#part of me wants to sneak this into the backstory of the Tell Me Where To Find Shelter Malk Alice

[felassan]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard info compilation Post 1

Post is under a cut due to length.

There is a lot of information coming out right now about DA:TV from many different sources. This post is just an effort to compile as much as I can in one place, in case that helps anyone. Sources for where the information came from have been included. Where I am linking to a social media user's post, the person is either a dev, a Dragon Age community council member or other person who has had a sneak peek at and played the game. nb, this post is more of a 'info that came out in snippets from articles and social media posts' collection rather than a 'regurgitating the information on the official website or writing out what happened in the trailer/gameplay reveal' post. The post is broken down into headings on various topics. A few points are repeated under multiple headings where relevant. Where I am speculating without a source, I have clearly demarcated this. if you notice any mistakes in this post, please tell me.

as this post hit a kind of character limit, there will probably be at least 1 more post. :)

Character Creation

CC is vast [source] and immensely detailed [source]

We will enter CC straight after Varric's opening narration [source]

You are given 5 categories to work your way through in CC: Lineage, Appearance, Class, Faction, Playstyle. Each of these has a range of subcategories within them. There are 8 subcategories within the "head" subcategory" in "Appearance" alone [source]

Lineage dictates things like race (i.e. human, elf, dwarf, qunari) and backstory [source]

Backstories include things like factions. Factions offer 3 distinct buffs each [source]

There are dozens and dozens of hairstyles [source]

There are separate options for binary and non-binary pronouns and gender [source]

"BioWare's work behind the scenes, meanwhile, goes as deep as not only skin tones but skin undertones, melanin levels, and the way skin reacts differently to light" [source]

CC has a range of lighting options within it so that you can check how the character looks in them [source]

There are a range of full-body customization options such as a triangular slider between body types and individual settings down to everything from shoulder width to glute volume [source]. There are "all the sliders [we] could possibly want". The body morpher option allows us to choose different body sizes [source]

All body options are non-gendered [source]

They/them pronouns are an option [source]

Rook can be played as non-binary [source]

Individual strands of hair were rendered separately and react remarkably to in-game physics [source]

Special, focused attention was paid to ensuring that hairstyles "come across as well-representative, that everyone can see hairstyles that feel authentic to them, even the way they render" [source]

The game uses strand hair technology borrowed in part from the EA Sports games. The hair is "fully-controlled by physics," so it "looks even better in motion than it does here in a standstill" [source]

The ability to import our choices from previous games is fully integrated into CC. This will take the form of tarot cards - "you can go into your past adventures" and this mechanic tells you what the context was and what decision you want to make [source]

In CC we will also be able to customize/remake our Inquisitor [source]

A core tenet of the game is "be who you want to be" [source]

There are presets for all 4 of the game's races (human, elf, dwarf, qunari), in case detailed CCs overwhelm you [source]

Story

The story is set 9 years since Inquisition [source]

The Inquisitor will appear [source]

Other characters refer to the PC as Rook [source]. This article says they are "the Rook" [source]

The ability to import our choices from previous games is fully integrated into CC. This will take the form of tarot cards - "you can go into your past adventures" and this mechanic tells you what the context was and what decision you want to make [source]

The prologue is quite lengthy. A narrated intro from Varric lays the groundwork with some lore and explains about Solas [source]. In this Varric-narrated opening section, the dwarf recaps the events of previous games and explains the motivations of Solas [source] (Fel note/speculation: this sounds like this cinematic that we saw on DA Day 2023)

What happens first off is that Rook, who is working with Varric, is interrogating a bartender about the whereabouts of a contact in Minrathous who can help them stop Solas. The bartender does not play nice and we are presented with our first choice: talk the bartender down or intimidate them aggressively [source]

The first hour of the game is "a luxurious nighttime romp through a crumbling city under a mix of twinkling starlight and lavish midnight blue" (Minrathous) [source]. The game begins with a tavern brawl (depending on dialogue options) and a stroll through Minrathous in search of Neve Gallus, who has a lead on Solas [source]. Minrathous then comes under attack [source] by demons [source] (Fel note/speculation: it sounds like the demo the press played is what we saw in the Gameplay Reveal). Off in the distance is a vibrant, colorful storm where Solas is performing his ritual. [source] Eventually we come upon Harding. [source] and Neve. Rook and co enter a crumbling castle, where ancient elf secrets pop up, "seemingly just for the lore nerds". [source] Then we teleport to Arlathan Forest, have a mini boss fight with a Pride Demon, and there is the climactic confrontation with Solas. After a closing sequence, at this point it is the end of the game's opening mission. [source] (Fel note/speculation: So the Gameplay Reveal showed the game's opening mission)

The action in the story's opening parts starts off quite quick from the sounds of things: the devs wanted to get the player right in to the story. because, “Especially with an RPG where they can be quite lore-heavy, a lot of exposition at the front and remembering proper nouns, it can be very overwhelming.” [source]

BioWare wanted to make the beginning of Dragon Age: The Veilguard feel like the finale of one of their other games [source]

Rook's Faction will be referenced in dialogue [source]

Minrathous is beautiful, with giant statues, floating palaces, orange lantern glow and magical runes which glow green neon. These act "like electricity" as occasional signs above pubs and stores [source]

The story has a lot of darkness tonally. These dark parts of the game contain the biggest spoilers [source]. However, the team really wanted to build in contrast between the dark and light moments in the game, as if everything is dark, nothing really feels dark [source]

Our hub (like the Normandy in ME or Skyhold in DA:I) is a place called The Lighthouse [source] (Fel note/speculation: I guess this screenshot shows the crew in The Lighthouse? ^^)

Each companion has a very complex backstory, their own problems, and deep motivations. These play out through well-fleshed out character arcs and missions that are unique to them but which are ultimately tied into the larger story [source]

We will make consequential decisions for each character, sometimes affecting who they are in heart-wrenching ways and other times joyously [source]

Decisions from previous DA games will be able to be carried over, it will just work a bit differently this time [source]. The game will not read our previous saves. For stuff pertaining to previous games/choices, players will not have to link their accounts [source]

Characters, companions, romance

Varric is a major character [source]

Every companion is romanceable [source]

BioWare tried to make each character's friendship just as meaningful, regardless of romance [source]

If you don't romance a character, they may end up romancing each other [source]

There will be some great cameos [source]. Some previous characters are woven into the game [source]

Companion sidequests/optional content relating to companions is highly curated when it involves their motivations and experiences [source]

We could permanently lose some companions depending on our choices [source]

Our choices can influence if characters get injured and what they think about us [source]

The bonds Rook forges with companions determine how party members grow and what abilities become available [source]

Each companion has a very complex backstory, their own problems, and deep motivations. These play out through well-fleshed out character arcs and missions that are unique to them but which are ultimately tied into the larger story [source]

We will make consequential decisions for each character, sometimes affecting who they are in heart-wrenching ways and other times joyously [source]

Gameplay, presentation, performance etc

Each class (warrior, rogue, mage) has 3 specializations. The ones for Rogue are duelist, saboteur and Veil ranger [source]. (Fel note/speculation: Veil ranger reminds me of Bellara. Maybe this is her 'spec' too?)

Duelist gameplay involves a sharp combination of dashes, parries, leaps, rapid slashes and combos [source]

Faction-related buffs include being able to hold an extra potion or do extra damage against certain enemies [source]

Individual strands of hair were rendered separately and react remarkably to in-game physics [source]

Playstyle settings include custom, distinct difficulty settings for options as granular as parry windows, meaning "players who might fancy that playstyle but typically struggle with the finer points of combat can give it a go" [source]

Combat mechanics is a mix of real-time action and pause and play. Pausing brings up a radial menu split into 3 sections: companions to the left and right, Rook's skills at the bottom, and a targeting system at the top which helps get in focus on certain enemies. [source]. In the pause system you can queue up your whole party's attacks [source]

Tapping or holding the shoulder button pauses the game, allowing us to stop the action and issue orders to companions [source]

There is a system of specific enemy resistances and weaknesses [source]. Weaknesses and resistances plays a big role in combat and abilities are designed to exploit these accordingly [source]. An example is that "one character might be able to plant a weakening debuff on an enemy, and another enemy might be able to detonate them" [source]

There is a vast skill tree of unlockable options [source]

You can set up specific companions with certain kits, e.g. to tackle specific enemy types, to being more of a support, or as flexible all-rounders [source]

Healing magic returns [source]

Abilities can change together with elaborate results, e.g. one companion using a gravity well attack that sucked enemies together, another using a slowing move to keep them in place, and Rook using a big AOE to catch them all at once [source]

A shortcut system lets you map a few abilities to a smaller pinned menu at the bottom of the screen [source]

There are class-specific resource systems. For example, Rogue has "momentum", which builds up as Rook lands consecutive hits [source]

Each class will always have a ranged option [source]

Rogue Rook can do a sort of 'hip fire' option with a bow, letting you pop off arrows from the waist [source]

Warriors can throw their shield at enemies, and can build an entire playstyle around that using the skill tree [source]

There is light platforming gameplay [source]

The game runs on the latest iteration of the Frostbite engine [source]

The game targets 60 fps

On consoles it will feature performance and quality modes so we can choose our preferred visual fidelity [source]

The game is mission based [source]. Some levels that we go to do open up, some with more exploration than others. "Alternate branching paths, mysteries, secrets, optional content you're going to find and solve." [source]

Everything is hand-touched, hand-crafted and highly curated [source]

Some sidequests and optional content is highly curated, especially when it involves the motivations and experiences of the companions. In others we may be investigating for example a missing family, with an entire open bog environment to search for clues and a way to solve the disappearance [source]

Gameplay, presentation, performance etc continued, after the above bullet list hit a character limit

There is sophisticated animation cancelling and branching. Gameplay is action-like, and the design centers around dodging, countering, and using risk-reward charge attacks designed to break enemy armor layers [source]

The dialogue wheel returns [source]. It gives truncated summaries of the dialogue options rather than the full line that the character is going to say [source]

The bonds Rook forges with companions determine how party members grow and what abilities become available [source]

For stuff pertaining to previous games/choices, players will not have to link their accounts [source]

We can play the game fully offline [source]

There are no microtransactions [source]

The game itself is not as cell-shaded in look as the first trailer looked [source]

[☕ found this post or blog interesting or useful? my ko-fi is here if you feel inclined. thank you 🙏]

[rafeyscurtainbangs]

Rafehub.com - Rafe Cameron Plink Library

+18 Minor DNI

Pornstar!Rafe Cameron - P🔗 Library

Welcome to RafeHub.com

This p!link library was made with my lover @rafesthroatbaby

if you love pornstar!Rafe check out the sexy au created by our baby @starkeyisthelastname

The titles were “written by Rafe” to give it a typical porn-esque vibe. The white text is a little backstory 💋

⭐️ Back shots 💦💦💦 🍑Your first video with Rafe

⭐️ stretching u like only i can let me ruin you 4 everyone else

⭐️ i love teasing what’s mine let me play with your pussy while daddy gets you ready for his cock Rafe easing you into it after making you sore from your last shoot

⭐️ Am i too rough? I’m sorry. I’ll take it nice n easy 4 you baby. I’m gonna try to make it all fit i promise. 🤡 cum back for part 2 where i fuck this slut into the mattress

⭐️ two girls one rafe 😈 After a night of partying, you and Rafe bring another actress back to his house to play

⭐️ they love to share me i guess i’ll keep them both

⭐️ Making a mess on the couch. How many times do i make her squirt?? 😜 Rafe’s been stalking your videos since. He didn’t know you could squirt. Now he’s desperate to make you squirt multiple times on camera.

⭐️ Messy girl ❤️‍🔥 gonna need a shower after this shit 🥵

⭐️ Let The Pussy Destroyer satisfy your breeding kink ♥️ The only actress Rafe finishes in unprotected is you. He can’t help but whisper the dirtiest shit in your ear about how he’s gonna end your career because he fucked a baby into you. But what he gets off on the most is how he’ll never have to watch you fuck anyone else again.

⭐️ daddy dicking her ⬇️

⭐️ Let me destroy you - size kink king 🍆 she’s takin this dick like a champ Rafe is clearly obsessed with you and his followers are getting jealous

⭐️ I love using your tight pussy such a perfect fucktoy for me

⭐ What Rafe sends to you after you send him your nudes 📸

⭐️ had to sneak away from her boyfriend to get fucked by daddy. Do you think he’s doin this shit like me?? 😂Shooting with Rafe after he tells you that you can fuck whoever… You mean nothing to him. He didn’t realize how wrong he was ‘til it happened. His jealousy also went into overdrive after he found out that the other actor was an ex of yours. Of course he keeps that shit to himself.

⭐️ you just don’t stop cummin do you?

⭐ mine 📸 Rafe’s petty-ass posting this GIF online and sending it to your ex

⭐️ cum give daddy a hand and stroke me til I’m emptyDenying Rafe pussy because he won’t use his words and tell you how he feels when you can tell he’s annoyed

⭐ covering her with my load

⭐️ atta girl swallow daddy’s dick

⭐️ not gonna lie this chick fucked me look at her creamin on my big dick Fucking Rafe on camera after rumors circulate about him and another mattress actress. He put in an extra effort after getting his feelings hurt and now he regrets it completely

⭐️ she says she hates me… turns out she just needed some good dick

⭐️ she loves gettin slapped and fucked dumb Getting fucked rough after ignoring Rafe’s calls

⭐️ keep screaming for me. You think I’m gonna stop? 😂

⭐️ Babygirl couldn’t wait until the movie ended so i fucked her like the impatient slut she is Rafe invites you over for a movie. When you ask him if it’s a date he brushes you off because he’s too scared to get attached. “Nah, princess. We’re just hanging out. Thought we could relax and shoot some shit when we got bored.”

⭐️ my little anal queen’s so good 💦🍑 clenching and tightening around my dick

⭐️ 🩷My tongue and fingers are magic princess lay back and let daddy Rafe make you feel like a pretty little slut🩷 First video after Rafe finally tells you how he feels

⭐️ Trying new angles while I stretch out that perfect pussy 💯

⭐️ she came 2 play 🥵 little promo 4 you filthy slut. comment below it u want some more ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️ You both love money and sex. You don’t want to stop shooting, so you make a couples OnlyFans account instead, putting out a few promos on Twitter

⭐️ 🎀little miss innocent before she met me🎀

⭐️ U got me stroking my shit… can’t stop thinking about you Leaving Rafe for the weekend while you go on vacation with your friends. He’s so pussy whipped you have him playing with himself

⭐ Her 🤍📸 Rafe posting and watching some softer GIFs when you’re gone because he misses his babygirl

⭐️ Had to pull over cause she looked too fuckin good Rafe picking you up from the airport and he couldn’t even wait til you got home

⭐️ she loves that cameron cum 👑 think she’s the one

⭐️ think she likes her new gift ⛓️‍💥😈 Shooting content for your OnlyFans - switching it up with cuffs and masks

⭐️ heard you sluts liked masks

⭐️ look at you all tied up with your legs wide open and your dripping wet pussy throbbing waiting for some cameron cock

⭐️ Be a good girl and cum with Daddy while he plays with your toys 😈

Like, reblog, and comment to show us some love 🤍 @rafesthroatbaby inbox is open for any love you want to send her way as well!!

my masterlist 🔮

[justporo]

Still more fluffy relationship headcanons for Astarion and Tav

You guys seem to really like these, so I'm keeping them going for as long as I can. And - I know I said I couldn't do requests atm - but when (if?) I run out of ideas how about you can send me prompts for headcanons on specific topics?

Here we go though, more small ideas and moments for these two idiots!

Astarion is a tease, always flirting with you (for the most part), always kissing you or touching you, always whispering something dirty directly into your pointy ear; sometimes even doing that flat out while you're out in public... with people around.

Deep down he's always wondering though when the day will come that you don't want to be with him anymore; you know that and you try your absolute best to remind him every moment of every day that you want to be with him forever, slowly working to turn the "when" into an "if" and then making him forget altogether

You are basically a street cat, but Astarion? He's a man of culture! And he loves to take you out and frankly just goddamn educating you

He takes you to museums, telling you in incredible detail about the artworks and the displays because he knows his history, also - he's incredibly smart; you enjoy not only him enjoying himself talking about stuff he likes but also just eat it up, eager to learn about stuff you never had the chance to before

Dancing: That's another thing. He knows all the dances: from the silly court dances Wyll showed you once, to the much more interesting and intimate ones where you're flush against one another's bodies

He teaches you, being so close to him, you can't stop fawning, holding you like you're something incredibly fragile and precious while moving you ever so passionately

You've never done this and are incredibly insecure at the beginning, but "Don't worry, love, let me hold you and I'll guide you, you just look pretty" - but then you pick it up quickly and it becomes one of your favourite pastimes with him

You have artful skills of your own though: since you're a former thief and had to stake out targets and places sometimes for weeks on end, you had a lot of time on your hands and taught yourself to draw a long time ago and drew whatever you had to observe: a nice compromise between keeping your eyes on whatever mattered and still having something to do

So, you finally draw him, something you'd promised him a long time ago when you merely had started travelling together; you spend a whole night just to get the first portrait right and Astarion gets uneasy because can't you just let him have a little sneak-peek?

When you show him the drawing, he's just speechless - "What, even more magnificent than you remembered?" you tease him, but you see how his fingers are tensing holding the paper and there's a single tear on his cheek when he looks and smiles at you broadly "No, love, just flustered about how you don't seem to get my chin right"; you call him a liar softly and he sniffles and draws you in for a really long hug and he thanks you deeply

Ah, I also love using these to sneak in facts and ideas for my Tav and helping me flesh out a backstory and more details for their story and relationship. Also don't mind me sprinkling a little angst on there.

Of course, the drawing idea has been imagined many times before and rightfully so, Astarion deserves it. But it's... I haven't drawn really in a loooong time but he really makes me want to give a portrait ago. I had to get it out for personal reasons.

[luv4freddie]

The Mark - D.M

Reader comforts Draco after he gets the dark mark

Exactly what you think it’s gonna be like. Tragic backstory, mentions of voldy and war, so sad, angst/comfort, 776 words

Draco Malfoy was tired.

He was exhausted, yes. But he was tired of being the man of the family. He was tired of being a Malfoy heir, of being forced into boxes in order to make his family proud.

And now it was too late.

He laid in his four poster bed, fighting against the tears blooming behind his eyes and the stinging sensation on his forearm.

He shivered— he felt dirty. Disgusting in a way that wouldn��t wash out no matter how many times he scrubbed the spot where bony white fingers had grasped his arm.

He wanted to kick and scream like a toddler, but even now he couldn’t express the emotions building up in his chest— adrenaline, shame, fear, all joining in on his downfall.

He laid unresponsive, too tired to move but unable to fall asleep.

He can still hear his mother crying downstairs. She hadn’t stopped since the Dark Lord had left the manor, and taken her sons innocence and choice along with him.

Draco faintly registers the smell of smoke and a tumbling sound, but he makes no attempt to investigate, chalking it up to a clumsy house elf.

At least until he hears your voice.

“Dray?” It’s gentle in a way that makes all of his emotions perk up, fighting their way to his face as he finally moves; sitting up to face where you stand, freshly out of his fireplace.

He wants to talk— ask what you’re doing here, how you got there, if you still love him— but instead the most embarrassing thing happens.

Draco Malfoy starts crying.

Draco has not cried since third year, but a single look at you has him sobbing out into the stillness of the house.

Within seconds you’re next to him, pulling him into your chest and stroking his hair while you mumble reassurances into his ear.

He cries for a long time, giving his mother a run for her money with the his sobs echo off the walls, the silencing charm you’d put up to shield him from Narcissa’s ears only making them reverberate louder.

By the time he’s finally calmed down his voice is raspy and his eyes are bloodshot.

“They’re monitoring floo.”

“I know,” you hush him, “but that’s for the order members. They won’t care about us. They probably think I’m just sneaking out to smog you.”

He lets out a chuckle, but it’s airy and there’s no real humor in it.

He wants to tell you. But at the same time, he’s terrified that you’re going to be disgusted— that you’d get up and leave him just like everyone else when he inevitably disappoints.

You notice he subconsciously fiddles with the edge of his sleeve, and you grab his hand, bringing it up to place a kiss on his fingers.

“I know already.”

You want to cry with the amount of fear in his eyes when they meet yours.

“You- how?”

“Your mom was talking to mine about it.”

He lets out a scoff, “it’s a miracle she can get anything out with the way she’s been crying.”

You sigh, “can you blame her?”

“I’m the one that got branded, why’s she crying?”

You smooth a gentle finger over his sleeve, hating the way he flinches.

“Because you’re now a part of this war, a bigger part than anyone your age should ever be.”

He buries further into you, tucking his head into the crook of your neck and appreciating the way you wrap your arms around him, squeezing just enough to press your bodies into each other.

“Do you still love me?”

His voice is so small and hidden from where he’s laying, but you hear it nonetheless, and your heart shatters into a billion tiny pieces at the vulnerability and disappointment in it.

He’s expecting you to say no.

Instead, you grab his arm, bringing it up to where you can see it. At first he refuses to let you move his sleeve, but he quickly tires, watching your every move with droopy eyes and resigned interest.

He inhales sharply when you do it— roll his sleeve up and press a soft kiss directly onto the middle of the mark, right where the snake winds around the mouth.

“The Dark Lord himself couldn’t make me stop loving you, Draco Malfoy. This doesn’t change who you are.”

He breathes a small sigh of relief.

He was still a death eater, still an heir, and still guilty—but you loved him, and you weren’t going to leave him because of it.

So maybe— just maybe— he could survive this war. As long as you were here

[pianocat939]

hearing you out on the yan pavitr

YES PLEASE- ok I'm gonna start out this new thing where I separate things for romantic + platonic so people can scroll to different sections. (I'm such a good business person- /j)

I will copy and paste some of the headcanons because they apply both ways. So don't bother reading both unless if you want to because for the most part they're the same (with some light editing)

Tw: hardly any tbh-, delusional softie, uh- and breaking in

Yandere Pavitr Prabhakar

Type: Delusional + Clingy (This is really fucking obv ngl)

Romantic

Listen- He literally gives off so much delusional that I can't even tell you why he's delusional because it's literally written all over him omg. Now, the thing he is delusional about is you love him back. It's not in a malicious way; he genuinely thinks you love him.

He's not in any sort of way problematic or concerning with his actions/intentions. He'll be all caring and constantly giving you support. He's the type of guy who wakes up at five in the morning to go buy you a bouquet of flowers to greet you with when you get up.

If you try to push him away or express that you don't love him he just believes you're a troubled person and need more support in your life. Which means more affection from him. He is your therapist. He will be whether you like it or not because he is a softie and will continue to be a softie.

The only time I can see him getting the slightest bit aggressive is if he gets jealous. I'm not entirely sure yet because we haven't seen too much of any trauma or negative backstory to him (Uncle Ben's death canon event doesn't fucking count). I think he's about a medium level when it comes to how easily he gets jealous. Even then I don't think he would outwardly hurt anyone unless they've overstepped a boundary of his. He'll give them a slight threat or tie them up in webs for a while.

Now if anyone hurts you? Bro is going crazy- he will do everything to make the person surrender or maybe even die (if they've caused him enough anger) He'll worry so much if you get hurt. I wouldn't say he would overreact, but he definitely worries.

He is physically affectionate 100%. He will sneak in your window at night for snuggles. Imagine yourself standing at your window one night, knowing he'll come. He arrives and is about to slip inside when you frown and tell him no. He is going to give you the most heartbreaking face known to mankind.

He WILL call you embarrassing/cringe affectionate names. You can't convince me he doesn't.

"Jasmine flower! Look at the stuffie I got you!" *proceeds to hold up giant elephant stuffie*

Platonic

He literally gives off so much delusional that I can't even tell you why he's delusional because it's literally written all over him omg. Now, the thing he is delusional about is he thinks you wanna be friends with him. It's not in a malicious way; he genuinely thinks you guys are besties and constantly hang out. (tbh I feel anyone would be friends with him???)

He's not in any sort of way problematic or concerning with his actions/intentions. He'll be all caring and constantly giving you support. He's the type of guy who wakes up at five in the morning to go buy you your favourite drink or line up for a limited edition product.

If you try to push him away or express that you don't wanna be friends with him, he just believes you're a troubled person and need more support in your life. Which means more affection and suggesting hangouts or giving gifts from him. He is your therapist. He will be whether you like it or not, because he is a softie and will continue to be a softie.

The only time I can see him getting the slightest bit aggressive is if he gets jealous. I'm not entirely sure yet because we haven't seen too much of any trauma or negative backstory to him (Uncle Ben's death canon event doesn't fucking count). I think he's about a medium level when it comes to how easily he gets jealous. Even then I don't think he would outwardly hurt anyone unless they've overstepped a boundary of his. He'll give them a slight threat or tie them up in webs for a while.

Now if anyone hurts you? Bro is going crazy- he will do everything to make the person surrender or maybe even die (if they've caused him enough anger) He'll worry so much if you get hurt. I wouldn't say he would overreact, but he definitely worries.

He is a clinger 100%. He will sneak in your window at night for a hug and to talk about random things (he giggles a lot). Imagine yourself standing at your window one night, knowing he'll come. He arrives and is about to slip inside when you frown and tell him no. He is going to give you the most heartbreaking face known to mankind.

He WILL call you embarrassing/cringe affectionate names. You can't convince me he doesn't. Like Pookie Bear or just cringe names to call your best friend platonically cuz it's funny.

"My rat! Look! I have- WEBS!" *proceeds to shoot webs like it's a discovery even though he's known for six months*

——————————————————

That's all I got for now-

I still don't like Gwen.

- Celina

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Adrien Agreste and Why Motivation Matters

One of the most important things you can gift a character is a motivation that correlates to their intended role in the story. It's a big part of how they truly come alive. And if they have a motivation that doesn't correlate to their role? That can make them come across as a total ass!

A few days ago I got an ask about Lila. I ended my response with this:

I'm totally fine with complex, master-manipulator Lila, it's just hard to figure out the best way to make her work when we don't know anything about her backstory or motivation.

This got me thinking about motivation in general and how much it plays into the show's poor writing. I talked about Lila above, but I wanted to point out how much it's responsible for Adrien's issues, too.

Motivations are one of the main ways you create strong characters. You come up with the thing they want and then keep that in mind whenever you're writing them. Motivations can be very simple and straight forward (I want to get home) or extremely complex and nuanced (a person wanting to create a new government with a very detailed idea of what that means). A character can even have multiple motivations!

Unfortunately, all motivation are not created equal. There is such a thing as a bad motivation and I'm not talking ethics or morality here. I'm talking about picking motivations that match the character's intended role. For example, Gabriel's motivation is fine! It perfectly suits a villain. On the other hand, Adrien's motivation sucks because it makes him into a terrible hero.

Adrien's motivation as given in the show seems to be this: win the heart of my Lady. Later on, that motivation changes to: date Marinette and be the best boyfriend possible. And that's it. He has no other overarching motivations. Individual episodes might give him a one-off motivation to jazz things up for a bit, but generally speaking, romance is all he cares about. It's why we get baffling moments like this one from Dark Cupid:

Cat Noir: Falling for me already, my lady? (pulls Ladybug down next to him) I need to talk to you. Ladybug: It’s gotta wait. Dark Cupi- Cat Noir: (hushes her) I swore to myself that I'd tell you as soon as I saw you. Ladybug, I-I... Look out! (Cat Noir spins around to shield Ladybug, and is struck by one of Dark Cupid's arrows.)

Or this one from Oblivio:

Nadja:(from a helicopter) Looks like Ladybug and Cat Noir are struggling today. (Ladybug is rapidly spinning her yo-yo to deflect Oblivio's blasts while Cat Noir sits down casually.) Ladybug: And stop calling us a couple!

These are just two out of many examples I can pull from, but they highlight a reoccurring issue: Adrien often doesn't take akumas seriously. He's been shown to happily prioritize flirting over fighting and, as a result, he's put himself, his Lady love, and all of Paris in danger.

It also gives us things like Kuro Neko and Kwami's Choice. Episodes where he quit without any concern for protecting his loved ones or even just protecting the freedom that comes with being Chat Noir, things that he only really cares about in the realms of fanfic. As far as the show is concerned, Adrien doesn't care about his loved ones or his freedom. His only constant driving force is his current crush.

Don't get me wrong, he's going to react if he sees Nino in danger or if his father bans him from going to a party! But in terms of what generally guides Adrien's actions? His father, Nathalie, Nino, Chloe, and Alya are out of sight, out of mind. And being able to leave the house? Well, who cares about that? He'll happily sacrifice freedom for a date. Outside of Origins, I think we only ever see him sneak out or otherwise break the rules so he can have a date.

You'll note that Marinette doesn't really have this problem*. While dating Adrien is a big motivation for her, she has a second motivation: protecting Paris. Sometimes those motivations clash, leading her to make poor choices, but that story never treats this as a good thing the way it does Chat Noir's endless flirting. Instead, Marinette's crush is treated as a character flaw or an interesting source of conflict like Volpina threatening to kill Adrien, making Ladybug having to chose between her two main motivations: love and duty.

This is why I've had several posts where I offhandedly mentioned Adrien needing a second motivation. It's also why I've mentioned that Gabriel should have been claiming that akumas were the main reason that Adrien was getting locked up because that's a really simple way to give Adrien personal stakes in the fight. Are those stakes selfish? Sure, but that's okay because it's a selfish motivation that doesn't go against being a hero. If Marinette was only being Ladybug for the sake of her parents, her motivation would be selfish, but still suited to a hero because it doesn't stop her from being heroic. It actually drives her to be heroic. As written, Adrien's motivations do the opposite. Whenever Ladybug or Marinette are seemingly safe, he will do very unheroic things because romance is his only main motivation and that's a problem. To make him work in his intended role, he needs to match Marinette and have (or discover) a motivation that suits a hero.

*To be extra clear and hopefully save myself a salty ask or two, I'm NOT saying that Marinette never does questionable things in the name of romance, she absolutely does. I'm saying that it's extremely rare for her romantic motivation to get in the way of keeping Paris safe because keeping Paris safe is her second motivation and it overrides the romantic one most of the time. Once an akuma is on the loose, she's usually all business. It's one of the reasons Passion (the episode where Nathalie becomes Safari) is so awkward. They did a full role reversal for Marinette and Adrien and it really doesn't work on Marinette's end because it feels out of character for Marinette to ignore the akuma threat in favor of flirting. She never did that for Adrien or Luka or even Catwalker. The worse we ever saw was a crush distracting her from making the right call, but even then, she was always at least trying to protect Paris. Compare Desperada (Viperion's debuted) to Passion and you'll see what I mean.

[jazzthatonewriterchick]

Hit ‘Em Up! (18+ Fic)

Pairing: Cowboy!Gojo Satoru x Cowboy!Geto Suguru x Black!Cowgirl!Reader (Slow Burn/Enemies to Lovers)

Synopsis: You get to meet Geto & Gojo the Gunslingers, the notorious outlaws that have every town and law enforcement in a twist, when your bum-ass BF offers you as payment to avoid going to prison. Little do they know that this is only a part of your plan to get what you desire. But when you realize that the infamous gun-slinging, smooth-talking cowboys could be everything you want and more when they offer you a deal to team up with them, will you successfully be able to go through with it? 

Warnings: Smutty Smut; 18+ (MINOS GTFO); poly!SatouSugu; Reader is Black & Fem; Mention of other JJK characters; Porn with Plot; Tragic Backstories; T/W for Childhood Trauma, Parental Death, Violence, Panic Attacks & Torture; Angst/Hurt/Comfort; Hand Kink; Masturbation; Voyeurism; Gay Sex; Polyamorous; Double Deepthroat; Mutual Oral; Fingering; CMNF; Spitroast; Riding; Unprotected PiV Sex; Creampies; Outside/Public Sex; Shotgunning; Multiple Positions; Spit Kink; Facials; MDom/fsub Undertones; Aftercare

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned in this fic. However, as this is my writing, I do not give permission for my work to be reposted on any other sites that are not from my own accounts. Thank you!

Chapters: One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen PT I & II. Nineteen. Twenty. Twenty-One. Twenty-Two. Twenty-Three. Epilogue. Soundtrack.

********

FIFTEEN: STARTING FRESH.

“A little more, sugar,” Geto pants. “C’mon, you can do it. Just give me one more.”  “Deeper,” Gojo whispers to you. “Don’t fight it, darlin’.” 

Sweat gathers on your brow and you grip the nightstand beside you as you press your foot flat onto the ground. “Ow, shit!” you shout, your entire ankle burning. With your other hand, you grip Geto’s hand who gives you moral support while Gojo sits in front of you, ready to catch you in case you fall. 

“And time,” Nanami says, looking away from the clock hanging up on the wall. “You broke your record for last week. Nicely done.” He jots something down in his notes, standing near the door in his coat and glasses. 

Gojo claps his gloved hands while you finally sit down on the edge of the hospital bed, panting. Geto passes you a glass of water which you greedily slurp. “Who would’ve thought a damn snake bite would knock my whole foot out of commission?” you sigh. 

You stare down at your wrapped foot, glad to see your toenails looking less icky, but your foot still burns like a bitch. However, it isn’t as bad as when you first woke up since Nanami has been giving you antibiotics, infusions, and physical therapy. 

It’s been almost two weeks since you awakened in Nanami’s infirmary. Two weeks in Willow Springs. Two weeks of quietness and living life without being on the run or paranoid. Since then, Nanami, the Gunslingers, and your parents have been here to check on you every single day. You appreciate it more than words can express. 

The Gunslingers have been especially supportive for the past two weeks: bringing you fresh clothes; sneaking in late a night to tell you jokes; sitting with you while you sleep, etc. You try not to let these little things mean so much to you.

Gojo smirks at you from his chair, his hair slightly flat from his cowboy that. You think it’s cute. “Not bad, little darlin’,” he chuckles. “Soon you’ll be able to ditch this and get back to wearin’ those sexy boots.” He lightly taps your wrapped-up foot with his, making you swat him away. 

“Please,” you scoff. “But yes, they are sexy.” 

Geto gives a big, bellied laugh at this, the sound filling you with butterflies. You are now at the point in your “relationship” where that easiness and comfort feel so natural. It’s kind of frightening but you also like it. 

Luckily, these thoughts are pushed aside for the time being when there is a knock on the open door. There, in the doorway, stand your parents. “Knock, knock!” Yuri calls. “We come bearin’ gifts!” She carries a pan inside the room, Eren walking in behind her carrying a gift bag. 

Yuri pecks you on the forehead first before greeting the Gunslingers by uncovering the pan, revealing a batch of her famous oven-baked lemon custard pastries. Gojo jumps up immediately, ogling at the delicious goods. “You bought ‘em!” he giddily shouts. “And these are homemade, right?” 

Yuri tosses her head back and laughs. “Why, I’d hope so,” she cackles. “I was the one who made ‘em!” Geto knocks Gojo out of the way, bowing as he takes the pan. “Ignore him,” he sighs. “Thank you kindly, Mrs. Tokiyami.” 

Your mom just about swoons and you resist the urge to roll your eyes while Eren kisses you on the cheek. “And we have somethin’ for you, Dr. Nanami,” he says, smiling at the stoic doctor. He passes him the gift bag, much to his shock. “It’s just somethin’ small to show our appreciation to you,” he explains. “Y/N insisted on helpin’ us pay for it.” 

Nanami looks at you, shocked. “Seriously?” he asks. “You didn’t have to.” You shrug, smiling pridefully at doing something good. “I know I didn’t, but you deserve it for takin’ care of me.” 

You had planned it in secret with your parents during their visits, thinking of a good gif for he doctor. You finally decided on a glass plaque titled with his name and Number #1 Doctor. Nanami peers down at the plaque before looking up at you, touched and bashful. “This really wasn’t necessary, but thank you.” 

Your smile brightens and unbeknown to you, it causes Nanami to blush. “You’re very welcome, Kento.” Your parents share a look while Gojo glares at his partner. “They on first name basis now?” he asks before getting shushed by Geto. 

“So what brings you two here?” you giggle, your attention now on your parents. Yuri helps Gojo open the pan and passes you a pastry. “Well, me and your father been talkin’,” she explains, “and we figured that now you’re recoverin’ and you’ll be stayin’ here for a while, maybe you’d want to be more comfortable in our home instead of an infirmary…no offense, Doctor.” 

Nanami shakes his head, holding the plaque near his chest. “None taken,” he chuckles. “I would say yes too.” You slowly bite and chew into the sugary, lemony pastry. “You want me to come stay with y’all?” you ask. Eren nods, groaning from his old knees as he akes a sea on your bedside. “And your friends too, if they accept.” 

You blink at him, shocked by his willingness to let outlaws in his house considering how he feels about them. “Us?” the Gunslingers ask in unison, both shocked. Gojo beams, crumbs from the pasty all over his mouth. “Sure, we’d love–” 

Geto stops him, placing a hand on his mouth. “What my partner meant to say, ma’am, is that we’re so honored and grateful for the offer, but we should let Y/N spend time with y’all alone and enjoy her recovery. We wouldn’t wanna bring no trouble.” 

“Me either,” you agree. “Mama, Papa, as much as I want to say yes, I think I’d be best if I stayed here.” 

Eten looks at his wife, then at Nanami, and then at you, his expression darkening. “Is someone after you?” he asks, his eyes serious.

You bite your lip, struggling to answer. Even though Benji and his people haven’t shown themselves in weeks and Nanami told you no one outside of Willow Springs knows of your whereabouts, you are still weary. You can’t get your family involved. 

“Who isn’t after us?” Gojo wryly chuckles. “Sherriffs, police, rival outlaws…we’re walkin’ targets basically.” 

“Here, you aren’t,” Nanami replies, placing the plaque in his gift bag. “As I said before, this county is fairly quiet, but only because the sheriff chose to be quiet about your whereabouts. He and the people here respect your work despite the violence.” He locks eyes with you, holding them. “Trust me; no one knows you’re here.” And you believe him. 

Eren takes your hand in his, encasing it in his calloused, aged ones. “After all these years, we want to have you back with us again,” he softly says. “And we’d like to invite the men who protected you and saved your life to join. It’s the least we can do.” 

You gape at him, shocked at his kindness, and then look at the duo for their opinion. “We’ll pay you back,” Geto offers. “I can cook and Gojo can clean.” Gojo side-eyes him, still chomping on his snacks. 

“Oh, the money won’t be necessary,” Yuri chuckles. “But the help will be needed for us old folk.” And so the decision is made. You can’t believe how easy it is, feeling like you’re dreaming. 

An hour later, you are discharged from the hospital and using a cane for the time being. “At least for a week,” Nanami explained as he handed you the medicine for your bite. “Make sure you take two twice a day, morning and night, with water. I’ll give you some ointment to help clear it up.” 

You hold all of your snake bite medication in a little paper bag while you stand outside of Nanami’s infirmary with him. Eren is packing your things in the backseat of his automobile while Geto and Gojo are busy getting their horses so they can get their items and meet you at your parents’ house later. 

“So this is it,” you laugh. “I know you’re probably happy to get me outta your hair.” Nanami cracks a smile and shakes his head. “Not at all,” he says and again, you believe him. 

You awkwardly shift on your cane, still getting used to it. You can’t wait until you can finally walk and stand on your own without feeling any pain. “Thank you again for your help.” 

The doctor clears his throat, probably not used to receiving such gratefulness. “Don’t mention it,” he says. “And…” He pauses, his eyes quickly flitting over your parents and the Gunslingers. He leans in, his green eyes soft. “You know that if you need anything, you’re welcome here at any time…for your wound, that is.” 

His cheeks tun a light pink that you pass off as being an effect of the heat. You smile, touched by his kindness. “Thank you, Kento,” you whisper. “You’re a great man.” You lay a hand on his atm and gently squeeze it. Nanami looks down at yout hand, taken aback by the slight, fiendly touch. 

You then release him and begin to slowly walk away, leaning on your cane for support. “Y/N,” he says, stopping you short. You turn around, noticing how fitm his expression is, his lips pressed in a thin line. “Be careful with them.” 

You have no idea what he’s talking about at first until you hear a horse whiny from behind you. You turn, watching the Gunslingers gallop on their horses down the road and you see Nanami watch them, his mouth fixed. You realize instantly that he doesn’t trust Geto and Gojo. Not to the extent you do anyway. He probably still sees them as your father does: nothing but no-good outlaws. 

You immediately feel the need to defend your friends and so you do. “They should be careful with me,” you chuckle, “but thanks, I will.” You give Nanami a wink before you head towards your parents. 

Eren takes your cane to put in the back while Yuri helps you into the backseat, looking back at Nanami who stands there still watching you. “Oh, my,” she swoons. “You’ve got gunslingers and a doctor wrapped around your finger? I taught ya well, my dear.” 

“Mama,” you whine. 

********** 

That sunny afternoon, you venture out of your parents’ house to go looking for the horses in their stable. 

It is a pleasant, sun-filled midday, about 82 degrees with blue skies and fluffy, white clouds that look soft to the touch. A perfect day for riding. You haven’t been riding since your snake bite and have been itching to do so since your father told you that there are pastures just beyond the farm. 

You just finished unpacking your items and settling into your new home…for the time being, that is. Your parents’ home is a fifteen-minute drive away from town square which makes going for errands, supplies, and emergencies very convenient. Your parents live on a 500-acre farm in a cozy house with a brick roof, chimney, a fireplace in the living room and bedrooms, and a porch for warm evenings such as this one. 

The farm comes with a barn full of animals and a vegetable garden that Eren is very proud of, each separated by a wired fence. Each neighbor’s home is a couple feet away from each other, serving for privacy but also community, and a forest behind the farm that stretches on for yards that Eren often walks to stay limber. 

Yuri had fixed you and the Gunslingers lemonade and ginger snap cookies to celebrate you moving in while Eren put your horses out in the stable where the barn is so they would be more comfortable. You took your lemonade and cookies up to your bedroom located on the left side of the hallway. It is quaint and small with cherrywood furniture, a private bathroom, and horse plushies sitting up a flannel quilt. The plushies were Yuri’s idea, apparently. 

It truly is a cozy, wonderful little life that your folks live. One that you’ve been craving for. One that you hope to get later in your more seasoned years. 

You realize just how much you wish for it when you were given your own bedroom with your own bathroom and vanity for “lady things” as Yuri calls them. When you unpacked your things for your drawers, took a hot bubble bath, and dressed in the fancy sundress Yuri bought you, you felt normal. Human, even. 

You feel it now in your bones as you wobble on your cane with a book to the horse stables near the fire-engine red barn housing all of the farm animals. The sun warms the skin exposed by your sundress that sways slightly against your legs in the cool breeze. You paired the dress with riding boots and your cowgirl hat, panting from the effort it takes to travel with your cane.

You don’t know if horseback riding is allowed with your injury, but you’ll take an earful from Nanami and your parents later. You need to enjoy this moment while it lasts. So you wobble into he horse stable and immediately spo your girl in her own clean sall between Geto and Gojo’s huge Brancos. Your parents already own three horses, one of them much too old for riding or racing, so she’s used as a petting animal for kids who visit. 

You say hello to the three horses–Charlotte, Johnson, and Mable The Old Lady–before you make it to Reneigh. She knows your presence immediately and begins flapping her ears. “Hey, girl,” you whisper, gently patting her behind. “Whatdya say we take a ride, huh?” 

“I’d say you’re not supposed to be doin’ that,” a familiar, deep, velvety voice replies. 

You let out a terrified shriek and jump, nearly dropping your cane. You turn sound, finding Geto and Gojo standing off in the corner like two serial killers with cowboy boots and hats. Geto is sitting on a sool, his big, sexy thighs sptead wide while he dusts off a riding seat while Gojo is feeding his horse some oats from the front of the stall. No wonder you missed him with horse ass in your face. “Jeez!” you gasp. “You two come with a bell or somethin’?” 

Gojo full on laughs while Geto stifles his. “Sorry for the scare,” he chuckles, though he doesn’t seem too apologetic. “We were just tendin’ to our rides. They’re fittin’ in quite nicely here.” 

“Have we introduced you to ‘em?” Gojo questions. Then he gasps like you just murdered somebody. Dramatic ass. “We didn’t! Y/N, this is Goro”–he pats his horse's side–"and this is Riku! Say hi, fellas!”

The horses flap their tails as if to say ‘hello’. “So what brings you out here, little miss?” he asks. “Shouldn’t you be followin’ the doc’s orders and layin’ that pretty little ankle on a pillow?” 

He raises a brow at you over his shades, a knowing smirk on his face. You ignore the way your stomach flips at him calling your ankle pretty. “I’ve done enough of that,” you scoff. “Besides, he didn’t say anything about horseback ridin’. I haven’t taken Reneigh for a while in a minute, so I feel guilty for that.” 

You gently stroke your darling horse’s side, pouting at her. You know she’s been just as eager to have the wind in her mane and the world whistling in her ears as you have been. You crave it: the warm sun on your face; the wind in your hair; your heart pounding along with your blood as you feel your horse’s body move beneath yours. 

Gojo pouts at you, feeding reneigh and riku oats before lowering the bucket down. “Aw, you ain’t the only one, darlin’,” he tuts. “Actually, that’s a great idea! Your papa said the pastures here are beautiful and the fields make ya feel like you’ve entered heaven.” 

You can just picture those rolling hills and endless fields now. “So you’re sayin’ y’all are comin’ with me?” you ask.

You don’t why this makes you feel so weird. Your head is pounding like a migraine is coming on and your stomach is fluttering with annoying butterflies. You can’t understand why. You’ve been horse riding with duo plenty of times before! But then again, those times were for traveling and survival purposes. 

Geto passively shrugs as he stands up with his saddle and moves to strap it on riku’s back. “If ya want. Besides, what if you need the help if your ankle starts givin’ you trouble?” He gives you a megawatt smile that makes him look so boyish and cute. “We’re just bein’ good partners.” Gojo eagerly nods, agreeing with his partner's reasoning. 

Despite wanting this time for yourself, he does have a point. Feeling cornered by the two cute idiots, you give in. “Alright,” you sigh. “But I have to be back in time to help my mama with supper.” Gojo excitedly claps and you damn near laugh. “I’ll get the snacks!” he shouts and quickly runs back to the house. 

Silence falls upon you and Geto, but neither one of you try to fill it as he positions Gojo’s saddle on his horse too. You don’t attempt to do yours or ask Geto to do it for you. You should be fine without a saddle, right? Quickly, you realize how wrong and how stubborn you are when you attempt to mount Reneigh once you coax her out of her stall. You have to awkwardly put your cane in the crook of your armpit while you grab Reneigh’s side. 

You go to hook one leg over her back, grunting as you do. You flinch at the sharp throb of pain, emitting a slight gasp from you. You try to bite it back, but Geto hears you anyway and immediately comes over. “What’s wrong?” he asks, his tone “no nonsense”. If it wasn’t for the pain, you’d find it kinda of hot. 

“Just my ankle,” you sigh, rolling your ankle around. “S’fine, Geto. I just forgot the saddle and I need to use my other foot.” You give him a reassuring smile, but it fades when you get a look at his pursed lips. He isn’t happy. 

Without a word, he finds your saddle sitting on a stool and hooks it carefully on Reneigh’s back along with her reins. Then he turns to you and wraps his arms around you, bending his knees slightly to reach your height. “Whoa, hey!” you shout. You step away from him, putting your cane between his body and yours. “W-What are you—“ 

“Puttin’ you on your horse,” he replies as if it should be obvious. You scowl at him, suspicious, and he rolls his eyes. “You obviously need the help or you’re gonna mess your progress up. I’m sure Nanami wouldn’t be too happy with that.” 

Though he looks sick of your shit, you see a glimmer of something in his eyes. You aren’t sure what it is, but it doesn’t make you feel the least bit unsafe or concerned…and that makes you feel unsafe and concerned. What is it about these men that makes you feel so unarmed? 

Despite still being hesitant, you lean your cane against the wooden stall and let Geto take hold of you. He is gentle in the way he wraps an arm around the small of your back and the other hooking under your legs, bridal style. You go as stiff as a board, your heart pounding madly in your chest. His scent of sweat, mint, and wilderness—the sun, the trees, the grass—are tattooed on his skin and clothes, invading your nostrils. 

You unconsciously turn your head and breathe in the scent of his hair. It smells so sweet, like crisp apples, yet twinged with evergreen leaves. “Are you…smellin’ me?” Geto laughingly asks. 

You flush, embarrassed at having been caught. “I smelled somethin’ bad,” you reply, bite in your tone. “Thought it was you, but it’s just the horse stalls.” The outlaw chuckles in response to your retort, his broad chest rumbling. It makes your stomach flip. 

You’re so glad to finally be away from him when he carefully places you on Reneigh’s back, securely holding your hips as you place one leg over each side of the horse. Once you’re finally settled, he steps back and smirks up at you. “Comfy?” he asks. 

Even with you finally on your horse, he doesn’t immediately step away. It’s as if he’s making absolutely sure that you’re okay. Such a gentleman. “Yeah,” you grumble, gripping Reneigh’s reins a little too hard. “Thanks.” 

Geto nods, fixing you with a rather intense gaze that makes you feel uneasy. Luckily, Gojo comes back so you don’t have to spend too long alone with him, completely oblivious to the chemistry exploding between his two partners. 

“I’ve got the snacks!” he happily announces, waving a brown picnic basket around. “Ginger snap cookies, Granny Smith apples, and sweet tea. Now let’s head out, kids, before the sun leaves us.” 

Once all horses are mounted, you all ride them out of the barn and into the beaming sunlight. You ride in silence away from your parents’ arm, traveling up the small hills of rolling grass blades that sway softly in the summer breeze. The only sounds are from the rustling leaves of the trees, the buzzing of bees, and Gojo’s soft whistling. 

As you get farther away from the farm, you get closer to the pastures. The sight is beautiful and glorious enough for a painting: green hills and wheat fields grace your eyes as far as they can see, stretching to meet the blue sky coated in fluffy, white clouds that make you think of cotton candy. The breeze is cool against your face, sweetened by the scent of grass and distant flowers. 

Reneigh’s back shifts underneath you as she walks among the pastures, her main waving softly in the wind. Feeling her muscles and soft fur under your hands makes you feel somewhat emotional. You think about if you had died from those train tracks or that snake bite, you would never be here to experience this beautiful day that others may take for granted. You’re so happy to be sharing this peaceful moment with her. 

The Gunslingers too. You look over to them, catching them ride their horses slowly and lazily, their hats pulled low to block out the sun. As if sensing your eyes on him, Gojo turns to you, wearing his shades, and smiles. “Isn’t this perfect?” he asks. 

‘Yes,’ you think. ‘This is perfect.’ 

For the first time in a while, you feel a sobering sense of peace and happiness. It makes you feel warm and giddy all over like a kid on Christmas Day. Suddenly, everything is perfect and you can’t stop the smile that stretches across your face. 

With adrenaline coursing through your veins, you gently snap Reneigh’s reins twice. She knows the drill. She picks up speed and takes off in front of Geto and Gojo who look on in confusion as you speed off through the rolling glades. ”What are you doing?” Geto calls after you. 

You turn to look at them over your shoulder, your hair in your face and your hand gripping your hat so it stays on your head. “Race me!” you laughingly shout. “Whoever’s last up that hill is a rotten egg!” You point to the biggest hill in the distance where the wheat fields are. 

Gojo and Geto share a bewildered look before breaking out into a smile. Gojo whoops and sends his horse running after you while Geto tosses his head back and laughs. “You’re so childish,” he cackles, but snaps the leather reins on his horse and follows after you. 

The outlaws chase after you, hot on your fields as your horses bound through the grass, up and down the slopes of hillsides. The only sounds are of the horses’ hooves pounding against the ground, your pants, and the wind rushing through your ears. All the sounds, tastes, and feelings mix inside of you, creating a high and a rush that zips through your fingertips and toes; splashes warmth all over your brain; makes your heart pump. 

This is life. This is what living is about. Not running from the law or murderous criminals. Not survival. You can’t help but laugh and scream, raising one hand up to let the wind slip through your fingers. “Woooo!” you shout, your joyful scream carried among the wind. 

You tilt your head back, close your eyes, and laugh at the sun, letting it warm your face, basking in its light. When Reneigh finally slows to a stop, you open your eyes and find Gojo already at the top of the hill. “I win!” he laughs. “Guess you’re the rotten egg today, little miss.”

Geto makes a close second, telling Gojo that he cheated. You’re too happy and content to be sour about losing, breathing heavily and still in the high that nature and good company gave you. 

You walk with Reneigh the rest of the way up until you meet the outlaws and scout the fields for a good spot. “Here’s a good spot,” Geto says, nodding at the quaint area beneath a canopy of trees to block out the sun. “Let’s give those hooves a rest.” 

You leave the horses to graze while you set up for lunch. You sit beneath one of the trees, your legs folded carefully underneath you so as to not irritate your ankle. Geto and Gojo sit an arm’s length from you, enjoying the weather and the food. Gojo lounges on his side, chomping down on the cookies and downing a bottle of sweet tea while Geto sits against a tree, his hat sitting on his lap as he chomps into an apple, creating a crunch sound every time his teeth sink into the flesh. 

It is silent, but it’s a peaceful, content silence. You don’t need to try to talk or make any unnecessary noises to make you all feel comfortable. The sounds of nature do that for you—the buzzing of bees; the chirp of birds; the slight chuffing of the horses. 

To anyone who may venture across you three, they would simply pass it off as three friends having a picnic. 

Or a date. 

Gojo is suddenly beside you, nearly scaring you to death because you didn’t sense him fast enough. “Whatcha readin’?” He asks, poking his head over your shoulder. “You’re awfully quiet. It must be good.” 

You roll your eyes and show him the cover of the book you got from Eren’s study. He’s been letting you have free range of his book collection since you moved in. “It’s about a pirate who stored away a prized treasure that everyone is after,” you explain. “The ‘One Piece’, it’s called, and it’s apparently based on a true story.” 

Gojo nods, looking interested or at least pretending to be so. He peers up at you from over his sunglasses, his blue eyes twinkling with sunbeams. The sight is almost devastatingly beautiful. “I never took ya as a bookworm,” he says, humorously, smirking. “It’s cute.” 

Geto chuckles from his spot, still chomping on his apple. You turn away from Gojo, shooing him away like he’s a bug. “Is flattery embedded in your DNA?” you scoff before going back to your book. You try to follow the words on the page, but the feeling of some damn eyes on you makes your brain short circuit.

Fed up, you turn, finding both men staring at you. “What?” you demand, raising an eyebrow at them. 

Gojo puts a hand up in defense, quickly looking away. Geto, however, doesn’t, his dark eyes soft as they regard you. “You just seem so…relaxed,” he says. “It’s a nice change, y’know? I like seein’ you like this.” 

The corner of his mouth peers up into a half-smile. Gojo agrees, nodding like a bobblehead. Butterflies flap around in your stomach at Geto’s sweet and genuine (and almost intimate) words. But isn’t this what friends are like? They like seeing each other happy, don’t they? And you do consider Geto and Gojo your friends, despite everything.

“Well, I like it too,” you quietly admit as if the very realization just came to you. 

Gojo puts his hands behind his head, settling into the wheat stalks below him. “Me too,” he yawns. “I could get used to this kinda life. The easy-like-Sunday-mornin’ life, y’know? No fuss, no muss, no runnin’ for our lives…” He tilts his head up to look up at the sky. “That would be a pretty sweet future.” 

You look at him and then at the sky, wondering what he sees in it. “What about you, Y/N?” he asks, smiling at you. “What does your future look like? You wanted to come to Willow Springs for a better one, right?” 

You blink at him and Geto who also looks interested in your answer. “My future…” You take a moment to truly think about it. You weren’t expecting that question. Though it’s so simple, it seems to take you forever to answer it. What does your future look like? 

“You said before that this place meant freedom to you,” Geto says, gently coaxing you to think. “Is it still that?” The two patiently wait for you to respond. 

So you think. Really think. You try to picture yourself in five, ten, twenty years from now. What would you be like? What would life be like for you? Would you still live in Willow Springs after wanting to come here for so long? Finally, after a moment of silence, you nod and lower your book. 

“Yeah,” you answer after some consideration. “I want my future to be…freedom, peace and happiness. To be able to walk around without hidin’ my identity. To have a real, honest job that doesn’t involve lyin’ and killin’ to survive. To own my own home with a red brick roof near a lake and a bunch of land for horse ridin’. To…I dunno, fall in love, have a family…” 

You trail off, flushing when you realize you’ve been rambling. But the two don’t look at all bored or uncomfortable by it. In fact, they look genuinely interested like you’re a movie they want to see the end of. “That’s beautiful, Y/N,” Geto says and there isn’t anything teasing about it. He is genuine, his smile and eyes warm like a toasty fire. “I’d want that too.” 

You can’t help but smile back. “Hey,” Gojo suddenly says as if a thought just popped into his head. “Can we be in your future then?” 

You blink at him, your brain slowly processing his words. Even when they successfully do, you’re still confused. Is this a proposal or something? “Huh?” you ask, voicing your confusion. 

Gojo sits up, the sunlight turning his silver hair into spun gold and illuminating his handsome face. “Well, it seems to me that we both want the same future—peaceful, content, and super boring. So maybe we can achieve that together.” He turns to you, his smile damn near blinding you. “Ya think?” He asks. 

He sounds so hopeful. So sure that you’ll say yes and that everything will be fine. You sit there quietly, unable to speak or to think. You never even thought about the Gunslingers staying in your life longer than now. Could it be possible? Would they even stick around? 

Sensing your conflict, Geto jumps in. “Well, you think about it,” he says with a comforting smile. “And for the record, that kinda life ain’t boring. Gojo’s just a whore for action.” The white-haired outlaw pegs an apple at him that Geto catches with ease in his big hands. 

You close your book, suddenly not interested in what’s in it anymore.

Finally, you answer: “I’ll think about it” is all you say, but it’s enough for them. For now.

[scary-grace]

Love Like Ghosts (Chapter 21) - a Shigaraki x f!Reader fic

You knew the empty house in a quiet neighborhood was too good to be true, but you were so desperate to get out of your tiny apartment that you didn't care, and now you find yourself sharing space with something inhuman and immensely powerful. As you struggle to coexist with a ghost whose intentions you're unsure of, you find yourself drawn unwillingly into the upside-down world of spirits and conjurers, and becoming part of a neighborhood whose existence depends on your house staying exactly as it is, forever. But ghosts can change, just like people can. And as your feelings and your ghost's become more complex and intertwined, everything else begins to crumble. (cross-posted to Ao3)

Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Chapter 21

There’s something wrong with your house, but you knew that when you bought it. You were okay with that when you bought it, but right now the thing that’s wrong with your house is the fact that you’re not in it. Tomura is coming home today – is home right now, in fact – but you’re not there with him. Instead you’re out to breakfast, in the same diner where you and the others plotted to kill the conjurer, with every single human in the neighborhood. Plus Inko, because why not?

You said you’re in the diner. It would be more accurate to say that you’re trapped in the diner, because you’re stuck in the corner of the booth between Shinsou and Jin’s entire family, wedged in so tightly that going out over the table or under it would be impossible. You’ve determined that this is Aizawa’s fault, so you glare at him. “There had better be a good reason why you dragged me here.”

“It’s for your own good,” Aizawa says. “And for Tomura’s, so if you claim to care about him –”

“If I claim to?”

“You’ll allow us to speak. We have more experience with this than you do.”

“None of us had help,” Jin’s mom says. “We had to figure things out by trial and error, and given the situation, we didn’t think it would be fair to let you go through the same thing.”

“Helping a ghost get used to being a human is hard,” Shinsou says. “And getting used to being human is hard for a ghost. We’re helping you. The other ghosts are all at your house helping him.”

“Oh.”

“They have a lot of stuff to explain,” Keigo says. “Stuff you wouldn’t want to explain. Like body stuff.”

“And hygiene stuff,” Inko adds. “They’re used to dematerializing any time they get dirty. Having to clean up is an adjustment.”

“It’s all an adjustment,” Aizawa says. “Our purpose here is to make the adjustment as easy as possible. Let’s begin.”

“No, let’s order,” Keigo says. The server’s here. “Hi. We’ll need a lot more coffee than this.”

There are so many of you that ordering takes forever, and while you wait your turn, you think over the events of the last few days. You went back to work the day after you were discharged from the hospital, scared the hell out of your coworkers, and got booted out by Mr. Yagi, who insisted you go home and rest. You went to the hospital instead, hanging out in Tomura’s room with the ghosts who were on shift. You and Hizashi spent some time formulating a backstory for Tomura, one that lines up with the lies you already told your parents, and Mr. Yagi helped you sneak the fake birth certificate into the government records. That was your first day out. On your second day out, you got to go back to work.

Work sucked. You tore through your inbox like a crazy person, trying to get as much done as possible, knowing you’d be out the whole next week and probably longer. Your progress was impeded by your coworkers, who’d heard rumors about what happened – you and your boyfriend getting kidnapped by a serial killer – and wanted to know if they were true. Surprisingly, Nakayama came to your rescue, shooing the others off. She made it clear that the price was a tell-all happy hour later on, but you decided it was worth it to get everybody else off your back.

Tomura woke up officially last night. The ghosts went to pick him up this morning, right around when the humans dragged you out of your house. You haven’t even seen him, and you’re so crabby about it that when the server asks you what you’re having today, you order half the menu on Aizawa’s dime.

Keigo manages to hold in his snickers until after the server’s walked away. “Gotta fuel up for when you get back, huh?”

“Hey. Gross,” Spinner protests. “There’s kids here.”

“Nah, I’m kidding. I saw what he looks like now. Too much exertion would probably kill him.” Keigo tips a huge wink at you and you roll your eyes. “Anyway, I officially call this meeting of ghost friends anonymous to order. Who wants to start?”

“Probably one of you two,” Jin says, gesturing at Inko and Aizawa. “You all have the same kind of ghost.”

Inko and Aizawa trade a glance, and Inko speaks up first. “Be prepared for a lot of frustration on Tomura’s part,” she says. “Most ghosts permanently embody themselves into healthy forms, so it’s likely that he’ll perceive some unfairness, and possibly express some regret. It’s got much less to do with you than with the adjustment to living as a human, so try not to take it personally.”

“Yeah, don’t take anything personally,” Jin agrees. “Himiko bit us a lot at first. For, like, no reason.”

You try to imagine Tomura biting you for no reason, and can’t. “Remember,” Aizawa says, “Tomura wouldn’t have been capable of permanent embodiment unless it was what he truly wanted. That doesn’t mean adjusting to it will be easy.”

“Like Takami says, the physical stuff is hard to explain,” Shinsou says. He grimaces. “But even just the rules of being human are a lot for them to figure out. They’ve been watching us all follow the rules, but they’ve never had to do it themselves, and they’re still them. They still don’t get a lot of the stuff we do. He’s gonna ask a lot of questions. And he’s gonna complain.”

“Magne had this thing about crosswalks,” Spinner says. “Also about clothes. She still has a thing about clothes. She thinks she can wear whatever she wants, wherever she wants, whenever she wants, as long as the important bits are covered up. I don’t really know how to explain that you just can’t do some stuff.”

You sort of like Magne’s don’t-give-a-fuck attitude about it, but you can see how it would cause trouble. “The more power they had before they embodied themselves, the less attentive they are to social norms or boundaries,” Aizawa says. “Behavior in public is something to be watchful of. A public indecency charge is not something you want to incur.”

He’s scowling in a way that says this piece of advice is coming out of personal experience. You can’t decide if you want to hear the full story or if you never want to think about it again. “I mean, I think you’ve done sort of a good job training him on this stuff already,” Keigo says. “He’s got some social skills.”

You feel like he might be giving Tomura a little too much credit. “Like three social skills.”

“That’s three more than Dabi’s got,” Spinner points out, which shouldn’t really make you feel better but does anyway. “I hung out with him more than anybody except her, and he’s not that bad. It’ll probably get harder once you two start going out in public, but he’s not starting at zero. He’s at like – level three.”

“One level for every social skill,” Shinsou says, and snickers. “Nice.”

“I think the larger problem is overstimulation,” Jin’s mom says, and it takes all your self-control not to start in with some really inappropriate thoughts. “However they’ve been perceiving through their senses when they’re embodied, it’s much more intense when the embodiment’s permanent – at least from what we saw with Himiko.”

“In general, they struggle with one sense more than the others,” Aizawa says. “For Eri it was taste.”

“Himiko, too,” Jin’s mom confirms. “That might have been what the biting was about. She also struggled with smell, which makes sense, since taste and smell are fairly connected. What about Magne, Spinner?”

“Sight for sure,” Spinner says. “Light sensitivity, color sensitivity, everything. She sees colors the rest of us don’t even know exist. It’s cool. But it sucked at first.”

“For Hizashi it was hearing,” Aizawa adds. “Ghosts are able to hear in multiple dimensions, and his hearing was particularly sensitive as a ghost. It took him two years to be able to go without noise-canceling headphones outside.”

You have a feeling you already know what Tomura’s oversensitivity is going to be. Given the number of contact allergies he’s already displayed and what he was like as a ghost, physical touch is going to be a big problem. It’s so daunting to think of that it pushes you into asking your first real question of the day. “How did you help them cope with it?”

“Patience,” Inko says.

You thought that was a given. “Time,” Jin’s mom adds.

“Space,” Aizawa says, and everyone nods. “Now, for the first few weeks –”

You knew helping Tomura adapt to being human wasn’t going to be easy, but as the ghost friends outline all the things you hadn’t even considered, you begin to grasp just how hard it’s going to be. Every last ghost did damage to their relationship with their human, or humans, while they were trying to adjust. Every human had more than a few moments of thinking how much easier it would have been for their ghost to stay a ghost. Even Hizashi and Mr. Yagi, who were the most intentional about their embodiments, had days where they made living with them feel impossible. You’re glad everyone is being honest with you, thankful that they aren’t sugarcoating it, but your stomach is tying itself in a knot.

Tomura’s embodiment wasn’t just an adjustment, it was a last resort to avoid being sucked back into the world between. And it almost didn’t work. If even the ghosts who wanted this were nightmares to live with at first, what’s going to happen with him? Nobody can answer that for you, or tell you how to cope with however many times Tomura will probably tell you that he wishes the two of you had never met. All they can tell you is the same three things: Patience, time, and space.

To be fair to the ghost friends, they highlight the fun stuff, too. Spinner talks about taking Magne to a museum for the first time, and to a mall. Jin and his family turned themselves into foodies so they could try everything alongside Himiko. Even before Shinsou and Eri were adopted, Shinsou taught himself to make candy apples, because Eri had seen them on TV and wanted to try them. Aizawa, looking as calm and reflective as you’ve ever seen him, talks about taking Hizashi to movies, to concerts, to the opera, and watching him hear things as they were meant to be heard for the first time. Inko, smiling broadly, tells you about when she was pregnant, and Mr. Yagi’s reaction the first time he put his hand on her stomach and felt Izuku kick.

“He looked like he’d seen a ghost,” she says, laughing. “He didn’t know babies did that.”

Keigo is laughing, too. You picture Mr. Yagi’s startled expression, the one you’ve seen so many times right before he starts coughing blood, and find it in yourself to smile. “They’re still themselves underneath it all,” Inko says. “Even if it takes time to see.”

It’s quiet for a moment. Most of the plates are empty, including yours. You’ve been eating steadily just to have something to do with your hands. “There’s one more thing,” Keigo says. “Stronger ghosts keep some of their powers when they embody permanently. According to Touya, Tomura kept a lot of his. He can still read auras, like they all can, but he can project a pretty strong aura all on his own. And he can still drain stuff, even if he can’t do anything with the life-force. So far it’s looking like he needs to touch something with all five fingers for it to happen, and since it’s not anything close to a natural human ability, he has to really want to destroy it. Just keep an eye on him if he starts to get mad.”

“Okay,” you say. “What else?”

“We’re happy for you,” Shinsou says, and Inko nods, smiling still. Everybody’s smiling, now that you notice it. “It’s a big thing. And it’s a good thing. Now you’re really part of the neighborhood.”

You could be. You can be, now that you and Tomura can both leave if you want to. For a moment, hope begins to tug at you – but then you remember what Keigo said, and what everybody else said about patience, space, and time. It’ll be a long time before the two of you can be part of anything. And probably a long time before the two of you are a two of you again, too. Aizawa’s phone buzzes, and he looks at it. “They’re finishing up over there. We should head back, too.”

He heads to the cash register to pay the bill, and the rest of you work on extricating yourselves from the booth. You wince as you stand up, feeling your stitches pull. Keigo notices. “How are you holding up?”

“I’ll live.”

“Don’t push yourself too hard with this stuff,” Keigo says. He gestures awkwardly at his broken arm with the other. “It’s a lot to bounce back from. I’m here when you need to talk. Like I have been.”

“Same here,” you say, and Keigo smiles. “And, um – thanks for taking over with the kids, during the fight. I had to try.”

“It was a pretty good try,” Keigo says magnanimously. “You ran a fire poker right through that guy’s chest. Remind me not to piss you off.”

“You know, I think your house is still the scariest house in the neighborhood,” Jin muses. “I figured Dabi’s house or Aizawa’s was going to take over, but nope. Tomura still has a bunch of his powers and you almost killed two guys. You’re the scariest for sure.”

The scariest house in the neighborhood, and now you’re part of the reason why it’s scary. The list of things that make you feel better these days is short and weird, and Jin’s statement  gets added almost instantly. “Thanks.”

You all carpooled in the Bubaigawara van, and Jin’s mom parks it in front of her own house, allowing everybody else to spill out onto the sidewalk. You and Keigo and Aizawa are last out, and as you get your feet under you, you notice a lot of ghosts milling around in front of your house. In front of it, not inside the fence. You make your way over, stumbling a little bit. “Did he kick you out?”

“Nah, we left. Figured he needed some processing time,” Hizashi says. He’s looking past you, at Aizawa. “Hey, what are you doing walking around? You’re supposed to rest your leg.”

Himiko skips up to you, towing Eri and Izuku after her. “It’s all fine,” she tells you, smiling. “He understands everything and we gave him some of everybody’s clothes until he can buy his own.”

“He looks even more like me now!” Eri is bouncing from foot to foot. “He’s going to come over to our house.”

“Oh.” You wonder if Tomura actually meant it, or if he just said it so she’d leave him alone. “That’s – nice.”

“You’re invited, too,” Eri assures you. Then she, like Hizashi, looks over your shoulder. “Dad! Hitoshi!”

Himiko peels off to meet Jin, leaving you with Izuku, who’s watching the house. “Tomura’s still really powerful,” he says. “Even when he’s human the aura is still there. Dad says he could probably take on a strong conjurer, even like this.”

“What else did your dad say?”

“That’s for you to ask Tomura yourself,” Mr. Yagi says, drawing up alongside Izuku. He smiles at you. “I’ve cleared your schedule next week. Let me know if you need more time.”

“And call if you need anything,” Inko reiterates. She takes Mr. Yagi’s hand and wraps an arm around Izuku’s shoulders. “Come over for dinner when you’re ready.”

“Yes!” Izuku looks way too happy at the thought. “I have lots of questions for both of you!”

You decide you’ll wait a while to take them up on that invitation, but they’re not the only ones who stop to talk to you specifically. Each of the ghosts stops by briefly, all of them reassuring you that Tomura’s fine. You’re not going to believe them until you see it for yourself.

Finally, Aizawa and Hizashi are all that’s left. Aizawa hands you a book – another one of his. You read the cover out loud and snicker. “What To Expect When Your Ghost Embodies Itself? Great title.”

“It’s a little boring,” Hizashi says, and you realize he doesn’t get the joke. Aizawa is smirking slightly. “Good stuff in there, though.”

“It covers everything we discussed earlier, and a little more,” Aizawa says. “Good luck.”

“You probably won’t be up to it, but come over later if you want,” Hizashi says. “That conjurer ruined our Halloween, so we’re throwing a make-up party at our place. Costumes mandatory.”

There’s no way you’re making it to that party. You thank them for the invitation anyway, tuck the book under your arm, and step through the front gate into your yard. Up the front steps, through the unlocked door, into the front hall. Some part of you is expecting Tomura to materialize in front of you, but he can’t do that anymore. “I’m home,” you call out, and Phantom comes scrabbling across the floor towards you, wagging her tail. You greet her, then pick her up. “Tomura?”

“In here.”

He’s home. Your heart leaps so hard and fast it seems a little ridiculous, and you hurry into the living room to see him. He’s there, sitting on his usual couch cushion, wearing some bizarre mix of clothing from every guy in the neighborhood, plus a pair of socks that could only have come from Himiko. The urge to launch yourself at him, to climb all over him like he’s done to you so many times and prove to yourself that he’s alive and he’s safe, is overpowering. But you remember what the others said. Patience, time, space. You don’t want to overwhelm him. You set Phantom down on the couch next to him and take a few steps back, keeping a respectful distance.

It’s quiet for a while. You break the silence. “How do you feel?”

He has the hood of his hoodie up, throwing his face into shadow. “Like shit.”

That’s about what you were expecting. You need more detail if you’re going to help, but you don’t want to push him. “Did everything go okay at the hospital?”

His shoulders lift, then fall. You see him grimace. “It was weird. All that stuff they did. The stupid paperwork is over there if you want to look at it.”

“Okay.” Before, when he wasn’t human, you’d have helped yourself. Now – “Do you want me to look at it?”

Another shrug. If he didn’t want you to, he’d say no, right? You pick the folder up off the coffee table and open it to the discharge summary, which is a mistake. The list of injuries Tomura came in with is staggering. Seeing this, you’re amazed they only kept him in for five days. “Well?” Tomura asks.

You set the folder down. “You healed up really fast.”

“There are things wrong with me,” Tomura says. One hand rises to scratch his neck. “My skin is messed up. I’m – allergic.”

“I have allergy medicine for stuff like that. And itch cream.”

“They gave me some.” Tomura still hasn’t taken down his hood. “What did the humans want?”

“They wanted to tell me how to help you adjust,” you say, and Tomura makes a derisive sound. Phantom stirs, whines, and noses closer to him. “What did the ghosts want with you?”

“To explain.” The derision is obvious in Tomura’s voice. “Like I’m stupid or something.”

“You aren’t. They don’t think that,” you say, only to realize that Tomura still probably knows what the other ghosts are thinking better than you do. “They probably don’t want you to make the same mistakes as they did. From what the humans were saying, they all made a lot of mistakes.”

“They almost scared their humans off.” Tomura’s voice goes weirdly flat. “I already did that.”

“What?”

“I didn’t know what I look like. When I saw the picture on the ID, that was the first time.” Tomura seems to sink further into his hoodie, and suddenly you understand why he hasn’t taken down the hood. “No wonder you didn’t want me embodied. You’d have to look at me all the time.”

“Tomura –”

“I just wanted to stay. I didn’t want to go back. I thought it would be the same, but it’s not,” Tomura says. There’s a weird strain in his voice now, one you’ve never heard from him but know intimately yourself. “There are things wrong with me. I’m ugly. You wanted me when I was a ghost and I was powerful, not when I’m human and weak. You won’t even come near me.”

“No,” you say, and Tomura scoffs. “No! When I was talking to the others, they said it’s hard to get used to a human body – stuff might be harder to cope with now that it’s permanent – they said I should give you time and space –”

“I didn’t do this so I could have time and space!” Tomura’s still got enough power to rattle the walls without raising his voice. “I did it so I could – so we –”

His voice breaks. Phantom edges closer to him and he shies away, both hands coming up to cover his face at odd angles. You stand there for a moment, paralyzed by the decision between everything the other ghost friends told you and what Tomura’s saying now, what he’s doing now. But in the end it’s not a decision at all. You hurry around the coffee table, move Phantom to the cushion at the far end of the couch, and sit down right next to Tomura, getting in his space without asking the same way he always does to you. You pry his hands away from his face one at a time, and he fights you. He’s fighting you with a fraction of his strength and you both know it. “Let go. I don’t want you. I don’t want your pity –”

“It’s not pity,” you say. He lets you have one of his hands and you immediately try for the other. “I don’t know what this is like for you. I’m trying to do the right thing, but I should have just asked you what you needed. I can do better.”

“You don’t want to. You don’t want this!” He pulls his hand free of yours to gesture at himself. “I know what you wanted. You wanted –”

“You.” You don’t even have to think before you answer. “I wanted you. I want you.”

He stares at you from between his fingers. You give up on trying to free his hands and press in close against his side. He startles at your touch, but doesn’t shy away. He smells like the hospital. His voice is quiet, shaky, strained. “You liked when I was cold.”

“It was nice. But I’ve got AC. And now I can hold you for as long as I want without getting frostbite.”

“You liked that I got rid of the bugs.”

“I’m still making you get rid of the bugs,” you say, and Tomura makes a sound that’s too watery to be laughter. “But I can get rid of my own, too. I had a whole plan for that hornets’ nest.”

“Your plan sucked.” It did sort of suck, looking back. Tomura’s voice is quieter when he speaks again. “You liked when I was stronger than you.”

“You’re still stronger than me.” You can feel it when you touch him, a faint thread of power vibrating just beneath his skin. “That’s not the important stuff.”

“What is?”

“Everything else,” you say. “You’re still you, Tomura. It might feel different to be in the world like this, but you’re still who you are. That’s who I want. Who I love.”

It’s quiet for a long time. “You liked the way I looked before.”

It’s a weird enough thing to say to startle a laugh out of you. “The way you look now is how you’ve always looked, Tomura. Your hair’s a different color, that’s all.”

“I always looked like this.” Tomura sounds skeptical. “You said I was pretty.”

“You are pretty.” You reach for the edges of his hood and his hands come up, grasping your wrists, holding you still. He holds you there for a few seconds, then lets go, and lets you pull down the hood.

It’s him. Those same features you saw outlined in steam in the bathroom, on your back porch with the ashes of a hornets’ nest at his feet. The same red eyes that have watched you for almost two years, that have catalogued every inch of you, that looked up into yours after the gateway to the world between slammed shut for the last time. You’ve seen all his expressions before, except this one: The way he looks when he’s been crying. As you watch, his pupils open and shut, and more tears slip down his cheeks.

You scramble to wipe them away, cradling his face in your hands. He flinches when your palm gently meets his cheek, and you draw back, only for him to catch your wrist and press your hand hard against his skin. That feels normal enough to make you smile. Tomura’s never been shy about pulling you around. “You’re pretty,” you say again. “You’ve never looked any different than this. I like it. I don’t care if you do. I don’t care about anything except that you’re home.”

“But –”

“The next words out of your mouth had better not be ‘Dabi said’.”

An aggrieved silence falls, and you find yourself struggling not to laugh. It feels normal. It feels like any weird little argument you and Tomura have had, except that he can’t dematerialize to teach you a lesson and you can’t end the fight just by stepping outside. “You love me,” Tomura ventures after a while. “Like this?”

“Don’t be stupid,” you say. “Of course I do.”

Tomura knocks you over a second later.

Cuddling on the couch is more complicated than it used to be, mainly because Tomura’s a long way from being used to what touch feels like in a truly human form and he can’t get comfortable the way he usually would. If he can barely stand to stretch out on top of you, there’s no way he can handle kissing, and you can tell that the overload of sensation doesn’t turn him on so much as it fries his brain. Not that that stops him from trying to kiss you more. “Take it easy,” you say. “You just got home. I don’t want to take you back to the hospital because you tried to kiss me and had a heart attack.”

“That doesn’t happen,” Tomura says with confidence. Then, as you watch, you see him start to doubt himself. Some how he’s less sure about humans now that he is one. “Does it?”

“It could.” You remember something from a few days ago about how too much exertion on not enough calories could damage Tomura’s heart, and he still feels way too thin. “Can you reach your discharge papers? I want to read them.”

He reaches out to grab them from the coffee table, but it’s ever so slightly too far away. Before he’d dematerialize one hand, snatch them, and bring them back. Now he just glares at them and keeps glaring – and as you watch in some mix of surprise and horror, the folder lifts from the table and drops to the ground next to the couch.

Tomura realizes you’re staring at him and smirks. “I never said all my powers were gone.”

Now that he’s realized you still love him, he’s cocky, but you’re not annoyed about it. You’re not going to forget what it was like when you got home, what it was like to see him cry, and you’re not dumb enough to think today will be the last time it comes up. Tomura flops down again, his head against your chest, and you pick up his discharge papers and flip through them. Sure enough, there’s one specific instruction highlighted and in bold type. “No intense physical activity until you’re cleared by a doctor,” you say. Tomura scowls. You keep reading. “Your follow-up’s in two weeks. It’s not that long.”

“Maybe if we go slow –”

“No.” You set the papers down and trace over one tendon in his neck, wincing as he twitches and writhes and digs his knees and elbows into every soft body part you possess. He’s lying on top of all your stitches, and it’s starting to hurt. “You can barely handle being touched at all right now. I’m not going to send you back to the hospital and I’m not going to melt your brain.”

“It’s my brain. I get to decide –”

“You don’t get to leave me,” you say, and Tomura looks up, startled. “Two weeks.”

Tomura studies you for a moment. Then he flops down again. “Fine. Two weeks. But then I get to – what happened? Why did you make that noise?”

You tried not to. Really. But one of the too-prominent points of Tomura’s ribcage just dug directly into one of your largest wounds, and you think you might have popped a stitch. Tomura sits up, pulls you with him, starts yanking at your shirt. “I want to see. Let me see –”

Your shirt turns to dust in an instant. You didn’t realize Tomura could do that to things that weren’t alive, and you sit there, bemused. Tomura is staring at you, eyes blazing with fury. “My marks,” he says, and you nod. It occurs to you that this is the first time he’s seen the extent of your injuries. “How did he take them out?”

“One at a time. With a knife.” You try to make light of it, try to sound like it isn’t haunting you, like waking up in a hospital bed after it was all over didn’t scare you so badly that you had to be sedated. “Not my best Monday ever.”

“Don’t joke about it.” Tomura’s voice is hard. “He hurt you so much you wanted to die. I should have killed him slower. It should have taken exactly as long as this did.”

You wrap your arms around yourself, trying to cover up the worst of the wounds. The doctors who treated you had decent poker faces, but since you’ve gotten home, you’ve gone out of your way to avoid getting a good look at what happened. Tomura’s expression as he looks at you tells you everything you need to know about how bad it is. “I haven’t even had them for a week yet,” you say. Your voice sounds thin. “They won’t look like this forever.”

Tomura’s jaw clenches. “I don’t care what they look like. I care that they hurt.”

You don’t know what to say to that. You sit there numbly and Tomura watches you, clearly thinking something over but not doing it, whatever it is. “I can’t,” he starts frustrated. “I can’t do the thing I want to do anymore. When I wasn’t materialized I could –”

He makes a gesture, and suddenly you understand what he means. You crawl forward across the couch into his arms, and he wraps himself around you. It’s not like it was before. He can’t enfold you completely like he used to, fitting like a second skin. But now you’ve got something solid to lean against, someone who’s warm like you are, someone who maybe understands how you feel about this whole thing. Tomura’s hugs were always a little awkward, even when he was fully materialized. He didn’t understand what was comfortable and what wasn’t, why you’d be at ease in one position but not in another, and he’d complain when you tried to adjust. Tomura’s not complaining now. He adjusts with you, and once you’re settled, you try not to move too much. It’s weird. But it’s the kind of weird you can get used to.

“You smell nice,” Tomura says after a little while. He unwraps one arm from around you and sniffs his own armpit. Then he makes a face. “I smell weird.”

“You smell like the hospital,” you say. “We can fix that. Want to shower?”

Tomura gives you a suspicious look. “I’m not allowed in the bathroom while you’re in there.”

“That was before.” You think over the events of the last week. He’s already seen you naked. The two of you have had sex. He’s your boyfriend, and he’s human. Whatever objections you had, they aren’t valid anymore. “The rules still apply if either of us is using the toilet, but we can shower together. If you want. Do you want to?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Tomura says, which means yes. “I thought you’d never let me.”

There are a lot of things you thought would never happen, and a lot of them happened in the last week. You pull yourself out of Tomura’s arms reluctantly and lead him up the stairs.

You check over your wound care instructions and Tomura’s as he gets undressed. Everything looks about the same for both of you. You also take the opportunity to go over the list of known allergens the doctors gave you yesterday. Almost all your soaps and shower products meet the criteria already – low to no scent, hypoallergenic, no harsh chemicals. You set out an extra towel and an extra sponge and lay down a bath mat, then turn on the water.

Since you met Tomura you’ve been taking hot showers, but they can be hard on skin, and you don’t want Tomura to faint. You opt for warm water instead, take off your own clothes, and inspect your stitches for a moment before stepping into the shower. The spot Tomura elbowed by accident looks unhappy, but the coarse black stitches haven’t come undone. Seeing them makes you feel sick. You look away and step into the shower, leaving the door cracked for Tomura to follow you in.

There’s room for both of you inside, but it’s a close fit. You have a feeling that you and Tomura will be having a discussion about the impracticality of shower sex at some point in the future, but that’s not for today. You switch positions carefully with Tomura so that he’s under the majority of the spray and watch him startle as it patters against his skin. You wonder what he’s thinking.

You’ve spent a lot of time wondering what Tomura’s thinking since you met him, but it occurs to you that you can ask. “What’s going on up there?”

“It’s – so much. Loud. But not loud. It feels like – a lot.” Tomura’s hair is plastered to his face from the water. He pushes it out of his eyes. “I’m fine. I don’t want to get out.”

“We won’t get out,” you promise. “Take the time you need.”

He twists this way and that under the spray, working on getting used to it. He’s got stitches, too, all of them taken with the same coarse thread as yours. “Now what?”

You pick up a bottle of shampoo. The mild kind. “Put this in your hair and sort of scrub it around, then rinse it out,” you explain. Tomura brushes his hair out of his eyes again, looking vaguely skeptical. “Or I can do it for you.”

“You.”

You should have known he’d answer like that. He’s got enough of a height advantage on you that you’re going to need him to sit down for this to work, and there are an awkward few minutes while the two of you get settled. You lean back against the wall, and Tomura leans back against your chest, head tipped forward. “Make sure you close your eyes,” you say. “This will sting if it gets in them.”

Tomura nods without looking up. You pour some shampoo into your hand and get to work.

His hair is tangled, like always. Worse than always, because he’s been materialized this entire time, and he hasn’t brushed it at all. You forget about washing his hair for a second in favor of detangling it, and Tomura slumps back against you. “You’re still doing that now that I’m here all the time? I thought you’d stop.”

“Do you want me to stop?”

“No,” Tomura says quickly. You return your attention to the knot you’re working through. “I thought it was just because I was a ghost.”

Huh. “What other things do you think I was only doing because you were a ghost?”

The answer, it turns out, is a lot of things. If Tomura had asked any of the other ghosts about them, he wouldn’t have had to worry, but they probably would have told him not to be stupid, which is probably why he didn’t ask. No wonder he was upset when you got back, if he thought he was losing so many things – sleeping on top of you, sitting on your lap, having his hair played with, being held. He names gesture after gesture as you untangle his hair, and you reassure him about each one.

Once you’ve worked through all the knots, you move on to washing Tomura’s hair in earnest. You don’t think you’re doing a very good job, but when your fingers slow their progress, Tomura complains in a voice that sounds distinctly sleepy. “Don’t. It’s nice.”

You add conditioner, too. Tomura probably won’t bother with it in the future, but you might as well give him soft hair while you can get away with it. Then you shake him out of relaxation and help him to his feet to wash off. He’s sort of floppy when he’s tired, and although you can already tell that it’ll annoy you sometimes, right now it’s just cute. There’s no way you’re telling him he’s cute. You hand him a sponge and some soap and put him in charge of washing his front. You’ll take care of his back.

The fight left Tomura beaten up all over, but his back took a lot of damage while he was caught between the living world and the world between, and it’s where the majority of his stitches are. Even looking at them upsets you. You can’t help but think that if you’d been faster to get to him, if you’d been stronger, if you’d called the others to help you instead of waiting for them to come on their own, he wouldn’t have spent so long trapped between worlds. He wouldn’t have been hurt like this. But that’s only the last set of mistakes you made. If you’d killed his conjurer like you meant to, he’d still be a ghost, and there’d be no marks on him at all.

“Hey.” Tomura glances over his shoulder at you, and you realize that your hands have gone still. You duck closer, hiding your face, and go back to washing, but Tomura’s not fooled. You keep forgetting, somehow, that he knows you as well as you know him. “Don’t make that face. You’re just a human. What were you supposed to do?”

“Kill him.” Your voice wavers. “So you could be human because you wanted to. Not because you didn’t have a choice.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Tomura says. He turns to face you, and when you don’t look up, his hand rises to hold your jaw and tilt it upward. “If I was just doing it to avoid going back, it wouldn’t have worked. I wanted to be like this.”

You know that, but – “I wish I hadn’t let you get hurt.”

“Yeah, and I wish I hadn’t let my conjurer torture you.” Tomura gives you a few seconds of protesting that characterization of events before he springs his trap. “See how dumb it sounds when I say it? It sounds dumber from you, since you’re the human and it wasn’t even your job. You told me the stupid plan the others had. You were never supposed to do it.”

He pauses for a moment. “I guess it would have worked if I’d been materialized, though. Dabi saw you stab him. He said it was kind of hot.”

Your mind goes sort of blank at the sheer weirdness of that statement. “And he’s still alive because?”

“I can kill him whenever I want to,” Tomura says. He turns away again, and you go back to washing off the unstitched parts of his skin, shaking your head in bemusement. “I bet it was really hot.”

Tomura thinks the fact that you ran his conjurer through with a fire poker is hot. That’s probably a good thing, because you’re not sorry you did it. You rest your forehead against the back of his neck for a second, resisting the urge to kiss him, and note that his pale skin is turning pink and flushed from the water. The water’s not that warm. You should probably get him out of here sooner rather than later. Inko warned you that newly embodied ghosts aren’t aware of the physical sensations that proceed things like throwing up or passing out, and you’d really prefer for Tomura not to faint in here.

Tomura complains about having to get out, but you remind him that showering is something humans have to do regularly and shoo him out anyway. You stay in a little longer to wash up, then step out into a mildly steamy bathroom. For a moment you’re cast back into the memory of the first time you saw Tomura face to face – in this bathroom, outlined by the steam, looking you up and down with a smile you couldn’t identify as creepy or not. Thinking about it now, you know it wasn’t creepy. He was proud of himself for figuring out how to make himself visible, proud that you could see him at last. Standing here more than a year later, it’s hard to believe how much has changed.

There are puddles of water down the hall on the way to the bedroom, evidence that while Tomura’s figured out showering, he hasn’t figured out drying off. When you step into your room, you find more evidence in the form of a pile of wet clothes discarded on the ground. Jin’s mom said that the ghosts have to learn by experience sometimes. You glance towards the bed and find Tomura sitting on it, dressed in a pair of pink sweatpants of unknown provenance and – “Um, is that my shirt?”

“Yeah.” Tomura gives you that dumbest-person-ever look. You’re not thrilled to see that it’s survived his embodiment. “It was right there. It fits.”

You buy your pajama shirts almost comically oversized, and Tomura’s not all that much taller than you. Something that’s huge on you is still pretty big on him. It fits, but it’s the principle of the thing. “Didn’t the others give you clothes?”

“Yeah. They didn’t smell right.” Tomura pulls the collar of the shirt up over his nose and mouth and breathes in. “This one smells like you.”

You were never into stealing your boyfriend’s hoodies, back when you had human boyfriends. You don’t love wearing other people’s clothes. But apparently there has to be at least one clothing thief in every relationship, and Tomura’s taken over the role. Tomura yawns so widely that his jaw pops, then recoils. “What was that? Why did I do that?”

“That’s a yawn. You’re tired.” You were thinking about street clothes, but just like you did the last time you and Tomura were in this room together, you opt for pajamas instead. “I could go for a nap, too.”

You climb into bed on your usual side, leaving the door cracked open for Phantom in case she comes up, and Tomura gets awkwardly into bed on the other side. “How do I do it?”

“Do what?”

“Sleep.”

Right – he’s spent the last week either in an induced coma or heavily sedated. He hasn’t had the chance yet to fall asleep naturally. “Get comfortable,” you say, and Tomura, semi-predictably, abandons his side of the bed in favor of getting in your personal space. “Now close your eyes. You’re tired, so I bet your eyelids feel kind of heavy, right? Let them close. Think about stuff if you want to think about it, or don’t think about anything. It’ll happen on its own.”

“That sounds too easy,” Tomura mumbles, half-asleep already. “Sometimes it takes you forever.”

“Sometimes it’s harder than others,” you admit. “It’s pretty easy right now. Just relax.”

Tomura mumbles something else, but you can feel the tension leaving his body, until he’s relaxed save for the icy thread of ghostly power running through him. It’s faint, but you have the sense that that’s illusory, at least a little bit. Tomura might be permanently embodied now, but he’s the most powerful of the embodied ghosts, and probably still the least human. He can’t dematerialize anymore and he needs to eat and sleep, but it feels likely that the effect of his powers on your daily life won’t change too much.

But you can figure that out later. Right now he’s asleep next to you, his red eyes closed, his lips parted slightly, warm and breathing and undeniably alive. The same kind of alive as you are, finally. For good.

You shift a little closer to him, and his arm wraps around you tightly. That’s fine with you. You close your eyes and fall asleep almost as fast as he did.

When you wake up, it’s to the sound of your phone buzzing, startling you out of a nightmare. You have all kinds of material for nightmares now, and your subconscious has been mixing and matching it in increasingly horrible combinations for the last few nights – or afternoons, since you can tell by the light coming through the window that sunset is a ways off. You reach for your phone, desperate for a distraction, and Tomura’s arms tighten around you. He sounds like he’s mostly asleep when he speaks. “No.”

“I’m not leaving,” you say. You get ahold of your phone and flip it to silent before reading the texts. They’re from Shinsou.

Shinsou: are u guys coming or not

Shinsou: everybody else is

Shinsou: Eri says you have to or she’ll cry

Shinsou: she says Tomura promised

She mentioned something about that earlier. You shake Tomura’s shoulder. “Did you promise Eri you’d come to the party?”

“No.” There’s a pause. “She wouldn’t leave until I said yes.”

Great. “How much do you care about making her cry?”

“I don’t care,” Tomura mumbles. You wait. “She backed me up in the fight. I owe her.”

“So we have to go,” you realize. The idea is less upsetting to you now than it was when you first heard about it, namely because you just had a nightmare and you don’t want to go back to bed. You text Shinsou back. Your dad said it’s a costume party. Do we have to have costumes?

Yeah. Shinsou sends a shrugging emoji. Not serious ones. One of my dads is going all out and the other one just has cat ears on.

Aizawa can get away with just cat ears – he’s the one hosting the party. You and Tomura are going to have to come up with something a little better. Shinsou texts again. It starts in an hour. Be there. You really don’t want Eri to cry.

You’d feel really bad making Eri cry, especially now that you remember her helping Tomura during the fight – and saving your life just beforehand. You start to sit up, and Tomura drags you back down. “No. I like sleeping. I want to sleep.”

“Humans sleep every night,” you remind him. “You can go back to sleep later. Right now we have to go to a party.”

It takes a while to drag Tomura out of bed – twenty minutes at least, leaving you with forty minutes to come up with some kind of costume. You get in your own way a little bit when you realize how cute Tomura looks with bedhead, then order yourself to pull it together. Tomura can’t shadow you as closely as he did when he could dematerialize, but he still gives it his best shot, and you two end up colliding and tripping on each other – and on Phantom – way more than is actually necessary. After ransacking your house for costume ideas and coming up with nothing, you finally turn to Google for help.

Tomura reads over your shoulder. “These are dumb. I thought Halloween was supposed to be scary.”

“It is,” you say. You decide to get into the part of Halloween that’s supposed to be sexy later – later, as in next year. Or never. “This is the wrong neighborhood for scary, though. No matter what I dress up as, I won’t be scarier than everybody else who lives here.”

And that’s when it clicks for you, oddly enough – it clicks, and you can’t help but laugh. The perfect low-effort Halloween costume. How did you not think of it before? Tomura eyes you suspiciously. “Why are you laughing?”

“I have an idea. It might get us kicked out.”

“If we get kicked out, we can come back and go to sleep again,” Tomura says. Introducing Tomura to the concept of naptime may have been a mistake. “What is it?”

You head for the stairs, and the linen closet. “You’ll see.”

It takes you approximately two seconds to assemble the first costume, and once you do, you show Tomura. It occurs to you way too late that he might think it’s offensive. But once he realizes what you are, he cracks up laughing – then wincing, as the laughter strains the stitches on his back. “They’re going to hate it,” he says. “I bet they won’t even let us in.”

“If they don’t let us in, then we get to go home right away.” You gesture at the linen closet. “Pick your poison.”

It takes you a few more minutes to leave, mostly because Tomura insists on bringing Phantom, and Phantom needs a costume, too. She’s a lot less into her costume than you and Tomura are. She keeps wiggling out of it, and while Tomura tries to lure her back under the sheet, you peer out the front window. The street still looks like hell. Everybody’s houses are still at least partially wrecked. If you drove past this neighborhood, not knowing anything about who lives here and why this happened, you’d avoid it like the plague.

You watch as Keigo and Dabi and Natsu leave their house. Natsu looks like he’s wearing normal clothes, but Keigo has a fake halo and Dabi has a pair of devil horns on. It occurs to you that Dabi might be the only other person in the neighborhood who thinks your costume is funny.

“I got her to wear it,” Tomura says, and you turn to look. There’s Phantom, wearing a flower-patterned pillowcase with holes cut out for her ears, eyes, and nose – and there’s Tomura, wearing a grey sheet over her head with holes cut out so he can see. “I think she’s mad at me.”

“She’s not mad,” you say. You’re pretty sure she’ll forgive you both when she realizes you’re headed over to Aizawa’s house. Shinsou is probably her favorite person other than Tomura. “You look pretty.”

Tomura gives you a once-over. Your sheet is lavender, and you accessorized with a pair of reading glasses you accidentally stole from Mr. Yagi’s office and never gave back. “Cute,” he decides. “The sooner they kick us out, the sooner we can come back.”

He heads for the door, opens it, and steps outside. You gather up Phantom’s leash and follow him onto the porch. When you turn to lock the door, Tomura stops you. His eyes crinkle at the corners, the way they do when he’s smiling creepily on purpose. “Don’t bother,” he says. “This neighborhood is still mine.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” You tuck your keys back into your pocket and make your way down the front steps, to the front gate, and out onto the sidewalk. It’s not until you hear the gate’s hinges creak open again that you realize Tomura hasn’t followed you. You turn back. “Tomura?”

Tomura’s hesitating on the far side of the property line. You can’t figure out why. He’s left before. He was away from the house for five days – but not by choice. The ambulance took him away and the other ghosts brought him back, but in all the time since he was summoned, Tomura’s never left the property of his own free will. You hold out the hand that isn’t grasping Phantom’s leash, and he comes closer to take it. His hand is warm.

Warm, and a little sweaty. He’s nervous. “We don’t have to go to this thing,” you tell him. “You just got home today. It’s a lot. If you’d rather stay home, we can.”

“You want to go.”

“I think it might be fun.” Mostly you want to see what Hizashi does when you roll up to his party dressed like the world’s most stereotypical, low-budget ghost. “But I still like it’s best when it’s just us. If you don’t want to go, we won’t. I’m not leaving you.”

“Because you love me,” Tomura says, almost hesitantly. You nod. “I love you, too.”

It’s a good thing you’ve got the sheet on. You’re not sure you want Tomura to see the goofy smile you’re wearing. Tomura raises his free hand and touches your mouth through the sheet, feeling along the curve of it until you dare to kiss the tips of his fingers. He startles, and you remember the touch sensitivity. It’s fine when he’s the one initiating contact, since he’s the one who decides what he can handle, but you need to be careful. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Tomura says. He kisses you.

It’s not a great kiss, given that there are two layers of cotton between your mouth and his, but you’ll take it. You’ve always been willing to take what you can get from Tomura, and you’ve gotten more than you ever expected. It came at a price, sure. You’ll be paying that price in one way and another for the rest of your life, but it’s worth it. It would be worth it if Tomura never crossed the property line again.

But Tomura draws away from you without letting go of your hand and steps forward. You step back to give him space, and watch as he sets one foot over the line and onto the sidewalk, and then the other. And all at once, for the first time in a hundred and ten years, there’s nothing wrong with your house at all.

The End

[streetlightyeri]

Would you ever write for Scott from twisters?

I am in the midst of writing something for him! I have three fics in the works (part 2 for tyler, the main fic that "false god" fits in for boone, and one for scott). they're all based off of Zach Bryan songs.

I just feel like everything I'm writing sounds like I'm illiterate. It's very hard for me to write things that don't have extensive backstories (ig that's what a masters degree in creative writing does to a person lol), so I have to actively fight myself to not write 100 pages of fanfiction about a side character that gets 10 minutes of screen time bc literally no one would read that. for reference of how inane I am when I write: I am currently searching academic sources to get an understanding of sound wave acoustics bc I've decided one of my characters will have a PhD in it - like what is my problem, this is a movie about TORNADOES. anyway lol here's a little sneak peek for the Scott fic. very rough - hasn't been proof read even once. <3

“ASPEN!” It felt like the world was spinning around him, as though he was the center of the tornado. He had his hat clenched in his hand. He felt his lunch fighting to come up. All around him was destruction with a death toll of 14 and climbing. If she was one of them, he wouldn’t know what he would do. He had searched every same piece of rubble that was once her grandmother’s house and had no luck.

Javi walked up to the Tornado Wrangler crew with arms extended in a gesture that one would use when approaching a bull. “I understand you do not want to see me, but trust me, we are not working these people.” He glanced over his shoulder to see Scott scouring what he could only imagine was the remnants of her room for the 3rd time. He pulled his phone and swiped to the photo Scott shared with him. He turned it to the group. “Have you seen this girl?”

Tyler blinked a moment too long and a tanned girl with cropped hair swallowed harshly. Dani was her name, if Javi remembered correctly. She stepped away from the table where she was handing out food and pulled Javi to the side. “It’s bad. I found her in that flipped StormPar truck pinned to the seat by an old iron post through the chest. It didn’t seem like she was trying to take cover, more like she was trying to grab something because this was in her hand.”

Dani handed him a hunk of plastic that would’ve seemed like nothing to someone else. But Javi knew: this was the StormPar data. She could very well be dead, all because she didn’t want Scott to lose everything from the Par.

“It . . . I thought she was dead, her breathing was so shallow. I’m a trained EMT, so I almost called it. Anyone else would have. But she twitched, so I investigated some more. I had to trach her to keep the stress off her heart. Tyler and I put her in an ambulance with the post still in about 20 minutes ago.”

Javi turned to run to get Scott, but Dani’s hand gripped his upper arm, forcing him to turn back to her.

She leveled her eyes with his, steeling her voice. “I can guess who she is to him. She may not have even made it to the hospital. Her breathing depends on how well the EMTs can bag her. What he sees may scar him. He may be identifying her. Make sure he is prepared. Do not give him false hope.”

Javi gave one strong nod. “Thank you.” He glanced at the rest of the group who pretended to not be listening. “Y’all are good people.”

She gave him a sympathetic smile and let him go, watching as he ran to Scott who had screamed himself hoarse. Javi slipped the data pack into his back pocket; the reason she was in that truck was not something he was going to be telling Scott, at least not at that time. Javi tried to explain everything else, but the second the word ambulance came out of Javi’s mouth, Scott was running for the truck. Javi had to tackle him against the door and take the keys from him. “You are not stable enough to drive.”

Scott would’ve argued any other time, but every second he spent outside the vehicle was one where he could be on the way to see her. He complied, climbing into the passenger seat.

[october-writes]

Icarus sneak peek...

Okay, so I'm being super generous with this sneak peek because I have no idea when I'll be ready to post the whole fic. Pandora!Verse Leon has a long, bittersweet backstory and I love it, but it's a lot to get down especially when all I want to do is cry and hug him. 😫

Thank you for your patience. Any likes/comments here or on Pandora are the fuel that keeps the fic engine running.

‘Is this really where you grew up?’ she asked, her voice light with surprise.

He turned in time to see her cringe at the question. She’d been quiet since the drive away from the motel and the scene with Russ and his posse. No, scratch that. Ada had kept to herself because he’d asked her to and he’d been kicking himself for that ever since.

His stomach flipped whenever Ada asked him about himself; one part excitement, one part terror. He wanted to tell her everything and, in turn, he wanted to know her as well as he knew his deepest desires. But he was scared of the guy in those stories. Steadfast, optimistic, stable, responsible. He was sure that version of him had died on a forest floor. Now he was trying to live up to his own ghost.

Leon swallowed before replying glibly, ‘Nope! I grew up in a house.’

‘You know what I meant, Leon.’

God, he loved the way Ada said his name; like she owned the word, like no one had ever called him that but her.

‘Okay. I spent a lot of time here too,’ he conceded, nodding at the front facade of the church and the flawless circle of its Gothic stained glass window, ‘One Easter when I was fourteen, me and the chaplain’s son changed the sign out front to read: “Honk if you love Jesus”.’

She spluttered on a laugh, ‘You did what?’

‘You could barely hear mom’s sermon ‘cause of the car horns. I would’ve been grounded ‘til Christmas, but lucky for me she has a sense of humour! Damn. I was such a little asshole when I wanted to be.’

Ada bit her bottom lip until it shone pearlescent pink and he couldn’t look away from her mouth.

‘I could show you around,’ he offered suddenly, ‘If there was time.’

‘Really? And where would you take me?’

Her eyes glinted like a dare. He’d reignited her interest in him and they were back there again, at the edge of something beautiful and dangerous.

Go ahead. Impress me, rookie.

‘Well, um... there’s the Boott Cotton Mills Museum just across the canal,’ he suggested weakly, his throat suddenly dry, ‘I uh... I wrote an essay on it in High School.’

Her eyebrows twitched, ‘High School...?’

‘Yeah, it was on child labour reforms during the Industrial Revolution. I got an A minus.’

Oh for the love of- Shut up, shut up, shut up!

Ada blinked at him before turning away, ‘Interesting. Maybe some other time.’

Her eyes went dull, the glint of challenge extinguished. They were left beneath the cool light of the street lamp looking at everything but each other.

‘Come on. We should get going before I’m recognised,’ he said, leading her across the street, ‘We’ll check out the back lot.’

Leon remembered the first time Sarah had taken him to First Presbyterian to help out the day crew, officially as penance for his reckless escape attempt on his first night under her roof. He hadn’t been due to start school for another week and, while he’d been sincerely forgiven for his antics, he’d still been grounded.

The church ran a Day Centre from Monday to Friday, the doors opening at eight on the dot come rain or shine or biblical levels of snow. Refreshments, clean clothes and pastoral counselling were available no questions asked and, in the evenings, volunteers served hot meals alongside a rotating programme of art therapy, sign language classes, and addicts anonymous meetings.

Sarah had started the programme during her first few months in Lowell. The way some locals liked to tell it, Sarah had crashed into town on a wave of radical ideas. The Day Centre hadn’t been popular with everyone, bringing ‘undesirables’ and addicts from the fringes into the centre of town where they were harder to ignore.

‘I’ve brought the poor and the sick to Jesus’ doorstep, just like he instructed,’ she’d retorted, knowing the Bible was her home turf and she’d arrived ready to fight dirty, ‘If you’ve got a problem, take it up with him!’

‘I’m on a first name basis with the Mayor’s office,’ Sarah had boasted as they’d carried boxes of donated clothing through the back of the church, ‘Mayor Wiggins reminds me every time I stop by that I shouldn’t let it go to my head! I think he preferred the old pastor, Reverend Dawson. But Wiggy knows I’m better at getting things done. He’d rather boil his own head in lard than admit it though, so I’m not holding my breath for the key to the city!’

Young Leon had tipped his head back to take in the building’s decadent red brick and stained glass, its silver spire bouncing the sun towards every corner of Lowell.

‘Is all this yours?’ he’d asked.

He’d lingered at the threshold, a deep breath ballooning his stomach as he’d prepared himself to enter. The air had smelled apple-crisp, the pavement sun-dappled and warming the tops of his sneakers. It had stirred something familiar inside of him. But he hadn’t been inside a church since... since they’d buried his mom.

Sarah had chuckled, bumping the backdoor open with her behind, ‘Oh, no! Frannie belongs to everyone. But I am humbly responsible for her, like a sheepdog with her flock.’

She knew the church well enough that she could walk through it backwards without knocking into anything. All the better to keep her eye on Leon so she could read her new foster son’s lips.

‘What does that make me?’ he’d wondered as he’d followed her, ‘Like... a stray puppy or something?’

She’d hooted at that.

‘I don’t tell people who they are, Leon. But if I am to be completely honest, which under his roof is essential,’ she’d thrown the box of donated winter coats onto a nearby table and had turned to relieve him of the ones he’d carried, ‘I am sincerely looking forward to meeting the man you’ll become some day.’

Leon hadn’t known what to say to that.

Old foster parents, social workers, even a cop once; they’d all warned him that who he was becoming was someone he should be afraid of, ashamed of. But Sarah had greeted all sides of him like they’d known and loved each other for years.

The Day Centre had become a fixture of Leon’s teenage years from that day on. He’d never been much for the services, the singing, the prayer. But he’d helped out with the art classes and he’d learned how to cook in the community kitchen. He’d taken sign language classes after school and pulled weeds from the community garden across the street. He’d done his homework in Sarah’s study, her day sermons sailing in through the open window like a warm breeze.

When he’d turned fifteen and grown a foot taller in what had felt like a week, Leon had begun captaining one of the local street hockey teams. Their casual league had been run out of the back lot of the church.

He remembered long afternoons three times a week, two dozen kids howling like wild animals after sunset, and sweating even when it was so cold he could see his breath. Rhonda in the goal, as reliable as rain in September. She’d used the church to escape her alcoholic dad for a few hours a day. And Marty, a formerly homeless teen, playing offense and doing a backflip every time he scored. The slap of hockey sticks, rollerblades tearing up the tarmac, a puck smacking off a brick wall, his heart in his throat as a shot narrowly missed a car window.

There was still a dent in a lamp post from where one of Leon’s shots had gone wide. It had struck the post so hard the bulb had gone out. They’d played the rest of the night by the light of the church’s silver steeple and it had felt like an incredible dream.

It had been yesterday and forever ago. But as Leon walked the lot with Ada now, a part of him was convinced he’d be back here tomorrow, hockey stick in hand with his skates tied at the laces and slung over his shoulder.

‘The Day Centre closes early Thursdays,’ he told Ada as they lingered at the edge of the lot, ‘It shouldn’t be this busy.’

The lights were on and the church shimmered from every window. The front of the building was still bustling, so they’d given it a wide berth. Though Leon had his cap down, he’d grown up inside these walls. There was no way he’d make it to the rectory without being recognised.

Ada was getting restless. Her face was hidden by her hood, but Leon could see the tense line her shoulders made beneath her sweater.

‘Maybe things have changed,’ she muttered.

‘She’ll be here,’ he replied, ‘That much’ll be the same. I know it will.’

Minutes later the backdoor to the church opened and Pastor Sarah stepped into the warm summer night.

Her dark hair had regrown in gentle waves, softer and less curly than before her illness and now tinged with grey. She wore a thick cardigan, unbuttoned and showing off a baggy Guns and Roses tour t-shirt that Leon had stolen from her closet about a hundred times before it had stopped fitting him.

Leon muffled a quiet laugh into the collar of his jacket, but deep down he felt like sinking to his knees.

He knew Lowell’s streets. He knew there was a house a few blocks away where his old bed waited and his sketchbooks tumbled out of the wardrobe in an avalanche of memories. But ‘home’ was a complicated concept for a guy who’d had so many. A one bedroom in Chicago snuggled safe between his mom and dad, Buchanan with its dreams unfulfilled, in shady motels forever awake in front of a TV with the sound as low as it would go, and finally seven foster homes; a number that made ‘normal’ people from ‘normal’ families wince so he’d stopped repeating it until he could almost imagine that his early childhood had happened to someone else.

For Leon, ‘home’ had eventually come to mean Sarah reminding him to be back by ten. Home was the leftover casserole in the fridge with his name on it. It was about not being alone at the kitchen table because Sarah would always wait up and ask him how his game went. She’d even pretended to understand the rules.

Someone Leon didn’t recognise stepped out with Sarah. It was an older woman in a long cotton dress. She and Sarah shared a quick hug before the woman left for her car. Sarah stood in the doorway and waved goodbye. Then she slid back into the church, disappearing like a dream at sunrise.

Ada was watching Leon. Her gaze passed up and down his face, mapping the angle of his nose and the cleft of his chin like they’d just met. Leon knew what she was thinking.

He and Sarah sang off-key to the same songs, they ate their eggs over-easy with too much Tabasco sauce, and they both thought cilantro tasted like soap. But they didn’t look even a little bit alike.

‘I’m adopted,’ he explained.

She frowned, surprised, ‘Oh. I see. I’m sorry.’

‘I’m not.’

‘I didn’t mean... I just didn’t know.’

‘But you knew my mom was a pastor?’

‘It was in your obituary.’

Leon did a double-take, ‘My... what? I have a damned obituary?’

‘Of course you do! You died,’ Ada replied sardonically, ‘Your colleagues had some interesting things to say about you.’

‘Yeah, I bet,’ he winced, and his mind raced to suss out exactly what Ada knew about the old him as filtered through the eyes of his peers. They’d treated Leon like he was fresh out of school and an old man at the same time, ‘Come on. It’s now or never.’

The back of the church held Sarah’s office, a common room for the staff, and a library that smelled like cold coffee and chocolate. Leon opened the door quietly and checked it was empty before ushering Ada inside.

They heard voices echoing from the church hall beyond the big wooden doors:

‘Has anyone seen Pastor Sarah? We’re running low on baby formula!’

‘She’s in her study. Don’t trouble her. I’ll call the supplier first thing tomorrow.’

‘I’ve barely seen her all day, Lucille. Is this ‘cause of that silly protest outside the Governor’s office? I told her to take it easy!’

‘She’s tired, Frank. Let her be.’

Sarah’s office door was ajar. Leon could see her shadow spilling over the desk and onto the carpet. He could smell her hand lotion, its residue on the doorknob. His eyes drifted shut as his hands formed a tight claw around the knob like he’d forgotten how doors worked.

Maybe this was a mistake. A panicked sensation surged inside his chest. Ada was right. Umbrella could be monitoring Sarah. He could put her in danger just be showing his face around town. He should go, shouldn’t he? Right now, just go and leave her be. He could think of another way to track down Jill and Chris.

And what was he going to say to her? How could he explain what had happened to him? She’d thought he was dead for nearly two years, but at least her ignorance had kept her safe.

Leon tensed when he felt a pressure on his forearm. He looked back to find Ada gently peeling him away from the door.

‘I’ll go first,’ she whispered, her dark eyes trained on his face, ‘I’ll make sure she’s alone.’

He nodded but Ada was already slipping past. She opened the door just enough to squeeze through.

‘Pastor Morris?’

A chair scraped the floor as Sarah stood.

‘Yes?’ her voice sounded jittery like she’d just woken from a nap, ‘Hold on... Let me just...’

There was a long pause. Leon guessed Sarah was fumbling with her cochlear implant.

‘Could you come closer, honey?’ Sarah said breathlessly, ‘I can’t quite hear you all the way over there. Are you here about tomorrow’s charity drive?’

‘No. No, I’m...’

Leon swayed on his feet, his ears ringing. He’d been so nervous, he’d forgotten to warn Ada that Sarah was deaf. He mentally kicked himself.

Then Ada raised her voice and when she spoke, she filled all corners of the little study, her voice lifting its high ceiling and rustling the pages of every tome. Like a fair summer wind, she was the little lift he needed to make it home.

‘I’m a friend of your son.’

Then it was as if they were the only three people in the building. A silence enveloped them, as dense and safe as stone. Leon didn’t feel himself move, but he felt Ada’s hand, warm and insistent around his wrist as she pulled him through the doorway and into his mother’s study.

Sarah, to her credit, didn’t cry out. She didn’t seem to be breathing either.

‘Mom?’

Her hands flew to her mouth. Her eyes turned red to signal an oncoming wave of tears. But when her hand fell, Leon saw she was smiling like it was the first time he’d ever called her that. It wasn’t, not by a long shot.

Leon took a step towards her. Then he stopped, realising that Ada was still holding his wrist. Her grip was loose, almost reassuring. Not too much pressure, just enough; like a whispered phrase he felt all the way up his arm to straight to his heart: ‘I’m right here’.

When his hand slipped from hers, Leon still felt her warmth; that fair wind driving him forward.

Sarah whined softly. She rubbed at her throat like the words had gotten tangled up in there and she needed pry them away from each other. Her fingers were trembling and he realised she was too overwhelmed to sign to him.

He stepped towards her and raised his hands to tell her:

I’ll explain everything. I promise.

I’m so sorry, mom. I’m sorry...

He made a fist with his thumb extended and scored circles with it deep into the centre of his chest. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

Sarah dove forward and latched both her hands over his fist. Then she tugged him forward and threw her arms around his shoulders. She clung to her son like the grave could snatch him back. She buried her wet nose into the crook of his neck. Then she keened against his shoulder, a wordless cry of grief and joy combined that shook his core.

‘I love you so much. Okay? I love you,’ Leon murmured into the crown of her head where his tears were already soaking her hair. He hoped she could feel the raw honesty in his voice even if she couldn’t make out the words, ‘I missed you. I did! I missed you, mom.’

Who knows how long they huddled in the centre of her study? Long enough that his face was still pink but finally dry when they parted. Long enough that Sarah could stand to let him go so she could snatch a tissue from the box on her desk while laughing at how terrifying and strange and wonderful this was.

And long enough that when Leon looked over his shoulder, he saw that Ada had disappeared.

🥲

To be continued...

[nowjumpinthewater]

@ilikebookssomuch and i wrote a crossover of KOTLC and Epic but we started in the saga so there's no backstory :P

Here's their part!! (thunderbringer!)

My part is Mutiny, so hope you enjoy!! (Keefe is Eurylochus and Fitz is Odysseus!)

This is my half for @myfairkatiecat's birthday gift!

Hope you enjoy :DD

you can also find more of these @epic-kotlc-crossover :)

"Tell me you didn't know that would happen," Keefe almost begged Fitz, though he could already feel the guilt wafting off of him, almost as thick as the rain pouring down.

"Look me in the eyes, Fitz." Fitz wouldn't look away from the ocean, so Keefe stepped forward. "Tell me you didn't just give up six of our friend's lives, Fitz, please."

Fitz gripped onto the side of the balcony tighter. The feel of guilt almost choked Keefe, but what made him stop was the resolve.

"SAY SOMETHING!" He shouted, hating how his voice cracked. Finally, this seemed to get a reaction from Fitz, who spun around and Keefe got his first real look at him since Scylla. His hair lay stuck to his face, artfully messy in a way Keefe couldn't help but admire; his eyes were darting everywhere, almost wild-looking, but the teal still took Keefe's breath away.

He was always so effortlessly handsome.

"I CAN'T!" Fitz's scream cut through his thoughts and shattered the silence.

Keefe swallowed, and the lump was almost painful. He drew his sword, determined to protect the last few men he had with him.

"Then you have forced my hand." Fitz seemed to pale.

"Keefe..." his voice was quiet, nervous, and his emotions radiated it too. "Lower your weapon." What did Fitz think Keefe would do? He'd willingly let six people die. Keefe couldn't let that happen again.

"You miss Sophie so bad you're willing to kill." Keefe spat out Sophie's name like it was poison-she was a great person, sure, but worth sacrificing people? No. A hot flash of anger erupted from Fitz.

Fitz drew his own sword. "I don't want to fight you! You would do the same if you were in my position."

Keefe adjusted his grip on his weapon, his palms feeling sweaty. "If you want to make all the choices you get to have all of the blame!" He lunged at Fitz, slashing a cut through his clothes.

How am I supposed to trust you now? Keefe thought as hard as he could, wondering if Fitz's telepathy actually didn't work or he was lying.

The captain seemed to flinch, though that might have been from the cut.

Fitz advanced forward. "Keefe, you need to move because you are not getting in my way." With each flash of their swords Keefe could feel himself get more and more lightheaded as Fitz's guilt seemed to melt away, hiding itself into something smaller. Fury and determination grew in its place.

Keefe lunged forward, and in an attempt to block Fitz's sword, he moved forward too far and it cut through his clothes-and, Keefe realized with growing horror, embedded itself in Fitz. Fitz let out a loud, horrible scream, and staggered back.

A huge wave of pain rushed through Keefe's blood and he immediately kneeled next to him.

"No, no no," Keefe muttered, and yelled behind him. "Do any of you know how to clean a wound?"

No one answered, so he yelled at them to find the nearest island. He needed to help Fitz. He was furious at him, but he was still his friend.

He turned around, trying to ignore Fitz's body, and called for all the crew to dock at the nearest island-they were running low on food.

In a few hours, they'd found one, with hundreds of bright red cows dotting the landscape. When they landed, Keefe told everyone to stay on the ship while he scoped it out.

After a few minutes, he'd decided that it seemed generally safe, though he still couldn't find a single human soul that he could ask to give Fitz come help.

Next to him, a cow mooed.

Keefe could feel his stomach growl.

"Where are we?" asked Fitz, and Keefe jumped, hating himself for letting Fitz sneak up on him. Turning around, Keefe saw that Fitz was being supported by two of the crew members, his dark brown hair frizzy across his face and his signature smile a little wobbly.

Keefe wanted to make a comment about how he shouldn't be standing up but kept his mouth shut.

"We're on an island-the first we found." Keefe turned to him, forcing a grin on his face even when he felt the huge amount of pain Fitz was in.

He kind of deserves it, though. A tiny part of his brain reminded him. Because of him, six people are dead.

Fitz pointed to one of the cows, talking to him almost like Keefe hadn't nearly killed him hours before.

"These are Apollo's cows, you see that statues over there?" Keefe could barely hear him, fingering the grip on his sword. How long could one cow feed the crew?

At least a week, and they'd be actually full for the first time in a while.

A wave of panic coursed through his veins, and he snapped his head over to Fitz.

"Please don't tell me you're doing what I think you're doing." Fitz told him. "These cows-they're sacred. We can't kill them."

Keefe laughed, a sad, quiet laugh. "Fitz, you know as well as I do that we're never going to make it home."

Fitz shook his head quickly, and placed his hand on his sword again. "You don't know that, Keefe." He stepped back, and Keefe quietly missed the proximity. "This is the home of the sun god, do you know what will happen if we kill his cows?"

He ignored Fitz, and quietly unsheathed his sword. "How much longer do we need to suffer, Fitz?" Taking a step forward, He heard Fitz's panicked voice behind him, asking him to stop.

"How much longer until you decide that we're not important enough to go home? How much longer until you decide that you want to see Sophie so badly that all of us have to die?"

Fitz flinched, and Keefe took the opportunity to kill the cow, and Fitz let out a yell.

"What have you done?" Keefe spun his head around at the terror in Fitz's voice and in his veins. "You've doomed us all, Keefe! The cows were immortal-the sun god's friends! Who do you think he'll send now that you've killed one?" Keefe's blood turned to ice.

Fitz staggared up to the ship, but Keefe quickly scooped him up and sprinted onto the ship.

"Everyone, grab an oar and row as fast as you can!" Fitz roared.

The entire crew did as they were told, with punctuated with shouts of "Faster!" coming from Fitz, until a clap of thunder came and pure terror radiated off of him, his face turning deathly pale.

"We're too late."

[felassan]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard info compilation Post 3

[Part 1] [Part 2] Post is under a cut due to length.

There is a lot of information coming out right now about DA:TV from many different sources. This post is just an effort to compile as much as I can in one place, in case that helps anyone. Sources for where the information came from have been included. Where I am linking to a social media user’s post, the person is either a dev, a Dragon Age community council member or other person who has had a sneak peek at and played the game. nb, this post is more of a ‘info that came out in snippets from articles and social media posts’ collection rather than a 'regurgitating the information on the official website or writing out what happened in the trailer/gameplay reveal’ post. The post is broken down into headings on various topics. A few points are repeated under multiple headings where relevant. Where I am speculating without a source, I have clearly demarcated this. if you notice any mistakes in this post, please tell me.

Character Creation

All armor and clothing options will scale and mesh to any body type [source]

The character creator has lots of sliders for body parts and overall shape, none of which are tied to the voice or pronouns (she/her, he/him, or they/them) that you choose [source]

"Epler took special care to show off the extensive curly and textured hair options in the game, including several versions of braids and locs, noting that increasing these options in particular was very important to the team" [source]

You can change your character’s physical appearance at any time during the game, but not their class or backstory [source]

"Each individual class has some variability, too; even the mage class has some up-close-and-personal attacks, since a mage player character could still conceivably have an assassin backstory and would therefore need to have some attacks to accommodate that sort of career path" [source]

" "We’ve spent a lot of time thinking about skin tone,” Corinne said. The character we made, a Black elf, seemed to glow in the bluish light of a nighttime scene, and under bright sunlight, I could see the richness of his color. Corinne: "We want to make sure that skin tone is reflected authentically" " [source]

" “We have dozens and dozens of hair types,” she said. “And they’re fully affected by physics.” The quality and variety of choices I saw delighted me. The rows of bouncy, luxurious-looking hair of all curl types and textures (and yes, the annoyingly ubiquitous “Killmonger cut” was among the options, what can you do?) brought the biggest smile to my face in the hour I spent with Busche and The Veilguard." [source]

Story and lore

NPCs will remember when you chuck a shopkeeper through a plate-glass window [source]

" The game’s story sees Solas intact a plot that will result in the deaths of thousands. When his justification that “people die, it’s what they do,” falls on deaf ears, you and your merry band of misfits have to stop him " [source]

" “Early in the demo and in the trailer, you’re in a part of the world you’ve never been in – Tevinter,” Epler tells me. “Tevinter is known for being a place of high magic; visually, it’s different. Obviously in Origins you’re in Ferelden, which was grubby, muddy, and very visually different and distinct. That said, it’s the first hour of the game, so we’re only seeing the prologue. As you go deeper, you’ll find that the game can be just as bloody and just as grim as Dragon Age Origins, 2, and Inquisition. For us, it’s that feeling of contrast. You get moments of higher fantasy magic coming back to the world through Solas’ ritual, but also things get pretty grim, and things get pretty dark in some spaces for sure.” " [source]

"Snappy dialogue" [source]

The game is really about each of the companions [source]

Narrative narrative narrative! [source]

The Shadow Dragons are an underground resistance that engages in guerrilla warfare against the corrupt mage rulers of the Tevinter Imperium [source]

"Varric has created the group called the Veilguards, recruiting a veritable group of weirdos to pursue Solas, who’s carved a path through the magical empire of Tevinter" [source]

"There’s intrigue to the game’s tale already, with Varric hoping he can convince Solas to stop his plan of tearing open the Veil: a wish by the dwarf to save a dear friend. There’s a fascinating relationship that's already being set up, Varric and Solas as opposing narrative forces, with your character, Rook, pulled between them" [source]

"There’s extra context to flesh out dialogue, with short descriptions that help give a vague idea of how things play out. The example we were shown was Rook trying to take down a gang leader inside a bar. We could choose to defuse the situation with either words or weapons, but the catch is you don’t know how effective those approaches will be" [source]

" Busche explained that the team wanted to give players a game where locations were imbued with just as much personality as the characters. “That meant making contrast from the areas that are dark and decaying to the areas that are illuminated with magic,” Busche said " [source]

" “This is a part of the world where magic has been embraced,” Busche said. “It is a society of mages and magic in this world is inherently colorful. So whether we’re seeing them use magic for everyday purposes like signage or using them as spells, that color really comes through.” " [source]

We will visit the Necropolis of Nevarra [source]

Gameplay, presentation, performance etc

There are dozens of abilities and spells [source]

The game has an easy mode [source]

There is a setting where your character can't die in battle [source]

"The Rogue class in our demo had a bow with recharging arrows for ranged attacks, and dual blades that could unleash a furious flurry of instantaneous blows" [source]

[☕ found this post or blog interesting or useful? my ko-fi is here if you feel inclined. thank you 🙏]

[travajoke01]

I wanna enroll her in a contest so infopost here we come

casual outfit still developing, please stand by

rottmnt OC Chimera Solbritt, she’s a bombyx. Aaaaaand also she’s a witch (i’m almost sorry for Donnie).  

Va: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFOBe5rGrqc&list=PL0ZdQpFsexGEB8-p_dN7jflu7y7bB4Upe&index=5 Noël Wells

Her little caterpillar-like buddy is Cat (as in Cat-tools and caterpillar)

 Really hate that we saw so little of witches and furthermore they were not so…..thrilling. I’m not a good writer, so i’ll just throw out some facts about her and backstory. Maybe my headcanon will make creators and nickelodeon so angry that they’ll decide to continue the show just to prove me wrong.

So this little cutie has problems with her family (on account of them being killed) and were took in by Big Mama and trained by her great-aunty Moti, so her english is better, otherwise that would be a disaster.

BM took her as last favor to her friend (a witch), trying not to dig Chimy into her illegal business too much, but girl would peak her nose once in a while (she’s a real fan of true crime, how could she miss something like that?). 

She’s a product of love of a human (scientist) and yokai (witch), whose bond was a problem for the witch’s town by itself, and a reason of their demise. Chimera was thought to be dead too, but she was teleported by her papá along with Cat, who was supposed to be her nanny, but became a life-long companion. He recorded some things from the crime scene, including her father’s goodbye and face of the killer.

Unfortunately, it took some time to reach her mother (she was in the witch town currently, while dad was above), and since she had no idea her daughter was alive, she took the poison to rejoin her fam.

Knowing that Mira (I really see so much potential In her being evil), would want her own granddaughter dead, Moti knew that girl cannot stay, so by the advice of  Chimy’s mother, she took her to the hotel, sneaking there once in a while to teach her and tell stories of her parents.

Of course, Mira was playing the victim, crying and telling that both of her parents died in the accident from one of their experiments.(those damn scientists can’t do anything right). 

It was hard for Chimy to study, especially, when she saw Gentry getting the attention and magic lessons from Mira she craved so much. But i guess  with having the half of capabilities of others-it is how it is. Or maybe Mira didn’t trust the bombyx just as much.

So to begin her way to the top properly, Chimera had do enlarge the amount of magic she can hold\produce, call it mana if you want. Before that, to learn magic ways properly, she had to use her enchanted umbrella and Cat’s help to make and store potions and elixirs, particularly healing ones. Quite a useful buddy this Cat, after all, a creation of magic AND science. 

School days weren’t exactly easy, on one hand, because she enrolled in the already formed collective that got used to each other, on the other, because Chimera was mostly looking humanish, the only things visibly telling that she is certainly not a human were her little wings, teeth, eyes and ears. She’s not unusual enough to blend in with yokai, and way too unusual to blend in with humans. Her fluff, retractable arms, spots and colour, the size of her wings were developed during all these years, heck, even the silk wasn’t always the thing. All of that made it only harder to get used to, she was clumsy and insecure. You can’t say she was bullied necessarily, but she’s never felt being a part of community. It definitely affected her, so she seeks admiration and attention.

Being tired of this buzz of thoughts and failures in her head she quitted the school and embarked on her little adventure outside the New York, (approximately during the time of season 1-2 and the movie) travelled to the temple where she empowered her dark magic (hence the mark’s ob her hands, the more she uses them, the more they grow), and enlarged her mana. 

Coming back to NY, she had to pass an exam to show her progress in magic, which wasn’t a problem for her this time, and took private lessons from a wizard.

FACTS TIME

second and third pair of arms are retractable. First pair, normal skin, second-fluffy, third-more like a chitin, they’re thinner than the other pairs. Her height is actually about Mikey’s, but since she’s walking on her “tiptoes” (it’s more comfortable bc of her bone structure) she appears to be higher.

produces silk (uses it to lengthen the range for touch-based spells or to crochet) and pheromones (to attract or to repulse)

umbrella has planetary signs and on the top is a sun sign (solely decorative)

her bailiwick is dark magic mostly (darkness based harm\destruction spells, creating a field of darkness), but she tries to learn other kinds of elementary attack spells, but they’re more tiring for her to perform.

has bags under her eyes,mostly because she stays up late, her sleep schedule is a mess. She just likes staying up late and doing hobbies, with all that learning there’s should be time for fun, right? After meeting the Mad Dogs, she could spend several nights without sleep, learning\practicing spells or looking for a particular one that they need. 

Even though she sometimes seems insensitive, she’s very emotional towards animals and animated little creatures (like robots),probably because she feels they are weaker and has an instinct to protect them.

doesn’t like any physical touch if she doesn’t like\know you. For some reason, this irritating, orange masked turtle grew fast on her…maybe her shell is getting thinner. (they’re totally besties, she freaking loves Dr. Delicate touch)

They also share a hobby with Mickey-drawing. Also she crochets, watches true crime videos, destroys the patriarchy, u know, girl stuff  

uses her wings for DAZZLING and casting(it’s absolutely extra), more than for flying, because that would be an easy target and not as fast as umbrella and magical means. So she uses umbrella for fast travel\dodging, but at least she looks great

She considers incident in witch town very amusing (Donnie vs witch town),considering her tense relationship with this place.

She genuinely finds Donnie entertaining. Her reaction to his noises and attempts to be a mad scientist is pretty much the same as Luz’s reaction to King (like: awww he steppet his wittle foot~) Does it irritate him? Very much. But at least they both have a topic to infodump (science and magic) and they can’t understand eachother, which is a new experience for Donnie, to be in his brothers’ shoes. But she actually supports Donnie and tries to listen, though rarely understands terminology.

Giggles almost every time boys have an argument (if it’s not very life-threatening situation or it’s a real time to be serious)

She likes Raph’s roughness combined with his sweetness. She would totally crochet smth for him.

Leo is the one she shows her new nails first.

April is a kind of friend she always wanted, she can tell her about her nails with the same interest as about true crime (and learn smth new from April). She would also teach her magic too or escort her somewhere she could learn it.

She has a good developed emotional intelligence but rather from a logical point of view, like “ofc they do not know they’ve hurt u, they’re not u, but if they did it on purpose and u found out about it-ditch them, u deserve better that that”. Also, she’s a crybaby, but hates showing strong emotions like crying in public, cause it makes her feel weak.

 She tells “failing is okay” to smbd mostly to absorb it herself, she will try to comfort them with the words she would like to hear. But it’s only if she cares for you, otherwise you can jump off a roof and she’ll be like “do a flip”. 

Even though she seeks attention, she’s an introvert and she needs to “recharge” every once in a while to avoid being overwhelmed. Otherwise she’ll be a real buzzkill.

Totally infodumps boys about serial killers and true crime stuff, Raph and Leo ARE DEFINATELY CONCERNED. 

Greets u with “Supies~” and it irritates Don-Don (that does too)  because it’s not a real word

She hates dancing, because she hates embarrassment. But somehow Donnie takes it personally and insists on dancing lessons from him ofc. She says yes just to get him out of her hair ,but he takes it seriously. Somehow, it’s fun with him, even though very awkward at first. 

eyesight isn’t that great, wears special lenses to be less sensitive to light

learns spanish 

sings when she’s nervous

has slight anger issues

[robinismywifee]

in my room || pt. 1

pairings madly inlove!ellie williams x madly inlove!reader

summary based of the song, in my room by insane clown posse

warnings reader stalks ellie? just lowkey creepy reader, reader has trouble eating due to her mothers death, not much warnings for this chapter since its the backstory and how they met, but theres gonna be KINKY smut in the other chapters

a/n idk how many chapters this will be, 3-5?? its in 3rd pov with some flashbacks that are 1st pov and i really hope nobody has based an ellie fic off this song bc im really proud of it since it was my own idea lol, also i think for the next short fic i do its gonna be like an 80s camp consular thing if u guys want that??

wordcount 4k

part 1 - part 2 - part 3 - part 4

—

aime and ellie had been best friends ever since they met eachother. ever since aime first laid eyes on ellie, she knew she was going to be hers, ellie didnt even know she existed, but she was hers.

aime remembers the first time seeing ellie like it was yesterday, even though it was almost 6 years ago.

aime was walking down the road of jackson, walking down to get food, and stopped by the horse stables when she heard a mention of new people.

"yeah, apparently it was actually just tommys brother" the older male teenager said from inside the stable

"tommy has a brother? and he has a neice? i didnt know that, where were they?" the slightly younger, also male, teenager said, also from inside the stable

"no, the girl wasnt his kid, i heard her calling him by his name and tommy didnt know her, i dont know their relation but theres a rumor that they traveled from maine to here on feet"

"that's impossible, and why would he travel all those states with some kid? maybe he knew her mom"

"yea, i have no fucking clue.. hey give me a hand with this-"

and with that, aime was back on her feet, done with easedropping

hmm.. a new girl and a new man?

aime didnt know anything about it. she had just gotton back from sneaking outside the walls, only coming back because the empty feeling in her stomach was getting to hard to ignore

she walked into jacksons cafeteria, immediately spotting the back of girl with brown hair (with lots of red undertones) tied up into a ponytail, sitting next to a bigger man, aime immediately noticed the food the girl had stuffed into her pockets.

she walked quietly over and hid herself behind a pilar that held the building up, well not actually but in her little 14 year old brain, if that thick wood pilar were to be chopped off, the whole roof would come down with it.

she peaked over the piller, now infront of the girl, able to see her face.

and thats when she felt it. its impossible to describe with measly words of what she felt, but she just knew. she saw the girls eyes, she could tell from the meters away she stood, that they were the most beautiful eyes she's ever seen. they were green, the edges of her eyes lighter, more like chartreuse, but got darker in the middle, like a juniper green, and is that a mix of cedar brown in there too?

after getting lost in the unknown girls eyes, she moved her back behind the pilar, hiding herself completely, she couldnt help but a small smile forming. the bright energy she carried radiated off her. shes mine.

the day after, she watched out her window as the girl from the food center, which she learned by now her name was ellie.. what an adorable, name.. it suited her face so well.. escaped with one of the horses from the stables. she had watched as she rode off, peaking over her shoulder making sure nobody saw her leave, which nobody did, execpt of course aime, but aime didnt mind her leaving, because she knew she was to see her again, and would finally then introduce herself.

it wasnt for months until ellie came back. the guy who she came with, tommy's brother, which aime had also learned awhile backs name was joel, came back with her as well. they both were fearly bruised, scarred, but they came back.

her girl came back for her.

aime had lived in an empty house, it was small, only one floor, but it still had two bedrooms, but technically only one considering the other bedroom was boarded shut with wood and nails across the doorframe, leaving everything inside the room completely abandoned.

it was her mothers room. the same mother that had tought aime to kill every person in sight that wasn't her, no matter their pleads or screams, no matter if they did absolutely nothing wrong. if they breathed it was a threat.

it felt weird, after going her whole entire life of killing every single person without a second thought, to just.. not. to just.. let the strangers pick her up and drag her to saftey.

i cradled my mother that was covered head to toe in blood, holding her head in my lap, i stared blankly down at her, the emotion i felt was overwhelming, my vision was foggy, blurring, blackening, my chest was moving up and down rapidly, but my eyes didnt even near water.

my mom always had a lot of rules i needed to follow, and to never cry was one of them, she told me it meant i was weak, and it was a threat for our lives to be weak, to show emotion to others.

my ears also rung, i knew there was people around, their light beamed down onto us, i was waiting for them to shoot us, i mean, why wouldnt they? some girl comes to the gates of their community, skin and clothes soaked and covered completely in crimson red, matching the women she held as she collapsed to the floor.

but when my vison faded to black, the ringing got louder, and louder, until it was completely dark and silent.

2 days later, im sitting in a chair, leaned over, my elbows to my knees, hand cupped tangled into my mothers. she layed in the hopsital bed, tubes connected to her, a moniter beeping

i was inside a community. the community that i showed up to the gates. i had passed out, and they took us both in, immediately getting my mother that had a gunshot wound to the head medical attention, she's still alive, the bullet only grazing her, but not conscious, the doctor says its a coma, and she could wake up in one minute, or never, and theres no way to tell, and they also couldnt tell how messed up she was until she woke up. i had only passed out asleep, a really deep sleep from how exhausted i had been from doing all that running with no sleep for days and no food or water for too long.

me and my mother had to leave the cabin that we had been staying at since a horde of runners was coming through and we didnt have enough supplies to take them down, and while trying to find a new home, we ran into these guys, it didnt go well. but when i saw burning smoke from not too far ahead, i dragged my mother's unconscious body towards it, just in hopes that it was a community home to moral people. i had collapsed at the gates once i had gotten there, i couldnt even push out a single word, i though my mother had died,

i had broken so many rules. i trusted these people. let them take us in, i wanted them to. i asked for their help. i didnt kill them, i still havent killed them, i dont want to kill them!

the community is called jackson, aime had asked the guy, whos wife was basically the leader, his name tonmy, why he took her in, he asked why wouldnt he, and explained to her that her and her mother were no threat, and she was just a child, with her hurt mother that did no harm. he gave them their own home, aimes mother got moved into it too, still in her coma.

that was when aime was 11. her mom didnt wake up for almost 3 years, and when she did wake up, she wasnt good. it took weeks for her to gain full consciousness, and when she was fully conscious, it was only a week before she passed.

some stupid infection apparently.

then, 2 weeks later, ellie showed up again.

aime watched from her bedroom window as ellie and joel walked on the path, accompanied by tommy and maria. ellies eyes were empty, she didnt have the energy she radiated before, and aime was determined to regain her the energy.

aime had already planned out how she was gonna interact with ellie and how she was gonna get her to fall inlove. she decided on not introducing herself until a few days or maybe even a week after her arrival. ellie was already getting bombarded by everyone, so once everyone calmed down, aime was gonna make ellie speak to her first.

aime had spent the next 5 days sneaking around and.. well, stalking ellie. she needed to find out what she was like, what her interests were, her pet peeves, that kind of stuff.

ellie liked astronomy, books about space and planets, that type of stuff, were stored into her room on her shelf, while a half opened comic of ‘savage starlight’ seemed to be what she was currently reading. ellie liked to draw and write, even more if she was listening to her walkman during it, aime assumed that she used writing to get her thoughts out or maybe as a coping mechanism. aime had a strong temptation to sneak into ellies room and snoop through her journal and see what she wrote about, or to even check what music was in her walkman, but she knew that was going too far and if she were to get caught, it would ruin everything.

she also saw ellie talking to dina and jesse a few times. aime bit back her jealousy when she did, dina and jesse were dating and have been for awhile and so clearly are inlove with one another and aime shouldnt worry about them getting in the way.

aime didn’t necessarily have friends, she was really quiet, reserved, she wasnt even supposed to be in a community, ever, and under the circumstances of her mom, people understood why she wasnt bright and cheery. the only time she talked was when she was spoken to, but aime decided she needed to push past it, and finally become a real person. finally have a fucking personality.

a few months after aimes first arrival when she was 11, maria had talked to her about putting some work in, aime undertsood, as she was getting free medical care for her mother, free food, free water, free shelter, and agreed on it, at first maria put her on teaching the young kids how to read and write, but aime hated it, and begged maria to do patrol with the older teenagers, but since she was only 11, maria said no, and put her on teaching kids self defense. aime had tought the kids how to protect themself from others for 2 years before maria finally agreed for aime to do group patrol.

aime was the only 13 year old allowed to go on patrol, after maria had seen how good she was and after aime begging for years, she was the exception.

aime woke up early, gently brushing her hair till it was smooth and soft. she decided on folding the peices of her hair to make two french braids, her hair ending a few inches below her shoulders, from the hot and sticky weather. it was spring, and the weather had been unpredictable, going from rainy and gloomy one day to sunny and sticky the next. today was a sunny-hot day. she splashed cold water on her face, patting it dry, and applied cherry scented lip balm that glossed her pink lips and left a red tint.

her patrol group had rode past some old underwear store a few weeks ago, and aime had snuck behind the group, searching until she found a pair that looked close enough to her size. she wore the bra she had gotten from that day, pushing up her small breasts to make them look full, and put on a simple white tank top, just barley showing off her cleavage. she just wore regular jeans with it, they were dark blue, warn out, hugging her hips perfectly, the bottom of them got baggy, covering the hightop part of her converse. she should probably wear her boots today, it had rained a few days ago and would be muddy, but ellie wore her converse shoes everyday so aime would wear hers too, to match.

once the girl was ready, she stuck her lipgloss into her pocket just in case, and left.

“hey aimees! you’re up pretty early” jesse smiled, as he sat on one of the bar stools to the same cafeteria where aime first saw ellie. jesse was super friendly, he definitely would call aime his friend, if not, his best friend, but aime wouldn’t consider him her friend. its not that she didnt like him, she actually found him quiet amusing, but she wasnt really the people type and didnt like opening up to people.

“yeah, i woke up at 5, couldnt fall back asleep so i just thought i’d take my time getting ready and actually get breakfast for once” i nodded

“troubles with sleeping again? maria has pills for that i think if you ask her about it im sure she wouldn’t mind giving you some” he said with that look in his eyes that everyone else had been giving her lately

“jesse, stop”

“stop what? im just trying to help”

“yeah, thats the problem, i dont need help, and stop giving me that sad look”

jesse stayed quiet, aime left him, ording some food, once she had gotten it, she came back and sat down, staring at it. she never was good with eating, but ever since her mothers death, its been worse. she picked at the pancake with her fork. the only reason she had gotten food was because maria talked to her the other day about how she never eats and she asked her to grab food before patrol today, she said she would, and she alwyas keeps her word. she didnt think it would be this hard, but now that the food was infront of her, she felt sick.

“you okay?” jesse asked

“m’ great” aime hummed, slicing off a peice of pancake and shoving it into her mouth. she slowly ate, a simple conversation with jesse going on between, when suddenly he asked about her.

“have you met ellie yet?”

aimes eyes widened, but quickly went to normal. jesse didnt notice. “uh, no? is that the new girl?” she asked looking up from he food, she asked as if she didnt spend every other second of her day thinking about her. hell, two nights ago she spent, watching her.

“yeah, she’s actually pretty cool, and she said she would come here this morning and dina too, thats why i was here in the first place, they should be here soon”

“hm” aime hummed quietly, pretending not to care. jesse continued talking about dina, just him thinking outloud basically, until he stopped mid sentence to start a new sentence to new people- “oh! finally, i was starting to think you guys ditched me” jesse smiled to the two girls, aimes eyes were glued to her plate, only a few bites were left of her pancake and she only ordered one, and had been here for about at least 20 minutes.

“hey jesse!” aime heard dinas voice, the corner of her eyes she could see dina coming up to jesse to give him a quick hug, before she turned to aime

“hey aime! how you’ve been?” dina asked gently, aime rolled her eyes. she hated it. she hated the way people treated her. aime saw dina everyday, and dina always asked the same question as if it was gonna make her depression disappear.

“great” aime mumbled, ignoring her thumping heart of being only a few feet away from ellie

it was silent for a few seconds, “oh! aime, meet ellie!” dina cheered, how the fuck can she be this happy at 6:30 in the morning? everyday too. “hey” she mumbled, not looking at ellie at all. aime pretended as if she didn’t care. “uh, hi” ellie shuffled awkwardly from behind her

“come on aime! actually introduced yourself”

dina smiled, waiting for us to fully meet.

i hopped off my seat, standing only a foot away from ellie, we were about the same height, execpt i was a few inches taller

i smiled at her awkwardness. “hey ellie, im aime, i live next door to you in the wooden house” i lifted my hand out to her, she looked up to me, confused at my sudden change of personality, “hi..” ellie said quietly, unsure of what to say since aime already knew her name

aime looked down to ellies arm as ellie connected her hand to hers, aime felt sparks in her stomach, and ellie felt weird too, but she assumed it was just the anxiety of meeting a new pretty girl.

aime immediately felt worried for ellie as she noticed the white bandaged wrapped around her arm, she hadnt notice it before, from ellie always wearing long sleeves until now, aime let go of ellies hand, eyebrows furred, aimes left hand held ellies arm right beneath the bandage, while she reached out with her right and traced gently over it, “what happened? are you okay?” aime asked, her voice was calm, but panic was inside her

aime batted her eyes down to the girl, aimes dark brown, almost black, eyes met with ellies jade eyes. “oh, its just uh- a small wound from- a, from a knife, and its wrapped so it doesnt get in-infected” ellie stammered, aime watched as ellies eyes glued to the wood ground, and ellies cheecks blushed red

“that sucks,” aime started, she slid her hands that were on her right arm down to meet with ellies right hand, both of aimes hands grazing over her hand and brushing against her fingers, “i hope it heals fine” aime stood there for a few seconds, just playing with ellies fingers, “i gotta go,

group patrol starts soon, it was nice meeting you, ellie” aime smiled to her, dropping her hand and leaving, not even bothering saying goodbye to dina or jesse who stood there confused and shocked

once aime left the building, jesse and dina both looked at eachother, mouth ajar, ellie stood there, her thoughts racing over trying to figure out what just happened to her, surely she was like that with everyone?

“that was insane!” dina was the first to speak, ellie finally looked up confused, “what was?” she asked, jesse and dina looked at eachother once more, and back to ellie

“nothing, its just..” dina tried to explain but couldnt find the words, “shes never like that, i mean, her smile when she looked at you was genuine, she never smiles! and she continued the conversation? she never does, she always is super quiet” jesse explained better, “oh” was all ellie could say.

“hey, i thought you couldnt do group patrol until 16?” ellie asked, she wanted to do it but both joel and maria immediately said no. “yeah, you cant” jesse shrugged, “what? shes 16? you guys said she was our age” ellie asked confused, “no, shes 14, shes just the only one allowed to do patrol that young”

“oh, how come?”

“just is” jesse shrugged

the rest of the day ellie spent asking and asking jesse and dina questions about aime. ellie felt so intrigued by her and wanted- no, needed, to learn more about her.

the next day, after aime finished patrol, she layed on her couch, writing about a certain girl in her journal when a knock came to her door. she placed her journal down with the pen ontop, before walking over to the window, she peaked out, seeing jesse standing there, she sighed, unlocking and opening the door

“hey aimees, me, dina, and ellie were gonna hangout at my place, play card games, wanted to know if you wanna hang with, we can be as noisy as we want, my moms not home” jesse smiled

once aime heard that ellie was going, she knew she was going, but she needed to not seem suspicious. “uhh.. i dont know” she hummed, “come on, what were you even doing before?” he asked, peaking behind me, aime glanced over her shoulder looking at my journal on the table, “not much” she said with a shrug, “exactly! come on, go get your shoes on, ill be waiting, okay thanks!” jesse said, and before aime could reply, jesse grabbed the door handle and shut the front door

aime smiled, her plan working, she rushed to her bedroom, applying more lipgloss, and tying her shoes, she brushed out her hair, she kept on her pajamas, she wore a dark wine red hoodie, and black plush shorts

“jeez, took you long enough” jesse over exaggerated, “whatever, you’re lucky im going”

when aime showed up, she pretend that she didnt feel like she wanted to grab the nearest kicthen knife and repeativly stab dina in the chest. what did dina say that was so funny to make ellie grab onto her shoulder like that?

“oh! hey guys, hey aime! im glad you came!” dina smiled, aime gave a small nod with a small smile

“come on! sit, we have the cards ready!” dina exlcaimed, aime sat directly infront of ellie on the ground, jesse and dina next to me, as they started playing uno

“hey ellie” aime smiled, not bothering saying hi back to dina, everyone could already see blush forming on ellie, “hi aime” and with that they started the game

once it got really late, and dina had fallen asleep, aime decided that she and ellie were gonna leave, and they would finally be alone. aime stood up, not bothering to fix her shorts that rose up from sitting down, now exposing her ass. “its getting late, i have patrol early tomorrow, i should get going” aime said, looking down between jesse and ellie, ellie stood up too, “yeah, joel wanted me home by 10” ellie fidgeted her fingers looking at jesse and dina, they were both leaned against the couch still on the ground, dina asleep with her head on his shoulder

“all good, im getting pretty tired too, see you guys tomorrow, get home safe” jesse waved bye, aime nodded and turned around to leave,

knowing ellie was following behind her

ellie trailed behind aime, her eyes trailing to the loose hem of the girls shorts, she could feel her face getting hot

aime could feel ellies eyes on her, so she peaked over her shoulders, smirking to herself once she saw ellies eyes flicker around back to the ground as she pretending like she wasnt looking

aime stopped walking, waiting till ellie caught up to her until they were side by side

ellie kept her eyes on the ground, feeling embarrassed, knowing the aime had saw her looking. aime stared into the girls eyes

“has anyone ever told you that you have the prettiest eyes in the whole existence?” aime asked softly, ellies face grew even hotter, she took at least 30 seconds to reply as her brain malfunctioned. “no” ellie said softly, “oh, well you do, i could just look at them forever, theyre so easy to get lost in” aime continued, knowing it was making ellie incredibly flustered

“i- thank you..” ellie said in just above a whisper, about a minute pasted before ellie spoke up, “you have really pretty eyes too”

“thank you, ellie” aime smiled, ellie finally looked back up to her, smiled with her

after that, they chatted and joked until ellie stopped infront of her house, “do you.. maybe wanna come in?” ellie asked, fidgeting with her fingers, aime smiled, walked closer to the girl, and grabbed her hand and connected it with hers to stop her from fidgeting. “i would love to”

and from that day on, ellie and aime became best friends, always with eachother like they were conjoined twins

but it didnt end like that

[chaifootsteps]

the music masterclass is so insane to me... aren't musical songs meant to be tied in to the plot? Wouldn't showing a season 3 song while half way through season 2 (and season 2 is going to go a whole extra year if sinmas is on Christmas) be a MASSIVE spoiler? He'd have been better off recording himself making a song and waiting til it was released and saying "this is how I made it!" or tracing his steps with the making of a released song but no one is joining that 7 hour, $99 class to learn how to write music, they just want the exclusive hb sneak peek and he knows it.

the main thing I'm getting from this is Viv gives him a small prompt like 'this ep is an ep about striker and I want a village mariachi band singing about how great he is like his personal bards' and thats ALL HE GETS and that's part of the musical failings of hb. The songs can never support or foreshadow plot because the song writer is not treated like a fellow writer who is brought into the loop on where the story is going and thats how you get songs like 'you will be OK' that get all the base details wrong about stolas.

In other series like Rebecca sugar series, she writes thr songs so they seamlessly integrate into her story and are continuations of the plot but in musical form. The sound design in TADC is unreal in backing the flow of the episode because goose was involved in both.

Even centaurword which I think will be Hazbin's closest contemporary (several songs an episode, only 18 episodes to work with), works because the songs are made to grow through the series along with the plot (each character has a song that transforms with several refrains that were obviously all planned from the start to demonstrate their personal journey/character arc) the utilization of seemingly nonsense songs that you realize foreshadowed EVERYTHING down the road when you have all the info is genius.

One more example is worthikids and big top burger (even though its not a musical) The first song literally tells you one character's entire backstory that gets revealed at the end of season 2 in the most unexpected of ways and you're left sitting their slack jawed thinking 'It was all connected!!!'

The fact that Sam can share his complete prompt from Vivzie and music making process for an episode an entire season away is a RED FLAG because it means he's not writing with the plot in mind (and if he is it's a terrible class because he has to keep so many of the details informing his decisions secret)

It also once again confirms to us he's full of sh*t when he goes on his soapbox and preaches to us about how off base our hh production speculations are because he knows almost as little as us and is a glorified fansong writer who can only work off the little crumbs Viv leaves for him and his general impression of the 'vibes of characters' (which is not his fault or a dismissal of his talents but rather, a further critique on how Viv sets her whole cast up to fail with disorganization and making up the story on the fly)

Well said. It's a colossal joke and a huge red flag, but we're talking about Viv stans, who would probably claim that "red flags are bad" is a statement that's been debunked.

[sillygoofyqueer]

The Untamed review: episode one!

"I wish I was still dead" LMAO WEI WUXIAN

"You you you!!!" "Me me me???"

Bro is getting his own backstory from this random guy

HOW DID HE DO THAT??!

Her husband just wants to be a part of the situation, leave him alone

BRO IS HAVING SO MUCH FUN, HE'S LITERALLY JUST BEEN REVIVED

The crowd just pointing and laughing

He's such an actor

*fake crying* "now return my things." *stops and looks at the crowd, then starts fake crying again*

BRO LITERALLY RAN CIRCLES AROUND HIM.

Taunting the guy, goddamn.

Lan Sizhui coming in clutch

Still an alcoholic in all forms lmaooo

THEFT BUT SO CASUAL

"RETURN IT OR I'LL HURT YOU!!"

What a sweetheart Lan Sizhui is

HAVING FLASHBACKS TO HIS BOYFRIEND

"I wasn't actually gonna huuurt himmm :("

Do it, give it to him, see what happens

HOW CAN HE PLAY SO WELL AFTER THIRTEEN YEARS??? WHAT IS HE EVEN PLAYING???

Lan Sizhui is also having flashbacks woah

"Yo, we've heard this before" "nah, bro, I ain't ever heard anything played that badly" Lan Jingyi you are this whole show already

I swear you can't play a blade of grass that well, no matter who you are

Shit getting real now

HE'S FERAL, PUT HIM DOWN

HOW IS IT HIM??? HE'S LITERALLY INSANE (allegedly)

Scratching his head like bro what am I doing here

"You deserve it" cackling

DON'T SLANDER MY BOYS

Wei Wuxian standing up for his sons already

Her husband's had enough of her as well, he's snapped

KILL HIM

PUT THEM BOTH DOWN

"Hang on a minute, you're calling my old friend with romantic tension?? Don't do that, I can fix this, I know I'm insane but-- SHIT-"

Bro's got gains

I love imagining actors acting this wacky shit out

"Ugh, he's not a ghost, get it right" Wei Wuxian, she literally knows nothing about this, leave her alone

"The fuck you laughing for, you psycho??" Lan Jingyi, you are my favourite

"Those aren't actually those guys" "how can you tell?" "They beat me with their right hands ☺️🤭"

Nobody's questioning how the lunatic knows this stuff though

DISTINGUISHED JUNIORS, MAY I DRAW YOUR ATTENTION TO THE TWITCHING LEFT ARM ON THE WOMAN RIGHT BEHIND YOU??? DO NONE OF YOU HAVE THE MIND TO TURN AROUND?

Bro tried to snatch his hair

"Guys, the evil thing is scared of talismans EVERYONE STRIP-" *proceed to tug off their outer robes in perfect unison*

Nice catch on behalf of the demon

Wei Wuxian is sooo plotting

"get up, whores, time to work"

AAAAHAHHHAAHHHHH

HE'S HERE

IT'S HIM

LAN WANGJI!!!!!!!!!!!!

You can't tease me like that and go back to the fight

Cool fight though

Wei Wuxian jury fucking flicked some shit

"I know that magic anywhere, it's my BOYFRIEND HIDE"

Lan Wangji literally ascended from nowhere like Jesus

AND HE STICKS THE LANDING

The way the juniors' faces all light up at the sight of him 😭

Those puppy dog eyes that Wei Wuxian is throwing at Lan Wangji are anything but straight

Nice hairpiece

I want a floating guqin that I can use to charm and get rid of evil things with :[

Stoooop "he's always dressed in white, like he's going to attend a funeral" AND THEN A CHEEKY GRIN

I just don't see how anyone could think they were ever straight

"Bitch give me that sword"

Wei Wuxian sneaking away

THE LOOK THAT LAN SIZHUI AND LAN JINGYI SHARE THEY HAVE ONE BRAIN CELL

"Maybe the Yiling Patriarch didn't die!" and Lan Wangji's look is literally 'don't tease me like that'

"Eyo, where's Mo Xuanyu gone?"

“Wei Ying is it really you?? 🥺🥺” LAN WANGJI'S INTERNAL MONOLOGUE IS KILLING ME

Who's the hottie with the fan and can he teach me some moves?

LITTLE APPLE, THE STAR OF MO DAO ZU SHI

Woooahhh, who could it be?