#i was in the middle of no where when i wrote this thinking about my tent

[thatdisasterauthor]

I am not sure where my fascination with disasters came from, but I have had it for a long, long time. So much so that I very specifically remember being in Middle School and writing a short story about a tornado hitting our school and trapping all the students in the gym (but none of the teachers, of course, because what fun would it be if the teachers were around?). My poor teacher didn't quite know what to do with me when she tried to pair everyone up by genre to critique one another's stories, as no one else had written something remotely similar. It didn't matter though, I was hooked. That afternoon I was standing in my garage and thinking about how I wanted to grow up to be an author who wrote disaster stories, and I wanted to write one story about each kind of disaster.

After several years (and two agents) trying to get these books picked up traditionally with no luck, I've decided to just do it myself. And so, the Little Disaster Books collection has been born! When you pick up a Little Disaster Book, here's what you're going to get:

A short read. Each book is around 50,000-70,000 words. That's a bit longer than a novella, and shorter than most novels, because sometimes you just need a quick book, not a door-stopper.

Each book is a standalone. Because, again, sometimes you just need something quick that you don't have to invest in for a decade while you wait for each book to come out.

Lots of queer characters of all sorts. The disaster genre is, unfortunately, pretty notorious for either not having queer characters at all, or killing them off. Little Disaster Books will instead center them and their narratives. But, the stories won't be ABOUT queerness, they'll just have characters that are queer.

No quickie romance. There will be characters in relationships (I'm a sucker for books with couples that are already together at the start), and maybe the first blooms of a potential romance, but nobody is falling head over heels when they should be focused on survival.

No gore for gore's sake. Characters might get hurt, or even die, but these aren't horror books or slasher books or anything in that vein.

A realistic look at disaster. I'm not just obsessed with fictional disasters, I'm obsessed with the real ones too. I have spent a lot of time studying disasters, myths around disasters/disaster response, and the sociology of disasters. With Little Disaster Books I have worked very, very hard to make the books as realistic as possible when it comes to things like civilian responders, everyday heroes, and how disaster response tends to work. At the end of the day they are still fiction, but they're fiction heavily grounded in reality. No "everyone for themselves/we're all animals when the lights go out" nonsense here.

Full endings. There's a bit of a trend in survival thrillers for them to end right at the climax/moment of rescue, or within a few pages of it, even if things haven't been fully wrapped up. Little Disaster Books will all have more rounded endings that delve, at least a little bit, into the aftereffects of what the characters go through, because sometimes the after is the hardest part of all.

The first book in this collection, Lie Down in the Ashes, is launching on Kickstarter on Janaury 15th, 2025! Sign up to be notified on launch here. It is about a group of teens who get caught in the middle of a fast moving wildfire that one of them accidentally starts.

Sign up to be notified on launch here.

[ghostmoon1]

loooove the fact that you write for roach!!!! our bug boy needs attention too. i have an idea for him if you're interested: adopting a cat. what if he finds a small kitten somewhere where he is on a mission and decides to bring it home to his partner. just imagine everytime be comes home he's like "where is my son????" and the kitten runs to him and climbs on his pants 😭

Hello anon!!

Dearly sorry for how long this took me to write, motivation has been biting my ass lately. But this idea is adoreable, and Roach would be the best ever cat dad. I wrote a lotta this with my own cat sitting on me :D

I hope this is enough and that you enjoy!!

Cat Dad Roach

It was in the middle of a mission, walking along the streets of a small town. He was wandering at the back of the team, watching Ghost and Soap banter with each other before his eye got caught on something else in the street. He tears himself away from the team, who soon notice his disappearance. They watch from a distance as Roach slowly steps up to a small bundle of fur lying on the side of the road. His face lights up as he reaches for the small kitten, grinning ear to ear, melting a little inside at its small meow. He cradled it close to his chest, taking it back with him no matter what anyone said.

When he got back home, you were standing in the kitchen. When you heard keys in the front door and the soft padding of his boots in the hallway, you knew he was finally home, back to you. You make your way through the house, sticking your head into the doorway. 

“Welcome home baby. Missed you” you say with a smile, that smile turning into a face of confusion as you see him quietly slip his bag off his shoulder, a bundle of blankets wrapped up in his arms. You stare at him with an eyebrow raised, silently questioning him.

He slips his mask off and grins, no look of guilt to be seen. Adjusting the blanket, he speaks softly. “Found ourselves a little friend.”

He moves the blankets to the side, revealing the face of the small kitten, peacefully sleeping in his arms. “Gonna name him Steve.”

From that point on, Steve was a part of the family. There was no changing that fact, he has been adopted, and as Roach refers to him; he is now his son. And you hear about it no matter the hour, or where you both are.

Whenever he comes home from a mission, or just walks in the door from ducking down to the shops to grab some bread that you needed, he instantly drops the items on the kitchen counter, gives you a quick hug and kiss before he then struts through the house, calling out “Where’s my son?!”

He continues this for a few minutes until you can hear the tiny padder of paws against the floorboards, and a noise escaping his lips that you can only describe as pure joy. He kneels, just for Steve and lets him climb all over his clothes, it doesn’t matter if he puts pulls and claw marks all over it, they could be replaced. His beloved Steve never could.

He ends up joining you both for cuddle sessions, every single time. While Roach’s body is intertwined with yours, Steve finds his way into some spot, usually someplace on his chest, to feel his warmth radiating through him and to listen to his heartbeat, always nuzzling against him and leaking trails of cat fur.

Now, he's always thinking about his beloved son. Even when you both go out to shop. He drags you to the pet aisles, even if you complain and say that other things need to be done first. No, he is shopping for his son as well. Once you finally drag him out of the aisle, the trolley is now covered in new cat toys, some new treats to try out, a cute new bowl, and oh… don’t forget the outfits. (He also finds a roach outfit… like father like son)

[ And here is a lil drawing done by @gomzdrawfr bc we were talking about this teehee. Thank you again Gomz!! ]

He feeds Steve like he is royalty. He buys him the best foods and treats, plating the food on his assortment of bowls as if it had come from the fanciest restaurants. You have to stand in the doorway and watch as he coos over his son, watching in delight as he bounds over for his five-star meal.

[sl-walker]

Booster's Queer af

Something I wrote on Reddit on a thread asking 'what's your DC hot take??', because if you're gonna kick a hornet's nest, kick it with your best steel-toed boots and then smile:

Booster's queer. That man hasn't come across as straight-- ever. Like even when I started reading DC in 2003, he came across as queer to me, pretty much from his inception. Seriously. He comes across like someone closeted and decidedly not-straight who just stays in the closet initially because it was a very bad time to be anything other than heterosexual when he landed in the past and later because it's habit and expected of him. I don't think he's gay, I think he probably leans pretty pansexual or maybe even demisexual, but any which way, you'll never convince me he's not at least a little bit queer. He's had one in-universe romance that hasn't been retconned (Firehawk) in his entire time existing and one that was a joke and maybe not even real canon (Gladys). After almost four decades. His thing with Firehawk lasted, I think, like less than a year, too. I'm pretty sure you can count his on-panel kisses on one hand, but not more than two. He's never had a 'morning after' scene. The one seriously emotionally intimate relationship he has is with another guy. When he does flirt or attempt to, it comes off as being awkward and a bit desperate and a bit like a man who is kinda using it as cover. And like-- that really makes way more sense for him than anything otherwise. I'd sincerely hope by the 25th century that we'd stop giving a damn who loves or wants whomever else based on gender presentation. It also makes for a pretty compelling tale, a guy getting dropped into the middle of the AIDS epidemic learning a very quick and ugly lesson about what happens to queer folk in this time period. I dunno how hot a take this is, though, because at least some people up top agree (he's canonically hooked up with Ted in Teen Titans Go! and like-- any time Tom Taylor writes them, he all but says it aloud), but if TPTB were brave, they'd finally confirm it mainline. Like you don't even have to ship him with Ted (though that's my preference), just confirm he's queer. Here's my essay. What's my grade? LOL!

--

Since it's relevant, tho, here's a few pieces I wrote from a long email back and forth (since us old people still do that) with another very long-time fan of his a couple weeks ago:

But anyway, to me, he acts about like how a kid who got dropped into the 80s during the height of the AIDS panic and rampant homophobia and the wholesale death of gay men might, especially if he were queer himself. I'd probably try to straight-wash myself, too, in his boots. (I remember that time period, if distantly. I didn't realize I was queer myself until I was well into my 20s, despite falling in very desperate and intense love with another girl when I was 12. I do remember being in high school when a boy was murdered for being queer by being tortured and left tied to a fence to die, though. It was that kind of world back then for people like us. In some places, it still is.) Still, where Booster fails at any hetero romance (oh god does he), he's so devoted to Ted that a big part of his second solo was dedicated to him either trying to save the man or actively mourning him. It's heartbreaking and amazing and really actually quite good stuff, from a literary POV. Whether DC meant it or not, somehow they managed to write one of the greatest love stories I've ever seen in a comic across most of twenty years, no kidding, and I've read a lot across a lot of companies, even back when I was a twelve year old girl and ridiculed for it. And not just a great queer love story, it's a great love story period. A person can make a credible argument for it being a one-sided -- romantic and therefore non-platonic -- love, but it's pretty hard to argue it's not a very intense one regardless.

And

I guess what I'm trying to say is: This is another read on him. And I think also a very valid one. He's one hell of an amazing character, I wish DC had handled him half as well post-Flashpoint than they did pre-Flashpoint, and I don't think a queer reading of him detracts anything from how amazing he is. If anything, I think it makes the older stuff several shades deeper (and so, so relatable, god), and I think if they decided to write him as explicitly queer now, not too many people would actually be all that surprised. With or without Ted. I can't really identify with Alan Scott, love him though I do, even though I can acknowledge that a generation of gay men likely could quite strongly. But I can identify with Booster Gold, who grew up poor and wrecked his future in part for love of family, who clawed his way out of poverty and fell back into it, who has brilliant and shining moments of courage and heart, and moments where he lands on his face, who was tough enough to survive a lot of shit but devastatingly vulnerable to exploitation, and who looks like a fellow queer kid who might've fallen for his best friend, but was surrounded by homophobia and hate and terror and buried that part of himself because the alternative might have been getting beaten and left tied to a fence to die.

[bloodhoundsandplagues]

How can I make it OK?

Arthur Morgan x reader

Summary : you're homesick.

gender neutral reader, no use of y/n, not explicitly romantic unless you wanna read it that way, 3K words

Warnings : swearing, mentions of suicide, panic attack described in semi detail, not the jolliest thing i've ever written

A/N : first post that's actually writing in 2025 ! wrote most of this on the train while listening to house in nebraska by ethel cain and more than this by wolf alice so yeah. also this isn't arthur heavy in the sense that it's reader rambling about being homesick mostly. to be read in a southern accent as god intended

Of all the places I have travelled with the Van Der Linde gang, I think this is my least favourite. 

Living- or rather, camping- in the ruins of some plantation, bodies of the former owners stagnating in the pond. Sometimes I hear ‘em- the ghosts, in the walls, screamin’. I know it’s my mind, playing tricks on me; but it’s harder to have that rational thought when you’re lying alone in the middle of the night, wind whistling through broken windows. It’s not that I don’t like having a roof over my head. Shit, everyone in this godforsaken gang is happy to have a real shelter from the weather, even one as flimsy as this house. So I shut my mouth, hunt as I’m expected-which is what I am doing now, borrowed bow over my shoulder, quiver resting comfortingly between my shoulder blades. 

Hunting is familiar. Back in the Grizzlies, where my daddy raised me, we’d go out any time of day, in any weather, hunt for the coming storms. I’d do everything the way he taught me to- lay out traps, wait behind a boulder, bow in hand. It builds patience, he told me when I asked why the hell we didn’t just track the damn animal, instead of waitin’ in the cold for it to find us. 

Now, it’s not cold, and dear old daddy ain’t here to help. 

I left my horse hitched by a lake, with enough grass for him to be fed and well until I bring back something worthy of Pearson. It’s near sunrise; already, the heat is uncomfortable; my skin is sticky, my clothes uncomfortable. It’s moments like these that I long for the snow. 

I wipe my forehead with the back of my head. I’ve been walking for a little while now, waiting for a pack of deer to pass by. There’s something that bothers me about killing them- maybe it’s their eyes, so big and brown, caught frozen as they stare at you. Or maybe it’s their resemblance to this little girl I knew, at a local village at the base of the mountain where I grew up. 

I shake the thought of her big brown eyes and twitchy nose as I spot a herd of ‘em, grazing near a small stream. There’s enough light for me to count them- seven, big enough to feed us.��

I get on one knee, like my daddy taught me. Notch an arrow in the bow, pull it back. One of the poor animals raises its head, looks in my direction. 

Before I can hesitate, I let go, and the arrow flies; a fraction of a second later, it has notched itself in the animal’s throat. It falls; its friends, the rest of its herd (its gang, I think, almost laughing) scamper off, into the woods. I don’t go after them. Pearson will have to do with this, and whatever herbs or mushrooms I’m able to pick up. 

The doe is dead by the time I reach her. I kneel. Pull the arrow from her neck; thick, sticky blood gets on my hands. I almost reach for snow, to clean it off; curse myself when my fingertips meet grass and mud. The doe’s dead eye stares up at me, brown and empty as the sky. I resist the urge to close them. 

“Sorry, sweet.” I whisper it as I hoist her up, put her over my shoulder. She’s heavy. I must be getting blood on my shirt- it’s a shame, because it’s my favourite colour, and I’ve just bought it. 

I swallow any regrets I feel as I walk back to my horse, the weight of the doe uncomfortable against my bow and quiver. 

You’re the reason she won’t come home, a little voice whispers in my head. I stop, then, because my chest is tightening and I can’t really breathe. I say something incoherent. The fields around me are empty- it’s just me and this doe. 

I drop her into the mud and loosen my shirt, gasping for air. I want cold, I want crisp mountain air; not this thick, humid, barely-air that clogs my throat and makes my lungs heavy. 

I dig my fingers into the mud and grass, as I would have done in the snow, back home. Home. What a weird thought. I catch the dead doe’s eye again, and that’s when the tears come, thick and hot and nasty, blurring my vision. So stupid, I think, as I force myself to stare at her. She- no, it- is just an animal. She doesn’t have a home, not the way I did. Do. 

I think of crying out for help, but that’s pathetic, and I’m a lot of things, but pathetic ain’t one of them. 

I think I stay there, on my knees, fingers deep in the mud, for a long time- when my vision clears again and I’ve stopped gasping for air, the sky is clear, clear blue, no traces of sunrise left. If I focus hard enough on it, I can almost pretend I’m back in the mountains. 

I get up, teeth digging into my tongue to prevent any new feelings from resurfacing. I’m not in the goddamn mountains. All that’s left for me there is two frozen bodies deep beneath the snow, and a hut that’s probably been raided or taken over by some other gang. 

I pick the doe up, this time careful to avoid looking at her face. Its face. It’s an animal, not my goddamn sister. 

I make it back to my horse without another incident; strap the doe across his back and climb onto his saddle. His name is Coal, ‘cause of the colour o’ him- black and charcoal grey, a streak of white down his face. 

“Hey, boy,” I murmur to him as I flick the reigns. My voice is shaky, hoarse; it’s obvious that I’ve been crying. 

Coal begins to trot back to camp. I think of changing direction, of going to Rhodes, clear my thoughts. But I gotta bring this back to Pearson, or he’ll skin me. 

The camp is still there when I return, which is a relief. I don’t think I’ll forget the moment when I came back after a hunt and found everyone gone, everything burned to the ground. 

I shiver at the memory and get off Coal. “I’ll come ‘nd fix your saddle later,” I say to him, scratching his neck. He grunts, in a tone I hope is affectionate. I remove the doe, put her back over my shoulder. Make it to Pearson’s stand, where he’s angrily chopping vegetables. 

“Hey,” I say, dropping the doe in front of him. I angle her head- her eyes- away from me. “Got some meat.” 

“I can see that,” is Pearson’s kind answer. 

I ignore him and walk away again, into the derelict house we’ve been callin’ home for the last few weeks. My room is on the top floor; I wish I shared it with someone, but I got lucky (Dutch’s words) and got my own, private room. 

I tug off my bloodstained shirt and drop it on the floor. There’s nothin’ to be done about my trousers- they’re the only pair I’ve got (the others have just been washed, and hang soaking wet outside) and I don’t plan on walking around bare-legged. 

I change quickly. Sit down on the bed, stare at the wall. 

I don’t know how long I stay like that; starin’ at the peeling wallpaper, trying to pretend it’s the same white as the snow I used to see out my window. Obviously, the pretendin’ don’t work, because it’s not the snow, it’s a crumbling fuckin�� wall in a crumbling fuckin’ house. I stand, take a deep breath in (of hot, hot, humid, thick air), push it out. It ain’t cleansing- I don’t feel better once I’ve tasted the surrounding bogs- but it’s enough to calm my heartbeat, and make me feel somewhat human again. 

For the rest of the day, I help around camp, doing stupid, mind-numbing tasks. I try not to think of the mountains, and how much better than this godforsaken swamp they were. People talk to me, and I answer, polite and all. I eat Pearson’s stew, listen to another grandiose speech about Dutch’s plan (or, as far as I’m concerned, concepts of a plan). I finally find a moment of quiet sitting on a log, staring out at the swamp. Not the prettiest sight; all brown and green, with hints of yellow dust. 

I’m alone for only a few minutes before I hear footsteps. I turn, and find Arthur approaching, taking his cigarette packet from his satchel. I shift on the log I’m sitting on, making the split second decision that his company is something I want right now. 

He sits next to me, silently. Offers me a cigarette (I decline with a shake of my head and a wave of my hand) then lights his own with a match. He stays quiet for a little while, blowing smoke from his mouth, tinting the world blue and grey. 

It’s strange, sitting next to him. He don’t mind being quiet; seems to like my company well enough, ‘cause he keeps coming back here to smoke. 

He’s the one who found me, all that time ago, on a solo hunt in the Grizzlies. It was at the edge of the mountains, where it starts to get warmer; where the sun melts away most of the snow. Was from Blackwater, he said- I asked if I could go back with him. Promised I’d leave ‘em all alone when I got there, I just needed a job, as far from my daddy’s corpse as I could get. He’d said yes, maybe reluctantly. 

Turns out, I’d found somethin' better than a job. Not quite a family, but a gang, people to rely on, people to distract me from the emptiness created by my father’s death. I suppose it’s these people keeping me here, in this swampy nowhere, sweating my socks off. Here, I’ve got people- back in the mountains, I’ve got two dead bodies and an empty house. 

My chest tightens again, and wordlessly, I take the cigarette from Arthur’s hand, take a long drag. I hand it back, still silent, and dig my fingernails into my knuckles. 

“You miss home?” Arthur asks me, his words marked by the smoke curling from his mouth. I take the cigarette from his fingers again, press it between my teeth, inhale ‘till I can blame the burning in my eyes on the smoking rather than whatever has grabbed hold of me; whatever old, buried feeling I’d thought long gone had chosen to make an appearance. Guess it must be more obvious than I thought, that I’m feelin’ odd, ‘cause he clearly smelled it on me. 

“I don’t know, I guess,” I say, softly, fiddling with the dirty fabric of my trousers as I hand the cigarette back; as if I don’t know the answer, as if I haven’t spent half my goddamn life thinking about this. I exhale, blowing out smoke from my nose.  “Never really thought about it.” The lie burns in my throat, so thick I can hardly breathe. 

It’s not the stability that I miss. The weather in the Grizzlies was nothin’ permanent, not in any sense- one minute it’s a blizzard, the next you’re standing staring at the bright blue sky, knee deep in snow. I guess it’s the wolves howling, it’s the comfort of a fire as wind rattles against the window panes; it’s even the way the stars look after three days holed up inside. There’s no one thing I miss or don’t miss- I just know I miss it, so much that my chest tightens at the thought. 

When my daddy got shot, three- no, four- years ago, I thought the one answer was to leave that place behind; pack up my clothes and go out into the Wild Wild West, make my own future away from the smell of his freshly dug grave, right next to my mama’s frozen bones. And when I came across Arthur, and later his gang of gung-ho outlaws, who seemed ready to take on the world, I thought that was it- my life was set. 

But I don’t like the constant moving like I used to. It don’t feel like adventure anymore; it feels like escaping, like we’re always running from something. 

“I don’t…” I hesitate, reach up to dig my nails into the dip of my collarbone, try to dig the feeling out, hold it up to the light to examine it. “I guess it’s different.” A veiled confession. Away from the Grizzlies (away from home) it’s hot, stiflingly so; I can’t climb onto my horse without breaking a sweat. It’s already too warm by the time the sun rises- clothes sticking to your skin uncomfortably, flies buzzing above, drowning in the smell of swampy nothingness as soon as your eyes open. I don’t hate it- it has become familiar, but familiar in the way the weight of a revolver at my hip has become familiar; the way the constant paranoia that clogs my throat has become familiar. 

“Different how?” 

Another pause, as I scuff the yellow dust ground with the toe of my boot. Different in a whole lotta ways, I want to tell him; even the colour of the sky isn’t quite the same back home. 

Home. I think of the snow as I stare at the yellowed leather of my shoes. Where there’s snow and wolves and no people to shoot at you unless you really look for it. 

“I don’t know,” I say, even though my whole body knows; it courses through me, the knowledge that a few days ride away is the mountains, and the snow. “It just is.”

The answer dissatisfies him, I think. “C’mon,” he says in that gruff voice of his. “You gotta be able to find one difference between here and the goddamn Grizzlies.” 

“’S warmer,” I say, the words followed by a short, slightly forced laugh. “Don’t snow as much.” 

He snorts, shaking his head. “Alright,” he responds, maybe a little condescendingly. “Think o’ anything else?” 

“You got less wolves down here,” I add, after a few moments. I don’t say that I miss the sound of them howling; that when I close my eyes, I try to picture it, try to pretend I’m back there instead of here. 

“Alright.” He says it kinder this time, like we’re getting somewhere. 

“The sky looks different.” I dig my fingers in deeper. He offers me the cigarette; I take it, repurpose the burning in my throat. The smoke flickers around me as I exhale. “It’s- clearer, up there. More blue.” Here, the sky is tinted almost yellow. It ain’t ugly, but it ain’t home. 

He doesn’t answer, now, staring out at the swamps. I don’t know how he feels about this place- about Rhodes, and the foreignness of Saint Denis, with its factories and smoke and cobbled roads. I wonder if he misses home- if he ever had one to begin with. “I guess I do miss it,” I say, to fill the silence more than anything. “But… I don’t know, I don’t think I wanna go back.” Alone is the word I don’t add. I think- maybe- if I had the gang, my new family, I’d go back to the Grizzlies. After we escaped Blackwater, and hid out in that abandoned town up in the mountains; that was the happiest I’d been for a long time. 

But alone isn’t something I want to be. Not the way I was alone, the few weeks after my father passed- just me and the freshly dug grave, me and the wolves, me and the gun that killed him, sittin’ on the table, an unwanted temptation. 

“I don’t wanna be alone again.” It comes out soft, hoarse, pathetic, the words grating in my throat, like sandpaper on my tongue. 

It’s true. Yes, home is in the mountains; I know that now, when my chest clenches at the simple thought of the snow. But home is also with these people- with Arthur, and Mary-Beth, and Pearson, and the rest of them. Hell, even Kieran, the O’Driscoll boy, has become home, in a way. Home is not just the place where I grew up (the place where my daddy now lies); home is also the people that have become my family; who have embraced me so kindly and warmly. I know deep in my stomach that if I were to leave now, take a horse back to the hut, I’d end up like my daddy, a bullet in my head and a gun in my hand. 

He did it ‘cause he was lonely. So lonely that even I wasn’t enough to stop him from pulling the trigger. Lived in the mountains his whole life, but he had my mama then, and his parents. I guess fifty years of snow and not much else can drive you insane. 

My hand goes to my temple; I dig my fingers into the skin, right where I found the bullet in his head. 

“Y’won’t be,” he responds gruffly. He’s finished his cigarette, and yet he’s not made any attempt to get up, leave me with my thoughts. I snort, wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. 

“Don’t know that,” I say. “With the Pinkertons on our asses, ‘nd all.” It’s meant to be lighthearted, but it comes out quiet, rough. 

“Yeah, but they’ve always been on our asses.” He puts a hand on my leg; it engulfs my entire knee. “Tell you what.” He hesitates, clearin’ his throat a little. Squeezes my knee. “I’ll take you huntin’, once a week- or twice, or less, if you want.” 

“I go huntin’ anyway,” I answer. “Not in the mountains, y’don’t.” My chest both tightens and loosens at the same time. I swallow; my heart is thumping in my chest. I put my hand to my collarbone again, digging my nails in. “C’mon, it’ll do you good. Cold air and all that.” 

I know there’s a deeper meaning to that. Cold air- he’s giving me the chance to go home, and not by myself. Even if it’s not for long, it’s enough- to feel the snow again, to hear the wolves. Maybe once I’ll camp overnight, ride back to camp in the morning. The idea fills me with hope- a feeling we’re all starved of, these days. 

“Really?” Is all I manage to croak out. 

“What, you don’t wanna?”

I laugh, and it’s genuine this time. “No, I- I wanna.”

“Alright then.” He gives my knee a last squeeze, then stands. I stand with him, smooth my shirt with the flat of my hand. “Tomorrow then?” Tomorrow. Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. I’d sing, if my throat weren’t so damn tight. My eyes sting, and I wipe at my nose with my hand. 

“Thank you,” I say, quietly. He don’t respond, but he nods, and I think maybe he smiles a little. 

Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll get to take a piece of my new home to the place I grew up- someone I love, to the place that holds my heart. 

I watch him walk away; and suddenly, the humidity don’t feel so bad anymore. 

[drac0line1nn1t]

*Wade and Logan in a tent in the middle of no where*

Deadpool: Well you know what they say about having sex while camping?

*leans towards Logan and smirks*

Deadpool: It's fucking in tents

*Wolverine stabs him in the head with his claws*

[vargaslovinghours]

And never let you go ♥

Bonus without the overspill lighting:

[drenched-in-sunlight]

I gotta say I did not expect I’d love Miles this much, enough to look up shit like Secret War and Civil War II reading order, and worse, subject myself to Bendis’ writing of all things (he’s the reason why I stopped being a comic stan 5 years ago. I were a DC/ Superfam fan. You know the beef was BEEFING). Like, my tolerance of that dude now only stops at him being one of Miles’ creators. So that better writers can do the kid justice years later. That’s it.

Like, why is the “r u and Ganke together haha” a whole shtick that comes up multiple times during his run? It’s so annoying and painful to read. Miles can go around being paired up with different girls but the moment THAT question came up you know he gonna be super defensive and >:( about it which, eh, just does not line up with anything else happening in whatever story is happening at the time. At all.

The only silver of light is that Miles actually never says he doesn’t like boys, he just denies ever dating Ganke. Like, he could just say he doesn’t swing that way and the question would have stopped, but he doesn’t. So I know he be running around kissing the punk-est boy in the whole spider verse, ha!

Idk I’m near the end of Bendis’ run and some of it r good but a lot of them put me thru excruciating pain (cringe) so I have to complain about it.

Did I mention I were a DC stan 6 years ago? I were a DC stan 6 years ago so this isn’t even my first rodeo with white dudes writing weirdest things in American comic, but I just can’t believe I got dragged into this again because Miles blinks his bambi eyes on screen and makes me want to rotate him in my brain so I need to know the lore of him in every medium, apparently.

[sysig]

Party (group) party (celebratory)! (Patreon)

[seventh-district]

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

[lloydfrontera]

i think it fucks immensely that bk moon went out of his way to 1) establish rakiel wished to live a long life and eventually pass away of old age, 2) have him very briefly envy an immortal being only to be told very clearly to be careful what he wishes for by that very same person because living forever isn't all it's cracked up to be, 3) make the main antagonist be another immortal being who is so desperate to die he's willing to destroy the universe just to finally rest and 4) have said antagonist psychologically torture rakiel with the threat of making him live for a thousand years as everyone he loves and knows eventually grows old and dies and becomes nothing but forgotten memories.

only to then end the novel by making rakiel also immortal

like. god. it's so fucking good i love it. i'm not being sarcastic i genuinely think it fucks and it's one of the best ways bk moon could've wrapped up the plot.

it's a happy ending by all means but it has consequences and through the entire novel we've been shown and told over and over again just how heavy the consequences are and/or will be on rakiel.

he got his happy ending but it was at a price and by the last time we see him he's only just starting to pay for it.

it's great i love it

[owlf45]

Sorry for being shippy but… does dabi like, like-like hawks in imaginary? Or is it a “i pity you moderately good looking bird” situation?

ill be fr, i've never gotten to the part in the anime/manga where dabi and hawks interact. i might joke around with them and if i ever catch up on the series, we'll see how it goes from there

[p4nishers]

bisexual bobby. i'm right.

[cestacruz]

Mmm Jeanne

[clownboy-yeehonk]

.

[oatmealaddiction]

Okay but the weirdest thing about the whole "Brotherhood is better you should skip 03" discourse that's become commonplace now, it sort of forgets the world Brotherhood came out in and why you should watch the original Fullmetal Alchemist. When Brotherhood came out, the original Fullmetal Alchemist was one of the most beloved and most watched animes of all time. Brotherhood assumes you the audience have already seen it because of course you have, everyone has seen it, so it skips important information and speeds the story up because it doesn't want to bore you with things you already know. Have you ever wondered "hey why does the first episode of Brotherhood kind of suck, and why am I being introduced to like 50 new characters, and why are they acting like I know what the hell an alchemist is?" It's because Brotherhood thinks you've seen 03.

The first 7 or so episodes of Brotherhood constitute dozens of chapters in the manga, and the first 25 or so episodes of the original Fullmetal Alchemist. The Nina Tucker episode in Brotherhood, in FMA 03 takes up nearly three episodes. Yoki gets a backstory in 03 and it's genuinely one of the best episodes and taken directly from the manga and Brotherhood glosses over it because: duh, you've already seen it. And so if you skip the original you miss out on dozens of really great character building episodes like Ed and Al meeting Hughes for the first time and getting to spend a whole episode helping him free a train from terrorists, or Ed and Roy having a duel that expands on the relationship they have, or episodes where the brothers just help out random people in towns before the major story gets going.

The original also paces itself quite a bit better than Brotherhood and is more in line with the mangas storytelling. In the manga we don't find out about The Gate until nearly two dozen chapters in, and the same goes for the original anime. Like, that's a twist reveal in those stories, and it's weird that the most watched series is the one where they tell you all about The Gate in the first two episodes because they assume you've already seen the original show.

What's more, people don't know that Hiromu Arakawa helped write for the anime while she was still in the middle of writing the manga, and as a result was inspired to write scenes in Brotherhood that the anime did first. That scene of Edward getting impaled by a falling beam? Directly inspired by a similar scene in the original anime. There's a lot of little instances of that and they're great when you can recognize parallels and things in Brotherhood that are direct references to the original anime, but people don't notice any of that anymore. Because the original anime is just an automatic skip these days, and it's a bummer because people don't realize what a giant it was back before Brotherhood was released. They treat it as *bad,* not realizing it was one of the most beloved anime of its time and the problems people take issue with have a lot more to do with personal taste than any kind of actual flaw in the writing. Brotherhood was never meant to dethrone it, and the original anime was always supposed to be part of the viewing experience which is why those first few episodes of Brotherhood are so fast paced. So like, please stop telling people Fullmetal Alchemist 2003 is a skip, or it's bad, or you don't need it because Brotherhood is better. Regardless if you think Brotherhood is better or not, the original wrote Brotherhood's check. It was huge, it was beloved, and Brotherhood is *banking* on the knowledge you've seen all of it and loved it. And trust me when I say there is so much to love about the original series. It's still my favorite branch of the FMA franchise, and it's worth your time, I promise you.

[chocolilies]

─── SWEAT. ꒱

( ୨ৎ. fushiguro toji x fem!teacher!reader. . .ᐟ

toji comes to pick megumi up from his training, expecting to be met with his white-haired asshole of a teacher, only to meet gojo's newer, cuter replacement.

◟ꪆ୧ slight nsfw (toji stares at reader's tits, reader imagines getting groped by him), au where toji is alive + takes care of megumi, bold yet sneaky flirting, megumi's in middle school. wrote this on a whim bc i need toji BAD.

w.c: 1.6k

also on ao3 + jjk masterlist !

“that’s your dad?”

you’d heard mention of fushiguro toji before, whether it be from his son or from gojo as he had explained how he’d let the “sorcerer killer” live under the promise of taking care of the boy that was now standing at your side. 

“don’t you dare.”

megumi gritted his teeth as he watched you goggle at the man you were approaching, hand wrapped around your wrist as if he was pulling back a dog on a leash, and by the way you were staring at toji, he might as well have been. 

“what!?” you let out an offended gasp, turning to look at your glaring student, tiny face scrunched up in disgust at the mere thought of what was going through your brain. 

“i know what you're like.”

you froze in your place, horrified expression framing your sweaty face as the cicadas roared around you, framing the silence after that comment in an almost comedic manner. 

you watched as megumi continued to walk ahead, a bored look on his face once he turned around to wait for you to catch up at the edge of the tiny wasteland you’d both been training in, letting you wonder as you caught up to him just what gojo had told him before he’d first introduced the both of you.

you started spluttering out a mix of words in disbelief once you reached his side, but whatever you’d tried to say immediately got stuck in your throat as soon as you finally caught a better look at the man that had sparked the short lived argument.  

oh, fuck.

“who’s this?” you watched attentively as the muscles in toji’s arms bulged beneath his tight shirt at the tiniest movement, feeling your mouth water at the mere sight of them. 

god, you felt dirty just staring at him.

“my teacher.” megumi grunted, shoving his backpack off and flinging it into his dad’s chest, walking towards the bus stop further ahead without bothering to say goodbye, knowing he’d see you around sooner or later. 

“I thought that white-haired brat was his teacher,” toji grunted out, flinging the backpack over his shoulder as he turned to look down at you, quirking up a brow as he immediately noticed your nervous demeanour, a drop of sweat dripping down your temple before rolling down your neck and towards your exposed cleavage, green eyes following it’s whole journey and lingering on the spot where it disappeared.  

it’d been a while since toji had stared at someone this way. he hadn't looked twice at anyone, regardless of their attractiveness or willingness, ever since his wife died and tsumiki’s mom left. 

but that amount of time without anyone to touch or kiss or feel would have its toll on anyone, and toji was no exception. 

which is why he initially blamed it on that. 

neediness.

he doesn't feel anything for megumi’s teacher, you’re just too pretty and exposed and worked up to ignore, right? it’s not like he’d actually think of pursuing something with you. 

he snapped out of it once you spoke, expecting to meet an angered expression and an insult about his perversion once he raised his gaze, only to find you straight up ogling his arms and chest. 

the way he stares at your pretty, scrunched up face when you aren't looking, proves him wrong.

initially, you might've been able to attribute your clammy palms and sweaty skin to the blasting summer heat, or to the fact you’d just finished a four hour training session with the tiny grade two sorcerer who gojo had been training for the past few years. 

“I'm his co-worker,” you stuttered out, forcing yourself to look away from the veins that swelled in his arms and up to his green eyes, not wanting the man to see just how much he was affecting you. “satoru’s on a mission, so I'll be taking care of ‘gumi ‘till then.”

toji hummed, taking your gawking as an invitation to do his own, allowing his eyes to trail over your flustered expression and sweaty skin, lingering on the more exposed parts of your outfit, thanking whatever god was up there for the stupid heatwave that had hit their country as of late. 

“mission, huh?” toji snickered, turning his head to look at the boy who was sitting at the bus stop with one of the divine dogs at his side, resting his tired body against its black fur. “how long will y’be around?”

“well, until ‘toru comes back, I guess…” you trailed off, mouth going dry as you watched the man take a tiny step towards you, raising one of those big hands you’d been ogling before to brush against your cheek, a shiver wracking through your whole body at the light contact, his skin burning against yours, making you just how a man that ran as hot as that was able to survive in this weather, especially when he dressed like it was winter.

“y’had some dirt on y’cheek,” toji almost purred out, flicking his fingers to get rid of the grime that had probably stuck to you during the many times megumi’s divine dogs had flung you around. 

“oh, I'm probably covered in dirt,” you laughed out nervously, taking a step back to put the same distance as before between you two, wiping your cheek with the back of your hand while trying to ignore how electrifying his touch had felt. “I always seem to find myself taking an everything-shower after training with ‘gumi, he’s ruthless.”

toji fell silent, watching you as you shook your arms and head, probably trying to get rid of whatever debri that was still stuck to your body, grin pulling at the scar in the corner of his lips. “need me t’clean you up, that what you're saying?”

huh? 

you blinked stupidly as your mind attempted to process what he had just said. were you misunderstanding his words or his tone? or was he really suggesting what your mind had immediately jumped to?

that was not what you were saying, but you certainly would not be complaining if he did. 

you felt your cheeks warm as you imagined what that might look like: big, warm, calloused hands on your skin as you stood under the steady stream of the shower, hot water pouring over the both of you as he dragged a sponge over your skin, free hand resting on your tummy right above where you needed him most, groping and caressing the plus skin, body pressed tightly against his in such a way that you could just feel his growing cock pressing against your ba-

oh, what the fuck.

you imagined punching yourself in the face, snapping you out of the downright filth you were acting out in your mind with a man you had just met, not to mention, the father of your student. 

“jeez, pick your jaw up, ‘m messing with ya.” you grunted as two of his fingers landed under your chin, shoving your mouth shut with a shit-eating grin, clearly enjoying the fact that he had gotten such a reaction out of you with a mere joke. “‘s not appropriate f’me to flirt with ‘gumi’s teacher.”

“s-sorry.” you struggled to even push out that simple word, trying to figure out just what the hell had gotten into you to make you act like this, not even processing the fact that he had just admitted to flirting with you. 

were you ovulating? was it that time of the month already? or was toji’s overwhelming presence truly just enough to get you acting like a bitch in heat?

“old man,” you snapped out of it as you heard megumi shout out for his father from behind you both, “bus is coming.”

toji chuckled, raising a thumbs up to the boy in response before turning back to look at you, taking in your shaky figure with a smirk.

“which means I'll just hafta wait ‘till that blue-eyed brat comes back and you're not his teacher anymore.”

you blinked owlishly up at him, and toji could just see the cogs whirring and moving around in your mind, trying to make sense of what he'd just said. 

“give me y’number once he does. hope that offer to clean you up will still be available by then.” 

god, he was a big fat liar. if he had been telling the truth before, he would not be asking that, he would not be (for once) looking forward to seeing that white haired bastard, as it would mean he would be free to pursue you. 

toji walked away after dropping that bombshell, not having to turn to look at you to know that you were staring at him walk away, ignoring the way his son was glaring at him while he held a hand out to stop the bus. 

“what?” he grinned, pulling their transport passes out as the bus opened its doors, megumi’s divine dog curling around the boy protectively like it usually did. “your teacher's hot,”

“you disgust me,” megumi deadpanned, snatching the pass out of his father’s hand before boarding the bus, dog quickly following up the step with a wag of its tail, phone already out and ready to message tsumiki to complain about their father, leaving toji to do the same. well, not before he turned to sneak a final look at you. 

you had walked away from the field, heading towards a black car nearby he assumed had been sent by the school, phone in hand as you talked into the speakerphone, shaky voice ringing out in such a way even he could hear it. 

“ieiri, how wrong would it be for me to hook up with a future student’s father?”