#it's one of my earliest favorite pairings in the fandom and it's just so good

[dotemakesthings]

sadly no! I do have an AO3 with a few more fleshed out fics, and I might do something more with this one someday? but I write at the pace of a stoned tortoise, so I really can't make any promises

I'm really glad you liked it, though!!!

forgotten but not gone

(please be gentle, y’all, this is the first public fic I’ve posted since basically… ever)

inspired by/remix of the cursed light by datfearlessfangirl

okay, so.

the first Split was relatively harmless, believe it or not. it separated out Remus and Roman, sure, but the sides all still lived together and cared about each other.

as a teen/young adult, the sides were in cutesy little pairs.

Janus and Roman, the theater gays.

Virgil and Logan, the couple that considers sitting silently in a room together with headphones on a romantic activity.

and Remus and Patton, the chaotic powerhouses who love nothing more than making messes in the kitchen and screaming I-love-you’s from across the house.

but then

the second split.

it was a crisis of morality and identity on Thomas’s part

so intense that it ripped the mindscape in two

the “acceptable” sides simply got their memories wiped, starting from scratch

while the dark sides were locked away and hurt.

now, neither side knew about the others and the effect it had on them

so when the light sides saw a closet oozing with Bad Feelings, they felt it best to investigate for the good of Thomas

and they were greeted with monsters.

Remus, screaming out horrific imagery and banging his head raw and bloody against the wall

Virgil, spiraling into such a bad panic attack that the shadows around him were lashing out without him realizing

and Janus, fangs and all six arms out, who uncontrollably lied about how they were useless here, how they weren’t wanted, they needed to get out, ssssstupid little sides

the lights screamed

and ran out

the darks chased them

because, here’s the thing

imagine you have known someone all your life. you know their tics, what makes them happy

and you’re not afraid of what they’re like when they’re in distress, because you know what to expect. and you know you’re safe with them.

now. imagine meeting someone for the first time on your absolute worst day.

that’s what happened to the darks.

the Patton of before would have rushed to Remus, gently guiding him away from the wall and crooning soothing nonsense to drown out his babble about death and gore and being alone alone alone

the Roman of before would have nodded and taken none of what Janus was saying at face value, cradling Janus’s hands in his own and humming a quiet tune 

and the Logan of before would have tapped out a slow, calm rhythm next to Virgil until he could breathe and handle touch again

but they didn’t know any of that anymore.

all they saw were monsters.

and all the dark sides saw were their friends, family, lovers there when they needed help. 

the light sides fled back to the upper mindscape 

and the darks slammed into the barrier

screaming and clawing at the invisible wall

for someone to help

for their family to look at them

for someone to explain what was going on

and the light sides closed and locked the door with a sigh of shaky relief.

now, the light sides develop something of an ingrained bad reaction to the darks due to this colossally bad first impression.

Patton: disgust, fear, thin veneer of trying to be polite while getting them to leave the vicinity as soon as possible

Logan: coldness, indifference. not cruelty but no warmth or allowances

Roman: fear masked by anger and intense protectiveness.

and the dark sides all deal with the upheaval, betrayal, and pain in different ways.

Virgil: depressed, afraid, tends to lash out at the slightest provocation. goes from snarky to mean.

Janus: gives up and pretends everything is fine. sees no point in hurting himself to get something back that can't be replaced or repaired. covers heartbreak with snark. can't quite stop himself from flirting with Roman but pretends it's just manipulation. focuses just on Thomas and what's best for him, ignoring all else.

Remus: wears his rotting heart on his sleeve. tries the hardest to get Patton back and is the least equipped to do so. isn't exactly trying to keep the others' spirits up, but more just doesn't lose hope that they can somehow fix this. 

the dark sides can only come to the main mindscape at all at night at first.

the barrier stops them any other time

it’s Remus who finds out first, mindlessly banging his head against the barrier to pass the time only to fall flat on his face when it fizzles out

and they all slowly start sneaking in at night to see the home that they were thrown out of

and slowly, the lights start having odd little incidents

nothing in person, at first.

Roman: he finds something in progress and abandoned at the border between the imagination halves that he and Remus both worked on. he can't figure out why it looks so recent even though he can’t remember ever getting along with his brother this well.

Patton: he's having a Sad Night. he thinks he's hiding it well, but someone (Virgil) notices and leaves him cookies that are one of his favorites. not a secret recipe, just ones he likes. there's a little note saying that sometimes it's okay to have a second cookie. Patton can't figure out who would know him this well.

Logan: he’s dealing with an absolute menace of a meeting. he gets back to his room, seething all the way, to see a plain porcelain plate with an unsigned note saying “break me all you want, nerd! I’ll put myself back together!”. he experimentally drops it from a few feet up. it shatters with a very satisfying crack and then, a few seconds later, reassembles itself in his hand. he has a grand old time shattering the plate against the wall again and again until his rage has subsided to a manageable level. he can’t figure out who would come up with an idea like this.

and then there start being little middle-of-the-night interactions. because for some reason, the light sides have a much harder time falling asleep nowadays.

Virgil looks over Roman’s shoulder as he watches a Disney movie in the living room at three AM to try and fall asleep. Anxiety offers a teasing insult to the protagonist. Roman jumps out of his skin, at first threatening to stab him, but then lets him tentatively settle in on the counter behind him. they roast the movie together, gradually picking up steam until Roman actually laughs at something Anxiety says. they both freeze and stare at each other for a heartbeat until Roman sinks out without a word.

Patton finds himself tucked into bed after a too-long day sorting through Thomas' emotional responses. when he wakes up, there's a somehow still steaming cup of sweet herbal tea that tastes like a snickerdoodle. he vaguely remembers a soft voice hissing at him that he needs to pay more attention to his own needs.

Logan is reading philosophy textbooks and muttering to himself out loud. Janus offers a quiet critique. they have a heartbeat of wonderful discussion before Logan "remembers" himself and shuts it down.

eventually, through all this, their memories start coming back. it’s triggered slowly through their platonic interactions with their friends, and then all at once by their romantic partners.

(because the love of friends is just as impactful and important as the love of a partner)

Patton: 

Patton is sad and frustrated, muttering to himself and pacing in the kitchen.

someone walks in and he immediately stops and snaps into happy pappy Patton mode. “Oh hey, kiddo-“

it's Remus, who just cocks his head and says "you know you don't have to do that with me, right?"

and after some protesting on Morality’s part

he ends up goading Patton into a very cathartic expression of anger, fear, and frustration, and helps him sort it out. 

at some point, Remus has shifted to holding Patton in a loose embrace as Patton waves his hands and rants and sobs.

Patton doesn’t realize that he burrows deeper into Remus’ arms every time he wiggles.

to the point that he’s turned sideways in Remus’ lap, with one arm curled around him and the other one free to gesture.

and then when it’s all over, they’re talked out, and it’s almost sunrise, Remus reluctantly starts to tear himself away. 

and Patton, who quite suddenly cannot bear the thought of Remus letting him go, holds on

Logan: 

panic attacks? Logan? certainly not. he doesn’t get those.

so when he finds himself gasping for air, feeling like his chest is on fire, and locked into his worst thoughts, he doesn’t know what to do

because he knows how to treat panic attacks

but this isn’t one. definitely

and even if it was, for some reason all his knowledge on how to treat them is slipping from his mind no matter how hard he tries to reach from it

you have to breathe? somehow? but he can’t breathe, can’t think

and somehow through it, he hears a raspy voice

counting steadily and quietly

and he realizes that there’s a stim toy placed in his hands that he’s wringing.

and it looks familiar, but he knows he’s never seen it before

and there’s soft, flowy music playing from a Bluetooth speaker next to him

and that feels familiar too

and without quite knowing why, only having a bone-deep certainty that it’ll help, he slumps over into the person sitting next to him

smells lavender and laundry detergent

feels soft fabric under his cheek

and suddenly everything snaps into place

oh

of course

why does he feel so safe? because he’s with the safest person in the world.

Roman: 

okay so

Roman alternates between being scared of Deceit and feeling extremely attracted to him

this, naturally, freaks Roman out

and he expresses this by getting more and more aggressive towards Janus

at some point, he panics and attacks Deceit

Deceit freezes with Roman’s sword to his throat. they stare at each other

before Janus sinks out

a day or so later, he comes back

all six hands up, ungloved, and open to show that he means no harm

“You win.”

“… What?” says Roman.

“You. Win. I’m tired of fighting you. Grant me one last request and you’ll never have to see me again.”

some buried part of Roman is conflicted. but his conscious self jumps at the opportunity. “What do you want, snake?”

“Dance with me.”

“… What.”

“Grant me the honor of one dance, my prince, and I’ll leave. You’ll never have to deal with my presence again.”

And Roman, wary of some trap but eager to be rid of the beautiful confusing disgusting snake, agrees.

They rise up in an elegantly decorated ballroom

dressed in a fancy suit (Roman) and an elegant ballgown (Deceit)

and they dance

at first, stilted and formal

keeping to the steps and no more

but then Janus seems to come to some internal conclusion

and folds himself in close to Roman

before spinning outwards, skirt swirling, and coming back in

and somehow, without Roman quite knowing why, they’re dancing.

flourishes, leaning into each other, Roman even lifting Deceit into the air at one point

and his heart keeps pinging strangely

aching

(familiar, this is familiar, you’ve done this before)

but eventually, the dance has to end

and they both come to a stop as the song finishes, panting heavily

Janus is smiling through his heavy breaths

and Roman finds he is too

but Janus’ smile cracks and falls and he steps back.

“Well,” he says. “That was the deal.”

and he lifts Roman’s hand, which somehow has his sword in it although it didn’t a second before, so that the blade is at his throat

just like the night before

“One quick cut ought to do it.”

Self Preservation exposes his throat to his beloved. 

because he doesn't want to hurt Roman. 

because this dance was his last selfish act before he gives up

one last moment to remember his prince by

and Roman pauses with his sword at Janus’ throat.

because Roman can't figure out why Janus, the evil self serving snake, wouldn't take an opportunity to hurt him to save himself

why he asked for this dance at all

why his arms around him felt like home

and all of a sudden

the memories he’s been denying all this time hit him like a truck

and he remembers

(after all that, Roman congratulates Janus on his idea to bring his memories back by dancing together)

(Janus smiles at him and changes the subject)

the barrier weakens the more that the lights feel comfortable around the darks.

the more that Thomas feels comfortable around them.

by the time everyone’s memory is back, it’s like it was never there at all.

[slicesofapple]

Favorite TodoBaku/BakuTodo fics

So, I am fairly new to this fandom/pairing, but I decided to start building my favorites list. Already it is very, very hard to choose. There are so many amazing fics and incredible authors writing them (see my a03 bookmarks for more). But these (in no particular order) are the ones I am coming back to/re-reading the most. (I'll be adding to this as I go, this is just the start of it). Many of these authors have other fantastic todobaku/bakutodo fics as well.

playing with fire by ninanna. rated M. How things unfold and overlap, hurt and please between two people who do not see any potential in each other beside rivalry and occasional partnership. [Note: I think this is now my favorite all-time fic; it's a tour de force; spectacular. all ninanna's todabaku/bakutodo fics are - the author reaches in and rips out your guts in the best way possible.]

The Feel of His Hand is Like Home by XenophonSpeaks. rated T. A typical mission goes unexpectedly south, leaving Todoroki reeling with panic, injured and compromised. Thankfully, he didn't embark on this mission alone. [This author! so good.]

Sated, by Crossfire. rated M. Some Alphas and Omegas get cuddly, or tired, or hungry. Some Alphas and Omegas like to fuck. Bakugou and Todoroki like to fight. [I'm a sucker for (especially non-explicit) alpha/beta/omega, and this one hits the sweetest of sweet spots.]

anything you say can and will be held against you by delectum. rated G. What is the correct protocol for when the villain you’re supposed to be apprehending starts flirting? [So funny and perfectly executed.]

Be Kind, Rewind by seventh_time_lucky. rated T. What starts off as a normal-seeming Sunday starts to get stranger and stranger, until Shouto finds himself locked out of UA, with no money and no phone, and the only person he can find to help is Midoriya. But Midoriya is too tall and cries every time he looks at Shouto, and Shouto starts to think something has gone really, really wrong. [Perfect angst. wip.]

Finding and Holding by bigcatsmallcat. rated T. Shouto gets temporarily quirked into a mushroom. [This one is really bakutododeku, but it is so adorable I had to put it in.]

Something of Silence by Viidoll. rated T. When Bakugou Katsuki is unexpectedly hit with a muting quirk, he makes it his mission to hunt down the moron stupid enough to silence him. Reluctant to receive help, he somehow gets it anyway - in the perplexing form of one Todoroki Shouto. In the process of losing his voice and struggling to get it back, Bakugou might just learn a little about listening. [Ah, one of the earliest ones I read of these two. So perfect.]

put some socks on by Tierfal. rated T. Shouto comes home after an extremely long day, and Bakugou is sitting on the couch. [The banter here is especially delectable.]

the witch's familiar by orange_cheetah. rated M. The night he escapes from the castle, crown prince Todoroki Shouto finds himself cursed by the magician in his father's employ. Undeterred, Todoroki strikes up a deal of his own: kill the most powerful witch in the kingdom to have the curse broken. There's just one small problem: he's somehow ended up as the familiar of the witch in question—Bakugou Katsuki. [This is such great storytelling, the way the pieces all slot into place at the end.]

i'm tired, i'm tired of not loving you by yekijan. rated M. [Amnesia fic. So much fabulous angst.]

Ten Years Wanting by Ramabear (RyMagnatar). Rated E. Bakugou. His name is Bakugou. Or at least that is what they call him.Everyone has been calling him by some other phrase that he cannot understand and that makes his head hurt when he hears it too much. Bakugou doesn’t feel right until he hears Todoroki call him that and then it does. He remembers Todoroki calling him Bakugou. He has never really said his name with fondness and even now, as he tells Bakugou what he expects of him, he doesn’t say it kindly but he does say it.Something in the back of Bakugou’s mind tells him that this is progress. This is more than what there was before. This is closer to what he wants. [Another amnesia fic, this time the other way around].

A normal poly relationship doesn't have this many fucking spreadsheets by Anonymous. Not Rated. three teenage boys being fucking idiots because actually being mature about your feelings is for suckers. [wip. this is hilarious but also very sweet. warning: izuku is pretty much an asshole here, at least so far. and it is very much bakutodo/todobaku, not bakutododeku.]

I will love you in every universe by HeavenCat. Rated T. During a rescue mission, pro hero Katsuki aka Dynamight switches places with his fifteen-year-old self. (it's so good! so sweet and funny and good).

Ruin My Life by justhavesex. Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings. He's not a vengeful person, really, he's not. But him and Bakugou have started this little on-going war of theirs back in middle school when they were 10 years old and Todoroki had accidentally—if you got Todoroki drunk enough and fed his ego well enough he would, in fact, admit that it was very much on purpose—accidentally fed Bakugou's limited edition All Might magazine to his cat.

so, i got a new one (10/11/24):

Perfect by citrussunscreen. Teen and up. Sick of his supposedly perfect life, Todoroki Shouto decides he'll take whatever he can (only after careful consideration and scrutiny) to add some chaos in his life. In comes former classmate and pro-hero Bakugou Katsuki with buckets of colour to splash in Todoroki's life. TodoBaku. ABOverse [Note: WIP and not clear whether it will be continued. but it's so good! This author in general, the TodoBaku is just - chef's kiss!]

feel free to put your own faves in the comments or tags 😉

[i-can-read-to-him]

The Wesper Fic Club's Author Spotlight is a post series that aims to feature two to three fic authors a month, randomly selected from a pool of names put forth on our server. The authors are then asked to answer three interview questions, select up to five of their fics for us to feature, and finally, recommend three fics by others in the fandom.

(Note: Our spotlighted fics are not limited to Wesper, though they tend to be a central pairing in most of our authors' featured works.)

This week, we are putting a spotlight on Elias's writing!

Socials: @starwritebrekker (Tumblr) | starlightwrite (AO3) | starwritecos (TikTok) | wellelwrites (Instagram)

❀

Part One: Author Interview

Q: What’s your favourite fic you’ve written for this fandom?

A: Do Us Part! It’s my first time writing a modern AU and I’m loving the challenge of finding modern day equivalents to the Crows world.

Q: When did you first start writing? What keeps you going today?

A: I’ve been writing stories since elementary school, earliest I can remember is second grade (seven years old). What keeps me writing is how much writing feels like a release. I’m not very good at speaking what’s going on in my head (see: neurodivergent), and writing it out helps me comprehend my own thoughts more and it helps me communicate my thoughts much better. It is my favorite form of expression.

Q: Who is your favourite character? What do you love about them?

A: Kaz Brekker. This boy is the embodiment of a person in survival mode for most of their life and not truly understanding what it is to come out of it. The world has hardened him but inside him, despite his best efforts, there is still that hope. That heart.

Q: Have you had a chance to interact with the SAB cast? Tell us about your experience(s).

A: Amita liked the photo of my Dregs tattoo on instagram! I love her so much and I’m so glad she interacts with the fandom so much as well.

Q: If you could be friends with any character in the Grishaverse, who would it be?

A: Matthias and I both grew up with organized religion being the backbone of our perspective of the world, so I feel like he and I could get along well. I want to give all the crows a hug (an air hug for Kaz).

Q: What are some headcanons you have that you consider your personal canon?

A: Kaz Rietveld-Brekker is transmasc. Argue with the wall XD. (I am nonbinary transmasc I hold this headcanon so close to my heart).

Q: Are there any songs you strongly associate with a favourite character or ship?

A: Francesca by Hozier is Kanej coded.

Q: How do you feel about your fics being translated into other languages?

A: Go forth and translate (just give me credit please and thank youuuuu)!

❀

Part Two: Selected Works

Do Us Part

Teen | 4.1K | Kanej, Wesper, Helnik Modern AU, Mentioned Character Death, The dog lives In Progress

Part of the Wesper Fic Club Big Bang 2024! The Crows run a funeral home in the suburbs of a modern day Ketterdam. There’s death. There’s a dog. There’s healing. There’s still a dog.

No Funerals

Teen | 10.1K | Kanej, mentioned Wesper, mentioned Helnik Vampire AU, slowburn, Wesper Child, Alby Rollins is there In Progress

There’s a figure that haunts the Barrel at night since time immemorial, he exists in the shadows and watery reflections of the canals of Ketterdam. He was once the undisputed king of the city, and now? He runs a gang of misfits and swindles the merchant council, not even death can escape his cheating. 

Forever Not to Disappear

Teen | 20.5K | Kanej, Wesper Sickfic, slowburn, healing from trauma In Progress

Kaz Brekker is stuck in bed (it’s a bad illness day) and is forced to reflect and process his emotions.

Clouded Judgement

Teen | 441 words | Kanej, Wesper Stream of Consciousness, Wishful thinking, Reflective Kaz Brekker Completed

Post-Season Two finale of Shadow and Bone, Kaz is hoveled up in his room, and his mind never stops moving. Nor does his pen.

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Part Three: Author's Recs

I’m The Perfect Stranger Who Knows You Too Well by @remadora-black / actressforever14 (my sister Cassie!)

Teen | 54.9K | Kanej, Wesper, Helnik Jordie Rietveld Lives, Childhood Trauma, Major Illness In Progress

Cassie’s description: What if Jordie did not die of Firepox? What if, instead, when Kaz returned from the Barge, his brother was waiting for him. Firepox would leave them both forever changed, but how will the course of the rest of their lives go? What will happen to Jordie when he realizes his little brother is no longer the boy he knew before, and that he has been left with a shell of a boy with only one thing on his mind: vengeance?

What the Water Gave Me by 19burstraat (astardanced)

Teen | 23.9K | Kanej, Crows friendship Post Canon, Canon Divergence, Angst With A Happy Ending Completed

Kaz as a Tidemaker. Get into it. Kaz as a grisha is extremely my sh*t. 

You’re A Dog And I’m Your Man by limelacroix

Not Rated | 27.8K | Kanej, Wesper Kaz Brekker gets a dog, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort

Kaz Brekker gets a dog. That’s the whole thing.Also extremely my sh*t

The Unexpected Visitor by insignificant457

Mature 90.9K | Kanej Post-canon, Implied/referenced SA, Implied/referenced sex In Progress

Inej brings one Bastard of the Barrel to the caravans for a family wedding. Hijinks ensue.

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Please support our authors by commenting and leaving kudos on any stories of theirs you read and enjoy! Don't forget to also reblog this post and check back soon for our next author spotlight to come.

Interested in joining our server and getting to know our community? Feel free to request an invite via the @i-can-read-to-him ask box.

[all-pacas]

Can you talk more about the whole "Chase and 13 as siblings" deal? I've seen it everywhere,but they seemed more like ordinary friends to me. Neither of them gave me the "found family" vibes.

To be clear, it's totally fanon. They are not found family in canon, they aren't even super good friends. I'm pretty sure it comes from the common perception in fandom that they're House's favorites/the ones who view him and/or are viewed by him as his children. Which I guess makes them siblings? (I don't even think, technically speaking, that's true — House doesn't think of either of them as his kids tbh.) I am a huge enjoyer of it, though, so I can only give my reasoning; the short version is I think they have a lot of potential in this direction.

So first of all, the two of them are like. Lowkey so alike. Like the venn diagram of them is sort of just a circle. They both had traumatic family histories involving mothers who died young and who they resented/'hated.' They're both intensely private people, 13 going ahead and making that a meme but Chase just as good at it as she is. They both have histories on the show of sleeping around and engaging in reckless behaviors as a reaction to depression/trauma; they do both have close relationships with House, I think it's overstated a little in fandom but it's also true; House and 13 are obviously very close but Chase has a whole pair of S8 episodes highlighting the same; he's also the fellow House has known the longest, who stayed the longest. They're both perceptive and bright and have similar senses of humor.

As you said, they are friends. They enjoy one another's company, we see they have fun hanging out. 13 alludes to going drinking with Chase sometimes in Last Temptation. After Hours proves that Chase knows where 13 lives, that she can call him past midnight and he'll show up no questions asked. Despite both being super private and secretive, they know one another's darkest secrets: Chase is the only person besides House 13 has told about killing her brother and going to prison. 13 is the only person besides Cameron Chase has told about Dibala. (House and Foreman figured that one out on their own. Also, last time he told someone it ended his marriage, so it's kind of Insane he tells 13. Like. Wow.) 13 went a year not telling anyone her name, Chase wouldn't even confirm he was catholic when House guessed it, and yet these two tell one another things. Even in Private Lives, before they really knew one another, Chase and 13 were having serious heart-to-hearts about the divorce and whether or not Chase was pretty; these just… aren't conversations he, at least, has with other people.

Also, let's be frank. The show was setting them up to fuck. I think some of this is meant to be ship tease, in all honesty. Chase outright propositions her. One of their earliest bonding episodes is Private Lives, which has a sort of flirty bit at the end and is all about their failed romances. But thankfully — because we all know how much the show sucks at romance — it never happened. So what we're left with is two characters who are weirdly close, have a weird amount of heart to heart moments and bonding (like… compare Foreman and Chase, who have known one another forever but never have these sort of sincere 'moments'), and are incredibly similar. And who also are often framed specifically as 'House's children,' if not as as unit: Chase is the prodigal son, 13 calls herself the prodigal daughter. 'siblings' make sense. People also don't really like to ship them, myself included, although tbh they make a good amount of sense on paper. Maybe because of the built in messiness (she's Foreman's ex, technically; she leaves the show for long stretches; the show sucks at romance), maybe because people love found family, maybe because folks definitely prefer to lean into 13 dating women. And because people don't want to think of them as romantic options for one another, how do you define a relationship between a pair of very attractive people without letting that be a factor? Make them siblings!

For what it's worth, I don't actually think they're siblings, or that they think of one another as that. I think they're good friends. But they're also so alike, and open up to one another in pretty unique ways (especially for Chase), and get along well. In a weird way, I think the fact that they probably were attracted to one another and could have slept together but didn't makes them closer in my eyes: they both sleep around at the first chance, so that they didn't (by chance or choice) means they got to build an entirely different relationship. They're both lonely, they've both outlived family, they're both lowkey sort of depressed. And the idea that they could have a family in one another (Chase, for one, admits in S8 he pretty badly would like one) just really appeals to me. (With the added tragedy, of course, that it could only last a decade or so) I think they're good for one another, in that they have a "no questions asked" friendship, they know one another's worst secrets, and those secrets run parallel enough that they get it. And so even though they aren't siblings… I kinda want them to be, you know? :)

[softcitrus2345]

GRRRR. TUMBLR DELETED THE ASK THAT THIS WAS MEANT FOR. >:(

The anon was just asking if I had any early encounters with media that influenced my interest in certain kinks, as well as what my favorite kink trope in general is, and this was my response- Oh boy, there are so many instances but I can only really remember/find a few of 'em- But these were the main ones that stuck with me for years-

I grew up watching MLP. Like, it was my SHOW for years, so it was the main source of media/fandom that I sought out this kind of content in my early days of unsupervised internet access-

I remember watching these scenes and having a neuron activation moment but I didn't know why. Then a few years later I got access to the internet and I'd find myself looking up shit like "fat mlp characters" and even I didn't really understand why either- 💀

I guess I know now XD

There was also this one scene from some Disney thing where Mickey and Minnie were in a sorta Hansel and Gretel situation and got fed a ton of food (I remember being disappointed when they didn't get fat from it for "some reason" XDD)

But there was also this book. From when my age was still in the single digits I feel like had at least a part of the blame for these kinks snowballing into what they are today-

It was called "The Very Greedy Bee"

Basically this one bee drinks so much nectar that it gets really big, eventually SO big that it can't even fly

I remember rereading these pages a lot on my own- ⬇⬇⬇

So ye, this is one of the earliest instances I remember feeling "weird" from a piece of media.

But ALSO-

I VIVIDLY remember this one toy I used to have that I can't remember what it was called FOR THE LIFE OF ME-

It was this big dog-looking thing that was advertised as a fun way for kids to put their things away. You'd put your things away by "feeding" your stuff to it and it would fit a pretty good amount in there

I remember when I would play with it, I would always take all of my stuffed animals and try to stuff as many as I could into its mouth and make it as big and round as I could- I guess this counts as both an introduction to stuffing and soft vore huh-

But yeah, those are all the main things I can remember-

As for your second question, I'd say my favorite trope has got to be stuffing paired with instant weight gain, it's just really fun and I love drawing stuff of that nature

Usually the instant weight gain/extreme stuffing would go hand in hand by using some kind of potion/enhancer kind of thing with it, but ye >;3

I just like when characters get really big really fast from eating a lot- O/////O

Hope this answers your question, anon XP

[drhu0806]

3 - "I know you better"

Fandom - Infamous IF (fanfic) Content warnings - none Pairing - Orion x MC [A/N: Let's pretend this is sort of a nebulous, post-canon kind of thing if anyone cares about when this might be placed]

Out of all the date spots Luna expected Orion to invite her to, strangely enough a bar wasn’t one of them.

It’s a classy little thing, at least, with a homey brick exterior illuminated with classy lighting. She checks the time as she approaches the door: she’s ten minutes early, which, by Orion’s standards, is still technically late.

Sure enough, she already spots his towering figure loitering off to the side, waiting. He perks up when he spots her waving.

“If you tell me I’m late, I’ll punch you,” she jokes as they approach each other. “I don’t care that you’re the one who knows how to box, I’ll do it.”

“Go right ahead. I’m sure security would be happy to sweep you off somewhere so at least you don’t embarrass yourself on the street,” he quips back, though there’s no true reprimand in his voice. Luna notices he’s more pensive than usual, nervous even.

“So… What’s up with this bar? Anything special about it?” Orion knows she doesn’t drink much, and even he doesn’t have much beyond a glass of wine most nights, so the choice of locale seems odd especially given his conscientious nature.

He runs a hand through his hair. “Sorry, I maybe should have told you… It’s a private party for a friend of mine, he was just promoted and wanted to celebrate. I was invited and he mentioned I was free to bring someone if I wanted and…”

“So, you thought you wanted to bring me, the person who barely drinks more than you? To a bar? The place where people famously drink?”

He sighs. “I don’t think I’ll know a lot of the other people he invited. I’d probably know you better than I would anyone else in there so I figured… I don’t know.”

Luna can’t help but grin. “You’re making me your comfort blanket? I’m flattered.”

“Don’t put it like that. I’m not a child.”

It surprises her though, knowing that she’ll be mingling about with other people who likely know Orion in some capacity, maybe even some acquaintances and other friends, most of whom are likely going to ask questions. She and Orion… She doesn’t know what they are at this point. She’s been perfectly content to let him set the pace so far, but he’s been predictably reticent on putting a name to whatever their relationship could be. Close enough that he’ll invite her out on outings, but not enough to say out loud wherever he thinks this is going. It doesn’t particularly bother her—she knew exactly what she was getting into—though she’s sure it weighs on him from time to time.

They walk inside together, and they’re greeted by a tasteful, cozy interior lit warmly but not too brightly. Somehow, they’re not even the earliest ones here; a couple of people are already standing about with drinks in hand, making conversation. Luna, interest piqued, takes it all in.

“Have you been here before?”

“A few times in the past. It was one of his favorite spots.” He looks around. “Doesn’t seem to have changed much.”

“Orion!”

They turn to see a man around Orion’s age approach, dressed so alike in slacks and a casual button down that Luna has no doubt the two were likely in similar fields. He smiles warmly as the two shake hands, all the while throwing curious looks her way.

“It’s been ages! Can’t believe you actually made it!”

“Good to see you again too, Evan,” Orion greets warmly. “Congratulations on the promotion. I know you’ve been working towards it for ages.”

“Oh man, when I tell you what a weight off my shoulders hearing the news was… Figured it’d be great to blow off some steam and have some fun for once, get the old gang back together, you know?” The man named Evan turns to her with an eager smile, holding out his hand. “Hi, I’m Evan, the guy who invited him here, as you probably figured out.”

“Luna,” she replies, shaking his hand with a smile in turn. “Nice to meet you!”

It’s not hard to see the question in his eyes as they dart between the two of them. Luna, for the most part, almost wants to laugh seeing the gears turn in her companion’s head on how to explain.

“I’m his plus one,” she mercifully cuts in. It’s the most diplomatic way she could have put it. Vague enough to that Orion won’t feel put on the spot, but still accurate to the situation.

Evan raises his eyebrows in a mixture of both confusion and understanding. “Well, that’s great, Orion. It’s nice to see you finally branching out especially after your—”

“Thanks, Evan,” he interjects. They all know when the matter is closed, and there’s an awkward pause in the conversation before she takes it upon herself to restart it.

“So how do you two know each other?” She gives his friend a sympathetic look, a silent, first moment of connection between the two.

Thankful for her efforts, Evan easily launches into a story, with Orion offering some extra details here and there. Several minutes later and the former excuses himself as more guests filter in.

“I’ll be sure to get back to you two later. But hey, feel free to get some drinks, and hopefully you guys will be joining trivia later!”

Trivia? In a bar?

“Bar trivia was something we liked to do during school,” Orion explains as they meander deeper in. “It’s...exactly what it sounds like. You might even like it.”

“...Hold on. Did you ask me here because I look like someone who likes playing trivia?” Seeing the look on his face, she pretends to be indignant. “Orion, you tell me right now. What exactly about me screams to you that I like trivia games?”

He refuses to answer, escaping to the bar under the guise of getting something for the both of them. Luna finds a place to sit, peacefully watching others mingle, punctuated by the occasional chat. No one here seems to have recognized her, a small blessing she’ll take on any night like this. The people who stop by are friendly enough, some of whom seem to also know Orion. It’s nice to hear what they have to say about him; they had spent so much time at the start on opposite ends of the professional barriers he’d put up, she feels she has so much to catch up on.

By the time Orion returns, most of the guests had arrived, and Evan can be seen wrangling them into the first event of the night: trivia. Neither of them are able to fend him off, and before they know it they’re pulled into a large, loose group of tables encircling a space in the center. All the participants are given small buzzers—she wishes the judge the best of luck trying to pick anything out from all that noise—and Evan takes the stage.

“I’ve never been good at these,” Orion mutters. “Here we go.”

His friend situates himself amidst them all, looking a little nervous to be at the center of attention but excited all the same. “Hey, everyone! Hope you’ve had enough time to grab a bite or a drink. Let me just begin by saying I appreciate you all for taking the time to come to my little party. Being here doing this almost makes me feel like hardly any time’s passed at all since college.

“But speaking of college, a lot of you knew me back during school days, which means you know exactly what’s coming! Bar trivia was a little tradition for me during the school years, and I figured I’d bring it back tonight just so we could all relive the good ol’ days, huh?” He chuckles, joined by the crowd. “So, let’s get started! For those of you who are new to this, it’s pretty simple. I’ll ask a few questions, some of them will be open ended, others might be multiple choice. Whoever is the first to buzz in can answer; if they get it wrong, they can’t answer again and we’ll see who buzzes in the fastest next. Now, for tonight’s theme, the questions I’ll ask will be… Nerd trivia!”

Luna perks up, glancing over at Orion, who shrugs. She hunkers down, proceeding to focus her attention on their host.

“Everyone ready? Alright, first question. The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy released during the years 2001 through 2003. What is the name of the person who composed for them?”

Luna’s hand slams down on the buzzer as quick as lightning, startling Orion next to her. Evan, with bright eyes, points.

“Howard Shore!” she calls out. “It got him three Oscars, two Golden Globes, two Grammys, and a whole book written about the music.”

He laughs. “Correct! That’s a point for Luna, but unfortunately we don’t give more for the extra trivia. Next question!

“In the popular tabletop RPG Dungeons and Dragons, most characters have a score that dictates how hard they are to hit in combat. What is the name of this trait?”

Like a cat, her hand slaps the buzzer. Orion is almost in disbelief as she answers, “Armor class!”

“That is correct!”

The game continues like this, and Luna plays as if she’s fighting for her life. Something about her energy infects Orion, and even he manages to get a few answers in (mostly in other categories, which they suspect they moved into to give the other players a fighting chance). By the end, it’s clear who the winners are, their prize being some more refreshments on the house and a gift card.

“You’re terrifying,” Orion chuckles after they’ve dispersed, waiting for whatever Evan has planned next.

“Is that why you said I might like this? Because I have nerd energy?” she accuses him lightheartedly.

“I didn’t know that would be a category for the night. But… Yes. I do think you have ‘nerd energy’.” At her expression, he quickly adds, “And I mean that in the best way.”

It’s true, something about Luna’s energy and vivaciousness is truly infectious. Orion’s felt uneasy deep in the pit of his stomach for most of the night, due to no one’s fault but his own. Even when she’s not on stage, watching her always has a way of putting him at ease and pulling him out of his head when he’s in too deep. He feels present when he’s with her, something he’s been trying to work on ever since whatever this is between them had started.

Whatever this is. The source of the pit in his stomach. Orion isn’t a fool—most of the time—and he knows there’s a name for what they are, what he feels when they’re together. But after so long of staving off everything within his heart save for logic and perceived practicality, it’s like trying to work with atrophied muscles.

He just hopes she can forgive him for taking so long.

As they converse, his friend comes up to them again. “Damn, Luna, you killed it out there, I was so shocked! Remind me to never play against you in one of these.”

She chuckles. “Oh, I think you’ll be fine if it’s anything that’s not music or some nerd stuff. I think I just picked a great night to be here.”

“Music… That’s something you’re into, right? I’ve been meaning to ask, to be honest. Is that how you two met?”

They both know where this line of questioning leads, but Orion can’t think of a way to get out of it.

“Yeah, you could say that… We met through work,” Luna answers. “I’m a musician.”

“Oh damn, well no wonder he likes having you around. When did you guys meet?”

“A couple years ago. Orion, um, you could say he helped me out for a bit.”

There’s a pause, and they can tell Evan is about to simply rip off the band-aid as his curiosity gets the better of him. “Right… Listen, sorry, it’s been killing me this whole time, and if I’m out of line feel free to chew me out but are you two…?”

“Yes, Evan, we’re dating.”

What shocks them is that it’s not Luna’s voice who speaks. It’s Orion, looking warmly exasperated as he looks at his friend. Luna is rendered momentarily speechless, wondering if she heard right. Did he really just admit that out loud, so quickly?

Evan on the other hand is downright gleeful. “Hell yes! Well damn, I know it’s my party but congrats, you two! Luna, let me tell you straight up you got a good one, you hear?” To Orion, he winks and whispers, “You better watch out, my friend. I can tell you’ve got one who will not take your shit.”

He waves him away, and their host walks away, jubilant and likely to spread the news. When his eyes meet hers, he tries to brush it off with a shrug.

“What?”

It takes her a moment to find her voice. “I just… I wasn’t expecting that.”

At this, Orion relents, his face falling into something a bit more vulnerable. “I know. And I’m sorry for… all this. You deserve better and honestly, he really made me realize what I was doing, or wasn’t doing. I hope that’s okay.”

Luna’s lips smile around the straw in her mouth. “You’re spoiling me tonight. Getting me a win in trivia, now this. All that’s left now is to hear you call me your girl and then I can rest easy, at last.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself.” But his voice is soft and filled with warmth, and when they fall into silence a small smile graces his lips.

The rest of the night is wonderful, and Luna and Orion are certain to remember it, one way or another.

[subzeroiceskater]

Yuletide 2024

Running against the clock here so putting this placeholder post. The letter itself should be here and completed in a day or two, unless something happens and I can't update on time, so here's 2023's letter. My tastes haven't changed at all.

Yeah, some stuff happened.

Thank you for taking on this pinch hit. 🙇

Special 2024 Request: “Bechdel test”

I was originally post at the end with the fun little graphic but it’s probably better to put upfront. I know most of my requested characters are male and from overwhelmingly male-dominated fandoms, but I’d love if the story could pass the Bechdel test. Pull up some canon female or make up some original characters for the story at hand. I love all the characters I requested but I’d love for some ladies to get some love, too.

If you feel this just can’t work with the story that you want to write, that’s fine. Optional details are optional. For these exchanges, the story I’m waiting to read is the story that only you can write, after all.

My tastes haven’t changed from 2023’s list so if you need some ideas in general, that’s a good starting point.

Rockman | Mega Man Classic

Sorry, Tundra Man is my dearly beloved character and I’m still starving for fics about him. I’d just be happy to read a mostly solo fic about him. I wrote a whole bunch of words about him on the previous list so check that out!

But I’d also love some fic where he plays off another Robot Master. The story I’m imagining is him pairing him off with one of the other three.

Bounce Man - He’s my second favorite of the Mega Man 11 bunch and he’s sweet and cute and underrated in my opinion. I’m leaning toward something cute and shippy with Tundra but platonic is more than fine. I do believe their respective backstories is ripe for interesting character exploration.

Cut Man – I just think he’s neat. As an older and more established Robot Master, he’d probably be more familiar to fans and in-universe, he’s a Light Labs bot. What would one of the first earliest sentient robots have to talk about with an arctic explorer-turned figure skater? Did Cut happen to meet him by chance while at Dr. Light’s lab? No, seriously, what WAS Tundra Man doing, having his checking up over there when he’s a—

Bright Man – Cossack robot! Bright’s my favorite of the Mega Man 4 Robot Masters and I will never get enough of Tundra Man and Cossack Robot Laboratories stories and associations. What would Bright have to say about the newest canon member of the family? Maybe Kalinka (and Roll) is there for some adventures?

If you could somehow come up with a story featuring all four characters, that’d be amazing, obviously, but the story I’m imagining something intimate and revealing between Tundra and other character. I’m guessing most people would want to write sweet and heartwarming moments but I’m not opposed to some sadness.

Advance Wars

Jess x Jake is my OTP since forever and there is nothing for them and at this point, I’ll take anything. Anything. ;_;

No, no, backup, backup. Advance Wars recently had a remake come up last year, Advance Wars: Re-Boot Camp, but I’ll politely ask you to ignore that. Jess does appear there but I’ll be honest, I’m not a fan. I’ll instead ask you to take cue from the Nintendo DS 2005 release, Advance Wars: Dual Strike, technically the third game in the series. Jake and Jess both appear there and is my basis of my eternal fandom and shipping of them.

I went on more in my post last year but my take on them is a teacher-student relationship, gentle and lowkey. The story I’m imagining for them is something as quiet and lowkey, the moment and spaces in love and war, maybe realizing they’ve fallen in love and never finding the right moment to say it outloud. Jake has to deal with rebuilding with his homeland and Jess, she’s a commander from another country—how could they really work. But they love each other deep down. Now what?

Or you know, they could be geeking out tanks.

Colin is also there.

(Colin is completely optional in this story request but I do love him so much. He’s sweet and earnest, and funny!)

About the “what’s the airport again” meme: I’ve said before but I made it clear that I love jokes and have a weird sense of humor, and I can see how a well-meaning author might use that to drop a so-funny reference in a fic, thinking I might love it. I won’t. I’m sorry, it’s just so unfunny to me.

Famicom Wars

This is Caroline’s profile.

This is Billy Gates’ profile.

This is Yuan Delta’s profile.

Read all that? Good. That’s all the information the game provides you. Go wild.

Super Famicom Wars is the enhanced Super Famicom/SNES remake of the original Famicom Wars, featuring new maps and for the first time in the series, playable Commanding Officers. There was still no campaign or story for the game, so all the possible info for the characters are just based on their profiles, sprites and maybe music (you can change the music of any CO, it’s just each CO has an associated track, unofficially, their “theme music”). Yuan Delta has a bit of an interesting and fun history to him but it’s very missable.

So why did I request Caroline x Billy Gates as a ship? It’s honestly based on nothing, haha! Over the years I just sort built of this fun rivalry ship between a smarmy billionaire and wild-child lucky girl who face each other over and over again, on the battlefield and off. In-game, Billy’s monetary advantage tend to steamroll any other character but in-universe, I like to imagine that Caroline sometimes wins with her luck.

The story I’m imagining is an encounter between with lots of…uh, Foe-yay? A Mr. And Mrs. Smith kind of faceoff (I’ve never seen the film though…), Spy vs Spy, my perfect rival kind of deal. Caroline and Billy as two battle-happy rivals who clearly are attracted to each other but would never want to admit it, and the only thing worse than losing to each other, is actually losing each other for real. They’re each other’s perfect enemies and they’d want to keep wanting to fight each other, forever if possible. Maybe it’s an actual military battle where they’re hired/convinced to fight for a country as freelance COs; maybe it’s a battlefield over something more mundane like they shopping for dinner in a supermarket (why would a billionaire be slumming with the poors…unless…). Maybe they’re rival shippers on A03.

Like Colin, Yuan Delta could also be there. (I really like him! And it would be fun to see him in an actual fanfic.)

Go wild!

The airport joke again: yeah, so Re-Boot Camp kinda implied Caroline could be Nell’s mom, which I’m ambivalent about. That was actually my headcanon way, way back that Caroline is Nell and Rachel’s mom (and their Billy is their unknown dad, drama!) but I didn’t like actually being made canon, somehow. A well-meaning author could be thinking it be fun to put that airport meme but I’d just dislike it.

Smiling Friends

Hey guys, before you scurry out of here and go full swing on your Yuletide assignments, I’d like you do to read my request about someone. That’s right, it’s him, my favorite character, The Boss! I loved watching him in season 1 and pumped my fist for every drop of new lore that season 2 had for him. I enjoy the juxtaposition of his adorable voice, sweet nature, and how he’s mostly a good boss and father, with how utterly dark and deranged he can get. He’s just really fun to watch and I’d just love more that.

I think Mr. Boss might be a harder kind character to write about, but the story I’m imagining is one where it showcases why Mr. Boss is the head Smiling Friends by him taking the lead of making someone smile. The episode “Frowning Friends” showed how formidable Mr. Boss truly is, being able to make his competition smile after threatening to kill them, so what is he like in a more normal case, whatever the meaning of normal is in the Smiling Friends universe. Exploration of canon moments could be good too, like what he was up to whenever he was off screen in any episode. Go as sweet and fluffy with as you like with just the barest hint of dark or maybe full weird and dark with just the glimmering of sweet. This is the Boss, after all.

I don’t have any ships for this series but if you like pairing any of the rest of the boys (Charlie, Pim, Allan, Glep--Smormu and Taylor whenever they were around) together or keep them with their canon relationships, that’s good with me.

Just kind of a heads-up: I’m one apparently few people who have no idea of who Zach Hadel was or whatever he was up internet-wise so any references to him or Sleepy Cabin or whatever a Tomar is would be lost to me. You could still put them but I probably won’t get it, haha. I have watched and enjoyed Michael Cusack’s YOLO series (Crystal Fantasy and Silver Destiny, looking forward to Rainbow Trinity) and Bushworld Adventures.

Once again thanks for writing for me this Yuletide. I’m kinda expecting whatever my story to be more on the light/sweet side on things, but YOLO/Bushworld Adventures/Smiling Friends is a good benchmark for how weird/dark you can get, if you want.

Sidenote: I’ve been having some health issues so I fully expect to edit this a bit later in a day or two. There’s a much better version of this letter I’ve been imagine posting with drawings and I want to get on that level but this is all the relevant information and would be mostly unchanged except make for better words. I’ll be removing this note when that is done. Sorry about all this.

[turnippencil]

Hello hello? Do you remember me? I hope your month has been kind to you. How's the writing going? Don't burn yourself out. I'd like to know what personal headcanons do you have for the Lamb and Bishops and Narinder you're planning for in the Veil AU, Weaved Lies? Do you have a favorite weapon and curse and fleece? Which follower do you have is your favourite? What do you think the COTL official comics would show for its contents?

Have a good week, eat your meals regularly!

Of course I do! Welcome back, friend <3

Honestly, it has come to a halt, mostly due to college kicking my ass. Dont worry, I dont think ive brunt out too bad, mostly just academically and not artistically

As for headcanons I have for The Past We Shared (Decided to stick with this, although your suggestion is indeed scrumptious):

- I'd say the bishops were never truly 'loving' with one another. When you are near-immortal you have a near-infinite time to fix mistakes. Yet, it means a longggg time for resentment to stew

- Shamura is love bombing Narinder, even as a kid, as a sort of self-redemtion of how they raised Heket and Kallamar

- I have a headcanon that the big skull we see in Sozo's realm is a previous god, in TPWS I linked it to being a previous deity of death

- All the decorations we make in the game have backstory, as it is probably what Narinder had in his realm during his reign. I just need to do some metal gymnastics (specifically the weeping fountain in my story 🤫)

Favourite weapon? AXE AXE AXE 🪓 it goes boomerang, much fun. Though for my lamb, I feel they are a claws kind of menace.

Favourite fleece? During the early game, it was the Golden fleece. Now it is Fleece of Fevour' Favour. Hands down. One, it's aesthetic. Two, it's so good paired with a demon that collects fevour for you during crusades 🩷

Curse? Divine guardian, especially for no hit runs paired with golden fleece, but any is fine 👌

Favourite follower in my save file? Their name is Chicken Popcorn and Deer Man, my two earliest. Chicken is a pink deer, while Deer Man is a brown Stag.

I love antlers.... horns....

As for the content in the official comic? I hope it goes far to give the Lamb a more defined personality (more than the animated ads have shown) and more lore drops for theorists to speculate on! These two are kinda lacking in the base game 🫠. Yet, methinks this helped contribute to the rise of its fandom content! It is very malleable and open to creativity!

Thank you for your ask, as I sit here typing, taking a break from school work. It's really brightened my day. Drink water and stay refreshed angst&happiness! Hope to hear your thoughts on the comic soon!

[thebrookesnook]

Get To Know Me <3

> Three Ships: My current OTPs that I'm currently obsessed with are WangXian of MDZS and Shen Jiu with happiness of SVSSS. I literally cannot stop my love for the former ship and my desire to see the later be given the love he deserves. And for the third...umm well a comfort pairing of mine from South Park is Craig and Tweek. I liked their dynamic as friends who were unwillingly became basically a grade school relationship then actually became an actual couple at the end of it, but my love for these cute boys grew when they showed up as adults in the Post-COVID Movie still being together (I have no clue whether they're still in a romantic relationship but I chose to believe it). They're cute 🧡

> First Ship: Oh gosh. Um, the earliest I can recall shipping or actively looking for content for a pairing was ShadAmy from the Sonic series (*艸*). It was definitely my introduction to fanfics and fandom culture in general.

> Last Song: Into the Night by Santana ft. Chad Kroeger! The amount of nostalgia I got from listening to this song hits me hard every time!! It's a really good song to just imagine your favorite pairing meeting for the first time in a dance of romance trope.

> Last Movie: I recently watched Avatar (2009) because I had just watched the sequel without remembering much of the first movie. There was definitely flaws in the pacing and storyline of both movies but I still enjoyed it nonetheless because I love the worldbuilding of Pandora.

> Currently Reading: Other than fanfics, I'm still reading Origin by Dan Brown and so far I'm just so strung along like a fish. I AM HOOKED. The Robert Langdon series is one of my favorite book series ever and its because of the puzzles and mysteries I try to figure out, connect the dots y'know? I love solving puzzles, ciphers, and anything that gets my fish brain going. (Also keeping myself updated on Relic of the Stronghold by akali_mist on Webnovel 👀)

> Currently Consuming: If by 'consuming' in relation to food, I'm eating the nerds candy. Specifically the grape & strawberry flavor. In terms of fanworks? Anything MXTX and Criminal Minds flavored.

> Currently Craving: Noodles or pasta. It's late and I want pasta or spicy noodles.

-

Oh! A GTKM! :0

Thank you for the tag Emi @applepi00 ! ^^

I haven't done one of these in while because I don't have a lot active mutuals that I talk to often to tag in one of these anymore. (´∀｀；)

But this was simple enough so I decided to shoot my shot. I could only think of 7 to tag so I hope that's alright.

@imsickenedbutcurious @vestaldestroyer @quiet-resonance @akalimist @stargirl720 @solenechii @mikimooey

(For those tagged, feel free ignore this post and/or not to respond if you don't want to. (;^_^c )

[rosiecroz]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love 💗

whoever sent this, you are so kind! i haven't written in over half a year so this was a nice trip down memory lane <3

in order of posting (most recent to earliest):

a kiss this tender (bernardo/riff, west side story 2021, E rating)

Pins prickle behind Riff’s eyes. His body is not his own. He feels like he’s been doused in gasoline, and Bernardo is holding the match.

i'm sure most people will think this pair is Taboo(TM) considering canon events but this was the last fic i wrote in which i felt really good about my character voices. i'm particularly proud of the way i wrote riff's internal narration during the scene in the shop.

coffee break (keeley jones/roy kent/jamie tartt, ted lasso, T rating)

“What’s this?” Keeley asks. Roy wrinkles his nose when he makes out that familiar, tidy handwriting. “Says right there it’s from that prick, doesn’t it?”

if i don't achieve anything else in life, i can at least say i pioneered the keeley/roy/jamie tag on ao3. this fic is now in super AU land because i wrote it between seasons 1 and 2, but i'm astounded by how many kudos/etc i still get on it even though the series is potentially over. it's warmed my heart to see this ot3 gain its fans :)

rekindle (j. daniel atlas/dylan rhodes, now you see me, T rating)

Rhodes is an unknown variable in his system of chaos. Daniel wants to draw out that fire, extinguish it, then relight the dying embers with the sparks from his own torch.

a super niche pair in a super niche fandom but that's how i roll! i love these silly magician movies and i LOVE daniel and dylan's relationship. people who know me will know that i love writing fics that span canon events and incorporate them into developing (or established) relationships. this is one of those -- and i still love how i weaved mythology and the concept of heroism into this. one of my all-time personal favorites.

you're in my head, you're in my blood (joseph blake/lt. leslie, 1917, E rating)

Joe shuts his eyes. He already knew this was a ridiculous notion, but now that he’s trying and failing to explain it out loud, the absurdity of the ordeal has been cemented in his mind. What’s more, he didn’t even consider if Leslie was single or taken, had automatically assumed that it would be the former. He’ll apologise, hang up, show up by himself to the party, it’s not a big deal— “Okay,” Leslie says. “Okay,” Joe echoes. He blinks. “Okay…?” “You need arm candy to parade around at this party, right? So, okay.”

speaking of niche pairs in niche fandoms... it doesn't get any more niche than joe and leslie, aka the namesake of my url. 1917 is the fandom i fell in love with during the height of the pandemic. without it, i wouldn't have written so much, nor met so many treasured life-long friends. also, this is just one of many joe/leslie fics i've written but it gets a special shoutout because i was deranged and churned it out in one week (betsy can attest).

the long way around (steve harrington/billy hargrove, stranger things, T rating)

Steve turns around. He can’t believe his eyes. “Billy?” It’s weird calling him that, considering they’d never spoken more than a few words (and exchanged a lot of fists), but Steve is so taken aback that he blurts out the name without a second thought. Sure enough, it’s Billy standing there, still sporting the same blond curls, but they’re tied back and a bit longer than before. He still has those damn aviators. At least he knows how to button up a shirt now. “You’re a long way from Hawkins,” Billy says.

i was gonna link a will/tom 1917 fic for my last entry, but ultimately decided on this old harringrove fic. i haven't read it in a while so idk how well it holds up, but harringrove is the pair that made me start writing fic seriously. i had written just one fic previously (and it was many, many years ago), but then season 3 of stranger things happened and the rest is history. this is not the first harringrove fic i wrote but it is my favorite. steve and billy go on a road trip together ten years after the starcourt mall incident (obvious au timeline here) and i still remember constructing a google map for this fic to keep track of the places they stop at. this fic will always have a special place in my heart.

--

thanks to anon for letting me ramble a bit about my old fics!

[crowlore]

lucian’s comfort character compilation (i will be cheating)

i have been instructed by @huginsmemory​ to “List Five Comfort Characters And Tag Five People”. helpfully, i was already recently provided with a handy list of characters perceived to be Mine™, seen here:

what can i say. i have a brand to maintain and apparently it’s deeply mentally ill characters that spark needless discourse on twitter. i own this. i will be cheating by pairing characters together per listing. order doesn’t particularly reflect anything. i don’t typically tag specific people for these things so consider this post an open invitation to anyone reading to overshare about your favs. GO FORTH

nicholas d. wolfwood. my fucking god. to lead with him feels the most transparent i can stand to be. what is there to even say. he has everything. he's the foil. he's the love interest. he's introduced with one foot in the grave and the other in the church. he's a hitman. he's a priest. he's a bodyguard. kids and single mothers love him. he's an orphan. he's a chain smoker. he shoots first asks questions never. he's screaming and covered in his own blood and hunting you down with a concussion and temporary blindness. he was drowning in foot deep water with seven broken ribs three minutes ago but he's fine now. as a man who once fractured his spine on a rock because of a comical tightrope walking incident and was walking it off two hours later, i relate. something something i could fix him but whatever is wrong with him is way more interesting

minato arisato and ryoji mochizuki (do not separate). uhhhhh persona 3 remake when? please? the earliest installments of this series may have been a bit before my time (not that i even got to play 3 when it was fresh since i didn’t really get a lot of freedom with video games until 2012) so i understand my bias but p3 is still my favorite main series entry to date. and you get TWO depressed moon themed bitches for the price of one with this game? one of them is death. the other becomes an interstellar gateway. i’m a sucker for characters who know each other for a tiny fraction of the larger story but instantly connect like they’ve been waiting lifetimes to meet again. characters whose presence in the narrative is brief but infinitely impactful. one is literally made from the other. what can i say.

goro akechi. while we’re on persona. sorry, we have to get into my Problematic Fav. let me tell you. i’ve been in the fucking trenches. this character is easily 50% of the reason i don’t engage in persona fandom spaces (wrt 5 especially). i love crazy bitches. personally, i love and encourage his violent mania and psychotic tendencies. can’t help being a gemini. can’t help being a foil. he didn’t stop at biting the hand that feeds him; he wanted to chew the whole thing off the arm regardless of who else he had to sink his teeth into on the way. y’all are just still mad that part of that means he can be a pretty unlikable person. at least he was honest with his motivations when you caught him. i get him though. goro’s role in the third act of royal saved the game because you and i both know that new story content wasn’t any good otherwise. he’s there to be a BITCH and keep things REAL. shout out to goro akechi for helping me identify my own dissociative disorder. thanks king

uldren sov and crow. this is a different people, same character sort of situation. sometimes you die and come back with no memories and get to be the same person at heart but placed into a life of extremely altered circumstances and see where that takes you. now i’m aware these characters are kind of divisive in destiny circles (mostly for the wrong reasons). i’ll give it to the people who think he’s being pushed waaaaay too hard into the narrative spotlight in a lot of seasons; that’s totally fair. but he’s had a lot of super compelling arcs surrounding his trauma across two lifetimes. his grief really becomes him. i’m also sincerely just so weak to stories centered around siblings, especially ones dealing with the really harsh and ugly truths regarding emotional abuse in the family and the complexity of familial love.

dimitri alexandre blaiddyd and the blue lions. SORRY. CONTRACTUAL FIRE EMBLEM MENTION. fe16 is the reason i completely left the fire emblem fandom space, even though it’s been a toxic cesspool for the entire decade i’ve been in any way involved with it. dimitri’s another of my twitter assigned problematic favs (the fandom faction wars surrounding this game were insane) and the reason i’m not even on the platform anymore. i have miles wide weak spot for the blue lions’ found family dynamic and was instantly in love with the way these characters played off of each other in established relationships right from the start of the game. their route tells a very complete, grounded character driven story that hit all the right emotional story beats to make the ending really feel rewarding. it was often times uncomfortable, but it was done well in a way that didn’t shy away from a lot of the ugly parts of mental illness that allowed me to feel very seen. i think it held truest to the standard formula of the fire emblem story structure and did so very well, even if silver snow was written first as the intended canonical story route. still my favorite after four years. classic.

[yjwhatif]

What are your favorite Bart/Ed fics, if you have any?

Oh there are so many great Ed/Bart fics out there and there’s probably more since I’ve only ever looked on AO3 but here’s a list of the ones that have stuck with me the most…

Mamma Mia, he’s Italiano! by Toca

The impeccable timing of everything by Toca

Keep the lights turned off by Toca

The thing I really love about these is the use of times stamps like the show - it’s so effective - it makes them feel like actually episodes of the series. Particularly with impeccable timing, there’s so much depth in the storytelling that draws you in and makes it so easy to connect with everyone and everything that happens - every character feels fleshed out and real. Also I do love a good long fic!

Invulnerable by Ailerua

(I'll Be) Fine by Ailerua

These are two really great hurt/comfort fics that masterfully explore Bart’s emotional complexities - in a way we have still yet to see explored in the actual show. Also invulnerable made me fall in love with Ed and Jaime’s friendship and that is another thing I actually wanna see depicted in the show — give me more of the best friend squad!

Honeybaby by Golden_Hearts

you’re a sunflower (I think your love would be too much) by LogicalBookThief

These are two fics that remain incomplete (😩) but honestly the writing that’s there is truly phenomenal! The character dynamics are amazing— everything about them is just SO GOOD! The relationship between Bart and Cissie in sunflower is both entertaining and endearing - it is so fun to read and reread their scenes together. Whilst honeybaby is a no powers/collage/coffee shop au which portrays Ed and Bart as completely different yet possess a connection that makes them totally perfect for one another - they see behind each other’s masks… also Traci is stellar every time she shows up!

Field Trip to Davy Jones' Locker by FrozenWaffle

Aspirin by FrozenWaffle

These are some of the earliest fics I remember reading and I honestly think they’re are what truly and absolutely established my love for this pairing in those earliest of days. I was new to fandom and fan fiction and shipping - especially for a LGBTQ+ couple (I had a very closed minded existence until Ed&Bart pulled me into this much more colourful and open minded world that I genuinely love being a part of) - these fics gave me my first taste of what this relationship could be and I have been hooked ever since - there was no going back after reading these.

Sons of a Scientist Father by hart051

While this doesn’t really have much Bart in it - only a little bit at the end - I just really enjoy seeing Ed and Vic connect over their experiences dealing with their scientist fathers. It’s simple and sweet and it is exactly what I wanted to see explored in some way… also the Ed/Bart interaction at the end is really cute!

Into the Nothing by hlwar

Now this is actually just an Ed fic set after S2 (Bart’s not in it at all) but it is my all time FAVOURITE fic that I have ever read EVER! If I’m ever in need of an Ed fix, I read this fic - everything about it is PERFECT! It’s so brilliantly crafted that I genuinely consider these events canon - they happened - no question about it! I LOVE IT SO MUCH!!

And that’s my list. I hadn’t actually been checking their tag on AO3 for a while - since whenever I did there were no updates and that made me sad - but in compiling this list I realised there’s some I actually haven’t read yet — so I’ll be checking those out next…

If anyone has any fic recommendations from other sites or that I haven’t mentioned here which are Ed/Bart focused then feel free to drop me a message and I’ll add them to the reading list!

LB

[longmonthartist]

A Brief History of K18 Fanfics Part 2

Preface

I just want to say I’m so happy about the positive response to Part 1. I was afraid the whole article can be a bit too self-indulgent or that authors aren’t really interested in what happened some two decades ago anymore. Needless to say, I’m relieved by the show of interest from the K18 community. Now without further delay, here’s part 2, which will cover the late 2000s to mid 2010s. I’ll also be covering a few major names I accidentally left out from the inactive old classics.

Inactive Old Classics Continued

Before we continue with old classics I missed out let me just say that the reason why the earliest K18 fics are labelled Android 16 and Krillin is due to how Android 16 – 18 shared the same label in earlier versions of FF.net, so once they all get separated, the 16 – 18 tag became Android 16.

CSHayden

I can’t believe I missed this one. Thanks to Cj4Dj by the way for reminding me of this classic. CSHayden is still active on FF.net but has since moved onto other fandom. This being said, this author was a famous K18 writer back in the days and has been contributing since the very first beginning.

Capable of writing both in-depth analysis of the couple as well as more humorous pieces that still captures their essence perfectly, CSHayden has written all-time favorites such as “The Morning After” and “Washed Away”. Their most famous piece, “Mrs. Chestnut, about your daughter...” is arguably the best story involving grown-up Marron as it perfectly describes how Krillin and Eighteen would’ve raised their daughter and how our favorite Mrs. Chestnut would’ve done to anyone who dared touching her daughter. For K18 fans wanting to get a sense of what first generation author is capable of, CSHayden’s works are must-reads.

Juu

Another famous writer who has written some impactful K18 stories in the past, Juu is capable of writing some very deep and reflective pieces involving our characters. While not always easy reads, Juu’s most famous story such as “Love Juuhachigou” and “Thank You” portrayed how Eighteen viewed her family when no one’s watching and is capable of bringing out emotions with few selective words.

Cold-eyes-for-you

I knew I missed someone from my last post cause I kept on remembering there’s a famous writer with the word “Cold” in their pen name and indeed, I missed Cold-eyes-for-you. While more of a Dragon Ball generalist and more specifically, Marron pairing specialist, Cold-eyes-for-you has nevertheless written some all time K18 classics such as “He Can’t Handle It”, a hilarious piece involving how Krillin proved all his friends wrong by having a good time with Eighteen.

Tim333

This author is known for one fic and one fic only, the epic “Kuririn: Only Human”. Known as the most comprehensive Krillin life story back in the day, “Kuririn: Only Human” remained a golden standard on how to write character analysis even to this day. It’s totally worth checking him out for this 160k words long novel alone, which covered Krillin from his early childhood to fatherhood. Also, I believe it had been translated into Spanish due to its popularity, showing just how impactful this story is. K18 fans can also enjoy this piece as it later touched up on how Krillin viewed Eighteen from the very beginning.

ALF

A very early K18 author starting in 2000! While ALF has since moved onto other fandoms and hasn’t been writing since, their story: “The Dance” is an incredible K18 story that portrayed the characters without using one single dialogue. Now that’s impressive and definitely a treat for people wanting something not so dialogue and thoughts heavy.

Juu-chan2002

The last old classics I swear, Juu-chan2002 is yet another author using Eighteen/Juuhachigou’s name in her pen name. all 3 of her stories are worth checking out as all contained solid storytelling.

2nd Generation K18 Writers (Late 2000s to mid 2010s)

In this section, I’ll be loosely compiling all authors who aren’t exactly first generation, but came into the fandom several years later. By the time these writers start with their stories, they already have a lot of classics showing them the way and therefore, inventing new concepts is becoming harder but nevertheless they managed to come up with some very interesting plots. It is also worth noting that by now, fanfic format has been standardized more or less so 2nd Gen K18 authors do not suffer from the issue of formatting compared to 1st gen authors. Also taking place during this time period is the airing of Dragon Ball Z Kai, a cleaner version of DBZ airing in late 2000s and early 2010s that revitalized the fandom.

I’d also like to point out that I’m largely off from FF.net during this time period so there’s a chance I’ll be missing quite a lot of 2nd gen authors. Do let me know if there’s anyone who should be added to this list.

ChronicallyinFlaming

An incredibly diverse author who has written some major K18 works, ChronicallyinFlaming’s K18 stories are either very steamy, reflective, or a combination of both. One thing that stood out about ChronicallyinFlaming’s works is their interesting if not whacky premise. Definitely worth checking out if one wants some K18 stories with different take. I would especially recommend stories such as “As a Joke” and “Overwhelmed”, two stories of vastly different tone but are equally enjoyable to read.

Thegoffietwerb/gremlinloquacious

Thegoffietwerb is also known as gremlinloquacious on Ao3. She’s another versatile author who has written stories in many fandoms. In the K18 fandom though, she’s known as for “Fools Fall In”, a humorous K18 story with unique premise. The story’s still ongoing despite first published way back in 2010 and, just like other authors who has been on the site for a while, one can see the progression of her writing throughout the years. Definitely worth checking out.

SuperWG

SuperWG is more of a Dragon Ball generalist than K18 specialist but like many versatile authors, has written some good K18 stories. Known for his love for overlooked characters, SuperWG tries to paint misunderstood characters in positive lights and his stories often contain strong themes. “Waltz”, his latest story is quite a calm enjoyable piece while older stories such as “What’s In His Heart” and “Worst Nightmare” can be viewed as trying to correct fan misconceptions of K18 or 17.

Do give this author a try especially if one doesn’t like how certain characters are presented by the fandom, as his stories will make you clap for dismantling wrong portrayals of not just K18 but other Dragon Ball couples.

Buttercup12490

The best way to describe Buttercup12490 is the humorous but still reflective tone in their works. “Oh Brother” is a collection of K18 one shots featuring some very good snippets while “Observations” is probably the best and only K18 story featuring the infamous Brianne. It’s definitely interesting looking through K18 through their most adamant fictional hater: Brianne and see how the couple can turn someone’s view with their love for each other.

Doccubus

Probably the most famous K18 lemon author in the 2010s, this author has written some of the most eye-opening steamy K18 contents. While not for readers unprepared for some major rated M contents, for those liking lemon, Doccubus’s stories, all of which are very humorous if not slightly outrageous in additional to their lime, will more than satisfy you. Just make sure not to read at work.

Koinekid

Koinekid has been on ff.net since the early 2000s but he falls under 2nd generation K18 author due to start writing this lovely couple in the late 2010s. Perhaps due to his decades of writing experience or his English focused education history, all of his stories are well formatted and structured while also demonstrating good plot progression and interesting twists. It’s rather hard to recommend any specific K18 stories since, well, all his 4 K18 stories are worth reading. I’d definitely check out Koinekid’s writing not only for his creativity and but also just to see how paragraphs and sentences can be stringed together in one seamlessly fluid writing.

 Well, that’s it for A Brief History of K18 Fanfics part 2. For the next part I’ll cover some contemporary writers (the 2020s).

[gallickingun]

remember me || t.a.

SUMMARY: Tamaki Amajiki saves a civilian. He doesn’t expect her to buy him coffee and teach him about the wiles of floral culture.

PAIRING: Tamaki Amajiki x Fem!Reader  RATINGS: T+ WARNINGS: mild violence and language, etc.  WORD COUNT: 6.9k+

LINKS: ao3 | masterlist | mobile | writing tag

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* TAG LIST *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ is at the end of this post!

AUTHOR’S NOTE: this is my first submission for the @bnhabookclub​ provisional license event! if you want to participate, here is the post! and if you want to apply for the server, here is the application!! 

i have to get sappy here for a second. i had 2 panic attacks while writing this because i was so self-conscious, so riddled with doubts about a. was i getting tama’s character right b. was i even on par with the great and wonderful writers of this fandom and c. am i proud of this? eventually, after talking it through, i realized that it doesn’t matter how i measure up to everyone else. i should be writing this because i want to, and because i’m enjoying myself. so, special thanks to @freckledoriya​ and @k-atsukidayo​ who have once again been my lifeline. i love you guys ♡

if you like this, feel free to request more HERE!

Tamaki Amajiki had never given flowers much thought.

He usually passes by the windows of a floral shop and notices the blossoms just enough to smell the variance of air – from stale to sweet – and then he moves on, not much effort spent towards the colorful display of petals in the open windows.

But now, after finding you, he cannot stop thinking about the way they bloom.

“Columbine,” your eyes light up, thumbs pressed to the dark red petals, “they are used to symbolize anxiety.”

Tamaki’s eyes graze over the flower, wondering how you could know so instantly that he might connect with this specific budding plant. The tether he feels to it is strange, something particular but also aloof – as if he could not place it if he tried.

Anxiety is something very relevant to Tamaki’s life, a demon he has struggled with every day since he could comprehend the reason his stomach tied into knots, the worry he keeps pent up in his chest burning ulcers into his belly. He wraps his arms around his waist at the memory of meeting you, the way his entire body was wrought with anxious thoughts, mind unable to comprehend the extent of your impact on him at the time.

You tilt your head as if able to realize that his mind has begun to spiral, “We don’t usually add these into bouquets, but something about them is just so beautifully broken, I can’t help but fall in love.”

It is a typical day on patrol when he first stumbles upon you, nothing special or out of the ordinary, not really.

Tamaki has been working under Fatgum’s agency for a few years to date, and he’s comfortable with the route that he’s been assigned, a routine he has held since the beginning of his deployment. The elder hero understood from the very start that Tamaki tends to try and avoid social interaction. In response, Fatgum made sure to create a patrol route so Tamaki could walk the least populated paths while also providing an effective amount of protection to the community. It’s the least he could do for the young Suneater, a new hero steadily climbing the charts despite his difficulty in speaking with the press outlets.

Some days Tamaki will try to stop by various vendors’ carts, eating foods that will create good manifestations for his quirk or just to support the local economy. It also allows him to try and force himself to have a discussion, even if there isn’t much substance to it, trying to grow more familiar with the ideology of small talk. He’s decided that he is going to stop by his favorite sushi bodega today, already thinking up his lengthy sashimi order as he starts towards the food stand.

And then he hears someone cry out.

Tamaki races in the direction of the distressed sound, channeling his quirk as he rounds the corner. The tentacles that are thanks to the octopus he regularly incorporates into his diet are extended from his fingertips, ready for action as soon as he skids to a stop in the street.

Your body is pressed against the wall of the alleyway, face cut by the brick beneath your cheek. You connect your gaze to his, your brilliantly shining irises seeking him out like a moth to a flame. Tamaki can’t help the way his chest constricts at the sight of such a helpless person, and then his heart lights on fire when he sees the burly man currently trying to take advantage of you. He snarls, digging his heels into the concrete, tentacles growing straight from his fingertips.

Before you can part your lips to try and beg for help or mercy, Tamaki is landing a swift blow to the thug’s head, successfully knocking him unconscious to the ground. You clasp your freed hands around your neck, coughing violently as you bend over at the waist, stars in your eyes and shards in your throat. A thin river of tears streams freely from your lids, and when you’re able to look back up at him, you’re far from embarrassed.

“Th-Thank you,” you manage, voice hoarse. You lick your lips and swipe your hands at your face to rid your skin of tears and snot, “Seriously. That guy-he came outta nowhere!”

Tamaki finds the adrenaline of the short-lived skirmish to have fled from his system, leaving behind only the crippling anxiety that makes him blush from head to toe. He swallows the growing lump in his throat when he realizes he’s been staring at you without responding for at least a full minute now. Your hands are shaking and your shoulders quiver, but Tamaki is frozen in place, feet unable to start towards you.

Fatgum taught him how to comfort civilians, but he’s never been good at it, and the way that you look at him like he hung the moon in the sky does not make the encumbrance of his task any less intense. He knows that the objectification and idolization of heroes is inevitable, no matter how poorly he projects himself onto the public. The reality of it all only does more to constrict his throat, the familiar shroud of apprehension blanketing his body and curling around his spine like a snake. It slithers its way up into his throat until he can’t breathe, tongue deadweight in his mouth.

“Black-eyed Susan,” you muse, plucking a set of three yellow flowers from a vase not too far from him. You turn the buds between your thumb and index finger, the canary-colored blossom blurring in midair as Tamaki tries to stay focused on it. He’s not so close with you that he can smell your perfume, a distinct scent even when you are hidden amongst the blossoms in the greenhouse, but near enough that your presence is dizzying.

It is hard to focus anyway, what with the way your eyes are sparkling under the lowlights of the greenhouse.

You bring the bright flower toward your face and scrunch your nose as you sniff it, eyelids fluttering closed in bliss, “They’re used to express a fierce sense of justice. Usually, we use these in our arrangements for hero galas and festivals.”

Your eyes turn to him, connecting with his violet irises as a smile tugs the corners of your mouth upward, “Don’t you think they’re stunning, Tama?”

For some reason, when he answers, you can’t help but feel there’s a duality to his words, as if he is saying one thing but meaning something else entirely. Tamaki’s eyes are trained in on your face, not the flower, and his lips move in slow motion, like syrup dripping from his tongue, “Oh yes,” Tamaki is close to smiling, “quite stunning.”

You return to your arrangement and begin to hum a gentle melody between heavy breaths as you meticulously place the flowers in their perfect order. The way your brow furrows, creases ever-present on your forehead, draws Tamaki’s attention.

For a fleeting second, he wonders if he were to press his mouth to your worried skin, would you find yourself able to relax? To allow your body to melt into his touch?

“U-Uh, yeah,” he forces the words out, a hand brushing the back of his neck to try and relieve some of the tension he’s feeling. Tamaki adjusts his cape, taking a step forward, just like Fatgum taught him in his earliest days of training. He reaches out his hand for you to shake, but you’re fumbling towards him to capture his frame in a hug before he can make sense of what is going on.

You cup his face in your hands as you pull back to look him in the eyes, completely oblivious, it would seem, to his current state of panic, “Thank you so much! You’re Suneater, right?”

Tamaki gulps down what is left of his dignity and nods in silent confirmation, eyes a little glossy as he gazes over your face. He takes in your features, noting the slope of your nose and the bow of your lips, and he wonders if he’s ever seen anyone as pretty as you before. Normally his body would turn him to mush at the mere sight of a person such as you coming so close to him, but there is something different about your aura, the way you carry yourself.  Your hands pull from his face, and he can’t help the manner that his body follows you, desperate for more.

Just as he’s coming to his conclusion about your beauty and grace, he realizes that you’re talking again, lips moving animatedly. Only this time, you aren’t speaking directly to him. You’re on the phone with the local police, letting them know that there’s been a low-level thief apprehended in the streets.

Tamaki is in awe of you – absolutely shocked at your ability to take charge of the situation, to hold onto it with an iron grip and make it your own. He should be the one alerting the cops, giving them an address and a rundown of what’s happened – that’s his job. And yet, here you are, phone to your ear and authority in your voice, detailing the scene down to the hair and eye color of the perpetrator currently propped up in the alleyway. He’s still unconscious, with his head lolled to the side with tongue protruding from his mouth.

Amajiki’s jaw is hanging just slightly, you notice, so when you step forward, crowding his space all over again, you nudge his chin with the crook of your thumb. A gentle giggle parts your lips, your head tilted in such a way that reminds him of a curious young animal, “Do you want to stop in at my shop? The police said they should be here any minute.”

“Y-Your shop?” he stutters, eyes flitting around to the different curbside stores on the strip of the road in an attempt to pinpoint the building you might be speaking of. He sees a few food stands and a bodega selling travel brochures, but nothing that screams you.

Although, does Tamaki really know enough about you to determine what kind of shop you might own or manage? He chastises himself for jumping too far ahead, his intense and sudden feelings forcing his heart to tumble over his inhibitions.

The habit of his emotions leaping into his throat is one he has struggled to curb for years now – he’s fully aware of his naturally forward-thinking spirit. He can take one action, one string of words, and force it into a new, paradoxical reality which he has fashioned all on his own in a matter of moments. The fabric of this new world is woven so intricately that it���s difficult for him to pull himself out of it, the alternate universe sucking him in and creating a vortex in which his mind can play.

You nod, grabbing your phone out of your pocket and unlocking it quickly, heading to your pictures folder for something specific. The split seconds in which you are distracted give him time to pull himself out of the recesses of his mind, to mend the fabric of time to bring him back to the present. You proudly hold the device up in his face, and he blinks harshly so he can focus.

The photograph on your screen shows him a rather familiar front display stand, dozens of budding flowers framing a beautifully crafted window sign that he’s seen every day since the start of his time at Fatgum’s agency. Tamaki tilts his head, trying to take in the store fully before he admits that he patrols by your flower shop consistently.

His head spins – he can’t believe he never stopped into your store before. Could he have met you a long time ago? Could he have seen you every day for the past few months, getting to learn your favorite flowers and flavors and the specific perfume you wear to smell so enticing? Another question plagues his mind – would you have stopped to give him the time of day had he not met you by saving your life?

“Oh,” he forces himself to speak, to dislodge himself from his tumultuous thoughts, “I-I’ve seen that shop before. You own it?”

You’re looking at the photo now, marveling at it with proud, shining irises. The picture distracts you from his enlarged pupils and blushing cheeks, and he’s thankful for the reprieve of your daunting gaze. Tamaki takes advantage of the seconds of your distracted scrutiny to map out your frame again, attempting to commit as much of you to memory as possible, given the short amount of time he has with you. He swallows the lump in his throat, licking his dry lips when you shove your phone back into your pocket, and he must refocus his eyes on some facet of your face other than your lips.

“There’s an adjoined coffee shop just to the left of it.” You’re smiling at him, and Amajiki thinks his heart is going to beat right out of his chest, flesh bruised from the intensity of its ministrations underneath the skin of his pectoral. The beginnings of a bashful tinge of pink warm your cheeks and ears, and Tamaki speculates whether your body is reacting to him or the heat of the afternoon. You lick your lips, “We can grab a scone and a cup of coffee if you like? My treat since you saved me.”

Tamaki is immediately refusing, holding his hands up as he shakes his head, ducking away from you entirely. “No, n-no, I couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

Your lips are pulled downward in a pouted frown, eyes losing a little of their luster. Tamaki regrets instantly that his mind is so tied down to the rules, the reality that: “Heroes aren’t supposed to accept bribes, gifts, or rewards in any form.”

You are twirling a different yellow flower between your fingers – this one is much more fragile in nature. Tamaki eyes the papery blossom and ponders the antiqueness of its appearance, as if it were meant to be made into outdated floral prints on fine china.

Your eyes are focused in on the center of the bud, narrowing just enough that he can tell you’re trying to concentrate, “These are yellow carnations. Carnations can mean so many different things – red for heartache, white for innocence, pink for the reality of being unable to forget someone – but yellow, wow yellow is something much more draining, exhausting.”

Tamaki is scooting closer to you, his body drawn in by the tone of your voice, “If the other flowers mean something so kind, h-how can this one have such the opposite effect?”

Your eyes are sparkling, but there is something hidden in the back of them, an emotion he can’t quite pluck out. Perhaps you have a familiarity with this type of flower? Does it hold a different power for you than the others? Are there memories tucked away in the recesses of your subconscious that wreck your spirit when you see this type of blossom?

“That’s the beauty in the buds,” you laugh at your attempt at a jesting remark, eyes hooded now as you glance downward, “if you choose the wrong one, you’re sending a different message entirely.”

Tamaki’s knee bumps into yours, and usually, he would pull away, but this time something feels different, weightier than before. His eyes cannot stray from you; he finds it difficult even when he tries. And so, he succumbs to the desire and leans closer. Near enough to you now that your body heat is intoxicating once mixed with the headiness of your perfume. He tries to keep his eyes from crossing and his hands in his lap, body uncharacteristically wanton for your skin.

You take a breath, your chest expanding, “Yellow carnations mean rejection, disappointment. Usually, they’re used as a revenge flower, given to someone who has harmed you, or taken advantage of you. We don’t do many yellow carnation bouquets.”

The phrase only seems to make you more determined – your brows pull together so tightly that your forehead creases, “Well,” you pause, brushing your hand over your face, “I guess it just won’t have to be any of those things then.”

Tamaki’s head tilts just enough to remind you of a confused animal. His inky irises are zeroed in on you, raven locks of hair falling in his eyes, “Wh-“

“It’s a date!”

His eyes practically bug out of his head, sweat starting to bead down his temples. He shakes his head and steps back from you, holding his hands up in the space currently separating your bodies. Tamaki attempts at conversation, trying to tell you in as few syllables as possible that no, that’s not okay, we can’t, I don’t think that’s allowed…

You shrug, “Listen, call it whatever you want - it’s just coffee.”

The police arrive with sirens blaring a few minutes later, taking down a statement and emailing Tamaki a new set of paperwork he’s going to have to fill out later regarding how and why he used his quirk. He secretly is praying that you will flee the scene once you realize how mundane this part of the hero job can be – interviews and paperwork and confessions on the street.

Maybe you’ll find him and the whole process tedious enough that you’ll run away, back to your flower shop where you can live on in peace, pretending as if you never met him. It’s not always fun and games being a hero, and typically, once a civilian realizes it, they walk away from the scene at hand and find something much more interesting to take up their time. Tamaki is sure you must have a thousand other things you would prefer to be doing than waiting for him to wrap up a discussion with a police officer, or so he’d like to believe.

For some reason, it does not surprise him to find that you are still waiting on him, patiently sipping a bottle of water given to you by another officer while you chat, feet twisting back and forth to pass the time. Tamaki’s mind begins to wander again to how he always passed your shop and never found you outside, watering the arrangements or even in passing in the window. He would have waved – that’s what Fatgum taught him to do. He has been trained to interact with civilians, to remind them that he is there for their protection and safety, as a beam of light in the darkness of their daily lives. There are other shop owners who he knows by name, their faces somewhat cataloged in the recesses of his mind, so he knows he would recall meeting you.

You’re remarkable; Tamaki would have remembered you.

And yet, he knows that now, every time he passes your shop, he’ll think of you, regardless of whether or not you’re outside watering the plants or inside working on an arrangement. Tamaki will be distracted with thoughts of your pretty smile, the way your eyes lit up when you spoke about your shop. Surely he’ll never be able to walk the beat of this street again without remembering you, his heart hammering in his ribs as he plucks up the courage to pass your shop each day. He’d bank on the hope that you’d see him, that you’d turn to wave, and he might be able to catch a glimpse of you, maybe even hold a full conversation more than a few sentences long.

It’s like his eyes are magnets for you now, drawn to find your essence like a northern pole. He turns his head so he can look over the officer’s shoulder, trying to find your frame again amidst the police and pedestrians alike.

Tamaki is more than surprised to find you staring directly back at him.

“What are these?” Amajiki points to a white flower he realizes he should have memorized based on its simplicity, and yet the hero knows that he’d sooner hear your bell-like voice rattling off the meanings to him, “I feel like I’ve seen them before…”

“Daisies,” you giggle, plucking a plume from your wall on display.

You twirl the flower around, taking an inhale of it before returning your attention to the hero stood in front of you. Your body moves without thinking  - inhibitions tucked away in a box in your heart as you step forward, so your body is almost flush with his own. You press one palm flat against his chest, eyes connected with his inky orbs as you grin.

Tamaki is frozen in place, his feet cemented into the ground. He couldn’t escape you even if he wanted to, what with the way his anxious heart stutters underneath the cage of his ribs. Amajiki is somewhat thankful for the bone structure around the organ, acting like a prison so his heart can’t flutter out into the open. His body blushes from head to toe, painting his skin pink, when he feels your fingertips brush against his cheek.

“You look so pretty, Tama,” you murmur as you tuck the bright white blossom behind his ear.

You cannot pull your gaze away from the fragile petals held in place by the thickness of his violet hair and the curve of his ear. The blossom looks so lovely and light in contrast to his inky hair, tucked away like a secret between the strands and his skin. You are practically whispering when you speak next, afraid you might shatter some unspoken moment, “A daisy symbolizes innocence and hope. They’re typically used to symbolize the potential of new beginnings, a promise of faith despite a certainly somber situation.”

Tamaki’s face is bright red, but he manages to speak, “O-Oh, so a get-well type of flower?”

“Something like that.” Your hand ghosts over his cheek, pushing the bud deeper against his temple so the petals are flayed outward, a hauntingly beautiful smile painted on your lips. “It looks purely providential in your hair, Amajiki. Like a light in the dark.”

When you catch him staring, your left eye drops in a wink. Tamaki knows that he has never felt his entire body blush before, but now he is privy to what the sensation is like, an intense heat traveling from his ears to his toes. It’s hot and stimulating in all the strangest of ways, pinpricks of heat underneath his skin, making it seem like he may balloon up and fly away at any given time. He coughs to try and conceal the way his throat is bobbing, covering his mouth with his gloved hand. Even his palms are bright pink beneath the white leather of his suit, turned darker in shade by the overwhelming heat of your gaze but thankfully hidden by his gloves.

The eye contact between the two of you must make you bolder, because you are walking towards him now with purposeful strides. Tamaki knows that no matter how hard he tries, he can’t make his body combust instantaneously to avoid talking with you, and he can’t quite run away when you’re striding towards him. None of those options would prove very heroic.

And, at the end of the day, despite his personal inhibitions and self-restrictions, his job is to be a good hero, to strive to provide the public with safety and comfort, and maybe today the word heroism just means coffee.

You step over to him, your body closer now than before, “You think you’re ready for that coffee now?”

“I-It’s three in the afternoon, what if the caffeine-“

“There is this cool, new invention called decaffeinated coffee,” you deadpan, raising a patronizing brow at him, smirk lilting your lips, “or you can always try tea.”

Tamaki runs his fingers over his jaw in trepidation, the pads of his digits soothing his sweating skin. He licks his lips and chews on the inner corner of his mouth, diverting his eye contact from you to the ground, focus now steadily on the toes of his boots.

The first thought in his mind is that he could be reported for this – he’s still on duty, and he’s decked out in his full hero costume. If he were to be spotted by one of the head heroes or a news outlet for being too friendly with a civilian after saving their life, it could end poorly for him in terms of his reputation. Not only would Fatgum be disappointed, the Suneater’s ranking would dip into the undesirable zone, and he’d probably lose a few of his current brand endorsement deals.

And yet, when you grab him by the elbow and loop your arm through his, Tamaki is frozen just long enough for you to begin dragging him down the street with little opposition.

“Hollyhock,” your eyes roll back in your head as you smell the pink flower in front of your face, a whimper caught in your throat at the dizzying scent. You groan, slumping down in your chair, “One of my favorites.”

Tamaki’s ears perk at the statement, eyes widening just enough so he can memorize the shape of the floral arrangement, stashing away the memory in hopes that he might pull it forward if he were to need it in the future.

“This flower is usually an accent piece, something to show that the recipient is ambitions, outgoing,” you place the stem back into the arrangement, neatly tucking it away to ensure the set is not disturbed. “They’re so stunning, such a phenomenal meaning. So often we don’t reward ambition, instead trying to stifle it.”

The hero turns toward the arrangement, eyeing it carefully. He tilts his head, careful of what he says next, “They a-are pretty flowers.”

“Yes,” your voice has quietened when you admire the blossoms, eyes glazing over as if you were under a spell. You sound far away when you speak, like you might be somewhere between here and there, feet planted on the ground beneath you but mind and soul much further away. “I think so.”

The scent of floral buds and coffee beans makes his head spin – or maybe it’s just the closeness of your body and the gentle breeze that blows your perfume towards him. Your smile mixed with the sunlight of the day makes Tamaki’s breath hitch, eyes averted from your gaze so he won’t turn every shade of red in the book.

“Bean There, Done That,” you rattle off the name of the shop, “they give me free coffee because I put together the floral arrangements for their shop.”

Tamaki is overwhelmed by the menu alone – his eyes roll back and forth over each flavor of roast and style of drink that they offer. Eventually, he feels terrible for holding up the line and he starts to stutter, attempting to spit out some flavor of some type of some kind of drink. His surprise only grows into silence when you half-step in front of him, palm jutting out to wrap around his bicep as you start ordering something that sounds like he might actually like it.

“I-I’m sorry,” he apologizes as you wait off to the side, his toes overlapping as he turns his feet inward. Your hand has since released him, but that does not stop his body from blazing beneath his costume from your touch. Tamaki coughs to hide the trepidation, “I-uh, I don’t really…I don’t really drink coffee? I-It doesn’t do much to help my quirk, so I tend to stay away from it.”

You shrug, folding your hands together at the knuckles in front of your waist, “It’s okay! I figured.” You’re turning to look at him, softness held in your irises as you behold his face, “Plus this place has a lot of options, so it can get kind of easy to feel bogged down, especially when you’re in a line, and other people are waiting impatiently.”

Wow, he thinks to himself, it’s like she’s in my head.

You’re pressing your palm to his arm now, warm touch once again like an anchor to his befuddled mind. When he looks down, you’re smiling, and some small part of him wishes your expression would never fade away into anything less miraculous than your grin coupled with dimpled cheeks and shining irises.

The crumpled petals look like sheets of tissue paper all bundled together, but somehow your magic touch makes them look appealing, beautiful even. Tamaki watches as your delicate hands swirl around the arrangement, tucking different colored flowers into various sections of the vase, transforming it from something that was one dull on its own to a symphony of color and meaning. He tilts his head and smiles, a gesture he’s discovered to be much easier now that he’s found you, “A-And, what are these?”

You glance up from your work, hands caught beneath a blossom, “Hydrangeas.”

He nods, as if he might know exactly what that word entails, lying through his teeth. When you see his unsure expression, you can’t help the grin that tugs upward on the corner of your mouth, “Do you know what these symbolize?”

Tamaki curls in on himself, shoes overlapping as his knees knock, “Uh, n-no?”

“Hydrangea flowers are beautiful because they are used to communicate gratitude for being understood,” you pluck a blooming flower from the stand, turning to hand it to him. When his knuckles brush yours, it’s like a dozen electric shockwaves tumbling through his veins, blistering his blood beneath the skin, turning him to ash inside. Tamaki gasps at the contact, but he’s thankful that you don’t laugh at his unexpected outburst, or rather you continue as if nothing happened, allowing him to shrink back in on himself with less shame than he may have been burdened with otherwise.

You lick your lips and take a short breath, eyes returned to the arrangement at hand, “Hydrangeas are beautiful and easy to manage, most people have them in their yards or gardens for decoration. I haven’t met many gardeners who know what the true meaning is, however, it seems that people always choose them for their bouquets.”

“When would you give someone a hydrangea?” Tamaki asks, eyes tracking your motions no matter which side of the arranging table you’re on. He cannot get enough of you, body drawn to your presence as he sits in wait of another story, another tale to tumble from your lips.

You are tilting your head, considering the question like it held the weight of a court behind it, as if Tamaki were your judge and jury. You sigh, the weight of the world seemingly settled on your shoulders, almost like you’d thought about this question far too much before, “I think if I were going through a hard time, and I had a friend who just was there for me, I would give them a bouquet of hydrangeas.”

“Why?”

He wishes he hadn’t blurted it out – how rude of him – but your answer makes it worth the accidental insensitivity.

“It’s easy to try and instruct someone on what you think they’re to do next,” you answer carefully, eyes following invisible directions as you stalk around the arrangement as if it were your prey. You grind your teeth together; Tamaki can tell based on the way your jaw quivers under the strain. “It’s difficult just to sit and listen. Even when it’s meant to be kind and helpful, it can sometimes be overwhelming to constantly be told how to react or what to say or how to handle a situation. Almost like they aren’t considering you at all, instead preaching to you of their prowess, how they might have done better if they were in your shoes.”

Your voice is almost chilling, hollow like a needle or a feather, “To find a friend who could listen to me without interjecting their opinion, without telling me what to do, now that is worthy of a hydrangea.”

He allows his subconscious thoughts to wander for a moment, thinking on the implications of you possibly having a mind-controlling quirk. Is that the reason he was okay with coming here? Was it all because you manifested a quirk that allows you to influence the minds of men? Or did your quirk work on women too? Did you-

“Hey,” your voice is gentle, subtle despite the loud volume of everyone else in the shop. Your palm is on his bicep, and for some reason, it anchors him instead of making him want to float away at the sudden contact. Your eyes are genuine as you whisper, “Breathe.”

Tamaki listens to you, taking a short breath in and exhaling soon after, eyes never losing direct contact with yours. His shoulders roll with tension, Tamaki’s lower lip tugged between the bite of his teeth. He swallows, realizing what a fool he must appear to be. How can a hero need assistance from a civilian just for breathing?

“I know what anxiety looks like.” You brush your thumb against his bulky costume, and Tamaki wishes a very secret thing then – something he would never admit aloud. He is curious about how intense your touch would be if he weren’t in his full hero outfit.

Would the pads of your fingertips be soft? Would he be able to feel the heat from your skin leeching onto his own? How much more calming might your skin be if it was direct on his own?

You tilt your head, a considerate grin tugging on the corners of your lips. He’s pleasantly surprised to note the dimples that dip inward, making you all the more appealing, as if you needed any additional help. Tamaki tries to say something, but it gets lost in his throat, so you speak instead, “I hope you don’t mind me ordering for you at the counter. I just wanted you to be a little more comfortable. I felt bad since I was the one who asked you to come.”

“N-No, it’s fine,” he forces the words out, turning to look you in the eyes. Tamaki grits his teeth together and muscles through the anxiety gripping his bones like a vice. He questions when the day will finally come when he might break. “I just feel bad for the people waiting on me.”

“This flower is pretty,” Tamaki licks his lips and leans forward, inspecting the blossom rather intently.

You laugh, and he’s reminded of how delicate you are when you giggle. His eyes are momentarily redirected toward you, taking in every curvature of your face, the dimples created by your smile, the way the gesture reaches your eyes, and it’s like little stars shine from your irises. Tamaki can’t help the way he grins, your laugh and your smile are infectious, much like your love for flowers.

“Have you seen one before?” you ask him, stepping towards the wall of blooms, “They’re a beautiful choice, a lot of meaning behind them. Most people have never seen one, though.”

Tamaki turns to face the flowers again, compelling himself to detract from your silhouette, “Are they rare?”

“Not necessarily,” you respond. You push yourself up on your toes to grab a bright red bud from the wall, twirling your choice blossom between your fingerprints. The scent wafts from the center of the flower, a small dusting of pollen coating Tamaki’s nose.

You giggle as you reach across to brush his skin free from the yellow powder, hand lingering just slightly too long for him to ignore your possible intent. You lick your lips, irises swallowed by your pupils for a moment, allowing him a direct line of sight into your soul. He reads you for a split second, and he swears that the look in your eyes mirrors his own when he thinks too hard about the way you move and the distinct notes of your smell. You’ve taken over every inch of his mind, every last curve of cerebrum and cerebellum.

For the first time, Tamaki is somewhat confident that you might be under the same spell.

“These are anemones,” you break him from his stupor, pulling his line of sight towards the budding flower in your grasp, “they signify anticipation – the build-up before the burst. Kind of like when you’re going to have your first kiss!”

Tamaki stutters, “T-That’s why you’d g-give someone this flower? Wh-When you want to kiss them?”

“No, silly,” you swat at him, smacking the back of your palm against his bicep. However, before you can turn away from him entirely, he notes the beautiful blush turning your cheeks to a rouge. You sigh dramatically with your hip leaned against the table, “I just mean that’s what the flower symbolizes – the tantalizing next step into the unknown.”

“Sounds scary.”

Your eyes light up as you turn to look at him again, irises gleaming under the bright lights of the flower shop, “Oh, but doesn’t it feel riveting?”

You are too close now, your pose intoxicating as he remembers every time you’ve come so near to him and he hasn’t had the strength to reach out and grasp you by the waist. Is this his time? Is this the day that he finally hands you a blossom and tells you the truth about the war raging inside of his chest? He has little soldiers prodding at his heart, stomping all over his bones, making them ache when he is adjacent to you.

Something within him wanders into the tumultuous thoughts of how you might respond, what his body would do in reaction to you. Would he finally find some relief from the plague of himself when he finally passes the threshold into adoring you on a physical level? Mentally, he’s been infatuated with you for some time now, but his throat can’t force the words out when he’s within ten feet of your frame.

Tamaki reaches out, his hand weighted down with reserve and implications. And yet, it’s almost like you lean into his touch before he can think on it too harshly, before he can make the rash decision to retract it and flee. He gasps audibly, eyes flashing to find your face, irises connecting like some sort of lighthouse out at sea, giving one another hope despite the disparity of every other moment leading up to this one.

“Anemones,” Tamaki whispers, voice curling from his throat, projecting onto you like a prayer. His hand is hot with hesitation as it rests on your rib cage, “I’ll have to remember that one.”

“Well, the people waiting on you can get over themselves. Everyone needs to learn a little patience, anyways.” You brush a hand through your hair, blowing away stray locks as they float back into your line of sight. You sigh, voice sounding dejected until your topic turns to blossoms, “I-I’m sorry if this wasn’t the place to bring you. I just figured it would be easy since it’s right next to my shop. I’d love to show you some flowers if you have time?”

“I-I’m on patrol,” he manages to push the words out from between his teeth, his throat grating like sandpaper, “I’m not sure…”

“Maybe another time, then?”

Dare he say you sound hopeful? And maybe even a little nervous?

How is it that each time his mind snaps him from you like a rubber band, you are right there, ready to stretch his limits yet again?

“I have seen this one…in Mother’s Day bouquets, I think?” Tamaki asks, unsure of himself this time as he circles the table. There are so many different types of blossoms, so many different meanings to decipher based on genus and color alone.

Your nod makes the pit in his stomach settle for some reason, and Amajiki releases a breath he didn’t realize that he was holding captive in his lungs. He’s not sure he understands why just the small reassurance of your head bobbing or your voice lilting on the right side of kind can calm the raging sea in his mind and stomach.

Tamaki is nearly tucked into your side, hands itching to find purchase against your body, his frame devoid of his typical uniform. The long sleeve shirt may cover the majority of his palms, but that does not mean he would refrain from baring his skin if it meant he could dip his toes into the edge of the ecstasy he might feel at your touch.

His fingertips are on the cusp of you, the calloused pads extended, beckoning you to come closer in a silent, desperate plea. Like your hearts are tied together in some other realm, as if you’ve done this a thousand times before, in a dozen other lives, you turn subconsciously to allow the collision of his fingerprints to impact the curve of your waist.

“Gladiolus means remembrance,” your voice is breathless as you point towards a set of buds that are seated proudly on the wall of flowers. You tilt your head upward, eyes shining as you press the heel of your palm into the column of his throat, thumb grazing his Adam’s apple to soothe it.

The weight of your words does not fall on deaf ears, Tamaki’s every sense on high alert as you speak next, “They can mean remembrance of someone past, or of someone you’re currently trying to honor. Or they can just mean a simple remember me.”

  ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* TAG LIST *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

@kamehamethot @simplybakugou @burnedbyshoto @cookies-n-chaos @katsukisprincess @rat-suki @bitchtrynafck @cutesuki--bakugou @bnhatrashh @succulent-momma @yuueimagines @multifandom-fanfic @that-one-enthusiast​ @blue-peach14​ @pastel-prynce​ @bokunokangae​ @shoutodoki​ @todorki-shoto​ @bakuoushoe​ @tenyaingenium​ @lxvely-mha​ @myherorambles​ @ramen-rambles​ @honeytama​ @sleepysuneater​ @bratwritings​ @samanthaa-leanne​ @orokayagi​ @tumblingintothefeelstrain​ @sunbeamwrites​ @bnhawritten​ @aizawamirite​ @lovekatsukibakugo​ @plusultrawritings​ @suckersuki​ @bnha-mha-imagines​ @heroesreverie​ @pink-imagines​ @brattyquirks​ @lookslikeleese​ @normiewrites​ @secondhand-trash​ @yaoyorozuwrites​ @pinkjeanist​ @kingtamakimurder​ 

[pinacoladasprinkles]

Daisy Chains

Fandom: TUA (The Umbrella Academy) Pairing: Five x Vanya Warnings: None Summary: There is a field. There are daisies. There is Number Five. And there is his best friend. Its set during the time before the notations of wrong and right. Its a story of the time when they were allowed to be children.  Word Count: 1.7K A/N: I want to file this as my first attempt at writing for the #Fiveya fandom. So, criticism and comments are welcomed. This was also initially written for #Fiveyaweek (Day Three: Childhood) organized by @fivevanya but I chickened out of posting this then. But here it is now :) Not Beta’d. All mistakes are mine. 

To Five, the earliest memory that he remembers is of a field. He wants to say that he distinctly remembers the day, remembers the soft fog that enveloped the air, or the dew that dotted the grass and the yellow daisies. But he can’t. There are certain elements to this memory that are purely dream-like or a product of his brain filling in the gaps. Of the things that he is certain of is this: the time of the year, early in their childhood before their powers had manifested, the burgundy frocks of their nannies, and Vanya.

It was just during the onset of winter, when the air was still crisp, and the yellow-red leaves under his boots were soggy. It wasn’t atypical for them to go out then, as it would be later in their childhood. In fact, until the age of five, visits to the park and the zoo were a weekly event.

But the trip to the field was different from the rest. It was on the outskirts of the city, on a steep hill and away from the noise of the city. Here the sky was bluer. And the horizon seemed so far and wide, all Five dreamt of achieving that day was to run to the line where the earth met the sky.  

“Let’s race to the end of that line!” He exclaimed to the others. Their nannies were setting up their picnic blanket down along with baskets of snacks and lunch, so there would be no one around to object.

“What line?” Number One asked. Five wondered why dad ever made him Number One. One could not even count up to 100 yet.

He sighed before answering, just to show his disdain. “That line,” he pointed with his whole arm extended for emphasis, “where the earth meets the sky.”

“That line is called the Horizon, Number Five.” Miss Charlotte, his nanny had informed, walking up to them. “And you can’t really touch the horizon, children.”

“Why not?” Number Two puffed, his small arms barely able to fold over themselves as he had seen his nanny, Miss Penelope (or Miss Loupee as Number Two had taken to address her) do. And while Two’s question was more from a point of offense of being told that he couldn’t do something, Five questioned the same but out of curiosity.

“Well how about I explain this when its bedtime. How about for now you kids play a game of tag?”

“Tag you’re it!” Four screamed, shoving Seven. She puffed her bangs out of the way and chased them without further prompting. She was quick, although not as quick as Two or Three or himself, but she was quick. And Five always admired how she would change her directions quickly, like a Cheetah. So far, she had only been ‘it’ a handful of times.

“Tag! You are it!” She laughed, pink cheeked and messy haired. Six smiled back and started chasing after One.

They played around for a while longer before their respective nannies, came to gather them for lunch. Well Seven was missing her Nanny, so Six’s fetched her as well. “I like how you change your direction so quickly when you are ‘it’” He admitted to Seven waiting to be served their share of sandwiches and juice.

The wide toothy smile that she gave him in return was nothing short of brilliant to Five even then. “Thank you! Do you think I did it like a Cheetah?”

“Yes! That was what I thought too!” Seven was quickly becoming his favorite. Not only was she quick, but she was also smart! And Five liked that. He wanted to be the best and have the ‘best’ best friend. “Where did you learn that from? Miss Charlotte read to me about Cheetahs only yesterday.”

At this Seven leaned in closer to him, her hand cupped near his ear. “It’s a secret, but I sneaked into Two’s room last week and Miss Loupee was reading to him about it.” It was the first secret he had ever been a part of and it made him feel special that it came from Seven.

The feeling of warmth lingered within Five long after they had finished lunch. They now sat in the grass, while Miss Miriam thought them how to make crowns out of daisies.

They were first tasked with picking out 30 daisies each and some blades of grass if they wished. And while the task was aimed to have them brush up on their counting, One and Two saw it as nothing more than an opportunity to out-race the other in picking out daisies the fastest. Three, Four and Six were bundled in a group, fretting over picking only the prettiest yellow daisies. Five would have loved to join them, it would be fun picking up only the best. He moved to join them, but his sights caught on to Vanya before he could. She was far away from the group, kneeling over a patch of densely packed flowers. He decided to move towards her, but with only five more daisies left to complete his collection, Five hastily picked them up first.

By this time, the entire group had completed filling their little baskets as well. Well, except Seven.

“Seven is last again!” Three laughed. “I bet she doesn’t know her numbers.”

They were just kids, and kids can be mean. Of course, Three just asking for attention but it would be a long time before Three would know how devastating (powerful) her words could actually be.

Tears immediately lined Seven’s eyes, Five instinctively knew she thought back to the one time when she confused her six’s and nine’s while counting. Dropping her flower basket, Seven turned away from them and starting running towards the horizon. He could hear Miss Miriam reprimand Allison, but gave it no further attention, instead he walked towards where Seven had dropped her basket. He could make her a crown, certainly that would make her feel better. That’s what Miss Charlotte did with him; Whenever he was particularly sad that story time had to end, she would make him a PB and Marshmallow sandwich. Of course, now a daisy crown isn’t in the same league as PB and marshmallow sandwiches, but he wagers that Seven would like it just as well. Picking up the basket he instantly understands, why Seven had taken so long to collect her daisies. Pristine white daisies filled the small basket. Everyone else had picked the more common yellow daisies, while Seven had spent her time searching the field of yellows for the white ones. Seven was so unique, Five thought. She was fast and smart and unique too. A perfect best friend.

Sitting down in a circle around Miss Miriam, the children closely followed her instructions. And in moments where she had to slow down so that Four or Two or One would catch up, Five turned to assure himself that Seven hadn’t strayed away. He watched Miss Ann walked up to her. Seven was soon getting her own demonstration from Allison’s nanny.

“And there! Now you all have a crown. Come on now, put them on!” Miss Miriam exclaimed. She watched enthusiastically as the children placed their crowns over their little heads and turned to one another to show off their works. Number Five remained intently watching the white crown he had made. “Number Five don’t you want to put on your crown. It is so wonderfully made.”

He blushed a little, casting his eyes back to the crown before admitting, “I made this for Number Seven. To make her feel better.”

Bless his little heart, what a cutie! Miss Miriam thought to herself. She barely restrained herself from pinching the boy’s pink cheeks, instead keeping decorum, and suggesting he make his way to her, present her the crown immediately. Miriam always believed that love bloomed in hearts young, and only wished she would remain under Sir Reginald’s employment to watch this love flower into more. She walked with Number Five to where Miss Ann and Number Seven sat. “Miss Ann, why don’t you help me pack the picnic goods back, we will be heading home soon.” She asked her colleague, giving her a wink only to receive an exasperated sigh in return. Nevertheless, Miss Ann accompanied her back, leaving Number Five and Seven, to their own devices.

“Are you still sad about what Three said?” Five opened, hoping that although she be upset enough for him to present her the crown but not upset enough to cry again. He didn’t know what he would do if she began to cry again. And that’s not something he liked, as his best friend Seven shouldn’t ever be made upset. Her nose was still a little red, but to his relief there were no tears in her eyes, “I made you a crown.” He offered.

Seven gasped, slowly taking the crown from his hands. “You made it out of the white daisies I had picked! Thank you.”

“I think it’s pretty cool, that you picked white flowers. Everyone else just picked the yellow ones. I did too. But you are unique.” She blushed at that, and that made him blush too.

But her shoulders dropped after he had placed the crown on her head. “But I did not make you a crown” she lamented, pointing to the half-made daisy chain in her hand.

“That’s okay. You can make me a PB and marshmallow sandwich when we get home.” He smiled. “I like them the most.” Seven nodded her head, trying to store away the valuable information he had provided.

They sat in silence for a while, uncertain of how to carry forward a conversation beyond what had just been said. Despite their young minds, they knew what had just been exchanged was far more precious than what could be said after. And the only way they knew to preserve the moment was through small smiles and silence.

But silence lingered a little longer than the words lodged in Seven’s chest could, and ultimately, she spoke, “Five I think you are my best friend.”

Five perked up instantly, glad to have her on the same page as him. “You are my best friend too, Seven.”

“Children gather around. It’s time to leave!” Miss Loupee called, breaking any further conversations. They stood up, holding each other’s hand like they were thought to do before crossing streets, and smiled.

“When we visit this field back, can you make me another crown?”

“I will make you a ring. And we can get married.” He smiled. And she smiled back.

.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoings and right-doing, there is a field. I will meet you there.

.

[theres-a-goldensky]

32 Reddie Fic Recs

In honor of the joy I feel in finally getting out of this miserably terrible fucking year of my life, I thought I’d do something fun and make up a list of Reddie fic recs, since this has fandom has taken over my life recently. Strap in, friends. This is gonna be a long one.

These recs are in the order in which I read them. 

As ever, feel free to reblog and check out my other rec lists for the following fandoms:

IT chapter 2 list part two - Reddie

Good Omens fic

The Untamed list one and two - various pairings, mostly Wangxian

Various BL Series fic (fandoms: Love By Chance, TharnType, 2Moons series, My Engineer, Until We Meet Again, 2gether, History3: Trapped)

Or just head over to my bookmarks on AO3.

All fics are Reddie, all are complete.

** - denotes personal favorite

1. first love / late spring by vowelinthug - ~36,000 words, explicit - They both survive It, but not without some injuries, both physical and psychological. Richie takes Eddie to a secluded cabin to help him recover. And then they accidentally make a podcast. Nice slowburn, a good Richie characterization. I liked the conversations between the two of them, in particular one about Richie’s disdain for shoes that was pitch perfect.

The doctor’s evil eye is on both of them now. “Your friend is gonna be fine. Broken collarbone and a lot of blood loss, but the arm stays on, for now anyway.” Probably at the way Richie sags in relief so hard he groans in pain, the doctor stops looking so severe. “He’s a tough guy. I’ve never seen anyone regain consciousness from that much blood loss just to give me a full medical history.”

“Oh my god,” says Richie, covering his mouth. “I like him so much.”

Bill pats his shoulder in sympathy.

2. the fireworks that go off when you smile by zach_stone - ~10,000 words, teen - Post-movie the adult Losers, including Stan, go on a vacation together. There’s just lots of Richie staring at a wet, shirtless Eddie and pining.

Richie blinks at him, his stomach doing a fucking somersault, pinned under Eddie’s weirdly passionate stare. He swallows another mouthful of beer to stall for time, shifting his gaze away. Spread out before him, the lake looks like flat, black glass. “Jeez, is the risk analyst really telling me to ignore the risks? What’s the world coming to?” he manages to joke.

He expects Eddie to roll his eyes, to huff and lean away again, but he doesn’t. He says, still earnest, “I just think some things are worth the risk.”

And Richie doesn’t know  what  the fuck to do with that. He resolutely tells himself not to puke on Ben and Beverly’s porch, because he thinks if he did it would just be the words  I love Eddie Kaspbrak a hundred times over, all puddled on the slats of wood. He stands up rather abruptly. “I should go to bed,” he says, aware that he’s talking too loud, being too fucking obvious. “I’m jetlagged as fuck. Also maybe a little drunk.”

3. oh, i want the truth to be known by ShowMeAHero - ~7000 words, explicit - Richie sees Eddie die in the deadlights and then manages to save him at the last second, but It skewers him instead. I’m honestly not sure why there isn’t more fic with this premise, because Richie sacrificing his own safety for Eddie and then Eddie losing his shit is absolutely, 100% my jam.

The claw isn’t in Eddie’s chest. Instead, it’s in Richie’s, caught in his side, pinning him to the ground. He chokes on a scream, caught in his throat, and pushes at Eddie, just trying to get them away. He rolls into him, ripping Pennywise’s claw through his side to get away, but once he’s free, he’s scrambling into a half-stumble and dragging Eddie with him until they’re hidden under an outcropping of rock. His side is bleeding, he can feel it, and his entire fucking abdomen hurts, and, for a moment, it’s all he can process.

“Holy shit, Richie,” Eddie exclaims. The pain shuffles to the back of Richie’s mind so he can focus on Eddie instead. He sounds winded, but he’s fucking alive, unhurt and breathing and okay, and Richie huffs a laugh. He’s in so much fucking pain, but he can’t even figure out where it’s all originating from, and the only thought cycling through his brain is it’s okay, he’s okay, Eddie’s okay, it wasn’t real, it wasn’t real, it wasn’t real, over and over.

4. we'll be a fine line (we'll be alright)  by buckyjerkbarnes - ~9,000 words, teen - Richie and the other Losers in the hospital after killing It, waiting for news on Eddie. Richie has a bit of a breakdown.

The ambulance ride had been the longest twenty minutes of Richie’s life. He'd tried not to get in the way of the EMTs who worked frantically to keep Eddie alive; who were far more patient with him than Richie likely deserved. By the time they'd rolled up to the emergency entrance at the hospital, Ben stamping his breaks as the rest of the Losers came to a grinding halt not fifteen yards away, Richie was still a sobbing mess. He couldn't see through the cracked lens of his glasses, and when Eddie, who had not opened his eyes or said a word since they were still in the sewers, was about to be wheeled out of sight, Richie made like a battering ram and lunged towards the pair of swinging doors.

“Sir!" An orderly yelped. "You can’t—!"

And Stan, who had materialized at Richie's elbow, told the orderly: "He's the husband."

5. ** It’s Hard to Tell Sometimes by gallopingmelancholia - ~21,000 words, explicit - Eddie divorces his wife and moves to LA to live with Richie. Richie promptly has like five emotional meltdowns over it. So much pining. So much. This is one of very few that has Eddie in the hospital for a realistic amount of time, which I appreciate. When writers have been hoping out of bed after a day or whatever, it really throws me out of the story.

“When can we see him?” Mike asks.

“He’s asleep, but we’ll send in a nurse when he wakes up. I wouldn’t expect it until tomorrow morning at the earliest. He’s been through quite a lot, eleven hours of surgery, and is on a lot of pain medication.”

“Will he survive? What’s the percentage? He’ll want to know the probability, he’s a risk analyst,” Richie says.

The doctor hesitates. “The chances he makes it through the night are 65%.”

“That’s not bad!” Richie says even as his heart drops to somewhere in the region of his feet. The others look at him pitifully. “Tell him we’re here and we love him. Tell him the Losers are here and we’ll see him soon.”

6. ** it’s a nice day to start again by eddiespaghetti (foxwatson) - ~6000 words, teen - Post-movie, Eddie wakes up one morning to discover that Richie and a woman had a shotgun wedding in Vegas the night before. Great, sad-but-trying-not-to-show-it Eddie here. (And yes, Richie is a total disaster gay who marries a woman on a whim.)

 “Are you sitting down?”

 “I didn’t even get out of bed yet! Bev please just tell me what the fuck is happening.”

 “Sorry, I’m sorry. Just- Richie got married.”

 “What? No he didn’t,” Eddie scoffs, throwing the covers off. “I’m not - he’s not even dating anybody, I see him all the time. It’s probably just a big joke or something, that’s-”

 “He got married, in Vegas. It’s all over Twitter, and he- he sent pictures to the group chat last night. She’s some other comedian. None of us have ever met her, he didn’t invite any of us.”

7. Oh, But He Makes You Laugh by MellytheHun - ~9,000 words, mature - Teenage Eddie has to deal with some serious jealousy when a new friend enters their group. This one has a good, slow realization on Eddie’s part.

The boy is in their grade, though not part of their social sphere; he’s nearly as tall as Richie, with light eyes, and walnut colored hair. Eddie recognizes him from his AP bio class, but can’t inwardly recall his name.

The boy nods toward Stanley while keeping eye-contact with Richie, and informs him, “alligators - they can grow up to twenty feet.”

Richie opens his mouth to argue with the new kid, but he’s cut off.

“Which is weird, cause they usually only grow four.”

Eddie watches in abject bewilderment as a hearty, genuine laugh  is startled out of Richie.

8. Richie Tozier: Pray Away the Gay by QueerOnTilMorning - ~4,500 words, teen - The official transcript of Richie Tozier’s comeback Netflix special. A lot of writers try to do Richie’s stand-up routine, but not many can nail it. This one feels realistic and contains actual, like, jokes and stuff.

Because I grew up in this little town called Derry, Maine--nope, absolutely not, do not cheer for that. Fuck Derry! I had this friend, for years he thought I was lactose intolerant, because he'd mention dairy and I'd be like "fuck Derry! Derry tried to fucking kill me!" No, I can eat cheese, I just hate my hometown. They did not fuck with the gays, in Derry. That's probably why I dress so shitty. It's a survival thing. I was already super into dudes. If I had developed fashion sense on top of that? No. Oh my God. It was so--I was so fucking scared all the time.

 And like, to put this in perspective, has anyone ever heard of Henry Bowers? Any true crime fans in the house? Henry Bowers, the baby serial killer? Yeah, you listened to that podcast! My friend Bill was on that podcast, doesn't he have a sexy voice? Anyway, Henry Bowers, also known very creatively as The Derry Killer, murdered a bunch of kids the summer we were thirteen. I say we, because that dude was in my fucking class. There was an active serial killer in Derry during my childhood and still, still my greatest fear was that someone would find out I was gay.

9. RICHIE TOZIER IS...THE COMEBACK CLOWN by owlinaminor & tinypersonhotel - ~11,500, teen - An excellent multimedia fic about Richie’s life with Eddie post-movie.

While Richie Tozier never stops talking, Eddie Kaspbrak never stops moving. Listening to a conversation between the two men is akin to watching a pinball machine with two balls going at once, slamming into each other and the walls and the levers and each other, lighting up their surroundings in a trance as mesmerizing as it is chaotic. (Kaspbrack laughed when I told him this metaphor—apparently Tozier spent many an afternoon at the town arcade when they were kids.)

Over the course of one twenty-minute walk with their dog, a beagle named Stanley, through their L.A. neighborhood, they manage to call off their engagement, call it back on, invite me, uninvite me, call the engagement off again, debate eloping, call the whole thing back on but disinvite everyone except me, and finally agree on what color napkins to have at the reception.

10. ** The Jenga Dream Date by stitchy - ~15,000 words, explicit - Richie and Eddie domestic fluff that starts at Ben and Bev’s wedding. It feels so sweet, and you can just see the happiness radiating off the screen. This is truly the ending they deserve.

Then a seriously, unbearably cute thought occurs to Richie. A thought he can’t immediately share with Eddie, because Bill and Mike each independently cornered him and made him swear not to steal Bev and Ben’s thunder.

Ah, fuck it.

“I can’t think why we would possibly be in another situation in the near future where there’s dancing but also my mother is there for some reason, but holy shit, Eds! I have got to see you dance with Mom. During this very special situation. For which I will make hand calligraphed invitations and hire a photographer and-”

Eddie’s eyes dart in either direction before he lets out a short, slightly hysterical laugh. “Uhhh, I  also have no idea when or why that would happen, or what sort of event that would be appropriate for.”

11. Bad Parts In by 50artists - ~9,000 words, not rated - It’s Richie that ends up in the hospital after it all goes down, and Eddie who has the crisis. And also some serious misapprehensions.

"I feel like Richie might be  slightly  weirded out," Eddie says dryly. "Like oh, hey, we've not spoken for decades and you're the straightest man I know, but it turns out I have been subconsciously in love with you since we were teenagers. I dunno, might make things a bit awkward."

"I'm sorry," says Beverly, "just to clarify, Richie Tozier is the straightest man you know?"

"Dude, have you seen his comedy? It's all, 'I love fucking chicks while drinking beer and watching football'."

"You mean the material that Richie doesn't write himself?'

12. ** We Found Love in a Chili’s ToGo by Amuly - ~14,000, explicit - Richie confesses his feelings to Eddie in the airport before they both headed back to their own lives. This is such a lovely story about friendship and love and putting yourself back together. And there’s some A+++ phone sex.

“Nah, Eds. It’s because I had a big gay crush and needed Stan to bitch at about it.”

Eddie frowned, then shook his head. “That doesn’t explain why you couldn’t bitch at me about it.”

“Well bitching about your secret crush to your secret crush is generally frowned upon, Eds. Kinda fucks up the ‘secret’ part.”

Eddie, bless his tiny heart, didn’t get it for a second. His expression scrunched up, about to say something stupid back to Richie, when his brain processed Richie’s words. In a second his expression fell open, jaw actually agape.

“Oh look: drinks!” Richie grabbed his marg, licking and drinking without even letting the waitress set it down onto the tabletop. Eddie barely had the courtesy left to let her set his down before he was grabbing at it.

13. ** Ask Me About My New Material by twoseas - ~7,000 words, explicit - I could read 10,000 stories about a confused and horny Eddie jerking it to Richie’s stand up without understanding why before they meet again in Derry. This one has a great Richie, who reacts like he got hit in the face with a bat when the truth comes out.

In the restaurant, as the gong resounded around them, Eddie looked up at a four-eyed, messy, middle aged Trashmouth and suddenly it all clicked.

 He had two thoughts.

Oh, he realized, it’s because I’m in love with the dumbass.

And, Aw fuck.

14. No Parenthesis by pineapplecrushface - 13,000 words, explicit - In the deadlights, Stan gives Richie some instructions on how to bring him back. Spoilers: it involves an orgy. And Richie and Eddie dealing with their feelings.

“Okay,” Mike said, holding his hands out to placate him, and honestly Richie was really fucking sick of Mike saying crazy shit and then somehow—somehow!—convincing them to do it anyway. “I’m not saying we have to do it. I’m just saying, the ritual exists and we could do it, and now that it’s out there, I feel like you should all have the choice.”

“Great. I choose no. I’m fucking leaving before I get ritualed into giving all my money to a cult leader and I end up spending the rest of my sad short life on an alpaca farm,” Richie said, standing up too fast and stalking across the room.

“Richie,” Bev said, and she sounded, unbelievably, like she was not thinking this was completely insane.

“Are you fucking serious?” He whirled around to look at them. They were all giving him varying levels of Richie, be reasonable, which was a look he was familiar with, but not when it came to sex rituals, for some fucking reason.

15. ** Stupid Deep series by anonymous - ~50,000 words, explicit - Richie has a huge dick, and Eddie is obsessed with it. Come for the super, super hot sex, stay for the sweet romance, twist of angst and happy ending.

It’s been five months since then, and Eddie has spent at least 40% of that time thinking about Richie’s big fucking dick. He spends about 20% working from home, 20% arguing with Richie about dumb shit, and the remaining 30% sleeping—this adds up to 110%, but that’s because there’s overlap between the sleeping and the thinking about Richie’s huge dick in the form of extremely graphic dreams.

He thinks about Richie’s dick in the shower. He thinks about Richie’s dick when they’re watching TV together. He thinks about Richie’s dick when he’s trying to eat breakfast. He hasn’t even seen it hard. But god, he thinks about it. Thinks about it hot and thick in his hand, thinks about it twitching as Eddie strokes it, thinks about it stretching his lips, thinks about it leaking precum all over Eddie’s fingers and tongue and stomach. And, most importantly—most vividly—he thinks about Richie’s dick inside of him, filling him up, fucking him.

At the same time, Eddie also spent a good amount of time, woven through the rest of his daily activities, falling so deeply in love with his best-friend-cum-roommate that it was disturbing at best. There was pining. There were lingering glances. There was lying on Richie’s bed while he was out just to ease the ache in his chest with Richie’s warm, familiar scent, which is disgusting and Eddie hates to think about it. There were, in Eddie’s darkest moments, daydreams about Richie holding his hand and kissing him and telling Eddie he’s in love with him. Like a fucking sap.

16. I’m quite alright hiding today by remusjohn - ~7,000 words, explicit - Eddie kisses Richie out of the deadlights, but Richie doesn’t know if that means anything.

On the first night they don’t do much of anything. They unpack (well, Eddie unpacks his massive bags while Richie tries to figure out how to sign in to his Netflix account on the tiny TV in the living room), and they order in, and they argue over what to watch while they’re eating, and Eddie falls asleep some hours later with his head tucked into Richie’s shoulder, and Richie tries not to think too much of it.

There’s been a lot of that, the last couple of days. Richie doesn’t know how to say, You kissed me to wake me up from the deadlights and I don’t know if you did it to save my life or if there’s something else too, but it’s kind of killing me, man.

So Richie doesn’t say anything at all.

17. Haunt Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me by Vulcanodon - ~20,000 words, explicit - AU where Eddie and Richie are ghost hunters who get stuck in a very trippy haunted house. This concept really shouldn’t work, and I’m not big on AUs in the fandom, but the relationship between the two of them really sells it. And, obviously, the pining. There’s so much.

The only time Eddie has ever witnessed Richie freaking out was when they had been fucking about in the woods near Montana for their werewolf episode. Eddie had been walking backwards, trying to get Richie and a creepy footprint in frame when he had suddenly felt nothing but air behind him. He had fallen for an impressively long time down the hill, blacking out briefly when a branch caught his head and when he came to Richie had been leaning over him, white and frantic, hands all fisted up in Eddie’s shirt.

Eddie, Eddie, Eds, Richie had said, nearly crying. Are you alright, can you talk?

Is my camera broken? Eddie had managed woozily to say, and for a moment Eddie had thought Richie might do something crazy like slap him or even kiss him.

He hadn’t done either in the end and Eddie remembers the disappointment, even with the haze of a mild concussion.

18. Five Times The Losers Gave Richie Permission by toomuchrootbeer -  ~11,000 words, mature - Each loser tries to let Richie know that they know in their own special way.  

“No I don’t mind,” Stan says evenly, shrugging his shoulders like it’s the simplest thing in the world. “I don’t mind any of it.”

“Cool,” Richie chirps, grabbing his backpack off of the grass and pushing himself to his feet. “Pip pip Edward,” he calls. “Shall we endeavor to find you a cleaner wardrobe?”

“Fuck you,” Eddie says back, but there is no venom behind his words.

But then Stan is reaching out, gripping Richie’s arm, “Dude what are you-”

“I don’t mind any of it, Tozier,” he repeats, voice lower and his words somehow more weighty, fixing Richie with an indecipherable look. “And I don’t think any of the other Losers would mind it either. If you wanted to,” he jerks his head in the direction of Eddie, “you know.”

19. String Theory by neverfaraway - ~17,000 words, mature - Richie starts slowly regaining his memories and has a disturbing experience in the deadlights.

The thing is, Richie knows this is a version of himself and Eddie that never existed. He can taste the pretence on the tip of his tongue, but the sticky air seems to sharpen and solidify around him. He can’t remember where he was before this moment, watching his fingers alight on the buckle of Eddie’s hundred-dollar belt.

The Voice wavers and Richie comes pouring through the cracks. It's painful to watch the careful way he places his hands on Eddie’s skin. "Fuck, I missed you," he says. "Even when I couldn't remember, I had a hole right through me, straight through the middle. You left a fucking entry and exit wound."

"Damnit, Richie," Eddie mutters, blinking rapidly. "Beep, beep."

20. hoping to be found by eddiespaghetti (foxwatson) - ~25,000 words, mature - Things don’t magically work out after Derry for Eddie. He doesn’t know what else to do, so he goes back to Myra and his depressig life. But at least now he has his friends. He has Richie.

With his memories back now, with all the knowledge of his mother and his placebos and his fake inhaler and his friends, it feels like Eddie has been living the last 27 years in sickly, yellow sepia tones. His memories and even the brief time he spent with everyone at the Chinese restaurant shine in his mind in vivid technicolor, and everything else pales in comparison.

He thought he would die, and now he doesn’t have a plan. His life in New York is miserable and cramped and leaves him feeling small, so he puts it off as long as he can.

The drive isn’t long, even with Eddie taking his time. He takes a detour just to drive along the coast and see the ocean, and stops at any given exit or National Forest along the way that strikes his fancy. He’s still home before nightfall.

21. After Derry series by pineapplecrushface - ~47,000 words, explicit - Richie and Eddie are both pining and miserable disasters post-movie. Until they finally get their shit together and figure some things out.

He woke when Eddie sat on the edge of the bed and touched his back, under his disgusting shirt. “Hey,” he said. “Your turn. I mean, your turn after I wash my hand again. What did you lie down in?”

“Your mom,” he said, sitting up and glaring at Eddie, who was half-naked, a towel wrapped around his waist. “How do you all look so good and I ended up looking like fucking Christopher Lloyd? Like, not young Christopher Lloyd. Present day.”

Eddie’s hand was still tucked under his shirt, rubbing a path across his lower back. “I guess you did grow into your looks.”

“Oh, fuck you, you weirdly muscular little shitweasel,” Richie said, escaping to the shower so he didn’t have to look at the slope of Eddie’s arms. He was weak for that, the line of a man’s shoulders and back. He was weak for all of Eddie, really. After everything he had seen, he guessed it was something he could admit to himself. There was no panic left in it.

22. for better, for worse by kaspbrak_kid - ~26,000 words, not rated - Eddie has just gotten through a messy divorce and is trying to deal with the fact that he’s been in love with Richie for 30 years, and then he has to go to Ben and Bev’s wedding. Not a great combination of things.

Eddie blows out a shaky breath and puts down his phone, then picks it back up again, restless. He scrolls up through his and Richie’s texts.

They’re not that frequent. They talk in the group chat, mostly. Eddie thinks about texting him all the time, several times a day, and then never does. It’s all just stupid shit, anyway. A dream he had or a movie he saw on TV that he remembers Richie used to like, and does he still like it? Some things his therapist tells him he should say, like that he’s been in love with Richie for somewhere between six months and thirty-odd years.

Instead, most of their private texts are just inane bickering, or Richie trying out jokes on him, or Eddie telling Richie how to clean the cut he just accidentally gave himself opening a can. He could have just googled it. But he asked Eddie.

23. feet on the ground, head in the sky by peggyolson - ~21,000 words, teen - I’m kind of a sucker for the slowburn, falling in love over distance trope. This one does it well, with bonus Richie dealing with his issues and figuring shit out.

Mostly, though, it’s just a slight tug at the back of his mind, another part of his day. A mumbled  let me call Eddie, like an afterthought, while he’s tapping his foot in line at Whole Foods.

Eddie always, always answers.

“Edward Kaspbrak,” he chirps during business hours, dry and glib, and Richie will respond in a deep, exaggerated baritone with something awful like  Mr. Kaspbrak, your test results are in and unfortunately you  will  keep shrinking at an alarming rate for the rest of your life, something barely funny that he says just to get a reaction.

(It had been  such  a mistake to give Richie his work number.)

24. it’s about time that you just unwind by fuckener - ~9,500 words, explicit - Eddie finds out that Richie is gay via his stand-up and promptly loses his mind.

“Yeah? Mine was weird, guys, I’m not going to lie. I came up with this really good idea on how to cause total chaos at a family event, you wanna hear it?” There it was - glasses adjustment, not even past the one minute mark. “If you really want to shake up another dull as fuck Thanksgiving with your parents, just wait ‘til you’re in your forties and your elderly father is spooning out his first helping of mashed potatoes for the night and then drop the bomb that you’ve been gay the whole time. Boom, happy Thanksgiving. Pass the sweet corn, I want to fuck the huge green dude on the can.” People laughed. Richie did that thing with his face between a smile and a scowl. “It’s the long game, yeah, but -”

Eddie slammed his laptop shut.

25. feel this burning, love of mine by floatingonthelehigh - 17,000 words, mature - The clown is a bastard. Richie gets a second chance.

“Don’t leave,” Eddie says quietly, and god  fucking  damn it, it breaks him that Eddie thinks he ever would.

“No,  fuck no, Eddie. I’m not going to.” He adjusts his grip on the jacket against Eddie’s stomach, winces when Eddie gasps in pain. Richie’s lip shakes again as he just keeps talking. “Frankly I’m insulted that you’d think I’d leave you, after just remembering you're my best fucking friend in the world, after twenty seven fucking years. My clown-murdering partner in crime! How could I ever leave you? Fuck no, I’m not leaving you, Eds. Idiot,” He laughs emptily, rubbing Eddie’s cheek, and pauses, beginning to nod to himself as a goal flits into his mind. “I’m going to pick you up, I’m going to get you out of here, to a hospital. Right now. And—” Eddie’s grip on his arm tightens, and he stops.

26. hey there demons (it's me, ya boi) by dharmainitiative - 12,000 words, teen - Is this another ghosthunters AU? Why, yes it is. I don’t know why there are two of these, but I enjoyed them both. This one is much lighter, and I really liked the way that the writer creates a very lived-in feeling as soon as you jump into this universe.

 As it was, BuzzFeed wasn’t a bad place to work, despite all the shit Richie gave it. He was paid well, there were always a bunch of cushy chairs everywhere, and the food that got brought in for lunch everyday was way better than the shitty grilled cheeses he ate at home for dinner. And despite what Richie expected, his coworkers were actually pretty cool, all things considered. Sure, they were all millenials who thought landing an internship at BuzzFeed was the height of success, but most of them were friendly, and occasionally funny, and like Richie, just excited to get paid to do something that required little to no effort.

 Most of them, at least. There was also Eddie Kaspbrak.

 Richie met Eddie his first day at BuzzFeed, when he was shown his desk and the incessantly chatty intern that sat at the desk right next to him. Working side by side — literally — let Richie learn a lot of things about Eddie Kaspbrak: he was a neurotic hypochondriac, exclusively owned Polo shirts, and talked faster than Richie could even blink.

27. New Page, Same Old Book by Rend_Herring - 17,000 words, explicit - Post-movie, Eddie divorces his wife, moves across the country and makes himself comfortable in Richie’s home. Richie is totally fine and not freaking out at all.

He clips the wall coming into the foyer, practically crashes over the little table he uses to stack mail—fumbles around with the chain, the deadbolt, before finally wrenching open the door.  It doesn’t occur to him until he’s sending it bouncing back against the doorstop, that it might have been a good idea to check the peephole and make sure it actually  wasn’t  some asshole out for a smash and grab in the middle of the night, or worse — a  fan.  

Richie would be less dumbfounded by either option.

He squints at the person standing in front of him, blinks.

“I’ve had this dream before,” Richie says, voice still croaky from sleep, “usually you’re wearing less clothes.”

“Jesus christ,” Eddie sighs, and rolls his eyes when Richie jumps back a bit, genuinely startled that it’s  not some manufacturing of his sordid imagination.  “I knew I shouldn’t have come here.”

28. Drives Me Wild by rustywrites - ~4,000 words, explicit - Eddie and Richie have hotel sex after RIchie wins himself an Emmy.

"I thought I told you no more jokes about how much you love my dick," Eddie says, shifting to straddle Richie's waist in earnest, rolling his hips downward just to emphasize his point, no doubt. His hands are braced on both of Richie's shoulders, pinning him back with his bodyweight, while Richie's hands are on his waist, holding him in place. It's not the most comfortable position, all things considered--Richie's knees are bent over the end of the mattress, his feet still on the floor, and they're both still in their fucking monkey suits.

Richie had tried to make the case with his agent and his manager that he should be allowed to attend the Emmys in the same clothes he always wore (jeans, a shitty t-shirt, a semi-fashionable jacket, you know, the works.) They were good enough for his specials, one of which had earned him the nomination to begin with, but both Anna and Johnathan had pushed back hard, and when Eddie had not-so-subtly sided with them, well. Suit and tie it was.

29. Rewrite by sachi_sama - ~13,000 words, mature - Stan is dead, but somehow only Eddie can see him as they race to beat It. That’s...probably not a good sign. (note: Stan stays dead in this fic.)

“Whoa. Hey, Eds, you being a weepy drunk over there?” Richie asks, and he scoots over into Stan's seemingly empty chair, and Stan vanishes as Richie's hand is suddenly on Eddie's shoulder.

“I just—I saw...” Eddie pauses, and he wipes his hands over his eyes, sniffling. When's the last time he cried? It makes his head hurt every time. “Fuck. I'm sorry, guys.” He stands abruptly. “I'm gonna go splash some water on my face.” He hurriedly exits the room and he hears Mike asking what he saw, but Eddie is already power-walking across the restaurant to the bathroom, aware Dead Stan is hot on his heels.

“Lucky. The bathroom is empty,” Stan says as he leans against the wall. Eddie looks at him, really looks, and he sees the blood on Stan's wrists.

30. ** we are all going forward, none of us are going back series by theappliepielifestyle - ~21,000 words, teen - Richie gets stuck in a time loop and forced to repeat their last stand at Neibolt over and over until he gets it right.

Richie hears himself finish saying Let’s kill this clown  and it’s only when he finishes forming the  n  that reality sets in. What the  fuck -

He whirls around. Everyone’s standing around him, just like they were last night - they’re in front of the fucking house, it’s standing again.

“What the fuck,” Richie croaks. “No, come on - what’s going on? Ohhhh fuck.”

He only lets himself stare at it for a few seconds of unbridled hate before he keeps looking at the others, who are now staring at him, pausing from where they’d all taken a step towards the house before looking back and stopping to watch Richie’s nervous breakdown.

31. ** keep talking. i’ll keep walking toward the sound of your voice. by theapplepielifestyle - 16,000 words, teen - Eddie dies, sort of, and meets Stan in the afterlife. The two of them realize that they can communicate with their friends in their dreams. Eddie has to watch Richie slowly breakdown in his absence.

32. ** happily ever afters all the way around series by theapplepielifestyle - ~35,000 words, teen - I have so much appreciation for this author’s desire to fix the ending by any means necessary. In this one, that good old turtle lends a hand and sends Richie back in time to fix everything. It’s...a lot.

Then it smooths out into an actual scene, if jumpy: a sigil on wooden boards that look a lot like the floor of Richie’s apartment. The sigil is probably drawn in blood, but it could also be red paint. Although Richie’s being  very  optimistic about that. Anyway, the dream is mostly that: the sigil being drawn, slow and precise, by Richie. It’s dark in the dream, and the sigil being drawn is overcut with more fleeting images, chased with sounds: Stan’s bloody hand dangling out of a bath. Stan as a kid, on the tail end of saying something as he walks home in the evening. Eddie with blank eyed, slumped in IT’s lair. Eddie as a kid, in mid-argument in the clubhouse. A voice so deep and impossible that it hurts, a voice that reminds him of the turtle’s gaze:  come back come back you can change the -

At the end of the dream, the scene will stabilize. Dream-Richie will say some shit he can't make out. Then he'll say the one thing he can make out, which is: I’m coming.

And then he’ll wake up.

LINK TO REDDIE FIC REC LIST PART TWO