#i have Thought About This. Muchly

[superscourge]

What would the interaction between Iblis and Infinite meeting for the first time be like?

so the way i had been picturing it was starline (flatline now) would have "created" her (as in pulled her out of mephiles' timeline and then given her a body similarly to how meph got his) in order to lure him away so he can get at infinite's phantom ruby

so theyd show up and mephiles would be kind of baffled bc at that point he'd Accepted that he'd never see iblis again. he'd missed her this whole time yes but he was ok with being without her now, he'd found his warmth elsewhere with his family. but when she shows up he almost like. shuts down lol

like of course hes going to approach her. of course theyre going to touch and hold each other like theyve never seen each other before in their lives--technically they Havent, not like this. and hes so enraptured by her presence he almost forgets about the rest of them

but then he hears their voices calling out to him. he remembers that theyre there, and that he's part of that family now...and he makes the choice to step away from her. he chooses his family over whatever flatline is trying to pull, even if that means giving up the one he lost.

she doesnt take it well and Lots Of Fire Happens but mephiles teleports himself and his family away to somewhere safe. and thats the first time they see him cry

(dont worry ive already decided that this is the timeline where they convince her to join them too LOL so it ends up fine)

[zapsoda]

when i called myself genderfluid i was very confused and struggled with the whole gender thing, it didnt make any sense to me the way anyone explained it and i was very very scared of being a guy i thought it was fucked up and statistically unlikely for me to be ftm, and i was scared that even considering the idea was like appropriation and/or "rapid onset gender dysphoria" in action

[bywandandsword]

Sometimes. Sometimes old crossover ships you had ten years ago rear back up and get stuck in the hyperfixation rotation. And there's nothing you can do about it but ride it out and go spelunking into the depths of your ao3 bookmarks

[dimeadozencows]

There are a lot of great tags on this post, and a lot of different and unique takes on gaster which i always love to read :DD but i dont think i managed to evoke what i wanted to with this drawing

We know that gasters aware hes in a video game, but so many characters in undertale are aware of that already. One of the things that make gasters situation different is his ability to look at our world directly. He's aware that we've been looking for him and trying to understand what and who he is, he knows these last few years were dogshit for everyone on earth and mentions it in his pre chapter 2 tweets, he knows our life outside of our tempering with these worlds

And unlike other self aware characters in undertale, he doesn't experience time and the resets. He "lives" outside of what we can control. He truly remembers all that we've done while being unaffected by any of it. So while other self aware characters (im mainly thinking of sans and flowey) know that theres a person behind frisk whos controlling time, they're affected by our choices and (for the most part) can't judge it from an outside perspective

Sans is mostly unaffected by our inputs, and he does manage to judge us in a very impactful way, but he can't be a completely uninvolved judge. He will (understandably) react to us killing his brother and on certain neutral endings, as much as hes trying to hold his unfazed facade together, he's struggling with the thought of how much of his happiness you took away, even if he knows a reset will likely happen and everything will go back to the way it was. Understandably! This game is his world. Even if he knows its just a game that gets reset its still his home and the people he loves are its residents. He can't be unfazed by everything. he is nice to us when we're nice to him, and he hates our guts when we give him reason to. And he will always forget us after a reset and react to our actions only on the current run, not being able to know who we were to him before.

And flowey acts as the embodiment of this games message, he is our mirror and, in his words, he is who we will become if we exhaust this game of all it has. He exists to judge us, but he can do so only from his own point of view. He's judging our actions, our choices in this world as if we we're stuck inside it the way he is, which we aren't. That's not to say his judgement isn't impactful, that would just be. incorrect to say lol. But he can't interpret what he sees us do in a fully unbiased way because he's in a very similar, but not identical, situation to us. While we can enter his world and play the kind way, we do get bored and try new things, like picking the other, more rude dialogue option, or killing a character to see what a person who loves them says. even if we don't fully want to. Just like he said! But while we both went through the same process, there's a difference between us. We can leave. We don't have to grow apathetic and detached from these characters. We don't have to start seeing them less as people and more as repetitive lines of dialogue. If we're bored, we can leave. Play a new game. Come back when we miss them and see those familiar lines of dialogue and feel nostalgia, not dread. And he knows that we're a person that has a life outside of this game. At the end of pacifist he desperately tries to make us stay. But he doesn't see what our life is like, he cant see what we do with our days outside of his world, so he can only see us leave and return and leave and return, and judge us through his (flawed) world view and based on our actions within a world we enter for fun.

Thats not to say they're not written well? They're the fucking coolest flowey and sans rule.(i think the info dump proves my stance on them) I'm just saying that even if they know about us they cant fully judge the situation from a neutral point of view because they have a limited world view and they're affected by our choices, which gaster (as of now) isn't

And we don't know a lot about him. But we do know that he knows hes in a video game, that he knows we control his world and its linear time, that he lives outside of that linear time and is unaffected by our inputs, that he used to experience time linearly before shattering, that he had people he cared about in undertale, that he saw everything all of us did when playing undertale, that he is kind to us in the current deltarune chapters, that he knows of our lives and what we go through, and most importantly in my opinion, he knows that we (fans of utdr) use fiction as escapism

We've had characters judge us and berate us for our misdeeds, who are fully justified in doing so since we did hurt them directly. But they also cannot see the situation from an outside perspective. No character in undertale sees us separated from their world, as a person who lives a life outside of tempering with undertale, to them we are just a god who takes control of their reality, all they see is a cruel person who entered a world just to destroy it, or give everyone freedom and then just take it away in a second, they don't see how small their world is in comparison to ours, they'll never be able to understand that our actions in their world are (for the most part) inconsequential to us. they cant see us beyond the red soul.

so imagine with me for a second, a character within the game who is not only aware of the fact that he's in a game and that there's a player who controls time, but who also has the ability to SEE the players' lives through the internet. A character who has the ability to see the horrors of everyday real life and how much people struggle with it, and see that some deal with those struggles using fiction. And not just any fiction, the fiction that the character itself lives in. A character who knows that these great beings, much bigger than him, use the thought of him and his world to get through the trials and tribulations of their lives, hardships that are horrific in completely different ways than his world ever had. A character who knows that they find comfort indulging in his world and finding everything it has to offer, because whatever his world has is much more pleasant than theirs.

He knows that to us his world is just a video game, one that remembers and we're not above consequences in, but still a video game. One of the most common complaints i hear about UT is that it is preachy in its message, and players shouldn't be berated by it for playing certain routes or making certain choices (but one of the points of the game was that there is an alternative way to complete it so why choose violence BUT that is a whole conversation in it of itself and this is long enough already)

So what if the game understood? What if the character who created this game, this world, knew that it is just a game and didn't judge the player? What if the character accepted that he is only fiction and saw the beauty and purpose within it, and how he can use his position in this situation to connect with us and allow us to escape our hurt for just a little while? What if he saw the hardships we've endured and empathised with us? What if he understood that we don't view his world as real like he does and we just use it for our fun, to escape, the way a child happily plays with a toy? What if he felt for us, and encouraged it?

Deltarune (initially) not having a way to really hurt and kill people makes me think that while gaster wanted us in this world for whatever his larger goal is, and wanted us to indulge in it, he didn't want us to hurt anyone. But he saw what we did with the previous world and knows that warnings, consequences and the visible and audible hurt of the characters won't stop us (in fact, it will encourage us), which is something he accepts and understands. it's said that his own curiosity brought him far in his endeavours so perhaps he even understands our curiosity and why we just have to see what would happen, as morbid as it is in universe

But i love that we (without the help of noelle, a game breaking pro) cannot kill anyone. He didn't even give us that option. He isn't completely detached from these worlds since he used to live within them. He still views the fictional characters in the game as real while also knowing us, our lives, and the way we interact with the characters. And he loves and cares for both.

Letting us escape into a nicer world while keeping the residents of it safe from us.

And that is of course assuming he isn't tricking us into a false sense of security to teach us a lesson, and isn't lying to our faces every time he talks to us kindly and thanks us. but i think that after an entire game and a whole cast of characters who taught us lessons and took control away from us and showed us what an asshole we are for playing the game in an unkind way.. i think it'll be a really nice thing and a breath of fresh air to have a character who knows what they and their world are to us on a realistic scale, see why we sometimes act so detached from its ways, and understand that yeah, it is just a game. And we do the things we do as a means to escape. And that it isn't necessarily a bad thing to interact with games in this way (to me that sounds like the most self aware character ever written). But also see the characters within it as real (since he used to be amongst them) and protect them from our worst.

Truly and wholeheartedly loving and caring for both his family and the person who barely hesitates to strip them of all their joy before murdering them too.

Kissing the hands of the man who killed his son

I have endured what no one on earth has ever done before

I put my lips to the hands of the man who killed my son

[hanihaato]

a/n: yandere aventurine x female reader, suggestive, non-consensual touching and forced kisses

“Ah, ah, ah, don’t say a word, darling,” a glowed finger pressed to your lips makes words die on your tongue almost as effectively as the Aventurine’s vivid, piercing eyes. Except for the shallow breaths, you stay in silence, and he glides his hand from your lips to cup your cheekbone. “I must say, you are really bold, testing my connections like that to find you. Being sceptical is a great quality…”

He pushes you onto the bed and lays on top of you, interlocking your fingers together so you don’t ever try to push him off yourself. He stares at you, his smile growing smug with your every try to wiggle out yourself of the embrace.

Aventurine’s head falls on your shoulder. You shiver as he chuckles and his warm breath sends a chill through your spine he muchly adores tracing his fingers on.

“…But not when it comes to me.”

You turn your head away from him. Ugh, you wish you could have at least a full day without him, but you could pride yourself in having a plan good enough to escape the room he locked you up two weeks ago when you first arrived on this planet.

Though, it hurts your ego a bit that Aventurine doesn’t seem to be bothered at all.

He shifts on the bed, and you hate how the sheets that smelled of the hotel’s cleanliness are already starting to stink with his perfumes. The smell you once loved now suffocates you with each breath.

He wraps his arm around your waist so he spoons your back for a second before grasping you tighter and throwing you over himself, having you face him. He entangles your legs before you can think of hitting him with a knee.

You whisper into the pillows.

“…At least I know you are a real deal.”

Aventurine chuckles in a tone you would find endearing if you didn’t feel he laughs at you. When he first started to show you the best parts of the world he’s been living in—the casinos that always had a nice pianist playing on a grand piano, the numerous vine tastings, the breakfasts that make your mouth water, clothing that feels like silk in touch—you could hear the tone everywhere, usually just by your ear. He then told you how he loved how your eyes shone and how much more enchanting you look every day.

You wonder which night he started to plan to cut you off from both worlds, yours and his, to only have him as your everything.

“That’s news to me,” he says, theatrically raising his eyebrows. “You didn’t believe me at all? You must know, darling, that everything I told you after we got together is true. That’s a real privilege right there.”

His finger starts to trace circular patterns on your forearm’s skin. Your heart throbs painfully.

“Aventurine…” Your voice is as demanding as can be the voice of a woman squished in the arms of a man who knows how to use words and guns. “I don’t believe you really love me. That’s not how love looks like.”

The man is still in his position. He blinks, and his eyes are fully on you. You have yet to find out if that look is a warning for you or whether he is enticed by what are you saying. Or maybe he just wants to hear your voice—you know Aventurine is not a man above misleading you into believing you aren’t in a hopeless position just to hear your pleas.

“When you love someone, you want the best for them. You want— You see them as equals. You don’t strip them of what they love to do, and… and people they love. You just… join their life and slowly build a new one together…”

When you fall silent, Aventurine pulls you in and with the other hand brushes hair off your face.

He hums. “That’s an inspiring speech. Oh, and I loved how you looked when you talked about it. Such a view. You must’ve thought about it for quite a while, huh?” He pats you on the head, lingering a bit to loosely twirl your hair on his fingers. “But, dearest, everything you’ve said, well, it all checks out.”

“No.”

“I do view as equals. We have a trade: my everlasting love for a bit of your freedom. It looks like a good deal.”

“It doesn’t look like—”

Aventurine shuts you up with a kiss. You hate, hate, hate this feeling, because in these moments you wonder if you could ever truly fall in love with a man you despise that gives you the hugs you long for and kisses you think about for days.

As he pulls away, with your free hand, you wipe off the traces of the kiss on your lips. Of course, you know it’s meaningless—he kissed you many times, you would have to count in hundreds at least—he will revenge you for that later.

“Awh, don’t be like that,” He says, kissing you again and holding your wrists this time. “You know, I pride myself in being a good businessman. If you are going to put your undying love for me, I will give you the freedom back.”

“You may beg all you want, but with begging you can’t get my love.”

It’s a brave thing to say when you are at the mercy of a man who’s famished for your affection.

“Hm, is that so?” Aventurine chuckles, but for the first time in the evening, it lacks the usual flippancy. He begins to pepper your neck with kisses, and you feel his sturdy hands travel down your stomach and a tugging on your shirt. “Well, say what you want, darling. But since you’ve been by my side for such a long time, you must know I only engage in bets I know I will win.”

[scribblesofagoonerr]

— mission: chaos fc

↪ muchly requested second part to the previous chapter. I had so much fun writing the first bit, so why not give you guys a second part?

ps. there'll be more parts to this... its' not over yet!

Lets' go with chaos fc!

Thank you thank you thank you to @alotofpockets for helping me with the different ideas and code names, so much to write the mayhem!

pairings: kim little x reader, kyra cooney cross x reader

summary: just 2 best friends being pests together, and enlisting the help of the young guns to help them out

"Yoo-hoo," You call out as you open the door to Kyra's hotel room and walk in, plonking yourself down on her bed as you end up hearing the tail-end conversation of her phone call with Viv.

Ultimately, you know you should try and stay out of trouble. After all, that's what you promised Leah, and you really should keep your promise.

However, you're a known troublemaker and well, wherever you go, trouble tends to follow.

It's only a matter of time...

"Yikes, Vivi sounds mad with you," You can't help but joke and whistle lowly, moving back to relax on the Australians' girls bed with your arms propped up on the pillows. "How bad was it?" You question, curiously.

"She lectured me for what felt like forever," Kyra huffs in protest and slumps back down onto her bed, "It's bad enough I already had an earful from Steph and Caitlin!" She whines.

You wince a bit as you feel bad for her having to deal with that, "Well, if it makes you feel any better I had to deal with a right telling off from Leah and you know she can be scary as hell sometimes," You mumble, shuddering slightly, "And shes' even threatened to ban me eating sweets for a month if she finds out I've got in any more trouble. Oh and there was talk about a leash as well,"

"Right, so no more pranks then?" Kyra slumps her shoulders down in realisation.

"Well, Kimmys' definitely gonna be keeping a closer on us now," You remark, knowing that your Captain will have a watchful eye on you both.

The older Australian nods in agreement, "Yeah, and Steph and Catilin as well probably," She notes.

"Yeah-- I know!" An idea pops into your head as you bolt up from where you're lounging about on her bed, "We'll come up with code names! That way, we can lay low and cause trouble and none of the girls will have a clue that we're talkin' about them!" You personally think the idea's great and you know full well it'll help in your cause to be choatic still.

"That's geinus!" Kyra exclaims, impressed with your ability to think quickly about it.

"Well, you know, I can be pretty smart at times," You remark, jokely pretending to flick your hair back. "Right, we'll be known as... Eagle 1 and Eagle 2," You declare.

"Eagle?" Kyra furrows her eyebrow, confused by where you'd gotten that idea from.

"Uh huh," You nod in agreement with the older girl. "Kimmy will be Tiny, because well, its' kinda self explanatory," You tell her.

Kyra snickers at you making fun of your Captains' height, "Okay. What about Steph and Caitlin?" She questions.

"Caitlin will be known as Veggie, because of Vegemite and Steph will be known as Floof," You begin to reel of the different names, "Alessia will be known as uh, butterfingers!"

"Because of how clumsy she always is?" Kyra smirks at your imaginative nickname for the blonde striker and you nod in agreement, "Alright, what about Katie?" She wonders.

"Leprechaun, because there little shits like she is-- I mean, we're like that too, but shes' Irish as well so it fits better!" You explain your thought process, shrugging your shoulders, "Emily will be known as Fox, like the animal," You state.

"Simple but effective," Kyra remarks, keeping track of the different code names you're coming up with, "Cloe and Frida?"

You tap your finger against your cheek, "Hm, Laces and Magnum, Cloe's last name is hard to pronounce and Magnums' close to Manuum," You delclare, finding the situation amusing to no end, "Oooh. Teyah will be prodigcy, because you know, that's what Katie keeps referring to her as, and Katherine will be umm, Kool-Aid, like the drink!"

"Kool-Aid?" Kyra smirks in amusement as you just confirm your idea with a stuble nod of your head, "Oh, what about Vic?"

"Pancake," You answer without a single thought, "Cos' shes' Dutch and there's a thing called Dutch pancakes-- Oooh, I really want one of them right now!" You stare into space, thinking about them and all you want is one right now.

"Y/N focus," Kyra snaps her fingers in front of your face, trying to get your attention.

You jolt and shake your head suddenly, "Huh-- What... What're we talkin' about again?" You wonder, getting lost in your thoughts about desert already.

"Code names," Kyra reminds you as she laughs, "We still need to figure out the ones' for the rest of them. "What about Sarah and Jonas?" She adds.

"Sarah will be baguette, because shes' french... and Jonas will be Thanos," You're very adamant about the latter, "Because hes' a villian," You hadn't taken the news of Vivs' depature from the club exactly too well and you low-key would like to fight him at some point.

"Still mad about it, huh?" Kyra winces, remembering your reaction to Viv leaving the club wasn't that great.

"Don't want to talk about it. It still hurts," Alongside Katie being the head of the Vivianne Miedema fan club, you were a close second. You were devestated when she played the game in a Arsenal shirt for the last time.

"Pst, Kyra," You whisper and lean over your seat to not to gently nudge the girl to get her attention without being caught out by Kim or the rest of the 'responsible' older girls.

You're currently on the coach on the way to Marvel stadium ahead of the open training session where the fans would have the opportunity to watch you train ahead of the game against the all stars team.

Ever since the phone conversation with Leah, you had definitely been under closer watch and the threats that the blonde made were still fresh in your head as a reminder, and you'll be damned if you miss out on eating sweet treats, best behaviour or not.

But nobody ever said it was fun to always be good and you definitely weren't.

"Yeah?" The older girl turns her head to look at you.

"I have an idea of who can be the next victim of our prank," You give her a coy smile as you nudge your head slightly, "I say we mess with Laces," You gesture to the older girl whos' happily minding her own business.

Kyra smirks at your decision, "What've you got in mind?" She wonders.

You can't help but grin as you lean over the seat and cover your hand over your mouth to whisper to her, "We can sneak into the locker rom ahead of the rest of them. We'll hide the shin pads," You whisper quietly into her ear.

"Perfect," Kyra grins in agreement with your idea to cause chaos once again.

"What're you pair whispering about?" Kim eyes' the two of you suspiciously, hesistant to have even allowed you to both sit near each other.

"Nothing!" Your both quick to respond, acting completley innocent in the situation at hand.

"Mhm, make sure it stays that way!" Kim is less reluctant to simply let that answer slide so she keeps a more thorough check on you.

When the coach pulls up at the stadium, your quick to try and make a break for it, but your Captain doesn't seem to think the same idea, "Not so fast. I want you where I can keep an eye on you," She states, knowingly.

"Kimmmm, seriously?" You whine in protest, but the tight grip that she has on your upper bicep makes it difficult for you to break free like youn want to do.

"Come on," Kim pulls you in the direction of the press conference that shes' got with Jonas and Steph, forcing you to sit on the side where she can keep an eye on you still, "Stay there, don't move," She warns, patting your head ever so pratronisingly before she heads off to join them on the stage.

You can't say you were too fond of being forced to sit there and listen to the journalists ask questions, especially when Steph was poking fun at you directly for your bad habits of wandering off and getting into trouble. 

"This is boring," You mutter to yourself and slump down in the chair, while you kick your legs back and forth in annoyance at the situation you've found yourself in.

How long would it take for Kim to realise you'd got up and left?

Only one way to find out, you guess.

"Y/N!" Your names' barked loudly, causing you to freeze in your spot before you slowly spin around and try flash her an innocent smile, "Sit down!"

"Aw shucks," You mutter and flop back down in the seat, trying to ignore the stern look that Kims' giving you while laughter breaks out in the room from everyone else.

"Only our Y/N," Steph chimes in, amusedly.

You realise you're stuck now and you need to resort to desperate measures to ensure that the chaos still happens.

"Young Guns, your time has come!" You think to yourself as you pull your phone out of your pocket to enlist the help of the girls in the academy.

Y/N created the group: mission chaos fc 💥💣💀

y/n added kyra, mini viv and & mini katie & 4 others to the chat

y/n changed kyra's name to eagle 2 🦅🦅 y/n changed freya's name to godfather 😎 y/n changed maddie's' name to baddie 😅 y/n changed vivs' name to winger 🪽 y/n changed laila's name to ernie 🤪 y/n changed naomi's name to diver 🤿 y/n changed katie's name spencer 👀 y/n changed your name to eagle 1 🦅

eagle 1 🦅: young guns. i need your help! godfather 😎: uh... what's this? baddie 😅: why is my name baddie? winger 🪽: what's going on, y/n? ernie 🤪: i'm so lost. godfather 😎: heh, i actually kinda like mine... 😊 baddie 😅: speak for yourself 🙄 spencer 👀: why is my name spencer?👀 eagle 1 🦅: FOCUS YOUNG GUNS, I'M DEPENDING ON YOU!🫵🏼 diver 🤿: umm okay, i'm confused. ernie 🤪: yeah, your not the only one...🫠 winger 🪽: should i get one of the girls to come help you? spencer 👀: i think we should eagle 1 🦅: noooooooo! ⛔⛔⛔⛔ DO NOT GET ANY OF THE OLDER GIRLS!🙅🏼‍♀️🙅🏼‍♀️ i've been kidnapped, this is the plan... spencer 👀: if you've been kidnapped then we definitely need to tell someone! eagle 1 🦅: nooooo its' fine i'm stuck with mother kimmy and she won't let me out of her sight for the forseeable! i'm enlisting your help to join in on mission chaos fc, your time has come! diver 🤿: we should be concerned, right? godfather 😎: yeah, yeah... i think so eagle 1 🦅: your mission whether you choose to accept is up to you. the challenge is simple, i need you to go and hide laces shin pads. don't ask questions tho. do you wish to accept your mission? baddie 😅: whos' laces? 😕 eagle 1 🦅: I SAID NO QUESTIONS ooh right yeah, i realise now... uh its' cloe lacasse, baddie 😅: i'm down! diver 🤿: sure, why not spencer 👀: seems a bit risky... i don't know winger 🪽: we'll help you, eagle 1 🫡 eagle 2 🦅🦅 has entered the chat... eagle 2 🦅🦅 : y/n where are you? i can't find you-- have you been taken to the dark side? eagle 1 🦅: code names, eagle 2... i've been kidnapped by mother kimmy, the young guns' are now enlisted to help you out. i've got to go, my captivator is heading this way. good luck, live long and propser! 🫡 baddie 😅 : we won't let you down, eagle 1! eagle 2 🦅🦅: so long, partner... 🥲

© scribblesofagoonerr

[icallhimjoey]

Not to be a psycho but i delusionally check your blog about 3 times a day for a new part of All The Aces 🫶🏻

Not to be a psycho but this blog is the exact right place to be a psycho so ✌🏻 here you go, the last part of this lil series! Lmk your thoughts! Also don't forget: 18+ smutty adult themes etc Wordcount: 4.5K

---

All The Aces

part one - part two - part three - part four - part five

Joe was right, but there was a sour taste to it. Something a little rotten.

It was all sweet, all fun and games until, very slowly, it turned into something else.

He didn’t know when you’d reached the tipping point, but you were well past it now and very muchly not willing to admit you weren’t doing great.

Fucking stubborn. So proud and tenacious. It was really something. Weirdly admirable, but also impossible to manage. Joe said he’d wanted to find your breaking point, but you didn’t seem to be willing to stop bending, and Joe started wondering if you’d even snap at all.

Sometimes it was easy.

You’d be short with him, and he’d react in a stupid way to make you laugh, and then you would laugh, and the ice around you would melt away instantly.

But there’d be moments where nothing Joe would do was okay. In fact, all of it would be exactly the opposite, and you’d prefer to be left alone. To not be touched, or even be looked at. To maybe sleep in your own bed whilst Joe slept in his because then you could just avoid this stupid bet all together.

There was something nice about the control still, Joe thought. But he also wasn’t sure if he knew he could handle the responsibility for much longer.

When he’d told you he didn’t want you to come just to see how long you’d be able to go without, there was a mental image of you reaching a point of begging for him to let you. And then, he could be the one to give you permission. That’s what he’d envisioned and ultimately, what he had wanted.

But... you weren’t begging for shit.

Izzy started noticing a difference after about ten, maybe eleven days. How you held onto frustration a bit longer than you usually would. How you’d snap a little sooner too. 

She’d frown at you and ask, “Are you all right?” rhetorically after you’d forcefully kick her shoes aside that she’d left in the middle of the doormat by the front door.

You’d sigh and mutter, “Fine. Sorry.” Before you’d make the mental decision to be kind and friendly to your best friend because she hadn’t done anything wrong. It wasn’t her fault that you felt like you were slowly going insane.

You felt a little pathetic.

You’d not even made it a fortnight before you’d started avoiding Joe.

You stopped asking him if he’d come over to yours for dinner. Stopped double tapping his messages to send him little hearts. Stopped replying to his double chin selfies with ones of your own.

You didn’t like Joe any less.

But being around him became something risky.

And Joe hadn’t expected for himself to become a risk.

It was stupid.

It was absolutely crazy, actually.

You wanted to quit your job.

You also wanted to flip your desk, set the sofa on fire, and move to another country.

Your hands constantly itched to do something.

How many feelings was a person able to have at once? Because there were about 26 feelings happening in the middle of your chest simultaneously, and they were seeping into your limbs where you weren’t able to process any of them properly and it was making you angry.

You couldn’t cheat.

Even though you wanted to. 

Badly.

But if you were one thing, it was stubborn, and you’d started pushing Joe away when he’d take you to the verge of an orgasm, just to have the overhand. To feel like you were in charge still, even though whatever you thought you held in the palm of your hand was starting to leak through your fingers.

You were not having a good time.

And so you decided that Joe also wasn’t allowed to have a good time anymore.

Joe’d initiated sex three nights in a row, and all three times, you’d avoided his advances.

Shied away.

Moved just out of reach.

And the first time, Joe thought it was sort of cute. He’d said, “My poor baby,” and had chuckled a little before leaving you alone.

The second time, all he could really be was sweet. Be polite. If you said no, you didn’t want it, and so that was your choice.

But the third time, Joe quirked an eyebrow and asked, “Is something wrong? Have I… did I break you?”

His attempt at humour got dismissed. You didn’t laugh. Didn’t even smile. Just looked at your phone and flatly said, “No. I’m not made to be broken. But, it feels more fair like this.”

“Huh?”

“If I don’t get to have any, you shouldn’t either.”

“How is that more fair, exactly?” Joe’d tried moving in on you, hand sliding over your stomach, body scooting closer to curl all around you.

“I don’t know. Feels it, so…” You didn’t move. Kept your eyes on your phone and pretended there weren’t soft circles drawn into your side with a slow fingertip.

“Okay,” Joe chuckled silently, “But I never said that I didn’t want to–”

You clicked off your phone and interrupted, “Well, tough. Deal with it.”

Your phone got placed onto your bedside table, and you started moving to lay on your side, facing away from him, wriggling out of his hold as you did.

Joe let you get comfortable before he humorously said, “I actually think… yea, I think that this could mean that I’ve won. I’m right.”

“You’re not right.” You deadpanned, eyes already closed, ready to ignore Joe behind you and go to sleep.

“But I am.”

“No.”

“Explain how.” Joe curved another hand over your hip, but you were quick to move it aside.

“No.”

God, you were being impossible. It was a shame that this was funny to only one person in the room – it would’ve been way more fun if Joe’s giggles would’ve kick-started yours, but you stayed silent.

“Well, all right. Let’s spend some quality time together then. I’ll do some good foreplay for you, hmm?” Joe was fucking around. “I want to… baby, I want to do a fun activity together. Be close to you. Give you some appreciation, learn about you, I–”

“Fuck you.”

Joe was using every word you’d uttered that night with Izzy against you now, and listen: you were not wrong.

You were right.

Joe had just gone and changed the game, that was the real issue here, and now you couldn’t even look at his hands without feeling a pulse in your underwear.

How the fuck was that fair?

It wasn’t.

And so Joe was a risk now.

It was all fun and games until Joe realised it maybe had only been fun and games for him. You were still playing, still following the rules, but how could Joe still enjoy this if you weren’t?

When Izzy was the one to invite him over to your shared flat instead of you, he felt his defeat sit heavy in his chest.

He was going to have to admit he’d been wrong and, for his own sake as well as yours, was going to have to admit to it. He was ready for things to go back to normal, if that was even possible.

When you’d walked in after work that evening, one of your belt loops got stuck on the doorhandle before you’d even taken off your jacket.

“Shut up!” You spoke into your flat before anyone had even said anything. “I’m fine.”

You weren’t, but you repeated it in your head like a mantra – I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine. You’d have dinner with Izzy to be a good friend and then you’d see if you could calm yourself down enough to actually get an early night.

You knew you needed it.

You likely wouldn’t be able to, though. Hadn’t been able to for a few nights, and it was really starting to fuck with… well. Everything. One thing would go okay, and then two thousand things would go wrong, and you didn’t have the mental capacity to process, let alone deal with, any of it. 

Everything was overwhelming.

You needed to soak your whole person in a hot bath for two weeks to reset your brain, you thought. 

You got no reaction to your shut up, and when you walked into your kitchen, you saw why. Izzy was crouched down in front of the oven next to Joe.

Surprise.

You hadn’t expected Joe to be there. Hadn’t anticipated to hear his soft voice explain oven settings to your best friend as you’d barged into your flat in the worst mood.

Joe was showing Izzy how he’d set the buttons on your oven the last time, when he made a pasta bake that turned out exactly like the picture from the recipe. Especially amazing, because rarely did pasta bakes even make it onto plates to be served in your flat. Your oven was an old thing that needed careful handling. Couldn’t turn it on and trust it to do its thing on its own; your food would either burn or not cook at all.

“Hey, what’s going on?” you asked, and both of them turned their heads to see you frowning down at them, your hand rubbing at where you’d just been yanked back into the door.

“What happened?” Izzy asked, half paying attention to the oven still, but she sounded genuinely confused. Moreso when she actually turned her head and looked at you.

“Nothing. I said I’m fine.”

You hid the belt loop you’d just nearly ripped from your jeans on the door handle from view for fear of them commenting on it. That would just piss you off more. 

But then Izzy wouldn’t stop looking at you from her crouched position by the oven, so you were quick to add, “Bumped my hip. What’s he doing here?”

That made Joe burst into laughter as he got up and stretched his legs.

You didn’t join in.

You hadn’t invited Joe over.

Your serious face made Izzy frown at you a little as she got up, everyone at eye-level now.

“Joe helped me cook us dinner…”

“Oh. How nice of him.”

Izzy turned her head to look at Joe and hesitated a little before she said, “I know I’m the best friend, but, can you maybe...” she nodded her head in your direction. 

Joe scrunched up his nose and shook his head. 

"Nah. She said she’s fine, didn’t she?" 

Smug bastard.

"I am."

They both looked at you.

"What- leave me alone. I’m fucking fine!" 

No one had even said anything, but you were stomping out of the kitchen anyway. Maybe dinner could be a thing you just didn’t have tonight. You’d have some self-loathing with a side of slamming doors instead, and it would satisfy you all the same.

After the door to your bedroom slammed shut, you let your fingers slide into your hair where you gripped tightly, just for a second.

Took a few deep breaths, just to calm down.

What would be good right now?

No.

Besides that.

What else would be good right now?

Change.

You could change into a softer outfit.

Be gentle to yourself.

No one else was going to be, so you might as well.

You’d only just taken your top off when the door opened behind you.

You knew it’d be Joe, so you ignored it.

Softly the door got closed again, and Joe turned to lean against it, hands behind his back, head tilted back as he looked at you.

“Hey,”

“What?” you snapped.

“Have you eaten today?” Joe’s voice remained soft, not affected by your moodiness at all.

“Had a fat lunch, thanks for asking.” You wiggled out of your jeans and found a pair of soft joggers. You changed without looking at Joe, and then, when you finally did, you saw him look at you like he knew exactly what was going on.

A small, little smile that said, “You’re only acting like this because of what I asked of you.”

Eyes sort of twinkly that said, “And you know that we both know what the problem is.”

And Joe wasn’t totally wrong, but also definitely not totally right. You were feeling the way you were feeling for lots of reasons.

Joe looked at you like that for exactly long enough for you to snap, “What?” at him.

Then, he suddenly frowned.

“You been avoiding me?”

“No.”

“I think you’ve been avoidning me.”

“I haven’t.”

You suddenly heard the front door open and close, and Joe saw how you paused to listen. 

“Izzy,” Joe simply said by ways of explaining, like he knew she’d be heading out. Which made no sense - they’d just made dinner together.

But you hadn’t witnessed the way Izzy had looked at Joe when you’d stormed out of the room. Hadn’t heard how Joe answered her unasked question by saying, “We’re playing a weird game, it’s been... it’s been a while.” He said it like he knew it was ridiculous, and it got followed by an uneasy weird silence that provoked him to add, “You said you didn’t want to know what we– how we–” Izzy’d raised her hand, stopping him before he could say more, had then told him to fucking finish the game already, you fucking weren’t children, and Joe’d laughed that maybe Izzy didn’t want to be in the flat for it.

Izzy made the executive decision to have her dinner elsewhere then, face scrunched up in disgust as she opened the kitchen cupboard that held all the plastic containers you owned, ready to put whatever was in the oven away for another time.

She reminded Joe of the behind-closed-door rules before pointing him towards your room, sending him on his way like an irritated mum would.

Before you could really think to ask why Izzy’d left, Joe gave his chin a little tilt and distracted you when he said, “Remember when I thought you were cheating before… You’re kind of cheating now.”

And you had no time for childish silly games. Joe could leave and take his dinner with him. Come back later when you felt like being around him again.

“Joe, stop being annoying, I’m not–”

“No, no. That wasn’t a question.”

You gave an annoyed huff and dropped your shoulders whilst your face fell too. If Joe wasn’t going to let you tell him how annoying he was being, he was at least to observe by your body language how annoyed you felt.

But then Joe stepped forward, and used the back of his hand, backs of his fingers, to slowly caress a soft line down your face. He barely touched you, but the little trace that did catch your skin, sparked immediate goosebumps. 

Your breath hitched a little at the sudden softness from him, and you felt yourself sway on the spot.

“This all it takes?” Joe made his voice sound all soft, a little innocent, like he was just being curious as he watched your eyebrows knit together.

“No…”

Yes. 

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

No.

Joe let his fingers curl around your neck, and your head dropped to the side as your eyes closed, your imagination wandering somewhere dangerous now, and fuck off, you were supposed to be mad at him. That little desperate noise wasn’t meant to slip from your throat.

“What about this?” Joe quietly wondered as he moved in closer and let his lips softly brush the skin on the side of your neck.

You thought you went deaf for a second.

“Hmm?” Joe hummed in question when you failed to answer him, and you couldn’t actually get any words out, because you just knew every word would come out all shaky, like it would ache to speak at all.

All you managed was a tiny shake to your head as you tried swallowing down the hazy feeling that was making your mind run a mile a minute.

Joe lowered his voice as much as he could when he followed up with a little confused, “No?”

He saw how you frowned, the smallest of movement in your brow, and for fear of you trying to pull yourself out of whatever you were slowly sinking into, Joe let his forehead touch yours.

You knew what he was doing.

“No, you can’t...” you breathed against Joe’s mouth.

“Can’t what?” Joe kept you in place, hand on the back of your neck still, eyes closed, forehead to forehead.

Joe could feel how you were trying your best to hold onto your last little bit of resistance. However, a short strengthening of his grip was enough for it to ebb away, and Joe pretended for your sake that he couldn’t feel you shaking like a leaf.

“Can’t let me...” Lose, you wanted to say, but you faltered, and Joe used the opportunity to sneak a kiss. He went in for a soft little romantic one, something small to maybe make the words come back to you, but the moment that your mouths touched, you lost all inhibitions and immediately slapped both hands around Joe’s neck to pull him into you forcefully.

Joe let a surprised little noise escape him.

He hadn’t expected this hunger from you, which he quickly realised was actually so dumb. He’d left you starving, and then you added to that by not feeding yourself. He should’ve seen this coming from miles away.

It was perfect, too. He knew it meant he could manoeuvre you to right where he wanted you to be.

See if you’d beg.

Or at least, ask nicely.

With a soft palm to your stomach, Joe started pushing you back towards your bed, and he thought it wouldn’t be so easy, but it was shocking how you were forcefully pulling him with you. How you let yourself fall back onto your mattress and held onto Joe to ensure he’d go down with you.

You’d been avoiding Joe for this exact reason.

One little finger of outreach made you grab onto his whole being.

And Joe simply went with it, obviously.

Went with you hurriedly squirming out of your clothes with fumbling hands.

Went with the legs that wrapped around him, ankles hooking him right into place with no escape.

Went with the urgency with which you kissed him, and let himself get lead to that same spot, where your energy linked up and matched, and soon, you both were just failing limbs and panting open mouths as Joe was quick to push himself inside where he found you were more than ready for him, like you’d been waiting.

Which, yea, that checked out. You fucking had been.

“Oh, shit,” Joe groaned, and immediately had you moaning.

He’d missed those moans.

Not that he’d gone so long without, but you know. If Joe had things his way he’d hear those same noises at least twice, maybe three times a day.

There was nothing soft about how you were handling each other.

Nothing soft about how you were both treating this like a quickie that you wanted to pay off for yourself before it would pay off for the other.

You kind of forgot about the bet.

Which made sense.

Joe was breathing heavily beside your ear, letting his mouth graze over the shell of it, and if he wasn’t also jackhammering himself inches deep inside of you, just that would’ve sent you into overdrive.

It was silly how quick you felt yourself getting close.

The second you fully registered it, you panicked a little.

“Wait, no, no, stop, I’m–” you almost auto-piloted the staving off, like you had been doing for a while now, but Joe was quick to shush you.

“Want you,” he huffed, struggling as you tensed up under him. He wished that didn’t feel so nice. “Want you to come.”

“No, the... the...”

The bet. The deal. The game. You didn’t want to lose. Couldn’t lose. Joe was wrong. He had to know he was wrong. He–

You had to bite your tongue to stop yourself from crying. That was going to help no one right now.

But Joe saw, and in a wild turn of unexpected events, he turned into the one that begged.

“Stop,” Joe whispered, hips slowing down just a smidge. Just enough to get you right where he wanted to get you. Where he knew it’d be so easy to make you tip over fairly quickly.

“I got you, please. Please, come for me– want you to, ah, want you to feel good. You can come. It’s okay, you’re okay, I’m about to come, I wanna come together, please, you–”

You cut Joe off with a loud gasp that turned into louder moans you tried to swallow for fear of them turning into screams.

There it was.

You’d bent until you snapped.

Snapped right in half.

And, fuck, was it delicious.

If Joe’d had more decency, he would’ve maybe waited with his own orgasm. Would’ve maybe tried to make the moment all about you.

But Joe wasn’t a decent guy, was he? You felt how he came inside of you, body trembling on his forearms that pressed into the bed either side of you.

“That’s it, keep going. Come on, let go. Let it all out.” Joe cooed, like he wasn’t actively orgasming himself, using the softest of whispers directly into your ear as you uncontrollably convulsed and whined underneath him.

You’d never come so hard, you thought.

You’d also never burst into sobs right after an orgasm before.

“Hey, hey, hey, c’mere.” Joe was quick to pull out of you, dick still twitching as he sat back on his knees before pulling you up into him for a hug. You let yourself be dragged into a sitting position, immediately enveloped into both your boyfriend’s arms that squeezed you tight.

“It’s okay,” he said, voice slightly enthused with a light amount of loving ridicule. “What are you crying for, hey? You’re okay. You’re okay.”

And that was just the thing.

The release of everything you’d kept pent up inside had such an overwhelming effect that feeling just okay was more than enough to get you all up in your emotions.

And the fact that it made you feel silly and stupid and pathetic for it didn’t really help the case.

Joe let you cry like that for a minute, and just made sure to hold you close to his chest. Skin to skin. Sway side to side, all warm and safe, exactly where he wanted you. Where he’d gladly have you forever. Naked too, preferably. All vulnerable, just like this.

Perfect.

It took a long while before he felt you calm down and pull back a little, but when you eventually did, he moved back to take a good look at you. To really take you in.

You looked a right mess. Sort of embarrassed. Rosy, blotchy cheeks. Make-up smeared all over.

Perfect.

“Oh, you’ve got some,” Joe moved a finger up to move a sticky strand of hair from your face. “You’ve got some pretty here, hang on,” he joked, taking your warmed cheek into his hand. “Come here, I’ll get it.”

Joe had you giggling before you knew it, pressing little kisses to your cheek, jaw, chin and eventually getting you on the mouth where he kissed you one, two, three times.

Quick fourth time when he pulled back and saw how the embarrassment lingered on your features a little.

“I’m sorry,” you murmured when Joe give you the sweetest little pursed smile, which you immediately saw vanish upon hearing your apology.

“No,” he shook his head at you like you were a child.

You ignored it, wiping your face dry - or at least attempting it - with the back of your hand.

“For the dramatics.”

“No.” Joe stressed, taking over face-drying-duties with both of his hands, and you were so close to rolling your eyes at him.

You knew you were going to have to say it now.

Couldn’t wait for him to bring it up later because you’d knew he’d be a little shit about it.

There was no way he was going to mean about it now, and you’d best use that to your advantage.

“You were right,” you mumbled in your softest voice, just shy of a whisper, because these words didn’t need to be heard by the whole world. You looked at Joe through your eyelashes and gave him a small shy smile when you added, “Guess you won.”

And Joe fucking beamed at your words.

Had to bite his bottom lip into his mouth to stop from smiling so fucking hard.

For a moment you just looked at each other like that.

Twin smiles.

This was all he had wanted, Joe thought to himself, but then realised right in that moment that actually, he wasn’t right.

He wasn’t right at all.

And neither were you.

God, you were actually idiots.

You were both wrong.

So Joe scrunched up his nose all cute and shook his head a little when he said, “I’m afraid you’ve got it wrong.”

Your forehead twinged with confusion.

You couldn’t be wrong.

You couldn’t be wrong about being wrong.

What?

Had Joe not just held you through shaking sobs as you’d cried?

Had he not felt hot tears fall and run down his shoulders?

Joe’d held all the aces for weeks and was now trying to sell you the idea that he’d just been hanging onto a bunch of random cards. A four of spades and six of diamonds and… was he saying that you were right?

“Are you saying I’m right?” you asked, pouting through your confusion and, shut the fuck up, it was just about the most adorable shit Joe’d ever seen. Made saying this next part real easy.

“Yes. Well, partially. You’re partially right.”

You inhaled a sharp breath and waited for further confirmation of you being the smartest person to have ever graced Joe’s life with your presence.

“Crossing the finish line is not the most important part. You were right about that. It’s not.”

Joe paused for effect, and you narrowed your eyes in suspicion.

“The most important part of sex is not crossing the finish line...”

What Joe was going to say next would do good to make you like him more, rather than less.

“...but it’s making you cross the finish line.��

Oh. Shit. 

Yea, more.

More.

You liked him more.

So much more.

“Both wrong...” You said it just to hear it, and it sounded nicer than anything else could’ve done.

“Both wrong.” Joe confirmed with a nod, his smile still there.

No aces.

No winners.

All random cards.

All losers.

You let all of that sink in for a second, giving yourself a moment to process what that really meant, and then you were quick to grab Joe by the skull and pull him right back into you, not unlike you’d done before.

With Izzy out the door, Joe could prove his own conclusion right a couple times more, and you’d tell him he was right every time he’d do so.

Joe was right.

Had been right.

But the both of you being wrong was so much sweeter. Tasted so much nicer. Nothing sour, nothing rotten. Just sugary kisses and honeyed sounds of pleasure, flavours and colours and textures that he wished he could bottle up and keep for the rest of his life.

Joe was right, but you were both wrong, and somehow, someway, this was the best possible outcome either of you could’ve probably ever hoped for.

This stupid bet.

Both wrong.

Right. But both wrong.

---

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add yourself

[crepesuzette2023]

Letter from a fan asking John Lennon what he was chewing on while trying to sing, why he looked terrified on stage, and what he said to Paul when he put his hands on Paul's shoulders.

Beatles Book Monthly, No 23, June 1965

Dear Boys,

Well done for being voted Britain's Top Group—vocal wise! You well deserve it. I’m talking about Television's fabulous show "Poll Winner's Concert,” presented by the New Musical Express. It was great, but it wouldn't have been the same without you boys, Only one thing was different from your “normal" shows, besides those fab jackets you all wore. You were all CHEWING! Don't know what it was you had in your mouth, John, but you were killing me. You were singing, “Ticket to Ride,” and trying to chew at the same time. Please, I beg of you, don't chew while you're singing, again. You're guaranteed to have one dead fan in front of the television set. Well done John, for being Runner up to the British Top Vocalist". I think you should have come first. Thanks Paul for singing "Long Tall Sally”, it was great. By the way John, when you came out to get your cup, you looked so terrified, was it the girls, or did your chewing gum or whatever it was get stuck in your throat. Also, John, what did you say to Paul when you put your hands on his shoulders. I thought you said "How-ver doing Love?" That made me laugh.

Yours, Virginia Pullen (one weak fan), Oakside, Chailey Road, Wivelsfield, Sussex.

PS. Give my love to John.

John answers: To my one weak (or is it week) fan: Ta very muchly—chewing is out except when l'm hungry.

[redhoodinternaldialectical]

For the writing ask: 10, and maybe 17?

(I love your writing by the way!)

:D Thank you muchly anon, both for the ask and the compliment!

Hmmm, since I already answered these elsewhere I shall link to those other answers and give you snippets related to the questions instead :3

10: Top three favourite fic tropes.

Since I mentioned my half written ABO fic, I shall give you a snippet from that rough draft!

Jason attempts to initiate an omegan "give me food as a sign I'm family" ritual with Tim one day, not realizing that no one other than Jason knows that Jason isn't an alpha. Tim interprets it as an alphetic "fuck you bitch I should be higher in the pecking order than you" move.

But then Jason's reaction to Tim baring fangs and snarling at him feels... really weird. Like, if he didn't know better that looked less like a challenger alpha backing off and more like an omega feeling hurt and rejected.

...But he does know better, is the thing. He's seen Jason's DNA, and his chromosomes are very clearly alpha, no ambiguity about it.

...He is weirdly big for an alpha though? Like, fucking huge, honestly, the kind of huge that really only loner omegas, stressed ones at that, can manage - or devoted venom users like Bane and Jason really isn't the type to go for doping. That's no guarentee, after all Dick is nearly just as big and he's as Alpha as they come, but then again, there is a reason that genotype and phenotype are different words come to think of it and...

Well shit. Maybe he doesn't know better.

The next time they meet, Tim offers him an apple out of his lunch. If Jason's actually just a big alpha, it'll be a confusing as fuck submissive respect towards a higher pack alpha move considering their earlier scuffle, possibly an insulting implication about his height or weight, and just generally very weird. But if he's an omega, it's the first step to actually repairing this.

Jason is hesitant, but accepts it, takes one bite, and then hands it back, a symbolic acceptance that proves he ate just as a bond. Very, very clear omegan behavior.

The time after that he brings enough to share, bagged such that it's easy to dole out portions. Jason is cautious, but receptive and after the confusion is explained he tucks into the food offered to him heartily.

"So, seriously, whole group of the best detectives on earth, and not a single fucking one of them put together that the extremely obvious omega who wasn't even trying to hide this shit, was an omega? Not one?"

"As far as I can tell, I'm the first to figure it out."

"Is that why Bruce keeps trying herd me all the time?!"

Tim laughs, "Yuuup! He thinks you're shoving off his overprotective routine!"

"I hate this so fucking much, it's so goddamn stupid and it explains WAY too many things!"

"I'm so sorry for solving a good third of all your social problems."

"Oh like it didn't take you this many fucking years to figure it out!"

"In my defense, I've literally never met you with your scent blockers off."

Jason mulls that over inbetween bites of lo mein. It's not a pleasant thought that he's been so removed from their lives that this might be a feasible thing to miss, "...You want to change that?"

Tim perks up, surprised, but happy, maybe even trying to rein in his own excitment, "Yeah! That- I mean whatever you're comfortable with, that'd be nice."

They go to one of Tim's apartments, since honestly Jason doesn't have a scented one. Tim greets him at the door, mouth open delicately sniffing at him. After a second of hesitation Jason leans down so they're cheek to cheek, overtly figuring out each others scents.

He smells sweat, testosterone, and a thousand other animal scents that combine to make something that is uniquely Tim. it's wonderful and Jason wants it on him, wants it all over himself.

There are human ways to ask for these things, usually involving words, and the polite exchanging of sweaters, but he doesn't know the right words, has never really had this, has never be able to try to ask, and so he doesn't. He trills, like he's feral. He honestly feels feral, so out of his depth that he's stripped down to animal need and instinct.

Tim shifts in surprise ever so subtly, then cautiously but firmly sets his cheekbone against Jason's offering what he wants wordlessly. Jason takes it, rubbing his cheek against Tim roughly all the way down from his face to where his neck connects with his shoulder.

Tim laughs breathlessly and returns the scenting affection with just as much vigor.

They rub their cheeks and necks together long enough that he gets tired of having to bend down, so Jason just picks Tim up to make it more comfortable, a low rumbling purr from him slowly getting louder, joined by Tim's encouraging alpha chirps.

They finish once they're so thoroughly drenched in each other's scent that no one but a bloodhound could tell them apart. Jason gently sets him down, backing up as much as the door behind him would allow and then they just... carry on as though it's all chill and normal, discussing cases, then some other light talk, and then sharing takeout tacos.

"How long do you think it'll take them to notice?"

"With you actually treating me like an omega? Give it maybe one visit. They can't seriously be <em>that</em> stupid."

He said, right before they immediately prove that they are, in fact, that stupid.

17: Past or present tense? Why?

For this one I'll give you the spot where I'm playing around with tense changes as a thematic device in the next chapter of Chained: To Wield the Blade we Have Forged. its under the read more cause Spoilers (also I may tweak some more stuff before it actually gets published, we'll see!)

A young girl stood on a chair cutting her hair off into messy chunks over the bathroom sink. Her face was fixed in a scowl of determination, lit only by the pale nightlight she'd taken into the bathroom.

She hadn't been willing to take the risk of turning on the proper lights. She was afraid one of her parents would walk past and see the glow through the cracks around the door and demand to know what she was doing up this late.

They'd notice her hair in the morning, obviously, but something told her that begging forgiveness in the morning was far safer than being caught in the act at night.

The scissors bent and creaked in protest as she forced them to saw through the entirety of her pony tail all at once. She muttered curses at them - Hadn't she just gotten in trouble a few days ago for playing with them because they were dangerous? Weren't these stupid things supposed to be sharp?!

Unfortunately, without the light on, and without a lock to keep anyone out, her father didn't bother to knock before he opened the door and stepped into the bathroom.

There is a moment of frozen panic as the world slides and slips into two overlapping images. In one translucent view Dad was yelling about what on earth she thought she was doing to her hair and about waking Mom up to try and salvage it. That sequence slips like oil off of the concrete surface of this other moment.

Dad stands still and quiet. There is a sorrow on his face so profound it's frightening.

"I think I regret this argument more than any other. Maybe it's- you know human memory is a mess but... it felt later like this must've been where it all went wrong."

She didn't understand; this wasn't how it was supposed to go.

"What?"

"After I found out about Robin and the puberty blockers and Bruce, I thought about this moment a lot. Couldn't help but look back and try and sort it all out in my head. And maybe I didn't ask for your perspective on it enough, or maybe I asked about it too much or - cripes I don't know, but it felt like this was where the first brick in the wall between us got laid."

Tim suddenly remembers that he hasn't been the little girl in this bathroom for thirteen years. He's left adrift, standing there in his pajamas, scissors still in hand.

"I- I don't know. I don't really think about this much anymore. It's been years since I thought about anything that happened when I was this young."

[king-candybug-backup]

Going to gush a little about a couple Kill Switch scenes that I appreciate because I think you're being too hard on yourself about whatever pacing issues you think you have :)

Every night, after the arcade had closed and the random roster race was concluded, Vanellope would sneak a heal kit out of Hero’s Duty, gather up some food, and then come to see him for a few hours. 

Whatever true reasons she must’ve had, she’d always hide them under the guise of ‘keeping him company’. Perhaps it was her sneaky way of torturing him, forcing him to listen to her ear-gratingly-annoying voice every night. If this little brat weren’t his only ticket out of here, he’d have tried to kill her a hundred times over by now.

This part I particularly love because it does a really good job at communicating how King Candy thinks in such a small, casual paragraph! He's only ever used kindness as a manipulation tactic, so it makes total sense that he'd see Vanellope's kindness as the same thing; not true kindness, but some sort of means to an end, something she must be doing to get one over on him somehow. He's completely and totally wrong of course but this small thought process fits his character really well! There's so much I could say about just this part if I were better at wording things, but ye, I just love this!

His head arose at the sound, blinking a few times to squint at her, as though he couldn’t tell if he’d actually woken up yet. “... You’re back?” 

“Well, yeah, obviously.” She replied, hoisting her haul against the bars of the cage. “If it took threats of violence to get ridda me, I’d’ve just left ya trapped in Diet Cola Mountain.”

Completely baffled, he just stared at her, slack-jawed. She really was a lot stupider than he initially thought.

This part I really like because I think it's another short but effective way to show how his thought process is going to develop about the situation. He keeps seeing her nice gestures as her being foolish and dumb, which I think will let his guard down more as time goes on and he sees this more and more as "oh she'll be EASY to manipulate" even though Vanellope is actually smart and knows full well to be wary of him, and he just can't process how her kindness does not equal stupidity, so his flawed world view there is pretty much setting himself up for failure if he misleads himself into thinking she's a lot dumber than she actually is (That is, if I'm reading into that part correctly. Mayby I'm overthinking a little bit there. xD Bad at wording things)

She shot a snarky look his way. “Also, you literally tried to kill me in Rainbow Lane, I don’t think you have much room to judge, there.”

He looked as though he were about to object, took a second to think about it, then shrugged in a surprisingly nonchalant manner. “True.”

Vanellope rolled her eyes before continuing on her original tangent. “So, what, d’you think every single other racer on the track suddenly doesn’t matter if they don’t win every single time?” When she saw King Candy open his mouth to respond, she quickly held up her hand, remembering who it was she’d been speaking to. “Actually, don’t answer that.” 

And this part I don't have much to say about I just like because it's funny xD

Brb, gotta go have a cry real quick 😭

But seriously, thank you, that's so sweet! :') I'm honestly blown away by how much people seem to be liking the fic so far, it makes me really happy that you're enjoying it! 💗 Your ask honestly just made my day, like, THIS FANDOM IS SO NICE, WHAT IS HAPPENING

It also makes me very very happy to know that people are picking up on the vibes I am putting down, thank you very muchly

And what I mean by the whole "pacing issues" thing is really just, like, there were a couple of parts that simply didn't transition between scenes very smoothly, and it comes off as a little jarring (in my opinion). I didn't have the chance to finish the edits yesterday as originally planned, but basically all I'm going to do is add a scene with Candy and Vanellope talking a little bit more before the Sinistar attack, because I feel like that part happened too quickly before they had a chance to build up a bit more of a consistent dynamic, and I'm also going to add a scene before Candy tries to attack her to show his anger growing a bit more naturally, as I feel like that part was glossed over a little too much. Like, he went from "I'm going to bide my time and wait for an opportune moment" to "Actually f#@% everything I'm going to stab this child right now" without exploring his worsening emotional state enough, lol. Those were really the only two issues that were bothering me about it. Like I know it's not the HUGEST deal, but I feel like I can make it better, so I wanna try, lmao

[goshen-applecrumbledore]

Roni hi hello how are you

So not to be unhinged but I have read everything on your AO3 twice in the last month (even your orphaned fics they’re also top tier as far as I’m concerned) and I’m starting to get twitchy 😂

Love your writing muchly!

Anything you’ve got on the go at the moment you can microdose us with?

Hope you’re having a wonderful day!

haha wow!! thank you very much. no praise as high as a re-read.

because you asked, here's a snippet from the John finds out fic I'm working on.

—

John wiped his face on his arm as he left the washroom and went out into the hot, wet night, the smell of baking asphalt a salve on his soul, a known entity. The Impala sat gleaming behind pump number three and John could see Dean standing by the rear, half obscured by the pump. The kid needed to quit it with the band tees, he was twenty now, but John wasn't equipped to have that conversation. Something with a collar, he'd grunt, doesn't need to be nice, just no pictures on it. Not that Dean had any trouble picking up girls. If the hickeys he regularly failed to hide were any indication, he—

Sam, too, was standing by the pump, close enough to Dean that John thought of them swimming under the dock for the first time in days. John's gait slowed without him thinking about it.

Where there'd been sun and toothy smiles under that dock, there was gloom now. Their heads were bowed, bent towards one another—Sam nearly taller now, when he cared enough to stand up straight—and Dean was rubbing the back of his neck in an anxious tell. Sam was talking fast with his hands jammed into the pockets of his jeans, and his eyes cut over to the side far enough that John could see the whites, bright in the dark.

Sam and Dean didn’t fight often, or if they did, they did it quiet enough that all John caught was moments like these: quick, tense words when they thought he wasn’t around. He had no idea what they fought about, which made him feel fucking insane if he thought about it for too long. They felt like strangers sometimes, two cagey young guys he chauffeured around the country because he didn’t have anything better to do.

He banged his hand on the hood as he went around the front of the car, and Dean jumped, which was disturbing because it meant he didn’t know John was there. Sloppy. Sam saw him the second he came out of the gas station.

[blauwu]

!PLANS FOR A SWAP AU, PLEASE READ!

!PLANS FOR A SWAP AU, PLEASE READ!

i’ve seen a few people do like clothing swaps and personality swaps of just a pair of characters before, so i wanted to challenge myself to do a full swap au with all the characters!

some of the pairs r based off of popular ships (I DO NOT SHIP ANY OF THEM PLEASE DO NOT ATTACK ME.) and some of them r just lmao lol rofl funni haha

the swap will include role, personality, clothing and probably build (as in height and such) in most cases. they’re keeping their visions :)

i wanted to see what YOU, the PUBLIC had to say about this 🫵

i got stuck on some of the swaps so i’d appreciate ur thoughts on this and if there r any i should change or any suggestions on what changes i can make between the pairs!

this will be done in stages (ie monsdadt first and then liyue and then shsiahkxhw) and it will take a long time but i want to challenge myself and i think it will be fun

this is also on HoYoLab, my username is the same (Blauwu) so u can also head over there and support it from another angle. muchly appreciated :)

thanks for reading my essay and have a wonderful day ~

[finneander]

finished dav two days ago so assorted (full spoilers for the whole game) thoughts (really long rants) under the cut

If you dont fw Lucanis's romance don't even talk to me cause you're not a real lover. That man loves Rook so much its unreal. Plus his beautiful sad baby cow eyes. you hear?

Combat is fun. Like, really fun. It only started to get repetitive by the end of the game when I had exhausted nearly all the skill points I could get and I didn't feel like getting a couple that I missed

I enjoy the gear system muchly. It feels like every armour piece is a Unique on its own, but they're not. Very good. Much better than previous games where you just pick the one with the slightly higher stat

I HATE HATE HATE THE GEAR DESIGN!!!!!! The only thing in the art direction I don't vibe with. Environments? Gorgeous. Characters? Maybe a bit too smooth and perfect but they all look great and are so expressive. The gear though.... It's all so chunky and the fabric is so thick and shapeless and textureless and so many armours just look like plastic... Don't even get me started on the weapons. I played a Spellblade in my first playthrough and all the daggers were just so... chunky and exaggerated. I think the armour and weapon design is really what makes the game's style feel so cartoony and comic-like. And I don't like calling the game cartoony. But man, the armour. I really feel like DA2 and Inquisition had peak armour design.

'Rook has pretty good reasons not to get into Blood Magic' is total BS they literally have you doing Origins Blood Magic in the Deathcaller spec they just made it fucking green. It feels like they totally wanted to add Blood Magic (as they should. its so fun and unique and interesting and sexy) but a. they didn't want to/couldn't add the reactivity needed for Rook Literally Doing Blood Magic and b. the writers have fully relegated blood magic to just being Le Evil Magic with no nuance whatsoever. Merrill and Surana I miss you. They don't even give Rook a reason for not doing blood magic. Maybe I'm reading it wrong but even the whole 'oooohhh your blood got into the ritual' shouldn't stop Rook from doing blood magic. It just gives them a connection to Solas in his cuck fade regret prison?

Not to harp on too much about blood magic but you could totally make a 'blood mage' build with the whole health/mana gimmick and I'm already brainstorming it. There's a good few items and skills for this and I'm absolutely making it highest priority.

They've completely sanded the setting down. The game is not dark at all. I will say that Dragon Age has never been a grimdark series, that's not what I'm getting at. But the tone was a lot bleaker and mature in the other games. Yes Veilguard has horrible things, the blight is bad, bla bla blah. The tone of a game is so much more than just the set pieces used. The few settings beset by blight do not make the game dark, nor does the blood or the dead bodies. That's all surface level. There are bad things happening in this game. You get told its bad. Your companions react with a line or two. You move on. Your companions go back to talking about food or whatever. The game is almost too hopeful and cheery for what is happening in it. I do agree that Dragon Age has always been about the moments of hope and levity in between all the terrible events where it seems like there's no hope. But Veilguard is all levity. In Origins, the setting was so perfectly bleak. You had lost your entire order, the Warden has already gone through whatever they went through that made them join the wardens, the game just starts in this unique position of 'There should be no hope here. There's no way you can do this'. But it's not like that, there is hope. And you travel with your ragtag group of companions and the setting seems so bleak and hopeless, you see the blight spreading, the political machinations, but there's still hope and joy with your companions. With small characters out in the world. Veilguard doesn't have a healthy enough balance of this.

To expand on my point above, the game feels less mature and not as dark because they've completely sanded down any nuance, any complex morality. The Crows got turned into Batman, shadowy, found-family freedom fighters with no real discussions on how they Bought Slaves To Train Into Assassins and how their training includes torture and they will kill you if you fail or want out. Like. Are you really scared of depicting the ASSASSINS as bad people? The Lords of Fortune are an ethical pirate faction as well, who makes sure they don't steal any cultural artifacts. This would be fine if the story gave any good reason for it, like Isabela's past experience with the Tome of Koslun, or if there was friction between Shathann who wanted to preserve these cultural artifacts safely and the rest of the Lords. But no. They're just Good Pirates! The Good Guys are helping you because they're Good Guys and you couldn't get help to save the world from anyone who's not Entirely Good. The Bad Guys are also all 100% Evil Bad guys. It's like the game doesn't want you to get confused or think critically about anything. These are the Good Guys and these are the Bad Guys. Its like that through the entire game. The Venatori and the Antaam are just reduced to The Evil Factions that you're fighting against with your Good Factions. Couldn't even give me a crumb of interesting Qunari political schemes? The Butcher was the closest thing to that and it felt so shoehorned in and underdeveloped because he was so unutilised. He's mentioned a few times at the start of the game and then you fight him near the end. Thats it. For the rest of that the Qunari occupation in Treviso is just faceless evil guys. Each of the companion storylines also has a Clear Evil Guy that you need to help them take down, and it just makes their stories kind of... uncompelling. Like they have a character arc they go through, like Emmrich's fear of death and his desire for lichdom, that feels underdeveloped in favour of you Taking Down The Bad Guy together, and then after you Take Down The Bad Guy, you deal with their underlying character arc in a simple binary choice and it just doesn't feel earned.

I think one thing that the game nailed though was the aftermath of Minrathous if you chose to save Treviso instead. I played a Shadow Dragon and walking through Minrathous, seeing what the Venatori had done, Neve and Tarquin's reactions to you coming back, finding Lorelei's body (and after reading the codex entry on her!! Which states she was one of the elves sold by Loghain in Origins!! which personally hit harder for me because I hc'd my Rook as also being one of those elves and because I'm so attached to my Tabris and the Denerim elves). I think all of that was great. I do think they should've let a Shadow Dragon Rook be more devastated by that. Like, it is my city too. And nobody's asking me how I'm taking that? They also don't give you the option to retort to Neve about it when she gets upset at Rook for not caring about Minrathous which kinda annoyed me. But after that? Slowly building your relationship with Neve back up and earning her trust again as a Shadow Dragon? That felt so rewarding for me.

Act 3 is definitely the strongest. When I said earlier that this game isn't dark, Act 3 feels like the saving grace. It's so good. So raw and emotional. I felt stressed and worried, and it just nailed the tone. It was so strong. Debating which of your companions to send where, seeing the effects of your choices, THE WALK THROUGH SOLAS'S REGRET PRISON!!! It was perfect. I felt like I'd fucked up and I LOVE that feeling.

Personal gripe. I wish we got Minrathous proper instead of Docktown. Like, what was shown back in 2020. Thinking back on it, that trailer has such a different vibe to Veilguard? It's kind of odd.

There's a lot of moments where it feels like there was supposed to be more but there wasn't. You can definitely feel the game's development cycle made an impact here. A lot of the writing feels like a first draft that was meant to be fleshed out but wasn't. A lot of missed opportunities to do more.

New bullet points cause I hit the limit:

WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE SOUTH IS RAZED AND IN RUINS AND DENERIM HAS FALLEN AND YOU'RE TELLING ME THIS IN A CODEX ENTRY. IN A LETTER? ALL MY FAVOURITE PEOPLE AND PLACES ARE THERE. FROM THE PAST THREE GAMES. AND THEY GET A CODEX? AND NOBODY CARES? IT'S NOT EVEN MENTIONED BY HARDING? ARE YOU SERIOUS?

Please actually let me pick what I'm saying. I didn't mind so much because the auto-dialogue managed to fit my image of Rook this time but I can tell this is going to get annoying in future playthroughs. I don't want to play the same character in slightly different flavours.

BioWare the day you stop with your paraphrasing is the day I die happy. Please. Sometimes it is just Not Clear At All that that is what that line actually is and the tone icons just mean nothing at times. Please I am begging you.

All in all. I think BioWare should be proud of this game. It released in a great state. It's solid. The gameplay is great. It's a good Action-RPG. It's a mediocre Dragon Age. I've seen that sentiment a lot and it feels like the best way to describe it. The game feels so disjointed from other Dragon Age games, it's so clearly meant to be a soft-reboot, major lore revelations are just kinda explained by your group at the round table and brushed over like they never happened... Sigh. 7.5/10. You could've been amazing.

[brisquad-unit-4402]

idk if you've seen this on twitter but there's an art meme for a winter date that's going around and i thought you might like this

https://vxtwitter.com/uhlillie/status/1731976332467163338

also, thank you so much for your writing! i'm a bit of a lurker but i just wanted to stop by and tell you that in pursuit to and from the sun is my favourite work of yours. that fic solidified my love for luca because i'm so in love with your characterisation of him so much. i love the subtlety of the other unintentionally ignoring him and it's just... really good? it's a favourite trope of mine for characters who need support just not being listened to (and not saying anything) and the consequences of that is always wonderful.

in any case, thank you very much for writing what you write! please do take care of yourself, esp in these trying times (finals, work, holiday obligations, etc)!!

it might be bc i just went silly mode on the $5 dollariest cup of coffee i've ever had, but anon i need you to understand i let out the heftiest most tone-accurate y i p p e e ! known to man the second i read the luca thing

and also AUUUUGH. TAICHOUUUUUUU. UUEEEEUEUEU EUE E he's so cute i need to punt him into the sun

anyways YESSSSS i mean it i do i do! i love when people pick up on how luca behaves and is treated in that fic i do! i don't know if i'll stop being proud of it, even once my writing ability and subtlety improves. ik it's not a great literary classic or anything but i love when i make my writing, fanfic especially, have more depth than initial read. especially since i'm an x reader blog. especially especially when i put aside the time to write big chonky fics like in pursuit.

in a way you could say the bit about the rest of luxiem + reader treating him like an inanimate object to be protected is an allegory for fans babying the livers since that was a thing when i began drafting that fic. cool if you do cool if you don't. ultimately the way i neglected to write his character is a reflection of how the rest of the cast neglected to actively listen to him. i ended up writing a digetic narrator—an unreliable one!—before i learned what diegetic even means lol

i guess you could say that's one of the reasons why it's your favorite trope! because it forces the reader to explore why the lack of attention to these characters causes them to become the way they are, and then analyze the fallout to the cause; especially when the rest of the cast is caught unawares that they haven't been acting as good as they thought. that tends to become inevitable regardless if the author intended it to be a part of the narrative. or, like, not, i'm not here to tell you what to like about your favorites, that's up to you. i think it's times like these where it gets a little too obvious that i'm not a criminal justice graduate like the rest of my colleagues in vsf.

i think i should stop talking before one of the higher-ups can identify which private has been using the computers for rpf again.

a great big thank you anon. i had to go have a big happy yell bc this ask was so sweet and thoughtful. be safe as well! and happy and at your best this winter! i appreciate you muchly

[crownedinmarigolds]

Khloe, 24

Oughhh an interesting question I have considered muchly...! Thank you for asking!

#24 - What is an alternative life path your OC might have gone down? How different would their life be if they'd made those decisions? Khloe was hit by a car driven by a delirious and wounded Ventrue Anarch one night coming home from visiting her mother who lives out of state. The Ventrue Lena Broussard felt extreme guilt for killing an innocent and tried her hand at siring - then promptly called the local unaffiliated-with-the-Camarilla clean up crew (ran by the Thinblood revolutionaries) to basically Moses the fresh Embrace into the arms of the Duskborn. A move she no doubt thought would be very cool and smart of her to do. BUT WHAT IF SOMEONE ELSE GOT HER FIRST? Ignoring avoiding the vampire lifestyle all together - Khloe may have been taken to the Anarch rebellion early had Lena cared enough to do so. She may have been taught properly the ways of the Ventrue clan and vampirism, know more about the local politics and Lena's ACTUAL plans for her. She could've been an agent for the Anarch's to infiltrate either the Camarilla or Thinbloods and play a long and dangerous game where she would eventually make the Rebellion a reality and become the Duskborn Baron! This is still a possibility, though Khloe has made herself clear on where she stands many times throughout the story: I'm Duskborn - and I don't like the way any of these Fullbloods I've met have treated me. Khloe also could have been picked up by the Camarilla, freshly made after a Sabbat Schism where a Bishop declared praxis. If Lena had indeed been tailed by the Cam and whatever mess she left behind was still there for them to find, Khloe could've easily been brought in front of the Prince or Sheriff and brought into the fold. While this Cam was originally Sabbat and they actually have a more neutral - even positive - view of Duskborn, she would still be branded and essentially enslaved to them. Her relationships with the people she loves now would be twisted and different, and the trust that the Stakebait Coterie shares now certainly could not happen - or would take FOREVER to happen - in the Camarilla or Anarch alternate paths.

In terms of the love she has now and the friendships she's made - Khloe is in the best universe possible. As for power and general knowledge of the world around her... she's probably in the worst one. She's ignorant - but she has community! Ah thank you for asking this was fun!

[flickering-nightfall]

Hey I just wanted to say I love your art style, partly bc I feel like it validates my own. I've always thought of myself as more of a writer and not so much an artist, but I've slowly picked up digital sketching over the past couple years and have been dealing with feeling self conscious about my inability to do much with shading. But then seeing your art in the Hey Ya video and then on your blog and how SO GODDAMN GOOD it looks *without* shading makes me feel like I don't need to be sth I'm not while learning and developing my own style. So thank you for inspiring ppl like me and keep on being a rockstar!!

Oh thank you muchly ;; Hard for me to think of what to say here but. I'm really glad that helped you.

I'm sure you've heard it all before, but everyone's got their own skill level and learning pace in different areas and all. And sometimes it just takes time and persistence for something to click. Like a new technique or brush/program/layer setting or some other kind of artistic revelation. I've definitely been dissatisfied with aspects of my own art. Reveling in your love of drawing, focusing on what you like about your art, and drawing what you love are all great ways to get past that. So I think you've got a good way at looking at it!

I'm still trying to improve my digital painting skills myself - I'm happy with the progress I've been making, but I hope one day I can get to the level I see that some other people have achieved~

Thanks again, and good luck on your art journey ^^