#missed connections au

[mariatesstruther]

okay hear me out modern au where Tommy and Maria first meet in a club in their 20s and they bump into each other while dancing and just start dancing together and they just hit it off but in the end they both forget to give each other their numbers so both of them go back to the same club the next week to hopefully meet each other again (also Tess and Maria definitely go clubbing together because I love them as best friends)

cowboy!!!! yes yes YES i LOVE this. and u could extend this meet-cute into like a whole thing where tommy and maria keep trying to meet at the club and exchange information, but something gets in the way everytime!!!! kid emergency!!! bar fight!!! cocaine bear on the loose!!! zombie apocalypse—who knows????

im thinking the first time, tess drags maria to a bar she likes because she’s been trying to get the attention of this hot dilfy guy at the bar, but he’s always tailing along with his friend. by tess’s design, maria and tommy meet and and hit it off and dance (to maria maria by santana) the night away. they fall in love and decide they want to go home together, so maria goes to the bathroom—but joel randomly comes up and is like “tommy, hey sorry selena’s mom called, sarah had a nightmare and she wants us both to pick her up, we gotta go” and in true miller dad-uncle panic they BOLT. by the time maria comes back, tess is like “idk dude, mine got a call so they had to go. seemed like an emergency. bummer” and they assume thats that

on the flip side: everythings okay with sarah, but after tommy and joel tuck her in tommy’s suddenly just like “fuck—fuck!!!!!” and joels like “what? what???” and he’s like “i didn’t get her number :(:(:(:( fuck” and so joel’s like “it’s okay, i see her friend there all the time” and so tommy’s like “omg :D do you have her friends number?” “well… no” “joel… what the fuck man.” so they make a plan to go back next week with the hopes of at least seeing tess and getting maria’s number from there—tommy also wants to get tess’s number for joel, but he doesn’t need to know that

little do THEY know, tess and maria are already plotting for next weekend. they show up to that bar looking fine as FUCK—they quite literally turn heads walking through the door. of course the miller brothers are there, sitting in a booth all the way in the back and waiting, making eyes. tess and maria are not shy, so they start making their way over. unfortunately, some drunk asshole decides to try to get handsy with tess on her way there—which results in her punching him in the face, which results in him trying to punch her in the face. she dodges, of course, but it starts a full-on bar brawl that the miller boys jump into without hesitation (joel manages to tackle and land a few good ones on og drunk asshole too so. slay.). none of them get arrested or anything, but they definitely don’t get eachother numbers on account of joel and tommy having to duck the cops

so i guess they gotta keep trying ;)

[shepscapades]

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6] [Part 7] [Don’t Let it Reach the Heart]

Most of the words written here are again lyrics from Joywave’s Destruction, but throughout lyrics here and there, I plan to incorporate a little bit of dialogue! I’ve been playing around a lot with lighting and fun poses and stuff, so this has genuinely been a blast to work on :] Expressions have always been my favorite thing to draw but uh. There’s something particularly special about getting to draw chill/stoic characters like doc and etho um. Going Through It >:3 (Same with X but we’ll get there later)

Still don’t know how many parts this will be, but I’ll be updating each part as everything comes out! :]

[hitlikehammers]

Steddie Missed Connection AU

feat. Craigslist-trawling-wingwoman!Robin + earnest-LA-transplant!Steve + rockstar!Eddie ✨ inspired by this actual Craigslist love story

It’s always about a 50/50 shot when Robin starts making her little back-of-the-throat squealing noises. Up to a certain pitch, Steve could pretend he had his AirPods on noise cancellation mode.

Once she reached fire-alarm-screeching levels, it overrode the settings and boom: he lost his fall guy.

Thanks, Apple.

But that’s where they are, and the squealing plus the screen in her hands, plus the way her leg’s bouncing against the table they’re both sitting at—which would have overrrode Steve’s AirPod excuse in about a minute because she’s gonna start splashing his glass of orange juice in a hot second—but all of it lumped together?

He’s lucky he’s retained his athletic reflexes post-high school—maybe only because of being joined-at-the-hip with this particular platonic soulmate, really—because by the time she’s swinging her iPad from its case to plop right down in front of him?

At least he’s quick enough to save his overnight oats from becoming aluminum-flavored when she drops the goddamn thing down without warning—caseless, the heathen—and makes indecipherable noises Steve thinks he’s maybe only heard at the zoo as she taps her nail with an migraine-inducing click on the screen.

Steve…supposes this means he’s obligated to look.

He sighs, fully expecting a dumb meme or a ‘cute TikTok’ because he knows who he fucking lives with; he reaches across the table and unfolds his glasses—really, assaulting him with this before he can even get his contacts in…

And it’s a…webpage. Like: just a webpage. A boring webpage, even. Definitely not matching up with the…squealing and table-sized earthquake of bouncing knees. He squints, tries to make it make sense.

Oh. Wow. He didn’t…

Steve did not actually know Craigslist still existed, let alone that people still used it. He was pretty sure the things for sale were always just kidnapping plots with extra steps, and then also that finding a person you walked past that one time was an FYP problem to solve. But.

Here, in front of him, in black and white and honestly like no other color:

Steve squints; it was posted this morning, but only just. Like 4am. So the last afternoon for there to be a one o’clock hour was—

Yesterday.

His yesterday was uneventful. Went shopping with Robs. Filled up the freezer and overbought shit again so they had a kind of massive and wholly mismatched dinner with the leftovers nearly popping open the fridge door. Can’t take the Midwesterner out of the man or woman, apparently.

Definitely nothing like the day this poor soul on a maybe-less-dead-than-presumed website had had. But Steve won’t pretend his heart doesn’t clench a little when he finishes reading because…it’s cheesy.

But Steve’s always been into that romantic…stuff.

“That’s very sweet,” he lands on commenting before passing the tablet back to Robin, who’s staring at him with frankly terrifying eyes. Like: lost-your-fucking-mind eyes.

“Steven.”

“What?”

“Steven.”

“Robin.”

He won’t even pretend he doesn’t jump with the metal slams on the wood where Robin narrowly misses flipping his bowl of sadly-abandoned oats with her iPad again when she slaps it down in from of him and points frantically yet again.

“Look at the location.”

Steve tilts his head.

Oh. He’d just looked at the time. And it’s not like the location in the title was…unique on its own.

“Huh,” he huffs with a shrug when he sees their part of the city listed in the main link up top. “Coinkydink.”

Robin’s growl starts deep, like a diaphragmatic thrum and Steve would be terrified of her if she were anyone else.

As it is: he’s only mildly unsettled. Specifically because the growl rumbles so…long.

Like at least a minute before she screams bloody fucking murder:

“My hair was in the buns!”

And the way she screeches it, and the maniacal twitch of those eyes…she’s saying more than those words, with those words.

Which means Steve has to put in effort to follow her coded message style of communicating, fucking hell. He hasn’t even eaten his breakfast.

He tries to think it through, at least manages to down his glass of OJ so it can’t be a sacrifice to flying iPads when he thinks he…

“Wait.”

Steve frowns. Robin just blinks.

“You don’t,” he shakes his head, or starts to, it’s a slow motion thing; “you don’t like honestly think,” but even as he’s saying it, the look in her eyes starts to make sense, and answers for him:

“This is not about me.”

Because: seriously.

“We were laughing!” Robin is immediate with her rebuttal, still in her screeching era. “No one else was there!”

“Because we specifically time our shopping for when people are at lunch on a weekday,” Steve counters quick, tries to cut her off at the pass; “a statistically slow window of opportunity for us to debate the list!”

“We write the list to avoid debating,” Robin answers in a more sedate, be reasonable now, dingus tone before she shakes her head and scowls and:

“Stop distracting me!”

Yep, back to the screeching.

“Why were you even on that fucking site?” Steve sighs as he crosses his arms and leans back in his chair.

“Steven,” Robin says again in that fucking tone that always means he’s missing the biggest, far-more-important point but does jack shit to help him find it.

“Robina.”

“Not my name, eww.”

“Well, now you know how I feel when you make up a middle name for me,” Steve sticks his tongue out very maturely to her scrunched up face: “they’re never even nice ones,” he adds, because they’re really not; “and I do know that was your next move so,” he smacks his hands opposite the screen on the table in front of him in victory as he crows:

“Denied.”

“This isn’t basketball,” Robin’s working her tongue around her lips inside her mouth, which is always deadly foreshadowing; “you didn’t block my shot or whatever—“

“Didn’t I?” Steve pushes because, well, one, he did, and two, the original conversation was absurd even for them.

“Maybe it was so empty because his security was there.”

Steve frowns. The tone’s too…even. No. No: too haughty.

“The fuck does that mean?”

“I said he looked like a rockstar,” she leans to grab back her tablet and poke near the top, obviously switching browser tabs: “so I did some digging.”

“Robin, what city do we live in?” Steve asks as she works, because yes, Steve remembers seeing a very hot fucking dude staring less in their direction than looking dumbstruck-lost as hell, and he’d considered walking over to ask if he needed help—Midwestern transplant to the bone—which was accompanied by the stray I’d fuck that gorgeous toothpick silly, but in the paper product aisle, like on the 48-count pack of Charmin, he looks soft under all that leather—then both thoughts were swiftly abandoned when the toothpick’s eyes met Steve’s and Steve maybe had to force himself to finish laughing at a joke he can’t remember now, that Robin told, because his skin felt like it was burning a little except the sun had poked behind a cloud, and his throat, it had like, it had just, it—

It just felt…weird.

He does remember that.

“But we don’t see rockstars every day,” which is fair, their neighborhood in particular is less music biz than others.

“Plus, look at this!”

Then she’s shoving the iPad back in front of Steve: it’s a TMZ shot or some other pap photo that’s more than half blur. It is indeed the parking lot at their Costco. And it does…feature a toothpick-esque figure looking similar to the one Steve remembers, but it’s more from the back than the side. And like, anyone can wear that much black in the summer. It’s a free country.

“And look at him!”

She split-screens to a Wikipedia article about a band even Steve’s heard of, if not for listening to them himself. It…he glances at the paparazzi shot.

Lead guitarist of Corroded Coffin Sighted Getting Groceries Just Like Normal People in Mar—

And then he looks back to the wiki: okay. Same band name. The guy with the guitar in the photo looks…

He has the same hair.

“Don’t tell me it’s just coincidence.”

Steve rolls his eyes.

“It is just coincidence.”

“Steve.”

Steve feels his face sour.

“I know that tone,” because he does. It never leads to things he enjoys.

“You’ve thought about him.”

“He was gorgeous,” Steve thinks he surprises her with his honesty but like, what does he have to gain by lying? Plus:

“LA’s is like the plastic surgery capital of the fucking world, it’d be kinda sad if a lot of people generally weren’t pretty.”

“He wasn’t that kind of pretty.”

And fuck if they don’t share a brain cell; fuck if she doesn’t see right through him.

“And that’s not why you’ve been thinking about him.”

And fuck if she doesn’t know Steve, far too well.

“I never once said I’d been thinking about,” he hears the words and knows they’re weak, goddamnit.

“You never had to,” Robin smiles a little and taps an annoying finger at the screen again, that’a somehow flipped right back to the Craigslist ad thingy.

And she’s actually not entirely right, because he hadn’t thought much about the gorgeous toothpick man with curls Steve wanted to be smothered by, suffocate in like a pillow. But when he did?

He’d thought most about how he looked soft, on the inside. Thought wild and idiotic things like maybe his soft could match Steve’s soft when no one else’s ever had and he was always left bruised for it, more than once near-unhealable, and maybe they could, like, if their softnesses matched, then like—

Something.

But Steve always comes on too strong, wants too much, hopes to hard and way too fast, though this shit might take the cake, there: so it was idiotic and he’d left that train of thought to derail on its own and—

Did that come on too strong?

His gaze snags on the words, those exact words up on the screen and he’s very tempted to start growling deep in the pit of his stomach, take a cue from Robin’s absurdity.

“Don’t you have a class to get to?” Steve asks, looking pointedly at the clock on the microwave: he knows she does. Pottery making. For self-edification.

She scowls but looks—swears colorfully because it’s later than she thought as she jumps up and goes to presumably…do whatever she does in the bathroom to get ready to leave and look her lesbian-luring best before she gets smattered in wet clay.

Steve remains unclear on whether that look’s more or less attractive to the specific ladies she’s trying to bait.

Either way: it prompts Robin to drop her one-woman campaign insisting Steve’s soulmate of the romantic flavor is calling our desperately into the void of the internet. But it also, however, has the…side-effect of making the time itself an obvious thing. 11:09.

Rob’s gonna take the car, she’s got…supplies and stuff.

Why that’s important is…lost on him.

He could debase himself and brave the bus, if he got off at Washington and—

What the fuck.

What. The. Fuck.

Steve very forcefully shoves Robin’s iPad back across the table and doesn’t think about anything, especially not the numbers, like the number 214, like two hours and fourteen minutes until—

Steve nearly chokes himself on his fucking spoon with how violently he shoves it, full of oats, between his lips. As if he can shut his brain up as easy as he can his mouth.

It…actually kinda works. He might have chipped a tooth.

——————

In the end, Steve is proud of himself for being reasonable and having standards. He doesn’t take a fucking bus to meet a stranger in a Costco parking lot, Jesus Christ. Come on.

He books an Uber.

(And yes, he and Robin agreed no solo Ubers for a month to save up to have the air conditioner looked at before it copped out on them because their landlord only gave a shit if it was dead-dead and yes, maybe she’d gone so far as to put their account on a hold you had to call and remove to avoid temptation—though of the two of them, she definitely had the bigger problem—but little did she think on the fact that while you had to link a phone number, you could just use Google Voice and make a new account and no, Steve’s not insane, or a hopeless romantic, or almost-asking-for-heartbreak-on-the-regular, thank you very much.

He is resourceful. And it’s only like $15 with tip. It’s a quick ride.)

He asks to be dropped near the back of the lot, and takes the walk up slow. Almost goes the long way, straight into the store. Almost turns back entirely.

But then he sees those curls.

And his throat does the…the weird tight thing for no fucking reason, and his feet don’t ask permission to walk in the direction of the man standing…less dumbstruck, now. Even from the back it’s clear.

Now: he’s waiting.

Steve can barely breathe, can’t fucking swallow for the state of his throat, but his feet still aren’t waiting for permission, so it’s only fucking seconds before he’s close enough to catch a whiff of cologne and then—

“Sorry,” Steve ducks around the man from behind and reaches out automatically to steady him when he startles. “Hey, sorry, you just looked like maybe you were looking for something?” Steve smiles as open, as reassuring as he knows. “Just wanted to check if you needed any help.”

Keep it casual, Steve, keep it fucking friendly and extra polite and—

“Oh my god.”

The guy barely breathes it out, his eyes so wide, and Steve doesn’t know why he hasn’t moved his hand from the guy’s arm but Steve can feel the electric current that runs through him, like the finest grade of trembling. And electricity, right, it travels. Conducts.

In case you felt your heart skip just one beat, didn’t even have to full-on stop—

And even that proximity to this man is nothing compared to hearing his voice, low and a little syrupy even as he stares in shock, in disbelief—and oh. Oh, but what was it the guy had written in his post? About feeling the earth move a little, or like, rewiring your cells just for meeting eyes?

Steve, he’s…

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

“You’re here.”

Steve blinks, rocked back to the moment to deal with the new tilt of the globe and the spontaneous realignment of his insides later. This guy’s looking at Steve like he’s unbelievable, like he’s miraculous, like he’s…

Sunshine.

“I’m here?” Steve asks, a little breathy, a little curious.

“I,” the guy swallows, lips shiny as he bites at them, fucking adorable; “I saw you, umm, yesterday and I maybe, well, possibly I wrote some,” he fumbles and sounds like he’s building up to eventual hysterics, so Steve acts wholly on instinct and reaches further now to catch at both his hands.

“Relax,” Steve breathes out with a smile, and doesn’t overthink smoothing his thumbs over the guy’s knuckles, just in case it soothes him.

“My friend,” Steve lets go with one hand and grabs his phone to show the page he’d loaded on the ride here; “she was convinced it was you, about me. I wasn’t, so,” he shakes his head quick when something falls in the guy’s face, something dims: oh, umm, no.

He cannot have that.

“Not trying to catch you out or something,” Steve exhales it warm, as reassuring as he can, with his whole chest as he grabs the guy’s hands in both his own again—since he seemed to not mind; “just,” and Steve shrugs even as he smiles a little, less self-deprecating with it than he’d probably have landed on if the guy hadn’t reacted to Steve’s hands on his by clinging back so tight:

“Just a little hard to believe, is all.”

The man barely lets the words settle before his jaw drops almost comically and he demands, high-pitched and somehow still rumbling, something commanding in it nonetheless:

“How?”

Like it’s unimaginable. Like Steve reading that post and walking into this lot and striding up to a perfect stranger—who may or may not be very famous but that’s actually not even a little bit of the point—but a stranger who would want to see him—

But then Steve’s meeting the guy’s eyes again; hadn’t wholly realized he’d been staring at their hands more than anything. Those eyes are like the night sky, swirling and endless and sparking in the right slant of light, and Steve feels them like a welcome, like a cushion of the stars, like a safe landing in a chaotic universe.

He doesn’t even know this man.

But he thinks…yesterday. Yesterday, his heart didn’t stop, not like this guy had written, but Steve understands now what it did do instead, the thing he did remember, the tightness in his throat: his heart didn’t stop.

It just surged upward and took up residence to pound at his trachea where it tripped instead. Which is kinda where he’s back to right now.

“Could I,” the guy’s voice is rough, shaky, and so is he, Steve feels it where he’s still got his hand gripped firm; “would it be too much to ask if I could hug you?”

And he huffs a breath, and it sounds too….too small, like he’s afraid or ashamed and it pings something hateful, but so much more protective in Steve’s blood just to hear it as he confesses on a end of an exhale:

“I just want to know if you’re real.”

And Steve didn’t grow up a hugger, but he sure as shit’s grown into one; he’d be one of those people standing in the city with a ‘Free Hugs’ sign without much convincing. But this guy.

This man in front of him who may or may not be famous, is definitely a stranger either way save that he poured out some lines on the internet that maybe exceeded the term ‘heartfelt’ by a mile, who may or may not be standing in here, inside this moment, for something like fate because…Steve did feel it.

Maybe he didn’t think twice about the immensity it could have, not in the moment, because he’d been shopping, and Robin’s story was funny and maybe he was just struck by his luck in living a life with his platonic soulmate and knowing joy; surely your heart can trip for that and just because it never had before, just because it did this one first time when he crossed eyes with a genuinely beautiful man who left Steve with half-a-second’s certainty that looking any longer would flay wide this unknown person’s soul for Steve to sift through: but Steve felt things like that easy, always had. Romanticized nothings like it was a profession.

But it never hit like this had, has—is—before, if indeed this is actually anything—

And Steve’s heart is still tripping but it’s back in his chest, and he knows it because where he’s pressed against this guy’s kinda-gasping chest, now, close and tight? Maybe Steve’s never paid attention before, or maybe Steve’s just never…touched like this before, even if all they’re doing is hugging in a fucking parking lot.

But.

He’s pressed there and his heart’s tripping in his chest and he knows it wholly and fully because he can feel this man’s heartbeat next to his own—and where it should be a battle, because it’s pounding, both of them are, one side literally against the other?

It feels like a caress. It feels like, like…

Steve closes his eyes tight because they start to sting with the single word it feels like: impossible, absurd, but…

Here he is. He’s never felt someone’s heartbeat pressed up against his own before. Definitely never felt—never dreamt—that it could feel like it fits.

He leans back when he thinks he’s got a hold on the hopelessness of his tender-hearted absurdity, but the guy is staring at him already when he does and suddenly Steve’s got a handle on absolutely nothing except his pulse jackrabbiting some more but then also feeling…like it lost something. Like it’s not complete.

And the man, he’s staring with those eyes so wide again but now it’s like he’s…it’s kinda like he knows. He knows his eyes are going to let Steve flay him wide open.

It’s like he’s begging Steve to…look. To look and less to take, and more to…have.

Maybe, maybe to keep?

And…how?

“Do you feel it?” the guy whispers, those deep dark eyes so big: just these vulnerable, bleeding hearts on main. “Even just—“ he tries to walk back, to open it all up wider, desperate and hopeful and Steve hears all of it because it’s all written in the same key as all that Steve knows, all that Steve is. Somehow.

Somehow.

So Steve blinks, too many times before he grabs the man harder and drags him in again to hold, hold, hold until the heartbeat on either side of Steve’s ribs is reaching for the other, touching. Until they’re holding on, too, and once they do, then he can whisper, warm and maybe wet in the crook of this man’s neck, this stranger who’s holding onto his heart now, unfathomable, as he speaks words he doesn’t have to think about first to know they’re going to shift the world again, this time so they both can know it in the souls of them together, all at once:

“I feel it.”

For @hbyrde36, who requested 'Missed Connection AU' at my HOBBIT-STYLE BIRTHDAY MONTH PROMPT FEST

✨permanent tag list: OPEN (lmk if you want to be added/removed): @pearynice @hbyrde36 @slashify @finntheehumaneater @wxrmland @dreamwatch @perseus-notjackson @estrellami-1 @bookworm0690 @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @nerdyglassescheeseychick @swimmingbirdrunningrock @goodolefashionedloverboi @sanctumdemunson @theheadlessphilosopher @lawrencebshoggoth

divider credits here and here

💫 ao3 link here

[ahollowgrave]

Day 31: Heroic

To do what must be done.

[puppetmaster13u]

Thinkin of Bruce's back cavity in the Meat Marionette Au.

I like to think the spine splits open, with the default being closed and him having to flex certain muscles to open it, almost like a mouth. The cervical (upper) and lumbar (lower) vertibrae are all single pieces and don't open, the lumbar continuing down the tail, while the thoracic are split into two pieces each. There's probably specialized muscles in the back that for lack of better terms tugs and moves the ribs in the back to pull the cavity open, hence why the shoulder blades are also shifted to the sides. Or something like that lol.

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AU is a combo of my au found under the What's Out There Au tag and @phoenixcatch7's found under the Possessed Doll Au tag. Make sure to check her out!

[rozecrest]

no for real where did gucci get that leash

[synthshenanigans]

Drew an outfit thing from Twitter. Might become a full art eventually but we'll see. Anyways here's THDPH Chonny :}

[Outfit below]

[thevelaryons]

NEW RELIGION, or AU WHERE ADDAM SURVIVES TUMBLETON AND CHOOSES A DIFFERENT PATH FOR HIMSELF GOING FORWARD

Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk // Captive Prince, C.S. Pacat // Cat’s Eye, Margaret Atwood // Fire & Blood, George R.R. Martin // The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom // Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud // Angel on Fire - Halsey // Sun Bleached Flies - Ethel Cain // Adonis: Selected Poems, Adonis (tr. Khaled Mattawa) // The Sun Is Also a Star, Nicola Yoon // Three - Sleeping At Last // How’d Your Parents Die Again?, Fatimah Asghar // @tagdevilish // The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom // Gusty Island by Listening Point Foundation // Prayer, Jorie Graham // The Diary of Anaïs Nin: Vol. 5 (1947-1955), Anaïs Nin // Loss, H.D. // The Evening Star, Louise Glück // Crush, Richard Siken // H of H Playbook, Anne Carson // unknown // Fifteen - Taylor Swift // Persona 5 (screenshot from holyaches) // The Art of Drowning, Billy Collins // unknown // TOUCH (2019) by Alina Pronskaya // Crush, Richard Siken // In A Week – Hozier // Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out, Richard Siken // Solve for Desire: Poems, Caitlin Bailey // @ghuolboy // Truce - Twenty One Pilots

[doostyaudi]

Rave-N Mag Agent Torture (Rnorture) (he/they) (music is undecided :p)

Not my proudest design but it's... Something..

Rnorture is a bit of a cranky fella, he gets angry quickly and is 90% of the time in a pissy mood. Hes a bit mean but that's okay we still love him 🫶💖

Oh yea, have some doodles! And a random rendered bust... I don't know why i did it but yea, there u go lol

Honestly id draw the other mag agents, if anyone cares to ask me too lol. i don't really have any ideas for them atm, but ill come up with something eventually :p

[you-me-we-04]

Aus politics update due to a joke about the trump assassination attempted made at a Tenacious D show, Senator Ralph Babet is trying to get them deported

[mariatesstruther]

okay just hear me out modern au where tommy ends up picking up ellie from pre school almost everyday since joel is busy but he keeps meeting teacher maria

okay bestie as a preschool teacher you GOT me with this one. like you got me SO GOOD. this might actually get published to ao3, you got me soooo fuckin’ good right now. i have so many unnecessary details for such a simple plot so here’s a cut

tbh i feel like even as busy as joel is, he’d prioritize picking up and dropping of sarah as much as he can, so maybe he and tommy would alternate???? so on days when tommy drops off, joel picks up and when joel drops off, tommy picks up. sarah goes to a public preschool with a lot of kids, so she gets easily overwhelmed and sometimes needs extra cuddles or kind words in the mornings to make it out of the car.

one monday, a couple months into school, sarah is particularly VERY anxious because there’s a new teacher to replace ms. doherty, who quit unexpectedly on friday “because she said we gave her alooooottt of headaches, daddy.” now, sarah knows nothing about the new teacher except that shes a girl from a place called new york—and sarah doesn’t even know what new yawk IS like, thats So Far Away??? (“it’s not really that far, baby,” joel says to her. “and it’s new york. with an o sound.”) still, sarah is VERY concerned:

is new yawk like another planet???? (no, babygirl.) but what if she’s an alien???? (the school only hires human teachers, baby. they promised.) but what if she’s a SECRET alien??? (she won’t be, i promise.) okay but what if she’s mean???? (if she is, you tell me or tommy and we’ll talk to her about it, okay? she shouldn’t be mean to you.) what if she doesn’t play good music at quiet time???? (you can ask her nicely and i bet she will, baby. just say please and thank you, okay?)

still, even with her questions answered, sarah is very nervous on monday. both joel and tommy go with her in an effort to start her day off extra good, especially because joel can’t pick her up. they reassure her that new york has plenty of nice people and her new teacher will probably be one of them. she also gets TWO WHOLE extra minutes of cuddle time with BOTH of them before she and daddy have to leave the car—it’s half for her and half for them, because they’re honestly pretty anxious for her to like her new teacher too

joel is the one to hold sarah’s hand and walk her inside, because the school prefers only one guardian to drop off at a time. tommy’s nervous, but joel actually seems pretty pleased when he gets back to the car with no sarah in tow. surprisingly, he’s back faster than any time they’ve ever dropped sarah off before. with a proud smile, he tells tommy is that miss maria seems really nice. more importantly, she’s Black, which joel says Sarah got really excited about. tommy pries for more details, and he’s glad he does: apparently miss maria has locs, a few even blue and purple, and the first thing sarah’d said to her was an emphatic “😲😍🤩 i like your hair!!!!!!!!,” to which she had responded “thank you! i like your hair! what’s your name, sweets?” and that’d been that

later, when tommy does pickup that day, he doesn’t know what to expect. most times at the end of the day, sarah is super reserved and a bit cranky, eager to get home to finally have time to herself. tommy’s goal is usually to try and get her to at least wave goodbye to her teachers like joel asks—but, more often than not, she opts for reaching for uppies and hiding her face in his chest until they leave.

today??? no. it takes sarah a full two minutes to even notice tommy’s there because her and this drop-dead-fucking-gorgeous woman in a soft-looking lavender pants and blouse set are finishing up a painting at the easel wall. they’re working on what looks like a brown and purple butterfly, probably the most carefully shaped sarah’s ever made.

tommy’s heart stops when this goddess miss maria finally looks over at him and smiles with perfect pearly-whites, waving him over behind sarah’s back. when she says “sarah honey, i think someone’s here for you!” in her sing-songy toddler-tone, tommy swears an angel gets his wings. sarah turns around, shrieks with joy upon seeing him, and runs down to him with her arms out, yelling all the while: “THOMMYYYYYYY!!!!!”—because sarah’s still working on her hard ts—“thommy!!!! thommy thommy thommy come look!!! i made a butterfly for u!!!!! look!!!!! it matches ms. maria!!!!!! it’s gorgeous!!!!” (she’s been obsessed with calling things gorgeous ever since she heard tommy say it about a harley motorbike last week. joel especially thinks it’s cute, especially because of how she over-emphasizes the j-sound: gor-Jus.)

tommy’s never seen her so excited to show her art off at pickup-time before; usually, she waits until they’re home and she’s feeling less shy to start showing off, but she’s babbling and pointing to it as he picks her up and sets her on his hip: “it’s brown and purple like miss maria!!! isnt it so gorgeous, unca thommy??? do you like it???? aren’t they SO gorgeous????”

and now miss maria is looking at him. and he’s looking at her. tommy knows he’s blushing, and he hesitates—which sarah does NOT appreciate, so she says: “unca tommy!!!!!!! don’t be WUDE! thell miss maria she’s gorgeous!!! she is!!!”

luckily, miss maria saves him by explaining, in a slightly firmer teaching voice: “sarah sweets, that’s okay! we’re only just meeting, and that’s not really something you say to a stranger, okay?”

“but why noooooooot?? you are gorgeous! like my butterfly! isn’t she so gorgeous, thommy?”

“well, yeah, of course,” tommy agrees easily, because she obviously is—and shit. now miss maria is looking at him like he’s a fucking bonehead, because he obviously fucking is. “but—uh, i mean—she’s right, hon’. you gotta listen to your teacher, and that’s not somethin’ you say to a stranger, okay?”

but then, after thinking to her tiny self for a few seconds: “well if she stays my teacher then she’s not a stranger, is she???” sarah asks tommy, then turns her conniving little head towards maria, too. “and you said you’d stay! so can he say you’re gorgeous tomorrow?” then, without waiting for an answer, she’s back towards tommy to finish: “i think you should call her gorgeous tomorrow.”

“i think we should go home, s’what i think,” tommy says, finally deciding to save himself from four-year-old torment. he sets sarah down and pats her on the end with a gentle but firm request to go get her stuff from her cubby, which she goes to do without her complaints of being too tired to walk. maria watches them closely with a close-lipped but relaxed grin. when sarah’s out of earshot, he apologizes. “sorry ‘bout that, ma’am.”

“don’t be,” miss maria teases, crossing her arms. “you did call me gorgeous, after all. i’ve had worse introductions.”

“tommy miller,” he offers, moving to shake her hand. he notices her nails are done-up, a sparkly blend of pretty shades of purple that look tie-dyed on somehow. her hands aren’t soft, not really, but they’re smooth enough to make him shiver as he pulls away. “sarah’s uncle.”

“oh, i know,” she reassures, then nods her head pointedly towards sarah. the little one is coming back towards them with her lunchbox in one hand and her water bottle in the other, walking extra careful so she doesn’t trip over herself like she did last week, tommy guesses. clearly fond, maria continues. “she spent all day telling me about you and her daddy. you’re doing great with her.”

“unca thommy! i’m ready to go!” sarah sing-songs, interrupting whatever miss maria might’ve said next. internally, tommy thanks his niece—the you’re doing great was already enough to make him cry, and he’d rather not do so in front of either her or her amazing new teacher. plopping her lunch and bottle at tommy’s feet, sarah gives not one, but two eager waves to miss maria, hands flapping madly up towards the woman’s face. “bye miss mariaaaaa!!!! i’ll see you tomorrow!!!!”

“bye sarah sweets!” maria says back, waving just as enthusiastically. to tommy, she raises an amused, teasing eyebrow. just loud enough for him to hear as he turns away, he hears her say “bye, gorgeous,” and laugh, giving yet another angel a pair of wings.

it takes everything in him to not fall straight to the floor, toppling his own precious niece, right then. he doesn’t think he even breathes until both he and Sarah are secured in the car, him in the front and her in her carseat. she’s already babble singing mary j. blige’s “just fine,” which they usually play and sing on their way home from school to help her regulate. when he plays the song this time, sarah smiles bright at him through the rearview and says “i already feel just fine, unca tommy!!! but can we still play it, just for fun?”

“of course, baby,” he says, and start singing along with her. he’s feeling just fine, too.

🫶🏾🫶🏾🫶🏾🫶🏾🫶🏾🫶🏾🫶🏾

tagging some homies (btw just let me know if u wanna be tagged in this kinda stuff or not guys! im never sure lol): @becomethesun @clickergossip @boilingcowboy @bumblepony

[abbatoirablaze]

Missed Connections, Natasha Romanov

Word Count: 797

“Just go talk to her.”

“Yelena…”

Nat felt the blush creeping up her cheeks as her best friend and sister Yelena gently punched her in the arm, “come on, I see the way you’ve been looking at her the whole meal.  You’re looking at her like she is your dessert.  And honestly, I can’t say I blame you.”

“That’s enough.”

“If you don’t talk to her, I will…”

Nat’s blush faded from her cheeks, and she looked at her younger sibling.  There was an unspoken argument as the two sisters tried to force each other into doing what the other wanted. After a moment, Yelena got a smirk on her face and scooted her chair out. 

Nat’s eyes went wide, and she reached for her arm, “wait…”

“So, you’re going to talk to her?” she asked, quirking her brow, “you’re going to have dessert this time instead of me?”

Nat nodded, upset with herself that her younger sister had managed to get her to do what she’d wanted, “Yeah…I’ll talk to her.”

“Good!” Yelena smiled victoriously, “I’ll wait right here for you.”

Nat nodded and tucked some of her blond hair behind her ear. 

Taking a few deep breaths, she tried to tell herself that the attractive woman sitting alone and reading Tolstoy wasn’t intimidating, but the more steps she’d begun to take towards her table, she felt something that she hadn’t felt since she was a child.

Nerves.

Her anxiety kicked into high gear, and her heart thudded so heavily in her chest she thought that she was going to have a heart attack in the middle of the diner in the heartland of America.  At the last second, she turned away from the table, forcing herself to go into the bathroom.

“You can do this...you can do this…” she groaned as she forced herself in front of the mirror and placed both of her hands on either side of the sink, “you can do this.  Just go out there and talk to her.”

“Huh?”

Nat’s eyes widened.  She tore herself from her thoughts and realized that the girl from the table had been behind her, “are you okay, beautiful?”

Her throat went dry.  Her lips parted, but nothing came out.  Nothing except a soft whimper.  The woman, who had spent her entire adult life, and most of her childhood as a spy felt like a lost teenager as she stared helplessly at the woman she was attracted to. 

“Are you okay?” she repeated softly as she stepped forward and her hand brushed across Nat’s cheek and forehead, “you feel a little warm and you look a little pale…”

“Oh, uh yeah…” she lied, nearly shaking as the woman’s hand fell down to her shoulder and grazed along the length of her arm, before settling on her hip.  Nat swallowed nervously as her eyes met that of the mysterious woman, “you uh-“

“Your friend tried hitting on me after you passed my table,” she informed her, as she cut Nat off.  Nat frowned, upset that Yelena had actually gone after the woman when she wussed out, “I told her I wasn’t interested.”

Nat’s eyes snapped up to the mysterious woman’s, “you what?”

“I’ve been reading Tolstoy for nearly an hour…hoping you’d come and say something…especially with how you’d been eyeing me down the whole time.”

The blush that was on Nat’s cheeks fanned down her throat and across her chest as she began to feel warm, “you-you were?”

She nodded, leaning in.  Nat felt her eyes instinctively close as she too, leaned towards the other body.  And just as she felt her lips grazing that of the other woman’s, something inside of her snapped. 

“NATASHA!”

Her eyes snapped open as Yelena snapped in front of her. 

A new blush rose to her cheeks as she looked at her younger sibling.  Yelena looked amused, and Nat realized that she was leaning halfway across the table.

“Were you trying to kiss me?” her younger sister laughed. 

Nat sat back and shook her head, “what?  No!”

“You were day dreaming about the gorgeous woman that left a few minutes ago, weren’t you?”

Nat instinctively looked towards the booth where the woman had been sitting.  She frowned to see it empty, but her lips parted when she noticed that she’d forgotten her book.  Getting up, she rushed the booth before the waitress could get there and she picked it up. 

The spine was clearly bent in a way that made her think that she’d read the book nearly too many times.  And as she opened the front cover she smiled. 

You’re cute.  Call me.

Nat bit her lip and smiled as she looked at the number, the ink barely dry as her hands grazed over it, slightly skewing the digits. 

[unevenpatterns]

Fic Idea: Soulmate Dream AU - Jetko

Jet dreams of fire. There is nothing surprising about this and he doesn't think anything of it for a long time. Everyone in the Freedom Fighters' camp have nightmares of flames. It's such a common nightmare that he doubts it'll help in terms of finding his soulmate.

Until he reaches his teens when the dreams suddenly take a weird turn. He keeps seeing flame reaching for his face in his sleep. Over and over again.

At first he thinks nothing of it. It must just be his own dreams that are getting twisted, right? But it's such a distinct dream and the details in the attacking fire soldiers face are too clear to be random.

It's his first soulmate dream and it only fuels his hate for the fire nation. They haven't just hurt him, they've also hurt his soulmate.

When he sees Lee on the ferry he can't help it. With a burn on his face like that, what are the odds? Of course there are plenty of people who have gotten burnt, but to survive a burn to the head isn't all that common.

It's not the only reason why he wants Lee to join them, but it is what makes him slightly obsessive about it. His mind is going, what if? what if?

His life hasn't exactly been great so far, but maybe this one thing will actually be ok? Maybe there is some hope of connection for him despite everything he's done and maybe it's even with someone who understands his struggles. Not to mention someone who knows how to fight and is extremly competent at doing it (which he finds infinitely attractive, it's a problem).

Jet suddenly understands what all the fuss is about. He was all for playing the field and waiting a long time to settle down. But... if it's with someone like Lee the prospect of other people suddenly pales in comparison.

Then he sees that old coot firebending and the dream go up in flames.

Of course he wouldn't be so lucky. There's no way that Lee is his soulmate. An ashmaker, a liar, and damn if he doesn't feel like a fool for falling for the sham.

It makes the betrayal ten fold worse and his decision to get them brought to justice burn like a fire under his skin. Whoever is his soulmate with a burnt face, it sure as shit isn't Lee.

[paperbirb]

definitely omegaverse au (again lol)

some thoughts i had for this:

officially married but sedition happened and so jy is a widow for now

blade comes back but the marriage registration papers have yx's name (you can see where this is going lol)

renewed mating bite

leaning towards a/a but that may change

had thoughts about o!yx becoming a!blade but idk, it's sth i need to ponder on more bcs reasons

blade asked sw to hack the marriage registration system to change the name on the records lol

wedding? what wedding

no idea if they will have kids (who knows, maybe only lan knows) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

we (by we, i mean blade) dont like talking about the scar™ event >.>

[your-ne1ghbor]

Questions about TKoRaT AU?

So likeee I've been wanting to do one for a while, and I've seen other people in the Wish Fandom have people ask them about their AU, so yeah here we are!

Ya'll can ask anything, like about the characters, backstories, actual story, worldbuilding, magic, ect. (They can also be funny too lmao)

(Also Star can become literally any mythical creature bc of his shape-shifting abilities)

Although I might not have all of the answers, I think it is good to see other people's perspectives and also get ideas for the story as well.

I'm also like gonna be on the road for the next few days sooo yeahhhhh

(Plus my wifi won't will be out most of the time so I probs won't respond right away 😭)

@chillwildwave @oh-shtars @signed-sapphire @uva124 @rascalentertainments

[jichanxo]

how it started:

how it's going: