#idk if i'll actually write more on this

[aparticularbandit]

The Road Less-- Yeah, Yeah, You Know: Chapter One

Summary: When Mikan finds a girl collapsed with a head wound, she can't help but help her out. Even if the girl very adamantly does not want to be helped.

For DR Rarepair Week 2024 Day Three: Self Care/Caring for the Other, hosted by @dr-rarepair-week-blog.

Chapter Rating: M for References of Alcoholism, Physical Abuse, and Child Abuse (aka Mikan references her life, so all of these triggers are potentially here). Fic Rating: M for Reasons Listed Above.

AO3

It was a poem they’d gone through in class earlier that day that did it.

Not that anything could really be blamed for this sort of thing.

Of course, if anything could be blamed for it, well, it would have to be Mikan herself.  She did make the choice to take a different route back to her place than she normally did.  Sure, she’d always been told it was the sketchier route, and sure, it went through some shady streets by other people’s estimations, but if she’s honest with herself, the better parts of town aren’t always really better.  If she takes the route she always takes, then she’ll still end up being….

She brings it on herself, of course.  She knows that.  Besides, all of that abuse, it just means they actually like her, doesn’t it?  Like how the boys on the playground used to pull on her hair or throw rocks at her or tease her – boys are only mean to girls when they like them, and some boys (and girls…and other people) never really grew out of that.  It’s certainly better than…than ignoring her, which people only really do when they don’t care, when they would be happier if she didn’t exist in the first place, and if she’s honest, everyone would probably be happier if she didn’t exist in the first place, which is why she’s always been more than okay when they—

They went through that poem in class earlier, and Mikan paid as much attention as she could, and the cute girl who sat next to her carved a few of the lines from it into her arm over lunch, and she’d cleaned her arm as much as she could and wrapped it up afterwards like she always did, and she didn’t say anything like she always did (because sometimes that helps people remember things, and that means they’ll do better in their classes, and how can you forget someone after using a knife to write words into their flesh), and when she started walking back to her place, she looked at the bandages covering her arm and thought of the lines now permanently etched into her skin (she can do her best to prevent the scarring, but that doesn’t mean it might not still happen) and decided it was time to take the road less traveled.

Or more traveled, maybe, just by people other than her.

But the thing is?

Mikan heard about how dangerous and treacherous these streets were from all of the people along her own street, from her mother and her mother’s many (near interchangeable) boyfriends, but it’s actually….

It’s not that bad?

If anything, it’s calmer.  Gentler.  The breeze stirs the leaves on the trees and Mikan smells cherry blossoms instead of sewage or alcohol or vomit from the drunks next door.  (Or blood, but that’s more often hers than not, and if she tries a little harder, she can still smell blood, and it’s still hers – the stain on her bandage, which probably her mother’s newest boyfriend will notice first, when he laughs at her for being so clumsy.)  The sidewalk isn’t cracked and crumbling here, the streets are mostly paved, and the houses look…nice.  If she listens, she can hear children laughing somewhere.

Mikan passes by an orphanage, and she hates herself for wishing it, but she thinks maybe it would have been better to be here.  But that’s…that’s selfish.  And it makes it sound like she doesn’t love her mother, which absolutely isn’t true – she loves her mother!  Even if her mother doesn’t exactly—

A loud schlump sound breaks into her thoughts.

Mikan recognizes that sound.  It’s the same sound as the drunks next door when one of them gets hit over the head and drops to the ground; it’s the sound of a heavy body dropping but not really down.  The sound of injury, usually.

And – as she always does (because sometimes that sound is someone she knows (never her mother, but occasionally one of her new boyfriends), not that that matters because they know her now, know that she can do exactly what she is about to do), Mikan rushes to the source of the sound.

If she hadn’t paid attention in class that day, if she hadn’t let her classmate carve those words into her arm, if she hadn’t paused before heading back to her place and chosen to take a new route, then she wouldn’t be here right now, and none of this would have happened.

Mikan rushes towards the sound, and she finds a girl around her edge, slumped against a wall, her dark hair pulled in two long ponytails, blood all over the top of her head and dripping down her face.

That’s when the shift happens, if it hadn’t happened earlier – Mikan switching from herself into, well, still herself, but the version of herself she’d like to be all the time, the one who doesn’t have to be scared or afraid or anxious, the one who has control and doesn’t have to resort to anything to be heard.  She makes her way to the other girl, kneels down in front of her, and murmurs, soothing, “I’m Mikan Tsumiki, and I’m here to help you.  I’m the best trained nurse in the area—”  She reaches out to take the girl’s hand in her own.

But the girl snatches her hand away and glares up at Mikan with cold red eyes.  “I’m fi—”  Then she collapses.

Mikan stares at the girl curiously for a moment.  When the girl doesn’t move again, she creeps forward and places two fingers on the pulse point at her neck.  Weak.  Wavering.  Fleeting.  She’s lost too much blood, probably, or that hit on her head did more damage than she’d predicted.  If it’s messed with her brain too terribly much, then there’s nothing she can do about that.  Mikan’s no brain surgeon; she’s a nurse.  There’s only so much she can do.

But what she can do is a lot.

~

It’s quite a bit later before the girl wakes up.

Notably, this is because Mikan has her hands on a lot of medicine that she probably shouldn’t have and wisely, in her estimation, decided to keep the girl out while she carried out all of her other checks and balances (it doesn’t look like brain injury, but she really can’t be sure without imaging technology that she doesn’t have), while she pulled what did not look like glass out of her head and then stitched her skull back up (which was really what she needed the medicine for; the girl didn’t seem like the sort who would stay still while she was doing all of that, and she certainly didn’t want to make things worse), while she bandaged up the other miscellaneous bits and pieces she found during her examination (she was gentle and she was careful and she didn’t do anything untoward), and while she, uh.

Well, she was just the slightest bit afraid of what the girl would do when she woke up.

So she may have, uh.

Strapped her down to the table.

Which of course is likely why the girl glares at her with fire in her eyes when she finally does wake up.

(Mikan was dozing.  She couldn’t just leave her patient alone when she definitely needed her help, and this little hovel separate from the place where she lives is actually....

Let’s just say Mikan likes being here better than she likes being there, and as long as she lets them know later that she was taking care of a patient, usually there’s no punishment for not showing up.  (There’s usually no punishment anyway because that would require either her mother or her mother’s current boyfriend or both of them to notice that she wasn’t there, and that only happens when something goes wrong.  Sometimes she’s grateful to be away when something goes wrong, even if things still go wrong for her when she gets back.))

What’s weird is that the girl isn’t yelling – not at her, not at the situation, not at anyone or anything that might be listening.  She’s not struggling against her straps; maybe she was before Mikan roused from her rest, but if she had, it certainly wasn’t enough to move the hospital bed or the bedsheets or the IV stand or anything, really.  And she’s not….

She’s not afraid.

(Or if she is, she’s really, really good at hiding it.

Mikan’s a little jealous, if she’s honest with herself, but that require being honest with herself, and Mikan’s not as good at that as someone else might want her to be.  She’s very good at deluding herself, actually.  It keeps her sane.)

The girl’s lack of fear sends Mikan back to stuttering, back to anxious, back to uncertain and unsure, and she stumbles over her words, tongue thick with barely waking, “L-l-like I said before, I’m M-M-Mikan Tsumiki.”  She stands and bows to the other girl.  “I-I-I’m—”  She swallows, stands, takes the words she’s about to say and strengthens herself with them, and then doesn’t stutter when she says, “I’m your nurse.  You collapsed with a head wound, and I made sure that you were—”

“I told you.  I’m fine.”

“You’re fine now,” Mikan gently corrects.  “Because I took care of you.”

The girl glares at her unblinking.  “I would have been fine.”

“You would have died.”

“That would have been fine.”  The girl should look away.  She shouldn’t mean that.  She should be softening the steel of those words by refusing to meet Mikan’s eyes, by acting as though she is tough and it doesn’t matter.

Except that this girl, whoever she is, is tough.  She continues to hold Mikan’s gaze with those intense red eyes.  Her tone doesn’t change.  She means exactly what she says.  In her estimation, it would be fine.

Ah.

She knows that feeling.

And because she knows that feeling, Mikan can’t tell this girl that it would not have been fine, no matter how much she may or may not believe that, because that would be like saying it to the version of herself who also believes it would be fine if she died.  (Except that a part of Mikan still desperately wants to live, and she suspects there’s something inside this girl that does, too.)

“W-w-well, um.”  Mikan glances down to her hands, all earnestness lost under that crippling gaze.  “I-I-I didn’t think it would…it would be, um.”  She stops herself.  Shakes her head.  “I won’t ask who…who hurt you, but.”  She licks her lips.  “But if you ever get hurt like that again, y-y-you should come and…come and f-f-find me.  I’ll make sure that y-y-you’re not….”  Her voice trails off, and she swallows.  “I’ll make sure that everything gets better.”

When the girl doesn’t say anything in response, Mikan glances up again, anxious sweat beading at her forehead.  The girl’s expression seems to have softened.  She’s still staring at her, but at least she doesn’t seem to be glaring at her anymore.  That’s…that’s good right?

“What if it’s someone else?” the girl asks, voice soft in the air between them.  “Would you help them, too?”

Mikan’s eyes widen, and she straightens.  “Y-y-yes!!”  She doesn’t smile, although she wants to do so, because the question means that this girl, whoever she is, actually sees some value in her.  Or, at least, in what she’s capable of doing.  “I-I-I don’t....”  Her gaze drops again, and she fidgets, pushing her uneven hair back out of her face.  “Everyone needs help sometimes, and I’m…I’m good at helping people.  E-e-even if…even if maybe they don’t think they should…should be.”

Only then does the girl’s gaze drop.  Maybe she’s considering it.  Thinking about it.  Maybe—

“Are you going to let me go?”

“Oh, oh, oh, y-y-yes!”  Mikan goes to the bed and starts unbuckling the straps.  “I-I-I was just worried you might…you might make things worse if you…if you tried to get out—”

“You were scared that I’d hurt you.”

“N-n-no!”  Mikan flinches.  “I-I-I m-mean, y-y-yes, b-b-but.  I-I thought if I-I explained, th-then—”

“You were right.”

Mikan flinches again as the last of the straps slips off, as the buckle clanks against the metal of the hospital bed, as the girl smoothly sits up, turns on the edge of the mattress as Mikan backs up, and doesn’t glance up at her.  “I-I-I…I was?”  She can hear her own voice growing higher, and she hates it the most when she squeaks.

“Yes.”  The girl pulls the IV out of her arm.  Then she pushes herself off of the bed and stands for the first time at her full height; to Mikan’s surprise, they’re the nearly the same size.  The girl seemed so much smaller than her – not frail, just small.  She still seems small now, but not in a way that makes her nonthreatening.  Just—

The girl meets Mikan’s eyes.  “Maki,” she murmurs.

“H-h-huh?”

“My name,” the girl says.  “Maki Harukawa.”  She doesn’t smile, but she flushes the slightest bit (probably from standing, not from anything else) when she says, “Thank you.”

Mikan blinks, and the girl disappears.

For a moment, Mikan whirls around, as though she might catch a glimpse of Maki again, but there’s nothing, no one.  She takes a deep breath in and crumples into the chair where she’d been dozing before.

She’ll probably never see her again.  That’s…that’s normal for random strangers (not normal for the drunks who live next door to her mother).  And that’s…that’s fine, probably.

(But Mikan wants to see her again.  Which is an awkward thing to want, considering it would mean that the girl was hurt somehow.  She doesn’t really want her to get hurt again.

Except….

Except she does.

(But Mikan is very, very good at lying to herself.  So she’ll lie to herself about that one, too.))

[dangerous-advantage]

jin ling, having done some stupid shit: my uncle's gonna kill me!

lan sizhui, serenely: it's ok, your other uncle's a necromancer

[raiiny-bay]

made this & then realized i wanted to make something else instead

[prince-liest]

One of my 666 extras ideas evolved into something that's almost certainly going to turn big enough to be a whole separate installment, I think!

[setewbro]

Gonna watch trainspotting. Can't wait until I see all the trains.

[reversedanatomy]

Finding Peace: Chapter 3

Summary: Reader and Darcy go to the bookstore and talk about R's big plans.

TW: swearing, talking about relationship issues

You stood in front of your bathroom mirror, fixing your hair after your morning shower and applying your skincare routine. First came toner, then serum, eye cream, lotion, and finally sunscreen. It was therapeutic the way you patted each application into your skin. You especially spent time pressing the eye cream into your eyebags, naïve to believe you’d relieve those dark circles in a matter of seconds.

You finished by brushing your teeth and scrunching leave-in conditioner into the mids and roots of your hair. You glanced into your own eyes through the mirror and forced a smile. Your daily routines made you feel secure, pretty, and slightly more confident despite your persistent anxiety.

You used to insist that Wanda should join you for every morning routine. You both had different wake-up times, but often she’d roll out of bed with a grunt to join you for a few moments of companionship. You two used to shower together, sharing the intimacy that came with massaging shampoo and conditioner into each others’ hairs. After, you’d both wait for the steam to defog from the mirror. You two would watch your reflections unveil as you laughed and hugged and shared kisses in the relaxation of your bathroom’s humidity.

Bargaining. You clutched the corners of your bathroom counter and felt tears begin to well from the corners of your eyes. You missed the routine, the intimacy, and the love so, so much. You weren’t religious, but if a god could bring Wanda back, you’d pray and pray and pray to them until they answered your calls. I’d give anything, you thought to yourself. I’ll go to church, I’ll go to therapy, I’ll deal with the drinking, I won’t complain about how bad it gets, you began brainstorming everything you could do to absolve yourself in the eyes of a higher being. Maybe then they’ll reward you with a visit from Wanda. Then we could talk, you continued as the tears asymmetrically fell from your eyes. Maybe then we could work things out and I could apologize for everything.

You brought the back of your hand to your eyes and wiped the tears. The sunscreen from your eyes intermingled with your tears, burning your eyes. You couldn’t help but shake your head, letting out a chuckle of disbelief as the stinging from your eyes caused you to wince. You reached for where your hand towel normally was but grabbed nothing. It was laundry day, and you messed up again by washing your hand towels without any backup.

You’d wait out the stinging by stumbling to your bedroom to dress yourself. You traced your fingers along the walls to exaggerate your minor, temporary blindness. You pulled a t-shirt laying on the top of your dresser and dabbed your eyes. A few heartbeats later, the stinging stopped, and you could make sense of your surroundings.

Your head was cloudy from all the memories of Wanda that pooled to the surface of your thoughts. What made everything worse was that the t-shirt you were holding was Wanda’s. It was from a band you two had seen together last summer. “For fuck’s sake,” you threw the shirt against the wall behind your dresser and turned towards your closet to put together an outfit for the day.

It took you some time, but you settled on a collection of neutrals to compliment the coming winter. You wore a form-fitting white t-shirt, a sherpa-lined brown jacket, and baggy blue jeans. Since the temperature was dropping, you pulled a yellow beanie over your head. You’d finalize the outfit with your white high-top sneakers.

You headed to the kitchen to begin brewing your first mug of coffee for the day. It was 10:11 in the morning. Darcy’s apartment was a 25-minute walk from your apartment, so you needed to leave in a little over an hour to make it on-time for the plans you had at the bookstore. You waited for your coffee to brew by grabbing a quick snack from the pantry. You had your coffee and ate light, assuming Darcy would want to go out for lunch later in the day.

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

The cold air bit against your skin as you strolled through the streets of Chicago towards Darcy’s apartment. You tucked your chin down to keep the air from numbing your face and reddening your cheeks. You didn’t think it was going to get this cold so early in the year. It was barely November, but it felt like early January. You clenched your arms against your body, hugging your jacket into you.

You arrived outside Darcy’s apartment complex at five-before noon. She lived in an old brick apartment building along a side street that stretched up only three stories. It was a small building, tucked away from the main roads to provide a preferable quietness when living in a bigger city. There were two large windows that peeked into the lobby, revealing old wooden walls and muddy carpet. It was… cute. You reached for your phone and quickly sent Darcy a text stating you were waiting outside. It was read almost immediately. Darcy replied she’d be out soon.

“You look gay,” Darcy shuffled out of the apartment lobby and met you by the front entrance.

“Is it the shoes?” You promptly replied, glancing down and clicking your heels together.

“Sure,” Darcy laughed and leaned in for a hug. You received it warmly and the two of you started towards the bookstore. Darcy originally picked her apartment based on how close it was to the nearest bookstore. She played it off like she needed easy access to textbooks for her studies, but you often found her staring a little too long in the romance fiction aisle. As if clockwork, Darcy added, “I’m glad you agreed to go to the bookstore with me, Y/N. I needed some new textbooks for school.”

“Aren’t you only halfway through your term?” You asked, already knowing the answer. Darcy shrugged.

“Can’t have too many books,” she replied, puffing her cheeks. You rolled your eyes and kept your gaze down towards your feet. There was an uncomfortable silence, one where you knew that Darcy was holding in her questions. You refrained making eye contact with her. You were worried she would catch on to the stiffness in your posture that came as a side salad to your anxiety.

You two rounded the corner several blocks down and reached the bookstore on the main road. Its grand appearance always caught you by surprise. You weren’t a big reader anymore, but you always enjoyed the hospitable ambiance of new and well-loved books lining aisle after aisle. You didn’t need to be a reader to fall in love with the solitude.

You turned to Darcy, who was well-acquainted with this bookstore already. She’d been living in the area for years, so she frequented it often for whatever she needed. She pulled you inside and led you immediately to the section on foreign languages. “I haven’t really been in this section, so forgive me if I can’t help you much,” she said as she started checking the shelves.

“You’re fine,” you smiled warmly. “I just appreciate you coming with me.” Darcy was quick to look for the books you needed, so you joined her immediately. You scrolled your fingers along the titles of the books, scanning for the letter “N.” You couldn’t find much until you came across a small English-Norwegian dictionary tucked away between books on Mandarin and Portuguese. Darcy perked up towards you when she saw what you pulled from the shelves.

“Oh, shit, you found one?” She met you by your side. “Is that all they have?” She looked up from the dictionary you were holding and rechecked the shelves. She let out a small, “huh” and came back to you.

“If it’s the only one, then maybe it’s a sign,” you leafed through the book. Darcy’s demeanor fell quiet, and she held her arm with her other hand.

“So… do you really want to move away?” Darcy’s eye’s started anxiously scanning the books lining the shelves. You closed the dictionary and stared at your shoes.

“Yeah. I told you. I think it’ll be good for my mental health to get away.” Silence. You could feel your heart stuttering against your chest. “I’ve been thinking a lot about what happened between Wanda and I, and I really want to just start over in general. I know I didn’t open up much about what happened between her and I, but it really fucking ruined me-“

“Y/N…”

“-and I haven’t been able to eat properly, think straight, sleep, or anything. I’ve been missing her so much.” You brought your hand to your mouth and held back your tears. “I’m sorry. Every time I think about her, I just get emotional. I don’t know what to do except leave.” Darcy put her hand on your arm in a nervous attempt to console you, but you were already in the process of breaking down.

“Hey. It’s going to be okay,” Darcy smoothed her voice out and gently traced her thumb along your arm. You nodded, sniffling. Clutched in your hand was the dictionary. You stared at the words and imagined yourself in Norway. You pictured a life in that small, unnamable town, surrounded by mountains that stretched over the horizon. You could almost breathe in the fresh, cold air that hinted at the coming of the first frost.

“If I move there and it doesn’t work out, you have my full permission to tell me you told me so,” you glanced at Darcy from the side of your eye.

“And if it does work out,” Darcy pushed away from you with a smile, “I get first dibs on knowing what kinda girls you’re taking home. I heard the redheads there are really cute.” You squinted your eyes in half disgust, half denial. Darcy was always right, though. Who’s to say that she wouldn’t speak this luck into existence?

“You’d get first dibs on knowing everything regardless,” you reassured her. You lifted the dictionary up into her line of sight and gave it a small shake. “We should really check out, though, unless you need to get those textbooks you were talking about.”

“It’s only halfway through the semester. I think I’ll be fine.” Darcy lifted one finger, signaling for you to wait. She reached into her purse and pulled out her phone. “If you’re going to move to Norway, though, we should at least take some pictures of your baby steps. Momma’s proud of you, y’know.” You wanted to throw up, but this was Darcy, and this was the reason you stayed so long in this friendship.

“Fuck, fine, but you’re using my phone. Your camera quality is shit, and, if we’re creating memories, I’d at least like to be able to recognize myself when I look back on them twenty years from now.” You reached into your coat pocket and produced your phone. “Also, there’s still no guarantee I’ll be moving there.”

Darcy took your phone with a grunt and told you to line up against the bookshelves with your new dictionary. You looked like a child at her first day of preschool, only taller and more butch. Darcy held up the phone. “Say cheese.”

Ding.

“Um. Y/N?” Darcy lowered your phone and you saw her swipe at a notification. You suddenly felt off.

“Yeah?”

“That was your email. You got a notification. That Norway job wants to schedule an interview.”

You felt breathless.

[emeryleewho]

I don't even really know how to "promote" this, but I made a kickstarter for my new book and it launches next week. You can sign up to get updates when it launches here.

I literally don't know if this is true, but I have been told that more "follows" on the pre-launch page means you're more likely to get boosted by kickstarter? So if you're interested in a drag queen romcom by me, please considering clicking the "notify me on launch" button in the hopes it helps make getting the word out a bit easier. If not, reblogging is also nice! I will make a more useful post when the project launches! Also, if you click the link you can see a preview of the cover art oooooh!!! Okay, bye!

[cuubism]

hello friends. despite my 9 million existing dreamling wips i'm feeling the need to branch out a bit for the sake of my mental variety. what pairing other than dreamling should i write a little something for? could be romantic or platonic

other way of phrasing i guess: any pairings you really want to see more fics for in the fandom?

[stergeon]

> FERDINAND II.

And so your PLANT shall henceforth be known as FERDINAND II.

The thought of needing to inform FERDINAND I of his having a namesake makes you a bit ill, but you are already hard at work devising several plausible excuses for the gesture. Something about how you've named it after the one most invested in its naming, or how it is similarly prone to drooling. Yes. Yes, you will be able to deflect quite easily, should the need arise. It has nothing to do with your fondness for FERDINAND or your desire for a substitute in his imminent absence, no—again, you are not so prone to sentimentality. It's about the drool.

Well, anyway. Best to move on with your day and think about something else, lest you grow maudlin or cultivate further affection for the PLANT. May the GODDESS be merciful and never cause you to develop inclinations that could be described as paternal.

Now that your plant has received sufficient care, it is time for COFFEE. You set to making your morning brew. By CHANCE, there happens to be sufficient water remaining in the kettle for FERDINAND I to have TEA, should he wish it.

Per your TIMEPIECE, it is now a quarter to eight. You have made excellent progress on your PRE-BREAKFAST TO-DO LIST thus far: the only remaining task is to remove FERDINAND. You are starting to get rather peckish and would like to be rid of him quickly, but over the past week, you have found that extracting the man from YOUR QUARTERS is a more arduous task than it ought to be.

#007 | << | <- | -> | JOURNAL | HOW TO PLAY | ALL POSTS

[kandicon]

Is nobody talking abt Nova Storm being a potential trans woman?? Like she not only takes Thundercracker's place but also has his sonic booms?? The show has gone over nonbinary people and gender conversations already, this is not out of the relm of possibility at all.

If nobody's gonna talk about it that just means I'm gonna talk EXTRA about it. Headcanon time.

Okay, so obviously Starscream was the one who did the surgery. He'd be all to happy to have unique colors w the removal of Thundercracker's blue and be the only boy in the group. The chance to stand out even more amongst his trine AND a free opportunity to stick his hands in some internals and do as he pleases?? HELL yes.

He was only a little upset that Nova Storm wanted to keep her sonic booms and he couldn't take that mechanism to stick into his own internals. Just a little.

Skywarp started doing makeup because Nova Storm took interest in it. Which of course meant Starscream also got into it too because he would not let his trine walk around with messy lipstick! Don't they know they're an extension of himself?! Their image is his image and they will look the best. Both Skywarp and Nova Storm have shaky hands from their outlier abilities. Good thing no-smudge paint can last without wear for months, no war or prison could ever get in the way of a perfect face of makeup.

Nova Storm realized she was a femme during the war, which is the main reason she got Starscream to do her transition and not a less biased, less unethical actual doctor. It had downfalls, but it was also one of the trine's closest times during the war. The three of them, all sitting around a room meticulously planning "Thundercracker's" death for months, because Nova Storm's a writer and no way she's gonna give up the chance to act out one her stories in real life. Skywarp is so proud of the fake tears she made at the news to this day (Starscream learned mascara just so Skywarp could wear some that day to get it all runny). Y'all will think that the Decepticons' most guarded secret has something to do with the war, or a Shockwave experiment, but no. The Decepticons' closest kept secret is Nova Storm's transition.

Everyone can kinda agree that it was probably the best for Nova's transition to be secret, "Thundercracker" was a very public figure as one of Starscream's trine. It would have been an easily available weakness for other Decepticons or Autobots to attack to hurt Starscream or Nova Storm. But the main reason was for the tragic death story potential and siblings scheming together.

Skywarp and Nova Storm definitely had their whole finishing each other's sentences before her transition, but they totally played it up even more afterwards.

Nova Storm got so happy and euphoric when people started to refer to her and Skywarp as sisters (usually with a negative "s" word before it. Ex. Scary, sinister, spooky, etc.). She still feels euphoric over it, but it's much more normal for her now and then she realizes she feels less about it because is so much more normal and common now and that makes her even happier. It's just a thing for her now!! It's a correct thing and it's natural and that's exactly how it's supposed to be.

[solradguy]

What's that post that's like "that thing that happens to artists where they've been drawing their favorite guy for so long that their compositions start becoming more and more abstract and they upload a piece one day titled 'season 4 scooby-doo' and it's a surreal nightmare"

Me with these Sol compositions I've just doodled in my sketchbook

[jezunya]

Angels can sense love (and other virtues), while demons can sense lust (and other vices).

Early on, Crowley can sense Aziraphale's little spikes of lust towards him, and he maybe thinks a time or two about tempting the angel into a serious sin, maybe even something worth falling over...? But he also genuinely likes Aziraphale, more and more each time they meet, and so he holds back. Gets him to try some human food and think a little independently from Heaven's company line. Calls it a win just to have someone to talk to, to have someone who understands even a little, and even more a win when he gets Aziraphale to relax and enjoy himself once in a while.

And then, of course, that sense of lustful, covetous desire coming from the angel wanes and eventually vanishes altogether. Oh, he still senses it occasionally, especially when it comes to acquiring a particularly rare manuscript. But it's never directed towards Crowley anymore, hasn't been for decades, maybe even centuries if he thinks about it.

It's not disappointing. Not really. He wouldn't want to tempt Aziraphale into anything that could actually be harmful to him, after all. Hasn't wanted to do that since sometime back in the Old Testament times, to be honest. It was just... nice? (Ugh.) To know he was wanted, at least in that way. And now that's gone, apparently, Aziraphale's physical desire for him having cooled as they've become friends over the millennia.

(He's still got it, though, if his success inspiring lust and envy in humans when a job requires it is anything to go by. Just can't inspire it anymore in the one being he'd be particularly interested in exploring it with...)

What a shock it is, then, when Aziraphale asks quite desperately one day, after they're finished with Heaven and Hell and their attempts to wipe the Earth from existence, if he can make love to Crowley -- but then also rushes to assure Crowley that it's alright if the answer is no! That what they have now is absolutely perfect! It's only that Crowley is so beautiful, and Aziraphale feels he's half gone out of his mind at times through the long centuries trying to ignore how distractingly much he simply wants to touch him, hold him, caress him... And now that they're here, together, and trying to be honest with each other, trying for open communication, Aziraphale doesn't want to keep this to himself any longer, wants it all out in the open and to know Crowley's thoughts on the matter so that he shall know how to act going forward. It's an excited, blundering, mess of a confession, ending on a stiff-upper-lip determination that most people think is so very English but don't know that Aziraphale actually invented it and that the Brits have just been following his lead all this time.

And Crowley has no idea how to respond, questions getting caught in his throat, tangled around his forked tongue. Because, what? What?!

He watches his angel's face start to crumble as he struggles, and finally his protests take shape: He could sense when Aziraphale stopped wanting him like that! It's been years and years and years! Without a single whiff of lust coming off Aziraphale when he looks at Crowley!

Which, Aziraphale replies, is simply not possible. Because, honestly, he's only come to desire Crowley more over the years: sensually and sexually, yes, but also as a friend and confidante, also romantically. Tenderly. He quite desires Crowley in every way it is possible to do, he thinks.

And really, Aziraphale goes on, feathers a little ruffled now, Crowley needn't pretend or make excuses -- if he doesn't want to be with Aziraphale in that way, he will absolutely respect that. There's no reason to pretend he can't sense how Aziraphale feels, just as Aziraphale has been able to feel Crowley's love for him growing, starting with those bits of affection and interest all the way back in Eden, through to the very purest, most all-encompassing love he's been able to sense from him these last few years, after everything.

But demons can't sense love, Crowley has to remind him a bit tetchily, only vices! Things that lead to sin and degradation and unhappiness! So it's not actually the same at all!

And then he watches Aziraphale make a pretty perfect Shocked Pikachu Face, not that the angel would understand the reference if he told him.

But Aziraphale starts to smile after a moment, even if his eyes are shining with tears at the same time, and the angel breathes that it's not a vice to wish to be close to someone whom you love, and whom you know loves you in return.

The penny drops.

Aziraphale never stopped wanting him -- he just also started loving Crowley at some point.

[cloudcountry]

i'm noticing that when people request things and i write it for them, sometimes the people i write for dont reblog or give me any feedback. ^^ its starting to get a bit irritating when i take the time to write something and i just get a like from the person. the twst fandom has been talking about this since forever but literally the least you can do is reblog. seriously.

[samposillies]

[opalescentdreemscape]

Omg Simon's part of the Stardew Valley crossover is so wholesome! But ngl I have an angst worm wriggling..

What if our dear farmer toggled the Shrine of Challenge and wanted to test their prowess on their own? Maybe Simon wanted to relax that day but doesn't restrict the farmer from conquering the mines alone. Or maybe he wanted to try out the dangerous mines with the farmer but got caught up with something out of his control and they had to go without him?

Either way, Simon gets worried the farmer hasn't returned at the set time they both agreed on, and he trudges down into the caves only to find his partner (in crime) laying face down and some of their valuable loot lost? They clearly have been bested, and Simon huffs in frustration, both at himself for letting them go alone and at them for not knowing when to bail, as he carries the limp farmer back home to safety.

I'm gonna stop there so this doesn't get super long, but I wanted to share the brainrot ejfjrjfdjsj

- Biscuits 🌺

DUUUUUUDE!!!

He was definitely with the farmer when they discovered the shrine, but they both had so many questions and so little time to do anything about those questions that they just shrugged and left the mines, promising each other that they'd go back soon and figure out what it did. Then they ended up having several days in a row where they were so busy with the farm that neither of them even thought about it until one day when the farmer was paying Marlon a visit to sell some old gear of Simon's. Naturally, the farmer asked Marlon what it was, and got SO excited by his answer that they nearly forgot to sell the gear in their haste to leave and tell Simon about it.

Simon was a little more reserved about the whole thing, but agreed it would be worth experimenting on. Except that he really didn't have the energy or the desire to go see right that minute, but the farmer did. So the farmer decides to go by themselves, with his knowledge and the promise to be home by 11pm that night. It was already 6, they clearly wouldn't be able to be gone for too long, and this was bothering them enough that he knew neither of them would have any peace until they got to the bottom of it (literally and figuratively).

He can't help having this nagging feeling that he should've gone with, though. And after about two hours, he's anxious enough that he can't stand still anymore, and he decides to go check on things only to not be able to find his farmer. He vaguely notices some of the weird stuff in the mine (glowing green ore??), but is so focused on getting to them that none of it even registers, and then he finds the farmer: bloodied, bruised, barely breathing. Their weapon is still locked tightly in their grip, but other than that the farmer show no signs of life, and Simon's heart drops into his stomach at the sight of them like this. (He barely notices the things that spilled out of their pockets and bag when they fell, but when they bring it up afterwards he just tells them that the loot wasn't his priority and they hush up about it.) He's quick to scoop them up into one arm, holding their battered body closely, and practically sprints to Harvey's clinic, desperate to get you fixed up and conscious so he can yell at you for scaring him like that.

The good part? At least Harvey doesn't have to get you evac'd to the nearest city hospital! Just barely though. Still, Simon doesn't let you out of his sight for 2 weeks, and he sure as hell never lets you go to the mines alone again.

~~~~~~~

But like actually what a great concept, like the angst potential is absolutely there and I can see it going sooo many ways more poorly for Simon and his farmer. Thanks for sharing your idea with me!!! (Also sorry it wasn't *more* angsty, I haven't written angst in ages and I'm rusty lol.)

[every-sanji]