#this has been in my drafts for like three months jesus christ

[sieglinde-freud]

real footage of every single marni encounter in my maddening playthrough

[insertdisc5]

Devlog #11: Localization and Organizing Notes

Hello everyone! Welcome to this month’s devlog!

If you just stumbled upon this, I am Adrienne, also known as insertdisc5! I’m the developer, writer, artist, main programmer, etc of the game. The game being In Stars and Time, a timeloop RPG, which is the next and final game in the START AGAIN series, following START AGAIN: a prologue (available here!).  You can find out more about In Stars and Time here!!! 

LET’S GET TO IT. This month's devlog is about localizations and how I organize my notes!

The month of January has, once again, been all about bug fixing. My producer once told me QA and bug fixing would take forever and I didn’t believe her, but it is true. You kill one bug and three take its place.

Bugs aside, the first pass of the localization of the game into Japanese has been completed (thanks Kakehashi Games!) ! Wait did we even mention officially that the game will be in English and Japanese at release. Well there you go! In Stars and Time will be released in both English and Japanese!!!

Now that the first pass is over, it’s time for the very time intensive work of adding all that translated text into the game, as well as translating any illustrations. And after that, the localization team will take over QA, and will play the game from beginning to end in Japanese, making sure everything works well in context!

I can’t wait for Japanese speakers to try out the game as well!!!

Oh! Also, speaking of words, I wrote a post on how I approach worldbuilding, more specifically expressions and swear words and about how Jesus Christ is not canonical to the ISAT universe. Mayhaps it could tickle your fancy?

Uuuuuh this devlog is so short. I feel bad. Well uh (thinks very hard) how about you come with me on a journey, and look at how I organize my notes? Yeah? YEAH!!! (This section will feature: blocked out text) (Also: I realized after writing all this that I did talk about my writing process a bit in my #2 devlog. Well uh you get writing process: 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

I use OneNote for all my ISAT notes! I use it because quite frankly this was the first software I tried and it works. I like how it has tabs within tabs within tabs, so I can easily (ISH?) find any notes I’m looking for!

If you look at the colored tabs, the first one is “demo”, which is everything related to START AGAIN: a prologue (aka: has not been looked at for a year). It contains all the text in the game, as well as general gameplay notes and musings like “hey wouldnt it be fun if I used rock/paper/scissors.” You might notice the text here isn’t in the correct order. That’s a feature not a bug, thats just how my brain works OK!!!!!

The second tab is “Game”, which is the big In Stars And Time tab. It’s divided into a lot of sections, including: 

General Dev Notes, which contains general reminders (“ADD MORE PUNS”).

Random Dialogue Corner, which, as the name implies, contains a lot of random dialogues between the characters. They’re also divided into different sections, depending on what kind of dialogue it is- is it a funny scene, or a more serious one? Is it between characters, or just Siffrin going on a big monologue? Etc. This dialogue may or may not be in the game, its main reason for existing is “hee hee I like when my little guys talk in my head”.

Gameplay and Stuff, which is all about the rpg part of the game. What are the skills? How does each enemy behave? What quests are available? How does the game over screen work? Etc

And finally, a big section filled with The Story, which is divided into acts. From the very start, I knew ISAT would have very delimited story beats, which made it easy to just go “ok, this scene goes into Act 3”, etc. For the text, I make sure to keep all the different drafts I had of a specific scene, partly because I sometimes lose a nugget of Fun Stuff by rewriting a scene, and partly because it’s fun to see how a scene has evolved. I tend to write important story scenes 3 times, each time without looking at earlier drafts to see what comes out, and then frankenstein the scene from what I have.

In general I try to keep as many of my notes as possible, because I deleted a lot of my notes for START AGAIN: a prologue and it makes me sad I can’t look at my thought process on a lot of things anymore. KEEP YOUR NOTES KIDS

Going back to the big tabs, next we have “World”, which is everything related to worldbuilding, relationships between characters, the general timeline, more detailed notes on the culture, etc. I used this tab a lot less as time went on, but at the start it was very useful to be able to refer to it, especially for all the city names and their spelling…

After that, we have the “Devlog” tab, which is my own private devlog! I find it very useful to keep a private devlog for myself, because it helps me see clearly that YES, the game is coming along. Every week, I try to write down where I’m at, any problems that I have, as well as screenshots of what the game looks like. 

I also give myself space to write how I feel about the game! How is it going? Is it fun to work on this? What do I think about the story, about this character, about this development? I think it’s important to write those things down in the moment- I always keep in mind this post by Wreden, the creator of the Stanley Parable- in it, he talks about the reaction to the Stanley Parable, and how getting so many Thoughts thrown his way about what his game means meant that he lost sight of what his game meant to him. In Stars and Time means a lot to me, and I want to make sure future me remembers why!

Next is “meta”, which is mostly coding references. The way rpgmaker (and, I guess, most video game software???) works is by using variables to keep track of quests and whatnot, and so I used this tab to write down “if this variable equals 5, it means we’re at that point in this quest”! I also used it for code I always use but can’t be bothered to remember, like the conditional code that checks if a switch is ON or not. Aka the simplest most basic code. LISTEN I DON’T WANNA REMEMBER CODE OK

After that is the “To Do” tab, which is pretty self explanatory. I try to divide it into chunks like “To do (localization)”, so I don’t have a massive to-do list, but instead lots of small ones, teehee. This is also where I keep my changelog, to write down any changes I make between builds.

And last, but definitely not least, is my “Messy File” tab! This is where I put ALL MY NOTES. It needs different parts because I made a new part every time opening a tab made my computer chug like crazy. Because it has so many words.

I get an idea for a scene in the middle of the night? GOES INTO THE MESSY SCENE. Oh, I realized when I was grocery shopping that I should fix this small bug by doing this! MESSY FILE. Hehe what if I drew Siffrin baldMESSY FILE. Everything goes there, and then every couple weeks I go through it and put all those little nuggets of ideas into their actual tab. I find it useful to have a file that is allowed to be messy as hell, so the other tabs can be clean and neat!

The Messy File tab also contains the “Entire Story”, which is something I wrote in August 2021 when I started thinking I had no idea where I was going. I took like 4 hours to write down the entire story, from beginning to end, and if I had no idea what would happen, I would just make it up on the spot even if I thought it was bad. And guess what. After that, I knew where I was going. CRAZY!!! I did that a couple more times when I felt stuck at a specific point in the story, and it helped me every time. Would recommend.

And, that’s it! That’s how I organize my notes! I hope! This was! Insightful! Somehow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That’s all I have to say for today! Let me know if you have any questions, or if there’s any aspect of the game development struggle you’d like me to talk about! See you next time!!!

AND DON’T FORGET TO WISHLIST THE GAME ON STEAM ALSO IT REALLY HELPS BECAUSE STEAM’S ALGORITHM IS MORE LIKELY TO SHOW OFF GAMES WITH A HIGH AMOUNT OF WISHLISTS THAT’S THE REASON WHY GAME DEVS ALWAYS ASK TO WISHLIST!!! OKAY BYE!!!!

[basementdwellerinthestars]

Welcome To The Starscape!

-Or whatever dramatic name you want to call it.

You can call me Nova! They/them, he/him pronouns if you will. I am an Adult content creator who's going to likely primarily be using this tumblr for my Main Project, with a few showings from minor things, now that certain things have finished. Which is,,, honestly the most melodramatic way I could have phrased that,,,

Moving on, you might be wondering 'what is this Main Project'? Well, let me introduce you to:

A Hero's Lament

(recently renamed to Heroes Are We and will be going by that title from now on)

Heroes are We started as a fanfic on December 30th, 2021, making it a few months shy of three months old at the time of writing thing (which, wow) and has settled at just around 280k words at time of completion.

This fanfic was my baby, and still is! It's developed to the point that it and its characters are almost entirely removed from their fandom counterparts (dsmp, if anyone was wondering).

In response, I have decided to pull a Twilight->50Shades move and turn HL into HAW, an original comic heavily inspired by the original. Many aspects will be kept, many will be changed, but it will still be, at its core, the fic we all know and love. It will, however, be a comic instead.

What Has Been Kept:

Backstories

There will be little to no tweaks here. I have fully fleshed out many characters' backstories, and am working on the rest of them off and on. A big change here will be that 90% of characters don't get their backstories told. I hope to remedy this. Will this add even more angst?

Yes, yes it will. But it will also add more fluff and more family moments, romantic moments, and character moments. I am not afraid to make this thing longer.

Powersets

Similarly to the last point, I will be changing basically nothing about the characters' powers, I'll just be using them more. For example, Tubbo (now known as Theo) does, in fact, have powers that aren't just Goat Boy (well, girl). Do I ever bring this up in the original fic? Not really, I barely even allude to it. This is going to change. Trust.

Major Plot Points

If I changed these, I would have been lying about keeping the core of the story. All arcs will remain as they are. The events will happen, just at a different pace. For example, The Pit Dwellers Arc. That one is going to have more build-up so it doesn't come out of nowhere. I'm essentially treating the fic like a Draft One. There will, again, likely be more arcs to fit in with the extra content.

Character Relationships

The Spider's Web family will still be a family, MD will still get a girlfriend, The MC will still have his love interest. I hope to flesh out these relationships more beyond the first one in this fic. I also really want to add more about the Hero Family here too.

Story Location

We will still be in the poorest district, still in a Hero focused society, these are core aspects of the fic. However, I am renaming like all of these things.

The numbered districts were a blatant Hunger Games reference, I have now given all those districts actual names. You know, like actual city districts have. The main city has a name too.

What Will Be Changed:

An overhaul of the writing

I'm much better now and So. Many. Characters were underutilized in the original fic.

Like seriously, every character that wasn't the MC was essentially left to rot. I am going to change that. Every character will have a role and every character will get the spotlight at some point.

I have so many personal criticisms about this fic I swear. Our vigilantes barely do any vigilante-ing, the mc's Other Backstory barely gets acknowledged, the characters beyond the mc barely do anything.

I get that it was writing in the MC's head, from his perspective, and the major focus of the story was on the process of recovering from trauma but jesus fucking christ. I can still do that while giving other characters attention. Well, now I can, because I have better writing skill.

Get ready to become a first draft Mr. Original Fanfic.

The Romance subplot

Fear not, it will be kept! I am lowkey in love with it but it sadly only exists in my head due to the previous point. It was not given enough (barely any) time to shine. According to some comments, that was okay because the writing made up for it but I know I can do better.

The Character Designs

Not that there were a lot of them in the main fic but the aspects that were didn't tend to be... very realistic for me to draw. The mc's four arms, for example, are going to be traded for a set of six (or eight) spider limbs. It's easier for me to draw. I definitely tried to keep the original arms but... guys they're just too clunky...

But also some characters got added design elements. Like Tubbo! (now known as Theo) Theo had horns in the original fic, now they're a full-on saytr. This has caused me a several tangents theorizing about saytr-inclusive mobility devices and also the theoretical microaggressions a pair of visibly hybrid-with-nonhuman-limbs poor teens would face in this world. Yeah, we're going that far.

Links

To finish off this lil introductory post, here are some links to relative posts made before this was.

Dream/Archangel's Design

Tommy/Jamie's Design

Tubbo/Theo's Design

The Original HL Fic

The Youtube Where I Might Post Content

The Ko-Fi Where You Can Donate Money And Commission Stuff

[hel-phoenyx]

New Years Eve, Interlude (2)

Interlude on the New Year's Eve story (even though we're in february. Too bad for the new year new me symbolism but hey they needed to breathe) on our collab with @corneille-but-not-the-author and @soupedepates, because I can't use Fenrir for the remaining plot point I have anymore and I really need this to go in the right direction before we start new shit. Can't go for two more months of stalling now can I :,)

So today you got Kriss being Kriss.

"Call her, Tyr."

My baby brother lifts his head from his phone. We are eating, Fen already left the table to go play pretend with his polly pocket, so I don't get as annoying as I could be about phones on the table ; still, it is a bit nerve-wracking to see thos big dumb ass sulk on at least the thirtiest draft he wants to send.

"What do you mean ?"

"I said what I said. Call her. You can't stay no contact eternally. If this reaches May and you miss Qamar's wedding because of that, or go in and ruin it by your sulking, she will have a right to kill you."

He raises his eyebrow.

"... I thought you told me to disconnect for a while."

"Yeah, from bullshit. Not your friends altogether. I told you, Tyr, you can't play the avoidant part forever, it's just self-sabotaging. You got hurt, she got hurt, you guys need to talk it out. Sooner rather than later."

He sighs. God he looks so miserable. Staying at my place did him good, he regained some colors, put on some weight and started going to the gym again, as well as boxing. Brynja managed to pull him back together woth Valentines, what a godsend. He's talking to the gang of six, and saw Kaizarz and Oli recently ; I even heard him have a long conversation with Meili over the phone yesterday.

Well, Meili chewed him out, but it was deserved.

No, the only problem left is Domhildr. I couldn't contact her, he didn't try, they're still not talking, and I can see the toll it takes on him. But, knowing that idiot, he doesn't think much of a potential attempt.

He closes his phone, take a bite of the dessert. Gustav's cheesecake. I love my malewife and I love even more his cakes. All his cakes.

".... I don't see the point. She must hate me. Silence once is excusable, but for two months ?"

"Well you did fuck up and that is precisely why you must apologize."

".... Yeah I know. But she'd be better without me anyway."

Jesus Christ.

I get up, take his cheeks between my two hands. Force him to look at me in the eyes.

"Listen well, you sulking baby. Do you really think the girl that told you she loved you after fucking Oli on New Years and flirting with Sigismund Warsowar after that, people that in your reference are appently better that you, would hate you for the sole point you're being a little kid ?"

He blinks, but I am not finished.

"If anything she probably feels like YOU hate her for the very legitimate lashing out at you. I know that girl since she's eight, you know. She can't hate people for shit."

"Yet she hate Fenrir."

"Yeah but see, Fenrir deserves his new load of silent treatment."

He has a tiny, sarcastic smile.

"On that point we agree."

I remember when Gustav told me they ran into Kaizarz and Fenrir had his little tantrum. Apparently Tyr kept an ice-cold profile for him all evening after that and it's deserved. It's been years, dude, and Kaizarz ain't did shit except being a better friend than you, drop it.

"But seriously, Tyr, call her. I'm sure she's not even aware you're staying at my place right now, even if you warned the three others. Brynja litteraly told me you ask them to keep it for themselves."

"I-"

He stops. No argument, huh.

"The truth, Tyr, is that you're so afraid of a confrontation where she would tell you that she doesn't love you anymore, and you could only blame yourself for that. But the more you avoid this shit the more it has a chance to happen, and you can't avoid it forever."

He stays silent. Bullseye, eh ? I know you too well.

That should be something for your therapist, but you didn't talk about that with him, did you. So I, as the big sister in mechanical engineering, have to step up. And engineer my way in so you understand.

I hate seeing you like this, Tyr. And them, too. You were a group, once, with Meili, Oli and Kaizarz and I don't want it falling apart because it was part of my childhood, too.

I let go of his cheeks, sit down again.

"I can't do everything for you, you know. I gave news to your friends while you needed to recover, I tried to arrange something with Domhildr so it doesn't take TWO FUCKING MONTHS, I invited you to stay at my place so you wouldn't be alone with your thoughts. I am happy to help you, really, but you're turning 27 this year, act like it."

He sighs. Nods.

".... I should call her. Maybe."

"That's a progress."

".... Not today."

Il roll my eyes.

"That's less of a progress. Tell you what, I won't force you, or interfere for shit. Won't nag you about that either. But pull your shit together, Tyr, for fuck's sake. Or you won't have any shit to pull."

He nods again. I guess I have made my point clear.

Good. So I won't have to call Domhildr and tell her to get her ass here asap.

[darthmaulification]

Your stories are so detailed! I love them! ❤️ May I request Darth Maul x pregnant reader smut, where Maul can't resist pregnant reader? or something exploring Maul's breeding kink trying to get them pregnant? 👉👈 that'd be so hot 🔥💦

A/N: ... this has been sitting in my drafts for like... two months. oopsie. took a while on this one. 😶 but, y’know, life happens. 🙏😔

anywho, this is the dirtiest, nastiest, most extensive smut i’ve ever written, like good GOD, what have i written??? 😳 i blame you, anon, your thot was too damn SCANDALOUS. 🥵��� had me BLUSHING writing my own darn tootin’ fic!!! 😳😖🥴😩💦💦

also, i kinda subscribe to the fanon (?) that dathomirian zabrak give their son’s names that mean violent, aggressive things (hence maul, savage, feral) so that’s why maul’s and reader’s son has the name he has, despite the fact he’s a literal sweetheart.

i hope y’all EAT with this one! PLEASE enjoy! 💗

content: DISGUSTANG smut, unprotected p in v sex, fingering (f receiving), pregnant sex, afab!fem!reader, established relationship (married 🥺), very domestic at the beginning, reader and maul have a son!!, pregnant!reader, reader is implied to be curvier too, maul’s my breeding kink really shows here, his pregnancy kink too lmao, also some goddess play? (is that a thing lol?), maul is also very service top in this, this fic is nothing but love in all forms it comes in

word count: 4,136 (jesus christ)

If someone had told you when you were younger and immature, that you’d be chasing a naked toddler around your home, you would have laughed at the absurdity. But here you are, finally gaining on your smiling, giggling like a madman three-year-old son, a tiny little boy whose way too fast for his age, and with far too much of his father’s influence in him. Not to mention he’s dripping wet, covered sporadically head to toe in bubbles, and, again, naked as the day he was born.

“Get over here, strawberry!” You attempt to coax the russet-skinned toddler back to you, clutching a fluffy towel in your hands. Of course, the sight of the towel only riles him up even more— because Ravage had determined very early on that bath time also means playtime— so he shoots off in the opposite direction, as quick as he can on his short, chubby legs, which is surprisingly fast. You groan, throwing your head back in mild exasperation.

It doesn’t help in the slightest that you’re currently seven months pregnant, and the extra weight of your second does not aid in making you a fast runner. Quite the opposite, actually.

“Maker, this child.” You sigh, shaking your head and setting up chase Ravage again, but before you go after the screaming, laughing toddler, Maul chooses that exact, perfect moment to return home, in all his shirtless glory. The opening of the door makes Ravage skid to a halt, almost tipping over, and when he sees his father in the doorway, his gummy smile positively beams and brightens his whole face.

“Dada!” He shrieks, careening towards Maul who grins and swoops Ravage into his arms when he reaches him. Ravage squeals, little hands immediately finding Maul’s face before he presses his little forehead against Maul’s chin. He goes almost silent, soft coos leaving his lips. Your husband hums, nuzzling the top of your son’s head gently in return, one of his hands rubbing Ravage’s back. The sight never ceases to make your heart swell with joy, how Maul so deeply adores your child and how Ravage gives it back.

“Did he escape the bath again?” Maul asks after a brief moment of quiet, walking fully into the house and closing the door behind him. The motion, for some reason, kicks Ravage into gear again and he starts babbling away, sticking one of his tiny fists into his mouth while also trying to “talk”. Maul strides over to you, taking in your disheveled, flushed appearance.

“Not quite.” You snort a laugh and shake your head, eyes rolling as the accursed memory of The Bath Incident briefly crosses your mind. Maul grins and passes over Ravage, who’s still speaking gibberish, but has calmed down enough to allow you to wrap him up in the towel. You adjust him in your arms, situating him above your baby bump, smiling warmly when he rests his head against the crook of your neck.

“He had the decency to bolt after I had pulled him out of the tub.” You reply, placing a soft kiss on the smooth crown of his head, and Ravage sighs happily when you do. You rub the little nubs on his head, where his horns are still only cartilage beneath the skin, in the way that makes him sleepy.

“How considerate of him.” Maul replies, smoothing a hand over Ravage’s head before his eyes drop downwards and he grins boyishly. He places a gentle yet firm hand on the swell of your belly, rubbing over your dress. Something in his eyes changes, in his whole demeanor for that matter, like a primal part of him rears it’s head. Like a fire that has gasoline thrown on it, flaring in intensity and heat.

You’ve seen it happen many times before during this pregnancy and your previous, and know exactly what very pleasurable end it leads to. It’s no secret to you of how Maul feels when you’re with child. A shiver goes down your spine, straight to your core.

“And what of this one, my love?” He asks, his voice just a tad huskier, leaning in to brush his lips against yours. It’s purposely slow and meant to be inviting, which you pick up instantly. Your lips curl up into a small grin in the kiss, and you part to see a mischievous look on Maul’s face. His pupils are dilated, not a whole lot, but enough that it’s noticeable.

“Oh, he’s been just fine. Active, as usual.” You murmur, letting Maul place a heavy, more heated kiss on your lips almost before you’ve even finished your sentence. You sigh into his mouth, happily letting your beloved husband to lay claim via the frenzied tongue. He shifts closer against you, which Ravage objects to with an indignant cry, and Maul parts from you.

“No kissing!” Ravage smacks a tiny palm on his father’s face, his face all furrowed with that anger that a toddler thinks they’re supposed to feel. Maul growls playfully and bites (very gently, of course) Ravage’s hand, which causes the baby to shriek with laughter. You pull away from Maul, rolling your eyes good-naturedly. 

“Okay, okay, no getting him too riled up. Besides...” You send a glance over your shoulder, a coquettish smile on your lips. 

“We need him to sleep. We’ve got a long night ahead of us.” You wink and turn quickly enough so that Maul doesn’t have time to quip a reply, but slow enough that you see his eyes flash with lust. Almost giggling, you hastily make your way to Ravage’s bedroom to get him ready for bed and out of the way for the rest of the night.

~

Despite bath time being a special sort of chaos a majority of the time, Ravage is far more willing to go to sleep easily. You peck his forehead, then pepper his tiny horn nubs all over in kisses, and then nuzzle his scarlet cheeks. Ravage is half-asleep, but awake enough to rub his eyes and smile up at you. He purrs lightly, hands gripping your forearm.

“Good night, baby boy.” You coo softly, cupping his face with your hand, fingers tracing the swooping black tattoo on his crown. Of course, Ravage is not actually tattooed, he is far too young and his skin is much too sensitive. Instead, Ravage is decorated like his father by a highly pigmented dye that stains the skin until he’s old enough to get inked. You kiss him one last time, on his chin, where the stain nearest his lips is beginning to fade.

“I love you so much, my sweet.” You murmur, pulling away from your baby which is always hard, but feels like it’s so much harder with all the pregnancy hormones that you’re dealing with. Placing a hand on your belly, you carefully rise so that you don’t disturb Ravage who’s practically asleep. You’ve never been much of a nervous person, but you keep your eye on him the entire time you walk to the door, and then some. Maul waits for you, having observed the whole time.

“He’ll be there in the morning, my dear.” Maul’s low voice is teasing, but it’s also laced with a genuine comfort. You feel the need to bite your lip, apprehensive about tearing your eyes from Ravage, but Maul’s hands pulling you against him breaks the spell. You wrap your arms around him, relishing in the warmth that emits from him in waves. If motherhood had made you one thing, it was being overly wary.

“He’s so perfect... How is he three years old already?” You ask quietly, resting your head against Maul’s bare shoulder. Your eyes glance over to your son, who’s sleeping so peacefully and quietly you want the moment to last forever. He looks so warm and safe and happy... Words cannot describe how satisfying motherhood feels. It feels like Ravage was still a newborn yesterday.

“I wonder that myself...” Maul starts, “Though, my dear, you’ll have another baby in your arms soon enough.”

You giggle softly, letting Maul pull you in close to him, as far as you still can that is. He reaches past you to pull the bedroom door shut as his face leans in, lips locking with yours to kiss you fervently, deeply. You moan softly into his mouth as his warm, moving tongue claims you, and you wrap your arms around his neck. You kiss for a few moments longer before Maul pulls back, leaving you catching your breath.

“Have I told you how stunning you look?” He asks, voice lilting with a curious sort of brazenness, playfully searching for an answer. You hum, eyes heavy lidded, tracing with a single finger the sloping tattoo on Maul’s collar bone. He meets your gaze, molten gold eyes just as hazy as yours.

“Yes... though I may need to hear it again.” You murmur, brushing your lips against the softer skin of his cheek, practically purring with delight when Maul’s hand slips, and he grabs your ass. You giggle breathily when he squeezes, smiling still when his mouth is on yours again.

“You glow, my beautiful wife, especially when there is a babe ripe in your womb.” Maul almost hisses those last words, and you whimper when the feeling of his growing erection pokes against your thigh. The wetness between your legs seems to grow tenfold, you feel drenched with liquid warm slick. Maul kisses you again, his other hand going to palm the swell of your belly, and you tremble at the vibration his groan sends into your mouth.

“Fuck, if only I could keep you like this.” He growls lowly, hand cupping your belly, and he’s emboldened by his own words, kissing you forcefully. You whimper, hands gripping him as he rocks his body into yours, grinding you lightly against the closed door behind you.

“T-To the bedroom, please.” You sigh desperately, clinging to your husband, and he chuckles lowly, eagerly, and he secures his arm around your waist to pull you in the direction of your shared room. He keeps kissing you along the way, making your knees almost give out on you with each heated, passionate one. By the time the door’s been opened, you’re quivering so intensely with need that Maul takes it upon himself to lift you into his arms and walk you to the bed.

Thankful for his strength, you sigh happily when he places you down on the soft mattress, the relief in your lower back and feet almost as intoxicating as the arousal the bubbles inside you. Maul keeps himself at the end of the bed, where he watches you like a vulture, watches as you scoot back against the mountain of pillows that you have accumulated over the duration of your pregnancies.

“Please, my love, give me a show.” He speaks, eyes dilating further until his golden yellow hues are nearly eclipsed by the inky blacks of his pupils. Your face burns with a slightly embarrassed blush, because it sometimes still evades you as to why Maul is seemingly so captivated by your pregnant form, but you’re so needy and hot, that your dress simply needs to come off.

“Okay. For you.” You whisper, eyes not leaving Maul as you reach up to unclasp the button at the top of your dress, then the one below it, and the one after that. Maul watches as your cleavage becomes more and more revealed, then as your breasts simple spill from the confines of your bodice, too heavy for the loosening fabric. Then he watches as you reach around to your back to untie the ribbon that holds your skirt, watches as the fabric slacks on your swollen belly.

You grow more and more aroused as you watch Maul almost drool as you shimmy your hips to pull your dress from your body, moaning softly when his hips suddenly seize when the fabrics fall to reveal your baby bump, your newly outie belly button, and the darkened line below it. With one last shift of your hips, and kick of your dress falls from the bed, and leaves you bare to your bristling husband.

“You look like the Winged Goddess herself.” Maul finally growls, taking in the entire sight of you, flushed and sweaty and pregnant, sprawl like a queen on her throne of pillows. The compliment sends a shiver down your spine and you whimper from arousal. It wasn’t often, being this heavily pregnant, that you felt sexy, so irresistible. But from the way Maul’s honey gaze burns across your body, how he studies your swollen belly and heavy breasts with nothing but adoration and lust, you can only think this is what it feels like to be worshipped.

Maul doesn’t only tell you he thinks you look like a goddess, he makes you one.

And Maker, Maul is horny. He’s staring at you intensely, like a wild animal about to pounce yet contained by straining patience. His hips rut the air, like his cock is searching for the hot, wet, holy place you have to offer for it’s sanctuary. Maul’s shoulders rise with the steady heaves of his chest, nostrils flaring with each exhale. Rarely does he have this type of patience, but tonight you are his temple, and he’ll treat you with reverence.

“Come, then. Give your goddess tribute.” You coo, voice a tad shaky from need, spreading your meaty thighs deliciously wide as you open your arms to him. No sooner does the invitation leave your lips as Maul leaps onto the bed, stalking up to you on all fours, looking like a hungry wolf. His golden eyes drop from your face to your dripping, swollen pink pussy, and something absolutely ragged flashes in them.

“My Goddess, I am going to ravish you.” And Maul’s lips are on yours in a deeply passionate kiss that steals away all of you in it. His tongue pushes past your lips and he tastes like heaven, and you moan, eyes closing. Maul hastens the kiss almost frantically, sucking at your mouth like he’s drinking a nectar. All of your moans and gasps are swallowed by him, and Maul pulls more and more from you. You reach and grab his shoulders, gripping at the thick muscle of his neck, nails biting into his skin.

Maul finally pulls away, breaking the kiss with a loud, wet pop and his absence is agonizing. Panting, his eyes scan your face, soaking up your dazed expression, red cheeks, and raw lips. He grins and leans back in to kiss you again, brief and light this time, before he starts to leave kisses along your jaw, leading down your neck. You sigh happily when Maul sucks mark against your throat, hands roaming his sculpted shoulders and upper back.

“Maul...” You whine his name, one of your feet crossing over his calf, beckoning him closer. Maul allows you to reel him in, arching over you and anchoring himself with his arms. Just barely, feather-light, his toned stomach brushes against the crest of your encarpous middle, a reminder that he’s the one who put the baby there. Maul nuzzles your neck, his chuckling sending small vibrations into the soft skin.

“My love...” Maul murmurs, one hand raising to cup your breast as his lips travel lower, “My Goddess, you are perfection.”

He squeezes your tit, which causes you to cry out from the explosion of pleasure that ensues. Maul knows they’re tender, knows they’re overly sensitive, and he knows all of this as his fingers tweak your darkened nipple, reducing you to panting shrieks. He rolls your weighty breast in his hand and locks his lips around the nipple of the other, swirling his tongue around it. You squeal and arch your back, one hand holding Maul’s head against your chest to urge him to not stop.

“Maul, Maul!” You chant his name, almost weeping when his hand leaves your breast, flattening against your side to knead at the plush flesh of your hip. Maul hums, uses his knee to further spread your thighs, and dips his hand below to tease his finger tips around your soaked pussy. You whimper when he traces your pulsing slit, his knuckles brushing against the sensitive bud that sits at the apex of your womanhood.

“Mm... you are drenched, my Goddess.” He groans, pushing two of his fingers into you which has you tossing your head back, mouth agape. It’s all stars and fireworks, so quickly and easily thanks to your over-sensitivity due to pregnancy, and the way Maul curls his fingers just right has the coil in you tighten. Maul sucks at your nipple, rolls his fingers again inside you, and it only takes the pad of his thumb, which comes to swirl over your clit only once, that has you undone.

“Maul!~” You weep his name, shaking and stiffening all at once as your first orgasm ripples through you like aftershocks of an earthquake. It’s all so sudden that even Maul seems pleasantly surprised, unlatching from your breast to look down between your legs where his crimson hand glistens with your release. He pulls his fingers from you, marveling at the way your cunt clenches, more of your nectar oozing from it.

“A bit premature, hm?” He teases, kissing your breasts and collar as he gives you a few moments to recover from the world-shattering climax. You shake your head, panting, hairs stuck to your forehead by the sheen of sweat that coats your entire body. You feel so hot, overheated, and wanting him— needing his thick, ribbed cock and his heavy balls and all his virile cum within them.

“Please, my love, please.” You beg, hands smoothing over his shoulders, gliding to massage his biceps, pulling him closer. All you want is him, you need him, your pussy aches for him. And Maul delivers, seeing how you’re already half gone, and in one delicious, pleasing thrust of his hips, he sinks his hard cock into your wet heat.

You shriek and he groans loudly, the simultaneous sensations of your clenching, quivering vagina and his spear-like dick jumps the both of you very near your ends. Maul pulls back his hips to snap them forward, going lost in his wild eyes briefly, and repeats the motion, slow but hard. You hardly have the awareness to breathe, so lost as Maul hits the gummy nodes of your cervix with each rock of his hips, the ridges of his cock dragging against the velvety walls of your cunt.

“F-Fa—Faster.” Drool escapes the corner of your lips with the weakly uttered plea you barely manage to convey. He obliges, just as lost as you, and his hips pull back to slam in quickly, repeating over and over, jostling your body with purpose and force. It feels like it knocks the wind from you, and you hold onto Maul like he’s your lifeline, weeping moans against his neck. His head dips against the crook of your shoulder, mindful of his horns, and he pants against your flushed skin.

“Love seeing you pregnant.” Maul grunts, lips worrying a dark mark into your neck that he seals with a small nip. You keen, hips unconsciously tilting more so his cock continues to hit that place just right, that you can take him even deeper. That tender place makes you see stars, the pleasure electrifying you to your bones, making you curl your toes into the sheets. Your pussy clenches, and Maul groans, thrusting with conviction like a bull in rut. The sound of his hips snapping wetly against yours filling the air, each thrust makes your thighs and hips jiggle.

“Wan—ugh, Want to keep you fat with child.” Scarlet and charcoal hands run up the hill of your belly to cup your breasts from below. Maul squeezes them, beckoning beads of milk to form at your nipples, and you cry out, moaning wantonly and uninhibited by now. Your eyes squeeze shut as the coil grows taut in your core once more, tighter and tighter with each snap of his hips. Maul growls out some incomprehensible sentence, snarling into your neck, where he bites again, then kisses and licks.

“S-So beautiful... tits full of milk... c-crowded, stuffed belly.” It’s all choked out in between grunts that get louder and louder until Maul is a mess of heaving groans. Your airy moans clash in the air with his snarling, Maul bites at your neck, your shoulder, lightly gnawing on you like he’s desperate for your taste. He thrusts into you like a jackhammer, bouncing you on his cock and rocking your entire body.

You mind goes blank, and the knot inside you snaps, sending you into the oblivion of a small death that shakes you to your core. It leaves you wide-eyed and moth hanging open, your puffy entrance spilling your wet release all over your inner thighs, the bed, and soaking Maul’s cock that still pulls in and out of you.

The rhythmic rocking of your body could have lulled you asleep, had it not been the soaring pleasure of your orgasm keeping you awake. It fades steadily, allowing the cloud that has blinded your mind dissipate as you regain consciousness, eyelids fluttering as you bask in the tingling of your climax, the wetness between your legs and under your butt, and Maul’s sturdy, warm flesh.

It’s all so much, so perfect, so wonderfully passionate.

He moans when your cunt grips him like a vice as he fucks you through your orgasm, pulling his head from your shoulder to lay wet kisses on your panting lips and tear-streaked face. You hadn’t even realized you’d actually cried from the pleasure until Maul dutifully laps away any remaining tears before he kisses down your neck to lick away the milk that’s leaked from your breasts as well, making you sigh.

His pace slows, hips stuttering once, then twice, and he too finishes with a loud groan, pelvis flush against yours as he spills thick, sticky ropes of cum directly to your womb. The feeling of the spreading warmth pulls you further back to reality, grounding you with it’s primal, natural familiarity. You hum, rubbing Maul’s tense back with your hands as he stays locked to you for a good thirty seconds, just letting him spill everything he has into you.

Near the end, he says your name like a desperate prayer, all choked, all wretched from his throat. And he says it again once his cock’s finished, the last few spurts of cum leaving him, and this time it is said with nothing but satisfaction, content, and love. He kisses your breasts a few more times, his hands rubbing your hips, before he lifts his eyes to meet yours.

“I love you.” Maul says, his eyes as bright and as serious as the sun, and you smile broadly, if not a bit loopy and sleepy too. You cup his cheek, thumb resting on the curved line of the tattoo on his cheekbone. One of Maul’s hands go to tuck your sweaty hair behind your ear, the other plants itself firmly beside you so that Maul can anchor himself above you. His softening cock rests nestled inside you, he arches over you like a protective ceiling of red and black loving flesh and blood, and he kisses you like your the personification of all that is good and holy.

“I love you.” He says again, and it makes your heart sing. The air around you and Maul buzzes with the dewy afterglow of sex, feeling as though it lights your dimly lit bedroom a brighter, gentle orange. Maul sighs deeply into the kiss and pulls out from you, and you sigh when you feel his release steadily seep from you like glistening honey off the comb. He still kisses you as he moves from atop you to your side, haphazardly grabbing a blanket to pull over you both.

As you both kiss and situate yourselves into bed, spent and exhausted, you don’t mind that tonight he doesn’t leave to get cloth to clean you up, or that you’re falling asleep sticky and wet, and that tomorrow you’ll have to clean the sheets and probably the mattress too. No, tonight you only think of Maul, soak in all of the love and adoration you feel come from him, and reciprocate it when he pulls you to him, spooning you from behind, wrapped securely by his strong arms.

“I love you, too.” You whisper to Maul in the darkness, eyes closed, your fingers searching to lace with his, both of your hands then resting atop the baby that grows inside you. He hums, kisses the back of your neck, and you fall asleep feeling happy, tranquil, and loved.

[lichfucker]

there is a consistent group of people who actively id black sails content, and that's WAY better than some fandoms I've been in, I'm endlessly grateful for it... but g-d sometimes it really does feel like it's five people staring down a tidal wave. like jesus fucking christ. I only follow a small handful of bs folks and yet! I went from having like 80 posts in my drafts (the vast majority of them things I was saving for reference, NOT posts waiting to be described) to over 500 in like three months. and that's not even counting the number of posts I describe immediately! I stick like half the posts I see in my drafts and the other half I just do on the spot. there's just so MUCH and people are always making MORE and the more is wonderful! it's incredible that a show that ended five years ago has such an active and passionate fanbase still! but holy shit I'm fucking exhausted. I'm so tired.

[whencartoonsruletheworld]

The Thrilling Saga of Connie paying real life money for the Worst Sonic TV Show

Let’s begin with the simple fact that me and my sister, @birdsareblooming​ “Cori”, have both been hyperfixating on Sonic the Hedgehog since last March. During this hyperfixation, I was on Sonic Wiki to copy-paste song lyrics onto my stolen mp3s, and I called my sister in and pointed at the template at the bottom. 

“What is this Sonic Underground thing?” I asked. “It has one shit billion songs.” 

So we clicked on the page to read about it, and each sentence we read was a punch in the gut and this quickly became the funniest thing we’d ever read. Highlights include:

It looks like this:

“Sonic[...] is known to be a prince” 

Sonic has two siblings who actually have good characterization but their names are literally just Sonia and Manic. Like. Sonic split into two names. jesus christ 

Also Sonic and his siblings all share a voice actor. honestly Jaleel White does his best with it but 

“The three siblings possess enchanted medallions that transform not only into musical instruments, but also into weapons.”

“Some fans consider Sonia to be a clone of Amy Rose, minus the attraction Amy feels for Sonic.” YEAH I SURE HOPE IT DOES

“Manic is the most often captured of the siblings” himbo king 

Knuckles shows up, and for the first, like, two sentences his description is very similar to the game, and then you get immediately pulverized by “He has a pet Dinosaur called Chomps.”

Literally so many sentences on Sonic Wiki are lowkey salty about this show. The page features lines such as “Sonic Underground bears little relation to the often complex Sonic universe (including previous animated series, as well as Sonic comics and games), and shares only three established characters” and “many of the characters in the Freedom Fighter group that were in Sonic the Hedgehog are completely left out (including Tails).”

“The show met with mostly negative reviews.”

*checks air dates* It only lasted two goddamn months

So after seeing this we thought it was the funniest thing and we showed our older sister, @patema-introverted​ “North.” To our surprise, our at the time “knew nothing about this sonic bullshit” sister recognized the show. Turns out she’d seen trailers for it as a child and that was her sole exposure to Sonic canon. 

We were in quarantine at the time, so we ended up finding it on YouTube and binge-watching it all together as a sibling bonding activity. It was just as hilarious as we thought it would be- some stuff was legitimately good, like the sibling dialogue for instance, but good lord were the character designs ugly, the plot all over the place, and pretty much every song, um, not great. Also there was one episode that we skipped because it got, um, I think “stereotypical” is the nicest word I can use here. 

But the point is, we had a jolly good time watching it, and afterwards we binged all the other Sonic shows and bonded as a family. 

After quarantine, North and I go back to college. My roommate gets groceries at Walmart, while I get them elsewhere, so while she and North collect food I wander the DVD aisle to look at the cool movies and also dumpster-dive in the bargain bin for Cats (2019). I am also short as fuck, so the top shelf of movies I cannot see, I can only read the labels. 

So one day I was browsing the DVDs, and glancing over at the labels for the top shelf. I read over the final one before the shelves end. 

And then I stop, do a double take, and have a heart attack, because there is a label that reads “SONIC UNDERGROUND $3.74″

I immediately climb the shelf but there aren’t any DVDs atop the shelf. However, the label is still there. I excitedly tell my sister and roommates, freak out with them a bit, and then give myself a mission statement:

I will buy the $4 Sonic Underground DVD from Walmart

I did not want it as a gift, I did not want to find it online. I wanted to walk into a store, pick up the Worst Sonic Show on DVD, walk it straight to the checkout, and in front of the cashier and God, pay for it with my own money. I did not care if it was the whole series or two episodes; I needed to do this for my own serotonin.

We would go to Walmart about once a week. Every time, I would go to the DVD aisle, and go right to the end of the shelves. I would stare at the label SONIC UNDERGROUND $3.74 and empty space above it and wonder who the fuck was buying this other than me. I would occasionally ask employees if they had any copies in storage. I would build a shrine to Manic in my room. Okay, no I didn’t, but only because my RA would have murdered me. 

Christmas break comes, and we have to go home. We have a nice Christmas, and Cori and I infodump at each other about how we would make Sonic Underground a good show (note: we’re both galaxy braining) and also play Bendy and the Ink Machine. Fun times. 

When we finally get back to College, it’s late January- long story short we have a very long winter break. My roommate who gets food at Walmart got food without us the first week cause she showed up first, so we take her out to Walmart the first time in the year of our lord 2021 on January 29. 

I wander the Valentine’s aisle, immediately grabbing a sequin puppy. I go to the DVDs and see Animaniacs Season One, also grab that. 

And then.

There it is.

The Holy Grail. 

Above the label SONIC UNDERGROUND $3.74, is one DVD left. 

Already I am losing my mind. It’s roughly seven hours of episodes- I couldn’t find an episode list, but I think that’s half the show, for $4! And the cover is amazing. 

That’s a png of Sonic from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (1993) with a medallion badly photoshopped over it. The medallion is too small. 

Manic is shoved into the corner. He doesn’t have his medallion at all. 

Sonia isn’t even pictured on the front cover, probably because they realized she was the worst designed of the bunch. I’m not ragging on her though, because she’s still one of the better designed characters of the show. Those background characters make me cry 

So you bet your ass I finally paid my hard-earned $4 for this shit. Upon getting home, I discovered that there was even wilder shit with this DVD than I thought. 

For starters: the bonus features listed are as follows:

Original Concept Art - did not expect that these character designs were the final draft

Storyboard-to-screen - did not expect they bothered to storyboard this 

Music Video Jukebox - that’s cute, they thought we liked the music 

Interviews with original screenwriter & executive producer - I fully expect the only questions to be “why.” 

On the left of this list are screenshots from the show, where people can finally see Sonia, who we Know™ is a girl because she is pink and has hair and also an actual body shape instead of just circles like her brothers. 

But wait... what’s that in the lefthand corner? 

That looks like some kind of robot. But it’s not a robot from Sonic Underground! That didn’t appear once. Why is it here? 

The mystery continues upon opening the DVD case: inside are advertisements for other collections, including other Sonic DVDs: two volumes of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (1993) and the final episodes of Sonic the Hedgehog “SatAM” (1993)

First of all, the first volume of AOSTH has the exact same PNG of Sonic as the Underground Volume 1. Not even trying to hide it. But second... the second volume of AOSTH also has this robot on its cover. 

And THIS ROBOT IS ALSO DECORATING THE THIRD DISC IN THE SET?

So you may be asking, who is this robot? Is it from AOSTH or Underground?

IT’S FROM FUCKING SATAM. The one show that doesn’t have it decorating the DVD covers.

Also, not only is it from SatAM, it only appears in one fucking episode. Not a major character! AND IT HAS A DIFFERENT DESIGN ON THE PROMO ART, WITH HAIR AND FANGS.

Why is it showing up everywhere? What is going on? 

I have not yet had the opportunity to watch this glorious piece of animation, but I am so glad at the confusion I have felt upon receiving it. 

But before I go, I must share with you the best part of this DVD purchase. And it was flipping to the back, scanning the details, and discovering the exact runtime of the episode collection. 

Guys, gals, and enby pals, friends and enemies, Nintendo and Sega, the first Volume of Sonic Underground has a runtime of...

420 MINUTES.

Maybe I’m wrong and this IS the best Sonic show. 

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 290: It’s Touya Time

Previously on BnHA: Iida and Hadou showed up like a couple of Pennsylvanias and Georgias to bail Shouto out at the last minute. Ochako and Toga had an exceptionally strange fight which consisted of Toga being all “guess what Ochako, I used your quirk to murder someone, how do you feel about that”, and Ochako being all “I do not like that”, to which Toga was all “:(”. There was some doll-stealing and some bookcase-yeeting, and then Toga left in tears because Ochako was all adamant that murder has consequences. Anyway so I have absolutely no idea what Toga is thinking now, but I guess we’ll have some time to stew on it, because we ended the chapter by cutting back to the Iida+Hadou+Shouto VS Afomura battle, which was interrupted by Gigantomachia and the LoV showing up like a bunch of Floridas to ruin everyone’s nice day.

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi hands the mic over to Dabi and is all “take it away, kid.” Over in Room 315 of Musutafu General, Rei is all “may I please watch some TV” and the hospital staff is all “sure”, and so she tunes in just in time to catch Todoroki Touya’s Peabody Award-winning documentary “Number One Hero, Number One Fraud: The Todoroki Enji Story”, which is being broadcast nationwide courtesy of Skeptic and his magic laptop. Meanwhile in Jakku, Dabi is all “I’M TOUYA, BITCHES”, and Shouto and Enji are all, “(゜◇゜ )”, and Dabi is all, “anyway so just to sum it all up, because of how much of a jerk Endeavor was, I am now Evil.” Everyone continues to be all “(ﾟoﾟ)” except for Dabi, who is all “└(˘▾˘┌ )≡ ( ┐˘▾˘)┘≡┗( ˘▾˘)┛≡┏( ˘▾˘)┓≡┗( ˘▾˘)┛” for pretty much the rest of the chapter. Idk. Just let the man have his fun, guys. He’s waited a long time for this.

y’all I have a confession to make. I am technically not spoiled for this chapter thanks to my robustly paranoid system of spoiler-tag-filtering, which is extensive enough that it pretty much will catch whenever someone so much as breathes something even remotely new-chapter-related. that being said, I like to think that I am capable of making basic logical inferences! and so the fact that for the past 36 hours, my dashboard has pretty much nonstop consisted almost entirely of this...

...has led me to conclude that MAYBE, POSSIBLY, PROBABLY, BUT ALSO DEFINITELY, a certain someone is finally going to reveal his ~secret identity~ woop woop. lmao

anyway so everyone, please remember to act surprised though, as we would not want Dabi’s feelings to be hurt at all. he has been planning this moment for the last decade or so and I wouldn’t want him to feel like all of that effort was for naught. so just play along, okay. OH MY, IF IT ISN’T THE LEAGUE OF VILLAINS’ MYSTERIOUS DABI. WHATEVER COULD HIS ARRIVAL POSSIBLY BE HERALDING, I JUST DON’T KNOW

“Dabi’s Dance” lmao. I’m sticking with Touya Time myself. ngl I had this recap title planned out for at least the past year or so. just waiting for that day to finally come

anyway so some people in some building somewhere are all “TURN OFF THE TV IN ROOM 315” and idk. I’m guessing the LoV is hacking the airwaves to livestream the reveal, as predicted

-- oh shit. UHHHHHHHH

did she always have this TV or did she get it just recently?? jfc of all the times for the hospital staff to finally loosen up

um... so that’s... (・＿・；)

well but I mean, she was gonna find out one way or the other at some point though. like you can’t really just keep her locked up and isolated from all news of the outside world forever and ever and ever. granted, this isn’t exactly the ideal way for her to learn this particular bit of information, but it’s not really ideal for anybody else either! EXCEPT DABI, THAT IS. have yourself a day you funky little terrorist

oh shit what is this?? it’s not live???

over in Jakku, a red-faced, sputtering Dabi makes a frantic grab for Skeptic’s laptop. “WAIT, NO, JESUS, NOT THAT TAPE!”

lol. but seriously Dabi are you even wearing a shirt. like I’m not one to slutshame anyone bro, but it’s just, exactly what type of mood were you looking to set here??

anyway so we really are cutting back to Jakku now, and Gigantomachia is all, “MASTERS”! which, I wonder if he really did use the plural? that’s right Machia, both of them in one place now! that sure is convenient for you huh

lol what is this with all this AFO monologuing. you’re really gonna make me read through this when I’m sitting here all sleep-deprived from election week. JUST GET TO THE TOUYAS. WE WERE PROMISED TOUYAS!!

sigh

“tee hee it’s fucking hilarious how goddamn powerful I am now lol”

alas, in spite of myself I do have two serious takeaways from this. one is that AFO is still controlling most of Tomura’s body behind the scenes, which both does and doesn’t bode well for Tomura (like, at least he’s not dying, but the long-term implications of this for his free will and such certainly are not Good). and two is that this confirms that Ujiko did give Tomura at least one powerful mutant quirk, which explains why he was still so deadly and indestructible even when Aizawa was using Erasure on him (since Erasure doesn’t work on mutant quirks, just emitter and transformation ones)

MEANWHILE ON TODAY’S EPISODE OF “TODOROKI SHOUTO’S TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD LIFE”

I like how he doesn’t actually say that he can’t take on Gigantomachia. just that he can’t take on him and Afomura at the same time. that’s confidence, baby. that right there is why you always draft Todoroki Shouto in the first round for your fantasy team

HADOU!!!!

OOOH, TOMURA’S ALL “MAN, THIS GIRL’S WAVE POWERS AND THIS KID’S ICE POWERS ARE A SUPER-STRONG COMBO DAGNABBIT.” YESSS I LIKE THAT, TELL ME MORE ABOUT HOW COOL AND POWERFUL THEY ARE

HOT DAMN LOOK AT THAT

um but not to take away from this exceptionally cool moment or anything, but why is Endeavor dying and shouting “RUN” down there in the corner um

oh

excuse me. not to take away from How Bad This All Is, but!!

just a little, smol, IidaBaku for everyone. Iida, who apparently doesn’t know a damn thing about first aid and is all, “hmm that’s a pretty bad-looking puncture wound he has in his left shoulder there, I think I’ll just let his arm dangle freely like that and I won’t bother taking off his heavy gauntlets either. I mean. he’ll be fine, probably.” smh. at least Shouto probably cauterized the wounds

EXCUSE ME WHAT

TIME FOR MORE OF THAT GOOD OLD FASHIONED SHOUNEN RIDICULOUSNESS I GUESS LMAO. KACCHAN YOU HAVE A HOLE IN YOUR TORSO. THERE IS A HOLE IN YOUR TORSO, AND YOU LOST LIKE FOUR GALLONS OF BLOOD, BUT SURE. “PUT ME DOWN” HE SAYS. FIRST OF ALL, PUTTING ASIDE THE FACT THAT YOU ABSOLUTELY SHOULD NOT BE CONSCIOUS, THE FUCK ARE YOU EVEN GOING TO DO, LIE DOWN AT THEM?? LISTEN, YOU SWEET IDIOT. TAKE HEED, BELOVED DUMBASS!!

ah well. I guess he gets to watch the Touya Show now too then lol

LMAOOOO now Machia’s lifting Tomura carefully in his palm like a broken action figure and Spinner is all “THE FUCK, YOU LOOK LIKE DEATH WARMED OVER”

“oh hey there Spinner. well let’s see, I woke up from my three-month coma and destroyed a city, had my body incinerated, and am currently being possessed by a diabolically evil potato. but please, tell me more about everything you've been through”

AW YISS AND THE FOCUS NOW SHIFTS TO THE TODOROKIS. EVERYTHING IS PROCEEDING EXACTLY AS WE HAVE FORESEEN

Endeavor my dude. it’s as if you want to die here. also holy shit, that bit about his lungs definitely does not bode well for him either

MOTHERFUCKER

GO AHEAD AND SIGN YOUR OWN DEATH CERTIFICATE, WHY DON’T YOU!! FLAGS UPON FLAGS. JESUS CHRIST

meanwhile Dabi’s just waving at ‘em

lmaoooo please oh please Caleb please keep this ‘EYYYYYYY’, it’s fucking perfect kdlshk;hg

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH

(ETA: so as you will see very shortly, I completely missed this detail in my first read-through because I was so anxious to get to the reveal page, but THIS MOTHERFUCKER LITERALLY DOUSED HIMSELF WITH INSTANT HAIR DYE REMOVER THAT HE’S JUST BEEN CARRYING AROUND IN A LITTLE HIP POUCH APPRENTLY SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME. MOTHERFUCKER. I HAVE NO WORDS.)

IS THIS THE TIME. IS THIS THE MOMENT?! HERE IT COMES SLKFHS BRACE YERSELVES LADS

EYYYYYYYYYYYY

OKAY EVERYONE JUST LIKE WE PRACTICED!! SURPRISED FACES ON THREE! ONE... TWO... (•̪ o •̪) !! okay how was that

LMAO ENDEAVOR

at least Shouto looks properly stunned. Enji just looks like endeavor.exe just straight up stopped working

meanwhile Deku’s out here trying to do the math on this latest surprise family reveal! first Tomura is related to Nana, and now this. what’s next. who are you related to, Spinner. he rips off his boots to reveal engine legs and declares himself Iida’s long-lost uncle

oh shit Touya

it’s as if a million fanworks suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly jossed. who knew that all this time he was secretly sporting a crop top scar

also, THIRTY?! holy shit son you been busy

la la la two-page spread of Touya casually driving the dagger into Endeavor’s hero career and rocking the foundations of hero society as we know it la la la

la la la!!!

OH IS THAT THE END OF THE STORY THEN

almost got confused for a sec. there’s two monologues happening at once here. Endeavor doesn’t even know that his dirty laundry is being aired out nation-wide as we speak ffffff

btw while I appreciate the close-ups of Enji and Shouto here for sure, ngl I would also really love to see everyone else’s reactions right now. SHOW ME BAKUGOU AND THE LOV YOU COWARDS

is his hair actually turning white all of a sudden?? your hair dye just reacts on command??

(ETA: in all seriousness though, the hell kind of hair dye was he using? all he has to do is pour a bottle of that stuff and not even lather it in and it’s just gone just like that?? what the fuck would have have done if it ever rained lmao.

and this motherfucker just goes and leaves the dye remover in afterwards, too. I have never dyed my hair in my life and even I can tell you that’s probably not a good idea, Dabi.)

is this it. is this the legendary Dabi Dance in action. lmfao

oh hey what the fuck

so you figured you’d just murder your innocent younger brother to get revenge on dad, huh. well that’s nice

is that really all there is to the origin story though?? feels like we’re still missing a huge chunk of it. what was it that finally sent him over the edge? or was the trauma of being created as Endeavor’s perfect little hero tool and then being subsequently rejected by him enough on its own? because I’m still kind of confused on the part where he goes from “abused and discarded by his father” to “killed thirty people and was plotting the murder of his own brother” to tell you the truth

(ETA: lmao the initial fandom reaction to this did not disappoint. listen guys. people can be traumatized and shaped by awful circumstances that are completely out of their control, and grow up to be people they wouldn’t have grown up to be if things had been better, and all of that absolutely sucks, but. it doesn’t mean they get a get-out-of-jail-free card for all of their future actions, either! the tragedy of this situation is that terrible things happened to Touya, and he then went on to do terrible things himself. the tragedy of it is that this is exactly how the cycle of abuse keeps repeating itself on and on and on. maybe one of the people Dabi killed had a child who will now grow up traumatized themselves, and potentially go on to pay it forward themselves when they grow up. the tragedy is that the eye-for-an-eye justice that Touya is seeking out won’t actually make anything better in the end. the tragedy is that we understand why Touya is so angry, but that anger has basically warped him into the gleefully sadistic dancing figure we see in this chapter who has stopped caring about anyone else’s pain or suffering and just wants his own revenge.

anyway. basically what I’m trying to say is that it’s possible for the concepts of “Todoroki Touya was an innocent child and a victim of abuse” and “Dabi is a grown-ass motherfucking adult who killed thirty people and PROBABLY NEEDS TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR THAT” to coexist lol. like, y’all wanted your moral grey, well HERE YOU GO lmao, eat up.)

lol but LOOK AT THAT BOY DANCE HIS LITTLE HEART OUT though

Todoroki Touya confirmed not a fan of the Endeavor redemption arc huh. well we all saw this coming lols

anyways here’s a sexy Touya for y’all

you really are the most theatrical bitch I s2g lmao

also for real though, what is happening with his hair? anime team in shambles here. they’re probably just gonna double down and keep it red. too bad though cuz this is a surprisingly good look on him

SO MANY CLOSE-UPS OF THE TODOROKI FACES

friendly reminder that Dabi without a doubt REHEARSED this speech like a thousand fucking times. LET US FALL TOGETHER!! COME DANCE WITH YOUR SON IN HELL. apparently if you fake your own death in middle school you will never mentally age past that point and will remain a permanent chuuni

OH LMAO THAT’S THE END

we really just gonna end on “DANCE WITH YOUR SON IN HELL”, huh. very well then. you know what song to play, Horikoshi. one, two... YOU ARE MY DAD. YOU’RE MY DAD!! BOOGIE WOOGIE WOOGIE

[heyitssmiller]

Chop It Like It’s Hot

A Worst Cooks in America O’Knutzy AU

The Sweater Weather Discord group helped me come up with this idea like two months ago, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. All credit goes to @lumosinlove for her amazing characters!

Chop It Like It’s Hot Masterlist

Chapter 1: Don’t Go Bacon My Heart

The Day Before the Competition

Interviewer (off camera): Finn O’Hara and Logan Tremblay for their introductions.

Logan: * taps on microphone* Is this mic working?

Finn: How do you still not know how to work a mic? You deal with them all time.

Logan: I signed up to compete in a cooking show, not to deal with your chirps.

Finn: You love ‘em. *winks*

Interviewer: So basically all we want from you guys is a brief introduction for the viewers. I’ll ask some questions, but most of this should be you guys just talking. We can edit things out later, so don’t worry about anything like that. Why don’t you guys start with your names and careers and we’ll go from there.

Finn: Yo, I’m Finn O’Hara, and I’m a terrible cook. *finger guns* Although I guess that’s a given, seeing that I’m on this show.

Logan: *mumbles in French, head in hands*

Finn: This asshole – shit, no – fuck! Sorry, I probably shouldn’t be cussing. This is a family-friendly show.

Logan: Dear God, please stop talking. I’m Logan Tremblay, the unfortunate boyfriend.

*Finn pouts*

Interviewer: And you guys play hockey?

Logan: Yeah, we play in the NHL. Gryffindor Lions.

Finn: That’s how we met, actually. Through hockey. We played together at Harvard, then got drafted to the Lions about a year apart. We’ve known each other for eight years and have been together for three of them. Can’t seem to get rid of this one.

Interviewer: And you’re not worried about being rivals on this show?

Finn: Rivals is a strong word… I mean yes we’ll be competing against each other instead of being teammates, but we know going in that it’s not personal. Just a little healthy competition.

Interviewer: So what made the two of you sign up for this show?

Logan: We didn’t. Our teammate Dumo and his wife Celeste did. They thought it would be funny. *pause* They’re probably right.

Interviewer: Out of the two of you, who is the worst cook?

*Finn and Logan point to each other*

Logan: You can’t be serious.

Finn: You once cooked pasta so much that it turned into literal paste!

Logan: You tried to cook pizza rolls in a toaster.

Finn: That’s what it said in the instructions!

Logan: It said toaster oven, you - *more French*

Finn: English, Tremz. How many times do I have to tell you that? I guess we’ll find out once and for all who the better cook is by the end of the next eight weeks, right? *mouths “it’s me” to the camera*

Logan: Whatever, Fish.

Interviewer: I think we’ve got all we need guys, thanks. Start time for tomorrow is 10:00 am, but plan on being here forty-five minutes to an hour early to get ready. We’ll see you then.

Competition Day

“Are you nervous? I’m nervous.” Finn stated, running a hand through his hair and looking around at the studio they’d be in and out of for the foreseeable future. There were cooking stations everywhere and he could already see tools and machines that he had no clue how to use. There were twelve other contestants that he didn’t know and the crew scattered everywhere, running back and forth trying to get everything ready. “God, how am I sweaty already? Is this normal?”

Logan rolled his eyes but still reached over to grab Finn’s hand, squeezing it lightly. “Relax. It’s not so bad.” Finn smiled down at him, glad that they were at least here together. How in the hell did he get so lucky?

“Besides, you’ll be sent home soon enough. So don’t stress too much.”

Finn laughed. “Wow, I hate you so much right now.” He betrayed his words with a quick kiss. “You’re going down.”

Those green eyes flashed at the challenge, but right as he opened his mouth to respond-

“Good morning, recruits!”

All heads turned towards the voice. Three figures stood towards the front of the room: one they both recognized as the producer, who was flanked by who Finn assumed to be the chefs, seeing that they were wearing chef’s outfits. Chef’s uniforms? Did their uniforms have a technical name? Finn made a mental note to google that later.

Anyways, one was a short woman with dark ringlets tied back in a ponytail and an undiscernible expression on her face. The other was tall, blond, and had legs for days Jesus Christ-

“Welcome to your first day of boot camp! This is chef Dorcas Meadowes and chef Leo Knut; they’ll be your team leaders. We’re going to start with some footage of you all walking into the kitchen, so if you all would wait out there until you’re allowed to come back in. Cameras will be rolling, so be ready! After that, our chefs will explain the first challenge and then you’ll start cooking.” He clapped his hands together. “Alright, let’s get this show started!”

“Why did they make us come in here just to send us back out?” Logan grumbled, following the other shuffling contestants out into the hall.

“Probably easier to give directions to the main studio instead of saying ‘hey, just wait out in the hall.’”

Logan hummed noncommittally. “I guess.” He wasn’t overly excited to be here; most of this (besides the initial push by Dumo and Celeste) was Finn’s idea. And god knows he could never say no to Finn. One look at that pout and brown puppy-dog eyes and he was done for. Logan didn’t like cooking, but he did like Finn. And they’d probably remember this for years to come. It didn’t matter what he was doing, as long as he was with Finn and making memories with him he’d do just about anything.

“Wonder what the first challenge is.” Finn mused, his eyes locked on the doors.

Logan laughed. “Always so impatient.”

“I’m a New Yorker,” Finn grinned, leaning into his accent. “It’s in my blood.”

The doors opened and contestants began filing back into the kitchen. Finn made sure to wave enthusiastically at the chefs with a wide smile. Logan noticed the tall one (god, he’d already forgotten the guy’s name) give a little wave in return as the other chef commanded the attention of everyone else in the room.

“Good morning, recruits, and welcome to boot camp! I’m chef Dorcas Meadowes, and this is chef Leo Knut. He’s the rookie of our crew, but don’t worry – he’s still qualified to teach all of you. Even though that’s not saying much.”

There was a smattering of laughter and chef Leo smiled, revealing dimples Logan could see from where he stood. “Hey, y’all. I’m very excited to see what makes all of you qualified to be put on this show. Who knows? Maybe you’ll give me more gray hair.” Dorcas laughed and ran her fingers through the tuft of gray hair at his temple.

“When did you get this? I don’t remember seeing it when we were in culinary school. Is it from Iron Chef?”

“Nah, this is from having Gordon Ramsay come to my restaurant.”

“Truly a terrifying man.” She shuddered. “Anyways, you guys be nice to this giant ball of sunshine. Even if he’s new, he’s still able to eliminate you from this competition.”

“In order to pick our teams, we need to see what kind of skills you have.” Leo winced. “Or don’t have. So today, we want you to make your favorite dish. Easy enough, right?”

“Oh god,” Finn murmured into Logan’s ear. “What’s my favorite dish? Do I even have one?”

“Finn.”

“You all have an hour to complete this task.” Dorcas said, glancing down at her watch. “And your time starts… now!”

“Fuck.” Finn stated emphatically, dashing off to the pantry.

Fuck was right. God, what was Logan going to make? He was wracking his brain for something while he grabbed two aprons from the back. He tossed one to Finn and took the station beside him before hurrying to the pantry. Chicken was always a safe bet, right? Celeste made a barbeque chicken recipe that was to die for. That couldn’t be too hard. It was just chicken and barbeque sauce. And maybe green beans on the side? He could get those canned ones and they’d taste fine if he rinsed them. This was fine.

He guessed on the temperature for the oven. 350 seemed good. Then he dumped two chicken breasts into a pan, poured the barbeque sauce over them, and put them into the oven.

“What are you making?” Logan startled at the soft voice, turning to see chef Leo at his station.

Blue eyes.

Logan blinked, Leo’s question forgotten. “Quoi?”

“You speak French?”

Why was his brain refusing to work all of a sudden? Get it together, Tremblay. “Uh, yeah.”

“What are you making?” Leo asked for the second time, but now it was in French. Weirdly worded French.

“Barbeque chicken.” Logan responded in French, then switched back to English. “What in the world was that?”

Leo flashed him a grin. “New Orleans, born and raised. We speak French there, too. Now tell me how you’re making that chicken.”

“Uh.” He had never said the word ‘uh’ so much in one sitting. Merde. “I put it in a pan, spread barbeque sauce over it, and I’m cooking it at 350.”

“How do you know when it’s done?”

Was this a trick question? It felt like a trick question. “Uh.” Fuck. “It has to get to a specific internal temperature, right?”

The chef nodded. “And what’s that?”

“145?"

Something in Leo’s expression flickered, but Logan couldn’t figure out what it meant. “Well, good luck. Logan, right?”

“Yeah.”

“See you at the judging table.” He said with a dimpled smile before moving to Finn’s station, which was already a mess. “Oh my. How are you doing over here?”

Finn laughed a bit hysterically. “Not good. Not good at all.”

“Ok. What’s going on?”

“Well I’m trying to make carbo’hara, and –“

“Really, Fish?” Logan called from his station. “That’s what you’re making?”

“What’s carbo’hara?” Leo asked as he watched Finn put bacon in a pan.

“Oh,” Finn waved a hand carelessly. “It’s just carbonara, but a pun on my name, O’Hara. Get it?”

Leo laughed, crossing long arms over his chest. “That’s terrible.”

“Yeah, but it makes me happy. My parents used to make it every night before my brother or I had hockey games.”

“Oh, that’s right. You guys are hockey players.”

“Go Lions!” Finn cheered, taking a spoonful of butter and throwing it into the pan with the bacon.

“Are you putting butter on bacon?” Leo asked with a raised eyebrow.

Finn responded with full confidence, “I didn’t want it to stick to the pan.”

“Ok. Got it. I… I look forward to seeing what you make.” Finn watched as Leo bit his lip and tried his hardest not to laugh.

Cute.

Finn felt his cheeks flush and blamed it on the steam from the pasta.

The last thirty minutes of the task were absolute chaos, but both boys got it done. Finn’s looked messy, which accurately summed up his cooking style. Logan was pretty proud of how his looked; he just hoped it tasted good. He gave Finn a smile and a fist bump. “Ready to be judged?”

Finn laughed, looking down at his plate. He grimaced. “Not really.”

“We’re all bad cooks. Chances are someone else’s dish is worse than yours.”

“That… actually helped. Thanks.”

***

 Finn was chosen to be judged before Logan. He brought up his plate with a sheepish smile and placed it on the table in front of the chefs. Dorcas raised an eyebrow while Leo prodded the pasta with his fork.

“It’s carbo’hara.” Finn stated with pride.

“Well, Finn…” Dorcas met his eyes. “This looks like a mess, but let’s see how it tastes.”

Finn cringed as they both took a bite of his food. Dorcas frowned as she chewed and Leo tilted his head, a confused expression on his face.

“I don’t know how you did it, but this solidifies in my mouth like glue.”

“Oh god, please don’t eat any more.”

“You definitely put a lot of effort in and you have a lot of potential,” Leo said with a small smile. “I think you were just a little too ambitious for this first round and it got away from you.”

“That’s fair. Thanks for the input.” Finn grabbed his plate and made his way back to his station. He wasn’t too upset by those reviews – he already knew he was a bad cook. But he had potential, so at least he had that going for him.

Logan grinned at him back at his station. “I can’t believe you served the judges glue pasta.”

“At least I’m not serving them canned green beans.”

“They taste just fine, thank you very much.”

“Lo, they’re professionals. You’re not getting away with something lazy like that.”

He definitely got in trouble for using the canned green beans. Dorcas looked down at them like they were worms. Leo gave him the ‘I’m not mad, I’m disappointed’ look, which was even worse, please don’t look at me like that.

“Canned food is a no-go, huh?”

“Definitely.”

“And this chicken isn’t cooked all the way.” Leo said, showing him the pink meat. “You said earlier that you’d cook it until it reached 145 degrees, but chicken needs to reach 165 at a minimum.”

“I’m sure it tasted fine, though.” Dorcas added. “You can’t really go wrong with pre-made barbeque sauce and chicken.”

Ouch. Logan grabbed his plate. “Right. Thanks.”

Finn was predictably cackling at his station. “Tremz, they couldn’t even eat yours. Celeste is going to be so disappointed in you.”

“Shut up.”

 ***

As soon as they were back into their hotel room, Finn kicked his shoes off and faceplanted into the couch. “I can’t believe that took so long.”

“Yeah,” Logan sat down and grabbed his take-out. “Who knew cooking all day would make us so hungry?”

Finn made grabby hands at the other food container. Logan laughed and handed it to him. “I haven’t been this hungry since playoffs, fuck.”

They ate in silence and were finished in record-setting time. Finn collected their trash and stood up to throw it away. “So blue team, huh? I’m kind of surprised they put us on the same team.”

“Me too. But Leo seems like a good teacher, so I’m glad we’re on his team.”

“Yeah, he seems so young, too.” Which sounded ridiculous to say; Leo couldn’t be that much younger than them. “If he’s already winning competitions and starring in cooking shows at that age, he must be pretty good.”

“Winner of Iron Chef America, Chopped, Guy’s Grocery Games…” Logan read off his phone with a low whistle. “He graduated culinary school early and opened his own restaurant a year later.”

“Damn.”

“There’s a video of one of his competitions on here.”

“Play it!” Finn said excitedly, flopping back down on the couch and peering over his boyfriend’s shoulder. Logan gave him a strange look. “What? Maybe we’ll learn something useful.”

“I think this is going to be way too complicated for us, but ok.”

So they sat on the couch watching cooking competitions for hours, learning skills and techniques that went way over their heads. Logan wordlessly switched to Leo’s cooking show Cajun Cooking, watching episode after episode of the blue-eyed chef teaching traditional New Orleans recipes.

Little did they know that halfway across the city in his own apartment, Leo Knut was watching Youtube highlights of the Gryffindor Lions, keeping a sharp eye out for number seventeen and number ten.

[official-alan-dabiri]

First and foremost, we have some exciting new changes that everyone can get behind. Absolutely nobody has a problem with the new experience globe mechanics. New experience globes are only at full value for six seconds, and after that are worth 25% exp. And then they last for thirty-nine seconds. Nobody finds this objectionable in any way. This change was not on the PTR due to public outcry from Reddit when it was leaked early, but it’s here live with all of its zero problems fixed.

Another change about which we have received zero complaints is a new tag system behind the scenes. People looking for just the right hero for the situation can easily find it by searching for such keywords as “CC” “Silence” “Sustain” and “Double soak” and find extremely useful and not absolute garbage results. Don’t worry about checking it ahead of time, just get right into draft mode and use it to find the perfect pick!

In addition to those minor and unobjectionable changes, we have removed Volskaya Foundry from the ranked queue, and added everyone’s favorite quickmatch map, Warhead Junction. We have also done this simultaneously with an Overwatch-themed event.

Hero changes below the cut, because this patch is another doozy, with fiiiiiive herooooo rewoooooorks, Four buffed assassins, three nerfed offlaners, two nerfed tanks and we also nerfed the looost viiiikiiiings!

Anduin is the first of our reworks and with him taking a more prominent role in Shadowlands we want to be able to welcome WoW players with open arms. He, uh, doesn’t have a new skin or anything, we just want people to play this game. The central goal of the buff is to improve his healing output in line with other heroes without removing the largest strength in Leap of Faith. As such, we’re just touching literally every part of his kit and talent try and praying that it goes the way we want.

People keep mistaking Johanna for the best tank in the game. This is factually untrue, since Muradin exists. As such, we are just gutting the absolute pants off of Johanna’s talent tree and making it weird and clunky.

For too long has Raynor been the scourge of draft play. Too good to skip, but not scary enough to ban. Perfect macro contributions, with respectable hero damage. Enough self-sustain to take weight off your healer, and self-peel for when tanks are bad. The perfect killing machine. As such, we’ve nerfed his damage into the ground. Start playing Greymane, bitches.

Stitches has proven to be a mediocre bruiser in the eyes of the community. After all these years, I think I know why. We accidentally categorized him as a tank. As such, he needs some serious changes to make him fit that label. This whole time we’ve been balancing him as a bruiser and nobody said anything? This is as much your fault as it is mine.

The average damage output of a ranged assassin has been steadily climbing for a while now. As a result, for a hero to actually be a glass cannon, they need some serious firepower. Valla now has the gunpowder to match her glass. And she’s the glassiest cannon there is. Don’t get me wrong, she still evaporates like a drop of water in California when an enemy hero looks at her. But when she has a solid tank and three healers behind her, the world is your oyster.

Oh my god they didn’t break down the heroes by category. Jesus Christ what the fuck Blizzard? You just decided that this is the line? This is the day you stop caring? Well, congratulations, you’ve made reading your patch notes mildly more inconvenient. I’m still doing this. Ya bunch of jack-offs.

Mei has been grossly overperforming, and we have no idea how that happened. We certainly didn’t buff her over and over again for an entire year. Anyway, we’re just going to roll some stuff back. Definitely probably fine.

It turns out - and bear with me here because this might be hard to follow - Hogger, D.va, and Sonya were all overtuned? For six months? So we’re just gonna tippy tappy them down the smallest little bit. And then slap them around a little for good measure. D.va’s mech form is no longer indomitable, Hogger can no longer solo any merc camp in the game in 12 seconds, and Sonya is now... Basically fine still, honestly. We kinda gave her just a slap on the wrist in comparison. But honestly after gutting Hogger like that, I just didn’t have the heart. One of the benefits from being a little later, alphabetically.

After riding the TLV train up through the ranks, I think it’s about time to recognize that I’m not actually good at them. They’re just overtuned. So it’s time to come back to earth, Icarus. Don’t be fooled by the seemingly-small HP nerf, though. The real nerf is buffing Longboat Raid. People are going to have to pick it to test it and it’s gonna murder their winrate.

Someone told me that Lucio is a problem and needed to be addressed this patch, but my cat came into the home office being adorable so I didn’t hear exactly what they said. So we had to kinda wing it. Hopefully these minor adjustments to his talent tree will solve whatever they were talking about!

Even we know Uther is a problem. Being first pickable and filling three different unique roles was what we wanted to do with Varian not Uther. So we’re going to try and make him incrementally worse at tanking until he just goes away. First up: Shaving off some of that personal armor.

AFK splitpush trash Azmodan is dead. Long live teamfight artillery mage Azmodan. Really glad I made the last HotS Content post about Nova instead of Azmodan because boy howdy do these changes invalidate the entire playstyle that post would have discussed.

W build Falstad has obviously become a problem. Not only was he riddled with bugs after the rework - don’t worry, we learned from our mistakes and made sure there were no bugs with our new reworks - but also he had the ability to point and click on an enemy hero and force them to run all the way to the next lane over in order to stop taking buckets of free damage. It turns out that ability was more powerful than anticipated, and required adjustment.

Q build Falstad has obviously become a problem. Not only was it completely overshadowed by a build that did more damage in every situation with less skill requirement, but we overestimated the value of macro power on a build that demands PvP for stacking. As such, we’ve doubled the amount of power each stack gives him! That’ll do.

AA build Falstad... Stay the course, buddy. Doin’ fine.

Junkrat has been underperforming, which is surprising for a hero with his level of power. As such, we’re going to make a few small buffs to hopefully draw attention, and then we can roll things back once the pickrate reflects his actual power. Hopefully then WE CAN FINALLY MAKE THE MANDATORY CHANGE I PUT IN EVERY MEMO. TYRE. WITH A Y. THAT’S HOW THEY SPELL IT IN AUSTRALIA. KAEO I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU- wait, did Kaeo leave? Who the fuck is still here? Kinnabrew? Adam? Jason? JASON! JASON!?

Tassadar has also fallen off a lot without us having done anything at all whatsoever to nerf him. Entirely undeserved treatment. I’m disappointed in all of you. As such, we’re going to tweak his numbers up just a little tippy tap so that you all remember who killed the Overmind. It wasn’t James Raynor or Sarah Kerrigan. It was Tassadar... Tassadar Bassadar. That’s his last name. Don’t look it up, just trust me.

In the bug fix department, we’ve had a nice sit-down with the Mountain Giants on Alterac and told them that if they have time to lean, they have time to clean. Reaching the end of their lane and expecting the core to come to them is putting undue stress on an already overtaxed position. The core is a very stressful job, and if the mountain giants could just do their part to walk into the core pit when they arrive, that’s a huge load off their shoulders. Drek’thar and Vanndar really needed this expectation taken off them right now, and I’m hopeful it will lead to a better work environment.

[broadstbroskis]

connected-pt 5 | auston matthews

an author’s note: and here we are with the last chapter! wow, thank you all for sticking with me through this and for sharing your feedback on it! hope you enjoy!

-----

Toronto 2019

There’s a long moment of silence before Auston clears his throat. “I owe you an apology.”

“You think?” You snark before you can stop yourself. “Sorry.” You add, as he winces. 

“No,” He nods. “I-uh-I deserved that.”

“You do,” You agree. “But it’s not really helpful.”

Auston gives you a small smile. “There’s a lot I want to say; I’m not sure where I want to start.”

“I’ll start then.” You say, starting to lose patience. “I hated you for months. I was so mad. You just...how could you just leave me there without a single word? I thought we were so solid! Not just, like, solid. In agreement, even! Going to come back here, see where you were drafted, and then work something out. But no! You left.”

You’re on a roll now, the feelings that have been stewing for years just pouring out. Austin winces and you don’t even acknowledge it; you just keep rolling on. “And that devastated me, Auston! Break ups are bad enough on their own, but that you couldn’t even respect me enough to tell me you were leaving hurt me more than anything.” He winces again. “And then! I come back here to Toronto for fall semester, and what do I get? To see your fucking face everywhere. On billboards, magazines, commercials, and some-fucking-how, in person, all over an entire city of over two million people!”

He opens his mouth, like he wants to respond to that, but you continue on. Really, it’s just hard to stop now; if you stop talking, you might start crying and you really just don’t feel up for that now. You’re already emotionally drained enough. “And I just-how was I supposed to ever get over you? When we live in a city that worships the ground you walk on and you just magically appear in all my favorite places?” You gesture between the two of you. “This right here? This absurd meeting, where I low key went off the deep end, was bound to happen. Frankly, I’m shocked it took as long as it did.”

Auston’s eyes are wide and his jaw is dropped as he turns his head to stare at you. “What did you just say?”

You level him with a flat look. “Look, I know I was more than “low key” weird today, but not commenting on it is about the least you could do for me.”

“That’s not what I-” He huffs impatiently. “No! What did you mean about us meeting? When could that have happened?”

The question is so absurd to you that you break down, laughing maniacally. But Auston’s looking at you with genuine confusion, like he actually has no idea what’s going on. “Like, ten times, last spring alone.” You manage, wiping the tears that have fallen from your eyes. If you don’t, they’ll turn into actual tears.

Auston frowns. “No.” He shakes his head.

You glare back at him. “Yes. I see you all around the city, all the fucking time. Do you have any idea how many tables in this city I’ve ducked under to avoid you?” He pales. It’s frightening, almost, how white his face turns, and you actually stop talking, stop moving even, as you watch, concerned. “What’s wrong?” It’s the softest tone you’ve taken with him all day.

“Holy shit.” He buries his face in his hands; his voice sounds absolutely wrecked.

“Auston?” You try to keep the impatience out of your voice, when it’s been a few moments and he still hasn’t looked up. “What is it?”

When he looks back up at you, there’s a slight red rim around his eyes and he takes a deep breath. “I’ve actually got no idea how many tables you’ve ducked under to avoid me, but I do know I’ve been searching high and wide all over this entire goddamn city to try and find you again.”

It’s your turn to freeze, choking on absolutely nothing at his words, and he loses the ghost of a smile that flickers onto his face almost as quickly as it comes when he reaches out to calm you and you immediately flinch away. “Sorry.” Auston says, but leaves his hand close by. “Please; let me finish though?”

When you make no move to get away, he smiles gratefully. “There’s no apology I could give that would make up for things but I want you to know that I am sorry. I don’t know why I did it; I was scared, I guess? Not that that excuses it. I still don’t really know, but I do know you deserved better than that. And I-I realized that pretty quickly, but…” He trails off.

“But I blocked your phone number.” You supplement. That had happened shortly after he left-blocked, deleted, and all physical traces removed. It was unfortunate for you that memories couldn’t be erased so quickly.

He nods slowly. “Yeah. So when I was drafted here and moved here, I knew that was my chance. I could come see you, apologize, try and talk to you. Except I couldn’t find you, anywhere.” And suddenly, your jaw drops in realization, but now, Auston’s the one who’s on roll, just talking on. “I tried your school. I looked at all the coffee places. I go to restaurants I know you’ll like and bars that I know you’ll love.”

“Oh my god.” It comes out as a whisper. 

“And I’ve been doing that for three years, hoping to run into you, to just talk to you, and apologize, and Jesus Christ, tell you that I’m not over you either!”

Your jaw drops at his admission and Auston is breathing heavy as he looks at you, somehow both gently and challenging. You can’t look away, drawn into his eyes. This is the last thing you expected to hear from him; your stomach is clenching-from excitement? Or from anxiety? Nerves maybe-but over what? “Oh.” Is all you can say, after a very long pause.

“Oh?” Auston repeats. “That’s all you have to say? Oh?”

“I’m thinking!” You cry. “I just-” You sigh. “I don’t know where we go from here.”

He sighs. “I know. I think three years ago I would have been happy to just jump back into things, but I know better now. I don’t know either.”

There’s a sadness in his voice as he finishes speaking, a certain solemnity that’s settled over the two of you. And as you reach for his hand, tangling your fingers in his on the countertop, you know that the two of you are finally on the same page.

-----

Zurich 2021

“We could have gone anywhere in Europe after Worlds.” You give Auston a look. “Anywhere on the entire continent. It’s so easy to travel!” He’s grinning, like he already knows what you’re going to say. “And you picked the city I hate most in the world.”

“Hey!” He protests. “We met here!”

“And then you left me here alone!”

He tangles your hands together, as you continue your walk through town. “I’m trying to erase those memories. Bring up some good ones.”

“I mean, they weren’t all bad.” You concede. “Lina’s still a gem. All those chocolate shops.”

“Uh huh, and?” Auston prompts, grinning.

“I guess you had a couple good games here.” You tease. “Before you bowed out early in the playoffs. Oh wait, that sounds familiar.”

“Gutty.” Auston shakes his head. “Alright, anything else?”

“I love you, but enough people pump up your ego already. I am actively working to make it so that it doesn’t get so large that you float off this planet and away from me.” You laugh at the look of mock hurt on his face. “But yes, you know I did have some good times here with you too.”

He grins. “Like here, in this park?”

You frown. “What are you talking about? We’ve never been here before!”

His grin widens. “You sure about that?”

It takes a minute of looking around-the trees are in full bloom, there’s people picnic-ing on the grass under them, ducks are swimming in the pond, the mountains off in the distance look far more green- before it hits you. “We skated here!

Auston nods, grinning. “Dangle, snipe.”

“What, no celly?” You tease.”

“That comes later.” He drops down on one knee and you gasp, covering your mouth immediately, wishing you could take back the “holy fuck,” that had escaped before you’d been able to stop it. “I know it’s taken us a while to get back to this point, but I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I can’t think of a better place than the city we first met in, the place we first fell in love in, to ask this. Will you marry me?”

He actually looks nervous. You’ve never seen that look on his face before-not for playoffs, for big games...for anything really. But it’s not like your answer could be anything else. “Yes. Oh my god, yes!”

It feels like a blur as he slips the ring on your finger-it’s diamond and beautiful and shiny!-and then Auston’s kissing you-or maybe you’re kissing him?-and people around you are clapping as they realize what’s happening.

You’re willing to concede that maybe Zurich isn’t the worst city. In fact, as you look over the pictures the hidden photographer had taken of the two of you while lying in bed with Auston later that same evening, you realize the city had been what connected the two of you in the first place.

Which definitely wasn’t a bad thing.

[cagestark]

Better Late Than Never//1

And Merry Christmas to YOU

Aka I started another project that I will take twenty years to finish. But @starkerflowers prompts were just too fucking good.

About: With interest in his work waning, famous writer Tony Stark (under the pseudonym AE Potts) changes his entire public relations platform, which includes hosting a meet-and-greet contest where one lucky fan will get to spend the day with him. That one lucky fan is Peter Parker. Peter is 21. Will contain nff, alcoholism, suicide attempts, character death (not major), drug mentions, anxiety, anxiety attacks. 

Read here on AO3. 

-

Tony is awakened from a drunken, dreamless sleep by a tub of envelopes and small packages being upended over his head. He jerks upright with a shout from where he was slumped over his writing desk, upending the (empty) bottle of whiskey that had lulled him to sleep. Pepper stands over him, impeccable in every way he is not.

“Jesus Christ,” he says, pushing envelopes off of where they have pooled on his lap. “You could have taken my eye out, Peppercorn. What are you trying to do, perform Lingchi on me? What is all this?”

“Fan mail,” she says. Her voice is stern and unsympathetic. The first time she’d found him passed out drunk over his desk, she had panicked and nearly called for an ambulance. The next handful of times she had just covered him with a blanket and regarded him with sad eyes the next morning when she brought him coffee. But those were ten years ago. Not to mention, all in her first few weeks on the job— “Social media is revolting. You never answer fan mail, you never do Q&A’s, you haven’t done an interview in almost a decade.”

“Fuck this,” Tony mutters, opening one drawer. “Where’s my whiskey?”

“In your bloodstream, I’d imagine. Don’t brush this off, Tony. Sales are waning. We need to make some serious changes in our PR or I’ll be putting in my two-weeks’ notice.”

That gets Tony’s attention. Pepper hadn’t threatened to quit after his last book when he’d killed off one of the most popular characters (one of his personal favorites, may she rest in fictional peace) and the public had flipped their shit. She hadn’t threatened to quit years before that when she walked in on him hunched over his desk with a straw to his nose, three sheets to the wind on far more than just whiskey. She has the disposition of a mountain: unflinching and ever-enduring.

“You mean it,” says Tony.

“I mean it.”

His shoulders sag. He glances around the room: the mess, the junk, the empty alcohol bottles, the half-finished manuscripts. There’s a strange feeling in the back of his throat, acidic, like he might throw up. Or cry. When his mouth opens to say something sarcastic, something about not letting the door hit her on the way out if she expects him to play nice with the media, all that comes out is a broken: “I can’t lose you, Pep.”

She puts a hand on his shoulder. “You will. If you don’t make some changes. Okay?”

Maybe this is what it means to be balanced on a knife’s edge, where one way ends in pain and the other ends in terminal inconvenience. But he knows which one he has to pick. His whole life is just a big inconvenience, but pain? Tony has spent enough time with his hand flat against the stove’s burner to know that he’d rather die than feel it again, rather die than lose one of the only people left who can stand him.

He picks up the closest letter and tears it open, blinking heavily to clear his eyes. Pepper leans down to press a kiss to the crown of his head and then gags. “Take a shower, when you get the chance,” she mutters, smiling.

-

The letters start off by being good for one thing: his ego. Adoring fans have been writing to his penname and business address for decades since he put out his first super-hero novel, titled IRON-MAN. Pepper has chosen to give him recent fan-mail, considering he’s spent so long ignoring it that if he were to answer them in order of reception, he might encounter fans who didn’t even remember the letters once sent. Or ones who were dead.

They are all variations of the same thing. The handwriting changes, gentle feminine cursive to childish scrawling to neat block lettering, but the message is usually the same. DEAR MR. POTTS. I’VE READ EVERY BOOK YOU’VE EVER WRITTEN. I GOT YOUR NAME TATTOOED ON MY ASS. IRON-MAN IS MY HERO. I’VE NEVER READ PROSE AS LOVELY AS YOURS. WHAT IS YOUR SECRET?

At Pepper’s request, Tony drafts a generic letter to send in response, something about how he can’t respond personally to every letter but he wants them to know that he’s read what they’ve written and ‘holds it close to his heart’.

“It’s good,” Pepper approves. “Sign them yourself.”

“Good?” Tony says. “I was joking—this letter is trash. Anyone who knows me would see this for the sarcasm it is—”

“Then thank God none of the fans know you,” Pepper responds coolly.

She has a point. Tony has existed in relative seclusion since he first began publishing his works at 24. After twenty years, he’d managed to remain mostly anonymous. A pseudonym does most of the work, including non-disclosure agreements for his employees. Any time a presence is required, he sends Rhodey or Happy or Pepper even. Theory pages abound on the internet, sites devoted to finding out who the real AE POTTS is. Even though one picture leaked of him during the early 2000’s (a grainy godforsaken thing that didn’t even show his best angle), there were still some disbelievers. One popular conspiracy theory is that AE is Pepper, considering Tony stole her last name to use as his own.

Maybe that’s why his declining image in the media bothers her so much.

A week later, Tony’s hand has a cramp the way it hasn’t since he was a little boy learning to write his letters. Freehand has never been his specialty—it’s far too slow for the way his mind works, bounding a sentence, a scene, a chapter ahead. Signing so many letters is going to freeze his hand in a claw like position. He’s sure of it.

Then Pepper drops the next bombshell on him: the contest.

“It goes against everything I’ve been working so hard to do for the last twenty years,” Tony shouts at the zenith of their argument. “I do not want to be known! I don’t want the fame; I just wanted the goddamn fortune, is that too much to ask for?”

“Times have changed,” Pepper says through her teeth. She holds her own, spine straight. She hasn’t shirked away from his angry outbursts ever, not even when they were children growing up together in Manhattan. “I’m not asking you to do a 20/20 Special. I’m not asking for an interview on Ellen. I’m asking for you to meet with one fan. Have a goddamn lunch with them. If you can’t handle that, then you can kiss your fortune goodbye. Mark my words.”

Tony marks them. He fucking marks them, okay? When he’s drinking himself blind, locked in his office (good luck getting in now, Pep), they ring around his skull like a dime in the dryer. Sometime around dawn, she picks the lock on the door and mops his brow while he vomits in the tiny trashcan beside his desk.

“I’m not doing this to torture you,��� she says with uncharacteristic tenderness. Her hand on his forehead occasionally rifling through his greasy hair is not what’s making his eyes prickle with tears—it’s the vomiting. Honest. He’s not that touch-starved. “You know that, right? I hate seeing you like this.”

“I know,” he chokes miserably, gagging again. So he agrees to the Willy Wonka Initiative. Pepper puts out the word that the infamous AE POTTS will be selecting a single fan to meet face to face. Anyone eighteen or older is eligible to participate, as long as they write a letter explaining why they should get it blah blah blah. A golden ticket might have been funner. At least then Tony might have had an excuse to wear the tacky purple suit and tophat.

In the meantime, Pepper reveals that she’s been having Happy screen his mail to only show him the happy letters—figures. His hate mail isn’t extensive, but it certainly exists, having increased exponentially since he killed off Natasha in the last novel.

FUCKING MYSOGINISTIC ASSHOLE, Cheryl from Newport tenderly writes. YOU HAD ONE GOOD FEMALE CHARACTER, AND YOU KILLED HER OFF. I HOPE ANOTHER WOMAN NEVER LETS YOU BETWEEN THEIR LEGS AGAIN AND YOUR DICK SHRIVELS OFF.

Tony thinks that’s pretty succinct. He posts it up on his desk propped up against the last picture ever taken of him and his mother. Killing off Natasha had been an idea he’d personally revolted against for months. Sure, it made sense that sensitive, strong Natasha would be the one to sacrifice herself in order to stop the villain from succeeding in wiping out half the universe. It made sense for a woman to be the one to give her life to protect others.

After all, hadn’t his own mother died trying to protect Tony?

The weekend after the contest drops on their social media platforms, Pepper texts to tell him that it’s being received far, far better than they might have ever hoped for. Already dozens of letters had been received, letters which must have been penned and mailed just hours after the news had spread.

Joy, Tony texts back.

I haven’t told you the best news, she says. That’s how Tony knows that the next news will be the worst news, absolutely the worst news of all. You get to pick the fan.

-

“Any letter catching your eye?” Pepper asks him over lunch in his office.

“They’re all the same,” Tony laments. Even his own ego can only take so much stroking. After a while, the fan mail has become mostly routine and lackluster, though he keeps opening it, keeps signing the response letters, keeps sending them out. “I’m going to end up picking one at random, Pep.”

“I don’t care how you pick,” Pepper says. “As long as you do—and as long as you’re ready to suffer with the consequences of your choice.”

“Suffer? God, I love the light you bring into my life. The unending optimism. The unparalleled faith and trust in me.”

Her eyes glitter even as they roll. “If you like me so much, you can buy lunch next time.”

Tony snorts, taking a large bite from his burger. “Gold digger.”

“I’ve seen your taxes, Tony. These days, there isn’t much gold to dig for.”

“Ouch, kill shot.”

-

The letter arrives only one week before the contest deadline. In the top drawer of his desk are three other letters from potential winners, mostly picked at random, sometimes because Tony likes their handwriting, sometimes because they say something funny that actually makes him laugh. When he opens up the letter from Peter B. Parker, he scans the first lines not intending to be impressed.

Dear Mr. Potts, Peter writes.

I’ve written you so many letters that it should be easy by now. I don’t know why my hands are shaking. Maybe I’m nervous because I know for certain that this one, someone will actually read.

I received my first copy of IRON-MAN when I was eight years old—yes, a little bit heavy for a kid that age, but my parents had just died unexpectedly in a car accident. My aunt and uncle took me in, and my uncle gave me his first edition. Iron-man’s story was one of the only things that got through to me as a kid. His struggle to come to terms with losing his own parents, his loneliness, his fear. The way he overcomes all of that and still goes on to do good…yeah. It meant a lot to a grief-stricken kid. Obviously.

Pretty much every birthday and Christmas, I end up receiving one of your books as a gift. My family and friends know me so well, I have nearly a half-dozen copies of AVENGERS (it’s one of my favorites). The things you write about are so close to my heart, so close to some of the experiences I’ve had in real life. My struggle with mental illness. My abuse and neglect. And the way you write these things makes me think…fear, I guess…that maybe you know something about them too.

I would love to get to meet you and talk about your incredible books. I’d love to get to know you. Not going to lie, as a fanboy, I’d probably be happy to just sit at the same table with you and have a meal. I’ll buy. We don’t even have to talk (okay I swear I’m not as desperate as I sound!). I’m sure you’ve received so many awesome letters, and I know that the fan you pick will be so, so lucky.

(Every letter I write to you, I ask if you could please return my book. It’s been five years since I sent it. I’m sure you don’t even have it anymore, maybe you threw it away from the start. But if you do have it, even if you don’t pick me to win the contest, it would mean so much if you sent it back. When I mailed it to you in Jan. 2014, my uncle was still alive. He’s gone now…anyway it’s one of the only things of his that I have left.)

Your fan always,

PETER.

PS: please disregard the last letter I sent…obviously.

Tony rereads the letter twice. He feels a swirl of emotion in his stomach, not dissimilar to the queasiness after a long night of drinking. This—this is what he sacrificed by being so closed-off from his fans. While he’d known that his fans were real and obviously human, a part of him had never felt the magnitude of it before. These are people with feelings and experiences. This Parker kid (a self-proclaimed fanboy) lost his parents too, and far younger than Tony had. In a car accident.

Maybe Peter hadn’t been there, hadn’t been in the car, hadn’t watched his mother parents go up in flames, but it’s still a tragedy all in its own right. And all at eight years old. Jesus Christ. This kid has been looking up to him for ten years and more, and he had no fucking idea that kind of dysfunctional altar he’d been worshiping at.

Tony goes into the private bathroom connected to his office and gags up—nothing. Drool. But it still leaves his mouth slimy, so he brushes his teeth until he’s spitting pink into the sink, and when he catches sight of the haphazard reflection in the mirror, he pities it. He leans forward to touch foreheads with it, auto-intimacy. Do better, some voice in the back of his head says, but it’s not his voice.

Happy picks up his cellphone on the first ring. Of the ninth call.

“What do you fucking want, Tony?” he hisses into the receiver. “I’m at the movie theater seeing that new Star Wars. You made me go out into the lobby—”

“Then I’m doing you a favor,” Tony says, cracking open the cap on a sparkling water. “Look, I have important questions, I wouldn’t have called otherwise. My fan mail—how much of it has Pepper kept?”

“Jesus, how should I know? Totes and totes full, at least—”

“Brilliant—”

“Why don’t you ask her yourself? I’m missing the movie!”

“Didn’t I say you’re not missing much? I’m asking you because Pepper will make me do it myself: I need you to find specific letters from one fan: Peter B. Parker. Address is Queens, but he could be from anywhere. I’m also especially interested in acquiring a package he sent me in January 2014.”

“Christ, could you be any more mysterious?” Happy mutters. “Text me the details you bastard, I’m not missing another moment of Mark Hamill.”

-

It turns out that Pepper is not only a saint in all ways previously mentioned, but she is a saint in this as well: his fan mail from the last ten years has been saved and meticulously organized by month and year of reception. Happy comes to Tony’s office in the city the next day with a package, the outside brittle but address clear.

The writing is the same script as the letter newly received from Peter, though the handwriting has become more mature over time. Neater. Confined. No more hasty slant from an enthusiastic hand. The kid’s contest entry is in the top drawer of Tony’s desk—the previous potential winners are now the cherries on top of the reject pile. His stomach is heavy as a stone while he tears open the five-year-old package.

Out tumbles a pre-addressed package that was meant to carry the book back to its owner, back to Peter. Then, one first edition of IRON-MAN, the cover a little tattered, the spine creaky. Also included is another letter, torn from a spiral notebook. He opens it with shaking hands.

DEAR MISTER POTTS

I KNOW THAT GETTING A RESPONSE FROM MY LETTERS IS A LONG SHOT, BUT I’M REALLY HOPING THAT YOU’LL AUTOGRAPH THIS COPY OF IRON-MAN AND RETURN IT TO ME. IT IS MY UNCLE BEN’S…

It goes on to describe how his Uncle’s birthday is coming up and Peter hopes to give the autographed book to his Uncle. Tony reads with a heavy heart, knowing now that Tony hadn’t bothered even opening the package, hadn’t tried to sign it—and even if he had, Ben hadn’t lived long enough to celebrate his next birthday. What a son of a bitch Tony is.

For the first time in three months, Tony goes home.

Most days he stays at the space he rents in the fancy Manhattan building, the one that holds his office and Pepper’s own workspace as well as the other people who work for him (Happy, Beck, Rhodey). The mansion outside Manhattan belonged to Tony’s father and his mother. When his mother had still been alive, it had been a cold place that he had endured staying at for her sake. After his mother had died, it had been a torture chamber, or worse—a stale, suffocating tomb.

Then Howard had died and somehow left it to Tony (probably out of some misguided duty to ‘keep it in the family’). Tony made a personal habit to visit it infrequently and stay there even less often; but Pepper maintains it for him, has it cleaned, keeps it safe. Uses it as storage, Tony knows. For his fan mail.

It takes up three entire rooms, floor to ceiling clear totes labeled with months and years. Just looking at it makes Tony feel small, ashamed of how little he cared about interacting with his fans. It’s no wonder sales were down. Searching for Peter’s letters would be like looking for a needle in a haystack—but he has to do it, and he can’t let Happy bear the brunt of the weight anymore either. This is on Tony.

So he begins pulling totes from the room and scattering their contents on the oaken table and floors of the dining room. Five hours and seven totes later, and Tony still has no letter from Peter.

Pepper finds him at midnight. She comes bursting in through the front door—Tony can hear the sound of the door colliding with the wall from the force she’s used—shouting his name. The hysteria in her voice chills him to the bone. It’s worse than the tone she uses when Tony fucks up; this is the tone she uses when there’s a Tragedy, when something is Wrong.

She finds him in the dining room surrounded by letters, kneeling up from where he was slumped on the floor. He must be a sight, but she is one too, her hair a mess, her eyes red. When she sees him, all the breath goes out of her, one hand clutching at her breast as the other grabs the back of a chair for support.

“Jesus, Pep, what’s happened? Is it your father, another heart attack—?”

“Why don’t you ever answer your goddamn phone, you bastard!” She says through heaving breaths. “You don’t leave the office for weeks and suddenly no one can find you, you won’t pick up your phone—”

It takes a long moment for the pieces to connect.

“Oh Christ,” Tony says, chidingly. “What, you were scared for me?”

She slumps into one chair and puts her face into her well-manicured hands. Tony drops back onto his ass. He’s not a good man, not a sensitive man. The last woman who had cried in front of him was his mother, and look at all the ways he had failed her. But the longer he sits letting Pepper cry, the more it feels like bamboo shoots growing under his tender fingernails. Fuck it. He gets up, knees creaking, and goes to her.

They sit side by side at the dining table no one has eaten at in twelve years. Pepper leans into him, her thin shoulders shaking. Shame makes his own eyes burn, because he thought what did she have to be afraid of? But maybe she saw his car in the driveway of the unhappy home he avoids and assumed that he’d come here to Hemingway himself. Maybe she sat in the drive steeling herself to come into the sight of his body.

“I’m going through the fan mail,” Tony says at last.

“I can see that,” she says. Her scathing tone drips with tears.

“I’m okay, Pep,” he says. He’s not sure if it’s true. He’s not sure if he’s been okay ever since he blinked awake upside down and suspended by the seatbelt in the back seat of his mother’s Cadillac, glass littering the roof (and the roof had become the floor, then, see? Because they were upside down), the smell of gas and smoke in his nose). Maybe he’s not okay. Maybe it’s all a fucking lie, but he’s not going to off himself. Not when there’s a mystery afoot. “I promise.”

She nods, one damp hand reaching out blindly for his. It’s an awkward angle to hold hands at, but he doesn’t complain. And awkward or not, it feels nice to be touched in a kind, even platonic way.

“What are you looking for?” Pepper asks at last, wiping at the wet, swollen skin beneath her eyes.

“Why? You want to help?” Tony asks.

“Might as well,” she says. “I always do your heavy lifting, don’t I?”

-

With Pepper’s help, they find the first letter. Somehow the Willy Wonka Initiative has reversed until Tony feels like a kid, ripping open chocolate bars, desperate for a glimpse of gold. At dawn, a cry echoes in the dining room startling Tony from where he was slumping against a tote, dozing.

“I’ve got one, Tony!” Pepper shouts. She’s barefoot, her panty hose taken off and folded on the table, her sensible jacket removed and slung over the back of a chair. Her rumpled shirt and tendrils coming free from her ponytail reveal how much energy she’s been putting into this with him—maybe to make up for her emotional outburst earlier, maybe like a mother humoring a child’s singular beneficial interest. “From Peter B. Parker, address is Queens, same as before.”

“What’s the date?” Tony asks. He slips in a pile of letters from last August and nearly breaks his neck. Wishful fucking thinking.

“Last May. Here—”

Tony takes the letter and collapses in a chair, his lower back grateful for the support. He recognizes Peter’s handwriting as he tears the letter open, and he can feel Pepper’s presence over his shoulder, reading along with him.

This letter is different from the others. Tony knows it right away. The first indication should have been the date; Tony’s most recent novel dropped early May of last year. His most controversial work to date, with praise glorious and venomous in kind. Which way did the scales tip when it came to Peter, Tony wonders.

I know that you won’t read this. I’ve written you twice a year since I was ten years old, and you’ve never written back. I don’t blame you. I’m sure you’re busy—I guess I just needed to get these words down somewhere, so that they exist, so that somewhere there is a record of me after I’m dead.

Tony reads the rest in a dazed blur. At one point, Pepper’s hand lifts to press against her mouth, but still they read on, huddled together for convenience and then for comfort.

In the letter, Peter describes the tragedy of his uncle’s death and how he felt personally responsible, and how after months of guilt, when he’d read about Natasha’s sacrifice, he’d decided to take action. Against himself.

If someone’s death can do so much good in the world, Peter wrote with shaky script. Then maybe mine could too. I’m not deluded or anything. I know that I’m not a superhero and that I’m not fighting against some sanctimonious super villain. But I feel like if my death could make May’s life easier, then I have to do it.

“Jesus. Tony, don’t read this—” Pepper reaches out for the letter but Tony nearly rips it in half trying to keep it away from her.

It’s not just for May, Peter admits. I’m ready to stop hurting, too.

Peter signs off, for good. Only it hadn’t been for good—Peter’s most recent letter had obviously proven that, and hadn’t he written it himself? Ignore my last letter, obviously, he’d said. Something must have changed Peter’s mind, but one thing was clear: it hadn’t been Tony. Because Tony had been so self-absorbed, so tangled in his own grief and ego and addictions he hadn’t even read the letter. If Pepper hadn’t saved it, then it might have been destroyed, no record left of Peter’s words at all.

“Tony,” Pepper says. She takes the letter from his fingers and he lets it go. His hands are numb. “This isn’t your fault. Peter obviously was unstable—he’d just watched his uncle being murdered in front of him. No one in their right mind would read Natasha’s death and think that you were encouraging them to take their own life.”

“I know that,” Tony snaps. Lying. Then: “I’m not an idiot, Pep.”

Maybe the biggest lie of all.

[calumcest]

you and i were fireworks that went off too soon - chapter two

[ao3]

yes i finished my essay and was like writing another 6k of fic vs doing all the other work thats due within the next 10 days...Hmm...so here we are

A week passes, and Luke almost succeeds in putting Ashton to the back of his mind. 

He’s preoccupied with other things - the fact that he’s suddenly got three times as much work to do, because Chris has taken a week off to reunite with his soulmate; the fact that his boiler’s broken, and nobody’s around to come and fix it because everyone’s taking a break to try and find their soulmate; the fact that he’s having to stay at Calum’s, because his apartment is doing a great impression of a fridge right now, and that means listening to Michael and Calum’s hushed conversations about him when they think he’s asleep. They’re clearly worried about him, which is kind of sweet, but also makes Luke feel a little pathetic, throwing him back to the days after Ashton left where Michael and Calum would tiptoe around him, frowning at him but saying nothing, as though any words would be the wrong ones. 

Luke goes home from time to time to pick up post and new clothes, and on Sunday, he notices a note has been stuck through his letterbox. It’s stuck to the soggy newspaper that’s been forced through, so the ink’s run and Luke can’t read it anymore. He shrugs and chucks it out with the newspaper, thinking that if it were someone he knew they would have texted him, so it was probably some kind of advertising.

The only topic of conversation in society now is the soulmate tattoos. More and more research is being done, families are being torn apart, brought together, and churches are booked for weddings for the next eighteen months straight. Luke had finally brought himself to ask his parents what their situation was, and they’d smiled, and that was all he’d needed to know. 

Luke had thought it would take him a while to wrap his head around the idea of soulmates, but somehow, it hadn’t. Somehow, seeing the people he knows interact - seeing Michael and Calum interact - it seems like it’s the only logical answer, like there was never anything else they could have been. It sits uncomfortably in Luke’s stomach, because he knows it’s not like that for him and Ashton. Something went wrong with Luke’s tattoo - it wasn’t supposed to be Ashton, he’s sure of that. Or if it was, then maybe it was a sign from the universe that Luke should take a vow of celibacy.

Luke shrugs when he’s asked at work if he knows who his soulmate is. It’s not like he’s lying - he knows who his soulmate was, two years ago, but Ashton’s a stranger to him now. The thought makes Luke feel a little better, if only because it means Luke’s a stranger to Ashton too. Ashton no longer knows him, no longer has power over him, no longer has a grip on Luke’s lungs and heart and mind. 

It’s not until Wednesday evening that Ashton forces himself back to the forefront of Luke’s mind yet again. 

He’s sat on Calum’s sofa, destroying him at MarioKart, when his phone starts buzzing. At first, he ignores it, because getting this win is definitely more important than whatever bullshit Michael’s texting him (last time he paused a game to read a text from Michael it had just been a picture of an orange captioned ‘juicy’), but the buzzing continues, distracting him and making him slip on a banana Calum had thrown in front of him. 

“Fuck’s sake!” Luke yells, when Calum whoops joyfully as he makes it over the finish line a microsecond before Luke. “Fuck you. That wasn’t my fault.” 

“Oh, yeah?” Calum says, turning to him with a smug grin. “What, someone take control of your hands? You got that rat from Ratatouille up in those curls?”

“Remy,” Luke says, without thinking. 

“Huh?”

“The rat,” Luke says. 

“I can’t believe you know that,” Calum says, sounding very much like he can believe Luke knows that. 

“Fuck you,” Luke says again, scowling. “I bet you fucking told Michael to text me just so you could finally win a game.” 

“Michael’s napping, dude,” Calum says, looking somewhat amused. Luke frowns. Nobody texts him except Calum and Michael, and Calum’s right here. So if Michael’s asleep- 

His stomach drops. 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he says, fishing his phone out of his pocket and watching the screen light up with the one name he doesn’t want to see. 

Ashton Irwin I’m outside

Ashton Irwin There’s no way you can’t hear this doorbell 

Ashton Irwin Have you moved? 

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Luke says, and shoves his phone at Calum. Calum’s eyes widen as he reads, and he huffs out a laugh of disbelief. 

“What the fuck?” he says, sounding as incredulous as Luke feels. “He’s just fucking turned up at your apartment?” Luke nods, suddenly incredibly glad that his boiler’s broken. Ashton just fucking turning up at his place makes his skin crawl, makes him feel incredibly unsafe. 

“How many different ways do I need to tell him to fuck off before he gets the message?” Luke says, and there’s an edge of desperation to his tone that even he can hear. Calum’s expression softens slightly. 

“You can just block him,” he suggests. 

“Well, he’ll just turn up at my fucking apartment again, then, won’t he?” Luke says. 

“You can stay here until it blows over,” Calum offers. Luke loves him. 

“Thanks, Cal,” he says, and he means it with every fibre of his being. “I just- I just want him to go away.” He hopes Calum understands what he means - not just go away from his apartment, but leave Luke’s life again, because it had taken so much of Luke to get over him and rewrite himself after Ashton had broken almost all of him, and every interaction with him is a sickening reminder of how things used to be, who he used to be. He can’t fucking stand it. 

“Want me to talk to him?” Calum says. Luke hesitates, then shakes his head. 

“I don’t want him to think I can’t handle it,” he says. I don’t want him to think he broke me remains unspoken, but hangs between them uncomfortably. 

“Okay,” Calum says, because he understands. He always understands. “Want me to help you draft a reply, then?” Luke nods. 

“Can you call Mikey, too?” he says, and it comes out a little unsure, a little small. Calum’s face softens into a smile. 

“‘Course,” he says, reaching for his phone and unplugging it from where it’s been charging to call Michael. 

Michael picks up after two rings, because it’s Calum, and Luke can see the outline of him in the dark, lying in bed. 

“Hey, love,” Calum says softly, and Luke is suddenly jerked into discomfort, like he’s intruding on a private moment. Calum and Michael haven’t said anything to Luke about their newfound soulmate status, and Luke hasn’t asked, all of them dancing around the topic like talking about it is going to irrevocably change their group dynamic somehow. Luke’s never heard Calum call anyone love, and the names he’s got for Michael are usually more along the lines of dickhead, arsehole, fucker, and it makes Luke realise just how left out he is now, all because of two fucking tattoos. He has to swallow back the jealousy rising in his throat, press down the spike of anger flaring in his stomach. 

“This better be fucking good,” Michael mumbles, muffled by his duvet. 

“Ashton’s outside Luke’s house,” Calum says, and there’s a sudden sound of rustling, and then the light is turned on, Michael squinting and looking somewhere between furious and concerned. 

“That bastard,” he says, which seems to be a bit of a mantra where Ashton’s concerned. “What the fuck? Has Luke called the police?” 

“No,” Luke puts in, although now that Michael mentions it, he thinks he probably should. “He might be gone by now, anyway.” 

“Oh, I forgot you were at Calum’s,” Michael says, even though he’s been complaining about it for, like, four days straight.

“We’re going to draft a response,” Calum tells Michael, who nods. 

“I’ve got one,” he says. “‘Fuck off, you fucking bastard, and also, I’m calling the police on you. Arsehole. Fuck you.’” Calum rolls his eyes, and Luke laughs, letting the warmth of it flood his veins. It helps to know he’s not alone, both in his anger at Ashton and in dealing with the situation. 

“I already told him not to contact me anymore,” he says.

“And he somehow thinks that turning up at your house doesn’t count as contact?” Michael says, in disbelief. 

“Well, either way, he texted you,” Calum points out. 

“So he just doesn’t give a shit,” Michael says. “Right. Got it.” 

“What should I say?” Luke says, with an only-slightly-melodramatic sigh. 

“Tell him to fuck off,” Michael says. 

“Politely,” Calum adds. 

“How do I do that?” Luke says, fingers hovering over the keyboard. “Kindly fuck off? Please fuck off?” 

“Keep it business,” Calum suggests. “Keep him at arm’s length, don’t let it get emotional. Talk to him like you’d talk to a client that’s pissing you off.” 

“As per my last communication,” Michael says sarcastically, and Calum and Luke both laugh. 

“I think you’re right,” Luke says. “Keep emotion out of it.” 

“Yeah,” Michael agrees. “Don’t let him think you still care.”

“I don’t.” 

“Yeah, but you know what Ashton’s like,” Michael says. “You could come at him with an axe and he’d interpret it as ‘Luke cares about my existence’.” Luke snorts, feeling a little spiteful and not regretting it at all. 

“How about ‘I don’t feel comfortable with you turning up at my house unannounced’?” Calum says. 

“And ‘I’ve already told you I’m not interested in speaking to you, please stop contacting me’?” Michael adds. Luke nods, typing it out. 

Me I don’t feel comfortable with you turning up at my house unannounced. I’ve already told you I’m not interested in speaking to you, please stop contacting me. 

He reads it out again, and both Michael and Calum nod. 

“Add a ‘you bastard’ at the end,” Michael suggests, and Luke rolls his eyes, but he’s grinning, a wave of love and appreciation for Michael and Calum suddenly washing over him. 

He would never have made it through Ashton without them, and he doesn’t think he’d be able to handle Ashton 2.0 without them either. They’re always there, never questioning, never judging, fiercely supportive, and Luke doesn’t know what he did to deserve two such unwaveringly loyal best friends. 

“Thanks, guys,” Luke says, as he presses send, immediately locking his phone and trying to push down the anxiety that bubbles in his stomach as soon as he sees the words turn blue. “For everything.”

“Of course,” Michael says gently. 

“Always, Luke,” Calum says sincerely. 

Luke thinks that just maybe, with Michael and Calum at his side, he can get through this. 

 -------

 It turns out Ashton and Luke have wildly differing definitions of please stop contacting me. Luke thinks it means ‘don’t speak to me anymore’, and Ashton thinks it means ‘wait a day before trying again’. 

Luke’s on his lunch break when his phone buzzes. Knowing better than to just assume it’s Michael or Calum now, he fishes it out of his pocket with trepidation. It’s Ashton, his name white against the black of the screen with the green swipe to answer button staring back at Luke. 

If he doesn’t answer, Ashton will just try again. If he answers and shouts at Ashton to fuck off, Ashton will know that Luke’s not capable of being cordial with him, that Ashton had hurt him so much that it still stings two years later. So, sighing, Luke swipes on the answer button, and lifts the phone to his ear with a resigned, and slightly pissed off, “What?”

“Hi,” Ashton says, and it still makes Luke feel a little sick. There’s something jarring about hearing the same voice that used to call him baby, sweetheart, gorgeous, now miles away on the other end of a staticky phone line, strange and unknown. 

“I told you not to contact me anymore,” Luke says, and it comes out a little weary. 

“I know,” Ashton says, and he has the grace to sound guilty. 

“Right. So you’re just choosing to ignore that?” 

“No, I-” Ashton cuts himself off, and there’s a moment of silence before he takes a deep breath. “I really think we should talk.” 

“I’ve told you,” Luke says, for what must be the thirtieth time, “I don’t want to talk. I have nothing to say to you.” 

“I do, though,” Ashton says. 

“I don’t want to hear it.” 

“Then why did you pick up?” 

“Because you’d just fucking turn up at my house again, or something,” Luke says. “Which, by the way, is really fucking creepy. Like, it made me feel really unsafe. Michael wanted me to call the police.”  

“I know,” Ashton says, and he actually sounds sincere. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.” Luke does a double take. Ashton, apologising? 

“Right,” Luke says, a little nonplussed, because he was expecting a justification, an excuse, not an apology. That’s not really Ashton’s style. “Well. Don’t do it again. I won’t hesitate to get a restraining order.” 

“Okay,” Ashton says, and then, without missing a beat: “Can I take you out for dinner?” Luke’s mouth falls open. 

“Are you fucking insane?” Luke says, too incredulous to be angry. “How many different ways do I have to say ‘I want nothing to do with you’ until you get the message?” 

“We really should talk about what this means,” Ashton presses. “Like. We’re soulmates, now.” The words twist deep in Luke’s gut, and he swallows back the queasy feeling rising in his throat. 

“What if we always were?” he bites out, and he can’t help the bitterness that drips out with the words. They’re met with an uncomfortable silence, and Luke feels a stab of spiteful glee. 

“I want to talk about it,” Ashton says finally, which doesn’t answer Luke’s question. “Please. Just one dinner. And then I promise I’ll leave you alone.” 

Luke tips his head back against the wall, letting his eyes flutter shut. 

On the one hand, he wants Ashton to fuck off and leave him alone, indefinitely. He wants to go back to forgetting Ashton, to living a life without him and to uncomfortable first dates and fumbling hookups. He wants to pretend his tattoo doesn’t exist, to be able to choose who he loves rather than be assigned someone to love, someone he already tried to love and worked hard to stop loving. 

On the other hand, he knows that Ashton won’t leave him alone until he gives him what he wants. Sure, he might relent for a few months, but Luke will always have that knot of anxiety in his stomach every time he gets a text, every time the doorbell rings, and one dinner might be worth giving himself peace of mind. 

“I’ll think about it,” Luke says eventually. “But just for the record, the fact I have to do what you want before you respect my wishes is doing you absolutely no favours.” 

“I know,” Ashton says heavily, like he’s fucking sad about it, or something. Luke doesn’t think Ashton has it in him to consider Luke’s feelings. “Thank you.” 

“I didn’t say yes.” 

“I know,” Ashton says again. Luke grits his teeth and bites back the fuck you that’s on the tip of his tongue, chanting Calum’s words to himself: keep him at arm’s length, don’t let it get emotional. I’ll think about it isn’t a yes, whatever Ashton wants to tell himself. 

“Fine,” Luke says, after he’s taken a moment to collect himself, cool, calm, professional. “I’ll get back to you when I’ve had time to think. Don’t contact me in the meantime.” 

“Okay,” Ashton says. 

“Good,” Luke says, and hangs up before Ashton has a chance to respond. 

Jesus fucking Christ, he thinks, exhaling heavily and staring at the grey clouds gathering above him and throwing a silent curse out at the universe, just in case it can suddenly read thoughts, for saddling him with this fucking situation. Ashton Irwin might very well be the death of him, for a second time. 

 ------- 

 Luke completely forgets that he’d told Ashton he’d consider going to dinner with him until Calum tentatively brings him up the following Tuesday. 

“Did Ashton ever say anything to your message?” he asks, scratching behind Duke’s ears, and Luke blinks at him. 

“Did I not tell you?” he says, surprised. He’s not sure how the entire conversation with Ashton slipped his mind for almost an entire week, but he supposes that’s what happens when he doesn’t care about someone. 

“No?” Calum says, equally surprised, as though he hadn’t expected Luke to have heard anything. Luke fucking wishes. 

“He rang me the next day,” Luke says, and Calum frowns, hand stilling on Duke’s back. Duke turns and gives Calum a reproachful look, and Calum starts petting him again absent-mindedly. “Asked me to meet him for dinner.” Calum gapes at him. 

“Are you serious?” he says, in disbelief. 

“I know,” Luke agrees. 

“Jesus,” Calum says, sounding almost in awe of Ashton’s shamelessness. “Was he this delusional when you were together?” Luke laughs, and shrugs. “What’d he say when you said no?” Luke hesitates, biting his lip. 

“I told him I’d think about it,” Luke says after a moment, and Calum’s eyes widen. 

“Luke,” he says, and it’s careful, worried, and Luke hates it. 

“Look, I know,” he says, before Calum can say something like Ashton nearly killed you last time, are you sure this is a good idea? “I know, Cal, okay? I just- I need him to leave me alone.” Calum frowns again. 

“What, and he’s trying to force your hand by making him leaving you alone conditional on you going out to dinner with him?” he says. Luke nods. “What a cunt.” 

“I know,” Luke says. “I think he’d leave me alone if I said no, but I think I’d be jumping every time I got a text. I’d rather just have one dinner with him and know that’s it.” Calum’s frown doesn’t leave his face, but he nods slowly. 

“Okay,” he says. “If it’s for your own peace of mind.” 

“It is,” Luke says, exhaling heavily and slumping back on Calum’s sofa. 

“So you’re going?” 

“I don’t know,” Luke says. “I haven’t thought about it.” 

“You don’t have to,” Calum says, and it’s gentle, supportive. “We can go to the police, say he’s harassing you. We can get a restraining order.” 

“I don’t want to go through that,” Luke says, carding a hand through his hair, a little stressed at the idea. It sounds a little extreme, and a lot expensive.

“Okay,” Calum says easily. “Whatever you want to do, Luke. You know I’ll support whatever decision you make.” Luke smiles, small and genuine.

“Thanks, Cal,” he says. 

“I can’t promise Michael will, though,” Calum adds, and Luke snorts. 

“No, probably not,” he says. 

 -------

 “You said what?” Michael sounds absolutely outraged at the very idea. 

“I said I’d think about it,” Luke repeats. Michael folds his arms. 

“And you’ve thought about it, and you’re going to say no, right?” Luke hesitates, and that’s enough for Michael to make a noise of exasperation and roll his eyes. “Jesus Christ, Luke. You’re not going for dinner with fucking Ashton.” 

“Who are you, my fucking mum?” Luke says, a little irritably. Michael’s expression softens a little at the barbs hidden in Luke’s words. 

“I just don’t want-” he starts, but Luke cuts him off with a shake of his head. 

“I know, Mike,” he says, because he does, he knows, and he doesn’t need to hear it. “I’m twenty-fucking-six, mate. I can make my own decisions.” Michael looks torn, like he half-wants to yell at Luke (which, frankly, he probably does), but then he sighs. 

“Fine,” he says, sounding very much like it’s not fine. “Are you going to go?” Luke shrugs. 

“I haven’t thought about it yet,” he says. Michael gives him a hard look, and looks like he wants to say something else, but then Calum comes back from the kitchen, Duke in his wake, and sets himself down between the two of them. 

“Play nice, you two,” he says warningly, but he’s only looking at Michael. Luke feels a touch smug about that. 

“Fuck you,” Michael says, reaching for one of the bags of popcorn Calum’s brought through from the kitchen. Duke gets on his hind legs and paws at the sofa, gazing at Michael beseechingly, and Michael almost absent-mindedly reaches down to pick him up and put him in his lap. Duke settles down comfortably, resting his head on Michael’s thigh and blinking at Calum and Luke calmly. Something about the familiarity of the interaction makes Luke’s heart ache a little bit.

“Whose turn is it to pick a movie tonight?” Calum asks, reaching for the other two bags of popcorn and tossing one at Luke. 

“Mine,” Michael says. 

“No it’s not,” Luke says. “It’s mine.”

“Yeah, but your taste in movies is so shit that I’m vetoing your turn,” Michael says. Luke squawks indignantly. 

“What?” he says, incensed. “My taste is fucking fine, thank you very much.” 

“He kind of has a point,” Calum says, nodding solemnly at Luke. Luke scowls. 

“Fuck you,” he says, ripping open his popcorn. “Just because you’re fucking soulmates now doesn’t mean you get to gang up on me.” As soon as he’s said it, the atmosphere changes; Calum and Michael exchange a glance, before looking back at Luke. 

“We should probably talk about that,” Michael says carefully, and Luke groans, pinching the bridge of his nose with salty, buttery fingers. Gross. 

“Can we not?” he says, wiping his nose with his sleeve to avoid looking at either of them. “Please, just for one fucking night, let me forget the whole soulmate thing exists.” Calum and Michael both hesitate, and then Calum shoots Michael another quick look and nods at Luke. 

“Okay,” he says. “But your taste in movies is still shitty.” 

Luke throws a cushion at him.

 ------- 

 On Sunday night, at two in the morning, Luke types out a single word. 

Me Ok. 

He presses send, turns airplane mode on, and goes to sleep. 

 -------

 Luke completely forgets that he’d turned airplane mode on on Monday morning until he gets on the train and tries to load Twitter. When he turns it off, messages start popping in, so fast that he can’t read them before the next one arrives. Most of them are from the group chat with Michael and Calum, some argument about whether twenty-four hour time is better or worse than twelve-hour, and he’s got one from his dad asking how he’s doing, and - the reason he’d turned airplane mode on in the first place - one from Ashton. 

Ashton Irwin Thank you. 8pm tonight, Zahli?

Luke bites his lip, staring out of the window as he thinks for a moment.  

Me Ok. 

 ------- 

 He doesn’t tell Calum until after lunch. 

“I said yes,” he says, as casually as possible, staring at his nails like they’re the most interesting thing in the world. They’re kind of disgusting, actually. “Hey, do you have a nail file at home?” 

“When are you seeing him?” Calum asks. “And yeah, in the cupboard under the sink in the upstairs bathroom. Have you tried calling about the boiler again?” Luke nods, picking at his thumbnail with his index finger. 

“Yeah, they said they wouldn’t be back for another week,” he says. Calum pulls a face. 

“You’re paying my water bill this month,” he says. “You take as long in one shower as I do in ten.” 

“Why should I pay for your lack of hygiene?” Luke says. 

“Fuck you, I’m hygienic,” Calum says. “And at least I know how to pick up towels.” 

“Hey, I’m getting better,” Luke says. “I hang them up now.” Calum rolls his eyes. 

“Stuffing them into the towel warmer is not hanging them up,” he says. 

“It’s better than leaving them on the floor, though,” Luke points out, ripping a bit of his thumbnail off. 

“Oh, what, so I should praise you for doing less than the bare minimum because it could be worse?” 

“I mean, a little thanks wouldn’t go amiss,” Luke says, grinning at Calum. Calum scoffs, and rolls his eyes again. 

“You’re the worst housemate I’ve ever had,” he tells Luke. 

“You’ve never had a housemate.” 

“I have now,” Calum says, pointing at him, “and you’re the worst one.” 

“Well, then by definition I’m also the best,” Luke says, biting at the edge of his thumbanil. Calum scowls, and flips him off. 

“When are you seeing Ashton?” Calum asks, which Luke’s kind of torn on, because on the one hand, Calum changing the subject means Luke’s won, but on the other hand, the subject he’s gone for is Ashton. 

“Tonight,” Luke mumbles, around a mouthful of thumb. 

“Tonight?” Calum repeats, and Luke nods. “Okay. Where?” 

“Zahli.” Calum raises his eyebrows. 

“He’ll try to pay,” he says. “Don’t let him.” Luke rolls his eyes. 

“Obviously not,” he says, because he’s not an idiot. 

“What are you going to wear?” Luke stops. He hadn’t even thought about that. 

“I don’t know,” he says, with a shrug. “Probably just my work clothes.” Calum looks him up and down, nodding thoughtfully. 

“Good choice,” he says. “You look good, so you’ll be showing him you’re alright without him, but not so good that he’ll think you’ve put in effort to impress him.” 

“True,” Luke says, because he’s well beyond pretending that he’s not analysing the situation this deeply himself. 

“I wonder what he wants to talk about,” Calum muses, tapping a pen against his chin. 

“Probably, like, how successful his band is, how many guys he’s fucked since me, how happy he’s been,” Luke says, a little spiteful and a little bitter. 

“You’ve been successful,” Calum points out. “You’ve fucked guys since him. You’ve been happy.” 

“I know,” Luke says, but there’s a little twisting in his stomach, because he’s always felt so fucking inferior to Ashton. It feels like he has something to prove since the breakup, like he has to show both Ashton and himself that he’s better now than the iteration of Luke Ashton knew had been. 

“You don’t have to do it,” Calum says, clearly seeing the uncertainty written all over Luke’s face. “You can still back out.” Luke shakes his head. 

“Not now that I’ve said yes,” he says. “He’ll read into it.” 

“So let him,” Calum says, with a shrug. He doesn’t get it - he never cares what other people think, especially not people he doesn’t care about. Luke can’t stop caring what people think about him, especially people he used to care about. 

“I can’t,” Luke says. “It’ll be fine. It’ll be, like, an hour, tops. And then I never have to speak to or see him again.” A weight of relief settles in his stomach at the mere thought, that in six hours everything will be over and his life can return to how it was six months ago. 

“Thank fuck for that,” Calum says, and Luke can’t help but heartily agree. 

 -------

 Luke’s at Zahli at eight on the dot, and, because they hadn’t talked about whether they’d wait outside or go in, decides to head inside on his own. His stomach is a bundle of nerves, tension and anxiety settled into every cell of his body, because this will be the first time he’s seen Ashton in two years. The last time he’d seen Ashton, Ashton had been his, and Luke had been a wreck. It’s embarrassing to think back to, that someone he barely even knows now has seen him like that, at his most vulnerable, so Luke orders a glass of red wine to try and take his mind off it. 

He’s forcing himself to be engrossed in the food menu when Ashton sits down. 

“Hi,” Ashton says, voice clear and low, and Luke looks over his food menu at him. 

It feels like déjà-vu, if déjà-vu involved feeling suddenly sick and defenceless and pathetic. Ashton looks almost the same as the last time Luke had seen him, minus the stressed expression on his face, and maybe with a few more crow’s feet. His golden curls have been dyed black, tucked behind his ear besides the one strand he never could control, and Luke hates that he remembers that. 

“Hi,” Luke says, proud of how steady and cool it comes out. 

“You look good,” Ashton comments, after an awkward moment. 

“This isn’t a date,” Luke says. 

“I know.” 

“Good.” Luke turns back to his menu, palms sweating, heart racing, and tries to focus on the words on the page. 

“Have you ordered?” 

“Obviously not,” Luke says, because he’s got the fucking menu in his hand. 

“Oh, right.” Luke rolls his eyes privately, but says nothing, and then the waiter’s coming over and Luke’s just pointing to the first thing he sees on the page and smiling politely. The waiter, however, then takes the menus away from both of them, and Luke’s left with nothing to hide behind, and has to look at Ashton. 

He’s dressed nicely, in a long-sleeved black lace shirt, and he’s got a few more rings on his fingers than the last time Luke had seen him. He’s still just as muscular - maybe even a little more - and his hazel eyes look a little older, blinking at Luke from behind dark lashes. Luke feels so queasy at the sight of him, almost exactly the same but somehow so fucking different, feels the echoes of the worthlessness and emptiness he’d felt in Ashton’s wake squeezing at his lungs, and wills himself not to throw up. 

“So,” Ashton says, after a long, uncomfortable silence. Luke’s not sure whether he wants to yell at Ashton, cry, leave, or die. Dying currently sounds like the most enticing option of the lot.

“Talk,” Luke says curtly. Ashton blinks. 

“Can you at least be cordial with me?” he says. Luke stares at him. What the fuck makes Ashton think he’s deserved that?

“Talk,” he repeats, because he doesn’t trust himself not to fly off the handle if he says anything non-monosyllabic. Ashton sighs, and looks down at his hands. 

“Okay,” he says, taking a deep breath. “I want to apologise.” 

“Right.” 

“Can I- can I just say this without you interrupting?” 

Luke hesitates, then nods. Biting remarks aren’t part of the ‘keep him at arm’s length, don’t let it get emotional’ routine, anyway. It won’t hurt to let Ashton say his piece.

“Thank you.” Ashton takes another deep breath. “I want to apologise. I know how I left-” he winces “-was pretty cold, pretty brutal. I’m sorry for that. I’ve given it a lot of thought over the last two years, and I regret it. Like. A lot. I missed you. A lot. I wanted to get back in contact with you, but I knew- I knew you wouldn’t want to hear from me. And then the tattoo came, and I- I didn’t look at it, for a few days, because when I looked at what everyone was saying online, I knew it would be you.” He pauses, eyes flicking back to Luke, like he’s gauging his reaction. Luke, though, is sitting still, emotionless, face blank. He’s not giving Ashton any satisfaction. “And then I looked, and it was. And I knew I had to be yours, but you didn’t say anything.” The pause is longer this time, an invitation for Luke to speak.

“Okay,” Luke says, because he doesn’t really have anything else to say. 

“I- it’s not just the tattoo, Luke,” Ashton says, and Luke never wants to hear his name coming from Ashton’s lips again. “It’s you. I regretted it the minute I left, but I couldn’t go back to you, not knowing what I did. How I did it. I- When I heard about the tattoos, I knew it was going to be you. It’s always been you.” 

Luke kind of wants to laugh. Two years ago, these are the exact words he wanted to hear from Ashton. It was a mistake, I’m sorry, I love you, it’s only you - those words bounced around his head in different fantasies for months on end. Now, though, he feels nothing, and that’s the biggest success Luke thinks he’s ever had in his life. He’s sitting across from the person that took him the closest to the edge, and he feels nothing. It makes him feel powerful, feel in control, and he relaxes a little. Ashton’s apologising to him, opening up to him. Luke’s not giving anything away.

“You fell out of love with me,” Luke says, and it’s not accusing, it’s not emotional. It’s calm, rational, matter-of-fact. 

“I thought I did,” Ashton says, and he opens his mouth to speak but then the waiter comes, handing them their dishes with a smile. Luke throws a smile at him, but Ashton barely glances at him. There’s an awkward silence as the waiter asks if they want any pepper, and Luke says yes please, and they have to wait for the waiter to bring it over and then for Luke to say stop. Luke lets it go on a little longer than maybe strictly necessary, childishly enjoying the way Ashton’s squirming in his seat, and then thanks the waiter with a brilliant smile, just to drive home the point of how friendly he can be with people that aren’t Ashton. 

“I thought I did,” Ashton repeats, when the waiter’s finally gone and Luke’s tucking into his potatoes. “That’s why I left. I thought I didn’t love you anymore, and then I actually had to live without you, and I realised it was just because we were settling into a familiar love. I just couldn’t handle the commitment, and it made me block you out.” Luke raises an eyebrow, but keeps eating, and Ashton sighs. 

“Look,” he says. “I- I know I fucked up. Badly. But I didn’t need a tattoo to tell me that. I already knew what the tattoo confirmed. I’d-” he swallows. “I’d really like the opportunity to have a second chance.” Luke sets his fork down at that, and sits back in his chair. 

“Do you know what you did to me?” he says, calm and even. Ashton just stares at him, which Luke takes as a no, so he goes on. “You left me feeling like I was worthless. I spent months in therapy, and even longer crying on Calum and Michael’s shoulders every night. I couldn’t be alone. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t breathe because everything was you.” He pauses, weighing up his next words. “You left, and I was left behind. I had to work hard to fall out of love with you. That was your choice, not mine. I would probably never have stopped loving you if you’d let me. But you moved on, and so I had to as well. And the consequence of your choice, your actions, is that I don’t love you anymore. I don’t feel anything for you anymore. I’m only here to get you to leave me alone.” Ashton looks a little sick when Luke finishes. 

“And the fact we’re soulmates doesn’t mean anything to you?” he says, his voice cracking slightly on the word ‘soulmates’. Luke shrugs. 

“No,” he says. “I don’t want to be with you. I don’t care who else you fuck. I don’t care who else you love. I don’t care about you anymore, Ashton.” Ashton swallows, and nods. 

“I guess I deserve that,” he says, and Luke can’t help but huff out a laugh. 

“You kind of do,” he says, but it’s not unkind. Ashton sighs, and rakes a hand through his hair. 

“I thought you’d be more open to the idea,” he admits, taking Luke aback a little with his honesty. 

“You don’t know me anymore,” Luke says. “Don’t kid yourself that you do. I’m not the same person you left behind.” 

“Doesn’t it bother you, though? That we’re supposed to be together?”

“I guess sometimes the universe gets it wrong,” Luke says, with a shrug. “We tried, and it didn’t work.” 

“It might work now that I know how to love you properly,” Ashton says. 

“I’m not going to give you a second chance based on a ‘maybe’,” Luke says. Ashton stares at him for a moment, and then nods, tight-lipped and unhappy. For the first time, Luke feels a little sorry for him. He’s not even touched his food. 

“Can I see it?” Ashton asks, after a moment. 

“It’s on my back,” Luke says. “It’s your bird tattoo, carrying a drumstick in its mouth with one of your moons in the background.” Ashton nods again, but it’s absent-minded, almost numb.

“That sounds beautiful,” he says. 

“It is,” Luke says. 

“Mine’s a daisy chain wrapped around a microphone,” Ashton says. 

“That’s my favourite flower,” Luke says, without thinking, and Ashton nods. Of course, Ashton already knew that. Luke remembers the conversation; Ashton laughing at him (“Daisies can’t be your favourite flower, Luke, that’s fucking stupid.”), his defensiveness (“Fuck you, they’re cute.”), chucking a cushion at a giggling Ashton’s head. 

“It’s on my tricep,” Ashton says, even though Luke hadn’t asked. 

“Mine’s on my shoulderblade.” Ashton nods, and they lapse into silence. Luke’s finished his food, and Ashton���s not even glanced at his, which is stopping the waiter from coming back to clear their plates away. 

“We should probably pay,” Luke says, when the silence stretches on for so long that he thinks it might be Tuesday already. 

“Okay,” Ashton says, and he sounds kind of sad. Luke flags down the waiter, who asks Ashton if there was a problem with the food, and an awkward conversation ensues in which Ashton smiles at the waiter and tells him no, he just doesn’t feel well, but his friend had really enjoyed the food, and Luke watches as the smile doesn’t reach his eyes. The waiter asks if they want to split the bill or pay as one, and Luke jumps in and says they want to split it before Ashton can make one final grand romantic gesture, or whatever. The waiter nods, coming back (much to Luke’s relief) in record time with the card machine and two bills. Luke and Ashton pay, thank the waiter, and then fumble with their coats as they get up and head out into the temperate November night. 

“So,” Ashton says, when they get out of the restaurant. “I guess this is it.” Luke nods. 

“This is it,” he says. 

“I had a nice evening,” Ashton says, and Luke can’t help but laugh. 

“No, you didn’t,” he says. Ashton half-smiles. 

“Okay, no I didn’t,” he admits. “But I did enjoy seeing you again.” Luke nods, not really sure how to take that. 

“Good luck with everything,” he says. 

“You too,” Ashton says. Luke smiles at him, and it’s a real smile, partially fuelled by relief, and partially by something he can’t quite put his finger on. 

“Get home safe,” Luke says, because he can’t say ‘see you’, since he’s sincerely hoping not to. 

“You too,” Ashton says again. Luke nods, offers him one last smile, and then turns on his heel and walks away. 

His shoulderblade tingles as he goes, and there’s an odd edge of sadness to his relief, but he doesn’t stop or look back.

taglist: @glitterlukey @hey-its-grey 

chapter three

[newstfionline]

Saturday, December 26, 2020

Getting creative to help the homeless (AP) After three years on the streets, Tiecha Vannoy and her boyfriend Chris Foss plan to weather the pandemic this winter in a small white “pod” with electricity, heat and enough room for two. Portland this month assembled neat rows of the shelters, which resemble garden sheds, in three ad-hoc “villages”—part of an unprecedented effort unfolding in cold-weather cities nationwide to keep people without permanent homes safe as temperatures drop and coronavirus cases surge. “We just get to stay in our little place. We don’t have to leave here unless we want to,” said Vannoy, wiping away tears as they moved into the shelter near a downtown train station. “It’s been a long time coming. He always tells me to have faith, but I was just over it.” ... “Those (are) folks who would under normal circumstances maybe come into a drop-in center to warm up, or go into the subway to warm up, or go into a McDonald’s to warm up—and just not having those options available to them. What then?” asked Giselle Routhier of the Coalition for the Homeless in New York City.

Raise your mittens: Outdoor learning continues into winter (AP) Cindy Soule’s fourth graders in Maine’s largest city have studied pollination in a community garden. They solved an erosion problem that was damaging trees. They learned about bear scat. Then came a fresh layer of snow and temperatures that hovered around freezing—but her students were unfazed. Bundled up and masked, they scooted outside with their belongings in buckets. They collected their pencils and clipboards, plopped the buckets upside down in the snow, took a seat and went to work. The lesson? Snow, of course, and how snowflakes are formed. Schools nationwide scrambled to get students outdoors during the pandemic to keep them safe and stop the spread of COVID-19. Now, with temperatures plummeting, a smaller number of schools—even in some of the nation’s most frigid climes—plan to keep it going all winter long, with students trading desks in warm classrooms for tree stumps or buckets.

Explosion in Nashville that damaged 20 buildings, injured 3 people an ‘intentional act’ (USA Today) Authorities believe an explosion that occurred in downtown Nashville early Christmas morning and was felt for miles was an “intentional act” sparked by a vehicle. Police responded to reports of a suspicious vehicle parked outside the AT&T building just before 6 a.m. Upon arrival, police said an officer “had reason” to alert the department’s hazardous devices unit, which was en route, when a “significant explosion” happened. Three people were hospitalized with injuries, police said. At least 20 buildings were damaged, Nashville Mayor John Cooper said. The sound of the explosion could be heard from miles away, and people reported windows shaking from South and East Nashville. “It looks like a bomb went off,” Cooper said. The downtown area will be “sealed off” for further investigation and to make sure everything is “completely safe.”

US to require negative COVID-19 test from UK travelers (AP) The United States will require airline passengers from Britain to get a negative COVID-19 test before their flight, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced late Thursday. The U.S. is the latest country to announce new travel restrictions because of a new variant of the coronavirus that is spreading in Britain and elsewhere. Airline passengers from the United Kingdom will need to get negative COVID-19 tests within three days of their trip and provide the results to the airline, the CDC said in a statement. The agency said the order will be signed Friday and go into effect on Monday. “If a passenger chooses not to take a test, the airline must deny boarding to the passenger,” the CDC said in its statement. The agency said because of travel restrictions in place since March, air travel to the U.S. from the U.K. is already down by 90%.

Many just want a hug for Christmas this year, Queen Elizabeth says (Reuters) All many people want for Christmas this year is a simple hug, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth said in her annual festive message, saying it would be hard for those who lost loved ones to COVID-19 pandemic or were separated by curbs on social mixing. In her traditional pre-recorded Christmas Day address to the nation, the 94-year-old monarch repeatedly spoke of hope for the future whilst acknowledging millions of Britons would be unable to have their usual family celebrations this year. “Of course for many, this time of year will be tinged with sadness; some mourning the loss of those dear to them, and others missing friends and family members distanced for safety when all they really want for Christmas is a simple hug or a squeeze of the hand,” Elizabeth said. “If you are among them, you are not alone. And let me assure you of my thoughts and prayers.” “Remarkably, a year that has necessarily kept people apart has in many ways brought us closer,” said the queen, adding the royals had been inspired by stories of those who volunteered to help others in need. “In the United Kingdom and around the world, people have risen magnificently to the challenges of the year and I’m so proud and moved by this quiet indomitable spirit.”

For the European Union, It’s a Pretty Good Deal (NYT) The European Union emerges from fraught negotiations with Britain over its exit from the bloc with a sense of satisfaction—that it has maintained its unity and its core principles, especially the integrity of the single market of now 450 million consumers that is the foundation of its influence. And it is now looking ahead to its life without Britain. The final deal is a free-trade agreement that recognizes Britain’s desire to leave the single market and the customs union while preserving tariff-free, quota-free trade in goods with the European Union. To that end, Britain agreed to a mechanism, with arbitration and possible tariffs for violations, that would keep its regulations and subsidies roughly in line with those of Brussels, to prevent unfair competition. But the deal will require inspections of goods to prevent smuggling. The deal also covers many mundane but crucial matters of visas, health insurance, and air, rail and road travel. It treats Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, as within the E.U. customs area to prevent the need for a hard border on the island, but requires some checks on goods going from Britain to Northern Ireland. And the deal reallocates fishing areas and quotas, given that Britain is now an independent coastal state.

Pope Francis celebrates low-key Christmas Eve Mass amid coronavirus restrictions (Fox News) Pope Francis celebrated Christmas Eve Mass on Thursday night amid coronavirus restrictions that reduced a normal crowd of as many as 10,000 congregants to a group of fewer than 100 people, according to reports. During his homily, the Roman Catholic leader urged followers to reach out to the needy, noting that Jesus Christ was considered an outsider. “The Son of God was born an outcast, in order to tell us that every outcast is a child of God,” the pope said. May the Child of Bethlehem help us, then, to be generous, supportive and helpful, especially towards those who are vulnerable, the sick, those unemployed or experiencing hardship due to the economic effects of the pandemic, and women who have suffered domestic violence during these months of lockdown,” he said.

Turkey debates law that would increase oversight of NGOs (Reuters) Turkey’s parliament began debating a draft law on Friday that would increase oversight of non-governmental organisations and which, according to rights campaigners, risks limiting the freedoms of civil-society groups. The government says the measure, covering “foundations and associations”, aims to prevent non-profit organisations from financing terrorism and to punish those who violate the law. Civil-society groups, including Amnesty International and the Human Rights Association, said terrorism charges in Turkey were arbitrary, and that the draft law would violate the presumption of innocence and punish those whose trials were not finalised.Investigations based on terrorism charges have been launched against hundreds of thousands of people under a crackdown following a failed coup in 2016. Hundreds of foundations were also shut down with decrees following the coup attempt.

Half of Russians sceptical Kremlin critic Navalny was poisoned (Reuters) Half of Russians believe that Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was either not poisoned, as he and Western governments contend, or that his poisoning was stage-managed by Western intelligence services, a poll showed on Thursday. The poll, released by the Levada-Center, shows how hard it remains for Navalny to shape public opinion in Russia even as his case attracts wide media attention in the West and his own slickly-produced videos of what happened to him this summer rack up millions of views online. Navalny, one of President Vladimir Putin’s most outspoken critics, was airlifted to Germany for medical treatment in August after collapsing on a plane in Russia. Germany has said he was poisoned with a Soviet-style Novichok nerve agent in an attempt to murder him, an assertion many Western nations accept. The poll by Levada, which is regarded as more independent than state counterparts, showed only 15% of Russians believed what happened to Navalny was an attempt by the authorities to rid themselves of a political opponent. By contrast, 30% thought that the incident was stage-managed and that there was no poisoning, and 19% said they believed it was a provocation orchestrated by Western intelligence services.

Hong Kong street refrigerator keeps giving (AP) Most people who head to Woosung Street in Hong Kong’s old-school neighborhood of Jordan are visiting its popular restaurants serving everything from curries to seafood. Others may be headed for a lone refrigerator, painted blue, with a sign that reads: “Give what you can give, take what you need to take.” The door of the fridge sitting outside a hockey academy opens to reveal it is stuffed with packets of instant noodles, biscuits, tins of food and even socks and towels for anyone who may need them. Ahmen Khan, founder of a sports foundation on the same street, said he was inspired to create a community refrigerator after seeing a film about others doing the same thing. He found the refrigerator at a nearby refuse collection point and painted it blue. “It’s like a dignity, that when you go home, you open your fridge to get food,” Khan said. “So I want the people to just feel like that. Even if it’s a street, it’s their community, it’s their home, so they can simply just open it and then just put food there, and collect the food.” Khan’s blue refrigerator project went viral on social media and people have been dropping by to leave food inside.

Israeli jets fly over Beirut, explosions reported in Syria (AP) Israeli jets flew very low over parts of Lebanon early Friday, terrifying residents on Christmas Eve, some of whom reported seeing missiles in the skies over Beirut. Minutes later, Syria’s official news agency reported explosions in the central Syrian town of Masyaf. Other Syrian media said Syrian air defenses responded to an Israeli attack near the town in the Hama province. The Syrian Ministry of Defense issued a statement saying Israel “launched an aggression by directing a barrage of rockets” from the north of the Lebanese city of Tripoli towards the Masyaf area. Israeli jets regularly violate Lebanese airspace and have often struck inside Syria from Lebanese territory. But the Christmas Eve flights were louder than usual, frightening residents of Beirut who have endured multiple crises in the past year, including the catastrophic Aug. 4 explosion at the city’s port that killed over 200 people and destroyed parts of the capital.

[alittleoptimistic]

Psychic For Hire

A Buzzfeed Unsolved Fanfic

Summary: Shane is a psychic for hire working in LA, and sure, he’s a fake, but at least he’s telling people what they need to hear! That is, he thought he was fake. But after a strange accident, he has the oddest dreams… Meanwhile his old friend Ryan is researching his next greatest supernatural horror novel in the underbelly of the LA psychic scene and wondering how on earth you convince someone they might be psychic for real?

Trigger warning: violence, car accidents, cussing, dead people.

________________________________________________________________

Chapter 2

Sometimes you’ve got to just be like, ‘well, okay, this is how today is gonna be.’ Ryan dropped his fifth quarter into the vending machine and blinked, long and slow at the options. He got lost for a second, his eyes focused on the reflection of ceiling lights and the waverly look of his own face in the glass. He had a bruise just beneath his left cheek, (coffee cup, he was pretty sure), and a cut on his upper arm. Pick a snack, he ordered. His arm lifted up and tapped in the numbers.

Chips, a slim jim. They clunked at the bottom and Ryan wandered toward room 247 A, where Shane lay sleeping. Ryan felt an odd calm. He should freak out, but he’d gone beyond that and now he floated in this haze while he waited for Shane to wake up.

The hospital room had vertical fabric blinds that let in a dirty evening light. When Ryan entered, Shane was sitting up in bed, gingerly poking at the small bandage over his left eyebrow. He’d been smacked pretty hard. Scary, hard. Ryan had never seen someone that pale before. They were lucky. His chest shuttered.

“Hey, big guy, you’re awake.”

Shane blinked at him, no trace of confusion in his eyes. He knew exactly where he was. Which was very typical of him, to be honest? He relaxed into a smile, apparently unperturbed by the whole situation. “You totaled my car. It’s like college all over again.”

“Fuck you,” Ryan threw the slim jim at him. “Don’t stick your head out the window like a dog.”

“I was throwing up. Christ, my head hurts. Am I okay? I feel okay?”

Ryan nodded.  “You flew out the window, so everyone is super shocked that you are. They think you probably have a concussion, though, which sucks. You’re supposed to rest or whatever. They’ll probably be in here in a few minutes.”

And they were. A few more hours of pandering around, being poked, asking and answering questions, and getting prescriptions, and then, remarkably, they were on their way out. It was… wild. He’d been so scared, and now here they were, catching an Uber.

“I wonder what happened to the people who hit us.” Ryan mused as they watched the animated Uber car on his phone get closer and then miss them entirely.

Shane huffed. “He’s fine. Won't try to change his shirt while driving again, I’m guessing. Don’t worry about it.”

Ryan glanced up. “You don’t even-”

“Is that our guy? I think I see it. Purple Toyota? Purple Toyota, baby!”

The night slipped into a darker, deeper purple as they arrived at Shane’s suburban fever dream of a house. The brightest light by far was Shane’s neon PSYCHIC sign on the front window. Ryan found himself staring at it as they climbed out of the Uber, saying their goodbyes.

He wasn’t sure this was such a good idea anymore.

He had four months to come up with the first draft of a novel about the LA psychics, according to his publishers. Ryan was thinking about some kind of mix of Dead Zone and the celebrity lifestyle… if that was possible. It made sense to stay with Shane, do research the way he always did. Part of his angle was always the real-life research he did before writing anything. He wanted to give people as much truth as he possibly could. Shane was his best friend (or was , ten years ago) and Shane was a professional psychic. It would be stupid to pass up an opportunity like it. This was a strange thing for Shane to be, of course. Ryan remembered first hearing about Shane’s job through a mutual friend and he’d laughed and told them they were confused. Shane, a psychic? Shane was goddamn Doubting Thomas reincarnate.

It made sense, now that Ryan was here, talking to him. Shane wanted to be a therapist in school, but he had to quit midway through after… something. Ryan couldn’t remember what had happened exactly. Shane had told him they couldn’t room together next semester, and just like that, he disappeared off the face of the earth. Ryan got the impression any questions about this were very off-limits, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t curious. The point was, the way he explained it, Shane managed to find a way to be a therapist without technically having a license.

It didn’t make him any less of a con artist, obviously, and it put an honest horrible taste in Ryan’s mouth. He’d rather not know about any of it than have to recalibrate who he thought his friend was. He couldn’t tell any of this to Shane. And he needed the room. Not to mention, it was going to be great for his book. What better insight to this side of LA then through the eyes of someone who knew all the tricks. Then, Ryan could find the real ones, couldn’t he? Or, he could try.

Shane unlocked the front door. He was talking casually about nothing in particular and Ryan laughed in response without really hearing the words. Shane’s house was simply ordered, a single hallway down the center with a living room and open kitchen to the left, and the closed-off office to the right. Two bedrooms further down the hall, and a bathroom at the end. Apparently, Shane used the other bedroom to do video work? Editing had always been a hobby of his, something he and Ryan bonded over originally. “I’ve got a foldout couch in there you can use, ” he told him.

They met around the breakfast counter and Shane poured him a glass of something. Ryan frowned. “I don’t think you should drink if you have a concussion.”

“I’m going to have a headache tomorrow either way,” Shane answered.

“Wh- no, Shane, Jesus-”

Shane took a sip and gave him a put on look. “It’s fine. I’m fine. You drink. You’re all shaky still.”

Ryan wanted to tell him he was not shaky, thank you very much. Instead, he picked up the glass and did so. Surprised, he took another sip. “This is… really good.”

“Gift from a friend,” Shane hummed, sitting down on the tall chairs. His feet still touched the ground, and Ryan realized a moment later, his own did not.

“You have friends?”

Shane rolled his eyes, amused, and then winced. He could brush it off all he liked, but his head was definitely hurting him. “Got me there. A client, then. Lilly Keller.”

Ryan choked on the wine.

“Wait. Like, the Lilly Keller?” Lilly Keller, the famous actress, winner of multiple oscars at the young age of twenty-three. Lilly Keller, America’s newest heartthrob. Ryan’s mouth dropped open. “You can’t just- Frick, dude, you’re Lilly Keller’s psychic?” Shane gave him a cheeky grin. “She’s a sweet girl. You can come with me to a session if you like.”

“ If I like? Who else do you know? Do you know Leonardo Dicaprio? Please say you-”

“She’s the only celebrity, don’t get too excited!”

Ryan was about to reply when headlights shot through the room from the front window. They were inordinately bright, especially since he and Shane hadn’t turned on more lights than the small one over the stove. The car faced them, unmoving. The headlights flipped on and off and on again with deliberation.

Ryan held up a hand to squint at it. “What the hell?”

Shane didn’t say anything.

“Shane?”

Ryan looked at him. Shane was stiff, his face blank. He set the glass down with a clink on the counter. “...shit…”

Ryan’s breath caught. “Is something wrong?”

Shane raised his eyebrows, meeting his eyes suddenly. “Naw. Just something I’ve gotta do. You wait in here.” Without another word, Shane crossed the kitchen and opened the door of his office. Ryan stayed at the counter, too shocked to do anything but obey.

Maybe this really was a bad idea.

Shane cursed in the dark of his office as he pushed aside a few books on his bookshelf to reveal the safe hidden behind. He opened the dial quickly. Inside lay a pile of jewelry, some watches, other important documents, and piles of cash. It wasn’t all his technically. He got rent from several other psychics around the area and then delivered a portion of his and theirs to the person above him.

Shane counted the bills, fumbling. His head pounded like it was shrinking around his brain. There was no way he was going to get around avoiding explaining this to Ryan. With a sigh, he straightened, closed the safe, and walked to the front door. Ryan met his gaze and his eyes widened when he saw the money in Shane’s hand. Shane didn’t have anything to put it in or else he would have. Shane didn’t respond. He already knew Ryan was scared. It was bleeding off him like sweet sick. Fear and disappointment.

Shane had a knife in his back pocket just in case as he walked down his sidewalk. It was wet from the sprinklers. Just at the end of the driveway sat a black, shiny car, windows thick.

The moment he saw it, his headache pulsed worse. But he relaxed. His shoulders dropped and he picked up his pace. Thank God…

The window rolled down as he got closer.

“Good evening, Jack.”

Jack, a black-haired kid with a pointy nose and bruised eyes, leaned into the streetlight so he was visible. “How’d you know it was me?”

Shane handed him the cash. “The way you park? I dunno. Wasn’t expecting you tonight. I thought you guys weren’t coming till the twentieth? Where’s Hera?”

“She’s at a party. Apparently she has some big meeting in the twentieth. She told me to come collect early.”

“Well, you’re lucky I had extra meetings this week.”

“ You’re lucky.”

Shane wasn’t scared of Jack. He wasn’t a bad kid, all things considered. It wasn’t his fault his family was batshit crazy. Shane smiled and drummed his fingers on the top of the car. “Well, tell Hera I said hello.”

“Will do.” Jack turned the car back on, putting the money on the passenger seat. He nodded toward Shane’s head. “Someone get ya?”

“Hmm? Oh, no. Car accident earlier today.”

“Aw, that sucks. They give you morphine?” Shane blinked at him. “A little. Gave me crazy dreams.”

The kid grinned a wide, toothy smile. One of his teeth was gold. “Nice. Thanks, bitch. See ya. Hera said she wants you to start taking in the money yourself or she’ll kick your ass.”

Shane opened his mouth to protest. Then he shut it. He managed something like a smile. “Fine. Stay safe, Jack.”

“Whatever, voodoo man.” With that, Jack rolled up the window and slunk the car down the street.

Shane hesitated in his front yard. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He was... so tired.

And Ryan was peeking through the blinds. Of course, he was.

Shane turned around and met Ryan’s eyes immediately, startling the man into dropping the blinds and disappearing. It would be funny in other circumstances. Suddenly, he didn’t want to stay up and drink with his friend anymore. His headache was only getting worse and Ryan was worry pacing in his living room like an anxious cat.

Shane made it back to the kitchen. He rubbed the back of his neck. His body ached. The pain medication must have been wearing off. “Well, you wanted to know what it's like being a psychic in LA...” He laughed.

Ryan stood stiff, his hands trembling. “Who was that?” Shane ignored the question. “My head is killing me. Can we… I'm sorry, can we talk about this tomorrow?”

Ryan wavered. “Are you in danger?”

Shane waved the question away in dismissal. “Naw, calm down. My boss likes me.” He knew Ryan was brimming with questions, but they had a whole two months at least to get answers to them, and Shane was having a hard time focusing now. He walked out, down the hallway. “I set out the blankets and pillows on the bed in there.”

Ryan didn’t have a choice really, but he relented and followed. “... Okay. We’ll talk tomorrow?”

Shane turned at his door. “Duh? Night, Ryan.”

“... night.”

Shane put the door between them as quickly as he could. He was being totally unfair, but he really didn’t have the energy to explain. He sat down on his bed, took his shoes off, and then lay flat on the covers for a minute, thinking he’d get up and change any second. His body was heavy, and he was very aware for no reason in particular that he was a creature inside it.

Shane sat in the passenger seat as the car whizzed the highway. The radio played Miley Cyrus’s ‘The Climb’. Shane turned his head. He recognized the feeling, the thickness of the air like moving through dough. In the driver seat, Jack sang not-so-well, but earnestly, as he drummed his hands on the wheel. The sight made Shane smile. Jack wouldn’t be caught dead listening to something like this.

Shane stood in a bookshop, looking up at the reflection of a book on the inside of a display. ǝɿiH ɿoꟻ ɔiʜɔγƨꟼ. A dark-haired man passed by.

Rapid images passed his eyes. A girl cried in her bathroom, a man and a woman fought in a kitchen. A plate broke. The images passed faster and faster until he couldn’t distinguish them. Everything was too quick, too much information all at once. His stomach began to ache.

Then he was laying on cold marble tiles. Heels clicked past his ear. Above him, marble arches stretched into a dome centered by a massive chandelier that shone like the damn sun. He tried to sit up and managed to turn his head instead. Gravity was too heavy. A familiar woman opened the front door. She wore a mink fur shawl over a nightgown, clearly heading toward the bed. “Jack. you look like shite, honey, why doesn’t your mama dress you properly.”

“Got the money, auntie.”

A pause. “Excuse me?”

Jack stepped back. Shane could see his sneakers. “I have the money, auntie Hera, Ma’am.”

He gave it to her and she hummed. “You told him to come here?”

Jack nodded.

“It’s about time we initiated that dry ass fucker… I’ve never seen a more well-behaved pet.” She leaned forward and pulled Jack down so she could kiss him on the cheek.

“Aw, ugk, auntie- auntie, he’s paying fine, I don't see why you’ve gotta-”

She grabbed his cheek, a little rougher than she ought to have. “How about you run along and let the adults do the thinking, Jackie dear. Have a goodnight, tell your mama she’s a whore.”

“Okay, auntie.”

Shane was listening so closely, he almost didn’t notice until it was too late. The stone crept around his legs and up to his body. He screamed as he fell into the marble.

Concrete surrounded him. He couldn’t breathe. Coldwater rushed at his back. Suddenly he dropped into water, tumbling, slamming into walls. It was so cold. He gasped and flailed and-

Jumped up out of sweat-soaked sheets.

Shane choked on nothing, shivering, breathing rapidly. His whole body hurt. He was battered and bleeding and-

No, no he wasn’t. What kind of nightmare…

Shane scrubbed his face and hissed in pain at the cut over his eye. Sunlight streamed in from the window. A few moments passed, and his heartbeat slowed.

The door rattled. Ryan poked his head in, hair tousled. “Yo, you want eggs?”

Yes, he did.

Man, concussions sure were weird.

________________________________________________________________

previous            to be continued....

[hamlets-ghost-zaddy]

what kind of man?

Joe Toye x Reader

Summary: Assigned as a war correspondent to the European Theater, a string of fluff piece assignments makes apparent you’re a novelty to sell newspapers. You yearn for an interview with someone who will tell you the truth--something real--and you find honesty in a man with a missing leg and a battered copy of War and Peace.

You knew, when Ed McCormick—the human interest editor—slid an Atlantic ocean liner ticket across your (frankly, overflowing) desk along with the declaration of ‘congrats, kiddo, you’re a war reporter,’ there had to be a hitch. The New York Times doesn’t send female war correspondents across the Atlantic Ocean and catapulting into a war zone on a whim—because they think you’ve got gumption, or a certain spark, or felt like taking a chance. You aren’t exactly Martha Gellhorn or Marguerite Higgins—but then again, the Times doesn’t have a Gellhorn or a Higgins.

And now, you’re in an Army hospital in Paris, confronting once again what exactly that hitch is: you’re the novelty ‘girl writer.’ It’s all the rage.

“How long will he make us wait?” you ask, glaring down at your watch face as if you could bully the minute hand to stop moving. To stop showing this Dr. Carl fucking Wainwright, the latest in a long like of interviews for fluff pieces, has kept you and Fred, your photography, waiting for almost forty-five minutes.

“As long as they feel like,” he says, as he lights a cigarette. He uses it as a lecturer’s wand to indicate the ward, populated by wounded and recovering GIs, the smoke leaving a trail. “We’re pretty low on the priority list, kid.”

You lift your eyes to the ceiling, knowing Fred knew as well as you did that wasn’t the whole truth. In the month and a half you’ve been in Paris, the interview appointments you’ve had with doctors, colonels, pilots, naval captains have been consistently well away from the frontlines, the start time delayed or postponed, often cut short when they do begin, all the answers you gather as sweet and vapid as candy floss. No one wants to show the war as it always is, worrying what will happen if their honesty appears on the front page or that the pretty little war correspondent isn’t the one to write about it. “They know I’m not chump change.”

“Nah,” Fred replies. You cock an eyebrow at him as he sucks on his cigarette, wondering if he’s about to compliment you. You had been sure Fred didn’t know how to string one nice—or attempted nice—word after another. He puffs smoke out in a great cloud. “It’s because you’re a girl. They know you’re here to add bit of emotion and feminine touch to this disgusting fucking war.” His words hold no bite, only a crackling frankness, and they land all the harder across your cheek. “You slap your name onto some fluff pieces about the great noble sacrifice of our heroic, home-grown, American boys, and fuck, that’ll sell more papers than my pictures will.”

You bite your lower lip to keep from spitting out something you might regret; it’s not like you didn’t know it, in some dark recess of your conscious.

The girl writer, you think, snorting and crossing your arms over your chest. You squint out of the hospital ward’s window, the early autumn afternoon overcast, the gray clouds swallowing the gray steel of the Eiffel Tower.  You didn’t need Fred to tell you what you already knew. Yet,  sent something sharp and metallic cut into your chest, settling just below your throat. But, you try to bolster yourself, You still got an opportunity. Martha, Marguerite: they started somewhere, too. All it took was an opportunity seized tight in a clenched, white-knuckled fist.

“I just wish I could get a real chance to write something more than fluff,” you say more to the Eiffel Tower than Fred. “I bet I could sell more than an extra paper here or there. I need something I could really sink my teeth into—something real. What the war is like really.”

Smoke curls out of Fred’s mouth. He’s squinting at you, but he’s always squinting at something. It’s why he avoided the draft—his eyesight making him near blind, his refusal to wear glasses making him near stupid—but you’ve come to rely on its consistency. Good old squinting, surly Fred, who saw the world clearer through narrowed eyes than an optometrist could ever help with. He says, “You want some coffee to wash down what you’re sinking your teeth in to?”

“Coffee?” you repeat.

“Sure.” He shrugs toward the closed door of Dr. Wainwright’s office. “Doc’s kept us waiting long enough, I figure we can drink some of his coffee.”

“Ah,” you say. “Well, no, but thank you.”

Fred shrugs. “If he decides to stick his nose out, have someone kind find me.” He doesn’t stick around for an answer, one hand on his camera, hung around his neck, as he trots from the ward. He sends you a wink before he vanishes into the hall.

Sighing, wishing you didn’t have the brand of ‘the girl writer’ seared onto your forehead—what would it be like if you could waltz off to coffee without worrying how’d it look like, what your boss might think, what it might do to your reputation? Pretty damn relaxing, you think, drifting between two cots, the men in either asleep, and lean a hip against the window. Would Martha or Marguerite let themselves be walked over by this Doctor Wainwright? Or yesterday’s Lieutenant Aryes? Or last week’s Captain Sobel?

he Parisian cityscape offers no answers.

“Hey, lady,” a raspy voice calls. Another: “Lady?” Pause, and finally, short and swift and sharp: “Window girl!”

Breath catches in your throat.  Jerking away from the window, you find a soldier two cots away fixing you with a frown. His dark eyes are somehow more disapproving than the downward quirk of his mouth. A book is opened on his stomach. “You’re blocking my reading light,” he says after a beat, you blinking at him.

“Oh, uh,” you reply, intelligently, taking a mincing step away from window only to bump into a cot’s table laden with water and medicines. It takes a quick hand to steady the rattling glasses, and your breath catches as the cot’s occupant grumbles in his sleep—threatening to wake—only to turn onto his side and snore once. Loudly. You exhale. Thank fuck. What kind of person wakes an injured soldier?

“That was elegant,” the dark-eyed man observes dryly.

Moving away from the window and side table, you can’t help your eyes narrowing. “My deepest thanks for that compliment, solider; I’m sure it was entirely sincere.” You feel a whoosh and a plunge in your chest the moment the words are from your mouth because what the fuck? What kind of person says that to an injured soldier? You want to grab the words from the air and stuff them back into your mouth.

But the raspy solider, he, well, he grins?

The disapproval in his eyes has flicked off, a light of interest kindling, and those eyes are sweeping over you, considering. Goosebumps raze your skin, your cheeks flushing, with the prickling heat of his eyes on you and—“You some kind of reporter?”

Crossing your arms, you reply, “I’m not ‘some kind of reporter;’ I am a reporter. A war correspondent. For the New York Times.”

“Oh yeah?” He cocks an eyebrow as if asking if he should be impressed. The heat still burns in his eyes. He’s enjoying this, you realize. “What was all that about sinking your teeth into something real then? Doesn’t seem like you’re a war correspondent for the Times.”

“I am a real—” you being to protest hotly, but under your glare, his lips twitch precariously close to a smile and you bite off your words. “You’re making fun of me, aren’t you?” Your tone is flat.

His smile grows. “Nah, not you in particular, more anything that makes being in a fucking hospital a little less boring.” You expect him to stutter to an awkward halt, to apologize for swearing in front of you—a lady—but he doesn’t. You can’t help mirroring his smile. “I mean, look, I’m reading for Christ’s sake! I never read.” He waves to the book still on his stomach, and you move a few steps closer to read the title and the English major, shut away in your heart since you graduated from Brown three years ago, sings.

“War and Peace?” you say. “That’s appropriate.”

He wrinkles his nose faintly. “I guess, but I’d rather fucking eat it then read another word. It’s horrible! Boring and unrealistic, I mean, seriously, are you telling me that this Andre fella isn’t going to kiss the living-fucking-daylights out of that Natasha broad before he goes off to war? Fucking war? Or that Pierre ain’t going to kiss her? Jesus.”

You consider pointing out, though apparently horrible, he is awfully invested in the romantic entanglements of the main characters. Instead, you settle on, “What would you change to make it more realistic?”

He shrugs, shifting in his bed. You’re not sure if it’s because you’ve drifted to stand over him, or if no one has asked his opinions on literature before, but you pull up a nearby chair to at least alieve one issue. He stares at you for another moment, jaw working, trying to decide something, before settling on: “Well, I can’t really say what’s unrealistic or not about the fucking Napoleonic war, but if you’re wanting a book about war and peace now, I’d tell you to write more—like, a fuck ton more—about soldiers being scared out of their goddamn minds. I am, uh, was a paratrooper until…” he nods toward his legs—well, no, not legs. You realize, blinking and hiding your surprise poorly, where one leg shoulder be, the sheets are deflated. Amputated, he’s destined to relay on one leg and a crutch for the rest of his life, all in service of his country.

Your stomach clenches painfully. You release a silent, steady breath, focusing doggedly as he gathers his thoughts and continues: “I had jumped out of a plane five times just for the right to call myself a paratrooper, right? But, on D-Day, when that plane was flying through a fucking Fourth of July fireworks show as the Germans were firing over us? I might as well have never jumped once. I stood there, waiting and waiting, for the red light and then the green light to turn on thinking, any second, a German anti-aircraft shell would send us up in a great fireball.” He pauses. To the battered novel, he says softly, “I’ve never been so scared.”

Balling your fingers into fists, hidden in the cloth folds of your lap, you restrain yourself from leaning forward to take his hand. He doesn’t need your sympathy, and you don’t have empathy—you could never understand the hell he’s seen. So instead, you ask: “What about the peace?”

He doesn’t reply immediately, his dark eyes dragging reluctantly away from you, as if fighting a magnetized pull, and to his book. Movements slow, as if forgetting the fingers beating a lazy rhythm onto the book’s cover belonged to him, his eyes grow distant. You watch him fall into his memory—allow in memories of terror, his comrades, the firefights, death—and you’ve seen eyes untethered from reality (hell, you’ve seen amputated legs before) but seeing this man, this soldier who talked about literary characters kissing and seasoned his speech with ‘fuck’ like a cooking spice, it meant more. Landed heavier in chest, packed a punch that left you winded around a clenching throat.

I don’t even know his name, you think.

“I think that’s my big problem with it,” he begins slowly, nodding again to the book. “‘War and Peace.” He snorts. Then repeats, low to taste the words in his mouth: “War and peace. Implying that the two can coexist. There isn’t peace, there hasn’t been since ’41 when we got dragged into this fucking war. War murders peace; when you aren’t getting shot out, you’re thinking you might get shot at, or dreaming about being shot at, or your buddy’s shot. You’re constantly wound tight, waiting in the time in between, because there’s no peace. It’s just a lapse in hell so Death can trick you again, and worse this time around.” He says ‘death’ with a capitalization, as if it’s a proper noun, a close friend, someone he’s dined with multiple evenings in a row. A grin spreads on his mouth. “Guess I gave you what you wanted, huh? How’d you trick me into doing that?”

“What?” you ask, blinking. You forgot the origin of the conversation

“You said you wanted to write about the real war.”

“Oh, I do, but…” your voice fades in thought.

“But?”

“But, I won’t use what you told me.”

His dark brows furrow, mouth turning into a downward slash. “What? Why? Do you want something more glorious or heroic, because, lady, I thought you said real—”

“I won’t use it because,” you say over him, holding a finger up to silence him. He presses his lips into an annoyed line, but he swallows his words. “Because of two reasons. One: I haven’t asked permission. May I quote you in a story?”

Jutting his chin out mulishly, he shrugs and you see in him the little, obstinate boy he used to be. You briefly wonder what hell he gave his mother (you briefly wonder why you suddenly feel a fervent hope to know about his childhood, his mother, his family, his life). “Sure, yeah, why not,” he says. “What’s the second reason, then?”

“I don’t know your name.”

“Oh.” In his raspy voice, the word is almost a musical note. “Joe Toye. I’m with the Airborne, the 101st.”

You tilt you head, unable to keep from smiling at the simplicity of it—Joe Toye—and how his name came in the same breath with his division; a division that warmed his breath, squared his shoulders, and puffed his chest. He’s proud to be a—it takes a moment for your mind to come up with it—a Screamin’ Eagle, or maybe prouder to be associated with the men who also wore the Eagle. Still smiling, you offer your name, adding, “I’m with the New York Times.”

He doesn’t give the usual lines you’ve heard from men—‘pretty name for a pretty girl,’ ‘nice name, but can I call you mine?’—instead saying, “Good to meet you, uh, formally. And thanks for listening.”

A crooked grin twists your lips up. “Listening is literally my job.”

“Take the compliment, would you, woman?” he asks, laugh barking and brief, the noise scattering goosebumps onto your arms as it zips over your skin, only to burrow and live in your memories. When he quiets, when the blush on your face threatens to permanently stain, he props himself up further, dog-earring War and Peace and putting it aside. To his fingers, stitching and unstitching themselves on his lap, he says, “Nah, I mean it. It’s been awhile since anyone has taken the time to listen to me just, you know, say shit.”

“Well, you’ve got a lot of interesting shit to say,” you say, mildly and trying your best not to let your voice quiver. You want to inject the swirling tide of emotions boiling in your chest into your words, to make him understand just how much you feel your words—instinctively feel his worth, his importance—but what kind of person does that? What kind of person acts all emotional at a guy she literally just met? A silly girl, your brain supplies, unhelpfully.

But you know you failed because Joe’s looking at you all strange—all quirked eyebrows, mouth parting into a surprised ‘o,’ and his eyes seeming to flicker—and you snap your mouth shut. The blush, you’re sure, will redden you as a badge to what a colossal, idiotic, overly-emotional girl you are and forever will be.

What would Marguerite or Martha do? you ask yourself.

“Miss?” a voice says then, interrupting your internal spiral. “Miss—uh, Miss…?”

“Y/n,” Joe says, a question pitching your name up. “I think he’s talking to you?”

You turn and, from the name patched onto his lab coat, find yourself blinking at the elusive Wainwright. He’s a thin man, wiry and wrinkled and tired, and he blinks expectantly at you from behind round glasses. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting, Miss, but I’m ready to interview now.”

“Oh, um,” you say, standing, and running nervous fingers over your hair and hoping the fluffing you put it through before you left the hotel—over two hours ago now—hasn’t completely deflated. “Wonderful, great, I’ll just…” But your words catch in your throat because you do something you shouldn’t have: you glance down at Joe and he’s—

He’s grinning at you just as he did when you sassed him, an eye-tooth dominated smirk, creasing his eyes as if every inch of his face wants to be involved. You empty your lungs in a long breath. Joe Toye. Joe Toye curses even though you’re a female, he looks at you with bright interest and tells you what’s real. He doesn’t shy from the fear and exhaustion that every other person you’ve spoken with tries to keep out of the newspapers—or protected and secreted away from the pretty little war correspondent.

“Actually,” you begin, knowing when Fred eventually returns, he’ll redefine hell for you, “I just needed to speak with you to see if interviewing this soldier here was okay.”

“Oh, uh,” Wainwright says. He adjusts his glasses, though they sat just fine on his nose, eyes darting between you and Joe. “If he’s agreed, then yes, of course.”

You nod, smiling your most charming. “Thank you, sir. Awfully kind of you.”

“Sure,” Wainwright replies, already drifting away to tend to other demands on his hospital ward.

Watching him go, you cling to the few seconds of an excuse before you have to look at Joe and judge his reaction.

Joe doesn’t wait for you to look at him. Voice quiet, he asks, “Why did you do that?”

“Because,” you say, tearing your eyes from Wainwright’s back and to Joe. Joe, who’s eyebrows are pinched and who’s eyes flickering again. “Because you have more interesting shit to say.”

A week later, an article appears in the Times, “A Screaming Eagle Talks: An Interview with an Elite American solider.” You receive a clipping of it along with a letter asking if you want his autograph. It’s the fifth letter you and Joe exchange. You send them to each other—at first across France, then across the Atlantic when he returns Stateside—but you stop counting at eighty-four letters (the war’s over and you get to hear, instead of read, all the interesting shit by then. Of course, Joe insists he’s only got something interesting to say if you’re writing it).