#it was a weird and pivotal year for me

[laughroditee]

For the ask game: 💬 something you wish you knew 5 years ago?

Link to ask game

[batsplat]

following on from this. not to always bring marc into everything (sorry marc) but if assen 2015 had happened against jorge, valentino would have very likely pulled something similar again imo. rather than what he actually did, which is approach marc almost immediately for a nice normal friendly handshake and backing off during the podium celebrations. should be noted that during laguna seca '08, valentino was very much committed to yapping at casey on the podium with the world's biggest smuggest grin on his face

partly that disparity is because jorge not marc was the direct title rival, partly it's because valentino was treating marc with kid gloves right until the second that he wasn't, which marc was seemingly entirely oblivious to. if anyone other than marc had said what he said in that presser, had then continued on with similar rhetoric during sachsenring, valentino would quite likely have gone nuclear. he's done it over less than that. his fondness for marc made him continue to exhibit uncharacteristic restraint... except that fondness unfortunately is what left valentino feeling so very betrayed when (to his eyes) marc could not leave well enough alone

[strawberrymilkshakeearrings]

man dont get me wrong i like kamala harris too and honestly always felt like she was unfairly villainized by progressive left-wingers but the absolute mental gymnastics being performed rn by people who hated her guts like 6 months ago is insane

[howtodisassembleyourdeviant]

I am officially 30. Kinda weird to think about.

[ketavinsky]

here we’ll dance, in this dark place...

oop, here’s my first venture into painting my gods in all their weird glory. it’ll be a long time before i can accurately depict any of the eldritch maximalist nonsense that day and night have got going on, but anyways: here’s sublime, the eldest of the new divinities, your local sleazy club promoter, that one fucking guy, etc. a bit of writing + some rambling under the cut!

sublime is the eldest son of night, and was modelled in night’s image. as night Himself is afflicted by the same inability to create anything of any originality, same as all the other old gods, sublime is almost a carbon copy of night in His youth. (think around the ming dynasty, during the perihelion phase of Their rule.)

after night’s marriage to dawn, and prompt divorce, night experiences a great deal of something that we’ll call shame and totally renounces all His creations prior to His marriage. 

His second son, scherzo, is modelled in dawn’s perfect image -- or, you know, as a caricature of dawn -- and sublime is shunned and eventually exiled. the sons of night do not get along: sublime is the prodigal eldest who is suddenly being denied his father’s empire, and scherzo is the over-spoilt youngest. 

sublime claims that scherzo is a glorified puppet sculpted by a lovestruck idiot; scherzo claims that sublime is a puddle of dark that their holy father accidentally spat onto.

missing word here, if you’ve ever... 

sublime now has no contact with his father or the nocturne, but he’s fond of his sisters, and will check up on them frequently. scherzo is very ‘i don’t give a fuck about humans, why should i, i am the flawless fucking machine, the eidolon, the hiemal almighty’ sigma bro hashtag grindset but sublime loves humans and is constantly making pacts with them even though he does very literally drive them nuts and distort them and uhh completely fuck up their lives. i’ve been really enjoying filling up his pinterest board hehe bc i really dig that oversaturated neon vibe where everything is a little too bright and vibrant to be entirely real + psychedelic nightmare surrealist clusterfuck etc etc. 

think coloured lights so bright they wash out the expression and the humanity out of the people you see, a warehouse packed full of bodies, your throat dry and pulsing with panic, sensory overload, a shape in the fog machines moving towards you, eyes like flashlights. sublime is very much a horror-oriented character mostly inspired by the struggle of clinging onto reality when you’re not entirely sure what you’ve taken.

he also loves cults and setting up cults, it’s like a hobby for him. he’s very much the black sheep of all the young gods, even considering the Exquisite Distillation, who is very much a mass murderer, but it’s, you know, well deserved. sublime is a slimy dude.

^^ above and below are from an oooold draft. im still trying to get the hang of how sublime interacts with scherzo. the sons of night are not strictly brothers due to the nature of how He creates things, but they certainly do not like each other. sublime cannot stand his successor even though he is forced to admit that scherzo is a flawless new god in both design and ability

it’s worth mentioning here that scherzo loves to lord his status over sublime. scherzo protects night’s great labyrinthine library and thus has unfiltered access to most of the well of human knowledge, as well as surveillance over most human individuals. sublime trades secrets, and puts a little piece of himself into every person he makes a pact with. they are both constantly going apeshit nuts that the other has something they don’t. 

anyways i hope to draw them more as i get a little bit more comfortable with more abstract stuff and then maybe i can even shift to painting the old gods someday. for now i struggle to plan out their character arcs

also they have fucking typing quirks for their weird i am everywhere and everything voices. i will never everrr escape homestuck unfortunately . ah well

im also playing with this idea where each of the new gods represent the inevitability of a great catastrophe (and the continuation of the cosmic cycle) in some way. still playing with this but minuet is the catalyst, sublime is the premonition of it, scherzo is the consequence and the rubble in the aftermath, ofluxe/the exquisite distillation is of course the huge fuckoff problem.

some minuet pov below because she is as of this current draft hellbent on dragging him into a family that embraces him. minuet is a total garbage fire shipwreck car crash of a functional goddess, but she has an iron conviction in the sanctity of family. this will of course obliterate her later.

sublime’s love for his sisters and his wife is probably his only redeeming characteristic, at least until minuet’s POV starts narrating the majority of the shitshow. dare i say misandrist icon. 

[confinesofmy]

they're totally breaking up sometime in the next month if not sooner lol. he was such a dick today. went to town and he was rude to me, which she audibly did not appreciate. rude to her, to the point where multiple times she firmly told him to stop. said he was hungry then said it would be fine then refused to eat at home and repeatedly brought up how we should've stopped in town. kept going off on his own/choosing solitary activities/acting annoyed when we tried to loop him in or get involved with him. cooonstant judgy little comments. and then we started playing video games together he was soooo uncooperative and clearly didn't even want to play. what a bag of dicks lmao.

[theemporium]

number 13 💚 for landoscar!! thank you 🫶🏻

thank you for requesting!🫶🏽

13. “Oh, so they are just a friend, right? That’s what you’re telling me?”

.

You and Lando were doing your best to keep your thoughts to yourself, but it was hard to do when both of you wore your hearts on your sleeves.

And your emotions very clearly across your face. 

Being a little bit younger meant that Oscar was amongst a different group of drivers and colleagues in his younger years, in Formula Two and Formula Three. He had previous teammates he still kept in contact with, old friends from Australia that he made an effort to always catch up with. Oscar had a whole life outside of you both, and you knew that. 

It was different compared to you and Lando, whose lives are so intertwined and connected that there were rarely strangers in each other’s lives.

But that is exactly what it was like with Oscar. 

And it was never a problem, not really. You and Lando loved meeting people that played such big parts in Oscar’s life, people that were important to him, people that he wanted to share with you two. It was a pivotal part of the relationship between the three of you and it was hard not to find it endearing. 

Except, you were pretty fucking sure this old friend of Oscar’s was in love with him and it felt like  a bitter slap in the face to watch him shamelessly flirt away with your boyfriend in front of you both. 

“He’s not even trying to hide it,” Lando grumbled as the two of you stuck to his side of the garage, watching Oscar and his old friend chat away on the other side. “He’s acting like Osc is fucking single and free reign from him.”

“Maybe we are overthinking it,” you supplied, but it sounded weak even to your own ears.

Lando shot you a look. “If Oscar gave him the green light, they’d be shagging in front of everyone.” 

You rolled your eyes. “Now that is a bit dramatic.” 

“Still,” Lando huffed, his lips turning downwards. “I don’t like him.”

“Neither do I,” you murmured, leaning against your boyfriend’s arm and squishing your cheek against his shoulder. “At least he is only here for the weekend.” 

Lando’s nose scrunched up. “Still too long.” 

“Too long for what?” Oscar asked, suddenly appearing beside you both with a soft smile on his face. 

Your cheeks burned but you didn’t glance at Lando as you replied. “Nothing, just some game he’s excited to play with Max.” 

Oscar’s brows raised in interest. “Yeah? What game?”

“One you’ve never heard of,” Lando quickly scrambled out before changing the subject. “So, where’s Harry?” 

“Uh,” Oscar gave you both a weird look but replied nonetheless. “He went to the bathroom. What do you two think of him?”

“He’s nice,” you replied vaguely. 

Oscar frowned a little. “You don’t like him?” 

“No, no,” you quickly reassured the boy. “He does seem really nice.” 

“Would be much nicer if he wasn’t trying to shag you though,” Lando grumbled under his breath, but Oscar heard him well enough.

Oscar snorted, looking a little confused. “Harry? With me? Not a chance, he’s my friend.”

“Oh, so they are just a friend, right? That’s what you’re telling me?” Lando bit out, the jealousy loud and clear to your boyfriend now. “So the blatant staring and giggling and constantly touching you means nothing?” 

And if it were anyone else, they would have gotten defensive. Or angry. Or just as snappy back. But this was Oscar and that wasn’t how he was. And that was not how he dealt with Lando either. 

Instead, the boy stepped forward and took Lando’s face in his hands, watching as the boy sunk into the touch. “He’s just a friend,” Oscar murmured. “And even if Harry did feel that way about me, I wouldn’t care. Because I have you two and that’s more than enough for me.” 

Lando sniffled a little. “Promise?”

“Promise, baby,” Oscar grinend, leaning in to kiss him and doing the same with you before he pulled away. “I’m your boyfriend, not his.” 

Lando puffed his chest out a little. “Damn right you are, Osc.”

.

[inuyashaluver]

hello! can i request an enemies to lovers fic for misa?!?! i absolutely love your fics and theres barely any fics about her so i thought why not

change of heart - misa rodriguez

misa rodriguez x reader

description: in which your relationship with your ultimate enemy takes a turn when she helps you through a tough time

warnings: it’s a long one buckle in, swearing, fighting, suggestive, spanish in bold italics

a/n: finally misa!!! thank you for the love and support, babe, please enjoy!! ❤️

⋆ ★ ⋆ ★ ⋆ ★ ⋆ ★ ⋆

maría isabel rodriguez rivero, or misa if you will, was the bane of your existence. she was ill-tempered, absolutely insufferable when you couldn’t get a ball past her, arrogant and more. she was also gorgeous but you’d never say it out loud.

you couldn’t understand misa and she couldn’t understand you, the two of you just didn’t get along.

you were on the same team always, but it always felt like a competition between the two of you. sure you were a midfielder and she was a goalkeeper but that didn’t mean the hate didn’t stem.

it’s always been like that, especially in the spanish youth teams, you had the ability to push misa’s buttons in a way she couldn’t explain and vice versa. there was never a pivotal moment where the hatred began but you both knew it steadily developed as you got older.

—

“misa, we’re just training, calm down!” a 16 year old you screamed when she dove for your strike, a harsh smack sounding as she caught it.

“we may be training but that doesn’t mean we get lazy, chiquitín (small one)” misa smirked, kicking a long ball way past you. you send her a glare, cursing her under your breath as you went to retrieve the ball.

by the time you got back, she was doing her keeper duties, but with much less intensity, clearly only going full out when you were the one kicking the ball.

“i thought we shouldn’t get lazy, misa?” you teased, cocking your head to the side and offering her a cheeky grin that made her blood boil.

“fuck off, lay it on me then” she challenged angrily, everyone could feel the tension between the two of you but chose to watch in amusement. this happened every two minutes on the daily and everyone was so used to it.

“i fucking will” you bite back, striking the ball before she had time to think and sending it dangerously close to her face, sailing past her into the back of the net. “no, you’re a cheater, i wasn’t ready,” misa barked, you shrug at her

“you don’t get time to prepare for your little tea party in a match, rodriguez” you taunt, that’s when misa lost it. she walked over to you, standing chest to chest as she glared down at you, you could feel her anger bubbling in your entire body as your eyes challenged hers.

“listen here, princesa (princess), this little attitude of yours is a bad look” she said lowly with mock sympathy. she was clearly trying to rile you up, and sure, maybe you should ignore it but you couldn’t with this girl, no matter how hard you tried.

“my attitude? your fucking ego is the only thing that enjoys a solo performance more than you do” you scoff, she smirks amusingly, moving her face dangerously close to yours as you swallowed hard.

her scent was enveloping you, it was crazy how good she smelled after a training session but you squashed that thought down quickly.

she chose to just keep her face close to yours, her eyes boring into yours while that fucking smirk was plastered on her face.

she looked down at your lips, chuckled and moved past you, letting you stand there with slightly pink cheeks. must be from the heat.

—

for years the snarky remarks continued, tension rose and stemmed the basis of you and misa’s weird relationship. in reality, something else was growing under the surface. attraction.

you both played together in the under 19 spain team and your fellow teammates could all agree that both of you managed to hate each other even more, believing it was physically impossible but you and misa were always overachievers.

“move” misa grumbles as you were talking with ona, shoving you towards the girl, making you stumble before you snap your head towards misa. “you’re such a treat” you glare at her, ona makes quick work of helping you stand after she giggled at the two of you.

misa watches as you stand, making her grin and blow you an exaggerated air kiss. “always such a pleasure to see you” she mocks, you roll your eyes at her and she smiles satisfied, moving to change into her kit in her cubby.

you hate to admit that your eyes lingered on the girl as she changed, the muscles in her back rippling against her skin when she tugged on her keeper kit.

you were distracted, not even processing that aitana had joined your conversation, coming back to life when she sends you a sharp smack on the back of your head.

“ow! what the fuck?” you yelp, turning to a grinning aitana and ona, misa’s head followed the sound of your voice, her eyebrows furrowed thinking you were in pain.

“welcome to earth” aitana smirks, you huff out in frustration and urge her to continue the conversation, your eyes flickering over to see that misa was already watching you.

“can i help you, rodriguez?” you call out, she shakes her head, “nope”, flipping you off before walking out of the room. your eyes followed her as she walked out, feeling a little disappointed when she was gone.

well, you were disappointed until training started. “come on, is that all you’ve got?” misa taunted, her signature smirk that pissed you off like no tomorrow evident on her face as she caught the fifth ball you’d sent her way.

“you never change, we’re practising!” you huff, hands stationary on your hips as you glared at her, “you never change, you’re lazy” misa teases, you close your eyes in frustration, taking a deep breath as she laughed at you.

“you’re so fucking annoying, misa!” you groan, “don’t be mad, princesa (princess), you’ll get one past me eventually” she throws you a thumbs up with her gloves, you send her a charming smile, kicking the ball hard way over the goal, making her send you a glare when she had to go and get it.

“you give into her every time” ona chuckles, her arm thrown over your shoulder. when misa came back and saw ona holding you close, a funny feeling brewed in her stomach, she wanted to be like that with you, but you hated her. and she hated you.

—

you and misa got signed to real madrid at the same time and it was purely unintentional. when you both came to training for the first time, you swore you had a heart attack seeing her in the kit.

“you just cannot get enough of me” misa says in mock disbelief, trying really hard not to laugh at your face right now, you were shocked.

“what the fuck are you doing here?” you exhale, watching as misa chuckled at you. “i play for madrid now” she starts, “you look nice,” smiling before tugging the bottom of your training top quickly before moving past you.

your cheeks instantly turned pink, mouth a little agape as she smiled at you over her shoulder, making sure you had to open the door yourself.

the first game you and misa played for madrid changed something slightly between the two of you. the tension between you two finally acknowledged a little when you got a hatrick.

at the end of the game, you felt a hand on your shoulder spinning you around as you did your appreciation lap, “always so greedy, you just had to get three goals?” misa teased, you roll your eyes amusingly, her hand still on your shoulder.

“i was imagining you as the keeper” you smirk, she laughs at that, “you wish” you laugh along with her, both of you with gentle smiles on your faces before you realised what was happening.

you were bantering without any malice, that was a first.

—

the months went by and slowly you and misa got closer? that’s not the right term but it kinda was. the two of you were more or less a little more friendly, mainly through moments that people on the outside viewed as normal but very different for you and misa.

for instance, misa would make an effort to help you out occasionally. helping you out on your tracker as you pathetically tried to yourself.

“you’re embarrassing yourself” misa laughs, grabbing your hips to hold you still, your breath hitched as you felt her fingers on your skin, you were burning.

she takes the tracker from your hands and slips it in the back of your training top, lightly tapping it with her hand before pulling your top down for you.

“i had it” you breathe out, “mhm, sure you did” she winks, placing a hand on your waist before moving past you. you stood there a little dumbfounded, that was nice, and why did you like the feeling of her hands on your skin?

during that training session, she analysed your every move, misa came to terms with having different feelings about you. they were always there of course, but it was different now when she finally accepted them.

you as well couldn’t keep your eyes off misa, often making eye contact with each other before you ripped your gaze away, afraid she’d see how red your face got when she caught you staring. but she did see it, and she loved it.

during shooting practice, misa let you get three goals past her and it pissed you off. “why are you going easy on me?” you exclaim, misa holds her hands up in front of her with a little laugh, “i’d never take it easy on you,” you narrow your eyes at her unconvinced, kicking the ball softly and watching as it rolled in the net, slowly, misa just watched as it moved past her.

“rodriguez, what the fuck!” you throw your arms up, misa laughs brightly, “you’re too good for me now, miss madrid!” she teased, you run your hands over your face, shaking your head.

you walk off to grab some water and misa came up shortly behind you, you wordlessly passed her water bottle to her and her eyes widen a little at the gesture, “thanks” she smiles quickly, her hands brushing yours as she took it, feeling a little jolt of electricity between both of you.

—

everything changed rapidly when you and misa played in the senior team for spain. as soon as the two of you didn’t come in like a thunder strike of an argument, the team was genuinely surprised.

they noticed the complete shift when both of you were starting and unfortunately, your team lost 3-2 in a final. you hadn’t managed to get a goal and you blamed yourself for the whole thing.

you fell to the ground when the final whistle blew, lying on your back with your arm over your eyes as tears rolled down your cheeks.

you weren’t there for long, you felt your body being pulled to an upright position and you let whoever it was do it. you sniffled and looked down at your legs before a gentle hand hooked under your chin and gently directed it upwards.

your eyes met with misa and it made you cry a little more, her heart broke at the sight of you, she’d never seen you cry before. she places a hand on the back of your head and pulled you close to her, tucking your face into her shoulder as you cried.

both of you said nothing, letting yourself melt into misa’s body as everything else tuned out. her other hand rubbed up and down your back, your arms eventually wound around her neck, pulling her closer as she rested her head against yours.

“you played so well,” misa cooed, dismissing all the questioning looks sent by your own teammates, misa only cared about one person and that was you.

“i wasn’t good enough” you mumble against her shirt, misa shook her head, “you’re always good enough, hermosa (beautiful), always” misa said in your ear, her hand on your back now moving in gentle circles as she drew you impossibly closer.

“we lost” you whined, misa tutted at that, “it doesn’t matter, we’ll get them next time” you pull away from her slightly, at arms length.

she smiles at you softly, her hand leaving your head to push a stray hair from your eyes before gently wiping the tears falling on your cheeks. the gesture was so intimate, your stomach was fluttering.

“who are you and what have you done with my misa?” you let out a wet laugh, she laughs along with you, pinching your cheek gently as you both sat on the ground.

“your misa?” she teases, you freeze up a little at that, attempting to pull yourself away from her embrace but she kept you close, pulling you into another hug.

“you’re okay” she breathes out, comforting you as you both conversed quietly back and forth, misa helping you calm down completely before helping you to the change room.

she holds out both of her hands with a friendly smile, you blink up at her and take them both, allowing her to lift you from the ground.

that’s when alexia and jenni came over and began to comfort you, your hands dropping from misa’s and instantly missing the contact.

she went around talking to your teammates as you all slowly filtered into the change room, celebrations still occurring in the change room despite the loss.

you sat quietly in your cubby, misa watched you concerned when you just sat there but she didn’t want to push you anymore.

you all made it back to your hotel, separate rooms for the first time in a while. you collapsed on the bed with an exhausted sigh, starting up at the ceiling while the tv gently filled the atmosphere.

at this point, all you could think about was misa, she was completely clouding up every thought in your head.

your body moving on its own, you walked to the door, swinging it open and letting out a little noise of surprise seeing misa on the other side already. you both clutched your chests in fear, breathing heavily at the fright you gave each other.

“sorry, were you going somewhere?” misa utters, you shook your head, “i was going to your room” you say a little sheepishly, misa’s never heard your voice so soft, especially directed to her.

“oh” she breathes out, you shift your weight between your feet, “do you want to come in?” you swallow, misa nods slowly, moving inside the room and closing the door behind her.

“i just wanted to check up on you” misa admitted, scratching the back of her neck bashfully.

your heart was beating so fast, you nervously glance up at misa before looking back down, trying to avoid eye contact as much as possible. you could feel her eyes burning into your side profile, trying to see what your next move would be.

you clear your throat before sitting on the bed, your legs swinging over the edge, misa smiled at the sight, you looked adorable, she felt like she could see your younger self that she admired so much shining through.

she moved to sit next to you, her thigh slightly brushing yours as she sat down. “i feel bad, but i’ll be okay” you sigh, looking over to see her smiling sympathetically, she places a gentle hand on your knee.

“hermosa (beautiful), you played amazing, i really mean that,” she says earnestly, her hand gently squeezing your knee as she maintains eye contact with you.

you smile sadly at her, “so did you” she grins, “i let three go past me” you shake your head, “it doesn’t matter, misa, you played amazing as usual” her cheeks go a little pink at your compliment, “what have you done with my (y/n)” she mocks, bumping your shoulder with hers.

you laugh brightly, “your (y/n)?” you tease, but she just nods, “mhm, my (y/n)” her eyes flicker between your own, slightly dropping to your lips before catching herself and looking at her hand still resting on your knee, ready to move it away before you placed your hand over hers.

“misa” you breathe out, almost sounding like a plea as you looked at her, her heart caught in her throat, her eyes searching yours. she moved her hand to rest on your cheek, her thumb rubbing the skin there.

your eyes dropped to her lips and she took it as confirmation, closing the gap and placing her lips on yours. you gasp against her, your mouths moving together tenderly before she slipped her tongue in your mouth.

you weren’t sure how it happened but you ended up straddling her lap, both of you breathing heavily as the kiss grew a little hotter. she gently tugged at your bottom lip between her teeth and you whined into her, making her smirk lazily against your lips, squeezing the flesh of your waist as your hands carded through her hair.

you pull away in need of air, you and misa just looking at each other with pink cheeks and blown out pupils.

you pant as you look at her, smoothing down her hair with a giggle. “sorry” you smile, she smiles up at you adoringly, shaking her head lightly, “it’s okay” you keep your hands on her shoulders, your finger lightly grazing the exposed skin near her collar.

“you okay?” she whispers, the words hitting your lips, you nod, leaning forward to peck her lips sweetly, she smiles at you so brightly. “you okay?” you whisper back, she nods, bumping your nose with hers softly.

“if i told 16 year old (y/n) how good of a kisser you were, maybe she wouldn’t hate you as much” you tease, misa chuckles, pulling you in for another kiss, her hand cupping your jaw.

“if i told 16 year old misa all she had to do was kiss you to get you all sweet, i think she’d pass out” she teases back, you giggle, rolling your eyes fondly.

you tuck a piece of hair behind her ear, “you’re so beautiful” you say softly, “you’re more beautiful” she matches your energy, you both smile at each other sweetly.

“i like you, (y/n)” she looks right into your eyes as she says it, you offer her a cheesy grin, “i like you too” she mirrors your expression before pulling you into another kiss, becoming heated relatively quickly.

you pull away breathlessly making her huff in annoyance, “does this mean you’ll let me score against you?” you tease, she rolls her eyes with a laugh, “hm, maybe, bebé (baby)” she mumbles against your lips, pulling you back into the kiss.

—

when you both went to breakfast the next day and sat next to each other closely, you were offered wild looks of amusement.

“isn’t this a surprise” jenni laughed as her and alexia sat across the both of you. “what?” misa shrugged, “well you’re not fighting” alexia smiled, you rolled your eyes, arms crossing over your chest when you sat straight in your chair.

misa placed a hand on your thigh under the table, giving it a gentle squeeze. “we don’t fight all the time” misa defended, alexia laughed at that, yelling at ona and aitana for backup that they promptly gave.

“we made up ages ago” you narrow your eyes at alexia, she crinkled her nose at you teasingly, making you bite back a smile.

“oh don’t worry, we know you made up” jenni laughed, looking down at her plate with a smirk as she ate, “and what do you mean by that, jennifer?” you bite back, misa smiled amusingly, loving your feisty side.

“well the hickey on your neck says everything to me” she said simply, your eyes widen and your hand flung to your neck quickly, jenni laughs heartily, making alexia giggle too.

misa puts her head in her hands out of embarrassment now that the whole team was looking at you with teasing grins.

“i thought i heard something interesting last night, misa definitely got (y/n)’s forgiveness with what i heard” jenni teases, you glare at her, misa was bright red, “stop it, jenni” misa grits out,

“okay, i will” jenni smirks, continuing to eat her food before mocking your voice, “oh, misa, don’t stop” you gasp at that, ready to leap over the table to tackle the girl to the floor before you were held back by misa, the girl holding you firmly on her lap.

“misa” you whine, “no,” she reprimands, making you slouch into her, “i’ve never seen her so obedient” alexia smirks, you turn bright red, misa matches her smirk, running her hands up and down the side of your waist, promptly calming you down.

you both sat there like that for a bit until you had to get on the bus back to the airport. you and misa sit together and you both can’t help but relish in the affection and domesticity of being together.

you were cuddling into misa as you both chatted, laughing brightly with each other that had the whole team grinning.

it was extremely different from watching the two of you at each other's throats to seeing you all loved up but it was a happy change for everyone. especially you and misa.

⋆ ★ ⋆ ★ ⋆ ★ ⋆ ★ ⋆

you know the drill, just pretend it’s you!!

liked by ona.batlle and 44,232 others

marisabel_rguez: who knew she was such a softie?

view all comments

yourname: fuck off

↳ marisabel_rguez: there she is!!

jennihermoso: i’ve learnt a lot of things about this one😉

↳ alexiaputellas: so have i

↳ marisabel_rguez: oh god, so have i

↳ yourname: stop it.

[callmebrycelee]

WHY I DON'T WANT EDDIE DIAZ TO BE QUEER

There is a lot of discourse online about Eddie's sexuality. I fall in the camp of Eddie is heterosexual - although admittedly I've read more than my fair share of Buck/Eddie fanfiction. As a queer man, it is my sincere belief it is more meaningful and interesting that Eddie be straight and no, it's not because I think there's only a set number of queer characters allowed on this show or I'm championing a BuckTommy endgame (my endgame is Evan Buckley being happy regardless of who he is romantically involved with).

When I was younger, I was the only queer person in my all-male friend group. I spent most of my teens and my early-20's hiding my sexuality out of fear that my straight guy friends would turn their back on me. Currently, I've fallen out of touch with those guys but there are times where I wish I'd been braver and come out to them.

Evan Buckley coming out as bisexual was such a special moment for me and countless others. However, there is another pivotal moment that seems to get overshadowed. Eddie Diaz accepting Buck without question and assuring him that nothing would change about their friendship was such a powerful, revolutionary moment. It's a moment I wish I got years ago from the young men I called my best friends.

So, this is why I don't want Eddie Diaz to be queer. I know that's a weird sentiment to have coming from a queer person and I may be in the minority when it comes to this particular opinion. However, I stand by my words. I don't know what will happen in season 8 or the seasons that follow, I just hope they we continue seeing Eddie being an amazing, supportive ally and friend to Buck.

[perlelune]

Training Wheels | Coriolanus Snow | iii.

Your mother's macabre work never appealed to you as you always preferred the comfort of your books, but when her apprentice takes a special interest in you, your safe, quiet world is flipped upside down.

Warnings: DUB-CON, NON-CON, Gaul!Reader, Shy Reader, Manipulation, Parental Neglect, Drinking, Peer Pressure, Hazing, University set, Loss of Virginity, Dumbification, Insecurities, Abusive Relationship, Degradation, Suicide Attempt

This is a dark story. Heed warnings before reading under the cut.

𝖘𝖊𝖗𝖎𝖊𝖘 𝖒𝖆𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙

“So what’s your deal?” Festus Creed asks out of the blue. 

Your mouth opens in shock, a nervous laugh slipping out. “My deal?”

A mocking sneer twists his features. “Yeah, Coriolanus kept trying to get you to eat with us but you were being weird about it. If you hate us, just say so.”

While some snigger at the table, Coriolanus stares daggers at him. The mirth instantly vanishes from Festus’ face.

Clemensia bumps her elbow into his rib, chiding him, “Festus, come on,”

“I don’t…hate anyone,” you defend, your voice hardly above a whisper.

Clemensia flashes you a reassuring smile.

“Of course, you don’t. Coriolanus said you’re very sweet.”

Livia rolls her eyes.

“Ugh, whatever. Can we get back to discussing the Yuletide Ball?”

Surprise flutters through you. The name bears vague familiarity. It can be found in the archives detailing the history of the Capitol University. But it’d since long become a frivolity amidst concerns such as quelling the uprisings in the Districts. What’s a students’ dance in the face of war and famine?

“The Yuletide Ball? I thought this was an abolished tradition…I mean since the war.”

Excitement illuminates Livia’s face.

“We’re bringing back the tradition this year, thanks to Coriolanus here. He convinced the new dean.”

Coriolanus lowers his head in apparent humbleness.

“I just made a few good points and he couldn’t refuse me,” he shares. He turns to you, blue eyes sparkling.  “I’m pretty persuasive when I need to be.” A chill dances through you at his low, suggestive tone. 

To your relief, his attention switches to the rest of the table.

“It’s important to not let District scum ruin our way of life. Traditions must return.”

Livia smirks. “Spoken like a student body president.”

Coriolanus waves a dismissive hand but a hint of smugness lingers in his tone as he says, “Please, elections are only in a month.”

“And it’s obvious you’ll win,” Clemensia states.

He gives a light shrug.

“We shall see.”

Clemensia pivots to you.

“Ivy, Liv and I are on the Ball committee,” she preens, her face brightening. “You could join us if you want.”

You lick your lips. “I don’t know if I’d find the time with midterms coming up soon…”

Coriolanus’ fingertips graze your arm as he offers, “You should do it, angel. It’d be a good way to expand your social circle.”

“You mean her nonexistent circle,” Festus gibes.

The blond’s jaw clenches.

“Talk to her like that again and see what happens, Creed.”

Festus cowers, nervousness flickering on his face. He clears his throat.

“Sorry,” he says to you.

“It’s fine.”

Coriolanus’ fingers latch around your wrist as his steely gaze cuts into Festus.

“No, it’s not fine,” he articulates. 

Undisturbed by the altercation between the boys, Clemensia prattles on about the ball.

“We meet up every Saturday morning. We’re working on winter-themed decorations right now. It’ll be so fun. It takes forever to do though.” She looks at you with emphasis. “An extra set of hands would be really welcome.”

“Clemensia…”

“Call me Clemmie,” she interrupts. “All my friends do.”

Friends? You study her hand clasped around yours. The concept is a little foreign to you. You also ponder why someone like Clemensia, with her perfect silky mane and smooth, blemish-free face would want to befriend you. She is the girl everyone gravitates towards. Charismatic, smart and nice to boot. And you might as well be a fly on a wall, ignored on the best days.

You are so stunned that it takes a shamefully long time for the words to fall back on your tongue.

“Clemmie, I’m usually busy on Saturday.”

“Oh.” She deflates, her hold on your hand loosening. “I get it. Sorry I asked.”

The excitement on her face plummets. Immediately, you feel terrible. You’ve never missed a single Saturday of studying, using that time to break down your more complicated courses of the week. But Clemmie looks crestfallen.

Perhaps, this one time, you can adjust your plans a little. One Saturday won’t make a difference in the entire year.

“But…I can try to free up some time,” you offer.

She perks up with your response.

“Great. We’ll be expecting you then.”

Lunch then proceeds, the table resuming the lively debate they were having before you showed up. Festus maintains facts about his family’s role in the reconstruction after the war while Clemensia rolls her eyes. They go back and forth and you observe them, slightly fascinated by the exchange. It’s such a rare occurrence for you to be around others that you soak every bit of their interaction. You get the inkling this happens a lot between them, them ruffling each other’s feathers. Ivy and Livia get wrapped in their own secret conversation you don’t catch a single word of. Meanwhile, Coriolanus watches all of them, taking a bite of the food on his plate every once in a while. The way he eats is slow, nonchalant, almost like he couldn’t care less what’s on his plate. Even if he doesn’t interject at any point, he looks right at home at this table. Unlike you. You recline into silence, letting every minute fly by as you wait for lunch to be over. When it finally is, relief surges inside you. 

You mumble a quick goodbye and gather your things. Clemensia beams and waves at you while the others barely acknowledge your departure. 

You head for the hallways, trying not to allow your mind to linger on the strange, uncomfortable lunch. Still, your mind swirls. You curse yourself for every blunder and awkward moment. You told him you don’t belong, that you’re an outsider, and always will be. It’s painfully obvious. From the way you dress, talk, carry yourself, you have nothing in common with girls like Clemensia or Livia. There’s a vast chasm between you and them. He should have listened. It astounds you that you even let yourself get roped into joining Clemensia’s committee thing. Though perhaps that won’t be too much of a hassle. You’ll show up to keep your word, then sink back into your rigid study routine.

Coriolanus’ deep voice, a sound you’re now oddly familiar with, erupts behind you.

“Let me carry those for you,” he says, swiping the books in your arms before you can protest. He falls in pace with you, a gentle expression decorating his  handsome face.

You frown, the uncanny emptiness of your arms swelling your discomfort.

“You don’t have to-”

“I insist,” he interrupts, chuckling lightly when you try to reach for your books and he dodges you with ease. Your shoulders sag. Your strides hasten, an urgency limning your steps now. 

Coriolanus meets no issue with your escalating cadence. He easily keeps up with you, a subtle hint of mirth lurking in his cobalt gaze. 

“It wasn’t too much, was it?” he inquires. “I know they can be a lot but they’re all good people. I promise.”

A myriad of words weigh heavy on your tongue but you diplomatically swallow each, settling for a safe, innocuous remark.

“Clemmie was nice.”

The corners of the blond’s lips quirk skyward. 

“I told you she was.”

The statement hovers between the two of you for a while. Clemensia seems nice indeed. The rest of his friend group…perhaps a little less so. Possibly a bit more cutthroat and self-absorbed. Though you surmise it is a requirement to be a member of Panem’s elite.

No other word is traded between you and him as you make your way to the lecture hall. 

“This is me,” you announce.

You turn to Coriolanus, hands stretching towards your books. He makes no move to give them back. Your forehead creases.

He gives you a sluggish once-over before offering, “What if I drove you back home after your classes?”

You nibble your bottom lip, dismayed by his proposition. You’ve caught glimpses of his fancy new car, as you’re sure most have at the University. As heir apparent to the Plinth fortune, he gets to spend money as he likes. 

“I usually walk. It’s okay.” 

He gets a little closer. “Come on, angel. Just let me do something nice for you.”

You shrink until your back hits the wall, stunned when Coriolanus follows each of your steps.

“My last lecture is…Professor Bellweather tends to ramble,” you mumble, his proximity unnerving you. “I don’t…I don’t know when he’ll be done.”

He licks his lips.

“I’ll just wait for you, angel.”

He utters the words like it’s obvious. You gawk at him. It takes you a few minutes to retrieve your speech.

You scratch your arm, your frown accentuating.

“You really don’t have to. Like I said, walking home is fine.”

The gaze trained on your form sharpens.

“And I’m offering to take you home so you don’t have to exert yourself.” He bends over you, invading the already insufficient space between the two of you. “Has a friend never done something like that for you?”

“N-No,” you admit. 

His tone’s heavy with suggestion as he rasps, “So let me be your first then, angel.”

Your heart stumbles inside your chest. 

“I’m gonna be late for class,” you blurt out, attempting to brush past him. 

Coriolanus’ hand darts out, swiftly cinching around your wrist to stop you from leaving.

“I still don’t have an answer,” Coriolanus says.

You glance from his hand, tight around your wrist, to his determined gaze. Your throat goes dry.

“Okay, you can d-drive me back home.”

He releases your wrist and returns your books, a smile ghosting over his lips.

“Wonderful. I’ll come get you later, angel.”

Clutching your books against your chest, you watch him glide away.

As promised, Coriolanus is waiting for you when you exit from your last class. You don’t even think to hide your shock as you find the blond leaning against the wall. A smirk unfans on his lips, your reaction seeming to amuse him.

He doesn’t say much to you as you walk side by side and head to his car. When you’re outside, he surprises you by opening the passenger door for you before you can even lift a hand. 

“T-Thanks,” you stammer. You plop down on the plush seat. The leather smells new and expensive.

Your nerves thrum as he takes the driver’s seat and starts the car. You’ve never been alone in a car with a boy before. Uneasy, you let your eyes roam outside the window. The Capitol’s high buildings blur past you rapidly. 

You’re lost in your thoughts when you notice the prickling sensation over your flesh, The burning, unwavering weight of Coriolanus Snow’s scrutiny. 

Your head whirls.

Bashful words quake through your lips.

“Do I have something on my face?” Your hands reach to touch it, just in case.

He chuckles.

“No,” he replies, shrugging. “It’s a nice face that’s all.”

The casual compliment sends a wave of heat through your body. 

“Can you drive?” he asks, curiosity lighting his features.

You shake your head. Getting your license has never been a priority. Besides, it’s only a thirty minute walk to get to the University. You don’t mind it, often using that time to sneak in some reading.

“No.”

“I could drive you if you like,” he offers, his gaze holding yours. “Anywhere you want to go.”

Your cheeks warm. “I’m okay.”

Coriolanus nods, his focus shifting back to the road.

“You always say that…” He hums low in his throat. “I’m just not sure I believe it, angel.”

You’re so nervous the entire drive that you don’t even notice when he arrives at your house. You stare at him, mouth agape. You haven’t given him a single instruction on how to get there.

“You know where I live?”

As he opens the door for you, Coriolanus simply replies, “You told me earlier.”

Your brows furrow. You don’t remember telling him but his tone harbors no doubt. You rummage through your brain, seeking the moment. Nothing comes up and you grow confused. 

You blink up at him.

“I-I did?”

“Yes, you did, angel.” He snorts as if your line of questioning is beyond ludicrous. “How else would I know?” He slams the door of the car as you rise. “Besides��Dr. Gaul is my mentor. Of course, I know where she lives.”

You nod. That makes sense and it didn’t even occur to you.

“I…”

He cocks his head. “What?”

You fidget beneath his stare, discomfort flaring in the pit of your stomach. 

“Nothing. Thanks for driving me home.”

He flashes you a wide smile.

“My pleasure. See you soon, angel.”

He starts the car and drives away. You don’t feel quite at ease until his car’s gone from view, heading towards the Corso.

Walter zooms across the room as soon as you enter the large apartment. Your eyes wander about. As usual, the place is empty besides you and Walter. Mother rarely spends any time here nowadays, her work occupying all of her time. 

Walter rubs his furry head against your ankle, twirling around you as he meows. He then stands on his hind legs and starts gently raking his claws across your leg. A way for him to demand that you pet him. A small smile tugging your lips, you pick him up. The orange ball of fur purrs, curling against your chest as you carry him in your arms. You make your way to the kitchen and pour a mix of leftover meat and fish in his bowl. 

You set him down on the floor. His tail wiggles as he hops to his food.

You crouch next to him.

“You wouldn’t believe what happened today, Walter,” you say while giving gentle pets to his back. “I was invited to their table.” The orange cat pauses his eating to stare up at you blankly. “Yes. Theirs,” you repeat as if he could understand you. He gives a long meow before focusing on his bowl again. You sigh. “I know. I thought the same thing.”

Once Walter’s emptied his bowl, you pick him up again and make your way to the living room. 

You collapse on the couch.

“And then…Coriolanus Snow drove me home. Yes, the Coriolanus Snow. I didn’t even think he knew I existed.”

For a while, you remain on the couch, stroking Walter’s fur as he sits on your lap. His tail whips the air, his eyes closing as you pet him. His soft rumble of content reverberates against your belly, amplifying when your fingers drag behind his pointed white ears. You lean back, a blanket of peace settling over you. 

Walter’s not just a strange-looking cat, he’s also a rescue…from your mother’s experiments. A kitten mutt with mismatched eyes, one blue and one yellow, his mushed, wrinkled face gives him a passing resemblance to a rodent. Pets like him are a rarity in today’s world as most creatures such as him were eaten during the First Rebellion. 

Your mother finds him appalling. In her eyes, he is a failed experiment. Like you. Perhaps it’s why you have such kinship with the creature. You still recall her unsettling glance in your direction the day she asked the entire class of nine-year-olds at the Academy if they had pets they were sick of. She then proceeded to burn the flesh off a lab rat to demonstrate her pulsed energy laser.

This moment is burned into your mind forever, your mother’s clinical tone chilling your blood.

You stole Walter from the Citadel and took him home that same day.

You were careful to hide him, though you suspect your mother figured out what you did. She likely added it to her long list of disappointments when it comes to you.

Sometimes, you envy Walter. The simplicity his days hinge upon. His obliviousness to the woes of the world. His uncanny ability to sleep through the chaos of it, ignore the disarray. Walter’s world consists of food, play and cuddles. 

What a blissful existence. You bet Walter never had a vexing thought in his short life.

The train of your thoughts is interrupted by the shrill ringing of the phone.

You carefully remove Walter from your lap. He meows in protest and jumps off the couch. You pick up the phone, chest clenching as a familiar face fills the flickering screen.

“Mother,” you greet. “How are you?”

She ignores your question, curtly stating, “You’re falling behind in Molecular Cell Biology.”

You know that tone all too well, the warning laced within it so achingly familiar.

Your fingers twist around the phone cord, your voice becoming small.

“I’ll get my grades up, I promise.”

Silence hovers between you and your mother for a while. Faint hope sparks within you. Perking up, you decide to tell her about your day.

“Oh, mother, today-”

“I must go,” she interrupts. “It’s time for my milk and cookies.”

Your spirits plummet. You nudge a hollow smile onto your face.

“Right. I didn’t realize,” you say, checking the clock hanging on the wall. “I’m sorry.”

She heaves out a deep sigh, her lone blue eye narrowing.

“Focus on your studies. And try not to be even more of an embarrassment to me than you already are.”

“Y-Yes, mother,” you reply, your heart shriveling inside your chest.

As she hangs up, you feel silly and horrible. Silly for trying to strike up a normal conversation with your mother. And horrible for letting her down once more.

“You came!” Clemensia exclaims as she rushes to you. You try not to tense as she gives you a tight hug. Ivy and Livia linger in the background, their eyes lifting from the crafts’ table. 

You wave at them and are surprised when Ivy wiggles her fingers at you. Livia is more withdrawn, nodding to acknowledge your presence but quickly returning to her task.

You step out of Clemensia’s embrace and flash a quick smile.

“Well I promised you that I would,” you reply nonchalantly. You take a look around the room. Various decorations and posters are propped against the walls, while snowflakes cut-outs and what looks like moon dust are scattered on the table. It seems the girls have been busy.

You turn to Clemensia. “What’s the theme again?” 

Ivy surprises you by answering cheerfully, “Well, it’ll be like a Winter daydream and we were thinking of making it a masquerade.”

Excitement sways in Clemensia’s bright eyes. “What do you think?”

“Sounds nice.” Your trite answer draws every gaze in the room to you. Awkwardly bouncing on your feet, you correct yourself, beaming at Clemensia. “I meant amazing.”

“I think so too,” she chimes.

She shows you the empty chair next to hers. The both of you sit down and she starts rambling about the theme and all the ideas she has to decorate the ballroom. You grow dizzy with all the information, trying to follow along her instructions at the same time. 

“We’ll need to find you a date,” Clemensia says. 

You shake the can of blue paint before spraying over the tree cut-out.

“It’s okay. I probably won’t be going anyway,” you respond absently. 

The pencil in Livia’s hand snaps. Your head rises. The blonde’s gaping at you. You then realize…the same look of disbelief is etched on all the girls’ features. A frown mars your brow. Did you say something wrong? You didn’t realize this was such an important event. 

A nervous laugh peals off Clemensia’s red-painted lips.

“No, but you have to,” she says, “It’s the first Yuletide Ball in over a decade. Everyone will be there.”

You shrug. “It’s four months away, Clemmie.”

Her onyx gaze shimmers.

“Well, a lot can happen in four months,” she sings, a mysterious smile spreading onto her lips.

[pixelsandpins]

On Eddie's and Venom's Children/Offspring

As a local Venom Expert (TM), let me explain this very important bit of Venom lore.

Venom's species, the Klyntar, reproduce asexually. They spawn "once a generation", feel a threat to the hive, or otherwise feel as though they need to increase their numbers due to an upcoming catastrophe (the comics have wiggled this reasoning a little through the years).

Venom has produced seven spawn: Carnage, Scream, Agony, Lasher, Phage, Riot, and Sleeper.

They also have a son together with Anne named Dylan.

Carnage spawned while Eddie was locked up in prison with Cletus Kassady. The spawn occurred during their jailbreak, and Eddie had no idea it was even happening. The other doesn't tell him. Everyone is a bit surprised. All this is revealed in The Amazing Spider-Man #360-362 (1992)

*****

The Life Foundation Symbiotes (Scream, Agony, Lasher, Riot, and Phage) were artificially gestated by the Life Foundation. They captured Eddie and Venom and pulled "seeds" from Venom's body, then grew the spawn in another part of the facility. This is Lethal Protector #4 (1993).

*****

Sleeper is, first of all, the fucking GOAT. Let's get that out of the way. Sleeper is spawned "naturally" however this occurs well after Eddie and Venom have properly bonded and gone through the trauma of having seeds stolen. Eddie, then, senses the birth approaching and feels child-birth related pain. They actually separate during the birth because they're concerned about Eddie's organs shutting down. The symbiote, unfortunately, delivers what they believe to be a stillbirth (this is written SUPER weird in the comics themselves, tbh). The conversation around this birth reveals a lot of complex feelings on Venom's part around their "babies." This happens in Venom #164-165 (2016-2018) which are the last two issues of the Costa run.

Sleeper comes into their own during Venom: First Host (Costa, 2018). Venom is kidnapped, and for the rescue mission Sleeper bonds with Eddie. Previous to this, Sleeper had been tended to regularly by Eddie and Venom together while living in an Alchemex facility.

*****

Dylan Brock is a sight bit more complicated. He's introduced during the Cates run, 2018, and proceeds to be a main character and major narrative pivot for both that run and the current Ewing run (featuring the Venom War event).

SPOILERS FOR CURRENT VENOM

Dylan is the human incarnation of the symbiote codex embedded into Anne. She conceived the child while bonded to the Venom symbiote using DNA transferred over from Eddie (via the symbiote). She had Dylan, then left him to be raised by Eddie's dad, which is where Eddie meets him. So Dylan is the combined child of Eddie, Anne, and Venom, designed by the symbiotes to take out Knull. Dylan's story is still developing and changing.

Edited to add in response to a comment:

Ignore if you want to develop your own interpretation of events around the birth of Dylan Brock. CW: conversation around suicide and mental health

Anne commits suicide not long after leaving Dylan with Eddie's dad. The suicide was written back in the 90s, however, well before any of this newer narrative was conceived. When she's first written as ending her life, it's because she can't live with the guilt of the murders she committed while hosting Venom and experiences an extreme fear and paranoia reaction to symbiotes (rightly so).

When Cates added Dylan, this all got WAY more complicated in terms of determining narrative intent. Namely, was the conception and birth of Dylan a contributing factor to her suicide?

When they do the multiverse thing, they meet an Anne who was the permanent host of Venom because Eddie successfully committed his own suicide. She does not go through the same acute traumatic event that Anne Prime did. When she realizes she's pregnant with Venom's baby, she has a very neutral-positive reaction to it. Even after the introduction of Dylan, the story only ever attributes Anne's suicide to guilt over the murders she commits and subsequent mental break.

When she leaves Dylan with Brock Sr., it's clear she deeply cares for him, yet can't take care of him. She says she'll come back for him when she gets her head right, and does not want Eddie ever knowing Dylan exists. She didn't leave Dylan in a safe baby box or a dumpster or just in his crib while she ended her life. Even though she didn't pick the best caregiver, she left Dylan in a place she knew she could come back to. Where she could see him again. Where he wouldn't be lost in the system. This all implies to me a woman who loved her baby. Who, in some part of her, thought she would come back to get him but unfortunately succumbed to her mental health crisis.

This altogether, the story does not want you to see Dylan's conception and birth as a contributing factor to her suicide. He never shoulders that narrative responsibility. The story wants you to "blame," so to speak, the guilt and paranoia.

This is all analysis, however, and that's going to be heavily influenced by personal interpretation, experiences, and familiarity with the canon. This is the reason why I didn't include it in the original informative section of the post. I didn't want to create bias in a new reader, so I was trying to keep things as neutral as possible (except for Sleeper being The Best. That's simply a FACT /j). But I figured including the additional analysis would create some clarification on a very complex narrative event.

Now I hope that covers enough. Feel free to ask questions or get clarification on anything. I'm literally wallowing in information and no one to share it with.

[comicaurora]

As someone who might be interested to make their own webcomic one day: Why did you decide to put Aurora on its own dedicated website instead of a platform like Webtoon or Tapas?

Don't get me wrong, the site looks great but it gotta be a lot of work to maintain, right?

It was a couple week's worth of work to set up and polish, and I've had to do very minor adjustments every couple months. In return I don't need to deal with ads, I don't need to conform my story or layout to any sort of site standard, I haven't been locked into any publishing arrangements and I can customize the site however I want. For me, that's an easy trade.

When the channel started getting big several years back, we started getting approached by multichannel networks asking to absorb us in exchange for guaranteed clicks. We decided very early on that we weren't going to do that, in large part because even the multichannel networks that weren't scams were at all times one executive decision away from exploding and taking all their subsidiaries down with them. We saw it happen to Machinima, and recent years have seen even more cases where one boss's boss's boss who doesn't know what they're doing absolutely wrecks everyone's arrangement - like how Unity spontaneously destroyed everyone's trust in them by trying to retroactively charge game devs for user downloads of their game, or how the Escapist fired the one guy who was holding their channel together, or when CollegeHumor got corporate-mandatedly forced into pivoting to Facebook video and then everyone got fired when that turned out to be a terrible idea, or even the whole Channel Awesome thing. Big conglomerates of small indie creators tend to catastrophically explode on the regular, scattering those creators to the winds and potentially destroying the archive of their work.

We've even seen social media platforms thought of as solid staples of the online landscape start withering away because one idiot buys them out and starts chewing on cables. People whose entire professional networking presence is on Twitter have had a really rough year.

From my perspective, centralizing the world's webcomics into two or three baskets is a really good way to lose all of them at once. Also I put all this work into never having to deal with a boss, and it would be weird to go out of my way to change that.

[bluesylveon2]

LOVE (Ace Trappola x Yuu/Reader)

Summary: Four instances in Ace's life where he starts to view Yuu/Reader more than a friend

Note: Inspired by "L O V E" by Michael Buble, set in canon, mention of another magic school, the first years teasing Ace, and fluff. This all happened because I saw some aceyuu posts

Edit: made some minor edits!

Word Count: 2.1k

Warnings: fem Yuu/reader, not beta read, some cursing, cringey teenage boy stuff, and possible ooc characters

Masterlist: here

L is for the way you look at me

Chaos. 

All around Ace was chaos. 

Riddle's cackle resonated throughout the rose garden; other Heartslabyul members threw spells left and right, and blot was everywhere. Everyone's eyes were set on the Heartslabyul housewarden. However, Ace had something else in mind. 

"Look out!" Was all Yuu heard before a familiar figure tackled her to the ground. The stray spell that would have hit her landed on a rosebush instead. 

Ace protectively held Yuu as they tumbled in the dirt. The redhead pivoted his body so he protected Yuu from the ground. 

"Are you okay?" Ace frantically asked, letting his hands wander to search for any injuries. 

"I'm fine," Yuu coughed and got off of Ace. "You need to go and stop Riddle. I'll find Grim and-"

"Are you insane?!" Ace yelled. "I am not letting you fend for yourself, and Grim is still new to magic. I'm your best bet here."

"Ace…" Yuu said in a warning tone. She started to move but was stopped by someone grabbing her wrist. She yelped as Ace pulled her towards him and held her protectively. 

"We are getting out of this together, whether you like it or not. Stay behind me, and don't lose me," Ace said, looking into Yuu's eyes with determination. To this day, Ace still could not explain what happened to him. All he knew was that he wanted to protect Yuu. 

A few seconds of silence passed until Yuu let out a sigh. "Fine but don't let me die."

Ace grabbed Yuu's hand and squeezed it.

"Wouldn't dream of it, Yuu."

O is for the only one I see

The cafeteria was loud with chatter as the students discussed the female student representatives of an all-girls academy coming to visit NRC because of Crowley's way to "strengthen relations with other institutions." It was no secret that a school full of boys would not talk about it. Especially when the only female on campus was the local school therapist, lived in a worn down dorm, and had a cat monster. 

"Did anyone get a glimpse of the girls visiting today?" Epel asked as he cut his apple. It was lunchtime, and the first-year group ate at their unofficial but official table. 

"Yeah, Big Brother was so nervous during his part of the tour that I ended up leading it for him," Ortho sighed with a downward look on his face. 

"I'm surprised by how cordial Leona was with them," Jack admitted. "I understand Leona's kingdom respects ladies, but seeing him do a 180 is weird."

"Speaking of, has anyone seen Yuu? She needs to come down to eat," Ace took a bite out of his sandwich, his eyes scanning for the Prefect. 

"She's currently providing her portion of the tour since the Headmaster insisted Ramshackle goes after Diasomnia." Sebek's voice brought Ace back to the table. "Then she will eat there with the guests with food catered by the campus ghosts. At least that's what Waka-sama told me." 

"Good, at least the Headmaster did something right for once.” Jack nodded as he and Sebek shared an unspoken agreement. "She should save herself from these guys." His ears flickered from an unpleasant conversation he did not want to hear. 

"I'll say," Deuce joined in. "You should've seen some girls keep staring at Ace, asking him questions and stuff when I was right there!" He glared at Ace. "That was not cool, man."

"You're just jealous that you don't have the rizz to pull a girl."

"Why you!" Deuce grabbed Ace's collar. 

"Would you date one of them, though? If you got the chance?" Epel asked. Deuce froze and let go of Ace, eying him curiously. Silence filled the table, minus the background noise from the other students. 

"Me? I'm good with not dating anyone yet. 'Sides, I'm already busy looking after Yuu a lot." Ace laughed, but no one joined him. Instead, they looked at him with shock. "What? Was it something I said?"

"Well…" Epel said, his eyes flickering to anyone but Ace. "That's not what we expected."

Ace raised a brow. "What did you expect?"

The first years looked at each other, unsure how to respond, until Sebek slammed his fist against the table. "Human! You should put away this silly nonsense and eat! I cannot have a weak human beside me. It will embarrass Waka-sama!"

"Geez, I didn't even start it." Ace rolled his eyes and took another bite of his food. 

Those girls were not even his type anyway. Who needs them? He would rather spend time in Yuu's company as friends than have a repeat of his last relationship. 

At least, that's what Ace tried to tell himself. 

V is very, very extraordinary

"And so, the Ice Queen found love between her and her sister. Their sisterly love thawed the ice out of her kingdom, thus solving any crisis before it could become an eternal winter.” Professor Trein closed his textbook and eyed the class. “Does anyone have any questions?"

Ace held back a laugh as Yuu's hand went up in eagerness. Luckily for him, Deuce remained fast asleep during the lecture. 

"Yes, Yuu?"

"And what happened to the brave princess? Did she ever find her own happy ending?" 

"Yes, she did. Even though she did not have magic, the princess defeated her wicked fiance and then…" Ace ignored the rest of Professor Trein's ramblings and glanced over at Yuu, who was focused on writing a book full of notes. 

Despite being magicless and from another world, Yuu was interested in nonmagical courses such as History and Alchemy. In fact, she had a higher grade in those courses compared to ADeuce.

Ace watched as Yuu asked yet another question regarding the two sisters. An amused smile formed on his face. 

If Yuu had magic, she could be like the Ice Queen. Then again, she is more like the sister. Energetic, blunt, awkward, has a nice smile-

Wait. 

Ace shook his head and cringed. Since when did he care about her smile? What kind of guy thinks about those things? 

The bell rang as Ace battled his internal thoughts, unaware of Deuce waking up beside him. 

"Is it time to go already?" Deuce asked and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. 

Yuu walked up the steps to join the duo while holding Grim in her arms. 

"That lecture was so interesting! To think that love was the solution for a kingdom all along." Ace watched Yuu's eyes light up as she shared her thoughts about the lecture. The smile on her face reminded Ace of the sun. "Ace, what did you think about the lecture?"

"I think your smile is cringe," the redhead blurted out, causing Yuu to stop and Deuce and Grim to facepalm. 

Yuu stared at Ace in confusion. "Uhh, okay? Your smile is cringey, too, I guess?" The poor girl was lost. Since when did this become a topic?

Ace was beating himself up mentally while Yuu's attention turned to Grim, who was demanding for some tuna. 

"Way to go, dude," Deuce whispered, elbowing Ace's side. "Way to show how much rizz you got there."

"Shut up, Juice!"

E is even more than anyone that you adore

"Whoa, what happened to you?" Jack asked as Epel trudged to his seat and slammed his tray on the table. The Pomefiore boy let out a big yawn as he sat down. 

"I agree. Improper sleep will put you behind in training," Sebek said as he eyed Epel. 

Ace glanced from his messages with Yuu, who was fighting a cold back at her dorm, to the periwinkle-haired boy. "Yeah, the dudes are right. You look like shit."

"Shut yer trap you-" Epel froze and glanced over Ace's shoulder. Despite being on the other side of the cafeteria, Epel could feel chills from Vil's bombastic side-eye. "I mean. I was having trouble sleeping last night because of a certain someone." 

"Yeah, your stress levels are higher than normal. You can nap in my dorm during your break if you want." 

"Thank you, Ortho," Epel said and took a bite of his toast. 

"Who's this someone so I can teach them a lesson?" Deuce put a fist into his palm and had a murderous look in his eyes. 

"Just one of my roommates. He keeps going on and on about Yuu lately." 

Ace froze and suddenly choked on his breakfast. Luckily, Jack was there to slap his back. 

Yuu? Of all people? Sure, she is known for being around seven overblots and surviving, but her fame wasn't enough to keep someone awake. Let alone sing praises of like a lovesick prince. 

"Why is he talking about her?" Ace managed to spill out after he regained his composure. 

"He keeps praising Yuu for her kindness-" someone snorted at that, but Epel ignored it. "Looks, how perfect she is, and whatever nonsense he can go on about. He even started writing poems about her too! I swear if I hear this guy talk about how Yuu's eyes look like diamonds one more time. Aah'm 'unna put a sock in his-"

Again, Vil's glare carried despite being far from the first years. 

"I mean. Tell him to be quiet. Because that is what I can do." He said the last part through gritted teeth and glared at his housewarden. 

"What a simp," Ace commented, and everyone nodded in agreement. “I low-key feel bad for the guy. Yuu is not going to give him the time of day."

Deuce raised a brow. "And what do you mean by that?"

Ace held his hands up and shrugged. "I'm just saying. A guy who acts all princely and cute for Yuu? No. She deserves someone fun and imperfect like her. A person who she likes to be around. Someone who can help steer her away before she ends up somewhere dangerous."

"Oh really?" Sebek looked at Ace with interest. "And do you, perhaps, have someone in mind for the human?"

"Duh, dude. Me." Ace said confidently and smirked, giving himself a mental pat on the back. 

The other first years stared at him in silence. Then they all had the same shit-eating grin on their faces. Even Ortho had one despite having the lower half of his face covered.

Their looks made Ace realize what had come out of his mouth. 

Oh shit. 

The boy blushed bright red. 

"Wait! No! That is not what I meant to say! Forget all of that!" Ace exclaimed in poor defense. The other's faces remained unwavering.

Deuce had an infuriating smirk splayed on his lips. "Oh, we heard you loud and clear, right guys?" 

Jack joined in on the teasing. "Can't fool me. I heard it, too."

“You got it all wrong! I do not like Yuu like that!” Ace yelled but his red ears said otherwise.

Sebek crossed his arms and grinned, clearly enjoying the show. "Hmph, you humans should never doubt a fae's hearing. For I heard the human declare his worthiness to the Prefect." 

"Okay, now you are making things up!"  

Epel's face lit up in glee. "Well, then, that's great news! I can tell my roommate to pursue Yuu since Ace clearly does not see her that way. Sure, I am sacrificing my sleep for this, but at least Yuu will have a good guy."

"Are you saying I am not a good guy?!"

Ortho let out a sad exhale and slumped his shoulders. If Ortho could cry tears, he would've used them now. He laid a hand on Ace's shoulders in sympathy. "It's okay, Ace Trappola. I will try to convince Yuu to make you her Man of Honor."

"THAT'S IT!" Ace yelled, startling Ortho. The redhead was clearly fed up and red like Riddle’s hair from both embarrassment and anger. Ace stood up, grabbed his tray, and walked off in a random direction. 

"And where are you going?" Deuce yelled out. Ace flicked him off as he threw away his trash. 

"Anywhere away from you losers!" Ace started grumbling as he made his way out of the cafeteria to blow off some steam. 

The other first years watched silently and let Ace walk off. They did not want to anger him further, but they were also proud that Ace was somewhat honest about his feelings for Yuu. 

"Uh, isn't the Mirror Chamber that way?" Jack asked and pointed to the opposite direction from where Ace went.

Deuce smirked, his eyes following Ace's figure. "Looks like he is going to Ramshackle instead. Probably to check up on his future girlfriend." He turned to Ortho. "Did you get that all recorded?"

"Yes, I did!" Ortho grinned victoriously. "I also sent a copy to the Prefect and stored another copy in my database."

“Hmph, that will show him,” Sebek said with a proud look. 

Epel rubbed his hands together and looked at the other first years, who all had the same expression. "Perfect. I can't wait to see the look on Ace's face when he sees it."

Ace was in for a surprise when he made it to Ramshackle. He was also very embarrassed to see the recording come back at his wedding reception. 

A/N: idk if anyone could tell but I lowkey cringed at having ADeuce say "rizz" but they are teenage boys so they might as well 😂

Disclaimer: I do not own Twisted Wonderland and its characters. Those belong to Aniplex, Walt Disney Japan, and Yana Toboso.

©: This story belongs to bluesylveon2 2020-24. DO NOT modify, republish, or plagiarize my work.

[spookysshadow]

Hatake nibbles.

Just sometimes they get so overwhelmed with happiness or love that they just have to bite the person.

It's not something they do in public, really only amongst those they deem pack. And even then, not all pack is treated to it.

The Senju matriarch nibbles at her little boys fingers and toes when their little pups, and playfully growls at them when they begin to toddle before snapping her jaw shut and making her boys laugh loudly.

Butsuma doesn't understand but then again, he doesn't get bitten either. At least until Tobi shows up.

Hashirama, the least Hatake according to the matriarch's own mother, playfully bites and nibbles at her hands and arms, her legs, full of love and unashamed. Though as the years go by he does it less and less. Sometimes though, when he sees his remaining little brother, he can't help but turn and bite his arm. Or if a hand is on the table, he'll sneak a nibble too. His little brother will huff, but he never stops him from doing it.

Tobirama also grows up nibbling and biting. A little too much even. Anyone he deemed friend/family - even the wolf summons, he'll climb onto and try nibbling at their ears. Not even Butsuma escapes his reign of teething terror - having to go to war meetings with a toddler strapped to his side, teeth nibbling his upper arms.

He also grows out of that all around, all encompassing affection and focuses on the few important ones that remain - a quick nib at his brother's shoulder before they go into battle, a playfully bite on Touka's hand when she tries to reach for something in front of him, so on.

This carries on - lets pretend Izuna lives, village is built and somehow standing in it's own and he's hella confused why one day, when he and Tobirama get assigned on a mission he tells the Senju bastard good luck and the guy just. bites him. Just pivots his head and chomps on his shoulder, before straightening up like something shot up his spine and muttered a quick "you too" before taking off.

Here he thought he and the guy were getting along, but he guesses not. Especially cause after that mission Tobirama won't even be in the same room as him. As always he goes to his brother for guidance in these trying times.

Hikaku: he bit you?

Izuna: Yeah, can you believe that? What the fuck!

Madara: Ah, Hashirama bit me a few times when we were kids. He said it's how his family showed each other they like them.

Hikaku: he likes you??

Izuna: Do I have to bite him back now?

He doesn't. Not at first, but after having to run around the village to get the man to sign a document because he is still avoiding him. he gives up. Just chomps on the arm that's right in front of him and then sits back in his seat like he didn't do that most insane thing in the middle of a council meeting.

Tobirama blinks before nodding and continuing with his report, seemingly back to normal now that his weird affection has been returned. Hashirama, inspired by his little brother, turns to Madara and also tries to chomp.

Now that the cat is out of the bag, Izuna is forced to be nibbled by a surprisingly affectionate Tobirama, while watching his older brother dodge the chomping affections of his friend. C'est la vie.

[remedyturtles]

not a single person here who's worthy

@tmnt-write-fight gift fic for @duckythetoddscout for their first prompt:

Batman crossover- Dick Grayson (any age), or any other batkids really, meeting the turtles. Any iteration.

wordcount: 2844

this is the absolute peak of self indulgence, as i've been into batfam for over ten years, so this prompt sung to me. i really hope you like where i took this haha :) title from idle worship by paramore. warnings for kinda panic attack but otherwise nothing big.

[]

If asked, Leo would claim that he'd borrowed one of Donnie's tablets so he could watch deep-dive video essays.

And he did. Sometimes. But mostly, he'd poked Donnie into info-dumping about the different tracking apps he'd developed so Leo could set it up and watch for anything... weird.

It was a totally normal reaction. Even though he'd had to listen to Donnie explain that blah blah blah mathematical model of a four dimensional continuum measuring relativistic effects -- whatever. What mattered was, Donnie had a map of New York corresponding to a graph of time-space-junk, and if it spiked, shit was happening. And it was so totally normal of Leo to sleep with that graph playing on the tablet next to his head. Just to make sure that nothing weird was going on. Right?

Yeah. Right. So totally normal. Which was why he told absolutely no one about his quiet little obsession, and why he more often than not laid awake staring at the screen instead of sleeping.

He'd grown used to the little anomalies, after sneaking out multiple times to check on blips. He'd yet to find any connection, whether it was latent mystic energies or some weird science thing due to gravity, he had no idea. Leo stopped having an irrational lurch of panic in his stomach at the small fluctuations on the screen. However it did not prepare him for the huge spike he saw at two thirty in the morning when he should've been sleeping after a long night of patrol. He'd almost convinced himself to fall asleep, too, when the screen suddenly lit in a red flare twenty times the size of any anomaly he'd seen so far, right in middle of Soho.

Leo's blood went cold. His brain ran through multiple possibilities, as his body moved, grabbing his swords and lighting up in an instant -- portalling directly to the coordinates.

The air was sparking when Leo emerged. Crackling pops of electricity fluttering to the ground. And despite what Leo's brain was anticipating, there was no pink fleshed aliens, there was no mechanical suits lit with red, there was only a groan from the rooftop, distinctly human and annoyed.

For a too-long moment, Leo's brain sprinted to catch up with his body, as he'd left his sense in the sewers. He was still wearing the hoodie he'd slept in and his swords were cooling down from his frantic portal. He was barely awake, despite the stop-start surge of panic, and it was damn lucky that there wasn't some alien waiting here for him, as he was woefully unprepared. And alone. What had he thought he was going to do?

"Well, shit." The person laying on the roof said. He was crackling with his own electricity, sparks fading slow, and appraising Leo with a watchful eye.

Which. Now that Leo was pivoting to the human beside him, was dressed quite… unique. A black body suit, with blue stripes arching finger to finger over his shoulders. And a mask on his face, hiding his eyes completely, with a head of dark hair. When Leo looked at him, he grinned. 

"Hi. Are you the welcoming committee?" The stranger asked. 

"I'm…" Leo shook his head, gathering his bearings, and extended his sword out to face the intruder. "Something like that. Who are you? Where did you come from?"

Bemusedly, the stranger raised his hands up, showing himself unarmed. "I'm not recognizable? Have I landed somewhere that doesn't have heroes?"

Heroes. Leo's hand shook for a moment, as his body struggled to keep the sword up. That was a concept Leo really didn't want to think about, especially not at two in the morning when he'd been scared half to death thinking for a split second that the Kraang had returned and he was a failure to everyone who ever had the misfortune of believing in him. 

"That's… we don't have anyone like you." Leo decided to answer, instead of claiming himself to be one. 

"Is everyone in this universe green?" The hero asked, cheerful about it. Even though Leo could tell he was still sizing him up, shifting into a better position. 

"Not many." Leo said, flat. "Mostly human. Like you are, I'm assuming."

"Human. Unless you ask my brother after I've subjected him to the fifth Disney movie in a row, at which point I'm apparently considered a monster. Any chance we could lower the sword now? I'm promise I'm one of the good guys. Here, let me introduce myself. I'm Nightwing." Heedless of the sword, Nightwing stuck out his hand to shake. 

Leo juggled conflicting desires, wanting to stay on guard versus wanting to play along and gain information, and compromised by lowering the sword but not taking the hand.

Nightwing didn't actually seem to expect him to, pulling away just to lean back on his palms and look at the skyline. "Woah, is this New York? It's been ages since I've been here, but you don't forget that view."

"Where are you from, then?" Leo prodded, keeping his sword at his side, ready. Tense. Feeling small and kind of stupid in the hoodie that was too big for him with the effortless sheen of the costume before him. 

"Gotham City."

"Never heard of it."

"Strike two for alternate dimension. That's fine. I won't be here long anyway." 

"No?" Leo wondered.

Nightwing seemed to be enjoying the view, unbothered by his armed welcoming party and no longer sparking with energy. "We were fighting a gentleman who installed a dimension hopper into his weaponry, so there's contingency plans in place. As soon as my family is done kicking his ass they'll swing by and pick me up. I give them… twenty minutes. Maybe half an hour, if Babybird and Little D get arguing without me to break it up."

Leo couldn't help but glance around at the scenery, trying to see what had enraptured the hero so much. All he could focus on was the construction cranes and the holes in the skyline where they'd lost infrastructure during the invasion. If Nightwing truly hadn't been to New York in a long time, maybe he didn't know the difference. Or maybe it was different in his universe altogether. 

"Your whole family are heroes?" Leo asked instead.

"Everyone of them." Nightwing's mouth twitched at the corner. "Even the ones who maybe should've waited a little longer before getting into the family business, but who am I to judge?"

Leo got the impression he'd been doing the gig a long time himself, just from the lazy grace that he carried in the suit. Reluctantly, he let the swords relax at his sides completely.

"Those are beautiful katannas." Nightwing complimented. 

"Thanks." Leo said reflexively. He held up the blades, marvelling for a moment how the ninpo markings disappeared and left no trace.

"You popped over here pretty quick. I wasn't expecting my appearance to make any waves. The last time this happened I ended up taking a nap on a beach for a couple hours. Welcoming committee, protector of the universe, whatever you wanna call it." 

Leo was already shaking his head. "That's not me. I just… I stole some of my brother's tech and I was just watching for any time-space bullshit and caught the wave you made. So I portalled over to make sure it wasn't something coming to take over the world, or whatever. It's stupid."

"Doesn't sound stupid." Nightwing smiled at him, and it kinda hurt for some reason. "Well, hey, you better stick around and make sure I don't take over the world in the probable-twenty-five minutes I spend in this universe. Have a seat, kid, pull up some roof." 

"I'm not a kid." Leo protested, but slowly lowered himself to sit, folding his swords over his knees and tugging at the edge of his big hoodie. 

"You're what, seventeen?" Nightwing guessed, right on the money without even trying. "Same age as my second youngest brother, though he's probably a bad example on what does and does not constitute a kid since he was briefly the world's youngest CEO of a multi-billion dollar company. The point is, I'm twenty-four, and I've been doing this hero biz for more than half my life, and I can give you some hot tips if you want."

"I'm not a hero." Leo immediately denied, tongue feeling big in his mouth and heart going too-fast. 

"You don't need a fancy suit to be a hero. You just need to show up when things need protecting." Nightwing gestured at him. "And look at that! Here you are."

"Not me." Leo's face burned and he didn't want this guy to get the wrong idea. "Maybe my brothers are heroes, but I'm the screw up. I'm just trying to… make up for my mistakes." 

"Ah." Nightwing's smile tinted a new colour. Shaded sad. "Listen, kid. What's your name?"

"I don't have a superhero name like yours." Leo said. 

"Hell, there's no secret identity to protect here. My real name is Dick. Well, Richard. But my friends call me Dick." 

Oh come on. Leo had to do it. He quirked a little smile and asked, "How do you get Dick from Richard?"

"You ask nicely!" Dick crowed, delighted. "Oh, thank you! No one ever sets me up for that one anymore."

Leo chuckled, shoulder loosening, and said, "It's Leonardo. Just Leo is fine though."

"Da Vinki?" Dick memed in a pretend gasp. 

He couldn't help but laugh again. "Yeah, that's me. All my brothers and I are named after renaissance artists. Or, alternatively, by our colour coding. So I'll answer just as fast to 'blue'."

"Hell yeah blue." Dick wiggled his blue finger stripes at him. "Got a red brother? Mine is a pain in the ass. I love him but if he 'borrows' my motorbike without asking one more time I'm gonna make origami out of his classic lit collection."

"Red brother, yeah. That's Raph. I'm probably more of a pain to him than he is to me. And he's not into books, that's Donnie. Books and tech." 

"Ah, tech is all Tim. The walking contradiction – genius level IQ who dropped out of high school. Picture a kid skateboarding in a suit to his board meetings. Though I'm not sure what colour we'd assign to him now, probably yellow since Jason's got a pretty firm hold on red." Dick tapped off his fingers, looking fond. 

Leo hummed and said, "Yeah, Don's purple, and my youngest isn't yellow but orange. Mikey's like that too – bright like the sun. Loves with everything he has. Joy and warmth and all that."

Dick burst out laughing so hard he had to hold his stomach, and dramatically wiped a tear away. "Oh, boy, yeah. No. The similarities very much end there. Our youngest is a baby assassin who we have to remind daily that he cannot maim people for minor inconveniences. But he's doing great, really. He's come so far from where he started. And despite the severe exterior, he really loves animals and art."

"Hey, there's something. Mike loves art. Actually, do you wanna see? I've got pictures on my phone." Leo tapped his foot at top speed, a little excited, because he never got to interact with normal people who didn't already know Mikey and get the opportunity to show off his talent like this. 

"Hell yeah I do." Dick shuffled closer, leaning in to see his phone and exclaiming over the bright pieces Leo had treasured in his camera roll. Then Dick showed off some remarkably lifelike pencil art pieces done by his youngest brother on his own phone, as well as the zoo of animals apparently he kept. Including a cow? 

"Are you the oldest?" Leo asked, when Dick made a comment about 'all his baby siblings'.

"I am. There's more of us, a couple sisters and another brother, but I'm the oldest of all of them." Dick didn't seem too concerned. "Let me guess, you're the second oldest?"

"Depends on what order my twin and I are deciding on for the day, but yeah. Raph's the oldest." Leo said with a shrug. 

"That makes sense." Dick said. 

Leo scowled and tried to elbow him. "What makes you say that?"

Dick dodged effortlessly and huffed. "You remind me of my second oldest brother. He feels like he has a lot to prove. And no idea that we don't need him to prove it, we'd just rather he was there."

Leo wrinkled his nose. "Dude. Come on. You don't have to put me on blast like that."

"Sorry." Dick laughed. "I'm a detective. And I'm really bad at turning it off, especially when I jump into a alternate dimension faced with a kid in a hoodie and a sword who's shaking way too hard to be doing okay."

Shit. That was a bad first impression. Leo groaned and covered his face with his hands. 

"Can I ask you one thing, though?" Dick wondered. 

"Might as well. Dig the knife in." Leo mumbled. 

"Why did you come alone? If your brothers are more like heroes than you, why is it just you in the middle of the night?"

"I wasn't thinking." Leo said, too quick, and it wasn't really the truth. He sighed. "I told you, I'm just trying to make up for my mistakes. They… they didn't need to be dragged into this if I could just fix it myself." 

"Hm. Well, get ready for the hot tip, because once I'm in big brother mode there's no stopping me. I told you that being a hero is showing up when people need protecting, but being a hero for a long time is not showing up alone. You shouldn't be wandering around New York by yourself to face an unknown threat, especially if you're not ready for it." Dick leaned in closer, rather serious. 

Leo shook his head, annoyed, turning away and tugging at the end of his sleeve. "Now you're really reminding me of Raph. Now all you need is a hot temper."

"Oh, believe me, I've got that too." Dick winked, but there was a severity that rang true. "But that's not necessary in this moment. If I'm your Raph and you said that you're more of a pain to him than he is to you, then yeah, you're my Jason. But listen. I don't care that Jason's made mistakes. Because that kid suffered more than anyone could believe, but he came back to us, and he is trying. And there's no amount of pain that he could cause me that would ever eclipse how much more I love him."

That was… seriously uncomfortably close to his own experiences. Just thinking about the idea of suffering sounded a lot like the snap of a portal closing him into hell. And coming back from it, and trying to be the hero he never could. 

"You don't have to prove anything to them." Dick said, quietly. "They'd just rather you were there. And if your tech brother is half as good as mine, he probably knew the moment the energy spiked and I bet they're wondering where you are."

It was that moment that Leo realized he'd left his phone in his bedroom, plugged in and charging, and if they had been trying to contact him he'd have no idea. He groaned and covered his face again. "Shit."

"Go home." Dick said. "My ride'll be here any minute." 

"Yeah. Yeah." Leo shook his head, like he was trying to shake out the cobwebs. There was no way Donnie hadn't realized what he was doing with the tablet now, he was going to have some explaining to do, especially at the part where he ran off to deal with a threat entirely alone without telling anyone where he was going. He gave Dick a sideways glance and said, "Your Jason loves you too, you know. He's stealing your motorbike so you'll have to talk to him. We always listen more when you're yelling because that's when we think you're telling the truth."

"Maybe I'll yell at him more how much I love him, then." Dick shrugged, amused. "Get it through his thick skull."

"Thanks for being patient." Leo said, and realized in that moment he probably really needed to verbalize that one to Raph. 

"Thanks for coming home." Dick replied, sadder. 

Behind them, the rooftop shimmered with a different portal.

"Ah, great timing. They're early, someone must've gotten antsy." Dick grinned, hopping up to his feet with an acrobatic stretch. "Hey, Leonardo?"

"Yeah?" Leo said, getting up too.

"It was great to meet another hero." Dick saluted, approaching his portal.

Leo's mouth was dry. He nodded back, and said with a small croak, "Yeah. You too."

He watched until Dick disappeared. Then before he could summon his own portal, he heard three voices gasp, "Leo!" before he was tackled to the ground. 

His hands were shaking again as he held onto them. He didn't really have to go home, when home came to him.

[endcant]

when i was a teenager on tumblr in 2012-2013 i briefly had a moment when i was obsessed with dennys’s trashy and liminal nature and i collected weird and horrific dennys stories. dennys was inherently funny to me. and so when dennys made their own cursed shitposting blog i was pissed that dennys stole the posting about dennys game from me, and i deleted all my posts about the restaurant chain. i remember the last night of true dennys based joy was not long after the dennys blog went up but i hadnt quit the dennysposting game yet. my bedroom had flooded and so i was sitting in the kitchen and reading asks about food poisoning and roaches and such to occupy my time til my room went back to normal. but it never went back to normal. my room became the home of black mold and fungus, where i coexisted with the toxic spores and unceremoniously scraped ear-shaped mushrooms off my wall for about 5 years until i moved out in mid 2018. after the dennys jig was up, i pivoted hard into my vaporwave phase and also spent a bit less time on tumblr in general due to spending more time on fandom-specific sites. i also was spending more of my time at home laying in bed lowkey hallucinating and highkey believing i was a dead person. this was quite confusing because at that point science had come to the conclusion that black mold couldnt produce enough toxic spores at once to cause a person to experience serious psychological symptoms. so of course this meant to me, a toxin-addled teenager, that the hallucinations and such i was experiencing were not explained by science and thus potentially real. this disturbed me when i had the time to worry about it, which only became a major issue for my quality of life after i graduated high school and all i did was work at a coffee shop and play minecraft in my mold room. it wasn’t until after i moved out in 2018 that i found out that scientists reversed their opinion on mold toxins again in like 2017 or something. now its widely acknowledged that that shit makes people have all manner of mental symptoms. at the time though i was fairly willing to accept that the powers that be forgot to take me out of my body after i died. i felt a bit bad for spreading so much shit talk about denny’s back in the day since the better dennys in my town was incredibly accommodating to the massive amount of allergies in my family, but the other dennys functionally across the street from it served such horrible food that the impression could not be overcome.