#we both knew him the longest; and both love cats in general the most

[systemakhaosu]

Our cat LuAi (pronounced Loo-eye) died a couple days ago, and we’re still pretty messed up about it. He was our cuddly, dramatic, sweet fluffy fluff cat

RIP Louis Armstrong “LuAi” Robertson winter 2004 - 30 December 2022

[troutfur]

@gophergal @doritopaw101 Great minds think alike I see!

5. Yellowfang

Favorite character in TPB bar none. She made for excellent contrast to Fireheart and bounced off Cinderpelt perfectly. Definitely fits a similar niche to Jayf in the department of having an entertaining character with a sharp tongue. I live in bliss not having read Yellowfang's Secret. I hear she's totally butchered there but I refuse to see it. 🤗

4. Flametail

Half the reason I prefer the Po3 parentage reveal to have pushed Jay and Lion closer to Bramble. One of these days I need to revisit his PoV in OotS and his attitude towards his cousins shown there, if only to reacquaint myself with the ways in which canon disappointed me.

Of the relationships between the Po3 meddie apprentice generation, Jayfeather and Flametail had the only one I genuinely weep canon forgetting. They had legitimate buildup and I would have loved to see it develop.

The way Flamepaw idolizes his older cousin and shows this genuine enthusiasm for the job Jayfeather only has ever resented, the scene in which Jaypaw reacts to an insensitive comment by giving Flamepaw a scare but then gently explains his disability and why he doesn't bother focusing his eyes, the potential for Jay to seek refuge in their familial connection while still mad at Leaf and Squilf...

*clenches fist* I can't get over what we were robbed of.

3. Mothwing

I first became attached to her because one of the first things I learned through fandom osmosis, even before knwing her very well beyond my spoilers binge, was the constant attitude that her and Cloudtail were willfuly blind idiots. I'm not going to go on my tirade on how atheism can be rational even in a world in which deities of some kind are completely real. But it really got to me.

But besides that, I find her, her relationship with Hawkfrost, and the hardships she's had to navigate as an atheistic religious figurehead not only extremely compelling but also extremely resonant as a religious atheist since about age 15.

I honestly really hate how ASC has been treating her, especially with the latest books emphasizing her as the good kind of nonbeliever vis a vis Splashtail. I swear the only reason they are showing her as much sympathy as they are right now is that it's kind of hard not to when she's being contrasted to someone right out of a PureFlix Entertainment movie.

2. Leafpool

We love to see the world's most Catholic schoolgirl core kitty cat.

Leafpool hits a couple notes on the themes my history with the religion I was raised with got me obsessed with and I greatly appreciate her on her own. But to be perfectly honest where I think she shines best is in relationship with my blorbo Jayfeather. Their tenous, mutually frustrating, and abrassive relationship is one of those dynamics that just gets me to spill out words on the page whenever I'm writing them interacting.

I'm honestly really disappointed that so much of the fanon seems to focus on giving them a more smooth relationship that's almost pseudoparental and kind of Leafpool wish fulfillment. Which is really at odds with how I see them in canon, where at best they are cordial co-workers, and even then only after the mess in OotS is sorted out.

I get the urge of wanting to dote on Leafie, I also get it from time to time, but I feel that it really leaves on the table a very interesting canonical facet of both these characters. (Also let's be real, it honestly stinks of people sanding off all the flaws off their faves given one of the main ways Leafpool let out her frustrations was in making ableist remarks. It is perfectly reasonable that given the society of WC she'd have those attitudes, people. It's fine to let her have that as flaw.)

Jayfeather

The blorbo of all time! ❤

I don't know if I've told the story in this blog before but I actually came into the series primed to like him, if only for familiarity bias. For the longest time I knew Warriors as those books that every furry my age seemed to have read and which I saw discourse about ocassionally in my dashboard. His name came up a lot and was seared into my mind so of course when I really got into the thick of reading it I was curious to see what the fuzz was about.

But I do love him for his own characteristics. For one, I'm a sucker for the asshole with a chip on their shoulder character type. I also really like his and his siblings' megalomania and overall bratiness over Po3 (and I really wish they had gotten worse tbh). He also resonates with quite a few themes of my raised Catholic brand of religious trauma. And the way his character arc was fumbled by the writing is a stimulating challenge to go "I can do better!" and then try to do better with.

But overall, it's really just that I have a great time whenever I'm reading/writing about, analyzing, reinterpreting, or doing research to write him. At the end of the day he's just fun to engage with.

[rays-of-fire-and-ice]

18, 20, 22, 29 for fic writers ask!!! Good luck with the final push 🥰

Fanfic asks

Thanks canariie!! <3

18.What’s one of your favorite lines you’ve written in a fic?

This one comes from To Give You Shelter, and once again, the line is in bold and I've included other lines to give it more context:

“I’m sorry I’m this late,” she says, “rebuilding the Soul Society has taken priority. Nashi aren’t in season right now, but I hope it’s still sweet enough.” She eyes the array of flowers, and her smile widens a fraction. “It looks like the others came before, it must have been on their breaks. They’ve been working really hard lately, we all have.” The corners of her mouth fall. At the slight waver in her voice, she presses her lips together and takes in a deep breath. “We have a lot to do,” she continues more quietly, “much more than I think any of us realized.”

I love fics that as set right after the war, where everyone is picking up the pieces both physically and emotionally. I've writtne a few fics now about this, but To Give You Shelter is one that I've been wanting to write for a very long time. I wanted to write a moment where Momo goes to visit the grave of someone who died in the war, and it's only then she realises it's taken her so long - due to the reconstruction and having to comfort and help those who survived - to come and finally pay her respects. She knew there would be a lot to do, but it hits just how much she has had to to do, how many all of them have had to do. I felt I was able to capture that in this line.

20.What’s a favorite title for a fic you’ve written?

When the Souls Sleep and the World is Our Own. I'm not really a fan of most title I come up with to be honest. This one I feel though encapsulated what I was going for with the fic. It's the longest title I've written to now that I think about it.

22.Do you know how your fic will end before you start writing?

It honestly depends, because sometimes the ending is the first part that comes to me, and other times it's the last thing. For the latter, I can definitely struggle with the ending. I know where I want a fic to go generally, but then comes the ending and I want to make sure I'm able to wrap up all (or at least most of) what I brought up throughout the fic. There's also times where I wonder when I should stop. There's been fics where I've written a long scene of the end, that just keeps going and going because I've suddenly discovered something I can to explore, but then I stop and realise I'm more or less rambling on and on, so I cut it down to a point that seems conclusive or definitive.

My most recent struggle was with On the Shoreline, where I just couldn't write the whole resolution at the end. I wanted Toshiro to fess up everything he's feeling all in one go, but it was a scene that required him to draw things out because of the weight of what he was feeling, and I also didn't know whether to stop with him leading Momo away from the beach or them about to go eat something or with them meeting up with the others who came on the trip with them. I did end up writing up to the latter, it ultimately got cut (and may or may not make an appearance in a fic later on down the line) and went with them about to eat, showing he's finally about to go enjoy the break with Momo.

29. Share a bit from a fic you’ll never post OR from a scene that was cut from an already posted fic. (If you don’t have either, just share a random fic idea you have that you don’t plan on getting to.)

All right, an abandoned WIP it is. The working titles were...something: A Snake Coiled Around a Cat's Tail, This was written for prompts I got from @alexiethymia for Ginran a while ago (this is the fic I went with in the end). Basically, I was going to write a fic about the last time Gin and Rangiku had a proper interaction before before all hell breaks loose in the Soul Society when Ichigo and co. come to save Rukia. I also wanted to incorporate the little known fact that Rangiku knows how to do 'classical dancing' and has a special kimono for it to perform in according to Color BLEACH Plus. what this means is vague, but I took it to mean something similar to what Rukia was doing in the new year's episode or the dances that maiko or geisha can perform. In relation to this, I also have the headcanon that Rangiku doesn't often show off her dancing, so only a few people have seen her perform; one of those people is Gin.

However, I went from wanting to write one scene to Gin's progression towards leaving Rangiku, where we start off in their childhood after he gets the Shinigami robes, and ends in when he arrives Hueco Mundo just after his betrayal has been revealed.

I abandoned it because it became far too ambitious and I wasn't up for it at the time. I also wasn't 100% confident in my ability to write Gin; it can be a slippery slope where he has to be just cold enough to be Gin, but also show a softer side to Rangiku in his own 'Gin' way. I may pick it up again one day, but only if I get the right inspiration to write it.

Anyhow, the section I've chosen was what the original fic was going to be; it takes place a few days before Rukia gets brought back to the Soul Society, where Gin [knowing his time with her is coming to an end] asks Rangiku out for an evening in the Rukongai. The whole night is almost a nonevent, in that Rangiku still can't understand why Gin has been distancing himself for decades. At the end, they walk back to the Seireitei and arrive outside of Gin's quarters, where this happens:

“Don’t leave just yet,” he says. “I have a request.”

Rangiku blinks; she can’t even remember the last time he asked anything of her. “What is it?”

Rather than be amused by her confusion, he steps aside and gestures for her to come in. She knows how she must look. The right thing to do would be to refuse, it’d serve him right for deliberately putting distance between them. She even turns her ankle to go, but it’s quick to betray her, to step her foot into his room, and then the other follows. Rangiku folds her arms tight over her torso, trying to shove down the thrum of childish excitement. He’s letting her in on something for the first time in years.

When he closes the door, something changes in his smile, making it smaller. It plummets her elation to anxiety.

He doesn’t move from the door as he says, “Dance for me?”

“W-What?”

“It’s been a while since I last saw you dance.”

Rangiku raises a brow. “Since when did you like seeing me dance?”

“I always have.”

“Well, you never said anything!” She sighs. “Besides, I don’t have a fan, I’m not wearing the kimono I need, and there's no music.”

Gin considers for a moment, then he moves away from the door. He walks past her, the sleeve of his uniform brushing past hers. It's the closest he's gotten to her all night, she can even smell the faint traces of persimmons off of him. She's caught up in for a moment, and the buzz she felt before almost comes back, until she hears a drawer being opened.

She spins around, watching Gin as he rummages through a small desk, until he pulls something out and turns back to her.

He holds out a fan to her. “Then pretend the rest. Treat it as if it you’re practicing.”

She frowns down at the fan. “Why now?”

He shrugs. "I'm feeling nostalgic, I suppose."

Thanks for sending these in! :D

[kyluxtrashpit]

I just went through all of your “my pets” tag and I’m in love! Old and new cat are both so so sweet and have the kindest little faces. They both look like very happy cats. My old girl just passed away (she had epilepsy and the meds damaged her kidneys) and it’s been hard on me, but your posts made me smile, especially when you told your favorite stories about the old kitty. Do you have any other stories to tell?

Awww I'm so glad to hear you enjoyed my floofs! I'm sorry to hear about the loss of your old girl, but I'm glad my cat posts could provide you with some comfort. They really are the sweetest little babies. I definitely have some more stories, so I'll just share a bunch about both in no particular order

When I first got old cat, we also had a dog at the time. She had never met a dog before that we knew of and the dog had also never met a cat before (but was generally well behaved and not one to chase or attack smaller animals), so we were very careful when we introduced them. Old cat responded to being sniffed by smacking the dog repeatedly in the face with both paws lmao. They eventually got along and you can even see them having a snuggle in that post I made about 10 year old pics of old cat vs a recent one

Old cat is wonderfully tolerant and well behaved most of the time, but she can get a little sassy with particular things, such as when I first brought new cat in. He's a very, very friendly cat though, so that's why they work together. Sometimes she'll smack him when he's being annoying and he'll just roll over and show his belly lmao. She likes him more than she lets on though, as sometimes she'll be the one initiating play with him. He's actually made her quite a bit more playful in her old age, so I think it's been good for her

He also respects her role as queen of the castle, considering there have been times when he's laying on me and she comes in and he'll just get up and let her have my lap lmao

Shortly after I got him, I accidentally left the balcony door open for a few minutes at like 2 am and he snuck out. I live on the third floor and when I went looking for him, he had made it down to the GROUND (I would later discover, when watching a neighbours cat do exactly this, that he hopped from balcony to overhang to lower balcony and so on down to the ground - neighbours cat was fine, I went and rescued it and was able to get their attention). He didn't go far though, he went over one building, got confused as to which was his, and screamed upward until I grabbed him. He woke up an old lady doing so

Old cat likes to hide in small spaces, she's very much cozy space over high space cat, and she has even figured out how to open the doors of my lower cupboards so she can hang out in there. A few times she's actually given me a spook cause I can't find her for a good few minutes when she finds a particularly cozy spot

She has a closed bed up on a small dresser, about 2-3 ft off the ground that for the longest time I thought she needed help getting into due to the angle. After I found her in there all on her own a couple times, I realized she totally can, she just likes when I help her do it

Both of them will let me put my face in their tummy's - they're super chill cats, seriously. Old cat also goes completely relaxed when I pick her up, which is great to know she trusts me that much, but also means it's like picking up a sock full of pudding lmao as we all know cats are liquid

When I'm sick or otherwise not feeling well, old cat always knows and she will basically stay in physical contact with me as much as is possible throughout the day. When I had bronchitis a few years ago, she even adjusted her usually laying spot to be more on my stomach than my chest so she didn't suffocate me lmao. Somehow she just always knows

Old cat also loves to rub on my dirty socks for some reason, it's one of her favourite activities

New cat has long fangs and one consequence of this is he drools when he's happy, like a tiny St. Bernard

Both of them sleep in the bed with me every night and even though they may come and go once I'm actually asleep, I typically wake up with at least one cat in the bed with me

Well, that's all I have in my brain for now, but I'll add a couple pics of them too. I hope you enjoyed this ramble!

[katzkinder]

I posted 11,002 times in 2022

That's 1,192 more posts than 2021!

297 posts created (3%)

10,705 posts reblogged (97%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@majuuorthrus

@kittenwoogle

@yarrayora

@katzkinder

@subarusakurazuka

I tagged 2,627 of my posts in 2022

#servamp - 1,252 posts

#searching for mittens - 299 posts

#cats - 111 posts

#kat’s katerwauling - 110 posts

#friend art - 90 posts

#kat's katerwauling - 82 posts

#humans - 79 posts

#asks - 79 posts

#anonymous - 56 posts

#sakumahi - 54 posts

Longest Tag: 136 characters

#also can we talk about how fucking dehumanizing it is that radfems took our words and said ‘you can call yourselves literal animals tho’

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

chapter 122 spoilers

crawls out of my hovel to talk about chapter 122 (im not dead guys just busy as all get out FJDGHFD)

Mostly I'm making this for the sake of anyone confused by recent developments or maybe needing some reassurance that things are in fact okay and a certain puppy is only napping (and also because I'm having a swell time in general with recent developments but I'm very easy to satisfy)

Forgive me if this is a bit all over the place but i have. So many thoughts. And they all run into each other in one big mess.

Opens file cabinet, licks fingers and tabs through.

The foreshadowing for Lily being a turncoat has been written on the wall for a long time now but it's actually nuts when you go back through everything how much sense it all makes.

For starters, from the very beginning, Lily has been someone who kept contact with the Envy pair

Next, Lily is the only person who could have helped Mikuni gather the love letter and diary for Misono to find, being that no one would question him rooting through Mikado’s personal belongings (and if they did, he could easily make them forget)

Third, I suspect that his babyfication was a result of him being at war with his inner demon about how they should proceed (I also think Mikuni had his own little bit of revenge against Lily for being complicit in the situation regarding Misono, and that while they had planned to have his Item broken, he doublecrossed Lily in how it happened.)

Fourth, Lily was the one who knew about the curse Germaine would plant on whoever killed him. He was also the one who immediately knew that Mahiru had found and contracted with Kuro, possibly because he’s the one who placed his comatose brother in Mahiru’s path.

And finally: Lily has always wanted to die.

What fucks me up the most though is that even now, Lily tells himself that he’s doing what he’s doing for Misono’s happiness. Which is definitely the crux of WHY he was babyfied for so long, I think. Servamps become overwhelmed by their demon when put through significant emotional turmoil to the point it causes a collapse of the self, as we've seen with Ildio, a little with Lawless, and maybe even Hugh a while back? Back when he was shown as an old man.

Anyway, Lily was, more than likely, spending this whole time arguing with his demon about whether or not to continue with the plan, especially after the display of faith Misono made towards him.

Ultimately he seems to have decided that the best thing for Misono is to continue with things as they are, and I’m really curious to see why that is… I also don’t think Tsurugi’s dead?? I think he, and the fire itself, are all one big illusion. The best way to trick the enemy is to also trick your Allies

If everyone thinks Tsurugi is dead, then no one can prepare for him to be a wrench in their plans.

Which brings me to my last point: one of the chapter color spreads was a piece titled "Red or White," in which characters were placed in either red or white suits.

Notice anything? Both Lily and Tsurugi are wearing red, the same color as Mikuni, which SEEMS to indicate that they are working with him (as are Hugh and Touma, which is hilarious) but there's also a more sinister reading of this which worries me significantly...

Red and White aren't just the colors of the factions in Alice in Wonderland, nor or they haphazardly chosen to represent the Alicein brothers here.

See the full post

89 notes - Posted September 21, 2022

#4

[Click for better quality]

Dance of the Seven Veils

When the last one falls, I wonder what will be seen? A dutiful child or a remorseless betrayer

90 notes - Posted October 19, 2022

#3

What if Servamps impart a positive bit of their Sin to their Eve, like

Mahiru has an easier time falling asleep and sleeps better

Tetsu finds it easier to be satisfied and happy with his work

Mikuni is able to notice more easily areas he needs to improve on

Misono is like. Really Good at accidentally seducing people (Mikuni hates) The practical effect of this is that people are generally more inclined to give him things he asks for or try to curry favor with him. His family isn’t sure if the trade off is worth the creeps? Lol

For Iduna it becomes easier to stand up for herself and others

Licht doesn't feel as guilty being selfish and taking time for himself

Nicco lets himself indulge in the things that make him happy more often

Small things that impact them more positively, whether they realize it or not.

93 notes - Posted March 24, 2022

#2

Yes I do not forgive. Yes I do not forget. If you have harmed me and never shown remorse for it, I will not ever let it go.

Some people may call it petty. I call it justifiable reaction to being treated like shit <3

105 notes - Posted August 8, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

This has always been a favorite color spread of mine, and that's primarily because of just... How much personality and characterization shows through in each pose Strike chose for every character.

For Mahiru, his posture can only be described as “open”. He’s facing you head on, he’s leaning forward a little, he’s ready! He’s gonna go! He’s determined! It’s very simple but very direct, just like him.

Kuro’s pose is simple too, but there’s the subtle touch of his coat tails curling up and toward the “Throne” his Eve sits on. It’s protective, even if it’s not obvious.

Touma in contrast is totally closed off. His legs are crossed, his hand is hiding his mouth, his arm is close to his body, he doesn’t want to talk to anyone or be perceived by anything that isn’t afraid of him. Like Mahiru, he has one arm positioned correctly on the rests, but he seems… Stiff, doesn’t he? He’s threatening, calculating, and so very him, laughs

And then, behind him, Tsurugi is facing backwards, indicating that their relationship isn’t as cut and dry as it appears. It’s a literal “turning your back on,” yet his hands are literally tied, and he leans over Touma like he can’t decided whether he wants to be away from him or get closer to the man who saved his life.

And then there’s Envy pair. I love their positions the most because it’s so… Them. Mikuni, like Touma, is more closed off than Mahiru. Legs crossed, creating a literal barrier between himself and the viewer. And yet, he allows his face to be viewed in full, indicating he’s more comfortable with people than Touma is. He’s cheeky, goading, and most importantly? Relaxed. He’s not in any hurry, and he doesn’t feel like there’s anything which can move him from his seat.

As for Jeje, he and Tsurugi has similar poses in that neither of them are facing their “owners,” but Jeje, unlike Tsurugi, is FREE. His hands are free. Mikuni feels no need to bind him like Touma does Tsurugi, because he’s confident Jeje will not disobey or leave him. Jeje also has, tellingly, a gun pointed at the viewer. He’s on a constant vigil to protect not himself, but Mikuni, from harm. And yet… His gaze is fixated on the people to his left. Is he watching them for Mikuni’s sake? Or is he envious of the bonds he finds there, where the Kings give their attention to their subjects?

And finally… Tsubaki. Tsubaki, with his seemingly empty chair. His hand is draped over the back, blocking anyone from taking a seat. He, very clearly? Still considers it to be occupied. And now we know why.

186 notes - Posted February 15, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[honeyteawrites]

I posted 109 times in 2022

That's 85 more posts than 2021!

30 posts created (28%)

79 posts reblogged (72%)

more under keep reading! Thanks to all for your support (⭒•͈ 𓎺 •͈ )

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@/still-a-morosexual-help

@/cloudstuffs

@/absolutepokemontrash

@/boozye

I tagged 105 of my posts in 2022

Only 4% of my posts had no tags

#obey me - 35 posts

#genshin impact - 29 posts

#obey me shall we date - 8 posts

#kaeya alberich - 6 posts

#honeytea - 6 posts

#cyno - 6 posts

#obey me headcanons - 5 posts

#om mammon - 5 posts

#aromantic - 5 posts

#alhaitham - 4 posts

Longest Tag: 112 characters

#you probably can't tell from what i write but kaeya's been living in my brain rent free for nearly two years now

it's over two years now. (*ﾉωﾉ) I am practically in love with him at this point lmao

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Tears of Themis Headcanons

Animals and pets editon

Rosa:

-likes all sorts of pets, they just don’t have one

-will go to dog parks or pet stores with Luke just to pet dogs and cats

-even finicky ​​cats like her

-knows that Peanut is named after her (since she is Luke’s Watson)

Artem:

-his parents didn’t let him have a pet when he was younger

-he doesn’t seem much like an animal person anyway

-so he doesn’t have a pet but he’d definitely like to go to the aquarium to stare at pretty fish (please take him on an aquarium date to pet stingrays)

-moon jellies are cool too!

-jellies in general are just peaceful to look at for Artem

Vyn:

-probably likes cats

-the kind of cats that only love certain people too

-I can’t trust him because he can speak to squirrels (from his Snowy Fairy Tale SR card)

-has intense staring contests with the bunnies that dare to go near his garden

-cherishes the little toads and birds that sit on the rocks in his garden

-I can really imagine him with a pet white ferret draped across his shoulders for some reason

Luke:

-Peanut is his favorite pet of all time

-likes other small animals, especially other little birds

-maybe it’s because Peanut looks a little bit like a myna bird, but I think that he’d like to have a myna and make it repeat silly things

-had a bunch of pets growing up, maybe even a turtle

-also has a pet hamster (because he also reminds me of one)

-has the vibes of a puppy (Rosa has definitely patted his head at some point)

See the full post

39 notes - Posted January 29, 2022

#4

Lever du Jour

queerplatonic aroace Diluc and aroace gn!reader

set during the Windblume festival!

905 words, no warnings

first posted on ao3

Dawn arrived in Mondstadt, sprinkling its rays of sunlight across your face. The light basked your room with a glow, rousing you from sleep. You got up, left your comfy bed and opened the bedroom window. You looked down, eyeing the fresh windwheel asters that adorned the city bushes. Early risers strolled along the decorated streets as dandelion puffs drifted through the crisp air. 

The Windblume Festival was just beginning. During this time of love and freedom, you thought of Diluc. The two of you knew that what you had was love. When he smiled, you knew that he deeply trusted you. When you held him and he leaned into you, it showed that you really cared about each other. Being with Diluc made you feel so cozy. He was like warm sunshine, the kind that makes you warm and joyful.

Neither of you had a particular name for your relationship, but that was fine. What the two of you shared was not romantic. When the two of you first acknowledged that, you were both incredibly relieved. There was just something about understanding another person in that way.

You immediately knew that you were going to give him Windblumes to show your appreciation. He had invited you to dinner together later that day, which would be the perfect time to give him a Windblume. 

After finishing your work shift, you left the busy streets of Mondstadt and headed for the Whispering Woods. It was time to search for small lamp grasses within the grand forest. The shade of the towering oaks made it easy to spot the glowing, blue orbs. You picked the flowers and placed them into a woven basket. Diluc loved those blossoms and so did you. Together you shared them as a Windblume. 

After gathering a good amount of small lamp grasses, you went back to the main trail. Although, there was still one thing that you wanted to do before heading to Dawn Winery. You made a detour to the statue of Barbatos located at Starfell Lake. Grand Windblume arrangements surrounded the archon’s statue. You added some blossoms to the array and bowed your head in thanks. 

Then you followed the road to Dawn Winery, hoping that your flowers wouldn’t wilt along the way. It was a good time to leave. It was almost time for Diluc’s dinner. He was probably still preparing the food. You walked along the path until you made it to Diluc’s mansion. Thankfully, the small lamp grasses were still fresh. You greeted the staff at the entrance, who were rather accustomed to your visits. 

“Good afternoon, Mx. (y/n),” spoke a maid. “You arrived a bit early. Master Diluc is still in the kitchen.”

You thanked the maid and the other staff before entering the mansion. It was a grand building made of dark oak. You walked through its halls until you arrived at the kitchen. Diluc had taken off his coat, his red hair in a high ponytail. He was assembling two plates of his speciality dish, Once Upon a Time in Mondstadt. You waited as he topped the steaming piles of ribs and potatoes with small lamp grass bulbs for flavor. 

“Diluc,” you called softly, slightly tilting your head to the side. 

He turned and faced you. “Hello, dear. I hope you don’t mind dining on the balcony today.”

You shook your head. The weather was lovely and sunny today and it would be nice to dine outside. Also, you always thought that Diluc’s hair looked beautiful in the sunlight. He burned bright like a phoenix, as if a flame had touched him. 

Diluc headed out of the kitchen, where you followed him out to the mansion balcony. He set the steaming plates of food down onto the oak table. You placed the basket of Windblumes next to the table and took your seat. Diluc handed you a silver knife and fork before taking a seat across the table. You bit into the tender meat of the ribs, which blended with the melted cheese. The potatoes were just the right texture and the small lamp grasses enhanced the flavor of the dish. Diluc’s cooking was delectable as always. Then, the two of you finished your meal in silence, just enjoying the other’s company. 

You waited until the two of you were done until you gave a Windblume to Diluc. He set down his utensils and watched as you picked a small lamp grass and awkwardly moved your chair so that you were next to him. You turned around and faced him, sheepishly holding the flower in your lap. 

“Diluc… I’m sure you already know this...” You began, gently swirling the lamp grass between your fingers. “I really do love you. Thank you for being with me so often, now come closer.”

Diluc leaned in and you tucked strands of crimson hair behind his left ear. You tucked the glowing flower behind Diluc’s ear. He raised a gloved hand and gently held yours, a small smile on his face.

“(Y/n)...” Diluc softly whispered. “You already know that I feel the same for you, love.” 

He pulled you into a sweet embrace. You wrapped your arms around him in return. The two of you stayed there, content with being so close.. Nothing could ever replace the feeling that you two felt for each other. You were each other’s fire, comforting and warm all the same.

40 notes - Posted June 20, 2022

#3

Saw that your requests were open, would love to hear your take on Julian Devorak taking care of sick reader/apprentice👀

Reader could brushing it off as just allergies or feel bad that he's insistant on helping them.

But of course take yourself and thank you if you accept this!💙

thank you so much for sending in the first request on this blog, it means a lot to me!

Julian Devorak taking care of sick reader/apprentice:

you’re getting plenty of love and care from Julian no matter how you brush it off and it’s not just because it’s his job to treat you as a doctor

he’s protective of those that he loves and that includes you too of course!

Ilya will have Mazelinka whip up some of her special soup for you

He might get Portia to cook for you too. Her cooking is really comforting as well, especially when you’re sick 

if you have to stay in bed all day, he’ll tell plenty of his ridiculous stories about his adventures to keep you entertained

Mazelinka will scold him for staying so close to you if you have something contagious (he’ll say that he’ll be fine and ends up catching it too)

overall, it doesn’t matter how sick you are, he’ll make sure that you get all the treatment that you need (especially with what happened between you two in the past. he’s never leaving your side while you’re sick ever again)

43 notes - Posted July 3, 2022

#2

Languages of Teyvat: those lost to time

we know that other languages exist besides Teyvat’s global language, here’s headcanons about the ancient ones that were forgotten by most

Zhongli fondly remembers the sweet tone of Guizhong’s voice. The dialect that she spoke is now long forgotten, but the melodies of the songs that she sang still remain. Every time someone plays a familiar tune, Zhongli is brought back to the times when Guizhong would braid his hair, humming her favorite songs as she wove flowers into his dark locks.

See the full post

43 notes - Posted July 17, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Malleus asexual king (yes, now I know that's not an ace ring but still! They always get me with the aroace flag looking bitches. ALSO HE'S A DRAGON)

86 notes - Posted January 26, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[vaspider]

So I'm currently single, but let me tell you about all the cool moments I've had in t4t relationships of all stripes.

My first significant relationship was with a trans man. I hadn't figured out my gender yet, and he came out while we were dating. He was the first out trans person I knew, and he helped me figure out my own gender. We've both looked at each other as role models over the years, and we're still friends.

My longest relationship was with a transfem, who is currently a nonbinary lesbian (at the time they were identifying as a pansexual trans woman). We had so much fun together. We went to prom, twice. We played DnD together, and still do. We went on picnics on the golf course, we danced in the rain. They told me about their transition path, and I told them about my dreams for mine. They introduced me to The Adventure Zone, and The Promised Neverland. They're the only trans person my parents liked (I think cause they were on HRT, and so they "passed"). We went to soda shops. We had late night dates. We never fucked, but got close. We only broke up once they figured out they were a lesbian, and now they have a partner (who might also be nonbinary? He's a he/him lesbian, but I don't know the details) and an apartment and 2 cats and they're thriving.

I lost my virginity to a grindr hook up who was a trans man. It was really nice to do that with a guy who "got it", yk? He respected my boundaries about where I want pleasure, and I respected his, and we generally had a good time. We never spoke again, but I'm glad I had the experience with him. It was also really nice to 1) see top surgery results for the first time in real life, and 2) meet more trans poc. I grew up in a very very white place, so I had met maybe one black trans man before him.

I made friends with a guy from the tgcj discord, and he came down from 3 states away to spend a week with me. We weren't dating, but we hung out, we made breakfast together, we fucked. It was really nice, just hanging out with this guy from online. He was real handsome too.

My most recent relationship was with a trans man. We lived together for a good chunk of it too. I think that was one of the downfalls of the relationship, we both had different untreated mental illnesses that clashed with our living styles, and we shared a bedroom, so we didn't ever really have space apart. While the end was pretty rough, the beginning and middle were a good time. He helped me with surgical recovery, and I helped him start his top surgery journey. We dyed our hair together, we called each other loving slurs, we slept in the same bed almost every night. We learned that twin beds do not fit 2 men, but 2 twin beds pushed together make a king. We laughed, we cried. We both learned about what a healthier relationship can look like.

I've dated a lot of trans people over the years. And while it doesn't always work out, it's still beautiful.

That's all really fucking awesome and I thank you for sharing it with me!

[gaypleasantview]

dirk (and dustin if u want) for the ask meme? :3

hell yeah!!

Dirk:

Sexuality Headcanon: gay, i enjoy other headcanons for him too but the version of Dirk that lives in my head is definitely homosexual/homoromantic, just feels so right to me. im thinking of putting him on the asexual spectrum somewhere (where is my drink) probably demisexual. his type is probably straight up someone like Dustin if we're being honest here

Gender Headcanon: trans guy! came out as a kid long before Darleen passed away and got lots of support from his parents about both his sexuality and gender <3 i don't know if he realized both around the same time but he knew himself pretty well pretty early on, good for him

A ship I have with said character: ever since i realized the possibility of Dustin/Dirk it has changed my life lol. like it was really always there and it's such an obvious set up but it went completely over my head like it did for most of us i guess, the way maxis seemingly intended is good too because Lilith/Dirk feels like a very exciting couple to play with if you see Dirk being attracted to girls/whatever gender you hc Lilith as. D&D live in my mind rent free tho. it's an easy enemies to lovers for me and some would argue that trope is overdone but there is not nearly enough content about these two that fit the trope perfectly sooo i wanna make that content. speaking of Dirk in this relationship, at first he admits Dustin is cute but hates the dude's attitude so he's gonna be in denial about his Dustin situation for the longest time. he's probably gonna be the one to make this actual relationship happen even though he's gonna be scared. but when Dustin opens up Dirk starts feeling really comfortable with him and falls in love deeply

A BROTP I have with said character: easily him and Lilith, in my hc she's a lesbian and they are fake dating while actually being besties so they don't even have to pretend much. these two are an opposites attract situation too but their energies match so well?? i should probably make them other friends though because no one has more than 2 friends in my stories 😭 i mean Dirk's also good friends with his dad but. yeah

A NOTP I have with said character: this must be about romance but i don't have much to say so i'll talk about enemies instead in this question. well i dont believe he has enemies aside from Dustin and that one's not exactly fitting for this question as we already know so probably no one lol. Dirk doesn't like Angela too and i never realized until just now btw that his relationship with her after he gets with Dustin is gonna be REALLY AWKWARD

A random headcanon: he's a giant bookworm, tries to be the best at everything and is quite grumpy, i feel like he would be very successful in college because he's just a shining star however you look at him. absolute delight (but can be a bitch). he loves cats and the color purple (i actually thought of making it his signature color but he's already assigned blue by maxis so im confused). also a big taylor swift fan

General Opinion over said character: gives off rainy vibes but is actually such a sunshine. i love him so much and im so glad i discovered how great of a character he is a few years ago, he's a certified son of mine (it's actually crazy to think that if he's a teen he's younger than me... like that is a noticeable age gap. huh)

Dustin:

Sexuality Headcanon: i would say the definition that feels right to me is homosexual/biromantic, sometimes i think it could be one or the other but i always remember that it doesn't have to because sexuality is a wide spectrum and im very happy to represent someone who has different romantic and sexual attraction! his gayness is powerful and i also cherish the girl-liking side of him and i think it's beautiful. i don't know if he's allosexual yet but i feel like he's probably demiromantic i hadn't even realized that until just now! im excited

Gender Headcanon: im still wondering about this, i see him as a guy and currently as cis, i really like the idea of him being trans but given how i hc him and his family i feel like by the age of 16 he would be unlikely to freely express himself or maybe even discover himself at all? he's quite emotionally repressed and doesn't give himself time to process his feelings so he probably wouldn't even know what the feeling means if he had it. hmmm

A ship I have with said character: Dirk ofc. Dustin didn't know he was gay and likely had inner homophobia but after meeting Dirk he knew what was up and he embraced it (after they stopped hating each other first heh). he had a pretty wonderful relationship with Angela so i like these two a lot together but with Dirk it's just a whole another story. Angela is like a comfort place and with Dirk it's like a rollercoaster and Dustin is just addicted to the feeling. he will be the first one to make a move but it's gonna be in a bit of a stupid way of course because he's secretly really awkward so it'll take time for them to actually see what's up

A BROTP I have with said character: Angela. she helps him with the kids and just generally spends so much time with him and they genuinely love each other so much as bf and gf but then as friends too, the breakup is hard for Angela but after some time it definitely gets better and they are just a great couple of peeps who care for each other :) i would say i need to get Dusty other friends too but i'll be honest with you i don't even think he has any. poor boy i gave him like 2 or 3 nice points

A NOTP I have with said character: Lilith hates Dustin and wouldn't engage 😭 she learns to tolerate him but imagine these two put in a room they would fight to death

A random headcanon: Dustin is a huge family boy and the only times he is genuinely expressing his feelings is when he is with his little siblings. Brandi and him have a weird relationship that is full of fights but in its core their relationship is not the worst, she's a loving mom just not very good at it. he probably has some obscure hobbies but i don't remember which rn. he likes sports (sadly). he's a very angsty teen and 100% listens to angsty teenage music in his room. he's gonna be such a great man in college when he matures and starts being honest with himself about things and this is the best glow up ever

General Opinion over said character: i love Dustin. i am so proud of his growth and bravery <3 he is kind of a menace in the beginning of my story, super mean but i don't want to throw him under the bus because his soul is so beautiful. wait is that bus thing even a saying or did i make that up. anyways boy needs therapy and hugs

thank you so much for the ask!!! this is really long but i love talking about them <3

[sunflovverharry]

Driving Home for Christmas

a/n: hii! i wanted to make this a super cute dad!h during christmas fic so i hope you enjoy! this fic is a part of @goldenbluesuit ´s christmas song fic challenge which i’m honored to be a part of! It's the first fic challenge I’ve entered and I’ve been nervous to post something along with all these other amazing writers, but I'm excited to post this little piece centered in the dad universe. Happy reading, and remember to read the rest of the entries as well (which I’ve read some these past two weeks and they’re fab!) <3

pairing: dad!h + y/n

warnings: none! just a cute dad!h piece

word count: 3.8k

Harry was loading the trunk of their Audi, putting all their packed suitcases and bags of presents in there. The car was smack full as this year they had another addition to their family, waiting patiently for her mum to feed her before they left the city. It was snowing heavily and Anne made sure they knew they didn’t have to drive up today with the weather making the roads worse than usual. Y/n also told him a hundred times it was his decision as he was the one driving. Harry didn’t budge though, telling his mum they would definitely be there by tonight.

This year's Christmas celebrations were being spent in Cheshire with Harry’s family seeing as they were with her family in Nottingham last year. They’ve found it works best this way rather than splitting it up to go both places every year. After four years together and buying a house at the start of this year, y/n thinks this might be the last Christmas spent out of their own home. They have their two cats (Nellie and Sunny) and having their first child it might be time to start celebrating the holiday at their own house.

«Babe, did you remember to pack the board games?» Harry heard his girlfriend ask from the threshold where they had hung a mistletoe and had Harry not been busy trying to make everything fit, he definitely would’ve turned around, ran up to her and gave her a big smack on the lips. He settled for giving her a thumbs up not swirling around as he was too busy trying to figure out how he could make most of their things fit in the trunk, thinking it was just like a game of tetris. While Harry had been doing the heavy lifting and packing; y/n had put a cute Christmas onesie on the still tiny body of their daughter, definitely small for her age but she was eating like her daddy so where the weight went they had no idea.

Olive was a generally happy, cuddly baby who more often than not reached for her dad over her mum. It didn’t bother y/n that she was a daddy’s girl, knowing how much Harry loves children and now that he has his own he’s all over her. She finds the two cuddled together on the sofa, their bed or the armchair in her nursery at least a couple times a day. Her phone is now overflowing with photos of the two and she’s hoping to put together a photo album for Harry’s birthday filled with them - knowing he’d cherish it forever.

Half an hour later they were pulling out of the driveway. Harry had checked multiple times that all the lights were out, the doors were locked and the alarm system was functioning properly. Olive was smiling as she sat still in her car seat behind y/n. She had wondered if sitting in the back with her daughter would be better, but decided against it. If she got fussy they’d stop at a gas station and she’d move to the back.

The couple was tremendously excited to bring along their little bundle of happiness and get to show her off to all of Harry’s family and friends. Of course, his family have seen her when she was a newborn but living quite far away most of them only get to see them once or twice a year. It’ll change the dynamic of how they celebrate the holidays for sure, but it's a positive change. Anne will spoil her rotten, just like she does to y/n when they visit - making her tea whenever she wants some, washing their dirty laundry (which y/n didn’t care that her mother-in-law saw her underwear cause she didn’t bring anything too scandalous) and heading to the shops when they needed even the smallest thing. Really, y/n thought she was too kind for her own good. At the same time though, y/n always did play a good host when Anne visited them - spoiling her with the comfiest bed sheets, making the food for every meal, not wanting her to lift a finger as if she was the queen.

Olive was eight months - a fairly active one at that - and loves to crawl everywhere, especially to follow her mum or dad around the lower floor of their (way too big) house for only the three (five) of them. Since the pair hadn’t brought Olive with them for such a long drive, the longest being an hour, they were anxious to find out how she’d react to being confined over a longer period of time.

Half an hour in and Olive was babbling away to the teddy bear in her arms (she got it from her nephews when she was born and has been attached to it since) as Harry and y/n talked about how excited they were for their daughter to explore her daddy´s hometown and how his whole family and friends would fall in love with Olive even more. With their little girl just starting to sleep all through the night in her own room, Anne wanted to make sure she got her own room at her nana's too, so apparently she’s cleaned the office and made it into a makeshift nursery for her granddaughter.

Y/n doesn’t know who’s more excited to see all the familiar faces, the family that’s become not only important to her in the last four years, but now also to their baby. The last time they visited Cheshire, y/n was barely two months pregnant and as tough as it was to keep it hidden from Anne for another month, they managed to keep it to the two of them (with just a handful of slip-ups). They were sure Anne knew they were having a baby with the small smirks she gave y/n and harry when she didn’t want the wine - Harry keeping to non-alcoholics in solidarity with her - which was unregular for her, normally jumping on the thought of having a glass or two after a long day.

“You know mum won’t give her up after she gets her hands on her right as we walk through the front door? Might want to hop in the back and get your fix before we get there.” Harry let out a chuckle with y/n joining in knowing just how true his words were. Anne was a godsend of a grandmother, taking Olive in her arms doting over her until she’ll start crying for her daddy. Though everyone gives her all the attention she could wish for, no one could ever do what Harry can. He’s her favorite, no matter how much I wish I could be.

Another half hour later and we were making our first stop at a local gas station in Aylesbury. We were about a third of the way in, but the weather was getting harsher with the snow falling harder and the wind picking up just a little bit. While Harry filled the car up with gas and made sure Olive didn’t start fussing, y/n went inside to get a couple snacky items for the three of them and a filled up cup of coffee for her boyfriend. Coming out of the station she could see Harry in the back with his love bug, bringing her out of the car seat as her cute little wails haltered. She was due for a feed, so they found a secluded space to park so no one would stare at her while breastfeeding their daughter.

Sitting in the front passenger seat with her daughter attached to her nipple with her baby daddy sitting in the driver's seat next to her they spent the next twenty minutes singing along to the Christmas songs playing one after the other on the radio.

Y/n had always loved this time of year - the snow, the songs (which - admittedly - she listened to throughout the entire year), the decorations, the joy and cheer. With y/n and Harry moving in together a month before Christmas, only half a year after they first began dating, they had a mutual understanding for how they would go all out with lights, trees and decorations both on the inside and outside. Though their house was gated with a high fence along the perimeter of their entire land. The trees lining the driveway all the way from the gate to where the gravel road extends into two, one leading to the garage and the other to the front door, were now lit up with strings of light going through them. It was only the beginning to their decorations, but it couldn’t be seen from the gate. More lights were lit along the house, windows were accentuated by red tape creating squares with spray along it, making it seem like snow on the glass. Though there aren’t tons of colourful lights, outside at least, the inside is littered with different colours, shining and sparkling along the staircases, mantels, dressers, counters and tables.

Olive felt like there was something new to look at, touch and be amazed by in every room of their house. As the clock sets seven in the morning, like clockwork, Harry hears Olive’s wails for him to get her out of the crib so she can move around. He kisses y/n’s forehead as he lets her sleep for another half hour to an hour like every morning before pulling on a pair of boxers and some pajama pants if it’s cold to get his daughter from her nursery across the hall.

The two of them were like two giggling girlfriends when they finally saw each other for the first time that day, not being able to keep their smiles from their similar lips. Walking downstairs Olive points at the garland wrapping the staircase and every time she sees it, a small sound of surprise and excitement exit her puckered lips. Harry talks to her about how good her mama is at decorating their house and how good it looks good for Christmas (he only helped her put up decorations, following her direct orders). Y/n had a certain way she liked to decorate and with this being the first Christmas in their house she wanted everything to look perfect.

Coming into the kitchen after turning the dimmed lights on low to have some lighting in the morning dark they had a little shimmy along the floor. Olive babbled along with Harry’s singing and mumbling to her explaining how the buttons on the walls turned on the different lights. She probably didn’t understand or care about the lights, but the two continued singing and talking about nonsense along the way. In the kitchen, Harry made her a bottle she demanded having before getting started on the omelette he makes for him and y/n every morning he’s home without fail.

When they finally got back on the road the snow was coming down heavily and the only thing they could see were the lines of cars in front of them on the M40 pushing the break every few seconds before accelerating again moving only a couple meters before breaking again. Y/n didn’t have a lot of patience in traffic - or in general - and quickly became annoyed making Harry laugh at her telling her to calm down (she wasn’t even the one who had to drive through this horrible weather). This lasted for another forty-five minutes before the snow let up just a little bit and the cars seemed to roll along the road like normal.

“I didn’t think driving home for Christmas would take this long. At least, I hoped it wouldn’t.” They’d been on the road since nine thirty this morning and now, two and a half hours later, they still have at least another two hours left until they’re at Anne’s. It wasn’t unusual for y/n to call Anne’s home, having stayed there for weeks at a time during the almost five years her and Harry have known each other. Harry isn’t unknown to calling y/n’s parents’ house his home either.

“I know. Wish it didn’t have to take this long and I’m sure little Ollie is going to get antsy soon. If the weather continues like this and we don’t have to take more than one more break, I think we’ll be there within three hours, but if we run into traffic, we might have to take more stops along the way.” Harry wanted to move along quickly to get to his mum’s before Olive’s nap time around three, if she didn’t end up sleeping in the car. We knew when we decided to drive in the morning that Olive would probably stay up the whole way, too engrossed with the cars and lights along the way to ever be able to fall asleep.

“You know what we should do to keep her happy for another half hour at least?” Y/n turned to look at Harry with a smile grazing her lips. “Play some Christmas music! She loves when we sing and dance around the house.” Playing the memories of hearing Olive’s belly laughter through the house while Harry and her danced in circles around her like another pair of idiots.

Putting on the same Christmas song list they’ve played since making it together all those years ago, the first song coming on shuffle being Santa Claus is Coming to Town. The noise was at a comfortable volume so they could still hear Olive if she started fussing though it’s unlikely and for it to not be too disturbing for Harry’s driving. With Olive seated with her back to them she couldn’t see her mummy dancing in her seat while they sang along to song after song, but she heard her parents’ voices singing out to the songs she’s heard oh so many times before.

“This is accurate, huh?” Harry snickered as Driving Home for Christmas began playing through the speakers.

“You don’t say.” It was one of their favorite songs and it fit the scene they were in, driving home for Christmas, excited to see their family, singing along the slowly getting better traffic. Looking around at the cars next to them, most of them looked to be families also driving home to be with their families for this year's holiday celebrations.

The rest of the drive was filled with more singing, two more stops for Harry to give his baby some cuddles and walking around one of the local Tesco’s they stopped at to get some more drinks and snacks. Olive was waving at everyone walking past us and talking all kinds of gibberish. While y/n grabbed the snacks, Harry had Olive walking along the aisles in between his feet while holding her little hands in his following her around the store.

A quarter to three they finally made it to Anne’s home, reversing into the driveway so they could get their baggage inside easier later in the day. Y/n saw Anne open the front door in the rearview mirror when Harry was pulling in the last meters. There was a bright smile on her face when we got out of the car. The snow had laid thick on the ground up north and the slick ice underneath made it harder to walk without having to make sure every step was carefully thought out.

Just minutes later Olive was already crawling with her little legs all over her grandma’s home, interested in anything and everything she could get her chubby hands on not seeming to be tired at all. They decided to forgo her nap and hope for an early night, which isn’t likely with everything going on around her. Anne was on granny duties right away telling the pair to sit down and relax with the tea she had prepared while she took care of the baby. There was no doubt she loved the attention from the person she might not remember from this summer but quickly became attached to, almost as much as she is to her daddy.

Harry found his place on the sofa, head in y/n’s lap and feet hanging over the armrest demanding her fingers curling through his locks. It wasn’t surprising to her that he was tired from driving the entirety of the way in traffic and tightly packed snow at times. Sure, if needed he could have stayed awake, but with his mum taking care of his little love he didn’t care much, falling asleep to his other love combing her fingers through his hair. It didn’t happen too often that they could have a cuddle in the middle of the day - just the two of them - with Olive needing their attention at all hours of the day so when the opportunity arose he wasn’t going to turn it down. He admits, though this is nice as well, that a naked cuddle in bed would definitely top laying on the sofa with his mum and daughter running around them. Maybe tonight, he thinks, as he finally falls asleep to the sound of Olive’s giggles.

As nighttime inched closer and Olive’s bedtime was passing them in the chatter and laughter, y/n told Harry to get their things from the car while she nurses Olive before getting her ready for bed. While they took care of their daughter, Anne made a nice spread of cheese and crackers for them to indulge tonight while catching up on everything that’s been going on in their lives since the last time she visited them in London.

Harry found Olive’s bag first, choosing a pair of christmassy pajamas from the mountain of clothes they had brought for her. Y/n walked upstairs to the nursery Anne had set up, seeing Harry already unpacking her bags into the cute vintage turquoise chiffonier Anne had bought from a neighbour only a couple weeks ago immediately falling in love with it.

«Would you like to have a cuddle with daddy before bed, Ollie?» Y/n firmly believed her daughter needed the nightly cuddle from Harry, just like she does, to fall asleep. She was already reaching out for him with her nimble hands waiting for him to take her in for a snuggle in his arms. There was no armchair in the makeshift nursery like they had purchased for Olive’s nursery back home where they always sat but Harry made it work. Anything for a cuddle with his baby growing way too quick for his liking.

It was no secret Harry loved babies and that only heightened when he had his own baby. With how good Olive is and how lush it’s been having a baby around and it not be just the two of them, he had thought about what it would be like with another baby around. Another little love for them to have, give Olive a sister or brother to play with. He hadn’t said anything to y/n about the thoughts he’d been having, not knowing if she'd agree with him. It’s been eight months and when they had talked about it before they agreed on a maximum of two years between their children.

Only a couple hours later they headed to bed themselves, ready for a good night's sleep before another long day tomorrow. Harry had been debating with himself whether he was going to mention babies to y/n or not - ultimately ended up with yes, he would mention it. Now they were finally alone with y/n resting her head on Harry’s pillow, her fingers delicately drawing patterns on his chest.

“I have something I’d like to discuss with you.” Harry’s voice wasn’t much louder than a whisper, not wanting to ruin the calmness around them. He wasn’t nervous so to say, but he felt his pulse quicken the tiniest bit at the thought of getting turned down. Y/n turned her head to watch Harry as he pulled her in as close as he could without suffocating her.

“It’s been lovely having Olive, right? Seems like it was meant to be to have a baby and during the holidays it’s been so fun watching her so interested in everything.” Y/n murmured her answer. She had loved having a little one to care for and to fill their days with joy over the last eight months.

“Well, with how well it’s been going with her, I was thinking we could talk about having another little one? Maybe discuss it a bit. What do you say, let's make Ollie a big sister?”

“I think we might be well on the way to making her a sister, bub.” Harry turned his head at lightning speed hearing her words, not knowing if he heard her quite right. His open mouth and big round eyes weren’t something she saw often combined as she wasn’t always the best at surprising him, but this time she was sure her secret had come as a big shock. It wasn’t as if they had been trying for a baby either, only forgetting a condom a handful times when they were too in the moment to care for it.

She found out only a week ago, thinking she could keep it to herself until Christmas day. It wasn’t difficult to hide it from him, not struggling with morning sickness and only craving sweets as if she was on her period. Knowing they had agreed on the number of children they wanted - four - she wasn’t scared of him reacting badly.

“You’re not joking, right?” Harry smashed his lips onto his girlfriends when she shook her head - no, i’m not joking - kissing her slow and long, showing her just how happy he was. They spent the night talking about how thrilled and excited they were to expand their family with more children and how great of a sister Olive would be. Baby names were flying between them, agreeing to never naming one of their babies after a city, but rather continuing naming them something more unique than Chloe or Adam.

The rest of the holiday spent up north with Harry’s family was relaxing and lovely all around. Playing board games, exploring the city with Olive (who was way too fascinated by all the snow), family dinner parties and having fun with friends they didn’t get to see all too often. Olive was wiped out after opening her presents on Christmas morning and spending all her energy on all the toys she got and the paper ripping she played with (more than the toys to be honest).

This year had been special for the family and Christmas was just the same. Olive was lively and it made y/n and Harry exhausted with everything going on, but they wouldn’t change it for the world. After all, Olive was their little girl and soon there would be another little love in their family. Trying to keep the pregnancy from their family and friends was easier this time around as she could blame not drinking alcohol on her breastfeeding and decided they would keep it hidden from everyone until the last possible minute.

[juniorgman187]

Never Enough (Spencer Reid Drabble)

Summary: Ever wondered what Garcia wrote on that sticky note in the series finale? Read here to find out. When Reader, the new technical analyst, feels out of place at a party, Penelope’s sticky note and Reid’s kind words do just the trick.

A/N: This is a comfort piece for me, someone very introverted who never seems to do well in social gatherings. So this is dedicated to anyone who’s ever felt like they didn’t belong. You are loved. Couple: Fem!Reader x Spencer Reid Category: Fluff, Drabble Content Warning: Fear of exclusion, loneliness Word Count: 2.4k

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

All my life, all I’d ever wanted was to be a social butterfly. Their lives seemed so easy. People would naturally flock to them, what with their charisma, their confidence, their natural gift of being conversational.

I envied them for the sole reason that I was nothing like them, not in the slightest.

It wasn’t easy for me to keep a conversation going, even if I was trying my very hardest, which was often the case. I could never seem to commandeer the room in the way that someone extroverted could, and it was especially hard sometimes to feel a part of everyone.

It would be too easy to say I was invisible. Instead, I felt painfully visible, and entirely ignored.

Everyone could see my shyness peeking through, everyone could see how alienated I’d become, everyone could see my despondence, and yet no one bothered to change it.

No one cared.

My excruciating awkwardness had reached an all-time high at Krystall’s birthday party.

Agent Rossi was so keen on inviting me, and I was honored to go since it’d be my first bonding experience with the team outside of work. I couldn’t turn down the opportunity to grow closer to them, otherwise, I’d run the risk of isolating myself even more. As if being brought in as the BAU’s new technical analyst to replace Penelope Garcia wasn’t enough of a reason for them to doubt, despise, and disrespect me, I was the introvert who had a hard time making friends - unlike my predecessor, who’ve I heard could make friends like nobody’s business. I knew I could never fill her shoes, much less fill the glaring void she created when she left, but still, I maintained my bright-eyes in hopes that I’d be enough for them, anyway. I was all too eager to get to know everyone as more than just my coworkers, with one exception.

Dr. Reid maintained an arm’s length distance from me at all times, and at first, I understood. I even empathized with him.

Besides SSA Morgan and SSA Hotchner, the only other person that he’d work the longest with was Penelope, and now she was gone, too, but the longer his rejection of me lasted, the more I was curious what he truly had against me, and the more I was less interested in changing that. Why would I work tirelessly at mending this broken friendship, if he wasn’t willing to meet me halfway?

I was more shocked that he, of all people, would be the most displeased with my arrival. When Agent Rossi replaced Agent Gideon, from what I heard, the transition wasn’t as rocky as mine. Dr. Reid was overjoyed to be working with him and to discuss all his books. When Jordan Todd, and eventually Ashley Seaver, took Agent Jareau’s place momentarily, he was happy to be working with them. When Alex Blake and Kate Callahan came in after Emily Prentiss, he welcomed them with open arms. So what was it about me that was so abhorrent to him?

I never outright asked, mainly because I feared confrontation and I also had no way of knowing if my curiosity would make the situation worse or better. But I should’ve. I should’ve marched right up to him and asked, “What’s your problem?”

Somehow, though, I finally got up the courage to do so tonight.

I watched as the team laughed at one of Rossi’s anecdotes, meanwhile, the inside jokes flew over my head, hindering that bonding experience I was so sure I’d get by coming here. So I stepped inside the house, wandering into a spare room, knowing I wouldn’t be missed.

I thought I’d only be there for a moment to get some “fresh air” even though I’d actually migrated from the outside to the inside, where there’d arguably be less fresh air, but that’d be my excuse if anyone came in. But I was forced to stay longer in the office when it finally happened.

I finally reached my breaking point.

It was building up all night. It started when I first stepped into the house. My confidence faltered almost immediately when I accidentally stepped on Rossi’s Italian leather dress shoe as I went to greet him. He told me not to worry, but of course, I did just the opposite. It was a minor bump in the road, something so minute, but still, it weighed on me thinking about how embarrassing it was that I dirtied something of his that everyone recognized as valuable.

My shame didn’t stop there. As I was talking with Krystall, there were many periods of awkward silence that I couldn’t manage to fill with words, so we each sipped at our wine until one of us would try to pick up the conversation. What’s worse was that we each knew the silence was suffocating, and I could tell we were both thinking of things to say to keep the conversation going, and yet, nothing worth saying came to mind.

And worst of all was when Penelope Garcia finally arrived at the party. Don’t misunderstand me - it wasn’t the worst part of all because she was bad - no, she was lovely. She gave me a welcome present - a Beanie Baby to put on my desk, evocative of her own style of decor, and I loved her for it, which made me hate her all the more.

Rossi’s house livened up when she came. Everyone flocked to greet her, laughter erupted and ricocheted off Rossi’s high ceilings. They were positively elated by her presence, truly happy. Which was the first time I’d ever seen them that way because frankly, they were never that happy with me.

It was a painful reminder that I could never bring what she brought to the team, and I could never be as good as her. And the general consensus I reached, sitting in Rossi’s office all alone with my glass of wine, was the same one I’d known for years now - I’m not enough.

And I will never be enough.

I hadn’t realized I was crying until a tear cascaded down my cheek, dripping right under my nose, forcing me to audibly sniffle it away. Using the sleeve of my cardigan, I desperately tried to wipe away the tears faster than they were spilling out, but it just wasn’t possible. In fact, the coarse fabric of my cardigan rubbing against my cheeks only made them redder, making the fact that I was unwell that much more obvious.

The sound of the doorknob turning sent me into overdrive, automatically engaging me into turning around and facing the wall so that whoever was coming in wouldn’t find me in the state that I was in. I sniffled a great big sniffle and fanned my face to dry it of any moisture that my silent sobs could’ve left.

“Sorry, Rossi, I was just getting some fresh air and I thought I’d check out your book collectio-”

When I turned around, Rossi wasn’t standing there as I’d assumed.

In fact, the person standing there was the last person I thought it’d be.

“Dr. Reid?”

He was lingering in the doorway, studying my face, to which I instantly preventing from continuing on any further by cowering my head and looking away.

“What are you doing here?” My voice had taken a tone of anger that I didn’t anticipate to be there originally.

“Are you okay?”

To my surprise, his question seemed sincere, but I couldn’t truly believe it was.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just allergies from being outside for so long. The pollen and stuff, you know?” I rambled nervously.

“Oh, really? Are you allergic to the grass?” He asked in a joking manner, knowing I was lying but still asking so that he’d have the satisfaction of getting to see me try and work my way out of the situation.

“Yes, I am actually. The most common outdoor allergy triggers are trees, grass, weed pollen, mold spores, dust mites, cockroaches, and cat, dog, and rodent dander. Don’t you know this? After all, you’re the one with the IQ of 187 here, not me.” I tried to joke to lighten up the room’s heaviness, but clearly, it didn’t work.

By this time, I’d already turned back to face the wall, so Reid surely couldn’t see me, but I heard the door click shut behind me, and a wave of anxiety permeated my soul.

“What’s wrong, Y/N?”

I scoffed at his question, almost hitting him back with an “As if you care.” But I decided against it in an effort to preserve what little repose we had left between us.

“Will you please tell me what’s wrong?” He sounded like he was begging - like he was practically willing to go on his hands and knees to get me to answer, but all I could focus on was the feeling of his hot breath ghosting over my neck.

Goosebumps rose on my skins once he put his warm hand on my cold shoulder, which was bare from the absence of my cardigan and where it had slipped down to my elbow.

I flinched at the sensation, causing him to recoil.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.” He quickly apologized, regret filling his eyes. “Um, you look nice by the way. I like the way you did your hair. A-and your dress. It looks nice.”

Not even giving a chance to respond to his compliment, I asked again, “Why are you here?” Pressing him to get the point faster before I had a chance to react at another one of his physical advances.

“I saw you leave the backyard and I thought I should check on you.”

“Well, you’ve checked on me, so you can go back now.” I didn’t miss a beat when responding, fooling him into thinking that I didn’t catch his words and their intentions.

“I just want to talk.” He replied, finally answering my question from before.

“Okay. Let’s talk.”

He took a seat on a chaise lounge sofa while I stayed standing by the bookcase in preparation for a quick escape if need be.

“I’m sorry I’ve been pushing you away. That wasn’t fair of me.”

Although I hadn’t expected him to apologize, I wasn’t going to be misled and naively accept his apology with no reservations.

“Why did you do it? And for so long?”

“I was angry. I didn’t want another person in my life that I cared about to walk away, so I thought maybe if I made you feel unwelcome, you wouldn’t want to stay. And she’d come back.”

It hurt to say, but at least I knew he was being honest.

“I accept your apology, but it’s not okay.”

“I know that.”

“Okay, are we good now? We’ve talked, so,” My hand gestured toward the door, suggesting he should leave, but he didn’t comply.

“I’m not leaving.”

“And why not?” The wine glass in my hand nearly shattered at the way my hand wrapped around it since its presence hindered me from being able to actually clench my fists.

“I didn’t come here to apologize, even though I should’ve sooner. But I came here because I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Like you care.” I chuckled mirthlessly.

“I do care.”

I gave in, not wanting to fight him any longer, otherwise, I might cry some more from the altercation.

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not,” He shook his head. “I know you’re not fine. What’s really wrong, Y/N?”

I looked away immediately from his gaze, trying to hide the sheen that was inevitably coating my eyes from the presence of tears, but he would’ve known I was crying the minute I used the cuff of my cardigan to wipe under my nose again.

“I just . . . I feel so unconnected,” I whispered, the pain of my words stealing my volume. “I don’t fit in. And I’ve never fit in before, but I actually thought this might be my chance.”

“It still is. Just come back outside.”

“You don’t get it!”

“What don’t I get?”

“I just needed to take a moment to compose myself so I wouldn’t ruin the energy of the room. And I’d really like to do that alone, okay?”

“I know you don’t want me to go.”

“What?”

“You’re testing me to see if I’ll stay.”

“No, I’m not.”

“So you’re saying that if I left right now, you wouldn’t regret letting me walk away?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“I know you’re lying to me.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Yes, you are. I know what it looks like when you lie. Wanna know how I know?”

I entertained his question out of pure frustration “How?”

“Because I pay attention to you. I see your mannerisms. I notice everything. Do you think I haven’t picked up on how you crack your knuckles when you’re nervous? Or how your stutter goes away when you talk about technology? Or how your fists clench, like how you’re doing right now?”

My eyes flickered to my fist that was wrapped so tightly around the glass, my knuckles were white. Out of shame, I loosened my grip.

“I pay attention because I care. And I’m sorry that I made you ever believe that I didn’t. What you do, and say, and think - it’s important. So no, I’m not leaving. I’m staying right here to give you the attention you deserve.” He sighed with a breath of relief. “I care more about you than whatever’s happening out there.”

And slowly, then all at once, that barrier between us broke down.

“I care about you. We all do. And when you’re ready, we can walk back out there together so that you can see for yourself just how much we care.”

. . . That night, I made nine more friends.

And the day we came back to work, with my Beanie Baby in hand, I rearranged my desk.

A folded up sticky note fell out from between two tables. I picked it up, recognizing the handwriting instantly.

Penelope Garcia.

Even when the laughter always seems to come from the other room and the world seems busy as it carries on without you, may you know this to be true. No matter who or what made you feel invisible, unworthy, unloved, or unseen, in this ever-moving world, there is still a place for you. And you are exactly in the place where you are meant to be.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

quote by morgan harper nichols

[theyscreamjade]

can you make some headcanons about how bakugo,denki, dabi, and shinso would react to a seemingly super intimidating s/o who looks mean but is actually rlly chaotic and funny once u get to know them? thank u 🖤🖤

Never Judge By Looks

I INSTANTLY RELATE TO THIS SO MUCH! A lot of people look at me and think I’m mean but I’m the nicest person you could ever meet. So, being the strange little coffee bean that I am, I'm rather funny. I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: Cursing, Crackhead Energy, and lastly..a sliver of smut.

_________________________

Katsuki Bakugo.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* When he spotted you, everyone was completely intimidated by you. I mean everyone, including Mina and you know that’s something.

* So, who broke the barrier and asked you a random question?

* Tsu’s bold-self, she walked over and simply asked where did you get your shoes from because she took notice of the limited edition brand you were wearing.

* How do you respond?

* Doing an epic fucking pose and giving a show dropping thank you as she stares in complete confusion as Mina screeches as loud as she can. That boils a friendship THAT SHOULDVE FUCKING HAPPENED!

* As much as he hates to admit it, he loves how random and chaotic you are. He loves how you can make even him laugh at how you are.

* It keeps a smile on his face though he doesn’t want to have it often. To him, it adds spice to the relationship you two have.

* He loves that every time he comes home, you’re doing the most random of shit.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Katsuki walked into the home, groaning as he walked towards the hallway, before freezing. He paused and turned towards the open door in his office as he flickered the lights on.

You slowly turned to face him with the cat in your lap as you smirked. “Welcome...To my evil lair.” You said while smirking as he stared at you in pure disarray.

“SINCE WHEN IN THE FUCK DOD WE GET A FUCKING CAT?!” He yelled as you smiled.

“I adopted one..and a dog..” you replied. “But the Pomeranian doesn’t seem to like his new feline friend, Mr. Snuggles.” You added, kissing the kitten as it meowed.

Katsuki sighed and held his nose. “Where is it?” he asked as he started looking around for an animal.

“I’m looking at him.”

_________________________

Denki Kaminari

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* This is a match made in fucking heaven.

* He didn’t even care how intimidating you were, when you pulled out your phone case and he spotted something even he likes.

* He’s zapping to you and that’s that.

* You guys are called ‘The Chaotic Duo’. Mina, Ochako, Momo, and even Toru and Tsu loves you and how random you can be.

* You two together can make a simple trip to the store a ride to remember.

* The last adventure you two had, ended in you two being kicked out because he decided to charge all the fucking appliances in the Walmart technology.

* THAT WAS A BAD IDEA FROM THE BEGINNING.

* Let's just say..he fried the power..and even the backup generator they had.

* Best night ever.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Babe! Have you seen m-“ Denki stopped his sentence as he saw you, standing at the entrance of the hallway? You were dressed perfectly in an Ash costume. You held up a poké-ball and tossed it at him.

The ball slapped him against the chest as he looked at it while it sat on the floor. “Pikachu! I choose you!” You said as he looked at you with a dorky smile on his face.

“Pika Pika!” He responded, running towards you while you squealed, bursting into a fit of laughter as he tackled you to the ground.

_________________________

Hitoshi Shinsou

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* (I’ve been dying to use this man for the longest.)

* I see Shinso as a vibe guy, he’s extremely observant, unlike others. He doesn't go by personality but by how you are as a person, what type of energy you present. Though you wore a straight face, he knew that wasn’t the case.

* So, he already knows how weird you were though everyone else was still trying to find out more about you.

* He broke the ice himself and simply sat beside you, starting a simple conversation that became an awesome one. No one will know how a simple conversationwent from what’s your favorite color to how cats you owned and the werid shit they did at night.

* When you two started dating, everyone was shocked because after finally seeing the real you, they would’ve never expected him to be happy with a soul like you.

* He laughs at your jokes, might even do a few things with you, but he'd have to brainwash a few people so you guys can get off clean.

* He genuinely loves everything about that chaotic side to you to a T. You make his darkest nightmares to a beautiful dream.

* Your jokes make his day every single time, ignoring every comment that the world brings into him. You’re there to make it better.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Kitten? Kitten? Where are you?” Shinso asked, looking around the empty apartment which was strange because you were babysitting Eri.

He walked around in confusion before he heard a giggle, making him pause. He looked up before walking out to the roof of the apartment building.

Eri and you sat side by side in a giant beanbag, holding your hands over when portable fire pit. “Let’s gather around the Campfire and sing our campfore song. Our C-A-M-P-F-I-R-E S-O-N-G song, and if you don’t think we can sing it faster then you’re wrong, but it’ll help if you just sing along!” You and Eri sung together before breaking out into a loud sing-a-long with her.

Hitoshi couldn’t help but laugh softly, watching you with her before he walked over to you two. When he sat down, you snatched her up and screamed.

“AHH, IT’S A SEA BEAR!”

————————————————————————

Touya Todoroki (Dabi.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* Another man who already knew you before anyone else.

* Dabi’s very observant, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that. He doesn’t watch you like a hawk but when you joined the LOV.

* You made Shigaraki laugh, that’s a fucking miracle in itself.

* Toga, Twice and others loved you, especially Twice. You made both sides of him laugh until tears rolled down his cheeks.

* When you two are together, it’s more of a cat and mouse relationship. He follows and watches you, he may join you during your random or weird moments but it’s not his type of thing.

* You and Toga, on the other hand, are amazing. You two do the craziest of things, like Harley and Poison Ivy.

* You’re his star in the dark sky in his heart and he loves you for that. You shine so brightly, it blinds him sometimes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“What the hell happened?” He asked, looking at you and Toga confused. Shigaraki looked just as confused as him. “And what the fuck are you wearing?” Shigaraki asked.

You were dressed in a sexy mouse costume and Toga was wearing a cat costume to match. “You told us to get into that party right?” You asked, looking at them.

You reached into your mouse ears and pulled out the papers, Shigaraki needed. He hesitated to take them but he pulled them away. “The...the party’s attire was formal..” Shigaraki spoke up, looking at you two confused as you took the mouse ears off your head.

“Yeah, but we would’ve been seen if we just wore formal attire. They had kids in there and a little brat gave me the papers I needed in exchange for Toga chasing me out of the party.” You said, smirking. Shigaraki snickered softly as Dabi smirked.

“When will it be my turn to chase you?”

[ambssssssssss]

ao3 link

Kara soared high above the city she had called home for the last several years, just as she had done every morning since she first arrived in National City. Her first flights around the city had been thrilling, the adrenaline of using the abilities she had denied to herself for so long filling her being with the same sunlight that powered those special abilities. She had used the flights for an escape while she’d been in college, a way to remove herself from the pressure or fitting in and taking tests and trying to act human. It was all too much sometimes. Kara needed a moment to herself to just breathe in, to close her eyes and listen to the sound of the city she loved and pretend that she didn’t feel like there was something missing. 

As Kara got older, and her presence in National City was noticed more, the nature of her flights changed. No longer was flying over the city too high up for anyone to see an escape but rather a commitment. She couldn’t slip into dark jeans and a black hoodie to disappear against the night sky anymore, especially not after she saved that plane. Now she dons a blue suit and red cape and flies just high enough that the people below can see her and take comfort in the symbol she wore on her chest. Kara took these flights so that the city could be safe, could feel safe. 

It was a habit more than anything else to patrol the city now. When Supergirl had first arrived on the scene, it seemed like there was a new villain in the city every week and all of them had some kind of vendetta against Supergirl, or against her mother or father. Kara fought against them all, absorbed the words of hate that they spewed on her family name and tucked the anger and pain away until she was sure that no one could tell how much of those emotions she carried around with her. Then she stepped out of her Supergirl persona, slipped on a carefully constructed silver ring with a band of red on the inside, and went about her day as Kara Danvers, the longest-running assistant to Cat Grant ever and current reporter attempting to make her way in the world. 

Kara’s days were planned out almost to the minute. She woke up with the sun, basked in the glow of the golden lights for a moment to let her body absorb the strength of its rays, and then slipped her special ring on to go about her day. She arrived at CatCo just early enough to make people think she had to rush to get there on time, made her way into the daily content meetings with acting CEO of CatCo, and Kara’s ex, James and the various heads of departments. Around mid-morning, Kara would duck out of CatCo in the name of a coffee run or chasing down a lead to complete her daily morning patrol, and then she would go back to work and try to act like she didn’t miss the power she felt when she wasn’t wearing her ring. 

Kara’s ring was the first and only time she had applied her vast scientific knowledge to a project on earth. She had made it in the name of fitting in as a normal teenage girl, not an alien from a dead planet who was stronger than almost any other person on earth. The list of people who were stronger than Kara shrank just a little bit each time she was able to use her powers without restraint. The ring was made out of an aluminum alloy mixed with a very small amount of lead that was intended to keep Kal from looking too closely and seeing what the ring housed. 

The inside of the band was hollow to allow for an amount of material very carefully constructed to keep Kara appearing as a normal human without causing her any pain. To get the material, Kara had very carefully extracted the radiation from a sliver of kryptonite Jeremiah had stolen for her, and then separated the radiation generated from the piece of Krypton reacting to earth’s yellow sun from the residual solar energy of Rao that was left in the ore. Kara then tested the amount of red solar radiation she could withstand before she was left completely powerless. Inside the ring she had enough of this modified kryptonite to render her mostly human, unable to fly or use her freeze breath or heat vision, and leaving her as strong as the average gym goer. Most importantly, the modified kryptonite didn’t affect her senses so that Kara could still see, hear, or smell danger coming from far enough away that she could take her ring off in time to be prepared for whatever was coming. The substance only worked if it was pressed directly against her skin, which was why the underside of the ring was covered in it. After being on Earth for so long, as long as she spent a good amount of time each day without the ring on, her powers would return almost instantly. 

Kara’s life was...predictable. The most interesting thing she encountered most days, baring an alien induced apocalypse, was the increasingly awkward flirtatious encounters that Mike seemed to find her in. Mon-El, Mike now that he was mostly settled on Earth, had landed outside of National City in a Kryptonian pod three years ago. Kara had found his pod and taken him to the DEO, the secret government agency where Kara’s sister Alex and their friend J’onn worked. When Mon-El awoke a few days later, he was immediately enamored by Kara, but Kara never returned his feelings. 

Mon-El wasn’t very accepting when Kara informed him that her efforts to help him settle on Earth, getting him a job, teaching him to control his powers, and helping him find an apartment, were simply examples of Kara being friendly and not Kara expressing any sort of attraction to Mon-El. Part of his confusion stemmed from the fact that he was the Prince of Daxam and as such had never been rejected before in his life. Kara told herself that the rest of his confusion came from a misunderstanding of human dating practices. 

Kara might have been tempted to give him points for persistence if she believed that she was the only one Mon-El was pursuing, but Mike was well known as the office flirt. It wouldn’t have changed anything for Kara either way. Every encounter with Mike left Kara wishing that she had gotten him a job literally anywhere else in the city, maybe even in a different city all together. Their encounters were stifled and always lasted too long in Kara’s opinion. 

In everything that she did, Kara felt like she was simply drifting through her life. She wasn’t flying anymore, no direction to go in and no light in the distance for her to set her sights on. She simply hovered and let the motions of her life flow through her. 

The longer this went on, the harder it was for Kara to ignore that feeling that there was something missing. 

“Supergirl, we need you at the DEO.” J'onn voice sounded in the comms device Kara had in her ear. Kara pressed her finger to the device and replied in an affirmative before changing her course to take her to the DEO city base. 

“What’s going on?” Kara asked as she approached where J’onn and Kara’s best friend Winn were standing around the wide table in the center of what Kara had always thought of as the command center. She looked for the third member of the team who usually awaited Kara’s arrival there as well, but there was no sign of her sister. “Where’s Alex?”

A look passed between J’onn and Winn that immediately had Kara’s nerves standing on edge. 

“What happened?” Her voice was as strong as the steel that she was often credited as being made of. 

“Alex went on a reconnaissance mission late last night.” J’onn crossed his arms over his chest as he made eye contact with Kara. “She missed her 3 o’clock check in, and every check in since.” 

“Where is she?” 

“We last tracked her signal approaching a half mile away from the target of her mission,” Winn directed Kara’s attention to the map that was up on the monitors before them. Two markers were shining on the screen, one red and one green. Kara’s eyes narrowed as she looked at the map. 

“Kryptonite?” she asked. The green marker was rarely used to indicate anything else as most enemies were marked in black. “She was tracking a kryptonite signature.” 

“She was, which was why we didn’t call you before now,” J’onn supplied. “But I’m afraid there’s more.” 

“The signature came from the old Luthor Mansion 15 miles outside of the city.” Winn said regretfully. Kara felt her spine stiffen. 

“There aren’t any Luthors anymore.” 

Her voice was cold with regret and guilt and blame, both for herself and for Mon-El, at the reminder of the greatest loss Kara had suffered since coming to Earth. 

Three years ago, Lena Luthor had come to National City with the ambitious dream of turning her family name and company into a force for good. She felt like she had to make up for all the damage that her brother had caused in his one-man war against Superman. Kara had been drawn to her from the moment they met. Professional interviews had turned to casual cups of coffee, and then brunches, and then lunches that lasted so long they ended up having dinner as well. Then it was Lena on her couch at game nights and Lena in her kitchen in the mornings and Kara falling hard and fast for the woman that every thought was a monster simply because of her last name. 

Then it was the Daxamite invasion and Lena was the only reason that Mon-El survived the atmosphere irradiated with lead. Lena was the only reason that the city had survived that attack and she was the only person that Kara couldn’t save. 

In the chaos of the invasion and Kara’s fight against Superman and then Queen Rhea, Lillian Luthor had kidnapped Lena, again. Kara had searched high and low, checking every known Luthor property and even a few that she only knew about because she was Lena’s best friend. Kara searched for two years without finding even a hint of the Luthors until Lex showed up in National City. 

Kara had fought him off, driven by a desperate need to find Lena and save her because it had been two years but Kara’s hadn’t diminished in the slightest. Lex had mocked her, picked at her failure to save Lena before it was too late. Kara’s blood boiled at the realization that Lena was well and truly gone, somewhere that Kara couldn’t hope to bring her back from. The dead could only be mourned, not rescued. 

Kara had taken her anger out on Lex, his experimental powers no match for the force of Kara’s rage and regret. He didn’t stand a chance against her. Kara didn’t regret anything about that encounter, but she wished that it could have done something to bring Lena back to her. Six months ago, Kara had finally accepted the truth and stopped looking. 

“Alex, she wanted to clear it before she brought you in on this,” J’onn explained. “She wanted to have an answer for what was happening before she brought up the Luthors. With Lillian in jail, Lex gone, and Lena…” He trailed off as Kara looked away. “Her signal went out exactly half a mile from the Mansion and the kryptonite signature is gone.” 

“So, you think she found it but, what? Set off a boobytrap and got stuck?” Kara knew her tone wasn’t one that she should take with her boss but she didn’t really care at that moment. She’d apologize later. 

“We don’t know.” J’onn looked at the map again. “But we do know that you are the only one who ever had any real success against the Luthors. If something is going on there, you’re the only one who can stop it.” 

“I need to set up a cover with James,” Kara said, turning and striding towards the window to take off towards CatCo. “I’ll be back in half an hour, ready to go.” 

~

After establishing an alibi with James, narrowly avoiding another flirting attempt by Mike, Kara returned to the DEO. She double checked the coordinates for the Mansion and set off in the direction, intent on getting her sister back safe and sound. She’d already lost too much to the Luthors, she wouldn’t lose the other person who mattered most to her. 

Kara flew to the point where Alex’s signal had gone out and found only the empty driveway that led to the doors of the Mansion. She landed and pulled her day clothes on as she approached the house proper. Alex’s motorcycle was parked outside the front door, the black helmet hanging off the handle bars. Kara frowned at the sight. Alex clearly wasn’t expecting to find anything worthy of taking back to the DEO, otherwise she would have brought a car, but she had found something. There wasn’t any evidence of a fight where Alex’s signal dropped off the map and it looked like Alex had been able to walk into the Mansion perfectly unharmed. 

Curious, Kara pressed her finger to the comms device in her ear. She heard only static. 

Keeping her modified ring in her pocket so that she would go into the Mansion fully powered, Kara moved past her sister’s bike and stepped through the door. 

The inside of the Mansion was...cleaner than Kara was expecting it to be. This had been one of the first places Kara had checked in her search for Lena years ago and she clearly remembered that the Mansion had been covered in layer upon layer of dust and crime. The furniture had been covered in dirty white sheets and Kara’s feet had left a path through the grime on the floor. Now, the floor was so clean that Kara could see her reflection on the polished marble and the sheets draped over the furniture were a pristine, sharp white. 

Kara concentrated her hearing but she couldn’t hear anything around the Mansion at all. A quick scan with her x-ray vision showed that the walls were lined with lead. That was different than the last time Kara had been there. How had she been unaware of such a major renovation of a Luthor property this close to her home city? Shaking off the unnerving feeling that she was being watched, Kara continued further into the house. 

She checked all the rooms on the first floor and found no evidence of life in all but the kitchen. The kitchen was fully stocked and furnished with gleaming state of the art fixtures. Kara’s anxiety about this situation increased even more as she reached the top of the grand staircase and her ears picked up on a faint buzzing noise coming from down the hall. It was the soft hum of electricity overlapping with the louder hum of some kind of machinery. Kara followed the sound down the hall until she found a partially open doorway. 

After checking to see if she could see through the door - she couldn’t - Kara gently pushed the door just a little bit until it opened enough that she could see inside. 

“Alex!” Kara called out as she saw her sister laying on a cot  just inside the room. She looked unharmed, a quick scan over her revealing no cuts of broken bones. Her heart rate was normal, not shallow or elevated and she stirred as Kara called her name. 

“Kara?” Alex blinked sleepily and then sat up right, suddenly wide awake. “Kara, you can’t be here.” 

“Alex, c’mon, of course I was going to come for you,” Kara attempted to move closer to her sister and was barred from getting too close by a shimmering blue forcefield that Kara collided with. “What the hell?” 

“Kara, it’s-it’s too much to explain but I need you to trust me and go.” Alex stood up and placed her hand on the forcefield that separated them. “Please, Kara. Go.” 

“I’m not leaving you here, Alex. You’re a prisoner!” Kara attempted to push the forcefield but was forced back with surprisingly gentle pressure. 

“I’m not, really. She wouldn’t hurt me, Kara. And I know she doesn’t want to hurt you and that’s why you have to go.” 

“No, I’m not going anywhere without you!” 

“Kara-” Alex cut herself off and turned away like she was bracing herself for something awful a second before Kara felt the power of true kryptonite wash through her being, stronger than she had ever felt it before. 

The force of the radiation on her skin brought Kara to her knees and then further to the ground as she released a series of high pitched grunts and groans. She was dimly aware of Alex calling her name, apologizing for something, before her mind registered another sound. A voice that she hadn’t heard in almost three years but one that sent Kara’s heart racing in a way that had nothing to do with the pain wracking her body. 

“Hope, activate the cleansing protocol.” 

“Yes Miss Luthor.” 

There was a shimmer of blue tinted light around Kara and then she felt the warmth of artificial sun rays casted over her body but she ignored both in favor of lifting her head to find the source of that voice. When her eyes finally found their target, Kara was helpless against the tears that welled. 

“Lena…” Her name escaped Kara as barely more than an astonished whisper. Lena was standing on the other side of Kara, barely in the room past the doorway and yet Kara felt as if Lena was the only one in the room. “It’s really you?” 

“Hello, Kara,” Lena said and it was her voice, yes, but it was empty. There was no warmth in Lena’s eyes, no fondness in the way her lips formed Kara’s name. Lena’s face was carefully blank as she gazed at Kara, eyes roaming like she was trying to take in every inch of Kara at once. 

“Lena,” Kara repeated her name. There were so many things that she wanted to say, secrets that she had wanted to tell Lena three years ago but thought she would never get the chance to say, but still Kara hesitated. This was Lena, casual Lena that Kara only got to see once Lena had deemed her trustworthy enough. Lena with her hair down in its natural waves and wearing a cardigan and sweats rather than her work attire. Lena in socks instead of heals and with her natural pink lips on display. This was Kara’s favorite Lena. 

But this was also Lena with green veins running along her skin and glowing eyes that were so close and yet so far away from her natural color. 

This Lena was Kara’s kryptonite in every sense of the word. 

“Kara,” Alex called out, making Kara suddenly remember that it wasn’t just her and Lena in the room staring at one another in silence. Kara turned to her sister. She didn’t know what expression was on her face but it was one that seemed to cause Alex’s concern to rise. “Kara, I’m going to help her.” 

“Alex, she’s…” Kara couldn’t even begin to describe what she thought was happening with Lena. 

“I know, Kara, I know.” Alex looked at her sister with the same gentle understanding that she had two years ago, when Kara finally broke down and admitted that she had been in love with Lena and never told her. “But she’s going to be okay. We found her in time.” 

Kara didn’t like the implications of Alex’s statement and turned back to where Lena was still lingering in the doorway. 

“The kryptonite signature that the DEO picked up,” Kara said in a shaking voice. “That was you?” 

Lena nodded once, short and sharp like the movement hurt. “I’ve been trying to break through the dome Lex placed over me for months. I could only hold the breach for thirty seconds before it closed again.” 

“Lex, he used really advanced alien technology here.” Alex chimed in with a wide gesture at the dome that covered her and the one that covered Kara. 

“He didn’t want anyone finding me and he knew I wouldn’t leave like this,” Lena took a step back so she was standing in the doorway. Kara took an instinctive step forward like she was going to keep Lena from leaving. “Not when I would be hurting you just by being in the same room as you.”

“You could never hurt me, Lena.” Kara said certainly. Lena scoffed softly. 

“I think the kryptonite poisoning you just endured proves that I can,” Lena smiled sadly. “Even when I don’t want to.” 

“That isn’t your fault, Lena.” Kara tried to take another step forward but was thwarted by the dome around her. She put her hands against the surface and clenched her fists in frustration. “Please, Lena, take this down.” 

“I can’t, Kara,” Lena shook her head and took an involuntary step forward. Kara could see the same desire that she had, to take Lena in her arms and never let her go, reflected in Lena’s eyes. “I won’t hurt you like that. Lex has already killed me, I won’t let him do the same to you.” 

“You aren’t going to die from this.” Alex said fiercely. “We can figure out what Lex did to you.” 

“We don’t have enough time Alex,” Lena spoke sharply and then nearly doubled over as an intense coughing fit ripped through her lungs. “I called you here to say goodbye, not to save me.” 

“You should have known that I wouldn’t accept that,” Alex replied and then looked pointedly at Kara. “And neither would she.” 

“You are not going to die, Lena. I won’t let you.” 

“Kara, it’s only a matter of ti-” 

“No! No, I’m not losing you again, Lena.” The tears that had been building in Kara’s eyes since she set her sights on Lena again began to fall. Kara didn’t bother trying to wipe them away. “I’ve already lost you twice. When your mother took you and then again when Lex attacked National City and said that you were…” Kara swallowed harshly, unable to say the word. “I’m not doing that again. I won’t fail you again.” 

Silence reigned for a long moment after Kara’s proclamation. Tears still fell from Kara’s eyes but she refused to tear her gaze away from Lena. She was certain that for the first time in her life, Kara’s expression matched the brokenness she felt inside. She was sure that Alex was wearing that concerned older sister expression that she always wore when Kara revealed even a hint of the pain she carried, but Kara only cared for Lena’s expression. Lena who looked just as broken as Kara felt. 

“Kara, no, none of this is your fault.” Kara almost smiled at seeing that the first thing Lena chose to address was Kara’s very last statement. “There was no way you could have found me, Lex made sure of that. He was even crazier than he was before.” 

“I should have looked harder, searched more. I should have found you.” 

“You did find me,” Lena’s smile was watery. “I don’t have much time left, I know that, but I’m glad I got to spend some of it with you, even like this.” 

“I can help you, Lena,” Kara reached into her pocket and pulled out her power dampening ring. “I’ve removed the radiation from kryptonite before. I can do it again.” 

“What is that?” Lena asked, taking a hesitant step forward. Kara offered a reassuring smile. 

“Let me send it through the barrier and you can see for yourself.” Kara waited until Lena had nodded, moved a few paces back so she wasn’t entirely in the room, and then ordered Hope to drop the barrier for less than a second. The barrier was back up a moment later and Lena came into the room again to pick up the ring that Kara had slid in her direction. 

As she walked, Kara studied Lena’s movement. Every motion was followed by a concealed grimace. It was clear that every second Lena was upright was another second that she was in pain. Kara felt the anger and guilt swell within her to previously unreached levels. Anger at Lex for doing this to his sister and anger at herself for letting it happen, guilt that she hadn’t found Lena sooner. 

“Is this kryptonite?” Lena asked after a few moments of examining the ring. 

“It used to be,” Kara answered. “I needed something to help dampen my powers so I could blend in better.” That was another web to untangle, the fact that Lex had probably told Lena her secret, but they could deal with that after all this was over. “Jeremiah got some kryptonite for me to work with and I removed the radiation, leaving the ore raw. I used simulated red sunlight to replicate the power of Rao and played around with solar energy and radiation until I found a level that would dampen my powers but not remove them.” 

“I knew you were brilliant, Kara, but that is…” Lena trailed off. Despite the tenseness of the situation, Kara felt herself blush at the praise. “Amazing.” 

“I can remove the radiation from the kryptonite that’s in your veins,” Kara said confidently, forcing her voice not to shake. “From there, you should be able to flush the residue out with a blood transfusion.” 

“I’m afraid it won’t be that simple,” Lena said, fingering the ring in her hand like it was a precious item. “Lex didn’t just inject me with kryptonite, Kara. He injected something into my bone marrow. I don’t have kryptonite in my blood, my blood is kryptonite.” 

“Well, fuck.” Kara surprised everyone in the room, including herself, with the expletive. “Sorry, I just-” 

“No, fuck about sums it up,” Lena joked softly. 

“I can still help you,” Kara said after a moment. Lena offered her a smile that was almost as warm as the ones she used to send Kara’s direction on a daily basis. Kara ached at the thought. 

“It’s nice to see that your optimism hasn’t faded.” Kara had half a mind to tell Lena that it was stubbornness that was fueling her, not optimism. “But I’m not sure what you could do. I’ve done every test I can think of, and there’s been a lot of them, but nothing has worked. I’ve tried to neutralize the kryptonite with red sunlight, but that didn’t affect anything. I tried to flush it out with yellow sun light, and again nothing. I’ve taken every sample, and run every test, but nothing has worked.” 

“And you don’t metabolize things like Kryptonians, and even though kryptonite isn’t inherently deadly to humans, it is still radiation.” Alex picked up, obviously having heard Lena’s explanation before. “Too much of anything can hurt a human.” 

“This kryptonite blood that I’m producing, it’s flawed somehow. Lex’s formula didn’t rewrite all of the blood cells correctly. My working hypothesis is that the kryptonite he put in my bone marrow is basically acting like a fast growing cancer. I don’t have enough normal blood cells to fight it off.” 

“And the longer you’re exposed, the worse it gets.” 

“How long have you been like this?” Kara asked, halfway afraid of the answer. 

“A year.” Lena answered. Kara looked away from her, unable to stand the guilt that washed over her. That’s what Lex had meant, six months ago during their battle. When he said that Kara had been too late, he hadn’t meant that Lena was dead but that she was dying and there was nothing Kara could do to save her. “I don’t think I’ve got more than a month left.” 

“There has to be something we can do,” Alex was pacing furiously across her dome. For a moment, Kara wondered why Alex was in a protective dome as well but then she realized that Lena wouldn’t be willing to expose her kryptonite laced self to anyone who might come into contact with Kara. She had already said that that was the reason that she hadn’t attempted to leave the mansion. 

“There’s nothing. I can’t flush it out of my system with a little sunlight, Alex.” Lena’s tone was biting but her shoulders dropped immediately and Alex accepted her silent apology with a barely there nod. 

Lena was right. Her body was producing the kryptonite, not just fighting it off.  They couldn’t target the symptoms to get rid of it like an infection. Lena described it as a cancer and cancers had to be attacked at the source. But wouldn’t a Kryptonian cancer require a Kryptonian cure? 

A sudden thought struck Kara. A very, very risky idea came to mind, one that Kara wasn’t sure would work but if it did...it had to be worth a try, at least. 

“If the problem is in your bone marrow,” Kara said, breaking up the argument that Alex and Lena had gotten into. Both women turned to look at her. “Then maybe my bone marrow is the solution.” 

“Kara, what are you talking about?” Alex asked. Kara stared at Lena and could almost see the moment that Kara’s idea struck Lena’s brain. 

“A bone marrow transplant.” Lena said. “My human blood, if there’s any of it left, can’t fight off the kryptonite because I can’t process the solar energy to expel it from my body. But if I had Kryptonian blood…” 

“Would that work?” Kara directed the question to Alex, as the only medical doctor in the room. 

“I don’t know,” Alex answered. “We’d need to test it before we did any kind of transplant, pull samples from you both and see how they interact and even if it does work, it’ll be painful.” Alex knew that Lena already understood how painful kryptonite poisoning was to Kara, so she didn’t bother to elaborate on that. 

“I’m already in pain,” Lena said, resigned. “I can handle it.” 

“But there could be side effects to a transplant like this,” Alex said warningly. “Human and alien blood generally don’t mix well, not to mention trying to type match the two of you.” Alex bit her lip. 

“I can have Hope run a simulation on possible side effects after we have samples,” Lena said. Her gaze was focused on Kara, her eyes filled with so much longing that it took everything in Kara to keep her from fighting her way out of her little bubble. “It’s worth looking into, at least.” 

“If we go to the Red Lab, I should be able to get the samples from both of you without putting myself or Kara at risk.” Alex said to Lena, waiting until she nodded. 

“Hope, activate mobile protection.” 

“Yes Miss Luthor.” The same robotic voice that Kara had heard earlier but not really paid attention too spoke again. The bubble around Kara wavered for a moment and then repositioned around Kara so she was standing in the direct center of it. 

“The dome will move with you now,” Lena said to the Danvers sisters. “Follow me.” 

~

The Red Lab turned out to be a room with lighting fixtures that all simulated red sunlight. It didn’t seem to have much of an effect on Lena, but Kara was completely powerless for the first time in a long while. She had blown out her powers in an effort to vent her frustration right after Lena was taken but had been careful not to do so again since. A part of her would always be ready to fly to Lena’s aide, even when Kara didn’t think Lena would be calling for her. 

Alex collected the bone marrow sample from Kara first before donning the protective suit that Lena insisted she wear to collect the sample from Lena. Lena had opted to take something that would knock her out for the collection process while Kara had simply switched to yellow sun lamps to recover after Alex had withdrawn the needle. Collecting the sample hurt like hell but Kara wasn’t willing to let Lena out of her sight for even a moment. 

“She’s strong Kara,” Alex said as she began analyzing the samples she had taken from both women. “She’ll make it through this.” 

“She’s been through so much, Alex. If I hadn’t left her alone that day, she would never have to go through this.” 

“You don’t know that.”  Alex turned from the samples to look at her sister, who was lying on a medical bed and staring across the space that separated her and Lena as if it were a great chasm that even Supergirl didn’t dare attempt to cross. “Lex would have found some other way to get to her. He is the one that did this to her, he deserves the blame.” 

Kara didn’t respond. Alex knew that her sister didn’t believe her but she let the matter drop for now. They could all play the blame game when Lena wasn’t in danger of dying and Kara finally worked up the courage to tell her how she felt. 

Alex had always known that there was something different about Kara’s friendship with Lena. Different in a good way, Alex knew that even before she fully trusted Lena. Lena had breathed a new life into Kara. Lena with Kara was warmth and light and such a strong sense of rightness that Alex wouldn’t have been able to disapprove even if she wanted to. She and Maggie had once made a bet that Kara and Lena would get together eventually. Before they lost Lena, Maggie had said that she would be surprised if Kara and Lena weren’t already together and were just keeping it a secret for the time being. Alex had laughed at the time but after Lena disappeared she had started to wonder about that. 

She wondered what Maggie would say if she were there with them. Last Alex had heard, Maggie was working as a detective in Gotham, on the fast track for lieutenant. Alex was proud of her and it didn’t hurt to think about her so much anymore. 

Alex had plenty of time to observe her sister over the last three years that Lena had been away. She saw that light in Kara growing dimmer each day as another search for Lena led to nothing but empty estates. She watched Kara become a shell of herself. Sister nights happened less frequently. Game nights were basically a thing of the past these days. Kara worked at CatCo but some of her drive was gone. She saved the day as Supergirl but the city had noticed that their shining beacon of hope had lost some of her rigor. It was easy to see the signs once Alex had started to look for them and so she was unsurprised when Kara broke down in her arms on the one year anniversary of Lena’s kidnapping.  

Kara had such a capacity for love and she had met her equal in that endeavor in Lena. Alex would make sure that both of them got the chance to share their love with one another. Even if she had to resurrect Lex Luthor to do it, she would find a cure for Lena. 

As Alex set about working on the solution and instructed Hope to begin running her simulation, Lena’s pain medication began to wear off and she opened her eyes to find Kara looking directly at her from across the room. 

Truthfully, when Lena had managed to break through the protective dome Lex had created over her, she wasn’t expecting such a quick response. She wasn’t expecting any response really, the message that she had intended to send to the DEO remained unsent. The dome had closed before Lena could manage a direct pathway to the three people that she wanted to receive the message. She had no idea that the DEO had satellites that constantly scanned the globe for kryptonite until Alex showed up at the front door of the Mansion. 

She should have known that it would only be a matter of time before Kara showed up as well. Where one Danvers sister went, the other inevitably followed. 

Lena had been thinking about the day she would see Kara again for so long that it had seemed an impossibility. Lena rarely got what she wished for and she wanted to see Kara again more than anything. Kara had been a constant, grounding present in Lena’s life three years ago even with the secret of Kara’s alter-ego hanging between them. Whenever Lena needed an escape from the pressure of being Lena Luthor, CEO of L-Corp, the Good Luthor, the Bad Luthor, or any other moniker that people bestowed on her, she knew she could find a safe haven with Kara. 

With Kara, Lena didn’t have to fit herself into any specific mold. There were no expectations with Kara. Lena could just be. Lena had realized how much she had come to rely on such a reprieve until it was ripped from her. This past year had been especially bad, knowing that she was only a half hour away from the person she wanted to see most but also knowing that she couldn’t go to Kara even if the protective dome wasn’t in place. She wouldn’t subject Kara to that kind of pain if she could avoid it and she hated that their first interaction in three years was marred with the pain of kryptonite poisoning inflicted on Kara by Lena’s mere presence in the room. 

Lena met Kara’s eyes across the gap that separated them and if she wasn’t lying down, the force of Kara’s emotions would likely have brought Lena to her knees. Kara’s eyes had always been so expressive, the one thing that Kara couldn’t school into a certain look even when she approached Lena as Supergirl. Kara’s eyes gave her away every time which is why Lena hadn’t been surprised when Lex revealed Kara’s secret. She had known for a long time and was simply waiting for Kara to trust her enough to reveal it herself. Kara’s eyes had not lost their intensity in the past three years. If anything, all the emotions that Lena used to tell herself were just wishful thinking on her part where there in spades. 

Before, Lena could only see the barest hints of the feelings she had for Kara being returned. Just a moment where it looked like Kara wanted to kiss Lena just as much as Lena wanted to kiss Kara. Then the moment would pass and Lena was positive that she had imagined that the moment was ever there in the first place. Now, Lena could see everything in Kara’s eyes. 

The blue of Kara’s iris was clouded in pain and guilt, so much of it that Lena was certain that there would always be a part of Kara who would never forgive herself for not protecting Lena. Lena would have to work on that with her, she needed Kara to understand that Lena didn’t blame her in the slightest, nor does she hate Kara for not finding her before. She’ll tell Kara everything, will be relentless in her love until Kara accepts that she hasn’t lost Lena. Because behind the pain and guilt, Lena can see the longing that Kara holds within. There’s so much in Kara’s eyes but the most powerful of all is the love there and that’s the part that gives Lena the strength to make it through the next part of all of this. She needs to get better, she needs to be able to touch Kara again. She needs to show Kara how she feels. Words won’t be enough, but they’re all she has at the moment. 

“Kara,” Lena says in a whisper. It’s almost too low, she thinks, for Kara to hear without her powers, but Kara seems to come alive at the sound of her name coming from Lena. “Kara…” 

“I know,” Kara replies just as soft. Lena wonders what Kara can see in her own eyes. Lena knows that she’s not holding anything back, the effort of doing so would take too much out of her and she doesn’t want to sleep through this. Not if there’s a chance that this is the last time she’ll see Kara. “I know, Lena. Me too.” 

It’s not enough to encompass the strength of Lena’s emotions, but she feels the relief wash over her anyhow. Kara knows, she sees in Lena all the things that Lena sees in Kara and if Lena doesn’t make it through her treatment, that would be enough to send her to the next life with a smile on her face. 

“Tell me something,” Lena requests a moment later. She and Kara are still gazing at each other, both refusing to look away. 

“What do you want to hear about?” 

“Everything,” Lena says. “I’ve missed so much. I want to hear it all.” 

Kara starts talking then, telling Lena all about what she had missed in the last three years. Kara’s stories are varied and not always connected to one another but Lena hangs on to every word. She smiles when Kara speaks with pride in her voice about the articles that she had written, about her continued fight for alien amnesty. She glares when Kara mentions Mon-El and then finds herself smiling at Kara’s obvious annoyance with the man and resolves that if she ever sees Mon-El again, she’ll let him know exactly where he can shove his unwanted affections. She laughs when Kara talks about some of the more ridiculous saves she had made as Supergirl and feels her heart clench painfully when Kara glosses over the encounters that were actually a threat to her life. Kara talks about songs that have come out and shows that she thinks Lena would like and every part of Lena aches to hold this amazing woman close to her and breath her in. 

Alex and Hope are still running tests by the time Kara finishes her stories of the last three years, so Kara switches tracks to talking about all the things they could do in the next three years. 

It seemed that Kara had accumulated quite the bucket list in the time that Lena had been gone. They were going to travel the world together, Kara decided, first this world and then they’d hop on over to Earth-1 and do it all over again. Kara would take a sabbatical from both CatCo and Supergirl so she could just be with Lena. Then after their travels, they’d come back to National City and Kara would pick back up as a reporter but maybe not for CatCo anymore. Maybe she’d want to branch out by then. It wouldn’t matter so much because she’d be well on her way to winning a Pulitzer so she could get a job anywhere. And Lena, she could go back to the labs again. L-Corp was barely a shadow of its former glory but Lena could restore it and make it even better than before. Then she’d win a Nobel Prize. 

Then, once Kara and Lena’s careers were both where they wanted it to be, they’d get married and settle down in a house outside the city. One with huge windows and lots of space for family and friends to be there. It would have to be well protected because Kara didn’t think she could simply walk away from being Supergirl, but it would be theirs. Somewhere they could raise a family if they wanted too, or somewhere they could simply be together. 

“I think we should at least go on a date before we start talking about marriage,” Lena said with a watery chuckle. Her body was exhausted, as it normally was after a year of having kryptonite for blood, but she forced herself to stay awake. “No need for such a rush.” 

“We’ve wasted enough time already,” Kara disagreed but she was smiling warmly. Lena felt the ever present desire to reach for Kara tug painfully at her heart. “But you’re right. We could get married tomorrow or ten years from now. I’d be happy either way as long as I get to be with you.” 

“Me too,” Lena felt her eyes begin to close and forced them back open. 

“It’s okay, honey,” Kara told her and Lena practically melted at the pet name that rolled off Kara’s tongue. “Rest, we’ll talk more later.” 

“Promise?” Lena didn’t need to open her eyes to know that Kara was wearing that soft smile that Lena had only ever seen directed at her. 

“I promise.” 

Eased by the knowledge that Kara was only a few feet away, Lena fell into her first easy sleep in three years. 

~

Lena awoke sometime later when Hope’s electronic voice filled the Red Lab. 

“Simulation successful. Ratio for Kryptonian to Human bone marrow donation found. Side effects: temporary Kryptonian blood cells will result in temporary Kryptonian abilities. Including sensitivity to kryptonite.” 

“Will we be able to flush the kryptonite from Lena’s blood stream without harming her?” Alex asked the artificial intelligence as she looked at the simulation results that Hope had brought up on the monitor before her. 

“Affirmative,” Hope answered. “Exposure to yellow solar radiation will extrapolate the kryptonite from Miss Luthor just as it would for any natural born Kryptonian. Warning: this process is likely to be extremely painful due to the amount of kryptonite currently within Miss Luthor’s bloodstream.” 

“How long would it take?” Kara asked. Lena searched for Kara around the room and found that the other woman was standing close to her sister. They must have merged their bubbles together. The thought nearly made Lena giggle in her exhaustion. 

“Full decontamination will take approximately 48 hours under a constant yellow sun.” 

“We’ll be able to do that here?” 

“Yes,” Lena spoke up, alerting both Davers sisters to her waking. They both turned to her, Kara taking an instinctive step forward until she remembered that she wouldn’t be able to reach Lena and she halted her motions. “The lights around the whole room can switch from red to yellow with a command.” 

“Lena,” Kara said softly. Their eyes met and Lena was hit with the sudden realization that she was seeing all of Kara in that moment. Kara was wearing her day clothes but her hair was down and she didn’t have her glasses on. Even the silver ring that she always wore was gone. This wasn’t Kara Danvers or Supergirl but the woman who inhabited them both. Kara Zor-El. 

“I’m okay,” Lena replied. “Better than okay, if this works.” 

“It will,” Alex and Kara said at the same time, both of their voices ringing with confidence. Lena smiled at the unfailing faith of the Danvers and wondered what she did to deserve such heroes coming to her rescue. She wouldn’t dwell on it though, she would just be happy that they were here and that they had found a way to save her. 

“Okay,” Lena smiled. “Then let’s do it.” 

“Lena, are you sure?” Kara asked, her concern written plainly across the delicate features of her face. “This isn’t going to be an easy process. It’s going to hurt.” 

“It’s worth it,” Lena said surely. 

“It’s dangerous.” 

“I’m already dying, darling,” Lena said. She almost wanted to take it back when she saw Kara flinch at the word but she pressed on. “If this is my only chance to get to...to live again, I’m going to take it.” Even if the kryptonite wasn’t slowly killing her, Lena wouldn’t have really been alive. Not without Kara, who made her feel like life was worth living, who made her feel like love was worth it. Without Kara, Lena was simply surviving. 

“Okay,” Kara agreed after a moment of staring into Lena’s eyes. “Alex, what do you need to do this?” 

“Another bone marrow sample from you Kara,” Alex said. “I have enough of Lena’s left to get the ratio right, but I’ll need more of yours. The ratio isn’t quite even but since Lena’s human, after the kryptonite is gone her blood should return to normal on it’s own.” 

“Okay, let’s do it.” Kara moved back over to the bed that she had used before and removed her top before settling on her side again, facing Lena’s bed. Despite the skin on display, Kara’s modesty only protected by the bra covering her chest, Lena kept her gaze focused on Kara’s face as Alex extracted another sample of bone marrow from the base of her spine. 

The extraction process took longer the second time around because Alex needed a larger sample than she had before, but Kara hardly flinched from the pain. It made Lena wonder just how Kara’s pain tolerance truly was. There was no denying that Kara was physically strong but Lena wasn’t sure how that translated to the pain she endured. She’d seen Supergirl stumble back from a blow before and grit her teeth as she called upon her strength, but she can’t remember ever seeing any outward evidence to suggest that Kara was in pain unless there was kryptonite involved. 

“Okay,” Alex said minutes later, after Kara’s sample had been added to the bone marrow that would be injected back into Lena. Kara had pulled her top back on and was sitting up on her bed now with her gaze still fixed surely on Lena. “We’ll need to give you about an hour to generate enough Kryptonian blood cells to start the process and then we’ll switch the lights to yellow to start the decontamination.” 

Lena nodded her understanding of the procedure and held still while Alex donned the protective suit and left her bubble of protection to approach Lena. The miracle cure administered, the only thing the three women could do was wait. 

They didn’t speak during the first hour while they waited for Lena to be able to flush the poison from her system. Kara had many things that she wanted to say, but they were things meant for only Lena to hear. Apologies and declarations and promises that Kara would do anything in her power to keep. Alex simply kept quiet while she monitored Lena’s vitals while occasionally checking on her sister. Lena didn’t speak because everything she thought about saying sounded like a goodbye and she knew that Kara would refuse to listen to anything that resembled Lena giving up. 

There was no sound in the room that wasn’t mechanical in nature until Lena let out a pained groan. It was just past the hour mark and the kryptonite in her system was finally reacting to the new blood cells she was generating. Her green veins were glowing stronger now and Lena curled in on herself. 

“Hope, activate the yellow lights.” Kara’s order was followed in an instant and the room was bathed in yellow light. Lena continued to write in pain on her bed and Kara placed her hands on the dome that held her in place. “Hope, let me out.” 

“Negative. Kryptonite levels around Miss Luthor -” 

“I don’t care, let me out.” Kara repeated the order, pushing harder against the force field that kept her from getting to Lena. 

“Kara-” the name escaped Lena in a sharp gasp of pain. “Kara it hurts.” 

“I know, honey, I know,” Kara said soothingly. “I’m right here, Lena. You’ll be okay.” 

Kara was on her feet then, standing with her hands pressed against the inner wall of the boundary that kept her from Lena. She clenched her fists and beat them against the unforgiving surface, helpless to the tears that fell from her eyes. She knew it would be agony for Lena to go through this process but she hadn’t accounted for the torture it would be to watch Lena suffer and be unable to comfort her. Kara beat against the wall again and then abruptly, the wall was gone. 

Kara stumbled forward and caught herself on the edge of Lena’s bed. There was still ambient kryptonite around Lena, but it was nothing that Kara couldn’t withstand since the yellow sun lamps were on. 

“I’m here, Lena. I’m right here,” Kara lifted Lena’s body from the bed and moved her over just enough that Kara could lay beside her. Her own pain from the kryptonite coursing through Lena’s body increased but Kara pushed it away and drew Lena close against her chest. “I’ve got you, honey.” 

“Kara, you can’t be here,” Lena protested with a feeble attempt to pull away. 

“Shush, I’m not going anywhere. Just let me hold you, Lena. Please.” 

Lena wanted to protest but it felt so good to be in Kara’s arms again. Kara still smelled like sunshine and vanilla and Lena wanted to drown in her. Kara’s arms were firm around her and she spoke with her lips pressed against Lena’s forehead as she begged Lena to let her stay and Lena realized that Kara needed this just as much as Lena did. She wouldn’t let Lena suffer through this alone, not if there was something she could do to help her, even if it was just to hold Lena’s trembling body in her arms until the pain was gone. 

Lena relented with a nod and settled into Kara’s embrace, hiding her face in the crook of Kara’s neck in an attempt to muffle her cries as her body finally began to fight back against the poison within her bones. 

The next 48 hours were the longest of Kara’s life. Lena had succumbed to the pain in her body two hours after they switched to the yellow sun lamps and had been limp in Kara’s arms ever since. She would shift occasionally as the aches and pains in her body shifted, always pressing closer to Kara like she thought that if she could get close enough, all her pain would go away. Kara held Lena close through all of it, alternating between rubbing soothing circles on Lena’s back and carding her fingers through Lena’s hair. Sometimes when Lena shifted against, Kara would whisper soothing words into her hair or press kisses to her hairline until Lena settled again. Most of the time, Kara held Lena silence and prayed to Rao, begging him to end Lena’s pain as soon as possible. 

She was dimly aware of Alex setting up some sort of alert system and then leaving the lab for several hours, but Kara was too focused on Lena to really care about anything else going on. The green was fading from Lena’s skin at an excruciatingly slow pace, but fading nonetheless. After six hours, the ambient kryptonite around Lena had decreased enough that Kara couldn’t feel it affecting her anymore, which she took as a good sign. Kara considered getting out of the bed at that point so that Lena could be better exposed to the yellow sun lamps, but whenever Kara tried to move out of their embrace Lena would stir and pull her closer. Kara stayed awake for the first 24 hours, not letting herself go to sleep until Alex was back in the lab so that she could be sure there was someone there, just in case. 

“Winn and J’onn are working on bringing down the dome from the outside,” Alex said once she had returned from the lab. “I’ve got Hope helping them where she can but I think the dome was meant to keep the kryptonite from being discovered, not Lena. She should be able to walk out of here once all the kryptonite is gone.” 

“Thanks, Alex,” Kara said to her sister. 

“You love her,” Alex said in response, moving closer to the bed that currently held Kara and the still unconscious Lena. “I saw how much losing her the first time destroyed you. I wasn’t about to let that happen again.” 

“I’m sorry I’ve kinda disappeared on you for the past few years,” Kara apologized. Sure, Kara had been around, but she and Alex were both aware that just because Kara was physically with her sister didn’t mean she was mentally there as well. 

“You were grieving, I understood, and you were still there when I needed you,” Alex swallowed against the emotion in her throat. “She’s got a long way to go Kara, and she’s going to need you every step of the way.” 

“I’ll be here, even when she tried to push me away.” 

“But will you let her be there for you?” 

“What?” Kara’s brow furrowed in the familiar crinkle. Alex rolled her eyes and nudged her sister’s shoulder gently, the one that Lena wasn’t using as a pillow. 

“Don’t give me that, Kara. You’ve blamed yourself for her disappearance from the beginning and I know you’ve been thinking about all the pain she could have avoided if you’d just kept looking.” Kara looked away, unable to meet her sisters’ eyes. “But we both know that none of this is your fault. You won’t be able to help Lena until you accept that she doesn’t blame you.” 

“How do you know she doesn’t?” 

“We talked about it,” Alex shrugged. “I was here for like six hours before I even realized that I had missed a check in. Lena knew she was dying and all she wanted to do was make sure that you wouldn’t blame yourself for it. That woman would give you the moon if you asked for it.” 

“I just want her,” Kara admitted softly. “I always have, but I was too scared to admit it before.” 

“Given what the two of you were talking about earlier, I’m certain she wants you too,” Alex smirked as her sister blushed. “I was literally two feet away for that entire conversation, of course I heard.” 

“You don’t, y’know, disapprove?” Kara asked nervously. 

“Lena is so much more than her family name, I couldn’t see that in the beginning but I do now. And even if I did still have a problem, I’d get over it. You love her and I trust your judgement.” 

“You’re the best sister ever,” Kara said seriously. Alex smiled and smoothed Kara’s hair with her hand. 

“I know,” Kara chuckled. “Now get some sleep. It’s been three years since you got a decent night of sleep.” 

Kara nodded and shifted slightly so she could tuck her nose against Lena’s hair, filling her senses with everything Lena before she let her eyes drift closed safe in the knowledge that Alex wouldn’t let anything happen to them. 

When Kara awoke sometime later, it was to the sound of quiet chatter around her and the smell of pizza wafting through the lab. 

“Hey, Kara,” Winn smiled at her from where he and Alex had been looking at something on the monitor when he noticed that she was awake. “We were able to bring down the dome from the outside. Lena left a backdoor that we could use when she first hacked it.” 

“Good,” Kara smiled back and then turned her gaze to where Lena was still resting against her side. “How long was I asleep?” 

“About 8 hours, Lena’s got another 16 to go before she’ll wake up, we think.” Alex gestured to the monitor that she and Winn were looking at. Kara squinted slightly to use her enhanced vision to read the monitor without getting out of the bed. She breathed a sigh of relief when she noticed that Lena’s vitals had improved greatly and the projected decontamination percentage was hovering around 60. “Most of the kryptonite has been replaced with regular Kryptonian blood which should hopefully repair any internal damage that she sustained over the past year.” 

“How long will she have the Kryptonian blood in her system?” 

“We estimate about three days past the decontamination is when her blood will start to go back to normal. Her body is only producing the Kryptonian blood cells because it’s being forced to thanks to an isotope that Lena invented while attempting to cure herself.” 

“So, roughly five days and her body will be back to normal?” Kara looked back down at Lena, taking in the movement of her chest with every breath and listening to the way their hearts almost beat in tandem. 

“I don’t think she should move before then, just in case, but yes.” Alex smiled as Winn moved over to grab a paper plate loaded with pizza and presented it to Kara like one might hand over an Olympic medal. 

“Five days, and then I can take her home.” Kara spoke softly, mostly to herself and Lena alone. She ducked her head down low to press a kiss against Lena’s forehead. Lena shifted slightly at the contact, nuzzling closer to Kara. 

Winn, recognizing that Kara wouldn’t be moving from the bed anytime soon, rolled a convenient tray nearby over to the bed and arranged it so that Kara would be able to eat her pizza without letting go of Lena. 

“I can’t wait until she wakes up,” Winn said softly, excitement burning in his eyes. Kara had almost forgotten that Lena and Winn had been well on their way to being good friends without Kara in the middle when Lena had been taken. “I’ve missed her.” 

“Me, too.” Kara offered her friend a warm smile as he squeezed her shoulder and then backed away. 

Kara ate her pizza slowly and then returned to studying Lena in the quiet of the lab. Alex and Winn both retreated to nearby rooms to get some sleep, with instructions given to Hope to alert them if anything changed in the lab. Kara remained in the bed with Lena, softly stroking over her hair and back in random patterns until sleep eventually claimed her again as well. 

When Kara next awoke, it was to the feeling of soft fingertips brushing across the features of her face. Kara’s eyes opened and she was met with what was possibly the most beautiful sight in any universe, Lena awake and sitting up enough to lean over Kara slightly, her eyes naturally bright and her lips pulled into a soft smile. 

“Lena,” Kara said the name on an exhale, one hand finding Lena’s waist and the other reaching to cup her face. Lena’s smile brightened. 

“Hello, darling,” Lena returned. “I missed you.” 

“I missed you, too,” Kara felt the tears forming in her eyes and was once again helpless against them. She swore that she hadn’t cried this many times in the span of three days since she first arrived on Earth, but she just couldn’t help it. Lena was here, alive, in her arms and looking at Kara like she was the most precious object Lena had ever seen and Kara’s entire being sobbed with relief. “You’re really here?” 

“I am,” Lena promised. “I’m so sorry I left you, Kara. I never wanted to.” 

“It’s not your fault,” Kara said vehemently. “I shouldn’t have left you alone.” Lena frowned and brought their foreheads to rest together, stroking Kara’s cheek with her thumb and catching the stray tears that fell. 

“If I don’t get to blame myself, neither do you,” Lena said with quiet determination. “I don’t blame you for any of this. It was my mother and Lex who did this to me, to us.” 

“I promised that I would always protect you,” Kara said desperately. 

“You did, you’re the reason they didn’t kill me outright. Lex knew how I felt about you and he was more than willing to use it against me.” Lena continued softly stroking Kara’s cheek as she lifted her head and kissed Kara’s forehead. “Don’t you dare think about pulling away from me now, Kara Zor-El.” 

“I should have told you about that, too,” Kara admitted softly. “You deserved to hear it from me.” 

“If it makes you feel better, Lex didn’t tell me that. I already knew.” Lena chuckled softly as Kara pulled away slightly and looked at Lena in surprise. “Darling, you told me that you flew to my office on a bus.” 

“That...wasn’t my best moment.” 

“No kidding,” Lena had the very strong urge to connect their lips but she stomped it down. There would be time for that later and she didn’t want their first kiss to be tainted by the memory of Lena’s time away. “But that wasn’t really what gave it away.” 

“What did then?” Kara asked curiously. She was moving her thumb in a circle against Lena’s hip in a motion that was absent minded but one that Lena was acutely aware of. 

“There were a lot of little things that had me wondering, but I knew for sure when you rescued me from Lillian and Cyborg Superman.” Lena offered Kara a warm smile. “You were the only one who believed in me no matter what, and when you showed up as Supergirl with that same certainty, I just knew.” 

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Kara asked, her tone curious and absent any hint of accusation. 

“I wanted you to trust me enough to tell me yourself.” Lena looked away, suddenly shy. “I was hoping that when you did finally come clean, we would talk about us.” 

“We would have,” Kara said surely. “I think that’s part of why I was still waiting. I already felt so strongly about you but I was scared that you wouldn’t feel the same way. I used my secret identity as a way of avoiding us being anything more than friends.” 

“I would say it was effective, but I think we’ve always been more than friends.” Lena said with a soft smile. Kara chuckled and nodded in agreement. There had always been a sense of something more between them, even if they’d never acknowledge it before. 

“I was going to tell you, after the invasion force was gone. I went to your office right after it was over, but you were already gone.” Kara leaned into the touch when Lena shifted her grip slightly to cup Kara’s cheek. “I’m glad that you know. I don’t want to have any secrets from you.” 

“I feel the same,” Lena blinked sleepily at Kara for a moment. “I don’t want to go back to sleep.” 

“But you need to,” Kara guided Lena back into her arms, positioning them so that they lay side by side, facing one another. Kara rested one arm across Lena’s hip and wound the other one beneath the pillow. Lena shuffled closer and tucked her nose into the crook of Kara’s neck, returning Kara’s embrace. “So sleep, I’ll be here when you wake up.” 

“Promise?” Lena smiled against Kara’s neck when she felt the lips pressed against her forehead slip into a soft smile. 

“Promise.” 

~

Just as Alex predicted, it was another five days before Lena was strong enough to leave the mansion. She still felt fairly weak now that both the kryptonite and Kryptonian blood had left her system so she had leaned heavily on Kara as they made their way out of the mansion. Lena wanted to walk out of the mansion on her own and then get to the boundary that Lex had set before she let Kara fly them back into the city. Whether it was a matter of pride or of Lena showing herself that she was stronger than whatever Lex had done to her, Kara didn’t know, but she supported Lena the whole way. Once they reached the boundary, Lena all but collapsed into Kara’s arms. Kara picked up Lena and cradled her to her chest to fly them back to Kara’s loft without bothering to change into her Supergirl seat. It was the middle of the night, she probably wouldn’t be seen and even if she was, Kara didn’t care. All she cared about was getting Lena home. 

Kara placed Lena back on her feet after they landed in Kara’s living room and stood quietly as Lena observed her home. She knew that Lena was looking for anything that was different from the last time she had been there and wondered what she saw. Kara stayed silent when Lena carefully moved away from her and ran her hand along the soft blanket that rested across the back of Kara’s couch. Kara smiled at the action. The blanket was one that Lena had gotten as a bit of a joke, claiming that Kara didn’t have a soft enough blanket for her delicate sensibilities. Lena had taken to snuggling in that blanket with Kara when they’d had movie nights together, the soft material covering both of their laps as they sat closer together than friends strictly should. 

“You kept it,” Lena said softly. 

“Of course,” Kara stepped up behind Lena and wrapped her arms around Lena’s waist from behind. Her smile turned soft when Lena leaned back into the embrace and covered Kara’s hand on her stomach with one of her own. “I was hoping we’d get to have another movie night.” 

“We will,” Lena promised. Kara kissed her forehead. “Kara?” 

“Hmm?” 

“I need a shower.” 

“Okay,” Kara agreed easily, pressing another kiss to Lena’s forehead. 

“I…” Lena hesitated for a moment. The truth was that she could probably manage a shower on her own but she wasn’t ready to be away from Kara for that long. The longer she was around Kara, the more scared Lena became that she hadn’t been rescued at all. “Can you help me?” 

“Of course,” Kara agreed immediately. “Whatever you need Lena, I’m here for you.” 

Lena nodded and stretched up to kiss Kara’s cheek rather than voice her thanks. Kara understood anyway and offered Lena a smile as she took her hand and led her towards the bathroom. They paused in the bedroom long enough for Kara to grab both of them clean clothes to sleep in and then they were in Kara’s small bathroom with the door closed. 

Kara reached to turn on the shower and had Lena test the temperature before helping Lena undress. Her hands were soft and sure as they moved across Lena’s body, her eyes never lingering for long enough to make Lena uncomfortable even Lena was unable to offer the same courtesy to Kara. Kara undressed herself quickly and Lena drank in the sight of every inch. Her eyes roamed over Kara’s form unabashedly and she saw the flush rise along Kara’s chest as she noticed. 

“Come here, baby,” Kara requested softly, holding her hand out to Lena. Lena placed her hand in Kara’s and let herself be pulled closer until their bare bodies were pressed together. “You can touch me, Lena,” Kara whispered in her ear. “I won’t disappear.” 

“What if none of this is real?” Lena asked in a voice softer than a whisper. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve dreamed of seeing you like this.” 

“It is real, Lena. I’m here and I’m as real as you are.” Kara promised. “Listen to my heart beat, feel the warmth of my body.” 

Lena placed her ear against Kara’s chest and closed her eyes, soaking in all that Kara had to offer, from the sound of the heart beat in her ear to the softness of Kara’s skin against hers to the warmth that filled her being. This had to be real. It had never felt like this in a dream before. 

“You’re real?” 

“I’m real,” Kara said. “I’m real and I’m yours.” 

“I love you, Kara.” Lena said, pulling away so she could look Kara in the eyes as she spoke the words that had been threatening to burst from her chest since she first saw Kara again at the mansion. 

“I love you, too, Lena.” Kara returned the words with a smile. “I will always be madly in love with you.” 

Lena leaned up, closing the miniscule distance between them. Her words danced across Kara’s lips when she spoke again. 

“Show me.” 

Kara did. 

She pressed their lips together reverently, pulling Lena closer until they were one and the same. Her hands traced gentle paths against Lena’s skin, pressing her love deep until Lena was sure that she could feel it in her bones. Their lips moved together in a dance that seemed to be second nature, as if it was something that they were always meant to share with one another. Lena whimpered against Kara’s mouth, overwhelmed by the promises Kara whispered into her skin. She wasn’t aware that she was crying until Kara was pulling away to wipe her tears from her cheeks. 

“I’ve got you, Lena. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.” 

Lena nodded mutely and let Kara pull her into the shower. The hot beat against Lena’s skin soothingly, no match for the heat that left trails of fire and goosebumps across the surface as Kara gently washed Lena’s body. Kara’s hands massaged the soap into Lena’s skin, massaging her tired muscles at the same time. Lena had to brace a hand against the wall to keep her knees from buckling under the weight of Kara’s devotion. 

Kara showed the same love and care as she washed Lena’s hair. Lena then leaned against the shower wall as Kara quickly washed her own hair and body and then stepped into Kara’s space before Kara could reach to turn off the water. She didn’t say anything as she wrapped her arms around Kara and pressed close, shivering as their bodies slid together under the water. Kara returned the embrace without a moment of hesitation, pressing soothing kisses into Lena’s hair and whispering assurances in her ear as Lena silently cried against her shoulder. 

They stayed like that until the water ran cold and Lena was shivering in Kara’s arms, both from the temperature and from her building desire to return the gentle affections Kara bestowed on her. Kara led them from the shower and tried Lena’s body with a towel before wrapping her up. Before Kara could reach for the clothes to help Lena get dressed. 

“Don’t please,” Lena requested, hating the way her voice trembled. “I need to feel you.” 

“Okay,” Kara set the clothes back down and finished drying herself and Lena off before leading them into the bedroom. 

Lena dropped her towel and settled into Kara’s bed, taking comfort knowing that she was surrounded by Kara's scent as the woman herself went around the apartment to turn off lights, close the windows, and make sure the door was locked. Lena had no idea how late it was but she didn’t care much. She’d been in a near constant state of exhaustion since she’d been rid of the kryptonite in her body. 

Kara climbed into bed after what seemed like hours to Lena but had probably been only a matter of seconds. She pulled Lena into her arms and kissed her softly, moving their lips languidly together. Lena revelled in the pressure of their bodies pressed together. Being like this with Kara felt more like home than anything else ever had. 

Kara doesn’t protest when Lena angles her head to deep their kiss or when Lena sits up and shifts to straddle Kara’s waist. She simply holds Lena’s hips and kisses back until Lena pulls away, breathless, with desire pooling low in her belly. 

“Are you sure?” Kara asks, chest heaving. Lena doesn’t even think about saying no. She’s wanted this, wanted Kara for so long that even though she’s certain that she’s not dreaming anymore, it still feels like a dream come true. 

“I’m sure,” Lena responds. “I love you.” 

“I love you.” 

Kara’s bright smile is pressed against Lena’s lips and they lose themselves to each other. Lena runs her hands along Kara’s body, learning the places that make Kara sigh when she runs her fingers over them and the ones that make her gasp when her lips and teeth follow the same paths. She listens to her own name falling from Kara’s lips like a prayer and is helpless to the way her body trembles when Kara worships her in kind. 

They move together through the night, learning all the things about each other that they should have learned three years ago. Lena climbs higher and higher under Kara’s ministrations, her only thought dedicated to making sure Kara feels the same euphoria until they both collapse into each other’s embrace just as the sun rises. 

“I wouldn’t have waited so long if I’d known it would be that good,” Kara jokes softly, her head pressed against Lena’s neck. Lena chuckles and presses her fingers into Kara’s hair, scratching lightly at her scalp. 

“We have plenty of time now, don’t we?” 

Kara’s smile is pressed into the soft skin above Lena’s pulse point as she answers. 

“We do. We have forever.” 

“Forever,” Lena hummed softly, running her free hand across Kara’s arm. She liked the sound of that, Lena thought, as she watched the sky outside the window fade from pink to blue. 

Forever in the arms of the woman she loved most. That was better than anything Lena could have ever dreamed up on her own. 

[jamesvanriemsdyk]

Best GMs and coaches in the league ACC to you?

we can start with gms because coaching is a bit more complicated. best gms in the league is easy to look at because like, who has a good team? who has had a consistently good team? whose locker room is the most cohesive, whose coaching staff is the best? who is the best at acquiring and keeping the best players, coaches, staff, etc? and you can see that in the way teams play. 

(putting this under the cut because it got long. and i mean Long.)

so, in no particular order: kyle dubas (leafs), steve yzerman (red wings, i will explain this later), don waddell (canes), julien brisebois (lightning), joe sakic (avs), and kelly mccrimmon/george mcphee (golden knights) (god i still hate that name and also will explain this later too) are the best in the league in my opinion. honorable mention to marc bergevin, who has held onto his job much longer than he arguably should have, but still has a decent team on the ice and a decent coaching staff, although the french rule does severely handicap them (i understand why it exists but it does, it just does). 

david poile (preds) is the longest tenured gm in the league (has been the preds gm since fucking 1997, thats insane, thats legit before i was born, what the fuck), and i do genuinely think he is very good at his job, and that he is very hockey smart, but oh boy have his recent decisions been suspect as hell, and that reflects in the state of his team. doug wilson (sharks), who is the second longest tenured gm in the nhl, is in the exact same boat (the karlsson deal is a nightmare, and also did he just forget that his star core was gonna get old and retire or ??).

with dubas, waddell, brisebois, sakic, and mccrimmon/mcphee all have the same basic strengths: they draft well, they have a fundamental understanding of their team structure and how to manage public perception of the team and everything that implies, and they have two fingers on the pulse of their locker room at all times. im not going to pretend to know as much about sakic and mccrimmon/mcphee as i do the eastern gms, but it doesnt take much to figure it out. look at the avs, and their locker room, the success theyve found after being dead fucking last in the league. look at the knights and their incredible success that theyve found after literally not existing before 2017. ive talked about dubas a lot on my blog, but its incredibly easy to see that waddell and brisebois do the same shit he does, and i can do a deep dive on them if asked. bergevin has moments of brilliance, like the suzuki trade and acquiring caufield and anderson, but things like kotkaniemi’s development and their entire blue line give me a massive pause, which is why he’s not in the main list. he’s a good gm. he’s just not the best.

in regards to steve yzerman: you have to understand that this is the man that built the tampa bay lightning as we know them. this man was gm of the bolts until fucking 2018. tampa bay has been a monster in the eastern conference for years, BECAUSE of the work steve yzerman put in. his team set the franchise record for wins, and he was the first and is the only lightning gm to have won gm of the year. look up the 17-18 roster. it is, essentially, the roster that won them the cup last year. make no mistake, i think brisebois is great, and hes on the list for a reason, but the biggest part of brisebois’ success was steve yzerman’s incredible hockey mind. brisebois essentially had to sell off a fourth of his roster, and the lightning are still a top team in their division and in the league, and thats why he’s there (it is so incredibly easy to fuck shit up post cup win), but the brisebois lightning would not exist without steve yzerman, plain and simple.

what steve yzerman is doing in detroit should be watched very, very closely by every single person in the hockey world. youre fucking nuts if youre not paying attention to them, not gonna lie. the mantha trade was excellent, if really sad if you know even a bit about the wings, but the amount of draft picks steve yzerman has amassed and the way he’s using the prospects and players he already has is really fucking admirable. mike babcock left the red wings organization absolutely in tatters, and i think, honestly, it was always steve yzerman’s plan to go home to detroit and rebuild. if there is anyone who is going to strike absolute gold this draft year, it is steve yzerman. watch the red wings, i am telling you, keep a beat on detroit. they are going to be good. its not an if, its a when.

(real quick on the knights situation: mcphee was the first gm of the knights, and was also president of hockey ops at the same time, and then in 2019 mcphee said he was just gonna focus on his job as president, but we all know hes still an integral part of the way the knights are run, and he and mccrimmon have kinda been building the knight together since the beginning anyway bc mccrimmon was originally mcphee’s agm. so. thats why theyre together)

as for coaches, it’s very simple. rod brind’amour (canes), sheldon keefe (leafs, yes im biased, we’ll get into it), jared bednar (avs), joel quenneville (panthers), jon cooper (lightning), barry trotz (isles), and mike sullivan (pens).

(disclaimer: obviously coaching is done as a team, and assistants and specialist coaches and staff are all very important, but the head coaches set the tone and organize the entire machine, if you will, so im going to be talking about head coaches as if theyre the entire coaching staff. its just easier this way im sorry)

im gonna just start with the easy ones: barry trotz, mike sullivan, and jon cooper have been in the league for years. cooper is the longest tenured coach in the nhl for a reason (again, just look at the tampa bay lightning. its the gm’s job to make the coach’s life easier and the coach’s job to make the gm’s life easier, and this is one of the prime examples of it in the league. its dope as hell tbh), trotz is one of the most respected coaches in the hockey world for a reason (the caps lost something when he walked. they just did. and now the isles are absolute hell to play against and that is largely the coaching of barry trotz, you legit cannot tell me im wrong), and while mike sullivan does have his faults, i think hes found a way to please both management and the crosby-and-malkin unit, which has been really really fucking hard to do. he also led the pens to back to back cups, which you can never really uh. ignore. lmao. so theres those three.

i know less about bednar, but again, another example of the coach and gm working together to make each others’ lives easier. sakic gets bednar the players and staff he needs to make the avs better, and bednar takes those players and staff and makes them into the absolute giant they are. it wouldve been really, really easy to fuck up makar’s development, or bowen byram’s, or sam girard’s, or ryan graves’s, or jost or mackinnon or rantanen’s, but he hasn’t, and he hasn’t just given up on players like burakovsky or kadri, he’s given them new life as players and made them more successful.

joel quenneville is the reason the bl/ckh/wks were a legacy team point blank period. sure they had the talent, sure the gm drafted well, but you do not get the legacy of the chicago bl/ckh/wks without joel quenneville. they fired him on a whim and it absolutely was a mistake, and the moment the cats hired him i literally out loud said ‘oh no’ because i knew exactly what that meant for the leafs and their position in the standings. the panthers are underrated generally, yes, but they would not be the powerhouse they are this season without quenneville. just look at q’s wiki stats. he’s absolutely unbeilevable. he won the jack adams in fucking 2000, before he’d even won any of the cups with the h/wks. i cant tell you what kind of a locker room coach this guy is, but i can tell you his teams win and win convincingly, and that firing him was the biggest mistake the h/wks have made in years.

whenever i talk about coaching, i talk about rod brindamour and sheldon keefe in the same breath every single time because there is no match, and i mean none, for the love inside those locker rooms. the avs, maybe, but my point stands. keefe and brindamour fucking BLEED team spirit, it is at the center of their coaching styles and their teams are good because of it specifically. marner and matthews are good, yes, and they always have been, but they have surpassed all expectation and then some with keefe. aho, teravainen, and svechnikov are good, yes, and they always have been, but they have surpassed all expectation with brindamour. brindamour and keefe have both hashtag played the game, so they Get It, and more than that, theyve grown and changed their understanding of the game as the game itself has changed, and so they can command the authority of their teams while also connecting to them on a really deep level. i should make a note here that keefe and brindamour are incredibly, deeply hockey smart, and that they are also just technically good coaches, skimming their wiki or nhl dot com articles will tell you that, but what makes them stand out to me is that their players would fucking die for them. the leafs would go through the end boards for keefe, the canes would do the same for brindamour. travis dermott said it best when keefe got promoted: boys wanna play for him. beyond that, the management skills both brindamour and keefe have are just frankly amazing (the amount of ego keefe specifically has to manage in the leafs locker room is astounding and he does it so incredibly brilliantly). the leafs and the canes are talented, yes, and would have been talented regardless of who was coaching them. but brindamour and keefe bring both of those teams from talented to exceptional, and the true mark of an amazing coach is not only how many games their team wins, but how they win them, and the leafs and canes have been winning games this year for and because of each other, and that starts with their coaches. what makes a great coach, to me, is not the talent on the team (though that certainly helps), but how the coach manages his players no matter who they are, and how he helps those players grow not just as players as people, because no matter how much pure stats people and twitter hockey dudebros wanna deny it, that shit does affect on ice play, and it does make good players better.

so theres my analysis of the best coaches and gms of the nhl, im so sorry this is so long, oh my god. also, shoutout to @bishops--knifetrick for sending me an ask about this literally a month ago that i just never answered, sorry for that, but here i hope this is good. :)

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

HASO, “Found Out.”

I took inspiration from the ONE question on the discord server that has caused me no little amount  of annoyance. I have had it asked so many times that now there is an auto response to anyone who asks me the question. Those of you who are on the server know what I am talking about. Those of you who don’t. I will answer at the end of this post.

Simon had to see what was going on.

Granted, the admiral’s business was the Admiral’s business, but there was something strange going on here, and she felt that it was her job to figure out what that was going on. As it occurred to her, generally when something was going on with the Admiral, oftentimes it was something strange and dangerous.

The odd behavior that Corporal Ramirez was now exhibiting might be evidence of some sort of strange contagious mind control alien that…. Well she didn’t know, but it probably infected other people through like…. Spores or something.

She never knew with the Admiral. 

She made her way up onto the command deck and passed the vacant offices. Most of the officers had already clocked off for the day and gone to eat dinner or to bed. Even she should have been off by then, but the strange behavior of the corporal and reports from Yeb (the strange little Tricar with the Green mohawk who now worked with the mess hall staff) that the marine had been stealing large amounts of fruit from the walk in fridge.

Whatever was going on, she had to get down to the bottom of it even if no one else was interested in helping.

She had tried to go to Krill, the only rational person ironically not even a person, to talk to him, but he had been too busy with a relatively routine, but still emergency, surgery and had been unable to speak with her. Dr Katie had been assisting him, and she considered Dr. Katie to be the second most rational person on the ship, and super sweet, but just her luck both of them were too busy.

So it was up to her to figure out what was going on.

She made it up to the Admiral’s door and waited.

She could hear nothing overt just yet, and so she pressed her ear up against the doo hoping that she might be able to hear something, but of course there was nothing. She went to step back contemplating what might be best to do, but as she did, her hand pressed against the opening pad on the door and it slid suddenly open with the soft familiar hiss. She was a bit surprised at first, having expected the door to be locked, and so she stood there blinking owlishly.

The room was dark mostly, light spilled in from the window on the right, bathing the room in the delicate pink of a nearby nebulae.

It wasn’t the only light source though, overhead, on the ceiling a strip of blue neon rested over the bed shedding light downwards on all of his strange and nerdy possessions, movie posters, moon lander replicas, and some other weird stuff that she couldn’t identify.

She saw some movement, and looked down to see the captain’s dog waffles resting in her bed. Her tail thumped once or twice upon seeing Simon.

Simon pursed her lips, she liked Waffles well enough, but was more of a cat person, and was glad the dog didn’t get up,

However, the good things about the animal was mostly to do with her being a good indication of what was going on in the room. As far as Simon could tell, the dog didn’t seem upset in any way, or even distrubed. In fact, she lay her head back down and closed her eyes barely even bothered that Simon had intruded on her master’s room without calling.

Her eyes scanned ver the room as her eyes adjusted, the dull neon light showed more and more of the room.

And the two men lying prone on the bed.

She froze not entirely sure what to think.

Crew fraternization was CLEARLY against the UNSC rules, and a marine with the admiral had some implications that she didn’t even want to think about.

She stood there confused in the doorway for a long moment not sure what to do.

By all rights she should turn the two of them in according to the UNSC guidelines, but… but could see do that? She didn’t know? The rest of the crew would be pissed at her if she did, and she could lose her job. Was this really something she wanted to get herself involved with? Was this really something she COULD get herself involved with.

She stood there racked with indecision for the longest moment until one of the figures began to move, likely allerted. She went to turn around, to run away or something, but just then the Admiral sat up and looked over at her.

He tilted his head as if confused and then his eyes went wide.

She held up her hands, “Admiral I…”

Before she could do anything, the admiral leaped forward off the bed ran over and grabbed her arm, dragging her inside and forcing the door shut. Corporal Ramirez was sitting up now looking groggy and confused.

The Admiral had a hand clamped over her mouth.

Her eyes were wide and wild.

She tried to pull away but he gripped her tighter, “Simon, don’t freak out.”

Ramirez sat up rubbing his head.

“Promise not to freak out, and I will let you go.”

She paused and then nodded, not entirely sure she was going to do what he wanted but she relaxed anyway.

He let her go and held out his hands eying her as if he was ready to jump forward.

Simon didn’t try to run away, but she did cross her arms, “This is unacceptable, Admiral. Absolutely unacceptable.”

He frowned at her seeming oddly confused for someone who had been caught.

“But you haven’t even-”

“Fraternizing with members of the crew!” She announced, she pointed at Ramirez, “And you with your commanding officer.”

The two of them looked at each other for a second confused again before it seemed to dawn on them.

Even in the Dim neon light she saw the Admiral turn red, and Ramirez raised his hands defensively

“Woah woah hold on.”

“We are not , we were’t….”

“Never in my life.:”

“He’s not even my type.”

“This looks weird, but I promise I can explain everything.”

Simon frowned and crossed her arms, “Oh I think it is pretty obvious. You all are acting weird, and then I find you in bed together. That seems pretty clear to me.”

Admiral Vir raised a hand, “I mean I'll admit it does LOOK shady, but we fell asleep kind of on accident, but I would never, not with him.”

Ramirez frowned, “ouch, insulted, but seriously. We weren’t doing anything. And you know me, if we were I would definitely make some inappropriate joke right about now for sure.”

Simon huffed angrily.

“Then what WERE you doing.”

“Well…”

At that moment a dark snakelike shape rose up from the center of the bed, turned towards her and opened it’s mouth.

Simon screamed and tried leaping away, but the Admiral grabbed her again and clamped a hand over her mouth. She tried to fight out of his grip, but he was far too strong. The THING on the bed lifted up higher it’s mouth still open. What was that! Some kind of mind control creature! An alien brain sucker! 

She continued to struggle.

The Admiral Pushed her up against the door hand over her mouth.

“SImon, SIMON!, stop. Stop struggling and we can explain! But I swear if you scream I…. I’lll….. Well I don’t know what Ill do right now, but it will be….. Very unpleasant.” He paused and frowned, “Mindly unpleasant…… well it might be a little unpleasant, definitely a good scolding.”

She frowned in confusion and stopped struggling, and the man, once again, removed his hand from her mouth.

The thing on the bed closed its mouth and blinked one slimy yellow green eye at her.

“What. the. Fuck. is. That.”

Admiral Vir rubbed the back of his head, “Well that is…. That is Jeffery.”

“Jeffery…?”

The snake-thing unwound itself from it’s curled position and slithered onto the floor. Waffles was standing up drawn out of her bed by all the commotion, and as she stood the snake slithered over, reared up and slipped over the dog’s back, wrapping around her belly once and then once around her neck, until it was wrapped around her like some strange looking scarf, head raised into the air like some knd of demented parascope. The dog leaned her head down to lick the snake once before looking back up at Simon.

“Where…. Where did you get it.”

“Huh…. um…. So funny story, we were down on this planet you see-”

She groaned, “You stole and alien from an alien planet!.”

“I mean…. Yes and no, you se Jeffery wanted to come.”

She glowered at him, “Did Jeffery SAY that.”

“Well, no, but I did try to put him back, honestly I did, but then I went to leave. He followed after me and he just looked so sad that I couldn’t leave him.” The man’s eye was wide like that of a child asking to keep a  kitten he had found on the side of the road. 

Waffles took a few steps forward, and now the snake was nearly at chest height looking at her.

She eyed it warily.

“Go on.” The admiral urged, “he likes chin scratches.”

She turned to look at him, “No I am NOT going to pet the snake.”

From the other side of the room Ramirez whispered, “Do it.”

The Admiral nodded encouragingly, and the two of them together frustrated her enough that she finally reached forward and hesitantly rubbed the soft skin under the strange alien’s chin. To her surprise the snake thing learned its head back as if it was enjoying the experience. Before she knew what was happening, it suddenly began curling around her arm and slithering up around her shoulders until it was resting with it’s head on top of hers.

It was…. Strange, and kind of…. nice .

Simon didn’t generally like hugs, or being touched by people period, but there was something about this that felt like…. All the good parts of a hug without any of the bad parts.

She knew pretty immediately that she had been dragged right into this with them.

She frowned.

“Do the two of you even know how to take care of a snake?”

They paused and turned to look at each other. Adam shook his head and Ramirez shrugged.

“Well he isn’t exactly a snake now is he?”

They did have a point.

“Besides, we’ve figured out what he can eat. He likes blueberries, strawberries. And he really loves Pineapple.”

“Pineapple, are you serious?”

“Yeah we were kind of skeptical at first, but he really just went for it, and you know we have been monitoring his health to make sure that he is ok, and it seems to be working rather well.”

Adam nodded, seeming pleased with himself, “Yeah, I seem to recall those berries having a pretty acidic smell, so maybe that’s sort of just the kind of thing that he eats.”

Simon frowned, clearly the two of them had no idea what they were doing. They were definitely going to need her help to be more organized and to take care of this guy way better. She absently reached up to rub Jeffery’s chin.

Don’t worry, she thought, I am going to take good care of you

That question is, “Can Drev eat Pineapple.”  The answer is NO, but Jeffery can!

[elemental-daddy-neos]

What are everyone’s teams in your Pokemon au? Do you have a plot set out or is it a more causal au?

Oooooh this is a fun one

You'd better fucking BELIEVE we have a plot set up, I have poured so much effort into the Pokemon au

Okay, so: when it comes to teams, I decided that everyone should have at least one legendary Pokemon in their party as a way to be faithful to the ace monster concept, but it wasn’t until much later into the au that I realized I’d failed to do that with Sora’s team, which led to a very fun plot point involving his secret 7th Pokemon he keeps in his box

Teams under the cut because it’s gonna be a long one, boys

Yuya has: Groudon, Sandshrew, Popplio, Hippopotas, Aipom, and Ekans

In his box, he’s got Phanphy, Charmander, Politoad, Ducklett, Liepard, Skorupi, and Lycanroc (Midnight form)

I wanted him to have as many Pokemon as he could that reminded me of the monsters in his deck, and since Yuya is a coordinator in this au instead of a regular trainer, it just felt right that he’d have a lot of different partners he could swap out for various contests

Also I’m mad that there isn’t a legendary dragon that looks like Odd Eyes, so I had to give Yuya Groudon instead, making him the only Yu boy in this au to not have a legendary dragon type Pokemon

Yuto has: Eternatus, Bisharp, Aegislash, Aggron, Lucario, and Shadow Rider Calyrex

Okay listen, I know I was supposed to only give everyone One legendary Pokemon, but with Calyrex I feel justified because it looks So Much like it could be one of Yuto’s Phantom Knights, I mean

Just look at it

Yuto gets to have two legendaries to make up for Arc-V killing him off so early into the show

Aside from this guy, the rest of Yuto’s team just felt like it should be comprised of steel types ow the edge so that’s what I gave him. His Pokemon are as edgy as he tries to appear to be and that is enough to amuse me.

There also weren’t exactly many good Pokemon equivalents of his archetype, so I made do with what I had.

Yugo has: Latios, Scizor, Claydol, Porygon 2, Ponyta (Shiny), and Sudowoodo

Yugo was honestly so hard to come up with a team for because all his Speedroid cards are just like... toys and stuff for the most part, so I agonized over what I should pick for him for a Long time. In the end, I feel like I got close enough to his general aesthetic with the Pokemon I picked.

(His Ponyta is there because of Speedroid Horse Stilts, and while it is a shiny, the dumbass has no idea about it, and thinks he just happened to get a special blue horse that was born a little differently- he never claimed to be smart.)

He also deadass thought Sudowoodo was a grass type for the longest time. Rin had to be the one to tell him it wasn’t. 

“Yugo. Sudowoodo? It sounds like pseudo? As in fake wood?”

“Ohhhhh is that what its name means? Wow Rin you’re so smart.”

No Yugo you’re just exceptionally stupid.

Yuri has: Naganadel, Seviper, Victreebel, Toxicroak, Vileplume, and Roserade

For the most toxic of battlers, I felt it only necessary to give Yuri an all poison type team. I included an even mix of plants in there to tie into his Predaplant deck, Seviper for the snake eye vibes, and Toxicroak... just feels right, you know. I couldn’t find any other poison plant themed Pokemon that seemed like they’d fit his vibe, so he gets a poison frog instead.

Yuzu has: Meloetta, Sylveon, Meowstic (Female), Gardevoir, Florges, and Jigglypuff

I tried to stick with Pokemon that had very feminine vibes for Yuzu, since her deck is comprised of pretty singing ladies, so Meloetta and Jigglypuff in particular feel very fitting in that regard.

Serena has: Cresselia, Delcatty, Glameow, Lopunny, Persian, and Pyroar (Female)

The moon vibes with Cresselia felt perfect for Serena, and as for the rest of her team, all cats and a bunny to pay homage to her Lunalight deck ^^

Rin has: Celesteela, Mismagius, Hatterene, Glaceon, Froslass, and Chimecho

Her team vibes with the witch part of her Wind Witch deck, at least for Mismagius and Hatterene. Glaceon, Froslass, and Chimecho are there due to the etymology of her name, where possible meanings of it include “cold” and “bell”, which I thought was pretty cool, no pun intended.

Ruri has: Galarian Articuno, Pidgeot, Noctowl, Chatot, Altaria, and Unfezant (Male)

Some softer birds for the soft bird girl, for the most part. I liked the thought of her team being all birds like her Lyriluscs, and just... yeah. They’re all very friendly birds that Ruri’s bonded pretty closely with. Also I made sure she had Galarian Articuno for no reason other than it is purple like her, and I think that’s all the reason I need.

Gong has: Kartana, Machoke, Samurott, Golisopod, Hariyama, and Conkeldurr

Gong was really easy to assign a team to- just had to find as many samurai themed Pokemon as possible, and fill in the rest with really strong fighting types, like Machoke, Hariyama, and Conkeldurr.

Shingo has: Type: Null, Dusclops, Misdreavus, Spiritomb, Decidueye, and Cramorant

With Shingo, I tried to go for Pokemon that had the same vibes as some of his Abyss Actors, and I think Dusclops is the best example of this. Tbh I am very proud of giving him a Type: Null because Type: Null is an amalgamation of other Pokemon, something that was created in a lab to be a fighting machine. There’s nothing natural about Type: Null, and it’s kind of terrifying to Yuya specifically, who’s always viewed Pokemon as creatures to befriend. This experiment created purely to kill... unnerves him, and serves as a very good foil to his beliefs when it comes to Pokemon.

And they were narrative foils

Oh my god they were narrative foils

On a sillier note, I chose Cramorant purely because of this quote from its bulbapedia page: “Cramorant are also rather unintelligent as they can't remember which Pokémon they fight in mid battle, but never forget Trainers that they trust. However, they try to attack their Trainers if they steal food from them.”

I just thought the idea of Shingo having this dumb bird that occasionally pecks at him over food would be funny tbh, gotta dunk on the rival at least a little bit.

Sora has: Banette, Vanillish, Swirlix, Stufful, Litleo, and Buneary

In his box, he has a Guzzlord

I feel like Sora’s team is very straightforward, as it’s a mix of sweets themed Pokemon, and Pokemon that represent monsters in his deck- Stufful for Flufflal Bear, Litleo for Fluffal Leo, and Buneary for Fluffal Rabbit. Guzzlord... is relevant later on in the plot after shit goes down, that’s all I’ll say for now.

Masumi has: Diancie, Sableye, Corsola, Aurorus, Tyranitar, and Lycanroc (Dusk form)

Gem Knight girl deserved to have a bunch of good rock type Pokemon, and Diancie is like. The best possible legendary I could have given someone like her lol, the crystal aesthetic is just perfect for her. Not much to say here honestly, I just really vibed with these specific rock types and thought they’d make a good team for her.

Yaiba has: Zeraora, Kecleon, Pangoro, Scyther, Purugly, and Stantler

So I actually threw this list together just now because I realized Masumi was the only member of her trio to have a full team, and that just wasn’t right. I tried to base this team off the XX-Sabers as well I could, but it was a little hard with how many humanoid cards Yaiba has. With his legendary, I actually chose it based off this monster right here! 

I think they’ve got similar enough vibes aesthetically for Zeraora to fit him. Scyther is based on Emmersblade, Kecleon on Ragigura, Stantler on Garsem, Purugly on Gardestrike, and Pangoro... Honestly, it just makes me think of Yaiba himself when I look at him. I think they’d get along well.

Hokuto has: Deoxys, Espeon, Grumpig, Starmie, Lunatone, and Malamar

Psychic type Pokemon just sort of felt right for him to have, considering that his deck is based on constellations and has an overall space theme to it. Not sure why that translates over to psychic in my brain, but you know what, it looks right, I love this team for him, and I’m not gonna question it.

I especially think Deoxys makes a good legendary for him considering it is literally a space alien, and Hokuto’s whole thing is space, so yeah, he gets to have the space alien.

Shun has: Galarian Moltres, Skarmory, Fearow, Dodrio, Staraptor, and Talonflame

Pretty straightforward team I feel- it’s all birds of prey for the Raid Raptor boy, and I just thought the Galarian version of Moltres was neat. Makes me think of his Blaze Falcon since they’re both black and red.

Dennis has: Hoopa, Mr. Mime, Delphox, Zoroark, Alakazam, and Hawlucha

Hoopa seemed like a very good legendary for Dennis to have, given his deck archetype and all, he just kind of looks like a little circus dude. Its unbound form makes me think about the swap Dennis has when it gets revealed that he’s actually been a double agent the whole time, and the play gloves finally come off.

The rest of his team... I feel like they speak for themselves. I tried to give him Pokemon that matched up with his deck archetype, so there’s Delphox to rep the fire themed monsters, Mr. Mime because it just fits Dennis’ general personality- and I love the thought of those two being friends and just copying each other’s theatric poses. Chaotic dynamic duo.

(Also: Zoroark's ability letting it disguise itself as another Pokemon is just another parallel to Dennis pretending to be one of the good guys at first, and I love it)

Shinji has: Buzzwole, Beedrill, Vespiquen, Ribombee, Kricketune, and Leavanny

I tried to give the bee man all the bees I could, but there are only so many bee Pokemon out there 😔 I knew the rest of his team had to be insect types to make up for it, so I picked Kricketune because he is just... a friend... a musical buddy who definitely gets along well with the kids. Leavanny is just a bug mom who also helps patch up the kids’ clothing when they get tears in them, which I just love the idea of. Sweet bug mom whose dex entry talks about how they sew for other Pokemon looks after her trainer’s kids when she’s not battling.

Buzzwole: witness the fitness

Throwback to the Smash Bros mains lmao 

Crow has: Murkrow, Braviary, Starly, Swellow, Pikipek, and Corviknight

Bunch of birds for my Blackwing user... This team was partially picked out by June, and it was mostly meant for the Other Pokemon au, but I don’t really see a reason to change his team here. Crow is the one person without a legendary on his team, which makes me sad, but there really isn’t a legendary bird out there that fits his vibes, so as much as I wanna give him a legendary, he will have to make do without one. Sorry Crow.

Hoo... that’s finally all the teams down. Now I can talk about the plot! So, as I briefly mentioned in a previous post (I think), this particular au is inspired by Pokemon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum! It’s the era where contests really became a big thing, which is perfect for a lot of these characters because it’s easy to translate dueltaining over to coordinating in this world. Much like in canon, Yuya aspires to be as great a coordinator as his dad was, and strives to entertain people the way Yusho could. He’s not much for battling, and far prefers getting to show off his Pokemon’s talents in contests than anything. 

Academia is going to play the role of Team Galactic in this au, which is incredibly fitting with their mission in canon: to remake the universe in their leader’s image. In this case, with Leo Akaba taking on the role of Cyrus, his intent is, presumably, to either destroy the universe that took his daughter from him, or create a new one where she can live once again, no matter the cost.

Sora being a key member in Team Galactic is a very big part of the plot in this au: his mission was to capture one of the lake legendaries, Uxie, since Leo needed all three of them for his plan to remake the universe, but things don’t exactly go well for him, and he ends up losing his battle against Uxie, resulting in all of his memories being locked away, and essentially making him a blank slate.

Side note: the Galactic grunt haircut reminds me a lot of Sora, I mean just look at it

Practically same bangs as him, just add an upturned ponytail and you’ve got my son.

This post is getting very long... but I will add one last plot related thing to it before I go: Uxie can erase memories, Mesprit can erase emotions, and Azelf can erase willpower. All three of these lake legendaries play a very important role in the plot, due to being the keys to Leo Akaba’s plans to remake the universe. Sora was touched by Uxie, effectively doing away with all memory he has of being in Team Galactic. Yuya ends up touched by Mesprit in an attempt to save them, and subsequently loses his emotions as a result. Riley?

Riley had been affected by all three of them before the plot began, which is why she is the way she’d been in Arc-V: Emotionless, unable to remember anything about her past except for those brief, fleeting flashes of memory when put into certain situations she’d experienced before, and without any will of her own. She’s so dependent on her older brother because she quite literally has no clue what to do with herself without being told to, and needs orders to function.

Hoo, if you’ve made it all the way to the end of the post, congratulations! I think this is the longest one I’ve made... ever lmao. I hope you guys found it enjoyable! If anyone wants to know more about certain aspects of this au, feel free to ask! I look forward to talking about it more c:

[senterya]

It's been an absolute joy reading people's takes on the OC interview that has been floating around recently.

The idea of a Pale Rose interview (read: Fyarh and Nym dragging ex-courtier Reln into this) sounded so oddly entertaining that I wrote it for myself for fun but it turned out... surprisingly okay? So I'm gonna leave it here.

OC Interview: Pale Rose edition

(Draw (or use an old drawing, don’t worry!) or take a screen of your character in an interview setting and make them answer the following questions!)

1. Can you introduce yourself?

Fyarh: Sure. I’m Fyarh, founder and – formally – leader of Pale Rose. I’m also the head of the Dreamers’ division in our guild. (turns to the other two) And they are Nymeleia and Reln, head of the Soundless and Courtiers, respectively.

Nymeleia: (with a wide smile) Glad to be here!

Reln: (remains silent – just nods a little)

2. What is your gender identity, orientation, and relationship status?

Fyarh: (after a few seconds of thinking) I’m male, maybe prefer others who identify as that too? Didn’t think too much about it before.

Nymeleia: I’m looking both ways. I’m female and taken, you could say.

Reln: Why is this even– (exhales) ...I’m male, I don’t care what my partner identifies as. And my relationships are not for the public to chew on.

3. Where and when were you born?

Nymeleia: Back in the Grove, all of us. I awoke at Dawn and the boys are both Night blooms.

4. What is your weapon of choice and fighting style?

Fyarh: I’m best at stealth and surprise – daggers work just fine with that. If it’s an open confrontation, I prefer a light sword that doesn’t hinder my agility. But I’m trained and still training in hand-to-hand combat too.

Nymeleia: I was trained at the Vigil to be the shield, not the spearhead of the attack. I stay behind and make sure nothing hits that shouldn’t. I utilize shades and magic so technically I don’t need a weapon – a staff or scepter can help, though. I also carry a dagger on me, just in case.

Reln: I’m best with a bow. Two-handed sword if it comes to that. But whatever does the job, really.

5. Lastly, are you happy?

Fyarh: (smiles and glances at the others) I am. I’m on the path my Wyld Hunt laid out to me and I got great allies and friends that are with me every step I take. I’m truly grateful for that.

Nymeleia: (with a soft smile) I feel like I found my calling here. I’m working on a cause and with people that are amazing. I’m pretty happy with that, yes.

(both look over to Reln)

Reln: (after a few seconds of silence, with a cynical smile) Are we just supposed to say yes or no to that? Like happiness is that easy to define. (he glances to the side for a second.) But it’s been better here. Take that as a yes.

FAMILY AND FRIENDS

1. What’s your family like? What is your relationship with them?

Fyarh: The guild is the closest I have to a family in a sense you ask. I think? I’m on good terms with everyone – luckily, I mean... (he laughs a little nervously) ...it’s as it should be.

Nymeleia: I’m with Fyarh on this one. The sylvari in Rose are the closest people to me.

Reln: It really is pointless to ask sylvari about “family” – we’re all technically related, but are strangers at the same time.

Nymeleia: (with a smile she barely tries to hide) You are dodging the question.

Reln: I’m not dodging anything, I’m being reasonable. I have close friends, and allies – call that a family, if you want to.

2. Have you ever run away from home?

Nymeleia: We’re all sort of runaways, aren’t we? (she laughs) I’m Soundless, I left the Grove quite early, then joined the Vigil. Does that count?

Fyarh: It counts. But just so that you don’t feel left out. (Nymeleia gasps and mimics trying to kick him in the shin, they both laugh. Takes them a few more seconds to get back on track.)

Fyarh: I used to sneak away a lot when I was supposed to be in lectures. I loved discovering Caledon, I knew every corner of it so well when I was a sapling. Maybe I’d still remember if I walked around.

Reln (after everyone looks at him): ...I’m from the Court. I think that’s self-explanatory.

Fyarh: But didn’t you also wander away a lot?

Reln: You could say. I preferred being alone. Hunting was a good excuse.

3. Would you consider marriage or having children?

Fyarh: In the far future, maybe? I’m still very young though, and my hands are full with my guild and my Hunt. It’s definitely not something I think about a lot.

Nymeleia: Marriage sounds cute – I like the idea of honoring commitment with a little ceremony.

Reln: Neither of those seems to be for me.

Nymeleia: (quietly) Ah, my heart.

(Reln glances at her, but doesn’t respond.)

4. Do you secretly hate one of your friends?

Fyarh and Nymeleia: No...?

Reln: (slightly annoyed) Is it even a friend if you hate them? Next question.

5. Which friend knows everything about you?

Fyarh: Maybe Daleien? We've known each other for the longest, and he was with me through thick and thin. Nowadays I share a lot with Nym and Reln too. I used to be very secretive about myself but I’m working on it.

Nymeleia: We chat and gossip a lot with Dia – she’s another Soundless from the guild. She’s lovely and so supportive, I’m really glad I have her.

Reln: I’m not the one to share everything about myself. But my second-in-command knows the most.

Nymeleia: Oh don’t listen to him. He and Lavan technically read each other’s minds – no words, just half a gesture, and they know all they need to know.

ASKED BY FANS

1. Are you literate? Have you been to school?

Fyarh: I’m literate, and I’ve been mentored as much – well, maybe a little less – than any other sylvari.

Nymeleia: I actually struggled with reading and writing for a while – I could, just not well, as I never really had to. Paperwork has been a nightmare for the first months in Rose, but by now I got the hang of it. I’ve been reading a lot of novels recently, too.

Reln: I’m literate, and was mentored like all other saplings. The latter didn’t reach its purpose, though.

2. The eeriest prediction you made that later came true?

(They all look at each other, but neither of them seems to have an answer or anything they’d be willing to share.)

3. What is something you were embarrassingly late to realize?

Fyarh: Oh. I somehow never really talked about my Wyld Hunt in.... sufficient detail to my mentors? Not before the Wardens arrested me for hiding thorn pups in a forsaken outpost. It was a real journey talking my way out from there. One of the most embarrassingly funny things that happened to me, in retrospect.

Nymeleia: I was always too caught upon not handling the concept of pain, and death, very well. I don’t regret working on it and toughening up, I just wish I had realized sooner that I should hone my strengths instead of desperately trying to “correct” what I perceive as a weakness.

Reln: ...I guess I haven’t realized soon enough what real understanding means. (he seems mildly uncomfortable by the question, and does not elaborate)

4. Do you have mental health or physical issues?

Fyarh: Fighting takes a toll on everyone, I’d say. But nothing other than that.

Nymeleia: (nodding along – her eyes wander off to the distance)

Reln: A few scars here and there. Had a lot to deal with after coming back from the heart of the jungle, but I have worked through most of those by now.

5. What is your current main goal?

Fyarh: I’m dedicating all my time to the guild. It’s been coming along so much better than what I prepared myself for, and I’m not about to waste the opportunity.

Nymeleia: I’m not satisfied with my level of skills on the field yet – I’m spending as much time on training as I can, next to Rose. There are some other necromancers in the guild with who we share our knowledge, and I have gotten some general good advice and lectures from Firstborn Trahearne himself. It’s crazy how far Fyarh’s connections go.

Reln: I’m busy training and supervising my own division. Most of us are reliable and trusting, but there are and will always be a few loose cannons I need to keep an eye out for.

CHOICES

1. Drink or food?

Fyarh: A drink, maybe? I tend to forget to eat. It’s getting on Nym’s nerves at times.

Nymeleia: Ah don’t even mention it. I’m picking food – nothing tops a good, warm meal after a long day.

Reln: Food, if I have to pick.

2. Cats or dogs?

Fyarh: I love cats. I wouldn't mind adopting one, but I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to take good care of them.

Nymeleia: Can we pick both, maybe?

Reln: (glancing at the thorn wolf lying next to him) I’m more of a dog person. But cats are good too.

3. Early bird or night owl?

Fyarh: I’m a night owl. Waking up with the rest of the guild at early hours is a nightmare for me. I tend to oversleep so much, it’s almost comical.

Nymeleia: That’s not a problem for me though. I’m up before everyone else. And so is Reln.

Reln: (nodding)

4. Optimist or pessimist?

Fyarh: Optimist.

Nymeleia: Same, some will even say naive for sure.

Reln: Middle ground. I’m more of a realist than any of the two.

5. Sassy or sarcastic?

Fyarh: Maybe... sassy? With close friends. I don’t feel like either most of the time, honestly.

Nymeleia: Would you say I’m more sassy or sarcastic?

Reln: (to her) Is that really a question?

Nymeleia: Oh entertain me.

Reln: (gestures towards her; she laughs)

HAVE YOU EVER

1. Been caught sneaking out?

Fyarh: Once, when I was sneaking out of a Court camp with two stolen thorn pups. Barely got away. Didn’t dare to show myself around there for a while.

Nymeleia: Several times. Did a lot of bathroom cleaning in the Vigil for it too.

Reln: If I was, I doubt I would be here today.

2. Broken a bone?

Fyarh: Miraculously, no. I don’t even know myself how’s that possible.

Nymeleia: My left arm. Open wound, too – wasn’t a good experience.

Reln: Nothing that a field medic couldn’t fix.

3. Received flowers?

Fyarh: If you mean it like, in a romantic way? No, not yet.

Nymeleia: I received a few, but in my experience Vigil soldiers are more of the blunt than the romantic type.

Reln: No.

Nymeleia: How dare you. I gave you potted herbs a while ago!

Fyarh: (leaning forward) Potted herbs?

Nymeleia: It’s because he takes his food back to his room all the time. And then he complains about the seasoning. Go figure!

4. Ghosted someone?

Fyarh: I did... use to run away from confrontations a lot. But people say I’ve gotten better with that too.

Nymeleia: I prefer to just tell people if I’m not interested in talking to them. As kindly as possible, of course. But I think it’s ruder to leave them hanging.

Reln: I did leave from places – the Grove, the Court – suddenly, but then again, I didn’t have many connections to either in the first place.

5. Pretended to laugh at a joke you didn’t get?

Fyarh: That happens. Easier than trying to go back to it and figure it out, takes away the flow of the conversation.

Nymeleia: Everyone does that from time to time, no?

Reln: I don’t. If someone’s not funny enough, that’s not my problem.