#it would be so funny if somebody (even for a minute) thought these are canon outfits

[threepenstyle]

cross guild egghead drip v.2 now with ink

[yulin-pop]

⤷ ✧ 𝐇𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐲

order 84 | Scenario | Cater, Jade, Idia, Silver | gender neutral

❀ NOTE: PRETTY BOYS AHHHH, I wonder if all the characters are canonically attractive or are some characters like Ace considered mid?

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re so…”

➺ Cater Diamond

There’s a reason why Cater has so many followers on MagiCam. It’s because he has a cute face!! You’re not sure if he’s aware but he just has to be.

He does these tiny things like brushing the hair out of his face or slightly turning his head when he laughs. You didn’t really realize how pretty he was for a while. Sure, you got nervous just staring at him but now you can’t even look him in the eye.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re so hot…”

He blinked for a moment. He was in the middle of drying his hair when you said that. All he could think is “Oh wow?” He noticed that you’ve been staring at him so intensely for the past few days— maybe weeks.

But you said it straight to his face? He thought he misheard you at first but you definitely said that.

“Wow, I didn’t know you fancied me that way MC!” Admittedly it did fluster him, he was flattering in the best way possible.

“Don’t get it twisted, it’s not in the way you’re thinking!”

You’re in denial.

⊱Jade Leech

He has that certain look to him. It’s different than Floyd even though they’re identical twins. Maybe he’s not aware how MMMMMMM he is but he has to.

Just the way he looks at you can get you weak on the floor. His eyes… You noticed how his eyes squint ever so slightly when he’s focused. He’s calm under any circumstances yet so amusing in his own way. He’s the type of person you’d want to follow around just for the fun of it. And in his own way… he’s just so damn cute too.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re so cute…”

He quickly turned his head to stare at you. He’s not sure what you mean or why. It was so out of the blue. You’ve been stalking him for a while. Of course he knew and allowed it and treated it as if it was normal.

“Pardon? In what way am I… cute?” He turned his head curiously.

“Cute!” You said again.

He wasn’t sure how to feel, the last time someone called him cute was when he was a little kid. Most people would think of Jade as alluring or handsome, cute is something he hasn’t heard in a while.

“If you’re talking about my appearance, you must think Floyd is cute as well.” He says while smiling at you.

“Eh I guess so. But he’s not as cute as you.”

He moved closer, “Tell me, what else do you think of me?”

You put your hands out in front of you, as if to say stop. “Why do you have to be so close..?!”

*ੈ Idia Shroud

It’s already canon that Idia is very attractive from the character archives book and the ghost marriage event while being complete oblivious. He’s charming in his own way.

It’s hard to believe he’s so oblivious to his good looks. His smile is nerdy yet… attractive. His personality is rough but that’s what makes him so fun. Teasing someone like him is hilarious.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re so hot.”

He immediately cranked his head your direction with a baffled expression. He shook his head and let out an irritated squeal.

“Wh-who says stuff like that to somebody’s face?! Online I get it but this is IRL! Why does someone like you even think that?”

He just gets really flustered and ends up rambling about how it doesn’t make sense. But when he looks back on it, it gives him an ego boost for a few minutes and then he’s embarrassed because— it makes him happy that you think of him that way.

-ˋˏ Silver

Unintentional or not, Silver has been seeing you around a lot. He doesn’t think much of it since you’re in the same school so it’s not anything crazy but when he does see you, you’re always staring at him with this… funny expression.

Did he do something wrong? He tries to wave at you when he can but as soon as he turns his head you run away or start acting like you weren’t the one staring first.

But what were you suppose to do? Whenever you saw him, all your attention was diverted to his gentle yet sharp expression. His resting face was already so deadly, you couldn’t imagine if he were to smile.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re so pretty…”

He froze with a puzzled look on his face. This was one of the times you actually started a conversation with him instead of staring and running away and you say something so flirtatious?

“Ah…” He blinked as you gazed into his eyes nervously, “Thank you I suppose.” But in what way was he suppose to take that?

[tellmeallaboutit]

a reflection of Roman Empire-esque devil society

what makes it Roman Empire-esque?

what do you mean, in canon? In canon it's not Roman Empire-esque at all. Why did I write it like that?

A bit of background on the whole thought process!

I was a bit taken aback how homophobic and penis-centric the whole Haarlep-related section was in a game that clearly is not like that otherwise ("bottom" as an insult, cannot last long = bad in bed as if penis is the only magical tool for orgasm, etc.). And when I thought it's just Haarlep's type of humour, I was taken aback by the reaction of Raphael to this very cheap insult. I could have imagined he would just snicker and snide at a tasteless (objectively) joke but HE DID NOT. He lost his holy shit, shaking from fury. And it is an insult included directly at masculine virility - imagine insulting Mizora by "you cannot last a minute in bed HAHA!!!", she would be like "pup... you okay there? do you need some water? who told you it's funny?"

So how come, I thought. And the only way it made sense for a man to react like that if Raphael himself is a product of a society with such beliefs and Haarlep knew where to hurt him most. Like ofc it's insulted pride, but it only works in a societal upbringing that perceives it as a grave insult.

And the more I thought about hells, the more it made sense. Most of the devils are male, most of the layers are ruled by devils looking like middle-aged men, the ones that are not are ruled by somebody's daughters / wives / proteges, it's very hierarchical, very power and status obsessed. Most of the devils can change their appearance at whim yet still present only as male. So, which society is male-based, ultra hierarchical, militaristic and high on order while still hedonistic?

That's right. The society where the insult quote unquote "I will sodomize you and face-fuck you,  cocksucker Aurelius and butt-boy Furius", from a male opponent to another male opponent originated and was like BURN LEVEL 9000.

Canon is not like that, but I unfortunately cannot make head or tails with canon hells, it's too contradiction-riddled for me, I do not understand how a society like that would even realistically function, so I basically threw the lore in the dumpster with HWLL and home-brewed most of the things.

[catghoul31]

Veteran's Day

It's almost completely dark out, and Logan insists on a car ride with Wade to the park... even though the park is completely closed. Whatever could he be up to?

For @poolverine-week day 3: Road Trip!

No CWs this time, just canon-typical stuff

Read it under the cut or on ao3!

Wade had no idea what Logan was doing. He’d insisted they got in the car that evening, and Logan was driving them somewhere- but where?

The expression on Logan’s face was impossible to read, even for Wade. That same focused scowl he had on when whatever he was doing wasn’t anyone’s business- but it was his business, because for all he knew, he could be heading for a pit of lava to chuck Wade into once and for all! Had he really been that mad that he’d broken the sink by slamming his head against it again?

…He didn’t seem that angry when they’d gotten them both in the car, though. Silent and mysterious? Oh, like always! Logan wouldn’t be Logan without that broody exterior all the middle-aged women fawned over- but he hadn’t indicated that he’d done anything wrong at all. Hell, Wolvie was usually the first to tell him if he did!

Still, the thought did nothing to calm Wade’s racing heart. Nobody ever just insisted on taking Wade out somewhere alone with them because they liked him at all… Almost every single time since he’d lost Vanessa, stuff like this only ever happened when somebody really wanted his head- and not in the fun way! 

So why would Logan be any different??

Once his eyes had adjusted to the dark a bit more, Wade looked out the window, trying to distract himself from the tense silence that had settled over them. He realized, then, that these roads weren’t as unfamiliar as he thought. It sorta seemed like he was taking them to that park they’d already been to a few times… It was large enough that they could wander off deep into the forest and safely spar without horribly traumatizing any poor souls! Something about fighting with each other had become so thrilling for them, and there was almost no malice inspiring their fights anymore… and no matter how far out they wandered, Logan always seemed to know the way out.

But the park was closed right now!! It was Veteran’s Day or some shit, and that made the government decide that nobody could enjoy nature on their day off for some fucking reason- so no, this didn’t solve Wade’s great mystery!

Once they made it into the parking lot- or more accurately, just up against the closed gate that kept them from actually driving into the parking lot, Wade gave Logan a few seconds to tell him what he was doing- or, y’know, turn around because the park was closed, so he wasn’t getting any walkies today- sorry, peanut!

A few seconds passed, and Logan didn’t speak, nor did he turn the car around. Those seconds became minutes, and- oh, fuck this, Wade was starting to get really impatient with the lack of quotation marks in this story. “Soooo… what’s going on here? A reverse kidnapping?? Not that I don’t probably deserve that- but you kinda just shoved me into this car without telling me anything and I wanna know if you called another guy here to help you, so that maybe I can prepare my-“

“Shut the fuck up, Wade.”

Logan’s harsh snarl made him shut up, and he winced as he prepared for the inevitable clawing- but none came. Wade opened his eyes, only to see Logan glance at the hands in his lap pensively. They were clenched in fists, and his brows were furrowed in what Wade thought was… guilt? Great, now Wade was worrying about this fuzzy bastard while they were sitting in dead silence! He shifted a bit in his chair, uncomfortable with the complete lack of stimulation here. If Logan didn’t hurry up and say something, he swore to God he was gonna pull out his phone and start watching Family Guy funny moments right in front of him!!

Logan took a deep breath, letting it out as a loud, frustrated growl before forcefully burying his face in his hands. Wade tilted his head innocently, having no clue what he could’ve done to bring about this reaction in Logan, but wanting to act like it was his fault anyways. Anything to live in Wolvie’s head rent-free, baby!

“…Fuck. What the fuck is wrong with me,” Logan muttered in that wonderfully pathetic tone of his. The one he always liked using when he really wanted something, but didn’t want to admit it because ohh I’m so awful, I don’t deserve nice things!! Needless to say, Wade was thoroughly interested now…

“I don’t know, Wolvie. What the fuck is wrong with you? You gotta help me out here, peanut,” he responded, not at all reacting to the glare that earned him. Logan’s claws even poked out a little at that one!! The same way they had at that bar he’d found him in… God, he was such a cutie pie. Still weird as hell right now, though!!

Logan sighed heavily, lowering his hands as a drop of blood trailed between his knuckles. Retracting his claws, he pointedly glanced at Wade, his pupils unmoving as he stared directly at his eyes. They were on him, he promised!! “…I don’t know what’s gotten into me, bub. But I can’t… fuck- I can’t live with myself without at least trying to tell you this,” he began, breaking eye contact with Wade as his nerves seemed to overtake him. “I just… I need to apologize, first.”

…Wait, what? Logan?? Apologize?? To… me? For what??? “Wh… I-I don’t know why you’d need to apologize- unless you forgot the park was closed, in which case-“ 

“WADE.” Logan shouted, forcing his face to look at him with one hand. “Mouth shut. Eyes on me. Fucking listen.”

Oh. Uhm… yes, Daddy? Wade definitely wasn’t blushing at all. But, of course, he did exactly what he was told, because Logan was nice enough to give him very clear directions… On a side note, he still had no idea what ADHD meant. Not that that had anything to do with this.

Logan took a deep, deep breath, before finally speaking his goddamn truth. 

“…I don’t know why you’d decide to keep me here. After I tried to kill you god knows how many times. After I lied about how worthless you were in that fucking car.” Lied? Since when? “After I… nearly made the same mistake that killed my family with you. And Laura, and those other people, whoever the fuck they were. God damn it, I was so drunk I can’t even remember,�� he interjected, sadly chuckling in that heartbreakingly lovely way that made Wade just want to compress him into a cube and hold him tenderly. This was definitely a normal way of thinking about your friend, right?

“…But it doesn’t matter. I wanted to abandon you so badly, when… when you were the first person to think I was anything but the awful man I am in God knows how long.” But… but he wasn’t awful!! And he didn’t abandon him!! Wade already had so much to say, but Logan needed him to listen, so that’s what he’d do. “I still don’t know why you think that… but I guess I’m here now. And, just… fuck. Wade… I- god, I can’t fucking- you’re… you’re the closest friend I think I’ve ever had. Any moment I spend away from you now makes me want to throw up and I don’t know why. I’m…” Ohh no. Wolvie’s eyes were getting a little shimmery now… Wade internally began to panic, having no fucking idea if he’d help Logan at all by just being here. Was he secretly making it worse?? He was, wasn’t he, maybe he should just wander off into the woods and die-

“I’m sorry, Wade. You’re not… I mean, I know you can’t, but-“ He coughed a bit, one stray tear escaping his eye. “-you’re not gonna die alone. And I shouldn’t have brought your ex into that spiel of mine, either- but it’s even more proof that… Wade. I don’t fucking deserve this…” Was it just Wade, or was Logan’s face a lot closer to his than it was earlier? And… why did he look so handsome right now? See, normally, that’d be a joke. And maybe Wade should just act like it was. Him and his silly cancer brain!! 

“I don’t deserve this world, or your apartment or that fucking dog, but I need it. I need it, and…” For a minute, Wade considered looking around for a paper bag in here. Logan was breathing pretty hard, and- shit, was he crying?? 

“…I need you. So please, just… Tell me you don’t need me right now, bub. Don’t make this harder than it has to be- I can’t… if I’m with you here a moment longer, I won’t be able to survive a world without you anymore. If… if you don’t want me around for that long, I’ll drive us to the TVA right now, and you can tell them to send me back. I don’t care, I just-“

Wade’s lips were on his before Logan could say another word.

…Yeah. If that comment about Logan being handsome earlier was funny, Wade’s reflexes decided to be fucking hilarious and just make him… do that. He lingered for maybe a few seconds- way longer than he probably should’ve- and pulled away much slower than he definitely should’ve. Something about that just… lit Wade’s soul on fire. As cheesy as that set of words sounded.

That being thought, Wade knew that the claws were gonna come out soon, so he might as well get the ukulele out while he still could. “…Logan, I am so fucking sorry, I don’t know what came over me-“

SNIKT. Ahh, there it was! Wade let out a shriek of agony when Logan stabbed him right through the chest. God, that look on his face was intense- quickly, Wade tensed all of his muscles, completely ready for a second round of fighting in a car with Logan alone in the dark by themselves-

-but then Logan- Logan KISSED HIM BACK?? Wade’s brain immediately shut down, unable to come up with any more witty commentary to add to this story. He whined, his hands grabbing Logan’s neck and pulling him closer without him even noticing. This one was longer, deeper, and Logan groaned into it as his body seemed to melt into Wade’s. Their tongues even began to slide against each other after a while, sending Wade to another dimension entirely- one where there didn’t have to be any baggage holding them back from just doing this all the time. Just showing each other love in the most wholesome or filthy ways they could think of. Holy fuck, it felt nice…

After what felt like forever to Wade, Logan pulled back, his eyes blown wide in shock just as his were. They seemed almost unwilling to believe what had just happened, even though his claws were still embedded into Wade’s chest, not planning on letting go anytime soon.

Some fucked up part of Wade didn’t want him to. Just wanted to keep those sharp adamantium blades inside of him forever. 

After a moment of neither Wade nor Logan making any moves, just staring at each other as their breaths mingled, Wade finally spoke up. “…That answer your question, peanut?” he asked, smirking slightly. Looks like Deadpool’s still got it, huh?

Logan shuddered slightly, before his claws forced themselves out of Wade as they retracted. He took a moment to scan Wade up and down, still trying to verify that this was even real. Almost imperceptibly, he nodded- nodded at Wade, over what he’d said holy fuck?? Yeah, this was happening, okay- before taking his seatbelt off, scooting closer to Wade, and…

Needless to say, they had their third kiss. And their fourth. And fifth. And however many more before they even thought about driving back home. Because fuck public indecency laws, they needed each other right now. As badly as a pair of horny college students did. Wade knew one thing for sure- the trees sure got a fucking show that night!!

[spidey-bie]

I read a Hobie analysis which inspired this post even though this post and that analysis have nothing in common. Anyways enjoy my rambles.

We don't talk enough about how most of Hobie's influences are either subtle or behind the scenes. He doesn't force his opinion or his thoughts onto anyone. Like when he's trying to guide Miles away from the Spider Society he doesn't just outrightly tell Miles. He tries to subtly persuade him, (this is broken down into detail in this post that's not mine).

So knowing that I retract my previous statement about Hobie going on a rant towards Gwen's father. He definitely said something though but it was most likely in a more roundabout way so that Gwen's father could come to his own conclusion.

I truly love how the spider-verse series likes to subvert expectations. When I was first introduced to Hobie Brown I originally thought that he was just going to be a static character that we don't learn much about. And yet in those 10 minutes we were introduced to so much about his character. We learn what his ideals are, what his motivations are, and how far he's willing to go to protect those that he cares about.

When I first think of anarchy I assumed that it's something chaotic and uncontrolled. Which isn't true once you look more into anarchism. And it's funny because when we first meet Hobie he seems rowdy and spontaneous. He literally bursts into the scene while shredding on his guitar. Yet when the mask comes off his actions and mannerisms have changed. He still holds the same principles and ideals but he seems more toned down if that makes sense. (Somebody wrote a post about how everyone's alter ego seems like over exaggerated versions of themselves and if I can find it I'll reference it. Edit: FOUND IT. ALSO THIS POST TOO. )

Now I wonder how long has Hobie been plotting to overthrow this organization. I refuse to believe that he could just sit back and let it all be. Especially after learning about canon events. It's true that he has enough going on in his own world. But I'm sure that he was attempting at the very least to recruit people for the destruction of this organization. Was Miles just the last straw?

This is completely unrelated but I think there's something to be said about how the spiders chose to be willfully ignorant in this society while knowing that it was an organization based off of someone else's flawed reasonings. Was it because of the camaraderie and the fellowship that they felt within it that they couldn't bring themselves to see that it was wrong?

These are just some thoughts. But I would love to hear what someone else thought about this.

[msommers]

ok obviously expanse au (whoever ur feeling) and apocalypse au + riya <3

mwah mwah thank you!! // send an au for 5 headcanons

expanse au [for lucky roll table winner] jorina

a belter born on ceres station. smth smth alienage in the human city of denerim can be a parallel to the belter city that's controlled by the UN. they're both also port cities. coincidence?? i think not. 

her family's hole (cannot believe i have to write that, instead of home like a normal person, to stay faithful to canon) was close to the station’s spin, just underneath the line of being considered too small for a family of 5 to live in. the two bedrooms were split between the parents in one and the three siblings sharing the second, and their living room had a slash in the wall that showed the native rock (never repaired, but her dad would eventually paint a mural there and blend it in). 

her mom was Definitely in the OPA, i don't even have to spend time considering it. wenna would have been a devoted member of the faction, raising her kids on all of the speeches about belter pride and the dignity they were owed, righteous in her anger over their continual mistreatment. so this means she absolutely died in a star helix raid on an OPA hideout that was suspected to be the hub of some illegal activity. it definitely wasn't and in the end it's just another for the tally of injustices done against belters 🤷‍♀️

i may be 9 books into this series and have consumed a bit more sci-fi media in general over the last few years, but my god do i still forget Jobs in these settings so easily. so after browsing a few google results, i'm thinking she'd have doubled down on studying/training to eventually become a chief navigator, with some secondary work in astronomy and geoscience. probably some just-above-standard mathematics and computers thrown in there too for good measure. she's a proper belter, they're always having to learn all they can just to adapt and survive.

she took on numerous small OPA jobs to make ends meet for the family, offered to her because wenna was well respected and nobody wants to see her family starve after she'd passed. jorina only took the ones that were simple and quick, and least likely to tie her to the organization. she believes in their overall values wholeheartedly, but didn't want to become dependent on their sporadic work for income,,,and also, yeah, maybe some of the more hardcore members scared her a bit.

apoc au riya (with classic zombies in mind)

thinks about victor's death translating to somebody finding him already killed and being torn apart by zombies. throws up, wails,, jumps off a cliff,,, at least she's starting off the journey w semi-equal trauma to canon 💜 

the girly who had too much faith in the system and thought everything would be contained in like a week so she didn't worry about preserving anything whatsoever. she's throwing a fit on day 8 because her phone is dead and she can't listen to her comfort music literally what's the fucking point anymore just take her out now-

wanna have her separated from family just for the drama of it. no solid plot reasons, i just wanna see riya having an abrupt and overwhelming breakdown like 2 months in when she realizes she can no longer lie to herself and has to accept she won't see her family again due to distance and no possibility of communication. i fear the daddy’s girl may not survive this, fellas.

unexpected tradeswoman when people realize that she's been hoarding beauty and personal care items since month 1 while normal people were stocking up the usual survival necessities. so fun picking on the spoiled girl for having her perfume in the apocalypse until you desperately want some shampoo and realize she's your only option atm.

kinda funny if riya's battle mage skills translate to her being surprisingly good at picking up combat skills against the undead in this au. 10 minute preparation speech from bastian as he's gearing up to show her how to use a pistol and she ends up sinking like three headshots on the first round, then hits him with the “what, like it's hard???” line. has to use an axe to cut her way out of a corner she was being backed into and she comes out without a scratch but absolutely raging over her chipped nails and the blood that is actively staining her $450 jacket.

[ssaalexblake]

the thing about cm is that the writers have always been totally upfront about there never being an inter-team romance played out on the show, that's not what it's about and that was the score and remains it. What Other show that's been on air as long hasn't had a will they/won't they? lasting for like 8 years before they finally do it? Or had a pair have a very ill advised affair? or any number of other combos.

CM is different to that by design, not by accident.

(that they had luke and garcia flirt all the time with nothing to show for it, and then when they thought they'd been cancelled they had them agree to a date in the last 5 minutes of the show is Telling. That they tanked it in the very next episode 2 years later that they never thought would exist is More telling.)

teasing moments between characters is not promising you that they're gonna suddenly have an ooc gay affair, and while i'm going to assume what's happening here is that they've not mentioned the No Romance rule for a while not realising that their audience is not all the same one they Used to have back on CBS, they really have made the score clear multiple times in the past.

If you're waiting for JJ to divorce herself from her own personality and suddenly decide to have a steamy gay affair with Emily you're going to be waiting a Long Time. And this is Really obvious and doesn't really even need stating, to be frank.

I've seen some Wild shit coming from the fandom, like somebody saying with their whole chest that the only reason jj ended up with will was because of aj's pregnancy (that part is true) but devolved into 'what universe are You from' territory when they claimed that otherwise they were going to do a shippy story with jj and emily. And even Aside from the whole No Team Romance rule, you are Aware this was in like 2007 right??? I know you're all young and all but in 2007 every gay thing in a tv show was a Groundbreaking Moment in television history still. Stuff you slam for being tame representation that's not good enough for you was ground-breaking rep in the mid 2010's!! This was 2007. CM barely acknowledged that gay people existed for an entire 15 seasons.

That their first episode on paramount made one of the leads queer is actually kind of funny in that regard, and Incredibly telling in general. It was Never the writers who were against that (in fact, a number of them in the cbs years were gay themselves) but got forbidden to go there by the network.

For the record, other topics that were considered unpalatable by the network and not to be used in stories very often were things like cannibalism and a variety of other disturbing things you can do to people. So gayness was ranked with them. Charming. (there used to be webchats with writers after episodes aired, and you learnt some Shit in those, let me tell you).

Anyway, i digress, they're not going to go there and have been honest about it. Whatever ship 'there' is is sitting somewhere at Snowball's chance in hell, and while i'd sell maybe a rib for tara and emily to be canon, i'm more than aware it'd be a waste of a rib. At Most i think maybe they'll do another 11th hour thing with luke and garcia when they eventually get cancelled again.

Because the same show runner is still in place. There's not been a change of management. Maybe If they'd got a new person in, but they haven't.

[climberclown]

I’m actually going insane for some reason I thought this would be a funny one shot anyways based off an image and the animation I made on it SMUT WARNIG NOT OK THE CIDEO THE FANFIC PLS ONT READ IF U DONT LIKE SEX OK THANK YOU !!! <3

robert x ross SMUT!! (THEY ARE 25 and 27 , ROBERT IS 25 AND ROSS IS 27 )

context before reading:

ross and robert used to be married until roy talked them both into getting a divorce. ross still really loves robert but robert has moved on and married susie; whom he doesn’t even fricking like and is jst married to her bc he was being pressured to. he also still loves ross .. ;3 wink wink anyways I hope you love this totally cool fanfiction that I’m writing on here bc I don’t want to get wattpad let’s get started jake paulers !!!! ALSO QUICK NOTE I WAS ABT TO START Robert is british that’s my headcanon I’m sorry it’s not canon but GODDAMMM NN it’d be so cute (I like British) OK OK I’ll start now.: b!!

“Babe, that shoe won’t..” Robert grumbled as Susie tried to get a size seven, which he was not, onto his foot. “God dammit! Susie, I’m not Cinderella!” He yelled through the sizing hall, disrupting all the other happy wedding couples. He stared daggers into Susie’s embarrassed flushed face, then looked away as her eyes stared back.

“Come on, Robert,” She started, trying to reason with him. “I don’t want to do this either. You think I wanted to marry a giant with a ponytail? I wanted to marry an average sized handsome man. But, I got .. you.” She spat, now kicking the shoe she was trying to get on with her heels.

“I am not a giant!” Robert exclaimed. He flushed, knowing she was actually right. “If you don’t wanna marry me then why are you? I’d rather go back to..” Robert trailed himself off, knowing if he went there she’d cause the biggest TikTok scene you’d ever see.

“I’m marrying you because if I do I can buy anything I want!” Susie snarked. “I mean, living with a pastor is dumb too.” She referred to her and Pump’s dad who worked at a pastor at their local church. He was very religious about his Christianity and Susie hated it. She tried to rebel by burning the churches main bible, but they just got a replacement in ten minutes. “You have all that money you’ll never use.”

“I do use it.” Robert picked up a size nine from a different box and slid it on. Susie stopped her efforts and huffed. She picked up the size sevens and walked away, leaving Robert with five fancy shoe choices. He stared at all of them, but eventually picked the ones that looked just like the ones..

at their wedding..

He smiled thinking about how happy he was. With Susie, it was never going to be like that. She yelled all the time and sometimes it was funny, but when you’re the one being yelled at, it’s quite not. He frowned. He wished it would be like that, if Susie had found that ‘average sized handsome man’, maybe she’d be like that with him. Happy.

Robert got up and grabbed the shoe box, paid for it, then left. They had already invited everyone. They had already picked out their outfits. They had already picked up the cake. All that was left to do was get ready and do it. The truth was, he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to marry her. He was sure Susie was a nice girl underneath her saltiness, but he was never going to get that. They knew each other through grade school and high school, but they hated each other then, too. It was never meant to be and they both knew it, but they still were both willing to go through with it.

“Oof!” A voice whimpered. Robert snapped out of his thinking and looked down at the person he just trampled and smiled.

“Ross!” Ross looked up and smiled back. He quickly got up and brushed himself off. “Where have you been?” Robert asked. He hadn’t seen him since he’d told him about him and Susie’s wedding.

“You know.. working.. at the tattoo shop..? Is that what you want me to say?” Ross’s smile faded. Ross wasn’t particularly happy that Robert was marrying someone else, let alone somebody he knew he didn’t like. “What do you want me to say after you divorced me because a midget told you to, then decided to engage the most whitest girl you could find that you don’t even like?” Ross put his hand on his hip and waited for Robert to answer. Robert stared, and his smile was gone too. He scratched the back of his neck nervously.

“Ross, you know I’m sorry. I was happy with you..” Robert answered.

“Then why were you so quick to leave?” Ross said, his words laced with poison.

“I don’t know!” Robert quickly said back. Ross stood and his glare softened. He didn’t quite know himself why he agreed to it either. To make him happy? To make Roy happy? To make Robert happy? It was a mystery to him. Robert saw his glare was gone, so he took the opportunity. “Do you want to walk to the ceremony room?” He asked.

“To your wedding ceremony room?” Ross stared blankly. “Yeah. I wanna see if it’s better than ours.”

“Oh, trust me. It is. Susie wanted to make it look pretty. Too pretty.” He gagged. Ross laughed.

“Yeah, I bet.” He though and gagged too. Robert smiled and they walked along the busy sidewalk to their ceremony room. They walked in and it hit both of them like they were looking directly at the sun. “Jesus christ! How did the decorators even see?” Ross closed his eyes shut. Robert pushed Ross in and closed the two doors behind them. Ross finally opened his eyes again. “Woah..” He was actually amazed with how gorgeous it looked.

“Do you like it?” Robert asked. Ross nodded and started picking at the string lights attached on the wall.

“Dude, how do they even get those on there?” He stared at the lights in awe.

“Uhm.. super glue?” Robert answered. Ross looked back and looked mind blown.

“What! No way. There’s more to it than that.”

“Yes way. I know because I did it. I had to help.”

“No way!” Ross smiled.

“Yes way!” Robert smiled back. They both walked around the room together pointing out the most elegant things. Ross was amazed at how simple things stayed and Robert was amazed at how he was amazed.

A few hours had passed, amazingly. They both had gone through the room about a dozen times going over how it stayed and how it shone. They finally sat down at one of the white tables. “I wish our wedding was like this.” Ross smiled sadly.

“I don’t. You’d be too amazed by lights shining to even kiss me.” Robert teased.

“Oh really? How would I forget to kiss the most handsome man in that room?” Ross winked. Robert felt his face flush and he giggled then turned away. “.. and this room, Robert.” Robert flinched. He looked back at Ross who was smirking. He stuttered, couldn’t find his words, then looked back at the light he was staring at. “Come on, Rob. I know you want . . .

me . ‘’

Robert looked back and gaped, his face now a deep red. “Ross, I’m getting married today! Susie would fucking kill me!” Ross rolled his eyes and smirked again, knowing how to fluster Robert even more.

“And I want to fucking fuck you.” Ross softly squeezed Robert’s hand. Robert could feel his heart pounding in his throat along with his stomach sinking. He wanted this. He knew he did. But he was so scared of what Susie would do..

“No, I can’t,” He said with trembling breath. “I’d break her heart.” Robert sympathized Susie, even though she would never do that to him. He took his hand away from Ross, who took his hand right back.

“What heart?” Ross smiled. “You know she doesn’t love you. I know you don’t love her. So come on, I know when you want me. I can hear it in your voice..” Ross whispered. Robert felt chills on his back he hadn’t felt since the divorce. Ross squeezed his hand tighter.

“Al..alright.” Robert gulped. His breath shuddered as he looked down at Ross who bit his lip and slyly went under the white table. Robert flinched as Ross reappeared in front of Robert’s legs. He rested his head on Robert’s knees and looked up at him. Robert couldn’t hide a giggle. “What are you doing?” He laughed.

“Are you gonna let me see how hard you are, fuckface?” Ross grinned. Robert smiled, but sat still and shook his head. “You want to play?” Ross purred. He forcibly spread apart Robert’s legs who let out a grunt. Ross snickered. “You’re already getting off to me teasing you?” Robert looked away from him with a blood flushed face. Ross shrugged and unzipped Robert’s jeans and slowly took out his member while Robert stifled tiny moans. Ross smiled more and sat on Robert’s lap, front facing him. He grabbed Robert’s face with one hand on his member, turned his face to his own, and whispered in his ear.

“Did you miss me, whore?” Robert gulped and nodded. “Exactly.” Ross pushed his face onto Robert’s and kissed him hard while pulling on the back of his hair. Ross suddenly stopped and Robert started panting heavily whilst Ross stared.

“What’s wrong? Why did you stop?” Robert said in between pants.

“You’re holding your breath. You’re not with Susie anymore. You’re with me.” Ross warned. Robert shuddered and nodded again. Ross kissed him rough again but this time while stroking his member. Robert shuddered and moaned quietly while Ross explored his mouth. Ross could feel Robert’s hot breath escaping from his mouth and pressing onto their faces. Ross slowly stopped kissing Robert and wiped his mouth, getting off of the red mess in front off him. Ross smiled at him and Robert weakly smiled back in the chair. “You’re cute when you’re hot.” Before Robert could respond, Ross kneeled and shoved Robert’s cock into his mouth, motioning up and down. Robert covered his mouth, let his head back, and let out muffled moans while Ross went faster then slower. Robert winced and stopped covering his own mouth.

“Ross.. I’m gonna cu..” Robert moaned. Ross stopped quickly and kneeled to Robert’s head.

“Come before me and you’ll have hell.” Robert winced and covered his mouth once more, getting pain out of Ross’s pleasure. Ross let his own hard member out and sat down once again on Robert’s lap. He pressed his own member against the other and stifled an wince of his own. Robert uncovered his mouth and looked at Ross.

“Are you going soft on me, Ross?” Robert said between heavily shuddered breaths. Ross grumbled and started grinding against Robert’s member. “Ross!” Robert yelled, surprised. His head fell back and he let out loud moans. Ross quickly covered Robert’s mouth himself.

“You don’t want your ‘bride’ hearing you, do you?” Robert moaned and drooled over Ross’s hand while Ross kept going with his grinding. Ross then brung his head down and started to bite Robert’s neck, looking for a sweet spot. As he bit, he finally found one after Robert let out a passionate moan. “Still the same, isn’t it darling?” Ross whispered through his own wincing and kept biting and sucking Robert’s sweet spot whilst grinding his member. Robert winced and pulled Ross’s hand away.

“Ross.. please.. I have to..” Robert winced. Ross covered his mouth again and whispered into his ear.

“I’m not even close, babe..” He teased Robert as Robert started to whine. He continued his biting and grinding until Robert suddenly lifted his head, lifted Ross’s hand away, and started passionately kissing Ross as hard as he could. Ross moaned and closed his eyes shut while Robert started to stroke both members while Ross winced and groaned. Ross finally climaxed and started grinding slower. As soon as Robert saw this, he climaxed as well and grabbed the back of Ross’s head and continued to roughly kiss him. Ross pushed Robert’s kissing away, leaving a string of saliva which Ross wiped off. He panted until he noticed they were both still hard. He slyly smiled and gazed at Robert who was still wincing from the session. He started purring which got Robert’s attention.

“What..?” He panted.

“It’s my turn.” Ross purred. Robert got up and Ross slid into his place. Robert stood in front of him and started to slowly kneel down in an attempt to tease Ross. Ross grumbled. “Come on! I didn’t tease yo-“ Robert started licking Ross’s member slowly, teasing him. Ross shook and winced. Robert stopped and smiled.

“Do you want me to go faster?” Robert said quietly. Ross nodded, embarrassed that he was making him communicate. “What?” Ross looked away.

“. . yes.” Ross said quietly, his voice trembling from anticipation.

“I can’t hear you Ross.” Robert slowly stroked Ross’s member, waiting for a response he accepted.

“. . yesngh...” Ross moaned in between his response as Robert stroked his cock faster. Ross gritted his teeth as Robert stroked him and panted. Robert smiled and stroked his own while hearing Ross’s pants. Ross stared down at Robert and started stroking with him while he held on to his hair. He whimpered and muttered something Robert couldn’t hear.

“What?” Robert stopped and listened.

“..Please.. I need this… I need you.. Robert..” Ross pleaded. Robert gazed at him and grinned.

“I’m not gonna leave you this time..” Robert whispered and softly kissed Ross. Ross put his arms around Robert and kissed him softly back.

Shortly after, they’d both finished again. That chair they just ‘used’ had been ruined now. They finished just in time to hear Susie come in with her big goofy wedding dress and say “What the fuck are you two doing?” Right before Robert called off their wedding.

So, they had their own wedding. With all the superglued lights on the wall and a huge fucking cake with awesome icing and Susie wasn’t allowed anywhere near the wedding. They ate all the amazing fucking cake together and lived together for the rest of their lives. The end.” Roy closed his huge fucking book with gold pages. Robert and Ross stared at him, wide eyed.

“WHY THE FUCK DID YOU WRITE THAT?” Ross screamed while Robert gripped his hand for comfort.

“Well that’s how it happened, right?” Roy smiled.

“We didn’t fuck in a wedding hall, Roy!” Robert stared at Roy in disgust.

“Yeah, we fucked at my house.” Ross crossed his arms.

[onewomancitadel]

This is one of my hypotheticals, with the caveat that the thought of Jaune and Cinder with anybody else makes me cry and throw things - but I can put it aside for a moment.

So you all don't see the sort of stuff I get in my inbox, and before Tumblr changed its rules there was someone who left a lot of spam about Jaune/Ruby. I hope he's okay after Volume 9. But the irony of it, of course, is that he viewed me as an enemy when Jaune/Ruby - with the stipulation of developing the Penny Problem properly, which they didn't (for the purposes of romance, I mean) - is the only other plausible Jaune ship I think I could tolerate in canon.

That's partly because Cinder-Ruby and Jaune-Oscar are twinned already - the first two even more prominently, but Jaune/Cinder and Ruby/Oscar are effectively edgy and light versions of each other as pairings - and partly because it avoids that gross replacement goldfish implication of Pyrrha warming Weiss' spot. I also like the development of their interactions generally, and if you leant in a much darker direction (like the Ruby/Oscar relationship necessitates at some point) with Jaune in particular then it could be made to work.

It wouldn't and couldn't be classic guy-gets-girl, foregone conclusion from the minute they meet type stuff - I think to be tonally true it has to be playful like the other canon pairings, in a bittersweet fashion. Blake/Yang and Ren/Nora both go in unlikely directions; Jaune/Ruby would need to be a similar case. But the interesting thing is that as much as I'm attached to Jaune/Cinder (OTP for life, my favouritest ship to ever ship, the ship I have been searching for all of my life), I am partly attached to it because of the way R/WBY conceives of romance, and I'm making an argument for it on the basis of R/WBY, not on the sole basis of my personal desires and preferences. That would mean that if they wrote Jaune/Ruby well, it's probably the only other pairing for them both that could actually be done... well, without completely losing the plot tonally and thematically. But then you start crunching the numbers with both Oscar and Cinder and we're kind of up shit creek structurally. But if you went into writing R/WBY with the intention of keeping the character arcs for both Jaune and Ruby mostly as-is, it's almost applicable. Almost!

But it's not really because it's cute or because it meets the bland conception of romance which is guy and girl look at each other and boink. It actually has to be an actual experience of romantic love and realise their character arcs and narrative role in the story.... similarly to Jaune/Cinder and Ruby/Oscar, it would have to be a slow-burn and basically seem impossible for a long time, especially with The Penny Problem. Actually, when you think about it, The Penny Problem basically had the potential to be what The Pyrrha Problem was for Jaune/Cinder, but if you're rewriting this for Jaune/Ruby you'd have to rewrite that, too. But it does tickle me that Jaune and Cinder are alike that way.

Now - spitting the dummy aside about the implication of Jaune and Cinder not ending up together - I do find it funny that I had so many asks about Jaune/Ruby (there were legions of them in response to multiple posts I had made about Knightfall, suggesting somebody was very upset and anxiously awaiting my response) when like, yeah I think if you tilted your head it might have once been possible. I don't think it is at all or was ever intended as such - and certainly not for the reasons this aggrieved individual believed - but don't ever think I'm not trying to give credit where it's due. I'm willing to entertain the other side... on my own terms when people aren't being annoying. (:

But ironically the similarities of Jaune/Ruby to Jaune/Cinder (and Ruby/Oscar by extension) actually kind of justifies by extension the reading of those pairings. Because Jaune/Cinder is on crack and edgy and fun and the Jaune-Ruby friendship clearly sets up part of its drama (and emotion). Which is why I love making a case like this, because it makes me reconsider canon and reconsider my position on the pairings I think are going to be canon. I don't ship Ruby/Oscar (not yet at least) and I think considering why Jaune/Ruby could conceivably work teases out why Ruby/Oscar conceivably can work - if it goes the direction Penny couldn't - and that Jaune and Oscar are similar in that the romance with either of them, and especially the latter, has to be divorced from the schools in some way, and Ruby's sense of Huntressing and related to something deeply personal.

Anyway Jaune/Cinder 4 lyfe.

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #578

Top Ten Non-MCU Characters to Bring Into the MCU

So I had two lists planned for the next couple of weeks, and for some reason I was really looking forward to writing them – they seemed like simple, fun things, that didn’t require as much thought or analysis as all the “Best Of” stuff, or even the Lego stuff (I think I found that one difficult just to narrow it down!). And then, wouldn’t you know it, Things in the News happened and I decided to make a last-minute swerve.

Now, this is a list about the MCU, and obviously there’s one very big MCU-related story that broke this week that I shan’t be commenting on. For a start, it’s miserable and dark and depressing. But also, I'm not really sure how I can spin that off into a list. However, I have managed to find a list on some of the other Hot Marvel News of the week!

Because this week two things happened: one, Liv Tyler was announced as joining the cast of Captain America: New World Order as Betty Ross, Bruce Banner’s love interest who was last seen in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk (okay, technically she was last seen in an episode of What If...?, but she was voiced by Stephanie Panisello). She joins a cast that already includes two characters from a film that was once regarded as Marvel’s black sheep/red-headed step-child (whichever is the least offensive term for “a film everyone more or less was forgetting about”), further bringing into focus hazier elements of the periphery of MCU continuity. At the same time, filming has commenced on Daredevil: Born Again, a series which establishes categorically Charlie Cox’s eponymous hero as an MCU character, after the (again) haziness of his decade-old Netflix shows. And, here, we’re still left to wonder what’s canon and what’s not; Daredevil, Kingpin, and the Punisher are all confirmed, but at least one Netflix-era actor has been recast, and there’s been no word on whether Daredevil’s biggest supporting characters, Karen Page and Foggy Nelson, will be headed to Disney+, or whether those roles will be recast if so. And – and! – that’s not even factoring in the other headlining Netflix heroes, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and probably somebody else.

So! In the interests of all of that – and surprising myself with the revelation that I've not already done this list – here I present ten characters from Marvel properties of yore that I would like to see categorically pop up in current MCU continuity. Now, some of my usual stupid rules. For a start, I'm not saying “main characters, main timeline” here; no, I don’t actually mind if some of them are variants who we just see in, like, Secret Wars or whatever. And I've tried to avoid just mining the Netflix shows and Agents of SHIELD. And most importantly, I'm not here to fan-cast or bring back X-Men characters. True, Logan would have popped up here, had he not already been confirmed for Deadpool 3; but I think we know that both the X-Men and the Fantastic Four are coming very soon, so as fun as it might be for James Marsden’s Cyclops or (ha!) Chris Evans’ Human Torch to emerge from a portal in 2026, I would rather they spent that time establishing the new, definitive, canonical versions of those characters. Similarly, I'm trying to avoid “joke” characters. Like, do we really want David Hasselhoff’s Nick Fury in a main MCU movie? I get it’d be funny in Deadpool 3, if he’s bouncing round the multiverse, to encounter the Hoff in an eye patch, maybe with Dolph Lundgren’s Punisher to boot. But for the most part here I'm trying to imagine characters being properly integrated into a film or a series, even if it’s just for a one-off, like No Way Home. There, the multiversal characters from Marvel’s past were used excellently, bringing a good deal of nostalgia, excitement, and resonance for those who remembered them from Before; but also serving the plot of that film and servicing the current incarnation of Peter Parker. They didn’t feel like fan service, or if they were, it was very well done. I think the risk of bringing back beloved versions of characters from prior films is that it wouldn’t serve them very well – an argument I think you could make about Professor X in Multiverse of Madness, even if I personally enjoyed that cameo (as much as I really love Patrick Stewart, though, part of me feels it should have been James McAvoy for some reason).

Anyway; enough of all that nonsense. As you can see, I am once again thinking about this too much. So let’s get on with it: ten characters from not-the-MCU Marvel who I'd like to see incorporated into actually-properly-the-MCU Marvel.

Quake (Chloe Bennet, Agents of SHIELD, 2013): Agents of SHIELD steps on the toes of MCU continuity too many times to be considered wholly canon, but I don’t see a reason why there couldn’t have been a similar SHIELD team in “our” universe. At the very least, Bennet deserves a chance to mix it up with the Avengers. Her character arc is the backbone of the series as she grows into a leader and a hero, and frankly she’s just pretty cool. The idea of SHIELD secretly having another, covert team of powered heroes is a pretty good one, and I think you could just plonk her into the MCU without much in the way of exposition. Alternatively she could be a “normal” agent who eventually discovers she’s got some kind of “mutation”. Diddle-iddle-ee-dee-dee…

Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter, Jessica Jones, 2015): I nearly didn’t include her because I think it’s inevitable she’ll show up. Alongside Daredevil, Ritter’s Jones was one of the absolute highlights of the Netflix run. She makes perfect sense as a street-level hero alongside the likes of DD, and would work well bouncing off, say, Hawkeye (especially Kate Bishop). Ritter’s morose performance – Wednesday Addams meets the Hulk – is probably my favourite of all the Netflix-era characters, and it’d be great to see her back.

Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen, Agents of SHIELD, 2013): again we have a character who doesn’t need complicated introductions; May could just be introduced as a long-standing SHIELD agent (or, I guess, maybe working for SWORD now?). And mainly the reason for reintroducing her is because, frankly, Ming-Na Wen is absolutely kick-ass and needs to be in stuff more often. She’s already the only person who’s got the Disney Holy Trinity (Princess, Superhero, Star War) and placing her in the for-realsies MCU would absolutely cement that.

Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst, Spider-Man, 2002): this one I guess would have to be a bit different because a) we already have “an” MJ, and b) you’d need her alongside Tobey Maguire’s Peter, who we already know exists in a different universe. But I want to see that universe! I want to see Peter and MJ, now in their mid-forties, married with a kid who – get this – has spider-powers. This is literally the plot of a comic! More than one comic! Honestly, a Disney+ series or even just a movie about “Spider-Girl” with Peter and MJ as her parents. Honestly, just do a loose adaptation of Renew Your Vows. But seeing Dunst back in such an iconic role would be tremendous.

Karen Page and Foggy Nelson (Deborah Ann Woll and Elden Henson, Daredevil, 2014): for some reason these two core characters have yet to be confirmed as being in Daredevil: Born Again. I think this is a shame, and I hope it’s just part of some kind of plot or whatever, and not that they’ve been written out of the new continuity or recast. Woll’s Karen was really the big love of Daredevil, much healthier for him than Elektra; and Henson’s Foggy was his conscience. I’d rather we had a simpler, pared-down take on the story, with Matt and Foggy as lawyers and Karen managing their office – like at the start of the old Daredevil show. Plus now they’re part of the wider MCU we could get a great scene with Foggy and Happy Hogan – two actors who’ve played Foggy Nelson, in the same scene! Hilarity ensues.

Laura Kinney (Dafne Keen, Logan, 2017): See, it’s not all Netflix and SHIELD. We already know that Wolverine himself is coming back, but timelines being what they are I think we can safely assume that his daughter Laura – aka X-23 – who first appeared in Logan will not be returning. Unless! She does! What if, right, our mainline MCU Logan – who we’ve never seen – has already fathered a child a while ago, and when she appears, that’s our Wolverine? After all, Laura has adopted the mantle in the comics. And having a female Wolverine would avoid the poisoned chalice of any actor who’d have to follow in Hugh Jackman’s shoes by reinterpreting the character. And, most importantly, she flippin’ rocked in the role at a very young age. Now with a few years and His Dark Materials behind her, I think she really could be one of the anchors of a new age of the MCU.

Luke Cage (Michael Colter, Jessica Jones, 2015): and now we go screeching back to Netflix. What can I say? The vast majority of the characters they introduced over there were great. They really did nail the casting, and Colter’s Cage is a part of that. The chemistry between him and Ritter was fantastic, but also he was just such a cool, stoic presence next to the angsty Daredevil and the grumpy Jessica. And there’s not much more to say than that, in my opinion; like Jessica Jones, I think he’ll appear before too long, but what with starring in his own action movie franchise it’s possible he’ll be less able to return in the near future. Still optimistic though!

Ghost Rider (Gabriel Luna, Agents of SHIELD, 2016): yeah, okay, Agents of SHIELD again, but this one is a bit different. It’s not one of the main characters and it’s someone who absolutely could handle a spin-off. In fact, you could just ignore everything in SHIELD and re-introduce the character entirely. Luna’s take on the character was cool but troubled, his performance more nuanced and internalised than the raging demon of hellfire played in the movies by Nicolas Cage (hellfire has its time and place, of course). Plus if Luna is Ghost Rider in the MCU, then that frees up Cage to be someone else! Someone totally bananas! Mephisto, anyone?!

Colleen Wing (Jessica Henwick, Iron Fist, 2017): there’s one big Defenders character who I’ve not listed here, and no surprises. I feel a bit mean, but out of the four stars it is Iron Fist who feels most replaceable, the one that’s less attached to a given actor. I don’t blame Finn Jones too much; I do think he was miscast for a couple of reasons, but also he suffered in a slow and slightly boring story that was too reminiscent of then-recent seasons of Arrow (it didn’t help that he looked and sounded a bit like Arrow star Stephen Amell). However, the breakout star of that show was Henwick as Danny Rand’s girlfriend Colleen. She believably kicked ass in the fighting scenes and was also both tough and tender as required. I’ve no idea if it has any basis in comics history, but maybe if they wanted to bring back Iron Fist as a character but not Jones himself, perhaps Henwick could step into those shoes?

Blade (Wesley Snipes, Blade, 1998): yes, it’s true, Blade – the character – has been recast and is going to appear in the MCU looking and sounding like Mahershala Ali. This makes sense, because Snipes is sixty years old and has a bit of baggage, so snagging a younger Daywalker is probably a good move. However, Snipes was also fundamentally attached to the role, a role that is – arguably – a major catalyst for the MCU in general, predating both the X-Men and Spider-Man franchises that established Marvel’s cinematic bona fides. So I think it'd be brilliant if they found a way to honour Snipes’ legacy in the role, either in some kind of Secret Wars cameo or perhaps a miniseries set in a different corner of the multiverse. I still think it’s a shame that they didn’t do something along the lines of bringing Snipes back as Blade but having his daughter be the star of the show, but never mind I guess.

So there we are! A bunch of Marvel characters. I didn’t add one of my big hopes – that Emma Stone plays a live-action Spider-Gwen – because I’m not sure if that’s the same character or not really, and because I’m not sure where she fits beyond a cameo in Secret Wars, which is something I was trying to avoid. Yes, there’s a big SHIELD/Netflix focus, because really if you’re bringing in all-new X-Men and Fantastic Four casts, there are only so many other avenues for long-term roles in the MCU. But never mind! I liked those shows so it’d be nice to see them come back. To some degree.

Sadly no room for FitzSimmons either.

[lollytea]

i just read your latest fic and it had me so emotional, like it felt very true to them, in darius’s inner thoughts about how hunter ‘snuck into’ his heart, to his dorky ‘HAH’ at hunter, to hunter’s ears basically burning off. then the hug at the end was so funny but also so sweet! do you have any darius and hunter headcanons that weren’t mentioned? no pressure to answer, mainly came here to say i loved ur writing! hope u have a nice day

(This ask is several weeks old. Sorry I forgot about it for so long but I finally feel like talking about Darius again.)

To be honest while I do enjoy this idea of Darius and Hunter forming their own little family, I was definitely drawing a few blanks on how it would realistically get to that point, given what we know from canon interactions. But when sitting down to write the fic, I tried figuring that out. I don't really have any cutesy domestic family hcs about them but I can ramble a little about my hcs about how their dynamic formed? From like. Pre-ASIAS to post King's Tide. Idk if that's what you're asking for but I'll go for that.

-- I see Darius as somebody who is very flawed but ultimately good. He's not very nice but he’s a hero. He risked his life for his cause because he wanted to save the lives of everyone on the Boiling Isles. He cares about people as a whole but he doesn’t really like most of them individually. He believes children should mix with other children and have healthy friendships with each other but he also can’t stand children anywhere near him. 

He’s very much “Yeah I believe in the inherent goodness of witch-kind. I just think witch-kind is very annoying and everyone should stay the fuck away from me.” 

Like he's so self-involved and wrapped up with his own agendas that he really doesn't spare the lives and feelings and motivations of other people a second thought. Unless it's somebody he actually cares about (like Eberwolf.) they just don't matter to him personally. 

-- This was originally his view on Hunter. Darius never really thought about this kid unless he was standing directly in front of him and even then, his only feeling about him was annoyance. Due to that self-involved nature, it never occurred to Darius to maybe analyse for a minute why Hunter might be the way he is. He just believed him to be an uptight, arrogant spoiled brat. 

Based on Lilith’s opinion of Hunter, I personally believe that Belos’s abuse over him was a secret and nobody in the coven had any idea what was going on behind closed doors.(Except for Kikimora cuz shes nosy.)  They all just assumed he was a pampered little prince who got special treatment just for being a prodigy and having a familial connection to Belos, Darius included. 

Plus he was very obviously a snitch and they couldn’t risk having him around. Darius found that when he ignored Hunter, he usually got all pissy and stormed off so this was his go-to method of keeping Hunter’s nose out of their rebellion business. 

There’s also, of course, Darius’s extremely complicated and somewhat stifled feelings of having a kid with his mentor’s eyes running around. I figure Darius largely repressed how deeply this hurt to look at him when Hunter was very young and manages not to think about it most of the time. But it still hits him sometimes when he least expects it.

Like Hunter is his mentor’s replacement. Just looking at him was a reminder that the man Darius knew was dead. In the past Hunter’s existence filled Darius with sadness and anger. This probably had an effect on how icy Darius became when Hunter was around, though it had mostly numbed into indifference by the time he was a teenager. 

-- Hunter’s original feelings towards Darius are interesting. I think he secretly looked up to him even before the events of ASIAS. But of course Darius is nothing but distant and dismissive which infuriates him. (I still think about his palismen recording where he’s like “Darius just IGNORED me. ALSO as per usual.” He sounds so petty. So full of contempt. Its hilarious. It sounds like Darius is in the room across the hall and Hunter is speaking loud enough to make sure he hears.) This causes Hunter to act out to a pathetic extent. Whenever they interact he plucks up all of his Golden Guard-ness to make himself seem more impressive so Darius will stop looking at him like that.

In their first scene together in ASIAS, Hunter is struggling to grip on to his authority over Darius but he just comes across as a petulant child. But the moment Darius starts making those disapproving comments, Hunter folds completely. One conversation with Darius and he’s become a desperate puppy who wants to be told he’s doing a good job. I wonder if he would have reacted like this if it were just anybody or if he specifically wants Darius’s approval so badly because he’s someone who’s never given him any. Obviously Hunter’s self-worth in general is mostly at play, but I think the person who makes him feel shitty being Darius definitely has some influence over it. 

Like Hunter is Darius’s superior and we know that in any other circumstance he would probably be offended that someone who ranks below him has the audacity to order him around. But Hunter spends the whole episode carrying out Darius’s “orders” like a good little child soldier and excitedly blowing up his phone like “I did good! I did so good!! When you see how good I did you’re gonna be like “Hunter you did good!” You’ll see!!”  

(Also “How did you get this number?!”

*shifty eyes* “doesn’t matter.”

HUNTER???) 

So its like. The two of them start off with a very clashing dynamic that is kinda unhealthy for the both of them. But there is hope. There is always hope. 

-- Their final scene in ASIAS is a turning point for this relationship because it’s when they really begin to see each other in an entirely new light. It turns their former dynamic on its head. Hunter wanted Darius’s approval because he was a well respected and intelligent Coven Head, someone who was deeply involved in “Belos’s World”, something that Hunter was so passionate about being a part of. 

But in that moment where Darius expressed how proud he was of Hunter rebelling and making connections outside of the castle and assuring him that he won’t tell Belos about this incident or about Flapjack, this perception Hunter has of him changes.

With this, he has dipped into Hunter’s world, his private messy conflicted little world and he doesn’t judge him for it. Basically Darius encourages Hunter’s identity outside of being the Golden Guard and Belos’s loyal nephew. 

And Hunter doesn’t really know how to wrap his head around this at first. Like he doesn’t smile in the scene. He’s confused. Completely fucking bewildered. He does not have a single clue what is happening or why Darius is suddenly being nice to him for no reason. Like for the whole episode he wanted to hear Darius say he was impressed but now that it’s happened he’s like “huh???” 

But Darius showed Hunter kindness and if there’s one thing Hunter is always grateful for, it’s kindness. So his respect towards Darius doesn’t disappear but it definitely shifts into another direction because it now comes from a different place entirely. He now has a little affection for him too, which did not exist before. So it’s like. Originally antagonistic co-workers but now maybe friends?? Maybe?? Acquaintances at the least. And that’s a start. 

Darius keeps his word and never breathes a word of this to Belos which makes Hunter feel like maybe he can actually trust somebody in this castle. Like maybe he can like. Tell Darius things? And he won’t have to worry about it getting around. There’s definitely a tentative trust building. 

-- On Darius’s end, the ASIAS scene was the first time his brain really saw the whole picture. It made him stop and re-evaluate the boy he had previously written off. It humanized Hunter in Darius’s eyes. Enough so that once the night is over, he might even feel a little guilty that it had taken him so long to realize that he really was just a lonely kid this whole time. But at that moment, he’s so pleasantly surprised and amused that he’s just overtaken by a bout of genuine warmth. His brain is just going “Good kid!! You’re a good kid!!” 

I feel like Darius’s comment about sewing lessons was supposed to imply that the two of them do end up spending some time together after that episode. Which presents this set up. Darius has known Hunter for years but it has always been as the Golden Guard. But what kind of person is he when he’s off duty and he’s just a kid clumsily learning to cross-stich? Well Darius gradually finds out and it’s like meeting someone new. He becomes quite attached, in spite of himself. 

As mentioned above, Darius being his secret-keeper coaxes Hunter into being a little more open during their conversations, which further strengthens then budding bond. And it’s like. He doesn’t say it outright. It’s all about the implications. But Darius soon comes to realize that Hunter’s relationship with Belos is not what everyone thought it was. 

-- Darius does not fully realize just how attached he is getting to Hunter. He sorta figures he just finds him somewhat endearing. Like a friendly neighbour giving a kid life advice but still keeping him at arm’s length. Like he’s bored. Might as well teach some dorky kid to sew idk. 

I love his extreme reaction to Hunter being mentioned during Hollow Mind. The instinctive movement, followed by the sheepish body language. I like to interpret it as Darius being like “Okay yeah sorry I don’t really know what that was either.” It’s him realizing for the first time that the love he has for Hunter has snuck up on him.

But as the night goes on, he comes to fully accept that he really really cannot deal with the thought of that kid getting hurt. Which is kinda huge for Darius “Some of you may die. But that is a sacrifice I am willing to make.” Deamonne. Really the only person alive whose wellbeing worries him to that extent is Eberwolf. 

-- However everything Darius has been working towards is finally building up to a climax so he doesn't have time to focus on his conflicted sense of attachment towards the boy. He doesn't see himself as a very paternal person so its a little too much to unpack right now.

All he knows is that his goal has extended to something more specific. He's always understood the reality that some people might die in the process of saving the Boiling Isles and he has accepted it. But now he's decided that it cannot be Hunter. This Golden Guard needs to survive. If he doesn't, Darius doesn't know if he'll sleep right ever again.

-- Once they come into contact again after the events of Labyrinth Runners, Darius tries to keeps a distance between himself and Hunter, both physically and emotionally. He doesn't freeze him out entirely like the way he acted pre-ASIAS and he keeps up their amicable relationship but he doesn't meet with him in person, only speaking with him sparsely over crystal ball. This is partly because of paranoia over spies possibly picking up on the rebellion leader's fondness for the former golden guard, and partly because he doesn’t want to encourage Hunter into getting involved in all of this and Darius fears that showing too much approval or affection would only egg him on.

However, during their first conversation, it is obvious that Hunter fully intends to be involved. This is obvious from the way he carries himself in Darius's presence, the brusque and businesslike way he speaks, as though this is a government strategy meeting, oblivious to the fact that Darius only called to make sure he was safe. He's also filthy and exhausted looking and as he's rambling away about the EC invasion of Hexside, so obviously having practised it in the mirror beforehand, Darius feels his throat tighten.

This is so obviously a kid, his immaturity is transparent and even after everything he's been through, Hunter still feels an obligation to play the role of a self sacrificial hero. This is the moment when Darius's vow of downplaying his fondness crumbles and he can only sigh, overwhelmed with relief that this child is still alive in spite of everything. Darius tells Hunter that he's proud of him. He didn't plan on it but he just had to.

Darius had to reign himself in after that, swearing not to be so often until the Day of Unity was over. He was rather aloof with Hunter from that point on. Hunter notices the shift in his Darius’s behavior and assumes it's just because their situation is grave. He mirrors it when they converse, just to further prove that he is taking this seriously.

-- Hunter is terrified at the very idea of being involved in this final stand against Belos. It keeps him up at night just thinking about it. However, not being involved simply isn't an option. There's too many lives at stakes and he has never done nothing in his life. Plus at the front of all this is Darius leading the rebellion and Hunter wants to be as brave as Darius. He feels like he would be a disappointment if he doesn't make himself useful.

He's been compensating during their talks by summoning as much as the Golden Guard as he possibly can because all of his confidence has kinda deteriorated since Hollow Mind, which he is desperately trying to hide from Darius. Their relationship just reached a point of mutual respect and he's terrified of losing that.

Despite how much they have come to care about each other, they still don't fully understand each other, due to their own flaws as people and the limited time they've spent together. Hunter is still under the belief that he has to earn this relationship through heroics, despite the fact that he really doesn't want to.

Meanwhile, Darius doesn't understand that maybe he should talk to Hunter a little more, express how much he cares about him, stabilize their relationship in Hunter's eyes. Maybe then they could have come to an honest understanding and Darius could have found a job for Hunter that would have helped the rebellion but wouldn't have put him directly in the crossfire. However Darius has never been good at expressing deeper emotions, so he just doesn't. So they get absolutely nowhere.

-- Darius assigning Hunter as Luz's escort was absolutely a sneaky way of giving him something to do that would keep him out of harm's way, similar to how Eda sent Luz off on the "mission" in the first place.

Darius kept his connection to Hunter to himself. It wasn't something he talked about. But Raine could obviously tell. And of course Raine tells their girlfriend everything. And like. Who would understand what Darius is going through better than Eda? She also took in some dumb kids just for shits and giggles only to become unwillingly attached to them. And though Darius remained tight lipped on his own dilema, he did listen as Eda plonked down beside him, offering him a swig of her apple blood ("Ew. No. Your spit is on that.") and expressed how frustrated she gets with those kids sometimes. Too young and too stubborn and unwilling to back down, even when Eda is begging them to let her keep them safe. But they'd never trust her again if she forced them out of it, so now she just feels completely helpless.

And though Darius never mentioned Hunter, Eda knew that he felt similarly. The Amity mission was the brainchild between the two of them, a way of getting both their children out of the way, without them feeling like they were being pushed out of the way.

-- Once the dust lifts, the draining spell stops and the Boiling Isles is turned upside-down, the BATTS are forced to regroup and adjust to their current dilema. But, as Darius and Eda eventually discover, Hunter, Luz and King are nowhere to be found.

-- There are also 4 distressed and furious fathers who want answers on the whereabouts of their children. With everyone in such hysterics, Darius is obligated to be the level-headed one, despite his own nerves. He assures the parents that wherever their children are, he believes that they are definitely with an amazing boy who will do everything in his power to keep himself. This Darius promises, because he cannot fathom a reality where Hunter is torn away from the other kids. He has to be with them.

Darius later sits down next to Eda, finally opts to take a swig of her flask (Truly a sign that the end is nigh.) And says "You know I meant that. They won't be hurt while he's with them. Luz included."

Eda erupts with a dismissive snorty laugh. "Luz doesn't need that nerd taking care of her. Betcha twenty snails that when they pop up again, we find out that she was the one saving his butt."

Darius scoffs. "Twenty snails? Really, Eda? I know you can make it more interesting than that. Fifty."

It might be an odd way of coping but Darius and Eda making wagers over which of their kids is tougher really reinforces the wishful thinking that their kids are out there somewhere and they're alive. Because Darius and Eda don't know what they would do if they let themselves believe otherwise.

-- So like. At this point Darius and Hunter care very deeply for each other but they haven't had the chance to come to a mutual understanding, which has led to miscommunication and uncertainty and a reluctance to admit just how much they do care. The groundwork is in place but they still have so much building to do. I figure that it'll be after season 3 before their relationship can really grow. But I kinda LOVE how complicated it has the potential to be.

[bluejayblueskies]

in the reciprocal

Words: 8.3k

Relationships: Jon & Martin (QPR)

Tags: Season 1, Scottish Safehouse, Light Angst, Queerplatonic Relationships, Gray-Aro Martin, Kiss-Averse Jon, Kiss-Averse Martin

Warnings: internalized arophobia, mild external arophobia, mild internalized homophobia, canon-typical Lonely depression and dissociation, teasing someone about a crush (in a friendly manner), mention of canon character death, Martin briefly pretending like he still has romantic feelings for Jon and participating in a romantic relationship that makes him uncomfortable (this is addressed and resolved)

Ao3 link in source

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Martin’s relationship with romance has always been … complicated.

He has distinct memories of his early teenage years, when the major topic of conversation had shifted abruptly to who had a crush on who and who had kissed who after school and who had asked who on a date. Martin had never really participated in those conversations, though that could be owed more to the fact that he didn’t have many friends than that he wasn’t interested.

Because Martin was interested. The idea of romance had always intrigued him—a fairy-tale thing where there was somebody who would choose you and love you and never let you be alone ever again—and he wanted, more badly than he knew what to do with sometimes, to be in love.

The world, as Martin quickly learned, was not a fairy tale. No matter how much Martin tried to pretend otherwise. In fairy tales, when people got sick, they eventually got better. In fairy tales, parents always loved their children and showered them with affection. (Or were villainous and cruel, locking their children away in towers and treating them like objects to be discarded. Though Martin was never fond of those stories.) And in fairy tales, love was always easy. It wasn’t something that had to be learned or forced. It was instead like breathing—nearly effortless unless you thought about it too much—and, like breathing, it was something that everyone did.

So Martin couldn’t understand why he was so bad at it.

Just before he’d dropped out of school to work full time after his mother couldn’t anymore, he’d been asked on the first and only date of his entire life. Nino had been his friend for nearly a year and a half, and Martin loved spending time with him more than he loved most things in his life back then. School was growing more difficult as Martin had to take on a second part-time job, his mother was growing sicker and shorter with her temper, and he was quickly coming to the realization that he was … different.

After all, he’d never once felt the same kind of affection toward the girls whose names he attempted to doodle in the corners of his notebooks as he felt toward Nino.

Coming to terms with the fact that his first real crush was on his very lovely, very male best friend was … hard. But one day, Nino had bumped his shoulder against Martin’s as they sat in the library and had said something funny that Martin has long since forgotten, and he’d found himself smiling widely. His heart was a stuttering mess in his chest, his stomach twisted up into knots, and … things hadn’t been so bad, then.

Loving Nino had felt safe. Looking back, Martin is sure that Nino had been able to read all of Martin’s stutters and flushed cheeks and clumsy attempts at affection for what they were, but at the time, it had felt like a private indulgence. Just another way for Martin to spend time with the boy who was gradually becoming the most important person in his life. (Behind his mother, that is. She would always come first.)

What was funny about the whole situation, in a way that was actually not very funny at all, was that Martin was even considering asking Nino out. He liked to fantasize about what it would be like—creating clumsy scenarios in his mind where he would slip a note into Nino’s backpack before they parted ways or blurt it out on their way to the tube or whisper it quietly under his breath in the library so that nobody else could hear it but them. He imagined what it would be like if Nino said yes, his face lighting up with a smile and his hand reaching for Martin’s.

He tried to imagine what would happen after that—the date, the kissing (which he could never quite picture without grimacing and pushing the image quickly away), the hand-holding, the…

Well. He actually wasn’t quite sure what was meant to come after.

(Like breathing. It was supposed to be like breathing.)

It was funny, except it wasn’t. Because when Nino pulled Martin aside on their way home one day, face flushed slightly darker than normal, and hesitantly asked if Martin would like to go to a movie with him in a way that was very clearly meant to be a date, Martin expected to feel happy. He expected to feel relieved, that he hadn’t had to muster up the courage to ask Nino himself, or nervous, that he was finally going to be pursuing a romantic relationship with the boy he cared so much about.

Instead, he felt … stiff. Uncomfortable, like his skin was suddenly just a bit too tight. He felt the sudden urge to hide, or maybe to run, or to vanish into thin air so he didn’t have to be standing here anymore, now desperately trying to avoid the eyes of the boy who had just bared such a vulnerable part of himself to Martin.

Confused, Martin tried to look within himself for that warm, stammering affection that had been there a minute ago and found it transformed into something awkward and tense and devoid of all desire for romance. But that didn’t make any sense, he thought as he stared blankly at Nino, who was becoming increasingly nervous, shifting from foot to foot as his mouth pinched into a thin, anxious line. He remembered liking Nino. He remembered the fantasies, remembered coming up with a thousand scenarios just like this one, remembered stammering and stuttering and wanting so badly to take Nino’s hand in his own.

It was like remembering a story he’d been told. Just a fairy tale.

“You … can just say no,” Nino said finally, and Martin felt a curl of guilt in his stomach at the clear upset in Nino’s eyes. “If you have to think this long, it’s … probably not a yes. Is it.”

Yes, Martin tried to say. It’s a yes—of course it’s a yes, I’m just … surprised. Maybe things would make more sense if they actually went on a date. Maybe Martin would just … sort himself out. He was just surprised, or maybe in shock.

He loved Nino. He did; he knew he did. He just … had to figure out how to bring it back.

He didn’t get the chance. (Though, thinking back on it now, Martin knows that even if he’d tried, it wouldn’t have worked.) Nino pulled back slightly, hands going to the straps of his backpack self-consciously. “Right,” he said, sounding terribly embarrassed, and Martin felt himself mirroring the emotion. “S-sorry, I … I guess I was reading things wrong. I—I thought that you … never mind. It doesn’t matter.” Nino forced a smile then, and it lacked all the bright and shining things that Martin liked about it. “S-suppose I’ll … see you in school tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Martin managed to say. And then Nino was gone, and Martin walked home alone.

He dropped out a few months later. Nino said that he would call, but Martin has always been good at lying and even better at telling when somebody else is doing so. And Nino hadn’t been putting much effort into it.

That was … probably for the best. At least Martin didn’t have to feel that dizzying, sickening sensation of guilt and awkwardness every time he looked at Nino anymore.

So, there it was. The world was nothing like a fairy tale. His mother only ever got sicker, her affection for him only ever grew more a thing of the past, and love was…

Well, love clearly wasn’t for him.

That didn’t stop him from falling hopelessly, irrevocably, head-over-heels in love with Jonathan Sims.

.

.

.

Martin, as a rule, makes a habit of not talking about his love life. For one, because there is a distinct lack of it (a fact that he much prefers but doesn’t generally feel like explaining in detail). And for two, because Martin just knew it would turn into something like this.

Martin places his head in his hands to hide the flaming red of his cheeks. “Can we not talk about it?”

“I think we’re actually obligated to talk about it now,” Tim says with what Martin is absolutely certain is a cheeky grin. “Given that you’ve just admitted that your not-so-mysterious crush is Jonathan Sims.” He drops his voice to an exaggerated conspiratorial murmur. “Is he the one you’ve been writing poetry about then?”

“I don’t have to say anything,” Martin mumbles into the very clammy palms of his hand.

Tim, fortunately, drops the poetry topic. He unfortunately does not drop the crush topic. “I mean, don’t get me wrong,” he continues. “You’ve got good taste. The whole … sweater vest, ‘disgruntled professor’ vibe is attractive, and he’s funny, you know? In his own way.”

Martin lifts his head from his hands and gives Tim an exasperated look that he hopes screams can we please stop talking about this. Tim must misinterpret it as jealousy instead because he holds his hands up in the air placatingly. “Hey, no competition here. We’re just friends, and I’m not really interested in dating anyone at the moment.” A pause. “Though, I suppose if Jon asked, I wouldn’t say—you know what, that’s not helpful.”

“He is pretty hot,” Sasha pipes in from her spot on the break room couch. “I definitely get where you’re coming from.” Then, after Martin turns that same exasperated look onto her: “Just trying to show our support for the cause, Martin.”

“Yeah, well—don’t.” Martin stands, maybe a little bit too abruptly, and crosses the room to where the kettle sits on the counter. He fills it in the sink and then clicks it on, the blue light reflecting off the countertop and faintly illuminating his hands.

“Hey,” Tim says, leaning against the counter next to him and giving him a surprisingly serious look. “I’m sorry. If talking about this makes you uncomfortable, we’ll drop it.” He mimes zipping his lips closed and throwing away the key. “No questions asked.”

“I’m pretty sure talking afterward negates the ‘zipping your lips shut’ thing,” Martin says, which earns him an amused huff of laughter and a gentle elbow in the side. He finds himself smiling, if only briefly before it falls from his lips once again. “And it’s … fine. I’m not upset. It’s just…” He hesitates, considering, and settles on a suitably vague, “It’s complicated.”

Tim makes a noise of understanding. “Say no more, Marto. Consider the subject dropped.”

“Thank you.”

There are a few moments of silence between them, filled only with the gentle hum of the kettle. Martin reaches for the mugs, and as he pulls four from the cabinet, Tim says abruptly, “So wait—is that why you always bring him tea?”

Martin nearly drops the mugs. “Tim.”

“Sorry, sorry.” Tim grimaces at him sheepishly. “I’m dropping it.”

Martin nods and pulls the box of tea from the cupboard. As he gets the mugs ready, however, he can feel Tim’s eyes on him, heavy and curious. Finally, it gets to be too much, and Martin sets the box down with a sigh. “I bring him tea because he never leaves his office and at least this way he’s hydrated. If you absolutely must know.”

“Caffeine is a diuretic, you know,” Sasha says from where she’s still sitting on the couch.

“Yes,” Martin says tersely, grabbing the kettle as it clicks off, “but it’s better than nothing.”

The tea isn’t related to the crush. It really isn’t. But Martin knows that the more he tries to make excuses, the more it’ll seem like he’s deflecting, which will just be counterproductive. So he prepares the tea and passes Tim and Sasha’s mugs to them. Then, fully aware that Tim and Sasha are watching, he grabs Jon’s mug and makes his way to his office.

He doesn’t knock. He found out his first week here that Jon doesn’t like it when people knock and prefers them to verbally announce themselves instead. It wasn’t because Jon had told him; Martin gets the feeling that Jon is too stubborn to admit to that sort of weakness in front of him. It was because of the subtle tension in Jon’s shoulders every time Martin opened the door after rapping three times on the doorframe; the way his voice sounded ever so slightly pinched when he asked what Martin wanted.

So Martin says, just loud enough to penetrate the thick oak door, that he’s coming in, and then, after a moment, he opens it.

Jon is sitting at his desk, mountains of papers and files stacked on either side of him. His laptop is open in front of him, and he’s currently focused intently on something on the screen, the harsh white light of the LCDs reflecting off his glasses. He doesn’t seem to notice when the door opens, but when Martin takes a few steps closer and gently clears his throat, he looks up from the screen, blinking a few times as his eyes adjust to the dimness of his office.

“Ah,” Jon says, his gaze landing on the mug. “Right. You can…” He looks at the disastrously cluttered surface of his desk and, after some consideration, pushes a stack of papers to the side to make a mug-sized gap in the mess. “You can place it there.”

Martin does. He doesn’t mean to linger afterward. Even though things are ... better between them now that Martin is staying in the Archives and Jon seems to have softened slightly toward him, they’re not quite at the ‘hold a casual conversation’ stage of their relationship yet. Still, Martin finds himself standing in front of Jon’s desk long enough for Jon to glance back up from his computer, a small furrow forming between his eyebrows.

“Did you … need something else from me?” he says, sounding more confused than annoyed.

No, Martin means to say. I’ll be going now.

Instead, he says, “How are you doing?”

Jon stares blankly at Martin, like he doesn’t understand the question. Martin briefly curses his complete lack of a verbal filter at the worst times and purses his lips, telling himself that frantically trying to rescind the statement will only make things worse. “I’m … fine,” Jon says with a hint of incredulity in his voice, like he can’t fathom any reason why Martin would want to inquire after his well-being.

Good, Martin opens his mouth to say. Let me know if you need anything else.

Why he says instead, “I just … noticed that you haven’t been going home lately,” he doesn’t know. He hasn’t had a crush in so long—is this what it was like the last time? God, it’s a bit embarrassing, isn’t it?

Jon still looks bewildered, though there is an edge of irritation to his voice when he says, “There is a lot to do here, Martin. I assure you, I can take care of myself.”

“Right, yeah.” Martin fights the urge to rub his hand along the back of his neck, settling for the inside of his wrist instead. “Just … I know I’ve taken your cot recently, and if you’re not going home at night, I—I would hate to feel like I’m making you sleep at your desk.”

“You are not making me do anything. I can make my own choices.” Jon purses his lips for a moment before saying, more gently, “Besides, you … have more need of the cot than me at the moment.”

Martin can’t help the little shudder that goes through him at the reminder of why, exactly, he is in need of the cot. “Yeah,” he concedes. Then, because it’s only been a week or so and he still feels like he hasn’t said it enough: “Thank you again, for … for letting me stay here.”

Jon’s expression softens into something almost sympathetic, just for a moment, before growing closed-off and shuttered once again. Martin’s traitorous heart thuds in his chest at the sight, just like it had when Jon had listened to his story impassively and then matter-of-factly offered him the cot like it was the only logical thing to do.

(He hadn’t understood why he’d reacted like that—pounding heart, sweaty palms, cottony mouth—until that night, staring at the dark, cracked ceiling of the Archives and running Jon’s words over and over again in his mind. But it wasn’t surprising, was it? Of course Martin would find himself attached to his prickly, no-nonsense boss who kind of hated him the first moment he showed him an ounce of kindness.)

“It’s … really no problem at all,” Jon says, sounding a bit stiff in a way that’s hopelessly endearing, like he doesn’t quite know what to do with Martin’s gratitude. Then, even more stiffly: “You’re … doing all right?”

The tentative concern in Jon’s voice is enough to bring a flush to the tips of Martin’s cheeks that he desperately hopes can’t be seen in the low light of Jon’s office. “Y-yeah. As well as I can be, I—I suppose.”

“Well,” Jon says in a businesslike voice, like he’s delivering a report, “if you need any further accommodations, please let me know. Given that this was a workplace incident and you were investigating the Vittery building on my request, the Institute and I are responsible for ensuring that you remain safe while you’re … displaced from your previous home.”

Martin has always been good at reading people. And for all that Jon wears various masks of professionalism and skepticism and authority, he’s still surprisingly easy to read. It’s easy to control an expression, to control a tone of voice, but Jon’s eyes are always so much more emotive than he probably means them to be. Right now, they’re flitting around the room, from Martin to the floor to his desk to the floor again, like they’re afraid to settle on one place for too long.

It’s easy to identify the emotion as guilt. It takes Martin a few more moments to place what, exactly, Jon is guilty for.

“It’s … not your fault, you know,” Martin says slowly. “What happened with Prentiss. You’re not … responsible for it.”

Martin expects Jon to brush him off—to tell him that he’s being ridiculous. He doesn’t expect him to say, with a voice that leaves no room for argument, “I am not responsible for Jane Prentiss’ presence in the Vittery building, yes, nor for the fact that she followed you home. But I would be remiss not to acknowledge that you encountered her while following up on a statement, per my request, and that I … was not as cautious as I should have been with regards to sending you on dangerous assignments.” Jon’s eyes are sheepish now, and a touch concerned. “I will be sure to take the appropriate precautions in the future, as it would be unacceptable for you to be injured or … otherwise hurt whilst performing your duties as an archival assistant.”

It’s not a heartfelt statement by any measure. Really, it’s just common decency, and definitely what should be expected from one’s superior in a line of work that is (apparently) much more dangerous than it appears to be on paper. But Jon’s eyes when they finally turn to Martin are softer than he’s ever seen them, even as his expression remains carefully neutral and professional, and it feels like Jon has just said something profoundly kind.

Martin’s heart has some stuttering, skipping things to say about that particular fact.

“Um,” Martin says eloquently. “Th-thanks.” He considers mentioning again that Jon really isn’t at fault for sending him into a building that, for all Jon knew, contained nothing more than a few very persistent spiders. But he doesn’t. Instead, he holds the little scrap of kindness he’s been given close to his chest, stammers something about getting back to work, and leaves Jon’s office before he says something embarrassing like I like it when you care or you have kind eyes or we could share the cot if you stay too late.

Tim wiggles his eyebrows at Martin as he takes a seat back at his desk, and Sasha gives him a much more subtle knowing look. Martin ignores both of them and busies himself with the statement sitting on the corner of his desk, diving back into the formatting he’s been struggling with all morning.

Jon is his boss. Jon doesn’t even really like him, when he’s not feeling guilty for almost getting Martin killed. It’s never going to work between them.

A bit of the tension bleeds out of Martin’s shoulders. His eyes drift back toward the door to Jon’s office—the golden nameplate outside it, embossed with Jon’s name, the frosted window, the old, warped wood—and he feels something light and comfortable settle in his chest.

Jon is prickly and lovely and blunt and awkwardly conscientious and completely unattainable. Jon is never going to look at Martin with affection in his eyes and ask Martin to run away with him to pursue a romantic, fairy-tale ending, and Martin is never going to feel that intense, awful discomfort that seeps into the gaps where the love once was. He can blush and stammer and imagine holding Jon’s hand and kissing the inside of his wrist and tangling his foot with Jon’s underneath a table, and nothing will change.

It’s never going to happen between them. And it’s better that way.

.

.

.

The car ride to Scotland is quiet. Jon keeps sneaking glances at Martin when he thinks Martin isn’t paying attention, as if Martin will vanish if he doesn’t keep a watchful eye on him. It should be irritating, but … maybe he’s right. Martin doesn’t feel fully here yet. He still feels empty and numb, like all of the emotion and life and things that make him him have been cut away, consumed by the salty fog that had filled his lungs and stung his throat as he inhaled.

Peter Lukas is dead. Martin had felt it happen with a sort of empty detachment—the ripples of fog as Peter disintegrated into nothing but mist and static. Jon hasn’t spoken about it since they left the Lonely, but Martin had seen the tension in his shoulders as they’d returned to their flats to pack and taken the keys to the car from Basira and made their way painstakingly through London traffic.

Martin had wanted to tell Jon that it was all right—that everything was going to be okay. But his throat refused to form the words. It took all of his energy to remain present and solid, and he just … couldn’t. So he remained silent and gripped Jon’s hand as tightly as he was able and focused on not giving in to the Loneliness that still lingered underneath the surface of his skin.

Now, both of Jon’s hands are on the wheel of the car, his fingers and elbows rigid and stiff. Generic pop music spills out of the radio, the signal distorted enough that Martin only catches about half of the song, the rest swallowed by static. Better than him, he thinks absently. Right now, he feels as if he’s only static.

He can’t remember if he was like this before the air opened wide in front of him and he was swallowed whole by the fog, the panopticon gone in an instant and replaced with nothing but endless gray. He was … close, he thinks. Every day, things grew dimmer, his own thoughts and feelings more difficult to get a handle on. It grew harder and harder to remember why he was resisting at all. What his goal was, other than to just … be alone. He thinks he would have forgotten entirely, had Jon not been three floors beneath him, alive and breathing and reminding him that he was doing this—all of this—for a reason.

It had been … lovelier than Martin ever could have imagined, falling in love with Jon. It grew within him like a garden, new flowers cropping up every day. Some were white and delicate, blooming in his lungs when he looked at Jon and felt the all-consuming need to bundle him up in a blanket and make him tea and hide him away from the things in the world that wanted to hurt him. Others were purple and angular, blossoming with every lunch they had together and story Jon told him. And some were red and thorny, roses with waxy petals that made Martin’s cheeks grow hot every time Jon said his name like it was special or treated him kindly or smiled.

So when things grew difficult—when the loneliness crept too close, when he grew too comfortable being invisible, when he had to look Jon in the eye and tell him that he didn’t want to see him—Martin retreated to the quiet garden in his soul. He ran his fingers along the petals and stems and leaves and reminded himself that he needed to do this, or he’d lose Jon again and the garden would shrivel and die.

It had been an easy decision, in the end.

There’s a soft crunching noise, and Martin breaks free from his thoughts to see that they’ve transitioned from the smooth asphalt of the motorway to an unpaved gravel road. It’s bracketed on either side by trees, and though the sun has long since set, Martin can still see the gentle swell of hills around them, outlined softly in the moonlight. He thinks, for a moment, that he sees fog, clustering around the bases of the hills and swirling around in tight eddies, but when he blinks, the image is gone.

“We’re almost there,” Jon says quietly. It’s one of the few things he’s said to Martin the entire trip. Then, after a moment: “It’s … rather nice out here.”

Martin supposes it is. The landscape around them had been a vibrant green before twilight had washed it out into deep blues, and there have been cows dotted around the fields, shaggy and brown and grazing contently. It’s a stark change from the grays and browns of central London, with buildings on all sides and people everywhere and no chance to ever really see the stars. If circumstances were different, Martin thinks he would be cooing over the cows and trying to get Jon to stop so he could take pictures and enjoying his first trip outside of England.

Instead, Martin just nods.

Jon seems to understand. He sneaks another glance at Martin—full of something soft that Martin, in his foggy state, doesn’t quite know how to parse—but remains silent for the rest of the trip. It could easily be a stiff, uncomfortable silence, but … it’s not. It feels companionable.

When did being around Jon become so easy?

Daisy’s cabin is small and squat, nestled between two hills and idyllic in a way that doesn’t match the rough-hewn, steel-eyed woman Martin had known. The inside is dusty and cold, and Jon mutters something about central heating before disappearing down the corridor and leaving Martin standing in the living room, staring at the place he’ll be living in for the foreseeable future.

The place he’ll be living in with Jon for the foreseeable future.

Martin feels something in his chest stir at that—a strange, twisting emotion that’s there and gone before he can put a name to it. He shivers, in a way he doesn’t think is from the cold, and goes to find Jon.

He … doesn’t think he should be alone right now.

They find an old, rusted radiator that miraculously still works, pumping out hot air with a groan of metal. Jon digs a set of musty sheets out of the linen closet and begins dressing the bed. Martin notes the lack of a second bedroom, and he thinks he might object to the implication that they’ll be sharing a bed if he weren’t aware of the fact that he might vanish if left alone for too long. (Or if he were himself enough to feel embarrassed. Or to feel anything.)

He doesn’t think anything shows on his face, but Jon’s always been keen, even more so now that knowledge drips into his mind like water from a leaky faucet. Jon’s hands flutter over the sheets for a moment before he says, “I … hope this is all right?”

Martin tries to find his voice to agree, but the energy required to summon it is too much, so he settles for a shallow nod. He doesn’t think it’s a sufficiently enthusiastic agreement, but Jon doesn’t question it. He worries his bottom lip between his teeth for a moment, then says, “And … you’re all right?”

It’s a bit of a ridiculous question, really. No, Martin isn’t all right. No, there’s nothing Jon can do about it. No, he doesn’t know when things will be better. Or if they’ll ever be better.

Martin just looks at Jon, eyebrows slightly raised. Jon lets out a small, dry laugh. “Right. I … suppose that was a silly question. I—I meant…” Jon hems and haws for a long moment before finally saying, “Do you feel … safe, here? W-with me?”

That question has a much easier answer.

When Martin nods without hesitation, Jon visibly relaxes. “Good,” he says, voice rough around the edges. “That’s … that’s good.”

They stand there for a moment longer, the silence between them thick and heavy but not uncomfortably so. Finally, Jon clears his throat and says, “Well, I—I suppose we should rest then. We can … talk tomorrow?”

Martin nods and tries to smile. He doesn’t quite manage it, but … that’s all right. For now, this is enough.

Jon retreats into the bathroom, and Martin finds himself overcome with exhaustion. He slips into the soft pajama trousers he’d absently stuffed into his duffle bag, climbs under the covers, and is asleep before the sound of running water from the other room abates.

.

.

.

Martin doesn’t remember what happened in the Lonely. Things had been foggy and disjointed, slipping through his grasp when he tried to hold onto them. He barely remembers what came after, when Jon had led him away from the sand and the fog and the waves, his palm a searing heat against Martin’s. His first few days at the safehouse are spent in a similar fog, like each muscle in his body is frozen solid and he’s slowly attempting to warm them with a matchstick flame.

His third day is … better. His fourth, better still. By the end of the first week, Martin feels more himself than he has in months, if still acutely aware of the fog that now lives in his lungs and creeps out of his throat when he thinks too hard about what’s transpired or when Jon is out of sight for too long.

Martin remembers what it’s like to be happy. He feels it when he shuffles sleepily into the kitchen on their eigth morning in the safehouse and sees Jon standing in front of the stove, hair tied up in a neat bun and eggs sizzling in a pan in front of him. He remembers what it’s like to be frightened. He feels it when he wakes at night, shivering and shaking with the lingering memory of dreams of nothing but endless fog and aching loneliness.

And he remembers what it’s like to be in love.

He remembers it just in time to lose it.

The worst thing, Martin thinks, is that he’d almost managed to convince himself that it would be different this time. He knows, logically, that it’s not that simple. He’d done a little bit of research after what happened with Nino, reading through a few web pages on aromanticism before becoming overwhelmed and closing out of every single one of them. He tentatively returned to them a few years later after realizing that this wasn’t something that he was going to grow out of or move on from.

He had difficulties settling on a label, partly because of the sheer number of them and partly because he … didn’t quite know how to categorize his feelings. How could he categorize something that he’d only felt once before? Gray-romantic seemed the safest option, so that was the one he settled on.

(Not that he ever told anyone that he was arospec. It never seemed important, even when Sasha would needle him about his crush and Tim would make too-loud suggestive comments that could surely be heard through the door to Jon’s office.

… Martin misses Tim and Sasha. He thinks, if he’d had the chance—if he’d had more time—they would have been the first people he told.)

Martin knows that his relationship with romantic attraction is complicated. Yet somehow, he’s still found it within himself to hope that this time, things will be different. This time, when he tells Jon that he’s very in love with him and has been for a while, those words will continue to be true even after they’re spoken. (He ignores the fact that the actual thought of saying them aloud makes his stomach twist and his mouth grow chalky.)

But, just like with Nino, Martin doesn’t get the chance to try. Jon beats him to the punch.

“I … I love you,” Jon says quietly. He has Martin’s hand in his, and he’s holding it so gently Martin might cry. There were things Jon said before this moment—a conversation that has led them here—but Martin is having a hard time recalling any of them. All he can think is no, no, not now, not here.

His skin crawls. His hands are clammy, and he’s sure that Jon can feel it. He has the instinctive need to get away, but he’s also frozen in place, the lump in his throat sealing away all of the words that he should be saying.

He should be saying something.

The silence stretches on between them, the vulnerability on Jon’s face slowly morphing into concern. “... Martin?”

He sounds so confused, and Martin … he can’t. He just can’t. He doesn’t think he’ll survive the moment when that confusion turns to hurt.

So Martin swallows sharply and forces his hand to squeeze Jon’s and says, “I love you too.”

And he does, in a way. He wants Jon here, by his side, eating breakfast next to him and rambling to him about whatever latest thing has piqued his interest and listening to Martin describe the cows he’s seen on his walks. The thought of Jon leaving—of losing him, the same way he lost Nino—makes his stomach twist into knots, because Martin loves him.

Just … not in the way that Jon thinks he does. Not anymore.

And Martin can’t help but feel guilty about that fact.

Jon frowns at Martin for a moment more, like he can tell that something’s wrong but he’s not entirely sure what. Martin breathes out slowly and gives Jon as genuine a smile as he can muster, trying to convey that everything is fine. That nothing’s wrong—why would anything be wrong?

It must work, because Jon exhales slowly, his expression softening into one of the gentle smiles that Martin has grown so fond of. He rubs a thumb over the back of Martin’s hand in a motion that should be comforting but only reminds Martin of the fact that Jon is doing it because he loves him.

Martin thinks that Jon is going to kiss him then—isn’t that usually what comes after things like this?—and dread coils in his stomach. But Jon doesn’t. Later, Martin will find out that Jon dislikes kisses just as much as he does (though for different reasons). For now, though, Martin can only feel relief when Jon squeezes his hand once more before letting go and standing. “I’ll go make us some tea,” he says quietly, then retreats to the kitchen.

Thinking back on it, Martin wonders if Jon knew then. That something was wrong. But for now, he just feels relieved that he has the space he needs to breathe.

.

.

.

It’s their second week at the safehouse, just a few days after Jon told Martin that he loves him, that Jon finally sits Martin down after dinner and says softly, “Martin, am I … am I making you uncomfortable?”

“What?” Martin says, like he has no idea what Jon’s talking about. (Like a liar.) “No. What … what makes you think that?”

Jon wrings his hands together. He’s wearing one of Martin’s sweaters, and Martin doesn’t know how he feels about it. The clothes sharing is fine. The fact that Jon is clearly perceiving the clothes sharing as a romantic gesture is … less than fine.

Martin told himself that it would be okay if Jon perceived their relationship as a romantic one and Martin didn’t. He was good at pretending. And besides, how different could things be?

Very different, as it turned out. In all the ways that mattered.

Jon seemed to take any opportunity he could to touch Martin—a hand brushing against the small of his back when he passed behind him to grab a mug, an ankle nudging against his underneath the table as they ate, a head resting on his shoulder as they sat side-by-side and read. Martin had never been particularly touch-averse or touch-starved; touch was just … touch. He’d liked it when Tim had tousled his hair or when Sasha had thrown her legs across his on the breakroom couch, but he didn’t feel like he was missing out on anything on the days he went without any human contact at all.

Now, it’s all Martin can do not to flinch away from Jon’s touches, knowing that each one is delivered with love and affection that Martin can’t return. Though perhaps he hasn’t been doing as good of a job as he’d thought, judging by the concerned look Jon is giving him now.

There have been other things too—whispered I love yous in the early mornings and soft smiles that seem somehow more and little gestures that are so Jon but also so romantic—and Martin wants so badly to disappear back into the fog in those moments. But that … that wouldn’t be fair to Jon. It’s not his fault that Martin is like this, after all.

(It’s not Martin’s fault either. He knows this, logically. He’d spent a long time hating himself for what happened with Nino, for how he couldn’t just be normal and go on dates and enjoy something that the rest of society seemed to prize above all else. It had taken him years to finally come to terms with the fact that he wasn’t broken, and he couldn’t be changed. That this was just … who he was.

It doesn’t mean that sometimes, he doesn’t wish that he could be someone else. And he’s never wanted it more acutely than when he stares at Jon’s kind brown eyes and soft smile.)

So Martin lied and lied and lied. And he thought he’d been doing so successfully. But here Jon is, frowning at him, a careful distance between them, and Martin feels his chest begin to tighten.

“I just…” Jon begins, then stops. He looks down at the couch, studying the ugly floral pattern with apparent rapt fascination. Martin doesn’t know what to say, so he waits anxiously until Jon finally continues, “It doesn’t feel like you’re … happy. I know that things have been hard, a-and … it’s all right if you still need time after the Lonely, but it…” Jon swallows. “It feels like some of it may be because of me? W-when I touch you, sometimes you get … tense. And sometimes…”

“Jon?” Martin prompts after a moment, the word strangled by the growing lump in his throat.

“Sometimes,” Jon says quietly, “when you tell me that you love me, it … it feels like you’re lying.”

And the way Jon says it—tentative, with wide, hesitant eyes, like he’s the one that’s the problem—makes Martin’s desire to keep up the ruse crumble away in an instant.

It still isn’t easy to come clean. But he forces himself to do it anyway.

“It’s complicated,” he begins, then winces. Not a good start. Sure enough, Jon’s shoulders grow tense, and he shifts slightly further away, like he thinks Martin wants more space. Because he thinks he’s done something wrong. “You haven’t done anything wrong,” Martin adds quickly. It’s not you, it’s me, he thinks wryly. “It’s … not your fault.”

Jon opens his mouth—to say what, Martin doesn’t know. He barrels on before Jon gets the chance to speak, his haste making his words harried and blunt.

“I’m aromantic.”

Jon blinks at him, clearly surprised by the abruptness of the statement. After a long, awkward moment, during which it becomes abundantly clear that Jon is waiting for Martin to make the next move, Martin continues, “My relationship with—well, with relationships—i-is complicated. I-it’s, um … it’s hard to explain? A-and I don’t want you to think that I—I don’t care about you. I want to be here, w-with you, just…”

“Not in a romantic capacity?” Jon finishes softly.

Martin exhales heavily, feeling a bit like a hole has been punched in his chest and he’s slowly deflating. “Yeah.”

Jon is looking at him with soft, kind eyes, and Martin doesn’t know what to do with them. So he buries his face in his hands. “I’m sorry,” he says, his voice coming out muffled.

“Hey, hey.” Jon’s hand brushes against Martin’s shoulder before pulling away quickly, and that just makes Martin feel worse. “You haven’t done anything wrong either.”

“Yes, I have,” Martin says into his palms. “I lied. I let you think that I—I was still in love with you, and … Christ, that was shitty of me.”

“I … do wish you had told me sooner,” Jon concedes. “But … only because I care about you, Martin, a-and I don’t want you to be uncomfortable around me.” He hesitates. “You … do know that I’m not mad at you, right? Th-that I wouldn’t have been mad, o-or upset, or hurt, if you told me that you didn’t feel the same way about me?”

Martin takes a deep breath, then another. “But I did,” he says raggedly. “For … for so long, I did. Ever since Jane Prentiss locked me in my flat for two weeks and you believed me when I told you about it a-and let me stay in the Archives. A-and I didn’t lie, in the Lonely. I did love you, a-all the way up until…”

Martin trails off. Jon lets the silence linger for a moment before saying gently, “If you don’t want to explain it to me, o-or if it’s hard, you don’t have to. But … if you can, I’d like to understand. For myself, a-and for you.” He wraps his hands tightly around his knees where they’re tucked against his chest. “This is important, and … I want to get this right.”

Martin exhales. He picks at a loose thread on the couch between them, focusing on it so he doesn’t have to meet Jon’s eyes and can pretend like he isn’t so extremely exposed and vulnerable right now. “I … I do want to explain. O-or I want to try. It’s … hard, though. Mostly b-because I’ve never had to explain it to anybody else? But also because … I don’t really understand why I’m like this.”

Jon opens his mouth, and Martin holds up a hand. “I know, I know—you don’t … have to comment on that.”

Jon closes his mouth and tentatively shifts so his knee is pressing against Martin’s. Martin waits for the tingling of his skin, the pins-and-needles discomfort, but it never comes. Maybe it’s because he knows that this is an act of comfort rather than one of affection. It’s … really nice.

He presses back with a sigh, feeling a bit of the tension and nerves drain out of him. “I—I get that love is difficult for me,” he says quietly. “I’ve just … always had trouble with the fact that what makes it difficult is that I’m someone who apparently never actually wants their love … requited. And if it is, I just … can’t anymore. It all goes away, a-and I just … fall out of love?”

Martin can feel Jon’s eyes on him, inquisitive and searching, but Jon doesn’t say anything. There’s a moment of silence between them, during which Martin tries and fails to collect his mess of feelings and thoughts and emotions into something that he can verbalize. Finally, Martin sighs and says, “It’s ironic, isn’t it. I’ve loved you for so long, a-and I still do, but … not in the way you love me. Not anymore. And now you’re the one who—who loves someone w-who doesn’t … who can’t…”

“Oh, no, Martin.” Jon’s hand is covering his then, and it’s warm and gentle and lovely, and Martin could cry. “I’m not…” He hesitates, squeezing Martin’s hand once. “Well. I am still in love with you. In the … romantic sense. I—I don’t want to lie to you about that. B-but I also love you in … so many other ways. Y-you’re my friend, Martin, a-and you’re someone that I can trust. You … you make me feel safe, e-even when there’s … so much in my life that’s dangerous and unpredictable, and I know that you’ll … always be there for me when I need you to be. I want to be here with you, always. I would … be happy in a romantic relationship with you, yes. But I would also be happy to just be with you. In whichever way you will have me.”

Martin’s throat feels very tight. “Oh,” he says faintly. He feels a pressure at the corner of his eyes and realizes, with a flush of embarrassment, that there are actual tears collecting there. He stares hard at the lamp just behind Jon, trying not to let any of them escape.”You, um … you really … mean that?”

“Of course,” Jon says, like there’s no question to be had about the matter. “You are … such an easy person to love, Martin. In all the ways it’s possible to love someone.”

Martin tries—he really does—to keep the tears back. But it’s just … so much, and Jon is so lovely, and this is more than Martin ever thought he was going to be able to have. So he takes a shaky breath in, and on the exhale, a few tears slip free and trail down his cheek. He brings a hand up and scrubs them away, mutters a sorry underneath his breath, but Jon just squeezes his hand tighter.

“It’s okay,” he says. “It’s okay, I’m … I’m here. I’m not leaving you.” Jon hesitates. “Provided that that’s … all right with you, of course.”

Martin can’t help the shaky laugh that escapes him. “Yes, it’s all right with me. Of course it is.”

Jon smiles, and Martin aches with it. “Good.” He nudges his knee gently against Martin’s. “Because this cottage would get very dull without you in it. Who would I talk to about all of Daisy’s awful romance novels?”

Martin laughs again, and it chases away most of the lingering tension in his body. “Be careful what you wish for. I’m going to start doing dramatic readings next.”

Jon’s eyes sparkle with humor, but his voice is sincere when he says, “I look forward to it.”

True to his word, over the next week, Martin does increasingly dramatic readings of the worn, water-warped romance novels stacked haphazardly on the safehouse shelves. (Skipping the, quote, ‘unnecessarily erotic’ bits to avoid Jon’s pinched look of discomfort and his own beet-red face as he stares down at words that should really not be used in a sexual context ever.) He bakes cookies, laughing when Jon drops the cup of flour he’s holding and ends up covered in it. He spends the first three walks after their conversation wringing his hands together before finally asking, in a series of nervous stutters, if Jon would like to hold hands while they walk.

“But not in a romantic way!” he hastens to clarify. “You just have very nice hands, a-and I’ve always liked the idea of holding someone else’s hand, but—you know, th-the romantic connotations of it aren’t … great, and … you know, now that I think about it, this was a stupid question, you don’t have to—”

And then Jon takes his hand and squeezes it gently, and Martin feels a warmth spread through him that he doesn’t quite know what to do with.

That’s been happening a lot lately. He … doesn’t think he minds at all.

Then, a few weeks after their conversation, Jon turns over in bed to face him and says, without any preamble, “Have you ever heard of a queerplatonic relationship?”

Martin has, but only in passing, so he shakes his head. Jon explains, sounding very much like he’s reciting the wiki page for the concept, which is … more endearing than it has any right to be, probably.

“Does … does that sound like something you might be interested in?” Jon says nervously. “W-with me, of course. If that wasn’t … clear.”

Martin nods before Jon is finished speaking. “Yeah,” he says, maybe a bit too eagerly. Then, quieter: “Yeah. I’d … I’d like that.”

Jon smiles then, bright and wide and lovely, and it occurs to Martin—not for the first time, and probably not for the last—that he can have this. That he can be with Jon—maybe for the rest of his life, though that’s a … big thought that he definitely isn’t ready to look at head-on yet—without the dates and the kissing and all the other romantic gestures that Martin always thought were necessary for something like this. That they can be happy, together.

That Martin can have his fairy tale ending, and it doesn’t have to look like he’s always been told it should.

Martin smiles back at Jon, reaching across the bed to brush his fingers lightly against Jon’s. And for the first time in a long, long while, he finally feels like he’s home.

[swindle-comic]

Hi, I've been reading your comic and I really like it.

My question is: how Ty was created? I don't mean biologically, no, I mean what came to your mind while creating a bear oc. I'm a huge fan of bears myself, so Ty being one got me curious.

If you feel comfortable, could you tell his origins? That's prolly some stuff that are gonna be shown ahead in the comic, but I wanted to ask nevertheless.

The simple answer is it was like 3am and that’s usually when stray ideas spiral out of control.

Okay if I remember right it began almost two years ago when I was very very lost in the ducktales sauce and we were talking about the characters constantly. So we had been on the topic of the triplets and how they’d develop as teens to adults and then the subject drifted into romantic orientation or lack thereof and potential relationships they might have in the future. When it came to Louie we were just like “ye he gay.”

While we were talking about that, I brought up a silly little scenario about Louie having a notable interaction with some boy at school. I guess what the notable interaction entailed would be a spoiler. The angle that hooked us on this relationship dynamic is a spoiler. (Even if plenty of people who went deep diving have found their answers on the matter. I’m still gonna try not to bring it up on the blog.) but you’ll find out soon. So the idea of Ty’s character started with “Somebody who could work off Louie.”

But then I was like “yeah ok sure fine I know I just brought this kid up to be funny but now I’m invested in him. Who is he? Lets flesh out this Boy At School. It’s 3am let’s go apeshit.”

And then I wondered if I could make this kid a canon character. Maybe a lesser used one. And I remembered that some of the talespin characters were intended to appear in season three. Now I hadn’t watched talespin much at the time so I didn’t pay much attention to the announced characters. For some reason I thought they were Baloo and Rebecca? I had just briefly looked at the image of them like once. So then my train of thought was like “okay so if Baloo and Rebecca exist in dt17, so does Kit Cloudkicker.” I knew a little bit about Kit Cloudkicker. And from what I knew, he matched the personality of this Boy At School that we were messing around with. I thought it was a perfect.

I figured out like a few minutes later that the adult bear I thought was Baloo was actually Kit so we had to regroup. But I was already attached to this angle we had so the regroup was basically just

(I just think Artsy with their Kit icon being like “idk him” is funny)

The name “Kit Jr” did not last long because it was stupid as all fuck but by this point it was 4am so be nice to me.

The fact that we made Ty into an OC made things WAY better cuz it opened up for way more creative freedom. He wasn’t confined to the restraints of canon characterization and I could do whatever I wanted with him. This early stage of his characterization was definitely inspired by young Kit from Talespin but he became so much more than that. Artsy had started designing him the day after and then drew up a bunch of him. Which just added fuel to the fire. The next few days I spurted out essays upon essays about Ty. Everything about him. He was a fully realized person within a week. There’s so much life to this kid, I stg. I’m really excited for the comic to explore every facet of him. He has a lot of facets.

But yeah that’s why he’s a bear. He was based off a bear character. If he had just been an OC with no links to any other character, a bear probably wouldn’t have crossed my mind.

I’m guessing by his “origins” you mean where he came from, in universe. Like before he landed with Kit and whatnot. I’m delighted you’re interested but that’s private information for the moment. But we will get to that.

Thank you for your question! This was fun to talk about!

[getofy]

bakugo as your boyfriend would include...

request: what would dating bakugo be like?

gn!reader (but there are slight fem themes if you squint); fluff; headcanons; no spoilers

character: bakugo katsuki

a/n: this goes out to my one & only <333. ilysm deku kinnie pls enjoy! also, @ bakugo simps i hope this feeds u well. he’s sm fun to write for. headcanons + a short playlist are under the cut.

*ty to my bakugo kinnie/simp friend for helping me write this. i appreciate u. A LOT of these ideas r hers!!

-

FALLING IN LOVE WITH HIM SOUNDS LIKE:

01. TEENAGE DIRTBAG by WHEATUS

02. GUTTER GIRL by HFHW

03. BOYFREN by LOVE LEO

04. IN TOO DEEP by SUM 41

05. TOUNGES by THE FRIGHTS

06. R U MINE? by ARCTIC MONKEYS

-

katsuki is a very emotional person. he feels incredibly deep and profound things, but has trouble expressing it in a healthy manner. this being so, him as your s/o would consist of a lot of subtle displays of affection! such as...

-> SHOWING YOU HOW TO DO STUFF:

he’ll teach you small things about his hobbies. will 100% show you how to play the drums, mountain climb, etc.

literally you learn so much with him it’s insane. he claims it’s because he couldn’t stand dating an incapable person, but in reality it’s just because he likes feeling useful/needed HAHA.

-> TOUCHING YOU:

this man is lowkey super clingy...so he will always find a way to be physically close to you.

a BIG fan of putting his arm around your shoulder fs. don’t mention it to him though because he’ll IMMEDIATELY stop doing it.

-> LETTING YOU SIT ON HIS LAP:

if you’re comfortable with it, he’d adore it if you sat on his lap!! like fr if you walked up to him when he was lounging on the couch and did it this is how it would go...

“what’re you doing?”

“sitting down, why?”

he just stares and then grunts before going back to whatever he was doing

don’t let his indifference fool you, he is very pleased.

probably looked up at the ceiling and thought about it for an hour once you left

he thinks about you a lot

-> ALWAYS COOKING FOR YOU:

he pretends like it’s a nuisance, but it genuinely makes his day when you eat the stuff he prepares. literally if you’re hungry just ask him to make you smth and he’ll do it. he actually gets angry if you decide to cook without him.

one time, katsuki seemed really tired because of training and school. so you tried to make something for the both of you guys to enjoy together. it uh...didn’t go well...

“what are you doing?!”

“cutting vegetables...”

“no. you’re doing it all wrong. give me the knife.”

“excuse me??”

“GIVE ME THE KNIFE.”

you ended up giving him the knife

the meal was great!?? but he scolded you for like 30 minutes after PLS.

-> SHOWING YOU OFF:

he’s proud that you’re his s/o, so of course he’s gonna brag about you to EVERYONE.

it’s not overbearing or in an annoying way either. it’s moreso him talking about your accomplishments and stuff like that.

he literally only shows you off for his own benefit. NEEDS everyone to know how cool you and him both are.

it’s an ego thing.

i take back what i said abt it not being annoying. it’s a nuisance to everyone who ain’t you.

-> SITTING NEXT TO YOU:

like i said before, he needs to be close to you at all times. sooo he always sits next to you. no questions asked.

expect to see a pouting, petty katsuki if you decide to sit next to somebody that isn’t him.

“are you seriously mad that i sat next to deku and not you on the bus?!”

“‘COURSE IM MAD.”

“you’re impossible.”

“HUH??????”

-> LETTING YOU WEAR HIS CLOTHES:

PRACTICALLY CHUCKS HIS SHIRTS AND HOODIES AT YOU. LITERALLY JUST- PELTS YOU WITH HIS CLOTHES UNTIL YOU PUT THEM ON.

you took his hoodie without asking ONE TIME and now he’s hooked on seeing you in his clothing.

he’ll always pretend like he’s doing you a favor though.

gotta love how annoying he is! 

-> GIFT GIVING

i wouldn’t go as far to say that gift giving is his love language, but he’ll buy things that you bring up in causal conversation a whole lot.

he just kinda bashfully shoves the gift in your hands and watches as you fawn over it.

“awww! how’d you know??”

“you wouldn’t shut up about it.”

he loves seeing your pleased expression!! +100 boost to katsuki’s confidence.

-> HELPING YOU WITH ACADEMICS:

we ALL know how smart this man is.

he will 100% help you study for school if you’re struggling!

don’t expect him to go easy on you though.

if anything, he’ll probably be harder on you because he really wants to see you succeed.

he basically carries you through math

-> KNOWING MUNDANE FACTS ABOUT YOU:

i can see him knowing EVERYTHING about you. your birthday, your morning routine, your favorite snacks, your favorite songs, etc.

it doesn’t take a lot for him to remember this stuff either???

like, he thinks you’re unforgettable, so he just knows

-> WANTING TO IMPRESS YOU:

he wants you to know how cool he is so bad it’s laughable.

he’ll show off during training exercises FOR SUREEEE

bakusquad teases him abt it when he does lol they ALLL know how whipped he is for you

kirishima: wow, you’re really into it today bakugo!

denki: well (y/n) IS watching

bakugo: SHUT UP.

MISC HEADCANONS!

-> you enable him so much...like way too much. please get on that. someone needs to hold this stupid man accountable. he probably likes it when you scold him despite his protests so don’t be afraid to tell him off baby.

-> your approval makes his heart go $$/!/?!!!error??77776. like, even before you two started dating, he would ALWAYS feel flustered whenever you would compliment his outfits, fighting style, etc. now that you guys are dating, he still feels extremely dazed when you dote on him.

he’ll probably act super cocky about it though

“ ‘course i look good, idiot.” 

he’s trying his best to suppress the stupid smile trying to take over his face. eventually, he lets it out, and tbh everyone in 1A knows that it’s because of smth cheesy you told him.

he is SUCH a softie for you it HURTTSSSS GAHHHH!!

-> katsuki is a very protective boyfriend.

this goes for everything, but especially applies during intense situations.

will literally lay his life down for you without thinking twice about it. don’t fight me on this. it’s canon.

if you’re going on a dangerous mission, you BEST believe this man is tagging along with you.

if for some reason he can’t go, he’ll make it a point to stay up way past his bed time waiting for you to come back.

when katsuki chooses you over sleep just know that you’ve won at life.

he doesn’t see you as inferior in any way. he knows you can handle yourself, but he really wants to keep you safe bc if something bad happened to the love of his life he would be in shambles.

on a lighter note, if mineta bugs you, he’ll absolutely wreck him. will literally punt that grape boy into the next stratosphere.

also!! he’s not the type to care about what you wear. if you’re wearing smth a bit more revealing, the most he’ll say is that you look hot. literally is so unbothered.

he trusts you a lot so it’s like 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

protective ≠ possessive

-> dates w/ him are super all over the place! one weekend, you guys will just chill in his dorm and the next he’ll be laughing maniacally as he chases you down during an intense round of laser tag.

-> he’s big fan of competition, so he’ll turn everything into one.

let him win.

-> his hands are really sensitive because of his quirk, so if you kissed them he’d turn to mush.

im literally begging you to touch this man. help him. he is so touch-starved it’s not funny.

-> he runs hot so cuddles w him are so nice and comforting :(. will pull you in close and tight and NEVER let go.

in short, while dating katsuki definitely comes with it’s quirks, it’s a beautiful relationship. he respects you endlessly and will do anything to ensure your happiness. treat him right and he’ll do the same!!

have fun dating explosion boy!

*do not repost my work without proper credit and my explicit permission

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[actualbird]

In that intro to psych post I feel like Marius and Luke would get in a fistfight with the professor, Cynthia will make the professor cry, and artem will have a mental breakdown- ghost

irt nxx boys in ur intro to philosophy class

hi ghost! hi anon!!!

ghost im assuming u mean philosophy (because the boys in an intro to psych class is a WHOLE OTHER DISCUSSION) and dkjfbkkJBKJ

irt to ghost's ask:

marius and luke get into a fistfight with each other because any time morality or goodness is brought up, luke is always in the vaguely catholic camp of "IT HAS TO BENEFIT OTHERS, THERE ARE NO GREY AREAS. GUILT IS A REQUIREMENT, HOW ELSE ARE WE GOING TO KNOW THAT WE MUST BE BETTER?" while marius would believe "guilt is valid and does have merit in identifying things to work on, but the lack of it doesnt mean ur bad and can never improve. get therapy, babe. also, everything is grey areas!!" and nobody will be able to tear them apart except for mc who comes in with a roll of newspaper, thwacking them on the head until they behave

EDIT: OH I MISREAD. GHOST, I THOUGHT U SAID MARIUS AND LUKE WILL HAVE A FISTFIGHT WITH EACH OTHER. U SAID WITH THE PROFESSOR KJFBKGJKG. okay, luke wouldnt, hard stop. hes too nice for that, hes only punching the professor if they made mc cry or if theyve done a heinous crime. marius also wouldnt, not because hes nice, but because he'd MUCH rather enjoy watching the prof steadily get more and more frustrated. the prof wants to punch him. and hes daring them to.

artem is sitting there with his head in his hands because if theres no correct or incorrect answers, WHAT IS HE SUPPOSED TO DO???? HOW DOES HE NAVIGATE A WORLD WHERE NOTHING IS A FAILURE?????? his answer, for now, is that He is the failure.

i assume ur autocorrect turned "vyn" into "Cynthia" and that made me laugh for a good 5 minutes. vynthia richter would not make the professor cry, i think, but he will be sent out to think about what hes done. his input is intelligent and valuable! but jesus christ, lighten up, will you?

irt to anon's ask:

forgive me, it's been a few years since ive been in college so i may be wrong but my understanding of postmodernism is that it is the rejection of the widely accepted definitions, the rejection of the Grand Narratives that modernism before it had put into place. theres something very rigid about modernism, something that does fit artem's own rigidity, but....not quite?

because i think artem's shtick isnt so much disliking the avoidance of definition, more so that i see artem as somebody who sees the world (or more accurately, his actions and life and personality) as something that needs to be Correct and Successful. which, in itself, is a definition, ur right! but idk, it's not that he wants everything to be defined, he just wants so badly and so desperately to be what is Correct in the situations and relationships that he pursues in life.

like, even when he's picking TOMATOES [SR Fixated On You] he searches for the Most Correct Tomato, the one that is the Pinnacle Of What A Correct Tomato Is Supposed To Be.

it's funny, actually. in artem's quest to embody what he thinks is the Correct answer for things, what hes doing is actually creating his own unattainable definition of Correct. artem wing's brain is literally working so fucking hard to make his own life more difficult for him LMAOOOO.

sidenote: when i write luke, i always use the words "good / bad" whereas with artem, i always use the words "correct / incorrect" or "wrong / right." ive mentioned this before in past posts, but i see luke's whole thing being morality while artem's whole thing is something more "empirical" which, like, lol because artem, honeypie, theres gonna be a LOT of things with no empirical answers. luke and artem are two sides of the same coin actually, both of them tend to see the world in black and white. i just make them use a different language, based on their personality in canon.

can you believe how much thought im putting into these otome men? i feel deranged everyday

[lxstfulbeans]

JUST CURIOUS OR NOOOOT....if you’re open or not, that’s cool~....

*slides a hundred your way*

I must know, what would it be like for Levi, Erwin, and lastly HANGE *clears throat* to be with a Black S/O, but here’s the catch. They’re the only black person behind the wall..well atleast what’s his name comes around..

Also, Drink plenty of water, stay hydrated, sleep well, relax, breathe, happy Valentine’s Day ❤️

Aight I gotchu babes, lemme get that hunnid up outcha 😏. And thank you so much 🥺 same to you!!

I feel like I gave more to Erwin and Hange than Levi, but I love these three equally 😭✋🏽. But, hope you enjoy this!

Headcanons: what it’s like with the only black s/o behind the walls.

Levi Ackerman:

When he first met you, he’s like “what in the fuck-“

He never meant it in bad way, oh no ma’am. It’s just that NO ONE has ever seen anyone like you before, let alone thought there were people of a different race.

But knowing Levi, and seeing his resting bitch face.. how could you ever know 💀.

My guy literally lived in the UNDERGROUND, on some “City of Ember” type shit, and has never seen someone like you before.

When you decided to join the Survery Corps. then eventually choosing the Scouts after being top of your class. He took it as an opportunity to observe you (well, him and like twenty, thirty other people 💀), whenever y’all sat and talked about expedition plans with Hange and the Commander, he enjoyed listening to you speak your mind and blast your opinions.

And don’t get me started on how strong and open-minded you are.

Eventually, he’ll start catching feelings. He’ll talk to you more, occasionally praise you for a job well done more than he’s done ANYONE else. He’ll even fucking compliment you and pick up on little things you’ve done.

Of course, when the other brats get outta hand when it comes to awful flirting and tryna see what that thang do. He shuts that shit down before it can even start.

“Oi. Get the fuck outta here before I use you as live bait for the Titans.”

Best believe they skedaddled.

He asks if you’re okay, and to tell him that if anyone else makes you uncomfortable like that again so he could properly whoop they ass.

Y’all get to talking and.. somehow talk most of the day away.

When he heard you laugh, he was struck. His heart pounding, though he couldn’t help but feel a smile tug at his lips.

Then, he asks you to be his. Which you accept with pride.

He’s always there to help you with wash days if you need it. He loves helping you, even if he doesn’t really show it.

Oh, and that discrimination shit? Y’all can cut that shit out right now cuz Levi don’t play.

Teamwork makes the dream work when it comes to cleaning. He’s impressed at how much better you are at it than he others.

Oh and your COOKING babyyy

He be stingy with it for sure. He was big mad when everybody else wanted some, at least you saved some pie for him.

And y’all are partners in fucking crime. Y’all be bodying Titans left and right bruh. Don’t nobody want the smoke.

Erwin Smith:

Oh my lawd, why is he so fine and RESPECTFUL 😔✊🏽.

Okay, okay this ain’t about me rn heheh.

Honestly, he’ll be flabbergasted to be in your presence. He’s never seen someone of a different race before, he wondered were there more of you on the outside?

When he saw you the first time on the return from another expedition outside the walls. His eyes met you and he was just.. amazed. He was sure that he wasn’t seeing things but, he had to see you again.

When he couldn’t find you, he had to come to the conclusion that you were a hallucination. I mean, he was exhausted, sleep deprived, and hungry.

But, eventually he found you by yourself at the bridge. He was amazed at how the morning sun made you glow, reflecting off of your brown skin.

When you caught him staring, he choked on his words as he rambled with apologies. This made you smile, inviting him to sit and enjoy the morning with you.

Y’all started talking and you just.. clicked. When he heard your laugh for the first time, he had it bad.

He tried visiting you as much as he could, even if it was only a simple “hello, how are you?” or the slightest of small talk.

When the Walls were invaded, you were helpless. No one bothered to help you, either saving their own asses or being eaten alive. You couldn’t count the times where you were so close to meeting death. You refused to become a victim and have fear control you.

When you joined the Scouts, he was shocked to you standing here before him. Your fist over your heart as you announce yourself. He never thought you would be here about to risk your life everyday.

But, he saw that fire in your eyes and smiled.

He couldn’t guarantee your safety but would do everything in his power to make sure nothing happens to you.

He’s a busy man. No matter how much he wanted to, he couldn’t sit and talk with you all of the time. If you were lucky, he’d send a smile or even a wink your way.

Though, he’s often caught you by yourself again, watching the sunset or gazing into the night sky. The way you skin would glow made him look back on old times.

He sits with you, talking the night away and making you smile again.

Overtime, you eventually get closer. When you originally closed yourself of because of the events of “That Day”, but opened up more and more when you both were together.

Whenever somebody tries to snitch on you to him, you’re literally not phased by this shit.

“Tell him then, I don’t give no fuck! Matter of fact, I’ll tell him for you!”

He honestly adores how you don’t take shit from anybody, but he lets you get away with a little bit of things. He won’t reprimand you but will give you a slap on the wrist if you went too far with something.

Whenever he says something unintentionally funny, you just crack up laughing. Like, you are wheezing so silently and rolling on the floor in tears. He couldn’t help but chuckle and shake his head at how silly you were.

He adored everything about you. Your laugh, how your skin glows in the light, your captivating smile, and how you weren’t playing games with nobody.

This time, he realizes his growing feelings for you.

Eventually, he confesses his feelings to you. Like this man is poetic as hell, he’s listing off everything he loves about you, even the little things made his heart soar. You were honestly shocked that your Commander felt this way about you.. but you couldn’t lie and say you didn’t feel the same.

After y’all get boo’d up, you’re basically a power couple.

Somebody got one time to talk shit about you, on god he is on them like white on rice.

“If you say one more word about them, I will personally make sure that on the next expedition, I will leave you behind...”

Ah, don’t you just love it when it he gets serious and protective?

And both y’all side-eye the fuck outta people when they don’t rub you the right way.

Wash days? He’s all for it. Once he sees your arms drooping, clearly worn out from washing your hair, he’ll happily roll up his sleeves and get up in there.

Bruh, have you seen his hands?? You KNOW his massages are bomb af, like you damn near fall asleep everytime he massages and scratches your scalp.

Don’t get him started on your cooking, he’d do anything for it. He gets so happy when you save extra plates for him to eat later.

When push comes to shove and everyone’s losing their shit, you have to be strong. Erwin’s always motivated you and inspired you, if humanity had any chance to survive, you had to show it.

“Y’all need to get yo shit together PERIODT! It’s okay to be scared, but we won’t make it out of this if you keep actin’ like this! Y’all signed up to protect humanity right?! Well, show these Titans who they fuckin’ with!”

After hearing that.. he wanted to marry you.

(bonus: let’s say that he’s alive 💀 cuz I literally cried when he got clapped like how-)

When you were finally able to go outside the walls without any fear of the Titans, you felt free.

When you came across the ocean, he couldn’t take his eye off of how amazed you looked at the clear blue waters, the sun making it shine towards its horizon.

“It’s everything Cadet Arlelt said, right? Where there’s an ocean.. there’s other lands, eventually other enemies.”

“I know. We made it this far, it’s only right that we keep goin’.”

Hange Zoë:

Hange can GET IT MM- 🤧 they are literally so fine.

oh, and it’s kinda canon that they’re non-binary so 😃.

This’ll be after you first join the Scouts and baby they was on you like white on rice INSTANTLY.

They’ve never seen anyone like you before. It was almost forbidden to learn or talk about anything beyond the walls, were there more of you?? Where did you come from?

Though, they’re outta pocket questions and lack of knowledge of something called, “personal space” kinda made you nervous so they brought down a couple notches.

When they got to know you more, they were just ecstatic to see you.

When Hange caught you alone, basking in the warm embrace of the sun, they couldn’t take the throbbing of their heart as your dark skin was shining.

When you eventually start dating, they had no problem putting folks in their place when they try you.

“Alright, I see that you have quite a lot to say about my s/o! I bet you won’t be spouting a word when you come face to face with Titan. I’ll happily let you see them up close..”

They’d absolutely kill for your cooking. Deadass. If they’re not the first and last one to get a plate, they’ll be big mad for a hot minute.

I’m sure they observe you a lot, especially when it comes to your routines and how you try your best not to smell like a hunnid cans of bounce dat ass 💀. So when wash day comes and you’re kinda tired after training, they’ll happily wash your hair for you.

They’ll praise you for all the hard work you’ve done, giving you little forehead kisses, massaging and giving light scratches to your scalp.

OOH WEE- you are in absolute heaven with them.

Both of y’all share that chaotic energy, bugging the hell outta Levi when you get the chance.

When it comes to fighting Titans, y’all don’t play! When it’s time to put the moves on ‘em you do it!

- - END SCENE - -