#there was one point where someone asked me to be their QPP and I. did them dirty. by saying yes and then panicking and going no contact

[lightblueminecraftorchid]

quietly realizing that I likely do not have queerplatonic attraction *or* romantic attraction.

[polyamorouspunk]

kfbdmbddmnd I know its not sleepover fridays where you take these kinda of asks so you can either hold onto this until then or not, no huge deal, I just wanted to get this off my chest and im realizing this may sound incomprehensible lmao. so!

I may have issues with my first ever relationship, of any incredibly intimate/pseudo-romantic kind, and I’m worried that I may have fucked up.

I’m in a pretty heavy duty qpr with this person (if I had to call it anything it would be qpr, they’re more married to the term than I am.) and have been for about 7/8 months now. it was Incredibly Intense sparks between us, instant insanely high attachment insanely fast. they described our initial few conversations weeks after the fact as borderline spiritual, neither of us really believe in soulmates but they felt like they must have known me in a past life. we’re both polyamorous, and they’ve been engaged to someone else for quite a bit before they met me (for reasons, they’re on rocky-ish terms rn but still together), and one time they looked me dead in the eye and said if they weren’t already promised to someone they’d want to marry me. I have been this persons seemingly sole emotional rock this entire time, my dms are a dumping ground for everything from soul crushing existential dread and breakdowns to the newest fixation to the latest crushes.

at first I was on board with how fast we’ve been going, trying to match their energy. they have years more experience than I do with polyamory which initially I’ve been deferring to just like experience wise while I’ve just read more ethical non monogamy/polyamory theory. im on the aroace spectrum, ive been really up front with my stance on amatonormativity and that kind of thing, whatever pace works for us works we just gotta keep tabs on our comfortability and energy. but like. hm. it’s clear that I’m the one with all of the emotional maturity and regulation.

when they said they’d want to marry me when they were already engaged felt like a red flag at the time, esp since I knew that they were going through a rocky period with their fiancé. they started So intense So fast that. I sorta feel like it’s fucked with my brain chemistry. to the point where now I feel like hopping out the gate with “I must have known you in a past life” in this very “stay with me forever” sort of way while only really knowing each other for a Month is also sort of a red flag in hindsight.

now heres the thing though. I have been matching this intensity, learning new things about myself and how my own attraction works, but like, my trust will be broken by them somehow and I’ll plummet through almost half the stages of grief and have a Hell of a time trying to feel the same kind of close to them that we started out as, I explain my grievance, they have a breakdown why they’re a bad person I assure them this isn’t the case, we just gotta improve behavior, and then they’re back to normal.

there’s small things like us discussing relationship terminology, telling each other that partner sounds good, but then in public they introduce me as their friend. or asking for privacy concerning my mental health stuff I tell them and then later find out they told like 4 other partners and qpps with out me knowing.

or the larger things like one time I was depressed so we planned a date like 2 weeks in advance, talking about it basically every day. but the night before they had an impromptu one night stand with an acquaintance, spammed my messages with gushing about this new sort of relationship, how great the sex was, including pictures I Did Not Ask For, and how they’ve never felt this way before. I was initially surprised at this deluge of stuff but ok, I was feeling happiness for them, I do get a lot of compersion, but also felt it was a lil weird.

when we actually meet up, they spend the Entire date talking about this other person. Everything. Not once do they ask about my day or talk about anything else. at one point they start physically flirting with me but then get distracted with talking about how the other person would touch them and then said that they’re still worked up from them.

I am viscerally uncomfortable, almost dissociating. I try to change the subject and they just blithely switch it back to them after a few minutes. later when I told them about how this made me feel, they had a breakdown about how they’re a bad person and don’t respect anyone. which while empathetic, is unhelpful. I can’t comfort them through an issue I’m having with them.

so I guess my question would be how the fuck do I deescalate a relationship like this. I like them, I like spending time with them, but they don’t show me any thoughtfulness at all and my boundaries are encroached upon with zero self awareness.

Okay yeah so I’m sensing some like. I’m not going to say “borderline behaviors” because like there are a variety of mental illnesses that have similar symptoms, but as someone with BPD I’m going to say “bpd symptoms” because they’re similar to ones that I would have.

Anyone that uses “I’m such a bad person” is not in a good headspace. I don’t remember the last time I’ve gone on the “I’m such a terrible person” rampage but whenever it was it was because I was throwing a pity party and that is exactly what it is. No one who is throwing out the most guilt trip line of all time like that is in a good headspace or mature. Now I mean like I’ve said “what if I’m a bad person what if I need to be better” and that’s different. I’ve said that recently and it led to “maybe I should go back to therapy and work on myself” which wow wouldn’t you know it is exactly what I’m doing. Big difference between someone telling you you hurt them and going “IM SORRY IM SUCH A BAD PERSON” and going to your friends in private and being like “hey I don’t think I handled this as well as I would have liked in retrospect, could you maybe give your insight on what I could have done better and what I maybe handled appropriately given the situation, AITA or no?” Yk? Which is exactly what I did the night I went to 🔮’s bf’s party which was what then led her to saying she needed space from me so then I was like “hey here’s what happened did I do something wrong?” @ my friends in my server.

You can apologize without making it about yourself. You can say “I’m sorry” without taking on “I’m such a bad person”. I said sorry to 🔮 numerous times, asked if I could fix it, asked if I ruined it between us. But never did I say “sorry I’m just such a horrible person” because you know what I’m still trying to sell myself to this girl why would I say shit like “I’m such a bad person.” Like when someone tells you they’re a bad person they want reassurance they’re not because if you say “yeah you kinda are” then suddenly YOU’RE the shitty one but like yeah it’s really not a good move to trash yourself it’s a lot sexier to stand your ground and be like “I’m sorry this upset you and I’m willing to accommodate and change my behavior while staying true to me.”

It really seems like you were, at one point, just their newest obsession. And that they become obsessed with other people equally. It seems like you got sucked into their vortex, and it’ll be a lot more painful for you to get out than for them. It seems like you may have already tried to set boundaries (communicating that things upset you) and they were not well received (re: “I’m such a bad partner I’m so sorry” instead of “I’m sorry let me work on that next time”).

I’m not a spiritual person but I’m also not going to knock someone else’s spiritual beliefs so I don’t want to be like “man telling someone you must have known them in a past life sounds like it could be psychosis” but it sure is Coming On Too Strong™️. I mean, like I know that I come on too strong, but holy shit that is a whole ‘nother level. If it makes you uncomfortable to hear things like that, you are allowed to say that. Because I’m pretty sure that would make me uncomfortable personally.

Also the idea of being “promised to someone” in a nonmonogamous relationship is… sketchy… especially when they are telling you they want to replace that person’s role in their life with you… like that’s not healthy polyamory. Healthy polyamory is creating new roles for people in your life not replacing the roles people already fill with new roles while that person is quite literally still in that role.

If they’re telling other members of their polycule things you asked them to keep to themselves then they are once again not respecting your boundaries.

I understand that people can be really charming and draw people in (think of extreme cases like Manson and Bundy) and that it can be hard to escape that. It doesn’t sound healthy from the outside but I’m not one to be like “dump their ass” for advice. I’m just saying that you’re aware it’s kind of toxic and unhealthy, and obviously I don’t have both sides, but I can say as someone who does have BPD there is a world where you can have a partner with those kinds of issues and have a relationship that isn’t that toxic I swear. Like I was a lot worse than I am not and I got better, like there are plenty of more mild people out there who have the same issues but actually put in the effort to get better for those around them.

[kitkatt0430]

1, 4, 12, 18 and 23 for the salty ask game?

1.) What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?

Harry/Barry

Harry and Barry's relationship just lacks any kind of non-platonic chemistry to me. I kind of feel like Harry becomes the mentor to Barry that Eobard pretended to be? I dunno, they just don't click in my brain in any manner other than platonic, so I can't see them being QPPs or romantic partners.

4.) Do you have a NoTP in your fandom? Are they a popular OTP?

Caitlin/Cisco & Frost/Cisco

Killervibe - specifically the Caitlin/Cisco flavor of it - is a fairly popular OTP. And while I can get it as Caitlin ~ Cisco QPPs... I just really don't like them as a romantic ship. I attempted to get in the ship and while there were a couple of fics that were good, I just... got less and less interested in the ship until I reached a point where that ship showing up is often enough for me to close the tab if an otherwise interesting sounding req list fic I click on includes the ship.

Frost/Mark

WTF were the show runners thinking. I avoid this ship like the plague.

12.) Is there an unpopular arc that you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?

Maybe? I think I tend to like the Nora 1.0 story line in S5 more than average. Yeah there was a looot in that season that was not handled well, but I think for the most part Nora was pretty well done. She definitely should have been younger - college aged maybe? - though I get that there was a comparison was being made between Nora and what S1 Barry was like, as well as a look at how far S5 Barry had come in maturing as a person yet still had to go before becoming a father.

Iris' side of the the story line deserved better, but that's basically a repeated refrain for every season.

18.) Does not shipping something ‘popular’ mean you’re in denial and/or biased?

Not inherently, no. But it is important to be able to interrogate yourself a bit to determine why you don't like something.

Take the Barry Allen/Iris West ship. There are a lot of reasons people don't ship the tv show version of these characters. Some people prefer Iris with Eddie because he treated her better in S1 than Barry did. Some people don't like the psuedo incest vibes that come from Barry and Iris being foster siblings - foster sibling romance is understandably a bit squicky for some people regardless of who is involved. It could be that Iris' lack of agency in the relationship is too uncomfortable for some people to enjoy the ship. But if the reason someone doesn't like Barry/Iris is solely because they only ship Barry with Caitlin or Patty or Linda - two of whom are white women and one who is a very light skinned asian woman - and no other reason than that (or the only other reason is they dislike Iris for reasons that boil down to misogynoir) then that person may want to consider that they've got some internalized racial biases or colorism to unpack.

Not shipping Barry/Iris isn't an automatic sign of biases that need unlearning, but it's important to understand why you don't like something because sometimes we internalize things like 'stuff that squick us out are morally bad' or racial biases. Learning to recognize those parts of ourselves in every day life - including social arenas like fandoms we're active parts of - is important in order to unlearn them.

As for being in denial, that tends to be more about non canon ships. There is a lot of amatonormativity wrapped up in that particular assertion. "of course I ship these two, friends don't act like that" :/

I really just can't be bothered to give people who argue that people are 'in denial' for not shipping a popular ship the time of day as a result.

23.) Unpopular character you love?

Ralph Dibny. He does start off as a misogynist asshole and he definitely deserved to get fired from the CCPD in his backstory, but his character growth is really impressive and... honestly? I think we need more stories where someone is an unlikable asshole but grows out of it. Complex characters who, when given support and kindness, realize they don't like who they are and take active steps to correct that. Stories that remind us it's not to late to turn your life around, if you're willing to take responsibility for yourself and unlearn the bad habits that weigh you down. And that if you're already in a good place yourself, supporting people trying to change, even when they stumble along the way, is an important thing to do to make the world itself a better place.

I mean... that's what the show the Good Place was all about and I loved it so very, very much. So it's really not any wonder that Ralph - who is kind of a male version of Eleanor Shellstrop in many ways - is a character I enjoyed as he learned to grow as a person.

[wifiwuxians]

ship game ship game⛵️

ok,first I want to say that xuechao makes a lot of sense,actually. jiaojiao and xue yang are actually a bit similar,if you think about it. true,we don't know about wang lingjiao's past,and I guess she at least did not grow up on the street. but both of them are pretty and love torturing people and are quite overdoing it on the revenge front.

now,since that one got asked already,pick whichever you feel like🍉:

-xuexiao💀 if you want to and you won't be getting haters on here from answering that

-sorry,I'm basic,but,songxiao🌟 I just want to read a love letter to my fav ship and who better to ask than my fav shipper of my ship

-lanlan! (at first I was like,no! song lan would not move on even after 800 years! but then I read some fics and it made sense for lan xichen and song lan to at least become close as friends)(but I want to know what YOU think so don't worry about disagreeing)

omg okay first of all THANK YOU SO MUCH for your compliments!! I am really thrilled I am your favorite songxiaoist lol 😳 Second! You are so big brained actually! Jiaojiao and Xue Yang both have come from bleak backgrounds and are trying to cling to what little they have! I believe Jiaojiao was just about sold by her family lol and she is illiterate 💔 And they are both petty batshit revenge machines! I've actually briefly considered xuechaojiao LOLLL... HMM... but okay, onwards to the

GAME

I'll give you my love letter to Songxiao first so you don't need to go digging for it hehe

I hope I won't get hate for playing the game jhdgjsg I hope everyone will be a little more mature than that

Xuexiao

Do I ship it: I do not. (Tim Allen AHUUUAHH?) But on a single day of the year my aversion to it lessens and I'm able to retweet art of them kinda smooching so my tolerance is overall getting better, maybe? lol

Why don't I: There are many factors... I like mutually destructive toxic mess ships, right? We've established that. But I don't like ships in which one person is doing all the hurting and the other person ends up, uh. Like XXC did. "But DJ I thought you were the fixit king" I am! It's just not exactly appealing to me, and the other big factor as to why is that I just... Never really saw them that way. Like even removing their canon storyline and only leaving their dynamic, which removed from context is lovely don't get me wrong, it never registered as romantic. It registered as XXC looking out for his goofy little brother, you know? I dunno. There's nothing there for me, sorry. "But DJ the devotion" yeah. There are many ways to love someone. Even if that were romantic, it's too onesided for me.

What would have made me like it: If they actually liked each other LMAO I have no issue with the thought of them loving each other, just not romantically! Outside of canon they're pretty much cemented as family in my brain, though very rarely I'll maybe entertain the idea of some sort of QPP dynamic but then it slingshots right back into family again. Just friends who really love each other and tried to do the do only to find out they don't see each other that way is the furthest I'm willing to go for them and this is a HUGE leap from where I was a year ago LOL

A positive: I appreciate that a lot of people just really want them to love each other. Maybe try and find some healing in all the mess. I get what that's like.

Please whoever reads this don't take this as an invitation to start talking to me about it though as it still does cause me to react negatively 💀 some days I really cannot stand it at all, I'm just mature enough to not be a hater 100%

Lanlan

Do I ship it: I'm in the process of being converted, we will see how it goes! Kind of sucks this game doesn't have a maybe option so I'll make up the questions myself

What's drawing me to it: I, like you, was originally like "naur Song Lan has his man already thanks, and after he fixes him he's going to bed", but one of my close friends made the very good point that just because he's on a quest doesn't mean he can't be loved on the side, too! So I'd like to see Song Lan get loved on, and Lan Xichen deserves this, too, and I think stories about processing grief are very potent

Things I like about it: It seems this ship is about healing oneself and each other, and I'm a big fan of that! Both characters also complement each other well, with each having characteristics of someone the other has loved before (i.e. NMJ's righteousness, XXC's gentle energy). I also think canon gave them really sad endings, and in LXC's case it's a bit of a bitter one, too. SL's is at least bittersweet so sharing the joy is nice 🥺

What would seal the deal: Strong characterization aligned with my view of the characters! Being in character goes a long way for me, so if you've got them down pat, then I'll be more likely to give it a chance. If you add that they've both been in love before and that they're not looking for a replacement then we're set! (:

[chickwiththepurpleguitar]

going to the beach at night- julie

Thanks for the prompt, anon! I hope you enjoy! This is part of my and @joyandthephantoms's soft verse-- Julie/Luke qpps, trans Luke, Alex is Julie's adopted brother, Alex/Bobby at this point in the timeline.

Send me prompts!

The fact that she makes it all the way to the beach without her phone blowing up with frantic “Where are you?!” texts tells Julie that her sneaking out was a resounding success.

It’s just after 2am, and the shore is dark and chilly, the cold sand illuminated only by stars and the lights of the city behind it. Julie kicks her sandals off and sits by the edge of the water, letting the evening tide lap over her bare toes.

There’s nowhere better to be alone with her thoughts than the beach at night. Julie closes her eyes, breathes in the salty sea air, and thinks to herself, Time to figure this out.

And then a voice behind her says< “Oh, you’re gonna be in so much trouble if Mom and Dad find you here.”

Julie scrambles to her feet, biting back a scream. When she registers her older brother standing barefoot in the sand, smirking at her, she whacks him with the back of her hand. “Alex! Don’t scare me like that!”

“Well?” He laughs and settles down into the sand next to her. “What are you doing here, kid? It’s the middle of the night.”

“Yeah, look who’s talking,” Julie grumbles, but she sits down again, scooting closer so she can nudge her shoulder against Alex’s. “I just needed to get out. Clear my head.”

“Yeah, I’ve been there.”

They sit in silence together for a while, listening to the waves crash along the beach, and then Julie says, “Are you in love with Bobby?”

Alex blows out a long breath. “Shit, Jules, coming in with the hard-hitting questions now, are we?”

Julie hugs her knees. “Well, come on, are you? You’ve been dating him for, like ever. Mom thinks you’re gonna marry him.”

Even in the dark, she can see Alex’s blush. “I am not gonna—” he starts, then presses his mouth closed and takes a deep breath through his nose. “Ask your real question. Is this about Luke?”

Julie hums, resting her chin on her knees. In the distance, some kind of fish leaps out of the water, like it’s waving at them. “I guess. Yeah.”

“You don’t think you’re in love with him?”

“I don’t think he’s in love with me…”

With each calming breath, Julie filters through another memory— Luke on their anniversary, asking why they had to go on some special date just because it had been a year since he first asked her out; Luke at the homecoming dance, spinning Julie around and complaining about the DJ’s music taste in the same breath; Luke in her bedroom window last night, crying that he must be broken, that he’s not good enough for her, that she should just break up with him and find someone who’ll treat her the way she deserves.

“I don’t want to break up with him,” she whispers, letting the breeze carry her voice away.

Alex makes a thoughtful sound. “Would anything really change if you did? You guys were creepy-close long before you put a label on it. Just go back to that and also see other people if you want.”

Julie doesn’t think she wants to see other people, but she gets Alex’s point. She and Luke wouldn’t have to spend any less time together than they do now. They already don’t do more than kiss, and Luke seems to find even that somewhere between boring and disgusting. Would anything really have to change if she just… stopped calling him her boyfriend?

“Look,” Alex says, pushing himself to his feet. “I won’t pretend I’m any kind of expert on this stuff. Bobby and I… Sometimes, I feel like he’s only dating me cause no one else will.”

“What? He wouldn’t—” Julie starts to protest, but Alex holds a hand up, cutting her off.

“Sometimes, I feel like I’m only dating him cause no one else will, too. It’s whatever, it’s high school. My point is…” He brushes the sand off his legs and holds a hand out to help Julie up. “Do whatever’s gonna make you both happy. And whatever’s gonna make sure that kid sticks around, cause he’s good for you. But don’t date him just cause you think you’re supposed to. That’s not fair to either one of you.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Julie hugs him tightly around the waist; her head only barely comes up to Alex’s chest. “Thank you.” “Hey, what are big brothers for?” He ruffles her hair. “Now, come on. Let’s get home before someone wakes up and realizes we’re gone— I do not need Ray’s ‘mad at the GPS’ face trained on me tonight.”

--

Taglist: @whenweremarried @sunsethimb0s @pink-flame @penguin0613 @fighttoshine @sunsetcurvecuddles @teenagedirtbag-dot-jpeg @brightattheorpheum @queenmolina @jandthephantoms @lexilucacia @sapphossidechick @acnhaddict @shrimp-colours @sunset-bobby @lenacarstairspotterstewart @conversationaltreestump @burntchromas @julieandthequeers @joyandthephantoms @it-tastes-like-lizard @jatpfs 

[fox-buried-in-maple-leaves]

the adventure oc asks for sulien?

True Name. What is their name's meaning, origin, etc?

The name means Sun Born. He's touched by the sun, his name is very on the nose. And similarly to Ohm's name holding primordial or ancient meaning, the name Sulien is also the name of a deity. A similar reference.

Portal. What is a crossover you've done/thought about for this character?

Obviously my most fleshed out au for Sulien is the Amant au, but this says crossover so probably the flamechasers au where he takes the role of Kevin (Sol). A tired man who has lost his twin and is trying his best and losing his way.

Softly. Describe one of their dreams, good or bad (with proper warnings).

Sulien often has nightmares of when he was tortured, any of the times he was "reprogrammed" he'll cry out in his sleep and Ajax will often have to wake him. He doesn't typically remember his dreams, the thoughts are repressed.

Metamorphosis. Has this character evolved/changed since you first conceptualized them?

Well Sulien originally started as "Ohm but he doesn't leave Snezhnaya and becomes evil." And now he's arguably the better of the two so thats fun.

Treasure. What is something they like/love?

An overly sweet coffee and reading under a tree on a nice warm day.

Home. Describe their relationship with someone in their family, friend group, with a QPP, a romantic interest, etc.

I think the most interesting dynamic he has is how FIERCELY loyal people tend to be to him. Sulien isn't a simple case of a good enough person to get people to like him or manipulative enough to force people's perspective, which both are true, sure. But Sulien has the type of personality that draws in a certain type of loyalty. Look at how far Ohm went for him. Kisa almost sacrificing himself for him. Maxim killing (redacted) to keep him safe. Ajax throwing away everything he fought for for him. Decord immediately betraying the Fatui for him, ect ect.

Role Model. Did you take inspiration from another character when creating them?

gestures to his twin. gestures to me. gestures to a photo of a periwinkle flower. and then j general puppetry, but the old timey puppetry.

Laughter. What is their sense of humor, or lack thereof? (Bonus: What does their laugh sound like?)

SO DRY........... but he also smiles at Decord's gallows humour. His mask hides his face 90% of the time so nobody can tell if he's actually making a joke or if he found a joke funny. His laugh is so cute though, when he does laugh.

Flashback. Describe one of their memories, good or bad (with proper warnings).

Diluc, Kaeya, Ohm, and Sulien all made a pact to keep their hair long as kids. He can barely remember it now, but its a fond memory when he has flashes of their hands on top of each other, bundled in their lil snow suits..

Core. How is their true nature different from (or similar to) how they are portrayed to others?

Sulien is so fractured from years of trauma he's not sure what "true nature" implies anymore. However, we do meet him in the story immediately lying to the Traveller so there's that. LMAO

Origin Story. Are they a completely original character, a fan character, or something else?

well he's a genshin oc so...

Plot. How do/would they fit into the overall plot of their source?

I had a whole idea written out and then they started retconning shit so I don't WANNA talk about it anymore!!! Anyways he fit in really great at one point.

Quest. What is a personal goal, duty, etc of theirs?

His duty was to serve the Tsaritsa. To be her tool, her puppet. But he's broken from that now, and he is far more dangerous than he was.

Wanderer. Describe an aspect of their world/setting they interact with.

I think the way he interacts with the Traveller is so funny. He's so casual, he doesn't even try to hide the fact he's a Harbinger either. Sulien ilysm.

[wilds-ponytail]

Oh wait your questioning if you are aro ? Let me tell you how I find out I was aro because it had be filled with misunderstandings.

So for a while I firmly believed that I was alloromantic because I had a crush on a boy once, at a time when I already knew that I was ace. Turns out it was not a crush but rather a squish (a crush but with platonic feelings instead of romantics ones). And the things is, all the signs that pointed towards me being aro were discarded because I believed they were due to my asexuality (I discovered aromantism at the same time that asexuality).

(I was going to site some example of said signs but then my brain said no sorry)

So what made me realize that I was aro ? Well I find a book with a black alloromantic ace s the protagonist and the passage that I read was describing her seeing someone and immediately being attracted to him and I was like "??? Wait I do not experience this at all ???". And then I started searching more deeply into aromantics community and terms and I found out about squish and qpp and other thing and was like "oh this is what I felt ! So it wasn't a crush uh".

Where I'm going with this is that alloallo do not differentiate their romantic and sexual attraction which made it very hard for acel to tell if they are aro by comparing with their experience, or the experience society tell you should have. It'll be much simpler and more reliable to try and compare with alloaces experience with romantic attraction ! If you can't find those (and/or don't know who to ask) you can go ask @celepom. She drew informative comics on asexuality and I'm sure she'll see no problem in helping you discover yourself ! :)

Thank you so much for this ask, I've been thinking about it all day and I've only just got a chance to sit down and sort myself out

I started on celepom's blog looking at her ace comics (which I loved) and went through various other blogs looking at various different comics about asexuality and aromanticism and I was kinda surprised by how much some of them resonated with me

I kinda started venting here I'm sorry

i'm asexual and i've known it for years, but i've never really thought about the possiblity of being aromantic because the idea of a relationship is something i've always liked and wanted? which is a problem bc it kinda requires romantic feelings

from what i've seen/read, and talking to other people i'd say that i haven't felt anything romantically for anyone, ever, even though i've pretty much tried to force myself to feel it because i wanted a relationship so much but all i ever did was make myself unhappy

so reading about queer platonic relationships has caused a total lightbulb moment for me

this [possibly being aromantic] is something i've been thinking about privately for a while, and honestly? i'm comfortable enough now to say i'm definitely somewhere on the spectrum 💚

[theobsessor1]

Drunken Noodle

Summary: Deceit should know better, going through with another one of Remus’s ideas. He thought it would have been a one time deal, just something for them that night to experiment with his more reptilian side. But he’s starting to regret it with the growing nest of eggs, and horrible uncertainty of feelings swirling in his chest...he might be in some trouble here.

Pairings: mild intrulogical, qpp demus, hinting at Lociet

Warnings: drinking, alcohol. hinting at slight alcoholic problem.

Word count: 3087

previous chapters ch.1, ch.2, (read on ao3)

(wish to support me buy me a coffee :3)

Chapter 3 of “Say Something” series

Deceit huffs, sitting partially slouched over the dinning table as he sips from his wine glass, munching on gummy rats that Remus had summoned him to help brighten his sour mood. Said creative side was currently sitting across from him going on about something or another.

Deceit wasn’t paying attention, just enough to mindlessly nod when needed, letting the side jabber and get his energy out while the snake side sulked. Hmm...maybe he should pay Remy and Emile a visit. He hadn’t gone to see them since...well, it’s been awhile. 

It took him a moment to realize that Remus had stopped talking, The Duke had turned to stare at the stairs of the subconscious that led up to the mindscape...Standing at the bottom of them was Logan, he was just there! Casually looking around the room where he stood. It’s quite a surprising site to see, no wonder it drove Remus speechless. Well besides the fact that he’s obviously rather fond of the other side. After a moment, Deceit clears his throat. “Can we not help you?” 

“Actually, yes. I wanted to talk to you about something.” Logan straightens his tie and clears his throat, brushing off the fact he hadn’t realized the two sides were at the table. “Oh?” 

“Well more specifically, the events that occurred during our discussion with Thomas earlier today. I wanted to apologise on the behalf of the other. They were rather dismissive of you, despite you bringing up some rather valid points. I..” Logan coughs. “You can say I understand to a degree the feeling of being brushed over, so to speak, and that I inf act do not condone such behavior especially to someone who is actually contributing and trying to help.” 

Deceit has to take a moment to collect his thoughts and form proper words through the fuzzy haze of alcohol... This almost seems like some joke. “...Thank you for the apology, though it’s rather unnecessary. You're not the one that needs to apologise, if you want me to be honest you deserve an apology more than me” he points at Logan with an unimpressed lift of his brow. 

The spectacled side sighs “Regardless, I bring the apology and regret that I had not attempted to get them to listen to you.” “It’s whatever. I appreciate it I guess.” Deceit mumbles, waving a hand concedingly and taking another sip of wine clearly not very concerned with this conversation. 

“I could tear out their tongues for you!” Remus offers, way too excited at the idea. Logan frowns shaking his head “That’s...very thoughtful of you Remus, but I don’t think that’ll be necessary.” 

“It would be more fun to shove them down the stairs, like a couple of really annoying slinkies” Deceit adds mumbling into his drink Remus snickers nodding while Logan shakes his head “I appreciate your offer and suggestions, but that’s still a no. We want them to listen, not get them hurt.” 

Deceit stands from the table swaying almost like a snake influenced by a snake charmer. “Well, that is much easier said than done. They’re bound to get hurt before they start listening to anyone.” He picks up his glass intent to make his way to the couch “You’ve said your apology, you don’t have to stick around any longer.” Logan raises a finger, opening his mouth to speak only to close it as he squints at the snake side as Remus gets up coming behind Deceit and scooping him up into his arms, spawning tentacles from his back to help properly support the side in his arms. Using one of said tentacles to slip the wine glass away from the snake sides reach. “Is he drunk?” 

Deceit hisses, attempting to wiggle from Remus’s grasp and snatch his drink back “I’m not drunk...yet...I think.” 

“...Do you intend to get drunk?” The logical side crosses his arms, frowning at them. Deceit shrinks down on himself guiltily 

“...Maybe…” 

Logan’s frown deepens as he shakes his head “I’m getting you a glass of water, have either of you eaten anything?”

Remus carries a definitely not pouting Deceit over to the couch where Logan had pointed for them to sit as the snake side replies “I’ve only eaten a few gummies so far.” 

“I ate ass!” The duke enthusiastically answers plopping onto the couch and still holding the grumpy snake side protectively in his arms and tentacles.

“He means a peach.” 

Logan huffs heading into the kitchen, making himself at home as he goes about sifting through the cabinets and fridge “I’m going to make the two of you something proper to eat, do either of you have any dietary restrictions?” 

Remus nods with a bounce, he knows the answer to that! “DeeDee doesn’t like mushy stuff ‘n I don’t like citrus.” Logan nods, filing that information away for later. He has managed to find a box of noodles and some tomato sauce, spaghetti is easy to make and hopefully satisfying to the two sides. It grows quiet for a while save for the sounds of Logan cooking, filling a pot with water and setting on the stove to boil with the noodles. 

Remus plays with Deceit’s hair keeping himself occupied as they await the meal. Something must be up, why else would the logical side have decided to suddenly care to apologize to him, to care if he was drunk or for that matter make them food?? Wasn’t he the one that usually would argue that they didn’t need it?

Deceit can’t help but squint suspiciously at the side, “You’re totally not planning something?” he hisses flicking his tongue out with his words. 

“Well, I”m planning to feed you some spaghetti and try to get you to drink some water to help keep you hydrated from your consumption of alcohol.” The snake side huffs knowing that was the logical side's so called plan. But he wants to know the real one! He opens his mouth to say as much but Logan continues “Maybe re-discuss points from earlier conversation with the others and Thomas since, well, neither of us got to share our opinions on the matter...If that is what you are asking?” 

Deceit sits up, turning around on the couch and propping himself up on his elbows to look at the logical side, eyes narrowed. That can’t possibly be all. There’s gotta be something else here, he’s sure of it. 

Remus finishes the braid he’s been working on, wiggling happily at his work before starting another. “I could think of some tasty things to do instead off boring ol’ talk!~” 

The snake side sighs “Remu-” “Oh! I tried that mushroom thing from Hannible! You gotta come check out the corpses with me!” 

“Re-” “The roots really did spread through the whole body! I got one of them to be oozing-” 

Deceit huffed snapping his fingers to focus the creative side’s attention, the duke’s mouth clicking shut and heading whipping around to find the sudden source of noise.

“I know you want to talk to him about all those wild ideas of yours dear, but do you think you can wait till after I interrogate him?” 

“Oh! Yeah, I’ll wait!” Remus nods his head like a bobble head, stilling as he goes back to focusing on playing with Deceit’s hair, a third braid in the making...he might be attempting to stick an eyeball in it...or a tooth. 

Logan adjusts his glasses as his brows furrowed in confusion, the glasses fogged slightly from the steam of the cooking pasta “Interrogate me? What for?” 

“Well see Logan, you never come down to this part of Thomas’s mind. Nor really have you ever shown an interest in our care, save for Remus of course when he’s visiting you but that's just a given.” he makes an offhanded gesture to Remus “So tell me, what is your true motive for all this.” 

Logan pauses in his task of stirring the pasta sauce “My motive?” 

“Yes your motive, I may be intoxicated but I can still tell when something is suspiciousss.” 

Logan tilts his head at the snake side, beginning to absentmindedly stir the pot again. “Have I been acting suspicious. I do suppose a divergence from usual patterns would make something seem suspicious and put you on edge.” he thinks aloud. 

He shakes his head, turning the heat off the stove and mixing the sauce into the noodles. “I have no secret motive, no ulterior plan, I am merely tired of the treatment and order of things...of course that’s now paired with the fact that I am concerned about your alcohol consumption.” 

Deceit rolled his eyes “Well the whole treatment and order is going to be harder to change than just coming over for a visit…” he moves from Remus’s grasp to lean over the back of the couch “And my so called alcohol consump-consumption is fine! I didn’t have a lick of it for a couple of weeks!” Of course that was because he wasn't about to drink such stuff while he was preg- for reasons, wasn’t drinking it for specific reasons he will not ever talk about...yes.

...for a pink and yellow, brown speckled reason currently in his bedroom hidden with the other one. 

Logan hummed, not convinced as he made plates, putting the finished spaghetti on dishes before carrying them to the table “Either way, you two are eating and then getting to bed. No shenanigans or schemes, whatever it is you two do when left alone down here.” 

Deceit can’t help but pout at that, he doesn't have plans for the night but still, he doesn't want to be told what to do and be put to bed like some child thank you very much. 

Remus finishes with the sides hair and scoops him into his arms again. “I can walk myself!” 

“I know” :D

Stuck being carried it seems, the snake side just sighs, there’s no use fighting Remus, they’re both touch starved as is and the dukes pentiant for just snatching and carrying people around is a constant. 

He gets gently deposited into his usual place setting at the head of the table, Remus sitting by his side and eagerly digging into the food...he does notably try at an attempt to be polite and use a fork as he stuffs his face tonight. 

Deceit sulks conjuring himself a wine glass by his bowl, eyes widening when Logan snatches it away and puts a glass of water down. “Excuse me?” 

“No more wine tonight. Water” 

Remus giggles at his expression, the snake side not used to someone trying to boss him around like this. 

He can’t help lifting a challenging eyebrow at the logical side “No wine?” Deceit waves his hand over the glass of water turning it into a glass of whiskey on the rocks “Fine.” 

Logan raises an eyebrow back, clearly unimpressed and frowning. He gives a huff taking the glass, poofing it out of existence and putting a glass of water down once again. 

Deceit flicks his wrist changing the water to vodka, his eyes sparkling with amusement as he watches Logan. The logical side huffs “enough” he snaps turning the drink back into water “you will drink the water, eat and then we can assist you to your room for re-” “No!” 

Logan sputters to a stop startled by Deceit’s sudden shout and looking to the snake side with bewilderment.

Deceit blinks before flushing lightly as he looks down at his place sheepishly, he hadn’t even realized he had stood, now seating himself back down. “Apologies...I um I would just prefer not to be in my room tonight.” he pokes at his plate with his fork hoping Logan wont see through his lie

“R-right.” Logan clears his throat, adjusting his tie in that lil tick of his “Well, then um we can make you comfortable on the couch then? Will that suffice?” 

Deceit quickly nods “yes, the couch will be fine.” 

The dinner seems to be rather dull after that, Remus and Logan going back to discussing what Remus had done in the imagination inspired off of the Hannibal episodes they have watched together. Janus watches them chatter fondly, the two animatedly talking and gesturing back and forth...It’s nice seeing the two enjoy themselves like this. Especially Logan, it’s not often you get to see the logical side light up like this. 

With a small hum he stands with his empty bowl taking it over to the sink without a word, not wanting to interrupt. 

He tries to walk past the table without being noticed, if he can sneak past he may be able to make an escape to the imagination and to his two favorite traits. Of course things never go as planned, why would they. Remus immediately perks up and the creaking of his chair is the only warning Janus gets before the creative side pounces, pinning him to the ground.

Janus sighs with a groan “Really? Remus why-” they both pause with confusion and looking to the dining table, hearing a small giggle and a snort. 

Logan was watching them, a hand covering his mouth to stifle the sound of a laugh, eyes full of amusement and fondness...they made the logical side laugh?!

Remus's eyes sparkle surprised that he got Logan to genuinely laugh! He beams excitedly at the logical side “You laughed!” 

Logan blinks, his cheeks turning a light shade of pink as he quickly lowers his hands “I-I um think you misheard.” 

Remus shakes his head quickly scooping up Janus and holding him out to Logan like one holds a feral cat away from themselves “No! I heard it! J-eh Dee-Dee did too!” 

Janus gives Logan a disgruntled look but nods, not appreciating how he’s being held “I did here it too. You do realize you can’t exactly lie to me right?” he flicks out his tongue at Logan as if to emphasize he can sense them. 

Logan sighs fiddling with his tie “Remus I don’t think it’s good for you to hold Janus like that. Why don’t you get him to the couch and I can get him some pillows and blankets from his room.” he suggests quickly in an attempt to change the subject. 

Remus nods, eyes still sparkling as he pulls Janus closer, of course it's a bit of an issue when the snake side is wriggling and squirming as if trying to escape. “No! Don’t you dare go into my room!” 

Remus takes a hurried step back conjuring his tentacles again to try and keep a hold of the snake side who's baring his fangs at Logan and hissing angrily. 

Logan flinches, face scrunching with confusion as he quickly puts his hands up “I apologize, I didn’t mean to over step! I won’t go into your room if it makes you uncomfortable.” 

Janus calms, going still in Remus’s arms looking a bit disgruntled as he gives one last soft hiss at Logan. 

Logan huffs and Remus turns around so Janus can’t look at Logan anymore “Welp I think Logan had the right idea, someone had too many silly drinks, bed time!” 

Janus whines “I did not have too many, and I'm not tired. Put me down.” 

Remus shakes his head dropping Janus right onto the couch “Nope, it's bedtime! I’m putting you to bed and ain’t nothing you doing about it.” Janus makes more unhappy noises before squeaking at the sudden weight of Remus flopping on top of him. 

“You're not even going to let me get comfortable?” 

“Nope” >:3

Janus huffs glaring at the ceiling of the living room resigned. 

Logan smiles making his way over “Maybe it would be best to let him get comfortable, I don’t think I’ll be able to sit with you otherwise.” he pauses “That is of course if it's alright if I stay?” 

Janus sighs as Remus quickly scoots off him “Might as well, you’ve made yourself at home thus far.” he sits up to move to the side so that Remus and Logan can probably cuddle, only to stiffen up when he’s suddenly squished between the two sides. 

Remus wiggles some before snapping his fingers and changing them all into comfortable t shirts and pajama shorts before wrapping Janus up in a blanket “You gotta wrap Dee up in a blanket so he can burrow and stay warm, otherwise you get a grumpy snek who can’t sleep.” 

Janus sputters glaring at Remus from his cozy blanket burrito“Don’t give away my weaknesses!” 

Remus ignores him, smiling at Logan “and squish him! He sleeps best when squished” 

Janus hisses as Remus leans on him more, and makes an offended noise when he is shushed by the creative side. And again when Logan leans on him next. He’s definitely squished between the two sides now. 

No escape! Damn it!

Remus snickers resting his chin on top of Janus’s head as Janus yawns, his forked tongue curling. Janus huffs giving a weak shove at the creative side. 

Logan watches fondly “You two seem...rather close? But I suppose that’s a given with the two of you living together down here for so long?” 

Remus nods “Something like that, and well-” he shrugs unsure what the right words would be “ I don’t know, I’m wild and feral and got no boundaries, and Dee’s the exact opposite, balance each other, I guess.” 

Logan nods, watching amusedly as Janus’s eyes grow heavy. 

“You would think that we would hate each other but we kinda just found our own system of things together that works for us…” Virgil used to be part of that too, but well...guess yeah win some you lose some or...whatever that saying is.

Logan hums resting his head near Remus’s “and...you don’t suppose...that I could possibly join this system? I um” Logan clears his throat looking away nervously “I um mean more so if its alright I keep visiting for the most part. You always visit me an-” “yes” 

Logan pauses looking to Remus 

“Yes, you can come visit, it’s not like we can stop you” Remus smirks at him “think of yourself as an honorary member here, i'll make ya a badge and everything.” 

Logan smiles before they both blink and look down, hearing soft sleeping noises coming from Janus, a lil bit of his tongue sticking out as he sleeps. 

Remus snickers at that, getting himself more comfy. "Heheh… sleeping snek…"

[sleepless-in-starbucks]

Pointless Pining (makes for the best love stories)

Ao3

Summary: Sure, Roman could tell aur squishes that au was in love with them. There was even a fairly good chance they’d return the sentiment! But there was also a chance (however small) that they would say no, and well... Roman didn’t want to take that risk. Content: Mutual pining, oblivious pining so oblivious it’s ridiculous (but true!), swearing, referencing making out, running away from family events to avoid said family, confessions, kissing (not on the lips); everyone’s non-binary except andy who’s male (cis or trans, reader’s choice), aro!roman, implied aro!logan + aro!remy Pairings: QPR rolosleep, romo anxton (ts shorts anxiety [Andy] x Patton) Notes: For easy reference, Roman’s pronoun set is au/aur/aurs/aurself (based off of the periodic table element name for gold, not the term for alternate universes), Logan’s is ja/java/jav/javs/javaself (based off the coding language, not coffee), and Patton’s is dai/dais/daiself Also! this fic is dedicated to my wonderful qpps, @lo-gayn and @bitchy-sleep ! i adore them with all my heart, even if I wasn’t very helpful with the getting-together part of our relationship. this one’s for you, loves <3

~

    Roman had an amazing, spectacular, flawless plan.

    “This is a horrible idea, dude.”

    Some people just refused to understand aur brilliance.

    “You know, this is why I don’t talk to you.” Roman said matter-of-factly, ignoring Andy rolling his eyes as au compared two dresses in aur mirror. “Now just tell me which red goes better with my eyes.”

    “How would I know? Unlike some people, I don’t spend all day looking into them.” Andy huffed, reclined out on Roman’s bed. “I don’t even know why you’re asking me for help with your clearly doomed plan.”

    “I’m asking you because it’s you or Patton, and dai’ll just ignore my dress question and focus on the reason for the dress instead, and you know what dai will say then.”

    “To get over yourself and stop ending up in fanfic-esque situations with your squishes because you’re a hopeless pining mess who refuses to open your eyes to the reality that they want to be your partners as much as you want to be theirs?”

    Roman turned from the mirror, frowning at Andy. “Well dai wouldn’t say it so rudely.”

    Andy just shrugged. “It’s the truth. The sooner you accept it, the sooner I can stop dealing with this bullshit.”

    A gasp of faux offense sounded in the doorway, and Roman groaned at the same time Andy perked up, pushing himself into a better sitting position.

    “Language!” Patton scolded, though dais words had no heat to them as dai smiled and joined Andy on the bed. Well, joined Andy on his lap, a move that the punk didn’t argue, even as his cheeks turned a rather vibrant shade of red.

    “Sorry, Pat.” Andy mumbled as Patton innocently wrapped dais arms around the back of his neck and leaned against his chest. Roman rolled aur eyes. Andy could act as intimidating and tough as he wanted, but as soon as Patton was within eyesight, he melted.

    “It’s no problem, an-dorable.” Patton said. Andy just blushed harder and Roman sniggered, amused. That was the wrong thing to do, however, as it drew Patton’s attention onto aur and aur dresses. “Oh, those are some nice outfits, Ro. What’s the special occasion?”

    “None! Nothing!” Roman said hastily, quickly moving over to aur closet and tossing the two options back in haphazardly. Two weeks au had kept this a secret, and au refused to be found out now. “Just… showing off some of my wardrobe to Andy.”

    Roman didn’t need to be facing Patton to know dai didn’t believe that, and au could practically hear the frown in dais tone as dai responded, “Are you sure? Those are some of your favorite dresses, you don’t normally take them out without a reason.”

    “And I had a reason! Showing them off to Andy!” Roman defended, looking at Andy slightly desperately. “Right, Andy?”

    Instead of providing Roman with the save au needed, however, Andy glanced at Patton before shaking his head. “Au’s got a date.”

    Patton’s eyes lit up at the actual answer, distracted enough by it to not notice the rather violent motion Roman made at Andy. Andy seemed unconcerned and unthreatened, only smirking rather self-satisfiedly at the gesture.

    “You finally asked them out?” Patton said excitedly, continuing on before Roman could continue, “This is great, Roro! You should definitely go with the scarlet dress, then- it’s just perfect for a first date-”

    “It’s not a date!” Roman interrupted, stopping Patton’s words immediately.

    Dai blinked twice, looking confused. “But Andy said it was.”

    “Sometimes Andy lies.” Roman muttered.

    “Not this time.” Andy spoke up, ignoring Roman’s glare. “I don’t care what you want to call it, dude, but it’s very clearly a date.”

    “Those were some pretty nice dresses you were considering Roman.” Patton added. “Not really what you’d wear out casually.”

    Roman sighed and glanced back at the dresses au had crammed back into aur closet. “Then maybe I’m just being too dramatic in my choice in attire.” Au mumbled to aurself, trying not to feel too disheartened. Au did like wearing those dresses, and any excuse to do so was one au’d always jump at. It’s not like au wanted Logan and Remy to see aur wearing one of them. Not in particular, anyways. That would be silly and blackmail material, and despite aur sibling’s sweet exterior dai was more than willing to work with blackmail.

    Shaking aur head to focus back on the issue at hand, Roman once more faced Andy and Patton. “One of Logan’s relatives is having a birthday dinner, and Logan invited me and Remy to come and stop java from being forced to only interact with jav family for two hours. It’s not a date, just friends helping friends.”

    “Ja literally invited both of you to dinner at a fancy restaurant for the express purpose of spending the night talking and dining with you two.” Andy said, repeating the same thing he had said only a few minutes ago, albeit then with more swearing. “It’s a date.”

    “I have to agree with Andy here, Ro.” Patton said, once more smiling excitedly.

    “You always agree with Andy.”

    Patton waved dais hand dismissively. “You were clearly picking out date clothes to go out to dinner with your squishes. It’s a date.”

    Roman sighed, moving over to aur desk. Au almost slumped into the chair before deciding the queer choice was to hop on top of the desk and sit there. “Just because it meets the criteria of a date doesn’t make it one.”

    “If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck-”

    “-then maybe you’re just shit at identifying waterfowl.” Roman cut Andy off, ignoring Patton’s reprimand of ‘language!’. “Besides, dates are for people in love with each other. One-sided pining doesn’t count.”

    At that statement, Roman was met with twin stares of disbelief.

    “Really, Roman, I thought you would’ve gotten over this by now.” Patton said after a moment, tone lightly scolding.

    “My pining…?”

    “Your belief that it’s one-sided.” Patton corrected. “It’s very obvious, I’m not sure how you’re still missing it.”

    “Just because you guys think it’s obvious-”

    “Logan has literally told you ja’d be open to being in a QPR with you.” Andy cut aur off, disbelief now mixing with frustration. “How much more obvious do you need?”

    Roman looked away, focusing on a wall. “It was late when ja said that, I’m sure ja didn’t mean it.”

    Andy scoffed. “It was four in the afternoon.”

    “That’s… kinda late.” Roman said, well aware aur tone wasn’t quite as confident as it needed to convince Patton and Andy to drop the matter. “And that’s just Logan, nothing about Remy.”

    “He is literally always flirting with you.”

    “Remy flirts with everyone.”

    Patton shook dais head. “Remy only really flirts with two people, Ro, and she’s made out with one of them plenty of times.”

    “Logan and Remy’s snogging is purely platonic.” Roman dismissed, wrinkling aur nose even as au said ‘snogging.’ Au wasn’t a fan of the word, but au preferred it to some of the other more creative terms au could’ve gone for.

    Au left out the part where au was fairly certain it wasn’t purely platonic. There was only so long you could try and live in someone’s lap before one emotion or the other got wrapped into the mix, in Roman’s opinion.

    “You’re really just going to ignore all of the evidence they like you back.” Andy said slowly, as if hoping that Roman would correct him.

    But all Roman did was smile at him and cheerfully say, “Yep!”

    Andy tossed his hands up into the air, flopping backwards on the bed, Patton giggling as dai fell over with him. “I give up. You’re impossible and refuse to listen to any and all logic.

    “I listen to Logan!” Roman defended in amusement. “Ja’s the only one I know with a fully functioning braincell, after all.”

    “And yet, you refuse to listen to Logan when ja says ja wants to be your partner.”

    “Technically, ja just said ja’d be alright with the idea of it, not that ja wanted things to be that way.” Roman corrected, slipping off aur desk and moving towards aur dresser. “There’s a difference.”

    “You know, you don’t have to have Logan confess to you first.” Patton pointed out, snuggling dais head against Andy’s shoulder. “Sometimes you just have to read the signs and make your move!”

    Roman chuckled. “Patton, you asked Andy out within a day of knowing him. Your advice hardly applies here.”

    Patton pouted. “I think it applies here!”

    “You’re just refusing to read the signs, Roman.” Andy added, wrapping a hand around Patton’s back and kissing dais forehead. “It worked out pretty fucking well for Patton, after all.”

    Roman didn’t respond immediately, waiting for Patton’s ‘language!’ exclamation, only to find it not coming, Patton much more distracted by curling against Andy’s chest. Roman smiled a bit at that. “Well, I am Jared, 19.”

    “You’re embarrassing yourself, that’s what you are.” Andy replied. Roman bit back a ‘when do I not’ and focused on shifting through the clothes in aur dresser. Only a moment passed before Andy asked, “What’re you doing?”

    “Picking my outfit for tonight.” Roman answered, pulling out a pair of aur black jeans, one of the pairs that hadn’t faded to grey yet. Au dropped it on top of aur dresser and moved on to finding a shirt.

    Shuffling on the bed indicated to Roman that Andy and Patton must have sat up, likely to try and see what clothing pieces au was choosing. They didn’t say anything, however, until Roman pulled out two shirts and turned back towards them, displaying aur choices. “Which one do you think goes better with my eyes?”

    Patton frowned. “From fancy dresses to jeans and t-shirts? That’s a pretty steep de-escalation, Ro.”

    Roman shrugged. “Well, if you guys thought the fancy dresses were for a special date, I don’t want Logan and Remy to feel I’ve made any false assumptions as to our relationship and the purpose of tonight’s outing.” Au said, smirking at the look of shock and annoyance on Patton’s and Andy’s faces, respectively. “So. Which one goes better with my eyes?”

    “You’re a moron.” Andy told aur before nodding his head at the shirt in Roman’s left hand. “That one.”

    “Thank you!” Roman responded, turning back towards aur dresser and dropping the one Andy had indicated back into the drawer, putting the white tank top covered in sparkly golden dots of varying sizes with the jeans.

    Andy groaned. “You know this is a date, no matter how hard you try to sabotage it, right?”

    “Nope!” Roman replied, scooping up aur choice in outfit and snagging aur red hoodie off the floor before heading towards the hallway. “I’m going to get changed. If you two are still here when I get back, I’m going to raid Patton’s stash of hidden cookies and give them to Logan’s family.”

    Patton squinted at aur. “You don’t know where my stash of cookies is. They’re hidden.”

    Roman chuckled as au stepped out of the room, heading towards the bathroom. “If you say so, Pat.” Au called over aur shoulder, confident in aur belief that Andy and Patton would be gone before au had even changed aur shirt.

    After all, there was only so much needling Roman could take, especially when it was in relation to aur squishes. Aur squishes who didn’t like aur back, Patton and Andy’s opinions aside and ignored. Roman might be aro, but au was still the expert on love, and au knew in-love people when au saw them. Logan and Remy loved Roman as a friend, and that was it.

    And if Roman was wrong, well… it wasn’t like au was ever going to confess anyways.

    ~

    Roman arrived at the Sanders household ten minutes early, having walked from aur house with the intent to hitch a ride with the family to the dinner. The driveway had  a couple more cars in it than usual, and the out-of-state license plates some of them had confirmed Roman’s suspicions they were Logan’s visiting relatives’ vehicles.

    Au didn’t bother with the door, cutting across the yard to the side of the house and slipping down and through the low-set basement window that had been left open for this exact purpose. Though the window was more commonly used as a way to escape the house, Roman and Remy often helping to pull Logan out so that they could go star-gazing when they all should’ve been sleeping, it served the purpose of avoiding strangers and prying questions equally well.

    Roman landed well, rocking on aur feet slightly to keep aur balance as au glanced around, looking for aur friends. The basement was a small affair, with one side taken up with Logan’s bed, dresser and desk, and the other with a bathroom and an old washing machine that no longer washed clothes but did occasionally hold the elements of Logan’s various experiments. That made it easy to spot Logan, who was sitting on jav bed and reading, so absorbed in jav book that ja didn’t notice Roman’s entrance.

    This gave Roman the perfect opportunity to be gay without java noticing.

    Because Logan, of course, had already changed for the dinner; jav regular nerdy t-shirt and jeans had been replaced with a simple, knee-length dark blue dress, the top half layered with white lace that outlined constellations across Logan’s chest. Jav hair was held in a loose ponytail by a silver ribbon, and matching star clips held back jav bangs. Ja looked gorgeous, and in that moment Roman wanted nothing more than to kiss jav forehead.

    But then Logan looked up from jav book and the moment was over.

    Ja spotted Roman quickly, offering aur a smile as ja slipped jav bookmark into place and put jav book to the side. “Hello, Roman!”

    Roman smiled back, trying to push aur thoughts away. “Heya, specs. How you doing?”

    “I’m alright.” Logan answered. “My relatives still remember the elephant toothpaste incident from last year, so they’re wary of coming down here and bothering me.”

    Roman chuckled at the memory of said incident. Despite requesting that ja be allowed to spend jav birthday as ja wanted, Logan’s parents had called jav relatives down for the day and planned a party around them being there. So Logan threw some water, soap, yeast, and hydrogen peroxide into a box and set the concoction up to make a mess of the stairs leading to jav room as soon as someone opened the door.

    Ja had escaped out the window after that, where Roman and Remy had been waiting for java to join them. The three of them had spent the day wandering the town, avoiding Logan’s searching family and doing whatever caught their attention. They had ended the day with the greasiest food from the cheapest fast-food joint they could find, eating it on top of the long-closed arcade and admiring the view of their town at dusk.

    Logan had been grounded for two weeks afterwards, but ja always held that it was worth it for what had been the best birthday of jav life.

    Roman was pulled out of aur recollections by the sound of a door opening. Looking up, however, Roman realized it wasn’t the door to the basement, but instead the bathroom door.

    A second later and Remy emerged, dressed almost opposingly to Logan’s style and yet still looking just as stunning. Like Roman, he was wearing jeans, but hers were torn up and well-worn. He was also wearing a black crop top, a fishnet shirt doing a poor job of covering up the rest of her upper body, not that Remy seemed to care. His jacket was slung over her back, his sunglasses were resting in her messy brown-and-pink hair, and his easy confidence in her look were only adding to the rising blush Roman was trying to fight off.

    “Finally decided to join us, babes?” Remy teased, seemingly oblivious to Roman’s gay panic.

    Roman cleared aur throat and tried to be oblivious to it too. “Excuse you, I’m ten minutes early.”

    “Yeah, but I’ve already been here for hours.” Remy complained, dropping down next to Logan on the bed dramatically. “And I’ve only had one cutie to gaze at the entire time! Not that ja isn’t certainly a very gorgeous cutie-”

    “Remy’s been helping me ensure no one tries to bother me before I’m stuck at a table with them.” Logan explained, cutting Remy off and ignoring his pout. “She’s been here since my first relative showed up around one.”

    “Over four hours of just you two chilling down here?” Roman confirmed, smirking as au did so. “Wonder how you spent that time.”

    Logan frowned at Roman in disappointment. “I mostly spent it reading and ignoring the annoyance.”

    “Mostly?” Roman repeated, smirk growing at the light blush that entered Logan’s cheeks.

    “Well I couldn’t exactly be reading for every single second of those hours-”

    “What Lolo means is that I’m not as annoying as ja pretends I am.” Remy cut in, throwing an arm over Logan’s shoulders and leaning against java. “And that I have very nice lips.”

    Logan’s blush turned a deeper red as ja swatted at Remy, pushing her off of java. “You are as annoying as I say you are, and you’re a bitch.”

    “But you still kissed meeeeee.”

    “I will shove you.”

    “Ah, come on, you know you love me-”

    Roman didn’t bother trying to stifle aur laugh as Logan made good on jav claim.

    Remy, for his part, didn’t seem put out, only looking up at Logan from her new position on the floor, slowly shaking his head as she said, “Cold, Lo, cold.”

    “I do run a temperature lower than the average human, though I do not see how that could be relevant here.”

    Remy pushed himself up, climbing back onto the bed and immediately slotting herself against Logan’s side, resting his head on jav shoulder and wrapping her arms around jav waist. “Because if you don’t have me warming you up, you could freeze! So you really can’t keep shoving me off of you.”

    “That’s illogical.” Logan pointed out with a roll of jav eyes, but ja made no move to get Remy off of java.

    Roman tried to find the best, least awkward way to stand, considering au was near the middle of the room and the only other people in it were cuddling. A small part of aur considered joining them on the bed, maybe even leaning against Logan aurself and joining the cuddles, but the possibility of it being weird or disruptive to the nice little thing Logan and Remy already had was too high to risk, so au remained rocking on aur heels, glancing at aur watch and wondering how close they were to go time.

    The door at the top of the stairs opening and Logan’s mother yelling down about how they were about to leave and Logan needed to get upstairs answered Roman’s question for aur.

    “Remy, please let go of me.”

    Remy made an unhappy humming noise and didn’t move.

    Logan sighed. “I can’t get up if you don’t let go of me.”

    “Then don’t get up.” Remy murmured back, clearly content to skip out on the dinner and spend the evening with just Logan instead. It was a sentiment Roman seconded, if only in aur mind.

    “I don’t want to be grounded again.” Logan replied.

    Remy sighed, sounding greatly annoyed, but he finally did as Logan asked, letting java go and standing up. “Can I at least hold your hand?”

    Logan stood up after her, only taking a second to think before ja nodded and offered Remy one of jav hands. Remy smiled brightly, taking the proffered hand and nearly pulling Logan towards the door.

    He was stopped by Logan’s refusal to move too far, turning back towards Roman instead and holding out jav other hand.

    “Coming?” Logan said simply, and after a moment that stretched longer than it probably should have, Roman nodded, hesitantly taking Logan’s hand. Logan’s fingers wrapped tightly around aur own, the gesture warm and sweet, even if Roman only had a moment to appreciate it before Remy was once more tugging on Logan, now dragging both java and Roman along with her up the stairs.

    Roman allowed aurself to be pulled along, using that time to try and decide if au should ignore the warmth blooming in aur chest or savor it.

    ~

    Dinner went just about exactly how Roman had expected it to go. Logan’s relatives tried to talk to java, aur and Remy deflected their questions away, the relatives asked them questions instead, Logan helped deflect those, jav relatives moved back to trying to question java, the cycle went on until they were halfway through dessert. Roman was just thankful most of the relatives allowed themselves to be deterred from their interrogation-style inquiries.

    There were some positives as well. The three of them had secured one of the table’s corners, Logan seated between Remy and Roman to further block javaself off from jav family. In that arrangement, it was easy for them to duck over and talk to each other, keeping their conversation separate from the rest of the table’s.

    And that was how they had spent most of the dinner, talking amongst themselves, trying to muffle their laughs as Logan made particularly scathing remarks about jav more despised relatives and they discussed where they’d all prefer to be. When their food arrived, they traded bites of their meals with each other, using the opportunity to mock each other’s taste with grins on their faces. That particular activity got some of Logan’s relatives looking at them funny, but Roman just shrugged it off as none of them knowing what having genuine fun with one’s friends looked like.

    It was at the end of dinner, when Logan’s family was waiting on the bill and discussing what to do with the rest of the evening, when Logan excused javaself to go to the bathroom. Ja patted Roman’s and Remy’s shoulders as ja stood, clearly wanting to make sure they didn’t forget the plan.

    Roman knew au certainly hadn’t, and a glance at Remy’s smirk proved she hadn’t either.

    A couple of minutes after Logan’s departure from the table, Roman feigned interest in aur phone, acting as though au had gotten a text. Au then stood up, thanking the collective Sanders for inviting aur to dinner and explaining that aur ride was there and it was time for aur to head home. Au brushed off their confusion at thinking they were the ones taking aur home easily, and slipped away from the table before they could figure out something was amiss.

    Au smiled when au found Logan in the lobby, looking only slightly worried over the idea that one of jav relatives might catch java trying to get out of any more family interaction time. Ja smiled when ja saw Roman, however. “Took you long enough.”

    “I believe it was you who said if I left too soon after you they’d be suspicious.” Roman replied, matching jav smile. “Why, miss me?”

    “Always.” Logan said almost immediately, and Roman fought off a blush at the single word. Au and Logan were close friends, and had been like that for a while. Cheesy lines like that were relatively common between the two of them; it didn’t mean anything else.

    Roman cleared aur throat. “Do you want to step outside? Remy might take a bit, depending on whether or not he decides to make a scene, and I don’t want to be too close if that happens, do you?”

    Logan chuckled. “Certainly not.” Ja replied, moving towards the double doors of the restaurant and holding one of them open for Roman.

    Stepping outside, Roman took in a deep breath of the cool evening air, preferring it to the overwhelming smell of various foods that had wafted throughout the entire restaurant. Logan came to stand beside aur only a second later, and Roman directed them both to the side of the restaurant, where they could wait discreetly for Remy to join them.

    “So,” Roman started, not wanting to spend the entire time waiting in silence, “scale of one to ten, how has your evening been so far?”

    Logan considered the question for a moment before responding, “An eight, I’d say.”

    Roman’s eyes widened a bit. “That’s pretty high, all things considered.”

    Logan shrugged. “Being around my relatives is always an atrocious affair, but having you and Remy around helped a lot. It was much more manageable with you two.” Logan glanced at Roman for a moment, expression unreadable, before focusing jav gaze back out on the parking lot in front of them. “I always enjoy being around you.”

    “We’re around each other a lot.” Roman pointed out quietly. Au wasn’t sure what point au was trying to prove, but au wasn’t quite sure what point Logan was going for either.

    “I suppose so.” Logan murmured, though it sounded more like a filler phrase than anything else. Silence stretched between them after that, and Roman didn’t feel like au should break it.

    It was eventually broken for aur by Remy sprinting out of the restaurant, spinning on his heel as she got outside, stopping when he saw Logan and Roman.

    “Hey, darlings! We gotta go!” She called out, grabbing their attention as he gestured for them to come join her. “Unless you want this whole plan to go down the drain, anyways!”

    “I knew he should’ve snuck out before me.” Logan said, shaking jav head even as ja smiled and started to run after Remy, Roman right behind java.

Remy didn’t start moving again until Logan and Roman were close, close enough that he could grab their hands. As soon as she had them, he took off again, weaving between the cars fast enough to hopefully throw off anyone who might be at the restaurant entrance now, trying to spot them.

    Soon enough they were out of the restaurant’s parking lot and on the sidewalk, racing down it as fast as they could. Remy still held their hands, her grip tight and warm, while he constantly checked around them, looking for something or another. Suddenly, she skidded to a stop in front of an alleyway.

    “You guys want to see something awesome?” Remy asked, glancing between the two of them as he asked.

    Roman fought off the urge to respond ‘I already do’ as au looked at Remy, flushed from the running but grinning as well, looking a wild sort of beautiful. “I’d love to.”

    “I certainly don’t have a better way to spend my time.” Logan said.

    Remy’s grin only grew. “Great.” She said, right before starting to run again, pulling them into the alleyway. They allowed themselves to be led as he ducked between different alleys and slipped between spaces Roman felt they weren’t meant to slip through, only letting go of Remy’s hands when she released them, coming to a stop in a small, unusual clearing.

    The spot Remy had finally stopped on was a ledge of cracked and jagged concrete, the broken concrete spreading out in a circle to fill the small area they were in, most of the space around them walled off by buildings built right next to each other and rusty chain link fences. Crumbling dirt sloped down against the concrete, making a small crater within the border of damaged rock.

    In the center of it all was a pond. It wasn’t very large, the crater itself only being three or four yards wide across, but it was well-sized. The surface of the water was pretty with the sunset colours playing across it, but it was clear enough for the group to see down into it. The dirt in the pool was awkwardly packed, leaving it deep in some spots and shallow in others, but amongst the layers Roman could just make out little creatures swimming about.

    “I stumbled into this place a couple of days ago when I was bored and wandering.” Remy explained while Roman and Logan leaned closer to the pond, both interested in the animals moving within it. “I think there was some construction mishap that made the crater, and they were too lazy to do anything to fix it, so they left it as was. Over time, it collected rainwater, and-”

    “Are these tadpoles?” Logan interrupted, looking up from the pond to meet Remy’s eyes instead.

    A broad smile broke across Remy’s face. “Far as I can tell, yep. Saw a few fully grown lads hopping around yesterday, too, though I don’t know if we’ll see them today.”

    Logan smiled at that, jav grin somehow bigger than Remy’s as ja quickly turned back towards the pond, leaning even closer to look down at the tadpoles. “Wonderful.” Ja said, under jav breath, looking completely absorbed by the animals.

    Roman forced aurself to stop admiring Logan and go back to watching the tadpoles before au was caught, but in aur opinion, the former view was much more incredible than the latter- and the tadpoles were pretty incredible.

    “Tonight just gets better and better, huh?” Roman said, the comment technically directed towards both Logan and Remy, but given that Remy seemed to have become distracted with one of the fences, only Logan really heard it.

    “Indeed.” Logan agreed, glancing away from the pond to look at Roman. Ja was still smiling brightly, jav entire face lit up and expression excited and happy. Roman couldn’t help but smile back, though aurs was softer, a product of Logan’s excitement, not aur own.

    “You look lovely.” Roman said, out of the blue, not entirely sure why au had spoken. It was true, yes, but Roman tried to mostly internalize those thoughts. “Your, uh, your dress, I mean. It’s very lovely- you wear it very… lovelily.”

    Logan laughed softly, a beautiful sound that Roman was absolutely in love with (almost as much as au was in love with Logan). “Thank you.” Ja finally said, with a small smile that seemed even more meaningful than the grin ja had been wearing a moment ago. “You wear your outfit very nicely as well.”

    If Roman hadn’t been blushing earlier, au certainly was now. “Thanks.” Au mumbled, glancing back out at the pond to avoid Logan’s gaze. Au had the distinct feeling that if au looked too long au might say things they would both inevitably regret.

    “My entire family thinks we’re together, you know.” Logan commented idely, ignoring the way Roman jerked at jav words. “Or me and Remy are together. Or you and Remy are together and I’m just third-wheeling. They’re too uptight to accept polyamory’s existence or it being valid, but if I did I think they’d assume we’re all together.”

    Roman forced a laugh. “Amatonormativity’s wild.”

    “It is.” Logan said, but it was offhanded. “Though I admit, all their conversing on the subject around, and sometimes to, me has… confused me a bit.”

    “Holy shit, Lo, don’t tell me you think you’re allo.”

    “Wha- no, no Roman, I’m still aromantic.” 

    “Oh.” Roman said lamely before frowning. Au was looking at Logan now, but jav expression was once more unreadable to aur. “Then what’s up?”

    Logan laughed nervously, taking jav turn as the one awkwardly watching the pond instead of the other. “Do you recall, a few months ago, when I told you I would be amicable to the idea of us entering into a queerplatonic relationship?”

    “Would I forget?”

    “You have the figurative memory of a goldfish so, yes, you would.”

    Roman chuckled. “Alright, you got me there. But, yes, Lo, I remember.” Au answered directly, hoping au just imagined the shake in aur voice.

    “When I told you that, it was because I felt I was- so to speak- in possession of equal platonic and queerplatonic feelings towards you. I did not mind being your friend, nor would I have minded being your partner, because both made me perfectly happy.”

    Roman hummed when Logan paused, trying to show au was paying attention without risking something as embarrassing as a voice break.

    “Now, I feel as though I still hold equal platonic and queerplatonic feelings towards you. But I’m… uncertain as to which I should be having. I have always been content with considering us to simply be friends, but the words of my family have forced me to take a closer look at what our relationship is, and I feel as if I must reconsider that view.”

    “I’m… not sure I completely follow, Lo.” Roman said hesitantly, trying to crush the unsteady flutter of hope in aur chest. Logan was talking about confusion, not making a confession.

    Logan took a deep breath before ja turned from the pond to look directly at Roman. “I believe if our relationship continues as it has, sooner rather than later, I will no longer fully feel content to be your friend alone, and instead wish to also be your… your partner.” Jav gaze dropped down to the ground between the two of them. “That is, if that has not happened already.”

    Oh. So it was a confession.

    Roman didn’t say anything, feeling speechless and breathless all at once. Logan took the unmoving stare and lack of response poorly. “I apologize if you do not feel the same, I truly do not completely expect you too, I do not want to hurt our friendship with my assumptions-”

    “No! Logan, no, I-” Roman paused to take a breath, trying not to focus on Logan’s wide-eyes from aur sudden yell. “Oh, gosh, you’re going to hate me.”

    “I find that doubtful.” Logan replied evenly, now tilting jav head on its side in curious bewilderment. “Why do you think I would hate you?”

    Roman ran a hand through aur hair, looking away from Logan as au did but turning back towards java when au spoke. “Your feelings are completely requited.”

    Logan’s eyes widened again, this time in surprise. “You mean-”

    “-And they have been for several months.” Roman added, interrupting Logan.

    “Since I told you I would be alright being in a QPR with you?”

    “Since, uh, since a couple of weeks before that.”

    “Oh. Oh!” Logan said, moving from processing to what Roman could only describe as delight. Ja was smiling again, almost giddily, pressing one hand over jav mouth to try and stifle jav laughter. 

    “Well, now, that’s just rude.” Roman teased lightly, feeling rather giddy aurself. They had both just admitted they wanted to be the other’s partner, after all, so surely that meant-

    “I assure you, I’m not laughing at you, just-” Logan laughed again despite jav words, and when ja leaned forward Roman realized ja had scooted closer to aur, jav forehead landing against Roman’s shoulder as ja laughed in a way that suggested less humor and more joy. Roman’s heart soared. “You’re very cute, Roman.”

    Roman grinned like that was the best thing au had ever heard even as aur cheeks flushed crimson. “You’re cuter, angel.”

    “Ah, petnames.” Logan said, tone warm and content and happy. “Love, dear, darling…”

    “Your love, your dear, your darling.” Roman corrected softly, feeling bold. It immediately paid off as Logan tried to press jav face further into Roman’s shoulder, trying to hide the blush Roman knew was covering jav face. “My cutie.”

    “Your cutie.” Logan echoed, sounding lovestruck even in just those two words.

    Roman pressed a kiss to the top of Logan’s head, smiling growing as Logan giggled. “My cutie, my angel, my beloved, my Logan.”

    Logan only giggled more, and Roman beamed, entranced by the sound and more than willing to listen to it for the rest of aur life. “My Roman.” Logan managed to say between jav giggles, oblivious to the bright red flush that had taken over Roman’s face. Au pressed aur head against the top of Logan’s, not necessarily to hide aur blush so much as to be even closer to Logan.

    “Please tell me this is what it looks like, because babes, if I have to go one more day watching your sorry asses pine over each other like you’re the only people in the world I’m going to lose it.”

    At the sound of Remy’s voice, Roman turned aur head to face her, refusing to remove aur head from on top of Logan’s. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Rem, we’re just two bros pressed up against each other like bros do.”

    “Ha ha.” Remy dropped down beside the two of them, flicking some rust off of his nails. “I still can’t believe it took you two five months, a frog pond, and me looking away to finally admit you’re queer as hell for each other.”

    “The best things take time.” Logan murmured. “Though, I admit, I would have liked to have been doing this five months ago.”

    “Well, maybe if you had admitted you wanted to be my partner earlier, we could’ve gotten here sooner.”

    Logan lifted jav face from Roman’s shoulder to level a sweet but disappointed expression at aur. “That is exactly what I did.”

    “Yeah, but you said you could go either way.” Roman pointed out, tone light and joking. “You should’ve known that wouldn’t be enough confirmation for me.”

    Logan let out a small laugh, shaking jav head, but the look in jav eyes was only fond. “You’re an idiot, love.”

    Roman just grinned. “Only because you keep hogging our shared braincell.”

    “You can’t be trusted with it.” Logan replied, returning jav head to Roman’s shoulder, seemingly content to leave it there for as long as ja could. “But that is alright, my dear. I will keep it safe for you.”

    “Thank you, my angel.” Roman responded, trying and failing to ignore how hot aur cheeks were. There was a simplicity and ease in calling Logan aurs that only confirmed to Roman that this- that them- was always meant to be, but that didn’t make aur immune to blushing about it.

    “You two are cute.” Remy commented idly, leaning forward to rest her chin on Logan’s shoulder. Logan didn’t react, clearly used to the motion. “Does this make me a house-wrecker, now?”

    “I don’t think you can wreck a house that has only just existed with past actions.” Logan stated thoughtfully.

    Roman grinned over Logan’s head at Remy, the solid thrum of adrenaline from one successful squish-turned-partner making aur bold. “Can’t wreck a house you’re a part of, either.”

    Though Roman knew Remy would never admit it, his cheeks dusted pink at Roman’s suggestion. “Funny, sugar, very funny.”

    “I would not necessarily assume that Roman’s suggestion is meant to be humorous.” Logan said, which Roman could tell made Remy only blush more. “I cannot speak for aur, but I will say that I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to being in a partnership with you as well, Remy.”

    “Three is my favorite number.” Roman added, wrapping an arm around Logan’s back to grab one of Remy’s hands.

    “You two are going to get me confused.” Remy complained, though she squeezed Roman’s hand, using the grip as an excuse to wrap his arm around Logan’s back as well. “I hope you’re ready to deal with the consequences of that.”

    “I’d be more than happy to.” Roman assured her, not bothering to stave off a giddy smile at the thought of having two wonderful partners.

    “Indeed.” Logan added, shuffling a bit and forcing Remy to lean closer against java. Remy laughed at the action, but didn’t say anything, only leaning forward to kiss Logan’s cheek before settling down against jav side.

    “Well, now, that’s just rude.” Roman teased, getting Remy’s attention. “Don’t I get a kiss too?”

    Remy grinned. “Anything for you, hun.” He responded, careful to not crush Logan as she leaned over java and kissed Roman’s cheek. He laughed when Roman’s flush immediately renewed itself, even darker this time. “You knew that was coming.”

    “That doesn’t make me prepared!” Roman replied, trying to sound indignant and knowing au was failing horribly. It didn’t help when au impulse shifted over so that au could kiss Remy’s forehead before she could get fully out of range, making it Remy’s turn to blush.

    “Oh, that was mean.” Remy mumbled, but given the colour of his face and the slightly strangled way she spoke, Roman got the feeling he didn’t actually mind it much at all.

    “Mhmm.” Roman hummed disbelievingly before moving to kiss Logan’s forehead as well, giddy with the knowledge that this was just a thing au could do now.

    Logan reacted to Roman’s kiss faster than Roman had expected, leaning up to kiss the tip of aur nose before au could pull away, smiling at Roman. Roman smiled back without a thought. A glance up revealed Remy was smiling softly at the two of them as well, becoming even softer when she caught Roman’s gaze and smiled directly at aur.

    Roman reveled in the moment, feeling as though au had never been warmer despite the chill the evening brought with it. With both aur squishes- with both aur partners- held close, Roman felt as if nothing could ever top this moment.

    Now all au had to do was make sure Andy and Patton never found out about it.

[slumbering-lore]

Melkor and Mairon please

Melkor

First impression: Scary, sexy, evil god.

Impression now: Scary, sexy, dorky, bi™ god.

Favorite moment: That moment when he went " I'll be a good brother, I promise". I wonder what he was spewing up in his mind back then.

Idea for a story: Melkor finds that Mairon is not the only Maia who finds him sexy AU :)

Unpopular opinion: I can't really think up of anything right now.

Favorite relationship: ANGBANG BABY. Melkor x Mairon all they wayy. (Sometimes I think of a qpp or sexual Melkor x Manwë but that's forbidden to the public)

Favorite headcanon: Melkor is bisexual! Is this canon? Who knows!

Mairon

First impression: That flamin' ball of eye belongs to someone sexy I'm sure of it.

Impression now: That flamin' ball of eye did belong to someone sexy.

Favorite moment: Where he obediently went along with the bunch of men-dudes bound in their men-rope.

Idea for a story: There are like,,, so many ideas at this point. Maybe something like an elf gets to injured Mai before anyone else after the Lúthien thing? If that's possible? Or something along that line...

Unpopular opinion: Is this unpopular?? But he was an abusive asshole and deserves to be punished.

Favorite relationship: Melkor, Eonwë, Finrod. :))

Favorite headcanon: Can't really pick out one. There are so many.

Thankyou for the ask! (Give me Characters!)

[thedreadvampy]

Like idk what you want from me here. If you want to engage me in a specific question about ace/aro identities, as I've said several times and nobody has ever actually done, then ask me the specific question. Don't fuck around with vague gestures at Points of Discourse and then get cross with me because I haven't answered the Exact Question you Didn't Ask But Expected Me To Intuit.

Preface: If you don't want to answer any of these because you are allo/allo and don't have a say because its not your place, say that. In fact, I'm asking these because you seem to do have opinions on things you shouldn't based off things you have said in the past.

I also want to state that I agree fully with your points about Martin- minus the blatant aphobia. Not just acephobia, arophobia as well.

1. Do you think qprs are problematic? I believe you once made a post saying roughly that qprs are just normal friendships, or something like that, that has since been deleted. What is your current opinion?

2. Are het aros lgbt?

3. Are het aces lgbt?

4. Cis aro/aces lgbt?

5. Cishet aro/aces?

6. Do the spectrums and micro identities exist? You've implied in the past they don't, in the post about how they were supposedly created from sex positivity

7. Can aros be in or desire romantic relationships?

8. Can aces have or desire sex?

9. Does the split attraction model exist and does it benefit people?

10. Can teenagers identify as aro/ace or do you think they're too young?

11. Can you be, say, an aroace lesbian, or an aroace gay, aroace bi, etc. Idk how to phrase this one but like can you be aroace and still id with another orientation?

I could send another anon detailing the aphobia in the post, because I at least am certainly not upset about Martin being sexual, rather it was the very blatant aphobia. It could have stemmed from ignorance, and if that's the case I don't mind explaining it.

Ok this is a lot of questions, some with quite involved answers, so I'm gonna answer them chunk by chunk so it's a bit more manageable, and then I might come back to some of the surrounding message. This isn't gonna be an immediate bang bang bang, but I'll try and work through them over the next couple of days.

Question 1

1. No, I don't think qprs are problematic. I don't necessarily understand them but I don't need to understand them to understand and respect that they're a thing that's important to a lot of people. I don't know what post you're referring to, but I'm surprised that you say it was deleted, because I very rarely delete posts except, occasionally, reblogs where people have flagged up misinformation or dogwhistles or which I reblogged by accident. tbh I'm the messiest online presence I'm way too lazy to delete past posts or block people even when I probably should bc I don't like to feel like I'm ~hiding evidence~. So I'm not saying you're wrong, you're probably totally right, but I'm surprised.

I'm thinking about what posts I've made that you could be thinking of, and obviously I don't remember everything I say on here bc I say A Lot and I actively post to get things out of my head so 🤷‍♀️ but I do remember making a post a while ago where I said that it was a normal expectation of friendship to have some friends close enough that you'll live with them, raise kids with them, etc, and I'm wondering if that was the post you're thinking of? I did have qprs in mind while writing that to a degree, but only because I think 'you wouldn't do this with your friends' is a very common argument people put forward about qprs and I think it's a weak argument, because many people have different definitions of friendship, and the only argument I think is needed for any sort of I Have X Emotional Relationship To This Thing is...I Have X Emotional Relationship To This Thing. Like you can't offer a universal materialist definition of the differences between romantic, queerplatonic, sexual and platonic relationships, because the boundaries are very personal and it's really an emotional and experiential difference. so if that is the post you're thinking of, I wasn't criticising The Concept Of QPRs as much as saying that I thought trying to put hard lines around What Friends Do Vs What QPPs Do was a) counterproductive when arguing with someone who thinks QPR is Just Normal Friendships bc. if they do those things with their friends then saying NO THIS IS A QPR THING just reinforces their existing belief that you're talking about the same thing as they mean by friendships and b) to me seems to set a painful expectation to young people that you can only get these kinds of close friendships occasionally and in the form of a QPR and it will be stigmatised and misunderstood (and depending on how people talk about it, is only accessible to aspec people and allo people should only expect it to come through romantic/sexual relationships), when in fact most people of most ages I know have friends with whom they can share things like housing, deep feelings, futures, finances, who they miss if they don't see for a few days, who are mutually supportive and vital to their wellbeing. I don't think that's mutually exclusive with the existence of QPRs though - like I personally don't know what the difference is between a QPR and a close friendship, but I also don't know what the difference is between a romantic relationship and a close friendship but I know there is one and I know it's not a question of What You Do but a question of How You Feel And Interact, and that's pretty hard to define in unambiguous terms.

Like generally I don't Not Think QPRs exist, and I think it's a dick move to try and tell people they're wrong about how they experience and define their relationships because???? how are you meant to know that better than the person whose relationship it is??? but I do think the way people talk about QPRs (both from the perspective of defending them and from the perspective of attacking them) is pretty rife with problems and I don't think it's invalidating the reality of QPRs to talk about where the arguments and language around them potentially falls down or has unexpected consequences.

On the other hand, I don't know if that actually is the post you're referring to - the reason I'm calling back to that is that that and a few resultant asks are the only time I remember talking about QPRs on here in the last year or so. So like, several of these questions reference past posts, which is very fair, but I do need it to be clear that, since I don't really tag anything and I don't have a great memory, I can only really speak to What I Think Now In This Context, not to what I posted in the past and what I was thinking when I posted it. Like, this isn't too deny responsibility - I reckon I'm responsible for what I post even if I don't still agree with it, which is why I don't tend to delete my own posts on purpose - but just to deny capacity, I guess? I don't really KNOW what I've posted so if you talk about it in vague terms (and I do understand that if it's been deleted there's not a lot you can do but that) I may not necessarily be responding to the part of it that's worried you, so if I'm not speaking to something specific I've said or done, it's not because I Don't Want To, I just don't necessarily know to.

I'm waffling about this because looking through your messages there's a lot of "you said X" and like. given that the intended message of the post that's kicked this off was very different to the message people have taken from it, it feels important to me to know whether if I looked at the posts you're referencing I'd be like "ah yeah I did believe that but now I believe X" or if it's more a situation of "oh right I can see how you took X from that but my thinking was more Y".

(also sometimes when people say "you made a post" they mean "you reblogged a post" and I am a compulsive discourse scroller so sometimes I reblog a random post to bookmark my place on someone's discourse blog or I accidentally longpress the reblog button while scrolling - I try to delete reblogs that I don't agree with but sometimes I miss some, all of which to say if there's a post on my blog that doesn't seem to reflect what I say in my original posts then it doesn't necessarily mean I'm a crypto-whatever so much as I'm very lazy and messy with my blog. Doesn't mean I shouldn't be held accountable for reblogs but it's useful to know if we're talking original content or reblogs bc I'm unlikely to fully accidentally make a post. but I quite often accidentally reblog stuff. I doubt this is the case with this sitch just bc of your phrasing but I want to cover my bases)

anyway tl;dr: no I don't believe that QPRs themselves are inherently problematic, nor do I think I have at any point believed that, but I do think that a lot of the language and ideas used to talk about them are based in miscommunication or absolutist ideas about relationships and can have damaging knock on effects.

[vvakarians]

I need to be vulnerable for a second.

It’s been a year. I’ve made a lot of progress and am still uprooting shit I’ve been wading in for a while now. I’m growing and learning. But I’ve never gone into detail really, maybe on twitter and mentioned it a couple times but yeah. Been thinking a lot.

TW for Homophobia / Abuse

TLDR; My best friend was a shitlord and I spent ten minutes painfully sobbing about it. I’m fine lmao just needed to make a messy post.

Won’t be mentioning who they were on SM here but if mutuals who are and were friends w/ both of us want to know, hmu lmao. I sincerely hope y’all didn’t get shit on like I did

I’m so tired. I’m tired of knowing that someone I used to call my best friend literally cyberstalked me in a discord server and when I told them I wanted to have a space without them/wouldn’t be interacting with their character, they lost it.

I’ll call this person A. They were there for me through a lot but it got weird towards the end for sure. A was always clingy, always needed to be right (passed it off as an OCD thing), and always felt like they needed to be included in things I was doing. Abandonment issues due to trauma they said, still doesn’t excuse it but you know? Fine.

I identified as aro/ace for a long time bc I was severely traumatized. Someone thirst followed me and cornered me into a relationship/took my kindness for granted (Not A, not yet). A’s reaction was to assume I would never have time for them and we would drift apart, just because I had a partner. They complained about this to me and said that even if I was just their friend and QPP (we were both aro/ace) that they still felt I would abandon them. I tried to calm them down the entire time, this was October 2018. Three days later I had a severe PTSD break (unrelated trauma) and broke up with my ‘boyfriend’. A said it was the right decision and we left it at that.

Cut to me a year later having recovered a bit and realizing I had romantic feelings still. That I *wanted* to kiss and take someone out, and do heavily romantic things. During this time A and I had severe issues with D&D parties also where they would break down if they didn’t know everything and said that I couldn’t produce any part of my worlds for profit bc theh had contributed in a small way. It was a bad time. It lead to the complete disintegration of two relationships that I can...probably never get back. One of which I’m not sure I *want* back, but that’s a different story.

Basically they wanted to be the DM with half the credit despite only making npcs I could easily replace or cut out entirely. Now that I started playing again, I have.

I still was friends with them, still waveringly QPP’s with them. Though I’d often feel my skin crawl when they touched me or wanted to be in my space. This was all the time, not when I got triggered into a PTSD episode. I was annoyed when they wanted to always be in my space and have all my attention. But I felt obligated to A and had been recently traumatized again.

Even with all of this I wanted to come out as gay / mlm but still keep part of my aceness with me. Of course in feeling this, I approached A to let them know. Their response was to immediately come back with ‘we can do all of those things you want to do with a romantic partner’. Which I felt may be true for some aspecs but not me. I wanted to *be* with someone and not just...a friend. I wanted to have a boyfriend and be cheesy. I told A that it was probably true but I wanted something else. That I wanted space to think on what they had said. They came back with ‘you’re abandoning me. You just don’t like me. Everyone always leaves me’. Once again with the ‘you get a bf you’ll forget I exist’ rhetoric 🙃.

I told them that they weren’t the person I wanted to be romantic with. I was looking for someone else. I wasn’t attracted to them that way. They took that as an insult. Though to me they relented. Come to find out A got one of our mutual friends involved bc they lived in the same area. They vented and complained to them that I was going to abandon them, that I was punishing them, that they didn’t know what they did wrong. Which was behavior my parents exhibited when I was forced out as trans to them. That Inwas punishing them somehow for a misdeed or that they knew me better, they did something ‘wrong’.

The only outlet I had away from A was TikTok, we weren’t really doing D&D anymore because the party had dissolved due to their controlling habits. Every account I had was heavily monitored by A, I would vent and they would immediately pull it up and ask if I was okay. Even if I had explicitly said before that I was alright and needed some space. But TikTok was a place they barely went on. So I cosplayed more after our last visit (October 2019), and got a small following after joining a lovely d&d tag ran by one of my now closest friends. I also met my boyfriend through this tag, and several other very close friends. I made an oc that I integrated in one or two sessions of D&D before I completely stopped DMing.

Now, it gets worse. I get a following for cosplaying my oc Asariel Whately, join a server, and for a time have a pretty okay place away from A. Some breathing room. When I mentioned that Asariel (who we had talked about maybe being w/ an oc of theirs) was going to romance my now boyfriends oc in the tag, they got upset. They said that they were sad to see them with someone else, and asked if it could all be before my campaign/not actually be real. I told them no and that I’d continue doing what I wanted.

Well, after that and scouring my TikTok (i made the mistake of saying anything in the first place), they got invited to the server and started RPing/cosplaying in the tag. Which they’re allowed to do, but A has a history of wanting to be in my things and being the center of attention. When I say A got involved with *several* other characters, including a possible *minor*, that doesn’t even cover the worst of it. They got involved in a huge polyam relationship (which is fine, i’ll explain why their behavior was weird tho) that LITERALLY took up chunks of the whole server. Any time my bf and I got into chat to rp out some scene for Asariel and Fraanic, A was there to bury our scene in their own garbage. Could have been conicidence but who knows. Then the minor got added into the mix and most of us just had the server on mute/rped in DMs. It was so bad that other people noticed their bad behavior, meta gaming, and needing to be right.

Our relationship ended when someone from a private close knit server made up of all the people who wanted to remove ourselves from the toxic environment, outed our server. Said there was an nsfw server and A immediately jumped to say they wanted an invite. I panicked and DMed them for the first time in weeks to say that they couldn’t. That I needed space from them and this was the one place I had. We had a fight, they said ‘they’re my friends too’ and I pointed out that they had forced their way in, that I said I needed space. Eventually they gave up on it, thank god. But it left me wrecked for months. I didn’t create, I retreated into a two person server with my best friend who is now my boyfriend and just never looked back.

While I’m grateful that this massive upheaval gave me a new support network, got me into a good place for a romantic partnership, and allowed me to heal...I still have a lot of pain. I felt like I had been commodiefied, like an object because of how kind and soft and pliable I was. Because someone thought I was beautiful and *theirs* in the worst way. My ocs who are some of my largest coping mechanisms were tainted, I could barely play Dragon Age, couldn’t think about it. Because someone had conpletely obliterated my love for it. I hate to think they then continued to do that same thing to other people but I honestly have no clue what A is doing now. They dropped off the planet and honestly good riddance.

[nottesilhouette]

would it be okay if i asked you to talk some more about qpps? i think i might have one but im nervous becuase i don't really understand how to tell. do you mind if i ask if your both poly? and how it affects your other relationships? doyour partners mind? is it hard to balance? (sorry if this is to personal, please ignor if it is)

Of course! I love to talk to about this subject haha. I’m sorry I took a while to get back to this, I had to check in with a few people before posting anything (and Crow and I had a full on existential crisis when we saw this question oop XD) Answers under the cut!! 

I guess the first thing is... QPP relationships are designed to offer a lot of space to self define your relationship. It’s specifically meant to give you an escape from other terms! The way Crow and I knew is... well, the way she put it is “You're the permanent relationship that I'd focus on keeping.” We don’t want to share each other, but we don’t want to stop each other from having other relationships... it’s just that we know this is the one that matters most. I want to know the people she dates and be friends with them, I just... also want to be loved in this specific special way and no one else.

We figured out what we were because... I don’t know! We met, we fell in love instantly as we fought over custody of internet children, we stayed up all night together because of insomnia. We made each other a priority. There was a time where she ghosted me for two months because of personal life things, and it happens to be one of my triggers (not that we knew that at the time). I freaked out, and when she came back online the first thing she did was make sure I was (we were) okay. That’s really important to me. We’ve gotten to a point where we trust each other to come back, and that’s huge for me, and that’s how I know she’s important. 

It’s hard to give you a checklist, but if this person is important to you and you like the term QPP, the best thing to do is use it! Or to try using it, I suppose. Talk to the person you like. Tell them, and ask what they feel, and how they want to define the relationship. It’s hard and scary, I know, I almost choked my heart as it jumped out of my chest when I told angel that I’d thought about dating her. It turned out really well for me (obviously, as you can tell :P ) and it might not for you, but you’ll at least have a chance to find closure and heal, and hopefully it will go well!

Personally, QPP sounds a little stiff for us. The word we settled on was starmates, which is this cute little portmanteau of our favorite metaphor (my love language :3 ) and soulmates, and that works for us. 

As for being poly... honestly, I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I’ve been thinking about it since I realized I was ace and realized I would be okay with my partner having another partner to have sex with because that sure as heck wasn’t gonna be me. 

For me... I ended up telling him from the very beginning that Crow was more important and was going to be more important, and he... was jealous for a while. It was something we had to work through because I was also jealous of his other partner, and we had to talk about it and figure out what our expectations were of each other. It’s really strange, honestly. I know that I have a lot more freedom to be with Crow the way I want to because people expect women to have best friends, and be really affectionate with them, and I also just don’t pursue relationships with people who are uncomfortable with me loving a lot of people, because I do and I don’t plan to deprioritize the people in my life who are important just because someone new came along. 

He knew well before we started anything that Crow was my person, and I think that helped. He also got to meet her and spend time with her and see how happy she made me, and he’s kind of a wonderful person and wants me to be happy, so that helped. There’s been a lot of talking and therapy and Crow’s been kept in the loop about everything, and so has he, and that works. Not everyone is going to be okay with it, and I’m secure enough to know I would choose Crow every time, and that’s good enough for me. I’m willing to wait. Not everyone is. All I can say is that I hope you’re able to find someone who works with what you need, and I hope you communicate, and that’s all you can do. Whatever you choose, it’s okay. 

He adds, “Everyone experiences jealousy, and ur not a bad person for feeling it. It's a thing that can be worked past if you believe it's important to do so, and the most important thing is to be able to admit to it and talk about it.” 

There’s also something to be said about people who just don’t get it, and some of them are going to want to understand and do their best to respect your boundaries, and some are not. There’s no way to know, and you just have to ask and try things and work it out. In my opinion, someone who’s not willing to let you have time with someone who makes you happy is probably not a person you want to keep, but I might be wrong! I don’t know specifics, after all. That said, negotiating how you spend time with your partners is important and valid, and not controlling as long as it’s an open discussion where both people’s input and needs are valued. 

...maybe I am poly. I don’t know!! Crow and I are... super unclear, like, are we inherently in a poly relationship now if we date someone? She says, “I haven't been in a relationship since we figured the qpp stuff out but I know you'd be more important.” (Way to make me melt on main I guess, wow babe :P, I say, making the active choice to include this comment.) I guess it’s up to us to identify as poly. I don’t think you need to just because you have a QPP or something, but you can! That option is available if you want it, and optional if you don’t. 

It can be hard to balance, but honestly? There’s always something in a relationship. If they care about you and you care about them, you’ll make it work, and if not, you’ll find out and get to a healthier place I hope. You just have to be willing and able to try, and communicate, and find ways to explain to people in ways that work for you. 

For what it’s worth, not every queer platonic relationship is like ours. She’s my most important person, but ultimately they’re just a friendship that matters a lot, and that can look like whatever you want. Someone you text one a month but love each other the whole day you spend together. Someone all you do is text memes to but you never want to stop. Someone you talk to every day and fall asleep on the phone to. QPPs are meant to give you space to define a relationship in your life in whatever way works for you, and what really defines the relationship is you, and communication with your potential QPP and any other partners you have. 

I’m really happy to answer more questions, or explain in more detail anything you’re wondering, or happy to have a conversation with you and help work things out. (If you want to come off anon and message me privately, that’s very very welcome, I promise, but no pressure!!) This is something I care a lot about and I’m really willing to be available as much as I can for someone who’s as confused about it as I was. 

[kingsofneon]

ayyy its me coming in here!!! i have no requests off the bat but uhhhh ok ok hear me out. acesabo but with like. a finger kink or something? like, long pretty fingers fingering the hell out of each other or just sensually sucking on it, idk, i'll let you decide. OR, more expansion on robinkoalasabo, blease?

look okay look im just. vibing with sabo/ace rn so i gotta talk abt them but real quick i love argumentative best friend/enemy / qpp koala/sabo and both of them liking robin, LMAO !!!!! bitch!!! that shit’s hilarious. robin i think would be uhh....unused to such honest attraction? yah sabo’s a lying liar but there’s a difference in his...sarcasm vs his “I’m telling a lie so you don’t know the truth I dont want to tell you”, is what i think. so idk in what i set up i guess we have ko/ro first and Kinda girlfriends (im.....ded for fro/bin tho soz so absoLUTE we have not-yet-together-kinda-feelings-but-complicated-bc-trauma robin/franky + bc theyre not together the...flattery + enjoyment of koala’s personality and company...) friends w/ benefits didn’t-really-date but like each other a lot. and koala so sunny and happy buuut also spending Lots of time with robin - just hanging out but also sexy fun times - and sabo’s like “no I’m not sulking shut the fuck up” (but he’s totally sulking because he Liked robin too, she was someone he respected highly and she! knows! luffy! he doesn’t say anything to her about it bc he’s guilty as fuck but. boii wants those strawhat stories and he can’t sneak them out of her with koala taking up all of her attention.) 

koala picks up on his grumpy mood but just figures he’s being a dick abt smth, but robin’s like nah look, pattern, and koala’s like oh. OH? 

idk what they do but w/e we be vibing with nsfw, which is sabo’s. sabo’s fucking fingers man. the tensile strength. BUT ALSO he’s not very delicate, not very good with flexibility, so robin,,ho fuck boi. when against koala the dichotomy of the roughness vs that clever stroking, but then also bRO im thinking about sabo viewing masturbation etc. pretty clinically and also Be Careful Of Strength, ain’t gotta lot of time to jerk off when you’re running the revolution u know.

so like the first time robin tops im fucking laughing. koala’s probably just as rough/efficient as he is but robin...robin can unlace him in like a minute flat and figures out real quick that sabo likes being edged. the first time robin touches his prostrate..........boi. 

anyway omfg that was longer than i thought so hand kink + sabo/ace

FIRST 

if you haven’t read.......second chances (https://archiveofourown.org/works/15495015?view_full_work=true).........what are you doing. look at this shit:

“You want to watch me jerk it like this?” The buckle rattled with Ace's gesturing, and Sabo's eyes immediately fixated darkly on the belt. “Then I uh, I get to make a weird request too.”

“If you must,” Sabo replied, sounding the exact opposite of beleaguered as he discretely wiped the spit off his palm. Ace cleared his throat.

“Put on your gloves.”

Ace refused, refused to look away from the devious delight spreading across Sabo's stupid face.

“Oh Ace,” he purred, those damn fucking gloves appearing in his hands out of nowhere (did he have them tucked in his pockets this entire time?). With deliberate motions, Sabo smoothed the leather over every finger, and flexed, like he was about to whip out one of his ryusoken moves. “Are you sure you just want me to jerk off in these?”

“Well if you've got any lube tucked away,” Ace shot back, “now's the time to pull it out, put on a good show.”

Sabo's consequent exhale was nowhere near the flippant-and-suave chuckle he had clearly been aiming for. Smugly, Ace counted a point in his own favor before dropping onto his back and finally—finally—undoing his pants. As his own belt fell with heavy thumps to both sides, Ace brushed aside all the pesky cloth, and applied pressure in earnest with a sigh of pleasure.

and this

And boy was it a view. The gloves were incredibly well-worn, molded so tightly to Sabo that Ace could see the full articulation of his fingers' every curve, every bend. The buttery leather, lighter in color at the fingertips, glided over Sabo with the barest whisper of friction. Ace could see his grip change, pressure shifting as he held himself tighter and tighter, grunting in frustration.

“Can I take these off?” Sabo finally requested with a hint of a whine. Ace suddenly thought of Marco, and how he might smirk at that tone, if he was here. “It's not working for me.”

“It's working fine for me,” Ace did his best to leer, thoroughly enjoying his own bare hand's capacity for friction. Sabo made another sound of protest, and Ace gave in with a snort. “Fine. Just one hand.”

“It's all I need.” The right glove disappeared as fast as it came, and Sabo arched high and satisfied into his own hand, now skin-to-skin. He obligingly let the gloved hand remain in play though, skimming teasingly up and down, grinning sharply at Ace's open mouth. “Hey,” he ordered, “go faster.”

AND THIS!

“Anything you want,” was Ace's breathless answer. He didn't stop, even sped up, gripping hard and fast and chasing that finale. “You can have it from me.”

“I would chain you down,” Sabo snarled, practically a threat, only the blade was turned wholly inward toward himself. Like he was daring Ace to give him absolution. “I would bend you 'til you're ready to break, and keep you there for hours. I would make you beg for release, but deny you anyways. I would see your skin dark with my bruises, I would, I would—”

Ace's hands twisted hard against his binds, wanting genuinely to be free of them for the first time since they started this—and Sabo's reaction was instantaneous. A flex of haki into his fingers, and Sabo was slicing through the leather of his belt, letting Ace loose with an expression of terror.

And Ace dragged himself across the bed until he could cup Sabo's cheek in his clean palm and pull Sabo into a biting, filthy kiss. He was still hard as sin, and thrust forward into Sabo's hands to let him know—

“Anything,” he panted into Sabo's mouth, meaning it with every fiber of his being. He didn't mean for Sabo to cut open the belt; he had just wanted, so badly, to feel Sabo's touch. “You have me.”

bitch. bitch. 

idk just gonna write some prompts bc this looks long

sabo + jerking ace off while wearing his gloves + barely washing them (to ace’s embarrassment) bc he claims he likes having evidence of ace. they’re usually kept for when he’s at home tho, sabo’s gross but not that gross ;p (and ace would probably die LMAO)

 SORRY BUT THE POST I JUST REBLOGGED ABT HOLDING YOUR THUMB DOWN TO HAVE NO GAG REFLEX UM. Ace says he wants to try it but it feels weird so sabo’s like. ;) okay and runs his fingers over ace’s mouth, tapping and instructing him to hold his thumb down. tracing his teeth and teasingly not dipping his fingers down low enough, till ace glares at tries to argue smth like “this is not testing the trick” but that’s when sabo presses on his tongue, down his throat, and ace half-chokes on it. sabo just like ‘not like you have much of a gag reflex anyway’

was thinking abt this the other day but ace doing sabo’s nails and then being like dont ruin them! no touching until they’re dry but sabo’s like but idk when they’ll be dry???? bc he’s never used nail polish before and ace is like :) better not touch then as he teases sabo

ace ofc painted them gold and red bc theyre His Colours and the next day when they’re dry and pretty sabo spends ages running his hands against ace’s skin, fascinated and worshipping of how pretty ace is

before they started dating and when they were bad at handling alcohol, sabo kissing ace’s knuckles made that boi CATATONIC, his wrist would also make ace bolt bc Horny, he’s fucked when sabo kisses his wrist it’s just too...intimate. 

 headcanons, headcanons, they’re both pretty calloused in different ways...ace is like rope burns and shit, longer across his palm and knuckles, sabo has palm base bc of his pipe, but they’re confined, and then on his fingertips bc of dragon claw. AGAIN thinking about mr fast fuck brutality here like the STRENGTH in that boy’s hands wtf

ace’s hands have more scars, sabo has more callouses/micro-deposits bc he knows hand to hand/doesn’t start with a DF. 

idk where im going with that last one guess it’s just headcanons abt hands.  

that’s all fox, i like the number eight and i have so many other asks to do lmao

[cleverclovers]

Why I cut off a couple of my former roommates, how I felt about it then, and how I feel about it now...

This is something I've been considering talking openly about for a good long while. A way to clear the air and make my feelings known.

I moved out of my mother's house at a tumultuous time, for my family, and for my own personal psychological health. I was 24, starting out in my transition, desperate to be myself, and living in an increasingly crowded household. My sister in law was moving in from Japan with my toddler nephew, bringing the household from five to seven, leaving three of us (at least) sleeping in the living room of an 800 square foot apartment, while my youngest sibling was still in highschool. It was too much to handle.

So one of my best friends and I moved forward with plans to move in together.

I wish I could say I was prepared for the challenges that would present. I knew from stays at his house he was messy. I new he didn't like, and perhaps didn't really understand cleaning. I knew he had his own cocktail of trauma and mental illness that might not compliment my disabilities, but I thought that our long standing friendship had prepared me to handle these things.

I don't want to blame things on his mental illness alone. Part of our mutual difficulty came from my own issues, and difficulty understanding the nuances of his issues. Part of it came from my increased depression due to long periods of isolation that came from HIS long periods of isolation, from my own failure to reach out to friends and family in determination not to worry them, and their failure to reach out to me-- I'm more social than I thought I was, desperate for interaction, vocal communication, physical contact, and social stimulation. Going long periods without speaking or touching another human being really fucks with my head, and he was (and maybe is) very touch adverse.

At some point his father decided I was his caretaker, responsible for reminding him to attend appointments of various natures (and attend them with him), reign in his habit of eating out, or buying junk food, remind him to pay bills and clean his room. He made me responsible for managing his life, and my friend only added to this, asking me to make calls to schedule his appointments and refill his medications, and schedule vehicle maintenance. Not only did I feel socially isolated, I took on the role of a parent, changing my relationship with my friend and further distancing me from someone I trusted and depended on.

My needs started to fall by the wayside. If I was injured or ill and needed medical attention I had to ask for assistance from outside the home, or grin and bear it. Alcoholism that I'd been developing while living with my aunt in years previous became full blown, and all I could really do was manage Bean's care. I lost all sense of time, I worked days without sleep, and when I wasn't working, I was drunk beyond reason. It would sometimes be whole weeks between having more than short vocal conversations with my roommate, where the only creature I had any vocal communication with was my cat, or the occasional phone call with Tom, my current roommate and QPP.

At one point I was so drunk I called him in the middle of the night, lost in my own home, asking if he knew where I was. This scared him. It wasn't the first time, and it wouldn't be the last...

When it came time that he needed a rescue, he leapt on my offer to come live with me, so concerned that I was in danger from myself that he was willing to put himself in an uncertain living situation in order to help me clean up and get sober, get control of my life.

My roommate at the time didn't do that, and I can't have expected him to, with his own issues, but he certainly didn't like me insisting on Tom coming to live with us. They clashed. He grew aggressive, though he'd insist he wasn't. He yelled, he slammed doors, he stomped and beat his fists on the counters, and at one point I witnessed him kick my cat.

He insists to this day that he didn't. That he would never. But he hadnt been taking his medication at the time. He had a lot of breaks, a lot of issues where he stopped being him, and another facet of him took over. I don't want to hold him accountable, I don't know what that's like, but it doesn't change the fact that it happened.

As I sobered up, it started to scare me more and more. My anxiety was through the roof, and I spent a lot of time crying. At the same time, his father was still expecting me to be responsible for him, his appointments, his bills, his spending.

We became desperate to get away.

When plans fell through with one group of friends, we took an offer from another, and Lord. That was a bad decision. Had we decided to go our own way, we might still have that friend. Sometimes. Sometimes you shouldn't move in with friends.

Sometimes it ruins friendships.

And boy did it ever.

For a while our household of four adults and two cats only had two incomes. We moved in together in July. He promised he'd get a job. He promised he'd contribute. He promised not to dig into triggers and be respectful. He promised to learn to keep up after himself, and I believed him, because he was my friend, he knew I'd been abused for not keeping the house clean, he knew what my former roommate had left me with.

Food became scarce. I was working all the time. I was barely sleeping. It was hot. He always had something he wanted. He insisted on taking us on adventures and almost got into accidents with me in the car on many occasions. I'm terrified of cars. I'm terrified of other drivers. I've been in 16 accidents and none of them have ever been my fault because I don't drive and it's wrecked me. He knew this. He still took offense at my gripping the car and crying when we were nearly t-boned.

He broke heirlooms from my mother's family. He shrieked when I couldn't fix his car, when I didn't immediately lend him my dying phone so he could find his own. He failed to keep his promise to keep up after himself. Stenches started wafting out of his room, horrible stomach turning stenches, and he'd leave his barely rinsed dirty dishes on the drain rack containing my painstakingly soap and bleach scrubbed dishes, pans and containers.

When I started to feel panic because our rent and electric bill had increased but income had not, and asked him desperately if he had found a job, if he'd made progress in his job hunt, if he was willing and able to contribute to the household because Tom and I were starting to go hungry, eating once a day at best while I continued to lose sleep working trying to make ends meet, and Tom's social security case dragged on, I became the villain.

Tom started to break down. This roommate started slamming doors. I started crying in the shower and begging Tom to let me drink away the emotions that were growing unmanageable.

I fell out of touch with one of the only contacts I'd had through the isolation with the first roommate, due to this friends insistence that I was unreasonable. But I still tried to be friendly, even as I was falling apart and breaking down

Even as I was desperately trying to cover it up to friends who were growing tired of my complaints and desperation for help.

I lost friends because this person made me his villain, and then informed me that my PTSD could be CURED by being more mindful, that my reactions to him were destroying HIS mental health. I was starving, Tom was starving, we were throwing everything we had into rent and bills and feeding the cats, and huge distances were opening up between me and my found family.

Because they were his, too, and he'd been connected to them longer, and his word carried more weight than mine. Nothing I said could save that relationship.

He left the household in February, he left behind a huge mess, it took Tom and I twenty hours to scrub down his room, and two weeks before we managed to air the stink from the room he left.

Our mutual friend stopped talking to me. I think he's unfollowed me. I'm certain he believes I was the only guilty party in these situations.

I can't say I'm completely without blame. I let myself be walked on until things hit critical mass, and then I exploded in anger and tears. I ranted and cried to other friends rather than directly discussing my issues when they arose. I didn't self advocate. I can't think of everything I did wrong, but I'm certain there's more that I'm just not seeing...

But even years later I feel wronged by both these people. People I knew and trusted for years. I still miss them. I still feel lost and confused.

I just. Need to put my side out in the open. Maybe someone else can see where I went wrong. Maybe friends who were there can step in and help me understand. Maybe this will help lighten my heart. I don't know. I just know that I'm still hurting, and it's not making recovering any easier.

I'm sober now. I've only had one slip up in three years where I had one drink. I've been looking back more, trying to see through the haze... And I've been failing to understand exactly what I did to earn the treatment I received. I know sometimes you don't earn it, that sometimes people can't see past their own issues and take yours into account... But damn if that doesn't still hurt.

[cryptspren-moved]

How did you meet your partners and what were your first impressions of them? How did they change?

thisʼll get long so itʼs under the read more :^)

[[MORE]]

arin / arson: met them in may 2018. sent them this ask bc this was my first interaction w arin as a person and not as a muse on a tumblr rp. from there i think i messaged them about something ts sides related and we started talking. first meeting i thought they were friendly but intimidating.

december 2018 we got together bc we were joking around on snapchat and i thought they were flirting but he wasnt sure if he was flirting and we had a mutual gay panic of “IS THIS GAY ARE WE GAY”. turns out we were gay and our two year is coming up december 4th (cus we decided that date is when our gay was officiated cus we both forgot the og date—)

current feelings about them are pretty much the same? heʼs a friendly person, super funny and chaotic. they're a super intelligent individual too, his knowledge for random things is amazing. i don't feel as intimidated around them now because of how well i know him, very much consider them one of my best friends tbh. 11263947373959 / 10 would give a kiss on the forehead or acknowledge them gayly.

era / jasper: may 2018 again, my birthday actually is when i had my first interaction w prin i believe (iʼm not going to link it due to personal issues with someone else on the thread we met on.) i didn't talk to biko properly until i had actually made a discord server for the tumblr rp i mentioned, which is where we started to get to know each other better. first impressions were actually the opposite of what i feel now, honestly. i was intimidated and scared by jasper originally because i didn't know much about prin due to how little time we had to talk.

october 2019 is when we got together, 18th october specifically (because we actually remembered that date—). iʼd started getting closer to jasper in late 2018 and 2019 we were super close. started realising ʼoh shit do i like them?ʼ and then realised ʼOH SHIT I LIKE THEMʼ. made a gay panic post WHICH THEY LIKED. then they message me asking who it was and turns out bi liked me too! so after talking a bit, getting permission from arson and my ex partner, we were all good.

current impressions: intelligent and beautiful individual who deserves the world. priʼs super intelligent and a really talented writer / author / musician. bratty but generally such a sweetheart?? super sweet, super kind, 11263947373959 / 10 would kiss biko cheek or give them a fucking BONK.

james / jolene: february 2020. joined a dnd group with my ex, arson and a few other ppl one of whomst was joleeeeeene! i can't remember what i thought about deis honestly? things r blurry cus of quarentine.

a little while goes by, arson becomes qpps with james and dei join a partner server with us. and then jasper becomes qpps with them. i think at this point iʼm kind of wary about it because i dont want arin or jaspy to be hurt by someone new but iʼm chill. bit more goes by, join a polycule server. then leave the polycule server. then join again.

august 2020. made a bet with jasper a few months prior that ʼif i dont have feelings for james before october 9th i dont have feelings for deisʼ. realise ʼoh fuck, iʼm kinda gayʼ. send deis a meme about being gay for deis. deir non-verbal but is also gay. we become qpps, 31st august.

current impression: super protective of their loved ones but generally a chill gal. down to earth, great sense of humour, intelligent and friendly. 11263947373959 / 10 would absolutely hold deir hand tenderly or hold them.

personally consider all three of them my best friends and i cherish them like i cherish ass :^)