#had to do it for the reference. for the bit

[eupheme]

— you’re the one that I want

worst!wolverine/logan howlett x f!reader

tags: soulmate au, roommate!wade & neighbor!f!reader, valentine’s day fic, blind dates, use of alcohol, flirting, light misunderstanding, semi-public makeout

rated m - 2.6k

a/n: my submission for the loveuary challenge hosted by the wonderful @lubdubology and @yxtkiwiyxt! thank you so much, this was so fun 💘

“You really think there’s anyone worth my time at that shithole?”

Wade gasps in offense.

“Sister Margaret's is a New York institution. If America’s Sweetheart was a bar, she’d be it.” His eyes narrow, voice lilting as he adds, “Besides, you really want to miss out on the chance to meet your soulmate?”

“No fucking way.”

Wade’s groan stretches long, as his head lolls against the back of the sofa.

“Logan. Peanut. My sweet cheese, my good-time boyeh, please-” His voice strings out the syllables, “I need you to do this for me. I already set it all up, all you gotta to do is go.”

Logan’s scowl deepens, with a sharp jerk of his chin, “I’m not fucking going.”

A sigh then - Wade’s legs stretching wide, as he springs to his feet. Circling around to where Logan leans against the counter, looking every bit rooted to the apartment as the thing growing in the corner of their shared shower.

“I need this. I am finally back on track with Vanessa, and this is a real chance for me to knock it out of the park.” A finger raises, before poking him in the chest, “But I can’t have Mr. Grumpy Gus cramping our style. You feel me?”

An eyebrow arches up, but Wade barely pauses for a breath, “Besides, would you really stand a girl up on Valentine’s Day? Don’t you know what that could do to her psyche? What if that was her thirteenth reason? You really need that on your conscious?”

The filthy scowl Logan shoots him is like a three claw punch to the gut. Wade at least has the decency to look ashamed - fingers splaying wide in placation.

“Just give it a shot. If it all goes south you can just come right home. I won’t even be mad, even if it’s mid-coitus. Pinkie swear.”

The visual makes Logan’s lip curl. Arms crossing over his chest, as his head tilts, “You really think there’s anyone worth my time at that shithole?”

Wade gasps in offense.

“Sister Margaret's is a New York institution. If America’s Sweetheart was a bar, she’d be it.” His eyes narrow, voice lilting as he adds, “Besides, you really want to miss out on the chance to meet your soulmate?”

Wade misses the sharp look Logan shoots his way. His tone still teasing, missing just how deep his comment thrums through him.

How it meant something different in his world, rather than the shallow note of connection it seemed to mean here.

It didn’t matter, anyways. There’s only one person in the city he might not mind seeing, and surely you would have other plans.

Logan’s seen your recent date, stopping by the door down the hall in the evenings. Doesn’t much care for his goody-two-shoes vibe, the State University tone.

The memory sends his skin itching. An urge to move - and it’s enough that his arms are loosening.

Deep down, he really doesn’t want to stick around. Had been planning on hitting up a bar, anyways.

Can’t take much of this lovey-dovey shit, never been one of his favorite holidays.

And if his drinks are on Wade’s tab, then…

He’s sure he can let whoever the poor girl is down quick.

“Yes. Yes! Thank you, bestie.” The resignation must flick across his face, because Wade’s fist pumps with triumph, “This is gonna be great, I promise. Even better than the Tony Awards.”

Logan ignores another asinine reference - a final warning leveled his roommate’s way, as his hand curls around the doorframe.

“You got thirty minutes.”

“Don’t worry, buddy,” Wade grins.

“That’s twenty-nine too many.”

The heel of your boot bounces underneath the booth. Fingernails drumming on the surface of the sticky table, trying to keep your eyes from flicking to the door each and every time it opens.

This was stupid.

You don’t know how you let Wade talk you into this.

Sister Margaret’s was not your idea of a place to meet someone - romantically, at least. And therefore, the chances of this evening going well were historically low.

But it’d beat your second year of ordering in - the prices hiked up with the holiday. Of another movie marathon alone, picking apart the sordid end of your last relationship.

Anything was better than that, surely.

You’re double-checking your phone for the third time, confirming the text noting which booth to be in - the back left corner one next to the totally-not-a-bloodstain on the floor - when a shadow passes over the edge of your table.

Eyes catching on the flannel that creeps into your vision. Worn, in shades of brown and muted red - a slow drag upward across a broad chest, then higher. Your breath catching, as your mind whirrs - racing catching up.

You should tell your upstairs neighbor “hi”.

Something that resembles polite, normal conversation.

But you can’t seem to find the words.

Because as he slips into the booth, you’re quickly realizing he might just be here for you.

What you do find is -

“Is this a joke?”

Logan’s frown deepens.

A snarled out “what?” that sends a jolt though you, but you’re too confused to examine it. Left babbling, trying to make sense of this.

“Is this because I told Wade he’s a winter?” Your voice pitches higher, “Because his photo was really blurry, and I don’t even do that kind of color analysis-”

Logan scoffs, a hand braced on the table as if to push himself up. Hesitating for the briefest of moments, before he’s asking, “Why would this be a joke?”

Your lips part.

“Because-”

Because you’re here in the hopes of finding someone else. A distraction.

Unsure what to make of this magnetic feeling deep inside your chest when you see him. Having to hold yourself back from taking one step, and then another, when he lingers near the mail room.

You had hoped tonight would help you erase the man that surely does not even know you exist.

“…because I’m sure you have better things to do then uh, do this.”

“This?” He hedges, a brow arching.

“A blind date.”

Something in his eyes flicker, when you finally meet them. The little mark between his brows deepening with the rough rasp of his voice. ”You really didn’t know who you were meeting?”

“No,” Your head shakes, “No. Did you?”

His eyes drop for a beat, before they flick back up.

“No.”

Your tongue dips out to dampen your lip, and you miss the way his eyes track the movement. The question slipping from you without thought.

“Would you have come, if you did?”

The silence stretches out, tipping towards uncomfortable.

And yet, he does not leave. A leather jacket still slung across the back of the booth, as his fingers tap the table.

“I’m gonna grab a beer,” He deflects. “You want another?”

Logan’s head dips towards your drink, only the glittery dregs of red remaining, a cherry nestled against the ice.

Your shoulder lifts, about to answer that you probably shouldn’t. That you’ve already made enough of a fool of yourself.

His lips curl at the edges, before you can voice your answer. ”Wade’s buying. Thought we could make a dent in his wallet.”

“Oh.” The word draws out, as your smile stretches.

So, not a rejection.

It might just be an invitation, actually.

“Definitely.”

It’s not how he thought his night would go.

Should have peeled himself away twenty minutes ago, somewhere between your second and third drink and the wind of conversation.

Slunk back home, or to another bar.

Had thought about it, in that moment when you confessed that you hadn’t known he was meeting you.

The thought of it being a disappointment turning his stomach, until you had voiced your question. The hope that wound its way between your words.

Unable to answer, even if he knows what it would have been.

The alcohol flickers inside him, a brief respite to the burn of sore muscles and a bone-deep ache that he’s carried since his world.

Should stop drinking this shit, but he’s been taking it a day at a time. Swapping rubbing alcohol for anything with a kick. That for vodka. Vodka for beer.

It’s not progress, but it’s something.

The feeling never sticks around, but something about you almost mirrors it. A wash of calm as his chin cups in his palm. Senses narrowing down, blocking out all the noise around him.

Eyes snagged on the curl of your lips around the white straw, the pink tinge of gloss left behind.

Helpless, to the tug at his arm as you loosened. The point of your finger to the empty dart board, how he had followed two steps behind.

You’ve missed a handful of your throws. Two darts stuck between the numbers running around the rim. His lips twitching at the frown that pulls down the corner of your lips, the hand that braces at your hip.

“So, did Wade guilt you into coming?”

Your fingers brush his, as you hand over the darts.

“You could say that.” He grunts, eyes slipping towards the board. Still catching the scrunch of your nose, as he amends, “But, like I said. Didn’t know.”

It’s not an answer to your question before, but it’s something that tip-toes close to one. It’s enough that your expression softens - an excited touch against his shoulder when his throw flies true.

“Same.” Your fingers curl against his shirt, transfixed. Hazy - those walls around you from before unstacking one brick at a time, “Almost didn’t go. But you know Wade, and his puppy-dog eyes.”

Logan didn’t.

“-and I uh, thought it would be nice. To not be alone, this year.”

He missed his next throw. A side-eye shot your way.

“Alone?” The word comes out close to a scoff.

Can’t pretend it hasn’t been eating at him. Wondering what the hell Wade had been playing at, inviting you.

“Figured you’d be out with your boyfriend.”

The last dart sinks into the green rim around the red center.

“Very funny.” You hum, stepping up to take his place. A glance over your shoulder, to find him still watching you.

That frown back, as your head tilts.

“I really don’t know who you’re talking about.”

He wished he hadn’t asked. Should have just stayed silent, taken this night for what it was.

“Thought I’ve seen a guy around the last couple weeks.“ Logan hands shove into his back pockets, “Just figured…”

Your expression persists. His fingers tap his temple, “Grey streaks, suit.”

As if he doesn’t have some of his own.

“Oh!” Recognition flickers, as you spin back, “Definitely not boyfriend. He’s like, super married.”

Your shot flies wide, bouncing off the wooden walls behind the board - a little huff as you turn back, “They’re due to have their first in a couple months. Been helping them pick things out for the nursery.”

A finger pointed back towards yourself, in explanation, “Figured I could help. Interior designer, and all.”

Something like relief flickers in his chest. Another feeling - deeper, hungrier - almost drowns it out.

The words smooth, as they slip from his lips.

“No guy, then?”

The shake of your head is slow, and that sweet smell that clings to you curls around his senses. Thickens, even - betraying you.

It gives him the confidence to step into your space. Emboldened by the look you give him from beneath the thick fan of your lashes. Hope, burning once again in blown-dark pupils.

“Here.”

A hand touches at your hip, as he eases closer. Plucking the dart from limp fingers.

“You’re holding it too far back. Lemme show you.”

He never gave a damn about this game, but he’ll take any excuse to get closer. To feel the way you stiffen beneath his fingertips, the hitch of your breath.

The shot is lined up.

His wrist extends as he aims, chest brushing against your back, and suddenly - your palm curls around his forearm. Fingers splaying wide as a jolt arcs through his nervous system, shooting from his hand to his core.

Your words muted - it’s only his enhanced senses that have him catching the tail end.

“-like me.”

He makes a rough sound, and again you turn to face him. The prick of goosebumps as your finger trace the dots at his wrist.

“I said you have freckles like me.”

The knitted cuff of your sweater tugged back to show him how yours mirrors his, down to the very last mark.

Time stands still.

Logan’s dreamt about this moment for decades.

Using that little crisscross of dots like a compass.

Guiding him through life - thinking there had to be something about the mansion, its symbol, that tied it to him. Taking on the mantle that mirrored the shape, ink-like against his skin.

Thinking it would lead him somewhere.

Even if he’d been certain he had missed it, somewhere in those two-hundred years. Ships passing in the night, across a lifespan that has stretched far too long.

Always trying to push away those “what ifs”. Had stopped looking a long time ago. Never once, since he’d crossed over. Told himself he was luckier not to have a match.

Not to know love like that - because one day he’d have become acquainted with the loss of it, as well.

He’s had enough of that, in his lifetime.

And this - it’s not what he ever expected.

Finding you in a world that’s not his own. His match with a girl, living on the floor just below his.

It leaves him mute, as your eyes linger.

Not sure what to make of him, he’s certain. Of the part of his lips, his own heart hammering beneath his ribs.

Unsteady, for the first time in decades.

His name pulls him out of his thoughts. Cherry-sweet on your tongue, lilting into a question.

The dart is thrown by muscle memory.

Your fingers still pressed against his mark, as it hits dead center.

He takes his prize, back in the shadowed corner of the booth.

Your eyes already slipping shut, when his fingers tuck under your chin. Lips parting, and he finds himself grateful again for those animal-senses.

Permission in the galloping of your pulse beneath your skin. The held breath as you wait, balanced on the knife’s edge of anticipation.

The soft inhale of breath, when his mouth slants against yours. Fingers curling in his shirt once more, as you part for him.

Swallowing your moan, with the sweep of his tongue. Sweet - grenadine syrup blending with you, and it’s like he cannot get enough. The kiss drawing out, insistent and hungry - a shuddering breath when it finally breaks, as if you’ve forgotten how to breathe.

Pliable, in the way he tugs your thigh over his, seating you in his lap. How you follow, so easily.

Fitting against him as if you were meant to.

And maybe you were - the thought sending his fingers tightening, where they grip at your hips.

As if he won’t let you go, now that he’s found you.

You’re right there with him. Just as affected - your palms smoothing over his chest. Tracing the chain biting into his neck, sinking into his hair when they loop around his shoulders.

Letting your hips rock - a tentative movements, paired with the softest sighs.

Growing bolder when you feel him beneath you - how he encourages it, with the press of his palms. The tips of his fingers slipping under the hem of your sweater, a pulse of pleasure at the way you shiver with his touch.

The second gift of his name, and it’s the one he’ll remember most. Drawn-out. Needy, and it only makes him want to hear it more.

Another breath huffed out, a heady throb against the too-tight confines of his jeans.

There’s the crack of a pool cue, a cheer rising at the table across the room.

The bubble bursts.

Bringing him back - even in this dim corner, it’s still far too public for everything he needs to do to you tonight.

A shared thought, your lips kiss-swollen as they press against his neck.

“Can we go home?” You husk, into the shell of his ear.

Something deep inside him purrs at the word. Possessive, wrenching a growl from deep in his chest as he carefully eases you off him.

Pushing himself up from the booth - a hand coming to wrap around your wrist.

Thumb pressed against your pulse, feeling it thrum beneath your skin once more.

Right against your mark.

He’ll tell you tomorrow.

He’ll have time - he’s always had that.

Never been grateful for it.

Not until now.

thank you again, lub and kiwi! I am so excited to check out the fics for your event, and happy I was able to contribute one! I’ve wanted to write a soulmate fic for some time, this has me 👀💖 about writing more!

[mythblossoms]

nebula

pairing: caleb x gn!reader content: first! kiss!, yearning & down bad caleb and reader, light teasing, nicknames (pip-squeak), two dummies (affectionate) in love, loose EPIC/Odyssey reference because it's me a/n: double posting today to BECAUSE IT IS LOVE DAY and this is dedicated to beloved @spiderlilypetals - happy valentine's day, i think you deserve the world and sweet nights cuddled up and looking at the stars ;u; wc: 1.6k

Solar systems begin with the collapse of a nebula, swirling clouds of dust and gas expanding, swelling, building until caving in on itself. Waves of energy rippling across space and time, clinging to the remnants and tugging them in and forming a new home.

Funny, Caleb thinks, that this is what loving you feels like. 

Years spent memorizing the way your lips quirk up into a smile when he teases, the way you bit your lip when you were upset, how your eyes sparkled  when sharing some new interest — moments building something in his heart until it caved in on itself and you became the center of his universe, the brightest star with the strongest pull, keeping him stable but spinning.

“Any one home?” your voice broke through the churning cloud of thoughts encasing his mind like a bright light, the slight nudge of his knee with your foot grounding him — as you sat curled up on your couch. “Is someone getting too sleepy?” 

He grinned at you, lightly grabbing your ankle and squeezing. These light touches were familiar, safe. Contact that came easily after years of knowing each other. “Me? I wasn’t the one who stayed up late last night looking up best claw machine tactics.” 

“Well, at least one of us is trying,” you scoffed, tucking cold toes under his thighs and crossing your arms. “Your skills are getting rusty. Might have to revoke your arcade membership.”

“Don’t pout, pip-squeak —” his hand grazed your knee before settling on the back of the couch, another barely there touch that sent a ripple of energy towards his heart. “Pretty sure those new plushies on your bed came from your very dedicated co-pilot.”

“You can’t always use your evol, you know.” You poked your tongue out at him. “It’s cheating.”

It was easy like this, hidden under the familiarity of teasing and the safety of nostalgia. You would laugh, poke him in the cheek, make some silly joke at his expense. And he would collect this moment, another star in the galaxy of you. 

“And I’ll do it again,” he grinned. “Anything for you.” Only for you. 

You yawned then, the late hour truly not lost on either of you. Your hands stretching above your head, the collar of his old sweatshirt loose on your shoulder. 

“Remember the time we hung all those glow in the dark stars in my room?” You leaned in, head resting on your knees. Wistfulness lingered in your eyes, and Caleb’s heart stuttered - the gravitational pull of your gaze that strong. 

And how could he forget. All day spent arranging those stars in different paths across your ceiling, every pillow, blanket, and plushie to be found pulled into a massive pile on the floor. The night spent creating stories about constellations found in the patterns crisscrossing the ceiling. The pale green glow of the stars reflected in your eyes, the atoms hovering in the smallest space between the two of you humming with the energy of a combusting star. A night sky for just the two of you. A memory so ingrained that he could feel that weighted charge clinging to his skin. 

“What, you think I’d forget that?” He pinched your chin gently. “Someone wasn’t tall enough to put them on the ceiling so I had to do all the hard work”. He waited for the eye roll, the huff that would surely follow or the pillow that would be tossed his way. Safe he thought, easy.

The energy in the room had shifted, perhaps in the way you had looked at him or in some memory that had reawakened. The comfortable silence now thrumming in time with his beating heart. He wondered, briefly, could hear it? You sighed, wrapping your hand delicately around his, offering a gentle squeeze. “I miss it.”

Did you know the effect you had on him? Eyes closing as you relived the memory, fingers threading delicately with his. “I miss it being just me, and you, pretending like the stars were meant for us.” Caleb would pull every star out of the sky and hang it in your room, if it meant you were happy, if it meant your hand entwined perfectly with his.

“We don’t have to pretend anymore,” he said gently, his eyes speaking every word that drowned on his tongue. Simultaneously hoping you felt the weight of his words, wishing you would stay in your reverie. He moved imperceptibly closer, hovering on the boundary of what was familiar. “We could grab some blankets and look at the stars now.” His voice just above a whisper, the softness masking the slight quiver in his words. 

You hummed, a soft content sound, squeezing his hand - a slight glimmer in your barely open eyes. “Don’t forget our plushies.”

Your balcony had become your very own cozy fort. Big pillows carefully arranged against the windows of your apartment, every blanket you owned layered up, plushies propped up in the optimal stargazing seat — and Caleb sat next to you. The warmth of his leg pressed against yours, the chilly night a distant memory. He was safety, a constant comfort entangled in your life - never just you, or just Caleb, but you and Caleb. 

From here, the bright city lights hid most of the stars from view, only the brightest peeking out from their inky blanket. “I never thought it would be so hard to see the stars in the city,” you sighed curling into the blanket, pulling it up to your chin. “No stars means no stories.” 

Caleb grinned then. “Are you sure? Look-” he pointed to two stars that shone brightly - directly across from each other in the night sky. “You don’t know the story of the man who couldn’t return home?”

He was always better at this, the lightheartedness, the ease in offering something to you. Even back then, pulling stories from nothing just to make you smile. And of course you did. Earnest hands pointing to each plastic star, words energetically tumbling out, his own warm smile. Could he see warmth dusting your cheeks then? The way your eyes widened with each knock of his knee? 

His voice brought you back, the simplicity of a story much like before, but this time his voice was softer, the words more delicate. “Every time he tried to get home, some new obstacle blocked his path. Monsters and mayhem — but each time he would use his strength in strategies and calculations to pass them.” 

You leaned in, enraptured, eyes focused on him as he gazed up at the night sky. “And each time he felt like it was too much, like giving up - he only had to think of her. His guiding light. His constant - always together, always tethered. No matter what happens, he would stop at nothing to be by her side. “

Truths always lie hidden in stories - offering a semblance of reality. You could feel that here too, tonight. Time had stopped, or was it moving too quickly? Outside your balcony everything was a blur, here it was just you and Caleb. 

“Did he ever get home?” you barely heard your own voice. 

He finally looked at you, brows knit together in some unreadable expression. “He did, but things weren’t the same. All those things he did to get home had changed him.”

Your fingers found his, easily - simply. Fitting together as they always had. “But she loved him all the same.”

You felt it now, the restraint. The way Caleb held his breath, how his body stilled. His eyes the only thing betraying him — flicking from yours, to your lips, down to your clasped hands. The soft sound of surprise that escaped him. A bundle of energy bound so tightly it threatened to implode. 

“He was always hers too, right? Time can’t change that.” You moved closer, angling your head closer to his - warm breath against his cool cheek. “It’s always going to them.” It was always going to be Caleb and you.

The space between you felt too large, too charged with an energy that bound you and Caleb together. Closing the distance, you placed a tentative kiss on his jaw. His hand squeezed yours tighter, eyes fluttering shut — a slow shaky exhale released, as he leaned just slightly into your touch. 

“Is this okay-” you hummed into the tender part of his neck. The flutter of his heartbeat strumming against the soft of your lips. 

“More than okay,” he said hoarsely, fingers still laced tightly with yours — grounded in familiarity in the face of this gravitational shift.

“Okay,” you smiled, pinching his chin with your other hand - flitting small kisses against the length of his jaw and angling his lips towards yours. The space between so small but electric, sparking against the sensitive skin. He murmured your name, soft and pleading, before your lips met his. 

Kissing Caleb felt like the universe had exploded - stars and cosmic dust swirling between as gravity rearranged, realigning into a place that was you and him and this moment only. Something new yet familiar. His hands once hesitant now desperate pulling you into his lap, wrapping his arms around you, kisses becoming rushed, tongue tentatively brushing against yours.

Letting go was harder, Caleb chasing after your mouth - planting small kisses to your chin, the corners of your mouth.

“Just wait,” he whispered, resting his forehead against yours. “Don’t move.” 

You ran your fingers through his hair, drawing lazy circles at the nape of his neck. “Why?”

“If you move, I’m worried I’ll wake up and this will all be some dream.” He whispered into your skin, hands playing with the ends of your hair. 

Cradling his jaw, you moved him towards you again - kissing the worried space between his brows, the outer corners of his eyes, then lightly on lips. “I’m here.” Then, with a soft pinch of his chin again, “This is real.”

[thegamingcatmom]

@groovestrawberry Thank you so much for your words. They mean a lot. Especially because I'm prone to taking stuff way too seriously, so I really appreciate the reminder to just chill tf out. 😅❤️

Right so, onto your questions!

1) the last sentence you wrote

"It didn’t take long for your heart to pick up its frantic rhythm once more, terror seizing you anew at the horrible realization that, who…whatever was chasing you, it had been close enough for you to feel it."

Wrote that only yesterday. 💪

6) the word that appears the most in your current draft

(This is Chapter 4 btw.)

17) talk about your writing and editing process

Oh boy, what to say. Where to start.

I mean, I tend to take things a bit too seriously, as mentioned before. Which means I'll sometimes go over a sentence or paragraph until it no longer makes sense to me, lol. I know it's probably fine as is and ppl are gonna enjoy it anyway, so this is a habit of mine I'm working on. Also because, in my experience, whatever your brain comes up with after you first get your thoughts on paper, it most likely won't be as good as what you first came up with, so you end up going back to the OG anyway. 🤷🏻‍♀️

So ye, editing ain't fun, but it must be done because I'm really not happy with some of the stuff my old self has come up with. 🙃

As for the writing: This goes hand in hand with editing, actually. First things first though: Music. Most important. If I have a song I can vibe to and it fits the mood and all, then it's going rather smoothly. But, even then, I'm by no means a "fast" writer. Even when vibing, I'm still hyper focused on not making mistakes and especially using the correct tense (something I find surprisingly difficult when you're actually focused on it, lol). So, just like with editing, I'll read over a section a few hundred times before I proceed. I know some say it's more important to just get that first draft done and correct any mistakes after but, honestly? When a chapter is done, I wanna post it, not spend another few hours/days/weeks editing stuff. 🤷🏻‍♀️

So ye, writing and editing is more or less the same for me because it happens simultanously. Or it will, once I'm done with editing TBRH (The Bumpy Road Home) and things go back to "normal." 😅

What else to say...hm, I guess a few other "quirks" of mine when writing are:

Writing out a piece of dialogue and putting it somewhere on the page to use later because I just know that if I don't do that, whatever I come up with instead (because my ass forgot half of what I originally came up with) won't be as slapping. OG always wins and all. 😉

Pausing to take a breather because I get so immersed in the scene, I actually need a moment to process it. (I read somewhere that someone referred to it as "zoomies." This was more in the sense of reading a fic and coming across a section so damn good, you need a moment to process it. But, sometimes, this is very much the case for writers too. 🫠)

Looking up images, videos etc. of the ppl or things I'm writing about. For Chapter 4 of TBRH, the Denali house was my trusty companion. Just chilling in the background (aka: another tab), lol.

Starting on another scene even though I haven't finished the current one because I just need to know what happens next. (Yes, I'm aware I'm the writer.)

Well, that's all I can come up with for the moment. I'm sure there's more and maybe I'll post it at some point. ✌️

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.

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Thanks a lot for your questions and your lovely words! 💋

✍️ more fic writer asks!

reblog & your followers can send asks with the questions they’d like you to answer!

the last sentence you wrote

a character whose POV you’re currently exploring

how you feel about your current WIP

a story idea you haven’t written yet

first sentence of the fifth paragraph of an unpublished WIP

the word that appears the most in your current draft (wordcounter.net can tell you)

your preferred writing fonts

if you had to write a sequel to a fic, you’d write one for…

start to finish, how long did it take you to write the last fic you posted?

what is the longest amount of time you’ve let a draft rest before you finished it?

a WIP you’d like to finish someday

a trope you’re really into right now

a fandom you’re thinking about writing for

where do you get your inspiration?

favorite weather for writing

favorite place to write

talk about your writing and editing process

if you keep them, share a deleted sentence or paragraph from a published fic

the most interesting topic you’ve researched for a fic

in what year did you publish your first fic?

when did you publish your most recent fic?

do you ever worry about public reaction to what you’re writing? how do you get past that?

pick three keywords that describe your writing

how do you recharge when you’re not feeling creative?

besides writing, what are your other hobbies?

are you able to write with other people around?

your favorite part of the writing process

your least favorite part of the writing process

how easy is it for you to come up with titles?

share a fic you’re especially proud of

[elllisaaa]

OOPS - C. YEONJUN

KINKTOBER DAY 23 - SEXTING

SUMMARY : when your best friend receives a nude from you on a random tuesday, he feels the need to seek some clarification, and maybe that it is his chance to finally fuck you like he's been wanting to for years.

-> pairing : bff!yeonjun x fem!reader

-> words count : 1.6k

-> genre : smut

-> warnings : sexting (obviously), sending nudes and videos, masturbation (f. and m.), dirty talk, teasing, begging, praising, phone sex

+ the way i'm depicting yeonjun does not represent him, it's only a work of fiction

-> 18+ content bellow, minors DNI

-> reblogs and feedbacks are appreciated ! sorry for any mistakes, english is not my first language.

-> masterlist | txt masterlist | kinktober 2024

You had always been a clumsy person, and sending a text to the wrong person had already happened to you countless times, leading sometimes to awkward situations, but never as embarrassing as the one you were in right now. You groaned as you looked down at your phone screen, the chat with your best friend still opened. And there, a picture of you wearing pretty much nothing took centre stage. 

you :  [1 attachement] i could use some company tonight… junnie :  ??? wtf y/n ???

Your cheeks were burning, and all you wanted to do was to bury yourself six feet under but sadly you couldn’t. And you didn’t even know what to say because obviously, you hadn’t sent that to the right person. Truthfully, these nudes were just meant to some guy you met through a common friend. You had gone on a few dates together, and even though he wasn’t exactly your type, nor was he really interesting, you were a woman with needs, and a lonely woman at that. Hence why you were about to send him this mirror photo, with you posing in nothing but black lacy panties and your oversized shirt lifted up to show part of your boobs. 

you :  fuck don’t look at that delete delete delete it wasn’t mean for you junnie :  yeah could’ve guessed who were you going to send that to anyway ? you’re bitchless you :  first of all fuck you i’ve got plenty of bitches second and even though that’s none of your business, i’m seeing someone lately

The way Yeonjun seemed to care that much helped you relax a bit. His first reaction only seemed to be out of surprise, and you would have reacted the same way if you had received a sudden half-naked pic from your best friend too. Though, you would’ve probably not deleted it right away. 

junnie :  you mean that lame guy who couldn’t even pay for his own meal the three times you went out ? he’s an ass you :  well maybe but he’s my only option and i’m in need junnie :  doesn’t matter you can do way better than this jerk you’re too smoking hot to be sending that to him

Your cheeks took an even darker shade of red as you read his compliments, but it was not out of shame this time. It wasn’t unusual for Yeonjun to praise your looks actually, but never in such a bold way. And the fact that he was not referring to your pretty face but most likely to your body made some feelings swirl inside of your stomach - some feelings that shouldn’t even be there in the first place but that you couldn’t stop. 

junnie :  cat got your tongue darling ? you :  no gotta go  junnie :  to send him your nudes ? you :  and so what ? you jealous ? junnie :  maybe bet that loser couldn’t even make you cum anyway you :  and you could ?

This conversation was taking a turn you hadn’t expected, but a turn you liked very much, a turn you maybe liked a bit too much. You bit down on your lips as you waited for Yeonjun’s answer, though nothing could’ve prepared you for what you were about to read. 

junnie :  oh darling i would ruin you if you asked make you cum on my fingers first, until you’re dripping everywhere make you come on my tongue next, until you’re crying out my name and then i’ll give you my cock and i’ll fuck you better than any other guy you had before so, still need that jerk ?

You stayed speechless for a good minute that felt like an hour. There had always been some kind of tension between you and Yeonjun, always had been something underlying feelings that you didn’t want to misinterpret. He always looked at you and talked to you and flirted with you in a way that was way more than friendly, and you had always wanted him too - because let’s be real, who wouldn’t ?

you :  i’d let you do all that [1 attachment]

On the receiving end of your texts, Yeonjun couldn’t believe what was happening, couldn’t believe that this wasn’t just another one of his wet dreams, with you taking the first role and making him crave you and your body even more. He had wanted you for such a long time that it was hard for him to acknowledge that you had sent him another nude, another shot of your now naked tits, and that this time, you had done it while being absolutely conscious of who you were sending it to.

junnie :  fuck, you’re so beautiful darling tell me this isn’t a joke tell me you’re going to let me put my hands on you you :  i’m not one to joke about something like that, you know that are you touching yourself too ? [1 attachment]

His heart was racing in his chest as he opened the next photo - this time, a closer pic of your drenched panties, your fingers pressing against your clit through the material. He had been palming his cock over his sweatpants ever since he had received the first photo from you, and even if you had told him to delete it, he would’ve probably kept it for a while, because he couldn’t just forget about it just like that, because he needed you. And now, he needed you to see how bad he wanted you. He took a quick pic of the obvious bulge deforming his sweats before sending it to you without any shame. 

junnie :  [1 attachment] what do you think ? you :  show me more junnie :  [1 attachment] enough ? you :  shit i knew you were big you would fill me up so good [1 attachment]  wish it was your cock instead of my fingers

Yeonjun’s head was spinning with want, with all the fantasies he ever had about you and the new ones you were stirring inside of him with your little game. Every photo you sent became more and more revealing, and with each new one, his hand only sped up his rhythm. He didn’t care about how late at night it was, he didn’t care if one of the other guys could hear him, he just couldn’t stop when you kept sending him shots of your glistening folds and videos of your fingers covered in slick, spreading it across your hardened nipples.

junnie :  you’re driving me crazy look what you’re doing to me [1 attachment] wish you were here to sit down on my cock i know you would take it so well make the prettiest sounds for me too

The video of Yeonjun quickly getting himself off, paired with his airy moans and low grunts you could hear in the background made you even wetter if that was possible, your own fingers speeding up and rubbing against your g-spot making you feel close to the edge already. Your texts were starting to have more and more typos but you didn’t care, it felt too good to stop now. 

you :  i wpuld  frck junnie i nzed you so bad i’m so clode  [1 attachment]

This last video of you moaning his name was all Yeonjun needed to finally call you. The game had been fun, but he wanted to hear you as you came for him, wanted to hear through the phone how wet you were. Within a second, you answered the call and your needy whimpers immediately ringing through his ears felt like the greatest music he had ever heard. 

“- Fuck darling, you sound so good. 

- Junnie… Need you so bad…

- Me too, shit, you’re making me go crazy.”

Another one of your moans was the only answer he got, but it was more than enough for him to feel the knot in his stomach tightening as well. Your high-pitched voice was heavenly, and with his eyes closed and his imagination working overtime with all the photos you had sent to him, it was easy for Yeonjun to picture you touching yourself, all wet and ready for him.

“- I’m so close Junnie…

- Me too, darling… Cum with me, let me hear you.”

Your sounds of pleasure only elevated as you felt your orgasm wash over you like a hurricane, and Yeonjun let go too, covering his own hand in loads of cum as he moaned your name. For a while, the only sound that either of you could hear was the one of your heavy breathing, trying to regain some sense of consciousness after what had just happened. 

“- Are you still there darling ?”

You hummed absentmindedly, your mind still clouded with the intensity of your release. You rolled over your stomach to take some tissue and wipe your fingers from your slick, and then you took a hold of your phone again. You didn’t really know what to say now, but you didn’t want things to become awkward between the two of you, so you tried to crack a joke to break the ice. 

“- I thought you were a gentleman, but you’re here giving orgasms to girls when you’re not even with them.”

Yeonjun chuckled on the other end of the line, cleaning himself up a little too. 

“- I can be a gentleman. All you have to do is ask Y/N. Say the words and I’ll take you out on a date tomorrow. 

- And if I want you to come over and fuck me ?

- I’ll be there in ten.”

A smirk spread out on your lips as Yeonjun immediately hung up, but you had heard him rushing in the background before he ended the call. Sometimes, sending the wrong text to the wrong person wasn’t such a bad thing.

-> i don't allow any copies, reposts or translations of my works.

txt taglist (fill in this to added) :

@lala-----------lala @bbgnyx @hann1bee @rikiives @lichyuu @foxinnie8 @seomisaho @dylanobr1ens @straytiny127

kinktober taglist (dm or comment to be added) :

@d-dilemma @bath1lda @leeknowinggg @anxiousskylar @mikaelless

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

no cause sorry for the rant but you're right it's such a pervasive sentiment not just with music but anything involving Black people and other poc that even around the time Batman: Unburied first came out when I looked at the tag one time I saw some apparently popular riddlebat fanartist's reply to an anon asking them if they'd draw fan art of the podcast's versions of Bruce and Ed and they seriously said they wouldn't ever do that because they never drew poc before and won't ever start to because they "wouldn't want to draw something racist". and it's baffling to me because they literally could just have googled photos of the VAs as reference for this. that's literally not even hard. but instead they just proudly declared they'd never draw poc ever and got support for this from multiple people in their notes...

they did say they'd use Hasan Minhaj's voice clips from the podcast for their own (white, ginger) version of the character though which congrats on making that even worse

no lichrally I've had it up to HERE with my fellow whites using their fear of being perceived as racist as a justification to??? just actually BE racist??? by refusing to engage meaningfully with the writing or art or critical thought of people of color, or even just doing something as harmless as drawing a Black Batman or Indian Riddler. like these clowns would really rather put their entire asses out there and admit they can't learn how to draw a person of color and don't want to and then pretend that's an act of allyship? shut your hell mouth. how the fuck is it that hard for you to draw a Black person without it being racist.

and it all like fundamentally boils down to this deeply held white refusal to engage even a little bit with our own discomfort; this avoidance was identified as a crucial tenant of white supremacy in a very cool workshop I participated in last year. we don't like having to think about things that make us uncomfortable! the idea of, say, having to potentially learn a few new skills to draw a wider variety of people or of potentially receiving negative feedback, maybe even being accused of being unintentionally racist—that makes a lot of us curl up in a miserable little ball and preemptively disengage, which is why you have people coming up with these elaborate hoops justify their choices. a lot of us might believe racism is wrong but still be too afraid of confronting or being confronted with their own biases to actually push our boundaries re: engaging with things outside our white experiences, so then because we're Definitely Not Racist we have to come up with justifications for why our refusal to engage is actually woke rather than just prioritizing our own white fragility.

anyway @ all my fellow white people get a grip and learn to be okay with the possibility of being told you fucked up.

[stellewriites]

Part 5 - John Price x reader

Masterlist

Summary: When John gets an unexpected invite to his ex-wife's wedding, he scrambles to find a suitable date to take with him to ward off old ghosts from his past.

Notes: trans John, fat reader, smut - fingering, oral (f!receiving), riding/frotting, John's genitals are referred to as cock.

You’d been screening John’s calls and leaving his texts unread for the last fortnight, feeling worse and worse for it and not knowing exactly why you were doing it.

Each notification had your heart pumping in excitement for the possibility of him still reaching out despite your silence, and then thumping too hard in immediate anxiety and guilt.

“Stop moping and text him,” Kate said to you finally. She’d been watching you check your phone routinely throughout brunch and had noticed how you were only half focused in their conversations and slow to engage. You’d laugh a second later than the others and had forgotten what you’d ordered when it had arrived at the table.

“I’m not ready for dating.” You shrugged her off, looking back down at your phone.

She huffed and sent you a disbelieving look. Your other two friends currently present, Cass and Paige, paused their conversation to look at you doubtfully too.

“I’ve not seen you as happy as you had been recently when you were hanging out with him,” Kate said and the other two agreed. “I know this isn’t a confidence thing either. He said he liked you, and you clearly liked him.”

“Katie,” you said warningly.

“She’s not wrong,” Paige said and took a sip of her drink.

“I mean, hell, if you’re really set on not dating, then don’t! That’s fine, but text the guy back for god’s sake and hang out again. Or put him out of his misery.” She bit a large chunk out of her avocado toast as you slumped in your chair.

“He’s still trying, right? That’s what you were worried about?” Cass said, hitting the nail on the head.

Guiltily you looked down at the unanswered messages under John’s contact. It stung to realise that maybe John had been genuine that night and you’d turned him down so bluntly.

You chewed on the inside of your cheek and typed up your reply, sending it before you could talk yourself out of it.

>> hi john sorry for the distance, i’ve been figuring some stuff out. make it up to you over coffee if you’re free later?

He didn’t leave you waiting anxiously for long, replying immediately with an affirmative.

“What did he say?” Paige asked.

“We’re meeting up later,” you said a little bashfully. “He said he’s looking forward to seeing me.”

Kate smiled knowingly. “Yeah, I bet.”

You elbowed her lightly and put your phone away. It was easier to settle back into the conversation with the group, easier to concentrate, with your chest not feeling so tight.

——

“Hey,” you greeted him softly inside the coffee shop later that day. He’d arrived early again.

You felt almost more awkward now than you had when meeting him for the first time.

“How have you been, Sunshine?” He asked as you took your seat.

“Good. Fine. Yeah.” You nodded before you shook it. “I wanted to apologise, John. For a lot of things but—“

“No need, Sunshine, honestly,” he waved you off gruffly, leaning forward in his seat as you shrank back in yours. “I’m just glad you’re happy to see me now.”

“I am,” you confirmed with a shy smile, sat opposite him and growing more relaxed at the pleased twitch of his moustache.

“So what’s been new?” He asked again.

You snorted. “It’s only been a couple of weeks since we last saw each other,” you said.

He blushed, the pink flush half hidden behind the beard he was growing back out.

“Guess I got used to all the updates throughout the day quicker than I’d realised.” He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly before looking to the counter and sitting up straighter. “Do you want anything? My treat.”

Your smile had dropped at the reminder of how you’d skipped out of his life so suddenly; even though you didn’t owe him anything, you had grown to be friends before the wedding and you know you’d have been hurt if it was the other way around.

“Yeah, just an iced latte please,” you said before stopping him from standing. “Hey, I said I was making it up to you. I should be paying.”

He huffed a laugh. “Not likely. You’re making it up to me by sticking around, Sunshine. You didn’t have to come at all.”

“John…”

“One iced latte coming up,” he said and stood. “God knows why, they taste more of sugar than coffee.”

“That’s exactly why,” you huffed a hesitant laugh as he headed to the counter. When he came back a minute later and sat down with the drinks you took a sip before speaking. “To answer your question, work has been the same old, but I’m thinking of maybe getting a pet? Tied between a cat and a rabbit at the moment. If it’s a rabbit, I’ll need to sort the garden though, it’s little bit overgrown right now.”

His eyebrows raised in surprise and he put his tea down. “You got the tools for it?”

“I think my neighbour has a lawnmower and my mum probably has a pair of shears I could borrow for the hedges,” you hummed. It had only been a half thought semi-recently, so you’d not put much planning into the idea yet, just the start of a pinterest board of cute ideas.

“I could help,” he offered, a touch too casual. “If you wanted. I’ve got a lawnmower I don’t get to use too often and some time off before I have to head back to work.”

“I’ll think about it,” you said with a gentle smile.

He nodded.

“What about you?” You asked.

“Same old,” he said vaguely, repeating your own words back at you. He shuffled uncomfortably in his seat. “I am having to go back to work properly soon though.”

You tilted your head, confused at his drab tone, certain as you were that you’d messaged once or twice when he was at work, stuck doing paperwork or in a meeting before the wedding.

“I’ll be heading overseas,” he clarified. “Might not be contactable for a few weeks at a time. Just didn’t want you to think…”

“That you were ignoring me to get back at me for the fact that I ghosted you?” You guessed when he trailed off. John nodded sheepishly.

“Fuck, I’m glad I’ve gotten to see you before I go,” he said quietly, just looking at you.

“Me too,” you agreed. Impulsively, you finished off your drink and made a quick decision. “Do you want to come back to mine for dinner? I’ll cook.”

John grinned brightly. “I’d love that.”

——

You busied yourself in the kitchen when you got back home with him, missing his chuffed smirk when he saw your door was still in working order with no sign of it dragging on the doorstep.

You didn’t miss his hum when he joined you in the kitchen a moment later.

“That shelf meant to be on a slant?” He asked, eyes shrewd as he looked at your collection of herbs and spices.

“Oh, no but I’ve just never found time to fix it. And it’s not fallen down yet, so it’s not even made an appearance on my Urgent List.” You shrugged.

He hummed again and headed back to the front door. “I’ve got my tool box with me, I’ll sort it now for you.”

“No, John, you don’t have to,” you called after him, but he was already out of the door. You didn’t know that he’d kept his toolbox in his truck ever since he was first here just in case you messaged again needing anything sorted, and now he was glad his foresight was paying off.

The shelf was sorted quicker than the kettle boiled and you swatted at him to go relax once he’d cleaned up after himself. He placatingly held his hands up in mock surrender and went to wash up in the bathroom while you rinsed some veg under the kitchen tap.

You were given ten minutes of peace before you started to wonder where he’d gone and left the pasta in the pan boiling and the sauce on a low heat to find him. You weren’t afraid to chew him out if he was snooping, but instead you found him hunched over the sink in the bathroom.

“Taps were finicky,” he said before you’d had chance to ask him what he was doing. When he’d had chance to grab his tools from the kitchen without you noticing you didn’t know, but you couldn’t help but snicker as he frowned down at the old taps.

“Don’t do well sitting still, do you, John?”

He shrugged. “Figured I might as well since I’m here,” he said instead.

You snorted. “Come help me with the sauce once you’re done here then.”

You stifled a laugh when you heard him swear through the open door before the sound of a running tap turned on and off a few times. He came back through to the kitchen a little later with a satisfied smile and you did your best to concentrate on cooking instead.

You smiled at him when he settled in next to you to take over stirring the sauce, leaving you free to set the table. You felt a pang of domesticity, it was all so easy with John.

You plated it up and sat down together. Eating dinner with him was just as easy, the awkwardness you’d felt walking into the cafe forgotten about completely as conversation flowed naturally between the two of you. Though you did have to fend the man off from planning to go out in the morning to get the wood to build you either a hutch for a potential rabbit or put up climbing shelves if you decided on a cat instead; he’d figured you’d be able to decide by time you’d finished the pasta.

“Best meal I’ve had in a while,” he sighed happily when he finished off the pasta. “Stunning.”

“Thanks, John,” you said bashfully. When you stood to take the dishes he moved quicker and grabbed the plate from your hands. You didn’t bother complaining, knowing how stubborn the man was already; instead you joined him and put the dishes away once he’d cleaned them, smiling to yourself as the pair of you worked in comfortable silence.

When all was put away and your kitchen was back to normal - now with a sturdier shelf - he smiled and headed for the door reluctantly with his toolbox in hand.

“Thanks for today, Sunshine,” he said softly and, after a brief moment of deliberation, he leant in to kiss your cheek. “Talk to you later?”

You nodded happily and closed the door behind him.

When you laid in bed later that night you couldn’t stop thinking about the gentle, chaste kiss. The only real one you’d shared so far.

——

You only got a week with John before he disappeared. He’d made you promise to keep him updated like you would normally so he could catch up when he got back again, but you tried not to overwhelm his notifications; sticking to a couple of texts every few days instead of the daily messages you’d quickly fallen back into.

If he wanted more you were sure he’d let you know and if he only skim read the mountain of messages and photos you’d still managed to send then you’d ease up next time.

He said he would be gone a month, tops, but you didn’t hear from him for two. You tried not to worry, his job wasn’t an exact science, but that fact could make you more anxious depending on the day.

It was a random Wednesday evening when you got a knock on your front door and your heart suddenly plummeted.

You walked to the door with shaking hands. The repercussions of John’s work had never fully occurred to you until this moment, or at least you’d done your best not to linger on it for too long. But now visions of the person on the other side of your door being someone in an official uniform, waiting to let you know weeks too late that John had—

John had shown up to your house unexpectedly.

“Sunshine.” He smiled.

Clearly tired, he stood on your doorstep with his hair damp and curling at the ends, his beard overgrown and his work gear still on, though a big bag was hooked over his shoulder. His smile never wavered, relieved when you answered the door.

“John?” You stepped to the side to let him in without a second thought and he trailed a heavy hand appreciatively down your arm.

“Cleaned up a little at base, but I haven’t stopped driving home since. I’ve had you on my mind as soon as we were wheels down,” he admitted with soft eyes.

You didn’t question his use of the term ‘home’ when referring to driving to yours after spending months in another country and you certainly weren’t going to think about how it made you feel.

“You should’ve gone back to yours to sleep, or at least dropped off your things,” you berated him half-heartedly. “We could’ve caught up when you weren’t running on— what? Four hours of sleep?”

“Knew you’d be my first stop.” He’d dropped his bag by the front door, his daft hat dropped on top, and was slumping onto your couch with a heavy sigh. “Should’ve left my shit at base maybe. Just didn’t want to have to drive back tomorrow.”

“Have you eaten?” At his slight shake of the head, you moved to the kitchen and started pulling something together, leaving him to relax. You knew he must be tired by how he wasn’t following after you, and your suspicions were confirmed when you came back with a thick sandwich, the last slice of a quiche you’d made earlier in the week and some picky bits from your fridge to find him asleep. You cringed at the lacklustre dinner, but you hadn’t been expecting guests and you were going grocery shopping tomorrow, so you placed it on the coffee table and sat down carefully next to him so he didn’t wake.

Turning down the volume on the TV, you let him nap as you watched a few episodes of your latest favourite. You couldn’t help but let your eyes dart over to him every so often to check on him, giggling when you noticed his mouth had dropped open during his well deserved catnap.

You paused your show when he grumbled and wiped a slow hand over his face a few hours later.

“Hello, sleepyhead. Hungry?”

“Starving,” he groaned croakily.

“Best I could do on short notice,” you said and handed him the plate. You watched like a big cat documentarian as he tore through the food with an unholy passion, finished in minutes. You silently handed him your water and he chugged it back with a loud ‘ahh’ after.

“Lovely as ever,” he said sleepily before nodding back off. You stifled a laugh and stood to grab him an extra pillow and blanket. It was clear he wouldn’t be driving home tonight, so you thought you might as well let him get comfy and crash on the couch for the night.

A brief thought crossed your mind of waking John and letting him share your bed; you’d done it for the wedding after all, and it wouldn’t have to mean anything.

You shook your head and draped the blanket over him. You knew it would mean something and you weren’t ready to make that step yet as much as you wanted it.

——

You woke in the morning to John using your shower and you smiled at him with raised ‘brows when he came back out dressed in more familiar civ clothes. You looked for the bag at the front door but couldn’t see it.

“Staying for breakfast or heading home?”

“Heading home, sadly. But I’ll call you later, yeah? I want to catch up properly,” he said. “Thanks for letting me stay, Sunshine.”

“Of course,” you said genuinely and in between bites of your cereal. “It was a nice surprise.”

He hummed and leant in to kiss your temple with a warm hand cradling the back of your neck. You tried desperately not to push into him and to ignore the thoughts of how he smelt like you out of your head; how if anyone tried to flirt with him on his way home they’d smell your strawberry shampoo and very berry body wash. How your spring air scented febreeze spray had sunk into his jacket from the couch through the night.

Your subtle mark was all over him and neither of you seemed to mind.

“Call me when you get home, John.”

He hummed, lingered for a moment more, then headed out with his bag in tow.

——

The bar was loud and your friends were still wide awake and partying strong, celebrating the news of Paige’s well earned promotion. You, however, were flagging.

It was late, and the prospect of staying out any later was making holding back a yawn nigh impossible. You’d never been a big drinker so you’d not been keeping pace with the others, a possible mistake since you seemed to lack the same energy as them, found firmly in their second wind. The last thing you wanted to do was bail but you didn’t want to bring the mood just down hanging around either.

Your phone buzzed and you smiled when you saw it was john.

>> Still awake?

<< for once yeah :p

>> What show has you gripped to binge watch late into the night this time?

You snorted.

<< out celebrating with friends, paige got promoted!!!

>> Tell her congratulations from me

>> What time does the party end?

<< idk but i’m ready for bed already 😪

<< taxi isn’t booked for another couple of hours tho :(

John’s speech bubble appeared and disappeared a few times and you watched the screen avidly.

>> Do you want me to come meet you to walk you home?

<< really??

<< would you mind? it’s late and a little cold so you don’t have to!

>> Send me the address and I’ll set off now

<< thanks john ❤️

Either John lived close or he’d ran there, as you’d only just finished telling your friends that you were leaving early when John turned up.

“You shouldn’t leave on your own, walking home at this time of night is dangerous,” Cass said worriedly, her words slurring slightly.

“I’m not, John’s meeting me to walk me home,” you said and flushed when they all cheered and whistled at the mention of his name; their catcalls gained volume and enthusiasm when John walked through the bar door a second later, head on a swivel as he looked for you in the crowd.

“Fuck off,” you hissed at your friends playfully and hugged them all goodbye before you headed over to John. He was grinning and waved happily over to your friends, nudging you when he saw the embarrassed scrunch of your shoulders.

“Good night?” He asked once you were on the path outside.

“Yeah.” You smiled. “She deserved the raise like three years ago, but at least they’re finally recognising all the work she does.”

John nodded along. He cursed a moment later when he felt a few raindrops. You both looked up at the gentle patter and gasped when it quickly turned torrential.

Your walk turned into a run as John grabbed your hand tightly and led you a little shop alcove near by, shoving you under and crowding in after you.

“Shit, I should’ve driven,” he blamed himself, looking at your soggy jacket and the rain that had splattered your round cheeks.

“Don’t worry about it, John,” you waved it off. “Bit of rain never hurt anyone.”

The pair of you were pressed close, his broad shoulders and your wide hips taking up the space in the doorway enough that you were both holding your breath in each other’s space.

“Just my luck really,” you said.

“It’s just British weather,” John corrected. “Don’t know why I wasn’t expecting it to rain in the middle of summer,” he joked.

You laughed and felt butterflies flutter at his mirrored rumble, focused on where your stomach pressed against his. You no longer felt tired stood with him.

It went quiet, with just the soft rain and the sound of the odd car passing by the only things heard for a moment as you both held your breath, eyes locked.

You leant forward those last few inches and pressed your lips against his. Your noses bumped and you automatically lifted a hand to tilt his chin slightly to adjust, pressing your lips a little firmer when he followed your guiding hold. His hands on your hips were reverent as he let you lead.

You delighted in the scratch of his beard for a split second before suddenly flinching back, your hand becoming firm against his shoulder to keep him from following.

“Fuck,” you swore shakily. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t apologise,” he huffed with a confused smile.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” you insisted. You felt him lean towards you and firmed the stretch of your arm to keep him in place as best you could in the small space. “It’s mixed messages. It’s not fair to you.”

“I’m still waiting,” he admitted. “I’ll wait however long y’need, Sunshine.”

You ducked your head.

“I feel guilty,” you whispered. You swallowed thickly as the reasons were finally voiced even as you avoided his eyes. “I feel like it’s Charlotte all over again for you; I’m stringing you along when you could be finding someone else. I’m— it’s not fair,” you repeated.

He leant back in shock, a frown pulling at his brows and his mouth moving silently for a moment. John looked down at you from his tucked in chin and considered your comparison, knowing the quick denial on the tip of his tongue wouldn’t soothe you.

“Have you decided that then? You don’t want to be with me?” He asked finally.

You hesitated, unable to lie and say no, and he latched onto that with a fierce hold.

You thought back to what your friends had said, the fun you’d been having with him again, how natural it all was.

“Sunshine…”

“We could take it slow?” You asked.

“Of course,” he agreed readily, pushing those few inches closer to you in eagerness. “Slow and steady, whatever you need.”

“Ok.” You nodded.

“Ok?”

“I like you, John,” you admitted almost shyly, smiling up at him. “I want to try.”

In the next breath he ducked close to kiss you again.

You were pressed against the damp, grainy wall of the little alcove as he greedily slipped a hand beneath your shirt and hungrily kissed you, not stopping for a breath or a gasp now that you’d given the go ahead.

“W-what— happened t-to,” you gasped as he filled your space and every thought. The patter of the rain going unheard as his shaky breaths filled your ears and echoed torturously. “Take— taking it s-slow?”

He sucked on your lip before pulling back and panting, swapping breaths with you. “I’m not down on one knee, am I?” He asked as though you were being obtuse.

You snorted, eyes wide in disbelief. But you didn’t push him away, instead your grip kept him close.

He dipped in for another peck and you cupped his bearded cheeks.

“My house isn’t far from here,” you suggested softly. Testing the waters.

In a flash John was dragging you out of the alcove and down the street with you laughing as you splashed through the puddles to keep up with his determined pace.

“Wrong way, John,” you laughed and tugged at his arm, directing him the to follow you and head the other way towards your house. He crowded against your back, slightly off to the side, and you felt butterflies erupt at the sound of his low chuckle as your steps overlapped and you tripped each other in eagerness.

——

Once you were safely inside your home, it didn’t take long for you to get naked and climb on the bed. You dragged John along with you, clad still in his boxers.

He hovered over you as you laid back flat, his broad palms running from your ribs to your flank soothingly as he settled between your thick thighs.

His eyes were all black, the usual greyblue just a thin strip around the edges as he took you in in all your glory.

The need to make you keen and cream on his fingers was obvious by his hungry expression and the flexing of his hold on your softest parts.

“Been wanting this for too long, Sunshine,” he whispered. “Longer than you know.”

“Think I can guess,” you gasped as he lowered himself down and kissed your stomach, making sure to cover each curve and roll as he journeyed up, keeping his warm palms cupped and dragging up your sides as he kissed between your breasts. Your knees squeezed him at the ribs when he palmed one of your tits, using the light hold to lick a broad stripe over the sensitive nipple. He went back to kissing higher, trailing up along your stretched neck and biting teasingly at your earlobe before coming face to face.

“Any preferences?” Fingers, tongue, toys.

“I’d prefer to cum sooner than later,” you said cheekily, basking in his eye roll.

“Yes, ma’am,” he huffed good naturedly. “I’ll do my best.”

He leant down and kissed you, plunging and messy, not like the dry brush of lips in the rain or the rushed eager swaps of spit and squished smiles on the way home and into your bedroom. You brushed your hands over his furry chest and trembled pleasantly, raking your fingers through and sighing at the strength usually hidden beneath layers of baggy and comfortable clothing.

“John,” you sighed and he shuffled his way down back between your legs.

“Just lay back and relax,” he ordered before trailing his nose through your bush, huffing in an opened-mouthed breath with a pleased hum.

“Need a map?” You joked breathily, breath hitching when he huffed an amused breath at your opening, pressing a light kiss there afterwards. His thumb gently spread your vulva and he gave a gentle kitten lick. Using the building wetness he found he trailed his thumb lower to your arsehole and kept it there with little pressure.

“Nah, this is your clit, right?” he asked teasingly. You snorted, but felt your pussy clench and your muscles tense when he added a bit of pressure.

“John—“

“Relax,” he said again. He moved his attention and his hand back up. “Don’t need a guided tour, though I appreciate the offer; wouldn’t mind watching you show me what you like another day. But I know what I’m doing, love.”

He licked a stripe up your centre and your eyes fluttered, your hips pushing up into his hands when he puckered his wet lips around your clit and gently suckled. “Yeah, you do,” you whimpered.

He slipped his middle finger inside fluidly, no resistance, and you let out a soft sigh, your hips subtly raising to get him as deep as you could. He changed the angle of his mouth so his strong nose nudged at your bundle of nerves and he could mouth at your plush wet opening instead. He licked around his finger, adding to the sticky mess as you practically sucked him in.

He could tell by the flutters of your cunt that you were enjoying yourself, the pinch of your brow only adding to his confirmation when he looked up, but you were so quiet.

“Y’can be loud for me, Sunshine,” he said, curling his finger and grinning cheshire-cat-wide when your jaw dropped at the feeling. “Don’t be shy.”

“Give me reason to,” you said with a cut off gasp. “W-work for it.”

He felt heat rush to his core, fattening his already throbbing cock.

As you wish.

He hooked one trembling thigh over his meaty shoulder and focused back on the heat between your legs; like sticky syrup, slippery between the pads of his fingers as he dipped a second finger in beside the first.

He gave you a moment to clench around the thicker intrusion with closed eyes before setting a quicker, less forgiving pace than before. You let out a surprised grunt, your hand flying down to grip his hair as he sealed his lips to your clit with a wagging tongue.

“Fuck.”

His left hand moved to keep your hips still, strapped across your soft tummy like a seatbelt, his palm a firm pressure in the soft pudge below your bellybutton.

He broke the seal of his mouth to heave in a panting breath and nibbled at the soft skin of your thigh beside his head to catch his breath while his fingers continued to pull sweet noises from you.

You whimpered softly, dropping your hands to the mattress and clinging tight to the sheets and felt your cheeks heat up when John chuckled.

“Can’t tell what I prefer hearing,” he said and paused his fingers deep inside of you, spreading them to get a little look at the desperate cling of you around his long digits. Your creamy arousal slid down the back of his hairy knuckles and he revelled in the light squelch as you wriggled in his hold, urging his fingers deeper inside. “Your sweet cunt or your careful moans.”

“Please, John,” you asked. Pleaded. “I’m close.”

He slipped his fingers free of your tight clutch and shushed you with a smile when you whined. Licking his pruny fingers clean, he groaned at the taste.

“I’ll get you there, Sunshine, don’t worry.”

He left a wet smack of a kiss on your thigh before ducking back down and licking deep and insatiable into your needy cunt, his fingers focused on your sensitive clit instead, rubbing almost too hard and too fast as your hips pushed your cunt further into his mouth. His arm kept you locked close and unable to shift away, not that you wanted it to end, but the sudden onslaught of hyper-focused attention was a lot after his teasing and after so long without a partner. Your hand had made its way to the back of his head once more, cupping gently, but urging him forward with a steel determination. He wasn’t allowed back up for air until you’d cum.

He pinched your clit and you shrieked at the nip of pain beneath the pleasure, feeling yourself tumble over the edge as he huffed and grunted into your pussy like a man starved.

John held you close by the thighs with both hands as you arched and clenched on his tongue; slobbering and groaning against your tender vulva as you cried out. He gave your thigh one light but sharp slap as you flooded his senses; sweaty and salty, the taste and scent of you.

You collapsed back with a breathy little, hnngh, and let your fingers scratch lazily through his hair where he’d rested his face in the groove of your groin.

He hummed and dragged himself further up your body before slumping over you, kissing the taste of you into the back of your mouth, ingraining it into your tongue, gums and teeth as you whined and writhed beneath him.

“Jesus fucking christ,” you laughed tiredly into his mouth. “Gimme a chance.”

He smiled and ground himself against your hip. “Can’t help it, y’make me feel like a teenager.”

Your nose scrunched and he huffed a laugh. “A’right, won’t make that comparison again.”

You pecked his lips in thanks and slipped your hand down between you, gathering a glob of your own arousal between your fingers. Thoroughly lubed, you pushed your hand under the band of his boxers and rubbed the collected juices over his cock and watched his brow pinch in pleasure.

It was your turn to tease.

You leant up and kissed him open mouthed and slow, the tease of tongue against his lips as he humped against your hand, moans mingling in breaths shared.

You moved your hand lower, went to slip in a finger but he gripped your wrist tightly. You looked up with wide eyes, hand falling loose in his grip where it had stopped you in your tracks.

“No, not like that. I don’t— I don’t like—“

“That’s ok,” you interrupted his stuttering explanation, watching walls build up before your eyes that you were determined not to let solidify. He didn’t need them around you. “We can just keep doing it like before,” you offered easily with a smile and lingering kiss to his fuzzy cheek. “Whatever you want.”

John guided your hand back up hesitantly, watching you as though waiting for the other shoe to drop. He kept your fingers hovering over his cock once more and you pushed forward to rub from tip to root and back up again.

“Yeah?” You asked and watched as his shoulders relaxed again. He moved his arm to lean back on his elbow by your head and you smiled, satisfied with the show of trust. “Yeah, ok.”

You pushed against the spot just below the head of his cock, trapping it against his pubic mound and were gratified as he groaned low, like the sound was forcibly pulled out of him as he thrusted roughly against your fingers. John ducked his head and kissed you, missing the mark in his desperation and licking against the corner of your mouth instead.

You nudged your face up slightly and let him moan against your lips, quickly falling into the distraction of getting him dripping and close; pulling out all your tricks and feeling yourself get worked up in return whenever you felt him throb and pulse in your hand, his thick, hairy thighs shifting either side of yours.

He pulled back and you paused your ministrations immediately, worried you’d done something wrong again, but John hurriedly tugged his boxers down and off, kicking them away from the bed and diving back towards you with a ravenous kiss.

Rolling onto his back, John tugged you into his lap so you were straddling him and for the first time in his presence a burst of hesitance connected to your weight bloomed in your chest.

You lifted up on your knees slightly to relieve some of your weight from his hips.

“Oh, John I don’t know—“

“Come ‘ere, Sunshine,” he pulled your hips back down and urged you to ride him, moving with his own frotting hips as your vulva spread to soak around his cock.

With each grind, the head nudged slightly from its foreskin and kissed your clit perfect as you tilted back. You huffed a weak moan as he slipped through your folds and the schlickschlickschlick sounds of your combined arousal mingling and frothing between your thighs had you panting and moving quicker.

Once you found your pace, one hand balanced back on his hairy thigh and the other rubbing at your clit furiously, he lifted his hands from the fat of your hips and stomach up to thumb at your nipples.

You noticed how he moaned and tensed when you slipped heavily over his sensitive tip and grinned a little meanly as you focused a careful swivel of your hips to catch your slick centre on it. You clenched and gushed over his throbbing tip as he whined, gripping you tightly to try and pull you lower.

“Close?” You asked with a breathy giggle, feeling your own legs shake with the oncoming orgasm.

You traced gentle fingers over his faded top scars beneath his thick thatch of chest hair as he groaned and leant down to kiss him. It didn’t take much longer for you both to cum, both worked up and the constant, teasing brushes at your cores were enough to gradually tip you over the edge.

His hand in your hair kept your mouths attached as you panted hot and wet, and when you broke free to the side his beard was scratchy against your nose and cheek as you shuddered on top of him.

“John, fuck.”

“Just like that, just like that,” he thrusted up in jerky little motions before stilling.

You flopped to the side a moment later, less conscious of your weight but wanting to be comfortable, and he gathered you close immediately. He tucked you under his chin with a grunt, slipping a leg over yours.

“I’m not letting you out of this bed for a week,” he groaned sleepily. You hummed happily, exhausted. He let you drift off before whispering in your ear. “Sorry this isn’t slow, Sunshine, but I won’t be going back to being friends now.”

You grinned and nuzzled closer.

“I think we should go visit my home town next, only fair you meet my crazy family too, yeah?”

John closed his eyes happily and nodded. “Looking forward to it,” he said. “Though my rates are a little higher than £100.”

You pinched his thigh and laughed when he tried to squirm away with a hiss.

You kissed his neck chastely and tightened your arm around his waist, nodding off as you felt him trail a hand back and forth over your naked back.

[veesidesandrarities]

Being creative and even silly in a new language really does help it stick, too!

My now-spouse and I took Japanese together, and he used to come up with bizarre, often nonsensical phrases as soon as we were introduced to new vocabulary words or grammar, and listen, I'm woefully out of practice, but the parts I'm least rusty in recalling?

are almost all inevitably stuff from those silly phrases.

I can't forget that you turn a noun into a verb with adding "wo shimasu", because the goofball started saying "haambaagaa o shimasu", which roughly translates to "hamburgering" and it's just. so stupid! so silly!! what does that even mean?? Lol

I only recall the word for "window" is mado, or how to say "that thing over there", because he used to proudly (and deliberately nonsensicallly) declare "ano mado wa boku no desu", which literally means: "that window over there is mine" (with, if you are curious, a youthful masculine pronoun vibe, because Japanese is way more interesting and nuanced with first person pronouns than English; boku is used by young boys and men, and sometimes by tomboys and butch lesbians, apparently, as it's got a kinda butch energy to it that the gender neutral polite watashi doesn't)

part of the reason i recall the verb hanashimasu so well and the only reason I recall the words for "hospital" (byouin) and "corpse/dead people" (shinin), or that the grammatical particle equivalent to the English preposition "at" is de.... is because he came up with the absurd question:

"what language do dead people speak at the hospital?"

(Which, iirc, is something like: "shinin wa byouin de nani go wo hanashimasu ka?", or, most literally: "dead people [subject marker] hospital at, what language [direct object marker] speak [optional question marker at end of sentence]?", because Japanese as an agglutinating language has VERY different grammar from English lol)

(btw we jokingly decided the only "correct" answer to that would be: "ratingo", aka... Latin. Because, you know, it's a dead language? Har! Yeah, we're dorks lol)

(but also that's the only reason I recall how to say the word for "Latin language " in Japanese either, which also helps me recall the pattern to referring to languages in that language, soooo...)

Anyway, POINT IS

Both he and I remember way more random bits of vocabulary and even crucial bits of grammar, because of those "silly, nonsense" phrases!

So, tldr:

Go ham!! Make up silly stuff in the languages you're studying!!! It's fun AND shockingly helpful!! And to language teachers out there, keep in mind that not only does this practice encourage deeper and more permanent understanding of the language, it ALSO means they have enthusiasm for it... and a good reason to add more and more of the language to their repertoire. Like??

I don't know the German for "my hobby is tax evasion" (because I never studied German) but

boy, that is absolutely a construction of the kind my spouse would have come up with

and if he had, I would definitely remember the Japanese terms for "hobby" and "tax evasion"...🤣

I told my students they're allowed to be creative and don't have to be factual when writing about themselves in German because I keep getting questions like "what if I don't have roommates or what if I don't have hobbies" and I'm like guys just make something up! Have fun! I won't fact check you!

So now I am grading homework where a student is claiming to be from North Korea and his hobby is tax fraud

[moonstruckme]

hiiiii mae. I was re-reading thawing out and I'm curious if you've ever considered writing about Sirius & reader getting Remus back out on the ice again? I feel like it has real cute and fluffy potential. love all that you do! <3

Thank you for requesting! I've been looking forward to this milestone for them for so long :')

Read the Thawing Out series here

cw: modern au, chronic pain references, some anxiety caused by traumatic events

poly!wolfstar x fem!reader ♡ 1.1k words

It was your idea to do this outside of the rink. You notice things that Sirius doesn’t, and you’d noticed that as much as Remus feels at home with the boards and the bleachers and hum of the Zamboni, they intimidate him too. So, you’re taking advantage of a cold Saturday to utilize the outdoors. 

Sirius frowns, spinning an idle circle on his blade. “This ice is shit.” 

“You’re just spoiled,” you counter, still lacing up your skates with Remus. You’ve slowed your pace to match him, whereas Sirius had laced up quick as always and gone out into the small rink without a second thought. Another way you’re simply better than him. 

To his credit, Remus doesn’t seem to be stalling. He tried talking you both out of this on a couple of occasions, saying that it wasn’t worth your time, you were giving it more importance than it was due, etc., but now that he’s here he simply seems to be taking a methodical pace. Preparing himself. Sirius can grant him this, considering he hasn’t had skates on his feet since his injury nearly three years ago. 

“Would you call a swimmer picky for wanting a properly chlorinated pool?” 

“Yes.” 

Remus glances over at you, that particular smile he reserves for your obstinance gracing his lips. Sirius’ heart melts a little. 

“Then fine. I’m picky. Just be careful, both of you. I’m telling you, this ice is truly—” 

“I know how to skate on unsmoothed ice.” You cut him off with a look. There’s fondness buried beneath it, and Sirius narrows his eyes back playfully as you knot your laces and stand up. “So does Remus.” 

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Remus jokes. He stands with you, though, letting you onto the ice first. 

Sirius can see the hesitance in your boyfriend now. That bit of nervousness Remus is trying to ignore. The awareness of it balls up tight and uncomfortable in his chest. 

“Awe,” Sirius croons with overdone patronage, skating to a stop a few feet away from the entrance, “are we not sure? We’ll do it like with the littles then, darling.” He bends and pats his knees, making a show of it. “Come on, come to me.” 

Remus snorts and sets one foot on the ice. “Piss off.” 

That one foot is all it takes. Remus pushes off with practiced ease, gliding into the rink. Sirius beams. 

You look equally as awestruck, your eyes so brimming with love and joy they almost hurt to look at. 

“Well, would you look at that,” Sirius says, “he does know how to skate on shit ice. Give us a spin, handsome.” 

“I’m not your show pony,” Remus says, but spins nonetheless. It’s simple, and yet so incredibly graceful. So obviously second nature. 

“Remus.” You seem to have given up any hope of trying to play it cool, your voice shining with barely repressed glee. “That was so perfect.” 

Remus is doing a similarly poor job of repressing his own smile, though he only tsks. “If either of you did a spin like that, I’d make you redo it three times and then add a jump so you didn’t embarrass yourselves.” 

Sirius crosses his arms, nodding. “Go on, then.” 

It’s clear that Remus is happy to do it. He’s cautious for a while, testing his own limits as he adds complexities and small jumps and tries out different variations. Ordinarily Sirius might worry for his hip, but Remus has been especially diligent in his stretching in preparation for just this; and whenever he seemed inclined to skip it, you or Sirius were there to pester him (lovingly, of course).

Sirius’ heart swells to the point of bursting at how beautiful Remus looks. His posture shifts to accommodate the new range of movement, his arms coming out almost unconsciously, with a dancer’s grace. Sirius is well used to the symphony of skates on ice, but Remus’ have their own melody, their own beat and cadence. Even his face changes, the tension fading from his expression until it’s at once relaxed and utterly present. Remus was made for this. 

You and Sirius don’t do anything but watch, rapt. After a while, Remus seems to get sick of his audience, coming to a reluctant stop. His cheeks are pink from the cold and exertion—Sirius wants to cover them with both hands and kiss him dizzy—but Remus’ expression shifts when he looks at you. 

He lets out a breathy, nervous chuckle. “Sweetheart…?” 

Sirius turns, and your lips are pressed together, your eyes bright. “Sorry,” you say, giving a wobbly smile, “you’re just—Remus, you’re so lovely.” 

“Oh, you sop.” Sirius curls an arm around you, kissing your head. “Stop that.” 

“I’m sorry.” You laugh at yourself. Swipe away a tear that manages to escape. 

Sirius tuts. “Look what you’ve done,” he says to Remus, who appears caught between shock and fondness, his mouth hanging slightly open. “She’s completely right, you know. You’re too lovely; it’s torment for us both.” 

“You…” Remus shakes his head. He’s delightfully flushed now, nearly to the tips of his ears. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t my idea to do this, though.” 

“No, but you sure do seem to be enjoying yourself now, don’t you? Come here.” 

To his surprise, Remus actually comes. Sirius is elated; rarely does he get to be this demanding with such gratifying results. 

He lets you go to take both of Remus' pink, hot cheeks in his hands, and plants a firm kiss on his lips. 

“Thank you,” he says, grinning. “Now, stop our poor girl’s crying by skating with her, please.” 

It’s not done before several kisses, but soon you and Remus are in the center of the rink, twining around each other like snowflakes in the wind. You and Sirius take turns teaching Remus the sorts of lifts and jumps he wouldn’t have learned in his solo career. Sirius can’t decide which he likes best; the up-close view of Remus’ face as the world whirls around them and Remus’ hand folds warmly around his, or getting to admire the two of you from the edge of the rink. He thinks more practice will be necessary to determine this. Much, much more practice. 

Sirius’ nose is near frozen by the time you decide to call it a day. Remus teases Sirius for his pinkened cheeks as though he’s not exactly the same, and you insist on buying hot chocolates for all three of you on the way home as though they’re going to let you. You walk out of the park with breaths puffing cold in front of you, three skating bags hanging from your shoulders.

[silverthehedgehogexplained]

Explaining Silver the Hedgehog's Eyes

Silver's eyes are another nuanced and sometimes confusing aspect of his character. So in this post I'll go over the nuances and meaning of their design. There are three key details to understand about Silver's eyes.

Part One: First, we have the shape. Silver's eyes have an angular shape with pointed upper corners to them.

I liken this shape to the upper wings of a butterfly.

This can be easy to miss due to how his 3D models are rendered and how they line up with his quills but always becomes more noticeable whenever Silver squints or closes his eyes. Just like Shadow and Jet's eyes they don't always end in a sharp point but they do always end in a somewhat pointed upper corner for the butterfly wing shape.

This is what's called Tsurime(meaning upturned eyes), which in character design represents aggressiveness, strong will, danger and/or general seriousness in a character in contrast to tareme(meaning downturned eyes) or round eyes which generally represents softness.

I will refer to Tsurime Eyes as Danger Eyes or Blade Eyes and Tareme Eyes as Soft Eyes.

If you've ever seen Yu-Gi-Oh!, this is the main visual difference between Yugi and Yami Yugi. It is also the main difference between Tails' bullies from Sonic Origins.

These eye types can express more than just seriousness or softness. Rouge has round eyes yet is very mature and can be even more serious than Knuckles(who has Danger Eyes) while someone like Fang the Hunter has sharp Danger Eyes yet is a very comedic villain.

All of Sonic's main rivals(Metal Sonic, Knuckles, Shadow, Blaze, Jet, Silver and Surge) have Danger Eyes while Sonic himself normally has round Soft Eyes to show his carefree nature but also gains sharp Danger Eyes when he transforms into Super Sonic or the Werehog to show that he's in a more aggressive and serious state.

Silver's 3D character models have usually had eyes that appear more round compared to his 2D art but his newest character model has the sharpest eyes yet and is the most like his 2D art.

Part Two: Next, we have the black patterns(officially called black patterns in Sonic Speed Drawing) around Silver's eyes. The part that is easy to miss here is that the patterns run all the way around his eyes and under his front quills, similar to Blaze's eyeliner.

This detail can be easy to miss because the patterns do stop at the sides of his eyes on his in game 06 model(but not the pre-rendered cutscene model) and later media rarely show Silver at an angle where you can see them.

Part Three: Lastly, we have how they intersect with his leaf hair. Silver actually has bangs that cover the top parts of his eyes and perfectly line up with the upper corners which we can see by comparing the concept art of Silver to Super Silver where his quills rise up and reveal a bit more of his eyes.

This can be a source of confusion itself because the quills cover/perfectly line up with the upper corners of his eyes and leave what appears to be the round sides, making them appear completely round if you don't look closely.

In Summary: Silver has butterfly wing shaped eyes, black patterns around them and his front quills are bangs that partially cover them. Know these three details and you can always draw Silver's eyes right!

[africanotaku92]

A Little bit of Ghost Zone worldbuilding/DP AU yapping

Long post incoming, kept under a Read More for your convenience!

Ok, so i imagine that, as the Highest ranking Monarchical authority in the ghost zone, ranking second only to the Zone itself, The Ghost King is allowed to have a Harem. Actually, it's encouraged for them to have a harem with as many members from as many nations within the ghost zone as possible, as it would ensure political security between the Ghost King and the other lands within the Infinite Realms.

Now the Harem is tiered and divided into different sections based on their importance as well as favourability too the King. The first tier are his Queens. These are the spouses that are the most near and dear to his heart, his life mates if you will. They are the King's truest romantic interest, his equals and his true spouses.

The next tier are the Consorts. These are the official spouses of the king. They are usually beings of great political and societal importance or are just super powerful entities. They don't necessarily marry the king out of love, although it's possible for them to do so.

The last significant tier are the Concubines. These are basically the official side chicks of the King that have been approved to enter the harem by any of the King's official spouses. They can be of minor political or none at all, social standing doesn't matter. They enter the harem for a multitude of reasons, anything from being given to the King as collateral for a debt to being protected by the King or his spouses from any danger they deem a significant threat. They don't have even have to belong to the king, and can belong to one of his Queens or Consorts. Of course there are other roles in the harem, such as servants or guards but these three are the only significant tiers of the Harem. Harem members may also still retain roles and titles separate from their identities in the harem, but it is still considered polite and respectful to refer them to their harem titles unless instructed otherwise.

Now how the King claims his Harem members differs from monarch to monarch, but they all commonly leave something significant; a permanent mark. Typically this would be an imprint of the Ghost King's ectosignature left on the ghosts core, with more pronounced intensity the more significant they are to the ghost king, but in the rare occasions that the King takes in a still living spouse the mark may manifest physically, resembling a tattoo or birth mark.

Becoming part of any of the three most important tiers of the Ghost King's Harem obviously comes with it's perks. Apart from being subject to a life of luxury, opulence and opportunities one would never have had, they also come with guaranteed ghosthood (for those still alive members), personal protection from one of the most powerful beings across the known multiverse, and significant power boosts and life exstentions, pertaining to ghost, non-human, and liminal members.

Which brings me to my next topic of discussion; Liminality!

Liminality is often referred to as the quality of something being in between two stages or states, and in this context, the stages between being a non-ectoplasmic and a fully ectoplasmic being.

With this definition stated, I can safely subscribe to the whole 'Liminality is a spectrum' theory, With one extreme end being a non-ectoplasmic being ( Using humans as an example here) and the other extreme end being pure ghosts.

Normal humans tend to fall in between the ranges of 0 to 9%, where ectoplasmic contamination is considered negligible compared to their main biological makeup, and this has little to no effect on them.

Humans that live in areas of low and/or mainly impure ectoplasmic densities, such as Gothomites, are typically within the 10-18% range of liminality. At this range, people have started to exhibit visible signs, such as increased strength above the norm and increased resilience to substances and actions that would harm the a typically normal person. Of course Gotham in itself is a slight exception because you have liminals harming other liminals within the same or even lower range, so it functions on a level comparatively  like that of a normal city.

Adults that have been exposed to larger and/or purer densities of ectoplasm for long amounts of time typically fall into the 19-29% range. At this range they experience significant boosts in natural abilities, develop better resistances on a much larger scale, and develop slight physical changes, such as eyesight better than 20/20 vision and bigger and better physiques, and longer lifespans of up to 500 years. The changes are slight as they happen with individuals that are farther past their developmental years. This is also when people start to give off detectable traces of an ectoplasmic signature.

Individuals ranging from child aged to young adulthood in areas of high density and/or increasingly pure ectoplasm will typically fall within 30-45% liminality, with the younger and longer the exposure of the more pure and intense ectoplasm the higher the percentage would be. They begin to have significantly defined ghost abilities at this stage and have developed significant non human features at this stage, such as slited eyes, claws, fangs, non human physiques and features, etc. They also have incredibly long lifespans at this range, with the potential to live up to 3000 years in the mortal world. Jazz, Sam and Tucker are the three most liminal beings in Amity Park, due to their close proximity to purer sources of ectoplasm. Jazz has 44% ectoplasmic make up, while Sam and Tucker have about 46% ectoplasmic make up. They have strongly defined ectosignatures at this range, and are almost guaranteed ghosthood.

Next up are halfas, incredibly rare occurrences as most people cannot handle further levels of ectoplasmic exposure and just straight up die. They are beings that permanently have one foot in death and the other foot in life. Vlad is an Imperfect halfa at 48% liminality, Danny is a Perfect halfa, evenly split at 50%. Dani (Ellie or Danielle for future references) is slightly more ghost at 52%, and Dan (short for Dante) is more ghost than human at 63% (still has a human form though.) For future references, Ellie and Dan have been adopted by Danny's parents, both ghost and human, so when i refer to Danny's siblings i'm talking about all three of them.

Liminality may also occur in other non human species, though it might be more common or rare and the percentages may vary depending on the species and how ectoplasim affects their biological makeup.

But Jay, you might be asking, while this is fun and all, why bring up ghost harems and liminality? Well, my dear readers, if you have lasted this long into my rant you know exactly where i'm going with this!

Or you don't. But not to worry, i'll explain either way.

I present to you the dumb AU idea that had to have a stupidly long post to get to; Ghost King Danny AU with his entire class as his Harem.

So this is a Town-wide reveal gone right AU. After Danny defeats Pariah Dark, everyone in town knows who he is and accepts him, his parents stop trying to hunt ghosts and focus on researching about them instead. Danny goes back to his school life and hashes out any beef he had with anyone, settles any unrequited feelings and basically becomes friends with everyone. Even the A-listers are on good terms with him, any resulting violence between them the unserious kind with no bite to it that happens between friends. His rouges are at peace (or what counts as peaceful between a culturally violent race such as ghosts) and are practically part of the town. Clockwork informs him of the rules by conquest and as recognized both by the Zone and by law he is now Heir Apparent to the Throne of the Infinite Realms. It's hard at first, dealing with school and Realm matters/education, but with the support from his family and friends, he makes due.

As time goes on, Danny grows closer and closer to people. Sam and Tucker are the first and he falls in love with them hard. They fit into the empty slot of his core that he didn't know he had like snug, warm gloves on his hands on a cold winters day.

Paulina, Valerie, and Dash are next, basically becoming his queer platonic soulmates. He also holds the other former A-listers in high esteem, but not as much as those three.

Wes has become Danny's bestfriend and rival, taking up the previous spots Sam and Tucker had when they were still 14. They have video game wars and egg each other on in the best ways possible.

The rest of Danny's class are also good friends of his. He holds them all close to his heart as his most trusted confidants, and so shows them as such.

He looks through Pariah Dark's castle--now his through his conquest inheritance-- and finds what he's looking for; gems that represent all who he loves and how much they mean to him. With the help of some ghost craftsmen, he makes all of their gifts with their own personal touch, and infuses them with shards of the pure essence of his ectoplasm.

He gifts Sam and Tucker first; they each get a necklace, and later rings that he uses to propose to them. Valerie, Dash and Paulina are next, each of them getting a kick out of their matching earrings. Wes get's a choker with the centerpiece shaped like a spade, which to Danny's confusion and slight fear he cackles madly at, but never takes it off. The rest of his class all get various other crafted jewellery or trinkets that would best define them. Life is good.

Until it becomes a lot more complicated.

Shortly after he had given the last of his classmates their gifts, while he was enjoying breakfast with his beloveds, Danny was suddenly bombarded with the several angry yelling voices of the Observants invading his kitchen, accompanied by a wary looking Clockwork, demanding to know why he would overlook them on the most basic of procedures; that they were offended that he didn't even consult them before he made his decisions!

"What decisions?" Danny asked, confused and a little annoyed that his peaceful morning was interrupted by the giant eyeballs.

"The decision on your spouses!" One of them frustratedly yelled at him. Danny's face instantly darkened; he did not like the implications of those words. He rose from his seat, anger rising.

"Now listen here, you wannabe Jonathan Sims! Sam and Tucker are literally the best thing that happened to me! I'd never need your approval to marry them! And even if i did i--"

"Not those two, Phantom! Your heart and your Core ring true even as you say their names. The Daughter of The Wilds and The Pharaoh are the perfect matches to be your Queens, no one is denying you that." Another one of them interrupts Danny's rant. He immediately stops, relief washing over him at the observant's words.

"No, we are here to demand explanation on your other spouses. Your Consorts and your Concubines. Honestly, it's all just one big mess! We know nothing of whomst you have chosen, not their social standing nor their power levels, we do not even know which is which amongst the whole lot! How did you even get Concubines with no Consorts to approve of them!?!?" The former one demanded, and the others made noises of approval. The trio at the table looked at the Observants with varying degrees of confusion. Tucker was the first one to speak up.

"Erm, sorry, but what other spouses?"

It was at this point that Clockwork had decided to intervene. He managed to get the Observants to back down and retreat back into the Ghost Zone, then he sat the trio down, along with his siblings and parents, and explained the situation to them. All those gifts Danny gave his friends? They were engagement gifts. Not regular gifts, not even courting gifts. As they were personally crafted by the King himself and literally contain a part of him, no matter the intent given to them they were sacred and special enough to be considered him basically asking for their hands in marriage. And all of them accepted. The engagements can't be annulled, as they were all approved of by the Zone itself and so are binding in all planes of existence. All that's left now is to sort out who's who, gain approval from their various guardians, and plan the ceremonies in tandem with his coronation.

Danny is, understandably, freaking out. Not only because he literally accidentally got engaged to his entire class but that he has to explain it to them. Clockwork could only comfort him and reassure him that the sooner he told everyone the better for all of them in all time lines. He could only sigh.

So, he called everyone and planned a class-wide hangout at a nearby park. Everyone came, all of them laughing, talking, having a good time, and wearing the gifts that Danny had given him. It pained him to see that something they would have cherished so deeply would cause them grief. But with reassuring squeezes from his fiances, he took a deep breath and explained the situation to them.

Their reactions were...far better than he expected them to be. Sure, some of them were upset, they were either dating outside of the class or would have a hard time finding romance once they learned that they had been unknowingly engaged. But after the initial shock wore off, several people were ok with it, as they were either dating within the class and were at least assured that they could stay together this way, or they weren't really hopeful on finding love outside the town due to their liminality, and this ensured their future. Dash pulled him into a hug, reassuring him that he wasn't the worst person to be married too, and that they would be fine. Danny sobbed into his shoulders in relief. Things were going to be OK.

Until they weren't.

See, the GIW were absolutely furious with the Fentons sudden lack of cooperation at first, then outright baffled when they changed from ghost hunters to ecto-entity researchers. They were very suspicious indeed, and kept a closer eye on the town. Then they noticed things. First, it was the new influx of ghostlly inhabitants in the town. Then, they noticed that it took a long time for anyone to age. Almost 50 years of observation had passed, and all the middle aged adults had barely grown in one wrinkle. They also noticed that all the children that grew up would practically stop aging once they reached their 20s, and the kicker was when they started to develop powers and inhumane features. Clockwork had warned Danny about the impending attack and gave him the best solution; move the entirety of Amity Park to the Ghost Zone. It was no easy feat, but Danny with the collective efforts of his parents and several other powerful ghost entities successfully moved Amity Park to the Ghost Zone and destroyed the portals in that dimension. Once they were moved, things progressed really quickly. Several people grew into their liminality in the ectoplasmic dense environment and many things were discovered and moves made.

Danny, Sam and Tucker all began training to take up their full duties once they come of age. Paulina became a dragonoid, and trained her dragon powers with Dora. Dash turned out to be a Changling, and caught the attention of the Fae King Obridon, who adopted him and made him a member of their court. It was discovered that Kwan was a rare male Kumiho, with his grandmother being an especially powerful spirit amongst the East Asian spirits, and was acknowledged and taken into his household as a proper member. Wes had loudly proclaimed himself to be Danny's Kismesis (YES I SAID IT), much to the confusion of many ghosts and the embarrassment of a few others. Once it was explained exactly what a kismesis was, Fright Knight was so delighted by the proclamation that he immediately took him under his wing. After all no rival and right hand of the King could be as lacking in fighting ability as he. Valerie also received training under Fright Knight as one of his commanders. Amity was firmly established as pert of the King's personal Haunt and lair, and became a noble land. Engagements were all documented, finalized and sealed.

Once they all came of age, Danny was crowned King of the Infinite Realms. His wedding ceremony was held soon after, and all his spouses had their positions secure and established. His Court had been formed, consisting of his Family, his Harem, his Haunt and his most trusted allies.

Harem members:

Queens: Sam and Tucker (yay everlasting trio!)

Consorts: Paulina, Dash, Valerie, Kwan, Star, Wes

Concubines: All his other classmates

Now this was supposed to be a DC x DP au specifically, but unfortunately i don't know enough about DC to write something extensively regarding it. However, here are some fun prompts i thought of;

His Consorts (i like to think Paulina and Dash) Visit the DC universe for diplomatic ties and the meeting happens in Gotham

One of Batman's children catches the eye of one of his consorts (or other court member!) and they want his permission to bring them into the Harem/Marry them into the court

Child adoption bcs that's always fun

Incredibly powerful members of the Harem/Court visit their earth and cause chaos unknowingly, etc, etc.

Alternatively you can make it it's own thing with other characters/fandom crossovers! If you decide to take this and write or make something with it, please tag me! I want to read it all!

[worthyprnce]

✶— merlin · [falco columbarius]:

a small species of falcon

✶— gawain · [celtic]

name with celtic origin, meaning battle hawk, white falcon, little falcon or white hawk

✶— falcon

in medieval times, falcons symbolized power, status, nobility, love, daring and mystery. in late medieval courtly literature, falcons were associated with daring, mysterious and catastrophic love.

✶—tulip [tulipa]

"I declare my love for you"

✶— honeysuckle [lonicera]

devotion, affection

✶— cornflower [centaurea cyanus]

"hope in love"

✶— ivy [hedera]

fidelity, attachment

[I don't know exactly what I wanted with this. I did this mostly for myself, just because I couldn't stop thinking about this little parallel between merlin's and gwaine's names. I made gwaine's falcon with white and lighter colours because I wanted to represent the other meaning of his name, white falcon, but I made sure to let the top of his head gray/blueish because that's what a male merlin falcon looks like. also, gwaine's not albino, at least it wasn't my intention, but it's okay if you want to interpret it that way. I noticed I used colours that would make him look like he's albino only when I finished this lol but all I wanted to do was differentiate the two falcons and make that reference to gawain's name meaning.

anyway this took me a good amount of 19 hours and it crashed my app and phone. I lost my original canva but thankfully I had saved the art in my phone in time. it was a fun experience, I've never drawn feathers like this, so it was a bit challenging but I like the results :]

[fatuismooches]

Dottore's unofficial fan club is working on their next biggest accomplishment - fanfiction of him and his lover.

The rumors and whispers of what Il Dottore and his segments got up to in their labs were some of the most spoken-about (and overused) pieces of gossip that new recruits found themselves petrified by. What do you mean he did this? And that?! Oh, the horror!

However, wherever these kinds of words happened to be spoken, a loyalist of the Harbinger was bound to pop out somewhere and vehemently refute any such statements with their heart, soul, and mind. Although such people seemed crazy at first, quite a few of them existed, much more than what anyone who had any surface level of the scholar would guess. After all, how else could they write over a hundred-page handbook of their Harbinger? Their dedication to their craft could possibly rival Dottore himself!

Their Lord Dottore had so many things to admire, so many traits spread across his various segments. They could only worship from afar, but also, they had another person to appreciate - none other than the only person who he held fondness for, his utmost beloved - you. It was a critical point in the fanclub, seeing how sweetly their Harbinger treated you, and how you kept him on his toes. Well, now they could add "loving partner" to the list of things they loved about him! What joy!

As such, today they had gathered to continue working on the next installment in their writing, more specifically - "Dottore x [Name] - Valentine's Day Oneshot" (the title had yet to be determined). With serious expressions and pen and paper in hand, they had begun their work.

"Do you think that the Lord Harbinger would be interested in such a day in the first place?"

"Well, considering my Lord let [Name] put mistletoes and wreaths during the holidays on the lab doors, I don't think he would be completely opposed to the idea." A chorus of agreement from the others sounded in response.

"Alright, alright, listen to what I have so far!"

—

["Oh Dottore!~"

The man could hear the cheery and excited voice all the way down the hallway before the person even entered the room. Of course, there was only one possible person this voice could belong to, only one person could have the gall to act like that toward him. Nearly bursting through the door, they spoke once more.

"Are you ready?!" A wide smile stretched onto their lovely face, save for some small pants. Dottore, with his back turned, could safely hide a small smile, despite his seemingly unbothered hums.

"Not a moment too early or late. Exactly on time," he mused, listening to [Name]'s skipping footsteps approach from behind him, fully expecting the warm arms wrapped around him.

"Well, I definitely don't think you forgot either. But I think you're just excited to eat some of my sweets again." [Name]'s face nuzzled into his back as they giggled, tilting their head to peer at his calendar. It was filled in with a work-related thing listed nearly every day, but more importantly, the fourteenth had a time slot set specifically aside for something unnamed. The only person who could ever guess correctly would be Dottore himself and his beloved of course.

"Perhaps I am. What then?" Dottore turned around to face [Name] properly, their face now snug into his chest as they looked up with shining eyes, his hand stroking the top of their head.

"Well, I guess I'll just have to take all the chocolates before you, Dottore!"]

—

"Wait wait wait, don't you think [Name] would refer to Lord Dottore in a more affectionate manner in private?"

"I did think of that, but I wasn't sure what else to use..."

"Alright, try this then."

—

["Well, I guess I'll just have to eat them all before you," [Name] teased him, his real name flowing from their lips freely, making the Harbinger catch them in a kiss.]

—

"Oh yes, that's perfect!" The agent squealed, delighted at how the ship was sailing. "Okay, let me skip ahead a bit!"

—

[The couple had found themselves in the kitchen, utensils and ingredients surrounding them. The two were a capable duo that got along with ease, their minds seemingly in sync with each other. Soon enough, the cookies had been finished and left to cool on the counter. The plain yet sugary cookies looked scrumptious, and were it not for his lover's insistence to decorate them, Dottore would have already finished his share.

Not wanting his beloved to get too tired, he hoisted them onto the table to rest their legs and stretch a bit. With a smile, [Name] took his hand and pulled him closer, not even flinching at how dangerously close the beak of Dottore's mask got to their face (they had become accustomed to the peck of it by now.)

They placed a gentle kiss on his cheek, letting out soft giggles when he returned the favor. The scholar's hands wandered down from their shoulders to rest on their thighs, squeezing them.

"Why don't you focus on the other sweet treat, hmm?" They teased him by suddenly pressing a finger full of icing to his nose, to which he scoffed and pulled back at the cool sensation. Wiping it off, instead of tasting it, Dottore smeared it near his partner's mouth.

"Hey! You're not-" Their protest was quickly quieted when Dottore pressed his lips against theirs, licking up the delicious frosting as well.

And so, [Name] and Dottore had a lovely Valentine's Day.]

—

"Archons, that was a great story!" The others nodded resolutely in concurrence.

"I wonder how my Lord will actually spend it with [Name]..."

—

Meanwhile, back in reality some interesting things were happening.

Firstly, you had indeed invited Dottore to bake with you, but numerous things had gone wrong (as you had expected to be honest.)

The two most notable are when you both ended up caked in flour (instead of icing) and when you had turned your back to your beloved for only a bit, and he later presented you with his cookie.

"Y-Your cooking will put me in my grave," you coughed again, "quicker than a-any illness would." There was no romance to be found here. It was dead. Even his absolutely precise measurements couldn't save him.

Ah, and of course you couldn't forget the segments' arguing that happened yearly on who received the best box of cookies. You had to yell at them as they became pouty.

It was a chaotic Valentine's Day.

—

When you conveyed this one day to a few curious agents, they looked unusually stunned.

"So... Lord Dottore cannot cook?"

"Lord Dottore is banned from the kitchen unless he has your explicit permission?"

"The Lord Harbinger isn't suave?"

"O-Our fanfiction is... i-inaccurate?!"

"Oh, the horror!"

"Fanfiction...?" You were a bit confused but you tried to alleviate their worries.

"W-well, I'm not sure why you'd be so worried about this... but you can rest assured that Dottore and I had a sweet Valentine's Day. He did help me bake cookies when I watched his every move! Naturally, he also made sure I didn't get hurt. Even when we got splattered with flour, I threw some more at him for good measure, and you know what, he got back at me too!" You laughed, remembering how he too could be playful.

"And I gave sweets to all the segments too and they were quite happy, even if they can be stupid and silly sometimes! They're all so smart, but sometimes they're complete idiots. That's just how they are, and I love it. "

"Besides, the more Dottore messes up, the more time I get to spend with him. It's silly, but I actually like it. But don't tell him that. He'll figure out my evil plans," you joked, not yet aware of the tears bubbling in the agents' eyes at your and Dottore's heart-throbbing and passionate love story.

If there was one thing that the agents got right, it was the love you and Dottore had for each other - imperfect - yet you wouldn't have it any other way.

[cherry-bomb-ships]

Director's Commentary:

First of all, THIS HIT 200 NOTES IN LESS THAN 2 DAYS????? 🥺💝🥺💝🥺💝🥺💝 Thank you SO MUCH EVERYBODY, I have never had any of my self ship art get this many notes this quickly!! I've also screenshotted every tag I've gotten and will continue to do so! Thank you so much everyone 🥺💖🥺💖🥺💖🥺💖

Second, I hope that everyone knows I did this 100% original! I have actually had more than one person call this an edit, which makes me very proud of how convincing this apparently is as an imitation of the PPG style! 🥺 But no, I did all of this by hand myself! The screenshots were just referenced :D

Y'all should also know that I don't have any type of tablet or way to do digital art with a pen, I use Adobe Illustrator and only use my mouse. For the first image I did a sketch of the pose on paper and traced over digitally, but I'm proud to say for the other two I did it entirely originally using just reference images and my own imagination! That's something I'm usually not really able to do so I'm very happy that the final result came out so good

The context of the original scene is that Ms. Keane and Professor Utonium just went on a failed date that was set up by the girls, but ended up sharing a little moment after Ms. Keane accidentally tripped and the Professor ended up catching her. I'd like to think the context here is essentially the same, but I'd consider it an AU scenario because there wouldn't be a time in my ship canon where this setup would happen before Cherry and Mojo are dating.

I came up with Cherry's outfit kind of on the spot, it's basically just a fancy version of their normal outfit, with a low cut white shirt, yellow and orange cardigan, and some nice tan boots. They borrowed the choker with the pendant from their cousin, Ms. Bellum :3

I find it funny to think that Mojo wouldn't really wear an actual outfit out on a date, because in his mind, what fit could possibly be better than the villain outfit he designed for himself? He just put on a bowtie to be slightly more fancy 💖 That's actually a reference to the panel below from a DC PPG comic where he's trying to find a date for Valentine's Day and failing... I would have been there for him 🥺

Also I liked the idea of the moon being bright enough to shine through the back of Mojo's big ears, which is why the shading on them if a bit oddly shaped. No one has mentioned anything about that yet so I'm not sure how obvious that came across 😅

Ngl I struggled a bit on the background of Mojo's panel just because it's a unique perspective that I hadn't tried before, so I went and laid down on the floor in the corner of my room to see how the perspective of that looked 😂

In fact now that I think about it... This is the first time I've ever done a full color background at all, digitally OR traditionally. I'd say for my first time it came out pretty good!

In general I'm very happy with the end results, although there are a few mistakes here and there, like there's a secrion of Cherry's shadow that's not filled in all the way, and I think some of the background colors could be better adjusted so they don't blend together as much (especially the bench, what was I thinking making it so similar to the wall color aaaaaah)

That's all I can think of for now that I'd like to comment on. Once again thank you to everyone who has liked or reblogged and an even bigger thank you if you read this far! 🥺💝💝💝💝💝

There are benefits to being clumsy... sometimes you get to fall into the arms of a handsome chimpanzee 💜🩷💜🩷💜

Screenshot redraw of a cute scene from what's basically PPG's Valentine Day special! This was so fun to do, I feel like I learn more abt using Illustrator every time I go back to it :3 🩷 Reblogs are all seen and appreciated, click for higher quality!! Tag list + Screenshots referenced will be under the cut 💜

Tag List!! Click here to be added or removed.

@absentmoon, @avas-wonderland, @bee-ships, @beetleboyfriend, @berryshipbasket, @bugthecalmchild, @canongf, @cloudyvoid, @derelictdumbass, @dissonantyote, @edencantstopfallininlove, @final-catboy, @chickenout , @flowering-darkness, @gibles-lovely-selfships, @hoppinkiss, @hyperionshipping, @impulse-exe, @iwishihadfangs, @iyamifucker, @kissingarthurclaus, @lex-n-weegie, @lficanthaveloveiwantpower, @little-miss-selfships, @little-shiny-sharpies, @loogi-selfships, @mandrakebrew, @midoridayz, @mintpecks, @mothfinite, @mrs-kelly, @nameless-self-ships, @nerdstreak, @odysseyyaoi, @oleanderspride, @orbitingaroundyourlove, @paper-carnation, @reds-self-ships, @rotten--cotton , @spacestationstorybook, @squips-ship, @theheroand, @toogayforthistoday, @winterworlds, @yuzuibanagi

[giuseppe-yuki]

lovers in every timeline

carlos sainz x reader

w.c.: 3.6k

warnings: reference to sex, curse words, probably wildly inaccurate historical portrayals, mentions of death

summary: where, when, how - did it really matter as long as you were in his arms?

a/n: happy valentine's day!! sending hearts, kisses, and flowers to everyone :)) mwah <3 💋 -anais

picture credits from pinterest :)

rome, 80 CE

"carlos!" you whisper, head peeking through a crack in the decorated bronze door.

a gold gladiator's helmet, complete with a crimson-dyed plume, stares back at you, from its spot on a crudely carved wooden desk across from the door. a man's figure is outlined by the sun streaming through the windows in the well lit room, back facing you. he fiddles with a leather strap holding his sleek golden armour chest-plate together.

when he hears the lilt of your singsong voice, he whips around, as fast as an horse.

carlos' familiar face splits into a grin when he sees you in the doorway.

"venus mea!" he gasps, abandoning his original task of tightening his armour, and hurriedly crossing the room to greet you.

the pads of his worn, but still soft fingers brush against the back of your neck as his lips attaches themselves to your own. maybe it's the lengthy time you spent away from him, but he tastes sweeter than normal, like honeyed wine or sun-ripened grapes.

a giddy smile stays on your face when you both pull away to regain the breaths that were stolen from your lungs.

feeling a like you need a bit more, you reach out a finger to trace the molded gold plating that accentuated the muscles on his body. "so - carlitos, what did you think about my letters?" you ask, reaching out a finger to trace the molded gold plating that accentuated the muscles on his body.

it's a loaded question, of course, considering the contents of the said letters you had sent him during his time starting as gladiator had a few intimate descriptions that would probably make your own mother faint.

"i- i-" he starts, most likely thinking of the sentences that your reed pens had inked into the papyrus in the dead of night when you were longing for his touch.

you take pleasure in watching the pupils in his golden brown eyes enlarge as your hand moves closer and closer to-

carlos suddenly grasps your hand and pulls it away before you can touch him like you so desperately want to.

"i have my- my duel in the colosseum soon- the emperor commands me to-"

the way he shakes lightly, as if holding back his urges, betrays his words as he holds your gold jewelry covered hand an arm's length away from himself.

you rescind your hand, pouting at his words. yes, you understood he had to focus for the upcoming duel, but you also haven't seen him for so long.

as if to distract himself from your persuasive wiles, he turns his attention back to adjusting his leather buckle and slipping his iconic golden helmet onto his head.

"after," he promises, talking your hand and pressing a chaste kiss to it. "it'll be quick anways - some rookie gladiator named olivarious - and then we can do like you said in those letters."

you laugh. he always thought like a winner.

"i will be waiting, my champion."

england, 1066 CE

"carlos sainz vasquez de castro," your court herald announces, voice echoing through the gilded throne room. "duke of-"

"yes, yes," you say flippantly, waving your hand dismissively. "i know- thanks."

you turn your attention back to the man in front of you.

magically, the heavy, jewel-encrusted crown atop your head stays still when you move forward in your plush seat to peer at him. the strands of pearls on your neck along with your ruby earrings clack against one another as you shift.

it is obvious the way his eyes rake over your body, no doubt taking into account the countless priceless jewels hanging from your body, along with your gown made the most expensive silks in europe.

you watch with amusement from your platformed throne as he bows deeply, the gold awards lining his own furs and rich patterned clothing clinking.

"your majesty," he addresses you in a lilting, accented tone.

a slight nod from your head approves his presence.

"what to you have to offer me, lord carlos?"

he snaps his fingers, and one of his advisors hurry over with a bottle.

one of your own advisors gently takes it from carlos' hands, before making his way up the carpeted stairs and places it in your awaiting arms.

upon closer inspection, it's entirely made of pink-tinted glass, complete with a heart made entirely of rare red glass. it must have cost a fortune to make, but you knew carlos didn't lack such money.

"rose and lavender perfume," he explains. "only the best for your majesty."

gently, you pull the cork off, and waft the smell of the perfume towards your face.

the entire court awaits your reaction.

when the scent of the perfume registers in your brain, you realize the perfume isn't rose or lavender at all. instead, it's a familiar honey and vanilla - the same refined cologne smell as a certain duke that you often had naked and twisted in your sheets.

from your spot on your throne, you can see carlos' eyes twinkle mischievously, as he knows he is the only person that can get away with putting his own cologne in a bottle and gift it to the queen.

"lovely," you note aloud. "the rose fragrance balances quite nicely with the lavender."

carlos nods, satified, before leaving the court with a bow to you and with his advisors in tow.

the court bursts into chatters, most likely your ladies in waiting discussing how to get their hands on their own rose and lavender perfume scents.

as you begin to suggest a walk in the gardens to discuss some "important political treaties" with lord carlos, the herald next to you clears his throat.

your head snaps towards him, annoyed at him for cutting you off.

"your- your majesty," he stutters out, unused to the burden of your attention. "but- you have a lunch planned with his majesty the king on the upcoming banquet- i don't think it's wise to-"

"are you telling me how to run my court?" you snap at him, all of a sudden filled with a rage.

his eyes widen as the court goes silent. licking his dry lips nervously, he shakes his head.

"no, no, your majesty, i was just- a suggestion- please-"

"alright, you're dismissed," you say quickly, not wanting to hear his pathetic excuses. "ladies, help me to 'the garden.'"

even with your pounds of jewelry and expensive silks weighing you down, you float quite elegantly out of the throne room with the help of a few of your ladies-in-waiting.

they stay mostly silent as you walk towards a door decorated with bunches of painted flowers and greenery. before you open the door, seraphina, one of your younger ladies-in-waiting, touches your arm lightly. "your grace, you mustn't," she cries. "the king- if he catches you this time, he'll-"

the implications of her words hang heavy in the air.

you shrug them off, however.

"i don't give a damn. i will lay with who i please," you state plainly.

when you push the door open, exactly who you expect is laying on the velvet covers.

carlos breezes over to you, one hand automatically fluttering towards the cotton ties of your corset.

"my queen," he breathes into your ear, gently untying the knots that your ladies-in-waiting had painstakingly tied hours before.

florence, 1492 CE

"carlos, is his name." your maestro states. "he will be our model this workshop."

you pick up your charcoal as he continues to lecture on three-dimensionality, chiaroscuro, and how that it could be applied when sketching models like carlos.

the other students in the class listen aptly to your maestro, eyes trained on how he waves his hand over the way the model's hair fluffs up a certain way, creating shadows, or how the curve of the model's jaw is excellent for practice in drawing three-demensionality.

you know, of course. without looking up, you know how to sketch the soft strands of his dark brown-black hair, how to shape out his thick eyebrows and stupidly big chocolate brown eyes, how to outline his pillowy pink lips, etch the light stubble on his chin and jawline, how to trace his thick neck, how map out the bulging muscles on his arms and abdomen, how to illustrate his long fingers that were dusted with hair, and how to draw the way his loose breeches hang around his hips.

you know because you've drawn him hundreds of times for practice, sprawled on your shared bed, reading underneath a tree, or even playing with his puppy, piñon. you know, because, well, he's yours.

when your maestro lights the waxy white taper candle to lighten up the rapidly darkening room, only then do you dare peer over your canvas to look at the model.

carlos looks back at you with a sparkle in his eyes.

he can't move, of course, to ensure accuracy and detail for the other artists. but the way he twitches his eyebrow at you automatically makes a soft smile spread across your face.

the candle flickers, half-way burnt, but still stays kindled when you start mixing your oil paints to create the perfect shades for your shadow and three dimensional study.

by the time the nub of a candle wavers and flutters out into a waft of smoke, the stars have begun to show in the sky, visible from the open window behind carlos. your maestro and the other students have already went home hours ago, half-done canvases littering the room.

when it's clear you are finished, carlos finally moves from his spot.

"you're not going to say anything about me modeling today?" he asks, head tilting like piñon when he's confused.

your silence speaks volumes.

"i know, i know, you're just jealous that the other painters will be looking at me and making paintings of me that are going to hang in some famous collectors' private collection," he jokes, making you roll your eyes.

"mine is better anyways," you say bluntly, rolling your canvas around for carlos to see.

he is about to make another joke, but his eyes grow wide at your artwork, practically glowing in the moonlight.

"is that- is that me?" he whispers, hands barely skating over the still-wet oil paint slathered on the canvas.

you crack a smile at his reaction.

"no, i actually decided to paint my secret lover that looks suspiciously like you but not quite," you shoot back.

unfazed, he still stares, wide eyed, at the practically lifelike strands of hair on his portrait, and meticulously drawn eyes that look like they were about to blink back at him. the painting-carlos gazes gently at the audience - a look of love - accompanied with a knowing smirk painted across his face.

walking over to stand by him, you press a kiss to the side of the real-carlos.

"this is how i see you- whenever you look at me," you say gently. "maybe now you can see how you look from my point of view."

caribbean sea, 1717 CE

"carlos!" alex groans exaggeratedly. "mpphh! please!"

you feel your cheeks heat up at the sound of alex's mocking words.

"that is exactly how you both sounded last night when i was trying to get some beauty sleep!" he snaps. "i could barely get through handling the ropes and almost fell off the crow's nest because i didn't get enough sleep!" he continues, rubbing at his eyes as if to prove his point.

carlos' strong arms loop around your waist and squeezes you comfortingly from your spot perched on his lap.

as alex continues his rant about how it should be plain decency to do your "nasty copulation" 500 miles away from the nearest human instead of one wall away, carlos graciously allows you to bury your face into the crook of his neck in embarrassment.

maybe that's why franco purposefully avoided eye contact with you this morning and logan hurried past you when you tried asking him a question about rations.

"whatever cabron," carlos shoots back. "you're just jealous you didn't have enough guts to talk to that stupid british sailor i know you were eyeing up at port last week."

hearing this, alex leaps up from his place on a barrel near the middle of the room starts to storm over to carlos' place on a crudely carved wooden chair propped at the back of the room.

carlos doesn't move an inch, knowing that although alex was tall and dangerous looking with his sword hanging in his scabbard, there was no way he would dare swing at carlos and his girl.

"he's not stupid- you're fucking stupid." he retorts. "and, by the way, just in case you were too dumb to comprehend, his name is geo-"

"enough!" a voice speaks up from the doorway.

you turn to find captain james, standing there, looking more pissed than you had ever seen before.

"why are we fighting??"

carlos speaks up.

"alex started it! i did absolutely nothing!"

enraged, alex snips back.

"well, i was just making an statement on how rude it was for carlos and his girlfriend to be fuc-"

"alright, alright, alex, you can stop right there," james cuts in before the conversation starts heating up again. "carlos, go take your girl and go clean the deck while i talk to alex."

happy to leave the conversation, carlos leaps up, simultaneously grabbing you from your place on his knee to throwing you over his shoulder.

you squeal something about your dress flipping up, while carlos laughs, leaving a seething alex and a slightly annoyed captain james vowles.

practically only one slab of wood on the whole deck gets cleaned before you both give up, and instead sit at the edge of the ship underneath the stars. they glitter like diamonds, winking like they knew some secret that mere mortals like you weren't allowed know.

next to you, carlos is close enough where you can feel his body heat around your body and the slight pitter-patter of his heart. the steady rhythm lulls you in slowly, making your eyes droop lower, lower-

"i have something for you," carlos says suddenly, breaking the silence.

you force your eyes to pry open.

from his pocket, your boyfriend extracts a heart-shaped object.

your eyes fly open, all traces of sleep erased when you realize what is in his hand. a pure ruby, shaped like a heart. in the corner sits five bluntly carved letters, "c s v d c" - his initals.

when carlos slips it into your hands, you hold it tight, like it could disappear at any moment. even in the faint moonlight, it glows a deep red, redder than the curling edges of bonfires, redder than any pomegranate-rind red dye, and redder than the blood of those you both have slayed.

"you didn't kill anyone to get this, did you?" you ask, half-joking and half-not.

carlos snickers.

"of course not, mi amor- i'm not a monster," he replies, as if he didn't just kill a man with his own bare hands a few days ago in a raid when the a shopkeeper tried laying his hands on you. "i simply slipped it into my pocket when the stupid merchant at the port wasn't looking.

you smile at him, as wide as you can, and press a rough kiss to his stubbled cheek.

he hums contently, patting your hands where you clutch at the rare gem.

"so, god forbid, if one day i am gone, you will still know my heart stays with you."

monaco, current times

"carlos sainz and his girlfriend have approached the building," you hear a suited bodyguard hiss into a walkie-talkie.

you roll your eyes. they were always sooo dramatic. monaco was basically chock full of the world's richest and most talented stars. who really gave a fuck if carlos sainz and his girlfriend were visiting a museum on a tuesday afternoon??

even the valet guy seemed unphased as carlos handed him the keys to his daytona sp3.

the museum's state of the art white exterior looms over you both as you approach the front door, advertising the latest special collections: the formula racing collection and the lovers collection.

"the lover's collection seem pretty cool," you note as carlos opens the door for you to pass through. "but, we can obviously also visit the racing collec-"

"carlos sainz and his girlfriend are inside the building," the suited bodyguard practically screams into his walkie-talkie, having somehow appeared inside the building without you both realizing.

carlos glares at him.

"what the hell is your problem, dude? can we look around in peace please?"

under both you and carlos' watchful eyes, the bodyguard squints suspiciously before sliding away out of view.

"anyways," your boyfriend says, sounding exasperated, "yeah, we can of course visit the lover's collection first- if you'd like!"

after a few wrong turns into a rather interesting exhibit on dung beetles, and an eye-opening one about jellyfish, you finally turn into a large room decorated with pink, red, silver, and white decorations, a scattering of hearts, and a banner announcing:" the lover's collection."

many families stroll around, looking at the multiple collections, so you decide to check out the first part of the exhibit that was open: several pieces of papyrus papers drenched in blank inked letters.

honestly, the papyrus looked like it is on the cusp of disintegration and the ink looked like it was one blow away from flying off the paper, so it was good that it was housed under a sturdy pane of glass.

as you admire the precise strokes of the latin letters on the scroll, carlos strays to the side and looks carefully on the the exhibition label hidden under a sheet of paper that is labelled ominously, "warning, letter translations."

he takes one look before turning an alarming scarlett red shade.

"are you- are you okay?" you ask, wondering what was possibly on the paper for him to turn redder than ferrari's livery.

"er, yeah," he says, gesturing awkwardly at the letter translations.

you take a peek.

oh. maybe his reaction was reasonable.

at the top, it clarifies that they were letters from a young woman, in roman times, to her gladiator lover.

the first letter starts, my dear, i lay here thinking of you with my hand between my thig-

you put the warning sign back atop the museum label, feeling a bit embarrassed as well.

"my nickname might be chili, but that was a little bit too spicy for me..." your boyfriend jokes, trying to dispel the awkwardness.

"let us just move on to the next one, shall we?" you declare, dragging carlos to the next piece on display - a pale pink perfume bottle.

the museum label isn't covered this time, thank god.

it reads, this perfume bottle belonged to a queen in the 1060s. it was gifted to her by a duke in her court. it is presumed they were lovers. however, they were both beheaded by order of the king several years later for unknown reasons. to the side, you can smell a recreation of the scent that was in the bottle. it was said to be rose and lavender scented perfume.

"interesting," carlos notes. he leans forwards towards the display case where it says, "smell here" in big letters.

you lean forward by default too, taking a waft of the perfume.

"weird," you comment. "that lowkey smells like honey and vanilla, but maybe that's just me."

carlos just shrugs.

"i thought that smelled like my cologne i use back home in madrid, so maybe we are both wrong."

before long, you arrive at a third piece of renaissance art on display. it's a man, looking longingly- or is it lovingly? towards the audience, mouth curved in a mischievous smile. several people take pictures, and there is even an art student sketching it into her notebook.

the subject of the painting has dark hair and dark eyes, reminding you a little of-

"carlos, don't you think that guy in the painting looks like you?"

your boyfriend turns around towards you, having been momentarily distracted by a stray silver heart balloon floating up to the ceiling.

"huh?" he says, looking over.

he takes a few seconds to give the painting a once-over before responding.

"do i look like that?" he questions, looking towards you. "the-" he points towards the figure- "the hair and the expression and everything?"

"um, lightly brushed by melancholy?" you state in an obvious tone, "uh, yeah!"

carlos flashes you a weird look.

"if you say so."

you both move on to one of the last displays - an enormous pure ruby heart, with a crude carving of "c s v d c" on the corner.

"assumed gift from a pirate sailor to an unknown person, theorized to be a lover. his initials are carved on the ruby heart. uncovered from a shipwreck on a caribbean island," carlos reads from the plaque.

"that's kind of tragic," you remark. "the pirate sailor's name- well, his initals- lives on but whoever his lover is will never be known again."

carlos frowns.

"yeah, that is kind of sad," he expresses. "i wonder what his name was though.. c. s. v. d. c..."

the intials click in your head the same time it does in his.

"holy cow, what if his name was carlos sainz vasquez de castro??" he just about yells, earning a few glares from a few guests nearby.

you shush him hurriedly.

"okay, carlos, mr. tinfoil theorist- like you would ever survive being a pirate. besides, it probably stands for clueless, stubborn, very dull carlos."

"hey!" he yelps, clearly offended, before you have to drag him out of "the lover's exhibition" before he causes he scene.

"anyways," he sniffs exaggeratedly, when you both change courses towards the formula racing exhibition, "i'm just going to pretend you didn't just call me clueless, stubborn, and very dull."

he turns towards you, suddenly becoming serious. "i'm glad though, that we saw that. there were so many lifetimes- i'm glad i met you in this one."

taglist: @ellelabelle

[asneakyfox]

spoilers for djenks bsky holiday special; this is meant to calm you if you are freaking out about worrying that djenks might give up on s3

david jenkins did not canonically kill off the main antagonist of s3 on bsky. that is one of the few possibilities we can absolutely definitively rule out! if the bsky thread were meant to be the canonical season 3, and ricky were meant to be its main antagonist, then obviously he wouldn't have killed ricky this early at all, he'd have kept ricky alive to do villain shit until near the end of this thing.

killing ricky at this point means either:

A) ricky is not, and probably was never, intended to be s3's main villain; when & if we get a real s3 it can plausibly start with a "poochie died on the way back to his home planet" kind of handwavey reference to these events

or

B) the bsky special is simply entirely noncanon, not s3 or even season 2.5, and the thread is probably going to end on some kind of reminder that a general history of pyrates is a notoriously unreliable source so we shouldn't take anything in it very seriously

(personally i have always had a bit of an impression that djenks liked working with errol shand & was interested in reincorporating cut ricky material into s3 - there was that "ricky, we hardly knew ye" comment he posted on shand's insta after cancellation, which sounded to me like he was sad about losing the chance to give us more ricky - so this tilts me in the direction of B, which means all kinds of shit is on the table as far as where this thread can go from here)

[pasukiyo]

I BLINKED AND SUDDENLY...

remus lupin x female!reader word count: 2,231 synopsis: insecurity kindles like a burning reminder across remus's cheeks. she deserves more than cheap flowers and a poorly-wrapped blind date with a book, but just when he begins to feel sorry for himself and makes to turn around and go back home, she catches his eye through the bookshop window. and he knows he's screwed. caught like a fish on a hook, she reels him in, and all he can do is pray that this valentine's day will be different from the rest.

…i had a valentine!

 He thinks the tips of his ears are red. 

 In a desperate attempt to hide them, Remus sifts his fingers through his hair, tugging at the strands until they cover the tips of his ears but when he blinks up at his reflection in the bookshop window, he realizes how ridiculous he looks. A curse tumbles from his lips and he shakes his head around, combing his fingers back through his tresses, hoping his hair will fall back into place in the wake. 

 Maybe he can blame it on the cold. 

 The wind is a bit nippy today after all, and he’s walked at least a couple of miles between his flat, to the florist, then back to his flat when he realized he forgot to grab her damn gift, all the way to the bookshop he stands in front of now. He hopes she can’t see him now, ruffling his hair, trying to quell the scarlet that’s bloomed across his face. 

 He feels perspiration gather along his hairline and he sighs, wiping at his forehead with the sleeve of his coat. Maybe this is stupid, he thinks to himself, peering down at the bouquet and wrapped book in his hands. He’d spent quite a lot of time picking each of these things out for her— trying to figure out her favorite color and flowers, figuring out ways to subtly ask about the books she’s read to get a better idea of her preferences while simultaneously figuring out what books she hasn’t read yet. He’s seen enough photos on Pinterest and Instagram of blind date with a books to understand the concept but he fears he doesn’t project that well— his scrappy packaging and hasty handwriting is enough to make him suddenly want to throw everything away and make the trek home to crawl in bed and sulk for the next two to three years. 

 He thinks that’s what he’ll do— a spider of shame crawls from his ears, to his cheeks, down along the column of his neck when he peers down at the gifts he’d prepared. This isn’t enough for her, he thinks. She deserves more than flowers from one of the cheapest florists he could find in the city and a book she may or may not have already potentially read, packaged in probably the shittiest wrapping job that even children wouldn’t be entirely thrilled to open on Christmas morning. 

 A wave of nausea suddenly rumbles through the pit of Remus’s stomach and he thinks he should go now before he really embarrasses himself and blows the chunks of that piece of untopped toast he scarfed down this morning. He’s about to make a break for it when suddenly he sees her, through the window of the bookshop, guiding an older man to a bookshelf. 

 And he’s fucked. 

 Remus is entranced, his feet stuck on the pavement below him as he simply watches, watches the way she speaks with her hands and even through the glass, he can see how bright her eyes shine, gleaming with passion for whatever book she must be referring the customer to. He watches the way she listens as the older man speaks, eyes transfixed, head nodding as she soaks in every word, happy to offer whatever help she can. 

 She’s so… kind. And that’s just the simple way of putting it. She’s passionate, charismatic, she’s every guy like Remus’s dream: she works at a bookshop, she likes coffee and tea, she enjoys the classics, she listens to good music, she eats avocado on her toast, she’s even in a book club! 

 She speaks about her interests with a fervor that’s hard to come by these days and she meets others’ interests with an equal amount, even if it’s something she doesn’t normally find all too intriguing. She always seems to have her special way to make people feel comfortable and despite how incredibly cheesy Remus thinks it sounds, she’s always been capable of brightening even the darkest of rooms. 

 Remus truly believes that if the sun were to vanish, she’d be enough to even put the stars to shame. 

 It’s in Remus’s trance that she notices him standing by outside the window and her face splits in a grin, so natural that he doesn’t even initially notice it’s for him. Her mouth forms his name and that’s when he realizes: oh. 

 He’s screwed now. 

 She gestures with a hand for him to come in and it’s like it’s in his program to be incapable of resisting her, because his feet practically move on autopilot, straight through the entrance of her bookshop. 

 “Remus!” She exclaims when he enters and her voice, god, her voice feels like the breath of a fireplace along his skin in the coldest of winters and he’s suddenly made aware, again, of just how red the tips of his ears are as warmth spreads across his face. 

 His heart leaps against his chest and he doesn’t know how he was able to even muster a coherent sentence, but he greets her back, albeit, rather meekly. Her smile widens and Remus thinks that the world has stopped spinning because he swears nothing moves around them when she does it, when she looks at him like that. 

 “Quite a gloomy day for what’s supposed to be one of the happiest days of the year, don’t you think?” He hears her say and he clears his throat, hoping it will snap him out of his stupor. 

 Get it together, he hisses at himself. Rotting in bed, whether you like it or not, is not a fruitful way to live out the rest of your days. 

 He turns to peer out the window. It was a rather drab and gray day, he concurs, and the wind came with a harsh chill. The conditions were certainly less than ideal, what with all the running around he’s done throughout the day. 

 “Yes,” he manages, a little awkwardly as he turns back to face her. When he does, he finds she’s eyeing the items he’s since forgotten he was even holding and suddenly, he thinks he’ll melt into a puddle of magma right then and there. 

 That, or he’ll just turn and run away until his legs can’t hold his weight anymore. 

 “How cute!” She says, nodding down at the bouquet and book. “Did you make a blind date with a book for your girlfriend?”

 Remus blinks, a little surprised. She thought he already had a girlfriend? He wonders if he should take this as a sign that maybe she didn’t feel the same way— she thinks he’s taken, after all. Is she not interested in him after all? Was he wrong to suppose that maybe she’d even give him a chance?

 His mouth opens and closes, trying and failing to give her a coherent reply, an elongated ‘uh’ emitting instead, a little dumbly. She simply blinks at him, waiting for him to reply, perhaps a little less enthusiastic than before but Remus assumes it’s because of how incredibly awkward he’s acting. 

 He presses his lips together and closes his eyes, tightening his fists around the gifts, and breathes. He’s tired of embarrassing himself, of being so incredibly self-conscious and timid that it prevents him from simply talking to someone, from making friends, from telling her how he feels. This is far from the first time he’s spoken to her and he should know by not that she’s not the kind of person to make him feel bad, whether or not she accepts or rejects him. 

 And he’s put so much thought into this. That’s got to account for something, right? Never mind how bad his handwriting or wrapping skills are or how cheap these damn flowers are— he should know by now that she’s the kind of person to value intent over expense. 

 So, he sucks in another deep breath, shakes the warmth away from his cheeks (to the best of his ability), and he takes his shot. 

 “Actually, these are for you,” he says, daring a step forward, extending his arms to present her with the gifts. She blinks down at them, eyes rounding in surprise. Remus shakes away that nagging sense of insecurity and continues. “You know, I’ve been coming here for quite awhile and you’ve always… you’ve always been so nice and I just thought… I’ve always just thought that you’re so… beautiful and I…”

 He trails off, heart pounding against his chest when she glances up at him again, meeting his eye. Her gaze is so bewitching, so heavenly, he thinks she must’ve been crafted by the gods and goddesses above, sent down to Earth solely to catch him like a fish on a hook and keep him here, enthralled by her forever. A single look from her is enough to make him want to sink to his knees and pray for just an ounce of worthiness so that he could merely be around her for even just a minute. 

 He’s completely trapped now and even though he knows she’s the kind of person who would make rejection still feel nice, he thinks he’d die right then and there on the spot if she were to refuse him, if she were to say she’s not interested, if she says there’s already someone else. 

 “…I know you said you liked these flowers so I hope you like them, sorry they’re a little… windblown,” he titters nervously as he hands them to her. “I’ve been running around incessantly all morning.”

 She takes them from him cautiously, a furrow in her brow as she brings them closer to her nose, taking in their scent. 

 “And I… I really hope you don’t already have this one,” he says, handing her the wrapped book, a little hesitantly. “I tried to find one I was sure you haven’t read. And, uh, sorry for the, uh… well,” he gestures to the pisspour wrapping skills and not to his surprise, she laughs but much to his surprise, it’s more amused than anything. 

 “‘Dark Academia, whimsical, secret societies?’” She reads his handwriting scribbled across the brown packaging  “Remus, this is…” she trails off and for a moment, Remus’s stomach sinks and he really feels like he’s another to blow chunks of toast all over the place. 

 Just then, her face splits into the most marvelous smile he thinks he’s ever laid eyes on, the entire universe put to shame by this girl, this beautiful, enchanting girl. And that smile is all for him. 

 “…this is the most thoughtful gift anyone’s ever given me, I think,” she continues with a breathy laugh, curling her fingers around the ends of the wrapping paper. “You don’t mind if I…?”

 “No, go ahead,” Remus says with a breathy laugh of his own. He watched as she tears through the paper, pulling the paperback out of the wrappings, her face— if it was at all possible— glowing brighter than he’s ever seen it before. 

 “The Starless Sea?” She says in more of a shriek, meeting his gaze again as she hugs the book to her chest. “I’ve been meaning to pick this one up for ages! How did you know?”

 He didn’t, but he’s more than relieved to have been the cause of that devastatingly pretty look upon her face now. 

 “You recommended The Secret History by Donna Tartt that one time to me a few months back and told me about how much you loved it,” he replies, resting his elbows on the counter, a newfound air of ease around him. “It was amazing, by the way. I immediately began searching for books like it. I’d hoped you hadn’t gotten to this one yet.”

 He thinks her eyes are beginning to gloss over and he blinks, dipping his brow, afraid she might cry for a moment. He yearns to see that smile of hers again, but before he can ask her what the matter is, she circles around the counter and practically leaps at him, locking her arms around his neck in a hug that he nearly recoils from out of instinct. It’s so shocking— being so close to her all at once, to be touching her and for her to be the one initiating but he breaks himself out of his stupor again, resting his hands on the small of her back, afraid to lose her touch once he has it. 

 After a moment, she pulls away just enough to peer up at him and Remus thinks that even if she were to reject him now, it would’ve all been worth it just for her to look at him the way she does now. He feels his lip tremble as she brings a hand up to his hair, the tips of her fingers brushing against the tips of his ears. 

 “Your ears are red,” she notes and he screws his lips together, swallowing down the boulder-sized lump at the base of his throat. She laughs and for a moment, a silence falls and he doesn’t realize she’s blinking up at him expectantly until she breaks it. “Aren’t you supposed to say, ‘will you be my Valentine?’”

 Remus blinks back at her, feeling the corners of his mouth twitch but he doesn’t muster the courage to repeat it. She grins again, her warm knuckles dragging along his cheek. 

 “Because my answer is undoubtedly yes.”

a/n: FINALLY GOT AROUND TO WRITING A VALENTINE'S DAY FIC THIS YEAR! i hope you all enjoy! wrote this all in one sitting so not sure of its quality... but nevertheless, i hope you enjoy shy, fluffy remus <3

💌 if you enjoyed, please consider reblogging or even leaving a reply to let me know! it would be such a great valentine's day gift 🥰🫶

TAGLIST!

@pinktree

@iamthejam

@strangerfromketterdam

@burns-in-the-sun

@cancelledkaley

@d3adp00ls

@all-in-the-fandoms