#i simply answered: i’m doing it for the people

[perdvivly]

Not waiting for chance or fate to dictate the terms of how annoying I’m allowed to be on the internet. I am choosing to answer them all now, unasked as I am.

1) This is mildly variable depending on the amount of effort I’m willing to expend. Typically the common theme is no adulterants. No sugar, no milk, no queen of England. If I’m getting fancy with it I’ll make an effort to time the brewing duration, 3mins for a black tea, 5mins for a green tea, 7mins for a herbal tea. But honestly the sort of depression chic I’ve been serving lately has been leaving the bag in and drinking it straight, tannins be damned.

2) Mandarin. Just seems like it’d be the most useful innit. Also, relatively harder to pick up non-magically given my native Englishhood.

3) God. I try not to honestly. No, but seriously, my sleep schedule has been all sorts of out of shape recently. I should work on that. At the moment it varies wildly day to day and depends on my responsibilities the days before and after the sleep. I’ve pulled a couple of all nighters recently and it gets screwy.

4) Maybe atla? I remember really liking it when it came out but not fully understanding the whole plot because I didn’t see it serialised until later. Maybe the simpsons? There’s something to say here about the earnestness of the earlier seasons and seeing a deeply dysfunctional family care about each other in ways they struggle to express—that gets glossed out as the production value rises in the later seasons—that’s like heroin to someone trapped in an irony poisoned world. But maybe that’s cope? Maybe it’s just the show I had the easiest access to as a kid. I guess I didn’t watch a whole bunch of tv or at least not a whole bunch that stuck with me.

5) Summer ez. (Have you seen her baphomet pics? 🥵)

6) In general, I doubt very much that either the optimist or the pessimist considers themselves such. It’s not really the sort of thing that admits of self-diagnosis in that way… Philosophically, the broader question is what? Do I align with Schopenhauer, Voltaire’s Leibniz, or Russel’s Leibniz? I’m not sure the tumblrinas care about the history of philosophy. I guess I’ll say to the extent that Schopenhauer relies on Indian mysticism, which I think is typically underrated, he’s simply mistaken about the world as will and representation. I’ll say that, I’m *not* a Buddhist. I think the doctrine of dukkha misses fundamental aspects of human existence. I’ll say that people have richer inner lives, deeper felt internal experiences, than you might assume from reading their little words on the internet. And that, on the whole, these are good things.

7) I mean, both ideally. Variety is the spice of life. If I had to choose I suppose it would be sunshine. But I’m terribly glad I don’t live in a world where I have to choose.

8) I have the cutest little book marks. My primary two at the moment are the sun and the moon, which I use for main text and end notes respectively. Though, I have been known to dog-ear in my time. I once got yelled at by my aunt for turning the corner of the page on my copy of Harry Potter and the order of the phoenix because it was a first edition and she was under the impression that it may be valuable some day. I was like, come on man, I’m 7. Don’t even piss. <- I didn’t say these things, but I was *like* that.

9) For the longest time I *only* wore steel toe capped boots because I ran myself over with an electric pallet stacker and tore my toenail off and decided I didn’t want that to happen again. I don’t do that anymore because I interact with heavy machinery less than I used to. Now all that matters to me is that they’re waterproof.

10) *My* signature scent like, I produce it? Or like I like it? I guess one of my favourite scents is lavender. But I've been told... Okay, it's important you guys know I do *not* have a yeast infection... I've been told some parts of my body naturally smell like bread, like, that sort of doughy yeasty (I s2g I do *not* (I did not hit her. I did not! oh hi mark)) smell that you get with bread sometimes. Is that what the question was asking?

11) I mean... That's broadly not for me to decide right? Unless the sort of dragons you're imagining have some sort of glamoury illusion magic, which seems plausible. Anyway, do you guys remember in Moby Dick when he goes on this wild tangent about how St. George and The Dragon was acutally about whales? And St. George's horse was actually a walrus or something. What was that about??

Okay, author's note, there's a time skip here. I've been scrolling through lists of dragons in popular culture for a while now and there are a pretty neat and widely varied selection of designs. I'll get back to you on this one.

12) It depends on why I'm writing! If it's a quick note to myself for future reference it'll generally be cursive, if it's an important document that will be read by other people generally it'll be print. If it's time-sensitive it'll be cursive. I remember writing essays for undergrad that I'm sure were totally illegible by the end of them, I think literally just a line on a page with occasional lifts and dips.

13) There is more information on wookieepedia than existed in my philosophy but a few minutes ago. The typology I've discerned is thus: blue - jock, green - nerd, yellow - geek, red - edgelord. And I'm a little bit of all of these, so I think any would be fine. Realistically though, I'm not sure a lightsaber is the best weapon in fantasy space-past-future where spaceships and lasers are common. Like, I'll let it slide because the original trilogy was doing a kirkegaardian faith thing and the prequels were doing a logic doesn't matter it's cool thing, and those are both respectable motivations to leave logistics aside for a bit.

14) Sad

15) Ice skates! I love ice skating!

16) I'm a youngest. I have an older sister, I think I talk about her here from time to time.

17) Well, how I would use it would depend massively on what it was. If the question is which superpower I think is the best then why not ask that? Which superpower would I have has a faint ring of incomprehensibility about it. It's really not clear which counterfactual is under consideration. *If* what?

Anyway, I think time control powers are up there right? Top five at least, easy. Imagine what you could do if you could stop time and sleep whenever you felt like it. I feel King Leerish about the ability to just be well rested. I would do such things, what they are yet I know not.

18) The problem with romantic relationships is that eventually, all of your most interesting clothing will end up in someone else's closet. I think my day-to-day wear tends to be mostly blues, blacks and whites. Not hugely interesting colourwise.

19) Snake, I think, they have fewer demands and I can't really handle any more pressure in my life than I already have. I would hate to be a bad bird mom... I would hate to be a bad snake mom too, but I think it's easier. Typically regarded as easier. I don't know.

20) Okay, so, it's like this right: medieval battle = will probably die. And it's also like this: behind city walls = safe, my friend and lover and confidant. And so, for very obvious reasons, it's gotta be a bow right? Like, I'm standing way out of the action and I'll shoot some arrows long range. But if that's against the spirit of the ask then it's gotta be some kind of polearm, like a halberd or something. Not even close. The advantage you get from distance is hard to overstate. Yeah, polearm for sure.

21) Mint choc chip, it's just such a classic. But also, I had a "london fog" flavour recently that was really compelling. It's just earl grey and vanilla but it's so good.

22) I'm more of a herbs person than a spices person. Like, hmm, I do really enjoy paprika and ginger and stuff like that, don't get me wrong. But it doesn't really hold a candle to the sheer universality of parsley or basil or oregano or mint. Herbs stay winning.

23) These days it's aptos because I am the worlds most basic bitch. And yes, I do still have a fondness for arial.

ask game that tells a lot about you.

how do you take your tea / coffee?

if you could be fluent in any language at the snap of your fingers, which one and why?

when do you wake up?

what was your favourite tv show as a kid?

summer or winter?

realist, optimist, or pessimist?

rain or sunshine?

how do you mark your spot in a book?

what are your favourite shoes like?

what would your non-perfume/cologne signature scent be?

if you were a dragon, what would you look like?

is your handwriting more print, cursive, or a mix?

what colour would your lightsaber be?

what is your defining personality trait?

roller skates or rollerblades or ice skates?

are you an only child? oldest / middle / youngest?

what would your superpower be? how would you use it?

what’s your clothing colour palette?

pet snake or pet bird?

weapon of choice in a medieval battle

the best ice cream flavour

what spices do you always use when cooking?

default font when typing?

[planetpedri]

All in good time, — Franco Colapinto.

Pairing: Franco Colapinto x Fem!Reader

Summary: When a college student meets her polar opposite in Franco Colapinto, she instantly disliked him. But, Franco was enamored with her and he would get her to like him, all in good time.

Word count: 1.65k+

Disclaimer/s: this is a hockey!au

A/N: this is for @purinfelix and jet only! though i love each and every one of you who choses to read it.. this was. this was ass girl shit i’m sorry i didn’t know where i was going toward the end… i may do another hockey player!franco fic tho but its going to be far more centered around the actual hockey

Franco Colapinto was a force to be reckoned with. Somehow, you’d gotten tangled into his life. When your dorm was being renovated and you needed a place to stay, your roommate suggested her friend’s house—that friend being Franco. A notorious hockey player for the Golden Knights.

He was, in simple terms, agitating. Your two and a half weeks staying in his basement was something close to hell on earth. He held parties, big ones! Ones that interrupted your studying, which he’d half ass apologize for the next morning while nursing a raging hangover, right before asking you to make your signature hangover recipe while he showered.

That was your payment for staying there. You nursed his hangovers and helped him come up with various excuses as to why he was late to practice, even going as far as to go out of your way to tell his coach you’d gotten terribly sick and he had to bring you to the hospital.

Two pea’s in a lying pod. That’s what you were.

In the first week, he’d convinced you to go to the rink to help him practice. You—only ever using figure skates—had a difficult time keeping up with him. You nearly broke a tailbone trying to catch up with him.

Franco held a lopsided grin when he stopped, ice shavings flying as he turned to face you. Though, you saw the concern flash across his face as he skated back in your direction, leaning down to help you up.

“I need an ice pack—“ Your lips formed a thin line, “actually, I need wine and an excuse to get out of this hell.”

The curly haired man laughed, pulling your hand over his shoulder as his free arm looped around your waist. Holding you up, he assisted you back to the bench, setting you down carefully.

Once you shifted to get comfortable, wincing in pain, you untie the laces on your skates. “How do you do this for a living? I’m fucking miserable and we’ve done this once.”

Franco shrugs, leaning his head against the tempered glass that separated the rink from the benches. “Maybe I will just have to put you to work.” His lips threaten a smirk, “if it helps, I do prefer practicing with you than my teammates.”

That wasn’t even particularly a lie. He tried to find ways to get to know you, but you were a tough nut to crack. He tried so hard to find ways to get in your good graces, and forcing you to hang out with him was the only way he could get you to spend quality time with him.

His flirting was what annoyed you the most. You couldn’t stand it, only because it made a weird feeling erupt in your stomach. “First of all, don’t let them hear that. Second of all, I will never do this again. Ever.”

Franco was a convincer. He was good at getting people to do things, and you were unfortunately, not exempt from that. Even when you were back in your dorms, he’d convinced you to join him at the rinks.

You rarely ever practiced with him, simply opting to watch from the stands. You hated to admit it, but you’d grown to enjoy the time spent with him. When he took breaks, he’d explain the rules to you, different tactics they used, various things.

When you’d get so engrossed in conversation, he’d slip in a question about you, that you’d answer without thinking. He was good at getting to know people, but you were a difficult case. He’d found a way eventually, only getting you to talk about yourself when you were so distracted you couldn’t think long enough to stop it.

“Hockey pucks are actually frozen before games to make them move faster and glide smoothly on the ice, so they don’t bounce a lot.” Franco was rambling about different facts, waiting for the perfect opportunity to slip in a question he’d been waiting to ask for weeks.

“Seriously? So they don’t just stay rubbery and lukewarm?” The last part was only slightly sarcastic, but the fact had actually surprised you.

“So.. are you seeing anyone?”

“No.” You pause, wait—what? You don’t get an opportunity to ask any further questions because he was already onto the next fact. “Franco!” You snap, interjecting his next rant.

Francos eyebrows raise slightly, “yeah?”

You narrow your eyes, licking your lips. “You just asked if I was seeing someone. Then—you know what. That doesn’t matter, what does though, is that you just slipped in a question that was not like the others you’ve slipped in.” His face contorts and you laugh, “i’m going to law school, I notice tactics like that.”

The hockey players mouth quirks, he wasn’t even slightly ashamed. “Oh, I love how smart you are.” He hums, “I was just curious. If you were, thank the lord you aren’t, but, he wouldn’t like you hanging out with me.”

“Thank the lord? Seriously?” Your eyes roll dramatically. The wooden bench beneath you feels stiff and uncomfortable the more he watched you with his stupidly smug face.

Franco nods, “hey—“ He begins untying his laces, “you should come to my game tomorrow. You haven’t come in a while.”

The topic switch was noticeable, but you ignore it. “I have a lecture late tomorrow. I’ll probably be tired.” But when Franco’s face changes into that familiar doe-eyed expression, you cave. “Fine! I’ll come! Quit looking at me like that.”

“I’m not looking at you like anything.”

“Yes you are”

“No i’m not.”

“Are too!”

“Let me take you to dinner.”

“Are—what?” Your brain stops working, words failing your tongue. Excuse you? “Wait a fucking minute—“

Franco watches you carefully. “Is that a no?”

“No! I mean—“ You were still a stumbling mess. Your mouth opening and clamping shut. “It’s a-well, I mean, It’s a yes! Yes, I will! Jesus, Franco. You couldn’t have asked any smoother?”

He’s smiling, finding your stammering all too amusing… and adorable. It was very cute. “It felt fitting to me.” He shrugs casually, slipping off his skates. “After the game and a shower, the diner you like a few blocks from your dorm?”

That was most definitely something he learned during his not-so-secret questionnaires.

“That sounds perfect.” You huff, “now, can you bring me home? I think i’m developing hypothermia.”

After changing into his regular shoes, he stands, offering you his hand. You take it, though it was with an eye roll. Franco smirks at your reaction, not commenting on it as he helps you to your feet.

“Does your body not ache every time you finish?” You ask as the two of you exit the arena, making your way through the dark parking lot.

You regretted your choice of words the second they left your lips. “Don’t even—“

“I have incredible stamina, actually.” Franco cheeses, slinging his arm around you. You allow it, even leaning into his side.

“You are insufferable.” You scoff, but the twitch of your lips betrayed your feigned annoyance.

The laugh that emits from Francos mouth has a smile growing on your lips, it was a sound you’d grown to enjoy.

Franco opens the passenger door for you, which had you suppressing a smile. It was a gesture he made every trip to the arena, in fact—Franco was very much a gentleman, despite boy boyish he could be.

Only when he was the drivers seat with the engine going and heater ablaze, does Franco finally grow serious. “Are you sure you want to do this? I don’t want to make you feel like you have to, I know you’re sort of a people pleaser.”

Okay, ouch?

Franco’s eyes widen, “I didn’t mean it like that!” He says quickly, stumbling for a way to fix what he said.

You’d never seen Franco have to search for words to say. He was always so smooth and, well, he was never one to falter.

“I know what you meant, and you’re right. But, when have I ever gone out of my way to people please you.” You reassure him, a gentle look on your face. “I want this.”

The rest was history. You want Franco had been going steady for months. Whenever you had enough time in your busy college schedule, you went to his games, you were his number one cheerleader and support system.

Hockey had easily become your favorite sport, you knew everything about it due to Franco’s inability to ever stop talking. Thats probably what made the two of you such a perfect pair. You were quiet, he wasn’t. He was your polar opposite, the yin to your yang. And thats what made it work.

When you didn’t want to talk, he wasn’t there to fill the silence. When he didn’t want to talk, you enjoyed each other’s silence.

You had never thought in a million years, the man who annoyed you oh so much, was the same man you would grow to love.

likes , comments , and reblog’s are all appreciated. lmk if you’d like to be tagged in future franco posts.

ᝰ.ᐟ tags @halfwayhearted @purinfelix @sakashq @hrts4havertz @spidybaby

[cuubism]

now, this one got REAL. unfortunately. do you want some angst (+hurt/comfort +fluff)

cw burnout, depression, animal death

--

It started when Jessamy died.

Or.

Well.

Hob is pretty sure it started when Dream was a teenager, if not even earlier. But it comes to a head nearly fifteen years later, when Hob comes home from work and finds Dream sitting on the floor by the couch, Jessamy held in his arms. She is still. And Dream is equally still, equally numb, staring off into space.

Hob knew it was coming someday soon. Dream had had Jessamy since he was twelve, when he’d found her as a kitten by the side of the road and somehow convinced his parents to let him keep her, so she was not a young cat, and while her health had generally been good she’d been increasingly tired and wobbly lately. And cats didn’t live forever.

She looks peaceful, there in Dream’s arms. It isn’t a bad death for a cat, Hob thinks, to curl up in a patch of sunlight on the couch and just not wake up again. Not that that will make Dream feel much better.

Hob sits down beside Dream on the floor. Doesn’t say anything, but lays his hand on Dream’s knee. Dream just keeps staring off into the distance, one hand lightly stroking Jessamy’s fur.

“She didn’t come to greet me,” he says, eventually, when they’ve been sat there for some time. “She always comes to the door.”

“I’m sorry, love,” Hob says.

Dream sits there for a long time, just holding her. Later Hob helps him bury her in the garden, then Dream goes upstairs and buries himself under the blankets in their bed and doesn’t come back out for the rest of the night.

Later Hob will think, that was the first domino to fall. Even later, he will realize it wasn’t the first, but the last.

~

Dream was often seen as stoic. Unemotional. Hob thought so too, when he’d first met him. But he’d quickly come to learn that the real Dream was extremely sensitive and had simply learned to keep all of that inside and present a functional front to the world. And Dream was, indeed, exceedingly functional. Not just functional, Dream was brilliant. He’d graduated top of his college, and he’d gone to Oxford, and then he’d launched a tech company, and even published a novel on the side simply because he enjoyed doing it. When it came to standard metrics of success, Dream was one of the most functional and successful people Hob had ever met.

And Dream was crashing.

~

Hob comes home from work a bit late one day to find Dream slumped on the couch, face pressed into a pillow. The TV is on, but he doesn’t seem to be watching it. There’s a book on the table beside him, but he isn’t reading. He’s just lying there. Listlessly.

“You alright, love?” Hob asks, and Dream just shrugs one shoulder under his blanket.

“I fell asleep on the couch in my office,” he says, “so I came home.”

This immediately rings Hob’s alarm bells because Dream doesn’t do that. He doesn’t come home early from work. He barely takes a lunch break.

“Feeling ill?” Hob asks, perching on the couch beside him.

Dream shrugs again.

“Want some dinner?”

“I suppose.”

He’s barely looked at Hob. He’s not even budged from his sprawl on the couch. But when Hob gets up to get dinner, Dream reaches out, snags a hand in his sleeve, squeezes once and lets go.

Hob leans down to kiss his forehead, and Dream sighs.

Hob brings dinner back to the living room a half hour later, and Dream sits up with him and eats but barely says a word. He listens as Hob talks about his own day but barely contributes beyond brief answers to Hob’s questions.

After dinner he lies down with his head in Hob’s lap and goes quiet again. Hob is starting to get worried, but he gives him the benefit of the doubt. It could just be an off day.

Dream falls asleep in Hob’s lap, and then later gets up and goes to bed at barely 9pm despite how he’s normally a night owl.

“Dream?” Hob says, before Dream retreats to their bedroom. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“I am just tired,” Dream says.

Then he sleeps for ten hours and wakes barely early enough to get to his office on time. And doesn’t seem particularly concerned about it. Then again, Dream does own the company, and can hardly fire himself for being late. But he’s normally much more particular about it.

Then it’s an off two days. Then it’s an off week. Then it’s an off two weeks.

Hob comes home from work and, instead of finding Dream back on his laptop doing more work, or working on his novel, he’s just lying in bed with the covers over his head. Earbuds in, listening to music or an audiobook. I’m tired, he says when Hob asks. I don’t feel well.

Do you want to work on your novel? Hob asks. Usually cheers you up.

Dream’s novels are an escape from the stresses of his other work. He’d published the first one under a pen name so it would have no connection to his company or anything else about him. He’d been so proud when it hit the bestseller list.

No, Dream says. I don’t care. It’s meaningless.

Worry is starting to sit heavier and heavier in Hob’s chest.

Hob’s known for almost as long as he’s known Dream that Dream struggles with a latent, underlying level of depression, but it’s been well managed thus far and he’d thought Dream had found an equilibrium with it.

Apparently it was a much more fragile equilibrium than he’d realized, because now everything seems to have tipped and flipped over.

At first he thinks Dream isn’t doing anything about it. But then Hob learns that he is, and that almost feels worse, because now Hob doesn’t know where to even start helping him. Dream has already taken medication for years. He’s recently increased his dose and it’s done nothing. He already sees a therapist. He’s started going twice as often as he did before and still nothing seems improved. He hasn’t pulled away from Hob. He still curls up to him in bed at night, and lays on the couch with his head on Hob’s lap while they watch TV. He lets Hob drag him around doing things he thinks might cheer him, like walks in the park, feeding the pigeons, going to the botanical gardens to look at flowers. If Hob cooks something, he’ll eat, but he makes no effort to eat otherwise.

He goes, he does things, but he isn’t there. He’s checked out, distracted, and his smiles are hollow.

Hob watches him pick up books he would normally love, read one page and then put it down again. Watches him abandon the newspaper crossword puzzles he usually likes to do over breakfast after solving only one or two questions. Watches him get dressed in the morning, putting on his usual all-black attire with a mechanical precision that suggests he’s operating on autopilot and not thinking about it at all. He just doesn’t seem to care about any of it, and Dream normally cares so much about everything that it’s really starting to freak Hob out.

Hob asks him if he’s okay and he says he’s just tired. Hob asks him why and he says he doesn’t know. And the worst part is, Hob believes him. He doesn’t think Dream does know what’s wrong. It’s not just grief for Jessamy that’s doing it. Hob thinks it’s more that Jessamy was a tiny piece of a support structure that was far more meager than either of them realized, and now all the rest of the heaviness has come crashing down. That doesn’t mean Dream has the words for what any of that is, though.

Hob worries about him when he’s at work. He worries about him whenever Dream is out of his sight. He thinks about how relentless and intense Dream usually is and contrasts it with his current listlessness and he worries.

He thinks about Dream graduating university with honors while he built a whole fucking company in his dorm room and wrote the first half of a novel on the side, and he worries.

Dream had always made time for Hob then, too. And he always has since. Or maybe being with Hob was the sanctuary he carved out for himself amidst the whirlwind of all that he was.

Now more often than not Dream comes home and immediately collapses on top of Hob on the couch and doesn’t speak a word for a least two hours. Hob is just glad that, whatever’s going on, he at least isn’t fully isolating himself. He’s still coming to Hob for comfort, in whatever way he knows how.

The next time it happens, Hob messages Lucienne, Dream’s COO. In fact he does it from his phone while Dream is lying on top of him, and Dream doesn’t even notice.

Has Dream been alright at work recently? he writes.

Lucienne responds fairly quickly. She’s a bit of a workaholic, just like Dream. I am not sure he would want me sharing all his business without his knowledge.

Hob sighs. He supposes it’s fair that she’s protective of her boss. Lucienne. Come on. Please. I’m worried about him.

He seems tired lately, she writes, at length. And distracted.

Anything in particular going on?

No, if anything, we are in a bit of a slow down at the moment. There is not as much on our plates.

Odd.

Do take care of him, Hob, Lucienne adds.

Always will, Hob says.

He puts his phone aside, and pets Dream’s hair. Dream hums in pleasure, nuzzling into him. “Sweetheart. You want some dinner?”

“If you desire,” Dream says.

Hob’s not convinced he would eat anything at all if Hob didn’t push him.

“Come on, up, we’ll get something to eat,” Hob says, and Dream groans, but lets Hob maneuver him up, and sits placidly in the kitchen with the cup of water Hob pushes into his hands as Hob cooks. He is so placid, lately, in general. Hob is used to Dream being strong-willed and opinionated. It’s upsetting to see him passive.

All he can do for now, though, is take care of Dream as best he can. As he always does.

~

It hits a breaking point when Dream simply doesn’t go into work at all.

Hob is working from home that day, and doesn’t notice at first that eight o’clock has passed and Dream hasn’t left the house. At around nine he goes to make more coffee and realizes, suddenly, that Dream’s shoes are still by the door, his coat still hanging on its hook. So Hob goes to find him.

He finds Dream still lying in bed, not asleep, just sort of staring blankly at the wall, arms wrapped around himself. Hob lays a hand on his shoulder. “Hi, darling. You getting up for work?”

“No,” Dream says, flatly. “I cannot. I don’t want to.”

So Hob calls Lucienne to let her know Dream’s sick and won’t be coming in. He can hear her concern over the phone. Dream almost never calls in sick. If he gets something contagious, he just works from home instead of resting.

Maybe this is part of the problem. Maybe this is all part of the huge, looming cloud of pain that has apparently been covering Dream like a shroud for longer than Hob’s even known him without Hob ever truly seeing it.

When he puts his phone away and comes back Dream is still lying in the same position. Heart in his throat, Hob climbs into bed to sit beside him. “I told Lucienne you’d be out today,” he says gently. Dream turns over to face him, wrapping his arm around Hob’s thigh to pull close. That gives Hob some hope. That Dream still wants to reach out. “She was worried about you.”

Dream looks up at him solemnly. “And you?”

“I’ve been worried about you for a long time, darling. Talk to me.”

“I meant to go in today,” Dream says. “I have things to do. I suppose. But. I realized that I don’t care about any of it. I tried to remind myself how to care about it. But I could not remember. And so there was no point in getting up.”

“Perhaps you’re a bit stressed about it all,” Hob suggests, but Dream shakes his head.

“I do not feel anything about it at all. I think the company could disappear entirely in this moment and I would feel nothing but this... numbness. I ought to care. But I don’t. It’s meaningless.” He presses his forehead into Hob’s thigh. “I think it ought to scare me. But I don’t feel that either. I don’t feel anything.”

Hob breathes out hard. “Okay. Alright.” He pets Dream’s hair as he thinks. He doesn’t feel very equipped to handle this, but Dream’s regular therapy and meds don’t seem to be doing anything so he’s going to have to try. And if Dream’s regular routine isn’t helping then maybe it’s not his usual depression. Then maybe Hob can work out something to begin to help. “Maybe we need to take you on a very, very long holiday. So you can have a rest.”

Dream lets out a choked laugh, though when he speaks there’s no humor in it. “Hob. I think if I stop moving for that long. I will not get up again. So if you wish to have a functional partner, you may want to withdraw that suggestion.”

Hob feels his heart break in two. “What if I want an alive partner?”

“I am not planning to kill myself.”

“Recently it seems you’re well on your way to it, Dream.”

Dream is silent for a long moment, then says, voice cracking, “I am not trying to—”

“I know, I know, honey,” Hob slides down the bed to rest beside him, pulling Dream into his arms. “I know, I’m sorry.”

“I don’t know any other way to be,” Dream cries, pressing his face into Hob’s shirt. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. It’s okay, my love.” They have been together since university. He’s seen Dream go through bouts of depression before. But he’s never seen him like this. Fracturing at the seams. It’s frightening. “I love you so much, do you know?”

“I know.” He squeezes Hob close. “I do know.”

“I don’t care how functional you are,” Hob says, making a clear mockery of the word, and Dream laughs weakly. “I do actually like you, you know. You. Not Mr Great Tech Innovator.”

Dream groans. “Please do not call me a ‘tech innovator’ or I may have to actually kill myself out of shame.”

Hob remembers when Forbes had wanted Dream to be in their thirty under thirty issue and Dream had refused because he thought it was ‘stupid and self-aggrandizing’ and because he ‘didn’t put in years of work for the purpose of being on the cover of an insipid magazine.’ Hob loves this stupid idiot so much.

Dream doesn’t do any of it for fame. Hob doesn’t entirely know why he does it. He think maybe pouring all of himself out is the only thing Dream knows.

“When’s the last time you feel you got an actual break?” Hob asks.

Dream thinks about it. “Year 10,” he says at last. “I spent the summer holiday doing nothing but reading. It was blissful.”

“Dream, that was fifteen years ago."

“After that summer I was always working somehow. Doing advanced class prep work. Then university prep.” He gives Hob a sly sidelong glance, and despite the heavy topic, Hob internally cheers to see a bit of his humor come back. “Needless to say, I was not spending my free time partying when I was in school.”

No, Hob knew that about him. Dream is practically incapable of having fun. Even one of his supposedly stress-relieving outlets, writing, he’s managed to turn into a side career as an author. And Hob knows that, unless one is a verifiable genius, one doesn’t earn the perfect marks Dream had all through school without sacrifice. Hob had gotten good marks, too, but Dream had always been a step above.

And he knows Dream’s parents had always demanded utter perfection. Whether they ever rewarded him for any of it, Hob doesn’t know.

“Hey, darling,” he says. “You’re doing a good job.”

Dream whimpers, pushing his face into Hob’s chest.

“You’re doing enough,” Hob continues. “You’re doing so well. I promise. It’s all okay. It’ll be okay.”

“I love you,” Dream says. He clings to Hob, wrapping his arms around him, slipping one leg in between Hob’s thighs. “So much.”

It would be easy to feel insecure around Dream’s level of success, except that Dream’s love for Hob is so obvious. To Hob it is, at least. Dream cares for him so deeply, in his way, and he never acts like he thinks Hob is lesser for not being someone Forbes is pursuing for their lists. If anything, Dream usually discounts his own success, and is, generally speaking, obsessed with Hob and everything Hob does.

This is also a visceral reminder of the costs of this type of success.

“I love you, too, sweetheart,” he says, rocking Dream in his arms.

“I have been feeling. Somewhat unwell, recently,” Dream admits. “Increasingly so. I suppose I ought to be grateful, in a way, that my mind forced me to shut down before my body did.”

Hob’s not sure he himself feels quite grateful about it, but he is glad Dream at least recognizes the problem.

“We’ve just got to send you to the seaside for your health,” he says.

Dream laughs, genuinely this time. “Truly.”

“Get you a little break. It’ll help, I promise. You’ve just been over-working yourself, hm?”

“I do not think it is my current level of work that is the problem,” Dream says. “I think. I have been running so long. I simply cannot anymore. Effort, itself, is not a problem for a marathon runner. But duration eventually becomes exhausting.”

“I know. It’s okay. Might need a bit longer of a break, is all.”

“I do not know how,” Dream says.

“You let everyone else at work take breaks, don’t you?”

“I used to not,” Dream says. “Not enough of them. Until Lucienne made it quite clear that I was being unfair to them. I was not trying to be. I was simply… used to my own work patterns and did not realize the strain it was putting on them.”

“But you changed it,” Hob says. “You can change it for yourself, too.”

“Perhaps,” Dream says.

“Hire someone who can do some of your tasks and then give yourself a little break. Go somewhere warm and sit on a beach and drink sugary cocktails.”

Dream laughs. “I don’t know if my brain is suited to that.”

“Exactly why you should do it.”

“Will you come with me on this… health retreat by the sea?” Dream asks, some humor back in his voice.

“Course. I’ll take a sabbatical and go with you. But also. Do you think you might want a bit of time to yourself?”

“By myself?” Dream questions. “I do have time to myself. I am already quite solitary.”

“I know. But. Do you think you’d want a bit of extended time to just do what you want to do?” It would hurt, to be away from Dream for an extended period of time. But he wants Dream to have that, that freedom to be completely unburdened, to have no expectations, if it will help him.

“Hmm.” Dream considers. “Perhaps a bit. But I like to be with you.”

“I like to be with you, too, my love. Think about somewhere you’ve always wanted to go. And we’ll go. Or if you just want to rest here, that’s fine, too.”

“You don’t have to do all this,” Dream says quietly.

“I want you to be well,” Hob says. “More than anything, I want you to be well.” He kisses Dream’s forehead. “Besides if you don’t think I’m already imagining us on a beach—”

Dream laughs. “I see.”

“Come now, you want to see me shirtless, don’t you?” Hob teases.

“I see you shirtless every day,” Dream says dryly.

“Don’t you want to get extremely drunk and naked and fool around in a luxury villa?”

“What counts as ‘extremely’ naked?” Dream asks. “Taking off my skin?”

“Dream.”

Dream chuckles. “I do. That sounds enjoyable. I would like to leave my laptop at home and perhaps wander around a seaside village, drinking wine until I have killed all of my brain cells.”

“Now you’re getting into the spirit of it,” Hob says.

“Hob,” Dream says, serious again.

“Yeah?”

“What if I take a break,” Dream asks, quietly, “And then I cannot convince myself to go back?”

There’s true grief in his voice, but still Hob counters, “What if you take a break and you feel better?”

Dream smiles, faintly, Hob feels it against his skin. “Always the more positive attitude.”

“One of us has to.”

“But what if,” Dream continues, “I take a break and I learn that I never wanted to do any of it at all?”

This is a stickier question. “Why would you have done any of it, if you didn’t want to? You must have wanted to on some level.”

“I don’t know,” says Dream. “It is just what I’m used to.”

“Maybe you’ll want to again,” Hob says. “Maybe you won’t. Can’t we take it one day at a time?”

Dream lets out a long, aggrieved breath. “You are so nonchalant.”

“Thought that’s one of the reasons you liked me.”

“It is,” Dream says, sounding incredibly frustrated about it. “Yet I do not understand it in the slightest. You truly just… have faith that everything will work out regardless?”

“I have faith we can figure it out,” Hob says. “And that I’ll always have your back. That you’ll never have to work through it alone.”

“You are a wonderful partner,” Dream says. Then, “I would like to go out tonight.”

“You… would?”

Dream nods. “I would like to remember what it was like when we first met. And I feel sorely lacking in romance and I’m well aware it’s my own doing. I know it may not feel the same right now but I want to... try. And. I miss you. Will you take me out on a date?”

Hob is thrilled by this turn. “Of course I will. Are you sure?”

“Yes. Can you also tell Lucienne I will be out sick this week and then hide my laptop and phone somewhere I will not find them?”

Hob laughs. “Alright, darling. Get some rest for today, hm? We’ll go out for drinks or something later. I have missed you. I’ve missed seeing you cheery.”

“‘Cheery’ may be pushing it,” Dream says, with a small smile. “However. I would like to have sex tonight.”

Hob bursts out laughing, not at the idea, but at the absolutely flat way Dream says it. He really does have a way about him.

“It’s been too long,” Dream whines.

It has been too long. “Oh, don’t think I’m saying no,” Hob says, and slips a hand up under Dream’s shirt to feel up his back. Dream laughs, snuggling closer to him. It’s so good to hear him laugh.

“Anything you want, anything that will make you happy,” he says. “I love you more than anything.”

Dream leans up to kiss him, long and sweet, then collapses atop him again, as he has nearly every day for weeks. Except this time it doesn’t feel quite so defeated. It feels like it could maybe be rest.

[fluentmoviequoter]

Bradford Bingo

Pairing: Tim Bradford x fem!cop!reader

Summary: Lucy makes Bradford Bingo for the station. You try to keep it from Tim, but you win in front of him. 1.0k+ words of fluff

Lucy slips a paper into your hand without comment, then walks away and does the same to Nyla. Nyla raises her hands in question and turns to you. You shrug and look down at the paper. It’s a bingo card, but not any bingo card; it’s Bradford Bingo. Your card has “calls someone boot,” “yells at another cop (besides you),” “gives the disappointed look,” and more.

There has to be something behind Lucy roping everyone in the station into a silent game of Bradford Bingo. You flip the card and see Lucy’s handwritten winner gets a prize ;) note.

“You ready?” Tim asks as he approaches you.

You hold the bingo card behind your leg and nod. Without knowing what the prize is – even if there was no prize – you want to win Bradford Bingo. There’s no doubt that he isn’t aware of the game, so you keep the card hidden from him as you sit in the passenger seat of his shop.

“Did Wade tell you why I’m riding with you?” you inquire as he pulls out of the garage.

“Yep,” he answers.

You press your lips together and mark “doesn’t offer additional information” off your card.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Making a note.”

You interact with other officers, listen to radio calls, and witness people marking blocks off their bingo cards throughout the next hour. Tim has clearly noticed the unusual attention and people marking cards. He doesn’t care enough or isn’t bothered enough to ask for more information.

“Ask your TO, boot,” Tim snaps as you leave a scene.

You mark the square and chew your bottom lip in thought. With only one square left in your diagonal line, you have a real shot at winning. Tim just needs to yell at an officer who isn’t you.

“7-Adam-19, requesting backup for signs of violence on scene,” Aaron radios.

“7-Adam-100, responding,” Tim responds before steering into a left turn.

“I love that you get to tell me what to do again,” you murmur as Tim parks outside the scene.

Tim turns in his seat and glares at you for a moment, then shakes his head and opens his door. That’s the disappointed look, but it’s still not the bingo you need. You mark it regardless and follow him to the front yard.

“You thought it was okay?” Tim demands, his voice rising. “You do not think on this job, you do!”

“I’m sorry, Sergeant Bradford,” the officer replies.

“Oh!” Tim's jaw tightens before he yells, “That makes it all better!”

You see Lucy approaching with Nolan, and don’t hesitate to yell, “Bingo!”

“What? Already?” Lucy asks, rushing to take your card. “It’s been two hours!”

You nod excitedly, then remember Tim is standing beside you. He simply looks at you, watching as Lucy congratulates you. The call takes precedence, so everyone shifts their focus from the game to the case.

When you get back in the shop, Tim doesn’t move.

“It was Lucy’s idea,” you begin, looking at your hands. “It was just fun, you know, nothing against you.”

Tim extends his hand toward you, palm up, and you place the card in it. He reads the activities you’ve marked off before giving it back.

“Why’d you play?” he asks.

“I… I knew I could win,” you admit.

“You think I’m that bad to ride with?” he challenges.

“Uh- no- no, sir, just…”

Tim fails to hold his laughter in when you call him sir and snorts before covering it with a cough. He moves his hand to cover his smile, and you look at him in shock.

“Why would you do that?” you exclaim.

“You could get another bingo with it.”

You roll your eyes and complain, “I don’t even know what the prize is.”

“Care to make a deal?”

You narrow your eyes but shake Tim’s hand anyway.

“If someone else gets a bingo, I’ll give you a prize in addition to Lucy’s.”

“That’s terrifying, Tim.”

 “Deal’s a deal.”

“Alright!” Lucy calls in the bullpen. “We had two bingos in today���s game! First prize is a gift card for free dinner!”

“How long have you known?” Tim asks Wade, watching the awards ceremony from inside his office.

“Who do you think offered the gift card?”

“No ulterior motive?”

“You’ll never know, Bradford.”

Tim raises his brows as you approach your car. You offer the gift card to him, but he knocks your hand away and opens your car door for you.

“My place,” he tells you before closing the door.

You prepare a dozen different apologies as you stand in his living room, waiting for him to tell you what’s going on.

“Tim-“

He raises his hand to stop you, and asks, “Did you know you got the only card without a free space in the middle?”

“I was riding with you, it probably made it fair.”

“Grey and Lucy worked together.”

“To make the game?”

“To show you that you…” Tim pauses to find the right word. “Tolerate me.”

“I-“

“We’re going to keep going in circles.”

You nod and admit, “It’s what we do.”

Tim pulls a bingo bard from his pocket and says, “This is the one Lucy was going to give you, but apparently she chickened out.”

The card has a red square in the middle, but instead of being a free space it says, Admit it already.

“Tim, I- I told Lucy about my feelings, but I didn't think-"

Tim cuts you off, his hands on either side of your face as he pulls you against him. You silence and look up at Tim as your hands meet his waist.

“Do you tolerate me?” he asks.

“You know I do more than that.”

“Enough for a lifetime of Bradford Bingo?”

You smile, wrap your arms around him, and kiss Tim. His fingers move to the back of your neck, tugging you closer as you melt into one another. Your legs hit the couch as you step back, and Tim spins so he falls back, and you barely manage to catch yourself above him.

“I’m really glad I won,” you pant, holding yourself up on the back of the couch with one hand.

“Maybe Lucy should make another game, one I could win.”

“I don’t have Bradford stereotypes.”

“Not yet.”

You don’t argue but smile before you shift your weight, wrapping your arms around Tim’s shoulders as you lower to meet him.

[unknownogre]

“What?!”

The hero looked to Nuvian with a very puzzled expression, the half-elf bard just smirked a bit and gave him a wink. Up until now he was the model of virtue, always helping the hero make the right choice so the people would love him. Telling the best stories so his path stayed true…so the works coming out of his mouth right now were jarring at best.

“Yes, let me toy with him for a while. I think I can get three or four weeks. Two months if I use this new healing spell I’ve been trying to learn on the side. Oh I think his screams will be wonderful…a symphony for the soul if you will.”

Nuvian smile as he moved the villain over to make sure his heart was still bleeding and offering some stabilization without waking him up. The hero was just dumbfounded at the moment.

“I…I was just going to kill him.”

Nuvian didn’t even look back as he made sure to search the Villain’s pockets and remove everything but enough clothes to leave his modesty intact. He moved like he was an expert at this, like it had been done a hundred times and this was simply business as usual. Even his tone was as light and warm as it ever has been.

“Oh, I know, but that was never the plan my dear friend. This was the plan. This has always been the plan.”

The rest of the party was recovering. They had all been just hurt enough to have to stay behind for the final battle leaving only the hero and his trusty bard to face the boss alone. None of them grievously injured…but just enough so they wouldn’t be at full so they weren’t strong enough to walk through the barrier.

“The Plan? You need to talk to me Nuvian. I want you to explain everything right now!”

The Hero panicked, had he just been manipulated this entire time? Were his motivation his own? Panic…worry…dread. He said he’d never be a puppet again. Not since escaping slavery.

“Oh it was simple. Keep you good, get you strong and get to the villain. Kill him, won’t help you feel better. You know it needs to be done though. If you did this, you’d lose part of yourself. Which is fine. You’ve only killed monsters up to this point, mindless hunks of meat that deal out constant aggression. They have no emotions, no anything. They are easy to kill. Sentient beings on the other hand, well that isn’t you cup of tea. Don’t worry, your quest was yours alone, I didn’t need to make you do anything. I was just along to get to this point.”

At this point the Hero didn’t even notice Nuvian hoist the Villain up on their horse and secure them to the saddle. The bard then turned to his friend and walked over to put a hand on his shoulder. The Hero’s eyes locked with his friend and oddly enough he found comfort in them. This was the man who had saved his life, who sang by the fire at night to quell the restless spirits that banded together to remove the Villain from power. He was there, it couldn’t have all been a lie could it?

“Listen, you aren’t the only one this bastard has hurt. On top of that he knows things, things no one but me knows he knows. So I want some answers. I get to have fun while I rip them from his flesh. I’m a nice person my dear Hero but I’m not a good one. Do you remember the corrupt mayor that we punished last year?”

The Hero nodded and then froze.

“What did you do to him? We left him in a jail cell and moved on. The city was supposed to do what they needed…but then you had business. I…I watched you get on a boat and leave. We met up a month later.”

Nuvian just smile and squeezed his friend’s shoulder. He then motioned for him to sit down in the batter throne they found the villain on while Nuvian sat in the stewards spot.

“Well, I did have business, but I just had the ship drop me down the river and I looped around back. I then hunted down every noble that supported the Mayor, I tortured them to make sure there were no hidden secrets, and then I tortured the mayor till his body gave out. I did some of my best work. A demon actually came up from hell to have me autograph a square of his flesh after his body gave out and his soul hit its final destination. It was really an honor. Shows I’m on the right path. Most polite pit fiend I’ve ever met. Didn’t use my real name of course, not that stupid. We had a laugh over it, all in all a great time.”

The Hero was still stunned but honestly he didn’t feel bad about it. He didn’t give the go ahead for this, but he knew if anyone deserved those fates it was that pedophile mayor and his lackies. Reason was starting to return, and the more Nuvian talked the more the Hero realized that it wasn’t that he didn’t know his friend, he just didn’t know ALL of his friend and that was okay because he was finding out now.

“Alright, if that is what you want to do I’m not going to argue or stop you. Come find me when you are done though okay, I want to take you out to the tavern for a drink.”

Nuvian just chuckled and brought his friend in for a hug. He knew the Hero wasn’t naive and thus why he was chosen as a traveling partner and one to help him get to his goal. Find, capture, break and then murder the Villain. The process took three years, but three years of well spent effort.

“Deal.”

The bard said as they parted ways and he turned to head out of the place before the rest of the party could try and press their morals upon them. Nuvian could only chuckle as he head the Villain groan in pain. Oh it was going to be SO much worse in just a day’s time…he couldn’t wait.

'You can't kill him!' 'Ugh I am so sick of this idea that killing this monster would make me just as bad as he is!' 'What? No I'm saying I can keep him alive for DAYS while I torture him' '…'

[xoxochb]

— glue song ꣑ৎ‧₊˚.

warnings: swearing, kinda rushed ending pairing: luke castellan x daughter of hades a/n: first chapter… drop your opinions!

series m. list

the multiverse theory is the ideology that there are separate universes beyond this. many scientists have researched studies to retrieve a clear answer, yet nothing has been found. many people additionally like to make a belief that them and their most beloved would be different in this alternate universes. many think they might hate each other, love each other, or simply not know of each others existence.

you— the only daughter of hades at camp half-blood believe strongly in the fact that you and your best friend, head counselor of hermes cabin, would be best friends regardless of the opposite universe. luke castellan doesn’t think much into your science-y stuff, but if he ever finds you rambling he can’t help but listen because you’re you! disregarding his opinion on science theories if you love them that means he loves them, it’s a mutual thing, truly.

anyways, on days such as these, the slow ones where there aren’t much exciting events or camp duties, you find yourself cooped up in the coldness of cabin thirteen, a silent cabin all to yourself. this was only until your brother decided to move back in from cabin seven— then you would have to share it, unfortunately. you keep a book open in your lap, reading over the lines of endless words, entrancing yourself into the fictional world that is your book.

it was silent, and it was perfect and the fireplace crackling only added onto your cozy aura. you can’t help but let out a tiny squeal at this, then returning back to your seriousness of reading. but you were naive to think that you would get alone time for at least something as simple as an hour, soon enough the door to your cabin opens and you frown, refraining from looking up from your book and ignoring the person walking towards your bed. but by the prominent mop of dark curls you know who it is.

“not even gonna spare me a glance? you wound me, nerd, truly.”

“go away, luke, this is my silent reading time.”

he doesn’t listen. instead, luke ushers you to slide over as he takes a seat beside you on your bed.

“what’s the book of choice for today?”

“the shining.”

luke nods slowly. “I like the movie better.”

you remain silent and try to get yourself back into the book world as luke returns to silence. you’re disrupted again when his finger twirls around a strand of your hair delicately. you sigh and attempt to ignore it. until he tugs at it

“what the fuck are you doing! stop it!” you take your hair from his hold as he laughs at your dismay. “I’m not laughing, I don’t find you funny.”

“really? because I think I’m hilarious.”

your mouth remains shut.

“c’mon, nerd, talk to me. I’m dying here.”

“great. I’ll see you at the gates.”

luke opens his mouth to speak but ultimately decides not to say anything. you’d known luke since your first arrival at camp back when you were ten, you’d came straight from the underworld where you lived with your father. as a demigod, typically you’d stay with your mortal parent, however, your mother had apparent ‘complications’ said by your father and you were forced to live in his palace for the first years of your life until he deemed it unhealthy for you to be cooped up down there for so long. when you’d arrived at camp, luke had been one of the only campers that had spoken to you— most to all of the others wouldn’t dare look in your direction due to your godly heritage.

but luke didn’t care about that. he welcomed you happily and allowed you to befriend him, since this, you had been inseparable. when you were fifteen he discovered your passion for all things astronomy while catching you reading a planets book by the lake one afternoon. he had sat beside you and listened as you rambled until the moon rose and the sun set, nonsense he declared it, just a bunch of your nerdy stars and planets bullshit he’d never cared for before. but since meeting you he’d grown to become fond of them— they were always a quiet reminder of you. and welcome the nickname. ‘nerd’ he calls you. at first you hated it, after a year or two you got used to it and stopped complaining.

“I’ll get to see you?”

“that’s not—” you search for the right words. “stop.“

“you’ve gotta make a more convincing argument, nerd.”

“well I want you to stop, isn’t that enough?”

“alright, my mouth is zipped.” luke makes a zipper motion over his mouth. you turn back to your book and try to re-read the lines again. luke places his head atop yours, inhaling the scent of your shampoo. he frowns. “you smell different. like vanilla. you usually smell like berries.”

“you got an emotional attachment to the berry conditioner?”

he shrugs. “I did.”

“I’ll make sure to buy that one next time then since your feelings are so hurt.”

“really? you’re great, nerd, thanks.”

you shake your head slowly. the cabin returns back to silence, a comfortable silence. yet you secretly wish he would say something again, even if it’s utterly stupid. and unbeknownst to you, luke wishes only the same of you.

[ellstersmash]

Prompt time! Solas and Athi discuss at length if the other would love them as a worm. Please and thank you 🙏

“Are you comfortable in that form?”

Athi’s voice cuts into the quiet of the Fade and Solas’ own silent musings, the path they’re currently on less twisting, and therefore less mentally demanding, than most.

“This form?” he responds. “Or do you refer to another?”

“You know, most people don’t have to specify that.”

“I believe we can agree that I am not most people.”

Athi’s features scrunch together in amusement as she most certainly prepares to tease him—her favorite pastime, not that the Fade provides much of a variety from which to choose. “So true,” she says, the sing-song notes of it echoing in the shifting emptiness around them. “You’re very special.”

“Your approval of my circumstances is paramount,” he states dryly. “Which form are you currently curious about?”

“Your new—or, well, old—spirit form. It’s very… tendrily.”

Solas chuckles. “I can say with great confidence that I have never before been accused of being ‘tendrily.’”

“Love that we’re still finding firsts. Don’t you?” Athi nudges him with an elbow. The self-satisfied smile on her face makes its own light, her playfulness a beacon in the dull dark of this domain.

“You are right,” he says, “and I should hardly be surprised that you are still able to surprise me.”

“Or maybe you should be surprised by my surprising you, otherwise it’s not much of a surprise, is it? But back to my question: do you like to hang around as your tendrily spirit-self?”

“It is not so dissimilar to this one.”

“It floats.”

“Well, yes.”

“And you don’t have hands.”

Solas chuckles. “But many tendrils, as I’ve been recently informed. Besides, one does not need appendages to affect the Fade; only a capable mind and sufficient will.”

“Well, you need appendages to affect me,” Athi mumbles.

Solas grins over at her then, waiting until he catches her eye to lean closer, lower his voice, and ask, “Do I?”

She’s not the only one with the power to tease. It has the intended effect, of course: her eyes widen and unfocus for a few long moments, the air thickening with desire before she shakes it off.

“So is that a yes, then?” she asks.

“Yes, I am comfortable in that form, as I am comfortable in this one.”

“But not the wolf.”

This is not something he’s considered, and he takes his time answering. “The Dread Wolf was born of a specific need to threaten the evanuris and as a show of power and protection for those who would escape or oppose them. And, as you know, it takes a great deal of energy to maintain. I would not call it ‘comfortable’ by any stretch of the definition.”

“Cute, though.”

Solas rolls his eyes at her flippancy. “I refuse to dignify that statement with a response.”

“That is a response.” But she takes his hand and squeezes, warmth diffusing into Solas’ chest as her affection washes over him in gentle waves.

Some time later, it occurs to him to wonder why she brought this subject up in the first place. “Are you comfortable with my spirit form, Athi?”

“I mean, sure. It’s just new. And it is different, at least to me. Not as solid.”

“Different in a bad way?”

“No. I mean, yes in some ways. Harder to kiss you, for one thing.” She squeezes his hand again. “Also I’m never really sure which eyes to look into.”

“In truth, that form does not have eyes, or even sight in the way you’d experience it.” 

Athi looks up at him, a vacant expression which he can only classify as bewilderment on her face.

“There are other senses which allow me to perceive the world,” he continues. “Ones which are very difficult to explain to someone who cannot experience them, but rest assured that I know where you are and what you are doing, whether in spirit form or this one.”

“That clears things up less than I think you think it does.”

“I am sorry. Perhaps you might simply choose your favorite ‘eye’ with which to maintain contact as we converse.”

“Right, I’ll give that a go.” 

“Does it truly bother you? Does it change your opinion of me?”

Athi stops short, her hand still clasped in his tugging him to a halt in turn. “What? No, it doesn’t ‘bother’ me. It’s just different. And I have to be different with it.”

“But I am still…” He is unsure how to ask the right question, but feels it imperative that he discover the answer. “I am still Solas, to you? Even when I wear that form?”

“Who else would you be?”

“Does it change how you feel about me? Your—” It is still so hard for him to accept the concept that even forming the word is a challenge. “Your love for me?”

“Oh.” Athi’s whole being relaxes on a sigh and a soft smile. She lifts his hand to her lips and kisses two of his knuckles. “Don’t be ridiculous. Nothing can change that.”

“Well. That is a relief. Thank you.”

They continue along their path, but the quiet hardly has time to settle back in when Athi speaks again.

“Solas?”

He hums an acknowledgement.

“If I were in a different form, would you still love me?”

The answer is obvious, but he entertains the subject. “Temporarily?”

“No, I think permanently.”

“Of course I would. It is your spirit that I adore—though I am fond of your form as well.”

She laughs brightly. “Good answer! But what if it was really different? Like a fish? Or a worm? What if you woke up one day and I was a worm?”

“Is your spirit intact within this worm?”

“Let’s say yes.”

“Then yes, I would still love you. And I would learn to love your worm form in time.”

“Okay.” She’s silent long enough that he thinks the matter dropped, then: “But what if my spirit was changed, too? What if I had a worm spirit now?”

“That would be an impossibility.” Even more impossible than the premise, but he keeps that to himself. “If your spirit was no longer yours, but a worm’s, then there would be no you within it. I would cherish your memory into eternity, and leave the worm to live out its life.”

Athi gasps and stops again, dropping his hand to match her other one on her hip. “You would leave me?!”

“It would not be you, vhenan. It would be a worm.”

“But I would be the worm!”

“You’re not the worm. Without your spirit, the worm is just a worm.”

“What if I was always the worm?”

She appears genuinely distressed, and Solas isn’t sure he can reason his way out of a conversation this ridiculous. “Then we likely would never have met. You would not love me either.”

“You don’t know that!”

Solas sighs heavily, cradling his temples in one hand. “I fear we’ve stepped out of the incredibly hypothetical discussion we began and into a deeper one.”

Athi starts ahead without him. “You’ve certainly stepped into something.”

[stillness-in-green]

why do you think Deku never tried to talk to Shigaraki? doylist reason is obvious but what's the watsonian reason?

Honestly, this one’s pretty tricky to answer.  It’s very hard to get myself into the headspace of Deku (and the people in his own headspace!)—mainly because I get extremely uncharitable, extremely quickly.  Mainly about Horikoshi, yes, but that does extend to Deku, too, as well as the broader world he lives in.

The brain goes immediately to answers like, “His world is so incredibly slanted towards retributive models of justice that the fact that he even thinks about wanting to know Shigaraki’s motivations makes him a candidate for mad sainthood to the people around him.  The fact that he doesn’t follow that impulse through all the way to actually asking is immaterial; while Villains have to be punished for their actions, for Heroes, it’s the thought that counts.”

See how I’m already drifting back towards meta-narrative analysis at the end there?  Deku brings a lot of that out in me, especially from Villain Hunt onwards.  Like the wooden doll he’s named for, he comes off to me as a vessel for the plot to happen through more than he does a consistently written, well-thought-out character.  Trying to think of him through a purely Watsonian lens—no refences made at all, period, to what I think the story was trying to express or what Horikoshi’s intentions towards that story were—I almost immediately jump the tracks into territory that is all but certainly incompatible with what I was “supposed” to take away from MHA as a story.

But, you did ask, so I’ll follow the thought experiment through.  If I were to try and set down to paper an explanation for Deku’s actions from a purely in-universe stance—say, for writing canon compliant post-series fanfic—what would be my explanation?

(Hit the jump.)

Right off the bat, from a cultural perspective, I think Deku is afraid that if he tries to make excuses for Shigaraki, it would be disrespectful to Shigaraki’s victims.  That’s why you get the heroic characters constant harping on about how they can’t forgive the Villains, even though, as adjuncts to the police, “forgiveness” is utterly immaterial to them doing their jobs.  Too much sympathy for criminals, in some peoples’ eyes, becomes indicative of a lack of proper regard for the victims of crime; this is very much a dynamic in play in Japan’s legal system.[1]  Ochaco initially has the same impulse, where she’s terrified that even thinking about Toga Himiko’s human circumstances puts her in danger of forgetting the suffering Toga and the League brought about.

1: That’s a meta consideration, yes, but one that I think the target audience would understand to be implicit in the canon as written, so I’m treating it as a Watsonian detail.

Ochaco and Deku commiserate and ultimately encourage each other to embrace their desire to understand their respective Villains, which leads to Ochaco talking to Toga at some length!  Ochaco must do this because asking Toga these questions if the only way she has to reach that understanding.  Deku does not have to ask, however, because he has a cheatmode to fall back on: the mindscape shared between All For One and One For All.  If Deku thinks too much open communication with Villains risks dishonoring Shigaraki’s victims, well, he doesn’t have to openly communicate.  He doesn’t have to talk to Shigaraki the person at all.  He just has to find that crying little boy in the mindscape again.

I also think it’s notable that Deku very much does stop talking about wanting to save Shigaraki after he talks to Gran Torino.  From that point on, everything he says about Shigaraki becomes about wanting to understand him instead.  Coupled with the idea that he insists upon not forgiving Shigaraki, I get the sense that what Deku wants is not to help Shigaraki at all, but rather to simply bear witness to his truth.  And even that much feels self-serving to me—as if Deku doesn’t care so much that Shigaraki is in pain, but rather that Shigaraki might have a point, that Shigaraki’s pain might be valid.  Shigaraki having a valid point would destabilize everything Deku believes about Heroes and Hero Society, and Deku has, by that point, seen enough that he’s too upright to look away, to “sweep things back under the rug,” so he has to find out Shigaraki’s story to judge it for himself.

The fact that he feels he has the right to judge Shigaraki’s story speaks to the arrogance of Heroes—the same arrogance that leads them to declare their lack of forgiveness as if it’s in some way relevant to doing the job in front of them—as well as a deeply rooted defensiveness: that they must have, and be perceived as having, the moral high ground over those evil Villains.  I think, for example, of the Flamin’ Sidekickers and their cringingly awkward self-justifications to Dabi about their continued association with Todoroki Enji.  Their reasoning has zero bearing on either Dabi’s pain or their own heroic responsibilities to assist in the arrest of a known murderer/terrorist/arsonist, but they feel the need to spell that reasoning out to the child abuse victim/volatile Villain anyway, seemingly for no in-character reason save to rationalize the deep discomfort that Dabi’s video accusations provoked in them.

Heroes must be seen as morally just—this is the whole basis for the authority they’ve been granted to wield their powers against other people.  Best Jeanist talks about this idea explicitly, as does Police Chief Tsuragamae.  Far more damningly, it’s what led to the HPSC using agents like Lady Nagant and Hawks to quietly dispose of anyone that would present a threat to the public image of Heroes and, by extension, the fragile peace that rests on that public image.

Heroes must be pure and righteous, and Deku is just as apt to believe that as any other Hero—maybe even more apt, given that he’s also had All Might leaning on him about the bearer of One For All being the Pillar and the Symbol of Peace.  All this baggage winds up conflicting, however, with the horror and reflexive need to help Deku feels upon seeing the small, crying child within Shigaraki.

Saving small crying children is the absolute, innermost core of Deku’s personal framing of Heroism—seriously, he says this nearly word-for-word in Chapter 1!—and so, like Shouji says of the heteromorph riot, it isn’t something he can ignore and still call himself a Hero.  He’s unprepared for that personal brand of Heroism to conflict with the demands of professional Heroism, because he never expected to face someone who was both Evil Villain and Crying Child at the same time.  This is what he wrestles with over the course of his time away from UA and why, ultimately, he decides to use the mindscape as a way of resolving the conflict.

(Note again that I'm talking about my fanfic explanation here. Deku's reasoning is much murkier in the canon because of the canon's late turn towards locking us hard out of Deku's personal feelings and thoughts when they're about anything more complex than chain OFA combo moves.)

Remember that Deku begins the Villain Hunt Arc with a tentative desire to “understand Villains” so that he can perhaps use that understanding to avert or at least deescalate conflicts with them—and then the very first Villain he falteringly tries to understand is fucking Muscular, who shuts him down cold.  Deku never tries that hard[2] to understand a Villain again—Lady Nagant dumps her backstory on him with very little prompting from him, he has nothing but ultimatums for Overhaul, he doesn’t seem to ask any of AFO’s other minions any personal questions whatsoever, and with Shigaraki, he goes straight to the mindscape instead of even attempting a dialogue.

2: Insomuch as you could call asking three invasive, judgy questions in the middle of combat and then throwing in the towel “trying hard”.

My take is that Muscular scared him off of trying to verbally uncover the backstories of Villains—even though Shigaraki is ready to all but hand the first Hero to ask an illustrated history of his grievances with Hero Society, Deku can’t trust that anything Shigaraki tells him will be the unvarnished truth.  Unlike Shouto, he has no one to corroborate the truth with, but unlike Uraraka, he doesn’t just have to make the best of it, either.  He can instead utilize the mindscape, an approach that sidesteps all of the issues that a spoken dialogue would entail:

Getting Shigaraki’s truth via the mindscape means he can trust the answers he gets, rather than having to filter those answers through Shigaraki’s warped worldview.  This allows him to honestly evaluate Shigaraki’s perspective, gauging whether Shigaraki has a real point that Deku has any responsibility to address, some injustice that needs to be corrected independently of Shigaraki being held accountable for his crimes.    

Having decided that—for reasons of justice, All Might’s Pillar mentality, and his own peace of mind—he has to know Shigaraki’s truth, Deku comes to feel self-righteously entitled to that truth.  Thus, even though Shigaraki always seemed perfectly willing to share his thoughts in their previous encounters, Deku can’t take the chance that he’ll change his mind and rebuff Deku like Muscular did.  Using the mindscape takes that agency away from Shigaraki, rendering his willingness to share moot.    

No one other than people with access to the shared mindscape can perceive the interactions happening within it.  This means that, no matter what Deku learns or how he reacts to it in the moment, he doesn’t risk being seen as disrespecting Shigaraki’s victims by prioritizing the feelings and perspective of a vicious terrorist.    

Finally, on a tactical note, the encounter Deku has with Shigaraki in the mindscape during the Jakku battle seems to happen nigh instantaneously.  If he can get his answers at the speed of thought, that means he doesn’t have to specifically draw out his battle with Shigaraki until he’s resolved things to his personal satisfaction.  This is ideal, since Shigaraki presents an incredibly dangerous threat to everything and everyone around him, and Deku’s Hero education has repeatedly emphasized the importance of ending battles quickly.

There's just one problem with all this: Deku is assuming access to Shigaraki’s mind.  And why wouldn’t he?  He got in there without even trying last time, after all!  I assume that’s also why he rolls up to the battle with zero plans of any kind: he doesn’t understand how the mechanics of the shared mindscape work and none of the prior bearers can advise him because it’s a brand-new phenomenon for him as the ninth bearer, so they’re just as clueless about it as he is. 

Lacking that knowledge, he opts to simply take it on faith that he’ll be able to access that mental space again, find the crying child in it, and uncover enough about Shigaraki’s history to render his own judgement of it.  He's the Deku who does his best, after all; if it doesn't work, at least he'll know he tried. The good faith attempt, however it turns out, will allow him to satisfy his own sense of justice while not interfering with whatever temporal justice the adult Heroes are planning for Shigaraki—to which Deku fully believes he must be subjected as punishment for his crimes!—be it arrest or an execution broadcast to the entire world.

Unfortunately for Deku, thanks to his being waylaid by Toga, he turns up late to the battle only to find Shigaraki’s psyche sealed up tighter than an All Might-themed wall safe.  Then, since he never had any kind of plan for talking to Shigaraki, and his own ability to plan things is strictly limited to combining quirk abilities on the fly, he has to wing it until Kudou is able to come up with a plan for him.  Naturally, because Kudou is Kudou, and Heroes’ solutions are tailored to Heroes’ strengths, this involves violent psychic assault.  And why not?  It’s not like Deku believes Shigaraki deserves the mercy of a gentler approach.  Just think of all those people he hurt!

Now, is this all heckin’ uncharitable?  Does it paint Deku as well-intended but blindly self-righteous and ethically timid? Oh, for sure.  And I do think there was a point at which Deku wanted to save Shigaraki in a truer sense—indeed, he’s quite plain-spoken about it in the OFA Mental Conference in the aftermath of the first war!  However, it’s absolutely within his established characterization to run into things that make him uneasy and take the first out an authority figure offers him that spares him the work of demolishing and rebuilding his entire world view.  Look no further than the aftermath of the mall scene. You can draw a straight line from Deku taking Tsukauchi's out (that Shigaraki is just a sore loser) to him also taking Gran's (that killing Shigaraki could be a way of saving him).

That’s the mentality I would lean on to explain Deku’s anemic efforts to truly save Shigaraki in the end: an inherent desire to help people that has been hamstrung by a learned dehumanization of Villains, a repeated emphasis on swift, unthinking action as a Heroic virtue, a culture that regards sympathy for those involved in a crime as a zero sum game, and, last but not least, a psychological complex about the basic nature of Heroism rooted in his fraught childhood.

Deku says he’ll “never forget” Shigaraki. If it were me writing the sequel, “never forgetting” would look an awful lot like, “Following a particularly frustrating day of the Pro Hero grind, Midoriya Izuku opens his eyes at 4AM one cold winter night in his early-40s with the horrible, inescapable realization that what he did as a teenager to a deeply victimized young man barely older than he was himself back then was fucked up in ways he can never repair or take back.  And further that now, not only is he going to have to spend the rest of his life trying to make up for that act, it’s going to be much, much harder than it would have been back then, specifically because he did what he did back then and let the world get away with calling it heroism.”

Thanks for the ask, anon! I hope you find the answer interesting and at least somewhat believable, for all that it certainly isn't tonally in-line with the story's portrayal of its much-lauded protagonist.

   

(P.S. On top of convincing both All Might and Deku to not pursue saving Shigaraki in any concrete sense, Gran Torino also takes partial credit for Nana's decision to abandon Kotarou. Torino Sorahiko might actually be the all-time world champion of convincing OFA bearers that preserving One For All is worth abandoning children to their grim fates. Give him a hand, everyone. What a great and admirable Hero who absolutely deserved to survive all the way to the end of the story and who definitely is not a symbol of all the most jaded and cynical priorities of the old order.)

[spot-the-antisemitism]

is it antisemitic to not like the IDF and Israeli government? Why do some jews go out of their way to defend Israel just because it is their holy land? if someone simply says they disapprove of the Israeli government’s actions a lot of jews sound as if they are downplaying the innocent civilian deaths and are very defensive… but not all of them ofc

listen anon,

I know you handlers told you to copypaste this to the inboxes all the major jews out there on tumblr but I don’t defend the Israeli government. It’s in my pinned and my bio.

When people say IDF soldier what they really mean Jewish Israelis and any other Israelis who chose to serve. When someone says “I want IDF soldiers to go to hell” they mean “I want ALL Jewish Israelis to go to hell” because every Jewish Israeli is either a potential IDF soldier or a future IDF soldier (aka childlen and how Jihadists justify killing children)

Also like if someone attacked the vatican or the Quabba there would be outcry. Symbols have power. You answered your own question. Wouldn’t you defend your holy land? You strike me as a religious crusading type, but correct me if I’m wrong.

“Some Jews see insult of Israeli government as antisemitism” yeah and most hamasniks see any criticism of Hamas as anti-Palestinians xenophobia and Islamophobia. People will say unhinged shit. What’s your point?

does that answer your questions?

Cecil

[tellyouily]

maybe stay here forever

dnf - couch cuddles - 1.4k words

george likes dream's sweater and patches seems to like it too

There is this sweater that Dream wears sometimes, a dark blue half-zip fleece with leather patches on the elbows and deep, warm pockets, that George is a little bit obsessed with.

Of course, the pockets are mostly there to be used by whoever is wearing the sweater, not by his best friend slash boyfriend who constantly has cold hands, but it’s a nice benefit. Not to mention that Dream also happens to look especially great in it, all broad and soft and rugged—especially with a few days worth of stubble on his face and his curls a little messy.

Which has been the case for most of the time these recent weeks, much to George’s contentment.

If someone were to ask him about it, though, he would maintain that he likes the blue sweater a normal amount. Give or take. And he might bring himself to admit that it’s the person wearing it who he likes more than just a little. An abnormal amount, you could say. A ludicrous amount.

He’ll admit that happily.

After searching high and low for the past ten minutes, he finally finds Dream in the guest house, of all places. He’s on the couch with his legs outstretched and his laptop—surprise, surprise—perched on his lap. Somehow, Patches has fit herself on his chest, too, fast asleep with her head on his shoulder like a baby. She must have ventured in here looking for him, too.

And she must have taken one look at the dark blue sweater Dream is wearing and deemed it a nice place to take a nap.

George doesn’t appreciate that she succeeded on that quest before he did.

“Hey you,” he says, announcing his presence. He leans his back on the door to close it.

Dream looks up and stretches, lifting a hand to the back of his head. His screen casts a soft glow on his face, and George would bet good money that either gmail dot com or his editing software is currently filling it. Or both. Dream likes the split-screen function.

“Hey you,” Dream echoes, making George smile as he nudges past the coffee table to join him.

This is really not a couch that can fit two people lying down, it can barely fit one if he’s honest, but Dream scooches closer to the back pillow and lifts his arm as a wordless invitation.

George does not need to be asked twice, climbing into position. He feels like he’s precariously close to the edge, but then Dream wraps his arm around his waist and pulls him close, and he relaxes like he’s been given a sedative.

Patches stirs ever so slightly at the commotion, giving George what he’s sure is a pointed look.

“She took my spot,” he mumbles, frowning at her and watching her simply close her eyes again and let out a sigh.

Dream’s hand comes to rest near the waistline of George’s sweatpants, his fingers grazing the sliver of skin where his hoodie has ridden up.

“There’s two spots,” he says gently.

And he’s right, of course. And really, George thinks it’s a good sign that Patches has chosen this as her desired nap location. She’s a smart cat and if this is the safest, warmest place she could think of, then he trusts her judgment wholeheartedly.

He would probably do the same if he was a cat. He’s even doing it now, as a human.

Only now does the laptop screen in front of him come into focus, showing something entirely different from what he was willing to bet money on. It’s a sports game of some kind—football? Or is that rugby?

All he knows is that each team is wearing a different color and that they are both running around on the field trying to win. And that Dream might be a furnace in disguise with how warm he is. Mostly the last thing.

“What are you watching?” George asks.

“Football game,” he answers, followed by a soft huff of amusement. “That you don’t care about.”

“I care a lot, actually.”

“Uh huh.” His smile is audible. “I’m sure it’s so interesting to you.”

George nods into the folds of the fleecy fabric. “It is. I love it,” he lies, making Dream laugh.

The game on screen seems to go on some kind of break and the camera pans to the players standing around, leaning on their knees, out of breath, and to the crowd and muted discussion between the referee and who George assumes is one of the team captains. Dream sighs and presses a kiss on the top of George’s head.

“If it was soccer you’d care,” he says. “ Actually care.”

George hums in a way that means yes. Real football, you mean , he would have said if he wasn’t so comfortable that he is tempted to let sleep overtake him. Take a page out of Patches’ book.

He’s surrounded by the kind of warmth that reminds him of his childhood. Of coming back inside from playing in the snow and getting to sit by the fireplace and watch cartoons to get the feeling back in his fingers. It’s more than enough to make him want to succumb to sleep.

Dream’s palm coming to rest fully on his bare stomach makes him blink. On screen, the game has started back up and so has the faint sound of cheering coming from the speakers.

With some difficulty, he retrieves his phone from his pocket. If he is to keep himself awake while lying here, watching American football is not the way to do it.

He uses Dream’s chest to prop up his phone and lets his thumb swipe past X and over to Reddit instead. 

Some of the posts are worth reading, others he scrolls past. It doesn’t take long for Dream’s attention to inevitably get pulled to his screen, as well, abandoning the game. George doesn’t blame him. He can tell that he’s reading, concentrating, by the way his hand starts drawing mindless shapes on his hip. He tries to move as little as possible in hopes that Dream won’t realize that he’s doing it and possibly stop.

They’re halfway through a particularly technical post about the motion detection system they’ve set up for the titan when a message from Sapnap pops up at the top of his screen.

Something stupid, of course. So stupid he might have just ignored it had it not been for the way he feels Dream smile against his temple.

George snorts. “What an idiot.”

He swipes down and types an even more stupid reply, making Dream turn his head away to laugh. Really laugh.

George grins. He knew that would get him. He’s much funnier than Sapnap could ever dream of being. “What’s so funny?”

Dream answers by burrowing his face into the back of his neck, his quiet laughter getting muffled by the hood of his hoodie. He’s in that kind of mood, George thinks; the one where he could say anything and Dream would find it funny.

It’s his favorite Dream-mood by far. He would know—he has them all cataloged.

“I should be a comedian,” he says, if only to prove his point—which it does.

“No, your guys’ humor is like, fucked,” Dream says, clearing his throat.

George sighs and clicks his phone off, moving his head back so he can see Dream’s face.

“You like it though,” he counters, running his hand over the stubble along his jaw.

Just then, Patches’s ears start to twitch and they both glance over at her, watching as she opens her eyes and stretches out her paws so far that they poke against George’s bottom lip.

“Oh no,” Dream says softly, petting her head with his free hand.

“Good riddance,” George mumbles, feeling a sense of smugness at the look of discontent he is sure that she gives him.

It’s not like they’re in a competition for Dream’s attention—except that they are, and he won it the second he walked into the room.

Dream shakes his head at his comment, but his amused-by-everything-George-says-smile hasn’t left. Patches stands up and hops onto the back of the couch, and then onto the floor, going off to somewhere quieter.

Good riddance.

“Guess she’s not a football fan,” Dream says.

George presses closer just because he can, hitching his leg up higher across Dream’s.

“Good thing I am,” he says, closing his eyes.

Dream shakes his head, his hand finding his thigh. “You’re an idiot, is what you are”

And George might like Dream’s sweater, but he thinks he likes making him laugh even more.

[stxrfclls]

the  night  had  been  filled  with  merriment,  and  even  the  general  couldn’t  deny  how  well  it  had  gone.  weary  from  the  start,  he’d  calmed  down,  visited  the  vendors  and  spent  far  too  much  coin  in  his  ill  daughter,  and  watched  his  soliders  lose  their  inhibitions  and  get  dragged  back  to  the  barracks  by  their  peers.  a  tightly  wound  fae  by  nature,  he’d  forced  himself  to  relax  a  hair  and  not  be  angry  the  entire  night.  he  always  had  a  soft  spot  for  festivities.  tradition  was  important  to  the  general.  evander  smirks,  wondering  if  any  would  question  what  he’d  gotten  into  the  night  prior.  “  neither.  i  choose  not  to  indulge  when  there  are  so  many  new  faces  about.  ”  he  admits  honestly.  it  doesn’t  surprise  ev  that  he’s  been  recognized,  he  went  more  days  than  not  being  identified  by  his  own  fellow  dusk  fae.  it  made  sense  for  the  mainland  fae  to  try  and  learn  who  the  important  people  were  in  their  new  prison.  a  nod  comes  from  the  man,  and  he’s  glad  to  hear  it  even  if  he  cares  little  for  mainlanders.  “  i’m  hopeful  our  celebrations  also  helped  ease  some  of  the  tensions  you  all  hold  for  being  shifted  somewhere  against  your  will.  ”  he  would  at  least  acknowledge  it  was  difficult  for  the  mainland  fae.  evander  didn’t  hate  them  entirely,  he  simply  had  his  guard  up  and  hoped  things  worked  out  for  the  betterment  of  the  dusk  court  rather  than  a  forcing  of  rules  and  politics.  his  head  tilts  at  the  others  words,  and  ev  has  to  bite  back  a  chuckle.  high  lords  seemed  bold  from  all  that  he’d  learned  of  the  7  prythian  held.  “  apprehension  to  new  peers  is  to  be  expected,  my  lord.  i  am  a  general,  it  is  my  job  to  assess  all  as  a  threat.  your  beast  form  alone  could  ruin  this  court,  would  you  not  agree  ?  ”  he  doesn’t  really  wait  for  an  answer.  “  it  would  be  foolish  of  me  not  to  be  on  my  guard,  even  if  you  give  your  word  not  to  do  such  a  thing.  my  high  lord  values  my  insight,  and  my  caution.  it  is  how  i  serve  as  a  proper  general.  i  do  not  dislike  speaking  to  those  of  you  from  the  mainland,  i  dislike  having  so  many  new  faces  to  judge  when  they  too  are  not  too  happy  to  be  here either. it's given me quite a bit of work to do.  ”

once  saint  would  never  sit  idle  on  parties  or  festivities,  and  when  it  came  to  the  dawn  court's  yearly  celebrations,  it  was  one  of  the  few  things  the  high  lord  looked  forward  to.  a  part  of  him  had  wished  to  let  go,  and  indulge  as  the  others  did  around  him.  given  into  his  greater  urges  for  a  night,  but  he  refrained,  and  truly  he  was  not  certain  how  he  managed  such  a  thing,  or  perhaps  running  into  the  woman  who  haunted  his  past  in  every  conceivable  manner  and  had  placed  an  end  to  any  ideas  he  might  have  entertained.  instead,  saint  found  some  for  of  contentment  simply  standing  on  the  sidelines  and  watching  her.  the  very  least,  the  high  lord  did  attempt  to  be  useful  and  studied  the  dusk  fae,  as  if  the  night  would  reveal  anything  imperative  about  these  people  and  their  lands.  "which  one  do  you  fall  under,  general  evander,  is  it?"  there  was  no  doubt  he  was,  saint's  spies  had  given  him  enough  information  to  identify  which  faces  were  of  consequence  in  this  court.  "the  goal  was  achieved,  more  so  that  we  had  a  chance  to  mingle  with  you  all  on  a  closer  level.  i  do  not  think  any  of  the  courts  have  experienced  anything  close  to  this  for  all  hallow's  eve."  his  head  tilts  as  he  appraised  the  general  before  him,  "you  all  do  not  seem  keen  on  mingling  with  your  fellow  courts.  while  i  understand  your  court's  apprehension,  if  we're  to  remain  here  for  the  foreseeable  future,  we  will  benefit  far  more  with  communication  amongst  us  all.  wouldn't  you  high  lord  agree?"

[constant-brain-fog]

All the thirsty Bad Batch people, come get y’all’s food! 😌

This is literally just and excuse to draw some more tatts on Hunter at this point

Also I think Tech deserves to be slightly disheveled and a lil bloody, as a treat <3

Part Two of this drawing

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

"It's too silly to make jyl's cutie mark soup" - the artist who made an entire equineswap au with lore seemingly spontaneously

[deadleafpard]

i am. so close to being done with my summer break project. and i’m gonna do a whole redbubble update before i post it, are there any specific posters people would like me to add?

[permanentreverie]

.

[insanechayne]

~ ~ ~