#i took some stuff out or else this list would be infinite

[flippinpancakes64]

heyy i love your works sm that i have the notifications active💕 this may sound like a weird request but as a student of classical languages i need to make it: can you please write about cullens with reader who can speak ancient greek and latin? thanks💕 sorry about my english but it’s not my first language

The Cullens with an S/O who speaks Classical Languages

Omg that is so sweet?!?!?? I didn't even know you could activate notifications for certain accounts thank you so much

And I did not add any dialogue of the languages in here because I can only speak English and Spanish and I know if I tried it would just be google translate garbage

Thank you for requesting and I hope you enjoy!

Edward:

He's a smart young lad

In the books and the movies he is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese

But the likelihood of him having taken a Greek or Latin course is very high

It's also stated that he has the most degrees so he probably has a language degree in there somewhere

All that to say that he loves speaking to you in those languages

With the Cullens' heightened hearing, there's not a lot of stuff you can hide in that house

But speaking a language that none of the others know is a pretty good way to keep secrets

He would also enjoy talking like that in school

I feel like he secretly enjoys the weird reputation that the Cullens have lol

Alice:

I was able to find that she has a degree in fashion and international business, but nothing on languages

But she's probably taken a couple of French classes

Other than that she doesn't know any other languages

So when she first hears you speak it, she doesn't even know what it is

After you explain that it's ancient Latin/Greek she is enthralled

She wants to know some words so she can understand what you're saying

She gets frustrated when she doesn't

"Wait, I didn't catch that. Talk slower."

"Hmm... no"

"Come ON!"

Jasper:

He has degrees in History and Philosophy

And again no mentions of language

He might've picked up on a couple Spanish phrases back in the day, and probably took some French

But again, nothing more than that

When he hears you speak, he falls in love again

He's not too interested in learning the language, unless you want to teach him

He thinks it sounds infinitely better coming out of your mouth

Rosalie:

She has degrees in electrical engineering, business, and astrophysics

And again no mention of a secondary language anywhere

She would think you sound beautiful though

She says it makes you sound like royalty

Likes to listen to you talk while she works on her car or does her schoolwork

Again, she's not too interested in learning the language

She just wants to hear you talk it

But at some point she picks up on a couple things and feels so proud of herself

Emmett:

No degrees and no languages

The dude is just here

He has major respect for anyone who can learn another language though

And when he finds out that his S/O knows multiple?

He's stoked

Mostly just because he wants to get back at Edward a little bit

He makes you teach him stupid phrases and insults so he can taunt Edward with them

In seriousness though he loves that his S/O is so smart

Esme:

Once again, no degrees and no languages listed

I guess she's just been hanging out

I feel like she would love hearing you speak such an old language

She'd go on some rant about how we're losing touch with older things as the years go by

She thinks your voice sounds so melodic

Also not interested in learning though

But she would find it fun to point at something and ask for the translation

Carlisle:

Obvs he has a medical degree but other than that there's nothing

But like

He's literally 400 years old and hung out with the Volturi for a while

He has to know a whole bunch of languages

He's the only one besides Edward who can speak with you

And he really enjoys it

It helps him feel closer to you

He feels so different from everybody else

He's the oldest by a lot, he's constantly surrounded by humans, he was the OG vegetarian

There's not a lot of people who he feels he can truly connect with

So having this in common makes him feel less like the odd one out

Also sidetrack but I just know his voice is so elegant when he speaks Latin

Vampire! Bella:

In the book it's stated that she wanted to get an english degree to become a teacher

So yeah no language stuff here

She's so curious though

And also frustrated

She wants the word-for-word translation of everything you say

Partially because she is actually curious as to what you're saying

And partially because she feels left out

She is shocked when she finds out though

She's always considered those languages to be dead (which they technically are I guess) and never thought she'd ever hear them

I think she gets a little confused on how you even know it

"Are you, like, secretly a time traveler?"

"No? The languages are just well documented."

[thefirstknife]

What are the Tones?

Whomst've asked me this. You're fuelling my unending obsession, thank you.

I posted about the tones before! Most of it is listed in this post! But I'd like to add some stuff now that it's been some time since then.

The tones are noises made by the spires on Mercury (Lighthouses). Whenever someone dies, the spires emit a tone. They basically react to death in various ways, depending on how the death happens; there's different tones to dying to Light as well as different tones to a perma-death. This is peculiar because nobody could hear them except Brother Vance.

He made Trials of Osiris to study them (because it's an endless source of Guardians dying over and over). Mara knew about his research (Trials was accessed in the Reef in D1) and warned him to stop because it's dangerous. It's unclear why. Osiris did the same years later. As a matter of fact, Osiris was super dramatic about it:

"What I have discovered…" "…is dangerous enough to destroy every man, woman, and child in existence. You're meddling with forces outside your grasp," Osiris reprimanded.

The tones are interesting because they're still largely unexplained. Mara implied that they symbolise Guardians being attuned to Darkness and being able to wield it, which is true, but Osiris' reaction implies something more. And it has to be more, because Osiris detected the same tones as coming from the anomalies of the missing planets and from the Pyramids. Long post under:

In my previous post I also connected that to the fact that egregore seems to be emitting some sort of sound/frequency attuned to the same thing: anomalies, Pyramids and, obviously, to the source of it all (the Witness). So there's some sort of frequency in Darkness that is audible and comes from all places connected to the Darkness network (and that network manifests physically as egregore). And in this case, anomalies and Pyramids (and ships infested with egregore like Glykon and Leviathan) are fine; it makes sense that they link to the Witness!

But spires on Mercury? Why them? My bestie made a post recently after we went unhinged (again) because the same lore book that deals with the tones also makes a really strong implication that the Vex were deliberately led to Mercury by the Pyramid Fleet in the Collapse. There, the Vex drained Mercury of Light, hollowed out the planet and used its materials to make the spires (and the Infinite Forest, a simulation engine) and then they waited for the Pyramids to return. Which they did, in Arrivals.

To make things more complex, after Titan came back, it was confirmed that the Witness did not take the planets randomly. There was a purpose to each one being stolen. Mars was taken to search through our Golden Age and Collapse database in order to find where the Veil may have been hidden. This could've been just a random coincidence, but then Titan came back and we learned that the Witness wanted Ahsa dead because Ahsa not only knows the origins of the Witness, but also how to get through the portal (and who knows if she has any other potential powers to helps us get in there or help us otherwise).

Io is unclear, but there are many options; it may have been taken for the Pyramidion and Vex stuff which Asher got ahead of. It may have been taken to study the Tree of Silver Wings (the Witness had another seed it gave Calus in Lightfall), or it may have been taken to study the Traveler's past or the Light in general or maybe something else. The point is, there are options that we can understand.

But Mercury? Zero clue. The only thing that may have been of interest is the Infinite Forest, but Vance sealed it so if the Witness took Mercury for that and couldn't get into the Forest, then Mercury would've been useless and probably released sooner unless the Witness is just keeping it out of spite or thought that maybe it would be able to find a way inside. And of course... there's the spires and the tones. Mercury is somehow linked to Darkness and the Witness, it has to be, and we have no clue what the Witness wants with it.

Not only that, but there's another curious thing about Mercury, or rather, the anomaly of it. It was mentioned in Duality dungeon, by Calus. When Calus tried talking to the Witness on the Glykon, the Witness eventually responded and it told Calus to come to the anomaly of Mercury:

Through the Crown of Sorrow, the Voice in the Darkness called out to me, beckoning me to the absence of Mercury. At first, I feared the Leviathan would not survive the journey, as the Glykon had been rent asunder by a similar journey. By my Leviathan, it is strong. Its heart beats anew, and as it pierced the veil of creation... the Voice greeted me. There were such sights to behold.

So when Calus disappeared off the Glykon, he went back to the Leviathan and bolted straight for the Mercury anomaly in which he was able to communicate with the Witness. Why Mercury? Glykon went into the Mars anomaly. Why couldn't the Witness speak to Calus in there? Or in any of the other anomalies? Why specifically Mercury? This is driving me insane.

But if Mercury is somehow connected to the Darkness network through the spires, is it possible that it serves as some sort of a communications hub? Maybe that's why the Witness is still keeping it? And it still is! We can see it in Root of Nightmares, in the Witness' room. Titan is still obviously there as well because it came out before Titan returned, but Mercury and Io are still trapped. This is also confirmed by the tiny excerpt we can see from the TFS Collector's Edition which I talked about in here.

Or the reason for Mercury is something completely different. We have no clue why Mercury was taken and what's going on there and why the Witness called Calus there and why the tones happened and why are they the same tones that can also be heard from anomalies and Pyramids.

To fuel me even more, they decided to drop two lore pieces in Season of the Deep that relate to Mercury and the tones tangentially. I know literally everyone and their grandma thinks that Targeted Redaction is just there to be funny (and so did I at first), but I genuinely can't accept that as being just a joke. The gist of it is that Osiris has no clue who Vance is and that is, to put it simply, impossible.

Obviously Osiris did not like the Cult and they were annoying to him, but he knew Vance. He spoke to him only once, but Vance is the one who told him to "plant the seed," a message that Mara gave him years before. This literally sets up the entire Season of Arrivals. Not only that, but Vance told Osiris about the tones and Osiris was deeply troubled about them. He's the one who continued the research and went around the solar system after planets disappeared, investigating anomalies and discovering that they emit the same tones. He mentions Vance, by name, twice in Immolant:

"Do you hear that?" Osiris asks, turning to Sagira. He turns the ship's scanning array toward the anomaly. "Like the tones Vance described. From the spires, and then the Pyramids. It was coming from the anomaly that replaced Io as well."

"We could use the Crucible right now. Your trials. This will be very helpful. You mean to stay, yes?" "I will. Long enough to show you how to implement the simulation; but tonight, I must disembark," Osiris says. "So soon?" Osiris tenses his jaw in forced silence. He twiddles with code. "I'm worried about what Vance found."

At the same time, Osiris also sends us the seasonal artifact from Hunt, Fang of Xivu Arath. In it, he mentions:

The zealots that followed me to Mercury have proved themselves useful… twice now, actually. They possessed an artifact in their stores: a Hive fang.

The zealots being useful "twice" refers to Vance telling him about the seed and having this artifact kept safely in the Lighthouse (technically, it's three times: in Curse of Osiris, Vance told us where to find the machine to bring Sagira back and it was being kept by the Cult, but it's unclear if we told Osiris the details). Osiris, again, specifically mentions Vance when he recounts where he got it from, in Immolant:

Sagira had chided him for storming the Lighthouse and ransacking Vance's possessions. "They're my relics," he said to silence her protests.

I know Osiris has been through a lot, but his memories are completely and perfectly intact... Except for Vance. That's bizarre to me, given that there's several important points that tie them together, like planting the seed on Io (something he wouldn't have known to do without Vance relaying Mara's message) and research of the tones, something that Osiris spent a lot of time doing and was explicitly worried about; so worried, in fact, that he was willing to part ways with Saint just to continue that research.

In my old post I also mentioned how Osiris even went to Ana to tell her to ask Rasputin if he heard any tones in the Collapse, but Rasputin wasn't up yet. And when Rasputin was finally up, we had much bigger problems to deal with so I assumed that Osiris never asked because the priority was to find what's on Neptune. But now I think that Osiris didn't ask because he doesn't remember. Because the memory of Vance and tones and whatever they mean was deliberately removed from him while Savathun had him imprisoned. Or, perhaps, the Nezarec tea messed with it. After all, Darkness is memory.

This would obviously imply that the tones are something so important and dangerous that Savathun (or someone else) wanted Osiris' knowledge of it removed so that maybe she could have leverage or to know something we don't or perhaps for some other purpose by some other actor. This was such a big point that the entirety of Immolant part 1 is almost exclusively dedicated to Osiris inquiring into the tones.

Another possibility is also that Osiris' memory of Vance was messed with because of Io and the seed and Tree (and then as a consequence, obviously, he would also forget about the tones).

There's also a possibility that Savathun is literally right now messing with me and she did it for no reason at all just to generate imbaru or mess with Osiris or maybe she even wanted to do one nice thing for him and remove the memory of the weird Cult and the tones aren't important at all.

But I don't know. The fact that they're the same thing that the whole Darkness network uses and that ultimately leads to the Witness seems like something that should be important. However, I don't think Mercury will return before TFS, especially since TFS CE has Eido writing about how Mercury is still in the Witness' grasp. But, consider also that we don't know the timeline of when Eido's writing is set. It has to be set after Ahsa's reveal about the Witness' origins, but before TFS. We don't have enough information to tell more. There's also Vex shenanigans to consider, something that will certainly be a plot point post-TFS and Mercury is a prime location for that.

Either way, there's something going on here, added also with the second lore tab release in Season of the Deep that tangentially ties to Mercury, which is Unexpected Resurgence. In it, Shayura is approached by Sister Faora, an incredibly niche character who was leading the Cult of Osiris before Vance. She's shown still wearing the insignia of the Cult. We never learned why she stopped leading them and why Vance took over; she just kinda disappears from the lore book (Trials and Tribulations, the one about the tones). But apparently she's in the City and she's still wearing the Cult robes and she's back in the story... for some reason??

It honestly feels like some sort of a setup for something in the future, something that might deal with Mercury's return. I need to stress just how small she is as a character: she only actually appears in three lore tabs before Unexpected Resurgence, all in the same lore book. The rest of her stuff is just flavour text on the Kairos Function armour pieces from Curse of Osiris. That's it. Why return her in Season of the Deep? Mind boggling.

This whole thing about the tones and Mercury consumes me every day and night. The fact that Deep mentioned Vance in a way easily dismissed as a joke (but also, note the name of the weapon: targeted redaction) as well as Faora coming back is just too wild to me to be a random throwback or a just a joke. Not when it's beyond clear that Osiris should remember Vance, the Cult, the tones and the rest of it. It's even unclear at this point if he remembers that he planted the seed on Io.

So what are the tones? What are they indeed. They're music from the spires of Mercury that reacts to death and uses the same frequency as the entire Darkness network with the Witness at the top. What is their purpose and what is the purpose of Mercury and why did the Witness take it and what is this plotline and when will it be resolved? Summary:

[sleeping-in-the-sky]

what're your favorite headcanons about the infinite blue boys

asdfghjkl thank you for the ask! Apologies this took so long, I love wanting to do multiple hobbies and subsequently not making progress on any of them

Anyway I'm a sucker for domestic mundane things, like the list of random facts VelvetFox posted in this ask, so here are some headcanons for the boys with that same vibe:

(I had some scraps of IB dad headcanons so those are mixed in here too)

Infinite Blue LIs x Reader. No mentions of reader pronouns or gender. Also posted on Ao3 here.

——

Alexei:

Has journals full of thoughts and observations about anything and everything. Some of his writing is illegible and other parts make no sense to anybody but him because it's literally his runaway train of thoughts dumped onto paper. He sticks post-it notes with diagrams between the pages, jots down excerpts from Wikipedia pages, and overall it's not an aesthetic read... But flipping through can give you an idea of how this super genius's brain works.

He also writes about you in these notebooks, albeit they're written in between stuff like the thirty-seven fun facts of siphonophores and his favorite part of last night's dinner. Many of them are things you’ve never even noticed about yourself like the way you hold the steering wheel while driving. This is also where he'll stick date memorabilia, like movie tickets. (this hc was inspired by this fic by @sailxrmxrs <3)

If you two own a saucer chair or some other small round comfy seat, he'll probably fall asleep in it at least once. He curls up, all 5'10" of him tucked in that tiny space. Naturally, his body hurts when he wakes up and therefore he gets a bit grumpy. So next time if you see him dozing off maybe lead him to the couch or the bed so he can stretch comfortably.

Brooklyn:

I want to imagine that he has a closet only for his clothing irons and ironing boards. Like a fucking broom closet and you open it to see that there's those four boards and a dozen irons. These include vintage clothing irons, restored and repurposed. He knows how to use them and take care of them too. Why does this make me laugh so hard.

Clothes shopping. Take this man clothes shopping. Yes, he'll buy you anything but honestly? Even disregarding that it’s a fun time because he would enjoy discussing outfits, and if your taste isn't the same as his business-academia-formal style he could be convinced into trying an outfit you styled, or vice versa. Also he's a total simp every time you step out of the changing room. Need fit pics? He's got you covered.

Something tells me Brooklyn would enjoy snacks and desserts from around the world. He'd love to make them himself (and with you!), but you could just come home with some mitarashi-dango because your local Asian supermarket was having a sale and he's already cracking open the container for the ceremonial-grade green tea leaves.

Leo:

Leo's our favorite gamer guy, but I think he also enjoys jigsaw puzzles whether they be with his friends or you or both. These are the quiet nights where everyone is focusing, intently staring at the puzzle sitting on the coffee table while aimlessly chatting. It's super peaceful, though sometimes time slips by unnoticed and by the time you all finish it's two in the morning.

Does that thing where you put someone in a shopping car, sprint across the parking lot while pushing said cart, then jump on it while it's moving. He does it with his friends, you, and his future kid (albeit with a lot more caution). He really wants to kiss you while he’s doing it too, but maybe not because what happens if he hits a car, or worse, someone else?

While we're on the topic of transportation and kisses, every time you're sitting shotgun and he pulls the car in reverse he'll put his hand on your seat and lean in to kiss you. Every. Single. Time.

Kiss him first. It'll get him flustered. Do it.

Milo:

I want to believe he really likes having his hair brushed. If you ask him about it he'll never admit it beyond a quick affirmative, but anytime you sit behind him and start to gently run the bristles through his tangles, he could feel himself relaxing. It's soothing. He might fall asleep like that.

Milo would own a 3d printer. I have no definitive reasons why. Vibe check says he owns a 3d printer and will print out cool little knickknacks and give them to you without a word because they either help you in a mundane way (like a toothbrush holder), or he'll print out something cute like a tiny frog with a mushroom hat because he likes seeing your face light up.

Or he'll print out something cursed, like that Thomas the Tank Engine bottlecap where the liquid streams out of the eyes. It's a coin toss every time.

Rory:

Was that one kid reading with a flashlight under the covers. Even now that he's older, he likes to get a bed light and read before bed. Sometimes he gets super engrossed in it and you gotta peel that book off him. He’ll complain. Stand your ground. Otherwise he'll be super sleep-deprived and cranky the next morning.

If his future child also turns out to be an avid reader, he'll secretly change out their flashlight batteries. Or get them a night light with some half-baked excuse of, "so you don't turn on all the lights when you get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and wake the entire house up." Sure, Rory.

Speaking of sleep-related things, he really likes it when you fall asleep next to him/on him. His expression melts into the softest smile and he'll pull you in tightly. If he falls asleep on you, he's the kind to unconsciously hold onto you/must be touching you at all times. He gets really embarrassed about it if you mention this to him. I recommend taking a picture and making it his contact photo.

Tobias:

Has terrible handwriting but an impeccable signature. Don't ever ask him to write the grocery list because it takes forever to decipher his chicken scratch, but he'll sign stuff for fans in one fluid stroke, and that shit looks clean. And yes, he'll offer to sign something for you too.

Loves it when he's chilling on the couch after a long day and you flop on top of him. He'll happily be your teddy bear and let you lay there for hours, the two of you chatting and watching TV while he rubs soft circles on your back. Feel free to fall asleep like that too.

He's the type to enjoy flashy, expensive dates. He takes you out in his sports car to get dinner at a fancy restaurant, followed by spectating sports games from the VIP seats. But I also think incredibly mundane things, like the two of you going out just to grab ice cream in sweatpants and hoodies give him a special kind of happiness.

Seeing you sleepily rubbing your eyes as you come to pick him up from the airport is enough to make him giddy.

[captain-44-curly]

hi! This is a Curly ask-blog :D

This is an AU where Curly is basically stuck in a time loop. Waking back up during his psych evaluation and it ends when he’s in the cryo pod with Jimmy. He remembers everything.

Meet the Mod! - Hi you can call me Polle (for mod questions) torment him all you'd like but no sexual contact, please.

I don’t mind interacting with the other blogs, Please I have so much fun talking to all the rest of y'all!!! :D YOU'RE ALL SO COOL!!!

I don’t ship curly with anyone so please respect that.

has some Head canons like him being 32, and having a little sister.

A reminder not to harass, spam, or other inappropriate content for an Ask blog

I will occasionally doodle things, probably use #Art grant

if you find any time loop curly stuff I love seeing it, so please share!!! :D

Thank you and please enjoy!

Blog runs on Central Time (CT), and Polle (op) has ASD

extra stuff below cut:

Cheat sheet for people that can’t find it since I have one for a basis of how he would react to other characters ^

when doing an RPS, you may notice me using colours for certain words I find can fit into that color blue: Anya related things orange: in some cases, it is how I used to show myself speaking OOC but also for Swansea pink: Daisuke :D green: Jimmy-related things

Red: usually used when curly is a tough spot in his mindset. Talking about the crash, sometimes used to refer to himself.

I didn’t add this to the cheat sheet but when interacting with other curly’s he does his best to give bedside manner and help them, sometimes he does good and other times it can get a bit messy with emotions being so high.

Q/A:

why a time loop au blog? Why not just make a normal blog? because I’m built differently. I found it be be a fun idea. I was laying in bed scrolling through Tumblr and I saw everyone else having a hell of a lot of fun doing this, so I thought of ways to make my blog a bit different and a bit more fun for me. So made a list and this was the one that stood out the most to me!

what were the other blog ideas? A pre-captain curly when he was a copilot of another ship, a swap Au, a sea captain AU, and an AU where Jimmy still crashes the ship but gets locked inside of the cockpit. Curly getting slightly injured trying to stop/save him.

does your curly have other blogs that are a part of his crew? no. It’s kinda hard to do that and I wouldn’t wanna drag people in this AU with me if it’s almost impossible to keep up with the looping and other stuff, maybe if I used the og concept of a week-long loop cycles. But idk man I’m having fun like this

curly’s backstory? he grew up with a little sister, a mom, and a dad. He’s a child of divorced parents but they split amicably. He met Jimbo in 6th grade when Jimbob was the new kid who moved into the neighbourhood curly’s mom and dad set Curly up to meet the new guy. Leading to them being friends. Curly after high school graduated early and skipped a grade. Went to college and got a scholarship from Pony Express if he worked for them as an intern. He took it finished all his classes and his job was sealed. After 8 years of work, he finds Jimmy again. Jimmy is homeless and at the bottom of his rope. Curly trying to be a good friend, offers Jimmy a place to sleep and a job. 2 years later he’s on the tulpar as a captain for his last run.

any hc you like from other people?

Jimmy waited to help them look for Curly after the crash, hoping that it was either too late or just enough damage for Curly to not be able to bounce back. (I LOVE THE DAISUKE ISEKAI >v< )

Why does he have so much coffee on him, didn’t they run out? yes, I’m aware they ran out of coffee, in my HC. In Curly’s bag, he was allowed by the express to bring 4 extra packets of coffee for emergencies to keep himself awake (why he has them on him) he has an infinite loop of coffee packets due to him having them in his pockets during the crash and physic evaluations(the soft lock spot and beginning of the loop). Due to this, the loop causes his supply to reappear since he had them on hand during the two hotspots so it’s now a part of Curly’s person,

does the time loops have any side effects? Other than recking him mentally

yes, the time loops can lead to phantom pains, nightmares, shaky limb, (semi permanent) exhaustion, occasional damage to joint and small fractures in bones if something occurs that would break a bone. if he died in a way that’s painful. He’ll restart the loop in agony.

if he live long enough in the loop and dies as an old man it can lead to temporary memory loss (best fate for this dude :( ). Most of the physical pain will disappear and dissipate after a few days.

Do you have any fun HC? mostly non-sad ones please:

Curly is allergic to cat

coffee addict

he has a younger sister and a step-sibling he doesn't really know much about

probably has broken a bone once or twice when learning to ride a bike

Jimmy and Him became drinking buddies after Jimmy moved into Curly's home (NOT A GOOD IDEA AT ALL?! IT WAS A HORRIBLE IDEA?!)

when he was a shadow for a captain for his first flight, Swansea was the mechanic for that flight. So he's known Swansea for a bit and has been on the same flight through the years. He is made fun of by Swansea

Those arm bands are light reflective, I did that because it made senses to me that in a high stake environment where your crew needing to find you if something went wrong would be easier to find someone

How the patches work:

Red for the captain Yellow for mechanics and they usual have more (on the back of their uniform, pant legs) Lighter Blue for nurses Green for co pilots White for interns

if you feel that Curly is out of character beyond the imagination of what a time loop could do to a person. Send an ask and I’ll try to do something about it

[elslittlestories]

The Bad Autistic Batch

I've had this in the back of my head for a while and finaly took the time to write it down. It's a mix of observtions and headcanons I guess? On how I feel like the 4 original members of the Bad Batch are all autistic af!

Tech

The obvious one. He said it himself, his brain doesn’t process thoughts and moments the way most people do.

He has a hard time identifying his feelings and therefore tends to push them away and rely on logic and rational thoughts, which always come easy and loud in his mind.

Very gifted, he’s too smart to care about social rules and never bothered to learn cues and small talk. He was created to solve problems, people shouldn’t expect anything else from him. He comes off as cold and obnoxious to most people, always speaks bluntly without thinking of the effect of his words on the person opposite him. Simply because it doesn’t occur naturally to him that some truth might need sugarcoating.

He’s a self-taught everything, with infinite curiosity and thirst for knowledge. He gets bored fast though and will skip from one subject to another as soon as he feels like he’s mastered it. He’ll get REALLY excited if you ask him questions about anything.

He doesn’t care about his looks, as long as it’s practical, he’s good with any outfits. Although, he’ll wear comfy clothes whenever he can. His hair is kept just long enough so that he can slick them back with gel and get them stuck with his goggles’ headband.

To self-sooth, he relies on his sound databank—he can listen to a record on a loop for hours—and mental games such as counting backward from 1 million with only prime numbers. Tapping on his datapad is probably also a sort of stimming.

Outside of his brothers, he has a hard time maintaining a relationship, may they be platonic or not. To start, he doesn’t really understand the concept of different types of relationships. He’s oblivious to most hints of interest and needs someone—Wrecker—to point it out. He’ll panic, be really awkward about it, overshare to hide his fluster…until he figures out what makes you tick and weaponizes it!

Crosshair

In case there were any doubt, he’s a neat freak. He NEEDS his stuff to be in the right place, as much as he needs routine and discipline to control his stress level. Even though his military training has taught him how to deal with the unexpected, he has a hard time dealing with change.

If given the choice, he’d only wear his blacks. The tightness of the fabric is comforting and he doesn’t have to think about assembling an outfit or whatever. He cuts his hair every week, the same exact way, from left to right, then the backside of his head.

He won’t eat new food unless his hunger is life threatening, not because of sensory issues but because his transit is a bigger drama queen than he is!

He’s the most emotionally immature of the squad and used to have the wildest mood swings. He became good at keeping a stern straight face once he realized people would use it as a way to arm him. He’s also the most stubborn: good luck trying to change his mind on anything.

On a general basis, he hates people. Especially the one that wants to touch him! The only person allowed to hug him is Wrecker, because there’s no stopping him anyway. He may go mute when overwhelmed, hence the number of fights he got himself into rather than have a talk. With time and around the right people, he might get better at dealing with his feelings, but for now it’s easier to just avoid people, since they’re the one causing said feelings.

Maintaining any sort of relationship is close to impossible outside of his brothers. It takes a very special person—like Echo—to get his affection and respect. Romantic feeling are out of his bucket list, he finds the concept of flirting ridiculous anyway. If you want to be with him, just say it! He’ll probably reject you, the man has some heavy attachment/abandonment issues to sort out first. Trust Omega to help with that, so maybe one day…

Wrecker

THE emotionally mature one of the squad! Feelings are always intense for him and he wears them on his face. He’ll cry for anything, but since he can break your spine with his bare hands, people usually don’t make fun of him out loud.

He has huge difficulties in learning practical stuff—he was the last to speak clearly and read—and won’t do anything good with verbal instructions if they go longer than 5 to 10 words. He’s good with his hands, though, and once Tech got him into the marvelous world of explosives, he became unstoppable. Even Tech will admit Wrecker is the expert in the matter.

Another thing he was quick to learn, thanks to his emotional awareness and Hunter’s help, was how to read people. If only to stop being played! It might also be the secret to their squad sticking together despite their differences and hot temper.

He’s very open about needing "autistic joy", such as eating his favorite snack, listening to a song on a loop and watching things blow up. It tends to make him look childish. His brothers are very protective over this and make sure nothing prevents Wrecker to enjoying his sweet nothings.

He loves to isolates for an hour or two, to watch his favorite holovids, but is otherwise very touchy feely. Hugs sooth him a lot when he’s stressed out. If he can’t get one, he’ll rely on singing his favorite tune or repeating a word in his head. He used to do it out loud when he was a kid but it drove his brothers mad so he internalized it.

He can handle a flirt, although he has a hard time catching a hint. It’s easier to notice someone’s interest on others than himself, probably because of his lack of self-esteem. He’d most likely be a very clingy partner.

Hunter

AKA the king of masking. He may look as close to normal as a defective clone can be, in control of himself, but take a step into his mind and you’ll be surprised.

First of all, he has HUGE sensory issues, no doubt worsened by his genetic enhancement. He has learned to tough it out and ignore the strong reaction some textures or smell or sounds causes him to experience. But they tend to turn into stress. He’s constantly devoured by anxiety and fear—of anything from touching that one thing that will overstimulate him so much he won’t be able to function, to making a bad call that cause one of his brother’s death—and there’s no amount of spinning his knife that can sooth it.

He relies on rules and discipline to get a sense of control, even though one might argue his sense of both those concepts is not exactly by the book. It tends to help with tuning down his emotions as well. Just like every sensory input is loud to him, his feeling can be deafening and mastering them was mandatory to become the squad leader.

It was with that in mind that he became an expert in social behaviors. Mostly unconsciously, he studied everyone around him to learn how to hold himself and how to read the room. Despite him being naturally introverted, you’ll often find him chatting with the various captains his squad was assigned to work with. Told you, he’s a king of masking.

On the rare occasions he failed to contain his emotions—bursts of anger on the battlefield aside—it came out loud and violent. Took Wrecker to squeeze him in his arms for Hunter to calm down.

One thing he couldn’t learn this way is flirting. He can’t do it for his life, despite being the receiver of numerous attempts from various species. Maybe it’s because of his sensory issues, but the idea of sex is of no appeal to him and he has never felt something strong enough to be called romantic love. That stuff is just not for him, he feels contempt with his brothers and Omega.

Oh, and the bandana is just an excuse for no easy hair routine. Give him one reason to get out of his armor and blacks, and he’ll slip into floppy clothes in a heartbeat.

Last but not least, all four of them have a STRONG sens of justice—although sometime missplaced—and prefers staying home rather than being anywhere else, wherever home may be.

[mysterious-ocarina]

Not A One

Kunikida Doppo x fem!reader

A/N guys help!! I've lost like all motivation to write anything and idk how to fix it. I just don't wanna do anything ｡ﾟ･ (>﹏<) ･ﾟ｡ this didn't really turn out the way I wanted it to but I felt I had to upload it (╥_╥)

please give me recommendations for books to use as abilities or just abilities in general for bsd content

Main Masterlist BSD Masterlist Requests AO3

(2.6k words)

“Aw, come on. Aren’t you just the least bit curious?” a persistent Dazai asked.

“Trust me, it’s better for everyone if I don’t know,” you sighed.

Dazai, the little thief he is, was holding Kunikida’s notebook in his hand. He was pestering you into reading it, more specifically Kunikida’s ideal woman. He knew all about your feelings for the blond man and has been encouraging you to make some kind of move so you guys could become “the office parents”. His words.

“Why don’t you just read it by yourself, if you’re so curious?” you finally asked, crossing your arms. You couldn’t get back to your work because Dazai had planted his big, fat butt right on your desk.

He pouted in front of you, “It won’t be as fun to read alone.”

“You’re telling me that you, the most impatient man I’ve ever met, haven’t looked inside at all. Just because it will be more fun with someone else,” you replied, rolling your eyes at the childish coworker in front of you.

“Yup! And who would be the better person to read it with, than you my dear y/n. The woman who is in love with our dear Kunikida,” Dazai proudly announced.

You placed your hands on his mouth, a blush covering your face, “Shh, don’t say that too loud. Someone could hear you, idiot.”

Dazai licked your hand, forcing you to remove it from his mouth with a disgusted pout. He smiled at you, “Come on. I know you don’t see it, but that man is crazy for you. He’s always so protective of you and makes sure you get home safe and always wants to partner up with you on missions.”

“You know, he only partners with me so that he doesn’t have to work with you,” you informed him, an amused expression taking over your face.

Dazai mocked offense, placing his hand on his heart, “I am a wonderful person to work with.”

“Mhm, whatever helps you sleep at night,” you joked.

Dazai laughed before shoving the book in your hands, “Don’t change the subject. You have to read it with me.”

Book in hand, you rolled your eyes, “Fine, but don’t be surprised when it says nothing about me.”

You were curious to know which of his ideals you fit. It wasn’t very likely that you would fit every single one but the more you did, the better. The more of his ideals that you fit, the better chance you had to be with him.

You opened the book, flipping to the section about his ideal women with Dazai breathing over your shoulder.

You knew how much effort he put in his ideals but you didn’t expect this. The list of factors to make Kunikida’s ideal woman was. . . extensive and informational. The list seemed to go on infinitely, characteristic after characteristic.

There were a couple of general traits that you had. Stuff like hard-working and kind. But some of the more specific characteristics that were written in his notebook, did not describe you whatsoever. You felt sick to your stomach, now. You had been in love with Kunikida for so long that the girls often teased you into making a move and now, you find out that Kunikida wants a woman who is nothing like you.

Tears started falling from your face the more you stared at Kunikida’s notebook and Dazai felt like absolute shit. He doesn’t understand what he got wrong, it was so obvious to him how Kunikida feels about you.

Wanting to comfort you, Dazai placed a hand on your shoulder. He softly took the book from your hands, you simply let him. Dazai stood in front of you, “I’m so sorry, y/n. I didn’t know. . .”

You looked up at him, giving him a teary-eyed smile. Not wanting him to feel bad, you responded, “It’s okay Dazai. It’s not your fault. At least I now know that I never had a chance.”

Dazai looked down at you, “I promise I wouldn’t have made you read it, if I had known. I swear that I thought he felt for you.”

You stood up, wiping your hands on your work skirt. You gave Dazai a forced smile, “Really, it’s okay, Dazai. Please don’t feel bad.”

You gave him a quick hug, making sure to get your point across before making your way to the cafe downstairs. You needed to clear your head for a bit.

You were towards the back of the cafe, enjoying a coffee and people watching. You had calmed down quite a bit but you were still a bit heartbroken at the news. You’re just lucky you hadn’t run into him yet.

Dr. Yosano and Naomi Tanizaki walked up to you with a stressed looking Junichiro being dragged along. You gave them all a smile, “Wanna join me?”

Naomi dragged her brother into the opposite side of the booth as you and Yosano sat next to you. She turned to you, “We were thinking of throwing a little party this weekend at the agency. Will you come?”

You gave her a dubious expression, “I don’t know. You know I’m not much of a party person.”

Naomi piped up, “It’s just a small get together. A break from all the work we do.”

Yosano hummed, seeing you hesitate, “There will be food and booze.”

Upon hearing that, you immediately agreed. You deserved to let loose and unwind.

All week, you’ ve been a mess. Kunikida ended up getting in a fight with Dazai about stealing his notebook, yet again, and thankfully your name was kept out of it. You’ve tried your best to avoid Kunikida as best you could without it being obvious. He’s been nothing but kind to you, as he always is, but you couldn’t help but remember that he definitely doesn’t love you the way that you love him.

He must have sensed that something was up with you. After a week of you avoiding him, he was quick to approach you, “Hey, y/n.”

You looked up from your book, shocked. You came down to the cafe for your lunch break and decided to spend it reading. It was as subtle as you could be to stay away from the handsome man in front of you. Remembering that he had greeted you, you finally responded, “Hello.”

Kunikida sat down across from you. Usually, the fact that he would want to sit with you rather than work would send you into a blushing frenzy. But now, it sent unease swirling in your gut as you were reminded of his ideals, seeing the notebook peeking out of his jacket pocket.

“I feel like we haven’t talked in a bit. I wanted to check on you,” he stated, matter of factly. As he pushed his glasses further up his nose, you took note of the slight tremor in his hand, a sign of his true worry for you.

“I’m good, just a little busy working,” you explained. It wasn’t exactly a lie, as you had been working a lot to keep your mind off of the man in front of you.

He gave you a look, as if he didn’t believe you, but decided against pushing it. “I have a missing persons case and I was wondering if you would accompany me.”

Dubiously, you questioned, “What about Ranpo? And isn’t Dazai your partner?”

Kunikida squinted at you, “Ranpo is being Ranpo, so no help from him. I’m also in no mood to deal with the likes of Dazai.”

You watched Kunikida's jaw clench at the mention of Dazai. Ever since Dazai had stolen his notebook, for probably the umpteenth time, Kunikida has been more pissed off than usual with the bandaged freak. You had a feeling that he knew Dazai shared the contents of his ideals with you but since he never spoke of it, you didn’t bring it up either.

Despite your better judgment, you agreed to tag along. You still felt for him and it was impossible for you to deny your heart’s wish of spending all the time you can with him.

The case was a bit cut and dry. You and Kunikida fell into your usual partner routine and it felt normal between you guys for the first time in a week. You guys had always worked well together so it wasn’t exactly a surprise when the both of you had solved the case by the end of the night.

Walking back to the agency, you broke the comfortable silence. With a tinge of hope in your voice, you asked him, “Are you coming to the little party that the girls are having tomorrow?”

“I was hoping to get home before the festivities start,” he replied, giving you a look. “I’m surprised that you want to go. Those aren’t usually your thing.”

You blushed at the fact that he knew you that well. “Well, I’m not one to pass on food and booze. I really hope you make an appearance.”

Now why the hell did you say that? The main reason that you were going was so your heart could be protected from him. It looks like your heart and brain don’t seem to be connected at the moment.

Kunikida sighed, but smiled nonetheless, “I might be able to fit it into my schedule, for you.”

Your smile increased tenfold when hearing that. Why did you want to forget about him in the first place?

The next night, you really let loose. Kunikida ended up coming but refused to drink. You had been happily singing and dancing with Naomi and Atsushi, thoroughly enjoying the night. By the end of it, you may have been just a little more drunk than was good for you. 

You had tumbled into the nearest person, who happened to be Dazai. He spoke to you, “I think you should head home now, y/n.”

You pushed him away from you and announced, “I’m completely fine-” then tripped over your own feet. Kunikida, who has been keeping a keen eye on you all night, was quick to catch your falling body.

“Dazai’s right. Let me take you home,” he informed you, wrapping your arms on him so he could walk you.

“Ooh, Kunikida, at least take me to dinner first before we do that,” you easily replied. Your loose tongue will be the death of you, but you were too drunk to care.

He didn’t even offer you a reply, just a sharp, scolding look. Wordlessly, he walked until you were outside. The fresh air felt nice on your hot body. 

On your way back to your place, Kunikida finally let go of you, once it seemed that you could walk straight-ish without falling over. The silence that had washed over both of you was making you slightly uncomfortable. Did he really not want to talk to you at all?

You didn’t fill the silence until the both of you had made it to your couch and he brought you a glass of water. “Doppo, what’s wrong with me?”

Kunikida was both surprised at your use of his first name as well as your question. He was so gobsmacked that he never answered you.

“I just mean, I’m not your ideal woman, like at all. Dazai and I read each of the traits you wrote down that you want in a woman and I only fit like a handful,” you explained. You cupped your hands together to show him a handful. “The worst part is that with every fiber of my being, I still want to be with you, despite knowing that I would not make you happy. And I just want you to be happy.”

Kunikida was sweating next to you. He just found out that you feel the exact same way he does for you but that you don’t feel worthy of him. He wanted to explain it all to you but knew that with you being as drunk as you were, it would fall on deaf ears. I mean, you were already half asleep next to him at the moment.

He broke from his thoughts to kiss your forehead, before replying, “We will talk about this in the morning, when you’re sober. There is no reason for you to be worried.”

You were asleep before you heard him speak.

The next morning, you woke up feeling like absolute shit. You flipped over, facing away from the sunlit blinds, to find a glass of water and some pain relievers. Without wondering where they came from, you took both greedily.

A knock on the door startled you, not knowing who could possibly be in your apartment right now. After a few seconds, Kunikida came in holding a hot cup of tea. He was just wearing his usual black shirt and khakis, the vest and bow gone. His hair was a little messy and his glasses were crooked. If this is what he looks like in the morning, you do not mind one bit.

“I slept on your couch, I hope that’s okay. I wanted to make sure you weren’t too sick today,” he offered you the cup of tea.

You gladly took the cup of tea and gave him a smile, “Of course. I’m assuming the fact that I’m in bed and not passed out on the office floors, you took me home.”

“You would be right,” he nervously pushed his glasses up his nose. “Do you remember anything from last night?”

You remembered enough to be shamefully embarrassed. Without looking at him, you replied, “Yup.”

Kunikida let out a sigh of relief. He wiped his hands on his pants before speaking, “Thank you for being honest. Now I would like to explain myself since I didn’t get a chance last night.”

You coughed and blushed, embarrassed. You were unsure of where this conversation may go, your stomach swirling with unease.

“Now, let me begin by saying that the ideal traits in a woman that you read, were written ages ago, long before I met you,” He gave you a look but you were too busy staring at your tea cup to notice. You didn’t want to get your hopes up but you still listened.

“You should know that my ideals are important to me, but it can be said that they will age just as I age. I think one of the ideals that can be added would be that ‘she loves me, even after reading my ideals’ or that ‘she wants me to be happy,’” Kunikida explained.

You finally looked up at him. The look he was giving you was filled with pure adoration, something that was mirrored on your face. You carefully set your tea down, before looking at him again, “So what are you saying, Doppo?”

He inched closer to you, “I’m saying that there is no woman other than you, that is for me. If you will have me of course.”

Without hesitation, you replied, “Of course, I’ll have you.”

The space between you felt magnetic. The both of you were getting closer to each other without even realizing. Without a word, you filled the gap between you, kissing Kunikida with as much passion as you had.

In shock, he failed to kiss you back. That was until you kissed him with extra fervor. He got the idea and didn’t hesitate to deepen the kiss. You felt at peace in this moment and if it was possible, you would never leave. 

[callibones]

UM HI HI HI ITS ME. 🩸🟪 AND I JUST WANTED TO TELL YOU I AM VERY SORRY!!!

this week ive been exceptionally busy. a lot of stuff has been piling up for me with university and work and it didnt really give me a lot of time to look at tumblr OR read the fics! ill get to them! i didnt forget i swear ive just been EXHAUSTED this message is just being pulled out of my ass since i didnt expect to write to you today so i dont have any topics planned to ask you about. i didnt wanna take the time to think of something because i didnt want it to seem like i was ignoring your poast (despite the fact you wouldve never known if i had seen it or not .. but MENTALLY i'd feel bad, you know?) but uh. yeah

i don't know how people talk. um. how are you? has your week been particularly busy? what DO you do outside of tumblogging actually .. im curious

OH AND ALSO i very much appreciate the backstory info you gave me on callibones. i MIGHT take inspiration from it for my fanart? maybee? and uh i will send that to you SOON! very soon. i guess in the meantime id just wanna polish it more before sending it to someone out of like. principle?

i looked through your friends blog.. i like the concept of a blood bag person thing. there were probably better ways of saying that but IDK!! once again though i think it is Extremely Drawable so i have a small request ..

and regarding CALCIFER .. i think i would appreciate a deity to deity chat. or an potential acolyte to deity chat or I Mean Ha Ha. and those pronouns are Pretty Cool if i do say so myself! im worried directly sending in an ask would be strange so since you said you were friends with them can you parrot my question? i rlly wanna know whether drawing fanart of their OC is okay. sorry what else. im going to try and plan my next correspondence out ASAP so ill probably go through the cedardivine post before the post you made with a ton of fics? just because the list is shorter. idk what ill do after that--maybe ill rank them or something and you can tell me how wrong my opinion is or something Haha! just kidding im always right. i create new truths as we speak. as im typing this im overwriting just a little bit more of the world's knowledge. im just cool and awesome like that. theres nothing else i can think of at the moment to ask you.. OH UM when you mentioned callyris i realized "hey wait dont i know a blog called that" and Look Who It Was! so thats neat i also think i found another blog that may be under your posession but i dont think i can ask about it at the front desk.. so when i message you in some other manner ill probably ask you about that! who knows i might even be Completely Wrong

well anyways sorry for the delay. it will probably take a while longer for me to compose my thoughts so the delay will continue but. idk. i hope this message isnt TOO INCOHERENT but again i am not proofreading at all for this one.

also im definitely using gooby forever now. thats great. what a peculiar phrase.

GOOBY!!!!

hi hi hi hi! i took a million years to get back to this so NEVER apologize or rush about sending me things. anon asks r a tough way to communicate cause i dont got an online indicator for u so i just gotta guess... and u dont got a notification for me! i hope u see this even tho its been a bit.

ive been busy too cause university's also piling up for ME. i'm gonna respond to this one first, and then i'll take a crack at your mysterious coded message! and then i have to do a million homework because grad school. outside of tumblogging im trying to destroy the world with the infinite power amulet, so i'm majoring in general supervillainy! and also urban planning

for the blood bag: @rigormarcy LOVES fanart. marcy, if u see this, respond with your ref, 'cause you have a super drawable OC! the fans wanna draw u so bad. So Bad.

u found another blog that might b me? omg.... here. how bout this. send me an ask with just the name and i wont publish the response. if youre REALLY curious. but youre probably right, because i invented every blog on tumblr GOOBY

[autisticcassandracain]

Hi! I'd like to start reading comics about Cassandra but I'm unsure where to begin: Is Shadow Of The Batgirl to be preferred over the Batgirl-2000-run? And why would you prefer it over the other one?Thanks in advance!

Thank you for asking! I love Cass and I love talking about Cass and I love when people want to read up on Cass, so I'll help as much as possible!

This got long, and very rambly, so I'll put a short-ish explanation and summary at the top. What I am doing in this post is, essentially, explaining Cass's character history. I am doing this because it provides you with a foundation for her character, and gives context to many of her comics.

If you want a straight reading list that gives you just her appearances, here is one; it is comprehensive, easily understandable, and covers all major ground. My post is less intended as a reading list, and more an explanation of the main points in Cass's history, and the general fan reception/quality of the major comics she's appeared in.

TL;DR for the stuff below the cut (and yes, this is the short version. sorry):

Shadow of the Batgirl is a non-canon stand-alone graphic novel; it's good and you can read it basically whenever you want, but it won't reflect Cass's canon character.

Cass's first appearances were in a crossover event called No Man's Land, which is pretty good, very important, and super long. Her introduction story, the Mark of Cain, can be found in Batman (1940) #567 and Detective Comics (1937) #734. I consider it a masterclass of character introduction and highly recommend it.

Batgirl (2000) is her Batgirl solo series and pretty much her characterization bible. It has its duds and its problems, but it's generally very good and a must-read for Cass fans. If you read nothing else about Cass, please at least read this.

People got really mad that Barbara Gordon wasn't Batgirl anymore and took it out on Cass. She was character massacred and turned into a villain starting with the last arc of Batgirl (2000). This continued for years. Cass's character has never recovered from this massacre.

Batgirl (2008) was an attempt at a redemption arc, but is generally considered to be Pretty Bad. I haven't read it beyond the first issue because I thought it was bad. However, this does have her adopted by Bruce Wayne.

Cass effectively disappeared from comics for years. Stephanie Brown unceremoniously took over as Batgirl, and Cass got sidelined. She got shunted off to Hong Kong and got a solo identity called Black Bat, but this got little to no exploration and she barely appeared in comics with it.

Red Robin #17 spent its first few pages giving an explanation for the Black Bat mantle. It's skippable except for completionists.

Gates of Gotham is the only notable appearance of Cass as Black Bat. It's a five-issue miniseries and also features some of the only meaningful interactions between her and Damian. It's pretty good and I recommend reading it.

The New 52 (N52) was a complete universe reboot DC did in 2011 in an attempt to make things easier for new fans. This failed. Two soft reboots have happened since then: Rebirth, and Infinite Frontier, the current timeline.

The N52 erased Cass and Stephanie from existence, and for the first few years of it, there was an editorial mandate that disallowed the use of their characters. Barbara was healed from her paralysis and made Batgirl again. All this, as well as the previously mentioned character massacre, was headed in no small part by a man called Dan Didio, a DC bigwig. We all hate him.

Cass was re-introduced in Batman and Robin Eternal. Her character and backstory was completely re-written, and she now had the hero identity Orphan. Fans almost unanimously consider this version of her character inferior to her pre-N52 one. Her fighting prowess was nerfed and most of her character traits were filed away to make her a quiet, sad former assassin. This is the version all later ones build on.

Batman and the Outsiders (2019) was perhaps the first major step forward (depending on who you ask). She was still Orphan, but had an interesting storyline with her mother, and got to bond with Duke Thomas, a bat character introduced in the N52. In my opinion she's still a shadow of her former self, but I'd ultimately recommend this book.

Dan Didio got fired in 2020. Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain were reinstated as Batgirls, although Barbara Gordon would also remain Batgirl (as well as Oracle). As a result, there are now three Batgirls running around.

Batgirls is an ongoing solo of these three Batgirls, launched in 2021. It's a lighthearted series that has gotten mostly positive reception from fans, though it is not without controversy. I haven't read it because I hate DC's magical curing of Barbara's paraplegia and also because I think it looks bad.

I don't know how much knowledge you have of DC comics or bat comics, so I'll be assuming you're starting at square zero. Sorry in advance if I end up explaining things that you already know.

Shadow of the Batgirl is not a canon comic; it's a stand-alone graphic novel for middle schoolers. It changes the world and Cass's backstory in order to work as a stand-alone story, and in my opinion, it does so quite well! The graphic novel is great as a stand-alone story and does a good job capturing Cass's core character, especially considering the changes made to her, but since it's not canon, it's not something I can really recommend to get to know her character beyond like, base characteristics. You can read it whenever you want, and if you want to start with it to get a taste of her character, feel free! But if you want to know Cass as she is in canon, Shadow of the Batgirl won't get you very far.

In general, if you want to get into a comic book character, I recommend finding a reading list; this is a list that lists notable appearances of a character, usually in order of publication, so that you have an easy guide on what comics to look for and read.

Here's one for Cass that's gonna do a much more comprehensive job at telling you what to read than I'm about to. It jumps around a lot between series, because that's just how comics are, but you can, of course, just pick Batgirl (2000), read through it, then work through what you missed. Since we already have a reading list (and this is far from the only one, you can find more with a little googling or looking through Tumblr), I'm just gonna focus on telling you about the big series and context and stuff.

Cass's first introduction was in No Man's Land, a batcomic crossover event. The premise of No Man's Land is that an earthquake devastates Gotham, and rather than spending money to rebuild it, the government declares Gotham a 'No Man's Land' separate from the United States, and closes the borders around it. This crossover event is absolutely huge; the Road to No Man's Land covers how this situation came to be, and No Man's Land focuses on the year in which Gotham was declared as such, and therefore effectively reads like post-apocalyptic Gotham. No Man's Land is something of a load-bearing event for pre-flashpoint batcomics, and had a lot of influence on them.

In my opinion, it's mostly pretty good and worth reading, but it's also very long and can therefore be a bit of a struggle to get through. I do recommend reading it in full at least once if you're interested in batcomics in general, but if you're just here for Cass, you don't have to read all of it. No Man's Land in its entirety is collected in Batman: No Man's Land (2011).

If you wanna skip to Cass's introduction, the above linked reading list will do you fine, but for completion's sake: her introduction is in Batman (1940) #567 and Detective Comics (1937) #734. I really recommend you read it; it's a masterclass in character introduction and immediately gets all of Cass's core traits on page.

She continues to have a role in No Man's Land after this, and the reading list above tells you in what stories she does, but since this is more of a highlights reel than a true reading list, I'll skip most of them. But Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #120 is kinda important because it's where she's handed the Batgirl mantle (though tbh I kinda dislike the issue).

After that, you can go to Batgirl (2000). This is her solo run, and it's where most of her characterization comes from. It's pretty long but reads easy due to its usual minimal dialogue. It has its issues (the fact that it often colours her yellow is a big one) and it definitely has its duds, especially towards the end, but it's mostly a really good series! It's an absolute must read for anyone who wants to know about Cass, and the series most Cass fans consider the peak of her character, with one caveat.

In the last arc of Batgirl (2000), Cass kills someone (voluntarily), and, subsequently, hangs up the Batgirl mantle. What follows are years of character assassination where she's a villain. There's retcons and attempts at softening the blow and stuff but it's a whole mess. Now, I'm no behind-the-scenes buff and can't really tell you the exact details in full confidence (here's a write-up on reddit with the exact details made by @fantastic-nonsense, who also has a post with additional information that didn't make it into the write-up here), but long story short is that a lot of people were still really, really attached to the idea of Barbara Gordon's Batgirl and really, really resented that Cass was Batgirl now (the fact that she was a disabled Asian girl who could beat up basically all of everyone's faves did not help the matter). So they abruptly cancelled her solo (that was still selling well) and made her a villain.

Now, 'DC has it out for my fave' is a very common thought process and is usually not true, but in this very specific case: DC quite literally had it out for Cassandra Cain, and nothing that was done in this era was done in good faith. It was pure, unadulterated, targeted character assassination, and despite efforts to salvage her, she's simply never recovered from it.

Attempts to salvage her began a few years later, albeit really lukewarm attempts. Batgirl (2008) was essentially a redemption arc for her, but it's widely considered to be, you know, not good. I've never read it, save for the first issue, because I really disliked the first issue and I at least try not to read comics I know I'm gonna hate. The important thing about this series is that it re-integrated her into the batfamily and even had her be adopted by Bruce Wayne.

Only for her to then promptly disappear from comics again. Cass barely appeared in comics for a long time; eventually, it was explained away with her being in Hong Kong as part of Batman Incorporated (long story), which was a really convenient reason not to write her. She was given the solo identity Black Bat, which got very little expansion beyond the name, and the Batgirl mantle was given to Stephanie Brown in a very unceremonious, hand-wavy fashion, and that was that.

During this era, basically the only comic of note for her is Gates of Gotham, a four-issue miniseries that stars her as Black Bat. That's also the only series that stars her as Black Bat in any meaningful fashion. Luckily, it's pretty good, and features some of the only meaningful interactions between her and Damian, so I do recommend reading it. There's also Red Robin #17, which spends a few pages at the beginning to establish how Cass got the Black Bat mantle, and it's.... fine, I guess, but skippable unless you're really invested in getting the complete picture. Red Robin #17 comes before Gathes of Gotham. Again, the linked reading list has a comprehensive overview of appearances.

Then we hit flashpoint and the N52. Again, since I'm assuming square zero knowledge in regards to comics, I'll give a quick explanation. In 2011, DC decided to completely reboot its universe in an attempt to make it more accessible to new readers (an attempt that failed royally, by the way). Flashpoint was a Flash-centric crossover event that gave an in-universe explanation for this. This reboot era is called the 'New 52' (N52 for short) because it launched with just 52 titles; these titles usually have a 'New 52' sticker on the cover.

What this reboot meant is that a lot of characters got erased, and even more had their histories/personalities retconned and rewritten. There's some good stuff from this era, but most people agree that it was pretty much a flop, and DC has slowly been walking back most changes made in this era with soft reboots. The first of these soft reboot eras is called Rebirth, and the second, in which we are now, is called Infinite Frontier. Rules for this era are still a little unclear to me, honestly, but apparently, everything is canon again now if the writers want it to be. What this means is highly dependent on the character and, once again, I don't really get it, but if reading comics teaches you anything, it's how to tolerate being confused as hell.

For Cass, this matters because the reboot was a brilliant excuse to erase her from existence entirely. And that's what happened: for years, there was an editorial mandate that disallowed the use of Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown entirely. Multiple writers wanted to use them, but weren't allowed. Meanwhile, Barbara Gordon was put back in the Batgirl mantle, with a hand-wavy explanation was to why she could walk (despite having the Killing Joke and her subsequent paralysis remaining canon). She was de-aged and heavily promoted during this time.

(It should be noted that one of the main players behind this and Cass's character massacre was Dan Didio, bigwig at DC in various forms for 18 years and notorious hater of legacy characters. He's gone now (since 2020), but I am telling you this so that you know why pretty much all Cass fans fucking hate him.)

The N52 is also where my knowledge of Cass drops off. She was eventually re-introduced, but she was a shadow of her former self, and while she's definitely better off now than she has been for years, she's still, in my opinion, that shadow of herself. As such, I simply haven't bothered reading a lot of her comics since then, and the few I have read, I mostly did out of obligation and I mostly remember an overwhelming sense of frustration from them rather than, you know. The plot. I'll give as good of an overview as possible, but again, please refer to the reading list.

Her re-introduction was made in 2015, in Batman and Robin Eternal. While it was obviously great that she now existed again, most Cass fans consider the version of Cass's character reintroduced here to be a shadow of her former self and just not very well-written. In this, Cass was re-introduced as Orphan, an identity she would maintain for years. She's consistently nerfed in fighting ability, and has most of her defining character traits stripped off her to be largely reduced to 'quiet sad former assassin'. There's a slew of other problems but I'm not gonna get into them because we'd be here forever. It's just bad.

The first major sign of things kind of looking up came in Batman and the Outsiders (2019). This series puts real, genuine effort into Cass's character; it flashes out her relationship to Duke Thomas (a bat character introduced in the N52 and one of my personal favourites) and gives her a plotline with Lady Shiva, her mother, that is nuanced and interesting. She's still a shadow of her former self in this series, in my opinion, but that shadow is given respect.

Then Didio got fired in 2020, and Cass and Stephanie were both reinstated as Batgirl. Yes, both. Barbara is also still Batgirl, but also Oracle at the same time. She's also still walking around, unfortunately (though DC has been willing to let some writers write her as disabled in non-paraplegic ways, because apparently they think that's a compromise). The result is that there are currently three Batgirls.

In 2021, they all got a solo series called Batgirls. This is a light-hearted solo that has mostly gotten positive reception from fans except when it hasn't. It's a little controversial of a series; some fans really like it for its art, its cute character interactions, and for being the first major comic for Steph and Cass in years, and argue that being light-hearted doesn't mean it's bad. Others argue that it oversimplifies the characters to the point of being OOC, doesn't do anything interesting with them (even by light-hearted series standards), and that, ultimately, everyone in it is still a shadow of their former self. From what I've seen, a majority of fans enjoy it for what it is, but wish it was more.

Personally, I haven't read it, mostly because I don't want to read a series where Barbara is a main character until she's paralyzed again, but also in no small part because frankly, from what I've seen from it, it seems pretty bad, at least in my opinion. Nothing I've seen from this series has peaked my interest in the slightest beyond the art, which is not enough. But it is the first major series Cass has gotten since the early 2000s, so. On the list it goes.

Anyway, this got long and rambly, but if you got through all this, you should have a pretty good idea of what's up with Cass's character in general, and a foundation to jump into basically any point on the reading list.

[enn0s]

omggggg!!! bruh my idenITY HAS BEEM REVEALED HASNT IT DAMNNN DAMMN DAAAMN!! you know whats funnie? as I was typing I was like "When will be the day I forget to press anon" I...forgot how different the interface is on here...I am sweating lmaooo

I was not ready for this yet OTLx infinite

*i pretend i do not see* (but hello darlin its nice to meet you for real ♡♡♡) ill copy the old message so we can still talk anon if you're more comfortable with that 😊

im sorry life has been hitting like that lately! i know when it rains it really pours so i hope you've been able to find an umbrella and that you've been finding places to rest enough during this period of go-go-go! i bet once you get settled into a school routine your schedule will hopefully be a bit more manageable.

Linguistics is such a cool field! My partner was going to go into that before life decided that she was gonna be an AC technician lol, she'd still like to get back into it and become an interpreter at some point tho! Languages and their evolution are fascinating, i hope you go and get to enjoy it to the fullest! Fuck everyone else, it's your life and you get to go do what you wanna do.

lmaooo its cool about my partner calling me fucked up and feral, shes not wrong and we were saying it in the context that her and her sister were street dogs and im an alley cat, its why we mesh so well even tho we're all very different people at first glance lol.

I listened to your list and im diggin the vibes!!! WOODZ has been a fav in my house for years im always excited for his new stuff. That first EVNNE song is /it/ tho, i really do like it a lot, their voices don't sound like they're new to the game, they sound really polished for how young they are. Idk whats in the water in Busan but thats where bts jimin and jungkook are from too so it must be somethin special!! That Phantom song brought back SOOO much nostalgia lol it was everywhere for so long and i hadnt listened to it in a hot minute. 2Pac and Limp Bisikit too, still holdin it down after all these years.

whewww this took so long lol top 10 songs /IS/ a hard question to ask! every time i would lock in a list i would come across another song i wanted to add but for the moment i think this is a pretty solid personal soundtrack.

1. Snooze - Agust D (this is Suga from BTS' solo work and it hit me like a fuckin bus the first time i heard it, hes been my guy since their debut and they've gotten so astronomically huge compared to where they started, it kinda gives me whiplash sometimes and ive just stopped interacting with the fandom as a whole besides my little group chats with my friends bc it just got Too Big but despite all that he's still putting out music that touches my soul and aims to comfort the lost and tired and i just... i love him idk)

2. Bleed - Epik High (love these old dudes, my friends call them my kpop dads and this song in particular is a fan song but they've taken bits and pieces from the track and remixed it into new songs over the past few albums which is just a super cool auditory experience for me)

3. Dancing With a Stranger - Sam Smith & Normani

4. Just Pretend - Bad Omens

5. Pensamientos Intrusivos - Kali Uchis

6. Flip Flop - Megan Thee Stallion (its definitely one of her more lowkey beats and a sad ass song but i just. i love her so much and im so proud of her for keepin it pushin)

7. Que Maldicion - Banda MS, Snoop Dogg and Becky G

8. The Sharpest Lives - MCR (i know this album front to back lol)

9. Not Worth It - Emotional Oranges

10. Pied Piper - BTS (sorry for all the infodumping about them but id have to make a whole other list if i got into their discography lol. for the moment this one just jumps out at me as a fav and a vibe)

I hope you enjoy if u get a sec to listen to any of it!

im sending you good vibes goin into your new semester and that your phone stops actin up! its always so frustrating like... u have one job, please work 😭

wishing you good days ahead and time to yourself to recover ♡♡♡

talk to ya next time!

(prev message under the cut for ref ♡)

--

I sliding through wild, rowdy and funky

D. Racc here once again 🦝✨💨

I hope you didn't forget about me because I didn't forget about yoo hoo~ Since our last talk, I have to admit…if God, gods, or some all mighty force exist, they're giving me a run for my mental and physical health this year, but I am alive and unharmed just…life is LIFING right now But! I will be going back to college this year and I am going to study linguistics. I find it funny when people ask what I'm studying and they reply with an underwhelmed response. No worries though, it just gives me the drive to go toward it even more. I have been getting out of the house often and trying to take care of myself, but I will say its hard to keep consistent with constant setbacks. How's things going on your end?

I totally understand not being able to turn a hobby into a career. I admire those who do, but also respect those who keep it as a hobby because doing it for work will definitely dampen motivation in my opinion. TY TY for the recognition, same goes to you too!  because it is VERY hard to actively stay tuned in into hobbies or interests when you're an adult in this day and age. I get you there though loool I hate being told what to do as well even for regular work. At this point I know I need to be my own boss or work under someone sensible which..for some reason, it's rare. But I get you, I started to learn a little late that, even the smallest doodles count as art or even progress. And us as an artist, decides when a piece is done. There's a lot of delusion when it comes to art and as I grew older I realized all these standards are made up! I can art any way I want too! art snobs can eat iiiit~

Awww I'm glad someone who isn't a fan (well YET! hopefully lol) truly recognizes a group or artist's talent when they are actually talented. One of the members, Seung Eon, vocals reminds me of Daehyun's. Saw that he is also from Busan. Them Busan boys got some PIPES! on them. I don't know why it gives off opera potential. Daehyun being in plays just proves it. But man…do I feel your pain. I can't bring myself to support a group when the youngest of the group is like 15. And no offense to those who do…but I have a liiine. Youngest member in EVNNE just turned 18 and the oldest Keita, recently as well, turned 23. This is the only group I stan right now and have been trying to look for more groups 21+. I've seen a couple debuts and took notice of some groups I never got to look into since I dropped the fandom. HOnestly thoough…once again..they are my new B.A.P loool! I don't know how people multitask affection. They are literally the only ones in my EYE VIEW. I do wish them big success on top of healthy, free lives, but I will say I love smaller fandoms. It's much more intimate and less toxic, but I do want the boys to get their moneys worth lool. All that work? Yeah they deserve all the love.

I love K-pop when it comes to the music and culture, however the standards and fan culture honestly turned me off even to this day. It's hard to support the industry with all the twisted shitake mushrooms that go on especially in the background.

ahhhhh! the dreeaded questiiion lool! not in a bad way it's just…so many y'know? and sometimes I forget a song is my favorite until it comes on shuffle again. No specific order, just some off the top of my head.

SUN OR SUCK -WOODZ (fell in love and discovered this man's music late last year I feel like I missed out too, but when he comes out of enlistment!? going to see his first show once he comes overseas, so talented and such a sweet person)

Badder Love -EVNNE

XO -EVNNE

IXLU - BYG (!!! are you prepared for B.A.P's farewell comeback?? they look like classic men, very nostalgic, almost makes me want to draw)

Hole In Your Face -PHANTOM

Do You Wanna Taste It -Wig Wam (Peacemaker put me on)

One Look- Leo

All Eyes On Me -Tupac

Stay With Me - Yoo Young Jae (ft. Zelo) (I don't know why this song always brings a smile to my face. It's one of those songs if serenaded I will combust)

Break Stuff- Limp Biskit

I was fighting so hard to keep it at 10 loool. Sorry it's mainly K-POP, it's really been taking over my radio ;; What about yoou~?

Yeeees as you should've. You already knooow! Tevin Cambell? amazing singer. Stand Out as well…//chef kiss of the divine. Shrek is important to the culture. I know this is somewhat unrelated…but since he's the voice of Shrek, I LOVED Austin Powers. I did not know that man was a constant in my childhood along with Jim Carey. The Mask is amongst my favorite childhood movies.

HAaaaa..I'm sorry but that's so funny. Not him calling you a  jacked up and feral ahhh..that's love right there. Tiger + Stray = I bet fierce and majestic on the outside, but natural, wild and free on the inside..maybe a little crack-headedness but hey! that's their charm haha!

TY x3 for wishes of good quality Zzzs N' Meats! I will do my best! Hope you've been well and stay well.

Until next time! D. Racc City OUT! 🚪🦝✨ _💨💨

P.S. My phone is completely inoperable ;-; on my computer like a old head lool I joke. Nonetheless, we will talk as soon a possible ciao ciao and take care

[robincross]

OMG UR USER do you have any headcanons for robin??? and her relationship with andrew n neil? no one ever talks about her rip

DO I? OF COURSE I DO. sorry, they are all over the place and this got really long.

robin’s first time on the court is very similar to neil’s first time on the court. She just has this look on her face of complete awe bc she’s never been in a stadium this big? She’s seen it on tv multiple times, watched countless of games but now she’s here and she can’t believe it? it’s frightening but exciting

now, neil pays very close attention to robin(main reason being is Andrew chose her, of course it draws neil’s interest esp bc Andrew is still very ~vague~ about what he plans to do with her)

neil  recognizes that look because it reminds him of his first time on the court, in that moment he gets to understand what exy is to her (and it’s something he can strongly relate to. Vaguely he remembers nicky’s commentary of ‘no wonder he chose you’ but he knows andrew’s reasoning for robin is much different than kevin choosing neil)

Andrew wants to see what she’s made of so he leaves her to her fend off for herself

and well it’s actually kind of pathetic to watch her? All the foxes come in having some sort of bite, robin has none whatsoever. It’s learned helplessness (robin never learned how to fight back but rather come to terms and accepts her situation. It doesn’t help that she really doesn’t know how to deal with such aggression being directed towards her)

She’s a walking doormat, letting herself be pushed around (she just wants to go home. Home. Home. Back with her parents. And     sometimes when it gets really bad and the world is too much to take, she  imagines herself back in the little room where steven used to keep. At least she was safe there.)

It’s probably no surprise that robin has a lot of bad days in the beginning (everything is overwhelming, too many people, the university is so big)

She still carries her exy raquet around everywhere with her (later when she learns to use renee’s knives, she stops carrying it and carries those instead)

Andrew on convincing robin to defend herself:

‘what are you going to do wait them out? Hope that one day they’ll stop and be nice to you? Ever the optimist? Answer me were you this optimistic with steven? did you think that one day he was going to let you go free?  People like us won’t survive if we don’t fight back” (it     throws her off. Him grouping himself with her. And well, Andrew knows all  about trying to wait people out, he knows all too well the consequences.)

her lessons with andrew are just… brutal. he doesn’t just teach her how to use renee’s knives but also self defense in general. how to throw a punch.

Okay, so we also know that she struggles with her feelings of guilt and Andrew is really the first to address this issue and kind of get through to her (talking to betsy helps too) but like neil is there for her too? He understands on another level about feeling guilty(bc Andrew doesn’t) but neil remembers the drake  incident and even though it wasn’t his fault he had a hand in it. that conversation doesn’t come till neil and her are really close

The first time she goes to see betsy is the mandatory session. She gets paired up with nicky and it’s kind of relief bc he’s actually pretty nice. But then nicky tries to pry and she kind of shuts down a little

Robin is skeptical of betsy(not like neil who was straight up distrustful) but bc she’s gone through so much therapy and therapists and none of them really helped that much. It was with exy that she took her firsts steps towards any kind of healing

Betsy makes it know that she’s always welcome to see her. it’s something she has to to think about but later when she learns Andrew has sessions with her as does aaron and well neil doesn’t but he offers this “she’ll help you” because he knows that she is vital  towards andrew’s own healing and that she helped bridge the gap between the twins). Just because he has his own reservations doesn’t mean robin  has to

(much later she learns betsy is the woman who first  told Andrew about her, much later she learns through Wymack that it as Andrew who singled her out, much later neil confirms it)

also robin is very book smart (at least when it comes  to exy bc she read so many books on exy before she even started playing. Like she could fucking rival kevin day in the history of exy.)

Okay quick side note on her and kevin day: Kevin takes somewhat of an interest in her when he found out it was Andrew who sought  her out. The first time they meet they end up discussing some obscure exy facts and kevin is impressed but he still criticizes the hell out of her     when it comes to game playing. Also, robin is star struck for about a     minute until she realizes everything the monsters have said about kevin is true. he’s an ass. Also, they bond over being trojan fans

anyways, reading about exy and actually playing are two very different things. How much she knows doesn’t really translate over to how well she plays, sadly.

but, she practices with the monsters. she practices with neil a lot. especially her second year, when neil tries to fill the andrew void with more exy (it’s up to robin to make sure neil doesn’t over exert himself, occasionally she has to call up andrew. gdi talk some fucking sense into your bf)

Neil invites her on runs(robin usually opts for the treadmill bc she’s so used to it since she never liked running by herself but she learns to love running outside and it’s something she continues after neil graduates)

 robin watches Andrew shut out the opposing team and it’s the most incredible thing she’s ever seen? She leans against the plexiglass and just stares at Andrew because how?? She wants that, she wants to be able to do that. And then she looks over at neil who this fucking look on his face of andrew being the whole world and robin just fucking knows  she’s going to have go hang out with nicky somewhere other than their room that night

Robin to Andrew: ‘how’d you do that?’ ‘don’t let the ball go in’

Also, here’s the thing she has the choice to be a witness to steven’s trial. And it’s terrifying because she never wanted to see him again but more than that it’s not just steven she doesn’t want to see it’s the third girl that went missing, it’s the parents of the ‘robin’s replacement’ but she does it in the end. andrew leaves it up to neil and aaron to prepare her mentally for that

When she moves into the monster’s dorm it’s a major adjustment. Her bunk is on top of neil and andrew’s bunk. While it takes some time to get used to it she likes  it, it starts to feel like home soon enough. She learns everyone’s routine  quick enough. She learns when not to be there(esp in regards to neil and  andrew’s alone time).

Aaron and katelyn often invite robin over to the library with her and becomes one of her favorite places

She gains the best support network ever. She has the monsters, she has katelyn(through which she befriends several of the vixens), she has Betsy.

also, this girl takes after andrew and neil a lot. think andrew’s lethalness(once she learns how to use renee’s knives) meets neil’s non-existent filter(esp that second year, it’s kind of hard not to pick up on it when they spend most of their time together)

she’s a nightmare in press just like neil

also, she’s fucking gay

[earnestly-endlessly]

kind of an odd request — do you have fics where erik is grumpy with everyone else but a ray of sunshine with charles?

Hi anon, thank you for the ask. First and foremost, I'm so sorry for how long this took me but I've been searching for all the fics that come to mind that fit your request. Second, this is not an odd request because I love this trope so much. I mean, it's basically canon that he's grumpy with everyone except for his Charles, right? Anyway, I might add to this list later on, but I can't sit on this any longer and hope that you have found some fics that you enjoy!!

Fic Recs Where Erik is grumpy with everyone but a ray of sunshine with Charles

Twice as Blind – Darksknight

Summary: Erik is probably the biggest asshole on the face of the earth, and because of this, he'll probably die alone. Charles is a complete flirt and playboy and, probably, will never commit to anyone ever.

(The lesson here is that when you have two friends who are BOTH secretly seeing someone, well, it's probable that they're seeing each other.)

In the moonlight, on a joy ride – scarlettblush

Summary: Librarian AU. Charles is the young librarian and Erik is the college student who is completely besotted with him.

The Proper Care of Actors – Clear_Liqueur, Clocks, Etherei, afrocurl

Summary: Erik is an A-list action star who is notoriously difficult to work with, until the day he gets cast alongside Charles Xavier, rom-com darling who can charm the pants off movie audiences the world over and apparently even one Erik Lehnsherr. The paparazzi catch them out and about soon enough, and their real-life Hollywood movie romance becomes instant tabloid fodder.

Rumor Mill – ikeracity

Summary: Erik is the grumpiest, most foul tempered worker at Stark industries. His grumpiness is the stuff of legends.

So it's obviously the talk of the office when Erik is being made to go to the company party and he's bringing his husband. There's rumors flying round about how much of a masochist or equally antisocial bastard Erik's husband must be to put up with him. Others think he must be a meek mouse perhaps bullied by Erik.

What they weren't expecting was the confident, charming, adorable and unbelievably nice Charles that turns up on Erik's arm. What they certainly weren't expecting was how much Erik obviously adores his husband and how happy he is to let others see this.

Work/Life Balance – pocky_slash

Summary: Alex is pretty sure his weird, anti-social boss is a robot. Right up until the guy's adorable husband shows up. His adorable husband who happens to be a famous actor. His adorable husband who happens to be the very same famous actor who was the source of many of Alex's teenage fantasies.

Terrifying Domesticity – ishipitsobad

Summary: Erik is the most dangerous and notorious mafia boss around for miles, and yet the strangest things terrify him.

For example: his children, and his very pregnant mate.

Of kittens and teacups and love – Ren

Summary: Modern AU in which Charles and Erik are flatmates. Charles studies psychology and likes tea and chess and keeps bringing home stray kittens, and Erik lets him because he's maybe perhaps a little bit sort of in love with him.

Fools Rush In – LoveSupreme

Summary: Erik owns a cafe on the edge of campus and accidentally starts maybe-stalking a Biology Professor there.

Growing Pains – ikeracity

Summary: Twelve-year-old Erik Lehnsherr is an angry, closed-off foster kid with trust issues and a bad temper. Ten-year-old Charles Xavier is a lonely kid in boarding school who just wants a friend.

Logan pretends he doesn't think they're both fucking adorable.

Series

Home Together (The Finding Our Way Remix) – significantowl

Summary: Erik is not the sort of person other students strike up conversations with. His expression, his posture, every part of his manner say: Don’t talk to me. I don’t want to talk to you. But none of that stops the boy ahead of him in line with the collapsible white cane, and nothing can stop Erik from falling for him, like it or not.

Melted Ice Cream and Macaroni Art – pocky_slash

Summary: Everybody likes Charles. Nobody likes Erik. And that's really the source of Erik's doubts. Also, there's ice cream and a baby. Part of ‘the Daycare’ verse.

Walling in or Walling Out – stlkrchck

Summary: Erik stifles a sigh. Of course this is Mr. C. F. Xavier. Of course.

For the prompt: Charles and Raven are throwing a holiday party. Erik is the grumpy neighbor who is annoyed by how loud they are being. So he goes to complain, and Charles makes it up to him.

(Wise Men Say) Only Fools Rush In – wildelybroken

Summary: After reading a fic where Erik and Charles are super sluts, meet at what is presumably Raven and Emma's engagement party, and end up sleeping together, I made the following comment and just inspired myself.

"They start casually texting each other throughout the day, maybe while they’re bored or frustrated at work, and start out meeting up and sleeping together semi-frequently. And eventually they accidentally start dating without noticing it at first, not until Raven and Emma get them alone and are like “wtf you two super sluts are actually dating??” And at first they deny, but then they’re both like “holy shit, we are!” And they meet back at one of their places and they don’t have to say anything, they just look at each other and come together immediately, kissing passionately and ~making love~. In the middle of it they realise that’s what they’ve been doing for a long time now and they confess their love to each other and they live happily ever after because they deserve all the good in the world."

For Charles – Shigai

Summary: Tired of being told he has to find his 'heart', classical piano graduate Erik Lehnsherr decides to travel to Italy and drink from the famous Italian passion for music. While searching for it, he meets Charles Xavier, a graduate in Fine Arts who is basically travelling around the world perfectioning his technique, and who will turn his world upside down.

Together they will discover that, sometimes, what you thought you didn't need is what you needed the most.

Erik Hates People – Anonymous

Summary: Erik hates people- it's his rule, a way of living.

Sugar – humanitys_cutest

Summary: Erik glances at the clock for what feels like the tenth time in less than half the minutes. It feels like he's been in some meeting or other since the day started almost 10 hours ago, and he's had just about enough of listening to these pompous old men discuss what would be the best design for his building like they know anything about it. He tries as subtly as possible to massage his temples to assuage the building migraine, but he knows it's no use.

He just wants to go home.

Everyone Likes Charles – Rosawyn

Summary: '“Everyone who's met him likes him.” Cain's grin was even stupider than before. “Once you meet him, you'll see.”

It was almost like a challenge then. And damn. Erik hated saying no to a challenge.'

Still Going Strong – JackyJango

Summary: Speaking of forty-eight, Erik hates it. Hates it even more that others are aware of it. While he’s pragmatic enough to know and accept that aging is inexorable, the increase in number gives the people around him the freedom to pounce at him with questions, opinions and advice he'd fought to keep at bay all year.

Besides, Erik believes that youth is a state of mind, not a phase in one’s life.

You have a child’s mind in a man’s body, Charles constantly tells him.

But despite his age, Erik is healthy. He works out daily. His muscles are steel and he can dead-lift four hundred pounds. He can break bones without breaking a sweat. Most importantly, he can still carry Charles to the bedroom and fuck him senseless. And as long as Erik can do that, he’s perfectly happy.

All I know is pouring rain and everything has changed – hllfire

Summary: Charles meets Erik, the man he had heard about many times from his sister and some friends, on a rainy Sunday morning. The stories about Erik paint him as a distant and intimidating man, but Charles finds out that maybe the stories had been wrong.

How to Successfully Ruin Your Life – humanveil

Summary: Seventeen-year-old Charles Xavier accepts a job at his local café, expecting nothing more than a fun, new pastime. What he gets is a mysterious customer and a schoolboy crush.

Stolen – ishipitsobad

Summary: Erik is a miserable, grumpy, cantankerous bastard, and he has every fucking right to be. He drew the short end of the stick when he got the Underworld as his domain, and there isn't very much fun to be had in judging and governing dead souls who would rather be anywhere else but with Erik in the depths of Hell.

So when he meets Charles, brilliant and lovely Charles who is more popularly known amongst the mortals as Persephone, and feels the promise of something wonderful that could make his eternally doomed existence infinitely more bearable... you can bet all your drachmas Erik's not going to let Charles go any fucking time soon.

Erik Lehnsherr's Guide to Saving the Universe By Meeting Your Soul-Mate and Falling in Love in Less than 72 Hours – magneto, pangea

Summary:Army Pilot Erik Lehnsherr is just trying to enjoy his day off when a mostly naked person crashes through the roof of his car. Even more alarming, the strange falling naked person—who goes by Charles Xavier when he's not speaking an ancient dead language—brings tidings of the apparent potential end of the world, and begs Erik to help him put a stop to it.

Well. His mother has been nagging at him to go out and meet new people.

The Theory of Partnership Dynamics – Pangea

Summary: “Detective Lehnsherr, how wonderful to see you out on the job!” The fed in the front greets him as they draw nearer. He’s shorter than the other two by a full head, and he’s beaming at Lehnsherr as if completely undeterred by Lehnsherr’s paint-peeling scowl.

“What do the feds want?” Lehnsherr asks bluntly.

“You know I can’t tell you that,” the fed answers cheerfully. Then his gaze lands on Alex, and, impossibly, his grin gets even brighter. “Did you get a new partner?"

“No,” Lehnsherr says through his teeth while at the same time Alex says, “Yes.”

[oceanlue]

Muffins

All Pronouns

Warning ⚠️ spicy 🌹

Yuurivoice auron x reader

---------

"I kinda always had the idea that you liked bakeing"

You had infinited auron to your house for some baking and he kinda didn't really like the idea but when he saw that you wanted him to join you and no one else, his ego boosted a little bit but agreed to it anyway

"Is it because I'm to sweet"

"No it's because evertime that I'm near you, you smell like cinnamon or vanilla sometimes chocolate"

"Oh hehe, I usually bake when I'm bored or with a friend of mine sometimes for fun*

"ah ha, and what pray tell are we backing

"We today my good sir are baking muffins"

As you told him this you went to get all the stuff you need the bowls, utensils, muffins tins, muffins sheets, And aprons and just for him you got him a black one.

"I gonna guess and say you went through and this trouble, jut to see me in a aporn"

"Uh, what, n-no I just w-wanted to ...to..teach you to bake"

You turn around so he wouldn't see your red face and so you can calm your heart down to and maybe a little bit of you wanted to see him in one, so what did you do, you turned and little to look at him and it was worth it, his big strong arms with him rolled up sleeves, his abs that you can see through the white shirt you asked him to ware (I'm not going to make him ware his suit while baking) and his chest that you just want to sleep on and just listen to his voice, and to top it all the black apron, and you were glad that he agreed to this

"You going to stare at me all day or are you going to get the stuff we need to make these"

As he said that you snapped out of it and ran to get the stuff. It wasn't that bad baking with him he actually helped a lot buy reading the list and added some other things and in no time at all the muffins were done, you put them in the oven set the timer and cleaned up while snacking on the fruit that was left over, after you too were done you relied that it was quite, a little to quite.

"So ....now we just have to wait for them to be done"

" indeed...I wonder what we should do in that spare time...cuz if you don't have anything in mind I have something we can do"

"O-oh hehe ...and what would that be"

He turns around and pins you the the counter and takes your chin to make you look up, and passionately kisses you you got lost in thought that you for got everything around you, you were to busy enjoying this moment that you didn't realize that aruon took off your shirt and you were surprised to like when did this happen, and you blushed even more.

But what you didn't expect is for auron to take his apron and put it on you and for him to take off his shirt and by goly gosh were you glad he did you can see everything now his hair out of that ponytale he had, his biceps that's fixing every time he moved his arms, his chest that looks so soft to the touch that you wanted to just lay your face in, is ABS that you just wanted to run your fingers over and over again, but even after all that he could just look at you with that beautiful sexy smirk that he always uses after he tossed the clothes somewhere else it goes back to being passionate and soft while also being a bit rough.

You two can keep your hands off each other your hands going all over his front will also some of his back while his remained at your side but also going a bit further up well also having a Makeup Session.

Before either of you could go to the next level things have to come to an end and as that end came the timer for the muffins turned on.

You two snapped out of it and we're kind of disappointed about it.

He took the muffins out of the oven and put them on the stove to cool down and as the time was done for them to cool down you all set down (forgetting that you don't have your shirts on) and took a bite of the muffins to your surprise they tasted like heaven

"So what do you think are they good"

"There exceptional to say the least but as my first time doing this I'd say they're pretty good"

Looking down at the muffins a little disappointed that your little session was stopped by a timer as Auron saw this he came up with a little idea.

"don't worry rookie just to wait a little bit longer and after you finish your little muffin you have, I can ravish you all afternoon"

"O-oh..oh my"

Maybe you should invite him to your house more often.

---------

First time making something like this I hope you guys liked it because honestly this is the first time I'm making anything like this I tried on Wattpad a little bit but I didn't really like how it turned out so I hope you guys like how I made this

Peace out my dudes

[lafourmii20]

That prompt list is so hard to choose from! Lots of good stuff on there!

Couldn’t go past #54 though for ironfroststrange! (Please and thank you 😊)

Thank you for the ask @knightryder24 🥰 I had a lot of fun writing for this prompt. It's probably not what you had in mind, but I hope you like it!

Sorry it took me so much time to answer. I hope that the fact it is 2k long (which is way more than my other answers to the intimacy prompts) will make up for it.

~~~

frostironstrange, tony stark, stephen strange, loki, morgan stark, fluff and awkwardness, chaste kissing, getting together

~~~

Date night was awkward. Well, what was he expecting, really? He invited Loki and Stephen to have dinner with him. The God of Mischief and the Sorcerer Supreme, together, in the same room with mere mortal Tony? Yeah, it was a sure recipe for trouble.

“More dessert?” he asked with not a small amount of unease.

“Oh, I would love to take your dessert, darling,” Loki purred suggestively, with glinting eyes and smirking lips, and there was no way he was talking about the chocolate cake offered to him.

Tony gulped.

“Thank you, Tony,” Stephen replied softly, taking a piece for himself and another for Loki, thankfully cutting through Loki’s aggressive flirting.

Tony lost himself for a second in Stephen’s mesmerizing blue-green eyes, took a little strength from the wizard’s calm demeanor, then shook his head. No, this was still a terrible idea. What was he thinking inviting them in his house?

Well, truth be told, it wasn’t his idea. Stephen suggested it, and Loki approved. So really, if anyone was to blame for the poor night they were all having, it wasn’t Tony.

But maybe it wasn’t such a bad evening. Sure, there were awkward silences, uneasy glances and shy blushes. But there were also good wine and great Asgardian ale. They talked about magic and science and technology, Asgardian customs that should be abandoned forever, and others that would do great to Earth societies. They discussed life, love, family and relationships.

They talked about their relationship.

Their weird relationship wasn’t exactly a new thing. They’d been dancing around each other for months now. Since Thanos, they had been getting closer and closer together. Tony just had to meet the Sorcerer who orchestrated everything and helped them to win. After screaming at him with all the strength of his lungs for not telling him what the plan was, Tony understood and tried to get to know the man better. They got along far better than he ever dared to imagine.

Tony met Loki in totally different circumstances. With a whole ass alien nation now settling on Earth, Tony got involved in the smooth integration of New Asgard. That was where he got to know Loki, and the mischievous God carved a place into his heart scarily quickly, if he were honest.

What he discovered with these two men was beautiful, just as broken as Tony was, but glorious (as Loki would love to say). It was a deep friendship that slowly evolved into something else, into something more.

Tony would never forget the day he held Stephen’s hand for the first time, carefully cradling his trembling fingers between his own. The trust in Stephen’s eyes took his breath away.

The strong hug he shared with Loki one afternoon, was also etched into his memory, a fond time and a show of vulnerability like no other. It was truly glorious.

Tony also knew Loki and Stephen exchanged a chaste kiss at the Sanctum, even though he didn’t know the details. He just found it infinitely endearing. But it brought some difficult questions to his mind.

“Why would I have to choose only one of you, when I adore you both?” Loki had asked incredulously one day, when Tony broached the subject of their weird three-way relationship. Then, the Asgardian seemed to remember. “Oh, I see. Your Midgardian’s customs limit your view on the matter. In Asgard, a relationship is only what the people involved want it to be. Be it between a man and a woman, or two men, or two women, or more than two people and all the combination you could ever imagine.”

“So what do you want?” Tony had asked.

Loki only answered with a broad devilish smile.

Stephen suggested the dinner date the next day, and Loki approved immediately. And there they were. In this awkward situation, navigating the troubled water of a brand new relationship. Tony was about to embark on a relationship with not only one, but two magical men, and his head was spinning. In anticipation. In fear. Elation. Love too.

Double the love, who would have thought, uh?

“How about we move this to a more comfortable location?” Loki asked, bringing Tony back to the present. “The couch, maybe?” He arched his eyebrows suggestively again, and Tony lost his words (again) turning bright red. The God of Mischief was really good at making Tony blush these days. Damn. Tony was losing all his smooth flirting when he was with them.

“Sure,” he said. Jeez, that was so lame. He definitely was losing his cool with them. “You go there,” he gestured toward the living room, “I’ll make coffee and tea for Stephen. Our good doctor can’t end an evening without his chamomile tea, the fiend. I’ll take care of it.”

Stephen rolled his eyes, but simply smiled at Tony’s antics, and he left the table with Loki, guiding him through the house with a gentle hand on the small of his back.

The gesture was overwhelmingly delicate and tender, and fondness surged through Tony’s heart.

Too much, it was too much.

Finally alone after all the awkwardness and tension, Tony breathed out, paused for one second, before getting in motion again. He couldn’t stay still and let his brain do his overthinking thing. Except, he couldn’t stop thinking as he made the drinks on autopilot, too focused on his own thoughts (and the two Sorcerers casually sitting on his couch) to care about what his hands were doing.

What the hell was he doing? After all the hardship in his life, he couldn’t settle for a simple retirement plan in his cabin by the lake, with Morgan, and Pepper? Well, Pepper wasn’t exactly here anymore. They couldn’t make it work together and that was sad, but it was life, right? Life sucked. But they had found a balance, between her new job in New York and his simple life by the lake, and their amazing daughter to raise. It wasn’t ideal, but it seemed to work for them.

And now, Tony wanted to complicate all this delicate balance with this new and weird relationship?

What was he thinking?

“Hey.” Stephen’s gentle voice interrupted Tony’s spiraling thoughts, and a shaking hand landed on his shoulder.

Tony turned to face the other man. The hand, still on his shoulder, calmed him a little, silenced his thoughts.

“Hi,” Tony whispered.

Stephen’s lips curled into a tender smile that warmed Tony’s heart. Red tinted his sharp cheekbones, from the wine and the Asgardian ale they shared earlier. His eyes glinted, maybe because he kissed Loki again on the couch while waiting for Tony. Oh, how he would love to join them and shut the voices in his head telling him this was a bad idea.

“Are you okay?” Stephen asked in his deep voice. “Is it too much, for you? We can leave if you want to. We would understand.”

“No!” Tony immediately blurted out. His hand came up to hold on to Stephen’s wrist. He was careful not to grip the fine bones too tight, and to avoid the delicate scarred fingers, but he couldn’t let go, couldn’t let Stephen (and Loki) leave him. He wanted them here, with him. Forever.

“Stay, please,” he finally said. “It’s just… It’s a lot. But I want you here.”

Tony’s heart fluttered at Stephen’s answering smile, the softest and loveliest curl of his lips. And his eyes shone so bright with affection. Maybe love?

Tony gripped Stephen’s wrist in his hand, drew him closer while getting on his tiptoes. There, he left a gentle kiss on Stephen’s cheek. A surprised yet pleased sound escaped Stephen’s lips and Tony couldn’t wait to hear all the beautiful noises he could get from this man. Loki would probably be impossible to shake, but maybe he might help Tony to fluster Stephen? That would be lovely. Tony couldn’t wait to have both men with him, in his bed, and suddenly he wasn’t so afraid of this whole situation anymore.

“Let’s go find Loki, before he burns my house to the ground,” he said.

“Absolutely,” Stephen laughed before putting his arm around Tony’s waist, and making his way to the living room.

Which was empty when they arrived.

“Lokes?”

Tony’s heart dropped. Did Loki leave? Did he already get tired of them and just left?

But then, Tony heard a high-pitched giggle and a low voice from the bedrooms. He frowned, then hurried upstairs, Stephen on his heels. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Loki. But he wasn’t sure how the God of Mischief would handle his daughter, and Tony wasn’t ready to take any risks with his sweet little Morgan.

But when he peeked through her bedroom door, Tony’s heart melted. Morgan was in her bed, carefully tucked under the covers. Loki sat on the floor beside her bed, a book on his lap, his soft voice lulling her to sleep with a story. Except, every few sentences, he stopped, made a comment about the improbability of the tale, or how his own adventures were far more interesting, and Morgan giggled with him. It seemed like she was getting less and less sleepy, completely defeating the purpose of the bedtime story in the first place.

Tony melted.

“What are you doing up, little miss? It’s past your bedtime, you should be sleeping.”

“Loki is reading me a story.”

He could see that. The great God of Mischief felt utterly out of place on the floor of the little room painted in all sorts of bubblegum-pink shades Morgan loved so much.

“The little munchkin wanted a bedtime story. I thought it would amuse her greatly to hear the story of how I defeated the great enemies of Asgard, but she wanted me to read this book instead.” He showed them the title and Tony repressed a giggle of his own—it was just too hilarious to imagine Loki reading a children’s book.

“This little red riding hood story is particularly gruesome. I love it,” Loki commented with a wide and devilish smile.

“It’s great,” Morgan commented from the bed. “But he’s not doing the voices.”

Loki pouted and this time, Tony truly laughed.

“Come on, darling,” Stephen said joining Loki on the floor. “You have to do the voices. I’ll be the wolf, you’ll be the grandma.”

Loki looked disgusted.

“Tony can be the grandma.”

“Sure, I’ll be the grandma. I have a mug that says ‘Best Grandma in the world’ in the kitchen’s cabinet, anyway.”

“Come here, Grandma,” Stephen gestured to him laughing.

Tony joined them on the floor. They were truly ridiculous, three grown men sitting on a pink carpet, with a children’s book between them. But Morgan was smiling with all her missing tooth and Tony was feeling all fuzzy inside. Like he was at the right place.

Finally.

Maybe the three of them together wasn’t such a bad idea.

Reading a fairytale with three opinionated men was a disaster. They were all reading atop of each other, commenting on the other voices — ‘The grandma isn’t that weak, Tony.’ ‘Yes she is, that’s why she gets eaten.’ ‘Spoiler alert!’ ‘Oh come on doc, you don’t have to make your voice so deep.’ ‘Show off.’ ‘Lokes, you’re cheating.’ ‘I’m not.’ ‘Using magic is cheating.’ ‘It sets the atmosphere.’ ‘Show off.’ ’Shut up, wizard.’

And yet, Morgan was smiling, Tony too, and when his daughter eventually fell asleep—by some miracle even his genius brain couldn’t explain—he was smiling even wider.

Maybe—definitely—this relationship wasn’t such a bad idea. So instead of ushering Loki and Stephen and their awkwardness from the beginning out the door, Tony led them to his bedroom. And what they did behind the closed door was only the beginning of their relationship.

~~~

Inspired by this intimacy prompt list (my ask box is still open for prompts (or anything else), just know that it might take me some time to answer prompts because I have other projects I need to focus on right now)

Prompts filled: 3. touching foreheads (ironstrangefrost) 7. kissing scars (ironstrange) 23. wearing someone’s clothing (ironstrange) 29. kissing while mad (ironstrange) 30. being protective (drpepperony) 47. cuddling under blankets (ironstrangefrost) 54. reading a book together (ironstrangefrost) 59. height difference (ironstrange)

Currently working on:

[imonthinice]

The Criminal Psychology Majors, Jason Todd x Fem!Reader Part 12/?

Word Count: 4.4k

Author’s Note: Y/N - Your Name, A/N - Any Name (Your Best friend’s name)

God idk what i’m doing with this but i’m liking it lmao

next one might honestly be smut idk

Warnings: Violence, Swearing, Description of Blood, Gets heated, hints at trauma, no beta bitch we die like Jason Todd

(Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) (Part 5) (Part 6) (Part 7) (Part 8) (Part 9) (Part 10) (Part 11) (Part 12) (Part 13) (Part 14) (Part 15) (Part 16) (Part 17) (Part 18) (Part 19) (Part 20)

Y/N walked through the streets of Gotham, which were once bustling with people, but now were quiet with the occasional hooker, she had caught the city as an unlively hour, where it seemed to sleep the night away while the vigilantes of the area watched it like their lives depended on it. In some ways it did, the stories they would tell when being interviewed were horrific sometimes, but Y/N figured a decent amount of it was for dramatization, to keep the people of Gotham off of the streets to protect them all from it.

The question was always protect them from what, and they never answered. So, it never kept the people of Gotham at bay from the streets at night, and had Y/N’s car not been towed, she would have been driving home in the safe, secluded area of her car, not the vast wilderness of the streets of Gotham.

She looked up at the sky to see one of the virgate boys using a grappling hook to fly to the other building, which was such a sight to behold for someone who never witnessed a superhero beyond Superman at home. She wished and longed to know more about the vigilante, but didn’t dwell or dote on that man, because she didn’t need to.

Something told her that he was watching though, tracing every step she made to make sure she got home in one piece. She thought she was crazy, her life didnt matter more than anyone else in Gotham. He’s not following me, why would he? she thought, Even though I’m dating Jason Todd, they probably don’t know Jason, so my life doesn’t mean much more to them than any one of the hookers along this street. I’m overthinking it.

The walk home took two hours, she left Jason’s at 4am just to find herself back home at 6am, bright and early as the sun rose, ready to greet the day and all it had in store for everyone. But the things it had in store for Y/N was a class and if she was lucky, cuddling with Jason. Nothing more, nothing less.

She would open her front door, unscathed from the journey home, except maybe for a few callouses on her feet, it was the last time she wouldn't pay for more than a day of parking, that’s for sure. Heels were not the shoes you wanted for a two-hour walk home in the Autumn cold, but they were what she had.

She thought about what she was going to do next, and the first thought she had was to shower. Not because she needed to, but because she wanted to nurse the terrible headache she had and to think some things through. What she normally did in the shower.

She wanted so much more from so much of her life. the main offender of seemingly not being enough for her was Jason. Not because she didn’t want more, but because she craved more from him. He was injured, so she wouldn’t get much more rom him for the time being, and it stung a little for her. She just wanted him, maybe sexually, maybe in a more romantic setting or maybe just on her couch on a Thursday afternoon. It was all three of those options and she knew it.

She pulled out of the shower and looked at the time, 6:50am. Okay, she thought, little more time than I wanted to spend in the shower, but I guess the universe had different plans for me today. What else do you have for me, universe? And how much of you plan involves Jason?

She would open her phone after quickly getting dressed. While she still cared for her appearance, she didn’t want to dress like she owned a law firm every day, so she didn’t. Just black jeans and a black top and she felt like a million bucks. 

Just some quick outfit inspo. I like doing these a lot. I think fashion is funky :))

Artemis had sent her a message asking where she was at around 4am, she wondered why the time, but she then remembered that Artemis’ boyfriend worked with Dick Grayson, who was Jason’s brother, who worked most nights until radical hours of the night. The chances that he saw her on her two-hour walk home was high, but the chances that that had also made it back to Jason was higher. She knew she was in for it.

Hey sorry, I was at Jason’s. Fell asleep in his arms the whole shebang. And yeah, that was me who screamed the yo momma joke at the press. It was super childish, I know, but I don’t care. Those fucks are sucking my life force out of me and harassing my boyfriend, even your boyfriend.

She would then look at the articles calling her a gold digger and worth-nothing childish insulter of the press. She laughed. If the press wanted a fight from her, she was more than willing to oblige and load the canons. 

She didn’t know how to fight back that well, since it was a mainly verbal fight, and she barely even knew how to  fight physically, hence all the running and non-confrontational arguments she had had to the press.

And like fucking clockwork, Jason texted her.

Did you walk home alone or are my brothers lying bastards?

I walked. I knew someone saw me, fuck.

Why did you walk home? I thought you drove here?

I did, but we spent more than 12 hours together Jason. I didn’t buy enough hours, suddenly my car was being towed.

You could have asked for a ride home from Alfred! He would have in a heartbeat.

I was going to! But  I got distracted and it all became a blur and suddenly I was part of the way home in the dark by myself!

What if you had gotten hurt?

Well, I saw one of the vigilantes of the city on the rooftops, I’m sure if I screamed they would have seen me. They always do see that stuff.

So, your car got towed huh?

Yeah, I don’t know when I’ll be able to pay it off. It’s not exactly like money my parents give me should go to my car getting towed because I got fucked over by seeing my boyfriend. 

You’ll figure it out. Sorry about the car, that’s got to suck fucking ass.

You think? I’m stuck taking the fuckin’ subway till I get my car back. I hate the subway, too many people. Far too many people. Too many eyes. It gets stressful really quickly. Might just walk every where honestly, I can’t deal with the eyes of strangers.

But you’re a C-list celebrity.

Internet is different. I can just block the bad eyes and move on with my life, you should see my block list now that some people are connecting my name to the girl who flipped off the press, thank god Twitter has a fuckin block feature.

You should really just meet my family so you don’t have to run away before they get home, would probably cause you a lot less financial stress, Y/N.

I’ll think about it.

You should think a little harder about it. I don’t want you to get your car impounded ‘cause you’re seeing me, why did you even park in pay-to-park?

Did you not see the massive mob trying to get to you? It was impossible for me to even try to pull into the driveway. Hence why I’m being insulted, you know, ‘cause I yelled at the press to get them to leave me alone. I fucking hate the press, you’re stabbed, severely injured last time they got information, and they’re harassing me, asking me what I like to do on the weekends.

Fucking vultures. Yeah, I’ve seen that. I’ve read the articles. But that’s the press for you, absolute trash and spitting bullshit in everyway.

Fucking hate the press, that’s for damn sure. Despise them. I won’t ever change that, even if, knock on wood, we break up.

Praying we don’t break up so I can see you lose your shit at the press when you’re bored.

She would get up to go make some coffee, since it was closer to 7:20am and if her roommate woke up, she could just tell her to get up anyway.

The press can suck my dick. she said.

You have a dick?

Oh yeah. Massive. 20ft long. It probably won’t even fit all the vultures.

Oh my god, that’s not as big as mine.

lmfao is it now?

Oh yeah.

Nice.

Anyway, my brothers are staying home from school today,  I think they’re making me play Resident Evil 8 with them? You know that game?

Of course. Everyone in that game is infinitely hot.

Are you bi? 

I don’t know. Haven't thought that far ahead to actually label myself. I just like people. Sometimes it’s men, sometimes it’s women. But you have to agree when you see them all. That game came out when I was still in  high school, so I’ve played the entire thing. My phone background is actually one of the characters.

Which one?

I’ll show you if I come over tonight.

My brothers might be in my room, though.

Okay, but, RE8 is an amazing game. So, worth it.

You won’t meet them normally but I pull out a game you love and you’re down?

I’m very easy to convince.

You still have notes to write when you come over though.

Oh yeah, I was probably going to have to come over both ways, just because I need those notes and you do too.

Do you not own a printer?

I barely even own a laptop, I’m waiting for my old one to come in the mail. 

How do you even manage?

With a whole lot of will and spite, anything is possible.

And that’s when her discord group chat @’ed her. She was on Do Not Disturb because she was Jason, and apparently they missed her.

Y/N! C’mere. One said.

Yes? Whatduhya want nerds?

We’ve decided to hold a fake internet wedding between you and Christopher. Another said.

A what.

We’re getting married!

Sometimes I wish I never left Metropolis and then I remember you fucks live there. Why are we doing this? You do know I have a boyfriend right? She asked them.

I don’t know, we’re bored and we miss you. We can have a bachelorette party in Gotham, if you want.

I’m this close to going back on DND.

The group chat was made way back when they had all first met in grade 9 and had been active ever since. They all had stayed in the city when they graduated though, but since Y/N received a scholarship, fully paid for, she took the opportunity and jumped.

They were some of her closest friends, even if they lived in a different city to her now, even if they were all busy with school, even if she was busy with school and a boyfriend, A lot of her life wouldn’t be complete without her crack friends in her hometown.

They had all ben partying like crazy while she was gone, and if she wasn’t so hung up in her own life, she’d probably be down there with them. 

Before you do, can you please explain why you’re screaming at the press, lmao.

Because fuck the press, dude. Why else? 

What did they do to you?

Have you seen the recent articles?

That’s true.

She laughed and finished her coffee. Jason had not responded yet, she assumed his brothers were either checking on him or they had started the game. It was around 8am when A/N finally left her room.

“I thought you were staying with Jason?”

“I was, but then I remembered he has like 9 siblings and I’m not about to meet them all. Then I walked home.”

“You walked?”

“Car got towed.”

“Fuck, can you afford the bill? I can’t.”

“Nope.”

“Guess we’re going to take the subway for a while, huh.”

She sighed and put her cup in the sink, “At least you don’t have school to go to and your lover comes to meet you, I have shit to do and places to be,” she frowned, “Inconvenient.”

“Could you borrow money from Jason’s dad?”

“I don’t borrow money from family, it’s hard enough for me to accept the money my parents send me.”

“I know it is, when’s your class?”

“3pm, I’ll be leaving at 12pm though, because the subway is unreliable.”

“This is going to be a hard hit for us.”

“Well, it’s not like it’s fucking your credit. Mine’s tanking.”

“You’ll pull through it.”

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

She got onto the subway at 12:30pm. She really hated the way it was running. The people, the faces, the staring eyes of unwanted attention. People knew who she was and she hated it. She didn’t like the attention, she just liked the fucking with people. She wanted to get off the subway the minute she got on.

She eventually couldn’t take it and got off a few stops away, there was still a substantial walk towards the college, but she knew it would be. She even brought a leather jacket with her so that she could walk if she couldn’t take it anymore.

And there she was, in the busy streets of Gotham, walking to her college. Barely aware of the people who did stare at her, because she just kept walking, lost in her thought but aware of the people in her trail, the cross walks and the lights she was waiting for occasionally. She just kept walking until Artemis met up with her,

“Hey! I didn’t know you were walking to school today,” Artemis said.

“Oh! I didn’t want to, my car got towed though.”

“Your car got towed? That sucks so much. Well, we’re going the same way, so I’ve decided I’m going to walk with you, you get no say.”

“Of course. I was going to ask if you wanted to,” she laughed, “It’s more fun with a friend anyway, Art.”

“So, how are things with you and Jason, I’m legally obliged to ask as one of his friends.”

“Well, we made it official if that’s the kind of thing you want to hear,” she laughed again, “I’m sure it’s the answer Dick will eat up.”

“You’re right about that one. Dick’s a sucker for a romantic story, you should write one, since you write. He’d probably read it all.”

“Well, that would be fun, but I still don’t have my laptop.”

“You could use Jason’s?” Artemis suggested..

“Nah. It’ll be fine,” she said, “I’ll manage.”

“Aren’t you collecting notes for him for your psychology class?”

“I am, it’s not like he can go anywhere. I actually told him he’d need to walk eventually so that it’s not a learning curve when he’s healed.”

“That’s what all of us are telling him too, he’s a stubborn man, good luck with that one,” Artemis laughed, “He’s always been the stubborn friend. Worse than Will, actually, and Will is really bad with being stubborn.”

“It’s fine,” she laughed, “If you asked any of my Metropolis friends they’d say the same about me.”

“I bet you were quite the wild child in your heyday back in your city,” Artemis laughed, “I hate Metropolis.”

“Who doesn’t? It’s so crowded.”

“Uh, Clark doesn’t. He thrives there, no idea why, he grew up in Smallville. If anyone should be uncomfortable with Metropolis it should be the small-city country boy, but I guess it’s his thing.”

“I forget you know everyone.”

“We know a lot of people, are you’re slowly being let into our massive circle of very well-known people. Welcome to the group, I guess,” she laughed, “You'll either hate or love the fame that comes from this.”

“Well, if its paparazzi and press, I think I’ll hate it.”

“I can promise you right now that it’s not all paparazzi and press, we haven’t been bothered today, probably because we are on the move.”

“You shouldn’t say that, you’ll jinx it.”

“I know a lot about not jinxing it, but that’s a story for another time,” Y/N noticed that when Artemis said this her eyes glazed over and she looked upset.

“You don’t ever have to talk to me about something you’re not ready to talk about,” Y/N reassured her.

“Hey, the trauma makes me funny.”

“Two can play that game.”

They would ramble on for the rest of the walk to their college. Nothing really of substance, just getting to know each other further. She was glad she found a friend in Artemis, it would have sucked if the two of them didn’t get along, but with each word they exchanged, they had so much fun.

She even told Artemis about that time she played Katherine Howard in her school’s budget play of Six - The Musical. She was proud of the riffs she was able to do, but she didn’t talk about it often. She was never the type of brag about her achievements, no matter how amazing they were.

But Artemis and Y/N parted ways and Y/N went to her class and wrote the same, boring, scribbly and barely legible notes. She figured eventually she’d need nicer handwriting, but did she want to work on it? No.

When she finished, she saw Artemis and who she could only assume to be Wally, at Artemis’ class doors. She waved to Artemis, before Artemis called her over.

“Y/N! Hey, I would ask how class is, but this is Wally,” she gestured to the red-head boy beside her, and Y/N held out her hand to shake Wally’s.

“Hi, Wally.”

“Y/N. It’s nice to meet you since Jason can’t shut up about you and my girlfriend likes you a lot.”

“Well that's sweet of you Artemis. You’re just so in love with me,” Y/N joked.

“Girl. You know it,” Artemis joked back.

“You two already have a close bond? That’s impressive,” Wally said, “Never seen anyone win over any of my friends this quickly,” he muttered.

They joked for a little while longer, just getting to know Wally before she had to go, she had to get to Jason’s.

The walk was a while away, so she went and sat on a park bench for a minute to check her phone, Jason had texted her.

Hey baby, are you coming over?

I am, yes. I actually just met Wally.

You met Wally and I wasn’t there to see it? C’mon.

Artemis introduced us! Go yell at her.

Oh. Never mind. I won’t do that.

Ha! Scared of her?

Maybe a little, she can be scary, okay?

You can’t tell but I’m laughing at you.

Dhmu.

That’s fine, I’ll just go hang out with Alfred and not you. He seems like he would be spiteful like me.

That’s unfair.

I thought you said don’t hit me up?

Fuck.

Checkmate.

I am upset.

No you’re not.

No I’m not.

She would walk down the street further, maybe within a couple steps to reach the Manor, when a man dragged her into an alleyway. She yelped.

“Uh, hello? Can I help you?” she asked, pretending she wasn’t terrified.

“How much would Bruce give me for you?” the attacker mumbled before he tried to knock her to the ground, but she had another plan.

He grabbed her, put his face close to hers, and she head-butted him, he would stumble back, and she started running to the Manor.

“Come here you fucking bitch!” he screamed. She could feel her nose bleeding as she ran and ran, the security saw her and pulled her into the gateway before drawing their guns and urging her to run to the steps of the Manor.

And she ran. The security at the door saw her and let her in, and yelled for Alfred.

“What is this nonsense, oh,” Alfred paused when he saw the blood running out of Y/N’s nose, “Miss Y/N, what happened to you?” he asked before grabbing her hand and pulling her into the entry-way bathroom and opening a first-aid kit.

“Okay so, what happened was I was walking to the Manor because my car got towed right? And this fucking bastard dude pops out from an alleyway and pulls me into it, asks some bullshit about how much Bruce would pay for me, when he grabbed me and tried to knock me down, when I head-butted him and started running,” she said, completely unphased.

Alfred didn’t respond to her and started to stop the bleeding when Bruce called for him, “In the entry-way bathroom, Master Wayne!” he answered.

Bruce came around the corner and saw Alfred was already tending to Y/N, “Well, this is the event where I meet my son’s girlfriend, when she is bleeding and running from a strange man in an alleyway.”

“Heh, sorry,” she said and outstretched her hand to shake his, “It’s nice to finally meet you, Bruce.”

“I can tell you’re going to be quite the addition to this household,” he said as he took her hand and shook it, “As long as you’re okay.”

“I’m okay.”

“That’s good. I guess you can’t get mad at Jase for being a reckless man now.”

“I really can’t.”

“Alright, you should be good, Miss Y/N.”

“Thank you, Alfred. But you really didn’t have to.”

“I’ve been taking care of 5 boys and 3 girls since most of them were little, Miss Y/N. A little blood is really no big deal for me to handle.”

“That’s obvious.”

“You can go see the boys now, they’re going to ask you though,” Bruce said.

“I know.”

She walked to Jason’s room, hoping that he wouldn’t have all of his siblings in the room, he did though.

“Hey, Y/N- what the fuck happened to you?” Jason exclaimed when she opened the door.

“Oh great, all your siblings are here. Anyway, I guess,” she paused, taking in a big breath so she could run through the events quickly, “So I was walking here ‘cause my car got towed, right? When some fucking bastard man grabs me and yanks me into an alleyway and starts going off about how much Bruce will pay him to get me back or something,” she paused again, “And when he tried to knock me down by getting really close and personal to my face, like an idiot I should add, I head-butted him.”

“You did what?’

“I’m not done yet, met your dad when I actually had blood running out of my nose because that's just my fucking luck. Okay, now you can be disappointed in me,” she joked.

“I will say again, you did what?”

“Something stupid?” she said.

“You could say that again, my god, what went through your head?”

“Uh, nothing. Just survival. Fight or flight but I head-butted a man, and hi, everyone.”

“Hi, Y/N, I’m Dick,” Dick said, “You clearly are meant for Jason,” he joked, “That's something he would do.”

“Don’t encourage her, Dick!”

Stephanie got up and greeted her, “You know, Y/N, I always wanted a crazy sister,” she joked, “I’m Stephanie, the black-haired girl is Cass, and the red-head is Barbara.”

“Me too,” Cass hopped onto the joke.

“It’s something else when you meet the girl your brother is dating after she head-butted a man, apparently,” Y/N laughed, “I know it’s far-fetched-”

“Not really,” Tim cut her off, “You know Jason protected Will when they were attacked?”

“That’s Tim, by the way,” Dick said.

“So you can’t yell at me for head-butting a man!” Y/N joked at Jason while going to sit beside him, he slinged an arm around her shoulder and leant his head into her head.

“Well, you seem like a nice enough girl,” Barbara said, “Take away the reckless behavior, and you are lovely.”

“That is valid, to be honest. Not exactly the way you want to meet your brother’s girlfriend.”

“You think?” Jason asked, sarcastically.

“Ha ha.”

“See, she thinks I’m funny, why can’t you fucks?”

Y/N laughed and then asked Dick, who was playing RE8 at the time, staring at the photo of Donna Bentiveno, “She’s cute, isn’t she, Dick?”

“Have I been staring?”

“Let’s just say Angie is probably very pissed at you.”

“Oh! Whoops. There’s a point to this, I forgot.”

“I don’t blame you, I remember forgetting there was a point and the little bitch devil doll would attack you.”

“Language.”

“Oh no, you’re lame. Gross.”

“Excuse me?” Dick asked as the rest of the room erupted in laughter.

“Do you guys see why I like her now?” Jason asked.

“Uh no, she’s mean,” Dick said.

“You’re going to die if you don’t start paying attention, Dick,” Y/N said.

“Oh!” and he died.

“And that kids, is why we listen to the person who’s 100%’ed the game.”

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

Y/N and Jason would spend hours with his brothers and sisters until the sun started to set and they all scattered to their own rooms to  do their own things. you can’t keep a lot of kids in one room for so long.

Once everyone left, Y/N placed her hands on Jason and kissed him, she was actually able to be laid on his pillow, he was able to pin her to the bed. And they did just that. He was on top of her, using his one arm to prop himself up and using his other hand to touch her face.

Her hands found their way into his hair like they always did, she found a lot of joy in playing with his hair. Their tongues danced together, they never fought or anything, they just enjoyed each other when Jason let out a small moan and she let out a small laugh.

“Keep it in your pants, Tiger,” she joked, “You’re not fully healed.”

“You literally smashed your face into another man but I can’t moan when I kiss you?”

“Because I know you want more.”

“Hell yeah I do,” he said as he went back for more, actually using his strength to keep her to the bed, but she didn’t protest this time.

[with-my-murder-flute]

Hi everybody, thanks for the asks letting me know I made the top of @yusuftiddies’ list of Homophobes in TOG Fandom, you can stop sending them now.

So.

I can make mistakes and fuck up and own that. I am serious about listening to marginalized people. But... in this case, while @yusufstiddies generally describes factual events that happened and factual posts that exist, I have to say that I can’t actually apologize for the things I’m called out for because I don’t think they’re homophobic. The things he criticizes me for are things that come from a lot of personal experience as a queer bisexual cis woman, as well as a lot of reflection, research, and study. I believe in them really strongly and stand by them.

I’m really sorry if this makes TOG fandom too hostile, because it is not my intention to make this place so unpleasant that anyone feels driven out. I understand if my stance means people no longer want to follow me/read my stuff/participate in projects I’m involved with (though I’d rather hand off the Research Hub to someone else than see it go down with me). I’m posting this so people can know where they stand before they decide whether to keep interacting with my blog, or “deplatform” me as @yusufstiddies recommends.

I would recommend, for anyone who doesn’t want to see my posts, using Tumblr’s new post content filtering feature. If you type a username (like star-anise or with-my-murder-flute) into it, Tumblr will hide all posts featuring that specific string of characters, and therefore any post or reblog of mine.

To address the accusations against me:

I am an anti-anti: Yes. I’ve reblogged posts of mine about this before. I care passionately about preventing child abuse, but I think there are better ways to prevent child abuse in fandom (like concrete harassment policies so predatory behaviour can be reported and stopped early, and education about digital consent and healthy relationships) than attacking people who write “bad ships,” not least because the first people it hurts are abuse survivors trying to work through their trauma, and because the research says you cannot actually tell who’s a sexual predator based on what they write about.  Fiction affects reality, but not on a 1:1 basis. My mainblog, @star-anise, has a really extensive archive of my writing on the subject.

I said cishet men aren’t more privileged than gay men: Kinda. What I actually did was question whether Every Single Cishet Man benefits from more privilege than Every Single Gay Man. If a man is cishet but gets beaten up because people perceive him as gay, he’s not exactly feeling the warm toasty glow of heterosexual privilege in that moment. Oppression is complicated and there are times when someone’s lack of privilege on one axis is way less important than someone else’s lack of privilege on another axis.

The post above also includes me reblogging someone else’s addition about how straight men can be included in the queer movement: I’m queer. @yusufstiddies has made it very clear that he isn’t comfortable with the word “queer” and doesn’t like it. Therefore I think it’s understandable that he might not understand that the queer community sees ourselves as a coalition of people dedicated to dismantling the structures of sex and gender that oppress us, not a demographic of people whose gender identities or sexual orientations can be neatly mapped. However, I would say that doesn’t make queer theory inherently homophobic.

There are also some related points @yusufstiddies didn’t level at me specifically, but I would like to address:

The constant focus on the unsafeness of cishet people:

I’m not cishet. I’m a bisexual woman who’s dated women. Sixth-light is a queer woman married to a woman. This is not an issue of non-LGBTQ+ people blundering their way into something they don’t experience the daily consequences of. This is an issue of people from WITHIN the LGBTQ+ community who sincerely disagree with @yusufstiddies about the pressures we experience and how best to deal with them. I think that even if @yusufstiddies were to filter his fiction input to only LGBT-written work about LGBT experiences, or even only trans-written work about trans people, he would still find a lot of things he finds upsetting or transphobic, because sexual and gender identities are really diverse and not everything will suit one person.

The contention that saying “’Queer is a slur’ is TERF propaganda” is transmisogyny because it dilutes the definition of “TERF”:

People who point out the phrase is TERF propaganda are not calling every person who says it a TERF, and we are not trying to argue that telling a queer person that queer is a slur is inherently equal to the kind of damage a TERF does when she attacks a trans woman out of transphobia. Queer people being able to use the word “queer” does not have the same importance as trans women being able to live, work, and survive in public. Rather, we are literally saying, “This is a thing TERFs say when they take a break from attacking trans women and try to recruit new members to their group, so it’s in our best interests to not give it too wide a currency.”

Some people have experienced the word “queer” used as a hateful word hurled against them and don’t want to hear it ever again. I get that. It happens. Where I grew up, “gay” was a synonym for “shitty” and it took me a lot of years out of high school before the word “gay” wouldn’t shoot my blood pressure through the roof.  I actually do understand that and think that’s valid (and again, support using post content filtering for that word).

One of the things I do at @star-anise is argue with young people who are headed into full-on transmisogynistic TERF territory, and work at reeling them back and deradicalizing them. I use a tag called “weedwhacking” so my followers can filter out the sometimes lengthy back-and-forths we get going.

Something I’ve learned, interacting with so many TERFs and proto-TERFs, is that one way they frequently get recruited into harassing trans people was through discourse around the word “queer”. For one, it encouraged them to want to distance themselves from any perception of LGBT people as “weird” or “not normal”, which led to seeing trans people as “weird” and “not normal” and therefore not good members of the “gay pride” community. For two, repeating “queer is a slur” predictably causes a lot of queer people to react in a defensive manner, so by teaching young or new people to say it, TERFs can set them up to feel alienated from the larger LGBTQ+ community and more open to TERF propaganda.

The next issue isn’t mentioned in the original callout post, but I think it’s key to this entire issue:

@yusufstiddies has made several posts about what cishet people should and shouldn’t write. For example, cishets shouldn’t write Nicky experiencing internalized homophobia.  Another is a detailed post of things cishets shouldn’t write about trans people, including which sexual positions only trans people are allowed to write. I would imagine that part of his frustration with fandom has been the lack of traction those posts have gotten. I know I very deliberately didn’t reblog them.

That isn’t because I don’t agree that the things he complains about are rarely handled well by cishet authors. I agree that there’s a lot of bad fic out there that contributes to negative stereotypes against LGBTQ+ people and is basically a microaggression to read.

I have two very deeply-seated reasons for my position:

LGBTQ+ identities are different from many other political identities because most people are not born identifiably LGBTQ+. It’s something we have to figure out about ourselves. And one really important way that we do that is using the safety of fiction to explore what an experience would be like, sometimes years before we ever admit that we fit the identity we’ve written about. So banning cishet authors from writing something is really likely to harm closeted and questioning LGBTQ+ people. It will lengthen the amount of time questioning people take before finding the identity that really fits them, and force closeted people to be even more closeted. 

There’s a lot of undeniably shitty stuff in fandom. However, I fundamentally believe that trying to target the people creating it and forcing them to stop doesn’t work very well, and has the serious byproduct of killing the creativity and enthusiasm of the rest of fandom and resulting in less of the actual thing you like being produced. I think that it is infinitely more productive to focus on improving the ratio of good stuff in fandom than trying to snuff out every bad thing.

Like I said: I understand if this means former followers, mutuals, or friends no longer want to interact with me. I’ll be saddened, but I’ve obviously chosen this path and can deal with the consequences. 

I wish this could have worked out differently.

[brightwoods]

Hey! So I wanted to know your thoughts about something, this is not an Ask related to the 10things au....

In TLH, when do you think Alastair started developing feelings for Thomas? Cause it’s not explicit in the books, right?

I like to think that Alastair had a soft spot for Thomas during school (even tho we know he resented the Merry Thieves for having everything), cause Thomas was so small and Alastair knew what is was like to be a target, plus Thomas was always kind to Alastair in the Academy. And that then, in Paris, he was obviously attracted to Tom and spent some time with him and got to know him better, so maybe those romantic feelings started there?

Idk sometimes I get frustrated because I feel like what we know about Alastair’s canon feelings for Thomas are so vague...

Hey! Sorry this took me so long to answer, but I wanted to respond when I had the brain power to explain my thinking. This is going to get long so I'll throw in a read more.

Okay, so I think Alastair started developing feelings for Thomas in Paris but he didn't figure it out until London.

It would be nice if he had a soft spot for him during school, but I think that Alastair might have been very uncomfortable with Thomas's constant attention since the very last thing he wanted at the Academy was any kind of focus on him (and that's still something that makes him uncomfortable even in the point we're at in the series). But I'm also not the most informed person to talk about Academy days because I'm going to be honest I still haven't read Tales From the Shadowhunter Academy. It's not that I don't want to I just kind of fell into a big reading slump around that time and ended up barely making it through Lady Midnight at that point and I didn't have the brain power to start it then and now I just have an infinite list of books to read so A Lot of things that I really want to read get indefinitely pushed back.

But anyway back to how I'm interpreting things since CC thought it would be fun to hide any in depth thoughts of theirs and go wow surprise twist they're aware they're into each other when we all already knew and would like to have read some thoughts on the matter.

In the Sanctuary scene, Alastair talked about how Thomas was his favourite part of Paris and how he thought he was beautiful then but he was still too wrapped up in Charles and all that. So I think at that point, Alastair thought he was physically attracted to Thomas but didn't think it was anything more than wow that growth spurt made him super hot combined with wow someone I can go places with and talk to about things. But I think really he was developing feelings already with all the time they spent together for days and with all of the stuff about it being as if there was no one else in the world for that time stuff. I think he was still too committed to Charles and in love with him and sure that was the only possible relationship for him that he didn't let himself interpret that at all though. He was just like well I'm in love with Charles and he's not Charles so obviously I don't have feelings for him, he's just good looking and nice to spend time with away from his friends.

And then I think that those feelings kind of fell off when Thomas was gone and just a nice memory instead of a person there to be enamoured with. And everything became just Charles! Charles! Charles! all over again and Alastair was sure that yup those definitely weren't feelings.

And then with London, I don't think Alastair showed up initially feeling romantic things toward Thomas. I think he showed up curious about him, but not with romantic feelings. And then he found out about the tattoo and saw it and I still think it was wow attractive but not an aware of feelings things yet. I think that he was aware of Thomas's interest in him being a crush of some sort for sure at that point when Thomas showed him the tattoo in front of people he wasn't going to show it. Like I think he already had an idea about that in the Academy but that cemented okay Thomas still has a thing for me.

I think that as things in what was supposed to be his dream relationship with Charles went more and more downhill and he realized that it was less and less of what he thought it was, Alastair became more open to the idea of having feelings for someone else.

More specifically, it's just my opinion, but I would say that the moment that Alastair realized oh I have feelings for Thomas too and oh I actually don't want to spend my life like this with Charles was when Thomas showed up wanting to make the antidote that would save Christopher and Ariadne and whoever else and Charles tried to stop him and Alastair had to step in and offer to babysit Thomas. I think that was more than just a choosing sides in that fight thing, I think that was a choosing sides in general like oh here's brave knight boy here fighting to get a chance to save people and here's scared closeted man who is willing to let his ex fiance die to cover up how he called off the engagement.

I think that's why Alastair ended things with Charles soon after that and why he was approaching Thomas wanting to talk to him at the engagement party. I don't think he was going to go start something with Thomas that moment or anything but I think he was acknowledging his interest in him to himself and he was going to let himself explore where spending time with him more would go and then that blew up in his face and it went from Thomas making him realize he could have someone other than Charles and a better situation to oh wait nope, that's impossible for him and he won't go back to Charles but he needs to be more realistic still.