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justporo · 8 months ago

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Rooted within each other

The two of you shared tender glances, loving touches and slight laughs as you imagined what it could be like: to truly be with each other. All the while though neither of you dared to speak what was on both of your minds.

This pleasant back and forth went on for seemingly an eternity until both of your bodies were covered in a sheen of sweat, hair dripping and messily falling into your faces, skin glowing feverhot.

MASTERLIST | AO3 | PART 3

Author's Note: It's time for dessert and thereby the hopefully sweet and overly emotional conclusion to this smut fic. Partly inspired by this post here by @brain-rot-central and another by @davenswitcher

Gif by @cheekylittlepupp (pls follow them!)

Pairing: Astarion/Fem!Tav (You) Warnings: explicit sexual content, porn with feelings, vaginal sex, creampie, slight religious imagery, aftercare, Astarion speaking Elvish, lol Wordcount: 3,1k

Astarion’s words gently waved the oncoming dreams and rest away. You slowly blinked your eyes open laying on his chest and cuddled up even closer to him. There was no way you could tell when you had last felt this at peace.

“What?” you asked sheepishly as you had to fight to keep your eyes open. Post-orgasm haze and the way Astarion’s hand on your back had slowly caressed you close to slumber were making it difficult for you to grasp onto his meaning.

“Let me take care of you, darling,” Astarion muttered again. The words tumbled out of his mouth a little too quick - as if they had to be pushed out before they got lost elsewhere.

“Please,” he added. Which made you frown even more than the way he had spoken before.

Your arms still felt wobbly from the sex before but you pushed up with a bit of struggle to be able to look into the vampire’s eyes.

His hand on your back dropped slightly but stayed there a bit helplessly as you observed Astarion with some concern on your face. Red eyes were already wide and surprisingly vulnerable but while you just looked at him for several heartbeats they began flitting around nervously, tongue darting out to wet his lips and he cleared his throat as if the words had left an unpleasant, dry feeling behind.

Suddenly the fact that you were both completely naked and had just been deeply entwined felt like nothing anymore. In an instance Astarion second-guessed everything. Despite the physical closeness he suddenly feared you being far away. Just like it had been with so many others. Nothing but a transaction at best.

Astarion almost wished he could take back his words as you kept staring at him without saying anything. He’d been pushing his luck already he felt like. You had already been so generous with him.

That was exactly it though: he felt like he owed you. But not in the way he thought before, in that way he had dealt with way too often over the past couple of centuries. He had meant his words: he wanted to take care of you in turn after you had given him so much: blood, safety - and now so much tender and honest affection, he could feel his undead heart in his chest clench just looking at you. He hadn’t felt like this in centuries. Maybe he had never quite felt like this before.

And he just wanted to give you something in return. Not with an ulterior motive behind it. Solely because he wanted to see you smile at him. So you would laugh at one of his stupid jokes again, so you would whisper his name again when you came shivering in his arms and there was nothing and no one else on your mind.

Solely because Astarion found - he liked you; in lack of better words (or lack of courage to use them, yet).

But the longer the silence drew out between you, insecurity took the better of him. He should have just kept quiet and enjoyed the serene silence with you in his arms.

Astarion was just about to wave off his request when you finally spoke.

“You know, Astarion,” you began and the vampire’s chest clenched, anxious for your next words “you don’t owe me anything in return.”

You cocked your head to one side, strands of your hair falling over your shoulder. Your fingers wandered lightly over Astarion’s chest.

He was immediately lost for words.

Out of everything that was not the reaction he would have anticipated. Immediately this felt wrong. There always was a price to be paid, a debt to be claimed some time - right?

You saw his sceptic thoughts on his face almost as clearly as if he had spoken them aloud. The time, and especially the nights spent together, when Astarion had sometimes allowed you to take a peek behind his tightly worn armour, had made you good at reading him.

And you knew that he wouldn’t deal well with a rejection - even if it was entirely out of pure motives. Not right now. So you opted for something that you thought might be even better - for both of you.

“How about-,” you started and placed your hand on Astarion’s chest firmly - right over where his heart must be. He immediately covered it with his own as he cautiously waited for your reply.

The way his crimson gaze glinted despite there being barely any light made you almost forget what you were trying to say. Three little words once more almost pushed themselves to the front, almost tumbling from your mouth.

Whatever this was that had seemingly manifested between the two of you this night, you hoped it wasn’t only a temporary spell. You hoped it would stay. Because the way Astarion stared up at you, eyes so open and his thumb tenderly brushing over your hand on his chest gave you a whole new desire to overcome all of these hardships that had been thrown your way. For him. And for you. Maybe even together.

“How about we take care of each other? Make it equal,” you proposed and immediately bit your lip after the words had left your tongue.

Astarion’s eyebrows lifted as your words surprised him once more. But a genuine, happy smile spread over his face rather quickly.

“I think I would like that, my dear,” Astarion replied and you felt how his remaining hand on your back slid over it as he nudged you to lean down to him.

He didn’t want to waste another precious moment with words if his lips could be otherwise occupied with kissing you. You leaned into him with a huge grin at how eager the rogue had suddenly become.

But when your open mouth met his and he kissed you like a starving man while your arms wrapped around his neck you quickly got lost in the moment. Never had he kissed you like this: his tongue slipped into your mouth, toyed with yours while his head turned to get more of this, of you. His free hand lifted to the nape of your neck, gently pulling you in closer while he dragged you right on top of him.

You sighed into his mouth as your body squished against his, your heart beginning to beat faster again as your naked body slid along his. Your softer curves fit perfectly with the harder lines of his body as you melted together - made for each other.

Astarion’s kiss was so greedy and hungry and giving and offering at the same time. Your hands wandered to his face, cupping it, thumbs wandering over his cheekbones, the line of his jaw, trying to really feel him. So you would remember this forever.

He moaned so softly it was barely perceptible when your fingers touched his sensitive elven ears. Your hands dug into his lush, white curls, fingertips dragging along Astarion’s scalp.

Simultaneously, the urge to feel you, everywhere and all around him became almost unbearable for Astarion.

Desire for each other grew quickly within you, generously laced with feelings reaching much deeper. Depths the two of you had barely scratched the surface off.

With roguish quickness Astarion grabbed you and flipped you over, immediately climbing on top of you, leaning on his elbows above you, holding himself there for a moment to take in the sight of you.

You gasped at the sudden change of position. Without hesitation you moved your hand to his face again as you drank him in much the same: a few curls were falling into his face in some disarray, lips parted and swollen from kissing, red eyes molten.

You were awestruck.

And much the same was true for Astarion. The way you stared up at him, one arm stretched out to him lovingly, your eyes so wide and yearning and full with nothing but love and wonder and that delightful full body flush turning your cheeks the most pleasant shade of pink.

He almost made confessions of love right then and there as he kept gazing upon you and knew he was a changed man. But before he felt he said something foolish that might ruin it all he busied his mouth again by pressing it to your neck.

The vampire held your head up much more tenderly than in the beginning of the night. Again feeling your quickening pulse under his lips and his fangs only an inch away from where they had been buried in your neck not so long ago, right when this night and everything had started.

He breathed in your intoxicating scent and kept kissing and caressing your delicate skin, leaving a wet, sloppy trail where he pressed his lips and tongue to you. Occasionally he suckled at your skin, leaving slight marks.

He just wanted to make you his, if only temporarily so.

You felt your own lust rear its head again inside of you as Astarion kept mouthing down your throat and his hands were once more roaming your body: cupping your breasts, redrawing the lines of your ribs, squeezing your butt as you wrapped your legs around his slender hips and arched towards his body.

Gasps from each of you filled the night air but neither of you spoke as your hands explored his body as well. Your hands wandered over his shoulders, his arms, felt the muscles tense up under your touch.

You didn’t even stop at the gruesome ridges on his back. With flat hands you stroked over them at an even pace while Astarion slightly shivered under your touch but didn’t withdraw. He just kept seeking the comfort in your touch and your body as you held him in your embrace.

Neither of you had any intention of stopping anytime soon as you kept exploring each other’s bodies unlike you had done before. You simply wanted to truly see and feel each other - not a layer between you.

In between Astarion lifted his head up again, locked eyes up with you while your touch wandered over his tortured back. You didn’t stop. He didn’t want you to you realised as you locked eyes with him.

You saw him, accepted him with everything that came along with him.

And Astarion felt seen, truly, maybe for the first time in his life.

What followed then was messy and sloppy as your limbs tangled even more, hands, mouths and eyes solely focused on each other. It wasn't practised or neat, not an act. It was raw and tender and loving and passionate. And more than anything: it was honest and real.

You dragged your bodies along each other as you felt your core throbbing with lust and Astarion’s hardened length kept rubbing against your heated skin.

The two of you kept writhing against each other, desire rising agonisingly slow as you took your time. The flames had been high all night but now they lazily rose higher until the embers were glowing white and hot beneath.

For all you cared, this could well go on forever. You wouldn't have minded staying in this limbo of lust and love - maybe forever.

Lazily you went through all sorts of different caresses and new positions to press yourself against each other: you on top, dragging your core along his cock, Astarion diving between your legs to pleasure you with his mouth until you almost already fell for him again, kneeling in front of each other as your hands each stroked each other's most sensitive parts, rolling around in the small space of Astarion's tent until you had gotten lost even in the tiny bit of room you had there.

You drew out this small piece of heaven for each other for as long as you could while keeping the other just right off that edge so you could let yourself fall down together when you chose to do so later on.

This pleasant back and forth went on for seemingly an eternity until both of your bodies were covered in a sheen of sweat, hair dripping and messily falling into your faces, skin glowing feverhot.

You were sitting on his lap, Astarion kneeling on his bedroll, both arms wrapped around you to hold you close to him. His hard and weeping cock was pressed pleasantly between your hot bodies as you were kissing again. Your time much better spent with your mouth on each other but with words you couldn’t be sure you might regret come the next morning. Your arms were holding onto his face as you kissed him messily, rocking back and forth, heads leaning and gasps and moans passed between each other.

Astarion’s hands were grabbing onto your thighs like a drowning man would a lifeline - and that was pretty much what he felt like with you. He’d been drowning, already dead inside. But then you came along, offering him another shot at something he’d long thought forgotten.

Then you broke the kiss, cradling his face in your hands as he looked upon you as if you were a deity finally descended from the heavens to answer all of his prayers.

His white curls were falling into his face, dripping with sweat as he breathed heavily, eyes so full of yearning it made your chest clench. This was probably the most vulnerable you had ever seen him. And you wished to cradle his heart just as gently as you did his face.

“Do you even have an idea,” Astarion whispered as he gazed upon you with wonder in his eyes and began to lift you by your thighs until your entrance was lined up with the head of his cock “how much I want you?”

You could merely hold onto him and feel your pulse race even faster as you anticipated being one with him once more.

With his words he slowly but firmly pulled you down on him. He immediately bottomed out, leaving you only to let your head fall back and groan his name as you got to experience the pleasure of Astarion filling you for the second time this night.

The vampire began to engage a gentle rhythm, more rocking than thrusting for now. But heat was quickly rising even higher now that you finally felt him inside of you again, your walls already clenching around him in desperation to feel, to have more. The way you wrapped your arms around him was just as desperate: trying to be as close and joint with him as possible.

“I have an inkling,” you breathed and heard Astarion softly chuckle in response, feeling the soft vibration echo through your wrapped up bodies.

You kept moving with a tenderness that was at odds with how you had indulged each other before. But it seemed this night was made out of differences and shifting them.

Astarion began to fuck you gently. You rocked your hips in rhythm with his slow but forceful movements, each of you savouring every moment.

It became rougher and faster and harder as you went - the air filled with nothing but gasps and moans. No more room or breath for sweet nothings or words of affection that merely danced around the real thing.

Your breaths become rugged as you felt yourself rocked to the core, orgasm fast approaching as Astarion kept thrusting into you - the sounds he made just as desperate as yours. Different feelings within you became nearly overwhelming as you skyrocketed towards the end of this road.

Your head fell back with a mewl as you felt you were only moments away from completely unravelling for the vampire. And you already knew your only wish was to keep doing this again and again and again - until maybe someday you would have nothing left to give, but the vampire finally would feel loved.

As your head lolled back Astarion wrapped his arms even closer around you as he kept speeding up the pace and he was making you come undone. He felt lost in you - but pleasantly. The way his chest swelled as he gazed upon you, saw drops of sweat run down your already glistening, exposed throat and he heard his name on your lips like the sweetest promise.

In a final effort he bowed you on his lap while his cock plunged in and out of you and you felt the edges of your existence fray.

“Come for me, darling,” Astarion murmured with a voice barely above a whisper, hands on your spine and neck, bowing you to him further as he willed you over the edge. His mouth licked and suckled on the space in between your breasts, feeling your fluttering heartbeat and he sensed and heard you comply to his request - positively falling for him but only to be caught by him.

Astarion felt you clench down around him, his own demise only a blink or two away. But he needed to watch you, see the utter bliss on your face as you fell without hesitating.

And when he knew you were completely lost in the magic of moment he finally couldn’t resist anymore. As he fell himself, dick inside of you twitching and spilling himself inside of you, Astarion heaved a breath against your trembling chest, words barely distinguishable as he mumbled them: whispering them in hopes you wouldn’t hear and understand but with the desperate wish to put them out there to give them some reality.

“Ai Armiel Telere Maenen Hir!*” Elvish words dancing over your glistening skin, Astarion’s breath between your breasts making you shiver without you knowing why.

The words kept ringing in his own ears as he held your trembling form afterwards. More sweet words, touches and glances were exchanged as you snuggled up with each other in the aftermath. Meanwhile each of your yearning grew almost unbearable.

And as you lay there in his arms Astarion made a realisation and a decision: he couldn’t go on like this anymore. Either his earlier words became real and so the thing that had formed between the two of you - or he would perish.

Tomorrow, he vowed to himself, tomorrow he would tell you.

For now he was too lost in how your head was resting on his chest, low light and shadows painting your face lovingly - and Astarion couldn’t imagine a more beautiful sight to behold for the rest of his immortal life.

(*You hold my heart forever)

~~~

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Taglist (DM if you want to be added): @spacebarbarianweird @sunfire-ancunin @tragedybunny @dependsonthedream @tallymonster @magazzne @micropoe10 @aoirohi @my-bunny-prince @lumienyx @fayeriess @darlingxdragon @hereliesblackdragon @ayselluna @ajokeformur-ray @i-cant-get-into-my-other-account @rikuyrk06 @marina-and-the-memes @somewhatclear @divineknightmare @linllewellyn @makeitmagical @jwera @honeyluvender @miss-rebel-without-applause @generalstephkenobi @v3ntis-lyr3 @trinswhimsys

#astarion #astarion x tav #astarion x you #astarion x reader #astarion ancunin #bg3 #astarion bg3 #fanfiction #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 spoilers #astarion x mc

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joelscruff · 2 years ago

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one thing i'm missing (joel miller/reader) PART ONE

hi there ! i'm new to the tlou fandom but not new to fic, and watching the show over the past few months inspired me to return to fic writing. the idea for this has been milling around in my head for a good chunk of time now and i finally felt ready to put pen to paper and get this thing started. i've already posted this to ao3 if you prefer that medium, but i'll also be posting it here now. let me know what you think!

summary: you and joel accidentally end up falling asleep together, and what follows is the beginning of a quiet and tender relationship neither of you saw coming. rating: 18+ explicit (this part is not explicit but this fic will be) warnings: (for future parts) smut, age difference (reader is in her mid 20s and joel in his mid 50s), praise kink - will add more as fic progresses word count: about 2.6k

You don't, under absolutely any circumstances, talk about it.

It started about a month ago, after all the shit that happened with that monster, David. After Ellie had decided she wanted to start sleeping alone.

It hadn't really been a conscious decision on her part, but you'd noticed that first night how she'd distanced herself from you and Joel when it was time to sleep. She'd curled up against the far wall of the basement with barely a word, shutting herself off entirely while you'd tended to Joel's injury. Prior to this – ever since Joel was stabbed – Ellie had started sleeping at his side, head on his chest, listening to his heart and hoping against all hope that it kept beating. You'd slept a few feet away, hoping desperately for the same thing.

After David, she avoided physical contact entirely. You and Joel wordlessly understood, though you could tell it alarmed and concerned him. Though he'd been in and out of consciousness for the past few weeks you know he'd become accustomed to having her at his side, curled into him with that familiar daughterly affection he'd been missing for twenty years. Seeing her ultimately decide that she no longer wanted that closeness, probably feared it, distressed him greatly.

“Fuckin' bastard,” Joel had murmured to himself that first night as you cleaned his wound – you'd learned what to do from watching Ellie, “I'll fucking kill him.”

“Shhh,” you'd hushed him, keeping your voice low in case Ellie was still awake, “He's dead and gone, she took care of it.”

“Shouldn't have had to,” he'd hissed, “Fuckin' bastard.”

He'd slept poorly. You knew because every so often you'd hear him mutter something else to himself about David between short fits of sleep. You didn't sleep much either, partly because in the wake of Ellie's sudden distance it was now your job to monitor Joel's wound, but also because you felt the same way Joel did. The thought of that monster... what he'd done to Ellie and what he'd tried to do... you'd never felt so much disdain and hatred for one person in your life. Every time you closed your eyes all you could see was the look on her blood-spattered face when you'd both found her, the way she'd barely been able to speak... you could only imagine how much worse the images behind Ellie's eyelids were.

So she slept alone now, which meant Joel slept alone.

For a little while, that is.

After a few days of short spurts of travel and staying in more abandoned houses (Joel wasn't well enough to walk much, though he tried to deny it, much to the frustration of you and Ellie) you'd set up camp on the outskirts of a small community. Ellie hadn't talked much and Joel hadn't been fully in his right mind since you left that first house, so the decision-making had fallen to you for the time being. Truthfully, you were done with the mouldy mattresses and hard concrete of those suburban basements, the smell of rotting food and being bothered by mice and cockroaches while you tried – and failed – to fall asleep. Neither Joel nor Ellie argued when you suggested setting up a campsite in the woods for a change of scenery.

The snow had melted quite a bit and there hadn't been anything fresh in almost a week, the temperature rising rapidly the further you walked. The idea of sleeping underneath the stars again with fresh air in your lungs and the sound of the wind blowing through the trees was enough to keep you going that day. That night, you'd watched as Joel made a fire with the materials you'd collected, Ellie already bundled up inside her sleeping bag a few meters away.

“Hey, you sure you're not gonna be cold over there?” you'd called to her gently, already knowing the answer.

“I'm good,” she'd replied, sounding earnest enough, “If I get cold I'll move.”

You'd sighed quietly, turning back toward the fire. Joel was blowing lightly on some kindling, eyebrows furrowed in thought. You used this rare moment of him being distracted to analyze his face; the dark circles beneath his eyes had been growing more prominent over the past few days, and he'd gotten into the unconscious habit of blinking very slowly, like he was always just a few seconds from sleep. You'd never seen him look this exhausted.

“You need to sleep,” you'd murmured, and his eyes had snapped up to meet yours instantly, “I'm serious, Joel, you look...”

“I'm fine.”

“You don't look fine,” you shifted your eyesight to the fire, lifting your hands to warm your palms, “You look like you haven't slept in days, which you literally haven't, by the way.”

“I've slept,” he'd grunted, turning his attention back to the fire as well.

“Yeah, for maybe twenty minutes at a time.”

“Well, maybe if I wasn't bein' woken up every twenty minutes by you checking if I'm still breathin',” his voice was hard and cold, but you were used to it.

“Don't be dramatic,” you'd snapped back, “I check you maybe twice a night now, if even that. Sorry for wanting to make sure you're okay.” The last few words had come out shakier than you'd intended.

He'd inhaled deeply, and you could see him looking at you again in your peripheral vision, “You're right, I'm sorry. I'm being an asshole. As usual.”

“You're not an asshole,” you'd muttered, “you're tired. And so am I.”

You'd sat together in silence for a few moments before Joel had reached behind him for his pack, digging out the blanket he'd started using in lieu of his old sleeping bag. He'd decided to leave that behind; it was what you and Ellie had used to get him back to that first house, the one Callus had dragged across the icy terrain with a bloodied and near-death Joel as its only occupant. He'd pissed himself in it, which he'd attributed as the main reason for leaving it. But you knew the truth: he'd spent too long wrapped up inside of it during that period of time to ever get a good night's sleep from it again. It needed to be put out of its misery.

Both you and Ellie had offered to give him your own but he refused every time, repeatedly stating that the blanket Ellie had found was warm enough, if not even warmer than the sleeping bag had been. You honestly didn't know if he was telling the truth, but he gave you no choice but to believe him.

“You take first watch, then.” he said quietly, “We're out in the open again, gonna have to stay alert.”

“Got it,” you were a bit embarrassed by your brief moment of vulnerability, but you'd quickly busied yourself with picking up the rifle to hold it in your lap.

You'd watched as he spread out the blanket on the ground, carefully kneeling down and wincing at the pull of his stitches. He laid down on the edge of it, then reached over and pulled the other side over his body like a makeshift sleeping bag. Sighing contentedly, he'd closed his eyes.

Despite how much older than you he was, the word adorable couldn't help but cross your mind.

“Goodnight,” he mumbled quietly to you, and you'd forced yourself to look down at the rifle so he wouldn't catch you staring.

“Night, Joel.”

You'd quickly learned that Joel's new blanket was in fact not warmer than his sleeping bag. After a few hours of keeping watch, you decided to check on both Ellie and Joel to make sure they were doing alright. Ellie was fast asleep and didn't look to be shivering or experiencing a bad night's sleep; she actually looked more peaceful than you'd seen her for a long time. You'd smiled fondly, fighting back the urge to push her hair out of her eyes; she'd made things very clear and you weren't going to overstep.

You wandered over to Joel and the contrast between he and Ellie was staggering; there was no peace here. He was wide awake, shivering ferociously and hunched in on himself with his hands cupped around his mouth as he blew on them for warmth.

“Jesus Christ, Joel,” you'd immediately dropped the rifle and leaned down to him, “why the fuck didn't you tell me you were freezing?”

It actually wasn't a very cold night, but the combination of Joel's thin blanket, his injury, and the fact that he was overwhelmingly exhausted were just making everything ten times worse. He also hadn't slept outside for weeks. You immediately began to regret the decision to camp tonight.

“Hold on,” you'd said quickly, scrambling back up to grab your own sleeping bag. You unzipped it so it was wide, then draped it over Joel's shivering form, “I'm gonna give you some body heat, okay? Don't make it weird.” You'd only said the last part because you knew he would protest.

You'd crawled underneath both layers of material and without any hesitation wrapped your arms around Joel, ignoring his shaky mutterings of “I'm okay” and “you don't need to”. He'd surrendered very quickly, relaxing into your embrace as you ran your hands up and down his arms at the fastest pace you could muster. You alternated between his arms and hands, taking them in yours and rubbing your palms against them like you were trying to start a fire, huffing hot breath against his skin. Beneath the blanket, you entwined your legs with his, pulling his socked feet against your ankles and trapping them there to warm them up.

It only took a few moments for the heavy shakes to stop and for Joel's breath to even out again. Despite this, you stayed where you were and kept doing what you could to keep his temperature stable. As he warmed up, he began to feel more like himself; he was no longer a cold statue but the warm and solid man you'd come to recognize, and you were hyper-aware of the fact that despite spending so much time with each other you'd never actually been this close to him. His arms, strong and steady beneath his coat, the same arms that carried around that heavy pack all day, the arms that cradled the rifle, they now laid loose and tender under your touch. His hands, calloused and rough around the edges but soft at the palms, the same hands that set the fire still burning a few feet away, the hands that once held his daughter and had learned to hold Ellie's – and now yours, feeling like in some way they belonged there.

You'd known you felt something for Joel, but you'd never realized how strong and real that something was until it was literally in your embrace.

Without speaking you'd laid your head on his chest, closing your eyes and doing your damnedest to fight back the sudden tears that were threatening to well up. Holy shit, was all you could think, a warmth you'd never felt in your entire life radiating in your chest and somehow extending toward him. Holy fucking shit. It was like time had stopped and all you could feel was him.

You'd looked up at his face, needing to see if he felt it too, felt you the way you felt him, but your eyes widened slightly when you saw that his were closed, mouth slightly agape. There it was, that peace you'd seen on Ellie's face, now transferred to Joel's. For a brief second you felt panic, but it was immediately interrupted by the light snore that emitted from his open mouth. He'd fallen asleep.

And a few moments later, so had you.

That was the first night you'd slept solid without waking up even once. Not just since Joel had been stabbed, but since the pandemic had started to begin with. You can't recall ever having such a peaceful, dreamless, absolutely soul-refreshing sleep. And neither had Joel; when you woke the next morning he was still fast asleep in your embrace, that peaceful expression still sculpted on his face like he was a living Michelangelo. In the night you'd only gotten closer to him, legs still entwined and head still on his chest. The only difference was that your arms had obviously stopped their rapid movements to keep him warm, and they'd ended up snaked around his torso, the palm of your left hand laying flat against the hot skin of his waist, just above where his stitches were.

Maybe you should have pulled away when you realized, gotten up and pretended it didn't happen. The thought did cross your mind, but then Joel had shuffled a bit in his sleep and you'd become aware of the fact that his arms were around you, hand pressed flush against your bare back underneath your jacket and shirt, holding you to him. And that was enough to make you stay.

About fifteen minutes later, he'd woken up.

He didn't flinch or yank himself away when he realized the position you were in. He'd blinked slowly at you, and you'd peered up at him just as quietly. His lips had parted and then closed again, as if he was going to say something but then thought better of it. Instead, he just kept staring at you, and you started to feel his hand on your back slowly and tenderly stroke the skin there. In return, you gently brushed your thumb against the bare skin of his waist. It was a moment that felt like it went on forever, both of you touching those small intimate parts of each other without saying so much as one word.

You felt butterflies in your belly when the hint of a smile twitched at his mouth, and you smiled back, sleepy and soft. You never wanted to leave this small piece of existence. You just wanted him to keep looking at you like that, his gaze holding yours with an expression you could only describe as contentedness. You'd never seen him look so relaxed; the dark circles had faded and even the lines on his face had receded into his skin. He looked younger, healthier, like all the bad things that had happened to him had vanished in one good sleep.

“Uggghhhh,” Ellie moaned a few meters away, and both your heads snapped in her direction. She was sitting up in her sleeping bag, back facing you. You could see her arms stretching above her head as she began her typical morning wake-up routine: stretch, groan, flop, repeat.

Without saying anything you'd both untangled yourselves simultaneously before she could see the sleeping arrangement you'd found yourselves in. The loss of warmth and familiarity was palpable as you quickly stood up and grabbed the rifle, walking over to the now completely burnt out fire. Joel silently folded up his blanket and your sleeping bag behind you, then muttered something about needing to look for more shit to burn.

That's how it started.

And you don't, under absolutely any circumstances, talk about it.

#joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller #joel miller fic #tlou fic #*#fic: one thing i'm missing

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thefrogdalorian · 10 months ago

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The Best of Both Worlds

Din Djarin x Female Reader Modern!AU

Summary: When a new Star Wars TV show called The Mandalorian premiered, you found yourself completely enamoured with the titular character. Enjoyment of watching the lone bounty hunter travel through the galaxy quickly turned to obsession. There was just something about the show that captured your imagination. Now, you spend much of your free time — when you're not working a fast-paced, minimum wage and incredibly stressful job at a prestigious London Museum— speaking to your online friends about your love for the show. There's just one thing... Despite how much you love The Mandalorian, no one knows the identity of the man behind the helmet... either in the show, or in real life. You only know him as Mando. No one has ever seen his face, no one knows his name. Even after the countless hours of speculation from fans online, which even you have occasionally participated in, no one is any the wiser to the identity of the mysterious man who wears the shiny armour. Surely, given the depth of your love for the show, you'd recognise if the man who you spend so much time obsessing over online was to ever cross paths with you. Right?

Content Warnings: Reader is AFAB, uses she/her pronouns and in her mid 20s. Age gap between her and Din is noted but not really central to the story. Grogu is human, hints of past trauma/child abuse before Din adopted him are mentioned but not described in detail. Some mature scenes later on in the fic but not explicit smut... because I just cannot write x reader smut! Author's Note: SO very excited to finally share this fic! Thank you to the lovely @suresnips for being my beta. I really appreciate you ♡ This baby was originally my NaNoWriMo 2023 project and was inspired by this post from @toxic-seduction that I saw one evening and couldn't stop thinking about! POVs will alternate chapter to chapter from Din to reader. It was fun to write that way! Set in London for a few reasons: partly because I love the movie Notting Hill and it has some of those vibes (if you squint), also, the village where Din lives is based on Elstree Studios just outside London, where the OT was filmed and ultimately because NO WAY was I writing a modern!AU set in the states, it would've been painfully obvious a Brit wrote it. While there are lots of references to places in London, I don't live there so it might not be truly accurate (Londoners don't come for me). Also, to be political for a sec, reader works at the British Museum and I hate that institution. This was actually the line of work I was interested in when I was at Uni but for many different reasons I did not pursue it. However, it works for the plot of this story and as you'll see, she doesn't exactly love it either and goes on a few rants. Just wanted to make that clear that her job there is not an endorsement of it or anything. I can't stand them or their historical apologist bs and I wish we would give back all the things we stole (including the Parthenon Marbles)! Finally, it was incredibly important to me that the actor behind Mando in this fic clearly be the fictional character of Din Djarin rather than the real person Pedro Pascal, because rpf is not my jam! I hope I did that pretty well but just wanted to warn that if you're expecting me to use Din as some kind of way to write a Pedro fic, this won't be for you! Okay, I'll shut up now! This fic is fully written, just needs editing so hopefully I'll get a couple of chapters up each week, but life happens. I'm very proud of this one and I really hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! Also if you would like to be added to my taglist for this fic, please let me know! Happy reading ♡

❁ My Masterlist ❁ Read on AO3 ❁

Why Does It Always Rain On Me? [Reader POV]: After a dreadful day which saw you drenched by a rainstorm after leaving a hectic day at work, you reflect on your love for Mando and upcoming excitement for the sci-fi convention you will soon be attending with your internet best friend.

He Is My Only Priority [Din's Pov]: The character of The Mandalorian is known and loved by millions. But there is another, much softer side to the man who portrays him that Din Djarin is determined to keep hidden from the world, despite the challenges that presents for him and his beloved son, Grogu.

This Is Why (I Don't Leave The House) [Reader's POV]: Your internet bestie arrives in preparation for the Star Wars convention you will attend together. Everything is set for the greatest weekend of your life! Until you arrive at the con and find yourself overwhelmed by all the crowds and noise. At least you have numerous incredibly realistic Mando cosplays to distract you from how stressed you feel, and there's one in particular which is uncannily accurate...

Curiosity Killed The Cat [Din's POV]: Despite his reservations and against his better instincts, Din heads to a Star Wars convention that he was invited to. Although he fears that his cover will be blown, curiosity gets the best of Din and he can't resist attending a panel. But Din doesn't exactly find the answers he was looking for. Instead, he finds something far more precious. Something that he would never have expected...

He's So Tall (And Handsome As Hell) [Reader's POV]: Being back in the real world and returning to work after an incredible weekend at the convention where you had so many fun experiences is taking its toll on you. The thought of collapsing on your couch in front of The Mandalorian is the only thing keeping you going. However, the universe has other plans for you. News of an out-of-hours tour for a private client that you are asked to lead almost sends you over the edge, but when you finally meet the man, he is the opposite of what you were expecting. Weirdly, he seems familiar...

With A Little Help From My Friends [Din's POV]: Din returns to the set of The Mandalorian to begin filming a new season. Despite his experience and capability, he finds that he struggles to focus as his thoughts remain firmly fixed on a certain someone...

You're The Sunflower [Reader's POV]: Despite feeling certain that you'll never see the ridiculously handsome man you gave a tour of the museum to, a special delivery is about to change everything...

Your Face Hung Up High In The Gallery [Din's POV]: After a difficult few days of filming The Mandalorian, Din is excited to spend time with you as he finally takes you on your first proper date...

Have I Known You Twenty Seconds or Twenty Years? - (Reader's POV): Despite a messy evening which led to you waking up in an opulent hotel which you have no memory of falling asleep in, memories of kind brown eyes and breathless kisses soon come flooding back to soothe your soul. Your relationship deepens as the two of you spending time together whenever your busy schedules allow. But one night, a turn of events causes you - despite Din's reassurances - to wonder if everything you have been working so hard to build together has just come crashing down around you...

There's A War Inside Of Me - [Din's POV]: The realities of the secret he is keeping from you begin to weigh heavily on Din's mind and he seeks advice from a certain curly haired co-star on what his next move should be. Things don't go exactly according to plan, not least because of the typically awful English weather...

It Could Be Love, We Could Be The Way Forward - [Reader's POV]: With your respective busy jobs keeping you and Din apart, a mystery date after a hectic day at work is exactly what you needed.

The Calm - [Din's POV]: When filming overruns and conspires to keep Din from the fun weekend he planned for you, he agonises over his decision. Fortunately, he manages to salvage the weekend, even after a calamity involving a rowboat...

The Storm - [Reader's POV]: The happiness you feel in response to a question Din posed to you is somewhat clouded by lingering doubts. Yet your affection for each other helps you to push those emotions down, until a weekend spent at his cottage changes everything...

P.S. - I tried to be inclusive for all body types and skin tones in this fic, but if I missed something, I do apologise. If you do spot something that takes you out of the fic, I am more than happy for constructive criticism as I wouldn't want anyone to be excluded on those grounds. I am always trying to do better and would love to know where I went wrong so I can improve and be more aware of these things going forward, so I would appreciate it if you could let me know if you do spot anything. Thank you so much! ♡

#my fics #tbobw #din djarin fic #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #the mandalorian x reader #mando x reader #din djarin #pedro pascal characters #the mandalorian fanfiction #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal #pedro boys

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olderthannetfic · 4 months ago

Note

This is partly a vent and partly hoping someone reading this can offer some advice or at least insight into wtf the person/people doing this are hoping to accomplish.

Over the past few months, someone(s) has been sending purity policing “concerned” anon asks to people in my fandom, mostly about supposed untagged triggering content. Which sounds like standard anti bullshit at first glance, but there are some really weird aspects to this situation, and I don’t know what to make of it.

First, in both of the cases I’ve seen, the “untagged” content Concerned Anon complained about was comprehensively tagged, way beyond fandom norms. Concerned Anon is complaining about something that isn’t even true.

Second, the people who received these asks seem to me like really weird targets for anon harassment. From what I’ve seen, they’re both really nice people. Not in the Cult of Nice way, but in the welcoming to newcomers, supporting all shippers even the people who ship things they’re not into, willing to chat about even the most wild theory or headcanon you might have without judgment kind of nice. Good stewards of fandom, I guess is what I’m trying to say. So I don’t get why anyone would want to target them. Especially since one of them wasn’t even being harassed about their own work, but about a fic someone else wrote that they happen to like!

Third, if the source material for this fandom were a fic on AO3, it would easily meet the threshold for all archive warnings. This isn’t about Stephen King fandom, but it’s got that level of things antis lose their shit over. Why is Concerned Anon even in this fandom? Why are they ~*so concerned*~ over fic when canon is like that?

Since the first Concerned Anon ask, I’ve noticed a sharp drop-off not just in ~*problematic*~ fic, but in fic in the fandom in general. I know fandom engagement comes and goes and there could be a lot of reasons for that unrelated to Concerned Anon. I can even think of a couple specific reasons it would be happening in this fandom. But the timing rubs me the wrong way, especially since it doesn’t seem like there’s as much a of a drop-off in general fandom activity, and I’m worried the latest set of Concerned Anon asks will have an even more chilling effect on fic writers.

I hate that this is happening. I hate that people who are just out here making fandom fun are being targeted. I hate that it might be discouraging people who haven’t been targeted from writing. I hate the possibility that Concerned Anon is out there harassing other people in the fandom who haven’t responded to them or that I just haven’t seen. I hate that, as a complete fandom nobody, I probably have no power to do anything about this. I hate that the person or people behind Concerned Anon probably aren’t even going to have to face up to being this kind of shitty, because it’s all anonymous.

People pop up in the inboxes where the owner can get their comments in front of more eyeballs.

Of course they want to poison the blogs of the welcoming fans who get the newbies writing fic.

The way to combat them is for those bigger blogs to either ignore them entirely or to politely but firmly tell them where they can shove it while pointing out that they're a liar.

They're a toxic blight on other people's inspiration, and the "nice" blogs should tell them so. The failure to do so is going to have at least as much of a chilling effect as their shitty comments themselves.

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fangirlwriting-stories · 1 year ago

Text

First Blood

Summary: No One Knows AU Part 1, Danny should have expected that he wouldn't be able to do this ghost fighting thing by himself forever. Though admittedly, he didn't expect things to go quite like this.

Author's Note:

My brain: Hey you should write a Danny Phantom AU

Me: Wtf? Why?

My brain: I wanna

Me:

Anyway I do partly blame this fic on AO3 by artistfingers for giving me the inspiration.

…

He’d meant to tell them, was the thing. It was entirely a coincidence that they weren’t there when it happened in the first place.

Sam had been the one to first have the idea of checking out the ghost zone, even if Danny had been desperately curious before that too. But she’d been the one to convince him to try it, and he’d even gotten into the suit his parents had designated for this purpose (thankfully with a thought from Sam to pull his Dad’s face off his chest), but before he could actually go in the portal and turn it on, Sam’s parents showed up and dragged her and Tucker home.

They had never been the biggest fans of Danny or his parents, and weren’t super happy when they learned Sam was there. Tucker had tried to protest against getting dragged along, but Sam’s parents kind of had a presence you couldn’t stand up to for very long, so they’d both left eventually.

But Danny was only more desperately curious after almost going in, and he couldn’t know when his parents would both be out like this again. So, he’d gone back an hour later and turned the portal on. And then…

Well.

Then he’d started trying to come up with a way to say “hey guys I’m sort of half ghost now” without sounding like a total lunatic.

And then the ghost fights had started, and Danny Phantom became well known before Danny Fenton could come up with a way to explain it to them. And then he didn’t want them to get hurt. The fights were hard enough on him, and he had superpowers.

He’s… definitely regretting that decision now. He should have known eventually he’d come across something he couldn’t defeat on his own, for one reason or another. But he’d always assumed if that came up it would be a ghost that was just too powerful, and he could ask someone for help. Hard to do that when the problem is an evil but human ringmaster with a ghost-controlling crystal ball. Admittedly, he hadn’t thought that far ahead.

He’s not quite sure what’s going on when he comes to, but the crystal ball is shattered in pieces at his feet and the other ghosts he’s become familiar with are blinking in the space across from him. Freakshow himself is in between them all, staring at the crystal ball like he’s trying to process what’s happening.

Danny’s doing the same thing. This isn’t Amity Park, that’s clear enough, but he doesn’t know where he is. He doesn’t know what’s just happened, though he has a vague memory of an overwhelming sense of anger giving him enough force to throw the crystal ball to the ground.

“You know,” Freakshow says, looking up with a terrified grin. “When I called you, uh, ‘minions,’ it was really a term of endearment, like, ‘Oh, I love my minions!’”

Danny scoffs, meets eyes with the other ghosts, and finds them in agreement.

They drag Freakshow to the haul he’s made them all put together, call the cops, and fly off into the night.

But while the three of them go who-knows-where, Danny changes forms and heads for a grocery store or a gas station, any place where he can find a newspaper and hopefully figure out the date or his location. Preferably both.

…It’s been weeks. It’s been weeks and he’s halfway across the country.

Danny sits on the ground outside of the gas station and drops his head in his hands. The homework alone is going to be a nightmare.

His stomach growls. He’s been in his ghost form for who knows how long, and it’s probably been just as long since he ate, but he doesn’t have any money on him.

So, in a move he’s not exactly proud of, he steals a couple apples and bags of chips from the gas station and practically inhales them. He sits on a bench for another hour or so before he realizes he probably can’t put off the inevitable anymore.

He switches forms again and starts flying home.

He’s pretty fast at this point, so it takes him no more than a couple hours to get there, but he has no idea what he’ll find when he arrives. The past couple weeks get blurrier the closer the time gets to the present, but he has the feeling he’s done some bad stuff. He doesn’t know what his public image in Amity Park is anymore, but he has an inkling it’s not exactly great.

And that’s just the Phantom side of things. He’s going to have to deal with the Fenton side first, and that almost sounds worse.

First, however, he’s exhausted, and still hungry, and he can’t deal with this tonight. So he resigns himself to worrying everyone for one more night, grabs some stuff from the fridge, and flies silently up to his bedroom. He eats handfuls of whatever food he grabbed with his back to the door, and then leans back against it and breathes, taking in the feeling of at least being home.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem he’s going to get even a night of reprieve, because the next second someone bangs on the door he’s leaning against, and he splays forward on the ground with a surprised yelp.

He turns to see Jazz forcing the door open. She freezes when she sees Danny, and for a couple seconds, they stare at each other.

“Uh,” Danny says. “Hi?”

Jazz blinks. “Hi?”

Danny swallows. “Yeah?”

Jazz balls her hands into fists and glares at him. “Where have you been?”

“Um.”

Jazz buries her hands in her hair and pulls on it, giving a frustrated scream. “Danny! Do you have any idea how worried we’ve been?”

“Sorry,” Danny mutters, not sure what else to say. He still has no idea what’s happened the past few weeks.

Jazz runs her hands over her hair, smoothing it down, and takes a deep breath. Then she kneels down and pulls Danny into a crushing hug.

“Why would you run away like that?” Jazz says, but there’s something else in her voice, like she’s trying to get at something. “Are you okay? Are you hurt? Do you want to—” she pulls back, and looks Danny in the eyes with a very pointed expression. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asks, her voice suddenly very soft and gentle.

Danny stares at her for a second, not sure where the sudden shifting emotions from her came from. Either way, he shakes his head. He doesn’t even know what he’d say. He’s going to have to come up with some kind of story, but how is he supposed to do that without contradicting something he doesn’t remember happening?

“Are you sure?” Jazz says, still looking at him intentionally, and Danny does not understand what she’s trying to say. He’ll blame the exhaustion and brain fog.

Jazz sighs, and pulls him back into a hug. “Okay. But you’re going to have to explain to Mom and Dad why you’ve been missing for weeks. Uh… for exactly three weeks and four days, as we both know very well of course. And you’ll also have to explain why no one knows anything at all about where you’ve been or what you’ve been doing— as far as I know that is.”

Danny pulls back and gives her a baffled look. “Why are you talking like that?”

“Excuse me! You’re the one who runs away for, just to reiterate, exactly three weeks and four days to an unknown location, and you’re asking me why I’m being weird?”

Danny stares at her. “Uh, I mean I kind of am now?”

“I can’t believe you!” Jazz exclaims, waving her arms up without actually looking that exasperated. Then she leans forward and wraps her arms around Danny again.

“I’m really glad you’re okay,” she whispers, with a suspicious sniff that Danny doesn’t acknowledge. “Please don’t scare me like that again.”

Danny reaches up and wraps his arms weakly around her. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs, which is all he can say, because he can’t exactly guarantee that nothing like this will happen again, can he?

For a minute, they both just sit there, and Danny tries to ignore how good it feels to be hugged by his sister, because that’s a totally lame realization to have, and he doesn’t need any more reasons for people to beat him up.

But then another familiar voice comes from behind them.

“Jazz? What are you doing up—”

Danny jerks around and meets eyes with his mother, who stares wide-eyed back at him.

After a second, she turns and screams, “JACK!” then rushes forward and pulls Danny towards her.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt?” She takes his face in her hands, turning it back and forth. “What were you thinking, you’re grounded for a month! You look terrible, when did you eat last? When did you shower? Do you have any idea how worried sick we were? I’m never letting you out of my sight again! Was it ghosts? What can you tell us about them?”

Danny laughs despite himself. His mom is being so incredibly normal (well, normal by her standards) that it immediately brushes away quite a few of his worries.

Then he remembers what his best option for a cover story is, and his smile fades. His dad shows up in the doorway a second later, looking half-asleep.

“It… it wasn’t ghosts, Mom,” he says, and at least that part is true, if misleading. “I just… I’m sorry.”

His mom presses a hand to her forehead, looking like Danny’s taken about ten years off her life. “You’re grounded for two months,” she amends. “What were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t,” Danny says, which is also true, if… also misleading.

“You got that right,” his dad said, putting his hands on his hips in what looked like his best impression of a stern father. “You’re grounded for three months, mister.”

“That’s just going to keep going up, isn’t it,” Danny says with a sigh.

Jazz reaches over and gives him a side hug and a sympathetic smile, and Danny really isn’t sure what’s going on with her right now.

But honestly, for the moment, he’s just glad to be home.

…

Danny still isn’t quite sure how he manages to get out of giving any details to the police, but he does it. He’s given back to his parents to decide his punishment, meaning he’s confined to house arrest for the next five months (it did keep going up). That’s going to make ghost hunting a little bit difficult, but he’ll burn that bridge when he gets to it.

The one exception to grounding, obviously, is school, which Danny is equal parts dreading and looking forward to. It was a Saturday when he got back, and of course Sam and Tucker know he’s returned, but he hasn’t gotten to see either of them. He doubts he’ll be able to see them much outside of school or the occasional study party.

Stupid Freakshow. This is going to ruin his life until Christmas.

Either way, Monday comes. And Danny walks into the school and over to his locker and tries to ignore everyone staring at him.

A loud bang at his left causes him to jump and turn to see Sam leaning against the lockers, looking none too pleased.

“So,” she says. “Have you finally decided the rest of us are worthy of your presence again?”

“Come on, Sam,” Tucker says, walking up behind her. “You said you weren’t gonna be like that.”

“Sorry, he just screws off to nowhere and you expect me to not be upset?” Sam asks with a glare at Tucker before turning back around. “Honestly Danny, you know I’m all for escaping awful parents, but you didn’t even tell us where you were going! We didn’t know if you were okay!”

“My parents aren’t awful,” Danny mutters as he looks down at his feet, all he can think to say.

“Then why did you leave?” Sam snaps, leaning into his face.

Danny winces, leaning back. “Do we have to do this out here in the hallway?”

Sam huffs, standing up straight and glaring away. “Fine. Whatever. I’m going to class.” She stalks off without another word.

Danny sighs and turns to his locker so he can put the textbooks he needs into his backpack. It’s not his fault, and he knows that, but he still feels like the worst person on the face of the planet for making them worry.

“So…” Tucker says slowly, leaning back against the locker much less angrily than Sam. “Why did you leave?”

Danny closes his locker and swings his bag over his shoulder. “Doesn’t matter. I’m back, aren’t I?”

“Yeah, except it kind of does, though? Dude, if you feel like leaving again, I want to help you.”

Danny turns to look at him and sees nothing but honest concern in Tucker’s eyes.

He wishes it was that easy.

“You can’t,” he says.

“Why not?”

“It’s not—” Danny sighs, looking around to make sure no one’s listening.

Everyone is listening.

“Not here,” he says, turning back to Tucker. “And not now.”

Tucker looks at him for another second. “Okay,” he says finally. “But don’t think I’m letting up on this.”

Danny smiles just a little bit. “I know you’re not,” he says.

The warning bell rings.

“I have to go,” Danny says. “If I cut first period on my first day back after running away, I think my parents will actually kill me.”

Tucker smirks. “Sounds like you brought that one on yourself, dude,” he says. “But sure. See ya at lunch.”

“See ya,” Danny says, and turns to walk the other way.

The day is about what he expects. Mocking and socks in the stomach from Dash, dry remarks and glares along with piles of makeup work from teachers. He’s exhausted, but he deals with all of it and prepares to work through it until things are at least marginally back to normal.

He can’t wait for Sam and Tucker to not be mad at him. That would help a ton.

There doesn’t seem to be much of a chance of that when lunch arrives, however, because Sam starts glaring at him the second he sits down, and Tucker just gives him that same concerned look that Danny is pretty sure he can’t make go away without spilling his guts.

…Well, not that “hey Tucker I was actually being mind controlled by that ringmaster from Circus Gothica” would make him less concerned. If he believed him in the first place, that is.

Danny doesn’t know what to say to break the awkward silence, but apparently Sam has that covered.

“So, Tucker,” she says, very loudly. “Are we still on for Nasty Burger after school?”

Ouch. Fair enough.

“Uh,” Tucker says, rubbing the back of his neck. “Maybe that’s not such a great idea anymore?”

“Why? Are we supposed to drop our plans the second Danny decides to stop being childish?”

“Okay,” Danny says, turning to face her. He’s positive he doesn’t have the energy to deal with an angry Sam for the weeks it takes her to forgive him. “What do you want me to say to you, Sam?”

Sam turns her glare on him. “I want you to tell me why on earth you left with no notice of when you’d be back or whether or not you were okay or why you were leaving,” she snaps. “Why the fuck would you do that to us?”

“I wasn’t trying to,” Danny says, looking down as guilt stabs him in the chest. “I’m sorry.”

“What do you mean you weren’t trying to? What were you trying to do?”

“I don’t know,” Danny says, because it’s true. He doesn’t really remember the exact specifics of when and where and why he left Amity Park with Freakshow. He is pretty sure he wasn’t around as Danny Fenton for at least a couple days before that, though, meaning Jazz’s random ‘three weeks and four days’ comment was probably more accurate than the one he’d worked out from the newspaper.

“I really don’t know what I was thinking,” he reiterates, forcing himself to turn and look at Sam. “I don’t know what else to say. I’m sorry.”

He watches anger and concern and something else war on Sam’s face for a second before she scoffs and glares away. “You’re really not going to tell us what happened?” she asks.

“I… don’t know if you’d believe me,” Danny says quietly, looking down at his awful school lunch that is leagues better than the almost nothing he’s probably eaten the past couple weeks.

Sam gives a bitter laugh, shaking her head. “Oh my god.”

“Sam,” Tucker says, narrowing his eyes at her.

“What?” Sam asks, turning her glare to him again. “Are you trying to pretend you haven’t spent the last three weeks terrified out of your mind too?”

Danny fights to not hunch over on himself.

“I’m sorry,” he says instead, turning to look at Sam. “I really am. I didn’t want to scare you. I’m sorry.”

Sam looks at him firmly for a long second, and she must see something in his face that makes her believe him, because she stabs at the limp broccoli on her tray without looking at it and says, “You gonna do it again?”

Danny shakes his head and prays to whatever’s out there listening that he’s not lying right now. If Desiree was around, he might even make a wish on it.

Sam seems to accept that at least a little bit. She turns and takes a bite of her vegetables. “If you do I’ll murder you,” she says.

You’re a couple months late for that, Danny doesn’t say. Instead he just nods.

“So,” Tucker says, drawing both of their attentions with a much more easygoing smile on his face. “I imagine you’ve got a lot of homework to make up, Danny. You want to move our hangouts to after school while you’re doing that at least?”

Danny smiles gratefully at him, and Sam sighs and mutters, “Yeah, sure, whatever.”

So that’s where they end up, and Danny immediately appreciates how almost-normal it feels. One of the last clear memories he has before things start getting fuzzy is studying in the same library with Sam and Tucker, so in a way it feels like picking up where he left off— with some unwelcome tension added to the air.

Danny spends the first half hour or so doing homework while Tucker and Sam talk idly next to him about things they’ve done in the past three weeks that he’s apparently missed out on. Unlike lunch, there’s no anger involved, just awkwardness and hesitation, which is… better, he supposes.

Finally after an hour, when he’s only finished a tiny bit of homework for one of his classes, he sits back in his chair and massages his temples. “This is gonna take me a month.”

“Well, you did miss almost a month of work,” Sam says, with a not-very-sympathetic smile. “You don’t really have anyone to blame but yourself.”

“I’m gonna get so tired of that sentiment,” Danny says, dropping his head into an open textbook.

“It’s true.”

“I know,” Danny mutters without lifting his head.

“Did you at least have fun while you were on your runaway vacation?” Tucker asks.

Danny pulls his head up and finds Tucker now leaning on the table in front of him.

“No,” he says, because he’s sick of lying.

Tucker winces. “Ouch.”

Sam snorts. “Serves you right.”

“Sam,” Tucker says, at the same time Danny waves her off with “I know, I know, I get it.”

Sam sighs, and pushes herself up on the table. “Alright, look. You should probably lie low for the first month or two. But when your parents eventually stop watching you closer I can help you sneak out for a little fun from time to time.”

Danny gives her a grateful smile. “Thanks, Sam.”

“Yeah, yeah. You owe me one.”

“I already owe you one,” Danny says.

“You got that right,” Sam says, crossing her arms with a smirk. She probably thinks he means her forgiving him so quickly. He doesn’t.

They don’t stay much longer, because the hour after school in the library is the only time his parents gave him before he has to go home.

As soon as he gets a free moment, when his parents are busy making dinner, he sneaks downstairs and looks up Danny Phantom on the computer.

Just as he expected, it’s not great. Most of the things it lists Phantom as doing are robberies and property damage, about what he expects. But there’s also quite a few mentions of him being cruel to the other ghosts in Freakshow’s circus, and he… cannot figure out how he feels about that.

Fighting ghosts is nothing new, obviously. But the ghosts in Freakshow’s circus didn’t choose to be there. He didn’t choose to hurt them either, but he still feels kind of uncomfortable with it, with the idea that it happened and he doesn’t even remember it.

“Danny?”

Danny yelps and closes the window on the computer, spinning around to see Jazz standing there.

“Jazz,” he says weakly. “I uh, I didn’t hear you come down here.”

“Dinner’s ready,” Jazz says, giving him a look he can’t read.

She looks at the computer, and it’s way too obvious she saw what he was looking at.

“You know,” she says, turning back to him. “Unless you’re just catching up on the ghost fighting from the past couple weeks, I wouldn’t put too much thought into Phantom.”

Danny blinks. “Uh, why?”

Jazz rolls her eyes. “He was so obviously under the control of that Freakshow guy,” she says. “Don’t you think?”

“What?” Danny stares at her. “How would you know that?”

Jazz gives him a soft smile and leans forward to kiss the top of his head. “Just a hunch I have,” she says.

“Gross, get off me,” Danny says, though he can’t put any real bite into it and he’s pretty sure Jazz can tell.

“I pay attention, you know,” Jazz says, stepping back.

Danny swallows. “Yeah? How much?”

“Enough to know that robbery and property damage isn’t Phantom’s MO,” Jazz says with a roll of her eyes. “And that those reports aren’t gonna say anything about what he’s actually like.” She pauses and looks at Danny for a minute, then clears her throat and looks away. “You know, just in case you’re curious about that kind of thing. You should find better sources.”

“And what are you, a journalist?” Danny asks.

“I’m just… concerned,” Jazz says hesitantly. “I hope that… wherever Phantom is, he’s doing okay. I hope he knows it’s not his fault.”

Danny doesn’t say anything, and he and Jazz stare at each other for a minute.

They’re interrupted by their mom calling from upstairs, “Kids, are you coming or not?”

“We’re coming Mom!” Jazz calls back. She looks back at Danny and nods her head up the steps, and Danny shuts off the computer and follows her up.

…

He’s not that shocked when he gets nightmares about Freakshow, but it’s definitely inconvenient. If he can think of one thing that won’t help with getting things back to normal, it’s being consistently sleep deprived.

The worst part is that he can’t really be sure which of the nightmares are his brain throwing his worries back in his face, and which parts are actually his brain putting together things that have happened that he can’t remember right.

Honestly, maybe it doesn’t matter that much. Either way, he doesn’t get a full night of sleep once for the first week he’s back. He can tell Jazz notices, though he’s pretty sure his parents aren’t picking up on anything, and none of them say anything. He tries his hardest to pay attention at school, because he really can’t afford to fall behind due to falling asleep in class.

Unfortunately, between trying to act normal around his family and pay attention during school, that means he usually spends the first half hour with Sam and Tucker passed out asleep on top of his textbooks.

“Dude,” Tucker says, after the fifth school day in a row of waking him up so he can do at least some of the homework he’s missed. “What time are you going to bed?”

“Yeah Danny, I never thought I’d be the one to say this, but maybe you need to go to sleep a little bit earlier,” Sam says, raising an eyebrow.

“You act like I’m not trying that,” Danny mutters, rubbing at his eyes.

“What’s stopping you?” Sam asks.

“Uh,” Danny says, not having thought that far ahead.

“Danny, seriously, on top of being the only time you can get your homework done, this is also the only time we get to hang out with you for a while,” Sam says. “I’d appreciate it if you could stay awake for all of it.”

“I’m trying, honestly,” Danny says, leaning back in his chair. “It’s not like I don’t care. I do.”

“Then what’s going on, Danny?” Tucker asks. “You know you can still talk to us, right? You can always talk to us.”

Danny winces.

Well, maybe he can start small.

“I… I’ve had a couple nightmares,” he admits, running a hand through his hair as he sits up. He pulls his homework closer so he doesn’t have to look either of them in the eyes. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Nightmares about what?” Sam asks, giving him a look he can feel without looking back. “Did something happen?”

“I really don’t want to talk about it,” Danny says. “Can we just acknowledge it and move on?”

“Uh, no?” Sam says, reaching forward and pulling the homework away from him.

“Hey!” Danny says, turning to her.

“You can’t just say something like that and not expect followup questions,” Sam says, crossing her arms. “Nightmares about what happened while you were gone?”

Danny sighs. “Maybe.”

“What happened?” Tucker asks, obvious concern in his voice and on his face.

Danny looks up at him, not having a clue what to say. Should he explain the one about blasting all of the other ghosts into the concrete hard enough to cause a dent, or the one about terrorizing a small child and her mother to get them away from the paintings they were trying to steal?

Neither of those sound like they’ll come without follow up questions.

Danny reaches over and pulls his homework back over in front of him. “There just wasn’t a lot of food going around,” he says, settling on the one human experience he can reliably count on.

There’s a couple seconds of silence, and then Tucker gives a long sigh. “Dude,” he says. “Why did it take you so long to come back?”

“I need to get this science homework done,” Danny says in lieu of a reply.

Neither of them say anything back to him.

Strangely enough, the first one who comes up with something that’s actually helpful in regards to the nightmares is Jazz. And she seems to do it unintentionally, like she’s been doing a lot lately. She very casually at dinner one night brings up an article she’s read about how rewriting the endings of nightmares can sometimes be a good way for someone to calm down after having them, then starts discussing the science of dreams and sleep and how both of them are important and how to make sure both of them are going as smoothly as they can.

…Okay, maybe this time it’s a little more intentional than she wants to let on.

That doesn’t mean her ideas aren’t worth trying, though, so Danny gets a notebook to keep on the nightstand for alternate endings to write down. (He’ll destroy the pages every morning for privacy purposes, but he draws the line at getting a night light.)

It ends up being helpful enough that he can at least fall back asleep, which is a big improvement, if the ideas he writes down seem a little unrealistic, with how hard it actually was to break out of Freakshow’s control. Either way, he’s not so tired, and despite how loathe he is to admit it, he has Jazz to thank for that.

Not that he’ll ever tell her that, of course.

…

It’s a week and a half after he returns that things change in a meaningful way. He hasn’t had any ghost fighting to do since getting back, but that changes during lunch on Monday. Not anything he can’t handle, just a quick eye roll with the Box Ghost, but it apparently means something very different to the rest of Amity Park, and, more important to him personally, to Sam and Tucker.

“I mean honestly,” Sam is saying when Danny shows up at the library after school. She’s pacing back and forth across the library, and though Tucker waves at him when he notices him, Sam continues marching angrily in front of the table.

“Who does he think he is, showing up like nothing’s different? First of all, he ruined Circus Gothica, and then he just shows up expecting everyone to still see him as the hero? That’s not how that works!”

“Hey Danny,” Tucker says as he approaches. “Don’t mind Sam, she’s pissed off about the ghost fight today.”

“Why?” Danny asks, setting his bag down on the table. “I didn’t think that was really your scene.”

“Not until that Invis-o-Bill idiot made it personal by messing with my circus,” Sam says, rolling her eyes with obvious anger. “And then expects everything he’s done in the past couple weeks to just be brushed off.”

Danny sighs, reaching inside his backpack for his homework. “Yeah, that figures.”

“What figures?” Tucker asks in confusion.

“Math figures,” Danny says, dropping his notebook on the table. “Gonna try and knock out a lot of the math homework today.”

“Uh, fair enough?” Tucker says, still sounding confused. “But honestly Sam, at least he seems to have gotten over whatever’s been going on and isn't actively being malicious anymore.”

“Great, so we’re supposed to reward him for the bare minimum?”

“Do we have to talk about this right now?” Danny asks, looking up with what he hopes comes off as annoyance. “I get enough of ghosts from my parents, I was kind of appreciating you guys actually being a break from all of that.”

“Look, you don’t get it,” Sam says. “I don’t imagine you’ve been following ghost news for the past couple weeks, but he’s—”

“I don’t want to talk about him,” Danny snaps, giving Sam as firm a glare as he dares to right now.

Sam raises her eyebrows. “Excuse me?”

“Sam, honestly, I’ll let you be as mad at me as you need for as long as you want,” Danny says. “But please, can you back off with the ghosts? My parents already think I was kidnapped by them or something, I don’t want to talk about them during the only time of the day I can actually relax for a little bit. Okay?”

Thankfully, Sam and Tucker both go quiet. Now he’ll just have to hope that neither of them actually ask his parents about that excuse and realize he already told them that’s not what happened.

But apparently he’s misjudged their silence, because after a minute Tucker taps his textbook with a pencil, drawing his attention.

He looks up and finds Tucker and Sam both looking at him like they’re trying to come up with the right way to say something.

He blinks. “What?”

“Danny,” Tucker says slowly. “If I ask you something, can you promise not to freak out?”

“No,” Danny says honestly.

Tucker considers this for a second. “Fair. I’m gonna ask anyway. Did you actually run away of your own free will?”

Danny goes stiller than, well, a dead person. “What?”

“Did you actually run away?”

Danny looks back and forth between him, and then Sam, and then back. “Why are you asking me that?”

“Dude,” Tucker says, leaning closer. “You’re not acting like yourself. Even ‘just made a huge mistake and now everyone’s mad at you’ yourself. You’re having nightmares, and you don’t want to talk about what’s causing them. Did you actually run away?”

Danny opens his mouth, shuts it, and looks down at his math textbook.

“…Danny,” Sam says, sounding baffled and angry but also more concerned than he’s heard from her since he got back. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because that’s something you just say in the middle of the hallway,” Danny snaps despite himself.

“Danny, come on,” Sam says. “Why are you just letting everyone be mad at you then? You need to tell someone—”

“No,” Danny says.

“What? Dude,” Tucker says, leaning forward with obvious worry. “They could go after someone else, or come after you again—”

“He won’t.”

“You can’t know that!”

“Yeah, well, I do,” Danny says, keeping his gaze very firmly on his math homework. “And I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You know what? Fine,” Sam snaps, pushing her chair back and grabbing her bag. “Because you’re being ridiculous.”

With that, she turns and marches out of the library.

Danny doesn’t say anything in protest and starts working on the first math problem on the sheet.

“You know,” Tucker says quietly. “She was really really scared when you weren’t here.”

Danny keeps writing.

“She was worried something was gonna happen to you and she’d never see you again,” Tucker continues. “I…” there’s a pause, and then he sighs.

“I’m not gonna make you talk about anything you don’t want to, dude,” he says. “Just… know that she’s not actually mad at you. She’s just still scared.”

Danny sighs and puts his pencil down. “Yeah,” he says. “I know.”

Tucker reaches out and puts a hand on Danny’s shoulder, in a way that should feel really awkward but somehow doesn’t. “You know you can tell me anything,” he says. “Right?”

Danny looks away.

“Okay,” Tucker sighs. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He picks up his stuff and leaves.

…

Danny spends the night laying on his bed tossing a ball up in the air and trying to catch it. He has to get up and chase it down more often than he’d like, he’s not exactly the most athletic person out there.

He ignores his growing stomach and skips dinner, telling his mom he’s not feeling well. He can always go down and grab something after everyone else falls asleep.

After dinner, however, he hears a knock on his door.

“What?”

“Can I come in?” Jazz asks.

Danny pauses in tossing the ball in the air and considers for a moment. “Yeah.”

The door opens as Danny resumes tossing the ball. Jazz walks in, then closes the door behind her and heads over towards the bed, already looking concerned.

“Are you doing okay?” she asks. “You were upset about something when I came to pick you up, and now you’ve been up here for hours.”

Danny manages to actually catch the ball and sits up, setting it down next to him. “Okay, what is with you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been acting like, aggressively supportive since I got back,” Danny says. “Sam is angrier at me than you. Mom and Dad are angrier at me than you.”

“I’m your sister,” Jazz says. “It’s not my job to get angry at you. It’s my job to support you.”

“No, you’re my sister,” Danny says. “It’s your job to tease me relentlessly and make my life way harder.”

Jazz gives him a look. “You really don’t need that right now.”

“And why should you care?” Danny snaps. “I brought this on myself, remember?”

Jazz doesn’t say anything.

“I just, I’m trying to understand what your deal is,” Danny says. “Do you want something? Are you trying to butter me up for some reason? What are you getting out of this?”

Jazz gives him what almost seems like a sad look, then reaches forward and squeezes Danny’s hand. “I’m worried about you,” she says quietly.

“Why?” Danny says, pulling his hand away.

Jazz sighs, looking down at the bed. “Because we both know you didn’t run away, Danny.”

Danny throws his hands up. “This again? I’m fine. No one died, no one hurt me, I didn’t have to hurt— people, so I’m fine!”

Jazz gives him a look. “That is in no way how that works.”

Danny shakes his head, glaring down at the covers.

Jazz nudges him gently in the side. “I’m not going to make you say something you’re not ready to,” she says. “Just know that you can tell me anything, Danny.”

With that, she stands and starts to walk out, and Danny feels a weight press down on his chest, one he’s barely sure he can take anymore.

“Jazz, wait,” he says, reaching out and catching her arm.

Jazz pauses and turns back around. “Yeah?”

“I—” Danny says, and stops. Nerves start to crawl up his throat. He half expects his ghost sense to go off, but it’s not that kind of anxiety.

He takes a deep breath. “If I tell you something,” he says. “Can you promise to let me explain everything before you make any kind of judgment?”

Jazz smiles at him. “I promise,” she says with a nod.

Danny takes a shaky breath. “I, um.” He stops.

“Yeah?” Jazz probes gently.

“Sorry,” he mutters, looking down and clenching his hands around his blankets. “I don’t think I’ve ever actually said it out loud before.”

Jazz reaches out and puts her hand over his. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” she says. “I… already know.”

Danny jerks his head up. “What?”

By the look on her face, he can tell they both mean exactly the same thing.

“You…” Danny says weakly. “How long?”

“Uh, since the Spectra thing,” Jazz says, rubbing the back of her neck with a sheepish smile. “I wanted to give you a chance to tell me yourself.”

Danny gapes at her for a second, Jazz gives him a soft smile.

“And you…” he says finally. “You don’t care?”

“Of course I care,” Jazz says, crossing her arms. “I care that you’re safe. I care that if you don’t want someone to know, they don’t find out. I care that you’re my brother and you’ve been trying to do this all alone. I care that some jerk ran off with you and has been forcing you to do things you clearly don’t want to do for the past month.”

Danny winces and looks down.

“Are you okay?” Jazz says, sitting down on the bed next to him.

“Not… really,” Danny says.

Jazz wraps her arms around him and pulls him over towards her, and this time he doesn’t pull away.

“I don’t like watching you do this all by yourself,” Jazz says. “Can I help you?”

Now Danny does pull away, if just to stare at her in bafflement. “You want to help?”

“Of course I want to help,” Jazz says, like that’s obvious. “If anything, the past month is a clear sign that you shouldn’t be doing this by yourself.”

Well, he can’t exactly argue with her there. Still…

“It’s dangerous, Jazz,” he says.

Jazz raises her eyebrows. “All the more reason I don’t want you rushing into danger without backup.”

“I can handle it,” he says. “That’s what the ghost powers are for.”

“Danny.” Jazz leans forward, giving him a pointed look. “I want to help you. Okay?”

Danny looks at her for a minute. He takes a breath. “Okay.”

Jazz leans forward and pulls him into another hug, and for once, Danny can know she means it. His brain can’t make any arguments about how she wouldn’t be doing this if she knew, because she does know.

And, well.

He could get used to that.

#danny phantom #danny fenton #jazz fenton #sam manson #tucker foley #look don't ask me I haven't watched this show in 10 years #no one knows au #tw kidnapping #it probably counts as that honestly #my fic

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new-revenant · 2 years ago

Text

A so Called Tamaranean | Part Two

So, people seem to really like this little story I made, so I guess I’ll continue it! Part 1 if you haven’t read it yet or forgot something from it :) Also I am going to put both parts onto Ao3 in like, a day or two.

Edit : Ao3 Link! Also unsure if I’ll continue this because I don’t want to stress out over it. This was partly inspired by the “Grudge Match” ep from the JLU cartoon(go watch it it’s so good). Don’t ask what continuity this whole fic is set in, because I am making it up as I go. Warning for mentions of blood, I think there’s slight dehumanization, and mild elements of horror. There’s a fight scene. You know, regular superhero stuff.

Tag list since people wanted to be tagged(there are many of you ๑╹ω╹๑):

@spectralstardustandphantomnights - @skulld3mort-1fan - @ballzfrog - @toomanyfandoms11 - @blueflipflops - @everest-nightshade - @terzatheunderscorerima - @thegatorsgoose - @mnemovoid - @ace-aro-as-shit - @pikakaistudios - @phoenixcatch7 - @alice-hazelwood - @idfk-man20 (I can’t tag this person for some reason???) - @keimiwolf - @cankoking - @dxrksong - @learning-to-fly-on-my-own - @chaoticmistake - @ectoplasm024 - @akikkobara - @nerdypaintbrush - @worthlesswall - @stargirl1331 - @treepainting - @that-awkward-fae-nerd - @kawaiikenna - @raspberry-muffin

♥︎♡♥︎

“Alright kid, this is one of my safe houses,” Nightwing said, “We’re going to stay here for a while until I figure out what to do,” they muttered the last part. They both were in a small apartment in an abandoned building. It was stocked with some med kits and rations, with a mattress tucked into a corner. There was a single window that they used to get inside, facing another building.

“Small house,” Danny commented, trying to hide his smirk.

“Yeah it’s supposed to be small-now I need to call Starfire for the first time in a few months,” Nightwing groaned, “Man I’ve been busy.”

Danny sat on the mattress while Nightwing out a phone to call this “Starfire” person. Danny was sweating bullets, because surely she would notice that Danny is definitely not a Tamaranean. Maybe he should just come out and say what he really is…Nah.

He hasn’t even told his own parents that he’s actually…whatever he is, so he certainly isn’t going to be telling this stranger who he is. Maybe once he can find out how to get back home he’ll tell them. He’ll just have to keep his secret to himself, which shouldn’t be toohard. And Danny’s stuck in his ghost form now, for some reason. But that means that it’ll be easier to pretend to a Tamaranean! And he could just say he wasn’t raised wherever Tamaraneans were from, and was experimented on by the people who raised him. Not too bad of an idea from a C-student.

Danny was humming happily as he came up with his plan. He had to ignore what Nightwing was saying because he was pretty sure Tamaraneans weren’t supposed to know English. Honestly he was sure of nothing and probably should’ve eavesdropped on Nightwing. But once he thought of that idea, Nightwing finished their phone call.

“Okay Nightgale, Starfire’s going to be here soon, and you need to eat don’t you-of course you need to eat, what am I talking about?” Nightwing sighed, “Do you have any preferences? Like, sweet or sour foods since you probably don’t know any Earth foods.”

“I will eat anything and everything you give me,” Danny responded, “I have no preferences other than survival.”

“That’s…so sad oh my god. I wish I could give you like, a honey crisp apple or something other than granola bars and military rations.”

“Food is food I guess. Oh, do you have any water my throat’s kind of sore.”

“On it,” Nightwing went and grabbed a couple of granola bars and a bottle of water and nearly tossed it over to Danny before stopping and just handed it to him.

“Thank you,” Danny said as he smiled innocently, before wolfing down the granola bars and chugging down all of the water in less than a minute. Nightwing could only watch in horror as when they tried to make Danny slow down, he tried to bite them.

“So,” Danny made direct eye contact with Nightwing after he finished eating “What’s Starfire like?” He was oddly proud of himself for this rather simple question.

“Oh! Well, she’s the Princess of Tamaran and-“ Nightwing was stopped by a sudden knock at the door. They froze and swiftly went over to the door.

“It’s me! Starfire!” a muffled voice said from behind the door. Nightwing let out a visible but silent sigh of relief before they opened the door.

“Starfire, you got here quickly,” Nightwing commented.

“Of course! There’s a baby Tamaranean here who needs help! Plus, I was nearby already,” Starfire floated a few inches off the ground as she went inside the tiny apartment. Nightwing pointed her over to where Danny was, and she gasped happily with a gleeful shine in her eyes. Danny tried his best to hide his grimace and prepare for whatever was going to happen.

“Hello! Hi there!” Starfire shot over to Danny-which he thankfully expected to happen this time-speaking Tamaranean. Starfire had long, red, fire-like hair, flickering at the ends like a flame. Her skin was an unnatural shade of a bronze-like orange-but it was probably very natural for Tamaraneans. She was also wearing this odd, purple jumpsuit-looking outfit. Not only were her irises were green, but her sclera had a green tint to it. Danny could swear that she was glowing slightly.

“Can you not do any sudden movements Princess?” Danny said, fully grimacing, “Or get too close.”

“Oh! Sorry young one,” Starfire backed a few away from Danny a smile plastered on her face, “What’s your name?”

“I assume that Nightwing already told you but I’m uh, Nightgale. It’s…nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too Nightgale! I’m Princess Starfire of Tameran, but you may just call me Star or Starfire.”

Starfire went over to Nightwing and spoke to them in English. Danny thought this would finally be a good time to eavesdrop.

“He doesn’t know any Earth languages right?” Starfire asked.

“Nope and he seems far too touch-adverse to do…that language acquisition thing,” Nightwing answered, sighing and rubbing their temples, “He’ll shoot anyone who so much as attempts to even reach out a hand to him-I should know, because that’s what happened to me.”

“Oh no! Are you okay?”

“Yeah I just got shot in the face but it only hurt for a moment-actually, it hurt Nightgalemore, his powers seem…unstable.”

“Unstable?”

“His arm was in a lot of pain both times he shot a starbolt at me, so I’m pretty sure his powers are at least somewhat unstable. God how-what are we going to do-WHERE did he even come from?”

“He could’ve come from anywhere I think-but! I think we might need to get him some sort therapy for the touch-adversity. So it’s a good thing that it is just physical touch in general that makes it so we can learn other’s languages, so he could just poke someone and boom! He learns English!” -Starfire spun around a little bit- “I…also think we might need to get the Justice League involved.”

“Yeah, we probably do,” Nightwing leaned up against a wall, probably pondering about what to do next. Danny was also wondering about what to do next. He could probably just punch someone in the face and pass that off as a language-acquisition thing. He looked out the window and right at that moment, a green bird landed on the windowsill.

Danny made direct eye contact with the bird. Its eyes were the normal black void of sparrow’s eyes, but the entire bird was green. It wasn’t glowing so it probably wasn’t a ghost.

“Oh hey! So you’re that Tamaranean-“ the bird said, it spoke, and Danny blasted it on pure instinct, obviously. He screamed, it screamed, but it swiftly dodged and flew inside. Its body shifted and grew, turning into a human-a green skinned human with dark green hair, but human nonetheless.

“WOAH! Never seen a talking bird before?” The green person chuckled.

“Beast Boy, are you okay?” Starfire asked.

“Yeah, but that kid seems jumpy.”

“Of course he’s jumpy, he just fell from the sky not even an hour ago,” Nightwing sighed, “Also why are you here Garfield?”

“Oh, she texted the whole group chat about the little Tamaranean here, didn’t you see it?” Beast Boy-Garfield was probably their real name but Danny could only think about a certain orange cat-pointed over to Starfire.

“Kori why?” Nightwing groaned, “So do just the rest of the Titans know?”

“Yes it’s just the rest of Titans, I’m sorry I was just so excited!” Starfire apologized, “He’s a fellow Tamaranean with powers nonetheless!”

They continued to argue and Danny knew that this was his chance. He had to get out of here. He’ll come back obviously, but he really didn’t want to keep looking at people’s mouth to figure out if they were speaking English or not.

He stood up and placed his hand on the windowsill, looking back for a moment before jumping up and bolting out of of there.

He turned quickly, just barely scraping his arm against the other building. He focused on just going faster and faster, constantly taking wild turns and changing his altitude.

He kept going and going, ignoring everything else, and he felt like he was reaching his limit in no time at all. He shoot high into the sky, spotting docks nearby. Shooting back back down like a lightning bolt, he almost slammed into the ground nearby. He didn’t make a noise or dented the concrete, so it was a win in Danny’s book.

The docks seem unused and abandoned, but oddly enough the warehouses didn’t. There was one warehouse that was bigger than the others, and it had a clearly visible side door on it. Danny looked around both at the sky and the docks. The skies were clear, but he could definitely hear something coming from that big warehouse.

Danny looked at his hands. Yeah, there might be some criminals in here. If not? Well then he’ll just give some poor folks a handshake or something. Taking his gloves off and tying them onto his belt, he noticed his veins were glowing a bright green. Danny did not know if they always were like that, but it was probably for the best to not use his powers, which was completely fine as he could still throw a mean punch.

Walking up towards the door, he had to take a deep, deep breath. What was he doing? Why was he pretending? Why does he always have to be constantly lying? He could go back now, tell them all the truth before things get more and more out of hand.

‘But it’s too late,’ he kept repeating to himself. The same thing he had always repeated to himself whenever he thought about telling his own parents who-what he was.

He gripped the handle of the door, already able to hear fighting coming from the inside. It didn’t fully sound like normal humans fighting, but a bit like ghost fighting. Shooting, burning, the ground being ripped apart and crushed. People with superpowers exist in this world, Danny could see that much from what he’s noticed so far. He felt like he was definitely not ready to fight anyone who can punch as hard as Shulker per say, but he was already here. He had to do something.

Danny looked around for those heroes who helped him out. Seeing no one around, he took in another a deep breath, and opened that side door.

♦︎

Nightwing really did expect the kid to run off at some point. He just did not expect the kid to just be gone after he looked away for a single second. Just one second, he just wanted to talk with Kori and Garfield, but no, now he has to search for a glowing, physically andprobably mentally unstable Tamaranean child. If it was only as easy as it sounded because Nightgale was gone gone. Which meant that everyone was freaking out, obviously.

“Starfire! Do you see anything?” Nightwing called out from a rooftop nearby the safe house. Starfire was high in the sky so she could probably see a glowing person much more easily, and she shouted out ‘NO!’ which did wonders to Nightwing’s sprit.

“Beast Boy, how about you?” Beast Boy swooped down as an eagle and shook his head no. Nightwing sighed, “Well, we’ll need to split up then. Beast Boy you go west, I’ll go north, Starfire will go-“

“Nightwing,” Oracle’s voice had suddenly spoken from Nightwing’s earpiece, interrupting him. He put his hand on his earpiece to answer.

“What’s going on Oracle?” Nightwing responded instantly.

“An illegal meta fighting ring has been reported coming from the abandoned commercial docks in Blüdhaven. Do you think you can check up on it?”

“If I had a nickel for every time a meta fighting ring has happened here-yeah I’ll deal with it quickly.”

“Even with the Tamaranean child?” Batman’s voice interjected.

Nightwing’s face dropped. Of course Batman knows about Nightgale, he’s Batman. God damn it.

“Yep, even with them.”

“Their name?”

“They said their name was Nightgale. Now, I’ll get back to you later goodbye!” Nightwing took his hand away from the eyepiece and groaned.

“So we have to deal with a meta fighting ring as well?” Beast Boy asked, “Oh wait! What if the kid got caught up in the fighting ring?”

“Nightgale got caught up in a fighting ring?!” Starfire had come down and was very concerned.

“No-well,” Nightwing thought of how likely it was that Nightgale could actually get caught up in a fighting ring, “There could be a chance-“

“We have to go! Where is the fighting ring?” Starfire eyes were filled with determination.

“Yeah! Let’s save those metas AND that Tamaranean kid who’s name I can’t remember. Sorry,” Beast Boy nervously chuckled a bit during that last part.

“It’s Nightgale,” Nightwing repeated. Actually, the more he thought about it, the more strange it was that the kid’s name was Nightgale. It was pretty close to Nightwing, and there was also the problem of accidentally mixing the two names up. Maybe he should call them Gale, or Night Jr. Damnit, he was turning into Bruce wasn’t he?

Nightwing shook off that thought process, focusing on the matter at hand, “Now, let’s go to the docks!”

“Yeah!” The other two exclaimed. They all bolted towards the docks, towards Nightgale.

It didn’t take too long to get over to the docks, especially since Nightwing knew the way there by heart and the other two could fly. The trio still looked around for Nightgale on the way there, but had no luck with that. Nightwing really hoped that Nightgale wouldn’t be at the docks. He felt like there was a good chance that they would’ve gotten hurt, or worse.

Once the trio did get to docks, they saw the biggest warehouse had a giant hole in its side. People were running away from it, screaming and tripping over themselves.

As the heroes got over to them, they noticed just how scared the people acted. “P-please take us in, we’ll go to jail, just get us away from here!” One of them shouted. All of them were heavily bruised and bleeding lightly, large, but very shallow claw marks across either their chests.

“So this the illegal meta fighting ring I’ve been hearing about,” Nightwing muttered, “Alright, I’ll cuff these guys real quick, get them to the hospital, and then we’ll-“

“Please get us away from here first! That-that monster in there will-“

“Oh! That might be Nightgale right?” Starfire asked.

“Yeah! They seem strong enough,” Beast Boy added.

“Let’s check it out. You criminals stay here or I’ll get that ‘monster’ to hunt you down.” The threat seemed to be very effective against them, which was very worrying, but right now Nightwing needed to focus at the situation at hand-someone dangerous was inside that warehouse with the metas, and that someone could very well be Nightgale.

As they rushed towards the hole, Starfire caught a criminal being thrown out of it. The criminal also had a large, shallow claw mark across their chest. She placed them down and told them to stay with the other criminals, and they ecstatically did as told. The trio were finally at the hole.

Nightwing now believed the criminals when they said there was a monster here.

He couldn’t focus on anything other than-that thing standing in the center of the warehouse. It was a shadow, fickle and dark, glowing green-bleeding green out of its hands and eyes. Eyes that stared right at him, right into his very soul.

It was pulsating with light, unsteady and bright, drawing Nightwing’s mind to nuclear waste. It’s body seemed to flicker in and out of existence as fast as a blink of an eye, small, almost invisible sparks of electricity jetting out of it.

Its hands looked sharp, fingernails indistinguishable from flesh. They were stained red, blood dripping towards the ground. Blood was splattered at its feet and the ground around it. But he couldn’t see any blood on the rest of it’s shadowy body.

This was it, this was how Nightwing was going to die. He couldn’t move couldn’t think about anything else other than the horrors that awaited him. It was all going to be over and he couldn’t even help that one kid-

“Nightgale!” Starfire exclaimed and flew inside. Suddenly, Nightwing was snapped out of his trance, and the monster disappeared, leaving a tired and trembling Nightgale behind.

Nightwing looked over at Beast Boy, and it was clear that he saw the same thing as Nightwing. Beast Boy looked at him for an answer, but all he could do was shrug slightly. Whatever affected him and Beast Boy didn’t affect Starfire, so he could easily pass this off as some Tamaranean thing, but something in the back of his mind said that he shouldn’t.

Something wasn’t right. Something wasn’t right about Nightgale.

But he’ll think about that more later. Right now, Nightgale and the metas needed help.

“Beast Boy, you look after the metas, I’ll deal with the rest of the criminals,” Nightwing said and then immediately sprang into action.

“R-right!” Beast Boy responded and followed suit.

Nightgale had taken care of most of the criminals involved, but the ringmaster, Roulette, had nearly escaped.

“Roulette! I see that you haven’t changed at all,” Nightwing commented when he caught up to her. He could see that her left arm was bleeding, baring the same shallow claw marks as the other criminals had. “This is what, the second time you’ve set up a meta fighting ring in Blüdhaven? Why’s that?”

“I didn’t expect to get caught so quickly I’ll tell you that much,” she replied, “Much less did I expect to get caught by your son.”

“Okay, Nightgale isn’t my-“ Roulette took this opportunity to kick Nightwing square in the face. In retaliation, Nightwing grabbed her foot and flipped her over, and the fight commenced.

Back in the warehouse, Starfire was checking Nightgale for any injuries. And he had a lot of injuries. No cuts but a lot of bruises had formed already.

“We have to get you to the Watchtower right away-it’s basically the Justice League’s base and they’ll have everything we’ll need to fix you up okay?” Starfire told Nightgale. Only after she finished talking did she realize that she was speaking in English, so she readied herself for having to repeat that whole thing again.

“I’m okay,” Nightgale muttered, back in English.

Starfire gasped, “Did you learn English while punching all those criminals?”

“Uh, yeah, that’s why I took my gloves off, I’m sorry if I wasn’t-“

“No no! It’s okay, it great actually, because now you can communicate easier with everyone else! Good job Nightgale,” Starfire smiled at them and they shyly smiled back.

“Thank you,” Nightgale muttered, “Do we help those people now?”

“I got it!” Beast boy shouted. He had rounded up all the metas and there were a concerning amount of them.

“There’s at least 9 people here,” Nightgale commented, “Or more. I’m not good with counting.”

“That’s okay Nightgale,” Starfire lightly patted Nightgale’s shoulder, and they didn’t even flinch! Which was great, progress was being in one way or another. “Now, how about we check up on Nightwing hm?” Nightgale nodded, and Starfire quickly checked up on the metas before bringing Nightgale with her outside.

Nightwing and Roulette noticed the two immediately, and Roulette’s eye widened in horror.

“That kid-“ Roulette started, before becoming yet another person who got cut off by Nightgale shooting at them. She dodged but Nightwing was quick to knock her unconscious with his Escrima sticks. Nightwing cuffed her while Starfire helped out Nightgale, who was currently doubled over in pain.

“Are you okay Nightgale?” Starfire asked.

“I want and feel like death, but other than that I’m fine,” Nightgale groaned, “At least this blood isn’t mine.”

“Yeah you need to go get help right now,“ Nightwing commented, facing towards the warehouse, “First we just need to take care of metas, the criminals-this criminal, in particular, and then-“ Nightwing suddenly whipped his head around and faced Nightgale, “-did you just speak English???”

“Yeah I punched a bunch of people. No big deal. What’s that shadowy figure over there?” Nightgale pointed over towards their left, and Nightwing immediately knew who it was.

“If I look over and I see it’s Batman I will not be surprised,” Nightwing sighed. He turned around and did not see Batman, so clearly he needed to spin back around and there he was, Batman.

“I’ve notified the League about the Tamaranean child,” Batman had began, quickly getting to the point, “You and Starfire can take him to the Watchtower with the Zeta-Tubes and preform a check-up before any questioning.”

“Doesn’t the Zeta-Tubes only work for registered members?” Starfire asked.

“And what about the bad guys?” Nightgale added. He was looking at Batman with a sense of awe, for some reason.

“Beast Boy and I will take care of it. I was able to collect a DNA sample from the initial crash site and registered Nightgale as a guest,” Everyone noticed how Nightgale very visibly flinched once Batman talked about collect a DNA sample.

Nightwing gently patted Nightgale’s shoulder, and they looked up at him with their tired, scared eyes. Nightwing gave them a little smile, “It’s going to be okay Nightgale.” But Nightgale’s expression stayed the same as the trio made their way towards the nearest Zeta-Tube.

It was going to be fine, Nightwing was sure of it. Yeah, something bad might happen because life, but Nightgale would be okay soon enough. But Nightwing could only think about what he saw before he entered the warehouse. Was Nightgale really a Tamaranean? Starfire wasn’t effected by whatever he and Beast Boy saw, and they were both human.

Nightgale wasn’t a human, that’s for sure. But what if was a human, a meta more likely. But then why did he fall from the sky? A portal could’ve opened-actually, a portal would’ve been the only way they could’ve came here, since they definitely don’t seem to have the energy to fly all the way to Earth from…wherever they were from.

So what was Nightgale? Who was Nightgale?

Nightwing didn’t know what was the truth yet, but it wouldn’t be long until he found out. He was sure of it. But for now, he just wanted to make sure Night Jr. was safe.

#danny phantom #dpxdc #dp x dc #dp fic #dp x dc crossover #dp x dc fanfic #a so called tamaranean #dp crossover #dp x dc au #hehe get adopted idiot #danny fenton #danny phantom crossover #I’m so anxious about this I hope you guys like this “-_-#pacing in stories is not my strong suit #are the characters in character?? I sure hope so #is this part long enough?? I for sure hope so #I tried to not have a “head hopping” problem but I don’t know if it worked #revenant makes fanfics

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zzoomacroom · 10 months ago

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Fic: The Seeds Are Bursting, The Springs Are Seeping

Dreamling, Smut, One Shot, 2832 Words

Tagging @fleabagoftheendless and @mallory-x because y'all expressed interest with the WIP ask game. Also, credit where credit is due--this was partly inspired by several different asks sent to @gabessquishytum (some of which may or may not have been from me 🤫).

Tags and summary below the cut (very NSFW!):

Chapters: 1/1

Fandom: The Sandman (TV 2022), The Sandman (Comics)

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Dream of the Endless | Morpheus/Hob Gadling

Characters: Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, Hob Gadling

Additional Tags: Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, One Shot, Smut, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Domestic Fluff, Dream Sex, Wet Dream, Oral Sex, Blow Jobs, Sex Toys, Butt Plugs, Vibrators, Dildos, Anal Sex, Anal Fingering, Retired Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, Dream of the Endless | Morpheus Has a Vulva, Hob Gadling is Good at Cunnilingus, Dream of the Endless | Morpheus Loves Hob Gadling, Hob Gadling Loves Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, Musings on Morphussy, Masturbation, Vaginal Sex, Top Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, Bottom Hob Gadling, Top Hob Gadling, Bottom Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, Married Dream of the Endless | Morpheus/Hob Gadling, Lazy Morning Sex, Not Beta Read

Summary:

They are both breathing heavily, foreheads pressed together, and Hob grasps Morpheus’ backside with his free hand and pulls him closer still. Morpheus reaches between them and wraps his hand around Hob’s thick, throbbing cock, stroking vigorously until Hob cries out and spills over Morpheus’ hand and onto his own stomach. His hole twitches and clenches around Morpheus, who soon reaches his own peak and floods his lover’s insides with his seed just as—

—Morpheus, formerly Dream of the Endless, awakes with a gasp. He blinks, bleary-eyed, as he finds his bearings. He is in bed beside Hob, who is still fast asleep, in their flat above the New Inn. It is early yet—6:23 AM, according to the clock on the bedside table. The morning is quiet and still; the only sounds he can hear are the gentle tapping of the rain on the windows and the steady rhythm of his husband’s breathing. He is cozy beneath the covers, their shared body heat making it perfectly toasty. It is peaceful. He is content.

Except for the fact that he just woke up in the midst of an intense orgasm and he is still unbearably aroused.

(AKA the Retired Morphussy fic, in which Retired!Dream has a wet dream and he and Hob have lazy, weekend morning sex)

Continue reading on ao3:

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whichcouldmeannothing · 4 months ago

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up in our bedroom by @steeseman

(minnie's holy grail: 4/?)

now in hard cover and litfic paper back!

i have been hardcore riding for this fic since april i think, and everytime it updated i would be in the comments yapping my heart away, because this is what that fic inspires in me: worms.

i think that if you want a canon adjacent fic, this fic would be your best bet. because to me, this is canon. it not only references what happened in plane show but also it IMPROVES on it by fleshing out gale's character and making bucky seem so much more real and human. both of the characters come away from this fic so much richer than you could have ever imagined

i'm a sucker for bucky angst, and this fic hurts both him and gale but. god can i tell you. its worth it. you will feel like your heart's being stepped on again and again for 8 chapters straight, but hold on, because it'll be so worth it. a true love story for the ages that shows you the nuances, the heartbreaks but most importantly, what is worth fighting for

or maybe im reccing it for the smut. partly that too

anyway, i had to run to finish this as soon as i read ch 8 and ch9, so if you really want to hear my thoughts, scroll to the last chapter on ao3 and read my essay.

thank you steeseman. so much. your fic made my year actually, waiting for notifs was like waiting for a really good package in the mail <3

more details under the cut, if youre interested!

#clegan #mota #masters of the air #gale cleven #gale buck cleven #john bucky egan #john egan #buck2 #buck x bucky #buckies #apple tv #loved this fic oml #like the noises of anguish ive made bc of it...#lordie #read this #minnie's holy grail fics

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tossawary · 1 year ago

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Part of the problem with discussing how racism manifests in fandom and in fan organizations is that to present a nuanced and thorough take on a complicated problem, which actually consists of a number of different complex issues with lots of different potential solutions each, you have write really, REALLY long posts about it.

And people don't read long posts.

Or they read the first part and get stuck on one point they don't agree with or can't 100% agree with. So they get caught up in proving one point wrong instead of at least expressing sympathy or sharing the parts they do actually agree with.

(Or people make fun of you for caring about "people being mean in fanfiction communities" as an issue. Because caring is cringe, apparently. Racism in hobbies like book clubs and local knitting groups and kid sports leagues is also important, even if it's "not that big of a deal" in the grand scheme of things in your opinion.)

Which can have (unintentional or intentional) vibes of telling fans of color to shut up about racism. Which is rude and understandably upsetting to people who have experienced this kind of harassment. Saying "go make your own archive" implies that the affected fans of color have not been a part of building the OTW or in running AO3 and don't belong there as writers or readers, which is untrue and unkind.

Now, I know that people have a kneejerk defensive reaction to any form of "We Need To Ban The Bad Fic That I Don't Like". I have that too. And I won't deny that this is a conversation partly about content moderation. And I won't deny that within this broad conversation between lots of different people who want to do something about fandom racism, there are probably some people who are calling to ban everything they find even a little problematic. They're always popping up. I don't agree with those people.

I didn't reblog End OTW Racism's Call to Action post the first time that I saw it because my brain wanted to chew on the thoughts it inspired. I thought a lot about how exactly to write detailed policy that could explicitly ban the worst examples of fanfiction used as intentional hate speech provably for the purpose of targeted harassment, while still ensuring the protection of the queer content, the problematic darkfic, and the explicit kinky fiction that the archive was created to host (which EOTWR also cares about). I do want fans to be able to explore some disturbing and distasteful topics, even if they don't always write it well, without being censored. And yet I also thought a lot about the "Paradox of Tolerance" as a social contract and what it meant to be "Fair to Unfair Voices".

I also thought a lot about how AO3 volunteers can never review every single thing posted to the website (which was not being suggested). And about how this issue intersects heavily with the structural issues that leave some AO3 volunteers overworked and underappreciated. And the structural issues that leave some AO3 volunteers feeling isolated, neglected, ignored, or mistreated. And also how AO3 is shockingly enormous now for being the result of volunteer work on a budget that's small compared to other non-profit organizations.

And honestly, I was fucking exhausted from my job that day and I cynically thought to myself, "I'll read through the links later, but I don't really see how changing the names on a bunch of fics is going to inspire great change within an organization."

(And the people behind this online protest are pretty open about the fact that they didn't expect their awareness campaign - and that's what it is: it's just an awareness campaign - to do anything on the front of "Solving Institutional Racism Immediately".)

But then I thought to myself, "Okay, but I do believe in antiracist action. And even if I don't think some of these suggestions are workable with the current state of things, or that the OTW will ever agree to some things here, there has got to be something here that could be done right now to make things a little better."

I kind of like the idea of expanding the required archive warnings so that more well-meaning people will opt-in to tagging triggering material, which is a form of content moderation. Like the way that the "Graphic Depictions of Violence" tag works already. Major Archive Warnings are left up to the author's best judgement unless reported. And even if people repeatedly refuse to use any relevant warning tags when writing blatantly racist stories, when they get reported for not even using "Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings", then we'll be pretty sure that they're doing it to be a jerk, and AO3 volunteers can suspend or ban them for it.

I like the idea of expanding the abuse policy and clearly defining its terms so that Policy and Abuse volunteers can still retain some freedom of best judgement, but also be more consistent about recognizing when someone is being a racist jerk in the comment section or being racist by gifting violently racist fic to fans of color or otherwise behaving badly. And I like the idea of improving the reporting system while keeping potential misuse in mind. And giving PAC volunteers better admin tools and other resources.

Even if you believe that AO3 is largely run by well-meaning queer women, I personally don't 100% trust that every single volunteer will be great at recognizing the many varied forms of racism, or antisemitism, or transphobia, or prejudice against bisexual or asexual or polyamorous people, or against mentally ill or physically disabled people. And part of this discussion is about when individual members of the PAC team have failed to address malicious behavior that is already explicitly covered by AO3's existing anti-bullying policy. Or that can't be solved by just blocking and muting someone.

Like, this discussion is about racism, and it's worth caring about solely for how it affects fans of color, but optimizing the abuse policy and protocols against harassment would better protect everyone. (And also, please do not assume that fans of color are not also older fans and/or queer fans who care about censorship.)

Some of End OTW Racism's offered solutions are suggestions originally made by AO3 itself back in 2020. A huge part of this discussion is just some fans (they're only, like, 5 people) trying to make some noise so that the OTW will give all users a thorough update on their progress. They are trying to raise awareness to keep the conversation about fandom bigotry going and recruit people to show up to OTW Board meetings to ask what obstacles need to be tackled. They want volunteers trying to change things internally to feel supported and for some more transparency on this subject to externally hold people accountable to their promises.

And I also thought, "Fuck it. This post is worth reblogging if only to remind people that AO3 needs work, to educate new fans on the history and present of fandom racism in general, and to maybe make one person out there feel less alone and connect them with some new friends. Fans of color don't have to be perfect to be heard."

I believe that AO3 has gotten bigger than ever anticipated and management of the OTW has only gotten harder. And I think hiring a diversity consultant, as per AO3's own suggestion back in 2020, sounds like a good idea to curb harassment of all kinds and improve the working conditions of volunteers. Outside contractors have been hired before and these professionals have no effect on OTW's non-profit status. A temporary consultant's job would be to identify where the organization is getting stuck and give suggestions on how to fight bigotry, and the OTW Board can just pick the solutions they think will work in practice with their mission statements.

Honestly, I kind of think it might be a good idea to also hire a security consultant of some kind after some of the harassment of AO3 volunteers in recent years. And if hiring some programming contractors would help the coding volunteers build better admin tools and make tag blacklisting happen sooner, then I support that as well. But that's all up to the OTW Board. And I want the OTW volunteers to know that I support their original suggestion to hire some outside professional help, so that fandom can begin to address some of these ongoing problems beyond just acknowledging that they exist, even if it simply starts with AO3 explicitly calling for more volunteers to get the planned work done.

Saying that there's nothing to be done is defeatist. Saying that the affected fans of color and their allies sound too angry or too serious or too ungrateful, or that everyone involved just doesn't understand how hard these things are, is pretty rude. I don't expect perfect solutions on the first try. I don't expect them immediately. I expect some of these things to take the OTW... years, honestly. I don't always feel very optimistic. I find this entire discussion discomforting and depressing. I'm not ungrateful to the OTW and AO3 when the community has been an undeniably good experience for me personally over the past 10 years. I want people to be able to escape into fandom at the end of a shitty day.

End OTW Racism's awareness campaign is one small part of a much broader discussion and you don't have to agree 100% with everything that they say. Or with what other people talking about fandom racism say (and some people, including academics and journalists and media critics and video essayists, have been talking about fandom racism for a long time). And you definitely don't have to 100% agree with what I've said here.

You don't have immediately volunteer all of your time to the OTW to fix these problems to be a good person. We all have other shit going on in our lives. Just... keep some of the points being made in mind moving forward, yeah? If you have a moment, maybe listen to some of the frustrations with an open mind, and maybe show a little extra love to your fellow fans who are going through it.

And if you have the energy to tear down what you think just one of EOTWR's suggestions is as bad - and they are NOT calling for every single fic on AO3 to be reviewed for problematic tropes or racial slurs before posting, that would be ridiculous, and it's disingenuous to misinterpret them that way - are you also separately talking about and supporting any of the antiracist actions and other harm reduction policies that you think are genuinely viable?

#end otw racism #tossawary ao3 #long post #reblogs off

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