#its been definitely over a year by now and it always loops back around

[mephydoggo]

!!!! Fandom PSA !!!!

CW: gr//ming, racism, p//dophilia, n//crophilia, proship, n//ncon

I only just found out that this guy has a Tumblr, so I'm making this post now to warn you all to BLOCK & BAN HIM. Don't let him into your circles or servers. Do not interact with him; he feeds off the attention like a leech. This guy is one of the most disgusting people I've had to deal with, and he's been trying to come back ever since TWF4 dropped. He's an awful person with awful beliefs and he doesn't care who he's hurting, whether that be a child or his own partner.

You can find a list of all of his known accounts in the linked drive as well as all of the evidence we have.

The above CW should give you a pretty good idea of everything he's done. Please block & ban him wherever you can; I know he's been interacting with more artists and trying to weasel into more communities. I'd be grateful to anyone willing to spread the drive as well. I don't want to have to add another person's story to this drive.

[vinvantae]

Could you write the f1 grid reactions to their girlfriend enjoying privacy and not wanting to be in the spotlight at gps? Like for example choosing to go to the regular audience instead of the garage to watch races etc to avoid excessive cameras? If you don't want to do all could you do either Charles, Lewis, or Lando?

I won’t do all the drivers because I think there’s only so many reactions but I will do the three you’ve requested 🥰 sorry for the delay I’ve had a lot of stuff on recently!

***

Charles

Charles watched from across the room as you pulled your Ferrari cap over your head, adjusting it so you could slip your sunglasses on and off with ease. The two of you had been together for nearly two years now, but you had still never set foot inside the paddock - and whilst he understood your reasons, the selfish part of him really wanted you there this weekend. He was starting his home race from P1 and he was positive he had a real shot this year.

He cautiously stepped towards you, taking your hips in his hands so he could press a soft kiss to your shoulder.

“Are you sure I can’t convince you to join me in the garage, mon ange?” He hummed, resting his cheek against yours as you met his eyes in the mirror.

“Mhmm, I quite like being surrounded by your adoring fans.” You giggled, tilting your head so he could press kisses to your neck. “The roars of Monegasque feel all the more thrilling when you’re a part of it. Their home hero starting on pole? No way I’m missing out on that.”

Charles let you turn in his arms, your arms coming up to loop around his neck - you couldn’t help but smile at the fond look in his eyes as he looked at you. He really wished you were going to be at the barriers, so he could wrap you up in his arms when he finally won, but he knew all the cameras in your face would be too much for you.

“I’ll always respect your decision to enjoy the race from the grandstands, as long as you know if you ever change your mind, there’s a special spot in the back of my garage just for you.” His voice was soft as he nudged his nose against yours. “If they get too rowdy-”

“Charles, I’ll be okay… now, go win for me.”

Lewis

Being a 7 time world champion definitely came with its privileges - but privacy was not one of them. So keeping his relationship close to his chest was not only important to him but to you. You loved him more than words could ever describe, but the idea of walking through all of the press holding his hand was still daunting to you - so you preferred to support him nestled away in the crowds. In your 5 years together, somehow, you’d never been “exposed”, so blending in was easy.

Lewis was by no means ashamed of you, in fact, he was filled with nothing but pride when he spoke of you - but being able to keep his personal life private, out of the grasps of the greedy, was important to him as well. He spent his days with every movement, every word being picked apart by the media and he wanted to be able to protect you from it all.

“You could at least wear my merch, babe.” He laughed softly, as you emerged from the bathroom, donned in another team’s merchandise, holding his hands out for you to take. “How am I gonna do well knowing you’re in the crowd wearing that?”

You scoffed playfully, taking his hands, looking down at him from where he was sitting on the edge of the bed. “I am wearing something for you… just for your eyes though.”

He quirked a brow, removing his hands from yours to hook his fingers into your waistband, pulling it away just enough to see his trademark colour against your skin hidden underneath. A groan left his lips and he lent his forehead against your middle.

“So…” you purred. “You gonna race well knowing what your prize is?”

“Fuck yes.”

Lando

Neon yellow was not your colour. When Lando first showed it to you, you weren’t sure it was anyone’s colour, but as you strolled through Silverstone - it seemed that it was everyone’s. You smiled softly to yourself as you adjusted your own hat, sidling up the grandstands to find your seat - nestled in between a group of Lando’s fans, who very quickly pulled you into the fray once they realised you were alone.

You’d ended up getting a seat at Luffield corner, not expecting your boyfriend’s car during the parade to pull up to be interviewed by Natalie. There was no way he’d ever know you were here - you told him you couldn’t make it, but in reality you wanted to enjoy it from the crowds.

The giggles that escaped you as his t-shirt cannon failed dramatically, made your heart swell. He’d come so far in the years you’d known him and to see him so adored was really special. You fished your phone out of your pocket when it buzzed, his name lighting up your screen, just moments before you knew he had to get into the car.

Miss u x

You smiled softly, turning as you felt a gentle tap on your shoulder. The girl smiled gently albeit a little awkwardly at you. “Hi, sorry, you’re y/n, Lando’s girlfriend, right?”

“That’s me.” You chuckled.

“How come you’re out here instead of in there?” She asked, her voice laced with curiosity, not judgement.

You turned a little in your chair to face her better. “Wanted to enjoy the race from the grandstands, I’ve always loved the atmosphere and just because I’m dating him I didn’t want to stop.”

She gave you a knowing nod. “That’s absolutely fair. Well, when you see him, can you tell him I said hi?”

“Hey, how about we all send him a good luck selfie? He’s probably not got his phone anymore but he’ll see it after the race.” You beamed.

Everyone crowded around you and you took a photo - their smiles practically lighting up the screen. You knew Lando would love it, so you sent it back.

We’re all rooting for you <3 You’ve got this!x

Lando was a little disappointed not to win the race, especially at home - he’d managed to hang on to the lead just for a little while, but it just wasn’t enough. All he wanted was to wrap himself up in your arms and feel sorry for himself for not being able to hold onto the lead, but you weren’t here. When he finally got a moment of peace, he checked his phone - eyes widening at the selfie.

You were here, nestled amongst the floods of neon - your smile somehow brighter. He tapped on your name to call you, tapping his foot against the floor - biting at the skin around his fingernails.

“Hi Lando.” Your voice sounded like a dream.

“How come you didn’t tell me you were here.” He knew he sounded whiny but he didn’t care, he needed you with him ASAP. “Could’ve watched from the garage… given me a good luck kiss.”

“Well, looks like you didn’t need it. You raced amazingly today, baby, I’m so proud of you… maybe I’ll meet you back at your hotel, show you how proud I am?”

Lando couldn’t help but jut his bottom lip out a little. “Sure I can’t tempt you to come to the garage?”

“I’m sure. Too flashy for me. I love you, see you in a little while.”

“I love you too. Bye babe.” He smiled to himself, hanging up the phone - holding it to his chest.

As much as he’d wished you were in the garage, he loved the part of you that wanted to enjoy races from the grandstands - experience the race how you wanted, not just using your relationship to waltz around the paddock.

Now… he just had to find the quickest way back to the hotel.

[defmaybe]

I Love You, I’m Sorry

Purple Kiss’ Jang Eunseong/Dosie x Male Reader

1.3k words

Song: Gracie Abrams - I Love You, I’m Sorry

See also: Rockland

Some warning on a discussion of depression

A/N: Part of @mintwithchoco’s prompt exercise!!! It’s very exposition dump-y so apologies for that. Thanks for reading!

–

You were the best but you were the worst

As sick as it sounds, I loved you first

I was a dick, it is what it is

A habit to kick, the age-old curse

–

The sun glares down onto the street you’re walking on. The buildings don’t help in shielding it in the afternoon. To add, they even reflect the light onto you even more. You want a place to cool down; you need a place to cool down.

You pace yourself through the bustling heart of the city, looking for just a cold whisper, but everywhere just seems to be so eager to burn you down to shreds. The gray skyscrapers stare down at you, adding melancholy to the street even more.

You stride and stride in the hellish heat, until…

It’s predictable: the modern interior, white and brown furniture, just so ready to be snapped and posted on Instagram. You hurry into the cafe, trying to catch the breeze of the hard-working air conditioner as much as possible. In the meantime, you look around for a seat for your iced tea, until you meet an eye in the patrons.

Maybe it’s fate, maybe it’s a coincidence, but you just can’t walk away now.

She’s in a light blue blouse and her ripped jeans, hands holding her iced latte. She seems to be working on something on her computer.

Back in college, you failed and failed to find that precious rhythm in engineering. You were far from being a failure, to say, but your social life was dry enough to have her, a medical student who lived miles away, as your closest friend after high school ended. And one day, it fell down. Your closeness induced the dormant codependency within, and she left. It’s the memory you’ve been striving to erase and the mistake you’ve been trying to correct ever since.

It would’ve been easy if you just gave her silence, but there has to be a few dramatic scenes, which include ‘I fucking hate you’ or ‘I can’t say that I love you’. This doesn’t even cover the flurries and flurries of messages yet, up until where she blocked you, and you blocked her.

It’s Jang Eunseong–or sometimes Dosie, the name that has been aching inside you ever since.

Slowly, she reaches forward to get her purse on the opposite chair. She nods while giving you a faint smile.

“Iced Latte, please,” you tell the barista.

Slowly, you walk towards her table, still trying to make sense of the image in front of you.

“Sweetness?” They respond.

Slowly, you sit down in the chair. Its legs creak as you drag it across the floor.

“Low, thanks.”

Slowly, Dosie starts the proper conversation as you sit down, face-to-face with her for the first time in almost a decade.

“So, how are you?”

A forced smile exudes. You think of an answer that’s enough to garner her attention, but not too desperate. “I’m fine.”

Her sudden departure left you so bereft to where medication is involved. Valdoxan, Lorazepam, Rivotril, Fluoxetine, Trazodone, you name it. You were lucky that you have lived to this exact day even.

Darkness loomed over you, thoughts looped, words lamented with trembles. And to say, it was all your fault for making such a promising relationship to the ugly crash by yourself. You inflicted yourself with this pain.

The waiter brings your coffee to you, the same as hers.

“Doing anything?” She wants more than a ‘fine’.

You give in. “I’m a photographer now, modelling stuff, you know.”

“You’ve always wanted to be one, aren’t you?”

“It’s more fun than being a programmer, definitely.”

A small chuckle escapes Dosie.

“How are you, though? No one told me about you all these years,” you brush your rinsing tears away with a question mark.

“I’m-” She pauses and nods, lips curling inward, eyes pointing away for a second. “Fine, really. I just got promoted at my hospital.”

It’s either a doctor or an engineer here—the path to stability. And if the contrast between the path isn’t stark enough. There’s a hatred between you two to separate them even further.

“So you’re becoming the hospital manager, aren’t you?” chuckling, you say.

Dosie laughs, hands failing to cover her mouth. “Not really, haha, still a department’s second-in-command.” The air seems to lighten up, not suppressing your smile anymore.

“Well, good for you.”

“Anyone yet?” She inquires again, eyes focused on you.

“Friend of a friend.” Another fake, faint smile with a truth. “You?”

“Same shift, on and off, really.”

It’s swift, the way it just landed and took off, robbing you of any sentiment you may deserve. You’ve played this moment back and forth for too many times during the years apart. But when it just comes and goes like this, you just wish she’d ask for more.

You continue, “Do you remember–,” you halt.

She forces out a smile, matching your eyes for a split second.

“I mean–no, I shouldn’t do this, I’m sorry for bringing it up.”

“Hey.” Dosie reaches out to you. “It’s fine. I’m your fri–” 

Dosie stops in her tracks; resolve falters, causing you to look back up at her. Her eyes are searching for the right excuse in the crowd outside.

“I’m sorry.”—you struggle to hold back the tears welling in your eyes—“I don’t think I should do this.”

Your voice is quivering.

Dosie opens her mouth without a sound, an unknown word stuck in her throat, whatever it might be. Maybe it’s lost in the chatter of the patrons; maybe it’s lost in the piano from the speakers; maybe it’s lost in the huffing sounds of the coffee machine.

Maybe it’s lost in herself.

“So,” Dosie finally breaks another chain of tranquil, and herself, unsure, yet they bind themselves back as fast as they were ripped apart. You two fell into another gap.

Maybe it’s best that you just stop here.

“I guess I should go,” you say, without any destination in your mind. You adjust yourself to slide the chair out.

“Wait.” As you step, Dosie stops you with her shaky voice. Your feet are still, one leading the other. You can’t quite make out what she's going to say next: an insult, a question, an apology? They teeter inside your head to decide what you can’t choose.

You turn back to meet her anxious look—lips quiver, latte in the mug she’s holding up to her chin vibrating as she puts it down. 

Thump.

“I’m–,” Dosie turns the gears in her head, seeking the right word in your eyes.

“I’m sorry,” you’re the one who says it. It can’t be the end here, it can’t be, but at least it might be better than those damned years. You turn back away. “I’m sorry that I didn’t fix myself for you.”

“No, no, no, no,” she climbs the scale with each syllable, hands waving off your guilt. She bends forward, is it to see you closer? “I should’ve been there for you, but I was just-”

You look back, seeing that the composure she has tried to keep during the minutes is crumbling.

“I was selfish,” she says, husk lingering in the statement.

“No, Dosie, it was me,” you respond. “I shouldn’t have dragged you into my mess.”

“I–,” Dosie stops before another apology comes out, careful on her next words.

“Will I- Will I see you again?” She breaks the train into another question, head tilting, brows furrowing. Her now-hoarse voice is blended with the piano.

“Maybe.”

–

I tend to laugh whenever I’m sad

I stare at the crash, it actually works

Making amends, this shit never ends

I’m wrong again, wrong again

[biblicallyaccuratecrow]

ouroboros rambles chapter 2

you guys seemed to like the chapter 1 rambles, so here is chapter 2!

[spoilers for isat and twohats below the cut]

i would like to start by saying that we all need more mirabelle POV fics in our lives. she deserves only the best.

I always really liked how Mira didn't just. get over act 5? like, the things that siffrin said were hurtful! yes! and she loves him! even after that! but it doesn't erase the pain and the conflicting feelings regarding it, especially because of the no-spoilers rule... which we will get more into i proMISE! in any case I was focused a lot on the fact that Mira post canon is dealing with a Lot, what with everyone still believing that she was chosen by the Change God and yknow. saving Vaugarde, and Siffrin's overall condition doesn't help! She wants him to be okay and safe, and she has already shown that she feels immense guilt over not being able to help siffrin during the loops, so I kinda leaned hard into that.

The entire party is about to be So Tired Of People.... especially The Introverts (Odile, Mira, and Siffrin)...

The fucking cart thing came to me out of fucking nowhere. I have no idea where or why that bit came around.

Siffrin sleeping habits analysis. siffrin sleeps all curled up like a cat most of the time? theyre small scrappy, but not really the most physically strong (before the loops), and i imagine more than a few years of traveling alone would train him to be ready to protect themselves however they can, even in their sleep. I think that this eases up a bit as they get comfortable with the party, which leads to them being able to sleep "normally". but of course, that is how they wake up in the loops. negative association and trauma from waking up back in the meadow..... i don't imagine they'll be going back to that any time soon.

I do have a Full Catalog of Siffrin's injuries (because im actually insane) but that will be talked about in my chapter 3 rambles. for now though, all im gonna say is that Siffrin definitely kept the stars hidden. In my headcanon, healing craft only works when you can actually pinpoint a wound, internal or external. I'm more inclined to believe that siffrin healed them up the best they could on their own after to hide them.

Ohhhh odile. my beloved. i have so many feelings about her and how she processes siffrin's issues postcanon. feelings i will not get into until next chapter. sorry lmaoooooo. All you gotta know for now is that once she starts seeing things, she can't stop. the signs appear everywhere, and she very quickly puts the pieces together from that point. All it takes is one domino to start the cascade, and Odile is the kind of person that WILL get to the bottom of it all, no matter what it takes.

Mira's guilt. Oh man. There are some ways in which her and Siffrin are very alike, and this is one of them. She's justified in being mad, yes, but that doesn't erase the fact that she doesn't want to BE mad. She hates it. because she knows now that siffrin was suffering. She defeated the king, saved vaugarde, but the cost was her friend's health and happiness. siffrin said that they were happiest they'd ever been with the party... and yes, siffrin loves them all deeply, but she never could have wanted that love to come at such a great price.

Mira has gotta be TIRED. girl healed siffrin a grand total of (checks my page of notes from act 5) six times. with very little cooldown. and that was AFTER deflecting the ONE SHOT KILL attack from the king (which, even with the carrot method shield, does at least 1/4 damage) and unfreezing siffrin....ough. let her rest!

i love torturing isa using his crush. its so funny. bro is a disaster. brain completely short circuits at the thought of siffrin in his clothes i can IMAGINE IT SO CLEARLY.... odile is gon abe homophobic soon /silly

Siffrin's wish... this scene was really important to me. Just for clarification (and this will become a LOT more obvious later), I don't really regard this scene as Siffrin getting over what happened? Because he definitely isn't. But they have already literally let go of their wish, and I wanted to explore a more… intentional version of that? its long-lasting effects are still there, mentally and physically. it doesn't just go away. But it has served its purpose and this is my way of showing the transition point from the loops and their future with their family.

Also!!! the idea of mourning something that no longer serves its former purpose, a life you cannot get back. Siffrin can never go back to who they were before their wish. They have been fundamentally changed as a person. And while the wish did bring good things, the flipside is that it also dismantled their entire worldview and life in its entirety. They died from this wish, suffered because of it, but the meaning behind it remains, and i think that this scene kind of shows the idea that siffrin still feels compassion for what it originally meant to them. its a bittersweet reality.

[myx-on-earth]

Content Warning: Landfall Game's April Fools Triumph

For the Content!

It would seem that an April Fools joke of a game has resulted in overnight indie success. Landfall Games, a beloved indie game studio, has a yearly April Fools tradition they call “Landfall Day”, where their devs put together essentially a parody of whatever game is popular at the time. They’ve parodied everything from DayZ to battle royales (Twice, with Totally Accurate Battlegrounds and Knightfall), and this year it would seem it’s Lethal Company’s turn.

Lethal Company is a game known for silly co-op shenanigans that seem to instantly translate into YouTube content- and Content Warning takes that idea and turns it up to 11, making being an influencer a part of the game mechanics. You and a group of friends take a diving bell to “The Old World”, a spooky map filled with monsters and traps entirely for the sake of internet entertainment value. With a single camera and 90 seconds of film, your group has to make the spookiest, funniest video possible- because your only source of income is Spooktube, and that revenue doesn’t come easily.

It's such a brilliant parody of both the horror genre Lethal Company tapped into and the loop of content creation in the internet age that it, somehow, wraps around to being an excellent game in of itself, though Landfall is no stranger to finding gold through satire. Previously, their first battle royale parody (Totally Accurate Battlegrounds, a riff on PUBG) found some success, enough that Landfall turned it into a full venture. It’s not as popular nowadays, but it IS legitimately good- and Content Warning seems to be turning out the same way with its initial popularity and engaging premise.

Typical Content Warning video result, featuring myself, @thatpocketninja, @squiddskipp, and a third friend who requested to remain anonymous

In the space of video game development, April Fools seems to be not so much a “joke” day, but a day that allows ideas to be thrown around that might not otherwise have been considered, which can lead to majorly creative leaps of faith. With examples like the Yakuza series’ pivot to turn-based combat, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon’s continued success in the midst of a floundering Ubisoft, and even Lilith Walther’s upcoming definitely-not-Bloodborne Kart (now known as Nightmare Kart), the idea of “joke turned legitimate gamedev venture” isn’t exactly new.

I actually had the pleasure of exchanging emails with Hanna Fogelberg (@thebirdmountain on Twitter), Landfall's Head of Community, who provided some insight into Content Warning’s development and the overwhelming response in the interview below.

1. What's it like to go to bed seeing some success, then waking up to find your joke game is a viral hit? Did you expect this at all, given the surprising amount of polish it has?

"We couldn't sleep to tell you the truth! Even if the team said good night at about 2am we kept texting the player numbers to each other throughout the night, we were very wired! We always knew there was the potential of the game going really well, there's something about the design and shareability of the videos you make that we knew could hit it big but it's still surprising it went THIS well."

2. How long did it take to develop Content Warning?

"Content Warning was made in about six weeks of active game development, but the idea came to us back in December!"

3. What were your main inspirations for the game? (Beyond Lethal Company, of course)

“Lethal Company and similar games were an obvious reference for the gameplay loop, we love that game! That said, what was most interesting to us was the core of the game - the filming and video creation. We were inspired by YouTubers and influencer culture, there's something interesting in people risking life and limb for content that we wanted to play off of. 

Other than that, the vibes of The Older World were inspired by Junji Ito and a specific H.R Giger painting while The Over World references the Swedish children's book Pettson och Findus.”

4. How experienced was the dev team?

“We're pretty experienced, the Landfall team has been making games for over 10 years with previous releases being Totally Accurate Battle Simulator, Stick Fight: The Game, Clustertruck and Rounds to mention a few.”

5. How does this experience compare to the last semi-viral success Landfall had with a Landfall Day game? (TABG)

“This game outdid TABG in player numbers several times over! So it's hard to compare, this is by far our most viral hit to date.” 6. Any plans for the future of the game? Or just basic bug fixes and some more content? 

“We will see! Currently, we're focusing on fixing bigger bugs and other issues but we already have some new content planned. We're kind of playing it by ear at this point, it all depends on how things go in the coming weeks.”

Some may attribute Content Warning’s success to multiple factors- the 24 hour free period, how it riffs on Lethal Company and the tropes it already employs, or even that it was “designed to go viral”- but you can’t deny that, even as an iterative piece, it still manages to find its own identity and already seems to have captured the content creation hearts of everyone who gives it a chance. Games like this, that aren’t reliant on micro transactions and are buoyed by the PEOPLE you play with, rather than the money that one must spend on it, are the hope- and, hopefully, the future- of the video games industry. You can find Content Warning (No longer free, but still very cheap!) at the link below: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2881650/Content_Warning/

[ectonurites]

Now that we’re halfway through it what are your thoughts on Kon’s solo?

I've been enjoying it! I think it's been fun so far—I do think that letting Kon have a story where he's out on his own just doing a classic little adventure like this rather than... something super tethered to the greater DCU/its continuity messes is refreshing after the last few years he's had.

Like I definitely don't want him isolated from all his friends in space forever or anything like that, but I think him getting to do this on his own right now is cool. I think the thing Porter seems to be going for with Kon 'chasing after the glory days'/trying to find some shred of his old life to cling onto (even if it's just a space imitation of it) is definitely interesting and like... makes enough sense to me for him and where he's at after The Everything.

I just gave this 'how Kon has changed across the eras' post of mine from a while back (fall 2021, so written shortly after the whole Suicide Squad Match Ordeal™) a re-read and something I was talking about at the end was how after all the experiences he's had he has looped back around to embracing aspects of his old self (that he'd been pushing away for a long time because of 2000's-era Trauma And Angst) and I think this current book is definitely like, playing with that.

What I was talking about in that post ended mostly after YJ 2019 though—his state of mind at that point being more or less 'okay I'm back now let's goooooo!!!!!' before The Horrors of realizing he came back to a world that really had moved on without him for years really set in. Like, he knew about that by the end of YJ 2019, but I think he needed to sit on it for a bit and see it firsthand... also even though I know the book was a mess and not well received, I think we should still acknowledge Dark Crisis: Young Justice—where he got a firsthand taste of the olden 90's 'I hadn't died yet, I hadn't disappeared yet, I hadn't been replaced yet' days in Mickey's dream world. After experiencing that and getting some reality checks from the rest of the team, he knows he can't seriously just go back, you can't go back to the past like that... but...

The new understanding of himself he'd achieved just before/while stuck on Gemworld—where we saw he was making active choices about who he's gonna be based on what he wants rather than Clark-based expectations or anyone else's input, and where he was rolling with the changes and circumstances that had been thrown at him—has been thrown SERIOUSLY out of whack!

So rather than it being that 'he's returning to aspects of who he used to be while incorporating the experience and maturity he's gained along the way over the years' situation from YJ 2019, it's started warping into 'he's regressing back to the safety of being the Metropolis Kid/his 90's era self just out in space this time so TECHNICALLY it's DIFFERENT'. Which I think is an interesting approach! And him acting completely and totally in denial of that being what he's doing (even though it's clear he knows damn well it is) is also totally in line with classic Kon—thinking back to the Young Justice (1998) #7 camping trip LMAO.

But like, the thing is, Superboy: The Man of Tomorrow #1 started with an editor's note clarifying it takes place before Action Comics #1051 which began the new family-focused era of the book... that Kon is very obviously present for.

So we already know he's gonna figure out that there is a place for him back on earth and that he doesn't need to completely regress and try to relive his past somewhere else, he can just be himself and carve out his own path at home and have a place within the family. We're not stuck guessing about what Kon's fate is gonna be after the fact—instead, this book gets to focus on this journey he's going through and we're along for the ride to see how he's gonna finally reach that conclusion! Which is fun!

Anyways, that was a lot of word dumping—Kon just gets me going man, you know he always does—but in conclusion: I'm enjoying the book overall, it has definitely kept me as a Kon fan engaged, and I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes!

+ as much as ideologically I am opposed to DC Round Robin, I'm definitely (at this point anyways) glad that this book got to exist.

[bigbarabelly]

thoughts on abo pregnant homelander?

I’ve been trying to draw him for days and he looks like ass so fjdksla u get THOUGHTS instead

Cut for scrolling lmao

I think a lot depends on how much Homelander’s pushed down with being Vought’s golden project. If the man’s been on suppressants and faking being an alpha for his entire life, then he Does Not Know how to do or embrace his omegan instincts, mannerisms, or needs. Jfksadl like if we go into this. Can the man even purr? Has he ever tried or just gave up from the possibility of it outing him? And now it’s just an embarrassing thing he tries once in a while alone, hates how it sounds from disuse, and shoves it in the back of his mind.

There’s no way they would have let him make any kind of a nest in the labs growing up when he presented. And with how sensitive his temperament is in destroying his penthouse 24/7, like he probably directs his interior design team or whatever, but it’s not His home really in the way he’d decorate and build his den nest human instinct cave man ass animal at heart Home. He’s always a mess obviously JFDKLS but finally given the space and his own alpha he actually gives a shit about, he’d be very protective over that scent bomb nest he’s finally able to start piecing together following his instincts.

Still pissy and snippy cause its fucking home lander but jumped up with baby brain hormones making him feel like he’s doing loops with his usual leave me alone angry shit, and the clingy soft need building up to fix his home to prep for his partner and kid. The regret from a fit and having laser vaporized one of his favorite tshirts he stole for his nest cause it’s just not tucking right and the sensory of a wrinkle made him snap. The hesitation the next time though from a split second of clarity ringing through his brain asking himself if going to snap like that when the kid comes? Big character growth time for this dipshit LMAO

He’s already a cryer behind the scenes but definitely is pushed with this i think. He’s had a variety of awful shit done to him growing up, and probably gets a good punch or slam now and then now. But not a consistent year of hell from the inside out. Not being sick and having his own body betray him so harshly. His body won out on the brain fight for breeding like an animal and it’s exhausting. Lot of evenings hissing from his hips hurting as they widen over the months. Biting his nails and punching concrete so he doesn’t hurt himself instead with how weird the changes to his body feel and the fact he can’t just stop the baby kicking him whenever he wants. He’s not been tested like this before

He’s been so performative in his alpha shit and frankly a busy celebrity. He’s not got time or ever been like around family shit to know anything about what to expect or how much something like the first movements rock him to the core over how soft it makes him feel. Like yea show him is a narcissist and obviously a shitbag but there’s still tangible chunks of someone that could and tries to and can care. Like how he treats ryan for the most part and wants what’s best for him, despite how warped it is u know.

But that makes it so much more real and not just an inconvenience or annoying whatever consequence to giving into a heat or finding The One mate. It moves. It’s real. It’s his. But it’s not him and he needs to make sure they make it to Just Be. And that hits him like a truck of realizing shit this is gonna b harder than i thought if i dont’ want to fuck them up hiding them away. He sucks ass but i don’t think he could handle being separated from his child giving them up for anonymous adoption or if he was even able to terminate it. It’s the ultimate control over his body to carry it to term i think? Like he chose to do it, no one else. Be it for interest in boredom, or ignorance and fear ignoring it until it’s too late to even attempt to get rid of it without severely hurting himself. Like idk if surgery can even be performed on him for a C-section so his best bet is to hope for and have a smooth natural birth. With the compound V idk how well birth control or suppressants and whatnot even work on him. So even if he tried to take an early term abortion pill lmao it’d probably fail. Or he’d only bleed, think it passed, and nope.

Cute shit though that man would be living in his alphas clothes. Probably sick of his suit but also he’s neurotically attached to that thing for comfort. So to have a switch to another big shirt that encompasses him like his armor, but surrounding him in his partners smell and comforting that omega ache he ignored for like 30 years has him like shaking in how he slowly relaxes into it. Everyone always stinks not being his type or covered in chemical soaked scent blockers and perfumes. Like an axe locker room but that’s his life always being in crowds and stuffy packed parties. Something nice and muting every other scent with the smell of home and safe and love just UGH he’d be CUTE OK just pulling up their hoodie around his face and always in their neck scenting them when they come home

[hellishchrissy]

hello random gareth/el thought: el experimenting with hairstyles and trying them all out on gareth. her favorite look is definitely the pigtails, she just thinks he looks so sweet 💕

that is all

It's a pretty nice Saturday afternoon, one of those first days of spring that actually feel warm on your skin, and the sunshine is no longer accompanied by a cold breeze. Summer of 1989 is fast approaching, its first rays of light filtering in through the windows of Gareth's mother's garage.

He's back from college for spring break, and though there has been many promises made to his mother about the garage getting cleaned, it's as much of a disaster as before – if not worse. Gareth has assured her, over and over, that this time he’d get to it. Instead, the place is a chaotic mess of empty beer bottles, tangled cables and music gear.

And it’s not like Gareth has a chance to focus on playing his drums for an entire week straight when he’s away at college – he’d barely scraped through his midterms, and a dorm room isn’t exactly a place where you haul a drum set with you.

So here he is now, sitting on his worn-down stool, headphones over his ears while trying to nail down the drums of a Metallica song that’s been looping on his Walkman for the last twenty minutes. His dark brows are furrowed in concentration, head bobbing to the beat, a drop of sweat on his forehead as his hands fly over the drums. But every now and then he misses a beat, and quiet curses fall off his lips. He rewinds the tape.

As if the song itself isn’t challenging enough, there’s another distraction making him miss a beat here and there: El’s standing behind him, her slender fingers in his hair as he plays. Her hands are separating his curls with methodical precision, tugging and grazing at his neck in a way that makes it hard to even hear the song blaring in his ears. She’d done this before – probably hundreds of times – but it’s always a distraction. Today, more so than usual. Her cool fingers send jolts down his spine, making it damn near impossible to keep time.

“El,” Gareth murmurs, tearing the headphones off his ears in a hasty movement. He lens back his head so that he can look up at her standing behind his stool. “You’re distracting me.”

El grins when their eyes meet, but her fingers don’t pause their braiding. “But it looks so good, Gare. You could wear your hair like this at the gig next week.”

Gareth snorts, shaking his head against her hands. A grin tugs at his lips. “Babe, I don’t need to look good for a metal crowd. I just need to be able to play the drums.”

Which sure as fuck is impossible right now, with the way her touch is electrifying his veins.

“You can do both,” El teases, fingers still deftly working over the last section of curls.

Gareth lets out little laugh, low and rough. “You’re seriously overestimating my multitasking abilities here.”

El doesn’t respond, but merely gives him the soft, knowing smile she’s perfected during the years, the one that makes Gareth’s chest warm with affection despite the fact that he’s been lucky enough to witness that damn smile for over two years now. For a moment he just sits there, the headphones hanging loosely around his neck, listening on to El’s quiet humming as her fingers twist his curls—

The drumsticks clatter onto the floor.

And before he can even think twice, Gareth shifts on the stool, twisting around enough to snake an arm around the unsuspecting girl’s waist. He pulls her sideways onto his lap, his other arm wrapping around her to steady her some more. A surprised yelp falls from El’s lips as she falls against him, landing with a quiet little thud. Gareth’s left hand settles instinctively on her thigh, holding her steady as she looks up at him with a laugh that lights up her brown eyes.

“Gare, no, you’re all sweaty—“

“And you’re evil,” Gareth murmurs, leaning downwards. El’s wearing an old band t-shirt of his, worn and stretched out from washing, and the sight of it makes his heart skip a little beat.

El grins up a him, her arm making its way around his neck to pull Gareth downwards. “Am I distracting you now?”

A grin mirroring El’s tugs at Gareth’s lips, his heart thumping against his ribs. “You have no idea,” he mutters.

Gareth’s hand moves up and down her thigh in a way that makes El shiver, his ring-clad fingers brushing against the denim of her shorts. It’s something he’s done hundreds of times before, the gesture familiar, comforting and so, so distracting. El’s breath hitches the way it often does when Gareth’s touch is a little too casual; she swats his hand away with a laugh, her gesture playful.

“You’re trying to get the song right, remember?” She says, her voice soft but firm. Her brown eyes narrow.

Gareth groans, over-dramatic. His forehead drops against her shoulder, the softened fabric of her t-shirt brushing against his cheek. “Yeah well, maybe I care about you more than I care about Metallica.”

El grins, shaking her head. She pushes against his chest with her hand. “Don’t even try. You’re obsessed with Metallica.”

“Well, yes, but I’m obsessed with you more,” he says, half-serious, half-teasing, his light eyes twinkling.

His words make El laugh, her body vibrating in Gareth’s arms. Her hands grab the collar of his flannel, pulling him downwards and onto her lips.

Gareth is grinning against her mouth.

El lingers for a bit before pulling back. “Get back to work,” she commands, her fingers giving his brown curls – now already falling out of the untied braids – a playful tug before she hops off his lap.

Gareth’s eyes follow her, and he wipes a bead of sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. He bends down to pick up the sticks from the floor. “You’re killing me, Hopper.”

“Maybe you’re just getting rusty.”

Gareth laughs, tilting his head back. “Rusty, huh? Sure, babe. That’s what this is.”

El throws her an amused glance over her shoulder. Gareth pulls the headphones over his ears again, rewinding the familiar song on the Walkman. Metallica’s trashing riffs fill his ears, far too loud for his own good. And though he tears his gaze away from El and forces himself to focus on the drums, he can still feel her touch lingering on his skin. Distracting him, her laugh still echoing in his ears, drowning out the song blaring from the headphones.

God help him, he’s gonna fuck up the song again.

[ttaibhse]

i need to start up running again i haven't been in ages and i feel shitty about it but i still just don't really want to. especially now it's getting colder lol i like running in cool weather but when it's actually cold not as much. i was getting so bored of it idrk why i guess because i was running out of new routes to do... i hate running along the road and the thought of adding more distance which basically would mean adding more time on the road or just mindless loops of the parks wasn't really motivating lol. and i felt like i stopped making progress. and then i got sick and the pain in my back/hips came back for a while. and to be honest i was/am just disappointed that i wasn't losing any weight at least not perceptibly and obviously i was lying when i said the goal of it wasn't to lose weight lol. like not the only goal i did/do also want to just be a fitter and more active person and not let my bones crumble into dust by middle age whatever but ultimately i want to lose weight and it just wasn't happening. even though i wasn't intentionally eating much more to make up for the extra activity but i probably was doing it without meaning to. like admittedly there were definitely times i would be like oh i can have a bit more i did a big run today. not all the time but enough i guess. i feel like shit i hate being this size & shape i miss being skinny and the more time passes with me not being skinny it gets harder to remember the negatives that came with it. like i look back now and i know i was always cold and exhausted and obsessed with food and my whole life revolved around it like i know all that but i looked so much better -_- my clothes looked nicer. if someone took a photo of me i only had to worry about hating my face not my body as well. or not as much at least lol i always hated it i guess. but omfg my face even looks worse now because its just doughy. i cant stand it. i cant believe how fucked up i look lol

i hate writing posts like this i sound so cookie cutter stereotypical ED girl. it's so so embarrassing i can't stop feeling like this at nearly 28. im 28 in like 10 days and the first time i remember consciously deciding to stop eating to lose weight i was 10 or 11. my mum still seems to have genuinely blocked out the memories of it like any of it even though we talked about it at several different points in time when i was a teenager and i said to her what was going on and she was so angry with me like furious with me. and then again when i was an adult and just said outright because i knew i had put on weight over lockdown and i knew she thought i had just lost control of myself because she said so to my sister

so i said to her like look i was only really thin in uni because i was in like a 1.5k calorie deficit every single day. there were days i would stand up at the end of a lecture and almost black out lol so i said all that maybe 3 or 4 years ago was the last time i brought it up icr but still if the topic of eating disorders or similar comes up she will say things like "i hope youve never felt that way" LMFAO like full sincerity i swear to fucking god i dont understand. but anyway its not a great feeling knowing she thinks im fat because i just dont take care of myself. even though it is true i suppose. and every time i see my granny she comments on my weight. so anyway all that to say that's how i know it's true and it's not just in my head

like i can acknowledge that back in the day when i was something like 55kg and still thought i was huge that was some kind of dysmorphia involved. but not any more and it's just kind of a blow because i had finally started accepting this idea that i wasn't as big as i thought and now i am it's like i don't know like going backwards. like a nightmare come true or something it's literally all the bad thoughts i would have about myself are true now. i am that fat or even worse because i think i've been deluding myself i think i'm actually now bigger than i think i am. and i am lazy and eat badly and it still feels like my options are total lack of control or the tightest rein possible. theres no good middle ground i dont know how people find a middle ground. how do you eat normally lol. ive only ever been thin when i was barely eating + walking miles and miles every day AND on testosterone. i tried to do eating normally and now im so huge and i dont know what to do like logically i know there are people out there who have got it right so why cant i get it right

[the-archangel]

Never Tear Us Apart

Part of the @cp77nyexchange for @elvenbeard, hope it's just what you always wanted!

There was a time not so long ago that just waking up with a roof over his head was enough for V, hell whether he’d wake up at all wasn’t something he took for granted. If he really tried, he could have imagined finding the Eddies to rent his own place again; as long as there was a bookshelf, a bed and a laptop he would be more than happy, but anything on top of that would have seemed a pipe dream.

Relationships were definitely off the cards too, the couple of times he’d dabbled in the fetid waters of the Night City dating pool he couldn’t swim away fast enough, there may be plenty of fish in the sea, but most of them were either sharks or blobfish.

As for work, much as he hated everything Arasaka stood for it was at least a steady job with regular pay and when it was over the choices were limited, since selling his ass on a street corner didn’t particularly appeal, he fell into the merc work and turned out to be pretty good at it. But the jobs and the training took over his life and for the kind of crappy gigs he was getting the pay was scop too, all he could see in his future was the same again, day after day, though on the upside mercs didn’t tend to live to be old and grey so it wouldn’t be his future for very long.

That’s why, every morning, rain or shine, good sleep or bad, V smiles. He’s got more than he ever imagined and although ‘stuff’ doesn’t make him happy, security and love definitely do and he has both of those in abundance.

Kerry never doubted that he’d be successful and wealthy, it took years of hard work and some shady decisions sure, but he knew he’d get there in the end. What he did doubt was that he’d ever find someone to share his life with.

At first, he just didn’t see the point, he fell in love every week, every day sometimes and would give the object of his affection every ounce of his being for the time they were together, until, like a magpie attracted by shiny things, he’d find a new obsession and move on without looking back. That lifestyle took it’s toll though, he was getting a reputation and making increasingly poor choices so he took himself out of the loop, went back home and returned some time later with a new mindset, he was ready to find ‘the one’. That was over forty years ago and much as he’d found several ‘definitely not the one’s’ in that time, it was only in the last few years that he could say he’d succeeded.

Right now, ‘the one’ was back home in Night City, Kerry had never wanted to go home as badly as he does right now, but there’s one more day and night of schmoozing and interviews to get through first and, since he’s in New York for the first time in forever, some Christmas shopping to catch up on.

-

“Hey,”

Kerry’s voice in V’s holo is heavy with sleep but still sexy as fuck.

“Hey back atcha, how’s it goin’?” V says brightly from his nest of pillows, Nibbles purring softly at his side.

“Shiiit, I’m sorry V, y’know I always forget about the time difference, I just…I just really missed your voice.”

“It’s fine,” chuckles the fixer, “been up for a while, emails to catch up on and stuff. Was going for a run but the weather’s stupid right now,” he turns around his optics to let Kerry see the view from their window. “Storm’s not even properly here yet and it’s already like Ragnarök out there.”

The storm had been working its way up the coast for days, Pacifica was getting the worst of it right now, so it was only a matter of hours before it hit Little China, the sky was already black, the dark clouds skittering madly ahead of the incoming wind.

Kerry’s perfect brows meet in concern, “You gonna be alright up there? Maybe you should go to the villa, might be safer.”

“Sure, a house on the top of a hill is way safer than a modern apartment block, I’ll be fine working from home and just using the gym downstairs. Don’t worry.”

Kerry still looks unsure, “Fine, just…just keep me updated. Be on my way back this time tomorrow, can’t wait.”

“Mhm, me either, we can order in some food and have a cosy movie afternoon.”

“Sounds preem, love you.”

“You too Ker, speak soon.”

The holo darkens and V’s voice fades, it’s been a long couple of days but thank fuck it’ll be over soon.

-

New York is bright, but cold. Wrapped up in his padded jacket and scarf, the world-famous Rockerboy is completely anonymous, not that anyone around here cares who he is anyway. It’s a relief to be able to walk the streets without being mobbed or molested, though he still has a security guard following at a discrete distance.

Kerry loves buying presents, he can happily spend days picking out the exact right thing and the recipient always reacts with surprised delight, all except V. V is horrible to buy for, he asks for nothing because he wants nothing, says he’s got everything he needs; Kerry sees it as a personal challenge to find him a gift that will blow him away. He’s pretty sure he’s aced it this year, just needs to pick it up.

-

V wasn’t telling Kerry the absolute truth, he really wasn’t planning on leaving the penthouse, but he wasn’t there working and he wasn’t alone. He slides out from under the sheets puts his sneakers back on and picks his coffee up from the side table with Nibbles following him back down the stairs into the living area.

Sitting on the bottom step sipping at his drink, V watches the chaos unfold around him. Dark greenery is being swathed and erected around the room, whilst purple and gold accessories adorn the foliage and surfaces. He moves to one side to allow a small, busy woman in a red pantsuit to wrap the banister rail in ivy and pine, several other similarly dressed workers are putting their designer touches to the trees and bookshelves.

With only a few days to go until Christmas, the weather had forced Kerry and V to change their plans and spend the holidays at home instead of at the mountain cabin, as long as they were together neither minded too much, but it did mean that all the decorations and food that had been delivered up there were now only for the benefit of the staff. Before Kerry left, they’d decided to have a quiet day and make up for it on New Year’s Eve, but V knew that Kerry loved Christmas and really loved the over-the-top flamboyance that was positively encouraged at this time of year, so he wasn’t going to let him down. It had been tricky to find someone to do it at such short notice, but the Eurodyne name – and its Eddies – open a lot of doors.

-

Kerry’s day was dragging, interview after interview asking the same questions over and over. He wasn’t much of a clock watcher, barely knew what day it was sometimes never mind what time, but today the clock in the corner of his Kiroshis is counting him down to when he can finally pack his bags and head home. His initial intent was to set off in the morning, but fuck that, he can sleep on the plane, so he has his manager book a flight a couple of hours after his last commitment, his fifteenth hosting spot on SNL, and uses the time between interviews to pack his bags.

Back home, V watches Kerry’s performance on the big screen, cheesy as some of it is, he still finds himself smiling proudly throughout, a small, unsure part of him still finding it hard to believe that the Rock God on TV is his mainline. He knows that every look into the camera and every cheeky smile is his alone, safely away from the ongoing storm, and with a snoring Nibbles on his lap, there’s only one thing that could make this evening cosier.

Even as the credits are rolling a call comes through on the holo, “Heeeey V, bags are in the car I’m on the way to the airport.”

“Thought you weren’t setting off until morning?”

“I just want to be home, with you Vince. Besides, I’ve got something for ya.”

V groans inwardly, Kerry knows he’s not good with receiving gifts but he tries just the same, “That’s great Ker,” he fibs, “I’ll see you in a few hours, be safe.”

“You know I will, love ya V.”

“You too ya gonk.”

-

There are some things that even money can’t fix, chief amongst these is the weather. For the third time it is painstakingly being explained to Kerry that there are no direct flights to the West coast tonight, none, nada.

Kerry stops his complaining for a moment to take in what the airport security was telling him, “No, direct flights, fine,” This is why he usually has ‘people’ to do this shit for him, “what about indirect ones?”

An hour later he finally makes a flight, not to NC but to what remains of some place called Bakersfield, then there would be a two-hour drive the rest of the way, could be worse so he tries to stay upbeat explaining the sitch to V.

“How long til you land?” asks V sleepily.

“Bout four hours I think, get some sleep baby, I’ll be there before you know it.”

If V was sleepy, then Kerry was positively exhausted, the long days, the time difference, the lateness of the hour all took their toll and Kerry is asleep in moments.

-

“I’m sorry to disturb you Mr Eurodyne, but we’re about to land.”

Kerry is woken from a deep sleep, momentarily confused and disoriented he soon turns it back on for the air steward, “Thanks doll, congrats on the uber-comfy seats.”

The pretty steward smiles broadly– she had a poster of him on her wall at home and was quite star-struck– and advises him to fasten his seatbelt.

-

Making his way through the airport animatedly ‘discussing’ with his manager over the holo how to progress with the rest of the journey, Kerry doesn’t notice he is being followed and so is not at all ready when a strong hand grabs his wrist and spins him around…

“Vince!” he cries, happily burying his face in the other man’s neck and enjoying the sensation of being held in warm, safe arms. “Not gonna pretend I’m not pleased to see you, but what you doing here, it’s the middle of the fucking night, at least I think it is, it’s pretty dark anyways.”

V chuckles into Kerry’s collar, he could be such a gonk sometimes, “Couldn’t leave you to drive all that way alone. You’ve crashed your car twice this year just going to the other side of North Oak, I’d never be able to sleep knowing you were driving all this way.”

Both men lean into the hug a moment longer, then make their way hand in hand to the car, oblivious to the fuss and photos going on around them. “You were right about one thing,” V tells his mainline, “it really is the middle of the night, gonna sleep for a week when we get back.”

“Gonna sleep for a week eventually,” corrects Kerry.

-

The storm has abated, the usually littered streets of Night City look cleared somewhat, though looking into the darker corners reveals detritus - both human and otherwise - better left unexplored. Kerry always feels a weight settling on him when he returns, it’s comforting in some ways and has lessened of late, but it’s a constant reminder that he is fragile and mortal and he hates it. He’d snoozed away the last couple of hours, but wakes to the sun just rising above the horizon illuminating the neon and dust with a yellowish hue.

“I love this time of day,“ V says softly, somehow aware that Kerry has awoken, “the City looking fresh and new, full of possibilities.”

“As long as its full of coffee and toast that’ll do for now,”

V smiles and rests his hand on his lover’s thigh, “I’ve got a surprise for you back at home.”

Raising an eyebrow, Kerry looks deep into V’s emerald-green eyes, “I thought you said you were tired,” he smirks.

“Not that kind of surprise, at least not yet, you’ll see.”

-

Elevator music has not improved over the last hundred years or so, V grins and Kerry groans as a tinkly, jolly version of ‘User Friendly’ floods the small compartment, thankfully the journey isn’t a particularly long one and the doors to the penthouse slide open silently. Kerry lifts his head from where it had been resting on V’s shoulder, the twinkling lights reflected in his sapphire eyes.

“Shiiit Vince, it’s beautiful. When did you have time to do all this?” he asks stepping into the suddenly unfamiliar living space with wonder.

“Um, I managed to persuade the company that does the set design for your shows to loan us some stuff, they came over and…”

The sentence is stolen away by a fierce kiss from the Rockerboy who now looks at his lover, tender hands framing his tired face, “I don’t deserve you, but I’m never fucking letting you go.”

Another kiss and V leads Kerry through the golden and purple lights to the promised coffee and toast.

-

“You know I said I got you something?” Asks Kerry, espresso in one hand and half-eaten raisin toast in the other.

“Mhm,” answers V through a mouthful of cereal.

“Well, um…” Kerry is rarely tongue-tied, but finds himself anxious now the moment has come. Although always appreciative, V has never been impressed by a gift that Kerry (or anyone) had given him, though this one would be tricky to hide in a cupboard or re-gift. “Gimme a minute.”

Rummaging around in one of the bags still dumped by the elevator door, Kerry pulls out a slightly crumpled old-school cardboard folder tied with a ribbon, whilst V tries to organise his face and thoughts into something that looks and sounds grateful for whatever this turns out to be.

“You could’ve just emailed whatever this is y’know.”

“It’s Christmas, I wanted something you could hold in your hands, but you don’t need to hold it like it’s gonna explode, go on baby, open it.”

V places the folder on the counter and pulls on the ribbon with Kerry nervously looking over his shoulder, a hand resting gently on V’s hip. He watches as V first looks at the photo before placing it to one side and reading the paperwork with a furrowed brow.

“Erik?”

“Yeah, I thought he’d be company for Nibbles, we’re kinda away a lot and she gets lonely. Thought it’d be fun for her – and us - to have a kitten around. Can’t pick him up for a few weeks yet though.” Kerry bites his lower lip and looks up at the ex-merc for a reaction.

“You got me a kitten, seriously?”

“Kinda,” Kerry’s arms fall to his sides and he walks away perching on the edge of the coffee table, no longer able to look V in the eye, “Keep reading…”

There’s silence as V works his way through all the sheets in the folder, Kerry quietly slips out onto the balcony for a smoke and soon strong arms wrap around him and he leans back into the hug with relief.

“You’re completely mad, you know that right?”

“It’s been said. Just thought, y’know, if we owned the cat sanctuary then we know they’ve got everything they need and that they’re being looked after properly, and as an added bonus you can go over and pet the inmates whenever you’re feeling stressed.”

V hugs his mainline a little tighter, kissing him behind the ear. “Plus, it’ll give you something to do when you’re too old and doddery to go on stage anymore.” he whispers.

A well-placed elbow to the ribs makes V gasp and then giggle, he takes Kerry’s hand and leads him towards the living area and huge projector screen for the promised movie afternoon, though not much of the film is actually watched; both are gently snoring in each other’s arms within moments.

[vellaphoria]

hello! 2, 5, or 6 for the ask meme? : D

Thanks for the ask, anon! (questions are from this ask meme) 2. Will you participate in any fandom exchanges or fic challenges, etc?  I really really really want to, but I always seem to either miss the signups for them or forget that they're happening... 6. Which yet-to-be-started fic is first on your list?

It's 100% a DickTim witcher au >:3c further details in another answer (here)

5. Which WIP is first on your list to complete this year? Will you post a snippet?

Definitely the Tim comes back wrong fic, now with vampirism XD

The fic is currently 21k long, so this counts as an excerpt, right? right

Forty-two minutes after Tim’s alarm went off, Dick watches him shuffle past the kitchen’s bar counter. It’s five minutes longer than it took him yesterday morning and nine minutes longer than the one before that.

There’s a dull, flat-sounding whump that is almost certainly Tim collapsing onto nearby couch.

Dick gives himself the space of two inhales before he puts aside the peppers he’d been chopping, wiping his hands on a nearby towel.

The area just outside of the kitchen is a moderately large, well-appointed living room. Couches form three sides of a square, with the fourth side being closed off by an unnecessarily large flatscreen.

As he approaches the nearest couch, he sees several of the throw pillows scattered across the floor. Peering over the back of it, he sees Tim lying prone with his face buried in a pillow. There’s a faint groaning sound coming from him.

“How did you sleep?” Dick asks, trying not to sound as hesitant as he feels.

Another groan.

“That well, huh?”

Tim shifts, flopping over onto his back with all the grace of a fish left on the shore. His eyes are still closed, and that makes it harder to ignore how the skin beneath them seems almost translucent, highlighting the veins in his lower eyelids.

“I’m not sure I did,” Tim mutters. “Not for lack of trying…”

His eyes blink open. Today they’re a deep, nearly-luminescent green. The color’s full in a way that the rest of Tim isn’t. Each day, his skin seems a little more pale and his cheeks seem a little more gaunt.

The urge to reach down and stroke the too-defined line of his cheekbone makes itself known in the back of Dick’s mind. But he quashes the thought before it can gain any traction.

“Do you want tea?” he asks. “Coffee? Something else?”

“Breakfast?” Tim asks, sounding hopeful.

“Sure. It’ll be a few minutes though.”

Right on cue, Tim’s stomach rumbles. He rests his hand on it delicately, his expression screwing up a bit.

“Did I hear a delivery person come by earlier?” he asks before Dick can voice the concern that he’s certain is bleeding through his expression.

“Uh, yeah. I sweet-talked Tam into having some more groceries put on the company’s discretionary spending budget.”

How, exactly, Tim heard that from upstairs is anyone’s guess. When Dick had checked in on him before coming down to the kitchen, he’d been sleeping so deeply that he seemed dead to the world.

“Anything good?” Tim asks him, looking hopeful.

“Depends on what you think is good. My current plan is making a mountain of bacon and maybe some toast.”

Tim’s hand finds the back of the couch, curling around it as his fingers dig in hard enough to look nearly bloodless. He uses that grip, plus a hand on the cushions beneath him, to push himself up until he’s sitting.

When he wobbles a little at the top of his arc, Dick puts a hand on his shoulder to steady him.

Tim narrows his eyes a bit, shaking off the assistance. Stubbornly, he starts to stand. A tremor runs through the muscles of his legs and back. He circles around the couch, walking to the kitchen. He even manages to make it most of the way there before his legs start to give out on him.

Dick rushes to catch him, getting an arm around his back and looping one of Tim’s over his shoulder. The maneuver thankfully keeps Tim from crumpling onto the floor. Its also ends with Tim pressed up against him, his hands flat on Dick’s chest.

His body trembles where it’s pressed against Dick. When he shifts, his breath is warm against Dick’s neck.

Dick’s skin tingles with the feeling of it. Even more so when he feels what might be Tim’s lips brush against him - before Tim is pulling back out of his arms, doing his best to stand on his own.

[happilychaengs]

Birthday Sunrise

a/n: first birthday fic i've done before. the poll ends in 6ish hours by the time i'm posting this so vote if you want. this wasn't all that spectacular but i wanted to post something or i might as well go back on break. but like jeongyeon's insta story with all these jihyo pics are a godsend

jihyo x gender neutral reader

fluff

word count: 770

-

"Don't you dare pull it out Jihyo."

"I'm going to do it."

"I swear to God, Jihyo..."

"I'm so close..."

"Don't do it... Wai- Fuck!"

You groaned as you took a quick sweep of the pile of Jenga blocks now scattered across your table before glaring at her. "Listen to me for once, Jihyo! This is why we always lose game nights." You mumbled under your breath as she shook her head and grouped all the blocks together.

"You realize... you're the only one who cares about that, right?"

You scoffs as she closes the box altogether, setting it down on the couch behind her, "Some competitive spirit never hurt anyone."

"Not until you decide to stay up until..." she pauses as she stares at the clock on the wall, "5:43 in the morning, to quote on quote 'work on your craft.'"

"Jenga is an art." You remark as your elbow lays on the table, your finger pointing directly at her. "You're either for it or against it and clearly you're... against it."

A yawn escapes her lips as her eyes get teary, "If that means I can get some shut eye, I'll gladly be against it."

You scoff at her as you put your hand over your chest dramatically, "How could you? I thought you were with me forever and always! You vowed to!"

Her eyes widen as she starts rattling on and on. Her vows were to be taken seriously. "Right... uh... yeah, I was just joking. Mhm." She nods as if to give herself reassurance that you didn't just hear the nonsense that just came out of her mouth.

You smile playfully at her as you finally figured out a way to get her to do practically anything for you after all these years together. She lets out a groan as she leans back onto your arms, her back aching from how long you two have been sitting.

"Seriously though, what's the plan here? Why did we stay up all night playing board games?"

A small pout evidently makes its way onto your lips as you tilt your head, "Do you hate spending time with me?"

"No... just curious. That's all."

"Well, because I know we both don't wake up early enough, I decided to keep us distracted for a while."

Her eyebrows creased curiously, "To do what exactly?"

She feels your warmth clasp around her arm as she feels you drag her outside, a small ladder to her right that she's never seen before leading to the roof. She chuckles, "What is this?"

"Come up with me, and you'll see."

She lets go of your arm and quickly climbs up the short ladder as you follow suit. And there she sees a small cotton blanket rested down on your roof, you stepping carefully around her and onto it as you plop down and pat the side that's empty. "Sit!"

And your childish like giddiness is so endearing to her as she sits down, her arms looping around your torso and her head resting on your shoulder. "What are we really here for?"

"Sunrise." You let out in a soft whisper against her ear. You feel the warmth of her cheek against your body as she nuzzles deeper into the crook of your neck, her fingers intertwined with each other, pulling her closer to you.

And almost if on command, you see the yellow rays shine through the horizon, the moonlit black sky embracing a vibrant yellow, orange hue. You can hear a small gasp within earshot as you look towards her, her dewy eyes reflecting a beautiful color from the display in front of her.

The two of you stay there for a few minutes, admiring the sights you both have been watching before she speaks up in a whisper, "It's beautiful. This was worth it."

You hum in agreement as you continue staring. "Definitely." Her eyes meet yours again and you see her expression drop, her rolling her eyes and a scoff escaping her lips. "You're so corny."

You laugh as you pull her closer to you, much to her dismay, "What? I can't admire my own sunrise?"

You hear her fake gag as she looks back to the actual sunrise, distancing herself a little from you. "You're annoying."

"Don't you love me though? Your moonlight?" You nudge her shoulders as you laugh.

"You're pushing it." A smile almost escapes from her mouth but she doesn't let it.

You finally quiet down after what feels like hours of laughing at her before holding her closer again, "I'm sorry. Happy birthday my darling."

[scoopertrouper]

If you’re still taking Stancy prompts, Nancy wondering what Steve is up to while they keep their distance in s3 is always my jam. Love love love your Nancy and Steve.

my first prompt fill!

i have to be honest, i don’t know if this is really what you were looking for? like, i admit there’s altogether more jonathan than probably anyone wants to see. but alas, i banged this out in like four hours last night and this is where my brainworm took me. thanks for prompting!

also, if you want to get a more exact idea of the kind of headspace i was in writing this, you’ll just want to listen to tswift’s death by a thousand cuts on one long, endless loop.

2,200-ish words under the cut.

-*-*-*

the only thing we share [is this small town]

She sees him sometimes. 

Not on purpose. Definitely not on purpose, but Hawkins has a population smaller than the enrollments of some state colleges. It’s kind of inevitable that their paths will cross more than occasionally.

And it’s not that Nancy's avoiding him, exactly. It’s more that every time she gets a glance at him even in passing, it’s impossible not to recall the sad way he’d stared down at her the last time they’d really spoken to each other, resigned to an outcome she wasn’t even sure she herself had reconciled with yet.

It doesn’t make her feel good, and after the past year, she’s more than sick of seeking out reasons to feel bad. 

So she doesn’t avoid him, but she also doesn’t not hide behind aisles in Melvald’s when she sees him pass by. And if they happen to be walking along the same side of Main Street at the same time, it just so happens that she’ll remember several urgent reasons why she needs to cross the road right away.

But that’s not avoiding. It can’t be, because Nancy doesn’t avoid. She barrels, head on, right into even the most fraught situations, because at the end of the day she has nothing without her resolute confidence in the fact that she is right.

She is right, and nothing – not Department of Energy hacks, nor the assholes at the Hawkins Post who make a sport of changing up their sandwich orders and the way they take their coffee every other day (“See if you can solve this, Nancy Drew…”) – can shake that certainty.

(Except sometimes – sometimes/especially when she sees Steve – a creeping sense of wrong begins to slither its way in, wraps icy tendrils of doubt around her carefully guarded resolve and squeezes. Hard.

But before it can do too much damage, before it can cause the kinds of hairline fissures that turn into cracks that end in endless interdimensional bloodshed, she turns away. Takes Jonathan’s hand, and looks into his eyes, and remembers why they’re the only two people in the world who could possibly get each other. Even when she can’t understand why he hovers in uncomfortable silence while those dickheads laugh at her. Even when he doesn’t get why she just can’t stop pushing, because a job’s a job and maybe if she let up a little they wouldn’t laugh at her so much.

None of that matters, because she and Jonathan…they just make sense. The photographer and the journalist. Shared goals. Shared trauma. Right? Right. 

And so the ground steadies beneath her feet, and her breathing eases, and she sinks back into the safe surety of her belief.)

Most of the time, not-avoiding-Steve also facilitates not-thinking-about-Steve, which is easier now that he hasn’t been around town much lately. She’d heard via the grapevine – amid some derisive tittering that had irked her for reasons she preferred not to examine – that he’d gotten a job at the ice cream parlor at Starcourt, and that he wasn’t headed to college after the summer was over, because he didn’t get into a single school, can you believe it?

The guilt was suffocating. She puts it out of her mind.

So it’s a blessing in disguise that Jonathan’s aversion to crowds and hypercommercialism means that Nancy hasn’t spent as much time at Starcourt as she’d planned to once she heard they were putting in a Gap. Because less time at Starcourt meant less time not-avoiding Steve (and less time – and money – spent stress shopping).

In fact, Nancy’s been lured into such a false sense of security that she never sees the stupid commercial coming.

It’s evening, and still boiling outside, and she and Jonathan are languishing on his beat-up couch after a long day spent toiling in the darkroom (him) and chasing down a specific kind of pastrami on rye with grain mustard available only from the sole deli in Hawkins, which just happens to be about as far across town as you can get on foot (her, of course).

Nancy is the kind of mentally exhausted that means that while she’s valiantly trying to pay attention to CBS Evening News (she likes to flip back and forth between all the major network shows), she’s actually staring off into space as Dan Rather covers a TWA flight hijacking that she knows she should care more about.

The jingle of the commercial doesn’t even penetrate the fog until Jonathan scoffs.

“Christ,” he mumbles. “They’re still playing this shit on TV?”

“Huh?” Nancy grunts before she can stop herself, rousing from her stupor. (It’s only now that she realizes she’s been doodling daisies where she usually takes careful notes on each story’s lead-in.)

“The Starcourt commercial,” Jonathan says, nudging her with his shoulder. “It’s been open for, like, a month. When’re they gonna give it a rest?” 

“Oh.” Nancy gets with the program, and laughs perfunctorily at the cheesy stock footage that’s eaten more airtime over the past six months than she’d ever thought city council would have the budget for. (Huh. Maybe there’s a story there.) “I kind of forgot about it.”

“Maybe…we could check it out soon,” Jonathan says, eyeing her almost cautiously. “See if it’s as awful as it looks.”

Nancy does a double-take before she can stop herself.

“You said it’d take a literal alien invasion to get you to set foot inside that mall.” And with the bizarro turn their lives have taken over the past year, she can’t be entirely certain he’d been joking.

Jonathan shifts, and scratches the back of his head.

“Well – they do have a bookstore,” he says, defensive. “And, like, I know this internship hasn’t been what you were hoping, so it might be nice to –” His jaw drops before he can finish the thought. “Holy shit, is that Steve Harrington?”

Nancy’s head whips around so fast she almost hears a crack. And yeah, that is Steve Harrington. In vivid technicolor, standing behind a cash register next to a vaguely familiar-looking redhead with a tousled bob – Nancy’s pretty sure she’s seen her around school before.

She recognizes the discomfort in his face all too well – it had stared across the table at her every time she’d tried to quiz him on SAT vocabulary words last summer. 

Only then, he hadn’t been wearing a hideous polyester sailor costume.

“That’s new,” Jonathan says, the ill-disguised laughter in his voice so uncharacteristic that Nancy’s head whips back around again. She’s going to need a chiropractor by the time this commercial ends. “I guess we definitely gotta check out Starcourt now.”

She rolls her eyes, and relaxes the fist she’d clenched around her pencil during the seven seconds – max – that Steve had been on screen. Jonathan doesn’t seem to have noticed her tension, and she’s grateful.

“What’s so interesting about watching Steve scoop overpriced ice cream?” she deflects skeptically, sinking further into the couch, wincing as she hits a spring. Now Jonathan’s the one who double-takes.

“Um. Nancy. It’s King Steve.” She doesn’t love the way he says that. “Dressed like a stand-in for The Village People. Slinging banana splits. What isn’t interesting about that?”

“It’s just a job,” Nancy retorts, face heating. “D’you think it’s funny that I run around buying lunch and pouring coffee for a bunch of dipshits who wouldn’t know a good above-the-fold if it hit them with a two-by-four?”

“Of course not, Jesus!” Jonathan sputters helplessly, shoulders hiking up to his ears. “I just meant – I didn’t – of course I don’t think that’s funny.” His mouth flattens. “I think it’s really shitty. You’re right, I shouldn’t make fun of anyone’s job. We don’t have to go to Starcourt. I just thought it’d be something we could do together.”

He looks deflated, and all at once, Nancy feels like shit. Jonathan was so serious all the time, and usually she liked when he let that go a little bit and dropped his guard. But she’s ruined it by getting defensive, and she doesn't even totally understand why.

“No, I’m sorry,” she backtracks, grabbing his hand and linking their fingers. It’s warm, as familiar as her own at this point. “It’s just…been a shit day. I overreacted.” She just has to work harder. Make them see how serious she is about this. Make them see how good she is at this.

All at once, she’s acutely ashamed of how lax and distracted she’s been, scrawling stupid pictures all over her notepad when she should be working. Improving her craft. Showing everyone that she belongs in that newsroom. Showing them that she’s right.

In return, Jonathan’s smile is strained, but it seems genuine enough. He squeezes her hand, with a strength that still surprises her sometimes.

“Things’ll get better. You’ll see. You’re brilliant. They’ll figure it out. Eventually.” He ducks his head, then looks up again, a little more relaxed. “Speaking of ice cream…I think Mom brought some Rocky Road home last night. Two spoons?”

Nancy nods, accepting the peace offering for what it is (even though she prefers strawberry).

“Yeah…that sounds good.” He leaves to clatter around in the kitchen, and she turns back to the TV, suppressing the urge to chew on the end of her pencil (what serious journalist walks around with bit-up erasers?).

Against her will, Steve’s face plays on a rewind loop in her mind’s eye.

Maybe it was just her imagination, but he’d looked miserable, and she was pretty sure it wasn’t stage fright (he used to preen whenever the yearbook photographers were in his general vicinity. It was equal parts endearing and annoying).

Had he really not gotten into any colleges? (None of her business.) His dad probably hadn’t taken that well. (Really none of her business.) 

She should’ve tried to help him more, after the whole…incident. He’d been insanely concussed, and that couldn’t have helped with the whole college essays and applications thing. He’d already been having a hard enough time with it all.

But what could she have done? The thing with Jonathan had been so new, and every time she chanced a look at Steve, he was already staring back, hurt scrawled plainly all over his face.

It would be better now, though, right? A lot of time has passed. She’s firmly settled into her new relationship, and Steve is – Steve knows how to rebound. He’s always been good at that, on the court and in life.

Maybe she should go visit him. Not – not to laugh at him, but just to see how he’s doing.

Would that girl be there? The coworker? She’s cute, in a “probably listens to too much Depeche Mode” kind of way. So not Steve’s type. (Nancy, why would that matter?) 

But they had been standing kind of close in the commercial. Maybe they’re friends?

Nancy snorts. Steve didn’t have female friends, except for maybe Carol, and that was mostly vis a vis that shit-for-brains Tommy. In fact, after he cut the two of them out, Steve didn’t seem to have many real friends. Or any. At all. He’d focused all his attentions on Nancy.

She swallows past the tightness in her throat. Anyway. This girl. Definitely – definitely not a friend. Maybe a friendly coworker. Or…

Nancy glares at the whites of her knuckles. None of her business. 

It really isn’t. After all, she has Jonathan, and Steve has, well…whoever he wants, really. That’s never been an issue for him, not even after he’d been officially “dethroned”. Girls still lined up at his locker for crumbs of his attention, right smack dab where Nancy used to wait for him in between classes. She assumes that in that regard, not much has changed besides the venue.

In fact, she can see it pretty clearly: Steve, raking a hand through his thick hair every time a pretty girl happens to make her way into Scoops Ahoy. Drumming deft fingers against the glass of the freezer. Handing out free scoops of ice cream like they’re not gonna eventually come out of his check.

Suggesting that they stick around until he’s off-shift so they can catch a movie or – or – something else.

The pencil snaps. Startled, she stares down at her hand, where the two jagged pieces haphazardly dangle, connected by little more than a few bare slivers of wood. What the fuck?

She’s got pretty much no time to figure out what the hell just happened, though, because Jonathan picks that moment to come back into the living room, a carton with two spoons balanced in his grip.

“Sorry that took a sec,” he apologizes, and  Nancy shoves the pencil’s remains in between the couch cushions before he can notice. “Will left eggs in the pan again, and I told him he’s gotta wash them out, like, right away or it’s a pain in the ass to scrub them off later –”

“It’s okay,” Nancy cuts in, unsettled by the stinging in her palm as he flops back down beside her. Despite the heat, he curls an arm around her shoulders. It’s light, and wiry, and she tells herself she prefers it that way.

“Dan’s kind of boring tonight,” Jonathan tuts, leaning back. “Wanna see what Tom’s up to?”

Nancy nods, curling into his side and scooping a spoonful of ice cream out of the container crammed between them. It’s creamy, and deliciously sweet on her tongue.

It’s just right.

(It has to be.)

[morganwallenfs]

accidentally dating, chapter one

read the full story here ^^^^

below is chapter one!!!

pairing: anna-marie x morgan wallen

read chapter two on wattpad.....or right here

______________________________________________________________

"why are you acting surprised that i would cheat on you? i mean, you're always studying something and you never go out and have any fun. you never do anything i want to do because you're always too busy so i went out and found me a girl just as hot who does stuff with me. what's so weird about that?" 

a crazy thing to say to your girlfriend of a year, right? that's what she thought too.

and for a brief moment, that was the only thought that went through her mind. she stood in front of her soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend holding her phone out in front of her with a screenshot of him wearing one of his ugly flannel shirts with his arm draped around the shoulder of a blonde woman in a low cut top.

the worst part?

afterthought: the entire situation was a massive train-wreck and no word, not even "worst" could possibly describe this fact.

the blonde woman was one of her sorority sisters.

okay, so maybe not the earth-shattering revelation it once was to anna, but it definitely still stung.

which is why, half an hour later, anna sat with her college roommate and best friend, rachel, scheming. she came up with idea after idea on how to get revenge, albeit mostly unhinged and completely unrealistic.

every so often, she would burst out in tears as she processed the enormity of the night's events as she worked her way through her discovery, their conversation turned argument and the following confession of cheating on her now ex-boyfriend's part.

this led to a wave of anger washing over her and she was once again back to describing, in detail, how she planned for his truck to end up destroyed with the tires slashed carrie underwood-style.

rachel would occasionally reel her back in and ground her, telling her that she was too pretty for this and that she deserved so much better.

this would then loop the conversation back around to how anna planned to ruin his near future.

"how about...instead of cutting his dick off with a kitchen knife, you come with me to see florida georgia line in concert?" rachel questioned her from where she was sitting.

for the last few minutes, anna had been laying on the floor curled into the fetal position trying to relax her stiff body.

rachel was sitting in anna's bed, her legs criss-crossed on her plush, sage green comforter.

"what? i thought you were going with jason?" anna replied, sitting up on her elbows to stare at rachel.

months ago, rachel had scored two tickets to see country music superstar duo florida georgia line in the girls' college town of nashville, tennessee. but that wasn't the reason rachel had bought the tickets. she had eyes for the opening act: morgan wallen. the roommates had watched him audition on The Voice and rachel had rooted for him until he was eventually eliminated.

since then, rachel had been following his career because he was "downright sexy."

she had been planning to take her long-term boyfriend, jason and had been hyping this concert up since she purchased the tickets.

one would think that a little dignity would accompany attending a prim and proper four-year university but deep in her heart, rachel was resigned to the fact that she was just another sorority girl who would "absolutely die" to see her favorite singer in concert.

sure, attending college in nashville definitely had its perks and the unlimited country music was one of them. every friday night, barring work, testing and studying, rachel would grace broadway street and its glorious bars with her presence alongside anna.

but anna wasn't always like that. when she came to college as a freshman, she was strictly focused on studying as she worked towards her pre-medical biology degree.

but five semesters later, vanderbilt university saw her join a sorority and befriend her future roommate, rachel.

rachel's personality was the exact opposite of anna's and she only studied when she absolutely had to. fake id and all, rachel could be found at the bar before she'd ever be caught in the library.

and now the two meshed very well, with rachel being exactly the same and anna meeting her somewhere in the middle.

the pair had lived together for two years with no end in sight.

jason had always been around, and anna was actually quite fond of him. he treated rachel very well and she knew deep down they were going to end up getting married.

but numerous blind dates with jason's friends revealed two things: one, anna's love life was hopeless and two, all of jason's friends were idiots.

"i mean...i was going to take jason, but i feel like this is a best friend-mergency. i just know this will make you feel better. he'll understand. besides, morgan is a girls night." rachel nodded her head at her friend, silently promising it was okay for anna to agree to take jason's ticket.

"okay, if you're sure..." anna replied, still feeling the turmoil deep inside her.

[giggle-me-this]

Girls Go 💥 Boom 💥

@xiomarawinters @harrixtpinnock @ftbhedges

The nights after the Saint Ball went like this: Xiomara would come home from her day program, and go straight into the kitchen to scrounge together dinner for herself. She would eat it in the kitchen, with her back to the wall, and then she would smoke a cigarette out the back window, and then another. She’d go upstairs and take enough potions to knock out a troll, and then she’d crawl into bed until the dreamless sleep ripped her out of consciousness.

The days after the Saint Ball went like this: Nate would come home from work at 5am. Xi knew he was home when the loose floorboard in the hall creaked. That was her rousing alarm: Wake up, get dressed, tie her runners, go for a run. She went the long way around the house so that she didn’t need to pass Nate, who would be sinking in to sleep on the ratty couch. She would stand in the front garden, hopping back and forth and then stretching her legs out. Harriet would meet her, and then they would run.

Xiomara was working on her breathing during the morning’s run, timing her pace with the steady inhale and exhale that ought to keep her going. It irked her that the exercise seemed to come naturally to Harriet, who ran as if it were the simplest thing in the world. While Xi loved running, and reveled in the natural runner’s high that came with the itchy legs and aching sides and sweaty back after every occasion, she definitely had to work at it.

It sparked a natural competitiveness between the girls, and after months of the run being part of their morning routine, Xi was finally pushing Harriet to a pace where she actually had to… Try to stay ahead of her fictive sister-in-law.

Their run this morning was a steady-paced loop towards Hammersmith and back, the breeze from the Thames whipping across their faces in the icy air. Xi could see her breath in the air, she watched it as she timed her pace: In, step, step, out, step, step, in…

They turned right to run around a boat shed, ready to continue on their run, when a burst of red light shot across them. It narrowly missed Xiomara’s legs and instead left a scorching mark on the light wood of the shed. The girls barely had time to react before the stunning spell was shot again—then another.

Xiomara’s legs went wobbly from the sudden stop in her pace and she reached down with numb fingers to take her wand from its hidden hip holster. She was just raising her wand arm when there was a tight grip on her upper arm. She immediately pulled against it, twisting to get out of the assailant’s grasp, when a harsh voice said, “Thanks for the tip, sweetheart—consider your Pinnock contract fulfilled. You're off the hook—for now..."

Xiomara’s expression contorted, her mouth half-open for the split-second it took for her to process this. This was Hamilton. He’d come for Harriet. 

She bucked her head back, lurching her chest forward after she heard the back of her skull connect with his nose—which broke with a sickening snap. In the cacophony of spells shot across them, Xiomara could barely make out Harriet, who had responded in a smarter, less physical way, aiming her wand with pin-point precision and shifting her weight as if she’d been duelling for years. She couldn’t hear anything, save for the high-pitched ringing in her ears and the incantations shouted across them. But when Harriet reached her hand across in her direction, already turning her feet, ready to spin, Xiomara leapt across to her. No sooner had they touched fingertips, than Harriet was apparating them back to the safehouse.

The wards set off immediately, as they always did when wix apparated directly into the home rather than the garden. Xi clamped her hands down over her ears, wand still in her right hand, and was about to call out to Harriet about fixing the wards, when she turned and became aware of Harriet Pinnock’s wand, pointed right in her face.

“What the fuck was that, Winters?” Harriet yelled, stepping forward so the tip of her wand was practically burning a hole in the blonde’s cheek.

And Xiomara, who was so dependent on her routine, and potions, and safety, and quiet and calm and an uneventful morning run, shook her head earnestly, tears already gathered in her eyes. A voice, somewhere deep, whispered: You’ll. Explode. Xiomara whipped her head back and forth. No, no. No.

“No?” Harriet laughed harshly, “That all you can say? You fucking sold me out, Xi? Huh? And now you want to deny it? I don’t give a fuck who you are, if you think I’ll—”

Xiomara wouldn’t hear what Harriet would do. In fact, she barely managed to hold on long enough to hear Harriet’s first few comments before she lost herself. It was a rising heat that started low in her belly, then overcame her chest, her shoulders, down her arms, before Xiomara pulled her wand back and yelled, the force of her magic knocking them both away from each other and to the ground.

Xi fell into the back of the couch, and cried out, immediately feeling the crack at the back of her abdomen. Harriet must have landed somewhere less damaging, because Xi had barely managed to stand with the splitting pain that ran down her side, before the older girl sent a spell straight at her. There wasn't enough time to try to counter it, or even to duck out of the sizzling beam's path—but to Xiomara's surprise, when she instinctively raised up her arms to protect her face, the spell ricocheted in a shower of sparks against the translucent white-gold barrier of a shield. 

When she whipped her head around, she saw its caster: Nate, climbing over the back of the toppled couch, a scorch mark in the shape of a body burned into the upholstery where Xi had hit it. His hands were stretched out in a tut in front of him and he looked like he'd gotten about five minutes of sleep before being rudely thrown into consciousness.

"The fuck are you thinking, Harry?" Nate croaked irritably, his voice hoarse. The room had grown uncomfortably still and voyeuristic as hedges gathered along the edges of the room to see the commotion, to witness the fallout. Someone, at some point, had silenced the wards.

So it sliced through the room like an axe, the sound of Harriet Pinnock, who was never the loudest voice in a room, screaming at her brother and punctuating every word: "She SOLD ME OUT!" Her wand stayed trained on Xiomara in incrimination. 

Nate looked between Xi and Harriet, dumbfounded, refusing to believe it. He shook his head and debris fell from his mussed-up hair. "No, she didn't. You don't know what the fuck you're talking about—"

Harriet barked another humorless laugh. "Fucking open your eyes, Nate! She's been playing us into dad's hand from the start—"

"—Harriet," Nate snapped in warning.

"—Nate," she shot back, teeth bared, not budging. The siblings squared off for just a moment before Harriet gave a growl of frustration and lowered her left arm, the one holding her wand, and with her right hand she gestured at a spot on her inner forearm, just beneath the elbow. 

For some reason beyond the comprehension of everyone watching the argument, the cryptic signal from his sister caused Nate to stiffen suddenly. He held eye contact with Harriet, a silent conversation no one else was privy to, while his fingers grazed over a mirrored spot on his own arm. Nate had a small raised scar there, that much Xiomara did know from her own thorough cataloging of all the sensitive spots on Nate's body that she could touch to invoke a reaction.

Where the scar had come from, though, and what the fuck it meant to Nate and Harriet was beyond Xi—and she didn't have a chance to consider it any further before Nate was rounding on her and hissing in accusation, "What the fuck, Xi? You told him she's here?"

“You are just as guilty in this,” she snapped, before pressing her hands flat against the floor to steady herself while she stood. “You do this all the time, it doesn’t surprise me that your fucking sister is exactly the same.”

“Me?” Nate barked back with an incredulous laugh, and Harriet was aghast at being addressed only as his fucking sister. Nate tugged his hands through his hair, tightening and pulling. “Christ, what does that even fucking mean–”

“—I am not the only one who signed that contract, Nate! You know perfectly well what it says. What, you think it just went away?”

Nate scoffed, holding up the sigil on the back of his hand, which seemed to shimmer and gleam with sadistic glee, while he talked over her. “I’m well the fuck aware, Xi! In fact, I’d say you got off pretty fucking easy, getting high and drinking plum-fucking-wine while I was going through hell—”

“You have NO IDEA what I’ve been through!” The bursting abruptness of the way she shrieked it forced the argument’s momentum to a screeching, momentary halt. They were both breathing heavy and still heated as Nate held his tongue, waiting.

But instead of elaborating or explaining, instead of letting him in, Xi sniffed and took a breath. Cold and dismissive, she continued, “You don’t get to toss away your own guilt by making me out to be the bad guy…”

Nate threw his hands up, genuinely too stunned to know what to say. To break the silence, Ruma stepped forward, her brother anxiously hovering a hairline behind her. Ajai’s hand was half extended, itching to take her sister’s arm and transport them both the hell out of there. 

The therapist raised a hand, as if she were trying to soothe a frightened animal. It wasn’t the first time Xiomara had been treated like this. She remembered Nate approaching her in the Caves while she wailed. She remembered healers approaching her in Clearer Skies, talking her through each step they made. She remembered Isaac approaching her in the hotel bathroom.

Ruma opened her mouth to speak, and the French woman cut her off—

“Fuck off, Ruma. This has nothing to do with you,” Xi snarled, leaning forward. The move was enough to spook Ajai into action, the traveller’s fingertips barely grazing Ruma’s shoulder before both hedges disappeared.

“When you’re done being such an insufferable bitch, maybe you’ll wake up and realize not everything in the world revolves around you,” Nate sneered, and Xiomara scoffed.

“And that’s you, isn’t it? Great to hear from Mr. Benevolent himself…”

“Better that than a hypocrite and a fucking snitch—”

The two continued to bicker like that, a ping-pong game of back and forth that increased in intensity with each barb shot back to the other.

Neither seemed to notice how the walls began trembling, the floorboards and furniture creaking and quaking, the glass in the windows whining dangerously. It wasn't until he felt one particularly tumultuous shake of the safehouse foundations, jolting them all off balance, that Nate snapped out of his anger enough to glance around in alarm and become fully aware of the powder keg he'd put them in by provoking her.

"Xi—stop it…"

But Xiomara was beyond reasoning with, long past simmering and fast approaching boiling point. Heat was radiating off of her in waves as she sneered, "Or what? What are you going to do, hit me? Fuck me? You gonna drug me, Nate?"

Nate flinched, looking genuinely stricken by the blow and without a ready response to throw back. Everything held still for one tense moment that seemed to stretch on for hours.

Then someone—Harriet, maybe, Xi couldn't be sure—moved in Xi's peripheral vision, and she exploded.

She threw out her arms as a furious scream ripped its way out of her throat, and a ripple of scalding ambient energy burst outward from where she stood and knocked back everyone within a ten-foot radius—including Nate and Harriet.

Hedges were yelling—at her, at Nate, at each other, Xi really didn't give a fuck and couldn't comprehend any of it, anyway, over the roaring in her ears and the sound of plaster crashing down from the ceiling. Entire strips of the wall were searing and peeling off. Xi's vision was vibrating and blurring. YOU’LL. EXPLODE.

A sorrowful voice with a distinct Irish lilt managed to cut through the clamorous noise within Xiomara's head. This voice was not loud, but it was far too close as it said, "I'm real sorry 'bout this..."

Xi flung a hand back, throwing a wave of energy at the too-close intruder. But it didn't throw Oz like it had the others. 

In fact, the wiry hedge witch who normally moved his body with about as much balance and grace as a drunk toddler, uncannily braced himself against the torrent Xiomara sent at him from less than three feet away, such that the most it did was to blow his dark hair back like a warm breeze. Despite the commotion and the still-imminent peril, the Free Traders stopped what they were doing to face Oz and openly gape.

His face was filled with palpable regret as he opened up his tattooed palms on either side of his body, joints twitching as if he were gently caressing the air, assessing it. Then he arced them forward, tracing a circular shape with his right hand curving up and to the left while his left hand swept down and right. His wrists met in the center, palms thrust out toward Xi so that she could see the words inked there, fingers curved slightly as if waiting to catch a baseball.

And then she felt it—a draining, suctioning sensation of the torrential magic that was swirling around and within her, that had pressed up against her bones as it begged release from her body just moments ago. Now it was being siphoned out of her in a powerful rush, and seemingly funneled between Oz's open, waiting hands. His arms, his shoulders and back, trembled and strained as he took in the current. His spine curved forward as his body cowed into itself, but his feet stayed firmly planted on the ground, the sigils on his hands glowing brighter and brighter until he finally dropped his arms, panting with exertion. The house, though clearly battered, had stopped shaking.

"What the fuck. Did he just do?" Nate said from where he was propped against the broken banister of the stairs, wheezing like he’d had the air knocked out of him.

Oz's head swiveled toward Nate, his eyes glazed over, but he made no effort to respond. He didn't look like he could respond, swaying where he stood like the magic he'd just siphoned from Xiomara was whiskey. The air all around them felt thinner, too, like they were standing at the peak of a mountain and the oxygen was sparse. 

"Par off, blud," Rue growled at Nate with odd and unexpected protectiveness bolstering her tone, "He just saved all our fuckin' skins."

There wasn't a chance to question what the fuck had just happened. Xiomara's face was shining with sweat, and all at once she started shivering where she stood—her drastically overheated body reacting to the sudden, vacuumous removal of its power source.

Nate made a panicked lurch toward her, but it was Rue who got there first; in the secondmost baffling and unprecedented event that had occurred in the FTB safehouse within the last five minutes, Rue placed her hands on either side of Xi's convulsing frame, brow furrowed in concentration until the blonde stilled and her complexion returned to a normal shade.

Harriet hovered behind her brother, murmuring something to him so low that only he could hear. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed, and an emotion that looked like genuine anguish washed over his face for just a moment before it was gone, and his hazel eyes hardened and shuttered. His voice only barely more audible than his twin, Nate said, “Xiomara…You need to leave. We have rules. You broke them.”

As weakened and drained as she felt, practically squashing Rue as she leaned on her for support, Xiomara shook her head. “No,” she replied, looking up at Nate past heavy eyelids.

An awkward beat, and then: “Well, you don’t get to—”

“—No, you don’t get to make me leave. This is my house as much as yours. I’m not just another hedge you can kick out on the street because they pissed you off,” she hissed, rocking back and forth as she disentangled herself from Rue. “You have no shortage of friends, and family, and money, and people that will tell you everything you want to hear. I have nothing except this house. You leave…” She cut a withering glare up to Harriet, and then spat, “...and you take her with you. We’re done.”

[popcornforone]

Possibilities

A Reed Richards / Mr Fantastic Fan Fic

Too soon… nah…

The announcement of our man in the Fantastic Four has had my head preoccupied since Wednesday & then someone said oooh imagine the Fics… so behold. I’ve given it an early go. Next year obviously we will know a lot more.

Synopsis:- Reed is watching you watch the news about an accident in space, but you have no idea how this is about to effect your life.

Word count:-2500

Warnings:- DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE UNDER 18! PIV sex, squirting, breath play, choking, nipple play, safe words, rough passionate sex, swearing. Super hero drama about violence & end of the world. Innuendo & talk about growning man hood, & other sex items due to super powers.

Well yes I know I’ve jumped the gun but I hope you all enjoy this. All feed back is welcome. Thanks for the read peoples.

“& I for one believe that the world can now be a safer better place” Marcus Moreno leader of The Heroics states on tv. It’s always good to check up on the news, but after a couple of weird anomalies in the world recently, & everyone being on edge, it’s daily viewing. It’s always nice to see the dashingly handsome Marcus on Tv too, talking about how he & his heroics saved the world. He’s a reluctant super hero, but that’s why he is the best in the world. You also have a massive crush on him. Whenever he’s on TV your boyfriend rolls his eyes. He can’t see the similarities between himself & Marcus. You definitely have a type.

One of the reasons you’re watching so much news & Marcus at the moment is that your scientist boyfriend is on a retreat, for work. It’s in the middle of nowhere, so no phone signal, no way of getting in touch & you also dont know when he’s gonna be back. It makes the nights a little lonely, you only been living together from 2months ago. He was a bit worried about being a little bit older than you, & wanted to do things properly but you were smitten the day you met him, when you were doing a health & safety inspection of his building. You kept finding reasons to go back & do something, before you eventually brought him a coffee one morning. The rest as they say is history as he smouldered at you & made sure ‘the lift broke’ so you could throughly assess each other. No one had kissed you like that in a long time. Large hands & long fingers traced over you as your lips attached. You only mumbled his name as passion took over, it was barely audible, but he likes the way you said it.

“Reed”

“& what about that big space explosion?” A reporter asks Marcus on the news “should we be concerned with that?”

“No of course not, no one was on board, there was just a flare that cracked some solar panels it’s fine” you sit listening intently to the news on the sofa. You haven’t notice your boyfriend has crept into your house as you watch the news. He stands behind you trying to work out how he’s going to tell you something. Maybe it’s best just to get it done straight away.

You feel a tap on your shoulders & shiver & then jolt around. Reed is standing a few meters away in the kitchen door way. Did he throw something at you or dash back? Nah he couldn’t have moved that quick.

“REED” you screech & bounce over the sofa & straight into his long muscular safe arms. He hugs you with all his might, he’s missed you too.

“Ooh baby, I missed you” he says as you lift your head & go to kiss him, but he puts his index finger up to stop you.

“Reed? what is it baby?” Reed never refuses your kiss, never.

“I need to tell you something, but you need to swear on Dora’s life not to tell anyone” Reed knows how much you love your cat Dora.

“I promise on all our lives” he gulps & wraps his arm around you but it just keeps wrapping, looping around your body. “Reed?”

“So…” he’s trembling as the arm reels its way back in & it strokes your face & your eyes almost pop out of their sockets. “…our retreat wasn’t in a country house”.

Reed sits on the sofa & tells you he is a scientist for the heroics & he & his 4 friends were asked to go to the out post in space to check the flare data a week ago, & then the flare explosion happened & that he & 3 of the others who went to work on it now have super natural powers. He’s constantly stroking your leg & hand, trying to keep you calm as you ask questions of him.

“So…” he says after a long chat”… the heroics have asked if me & the other guys can be checked to make sure we are all okay & need to be under surveillance for a few weeks or months, until we can check this is permanent & that we dont get sick from it” you nod. “So your ‘handsome Marcus on tv’ would like to know, if you’d like to come & live on the heroic campus with me or if you are happy to have some people here to monitor us, because I said my one condition to doing this was that you had to be with me. A week in quarantine already was too hard without you” you blush as you look at Reed. He could die from whatever has given him super powers & yet the only thing important in his world is you.

“Baby really?”

“Yes really, if this isn’t permanent & it might kill me, I want to spend all of my waking hours with you, I missed you & I love you too much to not have you around, be it a day week month or longer.” He sees one tear drop from your eye. His thumb then grows from where it is on your lap & goes up to your face & wipes it’s clear & you look a little shocked & he can see that.”I dont have to use my powers when it’s just us but I am still getting used to them at the moment.”

“Does it all stretch?” You ask.

“Yea every part of me I’m not sure how far I can go but I know what I’ve learnt so far is impressive”

“Oooh lots of possibilities then”

“Yes lots”

“Do you want to be a superhero?”

“I honestly dont know, I was happy being Reed Richards, a scientist who does all the research & gets little credit”

“Well the world are fools for not recognising your full potential” you reply.

“So you’re not gonna run away? Dump me on the spot? That’s what happened to Ben when he went home yesterday”

“Seriously?” You are In shock “I always knew she wasn’t the best girlfriend but Damn. you guys all need support” this makes Reed chuckle. His palm lifts from your leg & moves to cup your face. “I’ll do whatever you want to Reed, I just have a favour to ask”

“Anything my sweet pea”

“Kiss me”

Reed wastes no time with that request. You’ve wanted your boyfriend to kiss you from the moment you saw him, before he dumped all of this news on you. The way his thumb brushes against your lips has you sighing already. He leans in normally & you both close your eyes as your lips touch. You knew you’d missed his kisses but this one makes you realise just how much. So plump, so rounded. It doesn’t take you long to turn something so soft into something heated & passionate. His tongue dancing with yours as you grab his shoulder. You go to bite his bottom lip but then a weird thing happens. He melts, not metaphorically but literally. It’s like he’s been turned to jelly as his body all goes floppy for a bit.

“Reed!”

“Ahhh” he jolts & forms back into him. “Clearly my body was so relaxed that it actually did”

“You litrally melted”

“Well it proves I’ve been right for the last 14 months when I say you can melt even the Iciest of heart” he then returns to making out with you. You’re careful with your touch being soft. This makes him chuckle.

“Don’t worry I don’t think you can break me like that.” You then hear the door lock & realise while one of Reeds hands is holding you, he’s locking up the house with the other. He’s now a very resourceful man. You slowly pull away from him.

“So you stretch”

“Yes I do” he smirks.

“All of you”

“Yes”

“No I mean all… of .. you?” My hand rubs his thigh above his jeans.

“Well why don’t we check?”

“Not that you needed it any bigger, what you have satisfies me enough”

“But baby”

“Reed I dont need a 8ft penis, I just need one that makes me moan”

“I love it when you moan* his pinky stretches & tucks your hair behind your ear. It’s weird but also wonderful watching this all happen. He then shrinks & pulls you in so you’re tight against him, almost crushing you against his chest.

“Reed” you gasp for air & he loosens a little.

“Sorry still getting used to it” he checks to make sure you’re not hurt before his arms slide underneath you as he stands. Almost cocooning you so you’re nice & secure as he carries you up stairs. You still wrap your arms around his neck because you like it. He can see you giggling a little.

“I don’t think you’ve ever carried me to bed”

“Well I’m much more flexible & stronger now” he says as he pushes open the door & unravels his arms around you on the bed. You both start to undress knowing where this will go. Reed pauses when you get to your underwear. His jaw drops. He’s seen you countless times before, but maybe the event in space & his new found purpose have made him realise he misses the sight of you.

“Oooh the possibilities I could have with you” he whispers as he straddles you as you undo your bra. His erection growing in his briefs.

“Really baby” you wriggle up the bed a bit & your hands & his free you of your knickers.

“Ooh yes beautiful you have no idea” he whispers this in your ear & then you feel the tip of his tongue at the base of your neck working it’s way up, he’s not moved his head an inch. You tremble & palm his erection. Your hips already moving ready to take him.

“Baby let me see”

The briefs are removed. There it is, his meaty girthy large erection. Throbbing angry & in desperate need to be satisfied.

“No tricks today gorgeous, we can do that another night, I just want to hear you moan my name, I’ve missed your body.” His words arouse you even more as he grips his length, covering it in your slick.

“Reed I…” your voice catches. He promised you no penis showing off but it doesn’t mean the rest of him isn’t as his hand that is around your waist, the thumb of it is attending your clit. You squirm. “Ooh fuck”

“God you are a feral little girl today” he says, inching his way in. Filling you up. Stinging. But feeling so good & so large.

“Reed….’mmm fuck yea”

“Fuck baby” he groans as he starts to move, he licks his fingers so they can be moist as he plays & twists with your nipples. A larger hand means both can be taken care of, while he still hold you in place, & attends to your clit. The pillow your head is next to, you grip, the spot being hit, your walls fluttering at each drag. He was always the best sex you’d had but now, with these extra gifts, each night is going to have you seeing stars. Your mind empty’s as quick as your heart rate peaks. Your own pelvic movement circling around his thrusts as he pushes you deeper into the bed.

“God I love you, god I love your cunt, so good”

“Reed oooh fuck”

“Yea baby you like that…hmm” sweat pours from his head. The few silver flicks in his hair are glistening the most. He lets your boobs go & his extra large hand grasps at you neck.

“You know the drill…”

“Green” you say as his hand gets smaller to normal size. He likes breath control durring intercorse but now he can shrink his hand, he’s going to like it even more. He’s also got more stamina with these new abilities. Each thrust almost has you at a high but it’s the slow pull back that stops you, has you begging for more. Your voice catches in your throat, his hand is now half its normal size.

“Yellow” you whimper, meaning that’s the max he can go to. Then it all picks up.

“You want this baby, you gonna cum, you gonna take this kind of pleasure each morning afternoon & night, you gonna squirt for me?”Reed has never moved so fast in his life. Thrust after thrust, punishing your core but it feels so good, almost like he was born to have this power.

“Reed” you gasp

“Let go baby, let fucking go let, milk me”

That’s all it takes.

“Fuckkkk” you moan as your orgasm hits, drenching his cock as you clamp hard, the matress beneath you feels damp as well. You’ve defiantly squirted.

“Oooh god, fuck fuck fuck yes yes oh fuck” Reed squeezes your neck a little bit more as you see stars & are in a haze & as he lets go, you feel his seed spill inside you. Painting your insides as he stays for a few seconds at the deepest he can inside you. Your special spot, is being pulsed against meaning your own climax continues.

“Fucking hell” you pant now your voice is free, gasping for air that you didn’t know you were missing, both your heart rates racing. Your collective moevements slowing down coming to an eventual stop & him slowly removing his cock from your pussy. It’s glistening much like the wet patch beneath you. He looks at the state of you both & smirks.

“Well that’s not been affected, you still make me cum” you giggle as he walks to the bathroom to get a cloth to clean you both with.

“& I didn’t even make my penis any bigger” he says as he wipes you up. Always so caring, being a super hero is still going to mean he’s sweet & polite by the looks of it.

“Not that you need to Reed” you sigh as he then lies next to you on the bed. One hand holding your face as he kisses you softly. Those sweet little kisses that say so much more than I love you. The other hand is washing the cloth in the bathroom, that’s how stretchy it can go. He sees you notice this & smirks.

“Well beautiful…” he says as that hand returns & it grabs his semi hard penis. “Shall we see…” you raise an eyebrow.

“Oooh all the possibilities Reed…” & you watch as he sees just how erect he can go without it becoming ridiculous.