#i literally wrote this in one sitting

[thomine]

beneath the surface : xiao

pair: xiao x reader info: general audiences, sport injuries, past experiences of drowning, modern au, intentionally lowercase, not proofread

summary: your love for diving is tested, and xiao doesn’t make quitting easy either.

word count: 1.1k words series: day 1 of au august 2023 / prompt: sports links: work tag

“watch,” the sports anchor says as the crowd at the olympic hall hushes. 

you shut your eyes and take a deep breath. this isn’t just any ordinary diver—it’s olympic diver xiao from liyue. he broke as much bones as he did for records in diving. this is a chance you don’t want to miss, yet seeing him wobble his weight on the flimsy board makes your palms sweaty.

you can feel the tension of the board beneath you, experience the rush of air as he leaps. you are no foreign to the procedure as a diver yourself.

breath hitched in your throat, you lean forward as he does his twist and jumps, but before he can rip the water, you find yourself victim to fear. you close your eyes and cover your ears. the audience roars. only then do you release that breath you held, and watch in awe as xiao’s dark hair breaks through the water’s surface.

shamefully, you look down, avoiding the heavy gaze of your coach that brought you here to teach you a lesson, one you know but find hard to execute.

thinking about it attracts pain in your knees to return. you press them together, a hand over your right knee as your fingers graze over the scar.

“graceful, isn’t he?” your coach says, arms crossed. “to think he had an ankle sprain a few weeks before this dive.”

you nod slowly, unsure what you should say. you can’t promise your coach anything, not when you’ve yet to win your fears.

it’s uncomfortable to hear him remain quiet as the background cheers. the announcer releases xiao’s marks. no surprise he jumps to first place.

“i need to use the washrooms,” you mumble, placing your items down. your coach barely gives you any form of acknowledgement as his eyes are fixed on xiao who does a bow before heading off.

finding an abandoned spot beside the toilet behind the hub, you sit on the floor.

sigh.

you wear your hoodie up, pulling its strings so the edges cover your face.

the longer you stall the harder it is for your body to return. your coach was right that you had to make your decision now.

you do love diving, but when you tore your ACL, the months in the hospital were a perfect place to begin reflecting if you’re willing to do it again.

and you did, but you didn’t love diving to the extent you’d go through such pains a third time. 

your career, although amounting to nothing compared to xiao’s, was still something, and your coach had faith if you pushed past this mental barrier as all divers do with the waters before their dive, then you’d go big.

“bigger than xiao?” you asked once.

“of course not,” the coach said. “you can’t even go through an ACL tear twice, you think you can experience it 5 times?”

a slap to the face, but a little reassuring that you wouldn’t dethrone your idol. 

something cold touches your hoodie and wets it. you bring it down to give whoever who messed with you a strong glare, only to meet with amber eyes and familiar mess of dark hair.

it’s a sports drink, fresh from the vending machine a few meters down. xiao’s holding it, arms outstretched towards you.

“… thank you,” you mutter as you take it.

“how’s your knee?” he asks, arms in his pockets. he changed from his swimsuit to his casual clothes fast.

“the news really loved covering it, huh?” you quip as you open the bottle, the fizz of the drink rising.

xiao doesn’t respond to your commentary. just stares, patiently waiting for a reply.

“well, uh,” you add after trying not to be awkward in the silence he brings, “i guess it’s fine. sometimes it feels like i tore it again while doing small tasks, but the doctor inspected it and said it’s healing fine. how’s your ankle?”

he balances his weight on the healthier ankle, then gives his left a twirl.

“it’s recovering.”

“have you ever thought of taking a break?” you ask out of the blue, although this question has haunted you for months. “even with new injuries, you never seem to stop.”

xiao takes the empty spot beside you. it’s crazy to see him so close. the last this happened was when you first tore your ACL at the Olympics. you almost drowned if it wasn’t for him jumping into the waters the moment he noticed something went wrong.

he was also nice enough to volunteer going with you to the hospital. throughout the ambulance ride, he held your hand and told you tips to bear with the pain.

“i don’t know what i’d do if i wasn’t diving,” he answers, voice barely there. “the pain becomes an afterthought soon enough.”

before you can question him further, he stands and makes his leave.

can you see yourself doing anything other than diving?

yes, you can. you have dreams of opening a little cafe at one point in your life. there’s also that dream of using the money earned from diving to travel the world. you can’t be diving forever, right?

head in hands, it dawns on you how isolating xiao’s fame is. to think he has nothing he can look forward to after his career as a diver… it was depressing.

“xiao!” you call out impulsively before his figure disappears. when he turns to you, you find yourself lost for words. would it be out of your place, a mere fan whom he so happened to have exchanged a few words on certain occasions, have any right to say anything? 

his dreams; his passions; who he is beyond diving? they are questions that bog your mind every time your eyes land on him. who is the boy behind the poster and newsletter and whatever the news make him out to be?

you fiddle with the ends of your hoodie. time is slipping away yet the words don’t co-operate.

there are too many things to say—

“i owe you two,” you settle in the end.

he looks at you confused.

you raise the drink, then add, “plus, that time you accompanied me to the hospital. after my… accident.”

he nods.

“diving is a dangerous sport,” he says. “if you don’t have to means to bear with the pain behind a diver’s elegance, then don’t. it is not worth.”

and he leaves. you’re alone with the drink and his advice.

it pushes you oh so gently to your preferred answer to your coach, but something tells you that you need to brace whatever impact this career will bring to your weary body if you want the opportunity to repay him what he did to you.

you gulp down the drink like fuel, readying yourself to face your coach who’s probably looking for you right now.

will you regret this?

author's note: first post for au augst! not my best work but i think about this au occasionally. i just think it's so fitting for xiao considering his gameplay and the nature of diving.

[yume-fanfare]

gentle rejection

[sctumsempra]

going insane and i need to infodump about severus snape’s patronus being a doe for a second. i personally don’t think it changed, or lily necessarily influenced it- i think it’s always been a doe, casting the charm in dumbledore’s office was meant to show that he and lily were supposed to be viscerally aligned with each other and he knows he fucked it up and that’s why he’s spent almost two decades trying to atone for what he did. on a representative level, the doe symbolizes peace, protection, and innocence, and no three words could possibly represent severus snape more.

all he wants is peace: a peaceful life for himself, a peaceful world, a peaceful school. everything he’s ever done has been to create as much peace as possible. some of it can be considered misguided from a black and white moral standpoint, but it’s what created peace for himself. for example, aligning himself with the purist views of his housemates made him less of a target for bullying- he’s not a pure blood, and they’d know, and having powerful ambitious students on your side instead of alienating yourself from everyone means you have at least a semblance of protection from harm some of the time. he becomes a double agent for dumbledore to help bring about peace from voldemort’s reign. it might not have been peaceful for him per se, but it was still with the intention of peace in some form. he tries to give other people peace- he takes a vow with narcissa to protect her son because she’s crying and scared for him, and it gives her peace. he doesn’t throw draco under the bus to save his skin when voldemort accuses him of being the elder wands owner, giving draco and narcissa peace even if they weren’t aware. it’s either for himself, or for others.

he’s the most protective teacher at the school- would mcgonagall have thrown herself in front of three kids facing a wolfsbane-less werewolf? would flitwick take the burden of an unbreakable vow to protect draco malfoy from voldemort? would any of the DADA teachers have run towards the sound of a screaming woman? he consistently vows to protect everyone and everything he can. and, leading into his innocence, when he realizes he’s only been protecting harry for him to die, it breaks him.

he’s not necessarily innocent in that his hands are clean and he’s never done anything wrong in his life, but he’s innocent in that he’s naive. he trusted voldemort enough to be drawn into the death eaters, he trusted dumbledore enough to be manipulated into his bidding. it feels like he forgets that dumbledore screws him over constantly, dangles things in front of him and takes them away, makes crude assumptions, and has left him to fend for himself essentially their entire relationship. the times that dumbledore abandons him- physically, mentally, metaphorically- he gets very upset. like it’s new information to him that dumbledore treats him like shit. from an abuse perspective, he probably had to spend his childhood mentally erasing what his parents and home were like so he could feel safe and normal, so the constant ebb and flow/back and forth of his and dumbledore’s relationship is familiar to him. when dumbledore draws him back in with whatever method, he’s right back to behaving as dumbledore wants, doing what dumbledore wants, and believing what dumbledore believes. the times that he remembers that dumbledore doesn’t care that he let the guy who’s tried to kill him or assault go, or that dumbledore thinks he wants only lily saved because he desires her romantically or sexually, or that dumbledore has only been using harry and, by extension, him (as he’s been the one protecting harry) to play the long game of destroying voldemort are the times that he’s emotional in the books. he cries, he’s vulnerable, he raises his voice, he begs and he pleads and he defers. he doesn’t do that any other time, other than when he found harry watching his memories. he trusts and he forgives (or he forgets, or he feels safer pretending he doesn’t care what’s been done to him/how he’s been treated.) a doe is perfect for him. reducing it to something like tonk’s patronus being changed as soon as she’s in a relationship with lupin or that it’s only a doe because of lily evans completely erases his entire way of thinking and behaving and being.

also, in a self indulgent addendum, it’s a very feminine animal, and severus is consistently aligned with femininity. hermione calls the half-blood prince’s writing feminine. he wears his mother’s clothes as a child, and lupin encourages neville to dress his boggart as his grandmother. he’s quiet and docile and tries to be non-violent unless he’s pushed to his breaking point, and even then it’s screaming or crying or getting animated. he’s emotional and frequently painted as hysterical. he gets the “woman character treatment”: to the average viewer who doesn’t think about him long enough to understand otherwise, he only desires lily. the consensus is that he chases her, he only thinks about her in the context of attraction. the line about looking at her greedily is constantly understood to be lust, and not a desire for love or a desire for a peaceful relationship for once in his life (and a relationship that only ever seems to be platonic at that). he even backs off and all but disappears from her life when he’s asked to, while james (the one with the stag patronus, the classic triumphant male character) harasses her and pursues her and behaves in a way that makes his son decades later wonder if he forced lily into a relationship. he’s behaviorally aligned with what femininity in the eyes of misogyny is supposed to be. he keeps to himself, he’s quiet, he sacrifices every bit of himself for students and coworkers and superiors and expects nothing in return, he pushes his students to be the best they can. (i’d say nurtures with my whole chest, but as the narrative comes from harry, we can’t really be sure. in my view, his house won the house cup for several years in a row which was only interrupted by dumbledore awarding a fuck ton of points to his gryffindor prize pony, his classes are seen as high performing and advanced by even dolores umbridge of all people, he only tries to punish students albeit a bit violently after several attempts of getting them to understand why what they did was wrong, which seems to be pretty nurturing in comparison to what other teachers allow and do). whether he’s trans, or had been influenced more by eileen, or he was intended to be deeply complex and contradictory and that meant that he had to have these traits, or any other of the multitude of reasons for snape being an inherently feminine character, it’s there. his patronus wouldn’t be a stag, he wouldn’t be anything overbearing and he wouldn’t be anything aggressive. it doesn’t make sense with his soul and his personality and his life. the peaceful protective innocent/naive doe, however, does.

[total-drama-brainrot]

Alenoah Week 2024: Day 3 - "TDWT Ending Rewrite"

The trek to the top of the volcano was, in layman's terms, agonizing.

Searing heat, somehow simultaneously swelteringly humid and suffocatingly dry, blistered at every inch of Noah's exposed skin and burned through his lungs like hot coals with every laboured breath. The sweat that would've been dripping from his exhausted body like a faulty faucet didn't even have the opportunity to form into pearl-shaped droplets before it evaporated against the overwhelming force of just how fucking hot it was.

And yet he'd made it.

He'd gotten there first, too.

Noah had somehow managed to out-slither the slippery fiend whilst the two were stumbling across the skipping stones of a lava lake, despite the weight of his pineapple dummy causing him to falter after almost every step.

The maw of the volcano bubbled and spat embers at his feet, just a few measly inches from the cynic himself. It was time to end it; the competition, the show, his… rivalry with Alejandro.

As if the mere thought of the Spaniard had somehow summoned him, Noah heard the tell-tale clicking of heeled boots against rock behind him quickly followed by harsh, laboured panting (not nearly as desperate as his own wheezing, but a far cry from the womanizer's usual composure). Alejandro's ponytailed hair rose from the plateaued peak of the volcano, followed by a pair of thick eyebrows furrowed against sweat-sheened skin, then a pair of furious sage green eyes- and sage was the most appropriate description Noah could think of, since they burned with a competitive fire comparable to the all-encompassing heat around them.

"It's over, Alejandro. I have the high ground."

Noah's voice was a hoarse, painful rasp, though whether it was from its unbearable dryness or the tenseness of the situation, he wasn't sure. He stood firmly at the edge of the volcano, searing light illuminating the edges of his form like a foreboding halo as he held Pinealejandro almost covetingly in a bridal carry, hovering the dummy over the scorching cavern of its imminent demise.

Alejandro- the human one, not the pineapple one- continued his unwavering ascent to the volcano's peak until he was but a few insignificant feet away from Noah. His shoulders visibly rose and fell with each huff of magma-scorched breath, and the barbaric snarl he bared towards the bookworm twisted his handsome features into something wild, alight with a passion that burned at white-hot as the lava below.

Then he roared.

"You underestimate my power!"

And lunged towards Noah, carelessly discarding his own pineapple dummy (comparatively twiggier and more feeble looking than Noah's own) as he cleared the space between them in the blink of a cinder-dusted eye.

"I will not lose to someone as infuriating as you!"

Before he could process what was even happening, Noah found himself scooped away from the edge of the volcano and lifted a few extra meters off of the ground, held victoriously above the latino in an overhead lift like he was some sort or glorified barbell. The shock of which inadvertently caused him to drop his own dummy, sending the construct tumbling into the bubbling, gaping chasm below until it plunged into the awaiting magma with a barely audible 'plop'.

For a brief tension-paused moment the two remained eerily still, almost frozen in place with disbelief (an impressive feat, considering it was far too fucking hot for anything to freeze atop the volcano).

Well.

That was that, then.

…It was sort of anticlimactic, really. Noah was almost disappointed.

"Um," The bookworm began, quickly schooling his surprise at being lifted and brandished like a javelin into his usual apathetic countenance, "Are you going to put me down, or…?"

Noah's enquiry was met a bark of high pitched laughter, a sound so entrenched in sardonic humour it was practically swimming in animosity.

"Ah, but Noah," Alejandro preened indulgently, as if he were speaking to a small child, and his snarl curled into a manic grimace. The archvillain's eyes were widened to their extreme, dying wisps of ember light flickering across his gaze which trailed from the waifish nerd held above his head to the boiling magma below.

"I still have a dummy to discard of."

In other words,

THROW THAT TWIG

INTO THE VOLCANO!!!

[visenyaism]

i'm desperately interested in your lannister in the walls symbolism essay if that's something you would like to share

you know what i would. like all my summer 2022 notes app archival material it is both deranged and very informal. but i had just read cersei i affc for the very first time and i was convinced i was cooking something up. Here’s the intro the rest of it is under the cut so it’s not a scrolling nightmare:

so my like big tinfoil theory ab this so far is that the walls and tunnels of kings landing represent like the cataclysmic institutional rot that will destroy the city because said rot is also the truth of it. The little birds who convey the truth to varys while also representing how fucked up this place is because they’re child servants with their tongues cut out. Also like how the doom of valyria was in its walls because the enslaved were literally in there and bc that evil was institutional. Also like the rot that consumed tywin lannister whole cause he’s kings landing in microcosm or whatever. the doom of kings landing is quite literally in the walls cause of the wildfire, and because it’s wildfire it is also LITERALLY the doom of valyria. Just like the Doom was a lot of fireworks but it’s real downfall was the true extent of its rot filling every space in the walls and under the empire, the walls and tunnels of KL are also the Lannister Cognitive Dissonance Basement.

Tywin’s Hypocrite Tunnel reveals the truth of who he was the entire time. Tyrion learns the worst truth of his life in the tunnels, and then comes up thru the Hypocrite tunnel to kill his dad and also he decides to be evil while he’s down there because he thinks that’s the truth about himself, that the rot is also his. But that’s like our mini doom of valyria, that everything tywin hated about himself as well as the people he wronged he shoved underneath the city until it came up and explosively killed him.

Cersei starts her flop for crows arc by in tandem refusing to go into the tunnel or think abt its purpose while refusing to acknowledge any of her father’s flaws. The Tyrion in her head that’s taunting her about being in the walls is the same voice that’s confronting her abt the truth she is repressing abt her father. She knows her doom is in the walls and under the city, but she thinks it’s tyrion when actually it’s the threat of every single truth she has ever repressed to form her delusional worldview coming back to destroy her (the truth that the rot is hollow and pursuit of tywin’s kind of power means nothing but self destruction and also that her mirror was the one who might kill her and not the brother she thinks is different from her in every way). I dont think shes going into the walls until it’s time for her to blow the city up tbh. apocalypse!!!!

Side note: the tyrion in her head being cersei especially is so. like for the past three books we have been told that cersei lannister’s main trait is her pride and vanity. and then you get to her first POV and it’s immediately clear that everything she hates about herself, her father, and the world she attributes to tyrion and everything she likes about herself she assigns to something she inherited from her father, something jaime should be, or both. queenhood and womanhood and her own body are just coffins her family has stuffed her in to fit their own needs. For cersei, the body is a construct just like the Red Keep is, and it is a prison!!! it’s the cage they kept the lions in under Casterly!!! The power she’s constantly chasing after is just the ability to be taken seriously in her own right, respected as a person and not a woman (which to her are antonyms). What presents as her pride and vanity from the outside is actually just a constant battle against the reality that cersei lannister doesn’t really exist because she has absolutely no stable sense of identity and is just as empty as the rest of her family!!!!

Back to the walls: Jaime has a running theme where he can only speak or think the truth if he’s underground, like harrenhal bath moment or taunting catelyn abt bran and the incest in the riverrun dungeon or telling tyrion about tysha in the black cells or his dream in the cave with brienne where he’s like it’s dark out so i can tell the truth abt her being a beauty and a knight. It’s the same with the tunnels. He starts HIS flop for crows arc going in first to the Tywin Hypocrite Tunnel, and has to confront the truth that he doesn’t actually know his brother like he thought he did, or his sister, or his father, or himself really. Also that he’s kind of responsible for their father’s murder. ALSO he finds a dragon mosaic that he thinks is rhaegar, telling him “I know you, kingslayer.” He has SO many repressed truths come up in this tunnel, but he just comes out and is like lol who knows what’s down there not me whoever did this could still be down there look out.

Not that it would’ve been smart to tell Cersei the truth, but it definitely indicates that during Jaime’s feast arc he will not be confronting anything unpleasant because he doesn’t want to. Pushing the truth of yourself away and into the walls and under the city means you can be somewhere (the red keep) without really being there at all, which I think is the connection to Jaime’s dependence on dissociation and going away inside and his relationship to institutions. The details of why he didn’t say anything about the wildfire aren’t super clear but I think him hunting the pyromancers but leaving wildfire in the walls is representative of the fact that on some level deep down he believes in false knighthood, that you really can solve institutional rot if you are Good, if you do enough Heroic Sword Violence to the right people. Lady Stoneheart is in a cave or something I think so that’s his big underground inability to repress anymore-related downfall looming.

So anyway TLDR: Cersei’s right, there’s something those walls and under the city that’s going to destroy them all. It’s not tyrion lurking, but like the irrepressible truth that the rot and evil at the heart of the red keep has eaten it whole, and that the Lannister legacy and conception of power propped up by violence and intimidation is just hollow. That’ll get them because that singular truth is enough to crumple everyone’s self-concept and is too much to overcome even with the Lannister dedication to cognitive dissonance. Which is why I think Cersei blows it up when she gets to the point where she cannot lie to herself abt shit anymore. If twow drops and actually joncon ends up starting the Great King’s Landing BBQ of 301 AC i actually didn’t say any of this😌

[wawawawawawawawawawawawawa]

haha hey remember that whole speech izaya gave to masaomi about how his guilt over getting saki hurt "will be [his] god" and how it mirrors izaya's role in shinra's stabbing and how he STILL has nakura under his thumb because of it, partly because of his own guilt in the matter. haha did you know that if youre unaccustomed to feeling guilt for whatever reason- either you repress it constantly or just straight up can't feel guilt- when you DO end up feeling it full-force, you have absolutely no coping skills in place to deal with it because.... well... when have you ever? when could you have learned? haha did you know that this can lead you to repressing guilt even further because of how distressing the act of Feeling It is?

haha do you ever think about izaya- not the person himself but his name, a different reading of "rinya," named after the biblical isaiah, his father a Christian, growing up in a religion that heralded guilt as not only an absolver of oneself but as a necessity to eternal life? do you ever think about how growing up seemingly unable to feel guilt would do to someone in this environment? this horrible feeling as you realize you lack the inate ability to feel something so crucial to life, to the afterlife? to being remembered? to continuing on? and what happened the first time he ever felt guilt over something? he was just a child, dealing with an emotion he'd never felt before- did he repress it? it seems like he did. imagine trying to repress guilt then feeling more guilt over your repression of it, because not being able to feel it is one thing but actively turning away from it is another, but god, it hurt, and you have sisters to feed and a life to live and hurt compounding in on itself and you know human beings have limits and you can't go on feeling guilt and reach yours. you have sisters and they need you and you know you would never shed your cowardice long enough to kill yourself, so whatever hell you were in, you'd be stuck there, so best not make it worse.

you can go through your life thinking that your lack of guilt was because you don't really do anything that necessitates guilt- you don't do much of anything at all, really, you just watch, but then you meet a boy and you do things and you do more things and a floodgate opens and things get riskier and riskier and your only friend gets stabbed and that, that necessitates guilt and it comes in droves- overwhelming, horrible, and you're completely unequipped to deal with it.

you know you're rotten, now, but there's nothing you can really do about it. so you continue on being rotten and repressing any guilt you feel because the thrill of doing what you do outweighs the guilt anyway, and it's not like you can stop- not like you want to stop, more like, because you're in control of everything. and most of all, you're in control of yourself. and all the while that guilt lingers behind you.

watching.

judging.

you may have become an athiest but you've created your own god, ready to condemn you to your own Hell.

isn't that funny?

[the-kr8tor]

It is done

[seventh-district]

7am, eating cold leftover teriyaki stir-fry for breakfast and crying over blorbos

[skitskatdacat63]

Boy King AU | Vettonso + Martian | 1.3k

There's something about putting the future emperor of the Holy Realm on his knees like this. About how easily he goes, how willingly, how obediently. What would his adoring public think if they could see him now. If they saw their beloved king pressed down like this, in the cramped space between Fernando's legs. When they realized their little boy king took it like he was a little concubine instead. 

Fernando's bitterness is lifted away in moments like these, like taking off a heavy cloak on a winter's day. It was hard to feel humiliated about his own situation when watching Sebastian debase himself like this. 

He always gives himself up so easily. When Fernando threaded his fingers through his thick curls. When he pulled them, and then when he pressed his face down further down into the vee of his legs.  Sebastian rubbed his cheek into the coarse fabric of Fernando's breeches and blinked up at him. Fernando had to smother an embarrassing sound; he was just like a little cat!

Sebastian quirked his lips up into an odd little smile and slightly rose up on his knees, "What's funny?" Fernando swallowed lightly and schooled his face back into being impassive, "Nothing. As you were." Sebastian simply smirked at him and let himself be pushed back down by the fist clenched in his hair. 

Fernando scoffed internally, there was only so much pleasure in putting the other man in his place when he instead acted like this, this degrading action, was his birthright. He took to ruling and indulging in carnal pleasures as if they were of equal gravity. To be privileged to hold such high station and also let himself be taken apart like this…Fernando felt embarrassed for him.

He is dragged away from his musings when Sebastian moved to settle his hands in Fernando's lap, clutching his hips over the fabric and slightly squeezing; Fernando fought against the urge to shiver. Sebastian pushed up the skirt of Fernando's waistcoat and smoothed his hands over the opening flap of his breeches.

His eyes darted up at Fernando again, a daft smile on his face. Fernando scowled at him, "What?" Seb's grin sharpened, "You could stand to be a little more gracious. This is your future emperor, and future husband might I add, kneeling for you on this dirty, depraved, derelict- ah–" Fernando tugged on his hair again and hissed, "Well then, why don't you show me how eager you are to perform your marital duties?" 

Seb licked his lips, completely unconcerned by Fernando's annoyance, and unbuttoned one side of the closure to Fernando's breeches and moved to open the other–

The door to the carriage flew open, arrival announcement dying on a wheezing breath as the servant took in the image the two kings made. One splayed across the seat, exuding power, the other kneeled, debauched, between the former's legs. 

One would be hard pressed to determine which was higher on the totem of power and titles. 

There was something gratifying about this to Fernando, about being caught. He had been humiliated enough throughout the entire courtship, what was one more thing? And, certainly, what was one more thing if he could drag Sebastian down into the dirt with him. 

"Oh Mark, don't act so abashed! It's nothing you haven't seen before, in fact, we have been in this very position not even a fortnight ago!"

Oh. Yes. That. 

It was hard to be completely pleased when he remembered how Sebastian had already spent years prior to their engagement sampling the palace's ample selection of fellow high-born men. And how all those men seemed to be completely and utterly wrapped around his little finger.

Fernando released his hand from Sebastian's hair as if it had burned him. He did not understand why he felt ashamed with Mark looking in on them like this. Fernando was the one marrying Sebastian, not Mark; Mark was just a lowly courtier who had the esteemed duty of spending practically every waking hour with the brat…something he himself was decidedly not looking forward to. 

Sebastian stayed kneeling, staring impassively up at Mark, still fiddling with the clasp on Fernando's breeches. Fernando gritted his teeth and looked up from where he was watching Sebastian's clever little hands; Mark stared back at him placidly. 

Mark's indifference made the entire situation worse. Fernando now felt as if he was not doing anything unique, not doing anything particularly new. How many other men had Mark caught Seb with in this exact position? Fernando felt like he was just another plaything of the boy king, soon to be boy emperor, except his position was forever, permanent. He was the "Kept King", the king who only kept his throne due to the whims of a boy who doesn't even understand what power is.

Mark coughed, "Well," he says, "Your Majesty, I do believe you have a meeting to attend." Seb pouted at him and whined, "We were just getting to the main course," but still braced himself on Fernando's thighs and got up off the carriage floor. 

Seb pranced down the steps Mark had placed next to the carriage, miming tripping sown the stairs, snickering when his action made Mark reflexively reach out to grab him, and then playfully skipped off the final step. 

Fernando couldn't help but stare as Mark made the weirdest grimace in response, and he inexplicably felt all his mortification seep away from him. Huh. Maybe Mark is-

Seb then turned around and frowned at him, seemingly disappointed, but his eyes are deceivingly sharp, "Fernando, I regret to inform you that I have other duties I must attend to, you will simply have to wait." He then grinned up at Mark next to him and giggled as the other man stiffened when Sebastian looped both of his arms through Mark's. 

He leaned all his weight on the other man, Mark not so much as shifting his weight, "Oh Mark, won't you carry me back to the palace? I'm so very tired after all the horse riding," Seb looked up at him imploringly.

Fernando observed as Mark rolled his eyes and shrugged off the man, though notably not pulling his arm from Seb's grasp, and he got the distinct feeling that this exact scene had been played out countless times before. 

Fernando clenched his jaw as he watched Seb turn and saunter off, Mark trotting alongside him like a loyal dog. Fernando was supposed to be the unaffected one in this partnership, the unflustered one, the unconcerned one. And yet here he stood, in broad daylight, in a foreign kingdom, on the steps of a carriage with his breeches half unbuttoned and his cravat in disarray. 

He heard a cough from beside him, jolted and looked to the side. Sebastian's loyal Horse Master stood there, lounging against the side of the carriage. Fernando had forgotten who had even been driving the carriage in the first place. After Seb has let himself be pushed down, his hair still windswept from their ride together, everything else seemed to fade away. His thoughts were reduced only to how he could mess up the younger man's hair further. 

Jenson grinned at him wolfishly, and casually crossed his legs,  "First time?" he inquired. Fernando glared at him. The other man laughed openly at him, "What? He's a busy man with big prospects. You're not his majesty's only conquest, you know. Now your throne on the other hand…"

Fernando seethed, it was one thing to be humiliated by the future emperor, but to be patronized by the king's horse boy? No. It would simply not do. He closed his eyes in annoyance, pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaled, and prepared a speech about how he was not about to be talked down to by a man who didn't even have a throne to speak of! 

But when he opened his eyes again and opened his mouth to begin his tirade, Jenson was already wandering away to tend to the horses. Dios mío, Fernando was not mentally prepared to spend the rest of his life with all of these impertinent morons. 

[star--anon]

Gally hides a lot of his panic attacks and nightmares that he got after he went through the Changing in a desperate attempt to be liked again in the Glade

He was kind of universally hated in the books, apparently becoming extremely unlikeable after he got Stung

which is honestly so sad. What he saw drove him slightly insane and he couldn’t handle it and shut down.

[tricks-tickles]

Are You Happy?

sudden burst of inspo be like:

sorry i dropped off the face of the earth(ish) apparently im limited to three fics per fandom haha

anyway south park amirite

(also psa im bri ish so idk how american unis work so the boys r 18ish here but im p sure i didn't get anything disastrously wrong)

word count: 1459

pairing: Lee!Craig/Ler!Tweek

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Craig?” 

Tweek sat on his bed next to his boyfriend, anxiously tugging on the base of his shirt as he studied Craig’s expression. Despite being the stoic one of the two, he had a strangely tense look about him. 

“Yeah?” Craig said, fiddling with his fingers.

“Uh, are you- ACK, okay? You seem kind of n-nervous?” Tweek asked, twitching a little. 

“Oh, yeah I’m fine,” He responded, still looking at his hands, “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“GAH- uh, because of your uni-university application?!” Craig had applied to the University of Colorado’s astrophysics course and was due to hear back at some point in the coming week. Although he had the grades for the course, he wasn’t sure about his personal essay and had been internally freaking out for a while. It was Saturday now, and his nerves were at an all-time high. He guessed it was starting to show.

“No.” He said, then paused, “Yes. I’m just worried I won’t get in.” Honesty is the best policy, or whatever.

“Of course you will!” Tweek said, winking out of anxiety. “You’re the- GAHAH- smartest guy I know!

Craig hummed, digging his feet into the bed. 

“I don’t know about that…” He muttered.

“And besides! Maybe they’re just BUSY! Or running late or s-something.” He said, screwing up his face in a twitch. 

“Maybe,” Craig said, unconvinced. “You’re lucky you don’t have to worry about this.” Tweek had taken a gap year to work at his parent's shop and figure out what he wanted to do with his life. If Craig was accepted then he would follow him to Boulder, or wherever he wanted to go. Tweek was sure he’d follow Craig to the ends of the earth.

“AH- don’t mention that! It’s WAY too much pressure!”

“Right,” Craig said, “Sorry.”

Tweek twitched anxiously. He had almost no experience in comforting people and was way out of his depth. Craig probably didn’t want to talk about it, and he wasn’t sure what else to do. He gently tugged on his hair, thinking about what Craig had done for him when he was anxious. Slowly, an idea formed. 

“Craig?” He said, again.

“Yeah?”

“Um, do you want me to- ACK- cheer you up or some-something?” 

He looked at Tweek, a little bemused.

“You can try,” Craig said, curious as to what he would do.

Tweek took a careful breath in, then shuffled closer to Craig and, shivering slightly, wrapped an arm around his shoulders. Craig tensed, then sagged into his boyfriend's touch. Despite having been ‘together’ for around eight years, their relationship had only become real two years ago, and even still they were a little shy around each other. Tweek was too anxious to make the first move most of the time, and Craig had no idea how to, so they danced around each other until one of them stepped up. 

Craig had forgotten how comforting Tweek could be if he tried. When Stripe 5 had died Tweek’s hugs had been the only thing keeping him together. He sighed and shuffled closer to him, breathing in the smell of coffee. 

They stayed like that for a few minutes, until Tweek worked up the courage to enact part two of his plan. He placed his spare hand on Craig’s side and began gently tracing his fingers along his hoodie. Craig stiffened again, jumping when Tweek’s fingers twitched against him. 

“Honey, what are you dohing?” He said, stifling a giggle when Tweek’s fingers crept toward his stomach. 

“Well, you remember when- GAH- I was f-feeling anxious about nothing a few weeks ago, and you asked me if you could cheer me up? And I said yes so you started t-tickling me and you didn’t stop until you thought I was happy? And I kept- AH- saying I was happy but you were like ‘I don’t believe you, honey.’ and it t-tickled really bad? Do you remember that?” While he spoke Tweek’s other arm slipped from around Craig’s shoulders, making him squeak and slide down the bed as Tweek started pinching his side. 

“Nohoho,” Craig said, trying to bring his knees up to protect his stomach. Tweek noticed and shifted till he was sitting on Craig’s thighs to keep them down.

“No?! You don’t r-remember? It was only a few weeks ago- GAH-, you must have a pretty bad memory.”

He started scratching Craig’s stomach, making him laugh properly.

“I rehemehembeher!” He cried, his hands torn between covering his face and pushing away Tweek’s hands. He settled on tugging the flaps of his hat till it covered his eyes.

“Oh! G-good. Then you remember that- AH- you kept teasing me too? You were like ‘Does this t-tickle, babe?’ ‘How about here?’ ‘Are you having fun? You sound like you’re having fun.’. So, Craig, I want to a-ask you: are you having fun?”

“Ahahaha!”

“‘That’s not an answer, babe.’ That’s what you’d say.” Tweek said. He had to admit that he was sort of enjoying himself. Craig had tickled him, but he’d never worked up the courage to get him back. Now though, as he watched his boyfriend squirm and blush and laugh under his wiggling fingers, he understood exactly why Craig got him all the time. His laugh was somewhat monotone but it had a lightness to it that made Tweek feel all warm inside.

“Are you happy? Are you h-having fun? Do you- AH like this, baby?” He teased, drumming into his ribcage.

Craig was sure he was going to die. Tweek’s fingers were sending little bolts of lightning through his body, darting around so he couldn’t catch them. Worse, though, was the teasing. He was sure it wasn’t as bad when he did it to Tweek, his stomach was full of butterflies and his face was burning hot. Tweek rarely called him pet names, so he was sure he was about to combust. But the worst of it was that he was enjoying it. It was fun to have Tweek be so playful and close to him and to have all his anxiety chased away by his uncontrollable laughter. Not that he was going to say that to him though. 

“Are you- ERK- ignoring me?” Tweek said, grinning impishly. His fingers wiggled upwards, then lifted entirely.

Craig panted, pushing up his hat and catching his breath.

“Ihihi’m nohoht ihignohoring yohou.” He giggled.

“Then answer my q-questions, love,” Tweek said, still smiling as his fingers twitched in the air above Craig’s chest.

“Whahat were thehey again?”

“Do- AH- do you like this? Are you h-having fun?” 

“Uh,” Craig trailed off, pulling his hat down again, “Maybe…” He whispered. 

“What was that?”

“MahahABYEHEHE!! TWEEK!” He squealed at Tweek’s fingers suddenly wiggling into his underarms. Craig slammed his arms down and arched his back, trying to squirm away from the unbearable feeling. 

“Oops, I d-didn’t catch that.” Tweek said, using his pointer fingers to rub little circles into the divots of Craig’s underarms. 

“I LIKE IT! I LIHIHIHIKE IHIHIT! PLEHEHAHASE HONEY, IHIT REHEHAHALLY TIHIHICKLES!”

“And you’re happy?” 

“IHIHI’M HAHAPPY! WHEHENEHEVEHER IHI’M WIHIHITH YOHOHOUHU IHI’M SOHO HAHAHAPY!”

Tweek squeaked, blushed, and toppled off Craig, falling to the side of him. He shifted and turned to face him, where Craig had done the same.

“Do- GAH- do you mean that?” He said, shyly.

Craig took a few deep breaths, “Yeah,” He said.

He tried to adjust his hat but ended up taking it off and throwing it somewhere vaguely behind him. Instead, he leaned forward, kissing Tweek softly. 

He made a content noise and leaned a little deeper into Craig. At that same time, the doorbell rang and Craig’s mother called him downstairs.

The two boys looked at each other before racing down the stairs and stumbling into Craig’s kitchen, where his mother stood holding an envelope.

Craig took a deep breath in, crossing the kitchen and ripping it open. Tweek felt his heart hammer, nervous on Craig’s behalf. His eyes scanned the text before he closed the letter again and gently set it down on the counter. The tension was so thick you could have cut it with a knife. Slowly, he turned to face Tweek. 

Tweek’s heart sank. There were pinpricks of tears in Craig’s eyes and he was ready to offer the ultimate sympathy when a smile took over his face and he announced, in the driest, most monotone voice,

“I got in.” 

Everyone erupted in cheers. His mother, his father and sister (who had come to see what all the fuss was about,), and Tweek. 

They all rushed forward and Craig found himself crushed between all his favourite people. 

Tweek caught his gaze and smiled, his eyes glittering.

“I t-told you there was nothing to worry about. You’re the smartest guy I know.”

[antiyourwokehomophobia2]

Man, it is JOEVER.

[unnamed-atlas]

Finally finished sweet tooth s3. Having incredibly mixed feelings

[innytoes]

For the generated AUs, I got Supernatural Is Known AU + Orphanage AU ^^

Okay but Caleb Covington's Home For Extraordinary Orphans. He's not exactly evil, but after 20-plus years of dealing with everything from mermaids to were-elephants, he is Grumpy.

The Molinas always wanted a big family. Most Werewolves do. Something about a big pack just makes them happy. Not all of them turn, Julie and Victoria don't, but Rose, Ray, and Carlos do. (There have been So Many Arguments in the past about Carlos chewing on Julie's shoes.)

Except Rose found out that after her cancer, she wouldn't be able to have any more kids. They'd been trying for some time but hadn't had any more after Carlos, and now there was no more chance to have any at all. They mourn for a year, before talking it over as a family and deciding that pack is pack and they don't need to be blood related to be family. When Julie is fourteen and Carlos is ten, they finally get approved to adopt.

Victoria goes with them, if only to make sure they don't 'bite off more than they can chew'.

They meet a lot of kids, and just like Victoria expected, they want to take home Everyone. She has to be the voice of reason that no, they do not have a big enough back yard to convert into a lake to adopt that mermaid girl. And adopting Willie, the raccoon shifter, was a terribly unsafe idea because Carlos still hadn't learned to control his chasing-prey instinct. Do they not remember the ordeal with the Henderson's cat?

Eventually, Carlos and Julie come running up to their parents, dragging just about the palest young boy Rose has ever seen.

"Mami, this is Reggie!" Carlos proudly proclaims. "He likes dogs and music and pizza so he has to be our big brother."

Reggie is a sixteen year old vampire who is just grateful he got turned after he was allowed to drive. It's better than being fourteen for the rest of his (after)life, that would be rough. Oh shoot sorry Julie. It gets better, he promises.

Ray and Rose are just so charmed by Reggie and the way he naturally fell into a big brother role for Julie and Carlos that they decide yes, they will adopt a sixteen year old vampire. No they do not care that he won't age. Once he actually matures mentally into adulthood (which vampires do, just a lot slower than than humans) they will help him get emancipated.

Victoria is not there to talk them out of it. Victoria, in fact, is in Caleb's office, getting the paperwork done to adopt Willie.

("What? I said it was dangerous for him to be around Carlos until he gets his prey instinct under control during the full moon. I don't turn, my prey instinct is fine! The only thing I hunt is a good bargain.")

So they take Reggie and Willie home, and things are great. Willie and Reggie were friends at the orphanage, they get together for Family Dinners every Friday except on Full Moons, everything is great. Reggie fits in really well and admits that even before he was turned ten years ago, he didn't have a great family, so having two parents that care about him is really nice.

Except sometimes Reggie acts in a way that can't be attributed to being a vampire, or adopted, or maybe a little traumatised from spending ten years in an orphanage run by a grumpy werepanther. He zones out, and sometimes he talks to himself, or laughs at nothing. Ray and Rose love Reggie, and are fully willing to support their new son and all his quirks (Ray immediately started learning about Star Wars when he realised Reggie was obsessed), but they also want to make sure this isn't anything mental illness related that will hurt him.

So they talk about getting Reggie evaluated, about asking Doctor Turner if she has any recommendations for therapists who specialise in vampirism... But Reggie overhears them.

And then Rose overhears Reggie. Talking to himself in his room again. Except this time it's not under his breath.

"No dude, don't worry about it. I'll just... I'll make something up. I mean, you've always said that I might be autistic, maybe we can just... Nobody's going to find out and send you back, I promise."

Which is of course when Rose pushed open the door before adopting a now Very Familiar Pose to Reggie. The Mom Pose. Hands on her hips, eyebrow raised.

The boy on Reggie's bed slowly started going invisible again, and Rose pointed at him. "Don't you dare!"

He stops fading out of view. He looks to be about Reggie's age.

"Can you just turn invisible, or are you a ghost?" Rose asks. "Because if I find out you've been letting someone go hungry under our roof, Reginald, you are grounded, mister."

"I'm a ghost," the boy in the bed said. "I'm so sorry, it's just that, you were taking Reggie, and your sister was taking Willie, and they're all I have and I just couldn't stay there and I'm so so sorry..."

The more he talks the more solid he looks and Rose is not sure if that's a good thing or not, so she just interrupts him. "Right, we need to call Caleb right now."

"No, don't send him back!" Reggie said. "Send me back instead, please, you'll love Alex, he's great, he's funny and cool and he likes music and pizza too. I mean he can't eat it anymore but-"

"We're not sending anyone back," Rose promises, wrapping Reggie in a hug and hovering a hand near Alex' shoulder. "But we do have to arrange some paperwork so Ray and I don't get brought up on any kidnapping charges, alright?"

[bambino1294]

Eat Your Young

A Time Travel Fic — Playlist

? Chapters | ? Words | Rated M

“This, however, is not the same boy she reaped the first time. He is not soft and teary, he is warped and hardened. His hands are lightly bandaged, coiled rags disappearing into his sleeves, and something behind his eyes is already scarring, already scarred. This is not the same boy she sent off to a Quarter Quell but, then again, she is not the same Escort he left behind either.”

OR

The prisoners of war try again.

[thrilling-oneway]

There’s something about how a lot of project sekai fans approach found family that just. I dunno, rubs me the wrong way i guess? I feel like a lot of people are missing the point.

950 something words of me rambling like hell about frienship under the cut

Sibling HCs are very popular in this fandom and I’m not saying that’s a bad thing (i even have a couple myself) but the way people treat them is very nuclear, and agh I just really feel like you’re missing out on the nuanced platonic relationships that come with found family.

Like found family doesn’t fit conventional “nuclear family” dynamics. That’s the whole point! You can have a deep familial platonic bond with someone but that doesn’t always equate to siblings. I’m talking about this more in a fanon sense, because in game the Tenma’s and Toya consider each other like siblings, but I feel like especially on twitter people are overdoing it, for lack of a better term, with the sibling HCs.

I’m not trying to say it’s bad, have your fun HCs no one’s stopping you, but so many people I’ve seen recently where like every platonic ship they have (especially m/f ones) they consider as a sibling duo/trio/etc. And you are seriously missing the point of found family when you are building a whole extremely nuclear mum/dad/siblings dynamic between cast members. It’s all about the unconventional yet still familial bond. Found family is so good to explore because of the fact it isn’t the “default” family structure. You aren’t quite siblings or don’t have a parent/child dynamic, but you are family!!

Like just to talk about the fact that sibling HCs are something I see constantly with platonic m/f relationships as well. I know not everyone does this but so many people completely write off m/f friendship - either you are a couple or you are siblings. And maybe this is because of heteronormativity and the expectation that men and women who are friends must have underlying romantic interest in the relationship and if they don’t then they’re biologically related but maybe it’s not but still! Don’t overlook it. Normalise platonic m/f relationships they don’t need to be romantic or familial they can just be friends and I feel like this is such an underutilised dynamic in prsk fanon content, which is unusual considering it is so fucking prominent in the game particularly with VBS and WxS.

And even outside of m/f, platonic relationships of all gender combinations within the fandom are so so so overlooked. “But they’re not” okay you can’t just say “they are all besties <3” and get a pass because it feels like you have a very idealistic and blatantly unrealistic idea of how friendship works to the point it feels almost ingenuine. Like placing them all on that same level of frienship when friendship is so nuanced and truthfully you’re not gonna be that close with everyone. You grow distant from people or just never grow that close to people but these interactions can still be incredibly important even if they aren’t connected to a deep personal bond. On the other side of things you can have an extremely deep bond and close attachment to someone and it can be entirely platonic and just platonic. Not romantic not familial not queerplatonic. It’s just friendship and this game is all about platonic relationships even if it does delve into ship tease at times. Literally the theme that ties everything together is unity and friendship and community.

And this is getting offtopic from found family so I now present to you: Wonderlands x Showtime - the unit whose underlying theme is literally found family and I am willing to fight people on this. According to wikipedia (unreliable source, i know), found family is "a non-biologically related group of people established to provide ongoing social support". And while this applies to every unit in the game to some degree, it perfectly describes the WxS dynamic. Yes I know Niigo fits that definition too but their overall dynamic is a lot more centred around emotional support and some of their dynamics are still somewhat detached because of their individual situations and mental health problems. But WxS is about the social support aspect and it is staring you right in the face. Everyone in WxS was a weirdo or outcast or alone in some way but they find solidarity and a place to belong with each other. Nene was too shy and insecure to face people, Emu wanted to be taken seriously, and Rui was shunned and outcast for who he was. Tsukasa had a dream to become a star, Emu found him and hired him so she could fulfil her dream of revitalising the stage, which led to Rui being brought along and finally giving him somewhere where he was accepted, who got Nene to go with him so she could overcome her insecurities and perform again. They have each other when they don't have other people, they support each other in achieving their dreams because they share the same passion even if their goals lie on different paths. And it's just so fucking good. They aren't siblings, they aren't love interests* - they are friends. They are found family by definition and by example and it's not nuclear - it doesn't fit a familial structure at all they aren't siblings, it isn't a parent/guardian-child dynamic. It just is and that's what matters most.

Uhh I'm still bad at ending these things. Platonic relationships in Project SEKAI are important and you shouldn't water them down to fit nuclear family dynamics or idealistic expectations and accept that they have nuance and aren't always going to be perfect without flaws. Also heteronormativity bad, m/f friendship good, WxS is found family and you can anon hate me on that (also that was meant to be part of a different essay that has been in my drafts for months but the demons won).

If you made it this far congrats. I'm sorry you put yourself through reading whatever the fuck this is.

*i know a few of them have ship tease but shhhh it's not nearly as prominent as other units like MMJ/VBS anyway because guess what - the unit is much more focused on the platonic stuff. this is literally why L/n and WxS don't have as clear quote-unquote "most pushed pairings" as other units do because frienship is the main theme for those two units. this is not confirmed at all (according to colopale there is no ship tease in the game) but it doesn't take much to work out.