#so in every interactions I came across with my relatives or people I know would always end up me walking out or them walking out

[sleepydepresso]

I desperately ripped this mask but why do I bleed so much?

[barrenclan]

I think overarching plot is relatively easy to come up with, but how do you come up with smaller more filler-like events for your stories, like the plum-bee spats and corm training with egret? I’m having some trouble filling in the flesh of my own story, and was wondering if you had any insight.

Oh boy, real softball questions! Haha, but I can try to give you an answer for these.

I think the best way I can explain the first question is how I wrote PATFW, since it was much more heavily structured than my other comic (and more recent).

So, I started with the premise, the characters, and the general arcs I wanted each of them to go through. The premise helped me to establish the guidelines of this world, what kind of tone I would have for the story - moody and mysterious, so I knew that comedy would not be as frequent and characters might often take a turn towards more realistic drama.

The arcs of each character came with understanding what I wanted to do with them - do I want this person to get better, or get worse? Will they be a force of antagonism, or a side character, will they live or die? What point am I trying to get across with this character? Those kind of questions helped me know how they would interact with each other as well, so for instance a character like Daffodilpaw being friendly and cheerful, with her arc, would interact a specific way with dramatic and egotistical Beeface, for her arc. (Sorry I can't be more specific, but the comic's not done yet.)

Once you have a strong understanding these things - tone and characters - it's not too hard to let the story percolate in your mind. There's nothing wrong with just letting ideas float around in the back of your brain, instead of trying to force them all out right away. I actually wrote the ending of PATFW a couple months after I had started the comic, because the characters naturally led me to that conclusion. Here's an example of what I'm talking about with tone and characters leading to a small interaction that I hadn't previously planned like you asked about:

I have Rainhaze, and Ranger. Rainhaze is kind and brave, but currently very lost. Ranger is sadistic and enjoys feeling in control. So, I need a plot reason for Ranger to have not found BarrenClan. Well, Rainhaze being self-sacrificial, told him that BarrenClan all died and he's the last survivor. When Ranger finds out, it makes him feel tricked - he doesn't like that, so he threatens to kill Rainhaze. Rainhaze is self-sacrificial, as previously mentioned, and is now showing some suicidal tendencies, so he doesn't care if Ranger kills him. But Ranger then refuses to do so, having regained control, and twists the knife by letting him live while feeling suicidal. That's a pretty grim scene, which fits with the tone of the story well.

There you go - that's an interaction I hadn't plotted out the story with, but I was able to come to naturally by understanding the characters, the way their arcs are moving, and the tone of the story.

For this question, it's a little more tricky. The sad, honest answer is that there is no reliable way to do this. That's kind of how the Internet works. Unless you pay money to advertise, I suppose, you can't push a button that says "popularity points" and have it spit out readers. And sadly, sometimes movement only comes after you grind away, day after day, and don't give up. Here's a few things that might help, though.

Use multiple platforms. It's simple, but the more places you post, the more eyes you'll catch. Different websites/apps have different readerbases, too - Webtoons, ComicFury, Instagram, DeviantArt, Tumblr, Hiveworks, and others all have varying levels of attention and algorithims, and work that you have to do to keep up with an audience. Find whatever feels right for you and focus on one or two, but keep the others in your periphery.

Be consistent. People are more likely to actually keep up with a comic that updates every single week, rather than that posts a page or two and then ghosts for a month. Cough, cough, maybe you'll say - but I always set out with this comic to be a side project, and posting asks like this helps me continue to engage with an audience even when I'm not completing issues.

DON'T CARE! I know that seems like counterproductive advice, but seriously; you have to be okay with the fact that you might not get any attention. If you make a comic with the set goal of being popular, or even just worry about having readers, you're going to make yourself miserable. Obviously having attention is more fun, and more motivating, I won't deny that. But you need to be just as happy making a comic for 3 people than 3000 to make something you're proud of and not burn out in the process. If you're making something earnest, fun, interesting, passionate - people will come eventually.

[iamnotoriginalphil]

Hello, I love your writing and it really makes my day honestly.

And I was wondering if you could do an x reader with either Larissa Regina Mills or Lesso. I'm kinda indecisive lol

I was listening to "like real people do" by Hozier And was hoping you could do a story based off of/around it mainly the line

"Honey just put your sweet lips on my lips, We should just kiss like real people do."

Turns out, I'm indecisive too, so you can have all three based on that lyric. I hope you like it!

Larissa

You only came to the weathervane for one reason, and it wasn’t the excellent hot chocolate. You’d noticed the same woman coming in week after week, and after asking around you’d come to find out where she was from. Nevermore. The one place you had been warned against.

You didn’t care.

You’d pursued her with an intensity you’d never done anything else. Larissa Weems was a goddess walking amongst mortals and you were determined to make her yours. She was all you wanted in Jericho.

Only she didn’t seem to understand it at all. No matter how many times you slid into the booth across from her, lavishing smiles and compliments on her, she remained as icy as always. You kept trying to melt her, wanting her to see how serious you were taking it. She’d yet to scare you off, and you were sure she never would. The only way you’d stop was if she told you to, and she hadn’t yet. There was still hope.

It was on a wintery afternoon that you found her, sitting, sipping her coffee. You slid in across from her, not even bothering to order a drink of your own. She was all you wanted in the shop.

“I don’t know how you do it, but every time I see you you’re more beautiful each time,” you said, “someone so beautiful shouldn’t have to buy their own coffee. Let me buy you the next one.”

“I have no interest in being the butt of your joke,” she said, “so you can leave me alone now.”

“Joke?’ You shook your head, “you think I’m joking about my feelings?”

“I know the reputation Nevermore has in Jericho,” she replied.

“So?”

“So I know what this means,” she replied, “I know how people in town feel about outcasts.”

“I think if anyone is listening to the stereotypes around town it isn’t me,” you replied.

She stared at you for a moment. You waited, giving her time to digest your accusation. You figured you weren’t the one with the hang up, that she was bringing her own prejudices to your interactions. All you wanted was for her to look past your differences.

“I’m not sure I know what you mean,” she said, keeping her voice even.

“If you’re willing to ignore whatever it is the town says about outcasts and normies, then I am too. We’re just people, not whatever they think we are,” you said, “I’d like the chance to show you exactly how serious my feelings for you are.”

“And how do you propose you do that?” she asked.

“One kiss, just one,” you suggested, “if after that you’re still not feeling the spark, I’ll leave you alone.”

“One kiss? That’s it?” She raised an eyebrow at you before looking around the relatively crowded Weathervane.

“If you’re okay with that,” you replied, shrugging. You had nothing to hide.

“Go on then.” You could tell she thought she was calling your bluff.

You stood, sliding into the seat beside her. Her eyes widened but she didn’t move. You’d never been that close to her and it was a little overwhelming. She was so beautiful and you found the floral scent that seemed to cling to her skin intoxicating.

You placed your hand on her shoulder, shifting closer until your thigh pressed against hers. Her eyes darted down to it, then back to you.

“You’re still sure?” you asked, to wanting to make her uncomfortable.

“Of course,” she replied.

You drew closer slowly, giving her time to change her mind. When she didn’t try to push you away or escape from you, you smiled to yourself.

The first brush of lips was like heaven. You pressed closer, doing your best to show her the way you would worship her for the rest of eternity. She gasped into your mouth and you let your tongue slip in, hoping she could feel the spark you’d been feeling since the first conversation.

And then she was kissing you back. One of her hands landed on your thigh, the other threading through the hair at the nape of your neck. She surprised a moan out of you, pulling you closer. If you weren’t in such a public place you would be climbing into her lap, making her feel the electricity that was running over your skin.

“I suppose one date wouldn’t be be a terrible idea,” she murmured against your lips.

Ignoring the whispering around you, you kissed her again, long and slow, taking your time now you knew it wasn’t your only chance. You had plenty of time to kiss her again and again and again. The rest of your life if she’d let you. Which it seemed she might.

Regina

You could stare at her forever. That was the simple fact of the matter. Regina was a work of art, one that was constantly changing and growing, and always so beautiful. You had no idea how you’d gotten so lucky to know her.

You’d ended up getting caught up when Anna was transported to Storybrooke, doing your best to help her save her sister. And you’d chosen to stay when they were sent back to Arendelle. Because of Regina. Because you’d fallen in love amongst all the fighting. Because you had hope.

All of which is to say, you were now absolutely screwed.

Being normal, one of the few people in Storybrooke without magic or a fairytale of your own, led to you feeling as if you were fading into the background. After helping Anna and Elsa as best you could, you hadn’t been called in to help since. Which you understood, but it did mean you didn’t get to see Regina that much.

Except for when she came into Granny’s. You’d gotten a job there, finding it not much different from back home. You’d worked in a tavern back there, and giving people warm food and drink was second nature to you. Seeing her in the diner was the best part of your day.

“Coffee, please,” she requested, slumping over the counter.

“Coming right up,” you said, offering her your brightest smile. She was so beautiful in the afternoon sunlight streaming in. She was always beautiful. It made your heart hurt.

Putting the cup down in front of her, you hoped she would take a moment to look down at the heart you’d drawn for her. You turned back, going for coy. You’d been flirting with her since you’d arrived, and you thought she’d been flirting back. It felt like flirting. It made your heart stutter in your chest like flirting did.

When you glanced back over your shoulder she was looking down into her mug, a slight smile on her face. You pressed your lips together to keep from grinning.

“Alright, out,” Granny said, shooing you away, “your shift is done and I’m not willing to pay you overtime.”

“It’s already that time?” You looked up at the clock, “time flies when you’re serving pie I guess.”

You tugged your apron off, handing it over to Granny. She offered you a fond smile, patting your hand as you walked out from around the counter.

“It certainly flies when you’re flirting with your favourite customer,” she said, chuckling when your cheeks warmed. You stuck your tongue out at her, turning back to look at Regina. She was gone, the coffee left untouched, bell jingling over the door.

You froze before bolting out the door. Head whipping one way and the other, you frantically searched for her in the street. Hurrying away from you, heels clacking on the pavement, her familiar figure was easy enough to spot. You ran after her.

“Did I make your coffee wrong?” you asked as you caught up to her.

“No, it was perfect,” she said, not quite looking at you.

“You didn’t even touch it.” You shot her a teasing smile. She didn’t return it, “okay, well, I’m sorry for the bad coffee.”

“The coffee was fine,” she snapped. You swallowed past the lump growing in your throat.

“Alright, well, something is wrong and I’m going to guess it’s because of me so I’m still sorry because I never want to hurt you or make you uncomfortable or anything,” you said, hearing yourself ramble but not able to stop.

“It wasn’t you,” she said, stopping.

You turned back to her, watching as she brushed her hair off her face. She wasn’t looking at you, looking at a point just over your shoulder. Your heart clenched.

“What happened?” you asked.

“I think, perhaps, it would be a good idea if we stopped seeing each other,” she said.

“Why?” You felt as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over you.

“We are not meant to be together,” she said, “I’m sorry, but this has to stop now before anyone else gets hurt.”

“Anyone else?” She wasn’t making any sense.

“Anyone else other than me,” she said.

“You think this won’t hurt me?” you asked. No, demanded.

“It doesn’t matter.” She turned away from you.

You grabbed her arm, forcing her to face you. She snarled, trying to pull out of your grip but you held on tighter, stepping closer to her.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Why do you think we aren’t meant to be together?” you asked, softening your voice, not wanting her to feel nervous or like you were attacking her.

“Just look at the fairytales in this realm,” she said, “we’re from completely different places.”

“Different places we can travel to,” you countered, “we’re not from different realms.”

“But we are from different stories,” she said.

“Do you think something that small is going to stop me from loving you?”

You said it a lot louder than you’d intended. Her mouth fell open and you saw her eyes flicking around, as if unable to look at you full in the face. You stepped closer to her, until you felt her body heat radiating towards you.

“Just forget how the fairytales go here. We make our own fairytale.”

She finally looked at you properly. She gave her head a small shake but there was something in her gaze that gave you hope. Something soft and yearning, like she was beginning to believe in you.

“We’ve been dancing around this for too long, so I need you to know I’m going to kiss you now,” you said.

She didn’t say anything which you took to mean she was okay with it. You let your lips brush against hers, soft, barely there, giving her time to push you away. She didn’t. Instead, she grasped the back of your neck, pulling you against her, kissing you hard. You sighed into her mouth, only half believing it was actually happening.

She nipped at your lower lip, tongue sweeping in, leaving you feeling thoroughly hot under the collar. All you could do was hold on, kissing her with all the unspoken feelings you’d been hiding from her.

Someone wolf-whistled further down the street. She broke away, staring over her shoulder at Hook, glaring at him. You ignored him, cupping her cheek and pulling her into another kiss. You weren’t about to stop now that you finally had her.

Lesso

Lesso watched from her tower window as your sword shone in the sunlight. You weren’t staying long, only teaching for a semester at both schools, one of the most renowned knights in their realm. Her lip curled, thinking about all the good you’d done, all the evil you’d vanquished.

You shook your hair out of your face, your smile wide. You were sparring with one of the students. You held your hand out, gesturing for them to come towards you. The prince ran at you and you laughed, properly laughed at him. His sword swung and you ducked, rolling out of the way. With a booted foot, you kicked him in the ass, sending him sprawling to the ground.

She turned away, but not before she saw your face turned up to the sky, your smile brighter than the sun.

It became part of her daily routine to watch you teach your class out in the sun. She hated it, the way she was drawn to her window, unable to stop watching you. Your reputation was well deserved and it made her blood boil.

She found herself lying in bed at night, your lessons playing through her mind. She could see the way you handled your sword, the way you moved, so graceful and so powerful. Your smile, the joy you took in the fights, was a sight that made her heart race but she couldn’t figure out why.

Then Dovey was standing at her doorway, smiling that so called charming smile, while you stood at her shoulder. She lent back in her throne like chair, watching you approach.

“I’ve heard you’ve yet to meet our resident knight,” Dovey said, “that’s rather rude given our students are enjoying the lessons so.”

“Yes, yes, I’m acting in a manner befitting evil,” she said.

“Hi, it’s lovely to meet you,” you said.

She finally looked at you properly, and you were so much more radiant than the distance had suggested. You were smiling, but not as brightly as you did in the ring, softer, more intimate. Your eyes were twinkling at her and you held out your hand to her.

She took your hand, surprised by how pleasant the callouses on your palm were against her skin. You were warm and when she looked back at your face, you were biting down on your bottom lip. She wasn’t expecting her breath to catch as she looked at you.

“You’re the reason for the dusty footprints on my students,” she said.

“Guilty as charged.” And the way you smiled made her wish she could ask to go toe to toe with you.

From there, she slowly began to creep closer and closer to your lessons, her interest only growing as she watched. You were surprisingly soft with your students, despite resoundingly beating them in every match. You weren’t afraid to adjust grips and stance, shouting encouragements into the ring. Although you did seem to love throwing them curve balls.

Her favourite was when you caught her eye just before vines began to sprout out of the ground, reaching for the ankles of your students. Her answering grin as one was dragged to ground lit your face up. Maybe you were more interesting than she first thought.

After one such lesson, the ground muddied from a wave of water that had drenched your students, she approached you. You were standing in the middle of the grounds, head tilted back to the sky, grin on your lips.

“I’m surprised Dovey keeps you around when you treat her students so abominably,” she said, trying for a conversational tone.

“She knows they could be attacked by anything,” you replied, “no such thing as a fair fight.”

The way you were looking at her wasn’t fair. It was like you were imagining pinning her down while also yearning to be underneath her. Like you were curious to see what would happen if you let her test out her magic on you. Like you wanted to do unspeakable things with her.

“Not when you’re fighting evil,” she replied.

“Is good always fair in a fight?” you asked, vaulting over the wooden fence, “I must have missed that lesson.”

The twinkle in your eye was the most enticing thing she’d ever seen.

“You’ve been watching my lessons,” you said.

Her heart stuttered but she tilted her chin up, looking down her nose at you. You swiped your hair out of your face again, looking up at her from under fluttering eyelashes. You looked so good, like a perfect little knight fighting for what was right.

“I bet you didn’t expect me to notice, but I did,” you continued, taking those steps towards her, “you’ve been watching me since I arrived.”

You stopped right in front of her, and there was so much mischief in your face it took her breath away.

“Luckily for you, I’ve been watching you too,” you whispered.

“In order to find my weaknesses?” she asked, lifting her eyes to meet yours.

“Because I think you’re the most enchanting creature in existence.”

She froze. You were looking at her, waiting, head tilted to the side. She wanted your eyes off her, didn’t want you to see the way she was struggling to compose herself. You were smiling. She wanted you to stop smiling. It was making her heart do funny things.

“You’re good,” she spat. Your lips pressed together but she could see the mirth on your face.

“And you’re evil,” you replied and she could hear the laughter in your voice.

“This is repulsive,” she said.

“If it’s so repulsive why have you been looking at me that way?” you asked.

“What way?” Her heart stopped.

“Like you’re imagining me naked.”

Her hand shot out, ready to grab you around the throat. You caught her around the wrist, tugging her forward. She wasn’t expecting it, falling against you. Your other arm came around her waist, holding her, and that familiar spark of anger spread through her veins.

“Let me go,” she demanded.

“Not until you admit you want me,” you said, “if it helps, I’ll admit that I want you.”

“You can’t. You’re good and I’m evil. It’s not natural,” she said.

“Forget that. Forget good and evil, and just do what you want.”

She took a moment, staring at you. Then she lunged forward, pulling you in. She kissed you hard, going for harsh, but then you were kissing her back so with so much enthusiasm it turned her breathless. So incredibly breathless.

No one good should be able to kiss that way. It was sinful.

When you drew back, your smile wide and lips kiss swollen, it was the only time she considered switching her allegiance, if only to keep kissing you. Maybe you were thinking of doing the same, switching sides, because you kissed her again before she could catch her breath. With each kiss it became easier to forget you were on opposing sides and it was wrong.

But maybe there was a thrill with it being wrong. She was evil after all.

[guidingthulite]

big eyes emojis... please tell me about your lovely works!!! ocs, fanfics, whatever you'd like and whatever comes to mind ^^

ok i'm SOOOOOOOO mentioning you on the next chapter of the fic i referenced earlier my readers need to know who they need to thank lmao

the fic i mencioned, by the way, is "this is like one of my sister's shoujo mangas, but worse", a proseka/akikasa fanfic inspired by this one art here. the fact that someone said my tags were funny made me go "afbafhbasjf really ;_;???" and i wrote the first chapter while waiting at the bus station to go back to my hometown.

i didn't really expect it to be as liked as it was??? i posted it at night and woke up to one (1) comment by the person who would go ahead and call herself my number one fan (still blown away by that??? what the hell)

the fic i mencioned, by the way, is "this is like one of my sister's shoujo mangas, but worse", a proseka/akikasa fanfic inspired by this one art here. the fact that someone said my tags were funny made me go "afbafhbasjf really ;_;???" and i wrote the first chapter while waiting at the bus station to go back to my hometown.

i didn't really expect it to be as liked as it was??? i posted it at night and woke up to one (1) comment by the person who would go ahead and call herself my number one fan (still blown away by that??? what the hell)  and i was like “hell yeah i got a comment!” but they kept coming and i was like yo what????????? so i wrote a second chapter to thank everyone who commented. and then a third. and then a fourth. and so on. i find important to say that every chapter was longer than the previous one. the last one was over 10k words. save me

i like talking about it a lot, to the point i have a special tag for when i mention it on a sideblog. it’s relatively empty because i started the tag not long ago, but when i go through my blog and find all the untagged posts, it’ll get much, much longer, i know this.

as for the plot… like the art it’s inspired by, akito has a dream where he’s dating tsukasa and loses his mind, then proceeds to go through all the stages of grief and finally comes to terms with his crush on tsukasa

that’s just the first chapter. from then onwards i didn’t have any art to base the story on so i just went wild. the next chapters go as follows:

shizuku and tsukasa barely interact in canon and that makes me sad, so i wanted a chapter dedicated to them and threw ena in for good measure. ended up super attached to this trio, to the point i was rereading it again to find typos and forgot i wrote it myself on the way, so i thought “man, this author should write more shizuenakasa!” i am the author. this is the last chapter where they interact.

The supposed fluff chapter where they just hang out. it was getting too mushy and i decided to interrupt them (sorry, akito, tsukasa!), but i couldn’t figure out how. so i thought and thought and thought and came across the perfect interruption: mizuki and saki are now dating. akito has mentioned several times throughout the fic that he considers mizuki his number one enemy. and if they dated saki he’d be forced to interact more, further intensifying the stereotype that every akito fan wishes to see him suffer

something really cute happened with this ship actually! because i saw it around in some cute fanart where mizuki and saki had a double date with honami and kanade, but i didn’t think too much about it, just used it as a tool to move the plot forward, yet, i am a writer, god damn it, so if i’m going to write them, i’ll write them well! god damn it! (again)

so yeah, wrote this rarepair in a fic of a sort-of rarepair, and i got comments saying i got them to ship mizusaki, and some others, when the diner event rolled around, told me excitedly how mizusaki’s finally canon

HELP WHILE I WAS WRITING THIS A KIZUNA OF THEM WAS ANNOUNCED? HELL YEAH MAN

and because people kept associating this ship with me, nowadays it’s one of my favorite ships! though i don’t have them in my proseka profile ship wall. it’s more important to add more minori ships. i ship minori with everyone. help me.

also i don’t have good matching cards for them, i didn’t pull on the diner gacha. (it hated me in jpseka so i didn’t bother with enseka. also i was saving for pandemonium so i was kinda broke lol)

also fun fact that i had been waiting to share with someone because it’s a very specific thing! i don’t remember why exactly i had heisei pistol show on the mind (as if i don’t have parun constantly on the mind) and i was thinking about mizusaki and i was like HOOOOOOLD OOOOOOOOON- ISN’T MIZUSAKI HEART’S SURNAME??????????? and so the last chapter’s title is a heisei pistol show reference just because i can

the next chapter is because (i assume) in the first chapter an and akito beefed for a bit, and kohane was super in favour of akikasa (even though akito wanted her to absolutely NOT be), so people asked me a lot about an and/or kohane reacting to akikasa actually being together (they started dating officially on chapter 3) so it’s a double date between an, kohane, akito and tsukasa which is really funny because my opinion on an/hane has gone downhill as time passed but i’m happy with how i portrayed them here. mostly because the interactions focus more on an<->akito and kohane<->tsukasa lmao 😭

if the third chapter was the fluff chapter, the fifth chapter is the funny chapter. It’s mostly shizuku, airi, mizuki, saki, tsukasa and akito playing truth or dare. Not much more to that, though a lot of people liked the end with mizuki writing a letter to tsukasa. That makes me happy

the sixth chapter is the longest chapter to date and I actually don’t like spoiling what it is about but…

CHAPTER SPOILERS AHEAD

the reason why it was a dream, when it was originally written as the finale of the fic was because… i couldn’t be bothered to do wedding research. i asked my cousin, who got married (relatively) recently and she told me “i honestly don’t remember how wedding prep went”, so i asked her husband and he replied “nope, don’t remember either” they are couple goals and i adore them, so i took this as a sign. mid-writing process i went to a wedding myself but then i got ideas for another unrelated fic i’m writing.

also because i got an idea mid-writing, because that’s what ALWAYS HAPPENS. i go “this is the last chapter I SWEAR” and then i get an idea and this isn’t the last chapter at all

then I decided to add foreshadowing that it was a dream, like it lacking mizuki making an akikasa mv to bad boy by cascada (nightcore) because akito doesn’t know mizuki’s planning it >:)

CHAPTER SPOILERS END

as for chapter seven… I’m writing it! I said I’d have it by next week so I guess I’m gonna have to write it HARDER haha

have a preview that makes it really hard to guess what the chapter is actually about <3

it’s currently sitting at around 6k words, so if i want it to be longer than chapter 6, i’m only halfway! i gotta work harder!!! 💪

i will now proceed to say my thanks to everyone who contributed to me making the fic!

obviously @meltylandartchive for making the fanart which inspired this fic! their art is wonderful, so pretty and gorgeous! i love their use of colors, it feels so soft! they even commented on my fic, which i didn’t expect honestly fjerhbgrebg they were so nice too augh augh augh

@abbus-r-us is not only the reason the fic exists but also the reason why i kept writing!!! when they send me an audio of them reading the new chapter (at the moment) I SWEAR i almost started crying. i think i started writing again just for that moment. maybe i was also born for that moment, idk. (they’re also the biggest sweetie ever like??? illegal)

liku who is the #1 fan i mentioned earlier!!! i love their silly comments and they have outstanding taste tbh (not. not because they’re my #1 fan i also mean ships and also they're machi’s wife and being a machi fan is the most logical path you can take) (they have a tumblr but i kinda. forgot its name ;v;)

@lucephica was also there from day 1! i feel like that one pic of the greek philosopher every time i talk with them they’re so correct about everything all the time. she also was my beta reader for chapter 6 and i genuinely think she’s the reason why it turned as good as it did. also she likes tiering a lot and sometimes i click random profiles and i find a slide thanking/mentioning her and i’m like?????????????????????????? also i think she’s really cool and i admire her a lot and it’s like. i’m the fic writer it’s supposed to be the other way around, but here we are

@ceelisiowo and i met the way true warriors meet: i commented on a fic of his and noticed he had a pfp of this character from a relatively obscure fnaf au where they’re all teenagers and sing. it marked a generation but only if you speak spanish. so we instantly hit it off and honestly????????? i’m so glad i took so many weird paths throughout my life that allowed me to meet him. i consider him one of my best friends and i don’t want to get mushy on a post about a fanfic i wrote two years ago but i don’t think words can express how much he means to me anyway. also ooooooo you want to click on his profile and reblog his art with nice tags and follow him and read all of his fics ooooooooo

@prefixsstars shares so many rarepairs with me it’s almost scary. initially, they posted a comment on anon because they didn’t have an ao3 account, but when they did it felt like when a scooby doo villain is unmasked except they’re not a villain they were out there doing good!!!! i think i lost my metaphor. i’m sorry. that mizuki/minori fic i mentioned is still in the works i prommy.

shoutout also to everyone who commented and added nice comments to their bookmarks!!!!

somehow people keep choking while reading my fic... i mean, it has only happened twice, but who knows how many more times it has happened without me knowing!!!

this comment made me actually cry hbhsuaugghaguaghuaghuaa

... and this comment ruined me. how could i have never noticed. why. why am i like this. jkat subliminal writing. again, why.

some people even sent me frqs on proseka itself saying they liked my fic! (kinda)

these two people just screamed my name which. confused me a lot??? but also flustered me IMMENSELY bc i wasn't expecting it at all!!!

i got to talk with iactuallysuck (they helped me tier on wedding3) and they were so nice and patient with me!

the second person is a mystery to me but i still think about their fq a lot fbrgjreg

i remember the context of this one actually! i tiered minori3 and since i was STRAIGHT UP number 100, i got a lot of frqs, but this was my favorite aughuaghua (sobbing)

When it comes to ocs I have a lot and this post is longer than I expected, but I do have a fic in the works that might interest you!

It’s. how do I describe it. it’s this sort of fix-it-fic-headcanon-post-canon-but-also-pre-canon disaster and it’s me trying to connect heisei pistol show, gote to handa and re:kinder together. i've been writing it for a year now, on and off, but i'll finish it someday. probably. i hope

[ghastlybin]

Twice Sana soulmate AU WHEN? (please)

How about at 4AM on a Sunday morning, yeah? Also, THANK YOU FOR YOUR REQUEST! <3333 ily :))

Pairing: Sana x GN Reader

FT: Jihyo (my love)

Word count: 1.4k

Genre/contents: Soulmate! AU, Fluff... I hope.

Note: I had fun writing this although I do wish I was better at fluffy topics lol there was an attempt! I hope you like it though and uhhh please be honest if it sucks, but in a constructive criticism type of way pls... Also I love Sana so thank you again! And y'all know I'm whipped for Jihyo. If there are typos, ignore them- I will come back later, only some much I can function at 4 AM. Goodnight/ morning btw! Adios, for now.

Y’all ever have a gif give you butterflies?

Living the same day would be great if you weren’t already living the same day.

You wake up, get yourself ready for the day, leave the house, walk to your job, work until you’re exhausted and then you go home and end the day where you started— In your bed.

It was the way you tripped on the curb after crossing the street to the other side. Not once, not twice, but ten total times.

Embarrassingly enough, every time, you just thought you were clumsy. That tripping at that same curb would be an everyday occurrence until you switch up your routine.

You’d have thought after the third time, you’d at least be more careful.

But with you accidentally sleeping in and rushing to get to work on time, it always slipped your mind.

“Welcome! Anything I can do for you?”

The words that were now ingrained in your mind and wired in your program, greeting customers as they came and left. It was the same customers every time. And again, you hadn’t noticed until after the fourth loop. Maybe it was because interactions with each customer went by quickly or just that there had been so many people coming and going that they became a blur in your memory.

You were finally in your loop. The only problem was, you’ve been in this loop ten times and your eleventh started in an hour.

You had one hour left and still haven’t found out who your soulmate was. You even calculated how many people you’ve interacted with and who were mere bystanders.

You figured your soulmate would be relatively easy to find, acknowledging the fact that they too would be stuck in the same loop until you two found each other.

Just look for the other person also frantically trying to interact with everyone they came across, trying to get out of the loop.

It wasn’t that easy. Not when every single person you’ve come across showcased any changes in their behavior.

“Welcome. Anything I can do for you?”

And like a broken record, you were back at your job, the loop repeating for the eleventh time.

∞

Her name was Sana.

And like you, she noticed the loop too.

It was at the mark of the third loop when she realized she finally got close enough to her soulmate to trigger what was called, ‘The Looping Event’.

It was something most dreamed of no matter what types of hell they had to go through just to find their soulmates in the midst of crowds.

Some were lucky, finding their soulmates during the second loop. Some were still in their loops.

Sana always wondered how someone could tell whether someone was in a loop. According to sources, the soulmates will disappear for however long it takes them to find each other while other sources say time freezes until the loop completes.

Then again, how would you be able to tell if time is frozen?

Sana was on a walk around the time the loop started. The one time she took a different route than usual for her morning walk. She wondered what would happen if her usual route hadn’t been blocked off by construction work.

By the start of the eleventh loop, she began to think she was placed inside of a loop by mistake. A freak accident that could very much be possible.

Then again, no one really knew the science behind the whole soulmates loop phenomenon. Sana’s walks turned into runs, rushing to interact with anyone she came across, wanting nothing more than to get back to her life and possibly start one with her soulmate— Wherever they were hiding.

Not once did it occur to her to start checking the shops she ran past.

Not once did it occur to you to just leave your job and look outside at the woman running and frantically interacting with those who remained outside.

It took eleven loops before it crossed your mind.

Eleven loops before Sana decided to enter every shop she came across.

By the end of loop eleven, neither of you found each other, commencing loop twelve.

∞

You and Sana woke up the morning of loop twelve at around the same time.

While Sana continued to go on her walk, so did you, skipping work entirely. You were in a loop, after all. What will they do? Fire you?

You would most likely wake up with your job again on the morning of loop thirteen anyway.

Sana ignored the people she previously interacted with. She even ignored the stores she entered that turned up to be futile.

You walked down the street, missing the curb this time and avoiding tripping over it.

“Ha… Eat shit.” You spoke too soon, bumping into a stop sign while you were looking at the curb as you made that remark. You cursed yourself for letting your guard down just to talk to a curb that would most likely trip you again.

“You know what they say about paying attention to stop signs, right?”

You squinted, rubbing the part of your shoulder that came crashing against the stop sign. A woman you haven’t come across was standing before you, and the excitement bubbled inside of you.

Please be my soulmate.

She formed a smile full of amusement, holding out her hand. “I’m Jihyo.”

“Ah… I’m Y/N.” You shook her hand, yet nothing seemed to change. “Are you my soulmate?”

Jihyo let out an awkward laugh, the tilt of her head and furrowing of her eyebrows told you all you needed to know.

“Soulmate? No. I was just looking for my friend but then I saw you talking to the curb and now you probably have a bruise on your shoulder.” Jihyo sucked her teeth followed by the soft shaking of her head.

You began to laugh hysterically, on the verge of crying when Jihyo turned around, hearing the sound of another woman’s voice. You calmed yourself down long enough to see if this other woman was your soulmate or someone you already came across.

“Sana! There you are. What happened to walking together?” Jihyo crossed her arms as the woman panted, doing a double-take when she saw you standing with Jihyo.

Then it happened. The end of the loop.

∞

In the blink of an eye, you were back in your bed without any recollection of how you got back home. The first thing you did was checking the date and time.

You were now twelve days in the future, finally caught up with everyone.

Sana. The woman you made eye contact with after meeting Jihyo.

You immediately ran outside, jumping over the curb and avoiding the stop sign successfully as you ran past your workplace and down the sidewalk Sana met up with Jihyo— And you, on.

Down the sidewalk, you saw the distant figure of Sana, who was running towards you as well. Both of you seemingly had the same idea first thing that morning.

Coming to an abrupt stop, you both looked at each other, feeling as if you’ve known each other for years. The similar feeling other found soulmates have felt.

“Sana?” You breathed out, catching your breath. Sana beamed, throwing her arms around you despite barely meeting.

“Y/N? Took you long enough!” Sana chuckled with excitement.

“Did Jihyo tell you my name?” You asked, surprised that she already knew your name despite telling Jihyo before Sana joined.

“How do you know Jihyo?” Sana asked, releasing you from the hold she had you in. You struggled to respond, unsure how to explain yourself. But Sana laughed, lightly slapping your arm.

“I’m joking! She said we met twelve days ago… But she doesn’t believe the loop actually happened.”

“Then how are we twelve days in the future?” You were confused, to say the least. The concept of the ‘Looping Event phenomenon’ was confusing.

Sana sheepishly laughed, shrugging. “Crazy, isn’t it?”

You allowed yourself to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

“Hey, could be worse,” You massaged the part of your shoulder where you hit on the stop sign during the loop. “We could be one of those soulmates that are still stuck in the loop.”

Sana gave you a horrified look, “I don’t think I could handle a loop that long.”

You reached for her hand with a smile, accompanying her on a walk down the street.

“Are you ready for the start of forever, Sana?”

“Hasn’t it already started?”

[hiraeth-witch-11]

Bond to Happen Part 7

Part 7: Team Bonding

Warnings: fantastical racism, Billy Russo, thoughts of death?

Word Count: 3600 ish

Billy regularly invited you out to lunch with the team, something you usually said no to. Eating around so many people was overwhelming. You preferred the relative quiet of your office. 

“Come on, Blue, it’s good team building to spend some time outside the office with some of the people you work with. You’ll at least like Josie, and you know I’m always good company.” Russo winks at you.

“Hah, you’re funny, Russo.” You continue ignoring his pleas, pretending to work on a report you’d finished yesterday.

“What’s it gonna take to get you to come?” He asks, leaning against the door frame and looking distractingly beautiful as always in his black 3 piece suit.

You pause and sigh. “I’ll come this time if you stop asking me in the future.”

Billy considers it. “Counter offer: I ask you once a week.”

“A month.”

“Once every two weeks and your acknowledgement that it is a standing offer and you are always welcome.”

“Deal.”

He tilts his head, as if waiting for you to say something.

“What?”

“I’m just waiting for you to say it.” He crosses his arms and you roll your eyes.

“I, Blue, do formally acknowledge the standing invitation to lunch.” You roll your eyes.

“And?” He prompts, arching an eyebrow.

“Gods you’re annoying sometimes,” you mutter under your breath. Of course he hears you, the man must have enhanced hearing of some sort.

“I prefer ‘persistent’, and I’m still waiting.” He grins.

“And I am always welcome,” you concede, shaking your head slightly at his antics.

“That wasn’t so hard, now, was it?” He mocks.

“You’re paying for my food, Russo. And I’m sitting by you,” you add as an afterthought. Better to have his calming aura as a safety cushion than to be sandwiched between two normal ones. You stand and make your way around the desk.

“I knew you couldn’t resist my charms.” He smirks.

“You’re just the lesser evil, Russo. Don’t flatter yourself. Now move. You’re taking up the whole doorway.”

The diner was nearby and surprisingly empty for this time of day. It was really on you and the handful of Anvil employees who had been free for lunch hour today. 

“What sort of a name is Blue?” A woman- Bethany- you correct yourself, asks.

“I’m not a fan of my legal name so I prefer to go by nicknames. Blame Frank if you don’t like it.” Frank didn’t often come to these sorts of things. He kept himself busy and only came when he truly had nothing else to do. So, in true Frank fashion, he wasn’t here today.

“I’m glad you came out with us, Blue, it’ll be good to get to know you better,” Josie offers kindly. Her hair is a warm brown color and you’ve only ever seen her with it up in a tight bun. She’s a team lead and your favorite new coworker. Besides Russo, but you’d never tell him that.

“I’m just here for the food,” you joke awkwardly. Billy swoops in and starts a conversation about something, a sport, you think. You’re not paying attention. Instead you’re focused on the loud buzz of everyone’s energy. You pull your magic as tightly inward as you can, subconsciously leaning towards Russo. You’re present enough to smile and nod at the right time, and you order a simple burger and fries. 

“You don’t like pickles?” Russo asks you as he watches you pick them off your burger and isolate them on your plate away from the other food.

“No,” you say, wrinkling your nose. “Do you?”

“Yup, love ‘em,” he laughs at the face you make and your stomach flips at the noise.

“Help yourself then.” You turn your plate so the pickles are facing him. He doesn’t even put them on his own burger, he eats them plain. “Why anyone would ruin a perfectly good cucumber to make a  monstrosity is beyond me.”

He shakes his head at you and the interaction sparks a debate across the table.

“I don’t like them either,” Josie says.

“You’re my new favorite, Jo,” you say.

“I’ve been replaced?” Billy asks, pretending offense.

“You were never in the running, Frank was first. But he eats pickles too, and relish, and literally anything because he has no standards when it comes to food,” you lament.

“My sister always eats my pickles for me whenever we’re together,” Josie shares.

“Mine did too,” you grin at the memory before your face falls.

“I didn’t know you had a sister,” Josie says.

“I, uh, don’t. Anymore.”

The table is uncomfortably quiet. You don’t know what prompts you to share, but you add, “Not everyone is happy to find out their family member is a witch.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Russo offers, sounding sincere. Josie and a couple other people nod in agreement. But Bethany decides to continue on the topic.

“I thought having a witch as a romantic partner was like a status symbol or something. Is it not that way for family?”

You grit your teeth. “A status symbol like having a fancy car or an expensive watch is, sure. It doesn’t do anything to benefit the witch, though. They aren’t some sort of trophy for the elite.”

“Well, yeah, obviously, but I thought the whole ‘guardian’ thing protects witches by making sure they’re taken care of and it only matches people who are compatible. Isn’t that a good thing?” Bethany asks, seemingly genuine in her curiosity.

“If having to essentially be owned and have a ring on your finger or a collar on your neck to be treated like a real person is a good thing, then sure,” you snap. Geez, you usually can keep a hold of your temper better than this. Your magic shifts under your skin restlessly. You roll your shoulders back, trying to shake off the pressure.

Josie’s whispering something into Bethany’s ear, but she keeps going. “But I thought-”

Billy cuts her off. “I think we can all agree that the laws surrounding witchcraft are archaic and the recent legislation being proposed is appalling.” His tone is firm and final, ending the discussion. His aura settles around you almost protectively and you readily accept the distraction from the itch of your power.

“I’m sorry, Blue. I didn’t mean to offend. I’m just not very aware of what things are like for your kind in the world right now,” Bethany offers.

“I accept your apology. I’ve heard worse, it’s okay, really.” You try to smile at her, but it feels hollow. You aren't angry with her, not that much anyway. More the world that has created this reality for you and your kind. 

“You know, historically speaking, witches were actually most often healers and scholars,” someone on the other side of the table pipes in. She’s blonde and gorgeous, you think her name is Rose if you remember right. She looks at you and you notice the hazel color of her eyes.

You nod and shoot her a grateful smile.

“I heard that, too,” Josie adds. “Weren’t some of the greatest inventors in history theorized to be witches or at the very least, differentials?”

“Yeah, I mean, differential isn’t a term that was coined until the last century, but I’m pretty sure Da Vinci and Benjamin Franklin were witches,” you share.

The conversation evolved into a friendly and excited banter about which historical figures had to have been witches.

“He came back from the dead after resting in a dark tomb for 3 days, vampire for sure,” Michaelson- his first name, you’ve learned, is John- insists.

“He turned water to wine, walked on water, and isn’t there a story about him feeding a ton of people with a small amount of bread and fish or something?” You ask, waving your hands as you talk. “He has to have been a witch. I don’t know of any other species that could do half that.”

“Fair enough. Is there any truth to the whole immaculate conception thing?” John concedes as he bites into a fry.

“Oh gods, I don’t even know.” You think for a moment. “It’s possible, I guess. If a witch had enough power to create or transport matter. With the assumption that Jesus was a very powerful witch, his dad had to have been off the charts.”

“So an entire religion, like thousands of sub religions, might be based on a witch?” Bethany asks, curiously.

“Yup,” you say, popping the P and leaning back in your seat.

“That’s crazy,” she says to herself. Bethany had been more careful through the conversation, and you think she actually was eager to learn more.

“Especially when you take into account how many witch hunts were started by Christians,” Josie says with a frown.

“Many of the victims of those hunts were actually normal humans, but it was really damaging to witch culture,” you say softly. Sometimes you wondered what it would’ve been like to grow up with a coven, a family that loved you in your entirety, kept you safe and taught you instead of abandoning you. But covens since the height of the witch hunts were hollow mockeries of what they were before.

“That’s awful,” Rose states with a grimace.

“History is full of terrible things that get rewritten to fit the narrative of whoever’s in charge,” you comment.

“Now I’m wishing I paid more attention in school,” Russo says, lightening the mood. He’d kept quiet for the most part, preferring to listen and observe instead.

“Did everyone do those little crafts in elementary school where you’d make your own familiar or broom or hat or something for Witch History Month?” Josie asks.

“I loved those as a kid! I didn’t fully manifest my magic until I was an adult, but I’ve always wanted a familiar!”

“If you could, what type would you pick?” Billy asks, enjoying the way your eyes light up in excitement.

“A dog, 100%. I’ve always wanted some sort of dog, but my mom was allergic so I just collected little figurines and those little crafts we did and lined them up on my dresser,” you admit. 

“You’ve never had a dog?” Josie asks in surprise. 

You shake your head. “As soon as I was old enough, I started volunteering at a shelter, though. I spent most of my free time walking the dogs and trying to help with training.”

“One of these days, you gotta get a dog, Blue,” Bethany insists.

“And bring them to work so we can all meet them,” Rose adds.

“Now hold on there, I never agreed to dogs in the building,” Billy interjects.

“Come on, Russo,” Josie says. “It can be her emotional support animal and our unofficial mascot.”

You would love to have a dog and bond with it as a familiar, you really would. But you knew that your life expectancy wasn’t great right now. Your health was all over the place and while your conscious control over your magic was increasing in precision, the subconscious connection to auras and futures was all over the place. While you weren’t 100% certain what sort of creature you are, you did know that those who needed to feed to live would eventually waste away and die if they didn’t feed enough. The filter feeding you did was the equivalent of forcing a car to run on fumes every time you drove. You realized in this very moment that you’d come to accept that your death was likely on the horizon.

It wasn’t as painful a thought as you expected, it didn’t shock you. You suppose that you’d never really expected to live a full life after everything that happened since your parents kicked you out.

“I don’t think now is really the right time for me to have a pet,” you confess. “Maybe in a few years.” Odds are you only had one or two birthday’s left in you.

“Bummer,” Rose pouts with full, lightly glossed lips that you weren’t sure why you were paying such close attention to. 

“Sometimes I stop by my place and get Dawn, my bloodhound, for lunch if we’re going somewhere dog friendly,” John says.

“Guess you’ll have to come out with us again and meet Dawn then,” Billy smirks.

“We’ll see,” you grumble.

You hadn’t been expecting lunch to be that enjoyable, even with such a rocky start. While some of your coworkers had remained largely silent for it except for the occasional comment usually based on some sort of stereotype, you hoped you could dissuade them of some of their more ignorant witch opinions. 

******

Billy was pleased with how lunch had turned out. He knew he’d chosen today’s group wisely, though he was unhappy with how Bethany had behaved initially. He hadn’t realized how delicate of a topic witchcraft would be. Something he had made a mental note of for the future.

You’d come alive for a few moments there, grinning with your eyes their natural color still just as beautiful as they were when they flashed the cold blue of your magic. He’d known you would get along with Josie, but how well you interacted with Rose was a bit of a surprise. While it would’ve been almost unnoticeable to anyone else at the table, Billy was very familiar with what desire looked like. Yours was harder to sense, so much so that he suspected you purposefully repressed it. He’d noticed it a handful of times when you were talking with him, sometimes something as innocent as him leaning against a doorframe, smiling, or laughing would trigger a small amount of lustful energy from you. The first time he felt it, he thought he’d imagined it, but as he observed you more closely, he began to pick up on it more quickly. And he’d picked up on it today when you looked at Rose.

He knew Rose was a lesbian, he didn’t mind that, it would be a bit hypocritical of him considering his own nature. But he hadn’t expected her to be attracted to you. It’s not that you weren’t attractive, you were, in a softer way, something that was more subtle, almost like you hid it. Billy would have to watch the two of you, make sure Rose wasn’t a threat to his plans, make sure you stayed close to him.

******

Billy had been in a mood all week and you were honestly starting to get a little frustrated yourself. You knew that it was over a contract he’d been trying to get and the potential client was being stubborn. That day, you’d noticed he had arrived to work before you, not entirely unusual since he was a very hands on sort of guy who chose to work alongside his employees instead of above them. You’d left work around 5 that afternoon and Billy was still there. It was around 9 pm when you realized you’d left your Sight journal in your office, so you rushed back over, hoping someone was still in and hadn’t fully locked up. There were usually a couple people who worked overnight. 

You were in luck, and able to head up the stairs and grab your journal before noticing that Billy’s office light was still on and his door was open a few inches. You peer through the gap and see him still pouring over his work, dark hair tousled like he’d been running his fingers through it in frustration.

“What are you still doing here, Russo?” You ask from the doorway.

He doesn’t look up as he responds. “I'm trying to figure out what I’m missing. I have another meeting with Diaz tomorrow afternoon.”

You hesitate then offer, “You want some help?”

He shakes his head, looking up with a frown. “It’s late, I thought you went home hours ago?”

“I forgot something in my office,” you explain, lifting the hand holding your worn orange journal. He nods and focuses back on his notes. You really should leave it, but he seems so stressed and it’s almost physically uncomfortable to see him this way.

“Come on, Billy, let me help. Walk me through it and maybe that’ll help?” You sit down on the chair across from him and he leans back, assessing.

“There’s a lot that goes into it,” he warns.

“I’ll do my best to keep up,” you assure him. Some of the more technical things you don’t understand, you don’t actually know a whole lot about the inner workings of Anvil, only the parts you so readings for. Much of what Billy says has to do with interpersonal politics, something you’re clueless about without the help of your magic. But you get the gist of what he’s saying, he’s competing with an older private security company named Black Lake for the contract and has yet to secure it. Your magic is branching out around you as you try to get a more magical view of the situation.

With his permission, you reach for his laptop.

“We have a better track record than them in the last 5 years,” you say, mostly to yourself as you look into the company’s public records. Billy nods.

“They’ve had a couple public fumbles and Anvil has only been improving, especially since you started,” Billy adds.

You nod to yourself, continuing to look. “Anvil’s better in just about every area, they only have seniority.” You’re starting to understand his frustration. Your eyes flash blue for a moment and a thought comes to you. Something that might be able to help Anvil secure the contract over Black Lake.

After pulling up Diaz’s profile on social media, you dig through some articles on the Black Lake CEO to see if your hunch is correct. “This guy is an asshole!”

“I certainly think so, but I’m curious why you do?” Billy asks, a small smile on his lips for the first time in days.

“Okay, look,” you show him the articles you’ve pulled up along with some of the social media threads. “You know the whole affirmative action plan that includes certain species of supes, mostly witches and diffs?”

He nods, listening expectantly.

“Grayson Blacklake is anti-witch, specifically female witches. It’s not obvious until you start to see some of his comments on nonhumans and look into some of the complaints. Most of his employees are strictly human, it’s disproportionate especially when you look at who actually ends up trying to go into private security. It looks like he’s toeing the line to keep from being obvious, but he’s got some comments here about the importance of ‘pure blood’ and how magic goes ‘against God’. Here’s one where he’s liking a tweet with a bible quote about killing witches. That in and of itself, isn’t super out of the ordinary for these sorts of people but I know you and Frank were talking the other day and you mentioned Diaz has kids.” You look up at Billy expectantly.

“Yeah, he does, what does that have to do with Black Lake? Grayson has a couple kids and a grandkid on the way, he has us beat with the family angle,” Billy says. You shake your head with a grin.

“Diaz has an instagram account, probably run by his wife and it’s rarely updated, but it has some family pictures and both his daughters follow it. The older daughter, Grace, has her instagram private, but if you look at her profile picture, it’s of her at college graduation. Her younger sister, Zoe, has a public instagram and if you look, she has some pictures of Grace’s graduation along with some video clips. Grace is a witch, potions based it looks like. In all these photos, it looks like Jeffery Diaz is really supportive of his daughters-” you pause for a second, honing in on the photo of Diaz with his family, using a touch of sight to confirm your theory. “And I’m betting he would much rather hire a company that is ahead of the curve in witch affirmative action and hiring practices than a company whose CEO says they should burn.”

Billy looks a bit stunned for a moment. “Your eyes barely flashed blue the entire time you talked, that was all you just figuring it out?” He looks at you with a touch of admiration.

“My sight pointed me in the right direction and then I used it to confirm everything. I wouldn’t’ve known where to start otherwise,” you say with a shrug. “But I think this should give you the advantage tomorrow.”

“You’re brilliant,” he says, with a grin, and the heat of his gaze is almost too much for you. He looks at you like you’re the first growth of spring after a hard winter, like you’re the first bits of light in the sky before dawn, like you’re beautiful. But there’s something else there, something behind the smile and the charm, something you can’t quite name but have noticed before. Something you’ll regret not paying more attention to once you realize the truth.

“Do you need anything before I head out?” You ask, changing the topic.

“I’m good, sweetheart,” he says and you feel the tips of your ears burn at how the pet name sounds coming from him, borderline sinful. But you shove down those thoughts, he was your boss and it wouldn’t do you any good to let yourself think of him that way.

“Goodnight, Russo,” you say as you leave.

*****

Billy never thought you were unintelligent, never thought less of you for the way you were quiet until comfortable, for how you only really chimed into conversations when it was something related to your interests- usually something witch or magic related, or for how you seemed to still be completely fooled by Billy’s carefully cultivated aura. No, he didn’t think less of you for any of that. But he will admit to being surprised by your willingness to help with problems outside the realm of your job description and he definitely was not expecting you to actually be able to help him with the Diaz contract. The more he learned about you, the more certain he was that you would be useful.

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@evyiione

[leafletonline]

cw family abuse/neglect, ableism So my grandma has Alzheimer's and our family's known that her mental health wasn't doing fantastic for a little while but today I had a long phonecall with my mom and it really hit me how cold, cruel and devoid and empathy this family is. My grandma is 91, she's a sweet little French woman that never did any harm to anyone that I know of, or that I could witness in my own lifetime. She's not too talkative but she always had a smile and a warm hug for me when she came around. She read me stories when we came to see her - I still vividly remember the tone of her voice as she soothed me to sleep. She cooked lovely meals for us and we went for a walk together in the afternoons. The fact that she has Alzheimer's is not a happy notion, but it's something that I'm somewhat at peace with - it's the unfortunate, sad reality of being 91 years old. When you have a relative *this* old, you're grateful they're still around one more day, one more week to answer the phone - you know their health is only going to decline from that point onward. When I was younger, I thought that mental illness was one of the worse things that could happen to you, which is certainly a very stock-standard brand of ableism. I thought that getting Alzheimer's or Parkinson's, or being schizophrenic, were horrible fates, arguably worse than death. (If I had known that I was *just* a pinch of neurodivergence away from being put in the same basket as these people I considered with such contempt...)

But now, I find myself terribly upset, not at the fact that my grandma has Alzheimer's, but at how terribly alone she's being made, not by her disability or advanced age, but by the people around her (or lack thereof). For years, her condition has been getting worse - it's become harder to communicate with her, to exchange and interact with her. She walled herself slowly, but steadily in silence and soliloquy, and for many years my family (my parents, my grandpa, and my various aunts and uncles) chalked it up to her being hard of hearing and "just getting old". She spent the better part of the last 20 years living on her own with my grandpa, occasionally receiving a visit from family, but not being particularly active physically or intellectually aside from that. And now that her disability has progressed to the point where she can't function anymore, now that she's lost in a permanent out-of-context monologue and she's confusing the Scrabble board for a crossword grid and trying to melt whole sticks of butter in the microwave (both of these things actually happened and I don't think there's anything funny about either), the only response that seems to exist for my family is to institutionalize her. For the last 2 decades, the Responsible Adults in this family made little to no effort to actually make sure that her mental health was good, that she was cognitively engaged and kept active (things that are terribly important to maintain as people grow older, especially when they're at risk of Alzheimer's and similar disabilities) - but after leaving her to her own devices for so long with so little help and support, and so little efforts being made, suddenly, she's a burden that Just Can't Be Handled anymore and she needs to be sent to rot away. Every single component of this family leaves relatively far away from one another - we're spread across like, 4 or 5 different regions of France. In hindsight, I find it astounding that, even though there was no Bad Blood in our family between my grandparents and their children (they all get along and love each other! You'd think it'd be something rare enough to cherish!!), no efforts were made by my parents, aunts & uncles to make sure *someone* would be around my grandparents as they settle into old age, making sure to check on them a couple times or at least once a week, especially considering that some of my aunts & uncles bought some random property in the middle of nowhere when they retired. My family had every opportunity to get closer and extend solidarity, and create an environment where things like getting Alzheimer's or just experiencing the melancholy of feeling old and lonely and isolated (which is something my grandpa told me about many times during phonecalls) could be helped with by being surrounded with at least one or two attentionate family members.

Now that grandma is very, very visibly disabled, the prospect of welcoming her into my parents' or my aunts' homes seems like it'll never seriously be put on the table. My grandma's getting easily confused and startled and she seems to often think that other people are plotting against her, which my mom chalks up to mental illness, and which I'd personally be prone to at least partially blame on how conflictual everyone around here is being constantly. My mom told me that grandma threw stuff at her when they played Scrabble. I asked her why, and she told me that it was because Grandma kept "playing the game wrong" and she, mom, kept trying to correct her and eventually took her pen away from her. Can you imagine how humiliating and mortifying it must feel to have your things snatched away from you by your own daughter as she's scolding you on how to "do things correctly" but in your mind, you were playing a completely different game and you just have no idea what she's talking about? There doesn't seem to be any kindness, any patience around her. Grandpa constanlty bickers and argues with her and it seems like she's constantly corrected and snapped at like a disobedient, turbulent child. She doesn't want to go to medical appointments or to leave her home, so the solution for my family is just to institutionalize her. They fail to see how, in achieving the exact two things she *doesn't* want done to her and that she has vocally and explicitly demanded not to be done to her, they might just condemn her to a miserable, terrifying and infinitely lonely end. She said that she didn't want to leave, so they're not going to welcome her into their own homes, because "that's not what she wants" - but they think it's perfectly fine to institutionalize her by force. If you're going to pluck her away from her own home without her consent (which, in all fairness, *might* be necessary because Grandpa is 100% unfit to help if she accidentally harms herself or gets herself into danger, which is unfortunately possible, and my family doesn't seem to realize or want to consider that there are at-home helping medical assistance support systems that exist in France for these specific situations), wouldn't it be infinitely better if she was surrounded in familiar faces, instead of total strangers and medical personnel that'll rule her daily activities and decide what she gets to do for her? "But she might hurt herself, she could set fire to the house". She's a small, elderly woman. Put the cutlery and potentially dangerous stuff on the top shelves and lock them with a key. I could do that easily and your house is literally 7x the size of my apartment. "She could get herself lost." Just lock the door and go out with her when she wants to go for a walk. You're retired and you literally spend your entire day at home playing with your grandson. You have nothing else to do with your time. She's 91. For you, it's only a few weeks or months of inconvenience. For her, it's all she has left. All she has left in the confused, foggy, crumbling tower of her mind is the difference between being surrounded in loved ones, hearing voices, seeing faces that she knows to be warm and kind to her heart, or being locked in a shithole with complete strangers where she'll get Covid and probably die in a matter of months, stranded on a cold, dark rain-battered island. How little fucking room do you have to have in your heart to even consider the second option when you have all the commodities around you for the first one to be, *at worse*, at temporary annoyance - if really you can't stand having a confused old woman around and stopped harboring any love in your heart for her once she became classified as a Crazy Woman?

I'm just so upset. It's unfair. She hasn't done anything to deserve this. She doesn't have the black plague, she's not going to bite your ear off. You couldn't be bothered to check on her more than a couple times per year and now that she can't keep care of herself anymore, you won't even afford her the decency of a peaceful end. I feel extremely powerless - I've been calling them very regularly, but I don't have the money to change anything to this situation, and we physically can't welcome her in our cramped 3rd-floor apartment. Besides calling her every single fucking day so she at least has someone to talk to that won't yell at her the second she goes off-script, someone that addresses her with kindness. If you have relatives in your life that you love and that were good to you, make sure you're around for them as they get older if you can. Don't leave them alone to dry.

[finefiddleheaded]

I need to talk about something that's been itching at me for a while, that's starting to slowly strangle my enjoyment of being part of the DC fandom community.

Lately a trend in DC fandom developed where comics fans want to quantify what level of fan you ought to be to engage in fandom spaces. I understand the sentiment behind the complaints, but it's changing the atmosphere and making the community feel uncomfortable to be in. It's making me (a person relatively new to comics, who was initially drawn in by the sheer enthusiasm of comic fandom) participate less, and feel negatively when i do. I don't even fall into the category these posts are complaining about -- someone interacting with fandom without "engaging the source material."

But I still find myself going "have I read enough to make x?" and yall, it sucks. My first feeling when drawing for this fandom was joy and enthusiasm, now there's a shade of dread that's built up when I see comics posts come across my dash.

Like, yeah, many people approach it differently than how they do in other fandoms. But yall it's sort of a wild storytelling medium both structurally and culturally.

I mean, here is this storytelling format that shifts and ripples, layered by the touch of thousands and thousands of writers and artists across a significant span of time. Not only that, but editorial input, commercial viability, and socio-historical context have such a huge shaping influence on what is prioritized or dropped or changed completely. Reboots and soft and hard reimaginings blur character conceptualization even more.

And then you have to remember there's yet another dimension to this: consider the depth to which many of these characters are embedded into the pop conscious (speaking of USAmerican culture because that's where I'm from.) It would be wild to find someone on the street in the United States who doesn't know who Batman is. He's been interpreted so many ways across so many media by so many people over so many years, that Batman has in some way become a mythic figure akin to Robin Hood.

So that's the mindset I came in with. When I dipped my toe in, I hadn't really read any comics, though I had consumed media with many of these characters elsewhere. (I had often found that comics themselves weren't super accessible to me, as I have a hard time with processing the amount of text and image that is on each page, especially with older comics. The recent panning feature on comic reading apps has helped a lot though.) But, *dangit!* Fans were having so much fun, I couldn't help but come over and check out what they were doing.

And it was so cool! I found that everyone had a different interpretation! Everyone was right! And by virtue of the very landscape of it, everyone was wrong, too! My god DC doesn't even care about timelines. They're wrong all the time, sometimes wildly so. Much work and research as a reader is required to make things make sense in simple point A to point B fashion when you're reading a character beyond a single run.

I wanted to "do the work" of untangling character canon literally because of the love other people poured into things they made about these characters.

I read so many Tim Drake fanfics before I ever picked up a comic with him in it. It was so fun! Every single author had a different take on him! I read the things that sounded fun to me, ignored the things that didn't. I learned how to allow my understanding of who Tim Drake is to become malleable and flexible, and honestly? That's been so fun? Malleable and flexible is exactly how even the comics writers themselves treat the characters they're working with. There is no immutable canon with DC comics characters, that's part of what's so fun and different and interesting about this fandom in comparison to other fandom spaces I've been in.

So I've been very happy over the last couple years, being here.

But. There's a point where the occasional "when people do x it bothers me personally" in a fandom community starts to snowball into "people who do x are wrong or don't belong here." I've been around long enough to see it happen over and over again, it sucks. It can even become legitimately dangerous if the snowball gains enough momentum.

Anyway, I'm not leaving the DC fandom at the moment. It still brings me so much joy! But I'm taking a deliberate and mentally protective step back from portions of the community where I keep coming across an increasing amount of hostility and gatekeeping.

[crazy-pages]

I'm going to be honest, none of this tracks with any of my experience. I was a kid in high school who knew nothing about the new D&D 4e other than that it was the new D&D and the first new edition released since I'd gotten into D&D in elementary school. I was so hyped.

And then me and some friends started to play it and it was just boring. It wasn't any fun. We found encounters going the same way every single time, all the monsters felt the same, and we quickly realized that even though I was playing a storm sorcerer and a friend was playing some flavor of ranger, our classes played literally identically. Like for at least the first five levels, our classes played almost exactly the same, straight reskins of one another's abilities.

It took us a long while to figure out what was wrong because, you know, we were really excited and we had no experience with critical analysis of ttrpgs. But eventually we did figure it out, or at least figured out what made it less fun for us. Which was that in an effort to resolve issues of quadratic wizard linear fighter, and of class balance and all the other emergent complexities which make this kind of game design difficult? They hadn't actually balanced a complex game.

They just gutted its complexity. They had some strict formulas for class abilities, and they just reskinned them for the different classes. And so there wasn't any functional difference between storm sorcerer and crowd control ranger, because they were both just the AOE ranged class, which was barely different from the single target ranged class, which wasn't even meaningfully specialized because the game would be more difficult that way so they just gave everybody easy to use and effective melee and range abilities.

And I'm sure somebody higher up on the project gave the direction that limited resource usage is unfun and makes people frustrated, so they changed how ability usage works so that you could basically go nuclear in every single fight you were in with the exception of maybe one special ability you'd hold back for every other fight instead of every fight. Which is not actually fun! It means that you end up approaching every single fight in the same way, with the same barely differentiated abilities across every character in the party. And the monsters got the same treatment.

Was it easier to play? Sure, absolutely. But there's a difference between taking a complex and interesting set of mechanics which limit your gameplay in interesting ways that demand creativity and present complex challenges, and making *that* easy to get into, and making something that's easy to get into because it's not complicated.

In which I ironically think 4th edition came out even worse than 3.5. Because relative to the complexity of gameplay, relative to the actual experience you are getting, 4th edition is wildly more complicated than it needed to be. On an actual mechanical level, for the gameplay it was delivering, it could have done with a fraction of the actual gameplay and character design elements it put on the table. I've played ttrpg simple enough to pick up in an evening which deliver about the same complexity of actual play.

And after a first campaign with it, without ever interacting with the online discourse or even having any idea that there was an online discourse, my playgroup abandoned 4th edition. We moved on to Pathfinder shortly after, and when 5th edition came out we thoroughly enjoyed it too as a simpler alternative to Pathfinder ... which nevertheless has actually interesting complexity to it.

If you tell me that Hasbro looked at the data and found people play D&D like a fun skirmish game most of the time, and they decided to pare down complexity to get that and that this was in principle a good call, I'll believe you. I might point out that there are a lot of open world video games out there which have an enormous amount more depth than most players ever plumb and that this is considered a good game design, because the sense of depth can often be just as important as experiencing it, and it lets people pick and choose what they engage in on a deep level. But the problem is that even if we assume that it was actually a good decision to simplify D&D down to a skirmish game, they just did it badly.

People rallied against 4e for being well designed? I always heard it was because it was too much like WoW.

D&D 4e being too much like WoW is one of those things that's true in places (it actually had design informed by WoW among other things but a lot of said design was actually remodeled to actually work in the context of tabletop game instead of trying to lazily transplant mechanics from a video game directly into a tabletop game), but ultimately is just a lazy shorthand for "it's like bideo gane therefore bad." On a deeper level D&D 4e wasn't rejected "just" because it was too much like videos game but because its designers actually took a look at all the things taken as default in D&D and actually considered how conducive they were to the experience people were seemingly looking for from D&D (D&D 4e being built to be a fun skirmish game didn't come out of nowhere: it was a response to people basically playing D&D 3e like that and finding the game too unbalanced to serve that experience).

Funnily enough, in being willing to reconsider what people actually wanted out of D&D, 4e is actually the edition of Hasbro D&D most aligned with what people seem to actually want out of D&D these days. A lot of the common design issues people bring up with 5e are issues that D&D 4e already rectified once and 5e actually walked back on because they wanted to get back the purists who had rejected 4e for not being D&D-shaped enough.

[virmillion]

tragically i have been consumed with more Story thoughts, everyone say hi to juniper

every day by david levithan but different

not every day, could spend a week in this body, or a year, or years, she never knows when she'll jump to another

not jumping exclusively over space, but also across time

one day she's a black 17yo girl in 2017, the next she wakes up a white 17yo guy in 1438

she doesn't know why, and she spends her story trying to figure it out

she assumes she'll eventually live the equivalent of a full single life (70-80 years), just dispersed

she can probably affect small things, but not necessarily major ones (eg jfk)

she likes to keep trinkets of her 'more meaningful' lives in certain spots, eg behind a specific tree in this specific park for times when she's in a body near that area

it varies what trinkets she keeps, she prefers clocks and stuff (bc of course she does, it's the only thing she Knows about herself) but often she'll try to take something of relative significance to the person but that won't be missed

think someone who collects a bunch of teas, maybe she takes a rarely-used strainer (that clearly has no personal importance wrt family heirlooms and such)

"i think my fifth life is where i really started living" bc that was the first body she was in for long enough to think of it as home, and also form concrete memories in

she had a best friend in that one (who she made on her own, not a built-in bestie that was already around when she landed) who she Told about all this body- and time-jumping

they were definitely younger than 13 so the friend either believed her or went along with The Bit, but didn't rat her out on it

she probably came up with a code word like "if i ever see you again, this specific phrase means Hey It's Me even if i'm not in this body", a secret handshake was probably also involved

critically. we never learn this friend's name. this will come back later

but they always used to meet up under a copse of juniper trees, so that's where juniper took her name from (bc she thought it would be weird to directly steal her bestie's name, and weirder to steal the name of the body she was borrowing, but she needed SOME way to refer to herself)

in the Juniper Life, as she calls it, she was amab, so she figured she was a boy, since that was the life that Felt Right, so she used he/him for a hot minute. realized over a few more jumps that the afab bodies Felt Better, and people using she/her Felt Better (even if they didn't know the implications of using pronouns on someone they think they know), so she eventually switched to internal she/her full-time

not to be religious but she thinks of every day as a gift, because she genuinely doesn't know if she'll wake up in the same body the next day, to say nothing of waking up in the same time period

always has to figure out allergies, medications, chronic illnesses, dangerous relationships, every single time she wakes up as someone else

which brings me to the layout of every chapter:

```

who: john smith, 23, white, barista taking a gap year from liberal arts college

what:

where: minnesota

when: 2019

why:

notes: just had a messy breakup, most of his friends are on the ex's side, allergic to latex, takes anti-anxiety meds

previous: maya clearly, 23, indian, deep into some sort of doctoral study program, lasted 2 weeks

follow-up: no noticeable impact on maya's life, didn't interact with many people, no life-altering experiences, but it WAS the first time we landed in someone without the cilantro soap gene, so that was fun

[line break]

directly into the pov of whoever is relevant to john smith in this time period

```

so each chapter opens with juniper taking notes to herself about where and when she's landed, how this might connect to what she's seen so far, persons of interest, that sort of thing

then the actual prose is some other person who WOULD be a side character, if this were any other story

something about "oh everyone is the main character of their own story, everyone has their own situations going on and *we're* all side characters in *their* story"

so juniper, who is dealing with This Crazy Shit, is a side character. all we hear from her is the opening chapter notes, and then any interactions she has with that chapter's POV

each chapter POV is someone who is relevant to The Person Juniper Is at that moment, be it a best friend or teacher or child or enemy or whatever. somehow, in the midst of everything else going on with them, they cross paths with juniper, and (knowingly or not) they influence Her Situation

think a combination of patrick ness' "the rest of us just live here" and the song "for good" from wicked

as yet unsure what happens to the person she lands in, whether they're watching her do everything and yelling at the parasite in their head

that feels too horror-esque, so i don't want to do that

probably more like they're nudged into a co-captain position, where juniper feels (/hears their voice in Their head that she's borrowing) what the owner of the body would do, and tries to act according to that as best she can

once she leaves, i think the person takes their body back over and treats the experience as a weird brain fog, as if they'd just had a really bad flu without any physical symptoms, and maybe they go to therapy about it

since they're at least able to influence her actions (while thinking it's their own actions), they probably aren't *incredibly* put off by the experience? like yeah it's Weird, but also she can't exactly walk up to someone and ask about a specific three-month stint of mental fuzziness from four years ago that they didn't tell anyone about

most likely, one of the chapters will be from the POV of someone juniper *has previously borrowed*, so we can get some discussion of how it feels for them

not only that, but i think that on some level they recognize juniper as being related to Their Incident, even though she's literally a different human now than the one they were dealing with

unsure if they piece it together or not, whether she tells them what the deal was, but they genuinely want to help her once they get the ball rolling

they probably somehow do Become Aware that it's a david levithan situation, and they can tell juniper is Genuinely Remorseful and wants to stop it, but she doesn't know how, and it isn't her fault, so they're down to assist and forgive

also juniper's jumps land her in people who are Around The Same Age, so she won't go from a 12-year-old to an 80-year-old, but she *could* go from a 20-year-old to an 18-year-old

so to that end, whoever it is that she Borrowed that we now get to see the POV of, has to be relatively close in age to Current Juniper, regardless of how old they were for The Incident, since she ages at a Relatively Normal Human Rate

i think nowadays she just waits until she gets bumped, which either happens randomly, OR when the body dies

...which. well, damn. cool, you get to hop to a new one and start over, but the person who used to live in that body is just *gone*, and they weren't even in control when it happened

so i think that's definitely crossed her mind before, of "ugh man i'm sick of This Current Body And Time, and there's no telling when i'll get to leave, short of One Specific Method" which is obviously super fucked up and she never did that

but

she's thought about it

more than once

hey look it's later!! i'd love if the very last chapter was from juniper's first bestie's pov, and they meet juniper again in a new body (but they're both adults now), and she does the code word and the handshake, and the bestie (and the reader) realize OH SHIT IT'S FULL CIRCLE

*very* cute if you end with the implication that juniper is hanging out in this body long term now and being with the bestie

...*less* cute when you think about whoever Used to be in that body tho :/

lab stop writing about girlbestfriends lost to time challenge

[cinnamonest]

Yandere Profile - Link (Legend of Zelda)

ABSOLUTELY YES. MY BOY. LOVE OF MY LIFE.

As some of you may know, today is the release date of Skyward Sword HD for Switch!! So I decided to release this one now in honor of that :3

NOTES:

I went towards the idea of a Princess!reader because that just opens the gate for sooooo much potential. I'm leaning heavily towards the ZeLink interactions in BoTW and Skyward Sword just because those games have the most interaction between the two.

Also! This is great bc it gives me the opportunity to explore an idea I've actually had a long time! I've always thought about how many opportunities there have been across the games for Link and Zelda to be kinda like "haha well seeya later" and just... bolt, run away from everything, abandon their roles and responsibilities and all that. Like, if OoT kid Link got her before Ganon did and ran, if SS Link just decided to get her on the bird and bolt before everything went down, if botw Link was just like haha what if we ran away from everything together... jk... unless...?

And final note, Link is a great pick for the very traditional yandere -- sweet and : ) but can snap into darker personas. I really liked writing this bc I tend to have more self centered yans and less of the "worships the ground you walk on" type of yans like I think Link would be, so it's a nice change.

As usual now the nsfw section is divided by a ---- line.

TWs: fem reader, heavily implied Zelda!reader, stalking, murder, very brief mentions of gore/dismemberment of rivals, manipulation, very brief suicide mention, themes of reincarnation (I’ve been told this can be triggering to some people so just in case)

TWs (nsfw section): noncon, somnophilia

--------------------------------

Severity Scale

Intelligence/Perceptiveness: 4 Brutality: 8.5 Physical capability: 8 Mental/emotional instability: 7 Restrictiveness: 6 Sexual sadism: 5 Stubbornness: 8

What are they generally like? Lucid, aware? Obsessive? How do they behave?

The primary trait of Link that any darling -- any person, really -- would notice is that he is, well, quiet. He has always been a man of few words, and really, he often doesn't know exactly what to say. On his own, at a first glance, he really does seem like a gentle, humble spirit, someone who blends into the background pretty well, who isn't particularly prideful or reckless or aggressive.

Which is why, to be honest, he might sort of evade the gaze of most people -- he doesn't stand out. You remember him as the boy that smiled at you now and then, it's a soft, gentle sort of smile, one that you feel conveys nothing but the utmost innocence and contentment with the world. You know he's pretty good at fighting, but doesn't get into fights needlessly, he's accomplished and respected, but has never been the guy everyone is talking about -- he's in the background, against the wall. Never speaking, always looking out, sometimes at the sky, sometimes carefully watching people. Sometimes you see him, gaze blank and tranquil, and wonder what he's thinking about. Whether he's the village boy in the time of Twilight, the trained and honored warrior that slept for many years, the boy that came down from the sky -- you can't help but feel at ease around him, safe, you can't help but find him endearing and pleasant.

Yet, you always seem to notice him. Other people... forget he exists, sometimes, he's so quiet. You never do, for whatever reason.

When he needs to get something across, he prefers to express himself through actions, not words. If you lived in Skyloft, or Ordon village, you might find problems mysteriously solved, work suddenly done that you don't remember doing. That fencepost outside your home that broke has been replaced overnight. A village child went missing and he comes back a few hours later with them in tow. Always humble, never demanding or expecting thanks, he tells you in his quiet voice that he's happy to help you.

And should you ever ask him for anything, he'll drop whatever he's doing to help. Anything for you, he says with a smile, which makes you feel a bit guilty when, honestly, you're not even sure you're remembering his name right.

And yet, sometimes, you feel so at ease around him it seems unnatural. He seems so easy to trust. You feel like you've known him forever. And sometimes you feel... for just a split second, less at ease. You find yourself randomly stiffening at his calm, sweet voice. You find yourself looking around when you're alone, as if you feel someone is there, and for some reason, his face flashes through your mind. Sometimes when he looks at you, you feel sort of cold. It's almost like invoking a memory you don't have, like some kind of learned instinct you can't recall a reason for. But those moments are fleeting, they come and go before you can even process them, replaced by warmth and comfort.

If you do spend time with him, if you find yourself gazing out your window when he's training, the next thing you notice besides him being quiet and sweet is that he's strong. It's almost ironic, how all the other knights or village boys are so aggressive and rowdy all the time, many of them taller or bulkier, and yet, none of them could ever dream of defeating Link. Not one can match his agility, speed, prowess. Such a pleasant, calm person, with so much skill, strength, and power, but that power is so rarely seen exerted. People marvel at his talent, they say it's as if he has the experience of lifetimes and lifetimes of battle in his blood.

And it's why you feel at ease when he's assigned the task of guarding you. His capabilities are unmatched, and yet you'd never fear any harm to you from him. Both of those traits put together make him the best candidate to protect you.

Of course, you do find yourself doing most of the talking. Sometimes you find yourself rambling to fill the silence, and you fear you're annoying him, but when you stop he raises an eyebrow and asks why you got so quiet. Did he do something wrong? He seems to worry about that a lot -- has he done something bad? Has he made you upset? Are you mad? At first you think he's worried about his position security, but after a while you realize he genuinely worries about it.

And when you do continue your ramblings, you're surprised to find he remembers your words -- every little thing you say. Things you don't even remember telling him. He asks you about that relative you mentioned one time, his eyes light up and he walks a bit to the side because look, it's your favorite flower over there, he'll get it for you. It's impressive, really, how he manages to remember such things. He must take his job very seriously.

He does enjoy giving you such things -- he loves giving you gifts. It's usually things he finds, wholesome little things -- makes a crown out of the flowers you like so much, finds something interesting here or there, while he was off-duty he saw something in the markets he thought you'd like and got it for you. You almost feel guilty, it's so constant that he's giving you things.

Sometimes you ask him about himself, you realize he knows so much about you and you so little about him. He blushes, he rubs the back of his head, he insists there's nothing interesting about him, he wouldn't waste your time like that. It takes time to get him out of his shell, but eventually, he tells you this or that, little stories from his life.

Sometimes you take long walks, you like to get out of the stuffy walls and have fun outside, he accompanies you across Hyrule. Sometimes it feels familiar, you pass places you've never been that give you a feeling of nostalgia, deja vu, a sense that you've been here before.

He’s protectiveness incarnated. Insanely so. He can spring to his feet at a moment's notice and deals with anything that comes for you before they can even get close.

It makes you feel safe, but there's something else there. It's a ferocity that is so contrasting to his normal self, different even from the times you've seen him fight as he trains. It's a glint in the eyes, an aggression in his expression, that almost makes him seem like a different person. And it lingers for a moment, once the creature is dead and his sword hand falls to his side, he turns and glances at you to his side, a hand raised to wipe the blood off his face, and for that lingering second, it's still there, his blank expression and wide eyes -- a ferocity so intense it starts to look like bloodlust, chaos, destruction. And then, it's as if you imagined it. Smiling and telling you it's gone now, you're ok. You're glad he's so truly devoted.

In fact, he's so dedicated to his job that he starts... doing it... outside of his job hours...? Well, today he was given the day off, and you were told to stay inside because you didn't have to go out. He comes knocking on your door, says not to be startled if you hear someone outside your door move or shift or anything, but he just wanted to let you know in case. He'll be right here. Keeping watch. So don't worry. You're safe.

And likewise, he was supposed to have a day off when you were supposed to enter the town. You were assigned two other guards to watch you, since it's a special trip, so you're surprised to find just Link waiting for you. He took care of it, he says, he didn't feel right leaving your safety up to someone else, he doesn't trust them. So they agreed to let him take over for today.

All of this said, he doesn't have to grow alongside you, he doesn't have to be the childhood friend, the knight who guards you. He doesn't even have to have met you. Fate works in odd ways like that. There's a sort of inexplicable instant attachment he takes to you, almost as though it's some kind of destined, divinely inspired sort of thing. He would describe it as saying you feel familiar to him.

He's also, notably, prone to a more traditional trope of what you might call humility whiplash. For the most part, he's got that overly humble, worshipping, "I don't deserve to even stand in your presence" sort of mentality. However, although it's rare and requires a lot of wearing down his mental state, if pushed far enough, he can have brief moments where he snaps into more or less the complete opposite -- entitlement, arrogance, aggression, getting mad at you for the behavior he'd normally take with a smile on his face. Thankfully, unlike some yanderes that have a whole snapping episode towards their darling, his are very very brief, usually only a matter of seconds or a single snarled sentence before he snaps back to normal, wide-eyed and apologetic and telling you I don't know what came over me. It’s... a little frightening to say the least, but you blow it off, tell yourself that hey, everyone has moments like that... Right?

How likely are they to kidnap their darling? How quickly will they do so?

For the most part, he doesn't need it, he can pretty easily cling to your side well enough to be assured of your safety, and he manages to scare off the undesirables not with a glare, but a smile that's just a little too sweet and far too persistent -- it unnerves people. You hear a lot of people say that something about that guy rubs me the wrong way. Or that he gives me goosebumps for some reason. Even the people he scares away themselves can't pinpoint exactly what it is, all they know is that, despite being reputed as kind and quiet (and maybe a little dense), somehow a lot of people agree that something about him puts people at unease, and that's all he needs. Because they stay away from him, and if he’s by your side all the time, that means they stay away from you too. Why keep you trapped when you can just be isolated?

An aware Link is a a unique scenario. One scenario that's rather... interesting to imagine is a Link that defies fate itself, a Link that decides to be selfish in one of those rare snapping moments of his. Perhaps he makes a decision when everything starts going down, when the chaos is beginning, or perhaps he has somehow managed to gain knowledge of the bigger picture at work, the reality of the nature of your existence and his.

Perhaps he begins to think it's unfair. To suffer again and again. To prove himself again and again, and not always even to reap any benefits, to work so hard and yet still -- still -- you slip out of his grasp. He longs for a life with no tribulations, no struggle, no fights to be fought. He begins to feel like it's what he wants the most. He begins to feel like maybe it's what he deserves. So many lifetimes of struggles, if the higher powers won't give him a reward, he'll take it himself.

And perhaps, for all their higher power, not even the great goddesses themselves would have ever predicted it -- humans are ultimately creatures of will. To defy fate and to run away from destiny -- it wouldn't be the first time a human has tried such a thing. Sure, Hyrule may be destroyed. The people may all die. There may be nothing left. But you know what? He's stopped caring. If you're alive and he's alive, tucked away in your little corner of the world where you've found respite, well, that's all he needs. Even if you're on the run from forces that would want to find you, even if the threat of the final third of the triforce owner looms over your head. He'll ignore it, he'll look away.

You'll live a quiet little life together, a happy life without suffering, without quests and enemies, without strife, without worry. That's what he tells you when he steals you away, lifts you out of your bed one night. Says to be quiet, there's danger outside your door, he's rescuing you. You have no reason to not believe him. He waits until things go down, a castle under siege, but rather than taking you to where you're supposed to go, he climbs onto the horse and starts... riding away. It gets further and further into the distance, and you might ask why, what's going on? You have a job to do, he has a battle to be fought. But he says you're going far, far away, someplace you'll be safe.

But what about the divine beasts, the seals, the Twilight, whatever threat runs in this world in this time, what about the threat of Ganon, you ask? He says it doesn't matter anymore. You were doomed to fail, he thinks, it's either stay here and die, or run away. All that matters is you. And he'd like you to feel the same way for him. You will with enough time, don't worry.

He just wants this happy, quiet life with you that he’s been denied time and time again. It’s all he wants. If fate won’t give it to him, he’ll make it happen himself, and carve out the life he is determined to have, defying even the will of higher power.

How difficult is it to escape from them? How do they keep you restrained? How do they deal with attempted escape? 

He gets it. Really, he does. "Stop following me!" You yell. Well, he understands why you might feel that way, but this is kinda his job. He thinks you're naive. Not that he would ever, ever have a thought that you're imperfect, of course! It's because you're so perfect and pure that you're... less aware of the dangers all around.

He'll let you think you're free, perhaps. He's more than capable of being quiet, quiet is kind of his thing. Watching you from a short distance is easy. Of course, his horse might make a noise, he can't really help that, or he might misstep on a branch or something. And then you turn around and get all mad again. Now you're even more angry. Well, he can also tell your guardians/father, who will encourage you to accept it. You can't help but feel a little bad -- he's just doing his job.

Now, our aware, runaway Link, well, does he really need to keep you restrained? What would you go back to? Certain death, a land destroyed? Sometimes you mention home, and he's quick to remind you that home doesn't exist anymore. His home is where you are. Can't you feel the same way? You found peace here in this little place -- a village far far away. Travelers, you call yourselves. What's the point in going elsewhere? How would you ever survive without him? He's not very good at being subtle or skillful about the psychological manipulation, it's obvious he's trying to scare you into not leaving, but... it still works, because really, he has a point.

He doesn't want to have to use physical restraint, in any case. And for the most part, it's not needed, because one important aspect of your relation is that his job kinda revolves around you (in some incarnations), or, perhaps you live in the same little village, but either way the thing is that his presence does the job well enough -- he's always there, perhaps more so than almost any other yandere. Even when you think you've managed to get away from him for a moment, somehow his face pops up out of nowhere. How he manages to pull it off is a mystery, you swear he manages to find you so well and predict your movements it's inhuman.

But if you really, really pose a problem, a smarter and sneakier darling that somehow manages to keep slipping out of his grasp and running off (you never get away for more than about 20 minutes or so, but nonetheless), you keep trying to run off when he's sleeping (he wakes up in approximately 25 seconds if your presence is absent from the bed, but that's still enough time to run out the front door), every time he turns his head (which isn't often) you're trying to disappear... well, in that case, he can reach a point of deciding more straightforward measures are necessary. He hates to do it, really, at least when he's not yet at a snapping point. But it's for your own good. And he says so, quite apologetically.

But it's not so bad, it's not like you're being chained to a wall or anything. For one, he got leather ties so you'd be more comfortable, but more importantly, as your guardian, he figured the best thing for you to be tied to would be... himself. Think of it like friendship bracelets! It's just... got a 5-foot chain connecting them. This way you can't sneak off at night, and you won't get too far when he's distracted. It's a safety measure.

How easy are they to trick, deceive, or manipulate?

He's a learner. At first, it's easy. Honestly, he is a rather naive, gullible boy, sometimes he reminds you of a happy dog with his bright eyes. He likes to believe the best of people, give them the benefit of the doubt in all circumstances, and that goes double for you, who he believes can do no wrong.

And even when you do lie to him, it's still not wrong. You didn't do anything bad. Clearly there has simply been a misunderstanding, and you thought you had to lie. Or perhaps you simply forgot a detail or were confusing something with something else. It wasn't malicious on your end, he knows that.

He's actually significantly smarter than he lets on in practical knowledge, though. Those dungeon puzzles pay off, you know? He's got pattern recognition down. So over time he learns how to distinguish when you're lying to him or attempting to deceive him, and sees through it increasingly well.

And yet, he doesn't really... get mad over it, most of the time. Again, he's just capable of deluding himself into believing there's a reason. He believes so strongly in your goodness that he finds a way to interpret everything you do as out of benevolence. So you snuck out the window and didn't tell him you were going for a walk because you just wanted to get away from his suffocating presence for once? You were just thinking of him. You didn't want to burden him and wanted to give him a break. Well, that's thoughtful, but don't worry, he doesn't need a break. He thinks it's precious you're so considerate of him though!

You don't tell him you were talking to that person, and you lie and say no when he asks, because you don't want him to worry, and because you underestimate how dangerous others can be. He's told you a million times and you don't listen, but that's ok, it's because you're just so pure you see the best in everyone. Everything you do is good.

Because he perceives your lies, he will still work against and around it. He won't confront you on your lies, he'll just make sure to deal with the situation -- you lied about sneaking out, well, he'll just keep watch and be ready to meet you outside next time. You lied about talking to a person, well, he'll just have to make sure they stay away from you instead.

If you're trying to trick him, he just plays along until necessary. Smiles and nods. He gets the suspicion you're planning a break-out when he told you he was leaving to go get something from town... rather than saying so, he just decides, you know what? Why don't you come with him? Oh, you're feeling sick, you tell him it's ok, go without you? Well, he can't leave you alone then! Because you're clearly not and just trying to get him to leave... or, as he says, he can't just leave you alone. He'll go another day.

He's fairly manipulable when it comes to praise and affection. You can easily Pavlov him into certain behaviors or patterns with just the slightest words of praise and affection. He's not a very outwardly expressive person, tends to stay quiet, but you can tell how he feels inside when you give the slightest praise, a hug, a kiss on the cheek -- you can see that soft hint of a smile and tell that inside, he's basically melting, even if it's not obvious to most people. And, much like the lying, he’s honestly often aware of it, but he just can’t help it.

How lenient are they? What privileges can you have, and what will you be denied?

He tries to get you the things that he feels will make you happy. Your happiness is incredibly important to him, and he usually thinks about how any action he plans to take might affect you, spends a lot of time debating choices of things to do or say and try to determine how each one will affect you and choose accordingly.

As such, he goes out of his way to support the things you want to do. Have a hobby? He'll find the best materials available. Want a book or a food? He'll obtain it through some means. Even if procuring it involves a side-quest-y set of mundane tasks or scouring the world for 70 of this and 50 of that to exchange it for the item from an obscure specialist, it's all worth it.

The only thing he just doesn't give up on is the constant vigilance and insistence on being by your side more or less every waking second. And every sleeping second. And just every single moment you're alive. It's for your safety.

This is actually one of the things he can get a little nasty about when it comes to how he deals with it, because he quickly has the bright idea that if you don't get it, he'll make you understand. Of course, he can't actually risk you getting hurt, so he stages it. Allows you to sneak off, or at least think you have, and walk right into the path of those monsters he lured, or the people he hired to intimidate you. Of course, it's only natural that he shows up at the last possible second, right on time to save you. You should expect that, after all, it's his responsibility to protect you, of course fate works out perfectly like this. See, he was right, it's so dangerous, and without him you'd be dead. Hopefully you grasp that now.

What kind of rules do they have? What kind of punishment would they use?

His is mostly related to vigilance. Where are you? Who have you been talking to? Who was that person you were talking with just now? What did they say? He's not nosy. He just cares about you. It’s in the job description. You ought to understand just how much certain bad people would love to find you and hurt you. That's why he has to know.

This isn't our modern world, so there's no phones or tracking devices to speak of, just himself, which, well, might as well be a tracking device since he never seems to have difficulty finding you. Sometimes you're not sure how he does it.

He tells you that you don't have to be with him 24/7, but you will be, even if you don't realize it. He's aware enough to know that you'll feel suffocated and get mad if you're aware of his presence all the time, so he gives you your "alone" time, aka, the "follow her quietly from a 20+ foot distance" time. It all feels the same to you. Well, sometimes you feel eyes on you, but you shake the feeling off as paranoia.

So it's not so much that he sets rules and reacts when they're broken, but rather, he works his way around anything you might do so well that he doesn't need you to follow his rules, or really, you take them more as suggestions. But honestly, that's kind of worse. It's enough to drive a darling to the brink of a mental breakdown very quickly. With Link you will inevitably become paranoid, nervous, you feel like you're going insane because he manages to pop up everywhere, he always knows what you did when you did it and you have no idea how it is even conceivably possible for him to know some of the things that he knows. He confronts you very plainly and quietly, often sweetly, asking why you did this or that or telling you it's ok, you don't have to hide anything, surely there’s a good reason, and if not, he forgives you anyway. In a way, it's worse than an angry confrontation. You begin to feel like he's omnipresent, like he can read your mind, and it truly takes a mental toll and affect you worse than any normal yandere's concept of punishment.

This ultimately works out well in his favor. The more you just do what he wants, the less it feels like a violation or intrusion that he knows these things, since he was there with you, it makes sense, and you continuously get bent to his will.

How do they deal with rivals, or perceived rivals? Will they get rid of them? Will they kill them themselves, or find another way?

Ah, and thus we get to that brutality rating.

It would be unthinkable to think that any sort of scum would even dare. Even he isn't worthy of being with you, and someone else thinks they could be? So, he more or less views "rivals" as an offense. When they're threats, well, he's allowed to deal with them. When they're not, well... he has a wonderful reputation. If he says he overheard that person planning usurpation or assassination, that they realized he was listening in and wildly attacked him, everyone will believe him. Even if the death seems a little... non-immediate. And uh... frankly... overkill. How exactly... did those limbs get perfectly severed during equally armed combat? And was it... really necessary... to kinda spill entrails all over like that? He'll apologize, of course, he was just so outraged by the thought of someone hurting you or your family, you know? You notice his eye twitches a bit as he says it.

He has a lot of... bottled up frustrations, which we'll touch on in the nsfw section as well, but it tends to manifest in those two ways: sex and violence. Rather than exerting stress and anger and frustration as it comes, he lets it fester. He tries to maintain being the noble, humble, self-sacrificing person he feels he should be. That is... difficult to do for a long time. People expect a lot from him, even in timelines where he's not necessarily realized as the hero quite yet, he usually has a lot of responsibilities. But then you tack on the whole hero thing? The weight of the world is sometimes, quite literally, on his shoulders. Do you have any idea the kind of stress that comes with that knowledge? It's not pleasant. And it quickly bottles up, a very very fragile bottle set to eventually shatter in a matter of time.

On a longer sort of quest, he just kinda... leaves a trail of destruction in his wake. Enemies don't actually just poof out of existence the way they do on-screen, you know. Anyone coming across an area he's just been through is met with literal piles upon piles of corpses, sometimes monsters, but sometimes people. He takes a very scorched earth sort of policy when it comes to dealing with things.

He's able to easily get close to people, with that sweet face and puppy eyes and lithe body, people don't really feel on guard around him nor intimidated. That makes it significantly easier to infiltrate enemy hideouts, earn favors, and work his way in to be able to commit mass murder more easily. Granted, no one thinks too much of it because they *are* truly enemies, after all, they *did* need to be taken out and well, if the rulers can choose to either send a group of ten soldiers or just one guy and get the job done equally well either way, they'll go with the latter option. No one thinks anything of it, except the occasional person who laughs and says something to the effect of remind me to never get on your bad side, haha! He gives that sheepish, sweet little smile, and jokingly tells them that yeah, better not.

How easy is it to make them mad? What does their anger look like?

For you, nearly impossible. For others, at a hair trigger.

For the most part, he conceals anger well until, as aforementioned, it bottles up and bursts. The truth is he gets irritated virtually all the time by other people. People who talk to you. Look at you. Smile at you. He’s actually rather easily annoyed even when you’re not involved, but again, he’s good at hiding it until it builds.

His rage has a commonality with his calm -- it's quiet. At least, at first. When it's directed at others, his eyes narrow. It's the telltale sign that someone has ignited his rage. It burns on the inside, it starts off as a spark that builds and builds and grows larger and larger until it's a blazing fire that consumes everything in his path. It's a loss of composure, a rare moment of complete loss of self-control. From his own perspective, it feels like he's not in control of his own body, it's all a blur happening in front of him and when it's over he's looking down at his own hands, unable to process his own actions, sometimes unable to remember them.

But it's violent, merciless, unforgiving. It does not yield to begging, it does not leave anything alive unless forced to. You remember the first time you realized how unnatural it was, how shocked you were at how he did something that certainly went against the code he was sworn to follow, the very first time you felt truly afraid of Link. It was a walk in town -- someone called out to you, spitting obscenities about you and your family, your lineage, threw something at you -- he caught it in his hand and crushed it, and quickly, without a word, advanced on the offender. And, to make a long story short, you had to prevent him from beating a man to death in public in broad daylight. He was forgiven by his superiors, but even they seemed shocked. You had to pull him off, and when he jerked his head around to look at whatever was stopping him -- before his face softened as he recognized your own face -- the split second you saw the burn of hatred and fury in eyes that were normally so soft and loving, was nothing short of unsettling, you still recall the chill that ran down your spine.

And honestly? It's terrifying. And the first time, it's shocking. Sure, you knew he could fight. You've seen him fight off monsters, bokoblins and lizalfos and the like. But something is different about seeing the blood of a human being run down his sword, dripping onto the ground, to see the bodies and the blank, numb gaze on his features he always has after it's over. The absolute lack of hesitancy he has to run human enemies through before they even have a chance to explain themselves, how unbothered he seems by the carnage left in his wake. The way he turns back to you, drenched in red and smiles, tells you it's ok, you're safe now. There's no need to look so scared.

And it changes how you view him, in the long run. Less of a guardian angel, more of a guardian dog, one that defends your name when you never asked him to. Pleads to tell him not to fall on deaf ears -- you just don't understand why it has to be this way, he says, you can't comprehend the threat they posed. From the sweet boy that leaves you flowers and repairs and instead leaves a wave of destruction in his path you would not have thought possible.

Directed towards you, though, it's entirely different. He tries his best to have patience with you, no matter what. He smiles, he tries to make excuses as to why you'd say this or do that, why you'd feel a certain way, and he's rather good at deluding himself to give you the benefit of the doubt.

But when it reaches an end, when he can no longer lie to himself, when you push it to a point that you truly make him mad, it's more of a snap. The times he'll lay hands on you in a truly violent way are rare, and as aforementioned, very brief. It's usually not so much of actually a blow, so much as a grab. He just can't get what he's trying to tell you through your thick head, so he stresses it, trying to make you understand as he grabs you by the upper arms, shaking you with each word, and he only stops when he sees the pain and fear in your eyes, drawing his hands back at lightning speed. He saves you from some danger very narrowly, one of the few times he lost track of you for a moment and had to frantically search before coming across you being attacked. What would I have done if something happened to you? Don't you understand that? He's so lost in the relief it takes him a moment to feel you beating on his arms in the embrace, choking and wheezing that you can't breathe, that his grip is so tight it feels like he'll snap you in half. He draws back again, and he apologizes, but it will certainly happen more than once.

So they see you as above them, beneath them, or equal to them?

Above. Like, so, so, so far above. He feels like he doesn't even deserve to look at you. Of course, neither does anyone else, so he's just, you know, stepping up to bear the burden of wrongdoing to keep people even worse than him away from you.

So it's less that you're just above him so much as you're above everyone. He's actually, perhaps surprisingly, a little bit of a pessimist about the world. The world is full of so many terrible people and so many horrible things happen that he's borne witness to. It's a "world cold and hard, (y/n) soft and warm" sort of thing. You're the one good thing, the thing that makes him happy, the ultimate source of comfort he has, and he has to prevent you from being defiled by the evil of the world, keep you innocent and sweet (even if he's just deluding himself to think you are those things in the first place).

This ties into, again, how he interprets every action you take as good and benevolent -- he has the "you can do no wrong" mentality. Even very blatantly malicious things, he'll interpret in a way that makes you somehow still come out a perfect, innocent angel. If you do harm to others, well, they simply deserved it. You did something technically wrong, but you knew no better, or you were desperate. You can't be held responsible for any of it. And if you're mean to him, well, he probably did something to make you upset.

How determined are they for you to love them? How hard will they try to make it happen? Or are they content just having you?

Sort of a duality. Yes, he's very persistent. He thinks about it all the time. Every time you yell and try to run and hurl nasty insults at him, it hurts far more than you realize. He doesn't let it show on his face or in his voice, but it really does, and it gets to him sometimes. He's hyper observant of every little thing you do, your body language, your tone, the way you look at him, and the slightest of differences can change his mood internally, although it tends to look the same outwardly.

He makes little mental notes of it -- today she didn't flinch when I touched her shoulder. Today she didn't frown when she saw me coming. Little things like that will make his entire day. Likewise, the inverse kills him inside. He aims to make every day one of the former days, where the littlest signs of acceptance or even kindness and affection give him a sort of high that makes him feel like he's floating.

He tries his best to do things that he thinks will, well, earn love. Every opportunity to do something for you, he takes it. Everything he sees he'd think you'd like, he buys (or steals, or... loots from a dead body) for you. On and on that idea goes. And although he doesn't say too much, when he does speak to you, he usually has something nice to say. He views it in a formulaic way -- ironically, think about it like those collectibles in overworlds. You get enough of this or that thing, and once you have enough, you can go talk to this or that person and donate them all and get a reward, right? He's accustomed to viewing things that way. Love should be the same way. If he just completes enough tasks and gathers enough items, eventually he'll unlock your love.

That being said, even if it doesn't happen, much to your despair, he just... doesn't. Give. Up. He doesn't quit. No matter how many times you tell him, it doesn't make a difference. You can tell him you'll never love him, and it's like it goes in one ear and out the other. He keeps trying. And he never, ever, ever stops trying. What did you expect? The boy's been fighting the same enemy over and over across lifetimes, needless to say his spirit has build up some persistence.

Bonus: Is there anything that makes them unique, in comparison to other yanderes?

Bonus: Zelda/Triforce of Wisdom Darling

And don't worry. If it all goes wrong, when he fails, those divergences in time where the hero is vanquished and evil wins out -- it's not the end. Somehow, that's the feeling he gets, holding your little lifeless body up, running hands across your cold skin. Somehow, he feels oddly calm. Like it hurts, but it's ok. Like he'll see you again. Maybe not soon, but one day. This time didn't work out. But the next one will.

And that's the feeling you'll always have. Every time you meet him and you feel like you've met before, the lingering memories when you wake from your dreams -- flying through skies and sailing on oceans, a child, an adult, a boy you've never met, or one you've known all your life, but it's always the same face, the same voice, the one right beside you in the waking world. You sometimes wonder if he has the same feelings, the same dreams, the same sense of something greater than yourselves at work, the sense of being just smaller pieces in a much bigger picture.

The sense of permanency, that each other is all there will ever be -- regardless of how it makes you feel, regardless of how that scares you, sometimes you feel like you can never be free. Sometimes, when you think of running away, those dark moments when you think of even escaping from life itself, it feels futile. It's as if you know it would never hold him away forever. As if death is insignificant. Perhaps in this lifetime, you'll become aware of why that is, or perhaps not.

With other obsessive lovers, just the idea of til death do us part is a terrifying thought. But, for Link, not even death can keep him away from you. Your suffering is already determined by the will of higher power, for the sake of a greater good. 

In truth, it’s the goddesses who made him this way intentionally -- it’s designed to ensure your safety, even at the cost of your suffering. Again, for a greater good. Sure, you may live one lifetime to the next desperately locked in the same cycle in which your freedom and will is stripped from you, but in the end, it serves a purpose. 

Nor will he change -- perhaps this one this time is a bit more spirited, more calm, more pessimistic, more optimistic... but in the end, at their core, they're the same soul, with the same will deep, deep down. The same drive to find you and protect you. The same love for you, an all-consuming love that destroys everything in its path to you and leaves ruin in its wake.

And if fate should one day keep you apart, should things change, for whatever reason, it’s unable to change him. There's another force even more powerful than fate determined to keep you together. The only thing more unavoidable, inevitable, and unescapable than fate, is Link himself.

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General perverseness: how sexual of a person are they? What’s their drive like? How touchy do they get? Do they have any reservations about sexuality?

In moments of passion, he changes a bit, unlike other more submissive yans who stay consistent in their reverence and desire to please.

You see, after a while, being as lenient and tolerant and flexible and completely devoted as he is... constantly self-sacrificing in so many ways, to you, to Hyrule, to the world... some frustrations build up. It's a big, big bottle of emotion, all tucked away and festering, getting greater and greater and eventually it has to explode somehow.

His reservations and inhibitions fall away. Perhaps a darker, more selfish side comes out. Perhaps that's why he's so rough. He knows he'll regret it later, the bruises from how hard he grips, the marks from the bites, but the hormones and the heat takes over. He'll feel bad for defiling you. He'll apologize. And he'll do it again. And again. And again.

But once the resolve crumbles, it topples. That is, he can't partially maintain it -- if it's partially gone, it falls apart completely. He lets go, so to speak. And when he lets go, you find that underneath that carefully constructed resolve and willpower that holds him back, he can be a very, very rough and possessive lover. In his normal state, he wouldn't dare think of you as a possession, or as something he's even worthy of. He would like so, so much to think that, to feel like he's allowed to -- but he doesn't. He chastises himself for even having such a desire. But in those moments, when his resolve is gone and his brain isn't thinking quite too clearly, he might even have to audacity to say "mine." Even if it's not true, not now, maybe it will be. He would like that so much. His and his alone.

And in a moment of clarity, he might even throw away the inhibition on purpose. The more selfish side, the same Link that drags you away from your destiny -- he's already forsaken his responsibilities, hasn't he? Why care anymore about the structures that no longer exist, your status and his, if there's no kingdom left? He likes that it happened, even. This way, this time, you can throw off those titles, those roles. Without your status, your title, there's nothing stopping him from making you his. And you will be his, and nothing more. It's all you need to be. So he doesn't have to care anymore about any of that, he doesn't have to stop himself from going wild. Biting into every little spare patch of skin, covering your body with marks that make him feel comforted to see.

As far as drive it's a bit of a two-sided duality. Outwardly he's not a very sexual person at all, blushes and stutters and averts his gaze at the slightest mention of suggestive topics, tries his best to be Respectful(tm) by always looking away when you're in a compromising position, or your skirt flies up, etc etc. Given how constant his vigilance is, he has a tendency to accidentally walk in on your changing or bathing, except unlike with many yanderes, it's genuinely an accident. Not that the image doesn't stick in his mind, nor does he wish he hadn't gotten to see, but he does feel guilty, and it was genuinely unintentional. He kinda freezes up, so it takes a moment for him to actually snap out of it and run out.

That being said, he quickly develops something of a masturbation addiction when he's younger, it starts as more of a stress reliever than anything, He's so sweet and always feels bad about talking about his problems and feelings, so that and, well, violence are the only ways he can get it out. Thus he learns to channel stress and nerves into sexuality, and once he has a real living body and not just his hand, that dependency on cumming to relieve it doesn't change.

How forceful are they? Do they care about your willingness?

Particularly so, yes, cares quite a bit. And it takes a while for him to feel comfortable. Even consensually, the first few times he touches you for several months, he's got trembling hands and stays quieter than ever, constantly freezes up every time you move or make a noise because he thinks he's done something wrong. He has to be coaxed into feeling more comfortable before he gets used to it, but he will build confidence over time.

As addressed before, though, if he's pushed and pushed and pushed long enough, you can get a darker side to come out. This is most likely something that would only occur post-kidnapping in a distant time, once he's far away from any possibility of consequence and destruction has set in to the world around you. He starts to get a little bitter, if you've been mean to him. It all builds up. Don't you get that he's literally saved your life? That he devoted every waking second to you? Isn't he kinda entitled to some thanks? The cycle of time never rewards him. Even the figures he helps over time rarely give him more than a verbal praise and thanks, maybe an item here or there, and then disappear. His role feels thankless. He starts to feel like he deserves something, something tangible, in return.

Surprisingly, though, he actually does not take the route of guilt-tripping or emotional manipulation or gaslighting his way into it like a lot of the sweeter yanderes when he does have that snap. His snaps/breakdowns are rather extreme in terms of how much of a polar opposite they are to his normal state, rather than just a slight bend of his normal personality. Rather than taking the route of most yanderes like himself, he just gets directly physically forceful. Still somewhat sweet, though, reminds you he loves you, he'd die for you, you're his entire world. You'd argue that doesn't really change the actions, but considering how frightening he is in that state, you're not dumb enough to vocalize that.

The guilt consumes him alive afterwards. Like, immediately afterwards. He's still panting and twitching and buried inside when it sets in. That being said, he doesn't get to stuttering and profusely apologizing, like he does over smaller offenses. It's all done and he can't take it back, so he just kinda collapses and says nothing. He's not the best with words, you know. It's an odd mixture of guilt and, honestly, a bit of satisfaction and relief. It feels like letting go of some self-imposed burden, that feeling of finally surrendering to some deep want, even if it comes with a lot of remorse, the relief of finally letting go does have a good feeling as well... and because of that, it’s another one of those barriers that, once broken, can’t be built up again.

What sort of kinks or fetishes do they have, or would they fill?

In all honesty the boy is, for the most part, a fairly gentle and vanilla lover. He doesn't really need anything special to get off -- he's easily excited and cums very very easily too. Just the prospect of getting to stick his dick in you in any capacity is enough to make him nearly burst at the thought honestly.

In general, as aforementioned, he's very very cautious and gentle to a point, but has a tendency to get actually kinda rough once he gets into it. The thing is, the roughness aspect is actually unintentional. He's one of those boys that is a little bit unaware of his own strength, doesn't process exactly how hard and fast he's going. He just gets lost in the feeling, kinda enters a dazed lusty haze where he's less aware of his actions. Doesn't realize he's literally got an iron grip pressing your head down on his dick or into the bed until you start flailing your hands because you can't breathe. Doesn't realize how hard he was gripping until he sees the bruises on your arms and hips later. That sort of deal -- poor thing is just unaware and doesn't have enough blood in his brain to think straight.

Biting

Surprisingly a really big one for him. (Remnants of a past life cycle with some lupine experiences perhaps?) In all seriousness, he could not explain exactly why if asked, it's one of those "I just like it" sort of things. It feels like yet another way to conjoin the two bodies, pulls you close. The marking aspect is also nice. Granted, he feels guilty afterwards, tries to help it heal. He has that same duality where moments ago he was this intimidating beast of a human being, rough and growly and jerking you like you were weightless, and now he's back to this bright eyed softie stuttering while he apologizes.

The guilt is mixed with a bit of enjoyment, though. It's constantly conflicting -- sure, part of him understands it's embarrassing and will help you cover up, but part of him doesn't want to, he wants people to see. Part of him looks at the marks and tells himself internally to never do that again, and part of him sees them and just wants to give you even more. It's a constant internal conflict, poor thing.

As far as a place, he likes the neck and shoulders best, simply because it's the most visible and it's the most passionate ones to create, when your bodies are tightly locked together. That being said, though, he also has a thing for biting at the insides of your thighs. It's another one of those I just like it sort of things.

Sometimes, when you're asleep, or pretending to be, you can feel him trace the bite marks with his fingers, softly running them over the circular pattern, just enough to barely ghost over your flesh.

Somnophilia

It puts him at ease. This one is particularly prevalent towards the beginning of your relationship, before you really know... how he is. He has this image of you as so pure and he couldn't bear the thought of defiling you with his horrible horrible thoughts. The guilt eats away at him for a while, but eventually he just can't hold back, but how could he ever do anything to you and risk consequence? So... the solution he comes up with is waiting until you sleep.

He tests the waters to see how heavy of a sleeper you are. Calls your name at increasing volume, lightly runs his fingers over your hair, pokes your face, whispers in your ear, runs his hands over your arms. Just to see what makes you rustle, if anything, so he knows the limits. If it turns out you're an incredibly light sleeper, well, unfortunately that means he's limited to just jerking off to your sleeping form, but that's ok. Just seeing your soft face and the cute way you breathe, the slightest way your lips open, that's enough for him.

If it turns out you're a heavier sleeper though, well, he tries to fight the temptation, but ends up going further. Slowly climbs onto your bed, careful to make the weight shift as gently as possible. Slowly pulls the covers back. Runs his hands up and down. It's a lot better when he can actually see your body as he jerks off, honestly. If he's feeling particularly risky, he might press your thighs together, feel how soft your skin is to his cock, how nice the squeezing pressure between them is.

He gets easily lost in a haze, though, so he inevitably ends up accidentally cumming on you and has to frantically find a way to lightly dab it up without waking you. He panics quite a bit, but that doesn't stop him from doing it again the very next night.

Overstimulation/Forced Orgasm

It just means he's doing a good job, really. Sure, you squeal and kick your feet back and forth and tug at his hair, but that's just because it feels good. Orgasms equate to love and feel good, right? Sure there's a little bit of pain when you go overboard, but then it just leads to feeling even better, right?

It's kind of an irrational compulsion rather than a logical goal, though. He just has an impulsive need to feel you quiver and spasm and clench, it basically gives him a chemical high hit and a wave of reassurance, makes him feel good in both the physical sense and the emotional sense. The first one sends him into this compulsive need to feel it over and over and over again, as many times as he can. It's another one of his internal conflict things -- sure, he knows it's hurting, but he just has to get one more. Just one more. But of course, every time turns into "just one more" when he's been saying that for half an hour now.

And, to be honest, it kind of gives him a pride boost to think he can make you cum against your will. How many people struggle to achieve that even when both parties are trying? It makes him feel good in an adequacy sort of way, he feels needed.

Size Kink/Distension

You know, there's a well-known thing among the male-lovers in this world when it comes to size. It's never the arrogant, loud guys, it's never the social butterflies, it's never the tall guys, it's never the beefy muscly guys. No, they're not the ones that end up somehow bestowed with absolute monster cocks. It's always the soft, lean boys who don't talk much. And they're always painfully unaware of it, too.

He's no exception. Not to the size or the complete lack of awareness. He hasn't spent a lot of time around guys his age too much, he's always been the one sent for some special task and ends up out in the wilderness by himself on journeys, or, in some lifetimes, accompanying you most of the time. He doesn't know what the average dick looks like, so he has no idea he's far above average.

This might sound like a plus, and of course in some ways it is, but also he doesn't think about the fact that the average body isn't properly equipped to handle it. You're supposed to just kinda put it in, that's how the sex works, right? Poor thing, especially if it's entirely consensual sex, he's just kinda ???? because why are you in pain? What is he doing wrong? You have to eventually explain it's literally just his body, not something he's doing.

That being said, naturally, he's a humble person, but hearing you say that does kinda... make him feel good inside. A little bit proud. He's not a person who takes a lot of pride in many things, so he likes having this one thing, and quickly notices you can visibly see it through the bulge it makes in your stomach. Especially if it's in a position where your back is pressed to his front, every little movement creates the bulge, so expect to get a lot of that.

He doesn't really bring it up much or talk about it when he's actually fucking you, it's more like, as with many things, something he's quietly aware of and silently enjoys a lot internally, even if it's not voiced.

How do they feel about pregnancy or babies? Do they want them?

Yes and no. It has to do with his overactive protection instinct. What if something happened or went wrong? He couldn't take that. He couldn't lose you.

At the same time, he likes kids, and he's very good with them, very patient. And over time, realizes that a kid would be the perfect tool of manipulation, and besides that, isn't it a beautiful thing, an ultimate manifestation of love?

So how to work around that... Ultimately, what he decides to do is have a kid... Just not by blood. There are plenty of orphans in Hyrule, wandering the streets and the wilderness, picking one up is easy. ...You wouldn't leave this poor child to suffer out there, to fend for themselves, would you? Nor would you leave him to take care of it by himself... Right?

What kind of (nsfw) punishments would they use?

Oh, it's not like he thinks of it that way. He would call it... a reminder. You put yourself in danger again? You tried to go back again? You were gone and for ten whole minutes he didn't know where you were? What could the solution to this issue be? The only thing his brain can really come up with is making sure you need him. Making sure you're content and satisfied here with him so you don't go running off.

Thus we return to the forced orgasm thing -- see, you do need him. It feels good, right? You say it hurts, and maybe it does a little, but ultimately you wouldn't be cumming if it wasn't good. No one else can ever do that. No one else knows you like this. No one else was made for you like this. You can't replace him. You need him. And he can keep going as many times as it takes until you see that, too. Even if he gets milked dry, he has a mouth and hands for a reason.

And by "until you see that," I mean until you say it. In his more... emotionally intense moments, he gets a bit insistent. He needs to hear you say it. Admit it to yourself. And to him. That you need him, that you depend on him, that you'll never leave again. And don't think your patience and tolerance can stand a chance of outlasting his -- it will keep going until you say it.

What body parts of their darling do they like the most?

He's one of those wholesome type of boys who goes with something sweet. He says maybe your hair, your face, your skin, your eyes. It's all so comforting. So familiar. Of course, not to say that he doesn't like your less wholesome mentionable parts, but he wants to be chivalric about such a question, and feels answering that way would be too disrespectful.

In his unspoken thoughts, though, he likes the hips. It's a part of you he can grab onto and hold you close with. He puts his hands there a lot and holds tight, like he feels like at any moment you could slip out of his grasp. And, I mean, it's nice to look at, can't forget that.

[howaboutleeches]

Ive never sent an ask before so im not sure if it will work but how about the Arcana main 6 with a seamstress Mc :)

How would the Main Six React to a seamstress MC!

Asra:

🔮 Asra could go hours and hours just watching you sewing, putting pieces together, and working on your machine. He found it mesmerizing how skilled you were, his eyes focused on every hand movement of yours.

🔮 The sound of your machine calmed him down, and he could fall asleep on a couch next to your working space, the one he had prepared specially for you and your craft. Enough lightening to make your job easier, any materials you may need and a comfortable chair to keep you comfortable.

🔮 Once you started working, Faust paid attention to you as well. She would slither up your desk or your back and watch closely, her big eyes shining as she watched you working. "Friend, work hard!"

🔮 Asra didn't want to ask for it, but if you made something for him, he would keep it around him all the time. Wearing, wrapping around his neck, around his waist, he wouldn't let it go.

🔮 Even better if you made something for Faust as well. Maybe something matching for the three of you? It would definitely put a smile on his face and make Faust's tail wiggle in excitement.

Nadia:

👑 No matter how she came to know about your skill, either you telling her or she figuring it out on her own, she became very excited about it. "I've always admired seamstresses! I tried sewing once but I just didn't have enough skill to seek it further", she would say as she grabbed your hands, caressing them as if trying to feel the power coming from them.

👑 Not even a week later, she grabbed you by the arm and led you across the halls of the palace, until she stopped in front of a room, a bright smile on her face. She opened the door to reveal a room filled with fabrics, sewing machines, mannequins, and many other items that made your heart skip a bit.

👑 That was her way of showing how much she appreciated your work. Contributing with her money to help you have the best environment (and products) to pursue your sewing career.

👑 She would ask you to make her outfits and brag to other royals and her own family about how good you were. It didn't take long for you to start receiving requests from other kingdoms and from her relatives as well.

👑 She just wants to see you happy, and knowing she helped you with it also fills up her sense of pride. Don't get me wrong, she didn't do it so she could brag about it, but she likes to know her help took part in your happiness.

Julian:

♠️ When he came to know about what you did, he was beyond thrilled. He started to bombard you with the most various questions regarding your profession, how long you have been doing that, who taught you, and what kind of things you could make.

♠️ Although he felt a little embarrassed to ask for it, he would gather enough courage to do some stuff for him, if you wanted to and had the time, of course. Custom eyepatches would be his top request.

♠️ Eventually, he also started asking for costume capes. He got so excited when you would walk into the room waving a brand new cape, almost like a child receiving a Christmas gift.

♠️ He would often bring you books about sewing, and beautiful fabrics he bought with a discount, calling it his "contribution". The thing is, he felt guilty for asking you to do eyepatches and capes for him, but he felt so good wearing something you made, he couldn't help it!

♠️ Whenever your machine would have any sort of issue, he would rush to your aid and try to fix the situation, even if you knew how to do it yourself. He just loved being useful and getting a kiss on the cheek as a reward for his good deeds.

Muriel:

🌿 He and Inanna were curious regarding your machine. When it started to make noises, Inanna growled a little at it, but seeing it was harmless, she decided to approach and sniff. Soon, she started to enjoy the noises.

🌿 Muriel on the other hand had a frown on his face, saying he didn't like it. He actually didn't have anything against the machine itself, but he started feeling jealous of it. You spent so much time working on it, he felt left out.

🌿 You ended up noticing that and decided to set up a corner next to your working table where he could rest close to you and the fireplace as well. After that, his complaints stropped.

🌿 He sometimes went out to gather some flowers he found in the forest, hoping you could use them when sewing. He always tried to get the brightest and best smelling ones, saying they would look good on you.

🌿 If you made something for Inanna, he would think about proposing to you on the spot. Inanna has been his companion for a long time, and if you cared about her enough to do something nice for her out of genuine kindness, he would know you're the right one.

Portia:

🐈 After finding out about you being a seamstress, she bothered Mazelinka for days so she could give her an old sewing machine she had in her house and other sewing materials that were buried deep into her house. Even if they were there for a long time, they were still very good quality.

🐈 She loved to watch you sewing, finding the sound of the machine extremely relaxing. She also pulled Pepi into her lap to watch you, which she did with wide eyes, following every movement of your hand with her gaze.

🐈 Portia one day asked if you could make something for Pepi, which you agreed to. As a surprise, you made matching sweaters for Pepi and Portia, which made her tear up in joy.

🐈She always bragged about your work to Nadia, saying you were, without a doubt, the best seamstress in the entire city of Vesuvia, the whole world even! She was extremely proud of you and wasn't afraid to show it to anyone.

Lucio:

🐐At first, he tried to convince you to pursue another career path. He said you were royalty now, and royalty didn't have to sew, they had other people to do that for them. It slightly annoyed him that you were doing something that someone else could take off your shoulders.

🐐As he watched you work though, his opinion started to slowly change. He saw the effort and love you put into it, and the beautiful pieces you created. He slowly started to fall in love with it.

🐐He secretly ordered a sewing machine for himself, thinking that it should be easy to sew. Then, he would show you his final work and you would awe and praise him. At least that was his plan, but after twenty minutes of trying to get the machine to work, he gave up.

🐐 He swallowed his pride, something he has only done three times in his life (he kept count of it), and went to you, asking you to teach him how to sew. The smile on his face when he made a scarf was priceless. He paraded it around the castle, making sure that everyone knew he had done it himself. And that you, his amazing and talented partner, had taught him how.

-----------------------------------------------

Well, I've been absent for a good while now, I'm not even sure no one reads my stuff anymore, but if someone still does, here ya go! I hope you enjoy this (◠‿◠✿)

I plan on being more active, maybe posting once a week.

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[goldaegontargaryen]

The entrance hall wasn’t crowded, but it was far from empty and Aegon could almost feel the stares of everyone in the hall crawling across his skin as he and his sister interacted.  With the death of the King looming over everyone’s heads, Aegon knew the court's eyes were fixed upon them both wondering if they would really uphold their untypical positions once the King finally passed.  He told himself he didn’t care if they were judging him or what they thought.  Yet out of the corner of his eye he swore he could see whispers being passed between people in the hall.  Aegon forced himself to focus on his smile, reminding himself that soon the conversation would be over and he and Helaena could retreat to the relative privacy of their chambers.  

“Yes, the children flew on their own dragons for the first time.  They did quite well,” Aegon clasped his hands behind his back so that neither his sister or the rest of the court could see him fidget nervously with the rings on his fingers.  Aegon often dealt with anxiety, but it was unusual for him to feel it so strongly in a public place.  It was nerves that caused him to snort out a laugh at his sister’s words.  He knew they were meant to be as bland as his own had been, but the idea that the King and Court were happy for his return was ridiculous.  They were only pretty words.  He quickly did his best to cover his laugh with a cough, but he wasn’t sure if he pulled off the act convincingly.  

His sister’s response to his inquiry were what was to be expected.  She had no use for any help he could offer, especially not when it came to a father he couldn’t seem to preemptively grieve.  He desperately searched for what to say back to his sister, the words a proper prince would say, but nothing came to mind.  The silence stretched between them before Aegon quickly said, “I am sorry he still suffers.”  It was, at least, a true statement.  No matter what Aegon may have felt when it came to his father, he didn’t wish for his suffering.  In many ways, he held deep pity for his father.  He knew he was in pain every single day and often lost in his own mind.  Aegon wouldn’t wish such an ailment on anyone.  

Rhaenyra’s whispered words were meant to bring comfort, but instead he felt a rush of rage that had him asking in a hushed, but harsh tone, “Do you mean to mock me, sister?  We both know my father would not bother to call for me, even if he was completely lucid.  In fact, if he ever does truly call for me, that’s when I will know he has lost his senses completely.”  Distantly, some part of him recognized the words were unfair, his sister had not chosen her role in her father’s life any more than he had chosen his own.

The polite smile had fallen and Aegon was grasping his fingers together so tightly that they hurt.  The only saving grace was that Helaena seemed to be in a deep enough conversation with their mother that she hadn’t noticed his switch in mood.  Aegon forced himself to do his best to pull himself together, feeling already slightly bad for his sudden outburst.  He did not regret the words, but throwing them out now in front of the court wasn’t an appropriate place.  “I’m sorry, Rhaenyra.  Returning to King’s Landing to wait for father’s death has brought up some emotions I thought I had buried.”  In his rush to smooth over the situation, Aegon accidentally dropped the formal tone and used his sister’s given name, too used still to the atmosphere on Dragonstone where he didn’t require titles to be consistently used.

Family Line

(Closed starter for @goldaegontargaryen)

Rhaenyra stood with her hands clasped tightly behind her back, facing the stone doors that guarded the Red Keep's entrance hall as she turned the wedding ring on her left hand round and round with the thumb and forefinger of her right. Her half siblings would walk through those doors any moment, returned to their family home for the first time in the year and a half since she'd petitioned for Aegon and Helaena to be awarded Dragonstone for their seat to start a new branch of House Targaryen; the latest and strongest thread in the web the Crown Princess had been weaving in the decade since she was appointed her father's Hand to ensure neither their House nor the Realm suffered to see the ascension their King-Father had planned. An edict that had now been in place only about eight moons short of thirty years. Under fairer, happier circumstances, Rhaenyra would have liked to greet all her siblings with hugs, a show of political good faith, of course, but at it's heart a demonstration of personal sincerity she had always been far better at conveying through touch than words. It would have been a way to show her gratitude for Aegon, Helaena, and indeed their whole family's willingness to participate in her continued pursuit of of as peaceful a transition of power as any of them could hope for their Kingdom's first ruling Queen.

These are not the light hearted circumstances she'd wished for the Prince and Princess of Dragonstone's first return to court, not a wedding, a nameday, or any other celebration she'd dared to hope would greet them after leaving for the island whose magic seemed to bring a piece of her back to life all those years ago. They were here because, after ten years of surgeries and constant treatments for the King's continuously failing health, their father was well and truly dying; by all accounts faced with less than a moon to live. The whole of their House had been summoned to attend Viserys, and quickly after that became unnecessary, to attend Rhaenyra's own coronation. It's hardly the kind of occasion that calls for hugs, at least, when the man dying is the King. Some within the Court had even urged her to greet the younger royals with handcuffs, though the suggestion was quickly brushed aside as ludicrous even by her infamously short-fused husband Prince Daemon. Aegon had no wish to rule, Rhaenyra had been training for it since she was a child, and she thought...she hoped they shared an appreciation for the other's willingness to take on a role neither had been expected to shoulder at birth. Especially now all there's left to was walk this long and lonely line of mourning before they might finally live out their own lives and legacies.

Rhaenyra's finally startled out of her ring-twisting when the stone doors opened with a slam, composing her face into a small smile that supplemented an empathetic gaze before she called, "Dear brother! I'd hoped to greet you all at the gate, forgive me, I'm afraid my list of tasks has grown rather endless in these past days. How are you all faring?"

[bokutosworld]

convenience store stranger | suna rintarou

pairing: suna x f!reader  word count, genre: 2.1k words, college au. fluff. another meet cute story lol.  warning: none  summary: in which your late shifts become less boring and more interesting when a cute stranger stumbles in at 2 AM.  a/n: my first time writing for suna god im scared but i really liked how this turned out!! 

The first time he meets you happens on one of his late night convenience store runs. It was exams season and Suna’s been pulling all-nighter after all-nighter. To say he was exhausted would’ve been an understatement. 

He’s barely making it through on the third night and if he didn’t take a break soon, he was sure he’d have passed out on his desk. With his mind hazy from reading too many words and trying to understand a semester’s worth of lessons in one night, he decides to stand up and get some fresh air. 

Which is how he found himself currently standing at aisle four of the only convenience store that was still open near his apartment. He scans the rack for something that can wake him and his brain up. He doesn’t know how long he’s been standing but he could definitely feel eyes burning holes in the back of his head. 

He settles on a pack of jelly sticks and a cup of spicy instant noodles and heads towards the counter. You mutter a greeting when he reaches the cashier and begin scanning his items. 

When he hands over the cash for payment, your fingers brush with his cold ones, making you recoil harshly as if he was repulsing.

“Something wrong?” He laughs when he sees your reaction. “I know I look like a mess now but I won’t bite you.” He bends his knees slightly, tilting his head to get a look at your embarrassed face.

“No, I’m sorry.” You avoid his intense gaze, continuing to pack his purchase. When you look at him, he’s still staring with his piercing eyes that it almost takes your breath away. 

Shaking your head to bring yourself to reality, you give him his items. “Your hands felt cold and I was just shocked.” You feel that same electricity sparking between you again when he takes the bag from you. “I.. well.. thank you. Have a great evening.”

“It’s 2 AM,” Suna chuckles and you sigh before correcting yourself and bowing to him in goodbye. “See you around,” he shouts over his back as he walks out the door. It was the first time he saw you in that store and he was sure it wasn’t going to be the last. 

The second time he’d actually planned it according to your shift. If his past trips to the store were anything to go by, he’d learned that you always took the evening shift. It was something he discovered after being called out by your co-worker on the third time that he restlessly looked around the store during a visit. 

He should be on his bed, phone in his hand as he mindlessly scrolled until he fell asleep. But with the memory of his interaction with you lingering on his mind, he wanted to see you.

“Hey, got time for a customer?” He greets the moment he steps inside the empty convenience store. You look up from the book that you were reading and quickly stand to welcome him. “What are you reading?” 

Hiding the book from his view, you retort, “Aren’t you going to buy something?” 

He grins, taking in your tired disposition and the bags that had formed under your eyes before retreating to the shelves. When he returns, he slides over a can of energy drink, iced coffee, and a large bag of chips. 

You assume he’d leave immediately once he’s paid for everything. You certainly didn’t expect him to take out the coffee and give it to you. 

“This is for you.” He opens his own drink and leans by the counter. “Doesn’t it ever get boring here? I mean it’s midnight and you’re alone. I’m betting not many people even drop by at this time.” He faces the door, crossing his arms around his chest and staring at both of your reflections at the glass. 

Worn out from your classes in the day, you take his coffee offering, instantly feeling the rush of caffeine flow through your veins and waking you up. “The job pays relatively well. Besides I can’t really work in the mornings, I have uni.”

“So you’re a college student too.” He turns around and extends a hand out to you. “I’m Suna Rintarou.”

You introduce yourself as you shake hands with him. And as soon as pleasantries were exchanged, he immediately launched into a story about how his earlier day went. He was a natural conversationalist and despite this being your first time talking with him, you didn’t feel an ounce of awkwardness. You didn’t know what it was about him but his presence made you feel comfortable. 

You learned about what he was studying (to your surprise, Psychology), how he spends his weekends playing volleyball (he was a middle blocker and an excellent one at that, he boasted), and how he ended up here during the night he first saw you (the all-nighter went well and he passed all his exams). 

He rips open the chips he bought and offers you some as you lay your story before him. He munches as he listened to you rant about how you loathed your course (Business Management) and the many case studies and papers you had to do each day. He nods his head in understanding as you explain why you needed this part-time job (to pay for apartment fees). 

You were having so much fun in his company that you didn’t notice the time pass by. (He arrived to the store at 12:32 AM. The clock on the wall now reads 2:32 AM). And for the duration of his stay, you were surprised that no one ever came by. He only ever left your side when a taxi driver walked in. 

Suna steered clear from the counter and kept his distance as you did your job. From your peripheral, you could see that he watched you like a hawk from the side and it made you somehow conscious. When the customer exited, you playfully threw a tissue at him, 

“I couldn’t concentrate when you were standing there and looking at me like that!” 

He went back to his position but this time, he leaned close with his hands on the counter. “Like what?"  

Well how could you say to him that you thought he looked effortlessly hot in his sweatshirt and track pants? And was that an adorably messy bedhead? How could you say that you liked the teasing smile that he’d been giving you throughout the night?  

You chuckle and shake your head, “Nothing.” You reach for the book you were reading prior his arrival and took your seat. “Don’t you have classes tomorrow? You should go back.”

“Do you not want me around anymore?” 

“It’s not that, I…”

He cuts you off, “Good, then it’s settled. I’m not going anywhere. I like talking with you too much to go back home. Let me entertain you some more.” He sits down at the chair on one of the tables near the counter and then goes back to chatting with you. 

Since that night, Suna had been scheduling more trips to the convenience store. Sometimes, he’d really only visit to bother you. At times, he’d bring his books and laptop with him so he could work on a paper while you restocked the shelves and cleaned around. On rare occasions, he’d help you out on a business plan and the customers who’d enter the store would be amused at the sight of you and him huddled behind the counter with your serious thinking faces on. 

He’d become a part of your life that it felt unnerving not to have him around on your shifts. And it certainly showed on your face how disappointed and heartbroken you were when consecutive nights passed without his visits. Your co-worker even called you out on it. 

“So where’s the cutie been?” She asked one time when the two of you were at the back lounge while you logged in for your shift. You groan at the nickname she gave him and she laughs at you.

“How would I know?” 

“Don’t you guys talk almost every day and night?”

“Only on nights that he visits me.” You pause, thinking about the possibilities why he could’ve stopped coming. And before you knew it, you were ranting. “God, are we even friends? I don’t know his number. Did he ghost me? Is this considered ghosting? It’s been a week. I’m scared I did or said something.” 

She’s watching you pace around the room. “Maybe he got bored of me. Or maybe he realized I’m not really worth his time and dipped. Sleeping is much better than hanging out with me at 1 AM anyway.”

You’re stopped in your tracks when she suddenly grabs your shoulders. “Overthinking is not a good look on you.” She makes you take deep breaths to calm down. “I’m sure he’s just busy right now. He’ll visit again soon.” 

“I don’t know why I’m being like this.” 

The look she gives you is incredulous, her mouth gaping wide at your statement. “Are you serious?” 

“What?” You ask, not anticipating the next words that would come from her. 

“It’s obvious that you like him.” 

The next time you see him was on campus. You don’t know how long it’s been since he last spent time with you on your shift. (Though if you were counting, you were definitely sure that it’s been two weeks and three days since then.) 

You tried not to think too much about what his absence could mean but the pang in your heart never left. Those two weeks that he didn’t show up allowed you some time to think about your conversation with your friend. You like him. 

Back then, you were too quick to shut down the idea. Denying any ounce of feeling for the boy as you saw him as no more than someone who had too much time on his hands to bother you on your shifts. A good friend is what you specifically used to defend your relationship with him. 

So then why was it that your heart was beating so rapidly as Suna waved at you from across the cafeteria? Why couldn’t you stop smiling as you watched him make his way to your table and sit down beside you?

“Hey there.” He slings his arms around and pulls you for a side hug. “Long time no see.” 

You almost couldn’t hear him over the loud thumping of your heart in your ears. He’s still smiling and waiting for you to reply. “Yeah, been a while. I’ve gotten the peace and quiet back in my shifts.” 

He breaks out in laughter while opening a snack bar. “I’m sorry I haven’t been able to stop by. I just came out from a major presentation that I’ve been preparing for during the past weeks. And guess what?” 

You perk your eyebrows at his question. “What?” 

“Our group did great.” He raises a hand for a high-five and you indulge him. “The teacher liked our slides and our analysis of the topic. Ah, I feel so good right now!” He leans back with his hands behind his head, but he suddenly jerks. 

“We should go out!” Suna grabs your hands and looks at you expectantly. “You’re free the whole day tomorrow right? You’re not working the shift? Let’s celebrate. It’s my treat!” 

Feeling overwhelmed by his invitation and his overall excitedness, you laugh and pull back. “Calm down, Suna. I don’t know about tomorrow.” 

“Why? Are you busy?”

“Not really but..” 

“Then it shouldn’t be a problem.” He tucks a loose hair behind your ear, leaning close with his voice barely over a whisper, “It’s perfect. I’ve wanted to take you on a date for a long time now.” 

“What?” You stare at him wide-eyed. 

“Come on, you’ve never thought about us?” He finds the situation entertaining. Your flustered reaction reminds him of the night that he met you. 

“Why do you think I’ve been coming to the convenience store when I could be sleeping at that time? I like being around you. My day doesn’t feel complete if I don’t at least see you or tell you about my day or listen to you rant about the latest episode of your favorite series.”

You like him. 

“Go out with me.” He kisses the back of your hand. “Please?” 

The corners of your lips unconsciously curves up and Suna sends your heart doing somersaults when he says something about how he’s finally got to see the beautiful smile he’s been wanting to see for weeks. 

Your friend was right. You do like him.  

[ragingbookdragon]

I'm Only A Crack In This Castle Of Glass (Hardly Anything Else I Need To Be) PT. 4

Batfamily x Batsis Story!

Word Count: 2K Warnings: Explicit Language, ALL THE ANGST Tags!: @itsnottilly @cloudyskylines @starflyer-104 @justine-en @iwillstaywiththemforever @weirdgirlfromtx @edlothia-baby @soul-end @notsostraightweeb @candlestudy

Author's Note: Some of y'all didn't tag so see if that's something on your end. Enjoy the angst and cliffhanger! -Thorne

Wally didn’t come into the coffee shop for almost two whole months after their fight—not that she blamed him—she was still vaguely upset with his harsh words. But she had to admit that she’d gotten used to his warm presence every morning, and not seeing him messed her up more than she thought it would. More often than not, she found herself absentmindedly staring at the door, waiting for him to walk in with that stupid grin on his face and proceed to boast and recall whatever exciting exploits he and his friends had accomplished earlier. It hurt not to see or hear him, and she realized that Wally had become the greatest friend she’d ever had.

Barry still came in though, and if he knew who she really was, he didn’t say anything because he still acted like he always did. So, even if Wally were still angry with her, at least he’d kept his word and not said anything to anyone about her identity. Which if she were honest, tasted bitter when she thought about the price she paid for his silence—his friendship.

It was getting colder again, which meant a lot more people were coming and going from the shop, so at least she could take her mind off her feelings for at least a few hours. Until she got home, and all she was left with were them and a whole lot of silence to think about them with. Sometimes she thought about calling Wally, at least to hear his voice. Hell, even if their last words to one another were frigid, she missed the interaction. She’d give anything to hear him, even taking another round of cold snipes and trades.

She heaved a sigh and wiped down the last few tables of the evening rush, smiling politely at the people who were still sitting at tables or so across. Today had been hectic and there’d been no let up of customers until the last hour of the shift. She’d never thought they’d run out of coffee, but it came close to that a couple hours ago.

The bell above the door chimed and with her back turned to the entrance, she didn’t see who came in, but with another barista at the counter ready to take the final orders of the evening, she didn’t particularly care. All she wanted to do was go home and crawl into bed. Sleep until hell froze over. That, or until her feet stopped hurting—whichever came first. She let out a quiet laugh that made her chest ache—Wally would’ve found that absolutely hilarious and probably shot back about how if anyone had the right to complain about their feet hurting, it would be him. God, she really missed Wally.

“Melisandre,” someone called quietly, and she glanced over her shoulder, eyes widening when she saw the familiar red head behind her.

Speak and the Devil will appear.

“Wally,” she breathed, voice thick with shock, and before she could stop herself, she was throwing her arms around his waist, squeezing him tightly.

He returned her hug in fold. “I guess I wasn’t the only one who missed this,” he quipped.

She huffed a laugh and pulled away. “Believe it or not, it doesn’t feel right when you don’t come around.” Her eyes narrowed almost sadly. “I’ve missed seeing you, Wally.”

“Same here,” he replied, then glanced at the clock above the espresso machines. “Are you almost off? I want to take you somewhere.”

Nodding, she took a look at her watch. “I get off in about ten minutes. Can you wait that long, or will you perish from boredom?”

“I think I can survive ten minutes, Melisandre,” he retorted and collapsed into one of the booths. “Hurry though, I don’t want to be late.”

She rolled her eyes and deadpanned, “Wally, I can’t speed time up. That’s not how that works.”

“Works for me.” He proudly stated.

“I wonder why?” she retorted sarcastically, then gave him a smile before wandering off to clean the last tables.

***

Despite the fact that Wally could run anywhere he wanted in less than a second, he still owned a vehicle and that was downright baffling in her opinion.

“Dick got it for me.” He suddenly said, shifting the car into drive and she blinked internally wincing at the mention of her brother.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“I know you didn’t, (Y/N). But you were thinking it.”

“Uh huh,” she doubted and crossed her arms over her chest. “What am I thinking about right now?”

“Knowing you? Probably food, I know you like to ea—” he dissolved into laughter when she reached over and shoved at his side.

“No, I don’t you ass.”

“Really? Because I distinctly remember the time I took a fry off your basket and you looked at me like I’d killed your favorite dog.” (Y/N) glared at him and he pointed at her. “Yeah, that’s the look right there.”

“I don’t like sharing my food,” she said. “You should’ve known better.” Her eyes drifted to the windshield. “So, where are we going?”

“S.T.A.R. labs.”

(Y/N) cocked a brow and stared at him. “Really? S.T.A.R. labs? What’s there?”

Wally shrugged. “Wanted to show you a bit of what it’s like to be me.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You mean you came to see me after all this time and the first thing we’re doing is going to a lab so you can show my what you do?”

His gaze momentarily darted to hers. “Is that a problem?”

“I dunno, I just figured we’d go eat a diner somewhere and apologize to each other.”

“Are you sorry?”

“Beg pardon?”

“Are you sorry? For all of the last three years?”

“Not particularly,” she griped, and he shrugged again.

“Then I’m not sorry for what we said to each other that night.” he let out a sigh. “But I’m willing to let it go, because I’d rather us just have a disagreement than lose what our friendship over it.” he looked at her. “What do you say?”

(Y/N) stared at him for a long moment, then she sighed and nodded. “…Yeah, I agree.”

Wally smiled. “Good.” He turned the wheel and pulled into the parking lot of the lab. “But there is food there for us, so you’ll be satiated anyways.”

“Hardy har har. Shut up, Wallace West,” she shot back, climbing out of the car. Her eyes traveled up the tall building. “Wow, this place is huge, isn’t it?”

She felt him stand next to her. “Yeah. Did you know they had to replace the glass windows a whole bunch of times because Barry and I kept shattering them when we’d run up ‘em?”

(Y/N) blinked, unsurprisingly stating, “No, I did not. But I can see that happening.”

He started towards the doors, leaving her to follow and soon they were stepping into an elevator. She watched him hit the rooftop button and she looked at him.

“If you’re showing me what you do, why are we going to the roof? Shouldn’t we be going to some laboratory inside?”

Wally chuckled. “Patience, young padawan.” He ignored her rolling eyes. “Food first.”

“Oh, dinner in the moonlight? Well, aren’t you just the romantic.” (Y/N) cocked her elbow on his shoulder and grinned. “Don’t tell me you fell in love with me all that time we spent away from each other?”

This time, he was rolling his eyes. “Hardly, (Y/N). I just figured you’d want a nice evening where you weren’t staring at your bland kitchen walls.”

She scoffed and pulled away from him. “Look, I’d paint and hang shit up but the landlord wouldn’t be happy.”

“Since when do you care about making people happy? You’re typically a ‘I’m going to make someone unhappy’ type of person.” Her eyes shifted to his and he waved a hand. “Not what you’re thinking about—I was talking about the coffee shop.”

For a moment, she didn’t say anything, then she hummed. “There’s nothing more fun than telling someone I’m going to get the manager and then do my magic little spin and cheerfully greet, ‘Hi, I’m the manager’.” She grinned. “Does wonders to see Karen’s little head explode.”

Wally chuckled and the elevator dinged. The doors split open, and they walked out onto the rooftop. Surprisingly, the roof was enclosed and lighted, giving her perfect vision and when her eyes fell on them, her heart seemed to stop in her chest, and her feet to a halt.

They stood from the table they’d been sitting at and with her heart hammering against her ribcage, she immediately spun on her heel, intent to flee back into the elevator, only to come chest to chest with Wally, who wrapped his arms around her waist—effectively keeping her in place.

Her feet were still moving on their own accord and she shoved against his chest, trying to get back to the lift. “Wally, move.”

“No, (Y/N),” he murmured, and she could feel her breath starting to come in and out in panicked spurts.

“Wally, please, I’m begging you, move.” She stared up at him and plead, “Please don’t make me do this. I’ll do anything, just please let me leave.”

His evergreen eyes were narrowed in pity, but there was a firmness that rested within that pity and he shook his head. “I can’t let you leave, (Y/N).”

“Wally, please,” she begged, arms starting to go limp against his chest, the tears flooding her vision. “Don’t make me do this.”

“You’ve gotta stop running, (Y/N).”

She couldn’t help the sob that escaped her, and she rested her cheek against his chest. “I hate you…so much.”

“I know,” he murmured.

“You’re a liar and I hate you.”

Wally sighed. “I know you do.”

(Y/N)’s face contorted in anger despite her pain. “I should’ve left the night we fought. I knew you wouldn’t be capable of keeping it from him. From any of them,” she sneered and suddenly pulled away from his grip, eyes flashing with rage.

“This wasn’t your right to tell!” she shouted at him and shoved him in the chest. Wally didn’t budge an inch and she shoved him again. “God, I was so naïve to assume you’d keep your fucking mouth shut! That’s one thing you’re not capable of doing!”

She growled and turned from him, running her hands over her face. “Three years of relative peace shot straight down the fucking drain,” she shot him a teary glower. “All because of you and your big bleeding heart for your best friend.”

Wally frowned. “I’m doing what I think is best, (Y/N).”

“Forcing me to meet them isn’t what’s best, Wally! I didn’t want to be found! I didn’t want to be associated with them again!” she snarled and in an instance her anger cooled, her shoulders drooping as she lamented, “…This wasn’t a decision you should’ve made. This was never your right to decide. For me…or for them.”

“Perhaps it wasn’t,” he agreed. “But if you weren’t going to draw the line in the sand, I was.”

(Y/N) met his gaze and held it for a long moment, then she turned her attention to the four men who were standing in front of the table, their expressions a mixture of regret, anger, and relief.

She let out a long sigh and reached up to rub at her temples. “Let me guess, I’m not allowed to leave until we’ve had our picture-perfect reunion scene?”

Wally nodded. “The elevator is sadly,” his hand shot backwards and with a sharp crackle of lightning, the light went out. “out of order.”

(Y/N) shook her head in disappointment at him then declared, “The next time I run, I’m settling in a city that has no superheroes.”

“Good plan,” he quipped. “But I don’t think there’ll be anymore running.”

She got up in his face and hissed, “Then you underestimate my feelings regarding the brothers and father before me.”

[notchesandbullets]

She’s Mine (Protective!Bakugou x Punk!Tattooed!Reader) feat. Erasermic

Warnings: racism, implied homophobia (not by anyone in the main cast), sexism, discrimination/discriminatory behavior, Modern!AU, Aged-Up!AU, features Bakugou’s parents, Erasermic, Kota, Eri, Mahoro, Katsuma and all of Class A defending you when insults start to fly.

Synopsis: This is not the first time you’re seeing Bakugou’s family but it is the first time you’re meeting his grandmother, who is not the best company to be around. He comes to your defense after you stand up for yourself and he had no qualms about sticking his face in the old hag’s because he’d be damned if he lets anyone talk to you like that. You’re his.

Words: 3.2k

“Y/N’s here!!!” Mitsuki called over her shoulder as she threw the front door wide open before you could even ring the doorbell.

Her son had texted her that you two were on their way and she was eager to see you. With the job and your relationship with her son, you two were busy bees and didn’t come around as often anymore. 

Which is why she insisted that her stubborn son at least come around for his birthday since it only happened one day out of the year. Then he could continue doing whatever it was that he was doing. 

Luckily, you were on her side and helped convince him to go just this once.

You laughed at the pitter-patter of tiny feet scampering across the cherry hardwood before dropping everything to catch the little kid that tunneled into your legs. 

“Y/N!!! You’re back!!!”

Eri’s ruby red eyes sparkled with joy as she clung to your legs.

“I missed you!!!” She shouted excitedly, hugging your knees tight.

You giggled, resting a hand on top of her head. “I missed you too, munchkin.”

Bakugou snorted behind you and you were reminded of his presence. “Oi, brat. Are you going to let us in or what?”

Eri stuck her tongue out at him childishly before dashing back inside, a trick she learned from her big brother Izuku, doubling back to grab your hand and hauled you inside with her. You casted a glance over your shoulder at your boyfriend but he shrugged, giving you the go-ahead.

He would catch up to you two troublemakers later. Besides, he knew you would want to see all the kids first. 

Kota, an orphan whose extended family gave him up for adoption, along with the siblings, Mahoro and Katsuma, were all under Aizawa’s guardianship.

After he adopted Eri, it sort of just snowballed until he was in too deep. He told Mic repeatedly that it wasn’t his fault that he had a soft spot for orphans.

His husband had merely shook his head with a laugh and hoisted Katsuma up higher so that he could reach the cupcakes they were going to sneak behind his back before dinner.

Mitsuki closed the door behind him as her son kicked off his shoes. 

“She gets that from me.” She said proudly as she gazed lovingly at Eri. She loved having her around the house. 

Since Aizawa and Mic lived relatively close, they came over often since she was feeling rather lonely with an empty nest.

Bakugou snorted. “Yeah, no shit.”

His mother glared at him for his language but didn’t reprimand him like she normally would and his eyes turned into hateful slits.

“Don’t tell me—” He started, gritting his teeth.

“They’re here.” She said with a heavy sigh.

Bakugou cursed vehemently under his breath, his brow furrowing deeply as he fought to control himself. He was banking on them not making an appearance today. 

His grandparents on his dad’s side, though he adored his grandad and thought the world of him, he absolutely could not stand his grandmother. 

She was racist, sexist, had limited views on literally everything and would raise hell if she didn’t get her way and she was a huge pain in his ass.

Even his own mother couldn’t stand her and that was saying something because she tolerated everyone to some degree, despite her odd love language when it came to him. 

They were both shit at communicating but it had gotten better as he got older. 

Now, the worst things that happened were spats here and there when they disagreed but his mother was usually good about backing off if she felt he could make the right decision for himself, which wasn’t often but it was better than none. 

Bakugou strolled inside and his eyes softened for a second when he saw you playing with Mahoro, Kota sitting on your lap as Eri was climbing all over Midoriya. You four were currently playing Monopoly and Eri exclaiming in shock as she realized she was losing since the devious Kota was slowly claiming more and more property.

“Haha!!” He cackled, rubbing his hands together evilly. “You landed on the purple one!!”

“No fair!!” Eri protested. “I don’t have enough money!!!”

“Too bad!!”

“Deku-niichan.” Eri cried, her eyes watering and you nearly fell over laughing as he frantically tried to get her to stop crying. 

The rest of his old class from college was already here, as per his mother’s request and Kirishima’s invitation.

Shinsou, Tsuyu, Todoroki and Iida were all near the food, the previous class rep serving drinks even though it wasn’t his job to play host. 

Tokoyami was currently engaged in a conversation with his dad and as Bakugou spun around the room, he realized every last one of his old classmates had shown up.

It was fucking crowded in his house. 

But the spark of joy he felt diminished the instant he saw his grandmother and he scowled, straying to your side almost protectively as her eyes burned into his back. 

This. 

This was why he didn’t fucking want her here. He didn’t want her to rain judgement upon the person who had won over his heart.

No way in hell.

Look, you weren’t fragile by any means. Your heart was filled with a healthy amount of self-esteem and you had built up your walls to protect yourself against people who had something to say about your many tattoos or piercings, yet you still were the kindest soul he had ever met. 

It was in the way you walked and interacted with people, a genuine smile always present on your features as you gave them more respect than most would give you upon first glance.

Bakugou knew you could handle yourself but you shouldn’t have to with his own fucking relatives. That shit was messed up. 

You glanced at your boyfriend out of the corner of your eye and your gaze dropped down to where his hands were clenched into fists, jaw locked tight and you sigh, softly urging Kota to get up and continue playing with Mahoro and Katsuma until you got back.

The boy grumbled but did as you asked, easily getting swept up in the competition of the game as you drifted to Bakugou’s side.

“I know that look,” You murmured into his ear, your hand covering his as you ignored the idle chatter coming from your friends and family around you. “What’s wrong?”

Bakugou clenched his teeth and debated about it for a second.

“Nothing.” He spat out eventually, choosing to deal with the old hag himself and you let him go when he stomped off, knowing that Kirishima or Kaminari would handle whatever it was that just happened if he didn’t want to talk to you about it. 

Momo greeted you warmly and a smile slipped onto your face as though it had never left. 

You hadn’t bothered to dress all that nice or different from your usual getup, feeling more comfortable in leather and all black that looked like you just came from a rock concert but you got the feeling that not everyone was feeling it as much as Jirou was when she came over to compliment you on your fashion taste.

Shoji and Koda each greeted you respectively and before you knew it, the catered dinner arrived and it was finally time to eat. The judging look you had been aware of from someone you didn’t recognize passing by as you brushed it off as unimportant and focused on helping Mitsuki set the table. 

You clapped your hands gleefully when Eri pitched in to help, complimenting her on how well of a job she did as she finished and you beamed at her when she smiled up at you.

Of course, Aizawa needed to help her since he didn’t want her to stand on a chair and lose her balance but it was easy enough to lift her up. She wasn’t that big yet. 

He had already told Mic he was dreading the day when she would grow up and have to leave home to start her own life and his husband patted him on the back sympathetically, reassuring him that it wouldn’t be the end of the world. 

They loved their children and their children absolutely adored them. 

You had told them as such on more than one occasion since they got insecure that they weren’t adequate parents but you reassured them that they were perfectly imperfect.

They put their kids’ health, safety and happiness before everything else and did everything they could for them. 

You wished your own parents had done that for you. 

As soon as you set down the place settings for everyone and called everyone in for dinner, they flooded the huge dining table that overflowed into the living area to accommodate everyone. 

Bakugou had left for a second to grab something from his old bedroom, promising to be back right away and you reassured him that you would be fine. 

You were barely into helping Mic convince a stubborn Kota to take a spoonful of green beans onto his plate, Shinsou helping Aizawa with Mahoro’s vegetable serving, when a throat cleared itself loudly.

The lively chatter died all around the table died down as grey eyes pierced your own and you stiffened but held your ground. 

You knew that look, you had seen it too many times. 

The older woman opened her mouth and spoke.

“So, you’re my grandson’s girlfriend?” She enunciated, looking you up and down from where she was sitting at the head of the table, her hands setting down her knitting project to glare at you. “I don’t see why he’s dating you.”

The expressions of shock at her vulgar words made several of your friends angry in your defense, Iida and Todoroki trembling in anger and Mina’s eyes narrowed as she dropped her happy-go-lucky personality in favor of ripping her a new one. 

But before any of them could act, she was continuing evenly.

“For someone who doesn’t know how to dress properly and looks like that, I mean, it’s already bad enough that your skin is that color, my dear, and you’ve ruined it even further with those ugly things.” She spat, unaware of the wrath she was evoking from every single person in the room. 

Kaminari’s electric eyes glowed as he saw red. “Bad enough?” 

“Excuse me?” Shoji seethed with unparalleled anger rising up in his chest, a rare sight for the normally calm and collected man.

Jirou, Ochako and Momo were furious at the way she was talking down to you and they shared a look amongst themselves, communicating wordlessly that this wasn’t going to be allowed to get out of hand any longer.

Kirishima was visibly shaking and even the normally shy Koda was fuming in his seat, openly glaring at the elderly woman who spewed insults at you. 

A chair scraped back as Midoriya shot up but you shook your head, holding your finger up to your lips as you subtly gestured for everyone to hold back. 

Aizawa’s nostrils flared from where he was covering Eri’s ears while several of his former students took care of the rest of the kids to make sure they wouldn’t hear this.

To their horror, the grandmother wasn’t even close to being done as she pointed a gnarly finger at you.

“Your job as a girl is to stay in the kitchen and attend to your husband. To even think you’re worth anything if you weren’t involved with my grandson is absurd.” She hissed at you venously, her skewed ideals rooted deeply in her beliefs and how she was raised. “You are a disgrace to even breathe the same air as someone like me.”

“Mother!!”

Bakugou’s father frantically tried to amend what had been done and Mitsuki was about to yell at her but you stopped her. 

Everyone’s eyes turned on you as you took a deep breath. 

“I’m sorry you feel that way, but I won’t apologize for being who I am.” You said quietly but firmly, failing to notice someone coming down the stairs and overhearing your steady words as they flowed from your lips like honey. 

Not tricks. Just genuine sympathy, like you didn’t even hear her say all those horrible things to you. 

It was supposed to be your boyfriend’s day and you weren’t going to ruin it for him in the same manner that she had just done. 

“I understand what you’re saying, but don’t you think that we should be allowed to love who we love?” 

You inclined your head slightly, allowing a sliver of the emotion you felt to slip onto your face as you glanced pointedly as Aizawa and Mic.

After you noticed her staring so openly at you, you also noticed that she would scowl whenever the two men would walk in the room and play with their kids and while you would take whatever she was going to throw at you, you weren’t going to tolerate the same for them.

They didn’t deserve that.

Holding up your arm, you inspected the ink running up and down the length of it. “As for my appearance, my style is my own. I don’t recall asking for your opinion.”

There were a couple of snickers from Jirou, Kaminari, Sero and Mineta as you put her in his place and Todoroki leaned back in his seat, gazing up at you proudly as you stood your ground without firing any hate back at the old woman. 

Hagakure clapped her hands jubilantly as a few cheers of agreement sounded around from the table but you had one more thing to say. 

Your eyes softened. “I understand how you may feel about me, but I don’t need your acceptance. I love myself just as I am and if Katsuki ever feels differently about me and we split, then we’ll split. But please do not judge my love for him based on how you believe I should be. I am who I am and I won’t ever apologize for that.”

“And you never fucking have to.”

Bakugou strolled into the dining area, smirking at the old hag who had the nerve to look shocked at his appearance. Of course she would be so fucking disgusting to say something this horrible to you when he wasn’t within earshot. 

Bitch. 

Blood relations didn’t excuse behavior. 

Narrowing his vermilion eyes at his grandmother, he faced her head on as he took your hand into his. 

“She’s my fucking girlfriend.” He declared, tenacity and stubbornness dripping off of his tone as he snarled at his grandmother. “And if you ever speak to her like that again—”

He nodded in time to Mic and Aizawa, the men who had mentored him and taught him almost everything he knew. 

“Or either of them, including the rest of these shitheads, I’ll fucking kill you.”

The veiled threat hung in the air and you squeaked as Bakugou abruptly dragged you to the front door.

“Where are you going?!” Mitsuki cried out, worried that you both were going to leave without eating anything and she was sad to think that her mother-in-law had driven you away.

Bakugou gnashed his teeth at the confused clamour that arose from his classmates. “Out!! We’ll be back later!!”

You could hardly get a word in edgewise as he dragged you all the way out to the car after barely giving you enough time to put on your shoes.

“Katsuki!! What—”

Your bewildered protests were interrupted as he whirled around and kissed you hard. You melted into his touch as his hot palms settled on your hips, pulling you flush against him. Whining softly when he pulled away, you panted as he breathed hard against you, his exhales fanning out over your face.

You were in a daze as he led you to the car, buckling you in before he got in the driver’s seat. 

And he drove, taking a detour that would take him towards the countryside where there were no people, no places, just you and him. 

Just how he liked it. 

The painted lavenders and pale pinks of the setting sun faded to midnight black with stars twinkling high above you as you cruised around for hours before he finally spoke. 

“I’m sorry.” He apologized quietly and you immediately grabbed his hand that wasn’t currently occupied with steering.

“No!! You don’t have anything to apologize for—”

“Yes I do.”

His grip tightened on the steering wheel a fraction as he slowly explained that if he had told you earlier about what she was capable of instead of ranting to his best friend like an idiot, maybe he could’ve—

“Katuski.”

Your soft murmur brought him back down to planet Earth and you shook your head firmly. 

“It’s not your fault.” You told him without wavering once as he brought the car to a stop just at the edge of the trail. “I don’t blame you at all.”

Bakugou slammed his hand against the steering wheel angrily. “Yes it fucking is!!!”

He ranted and he ranted about how he had come downstairs only to hear his own flesh and blood spitting those vile insults that you didn’t deserve at all. 

You didn’t deserve it at all.

You were quiet when he finished and when his chest was heaving with the spent rage he had aired out, you asked, “Feel better?”

“Like hell I do!!!” He snapped at you, about to go off again when he noticed the bemused expression on your face. “What the fuck, dumbass?”

You tilted your head in confusion. “Huh?”

“Why the hell aren’t you bothered at all?” He questioned, genuinely flabbergasted. 

Eyes clearing in understanding, you traced the back of his hand with your fingers. “Because it doesn’t bother me.”

At the sight of Bakugou opening his mouth, you hurried out, “I mean, do you really think someone like that gets to cut me down? Her words don’t mean anything to me.”

You hesitated and opened yourself a little bit, trusting him not to take advantage of your weakness because while her words stung in the moment, it was nothing your heart couldn’t come back from. But…

“If you were to say them, it would hurt a lot more, but I don’t think you would— eep!!”

You yelped as he dragged you over to his seat, yanking at the seatbelt that got in the way, but pulled you to his chest once he released the safety clip.

“Never.” He breathed against your hair, pressing a kiss to the crown of your head. “I would fucking never.”

You closed your eyes. “I know.”

There, in his car, you two stayed in a tight embrace under the stars until you it got late enough that you insisted you should go back and at least spend the rest of the time with your friends, which, if their sleeping schedules hadn’t changed since college, there was a good chance almost all of them would still be up.

So Bakugou drove you both back, his heart a little more at ease after he got to hold you close and be alone with you. 

That was all he wanted.

Well… He thought to himself as he unconsciously brushed his left hand over the small velvet box that had been hastily stuffed in his pocket the second he grabbed it from his room.

That and one other thing.