#it came out of nowhere while i was doing flat colors but it was a little hysterical to me so im keeping it

[clitoris-maximus]

I FORGOT TO POST THIS HERE WHAT

[whocaresstillthelouvre]

Shining Din Djarin x Female Reader

Rating: Explicit. 18+ (Minors DNI) Summary: You want Mando to make you shine. Warnings: Smut, oral (m receiving), exhibitionism (you let Din watch you masturbate), p in v sex, creampie (reader has an implant), light sub/dom vibes, Din gets handcuffed by his own binders, sensory deprivation with the help of Din's helmet. Words: 3,735 A/N: This idea has been dancing around in my head for the past week, thanks to @frannyzooey for her thot night post and kind motivation. Also, shout out to "Ghost In The Machine" by SZA. I dunno man, this is the first time I've ever written Din and wow, he was fun.

Masterlist

Mandalorians want for nothing, so why did he want you so bad? 

Months of you joining him on his hunts, a damned demand of Karga. “She’s young and capable, she’ll be good for my little friend to have someone else to take care of him. I won’t take no, you owe me.” 

Your little trinkets taking up precious cargo in his small ship, your pretty face always shining through the display tempting him to give it all up just for a glimpse of the color of your soft skin, your beautiful body keeping him up and frustrated at night while you sleep soundly on the cot you insisted you needed. The only reason why he caved is because he was tired of you sneaking into his pod and leaving his blankets smelling like you. 

The kid, the damn kid loves you, adores you. He’s pretty sure he loves you more than he loves him. The way you talk to him with your sweet voice, the way you run over to him whenever he lets out a frustrated cry, the way his kid looks held in your arms as you soothe him.

He was frustrated, he was at his breaking point. You’re so beautiful and so delicate and yet you call him out on his shit, you keep him in line. He’s never wanted anybody like he wants you.

He hated facing you after stepping out of the fresher, always feeling like you can look behind the beskar he’s covered in. Like you know he just came on the shower wall imagining the cold, flat metal is the warm, silky skin of your tits. 

Tonight, in the middle of nowhere on this backwater planet, you trounce around the fire in your gauze sleep gown, smiling and laughing as the kid chases you. You look like an angel, lit by the flames licking across your skin casting your body in a deep amber glow. He tries to focus on the gun he’s cleaning to keep his attention off of you but he can’t stop staring. He counts the minutes until it’s the kid’s bedtime. He has to do something about this, either he needs to take you back home or he needs to feel how your cunt feels wrapped around his cock. Taking you home would be easier. 

——

“Well, that didn’t take long,” you say, leaning against the opening of the ship. 

He nods at you, his helmet still downcast focused on cleaning his armor. He’s gotten used to you obviously, he’ll at least remove a piece of armor in front of you. Never the helmet, you understand that, but seeing him without his usual chest piece makes you so wet he might as well be fully naked.

You’re going mad, the Crest isn’t a big ship and he’s a big man. If you have to feel the cool touch of beskar against your skin as you move past him one more time you just might explode. 

You’re used to getting what you want, you’re smart, you’re clever, you’re resolute. Like Karga always tells you, “you have spunk kid, nobody will ever be able to tell you no.” That’s why you put the white nightgown on, he might be wearing a helmet, but you can always tell just how much he likes what you’re wearing by how hard you feel his stare behind that faceless mask, you really feel it whenever you wear this. 

“He’s tired,” you walk down the ramp, “I think all I did today was play with him, don’t know why he needed so much attention.” 

“He knows you’ll always give him it.”

“Really?” You roll your eyes as you sit across the fire from him. “At least he’ll sleep through the night, you’re welcome by the way.” 

“Hm,” he nods, still preoccupied by shining his armor. 

“Think it’s shiny enough, big guy?” You lean over, your hands resting on your knees, the neckline of your dress dipping farther down as you lean forward to look at him above the fire.

“Just about,” he’s rubbing his chest plate harder and faster… you know he’s avoiding looking over at you. 

“I love how your armor reflects the flames,” your voice coming out lower and huskier. “I love being able to watch the fire burn on your chest, like your heart’s been set aflame.”

His hand pauses, the cloth he was using sits idle against the metal. His helmet tilts up, you feel his eyes back on you. 

“Is it shiny enough for me to see that now?” 

A single nod before he lifts his armor over his head and attaches it. “I can see,” you whisper.

He stares forward, his eyes are on you, something has shifted in the air of this small circle around the fire.

You lean even more forward, the plush of your breasts almost spilling out of your dress. You watch his chest rise as he takes a deep breath in. 

“I wish I could shine like you,” your confession leaving your mouth as you run a hand up and down your neck and chest.

“You shine,” the modulated voice sizzles through you.

“Yeah? How bright can I shine for you tonight?” Your hand dipping underneath the fabric of your dress petting back and forth across your breasts.

“As bright as you want for me.”

“Sure about that? I can burn really bright. Can I see if I burn bright in your armor?”

He straightens, sitting taller and nods.

You rise off the rock, grabbing the bottom of your dress as you stand, lifting it up over your head.

You pad over to him naked, the crisp breeze of the forest hitting your skin. It truly feels like you’re the only two people on this whole planet. His hands clench into fists as you stand in front of him. 

“Can’t see much, just the outline of my body in the flickering light. What do you see?”

“You,” the modulated crackling as he chokes out, “all of you.”

You lift one of his hands, grabbing the edge of his glove. “Can I?” 

He nods. 

You remove it. Thick fingers, well manicured short nails, trails of veins running through strong muscles. Your cunt begins to weep as you think of what his hand would feel like between your legs. You’ve seen his bare hands before, sometimes he gives the kid it to entertain himself with, sometimes he needs his hand bare to repair something. But, you’ve never seen it this close. It’s the only body part you’ve seen of his, you imagine the rest of him to be just as golden, just as toned, just as thick as his hand. 

You rest it on your hip, a moan escapes your mouth at the contact. He lets out a huff of modulated air as he grips your skin. 

“Maker,” you whisper into the night sky, just his hand on you igniting something powerful. He tests you, running a lazy line up to your chest and back down to your hips, the path sets your skin ablaze. You want him to go lower, you want one of his thick fingers to push inside, you want him to feel how wet you are.

“See, sometimes you shine too bright, and it does things to me. Sometimes I can’t look away and it makes being around you really hard for me and I have to sneak my hand down at night ‘n try to dull that ache. I think you feel the same way… sometimes I can hear you in that fresher,” his head raises towards you, his grip tightening now searing against your skin, “the walls are thin.”

“I hear you… I-I listen.” Maker, his voice. You’ve never heard his voice this way, the shame dripping out of the tinny speakers.

Your eyebrow raises at his confession. “You listen to me?”

A solemn nod, downcast.

“Hey,” you touch the edge of his helmet, lifting it so he can look at you. This is the first time you’ve ever touched it. In fact, this is the first time you’ve actually touched him, besides a quick brush as you move past or put the baby in his arms. “I like that. Would you watch me if you could?” 

His helmet nods in your hold. 

You can feel the tensity radiating off of him, you know he’s a hunter you know that under all of those layers he’s screaming to get out, to attack you, to make you his bounty. 

“You know, I see you hunt people all of the time. I can’t explain what it does to me to see your big body in the distance walking towards us and the ship, your bounty cuffed and subservient to you. I love the power you hold, but I think you’d like someone else to have that power over you. Am I right?”

“Yes.” 

“Can I have that power over you?” 

“Yes.”

“You want to watch me?” 

He nods.

You turn away from him, grabbing the blanket folded on the rock you were using earlier to look up at the stars with the kid, laying it on the ground by the fire. You settle yourself on it, the warmth from the flames heating your body. You lean back on your hands, locking your knees together. 

“Tell me what you want to see, you’re such a being of few words, talk to me.”

“Open your legs.”

You separate your legs, spreading them open, your pussy is on full display for him, dripping for him. His hands rest on his knees as he leans forward. 

“Touch yourself,” he whispers out.

You trail your hand down to in between your legs, rubbing a line from your clit to your hole. 

“Am I shining here for you?”

“Yes,” the modulator crackles as he hisses.

Your fingers light a trail around your clit, your hips cant up whenever you rub against the tight bundle of nerves. You’re putting on a show for him, biting your lip and staring straight forward into the small window of his helmet. Even though you can’t see them, you know his eyes are only focused on you. You moan into the night, tilting your head back to look at the stars as your finger dips into your entrance. 

You can hear his breathing over the squelchy sound of your finger pumping in and out of you, your head turning back down towards him when you hear a low groan. His hands are gripping his knees, he’s leaning over as far as he can as he watches you fuck yourself. 

The way his large shoulders are rising and falling rapidly as his breathing quickens makes your body ache, your palm knocks against your clit as you add another finger and fuck yourself.  

“Do you want me to cum for you like this?” 

“C-c-can I touch you when you do?”

Oh, his voice. It’s so heavy and yet so light. You’ve never heard it like this, he sounds so young, so excited, so unlike the scary Mandalorian that secretly intimidates you, not that you’d ever let him know. 

“Come here,” you shuffle your feet wider, spreading your legs as far as you can. “Kneel down.”

He moves lightning quick, a dash of metal appearing in between your legs. He’s so fucking big, so fucking broad, so fucking handsome, so fucking strong, he drives you crazy and all you’ve ever seen of him is his hand. 

He takes his other glove off and throwing it to the side before tentatively placing his hands on your knees, the feel of his rough palms planting against your soft skin bringing you closer to your climax. 

“Cum for me,” he whispers. You wish he didn’t have that damn helmet, you wish his real voice could float across the air and land against your cunt. 

His hands grip you harder as your hips begin to rise and fall while you writhe against the soft blanket, your cunt tightening around your fingers as you pull yourself onto the cliff and leap down into the ocean of your pleasure. 

You don’t break eye contact with Mando, his firm stare you feel behind that damned black shield shattering your heart and your pussy into a million pieces as you scream out into the vast wilderness of the night. 

His hands chart a path across your knees, his touch so gentle versus the way he was just clutching you as you came for him. 

“Did I shine for you?” Your voice comes out smaller and more delicate than you wanted. 

“Brightly.” 

“Can I make you shine bright for me?” 

“Yes.”

“Can I have my way with you, the way I want it? The way I’ve dreamed about taking you?” You sit up, his hands still rub your legs, as if once you’ve given him permission to touch you it’s all he wants to do now. 

He nods. 

You turn your head to the side, looking at all of his now clean weapons laid out on the table. The binders are still there, their presence has been on your mind since you saw him pick them up earlier to clean. 

“Can I borrow something from over there?”

“What?”

“Can I borrow your binders?”

“Y-yes.”

You rise up off the blanket, moving quickly to pick them up, as if you don’t do this right now, he’s going to back out. You’re now the hunter. You pick them up in your hand, they’re heavier than you thought, the metal is cool against your touch.

“Can I cuff you like I caught you… like you’re my bounty?”

His deep growl as he tips his head back shoots a wave of pleasure through your body, you can only assume it matches what he’s currently feeling. You love that the two of you are now sharing in each other’s pleasure instead of hiding it behind the thin metal walls of a spaceship. 

“Yes.”

You can’t hide your smile as you stalk towards him, like he’s now caught and you’re ready to get your reward. He hasn’t moved from where he knelt in front of you as he watched you fuck yourself.

“Can you take your vambraces off for me?”

He deftly removes them without a word, laying them next to him.

“Can you do something else for me?” 

He nods.

“Can you show me how to turn your volume and display off in your helmet? You saw my cunt, you heard me fuck myself, but you’ve never felt my pussy or mouth. I want you to only feel it now.”

“Dank farrik,” he grunts. “Yes.” 

He picks up a vambrace, putting in a couple of codes, his fingers driving you crazy as they move across the small buttons. 

“Press this when you want it,” he pants out as he hands it to you.

“Thank you. Put your hands in front, raise them up.” 

He follows your instructions. He looks so good like this, kneeling in front of you ready to serve, you like having this power over him. This must be how he feels whenever he catches his prey.

You grab one of his arms, pushing the sleeve up of his flight suit. His skin is just as bronzed as you expected it to be, born that way, hidden away for years underneath fabric and armor. You do the same with the other arm, the sight of his toned and hairy forearms causing a wave of heat to spread over your body.

You put a cuff over his wrist, locking it in place. You look up at him, checking to make sure he’s okay with this. He nods his approval as you slip the other cuff on and lock it. He’s now bound, still kneeling, his thick legs supporting him as he lowers his hands down. 

“Good?” You whisper as you stand tall in front of him. “Lay on your back, put your arms over your head.” 

You’ll never not be shocked at how big he is, yet how easily he moves in his large body. He takes up the whole blanket. Your mouth waters as you notice how his pants are tented as he lays down for you.

“I promise I won’t remove any more armor or your helmet, but I will help myself to you. I want you to be as loud as you can be, let yourself go, let me have the power, you deserve it. I’m going to turn off the display and your sound, is that okay?”

“Yes, Maker, yes.”

“If you need me, say Lothal,” you hit the button he showed you, Din’s head thuds against the dirt as you imagine he’s now cast in complete darkness and silence. You listen to his deep breathing as you look down at him. Fuck, this is going to be good. 

You settle on the ground kneeling between his spread legs, just like he did for you. Your hands move across the rough fabric of his flight suit, his hoarse groan rumbles through his body when you caress his thighs.

“That’s it, that’s it baby,” you whisper to nobody, the thrill of seeing him like this letting go for you makes your head spin. 

The shape of his hard cock straining against the zipper of his flight suit beckons you. You run a hand across it, his whole body shudders. He’s panting, the sounds of his struggle soaring into the air causing goosebumps to prickle against your skin and your cunt to clench.

You lick your lips as you unzip the zipper, grabbing the heft of him and lifting it out. Maker, Maker, Maker. He’s so wide and firm, just like you knew he would be. Swollen, throbbing, fucking gorgeous, precum leaking down his tip.   

He lets out a rasped “ahhh” as you wrap your fist around his length. His skin is so soft, so silky, so firm. Your thumb swipes across his tip, collecting the precum on the pad of it, bringing it to your mouth to taste him. He tastes delicious… salty and musky. You sit back and watch him lay there vulnerable only for you, his exposed cock twitching in the light of the fire. Your head, heart, and core are heavy with want for this mystery of a man… you wonder if anybody has ever had him like you do right now. 

“Mesh’la?” His voice breaks you out of your daze. Mando’a, you’ve never heard him speak it. You make a note to yourself to look that word up on your datapad later. 

“I’m here,” you say before realizing he can’t hear you. You place a hand on his thigh and gently squeeze it as you lay in between his thick thighs, his legs caging you in. 

You angle your head forward and seal your mouth over the head of his cock, his whole body shivers as you suck him. He feels so good in your mouth, you love the slight stretch of your lips as you move his length down your throat. 

Your eyes water as you take him all the way down, his tip hitting the back of your throat making you gag around him. You slide him out of your mouth, grabbing him at the base and slapping his length against your lips, you revel in the sting it leaves against your skin as you stick him back in and bob your mouth up and down, your tongue tasting the salt of his skin. 

You hollow your cheeks around him, the combined sounds of ecstasy coming out of the speakers of his helmet mixed with the slurp of your lips soundtrack the night as his hips begin to lift when he begins fucking into your mouth. 

You know he’s close, the way his moans garble, the way his hips begin to stutter as you swirl your tongue against him. He chokes out a protest as you slip him out of your mouth, leaving him pulsing. You’re selfish, you want what you want and he’s given you the opportunity tonight to take whatever you want from him. 

You grab his vambrace before sitting down and straddling his thighs. Reaching down you grab his cock, angling him to rub between your soaked folds, the tip bumps against your swollen clit and you yelp. 

You want him to watch, you want him to hear. You hit the button on his vambrace, his helmet instantly pops up, the black T of his helmet angled to look right at the apex of your thighs. 

“Wanted you to see this,” you say as you rise up, grabbing his cock and slowly sinking yourself down on it. 

Your body accepts all of him as you roll your hips, getting comfortable around the feeling of being stuffed so full of him.

“You feel so good in me, I knew you would, let me do the work, let me fuck you,” you whimper as he stretches your tight hole. 

You use him to fuck yourself, he lays perfectly still like you asked him, you never imagined he’d listen so well to your instructions. He’s panting for you, his arms still raised above his head, his wrists straining against the cuffs, hands forming tight fists as you begin to pound him. 

You move your hand down to start rubbing circles around your clit, you’re on the edge of another orgasm, you can tell he’s even closer. 

“You can cum for me, I have the implant, I want to feel you pump your cum inside me, cum for me Mando.”

His helmet bobbles as his body shudders underneath you.

It destroys you, the feel of his big cock spearing you as he empties himself into you, the sound of the garbled words he’s grunting as he tilts his hips up into you, the feel of your fingers tracing your clit, the heat of the fire warming your already feverish body. 

You strangle his cock as you orgasm, your slick mixing with his spend inside you as you lean forward on him, laying your body on top of his. You reach up and remove both cuffs, throwing them to the side as he shakes each hand out. You stare into his helmet, you can make out the reflection of your face in the black T of his visor. 

“I can see myself shining in you now,” you say as he wraps his arms around you. 

[fatgumsurpremacy-remastered]

Vox making a sinner his housespouse Drabble

Tw: (50’s) Period typical views of the nuclear family, entrapment, manipulation, gaslighting nuclear “family”, threats of violence, noncon touching

@omniuravity

I can just imagine the look on his face one day when you walk into his establishment looking for directions to where you’re supposed to go. A new sinner, someone just trying to pull themselves up as quick as possible.

And so polite too!

He’d charm you with a welcoming air and a quick gesture into his office, trying to offer you jobs in tv while you turn each one.

Smart.

When you highlight some of your skills he feels a course of electricity jolt through him, something more human than hid metal, and wired bodies.

“Have you thought of maid services?”

It was the first thought to come to his mind and one he noticed you cringed at, but shrugged towards.

“What could it hurt?”

A grin grew up his face and for the first few months he had a car driving you from where ever you’d need to go, so long as you offered him company at the end of the day. A small chat in his office turned to nights at an old fashioned drive through, turned into dances under the darkest part of the pride ring.

Yet he could tell you weren’t impressed, so he broadcast you on television, your services, your personality, making offhanded remarks about how perfect your body was. All things you’d oullined you didn’t want when you began your services. All things he promised he wouldn’t do, so when you saw a 50’s cartoon drawing of yourself thrown up on screens you were naturally livid.

Bringing it up to Vox you made sure to outline your disappointment, and Vox seethed internally. He had you walking to your jobs that week before he called you one morning, your apartment exploding in both your tv, watch, and phone ringing.

“Vox?”

“Heyyy doll! Nice to hear from you- hey, I need a small favor if you can manage it?”

You bit your lip in worry, hoping he wasn’t angry enough to hurt you.

“Yeah what-“

“How about now!” He asked cheerfully, sounding a bit pressed on time, a tad unhinged. And underlay stood a more true sound.

“Im outside already.”

You grumbled a small yes before he ended the call with a giddy chuckle, waiting for you to get your rear outside. When you stepped out the souped up company car that he usually had driven for you was nowhere to be seen. Instead- in its place a bright blue Buick limited, trimmed with a shiny red, windows finished with a shiny white. His face grined out the main window, sharp, flat teeth blinking oddly in the red lights of hell.

“Jump on in!” He exclaimed- patting the white leather seats, and barely waiting for you to take a seat before snapping you into his can, fastening the two seatbelts wicked tight and hellblazing down the highway,

Any questions asked about where you were going were met with a flippant disregard and a question about how you would design a wedding.

It wasn’t until you met a bright blue skyline with fake ass clouds that you even attempted to leave the car, trying to pry the handles off before the handle fizzeled out of existence and about a hundred people came out like clockwork to water their brightly colored flowers and fake ground.

You felt like you were on the brink of a panic before the car stopped entirely, Vox zipping through the air to pull you up and out of the car into a pretty baby blue house, with a white picket fence and some off pink curtains.

It of course would get some taking used to as Vox replayed an existence he’d never lived through to a snapping audience but after months of him refusing to feed you and your stomach finally forcing you to move you knew it was time.

And so every question you’d asked about the friends you made were turned against you.

“Oh that’s nothing to worry about honey, they’ve all graduated and had children by now…”

And you were expected to believe that.

You were expected to believe when those seem people were threatened on the knives where Vox had to lock the chemicals up and send the knives away. Expected to believe that when you begged the other hellions on the street to help you and they tied you down until Vox came back around at the end of the day.

So it’d be easier now for him to keep you, trace a hand across your collarbones and whisper violence into your ear as you twitched away, constrained by a pure white, frilly set of handcuffs. Begging him to let you leave until the day the two of you broke during a fight, when he sputtered out an agictated ‘I hate you!’

Before you broke into hysterical laughter, sobbing and chuckling like mad at his feet while he tried to pick you up. Only able to get as far as an inch off the ground before he brought a pillow and blanket into the kitchen to let you rest out.

“All couples have their issues honey…”

“Yeah.”

“We’ll be fine in a few days.”

“Dinner is a surprise tonight Vox, what wine pairs best with Lamb?”

[fafameow]

Sorry to come out of nowhere but I just wanted to say that your art is so warm and so colorful and so ROUND in all the best ways and your style really captures my favorite things about Kirby! I've always found it really inspirational!

Also, I love the way your line art looks?! I have to ask (you don't have to answer though) is there a specific brush or technique you use to get that soft, multi-layered effect?

Either way, wishing you a wonderful day!

Thank you so much for your nice message, it means a lot!! I've been wanting to make a small tutorial about how I make my Kirby art, so I guess your question came right on time hehe ^^ As I'll be explaining all of my process, I'll also answer your question about my line art! Btw my art program is Paint Tool SAI and I'll also be showing the brushes I use as well as their settings (i made up most of them a long time tho).

So first here's the brush that I use for basically anything, whether sketch or lineart!

It took me a while to understand what you meant by multi-layered effect, but no the brush doesn't do that, that's actually my way of doing "lineart" (ig it's not really lineart cus I just do sketches that I clean later on).

I then clean up everything, add the details and block by using a grey color.

Afterwards I add the flat colors! I already have my own made up color palette, but otherwise I always use a purple color as overlay.

And I also use that same shade to color the lineart!

Next comes the fun part, shading! Here's THE brush that gives that soft effect to all of my drawings ^^ It's the same setting as my eraser too!

And yeah I also shade with light purple lol

There's also some other brushes that I use for more effects, like the airbrush! (I don't think I've touched the settings that much) I mostly use this one for lighting effects.

And finally the water brush! I sometimes use it for blending or for quick backgrounds,

but you can also see that when put it to "Spread" it also becomes the one that I use for my blushes hehe

Aaand I believe that's all of the brushes I use for my art! I do have more, but I only use those for other specific stuff like animation or pixel art.

Adding some details AND VOILÀ!!

Now you know how I make my Kirby art! (but this also applies for all of my art) I sometimes redraw on the contours to give that "pop up effect" a bit like what they did in rtdldx lol ^^

I really hope it was easy for everyone to understand cus this is my first time making a tutorial! And to Desultory Novice, I hope I managed to answer your question too!!

Thanks again and have a great day :D

[nordickies]

What do you think of the Nordics’ original hair? What was your thought process when redesigning their hair styles and colors? Thanks!

I think their canon hairstyles are fine! Perhaps Norway, Iceland and Finland look a bit too identical for my personal liking, but in general, they look cute.

I can't really explain my thought process behind redesigning their hairstyles, because it kinda came out of nowhere; experimenting what looked the best in my artstyle. I guess I just wanted to update them for something you'd "realistically" see nowadays. Undercuts, lack of bangs, etc. I also think their canon hairs are pretty flat - and long, so that's something I focused on while redesigning

Sweden has dark blonde/light brown hair because that's what his first anime appearance was like. And I think the color suits him way better. Denmark has always screamed strawberry blond to me. I don't really have any bigger reasoning expect that I did what I personally thought looked good!

[pistachiolattesstuff]

Things i’ve manifested #back to school edition

Because YOU CAN DO IT TOO!!! 🫵🏼

1. Moneyy

Context; last week I went thrifting and I was so ashamed cuz I didn’t have much money left, I was feeling restricted with shopping and there was still some things I wanted to buy for my back to school then I said in the store out of nowhere « of course I have money wtf, I am a money magnet » while going on with this belief and forgetting about it, then my mom’s friend came and because it was his last day he said «  I didn’t gave you a present in your birthday, here 50$ (50€ cuz I’m European but I think it’s practically the same)

2. Money again ?

So I was happy that I finally have money again but I knew it wasn’t enough for the things I needed for school and the new pair of shoes I wanted cuz I basically have just one pair of sneaker and one other for P.E , the rest is like a pair of mary janes, platform boots , and flats with a small heel (also manifested <3)…

Anyway, I affirmed « don’t worry you already have all you need » then I forgot about it because I went to sleep and when I woke my mom said « I made a budget of 250 $ for your back to school I’ll take you out tomorrow, like this you can buy the things and there will have some money left for the shoes you wanted » my jaw literally dropped…

3. Makeup!!

So I absolutely wanted the KIKO glosses especially the shade 44 and the 16 or 22 and a new navy blue mascara and a normal one.

Today my mom took me out and I bought the KIKO glosses I didn’t find the shade 44 but in the back of my head I was always like «  it would be cool if they had the shade 44 with the silver packaging » and I only realize now that I got almost the same shade in a silver packaging and ofc got the shade 16, I also found in another store the two mascara colors I wanted for the price of the one I wanted so I’m happy !

4. Shoes !!!

The shoes I wanted were the adidas superstar XLG in light pink but it was sooo hard to find them on the internet and the price would go over my budget so I went in a store and the guy said it was a limited edition and it was probably too late if I wanted them but I didn’t mind cuz the first I wanted were the OG black and I found them on the internet with my SIZE and less pricey !!

I can’t wait to receive them!!!

Just to say YOU CAN DO IT TOO POOKIE!!

And if it’s not exactly what you wanted it’s something better and maybe for it to be something even better after !

777🪷

[noorthehood]

Until You • 04

Miguel O'Hara/Reader

Ch. 01 Here

Ch. 02 Here

Ch. 03 Here

Faster updates on Ao3!

With a glimpse of a futuristic cityscape and an encounter with a Spiderman seemingly much different from the one you’re used to, you unknowingly find yourself thrust into a web of intrigue and danger as the very fabric of space and time is warping. Who will you trust?

........………………………….…………………......................

“Eight thousand fifty six…Eight thousand fifty seven…Eight thousand fifty eight…”

The voice reverberates from the screen on Miguel’s left, each count punctuated by the sound of a ball hitting a ceiling. He closes his eyes, trying to get the tension in his back to dissipate as he takes a deep breath, hands resting flat on the desk he’s leaning onto.

“She’s been going at it since she woke up.” Miguel finally speaks, his voice carrying a hint of fatigue, eyes still shut in an attempt to ease the strain.

Jessica crosses her arms and glances at the screen, her eyebrows knitting together in confusion. “I’m sure she’ll tire herself out eventually,” she offers, trying to sound optimistic.

“That’s what I said too.” He looks at her from over his shoulder. “Three hours ago.”

Her eyes widened.

“She lost count around the three thousand mark and decided to just start over again.” Miguel explains, a mix of disbelief and resignation in his tone. “Looks like she's determined to reach ten thousand, for reasons only she knows.”

He lowers his voice.

“She’s aware I can hear her, Jess. It’s psychological warfare.”

“Well,” Jessica mumbles, shaking her head in bemusement. “At least you only have two thousand to go.”

Approaching the screen with cautious curiosity, Jessica’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise as she takes in the bizarre sight before her. The live feed revealed a plain, minimally furnished room, where the young woman lay flat on the floor, engrossed in her repetitive task. With each count, she throws a small ball up towards the ceiling, only to catch it and start the cycle anew. But that was not the only thing that caught Jessica’s attention.

“Is that—”

“Paint? Yeah.” Miguel responded with a sarcastic smile, running his hands down his face, exhaustion etched on his features. “Lyla said we should give her something to pass the time with. Quickly backfired, as you can see.”

Jessica's gaze shifts back to the live feed, where every wall of the room aside from the windows were covered in a riot of colors. Abstract shapes and bold splashes of paint adorned every inch, creating a chaotic tapestry of creativity—or chaos, rather. The room, once plain and bare, had transformed into a vibrant canvas, as if a feral toddler had been let loose with tubes of acrylic paint.

“And…how long did you say she’s been in there?” She asks as the rhythmic sound of the ball hitting the ceiling continues.

“Few days. Three, four maybe.” Miguel responds before Lyla promptly interjects with a correction.

“Seven, actually. Seven too many.”

Jessica’s jaw drops, and she immediately turns to face Miguel with an incredulous frown.

“Seven days? You’ve been keeping her in that room for a whole week?” She exclaims in disbelief. “No wonder the girl’s lost her mind! Are you insane?”

“It’s not like we’re keeping her hostage, Jess, she has nowhere else to go—”

“Is her door locked?”

He stays silent for a moment, then sighs.

“Yeah.”

“Then you might as well call her your prisoner.” She scoffs.

“It’s for her own safety. I have to monitor her status while figuring out a way to get her and the other one back to wherever they came from.” Miguel continues. “I’m not doing this for the fun of it, I’m trying to help them."

Jessica adjusts her goggles and places a hand on her hip as he settles on a nearby chair. That man truly had a strange way to go about things.

“How’s the other one?” She asks with a sigh.

Miguel shakes his head.

“Still comatose. But at least she’s quiet.”

He leans back in his chair, eyes fixed on the live feed from the room where the young woman continued her repetitive task.

"You know, I've been trying to figure out what happened," He begins, his voice tinged with frustration. "I've studied the data, analyzed the machine—”

“Carmen.” Lyla chimes in.

“Yes, thank you Lyla—analyzed Carmen, reviewed all footage... But I’ve got nothing."

Jessica nodded, her gaze focused on Miguel as he continued.

"And their resistance to the glitches, even without wearing the gizmo— that’s what’s most baffling to me." Miguel explains, running a hand through his disheveled hair. "Everything we knew about the interdimensional travel process suggests that without that bracelet, they should have been affected by the dimensional inconsistencies."

"But they haven’t," Jessica mused, her brows furrowing in thought. "So, what does that mean?"

Miguel slightly shrugged, his exhaustion evident in his posture. "I wish I knew. It's like they defy the rules, the very laws of the multiverse. I've never seen anything like it."

He leans forward, his gaze fixed on the screen displaying the woman in the paint-covered room.

"I've considered every possibility, every hypothesis," Miguel continued. "But nothing seems to explain their resistance to the glitches, or why the go-home machine fails to send her—and only her— back."

He takes a deep breath, feeling the weight of his words as he stands up to face her.

“I’m at a dead-end, Jess. Seriously.” Miguel admits in a voice marked with a touch of hopelessness, like a confession of his limitations. “I need your help.”

Jessica uncrosses her arms, her expression softening as she takes in the sincerity in his plea. She knows him well enough to understand that for him to ask for help, he must be truly at his wit's end.

"What the hell do you think I can do that you haven’t been able to figure out? You’re the scientist here,” A hint of skepticism laces her words.

“I’m just a biologist, Jess. There’s only so much I can do.” Miguel retorts. “I need you to ask around, talk to people. You know that’s not my forte.”

“That I know.” Jessica sighs again as she looks up at him.

It was unlike him to show vulnerability, much less ask for help . The man was a logistician, driven by pragmatism, often making decisions based on calculated outcomes rather than emotions. His actions could sometimes lack rationality, but deep down, Jessica knew that feelings were not his strong suit. He had cultivated a reputation for prioritizing the greater good, even if it meant making difficult sacrifices��the type of man who would surrender one individual if it meant saving ten others. But something about the woman on the screen seemed to stir an uncharacteristic side of him, disrupting his usual clarity.

Was he worried ?

“Listen. I’m not gonna lie to you, I’m busy enough as is with the wedding prep and the whole Spider-Woman thing.” She preemptively raises a finger as he opens his mouth to keep him from interrupting. “ But …I’ll see what I can do. I just can’t guarantee how long it’ll take.”

A small smile tugs at the corner of Miguel's lips, the tension momentarily lifting from his shoulders. "Thanks, Jess. I knew I could count on you."

She raises an eyebrow playfully as she tinkers on her gizmo, preparing to go back on the field. "Don't get too sentimental on me, now. I'm only doing this to keep you from bringing the mood down on missions with your…domestic problems."

He chuckles lightly. “Wouldn’t expect anything less from you.”

As if on cue, an interdimensional portal materializes in the middle of the spacious lab. Jess swiftly mounts her bike, her movements a testament to her expertise. With a flick of her foot, she kicks up the kickstand using the back of her heel, and the engine purrs to life.

"In return," she shouts over the cacophony of the revving engine and the ongoing interdimensional racket, "do me a favor and let that poor girl get some fresh air, alright? She's not a puzzle to be solved or a lab rat…just a woman with poor luck." Her words carry a touch of concern. "I know you mean well, but we don't want her developing Stockholm syndrome, yeah? This is supposed to be the good guys HQ, not Alcatraz ."

Miguel reluctantly nods. She has a point.

“Oh, and Miguel?” Jess puts her bike in gear and revs her engine.

He raises an eyebrow and flinches at the loud noise. “What?”

She smiles.

“Looks like she just lost count again.”

........………………………….…………………......................

A.N: A slightly shorter chapter to kick off the weekend!

Just laying some groundwork, I promise we'll be getting a lot more Miguel/YN interactions from now on.

Let me know how we feel about this update pacing (shorter chapters/faster updates or longer chapters/not-as-fast updates?)

See ya soon for more! As usual faster updates on Ao3!

Ch. 05

[weirdraccoon]

Another idea if you're interested 💕.

Praticamente il seguito di un'idea già realizzata.

MC e Sebastian hanno un appuntamento romantico (o un intoppo di lavoro come preferisci) e chiedono a Eleazar di fare da babysitter alla piccola Miriam per qualche ora e proprio in quel momento Miriam decide di sviluppare una magia accidentale (sparando fuoco dalla sua bocca ecc.)

ohmygodohmygodyeeees!!! (i haven't forgotten about the last one, just these days I'm not feeling up for anything but this one yeeees!!!"

I hope google translate didn't muck it up cause I don't know Italian xd

Practically the sequel to an idea already realized.

MC and Sebastian have a romantic date (or a business snag as you prefer) and ask Eleazar to babysit little Miriam for a few hours and just then Miriam decides to develop accidental magic (shooting fire from her mouth etc. )

will also add a silly drawing later. this gave me "jack jack attack" vibes

Fig waved goodbye from his doorstep, also grabbing little Miriam's hand to wave goodbye to her parents. The young couple had the privilege to be invited to a gala celebrating something or other at the Ministry, or like Sebastian liked to explain it "to suffer through a night of schmoozing and networking".

Well, if EmSea wanted to become Minister she had to schmooze and network as much as possible. And Ominis would be there to help them. Fig wasn't too worried about his girl's ambitions.

"How about we have some dinner and then we listen to music while we do our homework?"

Miriam was only five years old, way too young to go to Hogwarts, but with parents like hers, she had been introduced to magical and muggle culture and history from the moment she was born. Sebastian, mainly, loved to read to her and he taught her how to read in record time. EmSea, on her part, liked to stroll in muggle London, taking her daughter with her so she could understand muggles were as human as wizarkin. So far, it seemed like the little girl loved all the muggle items she saw in her walks, but also all the old traditions wizards practice.

And she was already showing signs of powerful magic.

Fig never saw any of this, but according to Sebastian and EmSea, little Miriam was proficient at the summoning charm. There was nowhere in their house where they could hide the cookies or candy. Miriam always found them or summoned them from their places to her little hands.

At least she hadn't shown any ancient magic yet. Fig didn't know for sure how EmSea grew up or how dangerous her accidental magic was, but he hoped little Miriam didn't face the same obstacles as her mom did.

Miriam wouldn't have to hide her magic, bury it so deep it only came out under duress at her almost fifteen years old... No. Fig, along with Sebastian, EmSea, and Ominis (who has been an excellent godfather so far) would make sure Miriam grew up loved and safe and developing her magic to her full potential.

So, thinking about the books he read about kids' healthy development, Fig played some classic music that was supposed to help with attention and mind awareness.

"I like that," Miriam babbled, dutifully coloring the book her father left her with. "It's... relaxing," she giggled, laying her head on top of the book.

Fig smirked, glad the child liked it. He sat on his sofa with the new year's lesson plan and focused on correcting it. His apprentice was good but still needed some corrections here and there, specifically when organizing the topics from general to specific.

He wasn't sure how much time went by, but suddenly he realized Miriam had been way too quiet for a little five-year-old. He peeked over his papers and froze when he saw her missing.

"Shoot," he jumped to his feet, trying not to panic. "Ok, ok, it's ok. The wards won't let her go out, she has to be here," he looked around. The flat wasn't too big: a kitchen, a dining space, the living space he was currently standing in, two bedrooms, and one bathroom. "Miriam?" He called. "Where are you, you little snidget?"

Nothing.

Then.

Giggles echoed around him, sending shivers down his spine and making him look around with anxiety.

"I knew EmSea was a demon but why did she have a demon baby?" He muttered, then walked to the hallway that led to EmSea's old room. "Miriam?"

Something popped behind him, making him flinch and turn with his wand in hand.

There was nothing there.

Another 'pop'. Then another. And another. Surrounding him.

"Oh my dear Merlin, Miriam, are you apparating!?" He cried. "That's. that's dangerous, dear! Just- Hey! Who wants a cookie?"

Pop!

Miriam apparated right into his arms. He grunted and caught her before she could fall.

"I like cookies, gran'pa," Miriam grinned innocently.

"Yeah, ok," Fig sighed, tightening his hold on her. "But no more apparating. And your mom said only one before going to bed."

Miriam frowned but kept quiet as Fig took her to the kitchen. Her wide brown eyes observed as he opened the cupboard over the sink and revealed the full jar of cookies. He grabbed only one.

"Here, let's go back to sitting, shall we?"

Miriam munched on her cookie, but her eyes were glued to the cupboard.

Suddenly, it caught on fire.

"Fuck!" Fig shouted, placing Miriam on the floor. "Shit. No- Don't- Don't repeat those words, ok darling?" Then he ran back to the kitchen, trying to stop the fire with a couple of spells.

When the fire died out, he turned to make sure Miriam wasn't injured.

He found her munching on more cookies, jar safely guarded between her legs.

"This is going be a long night, isn't it?"

Miriam giggled.

Then floated.

The music didn't sound so relaxing anymore.

[phantomsolotour]

superman trailer got me thinking about superbat (KISS KISS KISS) and superbat got me thinking about this fic i never finished from a while back. it was a superman au thing and then turned into superbat and i was only writing sort of general ideas at first and then it became an assortment of disjointed scenes spread out over years and i simply do not have the kind of focus to bring the complete fic out of my brain and onto the page SO i'm just gonna post what i have bc i think it's neat.

i was inspired by the opening passage of l. frank baum's the wizard of oz so i've included that at the top! also it cuts off at kind of a sad place sorry. around 8k, not heavily edited, etc etc

Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer’s wife. Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon many miles. There were four walls, a floor and a roof, which made one room; and this room contained a rusty looking cooking stove, a cupboard for the dishes, a table, three or four chairs, and the beds. Uncle Henry and Aunt Em had a big bed in one corner, and Dorothy a little bed in another corner. There was no garret at all, and no cellar―except a small hole, dug in the ground, called a cyclone cellar, where the family could go in case one of those great whirlwinds arose, mighty enough to crush any building in its path. It was reached by a trap door in the middle of the floor, from which a ladder led down into the small, dark hole.

When Dorothy stood in the doorway and looked around, she could see nothing but the great gray prairie on every side. Not a tree nor a house broke the broad sweep of flat country that reached the edge of the sky in all directions. The sun had baked the plowed land into a gray mass, with little cracks running through it. Even the grass was not green, for the sun had burned the tops of the long blades until they were the same gray color to be seen elsewhere. Once the house had been painted, but the sun blistered the paint and the rains washed it away, and now the house was as dull and gray as everything else.

When Aunt Em came there to live she was a young, pretty wife. The sun and wind had changed her, too. They had taken the sparkle from her eyes and left them a sober gray; they had taken the red from her cheeks and lips, and they were gray also. She was thin and gaunt, and never smiled now. When Dorothy, who was an orphan, first came to her, Aunt Em had been so startled by the child’s laughter that she would scream and press her hand upon her heart whenever Dorothy’s merry voice reached her ears; and she still looked at the little girl with wonder that she could find anything to laugh at.

Uncle Henry never laughed. He worked hard from morning till night and did not know what joy was. He was gray also, from his long beard to his rough boots, and he looked stern and solemn, and rarely spoke.

* * *

thinking about a different kind of superman. one who was raised by jonathan and martha but not in smallville, or at least in a very different smallville―on a secluded property way out in the middle of nowhere, so he never had any friends his age or even met many people other than martha and jonathan, who taught him kindness and compassion but not as much warmth or joy; they were weary, weathered folk who instilled in him the sacredness of living things and the importance of being a good and decent person, but maybe not the awe of a beautiful sunrise or the lighthearted fun of jokes and games. he called them by their names, not mom and dad.

a kal-el who learned of his origins before he learned of his powers, martha showing him the ship he landed in, and the wealth of information on krypton it contained, before he was even tall enough to ride a horse. a tan, curly-haired kid in plaid, studying kryptonian and hovering cross-legged in the fields, practicing phrases over and over, muttering and proclaiming to the cows until the words felt right in his mouth, until kal-el felt more natural than the name martha and jonathan gave him.

a young kal-el who scrutinized his reflection for any way it might differ from the human faces he’s seen, scooching up close to the mirror to look at his eyes, bluer than the sky (though the kansas light always seemed grey anyway), sharper and more striking than any other color he’s seen in his life. he doesn’t even know if humans can have blue eyes; he asks martha once and she says, “not near as blue as yours.”

the farm was so isolated in the desolation of the kansas plains that kal-el never needed a birth certificate, a medical record, a driver’s license; there was no one around to ask questions, so kal-el simply existed, and didn’t question it either.

he asks jonathan to sew him a set of clothes in kryptonian fashion, so jonathan sits by the fireplace in the evenings and squints at the needle in his calloused hands, guides it through some leftover scraps of fabric until it loosely resembles the drawing kal brought to him, and he wears the outfit with pride, puffs out his chest, and jonathan doesn’t quite smile while he looks at him, this faraway boy he took in all those summers ago, but there’s something like pride in jonathan’s eyes, too.

-

a kal-el who slips into the wider world―younger than martha and jonathan wanted to see him go―knowing he is not of it, a kal-el who has always known he is not human and therefore has never felt human, doesn’t understand the laughter, the politics, the flirtation, the pettiness, the wonder, the selfishness, the silliness. he’ll protect it anyway. life matters to him, humanity matters to him, even if he doesn’t belong to it, never will.

he doesn’t bother coming up with a human cover story, a secret identity―he doesn’t need the name kent, he doesn’t need a job or an apartment or anyone to talk to. no one speaks his native tongue anyway.

when he’s tired, he dozes off on the domed roof of metropolis city hall with one eye half-open, lulled by the flutter of pigeons’ wings and the whipping of flags around him, flying to his feet at the first sign of danger he can ward off.

when he’s hungry, he shoots through the sky to find dawn breaking over a small island in the tropics that no one else has ever set foot on; kal-el drifts through the trees, the edge of his cape brushing over the dewy grass, and gathers fresh fruit.

when he wants to bathe, he finds a hot spring in japan, or an icy waterfall tumbling over alaskan rocks, the birds and bears alike eyeing him carefully and keeping their distance.

when he needs to travel unnoticed among humans, he shrouds himself in whatever nondescript clothing he can find, rustles up a pair of glasses or sunglasses to dim his too-blue eyes, and steps carefully through the crowd, slowing his stride to match it.

metropolis is good for that―being big and busy and bizarre enough, as large cities often are, that it’s not too tough to blend in. it’s a bit of a danger magnet, so he’s never bored. and there’s something about all the noise and motion, unceasing, so deeply unlike the desolate dregs of kansas; sometimes he hangs in the air above the tallest buildings and looks into the night sky and imagines he’s in some glittering, breathtaking kryptonian city, that the street sounds and voices below him are those of his home, that if he waits patiently and pays close attention, the wind twisting through his hair will carry the scent of flowers from another world.

-

he’s been in metropolis for two years before lois lane manages to track him to one of his favorite rooftops.

he’s floating a few feet from the ground, surveying the city below, trying to discern whether one person on the street is actively following another, or just taking the same route by coincidence. lois calls to him, asks if they can talk, says everyone has so many questions for him.

he turns, looks at her for a heartbeat, then flies away from her without a word, straight toward the sun so she’s briefly blinded when her gaze follows him, blinking away the glare until perry calls to ask where the hell she is, and is she really still chasing down that supposed superman for a story? lois says she found him, but there is no story. there’s nothing else there.

her articles on superman are penned with appreciation and admiration but also a sliver of something like unease. she encounters him more than once but can only describe the emptiness of his gaze, the way his impossibly blue eyes flash over you when you’re face-to-face, his gaze scanning across the rooftop and through the sky and then zeroing in suddenly on something you couldn’t hope to see; she writes about his unsettling silence, how his feet are never fully on the ground, and metropolis trusts superman, they’re grateful for him, but they don’t understand him.

a kal-el who floats above the clouds for hours, drinking in the sun and the silence, who soars all the way beyond the atmosphere and watches the wildflower he carried clutched in his fist as it deteriorates in the sub-zero void. he is not unhappy. he is not happy.

-

one night, superman, out of boredom more than anything else, follows a lexcorp spy drone across the bay to gotham, where he encounters batman. the man growls his questions―who are you, what are you, why are you in my city―so furiously that they sound more like threats.

kal-el doesn’t feel threatened. he cocks his head at this very unusual human he’s been hearing about for a while now―a year at least―and doesn't answer, just pulls the wrecked drone from his cape and holds it out to batman. kal-el imagines he can handle it from here, do something to hinder lexcorp to some extent. the details aren’t really important.

when the shadowy figure does nothing but glare at him with suspicion, kal-el says, “take it,” english sitting strangely on his tongue like it always does; he wonders if batman hears it too.

after a moment, kal-el places the drone on the ground and flies into the clouds, toward metropolis, since apparently this city is off-limits.

-

a few months go by, and kal-el has just delivered the last human from a burning skyscraper to the ambulances on the ground, drifts into the air above the street, scans the building one more time for anyone still among the flames, assesses the (murmuring, pointing, picture-snapping) crowd below to make sure everyone is far enough back to avoid any falling wreckage. just as he’s deemed his job done, he hears a familiar call.

“superman,” someone says, miles away but clear as crystal in kal-el’s ears. this time, though, they don’t sound desperate, or even afraid. they sound demanding. irritated. and kal-el recognizes the voice―the growl―right away. he soars in its direction, catches the thump of the heart beating close to it, and follows that sound until he’s once again face to face with the batman of gotham.

the man grumbles a few clipped sentences and it takes kal-el a moment to realize he’s indirectly, begrudgingly asking for help investigating a recent lexcorp cover-up. kal-el simply nods, and batman mutters short instructions.

kal-el nods again, and watches the man shudder into deeper shadow and step off the rooftop. he imagines other humans must find that unsettling, alarming. they can’t see batman moving through the dark the way kal-el can. they can’t see how perfectly, normally human he is beneath the shadows and the cape.

they work together on occasion, in the years that follow, whenever gotham’s criminal element oozes across the bay, or some metropolis villain is hiding out in batman’s turf―though “together” might not be the right word. usually batman calls for him, explains his objective, and kal-el returns to him when he has something to report back, like that first case with luthor. sometimes superman finds batman first, hands him a scrap of evidence that he knows batman can turn into a lead, sometimes gestures toward certain buildings in the gotham skyline, and trusts that batman will know what he’s asking for.

but they’ve fought side-by-side a handful of times, superman timing his strikes to land between the zip and zoom of batman’s gadgets, shielding him from bullets and fire, pulling him back to safety even when batman digs in his heels to stand his ground.

kal-el has learned that batman is also known as bruce wayne, and that kal-el is probably one of very few to possess that information. he understands why bruce would keep the batman separate from his civilian identity, but is glad he doesn’t have a ruse of his own to keep up.

-

one afternoon, kal-el is stretched across a beam underneath one of the bridges that cuts through metropolis, enjoying the sharp gleam of the sun bouncing off the metal bolts and rods, when he decides to check in on batman.

he hasn’t heard from him in a month or so, though he listens for his heartbeat every so often to know he’s alive and healthy, usually during quiet moments like this. batman is the closest thing kal-el has to an ally, he supposes, and anyway, it’s easier to hear him than to hear martha and jonathan back on the plains―but he checks on them too, listens to martha curse the dry summer while she sizes up the crops, to jonathan whistling for the dog to follow him around the side of the barn.

kal-el closes his eyes and focuses on batman’s heartbeat, lets the rest of the world fall away underneath it. he finds batman―bruce, more appropriately, as kal-el has long-since noticed that batman belongs to the moonlight, and the dazzle of daylight is reserved for bruce wayne―his footsteps soft but steady on a gotham sidewalk, and his voice, a world away from the cold tone kal-el is used to, his voice is gentle, soft, intimate, and it makes kal-el’s brow furrow.

bruce is talking to someone―a child. kal-el can hear both of their shirtsleeves, bruce’s and the boy’s, rustling at the same time, in the same rhythm, and thinks they must be holding hands, the boy’s hand moving so that their arms swing together, as kal-el has seen adults and children do. beyond them, kal-el can hear a small sea of other voices, footsteps, laughter, engines idling, car doors clicking opening and thudding shut.

the boy, his voice vibrant and pure, is telling bruce about a joke his math teacher made in class that day, and bruce chuckles. kal-el briefly imagines what it would be like to make batman laugh. bruce says, “wait, alfred will want to hear this,” and kal-el hears a car door open and a new voice saying “good afternoon, dick. how was school today?”

later, kal-el makes his way into the archives at the daily planet office, thumbs through the last two or three hundred issues to learn that bruce wayne recently took in an orphaned child named dick grayson.

kal-el lingers on a photo of the two of them, in black tuxedos and shiny shoes, bruce’s hair combed in careful waves and dick’s hair hanging barely off the floor as he stands on his hands in the middle of a ballroom, a big grin on his face while bruce eyes him with a mix of wariness and amusement. some of the elegant men and women in the background look amused too, but some seem annoyed, even disdainful. the caption reads: “wayne’s ward turns foundation gala upside-down.”

it dawns on him then, that batman, despite what he and kal-el have in common―fighting for good, protecting their cities, even when those cities might not understand them, even the way they both keep their voices low and prefer to communicate in nods―despite all of that, batman is also bruce, is human, has a real family. he feels the companionship, or whatever understanding he found in batman, slipping away in light of this revelation. they’re not the same. there is still no one else on the planet who kal-el can relate to.

-

kal-el is in the clouds, listening to a mother cry in the hospital as she’s told that her daughter died of injuries sustained in an explosion that kal-el couldn’t get to in time. there are tears on his face, too. he hates this part. when he was the one person who could have saved someone, and he failed.

he thinks about the time when he was seven, and practicing his x-ray vision on the horses, and noticed something strange on the lungs of one, a dark brown mare who kal-el could always tell was jonathan’s favorite. he thought some horses must just have lungs that look different, like how their teeth don’t all look the same, or their hair is different colors. he didn’t think anything of it, didn’t mention it to anyone. and then she got sick, and then she died, and it all happened so fast, barely a month after kal-el saw what he learned later were tumors, and martha tells him there’s no way he could have known, and that it was too late for them to help her anyway, but kal-el can’t stop sobbing anyway.

becoming superman made all of this a million times harder. so he listens to this woman cry, and he cries with her, thousands of feet apart from her in the sky.

-

before long, kal-el starts hearing dick’s heartbeat alongside bruce’s when batman is out on patrol, and it’s no surprise when the boy is a half-step behind bruce on their way to meet superman at the edge of gotham city.

robin, as the newspapers call him, stands in bright colors next to the black monolith of batman and fixes wide, glittering eyes on kal-el, who suddenly realizes that all three of them have blue eyes. bruce’s and dick’s are nearly as vivid as his own.

“penguin,” kal-el says quietly, especially uncomfortable with the word because it has no kryptonian equivalent.

“the arms trafficking?” batman says, more an acknowledgment than a question. “i’m looking into it.”

kal-el is distracted, his gaze continually dropping down to meet dick’s awed stare. but he remembers himself, holds out a list he wrote on lined yellow paper, a notepad borrowed from lois lane’s desk, his handwriting odd and slanted from years spent writing more kryptonian than english. bruce can read it, though, kal-el knows.

“contacts in metropolis,” he explains, then nods toward the boardwalk where the ferry to metropolis is currently docked. batman glances that direction and kal-el watches his eyes move, scan, then focus on the dock.

“eight am,” kal-el says.

“and the cargo?” bruce asks. kal-el nods and gets a nod in return.

“we’ll handle it,” bruce says, and kal-el can feel him about to turn away and take to the shadows like always, and dick must feel it too, because he tugs on batman’s cape, finally tearing his eyes from superman to look up at batman and whisper, “ask him.”

bruce glances at the boy, then at superman, then sighs so quietly kal-el is sure that even dick, with a hand still on batman’s cape, can’t hear.

“robin wants to know how many front-flips you can do in a row,” batman says, his voice flat as ever. robin smiles.

“without flying,” batman adds, “of course.”

kal-el blinks, thinks for a second. “i’ve never counted,” he answers. “i could try now,” he offers. dick’s eyes, somehow, get even brighter.

“no,” batman says, “that’s not necessary.” robin tugs at his cape again, insistent, but batman ignores him and holds up superman’s list, says, “i’ll get back to you on this.”

now kal-el is the one about to take off, tilting his chin toward the night sky, when dick stops him by blurting out, “is it true you’re from outer space?”

kal-el’s gaze tracks from the stars, the haze of clouds, the jagged breast of the city skyline, back to dick’s face: earnest, eager, unabashed, unafraid. that last observation hits kal-el with a jolt. people, and especially children, usually regard superman with some degree of apprehension, especially after a few moments in his presence, seeing him up close, and on rare occasions, hearing him speak. but robin is stepping out from batman’s shadow, toward superman, and batman doesn’t stop him. both of their heartbeats are steady.

dick has freckles on his cheeks, behind the mask. his skin is almost as tanned as kal-el’s. “the kids at school think you’re from mars,” dick says, “but i think you’re from a different solar system, maybe even a different galaxy.”

kal-el has never had this conversation before. he has trouble remembering the last time he had an actual conversation, not sure if his rendezvous with batman count. what did he used to talk to martha and jonathan about? the farm? the weather? he’s talking about himself, now.

“you’re right,” he says.

a pigeon lands on the other side of the rooftop, a refrigerator whirs in an office break room six floors below them, robin grabs the sides of his cape in excitement, the yellow fabric bunched in his hands, and asks, tentative but wholehearted, “how long have you been on earth? how long―how long did it take to―to feel like home?” bruce’s breathing is briefly arrhythmic.

“it doesn’t,” kal-el says.

dick says, softly, “oh,” and falls silent again.

after a beat, batman says, “let’s go, robin,” and the two of them set off into the heart of the city while kal-el hovers motionless, his feet barely brushing the rooftop, watching them go.

-

robin is with batman almost always after that, sometimes asking superman questions, sometimes quietly observing. once he brings kal-el a rock, a smooth grey stone no bigger than dick’s palm; “it reminded me of your emblem, look, it’s the same shape, kind of! you can keep it if you want.”

kal-el keeps it, brings it all the way to a cave in the north pole where he puts the scant few things he wants to hang on to. (the ship from krypton and all of the artifacts it contained, the blanket jonathan sewed for him when he was a baby, books, newspaper clippings, and some odds and ends that he’s borrowed from lois lane’s desk at the daily planet. she somehow knows it’s him pilfering her things and has started leaving notes for him with questions, times to meet; he saves the notes, too.)

sometimes kal-el listens in on them from across the bay, when bruce is asking dick where he wants to go for dinner or telling him to get down from the chandelier, but to hear them like this, outside of their vigilante identities, puts a strange, uncomfortable feeling in kal-el’s chest.

-

one night, batman calls superman to gotham to impart the key discoveries from his surveillance of lexcorp’s new warehouse in gotham; he sounds frustrated, his voice falling heavy on the grey rooftop, and kal-el recalls reading that bruce wayne tried to prevent lexcorp from operating in his city but was thwarted by luthor’s legal team. (kal-el reads the daily planet every day now, and sometimes the gotham gazette, and always pays special attention to anything about bruce wayne and dick grayson and batman and robin.)

robin is there too, practicing one-handed handstands while batman gives his report. kal-el is listening to batman but watching robin, his arms slender but strong, unwavering, his face scrunching up with focus when he switches hands. he has bruises on both knees, and band-aids on both elbows.

kal-el finds him so interesting―this bright, fearless boy who seems born to fly, this flash of joy and color next to the dark, stoic batman. batman was already interesting to kal-el―the feats he accomplishes as a regular human, his limitless determination to answer questions and solve problems―but batman and robin as a duo have been occupying his thoughts lately.

they make sense together, somehow. kal-el isn’t sure what to call it.

when dick lifts all the way up on his fingertips, curiosity overtakes kal-el, and he interrupts batman to ask robin, “did you learn to do that in the circus, or did bruce teach you?”

they both tense immediately. kal-el notices and tenses too. he’s never used their other names before. he doesn’t know why he did this time. he’s reminded suddenly of the time he lifted jonathan’s tractor out of the mud when he was young; they all knew kal-el was strong, but he’d never moved anything so heavy before, and jonathan froze, just for a moment, before saying thank you, kal, and wiping the mud away.

it’s been a long time since kal-el has surprised anyone in this way―doing something he shouldn’t have been able to if he were human, or if he knew how to act human.

robin lets his legs swing down to the ground and stands, looks at batman.

batman looks at superman, studying him, and after a long moment, he says slowly, “the circus.”

kal-el doesn’t know what to do next, worries he’s ruined something he didn’t even know was there to be ruined, when robin speaks up. “do you have a secret identity too?”

batman’s eyes haven’t left superman, and robin’s gaze is now fixed on him too. kal-el glances over batman’s shoulder, in the direction of kansas, then cocks his head slightly toward metropolis. the places he is most known, where he is named. usually he doesn’t think much about identity, about who he is to others, to himself, because the earth starts to feel impossibly large and impossibly small at the same time. bruce and dick are looking at him like they can figure him out if they stare hard enough, learn all his secrets just by looking. kal-el finds he’s not convinced that they couldn’t.

but he doesn’t have secrets, not really. he’s just never been in a position to introduce himself, to explain himself, never thought it would be necessary or worthwhile. it feels worthwhile now, now that he knows bruce and dick and they...they know him. or could.

“i...” he trails off, swallows. is this...is he nervous?

“i am...kal-el. son of jor-el, of krypton.” dick’s eyes go wide, while bruce’s narrow.

“krypton,” dick repeats in awe.

there’s a moment of quiet, and kal-el feels a heaviness in his chest slowly disintegrate and float away. he hadn’t realized it was there.

then robin explodes with questions, occasionally supplemented by clarifying inquiries from bruce, and kal-el answers, tells them everything they want to know, until his voice is almost hoarse from speaking so much more than usual, more than he has in the last several years combined, maybe. he has to stop and think a few times to recall the english word for something, his thoughts having been largely in kryptonian for so long.

robin has said “whoa” twenty-two times; batman has said “hm” thirteen times.

they’re trying to learn a kryptonian phrase that caught dick’s attention, an expression about burdens that are worth bearing; kal-el can’t remember how it came up in the conversation, but he’s in the middle of adjusting their pronunciation when he hears a scream from eight blocks away and his head snaps in that direction.

batman has seen this before, says, “how far?” and then they’re off, the three of them tangled in another moonlit battle. then a bank robbery, then a bomb threat, then a kidnapping, and superman doesn’t usually team up with batman (and robin, now) for an entire night like this, but tonight is different. kal-el has no desire to leave, and batman isn’t telling him to.

eventually, though, the night draws to an end. the sun’s nearly up and kal-el can feel it, knows it’s easing over the horizon, though you’d never guess it from the cramped dark of the alley they’re standing in.

bruce says he needs to get robin home, and kal-el nods, having already scanned both of them for any serious injuries. robin waves and says, “good night, kal-el!”

batman departs with his standard nod, and kal-el is left in this little rivulet of gotham, trying to make sense of the tears in his eyes. his feet are firmly on the ground.

-

kal-el is back in smallville for the first time in a while. a year, maybe. martha and jonathan are cooking and occasionally calling a question to kal-el across the small room, where he sits in a faded armchair―though he’s actually hovering a millimeter above it, knowing the frame wouldn’t hold his weight. they must forget that he can hear them easily over the sound of knives on cutting boards and spoons scraping bowls, the cicadas and the wind outside, the chickens clucking inside the wire fence thirty yards away.

his answers are short, as always. no, no kryptonite lately and yes, i’m eating.

a question of his own occurs to him, and rather than raise his voice, he crosses the kitchen to stand next to jonathan and asks, “am i your ward?”

jonathan jumps, startled. kal-el forgot to make noise when he moved. it was second-nature when he lived here, but he’s out of practice. jonathan looks at him, then at martha.

“ward,” jonathan repeats, musing. “hell. we never knew what to call you, kal.”

kal-el blinks, looks down at the tomatoes on the counter.

“we think of you as our son, in a lot of ways,” martha says, hesitant. “but we’ve never known if that’s what you wanted to be, so we didn’t―you spent less and less time with us as you grew up, and―” her voice shakes, a little, and she stops, fidgets with the edge of the counter. kal-el gets the feeling that she’s been waiting a long time to talk about this.

“we love you,” jonathan says, almost apologetically. “and we tried to take good care of you. that’s all.”

kal-el tries to remember his early childhood, before he knew what he was. it’s so distant in his mind, like his life didn’t really start until he learned his real name, until he left the ground easy as breathing.

he knows martha is right, that he fixated on his kryptonian heritage more and more over time, so much so that he gave up on building a real life on earth; the idea of his home planet became a dream he didn’t want to wake up from. he was always under the impression that martha and jonathan not only didn’t know what to call him, they didn’t know what to do with him, and it seemed easier to be by himself than to figure out how to fit beside them. but maybe they just didn’t want to force it, to keep him on the ground when he wanted to fly.

he remembers martha laughing when he climbed onto the fence to reach one of the cows standing at the edge of the pasture and put jonathan’s straw hat on the cow’s head.

he remembers when he was frightened by a storm twisting and raging on the horizon, the animals all uneasy, rain and wind whipping the house and lightning cracking the sky, the boom of thunder so, so loud that it shook the windowpanes and he felt it in his bones. he was curled up in the armchair that can’t hold him now, and martha was fussing with the fire in the fireplace, and jonathan came in from his last check on the barn and took one look at kal-el and crossed the room to kneel by the chair and say, “everything’s gonna be alright. you’ll see.”

kal-el looks at the two of them now―their hair greying, their hearts quieter than they used to be, but just as strong. he swallows. he wants to say “i love you, too.”

“thank you,” is what he says instead.

after they’ve eaten dinner, kal-el says goodbye but doesn’t go back to metropolis yet; instead he flies around the farm and fixes what needs fixing, replaces loose boards on the roof of the barn, pressing the nails in with his thumb so there’s no sound to startle the animals or alert jonathan and martha. he thinks it would be nice if he did more to take care of them, since they took care of him for so long.

maybe he should visit kansas more often. maybe he should start thinking of it as home.

-

tonight is one of the worst nights superman has ever had. every choice he made backfired, every move had unintended consequences, and by the time a kryptonite spear-tip shatters in his shoulder, he starts to wonder if there really is a god like some humans think, and if that god has decided they are tired of superman.

luckily, he had already brought metallo to the brink of defeat; the kryptonite pulled from his chest and fastened to a makeshift spear was clearly a last-ditch effort. batman and robin, who spiraled down through a skylight to join the fight halfway through, are able to complete the takedown with some well-placed electric volts, while superman, on the other side of the vast room, stumbles backward into a pillar and slides shakily to the ground.

it’s not his first experience with kryptonite, but it hasn’t gotten any easier to cope with the sudden exhaustion, the pounding in his head, the way he feels ten times heavier, the effort it takes to heave air in and out of his lungs, and, in this case, the screaming, stabbing pain in his shoulder that sends shockwaves through every inch of his body. kryptonite has never invaded him like this before, never shot through his bloodstream like ice before.

batman tucks his weapon back into his utility belt as robin bounds forward, clicks a pair of handcuffs around metallo’s wrists―probably out of habit more than real need to restrain him at this point―and starts dragging him across the museum floor toward the entrance, where the shriek and glare of police cars seep through the glass doors.

kal-el is used to it by now, the way batman and robin act in tandem, following a protocol that they each know so well it doesn’t need to be said aloud, but it’s still fascinating to observe: robin simply knows his role is to bring metallo out to the metropolis police, and batman knows that robin knows, and robin knows that batman knows...and then kal-el can’t keep track of who knows what. he’s dizzy. what a strange word.

“robin!” batman calls, moving towards superman, somehow three steps closer every time kal-el blinks. his voice echoes off the marble in the now-quiet hall, all the cacophony of the fight still ringing in kal-el’s ears. “don’t let mpd inside until i say so. obstruction plan delta, if necessary.”

robin sends a worried glance at superman’s crumpled form and hesitates for a second, then says, “i’m on it, b,” and when kal-el looks for him again, he and metallo are gone.

a sudden pressure on his arm makes him gasp, twist away from the touch before he realizes it’s bruce’s. he lifts his head, tilts it back to rest against the pillar, and watches as batman studies his injury, frowning.

“seven main shards,” he says. “about a dozen smaller splinters.” he reaches for something in a compartment on his belt without looking, the kryptonite’s green glow reflected in his eyes and skin but swallowed by the black of the cowl and cape. kal-el can feel blood spilling warm down his arm and chest, but his body feels colder and farther away with every exhale.

“i’m guessing this is gonna hurt,” batman says, though he sounds more like bruce now, kal-el thinks, and that’s all the warning kal-el gets before he is brutally yanked back to his senses by a searing, wrenching pain in his shoulder. before he can think better of it, he looks down to see a bloody piece of kryptonite, caught in a pair of tweezers, being pulled from his wound by batman’s steady hand. it feels cold, dragging through his body, like a thousand sunless winters condensed into a sliver of rock.

kal-el has never vomited before, but the turbulent feeling in his stomach suggests there’s a first time for everything. he tries to focus on his breathing, which isn’t hard, because breathing is unfathomably difficult in this moment, especially when he’s interrupted by gasps of pain that tear out of him against his will.

he keeps his eyes closed, closes them tighter to try to shut out the sickly green glimmer, but it still finds him, and he realizes the glow is inside him now, has burrowed into his vision. he opens his eyes in alarm to see his whole world cast in faint, unbearable green.

batman is lowering a fragment of kryptonite into a small lead case and looking at kal-el with concern.

“just the small ones now,” he says. kal-el blinks at him until his vision looks more like normal. with the larger shards gone, the worst is behind him, and he tries to think about other things while batman returns to his task. kal-el becomes aware that batman’s left hand, the one not wielding the tweezers, is pressed firmly against the bloodied emblem on kal-el’s chest, holding him still.

“my―mother,” kal-el starts, not sure how much of the hesitation in his speech is due to his weakened state and how much is due to the still-strange notion that martha is his mother, “gets migraines.”

bruce’s gaze doesn’t leave kal-el’s injury, but his eyes narrow just slightly, as they always do when he learns something unexpected. kal-el has never referred to martha or jonathan as family before.

“you shouldn’t talk,” bruce says, his voice gravelly and soft at the same time.

“always think of her,” kal-el continues, ignoring him, “when...with...kryptonite.”

there’s no answer from batman. kal-el fixes his gaze on batman’s face, tries to let his vision shift and lock into place, to see through the cowl and look at bruce underneath it, but his powers are still out of reach. his senses are sharpening, though, and he listens to each tiny plink as the last scraps of kryptonite are dropped into the case. he searches for bruce’s heartbeat and finds it, thumping away like it should be.

“i don’t know if...the pain is the same,” kal-el manages. “but maybe―maybe close.” he’s never told martha that, wouldn’t have even worried her by telling her about kryptonite if she hadn’t read it in the news.

kal-el breathes a sigh of relief when batman finally closes the lead case. it feels like a torrent of rain just melted away on the wind. he feels warm again.

“don’t try to move yet,” bruce says.

as if on cue, robin pokes his head in through the front doors and shouts, “batman! they’re getting antsy out here, should i―”

“two minutes,” batman answers, still kneeling by kal-el, his hand still on kal-el’s chest, and robin disappears again. this time, kal-el can hear dick’s footsteps, his voice as he argues with mpd officers outside.

kal-el’s mind is clear enough now to finally comprehend why batman and robin have been keeping everyone out of the museum while he was down. he can’t think of anyone other than batman who is really equipped to deal with kryptonite, but a dozen first responders would’ve swarmed around superman to help anyway, asking questions and making everything worse.

plus, superman is a symbol. kal-el realized that a long time ago. the world needs to think of him as stronger than anything. batman knows that, understands it maybe better than kal-el ever will.

despite the pain and disorientation of the last few minutes, kal-el never felt threatened, the way he would have if batman hadn’t been close by to tend his wounds, if robin hadn’t been holding the world outside at bay.

in his first encounter with kryptonite, superman had managed to defeat his foe, but was left defenseless in the aftermath, stumbling and then crawling away from the unfamiliar rock until the distance was enough to free him. he had been alone, as always, but now terribly aware of it, and he had been afraid.

this time he had allies at his side, and the difference it made was profound, staggering.

“can you stand?” bruce asks, jolting kal-el from his thoughts.

after a deep breath, kal-el gets to his feet. bruce rises with him, watching him closely.

“and―?” bruce says, eyeing kal-el.

the heaviness has left his bones and kal-el feels strong again, sharp and bright again. he rolls his shoulders, the injured one maybe a little stiff but otherwise fine, his suit bloodstained but the wound itself already healed.

he nods, and bruce pauses a moment, then smiles such a tiny smile that kal-el thinks he would’ve missed it if his heightened perception hadn’t returned.

“we left it open for you,” he says softly, then turns and starts for the doors, to back up robin and maybe, if the swarm of officers was lucky, answer one or two questions.

“thank you,” kal-el calls after him in kryptonian. it feels important to say it, for batman to know that kal-el appreciates him―not just his help, but his presence, the way kal-el feels seen for the first time in his life when bruce is around.

batman slows, stops, and the swish of his cape settles to stillness around him. kal-el is reminded of a story in the gotham gazette about some human traffickers who were ambushed by batman, transporting victims right in front of him after mistaking his motionless figure for a statue.

he glances at superman over his shoulder, and kal-el suddenly knows what it’s like to be on the other side of this moment. how many times has someone shouted gratitude toward his already-retreating figure, how many times has kal-el continued to fly away because he didn’t know how to respond?

but bruce knows how, he knows exactly what to say, and it haunts kal-el for days, like sweet smoke floating all around him.

bruce answers with the first kryptonian phrase kal-el ever taught him, the night they stood on the rooftop with robin for hours―the idiom about the burdens you bear because they’re worth it.

then he heads for the exit again, and kal-el flies straight up through the open skylight to find a quiet place to spend the night until he can bask in the sunrise and feel fully like himself again, bruce’s voice echoing in his mind all the time.

-

there’s something odd as they descend the stairs. kal-el likes to keep his feet on the ground when he’s in a new place for the first time, and every footfall seems softer than the last; the air is getting quieter, emptier. by the time they reach the cave itself, he’s figured it out. the cave is soundproofed, with something even kal-el can’t hear though, and when bruce closes a heavy door behind them, kal-el can’t hear anything beyond the walls, and he knows nothing within the cave can be heard from outside.

he wonders briefly at his timing, to have always been able to find bruce’s heartbeat when he wanted to over the years, never at a moment when he was here, out of reach.

the silence is incredibly calming. kal-el feels his shoulders loosen, some tension leaving his jaw. this is the most quiet he can remember ever experiencing on earth. even his hideout in the north pole, far from civilization, has the rush of water, wind, marine life thriving and thrumming in every direction, and he can still hear metropolis if he tries. but here...

“kal-el?” bruce’s voice cuts through the silence. kal-el blinks out of his revery. bruce, paused a few yards away, lifts a hand toward a cluster of computer monitors deeper into the cave. kal-el follows.

an hour later, kal-el has sifted through seven years of archived footage from the casino vault, and found nothing to help solve the latest mystery. bruce is a few feet away, halfway through a formidable stack of papers and photos, ongoing or potential cases he’s still trying to break open. at some point, alfred wandered in with a tray of soda and sandwiches, which smelled too good for kal-el not to eat, and bruce had followed suit.

it’s pleasant, just working near someone, no pretenses or formalities. unfamiliar, but pleasant, and kal-el settles into it after a while. bruce taps his toes inside his shoes when he’s thinking, and hums quietly when he’s noticed something new. this is the longest kal-el has ever seen bruce out of uniform. a black t-shirt hangs from his shoulders, so soft and loose compared to the kevlar.

kal-el comes to the end of another video file; still nothing. frustrated, he pushes away from the desk, a little harder than he meant to, and the glass of soda he’d been drinking tips, tumbles off the edge, and he grabs for it before anything spills, and bruce’s hand lands on top of his a half-second later.

after another half-second, bruce pulls his hand back, picks up whatever document he’d been looking at a moment ago. kal-el tilts his head when he notices that bruce’s eyes stay on kal-el’s hands.

“nothing?” bruce says, his voice barely above a whisper.

“nothing,” kal-el answers in kryptonian.

but there is something. there’s something in bruce’s eyes that kal-el has never seen before. there’s something about the way his bare hand felt on kal-el’s, unlike any other time they’ve touched―kal-el pulling bruce out of harm’s way, or bruce putting a steadying hand on kal-el’s chest while he pulled out kryptonite shards with the other.

“nothing,” bruce repeats. kal-el watches his lips form the word. his pronunciation is nearly flawless, but he frowns as soon as it leaves his mouth, knowing that he didn’t get it quite right, and in the blink of an eye, kal-el has closed the space between them and stops three inches from bruce’s face, waiting for him to move next. the desk chair he leapt from spins slightly in his wake.

their eyes lock for a long moment, both of them searching for something in the other’s face. then bruce starts to lean forward, and kal-el rushes to meet him, and bruce’s lips are soft and yielding under his, and kal-el has stopped thinking entirely, drowning in the sound of bruce’s racing heartbeat, and his hands come up to touch bruce’s jaw, his hair, to drag along the fabric of his t-shirt, warmed by body heat. then he feels bruce’s fingertips on his cheek, and it’s like a million tiny lightning bolts connecting with his skin, and he pulls bruce closer, and closer, and then bruce makes a small sound that sends fire down kal-el’s spine until he registers it as a sound of pain, or at least discomfort. he realizes his grip is too tight, and probably bruce needs oxygen, and kal-el lets go in a daze, disentangles their arms and puts a little space between them again.

bruce starts to move, as though to pull kal-el back in, then stops. his eyes are on the floor.

for a minute or two, the only sound is bruce quietly catching his breath, his heart slowly returning to a normal pace, and the low thrum of the computers surrounding them.

kal-el can’t take his eyes off bruce. his face is flushed, his pupils dilated, his lips reddish-pink and swollen. kal-el thinks he remembers biting bruce’s lips at some point. how long were they kissing? ten seconds? sixty? he feels like he just woke up from a dream.

for a split second, bruce’s eyes flick up to kal-el’s, then he turns back to the desk, starts fidgeting with his case files. kal-el wants to touch him again but doesn’t think he’s allowed.

once his head stops spinning enough to form thoughts again, kal-el remembers all the reasons why what just happened might be a bad thing. each one hits him like a raindrop, and he watches bruce’s face crystallize into a perfectly stoic expression and knows bruce got to that realization a few moments before him, put his defenses back up just that little bit faster.

“you can take a break, if you want,” bruce mutters, so quiet that he’s not so much breaking the silence as putting pressure on it. “or...i can go through the rest of the footage, let you know what i find.” he picks up a pen and puts it back down.

kal-el knows that bruce knows that he doesn’t need to take breaks, and that he can get through the footage ten times faster. bruce doesn’t say things that don’t make sense unless he really means something else. in this case, it’s easy to tell that bruce is asking kal-el to leave, so he does.

he leaves the cave, leaves wayne manor, leaves gotham. it feels odd being in that city when he’s not with batman. he flies back to metropolis, stops a subway car from derailing, and sits on a crane to watch the sun set between a couple of skyscrapers. he lets himself listen for bruce’s heartbeat just once, and doesn’t find it.

[sidewalkscienceguy]

This will be the *only* take I give about the "New Jersey drones".

I do Sidewalk Astronomy on street corners every single day and meet about 10,000 people per month. So I get to see how knowledgeable people are, and how ignorant (the literal definition) people are, every single day.

A lady came up to me Friday evening and asked if we were looking at "that weird object falling down from the sky."

This picture is what she pointed at. An airplane with contrails. It was moving across the sky, and it was very easy to see the plane with your eye.

People have absolutely no clue what things in the sky are. It's atrocious. So please forgive me if I'm taking whatever "UFO reports" in NJ with a handful of salt. Out of the 500-1000 people I see every night, maybe 20-30 can self-identify the planets without help. About 10 people will ask if we're looking at the Moon, when the Moon is nowhere in the sky.

But Friday was not the first time people have asked what easily identifiable objects are. Planes at sunset look a bit strange because of the changing colors and reflecting light off their bellies and glowing contrails. A month ago, a different woman walked up and pointed at a low-flying drone (your typical Mavic with a camera hanging off the bottom) and asked if it was a UFO. The thing was maybe 200 feet off the ground just buzzing around the park across the street.

I meet 10,000 people every month. I hear their conversations, I hear their thoughts and opinions. Some try to trap me in debates about weird conspiracies. I've been screamed at by flat earthers. Yesterday, some lady called Sidewalk Science Center a "government psyop."

So while I don't have expertise on the supposed drones, I can 100% tell you that most people I meet have absolutely no clue what stuff in the sky is. Imagine seeing Venus and Jupiter, massively bright dots in the sky, out of context without some people on the street with telescopes to tell them what they're seeing. Imagine looking up, seeing "that weird object falling out of the sky," or "that UFO," and not having someone right there to show you it's a plane or household drone.

On top of that, Florida has like 20 rocket launches a month. We STILL get reports of glowing lights in the sky during launches, not to mention how people in the western US report UFOs as the rockets come back around circling the Earth and can be seen traveling in from the west and crossing overhead.

The truth is that people are ignorant and inexperienced skywatchers. Most people seek attention. So you can bet that as the stories started flying out, more people started flooding social media with videos of "drones" because it would have a higher chance of going viral. On top of that, copycats just trying to screw with people likely flew actual drones to cause a stir for a good laugh (albeit smaller than some reports, but again, people are terrible perceivers especially in times of spectacle).

But yeah. Planes exist, secret government programs exist, drones exist, people absolutely suck at knowing how to identify objects but are great at caving in to attention-seeking behavior. Human ignorance will forever make a better headline.

[sterekbros]

You and I Collide (13.6k) for @evanesdust

Written for the Summer 2023 @sterek-exchange Event

@sterekbingo square forever, @sterekweekly pillow, @warmandfluffybingocards pillow fort

The one where Barista Stiles propositions Alpha Derek to be the nanny for his kids, especially since Derek went through so many candidates that Stiles thought there weren't any more for him to interview.

Stiles looked at the long line and sighed as Scott rang up another person. He really hated the lunch rush. Who the hell needed coffee in the afternoon? Really. Wouldn't it mess up their sleep schedule later that night? Well… at least it would mess up his. But coffee affected Stiles a little differently than some people because of his ADHD.

He took the receipt from Scott and looked at it. “Another Caramel Macchiato? They know that this isn't Starbucks, right?” 

Scott shrugged. “Sorry, man. I mean, we know how to make them, right? Let’s just do it so we don't have to hear them complain about it.”

Stiles sighed and grumbled his displeasure under his breath. He really hated dealing with the people and their special drinks, but that was why he wasn't working the register. Stiles would rather make the coffee than deal with people. At least, not the people that wanted a million things done to their coffee rather than taking it black, regular, or at least some kinda cold brew that wasn't too crazy. 

He’d learned more about coffee than he ever thought he would have over the last few months. And he really needed this job, because he was taking a year (or two) off before he was going to college because he needed the money for his tuition. 

Thankfully his dad said he could stay at home while he worked on saving money for school, so he didn't have to pay rent or worry about bills — which meant all his money was going into savings. Unfortunately, Stiles didn't really make that much making coffee. It was better than minimum wage, but at this rate, he might have to take a few years off before he enrolled at the local university.

He finished a few coffees and called a few names, setting the cups on the counter for people to pick up. It was done all on autopilot, which was how Stiles’ day went most of the time. After heating up and handing another customer a sandwich, he turned around to look out into the space, seeing that the line had died down and their lunch rush was over.

Which meant he could check out the hot dude that had come in almost every day for the last week. 

Mr. Honey-Almondmilk-Flat-White-with-Whipcream. 

He was the only person that Stiles wanted to ring up at the register because it was really the only time that Stiles ever got to talk to him. Stiles melted when the dude smiled or even looked at him with those pretty hazel eyes, which were always different colors each time Stiles had seen him come in the last week.

Scott always poked fun at him when their shift was over because of his crush and he really wished sometimes that he didn't work with his best friend. Scott was never going to let him live it down when Stiles’ crush went nowhere and the dude ended up not coming back at some point.

Over the week, Stiles noticed that he’d met with several people a day, and with enough eavesdropping, he’d learned that he was interviewing people for a live-in nanny position that came with not only a budget but a nice salary. 

The kids were four-year-old twins and Stiles wondered what happened to their mother since he hadn't heard anything about a second parent during his eavesdropping sessions. 

He cleaned the counter and sanitized a few pitchers before leaning against the counter and pointedly ignoring Scott who was trying to poke fun at him for watching the latest disaster of an interview. 

The woman left and the dude looked defeated, which Stiles hated. He grabbed a pitcher and poured almond milk in it, whipping up a honey almond milk flat white with little effort and poured it into a cup before putting a lid on it.

Stiles shook his head and pushed Scott’s hand away when Scott tried to stop him. He really tried to make it casual, but there was no way that the dude wouldn't know that Stiles had been watching because of what he was about to do, especially since Stiles had memorized his drink.

“Hey,” Stiles said carefully, smiling when those eyes he wanted to lose himself in looked up at him. 

“I figured you needed a pick me up after that last one.” He handed him the cup and when Mr. Honey-Almondmilk-Flat-White-with-Whipcream took the drink, Stiles sat across from him in the cushy chair he usually took his break in.

The dude sniffed it and then took a sip. “You know my order…”

“Well, yeah. You’ve been ordering it for like, the last week when you’ve been in here.” Stiles smiled and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I’m Stiles.”

“Derek,” came the short response. Derek put his coffee down on a small table next to him. “Thank you for the drink. Is there something I can do for you, Stiles?”

There were several things Stiles wanted Derek to do to him, but he managed to refrain from offering since that wasn't the reason he was over here. Any other day though, Stiles would be jumping at the opportunity to get into Derek’s pants.

“You have a position open for a nanny…” Stiles watched Derek carefully and Derek’s features were schooled, but Stiles could tell he was curious because his eyes spoke more than he must realize. “And I wanted to interview for it.”

“You… be a nanny.” Derek’s words sounded disbelieving, yet amused at the same time.  But it wasn't a question. 

continue on A03!

[egipci]

Bourbon Street Parade

They drove down to New Orleans looking to buy some hex bags from an old connection, but they were out of luck. A little girl, no older than eight years old, appeared in front of the door wearing green fairy wings, in her hand a magic wand with curly plastic ribbons coming out the end of it. She ran the ribbons through her fingers and looped them around and made a motion as if snipping them and craned her neck back and said Old Al was dead forever. Dad rubbed his eyes with the flat of his palm, his mouth down-turned, his jaw clenched. She stretched her arm out and pointed her wand towards the river. She said you better look for some other guy but watch out for all the phonies.

Thanks, Dean said, and held out his family-size bag of tootsie rolls. She shook her head. He wagged his eyebrows and rattled the bag like, you sure? This is the good stuff. Two for five at the gas station this morning but he was already down to a third of a bag and this made him feel very generous. Again she shook her head. He made a show of unwrapping a candy and throwing it into his mouth. She gave him a disgusted look and took off.

O-kay, he said. He scraped the taffy coating his teeth with a fingernail, struggled some to get out what was stuck between them while he thought carefully about touching Dad’s elbow or offering some other comfort. He swallowed, fake-chocolate taste thick at the back of his throat, and looked at his dad and Dad sighed and slapped his shoulder and said let’s go and started walking down Conti, leaving the car behind, always knowing what to do, walking fast like he did in huge strides that you had to jog a little to keep up with him for five, six blocks, past blow-up ghosts in front of homes covered in mesh cobwebs and kids inside them screaming, the street narrowing in, the sidewalks getting busier. Out of nowhere Dad crossed the street and there was a beep and Dean waved his hand at the guy behind the wheel and there were startled angry apologetic looks exchanged and Dean turned again looking for his father and caught sight of his turning left on Bourbon and called out after him and rounded the corner, his hand on his dead phone heavy and useless in his pocket, his eyes trained on Dad’s shoulders, so far behind him now and between them fat Batman in gray suit and hard plastic cowl, Michael Jackson who couldn’t moonwalk, Dolly Parton with foam tits and cowboy hat, chick waddling in mermaid tail, sexy nurse, squad of stormtroopers, preacher raging into a microphone, Ghostface, Black guy in a shoulder-length brown wig and beige-colored bathrobe, three little kids drumming on upside-down buckets, vampire with plastic fangs and red running down her chin and down her neck and her sternum artfully between her boobs, innumerable sweaty costumeless midwestern couples drinking liquor in plastic cups, murder victim with axe sticking out his head, scarecrow, Neo in leather duster, sorority girls in heels, fun-loving gay dudes, Pennywise and closely-related generic clown, a second and third Ghostface, beer sweetness in the air and gumbo and a big manly hand on his ass squeezing and Eagles cover band singing the full moon is calling the fever is high and the — corner of St. Ann where Dad turned right and disappeared into one of the courtyards or up into the rare green aurora flashing over the Mississippi a hundred yards away with its sewage smell, leaving Dean forever with his candy and choices to make like does he go back where he came from or does he walk miles up and down Decatur for the ghosts to watch and laugh from their balconies or does he ask for a phone to please call my dad and even worse than that the humiliation of asking where are you where should I meet you why would you leave like that should I go back to the car?

But then he heard the shouting. A large-sounding, murderous-sounding man was cursing insanely. His voice echoed and spilled out into the street. Dean pushed in a narrow metal gate that led into a poorly-lit path that led into a creole courtyard just as Dad turned the corner on his way out and said found you and just as Dad turned the corner Dean made some embarrassing girlish sound and threw himself back against the wall, gasping wildly, his heart rabbiting, hopped up on high-fructose corn syrup, threatening to bust out through his ribs. Pressed his hand to his chest to keep it in place. Whatever misery Dad saw on his face made him grin wide and sharp. Across from Dean he leaned against the wall. Only three feet between them now. But Dad tugged on his jacket, pulled him closer. Dean tripped over his feet, into Dad's chest, held on to Dad's arms for balance. Dad said, Here you go, laughing. He held a cloth pouch in his hand, tried to fit it in Dean’s right pocket but found it full of candy wrappers. He tsked as they fell soundlessly to the ground and said, gonna make yourself sick bud, slow and deep and pitying, teasing, hot in that eye-prickling way. He pulled Dean’s jacket open and left the pouch and its mysteries inside the inner pocket then his hand on Dean’s chest.

I was right behind you, Dean said, belly swirling with taffy and four whole months since he’d last had Dad’s hands on him.

I know, dude.

I found you.

I know, Dad said, huge careful hands cradling Dean’s skull. He said hey come here, and his hot open mouth was on Dean’s skin and his beard scratching and his teeth and he tilted Dean’s face up finally and then there was nothing for it. Dean closed his eyes.

[blogparanormal]

Paranormal (Data Dump) 3C

* The scariest UFO experience was in early March of 2017. I left my house and there was a light drizzle. When I was inside my house, I felt like I needed to grab my umbrella from my car because I might need it in the morning. My umbrella was in my car because I left it there. However my car was parked a few houses down at my grandmother’s home. This was where I parked my car because there was no room in the drive way at my parent’s house and the community rule states that cars will be towed if parked outside between midnight and 6:00AM. I do not know what made me feel like I needed to get my umbrella for the morning. I just went. I walked in the drizzle to my grandmother’s home. The drizzle was starting to sting my face as I opened my car door. I reached inside and took my umbrella out of the car and opened it. I closed the door and locked the car. Then all of a sudden, a downpour of rain came out of nowhere as I stood next to my car holding the umbrella. It made me feel as if I was in a motion picture and the heavy rain happened right on cue as I opened my umbrella. I was still next to my car when I saw a rainbow orb. The orb was not solid. It looked like a regular rainbow, but with a sphere. Then a yellow beam shot out of the sphere. It shot out as fast as lightning, but it was a full cylinder of yellow light. The yellow color reminded me as a Dixon Ticonderoga pencil. The sound of this beam seemed to be 10 times louder than thunder. I could feel the sound through my whole body. I felt the ground wobble just like the time I ate at a restaurant in Rancho Marriage and there was a small earthquake. I nervously walked back to my house grasping the handle of the umbrella. The orb floated to the center of the community. It had gotten closer to me. Just like before, it blasted its beam into the ground. It made that super loud thunder like noise. The beam must have been hot because it seemed to be able to create a thick fog around where it hit. I was in front of my parent’s driveway and I saw the rainbow orb in the middle of the road behind my car in my grandmother’s driveway. The orb launched the beam down to the ground, shook the ground, and a loud blast sound was heard. Imagine huge plumes of white smoke before a car catches fire, but it was vaporized water vapor from the heat of the beam. The mist flooded the air. Then it started to come down the road closer to me. This was the first time I had ever felt like I was in danger from a UFO. I ran into the house. I did not look back. My shoes and umbrella were soaked. I am still puzzled on what happed to me that day. The next day was clear and sunny, all day. What made me have the urge to go outside in the drizzle the day before? Did the UFO have something to do with my desire for the umbrella?

* On 5/6/17 I was driving home from 7-Eleven. I was in my car and I spy what some people call a UFO. This unidentified foreign object was a Mercedes Benz SLS AMG Roadster. It was black and its fold down roof was up. The convertible top was black. The SLS took a right turn and I followed in my car. We were heading west on the bridge over a river. I was admiring the SLS while driving upward on the bridge. This time I saw a real UFO in the sky. It was massive. It was circular with a flat top and flat bottom. Imagine an “Oreo” cookie with the diameter of three jumbo jet wing spans around 600 feet. The object was gold in color and had what looked like weld lines. The height was about 200 feet. I was now at the top of the bridge and the AMG super car I was to my left and the UFO was to my 10:00 position in the sky. I was headed down the bridge and in about 3 seconds the UFO faded into the sky as if its surroundings were being mirrored on the craft. I could still see the outline of the craft. I was at the bottom of the bridge and the trees are now blocking my view. I arrived home without incident. On 5/12/17 NASA claimed that they were testing a top secret aircraft. This raised a red flag because nobody tells about secret operation of any sort in the government. I was and still not sure if the two incidents were related, but I smell a conspiracy in development.

* In October of 2017, I was on a cruise ship. Everybody had to gather at our muster station outside. I was standing in a crowd of people they are all focused on the musterer for a safety briefing. The musterer was showing how to put on the life-vest in case of emergency. At this time a commercial jetliner flew near a cloud and a gold disk shaped object appeared just below the front landing gear area of the plane. I thought the UFO appeared because the plane got close to it. I thought there was going to be an accident with the plane and UFO because of how close they were together. I would say that the disk was about 10 –15 feet long in diameter and reminded me of the shape of a hamburger made out of gold. The musterer was talking about life rafts and I saw two more of the same craft. The UFOs were zipping and zooming, similar to how wild animals play with each other. They were flying all over the place. Another commercial jet took off and barley missed another UFO again in a different spot. It was as if the UFOs were playing chicken in the airways of the sky. The three UFOs then flew in formation and headed for some nearby clouds. The safety briefing was over and I left with the crowd. This happened in Fort Lauderdale Florida.

[idcpxseur]

disclaimer: i have no genuine hatred/contempt for jess or jason! i am just very, very angry!

i hate how every guy in mystreet is obsessed with aphmau. like it pisses me off SO much. like okay. i get garroth, laurence, and aaron because you know THEY WERE HER LOVE INTERESTS IN MCD but dante??? travis???? brendan (for the literal slightest bit that he was here)??? three people who did not show any romantic interest her besides small (insignificant) crushes, that didnt go beyond playful flirtation and/or quick things that dont go deeper beyond surface level.

and i know mystreet was written in tandem with pdh but it doesnt make sense that they would include a wholesome friendship with travis and aphmau and then turn around and have them turn around to be strangers and travis flirting with her because he has an interest to her (but does... but does he actually??? or does he just like her because shes pretty like???)

thats why i like zanemau (as i will ramble abt in another post) so much because i was rooting so HARD for zane because he does flirt with her occasionally but its always backed up with a joke and he never showed any romantic interest for her. HE BECAME HER FRIEND FIRST. HE BECAME HER FRIEND FIRST. HE BECAME HER. FRIEND. FIRST.

and ofc im going to have the whole group genuinely become friends first but in mystreet it PISSES me off

and on top of that, they treat her like a prize to be won. which makes me mad because their mcd counterparts would. NEVER.

ive never talked about it here but all of the guys (excluding zane and vylad) took the biggest brunt of the character assassination tirade that jason (jason. not jess. jason. i have a firm belief that jason was a bigger contributor to mystreet than jess) went on to reduce all of the characters to cheap knockoffs and unfunny flat, static characters. while their mcd characterizations werent perfect, theyre LEAPS and BOUNDS better than their mystreet variations

and you want to know why? because they probably sat there and looked at the original version of mystreet (and mcd season 2) and said "damn, aaron is a fucking boring character" because he IS. compared to the vast majority of the characters in mystreet and mcd, aaron is largely uninteresting! in mystreet he has no real motivations. no drive, no friends, no job (that we hear about) and we never see aaron and aphmau hang out UNLESS its a scene where garroth and laurence over-fucking-react to aphmau having friends (oh god forbid the woman have male friends!) and sure he has the ultima thing going for him but we never even start hearing about that until mystreet season 3 (and pdh season 2)

and in mcd hes even worse! hes just some (probably musty) dude who came out of nowhere and saved aphmau from werewolves and has a vendetta against zane (surprise surprise, look around fucko! you arent alone, the entirety of rua'an has an axe to grind against the fucker!! get in fucking line!!). hes even LESS interesting than mcd aaron because he legit has NOTHING GOING FOR HIM. he never even made conversation with aphmau unless she was being a damsel or they were alone!!

you know doki doki literature club? when monika starts fucking around with the character files and pumped all of the girl's worst, most undesirable traits to max to make herself appear more likeable to the mc? i imagine that was jason's idea to make the boys look terrible and aaron look like a hero.

also side note: the fact that jason looks nothing like aaron weirds me the fuck out. like aphmau is obviously jess' self insert with similar hair, skin, and eye color but aaron looks nothing like jason aside the color of their fucking eyes. wack.

anyway thats it. sorry its taking me so long to update any of this, ive been trying to you know do this whole "self care" shit. its been working really well but ive been spending less time online as a result! but im working on my notes and im trying to figure out how i want to write this out! i dont have the time to write a comic book but i was thinking about writing and posting it on ao3!!! what do you think?

anyway, thats all for now. toodles!

[closingwaters]

PARTIES: @faunandfl0ra @closingwaters

TIMING: A few weeks ago

SUMMARY: Teagan stops by for some tips and new additions to her plant family, quickly realizing that Conor was also fae. He wasn't thrilled at first, but the two get along and have some tea.

WARNINGS: None

The scent of everything floral was easy to find. Google Maps helped, sure, but Teagan used her nose to find the rest of the way to Inflorescence. Excitement brimmed over her skin, and she couldn’t help the extra bounce in her gait as she made her way to the door. How could she? Conor was obviously not human given his lack of technological knowledge. There were flaws in the logic, but that’s why Teagan took caution. She didn’t out herself or gave any indication that she may know something. It was safer that way.

“Hello? Conor?” The fae announced her arrival, and she beamed at the prospect of being immediately welcomed by Conor. He was nowhere to be found. The bell continued to ring as the door swung closed, the sight of all kinds of plants radiating color and beauty. Teagan’s pupils grew into saucers, like a cat experiencing enrichment for the first time. Her attention couldn’t stay in one place, only lingering for a blink before moving onto the next green life. She hardly noticed the man who owned the place making his way to her. 

When he was not in the shop, Conor usually retreated to the quiet of his garden in the back. There was quite a lot to do here. The previous owners clearly didn’t like the concept of nature and other than an ornamental lilac tree in a corner, there was nothing but lawn. What a fucking waste. Some plants would take a few more weeks to properly sprout out, but he knew he’d soon have pollinators again in here.

He was getting the soil ready for plantations when he heard the bell ring in the front, along with his name. It was someone he had already spoken to. He heard the quiet pads of ‘his’ cat climbing down the stairs. Little bugger had showed up in his flat while he was moving in, and Conor wasn’t the sort to resist that sort of intrusion. He hadn’t given it a name yet. It was a guy, by the look of it. He’d have to take him to the vet. 

He walked in through the back door, not surprised to see his cat on the counter.  As he saw her looking with those eyes at the flowers he kept around the shop, arranged by size and color, he figured that he’d probably appreciate her. “Hi,” he put on a small smile and wiped his dirty hands on his apron. “I was in the back,” he explained, then turned his attention toward the plants as well. “I’m sorry, you’re…” 

Oh. The hum that accompanied Conor further widened Teagan’s pupils. It was familiar. Lovely. Home! Wicked’s Rest was nothing short of a wonder, all but throwing more of her siblings at her. They’d never replace her actual family, but she couldn’t go back to them, now could she? Pretending was just as good, or at least, that’s what Teagan told herself. The lie constantly made acid rise in her throat, but she wasn’t lying to herself then. She was far too enamored with the man in front of her. 

Heterochromic eyes beamed, and she closed the distance, stopping just before intruding on Conor’s space. Teagan had learned the hard way that not all fae wanted even the briefest of connections. “I’m Teagan. We spoke on the web. Ring a bell?” Her eyes glanced at the furry friend on the counter, but they could wait. When it came to living creatures, fae tended to come first for the nix. Everything else fell too easily aside for her, especially when excitement overflowed in her heart. It was what drove her, and motivated her to pounce at any chance at being around a sibling.

“I’m sorry to be so forward, but what are you?”

Conor must have felt it the exact same second she did. His hands tensed and he held up semi closed fists in front of him as she strode his way. Oh no, not this again. He barely relaxed as she told him her name. Teagan, from the computer. The one who was swooning the ladies, he recalled. It had been a few days, there must have been a lot of swooning. “Huh uh,” his eyes moved around her figure while he tried to make some sense of all this. She seemed all too thrilled about this. Birdie had seemed just as fucking thrilled. Then there was him, who stared back at her with a dulled fright in his eyes. 

“Oh fucksake,” should he have been delighted too? Why was he inhabited with dread then? “You’re new to town too,” he mumbled to himself. Maybe she was like him : she didn’t know many other fae. It didn’t explain why she was excited, but he heard before that different people reacted differently to the same event. “Huh, I don’t suppose you’re asking me about my job?” He looked down at his apron. The shop itself was telling enough, and he could have sworn he told her this already. “I’m…” He glanced down at where his hooves should have been, if only to look away from her. “Well I’m a faun I guess.” 

Ouch. That wasn’t the pleasant reaction she was hoping for, but Teagan couldn’t really be all that offended. The dread in Conor’s eyes weren’t unfamiliar, having seen the same look from her own family. Fifteen years later, and she was finally seeing the look again. Still felt just as awful as when it happened at her Aos Sí. Her arrival was never a happy occasion, met with glares and distress. It was fair, she supposed. Teagan’s skin was always burning from the blood that she was covered in from a hunt she was told not to go on. She couldn’t help it. She needed to avenge her family. 

“Well…” Teagan pressed her nails into her cuticles, trying not to let the buzzing beneath her skin turn into pin pricks at her fingertips. “Faun,” She gestured to Conor, and then herself. “And nix. But you don’t seem too pleased with the idea so I can keep my distance, if you’d like.” Proud as she was to be a nix, Teagan knew better than to force her opinion on others. She didn’t like it when her family did it, and she wouldn’t dare become a hypocrite.

 "It's not…" He didn't like it when people were upset. He never did a great job at making people happy, not unless his magic did its thing. Still, Conor dreaded seeing people upset. He put a hand to his chest, as if to calm down the bubble of anxiety growing in here. "It's not you. I'm not…" He paused. "I don't know," the faun stammered. He only ever met fae who were eager to make him adhere to their way of doing things. He was raised by humans and he couldn't bring himself to change his ways. 

"I'm sorry, I'm fucking sorry." Because things were going swimmingly well when they were chatting the other day. Why did he have to be like this? His bubble of anxiety kept on growing. Pushing his palms against his eyes, the faun turned his back on her and went on to pick up the cat on the counter, as a barrier and as a friend. "I just… I don't know many people," like me, but the words wouldn't come out, as if he forbade himself to pronounce them, to accept them as true. Maybe they could speak of something else, for a bit. Even a minute. The faun's favorite question came to mind, and he briefly met her eyes before he asked: "what's your favorite flower?"

Teagan’s heart sank at the sight. Conor seemed at odds with himself, unsure how to proceed after seemingly upsetting her. She wanted to give him a hug, reassure him that she wasn’t offended, but his mannerisms gave a silent plea to keep her distance. Not like the fauns she’d met in the past, but there was no right way to be fae. Not to her, at least. He reminded Teagan of her sister, how she behaved when an influx of emotions rolled in her chest. Even the change in subject was the same, and she smiled wanly. She didn’t want to overwhelm Conor even further if she could help it. 

“Oi, is quite all right, lad. Not upset with you at all. You didn’t do a thing wrong. Take things as you need.” She nodded her head, smile growing for added reassurance. “Favorite flower are the dahlias. Lots of layers and lots of colors.” Teagan clasped her hands behind her back and shifted her weight from front to back, going back to her more playful nature. “What about you? You got a favorite or is that too hard a question?”

“I …” It was complicated to justify his discomfort when she was trying her best to be reassuring. Still he stood his ground, paralyzed as he was with the unscheduled confrontation. The cat was a lot more relaxed, vibrating softly against the faun’s chest. The purring sound helped. He attempted to pace his own breathing with it. His gaze turned toward the floor, the faun nodded along as she explained why she liked dahlias the most. He liked them a lot too. They looked fun, all round and puffy and colorful. 

“That’s a good pick,” not quite relaxed yet, Conor shifted the cat in his arms to let it rest against his shoulder, his cheek against its head. Then, he finally dared to look at her. She said she was a nix. He wasn’t sure he knew what that was. Something to do with the night, was his first guess. He didn’t smile often, yet something akin to thankfulness etched itself on his face. She was an understanding person, it seemed. That was a rarity. “Birds of paradise,” he stated. He had one on the counter behind him, which he moved for a couple hours each day, to make sure it got just enough light. It was the closest thing to a child he had. “Colorful, but… pointy,” pretending to be something they weren’t. A bit like him. He kept that reasoning to himself. 

Warmth began to spread in Teagan’s chest when Conor stepped out of his comfort zone and looked at her. She didn’t know the man, but something told her that, much like her sister, Conor also disliked looking people in the eyes. Teagan always wondered why that was, never really feeling discomfort when eyes locked onto one another. More often than not, she was the one causing people to bristle. Her father often called her eyes too intense to look at, but as nervous as Conor was, he didn’t appear to think so. At least, not past what appeared to be an act that was always nerve-inducing to begin with.

“Oh.” Birds of paradise…a beautiful flower from what the nix could recall. Flashes of purple, orange, and yellow hues in the shape of a hummingbird came to mind. Colorful and pointy indeed. Teagan nodded with a bright smile, scrunching her nose playfully, “Now that is a good pick. Favorites are usually a decent reflection of the person. Got a feeling I’m gonna like you with that choice.” She scanned the room and tucked her hair behind both ears. “ Do you got any of those here? Would love to take a peek if you’ll let me. Who knows? Maybe you’ll sway me into purchasing those instead of my darling dahlias.” Teagan leaned in, a friendly and happy expression of curiosity on her face. “What do you say, lad?”

Her enthusiasm helped. He still felt weird about being in the presence of another fae, sure. He always would, he assumed. Conor had known only his father, and then for about 50 years, hadn’t run into a single other member of his kind. The legends were true about Wicked’s Rest, and in just a few weeks, he had met three now, and felt many more as he took a stroll through the Common, or went on a walk around town. Offering a smile back, yet one that couldn’t quite reach his eyes yet, the faun nodded along. “I am glad you like them too,” he muttered. 

Realizing his hands were still covered with dirt, he let his legs lead the way toward the sink, finding comfort, although he knew he had no reason to feel this way, in the distance the counter put between them. She’s alright, he told himself. Breathe, he reminded himself. “Birds of paradise? Oh fuck, huh.. I mean, I do, but they aren’t for sale, just…” Well, he didn’t precisely sell anything that wasn’t local or seasonal, and this was just his one moment of hypocrisy. “If you really wanted one, I could make it happen, but… They’re not too happy under these latitudes, I’d have to give you a lecture on how to handle the humidity, the sun exposure, the nutrients and that sort of shit. It’s not rocket science, I guess, but it’s still a lot more complicated than it seems and people get really bummed out when they kill a plant, when really, I’ve killed a plant, everyone’s killed a plant in their life,” he didn’t stop to think that perhaps he was both being boring and oversharing. Talking helped, it always did. Maybe this was why he didn’t lean away when she leaned in. “As for dahlias it’s not the season yet, but I was planning on planting some in my backyard,” why was he telling her this? Fuck. “If you want them to blossom come September, that’s the right time.” 

Conor was the soft type, a stark contrast to the nix in front of him. Lucky for him, Teagan knew how to calm her disposition for the sake of others. It wasn’t a lie to do so, not really. Some people couldn’t handle loud for too long, or not at all. It would be rather cruel if she didn’t make the accommodation. At least in her mind. Conor was doing her the courtesy of at least trying despite his obvious nerves. She needed to do the same. 

“As much as I would follow instructions to a tee…” Teagan tutted to herself, “It would just feel inconsiderate when it’s not the right environment for ‘em. What do you got that I can buy? I’ll be more than happy to wait for the dahlias, too.” She chirped with a smile on her face and a tilt to her head. “I’d love to get something beautiful you put together, along with any bulbs I can plant meself.” Arching a brow, she inches forward, finger tapping on her chin. “Could you lead the way? Won’t touch anything either unless it’s okay.”

“It’s doable,” Conor pushed himself to the side, revealing the one he had sitting on the counter : an icicle wooden stick stuck out of the soil, reading not for sale. “And if you do things well,” which he felt like she would, “they can thrive too.” He smiled, for once matching the expression on her face. She was pretty, but when she smiled, it felt as though the sun shone through, and he had no doubt that she had done a lot of swooning with those ladies. 

His shoulders relaxed, even though this all came with the promise that she was about to come into his garden. “How about a flower crown,” he made quite a lot of these, because they were easy to make from scraps, broken stems and flowers who couldn’t fit in a normal bouquet. This month, he made them pride themed, and he assumed she would like them.

Conor set the cat down on the floor, letting him lead the way to the backyard and picking up a crate of Dahlias tubers from an old looking wooden table. His shovel was somewhere in the back, near the newly planted sunflowers. “They need a deep enough hole in the ground. Around 4 inches deep. The soil here is clayey and heavy, so you’ll need to bring a bit of sand to drain, and a little compost, to feed,” he explained, scratching at the back of his neck briefly before he reached in his apron for his gloves. 

To watch a master in his element was a wonder, a true honor that very few got to witness. Such things were intimate, far too vulnerable to let just anyone look in. Teagan smiled with awe, careful to not get too excited at the prospect of both getting a flower crown and gaining entrance to Conor’s garden.

“A flower crown sounds lovely. Oddly enough, I’ve never worn one. Never thought they were much my style, but if it’s made by someone of your expertise, I’m more than happy to wear one.” Teagan followed dutifully, watching the adorable cat that so happened to be leading the pair to their green destination.

While Conor instructed, it was difficult to focus. The garden, as new as it was, already had so much love packed into it. Fresh soil and tools marked with the hard work Conor had put in. Not only that, but Teagan felt at peace in his world. So much so that her chest felt light for the first time in Fate knows how long. “Wow.” She whispered, blinking away the distractions to watch Conor again. “Sorry—I’m listening. It’s just—I mean…” Teagan chuckled, shaking her head at herself. “You’ve just got quite the garden.”

“They are everyone’s style,” he could pull it off, and so could she, which wasn’t to say that all flowers would do. Conor felt like daisies worked best for him, because he liked yellow the most, and because his hair was usually so messy smaller flowers would have gotten lost in there. “You said you were a nix earlier,” he went to pick up a bucket, shovel some sand in it, then returned to the spot of his garden where he intended to plant those dahlias. “What’s … Well I suppose what is a nix, because I don’t think I’ve ever met one,” he was curious. The thought of meeting new fae still terrified Conor, who never had done great with new things, but Teagan was being gentle and he felt like she wouldn’t mind his questions or his curiosity. 

“Yeah? Than-” He pressed his lips together. Regan would have been so proud. “I appreciate it. It’s a lot better than it used to be.” He didn’t like large lawns, and aside from a patio where he set up a table and a couple chairs, and another corner where he’d hung a hammock between tall trees, there weren’t many spaces in his backyards meant to remain in his complete control. He had plans for a water fountain, to help the birds get their water. He also wanted to add more feeders, but his priority was to set up a nice florison plan for the seasons to come. Perhaps, later, he’d try adding a beehive, and maybe, even later on, try to build projects with the city council regarding biodiversity. It wasn’t too bad, but the Common was a bit uninspired and outdated if you asked him. 

Motioning her to come closer, he dug up some soil, and put it in the bucket. He did it again two times more. “When you get that ratio between the sand and the soil, you can mix it together with your hand,” he explained, “we’ll be using that mix for a few plants,” then, kneeling down as well as his legs allowed him to, the faun put his hand into the hole to test the depth. “Alright, we can plant a tuber in there,” he pointed to the crate that sat not too far from her feet. “I’ll give you a few of those. You’ll let me know how they’re growing, yeah?”  

Conor was a sweet one. Once you got past the hard exterior and momentary effects of shock, his true personality shone through. Teagan felt more than thrilled to experience it. She smiled fondly at the man, hugging her knees as she crouched. “Yes, I am a nix. A subspecies of fae. A nymph. So that means I’m in tune with a part of nature. Mine is freshwater. We nixies make sure the water remains healthy and clean, keeping the balance on our side of the ecosystem.” 

Teagan knew she was rambling at that point, but she couldn’t help it. She was proud of what she was. All the memories of learning how to swim, of her family full of fish-like people that swam together and laughed happily as one big unit. But it wasn’t as big anymore, and Teagan hadn’t seen her family in years. So none of that really mattered anyway, and Conor was requesting her assistance. 

“Oh. Yes. Ratio between sand and soil, and erm…” Tubers. In a crate. Teagan shook the fog away and handed the crate over to Conor, nodding along to what he said. “Of course. And if I have any trouble, you’ll be the person I call.”

“Freshwater nymph,” he repeated, getting down on his knees to get more comfortable. He always had felt most comfortable with his hands in the dirt or grazing the strings of his violin. He knew one part of that had nothing with him being a plant nymph, and the other part probably all to do with being a faun. “That’s cool.” She probably didn’t have to feed on people. He hated that he had to do that.

Conor took one of the tubercules from her crate, nodding politely as if to say thanks, then returning his attention toward the hole in the floor. Setting it down in the dirt, he glanced up at the nix. “So the easiest way not to mess up is to plant it sideways. The stem’s always going to try to grow toward the sun, but if you plant it upside down…” Well then, good luck getting anything out of your tubers… “Then you cover it in your sand and soil mix, and voilà,” simple as that. “You’ll probably want to plant more than one tho… Just put one big step between each of them, alright?” 

Sitting down onto the floor to get more comfortable, he looked at her. “You’re not the first fae I meet here,” he began. He wasn’t sure how to say this without once again looking like the odd one, or seeming too direct, too nosy or god knows too what else. “Do you…” He paused. “Are you…” It wasn’t so hard to ask, was it? He just wanted to know if all the fae were all so comfortable about who they were, happy to be the way they were.

“Fascinating…!” Teagan smiled, in complete awe of the way Conor looked so comfortable and like he could understand the plants. He was doing something he was passionate about, and anyone that watched him would be able to see what she did. “I’ll be sure to follow your instructions. Will get my home looking like a painting with how much color these little lads will add.” Teagan settled with Conor, propping her chin on her hands and smiling as he began to speak. 

Her brows began to raise slowly with surprise, the obvious anxiety Conor had becoming prevalent. Despite having met a few fae, it didn’t seem like he had much experience with his own people. “What is it, mun?” Teagan scooted closer, eyes growing sincere with a small tinge of worry. Not about the question, but the fact that Conor looked like he felt bad about having one in the first place. 

“Go ahead and ask what you’d like. I’m not gonna be upset with ya. Truth is, I like talking to ya so far, and if you’re unsure about something, my mam would say questions should always be welcomed.”

“I think so too,” Conor pressed his fingertips against the ground, making sure the tubercle was cozy in there before he sat back to look back at her. He didn’t generally like having people in his garden, but there was something about Teagan that had made him feel immediately at ease. Their introduction in the shop might have been clumsy, she had this aura to her that made him feel simply good. 

Still, as they started to talk fae matters, he had to admit that even that was not going to cut it. He hadn’t discussed it often in his life. His experience as a faun could be summed up to be approximative and disastrous. “It’s just… You don’t seem to be ashamed of being different. A lot of the fae I’ve met lately feel this way.” Conor didn’t go on, but the subtext was clear. Why couldn’t he feel the same way? 

Conor felt revulsed still when he saw his true form, and the only mirror he had upstairs was one above the sink. He didn’t like getting in the shower either, but if he didn’t pay too much attention to his legs, it usually did the trick. He just had to pretend he was one of these guys with really hairy legs. 

“I’m… Don’t mind me. I ain’t usually so fucking moppy about shit, I just… yeah, well we must have been brought up differently, heh?” 

The shame and guilt Conor felt was practically palpable. His body looked like it was in pain, as if it had an incredible weight on it. Teagan worried her lip, heart tightening. “No shame, no.” Her eyes remained on the ground for a minute, slowly trailing to Conor. She wondered what he’d look like in all his glory, but given how much he disliked it, Teagan doubted she’d be able to.

“I was born into a family of nymphs. Raised in the water and in several Aos Sís—those are fae communities.” Teagan offered a wan smile, “I suppose you were raised by humans, eh?” She tilted her head to the side, sympathy for Conor’s discomfort evident. “So yeah, raised differently—but that doesn’t mean you’re anything less. As much as I used to dislike humans, they’re not all bad, and your upbringing shouldn’t be a factor in how people treat you.” 

Teagan stood up, hand extended for Conor to take if he so chose. “Why don’t we talk more over some tea? You can ask as many questions as you like and we can get to know each other. It’s only right. You’re a cousin.”

“You can breathe underwater?” It was perhaps not the heart of her words, yet it was the bit he found most interesting, right before another: “Your community, is it in town?” 

He tilted his head down as she glanced his way. Was it all there was to his troubles : he had been raised by the wrong people? He didn’t think his mother did such a bad job raising him, but when his feet slowly started to shift into hooves, he wondered if she hadn’t been the one to contact his dad. He sure wished he had never met that guy. “My father bailed on my mom while she was pregnant,” he gave her a small shrug. He didn’t particularly like talking about that, but he supposed Teagan wouldn’t judge. She seemed kinder than most of the people he’d spoken to before, and since she was fae, he knew she wasn’t pretending.

“I’ve met one other faun. She’s a lot louder than I am. I wonder if I’d be like that if I had been raised by him,” with a scoff, he took her hand, getting back up on his hooves. “Th-” He cut himself off, “I’m glad we met. You’re a kind soul,” with a wider smile now, he invited her to get a seat at the small garden table he kept in the back, beneath an apple tree. “Green, white or black tea? I’ve got a whole collection in there.” 

“Aye. Can breathe and swim and my actual form looks like an axolotl. Might be a tad overwhelming to see right now, but I can show you some time.” Teagan blinked at the next question, brows furrowing slightly, but only for a moment. She quickly steeled herself, expression changing to something a little more content. “No. Haven’t seen that community in quite some time, sadly. On my own for now. Well…” A breathy chuckle huffed out of Teagan’s nose and she patted Conor’s shoulder gently. 

“Not so much now, eh? Your pa sounds like a right fucker, so who needs ‘im? You seem more than all right to me. Quite the gentleman, I think.” Another pat, “I’m glad we met too, mun.” Following Conor, Teagan plopped herself into a chair and gazed with wonder at Conor’s beautiful hooves. Maybe he didn’t enjoy them, and though she didn’t want it to be the case, Teagan knew there was a possibility he never would. But at the very least, she hoped she could wash away the distaste for them with the waves of her heart.

“Black tea, please. Splash of cream and sugar, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“Axolotls are adorable,” Conor commented. He had seen a few in aquariums. He wondered if a human sized axolotl would still look as cute. Putting his gloves away in his apron, he tidied up the area around the new dahlias and put a bunch of tubercles on a pouch he made with his apron and his hand. “I see. Well, even if you don’t have them, I’d be happy to offer my garden as a safe haven for ya,” if he wondered why she wasn’t with them anymore, he figured that was none of his business. He didn’t answer with precision and he knew that was a right she should have had too. 

“You’re right about that. He is a major fucking dickhead,” he rolled his eyes though her next words brought a smile to his face. “You can thank my mom for that. I was born in the 50s,” with this being said, he parted ways with her to get back inside. His ears would pick up on her reply even as he passed the threshold. Putting her dahlia bulbs into a cardboard box with a bag of sand, he washed his hands before he headed upstairs to his flat. With a light chortle, he approached the window to speak to her from up there : “Cream and sugar? You heathen.” And yet as he walked back downstairs with a tray in his hands, there was a small jug of cream by her empty cup. 

He poured them both a nice amount of tea, and let her adjust to her liking with sugar and cream. “Perhaps you have questions yourself,” he tried. He felt he might have asked too many already, and that she’d find him rude, perhaps.

Teagan’s eyes began to sparkle. She was touched by the compliment and the kind offer. For their meeting to have gotten off on the wrong foot, it seemed like Conor had more than come around. “You are quite the wonder, Conor. I hope you know that.” He was more than that, really. Teagan knew there was power in the kinship they shared as fae, but he didn’t have the same upbringing, and sensing others overwhelmed him. The two of them were meant to meet, it seemed. Even better, they were meant to truly connect, souls ripe for intertwining even with being decades apart.

“The 50s? My, you’ve seen a lot of change then. Can’t even imagine. I’ve only lived three decades, and could very well live up to two centuries. Wonder how much change I’ll see then.” Teagan offered a smile, watching Conor whisk himself away and tease her from afar. She snorted, absolutely amused with the faun’s reaction. He was jesting, the tone in his voice making that apparent.

With a sigh, the nix prepared her tea, nodding her head lightly. “Got a few, but mostly just general questions when you get to know a lad. ‘Where were you born,’ ‘What’s your favorite color,’ “What’s the worst kiss you’ve ever had.’” A laugh escaped Teagan, and she shook her head. “That one was mostly a joke. Really, it’s just nice to feel at home again.” She patted Conor’s hand, head tilted with a warm smile on her face. “Let’s just see where the conversation goes. Take us like a tide on a beautiful summer day.”

“Huh uh,” Conor had ran a hand through his thick, bushy hair then, his wide eyes seemingly suggesting that he had never been told such a thing before. A wonder, he hadn’t been called that, although he once had heard the word monster coming from the lips of someone he liked. He was sure she could relate to that, people who weren’t like them, and didn’t understand. 

He got cozy in the opposite chair. He didn't look like it, but he was quite comfortable now. Holding his cup against his leg, he looked at her as she served him with the questions she had in store. He told her that he was born in Boston, and expressed concern that she hadn't noticed the specks of yellow scattered around. Then, she hadn't been upstairs. Upstairs was a lot worse. Yellow on the walls, yellow on his shower curtain, on his bed sheets. He liked it a tad too much.

He caught himself laughing in relief. Yeah, he didn't want to tell her about his disastrous dating history. Lots of cringing to be found there. But just like that, the pair got chatting of nothing and everything, and the end of afternoon passed joyfully, with the song of the cicada taking over laughter and chatter as the sun reached the horizon. 

[ksfoxwald]

Fire and Hemlock: Part 2 Chapter 6

Part 2 comes to a close with a short chapter where nothing much happens, but a lot of things are set up for later.

Nina goes boy-crazy in earnest, leaving Polly behind to pick up a tentative friendship with Fiona Perks - who we know ends up good enough friends with her to become her roommate when they're at university, so that's a relationship to watch. Diana refers to Fiona as "sensible," and she reminds Polly of Granny.

Polly sets out to write down Tales of Nowhere, which, as anyone who has ever written a Grand Epic Novel at twelve, involves a lot more daydreaming and drawing maps than actual writing. She isn't actually creating anything new at this point.

Polly gets another book from Tom - The Golden Bough, possibly one of the most significant books within the book. But she doesn't read it yet, because Ivy and David are fighting again, and Ivy accuses Polly of making up Tom, which again puts Ivy in parallel to Laurel, considering what happens later. Ivy never actually met Tom, but she doesn't even remember dropping Polly off at his flat, which almost makes one wonder if the Leroys have gotten to her already, but it is also very in character with Ivy. Ivy represents the opposite of Polly's imagination and creativity, even though at first glance Ivy appears to be doing something similar - inventing her own reality. But Diana had some thoughts about that sort of thing in her essay "Writing for Children: A Matter of Responsibility":

While I was reading for the children's book section of the Whitbread Awards, I came across no less than five books that abused their responsibility in a way that was positively pernicious. Each of them depicted a child in some kind of melancholy situation - unhappy at school, trouble with parents, the wrong color and so forth - and then had that child vividly imagine some kind of better or more exciting life. The child is then shown, as a result of this imagining, to be unable to tell which bit of life is physically real and which is only in his or her mind. In other words, imagining things has made this child mad.... The irresponsibility of those writers who claim imagination drives you mad is twofold. First, they wish to cut off the 'what if' process around the level of turning on taps; and second, they are concerned to make it almost wholly joyless.

So from this perspective, Ivy's inability to perceive reality is actually a result of too little imagination; she has her set view of the world and can't imagine anything deviating from it. Imagination, Diana states in the same essay, is the main route to sanity.

We end the chapter with Ivy sending Polly to live with her dad in Bristol, and Polly is understandably feeling very unwanted, even by Tom. "He just thinks of me as some sort of mascot," she thinks about him, indicating that she does have some inkling that he is using her.

The chapter ends on the line "Almost the only thing she was sorry about was not going on with her new friendship with Fiona Perks." On the surface Fiona is a minor character with no connection to Nowhere, but that turns out to be the gift that makes her absolutely pivotal, and she is not someone to forget about.