#so the fact that it crashed when i attempted to power it on indicates that using hibernate cannot fix it entirely

[quaranmine]

everyone wish me luck i contacted IT today with my 16 page document of screenshots, error descriptions, and past attempts at resolution. i requested a new computer (and also made sure my new manager is aware so i can escalate if need be)

also my computer crashed again at startup today LOL

[egcdeath]

life's a beach

pairing: patrick zweig x reader request: @diorrfairy: i can't stop thinking about patrick x reader who's an introvert, kinda shy but with a fiery temper just like him. and she knows it's better not to get involved with guys like him but she can't help it. and he's constantly teasing her trying to get on her nerves like … summary: a chain smoking tennis player disrupts your day on the beach and uproots your entire summer vacation. word count: 6.5k warnings: enemies to lovers (kinda… the reader folds like a paper airplane pretty quickly), smoking, no use of y/n, low speed police (pool security guard) chase, mentions of smoking, brief mention of alcohol, so much exposition, vague descriptions of sports, some kissing, patrick and reader are spoiled rich kids author’s note: this fic definitely got away from me, but i hope that you all enjoy it! also, i apologize in advance for any characterization issues, since i’ve only seen the movie once. with that being said, i’m still taking requests if you want to send me anything!

For all your life, the beach has been your happy place. The soothing, repetitive push and pull of the water and the endless crashing of the tide was a guaranteed way to make your loud mind quiet down. Next to the endless ocean, you were just a tiny little dot–not a girl who was a golf prodigy, or someone whose parents' financial power caused everyone around you to treat you like a delicate doll. In fact, that was part of the reason why your parents purchased the lot in the first place, as you insisted that the comfort of a semi-private beach was necessary for you to properly enjoy your vacation.

That was also what made your smoking companion on the beach all the more jarring.

You were fully reclined on a beach chair and deeply immersed in the novel in your hands when you first caught a whiff of the strong, putrid scent, which immediately left you annoyed. Turning your head to follow the scent, your face somehow fell further when it fell upon the culprit of the foul cigarette smell. The side profile of a man who was about your age, casually smoking as he stared out at the body of water across from you.

Perhaps you had become so immersed in your book that you’d failed to realize that only a few steps away from you, someone new had joined you on the sand. After all, when you sat down just an hour ago, you were completely alone. Somehow, that managed to make your mood sour even more. There was all this space on the beach, yet this man decided to sit down right next to you and smoke a cigarette!

You were sure that you were gawking at him at this point, if at nothing else, his sheer audacity. When he finally seemed to sense your seething gaze, you quickly looked back at your book as if it was the most interesting thing in the world—despite you completely losing your spot.

After a moment of pretending to resume your reading, the stale scent of the cigarette had lessened, indicating to you that the man next to you had finally stopped. Good. Maybe your simple glare had been more effective than you realized.

But nearly as soon as a self-satisfied smirk could find itself on your face, the scent returned in full force. You practically had to physically restrain yourself from uttering, “Seriously?” aloud.

Seeing as your first passive aggressive attempt at getting him to stop was futile, you decided to pull out the big guns.

With your all but abandoned novel in hand, you curled your unoccupied arm around your mouth and began to cough profusely. You put all your might into pulling out the most atrocious sounds you could muster from your lungs, and when you decided you were satisfied with this passive aggressive approach, you glanced over at your beach companion, only to find him looking back at you.

With him looking straight at you, you felt your stomach trip over itself. You’d always been a sucker for pretty men, and with one pointed look, you were sure that this would be no different. Yet, armed with the knowledge that you were the one who started this, you willed yourself not to give in to someone with good looks and cigarette breath.

You continued to stare him down, hoping that you were coming off as intimidating, rather than swooning. Though, the longer the two of you glared at each other, you swore you could see his lips mold into the look of a smirk, particularly as he took a pointedly long drag from his cigarette.

It quickly became abundantly clear to you that he wasn’t interpreting your gaze to be anything near threatening—if anything, he saw it as a challenge. Unluckily for him, you were incapable of backing down to a challenge.

As soon as you opened your mouth to form some sort of sassy remark, you were surprisingly beaten to the punch.

“Want one?” he asked, the smirk unwavering on his stupidly attractive face.

“Ew,” you replied, then immediately regretted it. Seriously? Ew? That was the best that you could do? You would think that years of dodging and delivering verbal daggers over family dinner would’ve better prepared you for this moment, but leave it to you to be tripped up by a pretty face.

You paused for a beat too long before retorting, “You can keep your lung disease, thank you very much.” You readjusted the book in your lap, still not feeling completely satisfied with your reply, but anything was better than your first statement. “Maybe go smoke somewhere that’s not right next to me, like,” you paused to gesture to the widely empty beach. “Literally anywhere else.”

“I didn’t realize that you were queen of this strip of beach. My apologies, Your Highness,” he shot back snarkily. You swore you could feel your blood boiling as it pumped through your veins.

“I’m not saying you can’t stay here,” you could feel your volume increasing as more adrenaline pumped through you, “I’m just asking that you don’t smoke.”

You watched as his brows raised questioningly the longer you spoke. “Or at least, don’t smoke next to me,” you clarified, folding under the pressure of a set of rather piercing blue eyes.

“Fine,” he agreed with a shrug, to your surprise. That hadn’t been so hard after all. Maybe he wasn’t all that bad. You bit back the part of you that wanted to feel triumphant at your clear victory over this random, pain-in-the-ass man.

Once more, you pretended to read your book while in your peripheral vision you watched him grab his few items, including his box of cigarettes, and stand up to move. What you weren’t expecting to see was him plant himself just a few feet further from you, sit down, then begin to aggressively tap his box of cigarettes, just loud enough to grab your attention. Naively believing that he wouldn’t actually have the audacity to begin smoking again, you were slightly scandalized when he pulled a stick out and returned to happily chain smoking.

He briefly glanced back over at you, the smug look on his face telling you that he was eagerly awaiting your reaction. As much as you didn’t want to humor him, you clearly couldn’t hide your annoyance.

“Oh my god,” you huffed, grabbing your tote bag and towel and standing up to head back towards your beach house. Maybe the beach just wasn’t in the cards for today. At least that man couldn’t bother you in your sunroom.

——————

One of the benefits of owning and spending your summer at your vacation home was being able to have your friends stop by and spend a few days with you. Seeing as your parents were utterly uninterested in spending any of your summer break together, it was also nice that you were basically able to do whatever you wanted over the summer.

As a teenager, this mainly meant parties and intense summer flings, but as your time in college began to mature you and your friends, the novelty of doing something you weren’t supposed to be doing began to wear off. What never seemed to wear off was your love for the local ice cream shop, with its sweet dairy scent lingering in the air and a waffle cone that was nothing short of to die for.

With one of your friends’ visits coming to an end, the two of you sat on the patio of this shop, racing against time and heat as you worked on your cones. In between gossip about which one of your classmates had to attend graduation with a baby bump, you caught your eye on someone exiting the shop to join you on the patio.

You practically had to hold back your groan as you processed who it was. Unfortunately, your enemy from the beach hadn’t felt nearly enough shame, and he openly waved at you.

Upon seeing your eyes wander, your friend turned around to see what it was that caught your eye. Just as quickly as she turned around to view the asshole, she turned right back to you with a newfound excitement.

“Oh my god, you know him?” your friend asked you, shock and elation written all over her face for a reason you couldn’t understand.

“Unfortunately,” you replied, taking a bite of a bit of exposed cone. “Do you know him? Did he go to your high school or something?”

She scoffed at your words as if you were missing the most obvious point in the world. “‘Did he go to my high school or something?’” she repeated in disbelief. “That’s Patrick Zweig. He’s about to go pro.”

You tilted your head and furrowed your brows, as if to ask for more context.

“In tennis? He’s like, the thing right now,” she explained.

“Maybe that’s why he’s such an asshole,” you glanced back over at him, only to find that he was unabashedly staring at you as he licked his own cone of ice cream. If you hadn’t had such a ridiculous encounter a week ago, you would’ve thought that he was being suggestive towards you.

“What happened that made him such an asshole?” she prodded, and you swore that she leaned forward as she asked.

“Please try to look a little less excited,” you laughed, entertained by your friend’s investment in your story about someone who was a celebrity in her eyes.

“Sorry,” she apologized disingenuously. “Go ahead.”

“Well, I was just trying to do some reading out on the beach, when he sat like, two feet away from me. Mind you, the entire beach was empty. He could’ve gone anywhere else.”

“Dick,” she interjected, though the unsubtle glance over in Patrick’s direction and her overzealous body language suggested to you that she might’ve meant the words less than she thought she did.

“Right,” you agreed. “But that clearly wasn’t enough. So he starts chain smoking. Right next to me.”

“Rude,” she added, doing her best to validate you as you told the story. Her ability to only add commentary in a monosyllabic manner was entertaining you, but you couldn’t focus too much on that now.

“So I called him out. I was like, ‘Hey, you dick. I know that you want black lung, but not everyone else does,’” you explained, embellishing your story to disguise your lackluster responses.

She giggled as you explained and you continued on. “Obviously, he was embarrassed that I called him out. So he looks me right in the eyes, and-“

“And what?” she asked, her eyes practically glimmering, as if you were about to tell her a story about some wild tryst that left you with a negative impression of him.

“Babe, I don’t think this story ends the way you think it does.”

“We’ll see,” she said with a shrug and a wink.

“Well, he got his ass up and started walking away. Internally, I’m celebrating. But then, he sits down pretty close to me… and starts smoking again. And he’s staring me down the whole time he does it.”

“Ugh! He is an asshole,” she shook her head as you wrapped up your story. “But like, isn’t he kinda…?”

“He could be the sexiest man alive and couldn’t seduce me with that personality,” you replied confidently, although you weren’t completely sure of your words.

“That’s certainly not stopping him from trying,” she glanced over her shoulder once more, where he was still looking at you while very intently eating his ice cream cone.

“Gross,” you replied, feigning a full-body shudder. “You couldn’t even pay me to go anywhere near him.”

“It’s probably for the best anyway. A friend of my friend said there was some super messy relationship drama with him recently.”

“Lovely,” you replied, trying your best to look and sound disinterested, but feeling curious regardless. “I feel bad for whoever has to spend any extended period of time with him,” you popped the bottom of your ice cream cone into your mouth, then crushed a paper towel in your hand. “Wanna head out?”

——————

After that, you truly tried your best to avoid Patrick. Like clockwork, he seemed to appear on the beach in your backyard during the late afternoon. You weren’t ashamed to admit that you had watched him through the windows of your bedroom more than a handful of times, and you could almost swear that his head was on a swivel, as if he were looking for someone before he settled into his spot.

Unfortunately for you, it felt like he seemed to pop up wherever you were. As you evaluated boxes of strawberries at the grocery store, you noticed him eyeing bunches of bananas not all that far away from you. Midway through a hike, you noticed a familiar set of distractingly muscular thighs and tried your best to hide, much to your friend’s confusion. While drinking a fruity cocktail at a bar, you noticed him and finished off your drink and threw down a bill at record speed.

You guessed that you never realized how small a town was until you were actively attempting to avoid someone. In a way, it was a little bit exciting to be dodging him so vehemently, though you’d never really admit that to yourself. At least, it was exciting until it became an utter annoyance, much like it was becoming at that very moment.

After you’d decided that you’d spent enough of your summer lounging around without practicing any golf, you decided to take it upon yourself to head to your local country club and take on the familiar course. Of course, you couldn’t play any golf without fueling up first, which left you in the restaurant of the club snacking on a cup of fries when you spotted the one person you had been trying desperately to dodge.

You averted your gaze down to your phone and acted as if you were reading the most interesting thing in the world, but not even that farce lasted long, as you were met with the sound of a chair scratching the floor across from you. You looked back up and were met with Patrick’s intense, searing stare.

“Are you following me, or something?” he asked, his brows furrowed at you as he looked at you with concern.

“What?!” you asked with disbelief. “You’re the one who keeps showing up around me and keeps licking ice cream seductively at me!”

“Seductively?” he laughed right in your face, and you could feel your face immediately warm up in embarrassment.

“Shut up,” you replied weakly, though you knew what you saw. “Who even are you?” you asked, despite now having the displeasure of knowing exactly who he was, thanks to your friend and a Google search.

He began to smirk, and it took everything in you to not want to wipe that smug smile right off of his face. “I’m Patrick, and you are?”

You introduced yourself while mentally berating yourself for the butterflies erupting in your stomach over his intent gaze. Unfortunately, Patrick was even better looking than you could’ve imagined up close, with sunkissed skin and freckles that seemed to go on for miles.

“Well if you’re not stalking me, what are you doing here?” he questioned, though it was clear from his crooked, goofy smile that he wasn’t being serious.

“I play golf,” you explained with a casual shrug, though the feelings you were having inside were far from casual. “So I’m here to do that. You?”

“I knew I’d heard that name before,” Patrick began before stealing a french fry from you and popping it into his mouth. “You won a championship recently?”

You nodded with what you hoped was a neutral expression on your face, hoping to brush him off despite the fireworks going off in your stomach and the heat returning to your face. Sure, it wasn’t the first time someone had recognized you for your accomplishments out on the golf course, but it felt different coming from him.

“I did,” you replied as casually as possible, not acknowledging his fry thievery or reciprocating your knowledge of his athletic achievements. It was always better to be more mysterious with the type of person who seemed to love the chase, and it seemed clear to you that Patrick was one of those people. “Anyway, I need to go practice so I can win the next championship.”

You pushed your unfinished dish of fries towards him and stood up before grabbing the golf bag propped up next to your feet. You pushed your chair in and didn’t even spare him a glance back in his direction as you walked away, secretly hoping to yourself that he was still watching you as intensely as he’d been watching you at the table.

You tried your hardest not to ruminate over your conversation and feelings too much, but as you walked out to the first hole, you couldn’t help but over analyze everything. The first and most confusing of which being your feelings towards Patrick. Clearly, you were attracted to him. Despite your terrible first impressions of each other and having what could arguably be described as a meet-ugly, you couldn’t pretend like his good looks and charming, yet cocky demeanor didn’t have an effect on you. It was clear from the way that the butterflies in your stomach decided to stop lying dormant every time he was in your vicinity.

What you still couldn’t quite place were his feelings towards you. It was obvious that he was getting some kick out of teasing you. Hell, it was obvious from the first interaction you had with him. And it seemed like he might be interested in you, based on the way he seemed to be magnetically drawn to you, and his less than appropriate treatment of his ice cream cone, which he could deny all he wanted, was definitely a shoddy attempt at flirting. Even your friend had noticed.

Just as you began to try to make sense of your previous interaction, you looked up to find a golf cart headed your way. The cart was manned by none other than the subject of your deep thoughts, and as Patrick got closer to you, you swore you could see a fiery excitement ignited in his body.

“Play with me?” Patrick asked once he parked, despite already being off the vehicle and reaching for his rented golf bag.

You paused for a moment, as if you were considering his proposition, despite you already knowing your answer. “As long as you don’t mind getting your ass whooped.”

You made sure to deliver on this promise, beating Patrick with ease. In a way, it felt like comeuppance for him being a nuisance towards you just a few weeks ago. But that didn’t mean your mini tournament was without its downsides for you. You tried desperately to fight the urge to giggle like a schoolgirl when he said something stupid and snarky, and to quiet your screaming brain during the many, many, times you corrected his stance.

What you were also surprised to find was that Patrick wasn’t all that terrible of company to keep. He seemed to know exactly what to say to make you laugh, despite your effort to be unimpressed with him, or how to throw you off right before you swung at a ball. More than once, you had to remind him that no amount of teasing would change the fact that he had a terrible score, but it certainly didn’t stop him from trying.

With your landslide victory clear and your game over, the two of you made your way back to the rental station.

“You definitely cheated,” Patrick commented as he put his equipment back.

“You’re such a sore loser,” you replied with a roll of your eyes and a laugh. You’d been doing a lot of eye rolling and laughing while playing golf with him, and it was oddly quite pleasant.

“I’m not!” he insisted, turning back to face you as if that would somehow prove his point.

“You are, though! You’re a dirty player, too. I don’t think anyone has ever come up behind me and yelled for me to focus before.”

“Whatever,” he dismissed you casually, “You would be eating your words right now if we were playing tennis.”

“Yeah?” you questioned with raised brows.

“Yeah,” he parroted back, taking a step towards you and locking that intense gaze on you once more.

Feeling bold, you matched his step forward, practically getting in his face. “Fine then. Let’s play.”

“Really?” he sounded shocked by your proposition, and looked utterly unintimidated by the fact that your faces were practically touching.

“Sure. There are some courts over by the pool,” you turned to look in the direction of the pool, taking that as an opportunity to step away from him. You feared what you might do if you stayed that close to him for any longer than you needed to. “Isn’t that what you came here to do anyway?”

“So you are stalking me?” he joked, referencing your earlier conversation.

You rolled your eyes once more. At this rate, your eyes were going to be stuck at the back of your head. “Do you want to play or not?”

If you were a beast on the golf course, Patrick was a sight to behold on the tennis court. The brief article you read online simply did not do the man across from you justice as he served balls at you that probably would have wiped your head clean off of your body if you had any slower reflexes.

While you were able to get a few good hits in, courtesy of the lessons your parents put you in before they realized that golf was your calling, none of them remotely compared to the man across the court.

But your embarrassing loss was rewarded by hearing the repetitive loop of grunts and groans from your competitor. It was somewhat of a miracle that you were able to keep it together without bursting out laughing or squeezing your thighs together. You were also handsomely rewarded by seeing those muscular thighs in action. To be completely frank, there were more than a few moments where you lost momentum due to distraction from Patrick’s good looks.

While Patrick had proved himself to be a sore loser while playing golf, he wasn’t a terrible winner. He only gloated about crushing you once the two of you had finished playing, but he did happen to revel in his win for the entire walk from the tennis courts to the locker rooms.

Surprisingly, you weren’t that annoyed by him. In fact, you were pretty sure that you were hovering around the feeling of endearment.

You sat out in the lobby, freshly showered and playing on your phone when a familiar presence joined you once more.

“Are you hungry?” Patrick asked you as he made himself right at home and sat down across from you.

Was he about to ask you out on a date?

“I could eat,” you replied, trying to ignore the butterflies in your stomach once more.

“Let’s get dinner, then,” he suggested, and you tried your best not to look too excited. He was asking you out on a date. What an unexpected turn of events.

“Sure. There’s a place just up the street if you want to walk?”

The diner was slightly further than you remembered it being, but the time passed by quickly as the two of you divulged stories of your sports accomplishments on your trek over. Over dinner, the two of you instantly bonded over a similar upbringing of wealthy parents who couldn’t really be bothered to raise you, and backgrounds in boarding schools that prioritized your athletic skills over anything else.

After spending way too long at your booth and working through a spread of food that would send a shiver down your coaches’ spines, your waiter finally stopped by your table with an exhausted look on their face.

“One check or two?” they asked you.

“One,” Patrick replied before you had the chance to pipe up. The waiter turned around without inquiring anything more, clearly tired of having to serve the two of you.

“Wow,” you said with a giggle. “Chivalry is not dead.”

“I’m single-handedly keeping it alive,” he joked right along with you.

Feeling emboldened by your day of camaraderie and teasing each other, you decided to ask something. “Does that make this count as a date, then?” you asked it as a joke, though you were genuinely curious about the answer. While you’d previously found yourself intrigued with his looks, you’d now learned that he was far more than that. It was safe to say that you’d developed a full-blown crush over the span of the day.

“Do you want it to count as one?” he asked almost earnestly, and despite the fact that you were sitting, you swore you felt your knees go weak.

You shrugged nonchalantly, but the grin on your face was anything but. Fortunately, he was wearing a matching grin, and you almost swore there was a dusting of pink on his cheeks. You buckled under his gaze, and looked down into your nearly empty cup of water. “Sure.”

“Then it’s a date,” he confirmed.

“It’s so hot,” you huffed as the two of you stepped outside and into the humid night.

“Wanna cool off at the pool?” he suggested after holding the door open for you.

“Wow, you just don’t want this date to end, huh?” you teased. “The pool is definitely closed by now.”

“So?” he replied.

“So you want to break in?”

“Why not?” he shot back.

You stared at him for a moment with a mostly blank expression.

“You’re such a bad influence. Let’s go,” you conceded, heading in the direction of the city’s pool.

Once the two of you arrived at the locked gate, you stood expectantly, waiting for the next part of Patrick’s plan. You didn’t have to wait for too long, as with a brief confirmation that you were ready, he hoisted you up and over the fence. You then watched as he flung his own body over the fence, and you bit your lip as you attempted to distract yourself from how that image made you feel.

With both of you on the correct side of the fence, you took it upon yourself to shuck off your clothes—save for your underwear–before you dipped your toe in the cold water.

“How’s the water?” Patrick asked as he approached you, taking his shirt and shorts off in the process. You tried your best not to ogle too much, but his six-pack was definitely staring at you. Yeah, you were definitely ogling, and he was definitely noticing.

“You tell me,” you replied, then pushed him into the pool without really thinking. You probably wouldn’t have done it if you hadn’t just been caught looking at the man like he was a piece of meat, but you had been doing exactly that, and panicked.

After a moment, he resurfaced and spat out the water that he’d swallowed from your surprise movement. Yet, as he came back to the surface, he didn’t say anything to you.

You eyed him nervously while he began to approach you in the water, and you opened up your mouth to apologize just as you felt a hand wrap around your ankle. With a yelp, you were dragged down into the water, luckily dodging the ledge on your way down.

Coming back up, spat out the chlorinated water and coughed out what you’d swallowed. “I deserved that.”

“You definitely did,” he agreed, lightly splashing you with water from where he stood.

You splashed him right back, putting a little more effort in and splashing him with slightly more force. “But you also deserved that.”

“And why is that?” that overconfident look appeared on his face once more. Just twenty-four hours ago, if you’d seen that look, you’d probably want to knock it right off of him. Now, you were tempted to keep prodding.

“Because you were being a dick about smoking not that long ago,” you replied, getting a little closer to him and matching his look with your own confident gaze.

“Huh,” he hummed. “Fair enough.”

“So why’d you do it?”

“Who knows. Maybe I just really wanted a smoke. Maybe I wanted to catch the attention of the cute girl on the beach.”

“Shut up,” you replied with clear disbelief. “I like how you try to flatter your way out of every sticky situation.”

“I mean it.”

“So you thought annoying me was the best way to get my attention?”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

You couldn’t argue with that.

“What if I was allergic to cigarette smoke?”

“You weren’t.”

“What if I just didn’t react, then?”

“You did,” he said.

“Must’ve been fate,” you replied dryly.

“Must’ve,” he agreed earnestly. Immediately, you felt a tension in your chest, and you wondered if he felt the same way. You didn’t have a witty or sarcastic comeback, and his face was dangerously close to yours.

Unsure of what to do, you splashed him once more.

“What was that one for?”

For making me fall for you in the span of a day, you idiot.

You shrugged, unable to come up with a coherent answer with you realizing just how physically close the two of you were. Now that you were beginning to have a bit of clarity, you could hear the pounding of your heartbeat in your eardrums. Or maybe it was Patrick’s. With your bodies this close to each other, you couldn’t be too sure.

You wondered what was going through his mind, but if the quick glance to your lips and the bob of his Adam’s apple as he gulped was any indication of his thoughts, you were sure you were on the same page.

You found yourself in somewhat of a standoff as the two of you stood there, wordless and hearts pounding as you stood together in a freezing cold pool. You shut your eyes for a moment, and when you opened them, Patrick’s nose was practically pressing against yours. But just as you began to follow his lead, you were met with a blindingly bright flashlight.

“Hey!” a new voice yelled out, pulling the two of you out of your trance. “What’s going on here?”

Patrick’s eyes widened and you were sure yours did too.

“Shit, security,” you muttered to yourself as it occurred to you what was happening. The two of you immediately scurried to the side of the pool. “I don’t think they saw us, but they definitely heard us,” you whispered.

“Do you think you could outrun them?” he asked, matching your low tone as the light of the flashlight moved across the pool without

“What?”

“Come on,” he hoisted himself out of the pool and you did the same, trying your best to be quiet as the two of you grabbed your discarded clothes.

“Patrick…” you trailed off, glued to his side.

“Come on,” he repeated as he shepherded you to the fence. “I won’t let them get you. Now,” he gestured for you to come over so he could help you climb over again, and you did. As he climbed over, the security guard’s flashlight had finally caught up with the two of you.

“Hey!” the guard repeated, lunging in your direction just as Patrick made it over.

“Run!” you yelled at him as the two of you took off. All of that tennis training clearly paid off, as he was far faster than both you and the security guard.

“Get back here!” the guard shouted as he chased the two of you.

The two of you sprinted, your bare feet screaming at you as pebbles and sticks poked your soles. Running on pure adrenaline, you swore you could hear Patrick laughing as he ran ahead of you.

The two of you ended up by his car, parked safely at the country club. You desperately tried to catch your breath as you leaned against his car door, now completely sure that you’d lost the security guard who was chasing you.

“I hate you so much,” you got out in between panting heavily.

“No you don’t,” his chest rose and fell quickly as he corrected you.

“No I don’t,” you confirmed, taking satisfaction in hearing his heavy breaths next to you and knowing that you weren’t the only one affected by the chase.

It felt as if the two of you had been transported right back into the moment you were having in the pool, a heavy, undeniable tension settling over the two of you, with the adrenaline of the chase and your hearts still rapidly pumping blood from all that running. It was almost as if one second you were standing next to each other, and the next you were pinned up against his car door, kissing like your lives depended on it.

With one of his hands up your shirt, you somehow found the willpower to use the logical part of your brain. “Wait, stop,” you reluctantly said as you pulled away for air. “I don’t want another security guard chasing us.”

“They won’t,” Patrick insisted before leaning back in to kiss you.

“They will,” you disagreed, exerting all of your willpower to dodge his advance. “Take me home?”

Patrick’s hand sat securely on your thigh for the entire ride back to the beach house. With the tension between the two of you crackling and the excitement of successfully running away beginning to die down, the two of you were mostly quiet on your way over.

After he pulled into your driveway, he looked over at you with hesitance. If you didn’t know any better, you might even say that he looked a little nervous.

“Wanna come inside?” you broke the ice, knowing that was what he was surely thinking about, and just as you predicted, he seemed to light up at your invitation.

The heat of the moment seemed to have passed, with the two of you now safely in your home, and not coming off the heels of being chased down the street. Patrick sat on your living room couch while you poured two tumblers of a criminally expensive whiskey.

You returned to the living room and sat down on the far end of the couch, passing him one of the cups before extending your legs out. You were pleasantly surprised when he positioned your legs over his lap and began to soothingly rub up and down your calves.

“What a day,” you sighed, taking a long sip from your cup.

“You’re telling me,” he chuckled in response.

As you laid there, you realized that you were actually quite exhausted. A silence settled over you once more as you yawned, then Patrick yawned not too long after you.

“You know, you’re nothing like I expected you to be,” he said randomly.

“Oh?” you replied questioningly. “Should I be offended or flattered?”

“Up for interpretation,” he looked over to you to gauge your reaction, and you playfully pushed his thigh with your foot.

“Then I’m gonna interpret it in a good way.”

“I meant it in a good way,” he said after a beat.

You smiled softly as you peered at him. “I didn’t expect you to be like this, either. I actually had a lot of fun beating you in golf and running from security guards.”

“No way you’re still talking about golf after I absolutely demolished you in tennis,” he laughed, a sound that you’d grown rather fond of throughout the day.

“It was pretty amazing watching you play golf with such bad form. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone use that many strokes on that course.”

“You wanna talk about bad form?” Patrick laughed again. “It’s a miracle you didn’t pull something when we played tennis.”

“Hey! My form is not that bad. You know I was in tennis lessons as a kid, right?”

“And how long ago was that?” he probed, looking at you with a suspicious raise of a brow.

You tried your best to do some mental math, but you were far too tired to be precise. “I mean, it was a while ago…?”

“Clearly,” he shook his head.

“Rude,” you replied, though your tone carried across you not really caring. “I’m still here for a few more weeks. Maybe you could teach me.”

“Only if you teach me how to get better at golf. I’m gonna have to impress my fellow board members someday.”

“Deal,” you agreed. Part of you wanted to leap for joy after establishing that this wasn’t some sort of one-and-done thing, and that you could at least see Patrick until you went back home.

You watched as he leaned further against the couch and tilted his head against the cushioned back of the piece of furniture, his eyes fluttering shut as he did so.

“Want to go sleep on a real bed? The guest room is clean,” you offered.

“No, I’m comfortable here,” he yawned and patted your calf. You didn’t believe him in this slightest, with his long limbs and less than ideal sleeping position. But you were quite comfortable, so you didn’t bother with insisting he leave the couch.

In the morning, you woke up in the same position that you’d fallen asleep in, with your legs draped over Patrick’s lap as he sat up and snored.

You did your best not to disturb him as you got up and went about your morning routine, taking a shower and changing into something comfortable before heading back downstairs. You were surprised to find Patrick somehow still upright and asleep on your couch, but you didn’t question it too much. It had been a long day and night.

You brewed some coffee in the kitchen, making sure to leave a portion for your guest, before you grabbed the book you’d been reading and headed out to sit on your portion of the beach.

You’d lost track of time while sitting out there, listening to the sound of the ocean and getting caught up in the contents of your book. In fact, you’d gotten so lost in your book, that you hadn’t even noticed that you’d gained a presence on the beach.

After Patrick cleared his throat, you turned to look at him. A smile grew on your face as the two of you locked eyes, and you scooted to the left on your oversized beach chair. Surely, there was enough space for both of you.

He took your invitation and sat down next to you, glancing between you and the ocean as he settled in. He wrapped an arm around your shoulder and occasionally peered down at your book, but otherwise didn’t bother you. The two of you fell into a comfortable rhythm, your chests rising and falling in sync with each other as the two of you lost track of time.

Maybe Patrick wasn’t such a terrible beach companion after all.

[moririki]

⤷ CLUELESS

USHIJIMA WAKATOSHI X READER -> 1.5K despite your best efforts to confess your feelings to the infamous stone wall, he never quite seems to understand

REQUEST -> n/a CONTAINS -> ushijima being fucking clueless lmaooo, reader stumbling around being awkward, tendo being a jackass in the best way, obvious pining MORI'S THOUGHTS -> this imagine is based off of monthly girls' nozaki-kun, which is a pretty good (and short!) anime i watched on netflix hehe. the dynamic just reminded me of ushi for some reason so this became a thing

WHEN YOU FOUND YOURSELF FALLING HEAD OVER HEELS FOR THE CAPTAIN OF A VOLLEYBALL TEAM, YOU DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO DO. the two of you had nothing in common. the most you saw of him in a day was the brief glimpse of him before he headed into class. despite the fact that you could count the number of interactions that you've had with him on one hand, you were quick to develop feelings for the guy.

maybe you just had a type. he was tall, handsome, and quiet, but you were surprised that not many of the girls in your class gossiped about him. from what you knew about him, he mostly kept to himself or the volleyball team, with a very focused mindset accompanying him on and off of the court. the more that you knew about him only deepened your crush, to the point where it was getting unbearable to just admire him from afar.

while you felt like you knew the outcome before it started, you still decided to try your luck. today was the day of your confession.

"um, ushijima?" you tapped him on the shoulder hesitantly, stood next to his desk. he turned to you, face stoic as always. now or never. don't give away the fact that you're sweating bullets, you reminded yourself. your hands were balled into tight fists, nails digging into your palms as you felt your mouth open and close a few times with no sound coming out. fuck.

ushijima's face was blank, offering neither support nor disdain. well, the lack of outright disgust was always a good sign.

"i just wanted to say that i, uh.." you trailed off, resolve crumbling underneath the powerful gaze of ushijima. what were you thinking? you couldn't tell him how you felt, but you couldn't just slowly destroy yourself keeping it from him. might as well get it over and done with. "i want to be around you!" you ended up blurting out. and once the dam broke, more and more words started to spill past your lips.

"i've always admired you and how dedicated you are to volleyball, and i want to be around you more- and it's because i-" you finally hesitared at that, feeling your face flame up when confronted with the three little words which would change everything. but ushijima must have assumed that you had finished talking because your chance to confess had disappeared.

"i'm glad that you feel that way, y/n." ushijima's facial expression was still stern, but you perked up at his words nonetheless.

"you do?" you sounded breathless, eyes wide after you had just exposed exactly how you felt to your long-standing crush. ushijima nodded encouragingly, and you could feel a ringing in your ears as you begaj to think that you were dreaming. this was simply too good to be true, and you felt so lightheaded that you could float away with the lightest gust of wind.

"to confirm your position as manager you're going to have to fill out a form, but you can join practice tomorrow." you blinked, feeling yourself crash back down to earth when ushijima continued to speak.

"wait, what?" ushijima then looked at you in confusion.

"did you not just ask me to be a manager?" you hesitated, struggling internaly as to whether you should confess, again. but your cowardice won, and you sighed, nodding.

"i'll see you tomorrow."

the plasticky squeak of trainers hitting gymnasium floor welcomed you, and you steeled your nerves before stepping through the doors and being welcomed by the bright lights. you squinted as the glare hit you, hands holding onto your arms in an attempt to pull yourself together.

the sound of a volleyball being spiked into the floor harshly grasped your attention, and you watched in awe as the shiratorizawa volleyball team began to warm up. ushijima had just delivered that terrifyingly fast spike, and you felt a blush rise to your face as you saw how concentrated he was. cute.

"oh, hello!" a singsong voice and accompanying face invaded your senses, and you squeaked in surprise, taking an involuntary step back. the red-headed boy grinned at you, his frame towering over yours. "are you the new manager?" you nodded once, eyes darting past him to look at ushijima again. the ace still had his attention trained onto the court, despite the racket his teammate was causing. you sighed when you realised that your crush hadn't noticed you come in, and your action caused the redhead in front of you to narrow his eyes shrewdly.

"tendo, get back to practice!" a second voice called from the court. another guy with grey hair was stood there with his hands on his hips, staring at the male in front of you expectantly.

"coming, semi-semi!" tendo sang, offering you a cheery wave before running back. you were glad that there was at least one friendly face in the gym, though you had to fend for yourself now.

considering the fact that you had minimal support and nobody else to show you the ropes, you had actually picked up rather quickly on how to be a semi-decent manager. you fell into a rhythm over the next few weeks, filling up water bottles and preparing towels for the sweaty players. at least your failed confession had led to you taking part in a club that would look very good on your college applications.

another positive from this whole experience was the fact that you had gained two new friends, who went by the names tendo and semi. it was almost embarrassing at how quickly they figured out your crush for their team captain- semi tried to flirt with you, and tendo cackled as you stuttered out a rejection for his advances. next thing you know, one instinctive glance in ushijima's direction had tendo unraveling the entire mystery as to why you had signed up for a position as manager.

of course, the two assholes found the whole situation hilarious at your expense. however, you couldn't find yourself holding a grudge against the boys when they offered to act as your official wingmen. as for the very reason why you had joined the team, things were going about as well as you could expect. while he made no indication of going out of his way to talk to you, ushijima would gladly return any conversation that you struck up when handing him his water bottle or towel. he'd then return to practice promptly, help to lock up the gym, and then leave with not much in terms of a second glance. it was unsurprising behaviour, but still disheartening to say the least.

that's how you found yourself ranting to tendo during the team's five-minute break, with the boy watching your frustrated face in amusement.

“i just- i can’t believe that i talked myself into being a manager! all because of a crush! a crush that doesn’t even realise that i like him!” you placed down the towel that you just folded in frustration, and tendo couldn’t stop a giggle escaping his lips.

“look, that’s just how he is.” the redhead attempted to console you, giving you a pat on the arm. “he’s difficult to read, and he never talks about his emotions. besides, i don’t think he’s ever had a crush before.”

you sighed, nodding in defeat.

“yeah, yeah. i get it.” tendo’s focus drifted from your face to behind you, and he was quick to sling an arm around your shoulder.

“speaking of the guy...” he muttered to you under his breath. you turned to see the captain approaching, his brow slightly knitted. you smiled as best as you could, offering him a water bottle.

“bye, sweetie,” tendo cooed at you, shooting you a painfully obvious wink that had you blushing and looking down at your shoes. now it was just you and ushijima, the latter being as silent as ever. you coughed once, peeking up at his face.

“you spiked well today.” ushijima nodded once, a small smile spreading across his face. the motion had your heart swelling.

“thank you. you’re a very good manager.” you laughed, mostly to hide your blush and just at how ironic this entire situation was.

“thank you.” you smiled up at the man, and that was the end of your interaction. you watched his back as he returned back to the court, going so much further away from you. tendo shot you two thumbs up and received a slap on the back of the head from semi, and that made you giggle.

hell, even if you got here under circumstances that weren’t in your favour, you wouldn’t trade it for the world. something about getting to watch ushijima perform in his element every day was enough to keep your crush going, reciprocated or not. besides, who knew how the guy really felt after all?

your daydreaming had you staring off into space as the coach blew a whistle to mark the return to practice, and a pair of olive eyes tore themselves away from you to focus back on the court.

you had been paying attention to his spikes, after all.

back to the counter - ,, 💐 ·˚ ༘ ꒱

[genshin-impacted]

lost & found // Diluc x Reader (1/3)

Word Count: ~3.3k 

Notes: GN!Reader, Seelie!Reader, Diluc/Reader, what more can I say? You’re a cute seelie following Diluc around

Summary: Vaguely remembering the time when you were once human, you are a mini seelie roaming the outskirts of Mondstadt when you find Diluc and decide to follow him-- though he does his share of following you too, through the best and worst of your adventures together. 

“You’re more of a radar for trouble than treasure, aren’t you,” Diluc says rather than asks you, though his fondness is clear to see. You can only do a bashful swirl in response. 

-

Alternatively: As a seelie, you’re terrible at leading Diluc towards treasure without running into hoards of hilichurls or enemies alike, but he follows you anyways. 

[Part 2]

.

.

You are a seelie. 

You aren’t quite sure what that is, but you know for a fact that the wispy reflection that you see in the lake is you. No hands, no legs, no head, no heart-- though you remember when you had all that before. You can feel yourself breathe, but you also know you would be fine without it. You touch the water and vaguely feel its coolness and register that it is wet, but you aren't sure what is touching the water or how you know what it feels like. 

You are able to fly. You rise, and you fall, and you twirl in midair, and you know you have never been able to do this until now. "This is nice," you find yourself saying, but your voice comes out garbled and high, so you stop. You suppose losing your speech is the price to pay for the power of flight.

You don't know how long you wandered until you find something familiar to you. In a land of slimes, aggressive flowers, and crystalized butterflies, it's hard for you to take everything in at once. But you can recognize a human when you see one. (It would be difficult not to. You were once human, too, if you can remember.)

The human is strikingly distinct as far as humans go. With bright red hair, the man in black leans against the tree by the lakeside and watches the water lap up against the short cliff. You don't make snap judgments, not usually, but when you see the man in black, you can't help that your first thoughts are that he looks lonely.

You float to him steadily from what you hope is outside of his sight, curious enough to approach and observe what you can of him without being seen. 

Except, the moment you fly near him, he looks directly at you. (Apparently, you glow, if the light that you shine on his face is not enough of an indicator of your bioluminescence.)

You freeze in mid-air, or as much as you can as a globby orb of light. You wait with bated breath as he watches you as intently as you watched him, and you take a glimpse at what your light has allowed you to see: bright red eyes to match his hair. (You've never seen so much red on a person. And red-red too, not just the orange-y red you've seen people with.) 

Not knowing what else to do, you decide to do a somersault. (You think if you were still a human, you’d attempt to crack a joke or start a conversation to break the ice, but alas.)

You expect him to start doing something-- anything. But the man continues to look at you, though with less of a guarded expression and more of a curious one instead. 

You almost feel offended by the strange look he gives you, but then you see his lips uplift into a small smile and you forgive him. For good measure, you twirl in the air and, when he simply follows you with his eyes, you circle around his head like a halo.

"You're a different type of seelie, aren't you?" He says, his arms still crossed when you fly down to smush your face against the red gem at his collar and the Vision at his waist. You loop around his legs and try to lift his fur-lined coattails, only for him to lift it up himself and shoot you a raised brow. "Did you want me to follow you?"

Follow you? You wonder, why would he want to follow you? You don't think you have anywhere to be, let alone anywhere to lead him to. 

Now how to convey that to him…

The red-head watches you as you shake yourself side-to-side in what you hope looked like the shake of a head. "Ah… That's a no, then. I see," he says. He chuckles when you chirp in joy, looping up again. 

He pushes himself off the tree and walks on the path, toward the mansion in the distance. You follow closely behind him. A few steps in, he turns to you-- and you almost feel bashful enough to droop in height.

"Are you following me on purpose?" He asks.

You swirl up and eagerly bob your head. You wish you could ask, but the only thing you can do is trill-- which seems to do the trick when you hear the man huff in amusement before beginning to walk again. "Well, hurry up then," he says, and you chirp once before speeding up to catch to him in record-speed flying. 

(If you accidentally crash into his back at your eagerness, you think the shake of his shoulders in his laughter is only good signs of the beginning of a friendship.)

.

.

.

You hope the man you’ve decided to follow doesn't mind that all you can do is trill and twirl in the air. You make for a poor partner in conversation, considering you cannot supply the words to respond, but you think he at least finds you amusing at least if the small smile on his face is anything of note. You think he looks rather charming like that, as opposed to his straight-faced somberness when he was alone. Very mysterious, you think to yourself, must be popular.

When you follow him and see groves of grapevines and a mansion of formidable size, you think perhaps his rugged handsomeness and broodingly mysterious nature aren’t his only charm points. 

(You wonder if you can eat. You press where you think your mouth should be onto a bunch of grapes only to be disappointed by a lack of action. 

"What are you doing?" The man's voice calls out to you, amusement laced into his words. You turn around and speed back to him, feigning innocence.) 

The two of you enter the confines of Dawn Winery-- or so you read from a sign. You watch curiously as your mysterious man waves his hand in greeting when a few maids bow respectfully and follow him into the back where a man waits by a wheelbarrow.

"Master Diluc," the man says, and you are elated to finally put a name to a face you've followed for a while now. The winery employee looks past him at you, and you instinctively hedge closer to Diluc, almost hiding behind his hair. "Is that… a seelie?"

"So it seems," Diluc replies, crossing his arms. He takes a look at you. "Though it has yet to guide me anywhere."

You let out an extended squeak of indignance that makes him laugh, uncrossing his arms before he turns back to the worker at hand to discuss business. 

You'll show him, you think huffily. You can guide him somewhere-- it's in your bones (metaphorically). You found him, didn't you? You reason, surely there is something innately Seelie about you that will lead him somewhere.

Most seelies, as you have learned from watching Diluc follow the larger blue seelies, guide people to a treasure chest or some kind of monetary reward for leading them back to their seelie courts. You wonder if they are programmed to know where they are supposed to go and if there is a natural pull to a certain place. You wonder if it's anything like your wandering curiosity similar to that of a child, hoping to see what lies ahead and barreling forth. 

Either way, you take the lead and Diluc follows you out into Teyvat.

And he follows you right into enemy territory.

The first time feels like an accident, and after Diluc destroys the encampment, he finds a box of artifacts as a reward for his battle prowess. (You've never seen so much burnt grass.) The second time you guide him into enemy territory feels like a coincidence. They were next to each other, and hey, Diluc is able to find an exquisite chest this time filled to the brim with mora.

The third time around, it is hard to argue otherwise.

"You're more of a radar for trouble than treasure, aren't you," Diluc comments, settling down onto a log as you (metaphorically) bury your head into your hands. To convey such emotion as a seelie, you droop to the ground as flat as you could possibly be at his feet.

"I'm kidding," he says, watching with quipped lips as you rise from the ground moodily. "We did get some treasure out of it, so it wasn't a total loss." He reaches out with his hand to gently brush over your front as he would a cat-- and you react as a cat would, preening into his hand. He lets out a huff of laughter. "Affectionate, aren't you?"

You do a bashful swirl.

.

.

.

You realize soon enough that most people would not call Diluc private or stoic. Charming, a man with a way with his words, succinct, and pleasant are only a few things you've heard people say about him. And you were right-- he is a popular man if the eyes that follow him and the dreamy sighs that come after he leaves is of any indication.

The mysteriously cool Diluc you meet on the first day is vastly different from the man that everyone else interacts with on a day to day basis. He's not charming all the time, but he has a way about him that exudes confidence and almost an elitist composure. In some ways, you are glad-- you don't have to hide away behind his collar or in his hair (you still do this, if you're honest, just because his hair is so fluffy), afraid to mar his pristine reputation as a local bad boy. And in other ways, you are a bit smug, to know a side of Diluc that he shows to very few people.

Kaeya is one of those few people you have seen Diluc act anything less than amicable towards. 

"I was hoping one day you would have someone at your side but I have to admit, Master Diluc," Kaeya says, propping his face on his hand in amusement, "this is not quite what I imagined."

You let out a titter of laughter at the difference between the two men's expressions as Kaeya pokes at your little translucent ears. Kaeya looks at you with mesmerizing amusement as Diluc glares at Kaeya over his wiped-clean glass like he would like to do nothing else but break it over the other's head. ("It wouldn't hurt that much," Kaeya tells you flippantly. "Not as much as the hangovers his drinks give me.")

"Don't you have somewhere better to be?"

"Not really, no." Kaeya replies, feigning hurt, "Why, don't want me here?"

"Never."

Kaeya gives you a pointed look akin to a puppy. "His words are colder than my Vision, mini seelie," he says to you. "Careful not to get frostbite now."

"You have the privilege of having earned my ire," Diluc says shortly. "Also," he slaps Kaeya on the back of his hand when he goes to pull at your ears, "stop that."

"Protective, aren't you?" Kaeya chuckles, watching as you gaze up at Diluc adoringly. "I think you're one phrase away from telling me to get my own mini seelie."

At this, you let out a long coo, flying up to bop Kaeya gently on his nose before going over to Diliuc and rubbing your face onto his cheeks. You hear Diluc let out another breath of laughter, and you feel his hand press you closer to him. “Are you comforting me?” He asks in amusement, and for once, he does not berate Kaeya for joining in with his laughter. 

“The pair the two of you make,” Kaeya drawls, picking up his glass of Death After Noon. “You’d fight wars for each other, wouldn’t you?”

Of course you would, you think, though there was very little you could do as a seelie-- and you forget that at times. 

To be fair, most of the time, Diluc didn’t seem to treat you any less than his traveling companion. You’re only reminded when you float on your own when he’s cleaning up the tavern and get chased by cats and birds alike, only to come flying home to Diluc blubbering about your near-death experiences (though was it even possible for you to die?). And when you try to, in attempts to help Diluc out, scold a rowdy customer into behaving by slamming your body into their face rapidly without doing any damage whatsoever.   

The two of you-- Seelie and Uncrowned King of Mondstadt-- were a pair of renown. (“Two peas in a pod,” Venti would say the first time you led Diluc to him at Starsnatch Cliff, and “always together like bread and butter,” he said to you two the second time you find him near Starfell Lake. And ��are you two following me?” when Venti walks into the tavern for the third consecutive meeting.) And if you ever doubted that Diluc cared for you, you had to look no further than when you were stolen from Diluc’s side by treasure hoarders who didn’t know any better.

It is in these moments where you are viscerally reminded that you are a seelie-- a being meant to guide people to treasures-- and not what you have been for the past few-- weeks? months? by Diluc’s side. You realize that you’ve never been hurt in this form before when you are kidnapped. It didn’t occur to you that you could feel any pain, and you wonder why not when you can feel the softness of Diluc’s hair and the warmth of his hand-- all gentle, loving gestures. Being squeezed by the treasurer hoarder’s hand feels suffocating, like your lungs being crushed under a massive, unrelenting weight.

It is not pleasant, to say the least, especially when they threaten you to take them to treasure that you know you cannot locate. 

Or can you? 

With convincing pulses of light, as though you’re approaching actual riches, you lead them where you lead people (or rather, just Diluc) best. 

The enemies of your enemies are your friends; you watch as an axed mitachurl spins around, chasing after the treasurer hunters who with varying degrees of fear, run away. They would have gotten away scot-free if they had not run into Diluc who had somehow found you before you could come back to him.

His phoenix burns bright especially in the moonless night, and Diluc takes care of two enemy camps that night. 

“Clever,” he says, making you preen, “leading them here. They really didn’t know what they signed up for when they started following you, did they?”

How did you find me? You trill, twirling around. And there should be no reasonable way for Diluc to understand what you’re trying to say, but he does anyways. 

“I just did what you usually do for me,” Diluc says, putting his hand up so you can gently land on it. Your glow illuminates his face in the softest shade of color. You watch as his lips turn up into a small smile. “I led myself to wherever the trouble was and knew I’d find you.” 

(Diluc will never tell you this for as long as you are a seelie, but the moment you do not come back to him when he finishes up his shift at Angel’s Share, his stomach drops. It shouldn’t have been hard to spot you, a glowing light, amongst the quiet, softly lit streets of Mondstadt, but he gives the city a quick lookover and cannot find you. 

He learns about the treasure hoarders from his connections and does not hesitate to take his broadsword with him and go looking for you. 

He runs into two other treasure hoarder camps and fights three groups of slimes before he finds the hilichurl camp you’ve led the hunters into, beyond relieved to see your familiar light in the distance.)

From that night, Diluc finds a mini seelie (you), sixteen anemo sigils, an old broadsword, mora, and a few treasure hunter insignias left behind. He gives you a sunsettia even though the both of you know you cannot eat, and you sit together at the edge of a cliff, watching the moon come out from its hiding place within the clouds. 

You have never felt safer.

.

.

.

You don’t really sleep, but every night you take your place by Diluc’s pillow and let time pass you by. Time feels different as a seelie, especially when you do not have Diluc to ground you to the schedule of a normal person. 

Though, if you were honest, it isn’t as though Diluc keeps regular hours himself. How many times have you bullied (read: squeaked at) him into turning in before dawn? How many times have you pressed your entire translucent body onto his face so he can take the hint to finally take a break? You vaguely remember being a human, and you think you should be abhorred by the amount of sleep Diluc isn’t taking, considering how good sleep can feel. 

On the bright side, Diluc has gotten more used to your antics that it only takes a little nagging from your end for him to turn the desk lamp off.

“You’re quite persistent,” he comments, following you with his eyes as you press your body into various spots in the ceiling above him. “I can’t tell if I’ve been blessed or cursed with you as some sort of guardian.”

Guardian seelie, you titter, spinning around with your ears outstretched as though you were an angel. Special isekai seelie, you laugh to yourself, and Diluc only watches you fondly as you float down. 

"’Stripped of all that the body once held close and the soul once held dear, song and memories are all that now remain of yesteryear,’” Diluc recites quietly as you look up to him. “‘The last singers-- the first Seelie-- they played their final tune in the halls of angels.’" 

What is that?

“It’s a song I remember hearing when I was a child,” he says, “about seelies and their origins. I don’t remember if there was anything else, but it came to me today when I was thinking of you.” You wait for him to continue as he dims the light, your glow the only thing illuminating the room other than the moon. “Most seelies want to go back to their seelie courts… but it doesn’t seem as though you want to.” He pauses. “Or is it that you don’t have a court to go back to?”

You stay silent. 

“Sorry, forget what I said. It doesn’t matter in the end anyways.” Diluc scoops you up from his lap to place you at your usual place on the other pillow by his head. You softly trill when he gently pets you, and whether you mean to or not, you glow just a bit brighter for a moment.

“Even if one day you decide to leave, the winery will always be open to you,” he says. “Adeleine and the rest of the maids will recognize you and let you in-- though I suppose the entirety of Mondstadt knows who you are by now so I guess I don’t have to worry about that, do I?” He smiles when you coo softly.

“Good night,” Diluc says to you, as he does every night, and sleeps knowing you cannot say it back in words, though he understands you regardless every time.

If you weren’t a seelie, would you have been able to be as close to Diluc as you are now? Would he still have cared about you to the extent he does now?

Even if these questions did not have the answers you wanted to hear, you think to yourself, as your heart warms (though you have no heart) from the sight of seeing Diluc’s even rise and fall of his chest, that you wish that you’d one day be able to say ‘good night’ back to him.

.

You can only watch the moon rise and dream.

[l-1-z-a]

The Sims 2 Dev Twitter Thread Part 4 by Jake Simpson

Sims 2 Dev Thread, part 4.

Probably the last one I'll do for a while - I'm running out of stories:)

One of the things I wanted to add to The Sims 2, that never even got off the drawing board, was to give them super powers - strength, flight, invisibility, etc. I kept on and on about this idea and was greeted with LOTS of eye rolling on this:) Oh well, can't win 'em all:)

We did do lots of experiments with the plumbob though, to use it to indicate stuff that the sim was feeling or wanted to tell you. We even tried replacing it with different objects (a light bulb while the sim was deciding what to do, etc), and none of it really worked.

It just didn't feel "Sim-my" enough. I think we did go with color changes on the plumbob (it's been so long I've forgotten what made it into the final product and what didn't.) but that would have been about it.

Once the game was released, there were various attempts to use the Sims 2 codebase to do different things. Patrick Barret wanted to refactor some of the tools and the game and make a new Adventure Construction Set, using the Sims 2 code.

Will actually gave the content creation tools away to a couple of Universities, so they could use it as examples of how to build stuff for Video Games. EA execs went ballistic when they found out what he'd done.

While I'm there, I should talk about little bit about the policy towards user created content. On balance, EA was approving of this. They were aware that part of what pushed the success of Sims 1 was the huge amount of free user generated content available for it.

They knew that even though 95% of what was user created was utter crap, just the fact that there was so much of it, and some of it was very good, was a huge driver of sales. All games that all user generated content have this extra push, right back to the days of DOOM.

So they wanted to keep that around, BUT, they weren't about to put the content creation tools we used out there, because then other people could create content as good as the expansion packs that EA produced, which was a major source of $.

So what they settled on was a graduating scale of 'easy to produce' content that users could create. So, reskinning an existing object was easy. Creating animations for that object wasn't too hard, assuming you knew the names of the animations that the object required..

... and certain bones that were required so the Sim could stand appropriately infront of the object, and then grasp it, if need be.

Adding Sim animations was nigh on impossible, and there was no way that EA was going to allow people to create their own scripts. Both from a "This takes $ away from us" and also from a "We always want this game to work" point of view.

Allowing users to create scripts invites scripts that crash or are buggy or drag performance down. EA wasn't about to take money out of their own mouths, so this and the object packaging system was never described publicly.

Of course we inside knew this would be reverse engineered within weeks of release, but whatever. Gotta make the suits happy.

One of the biggest PIA was releasing the sim builder tool early, about 2 months before the main game was released. It was a good marketing and business idea, but from a tech point of view, it was incredibly limiting.

We literally could make no changes to the Sims definition at all, once that tool was out. Couldn't fix anything or add anything. It was quite limiting, although, like I said, a great way to boost interest in the game.

Actually generating a release candidate for The Sims 2was not a fun or easy task. It would literally take about a day to preprocess all the art and everything that the Sims 2 would use on release.

We had a system whereby we didn't do full rebuilds of all content very often because it was so expensive time wise. But even just building all the object packages from prebuilt content would take on the order of 2-3 hours.

I remember sitting on the bean bags in the main common area, trying not to fall asleep at 2am because we'd just fired off a new build for QA to test, and I needed to be available in case anything went wrong with the build.

There were constant battles between me and production, because they wanted to 'just stick this new content into the release build' and me refusing to do it until it had been properly QA'd. I remember being overruled more than once by the EP, Lucy Bradshaw on that.

It was the right decision to make things move along, but very much the wrong one to keep the game stable, so it always worked and didn't crash. Still, wasn't my decision to make, so we just muddled on.

Annnnyway. I think that's probably going to be all I'm going to do for a while, unless I remember new stories to tell.

I hope you guys have enjoyed this stroll down memory lane into SimVille:)

OH! So, someone asked about SuperStar and why that was never released for Sims 2. I can talk a little about that. There was quite a lot of internal discussion about expansion packs for Sims 1 and what we'd do for Sims 2, since we were trying to prepare for these at the time.

We knew that some packs would be a 1:1 release - we'd do the exact same themes for some and not others. Pets and Vacation we knew we'd be doing, but for the others, there was a desire to not just regurgitate the same extra content that was created for Sims 1.

Another thing about Superstar was Celebrity involvement and endorsement. It really started with Drew Carey, who was an unabashed fan. They ended up doing a Sims themed episode for The Drew Carey Show, and Patrick Barret coded a bunch of scripts specifically for that.

We did add Drew as a walk on NPC sim, just because he was a decent person, but his interactions were extremely limited. He was just happy he was in there at all, as I recall.

But when Avril Lavigne came along for SuperStar, it turned into quite a lot of back and forth. Her team were really just interested in using this as a vehicle to promote her latest album. There were so many approvals we had to get and so many restrictions...

She couldn't just be "another sim" because there was no way that her team would let a representation of her just pee on the floor, for example. So we had to code a massive amount of specific scripts, just for her.

It upset the social game too, because you weren't allowed to have a relationship with her either. Going forward, the team basically said, "Never again" because of the amount of work required to make this work.

EA kept trying to get the team to use celebrities, but it was just too much work. We always seemed to be a vehicle for them to promote themselves, rather than them promoting The Sims, you know?

Source: https://twitter.com/JustJakeSimpson/status/1377715854586957825

[80s4life]

The Thought Of Losing You

Word Count: 2,507

Status: Not Requested!

Fandom: Lethal Weapon 1987 {1}

A/N: This follows sort of around the ending of the first Lethal Weapon film where both Riggs, Murtaugh, and Rianne were being tortured in separate ways. I know it sounds brutal, but trust me, it isn't that bad. AND! Happy ending! (Spent all night on this!)

Relationship: Martin Riggs x Reader

Summary: When a team is formed, Roger Murtaugh and Martin Riggs are solidified together once Y/N is added to the mix, squeezing in perfectly. Although very fiery and stubborn at heart, childish games and teasing became common place for sergeant Y/N and Martin, unable to let the other out-trash their own trash talk. But, when there is a complication during the final breakthrough of the whereabouts of the heroin-trafficking cartel, Y/N is separated from the duo. Only coming together when a kidnapping sends her in a desperate spiral trying to save the people she loves, especially Riggs.

Warnings: violent themes, kidnap, manipulation, torture, violence, language, attempted!self-surrender/suicide, 18+ audience suggested, read at own risk

Masterlist Lethal Weapon Masterlist

Prompts: #67, #68, #100 (from this list @palettes-and-prompts) & #6, #8, #17 (from this list @waiting-for-motivation)

{I do not own any of the prompts, credits to original owners above, nor do I own the gif below -> @leofromthedark}

Strolling around to the back of the supposed drug dealer's extravagant condo, Murtaugh, Riggs, and I engage in light conversation, silently noting and observing our surroundings. Stopping just near the edge of the rather expensive-looking below ground pool, Murtaugh and Riggs catch sight of two brunette women inside. Rolling my eyes, I expect Riggs to do something flirtatious, a painstakingly common reaction to almost every woman he lays eyes on. Every woman... except me. Yet, I pay no mind, Riggs' crazy nature probably too much for me to handle anyway.

Murtaugh flashes his gun, indicating to the women that he is armed. In a flash of a second, just merely after he had shown his weapon, the women duck and run from within the glass-paned wall, just in time for a man to blast a shot from behind. More specifically, the source being a shed occupying the space on the opposite side of the pool we resided on, destroying bits of its siding from the sheer distance and voracity of his attempt of subduing at least one of us.

But, we came prepared, although we were slightly taken aback, Murtaugh's swift abilities with a gun coming in handy as he lands on the drug dealer's right knee, lower thigh area. Splitting off, Murtaugh and I take either end of the pool's side, desperately trying to corral the person of interest. All the while as Riggs takes the women from in the house outside and to the nearest tree, in case of them being suspects as well, handcuffing their wrists together around the tree.

Once the task is done, Riggs hurries over to our aid, following our one, sole purpose: keeping the suspect alive for questioning.

Coming around the perimeter of the pool, Murtaugh reminds Riggs of this rule, replaying it to refresh his sometimes questionable mind. This, however, does not work in our favor as the man pulls yet another gun, this time a pistol, as Riggs had went to pull the man up.

"He's got a gun!" I scream, yet it's all in vain, as Riggs tries to act just as fast as his reflexes would've allowed, lifting the man's aimed arm as the trigger was pulled.

Yelping in surprise, I clench my teeth as the copper red liquid instantly encompasses the injured area, jerking as far away from the incident as possible.

"Y/N!" Murtaugh yells, instantly coming to my side as I go crashing to the concrete floor, catching my head and my left side as I now slowly lean into the ground below me, clutching the stinging injury to the right of my abdomen.

As Murtaugh had come to my side, Riggs took care of the suspect, unfortunately not being able to accomplish our sole purpose of being here, but overall getting rid of the threat.

"Cocksucker," he all but grunts, as he makes sure to shoot the man once more, pissed at the fact that I had gotten shot, although that fact being unbeknownst to me. "I'll call the ambulance," he all put spits out some time later, not making any attempt to check on my well being nor even making eye contact, stalking back through the side gate we had entered through.

//Some time later//

Now nestled safely and securely, I lay within the gloomy walls of the hospital, hooked up with some anesthetics and monitors, all for separate purposes. The stitches surely going to leave an awesome scar, only adding to my aggravation and exhaustion as the day finally settles and the slightest of movements constantly sending sharp pains within my whole body.

The doctors, coming in every so often, had reassured me of a discharge after the course of at least 2-4 days, only needing to ensure the proper sanitary measures are used and stitches being durable and strong without issues or tears.

Staring off at one of the four blank and colorless walls, in a daze, my ears perk up at the sound of a knock on my door, followed by Roger and Martin entering the room.

Handing me a bouquet of flowers and a box of chocolates, I smile at Roger as he pulls a chair beside my bed, asking, "How ya' feeling, Shortie? How're they treatin' ya' here?"

Giggling at the nickname, I respond with an, "I'm doing just as good as I can I guess. It's not so bad here either. The nurses are nice, although they're all pitiful glances and meek gestures, coming in and out as quickly as possible. I guess bullet wounds aren't their preferred cases?" I joke lightly, trying to lighten the tension in the room.

Roger catches on instantly, having caught wind on Martin's rather uncharacteristically quiet sulking in the far corner of the room. Turning to look at him briefly, he all but shrugs at me as he comes up with no response or solution to his partner's unknown issue.

Checking the time, I make up an excuse, assuming Riggs just didn't want to be here maybe? "Damn, look at the time...It's almost 9 pm guys, don't wanna be late for Trish's cooking do ya'?"

"Shit, really? Come on Riggs, you know the ass whoopin' I'm gonna get? Let's go, minus well feed you too, huh?" Murtaugh says, getting his coat and squeezing my shoulder, giving me a sympathetic look that I swipe away quickly. Riggs just gets up, side-eyeing me once quickly, but above all, ignores my presence and leaves the room. With one final look from Rog, he shuts the door, leaving me to my boredom for the remainder of my stay.

//Some time later//

Having been discharged, Roger had caught me up on the recent news, and how they had left to finish the job a day before I had gotten out of the hospital, that being yesterday evening, and it now being a full 24 hours of no communication from them.

This had struck me as odd, given that they were very advanced in their fields. Finding the whereabouts was the last big hump of every mission, the rest supposedly coming easy. This had all changed as soon as I had stepped foot onto my front porch, a not left hanging slightly within the pocket of my mailbox.

The words shocking me to the core;

"Come to xxxxxxxxxx if you want to save your partners. 8 o'clock. Sharp."

Rushing to my car, I waste no time, pulling out of the driveway and to the given destination, the time being almost too close to the deadline as I preferred it to be.

Once outside of the destination, an old, run-down warehouse stands gloomily in front of me as I slip my gun into the waistband of my jeans. Another, tucked against my ankle within my boots.

I move quietly, staying alert as I enter the warehouse quietly, instantly hit with the cries of what could only belong to Riggs, my heart wrenching. A new feeling that I instantly push aside. Following the pained screams, inching closer to the source, I catch wind of yet another's set of booming cries as well, recognizing it as Murtaugh.

With this new set of knowledge, my heart does another painful flip, as the sheer terror now courses through my veins as if it was my blood. They were the toughest men I had ever known. At least that is how I had always felt, how I feel right now, but with their pained screams, it makes me feel utterly hopeless.

Drawing my gun, I aim it before me, right beside the wall I hide on, lining it up around the corner, my full intention at being able to at least shoot down one of the three men guarding one of my teammates; their identity unknown to me at the moment with the unfortunate dimness.

Taking the shot, I hit one man, the two now swinging to guard the area, looking my direction. The man held captured, Riggs, tied to the ceiling, consistently doused in water, making the homemade shock therapy increasingly unbearable with multiple relentless blows.

"Come out now, Little Rabbit, or I pull the trigger," a booming voice commands, me now peeking out from the corner to see none other than Mr. Joshua, the man we've been after, pressing a firm gun to Riggs' limp form.

Coming out from my hiding space, Joshua motions for his goons to grab me, now taking Riggs off the hook, and into another room. The room we are led to happens to be the room Murtaugh is in, his daughter beside him, both incarcerated and handcuffed. Moving Riggs to the chair beside the pair, he is tied down just as I am, the four of us now completely helpless.

Mr. Joshua, confident and prideful of his work, moves Riggs to the center of the room, starting his interrogation, answering with beatings and threats here and there. The cause: the information given by Hunsaker on his heroin-trafficking cartel.

Just as Joshua leaves yet another powerful blow, Riggs' strength starts to run low, just watching him making me squirm in my chair, wanting nothing but to take him in my arms and drag him as far away from here as possible.

"If you have to kill one of us, kill me. Take me instead, please? Just stop! Stop all of this now," I say breathlessly, doing anything in my will to get their hands off of Riggs.

"What would I want with someone as pathetic as you?" Mr. Joshua answers bitterly.

"Information. That's all you want right? You just want details about the business, you went through all this trouble, and for what? Just to kill us in the end? I know your type. You can't get off without getting what you want, and this would've all gone to waste without it," I respond, determined now.

"So, what do you want? To strike a deal?" I nod. "So, if I let them go, you'll give me what I want?" I nod again.

"Y/N no," Riggs says, now worried about what you're going up against.

"Shut it," Joshua states strictly.

"Y/N, listen to Riggs! You can't do this!" Murtaugh adds, now borderline terrified as everyone in this room is filled with the most important people in his life, all threatened with the only thing that could take them all away: death.

"SHUT IT!" Joshua all but screams now. "Fine. I'll take you up on your little deal. However, you fuck with me, I'm killing them."

"I don't agree with you unless you cut them loose right now, and I am assured that they are out of this building," I say confidently, yet shaking with fear.

He nods his agreement, showing a security camera view from one of his computers, watching as Rianne, Roger, and Martin are all led back outside, handcuffs removed, and all moved into my car, them pulling away from the warehouse.

Pulling the computer's view away from me now, he turns to me sharply, my gaze turning upward as my arms are still strapped behind my back, behind the chair. "Now," he starts, the voice strict like a parent beginning to question a toddler, "The information. What did Hunsaker tell you?"

Taking a breath in through my nose, I exhale through my mouth as I ponder my response, "Just as much as he's told you."

With this, Mr. Joshua lets out a scream, landing a punch to the jaw, my body leaning in on the stitches. Taking notice to my sharp intake of breath from the movement, Joshua uses that to his advantage, grabbing a knife, lifting my shirt, and pressing the cool metal along the line of handiwork. The only thing keeping my skin together at the moment.

"Let's try this again, what information did you receive from Hunsaker?"

"I told you. I. Don't. Know."

"Bullshit!" He digs into the skin, smirking at the cry of agony and shaking engulf my body.

"I-I don't know anymore than you do! Please! He was killed before we got anything from him!"

"Bullshit," he answers playfully now, dragging the blade of the knife wherever he pleases now, enjoying my pleads.

As he opens up my stitched bullet wound, he goes to start at another spot, the attempt being short-lived as a bullet wound of his own goes through his skull, the source standing in the doorway alongside Murtaugh with Rianne tucked under her father's arm.

Crying now, I sigh in relief as Riggs rushes to me, cutting me loose and lifting my limp body. Carrying me to the car, we make our way to the hospital once more.

During the wait and multiple switching of rooms, Riggs stays, waiting for me, only getting up once I emerge from the exit, patched up and clean. He smirks at me, wrapping his arm around my shoulders, leading me to Rog's car, taking us to the only place we find comfort; his house.

//Some time later//

Getting settled in at the Murtaugh residence, Riggs and I share Rianne's room, which was so generously offered as one of the youngest decide to have a sleepover with her.

Looking over at Riggs, he looks at me, covered in open cuts and bruises, dirt and grime, and, taking a first aid kit from Rianne's desk, I make it my priority to get them fixed up.

"What are you doing?" Riggs asks, tiredly amused.

"Taking care of you, it's the least I can do," I reply determined once again.

"Awww! Someone's got a little crush on me huh?"

"Hey! When I finish patching you up, I swear to God I'm gonna kick your ass for making me worry about you," I say jokingly. Riggs replying by grabbing me by the waist and pulling me closer.

Locking eyes on one another now, I couldn't help but joke once more, adding a sly, "Is this the moment that we kiss?"

Giggling, he looks down, placing his head on my chest, murmuring, "I think I'm in love with you and I don't know what to do. I mean, I've been married before, and I- I lost her and I don't wanna lose you too- I couldn't live if you go too, I-"

Grabbing his chin, I tilt his head upwards to meet my gaze, "Look at me, Riggs. Look at me. I love you."

Eyes watering, he leans in for a kiss, my hands finding way to his hair, while his pull my hips into his lap, wrapping lightly around them. After leaning back for air, we giggle once more, leaning our foreheads against one another.

"I never want to ever feel the fear of the thought of losing you again, okay? So don't be a dumbass, Dumbass."

"Yeah, yeah," Riggs answers once more, leaning in for another kiss.

[angelofsmalldeathandthecodeine]

Aguamenti

Request:  “Can you do 1 and 8 on the smut list for Fred or George?”

(”Bite me”/”You’re so sexy when you’re mad”)

Pairing: Fred Weasley x Reader 

Word count: 1.6k 

A/N: I didn't want to make it too smutty just because I didn’t think it fit too well with everything going on so its a little trash :/ I still love my boi Freddie 

Warnings: A LITTLE SMUTTY 

Upon proposition, both you and Harry had agreed to teach what he was calling ‘Dumbledore’s Army’ a series of spells and techniques that were deprived of them since Umbridge had arrived. You were a little hesitant at first, and not because of Umbridge, god how you hated that woman. Your worries lay with the responsibility that you and Harry had if entering this agreement, you didn’t want to put anyone in danger.

Of course, you and Harry had become almost experts in the field of Defence Against the Dark Arts, you especially due to your close relationship with Lupin. Remus had taught you pretty much all you needed to know in the comfort of your own home, whereas Harry kind of had to pick it up considering the various dangerous circumstances he seemed to land himself in year after year.

You couldn’t disappoint Harry, not when he needed you, he was like family after all.

“Today me and Y/N are going to be demonstrating a typical duel” Harry announced to the rather sheepish looking crowd “and more importantly, how to win one” you chimed in successfully gaining a laugh from the room.

After bowing your heads, you and Harry began to take your places from one end of the room to another with each other.

“Ready?” Harry asked for confirmation; however, you couldn’t help but get distracted last minute. In the corner of your eye you noticed one of your best friends, Fred, flirting with Angelina Johnson.

You, Fred and George had been friends ever since you joined the Quidditch team in your first year, but recently you had felt differently towards Fred. Getting older gave you feelings you didn’t necessarily understand and on the most part Fred just seemed to annoy you these days – especially when he flaunted around girls.

“Actually Harry, change of plans” you began, causing him to lower his wand in a state of bewilderment “I think it’s best if we use a student with less knowledge for the demonstration, you know, for uh, a better example of the power they’ll be up against” you tried to justify your decision.

“Right, right, yeah of course!” Harry agreed, just as you knew he would, that boy was too nice for his own good sometimes “who did you have in mind?”

“Fred” you said without hesitation or a second thought, getting his attention instantly.

Fred looked up and gave you an overly confident smile which just boiled your blood further “love to” was his only reply.

You smiled back sarcastically, gritting your teeth in the process.

Beginning to take your place once more, Harry was replaced by a much taller, attractive Fred. He proceeded to roll his sleeves, giving you a glimpse at the veins running throughout his arms.

Pay attention

“Ready Fred?” Harry initiated “Ready to win? Sure am mate” Fred replied, gaining a giggle from a lot of the girls, you just rolled your eyes.

“Bite me, Weasley” you replied, a little more frustrated than you were five minutes ago, causing Fred to smirk.

Harry nodded and you and Fred proceeded to walk towards each other for the initial bow. As you both reached the middle, Fred bent down slightly more so you could hear him.

“You’re so sexy when you’re mad” he said, causing you to instantly blush. You knew he was a flirty guy, but you didn’t think he had ever said anything as flirty as that to you before.

Turning around to walk to the end of the room gave you what felt like forever to think about what had just happened, getting slightly distracted from the matter.

“Wands to the ready” Harry announced, arm still mid-air.

You were now directly facing Fred and looking him in the eye seemed a little awkward considering your flustered state. In attempts to compose yourself you looked to the crowd gathered either side of you and caught glimpse of Angelina smiling at Fred.

Instantly you were reminded of your frustration which only engaged you in a deep focus against Fred, locking eyes with him confidently.

Harry swiftly dropped his arm, indicating the beginning of the duel.

“Aguamenti!” you pronounced clearly with a flick of your wand before Fred was even able to utter a single letter.

Suddenly Fred was flung to the back wall through the jet-like force of the water that hit him.

Fred lay on the floor, drenched from head to toe gaining a roaring laugh from those watching – especially George and Ron.

You smirked at Fred, heavily breathing at not just the thrill of winning the duel but the sight of Fred, clothes wet and him distressed.

What was wrong with you.

“Hmm, yeah, not really the spell I had in mind but good job Y/N” Harry commented as Ginny began to help Fred up, still laughing in his face.

“Yeah well, I thought I’d leave the rest up to you” you replied in a sort agitated tone which left a puzzled look on Harry’s face.

“Got to go Harry, you’ll be alright without me today won’t you?” you quietly spoke to him, who just nodded, completely understanding.

As you began walking towards the exit you were stopped in your tracks upon hearing a voice that had started to infuriate you a little too much recently.

“Y/N wait” you heard him get closer “I’ll come with you, gotta get changed out of these bloody wet clothes anyway” he explained, giving a genuine smile.

“great” you mumbled giving another sarcastic smile.

On the way to the common room you seemed to forget all about the incident that had wound you up, it was strange that Fred had the ability to make you do that – forget about your worries. Joking and laughing all the way up made you feel like a kid again, first year meeting the twins.

That was until you reached the common room, and Fred proceeded to take off his jumper of course. You were sitting in Fred’s empty dorm room, on his bed watching him find dry uniform to change into. The moment had never seemed weird until now – until you couldn’t stop staring at his bare chest through the now transparent shirt that clung to him.

You could feel your heart rate increase as you started to heavily breathe once more, transfixed on Fred. An overwhelming sensation began to consume your stomach.

Fred was rambling on about the upcoming Quidditch game, but you couldn’t help yourself any longer. You knew exactly what had been troubling you these past couple of months with Fred and you were about to prove it.

You stood up, growing closer to Fred who had his back turned to you as he still searched for dry clothes crouched over his trunk.

“Fred” you simply said, gaining his attention.

He turned to face you slowly standing, a little worried about what you were about to say from your posture and breathing.

“yeah?”

“Shut up” you lifted your heels to reach Fred, locking your fingers between his auburn hair and crashing your lips against his.

Instantly he did as told, feeding both yours and his own hunger by kissing you passionately back. Fred wrapped his long arms around your waist and pulled you closer into him, allowing the water on his shirt to almost turn into steam.

The kiss was hard but soft at the same time, not allowing the opportunity for a breath between you. Fred’s hands suddenly reached further down your waist as he swiftly lifted you, holding you in his arms for a moment before placing you on his cabinet.

Having the freedom of his arms back he returned the favour of entangling his fingers between your hair, slightly tugging on it as his kiss grew more desperate, sending shivers down your spine.

Fred’s lips slowly moved away from your own as he lifted the hair between his fingers, trailing kisses from your jawline down to your neck, causing you to let out soft moans.

As he did you frantically began unbuttoning his shirt, peeling it from his still damp body. Each kiss he placed on you made the butterflies in your stomach flutter a little harder, pulling at his hair signalling for him to continue.

Fred assisted you in taking the rest of his shirt of, as he started to take your tie off all the while still kissing your neck which sent you crazy. You rolled your head back at the tingling sensation of Fred’s sucking of your neck paired with his warm breath growling in your ear.

“I lied earlier” Fred gave a breathily whisper in your ear “You’re so sexy all the time” he continued, giving you an intense feeling.

You fiercely grabbed Fred’s face once more continuing to impulsively engage in your heavy make-out session.

Before you knew it your shirt was being unbuttoned, revealing nothing but your bra and bare skin exposed… but you didn’t mind one bit, in fact it felt so right you couldn’t believe it had took this long for you and Fred to be half naked together.

“Nice to see you two getting along again” you jumped out of your skin, quickly attempting to cover whatever part of you was exposed as you looked up to see a very casual George sending a wink your way.

“Christ George!” you yelled which just caused him to burst out laughing “Well then! Turn around!” you exclaimed as Fred picked up your shirt for you to start putting back on.

“Don’t worry, I’m leaving… detention with Umbridge, have fun you two” George said giving you both another wink.

Your state of shock was eased by Fred who began to giggle, resting his forehead on yours.

“Seriously Y/N… you don’t understand how long I’ve wanted that to happen” Fred confessed, butterflies rising once again in your stomach.

“Me too” you grinned, pulling his head down for another kiss.

[whump-a-la-mode]

I request fluffy fluffity fluff with feverish, injured villain, hero caretaker, painkillers and a kitten. Please.

This is so cute ヾ(•ω•`)o I don’t write a lot of fluff, but this is some cute cute sick fic. Hero caretaker? Check. Painkillers? Check. A kitten? You know it! Thanks so much for the ask!!

CW//Fevers, injury mention, intoxicated/feverish character, painkillers

The text had been unexpected, to say the least.

That wasn’t to say that Hero wasn’t unused to receiving messages, especially strange messages. Half of the time, a buzz on their phone indicated that they were about to have the record for ‘weirdest thing they’ve ever seen’ broken.

Yet, this text said nothing of giant lizards attacking downtown, or a mad scientist’s experiment gone wrong. So, perhaps, to a normal civilian, it would have been quite a normal message to receive.

“Hey, Hero? I have a really big favor to ask.”

From another hero, it would have been quite the daunting request. But, it was not from another hero. At least, not in the traditional sense.

Hero had known Doctor for quite some time-- hell, every powered person in the city knew Doctor. In some ways, they were more of a hero than the rest of them, put together. While most hospitals flinched and scurried away from the world of villains and vigilantes, Doctor embraced them wholeheartedly.

A particularly egregious wound, carved in the heat of battle? A power malfunction? Any one of these things could result in the doctor being awoken in the middle of the night, an exhausted, limping hero upon their doorstep.

Or, a villain. Doctor insisted upon making their policy for such things very, very clear. Adamantly, they refused to involve themself in the matters of heroes and villains. Their battles, their allegiances, to the doctor were all naught. As they explained it, no matter one’s actions, no matter their beliefs, no one deserved to have their wounds go untreated.

Thus, their home had quickly become a neutral ground. Lifelong sworn nemeses could have their injuries wrapped mere feet from one another, and not one glare would be shot. In Doctor’s presence, there were no heroes or villains. Only patients. Only those who needed aid.

But, it was the first time that Hero had been on the receiving end of such a request. Of course, they were not about to refuse the doctor. With how much help they had given them, it would only be right to return the favor.

“What is it?” Hero tapped in reply.

Given the length of the doctor’s response, the three dancing progress buttons hung on Hero’s screen for far too long.

“Do you know Villain?”

It wasn’t a name they’d ever expect to hear in a conversation so casual. Villain. Though Hero did not consider themself to truly have a nemesis, if they had to define one, it was Villain who would be on the very tippy top of their list.

That was, especially after their battle the day prior. Their wounds still screamed at them, no matter how they tried to quiet them with painkillers and icepacks.

“I know Villain.” Hero replied simply.

“Okay. Do you think you could take care of them for a few hours?”

Instantly, the conversation shot up to the top of their list of ‘strangest possible talks to have over the phone.’

Take care of them? Take care of Villain? What cold they have possibly gotten themself into that required Hero, of all people, to aid them?

Then again, they had looked quite rough after their battle...

They had no need to question, as Doctor continued on their own:

“They’re sick. I need to go to work, but they shouldn’t be left alone, right now. I know it’s a big favor, but they need this, Hero.”

They bit their lip.

As a protector of the city, they had a very, very long list of priorities, and upon that list, helping Villain in any way, shape, or form was at the very bottom. Helping Doctor, on the other hand...

“Okay.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 

It was only upon arriving to front door of Doctor’s home that Hero had a rather odd realization: Never before had they been to that place in a completely stable state of mind.

If they had made the decision to bother the doctor, it meant that, whatever injuries or illness had befallen them, they could not manage it on their own. Thus, far more often than not, when they stood in front of this home’s door, they did so with a head full of cotton and legs formed of gelatin.

Now, however, their mind was not clouded by any malease. Instead, it was clouded by the stark realization that they had, perhaps, just made a terrible decision.

By the time they had arrived at the house, however, it was already far too late. When Doctor opened their front door, Hero knew full well that there was no turning back.

The doctor looked terribly bedraggled, and they could not help but wonder if it was wise for them to even go to work in such a condition. Yet, every powered person in the city knew far better than to distrust Doctor’s judgement.

“Thank you.” The medic began, a warm smile creeping onto their cracked lips. “I know this was awfully short notice, but I couldn’t think of anyone else who would know Villain as well as you.”

Well, Hero certainly knew what Villain’s fist felt like, crashing into their face, though that was about it.

“Okay, come on, come on.” The doctor rushed. “I need to be heading out soon.”

The hero nodded, hurrying after them into the building. It wasn’t exactly a sprawling thing-- certainly not large enough to house all the equipment that it did-- but, nonetheless, it functioned, through some miracle.

Against their prediction, Doctor did not lead them to the home’s makeshift infirmary. Instead, they moved to the cramped dining room, which, truly, consisted of little more than a table with just enough chairs to seat a guest or two. The house itself was not impressive, its owner only made it so.

But, Hero had seen that dining room, barren table and all, more times than they could count. There was nothing unusual to be seen about it. No. The strangeness of the hour came in the form of who, exactly, was seated there.

Villain.

Oddly enough, either they had forgotten to take off their ostentatious garb, or they had simply not had the time. The villain’s cape draped over their shoulders as they hunched over, forehead pressed to the table’s surface. A full glass of water and a small pile of crackers sat near them, untouched.

Hero bit their lip. Seeing their nemesis was never a good thing, of course, but something about this simply made their heart stutter.

“What’s wrong with them?” They began, before their voice took on a more panicked pitch. “They’re okay, right? They’re gonna make it?”

Doctor snorted.

“Hero, they’re fine. They say they had a fight, overexerted themself a bit.”

A fight? Oh, god, was this all their fault?

“But... They look terrible.”

“They just have a fever.” Doctor reassured. “Power exertion is nothing to scoff at, but I promise, they’re not in any serious danger.”

Hero hummed. “Then, why did you bring me here?”

“Because we need to make sure they stay out of serious danger. They can hear you, by the way, so don’t be an ass, please. But, yes, I’m confident this fever will break, so long as it stays down.”

“You’re putting them in my hands?”

“Yes. I trust you. Seriously, Hero, you look like a deer in the headlights. I’m not asking you to perform open heart surgery, here.” They smiled playfully. “All you need to do is keep them cool and keep them comfortable.”

“What does that entail?” Nervously, they chewed the inside of their cheek.

“Not a lot. Keep a wet washcloth on their head, make sure they drink water.” As the doctor glanced to the nearest clock, they began to hurry their words. “There’s a thermometer on the counter. If their fever goes over 103, call an ambulance. But, as long as its below that, you’re safe.”

“And... keeping them comfortable?”

“Just... try to get them to sleep. It won’t be easy for them, in this state. But if you can manage it, it’ll be a lot better. Oh, and, there’s Advil in the drawer. Give them some if they’re uncomfortable, okay? Okay, I really need to go, so, you got all that?”

“Uh- I think so?”

“Good. Okay, bye! Remember, above 103, call an ambulance. What temperature is dangerous?”

“103.”

“Great. Thank you so, so much! I’ll get you like, some chocolates or something. Bye!”

By the end of their speech, Doctor’s words had sped to the point of blending into one long stream of syllables. They tossed a coat over their shoulders, shoving their feet into their already-tied shoes.

“Oh, and try not to kill each other, okay?”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 

Hero was alone.

They supposed that wasn’t entirely true. In fact, it was quite far from the truth. The house was anything but empty-- their nervous glances to the dinner table’s current guest ensured them of that. But, that did not help the chord of nerves that wrapped itself about their stomach.

Power exertion was nothing to be scoffed at.

Though they weren’t alone, they were the only one in the situation who could be described as responsible. It was they who had to keep their nemesis alive. And, worse... comfortable.

How were they supposed to rock their sworn enemy to sleep? Maybe, a good place to start would be stopping staring at them like some kind of creep.

Yeah. They should probably do that.

The hero inhaled through their nose, letting out a long exhale from their mouth, before approaching the table. Throughout the whole conversation, the villain had not so much as raised their head-- their movements coming only in the slightest of twitches.

Standing at the stalled villain’s side, Hero could not help but feel to have walked into the den of a lion. Yet, not the slightest movement was made. In an attempt to gently draw their attention, they ghosted their hand over their nemesis’s shoulder.

“Hey, Villain?”

There was a twitch, and a groan, but nothing that could be described as words.

“Um, Doctor is gonna have me take care of you now, okay? Can you look at me? I think I’m supposed to take your temperature.”

If the villain had been listening before that point, there was little indication. Had they already been asleep? Had Hero already ruined everything? Either way, blearily, Villain lifted their head, unfocused eyes fixing on the wall before their face.

Placing their hand to their forehead, Hero nearly jerked their palm away. Their skin felt like the burner of a hot stove. But, if Doctor said they were okay...

“How are you feeling?” As they spoke, they felt the slightest bit of the doctor’s voice slip into theirs. That soft, coaxing tone that all medical providers seemed to be able to imitate. “You haven’t touched your water.”

“Mmm...” The fevered villain murmured. “Can’t...Swallow.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Mmm.” They were unsure if that was an affirmation or not.

“Okay. Um, well, the doctor says you need water. Let’s get you some water, then... What do you need, Villain?”

The villain blinked, seeming, by all accounts to be on another planet.

“I’m cold...” At last, they muttered a pair of coherent words. “And hot...” Well, maybe not so much on the coherent part.

What was it that Doctor had said? Something about keeping their head cool. That was it, right?

“Okay, um. I’ll cool you down, and warm you up, okay?”

“Hero!” It was an excited cry, even with the way the syllables all blurred into one another. “Hero...”

“Yeah, Villain?”

“Hero, I looooove you.”

Oh.

No, they were just feverish. Delusional, they probably didn’t even know where they were. They had no clue what they were saying, just making sounds.

“I’m gonna go get you a blanket.” Hero spoke hurriedly, rushing off to do just that. For a few moment, they dashed about the house, gathering supplies and, hopefully, not rummaging too much through Doctor’s things. When, at last, they returned to the kitchen, it was with a dripping-wet washcloth and a bottle of tylonel.

Villain, so it seemed, had fallen back into their half-restful state, head on the table. With a gentle hand, Hero tipped their chin up, brushing the washcloth over their forehead.

“You want something to help with the pain, bud?”

“Head hurty.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

They placed down the washcloth, and, in an exercise in tedium, coaxed a pair of white pills down the villain’s throat, alongside a wash of water. Hopefully, it would be enough, as a snowball would make it too the depths of hell before any more water went down.

“I have everything set up on the couch. Can you walk?”

“Mmm... Carry me... I love you!”

“Y- Yeah, alright.”

Despite the feverish villain’s words filling Hero’s chest with an odd sensation, they obliged, plucking them from the chair and draping the washcloth over their forehead, taking care to ensure that no water would drip its way to their eyes.

The couch, as opposed to most of the furniture in the house, had seen some serious use. With only one bed in the building, when a hero was wounded with such severity that an overnight visit was necessitated, it was upon the couch that they slept. Though, luckily, use had not worn away any of the seat’s comfort.

A large, white, puffy comforter had been draped over the seats, and, upon laying Villain down, Hero secured the blanket around their body, tucking it in in the corners and ensuring that no draft would disturb them.

It was all medically necessary, of course.

Though, they couldn’t help but giggle at just how ridiculous their nemesis appeared, dwarfed by the fluffy comforter, face half covered by a rag.

“Alright.” Hero smoothed a hand over Villain’s hair-- to make sure they weren’t sweating excessively, of course. “Are you alright? Comfortable?”

“I love you! Love you...”

“Okay. Well, do you need anything?”

“Sleep...”

“You’re tired?”

“Sleepytime.”

“Alright, bud. Sleepytime.”

They couldn’t help but smile.

With a few more strokes through their hair, the fevered person soon let their muscles go limp, sacrificing themself to the whims of the blanket they were half-submerged in. The sight alone was enough to make Hero’s own eyelids droop.

It wasn’t like they could disturb the villain while they slept-- no, they needed their rest far too much for that-- and, there wasn’t anything else threatening the city...

What would a nap hurt?

Though there was no certainly no room on the seat for another full-grown human, that was a problem easily solved. In a blink of white light, Hero’s bleary form was replaced by that of a feline, with a countenance just as exhausted.

The felidae-turned hero leapt onto the couch, settling themself near the edge, before shifting themself against Villain’s feet.

To know if they woke up.

After all, it was very medically necessary.

[eminems-skittles]

my sweater [josh lyman x reader]

josh lyman x fem!reader warnings: mentions of not being able to sleep word count: 1.3k a/n: this is so bad idek where i was going with this. but if you have any requests for josh or any tww characters please send them!

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:⠀ *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆

“josh!” donna called down the hallway to catch up with her boss. “we have a problem.”

“what is it this time?” josh sighed exasperated. just as he thought he’d be in the clear to go home before midnight for the first time that week, here was donna most likely telling him he had to stay late again. 

“it’s y/n.” donna stated.

“what do you mean? is everything okay?” josh’s annoyed expression shifted to one of worry in less than a second.

“well, she’s fine...i think. i don’t know. she’s just been here later than i have every night this week and she’s here when i get here. i don’t think she’s been home all week,” donna explained as her and josh made their way back to josh’s office.

“and what do you want me to do about it?” he asked, setting his bag on his desk. 

“talk to her i guess? find out what’s wrong.” donna pleaded.

“why can’t you do it? you guys are so much closer than we are,” josh sighed.

“that’s not true and you know it. come on josh, do it for me please. she’s still in her office.”

josh remained quiet for a second, mulling over it in his mind. “fine.”

“yay! thank you!” donna said before leaving his office. 

josh paced around his office for a few minutes, trying to figure out the best way to approach y/n. he finally worked up a plan just as he saw her quickly speeding past his door. “y/n! wait!”

y/n stumbled at the call of her name. her hair that was haphazardly thrown in a bun was slowly falling down around her face and the sweater she had thrown on in a rush resembled one that josh had not seen in a few months. well it didn’t just resemble it, it was one of his old sweaters that he had let y/n borrow when she got cold on a trip to new york a few months prior. 

“oh hey josh,” she mumbled as she scanned the stack of papers she was holding. “anything you need?”

“yeah actually could you come to my office real quick?” josh said, leading the way back into his office. 

“what’s up?” y/n asked as she slumped into one of josh’s chairs. she watched as josh opened and closed his mouth, trying to find the words. “are you o-”

“is that my sweater?” josh forced out. 

“what?”

“is that..is that my sweater?” he inquired softly. y/n looked down at the gray knit sweater in confusion. 

“oh, i suppose it is. you can have it back if yo-”

“keep it. it looks good on you,” josh said with a hint of a smile on his face. 

“was that all you needed?” y/n asked, a smile present on her face. 

“no actually. donna’s worried about you. she thinks you haven’t been home all week.” josh sat on the edge of his desk, facing y/n as he spoke. he took the time to look over her appearance. she had dark circles under her eyes that he was positive weren’t there before. instead of wearing her contacts, her glasses sat on the bridge of her nose, sliding .down every couple seconds. another indicator that she probably hadn’t been home in a few days. 

“well, she’s right about that,” y/n sighed. “on top of all the work for the reelection, my roommate doesn’t understand that they can’t blast music at 1 am so i haven’t been home in a bit to try and get some peace and quiet.”

“when’s the last time you slept? like got a good amount of sleep.” 

“do power naps count?” y/n joked. “but to answer your question, the last time i got a full night was probably last week? i’m not sure.”

“if you want you can crash at my place,” josh said, trying to hide the hope in his voice. 

“are you sure?”

“yeah, positive. you can crash in the guest room.”

“oh,” y/n said with a tone of disappointment. “not your room?”

josh’s face turned bright red at y/n’s question. “well, uh, well.”

“relax josh, i was messing with you,” y/n laughed. “i’ll take you up on your offer. i don’t think leo would be very happy if i fell asleep in another meeting.”

(time skip)

“wow,” y/n said as she followed josh into his house.

“what?”

“nothing, it just looks the exact same as the last time i was here,” y/n sighed, a reminiscent smile on her face as she thought of the small get together josh hosted a couple months ago. 

“well not much has changed since then. the guest room is right around the corner,” he explained as he lead y/n further into the house. “i’m going to watch some tv for a bit before i go to sleep. you’re welcome to watch with if you want.”

josh silently cursed himself at how nervous he sounded. he’s negotiated bills with congressmen yet he could not figure out a way to easily ask y/n out. the irony was almost enough to make him laugh.

“if it’s the news count me out,” y/n giggled before yawning softly. “i’m going to go put my pajamas on real quick and then i’ll join you, okay?”

“ ‘kay,” josh said, mostly to himself since y/n had already left the room. 

a few minutes later, y/n had reemerged from the guest room, clad in josh’s sweater and a pair of sweatpants. josh did a double take when she entered his line of sight. he had seen her in designer gowns yet he could have sworn that this was the most she had ever looked. then again, he had thought that to himself every time he laid eyes on her. 

“you okay, lyman?” y/n asked when he continued to wordlessly stare at her. she took a seat on the couch next to him and waited for a response. 

“wait? oh-” he coughed awkwardly. “uh yeah, yeah i’m okay. you just...nevermind.” he looked away with a bright pink blush across his face and found himself suddenly interested in whatever crappy reality show was playing on the tv.

“no no,” y/n giggled. she gently put her hand on his cheek and tilted josh’s face so she could see him. she took a deep breath before whispering, “tell me.”

josh took a second to assess their position. he was close enough that he could kiss her if he wanted to, not that he would. he wasn’t even sure if he could work up the courage to brush away the piece of hair that had fallen in front of y/n’s face. he inhaled deeply, thinking ‘here goes nothing,’ before exhaling. “well, you look beautiful right now.”

it was y/n’s turn to blush now. the compliment took her off guard and she quickly took her hand away from josh’s face and brought it to her own to cover the blush coating her cheeks. she took a second before looking back at him. “really?”

josh nodded wordlessly, a big smile ghosting across his features. y/n moved her hands to reveal an equally large smile. suddenly, y/n shivered and brought her arms around herself in an attempt to warm herself up.

“jeez, josh. why is your house the temperature of alaska?” y/n complained.

josh laughed and opened his arms up. “c’mere.”

without hesitation, y/n leaned against josh and let his arms wrap around her. she basked in his warmth and after a few minutes of josh rubbing her back gently, she found herself drifting off to sleep for the first time in a week.

josh soon found himself falling asleep, not bothering to move himself or y/n out of fear of waking her. he wasn’t sure what they were but he was content with the fact that it was his sweater and his arms she had chosen to fall asleep in.

[thereaderstea]

I am back! I’ve been having a tough time to be honest and I was wondering if you have any fic recs that deal with mental health/illnesses? Just need fics that let me know I’m not alone here:( - ☂️

welcome back and merry meet, ☂️ carissima! i'm so happy to see you again! i'm sorry to hear you've been having a tough time; i want you to know my inbox and dms are always open if you ever need a listening ear 💜 also, here’s a mental health resource list.

mental health and mental illness are my favorite topics! so i have a lot of them in my library. i have also started reading on and navigating ao3, so i included a couple of fics from there. i included just the mental health warnings for each fic, but please check the fic's warnings before reading as most (if not all) of these fics are heavy and the multi-chaptered fics indicates what each chapter includes.

general warning: these fics (under the cut) may contain topics of mental health, mental illness, physical illness, death, grief/mourning, suicidality, panic attacks, abuse, and more.

BTS Mental Health Fic Recs

lost, then found by @magicalcrwn ➵ksj x reader | angst, fluff, hurt/comfort | oneshot | 2.2k ➵mental health warnings: talks of loneliness, existential crisis, implied suicidal thoughts

“When it comes, the two hands overlap / Then the whole world holds its breath for a moment / Zero o’clock“

Life is hard, sometimes you just gotta take a step back and breathe.

Stay by @sahmfanficbts ➵jjk x reader | hurt/comfort | established relationship au | oneshot | 2.9k ➵mental health warnings: depression, recovery, mentions of suicide

“Till death do us part” Your husband JK will do everything in his power to help you see how much he needs you to stay.

Candle by @tae-cup | The Reader's Tea ➵myg x reader | angst, fluff | oneshot | 4.3k ➵mental health warnings: depressing thoughts, thoughts of suicide, recovery.

You met him at the lowest point in your life. He was your candle, your light, and he helped you fly to the clouds.

nightlight by @minniepetals ➵ot7 x reader | angst, fluff, hurt/comfort | mafia au | oneshot | 7.7k ➵mental health warnings: mentions of abuse, mentions of death, reader has insomnia, nightmares.

things have never been easy for you but you never expected it’d be them that would make things easier.

heartbeat by minniepetals ➵ot7 x reader | angst, fluff, hurt/comfort | hybrid au | oneshot | 9.7k ➵mental health warnings: mentions of abuse, anxiety, nightmares.

running away from your master is never easy so you deem yourself this will be the last time if you are fatefully brought back to his hold again. so what happens when you stumble upon seven men who says they won’t bring you back? what happens when they promise you their love and care instead?

comforting arms by minniepetals ➵ot7 x reader | fluff, hurt/comfort | established relationship au | drabble | 1.2k ➵mental health warnings: stress, sadness/feeling down.

they come home to find you silently crying to yourself.

What Money Can Buy by @jeonstudios ➵jjk x reader | angst, fluff | oneshot | 17.8k ➵mental health warnings: reader has depression, loneliness, mentions of death.

in need of money, jeongguk signs up as a sugar baby, assuming he’ll be paid for sex by some old kinky woman. he never expected to meet someone like you. what were you doing on that site, and why would you have to pay for company?

A Place Called Home by @agustdakasuga | The Reader's Tea ➵➵ot7 x reader | fluff, angst, hurt/comfort | hybrid au | series | 88.3k ➵arctic fox!seokjin, panther!yoongi, golden retriever!hoseok, wolf!namjoon, calico cat!jimin, tiger!taehyung, rabbit!jungkook,  vet!mc, human!mc ➵mental health warnings: ksj has anxiety, ksj was non-verbal, pjm has PTSD and anxiety, recovery, mentions of abuse, mentions of death, injuries, fighting rings.

Having saved your own injured hybrid, you were determined to try and help any other hybrid that crossed your path who needed saving. But being a vet in a small hospital wasn’t enough for you. You wanted to do more, you wanted to make a difference. You wanted to give them a home.

Fix You by @casuallyimagining ➵myg x reader | fluff, angst, slow burn hurt/comfort | hybrid au | series | ongoing ➵mental health warnings: discussion of physical abuse, emotional abuse, discussion of sexual abuse, discussion of self-harm

When you take in a stray cat, you have no idea he’s secretly a hybrid trying to escape his past. Can you help him heal?

Filtering Light by @sybilwriting ➵jjk x pjm x reader | fluff, angst | hybrid au | series | ongoing ➵bunny!reader, human!jimin, human!jungkook, ft. human!seokjin, human!yoongi, golden retriever!hoseok, tiger!taehyung ➵mental health warnings: mentions of past abuse, allusions of sexual assault, recovery, reader has anxiety and PTSD, panic attacks.

the reader is a bunny hybrid with a past that has left her traumatized and struggling to heal. some things can be helped with therapy, but some things can only be fixed through realizing you’re not all of the things that hurt you—you are, in fact, just loved.

Before I Leave You by @hollyhomburg ➵ot7 x reader | fluff, angst, slow burn, hurt/comfort | omegaverse, mafia au | series | ongoing ➵omega!reader, omega!seokjin, omega!jungkook, beta!yoongi, alpha!hoseok, alpha!namjoon, alpha!jimin, alpha!taehyung ➵mental health warnings: emotional and physical abuse, forced mating marks, graphic murder scenes, negative self-talk, self-esteem issues, non-verbal characters, abandonment, PTSD, hurt/comfort, agoraphobia, implied/referenced self-harm, suicidal thoughts and brief desperate suicide attempt, gender dysphoria, internalized transphobia, internalized misogyny, unintended outings, epilepsy.   

Someone always has to leave first; They just didn’t expect Yoongi to come back with a new omega (who’s clearly been through some shit).

Don’t Worry Love by hollyhomburg ➵jhs x reader, pjm x reader | angst, hurt/comfort | duology | 4.5k ➵mental health warnings: mc has anorexia/eating disorder, anxiety, fainting.

You thought you had your bad habit under control- but when you wake up in a hospital room your boyfriend: Jung Hoseok confronts you- rightfully angry that you nearly starved yourself to death.

Part 1: Don’t Worry Love | Part 2: Just For You

Open Up Baby (Just Let Me In) by hollyhomburg ➵jhs x reader | fluff, hurt/comfort | established relationship au | oneshot | 2.1k ➵mental health warnings: depictions of mental illness, mc has PTSD, night terrors, anxiety attacks, flashbacks, implied abuse.

Hoseok knows that opening up is hard, and that healing is harder. But can see you struggling- but he’s torn, he can’t let you drown under the weight of whatever this is. He just wants to help you. He just wants to know.

Eyes On Me by hollyhomburg ➵knj x reader | fluff, hurt/comfort | established relationship au | oneshot | 4.3k ➵mental health warnings: knj has anxiety and panic attacks.

Kim Namjoon knows how bad his anxiety can get, but when he starts having panic attacks you decide to step in: lakeside hijinks ensue.

Sweet Like Honey (Break Like Glass) by hollyhomburg ➵kth x reader | fluff, angst | established relationship au | oneshot | 6.7k ➵mental health warnings: mentions of body dysmorphia, self-esteem issues, dysphoria, internalized self-hate, references to eating disorder.

Taehyung knows there’s something wrong with his girlfriend; the way she can’t look at herself in the mirror sometimes or the countless other bad days. He makes it his mission to make her feel as beautiful as possible.

eternal sunshine by sunlightvmin (ao3) ➵knj x jjk | angst, domestic fluff, hurt/comfort | android au | oneshot | 13k ➵mental health warnings: epidemic, death, suicide attempt, depression, anxiety disorder, grief/mourning, recovery, philosophical/existential talks, morality. ➵make sure you read/scroll all the way to the bottom because i almost didn’t and nearly lost my heart.

When half of the world dies, Namjoon forgets what it is like to live.

Android JK-0901 helps him learn how to, again.

Calcu-LATER by tae-cup ➵kth x reader, pjm x reader | fluff, angst, humor | college au | series | ongoing ➵ mental health warnings: slight internalized homophobia, anxiety attack, implied disorder.

Math never fails you. The numbers might not always make sense, but you know there must be a solution. Everything fits together like a perfect puzzle, like your tidy life and solitary living…until Kim Taehyung spills paint all over your notebook. He, quite literally, trips into your life.

Ch 1. Gouache on Calculator’s by Kim Taehyung | The Reader’s Tea Ch 2. Social Events? I Think Not | The Reader’s Tea Ch 3. Valentine’s Day | The Reader’s Tea Ch 4. Colossians 3:9 | The Reader’s Tea

it's hard to keep the colors inside the lines by orphan_account (ao3) ➵pjm x knj | college au, cafe au | duology | 38k ➵mental health warnings: pjm has insomnia, implied eating disorder, anxiety, panic attacks, mention of suicide. ➵i actually just started reading this the other day and haven’t been able to finish it yet but i love it so far! knj is an adorable, lanky barista who rambles and pjm is, in the author’s words, “a soft anxious cupcake.”

Park Jimin’s just trying to get through life without collapsing of sleep deprivation. Good thing Kim Namjoon works at a sleep clinic.

If I Only Get A Year With You by hollyhomburg ➵ksj x reader | angst, domestic fluff, hurt/comfort | oneshot | 2.1k ➵mental health warnings: mentions of death and self-harm, grief.

When both of your significant others die in the same car crash there is no one else you can turn to besides your longtime friend, Kim Seokjin. You both run away to grieve, but what you find in your sadness is more than you could have ever hoped for.

Beyond Reach by @jimlingss ➵jhs x reader | angst | grim reaper au, ghost au | series | 6 ch. | ➵priestess!mc, ghost!hoseok, reaper!namjoon, ft. other members ➵mental health warnings: death, topics of suicide, topics of illness.

If someone could see what you could, they’d pass out. But you don't blame them. Who would ever expect for a ghost, a priestess and a grim reaper to be together - much less be rescuing others.

Stay by @deepdarkdelights | The Reader’s Tea ➵pjm x reader (first person pov) | angst | oneshot | 1.8k ➵mental health warnings: topics of death and dying. quote from stay:

“The world was one that had been plunged into darkness, devoid of the sky, devoid of the ground, and devoid of life. It was just the dark mist overhead and me. [...]

Was I even alive, had I ever been born? What is this strange but familiar place?”

here you go, mea ☂️ carissima! i hope you enjoy these stories, and remember that i’m here if you need an ear 💜 i wish you a well journey through your tough times.

sweet water and light laughter till next we meet,

your fellow reading monster, tor-mon 🖤

[littlemisssquiggles]

Ruby Alone

As you all have seen, since prior to the last episode, I’ve been sharing my thoughts and ideas on the theory of V8 concluding with the “death” of RWBY after they fall “off Remnant and into a mysterious Other World”, as alluded to by Oscar.

While I’m still inclined to believe that theory may become possible given what transpired in this recent episode, in reviewing the RWBY V8 Opening, I noticed something interesting about the visuals again which caught my attention.

During the opening, RWBY falling was hinted much earlier in the theme during these shots right here. It’s these two shots of RWBY’s signature weapons falling through negative space which is later followed up by the opening ending with the weapons landing together on the ground.

However, here’s the bit that I think is noteworthy that I didn’t take into account before. Although the weapons of all four main girls were shown falling together through space and landing on the ground, not only is Crescent Rose the last one to hit the ground but it is also the ONLY one shown in the final shot of the opening.

It is also worth noting that the weapons fall in this particular order---first Ember Celica, then Gambal Shroud, then Myrtenaster and final Crescent Rose which ironically spells RWBY backwards.

And going back to my theory about RWBY falling in order....with Yang falling first then this is all starting to make more sense.

Going back to my point---Crescent Rose---Ruby’s weapon is the only weapon that landed on the ground but didn’t fade to darkness like the others. Instead, Crescent Rose is the only one remaining in the snow on what appears to be Remannt. Keeping that in mind, it’s making me start to ponder an alternative to my V8 finale theory. 

What if…I’m actually mistaken about the whole RWBY team falling prey to the Other World ? 

What if…as an alternative prediction, V8 will end with Ruby as the last man standing and the sole surviving member of her team after the rest “die” to the void?

Thus; V9 becomes Ruby’s story as she deals with the depression of losing her whole team; all obviously culminating with her eventually reuniting with them in the Other World. But before that, it’s mostly just about Ruby. Not RWBY. But just Ruby since RWBY started with just Ruby on her own in Remnant, trying to become a huntress. She only ends up going to Beacon and meeting and forming her own team due to Ozpin’s influence.

So imagine if...after everything she’s been through these last eight seasons, things just go back to how they were before. Ruby is on her own again. No team to lead. No big sister to guide and protect her (although ALPNE is there of course). No “BFFs” or “future-sister-in-law” on the same team to fuel her spark of hope. She no longer has her main friends by her side.

Ruby will be on her own for the first time in a long time and it becomes just her story for the most part of V9 as she does her best to figure out things all while the rest of the cast who survived the fall---Penny, ALPNE and their allies in Vauco and eventually Vale---try to provide her with the emotional support that she needs in place of the one she lost.

For the first time, the story is not about Ruby having to be the spark of hope to support others but…her friends, at least the ones she still have, coming together to support her for once in a time when she can truly need it.

Like I said. It would be the story of Ruby. Not RWBY. Just Ruby. If you get what I mean.

...And now for a squiggly rant...about Ruby:

One general complaint that I’ve heard from the FNDM about Ruby including Little Red Ruby fans like myself is that Ruby has more or less received the shortest end of the stick in terms of development over the past couple of seasons since V4…despite the fact that she is our central main character who is the leader of our core team with her name literally being in the title. Not to mention that Ruby is also the face of the RWBY franchise. When RT isn’t promoting the whole RWBY team together, it’s mainly Ruby to represent RWBY since of all the girls, she is the main one as the main protagonist of RWBY. At least…she’s supposed to be?

To be blunter, I’m just going to call out the fat Heffalump in the room---Ruby Rose, despite being the leader of RWBY---despite being our title character and face of the franchise---the one characters in the show always turn to since she’s THAT important---despite all of that, Ruby has NOT felt like the actual main protagonist of RWBY for several seasons. Since V4 as some fans like to point out. 

And after closely observing her story over the last few volumes, I can’t help but agree with these critiques and comments of Ruby’s treatment when it comes to her own writing. Even when the CRWBY showrunners DO attempt to do stuff with her---it all falls...flat especially when you compare Ruby to other characters like Jaune Arc, for example, whose stories and overall development were handled much better. At least in my opinion.

Don’t believe me? Take for example, Ruby’s whole so-called “arc” as a Silver Eyed Warrior. First it was introduced as a new idea for Ruby during the FINALE of V3, then it got abandoned for two whole seasons between V4-V5. Then it got reintroduced back in V6 but was then rushed and dropped yet again for V7 only to be brought up again briefly during V8…kind of?

It’s really telling when you realize that Ruby gained control of her silver eyes despite never truly receiving any actual training from Maria in how to control her powers. Not only that but the showrunners really did Maria Calavera dirty. She was supposed to be the wise old mentor who was a badass in her prime meant to pass down her wisdom to her young eager apprentice who knew nothing of her own unique abilities including its mysterious origins.

Instead Maria didn’t know at all about where her powers originated from until she conveniently met our heroes after the Argus Ltd crash and just happened to be present when they asked Jinn about Oz’s secrets. Instead of being a mentor to Ruby which she was initially propped up to be, Maria ended up being relegated to the Granny Uber Driver of the hero team---no longer the wise experienced ex-huntress whose supposed to be teaching our title character but just a form of transportation who provides the occasional comic relief and support for Pietro Polendina, who she was put to work with…instead of Ruby…her alleged apprentice?

 Shoot---despite being a Silver Eyed Warrior, Ruby was never even a person of interest for this volume. Despite the main big bad being in Atlas and despite targeting her in the past, Salem…never goes after Ruby again while she’s in Atlas??? Ruby never even meets Salem? Despite…Salem targeting Ruby back in V4? Despite Salem’s history with capturing Silver Eyes? Despite Salem’s connection to Ruby through her mother???

Ruby is never actively a part of the Salem subplot on Monstra…even though… certain developments left over from previous seasons indicated that she should’ve been?

Instead…we got to watch Yang accost Salem for Summer Rose’s death after SHE is the one to be on the rescue party to save Oscar from Monstro. Even though…Yang has neither been a person of interest to Salem before NOR has the Xiao Long girl been shown to be a close affiliate of Oscar in the past prior to V8 NOR has the Xiao Long girl actually addressed Summer Rose as her mother since V2???

Up until V8, Ruby has always been the character of focus with all things Summer Rose and Salem and yet…we NEVER saw her meet Salem in the flesh period for this season…at all…???

Instead; Ruby spends MOST of this season cooped up at Schnee Manor, completely absent from and even oblivious to some of the more dire PLOT stuff that was happening outside of Schnee Manor (such as YJR going into Monstra to save Oscar before the Aces Ops blew up the whale).

Despite her connection to Oscar who became Salem’s prisoner. Despite her connection to Salem through her mother. Despite being a Silver Eye and a former target of Salem. Despite the Hound and what it turned out to be. Despite the showrunners literally teasing Ruby meeting Salem face to face back in V7---WE NEVER GET TO SEE RUBY MEET SALEM IN THE FLESH AT ALL DURING V8 WHILE SALEM IS IN ATLAS???

Salem targets Oscar which makes perfect sense given his connection to Ozma as his current incarnate. But Salem doesn’t target Ruby? DESPITE HER BEING A TARGET OF HERS IN THE PAST? DESPITE HER BEING A SILVER EYED WARRIOR? DESPITE WHAT THE HOUND REVEALED?

Why didn’t Salem send the Hound after Ruby? That would’ve made more sense, again knowing what the Hound actually was? Instead the Hound was sent after Penny which, in my opinion, felt mighty redundant since Salem already had Watts and Cinder Fall dealing with Penny.  

THEY EVEN TEASED THE HOUND TARGETING RUBY BUT IT WAS ALL A FLUKE.  RUBY IS COMPLETELY OMITTED FROM THE SALEM SUBPLOT EVEN THOUGH SHE IS THE TITLE CHARACTER AND THE ONLY ONE ON TEAM RWBY WITH A LEGIT CONNECTION TO SALEM AND HAS BEEN A TARGET OF HERS SINCE V4???

I DON’T GET IT!

…BUT… with my mini rant aside, those are just a few of the inconsistencies that I’ve noticed in the writing of RWBY in respect to Ruby Rose.

Overall; the point I’m trying to make here is this: for the sake of sounding like a Negative Nancy, I ask this honest question to the CRWBY Writers. How? How can you fumble this much with your own title character? I’m not saying this to come off disrespectful. I’m saying this as someone who has followed the story of RWBY since the get-go and has closely observed the treatment of its characters; particularly the main ones and particularly the ones that I personally love and Ruby is one of them.

Despite being our main girl, Ruby’s writing hasn’t been the squeakiest, admittedly. As a matter of fact, it’s been quite messy since V4 due to the amount of times the showrunners have introduced ideas for her only to abandon them later on thus creating those problems with consistency I mentioned earlier.

Overall, it’s difficult for me to even say that Ruby is the lead character of RWBY since often times; she doesn’t FEEL like the main protagonist despite the show claiming how important she is meant to be. And this sentiment is due in part to how messy her story is handled compared to other characters of lesser importance.

And it’s a sad thing for me to say as both a viewer and fan of Ruby’s character since Ruby is THE lead main character of RWBY. She’s like the Tony Stark of the RWBY-verse. She’s the one who started it all yet her story is one of the messiest I’ve seen in terms of direction and treatment. At least by my observations since this is just my opinion on the subject matter.

It’s one thing to blunder a bit on your side or even your supporting characters. But to slip up on your lead characters, especially your MAIN one who is the FACE of the show, c’mon CRWBY Writers.

And the events of V8 didn’t help change my opinion. After taking away all the bloat this season had for all the stuff they tried to shove into this one season, I realized that V8 didn’t really do much for Ruby. At least, not as much as I anticipated.

I was hoping that Ruby would’ve been a more focal character for V8 since V7 teased some stuff for her in respect to Salem. Instead, I watched a season where Ruby felt more like a supporting character for Penny Polendina since, in my opinion, Penny received much more focus and better development for V8 while Ruby, our LEAD took backstage to her story.

Because while Ruby was stuck playing supporting character, she was actively left out of subplots that she should’ve been a major part of. Not just because she’s the “protagonist” but because of elements to her story that were developed seasons prior but seemed to have gotten dropped for V8?

Ruby’s treatment for V8, to me,  is an example of a “build-up with no payoff”. All that stuff between her and Salem and her mother felt like it ultimately didn’t matter in the end because Ruby didn’t even meet Salem. 

Yang, to me, had the development with Salem that Ruby should’ve received.

Shoot---Ruby wasn’t even a thought on Salem’s mind…despite the events V4 and V7???

I just don’t understand. 

But like always, this is just how I feel about it. I’m disappointed with how Ruby was done for this season. While I liked the moment she shared with Blake in V8CH8 and Yang in V8CH11...that’s pretty much the ONLY thing I liked about Ruby’s story for this season. 

Outside of that, it felt to me like the showrunners didn’t do much with her for V8. In a season of so much happening, the stuff that happened with Ruby on her side of the story didn’t honestly stand out to me compared to what I saw the showrunners do for other characters who aren’t the lead this season.

It’s not like I’m trying to say she didn’t receive any development at all for V8. It’s more like most of what was done with Ruby didn’t quite stand out to me so it ends up feeling like not much was done for her. 

To me, Ruby falls into the same category as Nora Valkyrie for this season. Despite the PLOT preaching about them getting big developments, if you rock back and actually analyse the narrative, you’d actually see that not much was done for them despite the PLOT “talking the talk but not walking the walk” y’know what I mean?

And going back to Ruby, that’s disappointing since I wanted more for Ruby. I EXPECTED MORE for Ruby as our title lead but it didn’t happened. Instead it felt like some of the major developments that she should’ve received for this season went to other characters while she in turn took a backseat.

Things didn’t really start kicking up for Rubes until halfway through the season when the 100th episode aired and the Hound appeared. And even then the excitement of that reveal was short-lived since...Ruby was NOT the real target of the Hound. PENNY WAS. The Hound wasn’t sent to antagonize RUBY. It was sent for Penny which to me sort of undermines the reveal.

Some Ruby fans have been wishing for the show to feel more about just Ruby again for quite some time now and it is for this reason why I’m starting to dig this alternative theory of mine with Ruby surviving “The Fall of the Central Zone” alone with the rest of her team lost to the Other World.

While the concept of RWBY being trapped together in another world is still on the table of possibilities, I still wish to toss out this other one too.

I like the idea of a more Ruby-centric season where for the second time in the narrative, she’s separated from her core teammates only this time…it’s in “death” or rather “nonexistence” or “nothingness” since from Ruby’s perspective with her limited knowledge of magic (despite what she does know from Oz and Jinn) and the workings of the world that Ambrosius created, she doesn’t know what truly happened to her team.

The only thing she knows is that she watched her whole team dissipate into nothing before her very eyes and that is the last memory she has of them that haunts her for some time.

Imagine if…V9 will be about Ruby dealing with such a huge loss which could potentially touch more upon how she internalizes death in general tying back into probably flashbacks of her time with her mother before she learnt of her death at a young age.

While I understand we’ve had a storyline with Ruby being separated from her main team before back during V4-V5, however a plot line like this would be different this rounds since unlike before, Ruby at least knew that her team mates were alive. Far away. Separated by distance. But still alive and still a part of Remnant with the hope that she would be reunited with them again.

However this won’t be the case this second time. It would truly be Ruby alone since her team would be gone and no one could provide her with the solace of seeing them again---not even the friends she does still have (although that doesn’t stop some of them from trying to be there for the little red rose who has now lost more than her heart could handle)

I know the off-chance of this theory actually coming to fruition might be scarce. But like many ideas I’ve shared, it’s still worth tossing out since you guys know how this squiggle meister likes to roll.

~ LittleMissSquiggles (2021)

[lxngbottom]

A Fun Trip. | N.L.

in which the reader and neville take acid, and have a fun trip together.

warnings: drug use, swearing, a little bit of angst.

word count: 1,692

i got inspired due to the fact i had to trip sit like 6 or 7 people the other night so enjoy whatever this is lolol

—

“oh, shit. this is actually about to happen...”

those were the words that came from your best friend, neville longbottom. you two sat calmly on his bed, ron, harry, seamus, and dean all present in the room.

“we don’t have to do this, you know. if you’re too scared then we should just—“

“no! i want to do this. it seems cool!” he quickly interjected, taking a quick glance at the tab sitting patiently on the plastic bag in front of both of you. you laughed at your best friend, surprised by his eagerness to take muggle drugs.

“you guys won’t like—die, right?” ron asked, not really knowing if he was trying to reassure himself or you two.

you rolled your eyes at the ginger, “no, ronald. we won’t die. we’re taking one tab each, and trust me... i’ve seen people take way more than that and be completely fine.”

“so why did you ask us to be here?” seamus added, a book settled in his hands as his back was propped up against his headboard.

“because, asshat! it’s only my second time ever taking LSD and it’s neville’s first time!”

“i thought you said you’ve never done this before...” neville stated, his face now visibly sweating. you smiled at him,

“i’ve done magic mushrooms, nev. but never acid.”

his mouth formed into an ‘o’ shape, and he quickly looked down at the two tabs once more. you could tell that he was anxious, simply from the way his hand made its way up to his neck and began to rub it. you grabbed the same hand, and put yours over it. “hey, you’ll be alright. there’s nothing to be scared of. and if you do start having a bad trip, i told all of them how to get you out of it, alright?”

he couldn’t help but to send you a small smile. you were always so good at making him feel relieved, reassured. it was one of the reasons why he adored you so much.

“so...” you began, picking up one of the tabs carefully, making sure that it wouldn’t get on your skin. “are you ready?”

neville looked at the tab once more, and sighed. “yeah. fuck it.”

you chuckled, and passed him his tab, “fuck it.”

at the same time, you two put the tab directly on your tongue. you could already feel the tab slowly dissolving, and for a quick moment regret filled your body. but you pushed it away, as you didn’t want to make neville nervous. you wanted his first trip to be good, unlike yours was.

“how long does it take to work?” neville asked, throwing the plastic bag in the trash bin right beside his bed.

you thought for a moment, trying to recollect your past knowledge from doing LSD. “about thirty minutes to an hour. but, it really all depends on the person, i suppose.”

he nodded, and began to play with his fingers.

you let your back fall onto the headboard, and moved some hair from your face.

“now... we wait.”

—

almost a whole hour had gone by, and neville stared up at the canopy, waiting for something, just anything to happen.

“still nothing, longbottom?” dean asked him, staring intently at his friend.

“yeah, nothing...” he muttered in response, “what about you, y/n?”

if neville or any of the other boys would’ve been a bit more attentive, they would’ve noticed how you were practically lost in your own world. everything was so bright, the most beautiful environment that you had ever seen. the wrinkles in your hands wiggled, and the print on the wall seemed to move like the ocean.

“uhh—you guys?” harry suddenly announced, and he pointed over towards you.

the boys looked over, and saw you staring at neville’s bed side table intently. you were on your knees, staring at the printed wood and the way it danced. you almost began to dance with it until neville got your attention,

“y/n? are you alright?”

you looked over at him, and he was shocked to see the brightest smile on your face that he had ever seen. “fantastic. the best i’ve ever felt!”

you couldn’t explain it, but it was the best you ever felt. your physical body on its own felt as if it were on cloud nine, and the things you were seeing... it was brilliant.

“look at the table. it’s dancing!” you squealed excitedly, pointing at the thin lines imbedded into the wood. neville, out of pure curiosity, looked exactly where you were pointing at. but, he didn’t see the wood dancing like you were.

“i don’t see anything. i guess it’s not working for me...” he sighed, envious of how happy you seemed from the affects.

you slowly got up, and looked over at him. you were making every attempt possible to ignore the visuals that covered your eye sight. you walked over to him, a small smile still planted onto your face. you bent down in front of him,

“it hit.” you whispered to him,

“what?”

you stared into his eyes, “it. hit.”

in that moment, neville truly believed in the power of words. because as you stood up, a blurred version of your figure followed. as if everything happening all in this moment was delayed.

neville’s eyes widened, and he looked down at his hands. he noticed the way the faint lines in his palm moved, and how they seemed to be wrapping around on each other. he closed his hand, and opened it right back up to make sure he wasn’t just seeing things.

no. this was actually happening.

“you guys... look at my hand! look! it’s moving!” neville started to shove his palm into his ron’s face, and ron laughed when he saw that his palm actually wasn’t moving.

you two began to get lost. lost into a trip that came in waves, but nonetheless, quite enjoying.

every time you looked at the walls, they seemed to move with your every step. you kept giggling at it, earning questionable stares from your designated “trip sitters.”. the bed posts seem to grow, shrink, and do the same thing all over again. at one point, you needed to use the bathroom. but as you walked passed a random mirror within the dorm, the need to relive yourself faded away.

in the mirror, you could say you saw multiple things. but, that wouldn’t even be a good enough explanation for what you saw. your face began to grown a shade of purple, a lavender shade. and you saw two extra terrestrial seeming ears grow out of the top of your head.

“neville, come check this out!” you blankly stated, too lost in thought and sight to even put any emotion into your words.

he quickly made his way over to you, and looked in the mirror as well.

it didn’t take long before the two of you were shouting about crazy things, and laughing your asses off.

“these crazy people, mate. i swear!” ron joked, shaking his head at the two of you.

—

as you sat up from neville’s bed, a large wave of sadness crashed into you. you knew this was bound to happen, just not as soon as you woke up.

you looked over, and spotted neville sleeping soundly. his hair was messy, and his lips were parted a bit. small snores escaped him, and you smiled at the way he looked, but your come down didn’t let you feel too happy for long.

“neville...” you nudged him, attempting to wake him up nicely. “neville... wake up...”

his eyes fluttered open slowly, and he smiled when he realized that you were over him, staring at him.

“hi.” he hummed, and you greeted him back with a quick, “morning.”

but from the way your face looked, neville could tell something was wrong. he had known you for so long, that he knew just one face drop always indicated that something was going on.

“what’s wrong, love?” he asked sweetly, mentally pleading for you to lay down next to him.

“i just feel...” you began, but trailed off getting lost in your own thoughts, “i just feel sad. like... noting is ever going to get better.”

you had talked to him about the affects of LSD, and how it made certain people react. and of course you didn’t forget to tell him about the infamous come down. he had retained as much as he could, so he knew from your statement that it was simply the drugs talking.

“y/n... that’s not true. you know that. everything can get better.” he assured you,

you looked over at him, “you said can. but... what if they don’t?” your voice cracked, and you could feel the sob climbing up your throat, desperately trying to escape your lips.

neville sighed, and quickly pulled your arm, asking if you to lay down next to him. you did so easily, making no complaints about receiving comfort in this moment.

he held you tight, and pressed a small kiss to your temple as he fixed the blanket that laid over the both of you. when he settled in once more, all it took was a look of adoration from him to make your lip quiver, and for a small cry to leave your body.

“oh, y/n... it’s alright...” he whispered, petting your hair gently as you cried into his chest. he couldn’t help but to feel his heart shatter into thousands of pieces hearing you sob like this. he knew it was just the routine of doing muggle drugs, but merlin, he hated seeing in this state.

you both laid still, and neville let you cry and ramble on about philosophical topics. he listened carefully, running his fingers through your hair gently.

when you calmed down, you nuzzled up closer to him.

“i had fun with you last night, nev. thanks for always doing stupid shit with me...” you chuckled through your tears, wiping them away with your hand.

“well, you want to know something?”

you hummed in response, looking up at him.

“i would do it all over again.”

[jennycalendar]

ok you know what i think it’s actually really vital that i talk a little bit about tea time. buckle up kiddos.

first off, a brief and relatively spoiler-free summary: the premise of the issue is very simple. the kiddos (aged up, if willow’s mention of being engaged is any indication) are hanging out in the library to help giles with research, swapping stories about what it would be like were giles a vampire. each of them, save giles, gets a chance to tell a detailed story -- xander tells two! -- and each story plays out in a way that says a lot about the scooby that’s telling it AND the way they view giles.

obviously this is a VERY character-driven issue, and it’s a really really interesting look at giles and how he is perceived as well! shit like that is my bread and butter, so this has honestly become one of my favorite things that boom has put out -- possibly my ACTUAL top favorite issue if we’re being real here. 

below the cut is a spoilery dissection of every story told -- a literal summary of Every Single Thing that happens in this issue, as well as what it has to say about the scoobies and their perception of giles, so definitely keep that in mind.

as can be seen in the preview, xander’s first story is about giles rising from the grave as an ineffectual british caricature, who is easily defeated by smoldering, sexy xander harris (and xander in turn walks off with buffy and willow draped all over him, cooing about how amazing he is). it’s more of an intro to the premise than anything, but it still sets the tone pretty clearly wrt how xander handles this situation: there’s some laughter and levity, and he’s center stage. obviously a lot can be said about xander’s self-esteem issues and how he overcompensates by casting himself as the main protagonist both in canon and here. however, i wanna save my more in-depth xander analysis for his second, longer, story, so i’ll stop myself there.

willow immediately responds with skepticism: she’s of the mind that giles would be an incredibly serious big-bad level threat. the tale she spins involves giles as a dangerous vampire cleric with access to a cryptic altar, killing xander almost immediately and slaughtering buffy as a sacrifice to create eternal night. her view of giles is more clinical than anything -- and, i would argue, the most perceptive and realistic from a threat standpoint. the guy knows a fuckton of magic and he is incredibly well-read and powerful. he’d have some kind of terrifying master plan. where xander goes for comedy, willow goes straight for logistics, already looking at the battle like it’s a battle rather than laughs aplenty. 

xander and buffy have a bone to pick with willow’s story (xander is indignant that he’s immediately and brutally killed, buffy is of the mind that she would easily defeat giles in hand-to-hand combat even if he IS a vampire), so (after one more teasing story where buffy lives and xander dies) willow gracefully alters her narrative to reflect her friends’ objections: after a dramatic tussle, xander helps willow and buffy unceremoniously stakes giles in the heart. still pretty straightforward and plausible. willow sees vamp giles primarily as a threat -- one not easily neutralized. one who could easily wipe them out.

buffy, about to tell her story, is interrupted by xander, who “had an even better idea!” the web he weaves is this time purported as realistic and entertaining: while partying at the bronze, buffy and co. are interrupted by a bunch of balding, greying vampires in curlers and bathrobes, led, of course, by giles -- who is wearing a hair bonnet and disapprovingly informing the bouncers how late it is at eight PM. a knockdown brawl breaks out at the bronze -- old people feeding on and decimating the young -- and culminates in giles and the geezers taking over the band to sing “some terrible song” that’s “probably something really old and bad!” the rest of the story descends into b-movie chaos, with buffy throwing a broken guitar neck up at the stage lights to send the whole thing crashing down onto vampire giles and his vampire old person band. it’s categorically absurd.

the thing that really sticks with me about this story is how dumb it is. xander’s take on giles is not even slightly serious and wholly underestimates him. fandom at large talks a lot about how giles dropped the ball with xander, but i think tea time explores an easily overlooked factor: xander constantly, consistently underestimates giles. in canon, xander’s view of giles is not often challenged: to him, giles is a bumbling, british librarian who regularly gets his ass handed to him by vamps and demons and the like. certainly part of his story’s intent is about laughingly entertaining his gal pals, but there’s a very real and consistent thread involving giles being hilariously nonthreatening. 

giles, taking umbrage at this particular tale, calls out both xander and willow: xander’s story, in giles’s opinion, emasculates vamp giles and turns him into a ridiculous caricature -- and willow’s story, though much more flattering, lacks the kind of imagination that vamp giles would clearly have. he then offers a suggestion of his own. it’s worth mentioning here that both xander’s and willow’s stories get gorgeous multiple-page spreads depicting the vampy action, but giles’s is a simple and chilling little thing: this is his vampire story. this meeting, called to ostensibly “research” a vampire altar, is really an excuse to get the scoobies to do his dirty work and find the thing for him. they’re tired and silly because the tea and donuts he’s given them are drugged, and their library location is to keep them out of daylight. he laughs it off when he sees they’re bothered, and the meeting is then adjourned when willow finally finds what they’re all looking for. 

buffy’s left her phone in the library, so she doubles back, and accidentally wakes up a dozing giles. just as she’s about to leave, he inquires, casually, “...you never did tell your version of the story.”

and good god here is where it gets interesting.

see, buffy’s take is simple: she’s fighting giles in a cemetery, she’s given the chance to kill him, and she is entirely unable to do it. they share a tearful embrace as she sobs about the unfairness of it all -- “you’re giles! and you’ll always be! ...how will i do this without you? without your guidance?” and as the sun is rising, giles turns her into a vampire, with no resistance whatsoever from buffy. the next handful of pages depict bloody, indulgent violence on the parts of giles and buffy, the two of them cuddled up together as they watch the world burn. 

buffy’s tale is the most emotive, the most loving, which makes me so damn soft! i love this girl so much! she is unable to even joke about giles as a foe to be taken down -- he is her watcher. he is her friend. she loves him endlessly and that does not change when he’s a vampire. vamp giles as she portrays him is gentle and understanding, holding her as she cries, because he knows that they’re connected. it’s easily my favorite part of this whole issue.

notably, there is a definite buffy/giles bend that the comic itself tries to contradict. the art is sensual in nature -- vamp buffy all dolled up in a way somewhat evocative of drusilla, giles tenderly caressing her face as he waits for her to wake up. “watcher and slayer connected forever” being the quote chosen to describe the situation. i think it’s kind of what naturally happens in a vamp giles sitch, especially if he turns buffy -- the childe/sire bond is incredibly sexual in nature, especially in canon, and a lot of frustrating human sentiment gets translated into something sexual as well. sex is a big BIG part of the relationships between vampires we see in canon; it would make a lot of sense for that to hold true for buffy and giles.

the comic is reticent about Going There, which i can understand -- though buffy is decisively aged up in this issue (willow mentions being engaged to a woman, later revealed to be tara), the buffy/giles bond is always seen through a father/daughter lens in canon. i do think it’s also important to always recognize how desperately giles wishes to escape the label of father in reference to buffy, pretty much entirely because there is no way to parent a child soldier who you’re also training, but that’s a whole other kettle of fish. point is, buffy very pointedly refers to vamp giles as her father not once, but twice -- once as a human, once as a vampire herself. it’s a very clear attempt, imo, to un-sexualize the vampy experience. the reason it doesn’t totally work, at least for me, is the fact that -- like i said -- the childe/sire bond is VERY sexual (spike and dru, angel and darla, angel and dru) and it seems just totally implausible that vamp buffy/vamp giles (two people who, as human were both VERY repressed) would chastely remain within the socially acceptable version of their relationship.

i can definitely understand why they did their best to blur that line, though. the idea of buffy and giles being romantically involved as vampires is 1) Kind Of A Lot and 2) not exactly the target demographic that i think this comic is going for. but the subtext is there, to the point where the issue itself has to actively obfuscate it, which i think is .... so interesting? especially as a counterpoint to the way i often see buffy/giles in fandom, wherein the father/daughter subtext in canon is at times actively obfuscated in fic in an attempt to push a preferred reading. 

the ending i particularly enjoyed: after buffy leaves, it is lightly and ambiguously implied that giles might really be a vampire. works GREAT as a standalone, imo, and the end is like the cherry on top. it’s a really REALLY interesting issue and i highly recommend it for any giles fan. 

[lunar-wandering]

i don’t wanna fight alone anymore - Chapter 6

The ship goes through a thunderstorm.

Wukong is fine.

(warning: Wukong is kinda like. panicking for most of this chapter, mainly this is based on what I do when anxious but. figured i should warn ya i guess.)

Word Count: 2.4k

Read on Ao3

"Hot chocolate is ready!" MK said, walking into the common room, carrying a tray with 4 mugs of hot chocolate on it. He handed one mug to Mei, then turned to hand another one to Macaque, only for Macaque to turn away, not even reaching for the mug. "....Aren't you going to take it?"

"No." Macaque said, plain and simple, slouching down and back into the couch.

"....Why not?" MK asked.

"I can't drink hot chocolate." Macaque sighed, dramatically sliding down off the couch and onto the floor. "Chocolate is poisonous to monkeys."

"But...." Mei started, turning to look at where Wukong was standing behind the couch. "I'm pretty sure we've all seen Monkey King-"

"I'm immortal, so it doesn't matter." Wukong said, "Give me my drink, if you'd please."

"Here." MK handed the mug of hot chocolate to Wukong, who sipped at it as MK turned back around to bring Macaque's unused mug back to the kitchen. As such, he didn't see the look of brief confusion that flashed over Wukong's face as he sipped the drink again, quickly followed by shock, then a tired resignation. All evidence of that, however, was gone by the time MK returned to the room.

"How do you live without chocolate?" MK asked, as he sat down on the couch, looking down at where Macaque now lay on the ground.

"I manage." He said, his eyes closed. Wukong snorted into his cup.

"That's why he's so bitter." Wukong said, "Can't eat chocolate."

Macaque didn't dignify that comment with a response, his ears twitching before he sat back up, looking like he was concentrating on something. He sighed, standing up and walking towards the door.

"And where are you going?" Mei asked.

"To my room." Macaque said, "There's a thunderstorm coming, and I'd rather not get my hearing destroyed any time soon."

With that, Macaque left the room, the door closing behind him.

"A thunderstorm?" MK asked, "I don't think I've been in a thunderstorm, outside of that time Red Son took over the weather station."

"I've been in a few, while traveling." Mei said, shrugging. "Other than being a bit loud, they're not a big deal, really. The weather station keeps storms from happening in the city, so like you said, I haven't been in one for a while."

"Ha, ha, yeah, wouldn't want the power to get knocked out in such a large city, right?" Wukong said, "I'm sure that would cause chaos."

There was a....strange wobble to his voice as he said it, which prompted MK and Mei to look at him with confusion on their faces.

"Are....you okay?" MK asked, eyeing how tightly Wukong was now gripping his mug. Wukong gave a little laugh.

"I'm just fine, kid." Wukong said, before chugging the rest of his hot chocolate in one go. "I think I'm gonna go check in on Pigsy now, see ya!"

And with that, Wukong turned, walking towards the kitchen. MK and Mei watched him go with equal looks of concern on their faces.

-

The first roll of thunder hit when Wukong was helping Pigsy take a batch of cinnamon buns out of the oven. It was so sudden, that even though he had been tense, expecting it, he very nearly dropped the whole tray.

"Careful, don't want to waste them." Pigsy said, noticing the fumble, before pausing as he registered the expression on Wukong's face. "....You okay?"

"Yep, just fine!" Wukong said, setting the tray down on the counter. "Just wasn't expecting it, that's all!"

"If you say so....." Pigsy said, staring at how Wukong stood, hands behind his back, tense. He could tell that something was up, but-

Before Pigsy could say anything else, another bout of thunder rolled through, and suddenly Wukong was moving, turning and heading towards the doorway.

"I'm going to go check on how Tang is doing!" He called, over his shoulder, before disappearing down the hallway.

-

Tang was sitting in his room, reading one of the many books he'd found in Wukong's house. (He'd stolen them, technically, since Wukong didn't know he'd taken them.)

He faintly heard a bout of thunder-

And then Wukong was there, leaning over his shoulder.

"Watcha reading?" He asked, and Tang barely kept himself from startling out of his chair. He chuckled a little at the other's reaction, before returning his attention to the book. "Wait, isn't this one from my house?"

"They're all from your house." Tang said, recovering from the sudden scare. "I figured I'd get some reading material while we were there."

"I mean, at least someone will read them." Wukong said, "I'm not even sure why I held onto them really, I never actually bothered to read them."

"You didn't- why would you just get books and then not read them?" Tang said, "I mean, this one specifically has such a good plot-"

Wukong sat there, crouched on the edge of Tang's chair, and listened to him rant about how good the book was. In truth, Wukong actually had read all the books. At least 50 times. But he wasn't about to tell him that.

Listening to the ranting was actually a good distraction.

Or at least, it was a good distraction.

Eventually, his mind started wandering again, and all it could keep thinking of was-

A clash of thunder rang out, and Wukong stood up, jumping off of the chair and pacing, trying to look casual as he did so. He didn't think he fully succeeded, if the way Tang paused in his speech and looked at him was any indication.

That wouldn't do. He wouldn't- couldn't let any of the others know-

Tang went to open his mouth, and Wukong was already walking out the door.

"I'm going to go hang out with Sandy!" He said as he left.

Tang watched him leave with a frown on his face.

"I was just gonna ask if he was okay...." He mumbled.

-

So maybe going to Sandy wasn't the best idea right now.

Or, well, at least, it wasn't the best idea considering Wukong actively wanted to hide the fact that anything was wrong. Sandy was the best in the group at picking up on the others emotional states, so Wukong should've known that as soon as he entered the room he'd be asked;

"Are you okay?"

"Yep! Perfectly fine!" Wukong lied, wincing as another clang of thunder boomed outside the ship. As much as some part of him wanted to, he couldn't tell him. He couldn't tell him that the loud sound of thunder sounded all too similar to the sound of rocks falling, crashing, and tumbling their way down a mountain.

Besides, it wasn't entirely a lie, he was fine.

He could deal with this.

So long as he had a distraction.

Which was why, even though Sandy eyed him with a fair amount of suspicion, Wukong stayed around him a little while longer, trying to make small talk about any subject he could think of that Sandy might be knowledgeable about. Cats, tea- literally anything that came to mind.

And it worked- between talking about random subjects, and pacing while rubbing his hands up and down his clothing ( a self comforting gesture, he was unsure when he'd starting doing it, but he sure wasn't going to stop now-), the overbearing panic from the thunder was almost dulled enough for him to forget about it.

....But this strategy wouldn't work forever.

-

They'd all gone to bed.

Everyone was asleep.

They were still in the thunderstorm.

And now, Wukong had no one to talk to.

A loud boom rattled the ship, and Wukong barely stopped himself from whimpering as he leaned against the wall of the hallway. On the one hand, at this point, he just wanted to curl up and cry. But on the other hand, staying still for too long just reminded him of being trapped, unable to move-

Another roll of thunder came through, and Wukong couldn't stop the whimper this time.

Fuck. He couldn't do this, he needed- he needed another distraction, someone else to talk to-

But the others were asleep. There was no way he could wake them up for this, not only would it disturb their sleep, but he'd been doing such a good job of pretending everything was fine, that he was still the strong and powerful Monkey King that defeated Demon Bull King five hundred years ago. He couldn't shatter that image for them. They deserved to believe that they were safe with him there.

He couldn't wake them up. If only someone, maybe Sandy, was still awake, maybe then-

....But there was someone awake.

A mental image of Macaque, sitting on his bed, covering his ears so that they wouldn't be hurt by the loud thunder, unable to sleep from the noise, appeared in Wukong's mind.

Almost immediately he dismissed the idea. He'd already spent at least an hour locked up in a magic barrier with the shadow monkey, outside of general interaction around the others, he wasn't going to actively seek out the other's company for anything else. He still didn't trust him. There was no way he was going to let Macaque know about this.

Another loud crack of thunder quickly made him change his mind.

In only a matter of seconds he stood outside of Macaque's door, debating whether or not he should knock. The choice was made for him as the door swung open, Macaque standing there, looking tired and absolutely done with everything.

"Don't even start." He said, stopping Wukong before he could even open his mouth. "I could hear you panicking from miles away."

"I'm not panicking!" Wukong said, despite the fact that he clearly was, and Macaque sighed-

Before pausing, grabbing hold of his scarf and pulling it up to cover his ears, and that was the only warning Wukong got before-

Another clap of thunder hit, this one closer to the ship than the previous ones, based on how loud it was, and both monkey's cringed. A moment passed, then Macaque slowly let the scarf fall down from his ears, lightly rubbing them in an attempt to stop the ringing.

Wukong continued shaking.

Macaque took one look at him and sighed, before grabbing hold of Wukong's wrist, and dragging him down the hallway.

"Hey- what're you-" Wukong started to protest, trying to pull his wrist out of the other's grip, but Macaque held firm.

"I'm not dealing with this tonight." Macaque grumbled, and Wukong's protests continued, only the fear of possibly waking someone up keeping him from shouting at the other.

At least, until they started approaching MK's room.

Wukong dug his heels into the floor, actually managing to bring Macaque to a complete stop.

"We are not waking up MK." Wukong hissed, trying to level Macaque with a threatening glare, although it was very much ineffective, as another bang of thunder made him start shivering again. Macaque, who had used one hand to pull up his scarf and protect his ears from the noise, rolled his eyes.

"Unfortunately for you, I am not going to tolerate your bullshit." He said, ignoring Wukong's offended gasp. "It's late, my ears are ringing, and right now I honestly couldn't care less about your thunder phobia or whatever. You're going to talk about whatever the hell this is with MK and the others, and I'm going to go back to pressing two pillows over my ears so I don't get hearing damage, okay?"

"No-" Wukong said, but it was too late, as Macaque banged his fist on MK's door. There was a startled yelp, and a crash, and Wukong winced, knowing that his successor had probably just fallen out of his bed. A few seconds passed, and then MK slowly opened the door, tiredly rubbing his eyes.

"Macaque? What's going-" MK started, before noticing Wukong, who was very obviously trying to escape Macaque's grip. "...Monkey King?"

"Uh, hey bud!" Wukong said, smiling nervously even as Macaque sent him a warning glance. "Nothing's wrong, you can go back to bed-"

He was cut off by another boom of thunder, cringing and slightly curling in on himself. Macaque had let go of his hand, in order to better cover his own ears, but somehow the thought of running away was suddenly the furthest thing away in Wukong's mind. MK continued to glance between the both of them with confusion and concern.

"...Are you alright?" MK eventually settled on asking and Wukong-

Wukong finally gave in.

".....No." He said, quietly, looking down at the floor. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Macaque fade into the shadows, probably heading back to his room, but he wasn't really focusing on that right now. "I'm....not okay."

"It's the thunder isn't it." MK said, it wasn't a question, it was a statement, and Wukong nodded silently, still refusing to look MK in the eye. "Do you want to talk about it or-"

"I just need a distraction." Wukong said, "Just, I don't want to think about-"

Another clash of thunder, and MK winced sympathetically as Wukong decided to take a page out of Macaque's book and cover his ears with his scarf. Surprisingly enough, the fabric over his ears did actually help a little, it was almost a bit comforting, really.

MK waited until Wukong had mostly pulled himself back together before speaking again.

"We could play Monkey Mech?" He suggested, "I've got a TV and console in my room-"

Wukong practically rushed past him, entering the room and immediately finding the console and turning it on.

-

MK sighed, setting his controller down on his lap as he glanced at the clock.

4 am in the morning.

(Usually, MK would be a bit concerned over how little sleep he was getting, but-

To be honest, he hadn't been sleeping well the past few nights anyways. What was one more sleepless night?)

"Y'know, arguably, you probably should've gone to Sandy for this." MK said.

"Probably, yeah." Wukong mumbled, before looking over at MK. ".....Can you promise me you won't tell the others about this?"

"...Sure." MK knew that the others had also figured it out already, but if Wukong wanted to pretend that no one knew, well, MK certainly wasn't going to be the one to start digging into that.

That was probably a job that would be best left to Sandy in the long-term.

[kyndaris]

Putting your Fate in your Hands

If Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon’s Keep could be likened to a one-shot adventure, then Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands felt like a properly fleshed out mini-campaign with quests escalating in scope as the game wore on. Releasing initially on the Epic Game Store (as well as consoles) in March 2022, the game sat on my pile of ‘to be played’ for a few months until I was able to find a hefty chunk of time to fully dive into the wide world of Tiny Tina’s imagination.

The best way to describe Wonderlands would be to imagine a high fantasy medieval world that it crammed to the brim with guns or gun-adjacent weaponry like crossbows. In the place of  grenades are a slew of wonderful and powerful spells. Better yet are actual melee weapons (which I didn’t actually use much after that initial tutorial). Of course, there’s also a host of new character classes with practical class abilities that serve double the carnage while also being very pretty and sparkling to look at.

What I enjoyed most about the Wonderlands were all the role-playing gimmicks that were put into the game - from the character customisation to the pop culture references. After all, why shouldn’t a game of make-believe where dice are rolled to determine if a character successfully accomplishes a task  insert a parody version of Don Qixote, the Witcher and the Smurfs? This is, of course, all in the mad mind of a teen demolition expert, who is herself a side character in a bombastic franchise that has always poked fun at society.

Wonderlands casts the player as the ‘newbie.’ It’s never made clear who the Newbie is or how they stumbled upon Tiny Tina’s table of Bunkers and Badasses. What is known is that the player character remains entirely in character throughout their journey to stop the Dragon Lord. Commentating on the sidelines are Frette and Valentine, a robot and a pilot that had crash-landed on the planet. 

The backstory for these two new characters is relatively thin. In fact, there’s little to no focus to the actual real-life situation that these characters find themselves. Wonderlands devotes all its story-telling to the fictional world of B&B where the Newbie must go and save the world from the evil and demonic Dragon Lord.

Despite defeating the man in the early parts of the game, the villain is revived by one of his faithful minions and wreaks havoc on the world when he beheads Queen Butt Stallion. So, the Newbie, as the Fatemaker, must journey across the lands to put a stop to his nefarious deeds.

While the overarching plot is fairly derivative from most role-playing games, The Dragon Lord proves to be a more complex antagonist than previously thought. His goal within the game isn’t just the Big Bad Evil Guy (BBEG) that laughs and torments the player-character. Threaded throughout the story Tiny Tina is trying to tell as the Bunker Master is The Dragon Lord’s attempt of throwing off the yokes of oppression. Once a playable character (PC) and fellow Fatemaker, Tiny Tina’s decision to use the Sword of Souls to smite every single villain saw him turn evil. Frustrated that her first playthrough hadn’t gone as planned, Tiny Tina decided to ensure the cycle of good versus evil would forever end in the favour of the heroes.

Though there were many reviews that bemoaned the fact that The Dragon Lord’s agency never saw fruition, the comments made by the Fatemaker when they decide to restore unity to the world seemed to indicate that the story of Wonderlands was very much about the pandemic and the widening cracks within society due to the stress of lockdowns, mask mandates and the inability to go about our normal lives.

In fact, the end message of Wonderlands was all about enjoying a game together with friends even when things might not go as well as one would like. As someone that has prepared material for my own hundred-hour campaign, I know the feeling of fear that my players might not go down the path that I’ve carefully paved for their journey. But as someone that plays video games and who likes to go my own way, I also understand why players might not always go for the tantalising bait that sits on the narrative hook. Yes. I know I’ve mixed my metaphors but that’s just how things like these go.

Wonderlands keeps a lot of the high octane from the Borderlands franchise while also putting its own spin. Whether Gearbox intends to make more remains to be seen, but given the glut of fantasy games and shooters and how much Dungeons and Dragons has infiltrated the social conscience, another entry into what was once a downloadable content (DLC) might wear out its welcome. Especially because it’s very much a Borderlands game with just a fantasy dressing on top of the world. True, it’s more colourful than dusty Pandora but given that Tales of the Borderlands and Borderlands 3 have opened up space-faring adventure, this is no longer the case.

Still, my playthrough of Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands as a Spore Warden, and later as a Spore Warden x Spell Shot, was a fun romp and distraction. It might not be a Game of the Year contender but I enjoyed my time with it - as well as collecting all the lucky dice and other collectibles. The story might be a little on the simple side with no great payoff for what could have been a great villain, but I was nevertheless impressed by the message of unity and fellowship that was imparted by the game (although I played this completely solo - with only the commentary from Valentine and Frette to engage with).

And anyways, what other game destroys the entire ocean with a healthy dose of MAGIC MISSILE?

[whump-a-la-mode]

Static and Sneezes

This is somewhat inspired by the fact that I spent last weekend laying around with an awful cold. Now that I’m well enough again to write, I figured I’d turn it into some good sickfic whump.

Hope you enjoy!

CW//Superhero whump, villain whumpee, sickness, respiratory disease, vomit (minor), mentions of past injury

Hero couldn’t help but grit their teeth against the noise. It was less like an audible thing; it was audible in the same way that electricity was. It wasn’t a noise, per se, but the movement of particles through the air assaulted the ears in its own way.

The sensation penetrated even all the way across the street, in their van. The dashboard lights were all that punctured the overwhelming darkness of the city streets, aside from the scattered streetlights, which the vehicle deliberately avoided as it screeched to a halt.

With a click and the groaning of a tired engine, Hero took the key from the ignition. Before the chassis had even settled against the axles, the driver’s side door was thrown open, then closed just as quickly, as a shadowed figure emerged from it and tore across the street.

The noise got horribly loud, the closer they got the worse it became. In tandem, the closer they got, the larger the building before them seemed to become. It spiraled into the air, a corrugation of steel and blue glass and well-hidden rivets.

A nearby streetlight sparkled against the heap of broken glass that had once been the front door. Villain was bold, they noted with a grunt.

As if synced to their thoughts (which it very well could have been, given the technology Agency flaunted about), a voice flashed in their earpiece:

“It’s looking like Villain is moving up to the third floor, now.” Handler spoke.

“What are they doing?” They tried to whisper, but regardless, their voice still seemed to echo in the silent street.

“No idea. The cameras are no good, the static knocks them out.”

“Then... how do you know where they are?”

Hero could almost hear the eye roll on the other end of the line.

“Wherever the cameras aren’t working, that’s where they are.“ The tone seemed to turn to one of concern. “When you go up there, you’re going to be cut off. Anywhere near Villain is a communication dead zone. Are you sure you’re okay with this? We can still send in a team...”

“No. Don’t send anyone.” Hero shook their head. “If we make too much noise, we’ll scare them off. We’re too close. I’m not losing this.”

“Are you sure?”

“I...” Hero bit their lip.

They didn’t even know Villain, not even their name. Not their real one, anyways. Nothing other than the codename Agency had filed them under. They weren’t like other villains. Sure, they were cocky and annoying and overall a danger to society, but they were different. Clever. They had no care for notoriety. They didn’t want the world to fear them or know their name.

More than that, they were careful. They never fought back. They were never there to fight back. By the time Agency made it to the scene, they would leave little more than a residual hum and a shattered window. Few had ever seen them. Fewer had heard their voice.

The thought made Hero bite their tongue. They weren’t going to let them keep getting away with this. They had hurt too many agents. Stolen so much. Caused so much damage. And no one even knew their name.

It ended tonight. The building, a Research and Development institute for a technology company, was built like a maze, and it was one that Villain wouldn’t be get out of this time. Not again.

Tonight was Hero’s big break. Tonight, they would win back their respect. Their reputation. Their confidence. Everything their injury had taken from them.

Finally, finally, they were going to be a hero again.

Without another moment of hesitation, they hurried towards the building. Their boots made the broken glass a trivial issue, and soon, they were in the building. 

From the lobby, hallways swirled and spiraled about like the tentacles of a great beast. But that was not their concern. For a moment, they considered using the elevator, before remembering that elevators, too, would be knocked out by Villain’s powers.

They curled their fists in annoyance, shrugged off their overcoat, and unfolded their wings.

The feathered limbs were beautiful things. Everyone seemed obsessed with saying so, from teammates to trainees to doctors. They had the coloring of a hawk (’a Black Chested Buzzard Eagle’ an overly chipper biology student had stated once), but stretched to a length of around twelve feet.

Oftentimes, Hero found themself wishing that their feathers were of a darker hue. They’d even considered dying them to be so. That way, the metal braces strapped to them wouldn’t be quite so obvious.

Still, in the dark of the building, no one would know. They moved to the stairwell, made a few light flaps, and launched upwards.

Generally, their wings were wonderfully silent things, hardly making the slightest sound as they beat against the air. However, with the metal pieces attached, they made a horrible grinding sound of metal on metal on feather.

It only took a few powerful flaps to carry them to the third floor, and they landed as quietly as they could on the steps. For a moment, they stood there, taking a deep breath.

“I’m going in.” They whispered into their earpiece. On the other end, they heard nothing more than a resigned hum.

Hero threw open the door.

The static burst unto them as if it were a physical thing, filling their ears and threatening to creep into the edges of their vision. They blinked a few times, gritting their teeth against the horrible noise. The stupid hum had knocked out the lights, but enough moonlight crept through the windows so that some things could be made out.

They spotted them.

Hero wasn’t sure what they’d expected. The description in the files was basic. Young, short, wears street clothes. And, all those descriptors were certainly correct.

But none of them described the sheer shock present on the thief’s face. For a moment, the shock turned to fear, then fear to fury. They stepped back, as if steadying themself, as a swirling form of static grew around one hand. It appeared almost like the static on a television screen when turned to the wrong channel, but in physical form and morphed into a three dimensional object.

Hero had no idea what would happen if they got hit with that thing, but they weren’t exactly keen to find out.

“Villain.” They spoke the criminal’s codename in the deepest, most official voice they could manage. “You are under arrest. Place your hands behind your head and-”

It was difficult to describe how static, in physical form, moved through the air. It was almost like a swarm of insects, all joined in purpose and being. Of course, Hero’s instincts didn’t care about that. Before they had even realized what was coming towards them, they had dove out of the way, crashing into the tile floor.

“Why won’t you jerks just leave me alone!”

The reaction was fierce, seemingly built up after a considerable amount of rage had simmered for a considerable amount of time. Or maybe it would fear? It looked...it felt a little too much like fear.

“I don’t want to hurt you!” Hero growled, scrambling to their feet. “But if you attack me, I’ll have to resort to it.”

“Just stop! Leave me-”

Villain seemed to cut themself off. Hero was unsure, for a moment, as to why, until they heard the fit of coughing break through the sea of static. They stumbled, as if the coughing had thrown off their balance completely. When the hacking was at last finished, they gasped for breath, in a way that sounded almost like they were gurgling.

“Leave me alone.” They finished, straightening themself.

In the time that the coughing fit had allotted them, Hero had taken a flashlight from their belt-- specifically an older model, one that had no need of radio or internet or anything of the like. They held it up, shining it on Villain’s face. They recoiled at the light.

“What are you doing here?” Hero intended for their voice to sound threatening, or at least official, but it came out with far more concern than malice.

The flashlight’s beam illuminated Villain’s face, even as they attempted to block it with a hand. Their eye sockets had a hollow, sunken quality to them, only accentuated by the redness of the eyes themselves. The redness blossomed out to the rest of their face, all the way up to their ears. From their forehead, sweat bloomed and fell down their jaw in droves.

It was a horrible picture of disease.

“I could ask you the same question.” The coughing seemed to have done a number on their voice, as the words came out croaky and strained. They picked up something from the floor that they had seemingly dropped. “Now, if you would leave me the hell alone, I think it’d be great for the both of us.”

“No.” Hero shook their head, taking a step closer. Another ball of static formed on Villain’s hand, but it did not deter them. “You’re coming with me.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“You’re going to the hospital, if I have to drag you there with my own two hands.”

Villain looked up at that, clutching their item close to their chest. They weren’t frightened, at least not in the immediate moment. Instead, they seemed incredibly confused.

“You’re sick. Have you seriously not noticed?”

“I don’t know what game you’re playing here, but I don’t have time for it. Move away from the door, and I’ll be on my way, kapish?”

Hero glanced to the door behind them. If Villain got to it, there was likely no stopping them from leaving the building entirely, and disappearing back to wherever they had come from.

“Not a chance.”

Villain’s lips curled in a way indicating that they were about to retort with another cocky remark, when another bout of coughing attacked them. This one brought them to their knees, forcing them to brace themself against the floor. Onto the tiles below, they spat up a horrid looking green liquid.

That was it. Hero clenched a fist, stalking over to the other side of the room and kneeling down beside the sickly villain (taking care not to touch whatever they had just coughed up.) As they recovered, they tried to fight, but were no match.

The click of cuffs sounded as Hero secured Villain’s wrists behind their back. With the leverage the cuffs gave them, Hero brought them to their feet-- though they did so gently.

With one hand, they kept hold of the cuffs, while with the other, they placed a palm upon Villain’s forehead. Even before they touched skin, they could feel the heat radiating off of them.

“You’re under arrest. But first, you’re going to the doctor.”