#yet hes so painstakingly average

[sillysnack]

put saiki kusuo in bsd yokohama and the bsd cast will be questioning their whole lives.

[kaszuma]

Cat and Mouse | Hoshina Soshiro

Part 2 of "Certainly Yours"

pairing: Hoshina Soshiro x fem!reader

summary: you pull away from his touches when he least suspects it.

warnings: Mentions of potential death. But nothing too descriptive. Soshiro centered POV. Lots of inner monologue and pining.

wc: 1,477

--

note: apologies for any mistakes. Not proofread and writing dialogue is hard.

--

A game of Cat and Mouse. You know the drill.

That was the game they had unintentionally started playing. A tug of war between a ‘will they; won't they’ situation. And for any party involved, this usually isn't a game for the faint hearted.

Now whether this had been his karma for choosing a far more skittish way to approach you. It was up for debate. But surely, his affection for you had far since crossed the borders between friends and lovers. And situations like these are no good for the average hopeless romantic.

And as surprising as that sounded. Soshiro Hoshina, Vice Captain of the Third Division's Defense Force, had been one himself. Painstakingly so.

God. It was his undoing wasn't it? He had initiated, no, encouraged, such actions on his own. And because he kept his grip on her so slack and loosened. She had begun to slip away from his grasp. The possibility of a connection, might now have been severed indefinitely.

He was now reaping what he had sown the moment you had decided to challenge his distant affections. When, just this morning? He had been deserving of such a cold shoulder from your wake.

His hand which would’ve given you a curt wave. An innocent greeting no less. Had an elaborate scheme in mind. Mischief was in his very knuckles as he tried to pass by you in the mess hall. Intent on reaching the Coffee machine, just on the other side of the counter, right past you.

And sure, he could've just as easily circled to the other side without needing to get so close to her. But he couldn't help it. He longed for the small touches on his palm. The warmth that spread on the very fingertips that had gotten so used to the grip of hardened blades. A stark contrast to your waist, which had never once retracted from his advances.

In some cases, you had even leaned close to meet his touch. Or initiated them on your own. If you had been at all bothered by his touches, one word and he would've stopped entirely. That was all it took. He just needed you to say stop. Shove him, push him, beat him even. Just tell him to back away and he'll do it no questions asked.

This distance was enough for him. This distance was healthy. Better for the both of you he internalized.

But each time he moved his hand to guide the small of your back. Brush back some of the stray pieces of hair obscuring your face. Not a single word of dissatisfaction came out of your lips. Encouraging him to move further even.

But he never did.

Distance was good for both of them. He had told himself countless times before. Convinced himself that he was undeserving of those eyes that looked at him like he was the world. Worried etched in the very corners of your brows anytime the familiar blare of Kaiju alarm has startled base.

Your eyes had always held a sort of prayer for his return. And each time, he'd try his best to do just that. A silent promise that he has yet to admit to anyone. Not even himself.

But in the likelihood that he couldn't? That he'd one day die of a fatal injury. He'd rather spare you the feeling of dread later down the line. And his grip on you reluctantly loosened. Not finding it in himself to want to start a relationship that could end in ruins. Your ruin.

So his touches did not linger. His conversations are light and never heavy. And his gaze remained fixated from a distance. A silent admiration anytime you had not been looking. Or atleast he thinks you had not been looking.

And it had worked for some time. His advances never held on too tight, and were never serious in that way. Making you second guess all his actions. Unintentionally no doubt.

But this time? you slipped away.

Indulgence wasn't an option for frontliners like him. He damn well knew that. Especially when the entirety of the Third Division had relied so heavily on both Captain Ashiro and his own strength. So getting close to people was always difficult in every sense of the word.

But now?

Fuck.

Somehow it feels even worse to see you brush past him.

His gaze fixated at the back of your head as she wasted no time to say goodbye to him. A curt salute later and she had already been long gone from his sight. Leaving him alone with nothing in the way of his morning coffee.

Damn it. It must’ve been those romance books he read that had compromised his mind. Those cheesy love stories that almost seemes like fairy tales were fantastical to him. A hopeless romantic. But he disliked the idea of having his braon turned to mush because of it. Or at least, that's what he wished it was.

–

It wasn't a few days later that he had encountered you again. This time on the side of the empty stairs leading up to the hallways of the training room. He had been planning to make a short trip to recreate a certain battle in his head. But his feet faltered the moment he saw you heading down yourself. Taking very careful steps with your hands on the rails.

It had taken a few steps of her own to release Soshiro from his stupor. And he shook his head, beginning to climb up himself. This time, noy once attempting to get as close to her as possible. The two brushed past each other as they had headed in opposite directions.

And just as he made the final step, he had half a mind to look back. And like clockwork, he couldn't help but sneak a glance. Just a peak wouldn't hurt. Though his eyes widened, only to find that you had stopped your own steps from proceeding. Still halfway down the stairs. Eyes fixated on the ground where your flats had slipped past your foot.

Your eyes and his momentarily glanced at each other. And back at the shoe that had slipped past your skin. And just as you turn awkwardly to grab the shoe.

Soshiro had been quicker.

“I didn't picture you as the fairy tale type.” He joked. Internally cussing at himself at initiatong the conversation.

Taking a few steps down to grab your shoe for you. His cat-like gaze, one squinted and ever so unreadable, was unchanged. Like usual.

“It's not exactly a glass slipper.” You had quipped. “And you're not exactly prince charming either.”

You watched as Soshiro had moved down a few steps to kneel in front of you. His hand had already gently grabbed hold of your ankle. Wasting no time as he placed the shoe back on your foot.

“Do you not want me to be?”

“It depends.” You shrug. “You're not exactly clear on what you want to be with me.”

…

“And if I say I wanted to be with you?” his breath had hitched momentarily. The only trace of proof, that he had been affected by her. His face had been too well practiced to show any signs of distress.

“Seriously?” You had chuckled.

“You really need to read the room..” you sigh. Crouching down to his level, where he kneeled in front of you. The steps had made it so you were slightly towering over him.

“You know, for someone so observant, you're pretty bad at this.”

“Am I?” Soshiro had chuckled. It sounded almost like bells in her ears. The type that had been genuine and remained distinctly the same even after all these years.

“Just checking Cinderella.”

“Haha.” sarcasm dripped from your voice. Though he catches the brief glimpse you made towards his lips. “Now, just shut up and kiss me.”

And that he did.

The moment he saw you lean down closer to his face, his own hand had moved against the logic of his brain. The only thing that he had internalized was the hammering of his heart that surrounded his eardrums. His calloused fingertips had met the warmth of your jaw.

Lips finally connected as if they had been deprived of each other for so long. Had he not kissed someone before her, he'd have rewritten this moment as his first.

Fuck me. Now he was really in too deep. And he feels the reluctant way she had pulled away from him.

“See? Wasn't so bad was it?”

Soshiro had chuckled dryly. “Oh, just shut up and kiss me.” and you did. With no hesitation and no second guesses this time.

It seems you've won this little cat and mouse duel of yours. Veni, vidi, vici as one might say.

And god did he wish you had won it sooner.

[lxclerc]

𝐦𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐦𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲 | 𝐥𝐡𝟒𝟒

summary: you were trying to get better. you were better. and suddenly he's back in your life and now you're right back where you started, stuck in a hallway once again meant to say goodbyes. requested: no warning: angst angst angst, swearing?? sexual innuendos. the series will eventually contain smut pairing: lewis hamilton x rosberg!reader

note: this story is written in a way where the reader is telling a story so the timelines will shift with no warnings. also let me know if you want to be added to this story's taglist.

part 2: two ghosts (coming soon)

you just wanted to pass through. that was the whole fucking point of a hallway, wasn’t it? it didn’t need to be the ongoing cruel joke of your life. you were there and you wanted to be, in the present where you belonged, in a life you didn’t have to hide in. but now you’re not and suddenly you’re stuck in yesterday again, stuck and unable to move on. 

yesterday and tuesday have gone and past though and you were glad of it. you were glad to be rid of him, having left him and a box that contained all of your memories under your bed in your childhood room. and quite frankly, that was better for you. you’d moved on, moved to the other side of the globe where his name isn’t as loud, where you could escape the ghost of him haunting your every waking minute. 

the east knew of his name but it was not the brightest nor the biggest – almost like when you’d started. his star was ascending but his name didn’t come with a trademark quiet yet. 

you’d tagged along with his team, his teammate’s little sister, freshly eighteen with no idea how to grow into the woman your family expected you to be. you’d been born into a name bigger than you could ever grow to be and a legacy you carried like a curse. your future is a blank canvas, one you didn’t have the right colors to pain in. 

your brother, ever the golden, followed exactly in your father’s footsteps. he knew what was expected of him the moment he pressed his foot onto a pedal. you have always envied him  though you’d never once say to his face. he was born with the ability to make your parents proud, something you’ve always lacked. 

all your life, you’ve always been painfully average. you were average in everything you did, anything you pursued. for someone having been born in such an extraordinary family, you were painstakingly ordinary. though nico has always had your back, protecting you and encouraging you to find new hobbies and join new clubs and so it came as no surprise when he’d been the one to come up with the idea. you’d just finished secondary school with zero ideas of what you’d be doing for university and so nico suggested a gap year – join him in his travels for his second season in formula one. find inspiration, a dream, a hobby — anything to occupy your time. 

your parents though, ever loving and protective of their only daughter, had been against the idea at the start. they had no problems with you taking a gap year but they wanted to hold on to you for as long as they could – keep you a child for as long they can. in the rosbergs’ eyes, you’re their little princess as far as they were concerned, sheltered and spoiled your entire life despite your extraordinary ability to be so painstakingly ordinary. they never asked anything of you, which somehow made it all the worse.

eventually though, they relent. nico would be responsible for you – to keep you on a tight leash, never meant to let you out of his sight if he could help, never meant to let you wander off on your own in some foreign country, never allowed to be near any man. 

and so you were stuck sharing a hotel room with your older brother. 

it started in a hallway – and ended in one. you’d gotten kicked out. nico is a good brother, a great one even, but not even he is immune to the young adult lust that seems to plague everyone the moment they step foot in their twenties. you were thankful he had the decency to shove you out of the hotel room as he and the blonde he’d met at some club stumbled in. the sock was on the door and you knew the rules. it was late, everyone was drunk and you were homeless. 

this isn’t your first time and so you sat down on the hallway and laid your head on your knees, hoping you’ve had enough beer to put your right to sleep. unfortunately for you, you had not. you played your music player, as loud as you dared, to drown out the sound of your brother behind the closed door. gross, but so fucking familiar. you could utter one word to your parents and this entire thing would stop but you and nico have always covered up for each other when it matters. and besides, you're sure if your mother knew, not only would she forbid you to join your brother with this travels, you wouldn’t put it past her to completely stop him from racing if these were what he’s up to. 

“hey,” you looked up at the voice wishing your brother had at least thrown you out with your earphones. lewis was all lanky frame and a bare torso. 

“sorry,” you say, the german accent ebbing away at the end of your words as you tone down your music player. “was the music too loud?” 

he smiled, effortlessly and as though you’ve been best friends for years. “nah. i heard you got the boot. figured you could use a refuge.”

you’d smiled brilliantly at him. a silly crush had formed the first time you met him that first testing in barcelona. you’d been envious of his raw talent, first time in an f1 car and yet somehow already exponentially better than his peers. at the start, he’d been racing for mclaren but most teams booked the same hotels and sometimes, they ended up on the same floor. 

his hotel room is much like the one you shared with your brother but only containing one bed contrary to two. that night, you’d gotten in his good graces, sharing jokes and laughs and maybe you’d gotten into his good books too. and at one point, you thought of his heart. 

with you and lewis, it was an auspicious start and you should have known with a beginning like that, the end was inevitable. something started that night in that hallway. for you, that’s where it all began. you’ve given lewis years of your life – always meeting him in the hallway, always sneaking into his sheets and always trying to work it out. it ended in a hallway too – he’d left you and you stood there hoping you could work it out for too long, years maybe. but then, you learned to walk away and you got better. 

seeing him here tonight, another sparse but posh place felt like you’d walked into a time machine – like you’d just left his bedroom. his hair is long, braids tied back in a ponytail like the night he’d left you. you thought you’d left that hallway years ago but you now realized you were still there, waiting and waiting and waiting for him to come back. 

you watched him, his back to you but you could tell by the loop of his stride and the set of his shoulders that it was him. he’s yet to see you. if he had, he must have been disinterested. apathy is the worst. you hated it more than hate. but that doesn’t feel quite right. lewis has never shown disinterest in you. even back before you’d wind up in his hotel room, he was polite but never uninterested. 

that night, he’d set you up with a controller and beer. you’d played some game you can’t quiet remember until ridiculously late. it wasn’t until you’d beaten him for the fourteenth time that he began complaining. 

“you’re really good,” he finally admits defeat. 

you shrugged. “ yeah. why aren’t you better?” 

“i sleep a lot.”

“everywhere?” you asked, selecting another round.

he nodded and you started playing again. “pretty much anywhere i can. the schedule is crazy, i’m always on planes and i hate sleeping there so i sleep pretty much wherever i can–”

“why aren’t you sleeping now?” you cut off, a childish habit you’ve been trying to outgrow. 

“it’s ironic,” he says with a laugh. “i can’t sleep after the race. i’m all wound up and tired the next day but then we’re on a plane before i can blink so i sleep where i can.”

“so you miss out on video games,” you finish for him.

he gives you a dimpled smile and suddenly you felt so happy he’d opened his door for you.

it wasn’t until you caught him yawning for the sixth time that you called him out for it. “tired? ready for bed?”

he looked sheepish. “yeah, should probably sleep. sorry.” 

“no,” you got up and picked up your trash of beer cans. “i’ll go. just let me see if my damn brother is done with it.”

you’d poked your head out the hallway and immediately heard the sounds you absolutely hated coming from behind the door of your shared hotel room when you pulled you back. 

“no. you can stay here. i just meant i needed to lay down.”

you nodded. you aren’t too proud for the couch and you would have taken the carpeted floor over the dirty hallway. “i’ll stay on the couch. the floor out there must have a thousand germs living in it. maybe even more than germs. imagine where the shoes passing by it daily have been at. i’d probably get a rash if i slept there. i’m prone to getting rashes.”

stop talking. you needed to stop fucking talking. to your benefit, he looked more than amused by your rambling. 

“no,” he says, sounding sheepish again. “this isn’t me flirting with you, k?” 

he paused for your reaction but your three am, beer infested brain is sluggish and so you just stared until he continued. 

“i figured you could sleep with me, just to sleep. i like a body next to me…” he trailed off and looked down at his feet. the toe of his right sock had a hole near his big toe and you could see why – his nail needed a clip. then you chastised yourself for having noticed such an insignificant detail as he continued. “that is if you’re comfortable with it, of course.” 

before you could think it through, you nod. “you seem tired. you should head to bed.”

he nods too. “i like being around people, just gets tiring to be on all the time.”

“you can turn off with me.” you meant it.

“i know,” he said it with the confidence of someone you’ve known your entire life. “i can tell. i think i can trust you – won’t need to confiscate your phone.”

you laughed. “well good luck there, love. never relinquishing my phone. only thing i have to reassure my parents that me and my stupid brother are still alive.”

he laughed then yawned.

“bed?” you suggest and he nods in confirmation, walking towards the bed and pulling you behind him.

“you can have a shirt if you want.”

“no, i can sleep in this,” you say as you sat down on the right side of the bed, pushing off your shoes and neatly tucking your socks in them.

“not in jeans,” he shook his head. “that’s so uncomfortable. i’m not sleeping with my trousers.” 

“feel free,” you say. “your bed and all.” 

“well i don’t want your jeans rubbing all over my legs.” 

you relent, changing out of your jeans and into his shirt that reached your mid thigh before you slipped back under the covers and shut the light. and that was how you came to sleep next to lewis hamilton for years of your life. 

and so it goes. lewis’ room became your escape. at first, it was only nights when nico would be accompanied by a girl or when you’d be unceremoniously shoved out of your room and into the hallway. whenever your brother pulled that move, the door somewhere in the floor would open, lewis’ head poking out with a knowing smile as though the two of you shared inside jokes the world didn’t know about.

at some point, you’d wondered if he’d been waiting for you as you wouldn’t even have to knock before his door would be open. most nights, you’d flop on the couch, turn on the television or some game you’d beat him at. 

eventually though, his room would open for you even on nights where you hadn’t been kicked out. he’d be waiting for you in the hallway as though he knew you’d always come. you did, of course, meet him night after night. perhaps your brother wondered where you were going or perhaps he didn’t care enough. either way, you’d disappear each night and come back the next morning. 

“what do you want from room service?’ the phone was pressed to his ear, and really, with every hotel you vacate, each menu pretty much holds the same. 

“uhh, maybe some pizza?” you looked up at him, surprised he wasn’t waiting for you to make eye contact. lewis, as you’d unfortunately learned, is pretty big on eye contact and physical touch. you’d memorized the dark brown in his pupils and the creases under his eyes. instead though, his eyes were glued to your bare legs. you’d worn your sleeping shorts with your baggy shirt, comfortable enough in his presence you didn’t feel the need to dress up. 

when he realized you’d caught him staring, he jerked up his eyes to meet yours, embarrassment coating his face as he gave you a small, apologetic smile, eyes shining that you were more than willing to overlook his wandering eyes. though you feel the path that his gaze had left over your legs, warm but somehow cold at the same time. 

“i’m sorry, what?” lewis suddenly said into the phone, turning away from the big distraction you had been, leaving you completely breathless as you pulled the blanket over you in an attempt to hide the goosebumps that had risen from your interaction. 

you’d been sharing a bed every night since you began coming over to his room more frequently. the bed sharing was completely platonic, of course. it was more that lewis is too much of a gentleman to let you sleep on the couch. the bed is more often than not, king sized and so it isn’t completely unlikely for the two of you to wake up on opposite ends of the mattress. 

yet somehow, something shifted that night. perhaps it was his wandering gaze realizing that you are, in fact, a woman but that night, you had woken up with his octopus limbs wrapped around you, completely burrowed to your side as his breath fanned the delicate skin of your neck. he held onto you tightly, both legs and arms tangled with yours and his bare chest is hard against your back, your hair all over his face. 

you stayed there longer than you knew, feeling the heat even with your shirts separating your skins. you feel the rise and fall of his chest, arms only tightening around you whenever you make any small movement. you can hear the softest snore escaping him as his breath tickles your skin. 

and for the first time, you imagine what it would be like to wake up to this everyday – to have his wandering eyes on your body without the apologetic smile that follows, to have his calloused hands on your skin with no boundaries or rules to follow, to have him hold you and touch you in places you’ve never been touched before. 

and then he shifted and his eyes were fluttering open and lewis moved away from you, robbing you of the warmth you’d been cocooned in all night. he knew, of course. you know he knew because he’d refused to meet your eyes that morning. instead, you went back to your hotel room reeking of his cologne sticking to your skin.

and maybe if either of you had said anything that day about what was already brewing between you, you would’ve been saved from a thousand hurts. 

even years after your meetings in the hallways, even back home, you wondered what it would be like to wake up besides lewis again. you wondered if he’d woken up holding another girl the same way he held you. it had been years after your fateful goodbye that you decided you had to make a conscious effort to stop, erasing your consideration of him from your day to day life. you had to teach yourself to seek your own interest and pleasure. 

the yearning for him is what you remember the most. it was your constant companion. your shadow was long and dwarfed you when you slept in his arms but didn’t have a room in his heart. it cast itself like it was noon when you were sure of your place in his life only to grow long in absence. when you were apart, your need for him was huge, overshadowing you. you were no longer a person with likes and dislikes and a personality. for years of your life, you’d lived for lewis. 

on your final separation, you’d realized that the shadow had become greater than yourself, so large that there was nothing left of you. 

though until now, you wonder if you had made such a big impression on him that he had on you. you suspected you were more like an amenity provided by whichever hotel you both found yourselves tangled in. 

you were being unkind to yourself. he would be disappointed. you wish you didn’t care.

you’re still watching the back of his head as he makes his way away from you and into the elevator, to the next place without you. he’s surrounded by people and you can hear his voice, sending shivers throughout your whole body. you know the tone well. he’s teasing the shorter man next to him and though you can’t hear the words, you know that the guy’s tone is low and full of affection. the short man wraps an arm around the woman amongst their group and you wonder if his affection is towards her or lewis. 

probably lewis. he’s always provoked that response in strangers. ever the most charming and most polite. 

his finger extends to press the buttons on the elevator and you’re distracted by them, still frozen in place since the last five minutes. you’ve watched the skinny digits grip a steering wheel and pluck at your nipples and your body twinges at the memory. however, your attention strays from his knuckles as your eye catches the cluster of silver near the top of his palm. 

and your breath hitches, he couldn’t possibly still be wearing that ring. when his hand pulls back, the light catches the metal circle and you can almost read the words engraved on the metal band. you know what it says, your wish for him as he was surrounded by all the chaos. it was what you’d hoped you gave him in each of the rooms you shared. 

a moment of peace.

his head rises up and the mirror next to the elevator doors catches his attention. your focus shifts to where he’s looking. 

he’s looking at you. 

taglist: @ricsaigaslec @dragon-of-winterfell @coffeehurricanes @rdtbattinson @privcherry7 @miniminescapist @sebsdaniel @strelcka @writing-about-current-obsessions @amsofftrack @lostinketterdam @bisexual-desi @cialovessirlewis @multilovebot @lovelynikol16 @troybolton-14 @ohthemissery @dr3lover @myescapefromthislife @sunf1owerrq @the6ccnsp6cyy @t-nd-rfoot @navixfr

[teatreeoilll]

Pot Luck (Toji Fushiguro X Reader)

˚• . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • .

w/c - 0.6k content warnings - MDNI (for language and mentions of drugs and alcohol). f!reader. A Toji drabble of what I feel the average Toji interaction is like.

˚• . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • . ° . • .

2006

“Blow on it,” the traffic officer holds a breathalyzer an inch from Toji’s face. Your mouth grows dry as you smell the painstakingly obvious tang of Sake circling the car's interior.

"I'll just come out and say it, officer," he hums, flicking his cigarette butt onto the road, "You're not my type." You jab your elbow into his side, hoping that inflicting some pain might instill a bit of sound judgment into him.

"Blow on it son, I don't have all night." The cop taps his leg on the concrete, shoving the breathalyzer further under Toji's self-satisfied smirk.

As he continues to hold the policemen's gaze, the dark haired man puckers his lips and exhales into the device, which in turn promptly squeaks and buzzes.

"Why don't you get out of the car, boy?"

-

Toji drives like a maniac; one of his hands barely clinging to the steering wheel while the other clutches a lit cigarette that suffocates the car with a cloud of smoke. He throws quick glances at the rearview mirror, and each time he does so the car swerves, causing the white markings separating the dark highway ahead to seem like mere suggestions.

"I'm gonna need you to hold on to this for me," he leans close to you, his Sake reeking breath caressing the side of your face. His foot's still pushing the gas pedal as he shoves a large hand up your bra, sticking a tiny crumpled bag of white powder to the padding inside.

"Hey - " you struggle to push his drunken hand aside, an aggressive red hue growing on your face at the warmth of his hand pressing up against your breast, "Focus on the road, asshole."

Red and blue lights emerge on the road behind you, accompanied by ear-splitting sirens and a streak of cusses coming from the driver's seat. "Just for a minute, yeah baby?" He jerks the wheel, causing the car to wobble as it grazes the shoulders, "We'll lose him on the next exit."

-

This is a collect call from Akasaka Police Station; if you would like to accept the call, please say yes. If you would like to -

"Fucking asshole," you breathe.

The system did not recognize your decision; if you would like to accept the call, please say -

"Yes." You huff into the phone as the line plays its connecting melody.

The moment you catch a faint sound of a breath on the other end, the facade of cool composure you've been clinging to shatters; "I'm not bailing you out again, Fushiguro. You can rot in there for all I care."

"Don't worry about that baby; Shiu's got it covered."

A scolding tone creeps into your voice, "You better pay him back this time."

Toji ignores your reproach, letting the words linger before continuing, "Anyway, they revoked my license, so why don't you pick me up and we can - "

"You had a license?"

"Funny, why don't you tell me s'more jokes when you get here, huh?"

"Can't Shiu take you? Or better yet, leave you there?"

"He'll probably leave before he sees me bouncing out of the cell, so fat chance of that happening. You're the only one left, baby."

You weren't sure what kind of supernatural force was steering the wheel while you drove in a daze through the busy streets toward the police station, leaving your mind consumed with organizing the accusations you were itching to hurl at him.

The car dips lightly under his weight as he thumps into the passenger seat, "D'you still have that bag I gave you?"

"Hey to you too, asshole." You sigh, "And no, I didn't keep the cocaine you shoved up my bra."

"Ah, never mind," he lifted an arm to swipe the hair sticking to his forehead, "At least I got to cop a feel."

[jpeg-anachronism]

Alrighty, DMC fans, I've figured it out.

Spoilers for those who haven't played DMC 5 yet.

So, we all know that Vergil is Nero's dad. This fact has plagued the DMC fans for years due to it being a loose end that's never tied up.

Who's Nero's mother and Vergil's lover? Unclear. When did this happen? Who knows. How did Vergil fall for someone in what's seemingly a certified out of character moment? Fuck off.

Except here's the thing. The fandom did not fuck off. Forsooth, they fucked on to this thing in such a quick display of background character shipping it would make the Loud House fandom blush.

Side tangent but what the fuck is this I went to look up this one ship from a children's show and I kid you not this is the first thing that came up what the fuck.

Look, bullying is bad. But what if w-

The DMC fans took this one random background lady who stops and looks at Vergil for about three seconds in the opening cutscene of his route and went crazy with it in what was probably the fandom's shining moment.

Suddenly it was all clear. This random ass woman was Vergil's lover, Nero's mom, and the meaning behind the lyric "temptation's pulling me" in one giant package.

And I won't lie to y'all I'm down with that.

Here's the thing, though. We never see her face, hear her name, or really know anything about her besides the fact that she's (hypothetically) Nero's mom. She's the blandest character in the game franchise since we don't know anything aside from her role in canon.

And that's when it hit me.

Capcom did this on purpose.

Let me repeat.

Capcom did this on purpose.

Think about it. At this point, the third game had already come out and fans were practically drooling over Vergil. The fifth game wouldn't be released for a while, so we didn't have peak Vergil madness in the fandom yet but the fan's feelings were clear.

This man was fucking SEXY WITH A CAPITAL C.

The ladies wanted piece of him, and Capcom knew it. Hell, they still know it. Look at the marketing. The official marketing.

Look me in my eyes and tell me that they don't know what this man does to women.

But here's the issue. They needed him to be Nero's father.

When you create a man as perfect as Vergil, you run into a bit of a snag when picking a woman to be his canon lover. Every woman in the stratosphere is going to be tearing their hair out and shaking their fists to the heavens realizing they're not exactly like the woman he's hooked up with.

Sure, some female fans would just be happy to watch Vergil being in love, but deep down every one of them would ask the same question.

"Why couldn't Vergil have fucked me?"

Capcom thrived on Vergil simps. You remove their imaginary chances with an Imaginary character, and things get sticky.

They don't pick a lover for Vergil, the lore falls apart. They do pick a lover for Vergil, the fans fall apart. There was no way to win unless...

Unless they made the fans his lover.

Suddenly, the unpaid intern jumps up in his seat, tasting the promotion as he shouts out "we don't give her a face!"

Silence. A cough can be heard. A few of the people at the meeting start sweating.

"Don't give her a face?" One finally speaks up.

"Right!" The intern yells "No face! No voice! No personality!"

And suddenly the rest of the meeting room understands as well.

See that's the thing. The Fortuna lady is hooded on purpose. She's silent on purpose. She's given no personality on purpose.

Think about her design. We barely see any of her face except a mouth. Her weight is the most average weight one could program, and if it comes off as thinner than the player, they could easily say she's wearing a girdle or something similar under her dress. Her bust size is average, her height is average. Everything about her is painstakingly average and THAT WAS THE POINT.

LADY FORTUNA IS US AND WE ARE LADY FORTUNA. SHE'S A SELF INSERT DESIGNED BY CAPCOM SO WE COULD IMAGINE THAT WE WERE THE ONES WHO FUCKED VERGIL. IT WAS ALL PLANNED FROM THE START AND IT FUCKING WORKED. THE SICK SON OF A BITCHES DID IT.

"But Jpeg, they did give her a face! See?"

I sigh and pat your head.

"No, my sweet. They made this for the other fans. The ones who for whatever reason weren't attracted to Vergil. Of course they would want some form of "closure" as to what she looked like. To them her face was just another mystery to be solved. Besides, why not put this in the actual game? Why leave it as a single, oddly rendered model, banished to the depths of t-posing hell?"

Because it's not canon. That's the answer. The lady from Fortuna's canon face is our face.

"But Jpeg," fucking Oliver Twist pipes up "She's white. What about all the women of color who simp for Vergil? Wouldn't her skin color defeat the purpose?"

First of all, this is something that's hard to skirt around in the first place. No matter how much you cover up a character, you're going to need to show certain details. Look at any dating simulator protagonist.

They can go for basic designs by making them white and brunette, two of the most common genetics, to try to maintain the self insert illusion, but the sad thing is that at the end of the day, it's just a drawing of a man that is not the player.

Except DMC gets around this because fuck those dating sims. Those are for pussies and children of divorce. Devil May Cry treats you like a 100 IQ individual as it makes it clear that if you want it to be so, the Fortuna woman can just be some random ass lady who thought Vergil's cloak looked sick.

Vergil's real lover could be a whole different lady from Fortuna. One that's any race you wish it to be. Whichever race you are, she is too.

Hell, why stop with Fortuna? Who said you have to be a nun in this universe?! By our and Capcom's, logic, you could be whoever the fuck you wanted! It doesn't matter, so long as Vergil ended up smooshing the whooshing with you! Make it whatever pops into your mind! Are you a pizza delivery girl? Another Devil Hunter? A subscriber to Vergil's Onlyfans? Who knows? Oh, wait! You do!

Lady Fortuna is not a single character, nor does she represent such.

Lady Fortuna represents us, and the power of loving a fictional man beyond rational mind.

Lady Fortuna is us.

We are Lady Fortuna.

Or maybe she's some reused asset idk man it's whatever you guys think.

[happyk44]

Thinking abt Hazel who usually gets Macaria to do her hair since they have similiar hair types (I perceive Macaria to appear black in her day-to-day, like Thanatos). Or sometimes Zagreus, who loved to play with his sisters' hair as a kid and is still willing to sit down for a few hours to do painstakingly complex braids.

But they're both gone, doing their own thing, when Hazel comes down and she sighs because this is the only free moment she has and sure she could get it done at Camp Jupiter or New Rome but she liked the family aspect.

Also it's free when her siblings do her hair. And free is always convenient.

She considers Nico, who's not that bad at it, he just takes way longer than everyone else and his plaits aren't as tight as they could be, when Pluto walks by. He prompts her and she tells him and blinks confused when a second pips by and she's suddenly seated on a plush cushion, products and brushes and combs around her. Her father is seated behind her, his long long legs stretched out.

It's sort of annoying how tall he is. He's behind her and yet his feet pass hers.

Why the hell is she and Nico so short? Even Macaria, born by Hades' sole hand from the dirt of the underworld and dessicated souls, defaults to just below average.

His fingers are cool against her nap as he separates her evenly. "What were you looking for?"

"Uh-" A book appears on her lap. She flips it open. Dozens of hair styles on every page, every hair type accommodated, every style listed. Even the ones far out of date. The models differ - in age, in race, in gender, in time period.

They feel familiar, familial. She wonders what it would take for her to join this family photo album. If she'll be present by mere existence, or if she needs to display a style never seen before for it to count.

"Uh, I usually just get..." She pauses on a photo. The girl is smiling wide with jewels adorning each plait. Even in the turnarounds, when her face is no longer visible, she seems happy. "This one is nice."

Pluto's chin scoots across the top of her head as he looks down. "Fulani with ornamental accents," he muses. He waves his hand as a bowl of beads appears between their legs. Different colours, different gems. "Pick. I'll let you know when I get there."

Hazel picks up the bowl. The jewels glitter. "Did you do all of these?"

"Most of them," he says.

She pulls out a thick golden bead. "Do you like doing hair?"

It seems a stupid question when it hits the hair and she curses her brain for not catching her tongue. But he answers, amused, "Sometimes. When you're patient. Nico never was, but fortunately Hades is a little more relaxed than I am."

She thinks of Nico, young, and tucked into their father's lap, wet locks being combed and brushed back gently as they dry. She thinks of him squirming, as kids do, bored of sitting still while his hair is trimmed. Or curled. Or whatever he had going on. For all she knows, he was being braided too, with slick smooth plaits. Over and under, over and under. Thin fingers and a idle smile listening to the chatter of a toddler.

"I didn't have much help when she was born," he continues. "And Macaria liked to play rough with the dogs and chickens and Furies." He clips part of her hair to the side and hums softly. "And their claws are not quite suited to crafting ponytails or braids from thick curly hair."

Hazel sets a beautiful onyx bead with her slowly forming pile. There's a thin golden imprint of a skull on it. The skin of it is smooth. Even the grooves are so subtle she can't feel them with her fingertip, only sensing it from the catch of her nail.

"And you just... carried on with it?" She pauses, shifting her head with gentle guide of his hands. "Even when they had other people without claws to help?"

"Of course." The comb is gentle as he passes it through. Slow and steady. Like Macaria and Zagreus, but softer somehow. "I'm your father. Why wouldn't I keep doing your hair?"

[gethoce]

The third Meta Knight reference I did in one year somehow. It's some sort of bad habit by now!

Anyway, random headcanons about the guy below.

Not only is he shorter than the average Dark Matterborn, since he refused to use Dark Magic for most of his life, it also took him unusually long to grow horns for the same reason.

Having been raised by a Halcandran he knows a lot more about this rare species than most. Upon meeting Magolor he occasionally would make casual comments using his unique knowledge which originally caused the mage to be very suspicious of him.

His secretive nature is at least partially something he picked up from his adoptive father, who created the Master Crown and didn't even drop a single hint about his past until after the events of RTDL, when Meta Knight told him about the crown.

The Galaxia has always been in his possession, as far as he can tell, yet his father didn't allow him to wield her properly until he was certain that his swordsman skills were high enough as to not risk another disaster related to the blade.

He gets along with Marx surprisingly well and the two appear to have a lot of mutual respect for one another. The jester will still dunk on the knight whenever an opportunity reveals itself, yet Meta Knight doesn't turn hostile whenever this happens since they are friends.

The events of Revenge of Meta Knight were partially triggered by Marx asking Meta Knight for help, after the King of Dreamland had repeatedly failed to keep Popstar safe.

It took Meta Knight a while to warm up to Dedede. He didn't take him seriously until he realised that they have a lot in common. For instance they both didn't know where they originally came from and were raised by adoptive parents.

Meta Knight has a brotherly relationship to Kirby more than a fatherly one, though doesn't really put labels on their relationship at all. If asked he'd call them a close friend.

He first saw the Dimensional Mirror when his father acquired it in exchange for a sword from the mirror's deceased creator's brother-in-law. It was broken and painstakingly repaired by him and Meta Knight soon after got to meet his reflection for the first time. They were close friends until the events of KATAM.

Meta Knight was asked to join the GSA at one point but refused not wishing to serve under anyone but himself.

Galaxia often speaks to him and offers him advice and comfort, yet is very secretive about their shared past which greatly frustrates him.

He idolised Galacta Knight for the longest time, much to the frustration of his father. Upon meeting Galacta Knight for the first time and witnessing his sealing he attempted to break him free, yet failed. He spent a long time trying to find out how to undo the seal.

It was Marx who told him how to summon the Clockwork Star Galactic Nova and he and Magolor joined him on his quest to do so.

His original name was Metachiroptera, shortened to Chiro. He'll turn hostile upon being called by that name.

He knew Captain Vul since he was a child. The then pirate attempted to steal the Galaxia and failed miserably. They've been friends ever since.

He's terrible at piloting space ships and most other vehicles and overall doesn't have a vast knowledge of technology. He got his crew for that. Instead he knows quite a lot about magic. The opposite applies to King Dedede, who knows little of magic but a lot about creating and piloting machines.

He knew Daroach since before he made a name for himself as Meta Knight.

His primary ability is his weapon ability, sword, yet he as an adult he began to learn the magical abilities ESP and Tornado.

His Dimensional Cape was created and enchanted by his father when his wings began to grow in.

Meta Knight was raised on a planet called Silverstar, which is known for its thick fog.

[studiofelix]

Little Guys that Look Like Me: Loving Myself by Proxy

There are few scenarios where a twenty-something with low self esteem would create something physical in their own image. At 20, I would have sooner eaten bird seed than intentionally made something to look like me. At 21, I found myself doing so, lovingly and painstakingly. It changed me.

It was a first-time-meeting-you-in-real-life present. I crocheted a small doll, no larger than four of five inches in height. I switched colors as I crocheted him, navy for the hair, peach for the skin, pink for the shirt, teal for the pants. I sewed a few flat pieces to his head to look like the fringe I had at the time and lovingly stitched “I <3 U” onto his chest.

It felt strange, blasphemous almost. In the same way young Catholics are told not to take the Lord’s name in vain, I hadn’t dared to create an honest and sincere depiction of myself since the 9th grade. And even then, the portraits that I had drawn at that point had a critical and angsty air to them, but in all fairness, can you really expect anything different from a fourteen year old?

My limited and self-deprecating journey in self portraiture had met its match: creating a simple, happy mini-me for someone I loved, a lesson in carefully crafted self image.

Anthropomorphism: assigning human emotions and traits to inanimate objects. This was a tendency I had growing up, have now, and will have for the rest of my life. It is carefully woven into my experience of growing up as a late-diagnosed autistic, my experience of navigating the world in a limbo state of partial understanding and uncertainty. The dolls, stuffed animals, virtual pets; they are often cast aside as unimportant and unworthy once a child has outgrown them. This makes perfect sense to the average adult. They are not human, not even animals. Their insides are plastic and polyfill and tiny, unsophisticated PCB; they do not bleed and die as we do.

But imagine being human and feeling those things so deeply and fundamentally without knowing why. Your peers are better than you; they make friends easily; they do not struggle to find understanding in each other. You, on the other hand, have had trouble—have been the trouble—in some capacity in nearly every interpersonal relationship you’ve had. This story is not new to you, reader—whether you’re the protagonist, villain, love interest, bystander—you just didn't know that you've been playing a part. I see these objects as extensions of my experience; I can’t stifle the thought of their plight.

I continued crocheting my mini-me, Pocket BF, as I called him. Suddenly he had a face, and this was what gave him feelings. I looked at him. I pet the side of his face as I sewed his hair into his scalp. “Almost done,” I said to comfort him. A mirror image of myself, but one that I now held inexplicable affection for instead of unremarkable, everyday disdain. I didn’t want him to hurt. I wanted him to be happy. He didn’t deserve to feel sad.

Despite this seed of self-love (if you can call it that), there was a disconnect. This love I had for this little guy that looked like me, confusing and paradigm-shifting as it was, did not transfer to my feelings toward myself yet. And as I wrapped Pocket BF in tissue paper, placed him in a box, told him he’d be out soon, and wrapped my gift to my soon(ish)-to-be ex-fiance, the spark of this near revelation would be buried for a while.

Obviously it didn’t work out. When you’ve been engaged for two years with no plans to get married or move in together or even to the same state, the writing is on the wall in a dull and uninspiring script, and it’s been there so long that the paint is starting to chip. Although I must confess, I do partially blame myself; there is a very specific intersection of youth, stupidity, charmingly trite dedication, and earth-shattering codependency that will possess you to propose to your long distance boyfriend of one year. He will dump you over text, the day before valentines day, almost exactly two years later, so don't make my mistake. You've been warned.

The absolute beacon of wisdom and mental fortitude I was (or wasn’t) at 21, aside, the unceremonious and, dare I say, absolutely out-of-pocket-cruel discarding of our relationship that he doled out a few years later devastated me. He’s not a bad person; I hope he finds happiness (and therapy. My God, I hope he gets therapy); I wish him well; etcetera. I coped the best I could, ruminated on everything I could have possibly said or done wrong, cried and cried and cried, standard breakup stuff.

One of the things that helped to carry me, though, was my special interest in a certain video game pairing. They outlived our entire relationship; they were there with me when it began, and they were still there as the rubbled ruin of it began to grow flowers through the cracked stone. I tend to pick a character that I see myself in and project onto them. My art of this character began as pretty on-model; he was very recognizable as his canon self with the only main differences being a matter of style, a few headcanons here and there.

This was at a time in my life where I had started to gain weight (think the freshman fifteen if it was a year later and also fifty pounds instead). Looking back on it now, this was only the natural course my body chose to take. The thing that no one tells you about testosterone therapy is that it quite literally turns you into a carbon copy of your father. My young, twink body softened into a round ball of a belly. My hairline began to recede. What I believed was the result of these objectively neutral changes was actually the result of deeply rooted, internalized fatphobia and a general fear of aging.

I so badly wished to be skinny again. I wished to look like my favorite character again. I wanted it so viscerally that I shuffled through diet attempts and would-be exercise programs in a desperate Hail Mary for a fleeting look akin to a starving Victorian boy.

In one of my nearly daily bouts of self-pity, I said out loud that I wished I could draw Felix, this character I loved and saw as myself, as fat. I had started drawing his partner (well, the character who should have been his partner) as fat, and I was able to get away with it without much pushback from the fandom. And then I had the cartoonishly obvious realization that actually, I could draw whatever the hell I want literally for the rest of my life.

This, honest to God, changed my life. No longer was I drawing this character as the unattainably skinny little twink I wished to be. I drew him to look like me. I gave him rolls and a stomach that protruded out past his waistline. Later on, I’d start drawing him with freckles and a receding hairline as well, hair on his shoulders, round cheeks.

I drew him loved. I drew him happy. I drew him confident in his body and in the space he took up. Broadly speaking, it wasn’t received well. I lost most of my engagement and a lot of my Twitter audience. A hoard of people whose fatphobia was conditional but still there; you could make some characters fat without a problem, but touch the designated fandom twink, and you might as well have deleted your account.

What came from this petty loss, though, were a select few who loved my Felix. A handful of people who felt seen by my art, seen by the care with which I drew these characters, with the realism of fat bodies drawn lovingly—not realism in the sense of style but realism in the sense of believability. I drew (and still draw) them so they feel real. I draw them in a way that I hope makes people like me feel at home.

This healed my self-image by leaps and bounds. Despite the discretely sour reaction I got from most of Twitter, I did find brief and minor Tiktok fame from making tutorials about how to draw fat people. When I draw Felix and Sylvain, I treat them, and ultimately myself, with the love and care deserved. He is another little guy that looks like me. And I loved him dearly. I still do.

My self esteem still needed work, though.

Six months ago, I picked Tomodachi Life for the 3DS back up. I got the game when I was a teenager and played it religiously for a few weeks before losing interest and cycling on to my next video game fixation. I would pick it back up a few more times sporadically over the years—this is the nature of how I play video games. In Tomodachi Life, you manage an island of Miis (Nintendo’s primitive customizable characters that date back to the Wii). You feed them, interact with them, buy them clothes and apartments, and watch their relationships form and change and break. The game starts with the player creating a character that looks like themself—or, how the game puts it, their look-alike.

My look-alike from this play through naturally looked drastically different from my previous play throughs. I made him look like a cute, low-poly version of myself. I made his voice sound as similar to mine as it could within the bounds of 2013 video game technology. I gave him a pink, sparkly apartment theme, dresses, shirts, accessories, his favorite foods, etcetera. I pet him on the head and listened to what he had to say. Just like Pocket BF, just like Felix, I felt a massive amount of love and affection towards him, different than before but still so much the same. This reflection of me could talk; he could walk around his little room. He got married to Sylvain. He had kids with him. He could tell me he was glad we met.

And he could tell me he missed me. By chance, I neglected to check on him for a few days while solving problems for the other Miis. When I tapped on his room, he came towards the screen and said something like, “My look-alike! I haven’t seen you all week! How have you been?”

A feeling of guilt washed over me. How could I have abandoned this little guy? This little guy that looked like me? Had I hurt his feelings? Had I made him sad? He seemed alright. He walked around his room while swinging his arms back and forth. And I soon realized, how could I feel such empathy and kindness towards him, but not feel any of that toward myself? Here it was, my empathy for inanimate objects, friendly pixels, and downright apparitions, in a violent coup against my own self hatred. I am not pixels on a screen or a handmade plush or my idea for what a video game character should have been. I am a living, breathing creature who bleeds when I’m cut. I am a person who has feelings, a person who does not deserve the pain I’ve caused myself by my own hand. I deserve the love and care that I show these self portraits, these vignettes of my simplest self. The rabid beast of my most complex self deserves it as well.

How many times have I looked at myself in the mirror and picked at my skin, picked at my image, picked at my actions, my voice, who I am, the very fabric of my fragile little existence? Too many, and yeah, I'll probably do it again. But maybe instead someday I'll greet myself with a smile, with a "My look-alike! I haven't seen you all day!" With a gentle touch, one reserved for a handmade gift. And maybe this one won't get put in a closet or given to Goodwill, or whatever ex-fiances do with iconography of their past. Little guys that look like me are my past. They are my present. And, although the battle is only halfway fought, they taught me how to love myself by proxy.

[indigosabyss]

Dr Stone Characters Reincarnating into Naruto: Nanami Sai Edition

For all intents and purposes, Sai was one of the Academy civilian students that would fly under the radar. Reasonably good at academics, well above average at thrown weapons, average or below at everything else. Probably would be in the genin corps. Or a career chunin if he pushed it.

Until the codes were found.

It was one of the Academy teachers who had brought attention to it, after he found scraps of what he expected to be an encoded note to a classmate.

A long series of letters and numbers, startlingly good for his age. As in, no one was able to decode it.

At first, it started with the Intelligence Division considering extending an apprenticeship to the boy. But concerns quickly rose as inspection of the boy's belongings found thick volumes filled with the exact same code.

No plaintext, no references, no doodles that an ordinary child would be drawn to do. No gradual evolution of the code being built up, either. As if it had sprout up fully formed, yet had completely avoided being picked up by the Konoha Intelligence Division.

After some frantic deliberation, the boy was dragged to T&I for questioning.

The second they put the incriminating books in front of him, he started bawling.

"I JUST WANTED TO PLAY MONSTER QUEST."

After some panicked confusion, and a box of tissues (Torture and Interrogation wasn't equipped for crying children) they manage to coax some semblance of a story out of the kid.

"So you've figured out an architecture structure that will revolutionize our computational systems." Ibiki surmised, feeling a little lost, "And... you want to use that to make a 'video game'. Which you have painstakingly been coding for years now."

Sai sniffled and nodded.

"And you didn't think that this would instead be a better way to encrypt and store our information?" Ibiki asked him, feeling a little lost. The possibilities the boy had laid out in front of him were baffling. And he wanted to make games?

Sai looked at him, looking just as lost, "But that's no fun." He pointed out.

Well, at least they knew this really was a kid and not a child sized invader.

(notes under cut)

I think we can do a lot with the utter geniuses in child bodies running about who have absolutely no intention of helping the ninjas without being asked first.

In a full length version of the fic, I would give Sai a different name but to minimize confusion I stuck with this.

If you're familiar with my previous dabbling in dcst x naruto this past month ur prolly asking why I wrote this when I was clearly more favorable to Francois being the one who gets reincarnated. And the answer is. This is happening in the same timeline.

Ofc this ficlet in particular is a bit out there. I just wrote it to highlight the two important traits of Sai in the AU. 1) he still wants to be a programmer. 2) ppl think he's a spy for it.

I've built up lore for this you know. Most pre-petrification characters will be reborn years and years away from each other and there are going to be Reasons for why this is happening (chakra meteor reasons :DDDD) and I have literally so much in store for this AU.

I'll try to get it all out in writing on tumblr but in case i don't you can always ask me to clarify on twitch. Am on hiatus atm but will be back in the second week of June.

[kochanski]

Promotion

Rimmer/Lister, rated T, no real content warnings to speak of. Pre-accident fic. Rimmer gets a promotion and drives Lister absolutely bonkers. (This is a repost so you can read while AO3 is down/for further archival purposes.)

Dave Lister's life was hell.

Alright, maybe it wasn't hell, but it was pretty damn close now that Rimmer'd actually somehow gone and managed to cheat his way past the engineering exam. Just like that, everything Lister had worked so hard for the past two years was gone. For months he'd been slowly replacing those stupid little newspaper clippings with his own parody versions, and Rimmer hadn't even noticed as he'd shoved everything he owned into a baby-vomit green rolling suitcase, happy as a smegging clam. Now, the cup full of mold Lister'd been painstakingly feeding and watering served no purpose except occasionally giving him pneumonia. 

His new bunkmate was mind-numbingly boring, which was saying something considering Rimmer had an aglet collection. Aglets. As in, the little hard bits at the ends of your shoelaces. Lister hadn't ever even given them a second thought before he'd moved in with Rimmer, and now every time he looked down at his scuffed old boots all he saw was double-punched brass-plated smegging aglets. 

His bunkmate didn't even really have a proper name, because Lister couldn't remember it for the life of him. He was a completely average-looking guy, a little pudgy, with a round face and a mop of dark hair up top that he didn't bother combing in the morning. Well, relative morning. Lister and his roommate worked opposite shifts, so they only ever saw each other two hours a day. That meant there wasn't anyone to complain when Lister brought out his guitar, because good old Fireman Sam was off auditing the fire suppression systems or some such boring thing. 

It also meant Lister had a lot of alone time. Lots of time to think. To ponder how he was wasting his youth slaving away for JMC, how once this tour was over, he wouldn't even have enough saved up for the plane ride to Fiji, how he'd be stuck here for thirty more years if he wanted a decent pension. 

God, Rimmer, look what you've done, he thought bitterly. I could be cutting nipple holes in all your uniform shirts, and instead I'm thinking about me future. He couldn't bring himself to torment the new guy, not when he seemed like a nice enough sort of bloke. Or, at least, mumbled "have a good shift" from the pile of blankets in the bottom bunk as Lister pulled on his boilersuit, which was nicer than anything his previous bunkmate had ever said to him.

The bunkroom stuff was all a bunch of minor gripes, though, compared to what his work life was like now. Because, see, Rimmer wasn't just a technician anymore. He was an engineer. That meant he was bound to turn up right as Lister was finishing up his normal maintenance routine- smacking the vending machine up on five-oh-two with a spanner until it worked- and insist on reprogramming the thing for four hours.

Worst, now that Rimmer was an engineer, it actually meant something when he handed citations up the chain, because Chief Engineer Callaghan didn't tolerate disruptions. Lister thought Rimmer was off his rocker, but after a disciplinary meeting with old Callaghan, he'd learnt a new definition of wrath. So, sure, maybe Rimmer still didn't actually wield any of his own power yet, but as long as he still had his boss backing him up, he had Lister under his thumb.

"Why is it you've got to keep botherin' me, anyway? You can't tell me you get assigned to the exact same machines as me, every day."

"I don't see you every day. Thursday last week, we didn't cross paths at all." Rimmer crossed his arms. "Besides, I'm not the one bothering you. If anything, you're disrupting my work."

"I'm just saying, when it was you and me there weren't any engineers hovering around, towering over us like a giraffe in a goat pen."

"If that's a jab about my neck, Third Technician…" Rimmer clicked his pen with the sort of zeal only a bona fide maintenance engineer could muster. 

"Write me up, Scotty," Lister sighed, not looking forward to the beet red bulldog jowls he was going to have to face tomorrow morning. Smeg, he couldn't even make a joke anymore. Not even a remark. Life was hell. Absolute hell.

---

Friday night was still a night for the boys, and Lister was all set to drown his sorrows in a few pints of lager and a few more pints of lager and one or two after that. If Lister was really lucky, he'd meet a nice girl tonight and Fireman Sam would have the room all to himself. More likely, he'd get sloshed beyond belief and wake up on the floor wedged in Petersen's bosoms again. Whatever else happened, he was certain of one thing: Friday was magic, it was sacred, it was blowing off steam after the horrid week and it was the only soothing ritual he had left, besides cutting up his nudie magazines and making Franken-porn.

"Why the long face?" Chen asked him as he sat down. "Ya look hungover and it ain't even Monday mornin' yet." This earned a collective chuckle from Selby and Petersen.

"It's just work," Lister said. "I don't wanna talk about it, let's get plastered."

That was the thing- when he said that, they all started drinking and carrying on like normal, but Lister couldn't quite enjoy himself. Maybe a few Fridays ago, he'd have been living in the moment, right, not thinking about the consequences, the future being the farthest thing from his mind, but… well, now all he could think about was that Friday was fleeting and in a few hours it would be Saturday, and mere hours after that it would be Monday and he would wake up, get ready, quiet as so not to disturb his bunkmate who'd just gone to bed, and wander the corridors wheeling a heavy trolley until the biggest tool on the ship decided to show up.

"Hello, Listy," someone said in his ear, and he jumped, scared out of his skin that he'd somehow summoned Monday three days ahead of schedule.

"Oh, smeg off." He had to restrain himself from taking a swing at Rimmer's smug grin. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, I don't have exams to prep for anymore, and since I'm not your direct superior, it's no longer unethical for me to come over and have a drink with you, is it?"

"Yer nose is unethical," Selby started, but Lister motioned for him to stop.

"Just don't," he hissed, afraid that angering Rimmer would make things even worse.

"Why?" Petersen asked helpfully in that slow, deep Danish drawl of his. "You like him all of a sudden?"

"No, look-"

"Well, if ya like him so much-" God damnit, Chen. "-how's about you marry him, then?" Guffaws from the whole table.

"Just leave him alone, alright?" He turned to Rimmer. "And, you. Can't you give me one evening of peace? I mean, I have to spend fifty hours every week with you, I'd think that's enough quality time for the both of us."

"Right, but that's work. This is leisure time." Rimmer grabbed a chair from a nearby table where a woman had just gotten up to get peanuts, shoving his way into the group. "So. I imagine you've all heard that I finally made engineer, haven't you?"

"Tell the truth, I thought you died," Selby admitted. "Lister said he got a new bunkmate, so I figured you spaced yourself or pulled a Mad Jonesy and ran off to live on the diesel decks."

"I- no, why would I do either of those things? No, our friend Lister here has completely misrepresented the situation. I passed my exams, became a well-respected engineer, and now I can finally move on to other conquests, like friendship."

"Conquests," Petersen laughed, but Lister's stomach was starting to sink as he realized what was happening.

He was Rimmer's friend. Rimmer's only friend. Rimmer wasn't his friend, but he was Rimmer's. He was the only person Rimmer had probably ever spoken to for more than five minutes who hadn't immediately made an excuse and left the room.

God, he was doomed.

"Rimsy," he said in a strained voice. "Could you an' I take a little timeout for a sec?"

"Oh. Well, I suppose. You haven't properly congratulated me on my promotion, anyway."

"Oh, yeah, Listy," Selby said with his big fat mouth. "Better go congratulate him."

"Congratulate him so good," Petersen added, and Chen's chittering laughter followed.

"Smeg off," Lister snapped, and he headed for the door, not bothering to check if Rimmer followed him out.

"Finally. I don't understand why you spend time with those brutes, Lister. You simply shouldn't put up with that relentless bullying-"

"You know why they're bullying me?" he asked, exasperated. "They're picking on me because of you."

"What? But I'm an engineer now. If anything, that should rocket your social status right to the tippy-top."

"No, exactly. That's what they think is hilarious, that right there."

"That… that I'm an engineer?"

"That you think bein' an engineer suddenly makes you a cool guy," Lister said, exasperated. "No matter what you do, what your rank is, you're always going to be Rimmer. And I know it, and they know it, but you somehow can't get it through your thick head. That's what's hilarious. And now you've decided to hang off me arm like a barnacle with abandonment issues-"

"But- I- But this is the best we've gotten on in years," Rimmer protested, eyes cemented on his shoes. "I genuinely thought it was because you were beginning to respect me."

"It's because if I do anything out of line, you rat on me to Callaghan, and all of a sudden I've got a chief engineer up my arsehole and all my video privileges revoked for six months!"

"I… see." Rimmer took a deep, fluttery breath, the kind you took when you were trying really really hard not to burst into tears in front of your mates. "I suppose I'll see you Monday, then," he mumbled.

"S'pose you will," Lister said, and he stormed off down the hall, not even in the mood to drink his sorrows away.

---

The weekend had been a total bust. Lister hadn't properly blown off any steam whatsoever. Monday morning came around, and he just laid uselessly in bed, listening as the doors whooshed open and Fireman Sam came in.

He undressed in the dark, doing everything quietly so as not to wake Lister, and then snored softly in the bottom bunk. He was so considerate that way- no Esperanto-lessons-while-you-sleep tapes, no practicing his Schalmei horn at odd hours (come on, Lister, it's not any different than your guitar) and no rambling, one-sided conversations that started just as Lister was finally beginning to drift off. If Fireman Sam had been his bunkmate from the beginning, maybe Lister wouldn't have been so sleep-deprived all the time.

Not that it made any difference now. Lister had spent the night tossing and turning, mourning his ruined weekend, hoping beyond hope that somehow he would close his eyes and open them and that the alarm clock would read "SA" instead of "MO."

It wasn't meant to be.

Evidently their little row had gotten Rimmer wound even tighter than he was normally, and Lister had to pay extra attention to what he was doing.

"It's the wrong screwdriver," Rimmer insisted.

"Yeah, the screw's stripped. I have to use the flathead."

"Well, what about the square drive?"

"That's going to make it worse," Lister muttered, but he picked up the square drive and gave it a half-hearted try.

"Come on, Lister. If you can't get this panel cover off, I'm not going to be able to reprogram the temperature controls. Cold showers for the whole floor, Lister, is that what you want?"

"I-" God, he couldn't. "No, sir." He bit his tongue and kept turning the square drive until the center of the screw was completely hollowed out.

"Well, now you've gone and done it," Rimmer scoffed. "Give me the flathead, I'll fix it myself."

"Yes, sir."

"Don't give me cheek, Lister, or I'll write you up. I'm not in the mood."

"All I said was 'yes, sir!'"

"Right, but it's the way you said it. It's about basic decency and respect."

"I am being respectful."

"All I'm saying is, you could say it in a nicer tone, couldn't you? Service with a smile and all?"

Lister was about to burst. Seriously, he might explode right here and now. He wasn't sure what was going to happen next. Either he was going to peel Rimmer's skin off and start eating him alive, or he was going to shove the square drive up his own nose until it reached his brain.

"There we are. See? It's so easy to solve our problems when we use the correct tools, isn't it?"

Thwack.

Lister's knuckles hurt, and he realized too late that he'd punched Rimmer in the face.

"I- Christ, mate, I didn't mean to- I mean- look, you don't have to-"

"Lister," Rimmer said, oddly cool, though his eyes were watering and there was a definite bruise forming on his cheekbone. "Get the first aid kit."

"Y… yes, sir," he said, certain now that he could say goodbye to the next three weekends, at least.

There was something strange about Rimmer today, as evidenced by the fact that he hadn't clicked his pen and damned Lister to thirty-plus hours of janitorial purgatory yet.

"Here's the medical kit," Lister said, unsure what to make of the whole thing. Rimmer shook his head, patting the spot next to him on the floor.

"Sit."

"What, why?"

"You broke it, so you're the one who's going to fix it."

Lister couldn't argue that. Well, he could, but he really didn't want Rimmer to write him up for this. So he sat down cross-legged next to the prick and opened the box.

"I'm not missing any teeth?" Rimmer asked, curling his lips back.

"No, no. I didn't think I hit you hard enough for that."

"You hit me pretty damn hard."

"Yeah. Sorry."

"Oh, come now. You shouldn't apologize unless you mean it, and I know you don't."

"How's that?"

"You hate me. Of course you're not sorry. You hate me just like all the others, maybe more. No- definitely more." Rimmer smiled weakly. "Right, then. Put the ointment on."

Lister handed him the ointment, confused when Rimmer didn't accept it.

"You put it on."

"Rub this on your face?"

"Yes."

"With my hand?"

"Good point. Clean those things first."

"But can't you do this yourself?"

"It's called a power play, Lister. I gave you an order, so do it, or I really will report you for punching a senior officer."

Hm.

Hmm.

Alright.

Lister rubbed some sanitizer over his fingers first, then squeezed some of the topical cream out of its tube. This was the good stuff- he'd used it plenty of times after his own scrapes. Probably, Rimmer would wake up tomorrow morning righter than rain, no soreness, no discoloration. Like it'd never happened. And Lister would still have Friday night.

It was odd, though, smudging paste on Rimmer's swollen cheek, sort of a strangely tender moment. Like they were in the trenches in some old war movie, and he was dressing Rimmer's wounds with the kind of care you reserved for the guy you'd gone through hell with. Nevermind that Rimmer was the hell.

"Excellent," Rimmer murmured when he'd finished. "There's just one more thing I want from you before you pack it up."

"Okay?"

"Kiss it better."

"What?"

"Well, not like that."

"Yeah, an adult man kissing another adult man on the cheek. S'the most heterosexual thing I've heard all week."

"It's meant to be like a mafia kiss. You kiss the ring as- as a show of fealty, you know, a sign of respect."

"But I don't respect you."

"You'll have to, now."

"But if I don't respect you, and I don't mean it, then it's just a gay kiss, isn't it?"

"What sort of logic is that?" Rimmer shook his head. "You're not squirming out of this one. I want you to show me I'm the boss, and it's this or licking the soles of my boots."

Lister considered it very, very, very hard.

"Oh, grow up."

"Fine, I'll give you the smeggin' gay kiss. But in exchange, I want a week off. No threats, no hoverin' over my shoulder, no showing up on my days off."

"You're not in any position to bargain," Rimmer started, but before he could decline the deal Lister put his lips to Rimmer's cheek.

Sure, he could've gone the easy route, given him a second-long peck and been done with it. But this was a prime opportunity to mess with Rimmer, his only opportunity in weeks, and Lister'd been going through withdrawals.

So he lingered a second or two too long, nuzzling Rimmer's cheek with his nose and suppressing a laugh when he felt it go red-hot with embarrassment. 

"How's that for respect?" Lister said softly, still only about a centimeter from Rimmer's massive head. "Prick."

"A week," Rimmer nodded hurriedly. "A week is great. Fine."

---

Those first four days might well have been heaven. Work went smoothly without Rimmer around to sabotage things, and Lister actually finished his tasks ahead of schedule most days, with plenty of time to bum around. When Rimmer did show up, which wasn't often, he was quiet and avoided eye contact. It suited Lister just fine. And that seemed to confirm what he'd suspected- Rimmer didn't actually need to stalk along his route every day, and had been doing it out of either straight up sadism or desperation for social contact.

Lister still couldn't enjoy his Friday night.

To be fair, it had started out fine. The four of them- the boys, him, Chen, Selby and Petersen, terrors of the disco- were on the pull, eager to make up for last week's disappointment. And there was a new face in town, an decent-looking astro surveyor with curly dark hair down to her waist, and Lister had managed to talk her into a dance somehow.

They swayed along to the noise from the speakers- some artificially nostalgic 70s cover of a 40s cover of a song from the 2090s- and Belinda, or Brittany, Berta, whatever it was, wrapped her arms around Lister's neck.

"Thanks for the warm welcome," she smiled, and kissed Lister's cheek, her fingers flitting across the side of his neck.

"I need the toilet," Lister blurted. He tore her hand away and made a run for it, leaving the poor woman standing in the middle of the dance floor, utterly confused and probably a bit insulted.

Goddamn Rimmer. Smegging Rimmer. He couldn't even leave Lister in peace for one week, had to go and ruin something as lovely as a kiss on the cheek.

Yeah, so maybe it was Lister's own fault that the ghost of Rimmer past was haunting him tonight, but that didn't mean he couldn't get mad about it. He stared in the mirror at the lipstick mark on his left cheek. It looked a bit like a bruise.

He wasn't going back to Brenda's tonight, was he.

---

"There," Lister sighed, checking his watch. "The week's officially up. You can torment me again."

"Good, because I've been dying to remind you that you can't use your pliers as a hammer. You'll ruin them that way."

"Fine, so you try fitting a hammer between these supports."

"I'm not going to do your job for you. Just try to hit it at an angle."

"What angle? Me arm's inside the smegging wall!"

Rimmer clicked his pen.

"Alright, alright," Lister muttered, picking up the hammer.

"Alright…?"

"Yes, I heard you, I'm doing it."

"That's not how you speak to your superiors."

"Alright, sir," he grumbled.

"Better." Rimmer hovered closer. "You know, I think you and I could possibly learn to get along. Reach a sort of… common ground."

"What is this about?" Maybe the week of silence had made him lonely.

"No need to sound so suspicious. All I'm asking for is a little cooperation. I scratch your back, you scratch mine."

"Is this more fake mafia nonsense? Are you going through one of your phases?"

"No, Lister, I'm proposing a ceasefire. I'm sure you had a rather restful week, and I'd like to extend that privilege to you again. One more week, in exchange for…" He struggled with the next words, and they came out in a jumble. "Another kiss."

"Hmm." Lister put the hammer down. "Well, I'd be crazy not to take a deal like that. Even if you chargin' a protection fee for a problem you created is mad shady."

"There's a catch." Rimmer stared down at his clipboard, lips tight, toying with the metal clip. Snap. Snap. Snap. "I want it on the mouth this time."

"Ah."

"Of course, one could argue that leveraging my power over you for- for romantic-adjacent means could be taken as unethical. So. If you took this deal, the reports to Callaghan would naturally have to stop for fear that you would report me back."

"Oh, naturally," Lister parroted.

"It would be a stalemate. You and I would be on equal terms again."

"You must be desperate to kiss somebody."

"It's not like that! This is- it's an equalizer, you understand. It's quid pro quo. It's a non-zero-sum situation."

"You must be desperate to kiss me."

"No- it's a- it's a pawn sacrifice in our little battle of wits. It's just to- it's to level the playing field, it's a tactical move-"

Rimmer went on like that for a few more rambling sentences, giving Lister a moment to mull it over.

The prospect of another week was tempting, but more than that… he wanted to take him up on another kiss, didn't he? There was a pretty sizable part of him that got all tingly at the thought of pressing Rimmer against the wall of the corridor, showing him who was boss. That'll teach you, telling me not to ruin my pliers. Mwah. 

At the same time- he'd turned down the opportunity to spend the weekend in bed with a beautiful, smart, funny woman with huge cans. If this continued, Rimmer was probably going to ruin him. Probably had done.

"Well?" Rimmer asked, gripping the clipboard so hard his fingers had turned white.

"Okay," Lister said, against his better judgement. "You've got a deal."

---

Of course as soon as they'd shaken on it, the once-empty corridor had come alive with the bustle of miners and technicians hurrying down the hall on their lunch break.

"Look, come to my quarters after your shift," Rimmer had murmured below the chattering crowd, pressing a scrap of paper into Lister's hand. "I have a single now. Engineers get single rooms." Oh, smegging engineers.

It was a nice room, though, only a little smaller than the one they'd shared. With some amusement, Lister noticed the fake clippings he'd made were sitting in the bin- how long had it taken Rimmer to notice? Although there wasn't a window, there was a nice armchair bolted to the floor near the foot of the bed, which would be perfect for all the pretending to read Rimmer did. There was an angled desk with some nice-looking diagrams of something clipped onto it, which Lister understood absolutely none of. Dots and lines. He realized Rimmer had drawn it after a few moments of squinting- there was that telltale block lettering, almost perfect except for the squashed O's and unfinished R's. Huh. It made a twisted sort of sense that he'd be good at this. Rimmer had always liked taking a ruler to a perfectly good piece of paper and turning it into a schedule from Satan's nightmares.

Other than that, the room wasn't that interesting. Lister had done all the snooping he wanted to do, and twenty minutes later Rimmer was nowhere to be found. And sure, Lister knew Rimmer was a bit of a flake any time he needed to do something that involved even the tiniest bit of bravery. He waited until the last minute to get any of his shore-leave vaccinations, or didn't leave the ship at all. It was just- did he expect to be able to avoid his own bunk forever? Did he expect Lister to give up after a half-hour, go home, and pretend nothing had happened?

Lister laid back on the bed, shoes still on, smudged with grease, and made himself comfortable. Rimmer wasn't going to go back on this, not with a week of total blissful solitude on the line. Lister had no issue waiting it out. Actually… he looked around the room one more time. Like Rimmer'd said, they were equals again. Lister opened two of the pens sitting in a tray at the bottom of the desk and swapped the ink chambers. It was a lame prank, but he knew Rimmer would get disproportionately angry about it when he realized the black was writing in red and vice versa.

There was a hesitant knock on the door, and Lister jumped, diving back onto the bed.

"You- er- you're here," Rimmer gulped as he opened the door. "I halfway expected you wouldn't be."

"It took you long enough to get here. I thought you'd stood me up in your own room."

"They had me working on something down in the diesel decks," Rimmer sighed. "It took me ages to get there and back. To think, I got into this job because I didn't want to commute."

"I thought your dad forced you to sign up."

"It was a joke, Lister, I thought you enjoyed those."

Maybe Rimmer'd forgotten all about their deal, because he sat down in the armchair and took off his boots like it was just a normal day.

"Anyways, you wouldn't believe who I ran into down there. Do you remember that skutter- the one that was a shade of blue different than the others? The mispaint?"

"No way. Thunder's still around?" Lister couldn't contain his smile. "He was my favorite. Always let him bum a cig off me."

"You mean you used it as an ashtray," Rimmer scoffed.

"No, I swear the little bugger smoked 'em!"

"Well, from what I understand, they had to pull it apart to clean all the ashes out. But-" A smile tugged at the corners of Rimmer's mouth. "They didn't end up removing that little lightning bolt you drew on him. It's still there, if a bit chipped."

"You had a fit," Lister reminisced. "Defacing company property an' all."

"Well, it- yes. It's still a punishable offense. But, I don't know, seeing it now was a… moment of reprieve from an otherwise miserable sort of day."

There was a second or two there, Rimmer smiling to himself, where maybe Lister would have kissed him without any strings attached. No- this was still Rimmer, after all. They were only getting along because they'd finally had the opportunity to spend time apart. As soon as the smothering began again, Lister would be back to hating him.

"Let's get this over with," he insisted. "I've got things to do."

"You're so right, Listy. I wouldn't want to keep you from curing cancer or building the galaxy's first quantum engine." Rimmer twirled into the spot next to him on the bed, fingers picking at the seam of his crisp uniform pants. "Get to it, then," he said quietly.

Lister took Rimmer by the chin, tilting his head so that they were face-to-face. It felt uncomfortable. Rimmer clearly had no idea where to look, his eyes flitting from meeting Lister's gaze to his mouth to his forehead.

"Close your eyes, alright?"

"I'll keep them open, if it's all the same."

"That's unnatural. Just close 'em."

"I don't trust you. You're going to do something weird, I just know it."

"Maybe I would normally, but I want a week of peace an' quiet. Close your eyes and relax." Lister put his hands on Rimmer's shoulders, lowering them by a few inches, and Rimmer sighed and squeezed his eyes shut. Much better.

It wasn't as difficult to kiss him as Lister had thought it would be.

Obviously he'd been stuck on the first one for a week, but he thought for sure there'd be some sense of disgust when it happened for real. Rimmer would do something off, and he'd wake up and realize he was snogging the human equivalent of queuing at the post office, and that would be that.

Instead, Rimmer's lips felt like… lips. By some miracle, his hands made their way to the sides of Lister's neck and jaw, and his breath was warm on Lister's cheeks. He knew how to kiss, which was a pleasant surprise, even if it was a little unsteady, and his lips clung to Lister's, alternating top and bottom, softer than expected. He smelled good- kind of sweaty, yeah, considering the belly of the ship could get miserably cold or miserably hot depending on what section you were in. But it was a good smell. Soapy.

Lister hadn't noticed they'd been kissing for so long, too wrapped up in the experience, and he quickly pulled away.

"That's one week," he said. Rimmer had definitely noticed.

"Yes. One week, as promised." Rimmer paused. "Of course, we- we could do it in bulk."

"Bulk?"

"Get another one out of the way, while you're here. I doubt you'll want to come all the way back here again come next Monday, will you?"

"You have a point," Lister agreed. He didn't. He didn't have a point, not really, but at this point any excuse to just stay in this weird warm spot was a good one. "Two weeks."

"Two weeks," Rimmer nodded, and he leaned in.

Lister scooted forward, throwing his arms around Rimmer's neck like they belonged there. Comfortable. Something about this was comfortable.

This kiss was a lot shakier than the last, as though whatever courage Rimmer had plucked up was quickly faltering. That was alright- Lister stroked the soft hairs on the back of his neck, satisfied when Rimmer shuddered. It was so easy. It felt so easy.

"Th- three?" Rimmer stuttered after they'd separated.

"Yeah. Three."

---

It was only eighteen hours into the month and a half Lister'd earned when Rimmer came to bother him again.

"What's this about?" he groaned.

"You know damned well what this is about," Rimmer said, holding up two pens.

"Ah, c'mon, man, you left me alone in the room. You knew the risk."

"I'm not angry," Rimmer lied through his teeth. "I just want you to fix it."

"Can't you do it yourself? You're not holdin' up our agreement."

"I can't, Lister, it's the principle of the thing. You broke it, you fix it."

"Ohhh." Lister put down his tools. "You can't, can you?"

"It's the principle of the thing," Rimmer repeated.

"You're a big bad engineer, and you can't figure out how to take a pen apart."

"Just fix it, alright?" he squeaked, shoving the pens at Lister.

Lister laughed and pulled the ends off, swapping the cartridges easy as anything. 

"Thank you," Rimmer said tersely. "Touch my things again, by the way, and I don't care about our agreement- I can and will disembowel you and use your entrails as a jump rope."

"Sure, Rimmer," Lister smiled. "Anything else you need?"

"I… well, no, that was it. I suppose I should bid you adieu."

"Yeah. Guess you should."

They stood in silence for a moment.

"Actually-" Lister pointed at the mess of wiring inside the junction box. "You're killer at organizing things. You could help me with this mess."

"Well, Lister, I'm a very busy man, and I have a lot on my plate, but… for old time's sake, maybe I could slot it into my schedule."

"Thanks," Lister said, stepping aside and slipping Rimmer a handful of connectors. "So, the travellers are the real problem…"

---

"You seem a lot less depressed." Selby nudged him. "C'mon, don't hold out on us. What's her name?"

"What d'you mean?" Lister laughed. "I can't just be happy for no reason?"

"You?" Chen shook his head. "You're a gloomy fucker in between relationships."

"Ja. You always have this look like a puppy kicked you," Petersen added.

"I think it's 'like a kicked puppy.'"

"I'm happily single," Lister insisted, nursing his pint glass. "Maybe work's gone better than usual."

"So, what? They fired Rimmer?"

"No. We're just- we get on now, y'know?" This line of conversation was really dangerous. Lister doubted the boys cared a lick if he kissed a bloke- it was more the fact that he'd kissed Rimmer that would make him into an instant pariah. Well. Not a pariah, but he'd never hear the last of it, never ever. "Er- yeah, I think us not being stuck together day and night makes it easier not to toss him down an elevator shaft."

"How's bunking with Tillery? I heard he's a total bore."

"Who?" It took Lister a second to realize they were talking about Fireman Sam, and the next second the nickname had sent the group into a fit of laughter.

"That's just perfect!" Chen chittered like a hyena. "Spot on!"

"Look, he's a nice guy. I just don't get to have a lot of-" Lister's eyes caught a figure standing awkwardly in the middle distance. "Ah, hey, I've got to use the head. Watch me beer, yeah?"

"Too much spicy food," Petersen scolded him. "I told you to stay away from those vending machine curries."

"Right, shame on me," Lister said, making a quick escape.

"Rimmer, what are you doing here?"

"Not- I wasn't here to bother you," he said frantically. "I didn't even know you'd be here tonight. I was just- trying something different."

"No, it's good to see you out. I always said you needed to get your nose out of those boring war books and make some friends." Lister gingerly grabbed his elbow, steering him towards an alcove where they'd be less likely to be seen by his group.

"Unsurprisingly, I'm not having any luck in that pursuit. As it turns out, you were right about not many people being impressed by my status." He sighed. "This was sort of a last attempt, before I go back to studying for the astronavigation exam. At least as an officer, I'll command some sort of respect-"

"What? But you're a brilliant engineer."

"I- no I'm not?" Rimmer's confusion was genuine. "You think I'm a good engineer?"

"I've seen those drawings you did. Those were really good, I think. I mean, I didn't know what any of it meant, but it looked good."

"Oh." He looked pale and shaken, like Lister had just told him how he was going to die.

"Anyways-" Lister glanced back towards the table. Petersen had drank his beer pretty much immediately after he'd left. "I should get back to my boys, but… I dunno, I'll see you Monday?"

"Next next Monday," Rimmer nodded.

"Well- yeah, next next Monday." It was what Lister'd earned, after all.

---

It felt like forever until the next time Rimmer asked him for a kiss. At some point, Lister had given in and taken to fantasizing about him- those soft curly hairs on the back of his neck, the way his breath stank of regulation toothpaste, the little tremors in his breath when they pulled apart.

It was the day today, and Lister couldn't help but feel nervous despite himself. There was absolutely a non-zero chance that Rimmer wasn't going to ask him. Maybe he'd changed his mind, or met someone, against all odds. Maybe he would chicken out, like always, and he wouldn't even show up to work.

He did the unthinkable and showered, scrubbing everything clean, brushing his teeth furiously until all he could taste was mint and blood. He put on his least ratty boilersuit, cursing the fact that he hadn't done his laundry in a week.

"Mmrph," Tillery grunted from the bottom bunk as the door slid open, leaching fluorescent light into the dark room.

"Sorry, man," Lister whispered. "You get some rest."

"You look… nice," Rimmer said stiffly. "Surely you didn't gussy up for my sake."

"Have a date tonight," Lister lied on impulse, and he immediately wanted to shoot himself out an airlock for that one.

"Oh." A pause. "So you probably don't want to-"

"No, we can. We can." He set his wire strippers back in the tool cart, giving up the pretense of working. "This floor's kind of deserted, right, I mean- it's just all cargo bays and machinery-"

"So you think you'll just get it all out of the way now, and go about your day." Rimmer was angry! His arms were at his hips, jaw squared, angry, and Lister hadn't realized how much he missed this expression.

"If you don't want to-"

"No, Lister, I do. Let's. Let's go behind the pallets of astronaut diapers. I can't think of any better place to do it."

"Look, if-"

"Come on," Rimmer snapped, and he briskly made his way into the labyrinthine supply stacks. Lister followed, unsure if he'd smegged the whole thing up yet or not.

Bam.

Rimmer grabbed him by the collar, pushing him against a large metal crate, and Lister hated what that did to his downstairs.

"Oh, Rimmer," he sighed, smirking when Rimmer turned bright red.

"You- Just so you're aware, I'm changing the price."

"You what?"

"I think a whole week is too cheap. You're getting far too bold, knowing you can just banish me for months at a time. So-" He loosened his grip, unsure- "One day."

"A day?" Lister tried to seem irritated. "Only a day, for all this?"

"It's- it's just what's fair. I'm not a lowly technician anymore, and I'm re-evaluating myself."

"Alright, well, can we still do it in bulk?"

"Fine."

"Then I'm gonna do a month. Get it out of the way."

"What?" Rimmer froze. "Here?"

"Mhmm," Lister hummed, pulling Rimmer forward by his tie.

The first kiss was electric, brilliant, and Lister could feel all the tension in him release. When Rimmer started to pull away, he tugged the tie again, biting his bottom lip gently. Stay there.

This wasn't going to be a quick process. He was going to keep Rimmer's mouth on his mouth all shift. He was going to get way behind on repairs.

Lister didn't let Rimmer get a word out before the second kiss happened. This time, Rimmer's tongue slipped between his lips, awkward, and their teeth clicked as he pushed Lister back up against the container, and it was sloppy and messy and a little gross and absolutely perfect.

And then the third kiss…

---

Dave Lister was in heaven. Or, close to it.

He didn't mind his job so much. At least, it was sort of satisfying building things, fixing things, and he was good at it. Every Friday night, he went to one of six bars with his boys and got absolutely sloshed. And then, Saturdays. 

Saturdays he spent in Rimmer's fancy single room, because they'd gotten caught a few times kissing in the corridor or in whatever corners they could find, so it was far more practical to just come over to Rimmer's and do it there.

And sometimes he stayed over, and it turned into Sunday.

"Wait," Rimmer said as Lister climbed into his bed one evening. "I don't think we can keep doing this."

"What?"

"Well- we're returning to Earth in a week. I don't want to owe you."

"You won't owe me, Rimmer, if anything you'll be sticking to the agreement. I mean, if you're up here and I'm down there, you won't have any problem avoiding me the whole day." They often had to re-do days or even weeks. It was sort of a flimsy excuse at this point.

"Right, but it's… I don't know. I suppose you're right."

"Hey. Don't look so gloomy."

"It's our last Saturday on the same assignment."

"I'm here now," Lister said, and he earned himself another day, pressed it gently against Rimmer's lips.

"You're still dead set on going back to Liverpool?" Rimmer asked when they separated.

"Yeah. I've been away from home long enough. Four years, and the place is probably all paved over."

"As it should be," Rimmer clucked. "I don't see what's so great about Liverpool. It's a slum compared to Io."

"There's tons to love about it."

"Name one good thing that ever came out of that blasted city."

"The Beatles?"

"Well-" He struggled. "So what? That was two hundred years ago."

"You like me well enough, and I came from there." Lister stroked Rimmer's cheek, delighted when he turned pink.

"A whole town full of Listers." Rimmer made a disgusted face.

"You'd love it. We have trees there, real ones, not like that bio-engineered crap you have on Io. It's historical, too, you could learn all about your world wars and trains and ships and things."

"Historical, how would you know? You've never been in a museum in your life."

"Been to the Beatles museum."

"Oh, of course you have."

"I'm serious," Lister continued. "You'd be happy in Liverpool, you know. I mean, it's a welcoming place. They need maintenance engineers everywhere, and you could get a cute little flat above a shop somewhere, make some friends who aren't half-mad from spaceship fumes…"

"I'd walk down the street and have a panic attack. There's no routine there, you know. People just walk around willy-nilly doing whatever they want."

"Sure there's a routine. It's just not enforced by anyone, y'know, it's like the city breathing in and out. There's real days there, people follow the sun. And I'd be in town. I'd help you figure it out."

"A week to move my entire life from outer space to England isn't enough time," he protested.

"Your entire life is about two lockers worth of stuff. And anyways, you could stay with me at my gran's old place for a couple weeks. I wouldn't mind."

"It's been abandoned for four years. It's probably caved in and full of vermin."

"So help me fix it up. And I'll owe you."

Rimmer leaned in, kissing the corner of Lister's mouth. Twelve hours.

"Lister," he said softly. "What happens when you get off this ship and you aren't stuck with me anymore?"

"I guess you'll be stuck with me instead, then, won't you?"

Rimmer went quiet for a moment, glancing away.

"I… I'll think about it."

They went back to necking without any further discussion.

And as much as Lister loved this new sense of desperation, the way Rimmer dug his fingers hard into his back, the soft moans Rimmer might have usually suppressed, he couldn't help the brick of disappointment that sank heavy to the bottom of his stomach.

---

The shuttle was mostly empty. Really just Lister and Selby. Chen was going to stay on another few days while the ship was docked with that blonde bird he'd been seeing, Petersen was signed up for another tour. 

It had been sad, saying goodbye to this great red beast that had let Lister squirm around in its belly for a whole four years. 

He'd said goodbye to Holly, and the vending machine that always gave him double rations ever since he fixed its intake valve. He'd tried and failed to find Thunder to smoke one last cig together, and settled on leaving a few scattered around the diesel decks where he thought no one would immediately find them.

He'd given Tillery a long, tight hug, much to Tillery's vague confusion, told him he'd been the best bunkmate ever, decided against telling him who'd started the now ship-wide Fireman Sam nickname.

And he hadn't heard anything from Rimmer.

He hadn't heard a single word since two days ago.

And it made sense- Rimmer hated change, and he hated getting jabbed with needles, and he hated the idea of leaving his comfortable, seasonless spaceship, with everything planned out for him for the next decade, down to the hour. He was a coward. And that was fine. Lister hadn't really expected him to change. He hadn't actually thought for more than a minute that Rimmer would run away to Earth with him. But smeg, he couldn't even have said goodbye after they'd been not-dating for a whole year?

"You alright, man?" Selby asked, clapping him on the shoulder.

"Fine. Just- y'know, feeling a bit down leaving this place. Might even be a bit homesick."

"Yeah. It was a good gig."

"It was a good gig," Lister nodded back.

FINAL CALL FOR BOARDING… PLEASE ENSURE ALL CARRY-ON LUGGAGE IS SECURED PROPERLY… the speakers blasted across the docking bay.

"Wait!" someone shrieked from outside.

"Look at that," Selby chuckled, but Lister wasn't in the mood to do anything but sulk. "No, look. Rimmer the engineer's out there, trying to haul around five suitcases."

"What?"

"Yeah! How does he think he's gonna fit all of that in the shuttle?" Selby laughed. "Typical- where are you going?"

Lister had unbuckled already, all-but-diving out the shuttle door.

"Oh, you smegging idiot, you dimwitted bastard of a man," he huffed, grabbing one edge of Rimmer's stupid heavy wooden trunk.

"Sorry," Rimmer wheezed. "The clerk told me I couldn't bring half of this on the shuttle- so- I had to complain at him for twenty minutes-"

"Yeah, they've got a cargo hold! You're s'posed to check this sort of thing!"

"And risk scuffing my father's trunk?" Rimmer said incredulously as they managed to get it across the threshold. Rimmer set down the rolling suitcase, large military backpack, and duffel bag he'd been carrying, and Lister immediately threw his arms around him, squeezing tight.

"You came. I didn't think you were going to come," he murmured into Rimmer's neck.

"I nearly didn't, thanks to the luggage clerk." Rimmer's fingers slid up Lister's back.

"Wait a second! You two- I knew it!" Selby hooted. "Oh, I fuckin' knew it! Oh, Chen owes me fifty dollar-pounds…" His excitement faded as he realized he was about to spend the better part of six hours stuck in a cramped shuttle with them.

The shuttle doors snapped shut and sealed with a hiss, and Lister reluctantly let go of Rimmer, grinning like a madman as he fastened himself back into the chair.

"You'd better be right about this," Rimmer muttered, glancing at Selby, red with embarrassment. "I can't believe I've derailed my entire life and career for you."

"Yeah, horrible decision on your part. But we'll figure it out, together." Lister smiled, sliding his fingers around Rimmer's hand, and in the next moment the shuttle roared to life. "Promise."

[averysmolbear]

This is all just self ship stuff so it’s okay not to read it. ☺️ It’s just an expanded on version of the not so little family post for my self ship with Reiner.

When we found out that I was pregnant for the first time, Reiner was ecstatic. He had been hoping for it after all but I was nervous as hell. Of course Reiner took it upon himself to buy every parenting and pregnancy book that he could get his hands on, only for him to get frustrated when finding contradicting advice in various books.

“Seriously,” Reiner said as he slammed the book he was reading closed, “why can’t they all just tell you to do the same thing? How am I supposed to know which way is right?”

I look over at him with a small smile, setting aside the yogurt parfait that Reiner had painstakingly made for me earlier. “I think that’s because we’ll figure it out as we go along,” I said with a shrug, reaching out to turn his face toward me.

A slow smile started to tug at the corners of his mouth as he looked at me, nodding. He placed a hand on my stomach, which was still the same soft belly it had been before we found out I was pregnant since I wasn’t showing yet. Reiner took a deep breath before placing a soft kiss on my lips.

“You’re right,” he said, tossing the book aside. “I just hoped to have a hang of it before the little nugget got here.”

“That what we’re calling him or her?”

Reiner grinned as he shifted to lay down on the couch so he could rest his head in my lap. He was a bit cramped on the couch but he never asked me to move, just curling his long legs up a little more as he looked up at me. “Why not? We should call the baby something other than ‘it’, right?”

I reached for my snack again to finish it off but between bites, I played a little with Reiner’s hair. “Nugget it is.”

It wasn’t long before he started panicking though because the closer we got to the baby being born, the more he wondered if he was cut out to be a dad. His own father hadn’t been a part of his life after all and Reiner began to wonder if he would mess up the child’s life by not being a good enough father.

He had long talks with my dad and his uncle and other people to get a better sense of what he was getting himself into but he never once regretted his decision to start a family with me. In fact Reiner was so confident that I could pick up the slack in the areas where he might be lacking. I reminded him that he did a wonderful job of being a big brother figure to his cousin, Gabi, and that while there wasn’t a huge age difference between him and Eren or Armin, he had been a good big brother figure to them too. The only difference now was going to be that this was our child but he already had it in him to be a good, strong role model.

When Amelia was born, Reiner cried more than I did. He was so happy but he worried that he would hurt her when he held her. He just kept commenting about how he couldn’t believe how tiny she was (the doctor kept reminding Reiner that Amelia was actually average for a baby) and Reiner couldn’t understand how we had made something so tiny and beautiful, although he would always add that Amelia had to take after me because she was so perfect.

He slept with the baby monitor on his side of the bed and for the first week, Reiner didn’t get much sleep. He wanted me to sleep through the night as much as possible so he tried to catch every little cry Amelia made to make sure she had whatever she needed. He was surprised at how quickly I was able to tell the difference in the way Amelia cried if she needed a diaper change or needed to be fed or just wanted to be held. Reiner soon, however, was able to pick up on the differences too and he was the most attentive but nervous dad.

“She’s tiny,” Eren said, watching as Amelia got some tummy time on a blanket on the floor. “At least she takes after her mom. If she took after you, she’d be one ugly kid.”

“Eren!” I peeked my head in from the kitchen to see Armin sitting on the floor, shaking a rattle at Amelia while Eren watched from the couch. He looked up at me and shrugged.

“He’s right,” Reiner added, moving as soon as he heard Amelia fuss a bit. He scooped her up easily and laid her on the couch. “She gets her looks from you. Actually she gets a lot from you.”

I shook my head to return to making lunch for us. Soon Eren was joining me in the kitchen, gesturing toward the fridge. I frowned slightly, not knowing what he was asking about.

“Reiner said to get a bottle for Amelia,” he said, shrugging. He watched as I grabbed the bottle of pre pumped breast milk, taking it when I handed it to him.

“You two are good parents, you know,” Eren added as he started out of the kitchen. “Just don’t tell Reiner I said that.”

When I found out that I was pregnant again, Reiner and I felt more prepared. And then came the news that I was having twins. They ran in my family but were kind of rare so I hadn’t expected to find out that we would be having twins. Reiner seemed calm until we got home. In fact, he was so concerned that we didn’t tell anyone that it was going to be twins until I was much further along, especially since I ended up on bedrest for the last couple of months. That actually wound up scaring Reiner to the point that he refused to let me hold Amelia at all toward the end of the second pregnancy.

When they were born, we worried a little about being overwhelmed by having 3 in diapers. Luckily Amelia was getting closer to hitting an age where she’d be walking and she was eating mostly solid foods. She was even drinking out of a sippy cup and had started trying to talk and feed herself with finger foods by the time the boys were born. Of course my parents and Reiner’s mom stepped up a lot once Mathias and Milo were born to help out whenever they could but for the most part Reiner and I were able to mostly handle things on our own. It helped that Amelia was so well behaved though.

Reiner and I took turns getting up for the kids whenever one of them fussed at night but Amelia was sleeping through the night by the time her brothers were born so it was mostly changing and feeding the boys.

We were confident parents by the time Isobelle was born. Amelia was potty trained and while the boys weren’t there yet, they were still getting closer to that point by the time we added another baby to the mix. Of course once Mathias and Milo were up and walking, we had to double down on some of the baby proofing of the house. They weren’t just more curious than Amelia had been; they were downright trouble together. In fact they were often sneaking out of their pay pen if someone wasn’t keeping a close enough eye on them. They didn’t misbehave too much but they were a handful and even as they reached toddler age, one would play lookout while the other tried to get something that they were told they couldn’t have.

Luckily for us Amelia was good at helping to keep an eye on her siblings even at the age of five, which was around the time that Everett came along. By this point, all of the other children were potty trained (or close to it with Isobelle still in pull ups) and they were all walking and talking. It was slightly more chaotic, especially once Reiner and I were fully outnumbered by the children but we were so used to having a baby around that it wasn’t difficult for us to keep up with all of them. Plus we had help from family and friends more often than not, with even Eren and Armin or Annie or Porco and Pieck offering to watch the kids if we needed a break.

When I found out I was pregnant one last time, Reiner and I thought we had it all in hand. Of course the last pregnancy was a bit rougher on me. I had the worst morning sickness and the doctor was a little concerned about my blood pressure. Because of this, Reiner doted on me throughout the pregnancy and he made sure that I didn’t try to do too much. By this time though we had 3 in school and only 2 at home still. With the help we got from family and friends, things went as smoothly as we could have hoped for. Theodore was a bit premature (and the smallest of the babies I’d had) but he was a healthy baby.

Reiner did worry a little more about Theodore but like his siblings before him, he progressed through each milestone on time or even early. It helped that Amelia liked to sit and read to her younger siblings once she learned how to read and Theodore had 3 older brothers who always included him in whatever they were playing even if he was still too young or small to be able to play along.

(Also Amelia being called nugget stuck and even as she grew up Reiner called her nugget. Mathias and Milo were our peanuts. Isobelle was our bug. Everett was our bean. Theodore was our jelly bean. And yes, Reiner will still refer to each of them by those nicknames whether they like it or not. And Theodore went from being the smallest to the biggest of the kids, standing at 6’ tall as a teenager and he could pass Reiner’s height by the time he’s done growing.)

[adultswim2021]

Squidbillies #43: "The Fine ‘Ol Solution" | June 1, 2009 - 12:00AM | S04E03

Early rounds up a bunch of day laborers and gives them a job. The job in question is jumping off a cliff, to their death. This is because Early is a genocidal maniac who wants them illegals wiped out because they’re taking our jobs. After cleaning house, he takes what’s rightfully his; the right to loiter in the parking lot, becoming the sole new “little guys who work”. But Early becomes frosty at the prospect of actually doing work, after a disastrous one-day gig painting the inside of Dave Willis’ chimney. 

Early decides to ramp up his war on skilled labor by starting a group called The Fine ‘Ol Solution, which appropriates an actual Nazi flag for it’s logo. Rusty wants to change the name to Jimmy Eat World, which nobody in the episode realizes is already a thing (and neither does the Squidbillies wiki editor, who painstakingly mentions every reference in every episode). They do the joke of hiring the very same day laborers they’re trying to keep out to build said wall, shamelessly plagiarizing Carlos Mencia’s very original joke. They wind up building a wall just around Early’s house and they are sealed inside, doomed to starve. 

This one has a gag involving an elaborate security system that involves gorillas that throw alligators, and sharks that are clearly dying from not being in water. When Early unveils his plans, there are toys scattered throughout, and among them is a doll of Cheyenne Cinnamon, an as-of-yet-released Adult Swim pilot. Also notable: there were two jokes in this that I laughed at! One was a pretty simple one where Early exclaims “America number one!” and he waves a little confederate flag. The other joke I laughed at was when Early asks one of the day laborers what his biggest fear is, so Early can use it to repel him. When he says public speaking, Early puts podiums and teleprompters around his wall. 

This one is most comparable to the Goobacks episode of South Park. I am tempted to watch that episode just to compare the two, but I won’t. This is actually a fairly above average episode of Squidbillies. This episode was apparently picked to represent the show during Adult Swim’s 2017 “History of Adult Swim” event. Is there a better episode of Squidbillies? Honestly, I would rather stop thinking about Squidbillies as soon as possible, so I won't answer that.

[hms-tardimpala]

Favorite characters of 2022

For posterity, here are the characters I (re)discovered in 2022 that really stuck with me. I hope I can do this for several years and see if I can find a trend or if my tastes evolve with time. (This post's purpose is mostly to study myself, ngl)

Homer Jackson - Ripper Street

All the characters in Ripper Street are worthy of this list, but I relate to Jackson particularly. He's a scruffy, alcoholic, genius, messy jack of all trades, a brilliant doctor and a broken human being. And he's bisexual, of course.

I liked him from the first second, but I really fell in love with him when this 19th-century doctor said "Oh by the way, there was semen in these men's rectums, but I didn't think it was important." and "I know big stevedores who would make you feel like a princess, Sergeant."

His story in the show is a beautiful, funny and tragic one I won't forget soon.

Fetch Phillips - The Fetch Phillips Archives

I relate to Fetch so much it's concerning. Guilt is one of the five emotions I have on speed dial, so... But it's also fascinating to see him grow and painstakingly become a better man. I love what Luke Arnold is doing with this character and the series.

I don't need to say much about him here because the Writers of Sunder City discord server is where I discuss him the most, but yeah, he makes the list this year.

Max - Black Sails

She makes me think of Connor Walsh from HTGAWM because he looked out for himself and his loved one above everything else and wasn't above lying and manipulating people to achieve his ends. And the people I watched HTGAWM with disliked him just like they disliked Max when we watched Black Sails. But they forget that, among a group of murderers, Connor was the innocent one (I haven't watched S6 yet, don't spoil). He didn't kill Sam. He didn't crush a district attorney under his car. He didn't have a homosexual man deported back to Pakistan. He was just the mean guy of the group, was used to cover up these murders again and again, and nobody cared when it destroyed him slowly because he was "the mean guy". And I've seen plenty of people treat Max the same way.

She's the kindest, most compassionate character on this show. She values human life and all she wants is safety and happiness for herself and the ones she loves. She is one the best-written female characters I've ever encountered in any type of media.

Long John Silver - Black Sails

I don't have words. I know him intimately. He's a complete mystery to me. He's burned into my mind. I'm not the same after watching this show.

An interesting thing is that I like all John Silvers so far. Tim Curry in the Muppets movie, Treasure Planet John Silver, book John Silver. But to me he will always have Luke Arnold's face, voice and body language. It's a character I won't stop thinking about for a long while. I might write a thesis on the character and his different incarnations someday, just to entertain myself.

Steve McGarrett - Hawaii Five-0

Hear me out.

(Look at how fucking sad he looks in that uniform I love it)

I know this show is mediocre on average, I know it's copaganda and the ethics of it are dystopian. It's so far from my political views you'd think I'm joking.

But I still love it.

And while Danny used to be my favorite character, I now relate to Steve more. My whole life, I've wanted to be a soldier. Because of my relationship with my father, because of my transness, and for other bullshit reasons. I have now given up on this aspiration because of health issues (and other stuff), with great regret. So when I see in a show a man like Steve, who didn't necessarily enlist for the right reasons, who exists through his usefulness to his community - his found family - and who shares my issues with showing emotion/letting people in, feeling worthy on one's own, and being terrified of being alone, when I see that man grow, find love and learn to open up and live his own life... Well I just turn off my critical mind a little and enjoy the ride. And it's fine. I just love this character 🤷

Notes:

Out of these five, at least three are queer (all of them if you count headcanons)

80% of them are cis men. I don't think it's for lack of encountering and liking characters of other genders, it's just what I liked this year

Boy, this hasn't been a great year reading-wise, on the whole (with a few stellar exceptions)

[domschwartz]

Building an anti-library for a child

"Adults not only create and publish what young people read but also serve as their literature's gate-keepers, determining what children can-and cannot-access."3

"Teaching a child to read is a family setup," said the man [Theodor Geisel] who helped teach so many. "It's the business of having books around the house, not forcing them. Parents should have 20 books stacked up on tables or set around the living room. The average kid will pick one up, find something interesting. And pretty soon he's reading."1

"Always be reading. Go to the library. There's magic in being surrounded by books. Get lost in the stacks. Read bibliographies. It's not the book you start with, it's the book that book leads you to.

Collect books, even if you don't plan on reading them right away. Nothing is more important than an unread library."4

Although not yet born and with unknown sex until birth, I feel passionate about the idea of an antilibrary2 [for my unborn child]...

Does building an antilibrary... include music?

Of course, it does! 😏 That being said... "Man has an instinctive tendency to speak, as we see in the babble of our young children; while no child has an instinctive tendency to bake, brew or write.'..

Until recently, most children never learned to read or write; even with today's universal education system, many children struggle and fail...

Children are wired for sound, but print is an optional accessory that must be painstakingly bolted on...

We are turning into a nation of illiterates, the victims of misguided ideas about the nature of reading and how to teach it."5 References:

’ R. S. (n.d.). Oh, the places he went! Dartmouth Alumni Magazine | The Complete Archive. Retrieved October 12, 2023, from https://archive.dartmouthalumnimagazine.com/article/1991/12/1/oh-the-places-he-went

Wikipedia contributors. (2023, February 15). Antilibrary. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Antilibrary&oldid=1139479780

Marcus, L. (2019). The ABC of it: Why children’s books matter. University of Minnesota Press.

Kleon, A. (2012). Steal like an artist: 10 Things nobody told you about being creative. Workman Publishing.

McGuinness, D. (1999). The why our children can’t read, and what we can do about it: A scientific revolution in reading. Free Press.

[inzsanewrites]

Halloween Special 🎃

Sung Jin Woo

You brought the handheld mirror closer to your face as Jin-Ah finished the last of the of the light red paint on your face.

“Andddd… done! What do you think, Y/n?”

You admired the makeup Jin-Ah had painstakingly painted on for the celebration of Halloween. The white cracks… “glowing” effect… it was all perfect.

“Amazing as always, Jin-Ah.”

You stroked her hair as she beamed. Jin-Ah scampered off to go put on her costume, you felt grateful for the fact that she had put so much time and effort into your look and sent a quick Jin-Ho to treat her extra nicely.

Just as you sent the text off there was a knock on the door, startling you.

“Sarang? Are you ready yet?”

You looked down at your costume, ensuring that your dark cloak was in place. Once you confirmed it was, you made your way to open the door.

“Tada!”

You said cheerfully opening the door to Jin-Woo’s now confused face.

“What are you supposed to be, Y/n-ah?” He questioned, wrapping his arms around you to bring you closer.

You pouted jokingly, “Can’t you tell? I’m Tusk.”

At the sound of your voice, the wandering shadow who was one of the three designated bodyguard for the night looked at you.

“Oh, then what am I supposed to be?” Jin-Woo pointed to himself.

“Yourself.” You replied frankly. “Your costume is nothing more than your average day drip.”

The look of confusion return but he asked nothing about your vocabulary.

You gently took yourself out of Jin-Woo’s arms and round up pillow cases handing them out to Beru, Bellion, and Tusk, who was quite happy to see your costume.

“Alrighty, shall we head out then?”

Jaehwan

“There’s nothing to celebrate Halloween though?” Jaehwan looked at you perplexed when you brought up the idea.

“C’mon you’re the new Castellan. Surely the cook is willing spare some sweet and the servants can spookify the place a bit.”

“They would even know what if would be for and it would take a lot of time explaining it to them.” He said and around began walking off into another direction, sensing a new challenger.

“But if we did, it would be worth it.” You said slightly jogging to keep up with his fast strides. “And it would make me happy.” You added which abruptly stopped him in his tracks.

“It would?”

Your eyes twinkled. “Yep, extremely.”

Jaehwan let out a drawn out sigh.

“Then I guess we coul-”

Before he could finish his sentence, you were already running in the opposite direction, shouting “Happy Halloween!” at everyone you passed by making them wonder what was wrong with the Castellan’s significant other.

Yohan Seo

Yohan felt the awkwardness in the room increase as your fixation on his mouth did too.

For the past half an hour you had been staring into his mouth, comparing his fangs to the ones you had bought at an extremely high price.

“Unbelievable. Unforgivable.” He heard you say as you backed out of his mouth.

“My heart, what is it?” Yohan worriedly questioned as he snapped his jaw shut.

“The universe is unfair so just bite me already and take my melancholy as a mortal away.” You said, grief taking over your features.

This really had him worried he quickly carried you over to the velvet lovesick in the corner of the room.

“Although I would be happy to under normal circumstances, are you alright, love? Are you hurt? Sick?”

You slumped back. “None of those but a fool. So much money… gone and wasted… for something that looks no more real than a kid’s toy.”

He inspected the fake fangs in your hand. Sure they weren’t incredibly detailed but they weren’t that bad either, but he figured that your constant exposure to real ones influenced your thoughts to this situation. Secondly, he wasn’t quite sure as to why money was a problem when he had made it clear many times what was his was yours.

Yohan would have reinstated this had he not practically see you soul leaving your depressed form.

He scrambled to pick you up. “Don’t be like that, dear. I’m sure Levi can do something to help.”

The light of life faintly returned to your eyes.

“Really?” Your tone was hopeful.

Yohan felt a weight remove itself from his still heart.

“Yes, I’ll have her fix up something better for our Halloween outing tonight.”

The light had fully bloomed into a firework.

“Thankyouthankyouthankyou.” You exclaimed burying yourself into his figure.

A light blush appeared on his features as he returned the affection.

“It’s no problem at all. Happy Halloween, my darling.”

A/N: Happy Halloween! Remember be safe, be in groups, don’t follow strangers, carefully inspect candy before eating, don’t trust strangers, have some know your whereabouts at all times, don’t enter anyone’s house (unless it’s a party, then avoid leaving last and by yourself), and keep aware of your surrounding and other people around you at all times! Enjoy your Halloween. Also Yohan is not with Levi when I write for him ( ◕‿‿◕ )

[quicksilverownsmysoul]

Fly With Me

Summary: You are a flight attendant on the plane with Loki, after flirting back and forth you guys decide to have some fun in the airplane bathroom.

Warnings: smut, slight choking, if you squint there’s a little bit of subby Loki, +18 don’t read

You couldn’t help but notice the dashingly handsome man that was sitting towards the back of the plane. He was sitting in a row all by himself and out of the corner of your eye you could see him starting at you, a devilish smile plastered on his lips.

You continued with your work, passing out drinks and little packets of peanuts to the other passengers, counting down the rows until you reached him. You parked your cart next to him, leaning down a little further than necessary to ask him what he’d like to drink. He ran his tongue across his teeth, giving you a playful smirk as he glanced down the front of your flight attendant uniform. “Are you on the menu, because my dear you look absolutely refreshing.”

His voice was like silk, and you couldn’t deny the shiver that went down your spine at his words. “Maybe.” You teased. “If you meet me in the back bathroom in 15 minutes.” You handed him a small plastic cup filled with soda, he took it and sipped it as he watched you walk away. You usually didn’t openly flirt like this but there was something about this man that made you want to give in without a second thought.

You slipped into the small bathroom, sitting up on the sink as you waited for him to come in. You were glancing at your reflection, fixing your hair when he came in. Due to the small space he was pressed up against you, his crotch pressing into your core. You hummed contently and looped your arms around his neck. He bent down, allowing you to capture his lips in yours. “Do you have a name pretty boy, or should I just call you mine.”

He growled at your words, biting on your bottom lip. “Flirty little thing aren’t you.” He pulled back taking your lip with his before releasing it. “Do you do this a lot?”

You shook your head. “Only for you sir.” You watched the man groan at the name. You reached down and bunched your skirt up, exposing your lacy black panties to him. He skimmed your clothes folds with his long finger, making a wet spot appear, smirking as he felt your wetness seeping onto his finger.

He pushed the fabric aside and slipped one of his nimble fingers past your folds. Your breath hitched and you tightened your grip on his expensive suit. He went painstakingly slow, adding another and moving them in a come hither motion. You felt your pleasure build, but as soon as it came it left. He pulled his fingers out abruptly making you whine.

He shushed you, trailing wet kisses up your neck. He leaned back as far as the small room would let him, lifting his fingers up to his lips, he dipped them past his lips, closing his eyes and moaning at the taste. “You taste absolutely divine darling.” He peeked one eye open. “Would you like a taste?” He smashed his lips against yours, his lips were soft but his kiss was rough and sensual.

He flipped you around so your ass was now pressed against his front. You watched him watch you in the mirror. His slender fingers latching onto your neck and squeezing it slightly, you closed your eyes at the feeling. “Such a pretty little midgardian.” He pressed another wet kiss to your neck, biting down so it would leave a mark. “You deserve to be absolutely ravished.” You felt him zip down your dress, he pushed it off your shoulders, your black lacy bra now visible. “But sadly we don’t have time for that my dear.”

You felt him push into you in one quick motion, your mouth opened in a silent scream. He wasn’t thicker than average but god was he long, he hadn’t even bottomed out yet and he was already pressing into your cervix. He began to roughly thrust up into you, his hands holding onto your tits for leverage. You could feel him rolling your nipples through the fabric of your bra.

He watched your face contort in pleasure as he pounded you from behind. He pressed you even closer to the counter, you had your hands pressed against the mirror. Your hot breath making it fog up. “You look so pretty like this.” He cooed.

You pulled one hand off the mirror, leaving only one to hold you up. You let your hand move back and close around Loki’s neck, mirroring what he had done earlier. “And you look so pretty like this.” You squeezed lightly, teasing in between your shallow breaths. He shuttered and let out a low whine, loving the way you teased him back.

His thrusts got sloppier, he pushed as deep as he could chasing his release. He moved his hand from your chest to cup your mound, rubbing your clit at a rapid pace, pushing you closer to your release. You leaned back into him, he was completely holding you up as you bounced your self up and down. You felt you release hit you, your cunt clenching around his member as your eyes rolled back into your head.

He came with a low groan, his sticky release filling you. He pulled out and tucked himself back into his slacks. He pushed his hair back into place and tightened his tie. He took in your disheveled appearance with a loving look, gently pressing a kiss to your cheek as he zipped your dress back up and slipped your panties into his pocket. “This was lovely, but I’m afraid I can’t stay.” He opened the door to the stall and turned to look at you over his shoulder. “There’s a bomb on the plane, I think it’d be best if you evacuated everyone.” He closed the door behind him with a wink.

You did as he said and a couple hours later you boarded the plane again, a duffle bag in hand. You made your way back to the row you had originally found him in, he was looking out the window at the flashing police lights. He turned as he saw you coming, flashing you a smile that made your knees weak. He took in the money you offered and stood up, grabbing it from you. “I hope to see you again some day. Till then.” He pulled you close, wrapping one arm around your waist. He kissed you deeply, you eagerly returned it, smiling against his lips. When he pulled away you grabbed him by his tie and pulled him close to whisper in his ear.

“Come find me someday pretty boy.” You could see his eyes close at the pet name behind his sunglasses. He checked to make sure his parachute was strapped on correctly before he made his way to the emergency exit, pulling it open. The wind rippled around him making his gelled hair blow around his face. He lowered his sunglasses to give you a wink before jumping out.

You ran to the door and looked out, trying to find his falling from. But he was no where to be found. The only evidence of him ever being on the plane was your missing panties and the stickiness between your thighs.