#i never know what character tags people are mainly using for these guys

[angst-and-fajitas]

More of them from the ol sketchbooks!!

[n30nwrites]

When the Bard seduces the Prince

Summary: Having left your old kingdom, you didn't expect to find yourself back in a palace, especially meeting the cold Targaryen prince known as Aemond. After the struggle of finally admitting your feelings, it did not take long for the two of you to take matters into your own hands.

a/n: I thought of adding more, cause I had a story ending in mind but you guys are really only here for the sex so.

Word Count: 3.6k

Reader: Amab, He/Him (Referred as youngest son and you definitely have a penis) Top Reader, Bottom Aemond

Warnings: SMUT (18++ no minors interact), Praise, degrading, Oral (m receiving), Aemond is fucked dumb (dumbification), dry humping, size kink, dirty talk, riding for like a hot sec, unprotected sex (even if your gay its still probably best to wrap it), begging, hickeys, fingering, grinding, anal, blowjob (swallows), face-fucking, Aemond is possessive but so are you, Small bit of Angst, small bit of Fluff, mainly was writing for porn but added some plot because why not, mentions character death, and Aegon is just a shitty person but only mentioned never really described. Does cussing really need to be a trigger warning after all those tags?

Disclaimer: I don't own House of the Dragon/Fire & Blood characters nor story line nor do I claim to own them. I do not own any of the images used.

comments, likes, and reblogs are appreciated.

How long had it been?

Since you had seen your palace walls? "Your palace" was wrong, your father had still been king when you left, and you would've gotten news had it been anything else. The cunt called your father was far too cruel to be a king, more of a tyrant that didn't care for others. He had six wives, each died either to childbirth or sickness. Because he had only ever wanted heirs, never gave them rest.

He got them. 8 sons, 6 daughters. You were the youngest of the sons (from what you are aware of), and out of the children of 14, the 10th child. In short terms, you were never going to see a throne, though that didn't stop you from having certain privileges. You were still the son of a king, so land and a title would still be given.

You had loved your mother before she died, she was his third wife. The fourth wife was just as kind, but quickly succumbed to the birthing bed. The fifth wife was cruel, and only gave daughters and was therefore deemed cursed. The sixth, and last one that you had met, seemed okay.

No longer were you deemed "The young prince" a title given by your father. You had much preferred the title that the people in the kingdom gave you, "The Princely Bard." because that was all you wanted to be.

A bard, you played a multitude of instruments, things you picked up from your visits in the streets, people were cruel, and even monstrous. But when they worked together, it was beautiful.

You left shortly after your favorite brother died, he was the 3rd eldest, healthy and lively. It was sudden, his body turned purple and blood poured from his eyes and mouth and you had found him like that. The medic said poison, and it quickly made you realize that this castle could no longer keep you safe.

Your siblings became cruel with each other, apathetic. The halls were bland and you had refused to be drained by the crown. You loved your siblings, but you would not die for them.

Especially not for a crown that only has power when people gave it power.

You traveled by boat, The North froze your ass off but Cregan welcomed you warmly despite not even knowing you were a prince. You gained popularity for your songs, your energy. No one really knew what the Young prince looked like, and with your hair cut and having grown more, you didn't seem that recognizable anymore. You sung for the king in Dorne, and got new robes that made you look even finer than you would.

Then you went to Westeros. Dawned in a yellow robe that showed off your body, with your lute strapped onto your back. Westeros was filled with the worst of the worst. Dorne had an acceptance of prostitutes, polyamory, and Bastards. Westeros treated them like they were scum, and yet Dorne was considered savage?

You found it stupid.

And you were vocal, very vocal about your thoughts. You sung about the politics in Westeros, how it was stupid to argue against a woman as a ruler because it's usual that the first born is the ruler, and that men just cause problems. Plus Aegon would be a horrid king, he couldn't even treat women right what makes them think he would be a good king? You had ran into him multiple times in the whorehouse, he had propositioned you multiple times as well.

Aegon was pretty, but he was a horrid man.

You didn't think you would ever meet the Targaryen family. They kept to themselves for the most part. The King was barely showing up to court, Aegon frequented the whorehouses and taverns, Heleana kept to herself in the garden with her fascination with bugs, and Aemond had been studying and training his entire life ever since his eye was cut out, all inside the castle walls. The Future queen, Rhaenyra Targaryen had moved to Dragonstone with her husband Daemon and her children.

Seperated, the house would continue to fall.

It was all fascinating to watch. But not to be a part of the game of thrones, so you had never expected an invitation to the palace.

The invitation was for the wedding of Aegon and Heleana, Siblings to be married because it was a Targaryen tradition. You had been invited to perform there, as your praises had been sung by many council members, the same ones who gave you the information about the family in the first place. It was truly an honor, and the food was something you had missed from your old life. So you had practiced, and perfected, and when the big day came?

You played your heart out.

Maybe that was what caught his attention. You playing your heart out, finding true happiness in the words you sung as you swayed to the rhythm in the songs.

"We'll do it all, everything, on our own."

He stared at you, his posture stiff and everything about him was neat, his outfit was perfect, his hair was perfect, everything about him was perfect. Aemond Targaryen was the perfect son, the prodigal son that deserved better. And Everything was going the way he planned, until he saw you.

Love at first sight doesn't exist, but lust does, and with lust can follow romance.

These feelings he had blossoming for you made his chest ache and his lips quiver.

He chose to dance for your song, any woman was glad to dance with him, and he just wanted to focus on you. He had picked a Martell, and she didn't speak much which caused him to easily pretend he was focusing on her.

"If I lay here If I just lay here Would you lie with me and just forget the world?"

Your voice was beautiful, and Aemond just craved to hear you talk to him, and him alone. Some possessive urge for you to belong to him. Aemond never felt like he belonged, never felt like he had something to call his own, even his dragon was supposed to belong to someone else, supposedly. He wanted you to be his.

"Those three words Are said too much They're not enough"

During the bedding ceremony, Aemond sought you out. Ignoring the looks from the women and men, he found you eating in the kitchen.

"Is it normal for you to leave the party so early?"

"You consider that early, my prince?" You smiled at him, and he almost fell to his knees. "I do not wish to watch the consumption of their marriage. I figured it would be best to get my pay and leave."

He couldn't let you leave, not when you've already affected him this much. "My mother is looking for someone to play the gathering held in a few months. She believes you would be perfect." All lies, all to get you to stay. "She has a room for you ready, you would need to confirm all music with her, along with preparing for the gathering."

"Is that so, my prince?" You gave him a coy smile. And Aemond fell hard.

He fell first, landing hard on his knees for you.

Yours was much softer. It took a few weeks to even see him that way. You spent so many moments with him. Walking in the garden or even chasing after Aegon together.

He showed you books, poetries and the histories of the kingdoms, mainly focusing on Westeros. You two spoke of the politics, of his hatred over a fourteen year old. Lucerys didn't deserve the hatred he got, but neither did Aemond. The library was considered a safe space for you.

And you got along with everyone. Alicent didn't seem to mind you, and she seemed to stare lovingly at the two of you whilst you trained with him. Aegon wasn't as rude as he had been to others, which Aemond considers that polite, and Heleana and you were almost as close as you and he were. Otto seemed to be the only one with a problem, and Aemond didn't care much for his feelings.

It was no surprise what followed next.

When Aemond finally accepted his feelings for you, he ignored you. Threw himself into his studying and training and ignored you. After the gathering, you had figured that was that. Tried to say goodbye and instead was greeted with Aemond being cruel to you, saying that there was no use to say goodbye as you were just here for a job. He wouldn't have even noticed you were gone.

It hurt, of course it hurt. You were just starting to fall in love with him. But you weren't going to grovel for him, nor would you cry over him. You just stared him in the eyes and turned away and left.

But not without taking something.

A dragon had hatched, small and black and golden, beautiful. And it flew straight to you as you got into the carriage to leave the castle. It was long and small, and wrapped around your neck, laying on your shoulder. You hid him quickly with your hood as he purred against you.

A dragon, one that seemed to bond to you. He brought you companionship, and while it would baffle some, you had known your family history. Afterall, it wasn't possible that it was just the Targaryen bloodline that escaped Old Valyria, your family had too come from a dragonlord that had isolated himself, before building up his own land.

This dragon was yours, and you were proud to have him.

You weren't going to spend anymore time in Westeros. Figured you wouldn't think of Aemond if you weren't in his kingdom.

But he found you, well you were wanted.

For the theft of a dragon.

The guards found you quickly, anyone was tempted to out you for the cash reward, any man insane enough to steal a fire-breathing dragon was obviously dangerous. You were thrown in a cell quickly, your dragon screaming for you as you screamed at them. "Get your filthy hands off of him! Amrak!" You called for him and he screeched.

You didn't get food for two days, and on the third, Aemond came with a cup of water and porridge. He stood there as you laid down, barely lifting your head.

"You stole a dragon."

"He came to me."

"You committed a crime against the crown."

"Amrak is mine, he chose me."

"You are not a Targaryen." He tsked.

"And yet he is mine." you spoke in high Valyrian. Aemond wasn't the only one that studied, as much as you hated your family and would not die for them you loved every part of them, the history, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

"you were planning to leave." He stated, and you nodded. "Why?"

"I have nothing for me here." It was time to see your old kingdom, time to make the full circle and come back.

"I am here."

"You rejected me." you stated, "you said you wouldn't miss me. You didn't want me the way I wanted you."

"I've wanted you from the moment I saw you." Aemond got closer, "I have wanted you and only you and it is wrong. You are a commoner, a dragonseed, it seems, yet you have captured my interests, my heart, you are the first thing I think of when I wake up and the last thing I think of when I sleep. You have entered my dreams and I cannot escape your eyes, nor your smile." Aemond's hands reached your cheeks and you got closer to him. "You are mine, you have been since I first saw you and you cannot leave me."

"You are mine Aemond Targaryen, and I am yours."

Aemond got you out of your cell, easily defending you to the court, to his mother, and to his grandfather. Alicent had never seen her favorite son act like this before, defending this thief with everything he had. Otto had disapproved of everything, almost sending you to be killed until you had interrupted.

"I could always claim to be the first born son of the king if you'd like." You smiled, having already known Alicent and Otto's plans for Westeros. "I claimed a dragon, very little would question it."

It was an agreement, you would stay in Aemond's wing, remaining hidden in the castle. You and Aemond only got closer.

It was strange, feeling this way about him. You and Aemond no longer hid behind flirtatious smiles, but instead were very open with how you two felt.

God, he was handsome.

The day was a warm day, you had decided to wear some of your Dornish clothing. A bright brown with red accents that was a gift from an ex-lover. You had decided to spend that day with Amrak, he had gotten a little bigger, but not enough to consider kicking him off your shoulders. You stayed in your room with him until it was time to eat, where you took him to feed on the sheep, whilst you ran into Aemond on your way back.

Since the start of your freedom to love each other, he had not been shy about his opinions on you. He stared at you, unabashed with his tongue darting out to wet his lips, you stood taller than him and smiled warmly.

"I haven't seen you at all today."

"I've been with Amrak, and you have been training."

"Yes, I was just on my way to undress." He informed, a tease in his eyes as if you wouldn't dare to join him, he pushed past you gently, and your pursuit for food was forgotten, because Aemond could fulfill any desire you had.

You had locked the door behind him as he slowly starting to take off his clothes, not looking at you but he had known you were behind him. Instead of helping, you decided to follow along, taking a few steps closer to him before taking off the top of your robe, undoing the knots that held it together to reveal your chest.

Patience was a virtue you did not have.

You reached for him, undoing the armor on him leaving him in his shirt and pants, you grabbed at his shoulder and turned him around to face you, pushing him close to you as your mouths collided in a passionate kiss, he reached for your naked chest, pushing his fingers deep into your skin. The two of you could not get enough of each other.

Aemond reached lower, grabbing your ass and massaging them as you two grinded your growing erections on to each other. His hands came to the front, untying them and yanking them down, he pushes you to sit on the bed as he lowers his own body to the ground. Your hand reaches for his head.

And he was beautiful on his knees.

You sat up on the bed, eyeing him as he eyes your cock, hard and long, precum at the top slowly oozing out and Aemond, second prince of the Targaryens, on his knees, hair pulled back only because your hand was wrapped in it, his mouth ‘o’ shaped as drool drizzles down. He stared at it, not even meeting your eyes but you watched as the saliva fell onto your dick, it twitching due to it.

“God your so cock hungry, it’s fucking pathetic” you look at his wide blown eye, shiny and only looking at one thing. “So desperate, my prince, and for a commoners cock…” Another lie you couldn't confess to him, but from the way his hips reached into the air, Aemond seemed to enjoy being talked down on.

Aemond’s mouth was watering, wanting to taste the male in front of him. The second son would’ve never thought that he would be in this position. He had never imagined his life this way, liking men, and especially this man.

God he was in love with you.

As quickly as he came to the thought, you had pulled his head towards your cock, aiming it at his mouth before pushing it into his wet mouth, the pathetic prince desperately got close, licking and sucking as if that was the one role he was good at.

"So fucking pathetic." Aemond moaned loudly, despite him being muffled from your long cock. His tongue licked up and down your shaft as saliva was coating it, you moaned with him. "Such a good cocksucker, my prince." you praised as he went deeper, his nose hitting your naval as he gagged, you did not go gently, your grip on his hair got tighter as you pushed him up and down.

your toes curled as he sucked, and your balls felt heavy as any moment you felt you could cum. "I'm gonna cum..." You expected him to stop, to take his mouth off of you and just jerk you off. But Aemond was hungry for you and instead he put you deeper, and when you came he closed his mouth around you, breathing through his nose and swallowing you.

"God I love you." Your dick fell limp, but only for a few moments would it remain that way. You pulled him up and kissed him, your tongue massaging his as you tasted yourself on him, both of you moaning into each other as your hips collided and he rolled. Your dick was becoming half hard just from your own thoughts, and you were quick to yank off his shirt, tearing it off of him and leaving hickeys as you sucked and licked and bit his neck. You pulled down his pants along with his underwear, and was greeted by his pale skin and long cock.

Your hands trailed behind his back before gripping his ass.

"I want you inside." Aemond groaned as he lifted his hips up, and your fingers quickly found his hole.

"Not without preparing." you quickly stuck your fingers into his mouth and he sucked, "Such a cockwhore, willing to hurt yourself for me. We can't have that, now can we." Aemond's eye flashed down to you as you stared at him. You knew what was behind his eye patch, the brilliant sapphire that was hidden by leather, your other hand quickly left his round ass and found it on the back of his head, as you quickly undid the eye patch and revealed everything to yourself. Aemond closed his eyes but you took your fingers out of his mouth and forced him to look at you.

"Keep your eyes open, I want to see everything when I fuck you." Your wet fingers slowly circled his entrance, before you pushed one in. His eye widened but he kept focusing on you, your finger slowly thrusting in and out as your other hand started touching his cock.

"Please, please, please..." He kept mumbling over and over again. "Want you inside, want you, want you, want your cock, want your thick cock inside me, want you to stretch me out and fuck me."

"So cock dumb, my pretty prince, more like my whore with the way you're taking my finger, so tight. How are you gonna take my cock when you can't even take my finger?"

"I can take it. I can take it. I can take it." He became so stupid, and in his moment of distraction you put another finger in him and he pushed himself on to you. And eventually a third finger joined, pushing them in as deep as you could. "Please I want your cock!" tears filled his eye and you quickly stopped your ministrations and he groaned. Your cock was hard and he pushed it towards his hole, desperate for you, you made sure his hole was right above you and he sat down on you, quickly filling him up as he let out a yell.

You turned his body around on the bed so that you were above him, pushing his hips down and slowly taking your cock out, leaving just your tip in as he whined and twisted. You pushed him down again keeping him straight, and shoved it back in and he moaned loudly. His legs flew into the air and wrapped around you, pushing you into him as much as he could, his ankles digging into your back. Your cock stretched him, and he was so thin despite his muscles, and you could almost swear you could see an outline of your cock in his stomach, and you went feral.

"Mine." You were quick with your thrusts, in and out as you pressed against his prostate constantly. One of your hands left his waist as you pushed against your own cock. "Look at how well you take me. Mine, Mine, Mine." your hand then left to touch his cock, and he threw his head back.

"Feels so good, so good, let me come, please let me come."

"You can come, but I'm not going to stop." His hips shifted into the air, and his cum shot up into the air, but you didn't stop, you were going to fill him up. His cum coated his chest and instead you took his hand and dipped his fingers into his own cum before shoving his hand into his mouth, making him taste himself before his hands wrapped back around you.

Thrust after thrust, you got closer and Aemonds hands wrapped around you as you lifted him up, his nails left scratches on your back. Your cock twitched multiple times before you came inside him, he let out moans loudly as you joined him, both of you panting as you leaned your forehead against his. His hole twitched as you gently took yourself out, he let out little breathy moans as you watched your cum slowly drip out of him, before you pushed it back inside of him.

"Well this is a development..." Aegon said, and Aemond and you turned in horror as your secret was no longer between you two.

"Aegon get out now!" You hissed through your teeth as you covered up Aemond with the blanket on his bed, the second prince felt fear and anger at what his elder brother would do.

Aegon giggled as he slammed the door shut.

"We're fucked."

[lemotmo]

Another really good one, I like this because we're starting to see a lot of this redemption thing in the BT tags. This was a question about Gerard and his connection to Tommy. And now that we know they're not upset about us sharing their answers I feel okay sending it to you.

A. Happy Friday to you as well! Unfortunately, based on your question, I don't think you're going to like my answer, but I promised you guys my honesty so here goes. Gerard is not here for Tommy. Gerard is not here for a Tommy redemption arc. Mainly because we (the audience) are not meant to see Tommy as needing redemption. Tommy is a general audience character. Meaning everything we're supposed to know or care about where Tommy is concerned is what the show told us in season 7. He is the guy Buck is currently dating and he used to work at the 118 before Bobby took over. That's it. That's all the show needs the audience to care about, at least right now. Fandom people are the only ones who remember his exact history, and no offense to anyone, they didn't bring him in for us. He is there to serve a specific story purpose so his individual history is irrelevant. Gerard is there for Bobby, and increasingly I think, Eddie. The Bobby stuff is obvious, but Ryan has mentioned Gerard now in a couple of interviews so I think he's giving us a clue that Eddie and Gerard will be some kind of story.

The Tommy stuff depends on whatever reason the show decides to give for his breakup with Buck. And yes, I do genuinely believe that is what's coming. If he's meant to be the one responsible for Buck figuring out his feelings for Eddie then I don't think his history with Gerard will be brought up except maybe as a scene or two in passing (if it's not necessary for the breakup, it probably won't be mentioned at all). If Buck is the one they want to end things, and have him figure out his Eddie feelings another way, then I think Tommy's past with Gerard will play a bigger role in their breakup. Especially if he tells Buck to deal with him by just keeping his mouth shut, and his head down and ignoring him. We all know Buck won't do that, especially if Gerard makes Eddie a target. So it depends entirely on the reason for their breakup. They don't need Tommy in a ton of scenes to accomplish either scenario, which is good because I do think he will also be filming SWAT and his availability won't be great. If he's supposed to figure out the Buck and Eddie thing, and point it out to Buck, we will need his reaction to at least some Buck and Eddie moments, (or at least his reaction to Buck's reaction to some of those moments), so they might need him for a few more scenes if they go that route for the breakup. Either way I don't see him lasting past the winter finale. Whatever the plan for Buck, I think he'll be ready for Eddie by the break, maybe even before. I think the second half of the season will be getting Eddie ready and then building up to Buddie. I don't see them dragging the Buddie thing out all season but I do think it will be the latter part of the back half of the season. Depending on Lou's availability he may be done sooner than the winter finale. We just don't know yet. But as someone who has watched the show from the beginning I don't know what other direction the Eddie storyline could be going. It's he's queer, or they're writing him as never going to be in love again because he was that in love with Shannon (which would be god awful television), or he becomes a devout Catholic (absolutely not). Those are kind of the only outcomes they've given themselves. And I'm sorry you don't like them, but Buck and Eddie learning to navigate an actual relationship, given Eddie's intimacy issues, inability to communicate his feelings, and his family/upbringing, as well as Buck's abandonment issues and need to fix everything is interesting storyline after interesting storyline. No one will force you to watch. And you're correct that lots of people will be pissed off, but many more would love it. They're very well liked by the general audience, people have got to stop trying to convince themselves otherwise because it's simply untrue. They're popular, people like them and most people would be interested in watching that storyline play out. It feels earned. Earned by Buck and Eddie and the audience. I know this answer has probably upset you and many others, and that is never my intention, but I also don't believe in telling people what they want to hear when the canon events seem to be leading in a different direction.

*chef's kiss* love it love it love it

Hi Nonny, thank you for sending in this really interesting message from the ‘anonymous blog I love’.

For those of you who have missed it, the OP of these very interesting posts on BT and Buddie has contacted me yesterday. They are a BT shipper that also like Buddie and they are okay with me posting their messages. They do however, wish to remain anonymous because they don’t want to attract any more negative attention. Their inbox is probably already a minefield, so let’s not add to their stress and respect their wishes. Thank you.

If you are interested in the OP’s posts, you can find all of their posts so far under the tag: anonymous blog I love.

Now, let’s talk about this answer:

The answer above is very interesting to me. They talk about Tommy’s role in the whole Gerrard saga and I fully agree on most of it. They point out again that Tommy is there to serve a purpose in Buck’s story, so essentially he is there as a plot device in Buck’s narrative.

As for Tommy’s role in Buck’s story, I am of the belief that Tommy will be the one to tell Buck to just ‘Keep your head down, your mouth shut and pretend it isn't there.’ as he complains to him about Gerrard and how he treats his friends on the 118. This is something Buck could never do. He isn’t like Tommy, he can’t just accept and tolerate his friends being bullied by their new captain.

I agree with OP that Tommy will probably be gone by the end of 8a. His arc will be finished and the queer Eddie/Buddie arc will be in full swing by then. This arc won’t find its satisfying ending until well into 8b though. There needs to be drama first. And I do believe that there will be a lot of drama before we actually get the payoff of the Buddie storyline.

The fact that Eddie’s arc is most likely to go into the direction of him realising he’s queer seems unavoidable. It’s like OP said: It’s either queer Eddie with eventual Buddie or ‘never again in love’ Eddie. Two options and we all know which one will bring along the most press and a whole gaggle of new viewers. 😉

Now, as a treat, I have a second post from the OP for you today. This was sent to my mutual and friend @buddiebeginz and she has kindly allowed me to use her post on my blog in order to centralise all the posts from the OP. Thank you Justine!

For context I’d like to relay to you why this post was sent to Justine. She received an ask earlier which she replied to here. I urge all of you to read her reply as well, as it was very insightful and I do agree with most of it.

Anyway, someone else sent her an anon ask later on as a response to the post she made. This anon had found a reply from the OP as to why they thought that Tommy is ‘good’ for Buck ‘right now’ and why they enjoy the character’s role in Buck’s story for as long as it will last.

Keep reading under the cut. I didn't want to clog anyone's dash with too long of a post.

Here is that ask with OP’s answer:

I admit I really like this answer. The way they break down Tommy’s role in Buck’s story as Buck having a ‘fun and light’ first experience as a newly out bisexual, before the more ‘heavy’ Eddie and Buddie story will start. I understand it and I can see how that could be some valuable life experience for Buck, so he is strong enough to tackle the next part of the Buddie journey. I can logically 'perceive' that this is what the writers originally intended for the BT storyline.

Does this mean that I suddenly like Tommy and the BT arc? No. Definitely not. And I think the problem can be found in the way that Tommy and BT was written. He wasn't written as a very appealing character. I don’t see the chemistry between him and Buck and I think they don’t fit well together. Their ‘energies’ just don't match. I don't see enough proof of him truly caring about Buck in any of the episodes. So, I admit I can't see the 'light and fun' experience OP talks about. To me Tommy is just weighing Buck down with too much negativity.

And let's not forget about how we were all introduced to Tommy in season 2 and the way he treated Hen and Chimney. The man was never meant to be a 'nice and likeable' character with a questionable background like that. They tried to redeem him somewhat with the helicopter cruise ship rescue storyline, but to me it fell kind of flat.

And yes, of course there is also the ‘Eddie factor’. I have been shipping Buddie for years now, so whether I like it or not, I am biased towards Buddie. I am also not a multi-shipper. I just don’t have that in me. Once I latch onto a ship I never let go. 😊

So yeah, ultimately… different opinions make for more interesting conversations, right? And I love reading about OP’s opinions. Sometimes they match my own and sometimes they don’t, but I still respect them and value their view on 911. That’s what fandom should be about: sharing opinions, respectfully agreeing or disagreeing with each other, listening and learning from each other. It’s so much more enjoyable than sending anonymous hatred to someone’s inbox.

Anyway, once again I ask everyone to not post any hate towards the OP in the comments or reblogs. I do highly encourage a civil conversation about the topics discussed in this post. 😊

[clownypillar]

WELCOME TO MY BLOG !! :3

⤷ My names are jester/kastor/walden and I use she/he/xym !

im an 16 anifaux autistic artist who’s the host of a P-DID system which is erm cool I think, I’ll mainly be the one posting here

We’re in soso many fandoms… though the ones I’ll be making fanart for the most are

⤷ smg4, cult of the lamb, sneegsnag, welcome home, rainbow factory Wally au, my own welcome home AUs, and phighting !

extra things we like and you might see

⤷ Pokémon, the glass scientist, creatures of sonaria, splatoon, regretavator, and sky cotl !

while we post silly autistic fanart, we also make discord emojis !

if you want more information on us, check out our carrd !

If you only followed for my fanart, emojis, or random yappery (I doubt fr) I have custome tags, so if you only want to mainly see one of these, feel free to follow one

✦ #clownyyappery

✦ #clownyart

✦ #clownymojis

✦ EMOJI BOUNDARIES ✦

⟣ if you ever use our emojis in a server, please make sure to add CLOWNY_ at the beginning for credit :3

⟣ do not steal/copy our emojis, or edit them without our permission, inspiration is 100% as long as you ask and give credit !

⟣ don’t use our emojis for inappropriate reasons, being an endo is a inappropriate reason btw 💕

⟣ please give us emoji request !! We love requests !!! We will do anything besides your ocs or headmates, but if we know and like a character we will do that :3

✦ ART BOUNDARIES ✦

⟣ do not copy/trace/edit our art, that’s witterly so mean what the heck :( /silly

⟣ PLEASE GIVE US ASKS!!!!! you can request pretty much anything besides nsfw and art of your ocs unless we specifically ask that you can request us to draw them, we will draw gore and suggestive art just don’t be too crazy vro

⟣ going off the last one, please. Don’t dm us asking us to draw your ocs if you are not our mutual, if you’re our mooty patootie of course we’ll draw what you want /silly but anyone please don’t. You will be able to ask us to draw your characters when we open commissions, but we will not draw it for free.

✦ GENERAL BOUNDARIES ✦

⟣ if you aren’t our mutual, don’t dm us without asking, random dms from people we don’t know makes us extremely uncomfortable

⟣ while we do try and stay out of syscourse, this is not a safe space for anyone who is an endogenic ‘system’ or anyone who accepts and supports them

⟣ basic dni criteria, proshippers, racists, anti-lgbtqia+, just don’t interact if you’re weird dawg

⟣ if we ever make you uncomfortable, feel free to tell us ! We struggle to tell when we did something wrong or pick up on social cues for when someone’s uncomfortable/uneasy, but if you tell us we will be supa understanding trust

✦ EXTRAS ✦

⟣ we might come off as passive aggressive, but I promise we’re not angry ! (Unless we are, you’ll probably know when we are) a lot of our humour is based around our passive aggressive nature, but don’t be scared to interact because of it :3

⟣ while I’m typically the one posting, if you ever wanna know who made a post, feel free to ask, we’ll probably never ever use sign-offs unless it’s super duper uber important to /silly

✦ OUR DISCORD ✦

if you want to join a very awesome server with a very active community full of goofy fandoms, use all our custome emojis, or just see our art as soon as it’s made, consider joining our server ! ITS SUPER AWESOME GUYS 100%%%

[qiu-yan]

3 6 7 11 16 20 25

bro is trying to get me killed lmao /s

choose violence ask game

3. screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr:

this shit

6. which ship fans are the most annoying?

gonna be honest here, the single most annoying part of the MDZS fandom is that one hyperspecific sort of wang and xian stan who insists on shitting on not only the other characters, but also other wang and xian fans who ship the characters in ways they don't approve of. this kind of stan can not only be relied on to have the worst possible takes on everyone ranging from jin guangyao to jiang cheng, they can also be relied on to harass other wang and xian fans simply for putting wang on the bottom. fun times.

7. what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them?

surprisingly, no one yet. sometimes i feel the hater urge to dunk on the morally-pure version of wei wuxian that the diehard wei wuxian stannies have collectively hallucinated, but i still find the wei wuxian from canon to be quite compelling.

11. number of fandom-related words you've filtered

the "canon jiang cheng" and "canon jc" tags. everyone stfu

16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

"morally pure wei wuxian who did nothing wrong ever." to me, wei wuxian's hubris, his unique capability for inventing new kinds of cruelty, his failure to think of the consequences of his actions, his tendencies to run away from negative feelings, and his ultimate failure to protect the people he was trying to protect, are what make him a compelling character to me. these flaws in parallel with his courage, kindness, stalwart moral compass, and genuine love make him interesting to me. so i don't quite understand fans who instead insist on erasing all the morally grey and highly interesting stuff he did in favor of insisting he did nothing wrong ever.

20. part of canon you found tedious or boring

not quite what the question is asking, but i found the actual wang and xian romance in the original novel to be a bit lacking. mainly because (as other people have said already) a lot of the romantic development happened when lan wangji was drunk. at the very least, i wanted to see lan wangji's reactions to his various drunken adventures once he sobered up the next day, and i'm rather disappointed we never got to see that.

furthermore, on wei wuxian's end, it did kind of feel like wei wuxian was using this exciting new romance to distract himself from his past problems, even though it also seemed like he didn't actually know all that much about lan wangji. the only version of the romance that makes sense to me is the one where wei wuxian was already into lan wangji (subconsciously or consciously) in his first life; otherwise, wei wuxian falling in love with lan wangji during his second life, when he's yet to process any of the shit that happened in his first life, feels too much like him running away from his problems with a guy he believes will validate all his decisions. meanwhile, on lan wangji's end, i feel like the novel just did not give us a lot to work with in regards to his character. so it feels like, if you want to be a fan of lan wangji, you have to do a lot of the legwork of building up his personality yourself.

what also disappointed me a bit about wang and xian, as well as lan wangji's character arc itself, is that lan wangji is never really challenged on a moral-dilemma level in the same way that many other characters are challenged by the story. how do i explain this...alright, i'll put it this way. i've been brainrotted about madohomu (madoka magica) since i was in middle school. and that's partially because i know for a fact that, if homura was put in the trolley problem and had to choose between [killing 5 strangers] and [allowing madoka to die], she would choose to kill those 5 strangers to save madoka. but after reading MDZS, i realized i legitimately did not know what lan wangji would do in such a moral dilemma. because MDZS equates [being morally righteous] with [supporting wei wuxian], lan wangji is never placed in a dilemma where he has to choose between sacrificing wei ying and doing something the audience would think of as unforgivable.

these are just my own hyperspecific tastes, though.

25. common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing

gonna put my hater hat on for a second, but i kind of roll my eyes at the jiang cheng haters complaining about how jiang cheng stans keep posting in the "canon jiang cheng" tag. dude, if it bothers you that much, just block the jiang cheng stans. then things will be peaceful in your favorite tag again.

[scarasimplysimping]

All In

Part 1 (might be two parts idk)

(⁠人⁠ ⁠•͈⁠ᴗ⁠•͈⁠)

Summary: A bet is placed to see if you can get the Summa Cum Laude to fall in love with you. (Scaramouche x Reader) (College au)

Contains: Idk. So it's one of those love stories where there's a bet. Hu Tao and Childe are kind of assholes for the sake of this fic, I am SORRY. Reader is also kind of an ass. Ooc. Some plot holes because I don't go to college or drink or smoke. Just roll with it.

(⁠人⁠ ⁠•͈⁠ᴗ⁠•͈⁠)

2,822 words 15,518 characters

What a stuck-up prick.

That's what you thought of him anyway. He was *the* Summa Cum Laude of your year. He was snobby, self-centered, friendless, and to top it all off, he just so happened to be your partner for your big thesis.

It was not by choice but he had no partner because people were afraid of him and you had no partner because well... people hated you. It wasn't a project that could be done individually either, lest you wanted to die before you graduate.

"He's such a bore." You complain to your friends on the lunch table, Hu Tao, Childe, and Xiao. "I tried to make plans with him, really. I asked if he was free, and you know what he said?" You slammed your hands on the table for dramatic effect.

Hu Tao leaned in closer, strands of her hair falling onto the table, and alarmingly close to Xiao's food, making him scowl as he moved his tray.

"He said," you began, putting up a silly impression of him with a snobby expression. "I don't need bottom feeders like you dragging down my work. I'll handle everything. Pay me if you want."

Childe snorted. Hu Tao doubled over in laughter, mainly because you're impression was so on point.

"God, what a freak." Hu Tao mused as she wiped her tears from her face, she never passed on the opportunity to talk shit about someone she didn't like. Childe agreed with her but he was partly not paying attention. He jabbed his fork into Xiao's food.

"Fucker." Xiao muttered under his breath.

Your silly clique was a ragtag bunch of misfits in their own ways. Hu Tao was your childhood friend who always had something vindictive to say or some storm to stir up. She lived for the drama.

Childe started tagging along around highschool. He was a charming, silver-tongued ginger ball of sunshine, he started developing a negative reputation over time as as somewhat of a satyr, though.

Xiao was above all the petty and immature antics whichever one of you had the gall to cook up. In all honesty, he was only there because his older brother, Zhongli had asked Childe to help him settle in to the college life. Childe owed the man a favor so he dragged the poor emo wherever you guys went and you kind of just got used to his company.

Then there was you, there was one thing that set you far apart from them all.

Money.

They were filthy rich and you, an independent college student, had not a penny to your name after you decided to up and leave your family to follow Hu Tao to college. You didn't really have to work though, your friends pretty much covered most of your college expense as casually as a friend would by you lunch.

"I know I can't really help him, I mean, my grades are dogshit right now but like I don't know how to pay him either," You said, burying your face into your palms.

Childe scoffed. "I don't even think he means it. Plus, it's nothing to worry about. We've got you covered if that greedy little nerd actually demands shit from you."

"Yeah, just let him do everything by himself," He continued "Watch him or something, in case your professor wants updates.."

A small smirk formed upon his lips. "I bet he's not that hard to watch anyway."

You playfully punched him on the shoulder "Gross!"

"You gotta admit he is kinda cute," Hu Tao chided in. "Right, Xiao?"

Xiao shrugged, far too focused on actually having lunch.

Childe snaked an arm over you. "Tell you what, (Y/N). If you can somehow bed the prudish bastard before the end of this semester, I'll fork over some money for this month's rent."

"Hu Tao pays rent."

"I'll fork over some money for anything you want."

"Hmm... I want VIP tickets to La Signora's concert."

"Done~"

"Oh my archons! Like actually?" Hu Tao couldn't tell if you both were serious. "(Y/N), your charm is above average but I don't even know if you can pull this one off."

You roll your eyes." Have faith in me. I bet he's easy."

Hu Tao leans back thoughtfully, a mischievous smirk playing on her face. "Alright, (Y/N). If you manage to pull this off I'll give you a grand.

You gape at her. "Seriously?

"Absolutely."

You know were only entertaining the idea because they had no actual faith you'd pull it off, but to you. This was easy money.

You slowly turn to the brooding emo on the table. "What about you, Xiao?"

His eyes narrowed at you. "What about me?"

"You gonna offer anything?"

He scoffs, groaning internally and being the only one with a moral compass. "Only an asshole would find bets such as these any type of fun."

Childe flicks his wrist dismissevly. "We are assholes."

(⁠人⁠ ⁠•͈⁠ᴗ⁠•͈⁠)

It was hard enough convincing Scaramouche to work on the project and your (and Hu Tao's) place but now you had to deal with the emanating silence from you both. You've barely ever talked to him but the tension in your room could be cut with a knife, or maybe that was just your imagination.

He was sitting cross legged on your bed, typing away at his laptop with several papers surrounding him. You were sat across from him in the same position, nursing a cigarette in between your fingers.

"Do you want something to eat?" You finally break the silence.

He doesn't look up from the screen as he responds. "What do you have?"

You look to the ceiling, trying to recall what you and Hu Tao had last shoved into the fridge. "Uh... Pesto... Pizza... Dumplings. Probably some leftover vegetables."

"Bring me them all." Talk about shame.

"Alright." You say, putting out the cigarette on your nightstand. You couldn't help but notice the tiny scowl on Scaramouche's face as he glanced at the ashtray.

You come back balancing a bowl of pesto, a bowl of dumplings, and a bowl of salad on a box of pizza. Scaramouche pats on the side of your bed, indicating for you to drop the offerings there.

You light another cigarette as you take your previous seat in front of him.

"The weather is pretty nice today.." A sad attempt at conversation on your end.

Silence

"So... Childe's hosting a party tomorrow night, would you like to come?" You try once more.

Scaramouche still doesn't say anything, he doesn't even look up from the screen.

You blow a puff of smoke on his face. He coughs a bit before glaring at you with cold judging eyes. At least he was actually looking at you now. "I have no time to indulge in that crap."

"You have plenty of time. That thesis isn't due for another month."

"Well not exactly, since I'll be doing the work for both of us."

"Do you have a problem with me?"

"I have a problem with people like you." He glowers.

"People like me?" You raise your eyebrows.

"People who just have everything spoon fed to them by luck or by birthright and take that as a reason to slack off for the rest of their life since everything just magically works out for them." Scaramouche wasn't wrong, you really fucked around and never found out but still, what right did he have to judge you?

"Didn't know you knew me so well." You say, blowing out another puff of smoke but this time it's to the side.

Scaramouche opens his mouth to respond, then closes it once more. You had a point. It was hypocritical of him to listen to judge you based on gossip.

Finally, he speaks after a few minutes of silence.

"I was out of line." It's an apology although he doesn't outright apologize.

"Yeah." You decide to take advantage of his momentary guilt as you inquire about what he's working on. "So, do you mind telling me what you're doing?"

"Well, I'm looking online for research papers related to the topic were studying. I'm taking snippets I find interesting and I'll save them for later to expand on them in our thesis."

Scaramouche speaks a bit more but you're hardly listening. You take this time to really observe his physical appearance. Hu Tao was right; the man was cute. His eyes, his mouth, his lips. If you took a meat cleaver to the center of his skull, you'd have matching halves.

Even his hair looked softer than unicorn fur.

"(Y/N)?" He snaps you out, a displeased expression creeps upon his face upon noticing that you aren't even paying attention.

"Your hair looks softer than unicorn fur," you blurt out.

His eyes widen slightly, and you could've sworn he turned a shade pink before he feigned a disgusted look to save his dignity. "What the hell?"

You caught on immediately. There it was. Scaramouche had a weakness. The Summa Cum Laude, the bridge troll with a big brain and purple hair (as Hu Tao once described him) is someone who gets easily flustered .

"You're kind of cute." You push on.

"Shut the fuck up." His head lowers, he dares not look into your eyes.

"Come to Childe's party with me?" You ask once more.

(⁠人⁠ ⁠•͈⁠ᴗ⁠•͈⁠)

Scaramouche hated you. He hated your face and your voice and your personality. He hated every single atom you were made up of, but most of all he hated the way you were able to persuade him to come to this stupid party. And for what? Just because you were the first person to ever call him cute? He'd curse you and all your descendants to come.

Childe's party was just a gathering of drunks and trouble makers. His house was practically a mansion that could fit 60% of the university's student population.

He hated the blaring lights and unbelievably loud, repetitive, and distasteful music.

"I hate this!" He has to shout for you to hear.

"I know!"

"I'm going home!"

"You can't! You're my ride home!"

"We walked here, dumbass!" Scaramouche wanted to leave you truly he did but something, wasn't letting him. His moral compass or his growing fondness of you?

Childe finds you, placing an arm around your shoulder. "Hey!" He hands you a shot glass which you graciously accept and down in a couple of seconds, much to Scaramouche's dismay.

Childe pays no attention to your companion until he does a double take and realize it's Scaramouche.

"Holy shit! Is that Scara!?" Childe grins hazily. He was drunk drunk.

Scaramouche does not respond. He is frowning while Childe handed you half a bottle of gin.

You drink it within a couple minutes as you chat with Childe.

Scaramouche stands there, awkward, cranky, and out of place as the only person he's aquatinted with in this party is getting absolutely inebriated.

At some point you don't know when or from where but you get your hands on another shot glass.

"You're not drinking that," Scaramouche states firmly.

"I am." You bring the cup to your lips but Scaramouche is faster, he snatches it from you and lets it fall to the ground.

"What gives!?"

"I'm not carrying your drunk ass home just because you drank away the capability to walk!" He shouts at you.

People are staring now. Is it because of the commotion or because Scaramouche was the last person anyone would expect to see at a party?

Scaramouche didn't like the staring or the attention. "I'm going fucking home." He says, grabbing your wrist and pulling you past the crowd. "So are you."

Childe is left there, impressed. He takes out his cellphone.

To: Hu Tao

She's actually gonna pull it off. Wtf

From: Childe

You stumble and trip as Scaramouche drags you through the night. It was a miracle you could keep up. (It wasn't, he slowed his pace on purpose to match yours but it still wasn't slow enough for your drunken ass.)

"Scara, slow dooown~"

He ignores you until he feels you slip from his grasp, landing with a thud. "What the fuck is wrong with you!? Do you not have the smarts to walk!?" The boy scolds.

You decide to rest your knees a bit as you stay on the ground.

You hear him sigh sharply before crouching in front of you. "Get on."

"What? Like piggyback style?"

"Yes, damnit just get on." His face wasn't facing you and it was dark. Scaramouche was eternally grateful to the archons that you couldn't see the way his ears reddened.

He carries you like that until you're at the front door of your place. Scaramouche gently drops you off. Miraculously not panting. (He wasn't that athletic.)

"Can I trust you enough to tuck yourself in?" The boy asks, his tone was calm this time.

You nod in response.

"Alright." Scaramouche turns his heel to leave.

"Scaramouche." You call out.

He turns back to you, a little too quickly.

You try to take a step towards him except you "accidentally" trip on air and crash onto his chest. He barely moves an inch but his hands instinctively wrap around you. You can see the exact moment he scrunches his nose as well as the moment before that where his cheeks flush.

You'll blame this on alcohol later. You'll also blame alcohol for when you pulled his collar to place a quick peck on his lips.

This was the night Scaramouche nearly passed away.

(⁠人⁠ ⁠•͈⁠ᴗ⁠•͈⁠)

Scara paced around his room. What the fuck was that? Why the fuck would you do that? His heart still raced as fast as it did when you kissed him.

He replayed the kiss over and over in his mind. Why? Just why? He mussed his hair in frustration as he plopped himself on the bed. If Scaramouche focused enough, he could still feel their lips on his, even if it was just for a fleeting moment.

Why had a drunken asshole decided to take his first kiss? Why was he reacting so weirdly?

And why did he just tuck tail speed walk away right after it happened without saying shit about it?

(Y/N) will probably tell their friends. They'll gossip and laugh at how the smartest person in their program was turned into a blushing, sputtering mess at the mere kiss of some drunk. Some overly confident, obnoxious, attractive drunk who's lips were soft as velvet.

The thought has him reeling. Rolling to the side, Scaramouche pulled a pillow over his head and groaned into it.

"I'm done guessing. What's wrong with you?" His inner monologue was broken by his cyan haired roommate.

"Nothing. Fuck off, Dottore." His words still muffled by the pillow.

"All your ceaseless brooding is keeping me distracted. I suggest you stop whining if you don't want me to give you more reasons to whine."

Silence.

That came out wrong, but it got Scaramouche to shut up so who would complain?

(⁠人⁠ ⁠•͈⁠ᴗ⁠•͈⁠)

It was a crush. That's what Dottore had said to him. It made jackshit sense though. Why would he like you? You were just someone he perceived as a slacker. It's possibly because you were the only one who ever showed interest in him. He'll probably get over it when he finds someone else to adore, but he couldn't.

Scaramouche was once again working on the thesis, on your bed. He didn't bring up the kiss. Maybe you'd forgotten about it? A small part of him hoped that you didn't though.

Finally, he decides to speak up. "I demand compensation."

You shoot him a confused look.

"What? Don't you remember?" Scaramouche scowls.

"You kissed me..."

"Did I?" You feign innocence.

"Do not make me repeat myself." He orders. "That was my first kiss. I demand some kind of compensation." His cheeks were heating up as it became harder and harder for him to look you in the eyes.

"Oh?" You bring your index finger below your lips in an expression of mock thoughtfulness.

Scaramouche's scowl deepens at your mocking finger below your lips. "Do not toy with me," he warns. "You took something and I want fair repayment."

You chuckle, enjoying his ruffled feathers. " And what is a first kiss worth these days?" Leaning back on your hands, you look him over appraisingly. "I'm not convinced it was really your first. You seemed to know what you were doing..."

His cheeks redden as he scrunches his nose at your audacity. "You're insufferable."

"And yet you enjoyed kissing me." You smirk. "Perhaps you even want more?"

Scaramouche's embarrassment only grows at your bold insinuation. "You presume too much, fool," he bites back, though his resolve seems weakened.

You shrug. "Suit yourself. I was just about to offer a date."

He narrows his eyes at you, as if trying to ascertain if this is some sort of trick. "A date?"

[rudy-sport]

Warning: Rudy gets VERY sappy and a lot of people are abt to be tagged n told how radical they are IM SORRY THAT YOURE GETTING A STUPID NOTIF LIKE THIS

So the past.... Month. Has been very eventful. Coping with a rough break up, work being hard. I'm almost 21 I kinda figured it'd be rough being in my 20s. I really was expecting it to be the end of the world, but then I made a really good choice.

I joined a few discord servers over this month, and I can't begin to explain just how wonderful that's been for my mental health.

I've made so many new beautiful friends who just mean the world to me, and those new friends along with old friends and my beautiful angel wife who's stuck with me while we both heal, it's just nice.

I wanna say a few words [or a lot words. I'm a yapper] and I jus wanna really detail my appreciation for the following people.

@your-pal-smoochins, my perfect angel wife. You and I have had a lot of things against us. You've been such an amazing support system through these past couple years and I don't tell you enough just how much I love and appreciate everything you do for me. You lift me up when I really need it and I've never felt more loved than when you've been by my side. Thanks for being my rock, my sun moon and stars, and just thank you for being mine. You do so much more than you give yourself credit for, having escaped the situation you were in and going to college. You're so strong, and you're my beautiful angel forever.

@carbonateddelusion Rox! You were one of the first friends I made when everything got locked down and my first memory of you was drawing some of my guys. I dunno if you know but those gifts are still in my phone. I look at those and your newer stuff and I'm just beyond amazed at your progress. You've been a really amazing friend and I love you, man. You really rock, rox [yes that was on purpose]

@toondamien Damien!! one of my very first tumblr friends and the guy who lets me use his oc for my story stuff! You're a little older than me, and as such you've kinda been a role model to me. I still look up to you [metaphorically, hehe] and I'm glad you're my No. 1 DSAF mutual. You're great, dude.

@springlucked Spring. Though we only started talking recently, you are still someone I consider a dear friend. Your fics got me out of some really bad art blocks and my really low days. While Dearly Detested makes me cry and fills me with just the right amount of emotions to break a tree in half, you are so awesome. Your writing is so good and you're so humble when you get gift art from people regarding your fics. You are like a slightly bothersome little sister and for that I love you, ya lil punk.

@dexabite Dex Dane Dexabite Freakabite Miller Jekyll Jade [not real name. obviously] my sworn enemy /j. Your art rocks. Your art inspired a lot of my more detailed pieces and your character design stuff actually made me wanna branch out more not just with character design, but also poses and colors! You're an inspiration to this guy who mainly draws that dumb orange boy and ily /p

@igottoo MJ!! Like if I was a second person! You rock dude. Your art? slaps. Your animation? slaps. Your insane jokes? Slaps. you unintentionally gave me a pose reference that made me leap out of my comfort zone and yknow what? People loved it!! And thats because you're so cool! We scarily have a lot in common so the reasonable assumption is we are in fact the same guy [silly] but i love you to BITS /p. My lagomorphed brethren and the guy I'll be sending my Dave doodles to before showing the public. You're a bro, dawg. As the No. 1 Old Sport fan I'm VERY glad I'm best pals with THE No. 1 Dave Miller fan.

thank you all for being my friends. You guys make my heart full and make me wanna keep working towards being a good person

[18caramel]

Before I leave (Ponyboy Curtis x Curly Shepard)

Curly Shepard, a known prostitute around Tulsa. And Ponyboy Curtis, the one who fell for him.

tags: aged-up characters, angst, romance, family issues warnings: smut, prostitution, drug use and pejorative speech word count: 3.7k ao3 link: here A/N: my song suggestion would be anything heartbreaking or tragic by LDR ofc

pics from pinterest

When Sandra Shepard, mother of three children, went missing on a random Sunday evening, Shepards went silent. Darrel Curtis, naturally preoccupied with everyone, just like his younger brother Sodapop, tried talking it out with Tim, forcing him to go to the police. 

Three years later, they still didn’t know what happened to her. She was an alcoholic and used to disappear from time to time, so the cops didn’t give it much thought, leaving Tim, Curly, and Angela on their own. They had to survive. Do something to make ends meet. And it wasn’t easy to contribute to the family. Especially for Curly Shepard.

It was another summer without Johnny and Dallas by Ponyboy’s side. A few years flew by, and he found new friends, got accepted to college, and impatiently waited for the next chapter in his life. Nothing was holding him back. Or at least he thought so. 

He didn’t remember when he first started seeing Curly downtown, erratically walking with a girl under his arm, but mainly with guys Ponyboy had never seen before. These men sometimes looked to be the same age as Curly, but often they were quite older. He had never seen Curly leave off alone. As Darry used to tell him - whatever that hoodlum had become, it was none of his business. Shepards were trouble. As soon as Angela hit the majority, she got married off to some idiot, and Tim was planning on doing some paperwork to discuss the heritage but was quickly troubled by his mother’s missing status. He could barely afford to live in that house.

Pony didn’t know how to approach his old friend at first. Curly dropped out of school a while ago, even if he had only a year left. And now Pony saw him every day standing by the liquor store, smoking a cigarette, his eyes constantly drifting from left to right, waiting for someone, maybe even anyone. Pony didn’t understand at first what was happening to him. He wanted to come up to Curly and have some kind of small talk, but his legs wouldn’t walk, and his tongue stood still. He never felt anything like that. Never.

Curly didn’t lose his charm over the years. Yes, he seemed a little worn out, but his clothes were always tight and neat, showing off his slim, perfect figure. His curly hair was usually slightly greased, and his teeth were nicely polished. Pony saw them shine from a mile away whenever a stranger passed by, and it always seemed to Pony that Curly was trying hard to impress all of the mystery men. And all of it wasn’t for Ponyboy Curtis.

Curly’s eyes blazed with desire and wildness each time he’d notice Curtis stare at him bluntly, secretly biting his tongue, not daring to come and say hello. He noticed him right away - Shepard learned to read through people too, and Ponyboy surely wasn’t there just to greet him and talk about the good old times. No, Curtis wanted more than that. Curly watched him come out of the library at about six, his school bag hanging from his shoulder, his hair all ruffled, and his shirt halfway unbuttoned. He was growing to be a gorgeous young man, soon going off to college. And Curly would remain standing there, in the corner of the street, waiting for his regulars to show up.

There was something about Curly Shepard that Pony tried hard to figure out but couldn’t.

At first, Pony thought Curly was dealing. Because who didn’t? And then why would he wait for all of these random people? There was no other possible answer for Ponyboy Curtis.

That was until Two-Bit came by on a Saturday evening and started debriefing a few rumors going around the town. Steve Randle sat in the recliner, clearly a bit drunk, and was giving his honest opinion about Angela’s marriage which none of them was invited to.

“She married that dork last week,” Steve finally laid off his beer, keeping his eyes closed for a second, “Shepard didn’t even call Darry. Hell, he probably wasn’t even there.” 

“Yeah,” Two-Bit carried on, pinching the hole in his sock, as if he could magically fix it with his touch, “I saw Curly downtown the day Angela was tying the knot. It surely didn’t occur to him at all.” 

“Curly Shepard,” Steve stretched out his arms, almost spilling his beer, “That manwhore…” 

Pony almost choked on his saliva when he heard it. His body began to tremble, and his cheeks grew slightly pink, and then he knew, he knew it must’ve been true. But he still couldn’t stop waiting until the next day he’d come to the library and see him in the corner of the street. And he couldn’t stop gazing at him. He learned all of the unfamiliar faces, their walk, their gestures. He couldn’t believe it to be true, no, Curly couldn’t have been doing it. Only women did. Not Curly Shepard. 

But then it did seem that way. He surely must’ve smelled good, as Ponyboy often imagined it, and wore the freshest clothes. He never had anything else with him, not even a bag, only his jacket in the evenings, where he shoved his masculine hands, protecting them from the cold breeze. Pony was the last one to get out of the library every single time he went there. He got used to seeing the same old lady surveilling the books, and they even ended up forming some kind of friendship. The lady told him about an available summer job, and Pony started seriously considering it. Yes, Pony went to the library even during summer, but less than in spring. At first, it wasn’t for Curly but for school, then for his obsession with English and American literature, but quickly Shepard did become his main intention. He came during the weekdays, but then mostly on Friday and Saturday evenings too. 

It was becoming a mania. Pony ran his hands through his hair, adjusted his collar, put on some cologne, and was convinced that Curly was going to come and finally talk to him. They saw each other every single fucking time, but no one made the first step. And that’s what made it so obvious and irremediable - Curly Shepard and Ponyboy Curtis desired to get closer with each other. 

Pony wasn’t capable of stopping going to that damned library, on the contrary by the beginning of August he went there almost every day. But then, suddenly, Curly wasn’t in the corner of the street anymore. Pony panicked that day, and went to sit by the window, peeking through the glass, as if was tracking him down. He didn’t come. The next day he wasn’t there either. 

It finally happened at the end of August. Something clicked in Pony’s head, something terrible and tormenting and Pony got frightened by one simple thought - what if Curly had left?

What if someone kidnapped him? What if he was found lifeless on the floor? What if Pony would never see him again? What if he lost his chance?

And then Steve and Two-Bit weren’t helping Pony at all. They often talked about Shepards, especially about their money problems. But he never dared to participate in their talk. So one day Ponyboy swallowed all of his pride and decided to ask Darry about them. 

“Dar, how is Tim doing?” 

“Not that good,” Darry’s lips formed a straight line, “He’s always talking about selling the house these days since he’s the only one living in it. But I don’t think he will.” 

Darry continued talking about heritage, how Tim would mostly spend all of the money in a casino the following day he’d sign the papers, and how it was probably impossible anyway, but Pony had no interest in his talk. He wanted to know where Curly lived. Was it right there next to the liquor store? And why wouldn’t he be living with Tim anymore?

When Pony sprinted to the library that same evening, he quickly realized how dear Curly was to him. Their childhood memories reappeared, and Pony could swear that he felt an aching sensation up in his gut. And then he was mad. Angry with Shepard for choosing to live like that. Angry that he saw other men. Disappointed in him. 

He intended to address him and give him a piece of his mind. That it was wrong and he shouldn’t have been giving his body away to make a living out of it. Anything, but this. 

Curly was there, wearing a white tank top, showing off his broad tanned shoulders, smoking another cigarette, making sure not to stain his clothes. There was a tad of surprise in his dimmed eyes, and he quickly adjusted his posture when he saw Ponyboy running to him. 

“Something’s wrong, Curtis?” Curly frowned his eyebrows, scanning Ponyboy from head to toe. Pony just stood there, trying to catch his breath. 

“You know,” Curly looked left and right, searching the road, “You shouldn’t be out here so late, all by yourself.”

“You’re here right?” Pony wanted to make a joke out of it but saw that it didn’t please Shepard. 

“I am.” Curly mumbled, “And I’m not.” 

Pony always wondered about those draining words he had pronounced that evening. And he thought of his lonely eyes, his stolen dim, those eyes that had seen it all. 

“You better leave, Curtis,” Curly whispered to him, making a step closer so that his friend could feel his breath on his lips. “You don’t want to be seen by my side.”

“What if I want to?” It took him a lot of courage to say it. He trembled on the inside, but he was being honest with Curly for once. He couldn’t live without it any longer. And the idea of leaving for college frightened him even more. 

“I know you do,” Curly’s voice sent shivers down Pony’s spine. It was as if he was in a trance when he followed Shepard to his apartment, his body floated, and his stomach ached as he climbed up the stairs to a sketchy door, waiting for Shepard to put the keys into the lock. 

They were in complete darkness when their bodies collided and their tongues twisted in a dance they’d been longing for the past couple of weeks. Pony was no good in any of it, he was still inexperienced and a bit shy, and Curly was the polar opposite, but it didn’t matter that night. Curly stripped down his clothes, ripping the buttons of his shirt, sending them on the floor - another memory Curly would keep for whenever he needed to feel warmth. And Ponyboy was a fool for Shepard, he brushed his hand through his curly hair, hearing a slight moan escape from his lips, and couldn’t help but think about all those times Curly would moan for other men. He suddenly felt his stomach twist and he sat on the bed, his chest filled with sorrow. 

“Pony, what’s wrong?” Curly sat beside him, gently pressing his head against his. If only they could stay like that forever. 

“You don’t have to keep doing it.” 

Curly knew exactly what he meant, so he stayed silent. There was no way to explain to Pony everything he had gone through these couple of years. Pony had two loving brothers, and all Curly had left was a broken family. He managed well to hold his tears and kiss Pony’s neck, his lips trailing down to his naked torso. Pony let go of his thoughts when Curly’s teeth met his skin, and he felt butterflies in his stomach, his cheeks were burning up too. He never felt anything like that before. 

The pleasure was unmatched. When Curly dropped to his knees, there was not a single hint of fear or disgust in his eyes. He wanted to do it. Maybe Pony wasn’t a simple client, he was more than that, or at least he believed it each time he’d go back to that sweet memory of Curly’s lips wrapped around his length, his tongue underneath, sliding up and down, making Pony’s soul leave his body. 

Curly probably did it all the time anyway, Pony imagined but quickly realized that he couldn’t continue having these kinds of thoughts. He had to relax. He wanted it. 

Curly sucked him off pretty well. There was nothing special about giving another blowjob to someone, but he did enjoy it with Ponyboy. He always liked him when they were still friends, Pony was handsome, shy, and a bit weird from time to time, but Curly could never call him lame or boring, no, he always respected him. And now being able to kiss his lips, feel him, was a real treat for Curly Shepard. Because he longed for it for all these past months. 

That’s what made it so sweet. They waited a long time before doing it, almost like a normal teenage couple, almost as if they just recently got married. But the reality was different. Curly was prostituting himself. Giving his body to all kinds of men. And he deeply despised it. 

Curly wanted to take Pony so hard, that he abruptly stopped the pleasure he was giving him, and got back near Pony’s face to kiss him. Pony was so gentle. He was still a virgin, but even if he wouldn’t be one, Ponyboy Curtis had always been a good person. He could never hurt Curly Shepard.

Pony was ready to get laid with him. When Curly helped him undress and pulled his jeans off completely, Pony understood that he was the one who was about to lose his virginity. He didn’t mind because he had never given it much thought. But no, it wasn’t true. Pony thought about sex all the time. It’s just that he has nobody to talk to it about, but he genuinely wanted Curly to fuck him. 

Shepard needed it too. Sex had become a horrid duty to him, and he wanted to finally feel like himself again. He kissed Pony’s neck and left there a hickey, a small violet spot that would remind him of their time together. 

When Ponyboy lay on the bed, getting ready to be penetrated for the first time, he saw that Curly kept a lot of pills on his nightstand. Pony was no fool, he understood quickly that Curly ended up doing drugs like most of the Greasers around town. Pony closed his eyes, imagining what it could’ve been like for Curly if he had at least some kind of support in his life. Would it be different if Tim and Angela cared for him? Of course, it would. 

Curly’s kisses slowly made Pony’s thoughts disappear. Curtis was already very relaxed down there since he had been discovering his body for a some time. That is why when Curly lubed the area and fingered him, it wasn’t painful at all. Pony moaned, living the best experience he thought he ever had in his life. 

Curly, on the other hand, had swallowed a few pills before he’d get his hands on Pony’s body just in case he couldn’t feel like himself. It was a part of his routine. When his mind was finally free, he entered Ponyboy and gave him what he wanted - his first time. Curly still remembered the first time he experienced it, but decided not to visualize the scene again, because it reminded him of the simpler times when he was still living with his siblings and used to go to school, had some money in his pocket that he’d waste on anything he wanted, and not fuck with guys just to have a roof under his head. 

Pony turned him on. Curly grabbed his waist when they switched positions and fucked him so hard, almost forgetting that Ponyboy was still new to it all. Curtis came, and when Curly saw the liquid splurge all over his bedsheets, he came too, inside Ponyboy. Curtis was in a euphoric, but also tired state for a few minutes, and when he finally opened his eyes, Curly was long gone to the bathroom, where he spent at least twenty minutes under the cold water, cleaning himself up. 

Pony got pretty nervous, blaming himself for everything they had done. Maybe they shouldn’t have. Maybe Curly didn’t enjoy sex any longer, maybe Ponyboy only reminded him once again of his job. Biting his lip, he got up from the bed and went to check on him. But Curly seemed fine. He still had a wicked smile on his face when Pony entered the bathroom. And Pony concluded that maybe Curly had enjoyed it, at least a little bit. 

Pony stayed to spend the night with him, almost forgetting that he had to leave the next day. And he felt horribly bad for seeing the reality in which Curly had lived, a small apartment, pills everywhere, dirty clothes, broken window… 

“Curly,” Pony cleared his throat, looking him in the eyes. It was dark and he could barely see his pupils, “Why aren’t you living at your house anymore?”

“This is my place now,” Curly’s lips formed a straight line, “I just wanted to be independent. Wanted to show my siblings that I didn’t have to sell or marry someone to get somewhere in life. But look at me now, I’m getting evicted next week. And Tim told me the house won’t be ours anymore.” 

Pony couldn’t even imagine Curly going homeless even for a day. Angela got married off to someone so she could have a home. And Tim, well, they didn’t know what he had become, probably rented a room somewhere or lived with a friend. Curly was all alone. Pony wanted to suggest something, at least anything, but he quickly ran out of options. Their family bond was broken. It was nothing like with Soda and Darry. They could never let him live on the street all by himself. 

Pony had a sudden urge to tell him how dear he was to him. He forgot about the awkwardness, swallowed his shyness, and began to speak, “Curly, I…” 

But Shepard saw it in his eyes right before he’d say it. His eyes gave it all away, but he didn’t believe them. He didn’t want Pony to say things he’d later regret, or say them out of pity, or worse - because Curly was his first time. And there was no such feeling of love for Curly Shepard. Everyone eventually left. And Pony would too. 

“This could never work out. You are better off without me, I promise you, Ponyboy,” Curly mumbled, his eyes closing, his body drifting off to sleep. 

Ponyboy didn’t cry. He wanted to, but the tears never came. He was so flabbergasted and inspired by what he had experienced that all he wanted to do was scream it to the world, but there was nothing to be so surprised about. He had just slept with someone who was having sex with multiple men all year long. Nothing seemed to make this time more special than the rest. 

But it was. To Pony it was everything. Curly was everything. The way he took him so gently and made love to him, even if usually it was a dreading job. 

Ponyboy was grateful. 

Curly’s future was Pony’s last thought before he drifted off to sleep. All these pills, random men… Everyone knew where it could end.

Pony tossed and turned in his sleep, not being able to let go of his intrusive thoughts about Curly leaving this world. He had another nightmare, but this time it wasn’t about his parents, it was about Curly. In his dream, he had become a junkie. His face was pale, and his perfect teeth had gaps in them, just like the skin of his arms. 

Pony glanced at Curly the second he had opened his eyes. No, he was alright. He was alive and breathing, he was young and careless, the same Curly he always knew. And he loved him for it. 

It struck him like lightning. Curly wasn’t going anywhere. He was going to stay, stay the same, stay here in this horrid place, with these worthless men, and Ponyboy would leave to build his future, leave Curly alone. 

Even if Shepard didn’t allow him to pronounce the big word starting with the letter “L”, Pony couldn’t have left without him knowing. He took a piece of paper on Curly’s desk and began writing.

When Curly woke up in the morning, he couldn’t remember what had happened the night before. He stood up, stretched his arms, and went to brush his teeth. But before he could reach the bathroom, he glanced at the desk. He grinned, taking the paper in his hands. His smile disappeared. 

"Dear Curly,

Sometimes I hate myself for not coming to talk to you sooner. I have to get back home early in the morning because I have to finish packing for college and say goodbye to my brothers. I still can’t forget the words you told me, that you’re always going to be here, but someday you won't,”

Curly took his eyes off the paper for a moment, trying to recall him saying it. 

“This is for you, Curly before I leave.” 

Curly lifted the paper and saw an envelope stuffed with paper bills. He couldn’t believe his eyes. His hands started to shake as he flicked them. The sum in his head rounded up to another month of rent. 

He smiled, cursing himself for having Pony’s money. Of course, if it was another man paying that much he wouldn’t mind. But it was Ponyboy Curtis and he was genuine. There was a paper that came with it, and Curly suddenly realized that it was Ponyboy’s salary. 

He must have been working in the library all summer long. But it wasn’t to pay himself a whore. Pony sincerely wanted to help. This was different. Pony could never leave knowing that Curly was going to be homeless in a few days. 

Curly’s eyes shifted back to the letter and then to the clock above the bed. It was too late now to catch him and give him back the money. But he needed it. He really did. 

Shepard felt a tear slip down his cheek as he read the postscript. 

"Please wait for me, 

Ponyboy Curtis."

hope you enjoyed! if you want to leave a comment on ao3 here’s the link, thank you <3

[sapphicfloyrid]

Hello!

I’m the owner of this account (soup/soul/floyd/riddle)! I will be using this account to post mainly about the popular TWST ship of Floyd Leech X Riddle Rosehearts known as Florid!

I will use this account to post rants, headcanons and art too! Along with some edits I have of the ship featuring other ships as well!

This account as inspired by my friend @dailymalleidia/@dracxxnia so please do go check them out!

I’d also be happy to answer any questions and common misconceptions about the ship too! Along with your guys headcanons!

BASIC INFORMATION ABOUT ME:

I’m a lesbian, thus explaining the name “sapphicfloyrid”! If me talking about this ship a lot seems odd or fetishy, please do let me know!

I’m also on the aroace spectrum (I’m demiromantic and aegosexual) and under the trans umbrella (gender apathetic)

I use she/he/they pronouns + some neos and xenos (void/soul/it)!

I’m neurodivergent! I have (diagnosed) adhd and autism and currently as of now, TWST is a hyperfixation for me atm!

I will be posting my strong opinions and feelings about certain stuff (which I already do) related to Floyrid and the fandom! I also tend to miss social cues at times and get easily distracted so please bear with me.

I’m also a minor! In high school rn so I’m very weary of adults talking to me in DMs so please do keep that mind!

There are times when I don’t know how to respond to DMs or don’t have the energy/am overwhelmed so please don’t get upset with me (；￣Д￣)

My favs are Floyd, Riddle, Jade, Azul, Sebek, Ortho and Deuce! I also have other ships besides Florid like Idiazul, Mallekei, Vilrook, Adeuce and Treyjade! I also like to indulge in rarepairs (*´▽`*) This blog will be centered on only Florid though!

BOUNDARIES:

Do not try to change my opinions at all unless what I say it completely incorrect.

Don’t shit on my hcs unless they seem really really ooc

Do not be weird with me. Especially if you’re an adult. I’m an ace minor and it makes me uncomfortable!

Do not ask me to make nsfw hcs of Floyd and Riddle. Or of any TWST minors/characters. I have the public decency not to be weird. I do make dirty jokes about some characters but not if they’re minors.

Don’t come on my blog if you’re gonna spew bullshit about Florid being “toxic” or whatever the hell. I have debunked it before and made multiple paragraphs and posts about it not being abusive or any of the sorts before.

Don’t force me to have a conversation with you in DMs. I will get tired and uncomfortable.

No Yandere shit at all. I will not hesitate to block you if you ask me for that.

Please be aware that I am not a fujoshi. I use the term himejoshi (which is a girl who indulges heavily in gl/yuri) but never the term fujoshi. If you compare me to a fujoshi or call me one with no reason, you’re gonna be blocked.

Use tone tags with me!

DNI

18+ only accounts cause I’m gonna automatically assume you’re a creep if you’re an nsfw account interacting with a MINOR. Extra weird if you’re a TWST nsfw account considering like 90% of the cast are minors.

This should be obvious but people who sexualize the TWST minors (first years and 2nd years) ESPECIALLY Floyd. Floyd is one of my top favs and somewhat of a comfort (his nd traits) so seeing him get sexualized really irks me badly.

Florid haters. You’re on a blog about them.

Proshippers (I.e Lilia x the students, Leechcest, Shroudcest, Leoruggie and any Leona X anyone who isn’t a third year ship)

Jamikali/Leomal/Rollomal shippers or just rollo defenders

Mlm/wlw fetishizers

People who dumb down Malleus to some “hot dragon dom” or call him a “thirsty Yuu simp”

Homophobes/transphobes + racists + Zionists + ableists

“Lesboys”/straightbians/gaybians/bi-lesbians as a lesbian under the trans umbrella, these are not valid

Endogenic systems

TAGS:

#🌹ᰔ🦈 (main tag)

#📨⚡️ (asks)

#🍓🎨 (art)

#⤿reblogs ୭ ˚. ᵎᵎ

#🦈❤︎🌹 (skits)

#🌹 » 🦈 (headcanons)

#𓏲 ๋ rants⋆.˚♡

[questionableratatouille00]

𝖮𝗇 𝖲𝗈𝗆𝖾 𝖲𝗎𝗇𝗇𝗒 𝖣𝖺𝗒 (𝖶𝖾’𝗅𝗅 𝖬𝖾𝖾𝗍 𝖠𝗀𝖺𝗂𝗇)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x GN!Reader

Summary: In another reality, perhaps you and Bucky had a chance.

Warnings: Fluff ending in angst, major character death, non-happy endings, talks of death. Mentions of murder.

A/n: Highway to Hell is still being worked on, but the updates might be less frequent as I get ready for whumptober. (I intend to do all 31 days of the ai-less whumptober. All x-readers, with all the Avengers I have the motivation to write for. Mainly Bucky lmao.) I was inspired to write this, so here we are! Enjoy!

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

“Do you think,” you paused, gathering your thoughts, “in another life, it could’ve been different?”

“Different?” Bucky questioned, looking at you. It had been a fun day of helping fix Sam’s family boat. After the blip, or really, after Steve left, Bucky wasn’t ever really the same. It was good seeing him smile and joke and laugh like he did today. The two of you now stand together at the water's edge, watching the sun set.

Your love story, if you could even call it that, only really started after the battle at the German airport. Whenever Steve would go to Wakanda to see Bucky, you’d go with.

“For backup,” you’d reasoned. You were lucky that nobody ever questioned why he’d need back up to go to Wakanda, one of the safest places in the world. Still, Steve had let you tag along.

You and Bucky had bonded quickly. You were an easily trustable person, and you never asked inappropriate questions. When Bucky needed silence, just to process his thoughts, you didn’t try (and fail) to read his mind, like Steve did. When Bucky craved human interaction but was too scared to ask for it, you’d always be there, willing to try and explain to him that they did, in fact, make three The Hobbit movies. You’d waited a little while longer to tell him about the Lord of the Rings.

His steel blue eyes brought you back from your thoughts. “Different.” You repeated. “None of this…world-ending bullshit. Like…you know how the wizar—sorcerer guy just told us all that the multiverse was real?” You recalled the day. You also remembered Bucky complaining about Sam calling Strange a wizard.

“Yeah?” Bucky nodded, remembering it too.

“Do you think..in another life, we’re eating spaghetti together? And the biggest worry on our minds as we do so is who’s going to do the dishes?”

Bucky thinks about it for a minute. He’s making that one face he makes whenever he’s annoyed. You know him well enough to know that he’s not annoyed, but he’s considering what you’ve just said.

“Maybe.” He murmurs after a moment.

“We could be folding laundry right now. Or brushing our teeth together.”

“You want us to brush each other's teeth?” He questions, confused. He considers the idea, you can basically see the gears turning in his head.

“No—I mean—whatever.” You kick a pebble into the water, before you feel him press his right shoulder into your left one.

“I’m kidding.” He smiles softly. “I mean, I’m all for brushing your teeth if that’s what this day and age’s romance customs include.” He teases further.

“You know, you’re technically old enough to be my great grandpa." You mumble out, keeping your eyes focused on the setting sun.

"Are you kidding me?" It's like you can hear his eyes roll just from his voice.

You begin to laugh a little. "106 year old man. You weren't married or anything, right? No grandkids running around? Damn, that would be awkward. Imagine calling someone who's the same age as you 'grandma'."

Bucky grumbled something, and you tapped his shoulder with yours. "I love you. Even if in a couple years people will think I broke you out of the nursing home."

"I still age at a normal rate." Maybe even slower, you added in your mind. "I love you too." He slips his hand into yours.

"Maybe it's super sunny that day. In the other reality. And we're having a picnic."

"I'd love to have a picnic with you. We can do that in this reality, too, y'know." He reminded you.

"We've really got all the time in the world." You lean against him as he puts his arm over your shoulders.

"We do." He agrees.

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

Your eyes flutter open in the same familiar sequence. Every night, it's like you dream the same dream. And yet, every morning, it's the same nightmare.

You pull yourself out of bed, no matter how much you don't want to. The hallways of your apartment are cold, lonely now. The lights are almost always off. It's easier to not notice the pictures on the wall like this.

You pour a cup of coffee, sitting alone on your couch. Flicking on the TV, the first channel that pops up is the news.

"It's the official one year anniversary of the death of James Barnes, the former Winter Soldier. On December 20th, 2024, Mr. Barnes was found murdered in his Brooklyn apartment--" The man on the television screen begins. You immediately shut the damn thing off, sitting in silence for what seems like hours.

Nobody even knew what had happened. That was the worst part. The attacker was there, and then they were gone. Just like Bucky. He was there. Alive, breathing. Safe.

Then he was gone.

And with him, your heart was gone, too.

So much for that picnic.

[ai-the-broccoli]

DN ask game: 11 (lawlightmane), 24 and 25, please!

thank you for the ask!!

11. what do you think about (lawlightmane)?

I love them!!!

in terms of comedy, their yotsuba arc shenanigans were some of my favourite moments in the show. like I know how much this phrase gets said but seriously. world's worst toxic polycule. I always love horrible polycules in fiction, they're great fun (see gramarye ot3 and matt-juan-celeste-adrian from ace attorney; I ship the first one, and the second one is just so intriguing in terms of how fucked up it was. dysfunctionality, obsessive hatred & rivalry, murders, suicide, accidentally-implied grooming, dependency, untreated dpd [this one is like strongly implied in canon] and probably also bpd, npd and who knows what else mixing together in the worst way possible, the mysterious relationship between a codependent lesbian [strongly implied] working for years - in the role of his manager - with the womanizing bisexual male actor she fucking hates, the guy just having spy cameras installed all over his male rival's home for some fucking reason......... oh wait) but also! in this case they are like... surreal in such a nice way because of the contrast??? like it's so incredibly toxic and yet here they are. having the most godawful first date (canonically addressed as a date) in the animated sitcom that is called Death Note Yotsuba arc. love to see it. okay how do I explain the appeal here? uhh basically it's kinda like. gap moe.

now comedy aside (but also sorta combined with the comedic aspects; mainly I mean "moving onto it as a serious thing"). MAN. lawlightmane is just fucking insanely good in general. like it's like. it's many things, it is EXTREMELY compelling and an incredibly intriguing dynamic that is full of potential for many things. iirc after I first watched DN and got obsessed with it badly, I made a tierlist and on the topmost tier I put lawlight and lawlightmane (lawlightmane wasn't even an item on the tiermaker I was using, so I just uploaded a screenshot to use myself). both because it was very funny as World's Worst PolyculeTM, and because it's genuinely great. and now my opinions on all of those characters and relationships are much more developed, I think I definitely appreciate it more seriously on a whole.

regarding each respective one-on-one relationship involved in lawlightmane...

well I am. obviously majorly incredibly into lawlight as a ship (beloved otp-tier ship, and maybe somewhat on that tier across fandoms too; I think it's my top favourite canonically-m/m ship rn [maybe tied with another 1-2, but not necessarily]). not sure I need to elaborate since I mean it's lawlight, it's really good

and then law/mane [censoring since this is... negative-ish? so I'm not putting it in the ship tag]. uh full disclosure I have no interest in law/mane if light isn't involved in the picture sorry. (at least rn I've never seen anything that's convinced me) I can see the appeal, and I can also see why some people don't like it, but for me it's really just... well it's just not much my thing lol unless it's a lawlightmane-related situation. OH also personally I can't see it as a romantic thing per se, like my brain just really doesn't compute at the idea of "L is in romantic love with Misa" or vice versa even in an AU. but as for any sexual aspect, it's just a plain "this isn't my thing" situation (as in I'm not interested but the idea doesn't make my brain automatically go "???? [error 404 does not compute]" as a romantic depiction may). their dynamic also doesn't grip me like yagamane (also non-romantic -ish ship for me) does, so yeah, overall I can't say I ship it outside of shipping lawlightmane! HOWEVER as a dynamic it's pretty neat within lawlightmane too.

EDIT (before posting the draft): I woke up today and was about to add "actually I think for a ship such as law/mane, what would probably at least slightly convince me of it has be something thematic probably, so if anyone has any ideas related to how they thematically complement each other or such feel free to send them my way, I like that sort of stuff" but then as I was brushing my teeth my brain filled in the gaps vaguely myself. it's something related to gluttony/hunger/appetite etc. and uh... okay I can see it now ngl lmao. that being said even in that vein I still just like them in lawlightmane for the time being, what changed was that I now have a better feel of their dynamic within lawlightmane if that makes sesne.

moving onto yagamane. man I LOVE yagamane and their whole... *gesture vaguely*. I personally definitely don't see it as a... idk, relationship formed of mutual genuine romantic and/or sexual attraction, but like, it very much doesn't have to be. it's super appealing in the way it's sooooo fucked-up in all sorts of ways, including thematically, mutually, and it's incredibly compelling to chew on. I also love both of them as individual characters (extremely obsessed with light but also really love misa and find her fascinating to think about) so that helps.

anyway lawlightmane really is very good, imo. I love it, thanks for asking anon

24. any headcanons you want to share?

let's see, what have I not mentioned much here yet?

Matsuda has indeed sort of had a crush on Light

Soichiro considers himself a straight man but is not one

The Shinigamis technically can have sex despite what the author tells us, but they are largely asexual or at the very least on the ace spectrum

Kiyomi doesn't canonically present butch but she should be. in an AU where she lives to the future

Misa doesn't die after she attempts suicide near the end in the anime canon

Light should take to gambling, c'mon you know he has JUST the right personality for that shit, go for it Light, develop a gambling addiction instead of a serial killing one! you can do it!!

nsft-related:

weirdly to me Mello is mostly a dom except for when it's with Near. though I haven't thought about this extensively so my opinion can change

I'm not a 100% strict lawlight top/bottom purist per se but I'm sorry I completely can't digest a relationship where Light is exclusively or mostly a dom and a top while L is exclusively or mostly a sub and a bottom. I respect your (general "you"; as in whoever is reading this, not the anon) opinion if you do, and it's fair, but I just can't see it, it doesn't work for me. the dom part is more important than the top/bottom part for me also.

on that note my opinion is that Light TECHNICALLY can dom, especially in relationships with people other than L, but. he's actually just... not into it. he thinks that he is, but it will just turn out he isn't. he'll get the instant powertrip high over it for a very short period of time at first, and then he just. loses it, the high fades quickly and he gets bored as fuck. and he isn't into it at all and finds that he wants to be the sub to some other person actually. which in itself is something he'll find extremely humiliating but that's good too

anyway it's nearly a fandom consensus at this point that Light has a praise kink I think lmao. that I do agree with. I will propose that we also assign praise kink to Matsuda and Soichiro; it's already been done (well, one by someone else and the other by yours truly) and I think it makes sense tbh.

... actually on that note. my personal hot take is that we as a fandom should very much consider applying the "like father like son" principle to nsft involving Soichiro Yagami, in connection to Light Yagami (<- you must understand that I have a lot of those takes because the first DN fic and currently my only DN fic I've published off-anon is in fact a soichello fic. it is only natural)

also yes I think Kiyomi should be a dom and has S tendencies

Misa definitely gives sub energy. though I wonder if she can also dom

25. ramble on about whatever you’d like to

lately I've wondered briefly if MikaMatt (as a romantic? ship and/or as a platonic ship) would be good solely because I put them in the roles of Iino and Ishigami respectively in the Kaguya-sama AU (Iino and Ishigami are canonically subtextual love interests to each other, and they're a fun duo even though I don't particularly ship them romantically). however I still do not understand Matt much sadly so this might be as far as it goes [-> note: if any Matt fans see this and want to fill me in, feel free!! I'm always interested in hearing more]

speaking of Mikami. I def like mika / light casually but I often wonder how come I don't actively like it more considering my OTP in mgrc has the whole... god thing, as a major major major draw for me (see: my current blog header title is a reference to that ship). that being said I do get it because mika / light is different from hime / san in various ways outside of it so it tracks

Light should become friends with Chika Fujiwara (he'll hate her but hey. it's fine) and get into board games and card games, it will save him (maybe slightly. sort of. it will help a little at least.)

okay anon so. I'm going to take a wild guess here and assume that you're at least to some degree familiar with the J-drama adaptation (maybe you've watched some of it?), but if not you can still read this part I suppose.

it's so funny that every other adaptation of DN just gets progressively gayer and gayer because dude literally what the fuck was going on with j-drama lawlight lmfao

the fucking shower scene (and everything about it), the ??? scene where L hooks Light to a polygraph??? (no like what the fuck was that really. it's not as infamous as the shower scene, but the blatantly textual sadomasochism is extremely in your face in that one), and the whole blue sceneTM, and then Light practically kissing L's cheek after L's death, and everything else

with that being said. hmmmmmmm. anyway moving on to my feelings about the j-drama in general:

I liked it overall! some stuff in it are very nice. and I like the characters too, but definitely not as much as the canon counterparts.

importantly I absolutely have to see the drama and each character and each relationship in the drama as like, a whole separate thing from the animanga canon, because if I viewed it as an adaptation they would come off as awful whereas as its own thing it is nice.

I like j-drama Light a lot! ...but not even nearly as much as animanga Light, sorry. I have to see him as a whole separate character 100% (that way he's funny and cute-ish, and I can appreciate him), otherwise I can't enjoy him at all because I'll just be thinking "where's my beloved amazing perfect Bad NPD RepTM :( they nerfed him and now he's not relatable anymore" the whole fucking time <- wow this is very normal and doesn't say anything about me at all. dw about it

and on that note. ngl I have to complain a bit. so I've seen more than one person say that j-drama is so much more ""human"" than canon Light, and I mean, that's a fair opinion!! I get what you mean and I totally get where you're coming from. that being said... I'm sorry I don't agree and I'm not sure I like what that implies either. I know that compared to animanga Light, j-drama Light possesses various traits that are societally more associated with "humanity" but y'know what idk. I don't think that's true. to me animanga Light Yagami is extremely human. I think it is an incredibly human wish to desire to become a god, also

personally I don't think j-drama Light is a better person, if he commits the same atrocities as animanga Light and just simply feels worse/feels more empathy/feels more guilt or whatever about it. I strongly believe that your actual morality is determined not by what you feel but by what you do, like, someone who keeps doing bad things while feeling the societally expected level of bad for it is hardly a better person than someone who does the same things, no more, while being unable to feel as much [insert expected feelings] over it (but still doesn't do more bad things than the previous person).

anyway back to the j-drama. basically I like it, and I def have many fond feelings over it personally, but the watching experience wasn't as good as anime DN for me, and there is more stuff that I dislike. and also I can't compare it to animanga DN too much because as an adaptation per se it doesn't work at all imo (but as its own thing? it's fine and I like some stuff in it quite a lot).

anyway I think that's all on my mind for now!! thank you for the great questions, I had fun writing this

[atla-confessions]

Hey, so I wanted to know why Kataang shippers would read fanfics that trash their couple or are simply not KA but Zutara and went to read a Maiko anti Zutara (and mainly anti Katara, tbh 🤨) to know what was up. Do you guys hate joy? Do you hate fun and whimsy? Seriously 😭. I know there are racist fanfics and those need to be reported (such as the one I read, claiming Katara was "an easy thing Zuko flirted with, a seductress trying to get him from Mai and she never truly meant something to Zuko and oh she also cheated on Aang") but other than that, why would you put yourself through torture? You guys hate yourselves 'cause I read 6K words of that shit and I'm so done lmfao. Never again And this isn't anti Kataang or the shippers, just "Hey, read the things you enjoy and don't go after what you don't". If it is problematic, expose it, if it is just ship trashing, move on. Ship trashing is annoying and not my choice of fanfic but it doesn't automatically mean racism and misogyny

Okay, so one of the main answers for this is that some people are multishippers. I used to be a Zutara shipper. I just happened to also like Aang and Mai and they were often put down in Zutara fics. Do you think every fic that does this, tags it? They don't and they never have.

There are also a lot of people who just aren't passionate about ships who then read a fic with an interesting concept who then get hit with Kataang hate because the interesting concept is in a Zutara fic (by an anti Kataang Zutara shipper). People who don't hate a character or ship are unlikey to enjoy hate for it. Also, this fandom predates the easy filtering system AO3 now has and back in the day it was very hard to filter out and hence easy to click on the wrong fic.

I've got a few chapters in (to a Zutara fic) before the anti-Kataang/anti-Aang stuff started happening. It has got to the point where I filter out Zutara but I am not going to forget why I did that.

(Also, I think Zutara shippers write Katara cheating the most, usually on Aang with Zuko.)

X

[aintgonnatakethis]

twenty questions for fic writers

Tagged by @bagheerita ❤️️

How many works do you have on AO3? 29

What's your total AO3 word count? 208,847

What fandoms do you write for? Stargate Universe mainly, though I've also tried out Stargate Atlantis and James Bond.

Top five fics by kudos: what do pretty monsters dream of? (SGA, Sheppard/Todd) down here they call us animals (SGU, Rush/Young, vamp AU) Valentine's Day (James Bond, asexual Bond) Consultancy Opportunity (SGU, Rush/Telford, PWP) Good Things Come In Threes (SGU, Rush/Young/Telford, P-with-P)

Do you respond to comments? Yes, every one. I know how anxiety-inducing it can be to leave a comment, so I really want to put the effort in to respond. It might take me a few days, as per the anxiety, but there's nothing I love more than discussing my fics!

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? so i bite my tongue and hope for blood (warning for non-con) Rush is drugged and does things to Telford. Telford understandably reacts poorly. No working through the trauma here - just trauma.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Hmm, looking through my fics I guess I'm not a happy endings kind of guy. 😂 Think the best I can do is Valentine's Day, with Q worrying for a lot of it that Bond is sexually pursuing him only for things to end up firmly in the asexual category with cuddling and talking and petting cats.

Do you get hate on fics? Nah, everyone's pretty chill. Though of course I'm not involved in any large fandoms and that's where the more aggressive people tend to end up.

Do you write smut? Hell yeah I do! When I started posting to A03 near the end of 2022 it was the majority of what I wrote. Recently I've not really been feeling it - ever since I really had to force things so I'd be able to finish the 10k final chapter of the threesome fic - so I've been writing other stuff. I'm sure the smut will reactivate at some point.

Craziest crossover: I've never written any, and I'm afraid I'm not a fan of crossovers at all. 😂

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Nah, not to my knowledge. Though I guess with AI scrapers you never know these days.

Have you ever had a fic translated? No, though of course I'd give my permission for it.

Have you ever co-written a fic before? Nothing posted to AO3. Back in the day I RPed Doctor Who smut and stuck it on FFnet, and got a warning slapped on my account for it. 👎

All time favourite ship? Young/Telford/Rush, either all together in a threesome, or paired off in any possible permutation. These three guys are the revolving door of my brain.

What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I haven't worked on Your Own Worst Enemy for a long while, a fic where Rush, Young, Telford, and Destiny are all recovering from different forms of sexual assault. Though I'm really pleased with what I've got so far, I'm not sure where the plot goes next and I want to handle the subject matter with care. I think it's the kind of fic I have to complete before I start posting.

What are your writing strengths? I really enjoy taking a character and changing their sexuality to all the possible options to explore the possibilities. I've been told I do this while still remaining in character because I do the work to get there instead of just slapping a label on. For example, I've written fics where Telford is straight, bi, gay, aromantic, and am currently working on one where he's asexual. I love seeing what shapes I can bend characters into while still remaining true to canon.

What are your writing weaknesses? I see writeblrs talking about doing big cuts in their editing process, trimming off thousands of words at a time! While I understand why, cutting a scene I've worked hard on is something I can rarely bring myself to do.

Thoughts on dialogue in another language? I think my knee jerk response would be to say yes, but don't overdo it. Even if the translations are readily available (found this skin which works for both desktop and mobile users and uses HTML instead of making the author fiddle around with editing the workskin for each individual translation) having to move to hover/click can take the reader out of the story if it's done to an extreme degree.

First fandom you wrote in? Doctor Who, in... 2007 I want to say.

Favourite fic you’ve written? down here they call us animals is the first one that springs to mind, as it was such a massive sense of accomplishment to finish a long project, and making my own vampire lore and history was really enjoyable. I have to give a mention to a memory, a distant echo (warning for memories of non-con) as well though. I feel like I crafted that with my bare hands from clay, you know? Telford's trauma... I could wax fucking poetic about it for days.

No pressure tagging: @fortunatetragedy @frostysfrenzy @wolgerrswraith @frostedlemonwriter @galadhir + open to anyone who wants a go!

[kestrel-wish]

REPOST YOUR ART OF CARP!!! The famous carpet deity, omg-

I remember the wildest things at such late hours

AYE AYE CAPTAIN! 👍 I'm not sure where a good chunk of the physical drawings of them are, and to be honest i never drew it as much as Kess ( or windhover, i tend to call them windhover sometimes to avoid confusion with my fursona ) mainly because Carp's ears are surprisingly hard to draw well. But here are the ones that I can find

This is the main drawing of them, and i think the first actual one?

Also this one that was drawn mainly for expression practice and boredom You can tell i gave up when it came to drawing the background and also that's supposed to be a couch they're sitting on it's just hard to tell because it looks like a brick lmao.

That's all the good ones i can find my art files are terrible to try and look through I also have some goofy super low effort doodles of Carp and Kess ( And others! ) too if you'd like those

Left lower is a random 'garden'/plant creature similar to carp i made up but never really used, ( their name is Dandy , i show them later ) along with an idea for what the ceiling ( 'Ceil' ) would look like. More cat-like since i think we joked that the carpet would be rivals/kind of jealous of the ceiling so cat/dog because funny. Middle bottom is Ampere. I don't remember actually showing you Ampere? So if i either didn't show you or it's been a while this is ampere ( below ) Similar to the others but like a kitchen electronic kind of guy and the upper right of the doodle page is Carp and lower right is Kess, ofc

I like where i went with this look but he's also way overdesigned compared to the others it's ridiculous looking. Very cool nonetheless but just a bit jarring. Very polite looking guy, though. Yeah not much actual carp art, that i can find at least there very well might be more. Can't find it for the life of me. Properly name your art files , people! But i have this other one of Ampere if that's something

It's all old ass art so kinda wonky looking now in hindsight. I want to come back to them eventually as characters they're all silly. but especially Carp and Kess because they're the coolest. Blatant favoritism. The amount of lore and ideas I've come up with for those funny Quotev group chat ocs is terrifying and frankly quite disturbing. I do have more doodles of Kess than carp if you want to see those later, just ask. And i think a small animation but don't quote me on that. Sadly just not much of Carp itself. Or the others that i've thought of for that matter. Like you can see I tried to make ones much later to add to the personified house things, but I kind of ended overdesigning them a lot like you can kind of see with Amp. And Dandy, the plant one. I don't think you've seen it ever either, i made them a while after Amp on a whim, i think. The vague idea just came to me and i felt the need to doodle them too.

I like Dandy's design ngl very soft and warm looking. I feel like their fur would feel kind of crunchy. It's very obviously a first time doodle but it's a fun idea. Man, i love drawing funnily themed cartoon dogs. I know this is less Carp art considering you asked for Carp specifically but there isn't much i can find so woe other old art be upon ye.

People who did not know me in my early Quotev days are going to be so confused lmao i'm not tagging any of this i don't even know what tags I would use.

[breezy-cheezy]

Who are Rook and Trey (if you don’t mind my asking)? (Love your art btw)

*Takes a DEEP breath* How much time you got- /half joking

Aight so. Rook Hunt and Trey Clover are two characters from a phone game I've been into recently, Twisted Wonderland. Yes. The. The Disney one. Written and Drawn by Yana Toboso (the artist/writer behind Black Butler. No I'm not kidding.) HEAR ME OUT kjhsdjkgdf

It's one of those gacha/visual novel-like games that gets marketed as like a dating sim, but has some of the most. Un-romantic settings/characters I've EVER seen. As an aro/ace, I applaud this lmao. Also amazing character and story writing like what the heck.

Very....boys will be boys energy but not the mean way, more of a “y’all are so stupid and ridiculous” in a fond way??

Actual answer under read more because I'm insane:

So every character is like. They aren't the Disney characters themselves but more like BASED on them? Sometimes several. I'm making a powerpoint on this to connect all the dots, here's Trey's lmao

Heartslabyul house! Based on: Mad Hatter, 3 of Clubs, King of Hearts, etc. Generally chill. You think he's the normal one, then he turns around and gives you an hour lecture on how to brush your teeth properly. Ok mom.

He also reminds me along of Ignis from Final Fantasy 15. He's. That type. But also not?? Still instant attachment that way LOL

Thing is he's VERY devoted to his childhood friend/Dorm leader, Riddle. But he will never admit this, not even to himself. (due to Trauma and also being totally completely normal. Uh-huh.)

SO IN WE BRING....ROOK HUNT (who is already on that slide HAHA)

Different house (it's a school setting, like Hogwarts but more Themed Houses based around. Different Disney villains) and SO. How do you explain Rook. Well he's based off the Huntsman from Snow White, mainly.

Gives these vibes. Incoming. Smiley. Will give affection. Somewhat of a threat.

Theater kid set loose. French. Loves beauty in all its forms. Drama, sparkles, has SO much love (platonic, I must preface, every time I use that, I mean in an unromantic manner) to give and is VERY vocal about it. Compliments you constantly and finds uplifting things to say even when you did horribly on something. You fell on your face? He will tell you you fell with magnificence or something idk he's just LIKE THIS ALL THE TIME, he means EVERY WORD TOO-

This dude will not lie. His eyes are too good, he is too perceptive. Oh also he hunts some students for sport, there's that little detail (HE NEVER HURTS ANYONE as far as I know he just. Watches. Love this lil weirdo. Some of his lines are "let's play tag!" and I'm like oh NO LMAO) so like I laugh at him but he's also MILDLY TERRIFYING AND CAPABLE LIKE DUDE-

Anyway, TREY you meet early since he's in the first house you deal with, Heartslabyul. But my first exposure to ROOK was through Trey's Lab Card story, which is honestly a fun time on its own. They are science club buddies!!

So right off the bat you have a very :D :D vs calm =w=;;; dynamic, which I love. But then we have....Trey, who denies how much he cares for people, for Riddle. Who shows care through his actions, baking, Due to Reasons, words of affirmation might murder him on the spot. And then we have Rook, who is a font of flowery warm appreciative words who loves and loves loudly, watching this like 👀 I see you. (incoming shots of Halloween Event part 2)

The guy calls him Chevalier des Roses to his face. Constantly. Rook has little nicknames for alot of people (most dorm leaders he calls "King of Roses" (Riddle), "King of Lions" (Leona) etc.) but he calls Trey a Knight. Of Roses. He's calling Trey Riddle's Knight. And it's very cute.

(Halloween event tossed them together and it was WONDERFUL)

But yeah Trey has his own reasons for shying away from the title. He's a baker's boy, he has no sword or armor or anything, also it's embarrassing as heck-

But Rook still sees how he treats people. He calls a knight for what it is. Rook himself ADORES his dorm Leader, Vil, and sees Trey trying to hide this same devotion and just goes "you are like me!!!" Trey: oh please no I could never-

Also they're SUCH. PARENTS.

It's just. A really good dynamic I'd LOVE to see more of, y'know? An understanding, somehow being understood by someone more than you know yourself. Rook is also weird as HECK sometimes (what do you mean you can see how Leona is yawning ALL THE WAY ACCROSS THE FEILD) and Trey nearby is. His friend. He's just like "I'm so sorry he's just like this" and it's VERY funny akjshdjksdhfs he may have to hold Rook back from blowing up the labs again, dude gets carried away.

I do love this very CUTE fan art here.

Twisted Wonderland has some lovely character dynamics. Also no one is "normal", but Rook is just another level of w h a t.

It feels like alot of interactions were just "hm spin a wheel, see who we get, slap them together" and it WORKS. SOMEHOW. Platonic Rook Trey is just one I've become extremely fond of and it's a rarer one....

You probably weren't expecting that much but it was a fun thing to answer. And THANK YOU About the art!! I wish to post more!! After school ends....soon.

[jesskasb]

Ok but which drv3 fic are you reading. And is it good so far

it's "amalgamate" by doctorhaifisch !! and it is good so far yeah! really elaborate answer under the cut, i went on about this for longer than i shouldve. sorry. ill take any opportunity to ramble about v3. :']

based on the hits and the amount of fanart ive seen of it, it seems everyone and their mother has read it... however ive been purposely living under a 2 bedroom rock for like 4 years so ive only gotten around to it now after seeing an artist i follow say it made them reconsider a few things about ouma and it made them like kaito and realize how intelligent he is and how fascinating his role in chapter 5 was— and i was like wow, that must be a based fucking fic! it took me years to see kaito more than just a loud guy with a savior complex, and now that im a huge fan of him, i wanted to see what kind of fic could open someone's eyes to his awesomeness.

i check it out *really* skeptically, mainly cause i dont trust most people's depiction of ouma. they either make him genuinely not give a shit about things and just be a terrible person for no reason, or they make him too emo in a way he simply isnt. the main reason i even gave it a shot despite never having read a v3 fic in the 6 yrs ive been a fan, is that it said that the tags say the whole fic could be interpreted platonically (#AROWIN) (god knows im not against oumota but i prefer them as friends by a really substantial amount) and the amount of research the author seemed to have poured into strike 9 poison and its real world pesticide counterpart. the art they attached to chapter 1 was really good, too, so that made me curious.

now im in chapter 10/20 and i can say with confidence ive been having a great time. its plenty obvious the author has a lot of love for all of the characters, and even though i thought i could gain no new opinions since i already love ouma and kaito's potential dynamic and everything to do with chapter 5, i ended up being very pleasantly suprised by himiko's depiction here! i cant say im too big of a fan of her, not due to any actual fault in her character but rather kodaka's failings to do anything actually interesting with her. in chapter 9, this author used her untapped potential in a really heartwarming way that i loved. similarly, i have enjoyed seeing their portrayal of kaito and ouma, and it seems there's going to be an arc for ouma to begin seeing his classmates not only as people whose lives are worth saving as much as any other, but to see them as friends and letting them become close with him. ive always been a firm believer that in a non-kg setting ouma could become super close friends with a small handful of people, but this fic is making me reconsider that— maybe its more! another thing im really enjoying are all the fascinating possibilities that the author is exploring for a world in which ouma lives to see chapter 6 and the consequences of his actions. him being there while people investigate his room? most amusing. its all stuff that happens in chapter 5 and 6 until a certain point— just enough to get these two chumps to live, and then... well, i guess ill see how chapter 6 turns out, but as of right now ive been super intrigued and entretained.

i do also have a couple of complaints, but theyre mostly pet peeves and no deal breakers so far: there have been a loooot of pop culture referenced but they all feel in line with stuff kodaka would write so whatever, the author uses italics way more than id like... in the chapters up until 9 there were constant descriptions of kaito seeing ouma as a Kid, and while that in an of itself is true (he is a 17 yr old) the context began feeling a little infantalizing and like kaito himself wasnt 17 as well. theres noticeably less of this in chapter 9 and what ive read of 10, or when theres references to them being kids it includes everyone and theres even a moment where kaito tells ouma theyre the same damn age lol. theres also been a bunch of moments that are clearly very indulgent of ship dynamics and inclinations im not too fond of (particularly between ouma and shuichi) but like i said, nothings been too much of a dealbreaker since the positives far outweigh the negatives!

im currently on a trip where i dont have signal most of the time so i got the epub of the fic to read on the downtime. im def gonna keep reading it, and im excited to see where its going despite some of the cheesy lines such as

(honestly i cant even complain. i dont care its a reference to the title of the game. he Would say that....)

i mean, really, it's such a good depiction of ouma. all his masks, his paranoia, his insecurities, his determination to stop the killing game, the way hes been helping the group while simultaneously remaining isolated, and the way his lies are an extension of his genius but also a constant tool to test his peers. i feel like i dont get to see all of these elements of him expanded upon so extensively like this fic does, and that alone makes me really respect what the author is doing! the word count may be scary but i think youd get something from the fic even if you only read like 5-6 chapters. so yeah in conclusion id recommend it if you give a shit about v3 and are interested in chapter 5 fix it fics LOL