#i need to note that i like those ships normal amounts

[hmmmmrss]

it seems like everyday I'm obsessed with another gay ship (it IS everyday)

[asterlark]

me and den @unloneliest were just talking about murderbot and ART's relationship and i want to discuss how they quite literally complete each other's sensory and emotional experience of the world!!

there's a few great posts on here such as this one about how murderbot uses drones to fully and properly experience the world around it (it also accesses security cameras/other systems for this same purpose). but i haven't seen anyone so far talk about how once MB stops working for the company and consequently doesn't have a hubsystem/secsystem to connect to anymore (which for its entire existence up to that point had been how it was used to interacting with its environment/doing its job), after it meets ART, ART starts to fill that gap.

ART gives MB access to more cameras, systems, and information archives than it would normally be able to connect with while MB is on its own outside of ART's... body(? lol), but also directly gives MB access to its own cameras, drones, archives, facilities, and processing space. additionally, so much of ART's function is dedicated to analysis, lateral thinking, and logical reasoning, and it not only uses those skills in service of reaching murderbot's goals, it teaches murderbot how to use those same skills. (ART might be a bit of an asshole about how it does this, but that doesn't negate just how much it does for murderbot for no reason other than it's bored/interested in MB as an individual.)

we all love goofing about how artificial condition can basically be boiled down to "two robots in a trench coat trying to get through a job interview" (which is entirely accurate tbh) but that's also such a great example of ART fulfilling the role of both murderbot's "hubsystem" and "secsystem", allowing it to fully experience its environment/ succeed in its goals. ART provides MB with crucial information, context, and constructive criticism, and uses its significant processing power to act as MB's backup and support system while they work together.

from ART's side of things, we get a very explicit explanation of how it needs the context of murderbot's emotional reactions to media in order to fully understand and experience the media as intended. it tried to watch media with its humans, and it didn't completely understand just by studying their reactions. but when it's in a feed connection with murderbot, who isn't human but has human neural tissue, ART is finally able to thoroughly process the emotional aspects of media (side note, once it actually understands the emotional stakes in a way that makes sense for it, it's so frightened by the possibility of the fictional ship/crew in worldhoppers being catastrophically injured or killed that it makes murderbot pause for a significant amount of time before it feels prepared to go on. like!! ART really fucking loves its crew, that is all).

looking at things further from ART's perspective: its relationship with murderbot is ostensibly the very first relationship it's been able to establish with not only someone outside of its crew, but also with any construct at all. while ART loves its crew very much (see previous point re: being so so scared for the fate of the fictional crew of worldhoppers), it never had a choice in forming relationships with them. it was quite literally programmed to build those relationships with its crew and students. ART loves its function, its job, and nearly all of the humans that spend time inside of it, but its relationship with murderbot is the first time it's able to choose to make a new friend. that new friend is also someone who, due to its partial machine intelligence, is able to understand and know ART on a whole other level of intimacy that humans simply aren't capable of. (that part goes for murderbot, too, obviously; ART is its first actual friend outside of the presaux team, and its first bot friend ever.)

and because murderbot is murderbot, and not a "nice/polite to ART most of the time" human, this is also one of the first times that ART gets real feedback from a friend about the ways that its actions impact others. after the whole situation in network effect, when the truth of the kidnapping comes to light and murderbot hides in the bathroom refusing to talk to ART (and admittedly ART doesn't handle this well lol) - ART is forced to confront that despite it making the only call it felt able to make in that horrifying situation, despite it thinking that that was the right call, its actions hurt murderbot, and several other humans were caught in the crossfire. what's most scary to ART in that moment is the idea that murderbot might never forgive it, might never want to talk to it again. it's already so attached to this friendship, so concerned with murderbot's wellbeing, that the thought of that friendship being over because of its own behavior is terrifying. (to me, this almost mirrors murderbot's complete emotional collapse when it thinks that ART has been killed. the other more overt mirror is ART fully intending on bombing the colony to get murderbot back.)

in den's words, they both increase the other's capacity to feel: ART by acting as a part of murderbot's sensory system, and murderbot by acting as a means by which ART can access emotion. they love one another so much they would do pretty much anything to keep each other safe/avenge each other, but what's more, they unequivocally make each other more whole.

[15-lizards]

ASOIAF modern AU class/wealth distinctions bc in the wise words of Mod Sam from the Inn at The Crossroads Discord: “i love modern aus where theyre like oh yeah the lannisters are filthy rich and here's the starks, piling into a minivan to go to public school. they would not fucking do that”

Lannisters: Private jets and COO/CEO/CFO positions at the family company and plain white tshirts that cost $5000. 1% of the 1%. They’re the Roys we already know this no need to elaborate.

Starks: they’re a rugged type of Minnesota/North Dakota/Wyoming wealth. Land rich. Own ranches and mining operations and oil drilling companies. Ppl think they’re normal bc they look like average farmers until they get a tour of their 300,000 acres and private mountain. Seem down to earth but grew up breeding ranch horses, don’t really understand what a car note is, and Nedcat paid for all the starklings college apartments. Also wear normal looking vests and ranching jeans and boots that cost absurd amounts

Tyrells: masters at the “quiet wealth” bullshit. Wayyyy older money compared to the Lannisters, and aren’t aggressive/scrappy like them bc of it. Literal aristocracy like lords or barons or some shit. Multiple residences, family tradition of politics, and loads of passive income. Maybe run a newspaper or two and own some global shipping companies bc of their merchant roots or whatever. Margaery was at one of those international debutante balls for the ubër-wealthy.

Tullys: Not as rich as the Tyrells or Lannisters but still nothing to scoff at. Not upper middle class but more like lower rungs of the upper class. Family tradition of sending all the kids to boarding school (that’s where Lysa got pregnant 🙂‍↕️) and they have some nice yachts and the like. Have one really nice permanent house on the river, a summer house upstate, and an apartment in the city. Normal enough to blend in with most people at their school. Also made their money thru shipping lanes.

Martells: Southern oil barons. Nymeria emigrated over and immediately discovered oil on her apparently shitty piece of land. Thousands of acres dedicated to drilling and cattle ranching. Awful for the environment but greenwash the fuck out of their business. Good at being a man of the ppl despite literally being in the one percent. Very publicly donate to progressive charities and causes to offset the backlash they get from pay the people who work for them slave wages. People stan them on Twitter because they’re hot and not like other billionaires.

Baratheons: slightly newer money but old enough to have no excuse to act the way they do. Loud annoying displays of wealth. Made their fortune mostly because they were good at being overly aggressive when it came to the stock market or sales or smthn idk what they do. Robert buys an egregious house in Florida where him and some other rich repulsive republicans do Labor Day weekend on their yachts with women they paid to be there. Absolutely terrible at saving their money (except Stannis and kinda Renly) and quite literally have to have their accounts frozen by their investment bankers. Actively going bankrupt.

Greyjoys: Not even rich anymore. Had a sizable shipping company at one point before they got poached bought out by the Lannisters. Also they engaged in too much tax fraud and embezzlement so now no one wants to touch them with a ten foot pole. Still live in their dilapidated cliffside house that’s literally ab to crumble into the sea. Theon got to live with the Starks bc once the Greyjoys got audited Ned felt bad.

Targaryens: REAL old money that stretches back like at least 500 years. Have had multiple income sources over the years and almost all of it is blood money of some kind and extracted through violence :) Giant ass portraits of their ancestors in their multiple residences, they all speak Valyrian at home, and they don’t even go to school it’s just private tutors. Obscene wealth that isn’t even fathomable to most people. Famously bred race horses and hunting dogs for a while until there was some familial infighting about ownership of the racetracks and stables and that collapsed. Got audited and investigated twenty years ago and Aerys just killed himself instead of going to jail.

[shantechni]

Aight, so this is something I intended to make a post about eons ago before making a bunch of posts related to it, but some things happened. Anyways-

The night Leo meets Karai, or rather is ambushed by her, he's thrown for a loop by her unprecedented decision to leave before she could easily finish him off. He's almost instantly putting an unreasonable amount of trust in her after that single interaction, and you can't entirely blame the guy since she was making no attempt to kill him while exuding her mischievous nature and taunting him like they've been buddies for years. Her behavior loosened him up in a way he normally couldn't be because of his duties as a leader. Of course, the situation greatly escalates from there as one thing leads to another, and the turtles are faced with the moral dilemma of accepting Karai for their familial connection with her or shunning her like any other enemy they know as she takes almost any chance she could get to hold a tantō to their necks.

Although none were more expressive with their distrust of her than Raph, there is something interesting to take note of.

Raph is the first to find out about Karai's existence and the evidently one-sided "friendship" Leo has with her, but rather than immediately go on the offensive with Karai (extremely surprising considering she had Leo pinned to the roof right when he arrived) or accuse Leo of any wrongdoing, he simply demands an explanation from his brother. Raph observed the situation with a level head and didn't judge Leo for anything other than seeming too blasé about Karai being a Foot clan member, or for saying she wasn't intent on killing him when she threw a weapon at his head. Other than that, he kept the matter between him and Leo since it didn't seem to be a pressing issue at the moment. His trouble with Karai only really began in the next episode when he witnesses Leo needlessly showing off in front of her and even going out of his way to hide her from Splinter, Donnie, and Mikey.

Nothing's stopping Raph from telling everyone, and he certainly doesn't trust Karai enough to leave things as they are, but he puts his faith in Leo and nudges him to come clean about his new found friend twice to their brothers at least. Soon after being told that Karai was 'taken care of' (something he called total BS on), he reaches his boiling point once he discovers her following them, and his frustrations are worsened by Leo going out of his way to defend Karai when she's spelling trouble for them. As to be expected, Leo is forced to confess after she lands them in hot water and leaves them for dead while running off with a Kraang bot, but once Splinter gives him a much needed lecture, Raph forgives him and seemingly stays out of his face about the ordeal. At least until Karai approaches them with a proposition to combine their forces and fight the Kraang, something he surely would've put up more of a fight to shoot down had the others, namely Leo, not agreed to her offer after she helped them fight the Kraang stealth ship.

All of those instances, when combed through for the little things, are some of the first details the writers gave us to show a major distinction between Leo and Raph.

Raph's temper is so front and center throughout the series that the amount of patience he exercises in response to Leo's asinine decisions and trains of thought (especially early on) has a tendency of being overshadowed. He constantly, and openly, shunned the idea of Karai ever siding with them since he couldn't find it in himself to readily trust her like everyone else could, and even after learning who her real father is, he continued to question the possibility of Karai ever turning out to be good when considering her upbringing. But he still went along with Leo's wishes to help and go so far to befriend her because he knew his brother was simply trying to help someone out of the kindess of his heart at the end of the day, and Leo's only further spurred by her being their sister.

This isn't exclusive to their development with Karai, because we see later on that Raph exercised a far greater amount of that patience when Slash made his theatrical return to the team midway through S3.

One could make the argument that the writers should've had the midseason two parter focus the slightest bit more on Raph's POV since Slash used to be his pet and Leo was the only one unwilling to believe he'd changed since their last encounter, but I'd say with certainty that the minuscule amount of input we received from him is just the right amount of focus we needed. Raph doesn't blow up at Leo for his treatment of Slash because he knows his suspicions aren't baseless, and he doesn't go out of his way to prove Slash's innocence to Leo (Mikey kind of does that for him lol); he only decided to step in when the two couldn't decide on what plan to proceed with. He plainly moves aside and allows Slash to prove Leo wrong through his own efforts, all while undoubtedly believing since their last encounter that Slash isn't bad anymore and that Leo would eventually come around to make that same conclusion.

The complete opposite of Leo's stubborn behavior when it came to Karai.

Look at Leo's face, he's so silly, a goofy goober if you will

Even though she went on to turn her back on Shredder, and essentially prove that Leo was right, Raph wasn't wrong to take so much time to see Karai as a trustworthy ally. He recognized that it wasn't enough for her to just be borderline friendly and fight on the same side as them; legitimate effort needed to be put forth for them to warm up to someone like her, and her track record didn't exactly suggest that she'd readily put in that effort. Leo's fixation with turning the tables on Shredder and making things right with Splinter practically blinded him from that simple little truth though. Of course, he learned the error of his ways and clearly followed in Raph's footsteps when confronting Slash and anyone else they'd cross paths with that posed a potential threat, sometimes tending to go too deep into that mindset when he was upset with Fugitoid and Usagi.

They both learned a little bit of something from each other along the way, but the difference in how Leo and Raph grow to perceive the matter of trusting someone is so fascinating to me.

[yaut-jaknowit]

This is my very first ask here and, tbh, ever since I read “Not A Bad Sight” I fell in love with the bad blood trio (Mai’tuiudh, A’jiadh, and Zaikeh) and I wanted to know more about them. Before meeting us, the reader, how did they meet? First impressions, and how do they usually get along? I’d like to know more about their relationship!

- 🌙

Those We Meet

Pairings: Mai’tuiudh (Male), A’jiadh (Male), and Zaikeh (Female) x GN!Reader

Word Count: 954 (Sorryyyyy)

Summary: This is just a bit of ranting and a jumble mess. I wanted to touch on every topic you asked for.

Author Note: Welcome to the party! Since the ask was pretty broad, I went broad as well. I touched on everything but had gone a shorter way about it. If you want a more in-depth one-shot, let me know! Don't be afraid to ask more. I love to write.

Masterlist

Ao3

For this, I’m just going to do some short story building and rant from there.

Their story started off as three bad bloods who took roost on earth. It’s a hot spot for Yautja traffic. Yet, keep your friends close and enemies closer. They used the earth’s atmosphere and population to stay undetected for years. They became a master of disuse in plain sight.

When an enforcer, elder, and enforcer-in-training was hot in their trails, they had to flee. Dai’stbaen, the enforcer, was nearly killed in the process. This forces the other trio to hold back and reevaluated their plan of attack. Mai, Jade, and Zai are all able to rush off and jump ship. Off to the stars they go, free from the hunters.

As for their meeting, it was nothing special. Reader didn’t save them nor did they save you. Their ship was desperate need for repairs. Mai’tuiudh could pay well. The first sight of them gave you the chills. Nothing about them looked right… but the credits paid the same. The heaviness of your pocket was a nice change.

It happened right before the shop closed. It was just you and another mechanic that liked to stay late as well. Before either of you could close up shop for the night, three Yautjas strutted in. A species that was reserved, rarely seen was now standing in the middle of the shop’s lobby. A game of rock, paper, scissors told you, you had lost. You had to be the one to greet them with a fake smile and ask if they would like to set up an appointment.

A heavy bag of credits was set down on the counter. You had lost your tongue. Mai’tuiudh, the navy blue leader, manipulated you easily to work on their heavily damaged ship. You took up the job. The credits was too hard to pass up on. That could pay for the craft you’ve been eyeing for awhile.

People may have a good moral compass. Not around here. It’s either kill or be killed. That night, you’d rather not piss off a trio of Yautjas by deny them service. With the money sitting right in front of you, you took up the job.

The vessel was pulled into the shop.

It wasn’t anything pretty or amazing by any means. Yet, to have the ability to work on a Yautja craft was beyond anything. It was luck or the end for anyone to see them. The species as a whole was reclusive. You were excited to tear into something so rare.

The sight of the thing was astonishing. Not because of what it was but the shape it was in. Whoever they are had just dealt with an extensive fight and somehow won in this thing. As much as you wanted to argue with them. For them, it would’ve been better to get a whole new ship instead of wasting this kind of money on it. You had to bite your tongue and look the other way. They were paying handsomely and the opportunity to work on a Yautja ship was too hard to pass up.

First imressions on their side wasn’t anything special. But, here you are, looking at three Yautjas. Ones who’ve seen better days by the wounds they nursed.

For them, they just say a small ooman who took up the mantle. When it came down to you finishing the job, that’s a whole different story.

It took two whole days for everything to be back into a normal shape and working order. From the amount of time and quality of the work, they knew there was no other mechanic they would go to. Your pockets would be filled generously. Both to keep your mouth shut and to keep you on their side. If they came in – usually without an appointment – they would get service immediately.

Money talks.

The relationship between them is interesting.

Before they practically kidnapped you, they had kept it semi-professional. At least in your eyes. To the human eye, nothing was wrong or different. But, too anyone who saw into it deeper or let alone the could smell. They had you heavily scent marked. No one who was smart would get close to you within a fifty foot range. Not that you noticed nor minded. A few of the other mechanics that annoyed you stayed away.

All of them had you marked the second time they saw you. It was nearly instant about their agreement to having you as theirs. That was one of the few things they came to an agreement easily on. The sight of you.

From there, they would always, always bring their vessel to you. Even if it was limping on the way back. There would be no other hands to touch their spacecraft.

On an average day after your near kidnapping, all of them pamper you to death. It’s more in Mai and Jade’s nature rather than Zai’s. But, she won’t let anything hurt you. You are the most safe creature that has ever lived.

There are days when trouble does arrive. They are thankful to have someone like you to save them from death and despair. You can squeeze into places none of them could. Your talent and skill comes to the rescue when the hyperdrives decide not work in the middle of a chase. That time… it was you guys being chased down. It took a little finesse and dangerous bypassing to jump the hell away from there. At least, it’s a story you could tell about while sitting either in the cockpit or the common area.

It's a strange bunch you got roped into but it’s a life you won’t trade for.

[piosplayhouse]

I don't know if you'll answer but I need to know the lore behind sexy times with Wangxian, like is it a fanfic? why do people hate the author??

It was the longest mdzs fic posted during its time in 2021 and gained extreme notoriety for its absurdly long tag list, frequent update schedule that consistently forced anyone scrolling any of its tags to see it at the top of their page, and escalating poor, racist, and trolling authorial behavior that ultimately culminated in the author virtual1979 being suspended from ao3 for a month because she posting an author's note saying she hoped that all her haters would contract covid and die. She deleted the fic from ao3 a little while after this happened, ig bc she wasn't getting enough attention anymore, but allegedly the thing's still up on dreamwidth under strict friendslock. The fan lore article goes pretty in depth about it:

The best summary for why it pissed people off so much is really just showing you these screenshots of what the fic looked like towards the end of its life on desktop and mobile (be warned opening the full image):

From my personal experience:

from 2019 up until around 2021 the fic really was just a normal-ish, if very strangely written and kinky, wangxian porn fic about them basically just fucking around post canon and enjoying day to day life. It updated pretty frequently and had a fair amount of tags because the author was literally just tagging anything that she wrote. But like the first few hundred, maybe even a thousand tags were pretty accurate to what the fic was because of that, and were relatively manageable for the first few years that it didn't pick up any attention really.

At some point in 2021 when cql was really starting to blow up online and the tag count was starting to pile up to the point of annoyance, the fic started receiving some comments that were just like "hey can you try to cut down on tags, I don't think it's necessary to be so specific as to tag 'Korean food' or 'eggs' or whatnot". The author did not share this idea, evidently, and instead built a grudge against commenters who would tell her to delete tags, subsequently adding more and more as time went on.

As the tag count and updates increased, the content of the fic did too-- it got a lot, lot weirder. I'm sure someone's saved it all somewhere but for reference it spun out into what I can only describe as like if Rick and Morty's plot was cut to be just the parts of the show with underage/incest plotlines with All Tomorrows level sex dystopian world building exclusively to elicit the most visceral audience reaction possible. Around this time is when more people started to notice the fic and its escalating tag issues, leading them to leaving more comments complaining about it, leading to the attention seeking author spitefully adding more tags. Around this time is when she also started adding fake tags that didn't apply to the story whatsoever (sorry to disappoint, "talking vagina" was one of those. I did check) just to boost the count, take up more space on people's screens, and bait people into commenting hate for attention.

By this time, it had become a fandom-wide annoyance as she had begun to tag entirely unrelated ships, therefore putting the near-daily updating titanic of a fic at the top of any mdzs-related tag. People were outraged about this, and calls came for ao3 to step in. Ao3 waffled around for a bit as there was no official rule at the time that imposed a tag limit, so there wasn't established ground to ban virtual1979 (who btw many people suspected of being 40 whole years old due to the username and allegedly some other internet sleuthing on Facebook or something). Meanwhile, she began to tag other fandoms-- tgcf, svsss, BTS, basically anything that would get a lot of attention and draw hate with the advent of The Monstrosity suddenly drowning out all other recently updated fics of the targeted fandoms.

People had been trying to retaliate without ao3 action, though, by coding their own themes/skins that would allow someone to block a user or work and other fic writers made their own parody, the "bland times with wangxian" collection, which were minimally tagged sfw shortfics typically featuring wangxian just doing laundry or things like that. A good amount of them were actually like just fics where wwx would explain to lwj how to install custom ao3 themes and block fics that were taking up too much space on his screen. Imo it was pretty funny, but these also sparked some controversy as people disagreed with fighting annoyance with more annoyance to people trying to find content.

Either shortly before or after ao3 staff said they'd step in due to an insane amount of reports and backlash, I forgot which atp, virtual1979 began perhaps the worst tagging spree of the fic's life by changing the title, many of the tags, and the summary to a slew of racial slurs, sexually explicit imagery, and other generally offensive statements. I'm pretty sure this came after the fic was temporarily hidden once, as this update gained considerably less attention than the rest of the tagging saga, but people were still rightfully pissed about it. Ultimately, like I mentioned before, the author was then suspended for a month for wishing covid and death on her haters, and attention seemed to die down during this time to the point where she didn't really fight much more when her suspension ended and deleted her account and the work shortly after. Again she seems to have moved to dreamwidth, but most have forgotten her and I'm not sure if her presence is public at all on there. But that's the story of the worst mdzs fic ever written

[siriuslyobsessedwithfiction]

Unhinged rating of SJM characters' ships from someone who hasn't read any of the books.

(Purely based on posts I've seen on social media. This is what I think of the ships based on what the fandom says about them. This is not a serious rating, obviously, since I haven't read a single book of hers or even a fanfic based on those.)

1.. Feysand 3/10

I've seen people say he drugged her and forced her to perform a lap dance and he twisted her broken arm until she agreed to a deal with him. And that after they got together, he didn't tell her that her pregnancy could kill her because the baby couldn't come out with wings.

2.. Feyre and Tamlin 5/10

I have seen people shit on Tamlin for being the worst, but I've never seen anyone provide direct examples from text. All people say is that he's very toxic and that he wanted to imprison Feyre in his house. But she was in danger? And she was a 19 illiterate peasant girl and there were centuries old fearies who wanted to harm her?? Maybe prioritize your safety for the time being, girl? Idk, maybe Tamlin did some other worse things, but if his list of crimes against feminism only consists of this, then he's not that bad.

3.. Nesta and Cassian 2/10

I'm sorry, I don't see the appeal. Nesta needed therapy, not Cassian. If Nesta was Lady Death and Cassian stood by her side ready to bathe in her enemies' blood, I'd dig it. But I've heard Nesta loses her powers?!!!... No. Just no. Also, Cassian has internalized bastard phobia he had centuries to get over and he still hasn't. We do not tolerate bastard slander in this court. It's not a personality trait. And he laughed when she fell down the stairs??

4.. Nesta and Eris 9/10

These two would slay sooooo hardddd!!!... The amount of cunt they would serve. Drink wine and talk shit together. Also, they fit together more. Autumn court would show Nesta that even death and decay can be beautiful. Not every Archeron sister needs to be paired with a Bat boy.

5.. Gwyn and Azriel 4/10

I mean, sure, but why? No spice, no salt, no nothing. They had completely normal boring interactions. Not much potential here.

6.. Elain and Azriel 7/10

Is flower girl/warrior boy cliché? Yes. Do I care? Not really. Azriel seems a level-headed guy in general and he's more open to Elain than Gwyn. Also, there are already parallels with Rosehall and Elain being compared to a rose.

7.. Elain and Lucien

No rating because I'm very confused about these two. Why is she even Lucien's mate?

8.. Aelin and Sam 8/10

They were cute. He seemed like a good guy. He loved Celeana, he would've loved Aelin.

9.. Aelin and Chaol 5/10

I have no idea who this guy is. No disrespect. I gave a middle score.

10.. Aelin and Dorian 6/10

They're better off as besties. They're both in line for their own thrones, so it would complicate things.

11.. Manon and Dorian 9/10

Dare I say, they'd be the kinkiest couple? Pop off. Love it. Zero notes.

12.. Aelin and Rowan 6/10

Aelin only settled for Rowan because she was too tired for something else. Bold statement from someone who has no idea what she's talking about. But I just get these vibes. They were both damaged and tired people. Aelin still deserved more empathy. I've heard he once hit her out of anger. And kept saying he would never love her like he loved her ex.

[rainybyday]

My second (thrid?, nah second) time travel au

Team Minato Era

If we get a Minato Era man, Let. Me. Tell. You!

No Obito, Sai or Tenzo for this one

Pure og Team Kakashi for this one

Time period

I would say when Team Kakashi is after Wave arc but before the exams

So only Kakashi, Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto

With Team Minato having at least a few years (maybe 1 actually) before shit starts for them

Minato, Kakashi (mini), Obito, and Rin

So Team Kakashi has seen death and all but not war

With Team Minato still in their “needs Minato to mediate” stage

Or….

You know what

Have you guys read those Team Kakashi stories where Kakashi does step up to be a more attentive sensei and Team Seven is more prepared and badass but still acts like little kids?

I will link some stories that are like this, you will see what I mean

Theres the series How to Make a Team by Pleasedial123

Of Harrowed Hearts by Sable_Scribe

Parallel by Sora2131 and stacyb

Maybe a more tight knitted Team Kakashi meets a Team Minato

That

That would be pretty funny and sad ngl

Ok redo the timeline once again

Intro Take 2 - ACTION!

Team Kakashi has a sealing incident in their training grounds made by both Naruto (intentionally) and Sasuke’s Sharigen (unintentionally) 

This ends with them being transported back in time, still in the same place, but ending up in the middle of Team Minto’s own training. 

It… well it doesn’t go well with anyone

First off this is during a war so the first thing that is going to happen is Team Minato attacking Team Kakashi, no questions asked

Team Kakashi has to go into defense mode because they are getting attacked thank you

Commotion is made, anbu will arrive (add root here too) and push comes to shove a lot of people will get hurt

Off to a great start everyone, -100/10, will not recommend

So Team Kakashi will definitely be shipped off to the I&T

For one, you have a shinobi who looks like one of their own and Sakumo who fucked die, but also is an unknown 

You have an Uchiha so of course you would think he was taken and will be the Uchiha’s problem until you realise that no such Uchiha like him exists in the first place

Then you have Naruto who looks like a certain someone (but also to those who know so enough, that he has THE seal), Naruto is a whole different problem

The only one that seems clean in Sakura, but let me highlight, SEEMS. This girl is trained by Hatake Kakashi, The Hatake Kakashi. While the Minato timeline sees Kakashi as a genius son of the failure Sakumo everyone in Team Kakashi’s timeline seen his transformation of not only on himself but on his team. His name means something. Plus she also spars with an Uchiha mainline and a jinchuriki uzumaki and can win. Say no more. 

So yeah, I&T

Will they use a yamanaka? Probably, the thing is that they are from the future, maybe a future, but a future nevertheless. So, thats a big no no. 

I think they would do it on Sakura for both logic and plot reason

The plot reason is so that they don’t find out more about Kakashi’s future, Sasuke’s clan massacre, and Naruto’s life as a whole

The logic?

Well she will be the easiest to mind break in their opinion

For one the man (kakashi) is a jonin so he will take awhile to get information out of him. The boy looks like an Uchiha, is doesn’t matter if they find out if he is a part of the clan or not, if they mistake of going through his mind and he is an Uchiha then they will have a clan conflict on their hands. 

Which leaves Naruto and Sakura

Perhpes it would have been easier to get to Naruto but heres the thing, he is not the normal naruto as he would be in the anime/manga, he is a Naruto that grew with Kakashi giving him a fair amount of attention and trained him right, so no, naruto is not naive in any sense of the word, but he does know how to act it

Another note is that Karum might stop any attempt on mind reading for varies reasons

So that leave Sakura, the civilian born

Which is the best optionin to do so

As said she is a civilian, she doesn’t know many major events that aren’t told to her in a sheltered way. Such as the nine-tails attack? The fourth Hokagae was brave and fought valiantly and we honor him. Uchiha massacre? On Sasuke wasn’t able to come to class because something happened to his family, but don’t worry Sakura, everything is fine! Treatment of Naruto? He’s such a trouble maker!! 

And on and on and on

As a civilian who is more sheltered by the world she won’t have all the information until she trains under Kakashi, but the yamanaka will probably be told to hold off from going to far or is forced to get out

The future, no matter what bits of information one gets, is precious

The Yamanaka might leave on their own violation because of what they are staring to understand what their seeing, or might be stopped by a person they might bring with them in the mindscape of it all

Maybe even Sakura might block her most recinet memories, memories of her training in Team Seven since she is trained and strong enough to do so

(Also she is friends with Ino, that says enough)

Or they simply don’t, they might go through the whole sequences of Sakuras life and yet still won’t get all the important bits of their timeline

As I said again, civilian born 

So because of this, Sakura will be the only one to be given an indeepth sweep of her min because of the future information

And things like Shinobi from teh future traveling to the past will be reported to none other than the third Hokage himself

Joy 

[empressofthewind]

Hey there, Meronia fan! Do you mind if I ask for Meronia fics recs? And, do you have any fav ships (from any fandom) that the dynamics remind you of Mello/Near?

You can't imagine, how excited I am to find your blog. Let's just say in my older anime/manga group who love Death Note mostly ship Lawlight & Matt/Mello, anti Meronia and are Near haters. So when I said I love Meronia, some blocked me and said I was the weird one. So, I never said it again. But now, after I got out from that group I feel better. Then finding your blog with amazing Mello and Near's metas, I'm so happy! Thanks for your blog...

Thank you very much!!! I'm so happy to hear this :-) in my experience most people on Tumblr are pretty normal about Meronia, and it's SO easy to block/filter users who aren't.

Unfortunately re: ships with similar dynamics, I can't think of any off the top of my head, but I'll put this post in the ship tag; I'm sure someone else will have an answer!! In terms of fic recs, I've actually set up my bookmarks page on AO3 to function like a rec list. I have 36 fics there each with a little blurb and I'm constantly updating it, so hopefully a decent amount that you haven't read! I'll pick 10 of them to link here for easy access (ordered by rating in case you can't/don't want to read the mature ones):

the roof by @lightningblade | 3692 words | Rated T

This is a college AU focused on the development of Mello and Near's relationship through a series of encounters on a rooftop. The writing is GORGEOUS, the progression is masterfully done, and it removes the element of the rivalry without removing the core of what makes Meronia such a great ship! There's also a companion piece up as of yesterday which I'm still recovering from (very very positive).

Dear Mello by @tzviaariella | 4158 words | Rated T

This fic is written during the canon timeline through a series of emails. It's an AU where Mello survives, originally written for the 2023 Meronia Zine but also posted on AO3 (which is what I've linked here). The format is really creative and I'm OBSESSED with the way Mello and Near's dynamic is written. The petty back-and-forth is very entertaining and in-character, and there's a certain familiarity and fondness underlying it that I adore. There are also a few artworks throughout which is a nice treat!!

How to Get Any Guy to Fall in Love with You by Sick_head_Sweet_heart | 7025 words | Rated T

This one has such a late-2000s fandom classic feel to it that I'm surprised it's only a few years old??? It's set at Wammy's House, in which Matt gives Near advice on how to make Mello fall in love with him. The dynamic is insanely cute and I'm obsessed with the way Matt and Near's friendship is characterised here. Them scheming together is something I need more of in fics!!

The Mihael Factor by spiritcrimson | 16 chapters | Rated T

One of the longest completed works I've ever read for Meronia and I have been DYING to find something like this ever since. It's a talent agent x singer AU, and it's literally everything I could have asked for in a longfic. A unique idea, compelling progression and a fun antagonistic dynamic that blossoms into a really sweet romance. It's a slowburn but it doesn't drag on at all, and the ending is SO well worth the wait.

3 + 1 by @squidish | 2423 words | Rated T

x + 1 fics are a favourite trope of mine, as is the general concept of Mello and Near behaving inappropriately in the workplace, and this one combines both of those perfectly. The premise is 3 times Mello and Near got walked in on by one of the SPK members, and 1 time they were caught by the whole group. The writing is SO delightful and there are several lines in this that are permanently lodged in my brain. I find humour in writing immensely difficult to pull off so I'm always in awe of authors who can integrate it naturally, and squidish's writing is a great example of that! (Worth noting that this one is slightly more mature than the other T-rated fics here, so I've put it closer to the M & E section; however the smut scenes are not explicit)

it's friday, i'm in love by @neallo | 2676 words | Rated M

You could read literally anything by neallo and it's guaranteed to be good, but to keep this list short, I've included one angsty fic and one lighthearted fic so you can pick the vibe. This one is more lighthearted, and it depicts a very tender moment in which Mello shows up at Near's door drunk and dances with him in the kitchen. This is a prequel to a bigger AU focusing on a casual relationship between them, but it also holds up as a standalone fic! It's unbearably sweet and there are many lines in there that made me audibly laugh.

Speculation on Demisexual Sex Drive by SayHiDestery | 4069 words | Rated M

The smut scene in this fic is so intimate and perfect, I'm melting just thinking about it. It's an established relationship fic in which Near has PTSD and has certain struggles with intimacy, and Mello guides him through it. It's quite slow-paced and takes its time to linger on the small details, which I absolutely adore, and the writing itself is vivid and beautiful. It also features demisexual Near!!

Winning the Game by clearmain | 4134 words | Rated E

This one is a PWP set mid-canon, immediately after the raid on the SPK. I'm a huge sucker for bold & bratty Near and that's EXACTLY what this fic serves. The way this introduces elements of rivalry and competition into their relationship is excellent and makes this fic feel faithful to their canon dynamic. It's a compelling push-pull with an open but hopeful ending that very succinctly captures the complexities of their relationship.

A Certain Hush by BlueberryAsh | 5434 words | Rated E

One of the first fanfics I read for Meronia and I'm not exaggerating when I say it changed my life. This fic has had SUCH a massive influence on the way I view and write the ship. It's a little glimpse into Mello and Near's relationship immediately after getting together. It's really cute and sweet in a way that feels authentic to the characters, and I'm incredibly impressed by the way it manages to give just enough backstory for their relationship to make sense without getting caught up in the details. Genuinely a masterpiece!

i want to hold you (hostage) by @neallo | 4 chapters | Rated E

The aforementioned angsty neallo fic! This one is an exes AU set during the canon timeline, and it is, as you can imagine, a very fraught dynamic done SO incredibly well. The tension is absolutely delicious and there are earnest moments littered throughout that are guaranteed to have you tearing up. Brilliant setup, brilliant writing, brilliant dynamic; just an absolutely stellar fic on all counts!!

[kit-williams]

To be held in your arms...

Male Lead: Roland Female Lead: Universe/AU: Warhammer 40k/Yandere Space Marines Canon Status: Yes

Note: This is for everyone who requested for a prompt about Roland holding his child in his arms for the first time. Baby is going to be referred in the gender neutral as I got even amount of prompts for him holding a little boy as well as a little girl. I'll explore more of it after fluffuary.

Also thank you everyone for being so kind over this fluffuary!

He missed it and he knew it but little could pull Roland away from the front lines. While he wanted to be there for her... if he didn't go the danger that could eventually come back to the ship would certain kill her. His job was to keep his Bäckerin safe... and their new kinder. The extra hours out of the tight corridors of the heretical vessel... the rites of blessing... the rites of removing his armor... the prayers after... it all was pushed to the front of his mind to stave off the disappointment.

It was well into her sleep cycle when he can finally go and see her. The midwife leading him to the room she was now in as she goes over the medical details that he knows his Bäckerin will recount in far less of a clinical manner. The door opens silently as he feels so large in such a small room... the midwife coming over to wake her up...

"Why wake her?" He lets it slip out of his mouth.

"Feeding time." The older woman says as his Bäckerin groans looking at her glumly and exhausted.

"Just five more..." She pleads.

"And then your babe will be five more closer to dying. Come now this is the most important part." The midwife says with some warmth in her voice.

He stands there quietly as it smells like cleaning fluids and blood... it smells like her blood... hidden under the sheets and covers as she just opens the gown and presses the wriggling flesh to her breast. "Please little one latch." His Bäckerin tiredly sobs.

Part of him twitches as he watches his beloved being moved roughly as well as his child. But he can smell something... underneath the sterile smell. "There just a bit of a stubborn one. Oh you have a visitor my dear."

"I do? Who?" She says so very out of it still and the midwife just points over to him as his Bäckerin looks over her shoulder at him with those large owlish eyes surprised that in her exhausted state she didn't hear him or see him.

"I'll be back in a bit to make sure everything is fine." The midwife states as she pets her head affectionately before leaving the room.

"Roland." His Bäckerin says smiling and utterly tired.

"Bäckerin... I'm..." He shuffles awkwardly as he's not exactly sorry he missed the birth to keep her safe but.

"No need dear... there is always next time." She says smiling. "Come here... they won't bite... not for several months." She says laughing softly.

They looked so tiny... so fragile... so new... he reached a hand out before pulling back not trusting himself but he runs a finger across their back as they nurse from Bäckerin.

"I haven't named them yet... I wanted to wait for you and well I've been a bit out of it from how long it took... and the pain meds... and just... everything. " Bäckerin says with her usual carefree way of talking with him perhaps even more relaxed in tone and nature. "Take your shirt off."

He looked to his Bäckerin confused, "Bäckerin are you sure you're not still on the effects of pain medication?" Roland said with a slight joke in his voice.

"Oh most certainly I am but just do it. Its for the baby's sake. And sit down maybe lean back a bit."

"I don't see-"

"Just trust me."

Roland normally was hardly concerned about others seeing him in lack of attire... he relished his Bäckerin seeing him like this but he was heavily reminded by the midwife before she went into labor and the Chaplain that Bäckerin could not have sex for at minimum a month perhaps even two. But he sat there shirtless just watching her wobble to her feet as she rolled the medica bassinet over, "Hold me."

"Always." Roland replies just putting a hand on her side as she picked up the bundle from the bassinet.

Their eyes look so big on their small head... he remembers all the things that the midwife told him were normal and not to be mistaken as being an aberration. He watches her eyes look at his chest for an area that didn't have a port and then she laid their child on his chest.

His hearts stilled for a moment as he could feel their tiny heartbeating against their chest... they lacked a smell... besides being covered in blood and other fluids... he held his breath as this... this was their child. His eyes focused on their small little nails... he could hear their small inhales... he feels his cheeks wet as there they were... finally here.

"Hello there little one..." He says softly... in a fearful whisper as he breathes life to the next few words, "Ich bin dein Vater... oder Papa." His hearts hurt at the sudden swelling of feeling for this tiny little human that was not even a day old yet.

Roland turned his head and rested it against her side as her fingers ran through his hair with a warm smile looking down at the crying man, "Thank you.... thank you Bäckerin for giving me this."

"Well thank you for making it all happen. It takes two of us to make this." He feels her kiss his head as she uses the time he takes having the baby rest on his chest to sleep as the fear Roland had for the tiny mortal creature they made evaporated in an instant... what was the weird wriggling fleshy thing was their baby... far too soon to say what features are from whom... but he didn't care as he loved them. Just as he loved his Bäckerin and he hoped to love more while he had his time with her.

Fluffuary TagList: @bispecsual @the-californicationist @egrets-not-regrets @libraryshadow @bleedingichorhearts @liar-anubiass-blog

[benny-the-spaceman]

one of these days im going to release my tlm drafting headcanons from my notes app purgatory and that day is Today.

HERE'S HOW I THINK LEGO MOVIE CHARACTERS WOULD PREPARE AND MAKE DRAFTS

...under the cut

Batman

• Fairly good at drawing. Somehow able to draw straight lines without a ruler perfectly fine every single time but otherwise nothing super noteworthy (he does brag about this constantly however)

• Drafts in white and yellow posca pen??? will use white colored pencil for finer detail however, specifically one of those mechanical colored pencils

• Drafts on black paper because he thinks it makes his designs cooler (it doesn't)

• Dimensions in imperial and would be annoyed if you dare even *insinuate* he use metric. no justification here

• Doodles around his drafts, specifically likes to doodle bats and himself because he, once again, thanks it makes his drafts cooler (the bats kinda do)

• Refuses to leave notes on his designs. you either know what to do or you don't

• Does however write his drawing title obnoxiously large

• Used autocad for like a day, hated it, switched to solidworks and never went back

• Buys autodesk licenses for the rest of the masterbuilders. unwillingly, mind you, wyldstyle just knows his credit card information and abuses it

Benny

• Good at drawing exclusively spaceships. big shock i know

• The king of eyeballing a line or an angle and then labelling it however the fuck he wants. proper measurements take time he could spend drafting or making more spaceships, he'll save measuring and straightedges for drafts he deems important enough

• Uses blueprinting paper. there's no practical purpose for this, he just digs it

• Drafts with whatever writing utensil is on hand

• He gets inspired quite often so he usually keeps a drafting notepad on him just in case

• Leaves a *lot* of notes. Most of them are completely unnecessary and are a funny contrast to his haphazard dimensioning

• Pretty dang good at autocad! Usually reserves it for projects that require a lot more collaboration however

• Usually drafts in metric, can dimension in imperial but prefers not to

• 100% sets autocad to the light background like a monster

• Do not give him any 3d modelling software, he might blow up the computer

Emmet

• Either really good or really bad at drawings (obvs leaning towards bad. we remember the break in plans)

• Dimensions in imperial. I cant justify this one he just does. god bless america or something idk

• Owns a couple drafting pencils but rarely uses them, most of the time he drafts in marker or pen much to the chagrin of anyone who needs to read his drafts (or delight if you're unikitty)

• Started learning how to use autocad after taco tuesday and he's actually pretty good at it! he does use an architectural dimstyle for everything though which is particularly annoying when he's quite often not drafting buildings now

• Has labelled and colored layers 👍 enough said

• Uses disgustingly thick lineweights. horrible.

• Rarely if ever 3d models so he's not good at it, he mostly works on things that 2d conveys better anyways

• Although he's not the best drafter of the master builders, his construction background makes him the best at reading drafts, give him a unikitty draft and he can decipher it like it's nothing

Metalbeard

• Probably the best at drafting of the master builders, he's got the age advantage and lots of practice from making ships

• Drafts in pencil, quill, or charcoal depending

• Who needs straightedges or angle stencils when youre basically a pirate cyborg, expect robot like precision

• Doesn't use standard measuring conventions, instead opts to use the dumbest things possible. The Sea cow's units of measurement were seagulls. It isnt that he cant do normal units of measurement, he just prefers his made up ones

• Makes his drafting paper by himself

• Pretty good with 2d and 3d modelling surprisingly. He doesn't like either, however, he much prefers drafting on paper

• Leaves an average amount of notes on his drafts but has the most disgustingly fancy cursive and writes in his piratey english. Often a nightmare to read if you aren't used to his writing

• Will sometimes do blueprint swaps with Benny wherein they critique each other's work. not sure when they started doing it, but it's become a weekly activity for them

Unikitty

• Worst drafter of the main masterbuilder crew. Most people think it's because she's a cat but no she just doesnt take drafting seriously in the slightest

• Drafts like she's making an arts and crafts project. She has put several bottles of glitter on singular drafts and she will do it again

• Dimensions in rainbows, no knows what this means other than emmet

• Gives the longest, most complicated titles possible

• No such thing as straight lines

• Is entirely capable of drafting properly, just refuses to

• Leaves notes that are entirely unrelated to the draft. she wont tell you how youre supposed to connect two objects but she *will* tell you about the sandwich she ate while making the draft

• Doesnt use autocad, looks too boring

• Didnt use any 3d modelling softwares until she realized you can change the appearance of materials. that was a game changer. still much prefers drafting on paper though

• Likes drafting with emmet sometimes since he seems to be the only person who understands her drawings. to this day no one understands how he does it

Vitruvius

• Going blind has, surprisingly, not made him much worse at drafting, just changed his process a bit

• Drafts in pencil

• Probably the person who least frequently drafts of the main masterbuilders. On account of just not needing to and also on account of being dead

• Dimensions in the old anglo-saxon units of measurement

• Doesn't title his drafts and doesnt see a point in doing so

• Leaves the most vague, utterly confusing notes on his drawings. theyre still related to the drawings unlike unikitty's notes, but theyre very odd

• Doesn't use autocad or 3d modelling softwares, partially because he wouldnt really be able to on account of being blind but also partially because he doesn't really know what they are

• There isnt really much to say about his drafting skills he's about as normal of a drafter as a masterbuilder can be

Wyldstyle

• An engineering teacher's dream student. She may not have the amount of experience metalbeard has but she's still very skilled

• Doesn't like drafting on paper and won't if she doesn't have to

• When she does draft on paper she uses a drafting mechanical pencils. she also 100% collects them

• dimensions in metric to exactly 3 decimal places

• leaves very few if any notes (always very concise ones if included)

• has a case of staedtler stencils that she bought 4 years ago and never uses

• picked up a habit of doodling on drafts from batman but will never admit she got the habit from him

• Autocad PRO. Also really damn good at solidworks and fusion. Give this girl a computer and she'll give you a motorcycle assembly within the hour

• Specializes in automotives

• Spends time with Emmet on the weekends teaching him how to use digital drafting softwares (this process was incredibly frusturating at first but gets easier with time)

[moodymisty]

Greetings fellow Clone simp! So I saw a post saying that the best way to get your partner to talk to you after a fight is to tighten all the lids on jars so they'll have no choice but to talk to you, and I was wondering if u could write The Bad Batch (+ Cody and Rex if you don't mind) doing this/having their partner do it to them

[ 𝕸𝖔𝖔𝖉𝖞𝕸𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖞'𝖘 𝕸𝖆𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙 | 𝕬𝖔3 ]

Author's Note: This is so cute! I had a few other very similar ideas that weren't exactly jars for like Wrecker, so I hope you enjoy those as well.

Relationships: Hunter/Gn!Reader, Tech/Gn!Reader, Wrecker/Gn!Reader, Crosshair/Gn!Reader, Echo/Gn!Reader, Cody/Gn!Reader

Warnings: None to speak of

✦ Echo ✦

Echo is a little shit. You don't get to have Jesse and Fives as brothers and not end up that way.

So when you two got in a little spitting match and you ended up storming off groaning about him being pointlessly stubborn, (he could say the exact same about you), Echo gets petty.

You sneak aboard a few of your favorite snacks in the Marauder sometimes, just a little hint of home instead of suffering with ration bars non-stop.

One of them is in this odd little jar, Echo's never tried it, but he still takes it and spins the lid so tight using his elbow and good hand, before sitting it back. It's a long con, but it ends up being a good while later before you realize the lid is completely stuck. You even try tapping it on an edge before trying to brute force it again, to no avail.

Going into the cockpit you hold the snack in your hands, lips tight. "Why did you tighten this lid so tight? I didn't leave it this way." Echo snickers. But when you look at him, he holds up his scomp link and feigns innocence. He only has one hand, after all.

You however know better, and while Wrecker helps you pop the lid off, you glare at Echo.

"You're an ass," You say while he smiles.

✦ Hunter ✦

You absolutely do this to Hunter. He isn't the type of guy to get really petty, but that doesn't mean you're above it.

Hunter does however have a habit of getting a bit overbearing, and often times scolds you for things that are completely innocuous. You know it's because he cares but, gods does it piss you off.

And while that doesn't normally lead to petty behavior, it does when you're stuck holed up in a tiny ship with nowhere to run off to and get space.

That lack of but need for space ends up making you boil to the point that you let out your irritation on the various jars and containers in the storage area of the Marauder.

Hunter catches you doing it, taking one and struggling to open it before he finally pops it open with a surprising amount of effort needed.

He gets needing some stress relief, but he's going to not enjoy having to constantly struggle to open anything again, after this.

It's a few days later when he does need to open one and he remembers catching you, that he grumbles while wincing and putting all his strength into opening it. "You're surprisingly strong..." Before his gloves slip and he loses his grip.

You get it for him, but it doesn't mean he's amused by it. At all.

✦ Wrecker ✦

You and Wrecker never fight. You've maybe raised your voice at one another a few times, but never much more. It usually never has any hostility, and even if it perhaps gets a little heated- maybe he was reckless on a mission when he shouldn't have been- it's usually quickly resolved.

However today, he just seems determined to get on your last possible nerve. Everything he does is just making your neck tense, and in a moment of sheer pettiness, you wait till he's in the refresher taking a shower, and grab as many pieces of his armor you can carry.

Crosshair raises his eyebrows at you as you pass by, but doesn't say anything. He's learned better. You stuff all the gear into one of Tech's empty storage crates before changing the passcode; and wait.

You hear his grumbling around as he looks for his armor, and Crosshair throws him a bone on where the location of most of it might be. It's not much later that Wrecker is behind you, towing the crate you could barely move with one hand.

"I know you put my stuff in this crate; What's the number." You shrug your shoulders, not budging on the matter. Wrecker however, loudly whines about it.

"Look I'm sorry! I'll make it up to you please just tell me the code!" You look up at him. "Promise not to be reckless again?" He eagerly nods. You hum. "Can I get a kiss?" He drops the crate and smiles.

"Always." You tell him the code afterwards and he retrieves his armor, and he learns a lesson that day.

✦ Crosshair ✦

Crosshair is absolutely the type to do this to you, rather than you to him.

You peeve him off one day and all the suddenly almost everything you want is tightened or locked to the point that it is absolutely impossible to open. Even stealing one of Tech's tools to try and pry it yields little positive results. And after awhile, you have to bite the figurative blaster bolt.

Crosshair is so incredibly smug you can actually feel it radiating off him the moment you step close to him.

He'd heard you grunting and struggling with it, and now it seems you've finally given up on it.

Shoving it right under his nose you purse your lips tight, asking with a venomous 'please?'.

He opens it for you, and while he doesn't say a word, the way he looks at you says more than enough.

You and Cross have a pretty remarkably skill to be able to talk with just the looks on your faces, and while whatever you'd been fighting about has now since boiled off, you can still see Crosshair's little sneaky smirk each time you glance at him.

✦ Tech ✦

You end up doing this to Tech, after arguing over a fact you'd thought was true, but Tech had -oh so smugly- proven you wrong.

In retaliation you end up screwing the jar for his soldering flux as tight as you can, and stewing in your own pettiness.

When he gets around to finally using it you're sitting in the co-pilot's seat next to him, as he grunts trying to open it.

"Why is this so tight all of the sudden?" When he hears your singing 'dunno', he instantly looks at you and sees you're attempting not to smile.

"Why did you do this? You didn't use an adhesive, did you?" You just look away from him, before glancing back.

Tech gives it another go, and with a pop, the lid gives way.

Right; Tech is far stronger than he looks.

Maybe next time.

✦ Commander Cody ✦

Cody actually does this quite often to you, though most of the time, it's on accident. He doesn't have quite a handle on his own strength at times, and sometimes ends up tightening things too tight for anyone else to get to.

But one day when he's in a particularly foul mood, you'd chewed him out on something relatively minor, he holds a jar of your food in his hands. He had already taken a bite and you'd told him before he makes them too tight.

Putting the lid back on he does it as tight as he can, and sets it there. He's mentally scolding himself for being so childish, but at least it's harmless, and he let out a little bit of pent of anger on the innocent jar.

And he'll admit that when you come to him a short while later not looking him in the eye but asking him to open it for you, it's amusing.

He does so, but it's a little hard not to crack a tiny smile.

[klaprisun]

One Sunny Day

(Stardew Valley) (Haley x Female Farmer)

Chapter 9

For the rest of the afternoon, I went out fishing at the beach. I got used to being in the rain, so I decided to make some use out of the day and do something useful. Plus, I spent the rest of my cash on a hat from a mouse so I need to make more. I hear the fish bite well in Pelican Town, and a man named Willy will pay good money for what I catch. That or I could ship them out by putting them in the shipping box by my house.

By the time I had my fill of fishing, it was too late to bring them to Willy, so I decided to just bring the bucket home and ship them off.

I was feeling exhausted once again by the time I made it home. I really need to build my stamina on this farm if I get worn out by a little fishing. Or maybe I should bring a snack next time?

Later that night, while I tried to fall asleep, I couldn’t stop the overwhelming amount of thoughts going through my head.

Why did she kick me out all of a sudden? What did I do to upset her?

I couldn’t stop thinking about Haley. She has been a weird one since I moved here, but Elliot says she isn’t usually like this? 

With each toss and turn in the night, I just couldn’t fall asleep. As tired as I was, my body just wouldn’t let me pass out. I decide to get out of bed and rummage around in the snacks I bought from Pierre’s. I ended up putting the bags on the floor after all because I never did get anything to put them in.

I slump down to the floor and lean against the wall in sorrow while slowly chewing my bite of plain bread. 

I hadn’t even noticed, but I managed to finally get to sleep after finishing half a loaf of bread. I had startled myself with waking up on the floor against the wall because that’s not something I normally do.

Looking across the house and out the window, it is a beautiful sunny day. A perfect day to grab those overalls and water my crops. Tossing on some work clothes, I ran outside with the watering can, eager to get the day started.

The flag on my mailbox stands high and mighty this morning, signaling I have received more mail. Reaching in, I pull out the letter that was stuffed in it.

Tomorrow we’re holding the Egg Festival in town square.

You should arrive between 9am and 2pm if you’d like to attend. You wouldn’t want to miss the annual egg hunt!

-Mayor Lewis

“That will be interesting. Hopefully I don’t sleep in.” I fold the letter up and toss it in my pocket. I also notice there is an envelope of cash sitting in the mailbox as well. It was my payment for the bunch of fish I put in last night. “I’ll make sure to put that away later,” I made a mental note.

Now it’s time to water those crops. Already, I notice they are sprouting out of the soil. I must’ve done something right then if they’ve gotten this far.

5 cans of water later, the crops are all watered and refreshed. I had also tossed my overalls back in my house too before it decides to rain again. 

Fishing sounds like a great idea again to pass the time, so I walk my way back to the beach, but when I arrive, Haley is standing alone in the sand. She seems to be crying.

“Hey Haley. What’s wrong?” I inquire as I approach her.

“I lost my grandmother’s bracelet she gave me. I had it here with me on the beach, and now it’s gone,” She breaks out into sobs as she previously was before I showed up.

“I’m really sorry…” I try to console her.

She sighs, “Maybe it'll wash up on another shore. I can't bear to think of it at the bottom of the ocean."

Before she can say anything else, I take off strolling across the beach. Haley stares after me, remaining in place.

“Where are you going?” she questions. She is no longer crying, instead she has a puzzled look as she watches me.

I walk backwards to look at her, hands in my pockets, and give her a nonchalant shrug and smile. I am going to look for her bracelet.

I scan every inch of the sand as well as along the shoreline. I can’t manage to find it until I walk around the right side of Elliot’s beach cabin. Haley can’t see me from here, but I bend over and pick something up.

She is still watching me as I walk back to her across the beach, hands still placed in my pocket. She just frowns at me as I give her a smug smile. 

Taking my hand out of my pocket, I open my fingers and lay my hand open flat, revealing a golden bracelet with a blue gem.

Haley gasps at the sight of it and scoops it up immediately. Holding the bracelet tight in her hand, she jumps up and wraps her arms around my neck.

“Thank you so much. I won’t forget what you’ve done for me,” she mutters softly. The hug had me taken aback. It took me a moment to process, but when I finally understood what was happening, I wrapped my arms around her to return the hug.

“May I ask what you were doing over there?” I chuckle

“I saw a really nice shell. I had to go pick it up and look at it,” she replies sheepishly.

We continue hugging for a little bit longer, neither of us breaking apart. It leaves me extra confused when I think about our last interaction.

She finally pulls back from me when she realizes how long she spent hugging me. I look down at her to see if I can judge how she is feeling and she shyly tucks a piece of her beautiful, golden hair behind her ear. She isn’t making eye contact with me though, she is too busy looking at the ground.

“Anyways, I’ll see you at the Egg Festival tomorrow, right?” she asks.

“Of course you will. We always end up seeing each other, don’t we?” I remark sarcastically.

“You’re not as funny as you think you are. You do realize that?” she chirps back playfully.

“I like to think I’m pretty funny.”

“Is that why girls always fall in love with you?” 

“Pardon me?” I am visibly taken aback from her comment.

“I overheard you talking to Elliot the other day…sorry,” she smacks herself in the forehead as if the previous words just slipped out of her mouth by accident.

I try to ease her embarrassment by giving her a genuine response, “I mean… It probably is the reason a girl would like me, yeah. Among others I hope. I don’t want to be their personal comedian. I don’t have anyone to ask though so I guess I’ll never know.”

“No one to ask? You haven’t dated anyone before?”

“Nope. No one. Had a few one night stands though…” I trail off as I notice Haley’s face drop, “...umm… what’s that face for?”

She takes another step back from me and I see her eyes start watering. She quickly wipes them away hoping I didn’t notice and clears her throat. “What face? I didn’t make a face. You’re seeing things,” she is now acting as if she has been as cool as a cucumber this whole time.

I scratch my head awkwardly, unsure of what to say next. I finally landed on flipping the conversation back to her, “What about you? What’s your love life like? You and Alex seem pretty close.”

That was a big mistake. The tears start welling up along her waterline and they manage to escape this time. 

“It’s complicated.” is all she spits out.

“Trouble in paradise?” I respond empathetically. I try to place a hand on her shoulder and she pushes it away. 

“You could say that.”

Taking the hints, I decided to stop prying and changed the topic immediately, “We are supposed to have great weather tomorrow for the festival!”  I think those are the lamest words I have ever uttered in my life. 

Haley bursts out laughing like it’s the funniest thing she has ever heard. The tears of sadness turn to tears of laughter. Her laughter is so contagious, it gets me laughing with her.

“That was the lamest attempt at a conversation change I have ever seen,” she explodes with more laughter. I wasn’t the only one to think that I guess.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t know what else to say!” I continue to laugh. 

Our laughter dies down, and she turns and starts to leave. Before she walks away though she calls back to me, “I will see you tomorrow in the nice weather at the Egg Festival.”

I stick my tongue out at her and she does it right back. Haley is a huge whirlwind of emotions.

[incesthemes]

HELLO! I have to know, what did you think of Madhouse at the End of the Earth??? What were your favorite parts?? :3c pls share your thoughts

OMG THANK YOU i will say i have literally not stopped thinking about this book since i finished it early last week. i have a normal amount of sticky notes marking my favorite quotes/events and other notable moments.

(pictured: exactly 120 sticky notes.)

literally i don't even know how to move on from this book, it made me so insane. i NEED to do horrible and illegal sex acts to adrien de gerlache. there isn't enough de gerlache rpf to satisfy my desire to see him stepped on. he's so utterly pathetic and useless and stupid. no redeeming qualities whatsoever. just a soggy idiot who gets them stuck in the pack on purpose and then has the audacity to regret it. like how do you get any better than this. i cannot believe this man was real and actually existed in the same world i live in today. what the hell man.

anyway. favorite parts are probably. de gerlache and lecointe getting the belgica stuck in the pack on purpose was like, an unparalleled reading experience; i physically yelled out loud while reading it because i couldn't believe my eyes. but here's my full-ish list of every part i marked for being completely deranged:

lecointe SLEEPING on the tonite to thaw them out. literally what an insane man. ok girl (secondarily: lecointe thawing out the tonite by holding them close to the fire. GIRL)

that time cook and amundsen tore apart a seal and drank its blood directly from its veins while tollefsen watched in horror

every single time sancton described cook's nose (the "peninsula" comment got me bad)

"strangely enough the thing in sir john's narrative that appealed to me most strongly was the sufferings he and his men endured," amundsen wrote. "a strange ambition burned within me to endure those same sufferings."

and by god he did. even if he had to force the issue (the iceberg plan is a particular fave)

everything about the penguins, from de gerlache's petulant, childish refusal to eat them because he was salty the men didn't like the food he picked out, to amundsen's obsession with eating raw penguin meat, to the fact that they lured the penguins to the ship with van mirlo's godawful cornet playing

the time they caused a fire on tierra del fuego and had to go put it out, only to return to the ship to see it decorated for christmas. nothing says season's greetings like the minor destruction of someone else's land

they ran the ship aground. TWICE. before ever even making it to antarctica. TWO TIMES!!!!!!!!!!

cook and amundsen's first date climbing up a mountain and nearly plummeting to their certain deaths once each

de gerlache hosting a meeting about what to do when they were out of the ice, being pathetic about it, then begging lecointe to let him change the minutes so he'd sound cooler

DANCO'S BODY STANDING UPRIGHT AT HIS FUNERAL AS IF IT WERE POSSESSED

the fact that everyone hated michotte's cooking and yet no one bothered to even do anything about it. like what. if you hate it that bad make your own food cmon girls......

the unexplained random screaming that amundsen, cook, and koren heard but no one else did............. okay! #normalthings #sanitywin

cook going off the rails worshiping the sun. antarctica claims yet another victim (cook's sanity)

speaking of cook, the fact that the most likely theory for why everyone went insane was cyanide poisoning. from cook's photo developing solution. the DOCTOR did all this. it seriously doesn't get funnier than that

cook hanging penguin carcasses along the belgica's hull as they made to escape the pack. like imagine being in puntas arenas and seeing this ship no one is expecting come into port and everyone has these crazed eyes, some of them are screaming and in the throes of a full mental breakdown, and there's fucking penguin carcasses hanging off the ship like some kinda charms. the mental image alone sent me into hysterics i swear

and most importantly, the fact that all of this happened and they still managed to keep the ship. i think sir john, crozier, and shackleton (et al) are rolling in their graves over this expedition. most incompetent freakass men you know got to keep their ship and yours is at the bottom of the ocean. i can't even believe it.

on a serious note this was just genuinely a great book, it's written so well and in such a particular way; reading nonfiction has never been so fun—sancton made these cold boys sound like shounen anime characters, for real. it was awesome seeing the steps they took to ensure survival and the mistakes they made which undermined the expedition. there's a lot to learn from this expedition and a lot to admire about it, for what it was. it was also just an insane ride from beginning to end—everything went wrong, nearly every guy on that ship was in way over their head and completely wrong for the job, and they kept making the worst possible choices at every turn. the fact that they survived is a miracle and honestly i do think, even though cook was probably accidentally responsible for how crazy they got, he deserves a lot of praise for keeping the ship together and being so proactive in their survival. and never have two people matched each other's freak the way amundsen and cook did, oh my god. they're calling tollefsen the madman while yearning to plummet from an antarctic mountain or live on an iceberg. but sure tollefsen was sooooo crazy.

anyway sorry this is really long but holy shit this book made me so crazy. it's gonna take such a long time for me to get to a point where i can be normal about the belgica after reading this. holy shit man.

[gallifreyianrosearkytiorsusan]

Brave New World

Author’s note: Imhoden in Husbandry AU :)

Next

Warnings: None? Tell me if I need to add any. Desert Survival, Chaos Space Marines, Descriptions of fighting.

Summary: Imhoden arrives on Ancient Terra, and treks through the Desert to get to somewhere safer. And gets grabbed by the local Chaos Warband. He is So Fine and Normal.

Tagged: @sleepyfan-blog, @c-u-c-koo-4-40k, @barn-anon, @bleedingichorhearts, @kit-williams

Tagged Again: @kit-williams, @whorety-k

Imhoden had been one of many that had taken up arms, when the Captains of the Thousand Sons sent out the call. That the barbaric Space Wolves were coming to kill and burn them all to ash. Rage and hatred is nurtured in his heart, for Prospero, for his Primarch, for his brother’s he will fight those no-good mad dogs that dare to spill the blood on the sands of Prospero. He and his squad of Thousand sons had been fighting the Maddened Space Wolves, when he heard- and saw one of their Wolfen Ships blast down bolts to rain down utter destruction.

He tries to raise a shield of Warp power to protect himself and his brothers from their utter ferocious, and unprovoked attack. He defiantly chants insults and warp-craft at the ship, even as he feels the ship bolts heat scorch and burn him. He blinks the light from his eyes, the spots of light blinding him as he slowly closes his eyes and opens them several times as he realizes the miracle that is him alive and his hearts sink to his stomach when he realizes he’s not on Prospero any more.

The desert sands of this planet he now resides on his not the sands of his birth, the lands of Prospero. He looks up at the night sky, to see if he can recognize the stars and the patterns he'd been taught by his brothers, and his hearts sink more as he realizes that he doesn't recognize the stars in the night sky either. Well then, he's definitely not where he once was, part of him wondered if he was dead and, in the afterlife, if there was such a thing, or if some other thing had happened to put him here, wherever here is. He checks what he has on him for hydration and food rations as well as calculating where he should go.

Closing his eyes briefly as he reaches for the warp, and finds to his alarm that it's much, much harder to grasp onto the warp and to use even the smallest of spells takes a staggering amount of effort that drives him to his knees panting, such effort that he hasn't had for such a simple location spell for the nearest spot of civilization since he was a very young Aspirant, being taught the ways of the Sorcerer Warriors of the Red King. He cuts off the spell, before it takes his life, or causes him to pass out.

He'll have to try to go in the vague direction of where he'd sensed civilization, and try to find a place to hide from the wrath of the sun during the day time if he could. He's careful as he paces himself walking across the desert, even with his training for survival in such dire circumstances, surviving in a dessert alone, with few supplies is never a sure thing. It takes him several days to get to the Oasis that his warp powers had led him to. He was careful to test the water, and check on the vegetation around him, to see what was possibly edible, and what was likely not edible.

He takes just enough, but not too much, for weight is something he needs to be careful of, part of him is calculating whether or not keeping his Ceramite armor was better, or worse. While in armor he's faster and it protects him from the elements somewhat, the weight of it is very concerning, depending on how long he has to trek through the desert before he can find some semblance of civilization. It takes him several more days before he finds some cacti that have fruits that are edible, and contain life giving, precious water, he carefully plucks the prickly pinkish-red hued fruits and carefully de-spines the fruits and takes a bite, the flavors that dance along his tongue are odd, and floral, but he is glad to have found more sustenance.

He's eating as little, drinking as little as possible, moving during the night, and trying to find shade and uneasy rest during the hottest parts of the day as the unrelenting sun beats down at him. He continues to move towards where the warp spell had led him to go. He would only use the spell sparingly, and only for brief periods of time, as to not overextend his vastly weakened ability to use the warp. Finding the small baseline community after nearly a month of travel had felt like a stark relief.

Realizing that he did not understand a word the locals spoke had been concerning, but he was nothing if not adaptable, determined and doing his best to learn this local tongue. None of them seemed to understand Gothic, or any of the other languages that he knew. He also noticed how skittish they were of him, understandable, the Trans-human Dread due to being an Astartes affected all baseline humans. They do allow him to stay in a place to rest and recover from his trek in the deserts surrounding this small town.

He's quite surprised when a few days later, some other Astartes come into town- their forms are strange and twisted, but he recognizes one of them as an Emperor's child, and the way this 'warband' of their treats the local has him frowning at them in disapproval. Getting dragged into their war band is something that he protests at first, but after many a squabble and sparring match, which he usually loses, he, rather unwillingly follows along with them.

Learning about the fact that he's on Ancient Terra, and how there are loyalists, Renegade and Chaos Marines, all on the same planet with the larger groups having an uneasy alliance had been quite the shock. They had, rather frustratingly, given him bits and pieces of information slowly, monitoring his reactions as they told him about what they were doing there and why. Apparently, his arrival had been noticed by an Ultramarine Librarian and they had sent them to gather the wayward Thousand Sons.

[ofstoriesandstardust]

and i can wish all that i want but it won't bring us together (n.p.t.)

note: this is my Christmas present to @cottagecori who listens to everything i have to say

summary: How it began.

the waiting room series

warnings: quote unquote affairs, swearing, alcohol, bisexual reader, non-linear storytelling, told from multiple perspectives, this may not be your cup of tea and that's okay!

word count: 3.9k

December 2021

Your hand shakes as you move to wipe away the tear that began to fall down your face. Sam’s hand finds yours, squeezing. 

“I’m sorry.” You hear your best friend whisper. “You didn’t deserve this. I’m sorry.” 

-

May 2021

Meeting Natasha had been like coming home after a long day, warm and safe. 

You’d only been back in San Diego for a week and a half when you’d run into her on your first day volunteering at the U.S.S. Midway. They’d been having an event for certain Navy personnel and needed extra hands, which is how you'd ended up meeting her. 

Even dressed in her formal blues and her hair pinned back in a tight bun, you’d been left more than a little flustered by her striking beauty, much to the amusement of the other volunteer you’d been working with. 

She’d been kind, chatting with you as there was a delay in the program, her nimble fingers brushing yours as she takes a booklet from you. 

You’ll blame the redness of your cheeks on the beaming sun atop the retired Naval aircraft carrier before you’d ever admit such a short interaction had left you feeling so much. 

But Sofia knows, as you will come to learn that she always does, and mentions that a bunch of the younger volunteers, kids of Navy officers, are headed to a local Navy bar for the evening. Invites you along with the promise of a good evening. 

And you know, in your soul, that you don’t typically enjoy nights out. Not in packed, crowded bars, certainly not surrounded by drunken military men. 

But this part of your life is supposed to be different and it will never be different if you don’t make decisions you normally wouldn’t. 

So with a twinkle in Sofia’s eye and a warm smile on her face, you link your arm with her and follow her off the looming ship on the shores of La Jolla. 

-

In hindsight, you should’ve known. Should’ve taken the twinkle in Sofia’s eye for mirth and laughter and trouble, but you can hardly bring yourself to care as Natasha’s mouth slots against yours. As one hand rests in your belt loops and the other soft yet firm against your cheek. 

The loud music in the bar seems to drown out in the corner you’re tucked away in, any and all thoughts fleeting as Natasha’s surprisingly soft lips press against yours again and again. She’s all you can focus on, the warmth spreading through your body as you think about how good it feels to be doing this again, to be doing this with her. 

-

Falling in love with Natasha is simple. 

It’s easy, like falling asleep. 

She’s as kind as she is strong-willed, a duality that shouldn’t exist together but does. 

You can see, even from easy conversation, how much she cares about this team that she’s stationed with, how much they’re family to her. 

She’s older than you, not by much, but enough to make you feel like she’s one of those real adults you always joke about with your friends. It’s something that should make you insecure, dating someone who had their life and shit together but never does. Natasha isn’t like that, would never make you feel small. 

Her friends might, a few of them making teasing comments about if you’re even of legal drinking age the first time she brings you back to the Hard Deck, but you know that you have always looked younger than you are. 

(You’d worked with middle schoolers in your freshman year of college and they all thought you were 14. You knew.)

But still, Natasha is there, warding them off with a witty comeback and a hand on your back, something that settles your nerves more than any amount of alcohol ever could. She didn’t have to do this, you knew, remembering the way your ex had let you sit there as you got torn apart by his friends. 

But Natasha isn’t him. She’s kind, and warm, and light. She listens to you on your good days and your bad days, makes you coffee on late nights as you slouch over books and an open Google Doc, and brings you groceries when she knows you’ll be too busy to remember to do it yourself. 

She makes sure you always feel seen and heard. She goes to the airport with you to pick up Sam and Fran when they move back to San Diego and joins you on game nights with your cohort and your friends from the Midway. She supports all your dreams, no matter how small they may seem to other people. She has your friends from college giggling over a margarita about how they’re impressed you finally managed to date someone who’s nice to you. She makes it a point to be at all your presentations and always read through the drafts of your thesis when it feels like your eyes might melt. 

In short, Natasha loves you. To her, it’s simple and honestly, how could you not love her in return? 

Natasha knows you and loves you. She loves you because she knows you.

Which is why it feels like a dagger cut so deep when Natasha admits to you that she knew. 

-

November 2017

His fingers tremble with rage as he sets the paper down, barely breathing as he struggles to meet his partner’s eye. 

“How long?” He whispers. 

“Tom-” 

“How. long.” He grits out. 

Pete sighs. “Since August.” 

“Three months.” He whispers. “Three months and you hid this from me the whole time?” 

“You were sick Tom, I needed you to get better. You never would if you had known. And- And I hardly know anything as it is-” 

“You know enough.” He spits out, eyes unable to look at just one piece of information on the papers scattered out in front of him. “And this girl? What do you plan to do?”

Pete sighs again. “She’s my daughter, Tom. I have to know her. I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t.” He whispers, a fact that is making bile rise in his still-healing throat. 

“No.” He says with a quick shake of his head. “No. If you want to stay married to me, she stays out of our life.” 

-

July 2021

“Okay, thoughts?” You say, stepping out into the living room. 

“You look pretty!” Fran exclaims as Sam nods his head in agreement. 

You weren’t sure what was appropriate attire to meet Natasha’s friends, other than Natasha telling you to wear whatever made you most comfortable. You’d been through six different outfits, each one being pulled off faster than the last. 

“But we’ve said that about all of them.” 

You heave a sigh, flattening out the skirt of the dress. “I know but-” 

“No buts. You look incredibly pretty and Nat is going to like you just as much as she did yesterday.” Sam says firmly. 

You sigh again, glancing ​​at him. “I wish you guys were coming with me.” You admit quietly before plopping down on the couch next to Fran. 

Fran leans over to straighten the straps of​​ the dress, as she offers you a knowing smile. “You’re gonna have a good time. Sam and I can entertain ourselves for an evening, you know.” 

“I did live here for a while, remember!” Sam shouts from the kitchen.

When had he gone into the kitchen?

You hum as a knock sounds at the door, signaling Natasha’s arrival. You push yourself off the couch to answer her, unable to swallow the smile that spreads when you realize she’s brought you flowers. 

“You didn’t have to.” You whisper, taking the bunches of sunflowers from her. 

“I wanted to.” She says, pressing a kiss to your cheek before you can go far. She shuts the door behind her, following you into the foyer and then the living room. Fran brightens as she sees Natasha. 

“Let me take these from you.” Fran offers, before extending her other hand to Natasha. “You must be Natasha. I’m Fran. Sam’s in the kitchen. Babe, do you have a vase?” 

“I don’t know.” He calls back. “Why would we need a- oh.” Sam gives you a grin as he appears. “Yeah, let me see if I can rustle something up. Why don’t you kids get out of here?” You roll your eyes, ignoring the flaming of your cheeks as Natasha takes your hand, bidding your friends farewell. 

Nat’s right hand finds your thigh, drawing circles into your skin with her thumb as she pulls out of your driveway. 

“So remind me how you know Sam and Fran?” 

“Sam and I had a mutual friend, his old co-worker and a friend of mine from college. We ended up really hitting it off and ended up dropping the friend that introduced us, as awful as that makes me sound. They’re just visiting for the weekend and I’m actually staying in his family’s place right now.” 

She hums. “That’s very kind of him.” 

You huff out a little laugh. “You’re telling me.” 

-

The Hard Deck is less noisy this time around, although your eyes still struggle to adjust to the dim light of the bar as you push your sunglasses up to the top of your head. 

Natasha guides you past the bar, promising to return later as she directs you to the pool table in the back. Her hands are firm against your shoulder blades as you walk. 

“Boys.” She calls, earning the attention of the men crowded around the pool table. They all turn, catching sight of you and you have to fight not to curl into Natasha. “This is my girlfriend.” 

The tall one, the blond, grins, being a little too sharp around the edges for your liking. “Are you sure she should even be in here Phoenix?” 

Her thumbs press into your shoulders as if to say breathe, relax, i got this. 

“Pretty sure you’re the one that likes them below the legal drinking age Bagman.” 

“Back off, Seresin.” A brunette says, pushing him out of the way. “I’m Bradley.” He says, extending his hand to you. You take it, giving him a soft smile. 

You’d heard about Rooster, Nat’s best friend. “Nice to meet you.” 

“This is Bob and Fanboy.” Nat says, pointing to your left. “Behind them is Payback and Coyote. The irritating blond is Bagman.”

“Hangman-” 

“The rest of the crew will be in shortly.” You wave to the boys, struggling to not make yourself feel small in their looming presence. “It looks like Mav is over at the bar, why don’t you come with me? I want to introduce the two of you.” 

You nod, intertwining your fingers with her as the two of you walk back towards the bar.

“Mav.” She calls, earning the attention of a shorter man.  A fond smile blooms on his weary face, turning from his conversation with the bartender. 

“Lieutenant Trace, to what do I owe this pleasure?” 

“Mav, this is my girlfriend. This is Captain Pete Mtichell, my commanding officer.” 

Pete’s smile almost seems to fade at the sight of you, but he must think better of any immediate negative thoughts as he extends a hand. “Nice to meet you.” 

“You too.”

Mav lets your hand go, turning to the person sitting next to him, an older man with graying hair. “Tom, this is Phoenix’s girlfriend.” 

The man, Tom, frowns at Pete. “I can hear Pete.” 

Natasha lets out a little laugh. “This is Tom Kazansky, Captain Mitchell’s husband.” 

Tom tips his head in greeting. “Good to meet you.”

-

October 2020

He watches the careful rise and fall of his husband’s chest. 

Up. Down. 

Up. Down.

Up. Down. 

He can tell by the stillness of his body his husband is nearing sleep, even though the bruising from two different emergency ejections had left him favoring his left side and sleeping in an awkward position. 

He swallows at the reminder at the near loss of his husband. 

The seed that had been planted when the Darkstar crashed - which felt ages ago by now - had bloomed, its ivy wrapping tight around his lungs. 

It choked his lungs every time he breathed, thorns cutting deep, the thought that Pete might die and die resenting him for never being able to know his daughter. 

“Pete?” He whispers. 

His husband stirs, blearily looking at him in the dim light of the bedroom. 

The dim light of their bedroom in their nice house by the ocean. The dim light of their bedroom in their nice house by the ocean, where they had comfortably lived and loved and laughed, something she had never known. 

“Tom? What is it?” 

“I changed my mind.” 

He catches on to the shine of Pete’s wedding band, even as he tries to move, letting out a low hiss as he does. 

“Changed your mind? Changed your mind about what, baby?” 

“I’ve changed my mind. If- If you want to know her. If you want to find her again, I’d be okay with that, I think. I want you to be able to know your daughter.” 

-

April 2021

His brain is swimming with information, his heart clenching every time a portion of it gets processed. 

“So, you found her?” Ice says quietly. 

Mav hums in affirmation. “She’s graduating college this year. In a month.” 

“It’s crazy to me Pete, really it is. That you have a daughter out there.” His Mom says after a minute.

“And I could know her.” 

Pete’s trying to explain it to him, the private investigator, the affair, the daughter, and all he can feel is that ache in his chest where the scar of betrayal still sits, unhealed and raw. 

A daughter.

“You- you’re fucking with me, right Mav? A daughter?” 

Mav’s face falls in that way that it does, his shoulders deflating a bit before shaking his head. “No, B. This is real. I have a daughter and I’m trying to find her. I- I think we did.” 

Bradley has to bite his cheek to keep his initial words from leaving his mouth. “This is bullshit.” 

“B, I understand that this is all new, especially with the mission having not been that long ago-” 

“No, it’s bullshit Mav. You knew where I was for over a decade and you never once tried to find me or contact me. You’ve known about her for five minutes and suddenly you’re hiring a PI to try and find her?”

Mav lets out a little breath. “I’ve known since 2017.” 

Bradley chokes on his spit. “And what the fuck makes now such a great time?” 

“Well, for starters, she was a minor when I first found out about her existence. Her Mom never would have let me anywhere near her. Plus, Tom was not on board with the idea of having her in our lives-” 

“Oh, and he is now?” Mav opens his mouth to keep talking but he beats him to the punch. “I mean, we don’t even know that she wants you in her life, Mav! For fuck’s sake Mav, you’d probably screw her over before you ever got a chance to pretend to be her Dad, given your track record. You’ll be two for two fucking up your pseudo kids before they hit 30.” 

“Bradley.” His Mom says sternly, coming into his swimming vision. He presses the heels of his palms into his stinging eyes, wondering when he had started crying. “Bradley, baby, I think you’re a little sensitive to the situation, you’re not seeing it from Pete’s point of view-” 

“I don’t need to. I hope for that girl’s sake you stay away from her.”

-

December 2021

Nat plays with the strap of your nice dress as you both watch the blond pilot amble his way towards the two of you at Pete and Tom’s small holiday get-together. 

Your head rests on her collarbone as she appears before you, grinning like he has a secret. 

“I think I found out why Roo has been fighting with Pops.” 

Coyote and Fanboy overhear Jake, leaning in to hear him as they crowd around the armchair you and Natasha are sitting in. 

“Eavesdropping, are we Bagman?” Nat asks, fingertips moving from your strap to your shoulder to begin grazing your arm. You snort, leaning further into your girlfriend. 

“Maybe.” He says hurriedly before waving her off. “Apparently, dear old Maverick had some kind of illicit affair back in the day and has a daughter as a result.” 

Javy chokes on his drink as Mickey’s eyes widen. Natasha rolls her eyes. “You need to get your ears checked.” 

Jake shakes his head. “No, no, I’m serious. Mav has been trying to find her since last year after the mission happened. I guess he did and is trying to get in contact with her.” 

“So how is any of this Bradshaw’s problem?” Javy asks. 

Jake shrugs. “Not a clue. But, I mean-” 

Speaking of him, Bradley appears in your vision rather abruptly. 

“Why did your parents get a divorce?” 

You blink, beginning to feel confused at the sharp question from the boy in front of you. “Um, my mom cheated.” 

“So, you know then.” 

“Know what? Know that my Mom’s a piece of shit?” You let out a nervous laugh, starting to feel unsteady as you pull away from Natasha. “Yeah, I’ve known that.” 

“So then you know Mav is your biological father.” 

You blink again. “What- is this some kind of like- prank?” 

Bradley’s gaze hardens. “Why the hell would I joke about this?” 

“Rooster, man, what are you even talking about?” Coyote asks. 

“I mean, are you just like- pretending to like my friend so you can get closer to Mav?” 

“Bradshaw, whoa-” Natasha says, pushing herself off the chair. 

“No, Nat! She’s probably just using you to get closer to Mav and that’s so fucked up.” 

It feels like the room is spinning as the yelling catches Pete’s attention, bringing him across the living room as people have begun to watch what's unfolding. 

“Hey, cut it out, all of you. What is going on?” 

“Is it true?” 

You hear yourself ask the words, suddenly feeling too big for your own body. 

It takes Pete a moment to understand but when he does his face falls and it’s enough. 

It’s enough. 

“Oh my god.” You mumble. “Oh my god. I think I’m gonna be sick.” 

You push yourself off the chair, pushing at your sternum as if it will relieve the pressure there. 

Natasha grabs your arm. “Hey-” 

“Did you know?” 

The hesitance in her eyes answers your question but the whispered “I had my suspicions.” takes your breath clean from you. 

You don’t remember leaving the party. 

You do remember pressing at your sternum over and over, pressing harder with each ring on your phone that passed. 

You remember collapsing on to the curb of a sidewalk blocks from the party, the grief insurmountable. 

You remember begging Sam to come pick you up and choking on sobs as Fran whispered soothing words through the phone. 

You don’t remember much after that.