#i bet his special interest is bugs

[fish0009]

[apocalypse-shuffle]

JASON TODD & CASSANDRA CAIN (generalized fanon | maybe wfa)

—

“Blind Spot” (Jason Todd x Fem!Reader) and (Cassandra Cain & Platonic!Reader)

| Reader is introduced (this time “formally��) to the second of their new boyfriend’s extended family.

| SFW, stalking(?), batfam shenanigans, worried!Jason

| The pictures used are just for aesthetics and have no contextual meaning to the story. (pic sources: beg.=batman:under the red hood, middle=dceaced, and end=batgirl#1 • all comics)

| part of the meet the bats series

| 3k+ words

Jason’s roof is bumpy. Not like asbestos bumpy or anything, though in Gotham you could never be too sure, but it certainly wasn’t smooth.

“Hey, baby, was your apartment built before or after 1989?”

Jason answers immediately.

“After. I needed a place without a sprinkler system though, so I wouldn’t bet anything special on this building being too up to code.”

“Mm,” you hum, letting your head drop to the side. That still didn’t rule out asbestos.

The new view that greets you is of the back of Jason’s head and the broad scarred expanse of his back.

You’ve decided you’re not going to worry about the possible poison in the walls yet. Hopefully Jason’s paranoia extends to that type of stuff and he’s checked it out already.

“Hey baby?”

In the beat it takes for Jason to let out an acknowledging grunt your eyes catch the black glint of yet another weapon being picked up. You snort.

“You got all those guns, any of ‘em actually do anything interesting?”

His shoulders shake as he laughs.

“Like what?”

You shrug. “I don’t know, just...” your brown fingers snap and you sit up, legs crisscrossed over the cushions, “…there was a rumor going around the other day ‘bout Harley and a beanbag shotgun. Got anything like that?”

Jason scoffs, “You have got to stop listening to whoever is spreading these rumors and giving you your theories.”

“Shut up.” You wait until he’s taken the last piece of the pistol in his hand apart to knock him in the head with one of his throw pillows. “Answer the question, Todd.”

For a good minute he can’t, keeled over laughing as he is, but you have no problem waiting him out, laughter of your own occupying you.

“Alright,” he gasps in air, talking through his giggles. His voice is a little higher than usual. “Short answer is no.”

When he’s done he lets his head fall back into the couch so he can look at you with raised brows.

“Satisfied?” He grins, voice back to normal.

“Believe it or not,” you wiggle around so you can bend over and smack a wet kiss onto his lips, feeling his smile widen, before sitting back up, “no. What’s the long answer?”

He shakes his head at you, muttering something that sounds a lot like ‘insatiable’ under his breath, before going back to his assigned task for the night. You shrug, but a shiver down your spine cuts off whatever response you might’ve given.

Brows furrowing, you lean back on the couch as an uneasy feeling settles in your gut, gaze moving to slide around the apartment until you settle on a familiar item on the small table near the window.

The aloe plant you’d gifted Jason a few weeks ago sits atop it. Surprisingly, it still looked healthy, which was nice. You’d gotten it for him because they were low maintenance, but you could never be too sure with the vigilante schedule he operated on. There’s a small bit of movement behind the plant though and - without your say so - your eye focuses on it instantly. Or at least tries to. For some reason what you’d thought was a bug ends up disappearing on you though.

The longer you look out at what amounts to nothing the more severe your frown gets, face morphing into a grimace.

The darkness feels like it’s watching you back and the prospect makes you queasy. The possibility of a potentially deadly game of hide and seek runs through your mind; somebody popping up from the darkness and smashing the window—

A particularly harsh clink from in front of you snaps your mind back to reality. Jason’s reaching for his briefly disregarded rag and gun oil, parts of a good sized rifle laid out before him, shoulders rising and falling in easy, tempered motions. Instantly you begin matching your breaths with his own, doing your best to shake the feeling of unease off.

Jason starts talking again with a low contemplative tone and you let his voice settle over you like a blanket, slumping back into the couch as you watch the back of his head.

“The barrel of a shotgun isn’t even big enough for a regular sized bean sack—”

“—Bean sack,” you parrot quietly and Jason flips you off without looking. You snicker.

“A bean sack gun,” he continues like you hadn’t interrupted, “just isn’t practical as a primary weapon. It’ll probably lock up and misfire then - look at that - you're dead.”

You huff, “Jason this is supposed to be a fun conversation.”

“This is fun,” he grunts, picking up a tiny brush to clean with.

Your eyes roll.

“Alright, whatever, what about glitter?”

“Please stop.”

You buss out laughing.

“I don’t think I want to. But- just hear me out,” you cut in when you see the furrow that takes over his face, “If Sam and Dean can shoot salt guns then I don’t see how much different glitter would be if you factor in the weight difference.”

The new expression that takes over his face is even worse than beforehand and he gives you this narrow look like he can’t believe you’re being serious.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Those guns aren’t designed for impact, just range, and,” he scoffs, “to look cool probably.”

“Ohhh—” you stop as the confusing patch of night outside the window catches your attention again before scooting farther away from the window. Why it’s even throwing you off you can’t tell, but you don’t want to stress over nothing. You clear your throat and go back to joking with him. “—You don’t think the salt shotgun is cool, Jay? Is the Red Hood too good for the Winchesters?”

“Absolutely.”

He grins at you over his shoulder and you scoff, kicking out to shove him with your foot. He barely rocks from the force of it.

After that an easy silence fills the space once more and you rest your head onto the back of the couch, breathing in deep in an attempt to quell the clench in your stomach.

When you look over again the image through the window is clearer. On the apartment across from Jay’s there’s a fire escape just slightly above his own and — you squint, crawling to the end of the couch to get a better look — and there! Right there! A short burst of breeze causes a heavy piece of fabric to flutter and what’s wrong finally becomes obvious.

You lean even further.

What should be the rest of the metal railing is blocked by a large patch of darkness that you do your best to follow with your eyes, only going a little cross-eyed and blurry in your efforts.

Passively, it occurs to you that maybe this was something you should bring to Jason’s attention. The night coming to life and inching closer wasn’t normal after all, but—

There! The fabric shifts again, another larger piece this time, and with your gaze now having something concrete to focus on more and more of the misplaced darkness starts to come into place.

Glinting stitches, a brief flash of yellow as another gust of wind displaces fabric. Then a light in the house across from you flicks on. Barely any of it leaks through their curtains, but it’s just enough to make the outline of a person perched on the railing, what you can now tell is the smear of a cape draped over the outside of the fire escape and catching the breeze every few seconds, come into staunch focus.

Your eyes go wide.

“Jason?”

His head whips around and he’s looking up at you from his disassembled cache of guns on the floor, gaze sharp. You don’t know what the hell he detected from your voice, but you can see the way his face crests once he gets a look at your expression and your stomach twists.

You didn’t think you looked that alarmed.

Jason’s gaze follows yours when you turn your head back for confirmation, and it’s brief but for a second still the same blotch of black is there before you take your next breath and it���s - the person’s - disappeared.

“Crap,” he curses and you go rigid, falling back as the sounds of him quickly reassembling a gun fill the room.

Next thing you know he’s up and walking over to open the window.

You scramble up from the couch, “Jay! Hold on, are you sure—?”

The window slides open with a small click and a few beats pass before - baffled - you watch Jason sigh and set his firearm down on the side table beside the aloe.

He sticks his head out the window.

“Cass,” he whisper-yells.

From behind Jason you watch nothing happen. It’s quiet except for the city’s usual ambiance and there's a cursory creak of old metal before—

“No, not you too, get out of here. Don’t you have a city to patrol?”

—a face appears in the window, right in front of Jason, and you take in such a harsh breath you stumble back a few steps.

So close to the window with the light from the living room as an aid you can make out the long pointed ears at the top of what you can now tell is the person’s — Batgirl’s, that was Batgirl’s — mask.

Right. Okay. You suppose if Robin popped in to visit and your boyfriend rocked a red helmet and killed people in his spare time then Batgirl also popping in wasn’t too far a stretch of the imagination. You suck in a breath until your lungs fill with enough air to make your chest twinge.

Batgirl’s low scratchy voice fills the quiet.

“The city.” Batgirl seems to fix Jason with a look but the mask makes it hard to tell, before finishing, “Will survive…five minutes.”

Then she pats the hand he still has on the window sill. “Kind of you,” you hear her say before she’s slipping in past the width of his bulk. Jason makes an exasperated noise and moves to let her in - not that she wasn’t already doing that perfectly fine on her own.

After the incident not even a full week ago Jason can’t seem to not throw you a panicked look from behind the woman. You only shrug, heartbeat steadily settling back down. At least you were awake this time. You look over the faceless vigilante, not an inch of skin - of the person underneath - showing. Though you were no less perturbed.

The only huge difference is that it was the blank mask of the Black Bat that’s staring at you from the darkness and you’re not at imminent risk of being beheaded. That was…something. You purse your lips, rocking back onto your heels with your heart in your throat.

The Bat doesn’t say a thing, just looking at you with indents that probably indicate eyes behind them and a face full of more of those glinting stitches.

Jason clears his throat, moving around so he can stand beside you.

“Is this some kind of trend now?”

His irritated grumble brings Batgirl’s attention back to him and you relax, leaning into the arm he presses into the dip of your back.

“Oh,” she breathes. You’d be pressed to think she was being sarcastic if it wasn’t for: “Heard about Robin. Seemed like…fun,” she proclaims.

You briefly wonder at the fact that you’re apparently an interesting enough deviation for Jason that you’re piquing the interest of vigilantes.

Then Batgirl’s attention shifts squarely back to you and you can’t remember how to breathe again, let alone what you were just thinking about.

“Um,” you choke out, “Hi.”

Jason’s tan hand snakes under your shirt to rub at the dark brown skin there. You focus on the warmth from the point of contact, breathing out slowly.

Batgirl’s head shifts, indicating the window behind her. “You noticed me.”

It’s not a question.

“I mean - barely,” you say. A half aborted chuckle falls past your plush lips. “I pretty much just thought I was losing it.”

“That’s good,” she says and you pause confused. She turns to Jason, tone brightening. “Robin was right. She’s impressive. For a civilian,” she concedes at the end.

When she walks up to you next she holds a hand out. After a moment of hesitation you reach out to take it, her grip is strong and when she shakes your hand you have to steady your arm or else risk her jerking you around.

“You have a good eye. Good instincts. Useful starting point…for learning.”

“She won’t be,” Jason grunts. You roll your eyes at him, you didn’t even want to be a vigilante but he didn’t have to shoot the idea down so hard.

Batgirl shrugs, “I know,” she dismisses. She squeezes softly at your hand. “Y/n. It was nice meeting you. Had to see. Who’d…put up with him,” she ends snidely.

Jason huffs and you laugh despite yourself, squeezing her hand back in turn. That seems to have been enough for her because you can just make out the smile underneath her cowl before she lets go.

She sends a parting nod Jason’s way and he scoffs quietly.

“Yeah, I know,” he says to Batgirl’s retreating form. "See you later, yeah?” he adds, voice dropping.

She stops part way through slipping out the window, half her body already lost to the darkness, before giving a curt nod. A jaunty wave is sent your way next and then…nothing.

You don’t even hear the fire escape creak before she’s melted into the shadows and disappeared back into the night.

─────

Jason doesn’t know how to conceptualize this, but he has to know. He needs that confirmation before he can truly rest easy.

There’s no one else who reads people as well as Cassandra. Maybe she’ll be able to finally get rid of the way he can’t help but jerk away from your closeness sometimes, from the natural pull you have over him. How much he can’t stay away even as reluctance and fear pulls at him.

Jason sighs.

Or help him figure out how comfortable you really were with the whole Red Hood thing. It’s not that he didn’t trust you to keep the secret, just that he wasn’t sure if you were saving face with him or not. The last thing he wants is for you to feel obligated to stay with him. Or intimidated.

Cass waits until he’s just settled beside her on the roof before speaking.

He’s silently grateful for it. For some reason verbally asking for her assessment seemed like more a betrayal than needing the read at all.

This way he can delude himself into thinking she offered the information up unprompted. Something tells him it won’t change anything; he ignores that voice.

“She’s good,” Cass nods. She pointedly doesn’t leave it at that though so Jason stays still, let’s the wind lap at his hoodie and whisp at his hair.

Cass sighs, so still her shoulders barely move, and then turns to him. There’s a low tuft in her voice like she knows exactly what he’s doing here, knows he’s looking to her for salvation.

“Good,” she stresses. Breathes in once. Exhales. “But hiding.”

Jason’s heart doesn’t skip a beat but his gut does twist, caving in on itself in a bid to hide. He starts shaking his head.

The thing about Jason, he stopped trusting his heart a long time ago. Too late to save him from some other grievances in his life but good enough to keep him alive for this long. To protect this second chance, trusting his gut has been crucial. So why did it feel like he was being gutted?

“…hiding what?” When she takes too long to answer Jason finally turns. “Cass—”

She intercepts him easily, barely a rustle of fabric before her closed fist is pressed against his breastbone. It holds him in place more firmly than it has any right to.

“She’s hiding.” She manages somehow to make him feel the weight of her eyes meeting his own before tutting at him. “So are you.”

The plea Jason’s about to let out gets stuck in the base of his throat and he clears it.

“What do you mean?”

Even in the cowl the disbelieving look Cass throws his way is clear, fabric over her brow creasing.

“You are…leading her.” Her head canters barely a centimeter to the side. “She won’t…move. Not without…looking to you…first.”

All he can do for a moment is breathe deep and swallow back the argument bubbling up his throat. They both know Cass didn’t talk if she wasn’t sure, and Cass didn’t make mistakes about these things.

This wasn’t emotions; it was pure science, and body language for someone like Cass was near impossible to skew at the base intention level. And well…Jason can’t even lie to himself enough to believe he hadn’t expected her assessment to be anything other than confirmation for what he already knew.

He shakes his head, hands shoving into his pockets, “How am I supposed to fix that Cass?”

Cass gives a blithe little shrug, turning away from him again. Her cape billows out wide behind her, wingspan almost large enough to wrap the whole of Gotham in her protective embrace.

She snipes, unrepentant, “Why do I? Have to…know?”

Her voice carries on the wind with more leniency than the question suggests.

Jason sighs, rolling his shoulders back and shifting to look out over the stretch of rooftops laid out before them also.

“You don’t,” he grunts. “Sorry— thanks for this Cass. I owe you.”

She nods, shrugging.

“Cool,” she says. “I’ll call. If I…feel like it.”

He can almost hear the smile in her voice. He imagines it’s the little barely tolerate one she tends to give him. It’s not the smirk he knows she’s prone towards sporting with the others, but the fact he gets anything more than the blank look she gives when she’s mad but doesn’t have the energy or the words to say anything more to him is miraculous enough. He’s lucky to have any of her good will at all considering how heated some of their past conversations have gotten.

Cass never treats him like he’s a ghost, more so like she’s doing him a favor; looking past all the skeletons peeking over his shoulder to see Jason. Just Jason.

It’s not great. Even if he does know why.

It’s not the way you look at him; like he’s whole. Like the him that you want is exactly what’s in front of you, not some specter from the past or poor imitation you have to put up with.

One of Cass’s hands moves to rest against the holster on her belt and she raises one foot to prop up on the border surrounding the roof before leaning into his space.

She punches his shoulder, softly for her, and he takes it.

“You. Should keep her…a civilian. Jason,” she stresses. “An alive one.”

Jason hasn’t even begun to react before Cass is tilting forward, firing off her grappling gun and dropping off the roof in a second.

‘I’m trying,’ Jason thinks at the charcoal of her cape.

He takes another few minutes to look out over the city, let the sounds of a broken metropolis and its people wash over him - for his gut to settle back into stone - and then he climbs down the fire escape.

NOTES: Hope you enjoyed!!!

Alright, so, this is my first time really writing Cass so don’t hate me. I didn’t want to shove her into a ‘woman who soothes a man’s woes’ role, but I did still want to give her and Jason a more tolerant and supportive relationship than they’d ever have canonically (and this is a Jason-centric story so some centering is inevitable). Also, I tried to match her speech patterns from the 2000’s comics so don’t come for me, she usually only speaks in four word sentences at the longest and breaks her sentences up so she can presumably search for the word she needs, otherwise her grammar is totally fine so yeah, hopefully my portrayal of her wasn’t too too bad. I will be advancing her sentence structure and speech patterns when she shows up again in a later part in order to depict how her speech advances in the comics too, just because I want to practice with her some more. Also just believe that once Cass realized the Reader-Insert had sensed her she stayed in a more compromising position (in front of a potential light source) just to really test how well she’d be at actually finding her after sensing something was off.

Keep in mind that this is “wholesome” bat family fanon, but that I lean towards post-crisis when it comes to characterization and comics I read for reference (except for Duke obviously) because I largely like post-crisis canon more. Though, how I write Damian is definitely more based on the DCAMU version of him because that was my introduction to his character, but I am working on getting closer to his canon character voice for my own sake since he will be showing back up later in this series (& just in general I’ve slightly shifted how I write Jason as well since part one).

btw: if you’d like to leave a comment I’d very much appreciate it!

Slightly Rewritten - 6/30/24 (bc the way I reread this and was like “well, tell the woman thank you, goddamn” immediately told me I needed to rewrite some dialogue; like, even though I was trying not to I still ended up prioritizing Jason too much at the end)

Alt. Banner (scrapped) —

(source - Batman: Wayne Family Adventures)

Tagged: @bandshirts-andbooks

[leewritestoomuch]

Shino Aburame Relationship HCs

I love bug boy. I’ve had things in my drafts for him for so long.

Warnings: NSFW (marked off clearly if you don’t want to read)

SFW:

If you listened to him when he spoke, instead of interrupting him or speaking over him without noticing, he’d feel appreciated.

However, he is still iffy on things, even then, for a while. Like if you say his name last, he’ll take it to heart even if the order of names wasn’t important.

He’ll take not being the first person on your mind personally.

But overtime, if you treat him like you see him, he’ll notice that.

And eventually, he falls for you. Probably before you really did for him, considering he’s a bit quiet.

If you’re quiet too, that’s okay. Things might just move slower.

But if you’re a bit or way more talkative, he’ll enjoy listening to you. He finds he doesn’t mind constant talking and rambling if it’s from you. He likes to listen to every detail and try to commit things he may need to know later to his memory.

Overtime, you’d find yourself falling for him. After all, once you get to know him you’ll realize he’s committed to protecting his friends and his bugs. And really he’s quite kind hearted.

Now it can be a little hard to be with him if you’re not willing to discuss bugs.

He won’t make you hold them if you don’t like them. In fact, if you’re afraid of them, he figures it may be best if you don’t handle them for their and your safety. Mostly theirs because they’re easy to hurt.

But you at least have to be willing to discuss and learn about bugs. After all, I hc him as autistic (I think he is 100% coded to be autistic. He’s a lot like me so I can totally see it) so that’s his special interest.

And Shino doesn’t easily see a point in engaging in a conversation not about his special interest.

He’ll find he’s willing to listen in about your interests (or special interests or hyperfixations) just because it’s you. And he wants to hear about you, and from you.

I think you’d have to be the one to ask him out.

So you do.

The relationship starts off slow. You’ll slowly get more from him, but he’s slow to open up, or to talk in general.

Most dates will be you talking, and him listening.

But you plan a date purposely centered around him, and at first he doesn’t notice, but soon you’re talking about his bugs and he starts to catch on.

You did a lot for him. And he feels special.

Really, the key to his heart is to see him. Make him feel special. Because he really is ❤️

You two garden together if you’re okay with getting your hands a little dirty.

He remembers your favorite flower from times like those when you tell him, and he’ll plant plenty for you. Even buy you some for the next date and special occasions.

He talks so highly of you.

Quiet dates usually.

Or dates where you both infodump.

He’d be perfectly okay with just existing in the same space quietly if you like that.

Eventually you’ll probably get to see his eyes! Don’t go around telling people what they look like though unless he’s told you that you can. More than likely, that’s more of between you two kind of thing.

If you’re a shinobi, he knows you can protect yourself, but he’d make sure he can cover your back well in anyway you could possibly need so he can protect you.

NSFW:

This takes a long time for him to be ready for.

But when you two are ready, he wants it to be perfect.

It’d have to be when you two are alone together in one of your bedrooms, no possibility of distraction or interruption.

Likely at night.

Your first time with him would be intimate, slow, and careful. A bit awkward too.

I’m willing to bet that he doesn’t often touch himself, so he’s not all that sure how he likes things.

He’ll be discovering a lot about himself with you because it’s not very likely he’s been with anybody before you.

He’s big, and he’s aware of that, though. So he wants to make sure you’re more than ready for him.

He’ll go down on you first if that’s okay with you. Finger you a bit during or after that.

Likely he’ll take his time getting to know exactly how you like things, and eventually it’ll get to the point you’re begging him to just put it in you.

When you see his cock for the first time, you do a double take for sure. He’s huge. And now you’re probably wonder how you’ll be able to handle him.

He’ll go slow, but I totally think this would be the one time he can barely control himself.

He’s so composed and put together most of the time. All serious. But being inside you makes him lose all of that. He’s drunk on you.

He tries to stay quiet, but things totally slip from his throat and out his lips. Quiet, but you notice.

He’s careful not to hurt you, but he’s in euphoria with the way you feel around him so his pace picks up a little bit rather he means to or not.

Now he’s not a minute man, it takes longer for him to cum even if this is 100% the best he’s ever felt in his life.

He cums hard though. And takes a little bit to recover from it, so if you want another round, give him a few minutes to breathe.

I think things with him would be rather vanilla (this might be projection tho, bc I’m a basic boring vanilla bitch)

He insists on using a condom and any means of protection you two can if you aren’t planning on having little kids running around any time soon.

Thank you for reading. I love Shino sm. If you have requests for him, send them in. Please.

[atinylittlepain]

gif by @manny-jacinto

Baby Blue - A Joel Miller Story

Joel Miller x f!reader/f!oc

joel miller masterlist

Joel loses a bet to Ellie and is forced to chaperone a dance in Jackson. He might not mind it as much when he sees that their pretty neighbor is also chaperoning.

warnings | 18+ light on the angst, heavy on fluff, SMUT

a/n | this can be read as a standalone or as a continuation of Sweetness, it's just fun either way :)

..................

Joel lost a bet. He had taken Ellie out to practice her shooting, lining up old cans as targets. She was getting a little too cocky about her aim, so he had upped the ante, moving the still-standing cans a few more yards away, stacking them in a pyramid. 

“If you’re so good, kid, I’d like to see you hit just that top can there.” He pointed out to the can on top of the stack. Ellie scoffed.

“Easy. You don’t think I can do it, old man?” He just shot her a look out of the corner of his eye, crossing his arms over his chest. Ellie was grinning.

“Do you bet I can’t do it?” She had caught him that day in a half-decent mood, so for once, he was game to play along.

“What’s your wager, kid?” She thought for a moment, before her eyes lit up wildly and she fixed him with a grin. Joel was suddenly a lot less interested in playing along.

“If I hit that can, you gotta sign up to chaperone the dance they’re throwing next week.” Joel actually groaned at that. When he had heard from Maria about their plan to host a makeshift prom for all the high-school-aged kids in the town, Joel had thought to himself that there might not be anything he missed less than the concept of a bunch of hormonal teenagers nervously fucking around in a humid gymnasium for a whole night. He had chaperoned one dance before, Sarah’s first and only homecoming, and his heart seized at the memory of how he almost blew a gasket watching Matthew Brown getting a little too handsy with his daughter. Needless to say, when they had asked at the next town meeting for adults to volunteer to chaperone, Joel had not offered his services up.

“Ellie, there’s gotta be something else. I’m not going anywhere near that dance.”

“Well if you’re so sure I’m gonna miss, what’s it matter anyways?” He cocked an eyebrow at her.

“And if you miss, what do I get?” 

“If I miss, I’ll stop bugging you about your very obvious crush on our neighbor.” Ellie hadn’t let up about the young woman next door, not since Joel’s fake birthday when she had helped Ellie bake that cake for him. What the girl didn’t know was that the pair had shared a kiss that night, but since then, Joel had been hopeless. He’d greet her whenever he saw her around, and they’d exchange a few nice words, but everytime he talked to her his brain went fuzzy with the memory of that night, and he’d yet to “make a move” as Ellie had been goading him to do ever since.

“Alright, kid. Let’s see what you got I guess.” They shook on it. Joel wasn’t really worried about it. Hell, he didn’t even think he could make that shot, and if it meant getting Ellie off his back about their pretty neighbor, he was game.

He had sorely underestimated the kid, which was why he found himself in the old Jackson rec center gymnasium on a Saturday night, watching a bunch of puberty-ridden children of the apocalypse dance with each other to old cassette tapes from the eighties. This certainly hadn’t been on his end-of-the-world bingo sheet. 

He leaned back against the cement wall, his eyes scanning the crowd for Ellie until he found her awkwardly dancing with Dina. At least he didn’t have to worry about Matthew Brown tonight. It was mostly other women chaperoning, and they had all given him weird looks when he came to volunteer. He had thought to himself that next time, he’d move the cans a lot further away.

But then he saw her on the other side of the gym, his lovely neighbor in an equally lovely light blue dress. The dress itself wasn’t anything special, a short-sleeved thing that fell at her shins, but on her, Joel reckoned it was still the prettiest thing he’d seen in at least the last twenty years. Her eyes met his from across the gym and she smiled brightly, already walking over towards him as Joel’s brain began to blare the oh shit alarm. She sidled up next to him, bumping her shoulder into his.

“Joel Miller, can’t say I was expecting to see you here. You lose a bet or something?” His eyes went wide as he looked at her. She just laughed.

“Sorry, I had to. Ellie told me.” He huffed out a laugh, shaking his head. 

“That kid is gonna be the death of me.” She shrugged, offering him a grin.

“She’s certainly a spitfire, that one. You know, she always asks me if I’ve talked to you lately, always telling me that you’d like to see me.” Joel felt absolutely mortified, his eyes sweeping anywhere but towards her to hide his embarrassment. He caught Ellie’s gaze out of the crowd, and the girl looked so smug he’d like to dissolve into nothing on the spot. That damn kid. He shook his head, turning his attention back to his neighbor and trying to pull himself together. He cleared his throat.

“You, um, you look real nice.” Her smile started to ease the panicky feeling in his chest. She lightly swayed the skirt of her dress.

“Traded some of the tomatoes I’ve been growing this summer for it. Certainly not the same as what I wore to my own prom, but I guess it works for a chaperone.” He offered her a slight smile, rubbing the back of his neck and watching her smooth her hands down the skirt of her dress.

“Do you remember much of your own prom?” She laughed.

“Oh yeah. I wore this awful shiny purple dress and had matching butterfly clips in my hair. My date’s cufflink actually got stuck in one when he tried to pull a move in the back of the limo we rented, nearly scalped me he yanked so hard.” Joel couldn’t help the laugh that came out at that.

“Sounds memorable. I take it your date didn’t get too far in, uh, making his move?” She just let out a low whistle, shaking her head and swaying into his side again.

“What about you? Do you remember your prom?” He sighed, altogether liking the feeling of her shoulder continuing to brush into his too much.

“Hmm, I think mine was a little before your time. To be honest I don’t think we even made it to the dance, just ended up, uh, parking.” He blushed furiously as he got the words out, instantly regretting it. She just hummed.

“Wow, didn’t take you to be that kinda guy, Miller. I’m scandalized.” He could see by the smile threatening to creep onto her face that she was kidding. 

“Did you at least wear a suit?” He scoffed.

“Of course. Gotta wear a suit to prom. I wasn’t that much of a heathen.” She quirked her brow at him.

“What color?”

“Blue.” “Navy?” 

“Uh, not quite.”

“Like a royal blue then?” Joel just sighed, his shoes suddenly very interesting to him.

“No. You’re not telling me you wore a baby blue suit to prom are you?” He huffed.

“It was the 80s, alright? Everyone was wearing them, thought it was cool.” Her laugh was big and bubbling, eyes crinkling up as she looked at him in disbelief. She finally caught herself, resting her hand on his bicep and giving it a squeeze.

“I’m sorry, Joel. I just– never in a million years would I have pictured you in a baby blue suit and now I’m probably gonna be imagining it until the day I die.” He shook his head, not able to fight the smile breaking out at her delight in teasing him. He willed her to keep her hand on his arm, and she did, curling her fingers lightly and letting out a sigh.

“Laugh all you want, but my date thought I looked good that night.” She hummed, tilting her head up at him.

“I’ll buy that. But you look pretty good tonight too.” He choked on an inhale. He knew her flirting was entirely gratuitous, all he had on was a button down and jeans, the same thing he wore everyday. She leaned into his side.

“Whaddaya say, Miller. Will you be my prom date?” He let out a breathy laugh, feeling the blush creeping up his neck again. Maybe it was the sound of “the Cure” fizzing in the background, or the dizzy feeling he was getting watching the swish of the hem of her dress around her bare legs, but Joel finally decided to go for it. He tilted his head down to catch her gaze, a wry smile cracking across his face.

“I’m flattered, darlin. Thought you’d never ask.” The grin she gave him was her brightest yet, and Joel felt like he was melting on the spot.

They spent a while like that, leaning into each other against the back wall and snickering about nothing, lobbing flirtations back and forth. One of the other chaperones stopped by and slipped her a flask that they started passing between them, warmth quickly settling into both their features. Joel hadn’t felt this at ease in a long time, with her arm slung around his shoulders like they were the only two people in the room. She sighed resting her cheek on his arm as he glanced down at her.

“You know, even after he yanked my hair, my date still tried to make another move.” Joel scoffed but she just nodded.

“Mmhmm, he dragged me into the men’s bathroom, tried to get me to give him a handjob, pfft. I smacked him in the face and left right then and there, had to call my mom to come get me.” She laughed, but Joel wasn’t finding anything funny about it. Even though it had been at least two decades ago, and whoever this punk was had probably long been turned into a walking mushroom, Joel still briefly felt a twinge in his chest that he’d like to knock the guy’s lights out. He felt ridiculous, instead drawing his attention back to her and tentatively letting his hand wrap around her waist.

“That’s a really shitty prom memory.” And then, his tongue loosened by whatever they had been swigging from that flask, he said something way too bold.

“You wanna make a better one?” Her fingers stilled where they had been lightly playing with his shirt collar. She was just as shocked as him at his words, but she quickly caught herself, melting back into a smile.

“Well, depends who I’m making it with.” Joel was already slipping his hand into hers and turning heel to tug her along behind him out of the gym and into the hallway. Her breathy laugh of his name made his heart kick inside his chest. He was startled however, once they got out into the empty hall as she pulled him back towards her, tripping over his feet until they crashed together in a kiss. His hands quickly found purchase on her waist as she tugged him down by the hair at the nape of his neck. He couldn’t help the low groan that thrummed through his throat when she licked into his mouth. She pulled back with a wet click of spit, taking a big gasp of air. Joel’s knees felt weak at the sight of her, lips swollen and parted, chest heaving in her pretty blue dress. 

They were interrupted however, by the sound of chatter spilling out of the gym and into the hall. Joel’s eyes landed on another door, pulling her behind him and into what must have once been a supply closet. Luckily, when he flipped the lightswitch it worked, and they were back on each other in an instant, a tangle of tongues that was admittedly taking him right back to his highschool years. He walked her back until she was pressed up against the door, their hips slotting together, seeking more however they could get it. Her hands were grazing up and down his chest, sliding along the waist of his jeans in a way that was making him feel dizzy. His palms started to wander as well, from her waist down to the swell of her thighs, making her gasp when he squeezed the softness there before dipping around to her ass and he thought to himself that she was perfect in his hands. 

He was snapped out of the swimming reverie that was kissing her when he felt her fingers starting to work at his belt buckle. He was quick to take both her wrists in his hands, pinning them back against the door. She huffed at him and he could only breathily laugh at her frustrated expression

“Nuh-uh, darlin. This one’s gonna be all you, alright?” She smiled, her head lolled to one shoulder.

“We gonna go parking after this, prom date?” Joel grinned, already kneeling down in front of her.

“Something like that.” While he may have felt like he was back in highschool, he still had his very-much-not-teenaged knees and back to deal with and he was feeling it as he got down on the floor in front of her. He figured the pain would be worth it.

His palms gently curled around her ankles, skimming up along her calves and the backs of her thighs as he rucked up her dress along with him. Her breath hitched when his hands squeezed at her hips, not taking her eyes away from his as he thumbed at the band of her underwear.

“Is this ok?” She nodded, but it wasn’t enough for him. He gave her hips a harsh squeeze that made her gasp.

“Need you to tell me, darlin, please.” She drew one of her hands to card through his hair, tugging lightly at the scalp to get him to tilt his head up towards her. Her eyes were blown wide, and she squirmed in his grip. Joel felt like his head was going to explode just looking at her.

“It’s good, Joel. I want it, want you, please.” It was all he needed to hear, laying an open-mouthed kiss to the top of one of her thighs before sliding her underwear down her legs and helping her step out of them on wobbly feet. He drew the hem of her dress back up and she seemed to get the hint, bunching it up in one fist to keep it out of the way for him. He let his mouth wander up the plush inside of her thigh, breath grazing over her cunt in a way that made her shiver in his grasp. When he dipped away, however, trailing down her other leg, she breathed out a long whine. At that, he let his teeth graze her skin, nipping just a bit unkindly at the softness.

“Patience, prom queen, I’m getting there.” She scoffed.

“Oh, I’m prom queen now?” She went to say something smart, but was cut off with a broken gasp when he finally dragged his tongue through her folds.

“I’d sure give you the crown, darlin.” With that, he dipped back into her heat, drawing his tongue up from her fluttering entrance to her clit and swiping over the bundle of nerves there. He could feel her thighs shaking where his rough palms were splayed, and he drew her one leg by the back of her knee over his shoulder to open her up even more to him. She keened into his mouth, sighing out soft curses mixed with his name as he worked her over. It wasn’t lost on Joel that it had been a long time since he had done anything like this, but judging from the way she was tugging on his hair and canting her hips into him he hadn’t lost his touch.

“Fuck, Joel– want m-more– please– need more.” He rested his cheek on the swell of her thigh, bringing a hand up and slipping two of his fingers into her tight heat. The moan she let out was more of a cry at that, and Joel’s head went swimmy again at the feeling of her clenching around his fingers.

“Want you to come for me, darlin. I know you can. You wanna come for me?” She nodded frantically at his goading words, and Joel dipped his face back between her legs to lick harsh stripes against her clit as his fingers continued to steadily pump her. He came up for air for a moment, watching her face scrunched in pleasure above him, the sight made his cock twitch in his jeans.

“Please, baby, come for me. Just let go, pretty.” It was all it took to send her over the edge, her hips jerking in his grip and her cunt pulsing around his fingers as he fucked her through it. She let out a few warbly gasps of his name, tugging his hair to get him to stop working her over through the sensitivity. He finally pulled away and she hissed as he helped her get her foot back on the ground, slumping back against the door and gazing down at him with a hazy smile, her dress fluttering back down around her legs. Joel stood with a groan, his knees screaming in protest but he was quickly distracted by her pulling him in by his collar for a stomach-churning kiss. She pulled away with a gasp, eyes searching his.

“Joel, wanna feel you please. Want you to fuck me.” He groaned at that, dipping his forehead to rest on her shoulder and shaking his head lightly. She stilled in his grasp, and when he looked up at her again, a worried look had settled over her face. He couldn’t help the disbelieving laugh that rumbled in his chest, that this woman standing before him actually wanted him that much. The furrow between her brow deepened, but he was quick to lay a kiss there, stroking the arc of her cheek with his thumb.

“I want you too– believe me. But I’ll be damned if the first time I have you is in a fucking supply closet.” She let out a wild laugh at that, her eyes crinkling up as she looked at him and a warmth melted through Joel’s chest at the sound. 

“You know, I thought you were kidding about the whole parking thing.” Joel grunted, stealing another kiss from her before guiding her out of the closet.

“Fuck parking, I’m gonna take you home, darlin, if that’s alright with you?” They were already walking out of the gym but she still squeezed his hand and shot him a wicked grin.

“Sounds good, prom date, lead the way.” 

When one of the chaperones checked the door that had been left ajar, they were only slightly horrified to find a pair of panties strewn on the supply closet floor.

[intimidating-fettuccine]

Can I request some creeps with a reader that just really loves bugs? Like- will stack three chairs on top of one another to get a better look at a moth or a spider on the ceiling? *Will* tell you exactly what species it is, you have no choice /j If you kill a bug inside, instead of gently bringing it outside (or directly to them) there’s a disappointed lecture in store.

Feeling a bit tired today so I just went with two boys, hope that's okay

Jeff:

I chose Jeff for this ask specifically because Jeff does not like bugs and I think you two being opposites would be incredibly cute and I love the idea of it. While Jeff doesn't really like them, he doesn't mind releasing them outside, he just gets a bit creeped out with the leggier ones and would prefer to not have to touch them at all. Except for centipedes. Try bringing him close to a centipede and he will get genuinely distressed because he just cannot stand them and they freak him out. Even if he doesn't like being around bugs all that much, Jeff will never turn you down if you want to show him one you see or tell him a bunch of facts about it. He thinks it's incredibly adorable, and he loves watching you get excited about things, and he even goes through the effort of trying to remember all of the little facts you tell him. However, he does try to help you find safer ways to get a look at bugs that are higher up, rather than letting you risk falling off of your quite dangerously looking pile of chairs because he cares about your safety a million more times than you care about seeing that bug up there, so please be safe for him. He also doesn't mind getting a bug for you, if you ask him nicely, so you don't put your own safety at risk.

Toby:

Toby fucking ADORES bugs, so you can bet your butt that he's just as excited as you are. One of my favorite headcanons for Toby that I've had for a long time is that he collects butterflies and moths (from both Earth and the Underworld), and he displays them on the walls of his room. They are by far his favorite bugs, and he knows the species of every single one he has displayed, as well as where they're from, things they eat, their lifespans, behaviors, anything and everything he can know about them, and he could gush to you about it for hours. So, of course, he's very happy to listen to you talk about bugs as well. The two of you definitely match each other in terms of excitement for bugs, and it's very adorable to witness. I can even see him taking you on strolls through the Underworld to try and teach you about all the different bug species he's learned about during his stay there, especially the more dangerous ones so you know what to avoid for safety reasons. It genuinely makes him so happy to have someone that also enjoys one of his special interests, and he has a lot of fun with you. It absolutely makes him love you even more than he already did, which he didn't even know was possible. 

[homestuckreplay]

you have a weak electrochemical bond!

John Egbert doesn't seem like a phone call type of kid, but you know who he IS gonna call? GHOSTBUSTERS. I watched Ghostbusters II tonight, and overall I don't think it's a good movie - the message is glaringly over the top obvious, the characters feel flat, the special effects are awful, and I don't think it strikes the balance between realism and absurdism that I think it's going for - but despite all that, I had a pretty good time watching it. Some individual scenes were fun, and much like John, I love some slime.

Both Con Air and Ghostbusters II deal with family relationships where the mother raises the child and is close to them, and the father is absent - but either the real father or a surrogate father really cares about the kid and wants to be with them. It's a really specific parallel with a few different interpretations - possibly John wishes he had a mother figure and lives vicariously through these characters. Possibly he's commiserating with the kids in these movies about having a dad who's way too over the top, or he wishes his dad was over the top in cooler ways, shooting up a plane or blasting some ghosts instead of going to clown con. Or, my favorite theory - since these are movies from when John was very young or not yet born, maybe his dad showed him movies with positive, loving family relationships to show John that he's loved despite not having the typical two parent family.

The Big Thing(tm) in this movie is that the giant slime beneath New York City reflects the emotions surrounding it, both positive and negative. John's emotions seem so strong and so changeable based on what's immediately around him too - I can see him weirdly relating to the slime. I think this ties into this movie and Con Air both being very fast paced, intense, and action packed, neither of them allowing the viewer much downtime. This and the way he's always wandering around his house poking at things without settling - he really is a small bug looking for enrichment, looking for something to feel and then having extreme reactions to the tiniest things because at least something is happening.

The ghostbusters attempt to take a scientific approach to learning about the slime and how it operates, which really cements that this is the source of John's interest in paranormal lore, as well as ectoBiology. The actual science they try seems like a weird mix of chemistry and psychology, instead of biology, but it's close enough that I think this movie inspired John's chumhandle. I bet in elementary school someone asked him what he wants to be when he grows up and he said "ghostbuster."

Despite Slimer being John's favorite character (judging by his shirt and desktop wallpaper) he only has a couple of brief scenes in the movie. The funniest interpretation is that John has never seen the original Ghostbusters, only the sequel, but has become obsessed with this benign hungry slime ghost based exclusively on these cameos. Someone's gotta tell him this guy is in more movies.

MOVIES WATCHED: 2/11

MOST RECENT MOVIE: Ghostbusters II (1989) - Rating 6/10

[meili-sheep]

When your minding your business going through the diluc tag, and then you end up seeing someone's trash opinion on him that ends ruining your whole day...

And of course it's from someone who has a positive view on Kaeya. 😒

I bet if it was reversed people would be defending Kaeya (people are mostly defending him anyways because he's good looking, why is diluc considered the ugly sibling? There's nothing ugly about him)

(Also, I don't know anything about DC, but your Jason Todd / Batman post are interesting to read through. Who do you think in the Bat family would get along well with diluc?)

So I personally have a habit of when I feel my opinion is too negative towards a character…. I don't tag the post. Because it's not a post for fans of that characters. And I'm not trying to give anyone shit for like that character or thinking otherwise.

But it is what it is, and some people have trouble drawing lines like that. I have a lot of thought about fanon vs. canon and might type them out one day, but that's not today.

Diluc gets called ugly because, well, he's a bit bug eyed. And his model has aged more poorly than the other as Hoyo's designs have evolved. Do I think he's ugly? Hell no. that's my baby baby boy!

Another thing I find a lot of the bad takes on Diluc also come form bad takes on Kaeya. They really like babying him and really objectifying him like he's not a complex character who realized he hurt someone he cared about and takes ownership of that mistake.

Now for me to go a bit Rabid. Jason Todd is a special interest of mine. And boy if I had a nickle for every time I've obsessed over a fictional character associated with birds and the color who has a more popular sibling associated with birds and the color blue and who is often mischaracterized as an angry asshole I'd have two nickles which isn't a lot but weird it happened twice.

As for BatFamily Diluc would get along with. For starters Jason. I think Diluc would see their similarities, but realized Jason doesn't really get that support that Diluc does. So Diluc being Diluc. Would take it upon himself. Would Jason like this? Eeheheheh he'd be the dramatic little shit he always is but Diluc would definitely take it in stride.

Tim would probably be the one who Diluc would really get alone with. Like in the same vein of how I think Albedo and Diluc get along. I haven't read a lot of Tim. But they both are people born in the upper class who have the easiest route of all but are choice to take the hard way to do what they think is right and know to help people. I don't know as much about Tim, but I can see him and Diluc have really deep intellectual debate and just be very stimulating for each other without being frustrating.

Damian would be another one. But he'd be in the same boat as Jason. Diluc see's a kid who's struggling not totally getting the support he might need and is trying to learn. Trying to be better. So again Diluc would look out for him even if Damian doesn't like it (read the boy wonder)

Cass I think would be another good friend. Diluc is a person who can deal with silence, and I also think they be eye-opening for them. Haven't read a ton of Cass yet, tho. She definitely could see a lot more of Diluc's gentle side.

Dick and Kate might also be in there. But they might have a hard time with Diluc's rougher exterior and awkwardness. Barbara and him would defiantly get a long, but I think it would take some time.

[fabulous109]

Hey love! Could I please request a Paul x reader where she’s been wanting to get a tattoo but Paul keeps telling her no because he doesn’t want her to ruin her beautiful skin🤫

Ouu this should be good! I know nothing about tattoos, but it's only fair Paul lets his imprint be herself, even if sometimes it makes him uncomfortable.

Thanks for the request! Y’all make me feel special. 

Double Standards- Paul x Reader

“What about a butterfly? I bet Paul would find a classic tattoo okay. Maybe his face?” Kim was joking about that last part. Y/N wanted a tattoo, but for some reason, Paul was against it. He usually loved how you wanted to be included in his interests and hobbies. His tattoo was a tribal one, and since you were not technically part of the tribe or a wolf you couldn’t have that one. 

“Oh, what about his name or Paul’s Girl?” Emily suggested. “Yeah if she wants to look ridiculous. Wait, what are we talking about?” Jared interrupted the imprints going through a book of sample tattoos that you borrowed from the local shop in Forks. Having a place to get professional tattoos close was a plus. It meant you could sneak in and out if you had to, plus once it is on Paul can’t do anything about it….better to ask for forgiveness than permission right?

“Paul SO isn’t going to go for this Y/N.” Sam of course had to put in his opinion. Both Jared and Sam received looks of disapproval from their imprints. “She can get one if she wants, right Kim?” Emily countered Sam’s statement and continued, “I mean if I wanted one would you stop me? Jared, what about Kim?” The girls looked to both boys waiting for their answer. Jared just shrugged knowing Kim would be more conservative and only do one somewhere hidden. He thought it would be cute to be something only he saw since she never liked showing much skin. As for Sam, his eyes were bugging out at Emily while he searched his brain for a gentle response. “Baby, you know I think you are beautiful, but no, I don’t want you getting one sorry.” Sam was literally saved from the conversation as Embry and Paul walked into the house looking for lunch.

Paul walked over to you presenting a kiss on your forehead and questioning eyes about why suddenly the room was tense. “Seriously what happened in here, you can cut the tension with a knife.” 

Well here goes nothing: “Babe I am getting a tattoo so Kim and Emily were helping me choose which one from the samples.” It didn’t take too long for Paul to make his way around to where you were sitting and kneel in front of you. “Let me put it this way- no.” Boom, there it was. You were actually getting quite angry at his control over you. Being an imprint is a beautiful experience, except for this part. The part where he wants to control you. 

“So you can get a tattoo, but I can’t right?” You questioned your imprint as he looked into your eyes. “It isn’t about that Y/N. I love you the way you are. You look beautiful, why do you need to change that?” Okay, he was being nicer than you expected, but this time you weren’t being so nice. 

“Paul, you always tell me what I can and can’t do. I want one and I’m getting it tomorrow. I already have an appointment. So are you coming or should I just hold Kim’s hand for moral support? Your double standards are not winning this time.” Paul literally just sighed because you had a point. He saw the determination in your eyes and knew he couldn’t stop you. 

“Fine, but where and what tattoo? Also, I am going to make sure it is done correctly. You can get sick if this shop has idiots working there. I don’t want anyone messing with my girl.” At this declaration, you were shocked that Paul gave in so easy…

You leaned in to plunder his face with light kisses and latched onto him for hugs that would squeeze a normal person to death. “Babe I get it, you don’t have to try to take my oxygen! If you let me up we can research it together as long as you put it somewhere it can be covered for when we get married and stuff.” Paul was struggling to get up off the floor from the kneeling position. During this Emily looked to Sam with a look that not only said he would be finishing their discussion later, and for once, he needed to take note of Paul’s attitude on this.

The words your imprint said suddenly hit you, “Wait Paul..wedding?” With a smirk, he said, “Well, you were planning on staying with me forever right? Let’s get matching tattoos that only we know what it means.” 

Paul really was whipped but could be sweet when it came to his girl.

[duhragonball]

November Plannin'

All right, I've been thinking it over, and I think I'm gonna have to pull the plug on my NaNoWriMo account. The AI thing irks me, because to me the organization seems to think that it doesn't matter if you use Chat GPT or some other damn thing to reach the goal. And I do think it matters, because to me the whole point of the exercise is that those 50,000 words come from me, and me alone. The only software I need is Notepad.exe. I only downloaded iA Writer because it was like a Notepad.exe for my phone, and I got FocusWriter because it's like Notepad.exe with a wordcounter.

I've heard about the Nano community, and the writing groups, and the public meet-ups, and I'm not knocking any of that stuff, but I never had any interest in that. I just used the website to keep score, and I guess that's what bugs me, because by refusing to condemn AI, they're basically insinuating that the score doesn't matter. "It doesn't matter what you wrote." Someone told me that once and it still gets me kinda hot.

NaNoWriMo doesn't care if I write the words or not. All the org seems to care about is having participants who'll buy the merch and click on their sponsors, or whatever. They're gonna do this shady crap and they take the participants for granted. "What are you gonna do? Leave? You need us to reach your writing goals!"

That's the message I get from them. That's what made me reluctant to decide, because it is handy, and there's a certain anxiety that if I give up the structure the site offers, I might not reach my goal.

And that's the "creative monster" I need to slay this year. When I was in college, I took a semester of creative writing, and there was an assignment called "Killing the Creative Monster", and I interpreted it as a sense of not having enough time to write. Things kept happening, and the stuff I wanted to do seemed like it would take too long with no certainty that it would be worthwhile. That was in 1998. In 2024, the Creative Monster is the idea that I'm dependent on NanoWriMo to get me where I'm want to be.

So I'm gonna close down my account on the site. But I'm not doing it right away, because first I'm gonna save all the stats and stuff that belong to me. We'll start with the banner image I put up on my profile.

This is Zack Sabre Junior. This year, he won the G1 Climax tournament. He made a big deal about how his career wouldn't be complete until he won the G1. Not just any G1, but this year's tournament. I just put this picture in my profile because I was digging his tag team stuff with Taichi a few years ago, but suddenly I'm reminded of him winning the G1 this year. It was a big deal. He's the first guy to win that I actually wanted to win.

I've won NanoWriMo seven times from 2017 to 2023. But that doesn't matter. Unless I win Unaffiliated Autumnal Writing Challenge (UAWC) in 2024, I'll always feel a bit unsatisfied. That's what this one is about. No pep talks from some author I never heard of because I'm too busy watching anime to read. No funky word-count widget that always malfunctions around midnight. Just me and this computer, and a bunch of tekkers. That's how we're gonna do this one.

Good. I finally feel fired up about this one. I was beginning to get nervous. Let's figure out what I need to work on.

Luffa Annual 6. Ironically, this one actually takes priority over the main fic, becuase it's the Christmas Special, so it has a hard deadline. I was gonna work on it last week, but I kind of blew it off.

I don't know that the annuals are all that popular, but I enjoy making them, even if they are a huge pain in the butt to figure out. I'm glad this is the last one in the set, but I won't just slap it together and call it good.

Tellurium. This is a weird side-bet I'm making here. On my main blog, I used to do a series on the discovery of the chemical elements, and this was the next one on my list back in, uh... 2016. The tricky thing here is that the writing is just part of the job. There's research that goes into this stuff, and I don't want to get lose a days' worth of wordcount trying to wrap my head around molecular orbitals. Call me a glutton for punishment. It'd be relatively easy to just do 10-12 Luffa chapters and call it a month, because I've done that before. I feel like this year needs to be trickier. Also, I really, really want to get Te in the books. I don't think I like the chemical elements more than Luffa, but it is telling that I'm even having that conversation with myself right now.

Luffa 225-234. Of course I still plan to stick with what brung me to the dance. Kakarot is behind me but this fic isn't finished. The problem is that I only have a nebulous plan on where to go from here, and it's coming together a lot more gradually than I thought it would. I plotted a cool scene on my commute this afternoon, so that's a good sign, but I need to be realistic here. Last year went really well because I was writing the Luffa vs. Goku fight that I had been dreaming of for years. Motivation-wise, I've got nowhere to go but down. But I had similar problems in 2018-2020, and I prevailed then.

That Bulma project I was horsing around with. Last year, there was some crank on Twitter getting pissy at anyone who shipped Bulma with any non-canon partners, like there's a rule or something. That kind of inspired me to try to do some shorter works featuring Bulma hooking up with different characters. I didn't get very far last year, but I liked having a side-thing that I could jump into whenever I got stuck with the main work.

You know, thinking about it, I really need to use 2025 to work on some non-Luffa fanfic. In the early years, I worried that working on a longfic would eat up time that I could use for one-shots, and I slowly acclimated to just focusing one thing. But now that the Goku fight is done, the pressure is off to finish Luffa before I die. I mean, it's still not finished, but the Goku fight was a major milestone, and I didn't like the idea of never getting that done.

I mean, I still get kudos on that Caulikale fic I wrote in 2018, and the Gochi thing I did. People like that stuff, and I'm pretty good at making it. Maybe I should run a poll.

I dunno, that's probably enough for now. I should go back to bed. But I feel a lot better about November than I did a few days ago, that's for sure.

[koogl001]

Hi!

If requests are still opened, I'd like to suggest the following scenario:

An otherwise chill reader loses a bet/makes a small unwritten deal with Alastor. And now they must have a dance with him. BUT reader is not fond of dancing, expecially with other people present...how the mischievious Radio Demob is going to ensure the reader's part of deal is respected?

I hope it might be interesting, have a lovely day!

One-Shots and Headcanons Masterlist

When Alastor invited you to join him at the Overlords get-together as him plus one, you were expecting boring political debates, champagne, comfy lavish looking couches to rest on and nothing interesting to do

Wearing a shimmery tight red dress with a slit that ended at you tight, you waited for Alastor in front of the Happy Hotel

Sure, the others were coming too but there was only so much place in one limo

He was taking suspiciously long, you thought

When he swung the doors open and joined you outside, you noted how incredibly dashing he looked in a black suit with a bright red tie

It sure was interesting to see him not in his normal outfit

Getting to the reception and looking at the place, it somewhat resembled a casino with a dance floor further down the hall

Guess it makes sense, Overlords were all wealthy and what better way to spend their money than to gamble it all away?

For the whole night, Alastor stuck to you like glue, bugging you over and over again about gracing him with your first dance of the night

You were usually a reserved person who didn’t like too much attention, and since the dance floor was all but empty, going along with Alastor was sure to track attention

But oh, the bugging and nagging was slowly eating up your patience, so you both agreed that if you won at poker, he would stop pestering you and give you some space and if he won, you would grace him with ONE dance

And of course, today of all days, lady luck decided to abandon you

You didn’t know Alastor was cheating whenever you took your eyes off of him

Hey, nowhere in your bet was it stated that he had to play fair

He saw the way the others were looking at you, especially Valentino and he would use this dance as a statement that you were his, a way to mark his territory

Picking you up princess style, he carried you towards the dance floor, placed one of your arms in his and his other arm around your waist firmly, yet you didn’t budge

You were so stubborn, but that was one of the reasons he fell in love with you

Summoning his shadow, he used it to guide you around the dance floor in twists and swirls until you caved and started waltzing on your own

It was magical, the music was soft and lovely, the atmosphere soothing and the place luxurious, thought you would never admit to Alastor you were actually enjoying yourself

When your one dance ended, you took it upon yourself to spend the rest of the evening on the balcony, sipping champagne and watching the stars all alone with no eyes on you

Alastor knew you loved dancing as much as he knew you detested the attention the other Overlords were giving you when doing so with him

He knew it was selfish of him to put you in a situation you didn’t feel comfortable in but in his mind, it was something that had to be done

In his opinion, everyone should know who you were with, who you belonged to, and this was a fun little way to at least show those who were present

You won’t be cross with him for long, he would make sure of that

He had a special surprise waiting at the Hotel for you and for your cooperation

The hall of the Hotel was tidied out and made to mimic a ball room, he booked one of your favourite classical bands, prepared a romantic dinner lit by candles, made a small trail of rose petals leading to the roof, where the two of you would be stargazing and to finish the night off, he had a special gift for you waiting in your room

It was the least he could do for you after today

He couldn’t wait for you to come back and to show you as you danced the night away, just the two of you

[beatrice1979a]

Redeemed Claw Noir and Shady bug are NOT Ladybug and Cat Noir

They are their own version of themselves.

Oh wait... I should have said ** spoilers*** whatever.

What I'm trying to say is that nobody changes overnight. Claw Noir/Shadybug redemption arc happened in ONE NIGHT!! So I like to imagine that at least 3 more seasons of reverse-Hesperia-Miraculous show will be guaranteed to air after the special. Of course we won't watch it in our current universe. Bummer.

YES they will still be themselves. Struggling with their pain, with their emotional baggage, their FREAKING awesome overpowering strength (wow, these two really KNOW how to fight), their smirks and their silliness and their sassiness. Hesperia has the job cut out for him trying to reform these anti-heroes and bring them to the good side. It's going to be INTERESTING to say the least.

I admit that I spent last night rewatching the special again! and I'm happy the animators kept their quirks. Yes, RIP awesome Shadyclaw outfit *sob* It will take some time for me to come in terms with that.

BUT claw noir was too cool to change.

A hair tint, skip the lipstick, less punk more rock-and-roll, drop the mangy-cat act and go for that Lion King roaring look.

Same smug though.

His trademark:

Look at him!

Paw Noir, Wonder Whiskers, neo-Claw Noir ... just keep that naughty smile on, baby.

I bet Ladybug... YOUR ladybug likes it .

She rolls her eyes on you? Whatever, you're still the cool cat.

Speaking of which, she might look inoffensive with that new set up and natural make up going on but I bet she can still lucky charm a freight train and throw it straight towards the Supremes' minions if they get on her nerves. Self control will be challenging I bet.

I'm RAMBLING! *argh* That's what happens when I spend an unhealthy part of my night reading fics and watching Miraculous and listening to music. BUT I had get this out of my head. Feel free to write any story about their new reformed selves. I'LL READ IT!

BONUS SCREENSHOTS

Later, loser!

...says the dainty-looking-ladybug with the red hair. Fire!

Now off to draw again. Battery charged.

**extra**

Golden-rockstar boy Paw Noir keeps getting me that Bon Jovi vibe. I need to shake that out of my head

[fuckedupwizard]

some thoughts about shuro

so. disclaimer!!!! that i obviously think there's nothing 'between' shuro and falin; ignoring that i think of falin as 100% gay, they seem way more like friends and i just don't think she'll ever see him that way, but i like that he accepted her rejection of his proposal amicably and i bet they'll remain friends. in fact i think he and laios will kiss while falin is kissing marcille. also, it's okay to dislike him or any character at all even if he was my blorbo (which he isn't), do what you want forever. dislike him for being a narc, okay. or for having no backbone. or for not paying his retainers and holding onto his family's tradition of slavery.......

but i feel like people are categorically, and maybe purposefully, misunderstanding him when they get angry about him liking falin. i've seen people claim he "just sees her as a manic pixie dream girl" and that "laios is exactly the same as her but he hates HIM for the autistic traits he thinks are charming in falin". like okay number one, shuro doesn't 'hate' laios for being autistic specifically, or for having a special interest in monsters. it's his accidental insensitivity and oafishness that shuro expressively states he dislikes about laios. which yes, is owing to his autism and not his fault. but people are still allowed to have feelings about it. even as a neurodivergent person i've felt annoyed at the way other people have expressed themselves/acted around me even if it's because of their own neurodivergency, and i'm sure it's true the other way around.

but the reasons he likes falin are actually - the complete opposite. she and laios are similar in many many ways and both seem like textbook autistic characters, but in different ways! they are Not actually the same person in male and female form, which i think people tend to forget. laios is loud, accidentally insensitive, and tends to be the centre of attention. shuro fell in love with falin when he saw her treat a bug as a thing of interest and beauty rather than disgust, but it's her gentle nature and her self-effacing sweetness he likes about her, particularly because he is also a quiet, modest person and comes from a culture where such things are valued and even amongst his people he's particularly introverted. he likes her because he feels comfortable around her. for some of the ways in which she's like her brother (the special interest thing, which is Not what he has a problem with laios over) but mostly for the ways in which she isn't. DISLIKE HIM FOR ANYTHING ELSE I DON'T CARE but villainising him for being interested in an autistic woman romantically when he is so similar to her as a person strikes me as odd.

i also think people make too much of a big deal over the fight - laios was hurt but like. in the end it's a GOOD thing they had that confrontation, they got all their feelings out and from there on they can become genuine friends and then laios can rail shuro into the mattress...

[hydrachea]

I want to hear from you as a fellow shipper: 1. Out of all the humans that Sigewinne has encountered in her probably long life, what makes Wriothesley special? 2. In turn, what makes Sigewinne special to Wriothesley? Side note: Fontaine has really been emphasising on the human-non-human relationships (Neuvia, Callirhoe and Finch, Neuvifuri) and how they have changed each other, and I would be very happy if they do continue in that direction and give us significant Wriosige moments. I personally think that their best dynamic would be a complementary contrast to NeuviFuri's - as in NeuviFuri revolutionised against the tyranny of Celestia and the Heavenly Principles and were the lead actors in the drama that was Act V, but WrioSige are more down-to-earth and "realistic", quietly improving the Fortress one reform at a time (and because it's been bugging me a lot, I hope post-Archon Quest events give ample time to develop the reforms of the justice system in Fontaine bc if it's as simple as "Neuvi ascends to power" it's still a shit system).

Do they have to be special? Is it not enough that, of all the people they've met across their lives, something slowly came to life as they spent time together?

I don't know much about love, really. I'm aromantic, so it's a feeling that will forever be out of my grasp. But I do know I don't really believe in soulmates, or in "the one". I believe you either find, or build a connection with someone, and that "someone" can be many people.

I do think Sigewinne has been Wriothesley's only romantic interest across his life, if just because he was sent to Meropide when he was still very young - 10 to 15 years old, most likely, considering Genshin seems allergic to characters older than 30. You can fall for your fellow inmates, Avice and Faissolle have shown as much, but under the previous warden I doubt that was much of an option - and his focus was largely elsewhere. As was everyone else's, really. Every day was pretty much a fight to survive. And that leaves Sigewinne, who was likely there before the previous warden and who will still be there once someone takes over after Wriothesley. Her existence almost feels separate from the rest of the prison. Pair that with the fact that he fought a lot and so probably saw her a lot to get patched up, and she starts standing out to him. She's kind, but she isn't naive. Humans to her are both endearing and interesting, and neither of those feelings are malicious. And she's much, much smarter and older than she looks. Compared to what most other people in Meropide had to offer, plus those inhuman traits unique to her, no wonder she caught his eye and later on his heart.

Sigewinne, though, has lived a long time. Several centuries is a safe assumption. We know from Neuvillette's story quest that the relationship between humans and mélusines hasn't always been good, but it's been better for many decades. And with her interest in them, I'm willing to bet several humans caught her attention long before Wriothesley was even born - likely all for different reasons too. She might not have understood her own feelings back then, though - in fact she might only have come around to understanding "love" by the time she met Wriothesley. Those that came before him paved the way, in a way. If she were to find a pattern across all those that caught her eye, I'd say she likes strong characters. People who stand their ground and keep their beliefs at heart even when all the odds are stacked against them. It's fascinating to her, because it's not a feeling that comes naturally to her the way it does to them. She sees a spark in them, one that's very literal in her mélusine eyes, and she's drawn to it. And maybe they remind her of an old friend, too.

(And my friend I sure hope we'll get more interactions between them as more patches come out. As you said, Fontaine has been delivering on the side of relationships with nonhumans and I want more of it. Especially these two. They're so casually married, I'm still not over the photos conversation.)

[caliburn-the-sword]

finished reading scarlet; last thoughts and reactions and ponderings

was about to be like "ew wtf did not want r*pe in MY y/a book" AND THEN HE SLIPPED HER AN I.D. TO ESCAPE

thorne is SO real for only being concerned about his jacket despite human bites being very dangerous lol

why are these werewolves acting like vamps

it's kind of nice how cool thorne is with lunars with all the lunar hate there is - i remember when reading cinder being apalled about how she generalised them all as corrupt

YES SCARLET KNOWS SHE KNOWS NOW

NO NOT GRANNY I'M LITERALLY IN STUDY PERIOD RN I CAN'T CRY (note: i managed not to cry in study period but god my eyes burned for a while lmao)

tf i thought wolf was just being possessive in like a protective way against ran and not just a plain old possessive way. he's honestly making me nervous rn like goodness i can literally feel scarlet's fear rn. STOP WITH YOUR I CAN FIX HIM DISEASE AND RUN (note: okay he got brain fucky wucky by mind control so this isn't him)

HOLY SHIT THEY'RE ALL FINALLY MEETING I'M FROTHING AT THE MOUTH

i think kai is going delulu. i bet his office isn't bugged and he's got a spy. literally since cinder my money has been on torin. but maybe huy

omg kai's recognition of cinder's sacrifice by going to the ball <3

gotta agree with everything cinder's saying about kai's marriage because it's everything i've been thinking since kai decided to marry levana. i wish he would see how it's a bandaid for a stab wound. he's barely fixing a short term problem, which is gonna have the same long term problem regardless

the girls (all current pov characters) ARE FIGHTING. not mad tho because i'm a messy bitch who lives for drama <3

"She'd had the bridge built for herself out of very special glass, so that she could watch (...) all without being observed herself" levana YOU MEAN A TWO WAY MIRROR??? don't go acting all superior you're not special

from what wolf has described of his Tragic Backstory there is NO way he ISN'T a virgin. i'm so sorry that was my only takeaway but i'm trying to distract myself

"We met less than a week ago and in that time I've done nothing but lie and cheat and betray you" FKSDHFSDK sounds JUST like ouat rumpelstiltskin and yet he's STILL healthier than him and not toxic LMAO

wait did wolf need to pretend betray scarlet without her knowing instead of just making THAT the plan because those supersoldiers can smell hormones?? i bet they can. i reckon he needed her to feel REAL fear (note: now that i think about it it's probably just the bioelectricity crap but also ONLY the thaumaturge would be able to detect that???)

if i keep having to read "alpha female" with my own two eyes, i'm going to need bleach. marissa meyer you owe me financial compensation for the psychological distress i've been caused. 3 is in fact 4 times too many. it is a crime that it was ever thought into existence

predictions for cress

didn't do this last time between cinder and scarlet but figured it would be fun!! you guys get to silently laugh about how wrong i am, no spoilers

first off, doc erland's place in africa becomes the home base and cinder starts her training

someone tries to recreate garan's device since it will be useful for the rebellion - could be a joint effort between cinder and cress since they have the hardware and software down respectively. idk who's gonna fill the last role of like. bio stuff and the surgeries tho but we'll see

MORE THORNE BACKSTORY

definitely more wolf pov chapters now that marissa no longer needs to make him dodgy

cress is at least a LITTLE bit delulu wackers bonkers cray z lost her marbles etc etc from being so isolated for so long. i would LOVE to get into that mindset and character voice. would make for a very interesting pov

on reading the blurb:

i'm REALLY fucking dumb it finally occurred to me that in rapunzel the hero falls from the tower and gets blinded by thorns. so that tells me exactly who carswell thorne is (rip to when i thought he was the prince from sleeping beauty cause that's embarrassing). i wonder if he gets ejected into space from the satellite and his eyeballs freeze out of his sockets or something

i wonder WHY cress would be locked up by the queen BEFORE she was even able to hack since she wouldn't have been useful then. my first thought was that glamour doesn't work on her like with shells but she's not a shell herself but that wouldn't make sense because the thaumaturges seemed surprised by cinder and michelle benoit so it can't be that. for the sake of my running joke of every fairy tale character either being related or knowing each other, i'm just gonna pin it down to her being somewhere in the family tree and leave it at that

can these people STOP getting separated from each other?? i can't handle it. from the blurb it seems like the boys got cut off from the girls??? and then kai is also separated from all of them lol. this is a prediction only in the sense that i'm trying to guess who's getting separated from who. i think it would tie well into separating everyone from their love interest like poor cinder

i wonder if this will be the book that we meet princess winter since with royal etiquette and all that her presence will p r o b a b l y be required during all them wedding preparations and what not

@eddisfargo @francforever @winterrhayle @winterpinetrees

[redstreetsahead]

How do you think raven and the titans reacted when women openly flirted to Damian. You can’t tell me he didn’t get flirted with he can’t turn that Wayne charm off no matter what he does he’s an attractive guy and the glow up in apocalypse war had me drop my jaw anyways would love to know your thoughts and scenarios for this like. I honestly feel if the titans needed to go under cover they would definitely use him just for his looks. A bit of a long ask sorry for all the words 💜

The first time they see Damian get hit on is from behind a TV screen. While Alfred of course extends an invitation for "Damian's friends" to attend the yearly Wayne Gala, there's not really a practical way to do it. Garfield can't exactly stop being green, Jaime has a little bug-sized problem, Kory is obviously an alien, and Raven has never been a particularly big party person.

Luckily, the Titans still make a whole big deal out of it, turning on the TV, making popcorn, and getting ready to settle down and watch Damian walk into the event. They take bets on whether or not he'll smile.

But this year, as Damian walks out of the limo, a model goes to meet him on the red carpet. She whispers something in his ear, Damian whispers something back. She smiles. Damian doesn't smile.

Raven crushes the remote and the Titans don't watch any more of the event.

It started to become A thing. Tabloids would start running articles about who the new Wayne heir was dating, models would give interviews and bat their eyelashes whenever Damian was mentioned, he'd even been extended an invitation to star in a very special season of the bachelor. By this point, Damian and Raven were together. He doesn't want to subject Raven to being in the public eye, so he just ignores questions about his relationships and says he's not interested in anyone.

Despite how well he handles it, Raven was getting tired of this shit. So she offers to attend a Wayne Gala. No one knows who she was, but the message was clear. Damian Wayne is off the market. Damian had a slight smile the whole night.

[avonsdrabbles]

Hi! I seem to have rambled on to your blog

Weird question! How did you get into (if you ever did) examining and taking apart literature?

For us it's Merlin BBC cuz nothing new has come out for it in over a decade. It's 5 seasons long but at some point you just run out of content but yk, still wanting to talk about it we started drawing on narrative themes picking apart and inspecting the dialogue to figure out each character's intention. I'm glad to say it held up really well

& we're asking people whom have interacted with the degree that forces literature upon you how they started cuz it's interesting

On ask? On my main? It's more likely than you'd think--

Anyways, hi, love the snakes, love the planet, love the ask! It's unsurprisingly a little complicated for me, so bear with me.

I knew I liked English in middle school, but that wasn't dissecting text, that was writing. But that's where a love for language formed, and I started writing more and more. Back then, tho, I HATED dissecting literature, because it felt so pointless. "What did the author mean by this?" I don't know, I can't ask them, Margie! Ugh.

But then, I had the worst English teacher in my entire life in high school. She was, simply put, batshit. She rambled on and on about how fairies were going to take her soul and stole kids things, how cameras were the work of the devil and could also take your soul, how English would heal people's souls...

Really obsessed with souls ngl. Bit weird.

Anyways -- she was god awful. And she changed the curriculum multiple times so we could read what she wanted. The year I was supposed to read Romeo and Juliet, we read Midsummer Nights Dream instead. And by god, everything this woman said pissed me the fuck off. SHE FOCUSED ON THE IMABS? IMABIC PENTAMETERS???? I'm sorry, woman, can we discuss the puns here?! Can we discuss the authorial context of Shakespeare making this play within a play something commoners could enjoy while mocking nobility and the scandals at play, while (sorry, foaming at the mouth in rage and lust over literature).

Needless to say, I dove straight in. I'm one of the lucky ones who could understand Shakespeare without trying. It didn't take any energy on my part to parse the iambs, and I found a lot of beauty in the poetic nature of it all.

The next year, I was ready to fight, but I promptly had the best English teacher of my entire life, the one who taught me more about teaching than anyone else, and who I cite as the reason I became an English teacher. And she really fucking opened my eyes to the intricacies of subjectiveness in English. See, I'm a very stubborn person, and I'm very my-way-or-the-highway. I used to be very mathmatically inclined because there's only one right answer. Sure, you can get that answer a lot of different ways, but only one thing is right. English frustrated me because it seemed like I could say any fucking bullshit and have someone nod and say "Profound."

This is the teacher that taught me that's a feature, not a bug.

Through a little something called Waiting For Godot.

It is, by far, the worst play I've read. It's also my favorite. What sort of 10th grader gets to read an analysis of God that features pet play BDSM? THIS one. (This was also outside of the standard curriculum, but it was the end of the year, so all bets were off I guess).

This was the play where we dove in, read it, and without any discussion of the play, had to write an essay about the theme the author was presenting. All of us felt so lost. The symbolism didn't make any sense. There seemed to be no theme, beyond maybe "Waiting for someone who will never come is painful."

And then, the day before we had to write the essay... We had a substitute, following her lesson plans, and he was one of my favorite SEIAs (special ed instructional assistants). He was the exact same level of batshit as I am.

He SLAMMED his hand on the whiteboard, stared at us as we looked back in shock, and screamed, "ABORTION." He then went into a 40 minute diatribe about how the author of the text was very clearly explaining pro-life VS pro-choice mentality, leaning pro-life, but conversely making a pro-choice argument through the use of the discussion of Christian free will. He used sources. He used text evidence. By the end of the talk, all of us were nodding, clapping, acknowledging that he HAD to be correct!

And he stopped, stared at us, and laughed. "That was all bullshit."

He'd pulled it all out of his ass. And it made perfect sense to us all.

That's when I figured out that literature is what YOU make of it. Literature is all about interpretation; sure, there's tropes to follow that help guide our interpretations, but at the end of the day, words mean whatever you think they mean.

THAT'S what got me into lit analysis.

(And, oddly, homestuck)