#it wasn't even for them but it just... made a lot of sense

[dcxdpdabbles]

DCxDP fanfic idea: Farmer's Market Gossip

Bruce Wayne enjoys visiting the farmers' market, especially the one in Smallville. Something was refreshing about wandering stall to stall, looking over fresh fruit, baked goods, and little handmade nicknacks.

One of the best parts was realizing that almost no one recognized him. Maybe in a place like Gotham, where his face and his activities were always splattered on news outlets and gossip rags, it made it hard for him to go unnoticed unless he actively disguised himself.

That wasn't a problem in here.

People didn't follow the rich here in the same way they followed celebrities. Why would they care that Bruce made a fool of himself at a fancy gala in a random street they had never seen or heard of? Why would his donations to charities matter when the charities never reach this far out here? Why would they bother to look deeper in the thought of Don't I know that guy from somewhere? while he browsed the tomatoes.

Smallville was a pleasant, quiet place to retire or raise a family. But it lacked a night life, and to be fair a large amount of entertainment. There wasn't a whole lot to do out here. It was, in every sense of the world, a little rural town in the middle of nowhere.

Oh, Metropolis was a mere hour and a half drive away, or ninety miles, because Americans need to use actual measurements when speaking of distance, as Alfred once put it (Bruce just thought it was funny to see his father-figure get annoyed at the oddest things). It was a relatively easy drive, hardly out of the way, but it still felt like far too much to go for a mere night out, at least a constant one.

Commuting for work was a different matter.

So, really, Smallville had a limit to gossip, not because the neighbors weren't nosy - in fact, Bruce found them far more invested in each other's lives than they should be but because there just weren't enough people to hear new gossip about. They passed along the same story over and over again, until everyone and their mother had heard it, but after a day or two, that would be old news.

Maybe that's why the vendors all knew Bruce's face, and knew that when he strolled through, he would buy almost everything he paused to browse, but knew nothing else about him. He likes it that way.

Oh, there were whispers; however, those speculations were more about the fact that Martha Kent's boy brought around a city boy with him every other weekend. How suspiciously close that Clark fellow was to his friend.

Mr. Parr, who sold a rosemary sourdough bread that Bruce was addicted to, muttered to Miss Davis that he always knew Clark was on the more colorful side. Miss Davis then commented how Clark did well for himself because Bruce always seemed to have enough cash to walk back to his car, bags nearly spilling out of his arms.

Bruce thought it was hilarious and chose not to correct anyone. He knew Clark was aware of the rumors - it was hard not to, given the man's superhearing made him hyper-aware of everything all the time - but his friend had no idea how people got that impression and didn't know how to make them stop.

His parents' neighbors thought Lois was made up, even after Ma and Pa Kent talked about their son's girlfriend.

This week, he actually showed up without Clark. His friend was busy at work, but had been willing to fly him over so he could get his bi-weekly fix of relaxation. The kids knew they were always welcome to join him, but they also knew Bruce liked doing his little Smallville farmer's market alone.

As he was chatting with Mrs. Green, he noticed a new stall had been added to the usual lineup.

"That's Danny Fenton." Mrs. Green revealed after noticing his curiosity. "Sweet thing, just moved into town. He took over Mr. Jackson's old flower farm after Mr. Jackson became ill. You know the poor man is in the early stages of dementia, so his daughters wanted him closer to their houses, a state away. Anyway, Danny makes these excellent natural creams and lotions from his flowers. You should try his ointments too! Why, it helps clear up most of my arthritis aches and pains."

Bruce flashes her a boyish smile. "I'll go over and see his selection. If it's a recommendation from you, he must be fantastic."

"Oh, aren't you a charmer?" Mrs. Green laughs bashfully, swatting Bruce away. "Go now before you make an old lady faint from a severe big head."

"You big-headed? Never." Bruce laughs taking his fresh set of carrots and apples. "Have a good day, Mrs. Green!"

"You too, Brucie."

Strutting over to the new booth, Bruce made sure to wave at the regular vendors, who all smiled and greeted him back, except for Mr. Martinez, who Bruce had come to know had always had a bit of a hard time with eye contact. He didn't take it to heart.

The man's salsas were far too delicious to be upset over something small like eye contact.

Danny Fenton's booth was much like the others. A large pop-up canopy with a long foldable table was set up. Fenton had some wooden stands displaying randomly sized jars with a ghost-like logo stuck on them. He placed fake flowers around the wooden stands, making it appear as though the jars were sitting in a garden bed, and had soft, classical music playing from a speaker near the back of the booth.

Bruce realized that the closer he got, the more battery-operated fountains were placed around to grab people's attention and create the obvious soft, cottage-core ambiance Fenton was going for. Not only did it pull in customers, but it also let him influence their mood from the get-go for his sales pitch.

The man obviously had some experience in the field.

Fenton kept up his fantasy gimmick by dressing in a peculiar outfit. Bruce couldn't quite name the style at the top of his head, but he was sure that Fenotn wouldn't be out of place in a Renaissance fair among the fairy section that Tim and Damian loved so much. All he was missing was a mushroom-themed hat.

Since Fenton was currently chatting with a few customers, Bruce decided to browse the selections of hand salves. He dipped a spoon in a few of the sample jars and spread the salves on one of his hands, testing out the sensation with a critical eye. His many years of grappling across the city made his hands a bit rough, and it was always nice to find something to soften them again.

He couldn't be a proper gentleman if his hands weren't gentle after all.

Almost instantly, he realized he was going to be walking away with at least three jars: lavender rose, rosemary spearmint, and lavender chamomile. Not only did they feel great, but they smelled divine.

Bruce then truned his attention to some lotions, hoping to find some for Cass who always had a bit of a more pungent nose then the rest of his kids so she tended to look for more natural sents and came face to face with Fenton himself.

The man had finished with his other clients, moving behind the table to stand on the other side directly across from Bruce. He had a few small flowers braided in his hair, letting the rest of it fall loosly around his shoulders and he offered Bruce a smile as gentle and as pretty as the flowers he grew.

Bruce felt his jaw drop.

Never before had he seen such beauty.

"Hi there! Let me know if you have any questions." Fenton chirps, looking so darn happy to have someone standing in of his items that he was almost glowing.

"Um...No...I ...Just these." Bruce coughed, handing over the jars and a random lotion bottle. He didn't break eye contact, as Fenton happily rattles off the price and bags his things for him. But he can't find the will to push words out of his mouth, grunting in thanks and all but fleeing from the man.

Much later, he overhears Mrs. Lee giggling with a few ladies. "Mr. Fenton has to be the most attractive person to ever move to Smallville. I heard he was a supermodel."

"Well, I heard he has some siren blood in him. Miss Jackson said his voice was hypnotic."

"Siren blood? Really?"

"Hey, anything is possible; people like Aquaman are running around."

A siren.

That had to be it. No wonder Bruce had been so struck dumb. A magical creature of the sea had moved to a landlocked town to sell flower-based skin care goods. Not the oddest thing he has faced as Batman.

However, to be safe, Bruce should return next week. Just to make sure Fenton wasn't going to eat anyone.

(Three weeks later, Clark tries his hardest to assure everyone Bruce is not cheating on him with the new Beauty of Smallville because they were never a couple. He gets lots of baked goods to heal his broken heart in response, and Lois laughs.)

[ramiesocs]

1. I was obsessed with FNAFHS as a kid and after I heard the Wolf in Sheep's Clothing I had to create two characters

2. it wasn't really that much because she went from a light grey character with long white hair to a white character with long blonde hair, later on I made a genderbending of her and a few redesign later (like 2) Dylan was recognizable

3. the first thing I decided about Liz was that she would be the cute, dainty, and innocent girl of the two (by the two I mean Liz & Lucy) and u reflected that on the appearance, so the first was both appearance and role on the story

4. the last thing it could be her name I believe, I made her long ago so I'm not sure if it was name or personality

5. her name is Elizabeth Parqués (and Dylan Parqués) the last name I firmly remember it was a reference to Spider-Man bc originally it was Parker and then I made it more Hispanic, I genuinely don't remember with I chose Elizabeth, both I chose Dylan because it was a "soft" and unisex name

6. originally, Liz's design was completely based on her difference with Lucy, meaning that she was "pure" "naive" and more "innocent" than Lucy, now her design shows 2 things, 1 it's aesthetically nice but makes her stand out like A LOT, and 2 you could argue that because it's based on emo, scene and 2020 TikTok alt, it means that Liz decides to live on the past (Dylan it's just and gb version that's supposed to look like the more grim and sad version of the two)

7. I love Liz's hime cut hair and her black side bangs, I also love when her hair it's down even tho I barely draw her like that

8. the origin of her personality it's... Joy from FNAHS with a little of Freddy, she was so like them in the beginning, now she's more outspoken and sometimes gets mad and like hit things (the getting mad and not knowing how to manage it it's the projection)

9. she's not the main character per se on the main story, but she's a catalyst for a few moments and she will be the co- protagonist of other story if I ever write it properly

10. I would define her main arc like she has this false sense of security about her and Dylan childhood, taking things for granted and not knowing how much she likes her brother, only for him to disappear and when they reunite she gets this great mix of feelings, getting angry but happy, the whole journey it's kinda them learning to care for their sibling, she gets a happy ending and learns to be way more grateful

11. she mostly resembles Joy from FNAFHS I think, but because she's white, blonde with straight bangs and has blue eyes she also resembles some interpretations of Magik from X-men, which wasn't on purpose, Liz it's just white

12. I do have a playlist for her, but it's songs that she canonically would listen to, so there's Shawn Mendes, Chappell Roan, Keasha and Avril Lavigne

13. I had a voice claim but I forgot who she was... but I have a face claim, Jane Widdop

14. I particularly don't have specific quotes, the most I remember for the story is her deadnaming her brother do it isn't really the best 😬 (she was possessed so it doesn't count)

15. I've made countless moodboards of her, they're pretty old tho

16. the closest meme I think I got of her is the "friendship with [blank] ended, [blank it's my new best friend" because I'm horrible at doing those things with my own characters

17. I'm also very bad with motif symbols, but maybe ribbons, it's a detail that always appears on her designs

18. she has a whole family tree, there's her, Dylan her twin brother, Martina her cousin/adoptive sister, her aunt and uncle Saraí and Lautaro, her mom Belén, the sperm donor w*lliam, her aunt June her cousin Matt and her uncle without a name, but because of things she doesn't know the last three, at least not yet

19. her whole being it's my favorite things, she's one if not the FIRST oc I made when I was 12/13 so my emotional attachment for her it's really strong, my least favorite thing it's that she uses makeup and clips on her hair and other accessories and I'm really lazy to actually draw them

20. I love to talk about her but because I've technically talk about her since I was 13 I really don't know which one things I've already said about her, it's also really funny to draw her because she has lots of accessories and she would be that cartoon character that has a different outfit in every episode

Character asks!

These are more focused on the background stuff rather than the usual "what would the character do in XY situation" kinds of asks. I've been looking for something like this for quite a while and in the end decided to make my own. Feel free to use, go wild, enjoy

What was the original thought that led to the creation of this character?

How long was the process before the character reached its final version? (or a version that would be clearly recognizable as the character?)

What was the first thing you decided on, the character's name, appearance, personality or their role in the story?

And reverse, which one of the four things did you struggle with the most?

How did you choose their name and why? Was it simply based on vibes or is there any specific meaning behind the name? Are the reasons behind their name different in- and out of universe?

What was the thought process behind their appearance? Did you go mostly for the aesthetic or are there other reasons they look the way they do?

What is an aspect of their appearance that you like the most?

What is the origin of their personality? And let's be honest - how much of it is projecting?

How big is their role in the story? Do they make a frequent appearance or are they a character with little "screentime" but big influence? Or are they just a favourite background guy?

What is their main character arc in the story? Where do they start and how do they develop? Do they get a happy ending or is their story a tragic one?

Is there any existing character from other media that your character resembles? Was the resemblance intentional or was it a coincidence?

Do you have a playlist for the character? What songs do you associate with them and why?

Do you have a voice claim for the character? What do you imagine the character sounds like?

Do you have any quotes tied to the character, either from the story itself or from another source that fit them?

Have you ever made a moodboard for them?

Is there any memes or running jokes associated with the character, both in- and out of universe?

Are there any motifs or symbols associated with the character? How are they represented, in their design, personality or in some other way?

Does the character have other characters connected to them? Do you have a family tree and "offscreen" connections made up for them or do they exist in a vacuum purely for the purpose of the story?

What is your general favourite thing about the character? What is your least favourite?

Bonus question: share any additional thoughts, art, favourite scenes, anything you've been waiting for a chance to ramble about

[blaysreid]

You asked for a request and you shall receive

Fluff, fluffiest fluff I can have. Although I. Eed some order feelings in there si whatever else you want, angst, hurt/comfort, arguing as ling as it ends on a good note 🙏

Im think early to mid seasons spencer reid? Reader preferably another agent (not necessarily BAU if you want a change :) )

I might come back and if I do you can recognise me by 💿 :)

(May have gone overboard but oh well yolo unless you're one of em shifters) (I'm giggling)

A/N = this wasn't supposed to end up so long! But I hope it matches up to your expectations anyway. Lots of fluff and a super heated argument with spencer left appreciating and loving reader through apologies, sweet touches and words. THANK YOU FOR THE REQUEST ANON!!

pairing = midseason!frustrated!spencer + forgiving!frustratedbau!reader

summary = After a messy argument, Spencer and Reader find comfort the next morning over pancakes and quiet affection. With Reader in his lap, they feed each other between kisses, gently unpacking their hurt and offering forgiveness in soft, unspoken ways. It’s tender, sticky, and full of love. A slow return to each other, one bite at a time.

The police station was too hot.

Not just temperature wise but emotionally, everything felt like it was about to crack open. You could feel it in the way Morgan nearly snapped his pen in half earlier, in the way Emily was pinching the bridge of her nose, in how JJ had barely said a word since morning. And especially in the way Spencer Reid was currently standing across from you, arms folded, jaw clenched, and refusing to look up from his goddamn notebook.

You weren’t even sure what started it. It had been a long three days. A kidnapped child. Barely any sleep. Constant movement between press conferences, house to house interviews, a suspect list that only seemed to grow. And now the corkboard. Red string. Timelines. Locations. Your own handwriting shaking with exhaustion.

You pointed at the board with one hand and gripped your coffee in the other. “The route makes sense. The second and fourth victims were last seen within a block of Route 19. He’s following the bus path, or something close to it. I think he’s watching them get on, or off. It’s too specific to ignore.”

Spencer didn’t even look up. “The second and fourth, maybe. But the first and third lived well outside that zone. You’re seeing a pattern that isn’t consistent across all four.”

You stared at him, waiting. Hoping he’d soften it, or at least look at you.

He didn’t. Just turned a page and jotted something down.

That’s when the heat started to rise in your chest. The kind that burned slow, creeping from the inside out.

“You’re not even listening.” you said tightly.

“I am.” he replied, still without glancing up. “You’re presenting a theory that doesn’t line up with all the geographical data. If I thought it had weight, I’d say so.”

That’s when it happened. The crack.

You dropped your coffee onto the desk with a louder thud than intended. “God, Spencer. Not everything’s about data. Maybe try thinking about the actual victims for once instead of the stupid spreadsheet in your head.”

That made him look up. And god, the look he gave you.

Cold. Sharp. Analytical.

He blinked once. “You’re letting your emotions get in the way. Again.”

Your breath caught. Not from surprise but from how much it hurt.

You took a slow step forward, heart in your throat. “Don’t say that to me.”

He didn’t back down. That was the worst part. “I’m just trying to solve this case the right way. If we start throwing out logic every time it gets hard-”

“You think I’m being illogical because I care?” you snapped. “Because I don’t have your perfect, clinical detachment?”

Spencer flinched. Just slightly.

But you were already spiraling. “You act like emotions make someone less capable. Maybe if you actually let yourself feel something once in a while, you’d understand that gut instinct matters just as much as your numbers.”

He was silent. For a beat too long. Until he spoke up, coming out harsher and deeper than he intended to.

“I never said you were less capable,” he muttered. “Just… inconsistent.”

That did it.

You blinked hard, backing up as though the words physically hit you. “Wow,” you whispered. “Okay. You know what? I’m done.”

“Wait-”

“No,” you said, already turning away. “Finish your report, Reid. You don’t need me for this part.”

You didn’t hear what he said after that.

You didn’t want to.

When you were all settled in your seat the jet was too quiet.

Too many empty seats. Too much space between you and him. It was a small plane, but tonight it felt like a cold, hollow auditorium with only the sound of the engines to fill the silence.

You were seated near the back, pressed against the window as if you could escape through it. Arms crossed, headphones in, but no music playing. You didn’t want to hear anything. You just wanted to make it through the flight without crying.

Spencer had walked on a few minutes after you, his messenger bag slung tight to his side. He hesitated at the top of the stairs when he saw where you were sitting.

You watched him out of the corner of your eye. Saw the flicker of hope that maybe, just maybe, he could sit beside you. Or near you.

But then your eyes met. For one sharp second.

And you looked away.

When he took the seat across the aisle instead. Not too close, not too far, but it still felt like a mile.

Hotch didn’t come. He stayed behind to debrief with the local PD. Morgan, JJ, and Emily had all flown back early. But since you and Spencer were at the crime scene, it took a few hours longer to finish up.

NowIt was just the two of you and the pilot, and neither of you said a word for the first hour.

You could feel it though. Spencer kept shifting. Restless. Like he wanted to speak but couldn’t find the thread to pull.

He didn’t know how to start.

So he didn’t.

You tried to focus on your file, but the words blurred. The same way his face did when you let yourself glance over at him. Face pale under the cabin lights, brow furrowed like he was doing calculus in his head. He hadn’t written anything for the past thirty minutes.

He was thinking.

And you hated that you still cared.

Eventually, you stood up to stretch your legs, walking past him without a glance. You felt his eyes follow you. You didn’t give him the satisfaction of looking back.

But the silence was so heavy it made your chest ache.

When you sat back down, you gave in. Just for a moment. You looked at him and to your surprise, he was already looking at you.

And God, he looked like hell.

Not angry. Not cold. Just… haunted.

Like he’d been replaying every word over and over, and hated every single one.

He didn’t say anything. He just dropped his eyes and picked at the seam of his seat cushion like a nervous habit. It should’ve made it easier to stay angry.

But it didn’t.

Because no one looked that guilty if they didn’t mean it.

When the plane landed, the tension didn’t ease. It followed you both down the stairs, through the car ride back to Quantico, and up the elevator.

By the time you stepped into the BAU bullpen, it was completely empty. Everyone had already gone home.

You grabbed your go-bag and turned toward the exit.

But his voice, soft and shaky, cut through the stillness.

“…Wait.”

You froze.

His shoes tapped lightly across the floor. He didn’t rush. Didn’t demand. Just moved slowly and gently like he was afraid you’d vanish if he came too close.

“I shouldn’t have said what I did.”

You didn’t turn around. Your eyes burned, and your voice was sharp when it came. “Which part?”

He exhaled hard, hands in his pockets. “All of it.”

You finally turned. And when he saw your face, exhausted, red-rimmed, tired of fighting and just then, his expression shattered completely.

“I didn’t mean you’re inconsistent. I-" His throat worked. “I was frustrated. With the case. And with myself. And you were right. You usually are, actually. And I-I took it out on you.”

You stared at him.

“I’m not good at people,” he continued, quieter now. “But that doesn’t excuse it. You didn’t deserve that. I know I hurt you.”

Your lip trembled.

He took a careful step closer. “Please don’t shut me out.”

Something in your chest cracked.

You blinked, and the tears finally slipped. “You made me feel small.”

“I know,” he said quickly, voice breaking. “And I hate myself for it.”

You swallowed. Looked down at your shoes. Then back at him. “I was just trying to help.”

“I know baby.” he whispered. “I know. And I pushed you away.” His heart swelled at your vulnerability. Seeing you so upset and still hearing him out made him appreciate you more than ever.

You nodded slowly. “You did.”

He took one more step, then stopped close enough for you to feel the warmth from his coat. “Can I… can I fix it?”

You hesitated. Then reached out, fingers brushing against his. He latched onto it like a lifeline. Held it so gently you could’ve cried all over again.

“I don’t want to fight with you,” you whispered.

“I don’t either.”

You looked up at him.

“You owe me a smoothie.”

His breath caught a short, stunned laugh and you could see the tear caught in his lashes.

“I’ll buy you three,” he promised.

You squeezed his hand.

And left the BAU together.

Hand in hand.

Heading for the nearest 24-hour smoothie shop like it was the only thing keeping the world from falling apart.

After being tangled up in bed together for the rest of the night,soft whispers and gentle touches, morning came softly.

No alarms, no rush. Just the pale gold of sunrise filtering through the thin curtains, dust motes dancing in the air like the world had decided to move in slow motion.

You were warm.

Not from the blanket which had mostly slipped to the floor but from the man curled tightly around you. Spencer had somehow managed to wrap himself around every limb you owned. His legs were tangled with yours, his hand under your shirt but resting respectfully just above your waist, and his face… God, his face was nuzzled into the back of your neck like he belonged there.

You could feel his breath, warm and rhythmic. One of his curls had fallen into your ear.

You blinked slowly, adjusting to the quiet light. It was too early to be up but your body always knew when the sun rose. You shifted gently, stretching your legs.

He groaned.

A soft, pathetic little sound, like moving away from you physically pained him.

You bit back a laugh. “Spence…”

“Mm?” His voice was rough with sleep.

“I have to get up.”

“No,” he said immediately, tightening his arms around you like a sleepy octopus. “Stay.”

You huffed a gentle laugh. “Spencer.”

“Just five more minutes.”

“You said that fifteen minutes ago.”

He didn’t answer and instead just buried his face deeper into your neck with an exaggerated sigh that tickled your skin. “You’re warm. You smell good. The sun is out. The world can wait.”

You tried to turn, but he held you tighter.

“Okay, philosopher,” you teased. “You get five minutes. No more.”

“Ten,” he bargained.

“Spencer.”

“Okay, okay.” He kissed the back of your shoulder. “Five. But I get to hold you like this all day.”

You smiled, your cheeks heating. You reached back to comb your fingers through his curls. “I’m not going anywhere.”

You felt him relax behind you. His breath slowed again. A little hum of contentment vibrated against your spine.

“You make it easy to feel okay again,” he mumbled sleepily.

You closed your eyes.

“So do you.” You comb your fingers through his messy hair, feeling him relax more and more within every second.

A scratched up pan, two mismatched mugs (one with Einstein’s face, the other with faded snoopy with flowers), and a fridge that hummed like it was overworked. But it was yours. It was quiet. And it was full of something soft and healing this morning.

Spencer stood at the stove in one of your hoodies, sleeves a little too short, hair still sleep-fluffy from earlier. He looked painfully domestic and painfully unaware that he was currently flipping a pancake with all the focus of someone defusing a bomb.

You leaned on the counter behind him, sipping coffee from your cherry blossom mug, trying not to smile too wide.

“I’m just saying,” he said suddenly, “the first pancake is always a disaster. That’s not failure, it’s science.”

You raised a brow. “You’re blaming physics for your burnt pancake?”

He turned to you with the spatula still in hand. “Well yes. The pan is still regulating temperature. Uneven surface heat leads to inconsistent Maillard reactions. It’s not my fault, it’s thermodynamics.”

You took another sip. “That sounds like something someone who just made a hockey puck would say.”

He looked mildly offended. “That pancake was brave. I'm proud of him.”

You laughed, a proper one, the kind that stretched through your chest like sunlight. God, you’d missed this after the past few days.

He turned back to the stove, mumbling something about “justice for pancake pioneers” while pouring more batter. You moved closer, setting your mug down on the counter and wrapping your arms around his middle from behind.

He stilled for half a second.

Then he melted into it, let out a breath like he’d been waiting to exhale all morning.

“You’re clingy,” he mumbled.

“You like it.”

“I love it.” He leaned his head back against your shoulder. “I really do.”

You pressed a kiss to his jaw, letting the quiet fill in the spaces between the moments.

He flipped the second pancake. Perfect golden brown.

“See?” he said proudly. “Told you.” A smug little smirk on his face appearing.

You peeked over his shoulder. “A scientific masterpiece.”

“Mmhm. Want the first one?”

You made a face. “Not if I want to live.”

He laughed softly. “We’ll bury it in syrup. You’ll never know.”

You didn’t even bother with plates. Just grabbed forks and ate side by side at the counter, knees bumping, syrup dripping on your fingers.

At some point, he turned to you, a bit of whipped cream on his nose.

“I was scared yesterday,” he said suddenly. “That I’d ruined it.”

You paused.

“Yeah?” you said softly.

He nodded. “I’m not used to someone staying after I mess up.”

You wiped the cream off his nose with your thumb, then leaned forward to kiss the spot you’d cleaned. “Good thing I’m not just someone.”

He looked at you like you were a miracle.

“You really aren’t.” He smiled at you, hand snaking around your waist, continuing feeding you.

At first you didn’t mean to end up in his lap.

It just sort of happened somewhere between the last stack of pancakes and the halfway point of your second coffee. Spencer had finished chewing a bite, looked at you like his brain had suddenly short circuited, and pulled you onto him with absolutely zero grace.

“You were too far away,” he mumbled like it explained everything.

Now your legs were straddling his thighs, knees bracketing either side of his hips, one of his hands resting at the small of your back while the other gripped a fork sticky with syrup.

His chair turned sideways next to the table so you can access his burnt pancakes.

“I’m literally right here,” you teased, stealing a strawberry from the side of his plate.

“Now you’re closer,” he said, deadpan but his eyes were warm, drifting lazily over your face like he still couldn’t believe you were here, touching him, his.

You reached for the next forkful he offered, leaned in to take it from his hand but not before quickly leaning up to his face, placing a soft, quick kiss on his lips.

He sucked in a breath through his nose. “That’s not fair.”

You grinned. “I’m not trying to be fair. I’m trying to ruin you.”

“You already have,” he muttered, not quite under his breath.

Your smile softened. “Spence…”

He looked down, fork paused between you. “I said a lot of things yesterday I didn’t mean.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want to be like that with you,” he added, voice quieter now. “I don’t ever want to talk to you like you’re… an opponent. You’re not. And I never should've said those hurtful things to you.”

You tilted your head, let your fingers rest lightly on his jaw. “I’m not going to pretend we’ll never argue again. But I do know you. And I know you didn’t mean it.”

He looked up at you then, really looked. “You always say the right thing.”

“I don’t.” You leaned your forehead against his. “But I mean everything I say to you.”

He offered you another bite, and you took it without looking away from him. Something about sharing food like this. Knees touching, eyes locked, sugar on your lips — made the air feel thick with softness.

You scooped some whipped cream onto your finger and gently tapped it onto the tip of his nose.

He blinked.

You grinned.

Then leaned in and kissed it off.

“You’re trying to kill me,” he whispered.

You kissed the corner of his mouth. “Just giving you a reason to stay alive.”

He held you tighter, his free hand running slowly up your back like he needed the reassurance of your bones. “I would’ve fallen apart last night if you didn’t let me come home with you.”

You kissed him again, slower this time. Letting his lips linger on yours for longer than a few seconds. "Then it’s a good thing I love you too much to let you fall apart alone.”

The fork clattered quietly onto the plate as he pulled you in fully, pressing his lips to yours in a way that said everything he was too scared to speak aloud. It wasn’t urgent. It was honest.

You fed each other in between kisses, alternating between giggles and deep, slow silences, syrup drying sticky between your fingers where they threaded into his hair. He looked at you like you were something rare. And you held him like he’d never been held right before.

Pancakes never tasted so sweet.

And neither did forgiveness.

[thesylenttreatment01]

Sylus As a Partner? Best Shit Ever

I personally, cannot get enough of Sylus as a partner I think. Like, there is so much there that you wouldn't even think about.

For instance? His need to be prepared

Sy always seems to know what is needed, when its needed and how. In the "Captivating Moment path", when you go to take a shower, after working out? Right when your starting to think about how you are gonna need clean cloths?

Boom. clean clothes.

But its not just that, its a lot of little things. He just seems to know and anticipate your next move before you even realize it. Frankly, its irritating to you sometimes because it means that you can almost never surprise him (he assures you that your surprise him daily, but its said with that smirk that makes you wanna both kiss and punch him, so take that as you will).

When you ask him about it, he always tells you that is his job, when there are people constantly trying to double-cross, kill you, or screw you over you have to be prepared. and honestly, that makes sense to some extent.

But what he doesn't tell you or tries to hide is how much he just wants to makes your relationship the best he can for you. See, Sylus didn't have a lot of romantic relationships before this. If any at all. It just seemed kind of frivolous, especially when he remembers everything from a previous life. He knew it wasn't but it kinda would feel like....cheating? Regardless, he had a business to run and didn't let himself entertain that idea until you showed up.

Now, now this relationship business was his business. He knew that he couldn't exactly use explosives and guns to win this battle (although you two probably wouldn't be opposed to trying) so he would have to prepare in everyway he could.

the book Luke and Kieran give MC "Humanity and Conquer" didnt just come from no where you know.

I could see Sylus approaching relationships from different angles, trying to figure out how to keep a healthy dynamic. not because he is particularly interested in the psychology or history of love or relationships.

But because for the first time in his life, he feels something other than anger, frustration, and apathy. He feels so many emotions.

He feels passion, he feels lust, he feels warmth, he feels hurt, he feels sad, he just... feels. and frankly that could be more scary than any business deal gone wrong.

At least in a business deal, he knows how he will respond.

So he prepares, he knows that he's got his own problems, but he tries to research around them. To have a plan. That way, when the time comes and you need him. He will never leave you feeling lost.

Take another example. You are his partner.

I like the idea that when Sylus refers to you, especially in the company of others. He without fail calls you his partner. At first, its a little irritating. You might have been hoping that he would use something cuter, like wifey or something like that. Partner made it sound like y'all were showing up to the same shady arms deal (which you would sometimes, but that was besides the point...its about the vibes)

But see, for Sylus, partner is the only true way to describe you. Because to him, you were his equal. He was used to being feared, people calling him boss and sir and anything that might signal respect. But you? You called him Sylus, Sy, Lil S, crow boy, and literally any name you could think of that would send someone in the N109 zone into an early grave.

No matter what you did, he is on your team and is willing to support you. Sure he will always be there to protect you. He loves you, he doesn't want you to get hurt. But he also knows you. He knows your soul (hell your literal souls were CONNECTED) so when you go out on a mission, when you get into a scrap? He lets you take care of your business, maybe providing you an upgraded weapon or two because seeing you with a new weapon was maybe the hottest thing Sylus could think of sometimes. But he never dismissed you, never made you feel that you couldn't handle yourself (can anyone else see the scene in the lab/ experiment place where MC is protesting to resonating and he's like "relax, you can handle it"? thats the vibe)

He cuddles you, he holds you and he takes care of you because he loves you, not because he needs to, like your some kind of extra errand on his to-do list, but because as your partner he knows that he's the one that gets to do those things.

Neither of you operate from a place of imposition or fear when doing things for one another. Your lives are SO different. In fact, if you decided to neither or you had to see each other again. You choose to be in each others lives.

That choice? The ability to respect one another enough and work along side each other? That is what it means to be a partner to Sylus. THAT is why you are his partner.

And one of my personal favorite takes? Your mundane is his dream.

Look, it is no secret to anyone how rowdy and chaotic the N109 zone is. It comes withe territory. And Sylus? he runs and works with it well.

But when chaos and volatility is your life, you get tired. You just need everything to stop, just for a second to catch your breath.

Look at Sylus as a person. His pass times, what do you notice?

He likes playing an instrument (organ), he likes to fish, he likes to game, he likes to read, and he likes to sing.

Taken individually, these activates don't mean a whole lot. But when put together, you see a pattern where he just wants a chance to step back from the chaos and enjoy a chance for rest. these activities have a goal, they have a determined role and rules to follow, or they simply just keep the person present in the moment. He lives for the quietness of everyday activities.

Thats why he likes to take you to the movies, why he enjoys shopping with you, walking around festivals and yes, making event favors with you.

Because its a break from the chaos of being the leader.

He gets to just enjoy spending time with the person he loves. So, you know those little things that are either irritating, or are tasks you don't think twice about? Sylus will gladly do them either with you for for you.

He will tie your shoe.

He will wash the dishes with you.

Tired and don't want to comb your hair when you get out of the shower? Don't worry Sweetie, he's got this.

Because, for him, this is a different world that he hasn't had the chance to live yet. This is a love and a world that you made him apart of, so he wants to enjoy each little part of it. So every time you feel guilty for that small task you ask him to do, he just reminds you.

This is his favorite thing to do. Please don't rob him of the chance to live in your world for a while.

Anyways, I have so many more, but I am currently mid rant about the Phianon trailer with my friend in Seoul we are both crying about our lack of tickets and losing a 50/50.

[rubylovessharks]

When they are sick

TWST chars x gn!reader no warnings unless you count being sick with the common cold worthy enough to get it's own warning... maybe ooc im also gonna do this in parts so we are starting with heartslabyul

Riddle Rosehearts

Riddle almost never gets sick.

He makes sure that throughout the whole year he stays healthy.

But when he is sick he is really weak...

He will need lots of help, getting water, getting food, heck even getting out of bed as a whole is hard for him!

How lucky is he to have a loving partner like you :3

Unfortunately it'll take some time until you convince him to let you help him..

See he is also a very good partner, he can't bare the thought that you will get sick too... :(

Not long ago the housewarden of Heartslabyul got sick, no matter what he did the cold weather of this year got to him and got to him quick. So what else can a sick person do except lay in bed and try to get better? The moment that you found out you rushed right to his room, and once you were in you saw the red headed boy laying in bed with a very red face, who knew that even when he gets sick he could get so red? Of course Riddle wasn't expecting you, and he didn't want you here either! Not because he hates you or something like that, but he just doesn't want you to get sick as well! Oh how horrible would he feel if you ended up sick..

"Reader?" You can see his head move slowly in your direction "what are you doing here?" His soft voice spoke up. "I heard you were sick, so I made you some soup and I brought all the different types of teas you have here with a list on how to prepare them so they will follow the rules for the time it takes to heal you!"

You are truly the best there is, so he'll let you take care of him for a little while.

"Oh my rose.. How thoughtful of you."

Trey Clover

This man doesn't usually get sick, but when he does he gets a bit....𝓯𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴𝔂 if you get me.

Not in a sexual sense- nono

This guy will say the weirdest things EVER. You cannot tell me otherwise.

As much as I don't know much about this man I can tell that you might end up seeing him cooking for himself weird dishes while he's sick

Like you'd wake up in the middle of the night to sounds of water running and pans clinking and you'll just see this mad man, awake and cooking :/

But those dishes will taste absolutely amazing.

(this feels like its kind of ooc but this man is weirdd i know he is and when will he shows some weird part of him if not when hes sick and vulnerable!)

Not long ago you were told that your boyfriend, Trey was sick. So like a good and loving partner you decided that'll be best that you helped him recover! But you weren't ready for this....

"Your face kind of.... Looks like a sponge cake." He once told you, with a slow delivery and a lazy tone. That evening he looked super tired and he slept throughout most of the day, but that same night he acted completely different.

You woke up to the sound of cooking in the kitchen, more like baking because the moment that you walked in there you saw piles and piles of baked goods, but nothing you'd ever recognize.

"Trey... Honey... What's all of this?" You walked closer to him, carful to not accidently destroy any of the dishes your boyfriend prepared. "Ah! Finally awake to have a taste of my new recipe?" He stopped rolling the dough he was messing with a second ago, took a purple pie look-alike with white and small things sticking out of it and shoved it to you.

"Uhh love. What is this?" You point to the white balls "just something i came up with. Here let me slice it for you." He was already looking for a clean knife but he's sick! He really shouldn't be doing any of this, THIS is not normal! "Hon no. This is not ok, let's get you to bed so you can rest up."

He's already finished slicing it and has a slice ready for you on a plate. "Please, just one bite."

Cater Diamond

This guy will fall into a depressive state

Not because of being sick as a thing on it's own, but with the state his brain is in will be a lot more gloomy

He won't REALLY show it, but his facade is more...off then normal.

"It's good to know that you are sick," You start as you sit on your boyfriend's bed to give him his tea. " But do you have to post about it every two seconds?"

Cater's face scrunches at your complaining. It's not like most of his posts are on his main account! And you know that since you follow his second.

"Cater. Posting on your private and secret account is also bad." Taking his phone from his hands that are too weak to fight back you put it down far away from him. "Your eyes need rest, just like the rest of your body. So, " bringing the cup closer to his mouth you encourage him to drink up "drink up and go to sleep. You need it."

He practically drinks it all up in one swift gulp and looks right at you, hand already ready to reach for his phone right as your own slap it away. "No. Rest up." Yet he protests. "But I'm full of energy from your love filled tea!" You must admit, his pouty face is rather adorable. But you can't give in! "Cater, if you really need it to vent out, how about you just talk to me?" You take his hands in yours, holding them gently as you say that.

Maybe in this state of mind he can open up a bit more.

Ace Trappola

Typical teenager not taking care of his body well...

Probably got sick like 4 times during his time in NRC and each time he went to Yuu so they can take care of him,

But at some point instead of annoying his friend he's annoying you.

Now you've got your boyfriend coming to you each time he is sick, each time with a different excuse to why.

Maybe he's not sick at all...

There he is, your boyfriend. Your annoying ass boyfriend. You don't think you can take another excuse as to why and how he got sick. The first time it was reasonable, he just got caught up in the rain. But each time it gets weirder! The last time he was sick he said it was because instead of "Off with your head!" it was an ice attack towards him! Like Riddle's gonna use some cheap spell to try to teach Ace a lesson.

"But I'm telling you the truth!"

"Mhmm. Like hell I'm gonna believe that you got sick from the AC being on for too long." This time it's even more ridiculous then whatever it was last time! The AC being on for too long!? How do you get sick from that when it's only three days into summer?

"Ace are you actually sick, or did you come here so I could pamper you?"

Absolute silence. And he's face is just blank. "Got nothing to say? Fine come in I'll start making tea for you.." You can hear a soft 'Yes!' coming from Ace's direction, maybe he really is craving your attention but is just too embarrassed to admit it. He's really like an open book to you.

You can't help but smile to yourself as you bring him his first cup of tea.

Deuce Spade

I don't know how many of you believe this but Deuce is a mama's boy.

She always took care of him, making sure he drinks enough tea, staying in bed under the covers with good soup to eat.

But now that he is in NRC he doesn't really get that treatment...

So alone on his own he tries to do the same things as his mom did.

Well I'm sure Trey helps out too, he won't leave his dormmates to fend for themselves, but he can't always be there.

So this falls onto you.

Plus he gets a bit more emotional.

In the kitchen of Heartslabyul you can hear mumbling, and even before looking for who you already know it's your boyfriend. He texted you that he is sick and is going to try to make some soup for himself, so who else could it be?

"Babe?" You call out, letting him know you are there. "Oh! You came. That's good, can you help me?" He gives you his phone, opened on a recipe for some egg related soup. "Can you help me find this?" He points to an essential ingredient as he goes to look for it himself, but you stop him with a hand on his shoulder.

"Babe, go to bed." You tell him. "I'll handle this." But why does he look so disappointed? "Is something wrong..?" "No- no.. Just that..I'm so used that my mom would do those things for me but now that I'm here I kinda barely handled it myself..." "Well now you don't! I'm here- " He cuts you off before you could finish, face a bit red, you can't tell if it's from being sick or cuz of the his almost teary eyes. "But what about when you won't be here?"

Ah.. Trying to be independent after being coddled for years must be hard..

"Then..Let me help you, but then you've got to get back to bed. Don't worry, I'll be there."

[rhube]

So, this gets into different types of consciousness and what you mean by a 'channel'. For example, in philosophy of mind, we distinguish between 'Awareness' and 'Attention'. The dominant theory (and this matches my experience, but it might not for you) is that you can only *attend* to one thing at a time, but you can be aware of a BUNCH of shit you're not focusing on.

Like, if someone is drilling in the street outside, a lot of people would be able to sort of tune that out (which I guess is a kind of channel analogy, like the way you tune out a channel of radio), so they're not paying attention to it, but it would still be a sound they are hearing and therefore part of their awareness, and if you said, 'Hey, is someone drilling outside?' They'd be like, 'God, yes, it's been going on for hours! It's so annoying.' Which shows that it was a part of their conscious experience, it just wasn't in the forefront of their minds.

So, on one understanding, you might be aware of a bunch of different concerns about going to the park, only attending to one at a time, but flitting back forth between them.

Now, this comes into collision with the problem that a lot of philosophers of mind spend far too much time thinking about their own experience of their own minds, and not asking other people. Or reinterpreting other people's reported experience to fit their model.

I read a lot about introspection for what my supervisor thought was the best chapter of my thesis, and no one I read mentioned aphasia at all.

Eric Schwitzgebel, who has made introspection his Thing, had a giant footnote about a conference he went to where a bunch of experts got together to discuss what exactly you can introspect, and they couldn't even agree something basic, such as whether there is a quality/qualia/what-it's-likeness of thought beyond what is contained in imagery (visual, audio, picturing words etc).

On learning about aphasia and aphantasia, my first thought was: did no one at this conference have these conditions/why didn't you ask THEM?

Of course, it is the habit of philosophers of mind to both rationalise the reports of others to support their own point of view and to question if we have a common understanding of what qualia are (yes, if you're not into these sorts of questions, we're quite annoying to be around). So it might not resolve the question, but it feels like it should be addressed. If I were well enough, I'd be tempted to look up whether there's been scholarship on this, seeing as people are talking about it more, but anyway...

Point is: I see you say you think in different channels at once, and I try to understand it through my own experience, which is as of a whole muddy collection of stuff going on in my head (some conscious, some self-conscious, some subconscious, some unconscious, some moving between those different related states) but there's only ever one thing I'm ATTENDING to.

And this is how I understand it when Occupational Health Therapists tell me I can only ever think about one thing or task at once (which at face value is just false if you have studied minds at all), and when I think I'm multitasking I am in fact context-switching (be proud of me, I have never said to any of their faces, 'Actually, as a philosopher of mind...'). What take them to really mean is that I can only attend to one thing at a time.

This makes sense to me, as although I can listen to music and write and scratch my nose at the same time, I cannot do more than one linguistic task at a time. I cannot SING ALONG to a song and write at the same time, although I am still aware of the song in the background. I have a really strong memory of reading an Anne McCaffrey book where some of the telepaths could hold simultaneous conversations in their heads and just not being able to picture how it would work. And this was when I was in my teenage I Want To Believe phase, so I really did try. It's not possible for me, and I account for it through the attention thing. Linguistic thinking requires attention to formalise the thought in words, and you can only attend to one thing at once.

Based on this, I interpret your description of having 'channels' as really just hopping your attention about between the various miasma of stuff going on in your head (what Kant would call the manifold of intuition), but only ever attending to one thing at a time. It makes sense of the fact that the brain has different subdivisions which, although flexible, are generally devoted to doing different things.

BUT I COULD BE WRONG ABOUT THAT.

The pesky thing about thought and experience is that we aren't telepaths and it isn't communally available. This means our language can't 'triangulate' effectively on the meanings of our words for what is revealed my introspection. If you point at a rabbit and say 'gavagai', I have somewhere to start when it comes to investigating what you mean. You, me, and the rabbit form a triangle that helps me 'locate' your meaning. But you can't point to stuff inside your mind. Despite what science fiction tells us, we can only get rudimentary information about what you're thinking from fMRI scans and the like (at least, so far). So when we're using mental terms to describe what's going on inside, our reference points for potentially shared experiences will always be vaguer. Things like sharp pains are easier than questions about the what-it's-like-ness of thoughts, as it's usually pretty clearly associated with an external object that caused the pain.

To me, it feels like my mind is a swamp of gestating thought and experience, which I can understand as different modules of my meat-based neural net surfacing stuff that requires high-level thought for my conscious attention so I can sort out the stuff that cannot be sorted out by reflex. That makes sense of my experience. I don't believe that anyone thinks in complete and discrete linguistic internal monologues with good sentence structures - aphasia, aphantasia, or otherwise.

But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you really do have distinct, separate channels. Maybe Anne McCaffrey could think about two different linguistic lines of thought at once, and that's why she thought some of her characters could.

Who knows! We haven't really been able to finalise an agreed-upon definition for 'thought' or 'idea' so I dunno how we can hope to start with stuff like this.

Here endeth the ramble.

Thanks for coming to another session of, 'gee, I wish a philosopher of mind didn't follow me'. I will shut up now.

Okay so some people can’t see objects in their imagination and some people don’t think in words and some people hear their thoughts like a voice and others don’t. I get that

But how many distinct channels do most folks have playing at once? cause my normal range is 2-4 and I though that was just what thinking was LIKE but CBD brings that down to just 1

[idyllwave]

Dante panicking because you literally sell your own organs for money. Like please don't, he will hire you 🥀

OR where you sell your own organs and dont care about your own body </3 and dante takes offense to that.

You mess up and keep on getting fired from jobs that dont require a high school diploma. You can't even land a 9 to 5 job since you never went to college.

Even worse ... you can't even make it as a demon hunter. Cause the moment you heard some demon sob story, you are crying big, fat bubbly tears while being thrown into the nearest brick wall a second later. With the demon escaping soon after and the job being marked as incomplete or as a failure.

So, you resorted to the one thing you could do. And that was selling your organs on the black market. But it wasn't just organs. You would grow out your hair and chop it all off every few months or so. Once you even knocked out a couple of your back teeth to give to some woman in need of clean, good replacements.

And over time, you've already got cut open a few times and sold some organs you really didn’t need.

The first thing to go was your appendix. You dont know who it went to, and at the time, you didn't care. All you wanted to know was the amount you were getting. Your appendix ended up helping you get your first apartment.

Your dad and mom dying and passing their large debt they got from these loan sharks that suspiciously reminded you of the russian mafia? Easy fix. All you had to do was sell your gallbladder and spleen. You dont know what happened to your gallbladder,of course, but you do know that your spleen is currently sitting behind some serial killer's book shelf in a display case.

One time, you remember getting kidnapped and threatened. During your capture, you learned the man's daughter was deathly sick in the hospital and needed a new lung. You offered one of yours. He let you go after that. Now, you didn't get paid for said lung, but meh. You were alive. That's all that mattered. Even if you were down a lung.

When you needed money set in installments, you had decided to get large sections of your intestines removed. You admit that this was the worst one because it required you to be continuously opened up and stitched back together multiple times until they got done taking what they could. The installments were worth it, though, and took away a lot of debt (it wasn't your debt, but someone had put your name down, which made you financially responsible...).

What followed after was your reproductive organs, a kidney, your stomach (through intensive surgery, your esophagus was connected directly to the small intestine. It required dietary adjustments...), tonsils, and even three fingers and a toe, along with some muscle.

All in all, you weren't even half the person you used to be. Physically, at least.

And when you ran out of organs to sell, you found yourself right back into demon hunting, but not before Dante found out about your ... earnings.

"Uhh... Lady... what is he doing on the black market website?"

"Tracking down your organs."

She said it so simply that it floored you for a moment.

You've been friends with Dante for a large portion of your life and due to your stubbornness and unwillingness to saddle him with your money problems (as he had his own money problems to deal with), you continually refused to work for Devil May Cry so he wouldn't have a reason to pay you or take care of you.

"Wha- how does he know about that?! How do you know about that?!"

Lady picked at her nails, completely unbothered by the question, "when you were getting patched up from the last mission, we overheard the nurse ask you where your other lung went to which you said you sold it. The other scars on your body made more sense after that. How each cut looked so clean. We all wondered how you could possibly be fighting against to make such clean cuts. Nero even suggested you got them from Vergil... only for Vergil to say he never met you before."

"So Dante is..."

"Trying to get your organs back."

"You do realize how impossible that is, right?"

Lady looked at you for a moment before jutting her thumb over to a box. Gulping, you walked over to it and opened the top of it.

Inside it of the box was a glass case with a clear liquid sloshing inside of it, and the liquid was carefully preserving something. Taking out the glass case, you set it on the table top surface and blinked a few times.

Your spleen.

"How-?"

"Dante kicked that serial killer's ass quite easily."

Ah...

You looked over at Dante, who was scribbling down his fourth address. You honestly didn't understand what the big deal was, and you couldn't fathom why Dante even cared.

"Dante," you finally said, "its just a few organs, you really shouldn't-"

He looked up at then, his eyes were ... unreadable. His expression foreign. It made you zip your mouth shut so you wouldn't say anything else. And he turned his attention back to the computer and jotted down another address.

"You're going to be whole again by the end of the night. Just you watch," he finally said.

Despite the smile you gave, you highly doubted that being put back together would make you "whole" again. Because honestly, even with all your body parts back, you were sure you would still feel as empty as before.

why did writing this feel like angst? 🗿

[mantis-lizbian]

perhaps spiritually piggy-backing off of @anim-ttrpgs' post here, but i'm feeling a sort of way about the number of games i've seen in recent years that seem to just... refuse to have (or perhaps more likely, acknowledge that they have) a pre-made default setting.

now, a couple of caveats i'll open with to differentiate from the cited post: i don't think every game necessarily needs to have a defined default setting. Legacy: Life Among the Ruins, for example, makes creating and filling in the nature and specifics of the game's setting part of the character creation process, which makes sense considering the way that one of your two playbooks in that game is an established faction/settlement, and something that big and influential you kinda have to let the players have more control over the world in order to be able to flesh out as their own unique "character" if you want them to be any less restrictive than fully pre-built factions you pick between. it also helps that in making world creation part of the first session's gameplay, this becomes a fun part of the game done collaboratively.

there are also plenty of games that don't want to have a specific setting (which doesn't automatically make them universal, by the way! and well-designed games know and understand this!) like Old-School Essentials or Fabula Ultima. games like this just want to be rules engines for a collection of well-worn tropes and/or modular toolboxes that can be mixed-and-matched or reflavoured for whatever setting you and your friends are most excited to use to engage in that game's mechanics with. these games will often have supplements that introduce optional mechanics or character options that

but then we come to something like Armour Astir: Advent, a game with a lot of pretty specific assumptions about its setting, and several original terms and concepts. and yet...

The very first part, and arguably one of the most important parts of playing Armour Astir, is setting up the world in which your game will take place. Other than the existence of a few things, like Astirs and other magical devices (which you and your group are free to re fluff to suit your personal tastes, of course), this game doesn’t assume much of your setting—meaning as a group you have a lot of freedom when coming up with the setting you’d like to play in. There are a few important things to iron out, however.

like... hate to break it to you, but players always have the freedom to refluff things to suit their personal tastes. i've been playing Pathfinder for over a decade, and you know how much of that time's been spent playing in the world of Golarion the game ships with? not even half. i've reworked Lancer to take place in the setting of Heaven Will Be Mine before. i'm currently working on adapting Legend of the Five Rings to be in a Chinese xianxia setting (which it honestly feels more suited for to me, than its original fantasy Japan-inspired setting).

the players do not need your permission to adapt your game for their own setting, if they want. but especially if you clearly have such a specific idea for what the setting should look like, much like shipping your game with a sample module to essentially function as a tutorial level both for how to play the game as well as for how to prep your own adventures for it, shipping with a sample setting both helps a new group start playing your game faster since they don't have to stop to homebrew all their own lore, but also helps give a better idea of what a setting for this game is expected to look like.

it doesn't need to be exhaustively fleshed out, you don't need a three-page timeline followed by dozens of pages of minute lore details including itemization of what each city's major exports are. it doesn't even necessarily need to be something that gets its own section in your book. D&D4e actually makes for a solid case example here. officially, there wasn't even supposed to be a "default" setting in the core books, just a generic "Points of Light". and yet, we still get plenty of proper names, geographical and historical references, and blurbs about, for example, dwarven society and how paladins fit into the world, all to help new players orient themselves and provide a framework that they can fill in rather than have to create from whole cloth.

note: a lot of this also applies, i think, to some of the apparent outrage in anim-ttrpgs' original post. "shipping with a pre-written module" does not need to mean a whole 200-page Curse of Strahd. the original Eberron Campaign Setting had a less than 10-page module at the back to use to jumpstart an Eberron campaign. the WotC website back during 3e had dozens of free adventures for nearly every level range that were sometimes as short as 3 or 4 pages. granted, these are all examples of an approach to adventure design that anim-ttrpg and i both consider flawed, but it's also a much more page-hungry format than the kind of module design we would advocate for!

[8ft]

compiled furyposts :)

i have... a lot of very strong feelings on her that i basically don't share outside of my circle of maybe 5 or 6 people, but i figured someone might want to read them.

all of these are copied and pasted directly from discord, with Maybe a few edits to further elaborate on a point i was trying to make but didn't quite get across effectively. a few points Will be repeated at times, since these were written At Least several days apart in entirely separate places. i'm going to try my best to break them up into chunks. screenshots will be included as well wherever i think they'd fit. :3

here's a readmore!

i really like the subtle differences across [adversary!fury and tower!fury] because the fury, despite having the same core regardless of the chapter you got to her from, has unique line reads between each version of her route (linked both versions of her "don't think that i'll allow you death here" spiel from each source- check them out individually here. tower + adversary) that really highlight the differences between the tower and the adversary despite them leading to the same endpoint if you make the right moves.

the tower sees you as below her; even though killing her is what caused both of you to end up here, she's more mad about the fact that she could be laid low and moved to violence by something that's about as significant on her radar as a weird bug. you believed her to be an unstoppable god, so she became an unstoppable god. you killed that unstoppable god, and she's still clutching what little of that godhood she has left- and even with it being so reduced, she still sees herself as miles above you in status.

the adversary always saw you as an equal, a worthy opponent. your refusal / inability to give her a Real fight is what broke her this severely. it wasn't an undermining of her image so much as it was a betrayal of the bond that the two of you shared- regardless of whether or not that bond was even there to begin with, it was real to her.

it makes. a lot of sense. that the version of the fury you encounter through the adversary is both the one who puts you through the longest torture sequence, but also the one who you can try and talk down & bring out of the cabin with you. you were never part of a faceless mass that she was fated to lord over, the adversary believed with every fiber of her being that the two of you were made for each other. literally. i'd say "even if it wasn't in a romantic sense" but i don't think that's something she was even capable of conceptualizing at that point because the entire reason she exists is because you tried to connect with her and ended it in violence anyway. violence and love are the same thing to her. the most meaningful and intimate thing she can think of is the two of you perpetually killing each other and resurrecting to do it again. she's hurt and lost and confused and needs to share that with you, but violence is the only language you share.

like. if you get the fury from the tower. she comes to the same conclusion. desperately clawing at her past to try and rip anything she can back into herself hasn't worked, will never work. but because of the fundamental differences between the tower and the adversary, just. talking to you about it. is completely out of the question. she can never hear you out because you have nothing meaningful to say to something like her. her endings still have the two of you coming to an understanding, but you either have to force it out of her by skewering her with the very essence of your self, or by her merging with you to try and finally complete herself. either way, you have to become something greater in order for her to at all understand you, or really even have a desire to. YOU understanding HER takes priority.

---

she only truly knows what she's shown, and what you've shown her is violence. what you've given her is sorrow. you either severed her connection to her divine nature or you broke the borderline-sacred bond the two of you forged Through fighting each other. of course she hates you. you ruined what she Could have been. what the both of you could have been. and she will rip and tear at anything that shimmers like everything used to just to Try and regain those scraps of her past that she thinks will make her whole again. from her perspective, this is all your fault. you ripped her apart and brought her low, and turnabout is fair play.

i skipped through the torture sequence upon first getting her chapter because i found it Super boring to sit through, but that also meant that i couldn't hear her getting so so so tired and defeated with each "are you still there? are you still you?" because it isn't meant just to taunt you while she breaks your will. it's directed at herself as well. because, in her eyes, she isn't. she's been hollowed out. ruined.

all versions of the fury crave understanding above all else. to understand themselves or for you to understand them. hell this even applies to unarmed fury who is otherwise just kind of a fun fight sequence, instead of picking you apart to the cellular level she's tearing away layers of you until you're nothing but bone because she needs to know where the Self ends. and you still push on and fight her no matter how much of you is taken. this isn't exclusive to unarmed adversary!fury either, you can fight tower!fury while unwound if you take less than 2 nonviolent dialogue options. she never does learn. unless you kill her, she can never find what she wants, ESPECIALLY not with what she has to work with now.

---

i already yap about adversary!fury a lot because she's the one i run the most but, like ive said, since she thought of you as an equal, she will communicate with you as an equal. if you remain silent when the adversary kills you, she'll say "… what am i supposed to do without you?" before the chapter transitions. she can never fully hate you because she KNOWS what the two of you were, and it was far more intimate than the god-and-servant relationship between you and the tower. you weren't a mindless follower she expected perfect obedience from.

adversary will repeatedly state in her chapter that "she knows what she is" and "she knows what she's here for." she's here for the adrenaline-fueled struggle of a fight to the death, and after your wounds heal and you both wake up, you'll start all over again. she is your Adversary and you are her only equal, and this is what you were destined to do. you're quite literally soulmates. to the adversary, who she is at her base level is tied to you. she's here to fight you. you're here to kill her. and, THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT, you have to want it as much as she does.

even at the end of adversary!fury, CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH, she still sees the two of you as inextricably bound. there is no her without you. at this point in her chapter, she's given up on there being a "her" at all.

you can tell her that there can be more than life to violence and pain. that you can be more than that. and if you offer to show her, she won't hesitate to take your hand and follow. because even without the mental image of you she had, you are still her other half. there is no world outside the two of you. even after all this, she's still lost without her guiding purpose, and you are the only one who could possibly help her move forward and fill those empty spaces. you dont even have to take initiative on it if you tell her youre going to leave she WILL give you these huge sad puppy eyes and ask if you plan on going alone. no matter how hard she tries to break you she can never claw that yearning out of herself.

(the puppy eyes image isn't necessary here but i want to share it anyways because she's... she's so cute...)

---

it's just so fucked up how she Spawns In with just enough knowledge of the outside world to play the role of "princess" and nothing else. and then the first thing you show her besides that is Pain. and continue to do so. it's the only thing you've ever given her so of course it's the only thing she can give to you. this is like extra fun in the case of tower!fury because you don't just Fight her you Submit to her in chapter 1. you've shown her you're Afraid of her power, but then reneg on that by killing her in chapter 2. so Pain remains her only constant but there's the added aspect of the taste of her own power she got only to have you deny it from her by killing the god she saw herself to be.

---

i get. frustrated with myself. on occasion. because, despite the fury being a joint chapter, i tend to focus heavily on adversary!fury and there is a nagging part of me that says my bias is because she's the one with the Good, Palatable Ending (even though both of tower!fury's endings are Very Fucking Good especially quantum beak) but there is also a logical part of me that wants to point out that she has 6 endings total. 4 of those are unique to adversary!fury. 1 of those is unique to tower!fury. 1 of them is shared between both.

there's also just the fact that tower!fury is so much more emotionally closed off. she Delights in your torture but it's also all she really has on her mind. she's mad as hell! i would be too if i were on the brink of ascending to Total Godhood and then losing it! that's Why the tower and the adversary share the fury as their joint chapter 3- they're not only the two vessels most sure of their identity, but the two whose identities are based around One thing and One thing only. the difference is that the tower's purpose was to take up her role as a goddess, but the adversary. uh. the adversary's is gay subtext, i guess? (important context: this game is yuri to me.) i say "ugh she wants you so bad" abt her a lot but im not even joking is the thing. she says it herself.

it's kind of ironic in a sense though that despite tower!fury being the one to let you speak after being unwound she's also the one least willing to give you any Actual answers because she kind of dgaf! about you! you have only ever been a nuisance to her! disobeying her was crime enough in her eyes you just HAD to take it even farther. but. BUT. what's really fun is. SOMEONE'S NOT IMMUNE TO YEARNING LMFAO!!!!!

it's so fucking funny to me. the amt of game tower!fury talks. the Shit She Does. it's all still working towards the same ends as adversary!fury. you've taken all that she knew she was and, I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH I KEEP SAYING THIS AND I WILL CONTINUE TO DO SO, the only way she KNEW how to try and reclaim her entire Self was to rip it out of you. LIKE DESPITE TOWER!FURY BEING SO. UNAPPROACHABLE. that's just kind of a side effect of who she came from. she just sounds so fucking pretentious compared to adversary!fury. you're trying so hard. your fingertips are bleeding more than they already were from the way you are clinging onto the few scraps of your identity you still have left.

---

half of me goes BARK BARK WOOF WOOF WOOF at the way that adversary and tower are Complete Opposites in personality and worldview and goals, with the one thing they have in common being that they know Exactly Who They Are and that by taking that away from them taking the Distinction between these two away from them they become muddied into a character who was, in development, literally who they used to be, but also a character who is Obsessed with what she used to be.

the fun thing is. adversary's entire identity is built around Fighting You Forever. you are the only thing that exists to her and the world might as well be irrelevant. tower's entire identity is based around being a World-Dominating Goddess. she can only see the bigger picture and you are nothing to her but a pawn. adversary only feels alive when she's locked in life or death combat with you. the idea of stooping so low as to dirty her hands with your blood disgusts tower so violently that it completely shatters her. they are each other's perfect inverse.

---

honest to god i haven't stopped thinking about "let's see what meaning we can find together. let's see what we're made of." before she begins to peel you. You. apart. cell by cell. you are an extension of her, you are extensions of each other, as much as she loathes you for how you betrayed her there is no separating the two of you. a piece of her is missing. she doesn't know what it is, only that it being gone has hollowed her out, too. there is no world outside of you. the only place it could possibly be is somewhere with you. and that's Just in pacifist adversary!fury. every route when she starts to peel you she's looking for Some sort of spark that's been missing from her. it was always going to be you. she needs to understand Herself and You are her only proxy.

as much as she sees her potential as having been ripped from her though there's still hope for a future that she can't see because she's so busy wallowing in her past. she is still there. she is still her. adversary!fury and tower!fury are characterized so, so differently in their respective routes because the adversary and the tower are basically complete opposites. who she fundamentally is has not changed.

it's literally just so sad to me that she sees herself as being Ruined as being Empty as being Nothing. girl your chapter themes are already so packed with musical storytelling and you STILL HAVE A UNIQUE INSTRUMENT OUTSIDE OF THE ONES TAKEN FROM WHO YOU USED TO BE!!! (tower has the choir adversary has the horns SHE HAS A SYNTH!!!)

---

ok i was VERY BRAVE finished her gallery and got her last ending. the only reason i hadn't finished her gallery etc was because the last 2 cgs i needed involved leaving her in the basement + killing her (hardest thing i've ever done btw) and. what i noticed this time is that she doesn't look up. even as you're actively killing her. she just. does not have the willpower to care anymore. "you will suffer until you see in me what i've seen in you" alright. not how she meant it, but what she's seen in us at this point isn't just Weakness. it's Vulnerability. she's Lost she's Confused she's Broken she's Hollow and this is one of two endings in the ENTIRE GAME that can make any vessel So Unhappy that shifty's dialogue in the spaces between has a Very High Chance of going from all affectionate towards you to just. cold and borderline passive-aggressive.

---

adding this at the time of posting!

there's something in the way that, if you talk to adversary!fury after being unwound, she does obviously feel guilty for the whole torture thing. she says it herself, though- violence and pain are all she's known. there's potentially a part of her that feels like she deserves this (in reference to the section above) after everything she put you through.

it is worth noting, though, that if you tell her you're going to leave alone when she asks, the last thing she'll say to you is "i'm sorry." if you tell her you're going to leave with her and then take the options "no, i just wanted to hurt you back" or "no, and i don't know why i said that" i genuinely have no idea how to word this. i'm just going to include the screenshots. there is love in her. she is not immune to heartbreak.

---

if you're seeing this, thank you for reading! :3

[elizabethrobertajones]

Still obsessed with this tidbit

Like, jokes about Frog's similar but more hilarious relationship with him aside, I really like getting these tidbits about him from other characters (especially since he hasn't been around so long so there are fewer opportunities for randos to spill the beans :P)

The idea that he was super competitive about being the Best at Gleaning makes a lot of sense with what we already know and his established personality. Like even on meeting him, he Out-Gathers the WoL, famed Thing Finder, on the first quest we get, where normally we can competitively win any gathering quest if we put our mind to it.

Since we know he was also really kind and supportive to the other gleaners because of the levequests it also isn't weird (like Frog would make it... RIP Erenville in her canon) so hearing directly that he was really competitive isn't a bad thing in the way that with no context it could be seen as aggressive or obsessive in other lights, because we know he wasn't weird or rude about it but just really valued doing it really well and used people who had a similar ethos as markers for just HOW good one could be at Gleaning and turned it into a competition, which they then also supported each other with rewards for.

(Also does make the state we find them in at the beginning of Endwalker make more sense because if they were all super competitive it would be easy to whip the workforce up to do that much overtime labour that we'd see just how far the Forum could push them before Erenville started bargaining for workers' rights, which was extraordinarily far... a workforce that was already competing within itself to be the best and having fun with it and supporting the mission could absolutely be made to work to the point of collapse before someone with a conscience started to agitate on their behalf... if he wasn't at least a little weird about it he'd have already organised the entire strike and staged a walkout weeks before we got to Sharlayan)

[l4wsrule]

Loved what you did with gol d. roger. Can you do Roger x reader where its love at first sight. He meets them on an island and on his stay there with his crew they fall in love when it's time to leave he asks reader to come with them

𓂃 ོ☼𓂃 when worlds collide . part 1

༄.° roger × reader ; slow burn, romance, sfw w/intended nsfw jokes.

a/n: i had lots of fun writing roger again, i hope it's accurate to what you asked and i hope you enjoy ! i'll be working on part 2 right away :)

⊹ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏𓂁 Loguetown, a bustling port city located on the Polestar Islands in the East Blue.

A very, very busy town. Strategically, it is a vital port for ships travelling between the East Blue and the infamous Grand Line, making it a popular stop for pirates and seafarers, therefore; it was barely quiet.

You worked as a bartender at a local tavern in an isolated corner, pirates would come every single day. But today? It was strangely.. empty. Silent. The kind of silence that begged to be broken, but no one dared. When even the wind seemed to hold its breath.

In contrast to your quiet, empty workplace. Outside was the kind of sunny day that felt like a soft exhale from the earth itself. The sun spilling its warmth through the windows, where you stood, cleaning glasses, rearranging bottles, bartender stuff.

There was one costumer, staring at you like someone who just defied god himself. He took a slow, deliberate sip of his drink, and finally spoke :

"..Young lady, are you sure you want to work today?" The man spoke, his voice carrying the weight of time.

"Huh? Why not?" You, an eyebrow raised, placed the glass you were cleaning down.

The geezer let out a low, amused chuckle, looking out the window as he responded.

You still had no idea what he meant, or what was coming, but you followed his gaze as he looked out the window. Still confused.

"Sure, it's strangely empty today, but there'll sure be costumers. Right?"

Only then, you were interrupted by the sound of the door swinging open.

Not one, not two came in.

It was a whole group.

A crew.

Which would usually be normal, but they weren't just any crew. They were the infamous Roger Pirates. You've heard Loguetown was the captain's birthplace, which would make sense for him to come back.

Though, the way they barged in, you'd think they were just wild animals. A group of mindless, booze-thirsting men. Which.. in a way, they were.

The sound of their boots against the wooden floor was heavy, all laughing loudly, obnoxiously.

And, they reeked of sweat, blood, rum and bad decisions.

You didn't mind, you've seen worse pirates.. in terms of hygiene and good manners. So, as one does, you served them normally, before going back to your previous cleaning activities.. which were probably just an excuse for you not to make too much contact with them.

Most of them were seated on stools at the bar counter, some trying to make advances, and others just calmly drinking and laughing. You recognized a few from their wanted posters.

But one of them particularly stood out. Naturally, he was the captain after all. Roger. Gol D Roger. His presence alone seemed to shape the world around him. He carried himself like someone who had already conquered death. That red cape draped over his shoulders like a mantle of power. And that golden trim catching the light as if it, too, knew he was destined for a legend.

You met his gaze, for a split moment, noticing that wide, fearless grin of his was gone. He hadn't even taken a single sip of his drink. It seemed like everytime you accidentally made the mistake of looking at him, he, was always looking too.

Or staring. Or admiring. Probably both.

"Hey sweetcheeks, got a name ?" Gaban propped both elbows on the counter, a shit-eating grin on his face. The calmer one beside him, Rayleigh, elbowed him. "Stop hitting on every woman in a four mile radius, Gaban."

"I wasn't about to give him my name, anyway." You rolled your eyes, throwing the napkin you used to clean the glasses with at him. Rayleigh simply laughed, a laugh that screamed "I told you."

Gaban wasn't amused.

But Roger? Roger was still. Petrified, like he just stared into medusa's eyes. But more in an awed expression.

Both Rayleigh and Gaban noticed, suddenly quieting down and giving eachother a knowing grin, then clearing their throat. The others noticed, too, but didn't say a word.

In the background, you could hear Buggy whispering to Shanks: "Damn.. Captain's really in it, isnt he?"

"In what?" Shanks whispered back.

"Inlove. Duh."

And frankly speaking, you were also captivated, but you would never say that aloud. Though you did speak to him.

Snapping two fingers in his face, you called out.

"Oi ! Heeyyy ! Someone in there ?" You waved your hand near his face.

He blinked.

Once,

Twice.

Slowly.

Then, reaching and grabbing your hand in his like it was the only thing anchoring him to life. Then spoke in the quietest, softest, most loving tone you've ever heard.. from a pirate atleast.

"..You're the most beautiful woman I've seen since I've set sail to the Grand Line. And the New World."

He spoke like he meant it.

He did.

Your heart strangely warmed up at the compliment, you froze in place for a moment, avoiding his gaze.

"Tch— Don't flatter me, pirate boy."

"I prefer the term man. But what's with the formalities, doll? Just call me Roger." He purred, placing a kiss on the back of your hand like a vow. You swatted his away, waving him off dismissively.

"Well, Roger. I don't do pirates."

"Yet."

"Never."

You sighed, the rest of the crew laughed.

What you didn't know was that this was the start of something straight out of a romance novel.

Because Roger was now a man inlove with you, and he was very persistent about it. And he sure as hell was about to make it everyone's problem. Especially yours.

They were originally staying in Loguetown for a day, one. To stock up.

It's been a week. They're still here. He often came back by himself, supposedly for a drink, but he would spend most of it just glaring at you like a walking diamond.

He even started offering to help with chores? Like what kind of pirate does that??

Anyway, you never complained about having a helping hand, didn't matter from who.

Once in a while, he'd reach behind you for another bottle of rum, his arm casually, "accidentally" brushing against your back in the moment.

Or even fix your apron, tighten the ribbon, small gestures like that. Ones that sent butterflies directly to your stomach, and god you hated admitting it, but you were actually enjoying his presence.

"So, not giving me your name yet?" Roger smiled, fingers drumming on the counter like a ticking bomb.

"Mm.. No." You spoke, firm, clear.

"Fine by me, I'll just be calling you my future wife."

"Absolutely not."

"Then give me your name."

.

.

A sigh.

"..I'll think about it."

Time trudged forward,

Another seven days gone. Roger wasn't.

Aboard the Oro Jackson, he sat beside his first inmate, Rayleigh. Sharing a drink, peacefully. The star-kissed night sky stretched endlessly, moonlight casting a spell on the two men, highlighting their sharp features. An usual peaceful silence washing over the ship.

"Don't you think it's time to leave?" The blonde asked after a sip of sake.

"Not without her, no." Roger answered with the confidence of a man who'd already earned your heart.

"She doesn't seem interested. In pirates, atleast."

"She said she'll give me her name."

"She said she'll think about it. That's not an advance." Rayleigh corrected him.

Roger only laughed, leaning back against the railing, glaring up at the sky like he could physically picture you in it. In his eyes, the bright moon couldn't hold a candle to your radiant face. He sighed, with a smile, then spoke again.

"I love her, Rayleigh. And I know she does, or will eventually.. It's fate."

Silvers looked at him mid sip, before averting his gaze into the vast horizon ahead, a faint smile, followed by a chuckle emitting out of him.

"Fate, huh?"

"It brought me and you, and the crew together.. I'm sure it'll bring her to me aswell."

"..Do what you must. Captain." Rayleigh assured him, a hand patting his back in a friendly gesture. In a way that said "I'll always support you through even your worse decisions." After all, he signed up for it the moment he joined Roger.

⊹ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏𓂁

The next day, the tavern had long been open, it was especially crowded around noon. Reeked of pirates and sweat. You unconsciously found yourself looking for him amidst the bunch. Your eyes glued to the door like it was some sort of gate to heaven.

Only disappointment crossed your features every second that ticked without him entering.

Whilst staring at the door, you simultaneously were pouring a drink for this seemingly obnoxious pirate, he spoke too loud, moved too loud, breathed too loud. Though, you zoned out, and accidentally spilled the liquid onto him.

"What the hell — You.. !" He shouted, suddenly standing up from his seat, the chair scraping against the floorboards with a loud, screeching noise.

Then tugged at the collar of your shirt. You dropped the bottle, attempting to push him away with an apology.

"I—.. I'm sorry - I'll make up for it, I'll pay you back —" You stammered, your heart pounding at your chest nervousely. You've dealt with pirates, but never one who directly, physically threatened you.

And the worst part? Nobody dared speak up, some even laughed, like they got first class seats to a drama spectacle.

But.

The door opened. Slowly, almost ominously. Like a threat.

The dimly lit cavern shrouded in outside light for a moment, only before the door closed again.

The air was heavy now, like it was holding secrets. Not a word was spoken.

Roger walked in. Tall, imposing, intimidating. The kind that made people straighten their backs from the sheer strength of his aura alone.

Standing behind the man threatning you, It didn't take a single word from him, not a throat clearing, not one move.

Only a piercing glare, from behind, mind you. Hand resting on the hilt of his sword like he was counting the seconds for this guy's untimely death.

And it worked, god it worked. Because the guy's face turned so pale you thought he might aswell be dead on his feet. He let go of your shirt, taking a few steps back and raising his hands in surrender.

In the background, you heard others whispering about how Roger himself was here, and curiously asking why he was defending you.

"Your fingers, or your life. Choose one." Roger's deep, commanding voice cut through the sharply. It wasn't a question, or a request. It was a firm order , and he looked down at the guy like his life depended on every second he spent thinking about it.

The man took a few steps back, raising his hands in surrender, an awkward, nervous laugh emitting from him. Previously so big and confident, he was reduced to nothing but a begging pest. One that regretted every life decision it made until now.

He was utterly speechless, to say the least.

Until you stepped beside Roger, a hand on his back reassuringly as you spoke.

"It's fine, Roger. It was my fault, just let him go."

He glanced at you, then at the pathethic mess infront of him, stepping away from the exit.

"Don't ever think about coming back."

"Yes! I'm sorry —" The man bowed one time, then left running so fast he tripped over his own feet once, picking himself up and running off again.

The rest of the customers, pirates and whatnot, laughed at the sight, breaking the silence and resuming their ealier loud chatting and laughing.

You two stood there, unmoving. You've never seen this side of him, he always just acted like an emotionally lovestruck teenager around you, but you were beginning to understand why he was so notorious.

You walked away, behind the bar counter again, as you usually do, like nothing just happened. And he followed, because of course he did.

"You should be more careful with these pirates." He smiled again, leaning against a wall beside you, arms crossed over his chest, shirt fully open ever so casually.

"I'm alright, handled a ton before. I was just.. caught offguard, is all." You reassured him, all the while serving other customers again.

"Good, wouldn't want you getting hurt before stealing your heart, would I?" Roger leaned closer, an eyebrow raised with a smug grin plastered on his face.

You couldn't supress the chuckle that came out of you as you pushed his face away dismissively.

"Ohh, cut it out."

"Does that mean I've already stolen your heart?" He laughed, not budging at your feeble attempt to push him away.

"No. Don't get ahead of yourself." You replied lazily, a faint smile crinkling at the corners of your mouth.

Because a part of you wanted to say, "No, not yet."

You were truly starting to fall for this man.

And it was bad.

.

.

The end of the day rolled on, the sun setting slowly, like it was getting ready for bed. The warm, golden glow spilling onto the now empty, dimly lit tavern.

You leaned forward against the counter, utterly exhausted, overstimulated, everything clung too tight around you. You tossed your apron aside, rubbing your temples.

And Roger was there, still. The way he always was for the past two weeks. Over time, he'd learned where you kept everything, from drinks to empty bottles and glasses, and had arranged everything for you.

Seeing your defeated state, he walked up behind you, both hands on your shoulders, squeezing ever so gently.

"Take it easy, my dear." Roger cooed, his thumbs moving to the nape of your neck, it felt like he was physically massaging the pain out of your body.

"Didn't know your hands were good at anything else other than swinging swords and breaking stuff." You joked, though the way you leaned into his touch betrayed your words.

"Oh, they're good at many things, alright." He chuckled, continuing his relaxing kneading.

"You're filthy."

"You like it."

"Only for the massages."

With that, you found yourself staying in the tavern the whole night with him. Sat across from eachother, you chatted. Like, actually had complete conversations without him trying to flirt with you every two sentences.

You listened, carefully. Captivated again, by the way he narrated his adventures like he spoke not just to be heard, but to inspire. There was a wild, reckless energy to him, like a man who'd seen the worst of sea and still decided to smile back at it.

You could almost see yourself in the middle of those thrilling adventures.

When your worlds collided, his high-spirited, energetic world, contrasting with your own boring, bartending life. You hated to admit it.

To admit that you were slightly envious of him. How free and careless he was. It was adoring, loveable, in a way.

You also hated how fond you've grown of him. Or atleast, you tried to convince yourself that you hated it. Because he wasn't a bad person, at all. Hell, if anything, he was nicer than most citizens.

And for the first time since you met? You finally gave him your name.

"..Y/N." Roger repeated after you, like he was testing and tasting the syllables of it on his tongue, his voice softer than anything you've heard from him before. A fond, warm smile plastered on his lips, his eyes crinkling at the corners.

And gods, you loved it. As corny as it sounded. You were actually falling for this reckless mess of a man.

.

ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁

.

The hours slipped away, you hadn't realized how long you spent just talking to him. You even forgot how absolutely exhausting that day was. And eventually, sleep got to the both of you.

And the night gave way to morning. Darkness began to loosen its grip as the first light of dawn crept over the horizon.

Unbeknowst to both of you, two of his crew grew suspicious of the fact that he was away the whole night, and came looking for him.

Both stood at the door, Gaban and Rayleigh.

"Do you think they.." Gaban whispered, trailing off. Leaving the rest to imagination.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Rayleigh protested. "For god's sake, why would we be in their business, I came to stop you, not —"

"Shh —" The other interrupted him with his finger on his lips, "— I heard a noise."

Rayleigh sighed, hard.

Then, the long awaited opening of the door.

They were greeted by everything but what they expected.

You were both sleeping, sat on stools with your arms on the counter propped like pillows. And Roger's cape draped over you as a makeshift blanket,

That was definitely his doing, not your idea.

Gaban blinked, once.

A very slow blink. In attempt to assess the sight. He looked almost disappointed, like someone just slapped him with a plot-twist.

And Rayleigh, on the other hand, who was looking away, only now averted his gaze to the two of you.

The expression of a man who's salad just blinked at him.

"That. I didn't expect that." Buggy spoke up in the background, immediately shushed by Shanks.

"What are you doing here?" Rayleigh looked down at the two, arms crossed over his chest disappointingly.

"I told you to stay quiet !!" Shanks shouted.

"You're being louder than all of us right now!" The other argued back, pressing his forehead against Shanks'.

The sudden shouting was enough to pull you from slumber. You mumbled something incomprehensible groggily, before sitting upright, Roger's cape still draped around your shoulders, it was strangely warmer than you thought.

And, it smelled like him, your favorite part. Even though it wasn't the best scent, it was the familiarity of it that you so enjoyed.

Though Roger didn't budge from his sleep, not one bit.

Rubbing an eye, you shot them an annoyed glare.

"Y'know.. I still work here, knock before entering. It says closed, bold and clear as day."

"Why are you in here if you're closed?" Shanks tilted his head in intrigue, Rayleigh pinched and pulled his cheek.

Then, with a sigh, he eventually walked inside, making his way to where Roger was sat sleeping across from you, and nudging him awake.

"Not to disturb your.. uhm, whatever." Rayleigh cleared his throat, his expression taking a more serious turn. "We have to leave now."

Roger's ears perked up at that, immediately jerking awake, eyes wide as ever, like lightning just struck his spine.

"I didn't decide on that. Who said we do?" He protested, standing up from his seat. You followed.

"Word came in that marines found we're here. We'll just bring chaos and problems to the other citizens.. and her too."

Then, silence. It was checkmate, and his mouth knew it.

"You wouldn't want that, would you?" Rayleigh continued. The truth hitting Roger like a thunderclap to the chest.

Gaban's usual cocky smirk faded, and the kids' bantering ceased as they watched with a serious expression from a comfortable distance. Rayleigh joined them.

"Have a talk, but we're setting out before noon. No more delays, Captain." The blonde affirmed one more time. Before making his way out. It wasn't like him to be so commanding, but when times like these called for it, it was necessary.

You were once again, left alone with Roger. He was visibly frowning, it was unlikely of him aswell, but you could tell, that his mind was racing and spiraling with a million thoughts.

The silence was deafening, until broken by himself.

"..Y/N. Come with us. Join my crew !" He wore his words with confidence, like it was the easiest thing in the world.

You averted your gaze, brows slightly furrowed. He already saw it coming, your answer.

"I know you want to. I saw how your eyes lit up at my stories, Y/N." Roger insisted, his voice barely above a whisper, a striking counterpoint to his usual gruff, loud voice.

"..It's not that easy, Roger. To just leave everything behind. To be a pirate, of all things."

He stopped, the only movement being his hand reaching under your chin, gently redirecting your gaze to his.

"It's not easy, but we'll make it easy. If you only joined.. Please." He cooed, his brows furrowing, expression hardening. You've never thought you'd hear someone as mighty as himself begging someone like you, to just join him. Love did things to a man.

You wanted to give in, to your wants, to your delusions. To be selfish, for once. But you couldn't. You had to remind yourself, they're just pirates, filth, blood thirst, everything you hated.

Or atleast everything you forced yourself to hate.

Your hands reached to your shoulders, fingers curling around his cape.

Just as you were about to remove it, his hand placed ontop of yours. Feather light. Softly. Like a whisper.

"..Keep it. We'll meet again, and when we do, give it back to me." He smiled. Like he always did. Roger truly loved you, thus, he could never bring himself to force you to do something you were against.

His thumb brushed over the back of your hand gently, quickly, before leaning closer and touching his lips tenderly against your forehead.

And without another word, Roger turned and walked away. Each step heavier than the other, like his own feet were trying to keep him in place.

And you? You were speechless, heart pounding in your chest. You wanted to say something, to call out for him, to express yourself. He even paused at the tavern door, for a moment longer than necessary, like he was giving you one more chance to change your mind.

You didn't. You simply stood and watched him leave. A mouthful of silence and a heart too full to speak. Your voice curling up and hiding behind your ribs, like the words physically melted in your tongue each time you thought of speaking.

You let him go. The one man you loved, slipping through your fingers like smoke.

And for once, in what seemed like years. Your shoulders shook in unshed tears as you were now left completely alone in the darkness-shrouded tavern.

. ┊ ┊

┊ ┊⋆ ┊ .

┊ ┊ ⋆˚ 

﹏𓊝; part 1 : end !

[lumirimay]

You saying that Taehyung is lucky to have ended up in BTS made me think about how he got into the group in the first place which in turn made me think the same for each member and I just realized that the only members that from the very beginning wanted to be idols in a k-pop group are Jimin and Jungkook.

Namjoon and Yoongi wanted to be rappers and producers and J-Hope came in as a hip-hop dancer and all three initially thought they were going to be in a hip-hop group but then a bunch of vocalist started getting added and all of a sudden they were in a k-pop group.

Jin and Taehyung didn't even intend to be in a group at all. Taehyung biggest connection to music was him playing a bit of the saxophone and Jin was studying to be an actor. They didn't even audition on purpose, Taehyung was just accompanying his friend who was the one auditioning and Jin just got stopped in the street by someone who worked in Bighit and got added cause they thought the group needed a visual. Neither of them initially wanted to be singers let alone dancers.

But Jimin and Jungkook auditioned with the intention of being in a k-pop group. They liked singing and dancing since they were kids and wanted to become idols. And you know what I mean when I say idol right? Cause that's a very specific job that requires someone to do a number of different things at the same time, it's not just being a singer or being a member of a musical group.

So when I think about this then it makes sense why Jimin and Jungkook have always been the main members of the group, the most popular ones and the best at being idols. Like I would not be surprised if they're the only ones still interested in making the group go back to what it used to be while all other members would prefer to go back to whatever the hell they were doing during Be and Proof (some members would actually prefer to not be in a group at all but the group is coming back no matter what so I'm just talking about what they want for the group).

Even with their solos carrers you see the difference. I'm not trying to disrespect Jimin's music by comparing it to Jungkook's but their careers are more similar to each other's then to the other five. They're the only ones who have that singer/dancer combo and are the ones who make the most mainstream music (difference in quality aside). J-Hope has been trying to replicate this but for 90% of his carrer he wasn't and he's only doing it now to try to get the type of success only Jimin and Jungkook have managed to and not because this is something he actually likes or that fits him.

But another thing that make sense is why they seem to get along so well. A question many pjms have asked themselves is why Jimin likes spending so much time with Jungkook and I think this is a major reason as to why.

You see, to people like them their job isn't just somewhere they go to for x hours and then come back home and not think about it until the next shift. Being an idol in an all-encompassing job, they're doing it and thinking about it 24/7. And it's not just about that, cause the same can be said for all members, but it's also something the two of them genuinely love doing. It's their dream in a way it's never been for the others. It's something that is very important to them so the fact that they have that in common with each other, more so than with any other member, explains why they often seem to prefer each other's company (not all the time obviously but at this point it can't really be denied they sure do it a damn lot).

I think about this story Jimin told Namjoon in one of the minimoni videos about how he, Jungkook and Yoongi were having a drink together and Jimin and Jungkook got so distracted talking about singing that they just forgot Yoongi was also there and just kept talking to each other for hours. Or the stories about how while they were in the military they would sing in the shower and get away from the other soldiers to sing or how they would talk about what clothes they were going to wear, what songs they were going to do and what their performances were going be like before they went to sleep.

If you notice a lot of their friendship seems to revolve around their job which makes sense when you consider what I said about how that job is a very big and important part of their lives. And this is what I think actually makes them close. Jikookers think it's because they're in love and dating but I think it's simply because they're the only members who are idols not just because they're a part of a k-pop group but because they genuinely love it and embody it (I think Jimin is much better at it, he's THEE idol to me, but this isn't really about how good they are at it but about how much it means to them).

Of course it's not like they're twins (thank god) and in recent years Jimin added making music to the list of things he loves doing (same could not be said about Jungkook), which is something he has in common with the rapline now. But that's only in recent years and the prior almost a decade before that still has a big impact in the dynamics they all have now. And ultimately I still think that in the context of their job (which again is a very vital context to them) Jungkook is still the member who's the most similar to Jimin.

Anyway, I was just having all these thoughts and wanted to share. Hopefully no one calls me a jikooker for saying Jimin and Jungkook are close 💀

I’d never thought about it like this, but you’re right. They are the two that most wanted to be “idols” or singers/performers, and they are the two that were arguably the most dedicated to the group, and seem to be the two that are somewhat still invested in it. I mean, I know for sure Jimin is because he’s said so, but I don’t know about jk? I think he has bigger dreams as a soloist than just doing bts now, but would never leave the group or deprioritise it. 

They also have been similar-ish in the past at least in their approach to being performers, very perfectionist, incredibly hard on themselves and hardworking. I’m thinking about how on their tours, it’s always those two who would collapse from exhaustion or get injured because of how much they give to each performance, and how much they overdo it. So yes, I do think a great deal of their bond and connection is because of their shared love of being performers, and also their shared and very unique experience of being in bts, but also being it’s two most important members, among RM. 

They also now have the shared experience of doing military together so that’s another huge life changing experiences which they share. So bonded for life? Who knows. lol

[alexthebordercollie]

In the Papa-Ford AU, how did we get from Shifty to the twins? My brain keeps looping back to a sliding security door mishap but I'm curious to see what other ideas you have about it.

Ok, so this is an interesting question that took an embarrassingly long time to answer because I was still trying to flesh out and choreograph the scene. Then Ford won the pregnancy poll, and I got ideas. So for context, I'm a trans man and a parent. I've given birth before, and MPreg is a trope I actually have a bit of a personal fixation on. That said, I rarely write MPreg despite really liking well-done male pregnancy stories because it's a trope that gets made fun of a lot. The original plan for PapaFord was not an MPreg plot, but there was a lot of sort of symbolic imagery with the twins' "birth" scene in the original draft. Making it an MPreg story would take symbolic undertones from the orginal plan and make them literal. I did think on how I would do the story if I went with MPreg and did a poll in my discord asking people what version they like better, and the MPreg version won out. This version, aside from being more room for me to write from personal experience, also gives me more room to show more of Bill and Ford's abusive relationship before he splits from him, and adds an extra layer of both stress and intimacy with Fiddleford in the period before they actually get together. It gives Fidds more time in that limbo of being afraid of the twins and not knowing for sure what they are. Also brings Stan into the picture durring a more immediate crisis.

All that said, for those who want the orginal Non-MPreg version here it is.

contains violence, contains blood, contains injury, contains harm to infants

⸸ = violence

Fiddleford's hands shook on the emergency lockdown switch. His breath was shallow. He felt cold, weightless. The screams and inhuman snarls had stopped. It was quiet now, painfully quiet.

Fiddleford only just barely had enough sense left in him to cover his mouth and nose when the room filled up with some unknown mystery vapor. He wasn't sure the source of the vapor, though a storage cabinet of anomalous substances had been knocked over in the struggle. Perhaps something broke, hard to say, the sound of cracking bone and severing flesh had drowned out any other sound.

It was a sick sound.

In rung in Fiddleford's ears through the quiet.

"S-Stanford?" Fiddleford called out on impulse even though he knew neither of them could hear each other through the enforced steel door.

Fiddleford waved some of the vapor from his face and made an attempt to flip the switch again. His grip was weak, his arm was weak, everything, the adrenaline, the fear, perhaps the blood loss too… Fiddleford was just now registering how badly mangled his arm was. With some effort he managed to pull the switch back up and open the door between cold storage and the observation room.

"Stanford!" Fiddleford's voice cracked as he called out again. The vapor was gradually dissipating and he could just make out the silhouette of a human shape on the floor in the next room. "Stanford?"

Something broke the silence. Something other than Fiddleford's terrified warbling or the over confident bark he was hoping for.

Wailing.

The kind of wailing Fiddleford was personally familiar with.

"Fidds?"

Fiddleford looked around the storage room as the vapor settled. Evidence of carnage surrounded him, upturned furnishings and lab equipment, blood, both his own and his partners. The pools of crimson had been streaked across the floor by shuffling feet. Laying in one such puddle was a sight that drained any warmth Fiddleford had left in his body.

"Fidds?" Fiddleford looked through the open door. Ford was sat up in his own red puddle with another one of them sobbing on the floor between his legs.

Where Fiddleford expected two halves of a murderous alien, instead they found two distressingly human looking infants.

"Are you seeing what I'm seeing?"

Fiddleford nodded and swallowed. He slowly stumbled over to his lab partner, never taking his eyes off the creatures. He hugged the wall, praying his legs didn't give out under him. "That's one damn dirty trick."

If the shape shifter was trying to fool them again, Fiddleford wasn't falling for it. Once he was close enough he hurriedly helped Ford to his feet and away from the second screaming pile of flesh.

God, it really did look just like a baby. A newborn screaming its tiny little lungs out on a cold floor. Two of them, each with just a bit of fluff on their heads, one dark and curly, the other straight and blonde.

Fiddleford couldn't put words together, he didn't need to. He rushed Ford through the next airlock door into the observation room and Ford followed without protest.

Once in the safety of the next room Ford sealed the door and leaned against it a moment to think.

"I think… I think maybe we stunned him?"

Ford's words were breathy and labored.

Fiddleford's eyes were drawn to the deep gashes across the other man's stomach.

"S-Stanford, yer bleedin'." Fiddleford hugged his arm, gripping just above where a chunk of flesh had been ripped away. The pain was present but had been tempered by survival instinct. He was starting to feel it now, gradually creeping in.

"S-so are you." Ford nodded to Fiddleford's arm. He pressed off the door, hugging his injuried gut. "F-first aid. The anomaly is contained. First priority is…"

They could still hear the crying, shrill, ear piercing. It stabbed a primal part of Fiddleford's soul.

Tate must have been missing him about now… The speakers were on in the observation room, pumping in sound from the rest of the bunker.

Fiddleford shuffled over to the control panel and flicked them off. He could still see the infants crying on the camera feed.

"Whatever he's hoping to gain here, he'll have to give up the bit sooner or later," Ford reasoned.

"R-right…"

Fiddleford looked back at Ford again and only just started to take in the severity of his injuries. The monster had slashed open his gut. Fiddleford rushed to his side and pressed him into the nearest chair. "Shit! Sit down before ya keel over!"

"I'm fine," Ford winced as he settled into swivel chair and leaned back. "It's not that deep. It, it looks worse than it is." Still, he kept his hand pressed into the wound to slow the bleeding.

"I'll get the med kit," Fiddleford insisted. He was working with one arm, shaking hands and a burning pain that was gradually getting worse, but Ford's injuries were more urgent.

Fiddleford couldn't move his injuried arm much without it shooting daggers through him, but he could use that hand at least enough to hold things. Thankfully his dominant arm was fine. He sat down on the floor in front of Ford and set the med kit between his feet. He tried to focus on what he was doing but he could feel Ford watching him. His hand shook as he moved Ford's hand aside and peeled his shredded clothes from the sticky pulpy mess of flesh.

"I'm sorry Fiddleford." Ford's voice was heavy.

Fiddleford tried not to look up, to just focus on the task at hand.

"Now's not the time."

Fiddleford took great care cleaning the wounds. They were indeed non-fatal by the look of it, but he needed stitching.

"I mean it, I should have listened to you-" Fiddleford finally looked up, sat between the man's legs on the floor. "Stanford there ain't a lick o' sense in that head o' yers!" he snapped. Fiddleford gripped the bloody gauze in his shaking hand till his knuckles bleached. "It'll be a cold day in hell when ya start listen' ta me."

Ford looked like a beat dog.

Fiddleford groaned. He'd let Ford bait him into looking up. Those big brown puppy dog eyes defused any anger he had the energy for. Goddanmit, why did such a stupid man have to look so pitiful. It was his fault they were in this mess at all.

"I didn't think-"

"That's just it," Fiddleford sighed, all the venom drained from his voice. He looked back down and fished through their supplies for stitches. "You don't think Stanford. Yer too curious and too cocky fer yer own good."

Ford winced at the first stitch. A hand landed on Fiddleford's head and froze him in place. Fiddleford's breath hitched. Ford had no idea what he was doing to him. Fiddleford suddenly felt very vulnerable in this position.

"Fiddleford, please, I'm sorry. I promise I won't let something like this happen again. I won't let you get hurt-"

Fiddleford swatted Ford's hand away. "Don't make promises ya can't keep!"

Ford shrunk back and idly scratched at his wrist for lack of a better place to put his hands. This was acceptable for now.

"Now sit still while I sew ya up."

Fiddleford kept his eyes on his hand.

"I'll help with your arm once you're done."

A silence settled between them for a while. Occasionally Ford with hiss or grunt from another stitch, but overall, the man could take a beating like a champ. Fiddleford was on the verge of tears from the burn in his arm but trying as hard as he could not to let it show.

"He isn't changing back…" Ford observed the monitor.

"I don't care what it does. Once we find a way to kill it or knock it out, it's going in cryo like it should have ages ago."

Ford didn't protest, but he did keep his eyes on the monitor. Fiddleford pulled himself off the floor and sat down on the edge of the control terminal. His sleeve was soaked in blood, and his hands were cold, but the bleeding seemed to have stopped a while ago.

Ford grunted as he leaned forward, a hand on his fresh bandages. He gripped the terminal and took a breath. He moved to pull his shirt back down only to see the sticky mess and opted to shrug off his coat and toss the shredded bio hazard to the floor. The discarded clothing exposed sweat and bruises.

"Do you need me to cut the sleeve off?"

Fiddleford blushed faintly at the offer, looked at the floor. He wasn't confident he could get his coat and shirt off without aggravating the wound, and was almost grateful for an excuse not to take his shirt off. "I think that would be best."

Ford went to pick up the scissors from the med kit.

Fiddleford looked over and tried to stop him bending over. "Wait, hang on, I'll get it-"

"It's fine Fidds, I'm fine." Ford winced when he bent over but moved the kit to the terminal next to him without much fuss.

Fiddleford combed Ford's face as he began cutting away the bloody sleeve. He wasn't sure what he was looking for, but he found nothing. Ford just looked tired.

Fiddleford choked on his breath when he felt the scissors lightly graze the shredded flesh.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry-"

"Nah, it's ok, yer f-fiiineee." Fiddleford shook from the fresh wave of pain. He gripped his pant leg with his good hand, squeezed his eyes shut, and grit his teeth. "Go on an' get it off."

Ford carefully slid the scissors up the remaining length of his arm to the circular cut he'd already made around the shoulder. "Ok, on the count of three, ready?"

"One…"

"Two."

Fiddleford shrieked on three as the layers of fabric were peeled from the bloody flesh canyons in his arm. Fiddleford bit his knuckle struggling to ride out the fresh burn. The thumped his heel rapidly against the floor, trying not to cry.

Trying, being the operative word. Fiddleford's breath hitched. He felt the first tears spill over despite his best efforts to keep a brave face. Once the crying started, he couldn't stop it.

Fiddleford broke into open heaving sobs.

"I'm sorry Fidds, I'm trying to be gentle-"

"Fuck! We almost died!"

The weight of everything was finally crashing down on him all at once. Fiddleford couldn't stop sobbing. His chest hurt, breathing was a struggle. He took off his glasses and tried to wipe away the sea of snot and tears with his good arm.

"T-that thing, that thing a-almost killed you-" he choked.

"I almost lost ya Stanford…"

The words came out small, pitiful. A passive, miserable, admission that the thought of losing his best friend was almost worse than dying.

Ford was quiet for a while.

Fiddleford didn't expect anything from him. He was being a big baby. Crying never helped anyone. It didn't fix anything. What's done was done. It was just a little pain, Ford could take it like a man.

Once Fiddleford's sobbing calmed somewhat, Ford resumed his first aid. Fiddleford continued to weep miserably with every cleaning product, disinfectant, every stitch. He kept wiping tears away and tried to restrain the volume of his whimpers as best as he could. He felt exhausted, bloodsoaked, and still shaking. He was still scared but the fear was aimless at this point. He did his best not to look at the monitors.

Once his arm was stitched and bandaged, Fiddleford expected some discussion of what to do with the shape shifter. He was ready to pull himself together, dry his face, and collaborate with his partner on procedure-

Ford pulled Fiddleford into a hug.

It was gentle, careful not to put pressure on his wounds, but encompassing.

Ford didn't say a word, just nestled Fiddleford's face into the crook of his shoulder. Fiddleford felt a broad hand cradle the back of his head. He sniffled, choked for air. He thought he was done crying. He thought he could control himself. Fiddleford buried another sob in Ford's damp, bare skin. He wrapped his good arm around him and raised his other hand as best he could. The other landed on Ford's waist, gripping the meat with whatever strength he had left.

"Please don't scare me like that again. I dunno what I'd do if I lost ya."

Ford stroked Fiddleford's hair. The gesture was soft, soothing. "Go home…" Ford stated simply. "You have a family to get home too Fidds, and I have an obligation to make sure you make it home in one piece." There was something inexplicably sad in his tone. He chuckled morbidly. "It's really no one's loss but mine if I get myself killed through my own hubris."

"Don't say that…" Fiddleford whined into Ford's skin. "I would miss you…"

"I'll try to be more careful from now on."

"Ok…" Fiddleford knew he wouldn't. It simply wasn't in his nature.

They stayed like that for some time, just holding each other in silence. Fiddleford ran out of tears to cry. He was tired and weak and numb.

Eventually Ford checked the monitor again.

The two human looking things were still on the floor where they left them, eerily still now.

Ford flicked on the speaker to listen to the audio from the storage room. Nothing…

"He stopped crying."

Fiddleford put his glasses back on and squinted at the monitor. There was something unnatural about the shifters efforts. These creatures were too still, too pale to be natural…

Ford hit the intercom and attempted to address the creature directly.

"You can drop the act now Shifty, it's not working. If you want to talk, I'm willing to listen-"

Fiddleford pulled Ford's hand from the intercom. "Stanford!" He'd just promised to take more precautions and already Ford was discussing negotiations with the murderous alien that just nearly killed them both.

"What else are we supposed to do, Fiddleford?"

They both looked back at the monitor in anticipation, waiting for a reply. Nothing.

Not a sound, or a twitch. Ford frowned. "I'll check the heat vision camera." He hit a couple of keys to switch views. The body heat signatures from the creatures on the floor were almost negligible. "That's… concerning."

"It's a shape shifter. It's probably just lowerin' it's temperature to play dead."

"I've never observed that sort of behavior before."

"Yeah, an' ya never saw it copy a human before either, or oh, I dunno, try to murder us!"

Fiddleford was at his wits end.

Ford seemed unconvinced, still observing the monitor. "What if he's really dying?"

"GOOD!"

Ford was clearly fighting his instincts not to get up. He looked back at Fiddleford pleadingly. "Don't you want to investigate? We don't even know for sure what happened."

"Stanford, no." Fiddleford was firm, as firm as he could be.

Ford got up.

"Stanford what in sam hill do you think yer doin'?!"

Ford's walk was stiff and pained as he shuffled to the emergency cabinet. He riffled through looking for an aerosol sedative he kept stocked that supposedly worked on monsters. Fiddleford had never seen him use it or think to bring it on any of their expositions.

"I'm going to make sure he stays asleep. I just want to check their vitals. Besides, we might as well get him in containment now while we have the opportunity, right?"

Fiddleford winced back at the monitor. Ford, maybe, had a point, maybe… Fiddleford didn't like it. He didn't trust it. He slipped off the terminal and went out through the security chamber to the bunker.

"You better not go in there alone," he warned.

Fidds picked up the shotgun off of one of the shelves and loaded it with some difficulty. His hands were unsteady and he only had one arm to try and shoot with but it was better than nothing.

Ford had the audacity to smile when Fiddleford came back.

It was a tiny, hopeful, smile.

Fiddleford scowled. "Let's just get this over with." The cold air of the storage room sent a chill through Fiddleford when the door opened. Ford went in first, no fear, no basic self preservation instinct. Fiddleford propped himself and the gun up against the doorframe as best as he could, hoping to balance himself somewhat and absorb some of the knockback if he needed to shoot. The two scientists had their facemasks on as Ford set off the canister he pulled from the cabinet and flooded the room with a gas that should put anything under if Ford's claims about the anomalous substances were true.

Ford knelt down next to the dark haired creature and pressed two fingers to its neck. "There's a pulse, but it's faint. Still breathing… Only barely."

Fiddleford's finger twitched on the trigger. It looked like a baby. Why did it have to look like a baby? More over… It looked just like Tate, back when he was fresh…

Ford got up to check the other one and his boot crunched on broken glass. He lifted his shoe a moment to examine what he stepped on. He froze.

Fiddleford tensed. "Something wrong?"

Ford picked up a broken vial off the floor and read the label. "I… I think I know what happened." He looked back at Fiddleford. "They're not Shifty, Fidds. Not anymore."

Fiddleford lowered his gun slightly. "Well what are they?"

Ford looked back down at the pair of infants. "Something new? And very unwell."

Ford didn't explain much as he directed Fiddleford to help him collect the two infant creatures and move them to the observation room. Ford was in a hurry to get them warmed up and on IV drips. Fiddleford went through the motions too numb by the implications of Ford's urgency to question any of it. If these things weren't the shape shifter, they were something else. Something that looked eerily like his son. Eventually the obvious question bubbled out through the fog.

"Stanford… What happened?" Ford held up the broken vial he'd picked off the floor. The label read fusion potion. "I got this from a siren years ago, it merges organisms," he explained.

Fiddleford nodded numbly as if it was a sensible explanation.

Ford paced the floor as he speculated. Where he got this energy was an absolute mystery. "I've never had a chance to test in on sapient organisms before but any two animals merged together appear to become a new single conscious entity."

Fiddleford took a moment to process the statement. He paused. "Uhm… What do ya mean never got the chance? We're ya plannin' to test that bull pucky on people?"

Ford stopped pacing for a second and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Oh, uh, I mean, that would be unethical, probably."

"Probably?!"

Ford rushed to pull out more syringes. He was using sanitary gloves for all this but still had yet to put on a fresh shirt. It was an absurd sight. Fiddleford's eye kept getting drawn to the bandages on Ford's stomach.

"Yer gonna pop yer stitches at this rate."

Ford waved him off. "I'll be fine. I'm going to run a DNA test. You go to the store and pick up diapers and formula. If my theory is correct, we're going to need them."

Fiddleford stood there dumbfounded in the middle of the lab.

Was Ford really suggesting that…

He looked over at the two babies swaddled under a heat lamp on the examination table. Ford pulled out one of their feet to draw blood. The sight of the needle puncturing such a tiny little appendage brought back memories that made Fiddleford's chest ache.

"Y-yeah… I… I'll go do that, I guess…"

Fiddleford left in a daze. Off to go pick up supplies for the babies. Babies, he nearly just killed.

[devinescribe]

hi!!! i was wondering if you could write an angsty fic for Snotlout x reader - where reader doesn’t understand that his flirting is genuine and feels like he’s making fun of her so she ends up ignoring him and he’s confused and has to ask around their friends and then he’s like “oh.”

i hope that makes sense!!!! thank you!!! - ❤️‍🔥

Misunderstandings

Snotlout Jorgenson x Reader

So many Snotlout requests/ideas so many characters to spread love to 😔 the best problem to have. I hope this meets what you were trying to say pookie :3

hi!!! i was wondering if you could write an angsty fic for Snotlout x reader - where reader doesn't understand that his flirting is genuine and feels like he's making fun of her so she ends up ignoring him and he's confused and has to ask around their friends and then he's like "oh." i hope that makes sense!!!! thank you!!! - ❤️‍🔥

Of course pookie!!! Mwuah

Warnings: angst, hurt comfort, cussing, he's an idiot,

Being around the group wasn't always easy. Ever since you all got dragons and have become closer, it seemed like everything was perfect!

But there was always something. And that something was Snotlout Jorgenson. He was loud, brash, made idiotic choices, and the worst part was he was mean. Sure he was an asshole to everyone, but it seemed he picked on you more than the others.

Little snips and comments that were just so mean... like when he caught you after you fell off your dragon and said that your dragon probably "couldn't carry your weight" and that his dragon was a warrior so obviously he could. Or maybe when he said, and you quote, "I usually go for flashy girls, y'know, the ones that everyone wants, but you're different."

What did that mean? All it mean to you was that he thought you were less than... plain... boring.

"Careful, people will start to think you're into me or something..."

Your translation of that?  He didn't want people to think you liked him... it would be embarrassing.

"You're.... A lot. In a good way."

Your translation? He literally thought you were too much. Too loud, too big, too... you.

"Looking like that, you're gonna distracts everyone in the village."

Your translation? You thought he was making fun of your looks...

"You are pretty intimidating... like... scary..."

Your translation? He thought you were too much. Too... scary. Unfeminine... too loud.

"What would a girl like you want with a guy like me anyway?"

Your translation? That he was too good for you... and why would a girl like you even try...

So on and so forth. This had gone on for so long... about maybe three months? Since the battle with the Red Death, the village had tried its best to adapt, and so did your group.

But there's only so much you could take. Pretty soon, you started to feel really upset... because for some time, you thought Snotlout might like you. At least as a friend... but his comments made you want to curl up and cry.

"You could like... probably crush a man's skull between your thighs..." He said one day after training when you had just taken one of the dummies down.

Your translation? He thinks I'm too big... my thighs are probably too big he thinks I'm gross...

"She could probably just walk and the sound would make any man think a thunderdrum is coming. It would scare them away before she could," Tuffnut snickered, thinking he's just being silly.

You tried to keep it in, smiling through your utter embarrassment and sadness. From this second forward... you knew that Snotlout Jorgenson didn't like you. Not at all.

——

Snotlout was a lot of things. Loud, obnoxious, idiotic... but secretly he was a huge romantic. Or at least he thought so. He thought, this whole time... he had been flirting with you.

"I usually go for flashy girls, y'know, the ones that everyone wants, but you're different."

His translation? You're different, and you treat me like I exist and I like that.

"Careful, people will start to think you're into me or something..."

His translation? I'm into you... please say you're into me too... please?

"You're.... A lot. In a good way."

His translation? A lot is good. A lot is the best. Cus too little is bad, so being a lot is good! I promise I can handle it…

"Looking like that, you're gonna distracts everyone in the village."

His translation? You're so hot, you're literally going to catch everyone's attention, including mine!

"You are pretty intimidating... like... scary..."

His translation? Intimidating and scary are things that describe like... the really cool dragons, which means they're good adjectives? Maybe? I think you taking charge is hot...

"What would a girl like you want with a guy like me anyway?"

His translation? Seriously... you're too good for someone like me. Why would you want to be with me... not like you do.

"You could like... probably crush a man's skull between your thighs..."

His translation? I volunteer as your experiment! They're so squishy and soft... or they look it anyway... I want-

And that was all good and dandy until Tuffnut butted in. Snotlout had a fear of seeming weak or out of the norm, so he laughed along... even if it wasn't even funny.

——

The next few days, you decided you were going to choose your peace. You ignored his comments, actively choosing to talk to others when he was talking to you... and you felt better.

You want to know who didn't feel better about this? Snotlout. He should have been used to rejection by now, he should, and he knows that. But there's something about you rejecting him that makes him extra sad, it really stings. Maybe because he has genuine feelings for you, and thought maybe you'd be the one he could actually have.

"Hey, Y/N, can-"

"Ruff, can you tell me that thing you do to your hair? It's so long and shiny."

He watched as you literally pretended he didn't exist. Walked past him. Not even sparing him a glance. And that hurt in the worst way possible. Because that was willfully ignoring him. You ignored him on purpose, and he felt a little bit of his soul die.

“Oof… harsh. Imagine getting ignore for Ruff. Not even Hiccup does that,” Tuffnut snickers besides him.

“Sh-shut up!” Snotlout groans, looking as you talk to Ruffnut.

From this moment, he swore he would find out why you were ignoring him. He would. However, the process started with talking to your friends. Which were his friends. So, he had to wait for you to not be around.

Just his luck, your mother had been looking for you, or at least that’s what Astrid said when she came in with Stormfly.

You said goodbye, and ran out with your dragon, flying in the direction of the village.

“Okay that was great timing because I have a question and it’s what the fuck is her deal?!” Snotlout said, almost screaming his question.

“Her deal? The Hel you mean ‘her deal’?” Astrid asked, defensively, ready to protect your honor.

Hiccup sighed, shaking his head, ever the observant man. He hand seen the way your face fell whenever he made a comment or how you would flinch when he laughed.

“Are you dense or just pretending to be?” He muttered, walking closer to the group.

Astrid and Ruff nodded, agreeing with him. They were your best friends and you had told them all about your feelings.

“If I knew why she was ignoring me I wouldn’t be asking would I?” Snotlout scoffed, fidgeting with the strings in his tunic.

“Snotlout, your comments!” Astrid groaned, exasperated by his cluelessness.

“My comments…?”

“Yeah your comments you mutton head! Her dragon couldn’t carry her weight but yours could because he was a warrior?”

“Or when you said that her thighs could crush a man’s skull, then my IDIOT of a brother added his thunderdrum comment,” Ruff piped up.

“What? Those things aren’t… bad? Are they?” He turns to look at Fishlegs and Hiccup, who have the most shocked, dumbfounded expressions on their faces.

“Not that bad? Not that bad?! Are you actually stupid?!” Fishlegs shrieked.

“I-I… I mean I don’t… get it.”

“Looking like that, you're gonna distracts everyone in the village,” Astrid mocked, crossing her arms.

“Guys I genuinely don’t understand why she’d be ignoring me over compliments-“

“YOU THOUGHT THOSE WERE COMPLIMENTS?!?”

He stared at the group around him confused and nodded.

“I like her thighs. And when I said the distraction comment, she looked good as always, and she was distracting me. Too much is a good thing to me… so yeah I don’t get it,” he explained.

Hiccup facepalms, wondering how he can be related to Snotlout. Astrid had seen yaks with more sense than him. Ruffnut has seen her brother fly Barf and Belch with more tact and grace than how he handled this.

“You fucking moron…”

——

After about an hour of them explaining how his comments were bad, and how you interpreted his remarks.

He lied on the floor, staring up at the sky.

“I’m an idiot,” he groaned.

“Yeah… you kind of are,” Tuffnut confirmed, standing with the rest of the group.

“I messed up.”

“Big time.”

“She probably hates me…”

“Probably? You mean she does hate you.”

“I thought I was flirting-“

“You thought THAT was FLIRTING?!”

Astrid groans, rolling her eyes, “Snotlout, get up, go find her, and apologize.”

“How in Odin’s eye am I supposed to do that when she ignores me the second I try to talk to her?” He sighed, sitting up, running a hand through his hair.

“Usually she goes out to the river alone around this time. I’m sure she’ll listen since she can’t exactly ignore you then,” Ruffnut suggested, shrugging her shoulders.

“Cmon… I can’t deal with anymore of this… dramatic moment any longer. Get up,” Tuffnut groaned, dragging him over to Hookfang, who was more than happy to fling his owner onto him and fly away when he heard your name.

——

When they found you, you were sitting against your dragon, humming as you gently took water and cleaned up any muck on their talons.

He flew down, and of course you saw him. You just turned your back to him with a huff, suddenly very interested in the patterns and scales of your dragon.

“Y/N… please don’t ignore me…” he said, quietly, fidgeting with his clothing, going over and sitting far enough that he was out of reach of your punches… but close enough that you could still hear him.

You didn’t turn, didn’t acknowledge him or his words, just kept checking your dragon. He sighed, looking down.

“I-…I’m sorry. I didn’t know… I-i… can you please just look at me for a minute-“

“Why do I owe you the grace of my eyes, if I had not been given the grace of your words?” You interrupt, not looking up, your words icy, shooting through his veins like an arrow.

He stares, shocked, shame filling his head. He already felt bad, but hearing just how much his words had affected you, made him feel even worse. But this wasn’t about how he felt. He should feel like shit because he hurt you, the one person who’s opinion he truly cared about. The one he really really cared about.

“I-I know. I was an asshole, okay? I get it… but please… let me make it right… let be explain… please…” he begged, looking up at you. He saw your shoulders heave in a sigh as you turned around.

“Fine. Go ahead.”

“So… everything I said? I-I meant it in… well I-i was trying to flirt with you…”

“You thought that was flirting, Snotlout?”

“I-I know I know! It’s… it’s bad… I already got an hour long lecture from everyone else… I didn’t know how you took them or how they hurt you… a-and… I’m sorry. I really am. I understand if you never want to talk to me again or something because I hurt you, even if my intention wasn’t to harm… still hurt you… I… I get it if-“

“How did you mean what you said?”

He took a breath; Then he began his long… so very long explanation.

“I’m just going off of what people… brought up I’ve said b-but I know I’ve said more… but when I said the thing about flashy girls versus you I-i didn’t mean you were plain or boring… I mean that you're different, and you treat me like I exist and I like that. When I said you’re a lot… I mean like… a lot is good… I’ve always been too little… I can handle it I promise. I said you’d distract everyone… I didn’t mean it in a way where I was making fun of your looks… I-i just… I thought you looked really pretty that day… a-and… you were going to catch everyone’s attention… you’d already caught mine… I wasn’t really thinking when I said any of these but especially not when calling you intimidating and scary… but those are adjectives we use for things like… dragons… or like people we respect so I-i just said it… The thighs comment… um… I-i like your thighs… I-i think they make you really really hot… I shouldn’t have laughed at Tuff’s comment… when… I said that people might think you’re into me… I meant… like… I-I’m into you… I wanted you to say you were into me too… and when I said… what would a girl like you want with a guy like me… it’s just… you’re too good for me why would you ever like someone like me? So yeah… that’s… all.”

He stared at you, waiting for you to say something, anything. To yell at him, to call him names, to make him leave. There was an awkward silence between you both as you stared with a shocked look.

“You… think… I’m pretty?” You whisper, getting up and walking closer.

He stumbled up, nodding frantically, “Y-yes! Yes, gods yes I think you’re gorgeous I-i… I didn’t… think… really that’s it I didn’t think. I’m sorry.”

“Snotlout… you’re… such an idiot,” You whispered, laughing. “I thought you didn’t like me.”

“Are you kidding me?! I’m basically in love with you!” He declares, stepping closer.

You smile, and gently reach for his hand. He grabs your hand, intertwining your fingers.

“I know this doesn’t fix it. But I’ll do everything I can to make it better if you give me the chance to. I promise,” he says, his eyes searching your face nervously.

“I’d like that…”

[purpurussy]

aughh, please please explain!

what were your favourite scenes to write? what were the hardest ones? what does it mean to you? did you do any in depth research? how much did you plan and structure things from the start? is there one or multiple specific details you'd like to highlight?

just see this ask as a blank cheque to talk about your fic as much and as elaborately as you wish <3

firstly I love you for this, thank you so much

secondly I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get to it 😭 I posted the final chapter and then locked myself in a room to finish my thesis and not think about anything else until I was done (I have a bachelor's degree now though so that's nice)

fic in question if you haven't read it yet

i have sooooo extremely many thoughts about this fic so strap in. i genuinely put so much work and thought into it it's very much giving onion (many many layers to it)

my fav scene to write was definitely the scene where they're at the club. it was so fun and flirty, and it was so rewarding to write the tension finally breaking after so much build-up, but at the same time it felt like that scene wasn't too "serious"? like it wasn't a super pivotal scene in the narrative, it was just really fun lol. and especially since I knew I was gonna write them having a fight afterwards, since in my mind I think Phil assumed them being actually intimate meant that Dan was finally gonna have a difficult conversation with his wife (particularly after Phil made his thoughts on the matter clear when they were in Manchester), but he was perhaps avoiding having an actual conversation about it because he was just so horny and drunk and he did not care in the moment (same for Dan) idk it was just so fun and hot and also perhaps a little bit twisted lmfao. and there was some humor to it as well which i enjoyed writing

the hardest scenes were the ending and the sex scene (no pun intended)

the ending was impossibly difficult to write. as endings often are i guess. I had a structure in mind for the entire story, which I revised a couple of times, but it was locked in pretty early on (I always do that, I am a "plotter" not a "pantser" as they say) but actually writing the ending in prose and getting the balance right was so tough. I think a lot of fics (and even some very successful published works) go unfinished because the author had no idea where it was going and was just hoping it would become clear along the way, but imo things are often a lot easier if you know what you're building up to, in order for the buildup to actually make any sense. that's why this story was like 80% finished besides all the rewriting and editing before I started posting it, there were several instances where I felt like an earlier chapter needed more foreshadowing or where I needed to build up to something more, so I went back and added it. so that's why I could never actually post a fic chapter by chapter as I'm writing it lol, I need to go back and hack away at it a few times before it's ready. I think of writing as similar to carving a sculpture out of a block of stone, where you start by chipping away the larger segments, and then once you have a general shape you start to add detail.

I did end up playing with the structure a little bit. I liked the idea that it vaguely follows a similar series of events to their original 2009/2010 timeline in this universe (them meeting around the time of Dan's birthday, getting to know each other by video calling and chatting, meeting irl in October, going to a Halloween party together, getting outed by a video (sorry)), and I liked the idea of the whole "road less travelled" thing of exploring a potential alternate timeline for what might have happened if they'd never met in 2009. I added dates and times at the start of every chapter and I started messing around with flashbacks and flash forwards towards the end, to remind you that it's about playing with timelines and cause and effect. I felt like i was cooking so fucking hard with the joanna newsom flashback chapter like I felt like that was Literature lmao, that was also a fun chapter to write actually. I feel like maybe I got a bit too cerebral and weird with it though idk, it got a lot less engagement than a lot of the other chapters. maybe i just waited too long to post it and people lost interest :/

you might also notice a lot of events mirror each other (I talked already about Dan reacting differently to different people's smell (Claire smells nice, the leopard guy in the club smells kinda gross, Phil smells divine) and Dan being pushed against the door by Claire vs him imagining pushing Phil against the door), even down to the story starting with his 33rd birthday and ending with his 36th, and the memory of Claire asking him about kids on his 30th birthday vs Phil floating the idea of having kids on his 36th, and how different those conversations were. the sort of meta narrative function of the structure itself was fun to play with

I actually originally planned for the story to end after the first date scene in the cafe, but i felt like it needed a bit more closure. I'm regretting that a little bit now, since the flash forward almost feels like over-explaining, but at the same time I want to show Dan being okay in the end after I tortured him so much 💀

I wanted to kind of subvert the fanfic trope of "flash forward a few years and they're married with kids and they lived happily ever after and never worried about anything again". that's why I opened with Dan in therapy, I made it clear that while he's doing better, he's still got plenty of issues. he's not completely satisfied with his job, he's not really feeling creatively fulfilled, he's insecure about his relationship, he's still in recovery (I remember that David Bowie interview where he'd been sober for quite a while and the interviewer said smth like "so you used to be an alcoholic" and he was like "I AM an alcoholic, that's why I can't drink ever again". like recovery is a lifelong process for a lot of people, again I didn't want to be completely unrealistic and just say "Dan went to therapy for a while and then suddenly he was fine and he had a completely healthy relationship with alcohol" I wanted to make it clear it can take a lot of time and effort, and for some people it's gonna be a lifelong journey). I wanted to portray Dan as being "okay" (also fun because of the whole "Dan is not okay" thing) primarily, more so than him necessarily being whatever the ideal state of "happy" is. I wish in hindsight that I'd allowed him to be angry, I referenced his guilt and shame (and kinda freed him from that in the end, when he finally allows himself to just be happy for Claire without feeling guilty about the whole thing) but never his anger. and I wish I'd done that a bit more. idk I don't think it's a completely saccharine bland happy ending, but I kinda wish I'd either left it out entirely or made it a little more bittersweet.

I do love the thing where Phil gave him a camera for his birthday though, I think I was cooking with that. like even if they aren't youtubers/comedians/performers they still end up creating stuff together. and I like that it was at least somewhat bittersweet, with Dan still not all the way "healed", but he's doing Okay because he isn't lying to himself any more and that's what counts. like a "happy ending" for him is getting himself to a point where he's able to actually look himself in the eye and be honest with himself, and everything else is just what it is. (also side note: I wanted Claire's new husband to be called Charlie so they're like Claire and Charlie from Lost, but that name already has several connotations in this fandom I fear, and almost none of you have seen Lost dlskjflsk, so I went with something more neutral lmao) I left it a bit open because I don't really care if they get married or have kids but it might be more important to some readers than it is to me, and an open ending supports the point that it doesn't matter where this timeline ends up going, they'll still be okay.

I hope people got the message that the end goal is not checking boxes off a list to achieve Happiness, but it's about being secure and able to take on each day as it comes, and look forward to the future. he's not lying to himself any more and that's the really important thing. and it's about healing/recovery as a (potentially lifelong) process rather than a final destination, and it's about taking pride in the work. i'm not sure if that came across in the way i wrote this ending though.

there was a lot of stuff I ended up leaving out actually, eg I had an idea for a scene where Dan is looking back on his stag/bachelor party, where he snuck away early, put his phone on silent and went home to hang out with Claire because he got too overwhelmed and annoyed. but I ended up cutting it because it didn't really fit anywhere. I wanted to have more scenes which build up the friendship between Dan and Claire, and which explain a bit better how he even ended up married to her in the first place, because you're dropped into this story as shit is about to hit the fan, and it doesn't really make a lot of sense on paper. I do like the backstory that she was the first person who was nice to him in uni and he sort of glommed onto her for safety and then never left (like, the foundation of their relationship is safety for him, but when people seek out a feeling of safety as an unhealthy coping mechanism, they often end up feeling trapped more than anything). writing their relationship was really challenging in general because it makes no damn sense and you have to retroactively explain how they ended up in this mess as 2 intelligent adults lmao. I really do wonder what irl Dan's plan was for dinok in that regard

I also kinda wanted to talk more about Dan's history, family, and back story, but I feel a bit uncomfortable actually doing that since a) I got in trouble for that once 😭 b) it requires a lot of speculation and c) idk what Dan's family's thoughts are on RPF slkjflskjfsld so I feel like it's best to avoid it. It does leave a bit of a gap in the characterization, but I think the people reading it are likely to have enough info that they can fill that in themselves.

I remembered after I'd already got like 10k words in that irl Dan mentioned a family history of substance abuse in BIG, and this was not supposed to be reflective of that at all, if anything it was inspired by my personal situation with alcohol and other substances over the past year or two 🙃 I wouldn't say I'm in the same position as stw!Dan but writing this made me realize I may have a slight problem lmao. oh well. I also don't think there's any reason at all to believe that dnp have any kind of issue with alcohol or other drugs in real life, I think they're occasional social drinkers in moderation but that's it. this really was me just looking camp straight in the eye and writing about my own mental illness through the medium of youtuber RPF 💀 and on another level I guess making him have a substance problem made it easier to write him making stupid decisions and explain it as "he took the magic potion of bad choices" and it's just like ah yeah that makes sense hekdflkjsdlkfjs. and I guess on yet another level the drinking thing is kind of a metaphor for him staying in a situation that's hurting him in the long run because it feels better than ripping off the band aid in the moment

the sex scene was also really tough to write, because it's just hard in general to write good smut, but especially when the smut in question is supposed to have a plot and a characterization behind it, and in my mind this was maybe the first time in his life when Dan had had sex with someone he was in love with and was actually truly compatible with, and maybe on some level he was thinking "wow okay, so this is what it can feel like huh". I liked John as a kind of foil to Phil, in that he demonstrates how Dan's life would turn out if he kept going on this path of staying closeted and having affairs, but also in that he kind of summarizes all the affairs Dan has had up until this point, and the way they were all a bit cold and meaningless (a faceless pic on an app, a cold beige hotel room etc) contrasted to the absolute wild passion he feels with Phil (visually with Phil's clothes exploding all over the room, but also in terms of Dan actually letting go for once, not thinking about anything and just letting himself fully enjoy the moment). and not only passion but also a sense of actual belonging, both in a kinky sorta way but also like genuinely "this is what it's supposed to feel like, this is where I belong". and obviously that was a very new feeling for Dan as well. and it's hard to take all of that emotion and put it into something which also stands alone as a genuinely hot sex scene lmao it took me SO long to write it. I also don't want to do a sort of annoying catholic morality thing like "casual sex is bad" especially since Dan and Phil literally were having casual sex on paper in this scene lmao, that's not the point. the point is it's the first time he actually had really good sex in his life and I really wanted to do that justice. and then rip it all away from him immediately of course

the scene where Dan is on his knees and he's touching Phil's ankles is one of my fav things I have ever written idk why it's so compelling to me. if you get it you get it i guess

I also actively decided to not write a top/bottom dynamic into this, firstly because I just personally don't care for penetration lmao even when I'm with men I still don't often bottom, I've come to realize as I've got older that it's just not really that compelling to me personally

secondly I think a lot of people have unrealistic expectations of bottoming when it comes to anal sex, which is fine like it's fanfiction, it's not gonna be realistic and the priority should be making it sexy first and foremost. but in my mind neither of these men is a party bottom who structures their entire life around taking dick 😭😭 and realistically it's been at least 8 hours in the story since they would have been able to prep (even longer for Phil since he took a 5 hour train), they've eaten a meal and had a lot to drink in the meantime...... and I know a lot of people are just like "well if shit happens then shit happens" which obviously is the healthy mentality to have. but for a first time hookup between these two specific characters at their big age, I just don't see it. perhaps they are simply gifted in that regard but i just don't see it ljdfskj

I've talked about this before and I think we need to destigmatize anal sex in general (in gay AND straight contexts) because the variety of weird attitudes which people have towards anal sex is rooted in homophobia and misogyny (thinking it's inherently degrading, disgusting or painful, and also the issue of straight men fetishizing it as something "unattainable" or taboo or whatever, and not respecting that a lot of women just don't care for it. like people are so weird about it for so many reasons and I wish it could just be viewed as a thing you can do if you're into it and nothing more. and people should be much more well-educated on it). I've done anal before and enjoyed it, I've fucked bi dudes, I don't have any personal ick factor type issue with it at all. in fact I definitely think it can be very hot. but with that being said I like writing them as sides always <3 that's just me. plus *ethel cain fujo voice* 2 hot men rubbing their cocks together is hot too. we need more phan frotting. phrotting. if you will. i won't actually now that i've seen it written like that

also removing the top/bottom framework and the mental baggage (eg implications of dominance and submission) which I know comes with that for a lot of readers means I can focus more on them as characters rather than having to worry about the sort of meta politics of Dan and Phil top/bottom discourse 😭😭😭😭 and the meta politics of penetration in general

anyway sorry for that tangent lmfao

I definitely ended up doing a fair bit of research, maybe not as much as I would have if I was getting paid to do this, but some. I didn't want to write anything that was so wildly inaccurate it would take a more well-educated reader out of their immersion (I gave up on reading The Goldfinch after literally page 1 where she said the main character was ill-prepared for the cold of an Amsterdam winter since he's from New York... mama an average Amsterdam winter is like. above freezing and a bit wet lmfao New York winters are so much worse I think) so I did some research into what kind of law field Dan might be in (I had him as a paralegal at first, since his career had stagnated somewhat, but I felt like that maybe didn't make a lot of sense. I felt like he wouldn't be like, an attorney in court so I ended up giving him a desk job which would be mind-numbingly boring but would pay decently well) and into what kind of job he could have at the end (HR/management would make sense with his contract law background I figured). same with Phil, although I did end up keeping it vague for both of them lmao. don't think about it too hard it's fine. the fic ain't about that

I also did smaller types of research like a little bit of reading on betta fish, watching a walkthrough of Manchester Piccadilly train station on youtube so I could get the details of that chapter right. I think I mainly just looked stuff up if I was running into something which I really had no idea how to write, but like I said if it was a more serious project I would've done more

some stuff got changed or cut because I couldn't figure it out. like originally I wanted them to meet through a mutual love of final fantasy, but I have never played any of those games and it would require a bit too much investment for me to figure out how to write that convincingly. I also kept the exact location of their respective houses vague since I do not know a damn thing about property in London and Manchester

in terms of details I'd like to highlight:

there were a lot of metaphors in this (Norman is a metaphor for Dan's self-preservation. he was dead in the final chapter because Dan didn't require unhealthy coping mechanisms any more. I really liked that one). I also think the way Dan treats animals in this fic (Norman, but also the pigeon) are a way of showing the type of person he is, where he cares so deeply about even a random pigeon which flew into the window (when I watched breaking bad and better call saul, I noted how the writers used a similar device for jessie pinkman and saul goodman, where jessie's kindness towards children and saul's soft spot for old ladies were very compelling shortcuts to framing characters who did a lot of awful shit in a positive light/framing them as heroes)

there's a dinof reference (the self-preserving part of Dan's brain which makes him throw up when he's consumed poison (alcohol) and pulls his hands away from fire (dinof dljflskjdkfls) or whatever it was i said)

there are so many Lost references, I watched Lost in late summer/early autumn of last year when I wrote a significant chunk of this story and came up with the structure of it all. I already mentioned the numbers in Dan's username as well as the names of some of the characters. I think some of the overarching themes are similar too. and the shit about timelines probably came from me being very deep in the Lost sauce at that time lmao

I actually got the inspiration for this fic from a discord-style work skin for chat fics which I found on AO3, it was originally gonna be a chat fic but then I realized that's a bit tired atp and I wanted the concept to expand beyond what you can really do with a chat fic. I made my own work skin from scratch, and the way I did it was so stupid and inefficient lmfao it really did not work very well. but I think it served as sort of a curiosity to draw people in so that's nice. the discord work skin was uploaded by someone who only posted madagascar pengiuns fanfic before going inactive a few years ago. shoutout to that person for being the catalyst for all this

I need to go back and fix some formatting issues (I used line breaks in some instances where I should’ve used paragraph breaks in the discord sections, and I kept switching back and forth between 12 hour and 24 hour time because I found out a lot of Americans don’t use 24 hour time, but I wasn’t consistent in fixing it). I also need to make sure I was consistently using British spelling since I think I fucked that up a bit

I wrote this over the course of a year, working on and off, and the events of the story align roughly with the time when I wrote it (like, I wrote the summer chapters in the actual summer and the autumn/winter chapters in the autumn/winter, and the rest was a loooot of rewriting and editing). i cannot believe it ended up only being 28k words, it felt so much longer. I saw a post where people were referring to 25k fics as "one shots" and I was like jesus christ you people are like machines 😭

I was in an absolutely awful spot mentally when I finally finished it, I wrote a whole yap which I originally wanted to put in the ao3 notes but wisely didn't, where i was just like "ok here it is, it's probably trash and im gonna kill myself now because my whole life is a disaster and everyone hates me but at least it's done" 😭

I had to get it done so I could clear my head and focus on graduating, and I think in a lot of ways this story is like manifestation for me. I'm doing a bit better now that I don't have to worry about graduating any more, but I'm still in shambles mentally lmao just not in an actual crisis mode any more. i will be again one day, I'm sure. just like stw!dan I wanna be okay in the end too, I wanna be able to forgive myself for wasting so much of my own time, I wanna be able to reconcile old friendships and build new ones, work a job which I don't hate, maintain a healthy relationship, work on hobbies I love instead of staring at the wall spiraling all day, and actually think about my future instead of just trying to survive. and i hope someone got a similar kind of solace from reading it that i did from writing it.

needless to say this fic meant a lot to me and i put a lot of myself into it. and i will allow myself to say i'm proud of it. I was so surprised by how well it did in terms of hits/kudos/comments, and it got almost 130 subscribers at one point which is crazy. whenever people comment something about the fic turning them on or making them cry or making them pace around the room or whatever i'm like "haha.. YEESSSS" lmfao it is the most fun thing in the world. to me

also it meant so much to get good constructive feedback and encouragement, so shoutout Red + the phantwerp crew for that <3 giving useful feedback is an art form and Red has mastered it I fear

I want to be a writer so badly, I think it's really the only thing I've ever been kinda good at. when I did my minor in creative writing the lecturer told us "this is a career which you can only really pursue if you absolutely cannot see yourself doing anything else" and I thought "... ah fuck, I absolutely cannot see myself doing anything else." I am cooking up my idea for a selkie fic now, I lowkey want to make it about OCs since the concept is so wildly far removed from actual Dan and Phil anyway, but we'll see if I post that at some point. I almost believe it has the potential to be a full-on novel but we shall see. I still have to focus on just surviving for a little bit now.

sorry this whole thing was a mess can you tell im off my meds atm. but again thank you so much for asking <333

[lover-of-mine]

About the end of h50: It DID came out of nowhere and is genuinely such a bad decision for the show, for the character and for steve as a person. I grief the good relationship they had (cath and steve) so much, i never shiped it but if he was to end up with a woman, i used to like her for him, but they ruined it. Then by the end tried make it work but they wouldn't work at all, the show made sure we understood that. That woman hurts him in so many different levels, any other girlfriend in the show would have been a better decision for his "end girl". I wasn't even 'mad' about he staying with one at the end. Been there, done that, Mcdanno would never be cannon, but they fucked it up SO BAD in order to deny it, that the end was super occ and nonsense.

Sorry, clearly, i have a lot of opinions about this.

Yeah, no, I'm with you, like, sure, s3, maybe mid s4, Steve and Cath would've made sense as an endgame couple, but the way they wrote her off and the way they bring her back in just to hurt Steve and then bring her back once more for them to end up together was so ????? like, I know mcdanno wasn't gonna happen, but if there's a show that shoud've ended with their main single, it's h50 if they were not going to commit. That show shoud've ended with both Steve and Danny single, sitting at the beach outside the mcgarrett house and be done with it. Bringing Catherine back like that was such bullshit.