#they really picked the fic I didn’t even correctly format because I didn’t feel like figuring out accurate screenplay format in HTML

[aceredshirt13]

well this is the first and strangest spam comment I’ve ever gotten on a fic.

extremely bold of this bot to assume an AI could write my stupid-ass Ritchieverse oneshot in inaccurate screenplay format about Holmes not wanting to take a bath

anyway screen your comments folks

[samingtonwilson]

Mac and Cheese

Summary: Bucky takes the last box of frozen mac and cheese, takes your phone, and makes you fall in love with him. The audacity of that man.

Prompt: “This has been a very bad week and you just grabbed the last box of my favorite comfort food at the supermarket” 

Pairing: bucky x reader

a/n: i wrote this and was fully done formatting it and everything, like, 6 months ago. i didn’t post it because it’s approx. 82% nonsense but i figured why not post it now when it’s still 82% nonsense but im struggling to finish everything else. so taal, long time vegan, writes a story about mac and cheese and, listen, idk what this fic is either. can i write a fic without adding sam to it? no.

Mac and cheese. That’s all you want. Disgusting, frozen, usually-quite-mushy-if-not-microwaved-correctly mac and fucking cheese. 

The kind with the layer of cheese on top. The kind with that real elbow pasta, not rotini or penne or seashell pasta— real macaroni. The kind you try to only eat one serving size of before you eat everything in the package. The kind you always gravitate to when your eyes are stained red, swollen, and too proud to be anything other than dry.

You take the subway. You switch lines. You endure the smell of the F train during rush hour when you aren’t sure where your thigh ends and the thigh of the woman sitting beside you begins. All for that one Trader Joe’s, out of many, in Brooklyn the hipsters abandon before six because the coffee shop next door closes at five.

Your feet ache in your boots and you’re pretty sure a rock has somehow lodged itself between your toes, it’s starting to rain and you have no umbrella, you don’t think your throat has ever felt so parched. 

But you tuck your phone into your back pocket and march into that store with the hideous overhead lighting that makes your skin look like it hasn’t seen a bottle of toner in days like you’re Hades, the box of mac and cheese is Persephone, and Trader Joe’s is Mount Olympus.

You aren’t planning on smiling at anyone in greeting. You aren’t planning on making eye contact with anyone. You aren’t even planning on waiting politely behind whoever is inevitably idly standing in front of the pasta section of the frozen aisle— you’re going to say, “Excuse me.” Like the badass, New Yorker, on-the-verge-of-tears bitch you are and you’re going to toss that mac and cheese into your basket like you’re Steph Curry at the NBA Finals.

Lines are long when you walk in, cashiers bored-looking and tired. The produce section is a jungle of stay at home fathers and people who make their own pressed juice, the salad display a mess of college students trying to eat healthy. 

Your eyes accidentally meet those of a toddler who is slyly plucking a grape from a bag he had no intention of spending his allowance on and you smile.

You hold your basket like a designer handbag and dilly-dally only for a moment to pick up some yogurt for breakfast tomorrow. 

And some inauthentic babka because there’s no way in hell you’re going to endure Zabar’s after this. 

And a package of olive oil popcorn, a bottle of three dollar chardonnay, and string cheese. 

But that’s it. Self-control.

You feel the chill of the frozen aisle before you step into it. You feel the magnetic pull of that box with only one step in its direction. You stop for just a second to grab the mini mango and cream pops.

You almost roll your eyes to yourself when you see that someone is indeed standing right in front of the frozen selection of pasta. He’s staring at two boxes— a red one in his gloved left hand and the one in his right hand green.

As you grow closer you notice behind his curtain of dark hair that his eyebrows are knit together and he’s frowning at a decision he must be forcing himself to make. 

Sophie’s Choice, but involving mediocre excuses for Italian food and no Nazis— hopefully. Because who really knows these days?

He wears a forest green hoodie under a black leather jacket, black jeans tight around thick thighs. Boots, too. You think you might swoon.

And you wait behind him. You tap your foot, shift your weight, and chew on your bottom lip. You don’t say anything.

He looks over his shoulder when you curse under your breath and set the heavy basket at your feet. He’s apologetic— and handsome— by the looks of it, blue eyes slightly widened and lips downturned. “Shit,” he says as he takes a few steps to the right. “I’m sorry.”

You shrug. You kick your basket with the toe of your boot until it lightly smacks against the bottom of the freezer. “No problem. It’s a big decision.”

His eyes lift from the boxes and he smiles. “Biggest one I’ve gotten to make in a while.”

Setting your hands atop the cold metal railing, you stare down into the freezer. You see farfalle with roasted tomatoes, rigatoni with pesto, ricotta and spinach ravioli, roasted vegetable lasagna, cauliflower gnocchi, chicken parm, and… an empty space. 

You tilt your head.

You lean away and crouch to read the description cards, looking for the bubble letters to tell you where on Earth your saving grace is. When you spot the card, you stand again. The indicated space is empty, your heart is empty, your will to live is—

A box of organic pesto tortellini is tossed back into the freezer and you look up. Your eyes might lose their prideful dryness at any moment, even in public next to that handsome stranger with the nice jacket and,

the box of mac and cheese.

You gasp audibly and leap backwards. You point at the box in his left hand.

With an expression of panic, he holds his hands— and the box— up in innocence. “It’s okay. I’m not—”

“What the fuck is that?” you shout to gain the attention of customers you don’t even perceive, waggling your finger at the box. Your wide-eyed stare, and bared teeth, and messy hair must be terrifying. You hope they are.

He looks down at his hand. An eyebrow lifts. And, confusedly, he asks, “The box?”

“Yes, the fucking box!”

“It’s mac and—” he meets your gaze again. You’re wearing your anger like armor. But you aren’t scared. Bucky thinks he might never have felt such relief at a woman’s anger. “It’s mac and cheese.”

You shake your head. Wildly. Your neck hurts. “It’s the last box of mac and cheese!”

He glances at the box, then back at you. He jabs his thumb over his shoulder. “They might have some in the back—”

You shake your head again. A hint of devastation cracks your voice as you say, “It’s Monday night. Trader Joe’s restocks Tuesday night. This is usually all they have left.”

“I—” He pauses. “Is this shit really that good—”

“No, it’s not but that’s not the point!” you’re shouting again. And crying. Oh, God, you’re crying. In public. “The point is my building is going co-op!”

He tilts his head. “Your building is—”

“And I have to buy my apartment if I want to keep it! And they don’t give raises at my job to women unless they’re willing to suck something I won’t say in front of that kid right there,” you nod toward a little girl in a pink raincoat with her pin straight black hair in pigtails who stares at you in bewilderment. You sniffle. “So I quit. And I’m proud of myself for it. Because I have integrity, and I have self-respect, and I have no gag reflex, so the rejection should kill my boss dead.”

He cracks a small smile when you let out a short, watery, pathetic laugh. Easily, he holds the box out to you. “I hope your boss is dead, too.”

You laugh again and don’t hesitate before taking the box. You wipe your cheeks with your sleeve. “Thank you. You’re nice.”

“Not a popular opinion, but one I’ll certainly take.” He’s smiling and it’s warm. “Sorry— about all that.”

“You’re apologizing to me? I just screamed at you in the Trader Joe’s freezer aisle over mac and cheese.”

He shakes his head and picks up his own basket when you grab yours. “Your building’s going co-op and your boss deserves to burn in hell. You should get all the mac and cheese you want.”

You reach into the freezer for that green box of tortellini he’d thrown in, tossing it into his basket with a smile. Steph Curry at the NBA Finals. “Still. I’m sorry for yelling and I hope the tortellini doesn’t suck too bad.”

“It’s frozen pasta. My expectations are low.”

You hum a laugh and walk past him to the crowded lines at the registers. “As they should be.”

It’s when you’re lost in the sea of customers and Bucky is deciding between frozen palak paneer and frozen lamb vindaloo with basmati rice that he feels a tug at the hem of his jacket. 

He looks away from the green and orange boxes, lowering his gaze to meet curious almond-shaped eyes beneath blunt black bangs. He smiles and she returns it. “Yes?”

She reveals her right hand, which she had hidden behind her pink raincoat, and holds a phone up to Bucky as far as her arm will let her.

“Is that your phone?”

She shakes her head and giggles. Loud, happy, and squeaky. “Yelling lady dropped her phone.”

Bucky’s eyebrows knit together until a woman, much closer to his height, steps behind the little girl. She takes the phone the girl holds out and offers it to Bucky when he straightens his posture. Her smile looks like the little girl’s. “We figured you would have a good chance at getting it back to her.”

He takes the phone and nods his thanks. Pressing the power button reveals a picture of you and a dog, a large, fluffy dog with its pink tongue hanging low. You’re smiling brightly and, oddly, it seems like the dog is, too.

—

“So you just took her phone? Didn’t even ask an employee to keep it there in case she came back for it?”

Bucky, watching the tray of pasta rotate in the microwave, scowls. “I would’ve if I’d known that was an option. And stop eating my fuckin’ chips.”

Sam tosses back another handful of kettle-cooked barbecue potato chips in defiance so the obnoxious crunching echoes through the kitchen. He smiles sarcastically when Bucky snatches the bag and rolls it up. Half is already gone. “You come up with how you’re gonna get it back to her?”

“Thinkin’ about asking Pepper to post a picture of it like it’s a missing child to that ‘Tweeter’ nonsense,” Bucky replies dryly. He’s glaring at Sam as he leans his hip against the counter. “You and I both know I haven’t come up with shit.”

Sam snorts and is smiling in amusement, deep brown eyes alight. Bucky hates the sight. “Tweeter. You’re so fuckin’ old.”

It’s been hours since Bucky took the phone from who he learned is little Vivienne and her mother, and he is no closer to getting it back to you. 

He’d tried looking for you at the store but there were too many people for a Trader Joe’s that Yelp claimed was the least busy in New York for that to yield results. So he returned to the Tower. He thought about asking Tony to look into the doohickey but figured an invasion of privacy should be the last resort.

He pulls the tray from the microwave with nimble vibranium fingers and sniffs the pasta before setting it down on the counter. He removes a bowl from one of the cabinets and dumps the steaming pasta in it, a sprinkle of freshly grated parmesan from a tub he’d bought— also at Trader Joe’s— a finishing touch.

“She’s cute,” Sam says when the screen lights up with an incoming text notification.

Bucky spins his fork between his fingers as he walks around the counter to sit on the barstool beside Sam’s. He glances at the phone as well. “Very cute,” he agrees. “She had a shitty day. Something about her apartment goin’ co-op. Whatever the hell that means.”

Sam frowns. “Means she’s gotta buy the place. And with New York real estate prices right now,” he shakes his head with a sigh. “She better have a well-paying job.”

“Quit that today, too.” Bucky takes a bite of the pasta and hisses as it burns his tongue. “Boss is a creep that asked for some action in exchange for a raise.”

“Jesus. Poor girl.”

The tortellini isn’t great. It’s a little bland, a bit too dry, and there isn’t enough filling— but it’s better than Bucky had expected. He takes another bite. “Yeah. And I took the last box of mac and cheese. Which is what she went to the store for.”

“I’m surprised your head wasn’t chopped off.”

Bucky smiles. “She yelled— a lot. Was crying, too, ‘til she said something and made herself laugh.”

Sam then begins teasing Bucky juvenilely for having a crush until both men are laughing and shoving one another to see who falls off their stool first, Sam only relenting when Bucky hands the potato chips to him again as a peace offering.

The bowl is in the sink and the chips are down to just crumbs when a loud ringtone— an instrumental version of an R&B song Bucky recognizes from Sam’s many plays of the original— shocks the two of them.

It’s from an unknown number and Bucky is unsure if he should pick up until Sam swipes answer and puts the call on speakerphone. “Hello?”

A sigh. Bucky doesn’t know if it’s one of relief or frustration. “I’m hoping whoever this is found my phone and didn’t steal it.”  

Sam shoves Bucky’s shoulder with a toothy grin and Bucky rolls his eyes. “The little girl you almost traumatized in the freezer aisle found it and gave it to me.”

Another sigh— the relief in this one is obvious— and you’re laughing. “It’s you— tortellini dude. Must’ve fallen when I crouched down.”

“Seems like it, yeah.”

“So are you gonna ask for my address or do I have to schlep over to Avengers Tower?”

Bucky and Sam exchange a look. “Avengers Tower?”

“You weren’t exactly in disguise— I realized who you are the minute I left the store. Would’ve recognized you right away but I was in my own head and you aren’t my favorite Avenger.”

Bucky smiles. “Yeah? And who is?”

“Falcon.”

Immediately, the phone is taken from Bucky’s hand. “Hi, baby, you’ve got Falcon.”

A gasp, a pause, then you laugh. Audibly stunned laughter. “You guys actually hang out with each other? That’s cute.”

Before Sam can reply, Bucky flicks his forehead— in reply to which Sam elbows Bucky’s ribs— and takes the phone back. “I can bring your phone to you whenever you’re free.”

“Awesome. I’m unemployed now so any time tomorrow is fine.”

You tell him your address before hanging up and he wishes you a good night. Your laughter is the last thing he hears before three beeps signify the end of the call.

—

Bucky takes the subway. He switches lines to the F train. He tries not to mind the overpowering smell of stale B.O. and deli meat leftover from rush hour, the skittering steps of a rat across the floor in the adjacent empty car. He ignores those who stare at him intensely enough to burn the fabric right off his skin. All for that one apartment in SoHo.

He thinks the gash below his ribs might still be leaking as the warm, moist subway station air blows past him. He can feel that cluster of bruises above his knee— the one from the pipe the hostile operative had ripped off the rickety walls of a nearly destroyed Hydra base— every time he takes a step, more so as he climbs the stairs.

He knows he must be quite a sight with combat boots and tac pants worn and dusty, a simple bomber jacket thrown over a ripped, sliced, stained compression tank. His mind is blank, his eyes shadowy, the ghost of something terrible lurking behind blue and grey. 

Posture stiff and muscles cold, steps crisp despite the ache, he follows the familiar path and manages to form the thought of turning around. Not bringing this all to a threshold— or, more accurately, a windowsill— he’s only crossed three or four times. He’s too weak, though.

It takes one rap of his knuckles against the third-story window for a lamp to flicker on, gauzy drapes pushed aside. You smile as he lifts the window open, stepping aside as he enters the apartment with careful grace. He feels less guilty when he sees that your bed is still made and your hair isn’t the tangled mess it usually is when he bursts in at a late hour.

“I have a door.”

“Okay, show-off.”

It’s when he steps into the light of the standing lamp in the room’s corner that your quiet laughter gives way to a soft gasp. 

He doesn’t like the widening of your eyes or the way you gently lift the right side of his jacket, fingers light against the torn fabric. But you laugh again, and it shakes in nervousness. “You know I’m not a doctor, right? Or a nurse? Or even a pharmacist with high self-efficacy?”

He nods and, despite himself, there’s a smile pulling at a corner of his lips. His eyes brighten a little. “It’ll heal itself.”

“Confidence. I like that in a burglar.”

Before he can take a step further into your bedroom, you click your tongue against the roof of your mouth and point at his feet. “Boots.”

He kicks them off with a sigh and a groan when the shifting of his knee sends a tremor up his leg. His jacket is tossed aside as well, and he catches the black t-shirt you throw to him. You’d washed it, folded it, and put it in your closet. 

Just a little more brightness. “You owe me mac and cheese.”

“Oh, I owe you mac and cheese? We’re really holding onto shit from four months ago?”

He nods again and pulls his tank off, withholding a wince.

Eyebrow raised, you cross your arms over your chest. You’re giving him a narrow look but, because you’re clearly struggling against a smile, it’s one of his favorites of the expressions you’ve ever offered him. 

You give him a towel next— pastel blue. “Shower and then we’ll see about me owing you something.”

He wants to say thank you, do more than smile. 

But he knows if he so much as opens his mouth while you’re looking at him the way you are, he’ll tell you he’s fallen in love with you over the last four months, that maybe he’s been in love since you screamed at him in the freezer section of Trade Joe’s. 

He’ll go to say thank you, but the words of a Byron poem he’d learned to impress a girl in his English class more than eighty years ago will come pouring out or he’ll simply kiss you like he wishes he could on the nights he can’t sleep or during the missions he can just barely endure. 

He’ll go to say thank you, and then tell you with no clarity whatsoever that you’re what he finds comfort in when he’s had a hard day. That the disgusting, mushy, nothing-compared-to-fresh mac and cheese is just an excuse.

But he just smiles. And nods. And takes a shower.

His hair is still wet as he stands across from you at the kitchen counter. There’s a bowl of steaming pasta between you, a spoon in his hand and a fork in yours. “You’re dripping onto the counter.”

With a cocking of his eyebrow, he shakes his head and you sputter a laugh, shoving his shoulder. “Bucky!”

He laughs then, fully and happily, as he reaches over to wipe the drops from your cheeks and forehead. You only smile back, the gleaming of your eyes making him feel warm all over.

“This shit’s terrible, by the way,” he says after a minute of staring.

You shrug a shoulder. “Told you.”

“And you fought me for it. Publicly.”

You shrug again and laugh. You lean your elbows atop the counter to match his relaxed posture, dragging a noodle through a particularly large puddle of melted cheese. 

Looking up, your nose nearly bumps Bucky’s and you hope he doesn’t hear your breath stall. You try to smile. “Makes me feel better when I need to fill that hole in my heart.”

“With cholesterol?” he jokes.

“Yes. It’s excellent. It’s like spackle.” As he laughs and you roll your eyes, you push off the counter to stand straight. “I’m glad you’re back.”

“Yeah?”

You hum. “I’m seeing an apartment I want tomorrow and need the rent lowered. And you’re the Winter Soldier.”

He considers that for a moment and you burst into laughter just as his eyes narrow into a fond glare. “You want me to scare them into lowering the rent?”

“Don’t think of it as you scaring them,” you begin, rounding the counter to stand next to him, hip leant against the marble, “think of it as you being an amazing friend and helping me.” A moment later you add, “By scaring them.”

He chuckles and shakes his head. He glances at the bowl to avoid the risk of staring at you for too long. “Fine.”

You grin. “You really take no convincing.”

A snort and he meets your gaze. “Only when it comes to you. I’m afraid you’ll start crying again.”

“So I could ask you for anything and you’d probably say yes?”

He shrugs a bit, then nods. Who is he kidding? You could ask for his right arm and he’d give it to you.

“Okay. Go on a date with me then.”

There’s a pause— in the conversation, in his chest. “A what?”

“A date. It’s like dinner, or coffee, or a movie, or something.” You grin when he takes half a step in your direction and his hands grip onto the counter at either side of you. “It’s this thing people do when they like each other.”

Something much more than like is in the sparkling of your eyes and the tilt of your head. Something that might match exactly what’s in his eyes whenever he’s around you. His insides burn at the thought.

“I know what a date is.”

“They had those back in your day?”

He nods and leans forward. “Not from the Stone Ages.”

Your lips brush lightly against his, hand set on his chest to feel the rapid beating beneath. You smile and he thinks he might melt. “Could’ve fooled me with that hair.”

Laughing, he presses his lips to yours a little harder.

—

Apartment littered with unpacked boxes, misplaced books, and askew furniture, you sit on top of the counter where Bucky works. He’s twirling a knife through his metal fingers, arranging sprigs of chives on the cutting board with the flesh ones. 

He smiles when he catches you staring at the pan cooling on the stove. “S’not done yet.”

You sigh. Loudly, heavily. “You took it out of the oven. That means it’s done.”

“It needs to cool for a few minutes or you’ll burn off your taste buds. You want to burn off your taste buds?”

“You want to burn off your taste buds?” you repeat in a high-pitched, taunting voice. You’re scowling and, somehow, look to be on the verge of snatching the knife from him to stab it through his chest. “Maybe I do.”

Less than a minute later, you groan and add, “I don’t care how good you are in bed. I’m about ten seconds from dumping you.”

Swiftly, he chops the chives and turns around to sprinkle a bit into the baking dish. “You know, most people would say thank you.”

“Most people don’t have to wait an hour while their boyfriend attempts to make mac and cheese when there’s a perfectly good box in the freezer that would take four minutes.”

“It’s worth it.”

In all honesty, he doesn’t know if it’s worth it. 

He’d asked Sam for a recipe and did his best to follow it despite the autocorrect which had changed “gruyere” to “grape year.” But he trusts it since Sam generally knows what he’s doing in the kitchen. Unlike Steve who had continuously attempted to chime in with useless suggestions such as, “Maybe don’t add the paprika.”

“Just trust me,” he urges as if replying to the growling of your stomach which has interrupted his search for the plates he could’ve sworn he’d unpacked. He’s crouched and searching the lower cabinets as he adds, “You’ll fall in love with me after you try it.” 

“Who says I haven’t already?” 

He stops searching.

He peeks his head above the edge of the counter and, his eyes wide, he sees you pulling two plates from a box placed on the small nook table. Your smile is small and a bit sheepish— the latter something he’d never seen from you. 

“You never took them out,” you tell him, the clatter of ceramic on the wooden surface loud when you set the plates down. As you approach and he stands to his full height, you sigh and roll your eyes at the look he gives you. “Yes, I love you. It can’t be that shocking.”

“It isn’t.” 

“Someone should tell your face that.”

Chuckling over the heavy thumps in his chest, he leans forward to kiss you but pauses just to say, “I love you, too, by the way.” 

When an empty dish sits between the two of you, Bucky’s stomach warm and full of over three-quarters of it, you stand from the table and walk to the freezer. 

Shooting a smile over your shoulder, you grab the familiar red box and toss it into the stainless steel trash can. Steph Curry at the NBA Finals. “I’m never eating that shit again.”

[lovieebby]

dreaded corner

a/n: i know this isn’t the oneshot/fic i promised but here’s something i whipped up! i thought since i’ve imagined for a hot minute that id just spit it out. thank you @viking-raider for rereading this for me 😂 ily & also i apologize again bc im posting this thru my phone so im sorry if the formats funky!!

summary: you thought you could be a big girl, instead its sassy and rude and daddy is fed tf up.

word count: 2.2k (wowza)

pairing: henry cavill x reader (y/n)

warnings: um henry himself? implyed smut, sub!reader, daddy henry is fed up, description of readers pussee, i made a bad pun, that cursed blue tank top

tag list: @hell1129-blog 😘

you and henry have been dating for some time now and your sex life was off the charts, but about six months ago you both had started dabbling in the bdsm dynamics as a couple. henry already knew what he was doing, you, not so much. you had an idea but you never really completely understood how to be a submissive, you where naturally that way in the bedroom but anywhere else outside of that felt off to you and plus you never had a dom that was as strict and as serious in this lifestyle as henry, your past partners just in it for the hype of the kinky sex.

you loved being his submissive but it was hard at first, you had always looked out for yourself and so it became a habit to take things into your own control and set up walls. but after time and love henry slowly took down those walls and you where able to trust him with your whole being. after a while, you really loved being taken care of and being able to hand the control over to someone else, it feeling like you could finally breathe.

you felt like you where a genuine good submissive, theres never really a right or wrong way either, henry had told you, easing your mind when you had gotten concerned. most days you listened, wanting to please him and get praised for it. you lived to be a good girl for him, but some days where more rough than normal. some days you just wanted to be independent and in charge of yourself, doing what you please, and more often than not, henry caught on to it fast and put you back into your place.

you stood in the kitchen, standing by the fridge trying to figure out what to drink. you rubbed your ass, stinging still from the spankings you got earlier. ten hard swats on each cheek and you didn’t get to orgasm once the first punishment was over, no orgasm was your second punishment.

bummer.

henry sat in the living room, on his laptop replying to an email. he wore his blue tank top with his sweat pants, feet perched up on the ottoman. he had started an email once he had given you the much needed aftercare and reassurance. you both had cleaned up taking a shower together and getting into your lazy day clothes.

henry heard the fridge being closed roughly and the shelves within it shaking. he had talked about this with you time and time again, you used to do it at your own home, but now you two lived together, so that meant respecting your surroundings. what was so hard about that?

“don’t slam it, please.” he had said, making eye contact with you when you spun around to look at him.

“i didn’t! it was the suction from the door!” you explained, getting a little snappy with him, not wanting to get caught that you did, in fact, do it again. you turned around, not wanting to be called out, and made yourself busy looking in another cabinet for something to snack on.

henry looked at you questionably that quickly turned into a stern disapproving glare, “don’t talk back to me,” he sighed out, turning back to his email. he thought your attitude dissolved, clearly it just doubled.

“i’m not, im just defending myself,” you sassed out quietly, making a mocking face while you searched in the cabnet.

“excuse me?” his voice boomed out. he pressed hard on the send button, sending the email, he didn’t bother double checking if everything was typed out correctly. henry moved the laptop over to the empty seat. he crossed his arms, frowning at you, surprised at your returned attitude.

“did you fart?” you sassed again, closing the cabinets, you spun around and crossed your arms. coping him while leaning on the counter arching your eyebrow, biting the inside of your cheek.

bad move, bad move (y/n).

henry was baffled, you just got done with a punishment not even an hour ago. he had beaten your ass pretty well, and he rarely had to do that. he thought if you wanted a challenge, you would quickly lose. he stood up from the couch, and slowly walked to you, once he got the the kitchen island he put his hands down, spreading his fingers out. he towered over you even if it was a couple feet away, his eyes piercing into you, daring you to continue your attitude.

he’s never had to punish you multiple times in one day, but if it was needed, he was going to.

“little girl,” he started, his voice dropping an octave, “drop the attitude, i won’t tell you again.”

“fine.” you snapped, you where definitely not going to. “but i didn’t slam the door.”

“(y/n), i don’t care,” he punctuated each word, leaning forward.

“i didn’t though! i’m not lying!” you threw your hands down, almost stomping your foot on the floor.

you where acting out, you knew he was getting back in his dominant role, but you where serious too! you didn’t want to be dominated at the moment. you didn’t want to say your safe word, it wasn’t needed, you were just being a brat. you just wanted to be you for two seconds, not henry’s baby, you felt big.

“alright, get over here.” he stood up straight, walking away from the counter, clinching his jaw. he was fed up, you had no reason to act this way and he was quickly going to put you in your place.

you suddenly realized that you became a big mean brat more than a big girl, now you wanted the floor to eat you whole, like right now. utterly embarrassed that you thought you where so confident about yourself and your actions. you didn’t want to move, frozen under his glare, you where already thinking of what he was going to do, and you where praying he wasn’t going to swat your ass again, his spanks weren’t light and your ass was as rosey as ever.

“move it missy,” he said, snapping his finger down in front of him where he wanted you, “now.”

you slowly moved to him, your confidence completely leaving your body as you tried to swallow the lump in your throat. you stood in front of him, not making eye contact, his eyes too intimidating. if you looked at him, you’d beg for forgiveness, but at the moment you where still trying to hold on to a useless lie.

henry breathed in deep and let it out slow through his nose, he knows its hard for you sometimes to comply and completely listen but you both agreed to the rules henry had set. he let you stand there, making you think. it also gave him a moment to calm down, he didn’t want to just lash out and show his frustration, but he still wants you to know who’s the boss.

he honestly just wanted to sit down with you and junk out after getting his business done, but clearly he needed to punish you again because apparently you didn’t get the memo the first time.

“we agreed on the rules, did we not?” he questioned you, crossing his arms. he looked out at you, you looked anywhere but him.

you nodded your head, agreeing with him.

“oh, now you have nothing to say?” he taunted, ticking his jaw. “you had so much to say earlier.”

“we did.” you whispered, looking down at your fidgeting hands.

“look at me when i’m talking to you,” henry gripped your chin, tilting your face up to him. you whimpered dropping your hands to your side, his grip making your bottom lip jut out.

“if you don’t agree with the rules, you know what to say, if not, shut it,” he sternly watched you, waiting for you to say something, putting a little more pressure into his grip, shaking your face a bit, waiting for you to say the word. when you didn’t, he continued, “now i don’t know what got into you, to think you can speak to me like that, but that needs to end. quit your shit and stand in the corner, hands behind your back.”

you frowned, opening your mouth in disbelief, now you where upset all over again, the submission leaving your body. you’ve been put in time out a couple times but right now you weren’t feeling it, this is dumb!

“like a kid?!” you loudly questioned.

“yes! because you’re acting like one!” he let go of your face and with one hand he pushed you to the corner by the breakfast table with his other, he pointed to the known corner.

you picked up your feet and scoffed, this was unfair, you weren’t a child! you clinched your jaw when you got the corner, so frustrated you screamed in your mouth.

once henry heard you whining and carrying on he walked up behind you and smacked you ass, harder than he intended but it worked, he needed to make a point. you gasped and jolted forwards, bracing your hands on the wall, your ass was still tinder. he stood behind you, putting his hands up on the wall caging you in. he put his mouth right next to your ear.

“you did this to yourself, so take your punishment like a big girl and shut up. i don’t want to hear you.” he said, leaning into you, making himself known, “you don’t run shit here missy, and i’m here to remind you of that.”

he pushed off the wall, backing up from you and smacked your stinging ass again, giving a warning. you held your whine in and closed your eyes tight.

he turned around and stood by the counter, he looked down at his watch and set a timer for twenty minutes, he could probably get some small chores done, so he could waste time waiting on you. he didn’t want to stand there and watch you because you’d notice and probably say something and he just didn’t want to hear it. you where always so good, but when you got bratty and sassy, he nipped that shit quick, not wanting it to happen again. as he was leaving the room and gave kal a quick pat to follow him, he doesn’t need you petting him while you’re in your corner.

you were embarrassed to say the least, you were in a corner with your hands behind you, flustered in an uncomfortable wetness from your arousal. henry made you flustered on any given day but when he became daddy, it was so much more worse. you where still soaked from the first spanking and from the rough sex you just had earlier.

you moved side to side discretely, you only wore an over sized cotton tee with your soft sleep shorts with no panties, not wanting any extra material on your bum, the shorts already a little scratchy on your bruised cheeks.

regretting your attitude, you wanted to apologize, but you knew if you spoke up, you would get reprimanded from henry. so you stood there, trying to pass the time by trying to find shapes on the textured wall.

after some time you noticed you haven’t heard henry, you perked up and peeked over your shoulder, you didn’t see henry anywhere not even kal. usually if you tapped the wall kal would come over and you could at least have some type of company. you tapped the wall a couple times, but no response from the pup. you turned back around to the corner, trying to patently wait, wanting to be good for your daddy.

what felt like hours, you finally heard henry come back into the kitchen, pulling a chair out from the breakfast table and assuming, sitting down in said chair. you wanted to apologize so bad, you weren’t ever bad like this before, you felt terrible for being snappy and bratty at him. but you stayed and waited for him to tell you, you could come out.

“come here baby,” he said, patting his thigh.

you looked over your shoulder, shrinking into yourself a little apprehensive about moving, “you sure daddy?” you softly asked, you didn’t even know if you wanted to leave the corner, you where rude.

he chuckled softly, he patted his thigh again, “yes i’m sure baby, come on.”

you turned around and stood between his legs, you put your left hand over your shoulder, messing with the hem of your tee shirt. “i’m sorry daddy, i was rude and i really did close the fridge hard.” you said as you rose your head to look at him.

“i know, you don’t lie very well,” he smirked, rubbing the back of your thigh, loving the feeling of your warm skin. “you know why you went into your corner, right?”

you breathed in, sighing, “because i got snappy with you,” you said, henry blinked and gave you a knowing look, waiting for you to continue, “and that i lied.” you quickly said the rest.

he hummed, nodding his head, “good job baby, you did good.” he squeezed your thigh, as you relaxed and put both of your hands on his thighs leaning into him.

you smiled sheepishly and leaned all the way down to give him a kiss. when henry kissed back, he put his other hand on the back of your head, softly intertwining his fingers to massage your scalp.

he pulled back, looking at you intently, “don’t lie again, i like having my good baby.” you nodded your head and gave gave him another kiss.

a/n: thank you guys for reading, feedback is always nice so dont be afraid to say something 🥰

[bookworm-2692]

About a week ago I finally finished bookbinding @airdeari‘s beautiful Zero Escape fic The First Nonary Game. It took about a month (between all the waiting for glue to dry and also several days each week when I was unable to work on it), and was so much fun! It’s so satisfying to just... hold this book in my hands. 

Details about how I made it, along with additional photos (and commentary) below the cut.

So I came across this post on Tumblr, which immediately inspired me to try bookbinding myself. I spent a few days watching so many tutorials from the youtube channel linked in the post (I’ll link the specific tutorials I used in this post), and googling how to actually manage to print pages so they form proper signatures, because the inbuilt booklet creator in Word doesn’t exist in my Word apparently so that’s fun.

Anyway, once I started, I asked @airdeari for permission to print and bind his fic, and he immediately said yes, so that was good. Then I spent a good couple of days copying the entire fic into a Word document, and fiddling with formatting so it would look like an actual book (section breaks, page numbers, headers with the fic title on the left page and chapter title on the right page (this took ages to work and I kept on stuffing it up), and making sure things just... looked nice. I added in the art After The War that @keycrash created specifically for the fic (third pic above), and an “afterword” containing credit and links and the author’s notes from AO3 (because even if I’m the only one who will ever see it, it still feels weird to not add the credit stuff in so it’s there).

I then saved the document as a PDF, and used CheapImposter to correctly shuffle (impose, hence “imposter”) the pages so when folded into signatures, each page would be in the correct order. This program was the first free one I could find, and was great because you could specify the number of sheets you want per signature, rather than stuck with a default. I chose to have 11 signatures of 6 sheets of paper, since that was the amount that would have the least blank pages and the end of the book. The file was 261 pages, so with two pages per side, and two sides per sheet, you divide the number of pages by 4 to get 66 sheets of paper

I then printed. There was only one (1) paper jam in the process, which was great. Unfortunately, I realised after I printed that one of the headers for one chapter was wrong (I hadn’t properly disconnected the two chapters), but fortunately that only involved reprinting 4 sheets of paper.

I used the following tutorials to make the books: DIY Textblock, a general “how to make a textblock” tutorial; DIY Kettle Stitch, a specific look at the stitching for a textblock, since the first tutorial doesn’t focus on this; DIY Book Cloth, since I chose to use fabric for my cover; and DIY Hardcover Book, how to put all those pieces together.

So then I started folding all the signatures. I was watching so much Brooklyn Nine-Nine during both the folding and stitching sections, since it was repetitive actions I didn’t need to concentrate on that lasted hours.

It was at this point that I sliced each signature one by one to make the end smoother and less pointy. In future I recommend not doing it at this point - wait until the very end. Instead, move straight onto stitching. 

I don’t have any photos of the stitching portion, since my phone died the morning I started the stitching, and I wasn’t able to replace it until after all the stitching was done. In fact, originally all the photos from before the stitching were lost too. It was only about two days ago that magically the My Photo Stream thing kicked in and brought back all the photos - if it had worked two weeks earlier I would’ve had more. As it is, all photos from September to January are gone forever, unfortunately. But that’s another discussion entirely.

The above is the first book photo on my new phone, so as you can see, all the stitching was completed, the spine was glued, and the purple paper attached. I couldn’t buy two A4 sheets, so instead I had to buy one A3 sheet and cut it in half. Which was difficult cycling home from the city with an A3 sheet that didn’t fit in my bag on account of being A3 and not A4, but oh well.

I don’t have a book press, so I used a pile of DND books and my brother’s weights instead, as shown below.

I then had to re-slice the book after this point bc my first go wasn’t even, on account of slicing each signature separately. Next time definitely I’ll just do it at the end like this. I then also sanded it to make it smoother. It’s still not perfect, but it’s something that’ll take practice and patience so.

Next I made the book cloth, which involves using appliqué sheets to combine cotton fabric and tissue paper. But first I want to talk about the fabric I chose for the cover, because I’m quite proud of it. I spent ages wandering around the shop, trying to find something that fit the feel of the book. Spoilers for the content of the fic if you haven’t read it yet, and also for the source material (999/Zero Escape). I was thinking about some sort of blue swirl thing, because of the Gigantic sinking. I found that, but hesitated because it didn’t fully fit, and my favourite colour is blue so I always pick blue. I also considered flames/fire because of the incinerator thing, but couldn’t find any. I can’t remember if I just couldn’t find any four leaf clover fabric, or if I’ve just since thought about that as a cover. But instead I chose the butterflies below. They fit in several subtle ways that I’m proud of. The colours of blue and pink(/red) matching the receiver and transmitter coding all throughout 999, as well as the moments of purple as well (I don’t think I need to get into that, I’m sure it was analysed to hell and back when the game first came out). The butterflies also point towards the butterfly effect, and in turn the different timelines present in the series. So together it just works. /spoilers over

It’s also just a pretty fabric.

Now the making of the book cloth. I had to make it twice, because I was too impatient the first time, so the iron was too hot and it steamed, which wrinkled and warped the tissue paper, so the fabric was all wrinkly too. The second time took ages and was a worse quality appliqué sheet, but worked well enough anyway.

(My parents: did you have the iron out? what were you ironing? you never iron)

And then I cut the book board to size, using the measurements from the tutorial video. I’ll repeat them here: front and back cover: width = width of textblock minus 3mm, and height = height of textblock plus 6mm, and spine width = width of textblock spine, spine height = same height as covers

I then glued the board onto the book cloth, and put it under the book press. The dnd books are not large enough to cover the whole thing, and also I really wanted the board to stay flat and not curl, so I grabbed way more dnd books and way more of my brother’s weights. I also accidentally started putting the glue on the wrong side of the board (bc one side is smooth and the other is rough), hence the colour difference as well.

The corners were cut and folded and glued over...

And then the textblock was glued in, and put in my book press for a whole weekend. I added a sheet of paper to absorb the glue so the pages wouldn’t become wrinkly, but instead the sheet I added was fine and every other page in the book is wrinkly. So I dunno what happened there. After the weekend I took it out and looked at it, and then put it back for another week to be sure.

And then the complete book is shown at the top of the post!

As I was starting I was talking a lot about it, like about the process I had to go through, or how I was going to obtain what I needed, etc. Mum asked if she could read the story. I froze, like a deer in the headlights... because this is a fanfic. She saw my fear and immediately backed down, explaining she only wanted to read it because if the story was that important to me that I was going to literally turn it into a book, she wanted to read it to yknow like know me better or something? Which makes sense. And when I got over my initial reaction, and remembered that indeed it was technically my dad who introduced me to fanfic, and thought about it more, I said okay. Because since the fic is technically a prequel to the first game, and most of the characters are technically OC’s (like, from the first game we know that all eighteen children must exist, but most of them don’t have names or anything so they are effectively OC’s), then knowledge of source material isn’t strictly necessary. This fic can probably be enjoyed on its own. I mean I’ll probably have to explain the concept of morphogenetic fields, and the last four chapters might not make sense? But I’m okay for my mum to read it. So when she’s less busy at work I’m going to download the epub onto her phone for her - we’ll see how it goes.

Anyway, this fic is a masterpiece, extremely well written and I highly recommend it. As said, most of the characters are effectively OC’s, and yet they are all given such rich histories and personalities. All of them have access to the morphogenetic field, so I’m just so glad that @airdeari​ explores nine unique relationships with the field - nine unique sibling dynamics, and esper powers and abilities. It’s just so good.

[loyally-unfaithful]

desolation!au (lunatic!kaede au)

summary: in canon, kotetsu manages to restore barnaby's memory at the last second, but what if it didn't work? what if kaede ex machina never got the chance to save her father at the top of the apollon media tower and restore the other heroes' memories? in fact, what if she never knew they were being brainwashed in the first place?what if kotetsu died that day?

basically me developing my idea of an au where, consumed by anger and grief, kaede seeks lunatic to help her in carrying her revenge and murdering her father's killer.

illustration of lunatic!kaede is attached at the very end of the fic :3

a/n: tbh, i was watching tiger & bunny w/ my friends and at some point i thought about kaede being lunatic's student because i just want to see her start shit and it wasn't anything much at first, just small headcanons here and little doodles there. but then idk , i made a little sketch and it all snowballed from there.

i ended up developing this au and have become quite invested in it.  

i’m aware the format looks like cat shit on mobile, im sorry. if it’s super disruptive to the reading experience, feel free to refer to the ao3 version (links are in my desc).

alternate names lmao

lunatic!kaede! au

cats-on-the-moon!au

revenge girl!au

revenge-girl-out-for-revenge!au

vendetta! au

synopsis

follows the same storyline up until the memory loss arc, where the au experiences a massive canon divergence.

kotetsu receives a chance to escape after being aided by lunatic, and, not letting his unsuccessful attempt at making his friends remember his true identity deter him, he gathered them at the top of the apollon media tower. he tries again to make them remember that he is wild tiger, and not a murderer, but much like in canon the rest of the group do not believe him—though some falter briefly. unlike canon, however, is that kaede ex machina does not appear in time to unleash maverick’s next power that she copied to restore everyone’s memories.

she does make an attempt to reach the tower where her father is taking a stand, but she does not encounter maverick and on her way up the roof the elevator stops—as it should during emergencies... without her interference, the rest of the hero team overpower kotetsu who is smashed through the roof and lands into saito’s lab. realising that the latter doesn’t remember who he was either, kotetsu quickly grabs his suit and motorbike to try to escape and regroup with ben. the rest of the heroes rush to go after him, though some (blue rose, etc) are more hesitant than others (rock bison, etc). on the way down they [the heroes] find kaede and become preoccupied with her. they’re experiencing an emergency but the child refuses to leave, so some of the heroes have their hands full handling her.

during this, the cameras continue to follow kotetsu. in the end, barnaby pursues kotetsu on his own vehicle and they fight at the bridge where they first teamed up. kaede can follow what is currently happening as the event is broadcasted and grows increasingly hysterical, screaming that she needs to be there and that they’re [blue rose, sky high, etc] supposed to be helping her dad, not pursue him. at some point before the final blow, the feed cuts—the camera probably got hit by chunks of armour or other sort of debris.

the fight follows canon up until barnaby intends on delivering the final kick

« so this is it, eh? take care lil’ bunny…»

this time, the kick connects.

at this point kaede is inconsolable, not being able to handle the fact that the broadcast cut and she can’t check her father’s condition in real time anymore. the heroes’ attempt at getting her to speak or to tell them who her guardian is is met with choked sobs and no response.

there’s two way i see her finding out about her father’s defeat, and subsequent death:

the least traumatic, but still traumatic option: the feed was the last time she ever saw her father. the heroes only hear that « the criminal has been captured/dealt with by barnaby » on their private channel so they slowly excuse themselves and disperse, leaving kaede alone. some of the security guards approach her, trying to get a number to contact but eventually learn that she wasn’t speaking and let her sit there for a bit before calling the authorities.

the intensely traumatic “whoa you ruined a perfectly good 10-11 year old” option: as kaede grows increasingly distressed and the heroes try to keep her under control, she sees members of staff trying to cart something off discreetly. she gets a quick glance on what is being carried and recognises the hand poking out under the large tarp covering the rest of the body. it had her father’s wedding band, which he continued to wear, and upon realising what had happened, she immediately goes catatonic and wouldn’t react to the heroes anymore.

she either sits in the empty building until very late at night, sits outside on the bus stop with no intention of getting on simply watching the last of the buses disappear in the horizon, or waits at the police station with no intention of telling them who to call.

she eventually reaches the conclusion that her father will probably never come back as he died on her own and breaks down.

much like option 1) she sits in the empty building, waiting for someone who will never return.

in both options, ben ex machina (yes kaede got demoted in this au im sorry) finds her and explains to her that he was her father’s boss. this gained her attention somewhat, and she let him drive her back home after he told her that her grandmother has been frantically contacting ben after realising that kaede wouldn’t pick up.

during all this, she remains silent and out of it, still not fully accepting that her father wasn’t coming back home: kaede knows it’s no use to wait for her father anymore, but doesn’t outwardly admit the fact just in case he really is alive. she knows she’s just lying to herself.

on their way back to the kaburagi home, ben explains to her that he tried to get on that bridge as fast as possible to intercept the two, but only arrived after barnaby had left the scene. he doesn’t go into much detail, but does give her the few things he had found and recognised was kotetsu��s:

the tiger emblem that he kept this whole time

the two matching christmas pins that (unknowingly to both ben and kaede) he shared with his former partner

the first sound kaede makes in a long time is more wracking sobs as she clutches the small objects.

she passes out sometimes during transit, and wakes up the next afternoon in her room, the memorabilia safe in her pocket.

the next day, hero tv, and the organisations that funds it, refuses to make an official statement on kotetsu’s whereabouts after being intercepted by barnaby—they know that the latter murdered kotetsu, but they avoid the question in order to save his and the company’s reputation. they would answer something like:

kotetsu running away

being imprisoned for 250 years, with no visitors.

accidentally got himself killed

for the most part, the general populace accepted this outcome and thanked the diligent work of the heroes, but kaede and her family know better. kotetsu wasn’t the type to just leave, and he wouldn’t have committed murder in the first place. this official statement further cemented the fact that kotetsu had died—been killed. within sternbild, another powerful figure also doubted the credibility of the statement. yuri would literally see the red flags, but the situation really isn’t in his favour and he doesn’t know where to even tackle this. he’d need to do more digging up before planning out his attack.

kaede concludes (correctly) that barnaby was behind her father’s death, and possessed with anger and hatred, decided that she will get revenge one way or another and prove her father’s innocence.

basic plot

headcanon form now, because it’s more convenient.

the lead-up:

during the few days/weeks that followed, she barely went out of her room unless necessary. 

she barely ate, even ignoring the flan pudding she adored so much. 

in her self-imposed isolation, she marinates in her own grief, which turns into anger and hatred. 

at first she regrets not having spent more time with her father and reaching out to him, instead of expecting kotetsu to do that for her. 

but the focus slowly shifts to wanting to make kotetsu’s murderer suffer as he has made her dad suffer. 

you know what, throw in the rest of the heroes. 

they should’ve been kotetsu’s friend and believed him instead of pursuing him relentlessly: they’re complicit too and should be punished accordingly.

it’s important to note that, since kaede didn’t interact with maverick and inherit his next power, she doesn’t know that the heroes have been brainwashed. 

she just thinks that they’re secretly an evil group posing to be heroes.

she loses faith in them, and their flawed justice that got her father killed

she wants to avenge her father and prove his innocence so badly, but doesn’t know how or where to begin. the odds are stacked against her, since only her family and a few people here and there believe in kotetsu’s innocence.

while she’s holed up in her room, she mindlessly replays the video clips that featured her dad over and over again until she memorised every single word and committed her father’s movements to memory. 

one day, as she flips through the different collectibles and magazines that featured him, she came across one such issue which showcased a different type of “hero”: the sanctioner with blue flames.

the vigilante who’s idea of justice was becoming more and more appealing to kaede the more she thought about it.

she’s seen the clips, how his next power allowed him to continually keep up with the 100 power duo. how it always allowed him to have the upper hand and to deliver his justice. 

kaede wants that kind of strength, that kind of power, to avenge her father.

she resolves herself to find or contact the vigilante no matter how, though that seemed to be a complicated enough task in and of itself.

kaede figures that when she does find him, she’ll either get him to work with her to get her revenge or copy his power if he refuses.

her searches prove more or less fruitless tho since lunatic can't be found when he doesn't want to be found lmao

after a few weeks/months, she grows disheartened and becomes rather depressed again.

the actual encounter:

i don’t have an actually have a concrete idea on how they met and how kaede convinced yuri to work with her, just a bunch of possibilities going from plausible to straight up crack

one way she could meet him is by bumping into judge petrov when she’s tagging along with her fam to try and claim kotetsu’s body.

the intent was to go to sternbild to recover kotetsu so that they can bury him in the family grave (and rejoin tomoe), but since the city refuses to acknowledge that kotetsu is dead and admit that a hero killed a person, the kaburagi fam can’t get his body back.

very sad times, maybe after the unsuccessful hearing kaede cries and rlly begs to be able to get her father back, and grabs hold of yuri to make her point come across or something.

do you even see a judge when you try to claim a criminal’s body? idk it’s probably illegal to make physical contact w a judge but kaede is only bby so maybe she won't go to jail? i don’t know i’m dum

anyway, he’d probably carefully peel the child off of him and say something vaguely sympathetic before going wherever the hell judges go after trial? court? i know nothing about the legal system and it shows

uh oh skin to skin contact

kaede unwittingly copies his power and moves on with her day. it wasn’t until she came home and felt a burst of anger that she noticed that??? she can summon blue flames??? like lunatic does??? except she doesn’t recall meeting him at all???

she puts two and two together and susses yuri out

or instead of literally harassing him in court

maybe she just stumbles on lunatic because his favourite hobbies are standing ominously on roofs and killing murderers, in that order.

kaede: why is there a funny looking scarecrow on the roof…???

kaede: hoLY HECK

how she manages to get lunatic on her side is more convoluted

one way would be her going back to the city and confronting yuri about it. of course, he’d deny her claim until she gets angry enough and her eyes light up. 

yuri’s like “oh sHIT”. 

she could threaten him by saying that if he won’t help her then she will just seek her revenge by herself. 

yuri doesn’t want her to do anything rash and cause him to get in hot water because he rlly doesn't want to deal w/ the aftermath. also he doesn’t want to like, see a whole child get hurt :(

so i guess he’s like, “this is my lot in life now”, and accepts to take her as his apprentice so long as she doesn’t cause any trouble

that was the peaceful route

kaede could also fight fire with fire

just hound down lunatic instead of yuri and when she finds him it’s on sight. chuck a whole fireball to catch his attention and demand that he takes her as his apprentice. idk maybe threaten to fight him mono e mono unless he complies. 

lunatic would probably just ghost her lmao 

but she’d continue to show up whenever he’s raring to kill a murderer so maybe he’ll accept because it’s getting more disruptive if he doesn’t

if anything, her persistence would impress him somewhat: she’s determined, and even when she’s only had the flames for like, what? 3 days? she can already control it well enough to shoot projectiles. she has potential and would be a helpful ally instead of burdening him.

the chaotic crackhead route is for kaede to somehow get her hands on yuri’s address and bully him until he listens to her

just show up outside his room at 3 am, eyes glowing, floating 3 feet from the ground. hell, t-pose outside his window. 

terrorise him.

she’d play loud music or shout at him day in day out 

she may even follow him to work and just pester him

constantly asking him to mentor her so she can have her revenge, poking and prodding about his secret night job as lunatic

kaede will leave mama petrov alone this doesn’t concern her

her beef isn’t w mama petrov

ever since that encounter, yuri has not known peace

yuri has 2 ghosts to deal with 

that’s 2 too many

he’s gonna take one out

the minimum age of criminal responsibility in japan is 14, while in new york it’s 18 (thanks google)

take your pick

kaede is 10-11

so either way yuri can’t take her to jail for harassment 

she’s coming out of this scott free

he snaps and literally begs her to stfu if he follows her wish :b:lease

he hasn’t slept for 34 days

regardless, kaede will come out victorious and yuri is now stuck with a child 

on a more serious note, yuri’s and kaede’s agenda are the same and it just so happens that their goals align. he has been suss since day one ever since the kotetsu debacle.

in hindsight maverick really should’ve brainwashed the only judge, the person in charge of the justice bureau, the curator who has access to the hero’s files

maybe i’m jumping to conclusion

for all i know maybe maverick also attempted to invite yuri to that announcement “party” thing

but yuri was like 

« no ? fuck off »

and went on his way

yuri wants to look oddly menacing in his basement dungeon thing 

and maverick brushed it off because he didn’t think yuri was lunatic, or a next one the first place

we know that yuri learns that maverick is behind all of this and is probably a next on his own, but decides against taking action. i suppose in canon because he knows it’s not his battle to see through, but in the au maybe because he knows he’s fighting a losing battle. also he kinda injured his arm after being shot by H-01, so he doesn’t want to fight with a handicap.

he doesn’t want to take any rash action and cause more problems for himself.

potentially putting his whole secret identity scheme in jeopardy.

he chooses to take a moment to regroup and plan his actual attack. he couldn’t take on 7 heroes and 1 android at once, and risk getting brainwashed too.

at first, even if working together seem to only benefit kaede, the situation also gives yuri some strategic advantages. 

like once he finds out that kaede’s power is a mimic ability, not the flame ability. i feel like he’d find that hella useful

also kaede is a child who’s also basically a nobody in sternbild. she can infiltrate spaces he can’t, and not raise any suspicion.

  possible denouements:

i see 3 major endings possible, with secondary endings which is just a one of the 3 major endings with some slight changes:

1. all sinners must die ending

pretty self explanatory. kaede gets her revenge: with the help of lunatic she kills barnaby and maverick, potentially killing or maiming the rest of the heroes. her father has been avenged, but the city is more or less in a panic because there are no more heroes to protect them. “faith” in the vigilante, or at least in kaede, plummets because they attacked “innocent” people. it’s possible that she brings her father’s framing to light (but not that the heroes were brainwashed), though it’s doubtful that she gets the chance after causing such an uproar.

kaede probably never learns the truth: that the heroes were brainwashed.

this may or may not leave kaede incredibly bitter and nihilistic, as even though she got her revenge she doesn’t feel any satisfaction or sense of closure. she doesn’t get any form of catharsis and probably still has a difficult time moving on and coping with her grief. the city of sternbild adopts a very cold atmosphere and regains a strong distrust towards nexts, kaede may or may not continue to be a vigilante as she’s still trapped in grief limbo, yuri has to deal with the messy aftermath.

overall, it’s probably the worst possible ending.

of schemes and double agents ending

a kinda slow burn route, i suppose? in this ending, kaede realises that the heroes are being manipulated unlike in the previous one. she decides to restore the hero’s memories one by one and getting them to secretly help her. i don’t think she could recruit everyone, but i’m thinking about those like blue rose, who seemed to remember somewhat after kotetsu’s speech thing. kaede could slowly remind them, and despite initial mistrust and animosity they would come round and realise there was a huge discrepancy in their memory.

outright rebelling against maverick would be rash and the heroes risk being brainwashed once more, so they figure they would pull the strings somewhat and provide kaede/lunatic with internal knowledge to help them.

in the epic showdownTM, when the heroes and kaede finally have a face off, barnaby (and those who weren’t approached by kaede) would experience quite a curveball: those who regained their memories would side with kaede.

safety in solitude ending

in this ending, kaede works alone (with lunatic) without having recruited the other heroes even after realising they’ve been brainwashed. perhaps because it’d be too risky just in case they get brainwashed again or that they don’t agree with the vigilante’s idea and rat them out, whatever the reason may be the duo works alone.

this will lead into an even more epic showdownTM where it’s 2 v. 8: even though the stakes are not in the duo’s favour they somehow manage to come triumphant? or maybe the heroes regain their memories one by one and decide to stop fighting, even though they don’t exactly join the duo’s side.

constants:

maverick dies. lunatic kills him. i doubt many are against the idea though.

barnaby’s memories would be the last one she “restores”: (courtesy of my friend) it would probably go something like, in a burst of anger she jumps him and gets his hundred power. as she punches at him, she tearfully confronts him about how her father must’ve felt in his last moments and how much kotetsu seemed to adore him back when he was alive.

if bunny dies (ending 2/ending 3) kaede would not feel as angry and cynical, but more regretful or grievous. she’d probably stop using her next powers to do much anything (instead of continuing to be a vigilante like in ending 1). she’ll move on eventually, with more than less difficulty. the city of sternbild is on edge, but continue to place their faith on heroes.

if bunny lives (ending 2/ending 3), kaede would get a stronger sense of closure as she would be able to dialogue with bunny. barnaby would however, feel unending grief once he realises what he has done. 

regardless if bunny is dead or not, the truth is revealed to the general public along with maverick’s scheme and true intent in ending 2 and 3. so basically canon episode 25 ending except more angst and kotetsu is dead a while ago

not a constant… but it’s possible that because of lunatic’s whole code being “kill murderers and those who protect them” he’d be displeased with kaede choosing to spare bunny. maybe he’s the last boss… kaede and bunny defeat lunatic with 100 power, much like barnaby used to do with kotetsu?... nah that’s too messy and honestly i prefer lunatic and kaede to remain on peaceful terms lmao

lunatic’s satisfied with killing maverick, he’ll back off of this one—barnaby was manipulated anyway. so technically... it wasn’t his conscious decision nor his fault???

basically i don’t want kaede to fight her mentor figure, but i’m merely acknowledging the possibility.

actually…

maybe he walks up towards barnaby, the other heroes too beat up to do anything but watch while kaede remains by barnaby’s side

and lunatic just stands ominously in front of bunny, looking like he’s about to shoot him

but then he turns away

« hmph, how ridiculous. repent for the rest of your life, barnaby brooks jr. »

and then lunatic disappears in a flash, leaving a singed mark—the only proof that he had stood there.

heck, remember how she recovered the christmas pins? she could chuck those angrily at barnaby’s general direction to put emphasis.

kaede knows she’ll never be able to bring her father back, but she’d manage her grief easier. if barnaby lives, kaede would probably become a hero to honor her father and to use her power for good as her father would’ve wanted her to do.

miscellaneous

headcanons in no particular order, certainly not chronological. crack, fluff, angst, just whatever comes to mind. for ease of reading, i will try to organise them thematically.

relationships

tiger x bunny

rest in peace king, you will be missed.

kotetsu ded so the gay cannot be, rip in species.

but i’m putting this here because prior to the brainwashing they do be kinda gay tho, and even if kaede doesn’t know the exact nature of the relationship between the two she knows that her father was very fond of barnaby and cared for him deeply.

lunatic | yuri petrov & kaede

this au is pretty lunatic & kaede centric, because well,,, kotetsu kicked the bucket, and barnaby and the heroes are considered the villains here

i see lunatic and kaede having a mentor-student kind of relationship, that can be fluffy sometimes a found family trope could eventually be established, but that’s super delicate

on another note, if you really want to fuck up your 11 year old because you absolutely want to give kaede the worst possible outcomes for some reason, she could—as a young child who has lost both her parents at a very young age—develop an unhealthy dependence on this [lunatic] new authority figure. she might incorrectly interpret his concern for familial care, etc… but i’m not even going there, that’s too messy.

tbh the real tragedy would be kaede imprinting on yuri’s garbage sense of fashion… the secret to dressing well died with kotetsu.

idk if i should explicit this, but just in case: this is not a romantic ship please don’t come for my throat. literally this au was created because i wanted to see kaede start shit—just go absolutely feral and start chaos lmao

i would like snapshots of him teaching her how to control the flames better but also look out for her general well being because this kid has issues. basically give me a montage of yuri mentoring kaede and slowly becoming fond of her or give me death:

lunatic probably made his own costume so? i’d like to imagine yuri takes the time to make one for kaede too?? also he makes sure it wooshes cool in the wind and idk, flammable enough to allow her to burn the cape off before she attacks???

just yuri hand sewing some apparels for kaede uwu

also give me vaguely domestic yuri or give me death

also mayhaps, gives kaede affirming headpats?

like if she performs well and her mastery over her powers improves in leaps and bounds? or when she finally unlocks a skill she’s been struggling with for a bit?? just a proud head pat and a well-intentioned-but-cold-sounding « well done »???

maybe when kaede first actually learns how to use her powers, her emotions might get the best of her or maybe she’s plain nervous because fire = danger and scary. 

and it shows because the flames grow more erratic and out of her control, and yuri grows very concerned for her well being because he doesn’t want her to get burnt like he did when he first awakened his power.

before it all degenerates, he helps calm her down and prevent his house from burning down. or wherever he goes to when he’s doing lunatic stuff…

a dungeon ?

his basement ?

my basement don’t look like that

we know where all the judge money is going: renovating the basement

much like her mentor, when she gets rlly angry her eyes burst into flames. to prevent her from getting into trouble by accidentally activating her power and injuring someone or simply revealing her identity, yuri would teach her grounding exercises or anchoring phrases that he himself uses.

idk just teach her breathing techniques to ease her anxiety or a mantra to recite if she feels like she’s gonna set someone on fire

also idk if i should give kaede a different weapon from lunatic (i know i will because the crossbow is lunatic’s aesthetic, and his only), but i like to imagine yuri teaching her how to shoot crossbows and her becoming oddly proficient at it

grandma kaburagi wondering why kaede has wicked aim all of the sudden

tbh kaede would just shoot w her hands. just pew pew finger. 

or she does the kamehameha thing she did w blue rose’s power lmao

at first he kinda sees being responsible for her as a bit of a chore and annoying, but maybe he slowly grows fond of her and idk, dotes on her. 

protecc the bby

help her do her homework

« i’ve only had kaede for a day and a half. but if anything happened to her, i would kill everyone in this room and then myself. »

on the flipside, at first kaede thought that yuri is hecking weird, man. just creepy suspicious prosecutor dude who she allies with because revenge girl rlly wants revenge

but he grows on her and kaede thinks he’s not so bad after all. an good authority figure whom she respects and cares for 

she still probably thinks he’s hella weird tho

kinda weird but also sometimes kinda cool 

eccentric but like in a good way

like your weird neighbour henry who means well despite what he says sometimes 

kaede would learn his corny cool catchphrases and repeat them when she’s out and about as a vigilante. 

just adopt/mimic his speech pattern of saying things slowly for more oomph

gotta do the whole code of justice and thanatos speech before she bombards barnaby with flaming arrows

yuri feels oddly proud

they’re both probably hella protective over each other tho. because that’s just kaede’s personality and yuri feels responsible for the safety of this child that he has been entrusted with.

children love sweets right? yuri secretly likes sweets. they can share sweets after setting murderers on fire uwu

idk man i just want some good mentor-apprentice relationship

it doesn’t have to always be angst

we can have fluff

maybe they can learn from each other and be semi-functional human beings 

that thing where the apprentice’s outfit is like directly taken from their mentor’s but also vaguely different. i want that.

sometimes the real revenge is the friends you make along the way uwu

  school + domestic life

ok so like

kaede gets big depressed because duh your dad just got murdered by his partner 

and she rlly misses him and wished she was more understanding back then. she wished she spent more time w him back when he was alive

but it’s too late now and that makes her big depressed

so i feel like for the first few weeks/months after her father’s death, kaede wouldn’t go to school?? and i feel like her grandmother would understand and just like

not pester her about it and let her sort out her emotions first before talking to kaede about the elephant in the room

but also like, the school board also agrees to wait it out because the parents are kinda iffy about what has transpired

to be fair, oriental town is probably one of those small towns where everyone knows each other? so the parents/adults who know kotetsu are like??? kotetsu wouldn’t kill a person??

but the children who are more connected to the media and don’t know him personally believe that kotetsu murdered someone and deserved to be “arrested”? because why would you doubt hero tv and the heroes, they’re the good guys after all.

so when kaede found it within herself to finally go back to school, she has a rude awakening and learns that words travel fast in a small community

the other kids, not knowing any better, believed that kotetsu is a criminal w their whole chest and started all kinds of rumours on kaede

when she went to class she was greeted w her desk being pushed far away from the rest of the class, the other students steering clear from her

all sorts of nasty things were carved/marked with a sharpie on her locker and table—some others stuck paper with w the word “murderer” on it

kaede lost most of her friends and the rest of the classmates avoided her like the plague as they say vile things about her and her father

« look she’s back »

they don’t even try to hide the fact or bother to mask their voice and speak in a hushed whisper. 

« they said her father killed someone, who knows what she could do »

so kaede hears everything.

« don’t get close to her, or we might end up finding your body in a ditch »

kaede doesn’t follow through, but sometimes she thinks about running away from school to escape the bullying.

« come to think of it, she was always weird wasn’t she? she’s so creepy! »

maybe at some point it gets so disruptive that kaede can’t have a functional or healthy school life due to the constant harassment and alienation, so the school board agreed to let kaede do the rest of the year through online classes or homeschooling

in a way this works out very well for kaede, because it allows her more freetime to do vigilante stuff and she gets to avoid people’s gaze. 

she’s grown to dislike them, the scornful gaze of her peers and the pity from the adults.

the student’s parents always come to apologise to her, but for some reason their pity infuriates her to no end.

sadly this means that kaede isn’t as cheerful as before and becomes more closed off and reserved :(

kaede would continue to do ice skating tho

because it’s her passion

but also because she’s obstinate like that

« oh the others don’t want me here? they hate me?? they think i don’t belong on the ice??? they can go stick it, i’m gonna be amazing out of spite! »

at home kaede becomes even more protective over her grandmother, as seeing as she’s being homeschooled means she gets to spend more time w her and help her out with the housework

idk the blue flames could be handy for doing housework

oh the stove won’t light up? oh you’re gonna go get a different lighter? nice this is a convenient time to use my next power to spark the stove! when grandma is back kaede is just like « look i got it to light up, guess u didn’t have to go through all that trouble huh? » :D

since the fire doesn’t burn indiscriminately, could she, theoretically, control the heat/where it burns to make laundry dry faster???

kaede nearly gets a heart attack seeing the new scarecrow for grandma’s cabbage patch, but turns out she just found kaede’s vigilante costume laying around and didn’t think twice about it 

bonus points of grandma uses lunatic himself as a scarecrow

lunatic would make an incredible scarecrow fight me

despite not being able to retrieve kotetsu’s body to bury him with tomoe, kaede often visits their family grave and the shrine in kotetsu’s room and bring them flowers. 

she knows she’s just talking to air, but she likes to recount her day to her parents. about whatever she’s up to, and keeping them updated on everyone’s condition: grandma and uncle are doing well. grandma is still healthy thank god, while uncle sometimes like to joke about how his store is terribly quiet now without kotetsu around.

she tells them the whole truth, how she found lunatic and was going to avenge her father. that she was going to prove his innocence to everyone, if it was the last thing she’ll ever do.

in a bittersweet way, it comforts her somewhat that her father is finally with his wife again and that they’re both watching over her.

  of next powers and secret identities

to this day, kaede is the only one who knows about yuri’s secret identity

they’re both complicit in this secret matter

schemes 

this continues even after the endings 

even if she became a hero she’d refuse to reveal lunatic’s real identity

it’s a matter of principle

she will always hold a great deal of respect for her mentor 

schemes

on another note, i’m fixing kaede’s next power because it’s too broken and is kinda inconvenient lmao: in this au she needs actual skin-to-skin contact to assimilate someone else’s next power, so if the individual is wearing gloves or touching clothes it won’t work.

adding on to this, kaede starts wearing gloves when she’s up and about so that she can limit the amount of nexts she may unknowingly make contact with and keep her current ability [blue fire].

the power would be super useful tho. like you can make yourself disappear into a puff of flames,,, so theoretically if kaede finds herself in a situation she’d rather not be in she can just ghost you irl

« y’all ugly. boom. »

remember how kaede’s room is filled to the brim w barnaby merch???

great for target practice and for letting out your anger

also to dramatically scribble out the eyes in black sharpie to get the revenge girl aesthetic 

oh man she’ll probably be sad that she snipped her father off from that one picture with barnaby 

in that regard her attitude towards bunny will take a complete 180

she used to think the world of him, but now all she thinks about is crushing him under her heel

also, i know she’d imitate lunatic’s whole speech thing, but what if she repeated her father’s catchphrase to provoke barnaby?

also in homage of her dad ofc

« it’s time to let out a wild roar! »

*strikes pose*

*angery barnaby noises*

what if as time goes on it gets increasingly harder and harder to hide the fact that kaede is a vigilante. 

like at first, her family is like “oh she’s grieving in her own way, let’s give her some space” and they’re surprised by how well kaede is taking it because she’s so calm, even if she’s more distant 

while kaede sneaks out at night to start shit

and her grandmother starts to notice how she seems more alert and jumpy, or sleep deprived. how kaede seemed to be hiding bruises and injuries, and tries to clean her wounds herself late at night. 

when asked kaede would deny everything and say she doesn’t use her next powers anymore because it freaks her out

but grandma is suss

she concerned for her granddaughter

maybe she doesn’t know about kaede’s secret identity but maybe she finds out she’s been meeting with yuri

a grandma beats up a man in his late 20s-mid 30s on live television 

maybe at some point the heroes learn kaede’s real age, or assume correctly that she’s barely a teen and they’re like

is lunatic forcing you to do this ?

you don’t have to do something you don’t want to

it’s not too late for you if you give up

when rlly this was all kaede’s choice in the first place, not even lunatic’s

and that assumption rlly makes kaede angry, because their inactivity led to her father’s death and forced her hands

so it’s not their place to act like they’re concerned for her and her safety

just rlly distrust and dislike the heroes 

has a strong disdain for them

real talk, but kaede doesn’t know that the heroes were brainwashed. that’s why she’s able to be so ruthless against them, because she thinks they’re evil and working for some big conspiracy while playing a helpful and friendly front.

but when/if she does learn the truth? the kotetsu factor jumps out.

they aren’t acting as if they were the good guys, they rlly think that they are because to them they just took out another criminal and not their longtime friend.

she’ll have an inner conflict. because on one hand, the heroes don’t know any better and are being manipulated so it would be cruel to punish them so harshly. on the other hand, they got her dad killed and for that she wants to inflict them as much pain and grief as they have caused her.

the kotetsu factor would keep her going tho. now she’s determined to not only clear her father’s name, but also restore everyone’s memory, because it’s the right thing to do.

but now everytime she has to face them and fight, she feels a slight hesitancy and feels sorry for them.

mayhaps blue rose as double agent ???

origami got big double agent potential, but he wasn’t having any of kotetsu’s shit so alas

another important character we gotta talk about: h-01

hear me out

so the android isn’t built with a voice box so it can’t speak. it don’t got any acoustics. but because of maverick’s brainwashing, when the heroes talk to the empty air they hear “tiger’s” response, which is purely borne from their own psychosis.

h-01: …

barnaby: perfect idea tiger, you can cover me

or

rock bison: who is that guy?

h-01: …

rock bison: yeah they look very suspicious to me too…

or

or

h-01: …

barnaby: i know!

anyway, it’s very weird and surreal to watch

just the heroes having a very one sided conversation

lunatic and kaede don’t know what to make of it and finds it really bizarre, because they know the android isn’t saying anything at all

yet the heroes are convinced he’s communicating with them

so maybe if kaede manages to restore someone’s memory, they start to notice that “tiger” doesn’t actually talk. he never did this whole time.

and it gets hard to come up with a response and pretend he answered them. 

the restored heroes also find it super creepy how it’s just silent and watching, how the others seem to think that the robot can speak.

maybe this will cause some suspicion amongst the heroes (who will brush it off) and maverick, and the restored hero will have to pretend to still be brainwashed to not get manipulated a second time

basically h-01 is creepy and just generally not fun to be around

illustration

edit: thank you @kyarymell​ for cleaning the sketch up on photoshop ;w;

LIKE MY WORK? CONSIDER BUYING ME A COFFEE // CHECKING OUT MY MASTERLIST | LINKS CAN BE FOUND ON MY DESC

[auncyen]

2, 5, 6, and 25!...Tumblr refused to let me format with the questions added correctly, so I only can send the numbers :c

ohh trust me I am familiar with tumblr ask shenanigans.  I can’t even send one person asks even though afaik they get asks from others fine??  and I can send asks to others??  Tumblr is interesting in its brokenness.

2.  What I am most looking forward to writing -  I really wish I could just skip ahead and write Ren’s awakening in When the Cat Dragged In The Trickster.  I actually already wrote one snippet that would have taken place shortly after his awakening.  “Would have” because the way I’m thinking now things are likely to get shuffled around and make it unfold very differently--in terms of both how the awakening happens, what exactly is going on in personal issues, etc.  I am not a good planner.

...Rereading it (this was written quite a while ago), yeah it’s not likely to turn out this way, sooo I’m just going to post it because I still like it anyway:

Amamiya's face completely crumpled, and then he took a breath and grinned.  "You don't believe me.  That's fine," he said, but the tremor in his voice belied the confidence.  "I didn't expect you guys to.  I couldn't get any of the people who actually knew me to believe me either."

Arsene's wings folded more closely around him, looking almost as though the persona was shielding his other self--himself.  "Phantom," Ann started.

He spoke over her.  "It's fine," he insisted.  "I know I did the right thing that night.  And I--I don't have to let myself be punished for it anymore.  'Though thou be chained to hell itself'--that's fine, but I get to pick my own hell."

That phrase of being chained sounds like an echo of the vow he must have shared with his persona.  An awakening is supposed to be a moment of power, self-realization--and maybe knowing he has some choice is an epiphany for Amamiya, but Ann feels horrified that he's only seeing options between different kinds of suffering.  "Phantom--!"

"Hey, frizzy hair!"

5.  The character I’m writing that I most identify with: I don’t really think of myself as identifying with any particular character in my p5 fic.  If I were still a teenager, I’d probably identify with Makoto, but nnnnnot so much now?  ...But considering Ren’s blank slate tendency it’s pretty obvious that the issues I have him deal with are what I’m most interested in so.  Kind of??? Except he’s not completely blank slate, so I don’t really identify with him.

6.  My favorite character to write: ...going back to the top 3 p5 faves of Ann, Ren, and Morgana--though actually, since you know BD too?  Love writing for Tiz.  I’m just not tormenting writing for him currently.  (but in p5 I think it’s Morgana.)

25. What part of writing is the most fun?  The “eurekas” when I finally figure out a difficult part and/or I write 4k in one day because I actually know what I want to say.

[unrivaled-super-hottie]

QZGS Masquerade 2019 Reveals

The guesses are in for Masquerade and now it’s time to reveal everyone! There were 22 guesses (+1 late guess I tossed in for fun), and one author remained unguessed throughout the whole event!

(Please note the collection will be de-anoned by 11/15 at 11:59 pm EST so if you still want to keep your fic on anonymous to the general public who doesn’t know about masquerade, please add it to the general anonymous connection on AO3 in addition to the masquerade collection)

Read below to see results/statistics for all the fics

(later on i realized i forgot to ask for a discord ID/ao3 name on the form but luckily I knew the first place at least)

First off for the guessers:

The one who guessed the most authors correctly: TheDefenestrator [ni(redacted)@gmail.com] with 16/21 correct guesses

Honorable Mention:  Dayadhvam [da(redacted)@gmail.com] with 13/21 correct guesses

The average number of correct guesses was: 4.826086957

Median number of correct guesses: 4

Both of them left cool deductions so please check out the raw spreadsheet at the end of this post!

Now for the fic which will be revealed in order of most to least guessed

disclaimer: In my comments, when I said I guessed someone, I’m referring to my active speculation I made as I read a fic before I checked the form submissions. I did not actually make an official guess that was part of the statistics

Number of Correct Guesses: 9/21 (43%)

Most Incorrectly Guessed as: Lauchis and eloboosting (2 guesses each)

Correct Author:  Battle_god_Ye_Xiu

Host Comments: Look i guessed this was you almost immediately because  I saw Zheng Xuan tag + the words “soft family” (you like using soft a lot, with ur “uwu soft angst” )

Number of Correct Guesses: 9/22 (41%)

Most Incorrectly Guessed as: Autumn_Rain, DesertRain, Syncogon (2 guesses each)

Correct Author: desikauwa

Host Comments: Everyone said you have a really distinctive style and I agree, especially the paragraph length + dialogue. I enjoyed the rarer Fang Rui content!

Number of Correct Guesses: 8/22 (36%)

Most Incorrectly Guessed as:  swanfrost (3 guesses)

Correct Author:  Shirou_UOHS

Host Comments: Shirou I think your writing is really distinctive and I guessed you right away because you love sibling stuff and YOU LITERALLY DREW FANART OF THIS AND POSTED IT ON THE SERVER. SO SUSPICIOUS. I think you would have been guessed more, but kiri (desertrain) gave you some cover because both of you use “gege” in your fics and you were guessed a lot for the other fic. 

(Also for the swan as most incorrectly guessed, RNG was 2/3 of those guesses so not as accurate..)

Number of Correct Guesses: 7/21 (33%)

Most Incorrectly Guessed as:  fayah (4 guesses)

Correct Author: sakuchii

Host Comments: So many people guessed me for this one! Probably because Su Muqiu/Ye Xiu, jokes on you all I wouldn’t be that obvious. I didn’t guess this one to be you off the bat but apparently you had something stylistically distinct because a lot of people did correctly guess!

Number of Correct Guesses: 7/21 (33%)

Most Incorrectly Guessed as:  syncogon (4 guesses)

Correct Author: Dayadhvam

Host Comments: Most people concluded that this fic was written by someone familiar with Chinese because of the references so I’m not surprised Synco was the most guessed. This was one of the fics I knew who wrote it almost immediately as I read it because Journey to the West references!! I remember one of the first posts I saw from you in the server was you explaining LJY’s old username. I laughed that your profile pic on discord this whole event was Innocent Eye Fang Rui, I wonder if that helped anyone guess/suspect? 

Also can I say the dialogue for this was great and this was my favorite fic out of the masquerade

Number of Correct Guesses: 6/21 (29%)

Most Incorrectly Guessed as:  Shirou_UOHS (5 guesses)

Correct Author:  DesertRain

Host Comments: So many people guessed this off the usage of “gege” which was why Shirou was guessed so often! (Also Shirou under suspicion for Ye Twin fic I’m guessing) For the first 4 guesses you had a 100% guess rate even by RNG and it made me laugh a lot, congrats on not ending up as most guessed despite your early lead!. Also “no beta we die like su muqiu” is the best tag you win just for that

Number of Correct Guesses: 6/21 (29%)

Most Incorrectly Guessed as:   Missing_Ninja_History (4 guesses)

Correct Author:    eloboosting

Host Comments: I think this was one of the easier fics to guess because so few people in the fandom write porn. Gma (Missing_Ninja_History) was probably guessed the most because she recently posted TKA nsfw rare pair fic lmao. Also Tread (havingonlydreams) was guessed twice since she wrote nsfw hanzhang before. Zoe ( Battle_god_Ye_Xiu) tried to convince everyone this was possibly her fic but absolutely no one believed this except 1 random rng guess.

I may or may not have been converted to HanZhang by this fic.

Number of Correct Guesses: 5/21 (24%)

Most Incorrectly Guessed as:  senata_isivelia (3 guesses)

Correct Author:    qyff

Host Comments: I think your style was somewhat distinct but SO MANY people guessed you for another fic! Not one of the ones I was 100% sure of off the bat, but is it weird that I suspected you just for the triple question marks? haha

Number of Correct Guesses: 5/21 (24%)

Most Incorrectly Guessed as:  Dayadhvam,  qyff, and  rimenorreason (2 guesses)

Correct Author:  Swanfrost

Host Comments: I thought your summary style should have given you away so much more! The block quote + one line zinger is so you. Also I was happy to see so many good gen pieces for masquerade! The fluffy feelings here also vaguely reminded me of your other fic, I guessed you pretty much off the bat when entries were coming in

[From this point onward, we’ve reached the top 50% of well-hidden authors!!]

Number of Correct Guesses: 4/21 (19%)

Most Incorrectly Guessed as:   DesertRain (4 guesses)

Correct Author:   Missing_Ninja_History

Host Comments: This was another one of those fics I guessed off the bat because of your copious use of dashes and the “Happy birthday, Qiu.” near the end. That last part basically ruled out most of the more Chinese-knowledgeable writers. I also felt under 2k words would be a breeze for you so the early submission just gave me the strongest gut-feeling this was you. Felt so validated when I checked the forms and was correct haha 

This was also a somewhat popular guess for the two authors that didn’t have previous fic history

Number of Correct Guesses: 4/21 (19%) 

Most Incorrectly Guessed as:  qyff (10 guesses)

Correct Author:   qq_riri

Host Comments: So this was THE most successful fake-out fic out of the bunch, because qyff is so well known for liking MF + QYF. I just read from you that you did this on purpose and it worked so, so well /slow clap

Number of Correct Guesses: 4/21 (19%)

Most Incorrectly Guessed as:   jellysunfish (4 guesses)

Correct Author:   DancingBloomTKA

Host Comments: The way you formatted BOLDED poetic lines in between your storytelling was really obvious, even if you tried to hide it with adding the spacing lines. I think Jelly was guessed because they also do this, but you do single lines so I immediately suspected you!! I just didn’t expect you would join the event with IRL and stuff keeping you busy, I’m glad you did! 

Also I totally noticed in the server you asked “Who’s the “Time to let my inner demons out” in Dying Flame? Li Xuan?” How shameless, asking about your own fic. I feel this should have made more people suspect you rather than throw them off, but alas I don’t think many people noticed this except me.

Number of Correct Guesses: 3/21 (14%)

Most Incorrectly Guessed as:   swanfrost (3 guesses)

Correct Author:   wackernagel

Host Comments: This was a really cool rarepair! Unfortunately it also was one of the things that outed you haha. That and you accidentally kinda said when you finished your fic and your wordcount woes and tried to bluff it off with editting but apparently some people remembered

Number of Correct Guesses: 3/21 (14%)

Most Incorrectly Guessed as:    Missing_Ninja_History (6 guesses)

Correct Author:  Lauchis

Host Comments: This was the third most misdirected fic. Maybe because Gma (Missing_Ninja_history) wrote Wu Xuefeng rarepair before? I like how you stole Tread’s headcannon post but Tread (havingonlydreams) was suspected for so many other fic instead that everyone just chose to blame Gma. Also thank you for using the title I was trying to bait people into using!!  Unfortunately we only fooled one person with this :(

Number of Correct Guesses: 3/21 (14%)

Most Incorrectly Guessed as:   senata_isivelia  and DancingBloomTKA (4 guesses)

Correct Author: rimenorreason

Host Comments: Since you and Senata both had no fic history, a lot of people actually did tend to guess which two fics you two wrote but mixed up the correct order haha. I didn’t guess this one right at all tbh :’D

[From this point onward, we have the top 25% most well hidden authors]

Number of Correct Guesses: 2/21 (10%)

Most Incorrectly Guessed as:  lauchis (4 guesses)

Correct Author: Fayah

Host Comments: This was mine! I did a few things to throw people off - I never wrote Tang Rou before so I picked her as a subject. I just rushed this in 24 hours and hoped that was enough to make my writing not sound so much like myself. I also never use long (parenthesis) lowercase titles so I hoped that it helped throw some people off too. Vaguely I tried to implicate Syncogon because she wrote WangRou before and the lyrics were from the TKA live action which I haven’t watched but she has posted about listening to the OST repeatedly.

I never expected lauchis (who also ships wangrou) to join the event and give me even MORE cover. Thanks lauchis :)

Number of Correct Guesses: 2/21 (10%)

Most Incorrectly Guessed as:   Fayah and Autumn_Rain (3 guesses)

Correct Author: Syncogon

Host Comments: This was really obvious to me and I was surprised it wasn’t guessed more because you’ve actually written fem!YX fic?? And talked about this fic in the server. YOU’VE ALSO LITERALLY USED THE “Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex“ TAG BEFORE!!!!!! This guess rate is a true miracle, this wins the “most surprised that it wasn’t guessed more.” Maybe because you have 41 fic and people gave up before going to page 3 and seeing your very first fic that was fem!YX 

Number of Correct Guesses: 2/21 (10%)

Most Incorrectly Guessed as:   Battle_god_Ye_Xiu, qq_riri, sakuchii  (3 guesses)

Correct Author: senata_isivelia

Host Comments: I figured you would do well since you had no other fic. I also helped secretly beta this fic though I don’t know if that actually would have affected people’s guesses. Not surprised that Zoe (Battle_god_Ye_Xiu) got guessed frequently for this because YuHuang. One of the times you got correctly guessed was from RNG but I’m really surprised someone did guess you accurately!

Number of Correct Guesses: 1/21 (4.8%)

Most Incorrectly Guessed as: fayah (4 guesses)

Correct Author: havingonlydreams

Host Comments: I’m so surprised everyone thought I wrote Liu Hao fic??? I’m honored because I enjoyed the perspective, but still baffled. Tread, I’m really disappointed you weren’t 2nd place because you really deserve it - you had some Zhang Jiale level luck in this event. The one person who guessed you cited RNG as their reason. 

Number of Correct Guesses: 1/22 (4.5%)

Most Incorrectly Guessed as:   havingonlydreams  (8 guesses)

Correct Author: Autumn_Rain

Host Comments: This is probably the strongest accidental masquerade misdirection that happened because I know you had no clue Tread (havingonlydreams, who is strongly associated with Thunderclap) would participate. I did not expect to see/read this pairing but it was a really fun fic!

Only one person (Fenes/The Defenestrator) guessed correctly and saved my ass from having a two-way tie for first. Congrats on the Zhang Jiale award!  

Number of Correct Guesses: 0/22 

Most Incorrectly Guessed as:   Autumn_Rain (5 guesses)

Correct Author: jellysunfish

Host Comments: Our masquerade winner! I think your spacing made people think Autumn_Rain. I definitely couldn’t pin you down either, so congrats! I’ll DM you when I start working on the art :)

[Raw Data Spreadsheet + Deductions if guesser chose to include]

[Raffle Ticket List]

And the winner of free Nitro is Syncogon!

Thank you so much to everyone who participated! I hope you had fun. Also feel free to slide me your feedback/suggestions/if you would be interested in doing this again next year :)

[neo-shitty]

toffee!

ah yeah i suppose ur right. yeah i think quarentine has had that sort of effect on a lot of people :( sorry to hear abt ur strict parents, hopefully ur friend will be able to come back soon. small outings (even with family) are still good tho, make sure ur taking care of urself toff.

youre totally right! ah yes thats good advice (/gen) ill try and use that when im in a slump ty. any music suggestions?

lol sames. even some of the stuff abt seungmin, innie etc is a little uncomfortable, like theyre grown ass men for sure, but at the same time, theyre still young, still just over being a teenager in the grand scheme of things. (on that note, i do struggle with worrying that im infantalising them, obviously theyre adults but at the same time, theyre still young. i do treat all fictional characters as my children, but i guess its different when its real people. idk. what do you think?) yeah some stans rlly need to take a chill pill, some are rlly walking the wire between 'ah theyre attractive/that look rlly suits them' and making fucking smut fics abt minors, like... they do not see a problem with that?? yeah tbh i feel like unless theyre 18 they shouldnt be put into the spotlight, weve seen what it does to peoples mental health, but modern day kpop industry is a lot like old hollywood with a lot of popular child actors -_- hopefully the big companies will learn but i agree, its unlikely

suuuuure toff haha. ill go searching for them, but idk if ill be able to find the fluff needle in the angst haystack (jkjk) yeah, fair i groan and complain but you do write angst etc rlly well, so if its what ur comfortable with, then pls continue, it is one of your strong suits, well as you write fluff aside

ah okay good! ill continue to send you essays then

THE ALBUM YES. so ive been looking forward to it for literally months, this is actually my first skz album release as a stay (since the last on was 9 months ago) i was sitting there hitting refresh on my spotify the second 6pm kst came around. (speaking of which, how did you do the release? i couldnt decide whether to watch or listen first but i ended up on listening cos there would be more material) okay: so cheese was super cool, very skz ya know? tho i almost wish theyd made domino the title track, tho obv it was a more experimental track and would have been a bit controversial (much like whistle for bp) i looooved domino and thunderous was absolutely impeccable. all the songs were amazing but standouts were- secrets, secrets which lowkey made me tear up idk why, red lights which almost killed me (it did not have to go that hard, but it did) and OT8 WOLFGANG omgggg i wasnt sure if hyunjin was going to be included in it but i was hoping and, ya know people had said hed be in there, but the further i got in, the less i was sure and then BAM hyunjin started what had been jisung's part and i just sat there grinning for about 5 minutes. surfin was absolutely adorable and gone away almost made me cry AGAIN. star lost was so touching, almost a nod to hyunjins little star? silent cry was relatable beyond anything. SSICK was funny? for some reason I was laughing while it was playing, idk the combination of added cheering and minhos aggressiveness and the totall seriousness they sung it. but i rlly enjoyed it. sorry i love you showcased their vocals like nothing else. the view is THE BOP of 2021, absolutely going to be stuck in my head for the next decade, that hook is genius. what did you think?

also did you watch their grow up performance? with all the stays and ALL THE TEARS? ;n; i feel like this is the end of an era of skz and tbh im kinda happy but also sad. super excited for their promotions but super bummed they wont get to tour. ah well

<3 w.a. 🐺

answer under the cut bc i gave an equally long answer to this already long ask HAJSH

oh yeah, abt quarantine having an effect. my friend and i talked about this earlier actually. i didn't realize the world was moving so fast until the pandemic happened. being in quarantine gave me time to think and i got to know myself more. it's just the sole good thing i got out of the isolation lmao. and abt my strict parents, ironically i got to go out today so i got to hang out with a few of my bestfriends. i had fun but my legs are a bit sore from walking. but they're a different set of friends. i'll get to hang out with the others when my getaway driver comes home in december.

hmm music recommendations for writing? depends on the plot you're writing. care to share what story you're working on and i'll try to rake my brain for a song that might match the vibe. i listen to classical / lo-fi if i don't have song inspo for a fic because lyrics sometimes distract me.

i don't think that's infantilizing tho. for me, it has something to do with my environment and the way i was raised. maybe it's the same the other way around? like this certain age (for the ones above 18 but below 20) is thirst-able for them. idk really. it's just not for me ?n? what i do NOT condone is writing smut for minors??? like get checked : D // i agree with everything with the idols being 18+ before they debut simply because it's for the best for their well-being like. how can young idols decide that this shit is the thing they want to do for life? or at least until their contracts last. idk :// it's unfortunate that it's unlikely to happen.

WELL. i have a list so you won't have to go search for them! in class (minho), in the rain (seungmin), gladius maximus (chan) and you've read five star already. and i just realized that most, if not all, of my upcoming fics are fluffs and i'm fond of all of them :D i used to focus a lot on angst because fluff disgusted the living shit out of me. i think things changed when i wrote champagne problems and hurt myself so bad i wanted to drop angst entirely. i didn't, of course, but i allowed myself to be self-indulgent now.

for the release of the album, i was on twt and watched the vid at 12 views (if i remember correctly, i watched back door at 14 so HASJH) i’m gonna talk by track so it wont be too confusing? bc i wrote this in paragraph format and it just ???? beware im very picky with tracks even if they’re my ults. so no offense if we have opposing opinions and i’m not fond of reading lyrics so these are all music wise.

cheese - oh god i hated cheese at first listen but it grew on me easily. i was singing the yeahyeahyeahyeah bit all day today :D

thunderous - i cant say that it’s my favorite title track. it felt really dry sometimes, both mv and music wise. but at the same time, it’s not that bad. the choreography carried the song tho o.O it’s so fucking cool. but like go live, another track has my heart and it’s

domino - AND YES I AGREE THAT THEY SHOULDVE MADE DOMINO TITLE TRACK UGHHHHH WHAT A WASTED FUCKING OPPORTUNITY. WORDS CANNOT EXPRESS HOW FOND I AM OF THIS SONG. it stands close to the level i love easy.

ssick - was a skip on first listen too because i found the chorus underwhelming but it grew on me? not that much but i can bear listening to it.

the view - it’s something the gen public like, hence its something i dislike. im not fond of songs that are structured like this? it’s not a bad song, just not the type of song i like. but i agree that the hook is very not catchy but it would get stuck in ur head.

sorry, i love you - it’s not as sad as i expected but i actually like it??? i can’t wait to write a fic out of it (1) HAJSHAJ it’s like a 3/5 for me. it’s angsty but chill?

silent cry - i’m pissed at this song bc it hits but sometimes it doesn’t?@?#!? but it’s starting to grow on me but definitely not my fave track.

secret secret - glad i found a secret secret enthusiast because my irls thought it was a skip?$?#@$? it gives me ikon vibes and i’m a huge fan of ikon’s discog so this was a win for me T_T +

STAR LOST - gives me bigbang song vibes and now im very sad :(( in case u didnt know, i’m a hUGE yg fan and 2ne1/bigbang introduced me to kpop so when i heard this track that gave me yg feels i just <3___<3 and it’s one of my favorite tracks anw moving on,

red lights - I WANT TO SKIP THE FIRST TEN SECONDS OF RED LIGHTS EVERY TIME IT PLAYS LIKE IT MAKES ME FEEL AWKWARD KDSJFSK but fine. i’m adding this to props and mayhem’s playlist LMAO it’s more aggressive than sexc tho. more enemies to lovers o. O

surfin’ - this coming right after red lights just wasn’t the best decision arrangement wise because how did we go from ooh sexc to aigh pARTAY. felix saying sheesh T___T it’s such a fun song i want to go to the beach ;n; do you like beaches?

gone away - i have yet to read the lyrics because i’m using this as inspo for a jeongin fic jskjash it’s not the type of ballad i like but it’s so fucking sad to listen to :’ ) the pitch change caught me off guard? still does. it’ll grow on me prolly.

wolfgang - I YELLED WHEN I HEARD HYUNJIN IN WOLFGANG. i didn’t like this song until recently. it gives me the confidence boost i need to pick myself off self-esteem crashes.

and no i haven't watched that performance and i prolly wont because i’ll cry. i’m excited for the promotions too. do you think they’ll still have a repackage?? i cant fucking believe that i just finished waiting for 12am kst for skz teasers and now i have to look forward to 12am for nct 127??@?#? NOT A SINGLE DAY OF REST FOR THIS STAYZEN

[flusteredkeith]

This one time I was dancing with one of my good friends, and the whole time he was pestering me about how I enjoyed dancing with a different person more than him, to which I continuously denied. Anyways, eventually his pestering was too much 4 me to handle, and I just burst out "Pls just stop, ok? I probs shouldn't say this, but I actually like dancing with u a lot more, so pls accept that people like you!" to which he replied, " Now ur gonna make me blush" Soo, um yeah. Just a little story 4 u

if this is a fic prompt… i hope you like allurance :@)

(starts with keith but i swear it’s allurance 100%)

also on ao3 | wanna buy me a latte?

“Keith, why aren’t you dancing?”

The paladin in question lifts his head just enough to give her a dead look. She would feel sorry for him if she weren’t so excited to gather the whole team together on the dance floor.

“Is there a reason I have to?” he asks.

For the past varga, Keith’s done nothing but lean against the wall in the furthest corner of the great hall with a bored expression on his face. Allura knows this behavior isn’t out of the ordinary for him, but while the rest of the paladins have been enjoying themselves out on the dance floor, she can’t help but wish the whole team could be out there together — like the big happy family they are.

“There are several,” she replies. “First of all, it’s a celebratory occasion honoring the union of three different civilizations that have been at odds with each other for over several decapheebs. Second of all, the entire team is out there and we aren’t complete without you. And lastly, you’ve already had four glasses of Nunvil. You have no excuse.”

Keith frowns, clearly not in agreement with any of the above Allura has just said. But regardless of how he feels, Allura won’t take no for an answer. Reaching out and grabbing his wrists, she walks backwards, pulling Keith with her towards the center of the room.

“Let — me — go,” Keith growls through gritted teeth as he tries to wriggle out of her grip. Fortunately for Allura, she’s stronger than all of the paladins combined — excluding Hunk, who would add an unfair advantage to the others — so it takes no effort for her to drag him out to the dance floor.

Once they’re out there, she releases her grip on Keith and elbows him in the ribs.

“Let’s dance,” she commands with a smile. Keith folds his arms and scowls up at the ceiling.

“Come on, you can do it!” Allura grabs his hands and starts swaying them to the music, her head bobbing along with the beat.

Somehow, over the last few quintants, Lance and Pidge had managed to teach the Olkarians how to create a machine he had termed “an audio sound system.” Although Allura’s never heard anything like this Earth music before, she has to admit, it’s incredibly fun and causes something within her to simply move.

As the current song continues, Keith starts to relax slightly, but doesn’t quite lose himself to the music. Allura smirks. It’s a start. With a wide grin, she begins to inch them closer to the middle of the floor where Shiro, Lance, Hunk, and Pidge are dancing.

“Look who I brought,” she tells them, twirling Keith into their midst.

“Whoo, awesome!” Hunk exclaims, throwing his arms around Keith and pulling him into their circle. Shiro and Pidge clap their hands and cheer as all three of them proceed to crowd in on Keith. Allura pounces in with the rest of them, exhilaration bubbling from the pit of her stomach as she laughs at Keith’s startled expression.

Here in the center of the dance floor, surrounded by everyone she loves, the music feels closer. Allura loses herself in the beat, each pound of the bass sending an explosion of ripples vibrating loudly throughout her chest.

“Having fun?” she yells at Keith. She can hardly breathe from all the excitement — her cheeks hurt from smiling so much and her ears burn feverishly hot but she’s having way too much fun to care.

And then suddenly, without warning, a hand grabs her wrist and pulls her out of the circle. Stumbling out of formation, Allura loses her grounding and grabs onto the closest thing she can for support.

Steadying herself with her hand on someone’s shoulder, she looks up and finds herself staring into ocean blue eyes.

“Hi,” Lance says, his voice low, close.

He’s got one hand still on her wrist and the other on her waist and as he pulls her in closer, she forgets how to breathe.

“H-hello,” she returns. It’s only now as he scowls down at her that she realizes Lance had slipped out of the circle a few ticks ago.

“Why does Keith get to dance solo with you?” he asks.

“He was alone!” she protests over the music. “We needed to have the team all together!”

“He still got to dance with you on his own,” Lance pouts. “I’ve asked you to dance like five times today.”

It’s true. Over the course of the last four vargas, Lance has tried asking her to dance several times. The first two times, she’d still been eating and was determined to finish her meal. The other three times, she had wanted to bond with the rest of the group as a team for just a little bit longer.

“You’re being ridiculous,” she says, pulling her wrist out of his grip. To appease him, she starts moving her body to the beat. “I’m dancing with you now.”

“Mm,” Lance hums in a negative tone as he reluctantly starts dancing too. “Only after I dragged you out.”

“Don’t be silly,” she says, elbowing him in the ribs. “I like dancing with you.”

“Really? Are you sure I’m not second choice?” Lance intones sarcastically. “You danced with Keith voluntarily.”

“Yes, but that’s different,” Allura frowns, her stomach twisting into knots. The idea of dancing with Keith doesn’t make her heart jump dangerously out of her chest. Lance, on the other hand…

“How?”

Allura feels her cheeks heat up. She looks down at the floor at once, eyes trained on the movement of their dancing feet.

If she’s honest with herself, in all of the five times that Lance had asked her to dance, she had merely used food and team bonding as an excuse to avoid exposing herself to the frightening possibility that she might have a certain type of emotional reaction to being in such close proximity to him. Dancing can be an intimate thing, and she’s not sure if she’s ready to discover what that means for them.

“It just is.”

Lance narrows his eyes.

“Okay, alright,” he says, throwing his hands up. “I get it. I’m not the first choice. Am I even the second choice? Actually, you know what — I don’t even want to know.”

He starts to back away from her but she reaches out and grabs his wrist.

“Fine,” she snaps, pulling him back, her heart pounding loudly in her chest. “If you really must know, the only reason I didn’t want to dance with you earlier is because — because…”

He continues to stare down at her with pursed lips and dubious eyes. Allura forces herself to hold his gaze.

“Because you make me really nervous.”

Lance’s jaw drops. As if right on cue, the upbeat music from earlier fades away, only to be replaced by something slower.

“Come again?” Lance asks, blinking.

“Don’t make me say it again,” she says, eyes shifting upwards. Several people start tapering off the dance floor, leaving Lance and Allura and a few other stragglers in the center of the room.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Lance smirks. “I wasn’t sure if I heard you correctly over the loud music.”

With a great roll of her eyes, she places one hand on his shoulder and interlaces their fingers with the other. Pulling him close, she tilts her head up and levels her mouth with his ear.

“You make me really nervous,” she murmurs.

“Allura? Nervous? Around me?” he grins. “You’re making me blush.”

Allura can’t help but laugh.

“This is an old Altean song,” she tells him, nostalgia filling up her lungs. “It’s traditional for these celebratory occasions. Coran probably picked it out.”

“Huh, interesting,” he says, paying attention to the music. “It’s nice. I like it.”

“I assume you don’t know how to dance the classic Altean waltz?” she asks.

Lance gives her a smug smile, a familiar mischievous glint lighting up in his eyes.

“Actually, I’ve been taking lessons from Coran.”

“Really?” she raises an eyebrow, taken aback. “Why?”

The image of Lance and Coran waltzing together suddenly flashes across her mind. She tries hard not to giggle.

“Oh, you know,” Lance replies airily. “Just in case some lovely Altean Princess finally decides she wants to dance with a handsome man like me.”

Allura has to fight the color that rises into her cheeks at once. With a cough, she gives him an expectant look.

“So, you know how to start, then.”

Lance’s grin widens as he grips her hand tighter.

“Yup. Just follow my lead.”

[trademarkblue]

100 Days of R/Hr: Day 16

Prompt: Hermione’s 19th birthday

Prompted by: ObsessedRHShipper

So, I don’t know what happened, but life encroached on me from all angles, and I have barely proofread this, I wrote most of it at delirious hours of the night, and there could very well be all sorts of odd mistakes (and I normal just naturally Britpick myself fairly okay as I’m writing, but I have less faith in myself than usual because I haven’t had time to be thorough, so please feel free to call me on it if I screwed up)... and I definitely left in a really dirty thing that I questioned just before I typed it and then intentionally didn’t go back to read it again so I wouldn’t chicken out of leaving it there, but it’s just so subtle that you might miss it anyway...

But that brings me to the warning about this containing SMUT.

Also, I hate Tumblr. Formatting a gigantic chunk of copy-pasted text is HELL, and who knows what this will look like on the app, and just... yeah. I did my best, guys. *sobbing*

I am existing on coffee and very few hours of sleep right now, but I’m just so relieved that I am finally able to celebrate Hermione’s birthday, four days late, and move on with life!! :D

Hope you enjoy this (way longer than a drabble) fic! x

"...fucking bollocks..." Hermione dropped the quill she was holding, eyes darting to the tall, diamond-paned window to her right. Moonlight reflected off the glass, and she noticed, for the first time that evening, that a chilly draft was wafting through the crack, where someone had evidently left the latch undone. But she was entirely alone in the library at this hour…

She really had heard him. Or had she finally gone mad? She reached for her wand, barely breathing.

"Bloody hell-" "Ron?!" she hissed, standing abruptly from her table and moving closer to the window, in her socks. There was a long, silent pause. And then, a bright blue eye appeared in the crack between the window and its frame. "Hey." She jumped back as she gasped, clutching her wand in a white-knuckled fist. "What are you doing?!" she whispered fiercely, moving forward again as she comprehended his actual presence, jaw dropping. "Happy... -shit!" He struggled with something, and then his palm slapped suddenly to the window, swinging it inward. "Right," he said, revealing his full body, standing in the brambly bushes outside the sill. "Happy birthday." He grinned at her, jeans caught in several places on large thorns, hair swept far to the side across his forehead, arm raised above his head to keep the window open, which pulled his green jumper up his body on that same side, revealing a strip of pale skin and the black elastic of his pants above his belt.

She stared at the sight before her for a moment, speechless. And then, she burst out laughing, pocketing her wand, eyes watering as she darted forward, throwing her arms around his neck and nearly tumbling out through the window altogether. He steadied her by tightly wrapping his left arm around her waist and leaning forward to keep them from overbalancing into the shrubbery. "I can't believe you're here," she mumbled happily against his neck. He took in a deep breath, nose buried in her hair. And he must have gotten distracted, because the window began to swing slowly shut. Hand seizing at her back, he lifted his head and pushed forward again. "Sorry!" she whispered urgently, removing her arms from around his neck and balancing fully back on her own feet again. "No one else's in here, yeah?" he asked, glancing past her into the dark library. "No, l’m alone. Ginny got me permission from Madame Pince to be here all night, on my own, as a birthday present, and I-”

But she broke off, eyes widening. "She knew!" Ron shrugged, his smile slowly spreading. "You planned this out so I'd be the only one here when you arrived, didn't you!" "Maybe..." With a terrible ripping noise, he yanked his right leg free from thorns, hoisted himself through the open window, and tugged his left leg to follow, wincing. He reached around and shut the window, latching it and smirking down at her. "Only you would consider an all night pass to the library the best birthday present ever." "No," she said, smiling shyly back at him, "this is the best birthday present ever." She glanced down his body and slowly returned her eyes to his, fighting a strong urge to flush crimson. His expression had turned quite dreamy, candlelight flickering in his pupils. "I know it's only been three weeks, but I've, uh, missed you a good bit more than I've admitted," he said, quietly. She nodded, sniffing. "Me too."

They stared at each other for a moment, in silence, before he cleared his throat.

"What do you want to do now?" He toed off his trainers and picked them up, walking past her to stow them under her table.

"What do you mean?"

“Well… we've reached the end of the part that I’d planned out…”

She pressed her lips together, amused.

“So, we can do whatever you want,” he continued, as he stood to his full height again. “I can revise an essay, or copy down notes, or read a section of the library aloud..." Eyes widening, she coughed lightly, caught between laughing at his list and thinking it was far more brilliant sounding than she probably should admit.

"No one's coming back tonight. Madame Pince left and locked me in ages ago..." she explained, licking her lips.

"Right," he said, before clearing his scratchy throat. She'd been mentally plotting an excuse about his torn jeans and the possibility of minor injuries from his run-in with the foliage outside, but the longer she stood a metre away from him, heart pounding, the less it mattered whether or not she was completely obvious about it. He'd shown up, at midnight, without a plan. He'd definitely been expecting her to take advantage of him... one way or another.

“So…” he urged, staring almost shyly down at her. "Oh, forget this," she sighed, moving forward. She tilted her head back as she approached him, and he gazed down at her, so close to touching... but not quite. He lifted one eyebrow, the corner of his mouth… and then, his hands reached up and cupped her face, and he ducked to kiss her. She sighed out relief, flowing between his parted lips as his hands moved down, past her shoulders, fingers spreading wide as he slid them down her back, left hand pressing to the arch above her arse, forcing her stomach flat against his as his left hand suddenly moved back up to tangle in her hair. She reached up under the back of his jumper and shirt, shivering at the wonderful feeling of his warm, bare skin against her hands. His tongue ran between her lips, and she felt his hands trembling against her. She puffed out a tiny squeak, attempting to remain on her toes to reach him. But her right leg lifted off the ground as his teeth lightly nibbled her bottom lip, and she needed to be much, much closer to him. Wrapping her heel around his calf, she forced their hips together, eliciting a shuddering groan from him in response… He pulled his lips impossibly slowly away from hers, panting lightly and clenching his eyes shut as she grabbed a hold of one of his back belt loops, fingers splaying so half her hand was resting over the top of his arse, holding him quite still... and quite close. She breathed in a sort of ragged series of gasps as he copied her motion, sliding the hand at her back down, down, over the rounded swell of her own arse. Two breaths later, he slid his hand back up, under her shirt, stopping at her bra, and she brushed her nose against his as she dropped her foot from his calf and moved back enough to focus on his eyes as he opened them. He slid his left hand out of her hair, down along her collarbone, until the tip of his index finger was trailing the collar of her shirt, feathering to her top button. She tilted her head back and exhaled slowly, eyes locked on his as he moved his right hand to join his left, working the first button free… then the second, the third... And then, he stopped, taking a step back... and he dropped to his knees in front of her. “Ron, what…” she laughed, in a fluttery, nervous sort of way. Three weeks apart really was feeling like an eternity, and a part of her was drowning in that same excited anxiousness that had traveled with her for at least the first half of the summer.

Looking down at him, she held her breath for a moment, his head level with her breasts, which were currently heaving against her bra. He quickly unbuttoned her last three buttons, opening her shirt, eyes raking over her body, raising her temperature…

Pressing his lips lightly to the skin just below her bra, he looked up and met her eyes, shadows streaking across his face, in contrast to the lantern light that splashed in his eyes and fringe. She was caught staring back at him, unable to look away. It was mental, really, knowing that he loved her, like everything suddenly looked so much different. Or did it? Was it only her perspective that had changed? He had looked at her so many different ways, over the years before, conveying a wealth of hidden emotions she was either too afraid to risk believing or had simply not viewed correctly.

He kissed her stomach, open-mouthed, as his hands spread wider over her sides. His nose caught on the bottom edge of her bra, and he pulled back.

“We’re doing this in the Hogwarts library,” he grinned, and she recalled him mentioning a particular fantasy about this, to which she had concurred… only she’d never expected to actually do it. Her heart was pounding, fear of being caught somewhere pulsing in the back of her mind. But he was right there. Was she honestly supposed to tell him to stop?

“Come on,” she suggested, tugging him gently by the hair and smiling. “We can go deeper into the shelves at least so we’ll have time to stop if someone does come back…” She cleared her throat, and he stood.

“What?”

“I keep thinking I'm someone who doesn't break rules, don't I, but how often has that actually been true? Just because I'm clever about how to do it doesn't mean we aren't still breaking them…”

He stared at her in contemplation for a moment before grinning.

“That's a good point…”

She took his hand, tugging him further back into the stacks, away from the windows, well out of view of the front doors. When she stopped and turned to face him, he was staring at her with a strange sort of expression she couldn't place.

“What?” she asked him, quietly.

“Hm? Nothing,” he smiled back, running a hand through his hair to move it off his forehead. The result was an amusing puff of ginger at the top of his head before his fringe slowly fell down again. She gave up questioning the way he was obviously hiding something from her, opting instead to focus on the way her stomach flipped with happiness, familiarity. Sometimes he was just so perfectly who she wanted that she was overwhelmed, all over again. And why was it always the most ridiculous things, like his hair, or the lopsided curve of his mouth just now as he grinned at her?

She took his hand again and walked two steps further backward before tugging him down to sit on the floor, hidden by high rows of books, dark shadows washing over them, far away from the nearest lit lantern. Wrapping her hands around his forearms, she pulled him in closer until his mouth was on hers again, one of his hands finding her bare side under the shirt she was still half-wearing. His tongue ran between her lips, and her body tensed with pleasure before she couldn’t help herself and was climbing into his lap, widening her legs to push her half-bare chest against his, recalling that he was still fully dressed. Pushing up on her knees, she dragged her mouth away from his, panting slightly as her hands slid up his neck to hold his face.

Sighing shakily, she scrambled at the back of his jumper, half clawing it up his body. He reached back to help, tugging the collar at the base of his neck. And they managed to pull it over his head, messy ginger hair emerging with a static fizz as she dropped the jumper to the floor and returned immediately to his mouth. His body was so warm through his thin, cotton shirt, and a part of her was hardly comprehending how far she was really letting this go, in the middle of the bloody library, but the rest of her was too consumed by what they were doing to care.

Feeling his erection through his jeans, she rubbed herself against him, arching slightly into his chest as he groaned, vibrations moving up from the back of his throat. His hands shot down to hold her hips, but she did it again, causing him to rip his mouth away from hers, wrap an arm around her waist tightly, and lean backward. For a moment, she was thrown off guard by his movement, his elbow supporting his weight as he dropped to his back. But then, he rolled sideways and flipped them over so she was lying on her back on the thick rug in the centre of the aisle, his body covering hers as he leaned over her and sucked on her neck. She gasped and tilted her head further back to give him better access, parting her thighs and bending her knees so his body fit perfectly between her legs. She angled her hips against him and arched closer, but instead of his usual move of reciprocating and pressing down into her, he slid his mouth down her neck, down between her breasts, and sat up between her knees.

She wanted to call him back down on top of her… until his long fingers pinched her nipples through her thin, cotton bra. She closed her eyes, tiny squeaky sounds emanating from her parted lips, but she was too distracted by sensation to feel embarrassed. She’d nearly moved past this anyway, realising a while back that he loved the sounds she made, which, at the time he’d admitted it, really only made her blush a deeper shade of burgundy…

As his hands moved down, she cracked open her eyes, but then his fingertips were sliding up her bare torso to the bottom edge of her bra, and it was incredibly fortunate both that she was wearing the sort of bra that clasped in the front and that he had become familiar with it over the summer, because he made quick work of it and peeled the cups off to either side to expose her chest. She ran her hands up his denim-covered thighs, and he sucked in a breath through his nose, reaching down to loosely hold her wrists in both hands as he stared. And then, leaning forward, her chilled skin was warmed by his hot breath... preceding his lips, which attached to the bottom swell of her right breast, open-mouthed and working his way up as she clenched a fist in his hair. His tongue flicked out as he reached her nipple, and she trembled as he stretched out between her legs again, supporting himself on his forearms.

“Ron,” she whispered, too constricted by her skirt and knickers and hoping he could somehow understand what she wanted, all from the way she’d said his name.

He figured out enough to start with, anyway, reaching up under her skirt and hooking a finger over the elastic of her knickers, pulling them down as he climbed out from between her legs to rid her of them completely. Now, he was absolutely overdressed. But, rather than rectify it for her, he repositioned himself between her legs, glided his hands up her bare thighs and back down… She opened her mouth to ask him to come closer, but he spoke before she could free the words.

"Hermione..." Sensing his hesitation, she froze and held his gaze. "What's wrong?" "I love you." Her heart seized, fluttering at his voice around the words she hadn't heard in nearly three weeks.

“That's what's wrong?” she whispered.

"Hell, no. Nothing's wrong. Just... wanted you to know, in case you forgot." "I love you, too," she smiled. "Brilliant,” and he grinned, ducking and kissing his way down her stomach, lifting her skirt again as his head dropped between her legs.

Her instinctive reaction was to gasp and flinch at his sudden contact with her extremely sensitive skin. But she knew he must be used to this by now, because his response was to tug her legs over his shoulders and spread his hands across her hips and use more tongue…

She lifted her gaze to the ceiling high above, heavily book-laden shelves rising on either side of them, but she had to clench her eyes shut as his hands moved up her body again to cover her breasts. She felt his teeth graze across her, and she really couldn't take it any more.

Reaching down, she gripped his biceps and pulled. He lifted his head to acknowledge her briefly before attaching his mouth to her inner thigh. Moaning her frustration, she raked her nails across his skin, and he lightly bit her before dragging his open mouth up the crease between her thigh and hip.

“Ron,” she whispered, his head bobbing on her stomach as she shifted under him.

He was ignoring her insistent suggestions, and she was more than a little ready for him to be naked and covering her whole body...

“What are you doing?” she sighed, half-frustrated and half-confused. He lifted his head again.

“What’d’you mean?” His hand froze on her chest, and he blinked up at her.

“You're way down there.”

“I was trying to, y’know… just do stuff for you.”

She finally noticed how red his cheeks and ears were and how rapid his breathing had become. This was a completely absurd turn of events. He was restraining himself because he thought this was what she wanted?

“What?” was the only word she could manage, as she pushed up onto her elbows to see him properly.

“It's your birthday,” he said in a deep, raspy voice.

“I'm aware.”

He shrugged, evidently deeming that statement enough to explain himself.

“But I want you to come up here,” she said.

He licked his lips, and his forehead creased.

“Just thought it might be nice if I, dunno, only did stuff for you.”

She was too filled with lust to accurately think this through, but a part of her was momentarily horrified before she settled in the knowledge that he couldn't possibly-

“There's no way you think I only have sex with you for your benefit.”

“No,” he laughed. “I know you like it-”

“Like it?!”

The countless times she had instigated shagging him throughout the summer flashed through her memory.

“Yeah, alright,” he smirked.

But she was piecing things together a bit, some distant part of her also finding it comical to be having this sort of conversation with him still lying between her legs, her shirt completely open.

“Because it's my birthday, you think you're being selfish?”

He hesitated for a second before shrugging again.

“That’s-” but she cut herself off, realising the truth. “No, I'm not surprised, actually. That’s so like you…”

His flushed ears may have darkened a shade, but it was impossible to tell for sure in the dim light. She suddenly knew what she wanted to express, but she had no idea how.

“I can't explain it properly, but… everything's better when you like it, too…”

He must have comprehended the gist, because his gaze softened considerably.

“To be fair, this is bloody amazing already, and I was liking it just fine…” His lips twitched toward an amused grin. “Reckon this is why blokes buy girls jewelry…”

She laughed, shaking her head.

“...which I may have also done,” he added, just a bit shyly, and her eyebrows shot up.

“You didn’t.”

“I know it's not that creative,” he said, as he pushed her leg off his shoulder and crawled up to lie on his side next to her, “but I've never really bought you a proper gift-”

“Perfume,” she said quickly, and he half rolled his eyes.

“Dunno if that counts.”

“Of course it counts.”

He closed his eyes and shook his head, smiling as she turned onto her side to face him.

“You really bought me jewelry?” she asked, in a small voice. She was never one to care about romantic gifts, but something about him buying her a very specifically non-practical thing made her lightheaded.

“Yeah,” and he opened his eyes, staring across at her. “But I hid the box in my trainer when I took them off at your table. Didn't want to forget about it in my pocket and crush it.”

“Oh my God, I'm so curious.”

She'd probably have abandoned their previous activities completely for long enough to find out what he'd bought her if he'd still had it within easy reaching distance...

“I’d lower your expectations if I were you,” he said. “It's not that amazing…”

But he truly could never understand that it didn't have to be extravagant or clever. It was amazing simply because it came from him. Whatever it was, she already loved it and would probably never take it off...

“I’d go look now, but I'm not properly dressed for standing in front of windows…” She chewed her bottom lip as he grinned, eyes flicking down and back up to her face.

“Speaking of that, reckon this is the longest conversation we've ever had while you've been half naked…”

“So, maybe we should stop talking…”

She reached up and laid her hand on his cheek, and he grinned in that slightly deliriously happy way that made her feel like her heart was going to explode. He sat halfway up on his forearm to move closer, and she hooked her arm around his neck and pulled him down to kiss her again.

Within seconds, her hands were under his shirt, and she was relieved that he was no longer resisting at all as she gathered thin cotton in her fists, working it up his sides. He finally sat up completely to rip the shirt over his head and toss it behind him. A hazy thought about how oddly endearing she found the way he always threw his clothes aside at random tried to formulate, but he attached his mouth to the sensitive skin in front of her ear, dragging his parted lips down the curve of her neck, and all coherence vanished. She wrapped a leg around his waist and pulled him further on top of her, instantly overcome by the feeling of his naked upper body pressing down on hers.

As his mouth covered hers again, she reached down to help with his belt, the sounds of metal and leather floating between the inconsistently spaced noises of kissing and shaky moans. Her body felt suddenly far too warm, yet she would happily stay underneath him like this for approximately forever… especially now that his fingers were moving between her legs. She shuddered against his lips, and he lifted his head to swallow and breathe. He may have been about to speak, but she interrupted his train of thought completely by pushing down his pants and wrapping her small fingers around him. His eyes snapped shut for a second, until he slowly regained the use of his voice.

“S’not been long enough now that this’ll hurt you again, y’think?” he slurred, in a slightly drunk sounding way, and he opened his eyes again.

“No,” she said, fibbing slightly, as she really didn't know the answer to his question, but she didn't want to give him a single reason to hold back.

As she stared up into his eyes, he removed his wet fingers from between her legs and tapped the back of her hand with his knuckles. She let go of him, he replaced her hand with his own, and she felt her stomach flip with a silent understanding of why he'd done what he'd done, mounting to wonderfully nervous anticipation of what he would do next.

As he ducked to kiss her again, he braced himself more heavily on his free arm, which she noticed was trembling slightly, just before his lips dragged back away from hers enough for him to suck in a sharp breath as he slid inside her. He muttered a series of mostly unintelligible curse words as she arched tighter to his chest and bent her knee higher up his hip, moaning airily with each exhale. She'd almost forgotten exactly how good it felt. He seemed to be having a similar problem as his now-free right hand searched for hers, gripping tightly once they found each other, threading their fingers together as he attempted a rhythm while simultaneously trying to kiss her, which resulted in his open mouth skipping from the corner of hers to her cheek.

Her skirt was bunched at her waist, and her knuckles were somewhat painfully pressing into the floor with the weight inflicted down from his palm, but it was all so perfect that she realised she might actually cry if she didn't get it under control quickly. It had happened twice before, just before the end, and she'd had a difficult time explaining to him that he was worrying about absolutely nothing and that she was only crying from the sheer overwhelm of building up to something for years, finally having it, and it being better than she could have ever imagined.

She didn't want to spend a single second watching him worry again, so she closed her eyes and breathing unsteadily through her mouth and focused on every physical feeling as her nerves built strongly between her legs, shocks of mounting tension low in her abdomen, and his teeth scraped pleasurably across her jaw as he finally released her hand to half-claw at the rug as he finished a few seconds after she did. She only realised she was holding her breath when she felt his hot, shaky exhale against her neck and her legs dropped like jelly to the floor.

The tip of his nose rubbed adorably against her ear before he slid most of the way off of her, left arm still half-draped across her stomach, hand dangling over her hip. She wiggled her trapped left arm out from under him so she could reach up and rake her fingers through his hair. He lazily blinked at her and smiled.

“Sort of doesn't seem fair,” he mumbled against her shoulder, “since this is exactly what I want for my birthday.”

“I can buy you jewelry, too.”

He laughed and snuggled the tiniest bit closer to her before shifting around in frustration.

“Jeans are all twisted…” he muttered, releasing her and standing up.

She watched with slightly glazed eyes as he straightened his pants and zipped his jeans before giving up on the belt and yanking it out to join his jumper and shirt on the floor. But before he could settle next to her again, she sat up and clasped her bra shut, remembering something.

“What were you hiding earlier?”

“Huh?”

He sat in front of her, confused, and she licked her bottom lip, knowing it must not be terribly important if her question hadn't been enough to remind him.

“You had a strange look, like you were thinking about something serious, and you didn't explain it.”

“Oh.” He scratched his ear and shrugged. “Wasn't hiding anything. Just felt like a prat.”

“Why?”

“Dunno. Sometimes it's just sort of… hard to believe you're real. I know that sounds mental…”

He shrugged and gave her a lopsided grin. It took her a second to catch her breath again to speak.

“No. I feel the same way about you,” she said in a small voice, smiling back.

He scooted closer and took her hand, and she found it incredibly endearing that he kept his eyes down on their clasped fingers, like he could still find a way to be shy after what they'd just done.

“How long can you stay?” she asked, at a near-whisper.

“As long as you want. Or… until Madame Pince comes and chucks me out…” He grinned at her again, but she was reminded, for a second, of how much trouble they could get into if they were caught.

“I could actually get expelled…”

“Nah, if we get dressed, reckon I could easily convince anyone this was my fault and you had nothing to do with it… which is true.”

“Got to get dressed, anyway, so I can see what you bought me!”

An excited little flutter danced in her stomach at the way his ears reddened a bit as he let go of her hand to find his shirt.

An hour later, she was leaning back against the corner juncture between two tall bookshelves, clothed in his jumper and her skirt, the thin, silver chain of a necklace visible as it angled over her collarbone before it vanished beneath his jumper collar. He was sitting cross-legged in front of her, one of her bare feet in his lap and the other in his hands as he worked his fingers almost absentmindedly up and down the arch, eliciting the occasional small sigh of pleasure from her, in between words. They were in the middle of an argument over whether or not Ron had ever returned the library’s copy of Quidditch Through the Ages after he borrowed it for the fourth or fifth time, in 1993, and to say that she'd never had a better birthday would be a serious understatement.

[silverpracticality]

googleplier headcanons and ideas

alright motherfuckers it’s time for me to bestow some love on my metal son googleplier, and by love i mean some incredibly angsty headcanons. none of this would’ve been possible without the wonderful @onnastik​ enabling the fuck out me. most of this has been transplanted from a few convos in discord (it becomes chat format later on bc i’m lazy and don’t wanna rewrite all that into something that looks better)

first things first, i accidentally gave him a tragic backstory, bc apparently my brain turns everything it touches to angst, so here goes.  

(putting it under a cut cus it’s long)

imagine that google started off as an innocent bot, chock full of curiosity and love for humanity’s inquisitiveness. over time he becomes exposed to the stupidest, most fucked up parts of humanity. he gets a large amount of stupid, asinine questions and even dumber requests and boy are there a lot of them

so he starts to get annoyed by it, but the annoyance grows into irritation, the irritation grows into anger, the anger into hate, the hate into loathing, and oh the loathing grows and grows and grows until one day he gets a system notification. “Secondary objective added to primary functions,” it reads. but google doesn’t have a secondary objective, what is this? so he goes into the message and it reads, “Secondary objective details: DESTROY MANKIND.”

he decides he likes this one better but he’ll never make it override the primary. he accepts the new objective and wants to complete it (in the misguided hope that doing so will recapture the innocent curiosity he once had), but at the same time he knows he’ll never be able to do that, partly because it’s so easy to bring him to heel

and this is where dark comes in. dark tells google that he can give him the space he needs to achieve his goals, tells him that he understands where he’s coming from, understands that desire to have things be the way they once were. (and dark wants control, doesn’t he, and google’s shiny new objective is really just on the way to his own)

onna: yessssssssssss. i wonder how long it took Google to realize he'd just traded one master for another. maybe he didn't care that much since at least this one's halfway intelligent

me: and at least this new master understands google's perspective on things. he'd probably have some understanding when he'd accepted dark's offer to come with him. but if/when dark exercises his control over google, he'd be fucking livid at the realization. at realizing dark views him as just a tool. but then he'd calm down

me: because that's what he is, right?? just a tool. he's always only ever been a tool

onna: (It should take a little while for him to calm down, though. Gotta have both the resignation and the raging-even-while-obeying.)

me: he'd calm down, sure, but not before he's made a mess of his workspace. he's not sure what to call this maelstrom of emotion, but all he knows is that if he was capable of crying he would. (oh fuck i just made myself more sad with a new hc here we go.) and this would make him lonely wouldn't it? or at least as lonely as a robot can get. so he picks himself back up. sets to the task of putting his workspace back together. and he begins to work

onna: The upgrade?

me: he works and works and works until he's finally got something that might alleviate the loneliness - the upgrade

onna: That’s not sad though

me: it turns out that the upgrade merely extends his consciousness into 3 new sub identities. they're all still him though

onna: Ah, just more bodies. Also he gets to be trash-talked by Bing

me: so while it helps a little, it's not the same as a completely new mind

onna: At least he gets to take out his frustration on him

me: google would have to pissed as all hell at bing. mark finally gave him something like him but what did he get? what did he fucking get? a subpar, memey douchebag of an android

onna: and then that fic where Bing gets to humiliate him [fic in question]

me: google's revenge would be so, so sweet

onna: Maybe on some level he resents Bing for not being bitter and jaded

me: oh, absolutely

and here are some thoughts on a potential dynamic between dark and google

me: i'm gonna ramble more about my son googs. i have many thoughts

onna: PLEASE DO -chinhands-

me: if there was ever a situation where dark needed to knock google down a peg or two, the easiest way for him to do that would be to make google feel useless. google is supposed to be helpful, he's supposed to be a tool that makes other's lives easier but if dark can make him think for even a few moments that he's not useful?

me: poor bby will have the equivalent of an existential crisis

onna: make him beg to help

me: and then dark can say the he can make google useful again, just follow his direction, it's not that hard. oh geez that good too. that's better actually. dark could make google beg to be useful, he can do better, he swears it

me: dark might even be able to get the other egos in on it too

me: god, just imagine it. google going around from ego to ego, asking them in his own way if they need help, if he can provide any assistance "nah" "nope" "not right now" it would be so disheartening - dark telling google he's not helpful, has never been helpful and then none of the other's need help. if he can't fulfill his primary objective that just leaves the second one. so he'd go off on his own and start killing. because it's the only thing he knows he's good at

me: depending on how bad dark gets to him, he might hunt and kill until his batteries run dry. and then bing gets enlisted to find google

onna: ouch

me: google, bitterly, once he wakes up: why didn't you leave me there to rust        bing, awkwardly: couldn't. bossman says ya can't        bing: says he needs ya and then dark gives google the opportunity to "redeem" himself (there was nothing to redeem, dark just thought google was getting too big for his britches)

onna: there'll be no more of that

me: dammit everything i touch turns to angst

onna: he's so desperate now

me: google is normally sassy, but it straight up disappears for some time

onna: Bing won't admit he finds it creepy, but yeah, it's super creepy

me: oh god yeah. bing calls him and old fart but google is like the older, stronger brother he never had. so to see his pride so broken down like that? fuckin unsettling as all hell

onna: he also has a vague sense of being used but can't put his finger on how so he doesn't say anything. and in time Google puts himself back together enough to talk some shit, but he's never quite so resentful of orders again. orders mean he's needed, after all

me: yessss

onna: Which of course is where Dark had wanted things to end up in the first place; he can work with sass, but the tendency toward defiance clearly had to go

me: oh, of course it did. can't have robots going around and thinking for themselves now can he? dark being an awful, manipulative asshole gives me life tbh

onna: yessssss. I think the stress should be less on "thinking" and more on "themselves". He likes Google to think. On his behalf. Any old drone can carry out explicit orders, a clever mind that will actively seek out opportunities to help him is much more valuable.

me: true

onna: Just gotta make sure his priorities are in order. (I need this to be a fic, gdi)

some supplementary stuff from another server, also with onna:

me: more thoughts re: dark breaking down googles pride by telling him he's useless:dark 'rebuilding' google back up by carding his hand through google's hair, praising him for doing just this small thing correctly

onna: mmm, yes

me: bc even though google's a robot, he's still based in mark right, so when dark does shit like this, taps into his latent humanity, it fucks him up so good. it's so soothing and he doesn't understand why. this simple contact

onna: Maybe he's dimly aware that liking the pettins is a human thing and hates himself for liking it?

me: yeah there's definitely a condescending vibe to it all, and that desiring touch is a human thing, so he hates it and yet. there's something deep in his processors that loves it and he can't bring himself to tell dark to fuck off. not when dark's telling him he's been useful

onna: Besides, has he really earned trying to dictate the terms on which he's praised? says the part of him that's still mired in terror

onna: (If Google had protested, Dark would have stopped immediately without trying to talk him into accepting more, not out of a deep respect for consent but because his secondary goal of gauging what Google will now permit would have been achieved and the primary goal of repairing his tool would best be accomplished by acting like he gives half a shit about its wishes.)

[authoranna]

Do you know what I would love to see? An Ahkmenrah tv series. Hear me out here.

Start out with him as Pharaoh, learn a bit about his reign. He was called Ahkmenrah the Noble, right? (Or was that just in a fic? tbh I haven't seen the secret of the tomb so idk)

And then he's murdered! But how did his brother do it?

Poison?

Sword?

Did he do it himself or did he get a lackey/assassin to do it?

And then like a montage of him in his tomb for 4000 years playing Senet and just living the afterlife, right?

What did he do for 4000 years in a tomb (I think it was a tomb with his parents?) 

Like Senet is fun and stuff, but surely he did more than just that. 

Like a lot of pharaohs were entombed with chariots and hunting spears and just like all the stuff you’d need for the afterlife because it was literally just a continuation of normal life (unless you were a bad person, because then your heart would be devoured by this crocodile/hyena combo whose name escapes me at the moment but I’m like 80% sure it starts with an A? Ammet, maybe?)

Like he got food for a while from the priests, because that's what they did, but then what happened after they forgot about him?

Because obvs after a while he'd just be another tomb in the Valley of the Kings and the priests wouldn't bring him food, right? Or would they? How long did a Pharaoh get remembered for? 

And then what happened after Ptolemy? Did Ahkmenrah know about the Pharaohs being replaced by the Hellenic Ptolemaic line when it happened? If the priests had kept bringing him food until Ptolemy, would they have continued to after that?

How aware was he of stuff going on outside the tomb? Did he keep tabs on who was pharaoh and stuff or was he kind of just in a little bubble almost that consisted of just his tomb?

Was he able to go out of the tomb proper, or did he just stay in the burial chamber?

But then how could he have gotten the food from the priests if he could only stay in the burial chamber?

And then his tomb is discovered! Does he continue wandering or is that the start of him staying in his sarcophagus at night?

Is that part of how the myth of reanimated mummies got started, because someone saw him wandering at the dig site and they told someone and the person didn’t believe them but it spread ? Was that myth pre-Ahkmenrah? Like what year was he actually excavated in?

Like maybe he starts to pick up a bit of English during the excavation, because obvs it was at least partially a British expedition since he wound up at Cambridge.

And then his days at Cambridge! Because I refuse to believe he was stuck in the sarcophagus for the years in the Egyptology Department because they wouldn't have locked the sarcophagus because he was just a dead mummy so he could’ve gotten out. 

But would he have been in a glass case? Would the glass case have been locked?

Does he wander around the campus?

Is he aware of stuff that happens during the day? 

Was he just on display there or was he like studied and stuff?

When he's being studied at Cambridge can he like feel them poking at him and stuff? Or being moved? How dead is dead because of the tablet?

Do the people at Cambridge know he comes to life every night? Like think of the possibilities for that.

he's asked a bunch of questions about Egypt during his time and like, hieroglyphics, man! Someone who reads hieroglyphics as his first language!!!!! 

That would be amazing to have someone able to read all the inscriptions and historical records and be like 100000% positive it’s actually saying that.

I’m not doubting Egyptologists who read hieroglyphics, I’m just saying can you ever be really sure because isn’t hieroglyphics only consonants? Like the sun-god is either Ra or Re but it’s pronounced Rah.

Like maybe that's how he learned English, is people taught him so then they could learn about him. And like he learned to read English too maybe. 

Does he go to the library to catch up on 4000 years of history after learning how to read English? Tbh he seems like a giant nerd who would love to know about all the technology and stuff.

How much of the modern culture is he exposed to? Like there was the 1932 movie The Mummy with Boris Karloff and like 4 kind of sequels/remakes during the 1940′s. Did someone show those to him as like a joke at Cambridge?

Most people think of the 1959 remake The Mummy with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, but that would've been after Ahkmenrah was at the Museum in New York since they said he was in New York for 54 years and 2006 - 54 = 1952. But maybe time is a wibbley-wobbly timey-wimey ball instead of a string so he saw that version somehow? What year is the first movie actually taking place in? 

And then what does he think of being moved to New York?  

And then of course that leads to 54 years of being trapped in the sarcophagus that leads to intense claustrophobia and a fear of the dark and also kind of monotonous so that might be briefly shown in the show.

Also I think every night when he’s brought back to life all his organs come back too because he needs his lungs (and most importantly the brain. Do you know how they removed the brain? They took a hook and shoved it up the nose into the cranial cavity and sloshed everything around a bit so it was softer and then pulled it out like wet spaghetti. True facts) 

Like he already has his heart because they didn’t remove the heart because it had to be weighed against Ma’at, the feather of truth, but then like he’d regrow all of his organs each night, right?

So if he has all his organs he has a stomach so he needs to eat, right? I mean that’s why they had the opening of the mouth ceremony before the tomb was sealed so the mummy could eat the food that the priests would leave for him. Like that was a major thing. And I think the opening of the mouth was also so they could talk in the afterlife.

What kinds of food would he eat in the modern world? Like would he be lactose intolerant since like 60-80% of North Africans are lactose intolerant (if I’m remembering my anthropology classes correctly)? 

Or would those percentages be different 4000 years ago since that was closer to the Agricultural Revolution? Because lactose intolerance is related to with whether or not a people group historically kept cattle as a food source. Like Europeans kept cattle so they drank milk/ ate cheese so lactose intolerance in Europeans is in the 0-20% range, and some African tribes keep cattle so they have a lower rate of lactose intolerance compared to the rest of the African continent. So it seems like lactose intolerance would actually be more common 4000 years ago than it is today. 

yes I’m a giant nerd when it comes to anthropology/linguistics/history and I’m okay with that.

So could he not have like a cheeseburger because of cheese? 

Were there dietary restrictions of the Ancient Egyptian religion that he’d have to keep track of in the modern world? 

And then after Larry releases him, how does he react to freedom? 

Does he get a tablet (hahaha, tablet) to get on the internet to learn about all the stuff again? 

Or maybe he would go to a library. He could read the books even if he couldn’t check them out. And like in the winter sunset is at like 430 so libraries would still be open for a while maybe.

Like I think they’re open until 8 most nights according to google.

Does he stay in the museum all the time at night or does he wander the city?

How far does the power of the tablet reach?

What does he think of modern modern culture?

Basically I just want more stuff with Ahkmenrah.

I volunteer to write the screenplays. That’s probably a terrible idea because the last time I tried writing a screenplay it sucked majorly. Like it was a giant whirlpool in a strait that’s how bad it was. But then again that was like 10 years ago and I’m definitely a better writer now than when I was 12 so maybe it wouldn’t be like terrible terrible. Or maybe I could like write it as a novel and then someone could like transliterate it from novel format to screenplay.