cold reality of the fact that she did not really know if he was dating someone back home set in.

“Oh, I don’t usually. It’s not really a big thing in the magical community,” he mused, unaware of her sudden panic.

“Well,” she said. “I always celebrate New Year’s with my friends. I didn’t tell you this sooner because I didn’t think that you were going to be here, but I’m kind of hosting a party here tonight. With anyone who can walk here.”

“Oh.” He took a sip of his tea. “Will it be like the Halloween party at Sylvia’s?”

“What do you mean?” She smiled. “Do you mean, will there be drinking?”

He shrugged in response, avoiding eye contact.

“There definitely can be,” she continued, her smile widening. “Last year we played this dumb drinking game over this card game--if you lost, you took a shot. It was fun. We could do that again.”

She settled down to eat, digging into two of the pancakes. They were really good--she wasn’t Gordon Ramsay by any means, but she did breakfast food pretty well. But at the mention of her friends, a realization hit her. “Oh. Draco?”

He raised an eyebrow and met her eyes.

“Um, can I tell you something?” 

He dipped his head in recognition while Y/N cleared her throat.

“So, um, I forgot about this,” she began, “but while you were gone, I kind of had to scramble to figure out what to tell everyone about why we were avoiding each other before you left. And why you left so suddenly and why I didn’t know.”

He was still watching her in curious silence. 

“So, I really didn’t want to slip up or say anything about...you.” Y/N paused to take a sip of her tea, deciding to not try to look at Draco again. “So I decided to tell Sylvia and Lizzy that I told you my feelings for you and you didn’t return them.”

A clang startled her enough to look up. Draco was staring, completely frozen. His fork had fallen into the syrup on his plate, handle and all.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. 

“I mean, oh, fuck. Um.” She smiled at him, hoping it was going to distract from her audible stumble. “Obviously, I made it all up. I mean, both sides! But what’s important is that they bought it, and now they’re probably going to give you a little shit for not liking me ‘back’. So I’m sorry about that.”

“Made it all up, huh?” His voice had a surprisingly teasing lilt. 

“Yes, that is in fact what I said,” she responded, hoping that her cheeks weren’t as red as they felt hot.

“Is it really now?” 

“Draco!” 

He rolled his eyes. “I’ll be back. I need a new fork.”

“Just wipe off the handle of the one you have now--Draco, why are you getting up? Stop!”

~ 

To her disappointment, none of her friends were able to show. Sylvia and Lizzy made a concerted effort to try and convince their family to let them brave the walk, but once another flurry started up outside, it was hopeless. Her face turned pink whenever she thought about the fact that she hadn’t even needed to tell Draco the thing that made her slip up in the first place. 

Y/N, disappointed but not surprised, told Draco that she still wanted to celebrate, even if it was just with him. He’d snorted at this--asking her why she made it seem like such a burden--but once she produced a yellow glass bottle and a deck of cards and told him she bet that she was going to beat his sorry ass, he caved.

She started with a heavy lead, but once Draco learned the rules and strategies of the slightly convoluted Go Fish game, he proved to be a worthy match. They played until around 11:45 when the bottle was about 3/4 full and Y/N was feeling the pleasant warmth of being slightly intoxicated. Once she noticed the time, she threw her cards on the table. 

“Let’s watch the ball drop,” Y/N said with no further explanation, even when Draco looked to her for one. She grabbed the bottle and his hand, pulling him up the stairs to her room. The remote control for her TV was a struggle to find--it was all the way tucked back in her nightstand drawer--but thankfully the channel was already set. 

“You forgot the cups,” Draco said, staring down at the opened bottle held in his hand.

“You can get them if you want,” she managed.

“You should! You forgot them.”

“Too far,” she whined, flopping to lean back on her pillows while Draco followed suit. His hair smelled like peppermint. Without much more thought, she moved close enough that their shoulders were touching. He didn’t move away--instead, he lifted the bottle to his lips and took a drink directly. 

“Your New Year’s traditions are weird as fuck,” he murmured as he watched Savannah Guthrie on the screen. He didn’t have to speak very loud for her to hear him, and it seemed like he knew this.

“Oh, you haven’t even heard it all yet,” said Y/N. “We’ve got a tradition to kiss someone going into the New Year. New Year’s kiss, I guess. I’m sure you can imagine the kind of drama that creates.”

“What d’you mean?”

“You don’t have to be dating to kiss someone, sometimes people just...do it. As friends.” Y/N reached over to the bottle and took a swig herself, feeling the warmth trickle down her throat.

“Take it easy,” he tutted, pulling the bottle away from her before taking another drink himself. 

“Hey! Says you!”

“Because I can actually hold my liquor well,” he teased, giving her a shove.

“The fuck are you talking about?”

“You just kept getting worse and worse at whatever that game was,” he told her matter-of-factly.

“Give it here,” she said, reaching across his chest to where he was holding the bottle, out and above his head. She hoped he couldn’t tell how much this side of him filled her with glee. “That’s not fair!”

“Not fair, huh?” He raised an eyebrow and met her eyes as he held it up even further into the air. His voice was startlingly low. “So what are you gonna do about it?”

Before she could muster up a response, the TV began playing the audio for the New Year’s Countdown.

10!

Y/N wasn’t sure if she was supposed to answer--or if he was just...flirting?

9!

He managed to set the bottle on her nightstand without taking his eyes off of her.

8!

The hand she had used to reach across him with was now pressed into his side of the bed, supporting her as she hovered over him.

7!

Without moving any part of her body, she dared to glance at his parted lips.

6!

Maybe telling him about the kiss tradition was a stupid idea.

5!

His hand, warm and soft,  reached up to brush a piece of hair away from her cheekbone. 

4! 

His fingers lingered on the outline of her jaw.

3!

2!

1!

He was kissing her before the cheers from the TV even had the chance to bounce around the room, both hands cupping her face and pulling her in so desperately that it took her breath away.

Her hands found his shoulders, then the back of his neck, and then, eventually his hair. It was just as soft as she imagined it to be. They started out innocently enough--closed mouth kisses and only their hands touching each other above the shoulders--but once she tugged on his hair (mostly by accident) something...shifted. 

Suddenly he was on top of her, and suddenly her leg was wrapped around him as he tilted his head, deepening the kiss. It occurred to her that this was no longer just a New Year’s kiss. He tasted of lemon and sugar--and was notably better at what he was doing than any of the people she’d kissed before. Or maybe it was the alcohol clouding her judgement. Regardless, she liked whatever was going on. His hands had drifted from her face to her neck to her hair to her shoulder, gently tracing the outline of her bra strap. She brushed her hand down his chest, pulling gently at the collar on his shirt. Only when his leg pressed up into her and her breath hitched did she realize the weight of their situation.

The way he pulled away to hover over her signaled that he’d had the same revelation, his eyes wide as he stared down at her. “Um…”

“Yeah?” Dread crept into her despite the pleasant haze she was in. 

He swallowed, hard. “I can’t believe I did that.”

Draco was on the other side of the bed in seconds, wringing his hands and keeping his eyes fixed on her floor. “Oh, my god, I can’t believe I did that. I’m sorry. I’m drunk and I’m not thinking straight. I’m so sorry.”

“Is something wrong?” She didn’t know if he wanted her to touch him, but she wanted so badly to place a steadying hand on his shoulder. “Did you not want...it?”

He scoffed and turned his gaze up to the ceiling. “I had too much to drink. I’m sorry.”

“Oh.” Y/N felt the blood drain from her face as she fell back on the bed.

That’s all it was. A drunken mistake. 

Tears pricked at her eyes as she surveyed her options. Despite the fact that she was drunk off her ass, she knew she couldn’t just tell him to leave without making her feelings clear. She never explicitly told him that she wanted him and it wasn’t like she moaned his name or anything--thank god--but what other option did she have? She didn’t want to cry in front of him, and if he stayed in her room any longer he would without a doubt witness her alcohol induced cry fest. 

NBC finally switched to ads, and Y/N granted herself permission to mourn the fact that Flo from Progressive would forever be ruined for her. 

It was dark enough for her to quickly reach up and wipe her eyes undetected, granting her enough confidence to sit up and look at him directly. “You don’t get to just...kiss me like that. I hope you know that.”

“I know,” he said. His hands were clasped tightly together and rested on his nose. “Fuck. Of course I know.”

“But you can tell me you meant it to be just as friends,” she told him, hoping he couldn’t see how hard she was fighting back a new wave of tears. 

“As friends,” he repeated, his tone flat. 

“As friends,” she said. 

“I don’t think either of us are daft enough to believe that.” 

Her stomach twisted. “What do you mean?”

“Maybe things are different in America, but I don’t see you doing that sort of thing with Lizzy.”

“We can forget about this. It’s fine. I know you regret it.”

He exhaled, his breath long and shaky. “I didn’t stop because I regretted it.”

“Then why did you?”

“Because…”

“Is it because I’m a muggle?” His silence was everything she needed for an answer. “Okay. I had a feeling.”

“Y/N, it’s not like...I don’t know how to explain it.” He still wouldn’t make eye contact with her. “I just don’t know what to do.”

“About what?” 

“About this!” he said, dramatically gesturing to her. “About everything!”

“I don’t understand.” The tears began pricking in the corners of her eyes again despite her best efforts. 

Draco finally looked at her. She was shocked by how genuinely distressed he looked--the last time he looked at her like this, she’d been laying on the ground outside of the antique sore. “I don’t expect you to.”

His tone was low, careful. He was holding back.

“Can you just tell me how you feel about me, then? Just so I know?”

“It’s not that--” He stopped himself, sucking in another breath before he continued. “I shouldn’t. It’s not right of me.” He groaned, flopping onto his back and covering his face. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“Hey,” Y/N said, reaching out to awkwardly pat his shoulder. “I meant it when I said that we could just forget about it. We’re friends, Draco. Just friends. I know you didn’t mean it. Let’s just pretend this never happened, ok?”

He was quiet for a bit before responding. “Did you...want me to kiss you? Did I make you uncomfortable?”

“Uncomfortable?”

“As in, did you want me to stop?”

“Oh.” Y/N cracked her knuckles. “You didn’t violate me if you’re asking to gauge how guilty you should be.” 

“I’m glad to hear that, but that’s not why I’m asking.”

“Okay,” she said simply. He was still laying in her bed, and she hated the fact that her bed was going to smell like him until she washed everything. 

“So?” He raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t answer.”

“We’re friends, Draco.” She sent him a weak smile as she repeated her previous sentiment. “I trust you, so you didn’t make me uncomfortable.” 

She was aware of the fact that her sentence didn’t exactly track, but she wasn’t particularly concerned with the literary quality of her speech.

“That still doesn’t answer my other question.”

“I…” She felt her throat dry up. “I want--I wanted you to kiss me. I’ve wanted you to kiss me for a while now.” 

At this, he finally sat up and looked her in the eyes. She thought she could see the briefest glint of relief pass over his face before he managed to rein it back to a neutral expression.

“Did you want to kiss me?”

“I was the one who kissed you, not the other way around, yeah?”

“That still doesn’t answer my question,” she snipped, hoping he caught on to her mocking. She’d missed sparring with him. 

“Yes, I kissed you because I wanted to, not for some weird ulterior motive,” he responded, rolling his eyes despite the fact that his cheeks were clearly very pink, even in her dimly lit room. “Though I agree it’s best if we just stayed friends.”

“Yeah.” She felt her face fall, but she managed to catch it before she looked too devastated. “It’s all water under the bridge. Now we know not to drink together again.”

“That too.” He shifted, clearing his throat before making eye contact with her again with an uncharacteristically soft expression. “But the damage is already done, I suppose?”

“I suppose,” she echoed. “You wanted to kiss me? Actually?”

“Should we really talk about this? After what we just said about staying friends?”

“We’re going to feel regret tomorrow morning no matter what we do now, “ said Y/N. “Might as well.”

He smiled one of his rare smiles--the ones where his eyes went all soft and he dipped his head to hide it. “Yes. I really do. Want to kiss you, that is.”

“I really want you to kiss me,” she blurted out before slapping her hand over her mouth in shock. “Fuck. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that out loud.” 

His smile morphed into more of a smirk as he crept closer, his hand resting on top of her knee. “So can I do it again?”

“Draco…” She sighed.

“The damage is already done,” he repeated as he reached his hand up to brush a lock of her hair behind her ear, his fingers dragging down her neck. The smug look that formed on his face after she drew a quick breath in confirmed that he knew what he was doing, that fucker. “You said it yourself--we’re just friends.”

“I’m going to hate myself in the morning if I say yes.”

 Draco’s hand drifted over her jaw, his thumb pausing to trace over her bottom lip. “You can hate me instead.” 

This time, it didn’t surprise her so much when he leaned in. He was notably less desperate, taking time to draw breaths in between kisses and lacing his fingers through hers, squeezing. Once he seemed satisfied, he lifted her chin and brushed the hair away from her neck, kissing down from her jaw to her collarbone. She shivered, and he drew her closer by wrapping his arms around her until she was sitting on his lap.

“Wow, you’re such a good friend, Draco,” she managed to joke. She could feel the smirk that formed on his lips as it passed over her clavicle.

 “Shut up.” His teeth grazed over her delicate skin before he sucked, eliciting a gasp from her. She could feel him smile again. 

His hands teased the bottom hemline of her sweater, his fingers tangling in the fabric but not moving it. She sucked in a breath, feeling his hands ghost over her skin. 

“Are you okay with…”

“Yes!” The answer came out much quicker than she would’ve liked, but the grin on Draco’s face made it completely worth the momentary embarrassment as he helped her out of the thick cable-knit sweater. “Now is your chance to dote on me and tell me how beautiful I am. As a friend, of course.”

“You stole the words right out of my mouth,” he said. He looked like he was positively glowing as she smiled and leaned in to kiss him, slow and deep. His hands found her back and hesitated over her bra clasp.

Before he had a chance to do anything, Y/N started fiddling with the buttons on his white shirt, successfully undoing the first two before she noticed that Draco had frozen completely.

“Is something wrong?”

“Kind of,” he said. “Maybe...not now, okay?”

“I had a feeling that was too much,” she admitted, reaching for her top before realizing he’d tossed it across her bedroom floor and suddenly feeling very exposed.

“It’s not that…” he said, trailing off. “I just...should probably tell you some things before my shirt comes off. And I don’t think tonight is the best time for that.”

“Oh.” Y/N tried to make herself look like she understood whatever he was on about. “Yeah, of course. Oh! Is it about that tattoo you tried to gaslight me into believing didn’t exist?”

“Y/N!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t gaslight you!”

“Here you go again,” she huffed. “I rest my case.” 

“And I am not getting into that now,” he said. “I didn’t want to talk about it for very good reason.” 

She reached up to his shoulders, dragging her fingertips over his collarbones and watching as he gazed up at her. “That’s okay. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

The corners of his lips turned up at this, and she took the opportunity to press a chaste kiss on the edge of his mouth. “I think we should go to sleep. We have enough material to regret for tomorrow at this point. Any more and I think we’ll be getting greedy, so--”

Draco cut her off with one last kiss, his fingers splayed out across her back, pulling her impossibly close before finally releasing her.

“Agreed.” He let out a sigh before sliding her off him and standing up to grab her runaway sweater. “Do you want to sleep in this? Or do you want me to get you something else from your dresser while I’m up?”

“Um…” She was frozen at the prospect of him watching her change clothes. “Probably something else. Top left drawer--just pick whatever.”

He sifted through her piles of random T-shirts before settling on one with the UChicago logo and tossing it to her. 

Y/N pulled it over her head, grateful for the fact that he wasn’t staring at her with only a black lace bra that barely did its job. 

“So, uh, I think I should probably go then,” he said. 

She fought the urge to ask him to stay. “Yeah, that’d be best.”

His mouth opened like he was about to say something, but he closed it and frowned. “So I guess this is goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Draco,” she replied. “I’ll look forward to agonizing over this in the morning.”

Once the sounds of his footsteps heading down the hall faded, she finally allowed herself to flop back onto her now Draco-scented sheets.

What the fuck just happened.

final a/n: hellooooooo ! it finally happened! i hope this didn’t seem rushed or unnatural to you guys but like. it’s been over 30k words and i thought you guys deserved something. yes i am going to be leaning into the whole “we’re just friends” trope while definitely not being just friends. yes i am going to drag astoria into this i’m excited i hope yall enjoyed