#i fixed it but the dates for the first half of the comic might look a lil funny lol

[yallmakemyassitch]

Tripped Security 📸🐟

WITNESS THE POWER OF THE PENCIL, FOOL ✨ @ghastigiggles

Welp guess who's back drawing this stuff! This was very fulfilling and fun, but also pretty difficult because of the amount of details and mistakes I made. It's shocking that I pulled this off in 2 days too (started yesterday)

Either way I hope you enjoy this a lot, but I'm very proud of the results and now have to rest my wrist. This took HOURS but I'm glad to get it out to you Sebastian feigning fools (⁠/⁠^⁠-⁠^⁠(⁠^⁠ ⁠^⁠*⁠)⁠/ 🩷 which includes me haha

More pressure content will come soon enough

[myonmukyuu]

Art Summary: 2022

It's that time of year again! This makes my 9th year of art summaries... Kind of insane to think about.

It's been a very eventful year and I have a lot to say. Extended art performance review under the cut 👌 (3k words lmao)

Previous: 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021

ABOUT THE COMIC:

So! What happened this year? Well, my book happened. I'm not sure if anything else happened ahfhasjkdkasf

See, I actually cheated this art summary a tiny bit. Usually I use the upload date of the art to place it in the summary. But if I did that for this year, there would be at least 4 blank spots. That's why February, April and May all feature different pages of the same comic (CH 9).

I really did spend the first half of the year finishing my comic. I only released 2 chapters too (the finale and the epilogue). In March I took a week and a half off to work on a short for Ayumu's birthday, but otherwise slaved all the way until June for the webcomic.

Then I spent July and August doing all of the redrawing and edits required for a physical release. Those who have a copy of my book might already know but the first two chapters have been redrawn. I also had to go through the entire comic, fixing it so that it could actually be printed (because the webcomic version definitely can't be printed as it is.) It was super time-consuming. Like, I can't even begin to describe. Moving forward I'll try to draw every comic so that it's printable from the beginning so I don't have to deal with reformatting ever again...

I'm pretty sure it was in August that I had the first copy of the book done. Then the preordering period opened in Septemeber... and now we're here! People are just now starting to receive their books. Sorry it took so long guys ;w;

I'm very happy though... Depending on who you ask, 100 sales might not be a lot, but it's a lot to me. To think that so many people would spend the money to buy this kind of product is just so surprising to me... It's expensive and all of the content is already available to read for free!!! So it's really surprising and I'm so incredibly grateful. That's why I went through the trouble of creating that golden special print for everyone! It was quite a bit of money out of my pocket, but I really wanted to show my appreciation.

As a side note, the 100 sales were really exhausting to pack. My body was sore in November because of it LMAO

So I'd say this year was great for my comic! Both its webcomic finale and its physical release. But this summary isn't meant to be about my comic, it's supposed to be about my art and me as an artist.

ABOUT MY ART:

So how did my art go this year?

Looking back I feel nothing but exhaustion. I know I'm happy to have my comic released but, my body and mind is still very very tired. I feel like I took at least 2-3 weeks off or more from work throughout the year to keep the comic on track. It's just a huge undertaking.

What I'm getting at is I feel a tired and... a little disappointed. But don't get me wrong, I don't feel regret! It's just that... well every artist draws for their own reasons. For me, I love getting my ideas and stories out there. So I guess I felt creatively-starved spending about half a year polishing and releasing an already-complete product. Also technically starved - you don't really see much improvement if all you're doing is cleaning up art. I didn't really have a lot of time to draw because of the physical release so I often felt like I wasn't doing enough.

And honestly that's my main sentiment. While I feel happy and satisfied with releasing the book, another part of me feels like she didn't do enough.

In terms of technical skill, I definitely saw improvement this year. It's like something clicked in me and I had a better understanding of atmospheric lighting. CH 9 and the epilogue are probably some of my favourite bits of colouring I've ever done. I just love how it turned out. In CH 9, the gradual setting of the sun to create this orange/pink/purple colour palette was so fun to implement. And in the Epilogue, this blue/green/yellow rainy day came out perfectly. It was a rainy day, but unlike CH 7, it wasn't a dreary downpour but something more hopeful instead. I have a love for creating atmosphere and especially through colour. And I think I did well there.

In the realm of black/white, I also feel lots of improvement! I'm becoming more confident with monochrome and am starting to push it further. I'm not satisfied with my skill level, but I think it's promising. I may be more confident with creating tone through colour, but I'm sure I can do the same without it!

This year I also did quite a bit of painting. I really love how the October and November artworks came out. Honestly it was around this point in the year, I had the most time to output works as the only comic work I had to do was purely admin (until I started packaging things in November). I could go into technical depth, but this post is long enough. Just know that I'm happy with the little leaps my colouring skills made.

GOALS FOR 2022:

For my art summaries, I've been doing a performance review styled thing where I create goals for the upcoming year. Let's take a look at what goals I wrote for 2022 and how I went with them.

“I want to finish my comic series”

Passed with flying colours! I think the comic release was a success. This goal is a little cheap of a goal though, since I don't think I'd let myself live it down if I gave up.

“I also want to continue to try things that are outside of my comfort zone. I want to see myself try things like different angles/perspectives and more complex backgrounds.”

Now this goal... I think I made progress here. I'm not sure if people noticed but I did definitely try to slip in different angles here and there. I'm particularly good at them... but I'm trying! And I think that's the least I can do. You won't get good at something if you don't try after all. That being said, I should push backgrounds more... I rarely do them 😅

"I want to do more illustrations/quick drawings on top of my comic work."

My comic work was suffocating a lot of the time. But I did try to draw on top of it. I haven't really talked about it, nor shown anyone, but I started learning copic markers this year (borrowed my friend's set!). So in the background I've been doing 30-60 minute traditional art exercises. I'm not terribly diligent, but diligent enough that I already think it's made an impact on my art. See, I'm only doing monochrome copic markers (I'm not confident enough to do colour just yet). I'm pretty sure doing monochrome markers has helped me with my manga skills 😂. I have a better understanding of tones and values because of it! Isn't that kind of amazing? Come to think of it, it's linked to the next goals.

"I want to learn to paint."

"I want to learn to draw faster."

While I still have a long way to go, somehow my marker exercises have helped me with these too. The understanding of tones/values has made an impact on coloured work and painting as well. And because I'm doing shorter pieces, my speed has increased a tiny bit. I'm sure if I keep at it, I can continue to develop better habits!

"I want to draft more quickly and be smarter about it."

Now this goal is something I have just been trying to mentally direct myself to. It's working... a little bit. I still need to try harder.

See, I think my drafting process is really slow and inefficient. This results in me spending too much time drawing a comic because I've drafted like 5 extraneous pages. If I wanna increase my output and lower my workload, I have to learn to be more clever with how I compose each page. I think I got a tiny bit better. Need to work harder on that for sure (it's quite hard to just "learn" though...)

MOVING FORWARD:

With the past year in mind, how do I want 2023 to go? To be honest, I still feel so exhausted because of 2022, I definitely need some time to recover, so let's not go too crazy next year.

But before I create my next goals, I wanted to talk about where I want to go in general - the grand scheme of things. Like I mentioned, I feel a lot of disappointment, like I wasn't doing enough. Which is contradictory because I also feel like I did too much with how exhausted I am... But the source of that disappointment is really tied in with how I feel about my art skill on a technical level.

I'm nearing a whole decade of hobby artist experience. And I don't feel like my art shows it. While there are things that I am better at, there's so much that I struggle with.

I want to become better. I want to improve.

It's hard to explain but I feel like I'm not doing the best I can for the stories I want to tell if I don't keep pushing and learning. And I love what I make, so I want to do those stories justice.

So it's really important to me that I keep trying to improve.

In the long term, I think my dream is to be like a pro-manga artist. Please don't make fun of me LMFAO. But there's more to it. See, I don't actually want to be a pro artist. I never want to compromise my creative vision for the sake of pandering to an audience. I sincerely think I wouldn't be able to succeed without doing that so I'm content with drawing as a hobby. A programmer as my day job and a manga artist by night...

I want to be as skilled as a pro some day though.

To be honest, I think the distance is so great that it's basically impossible. So my true goal is a little lower than that.

My true long-term goal is to be... a little comparable to a pro.

And I don't think I'm at that point. And I don't want to use "being a hobbyist" as an excuse to allow myself to remain like this.

I think it's terrifying actually. Where I'm at with my art.

I'm really happy people enjoy it, and don't get me wrong - I love my own work. I love drawing. But I think it's important to be critical of it - if I want to be able to reach my goals.

I think if people read this far, they might be thinking something like "but you're already so good!" or something to that effect. But I don't think it's true.

I think it's terrifying because there's so much I'm not good at. Comics are scary because they're an amalgamation of so many different skillsets. I possess some of these skills but there's just so many different ways that I feel that I'm lacking.

For instance, my art itself has such stiff lines. I'm not great at perspective. My art isn't dynamic. And this is just a few examples of stuff related to my illustration skills.

But comics are more than that.

There's the individual panel compositions that come together to create a unifying page composition. The visual flow - controlling how the reader scans the page. The storytelling skills - pacing, dialogue, story beats. The dialogue writing skills. The typesetting.

I think there's so many places I'm weak with and it's scary because it's difficult to just pick something to improve at when it feels like everything is wrong at once. It's so easy for me to pick up some manga from a shelf, flick through and think "this artist does x better than me, how can I learn from them?" but learning is hard and I'm not good at it so I'm just stuck with this awareness that I could be better.

But at the end of the day, I just have to pick a direction and go, right? I think that's all I can do and that's okay. It's just hard to shake the feeling of drowning in my own mediocrity.

Sorry I didn't mean to bring down the mood of this art summary.

I promise that at the end of the day that I love drawing. This is just my overly-critical side shining through. I don't have too much natural talent, just a very stubborn mind. I kind of need to be critical so I can push myself in the right direction. And I'm fairly happy with the way I've been pushing myself through these past years.

I'm not particularly fussed if my works receive a lot of traction or not because what's most important to me is the way I see my own work. My personal satisfaction.

And that's just tied with doing the best I can!

So with that in mind...

GOALS FOR 2023:

"Improve at atmospheric lighting"

This isn't particularly ambitious because it's something I'm already working on, but I know I can push lighting even further. So expect to see me experimenting more and more!

"Participate in a paid online course"

Now this is linked to my wall of text just now. I feel very overwhelmed so I think having an unbiased and experienced teacher's guidance could be valuable. I'm eyeing ones that include personalised feedback. The only concern is that it's hard to find the time for things like this when I work full-time.

Also it's a bit scary having a professional roast me, but I think it'd be good for me.

"Continue to practise traditionally"

This is linked to all of my technical art gripes. I think continuing to do traditional art exercises will help me with a lot of my weak points.

"Continue to be ambitious with art"

I don't mean ambition on a work-load level, but I want to continue to push out of my comfort-zone. Keep trying those weird angles and backgrounds, be more experimental!

"Start planning that next story"

I always have a billion different story ideas in my back pocket that I am itching to tell. I also don't wanna die of overwork though. So lets keep the bar low.

I have many great ideas, so I want to start outlining the next one! This is just a vague goal to remind myself to keep thinking ahead.

"Rest up."

I think this is the most important goal. Like I said I feel completely and utterly exhausted this year.

So I want Myon in 2023 to have more time for herself. Improve her health, catch up with her relationships, spend more time watching movies and playing video games.

Don't work too hard next year.

EXTRA REFLECTION:

I seriously don't know if anyone actually reads these reflections. I wonder what kind of person I come off across... (probably a try-hard 😂)

I wanted to talk about one more thing. It's not really linked to goals, just the future in general.

So I've been drawing for Nijigasaki for 2 years now. I think a lot of people are moving on from it though.

To be honest, I think that's okay. I'm kind of used to the people around me shifting into new interests. I think I'll still be with Niji for a long time to come. I just have a lot of large scale ideas and will probably stick with them unless something sweeps me off my feet.

I mean, even if my ideas take too long to actualise while I'm interested in Niji, I'm also open to converting things into original content. There are just so many stories to tell...

It makes me wonder why my readers enjoy my work and how they interact with it? Are people a fan of me? The ship/characters/fandom? Or the stories?

Probably some mix of the above. It's not terribly important why though.

I'm sorry that I'm not very good at keeping up with everyone's interests. I think the world moves too quickly and I draw too slow and I can barely keep up. But I'm a bit too stubborn with my own desires so I keep working on my own things without another thought. So maybe that apology is a bit empty eheh

But I hope people will continue to enjoy the stories that I make.

I should be less harsh on myself though. 9 years of art isn't something to just shrug off.

Anyways, before I keep rambling. Happy new year everyone. Let's keep working hard in 2023!

[sunbeamstress]

i struggled for a very long time to understand why i didn't want to make art.

it was such a mystery! some blind spot in my psyche i couldn't get a fix on.

"why haven't i drawn in months?"

"why am i sitting here playing video games? i still can barely draw hands"

"why don't i post my work online?"

"why haven't i started a webcomic yet? i wanted to over a decade ago"

why? why? why?

why was i torturing myself? all i could see in the back of my mind was my mother, seated in her armchair, the dated old phone stretching across the living room with her at the center of its web. she would always couch the phone against her cheek and shoulder and lay her knuckles against it for stability; her left hand - the one i use, myself - would reach for a pen and fill page after page of doodles into a notepad.

i remember beautiful filigree designs and landscapes and pretty flowers and sometimes an instance of something lovely in the faces of her husband or her children, captured on paper without her even having to think about it. entire worlds spilling out of her fingertips while her mind was occupied with other things.

but she stopped.

she can't draw, now. she no longer has the talent. she used to beg me to sing because my voice was a gift to god, but she had a gift from god and she left it in a dumpster. these days i don't believe in god, and i don't believe in my mother, either.

in a circumspect way i'm grateful to her for this. i'd think about her every time i picked up a pencil. this unforgivable act of waste, in my eyes, was a fire under my ass that kept my hand moving. it gives me pleasure to admit, with honesty, that while i rarely sketch or paint, i only ever seem to get better at it. to this day, i'm not half bad. in my late thirties, i'm at a skill level that i was seeing out of the very most gifted artists in their mid-twenties.

but isn't that a silly way of looking at it? "i'm 37, and i draw at least as well as a really good 24 year old". what nonsense is this? this is the sort of invasive thing that likes to run amok in my head. what sense does it make to compare myself like we're talking shonen manga power levels? why am i racing other artists? why do i have to compete?

it took me a very long time to realize that Competition Itself had supplanted what i loved about art. it wasn't something i did consciously; it just sort of happened when i was in my late teens, my early adult years, and the internet's artistic community had exploded, a detailed landscape peppered with talented people, all with their own gifts from god, gleaming and gilded and razor-edged. they were doing things i'd never imagined. they were making comics and putting their work in indie video games. they were doing animations in flash. holy shit - they were making porn! this might sound quaint to you, O reader, but by internet standards i'm what you call an "old-ass bitch" and in those days, this was pretty novel.

god, i wanted what they had so bad. i wanted a webcomic. i was going to call it "Absolute Vertigo", whatever that meant, and it would have been garbage, but i didn't care. i wanted "Absolute Vertigo by <SCREEN NAME>" at the top of a kitschy website and i wanted people to gush about how cool it was and put it into their RSS feeds and--

this was the beginning of the end, in many ways. i really wasn't cut out for competition. it would take a really long time to figure this out. my peers were putting out improbably cool stuff and i felt like i was flagging. i didn't realize it yet, but the internal language i was using to talk to myself about art was changing. suddenly i was "worse" or "better" than other artists. suddenly they were "doing more" or being more "successful" than me.

art had become a commodity.

it's wild how this sort of mindset can take a mind of its own, can build its own character, can work its way deeper into your brain. at first art was discouraging - it was this thing my mother was good at but neglected. it was this thing i felt like i was worse at than everyone else. but then it became depressing. Art, this platonic ideal of it, this idea of it in the abstract, was turning into a weapon i was using to torture myself. reader, you have no idea how many nights i couldn't sleep. to merely ideate failure was to hurl myself back through time, back to the moment i realized my mother had given up.

"why haven't i drawn in months?"

"why am i sitting here playing video games? i still can barely draw hands"

"why don't i post my work online?"

"why haven't i started a webcomic yet? i wanted to over a decade ago"

i didn't have an answer for these questions, but still they were there. they weren't important or meaningful questions, they were tools i used to torture myself. i was supposed to improve for the sake of improvement, and to enjoy art as an act of pure creation, but instead it was a hammer i would hit myself over the head with because i wasn't doing it good enough. crazy how you can talk about your own talent the way you can talk about a dead-end job.

looking back now, it's astounding that i didn't understand all of this. it seems to make so much more sense. i've always had stories and characters floating around in my head - it's literally my favorite pastime - but it took me a very long, very painful time to realize that having stories and having characters doesn't mean you're a failure if you don't immediately march to the nearest sketchbook and jot them down.

the gift of art does not obligate you to produce it. if you cast it aside, the world isn't made better or worse.

your art exists for you. it should please you, should bring a smile to your face or evoke feelings you don't dare face on your own. art should help you work through trauma. it should express when you're happy. art is a frame for the picture of you.

it should even be okay to let it go.

it's going to take me a long time to forgive my mother. but i think i understand her a little better.

[versalion]

I'm working on a human-demonic comic in this community. The planned release date for the first pages is early summer, but in the meantime I'm sharing my sketches, work, and personal experiences here. This is my debut graphic novel, so there's a lot of thoughts and ideas on how to get involved and how not to quit.

- What time is it?

- Time to draw a comic book!

- Isn't the window a little small for you?

☕ My method is to execute the entire comic in sketch and only then start rendering from page one into a clean sheet. This is so that while I'm sketching all the pages, my skilfulness has increased so that I can fix the flaws of the first pages. Many of the sketches I'll be sharing here are taken from the first pages and can be very messy, which you can poke fun at.

Title in progress.

⚡Briefly on the plot: the constant wars between humans have attracted the attention of a warlike evil entity, and that too has come to earth to have fun. It just so happens that during this war Christine was born, the only half-human half-demon in the world with all the problems that come with it.

🔬 This comic is an experiment and a reflection on whether such a creature can maintain its humanity without humans around. And if it is not, some particularly clingy devils might actively interfere with it.

The comic touches on the themes of war and peace, strangers among strangers, bullying, abusive relationships, the value of science and art, personal integrity, the importance of freedom and the right to choose. In doing so, it has a comedic component.

😈 Clawed-fang-winged creatures will often appear in the pages, but the flashbacks are not without humans either. And Kris herself looks a lot like a human.

About 150 pages of color are planned for the comic book. The plot is scripted and completed, almost all of the storyboards and sketches are finished, which means that you will definitely see the comic from start to finish, the project will not be abandoned halfway through. If something happens to me, you'll find out how it ends anyway, at least in the form of clean-up chb sketches. Still, I expect to make this comic from start to finish with clean color drawings.

[littlewestern]

@amber-is-gay You weren't kidding! I knew the move was on record, but I hadn't dug into those back-issues yet and had no idea how extensive the coverage really was. Props to Warren Cobb ("ye ed", as he calls himself) for the entertaining read that is R&W issue 29.

This won't be extensive because the issue itself is pretty exhaustive, but some highlights that I think make for great little vignettes:

"Big Diamond" the '52 Diamond T truck which they drove to Indiana to purchase for use hauling rails and ties getting a half-page introduction as though it were her dating profile.

"Perhaps it would not be remiss to stop here and introduce the 'new' truck. Having been so closely associated with this machine it is difficult to refrain from 'humanizing' it. So, yielding: she is a Diamond T, built in 1952 and painted a bright red, the correct color for all proper hussies. She reaches 23 feet along anyone's road with the cab "pinched" by about 20 inches each side for clearance, the long lenths of rail extend in both directions (forward and behind) her - like a stout matron carrying a beer keg under each arm. The flits trippingly (?) over the scales at 8,830 pounds empty and is licensed for 20,000 pounds (ten tons). Garbed in an ever-present apron of steel which all but covers the grille and headlights, this truck is, as trucks go, a rubber-tired 'Hazel' of Saturday Evening Post fame."

Hazel was a single-panel comic strip in the Saturday Evening Post about a live-in maid for a middle class family. You can see the resemblance right away!

and someone (ye ed?) drew us a picture!

Big Diamond certainly put in the work here and should be ranked alongside all the humans and cars who helped get this move accomplished. Well done, and angels sing thee to thy rest, wherever she may be.

Another great story here is the tale of little North Shore 1002, the mobile operations headquarters and the first car moved from North Chicago to Union on the back of a C&NW train. She was repainted bright red and silver to mark the occasion, and apparently looked "like a Christmas tree ornament" bouncing along on the rear end of the local. She was dropped off on a siding with a note from the train crew that just said, "Hi, fellows." Very cute! I think she was probably pretty excited to be the first on the new yard. It's a very important job!

1002 is still at the museum, too! She needs a new coat of paint though.

Not everyone's trip to Union was so seamless, though. The IRM's first steam locomotive, Public Works Co. 7 first encountered trouble when they realized they couldn't haul him backwards on the train. He had to be moved to Waukegan, turned around and inspected and then sent back with the go-ahead to move him, but with a warning to watch his R-3 journal box. On the day of the move, #7 did get hot under the axle, but the crew didn't work with steam engines typically and no one knew how to fix it. He had to be taken off the train and left in West Chicago.

When the first train arrived at Union, it did so two hours delayed by the trouble with 7. Spirits were high now that the rest of the cars had arrived safely, but there were worries that the steam engine wouldn't pass inspection again. If he couldn't be moved by rail, he might have to be "cut up".

Luckily, the second train the week following was able to pick him up and he was moved to Union without any further problems, but I can't imagine the stress he must have been under! He's also still kicking around at the museum, btw. Cute little saddle-tank!

Not all of the cars were moved by rail, though. On the 4th of July, Illinois Terminal 415 was treated to several magnificent fireworks displays as she was hauled over road. That must have been quite the sight!

There are about 500 stories you could write just about this moment in the museum's history alone, but I'll go ahead and close with the anecdote I find particularly amusing for how well it epitomizes the IRM's early approach to its own mythology. This allegedly took place on May 22nd, two days before the first train was set to arrive at Union.

"It got dark fast. Somewhere, miles ahead, was Union. When John had last seen it, there was one piece of rail in place. The engine crew expressed grave concern over where they were to put the cars when they got to Union, as the engineer, fireman, and front brakeman had been by the site Friday noon, and the C&NW gandys were just finishing their switch. Just a bare roadbed led into the trees on the Museum's right-of-way. Which reminds us of an incident that is already Museum Legend: that same Friday afternoon a trainmaster had stopped at the site where three Museum members were working. 'I understand you're having a train out here Sunday afternoon with eight cars.' Reply: 'Yes, sir.' 'Well, where the hell are you gonna put them?' 'Right here, sir,' with a gesture up the muddy grade slashed thru the grassy landscape. 'Who's going to lay the track?' Answer: 'We are, sir, with a couple more fellows to help us tomorrow and Sunday'. 'Harrumph - it can't be done,' etc., and away he went to make his report. 48 hours later, he was to silently walk the line, shake his head in disbelief, and wave our train onto its own tracks. So goes the legend."

So goes the legend, indeed. What a story!

i'm really curious for tfissab how the move of the IRM from west chicago to union went. The rail &wire issue is quite dramatic!

I'm gonna kick this one over to @littlewestern 'cause Ray's actually the one in charge of reading all those newsletters. With a project this research intensive, it only makes sense to have a division of labor. Since Ray writes Pilot's letters and needs to have more intimate knowledge of the IRM's history, they get to read all that dense trainguy text and report back to me the interesting bits.

Likewise, I'm in charge of finding the good parts out of all this stuff:

[moxfirefly]

Good afternoon, this has been in the works for a while now and I finally got around to finishing it and being pretty content of it (this is gonna go up on AO3 soon along with the others that aren’t request) but I wanted to post it here first. Enjoy!

Rated Explicit (18+ only)

“Wish you were here right now

All of the things I'd do”

Gaming was always an escape.

From childhood to adulthood. There was some gaming equipment in your hands, controls, handhelds, keyboards and so on. There was just something calming about entering a fantasy world and immersing yourself in scenery and stories that made you stray from bad days and long nights.

For Donatello it was the same.

On one of his many supply scavenges Splinter had found a dumpster near a toy store that was going out of business. It was a memorable haul for them. What they expected to be routine things mixed with some type of groceries had turned into literal Christmas in July. Stuffed animals, board games, action figures and even a few gaming consoles with some cartridges and cd’s. Noticeably they were considered damaged or improperly manufactured, but they didn’t care and for Donnie he had spent a good week and a half fixing up the Nintendo and Play Station 2 consoles back into working conditions.

That alone had been plenty for him but nevertheless Mikey being so excited about playing wanted him to join him. They had played for hours and each disc or cartridge they tried out held a new story, a new set of controls to learn, new visuals and such. He was immediately hooked.

When he had gotten the first parts to start building a PC from scratch he knew there would be another world of possibilities for games.

Now gaming is a leisure for Donnie. Something he does for enjoyment and an escape when his projects become too much. The world of online gaming allowed him to also explore the possibilities of chatting with others though, the humans they were not allowed to see or speak to (with the exception of their Hogosha) but needless to say it wasn’t like Donnie broadcasted his identity and whereabouts. More so these people only came to game and speak game.

Donnie absolutely does detest the unnecessary sexism that gaming brings. Many a time he had read on chats or heard on his head set such derogatory comments thrown at female players. Never the one to stand such misogynistic behavior (he was raised better and had heard enough horror stories from April) he always shot that shit down quickly. Given his status as being far above his gaming peers he had developed respect and none of them ever shot back at him.

That’s how he runs into you.

On the opposing team nonetheless.

Once your female voice ran through the ears of the group he had been stuck in, the comments began to rain down. Some colorful, some lazy and some downright disgusting. Donnie had had enough and with some of his more illegal methods, had managed to push out the players in his party and send the audio recording to the email of the developers.

On exceptionally petty days he did far worse.

You had been stunned, wondering why the gang of immature boys had suddenly disappeared. Only one of them remained with the gamer tag specifying ‘Don_DuzMachines’ you couldn’t help but giggle at it.

You had asked if the sudden disappearance had been a weird glitch and if Don (as you assumed you should call him) had anything to do about it.

“Let’s just say I’ve got my ways” His soft voice rang through your headset.

“Well it’s hardly the first time I’ve had a gang of prepubescent boys tell me to suck their dicks” You started to move away in the map but stopped abruptly.

“Hey do you wanna play something else?” You asked tentatively. “Figured the least I can do is thank you” Donnie sat back pensively, well there was no harm in that now was there?

And so it started innocently.

Co-op games even the occasional match against one another. Each game you two always spoke through your headsets. Mostly banter about strategy or directions for who to do what or the occasional friendly jabs. You hadn’t revealed much that wasn’t the nickname you used as your gamer tag, and well Don had basically done the same.

That is until you decide to poke a little into his life. “You go to college?” You had asked, fingers gliding over the keyboard as you both partook in a raid. Donnie hadn’t expected such a question and he didn’t necessarily want to divulge much, he opted for a more ambiguous response. “I do my own studying, sort of like home schooling if you will?” Well he wasn’t wrong, Splinter had been both father and teacher to them, Donnie had just excelled more quickly and soon enough he was teaching his brothers on the academic side.

“You broke too, huh? Trust me it’s not worth the insane debt you’ll develop in six years that’ll take forty years to pay off” You chuckled with a hint of bitterness, Donnie couldn’t help but laugh and snort.

“That’s cute” You said sincerely. Donnie smiled, heat creeping up his neck.

How innocent things had been at the start.

For six months the two of you divulged little to no information. You never asked to video chat and Donnie never asked for your socials. It had just been a mutual agreement to keep the mystery that just wasn’t verbalized. Maybe it was for the better, because surely what had began as a gaming buddies situation had escalated to, well Donnie couldn’t really explain.

The first instance the two of you had been stuck on a map solving intricate puzzles. It was one of the more relaxed games the two of your partook in together when you didn’t want to deal with other players in a lobby.

“Dating apps are a nightmare, they’re only worth it for getting dumb funny stories” You had been playing but also checking some of the matches you’ve gotten on a site. Donnie swallowed, why did that settle so oddly in his stomach?

“Well any funny ones you’d like to share?” Don asked curiously hoping he wasn’t over stepping any boundaries. “One guy wanted me to cover my feet in marmalade, I really almost hit fuck it and did it” You couldn’t help but smile when Don choked, coughed and bursted out laughing.

“What kink is that even related to? I mean I know people enjoy feet but marmalade?” He was bewildered. “Come on Don don’t kink shame the poor guy, who are you to police his eclectic culinary desires?” Now the two of you couldn’t help but burst into another fit of laughter. Both your avatars were idle standing, the game somewhat abandoned in favor for the conversation.

“Hey I’m not kink shaming, we all have our weird kinks” Donnie smiled sitting back on his swivel chair. You clicked out of the dating site, chin resting on your hand. “Are we finally having this conversation? Cause I love this shit, it’s my bread and butter” You sat back in your gaming chair, tucking your knees.

Donnie felt so shy but the barrier of mistery the two of you had built urged him on. He was curious, like stupid curious what you looked like and while he had everything to figure out exactly where you were, it wasn’t morally correct for him. So why not just indulge in the conversation?

“Well it’s not feet, sorry to disappoint” He heard you laugh, an infectious sound he had grown to enjoy so much. “Feet are so passé anyways, what about bondage?” You spun slowly in your chair, the sounds of Don adjusting and clicking on the keyboard ringing in your ears.

“Bondage is a go, especially sensory deprivation” He was checking some documents April had forwarded to him in regards to a case they were dealing with, but he could multitask. You made an approving noise, nodding while taking a sip of your drink. “Into that D/s stuff?” You asked wanting to see what else he might like.

“Well yeah, but I do enjoy more um... Fem Dom stuff” He finished up the email he wrote out for April and hit send. “A man with taste, not something we get often” You chuckled but decided to add. “I wouldn’t mind having a guy submit to me” You bit the inside of your cheek a little shy suddenly.

Something about that statement made heat spread south for Donnie. The concept of being dominated? By a woman? He peaked a look behind him, pushing one side of his headset down to hear what his brothers might be up to but he heard only music and chatting voices.

“What’s your favorite thing?” He inquired almost too softly.

“Erotic ASMR” There was no trace of embarrassment in your voice and that somehow made Donnie hot.

“Maybe we frequent the same sites for that” Don boldly threw out. You made an approving face before sitting forward and typing on your keyboard. A beat or two later Donnie saw an email notification from you on one of his many burner emails. He opened it finding links to audios from various sites all catered to erotic audios. Donnie whistled, this was a gold mine and true to his predictions you did indeed have some of his favorite sites to peruse.

“It’s not just male audios by the way, there’s women too” You sat back once again, nervously playing with your hair. “Thanks... Well I do like hearing both” Donnie confessed, voice avoiding a stutter.

You grinned. Oh he was even more fun that you could’ve expected.

Curiously enough that had been the tamest experience into yours and Donnie’s sex talks. Because it hadn’t really stopped at that, they progressively escalated little by little. Fave kinks had turned to fave sites, fave sites had turned into fave videos. Donnie never pictured he’d share his hidden folder with a stranger no less.

You nor Donnie could really say how the two of you had ended up one late night, with yet another abandoned game, talking about weird but satisfying cyber sex experiences. Some of your stories had been on the more comical side but a few had riled Donnie up to the point that he couldn’t ignore it. There was a shift in your voice as well, an allure that enticed him.

“Can I be honest?” You licked your suddenly dry lips. Donnie tensed momentarily, not sure what to expect. “Of course, please” You squeezed your thighs together, ‘please’ shouldn’t sound so good coming out of his mouth. You trace lazy circles on your thighs, something pushed you. “I’m kinda turned on by this...by talking to you about all this stuff” Maybe this was overstepping it, surely there was nothing wrong between two adult friends discussing such matters.

There was no need to tell Don that you had yearned to put a face to the name. But his hesitance spoke of insecurities and you could understand that.

“I am too...” Donnie looked up at what he called a ceiling in his home, the darkness of the sewer system and concrete. He’d never have a chance with you, it was a deeply rooted desire for intimacy and if virtually he could obtain it then so be it.

For all your boldness you felt a wave of bashfulness hit, crashed around your self confidence. Then Donnie steps up and you feel your toes curl in excitement. “Do you want to have a better experience?” Donnie runs both hands down his face, who was he to provide better experiences, he’d never even physically had a partner. The slow sigh that escapes your throat is comforting static in his headset. “Yeah, yeah I really do actually” You feel a smile etch itself on your lips.

“You can call me Donnie” It’s the closest to his name, and truthfully he really wants to hear you say it.

“Y/N,” You say to which Donnie makes an approving noise, he finds your name to be pretty. He rolls it in his mouth, testing the syllables, he can envision moaning it, well he wants to moan it if he can be completely honest. He wants to put a face to that name but he quickly pushes the thought out. There’s a pregnant pause where neither of you engage or make the first attempt. Not wanting to let this mood flee, Donnie swallows and closes his eyes. The hum of the abandoned game grounding him.

“Say my name again” It’s not a forceful demand, all the contrary he wants to hear the pitch in your voice when you say it, he wants to picture how each tone would variate depending on what he would do or say. “Donnie...” You smile to yourself when you say it, a hint of desire nestled in it and Don notices that and wants more of it.

There’s a lengthy sigh from your behalf, hands wandering up your thighs towards your chest. “I’d like to be there right now, would like to say it against your lips” Your bold confessions makes Donnie’s pulse quicken. He runs a ghosting touch up his plastron, the vision of a delicate hand doing it. The imaginary weight of you on his lap grinding down on his hard member. Donnie grips himself through his shorts a soft groan escaping his parted lips.

“Want you to kiss me” He swallows dryly, the approving noise you make pushing him forward. “Feel your lips all over, feel your mouth around me...” He lifts his hips, hand cupping himself and the small hitch in your breath is a sound he wants permanently recorded in his brain.

“God are you big? I bet you are” You kneed your breast, thumb and forefinger pinching the sensitive nubs until they’re perked. Donnie smirks to himself, freeing his aching member and looking down at himself. Mutant genes aside he feels somewhat shamefully proud of his cock, he wonders if you would like it... deeply buried within you. “Yeah I am, I think you can take it something tells me” You catch that teasing tone and the urge to swallow him whole and make him see stars is too much.

Your hand finds its way into your underwear, the warm wetness making you moan as you tease your middle finger between the lips to find your sensitive nub there. You bite back another lengthy moan but recover enough to breathlessly say, “oh fuck, Donnie” and that very sound makes him shiver. Never did he think he’d hear something so temptingly good, said with such sincerity. God the things he would do to smell your arousal right now, to taste the wetness. “Push two fingers in slowly” Donnie almost pleas, his voice shakey, hand pumping his cock at a steady pace. You do as he wishes, your gutted moan making more precum gather at the tip of his member.

“God-shit- you sound so good, wish you were riding my big dick right now” He wants to chastise himself for saying something like that, but he can’t deny that statement shakes something in you. He can hear it, the sound of your fingers mixed with a continuously rising string of moans. “Ohmygod” Words tumble out strewn together by your pleasure. “Donnie please, please fuck me harder” That alone makes him sit up and push forwards, one hand on his desk as the other works himself up in upward twisting strokes.

Donnie can’t erase the idea of slamming into you right here on his desk, maybe bent over, maybe you’ll let him cum on your face...

He pushes the idea away, he can’t envision your face now, not right now, not when your moans have you sounding this deliciously in need. You’re plunging two fingers into your core as your free hand runs firm circles around your clit. “Christ Donnie you sound so good baby” You moan, perspiration covering your body and Donnie can only groan his approval.

There’s a few minutes where it’s just the two of you lost in your own pleasure together. The constant chants of ‘fuck’ and ‘god’ and ‘yes’ mixed between the two of you. “Say it... again” Donnie groans out, hand quickening, briefly gathering some saliva and letting it fall on his hard member for better traction. “Don-oh, Donnie cum in me!” You’re so far gone, not caring what comes out of your mouth. The wet sounds in your head set and a vibration you figured could be static mixed with his groans was all you heard.

Donnie’s hips twitch, feels that request swim inside of his brain and the image of burying himself as deeply as you could take is all he needs. Just as your moans rise in crescendo he feels the first twitch and relief of his orgasm overtake him. He’s never felt it hit him this hard it knocks the wind out of him, each rope shooting out onto his hand and floor. In his minds eye though, it’s your suffocating heat taking it, milking him until he’s a shivering mess. It plays perfectly like a movie, he swears he can even feel your lips at his neck and arms holding him tight.

Your sounds are enough to keep him stroking, the way your voice pitched up with the sound of his name entwined, forever recorded in his brain. Your entire body tensed to the point of uncomfortable but it was impossible to stop abruptly when he sounded so lost in you. Your leg shakes and stiffens and it takes every inch of control to not become liquid and slip away into comforting bliss.

Eventually the sounds of heavy breathing slowly but surely settling are the only things the two of you can hear in your ears. There’s a mess, for you and for him. The understanding of things transpired crossing each of you two’s brains. Should you speak first? Should he?

“Um, you with me?” You settle, skin sweaty and mouth dry. There’s movement on the other line, a quiet cuss here and there and you smile. “Yeah, sorry just... made a mess” His voice has that sheepish tone and you can’t help but chuckle.

“Great thing about being a girl, we can conceal the evidence better” You stretch your aching legs enjoying each joint pop. “The female anatomy never seizes to amaze me, trust me” Donnie leans back in his chair, napkin cleaning any other soiled spot.

The silence was somewhat comfortable, the buzzing of good chemicals slowly settling.

“Was this okay?” He asked, hesitant tone in your ears.

“More than okay if you ask me” You kept it light not wanting him to feel odd or even ashamed.

You ventured on slowly, forming the question in your brain and bouncing it back and forward with a swallow. “If, and I mean if you want to, we can maybe do this from time to time” You worried a thumbnail between your teeth. Donnie’s gaze watching the idle screen of the abandoned game, he thought hard but briefly.

“I... yeah I would” He smiles to himself, even if the nagging thought that this might not last clutches the back of his mind. Why ruin a good thing? This was good more than good and you suggested to continue.

He doesn’t want to preoccupy his brain with scenarios, or if that dreaded ‘let’s meet’ sentence decides to cross your lips. If this is the inch of intimacy he gets to have and it’s with you, who he has grown so fond of, then he’s selfishly taking that inch and guarding it with his life.

Mutely you both remain on the line, no words spoken from the agreement, just simply enjoying that the two of you were present.

Even if not physically.

[soobadnoonecanstopher]

Touch it for Real, Part 4

Genre: Humor / Fluff / Eventual Smut

Warnings: OMG they were roommates / slice of life / slow burn / mutual pining / crude humor / cursing / virgin!baek / idiots to lovers

A/N: The song featured in the kitchen scene is Fantasy by Mariah Carey.

Characters: Baekhyun X You/Female Reader

Description: You teach Baekhyun how to date. (Basically the Get You Alone M/V)

Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4 , Part 5

You were puzzling. Alone in your bedroom, laying within the comfort of your own bed, you were positively puzzling.

After sorting out just who Ben was and fixing the damage Baekhyun had done to your reputation by explaining that your idiot roommate had just gotten a hold of your phone, you reintroduced yourself and apologized for the confusion.

This ‘Ben’ actually seemed to laugh off the odd behavior he’d gotten as a first impression of you, mentioning that your roommate seemed funny, if not weirdly protective of you.

You could see what he meant when you read through the rapid fire questions Baekhyun had asked him from his age, to his preferred operating system, whether or not Ben had Facebook so “you” and him could be friends, his profession, and his parents line of work, his current place of work, how long he’s worked there and whether or not he moves around a lot, his hometown, his hobbies and even whether or not Ben has now or has ever had any pets; it seemed that Baekhyun had actually done a whole lot of legwork to give you a pretty good idea of what Ben might be like.

But the moment Baekhyun’s conversation topic changed to innocently ask Ben for his astrological sign, something struck you as off to see Baekhyun proclaim you to also be the same sign and after the two compared birthdays you began to find the whole exchange quite odd.

You realized that Baekhyun had simply lied about your birthday. Baekhyun knew your birthday. Why had he given a fake date to Ben? Unless there was something else happening that you didn’t understand. Then again, Baekhyun had always been rather stingy about giving out personal information; both yours and his. He was probably just being cautious about revealing too much to a stranger.

And actually, Ben seemed rather …. nice. You always hesitated to give them this adjective right off the bat as most of the guys you met who seemed nice right away turned out to be very good at faking nice and stringing along at least three or four girls at once for the shot at fucking at least one of them, and the hopes of fucking all of them.

You’d been called the wrong name late at night, whispered through a sleepy voice over the phone. You’d been sweet-talked and then abruptly called a bitch for refusing to send nudes to a guy you’d been talking to for only a week. Apparently a week was his limit and all his other girls gave him what he wanted within a couple of days. You’d been ghosted by nice guys who felt victimized and led on when you said goodnight politely with a smile and a wave instead of inviting them inside for ramen.

You did want a nice guy. But you wanted a real one.

What you wouldn’t give for one of them, for just one of them to be honest with you and really show you their true self.

Perhaps you had been going about it all wrong.

Your conversation with Ben quietly fizzled and you put your phone away to charge and now, now you were simply puzzling.

It panged at your heart to think of it, but the upset with Baekhyun hours earlier kept replaying in your mind. You propped your feet up on your wall and let your head hang off the edge of your bed, enjoying the way the gravity pulled at the blood in your brain and you tapped your fingers on the bed absentmindedly to the soft beat of music you heard playing from his room.

And you puzzled.

Don’t use your beauty as a weapon against me.

You hadn’t been this bothered by something since you’d watched that Mission Impossible movie the first time and spent an hour and a half trying to wrap your head around the complicated plot.

A Weapon.

Your beauty … a weapon … against me.

Why did it bother you so much? Why had he been so upset that you were playing with him, that you were messing with him. He messed with you all the time. You messed with him just as much. He never got this upset. No, he never got upset in this way. In such a way as to call you out on using something you had, against him. Something that you hadn’t even known had any power at all to attack the man. Your beauty. Did you have such a thing?

You thought about the other times you fought with him.

Not really fought, the two of you never did that, but that fake sort of fighting like when he’d woken you up at 2am for the third night in a row with his loud working music and you found him out in the kitchen disassembling your favorite toaster, the one with the wide slots for bagels that also toasts four slices of bread at once and even has special buttons for frozen items. The stainless steel one that you won in a work raffle and proudly marched through the office carrying with a huge smile on your face. It was a deluxe model. Supreme even. The master of it’s craft. Said so right on the box. Your toaster in a million pieces on your kitchen counter; all because he needed some components or resistors or whatever the fuck it was and he decided the best move was to take your toaster apart rather than to just order what he needed online and wait two business days for them to arrive.

Sure, he put it back together a few days later but not without enduring the laser eyes you shot him over breakfast when you had to toast a piece of bread in a frying pan on the stove like a loser who did not own a four slice Deluxe Toastmaster Supreme.

You’d planned your revenge then. It was something tiny and it involved his TV remote. His precious TV was enormous, took up almost the whole wall, OLED or SUPER-NANO or ULTRA-NANO some similar nonsense words and had 8-Ks of pixels or so he claimed and had so many smart functions you could hardly get comfortable using it for anything that didn’t involve the Netflix button. And no, no, you didn’t do anything to the actual TV. Relax, this was just the remote. This was harmless. Absolutely harmless. Easy to solve really if he had half a brain in his head.

You just carefully cut out the smallest tiniest piece of IR blocking tape that fit exactly over the infrared sensor on the remote control and fit so well it was undetectable to the human eye. Unless you knew it was there and knew exactly where to stick your fingernail in under the plastic bezel to peel it back. You simply applied the tape and left the remote right on the coffee table before you left for work.

You’d come home that night to a pile of assorted battery packs all strewn about the coffee table, and the remote completely taken apart down to the tiny circuit board and Baekhyun was quietly touching the tip of some tiny tool to the different spots on the scary looking green part from inside of the remote with all the metal bits stuck to it and when you slowly walked by he looked up at you through the magnifying eye glasses he wore. His eyes looked comically enormous and you swallowed away your laughter and considered how long you’d let him suffer.

“Something wrong with your remote, Peanut Butter?”

“It was working fine yesterday. I just don’t understand it.”

“Maybe it’s the batteries,” you offered innocently and he just ignored your helpful suggestion as he began screwing tiny screws into place with a precision screwdriver.

He was reassembling it all now and you sat down beside him on the sofa about as amused as you had ever been to sit and watch him suffer.

He grabbed two new batteries from an unopened pack on the table and aimed the remote, pressing the buttons again and again. Nothing happened.

He was surprisingly calm about the whole thing and judging by the various shopping bags and different brands of batteries you saw, he seemed to have been working on this all afternoon. Probably for hours now.

“I’m going to have to take the TV apart.”

He was already standing up and walking across the room toward the wall mounted monstrosity when you leaned forward for the remote. He glanced back at you as you did it and he looked at you just in time to see you shake the remote back and forth and then hit it twice lightly against your left hand. Just a little knock-knock should do it. You were careful to keep the expression on your face calm and well controlled.

When you pressed the power button, the big TV came to life and you pressed the button for Netflix and scrolled through your recommended titles. You had a new episode to watch. You’d have to make time tonight for that. After he was done with his little project here.

Baekhyun instantly pulled his hands away from the TV and hopped back and away from the screen, peering up at it with his mouth hanging wide open. His eyes shot back to where you sat on the sofa holding the remote control. You did not allow your smile to form. Nothing in your whole life had ever been so difficult. You felt as if you could pop right here. You casually flipped through the menu on the screen and the man looked back up at the TV and back down at you again.

You could see him coming in then. He was moving fast with several large steps toward you and with the quickest movement you could manage you used the tip of your finger to slide the IR tape back over the remote sensor. You could not be as precise as you had been before with him coming right at you so quickly, but hopefully it wouldn’t be visible.

He reached for the remote. “What did you do, how did you fix it?” He held it up and pointed it toward the TV. Again, the remote did not work. You bit down hard on the inside of your cheek.

He was pressing buttons again and nothing happened with each new button he smashed down. You could see the madness growing in his eyes the more he tried.

He made the smallest whining sound from the back of his throat and it took every ounce of self control to keep from laughing as he lightly tapped the remote twice against his hand just as he had seen you do. Nothing.

You tried to hold it. You tried so hard. A tiny sound escaped, the smallest sniffle with a laugh broke free from your throat and you coughed lightly to hide it.

His face turned on you and those crazed eyes were back only instead of directing them at the remote, he was looking at you now.

“How did you fix it? Do it again.” He looked insane and desperate and a tiny smile betrayed you as you grabbed the remote from his hand. You played the smile off as part of the help you were willing to offer him but you also had to inhale a deep breath and carefully and slowly exhale it through your mouth to keep from breaking completely.

You held it up in your right hand and gave it a little shake. As quickly as you had done it before you turned the remote on its side as you gave those two little knocks and his head flipped toward the TV when you aimed. With his eyes averted you were able to slip the tape off just before pressing the button.

The Netflix logo greeted you and Baekhyun threw his head back and let out a loud frustrated yell into the ceiling above him.

You’d been holding your laugh for too long. It was becoming too difficult now and he was back, reaching for the remote when the first suffocating giggles took your composure and you laughed out loud.

Your laughter brought all of his attention right to you and only you. The entirety of his focus shifted and that brought those crazed eyes of his bearing down on you, wide and demanding.

It was, by far, the most successful and meanest prank you had ever played on him to date and you were gasping for air and laughing as he reached for you. He grasped both of your shoulders and he shook you as you laughed and laughed at the absolute madness in his eyes. Oh he was crazy. It was just so damn funny.

The remote was still in your hands and you flipped through the different inputs on the TV as you cackled and tears formed at the corners of your eyes.

“How did you do it? You devil! Tell me how you did it?”

He balanced with his knees on the couch and his hands were on you, roaming over the fabric of the sweater you wore, lifting your arms to look under them, maybe for spare remotes or for hidden batteries or secret formulas, who knows what he thought he might find.

You’d stashed the tiny circle of tape by sticking it to the skin inside your elbow and he was currently examining the fingers on all of your hands up close as if they concealed all of the secrets he was looking for.

It wasn’t until he searched higher, pulling your hand forward toward his chest and his thumb grazed against the shiny plastic of the tape circle you had on your inner arm when he did a double take, pulled your arm harder and lifted an accusing finger to point at the tape.

“What is that?!” He clearly thought himself to be the world’s greatest detective.  

You allowed yourself to be manhandled by him a little bit more as you got every bit of humor about your recent victory out of your chest and you lifted your other hand, the one he did not have held hostage right now to wipe at the tears that had fallen from your eyes.  

“Stop laughing and answer me, woman! What is it?”

“It’s my birth control patch,” you said through a laugh and his eyes widened as he pulled his hand back. It was a tiny movement but you were so close to his accusing eyes that it felt monumental and the dramatic reaction to your teasing lie made a fresh wave of laughter bubble up in your chest. You knew he would react this way. Any mention of your contraceptives always made him clam up.

“It’s IR tape, Baekhyun. Infrared blocking tape. I put it on the sensor this morning after breakfast. After I made toast in a pan instead of in my toaster.”

The truth pulled his whole head back and he fell down on his butt on the sofa briefly before he slipped and fell right off the couch onto the floor and he sat there with a blank lifeless look on his face; staring ahead without any focus in his eyes.

“Do you know how sad pan toast is, Baekhyun? Tell me, how am I supposed to be satisfied with pan toast when I should have been having Deluxe Toastmaster Supreme toast?”

He was shaking his head back and forth as you spoke and when he did move it was to lay down flat on his back on the floor of the living room. His hands were up and he rubbed roughly over his face.

“Oh my god. Oh my god—it’s so good. I would have never checked for tape over the sensor. Fucking tape. A piece of goddamn tape. I was so focused on the batteries.I went to three different stores today. The circuits to the sensor were all intact, I checked it, it was good — I never even considered this. Are you an evil genius? My sweet innocent Bug ... is actually an evil supervillain.”

You left him on the floor and made your way into the kitchen to make dinner. It was your night to cook and thanks to the man stewing on the floor of the living room you had to do it around the scattered carcass of your third favorite kitchen appliance.

You remembered the way he reacted then. He pouted and moaned on the floor for a few moments until he smelled the stew you were cooking on the stove. It was comfort food. Something with meat and potatoes and warmth and spices. It would lift anyone’s mood and his had been lifted almost immediately. There were no apologies or any tears. Just a promise to put the toaster back together tomorrow after he went to the store for the parts he needed and that was the end of it.

He didn't storm away. He didn't raise his voice or say you were mean or unfair or too beautiful for him to withstand. He didn't get angry about closeness being used the wrong way, in a way that was unfair to him. In a way that could hurt him, like a weapon.

If he said you had the kind of beauty that could be used against him, didn't that mean he found you beautiful? Wouldn't that mean that Baekhyun found you attractive?

The words protested inside your mind. You shook your head.

That was impossible. Definitely. You’ve been so close to him for so long without even a hint of that sort of a feeling from him. Sure you were close to each other. Sure you cared for each other. It was a familiar sort of affection you shared. But attraction? Because he found you beautiful in a way that was unfair?

The puzzling was giving you a headache. There were some things that just did not exist in the same space in your mind and that was the existence of your roommate, Byun Baekhyun, and the possibility that he was attracted to you in any way.

You’d been inside your bedroom for hours now and you were no closer to answers than when you first came in here.

Baekhyun would be done with his episode. He would have watched it with Mia and discussed themes or scenes or dramatic moments with her. Did he talk to her on the phone or maybe though a headset as they streamed the episode together.

Did he like her voice and did she like his jokes?

Did he make her laugh? Of course he did. He made everyone laugh. Baekhyun was charming and hilarious. But could she make him laugh? Could she make him giggle and shake like he laughed with you?

It was late. That didn't really mean all that much to Baekhyun, as the man didn't really have any set bedtime and usually just fell asleep when the sun began to come up. It was a weekend night and you didn't have work in the morning and frankly your curiosity had grown too much for you to just stay in here and fall asleep without at least checking on how the streaming date went.

You knocked lightly on his door. You could hear music playing inside. Nothing too loud or crazy. The man seemed to be having a somewhat low key evening.

“Yeah,” his voice called lowly and you opened the door and peeked your head inside.

“How is our girlfriend doing?” Baekhyun was sitting on his butt on the floor in front of his bed with his head laid over his arms and his phone abandoned in the middle of the floor out of arm’s reach.

He let out a long low groan but did not lift his head up when you stepped inside.

“I don't even know. I don't know.” He sounded defeated already and this had only just started.

“Peanut, what happened?” You picked up the phone and unlocked the screen, searching through his apps to find the dating app so you could see if they had said anything to each other that might give you some clues about what went wrong.

“Nothing happened. I was too quiet. I couldn’t talk at all. I didn't say anything during the entire episode. Why is this so scary. Uggghhh...I feel unsafe. It’s gross.”

You stepped over him and climbed onto his bed, sitting up against the head of the bed as you scrolled through the chat logs.

It looked normal. Not unfriendly. A little terse and abrupt on his part. The man didn't know how to loosen up when he talked to girls and you wondered if maybe you needed more one on one lessons with him before he was really ready for this stuff.

When you leaned back against the headboard you felt the bed dip and he climbed onto the bed beside you and angled his body toward where you sat up against the pillows.

When you got to the end of the chat you could see that she was the last one to speak and she remarked that he felt a bit different from when they spoke at the beginning of the day. He didn't say anything in response to that.

Baekhyun moaned with his eyes closed and he turned his head into your waist. He was obviously reliving some perceived embarrassment he must have felt during the interaction with Mia and when he moved his arm around your waist you looked down to find yourself trapped under his arm that constricted as he pulled tightly, hiding the entirety of his face somewhere in the shirt you wore. He was warm. The weight of his arm around you felt nice.

“I felt so unsafe,” he repeated his complaint from earlier and his voice was obscured and muffled as he hid himself. He switched the tense though and you wondered if he no longer felt unsafe now that you had come in.

You typed out a quick response to Mia. You didn't think it was right to just leave her hanging without an explanation for his strange silence during and after the show.

“I’m going to tell her that you were so quiet because you were nervous. I’ll also thank her for watching the episode tonight.”

You heard and felt a hum and the tightness of his arm around your waist relaxed a little as his arm went slack. He did not move though. He still hugged you. He was still warm and it took only a moment for your nose to pick up the pleasant smell of his clean bed sheets fresh from the dryer. You both had a schedule for washing things like towels and bed sheets. Yours had been cleaned today as well, but something about the smell of his bed felt better than yours had. Perhaps it had been all that difficult puzzling that had tainted yours.

Mia responded right away to your message. She was flattered by his nervousness. You could tell with the way she reassured that he really didn't have to be nervous around her. That she was an easy going kinda girl. Low maintenance she said. You scoffed at the thought of a computer geek being low maintenance. As if you didn't know how difficult to obtain fancy GPUs were and how expensive high powered CPUs, high capacity SATA drives, and their required cooling systems were. You looked around Baekhyun’s set up and figured it had to run somewhere in the multiples of tens of thousands of dollars; just in this room alone.

Low maintenance. Please, she was just as high maintenance as any other regular girl just with a different catalogue of parts.

You switched to the emoji keyboard and keyed off some random happy faces and closed her chat window with more force than was necessary; suddenly and unexpectedly irked when she responded with similar emojis and the notification popped up on the screen. You swiped it away quickly to be rid of it.

“She sounded nice though, even if I couldn’t talk. She sounded nice. Do you think she will even want to talk to me again? I think she likes you more than me.”

“She will like you. If she doesn’t she’s an idiot. A girl would have to be an imbecile, Peanut, to not fall for you.”

He lifted his face then, just enough for the corners of his eye to peek out and you looked down at the side of his face as he looked at you for a moment, absorbing the encouraging words you spoke to him. His leg began to shake somewhere on the end of the bed. You could feel the rhythmic motions. He often did this when he was tired.

You had been scrolling through matches on his phone, building on an idea that popped into your head.

The man needed some practice to build up his confidence. Maybe, just maybe you could find another girl. Someone who he could talk to, chat with, be friendly with, that maybe wasn’t just so wonderfully perfect for him. Someone just to break the ice with.

You stopped on a girl. Her dress was short and the neckline was low. She really left very little up to the imagination with this outfit. Outside of the revealing clothes, it was clear that she was a beautiful woman. She was sexy and very confident in herself despite the glaringly obvious grammatical typo in her bio.

You spun the phone around to show him.

“She looks nice,” you said. Baekhyun blinked at the phone and pulled his face back a little to see the image clearly.

“—-follow you’re dreams — you are — Never too old to follow you are dreams.” Baekhyun read out the sentence with the typo out loud and you laughed.

“Come on, she’s pretty,” you said softly, “right?” You probed gently and he chuckled once to himself and closed his eyes up with a sigh.

“Yeah, she’s pretty,” he said after a while and you felt yourself stiffen just a little bit with his admission. Of course she was. Anyone could see it. He’d be lying if he didn't admit it.

“Okay but like, just pretty or do you also think she’s beautiful?”

He hummed some non response and you focused your attention back on the phone in your hands. After scrolling through a few more profiles you found another woman whose beauty shone brightly right through the screen at you.

“And her? Is she pretty or is she beautiful?”

Baekhyun’s eyes opened again but just barely. He looked half asleep and you wondered if the reason his arm was still around you was because he was so sleepy he didn't realize he was still hugging you like this on his bed.

“Pretty,” he mumbled and pushed his face into your waist again. This time the shaking in his leg began to settle and you could hear a slow steadiness in his breathing.

“Should I message her? Maybe we can practice talking to her so you’re not so nervous talking to girls?”

“Sure Bug,” he said quietly, “you can do anything you want.”

He was falling asleep now. You could feel the change. It didn't matter. You’d let him rest a bit while you opened up a chat window and began talking to Candy.

She responded quickly and had a completely different feeling from Mia. Maybe this was good. Candy was easy to talk to but she had nearly nothing in common with Baekhyun. She casually asked what a computer programmer did and when you went into specifics you had trouble finding synonyms for words that didn’t just make it all more complicated. You finally settled on a simple explanation of what kinds of computer software Baekhyun had developed and left it at that.

After a while Baekhyun shifted in his sleep and uncovered his face. His lips were parted and from the upside down angle you could see the dark splash of his pretty eyelashes that landed over his soft cheeks. He looked lovely and peaceful. All the worries and fears of the day were gone and he was sleeping so calmly. You watched his sleeping face for a while, growing warm inside with the strange contentedness you felt.

You could see some light movement behind his eyes and you wondered if he was dreaming about anything.

Candy had asked for a picture. She was asking something superficial like what sort of car Baekhyun drove and you slipped into his picture gallery for the folder with the shots you took for him when he first bought his car. You found a nice one with him smiling behind the driver’s seat, bright red seatbelt across his chest and the logo of his fancy ride on the steering wheel.

‘Wooo, baby boy an Audi? you must be loaded. When are you gonna come pick me up in that?’

You laughed at her obvious reaction. Candy was exactly as you expected her to be. Baekhyun would be able to laugh and chat with her easily without too much pressure of impressing a complicated woman like Mia was. Candy was an open book. The stakes were lower with Candy.

Your giggle made him stir and you looked down to see his eyes open a tiny bit before he closed them again.

“It’s going well with Candy,” you whispered and he inhaled a breath and nodded his head as he closed his eyes again.

“Mmm, the pretty one?” he asked in a sleepy voice and you hummed your confirmation. Something buzzed inside of you; just a bit of nerve. Call it gumption.

“Baek,” you called quietly and his lips parted with his breathing but his eyes stayed closed this time. He did not respond. He didn't give any indication at all that he heard you call him.

“Baek, what about me?” Your voice was tiny when you asked it. You felt more warmth in this bed suddenly. You felt it in your chest and it seeped up to warm up your face too.

He hadn’t responded at all to your question. It had been pretty unclear though. He might not have heard it, or might not have understood it. Or his sleep may have just been too deep to register your words.

“Am I pretty or am I beautiful?” You said it so quietly there was little chance of him actually hearing it. He was asleep and you were just here, trapped in his embrace on his bed as he slept and you puzzled over the words he had told you during an upset. The words that you had pried from him when he was vulnerable and emotional. The words that you shouldn’t be over analyzing like this. Those words felt too risky to be giving this much thought to.

Here you were again, using your sneaking methods to try and trick him into something when you knew it wouldn't work, when you knew there was nothing really there and you were reading too far into things.

His steady breathing continued. His eyes remained closed and his arm still gripped around your tightly, holding you still, holding you close to him as he slept.

So you gave up. You’d moved back to the phone to respond to Candy; something silly and lighthearted, something easy just like she was, when you heard him speak.

“You are so fucking beautiful,” he said so far under his breath the statement sounded more like air than actual vocalization of any kind and your fingers stopped their rapid typing in the middle of your sentence.

Your eyes looked down. Your entire body was frozen. Half of you expected to find his eyes open and a wide teasing smile on his lips, begging for you to take the bait and believe his words just for the chance of laughing at your shocked face and making fun of you for being stupid enough to believe them.

He was asleep. His eyelids did not pull open when you looked down at him and his breathing remained as steady as ever.

Baekhyun was asleep.

That damn puzzling — your jaw was sore from clenching your teeth down and your lips were dry and chapped from biting them.  

You had dropped the phone and it disappeared somewhere amid the bedcovers.

Baekhyun’s sleep was deeper now. He must have been very tired to be falling asleep so recklessly like this. You shifted downward and made some attempt to find the phone without waking him up and your small movement made him inhale a deep breath through his nose and he was moving now. You felt him shifting, moving his sleepy body up higher in search for some comfort; for something to lay on that was a bit more comfortable than flat on the middle of the bed like that.

You used the movement to reach for the blanket and pull it over his body so he could be warm at least and when he finally settled he shared the same pillow as you. His forehead rested against your shoulder and he was once again, fast asleep.

His arm though— you found yourself still very much trapped in nearly the same embrace as before, just shifted. A forearm landed over your chest and you felt a new heaviness of his bent leg land over your thigh.

You could wake him.

You could push him off and let him roll the other way so you could make an escape back to the peace of your own bedroom.

You would. You would do that soon.

Your current state of thoughts was simply too overloaded to follow through on any game plan. If you could only have a few more minutes of his warm steady breathing, you would move away from this. You would do it.

It wasn’t that you had never considered it. It was that you had gone through many lengths to come to this place. You were safe and secure here.

It was that you had nowhere else to go when it was over.

This place was your home.

Peanut was part of that home.

Things were nice right now; the way they were at home.

But…

As they sometimes do, and against your own will, your thoughts wandered.

You wondered as they wandered — wondered about him.

From the deepest parts of your mind; down where you’d shoved them roughly many times before, those wondering thoughts danced and swayed lightly to the soft music playing in this room.

Those secret thoughts about the sweetness in his eyes. Secrets about the fondness you felt for the little tips of him; the tip of his nose, the tips of his fingers, the pink tips of his ears. Thoughts you refused to encourage.

Baekhyun was asleep and you were thinking.

With the thinking came the shame and your skin was hot to the touch. The last thing you wanted was to ruin your home. With the thinking came the denial. You could not encourage anything. You could not afford to become complacent. You did not need these thoughts to become so brazen. You did not need them taking root. The last thing you needed was them making an appearance again.

The sounds he made while dreaming pulled your closed eyelids back open. You turned your face toward the sound. It was soft, the small groan from the back of his throat. But his face changed then; eyebrows screwed together and his lungs constricted as he let out a softer sound, like a whine. It was a complaint. His face showed signs of pain. The dream must have been unpleasant.

You lifted a hand then, shifted within his embrace you raised your palm and laid it carefully over the side of his face.

The shift happened with the warm contact and his features evened out and that pained look was gone.  

You smiled then. So sleepy but satisfied that you could help when he needed it.

You would move after he got a little more sleep. After he’d had a little more comfort from you, you would move.

You weren’t the first to move. And it seemed by the change in light that shone through the windows that your visit had lasted much longer than you had intended.

It was the untangle that woke you up. A conscious and deliberate lifting of limbs; the careful grip of a hand lifting your arm by the wrist and setting it gently down on a flat mattress.

You opened your eyes when he pulled his own leg out from between your thighs. The temperature change was most jarring. You had felt so warm before.

Baekhyun was sitting up in his bed. His hair was standing up in places all over his head and he was moving slowly and carefully, in an attempt to disengage himself from the tangle of this woman he had just woken up with.

The sleep was still very thick in your head. It hadn’t been a full night’s sleep had it? You felt like you had just closed your eyes a minute ago and yet the sunshine was so bright outside already.

“Sorry,” Baekhyun whispered when he realized you were now awake and looking at him, “guess I got too comfortable...must have fallen asleep.”

His voice was thick with sleep and with embarrassment too, you could hear it everywhere, with the quick words he spoke to you and the pink that covered the back of his neck and flooded his cheeks too.

This situation...this was an embarrassment. Of course it was.

This was something that should not have happened. Not with two adults of similar age who shared so many liberties with each other; spending time in each other’s arms at night, well…

You felt awkward all over. What if—what if you’d done something in your sleep? What if you said something?

And he already wasn’t meeting your eyes as he climbed out of the bed and awkwardly made his way into his bathroom.

You could hear the sound of the running water faucet and the door closed with the smallest click like he went out of his way to close it as softly and quietly as possible to avoid disturbing you any further.

You could feel the heat burning on the skin of your cheeks and you used his absence to get up and get out of his bedroom before he came out and found you still, still tangled in his bed sheets like you’d been tangled in his legs and in his arms all night.

You had to ignore this. You had to forget it ever happened, and anyway, you were best friends with the guy...right? Wasn't this thing bound to happen in the course of a friendship? What if you went on a holiday with him and the hotel only had one bed? These things really did happen, you read about it on twitter once. Would you be that asshole best friend who let him sleep on the floor just because he was a man? No! You could build a little pillow wall between your bodies and sleep as still and motionless as possible, like a corpse.

This feeling would go away. The red hot embarrassment would wash down the drain of your shower. The sticky warmth left behind by his skin would go with it.

You’d made it as far as to undress and turn on the hot water when an awful memory dawned on you.

Baekhyun still had your shampoo.

You didn't have any other shampoo in this bathroom that you could use. You pulled open cupboards and drawers, searching for anything; tiny hotel sized travel bottles, a nearly empty bottle under the sink for a rainy day, even maybe something in the trash can that still had a few drops. Nothing.

You eyed the hand soap on your sink and pictured stepping out of the shower a frizzy, tangled mess.

A soft knock vibrated against your bathroom door.

“Bug, your shampoo.” Baekhyun’s voice called out, muffled by the sounds of the running water and the door itself, “it’s almost empty, but there’s a little left. Sorry, I’ll run to the store and get more.”

Your ear was pressed against the door so you could make out everything he said; so you could listen carefully to the tone and delivery of his words to see if he was still embarrassed about last night or if he’d brush it off easily like he did most things that seemed to bother him.

There were another two soft knocks, “B-Bug?”

“Yeah, Peanut, thank you. Can you just...put it by the door. I’m already undressed. I’ll grab it in a bit.”

He did not respond right away and you stayed with your ear against the door waiting for some sound. Some indication that he had left. The click of your door, anything.

“I left it by the door,” you heard his far away voice shout and then the click of your door.

When your shower was done and you were dressed in your favorite weekend outfit, the high waisted comfy shorts with pockets and a cute top that made you feel somewhat pretty even on a casual day and you emerged from your bedroom feeling ready to face whatever weird moods or wacky situations accosted you today.

You found him singing a song to himself in the kitchen as he made something that smelled delicious for breakfast. The radio was on a pop station that played hits from all the past decades and the upbeat rhythm of the song that played was a definite favorite that had him dancing at the stove.

It was a groovy little love song, quite old now that you thought about it and you felt the beat hit hard in your chest with each pop of his shoulders and hips. The joy you could feel in this song hit you just like that beat hit; heavy and prominent, and you smiled wide to welcome this morning mood it brought with it.

When you stepped into the kitchen to grab a mug to make yourself some coffee you couldn’t help but sing along to the song, you loved the song as much as he did and when he noticed you enter the room you could hear him singing the main parts; expertly, even though the singer was a woman, his voice could always reach the high notes as well as the low ones. She was the kind of epic singer with one of a kind of talent that was world dominating. Baekhyun was singing along, doing the same kinds of ad-libs and vocal runs that she did and he did it while holding the spatula up to his face like a microphone.

As you walked by he dipped his head and looked into your face and his eyes caught ahold of yours. You knew what was coming. You could hear it coming in the song, the chorus. The part you had to sing. These were the rules. He leaned hard and brought the spatula up to your lips just in time for your part to come on. You did not disappoint. You gave it your all closing your eyes up tight and throwing your head back, singing from the very center of you, this part you always sang during this song. The part that was made for you; he knew it and you knew it.

His smile was genuine and breathtaking and he grabbed your hand with his spatula-less hand and pulled you into him, the beat taking over whatever bit of nervousness he might have had before. This was different. This was dancing. This was singing to simply the best song for a Saturday morning and it was moving and laughing with your best friend and you let him spin you in a small circle, careful to keep your coffee mug lifted so it didn’t hit anything during the spin.

His sense of rhythm was perfect. His hips moved as if they were made for this. You had no choice but to follow. An occasional hand on your hip told you where to go. The song was reaching its peak and you knew it was a short one. The best ones always were. It was going to begin winding down now. It was always such a sweet and short lived moment of happiness that you always appreciated immensely.

As a final move, he gave you a little spin and released you to go on your way toward the coffee maker you so desperately wanted to get to when you first entered this kitchen.

He finished the eggs with the last notes of the song.

As you both sat down to eat, his eyes met yours and yours met his and you dug into the eggs and bacon he’d prepared. You offered him a perfectly buttered toast slice and he took it, nodding his head as he bit into the crisp corner.

“So Bug,” he spoke up between bites of eggs, chewing and swallowing thoughtfully, “about this...Candy.”

You swallowed the hot coffee in your mouth and clasped your hands together, suddenly remembering how asleep he had been when you had hit it off with Candy, his practice girl.

He listened to your explanation. Your theory that the stakes were simply too high with Mia and he needed someone to talk to that was a bit more of a relaxed task for him. You called it easy mode so he might get the game reference. He ate and listened to you talk and occasionally his eyebrows would lift or screw together with whatever sorts of thoughts he was thinking inside his head. You could tell by his body language that he didn't exactly want to start something with Candy and you had to emphasize that it was really just for practice, talking to her. It was to help build his confidence.

“She’s already in, Peanut. She thinks you’re super cool, she thinks you’re rich and thinks you have a very good job and plus, you make lots of money and she seems super into that.”

He was not speaking yet, despite how much you had talked and you were beginning to get worried that he didn’t see the benefit of practicing his conversation skills a little bit.

“It’s not even real, Baek, you just have to make some things up with her. Just to get over that anxiety about talking to women. Just until you are more comfortable.”

When he finally did speak, it was as you feared.

“It just feels kinda gross, Bug. She’s a real person too, even if she is obviously a gold digger. It just seems wrong. I’ve been...thinking lately. What if this is...wrong of us?”

“What if I just have to tough it out with Mia and get the fuck over it and just,” he thrust his hands forward over the food on the table for emphasis, “just — blehhhh — talk, just fucking talk to her.”

You lifted a fork with eggs toward your lips but your stomach protested. You suddenly didn't want any more food. The coffee you were drinking had suddenly gone too cold for your liking and you pushed the plate and mug away from you with your fingertips.

You were bothered.

Why did he choose right now to suddenly grow a conscience about this? Did he forget that Mia was chatting with both of you and not just him?

“I...I just — I want to try with Mia. I know I can get over it and talk to her. And I don't want to talk to Candy. The person Candy thinks I am, well...that’s just false. I can’t be the person she’s expecting me to be.”

He had obviously read through the entire conversation with Candy last night and found the tales you told simply too stretched out for him to try and live up to.

“But that’s what people do when they start dating. They stretch the truth, make themselves sound just a little bit better, make themselves taller, or make themselves look richer. They all do this.” You simply could not understand why he didn’t get this. Why he didn’t just play by the rules that everyone followed to get through the door so he could stand a chance here.

“Well I don't. I don't want someone to fall for a fake version of me. I want someone to like me now. This me. Byun Baekhyun. The Peanut with anxiety who lives with Bug who almost killed him over a cheese stick, but who makes really great toast.”

He was smiling now, joking about the funny memories. You pulled your lips into a forced smile and lifted the coffee for another drink so you didn't have to smile any more.

He was watching your face. You were sure he sensed it. Something had bothered you to the point of giving up on your breakfast and every pass your eyes made over his face led to the same thing. He was watching you.

“Why are you upset?”

You shook your head lightly. Willing the obvious signs to leave your face. You didn't even know why. You didn't have a name for this. So you just shrugged in response to him.

“Because I don't want to practice on Candy? Did you actually like her for me?”

You really made your best attempt. You inhaled deep and closed your eyes and you shook your head.

Candy did not matter and you knew it. There was something ugly inside of you maybe. Something that did not want Baekhyun to get along with perfect Mia. Something that was fighting against the idea of him being happy and healthy and free of this unhealthy attachment you had to him. Free and happy away from you.

“Then why?”

Enough. You were being unfair to him. You had promised him that you would help him. You had gotten him this far and you’d be the worst kind of asshole if you didn't see him through to the end; if you didn't follow through with your promise to find him someone who would love him like he deserved to be loved, exactly as he was now. The amazingly wonderful Byun Baekhyun.

“It’s nothing like that,” you smiled softly. It felt like a sad smile, but at least it was genuine. “I just worry when you get so anxious. You know you fell right asleep last night. As soon as I came in, you passed right out.”

Your words skillfully slipped out of your lips and you successfully changed the subject. You felt like a coward, but you simply did not have words for what was happening to you.

“I didn’t...say anything did I? Before I fell asleep?”

This question was quiet. His fingertips grazed over his lips as he asked it, nearly muffling the words he shyly asked you at the breakfast table, the morning after.

You are so fucking beautiful.

You are so fucking beautiful.

You lifted your coffee cup to drink the tepid liquid inside and dropped your eyes from his shaking ones. The answer to his question sat on the back of your tongue even after you swallowed away the liquid.

You swallowed again and it refused to budge and yet you sat in silence, unable to utter a single word in reply to his quiet question.

Your silence went on for too long and he looked up into your face. An instant smile lifted at the corner of your lips and you forced it up into your eyes.

“You just slept, Peanut. We—” you had to exhale the breath that you had been holding for too long in your lungs, “we just slept.”

 Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4 , Part 5

Tag list: @j-pping  @blahblahblah-boo  @his-mochi-cheeks  @amyeonzing@littleflowercrown13  @baekinmylife  @insta1010  @nana-banana  @f4ncyvelvet@bbhbeth  @totallynerdstuff  @byunbabybaek @maijinki @bbyunz@theclawofaraven

[fezwearingjellybananas]

Ok, this is clearly a problem of my own creation because who else is going to open their calender app and scroll all the way back to the year 2000 to check the day of the week other than the person who just changed a plot point after scrolling back to check what the day of the week was on the 14th March 2015 (weirdly, also a Saturday).

I will eventually throw an Earth-1 has a 32nd March instead of a 29th February into a fic but I feel that is best suited to a more nonsense fic, whereas the vibe I'm going with in this one at this point is very much angst.

(The date being Barry's birthday is very relevant. The date being the 18th is about to become even more relevant).

However!

The whole reason I looked it up in the first place was to check the day of Barry's birthday party, right? And the date changes when it hits midnight. I think my solution is Nora's murder happens after midnight and Barry spends the day he was meant to have his birthday party in a police station.

Also, side note, upon my rewatching, I had a brief moment of "wait October?" but once I remembered backwards dates I think in the episode where Joe is watching the old recording of Henry's interview about what happened, the first time it gets brought up, the date is the 10th March, 4 days before Barry's birthday. The date on Barry's interview is the 18th, they do set it as the 18th in series 1, and I might have just misread it, but the 10th would have been a Friday and Barry would have been at school. And then Barry would have spent his 11th birthday at his mother's graveside.

Also works if you give TV Barry one of comic Barry's birthdays (like the queen, he has 2, timeline changes presumerably, but maybe he really is like the queen and he has the day he was born birthday and he has a Central picked a day to say happy birthday to the Flash because they love him so much birthday), the 19th March. His other birthday is the 13th May. Completely irrelevant but when scrolling the wiki page it says he played the clarinet while at high school and Hartley says he's "fine", which is appearing in this fic where I have made Barry and Hartley childhood friends. The wiki lists so many skills for Barry and 2 weakness: the hyper-metabolism needs to eat more which is actually only sometimes canon and also he's allergic to wisteria, the pretty purple flowers people grow on their houses near their front doors. Like half of his trivia section is "Central City believes the Flash is perfect and can fix everything and they all love him so much and think he's even greater than sliced bread" and then "Barry is uncomfortable with Flash Day [started a year after he first showed up] because he hates being in the spotlight". There's a Silver Age comic about why Barry decided his costume needs a mask and it's because "if people know to find the Flash they find Barry Allen maybe I won't be able to get away fast enough to save people!". His reason for wearing a mask is basically so he doesn't have to talk to people. I love him so much.

Ok so Nora Allen died on the 18th March, 2000, 4 days after Barry's 11th birthday. Henry and Joe are both working but they work in a hospital and for the police, those are open all the time. Nora Allen presumerably is not working given the free time she seems to have when future Barry runs into his parents that day in series 9.

11 year old Barry is apparently at school, where he'll later run home after getting in a fight with some bullies.

The 18th March in the year 2000 was a Saturday. Why is he at school.

[bansept]

Ichihime Week | Day 3: Family

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Kurosaki family always had little trips prepared for this or that occasion: the end of school, someone’s birthday… And of course, Masaki’s death anniversary. When the children were young, it was a thrilling idea, a way to discover a new place and imagine an exciting story. When the children grew, the mere thought of going away was disturbing, annoying. The meaning of moving to a place with the family got lost in cries of boredom and arguments, but Isshin never gave up.

Yuzu and Karin were still there, in his house, and officially speaking, still “had” to obey his commands, canceling plans they might have with their friends. One day, one of the twins had muttered the word “dictatorship”, and he had cried, whimpering at how ungrateful his daughters were to him. They still came, frowning a little bit, but a smile never too far behind.

Ichigo had been too busy to go on a family trip. First, with the Dojo: who knew a place that was not so visited could be lively at the exact time his presence was required to have fun? The kids and teenagers were far too inclined in asking him to show them moves for him to refuse. A paycheck was a paycheck. Second, Orihime herself was atrociously busy. Being the main confectioner, she oversaw most of the confection of chocolate delights in the bakery. Giving orders was a full-time job, and even if her love for her work brought her happiness, she was as exhausted as her husband.

The third was Kazui. Or mostly, the presence and necessity to oversee a young child, the infant going to a nanny when his parents could not attend to his needs. Moody because of his teething, Kazui was a small little ball of smile, and the next minute, a crying angry puddle of anger. As peaceful and adorable as he could be, he was still so young, so dependable of his parents that taking him anywhere outside of the environments he knew was a big no-no.

“Ichigo, can you please go and get him?” Orihime mumbled, one hand raised to her husband’s shoulder, pushing him slightly to make him understand with subtility that she would not move a muscle herself.

Ichigo, eyes half open and short hair sticking out in a comical manner, groaned a response stuck between a ‘yes’ and ‘you’re next’ before getting up tiredly to retrieve his crying son.

Somehow, and after a good year of no traveling in family, Orihime had suggested a family day here, in their house. To catch up, to brag about how Kazui was able to carry his head by himself and how close he was to sit steadily. Yuzu and Karin could see their brother and nephew, and Isshin could discuss with his daughter-in-law. Strangely enough, the idea was immediately accepted when it was Orihime that talked it out. And so now, the two young parents would prepare their small home for the rest.

Ichigo came back into the room, Kazui sniffling in his arms, little hands gripping his father’s shirt. The man was shushing him, rocking the boy slowly and repeating everything was alright.

“You’re hurting? I’m sorry baby… It should stop soon… Didn’t the doc say it lasted like, 8 days for a crisis? It’s been 6 days…” Ichigo asked, finger going to his son’s mouth so he could massage his gums, anything for the pain to be lessened.

“Maybe he’s hungry too… Here, give him to me.” Orihime answered, sitting up against the bed and opening her arms. Ichigo carefully placed the infant in her embrace, giving him a light peck on the forehead. Kazui shuffled a little but smiled when he saw his mother.

Orihime made some funny gurgles, talking to her boy with a high voice, trying to get him in a better mood until he got something to eat. Ichigo watched the scene with a smile and stretched his back, sighing.

“Should get things ready before the horde arrives.” Ichigo joked, walking to the bathroom near their room to get some water on his face. That should help wake him up.

He heard the funny noise die down as Orihime breastfed their son. Ichigo didn’t need to be next to them to know she was smiling down at him tenderly, and Kazui was certainly looking up at her with the same brown eyes filled with amazement. At least they were in calm waters for now…

.

.

.

By the time it was 9:30, Kazui was set to stay in the living room and play with Ichigo in his cute outfit. Orihime and Ichigo themselves were ready, preparing their small house for the arrival of his family, but nothing too fancy. In Ichigo’s opinion, they didn’t need to have balloons floating around, or a cake ready when it was still morning.

“And right at this moment, that giant ice cream cone yelled at me to run far from the bean paste, but I just couldn’t! How can you choose between two of your favorite things?” Orihime asked, hands on her hips, eyes wide as saucers, clearly expecting an answer from her husband, who definitely knew she had to stop eating sweets before going to sleep.

“Um… Yeah, but that bean paste was clearly trying to eat you… So I’d say, you listen to ice cream.” It was silly to answer her about her own very silly dreams while holding Kazui up so he could experiment walking. But that kind of silly was always welcomed.

Orihime shook her head with a pout, but was interrupted by the sound of someone pressing the doorbell. She got up from her seat, fixing her dress slightly before opening the door with a big smile.

“Yuzu! Karin! Hi!” She hugged them both preciously, the twins greeting her in response. Stepping back, she looked around to see Isshin wasn’t behind them, and frowned, worried.

“Don’t worry about dad, he’ll arrive quickly. We were just ahead so he could work on another file before coming.” Karin explained, waving a hand as her sister cooed at the interesting picture of Ichigo holding Kazui by his hands, the little boy not knowing what to do with the two jelly legs he possessed.

“Ichi! Aw, let me get a picture!”

“Yuzu stop! No! Not a picture come on!”

Karin placed a bag near the door, observing with a satisfied smile her brother being taken advantage of, unable to escape or fight the will of his own sister and his wife.

“Are… No, I can’t hold him… I’ll drop him!”

“No, you won’t. Come on, he’s your nephew, you gotta hold him once in your life.”

Karin frowned, Yuzu prepared her phone for yet another picture and Orihime held up Kazui to Karin, reassuring her that he wouldn’t end up on the floor. The baby seemed to not mind, appreciating any hands that carried him, knowing none would harm him. Ichigo was like an eagle, not even blinking while he stared at his sister, the black-haired girl grumbling a little at how she was forced. But really, she wasn’t.

“Is… Like that, okay? Is that good?” She asked, infant stuck in her arms, and Orihime nodded.

“Yes, just like that. See? It wasn’t too complicated.”

“Yeah… But I didn’t expect him to be so… Heavy? No, not heavy… But he’s not as light as I thought he’d be.”

“He’s growing. Of course he’ll be heavier than at his birth.” Ichigo remarked, snickering at the grimace Karin sent him.

Orihime smiled brightly at the two bickering siblings. Ichigo used to not joke around with his sisters, too busy mopping his anger and pain in his corner, but now, he was having a great time annoying the twins. She guessed it was something older brothers did.

Isshin opened the door loudly, singing about finally seeing his grandson and daughter-in-law again after so long, the ridiculous amount of baby gifts in his hands falling on the floor as he walked in. Now, as to why Isshin, out of all people, had a key to their house, Ichigo was not willing to say. He had chosen Yuzu to have it first, but she had lost it for a good day, and the panic it brought was a cold shower to everyone, to the point Karin mentioned Isshin as the best key keeper out of the three of them.

Which, of course, was true. Since he was an adult and all. But he was still Isshin. Loud, impulsive and horribly annoying Isshin.

“How is he?? Aw, look at him in his cute little clothes! Oh yes, you look just like your dada when he was your age Kazui! Although, thank God you have your mama’s smile!” He cooed at the baby, who of course didn’t understand a single word, but the mere expression and intonation pulled his smile up, showing just a few teeth. Isshin gasped and tickled the baby’s tummy. “Oh, yes, you already have such cute little gums!”

Orihime laughed at the voice Isshin always took whenever Kazui was around, and freed him from the many plushies he had gathered in his arms.

“Oh, thank you, Orihime. So, is everything doing alright for you three?” He questioned, straightening up and looking at the woman. Of course, as a doctor, he’d ask this question with real interest.

“Yes, we’re all fine. Kazui is still having a bit of a crisis from time to time, but we manage to handle it well. And Ichigo is getting better and better at handling Kazui.” She smiled, whispering the last part in a conspiratorial tone. Her husband heard her, and with a blush, frowned in her general direction.

Isshin grinned at the exchange, but didn’t tease his son further. It was strange how one day he was grumpy, and the next, he and Orihime walked into his house to tell him they were dating. From that moment, his son was like a stranger: offering help to do this or that house chores, hesitantly discussing with his family, feeling happy and calm around them… And now that he was a father, he hardly ever yelled at Isshin anymore. Of course, he was still mad at him for being the silly old man he always had been, but Ichigo seemed to be mindful of what his own son was going to grow up to.

By the time Kazui was hungry again, Orihime excused herself as she picked the infant and walked back to her room, giving Isshin the opportunity to talk with Ichigo.

“So… How are you handling all of that?”

Ichigo raised his head from the table, placing another plate on the surface and shrugging his shoulders.

“Well… We’re happy. I think that’s what matters. Orihime and I are working, so it’s a good thing, even if we wish we could be around Kazui more. And Kazui is growing up…” He turned silent after that, the timid smile he had on his face stilling.

Isshin tapped his back lightly.

“You’re doing a good job Ichigo. Although you became a father early, you’re doing your best for him and for your wife. Honestly, you can be proud of yourself.”

The orange-haired man shook his head with amusement, gazing at his goat chinned father.

“I tell myself that. But soon he’ll be able to stand on his own, or even talk… And we’ll have to teach him everything about this crazy world of ours… Things about Shinigamis and Hollows, Arrancars even, so that he doesn’t make the same mistakes I did.”

Isshin looked around the room to his daughters, watching as they discussed on which fluffy plushy was the cutest.

“Your sisters only knew after a good while. But don’t worry about that. Kazui will have a lot of people to teach him, and all these people will keep him safe. Plus… I’m pretty sure he will be safe with the amazing parents he has.”

Ichigo’s eyes opened wide, tenderness and surprise taking the lead in his mixed emotions. Isshin was right : Orihime and he were not alone in this. People from Karakura, the Soul Society and the others stuck between the two would help them keep their child safe. Keep him from being hurt. That simple but truthful knowledge made him gasp for air, relaxed and thankful.

The young man nodded, throat a bit too tight for him to talk in his usual confident tone. Orihime walked back in, Kazui looking sated and in a good mood as his mother placed him in Yuzu’s eager arms.

“You know… I, guess it’s strange for everyone to see me like that… Not yelling at you for goofing around. But Orihime told me she felt that this excitement I almost resented a few years back, this closeness with family members, she thought it was the right way to be wife the family you loved. She wants Kazui to grow up surrounded with love and joy, and I want that too for him.” He scratched the back of his neck, eyes on his sisters then on Orihime. “I still think you’re a silly old man that makes way too much noise. But… I’m happy you’re Kazui’s grandfather, and my father.”

It was Isshin’s turn to have his eyes become the size of tennis balls, tears rushing up. He needed to hold it down, to not explode with joy, to not ruin the moment by hugging his son that had more or less told him he loved him, after so long. So, instead, he ruffled his son’s new short hair.

“It’s my greatest pride to be part of this beautiful family.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aaaaaaand day 3!

More than 2100 words, I like that hehe

I thought about writing Kazui to be taller so he could be asking this or that question or be a cute lil cutie pie, but since I visited a family member who recently had a child, heh, I was more inspired in writing an infant.

Don't hesitate to review this, and see you tomorrow for day 4!

[sunnysviolin]

Just wanted to say that I’ve been seeing a lot of your stuff in the tags recently and I love your writing!! It always makes me smile to read your headcanons :)

If you don’t mind me asking, do you have any for Kimbrey? (Aubrey/Kim) I have big brainrot for them.

Awww thank you nonnie!! You’re so sweet and kind I hope you’re having a good day! I am doing my best but this semester is brand new. I am happy tho because the way it’s looking I’m going to have two headcanons a day for you guys for this week! one in the mornign and one at night, and maybe one somewhere in the middle if any of you send something particularly striking as an anon! It’s always nice to hear from you all!! Making you smile makes me smile. So here! Take some Kimbrey

Kim and Aubrey have each others initials etched onto their scooters. They did it when they were just friends, but after they start dating they add a heart around the letters. Yeah it’s cheesy but whatever they both like it and no they will not elaborate fuck you

Kim and Aubrey are definitely the couple who like angrily confess their feelings to each other. I’m talking both of them realizing how they feel and avoiding the topic until there’s a big confrontation which ends with one of them shouting that they have a crush on the other and both blushing like fools but also holding hands

They start dating about half a year before the game canonically starts in my hc so they’re pretty established as a couple by the time everything goes down. Established, but literally only the hooligans know. 

90% Hooligans are not shocked when they start dating. Vance and Charlie expected it and Angel was told by Charlie to expect it. Then there’s Maverick who literally never knows anything ever. As a joke Aubrey and Kim didn’t tell him they were dating they just waited to see how long it would take him to realize

But listen Mav is a sheltered child from a highly religious family (he’s also definitely gay but I digress) so it takes a comically long time for him to realize. When he does it’s very much like that scene in friends where Phoebe just jumps up and down and screams CHANDLER AND MONICA over and over, but it’s Mav shrieking AUBREY AND KIM AUBREY AND KIM!!!!!

They were a little worried that Mav might actually not be super cool, but turns out he’s just very excited and slightly offended they didn’t just tell him?? Why is he always the last person to know things >:O

Kim and Aubrey don’t really like go on dates per say. They mostly just hang around with their group of friends, and have sleepovers together just the two of them. It’s very much one of those first relationship things where they say they’re in a relationship and they do special things, but a lot of it is performative because that’s how it is in your teens a lot of the time. 

They both know that they like each other, and they both know that they enjoy being gfs, but they don’t really like fall in love until almost a year into their relationship. 

It isn’t even something significant that Aubrey did. She was just over at Kim’s dad’s house helping her dad with a pipe issue once again. Kim wasn’t really watching, she was reading a book and waiting for her girlfriend to be done messing around with her dad, when she saw it. 

They had finally fixed the pipe, and her father was elated. He gave Aubrey a pat on the head and told her he was proud of how helpful his “favorite assistant” was, then he made a joke about how Kim should bring her around more often. Aubrey’s good natured grin had dropped off, and she seemed almost shell shocked. She made an excuse to go into the other hallway, and Kim on instinct followed her

Aubrey was standing against the wall, her head leaning against the plaster and her eyes closed. She was crying, her shoulders hitching up and down with sobs and her bottom lip wobbling. But she wasn’t making a sound. Kim had never seen someone cry without making noise before, and it was eerie to see now. She wasn’t sure what to do, but on instinct she walked over and slotted herself into Aubrey’s arms, burying one hands in hot pink hair and the other flat against her back. Aubrey nearly collapsed into her arms and buried her face into her girlfriend’s neck. 

As Kim held her still silently crying girlfriend a rush of strange protective emotions came over her. She had always been pretty protective of Aubrey, but this was different. It was deeper, almost all consuming. She knew that she would never let anyone make Aubrey feel like this again, and if anyone made her cry they would have Kim to answer to. 

Kim didn’t know what love felt like to anyone else. She didn’t know if it was soft or light or kind. For her it was thunderous, lightning hot, exactly like Aubrey. It hurt with how much it demanded to be felt, and how much it pushed her to impossibly do more. She didn’t know what else she could do, so she just held Aubrey even closer and breathed into the new facet to their relationship. 

[butwhyduh]

Sickening

You looked at the blood in your sink. It was becoming sticky and rust colored at the edge. It probably wasn’t a lot but it certainly looked like it. The fact that you weren’t exactly sure who’s it was made you feel sick. You closed your eyes and grabbed some towels to clean it.

After spraying your sink heavily with antiseptic, you scrubbed your hands clean and left the room. Your boyfriend laid out on the couch. Normally you found it a little funny the way his long body would hang over the arm. Now you were worried.

“Jason,” you asked. What is going on? He sighed and rubbed his eyes.

“I got in a fight. It’s no big deal. You know how assholes in Gotham are,” he said. As if to emphasize his point, the sound of police sirens sounded close by. Yeah, this place was rough.

And Jason certainly looked like he had recently been in a fight. His knuckles were red and raw. He had a bruise blooming on his forearm. And his grey shirt had little specks of black that you couldn’t help but wonder was blood.

“Why are you always covered in bruises? Is that the assholes in Gotham?” You asked, sitting on the coffee table.

“You could say that,” he muttered under his breath. “I guess people just want to punch me. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

“You need a bath,” you said. “I’ll throw your clothing in the wash.”

“I’m fine-“

“You’re covered in blood and I’m not sure it’s yours,” you said. Jason slowly rose from the couch and you see that he favored one shoulder over the other one when pushing up. Probably also bruised. Or worse.

He all but stumbled into the bathroom. You started a hot bath. Your small apartment didn’t have a shower attachment. Jason roughly pushed off his boots before grimacing as he pulled off his shirt and threw it in your tiny washing machine. That one was a gift from him that somehow your landlord was totally cool with despite being a complete ass.

His shoulder had nasty red and purple splotches of bruises and there was a small bloody area. He shoved his belt open and pushed off his pants and socks. Jason slid into the tub. He groaned. His long leg had his knees sticking out of the water almost comically.

You bent down and sat on the old tile floor. Someone, probably in the 1920s or something, had out tiny little white hexagon tiles all over the floor next to the claw foot tub. You grabbed a cup and started pouring water on Jason’s chest. He hissed before relaxing. Steam from the tub rose in the cold room.

“I worry about you. Worry what you’re doing. Why you won’t tell me what you’re doing. That you’re in trouble or something. Do you owe a gang money or something? Who hit you?” You asked softly. Deathstroke, Jason thought but he certainly couldn’t tell you that. His hard look soften a little.

“I don’t owe a gang money. Nothin like that,” he said. He couldn’t help but look at your face. You were too pretty, too innocent, too good for his world. He didn’t want you in this. Hell, he shouldn’t have talked to you in the first place because no one lasted long in his life. Jason knew that taking you on a date had been selfish. And everything after that was him being too weak to do the right damn thing.

You took the cup and poured water over his hair. The slight pink color had you grimacing. You didn’t push your questions. It was something Jason loved about you. He was a hard nut to crack and usually what worked best was time and space.

You grabbed your shampoo rather than Jason’s to wash his hair. There was no way that you were going to use his ‘mountain bear scented 4 in one shampoo, conditioner, body wash, motor oil’ when trying to pamper him.

You’d never washed his hair before. He’d definitely never let anyone close to washing him. Shower sex, great. But never something non-sexual and intimate as just being bathed. You ran your fingers through his hair letting the soap rub in. Jason literally felt goosebumps on his skin and he closed his eyes and leaned into your hand. You were the only person that he let touch him and high key, this was the best relaxation he’s ever remembered feeling. You ran your hands through his hair longer that necessary but you could tell that he wasn’t complaining. He groaned a little.

You poured the water over his head and was pleasantly surprised that the water was soapy but clear. At least there wasn’t a lot of blood in his hair. Jason bent and washed his face in the water. He had more stubble growing than he usually did.

“Do you wanna shave your face? I can do it,” you offered. For a fraction of a second his brow creased before he gave you a half smile.

“Not today. I’m good. Thank you,” Jason said holding your hand. He couldn’t exactly say that he didn’t trust anyone with any kind of blade near his face.

“Are you okay? Tell me what’s going on,” You said reaching a hand to his other cheek. His jaw clenched a little and his eyes almost looked hurt. He was thinking of all the people who had died because they knew a secret. Other vigilantes who’d lost their entire families for knowing their secret identity. But at the same time, Jason knew that you wouldn’t stay around forever and the lies were growing. He was going to do one more little selfish thing. He sighed deeply.

“I’ve gotta tell you something but I don’t want to scare you,” he said and his eyes showed so much worry and fear. He genuinely thought he might lose you over this.

“Scare me? Jay, what are you talking about?” You said confused. He inhaled nervously.

“I- I’m Red Hood! Sorry, sorry. I didn’t mean to say it so loud,” he said. Jason’s eyes searched your face. Your eyes were wide and you were frozen. His breath was all over the place in absolute fear. It was only a few seconds but he prayed for you to speak.

“Did you just say that you’re Red Hood?” You said faintly. Red Hood was infamous. Brutally murdered gang members, rapists, and traffickers. Even once famously fought the dark knight himself. The one continued theme of everything you heard: cold, cruel, and highly deadly. If you saw Red Hood, it was probably the worst day of your life, if not your last.

“Uh... yeah? Yes.” He gulped and watched you. His blue eyes were so round and worried.

“No. I can’t believe that,” you said. Jason, who would read Jane Eyr to you, that fed stray cats outside of the apartment, and was literally the sweetest boyfriend couldn’t be this killer. He looked down with a sarcastic smile.

“I’m Red Hood. That’s me. If you don’t believe me, there is a Glock 26 Gen 4 strapped to my bedside table. There are a few more around,” he said motioning around the apartment.

“You keep stuff here?” You asked with a mad look. Your head was spinning.

“No. Just some protection. None of the Hood stuff is ever here. I don’t want anything that could be found in this apartment. All the stuff here is new and never fired besides a few practice rounds. I try to be as safe as possible so you are never in danger,” he emphasized. You both sat in silence for a few minutes. The only movement was Jason’s fingers running along your hand.

“Why? Why do you do it? Be the Red Hood?” You asked finally. He expected that question but not right away.

“I should probably tell you how it started,” Jason said and he didn’t hold back. He told you about his parents, attempting to steal the rims from the batmobile, becoming Bruce Wayne’s ward, becoming Robin, being killed by the Joker, the lazareth pit, and becoming the Red Hood. By the time he was done, the water was cold and your legs were numb. “That’s why I have bruises and scars. Why I leave sometimes or miss dates.”

“I’m sorry,” you said softly. He gave you a look of confusion. What could you possibly be sorry for? “You shouldn’t have gone through that. You shouldn’t have needed to hide it from me. I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t scare you? You don’t want to run from a murderer?” Jason asked. His eyes searched yours for signs of fear or disgust.

“Is it really murder if they are evil? Or justice?” You said slowly and he winced at that word. Bruce certainly wouldn’t agree. “Every time I hear the question ‘would you kill baby Hitler’ I would. Without question. I would shoot a baby because I would be thinking about 6 million Jews and unknown others that died because of him. The bad guys always get out and make things so much worse.

“You’re going to have to tell me where all the weapons are here. I’m paranoid that I’m going to reach in the couch and grab a sword,” you said with a laugh, standing up. Sure, you were shocked. But that wasn’t going to make you run screaming into the night. Or maybe you were in shock? You’d find out in the morning.

“Swords are more my brother’s thing,” he said with a laugh. “I’ll show you. I’ve been wanting to teach you some self defense too.”

“We’ll get back to your brother being into swords later. But first, let’s get you out of that wet ass tub and into bed. Because I can’t process any more information tonight,” you said handing Jason a towel. He obviously favored his right shoulder when dressing in sweatpants before coming to the bed where he flopped down. The lights in the bathroom flickered and you rolled your eyes. That’s Gotham for you.

“I’ll fix that tomorrow,” Jason said quietly.

“Nevermind that. Do you want an ice pack?”

“No. I want you,” he said and you smiled a little before crawling in the bed. Jason moved around to lay with his head next to your chest snuggling close. It was almost comical the way the big man hugged you and laid in your arms. He needed to be close to you even though your arm on his waist made him clench in pain for a second before you moved to a better position.

“I don’t deserve you,” he said quietly. “You’re way too nice to me. Almost gullible. Like Baby, you live this way?” he said with a smile. His sarcastic defense was back up. You rolled your eyes.

“Maybe I’ve got a thing for the whole bad boy thing. Or that I know last week, you had cereal with water and honestly, that’s the ultimate weakness,” you said back and he gave you a rare grin.

“We were out of milk. Like what was I gonna do? Eat it dry? No.”

You kissed the corner of his mouth and he grimaced.

“Sorry. We should get some sleep. It’s super late,” you said.

“Yeah, sleep. Sounds great,” he said already drowsy. “I fucking love you,” he whispered before falling asleep.

[andypantsx3]

conspire | 1 | scheme

pairing: Todoroki Shouto / Reader

length: 13,307 words / 5 chapters

summary: Shouto Todoroki had definitely only asked you out in order to ward off his horde of interested suitors. So why does he keep actually taking you out on suspiciously realistic dates?

tags: romance, reader-insert, fake dating, misunderstandings

warnings: aged up characters, eventual smut

Shouto Todoroki was standing outside your workroom.

This was unusual, as in the three years you’d both been attending UA, Todoroki had hardly been spotted anywhere near the support course rooms. Class H was typically avoided by anyone who didn’t want your classmate Mei to catch wind of them -- and very few hero course students had proved willing to do so, once they’d encountered her the first time.

Todoroki was one of the smart ones.

He looked incredibly out of place and yet almost comically festive in the doorway of the studio, his red and white mop of hair matching the horrible red and white heart banner someone had tacked above the entry for Valentine’s Day. He stopped midway through the door, eyes flicking over the other offensively bright decor, including several violently pink heart balloons and heinous red streamers that hung from the ceiling like sausages curing in a deli.

A ripple of interest went through the female segment of your classmates at his arrival, and despite yourself, you perked up too.

You didn’t know much about him, but Shouto Todoroki had the most interesting quirk you had ever worked with. You’d been paired for a project earlier this year where you’d helped develop an adjustment to his temperature jacket that used pattern recognition to help it anticipate changes in his quirk, in order to begin applying temperature controls sometimes even before he’d made the switch from hot to cold or vice versa.

You hadn’t spoken much on topics outside the project, but on the subject of your work, Todoroki had proved himself smart as a whip, asking insightful and probing questions, and making sensible suggestions based on what he learned from you. He’d been so keen on your ideas and so shockingly easy to work with that you’d lamented the project’s end.

It had only lasted two weeks, unfortunately, wrapping up before you’d had the chance to really delve into his personality or the actual science behind his quirk, and you’d been dying for the opportunity to pair up again and really study him since.

Less importantly, Shouto Todoroki was also inarguably the most handsome boy in your year, maybe even at all of UA. He was tall, strapped with lean muscle, and equipped with a facial symmetry that was almost more deadly than his quirk. Even his scar did nothing to deter from his good looks, only adding a roughed up, roguish charm to his otherwise pretty features. The first few days of your project, you’d had to pinch yourself on the leg more than a few times in order to reroute your brain from his face to the actual jacket.

You’d since put effort into ignoring his appearance, but you couldn’t really help that your eyes were pulled to him like a magnet whenever he stepped into a room.

Like now.

Todoroki’s own grey and blue eyes scanned over the faces of your classmates, stopping when they landed on you.

“Y/N,” he said in greeting, and you raised a bewildered hand. Several nearby girls shot you betrayed looks, like you’d been keeping an association with him secret. You’d have shot yourself something of a questioning look, too, if you could have. What reason would Shouto Todoroki have to seek you out outside of class? It had been almost a month since the project together. What might he want with you now?

“Hi, Todoroki,” you said, wondering if you’d awoken in some parallel dimension where he thought you were friends. “Uh, what brings you here?”

“I have a personal request,” he said in his low, soft tone, stepping into the room and making his way over to your worktable. He’d shed the grey blazer of the school uniform for the crisp white dress shirt and tie, and he looked unbearably good. As he drew closer, you could see the way his broad shoulders stretched the fabric of his shirt.

You self-consciously pushed around the messy wires and metal framing on your worktop, trying to clear space.

A personal request. Had he come for some kind of support item? Your mind suddenly ran with possibilities, and a thrill went through you at the potential to study half hot half cold in earnest. This was the kind of extracurricular project you’d been dreaming of, maybe even something that you could scope out and build as your submission for your senior project next month!

“Sure,” you said, gesturing to the other stool at your worktop and rifling around in your bag for a pen and paper. You’d probably need to take notes.

Todoroki stared at you. “Ah, not that kind of a request,” he said, eyeing your pen and paper.

Your cheer dropped. Oh.

“I had hoped to ask you in private, actually,” he said, something like discomfort flashing across his handsome features. He looked almost nervous, and you wondered wildly what kind of support request would make one of UA’s big three this awkward. Was he having a problem with his quirk that he didn’t want to cop to?

“Okay,” you said, looking up at him, “lead the way.”

A cool hand came up to grasp your wrist, tugging you out of your chair. Your face burned at the casual touch, and you felt the curious eyes of your classmates on you as you were led from the room.

Todoroki steered you through the hall and around the corner to a small alcove out of the way of student traffic. The alcove had clearly had the same treatment as your workrooms, festooned with a banner boasting a bizarre pattern of tiny All Might silhouettes interspersed with hearts. Your eyes felt like they might catch fire if you looked at it for too long.

“How have you been since the project?” you asked Todoroki, in the interest of being companionable. “Is everything on your vest still working well?”

A smile touched the corner of his mouth as he turned to face you. “It’s incredible. It still surprises me that it can predict what I’m going to do before I even think to do it.”

You flushed at the praise. “I’m glad. It was really cool work on. Your quirk is awesome - normally there are only so many variables with pattern prediction like that but the two sides of your quirk increased the possibilities exponentially, so the algorithm was hard to code. I had to get a little extra help from an actual computer scientist,” you admitted, before slapping a hand over your mouth, realizing you were rambling.

His smile widened and your traitorous eyes caught on his mouth. “You sound exactly as you did the last time we talked.”

You winced. “Yeah, sorry.”

His eyes widened and the hand on your wrist tightened. “No, I didn’t mean--it’s nice,” he said. His fingers seemed to grow the tiniest bit colder where he held you. “I would have liked to have worked with you longer.”

You tamped down on another blush, looking away. “Yeah. It’s too bad.”

Just then, footsteps sounded in the hall, and Himari Honda came wheeling around the corner.

Himari was another student you’d been paired with for a project at one time, and she hadn’t worked nearly as well with you as Todoroki had. A general course student with a quirk that let her track anyone within up to a mile of her person, Himari’s goal after graduation was to become an actress, with a particular focus on playing the love interest of powerful hero characters. She was certainly pretty enough, with large eyes, high cheekbones, and shiny pink hair that she wore in a long plait down her back, but that’s where her appeal ended. She wasn’t horrible, but she was a little too self-interested and it had certainly shown in how she’d handled your pair project.

Himari smiled winningly at Todoroki, and it became clear to you that she’d tracked him with her quirk. You knew instantly why she’d come to find him, today of all days.

“Hi, Shouto,” she purred. His fingers tightened where he still held your wrist.

“Hello,” he said politely.

You stifled a laugh at the carefully blank look he’d suddenly adopted. You guessed he’d been fending off advances of this type all day -- you’d caught sight of his shoe cubby when you’d changed into your own uniform shoes this morning, absolutely bursting with chocolate and brightly-colored valentine's notes. He was too handsome for his own good, it appeared. Still, it was interesting that Todoroki seemed not the slightest bit interested in what someone who looked like Himari had to say.

“Maybe I should go,” you said, tugging your wrist back, but Todoroki gripped you tighter.

“I still need to talk to you,” he said. He fixed you with an intense look like he could pin you in place with his gaze.

Himari seemed to ignore you. “Shouto, I was hoping to talk to you alone.”

“I’m a little occupied at the minute,” he said, gesturing to you. You gave a little wave.

Himari shot you a betrayed look like you’d beaten her to the punch, then puffed up like she was drawing up her courage. “Don’t accept her confession! Accept mine! I like you -- please go out with me!”

Your jaw dropped. You’d definitely not been in the middle of asking Todoroki out, but damn it took balls to cut another woman off like that. You couldn’t tell if you respected her or hated her for her shamelessness.

Todoroki shifted uncomfortably next to you. “Ah, I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I can’t accept your feelings. You see, I was just about to ask Y/N out.”

Your mind went blank.

He what now? Is that why he’d brought you to this alcove to speak to you in private? Is that why he’d been so nervous back in the support studio, asking to talk to you alone? Shouto Todoroki had wanted to ask you out?

You wondered at that. You couldn’t understand why, when he could have his pick of any girl at UA. You were fine, sure -- reasonably smart with good grades and a neat appearance, but you weren’t anywhere near his level of mind-numbing attractiveness. More than that, you didn’t even have a quirk, and it was impossible that someone who wielded a power like half hot half cold was going to wade that far into the bleak depths of the dating pool. He had plenty of other options, so why come to you...?

Then, like a slow sunrise, it dawned on you what he was actually up to.

Todoroki was trying to get rid of all the confessions in one fell swoop. If Himari went back to her classmates and told everyone what had happened, rumors would spread very quickly that Shouto Todoroki was a dead-end bet. No one would try to ask him out anymore if his heart purportedly belonged to another.

That sneaky little fuck.

“Right,” you said, perking up and playing along gamely. “And I was just about to accept,” you announced to Himari.

Todoroki threw you a wild look like he hadn’t expected you to take this track. Shit, had you been supposed to reject him instead? You could, you supposed, but what hot-blooded woman in possession of sound mind and sound body would possibly do so? Did he also want to start the rumor that you were a complete nutjob?

“Um, I mean, I was about to respond privately,” you backpedaled. “Uh, nothing confirmed at this point.”

Himari gave you a furious look, her large eyes filling with tears, and turned on her heel, storming off. Your heart went out to her, just a little.

“You’d really accept?” Todoroki asked you as soon as she’d gone. Something unreadable glinted in his two-toned gaze.

You thought for a moment. Did he actually want to do this? It was barely a couple months until graduation, but you had nothing to lose in helping him. Maybe this was also your opportunity to study his quirk more closely, if you were going to be spending more time together to keep up appearances. You might actually be able to use him for your senior project.

“Sure,” you said, smiling up at him. “If you wanted this, I mean.”

A smile curved the edges of his mouth. “I did, yes.”

“Great,” you said, “Then you’re officially my boyfriend, Todoroki.”

His smile widened. “It’s Shouto.”

You looked at him in question.

“My name, it’s Shouto,” he said. “I’d like it if you would call me that.”

Something warm bloomed in your chest. This was all pretend but damn it was cute anyway. “Shouto,” you tested it out, liking the sound of it in your mouth.

Shouto seemed to like it too, unwinding his fingers from your wrist to slip his hand into yours. The cool of his fingers between yours was soothing, and you quite liked the way it felt.

“Are you free Saturday, then, for a first date?” he asked.

He did nothing by halves, huh? You laughed. “Yes, I’m free. Text me the time and place?”

He agreed and you traded phones, plugging in each other’s numbers. Then he walked you back to your workroom and left you with promises to see you Saturday, after sending you a characteristically straightforward this is shouto text to confirm.

You smiled as you watched him leave, pleased to be in on his little scheme.

You’d never fake dated anyone before so you didn’t really know what you were getting into, but you thought this could be fun. You were looking forward to whatever Shouto had up his sleeve.

[michaelmilligan]

I was tagged by @magickastiel! You don’t know what you brought onto you. XD

Rules: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it! And then tag as many people as you have WIPs. I have deemed that this isn’t just for writing either. Sketch titles? Comics? DnD campaigns? If you have an unfinished project, it counts!!

Look. I already sorted out a bunch of documents that are effectively abandoned. I mean, some of the following I also haven’t touched in a year or two, but. I MIGHT continue them! Ya know.

So, um. I HAVE mentioned before that I have way too many WIPs, right? Right??? Anyway. Putting this under a cut because... well.

- Midam - Post 15x19 fix-it

- 10 years AU

- ABO catboy Cas

- ABO nesting

- age difference

- App AU

- archangel drabble

- baby Jack truthing

- bluejay Cas

- bodyswap AU

- Cage AU

- canondivergent Midam AU

- deaged Castiel

- deaged Dean

- deaged Dean’s soul

- double date Casmick Midam AU

- dragon AU

- Fairy in the couple resort

- fantasy AU King and Prince

- first time before the apocalypse

- GarthBessBenny - finale fix-it and all that

- half-demon Cas AU

- healer angel Cas

- Human!Cas

- love shot

- Midam - mafia AU

- Midam - rockstar AU

- Midam Bridgerton AU

- Midam highschool AU

- Midam Jane Austen AU

- Midam royal AU

- Midam why do I keep writing fix-it fics... I mean we all know why but... Help...

- Midam witch and familiar AU

- Midam yet another canondivergent AU

- Midam_Midamoul - follow up to sci fi AU drabble

- Profound bondage (Best friends BDSM AU)

- Royal AU (Companionable)

- S14 Midam AU my beloved

- S15 canondivergent Midam AU

- Sabriel fake dating and all that

- teacher!Cas AU

- wings wings wings

- reunion AU

- SPN SGA AU

- Spellwork

(Most of the WIPs that don’t have another ship name in it are Destiel AUs btw... I had a phase lol. I also found a couple docs with stories that are finished but that I never uploaded anywhere. Maybe I’ll do that at some point. They’re not in the list, since they’re not WIPs, strictly speaking.)

(Yes, these are all the actual document titles, except that I removed “SPN” from most of them because. Yeah. This is all SPN. No surprise there. XD) (I also have like. One YGO WIP. No, you do not want to know.)

Okay, so. I will NOT tag as many people as I have WIPs. :D

 Ummm... @paradisecas @jumptheshark @ckneal only if you want. :D

[aceofwhump]

Hi Ace! One of my OCs is a AroAce character- I was wondering if you have any tips on how to write them. As a member of the LGBT community, I don't wanna offend the AroAce community. Thanks! <3

Hi nonny! First of all I love that you're writing an aroace character!!! That's awesome!! There are so few of them in media we need all the rep we can get! You're awesome! And secondly, thank you for asking! This is an excellent question and thank you for being considerate and asking it.

Disclaimer: all aroaces are different and our experiences are all different. These things are just my opinion and are based on my own experiences as an aroace.

I highly encourage any other aroace reading this to chime in with their own thoughts and feelings on the matter because the more voices the better!

Under a readmore for length:

The first thing I wanna talk about is bad representation we currently have in the ace/aro/aroace community and why it is bad and then showing you good representation and why it is good.

Now aroaces hardly have any representation AT ALL so any rep is welcome. Most of the ace/aro rep we do have is either terrible or not even canon confirmed. That said, there are good ways of representing asexuality and aromanticism and there are bad ways.

Bad rep we currently have includes characters like Sheldon Cooper, Sherlock from the BBC series, House M.D., Riverdale's Jughead Jones, and Shadowhunters Raphael Santiago.

These are bad for the following reason:

Sheldon and Sherlock are both implied to be unfeeling, rude, and not human. They are constantly made fun of and are being told they are weird or inhuman simply because they don't have sex or date.

House falls under the "asexuality is a disease that can be cured or fixed" trope. Do not fall into this trope!!! I think House says, and I quote, "the only people who don’t want [sex] are either sick, dead, or lying.” DON'T DO THIS!

Sometimes characters spend the show/movie having their sexuality questioned and then they have sex or date and suddenly they're "normal"! This happened with Sheldon who started dating Amy and they had sex and the show was like "see look at how normal they are now! regular couple! see they wanted to have sex the whole time!" Fuck that.

Shadowhunters was great at making Raphael asexual but they erased his aromanticism and then never mentioned or brought up his sexuality ever again.

Both the creators of Riverdale and BBC Sherlock have said that asexuality is boring to write for. Pisses me off. Now I'm going to be brief about Riverdale here for a moment even though I can spend days ranting about how much this show pisses me off. Jughead Jones is asexual aromantic and Riverdale went "Nah that's boring. We changed it. Now he's neither." I think the quote he said was "“there are fresher ways to tell [the] story.” Don't do this.

I'm adding one more point here. A lot of times the aromantic characters are the evil ones. Implying that aromantics are evil because we "don't feel love". (i mean half of why Voldemort is evil is because he doesn't feel love. thank JKR)

On the flip side, some good ace/aro rep (not necessarily aroace) includes Todd Chavez (ace but not aro), Voodoo from Sirens (ace but not aro), and Jughead Jones (not the god awful Riverdale Jughead. I'm talking about he comics Juggy who is aroace and awesome)

All these characters talk openly about their sexuality, don't "change their minds", are given full and interesting plots, aren't forced into sex or relationships, and don't fall under terrible tropes. They are good characters to look at for good rep. They aren't perfect (none of them are perfect representation) but for the rep we do have these are the best in my opinion.

The other way I wanted to answer this is by talking about a few reminders of things to think about while writing.

Remember that AroAces are:

Capable of feeling love. we are not robots. we feel love and are capable of expressing love. we love our friends, our family, our partners, etc.

Try and avoid the "aromantic/asexual/aroace character is an unfeeling robot or an alien" trope. It implies we're inhuman, incapable of feelings. That's not true at all.

Both asexuality and aromanticism are spectrums. we all experience things differently. Some aces are cool with having sex, some aren't. Some aros are in a relationship or want to be in one, some don't want anything to do with it. We're all different.

Asexuality is a lack of sexual attraction

Aromanticism is a lack of romantic attraction

know and understand the definitions. this is the only "requirement". There are other identities that fall under the Ace and Aro umbrellas and it might benefit you to explores those as well. Like demi and grey asexual/aromantic.

Our reasons for having sex or entering into a romantic relationship can be different from Allo's but that doesn't mean they aren't just as valid.

Speaking for myself, I as an aroace place a higher priority on my friendships and family because of my lack of sexual and romantic attraction.

Okay this got sooo long. I'll end it there.

Take some time and really explore your character. Ask yourself where do they fall in the spectrum of AroAce? How do they feel about sex and romance? Do you plan on saying in text the words "asexual aromantic" or are you leaning towards impying it? If you're going to imply it (which is fine) make sure it's obvious and think about how you're going to show their aroaceness. Familiarize yourself with the definitions of asexuality and aromanticism. They are separate identities even if we just call ourselves aroace. They each come with different things so take some time to look into that.

If you run into any problems and have any questions about asexuality, aromanticism, or what it's like being aroace please come on back and ask! I am happy to talk about whatever in order to help!

[bcbdrums]

(Super long ask ahead)

Ok I really wanted to add and talk more about how bad the wiki got, just look at some of this lines:

As is common for a fictional underdog, Ron has a tendency to have low expectations of his performance and to set low standards for himself, both academically and socially. He lacks focus and often appears to fare poorly due to either a lack of effort and a lack of belief in his own abilities or through trying too hard and coming across as a clown.

Shocker, he is a teenager boy who sometimes can be insecure and seem awkward, as the series goes on he gains more confidence in himself, but why do they make it sound so mean? Going on a bit of a tangent here with this being a personal headcanon, but doesn’t this also sounded kind of albesit? because come on how many times have somebody called a person with adhd that they are “ lazy”, that they”lack effort” or “focus”? This so unnecessarily mean

His efforts to fit in are often hampered by the fact that he is moderately hyperactive and has a tendency to act with a pronounced level of immaturity, which has earned him a reputation as a loser among his peers. However, for the most part, Ron's type B personality means that he either does not notice this, and thus tends to embarrass those around him more than himself

I mean it was shown that Ron was friends with various characters in the show, which usually shared his same interest inside and outside of school such as: Tara, Zita, Felix, Yori

And besides Bonnie, who ever considered him or called him a “loser”?

Ron has also displayed considerable bouts of jealousy throughout the show, especially when he feels that he does not have Kim's undivided attention. However, all of Ron's Kim-centered jealousy is entirely restricted to the instance of Kim paying attention to others over him.

Like what considered bouts of jealousy? One or two times and even when Kim dated Josh or Eric, Ron was always supportive of her and he basically shelved his agenda because he recognized Kim looked happy and he did his best to be supportive and still helped Kim with whichever he could (like when he brought her the flower in the first episode)

And you know which other characters also had “considerable bouts of jealousy”? Kim, Shego and Drakken, but when has the wiki page being edited to go out of it’s way in order to call Shego out of this? Never (of course that’s the shippers fav, they will never do that)

Ron's type B personality means that he either does not notice this, and thus tends to embarrass those around him more than himself, or that he passes his quirks off as part of his intrinsic "Ronness" and ignores what others think.

Like notice how him not caring about what others think of him, something that made him and Kim such a great dynamic because they complemented each other is suddenly portrayed in a bad light, why is that? Isn’t being authentic a positive character trait? Why is suddenly the wiki page so means towards him and Kim? (Now I know why: toxic shippers)

And the wiki also tried to said that the reason for his “low-expectations on himself” was because of Kim, and I’m like: Could you not? So, dissing on Ron wasn’t enough, was it? Whoever edited the wiki also had to diss on Kim as well and blame her for things that weren’t even her fault.

Kim herself often performs a similar function for Ron by motivating him, encouraging him to participate in some areas, and attempting to dampen down his enthusiasm in others.

When does Kim does that? look at the wording: Kim sometimes encourages Ron but more often she “damps Ron down” nah, she is very encouraging on him specially on season 4

And just notice the wording: “Kim sometimes encourages Ron but more often than not she damps him down”

Ron's personality is defined by ego [..] Ron has on occasion expressed his usually hidden arrogance , which typically results from a bout of self-confidence combined with his tendency to go overboard with things. Kim once commented that Ron is "prone to big-headiness." The statement came as a result of the sudden ego boost

He is not egoistical by any means, he has moment of big headiness sure, but he is never defined by thus, you know which tower characters also have moment like this? Shego, Drakken and Kim, why is Ron the only one being called out while other chats yes (Shego) have nothing but praise in their pages? Even Kim is being so harshly criticized

Another effect of this personality type is that Ron tends to doubt himself more often than not, making himself subservient to Kim. It is highly probable that his behavior patterns have been influenced by Kim's frequently overbearing and hyper-competitive Type A tendencies causing him to back down as a trained response because he knows that Kim does not like to lose. Because he values Kim more than anything, Ron is willing to sacrifice anything for her, including his own potential for greatness.

What? Did we even watched the same show? Kim encourages Ron to excel and be more active in general and this goes both ways, ron isn’t subservient to Kim, he is actually one of the few people who can and will call her out on her flaws, this goes both ways and both of them grew because of this

All of these self-imposed restrictions are lost, however, when Ron becomes his alter ego, Zorpox. Because he is evil, Zorpox does not care about hurting Kim's feelings and therefore has no problem unleashing his full potential

No, those “self imposed-restrictions “weren’t caused because he “didn’t wanted to hurt Kim’s feelings” it was because Ron is by nature an anxious person, I hate how they are trying to blame Kim for Ron’s character flaws, if anything it was because of Kim that he grew more proactive and confident, he always stepped-up and confronted his fears when Kim needed him the most.

He tends to "trip over his own feet" in most episodes, often in comical or socially embarrassing ways

This is straight up just a Jab against his character at this point

Ron's problems are accentuated by his overall lack of focus, and by a tendency towards laziness which, at its most extreme, included expecting his lab partner to do all of the work on the grounds that their natural motivation to succeed would compel them to pick up his slack.

He keeps up with Kim academically and he is in almost all of the classes he is in, he even said he was an average C + student at worst, he goes with Kim in all of their missions and it was shown on episodes that he would even travel half of the world in order to aid Kim because he knew Kim needed him, he applied himself more in school in the last seasons and even applied to a lot of schools.

And this is me projecting, but Ron tends to apply himself on the subjects and hobbies that are interesting to him, he might have adhd (even the wiki had a section in which this was speculated) this sound si low-key ableist

And I just hate how bad they are talking about him, all of his character is so negatively described: “jealous”, “immature”, “clown”, “Lazy”, “egoistical” “subservient”, “embarrassing”

There is zero mention of his positive character traits, being selfless and committed? Nah, that makes him subservient somehow , no caring what others think by being authentic to who he is which is a great counter-balance to Kim? Nah, this makes him embarrassing and dense, What about every time he is able to apply himself and do something great every he gains a little more of confidence (usually because Kim inspires him to) nah, this just mean he is defined by his ego and that makes him arrogant somehow.

They did my boi so dirty here.

i'll refer you to the anon i just answered before yours...

if someone out there wants to take the time to try to fix the wiki, or start a new one, i fully support it. i just don't have the energy to fight them anymore.

but you're right, this is character slaughter. their so-called evidence is all things being broadly and grossly interpreted to be extremely and unfairly negative to ron, and in some cases plainly made up, when we know that's not what the majority of fandom sees. in fact i'd wager that ron is the second-most popular character to shego. you've just got your people out there who are clinging to their pedo out-of-character ship for who knows what reason... 🙄

perhaps anon, if not edit the wiki yourself, you'll take time to make a positive character post about ron? 👀

[onmykneesforhotdilfs]

Please prompt number 2, if you can of course!!! Ah, Bloom says "Kiss me" only if you can.

I am so fucking sorry you had to wait this long. I hope it doesn't happen again, or at least the wait isn't as long. Hope you enjoy.

Damn wizards. Bloom cursed in her head as another pretty powerful beam was aimed directly at her, only narrowly missing her as she managed to side step it, while she struggled to put on a shield. Of course they had to run to Omega, into the coldest and probably the most dangerous dimension there is. Of course, she was immensely grateful they didn't chose some sort of populated area for this battle, but icicles and sharp objects flying from the ceiling of the cave really weren't her idea of an ideal date. They were more in the realm of an ice witch. The thought of Icy made her shudder and loose focus for a brief second.

"Bloom!" Sharp voice echoed through the cave as another spell flew over her head. She barely managed to turn around to face the one that called her before she was pulled to the side, and what she would come to realize only a second later out of the harms way, when a painful groan rung out next to her. She turned towards the figure the floor and nearly threw up when she saw blood on it.

Valtor was laying on the floor, clutching his bleeding arm with an impressive gash on it, and Bloom would've made a joke about him acting like a prince on a white horse if she wasn't so busy trying to hold the content of her stomach there where it belonged. She stood in a stupor for a few seconds but another painful groan snapped her out of it. She dropped down next to Valtor in a crouch as her hands roamed over the injury,as if she wasn't sure what she should do.

"Layla don't!" Stella's shriek made her turn around only to see Layla disappear after the wizards, that she didn't even realize stopped throwing spells at them, deeper into the Omega. Bloom turned back towards Valtor who gripped her arm and gently shoved her away from her as he struggled to stand up. She wanted to ask what the hell is he doing when she noticed Brandon rushing towards them as Morgana held a shield to protect her warrior fairies and specialists.

"Go after them!" Valtor was shouting words at her but his voice seemed muffled, almost as if she was hearing him through a thick fog, compared to the loud noise falling debris made as it collided with the icy floor.

She shook her head negative. "You're hurt! I can fix it! I just need a couple of minutes!" She saw his eyes widen comically as Brandon finally reached them and grabbed Valtor under his good arm and hauled him up. Bloom rose with them, her hand with magic, gathered in the coiled fist, still hovered above his wound.

Valtor shook off Brandon's hands as he leaned closer to Bloom and gripped her forearms. "They need you more than I do! Layla needs you! I'll be alright! Now go give those wizards hell!" When he healized she was still hesitating and that she was about to protest, he grabbed her by the waist and pulled her closer to himself as his forhead came to rest against her own, which was an unusual sight because he had to bend down quite a bit despite the fact she was in heels and she tilted her head up towards him as far as it would go.

The tension between the two former enemies was palpable from the moment the portal to Gardinia opened and no one was immune to it. Since the now-on-the-good-side Valtor stepped through the gates of Alfea in an effort to combine forces with fairies to battle one of his acquaintances, Ogron, who apparently rubbed him the wrong way in the past, the sparks flying from both guardians of the dragon flame were hard to ignore. Even Sky seemed to recognize the not so innocent glances the two sent to each other on a daily basis, and therefore letting Bloom go seemed like the only rational option. Bloom was pretty sure there was even a bet going on between the specialists and the Winx girls whose primary focus was the relationship of the two guardians. She heard Stella complaining once, when she thought Bloom wasn't listening, about how she will lock them up in a magic room until they... talked their way through their problems. Mind you, talked was not the term Stella used.

Valtor squeezed Bloom's hips in a bruising grip and the flashbacks seemed to evaporate before her eyes. His sharp features slid back into focus and Bloom opened her mouth to say something but Valtor was slightly faster about it. "There is something I've been meaning to talk to you about! But in order to do that you need to go there," he pointed behind her in the direction wizards of the black circle disappeared, "and win this battle!" She opened her mouth again to finally say something only to realize she had nothing to say. She snapped her mouth shut and nodded. "Go! We'll be fine!" And just like that she broke out of his hold and rushed towards the battle sounds.

Valtor turned around on his heels and this time grabbed still shocked Brandon and pulled him towards the protective dome Morgana struggled to keep up. His arm stung unpleasantly but the bleeding stopped and regeneration already started knitting torn ligaments and tissue together. His commanding voice rung out. "Alright, let's get out of here." No one dared to argue, well almost no one.

"What about the girls, we can't just leave them to fight the wizards alone?" The blonde prince was sending glares in Valtor's way but they weren't as hostile as he expected. Valtor turned his head to look at the place where Bloom dissapeared.

"Layla is their responsibility, and besides, we ourselves are more of a liability than help. "

Sky nodded and Valtor grabbed one of the injured fairies while specialists helped the rest as they made their way out.

Ground shook beneath Valtor's feet as an epic battle raged in the tunnels beneath the ground. Valtor could feel pulses of magic, light and dark beams equally strong, until something seemed to happen and light magic prevailed. Valtor held his breath. Time seemed to stop. Not even a single sound was heard. Seconds passed. Until a familiar beating of wings disrupted the eerie silence and six fairies flew out. Valtor's heart climbed into his throat. The winx seemed to be one fairy short, one fiery fairy short to be precise. Valtor focused on the flame raging in his chest as it searched for it's other half. The pull in his chest seemed to get stronger until it almost bursted from it's place of residence when he saw Bloom flying out with Nebula in tow. He closed his eyes and let out a sigh of relief as cheers of both the Winx and the rest of the fairies rung through the valley.

The Frutti Music bar was overflowing with people. Andy and his band took the stage as Roxy served drinks to the impatient customers and Klaus hurriedly mixed cocktails behind the bar. Everything seemed to return to normal, almost like nothing happened in the first place. That was one of the things Valtor never understood about humans. No matter how big of a trouble they seemed to find themselves in, they never lost hope. His arm almost healed in the few hours but Flora insisted that he should wear a bandage just in case the wound reopened.

His gaze ran over the bar, searching for a group of six fairies, or more precisely, searching for a head full of bright red hair that somehow always managed to stand apart from every environment and every crowd. He found what he was looking for on the other end of the bar and he made his way towards them. As he drew closer he noticed another blob of silver hair that belonged to only one person Valtor knew. An arm grabbed Valtor's biceps and he turned towards the owner.

Brandon handed him a cocktail and Valtor's confusion must've been pretty obvious because Brandon shrugged and said, "I figured you'd want something to drink before you face Faragonda."

Valtor laughed, a deep sound coming somewhere from his stomach, even his shoulders shook with it. "I am unsure just how much it will help me relax, considering the fact I usually indulge in something a bit stronger... but I appreciate the effort."

"I didn't believe Stella when she told me you can be pleasant to be around."

Valtor raised a questioning eyebrow. "What is your opinion now?"

"That I should always believe what my girlfriend says."

Valtor chuckled. "I'd take that with a grain of salt. After all, I can also be really unpleasant."

"Oh we know." He slapped Valtor on his shoulder. "Good luck man. You'll need it." Valtor had a sneaky suspension Brandon wasn't refering to a meeting with a headmistress of Alfea. He looked at the retrieving back of specialist with a smirk on his face. Who knew not all of them were just fools with an inflamed ego and fancy swords.

He shook his head and took a sip of the drink he had in his hand and then grimaced. The cocktail was definitely something that Stella or Flora would prefer. Fruity and sweet. He stepped towards the group he originally intended to meet and managed to catch what Faragonda was saying. "I'm extremely proud of you girls."

"You should be." His booming voice reached them and Faragonda jumped a bit, startled, as seven pairs of eyes turned towards him. "They did defeat the wizards all by themselves." He locked eyes with Bloom who had a smile on her face and Valtor felt his lips twitch upwards.

"Something happened to your arm Valtor?"

"An icicle fell on it. Just don't tell me you're worried about me Faragonda. I'll start thinking you care." Valtor rolled his eyes as sarcasm dripped from every word.

"What a shame it only grazed your arm. I would think that enormous head of yours makes for a convenient target. It's so massive it probably has it's own gravitational pull." Faragonda smirked and it looked surprisingly evil on her.

"Are you sure you're a fairy and not a witch Faragonda? Might wanna erase that smirk from your face unless you want people to start thinking otherwise. " Valtor looked at her with challenge in his eyes as his lips formed in an evil grin that would scare lesser beings but it only managed to irritate Faragonda.

"Touché Valtor."

"Thank you, I try." He handed the fruity cocktail to Stella that tried really hard to resist laughing at the irritated face of her headmistress, but some giggles still escaped, as she held Flora's arm for support. He turned towards Bloom who now had a hand across her mouth so Faragonda wouldn't see her laughing but the adorable wrinkles around her eyes crinkled, a clear sign she was smiling. He made a gesture with his head that indicated she should come with him when she finally finished laughing and looked at him. He heard Stella squeal in excitement as Flora gasped when Solarian princess gripped her arm. Bloom bit her lip and took Valtor's offered hand as he lead them to the beach and away from the crowd. He heard Stella scream about how 'It's finally happening!' And Flora's gentle voice telling her to calm down because 'You're crushing my arm Stella.'

They walked hand in hand through the crowd, some of the guests giving them weird looks, but Valtor's intimidating form seemed to part the said crowd like a Red sea. She stopped at the exit that lead to the beach, Valtor offering his support while she bent down to take off her shoes because she learned that high heels and sand don't really mix that well. She once again took his hand when her bare feet touched the now pleasantly warm and no longer scorching hot sand but she also went step further, something that greatly surprised Valtor, when she intertwined their fingers.

They walked hand in hand for a while, not daring to break a rather pleasant silence. When they were far enough from praying eyes of the people Valtor finally stopped and turned towards the ocean. He was eager to get Bloom alone but now that they actually were alone he started wondering if it was really a good idea. He felt Bloom's eyes drilling a hole at the back of his neck but he patiently waited for her to make the first move and break the ice so to speak.

"So..." her voice broke through and Valtor turned towards her, "you wanted to talk. Well here we are. What did you want to tell me?"

Valtor chuckled bitterly. "I wanted to talk to you about... us. But now I'm not sure if that's a good idea."

She crossed her arms underneath her chest. "Are you having second thoughts?"

"Not in the way you would think. I know I... like you." He inhaled sharply, "Dragon, I sound like a teenage boy."

Bloom giggled at that statement but Valtor could see if was forced. "But?"

"I don't know if this will work." Admitting that he didn't know something wasn't simple for him and he realized Bloom knew it as well when her lips pressed together in a small but embarrassed smile. "I know we have... something. Something is obviously here but... will that something be enough to keep us motiva-"

"Kiss me." She interrupted him with a phrase Valtor never thought he would hear directed at him. His mouth opened and closed but no sound escaped. He was shocked into silence.

"W-What?"

"Kiss me." She repeated loud and clear. "You want to know if the chemistry we have will be enough to... get us through it." She lowered her gaze as blush appeared on her cheeks. She shrugged. "It's like a Schrodinger's cat. We won't know unless we try." Her eyes swept across all the surfaces she could find until they locked on Valtor's shocked one's. She squirmed and averted her gaze as she started fidgeting and her arms came to hug herself in order to make herself appear smaller. "Of course if you don't want to that's ok I was just making a sug-"

In all the rush she was in to excuse her impulsive words she failed to notice that Valtor finally got over his shock and has quickly reduced the distance between their bodies. This time it was Bloom that got interrupted as Valtor cupped her face and did exactly what she asked him to do. He sealed their lips together, cutting off her nervous speech in the best way possible. There was no firework or explosion behind closed eyelids, just an incredible heat that coursed through their veins. He felt Bloom's breath hitch but she quickly recovered and her arms came to grip his shoulders as she stood on her tip toes and craned her neck upwards. Valtor chuckled at her attempts to make this easier on him but took pity when she whined and pressed her lips harder against his. He bent down as his tongue swept over her lower lip, asking for a permission that she granted without any resistance, and his arms came to wrap around her waist before he picked her up and she let out a noise of surprise as her feet no longer stood on firm surface.

Bloom was first to break the kiss as her teeth came to bite her already swollen lips. "Wow." It was the first thing she spoke since he kissed her and he laughed at her surprised expression and astonished whisper.

"Wow indeed." He lowered her feet back on the ground but she swayed for a second so he kept his arms on her waist just in case she got light headed. "So... is the cat alive?"

"Alive and kicking." Her hands gripped his shirt.

"Hmmm."

"Maybe we should, ehem, repeat the experiment a few more times... just so we're sure in the result." Valtor's pupils dilated and his grip on her waist tightened.

"We should be careful." His voice was a growl and Bloom shuddered visibly. "We might set something on fire."

"Well," Bloom smiled as she lifted her head up once again and her hands started tugging on his shirt to get him closer. "at least there's an ocean to extinguish any wild fires we might cause."