#not saying I'm a hitter in any way

[newbiespud]

"I learned a long time ago... You can't control the violence. I can take the punishment. It's what I do. What I need to control is not out there. [taps chest] It's here. Always."

Eliot Spencer, Leverage | The Tap-Out Job | Season 2 Episode 2

No shonen anime boy has ever come close to illustrating the "fighting spirit" nearly as well as Eliot Spencer.

[where-does-the-heart-lie]

ASL brothers HAIKYUU!! AU!!!!!

Day one of Self Indulgent month for me! I love these three, i love haikyuu, i love killer whales!

(The Naval Academy is this au’s version of marines)

For those who dont know, in Haikyuu (and prob in real life too but in my experience its not as important as they make it in the anime) The "Ace" of the team is the person who primarily scores points via spiking. Theyre the Hard Hitter, basically.

Design talk👇

Originally, i was gonna make their school mascot just "The Pirates" but i couldnt figure out a clever pun with the school name so i scrapped it in favor of an animal mascot. I figured I would have a wider range of puns that way.

I landed on Orcas as the mascot because I think they really embody a pirate way of life. Theyre strong, hang out in groups of a mix of found family and their actual family, hate the rich, and theyre fun loving! And also im a bit biased because theyre my favorite animal, but hey, i said its self indulgent month, didnt I?

Their school name is a play on the word for Killer Whale (Shachi シャチ) and the word for 'knowledge' (Chishiki 知識), i just smashed the two words together. I'm very proud of myself for coming up with that given i dont speak japanese at all.

Anyway, with their designs, I was taking inspiration from orcas to match the design themes of haikyuu. Ace's hair is bleached on the underside to look like the underside of an orca's body, I made ace and sabo's eyes look more whale-like, the clip in sabo's hair is meant to resemble to spots behind orca's eyes, and I tried to make luffy's hair look more like it's round and spiking down more than i usually do.

Ace is wearing a ''way of the ace" shirt in the first picture, Luffy is wearing a shirt that just says "VOLLEY BALL" because i think it would be funny if he wore a bunch of those Zero-context-poorly-translated-random-english-words shirts that theres a bunch of in Asia. Sabo dyes his hair like delinquents do, but it doesnt much look delinquent~y because of how soft it looks. He means to do it to make him look like a delinquent though. Sabo still has his scars in this au, but he uses his hair, arm braces, and leg braces to cover them up. LUFFY AND ACE HAVE FUNKY SOCKS BECAUSE NO ONE CAN TELL THEM (or me) THEY CANT. Sabo wears athletic socks though because he's a debbie downer. He defends himself saying “It’s practical” and Ace and luffy call him “practically a Debbie Downer.”

Luffy is very good at receiving from growing up with Sabo and Ace practicing setting and spiking with eachother and assigning Luffy as Ball Boy. So he got the libero position from that cuz sabo and ace put in a good word for him. Nepotism.

I didn't feel like coming up with designs for them, but Zoro and Bepo are also on their team (theyre in the fifth image sitting on the right of the line of students). Koala and nami are student managers, Robin is the teacher manager, and Franky is the coach. all other straw hats/luffy friends, rev army comrades, and whitebeard brethren are in the stands. Im trying to keep the ages consistent with how they are in canon.

I didnt do a very in depth research, but i couldnt find what Japanese schools have as mascot costumes. and given no one wears any costumes in haikyuu for their team, i can kind of assume they dont use them over there. But unfortunately for them, I'm American. And part of the backbone of our schooling system, is Vaguely Unsettling Mascot Costumes. My sister says my design for it looks like its from Club Penguin, and i find that delightful. [moment of silence for my billions of fallen Puffles, taken from me in The Shutdown] Anyway.

I thought I was clever coming up with the equivalent of the Marines in this au being a Naval Academy. And their mascot being Seals, famously the animal that gets the absolute Worst Of It from orcas. Get shit onnnnn

I believe thats about it, thanks for coming to my ted talk :)

[spacedace]

So I've seen a lot of "Jazz works as a therapist at Arkam" in the dp x dc fandom, and while I like the concept, I also feel like Jazz would take one look at the place and immediately be like "what the absolute fuck" at just the everything of the place.

Like, she either nopes out after the tour during the interview or quits not too long afterward starting there, not because she can't take it but because she's so appalled by what's going on there and can smell the corruption rolling off the place and knows no one sent to there is ever actually going to get the help they need.

So Jazz decides to open a private practice instead while still being absolutely determined to work with the various rogues in the city, she is here to help and nothing is going to stop her.

So she just starts showing up at known hangouts of rogues and during their heists/schemes/sprees, and even fights between them and the batfam, just like

"Hi! It’s so nice to meet you! My name is Dr. Jasmine Fenton/Nightingale/whatever last name she’s using and I was hoping we could talk!"

Casually kicks a baterang away without looking because she's being polite and professional!

"I understand that your experience with therapy through Arkam has been nothing but atrocious and that you are rightfully -"

Kicks Batman away without breaking eye contact or a sweat.

"Suspicious of attempting therapy again, and Idon't want to force anything on you, therapy should be on your terms after the experiences you've had but -"

Grabs Robin out of the air as he leaps at the rogue she's talking to and tucks him under her arm, ignoring his feral hissing and all attempts to break her hold.

"-I really think that you'd find it beneficial, even if I'm not the right therapist for you."

The rogue in question is having the time of their life and takes Jazz's business card - and a few extra to pass around - not really intending to actually ever book a therapy appointment with her but way too entertained and excited to share this madness with everyone else.

But then one of the rogues actually looks up Jazz's website and sees all the various safe guards she’s put in place to ensure that any villians that come to her will be protected while seeing her - soundproof therapy room, regular sweeps for listening and tracking devices, the most insane firewalls and protections anyone has ever seen on her network, and ooh she provides snacks and drinks!

So someone finally books an appointment with her, half convinced she's either going to turn them in or is a villain herself intent to experiment on them, but then it’s actually really nice??? And they feel a lot better afterwards?? She doesn't even say anything to indicate that she wants them to stop being villains, she just wants them to be okay??

So more and more rogues start going to her, and Batman was already losing his mind about this woman before - Oracle can't hack her system?!? And her background check shows a totally normal Psychiatrist?? - but now half of Gotham's heavy hitters and a dozen or so other minor league villains are seeing her regularly and every time he tries to get info on any plans the rogues might be scheme via her office it fails utterly. Nightwing got knocked out with something called a creep stick and when he tried to break in himself to get answers she just appeared out of no where and gave him the most scathing lecture about doctor-patient confidentiality before bullying him off her property and threatening to sick her brother on him if he tried again?

And because she's become such a figure in the Gotham underworld, she gets the attention of Joker.

And everyone, rogues and Bats alike, are terrified that she’s going to try and take him on as a patient like she has so many other villains in the city and that's just a recipe for tragedy.

But then the Joker is on his way to the hospital with two broken legs and the fear of god beat into him babbling about eldritch nightmares and whenever anyone asks Jazz what happened she just shrugs and just says things like "I refused him as a patient, he's not my problem." Or "My brother doesn't like clowns." And just, does not elaborate.

Batman is losing his mind over it all. Jazz is just happy to be able to actually help the rogues. Arkam is less happy about how she absolutely destroys their reputation.

[natriae]

Best friend omi and reader where it’s like mutual pining but one day omi just loses it and kisses reader and they make out filthily✨??

So i may be back from my mini (mega) hiatus... :0

I miss my omi-omi <3

CW// she/her pronouns used, reader is described as having hair (but no details on the hair itself), 14+ , reader is described as introverted (i'm projecting), please let me know if i missed any!

1.8k words

To say the majority of MSBY was shocked to see a woman bring Sakusa Kiyoomi a hearty meal and scold him about not taking care of himself would be an understatement. Meian genuinely thought he woke up in another timeline, and it definitely didn't help that Atsumu had barely reacted.

With the season just beginning many of the MSBY had not had time to meet their new teammates. Yes, they knew who they were, and yes, they had made light conversation with them at VBA events, but they didn't really know much about the new members. Barnes honestly had assumed Sakusa was celibate, or completely shut down anything that included sharing germs, yet here their new opposite hitter is letting this girl, no woman, sit him down and grab his leg to put in her lap. The man barely reacts. He just let her examine his ankle before listening closely for her next words.

‘There's no way she’s his girlfriend’ Tomas thinks, but the way Sakusa watches her makes him question everything. Didn't Bokuto comment on Sakusa never being able to pull. There's no way Sakusa could pull her, especially with his attitude.

"Hey, Miya-san," Meian calls over. Atsumu stops practicing sets against the wall to jog over to his new captain.

"’es, Captain," Miya quickly bows to his superior. Even out of college the older twin still has his boyish charm.

"Just Meian-san is fine," Meian quickly responds, watching Atsumu's face light up (oh will Meian regret that later). "Who's the girl with Sakusa?" he nods his head towards the two of you. Now you're fixing Sakusa's hair while he drinks his water.

"whatta' ya mean?" Atsumu asks, face scrunching in confusion. Sure, he has a few theories on what Meian is implying, but he wants to hear it outloud so he knows he's not delusional.

"Is that Sakusa-san's girlfriend?" Tomas interjects. The three men watch as the two of you converse with light blush on your cheeks.

"Y/N?" the finally toned-blonde laughs at the thought, "Sakusa couldn't pull her even if he had a fishing rod," the twin continues, "the two of them have known each other for years. I always thought Sakusa had a thing for her, but it doesn't seem to be going anywhere".

While Atsumu yaps, Meian can't help, but watch his new teammate in awe. Compared to the others, Sakusa was more introverted. As a captain he wants to know his teammates - friends - inside and out. Be able to build a bond with them that will last, yet Sakusa has proven to be the hardest of all. You make it seem so easy. The curly haired man will beg at feet if he must. How did you dig your way into him?

"Kiy," you poke your head through the locker room door, "it's getting late you almost done?" Behind the wall you hear the shower turn off and the soft wet steps of Kiyoomi. He's always been a gentle giant. On the outside he seems intimidating, but honestly he’s just trying to protect himself.  "Can I come in, yet?" you smile waiting for his response.

Ever since Kiyoomi joined the big leagues you can't help but bask in the joy with him. He's wanted this forever, and you're so happy you were able to watch him succeed. Kiyoomi's family was proud of him, yes, but not in the way you were. They didn't see all the highs and lows. They didn't notice the small changes in his mood, or how he would continually work himself to exhaustion. They always saw him at his best, but their Kiyoomi was not your Kiyoomi. Actually most people's Kiyoomi isn't your Kiyoomi. You know him better than most. You know how he struggled in highschool socially, and how he struggled again moving out. How he wasn't used to someone not commenting on his every move. So imagine his surprise when you didn't fill that spot in college. You always made him feel valid in his thoughts.

"I'm dressed," his voice responds. For most people they would be shocked to know that Sakusa now bathes after everyone else. It wasn't a germ thing. It simply just made more sense to shower before the chaos. Also, who wants to share germs with a teenage boy anyway. He changed his habit so it allowed some time to decompress before driving home, plus it allowed more time to spend with you before he drove you back to your apartment.

Walking in you round the corner to see the rows of lockers. It wasn't long before you spotted him. His sweatpants hung low on his hips as he began rubbing the moisturizer on his face. This was always your favorite time. Watching Sakusa perform his night routine always motivated you to do more. He's always been so disciplined.

"So how was that party with your friends," his voice cuts through your thoughts. Looking up you notice how his eyes remained on you through the mirror.

"it...it was okay," you responded, rolling your lips in between your teeth. It was much easier to direct your thoughts to caring about him than your own social life.

"it wasn't. Tell me," he says. The demand in his voice was one you still haven't mastered not being affected by. Something about talking to him was so easy, allowing the words to flow out like his words were a truth potion. 

"There were some new girls there I haven't met before, and we were telling stories to get to know one another, and um," Kiyoomi's eyes never leave your face through the mirror, "the topic of our first kisses came up, and when it got to my turn-"

"you froze," He finished for you.

"Yeah," you say looking down. You watch as his feet turn and begin walking to your position on the bench.

"So what did you end up telling them?" By the way he softly looks at you, you're sure he completely trusts you. He knows you would have told him if something had changed. You’re sure he already knows your answer before you tell him.

"the truth," you respond solemnly. He doesn't need you to say it to know how embarrassed you are. “Having a horrible first kiss is one thing, but being 23 and never having kissed anyone is a completely different situation.”

The way Sakusa turns back around to pack up his stuff isn't one of rejection, but in a way that tells you he'd rather finish this conversation when you have his full attention. "You know, at least you've never kissed anyone you would later regret," he shrugs, zipping up his duffle.

"look at you being on the bright side," you state, partly in shock, and partly in the hopes that the two of you can change the conversation. A smile breaks out on your face just from speaking to him. With his bag now on his shoulder he watches you, silently telling you to get up.

"hey, you’re more likely now to have a memorable kiss than before,"

"Sure, but everyone is way more experienced than me," you sulk trailing behind him out of the stadium.

"not everyone," He quietly says, just enough for you not to hear. 

The walk to the car was silent for the most part. The only noise heard were the late night crickets chirping and the occasional sound of a car passing on the main road. No matter how many times Kiyoomi explained it to you, it never made sense why he always parked at the very back of the parking lot. Which is quite far considering this is an official stadium. His long strides were no match for you, so while attempting to catch up you continued speaking hoping to remind him of your presence. “It’s just I’ve always received compliments from girls, which honestly is still pretty limited, but the best compliment a guy told me was, get this, ‘you’re not pretty now, but you’ll be prettier when you're older’. Well guess what I’m older and still nobody wants me,” you sigh.

While you yap the car the lights blink once, and a small beep is heard. His trunk pops open and surprisingly he carelessly throws his bag in slamming it shut. It all happens before you have time to comprehend it. His long, lean body swiftly turns around and presses you to the side of his car. His forehead resting on yours while his hands grip your arms tightly. “You don’t get it do you?” he whispers before leaning in. 

His lips press on to yours with inexperience. Your eyes widened as he continued to chase your plump lips. You may have found the one thing Sakusa Kiyoomi is not skilled at, yet his passion is at an all time high. You want to laugh. There is so little time to wonder if it’s nervous laughter or if you genuinely find this funny. He’s clumsy and you swear his body begins to shake with nervousness, but he’s trying. It’s more than just a kiss. Your heart connects with his. You’ve never felt this type of euphoria before. Nervous, definitely nervous laughter.  His hands begin to loosen as he draws back from you. The sparks connecting the two of you begin to break. It hurts in a greedy way. You want nothing more than to just grab his collar and slam him back into you, but he’s your Kiyoomi and he knows exactly what you want without you having to ask. There’s only one way to describe the way Kiyoomi kisses. It’s messy and unskilled. Two words that he would never want to associate with. The second kiss is wet and the sounds are vulgar. His hand moves from your arm and wraps lightly around your hair as he presses into your head. He wants more. The greed has consumed you both and simply kissing is not enough. Finally gaining control of your arms you slowly run your arms up his chest feeling the soft cloth of his t-shirt, but like always he’s faster than you. Both of his hands grip your wrists to push them up to his shoulders as if begging for you to latch onto him. Everything about this moment is rushed. Even though your introverted brains are yelling at you, the chance of anyone seeing you two is all too exciting. Your tongue shy pokes out first. A small lick on Kiyoomi’s bottom lip to know if he wants it too, and just as everything else Kiyoomi’s tongue is licking into your mouth before you have time to process it. Your tongues dance through kisses just as the wind does the same between both of your bodies. Pressed so close to one another that you can feel his rapid heartbeat, but all good things will eventually come to an end and the black haired male draws back first. 

“I meant something like that,” he whispers, still holding you tight to his body.

A/N: I really hope y'all got my new girl reference. Also, FUN FACT I actually did receive that 'compliment' from a guy once (the only time a guy complimented me). Anyway, I really have not been in a good head space so I'm sorry for just kind disappearing, but writing does give me joy so i'm going to try and answer my asks.

[zmediaoutlet]

Hey Liz! Have you ready any good spn fic lately? :)

I have, and in fact I've been spite-reading. Have a curated wincest rec list you could share with anyone you like:

Bad Blood by astolat

Rating: E Word Count: 3,718 Summary: "Fuck me or I'm going to die isn't the world's best pickup line."  // "I've heard worse," Dean said. // "You've used worse," Sam said.

Original post date, 02/22/2007

Reccing because: No wincest primer would be complete without an astolat rec. You probably get fined by the Wincest FCC, otherwise. The flaw in astolat’s wincest, if we’re allowed to say such things about our saint and founder, is that Sam and Dean would sometimes fall into the whole thing super easily — this fic dispenses with that problem with a good ol’ classic dose of evil sex pollen, and if magic makes them do it then it could be a hell of a lot worse than how delightfully they do it here. I’m laughing out loud just remembering one of the scenes. Joys.

Coast On Through by philalethia

Rating: NC-17 Word Count: 7,857 Summary: A post-first-time fic. With a lot of sex.

Original post date, 12/22/2007

Reccing because: This is a true all-timer wincest fic. Though the characterization is of its 2007 time, the Winchesters still feel like themselves, and more important feel like adults who are trying to navigate their very odd circumstances. A real classic of the brothers-with-benefits genre.

Keep Our Minds on the Sum of Each Other by lazy_daze

Rating: E Word Count: 9,593 Summary: N/A; provided tags are Bodyswap

Original post date, 12/26/2007

Reccing because: What a cheerful fuckin’ fic this is, for a fic about incestuous fuckin’. This takes the apocalyptic stakes and reels them back to a just deeply entertaining romp. Not too worried about the plot and much more worried about how hot these two are when they slam together, it’s a refreshingly non-angsty take on what it means that you just want to slurp on your brother wholesale.

Filthy Mind by rivkat

Rating: E Word Count: 26,384 Summary: Dean acquires unwelcome nightly visitors. Set post-Hell, without details as to how that happens.

Original post date, 10/07/2008

Reccing because: RivkaT is perhaps the all-time understander of the Weird Affect of Dean Winchester (As Played By Jensen Ackles) and the entirely destabilizing effect that affect has on the world. A real reality-warper. This fic deals with non-con and dub-con and who-knows-what-con and everything in between in a way that is more thoughtful than tawdry (although you can certainly enjoy the tawdriness as presented and the fic does not judge you for that). It also, thrillingly, deals with Sam’s alarm about the whole thing in a way which is fairly unflinching: he wants and does not want to want and also just really, really desperately wants-- Fans of Sheila’s analysis will probably enjoy this one. 

seeing double by candle_beck

Rating: PG-13 Word Count: 5,127 Summary: Dean has a concussion and his better senses come and go.

Original post date, 04/24/2009

Reccing because: I know there are more famous and more favored c_b fics, but this one is such a supremely perfect scene that it should be at the top of all c_b rec lists. It isn’t the catastrophic misery or assholery or intensity of some of the other big hitters but this just has this searingly true and singular experience coursing through it: to wit, that Dean is hurt and Sam is upset and then sorry and then in love. Which isn’t a half-bad summary of Supernatural itself, really. 

The incestuous courtship of the antichrist’s bride by fleshflutter

Rating: NC-17 Word Count: 48,000 Summary: Sam is trying to become the Antichrist in order to save the world. He has a small army of angels and demons, he has an adoring cult, he has a work of prophecy by Jack Kerouac, and he has Dean. Things are going pretty well until he accidentally signs Dean up as his Beloved Consort, a role that requires sex with the Antichrist on an altar. And that's when things stop going pretty well. Also, the soundtrack to the Apocalypse sucks.

Original post date, 06/08/2009

Reccing because: It is so, so rare to find crack fics that work. This is crack treated like crack and also taken entirely seriously, which is a rare balance to find. When it needs to be horror it works, when it needs to be ridiculous it works, when it needs to be hot as fuck it works, and never has the phrase ‘apocalyptic cock’ been so appropriate and so wonderful in context. 

I’ve Got A Hand For You by Edwardina

Rating: E Word Count: 14,938 Summary: Sam's inexperience is showing, and Dean helps the best way he knows how.

Original post date, 03/12/2010

Reccing because: This is underage par excellence, as wonderfully weird and vaguely creepy and hot and alarming as it should always be. Dean’s 19 and Sam’s 14 and they should not but they are, and if that isn’t just a summary of Supernatural as a whole I don’t know what is. On the face of it this is a vaguely gnasty first time fic, but what sets this one apart is how earnestly real it is — the grimy-but-not-OTT reality of the details, Sam’s goofy kiddishness being complicated by the reality of what hormones are and do, Dean’s too-cool-ness alleviated by the fact that he’s nineteen and therefore still an idiot, trying earnestly to help and getting it wrong and getting it very right, all at the same time. The attention to detail here just knocks me over with a feather. Gorgeous work.

Two Part Invention by De_Nugis

Rating: T Word Count: 6,938 Summary: Dean settles down, Sam finds him, they settle some things.

Original post date, 12/25/2010

Reccing because: I very much appreciate a fic that, on the face of it, seems like an OOC premise, and then as soon as you think about it for fifteen seconds you realize — oh, of course, of course that’s how it should be and how it would go. This fic delivers on that feeling in spades. There’s a deep appreciation here for how complicated Sam Winchester is and how strange and hard it would be to have his life, and zero judgment, really, for what he and Dean have to do to make that life tenable. I appreciate the subtlety here so much.

Top This by leonidaslion

Rating: E Word Count: 4,076 Summary: Dean's sure he's a top. Only problem is, Sam's pretty sure that's his job …

Original post date, 04/10/2011

Reccing because: Is this crack? It surely is. Is it PWP? You bet. Is it in character? To be honest it hardly matters, but despite the context and conceit it does manage, somehow, to kinda feel like Sam and Dean Winchester from the canon of the show Supernatural, and that is a trick that earns it a spot on this list. Especially the way Sam goes slightly smug there at the end. Delights.

It’s the Blueprint of Your Life by queenklu

Rating: E Word Count: 38,400 Summary: Sam jerks awake in the middle of the night and everything goes to hell. Well, not literally, though Dean is staring down the barrel of less than a year before his deal comes due. In the midst of dealing (or not dealing) with his impending death, a killer ghost ship, and Bela showing up out of the blue, Dean also has to figure out what’s going on in Sam’s head to make him so twitchy, why he’s suddenly breezing through this case while writing endless notes in a notebook he won’t let Dean see. Damn it, Dean thinks, This is gonna take a lot of chickflick moments.

Original post date, 10/09/2011

Reccing because: Time travel fic is fun as hell, and time travel fic that just soaks you in dramatic irony is even more fun, and more importantly time travel fic where the time traveler doesn’t have all the answers is best of all. Very little is better than Dean being somewhat at sea and Sam loving him fiercely and this fic delivers that in spades. I could only wish it were a little longer, which is a very, very rare statement from me.

The Fall Will Probably Kill You by killabeez

Rating: M Word Count: 6,773 Summary: Set between 7.04 and the aftermath of 7.07. Dean is not as okay as he'd like you to think. Neither is Sam.

Original post date, 11/06/2011

Reccing because: This fic is thoroughly in and of and intensely about season 7, which I adored and which doesn’t get enough credit from the fandom. It deals with the Sam’s Insanity arc in a way that’s angstier and ficcier than the show itself but it does so in this stupendous and murderously flat way. Dean is at his wit’s end and Sam is, too, but Sam’s finding a way to deal with it, and Sam will not compromise on what dealing with it means, and we’re all just forced to live with it. Fantastic reading experience, especially for the almost literal jumpscare you get about 2/3s through.

The Hunter Games by theproblematique

Rating: NC-17 Word Count: 92,601 Summary: When the infamous Winchester bad luck strikes twice in quick succession Sam and Dean are forced to compete in the most brutal reality TV show ever created. It’s impossible to escape the battlefield, hiding can only be temporary, and alliances inside those dark, bloodstained woods last about as long as it takes for the other Hunter to figure out how to use your weapons. And then kill you with them.

Original post date, 06/22/2012

Reccing because: This is a true all-timer wincest AU fic. We’re mostly all familiar with the source material, but this work blends the universe of the Hunger Games with the characterization & destiny of the Winchester boys in a way that’s extremely satisfying. The author’s other works are recced more often, but this piece is more deserving of a place as One Of Those Reclist Fics.

Kevin Tran for President by glovered

Rating: T Word Count: 11,714 Summary: Dean comes back from Purgatory to find Sam working as a barista at a coffee shop near Princeton, watching over Kevin Tran.

Original post date, 10/04/2012

Reccing because: Sometimes you just need a post-Purgatory fic that isn’t brutal. This story’s a light-hearted trip-along froth like most of glovered’s work, but there’s something in specific about this unfraught coming-together that makes it incredibly readable. Dean and Sam aren’t entirely on the same page but the relief of reunion makes everything else fade a little into the distance, and the charming little job they find themselves on here gives enough of an excuse for them to figure some things out. Also probably the best Cas & Meg side characters in a fic, so there’s that too.

Clear and simple and plain by Trojie

Rating: E Word Count: 1,893 Summary: After Sam gives up the Trials, things start getting better.

Original post date, 10/26/2013

Reccing because: This is a post-Trials fic where things don’t go incredibly wrong, which is a nice AU to sit in for a while. What’s impressive about this story, written in the time it was, is that it manages to presage the ~s11 era marriage very well indeed, in tone and vibe and even some content. They’re in the bunker and things aren’t perfect, but they’re together, and that’s a kind of perfection of its own. It isn’t sugary but it’s the kind of adult complex sweetness that makes one feel better, anyway.

hello by allwellandgood (formerly askance)

Rating: T Word Count: 4,128 Summary: There's a woman at the grocery store named Evelyn who always rings him up on the days he ventures out for food and she knows him, or likes to think she does. I hope you're not too lonely, she'll say. He chooses not to tell her that his dead brother sleeps at his feet every night. He'd rather not be the cause of her inevitable heart attack.

Original post date, 08/11/2014

Reccing because: So Dean’s dead. Everyone dies at some point. This fic is a beautifully soft and tender and bitterly kind way to deal with that. You feel Sam’s loss deep in your chest but it’s okay, because this is the world of Supernatural and there are options, and the relief he gets pours over like cool water. Not enough, and it’s not fixed, but it’s not as much of a misery as it was.

The Time Traveler’s Brother by amypond45

Rating: R Word Count: 55,458 Summary: Dean's life is turned upside down the night his mother dies. But that's also the night a mysterious grown-up version of Dean's brother first appears in his life. While Dean grows up, "Old Sam" is often there, especially when Dean's father isn't, and as Dean learns what the future holds, he begins to question everything his father has taught him about who he is and what he is supposed to become. Can Dean find a way to save his little brother from his own future? This pre-series AU follows Dean from age four to eighteen.

Original post date, 02/26/2015

Reccing because: It’s rare to have an AU so thoroughly engage with what the alternate universe it constructs means for characterization and plot. This does something outstanding with the Sam and Dean (and Deans) created by the conceit, but also uses that conceit to do something entirely new with the canon plot that just flips me over every time I remember it. There are some fantastic character insights here, both complimentary and not, but I’ll never be over the specific scene of young!Dean looking up at older!Dean and being disappointed. That’s him, that’s our little angst machine.

The King of Imperfections Takes Back the Prince of Mistakes: a fairy tale by britomart_is

Rating: E Word Count: 4,822 Summary: And they lived happily ever after.

Original post date, 06/06/2016

Reccing because: The summary is pretty much the summary and that’s such a relief, sometimes. They’re awful and stupid and they’re in love and love isn’t enough except it is, and they’re so friggin’ MARRIED in the most wonderful and dorky way. They have good-bad sex and they have idiot arguments and they’ve made it. Back in 2016 this seemed like the best possible option. Reading this story feels like reading 4800 words of relief.

Raw Food Diet by themegalosaurus

Rating: E Word Count: 2,959 Summary: Sam has one more meeting today. This one isn’t in his diary; not the public calendar everyone at the firm can access, nor the private one on his cell.

Original post date, 02/14/2019

Reccing because: If you were looking for depressing and almost revolting Lebanon AU, you’re in luck. This is serial killer!Dean at his worst and Sam Jobs at his (still slightly martyred) almost-worst and it’s the frankly gross and logical conclusion to: what would it mean, if those two horrible shitheads were still together, somehow or some way? It’s always almost a relief when fic manages to do a not-happy ending and this definitely does that. Refreshing, in its way, though you might want a shower after.

Ions in the Ether by nigeltde

Rating: E Word Count: 10,860 Summary: When was the last time you trusted happy.

Original post date, 03/12/2019

Reccing because: For any s2 obsessives as our author here is, this is a deep and alarming and inside-out dive into the obsession with a brother and with monstrousness and with what’s true and what’s not and also can you tell the difference, after all. A murky swirl through a shithole town, this fic picks and pries at wincest-as-concept in a way that’s somewhat achy and alarming and is overall delightful, if you’re willing to take the time to think about it. Plus Sam’s hot, which is of course a bonus.

there will be better days by deadlybride

Rating: E Word Count: 9,430 Summary: Sam and Dean settle into their heaven.

Original post date, 11/24/2020

Reccing because: I’m crass. But also I can’t think of another fic that feels as much like heaven as this one and I wanted heaven on the list.

[radiance1]

Hello people.

Using this from Herald of Seasons drabble, and this here reply from the wonderful @percyisawesome

So I'm gonna say that the Herald of Seasons title Vortex gave his little guy was split between Danny and Phantom, Danny getting Spring and Summer and Phantom getting Fall and Winter. Because of that I'm gonna say that both of them like the rain and snow as a little flavor thing :3

So Danny still gets dropped kicked out of the zone to DC by a ghost who didn't want a living person in the zone, who then gets beaten up by Vortex for putting his hands on his little guy, and Danny brings along the seasons and stuff.

Except that Danny can't easily guide Fall or Winter as he could Spring or Summer, because that wasn't his role, that one fell to Phantom. But he still does it because, well, Phantom is there to do those things, he's still in the DP dimension., even though it puts some strain on him to do these things.

So he meets Batman, gives him a snowflake (accessing the power of ice is easier than guiding Fall and Winter), and then leaves hoping to encounter him next Spring. Then Phantom manages to find his way to the DC verse and he kinda, well.

He kinda fucks shit up.

You get Winter, and you get fall, you get winter and on and on. Sending chaos to the balance that Danny tried to create and when he's made aware of it, he drops what he was doing to go and put it back into order and Phantom's already gone to spread more cold.

This, obviously, gets the attention of the Justice League due to sudden change in the weather all over the place. So, they get to investigating, find it to be someone deliberately changing the weather, and quite violently at that.

Batman instantly thinks back to that child he met, proclaiming himself to be the Herald of Seasons. The boy didn't seem to be the type to do this based on their conversation, nor how he waited for the rain to finish before calling forth snow.

Batman doesn't want to jump to any conclusions yet, but he'll keep note of the information, and also shares it with the rest of the Justice League just in case.

Danny is kinda running himself ragged trying to clean up the sudden changing of Seasons, for every Fall and Winter he reverts back to Spring and Summer, another takes its place. Eventually, the Justice League manages to crack down on Phantom's location, and pulls up to stop him from continuing this unnatural weather changing.

Phantom takes one look at Batman, and instantly guns for him because of that snowflake he has hiding in his suit. Unfortunately for Phantom, there's some heavy hitters in the Justice League, as well as Justice League dark who pulled up because this was an incident of magical capacity.

So Phantom gets hold in check, and the JL just sees a child meta that's the source of everything going on here, and, while fighting, try to talk him down from all of this but Phantom?

Phantom just does not care. He goddamn hates humans, because all they want to do is try to capture and tear him apart under a light, so he decided to destroy them first before they destroy him, hence the massive and violent change in weather.

Just as a massive Winter is over the city they were fighting with and the Justice League getting more and more convinced that they can't communicate with Phantom. It suddenly becomes lighter, the storm, I mean.

Danny appears.

He's finally caught up with Phantom, who was causing an imbalance in nature that he established and tried hard to keep. Checks on Batman because hey that's his friend, and also tries to talk Phantom down.

He gets farther than the Justice League, and the storm gets lighter and lighter, the area almost coming back to its natural season, until communications broke down because Phantom got shot at.

Who? Why none other than the GIW, of course! They followed him to the DC verse, and Phantom's recent actions only reinforced their views on ghosts.

Unfortunately, Danny becomes the focus of Phantom's rage and faces the brunt of the attack to do being so close, he thinks that Danny, a human is allied with the GIW, and even if he felt familiar he couldn't care anymore because the men in white lied, the girl who called him her brother lied, the one calling themselves his friends lied and the ones who called themselves his parents lied.

Danny lied. Phantom didn't know why he cared so much, but it just hit harder than any other time.

Humans always lie.

So Danny gets injured, and a fight breaks out with the GIW trying to get both Phantom and Danny. Because the boy was obviously also a ghost if he was able to talk with Phantom.

Unfortunately for them, the JL puts a stop to that.

Phantom is on the full offensive, while Danny is on the defensive. Mostly because Danny doesn't really, fight, magically at least. He knows martial arts, but Phantom does as well, and Phantom due to being a ghost is physically stronger than him, so he would have to resort to magical might, rather than physical.

Unfortunately, due to his usual use of guiding rather than forcing as Phantom did and also because Phantom used his powers to fight and fend off the GIW, he doesn't have as much experience with fighting with the elements.

So, he's mostly reacting here, rather than acting.

Even worse when he's injured as well. Eventually, Phantom escapes, and Danny gets taken to get medical attention in the League base by Batman.

[audliminal]

It's Just a game, Right? Pt 7

Masterpost

It's just a game, right?

Tim turns his head at the soft their of a grappling hook, and a moment later Steph has joined him on the roof of the building.

"Not much happening tonight, huh?"

"Yeah, I guess," Tim responds as he watches traffic pass on the street below. She is right; the night so far has been unusually calm. It's a distinct contrast to last week- it seemed like every night some big villain was pulling out some ridiculous plan or other, but somehow they had all been stopped without serious harm. Of course, there are still plenty of rogues still scurrying around Gotham but there's no murmurs of anything coming from any of the big hitters for the moment.

"You don't sound very sure about that," Steph says, stepping up beside Tim and elbowing him lightly.

"Yeah," Tim answers. A flashy silver car cuts someone off and the resultant horn echoes harshly.

"Okay, you're being weird. What's up?"

Tim shrugs.

"Guess I'm just used to emergencies," Tim shrugs. He knows Steph wouldn't be weird about him bringing up Bernard, but he really doesn't need any of his fellow bats thinking he's compromised or overstressed. God knows he doesn't need anyone else pestering him about getting enough sleep, like he's staying up on purpose.

"Okay..." Steph trails off. "I mean I guess it has been pretty hectic for a while. Takes a bit of time to come down from all that?"

Tim is saved from having to respond by the sound of Oracle cutting into comms.

"Red Robin, Spoiler, looks like a store robbery in progress and you're the closest. Head for the intersection of 25th and Oak."

"Got it," Tim answers and doesn't wait for Steph's response, already halfway through the motion of taking off for the next building.

Pretty soon they're both dropping in on a pair of goons. One of them is aiming their gun directly at a frazzled-looking employee, who doesn't seem interested in putting up a fight.

Two-on-two makes it an incredibly easy fight though, and it's almost over before it begins, with both of them able to sneak up on the distracted thugs as the cashier hurriedly pulls money out of the cash register. Once they're both in position, it's easy enough to grapple, disarm, and restrain them in a flurry of movement, and the criminals never get a chance to even process the arrival of the bats.

"Not today, I think," Steph says as she handcuffs her guy. "Threatening people with guns is a real dick move, y'know?" Tim gets his guy handcuffed and turns to the startled employee.

"Cops on the way yet?" He gets a frantic nod, and Tim surveys the shop as he waits for the sirens. They'll bounce just before the cops get here, but until then, he wants to look around for any signs of something bigger. The two would-be thieves seem too shocked and terrified at the appearance of bats to be proper goons, but they could still be bait, or a distraction of some kind. And the shop itself could theoretically have been targeted. But by the time the sirens are closing in outside, he's not spotted signs of anything sinister.

"Right, the police are almost here, so we're gonna bounce!" Steph announces as Tim walks back towards her. "Tell your boss I said he should give you hazard pay for the night, 'kay?" and then she bounces out the same way they came in. Tim nods once at the employee and then follows.

He changes directions once he's on the rooftops again, though. His phone had buzzed about six times in a row while they were waiting, and that means it's probably Bernard. And he really doesn't want to explain the arg thing to anyone yet.

Once he's far enough away from anyone, he pulls his phone out, and sure enough, he's got six text messages from Bernard.

Dude

Babe, holy shit

Like seriously

This is fucking crazy

Like I cannot believe they replied to us

Us!!!

Attached to the series of texts is a screenshot, and Tim feels the anxiety coalesce into something abruptly solid in his chest.

At first glance, he can't tell what language it's supposed to be. It looks like it might be Romantic in origin, but a couple spellings look almost Slavic in nature, and there's only two and a half lines, which really isn't much to go off of.

It's certainly an interesting development, to say the least. He should be excited. This is a new clue for the mystery, after all.

No way! Tim sends back.

Yeah! U busy? Comes the immediate response. And like, technically the answer is yes, Tim supposed. But Steph literally just pointed out how calm things are tonight, and he can already tell he won't be able to focus, with this news.

"Um," Tim clicks on his comm. "I think I'm gonna call it for tonight."

"Something wrong?" Bruce asks immediately, all gruff-batman-voice.

"No, just- it's slow tonight, and Bernard wants my help with something so I thought, um. If you want me to finish my patrol, I can." He can't help it. Even now, he always kind of feels like he isn't doing enough to be a good vigilante.

"Nah, kid. I think we'll be fine without you." Hood answers, unsurprisingly.

"You're sure?"

"Yeah go make out with your boyfriend or whatever."

Tim smiles at Hood's usual ribbing. He's almost gotten used to it; mostly he can keep himself from blushing too violently when anyone teases him about Bernard.

"Okay. I'll make sure to get my report submitted by eight, promise." Tim is already en route to the nearest safehouse where he can change out of the suit, when he remembers he hasn't responded to Bernard yet.

Heading home rn. My place or yours? He hits send and then takes off once more. Excited to see his boyfriend, and determined to work through the newest puzzle.

[threewaysdivided]

compared to the other hero's in YJ how do you think Phantom stands up power wise. like Future Danny ripped the world apart and i know in some fanfiction that it is used as an indicator that he is high up there, but i'm interested in your thoughts.

This is an interesting question nonnie!

I generally agree with the idea that Phantom is in the upper-tier of crossover superhero powers, but I do have more specific thoughts so let’s break it down:

Danny’s power level

Just looking at the variety and strength of ghost-powers that Phantom displays in his show, I would put him in the higher rankings of most heroes when it comes to raw ability.  I alluded to this in my main DP x YJ Deathly Weapons fanfic, but to me Phantom shows signs of a pretty common power-scaling differential that happens when a solo-protagonist hero gets transplanted into an ensemble setting.  Within his own setting, Phantom had to be (or become) powerful enough to solve most problems/ fights all by himself – and some of those ghosts he ended up facing towards the end of his canon were impressively strong.  By comparison ensemble heroes are generally less-powerful because working as a collective means they don’t have the same need for aggressive self-sufficiency and also so that no one character upstages or outmodes the rest of the group from a writing perspective.

There’s also the nature of ghost powers.  Phantom needed to develop the raw strength to fill the role of solo combat heavy-hitter, but his base powers are versatile to the point of unsettling.  He has to physically fight against other ghosts because they have (and to some extent are immune to) the same abilities as him, but in a fight against other species he could potentially avoid, manipulate or exhaust an opponent with strategic use of invisibility/ intangibility/ overshadowing.

The back of Dinah’s neck prickled.  With flight to mask footsteps and intangibility rendering them undetectable by touch…  Nonthreatening as Phantom generally appeared, she was starting to understand why his kind had developed such an unsettling reputation.  The idea that a ghost could be present at any time - eavesdropping, spying, interfering - without any of them being the wiser was… disquieting to say the least. - Deathly Weapons, Chapter 17: Assessment

On top of that, he seems to be in a similar boat to Superman when it comes to physical weaknesses – he doesn’t have that many, and they’re often quite specific or hard-to-find.   The most easily-exploitable one is that Danny can run out of power, be slowly starved of ectoplasm or be knocked unconscious; all of which would forcibly revert him back to his weaker human state.  After that, he’s vulnerable to certain magics and ghostly-artefacts, which are more likely to be accessible to various DC/ Marvel heroes (although they might not know exactly which spells/items will be most effective or why).  Beyond those two, most of his weaknesses need to be specifically known about and actively sought out – anti-ecto-technology is obtainable but not mainstream, blood blossoms naturally repel/hurt ghosts but they seem to be rare in nature (or even extinct in the modern day) and then assuming you acknowledge Phantom Planet there’s ectoranium which is basically ghost-Kryptonite in rarity (and possibly even the same mineral in DP x DC settings depending on the crossover).  Much like with Superman, the most reliable ways to take down Phantom require actively knowing what he is and having prepared accordingly.

Based on those metrics, I want to place Phantom in the same power-band as Superman or the Martian Manhunter.  I’d consider their powers to be equivalent incomparibles – it’s hard to stack their abilities side-by-side and say one is objectively better than the others.  A no-holds-barred, knock-down drag-out fight between those three could get very nasty but it would be hard to confidently call a winner without knowing more about the external factors around them.

That said, I think the thing holding Danny back from being fully at that level is his experience: or rather his lack thereof.   Danny hasn’t had much formal training (except maybe some basic self-defence instruction from Maddie/Jack) and he doesn’t have a proper mentor either.  His personal experience mostly fits the narrow niche of direct open combat with other ghosts, mostly throughout Amity Park and surrounds (although occasionally in the Ghost Zone or further from town). 

Phantom has enough raw power and innate talent as a strategic lateral-thinker to get by, but I think that hyperspecialisation and lack of guidance would leave him with a lot of blind-spots.  His hand-to-hand is self-taught and probably missing a lot of best-practice basic techniques.  He’s also never had an experienced third party to observe him in the field and offer suggestions on alternative approaches to using his powers/ keep him from developing bad habits.  This is something Danny actually comments on in canon; he can take a long time to identify solutions (even obvious ones) that deviate too far from his default throw hands approach to fighting.  His powers could be more effectively deployed as a precision-instrument but a lack of coaching means he tends to falls back on using them as a blunt hammer because that was the pattern that came naturally when he was first starting out, and no-one was around to keep that habit from ingraining.

The place where you can see this lack of experience hurting him the most is in his lack of soft-skills.  Phantom didn’t have anyone to advise him on de-escalation, damage control, comforting civilians, interacting with authorities etc.  Add in the naturally-frightening nature of many ghosts and it was easy for him to fall into a public perception of being “the town menace”.  Danny is pretty decent at rallying both humans and ghosts (even erstwhile enemies) to his side in crisis situations but no-one has taught him how manage public relations outside of that.  He says it himself: he needs a PR agent.

On the other hand, Phantom’s heroics have inadvertently earned him a decent amount of potential political pull in the Ghost Zone.  He has enough positive rapport that some regular rogues will take his side or even actively seek him out for help in the right circumstances, and other more antagonistic ones have at least developed a degree of grudging respect.  There are several powerful ghosts that either have direct debts of gratitude to him/his team (Princess Dorothea, Pandora) or who hold him in high esteem for re-sealing Pariah Dark (The Far Frozen).  It’s possible that defeating Pariah might even have granted him a potential candidature/claim to an official position, and judging by the way the Observants and Clockwork pay attention to him, it seems that Phantom’s slow accumulation of power/influence isn’t going completely unnoticed.  However, again, Danny doesn’t have the awareness, experience or training needed to leverage that effectively – heck, he’s not even doing it on purpose.

With all that taken into account, I think Phantom would rank very highly in terms of overall potential, but at his current level he’d be in the lower ranks of the A-tier.  He could become a much more powerful figure with the right guidance but in his canonical state he’s underutilising or outright overlooking a lot of his most effective tools.

TUE Future/ “Dark Phantom”

The “Dark Phantom” presented in the TUE Bad-Future is interesting to me because while he’s a very powerful figure within that story, I don't think he’s a very good reflection of canon-Danny’s potential to do harm.

Gonna complain about The Ultimate Enemy for a bit: I’ve tag-muttered about this before but I’m one of the Phandom members who finds The Ultimate Enemy to be a frustratingly weak episode.  It has a potentially fascinating core premise (the “evil future/alternate self”) but the execution is so convoluted and driven by improbable contrivances that the whole ends up being far less than the sum of its parts.   

One of the biggest problems is that, rather than being a straight future/alternate version of Danny, “Dark Phantom” is actually a hybrid of Phantom and Plasmius’ worse sides.  He’s a distinct, separate entity which means he can’t work as an effective dark mirror to either of them.  (Compare and contrast the Justice League episode A Better World in which the Justice Lords acted as a dark mirror of what the actual Justice League members could become if they chose to abandon their morals and compassion in favour of seizing control and instating a totalitarian system of draconian crime prevention.)

The episode also tried to graft on a really mismatched moral of “don’t be a cheat”.  Rather than being a lesson on choices/ values/ power/ responsibility, Dark Phantom almost ends up being an offhand biproduct of Danny getting caught cheating on a freshman/sophomore-year career-aptitude test.  Instead of learning a lesson about himself/ his ideals/ his personal faults, Danny comes away from the episode with a cool new superpower after deciding not to cheat on the test after all.  Not exactly satisfying.

That mismatch and the convoluted levels of moon-logic required to make it fit severely undermine the idea that this version of Dark Phantom is “inevitable”.  There are too many steps that are too highly-specific and too easily-avoidable for the threat to feel real: Danny has to care enough about an early-highschool CAT to want to cheat, he has to somehow get the answers which he wasn’t intending to do in the canon timelineand only does as a result of Clockwork’s meddling, making it a self-fulfilling situation, he has to get caught using them, Mister Lancer has to hold the resulting parent-teacher meeting at Nasty Burger rather than a school office for some reason, the Nasty Burger Sauce has to 1. be dangerously explosive and 2. coincidentally explode while not only Danny’s parents but his friends and sister are inside, Danny has to be placed in Vlad’s custody rather than with his Aunt Alicia or closer family-friends, Danny has to ask Vlad to remove his Phantom-half and finally, Vlad himself has to agree to do it.  Take away any of those steps and this version of Dark Phantom doesn’t happen.  That’s not inevitable, it’s contrived.

But anyway, let’s look at Dark Phantom as his own entity:

One of the things that makes Dark Phantom much more potentially dangerous is that he combines Phantom’s raw power with Plasmius’ experience.  Like I was saying before, one of Danny’s biggest handicaps is that he lacks training/guidance and tends to underutilise his most effective abilities.  Vlad meanwhile has had years of relative freedom to practice and finesse a lower raw-power level; he’s much more skilled at advanced techniques like duplication and overshadowing (which he canonically used to force through his fortune-making business deals), as well as ecto-constructs.  Plasmius is also a lot more tactical and manipulative in how he applies their common powers.  Plus, the TUE version of Dark Phantom is a full-ghost, which means he doesn’t have a vulnerable mortal state that can be exploited as a weakness.

This is why I think it would be possible for TUE!Dark Phantom to successfully decimate other heroes in shared-universe crossover situations where ghosts aren’t common knowledge.  He’d be an unexpected, unknown enemy that the heroes have no effective way to fight (outside of a few magic users).  Combine that with many of the most powerful heroes being visible as public figures, and Dark Phantom having inherited Plasmius’ strategic/manipulative traits and it could be very easy for Dark Phantom to basically launch a premeditated paranormal blitzkrieg attack, using Plasmius’ skill with duplicates and overshadowing to subjugate any hero he couldn’t overwhelm with Phantom’s raw power level.  It would also make sense that Amity Park would become one of the remaining bastions in any TUE-style future, since having advanced knowledge of ghostly abilities and access to anti-ecto technology would tilt the balance more evenly and allow them to at least keep the danger out.

Mentally, it’s also worth noting that Dark Phantom is a lot more dangerous than either Phantom or Plasmius.  He’s basically the most toxic traits from both of them, removed from their more moderating/ compassionate instincts.  Based on the canonical explanation given, TUE!Danny had Phantom forcibly removed in attempt to remove the pain/ rage/ grief he was feeling over the death of his family.  This isn’t a model-hero-persona conceptualisation of Phantom a la Splitting Images; the TUE-version of his ghost half is a big ball of churning negative emotion.  And what are some of Danny’s toxic traits when it comes to negative emotions: he lashes out, falls into self-blame and self-destructs.  Then we add in Vlad’s toxic traits: he’s egocentric to the point of narcissism, he projects negative feelings/ blame onto others rather than accept responsibility for his own actions and he has a controlling/ sadistic streak.   

TUE’s Dark Phantom is the worst possible combination of an emotionally devastated teenager and an emotionally immature adult.  He’s a ball of pain and rage that blames the world for that pain, lashes out at it, feels worse for doing so and then blames the world for making him feel worse because he doesn’t have the emotional capacity to accept that he’s the one causing it.  Grief is love persevering but the feelings of love, connection and guilt that contextualise his pain were left in the human shells that remained of Danny and Vlad.  It’s possible that the Dark Phantom presented in TUE might not have the capacity to feel positive emotions or compassion.  He was never meant to exist as his own entity – he was an attempt to destroy Daniel Fenton’s negative emotions which went horribly wrong.  In some ways it seems like his reign of terror could be an angrier version of Dracula’s scheme from Netflix’s Castlevania or Haliax’s goal from the Kingkiller Chronicles – a drawn-out suicide note from an undead being who’s been dead inside for much longer, destroying whatever peace/happiness he encounters in revenge for being denied it himself, until such time as he either attains catharsis or finally ends the pain by destroying reality and himself along with it.  That’s the final thing that makes TUE’s Dark Phantom more dangerous than either Phantom or Plasmius – he has nothing to lose and no “better nature” or personal dreams that other heroes could try to appeal to.

So yeah, the TUE version of Dark Phantom could absolutely rip the world and other heroes apart, but I don’t think he’s a particularly good reflection of Danny’s capabilities in terms of either powers or personality.  There’s too much Vlad in the mix, and even then he represents such a narrow and extreme edge-case for each of their personalities that it’s barely representative at all.  At best he’s a warning for what these kinds of powers could be capable of in the wrong hands.

Meta-question: What is “power” in narrative?

Alright, now that I’ve (hopefully) answered the question, let’s finish with a self-indulgent thought exercise for extra credit.

There’s an anecdote which I’ve heard attributed to the Stan Lee, in which a fan apparently asked him “who would win in a fight between Superman and the Hulk?”  To which Stan apparently replied, “whoever the writer wants.”

While it can be fun to make tier-lists and try to rank how strong different heroes/villains/creatures are based on the rules of their respective universes, I think it can also be helpful to consider that– like all things in storytelling – power is a narrative device.  It’s a tool that the character(s) and storyteller(s) can use to create and solve problems.

A character can be extremely physically strong/ skilled/ knowledgeable/ influential in a specific area but how much narrative power they have depends on how well their abilities allow them to influence or resolve story problems.   And, as the omnipotent god(s) of the narrative, the storyteller(s) can choose whether to confront them with challenges that play to their existing strengths, or that force them to find other solutions.  What’s the best way to kill a vampire?

This is actually part of what makes Lex Luthor such an effective Superman villain.  Objectively most versions of Lex are just A Guy™ – on a physical level he doesn’t have anything close to Kal El’s Kryptonian strength or superpowers.  But he feels like a serious threat because he often comes after Superman in ways that Clark can’t easily steamroll with that brute strength.  Lex uses manipulation, money, influence, connections, politics, public opinion; Superman can’t physically fight him without playing into Luthor’s plans, and trying to face him in those other fields requires tools that Clark wasn’t handed as part of his Kryptonian heritage.  An invading alien army is objectively a bigger physical threat to Earth, but a competent Lex Luthor scheme feels more dangerous because – while we feel confident that Superman can beat down a legion of monsters – when it comes to the question of whether he can outwit Luthor, the outcome is a lot less certain.

Situational disempowerment is another of the ways a narrative can reign in an otherwise “overpowered” character: placing them in circumstances where they either aren’t given many opportunities to showcase their best strengths, or are kept from using them because the drawbacks/ risks/ consequences of using their abilities makes their power(s) a liability.  I’ve mentioned it before, but this is actually one of the tricks I’m personally using to keep Phantom’s massive powerset balanced against the other proteges in Deathly Weapons.  It’s also something I’ve been struggling with when it comes to Conner’s place in that story since the stealth-mission plot structure doesn’t allow as much room to highlight his core powers and personal strengths.   

Stories can create additional stakes for powerful characters by giving them emotional arcs which their powers can’t resolve.   For a published example, consider the series One Punch Man and Mob Psycho 100.  Despite how high-ranked Saitama and Mob are within the power-scaling of their respective stories, those powers don’t kill the emotional stakes because the things they actually want/ need can only be gained through self-improvement or making connections in ways separate from their powers (and in some regards their power level actively gets in the way of that).  This is also something I’m doing with Danny’s main grief arc in DW.   

Final Conclusion time

In terms of physical strength and range of abilities, I think Phantom would be pretty near the top of the power-scale in most superhero crossovers.  While the Dark Phantom presented in TUE might not be a particularly good reflection of Danny’s specific potential, a crossover version of the TUE timeline offers a pretty good litmus-test for how dangerous a strong ghost could be in a given universe: the combination of power level, ability range and highly-specific/ inaccessible weak-points poses a strong strategic threat.

On the other hand, physical strength isn’t the only strength.  Phantom has a decent level of potential political sway as well, but he also lacks a lot of the soft skills and experience needed to make use of his toolset to its full ability.

Stepping back further, the answer to how powerful Danny is in a narrative sense is really just “however much the writer wants”.  Phantom’s narrative power depends on the kind of story he’s in and the challenges placed around him – there are as many ways to situationally nerf our ghost-boy as make him OP, all without needing to alter his on-paper powers.

[sighed-the-snake]

Speculation on Archangel Michael

I think Crowley might have murdered Michael's boyfriend.

The way she rushes off so eagerly to make that phone call in the stairwell.

"It's me," she says with familiarity. Her voice is soft, and sweet, like her smile. "It's our man, Aziraphale. Is there any possibility he's working for you?"

She accepts his denial easily, without question. "No? Well then, you might want to investigate the activities of the demon Crowley. Might be playing his own game, word to the wise."

She's warning him. When he resists, she pushes back, but she is still gentle. "No, I'm - I'm telling you, you can't trust him."

He questions her, and there is a flirtatiousness in her voice. She almost purrs. "Of course you can trust me. I'm an angel."

Who is she talking to?

That's right. This guy. Ligur.

The one Crowley melts with holy water when Ligur comes for him.

Contrast this with the way Michael conducts her phone call to Hell in S2. (For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure she's talking to Dagon.)

"I'm not saying Hell is complicit in this," she says, the facade of angelic grace barely concealing her irritation. She's lounging stiffly in her chair. She doesn't want to be on this call, explaining herself. "I'm not saying anyone is complicit. I'm just saying that if anyone is found helping him, we are prepared to use extreme sanctions."

"Extreme sanctions?" echoes the voice on the line.

"Yes," says Michael, almost rolling her eyes and restraining a sigh. "Book of Life."

"I'm on it," says the voice dutifully.

Michael's reply is almost a sneer. "I appreciate it," she says, and hangs up on the demon by literally blowing them off.

That is a pretty big tonal shift.

The softness she showed Ligur is not her usual way of going about things. She does not get her way by using a light touch. Irritated exasperation is closer to Michael's default.

She's calculating, and canny, and restrained. She sees through Aziraphale's deception in the Job job. She later investigates him by combing through Earth's surveillance when he makes some remarks that don't sit right with her. She cuts people off to talk over them. She's ambitious and covets Gabriel's job.

And yet, she was soft and sweet to Ligur, in a way we never see again.

And when it was time to execute Crowley, who showed up with a pitcher of holy water to destroy him?

That's right. Michael.

Taking this scene at face value, I thought it was because Michael is one of Heaven's heavy-hitters, and she's the one with the backchannel to Hell. She's the one talking to them, so she's the one who goes there with the holy water.

But with S2 in mind, I'm seeing this with different eyes.

I think she requested this job. She knows Ligur was destroyed trying to bring in Crowley, and she has probably guessed where the demon's holy water came from. This execution was personal. She wanted to be the one to supply the water that melted the Serpent of Eden into a dingy pool of filth, just like he did to the demon she cared about. When she walks away with an empty pitcher, she looks satisfied.

That's it, that's the theory. Crowley murdered her boyfriend, Aziraphale supplied the murder weapon, and she probably hates both of them down to her angelic bones.

[joseline-woodhouse]

@probably-bad-idea and I had a small discussion about it and I'm bringing it up again due to the new chapter:

So I said Prospero and Montresor would both be rooks and Eulalie and Berenice are the Bishop pair. Now the new chapter revealed this to be wrong, but it also revealed the characters to be clearly separated into queen side and king side.

So Montresor is a proven rook, Prospero is a proven queen side bishop.

My theory on the others:

Will is a Queen side pawn, Morella a central pawn and pluto a king side pawn.

They are all technically disposable strategy wise, but the queenside pawn is more likely to promote into another piece in most set-ups, the central pawns determine the structure of the game more than other pieces on the field and try too keep control amd order in the most vital part of the board, the king side pawns are more likely to be important defenders of the king and lead an attack of other pieces in more set-ups than queen side pawns.

I said Berenice and Eulalie are the bishop pair, but that can't be right now since they're both king and Prospero is a confirmed bishop.

So I am saying Eulalie is the king side bishop.

Ada and Duke would be the horseys (or knights if you want). The knight is more difficult to predict than other pieces, really useful closed (tight) positions and not so strong on their own since they can't move as fast as the other main pieces.

That would leave Berenice to be the second rook besides Montresor. Both of them are heavy hitters, but both of them are cowards in a way. Montresor trying to hide behind others all the time and Berenice straight up trying to refuse any dangerous challenge until Eulalie pushes her. Rooks are very vulnerable pieces because they are so strong. It makes it very worthwhile for other pieces to sacrifice themselves to get rid of a rook. So the rook will often hide behind other pieces until the end game where it can really show of it's strength.

[allwormdiet]

Gestation 1.5

I wonder if Taylor's night is gonna get any better

This is actually a really good passage for the building tension. Lung's not gonna kill our protagonist in the fifth chapter of the novel but she doesn't know that. She can see her options narrowing down and her chances getting slimmer, she doesn't know there's like, a million plus words more to her story. This could be it, and this really sells it.

Okay actually I'm gonna circle back to something I totally missed in 1.4, which is the mild comedy in Taylor hacking multiple EpiPens in her kit as a teenager with, I'm gonna guess a modest allowance? You can tell this was written by someone who hasn't had to put up with US healthcare, that's minimum like $600 bucks of medicine, and frankly I don't think it's going to be any cheaper when the predominant pharmaceutical company is run by a Nazi.

Sweet of her dad, and also I cannot imagine facing down a hitter like Lung with nothing but a can of pepper spray, Jesus Christ that's stressful. This never comes up in the retellings, Taylor has cast-iron balls to pull this stunt.

Kudos on this, it's such a cool descriptor, and again: huge props to Taylor for staring this down and not running like hell.

Side note, either Lung's eyes are a magnet for violence or else Taylor is compelled to target the eyes. Maybe both. See if it keeps happening with either of them I guess.

Something something Jurassic Park reference, also do we need the reminder that he has an accent

YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH IT'S THE CAVALRY BABY

Listen I know I'm a little spoiled here and the bias is showing but I already love these kids, look at em! They decided to swing at Lung for the sake of the girl who'd already pried him off their backs, they didn't need to save her but they did. I can't wait for them all to break my heart one way or another, it's gonna rule.

Grue is real as fuck for his costume, it's so cool.

Also I desperately want to know what the conversation was like for the Undersiders to decide "yeah fuck it let's put up our dukes against the head of the ABB." Who voted in favor of that?

The "but yeah" really sells the underlying youth of the character, btw. Gonna go out on a limb and guess there's a lot of kids who feel like they need to hold themselves like adults (and then don't really know how) in this story.

Squad squad squad squad

Quick and dirty introduction to the team, good enough start as anything, also lmao at Taylor just standing there with jelly legs trying to process this and completely unable to make words happen. Poor girl

"Certainly least" my ass, kid's got style.

Can Tattletale actually stop herself from talking? Not like in a power sense I mean in a needing to be smart way. I assume she can but it's not out of the question that she just cannot put a lid on it. I've known people like that.

Also an effortless display of trust and teamwork. Tattletale says boogie and Bitch is on it immediately.

So the fox parallels just start immediately, okay. Everyone always compares her to a fox, or makes her fursona a fox, or describes a vulpine grin, and I figured that was drawing on the text but I didn't think it came up literally in the first chapter she appears.

There's a couple different emotions I feel at this last paragraph. Per usual I feel bad for Taylor because this truly just has not been her night, she gets like half a W against fucking Lung but gets scared half to death, saved by villains, and then mistaken for a villain as well. Awful way to start a career.

On the other hand, Taylor, honey, you're terrifying and used a bunch of venomous and painful insects in order to break up a gang meeting, you're in all blacks and grays with big ol yellow eyes, your entire aesthetic screams villain, this is at least partly your own fault.

On the third hand, knowing full well how important the Undersiders are gonna be, and how feared Taylor is gonna be as a future villain, it's not hard to look at this like. Well what's so bad about them being villains, and what's so bad about being mistaken for one. Obviously it's a matter of morality and perspective and stuff like that, Taylor seems to only now be dipping her toes into moral flexibility, but the gift/curse of future knowledge means there's something, I dunno, a little sweet about this encounter.

Current Thoughts

Tired. Dragging my hands down my face rn. Last one for tonight.

This was a cool sequence. Rough introduction to the Docks and ABB aside, the fight between Lung and Taylor was super cool, a great feeling of the momentum shifting between the two as Taylor's bugs stop being able to keep up with the fire, the desperate play with the pepper spray, and being just. Fully backed into a corner until she's saved by the cavalry. If this is how the fight scenes keep going for this series then I think I'm in for a fun ride.

Also yaaaaaaaaay the team has been introduced, I can't wait to find out how much of the perception of them I've gotten through fanworks and my own half-baked osmosis is going to contrast with their canon personalities. Grue being all serious and Tattletale being a smirking know-it-all literally described as fox-like feel like solid indicators, if nothing else.

Next chapters tomorrow. It's Armsmaster right after, right? See what he's like.

[fisheito]

non horny ask: what kinda irl snake would Yakumo be? venomous or non venomous?

my instinct says venomous purely because that opens up the fun possibility of magical side effects whenever yakumo bites someone (i want his venom to have a mild numbing property so he can bite me and i can finally get a decent night's sleep)

i'm openinmg up the search gtengine for this (HEY SNAKE FREAKS IN THE AUDIENCE!! IF YOU HAVE SUGGESTIONS THEN SHOW THE CLASS 👉👇👈👐)

(spoiler alert: i am no closer to an answer than when i started. we're just looking at snakes together)

flashback: i once pointed at western worm snake and laughed because BABY

but let's assign yaku a larger counterpart for when he's feeling big and brave i briefly considered the nonvenomous approach but i'm gonna joke that yakumo has a bigger oral fixation>>squeezing fixation on eiden so uh, this snake is all about the mouthparts i guess

i mean.. the snakes that constrict will inevitably hoRMPH(gulp) too so it would be reasonable to make yaku a nonvenomous squeezer. but. my bias says venom time, ,today

considering his ridic Great Serpent ancestry, he's probably gonna have a potent venom so let's look up Hella Dangerous Bitey Boys *typetypetypeclickclaxke*

side thought: are some species generally more aggressive than others? or does it vary moreso by individual? hmm. let's see if we can find a danger noodle that's reeaaaallllllly not into using its fangs as a first response

..... .......... i'm overwhelmed by choice again so i'm gonna start relying on aesthetics by which i mean altho i love defaulting to boas for their :3 face

i feel like yaku would be more of a streamlined snake skull like the neck isn't distinguished very well from the head... I wANT to see him as :3 snake puppy face but i also need him to have zero structure. absolute jello. no bones. skullless. just a *USES LINE TOOL*

wait. if i rely on Looks does that mean i can only choose IRL snakes that are black or subdued colours? because yaku doesn't want to be perceived, after all........

[eyes start to glaze over] -nondescript colouring -venomous (perhaps potently so) -not aggressive?? the type to strike ONCE , or wait-- is he more of a multi-striker.. fast? no... he seems like he'd be slow..if Dark Nova/Shadow Lineage is any indication..? slow OHKO heavy hitter? no, not "slow". HESITANT heavy hitter? ... -heat sensing organs? or just drawn to the heat? THE TYPE TO ONLY PREY ON OTHER VENOMOUS SNAKES--no no that's not right yaku will eat everything uhhhhhh

[SHAKES MY HEAD VIOLENTLY LIKE A WET DOG REBOOT]

call me basic but i like the look of mambas....

(sadly the black mamba doesn't have black scales but LOOK AT THAT MOUF!!!!!!!!!!)

wait how about a snake that hangs out in east asia? MOUNTAIN KEELBACK????? lil diamonds all along the back .nice

LOOK AT THE MASSIVE ORBS on *THIS* keelback.......

would he be arboreal like those funky vine snakes? mmm.., unlikely? i don't think yaku has shown much of a desire for heights... at least not yet (flashback to Puzzling Investigation Blade's impromptu takeoff)

what about a rattlesnake??? err... nah... yaku doesn't seem like much of a defensive butt wiggler....

Now i'm rethinking my entire instinct on VENOMOUS because ...Dark Nova 2 had yaku going snake-ish and eiden was ALL UP IN HIS fangs but he didn't feel any ill effects besides, you know, the physical obstacle of yaku shoving forked tongue down his throat-- EURYJK WHAT DO I DO . look at more cool snakes

OKAY BUT WHERE ARE THOSE SNAKES WITH THE PRETTY LOWER LASHES LIKE THE EYELASH VIPER, BUt LOWER lashes???

CAN I GET A LOOK AT ONE OF THOSE? do they exist? did i hallucinate the glorious snake lower lashes? do they belong to another reptile? boo.......

WWAIT NO, RIGHT, THE EYES, I SHOULD HAVE STARTED WITH THE EYES THAT'S AN EASY WAY TO NARROW DOWN A YAKUSNAKE

ok.ok. slit eyes. but a lil squiggly. thunderbolt eyes? the creative freedom of it all. let's go with slit eyes but wibbled by tears...

HOLD UP ! HIS EYES LOOK LIKE A TOKAY GECKO'S . IS YAKUMO ACTUALLY JUST A REALLY LONG GECKO?????

DESCENDANT OF THE LEGENDARY GREAT GECKO...........

[cosmicallylyss]

Blue Lock Baseball AU

Hello everyone I am a baseball/softball enjoyer and would like to share my thoughts about what positions I think the Blue Lock boys would play! This will be multipart as ideas will come to me sporadically, with analysis under the cut.

Characters included in this part are: Egoist 4, Raichi, Barou, Aryu, & Aiku

Isagi Yoichi:

Left fielder. Now you might be saying "lyss why are you putting the protagonist in the outfield??" and to that I say 1) this is baseball not soccer 2) if you don't think this position is important you don't know the sport. If a ball is headed for the outfield it's most likely headed somewhere between LF/CF and those players will need good communication in order to coordinate who's going for what. Despite Isagi being a beast on the field to his rivals, we know he can do teamwork exceptionally well. Left field also requires great knowledge of the game, and his meta-vision being able to predict what the runners will do will be able to help him by making the perfect throws to the infield for a given situation. He's got a great view of the entire field and although he probably won't be making any outs aside from outfield catches (which he can make a lot of!!!) he is indispensable when it comes to holding off the runners from advancing.

Bachira Meguru:

I want to put him at second base. The middle infield has him bouncing around a lot, as he'll have to cover both second and first base depending on which way the ball is hit, and I am solid in my belief that Bachira can handle that. As a technical player, I really like putting him in this position as I imagine him getting a lot of contact with the ball and being a playmaker for the team. Tagging runners, getting a cut from the outfield, and just generally getting a read of the field by being in the middle of it has me solid that he'll be able to make great plays from this position. I imagine that Bachira's monster/instinct has him making a lot of double plays. He'll be able to get someone out at second and then make a great, yet unexpected throw to first or home for another out.

Chigiri Hyoma:

He's so centerfielder to me. With how well he's performing in Manshine right now it makes sense to me to give him a sort of "leadership role" in the outfield. He'd definitely be the player in the outfield who has to move around the most and I think his speed would be best utilized here. Whether its for making amazing running/diving catches or running in to pick up a ground ball that manages to slip past second and short, I think putting Chigiri in centerfield gives him the opportunity to use a lot of his potential. Of course pinch runner Chigiri would be fun to see as well, maybe he's not in the batting lineup but when the pitcher or catcher gets on base he subs in for them to run the bases. Honestly thinking about CF Chigiri was what got me wanting to write this whole thing, he means so so much to me.

Kunigami Rensuke:

Third baseman. Yes I'm foaming at the mouth about this thought. Sue me. Not only does Kunigami's strength make him a great person to put here because of his ability to make great throws to both first and home, I think it's best to have your more physically dominant players toward the last bases. As the opponent progresses along the bases, it becomes more and more vital to get them out before they can make it home (duh). I think Kunigami, especially post-wildcard would be really aggressive on the base (occasionally to his detriment), enjoying tagging out players rather than going with an easier route of just stepping on the bag. He's probably also a clean-up hitter or at least close to the top of the lineup. I want to imagine he's also a lefty batter, maybe he's a slap hitter and it annoys everyone else. But yeah I really want to see him dominating third base and the whole foul line honestly.

Raichi Jingo:

He would be such a great shortstop okay just listen to me. The nature of middle infield is running around a lot (covering third, covering second, backing up second) and although it's not a lot of distance to cover, you're alternating between these positions a lot and Raichi definitely has the stamina to keep up with the demands of middle infield. We've seen it. I also think his tenacity is great for making him an awesome shortstop. He'll fully throw himself in front of a line drive to catch it (this works most of the time), ignoring the sting in his hand. I also imagine if a runner is about to steal third and Raichi is in possession of the ball, he'll charge at the runner to fully scare them back into staying at second before getting the ball back to the pitcher.

Barou Shouei:

The most egotistical pitcher you will ever meet dear god. His whole king shtick with the whole field revolving around his playstyle??? You literally can not put him in any other position. He's a menace on the field, trash talk both to his team and his opponent, but his money is where his mouth is. His great physicality would lend itself to fast, accurate pitches, but I imagine pre-development his short temper would lead to a lot of outbursts that affect his accuracy. He will get angry every time he doesn't pitch a no-hitter. Every time he's reminded that he has a whole team behind him to back him up if the batters hit, he'll bark that it's just him versus the batters and he will strike them out. Barou is the guy you don't wanna hit against, because he's good and he's annoying about it.

Aryu Jyubei:

This is a first baseman. Hear me out. First base gets quite a bit of action so Aryu's got the opportunity to be flashy and get a lot of notice, but that's like 10% of why I'm putting him here. Functionally, we see him dominate in air battles and with his long limbs it makes the most sense to put him on such a pivotal base. He's gonna get thrown to a lot, and it's undeniable that some shitty throws will be sent his way. His height/limbs will allow him to still catch virtually any ball sent his way even if it's far from the bag/overthrown while still keeping a foot on the bag to hopefully get an out. He's got the bag on lockdown but also a good few-foot radius around it.

Aiku Oliver:

Alright everybody act surprised when I say catcher. I know it's the obvious choice but that's because it makes so much sense. Obviously whenever your team isn't at bat you're on defense, but catcher is definitely the most defensive position one can think of, and that's where Aiku excels. I think his strength will be an asset behind the plate, as it'll be easy for him to throw to any base necessary, and he could also be a pretty formidable player to run toward for any opponent trying to steal home. I think his leadership that shines as captain of the U-20 team would also allow him to sync nicely with whatever pitcher he's teamed up with, and I also think his game sense will allow him to make quick decisions on where to throw the ball if he doesn't try to throw out someone stealing and just send the ball back to the pitcher.

[blorbo-gerrymandering]

I'm just noticing how brutal next round may (or may not) be. Nick's fans have been pushing him past the gerrymandered votes this whole time and now they're losing to the rabbit. Jaylen's fans have been doing the same. The secret Jaylen poll is ahead of Azula right now. It's gonna be a bloodbath when she reaches that rabbit. They're against one another in the next round.

I'm Team Jaylen all the way-len. :P

Well we're only a few hours in so far, I would say it's far too early to be calling any winners yet. But either way it's gonna be brutal next round, we're already at a point where we only have heavy hitters left, and it's gonna be even more so next round.

[stevetonyisendgame]

2023 SteveTony Endgame Mini Exchange ♡ Creator Reveals ♡

Thank you everyone for a wonderful run of the A Second Chance: Steve/Tony Endgame Mini-Exchange! We could not have done this without our amazing participants, pinch-hitters, signal-boosters, and of course, readers! 

And the fun isn’t over! There will be a Steve/Tony Endgame Prompt Fest from July to October - follow us for more info 😊

Here is the final creator reveals masterlist for the Exchange ♡ Did you guess any of the creators correctly? 🤭

♡ and i’m not afraid to say, i love you in my way by enragedbisexual for Becci_chan ​​| FIC - 1.6k, G

♡ And you’ll see me waiting for you. by Wadanokuni for alexcat | ART - T

♡ Art Gift for Missy_dee811 by lomku for Missy_dee811 | ART - G

♡ as easy as breathing by wingheads for purpleicedteas | ART - T

♡ a beast of a burden by meidui for mrsgingles ​​| FIC - 2.7k, T

♡ A Better Name Than BARF by laiwrites for suchmadnesss | ART - G

♡ caffeinated ambrosia by embittered_ambition for rearranged (her_ghost) | FIC - 8.5k, T

♡ Darling, let’s run by derelover for IronChantress3000 | FIC - 1.7k, G

♡ don't fear our futures and dreams by ishipallthings for captainstars | FIC - 8.9k, T

♡ Endgame, Not Checkmate by geekymoviemom for Herogers | FIC - 8.6k, T

♡ ever be afraid to say by ishipallthings for captainstars  | FIC - 1.4k, T

♡ The Five Stages of a Time Loop by AirlocksandAviaries for embittered_ambition  | FIC - 40k, M

♡ Forgive The Winters, Keep No Records by Carsonian for XtaticPearl | FIC - 8.8k, T

♡ Here To Stay by AvengersNewB for wingheads | FIC - 5.4k, M

♡ hold fast by meidui for VenomousSoliloquey | FIC - 1.3k, T

♡ I Tell You That I Think I'm Falling (Back in Love with You) by MayBiTheWay for tinystark616 | FIC - 6.3k, E

♡ i was put together wrong by suchmadness for MayBiTheWay  | FIC - 11.6k, T

♡ i would always be yours by tinystark616 for ohjustpeachy | FIC - 2.5k, T

♡ In Our Hands by Becci_chan for CapBlondette | FIC - 1.6k, T

♡ In Your Golden Hour by ralsbecket for AvengersNewB | FIC - 1.4k, T

♡ It Was Always You by This_Is_Captain_Handsome for ralsbecket | ART - G

♡ it’s that easy by robertdowneyjjr for zappedbysnow | FIC - 3.8k, T

♡ I’m begging for you to take my hand by derelover for IronChantress3000 | FIC - 1.2k, T

♡ Let’s Stay a While by CapBlondette for geekymoviemom | ART - M

♡ Momentum by Arukou for Thahire | FIC - 6.9k, M

♡ A New Vision of the Future by navaan for Thahire | FIC - 3.8, G

♡ No Lies From The Trusted by XtaticPearl for navaan | FIC - 17.8k, M

♡ Once More for the First Time by nostalgicatsea for Neverever | FIC - 4.1k, G

♡ One Final Surprise by Carsonian for XtaticPearl | FIC - 1.5k, G

♡ the orchid deciding to bloom again by Missy_dee811 for Impala_Chick | FIC - 2.2k, T

♡ Quick Thinking and a Dash of Luck by VenomousSoliloquy for derelover | FIC - 6.6k, T

♡ Real Life by Imapala_Chick for xWinterDreamsx | FIC - 1k, T

♡ Remember What I Said. by shaggybeetle for enragedbisexual | FIC - 2.4k, M

♡ Right Where I Belong by alexcat for This_Is_Captain_Handsome | FIC - 1.8k, G

♡ small comforts by ohjustpeachy for earliebirb | FIC - 1.3k, G

♡ something to live for by Areiton for shaggebeetle | FIC - 5k, M

♡ Sound the Reveille by rearranged (her_ghost) for AirlocksandAviaries | FIC - 2.1k, T

♡ submerge me in your will by captainstars for meidui | FIC - 3.5k, G

♡ Take Two: It Takes Two by Carsonian for XtaticPearl | FIC - 1.2k, G

♡ the things we held on to by Fluffypanda for ishipallthings | FIC - 700 words, G

♡ To End At the Beginning by IronChantress3000 for laiwrites | FIC - 1.2k, G

♡ Unsaid words by Herogers for Wadanokuni | FIC - 2.8k, T

♡ way to a father's heart by earliebirb for robertdowneyjjr | FIC - 6.8k, G

♡ we won [art] by mrsgingles for Fluffypanda | ART - G

♡ What We Are Now by Neverever for Carsonian | FIC - 2.7k, T

♡ With an Unselfish Love by AnnieD (scaremouche) for derelover  | FIC - 2.5k, T

♡ Wrangling Tony Stark by zappedbysnow for magicasen  | ART - G

♡ you are all I was hoping for by xWinterDreamsx for Areiton  | FIC - 4k, T

♡ you’ve got to close your eyes and see by Thahire for nostalgicatsea | FIC - 7.9k, T

♡ Zero to One by magicasen for lomku | FIC - 2.8k, T

Enjoy our 50 fabulous works! ♡ Love, Jen, Rini, and Cassie

[mermaidsirennikita]

Watch Lady Chatterley's Lover (2022) and then Read...

I absolutely loved Lady Chatterley's Lover (2022). I think it was a triumph of the female gaze, Emma Corrin being the Period Piece Pinch Hitter we all need in a post-Keira world, and fucking in the woods.

To be clear, the book is not a romance. It does not end unhappily (more like "to be continued", without any intention of a continuation and clarification) but it's not a romance. The movie, I would argue... is pretty close to being a romance, or just a romance outright. Joely Richardson looks at the camera and goes "this is a love story", and by God, who am I to question Joely Richardson (who also was Lady Chatterley once). It hits many of the classic notes of a historical romance novel--hardcore fucking and immediately having an existential crisis after, "my god, how could this constant unprotected sex I'm having result in a PREGNANCY???", a douchey rich guy who wants to publish his stupid novella.

After watching it, I wanted to go through my rolodex of books and throw up some recommendations for what to read after watching this movie and getting a bit. Interested.

I tried to focus on a) interclass dynamics or b) illicit affairs. Ideally both, but it's more about the vibe than the readalike nature.

The Leopard Prince by Elizabeth Hoyt. In many ways, a Lady Chatterley vibe without the annoying husband and *with* a murder mystery. Our heroine is a wealthy heiress who travels to an estate she recently inherited on her own, employing an experience steward to help her with the business side of things. And with the business side of things. Elizabeth Hoyt writes some of the best sex in the game, and there's a lot of great class conflict in this one.

Waking Up with the Duke by Lorraine Heath. A Lady Chatterley setup but with less class conflict and more *secrets*. The Duke of Ainsley, genteel and well-mannered, still feels real bad for that time he got into a carriage accident with his best friend, which resulted in said friend's permanent impotency. Friend asks Ainsley to pay him back by fucking his wife, Jayne, in order to ensure that she has the baby she's always wanted. Jayne is like "say what now", because she does in fact hold the accident against Ainsley, and Ainsley is all "I COULD NEVER--but if you're like... insisting..." because of course, he has always carried a torch for Jayne. A month of hot, angsty, "don't kiss me on the mouth" cottage sex ensues, and the emotional fallout for these idiots is MAGNIFICENT.

The Countess by Sophie Jordan. Not out yet, but put this one on your TBR because there is certainly a married lady discovering her sexuality in the arms of another man (wealthy, but of a different social class) around these parts. Out 3/28/23.

Between the Devil and Desire by Lorraine Heath. For the "this coarse man is lighting my ladylike fires" vibe. Our heroine is a recently widowed duchess with a young son, who comes to find out that--what the fuck--her husband left the guardianship of their child to a man she doesn't even fucking know. The hero grew up on the streets and has risen to become a successful club owner, but is still very much lower class. They move in together, and incredible sexual tension and heightened emotions ensue. TW: discussion of childhood sexual abuse.

Dreaming of You by Lisa Kleypas. This might seem a bit left field at first, but I shall recommend it because a) there is a huge emphasis on class in this novel. Sara is not necessarily a hugely upper class lady, but she is a genteel lady, and Derek Craven's awareness of their social differences and his roughness against her softness is a huge part of their conflict in the first half of the book. B) sexual awakening is very emphasized in Sara's journey. C) Sara does have a boring fucking fiance who's like "Sara, it's okay if we aren't that into each other sexually" while Sara, having just gotten her titties sucked at a party, is like "UHHHHHH NO THAT IS NOT OKAY". D) Much like Oliver Mellors, Derek Craven suffers from "is very smart but sometimes we don't know what he's saying" syndrome.

Duchess by Day, Mistress by Night by Stacy Reid. Our heroine is another widowed duchess with a young son--but this time, she's on the hunt for the governess that ditched in a flash. She hires the coarse, lower class but nonetheless successful fixer in town to help her... And his price ends up being a bit more carnal than monetary. VERY illicit affairs dot mp3.

Notorious Pleasures by Elizabeth Hoyt. No class difference here, but we do have a lot of illicit sneaking around when our heroine begins sleeping with her betrothed's roguish brother--who might just fuck the rigid rule following sensibility right out of her.

Her Night with the Duke by Diana Quincy. A widow has a one night stand with a handsome stranger, only to discover that he's courting her stepdaughter. It's messy, it's angsty, it's hot, and I do believe there are some outdoor activities.