#more of this setup-and-conversation without an actual fic

[bigsnzstanacct]

Two m/f couples on a double date:

F1: “Oh you know there’s all these things you don’t know about a person until you’ve been with them for a while, then the facade you’ve been dating for months comes down and you figure out if you actually like the person underneath.”

M1: “Well, and do you like me underneath?”

F1: “Eh. Mostly.”

All: *laughs*

M1: “Mostly? Well then what don’t you like about me?”

F1: “What don’t I like, what don’t I like… oh! Oh my god the SNEEZES! Baby, your sneezes are like… off the charts. And I know he was hiding them from me! I know he was doing it on purpose because before we lived together, when we were just dating, of course we stayed over at each other’s places or whatever but I never—never!—woke up from my sleep because the wilderbeast next to me in bed just unleashed that unholy… roar… snot… mating call… explosion thing you call a sneeze. Oh my god! It’s such a *man thing* too. I sneeze, it’s normal. Polite, I don’t spray my germs everywhere, you know? I keep it cute. This one… HAAAABLLOOOOEEYYYY!! Every morning. Every. Single. Morning.”

M1: “what can I say, I’m a big guy, I got allergies…”

F1: “Those aren’t allergies, dear, that’s an air raid siren for pollen. And dust. And cat dander—and you own a cat! Cmon, F2, back me up here, don’t men just sneeze like the world is ending?”

F2: *blushes, squirms a bit*

M2: Heh, see, she won’t answer, see! Tell them why honey, tell them why…

F2: Well ummm, I mean… I… sort of have allergies too…

M2: Sort of have allergies? Listen, F1, if you’re sleeping next to an air raid siren, I’m sleeping next to a full-blown mythological creature. Like a banshee. When she sneezes she like… transforms from a cute, sweet, pretty little thing to I swear to God, an actual banshee… these just huge… sneezy… screams, they’re not even sneezes—come on babe, you know it’s true—they’re just like… shrieks, so loud, so high pitched, I swear she’s gonna let loose and shatter every glass in the kitchen one day. And just like M1, it’s like every morning! Just like those, what do you call it, like the “dad sneeze”

F1: Oh my god that’s it, M1, that’s it you sneeze like a dad. Like a granddad hahaha

M2: F1’s just like that only it’s worse cause it’s like four octaves higher pitched. But just as loud!

F1: Hahahahaha M1 and F2 should have a sneeze-off… just warn the neighborhood, you don’t need to call the bomb squad, it’s just these two, sneezing their heads off!

M2: I mean hey at least I can’t oversleep in the morning, I got the world’s best alarm clock right here. Not so great on a Saturday morning but that’s just how you get me going to the gym to stay in shape for you, huh, honey?

F2 (absently): Mhm, yeah honey…

F2 and M1: *blushing, squirming, rolling their eyes, sneaking curious glances at each other…*

[lis-likes-fics]

Finite

Pairings: Desire of the Endless x vampire!Reader Word Count: 10.5k word Warnings: NSFW, smut, death of unimportant character, blood sucking, oral (f!receiving), fingering, praise, p in v sex, multilple orgasms, slight dacryphilia, desire being fucking sexy... A/N: I think this got deleted somehow so I'm reposting it. This was my first Desire fic so I hope you still like it, lol.

This night reminds you of that one song. That song that goes on and on and on and on.

You have the whole setup. The singer in a smokey room sings her song on a tiny stage for a crowd of people who really aren't paying attention to her. The smell in the air isn't necessarily wine, but there is plenty of beer and whiskey and perfume, all of which are the cheap brands no one cares for but also don't care enough to be picky about. The smell is thick in the air. The murkiness aggravates you and clings uncomfortably to your skin, but you've dealt with worse enough not to care.

You have hunted better crowds, but you aren't really looking for hundreds of bodies at a festival too preoccupied to notice one or two missing people, nor are you looking for a frivolous venue where people are too rich for others to miss. It's not a great bar, but it's nice enough and big enough that people don't mind coming for a drink or two. There are tons of people tonight. Everything is half-off, and they'd rather pay less for more of the cheap, crappy booze than more for the expensive stuff.

It's late. There's a get-together occupying a couple of booths at one end of the room, a few people lining the seats of the bar, and more clusters occupying any empty spaces left. As the singer starts a new, more energized song, a small mass of people flock to the open space to dance. Most of it is drunk dancing, the kind with swaying hips and lidded eyes and waving hands.

You've been here for a few hours, tucked away in your booth with a drink in front of you that you haven't really touched. One of the bartenders, Carlos, knows you and always gives you half-off drinks because you come often and hardly order. He knows you like to pick up hot dates, sometimes you take them home and other times you sit and talk until one of you leaves—and on the occasion that you take someone home and he never sees them again, he’s smart enough not to question anything and be happy that there’s one less asshole for him to serve. He glances at you across the bar, giving a thumbs up to ask if you're okay. You nod back, smiling gently before turning your attention away again toward a couple sitting across the bar.

She's tucked under his arm, smiling wide as she cradles her drink in both hands. He smiles back at her, his hand on her arm rubbing circles. He's cheating on her. Just ten minutes before, after he'd told her he needed to use the restroom, you saw him down the hall with some other girl against the wall. She was also smiling and giggling, his arm above her and closing her in. He gave her his number before he left to his original girl.

You shake your head and turn away.

There's a woman sitting at the bar. She has been sitting there for a while, her phone in her hands as she types away at what you're assuming is a heated conversation. Her brows are furrowed, full of tension. She's slouched over her phone, her elbows on the counter and her knuckles clenched.

Your eyes flicker over when movement catches your attention. You glance over at a man approaching her, a smile on his face as he grows nearer.

"Hey," he says, leaning on his elbow next to her and eyeing her up and down, sizing her up like a predator does its prey. She looks up, bringing her glass closer to her and discreetly setting her palm over it.

“Yes?” she responds, shifting away from him.

“I saw you across the room,” he says, shrugging a shoulder. She shifts uncomfortably at his closeness, moving away from him as much as she could without standing. “You look lonely.”

She glances briefly around her. “I’m actually waiting for someone,” she lies, looking around again as if to solidify her words.

He shrugs again, easing a step closer. “Yeah? Why don’t I keep you company while you wait, huh?” You’ve already moved to your feet, walking over toward the pair, the short heel of your shoes clicking dully on the wooden floor and becoming a rhythm in the back of your brain that echoes there like a silent warning.

“I’m okay,” she says, ready to stand and leave now.

“I insist.”

You come up to the bar, leaning over it and looking for Carlos with a smile. “Hey, can I get a refill, please?” Carlos spots you and nods, his own smile on his lips as he grabs a bottle and heads toward you.

The man looks at you, his attention shifting as he eyes your little black dress. His smirk widens and he looks at the girl. “S’cuse me, sweetheart.” As he makes his way over to you, fixing his hair as he does, you look away and pretend not to notice.

Your eyes scan the bar briefly, looking for no one in particular as they do. As you’re bringing your focus back around, you suddenly stop as a vision of white catches your eyes. There, tucked away in a dark corner of the room but somehow glowing like an enchanted treasure, is a person you had yet to notice.

White hair is combed and styled away from a pale face, whose blood red lips hide white teeth. Golden eyes watch you, staring into your soul as they glow and flicker with mischief and temptation. You’re stuck, gazing at such a charming creature as those red painted lips curl in an alluring grin.

“Why don’t I buy you a drink?”

Your attention is swiftly taken again as you look back at the real reason you had come over here. “Oh,” you mumble, glancing back over your shoulder at the figure who had disappeared, as though they had never existed to begin with. You look back at the man, shaking your head gently and letting a smile take your lips again as you refocus. “Uh, yeah. I’d love that.”

The woman glances at you, her eyes both relieved for herself and worried about you. As your eyes meet, your smile softens and you give her a wink. You watch her lips shift, a tiny smile making its way to her own lips as she takes your response with gratitude. She flags down Carlos and pays for her drink before she gathers her things and leaves before the guy notices her again. She mouths a “thank you” to you as she does.

You almost tense as his hand lands on the small of your back, his thumb stroking you there as he leans in some more. You look up at him over your shoulder, offering him a reflection of the smirk on his face as you turn your body to face him. You lean in closer, your hand on his chest as you take him in. As you size him up. The apex predator to prey higher up the food chain. “We can skip the drink if you want…” You lower your voice to a smooth seduction, tapping your fingers against his chest and looking at him through your lashes. You nearly whisper, “I think we can have a little more fun if we get out of here. How does that sound?”

He chuckles darkly. “Like music to my ears.”

You move out of his grip as you wave to Carlos and saunter toward the door. He follows after you, holding a hand out as he sets it on your hip. You glance over your shoulder as you walk, continuing to beckon him as you both step out into the slight chill of the night, surrounding you in a darkness that’s only dangerous for one of you.

~

You listen to the slowing of a dying heart, rapid thumps reduced to faint rattles against a weak chest. The blood coursing through his veins slowly diminishes, coming in smaller gulps than before as you take your fill, quenching your thirst for as long as his bittersweet taste will hold you.

The fight left a long time ago—and you let him fight. He wasn't very strong.

You pull away from his throat with a long sigh, your head lolling back as the sharp canines in your gums retract to an unassuming point. You hum, looking down at his lifeless face before dropping him carelessly to the dirty stone ground.

You shudder, wiping the blood from the corner of your mouth with a drunken grin.

"Psst."

You tilt your chin toward your shoulder, stilling completely to listen to the unmoving air around you. You wait, slowly shifting your chin to the other side as your eyes scan the space you can see without turning around.

“Hello, dear…”

That voice. It melts on your skin like caramel, warm and smooth and rich. It’s got a rasp to it that rolls in your chest, echoes off your bones like footsteps on a marble floor.

You hum gently, turning around as you look around for the disembodied voice. You raise a brow, “Hello.” Cracking a small grin, you place your hands in your pockets and sigh. “Come on out. Don’t be shy,” you beckon. “I’m not gonna hurt you.” Your tone is akin to comforting a frightened animal to your arms, the added taunt a whisper in your words.

But it seems they’ve got some taunts of their own.

“Oh, I’m well aware.”

You chuckle lightly, doing one more small circle around yourself to ensure whoever is watching knows just how amused you are by the theatrics. “Then why are you still whispering from the shadows?” you wonder aloud.

A chuckle rolls out of them, a deep, throaty sound that sinks into your flesh. The sound of footsteps reverberates along the dark walls of the buildings surrounding the two of you. The echoed laugh which once bounced off the space around you now focused on one spot as shadows became a silhouette of a person. As a silhouette became a person, you cast your eyes upon an enchanting being as you looked them up and down appreciatively.

They are wearing black, similarly to you—it just makes things easier on nights like these—and a deep red that pops against porcelain skin. A lacey red bustier is worn tight around their body, intricately designed like the expensive fabric of royals. Their slacks and floor length blazer are dark as night, accented with gold jewelry and heels—like the thick golden chain around their neck holding a heavy heart over their chest.

You tilt your head to the side. “You were at the bar.”

The face from the bar that had briefly distracted you from tonight’s prey smiled. “I was.”

You look them up and down again. “Who are you?” They tilt their head, inquiring more. You shrug, “You’re not human. You aren’t like me.” You straighten your back a little, your brows furrowing as a new solemnity sinks in, “Who are you?”

They smile wide, another chuckle slipping from them as they shake their head at you. Asking the wrong questions, it seems. “Who I am doesn’t really matter, dear,” they say in a voice warm and smokey, like the embers of a fire.

“Oh?” you hum. “Then what really matters, pray tell?”

“You.” Your breath stilled in your chest, though you said nothing. “The reason I'm here. I looked at you and I saw…” They make a face, one full of curiosity as they try to find a word that accurately describes what they mean to say, looking away as if the walls had the answer and waving a hand.

“What?” you encourage.

They breathe in deep, turning their gaze back upon you. Their smile widens again, full of mischief and…something else. “Longing,” they rasp. “So much longing.” They sigh, their hands finding their pockets once more and their head shaking slowly. A click of their heels marks another step toward you. “What is that I saw in you?”

A gentle shrug of your shoulders brushes off the question. “I’ve lived centuries,” you say. “There is plenty to ‘see in me’.”

They watch you like they’re unconvinced, looking you up and down with a skeptical gaze. “And yet…”

You sigh, shifting from one foot to the other as you regard them with a little more impatience than before. “What does it matter that I tell you?”

They laugh again, a little louder this time with that same bravado as before. “All this talk about what matters…” They wave a hand dismissively, rolling their eyes as they go before finding your gaze again and taking another step forward, “It doesn’t. The only difference between telling me or telling the wind is that the wind has no power.”

You raise a brow, “And you do?”

The pride that shines in their face as they smile, tilting their chin up just to look down on you. “Let’s just say…” they lean forward just enough to make the point, “I can give you what you want.”

Your eyes flicker away for a split of a second. “How?”

“Well, that depends.” They shrug a shoulder, still taking a couple more steps toward you, stalking like a predator as they slowly move closer and closer. Who the apex is in this situation, you're unsure now. “Tell me, dear… What is it you desire?” Their voice washes over you and warms you chest in a way that makes you shudder.

A war goes on between the very fibers of your being. The better half of you that doesn’t believe in these tricks is ready to feed on the luscious scent of their blood and be done with it, but that other part nagging you about what is and what can be is telling you to heed their words, if only with caution. You stand there, contemplating with yourself for what felt like hours but was only a few seconds.

If you entertain them a little while longer, it could end up changing your life forever or simply be another hour of your immortal soul ticked away into the past. There’s no real harm in it.

So you look them in the eye and play along, your answer as blunt as you can make it to get through this interaction as quickly as possible.

“Freedom.”

They tilt their head. “From what?”

“This. This life.” Something in you had you speaking before your brain could come up with a more logical, stoic answer. It’s as though the truth was being pulled from you, word by tantalizing word. Your hands leave your pockets and you’re the one stepping closer this time as you speak. “I want to be human again, feel human again,” you confess with only a little bit of the desperation you feel. You lick your lips, your tongue wandering to the fang hiding behind them. “I’ve been living like this for too long.”

They regard you, taking you in with a tilted chin and a calculating gaze. They hum, smiling gently. “Perhaps…” The smile falls and their head tilts back down, “but no.”

You shake your head, confusion seeping into your face. “No?”

“I can see your heart. I feel its warmth, its want, its need.” They step forward again, but this time their feet carry them in a path around you as they circle and speak, evaluating your body as if looking right through you. You don’t move, sighing and rolling your eyes as you stand there. Their scent swirls around you like the sweetest perfume, and you’re already starving again at the smell of it. “You want to feel human, but being human isn’t the same.”

They shake their head, biting their lower lip as they sigh. “No, you don’t want mortality. You want something so much harder to obtain. Something humans and gods alike can go entire lifetimes without having.”

You raise a brow, already tired of this conversation. “Which is?”

They stop in front of you, their smile almost a sneer by the way it condescends you, mocking you as though you could not rip them apart. “Love.”

You straighten your back a little more, not appreciating being read like this, having desires shown to you that you had locked away a long time ago. They are wrong. You don’t want that anymore, you’ve seen it too many times, felt it too many times. It’s always too good to last.

But they continued. “You want to love and to be loved. The most basic want of all life,” they shrug, glancing away like the prospect is so trivial, “and yet the most foolish.” They chuckle at that, the thought absurd.

You chuckle as well, though yours is filled with a little more irritation than amusement as you shake your head. You lick your bottom lip and direct a sneer of your own toward them. “Only a fool would hold out hope for love with what I’ve learned.”

They raise their brows, perking up in a cat-like fashion. “And what is that?”

You take your time answering. “Love is fleeting.” Silence fills the space between the two of you in the moments where you aren’t speaking. They watch intently, clinging to every word with a kind of delight and fascination that makes you huff. “It can be as cold as ice and as raging as fire. It can die out just as quick or," your lips almost curve in a fond smile, "live for decades.” You hesitate, looking away for a moment as you frown again.

“But it always ends. One way or another, everything ends.” There’s a kind of heartbreak in your voice that they have not heard in a very long time. It makes the delight in their chest dwindle to something a little more sober. Their eyes land on a necklace hanging over your chest, listening to you as they stare at the trinket. You shake your head from solemn thoughts. “I learned not to love a long time ago. Saves a lot of heartache.”

They look back up to your eyes where your gazes linger in the other’s. There’s a sort of understanding now, a moment where the both of you are no longer just non-human entities meeting and toying with the other, a moment where you’re finally on the same page.

They breathe in, breaking the silence with the most care. “And yet…” a pause to sigh, “your heart aches.”

You look away, clenching your jaw. Shaking your head, you turn back to them, your willingness to go along with this joke dwindling by the second. “Enough of this,” you say. “You cannot get me what I want, I have no use of you. But your blood…” You smile with teeth, allowing your fangs to protrude once more. “Well, your blood smells delicious.”

They almost look offended as they look at you, but not in the least bit afraid. They stand up straighter, chest puffing out a little more. “Who says I can't get you what you want?” They tilt their head to the side, raising a hand to their chest where their fingers brush the thick golden heart. “Do you know who I am?”

You shrug dismissively. “Someone’s wasting my time.” You breathe a humorless laugh. “Which is strange, as mine is so infinite at the moment.”

They shake their head, turning and walking away slowly, their head tilted toward their shoulder to speak to you. “Nothing is infinite. Nothing is endless.” They pause, looking at you fully with a taunting grin. “Except for me, of course.”

You freeze. The annoyance washes into fascination. Your eyes go wide and your lips part, but it’s a full-bodied reaction as you stare in wonder. “Endless…” you mutter, the silent suspicion you’d turned down as soon as it appeared coming back to the surface at the word, the revelation. “So you are. You’re an Endless.”

The delight has returned, pride and regality accompanying it. “You know me?”

“Of course, I do,” you reply. “You’re Desire.”

Their smile is the widest you’ve seen it, shining with a type of superiority that finally suits them with the new information pinned to their character. The stories are definitely true—they are the most alluring being you have ever laid eyes on. But not only that, the mischief and taunting surrounding their name through time also seem to have plenty of truth to it.

“Clever girl.” Their voice is deep with that smoky rasp. You nearly shudder again.

A new seriousness washed over you at another realization. “So you can give me what I want.”

“With a price, yes.” Their arms crossed over their chest in a delicate way, their head inclined upward as they regarded you. “Would you like to hear it?”

You take a moment to decide, scanning the face of this powerful entity. “They warn about making deals with Desire of the Endless.”

They raise a brow, a curious look glittering in their eyes. “Who?”

You scoff, “Anyone who’s ever heard of Desire of the Endless.”

Desire shrugs a shoulder, seemingly proud of the reputation they’ve built. “Well, ‘anyone’ would be correct.” They narrow their golden eyes, smirking, “But I have a feeling you don’t necessarily have much care for such things, do you?”

“Not necessarily,” you admit. You stare into their eyes, unwavering as you thought, trying to make a solid decision but still heeding the warnings and caution you’ve heard in reference to beings like these. “What do you want?” you asked.

They breathe in deep, looking you up and down as a mischievous grin widens red lips. Their lips part, beginning to find shape around their reply as they watch. “You.”

You hold your breath but do nothing else to give away the anticipation. You figured as much but you hadn’t cared enough to actually put belief into it as you spoke. The idea has your pulse jumping and your breath thinning. You hum, shrugging it off. “That’s all?”

They shrug as well. “What else is there for me to want?”

You raise a brow. “No agent of desire to bring you back wanting and wayward souls?”

They wave that off. “Oh, I have plenty of those.” Taking a step forward, their height becomes a little more apparent as your head tilts back slightly to hold eye contact. Their index finger comes to rest over their lips, curling back down to their chin.

Desire’s gaze was hot on your face, dragging over your body and filling you with more heat than even a fresh kill could provide. They evaluated you, your body, your face, the very essence of your soul, and you hate that you shudder under their scrutinization as they do. They shake their head, amused. “No, your body will do just fine.”

You swallow thickly. “And, if I do it. If I say yes…” your heart jumps at the idea, “you’ll make me human?”

They tilt their head. “No.” They walk past you, waving a hand as they begin a slow circle once more, still taking in every inch of your body with a warming appreciation. “Unfortunately, I do not have that power. But,” they smile again, breathing in as they stand in front of you once more, “I can give you what you crave more.”

You roll your eyes, beginning to turn away from them. “I don’t want–”

“I can give you someone to love.” You pause, your back turned as you become completely still. You feel as though your body is shaking as you stand there, refusing to face them as you cling to every saccharine word falling from their lips. “Someone whose life won’t be so fleeting and needlessly fragile. You’ll have love for them for as long as your soul has the potential to have it.”

You blink, looking down at the ground as you contemplate, letting the silence stretch between you. Your lips tingle as you part them to speak, though it takes a moment for the sounds to even breach your lips. “And…”

“And?”

You sigh silently. “Will…” You lick your lips, slowly turning on your heel to face them, taking a moment too long to meet their gaze. “Will they love me back?” Your voice is so quiet, so desperate for something that feels so unobtainable. You hate it but you ignore it for the sake of hope, of possibility.

A shoulder rises and sinks slowly. “Perhaps.”

“Perhaps?” It’s a possibility, at least.

They step forward, beginning to shorten the distance again. “I can promise you this… you will be happy.” The look in their eyes, for the first time all night, seemed to hold a dash of empathy as they watched you.

You swallow the smallest lump in your throat, glancing away. “But none of it would be real.”

“Who says?” Their brow furrows at your words. Desire shakes their head, “This love will not be made artificial, otherwise it would fail. I will simply…ignite what is already there, amplify it to outweigh doubt and petty apprehensions. This love will be as real as you or me, as real as the sun’s fire or the stars burning thousands of lightyears away.”

Their poetry clings to your bones, making you believe for a moment that Desire isn’t just a creature of lust but one of true love and affection. You watch, your breath shallow in your lungs, your throat tight, and your heart stuttering against your ribcage. As Desire stepped forward and into your space, your symptoms worsened. Their eyes never left yours.

“This love will be genuine, and it will last in its full intensity for as long as there is the smallest ember of need or want for it.” They raise a hand, a slender finger hooking under your chin and their thumb tenderly stroking the skin there. They tilt your head up, tugging gently on your bottom lip. “It is entirely up to your heart to decide.”

Your eyes glue to their own lips as yours tingled with a desire for more than these teasing touches. It takes a moment to find your voice again.

“Who is it?”

They smile wide. “Well, that spoils the fun, doesn’t it?”

You roll your eyes, still not daring to move in case they break away from you. “Do I know them, at least?”

They shrug. “In a manner of speaking.”

You sigh. “Do you ever give straight answers?”

Your worst fears come true when Desire breaks away from you, stepping away with a sigh and a raised brow. “Do you ever stop asking questions for me to give unclear answers to?”

You roll your eyes, catching your breath again. You need the oxygen to think, and you only just realized you were holding your breath. Desire waits patiently for you to decide.

You bite your bottom lip, feeling your heart thump. You peek up at them through your lashes, the look you give too vulnerable for your liking. “I will be happy?”

“The happiest.”

“Then…” you take in a deep, steadying breath and nod gently. “I accept.”

A smile splits their face in two as they look at you, pride and entertainment and something else filling their face to the brim as their tongue slips between their teeth to lick a sharp canine. They walk forward in strides, taking an arm around your waist and pulling you in as your breath hitches.

“Then let us begin.”

~

Lips and teeth and tongue clash together in some mad, lustful dance. Fingers tangle in hair and hands grasp at shirts and skin, desperate for the touch of intimacy—soft or rough, it did not matter. What matters is the skin on skin contact that had not yet been breached as Desire pushes you against the glossy, red walls of the Threshold.

Your hands have found their hair so many times, it's a disheveled mess. One of their hands travel up your side, cradling the side of your neck before rounding to the front to cup it, squeezing gently and making your lips part as you gasp. A chuckle borders on a growl as their teeth nip your bottom lip, trailing down to your jaw.

"Look at you," their voice is a deeper rasp in your ear, warming your body to an impossible temperature. "You're so hungry for my touch, aren't you?"

Your hands begin pulling off the long black coat until it pools on the ground, already gone from your mind. Their bare arms are revealed to you, smooth like the porcelain they reflect. You were reaching for their crimson belt before their hand grabs at you, a firm but gentle tug on your jaw as their fingers dig into your skin.

A sort of growl erupts from their throat as they smile down at you, “Answer me, my pet.”

You breathe a shallow breath as you nod, forced to look them in the eye and melt at the sight. “Yes,” you reply.

They devour you once more, lips to lips, chest to chest. Your hand wraps around their back, tangling in their hair once more. You tug back just enough to expose their neck, pressing your lips there as you kiss and nip and suck. It takes a lot not to sink your teeth into the awaiting flesh—or at least, not completely. You did bite down, unable to help yourself, but not enough to draw blood. A rough moan grumbles out of them at the sensation, bending down to pick you up and wrap your legs around them.

“Naughty girl,” they breathe in the middle of a heated kiss.

You bite their lip, smiling wide at their shuddered breaths. Without letting go, you grin deeply as you whisper, “I can be worse.”

“Oh,” they chuckle, the word almost a moan. “Promise?”

In the next moment, you’re falling backwards. Before you can try to catch yourself, your back lands on a plush mattress covered in silk and a multitude of pillows, red and black like just about everything else in this place. The bed was huge and round, you could fit ten people on it and still have room for more.

As you're looking around yourself, Desire’s lips find your neck again and you melt against them. You curse under your breath, drunk on the feeling as you gasp. Their hand slips underneath your shirt, going up, up, up until their palm cups your breast over your bra. You are shaken to your core when their hands claw around the bra and rip it from your body, tearing it off of you and tossing it away like trash.

They grope you underneath your dress, which is somehow hotter than if they had stripped you. You squeeze your eyes shut as you moan, but their voice next to your ear has you shivering at a command. “Open your eyes and look at me, sweetling.” You make yourself do as you’re told, breathing heavily as you do.

They hum deeply, watching you with an admiration and lust filled gaze that would have made you clench your thighs, had their body not been between them. “Beautiful,” they sigh.

They entwine their fingers with your own, pulling them above your head and pinning them there as they continue to watch you. It isn’t until you feel something fuzzy around your wrists and hear the faint but telling click of metal when you realize just what they had been up to.

You look up at the furry white cuffs around your wrists, chaining you to the bed and leaving you vulnerable. Their hands stroke your sides, smiling wide as they kiss your neck, knowing how much you love it, how much you melt and moan at the feeling of your throat being caressed and touched and bitten.

Their lips ghost over your jaw as they speak in a deep whisper. “Tell me to stop, and I will. Tell me to slow down, and I will. Tell me to keep going…” their smile widens, mischievous, dangerous, “and I just might.”

You watch them, your lungs hardly being utilized at this point. They raise a brow, “Understand?”

“Yes,” you whisper.

“I can’t hear you,” they say in a sing-songy voice.

“Yes, sire,” you say, louder this time as you feel your skin tingling.

“Good girl.”

This time it is a growl and your skin is no longer tingling, it’s on fire. You watch them travel down the column of your throat, reaching your clothed chest and taking the fabric between their teeth. Their hands find the neckline of your dress, grasping and ripping it down the middle with no regard for it. They smile in appreciation of your skin revealed to them.

“I liked that dress,” you mumble.

“Well, I like it more like this.” They dangle the fabric and drop it on the floor with a dashing smile. You roll your eyes, interrupted as lips press to the bare skin of your belly, leaving red lipstick behind. You think they did it on purpose, because only the single print of a pair of lips is tattooed on your belly, but no other marks are left after that one. Their tongue pokes out every now and then licking your skin, usually after their teeth have nipped you.

All of this teasing will be the end of you. Desire of the Endless knows how to pleasure, to bring you to the edge of lust with a few words, a few touches, a few kisses. They’ve given you all three, and you’re going to blow.

“Please,” you whisper, squirming underneath them.

Their face lights up at the sounds as they look at you, still caressing your skin as they do. “What was that?”

You sigh, “Please, Desire.” You bend your knees, spreading your legs wide to invite them in. You'll beg if it means an end to the taunting. “Please touch me.”

Their hands find purchase along your thighs. “You’re so needy, my pet.” They kiss low on your belly again, palms smoothing over your legs. Taking the fabric of your panties in their hands, they rip them from your body and throw them away. You roll your eyes, but your sass is interrupted when a warm, wet tongue licks wide along your pussy.

The heightened sensations course through your veins like fire and a low moan simmers from your throat. You curse under your breath when their lips wrap around you, tongue plunging between your folds and filling you with pleasure.

You tug on the chains, moving to break them with your sheer strength, but they don't budge. You feel their lips spread wider in an almost malicious smirk. They curl their tongue inside of you, suckling on your clit before pulling away and licking their lips, the red still intact.

"You're not getting out of those," they purr. "Trust me."

You almost scoff at that. "Trust me". Yeah, right.

But, at the same time, you're the one chained to the bed with your legs spread open for (the equivalent of) the god of desire. Your thoughts are immediately disassembled once more when lips find the hot junction of your thighs.

Your knees bend and you squirm at the feeling, your eyes closing as you toss your head back. Their fingers curl tighter around your thighs as they feed off your pleasure, straying from your cunt to lick along damp thighs, teeth finding the plush skin just to sink into it.

Your back arches then, a deeper moan clawing at your throat as that ecstacy spreads. Fuck, you hadn't realized just how much you enjoyed having someone else sink their teeth into your flesh for once, to have someone else feed off of you just for the pleasure of it.

"Desire," you moan, unable to hold back this time from your audible arousal. You didn't want to give so much satisfaction to a being already so smug. But they did deserve it—a sort of giving credit where it's due.

You pull at your restraints again, whimpering when nails like claws dig into your skin and scratch down the length of them to give rise to angry red lines. You bite down on your lip. You draw blood.

You don't seem like the only one who can smell it when their mischievous face peers up at you with that curling grin, traveling back up the length of you to kiss hungrily at awaiting lips. What you share shouldn't be described as a kiss, not with the way you both bite and tear, devouring one another in a rough but empowering passion.

The taste of your blood is sweet in nature as they lick it from your lip. You wrap your legs around their waist, and they smile as they move one hand to support one. "Oh, baby," they groan. "You are divine."

You bite their lip in return, hard enough just to manage the slightest taste of the aroma that had been so attractive before. Though it's hardly a sample, the taste is like nothing you have ever had before. Human blood was great, especially coming from someone whose blood was pure, but this… You would kill for this. You would maim and massacre for this.

Another moan draws from you, fangs returning at the intoxicating taste. Before you can think to control yourself, you lunge forward in an attempt to take a bite out of them, just a nibble, just a taste. But Desire could not have been quicker as a pale hand wraps around your neck and stops you, pinning you down against the bed with a malicious smirk and a cruel laugh.

You come back to yourself almost immediately as the mist clears, reminding you who you are and what you’ve just done. For half a second, shame and panic fills you before you return to an unapologetic stoicism.

"Now, now, my little sapling," they tut, leaning in with no care for safety to whisper in your ear. "You'll get a taste of me soon enough."

The promise of such a treat fills the pit of your stomach with warmth that spreads throughout your body and tingles in all the right places. If you weren't already aroused before, you were practically dripping now, salivating at the prospect. Their lips find your neck, tongue darting out to lick over a vein before biting down into the skin there and lighting a fire within you.

Your arms flex against the cuffs and a restlessness fills your bones. You need more.

A slender finger pokes at the slick folds of your cunt, tracing the seam with an annoying amount of expertise before slipping inside. It fills you, inch by inch until it's buried to the hilt. In and out, their finger dips and curls and coaxes gentle whimpers from you. Adding another finger, and then another still, your whimpers become louder as pace builds.

"You're so wet, my darling," they dawn, the words dissolving in a moan as they speak. "Could it be that you wanted this so badly? You needed it?" They shift down to take a nipple into their mouth, flicking and sucking with teeth and tongue. The shift gave a new angle as they continue to create a speed that has your hips bucking. The sounds of a palm slapping against a soaking little cunt fill the space and your moans are next to follow.

"Listen to you," they continue, voice dripping with arousal. "So needy, so wanting. And look at you," they laugh, "You're practically begging me to fuck you dumb."

You don't respond. You don't know what you'd respond with—Nuh-uh? You buck your hips up some more, losing breath over the way their tongue massages your nipple, licking into it and somehow creating the most overwhelming pleasure out of the smallest thing.

You miss it when they pull away, kissing down to your belly again before their mouth is met with your pretty pussy once more. They don't waste time as their lips and tongue create an assault on your clit.

Their fingers continue to pump inside of you, driving you mad with the aid of their skilled tongue. Your curses don't seem to matter, no matter how much you make them as you continue to let your hips seek out the pleasure. When it becomes too much and too little all at once and it all feels like teasing, your body moves before your mind to flip yourself over onto your knees, shifting to accommodate for the fact that you are still very much cuffed to the bed.

Desire is pleasantly surprised by the new angle, situated under you with your desperate hips against their face. Golden eyes flutter shut, playing along as fingers dig into the meat of your ass to guide you in your grinding. It almost sounds like muttering as they moan underneath you, the vibrations trembling along your spine.

After a particularly rough grind, they reward you with a smack to your ass, grabbing the flesh momentarily before rubbing their palms against you again. As they suckle around your clit, slowly adding more pressure to pull you closer to your release, you moan and sigh, eager for that release to fill you.

You throw your head back and gasp when you cum, thighs trembling and shaking as they refuse to let up. As the aftershocks spark, electricity in your veins, your fingers tangle in their hair as you sit up, pulling your hips away to catch your breath.

They lick their lips, tasting you on their skin with an immense amount of appreciation. "You are delectable, my sweet," they purr, undoing the furry cuffs with a chuckle and sitting up to pull you into their lap.

"You're not so bad yourself," you breathe as you wrap your arms around their shoulders. You lean forward, bumping your lips against theirs with a little bit too much intimacy before allowing yourself to soothe into the kiss, tasting yourself on their lips with a quiet hum.

Moving one hand over their chest, you slip it down slowly until you are finally able to undo the red belt wrapped around their waist. They smile against your lips as you slide your hand inside and meet slick folds. You make a short humming sound, almost a grunt.

"What?" they mumble against your lips. "Expecting something else?"

You shrug, leaning back in for a deeper kiss as you tease them, guiding your finger inside with a long stroke, adding a second in on the next one. A grumbling moan vibrated against your mouth.

With one hand tangled in their hair, you unweave your fingers in favor of finding the strings along their back, pulling at it slowly to remove the bustier hiding so much smooth skin from you. Just as you are able to loosen it, feeling it slipping off their form, they pull you back with a primal sound.

Desire pushes you off of them, to which you stare with kiss-swollen lips. You watch as they continue the process, finally stripping for you so you aren't the only one of you nude. They hover over you once again, capturing your lips in another bruising kiss as you smooth a hand down their side, sticking your fingers back into the warmth of their pussy.

Their eyes flutter at the feeling, opening to look back at you with a seductive grin as they kiss you again.

Your bodies move together as you take your time to stroke and thrust, curling your fingers against all the right places to pull delicious moans from their perfect throat. You hold the side of their neck, bringing your lips to the other as you nibble at the skin, practically salivating at the scent of what lies just on the other side of such delicate flesh.

You chuckle as a sigh passes their lips when you pull your hands from them. They cast an almost disappointed look upon you as you wrap your arms around them and sit up, pushing them onto their back. You hover over them this time, kissing their lips quickly before you shift to kiss down their body.

You hadn't intended to tease at first, but as your lips brushed over their clit, you pause, looking up with a smirk. Staring at them, you kiss it gently before moving down again to kiss along their thighs.

"Oh, don't you dare," they chuckle darkly, watching you take a thigh in your hand and smother it with lips and tongue and teeth. You ignore them, continuing to give affection to the skin there as you switch sides.

They huff your name—a name you had not yet given prior to all of this—and lean back with closed eyes. "Fuck, will you make me beg?"

Your smirk deepens as your teeth nibble at the skin just above their femoral artery. "I might," you chuckle.

They don't reply at first, holding on to the pride they'd dangled over you since they met you in the alleyway. The teasing becomes too unbearable to endure as you draw closer and closer to the place they wanted you most to be. They give in with a huffed "fine" after you'd reflected on how you could do this all night—you only have an eternity.

"Alright, please," they mumble, a hand finding your hair and grasping. "Please forget your insistent taunting and fuck me."

You'd take it.

With one last kiss to the top of their knee, you smile. "Okay." They roll their eyes but you cut them off with your lips on their slick cunt. It's not as they expected it to be as you immediately go in for the prey, your tongue plunging in and out, your lips suckling on a pulsing clit. Their hands tangle in the bedsheets before upgrading to your messy hair once more.

You spread their legs wide, adding your fingers back after another long moment of listening to pleasant moans as you thrust them inside.

"That's it," they sigh. "Just like that, my darling." More praises fall from their lips throughout the time you spend with your head buried between their legs. You enjoy every second immensely, tasting the sweet nectar of their arousal as you coax it from them, taking the grinding of their hips every time you curl your fingers or suck on their clit. You could spend forever down here.

As their walls flutter around your fingers, you only work harder to get them toward the edge. And when you send them over it with a shuddering gasp melted into a louder moan than you'd expected, you smile proudly.

"Oh, fuck!" they breathe. "Such a good g-irl."

You hadn't expected Desire to be as vocal as they are, their fingers firm in your hair as they tug and gasp with a lewd grin in place. You let your tongue explore a moment longer before pulling away, licking the arousal still seeping. You turn your head toward their thigh again, licking over that same artery again with a tentative bite before kissing it and moving back to Desire's lips.

You sigh against their lips. "Are we done?"

They laugh like it was a joke. "Babygirl, not even close."

They actually growl when they take your head in their hands and kiss you, a rough and guttural sound as they pull you into their lap with your legs wrapped around them. They bite your bottom lip enough to draw blood again, trailing their lips further down to your neck as they paint you in their affection.

Your eyes flutter shut as you lean your head back, sighing as you feel the touch of their lips at your throat. You stiffen for a moment when a warm length presses against your folds. As you look down again, you're surprised to be greeted by a cock and not a cunt against yours.

Long fingers stroke it, fingertips gliding over the bottom and up to the tip where it glistens with precum.

"Expecting something else?" they repeat with a raised brow.

You shrug, choosing not to comment and worsen an already inflated ego. You lift yourself up a little on your knees as you kiss them again, allowing your hands to find their new home in the messy locks of Desire's hair. Their hands squeeze your hips, moving down some more to cup your ass in their palms with a sudden smack.

You mewl and roll your hips forward, your folds just slightly brushing over an erect cock that had not been there a mere minute ago. Flushed red at the tip, it was a generous size. It was actually perfect as you felt it rub against you.

Desire steadied you by your hips, bringing a hand to your chin as they spoke softly, in that smooth, smokey tone that melted on your skin like honey. "Do you want to continue, heartstring?"

You try to lean forward, to kiss your confirmation. They don't let you, pulling away just out of reach as they await your response. You nod gently, smoothing your knuckles along their jaw and licking your bottom lip. "Yes, sire," you whisper back, closing the distance once more with a tentative kiss as you sink back into them.

They moan against your mouth as you kiss, mixing with yours as they position themself at your wet cunt, sliding inside with ease and splitting you on their cock. You breathe each other's air this close to the other, fingers in soft white hair and hands on beautifully carved hips. You sit in their lap, taking a moment just to feel the length buried to the hilt inside of you. A shudder runs down your spine as their fingertips trace up your sides and along the line of your back.

You ease up on your knees, feeling them dragging along your walls as they pull out before you drop your weight back down in a measured stroke. Their hands find your hips again, guiding you on the second stroke, then the third, then the fourth. It isn't long before a pace builds and the careful sets of up and down become a breath-filled repetition of eager thrusts.

You bounce up and down on top of them, their hands gripping you as you brace yourself on their shoulders. Up and down and up and down, you give into the pleasure as the moans stifle in your throat on your own accord. As their lips trail along the column, it becomes harder. This spot will always be your weakness, and they know all too well as their teeth graze the skin.

"Hmm," they rasp. "Look at you, so eager." They pull your hips down for a rough thrust and a shocked gasp falls out of you. They breathe in sudden and deep, smiling as their face forms in a lustful look reminding you of relief and peace. They almost look softer like this, kinder. You work harder to embrace that look, to watch them as you find yourself addicted to the sight of it.

"Just like that," they say, breathy and light, the words almost sounding unfinished by a tongue made lazy. "Mmm, moan for me, dear. Let me hear how good you feel."

And again, you give in, allowing yourself to succumb to the rest of the pleasure taunting you as you release the moans hounded into your throat. "Desire," you whimper, the sound of your thighs smacking against their lap, both slick now from the arousal dripping out of you. You don't know what to say, you just want to let the sound of their name pleasure your mouth as their cock pleasures your cunt.

"Do you love it?" Tongue tracing, teeth biting, lips grazing. All these sensations burn in your heart, fills you with a fondness that eats away at the apathy you thought you'd grown over the years. “Do you love how I fuck you?”

Your teeth sink into your abused bottom lip, which slips from its grip pale before flushing with blood again. "I do," you huff. "I love it."

You grind in their lap, burying your face in the crook of their neck, teasing the skin with your teeth. Desire feels your fangs scraping their flesh and shudders. "Let it go," they rasp in your ear like the whispers of fate and destiny. "Give yourself to me… All to me."

With a breath not yet released, you sunk your teeth into warm flesh, piercing the skin and feeling the hot rush of ambrosia filling your mouth. You groan roughly, moving a hand to support the other side of their neck as you pull more and more of their essence into you, forgetting yourself in the temptations of Desire.

Their lips part as shallow breaths stutter out from their lungs. Repetitive mumbles of "yes, yes, yes," from their lips as you feed from them and they feed from you. Their thumb finds your clit, and you stutter momentarily at the pleasure that suddenly fills you at their calculated circle. The pleasure kicks, like flickering flames too eager to spread and ignite.

It happens so naturally as their words—"let go"—whisper in your ear, yet creates such an explosion of ecstasy that you almost can't breathe. Their name leaves you in a moan as you grind your hips in an indulgent swivel. Your walls flutter around them, clenching as the waves of euphoria intoxicate you and you pull away from their throat.

You shudder as you cum, your body trembling with a lust still not quite satiated as you slowly, slowly come down. Desire continues to rock your hips slowly back and forth, hooded eyes watching you readjust while the wounds your fangs left behind heal.

You look into their eyes of golden magma, warmed by the passion in them as they regard you dearly. Licking lips still tainted with blood. "More," you sigh. "I want more."

They hold you closer, eager for your lips as they capture them again, shifting forward and forward still until you lay on your back and they hover over you. "Then more, you shall get."

Thrusting into you again, the sensitive aftershocks of your prior orgasm still sparked inside of you as you relished in the drag. The slow pace that had been set didn't last long as you muttered "more, more, more" under your breath. What had been measured thrusts became an impassioned fucking that had you moaning loudly with each snap of their hips.

They watch as the lust and pleasure flit across your face, guiding hair from your forehead and gliding knuckles over your jaw. "Look at you," they purr, staring at your face as they hold your leg over their waist. It's the fourth time those words have come from their mouth, each time holding more and more tenderness than the last. "My sweet girl, my lonely girl." A rough thrust has them groaning, breaking from their praise to take a hitching breath. "My beautiful girl."

"Desire," you sigh. "You're amazing."

Like the praise delights you, Desire lets out a longing sigh, nearly folding at the sound of it. They moan your name, cradling your neck in one hand and holding you close by your hips with the other as they spear you on their cock, eager to get another release out of you and coax themself toward their own. Desire watches a stray tear that had built in your eye slowly slip down your pretty cheek.

"Such a pretty girl," they purr as they stroke your cheek, careful not to wipe away the tear yet as they watch it slip down, down, down. "Look at you, crying for me like the good girl you are. Loving how I fuck you, loving how I make you feel."

They bend down, their tongue darting out to taste the tear. A tiny breath deepens within their chest as they grin. "Mmm," they sigh. "All the loss and the love and the lust. My poor, lonely, pretty girl."

"Pl-please," you stutter, legs shaking around their waist. "Needa cum so bad."

They hum, "Of course you do, my sweet."

You huff, "Please, my Desire."

They love how you speak to them, how you have such power still even as you whimper and whine beneath them. They love your praise and they love your body and they love your cute little face twisted in pleasure like no other that only they could provide you. They love how they can feel your pleasure, feel how much you crave them, feel how much you crave to please them and be pleased by them.

They can't help whispering "such a perfect girl" as they shake their head in disbelief. You moan when their thumb presses once again to your aching clit, quickly turning up the ecstasy again as you grind against their thrusts.

"Fuck," you sigh. "Yes, yes, Desire."

They keep working at your clit, expert fingers gliding over it as they watch you with a wicked grin. Their hips keep pumping as they speak, "Cum for me, baby. Cum, let it go, let it all go for me. Just for me, my precious."

Your heart swells with too much fondness for their words, translating into the physical and emotional pleasure they fuck into your body. You take in a breath too deep when you finally reach the peak of your ecstasy a third time, cumming harder than before as Desire fucks you through it. Rambles fall from your lips, each word less coherent than the last as the euphoria hunts every nerve in your body until each and every one is prey to lust. You watch through dizzy eyes and listen through fuzzy ears as Desire succumbs to the same pleasure.

A deep moan full of hunger is rough at their throat and it roars. Your name taunts their lips when they press themself inside of you, as deep as they'll go as they spill within your clenching cunt, painting your walls white and filling you with warmth and affection. This pulls a second wave out of you toward the end of your orgasm, not as powerful as the last but just as satiating as they gripped your hip and neck to steady themself.

You watch Desire as they cum inside of you, as fascinated as your hazy mind can be as you look over them. They cum like it's the first time, an all-consuming experience they gain from feeding off of your own release. They're loud, nearly shouting to announce their release and sounding almost as needy as you. They calm just enough to allow their body to relax, almost dropping their weight on top of you as your arms wrap around them.

You hadn't realized until now that you were mumbling their name, a repeated prayer on your lips as your body buzzed with the leftover shocks. As they simmer in the tips of your fingers and toes, you lay there under Desire, still wrapped up in them as you take a moment to take them in. You inhale their intoxicating scent—what was a natural perfume meant to attract and allure others with the smell of sex was now a thousand times stronger, mixing in with something that was uniquely them. You bring your arms around them down to make them lay on you, dropping the rest of their weight and sighing under it like a weighted blanket. They give in, accepting the new position for what it is as they slowly come to.

They take your chin between their fingers and smile. "You are amazing," they mutter with too much emotion. Then they kiss you, a light kiss nothing like the ones before that. You relish in it, in its sweetness, in its strange cruelty.

You let them pamper you, slowly pulling out—much to your dismay as you whine at the cold, empty feeling. Their fingers graze your skin and you sigh and lay there and breathe. They call you sweet names and you enjoy the aftercare as they give it with a warm cloth and kisses alike.

As they're finishing, you raise a hand to their cheek, cupping it and easing them back in bed with you, over you. You smooth your thumb over their cheek, biting your bottom lip as you stare. You stare at their golden eyes full of a million desires. You stare at their red lips, still painted like blood and not even a tad smeared as they should be. You stare at their white hair, messy and all the more beautiful along their head and face.

Your thumb strokes their cheek. Lost in your own thoughts, in your own mind, you begin to smile as your heart swells with that same amount of excessive fondness as before. You swallow the lump in your throat and blink away the tears you refuse to acknowledge.

"Desire," you whisper. Too soft.

They hum tentatively, fingers moving so their knuckles graze over your collarbone. You sigh gently, shaking your head even gentler.

"You're beautiful."

They want to say something funny, something quick-witted. But the words freeze on their tongue as they gaze into you and your tear-glazed eyes. They swallow thickly, unsure of why staring so long was beginning to turn fire to an ember in their blood, their tongue mush in their mouth.

"Thank you, lovely."

You both lay there, your bodies slotted together as you enjoy the other's body pressing against your own. Breaking the silence, you murmur, "Did you know it would be you?"

A pause. A slow, silent sigh. A nod. "Yes," they say just as quietly.

You consider that a moment, never tearing your eyes from their face. "Why?"

They take a moment, face as soft as a feather. They lean forward, lips lingering near yours as you stay barely an inch from the other. The tip of their nose brushes yours and your eyes flutter.

They lean a little closer still, turning their head just slightly as your foreheads press together, your eyes closing and your shallow breaths teasing sensitive skin. Their voice washes over you with a type of grief you know all too well.

"We are endless, my dear…but everyone ends."

You sigh, opening your eyes and slowly moving to sit up. Desire pulls you back into their lap in a straddle, holding you there by your backside as you wrap your legs around them. You slot your arms over their shoulders, gazing for another long, quiet moment, and leaning forward for another kiss. Too tender.

Lips brush and press and reciprocate the newfound peace and care that has grown between you in a matter of hours, ignited by a spell made of love. Your fingers gently card through their hair, fiddling with a lock of snow white, even as you pull away and look at them again.

You smile, licking your bottom lip between your teeth and sighing. "Thank you," you murmur, almost as though you were promising the world.

They smile back at you, not as scandalous as they had been before. "Thank you."

The Sandman taglist: @poetic-fiasco @the-nerdy-goddess @life-on-needs @fanreader @jamiethenerdymonster @sarahbullet235 @majestyjade @melinoe-the-rat @katsukis1wife @sugakookieswithacupoftae16 @hatterripper31 @kplatzman @kmc1989 @thegen3sisark

[generalluxun]

Why do you like Sabrina from mlb she's a minor character what traits did she have that made you have her as your profile picture?

First of all I general like minor characters. I'm a writer and so taking a character and exploring them is a lot of fun!

For Sabrina herself, she's an underdog. She's the girl the credits are talking about. All love to Marinette but Marinette is not a 'normal girl with a normal life.' Even without the miraculous she's a multi-talented prodigy, daughter to one of the top bakers in Paris, moves in famous circles, and even her clumsiness is only for comedy moments. When it comes down to it she's every bit as competent as anyone else physically.

Meanwhile Sabrina's just the daughter of a police officer, dorky, actually kinda clumsy at times, and while she's studious she's not the ultra genius(that's Max). Her most outstanding trait is her loyalty, which I find really endearing. Loyalty can be a double edged sword, and we get to see that in Sabrina! Even her strengths are something that provide challenges in her life.

I decided to write a fic with her in it(The Helpers, see my AO3) and that expanded my thoughts on her as a character. I gave her some further hobbies, but very teen hobbies. She doesn't make furniture like Marinette, instead she collects figurines, she assembles model kits, she pays videogames but she likes single player story-driven games, she plays the ocarina(not very well) because she likes Legend of Zelda, she plays the recorder(better) because it's the quintessential geek-school instrument. (I wrote this years before the movie came out) I found her earnest desire to help, and her being unaccustomed to attention were very endearing. Luka did too. 🤣

Later I wrote a one shot with her and Adrien in it(Puppy Love, on my AO3), just to see how it would go. I loved it! Adribrina are adorable! The way they both listen and go out of their way for each other while expecting nothing in return was so cute. Also, their moments were very teen, not melodramatic. Gentle exploration, a little childish at times, but always sincere and warm. They PUN together!

This led to me writing a longer chapter fic based on the setup in the one shot. (Dog Daze, on my AO3) This fic expanded on the two of them. Amusingly- it was originally intended to end in Adrienette, with Sabrina deciding to play wingman for Marinette's sake. However as it was going along a very real difference came out.

Marinette brings anxiety to Adrien. It's not entirely her fault! Set post-Risk she has a LOT of stress! Even on top of her ADRIEN issues, she's got all of Ladybug's problems. The poor girl is overworked. So whenever she got close to Adrien, she would panic and he would see this. Despite trying to reach out to her (No, he wasn't 'in love' yet but he cared for her) Adrien kept seeing how he seemed to stress her out, and how his life would stress her out even more. (Canon conveniently evaporates his life to cheat around this) Marinette's a ROMANTIC which is fine! but she puts a lot of expectations on love, and on a relationship. It's one-and-done HAPPILY EVER AFTER with pink bubbles and 3 hamsters and 9 kids, etc.

Conversely when Adrien was hanging out with Sabrina it was an island of calm. There were no expecations, no requirements, and it was a lot more of realizing they were *already* a couple late after the fact. Sabrina very much was *not* trying to invade Adrien's life or pin him down to anything, and in S5 territory, that is a blessing. (Gabriel was still a jerk though)

So, yeah. That's some of it? She's fun! Adribrina are my goobers. It's a comfort ship and they make me happy.

They fall asleep in blanket nests. They took turns sliding down his half-pipe in stocking feet. They watch anime. Plagg being so proud the first time Adrien snuck Sabrina into his room (and out the next morning when they fell asleep accidently)

How could you not like her?

[dapper-lil-arts]

Any tips for an amateur writer? I've been writing a pmd:eos fic series on ao3 that's been getting praise, but I still feel inexperienced

Yooo pokemon mistery dungeon explorers of sky? Hell yeah best pokemon game to make fanfic of, easily. its an absolute BANGER Ok i got a few pieces of advice for ya, i don't mind sharing! 1 - One of the most important ones for me personaly, is to know and understand yourself and your own style of writing. By what i mean its like; you get an idea for a story, or a concept. But knowing your writing style, your capability to write scenes, and even the characters in question, do you KNOW that you can write this story? Its actually pretty important; Because writing takes up a LOT of time and effort, and if you just start blanking halfway into it, you'll have wasted so much time with a story that you don't exactly know how to do. I personaly have so many ideas, but i only execute on the ones that i am aware i can work on, and would know where to take, even if the idea is small. (For example, i had an idea for writing a fic of rarijack but only when theyre older, after the events of FIM. I started writing immediately because i knew exactly that i could do it; and am already 25 pages in and might finish today, heh) 2 - Write horizontaly, not verticaly. by that i mean; don't start at the beginning and work from there, consider all of your story's structure before you even start, act 1, 2, and 3, and its most pivotal moments. Much like you would sketch a drawing before lining and coloring, its important as hell that you are planning all your setups and payofss in advance, all of the arcs and character progression in tandum and stuff. This applies well to the first advice too! Don't be afraid to make an ugly ass sketch of a story, as long as youre aware that this is indeed a story you can make. Make the skeleton before adding the meat, and only after do you add the makeup. And as you write, more ideas will come to you! 3 - This one is more for my own, personal taste, but never be afraid of writing multigenre! By that like. If you're writing romance, dont be afraid to put action, if you're writing drama, dont be afraid to put a moment of comedy here and there; stories are infinitely more interesting when they're not just one note, not just a single tone! And the readers would absolutely be delighted on having moments of respite or shock, it keeps them on their toes. 4 - This one is hard to execute, and i cant give examples that arent long, but like. None of your scenes and sequences should be just what they are in the surface. Like; A character knows something that the other doesnt, or the audience knows something that neither character knows, or the underlying conflict is constantly clashing silently. A short example i can give is a scene in on of my fics in which a character was being asked about her past, and she spoke ernestly, but every once in a while i'd add a "She lied" after the information she provided; And i didn't need to add anything else, that in itself is enough for the audience to understand and consider why this character is doing what shes doing, and just that simple little thing added an really interesting layer to the simple conversation. Essentialy, there's no reason why a conversation should *just* be a conversation in your stories, and there is no reason why you should have filler for the sake of it. Pacing is important, and you can make every single scene and chapter on your story interesting, nothing stops you but you! The "She lied" thing is specialy important, because you don't have to treat your audience like babies. I didn't explain why she lied, because if any reader was paying attention, they'd understand completely, everything would simply click. A character can sometimes say something, and all you need to do is write the tone of their voice, and the reader can already connect the dots, or even something as simple as describing a facial expression or body language without explaining why it is what it is; It makes your story more engaging! I have a million other advice, but i felt like these were the most important ones i specificaly could provide. Good luck!

[iinryer]

tell me about the self indulgent boxing fic!!! <3

self indulgent boxing fic by BELOVED!! it’s self indulgent because i box and this fucking show has given me multiple characters doing combat sports for various reasons. so i took that sandbox for a spin lol

it’s relatively chill, not an au or anything, but the concept was maddie inviting eddie to come to the gym with her one afternoon when buck is busy. the other half of the self indulgence is i get a to be so in the weeds with terms and processes and stupid shit like that. it’s delightful (to ME). but yeah. the setup is a vessel for me to talk about boxing, and the boxing is a vessel for maddie and eddie to explore some problems and issues and to have some conversations about the ways they understand each other <3 it’s actually nearly finished so if I could ever kick my own ass into gear, it’s not too much of a far fetched dream lol, here’s the opening scene:

—

It’s just after one in the afternoon when Eddie’s phone buzzes loudly across from where he’s folding laundry on the dining room table. He sighs, tossing the threadbare sleep shirt back into the basket and reaches over the mountain of dryer-warm towels to grab it before the call rings out.

His stomach drops and cold fear zips down his spine when he sees the name lighting up his screen.

Maddie Buckley calling…

He almost sends the phone flying into the basket too as he scrambles to connect the call and bring it up to his ear. Without preamble, he blurts out, “Is he okay?”

There’s a inhale and a series of cut-off sounds before surprised laughter fills Eddie’s ear. He immediately deflates and lets out a (frankly, mortifyingly) relieved huff.

“Wow, okay,” Maddie says, a smile in her voice, “apparently we need to talk more if that was your first thought,”

“I guess so,” Eddie says with an embarrassed laugh, rubbing at his jaw, “uh—hey. Hi. What’s up?”

“Well, first of all, unless something happened in the two minutes since I got off the phone with him, I promise you that my danger-magnet little brother is doing just fine with his pickup shift,” Maddie snorts, “second of all, said pickup shift is sort of the reason I’m calling, but not about Buck,”

Eddie—confused and intrigued, but still in the process of willing his adrenaline-charged heartbeat to calm down—can only hum in question as he pulls out a chair to sit down.

“I’m not sure if he told you, but we’ve been trying to box again?” she continues, an edge of apprehension peeking through for the first time since Eddie picked up, “I was hoping to rope him into going today because you guys were off but…”

“He picked up half of Dante’s 24,” Eddie finishes, understanding that part but not so much the part where— “so you decided to… call me?”

Maddie laughs again, bright and a little sheepish, “Well, Mr. Illegal-Street-Fighting, I wanted to see if you’d like to come show me some moves,”

Now it’s Eddie’s turn to bark out a startled laugh. He can’t even find it in himself to feel weird or ashamed, there’s just something so warm in the way Maddie says it. Familiar and sisterly.

He can‘t lie to himself and say he isn’t surprised by the offer, the two of them haven’t really spent one-on-one time together. They’ve got their entire support system in common, sure, but they’d been ships in the night at the call center, and Eddie was back at the 118 just before Maddie returned.

To be fair, it was probably only a matter of time before the two of them found themselves overlapping more. The boxing invite is a surprise, but everything else about it somehow feels inevitable.

He shakes his head fondly in the direction of his pile of nearly finished laundry and doesn’t even try to tamp down on his incredulous grin, “You know what? Yeah, why not,”

[dpsisquared]

6 (although I think I already know the answer :P), 10, 20!

6. What character do you have the most fun writing?

Other than Dimileth, lol... certainly Sylvain, particularly teasing Dimitri. He's just The Guy that says what the audience wants to say. And there's always an undercurrent of "I'm being an ass cause that's my gimmick but I do actually care underneath all this smarmy bs".

Lately I've been writing Flayn more and she is fun too. Her stage notes are basically "how would an overexcited puppy react to this?" Lol. Petra as well because she is usually dropping some knowledge but you have to really analyze your sentence structure and word choice but keep that same message.

10. How would you describe your writing process?

Utter chaos. Anarchy.

But more seriously, GRR Martin has a quote about "gardening" writing style, where you start with a small seed of an idea and let it grow on its own which is exactly what I do. I have never outlined a fic or even known where it was headed when starting. For example with my ongoing fic rn, I didn't start out thinking "I'm going to write a regency au with a count of monte Cristo type revenge arc". A conversation popped into my head where there was a party at some palace where a few women were talking about Kronya's body being found just outside. I just liked the contrast. Then I thought, oh the gossiping seems regency-ish. Then, I have to ask myself questions to fill in the blanks- who killed her and why? Dimitri-- but how do they not know that? He's hiding his identity-- ok then who do they think he is? What would have had to happen to make that plausible? Etc etc etc, eventually a setting and plot come together. This is why my longer fics are usually complete by the time I start posting. Because the beginning setup usually comes last 😅

Unfortunately this leaves a lot of unfinished WIPs with 1-2k words written in one sitting and abandoned 🫠 Sometimes I come back weeks, months, or even a year later and finish them, sometimes not.

20. Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?)

Hmmmm not sure if this counts, but I always try to keep Dimitri and Byleth's relationship balanced. I don't ever want it to be "woman with no personality of her own saves complicated man". I try to show how he has done a lot for her too 💙💙💙

A random thing I do for Byleth is reevaluate any dialogue that has her saying more than two sentences without pause. Almost always I will cut it down if that's the case, unless she is relaying an event or something unemotional like that.

[mantisgodsdomain]

Once again we return to Old Faithful Format (discord conversation transfer so we don't have to write things out in a post in a more coherent manner). This time about Scarlet. Transcript below cut.

Mantis God: Problems on purpose!!! Problems on purpose!!! Mildly off topic but we think Scarlet's the kind of guy where, like. He'll say or do Literally Anything if he thinks that it'll benefit him or get him out of a situation and it'll absolutely bite him in the ass if he hangs around somewhere for too long because that setup means he's absolutely willing to, like. Flip sides on a whim and eternally denounce something he was singing the praises of five minutes ago if he thinks it'll get him somewhere

Lavender: Yeahhh He's such a guy

Mantis God: He's a good actor but he's the sort of chameleon that personalizes his persona to whoever he's dealing with and it gets really obvious if he ever gets put in a situation where he has to juggle conflicting personas Guy of all time tbh we love him very much

Lavender: Yeeeee If I ever write him I'm sure I'll have a grand time In a similar vein to how I'm writing Hunter rn like "would he fucking say that?? no. no surely not. …but maybe???"

Mantis God: Scarlet is so fun to write But admittedly we're biased He's great because he has. Literally seven lines of dialogue total in the game and he chameleons enough in those seven lines that as long as you get the right cadence he'll, like. Always scan correctly.

Lavender: Whereas Hunter has probably more samples of his character voice than probably any other character in Hollowed Aight and we get plenty of his perspective on prey but no examples of him talking TO prey so I'm struggling

Mantis God: Antisocial

Lavender: I feel like I'm making him sound too much like a stereotypical villain

Mantis God: Tilt him around a bit rewrite the scene We suggest trying, like. Write it bad then go over it and see where it comes apart Then do it again better

Lavender: Probably a good idea

Mantis God: …it's how we pull like half of our fic & scenarios fhdkfjdf We're very good at figuring out where failure points are and we then just try and avoid them in our own work He's great because he has. Literally seven lines of dialogue total in the game and he chameleons enough in those seven lines that as long as you get the right cadence he'll, like. Always scan correctly.

Mantis God: We've seen some really badass and skilled and, like. Actually Malicious And Predatory Scarlets out there but honestly that doesn't scan super well to us specifically if only because, like. Scarlet has VERY little in means of motivation for killing people, so if you don't fill that gap he'll feel flat, and a lot of people who do Genuinely Malicious Scarlet don't… do that? He's not killing people for a reason, per se, he's just, like, a Semi-Generic serial killer dude, and generally if they go into him needing to gather life force it's more treated as, like. Stores? He's got a decent supply and just kills to supplement that or, like, save up, without really going into anything like "what happens when he runs out" we are ofc superior in this regard because we like cornering him like an animal

Lavender: Make him quite literally fight for his got damb life

Mantis God: But, uhh, the general cadence usually swings more towards confidence and security in his skills, giving him that aura of, like. Distinct Power, if that makes sense? Same set of tools that often get used for people like the Wasp King. A power fantasy sort of cadence. He's in charge and he knows it and he could beat your ass And though that's all well and good, we like to tinker more with… resourcefulness, we suppose? He's smart and strong and cunning, because he kind of needs to be to keep himself out of range of the cops for that long, but we don't tend to have that… security? We mean, the guy lives in a cave with no worldly possessions but the clothes on his back and One (1) book. He doesn't exactly have a safety net to… allow for that sort of confidence?

Lavender: Lmao yeah He's sure good a Faking Everything though !

Mantis God: He's REALLY good at faking everything, and it fools the audience as well. But he's still, uhh. He's living in a cave and hiding behind a stick. Not really the finest of accommodations and definitely not the sort of thing that gives that self-assurance. It's a persona, almost definitely, and the way he turns on a dime from faux-nice to faux-confidence kind of just… hammers that in?

Lavender: He's a guy with nothing to lose! Except his life. And he would really quite like to keep that please and thank you- And freedom I suppose

Mantis God: Though the actually confident and self-assured Scarlets are fun to toy with having to scavenge to survive and live paycheck-to-paycheck can have some VERY long-lasting effects on your brain especially when it comes to, like, budgeting resources and such, and a lot of the depictions here act like… a guy who has fallbacks? And he doesn't, really. It's plan A or nothing because if he's caught, he's done for.

Lavender: Hhhh yep

Mantis God: Something something class gap or whatever we're very conscious of this because we have eight hundred thousand hours research looking into shit and as it turns out your circumstances impact your mindset and you will act differently depending on external positions Unfortunately it's also really hard to articulate this without either Eight Trillion Words or saying shit like "he acts like someone with a house and a refrigerator but he has neither of those things"

Lavender: The latter does articulate it very well Note that I am reading all this in fascination and also agreement I just don't know how to express that much

Mantis God: Scarlet's an incredibly fun character to handle because he's got that specific set of circumstances where changing things even a bit can dramatically change his circumstances but the people writing him do him very, uhh. Middle-class? Which strikes as off to us, because a lot of what draws us to Scarlet is the fact that he very much has the motivation to lie and cheat and do anything he damn well can to end up on top, because pretty much anything he tries is gonna wind up being a zero-sum game.

Lavender: He comes pre-packaged with Circumstances and you can Do Things to these circumstances to see how be reacts

Mantis God: It just feels a bit… more dull, we suppose? To make him someone who can simply stop and chooses not to, because if you play him as, like, someone who could simply Not Do That at any time and is just evil for fun, then it feels like you lose a bit of something.

Lavender: Yeah, makes him more two-dimensional …..in a metaphorical sense of course One-dimensional

Mantis God: You've got a character here who could be brought to care for someone so deeply it hurts and still have to leave them behind and betray them because his very life depends on his capacity to stab people in the back for the sake of his own skin

Lavender: Ah yes, the Painge

Mantis God: Selfish means very different things if you have Something compared to having Nothing, is what we're saying. And Scarlet's very, very selfish, but in the very specific way that you get when you grow up having few enough resources to need to hoard.

Lavender: No yeah exactly Not for fun, debatably for profit, mostly just for survival

Mantis God: We know he's got like no canonical motivation besides "he kills people" but given canon evidence there's only like two possibilities for the Reason for that because unlike almost everyone else who Kills People he has no special cause or conviction or even, like, firm code of conduct, he just goes for. Literally anyone who answers his requests. Either he's Like That For No Reason or he's doing the exact same thing any other hungry ambush predator does and honestly the second one is far more interesting

Lavender: Love to give him motivations and depth!! Take this paper binch and make his actions comprehensible!!

Mantis God: We are holding him like a purse dog and making him grapple with horrors

Lavender: It is far more interesting than just another villain who exists for you to fight and get rewarded for it put him through the horrors

Mantis God: MORE horrors He's very fun to tinker with bc like all of his motivation can be boiled down to the same handful of Needs Of Life you see on, like, those goddamn basic needs pyramids And as such we can put him in basically any situation ever because he'll do fucking to slightly extend his life

[bard-llama]

ATLA WiP List: Shippy Fics

So, yesterday I did a list of all my unpublished gen fics and it came out to 73. Let's see how much bigger the list gets with unpublished shippy fics.

Zukaang Fics - non-smut

Our Love Become a Funeral Pyre - In his dreams, Zuko is someone else, someone who lives a life he much prefers. Someone who has a best friend who is an airbender named Aang. Someone who falls in love with Aang, even though Aang’s not real. How could he be? He’s a figment of Zuko’s imagination.

Gay Bar - outsider POVs of two weird kids who come to a gay bar in Ba Sing Se to hang out

Fluffy Zukaang at the Sun Warriors' Island - Zuko practices on the terrrace of the room the Sun Warriors gave them and Aang is enthralled.

“My heart feels like it’s dancing when I look at you.” - Zuko thinks there's something wrong with him. As he tells Aang about his symptoms, Aang wonders how the hell he's supposed to tell Zuko that he's maybe in love with Aang.

Fealty - now that Zuko is Fire Lord, Aang pulls him away from celebration to pledge himself to Zuko - but Zuko beats him to the punch

Pampering Zuko - Aang and Zuko ran into each other in Ba Sing Se and ended up dating. After a while, Aang managed to convince Zuko to take a holiday, so to speak, and come to a private retreat with him where they can be together without a time limit. Now he gets to lather Zuko with affectionate touches.

Treasure (sequel to Pearl) - when Zuko first took the Gaang diving, Aang discovered a black pearl. Now, he's decided how to give it to Zuko.

“I’m in love with your voice.” - Aang wakes up all tied up in the North Pole and ends up talking with Zuko. Zuko is baffled at how this is turning out. He's never just had a conversation with the Avatar before.

Blue Spirit x Avatar Aang - Aang and Zuko both know that people will be weird about them being together. So they hide it. But when a kid asks if Aang is dating the Blue Spirit during open audience, they have an idea - which ends up leading to the next open audience day, where everyone and their mother comforts Zuko that true love will out and that vigilante is no good anyway. Zuko is frustrated.

“We need to stop dancing around it. All it does is hurt us both!” - Aang dreams about his pursuer a lot more than is probably right. But it's just idle fantasizing, and as his enemy, Zuko is safer than Katara to dream about. But when he wakes up at the North Pole in Zuko's arms, he assumes that he's dreaming and kisses the Fire Nation Prince, who is shocked, but responds. Only turns out, it's not a dream and suddenly there's a fight and then he has to save the spirits. So even once Zuko is no longer his enemy, they avoid talking about it until they can't anymore.

“I can’t stop thinking about you. When I wake up, when I’m about to fall asleep…” - Zuko is haunted by Aang and doesn't know what to do about it. Aang has a few ideas.

Soulmate Potential - there are no preassigned soulmates. Anyone has the potential to be your soulmate, and if you happen to click with them, you can build that bond yourself. Your soulmate could be anyone - including your enemy.

Crystal Catacombs - okay admittedly, this was supposed to be the setup for Zuko's POV of same side sex, but so far, they haven't actually reached the same side.

Author Zuko: Blue Spirit/Avatar Aang - a new play comes out about the Blue Spirit and Avatar Aang. A new romantic play. Aang is not impressed. Zuko, meanwhile, is acting a little shifty.

Zuko writes about the Fire Lord and Avatar’s Bond Thru Time - Zuko writes a book/paper/whatever about the clear bond between the Fire Lord and the Avatar. He did not think to tell the Avatar that he was doing this.

Zukaang Fics - smut

Rope Burns - 2 times Aang was roughly burned by rope and one time he asks Zuko to tie him up

Shirtless Sparring - Aang and Zuko spar shirtlessly during training

Airbender Blow Jobs - airbender lung capacity makes for great blowjobs

Zuko blows Aang while Katara watches - inspired by this art, Katara walks in on Zuko and Aang and Zuko makes a show of it.

Aang Approaching Zuko Morning After - after running into Zuko at Pao's Teashop in Ba Sing Se and ending up spending time together, Aang returns to the teashop to see if he can have what he actually wants. Encountering Zuko's Uncle was not part of the plan.

Dreams/Nightmares - when Sokka recommends that Aang picture the bad guys in his nightmares not wearing any pants, his dream about Zuko attacking him takes an unexpected turn.

First Kiss/First Time - when Zuko kisses him out of nowhere, Aang panicks and runs away. Zuko assumes this means he ruined everything. It's left to Mai to force Aang to come back and make them actually talk.

Pao’s Teashop Office Sex - when Aang coming to Pao's teashop leads to unexpected sex, Zuko breaks into his boss' office to use his couch, just because.

Sexytimes – Voyeurism - upon request, Aang pins Zuko with earthbending and makes him watch what the thought of him watching does to Aang

PWP Genderbent Aang picks up Zuko without Zuko knowing - there's no logic to this, it's just what it says on the tin

Identity Porn - Aang doesn't know who the Blue Spirit is. That does not stop him from picking up the mysterious vigilante when they run into each other in Ba Sing Se. Zuko doesn't know what to think.

Other Ships

Zuko navigating 10 (billion) relationships - aka Zuko is involved with literally EVERYONE and they figure out how to share lol

Zutaraang - Aang gets all hot and bothered watching Katara and Zuko spar. They find this very concerning until they figure out why he's all flushed and flustered.

Zutaraang Lap Sex - Katara decides to make a move that lets them all have what they want - she can have Aang, Zuko can also have Aang, and Aang can have them both, like he clearly wants. Win-Win, even if she's not such a big fan of Zuko.

Aang loves his friends - eh, this might actually be gen, but kinda started out about Zukaang, and may go towards the whole Gaang together??? Idk

Katara and Aang decide to pursue Zuko - post-canon, Aang approaches Katara to talk about polyamory, because to the Air Nomads, him loving Zuko as well was no big deal, but to other nations, it could be. Katara needs some time to think about it.

Everyone is in love with Zuko: He catches a clue - Zuko confesses to his wife that he's in love with his friends - to which she responds "oh, you finally figured it out? Good job."

I Still Dream About You - Gaang/Zuko where for his 30th bday or so, they all get wasted. His memories of that night are a little iffy, but he definitely remembers Aang kissing him and the others watching him. He dreams about it a lot. Meanwhile, the rest of the Gaang misses him and looks fondly back on their memories.

Sparring for who gets to take Aang - Zuko and Katara take sparring very seriously. Aang doesn't get what the big deal it.

An Arrangement for World Peace - Toph and Zuko get married. For world peace. The Gaang is shocked.

Toko S3 Hookup - a series of encounters that start when Zuko accidentally walks in on Toph, who's swearing up a storm bc her earthbended dildo just broke. Zuko makes himself useful.

The Southern Waterbending Line - Zuko's maybe a little bit jealous of Katara and Aang getting married, but the important thing is that they know what they're getting into. Which leads to a conversation about bending genetics and what their kids could end up being - and a question of where Katara's waterbending came from.

Zuko is not in touch with his emotions - Mai and Ty Lee sit Zuko down and force him through some therapy to help him recognize that he's in love with his friends.

38 total! See, that's not so bad! I mean, in total total, that would be 73 + 38 = 111, which is.... kinda high, but at least it's a nice number!

[aranarumei]

your fairy tail posts got me into it, so I gotta ask: favorite ships?

um. my condolences? well i'm joking—despite my critiques of it i still love the thing dearly and am extremely fond of a lot of the characters. I hope you’ve had fun with it too! as for ships... my tastes have changed over the years while also not? i've become really into like. friendships lately, yknow, or things where the dynamic between the two is more important than it being strictly platonic of romantic. so I would say i'm open to a lot of them. as for the ones i tend to go for, they tend to be like. super conventional. whatever i was into years ago, but now i just have a lot of extra headcanons about it. the thing for me is that a lot of the "big" fairy tail ships have like. really good setup, and shoddy execution. also this got long bc I rambled. sorry

i like natsu & lucy because i want them to be best friends and sometimes being best friends is a romance as well... and that starts out really strong in canon until it gets dragged on into just. bad fanservice. like i dont need natsu to see lucy when she's naked. i want them to have an emotional conversation or just work together as a team.

i like gray & juvia a lot, which i know is contentious, but i think they have a genuinely great setup (juvia's someone who's got wild ideas about love, and immediately falls for this guy, who's not into her at all but is also just a better person than any romantic attachments she's had before, and then she's figuring out herself and her place in fairy tail over time. the first two big juvia moments the show has after her fight is when she does a unison raid with lucy and when she refuses to fight cana. her initial feelings towards gray are also... quite shy? like she definitely does follow him around a bit but i think half of that is bc she wants to join fairy tail) and then it just doesn’t resolve well (over time she gets more pushy in a way that reads as jokey but is also uncomfortable, and her character kind of stops being about anything but gray) I’d love to see a version of gray & juvia where gray’s non-interest in her is actually beneficial for her, because she’s not rushing into something with high, perhaps fragile emotions, and she gets to grow as someone outside of gray, and juvia’s protectiveness of gray is done in a way where she’s not pushing him to like her, but rather protecting him just because that’s what someone who loves him would do. this is great for juvia, and also great for gray, who probably could use having someone to check in on him every once in a while. bring them into being seriously friends without pushing romance, and then we could maybe try a romance. it would be slow burn as hell. it would be delightful and entirely to my taste. I have so many wips abt this.

related to that, I like juvia a lot so gajeel & juvia’s relationship as well as lucy & juvia’s relationship is really fun to me. gajeel and juvia especially I would loveeee to dive into their friendship. I think they have a shared experience in phantom lord but also weren’t friends at the time and had a lot of different things going on, so it’s neat that they are still like. looking out for each other because of that past.

jellal & erza have great setup, it’s amazing drama and I think it just. works. completely. after the 7-year timeskip I think it loses some steam, and then it never really recovers in terms of having a sense of weight and depth. I am nonetheless fond of it.

what else… I am really into sting/rogue, I’ve got a fic for that one, and I like freed/laxus a lot, too. I’ll be the first to admit that in canon, freed & laxus don’t have that many meaningful interactions (freed is obsessed with him in a sort of like. comical unrequited crush way bc haha, gay people) and laxus cares for everyone in the raijinshuu pretty equally it feels. However. the initial arc? the fantasia arc? I think the raijinshuu are at their best there, and I wish they had gotten developed into smthing more interesting. once again I have a lot of headcanons.

i think gajeel & levy probably has the smoothest execution of any relationship, but kind of wish levy's character had a bit... More to her? like she's very smart but lucy also tends to do a lot of the smart stuff, and she knows runes but freed is clearly the runes guy, and i just wish we could've gotten more than that? I’ve been messing around with headcanons relating to her recently…

that’s the thing with a lot of fairy tail ships. I think a lot of the character relationships have really interesting ways of looking at them bc there’s just so many characters I like. like I think gray & erza’s relationship is really neat. I wish we’d gotten to see more of gray & cana as friends… it’s so cool that gray & loke are friends to the point that he’s the guy he picks for S-class trials… I like lucy & loke’s relationship a lot (like, the fact he joins gray for those trials is a display of how free he is even while she has his key, and also the loke mini-arc is one of my all time favs). I love the deal with the whole strauss siblings and would’ve been interested in seeing freed & mira interact some more. I don’t really care about it in canon but I think elfman & evergreen is actually a really interesting setup, since they’ve both got this sense of… vanity about them? (evergreen wants to be titania, queen of the fairies, and elfman valorizes manliness. there’s interesting places to take that!). raijinshuu friendship, I’m really into that, like, laxus feels like such a Solo guy and yet he willingly carts around a team with him, and also everyone in that team have kind of freaky eye powers, as far as I can tell. what’s that about. did u upturn your nose at fairy tail’s misfit guild while hanging with a misfit crew? it's a team that characterizes laxus well… I know he’s technically not Part of the raijinshuu team but Cmon he literally is.

all that to say. you could probably sell me on a lot of ships. but natsu/lucy, gray/juvia, sting/rogue, and freed/laxus are probablyyyy the ones I think about most and actively write for (and don’t publish LOL. I need to actually finish one of these things, but the issue is I’ve built so many headcanons I feel weird abt it sometimes. I would loveeee to talk abt them sometime tho)

but even saying that, a lot of the stuff I write reads very ambiguously platonic, so like. if I got sold on something, I’d probably get into it.

anyways anon ty for the question! i love chatting

[jamiesfootball]

7, 18, and/or 28 for whatever fic you want!

This got super long so I'm putting it under a cut

7. How did you decide what character(s) would narrate the fic?

Fic chosen: the one that makes you sick

This one came to me in pieces. Usually when I'm figuring out who's going to narrate, the choice is driven by how the plot presents itself when the story is first taking shape. In this case, Keeley's pov is the one that came to me first as the one watching things unravel in Brazil with Jamie. Shortly after I began writing that, Roy's pov closed in as the person who Knows what happened to Jamie in Amsterdam. Jamie texting him from Brazil wasn't in the original game plan, but it filled itself in as Roy grew to have more reason to believe that something had gone wrong. From there, Jamie's pov extended itself naturally as the person experiencing everything. Once I had that, the flashbacks to how we got to that point layered in, and the story in its entirety snapped into shape.

Looking over my fics, I actually don't use multiple narrators that often within one story. If I do, they're usually broken into chapters or parts. So this was an interesting exercise for me

18. Talk about your editing and revision process

Fic chosen: Oh God You're Gonna Get It (You Have Not Been Given Love)

I've mentioned before that the editing process for this one is extensive, but this one is really just a souped up version of my usual editing process.

Rereading

I am a very non-linear writer, so the first thing I try to do is reread everything and make sure I didn't completely forget to write a section. When I'm blocked on a transition, I will usually leave myself a note in [brackets] so that I can easily find that section later and fill it out. I'll also bold sections that I don't think are particularly well-written so that I can come back and fix those too. Fixing those are my main obstacle, so to help resolve things:

Highlighting

I have two highlighting methods, one for narration and one for dialogue. For narration, the goal is to switch to a different color highlighter every time there's a big idea change. This helps me find what I call 'floating ideas', which are either an idea that's gotten separated from its topic paragraph and needs to be moved, or a new idea that I've introduced without setup or resolution - essentially, fluff that doesn't serve a purpose and can be cut.

For dialogue, the goal is literally to only highlight the dialogue itself. None of the dialogue tags, movements, details, etc. Only the words. This helps me focus on how the words flow as a conversation. This is also useful for visually identifying if I've gotten too verbose between dialogue beats.

Audio

When in doubt, I use one of those voice robot things to read everything back to me. This is good for picking out the overall flow and rhythm of the words. It's also useful for finding typos after I've reread something a hundred times.

The next chapter of OGYGGI(YHNBGL) is currently on the audio phase for the first 4 scenes, and on the highlighter phase for the final scene, which is a beast.

28. Write a new summary for the fic, but badly

this one was hard so I did a couple

The Dick String Incident - Local team would rather tie strings around their dicks than even consider asking their boss to repeat himself

Oh God You're Gonna Get It (You Have Not Been Given Love) - how much therapy can one man cram into summer break

You're Gonna Go Far, Kid - what if life isn't a finite story you can win but instead an infinite series of decisions that gently shape your future when you're not looking? and also you made bad decisions with yorkshire pudding?

Muzzled - two traumas for the price of one muzzle while the author attempts to reverse engineer a ransom/hostage situation

Loosely Tangled - how many people can I have touch Jamie's hair in one story (answer: about 9)

[eneiryu]

This might not be much of a permanent injury but that ask made me think of how Theo might deal with actually developing a heart problem. Maybe it starts with a classic vs. hunter or vs. supernatural of the week and something goes through/tears up his heart and it heals but not correctly (So then it starts as more of an injury rather than a heart condition because the symptoms are from his heart trying to heal but it can't?).

I think there's a good amount to explore character wise with how he would react to abnormal heartbeats or how he might ignore it thinking maybe he was just mentally rattled from the attack.  Things like palpitations can make you feel like you're having an anxiety attack until you sort of actually have one about it. Other abnormalities can feel like someone is squeezing your heart or your heart just actually stops for a bit. Since Theo is someone who has a lot of control over his heartbeat and went through a series of events where his heart was literally grabbed and taken from his chest, that might lead him to try to address the problem alone first.  It's also something he can't really hide so there's room to talk about how the people around him would pick up on it and maybe see it as a physical problem that needs addressed probably well before he does. 

Additionally, the person I know who has a pacemaker jokes about being part machine and that could be another aspect that's interesting to explore with Theo if there needs to be a more permanent fix for his heart. There are a lot of in-universe things that sort of make this rough, like I'm sure getting electrocuted by hunters at a high voltage isn't exactly pacemaker friendly, but maybe it's a catch all dread doctor tech version that's more robust?

As sort of an additional thing since I'm thinking about this now, It might be interesting if what happened was Theo jumping in to save Scott (as opposed to Liam being the one he's always saving). But its still early on in the post war scene so Theos not around the pack as much/the older pack leave for college so he really just doesn't consider going to anyone about it and its Liam who gradually catches onto it.  I think that might be a pretty good setup for the classic Scott and Theo conversations you write where Scott eventually comes back and realizes he might consider Theo as pack without question but Theo hasn't caught on.  Also a good setup for the internal struggle Theo has about self worth that you capture really well.

I didn't mean to go on for this long but maybe that's an idea that combines the sort of hurt/healing aspect of the cabin fic with some elements from your longer Theo POV works so there's more background to it?

Yes, all of this yes (also thanks for the compliments on my writing sprinkled in there 😊). The idea of Theo not only having to deal with a permanent (or at least long-term) illness/injury, but with a heart injury? There is a lot there. I am absolutely going to write this at some point, so thank you for the inspiration!

[scham-wcan]

Sure, I’ll bite (Got a little Wingy)

So to start off small and a little bat patty, I am most proud of the dialogue in some of my fics. Not the large unending speeches or elaborate lore, the side babble and the jokes. It is part of the reason I had listed some parts of the story as a comedy or dark comedy, it is very macabre in parts, but the wit has always been some of my favourite things to write. This is mainly because I just genuinely feel like there aren't many conversations or topics which you can't try to Joke with.

In terms of like, things that I cut or changed, originally I had a completely different setup and establishing chapter for Ele. It was set where Atlas was all locked down and a wounded/abandoned Cinder was attempting to get some last minute revenge and set off for the manor. Things go a little sideways, and she ends up running off with a ship that crashes in the snow desert. The team all split up to scour the place cause "She can't get away or survive out there" and the one to find her is Weiss. There is some other stuff which would have gone on but it would play out to Cinder being a mocking prisoner in handcuffs who won't stop mocking her Schnee warden until the Grimm arm burns itself off cause something something Salem pulls a "You're no longer useful to me," Like she did in the canon fic. She's partially stabilized and sedated, get back to manor, Weiss and Ruby surprisingly agree that she should get the help she needs and one more chance deal again like the actual fic. I cut all that out cause it was very hard to reason through some of it and initially the "getting to the manor" part was a lot grimmer than I wanted to portray Cinder. Happy I left it out though, the opening for ele is just enough to get it all going without the whole thing being like an extra 5 chapters.

[image: a yellow banner with the words Trivia Tuesday in a cursive font]

Trivia Tuesday

Creators: give a “behind the scenes” look at one of your works. This could be things that got removed or changed, the origins of ideas/details, whatever you like!

Fans: share bits of trivia from canon and challenge others to create something based on that trivia - fic, art, or something else! I once made a crossword puzzle :)

Feel free to repost this header!

[firstelevens]

actually okay i was going to give u one platonic and one romantic because i am a good bestie but feel free to do the first one romantically bc i yearn for platonic sam and bucky w 14

(Part 2 to this fic, because Phil wanted to know what happened next.)

14. All my days, I’ll know your face.

Sam knows that it’s a setup.

Joaquin and Kate and Yelena are great at superheroing, but they either think that Sam is oblivious or stupid, because he’s been walking into rooms and abruptly stopping hushed conversations for days now, and they haven’t made an effort to change anything.

It can’t be a coincidence, either, that it all started about an hour after Bucky left the compound to head back to Brooklyn. At the time, after the argument they’d both been too upset to resolve, it had seemed like the best call for Sam to just let Bucky go. He hadn’t accounted for the sad puppy eyes that the rest of the team would keep throwing his way, or for the way that they would keep disappearing to the city one at a time, like they couldn’t bear to go without Bucky’s benign grouchiness for more than a couple of days. 

(Privately, Sam can’t blame them.)

They’d been so bad at being subtle that Sam was a little impressed when Joaquin had called an hour ago to tell him that Kamala was on a stakeout in Manhattan and things had gotten unexpectedly hairy, and could Sam please fly down there and help her out?

He had to at least applaud their strategy: neither Sam nor Bucky would refuse a call from Kamala, who, by virtue of being the youngest Avenger, has been the cause of persistent low-grade stress in the back of both of their minds from the moment they met her.

Unfortunately for Torres and the others, the Kamala-specific stress means that they’ve both given her their phone numbers in case of emergency, and while it sometimes means getting texted incomprehensible memes, it also means that they generally know when she’s in trouble.

All of which is to say that, thanks to a few jokes about poutine and Tim Horton’s, Sam is well aware that Kamala is in fact at a wedding in Toronto at the moment, and not on a rooftop in Lower Manhattan.

Still, Sam figures it might be positive reinforcement for their teamwork if he plays along, so he straps on the wings and flies to the address that Joaquin gave him. He’s not even a little bit surprised to find a rooftop done up with fairy lights and a fire pit and no signs of an ongoing stakeout.

Bucky is already on a lounge chair when Sam touches down, nursing a cider from that one orchard in the Hudson Valley that he won’t admit to loving but finds an excuse to detour to every few months.

He forgoes a greeting, looking up at Sam and instead saying, “So I probably shouldn’t tell Torres that I’ve actually seen The Parent Trap.”

“Probably not,” says Sam, taking off the wingpack, “but it wouldn’t hurt to do some training sessions on the importance of recon.”

A hum of acknowledgment. “Bishop did use her rich kid wine skills to pick out a bottle for you, though, so maybe they’re not completely hopeless.”

Sam sits in the other lounge chair, turning the bottle of red towards him to get a better look at it. If he briefly glances over Bucky while perusing the label, no one has to acknowledge that.

It’s quiet for a bit, Sam casting around for a corkscrew–there isn’t one, so maybe it’s time to review mission prep lists and inventory in training–and Bucky staring in the general direction of the fire pit.

The sound of a bottle being set down on concrete makes Sam look over at him. When he does, Bucky has turned to face him, elbows braced on his knees with his hands interlaced between them.

“They didn’t need to do all this, you know,” he says.

Sam snorts. “The twinkle lights were probably an unnecessary addition.”

He gets a look of mild reproach in response. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Do I?” asks Sam, raising his eyebrows. “One of us up and left in the middle of an argument, Buck, and it wasn’t me.”

Bucky sighs. “It’s not like another hour of fighting would’ve magically solved things.”

They’ve gained enough distance from the fight now that Sam knows that’s true. “You didn’t need to go radio silent, though,” he says. “I think I’ve earned the right to know that you’re okay. It’s been years, and we’re still pa-”

Sam catches himself, eyebrows knitting together for a moment. Before he can tie himself in knots about it, Bucky is rushing to reassure him.

“Of course we’re still partners. I wouldn’t-” he falters, shaking his head a little. “I wouldn’t leave you hanging like that. Not again.”

“But you could leave,” says Sam. It’s something he’s been mulling over all week, a possibility he tripped over while replaying their argument in his head. “If you wanted to be done with all of this, I mean. You could walk away.”

Everything about Bucky goes soft, his gaze unbearably tender. They should consider weaponizing those big blue puppy eyes, Sam thinks, a little hysterically.

“I know, Sam,” he says softly. “I know. But even if I did, I wouldn’t be leaving you. You know that, right? You’re stuck with me.”

And Sam does know that. He knows that Bucky is a permanent fixture in his life now, beyond just a coworker or a friend or a partner in the field. But hearing it out loud suddenly quells the worry that he hadn’t realized he’d been carrying, and all he can do in response is nod.

“You, too,” he says, when he finally finds his voice again. “You’re stuck with me, too.”

Bucky bobs his head in a nod. “I- yeah. I know.”

“Couldn’t even cut you loose if we wanted to now,” Sam jokes. If his voice shakes at all, they both ignore it. “I made my Mama’s pecan pie in front of you, and that recipe can’t leave the family.”

It gets the laugh he was hoping for, and Sam feels something slot back into place in his chest.

There are still things to talk about–Bucky’s willingness to be used as a battering ram, for one, and Sam’s stubborn refusal to let others take a hit when he can, and also maybe the thing where the literal adults who they work with keep referring to the two of them as Mom and Dad–but there’s time for that, Sam decides. They’re not going anywhere.

[darkandstormyart]

Xicheng fic recs

(figured i might make a list of my own)

(to be expanded as i dig out more treasure/remember stuff)

in no particular order:

Deep as the Yearning Night by FreckledStarKnight

“At first, it was pure chance. The second time was accidental. And the third time? Well, they say the third time’s the charm, after all. Lan Xichen discovers that Jiang Wanyin sings beautifully and is immediately enamored by it. His pursuit of Jiang Wanyin’s secret talent leads to a discovery and a series of events that he did not anticipate at all. Not that he’s complaining, of course. He got what he came for and more. Or, how two sect leaders get together through the song called love. CQL-verse.“

post-seclusion lxc

trying to get jc to sing

bonus lxc & jin ling feels i hadn’t considered before

cute

Always use protection by hesselives

“In which Lan Wangji attempts to hire a new bodyguard for his older brother, a well-known traveling exorcist. Jiang Wanyin doesn’t even make his carefully considered list of Top Ten Candidates, and yet here he is.

Lots of wandering in the countryside, distant yelling, and mildly inconvenient spirits.”

bodyguard au

honestly just really intersting worldbuilding

Rewrite the stars by Arashii

“Five great kingdoms have been fighting for years and when the kingdom of Yunmeng is destroyed, the Crown Prince Jiang Cheng vanishes.In Gusu, Lan Xichen makes an offer impossible for Jiang Cheng to refuse. His life or revenge? There’s only one option and Jiang Cheng swears loyalty to the man he hated the most his whole life, the Crown Prince of Gusu, Lan Xichen himself.Written for XiChengFest2020 - Day 4“

ROYALTY AU ROYALTY AU

enemies to lovers!

flashbacks! i love flashbacks so much ohmygod

No paths are bound by Arashii

“In seclusion, Lan Huan has the support of a ghost no one has seen since the massacre of Yunmeng Jiang. His feelings start changing with the often visits and conversations they share. Before Lan Huan can confess though, he ascends, leaving everything and everyone behind him.

Two hundred years later, back to the Human Realm and without powers, the Martial God Zewu-Jun has a mission to uphold. His Heavenly Calamity started. The clues are little and the support comes in the most unexpected form, the current Ghost King: Sandu Shengshou. Now they need to stick together to contain a menace that is slowly growing.“

TGCF AU TGCF AU

ghost king jiang cheng come on

doesn’t follow tgcf plot, just the setup so no spoilers

jiang cheng gets the dogs and the xichen he deserves

once upon a dream by cafedeolla

“Xicheng soulmate AU

An au where your dreams are small snippets of your soulmate’s day. They’d show small things like buying coffee, reading a book, or hanging out with people from their perspective.

The problem was that people always have expectations and Jiang Cheng knows he always falls short of them. Time and time again.“

soulmate au, but being soulmates is more a problem than a solution

misunderstandingssss all over the place

now with a squel (in progress?)

Lan Furen series by jagaimocchi

“Jiang Cheng leaves Lotus Pier before the Wen Internment Camp and before the destruction of his home. When he meets Lan Xichen on the run from the Wens after the burning of Cloud Recesses, his plan to live a peaceful life away from cultivation sects is quickly derailed. Now, free to make his own choices, he cannot find it in himself to leave the other man's side.

With love, patience and time, Jiang Cheng finds his own happiness and peace with his past.“

have you ever wanted a fic where jiang cheng peaces out from home in search for a better life, bc he’s Had Enough??? jags got you covered

adorable xicheng

good uncle-dad-figure Lan Qiren

ongoing <3

Just around the riverbend by JungleJelly

“One day.

Jiang Cheng just wanted one day of peace and quiet, away from home, away from his responsibilities, away from his idiot brother and his nutcases of a mother and father. Just a few hours alone — him and a boat and nothing else.

Clearly, that was too much to ask for.”

now with a new story in the series which is adorable too!!!

mermaid!lxc need i say more?

Bad ideas (where they lead) by JungleJelly

“Jiang Cheng is a busy man. Fortunately, he is also a huge pushover when it comes to his sister, so when she recommends that he start doing yoga, he agrees pretty easily.Featuring Lan Xichen in yoga pants, Jiang Cheng’s inability to handle a crush, and, perhaps most importantly, a big fluffy dog.“

done for 2020 MXTX MiniBang

yoga instructor Lan Xichen

Jiang Cheng is: struggling with a crush on the yoga guy from youtube & very angry about that

If there’s a price for rotten judgement by TheWanderingHeart

“All Jiang Cheng wants to do is, well... his job, really. Other than that? Keep the city safe, keep his nephew alive, keep his sanity intact (if possible).

So when his brother calls with unexpected news, he knows all of that is about to fly out of the window.

***

[Every instinct is telling him don’t ask, you don’t want to know. By this point, Nie HuaiSang has scooted closer to listen. Jiang Cheng takes a steadying breath and pulls out his antacids. “What did you do?”]”

superhero au, come on

jc just trying to do his job in peace

(he can’t)

i love it so much oh my god *sobs*

The Form of Boneless Ice by TheWanderingHeart

“Mythical beasts have long ago been driven to extinction by the gentry — hunted for sport, but more importantly for their magical cores. Since then, there remains only one creature that has never been caught. The Jiang’s retreated a long time ago. Abandoning land altogether, they sought safety where the humans could not reach.It all comes to a head though, purely by chance. (Or is it by fate that a spontaneous decision allows for them to meet? If fate were a rock!) Jiang Cheng suddenly finds his whole life balanced on the head of a pin — on the flimsy promise of a human boy. In his opinion, things cannot possibly get worse!(But then they do when the Wens decide it’s finally time to search for the elusive merpeople, and suddenly nowhere is safe.)“

there she goes again, with another beautiful xicheng story full of awwww and mythology

actually one of the first xicheng fics i read

i chose it because there were mermaids

painfully accurate takes on Jiang family dynamics

kids! lots of kids!

Let me Slytherin to Your Heart by TheWanderingHeart

“Jiang Cheng never thought he'd return to Hogwarts, but in hindsight, he probably should have known that someday he would.With his nephew about to start school, he reluctantly takes his good friend's bad parenting? career? advice and ends up tumbling head-first back into the madness that he hoped he'd left behind... and rediscovering some feelings he thought he'd left behind too.“

Harry Potter au!

just really fecking cute

lots of snakes

[I am not going to link all of Jo’s fics, though I probably could, just my 3 favourites. UOSB is there by default]

Talent Hunt Crew Finds Angry Guy Shouting On College Campus, Recruits Him For Vocal Projection Abilities by oh_fudgecakes

“Jiang Cheng, resident Angry Guy and heir to a conglomerate empire, has never been the apple of his father’s eye. Quashed under the shadow of his brilliant brother, the music prodigy Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng sees his chance to turn things around when he is recruited by the All-Stars Lan Talent Hunt. One problem: he can’t sing to save his goddamn life.As he struggles to develop his nascent singing abilities, Jiang Cheng finds himself sucked into the whirlwind drama of reality TV, helped along by his adoring siblings, his irritable vocal coach Wen Qing, and strangely enough, the unfairly attractive host of the All-Stars Lan Talent Hunt, Lan Xichen. Somewhere in the glare of the stage lights and an unexpected first love, Jiang Cheng stumbles upon the thing he was searching for all along: the courage to dream — and to attempt the impossible.“

done for 2019 MXTX Big Bang

uuuuuuuuuuh i might have cried maybe

heartwarming? painful at times? lots of family love?

slowburn xicheng being lovely

The Provenence of Hope series by velithya

“A chance meeting on a night hunt sets a course of events into motion that will change everything. Featuring Xicheng getting together, recovery for Lan Xichen, healing for Jiang Cheng, and always, always, hope.“

got everything. feels. hope. love. ~~healing~~

A Small Measure of Peace by Sandstone112

“With his brother in seclusion, Lan Xichen finds himself in temporary custody of his nephew with little to no expertise in the child-raising department. Uncertain and alone, Zewu-Jun is willing to do everything to be the person Yuan needs—even if it means inviting Sandu Shengshou to a playdate.“

a loooot of adorable family times with jc and lxc taking care of their nephews

good grandpa lqr!

canon but fixed and less painful

🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋if you wish to avoid scurvy:🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋

Some day I’m gonna make you mine series by locketofyourhair

xicheng getting together through the years

friends with benefits but the real benefits are the friends we made along the way

Take me over (take me tonight) by velithya

jiang cheng has a tattoo and lan xichen doesn’t stand a chance

i'd be the sweet feeling of release (mankind now dreams of) by piyo13

two bros, chilling in a cave, no feet apart because they don’t want to lose their cultivation powers what are you gonna do

haven’t read yet and shame on me, but AM GONNA:

Upon Our Silver Bridge by TheWanderingHeart obviously

““When the path ignites a soul, there's no remaining in place. The foot touches ground, but not for long.” ― Hakim Sanai

**

Lan Xichen's sorrows have caught the attention of something. Unlike the adventures and foes they have faced before, there is no obvious enemy here to defeat. If this is the same thing they thought had taken Nie Mingjue's life, then he believes it is fated for him to die as well. Nothing can stop the black fire when it wants to burn.Jiang Cheng is sure his part in this is over. Wei Wuxian is back, his grand adventure concluded, and he'd never been at the centre of it anyway. So what does it matter what happens to him in the end? Slowly, he will come to realise that there will always be a battle to fight, a story to tell, a choice to make, and there is no such thing as an end to anything.“

it was difficult to do things in 2020 and few i regret not doing more than not reading uosb yet :’(

i will tho

Emergency Help Wanted by piyo13

“EMERGENCY HELP WANTED I lied when I got my job. I told them I had a kid so I could leave early from work to pick him up from daycare, take him to doctor's appointments, and occasionally miss a day when he's sick. Long story short, I'm in too deep. I didn't think it through. Looking to rent a kid for bring your child to work day. Must be a boy ages four to six, longish dark hair, likes soccer. Must also be artistic as the macaroni noodle paintings I made seem a little advanced for his age. Also, I will pay extra for someone willing to play the role of husband when dropping him off. He's a prosecuting attorney who often brings his work home. Message me for further details. Serious inquiries only.“

Running Our Hands Through Embers by MarvelousMar

“If asked, Jiang Cheng would compare falling in love with Lan Xichen to a moth inevitably drawn to a flame.It burned.***In which Jiang Cheng discovers that even death can't help him escape from his trauma, so he embarks on a quest to save the people he loves, fix what he can, make the love of his life fall for him, and maybe, somewhere along the way, do a little bit of healing.”

The Beginner’s Guide to Moving On by InvincibleMel

gone from ao3, but i think there’s a link with a pdf going around

[dabilove27]

How Far We've Come

Paring: Dabi x Fem!Reader

Rating: Explicit (18+ only)

Warnings: Angst, Character Death, Smut (female-receiving oral), A Cocky Dabi, Cussing, A lot of Pet Names

Word Count: 7.8K

A/N: This is my contribution to the Smut Pile Apocalypse Collab! If you have the time check out some of the other amazing pieces! Everyone has worked so hard to make some beautiful fics!

Thank you so much to my wife @lady-lunaaa for reading, encouraging, brainstorming, and helping me the whole way from start to finish. I have said it before but I will say it again. You are absolutely amazing and this fic wouldn't exist without you! 💜 Also thank you @/deathcab4daddy (not sure if you want to be tagged) for taking the time to read through and for your advice!

You've seen all those movies, the decaying zombie hoards, the massive explosions that wipe out nations, or an unexpected illness that mysteriously kills off the population. But you had never really expected for any of those apocalyptic things to become true in your own world.  They were just fiction, never something that could actually occur. Yet here you are faced with the reality of a hoard of rotting zombies. Like you have been thrown into one of the many movies or TV shows yourself.

People aren't even sure how it happened, especially in a world full of quirks where this should be somewhat controlled, right? Wrong, whatever caused this zombie apocalypse also seemed to nullify quirks over time. There was so much speculation whether it came into the water supply or passed through the air. But none of that really seems to matter anymore when you are fighting for your life every day.

And as the mass of decaying, walking corpses steps closer and closer to you, it seems like your end is near too. The smell of organs exposed to the air and sun stink up the room.  You can see the blank, milky white eyes of the undead that somehow can still find you even though they can't really see.  You've had a partner, at least—the man who has stood with you during this entire shit show.

He stands close to you, a single rusted knife covered in stagnant blood, not nearly enough even combined with whatever you could find for fighting off the seemingly endless mindless bodies coming your way. He's covered in burn scars and rusted staples that pull at his healthy skin. People used to jab at him for looking like the walking dead before all this went down.  His firepower from before would have solved this problem in an instant. This rotting mob wouldn't have stood a chance.

But instead, it looks like it's the conclusion for the two of you. Memories flash through your mind. A memory of escaping the daily struggle of your mundane life by sharing take-out on your old couch.  Or how his kisses always felt like burning flames against your lips.  Your regular life consisted of trying to numb the pain of the past with alcohol or working endless hours.  Even though you didn’t have a traditional relationship where you could go on public dates, being in a relationship with a well-known villain was worlds better than this. But if you were going to die, at least it was together. Solidarity in times like this seems to help the never-ending dread that the Reaper looming around every corner ready to take you.  Every moment in this new hell had you wished you had more time to develop your romance with him instead of the tragedy that was about to befall you. You wished you had more time with this romance and that it wouldn't end in tragedy. It's hard to believe that there was ever a time when you couldn't stand this man, but even now, that's a fond memory for you.  You would give anything to return to that old bar where the two of you met and relive all of these memories.

It really isn't a surprise that you met Dabi in a dark, run-down bar near Kamino.  No, not the "bar" run by Kurogiri; everyone who lived in this area knew that it was just a setup. This bar is a tiny little hole in the wall with paint chipping off the walls and where the seats were hardly held together anymore, but that didn't really matter to people who lived in this area. You didn't come to this bar for a luxury experience.

The main reason people came to this bar was its location.  It sat deep in a seedy area which meant no police patrolling nearby so you wouldn’t need to look over your shoulder constantly.  Plus, the cheap liquor was enticing enough.

Every Friday night, you were perched on one of the worn-out bar stools as you nursed your gin and tonic.  This was your place to unwind after another hellish week of your mundane job.  It was still early enough in the evening that the bar wasn't thoroughly packed with bodies trying to get their drink.  The music was still soft,  later it would blare whatever song was currently sitting at the top of the Billboard charts. You were able to turn your brain off and listen to other patrons' mindless chatter in the background.  You could just sip your drink, maybe take a shot or two if you felt like, and then head home to pass out.

You relished this little getaway, an oasis in the slums that made up your small world.  The bartender and regular patrons didn't bother you, so you could have your own peace.  But your Eden got interrupted by a cocky, fire-wielding asshole who had set his sights on you.

You didn't stir when said asshole plopped himself down in the barstool next to you with a thump.  It wasn't until the jerk actually spoke to you that you were brought out of your mindless daydreaming.

"Hey, pretty girl, what are you doing in a place like this?"  He said with a smooth tone.  You didn't even have to look at him to know he had an arrogant smirk plastered on his face.

Who the fuck does this asshole think he is? The irritated thought instantly pops into your head.  Anyone who frequented this bar knew you were from around here.  You weren't some soft, delicate flower that wasn't supposed to be "on this side of town."  Preparing yourself by putting on your best "I'm not interested face," you maneuvered your body to face him, ready to tell him off.

Your words caught in your throat as your eyes met his two endless pools of cerulean.  Your gaze shifted to take in the burnt skin clinging onto the shining staples that were rooted in his healthy skin. A familiar black coat spread across his frame that was even more recognizable than those eyes, and the patronizing smile that you wanted to slap off his face. As much as you wanted to throw up your middle finger at him and tell him off, you knew who this was. Hell, everyone knew who this was.

The League of Villains didn't necessarily keep quiet around here. They didn't have to. This is the area where they recruited people to join them. You didn't just flick off and ignore a LOV member. Especially the infamous Dabi, who wasn't really known for his kindness or compassion. More for his ability to burn anyone who defied The League to a crumbling crisp.

But still, who did this asshole think he is? Waltzing in here like he owned it and saddling down into your escape from the world only to tell you that you don't look like you should be here?  Fuck that nonsense, League member or not.

You swallow down a bit of the initial anger as your eyes narrow into a glare at the cocky asshole.  "Thanks but no thanks, I'm not interested in being involved with the League. So if you don't mind going somewhere else to scout, that would be great." You try to say without a tremble in your voice as you wave your hand in a "shoo" motion.

You aren't sure what you expect Dabi to do next., burn down the whole bar you included? Tell you that you have no choice but to join, and you're coming with him? Rip you out of your seat and reprimand you for disrespecting The League? But instead, none of those things happen.  Instead, he does something you don't expect, and his grin grows a little wider as the staples begin to pull more at his healthy flesh.

You can feel your anxiety rising. Get out, get out, get out, this asshole will kill you, leave NOW, your mind is practically sending off every warning signal it can.

Your chest tightens when Dabi lets out a low chuckle. "Oh no, sweetheart, you've got it all wrong."  He says with a dark tone. "I'm not recruiting you for work. My interest in you is personal."  Dabi points at you and then at himself and finishes with an infuriating smirk that seems to be mocking you.  He's moved his hand and placed it on your forearm that was resting on the smooth bar top.

A shiver runs through you as the mismatched textures of his skin and the cool metal of the staples.  You feel your anger bubbling up again.  How dare this jerk think that you will just fall for him like a desperate fangirl.  You are livid at this point, frustration coursing through your veins, fuck the niceties and preservation. He needed to be put in his place.

"I know you think you are some big shot because The League is doing so well right now but fuck off asshole.  I'm not a League groupie that will just kneel down and suck your dick just because you want it." You spit out at him while shrugging off his hand and moving your body to face the way you were initially sitting. Grasping your drink and lifting it to your lips, you try and down what was left so you could leave immediately, any extra moment around Dabi was a moment you didn't want to have.

You were sure Dabi would have given up or at least killed you by now. You can't imagine that he is used to being rejected by women.  He's handsome in a way that doesn't fit with the norm.  He fills in that bad boy check-list like it's his job, which it practically is given his profession.  Again though, Dabi surprises you with his response. He doesn't yell, he doesn't use his quirk, and he doesn't kill you. He lets out another dark chuckle like he's enjoying this and continues the conversation you had tried to cut off.

"I didn't say anything about sucking dick, but if you're offering, who am I to turn down a gift?"  That smooth tone is back as he moves his hand to your hair and runs it through his fingers.

Bewilderment overcomes you, and you can't even stop yourself before you are turned towards him again, glass in your hand, ready to throw what's left of your drink on him.

As if he anticipated the response, Dabi moves quickly and grabs your wrist in a tight grip.  "Now, why would you want to waste what you have left, doll? That's not a very smart choice." His grip tightens a little more around your wrist, and you can feel the staples begin to dig into your skin as he lets out a deep chuckle. He moves your hand back down to the bar but doesn't let go even after your glass has left your hand.  "There we go, good girl.  Now let's talk just a bit." He says sweetly, loosening his grip just a bit, but not enough for you to move your hand.

If looks could kill, Dabi would have died a cruel death by now. You are seething at this point.  But instead, you're stuck there as he continues to do whatever it is that he’s trying to accomplish.  "What were you drinking?  I'll buy you another one and then leave, okay doll?"  He says playfully and with a cunning grin on his face as you mumble out your drink order.  You just want him to leave, and you really hope he plans on keeping his word.

Dabi motions for the bartender's attention, gives your drink order and plops a few bills on the bartop. He still hasn't let go of your wrist, and each and every moment he is even touching you, you can feel your annoyance continuing to build.  You want to ask him if he's done yet and will kindly get the fuck out, but you have a sneaking suspicion that he likes the cat and mouse game, which would just lengthen the amount of time he sticks around.

The bartender finally delivers your drink, and it takes everything in you not to rip your wrist out of his grasp and grab the new glass to pour over Dabi's head.  "Okay, one last question, and then I'll leave."  He drawls out as you put all your focus into the condensation forming on your glass.  You stay silent, waiting for his stupid question so you can move on and never see him again.  Dabi continues with that condesending tone that is starting to cause your head to ache, "How often do you come here? I'd love to see you again."

Your heartbeat picks up, and little shots of adrenaline start to flow through you as you contemplate how to respond. Of course, you don't want this asshole to know when you come here. This is your escape from the world. You never want to even see Dabi again,  but something from this interaction tells you Dabi isn't going to give up easily. So you tell him your regular time that you show up at the bar every Friday.

Dabi squeezes your wrist a little bit before letting out another "Good girl, sounds like a date.  I'll see you then." You never want him to know how those few words send a shiver down your spine. He saunters out of the bar without having a single drink himself. Patrons stare dumbfounded between you and the doorway that Dabi just exited, trying to comprehend what just happened.

You let out an exasperated sigh before leaning your head down into your folded arms.  The bar top isn't necessarily the cleanest of places to lay your head, but it’s pounding and racing with thoughts, and you can't really bring yourself to care right now.  You try to formulate a plan so you won't ever see him. You'll just move your regular day to Saturday instead of Fridays.  But then that stubborn anger flares inside of you again, and you sit up straight, glancing at your newly unwanted drink as the ice slowly melts, lifting the remaining liquid in the cup.  No, I'm not going to let that asshole ruin my spot for me.  He can come around here every Friday, but I'll turn that jerk down a million times. You think a little smugly to yourself.  We will see how the big bad Dabi feels being turned down over and over.  Maybe that will sting his ego.

And so you and Dabi play this game of cat and mouse. He comes every Friday when you are there without fail, buying you a drink, chatting to you with sentences filled with pet names, and planning another "date" each time.  And every time you tell him you aren't interested or to go away, or really anything to try and get that stupid fucking smirk off his face.  But it always remains cemented there as he watches you get fired up.  And what you don't realize is the two of you are getting to know each other.  Dabi adds in little questions, "what's your favorite food, least favorite, what do you do for work?"  And the questions go on and on.  You don't realize your walls coming down as the two of you find similarities in each other.  And if there is one thing anyone who sees these frequent interactions between the two of you can say, it is that Dabi is determined.

You are so used to Dabi's Friday visits that they don't bring headaches anymore, and you realize something more has developed when he doesn't show up one week.  A mixture of feelings rests in you, anxiety, confusion, anger.  You wonder if he's okay, or has he finally given up.  And then anger if he has.  You don't want to admit it, but you miss his company, and you don't even have a number to reach out to him.  You feel a sense of loss in your chest.  How could he just give up?  He's been trying for months!  You think as tears begin to sting for a moment in your eyes.

You leave the bar that night not feeling uplifted or relaxed but sad and angry.  And you aren't necessarily looking forward to returning the week after, but you do come back to your regular spot and hope Dabi will show.  Your heart almost stops in your chest when you see him walk through the entrance of the bar, and before you can contain the words, they tumble out in a frantic sound, "where were you last week?"  You are standing in front of him now, looking up at that little grin he always has on his face whenever you get annoyed with him.  You cross your arms over your chest and exclaim, "Well? I'm waiting."

"Aw, did you miss me, baby girl?"  His poker face never falls, but his grin grows a tiny bit wider as he stares into your fiery eyes.  And without warning, he wraps one of his long arms around you, pulling you into a tight side hug.

A small eep escapes you at the movement, and you move to push him off.  "What the hell are you doing? Answer my question, you jerk!" You practically yell as you push away from him.  He doesn't let go and just pulls you tighter to him, and you find yourself not struggling anymore as you take in the weathered texture of his coat pressed against your arm and the smell of cigarettes on him.  You feel your walls starting to fall entirely, "I was really concerned about you." You let out in a whisper, not really wanting to admit it to him, but you weren't sure how you would feel if something like this happened again.

"Aw, babe, you did miss me."  The delight in his voice makes you shiver a little.  He gestures you over to your regular spot at the bar, and the two of you sit down in the weathered chairs.  He puts a calloused finger under your chin to bring your gaze to his.  You stare into his cerulean depths that you used to hate and find yourself softening a bit.  "I had to do something for The League, but I don't have your number, love.  So I couldn't call and let you know I wouldn't make our date."  His face relaxes a bit as he watches your frown turn into a bit of pout.

"Okay, well fine, I'll give you my number.  But don't just text me randomly, okay?"  You huff as you lay your palm flat and motion for his phone.  Dabi chuckles and shakes his head before handing you the phone without another word.  Lifting the phone, you type your number into the cracked screen and hand it back to him.  "Okay, now text me, so I have yours. " You say, moving to grab your phone to wait for his upcoming text.

"Hmmm, I don't think so, doll,"  Dabi says, taking in your furrowed brow and then relishing in the way you roll your eyes at his taunting.

"Fine, whatever, Dabi.  Just text me next time you can't make it."  You say sourly while searching for the bartender to order your drink.  You don't want Dabi to see the slight sting of hurt in your eyes because he won't give you his.  The rest of the night goes as expected, drinking and talking, and you find yourself laughing more, not realizing how much you truly enjoyed this time with him.

The two of you depart with another hug, this one much shorter than the first, but you find yourself leaning into the warmth that radiates from him instead of wanting to push him off.  As you begin walking down the street home, you feel a buzz in your pocket.  Pulling out your phone, you unlock it to the message from an unknown number.

Unknown Number: Hey babe, see you same time next week - D

A small smile comes to your face as you type a response back.

The following year you grow in your relationship with Dabi.  There are never really any titles between the two of you.  Just that the two of you are together.  You never meet The League. Dabi is insistent you aren't involved with them in case things go awry.  But you spend a lot of time together when work or villain work doesn't take up the time.

Your relationship together comes to a head at the very start of the apocalypse.  The two of you sit snuggled together on your worn-out couch watching the news as a young reporter stands in front of a local research building in town and goes through the facts of citizens becoming "mindless and violent in a matter of hours."  And how they have people under lockdown who are experiencing symptoms of this "mysterious illness."

A slight shiver goes through you as the reporter goes on.  "That's really scary. No one knows what's causing it,"  you reflect aloud while you lean in closer into Dabi's outstretched arm that is resting around your shoulders.

"Aw, babe, don't be scared.  Those mindless fools wouldn't stand a chance if they tried to lay a hand on you while I'm there,"  Dabi says with a glint of amusement in his voice.  He always sounds so condescending, but you know it's the truth.  Remembering a time at the bar when a guy wouldn't take no for an answer-not that Dabi really followed that either- but Dabi didn't hesitate to let the guy know you were already taken.  He flirts and likes to jab a lot, but there’s a complete shift in the atmosphere when he's serious.

"Ugh, Dabi, you know I don't mean them attacking us. It's whatever is causing it that worries me. What happens if one of us gets it?  There's no cure right now,"  You say and worry your lower lip between your teeth.

Dabi picks up on your anxious state, and his cocky facade fades.  He pulls you on his lap so that you are fully facing him with legs pressed on either side of his.  Dabi holds one large hand on your waist, and the other he presses to your cheek.  Leaning your cheek further into his hand, Dabi moves his thumb to trace over the slight marks in your lip where your teeth were just placed.  "Hey, listen to me, nothing is going to happen, okay?  I won't let any of these maniacs hurt you, and we won't catch whatever they have,"  Dabi says tenderly as he gives you a small smile.

It's nice to see him like this- when his mask of superiority disappears, and he's focused on encouraging you.  It doesn't happen often because you like to keep walls.  Comfort from Dabi doesn’t need to happen often but you can’t say you don’t like it when he does.  You enjoy these softer moments with him that only you get to see.

You pull Dabi into a light kiss.  The gentle pressure of his mismatched lips fit seamlessly against yours.  You pull away after a moment to look into his deep blue eyes that now captivate you.  Dabi has that coy smile still on his face, and as his eyes meet your in that moment, it's like the horrible events of the world aren't happening anymore.  All that seems to exist is the two of you, not the TV still prattling in the background or even the noises outside your city window.

Dabi lightly caresses your cheek down to the length of your neck and finally ending near where your collarbones sit.  Everywhere he touches leaves behind a trail of goosebumps on your skin.  Even with these simple touches, you can feel yourself starting moving against him, trying to create a bit of friction.  Dabi knew how easily he could rile you up with simple touches.  It was frustrating at times, and you wished you could have the same effect on him.

"I love you, babe.  And no matter what, I won't let anything hurt you,"  Dabi tells you, and you swear his voice seems to be cracking, but the moment is gone before you can think about it.  Dabi lives on being mysterious most of the time, and you rarely get to see this vulnerable side of him.  Even if he doesn't say it behind that mask of cockiness, you can feel that there is fear of what's happening right now.  Or at least that's what you think the fear is from, but Dabi will never admit the fear is from losing you to whatever this is.  He isn't sure he could survive this hell of a life he's been given without you.

Your heart aches at his sincere words from earlier, and you whisper back, "I love you too, Dabi."  Drawing him into a more intense kiss.  Dabi begins to run his fingers along the hem of your t-shirt and delicately brushes the skin right under with his fingertips.  You feel a moan bubble up inside of you, but his mouth moving against yours swallows the sound.

"I want you so bad, doll.  Let's just forget what's going on right now, let the world fall away,"  he says in a husky voice after breaking away from the kiss.

You nod to him before letting out a content sigh and letting your eyes fall shut while Dabi continues to trace his hands over your body.  Dabi trails his massive heated hands under the thin shirt you are wearing and down to your hips.  You can feel the bulge of his cock through his jeans as it begins to press against your clothed core.

Opening your eyes, you meet Dabi's half-lidded lustful eyes and bite your bottom lip and allow yourself to give into Dabi taking over you.

You can feel your heart beating a little faster, watching Dabi drink in every ounce of you.  Dabi is one of the only men you have ever trusted like this.  To have you so totally vulnerable.  It's strange how someone you didn't want anything to do with for months has become someone you rely on for everything- love, comfort, pleasure.

Dabi places open-mouthed kisses along your neck that leave you breathless.  "Fuck, I'm obsessed with every inch of you,"  Dabi growls out before returning to kissing and sucking your neck and exposed collar bone.

You grip Dabi's shoulder to ground you back from floating away into complete bliss and tip your head out to give him more access to your neck.  Dabi's mouth is like a flame that licks at your sensitive skin as he continues to trail his mouth all over.  You could be trapped in this pleasure forever.

Dabi grasps the back of your head and roughly brings your lips back to his.  With your mouths slotted against each other, you moan as Dabi finesses you to where you are lying on your back on the old couch, and he is hovering over you.

You break the kiss to quickly pull off his jacket and expose Dabi's scarred arms.  And just as you have only trusted Dabi fully with yourself, he has done the same.  Of course, the two of you have had sex with other people, mostly with lights off clothing still left on to hide the imperfections.  But with each other, there is no more hiding.

Heat begins to pool in your belly as you watch Dabi pull off your shorts and slide his warm hands all the way back up your leg and massage the plush skin of your thighs.  Once your shorts are removed, Dabi brings himself back to your face and, with a lustful sigh, traces kisses on your jaw and neck.

"Just relax and let me take you away from all of this, love.  I want to hear every sound you make." He growls as he moves down towards your pussy and lays himself between your spread legs.  Dabi lifts your thighs to rest on his shoulder as you let out a little gasp.  You can feel the excitement and heat rising in you.

Dabi kisses down the inside of your soft thighs and stops to suck at certain spots, leaving minor marks in their place.  He stops for a moment until you are looking directly into his captivating gaze, and then he licks a stripe up your pussy over the cotton of your underwear.  You let out a breathy moan at the sensation.   That jerk knows precisely what he's doing.

Dabi then grabs the thin material of your underwear and rips them away from your body with a tear. Groaning, you are about to curse at him for ruining another pair but are cut short when he sleekly licks up your folds. A delicate, playful moan leaves your separated lips.  Your eyes close, and you cling onto his white shirt to ground yourself.

"Baby girl, you're soaking wet," Dabi teases as if you weren't aware but cuts off any retort again with a quick suck to your aching clit. You can't hold back the loud moan that bubbles up in your throat.

Dabi smiles against your lower lips and continues his ministrations.   His mouth is open wide, so he can move back and forth from quickly licking up and down your sensitive pussy as well as suck softly on your clit.   You feel light-headed at the extended sensations, little whimpers and moans falling through your lips.  Dabi has always been able to leave you speechless with just his mouth.

"Dabi please," Your breathing hitches, and you moan out as he flicks his tongue repeatedly over your small bud. You can feel that hot pressure building in your stomach as Dabi continues. He laps at you like you are holding the only source of liquid left in this world, his tongue working wonders on your dripping hole.

Dabi pulls back and looks up at you as you eagerly meet his blue eyes, begging him to continue.  He smirks before lowering his mouth back down and laps at your sopping core teasingly.  Fucking bastard.  Always a tease from day one.

Dabi licks his lips before returning to eating you out even faster as a series of cries and obscenities continue to fall out of your mouth.  You can't hold them back.  His mouth is so hot and wet against your core.

With another curse, you tell him you are close. A sigh escapes your lips, and your head tosses back onto the cushy arm of the couch.  Dabi pulls away but inserts two fingers inside of you in place of his mouth.

"Fuck, sweetheart, as much as I want to hear you beg and plead for me,  I want to taste you right now."  Dabi lets out with a rough voice filled with desire.  You whimper as he continues to fuck you with his fingers.  He smirks at your blissed-out face and then returns his mouth to your pussy.  His tongue flicks over your clit repeatedly as whines and cries continue to be let out of your mouth.  Back arching, you bite at your lip, barely able to even process the words that came out of Dabi just a moment ago.

"Oh, fuck, Dabi, please. Please, I'm gonna cum soon." The words fall from your lips, and your mind feels numb to everything except the feeling of Dabi's tongue on your pussy.

Dabi grunts and gives another hard suck to your clit before pulling away just a bit.  "Hell yeah, babe, come all over my face."

Your eyes roll back, and your mouth opens with another cry as your legs begin to tremble as the tension starts to rise in your stomach. One more lick, and you know you'd come. Dabi's continued suckling of your clit sends you careening over the edge. Your cries fill the room, and your back arches as your legs try to squeeze around his head.  Dabi continues to suck and lick as you orgasm.  Panting and with your eyes twisted shut, you cling to his shirt as you start to come down.  A final curse gently leaves your mouth as you wait for your legs to stop shaking.  Dabi takes one last long slow lick before sitting back and wiping his face with the back of his hand.  You can't bring yourself to move from the couch, still panting and weak.

Your mind starts slowly coming back to you as the bliss begins to leave.  The realization of everything happening in the world washes over you.  But you were thankful Dabi took the time to distract you from the horrors of what's going on.  You move over so Dabi can cuddle with you on the couch.  It isn't much room, but it feels good to be this close with him, wrapped in each other's arms.  You both slowly start to drift off to sleep, but you don't miss Dabi's final words mumbled into your hair, "I'll never let anything happen to you."

Shortly after that, the world seems to descend into madness.  The illness grows more and more rampant.  People are getting infected every day.  Whether it's through the original source of contamination or by those contaminated biting or scratching someone.  Panic spreads throughout the country.  But through all of it, you and Dabi stick together.

From the moment it was declared an emergency Dabi was banging at your door, insisting the two of you find somewhere safer than your run-down apartment.  Because while the two of you needed sleep, whatever these things are could go non-stop, and your apartment was not fortified.

You and Dabi lost your quirks a month after the emergency declaration, along with the rest of the population. People couldn't fight these zombie-like creatures off anymore.  Like all the movies and TV shows, the bodies became more zombies than actual living people.

After a while of jumping around from a destroyed place to another, the two of you found yourself in an apartment building that had a sturdy enough entrance that the zombies couldn't break through.  The daily struggles were still hard, though. Finding food and water to survive became a daily task for the two of you.  Through all of this, he never left your side. He always insisted the two of you stay together.  And so you did.  Fighting the living dead, but sometimes the living too when things got even more terrible, and scavenging was your everyday routine now.

You lost track of time and could only follow when the seasons changed.  But Dabi was really the only thing getting you through this.  Seeing people destroy one another for food or shelter destroyed you inside.  Never knowing if these zombies you were killing were someone you had known at one point, or just another faceless dead person tore at every corner of your brain.  Dabi stayed strong for the two of you.  Holding you every night on the ripped blankets, you could gather for the strange bed the two of you slept in.  You would sob into his muscled chest about how you couldn't live in this world anymore, how you couldn't kill another person, alive or dead.

But Dabi would never let go.  He would hold you close and let your never-ending tears stain the only shirt he had now.  He would rub your back with his warm hands; even though his rusting staples would catch on your shirt and rip from his skin, he still did it.  He would hold you until you fell asleep, whispering how strong you were and how he could never do this without you.  And after all the tears, you were thankful too.  Because without him, you'd be dead or alone.  You knew that without Dabi, you would have never survived this long.

But you could see Dabi was hurting too.  You couldn't find supplies to treat his decaying skin.  He hid his daily pain from you, but when Dabi thought you weren't looking or listening, he would hiss at the pain of another staple pulling at his burnt skin or let out a huge sigh when he would try to put it back together, but it wouldn't cooperate.

The only hope the two of you held onto was each other and that possibly a cure would come soon.  Not that either you could really access that information with no electricity; there wasn't any way to get information other than hearsay.  You survived the best you could in this world.

And as much as this wasn't what you would have picked for either of you, at least you had each other.  You tried not to think of a time when you wouldn't be together, even though the chances of that happening were high- it hurt too much. To survive in this world without Dabi would be too fucking much.

It's almost as if fate chose to play a cruel game with the two of you.  It seemed like a "normal" trip out to scavenge for food and water.  The two of you had to expand your search area since places closer were mainly empty.

This time you found yourself outside of a convenience store, a reasonable distance away from your home.  It hadn't been completely destroyed by some miracle and was not overrun by the zombified people.  Still, in a state of decay, though, Dabi was quickly able to kick his heavy boots through the door and get the two of you in.

Sauntering through the gas station, you quickly begin to pick up canned food and stale bags of chips and shove them in your worn backpack.  Dabi is doing the same on other aisles until he lets out a chuckle.  "Hey babe, look what I found."  He says with a cocky voice holding up a few boxes of wrapped condoms above the aisle for you to see.

You roll your eyes.  "Thanks, Dabi. Is sex really what we want to be thinking about right now? Let's just get this shit and get out."  You let out with an annoyed huff and continue to push the limits of how much your bag can hold.

Dabi comes over to your aisle and snakes his arms around your waist with your back pressed to his chest.  He places his chin on your shoulder and whispers in your ear.  "Yes, all I can think about is getting your beautiful body back home and finally being able to finish in you, and with these, I can."  He lets out a dark chuckle as he pulls you closer against him and bucks  his hips playfully.

"Okay, horn dog, let's get this shit done, and then we can do whatever you want back home."  You let out with an eye roll.  It's hard to stay mad at him. You know he's trying to keep things light for you, to keep you happy because he can see how hard this is.  And his regular teasing is one way he knows will bring a smile to your face.

As you are finishing up trying to take inventory of anything else in the store that you can take back, you spot the clear plastic that holds the cartons of cigarettes behind the cashier counter.  While you didn't necessarily want Dabi smoking, you knew he missed the vice. Cigarettes were just as hard to find as medicine in this new world.  Smiling to yourself, you move behind the counter and reach for the plastic flap to lift it up.

As you try to lift the latch, it doesn't budge. You look around for what might be blocking it before seeing the tiny silver keyhole to one side of the compartment.  Crap, of course, it's locked.    You really wanted to surprise Dabi with this.  Maybe you still could. The key had to be here somewhere, right? You think while scanning around the counter.  You try searching through the counters for a hidden key but no luck.  Letting out a heavy sigh, you call Dabi over.

Dabi wanders over to your annoyed face and can't help but smile at your slight pout.  "I wanted to surprise you! But I can't open it. Can you get it, please?"  It comes out almost like a whine as you gesture to the cigarettes.

Dabi's smirk turns into a genuine smile, and he pats the top of your head before saying, "My sweet doll.  Thank you for thinking of me. Let me help you out."  You could smack him, but instead, you watch as he hastily rips the plastic covering away and slips his hand below it to grab one of the wrapped cartons.

At that moment, everything changes.  The fun times the two of you were having shatters as a loud alarm rings through the store.  Panic floods your system as you stare at Dabi wide-eyed.  "There is no electricity. What's happening? There shouldn't be an alarm."  Horror is laced in your voice as words spill out of you.  Every walking corpse within miles will be here soon with the sound.

"Fuck, must have had a battery attachment. Come on, let's go."  Dabi's usual playfulness is gone as he abandons the cigarettes and grabs your hand.  He's grave now.  Getting the two of you out of here safely is his only goal.

You follow Dabi quickly, a hand grasped tightly in his as he runs towards the broken-down front door.   And that's when even more terror settles into you.  Zombies are pushing their way through the open door.  Their rotting bodies and white eyes focused on the area where the alarm is coming from.  There weren't many around when you broke in, but now it seems like they are multiplying by the moment.

"Fuck fuck fuck." Dabi curses under his breath, quickly turning around and pulling you towards the building's back exit.  You follow behind adrenaline surging through your veins fueled by your flight response.  Dabi grasps at the metal handle to the back door and shakes it only to find it locked.  "Damnit!"  he shouts before kicking the door violently.

Your heart is pounding, and you feel helpless as you stare at Dabi while he continues to slam himself at the door.  While the front door was glass and flimsier, this door was only budging slightly.  With all your focus on the door, you don't notice the continuously growing herd filtering into the gas station.  Not until you feel one brush against your shoulder.

Your eyes widen as you feel a scream bubbling in your throat.  This is it.   This is where the two of you die and either become fodder for a herd of living dead or turn into one yourself.   Your brain is pure panic as thoughts fly through faster than you can catch them.  You don't even realize you have screamed out Dabi's name until you see his face turn towards yours.

His typically blue eyes are almost entirely covered by his dark pupils as he takes in the monstrosities behind you.  But unlike you, he doesn't hesitate. He pulls out a knife he keeps in one of his pockets and slams it into the decaying skull of the zombie that is right behind you.  Splurts of dark blood hit your cheek as he pulls out the knife, and the creature behind you crumples to the floor.

"Keep trying the door! I'll keep them off you."  Dabi shouts, pulling you into the spot he previously stood.  Your heartbeat is so loud you can feel it in your head, and you can't even make a coherent response as you begin to slam your body against the solid surface.  You can feel it give a little more with each push of your body, and everything in you is screaming not to give up.  Doing your best not to glance at Dabi's grunting and movements as he continues to try and put down zombie after zombie.

You can't give up; this can't be the end . Desperately your brain is screaming as you continue to feel the door give more and more.  Your shoulder hurts from the continued impact, but you aren't letting it slow you down.  You can feel it; it's almost there.

Suddenly the door gives, and you can see the sun shining through on the other side.  You cry out in  relief and turn back to tell Dabi to come with you.  But as your eyes meet, fear fills every ounce of you.

He's still fighting them off, but there is a gaping bite wound on his right arm— rows of teeth marks embedded in his skin.  You feel like you're going to be sick. There is no coming back from this; there's no known cure.  At any point within the next twenty-four hours, he would be another one of the walking dead, no sense, no logic, and looking to consume others. This can't be happening, this can't be happening.  Your heart is sinking with every second that ticks by.

"What the fuck are you waiting for? Get out! Get out!"  Dabi screams at you as he embeds his knife in another zombie.

"No, no, I can't leave without you!  I-we can find something.  I'll find something, please! Come on, Dabi, I can't do this without you!"  You are sobbing now, hot tears streaming through the dirt and blood mixed on your face.  An ache in your heart starts to form.  You know you don't know how to help him, but you'll do anything to not leave him behind.

Dabi lets out a grin despite the feral dead people closing in on him.  And gives you a wink before saying in a voice that seems too calm for the situation, "Come on, doll, you are the most intelligent person I know.  You have to go.  Live for us, babe.  Look at how far we've come.  Go show this world that it won't ever break you down. I love you, and I'll come to find you wherever you are in the afterlife and annoy the shit out of you.  Now go!"

It's like your heart is being ripped into a thousand pieces. Your breath comes out in short huffs, moving towards hyperventilating.  You want to go back to Dabi and cling on for dear life, but you won't let him die in vain.  Not after that speech.  That would be an insult to everything the two of you have overcome.  So with all your strength, you give your lover, the man who has come so far with you, the last look before letting out a final "I love you too" and burst out the door.

You don't look back, aching feet propelling you forward as tears continue to stream and fall off your face.  When you first met Dabi, you would have never thought you'd miss him.  But you will , you'll miss every snarky comment, every flirty glance, and the tender way only he has loved you.  The man that you were sure was just some asshole trying to get laid became the love of your life and sacrificed himself so you could live.  And you could never let that go to waste.

[sineala]

Tony Stark and Arthuriana

Coming to you by special request, a very long post about 616 Tony's interest in Arthuriana, with a focus on all of Tony's run-ins with Morgan le Fay!

I feel like I should disclaim the extent of my knowledge here, which is that I still haven't managed to read anywhere near every issue of Iron Man -- at least, not yet, anyway -- so I'm just going by the things I know I've read, and Morgan le Fay's Marvel wiki entry is frustratingly under-cited, so it's very possible I've missed something relevant, but I'm pretty sure I've got the big stuff down. My other disclaimer here is that I'm not as big an Arthurian nerd as Tony is, which is to say that most of my familiarity comes from modern retellings -- T. H. White's The Once and Future King, Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon, Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave, Rosemary Sutcliff's Sword at Sunset -- and not so much the usual classic sources on the Matter of Britain, though I've read bits and pieces of them.

(This is because I wanted to read versions of them that were as close to the original as possible but so far have not ended up finishing any of them because, well, that's hard. So I've never read the Mabinogion because I do not know Welsh. I've got the Norton Critical Edition of Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, which is probably the best student edition if you're looking for something without modernized spellings, as I was. I've also got -- well, okay, it's my wife's but I'm borrowing it -- a relatively recent Boydell & Brewer edition (ed. Reeve, tr. Wright) of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain), which is, you guessed it, in Latin with a facing English translation. I haven't gotten very far in it because, in case you didn't know this about Latin texts, the beginning is pretty much always the hardest, so I gave up and read some Plautus adaptations instead. Anyway, if for some reason you too want to read Geoffrey of Monmouth in the original Latin I'd recommend that one, but I can't recommend any particular English translations because I've never read one by itself. I bet you didn't think you'd be getting Latin prose recommendations in this post. I mean, maybe you did; it is me, after all.)

Okay. Right. King Arthur. Here we go.

We've got:

Flashbacks to Tony's childhood in late Iron Man volume 1

A brief discussion of Morgan's origin story and Avengers #187

Iron Man vol 1 #149-150: Doomquest

What If vol 1 #33: What if Iron Man was trapped in the time of King Arthur?

Iron Man vol 1 #249-250: Recurring Knightmare

Iron Man: Legacy of Doom #1-4

Avengers vol 3 #1-4: The Morgan Conquest

Civil War: The Confession

Mighty Avengers vol 1 #9-11: Time Is On No One's Side

In terms of universe-internal chronology, we know from Iron Man #287, from 1992, that Tony has been a fan of King Arthur since childhood. This is an issue of a fandom-favorite arc which features Tony having a lot of childhood flashbacks, including the famous "Stark men are made of iron" line (in #286) that for some reason MCU fandom decided it loved; I mean, seriously, I've seen that quoted in way more MCU fic than 616 fic. But slightly later, in #287, we get an entire page devoted to Tony's love of King Arthur.

The narration reads: "Over the next few years, I learned as my father intended. Discipline of body. Strength of character. But in what free time I was allowed, I worked my way through the school's library. At thirteen, I discovered Mallory [sic], who showed me a whole new world. A world of dedication to a cause greater than oneself. Of chivalry and honor. And the fantastic deeds -- of armored heroes."

The art shows Tony as a child sitting under a tree, reading a book labeled Mort D'Arthur by Mallory [sic] -- no, don't ask me why nobody at Marvel checked how to spell either the name of the book or its author -- and daydreaming of King Arthur, the Sword in the Stone, knights, et cetera. Just in case you somehow missed the extremely blatant hint that we are meant to understand that Tony's knight obsession heavily influenced him becoming Iron Man as an adult, we see one of his armors mixed in with all the drawings of knights. So, yes, canonically Tony is Iron Man at least partly because he's a giant King Arthur nerd, which I think is so very sweet. I love him. He's such a dork!

(This issue is currently in print in the Iron Man Epic Collection War Machine, should you need your own copy.)

This isn't actually the only reference to Tony as a King Arthur fanboy in this era of canon, either; a little later, in IM #298, we see that one of Tony's passwords is actually "Mallory." (Yeah, no, they still couldn't spell. But it's cute.)

But in terms of actual publication order, this is definitely not the first time we have seen in canon that Tony is into Arthuriana, as I'm sure you all know. I would assume, in fact, that giving Tony a childhood interest in Arthuriana is because Doomquest is one of the most beloved Iron Man story arcs of all time, and that all started at least a decade before IM #287 here was published.

The villain of Doomquest -- the one who isn't Doctor Doom, at least -- is Morgan le Fay. Yes, that Morgan le Fay. Yes, Arthur's evil half-sister Morgan le Fay. Yes, all of this King Arthur stuff is canonically real history on Earth-616. Morgan's first appearance in Marvel, per the wiki, was in Black Knight #1 (1955), which I have not read, and judging by the summary I feel like this is probably just supposed to be a straight-up comic retelling of Arthurian legends for kids; I don't think Marvel really had the whole Marvel Universe in mind as a concept in 1955, so I'm not sure this was meant to connect to anything else. I feel like this is another one of those instances of Marvel discovering that they can write comics about characters in the public domain for free -- like, I'm pretty sure that's how we also ended up with, like, Norse, Greek, and Roman mythology wedged into 616.

As far as I can tell from the wiki, the first time Morgan tangled with the Avengers (or indeed the larger 616 universe) in any way actually predated Doomquest -- it was in an early arc in Spider-Woman (#2-6) and then Avengers #187, which came out in 1979, actually right when Demon in a Bottle was happening over in Iron Man comics. If you read #187, Iron Man is not in it because he's off the team due to his drinking problem and also his accidentally murdering the Carnelian ambassador problem. So Wonder Man's filling in instead. This issue is part of Michelinie's rather sporadic Avengers run, which makes sense, I guess, considering where we see Morgan next.

Anyway, Avengers #187 is the classic issue where Wanda is possessed by Chthon, but what you may not remember from Chthon's backstory (I sure didn't!) is that he was summoned by Morgan le Fay because she was the first person who tried to wield the Darkhold to summon him. As you can imagine, this did not work out especially well for her and her followers and they had to seal Chthon away in Wundagore Mountain, which was where Wanda found him. (The Spider-Woman stuff is only slightly earlier and also appears to be about Morgan and the Darkhold; the Darkhold is not one of the areas of 616 canon I am especially conversant with, alas. It's on my to-read list.)

Doomquest, as you probably know, was a classic Iron Man two-parter in Layton & Michelinie's first Iron Man run that set up Tony and Doom as rivals; Doomquest itself was IM #149-150, in 1981, and then in their second IM run they came back and did a sequel in 1989, Recurring Knightmare (IM #249-250), and then the much later four-part sequel to that was the 2008 miniseries Iron Man: Legacy of Doom, which was also by Layton & Michelinie but generally does not seem to be as popular as the first two parts. They've all been reprinted, if you're looking for copies; I have a Doomquest hardcover that collects the first four issues and then a separate Legacy of Doom hardcover. Currently in the Iron Man Epic Collection line there's a volume called Doom, which confusingly only collects the 249-250 part of the storyline (as well as surrounding issues), because for some reason the first Layton & Michelinie run isn't in Epics yet but the second one is. So the beginning of Doomquest isn't currently in print, as far as I can tell. I'm sure you can find it anyway.

So what's Doomquest about? Okay, so you remember how Doctor Doom's mother's soul is stuck in hell for all eternity? Well, Doom's obviously interested in getting her back, and the strategy he has embarked on is to try to team up with other powerful magicians who can help him out, and he thinks Morgan le Fay would be a good choice, for, uh, his quest. Doom's quest. A Doomquest, if you will. (If you've ever read Doctor Strange & Doctor Doom: Triumph & Torment, you're familiar with the part where he later ends up waylaying Strange for this and they go to hell together. And if you haven't read Triumph & Torment, you really should, because it's amazing.)

So Doom is off to his time machine to go team up with Morgan le Fay and Tony thinks Doom is up to something -- Doom has been stealing components for his time machine from a lot of people, including Tony -- and he follows him and it turns out one of Doom's lackeys has a grudge and wants to trap Doom in the past forever, and Tony gets caught up in it. Now they're both in Camelot. Surprise! #149 is actually all setup; they don't get to Camelot until #150.

IM #150 begins with Doom and Tony thrown back into the past; there's a fandom-famous splash page of them locked in combat, only to realize that they have found themselves in Camelot.

They are then discovered by knights; Doom would very much like to attack them, but Tony, who naturally would be happy to LARP Camelot forever, persuades him to play nice. Also Doom thinks Iron Man is only Tony's bodyguard so he keeps referring to him as "lackey," much to Tony's annoyance. Somehow everyone thinks they're sorcerers. Can't imagine why. The knights take them to meet King Arthur himself, and Tony has clearly had his introduction all ready to go, as he introduces himself in a timeline-appropriate manner, says he's here to apprehend Doom, and demonstrates his "magic" by levitating Arthur's throne. Doom's response is essentially "I'm the king of Latveria," which is, y'know, also valid. So they're guests at Camelot for the night while Arthur figures out what to do with them.

We then have a page devoted to Tony alone in his room, musing sadly about how alien he feels, how he doesn't know if he'll ever get home, how he could never fit in here without his beloved technology. Then a Sexy Lady shows up to keep him company for the night, and he decides maybe it's not all bad. Thanks, Marvel. I guess they can't all be winners.

Doom is using his evening much more productively; he compels one of the servants to tell him where Morgan's castle is, because he's still interested in having that team-up. Then he jets off. Literally. He has a jetpack.

The next morning Arthur's like "one of you is still here and one of you has punched a hole through the castle wall and flown off to join Morgan so I guess I know which of you is more trustworthy." He then explains to Tony who Morgan is, because Tony professes ignorance, because clearly we had not yet retconned in Tony's love of Arthuriana. Tony offers to go fight Doom and Morgan with Arthur; meanwhile, Morgan and Doom have teamed up and Morgan has offered to help get Doom's mother out of hell if he commands her undead armies against Arthur because for Reasons she can't command them herself anymore. So that's a thing that happens.

So, yes, it's Tony and Arthur versus Doom and Morgan. Fight fight fight!

Tony tries Doom first but then decides to hunt Morgan down, and in the ensuing fight we get what I think is Tony's first ever "I hate magic," a complaint that we all know he still makes even to this day.

Anyway, Tony freezes a dragon with Freon (mmm, technology) and Morgan gets upset and disappears, so the battle comes to an end, and of course Doom is extremely mad at Tony because he blames Tony for Morgan not sticking around to save Doom's mom, because I guess Doom trusted her to keep her word? Weird. (Like I said, for the next chapter of Doom saving his mother, go read Triumph & Torment.)

Doom says if he and Tony work together, the components in both of their armors can send them both home. So Tony has to trust Doom. Which he does, because he really has no other choice. They build a time machine and Tony makes Doom agree to a 24-hour truce when they get back, so they can both get home. So it all works out okay, and they end up in the present, and Doom tells him, ominously, that they will meet again. Okay, then. That concludes the original Doomquest. It's fun! You can see why fandom likes it.

So that's all well and good, but you might have noticed that Tony's ability to get home hinged on Doom actually being trustworthy. And Doom was. But what if Doom hadn't been? What if he'd just stranded Tony in Camelot forever As you may have surmised from the form of that question, that is in fact a question Marvel asked themselves, because, yes, there's a What If about this! What If v1 #33 is "What if Iron Man was trapped in the time of King Arthur?"

The divergence point from canon, as you can probably guess, is the very end of Doomquest. Instead of Doom bringing Tony home, he deceives him and leaves him in Camelot. And since Tony cannibalized a lot of the tech from his armor to make the time machine, he doesn't have a way to go home.

This is not a story where Tony comes up with a way to go home after all. He really doesn't get to go home. But instead of drowning his sorrows in mead -- because, remember, Demon in a Bottle has already happened and Tony is sober now -- he decides he might as well just play the hand he's dealt. So with what's left of his armor, he defeats some enemies that Morgan rounds up to send against Camelot. And for his services, he's knighted. He is now Sir Anthony.

Tony acknowledges that he is both living the dream and would also like very, very much to go home.

He does end up having some fun in Camelot; it's not all miserable. But he obviously doesn't want to be there.

So if you're at all familiar with King Arthur, you know how this goes, right? Arthur fights Mordred and Mordred kills him. And that does happen in this version. Except Tony is right there, and with his dying words, Arthur asks Tony to rule Camelot... and Tony agrees.

So, yes, Tony Stark becomes king of the Britons after Arthur's death and he never goes home again. The end. Man, I love What Ifs.

Heading back to main 616 continuity, there is still more of this arc to go. The original Doomquest was only two issues, yes, but it was popular enough that Layton & Michelinie did a sequel a hundred issues later, in their second run of Iron Man, and that's Iron Man #249-250, Recurring Knightmare. (In the intervening issues were Denny O'Neil's IM run, specifically the second drinking arc (#160-200), and then Layton & Michelinie came back and most famously gave us Armor Wars (#225-232). I would have to say that Armor Wars is definitely the standout fandom-favorite arc of their second IM run; for their first one, I think a lot of people would have a hard time choosing between Doomquest and Demon.) But anyway, yes. Recurring Knightmare.

Recurring Knightmare is... well, the best way I can describe it is "a trip." It is definitely a sequel to Doomquest, and it is also definitely not a sequel you  would ever have expected to see for Doomquest.

Much like #149, #249 is pretty much just setup. Fun setup, but the big action is in the next issue. We open with Doom in Latveria, on his throne, pondering which of his servants he should have disintegrated. Anyway, he's just hanging out there when a mysterious object appears. In California, Tony is suited up and entertaining the crowd at a mall opening when the same object also appears! He takes it to his lab. Please note that this is after the Kathy Dare incident, so Tony is still recovering and is walking with a cane. Doom sees on the news that Iron Man has found the same object, which cannot be carbon-dated, and he shows up at Tony's house. He criticizes Tony's taste in art.

Anyway, Doom basically orders Tony to work with him. Tony refuses, and then Doom sends some robots to attempt to steal Tony's version of the object because he thinks if he has them both he will be powerful. Doom manages to steal it, and when he puts the pieces together, both he and Tony disappear.

So where do they go, you might ask? Camelot?

Not exactly. The future! There is a great callback to the Doomquest splash page.

It turns out they are in London in 2093. Merlin brought them there. Tony still hates magic. And in the future, King Arthur is still there, except he is now a child, because he has been reborn. But he does remember Tony from Doomquest, at which point Tony kneels. Doom, of course, is not impressed. He asks why they have been brought to the future.

The answer is that things are going wrong in the future. If you do not personally remember United States politics in the 1980s, I need you to google the words "Strategic Defense Initiative" right now. I'll wait.

Back with me? Okay, so this is a future where Reagan's Star Wars program actually happened the way he wanted it to, and the satellites are still hanging around the Earth in the future and messing everything up, and Arthur and Merlin need Tony and Doom's help to stop them. Doom once again flies away with his jetpack, of course.

Tony is game to help, but he's not in an armor that can stay in space for long. This is when Merlin takes him and Arthur to the mall and Tony manages to get everything to upgrade his armor at Radio Shack. You see what I meant about this issue being weird.

Tony is out in space trying to disarm the SDI platform, which is where he runs into his future descendant, Andros Stark, who is in armor you will probably recognize from Iron Man 2020. He is referred to as "the resurrected spawn of Iron Man 2020" so I assume he's actually directly related to Arno rather than a direct descendant of Tony; Wiki confirms that Arno is his grandfather. This is all from way before Arno was contemporaneous with Tony in canon. Anyway, he's fighting Tony.

Oh, by the way, Future Doom exists. Future Doom would like to rule this future Earth and for some reason Andros would like to help him. Meanwhile, Present Doom finds out from Merlin that he can't leave except by magic and he can't leave without Tony, so he is reluctantly on Tony's side.

They need help from the Lady of the Lake, except the lake has been paved over and is now a parking lot. Merlin makes the lake come back and then of course they get Excalibur. Arthur is a kid, so he can't wield a longsword; Doom assumes he's going to take it because he is basically a king, and he's pretty grumpy when the sword picks Tony. Tony then uses Excalibur to destroy the space lasers, and I bet that is a sentence you never thought you would read. It's pretty cool. Tony concludes that magic has its good points. Tony stops Andros and Doom stops, uh, himself, and the world is saved and they get to go home. Also, Doom finds out Tony is Iron Man, but when Merlin sends them back he conveniently erases their memories, so neither of them remember anything about this and Tony's secret is still safe. And that's the sequel to Doomquest.

And if you think that's weird, wait until you see Legacy of Doom.

Iron Man: Legacy of Doom is a four-issue miniseries from 2008, also by Layton and Michelinie. Even though it's from 2008, it's set during a much more classic time in Iron Man, continuing on from where we left off in this Doomquest saga. We start with a framing story in 2008. Tony, who has Extremis now, is busy scrapping some of his older armors and reviewing his logs when he suddenly remembers that there was a whole thing with Doom that happened that he seems to have forgotten about until right now. So the whole thing is narrated by Tony in flashback.

Tony's in space fixing a satellite when a hologram of Doom shows up and summons him to Latveria. It's not really clear why Doom needs Tony's help in particular here, but Doom tells Tony that he's discovered that Mephisto would like to bring about the end of the world, which Doom finds, and I quote, "presumptive." So Doom has his Time Cube, and with it he takes Tony to hell.

(Yes, I promise this is relevant to Doomquest. There will be some Arthuriana shortly.)

Doom brings Tony to Mephisto, and it turns out it's a setup! Doom trades Tony for an item he wants from Mephisto, leaves, and Tony's going to be trapped in hell forever! Oh no! (I mean, he's not. But it's quite a cliffhanger.)

At the beginning of issue #2, we find out what the Arthurian connection is, which is that we learned that after the events of Doomquest, Morgan had been granted sanctuary by Mephisto in exchange for a shard of Excalibur that she had somehow stolen. Doom still wants Morgan's help with some magic -- he doesn't mention what it is here, but he says he needs someone of Pendragon blood, and that'd be her -- so he traded Tony to Mephisto in exchange for, I'm guessing, Morgan and the Excalibur shard.

I have probably mentioned this elsewhere, but Legacy of Doom #2 is one of my favorite issues of Iron Man ever, solely because of the next scene. We return to Tony in hell. Howard Stark is also in hell, and he is now a demon, and Tony has to fight him. Mephisto brings popcorn and watches. This is the one time in canon when Tony actually confronts his father, and okay, yes, it's a fistfight in hell and Howard is a demon, but that's comics for you. Howard spends several pages insulting Tony -- specifically insulting his masculinity, but that's a whole other essay -- until he finally insults Maria too, and that's when Tony fights back, because his mother taught him to be good. Honestly if you're a Tony fan I'd recommend this issue just for that scene.

Anyway, we go back to the Doom and Morgan plot, and Morgan casts the spell Doom wanted, which was fusing the Excalibur shard with Doom's armor. Then Doom sends her back to Camelot rather than hell, because he's still mad that she never helped him get his mom out of hell like she said she would.

Tony freezes Howard with Freon -- yes, the same trick he pulled on the dragon back in Doomquest -- and tells him, "You're no father of mine." It is immensely satisfying.

(I had been going to mention that I thought it was a shame that neither canon nor fandom seems to have really engaged with this confrontation, and I know canon never believes in narrative closure but fandom sure does -- and then, anyway, it occurred to me that since the framing story of Tony remembering this is set when Tony has Extremis, there's a very good chance that he no longer remembers remembering it. Goddammit, Marvel.)

(If I got to retcon one canon thing about Tony, I think "the entirety of World's Most Wanted" is up there. I mean, okay, a lot of things are up there, but WMW is definitely on the shortlist.)

Okay. Tony has now engineered his way out of hell, and he's back with Doom in Latveria. Doom has Excalibur. Doom would very much like to fight him. While wielding Excalibur. You get the sense that this is going to be bad. Another cliffhanger!

Legacy of Doom #3 opens with Tony destroying Doom's lab to buy time and running away from Doom and Excalibur. I should probably mention that Doom still doesn't know Tony is Iron Man (anymore), so he thinks he is dealing only with Iron Man, Tony Stark's lackey. Meanwhile, some scientists at SI think there's something weird going on with space. Meanwhile meanwhile, Tony is in a forest taking a breather when a mysterious old man walks up to him.

It's Merlin! Surprise! Merlin wants Tony's help to stop Doom from doing whatever he's doing with Excalibur. The sword makes you invincible and the scabbard makes you invulnerable, so Merlin sends Tony to Scotland on a fetch quest for the scabbard. Doom has now magically sent the sword in search of the scabbard, so the sword flies away to meet it and Doom follows. Turns out the thing that's wrong with space is a thing that's going to hit Earth at the exact place Tony and Doom are. What a coincidence! So Tony and Doom get trapped in a stone circle and fight some stone warriors and then Tony ends up with the scabbard. And by "ends up with," I mean it fuses to his armor. Next issue!

Legacy of Doom #4 is when things really, really get weird. A giant demon made of eyes (???) appears, and this demon is apparently what Doom had been preparing to fight (because it's mad that Doom stole one of its spellbooks), and now he can't, because the sword and the scabbard aren't together. Thanks, Shellhead.

That's when Merlin shows up and says all is not lost. They can defeat the demon... if they put the sword into the scabbard.

"But I'm the scabbard now!" Tony says, uncomprehending.

"Yes," Merlin says. "You are."

Then Tony gets it.

So, yes, Doom has to, um, penetrate Tony. With Excalibur. I love comics. I love comics so much.

So that's a thing that happens.

And then Tony flies off and, I guess, resolves to never, ever think about any of this again.

We head back to the framing story, in which Tony, now having remembered all of this, flies to Britain, buys the land the lake is on, and paves it over, presumably so it will be there for Merlin to bring back in Iron Man #250. The end.

Whew.

Okay, yeah, I know I didn't have to summarize the whole thing, but Legacy of Doom here really is one of my favorite Iron Man miniseries. And I just want to share the love. Please read it. It's great.

But the Arthuriana fun doesn't end there! In fact, now we get an Arthurian-themed arc that actually isn't in Iron Man comics. It's in Avengers! Iron Man is involved, though.

(There is also apparently a Morgan arc in Avengers #240. I actually haven't read it. It seems to be yet another Spider-Woman arc. I get the impression that this isn't really Arthuriana other than having Morgan in it fighting Jess, though, so it doesn't seem quite as relevant. Morgan also apparently has some appearances in FF, Journey into Mystery, and Marvel Team-Up, but those seem like more of just basic villainy. Also, probably not involving Tony.)

Kurt Busiek's 1998 Avengers run, volume 3, is in large part the kind of Avengers run that is a nostalgic love letter to older comics. Heroes are heroes and villains are villains and good triumphs over evil. The Avengers all live in the mansion and are BFFs. I love it. It does assume that you are already a fan of the Avengers, because it starts out by summoning pretty much everyone who has ever been an Avenger and is available to the mansion, and that is... a lot of people. Thirty-nine, by my count. Also, when the entire team is magically whisked away, we are treated to the following narration, as Steve disappears: "And Captain America's last thought, as the world goes white around him, and he with it -- is that Iron Man would hate this."

The narration doesn't tell you why Iron Man would hate this, or how Captain America would know that Iron Man hates this. This is not explained later on. But if you have read comics -- or if you have read the above summary of Doomquest -- you know that Tony is absolutely, one hundred percent, thinking, "I hate magic." And Steve knows it.

The reference is not relevant to the plot; if you don't get it, you'll be fine. But that's what I mean when I say this is a nostalgia run. There are definitely Easter eggs for people who have read a bunch of comics. Busiek does this a whole lot in his work -- there's a reason you can buy an annotated edition of Marvels -- and, yeah, it happens here too. Just know that there will be references you're not getting, if you're new to comics.

Anyway. So Busiek's run actually starts out with an Arthurian arc, #1-4, "The Morgan Conquest." The name is a dead giveaway. Yes, Morgan le Fay is back. Again. For once, Doom is not involved.

The Avengers are all back from their sojourn on Counter-Earth after fighting Onslaught -- don't worry about it -- and mysterious things are happening. There are a lot of monster attacks. So pretty much everyone who has ever been an Avenger is summoned to the mansion, at which point we learn from Thor about some mystical artifacts that are being stolen. (They are the Norn Stones and also the Twilight Sword. That sounds like something from a Zelda game, doesn't it?) The Avengers go to try to stop this, end up in Tintagel, and then they run into Mordred. He wants to capture Wanda, presumably for Magic Reasons. Morgan le Fay casts a spell on all of them, reshaping reality. Yes, all of them. Surprise!

So now all the Avengers are living in a medieval castle and/or town; Morgan is their queen, and thanks to the power of mind-control they are all basically living in Ye Olden Times. The Avengers are all some variety of knight, except for Wanda, who is chained up in the dungeon so Morgan can steal her magic and use it to fuel all this reality-warping.

Wanda calls for help, and that snaps Steve (Yeoman America!) out of the mind control (or altered reality or whatever you want to call it) pretty fast, because Steve's always been very good at resisting mind control, and then Steve promptly goes and snaps Clint out of it, because I guess Steve is also good at inspiring people to snap out of mind control. "Oh, man!" Clint says. "Not another alternate reality! Not again!" (I assume he's referring to Counter-Earth? Maybe?)

So Steve and Clint go around reassembling the Avengers and orienting them as to reality. They get Jan and Monica easily, but then Steve insists on trying to get Tony because, I guess, he likes Tony and would really like to hang around Tony, who is half-naked and asleep in his bedroom, and certainly I am reading nothing whatsoever into this. Clint tells Steve it's not going to work. Tony has historically been fairly susceptible to mind control; it was only pretty recently at this point that he'd been doing Kang's bidding in The Crossing. But the more serious impediment is that this is Tony Stark and he would obviously like to LARP being a knight forever and ever. Tony, therefore, does not believe Steve, and throws him and Clint out of his bedroom and into the barracks.

"Iron Man's a good guy, normally," Clint says. "But he's waaay too into his whole nobleman/lord of the manor trip. That spell musta hit him right where he lives!"

Clint speaks the truth, clearly.

Anyway, they go around and manage to make pretty much every Avenger in the room other than Tony snap out, and attempt to rebel against Morgan while Tony is stil fighting them because he is Still A Knight. There's a lot of punching, because some of the Avengers still aren't free; they weren't ones Steve found.

The day is saved when Wanda manages to channel Wonder Man and break free. This gives the Avengers a fighting chance against Morgan and the Avengers are all lending Wanda their power when Tony finally snaps out of it and is on the side of good. 

Then they take Morgan down, go home, and attempt to figure out which of these thirty-nine people should be on the active Avengers team. Hooray.

But that's not the end of Morgan le Fay showing up to screw around with Tony's life! There's more to come! Not much, but there is one that I know of, and at least one more memorable reference. 

(I haven't read all her appearances or anything, but one of them definitely involves Tony; I can't swear that he doesn't appear in any of the other books Morgan shows up in, but it'd be a cameo for him, because I only know of one more arc that she's in in a book that Tony stars in.)

In a few more years, we have now entered the part of Marvel Comics history where Brian Michael Bendis writes all the Avengers books at the same time for, like, seven years running. It was sure A Time. There were a lot of word bubbles.

And the thing about Bendis is, Bendis looooooves Doomquest. If you're familiar with the very end of his tenure at Marvel where he made Doom be Iron Man after Tony got knocked into a coma in Civil War II, you have probably figured out already that he likes Doom. But he also likes Doomquest, specifically.

I mean, if nothing else, the giant splash page in The Confession where Maleev redrew the climactic Doomquest fight while Bendis had Tony talk about how deeply meaningful to his understanding of the world this all was -- and how it allowed him to predict Civil War -- was probably a big clue, right?

As far as I am aware, Morgan le Fay makes exactly one more appearance in Tony's life. And that's in Mighty Avengers vol 1 #9-11. Only one of those issues is named, so I'm going to assume the arc is named after it: Time Is On No One's Side.

You remember Mighty Avengers, right? The deal with the Avengers books at the time was that after Bendis exploded the mansion and made the team disband in Avengers Disassembled, the main Avengers book was no longer called just Avengers. Instead, the main Avengers book was New Avengers, and that was the only Avengers book. Then Civil War happened, Steve got killed, and New Avengers became the book about what was left of the SHRA resistance (i.e., Steve's side) after the war. So about halfway through New Avengers, Mighty Avengers starts up, and Mighty Avengers is about an extremely fucked-up and grief-stricken Tony Stark trying to run the official government-sanctioned Avengers team, with Carol's help. This is the comic with the arc where Tony turned into naked girl Ultron. You remember.

So, anyway, there's this Mighty Avengers arc where Doom is Up To Something (there are symbiotes and a satellite involved) and somehow Tony and the Avengers end up in Latveria, punching Doom. Also, by the way, Doom is visiting Morgan in the past because he likes her. The Avengers attacking his castle made him have to come back to the present, so he's kind of cranky. And he fights Tony, and in the course of the fight, his time platform explodes and sends Doom and Tony and also the Sentry to... the past.

This is one of those times where you should definitely look up the comics if possible because the way the past is visually indicated here is that it's colored with halftone dots the way you would expect old comics to be colored, although they have modern shading and color palettes. It's very charmingly retro.

So the three of them are stuck in New York in the past, and naturally they would like to leave. There's one person in this time who has a time machine and it is, of course, Reed Richards. Doom and Tony have a lot of banter in this arc; I think it's entertaining.

Sentry has to be the one to break them all into the Baxter Building because of that power he has where no one will remember him. So they do that, travel forward in time, and end up in Latveria in the present again except Doom is gone and also things are currently exploding where they are.

Doom, of course, has made a side trip to visit Morgan again and he asks her to help him build an army, because I guess this is what their relationship is like. So the rest of the Avengers are captured by what look to me like Mindless Ones and are in a cave in magic bondage, because comics. Jess comments that at least they aren't naked, because she too is remembering that memorable New Avengers trip to the Savage Land. Doom threatens Carol in some creepy sexist ways and eventually it turns out that Tony and the Sentry are fine and everyone kicks Doom's ass. Business as usual.

And the last page of the arc is Morgan alone, wondering where Doom is. So technically Morgan and Tony don't come face to face here, but I think she counts as being at least partially responsible for ruining Tony's day here. And then Secret Invasion happens and Tony has a very, very bad day.

There are a few more Morgan appearances after this, but, as I said, I don't think any of them involve Tony. She shows up in Dark Avengers, apparently, which was one of the post-Civil War Avengers titles I didn't read, and I know that recently, on the X-Men side of things, she's been in Tini Howard's Excalibur one, which I have only read a little of. No Tony there. Just a lot of Morgan and Betsy Braddock and Brian Braddock and the Otherworld.

If you are interested in Morgan's other appearances, you might like this Marvel listicle that is Morgan le Fay's six most malicious acts. I pulled some of the Darkhold backstory from their discussion, but it's not really focused on Morgan and Tony.

So there you have it! That's everything I know about Tony's love for King Arthur and every run-in I know about that he's had with Morgan le Fay! One of two terrible people in Tony's life named Morgan! Actually, I don't think we've seen Morgan Stark in a while. I wonder if he's alive. There should be a Morgan & Morgan team-up. I should probably stop typing and post this.

The tl;dr point is that you should all read Doomquest and its sequels, especially Legacy of Doom. They're great!