#genuinely on the verge of some impulsive shit

[exeggcute]

your blog is cool and youre the only person on tumblr i really follow on tech stuff. is the transition to manifest v3 really worth all the hubbub?

first of all thank you! and second of all, lol. to be honest I haven't had a major eye on the v2 > v3 transition but you may be unsurprised to learn that I'm not taking hard sides here and am both slightly suspicious of the changeover and also less than convinced by some of the "this is the worst shit ever" blowback. not to suck google's dick either (unless any recruiters are reading this...?) (jk my least favorite person on r/technicalwriting works at google so unless you can guarantee that I will not come into contact with that man, it's gonna be a hard no) but to some extent I think this is one of those things where google, as the de facto governing entity for how internet browsers are designed[1] is, for better or worse, in the seat to steer the ship right now and inevitably has to make design choices that will shape the future of (how people will access) the web.[2]

[1] insert comment about firefox here but considering firefox is almost singlehandedly bankrolled by google it works out the same in the end. hence my perpetual dislike of the way-oversimplified "maverick underdog mozilla singlehandedly holding the line again google" narrative... go tell me where the money is coming from!!!

[2] also I know the W3C is the actual governing entity for internet protocol design and has influenced browser design on a more abstract level but that's still a degree of separation away and tbh I'm not super familiar with W3C drama. although I can only assume there's drama lol.

and google being google has both real and imagined interests in shaping the web by virtue of their other business ventures (e.g. but not exclusively e.g., advertising) and so I think some amount of blowback is gonna be inevitable when they propose Big Fundamental Changes. which, like, I'm the last person who's gonna say "no we should definitely drop our defenses and approach this without an ounce of skepticism" lol so I think the knee-jerk Uh Oh impulse is totally fair and maybe even warranted. but after the initial jerk I also think it's worth hearing shit out and, you know, on the face of it I can see why the changes outlined in the v3 manifest bring positive changes to the table. security and performance and shit. but security and performance are relatively boring selling points, and when google has earned a poor public reputation thanks to the other shit they've pulled I think it's understandable that even well-meaning changes will be met with general suspicion.

buuuut I still get irritated by the verging-on-clickbait headlines where literally every change about v3 is framed as "google is finally killing ad blockers" and then you read the article and ad blockers aren't mentioned directly a single time. like it'll literally just be about v3 lol. arguably I'm just being naive/willfully ignorant because of course it's all really about ad blockers since google is an advertising business and the other benefits are a smokescreen and blah blah blah but I do kinda feel like that borders on conspiratorial thinking, especially since ad blockers will work in v3, albeit differently, and google is actively working with/taking feedback from extension developers (including ad block extension developers). a lot of it genuinely just seems like "major version change will require significant technical work to implement, more at 11".

who knows though, I could eat my words :shrug:

kind of related but I was always kind of surprised by the amount of pushback against the web integrity API thing because I read the proposal behind it and it seemed pretty well-intentioned to me. granted there were some fair/serious concerns that even the proposal pointed out and a lot unanswered implementation details (and tbf it was a proposal/WIP) but I got Why they were proposing it, invalid traffic being the bogeyman it is. and like I am not a cryptography guy in the slightest but as I understand it the WEI was basically just an SSL certificate in reverse?

a lot of it makes me think about the web3 article from a few years back where a guy talked about designing an NFT that looked cool on various storefronts but looked like a poop emoji in your actual wallet after you bought it, which, in the process of trying to google it to link here, led me to this substack post where someone summarized it as "NFTs are centralized and no one cares." which is pretty much exactly what I was getting at (and why I thought about it in this context) with how even ostensibly open protocols can devolve into walled gardens built around those protocols with bonus features tacked on, if the protocols themselves don't offer those features out the gates (and enough people want them). idk. food for thought I guess. I really am just rambling here though so let me humble myself by reminding us all that I have a B.A. in english and love to speculate lolol. not an expert!

[mercy-mercie-mercymorn]

agro's oc master list (1/?)

☆ star people ☆

i'll be adding links when/if i remember, as well as finishing this list.....eventually. just ask if u want some reference images for characters i don't have on artfight or need additional info! anyways, the whole character vomit is under the cut :)

angel 

name: angel (formerly, delta) virgo

human?: nope, asteriai (star nymph) 

bday: sep 15

deal: after being born without magic, she became the asteriai vessel of her long-dead titan ancestor, Astraea (Virgo). works as a TA for her friend, an anthropology professor. has more plushies than space on her bed. a pacifist at heart. 

powers: can summon a spear and a pair of golden light wings. can also heal, which she does considerably more. 

likes: animals, sweets, and sleeping. dislikes: bugs, the heat, and christmas music.

songs: Sleep (Conrad Hillis Remix) - Soul Push, Colder Parts - HUNNY, All Will Be Well - Gabe Dixon

rose

name: rose (that’s it) (formerly, demon—not like 😈 but Δήμων, meaning “the people”. it’s important to me that you know that.) 

human?: nope, kimmerian (void spirit) (she’s just here because i couldn’t think of a better place to put her. it makes sense with the lore) 

bday: dec 23

deal: angel’s girlfriend. the last descendant of a long-dead race who spurned fate. an emo shit and a mean lesbian (affectionate). takes no shit. unless it’s from angel. has a dry sense of humor. doesn’t like authority. 

powers: hydromancy! can do a bunch of fuck you magic with water. has weird dream-controlling magic. it’s a long story. 

likes: video games, music, and bodies of water. dislikes: her past, angel’s sister, and rules. 

songs: Ocean’s Deep - Born Ruffians, Talk To Myself - Avicii, Heaven Is Under The Sun - Beta Play 

spica

name: spica virgo

human?: nope, asteriai

bday: sep 23

deal: angel’s older sister/her guardian for the most of her life. impulsive and hot-tempered. loves the people she cares about by being a lil angry about their life choices. a part of the amica ignis—a guild of female pyromancers. would fight you. eltanin’s fiancee! 

powers: pyromancy!!! yeah!!! can also summon a special spear. 

likes: shoes, autumn, and hitting the snooze button. dislikes: paperwork, her alarms, and rose.  

songs: I Don’t Need A Hero - Concrete Blonde, Fake Out - Fall Out Boy, Color Green - New Politics

caph

name: caph cassiopeia

human?: asteriai. 

bday: feb 12

deal: one of apollo’s priestesses. the only surviving cassiopeia clan member. she was a terrible person and now she’s trying to be better. a manic pixie dream girl except she’s just Like That. voted most likely to eat a plant by me. vega and apollo are her best friends. cole’s mom, married to tore. 

powers: has magic henna on her hand (the hand changes because i keep forgetting) that can do some doc ock-esque shit and some other assorted magic. was granted the power of foresight by apollo. 

likes: houseplants, singing, and chai lattes. dislikes: black coffee, snow, and talking about her deep-seated issues.

songs: She’s A Rainbow - The Rolling Stones, Monsters of the North - The National Parks, Riptide - Vance Joy

cole

name: cole cassiopeia

human?: half-human, half-asteriai. descended from a kimmerian on his father’s side.

bday: march 3

deal: cole and tore’s son. genuinely the nicest guy ever. his biggest fault is he thinks swords are cool and owns multiple. a surfer guy majoring in engineering at UCLA. he goes to the beach as much as he can. was taught to swordfight by tore and rose. also rents a room in cynthia’s house. 

powers: inherited his mom’s henna powers and his dad’s dream powers. 

likes: surfing, tea, and being bullied by annoying queers (affectionate). dislikes: having to draw, people who forget sunscreen, and close-toed shoes.

songs: West Coast - Yam Haus, Safe In L.A. - Gold Motel, Verge - Owl City

vega

name: vega lyra

human?: you guessed it, asteriai.

bday: nov 29

deal: one of apollo’s priestesses. her favorite composer is shostakovich. she’s very mean but i think it’s funny. dating apollo, which is definitely a choice. generally has an “overworked and underpaid public servant who has run out of fucks to give” vibe. 

powers: musical magic! the songs she plays/sings can basically do whatever as long as she has the energy and/or an okay instrument. can also pick up instruments in little to no time. 

likes: playing violin, card games, and spicy foods. dislikes: sweets, hot weather, and dogs (nothing personal). 

songs: Nascence - Austin Wintory, Waiting For Love - Avicii, Tender Strength - Yu-Peng Chen

eltanin

name: eltanin draco

human?: asteriai

bday: june 30

deal: i’ll be real…spica’s everything. he’s just ken. he’s very nice, loves his family, and just wants to grill. he has a soft spot for angel because they’re both relatively chill people with intense s/os…who just so happen to hate each other. 

powers: can turn into a (relatively small) dragon. 

likes: DIY projects, weighted blankets, and trying new foods. dislikes: drama, action movies, and wearing shoes in the house.

songs: 3’s - Nodaway, Dance With Me - Ra Ra Riot, Crystal Clear - Opus Orange

sirius

name: sirius canis major

human?: asteriai

bday: april 1 (yes he makes jokes about this) 

deal: a former member of the asteriai island guard who left for earth to find bigger and better things. formed a group of vigilante magic-adjacent people 

powers: can turn into a dog. he has some heightened senses (dog-compliant). 

likes: fast food (the trashier the better), lame puns, and haircare. dislikes: chocolate, reading maps, and rain. 

songs: Wolfdance - The Ceremonies, Don’t Send The Searchlights - Gold Motel, Everyone’s A Guru Now - Saint Motel

virgo

name: astraea (more often known as virgo, the maiden of the zodiac)

human?: a Titan/goddess

bday: she just piggybacks off angel’s

deal: the currently semi-dead deity sharing angel’s body. she’s sleeping rn (always). was kind of seeing apollo. is like 9 ft tall. the former leader of the Zodiac, but everyone else is dead. sees warfare as a necessary evil. 

powers: healing! spears! light constructs! fuck you.

likes: sleeping, sweets, and sightseeing. dislikes: fighting, humanity, and doorways. 

songs: i don’t feel like thinking of any for her rn

#long post #tw i'm posting cringe #oc content lol #agro's oc master list!

[series-and-movies]

Rafe Cameron - character analysis

(This post contains mentions of OBX s2 scenes, panic/anxiety, drugs and psychopathy. If you do not want/feel comfortable reading this, please don't! Also if you're anti rafe don't hate me please xoxo)

I've seen so many people call Rafe a psychopath/sociopath and honestly I don't think he is one. Other than the fact that psychopaths are rarely potrayed accurately in media and people not knowing the right terminology (even Drew himself has said that Rafe has psychopathic tendencies which, arguably, makes some sense). But from what I've seen so far, Rafe doesn't seem like a psychopath.

Why?

Because psychopaths feel no remorse or shame for their actions. Rafe has expressed those feelings multiple times, albeit not always verbally. He clearly feels regret for getting his family in this situation, and I don't believe that's just to please his dad.

Psychopaths also do not care about others and feel no connection to them, which leads to lying, manipulating, superficial charm to get what they want etc. Now, Rafe has lied a good few times, and definitely manipulates Barry to do shit for him in return for money. But he's not completely emotionless. He cares about his dad and Wheezie, he's often seen showing vulnerable emotions, which a psychopath would not do unless it gains them something. Also, his friendship with Kelce and Topper seemed genuine until he started losing it for real. The fact that he doesn't have many friends could also be due to his drug use, anxiety (being suspicious of others) or any other reason, and is not directly attributable to psychopathy.

They also generally do not learn from mistakes and do not have anxiety (although the latter is still controversial in current understandings of psychopathy). Clearly Rafe has some anxiety issues. Anytime he starts losing it (eg. s1 when Barry said he owned him now, s2 when he punched the wall in the island room) he starts breathing heavily, looking around sorta dazed/scared with those wide eyes, fidgets with his fingers. That to me seems like he's on the verge of a panic attack. And to dissolve that he starts screaming/punching things (or using drugs lol). Obviously that's bad coping, but it's not all violent tendencies. Also from season 2, clearly he's learned at least a bit from his mistakes.

Rafe truly believes he's doing the right thing. At least from his/his family's perspective, he tries to do the right thing. Now since his dad is Ward, clearly what benefits his family doesn't benefit everyone, but it seems like Rafe has a bit of tunnel vision in that sense. Even when he killed Peterkin, he immediately showed moral disengagement. Rafe STRUGGLES with the fact he killed someone. He doesn't ENJOY hurting others! He doesn't want to feel even worse about himself, so he tries to talk it right and make himself believe he did the right thing. Saying he saved his dad, saying Sarah was tearing their family apart. It's justifying behaviour to not feel miserable about his actions. A psychopath doesn't do this because they're so unemotional they don't even feel bad about what they did.

And lastly, (and i do truly hate myself for saying this), but usually psychopaths have a very prominiscious sex life. I know yall dirties wanna see Drew do a sex scene (mood.) but the fact that he doesn't seem to have any sort of sex/dating life seems contradictory to this.

The only reason rafe could be seen as a psychopath is because he truly believes the pogues deserve to get hurt, abuses drugs which occurs often in psychopaths and he's impulsive with little to no behavioural control. But these could be attributed to other issues as well.

Other than that, evidence of psychopathy is pretty much nonexistent. And it irks me that people call him a psychopath and think that therefore he does not deserve a redemption arc because 1. CLEARLY there is something wrong with him but it doesn't mean he can't grow and learn and heal? He's said multiple times that he needs and wants help, he wants to get clean, he didn't shoot the pogues when he had a chance to. He KNOWS something's wrong. He KNOWS he needs to change. Just because he's not capable of doing it on his own doesn't mean he doesn't deserve a redemption arc. OBX would be a real one if they show some good and realistic therapy scenes ! And 2. let's say he does show signs of psychopathy in s3, that still doesn't mean he can't get better? Psychopathy treatments are scarce and don't always work irl, but they're out there and it's worth a shot. I've seen people saying they want him to die, but if this were a real person, would you say the same? Even if he is a psychopath, he's still a victim of his circumstances, his environment, genetics and his dad. Take those factors out, would he not be capable of redemption?

Point being: Rafe is not a psychopath, he seems more anxious, possibly with vulnerable narcissistic tendencies, paranoid personality or psychosis, and severe attachment and drugs problems. He is not in itself a bad person, and for season 3 they need to give him a stable environment and hopefully give him some time/tools to heal. Lord knows he needs it.

#yall can disagree with this respectfully if ya want #idk im obsessed with rafe bc hes so complicated and has so many dimensions to him #not often are characters portrayed like this and drew is just the best #but yeah i would love for him to get a redemption arc #like i dont want him to become a pogue or do the right thing or whatever in some sort of dramatic reveal #i want him to come to terms with what he did #acknowledge it was bad #but still move on with his life! and become clean! #Hopefully find some ppl who wont betray him and truly have his back #as long as he does the same #and yeh maybe im biased bc i do enjoy a good redemption arc #think loki/bucky sort of #idk #also this is just my opinion/analysis of rafe this doesn't mean it should be taken at face value or that you have to agree with me !! #rafe cameron #drew starkey #character analysis #i should do more of these i love a good complex character analysis

[demetriandelibinaryboyfriends]

Any hc for (non)binary brothers

You mean like...headcanons for their relationship/Demetri and Eli in general? Sure, I’ll take a stab at this! I have a bunch of miscellaneous headcanons for them anyways and have been looking for a place to put them, may as well post them here.

Fair warning that this is a bit of a disorganized mishmash of stuff I’ve thought up for them myself, headcanons I’ve seen others in the fandom make for them, and tropes that I’ve seen in fanfic that I really liked, so I kinda stole them to add to my own personal headcanon XD I may not be able to source all of them if asked...some of them I’m like “I genuinely don’t remember where I saw that, but I HELLA liked it” lol

~Demetri is like...RIDICULOUSLY good at coding. Eli is good at it too, but Demetri basically singlehandedly carried that coding competition they won. It was really more of a 70-30 effort, but Demetri consistently gives Eli 50% of the credit to try and help him feel good about himself and his capabilities. Demetri knows he did a bit more work than Eli, but he’s never once brought it up and he doesn’t plan to.

~Demetri looooooves cats. Like...the pretentiousness? The heightened sense of self-importance? The way they’re kinda misunderstood and often disliked because they can be mean, and don’t always show affection in the way people expect? The general air of annoyance and disdain they give off??? Demetri’s just like “yep, this is my animal right here.” XD Demetri doesn’t DISLIKE dogs, but he finds they can be a bit much sometimes, and likes that cats do their own thing a lot of the time.

~After getting the Hawk moniker, Eli lowkey got SUPER into hawks and birds of prey in general. Like he started watching documentaries on them and everything, and gushing to Demetri about how badass he thought they were. It even kinda verges into special interest territory (since Hawk/Eli is canonically probably autistic), although it’s not as all-consuming as some of his other ones. Back when he and Demetri are still on good terms, in the early days of “Hawk,” Eli rambles to Demetri about hawks and other “badass” birds a LOT when they’re hanging out. Eli only does this when he’s alone with Demetri because he’s a little scared to show THAT level of enthusiasm to anyone else, considering he’s trying to be a “tough guy” now. Demetri he still feels he can essentially be all of himself with, though. Demetri finds this new raptor obsession kind of hilarious but also kind of endearing.

~Demetri has a single mom who is lowkey overprotective and ends up coddling and sheltering him a lot. Demetri’s dad left when he was little, and his mom can be a bit overbearing because Dem is all she has left of his dad, in a sense. Because of this, Demetri definitely did NOT tell his mom Eli was the one who broke his arm. He said it was “some goon” from Cobra Kai, and said Eli wasn’t even there among the group that day. He knew if his mom knew Eli broke his arm, she would NEVER let Eli near him again, and would probably get a restraining order and possibly press charges. And Demetri just...REFUSES to give up on Eli, even after everything. He figures Kreese’s brainwashing and Kyler being in Cobra Kai are already putting Eli through a special kind of hell, and he wants to protect him from having even MORE things to deal with--in this case, the wrath of Demetri’s mom. And she never finds out Eli broke his arm--Demetri takes it to the grave.

~A little while after the Christmas party, Demetri and Eli resume their weekly sleepovers and try to make up for lost time. They decide not to pull out Eli’s Waterbed from storage, considering they both have pretty unpleasant associations with the waterbed after the incident at Moon’s party. They end up just sharing Demetri’s bed, like they used to when they were little and it wasn’t “weird” yet for two boys to sleep in the same bed. Maybe it’s weird now, but they figure as long as Demetri’s mom doesn’t blab to their friends or something that they’re sharing a bed, then it’s cool. Neither has any issue at all with sharing a bed, although they caaaaaan’t quite put their finger on why that is XD

~Eli actually gets nightmares about the laser tag arm incident more often than Demetri does. The fight will play out in a thousand different ways, but it always ends the same--with Eli pinning Demetri down and snapping his arm. Worse, sometimes he’ll have dreams that he’s beating up Brucks again, and then Brucks will slowly morph into Demetri, but Eli won’t be able to stop punching. He frequently wakes up panicking and screaming and crying during his and Demetri’s sleepovers, and Demetri just holds him and sooths him and wipes his tears off and reassures him that he knows Eli’s never going to hurt him again. 

~I actually imagine it’s on a night like one of these that they first get together--Eli wakes up from another nightmare, and Demetri is just hugging him really close and trying to reassure him, and at some point, Demetri just...impulsively leans in and kisses him. They both get super flustered for a second, and then Eli leans in and kisses Demetri super fiercely and before they know it, they’re making out like there’s no tomorrow. When they have to stop for breath, they admit they’ve always liked each other and just weren’t really sure how to say it. They spoon for the rest of the night, and are pretty much officially dating after that, although they’re kinda anxious about what people will think, so they keep it on the DL at first.

~Demetri has bad dreams too, but his are usually current--e.g. Eli reveals it was All An Act and he’s been spying for Cobra Kai, and doesn’t actually give a shit about Demetri. When Demetri wakes up from these at their sleepovers, he often can’t help but shake Eli awake, and rattle off a bunch of paranoid questions--”You actually like me, right? You actually wanted to be friends again, right? You don’t think I’m annoying? You don’t secretly hate me, after everything?” And this always kind of alarms Eli at first, because of how...out-of-character it is for Demetri to be that self-conscious about what people think about him, and for him to actally...well...care if people think he’s annoying XD But after a little bit Eli just puts his hand on Demetri’s shoulders and says “Demetri, I promise I want you back in my life.” And this is usually enough to calm Demetri down, because he knows it’s genuine, just like Eli’s apology at the Christmas party was.

~Eli is really, really terrified of hurting Demetri again. Sometimes Eli gets panic attacks when he and Demetri are sparring and he hits Demetri a little too hard. Demetri’s kind of come up with a “signal” for Daniel to indicate he and Eli need to take a break. Once Daniel figures out the situation, he’s more than happy to oblige. Demetri always helps Eli through his panic attacks and reassures him that he trusts him with his life now, no matter what happened before. 

~When Johnny finds out about this, he’s actually...way more understanding than anyone expects him to be, because Kreese traumatized him when he was young, too. He just kind of sighs like “Yeah, Kreese made me do some fucked up shit too, back in the day. He’s a bastard like that. You take a 10 whenever the hell you need, Hawk.” And honestly? Demetri lowkey loves Johnny for this. This may be the turning point that finally causes Demetri to view Johnny Lawrence with something other than mild to moderate disdain XD

~Demetri often makes a point of kissing Eli’s scar and telling him he thinks it’s beautiful. Hella corny, I know, but god knows Eli needs it. He kisses it in front of their friends, too, as kind of a way to reassure Eli “hey, I’m proud to be with you in your entirety, and I’m not at all ashamed of that aspect of you, even if you still are.” Eli definitely appreciates this, but he pretends he’s embarrassed by it and will often fall into a blushing, flustered mess when Demetri kisses his scar XD

I think that’s all I’ve got for now!!! I’ll post more later if I think of them!!!

#hawk x demetri #demetri x eli #binary boyfriends #hawkmeat #eli x demetri #demetri x hawk #elimetri #eli moskowitz #demetri cobra kai #daniel larusso #johnny lawrence #cobra kai headcanons #cobra kai hcs #cobra kai #cobra kai season 3 #cobra kai season 4 #demetri #eli #hawk #my askbox

[keelywolfe]

FIC: Drifters ch.9 (spicyhoney)

Summary: Enter the Other Brother. Blue, welcome home! You might be in for a surprise!

Tags: Spicyhoney, Violence, Rescued Child, Medical Experimentation, Babybones

Read it on AO3

or

Read it here!

~~*~~

Edge was not a Monster who cared very much for surprises. In his experience, they never led to anything good, not to birthday parties or unexpected gifts, but rather ambushes and dust. He preferred careful planning to the seat-of-the-pants schemes that his brother often came up with, every step made with strategy in mind.

He couldn’t say for certain if Blue was the same way, although he suspected he may be. His understanding of how the alternate worlds worked was more for the layman rather than the professional, but he wasn’t blind to the personality traits that he and Blue shared, the sort of twist in nature vs nurture that any sociologist would love to explore.

He had a fair idea of how he might react to finding this clown car of a domestic scene in his own living room and if he’d known that Stretch hadn’t even mentioned he and Red were here, much less the baby, he would have at least sent Blue a blasted text.

That might have at least braced him and given him a chance to come up with a better question than simply, “Is that a baby?”

His brother, ever the peacemaker, chose that precise to speak up, scoffingly, “sure can tell you two are brothers, ya share the same brain cell, your bro said the same damn thing. yeah, it’s a baby, good on you for noticin’.”

“blue!” Stretch scrambled upright and his bright grin was too wide, too wrong, tinged with poorly hidden guilt. “sorry, bro, i was gonna call and it slipped my mind. yeah, hey, everyone showed up on our doorstep yesterday. check out the snow princess, cute, huh?”

That much at least was the truth, but Blue didn’t seem to have heard a word of it. This wasn’t quite the reaction Edge had been braced for; he’d expected Blue to make a beeline for the baby, had been resigned to handing her over for plenty of excited cuddling and cooing.

This was something else entirely. The normal stars of his eye lights were overly bright, flashing between blue and yellow with seizure inducing intensity, set into a face that was like stone. He barely glanced at the rest of them past a brief, bizarrely sympathetic glance at Edge. The anger in his gaze was for his brother alone.

Stretch seemed equally confused, his oversized smile faltering, “bro?”

“How could you?” Blue said, his voice carrying despite its deadly softness.

“wha…me?” Stretch looked around the room as if perhaps another person had appeared, that it was to this stranger his brother spoke that way. He shrank back as Blue abruptly moved, slamming the door shut as he stalked over to the sofa, his small body radiating fury.

“How could you!?” Again, louder this time, not quite a shout but verging on one.

“coulda woulda shoulda? bro, what the hell���”

Blue ignored that, stamping his foot and sending out a spatter of rapidly melting snow from his boot to dampen the carpet. “Irresponsible!”

Stretch’s face was falling, going oddly blank, his false humor fading. Next to him, Red looked equally perturbed. “now hang on a sec, short stuff, ain’t no reason to go off on the honey bun.”

“Stay out of this!” Blue snapped and for a wonder, Red jerked back, his mouth snapping shut. His eye lights briefly guttered, leaving his sockets dark and black, returning only when Stretch spoke up next to him.

“yeah. stay out of this,” Stretch agreed, softer but no less sharp and from the look he shot Edge, he was included in that statement.

Edge said nothing and even the child was silent, a dab of runny banana sliding down her chin as she stared at the Swap brothers with wide sockets. Even if he’d wanted to intrude, this argument was between brothers and it was an unspoken rule through all the ‘verses that one did not interfere with brothers.

Despite the surface similarities, none of their relationships were exactly the same. Edge knew all too well that if he railed at Red over his laziness, his brother never took it to heart or soul. He let Edge rant, blowing off the steam that built within him throughout the day and his frustrated insults rolled off Red like water off the proverbial duck. The only fallout tended to be yet another sticky note added to the continuing line trailing away from a single, absurd sock.

Stretch was, well, lacking waterproofing. More like Edge in that way, truth be told, and if Edge could snipe at his brother all day long for his ridiculous puns and lazy ways, one genuine return jab from Red often left him deeply wounded, all the more painful for its unerring accuracy and rarity.

He wondered how he’d handle being under the weight of that much visible disappointment. Edge almost always agreed with Blue’s assessments of his brother’s behavior, but his delivery needed work and the unexpected impulse to protect Stretch from that disappointment took him off guard. He wanted to scoop Stretch up like he did the baby, hold him close, cradle him in his arms and protect him, and that was ridiculous, utterly; he was an adult, older than Edge, and yet the urge remained.

In the end, Edge could only look away, stirring the gloopy remains of the banana while the two brothers whispered furiously behind him.

“Of all the careless, irresponsible—” Blue took a deep breath, let it out, muttering out, “This is all right, this is fine. We can deal with this.” He scrubbed his gloved hands over his face and then squared his shoulders as he said, “You still should have called me.”

“probably,” Stretch agreed, and perhaps the unexpected storm had passed. He relaxed back into the sofa, the tension in the room easing. “didn’t want to interrupt your important training.” He flashed Edge a sharp glance and he tried to look as if that was the exact reasoning.

“Yes, well, that’s true,” Blue admitted. “And I appreciate you thinking of that, but next time…well, there probably won’t be a next time of this, I should hope.” Any lingering worry that Blue might object to them staying for a time vanished as Blue finally swung back to the baby, this time with a familiar, bright smile on his face as he gushed out, “Which is a shame because she is simply adorable!”

He rounded the coffee table with the haste Edge originally expected, grabby hands extended, and the moment Blue bent down to reach for her, the baby burst into sobbing howls, squirming away.

Automatically, Edge swung her up, settling her against his shoulder and patting her back gently as he soothed her with a bewildered, “There, there, it’s all right. What’s wrong?”

Blue looked as if he might burst into tears himself, stumbling back a step and his eye lights faded from stars to unhappy circles. “I didn’t mean to—"

They both turned to look at Red as he let out a harsh laugh. “what’s wrong? he scared the shit out of her coming in like that, that’s what’s wrong,” Red snorted contemptuously, “don’t you know nothin’ bout babies? you’re almost as bad as my bro.”

“Not really,” Blue admitted. Shame filled his expression as he shuffled his feet. He noticed he was still wearing his boots and sat on the floor to pull them off, carrying them over to the door and automatically straightening the other shoes before adding his. “Most of my experience with children has been seeing them from a distance.”

That gave Edge a start and he realized he’d been expecting Blue to have some sort of knowledge about childcare, though he wasn’t sure why. This world was softer and tended towards kindness, but that hardly meant it gave them any innate parenting skills.

“Well!” Blue straightened, propping his hands on his hips. “I’m sure that the Magnificent Sans can learn!”

“sure you can, bro,” Stretch said, cautiously, and that Edge could understand, being very familiar with Blue’s brand of determination.

“yeah, well, here’s your first lesson,” Red slouched back on the sofa, picking at his gold tooth with a sharpened fingertip. “babies don’t like it when ya shout.”

“yep, that’s a good place to start. you know what, i’m gonna get everyone some coffee,” Stretch announced and fled to the kitchen, the coward.

Blue paid that no mind, already came back over determinedly when he spied the bowl Edge had hastily shoved on the table. The child was watching him warily as Blue picked it up, taking hold of the little spoon. “Here, let me help!”

Before Edge could stop him, Blue tried to poke the filled spoon into her mouth. The child refused to part her teeth, leaving a smear of mushy banana across them, and Blue’s brief confidence sagged, “Oh. Um. Maybe she’s not hungry?”

“Maybe.” Edge took the bowl back and immediately she began bouncing eagerly in his lap, mouth opening wide as she made urgent little sounds.

“fuck, you two are morons,” Red snorted, because of course he would stay to bear witness. “she don’t know you. kid is small, she ain’t blind. she ain’t gonna take her banana goop from just any plain asshole, she likes an asshole she knows.”

“Yes, thank you for clarifying that for us all, brother,” Edge said sourly. Somewhat gentler, he said to Blue, “Sit with me. Let her see you, it may make her more comfortable.”

“yeah, hold out a hand and let her sniff ya, that’ll do it,” Red chuckled meanly as Stretch came back out with a tray of mugs. He set it down before smacking Red on the back of the skull.

“will you cool it on the running commentary? let them work it out.”

Red rubbed his head and scowled, but he accepted the coffee cup when Stretch handed him one. “just callin’ it how i see it.”

“yeah, well, if they give up on trying, that leaves you as mary poppins, smartass.”

“good point. my teeth are sealed.”

The child grudgingly allowed Edge to settle her back on the pillows with the unspoken promise of more food. She watched Blue warily the entire time she was eating, but he made no move towards her. He sat obediently still the entire time, his gloved hands clasped tightly together in his lap as if to stave off any impulse to scoop the baby up. If nothing else, her attention on Blue kept her from messily sharing any more of her banana.

When the bowl was scraped clean, Edge wiped the child’s chubby face clean with a damp cloth then settled her back into his lap. “You see, little one?” he told her softly, “Blue is a friend.”

“I am! I really am! Want to come here?” Blue slowly held out his hands without getting too close, waiting with impressive patience. The baby looked from him to Edge, and he tried to look encouraging.

Slowly, she held up her arms to Blue. He lifted her a little awkwardly, but managed to get her settled into the curve of his arm without intervention.

“There we go!” To Edge’s relief, Blue kept his enthusiasm at a minimum, though he practically vibrated with excitement. Almost immediately, the baby began to loudly babble and if he didn’t know better, Edge would say she was scolding Blue for his part in the earlier brotherly dispute.

Soon enough, her chattering dwindled to murmurs, her sockets growing heavy, then closing entirely as she slept. Edge let Blue keep holding her as he gratefully took up his own cup of coffee and never had caffeination been so delicious.

Blue only looked at her in awe, lightly touching each of her tiny, perfect fingers. “She’s beautiful,” he whispered, turning the full force of his starry eye lights onto his brother, “but honestly, Papy, you should have told me you two were expecting a child!”

Stretch choked, spilling coffee down the front of his shirt. “wait, what? that’s why you were so pissed off?”

“I would have thought you would be more cautious about that sort of thing, but I suppose it hardly matters now,” Blue said philosophically. “You still should have called me though when she arrived!”

“but we didn’t…!”

“Here we have a new baby, and I wasn’t even able to give her a baby shower!”

“She’s already had a bath,” Edge said, confused. This was going entirely too fast and he was not in top form, how could they possibly have been expecting her, there was nothing about the past two days that Edge had expected in the slightest.

Rescue came from an unexpected and wholly unwanted source.

“fuck’s sake, blueberry, she ain’t their kid!” Red snapped.

“Don’t swear,” Edge and Blue said, nearly in unison. Then Edge nearly choked on his own coffee as realization clicked with the force of an open-handed slap. Blue thought that the baby was his, not simply his responsibility but his own and Stretch’s. Suddenly his earlier sympathetic look made more sense, by Asgore’s horns, of all things he could believe…!

“She’s not?” Blue asked, confused. “But, then where did she come from?”

“where the fuck do you think, numbnuts?” Whatever the patience Red usually had for Blue seemed to have found its limit. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, all but slamming his mug down on the coffee table, “she wasn’t flown in by the stork, kid was homegrown just like the rest of us and she’s got the fucking serial number to prove it!”

“Oh.” There was a wealth of meaning in that single, soft word, too many to properly interpret. Blue looked down at the baby sleeping in his arms, his fingertips hovering over her rib cage without touching, right over where her pajamas hid the healing scar. The same scar his brother and Red still had, faded and blurred, but still there. Then he wordlessly handed her to Edge, climbing to his feet and walked determinedly over to his brother.

Stretch only watched warily, allowing Blue to take away his half-empty coffee cup to shove it on table, ignoring the splash of coffee that slopped out and spread across the wood. He slid his small, strong arms around him, holding onto his brother tightly.

“I’m so sorry,” Blue said simply. The words were muffled, buried into Stretch’s coffee-stained hoodie. “I shouldn’t have been so upset with you and I certainly should have let you explain.”

“aw, bro, it’s okay—” Stretch hugged him back, resting his cheekbone on top of Blue’s skull.

“It’s not,” Blue said, the words tainted with the hint of a sob. “I assumed you were being irresponsible, and I shouldn’t have.”

“not like i don’t give you a reason for that.”

“There’s a difference between a messy room and, well, this.” They stayed there a moment longer, holding on tight, and when Blue drew away, he swiped a hasty sleeve over his damp sockets. “Now!” Blue clapped his hands together softly. “I think we should discuss living arrangements.”

“We can,” Edge said, quietly firm, “but I hardly think that will be necessary. We won’t be here for long.”

The sudden trio of protests was loud enough to wake the baby and Edge turned away, bouncing her in his arms as he tried to soothe her back to sleep. He’d known there would be objections, but he couldn’t allow them to sway him. This child was his responsibility, his choice, and his alone.

He had a duty to her and Edge was determined to see it done.

TBC

#spicyhoney #papcest #keelywolfe #underfell #underswap #underfell papyrus #underswap papyrus #drifters

[atmilliways]

On the 11th day of Dethmas this writer gives to thee…

Dec 23 - Home (or alone) for the holidays

Toki is totally not lonely because his bandmates forgot about him, and Magnus is totally not guilty about rolling with it to sate his own curiosities.

Like Kevin McCallister, it wasn't like Toki tried to get left behind . . . but he's not entirely mad about it, either.

Anyway, this is my first Magnus/Toki fic, so, hmm.

~

Mordhome Alone

“So,” Magnus said as he crossed the threshold. “This is the famous Mordhaus.”

“Yeah, isn’t it cools?” Toki enthused as he ushered the older man inside. 

It certainly was a step up from the crappy apartment they’d had back when Magnus was still in Dethklok. For one thing, he never could’ve broken in to paint REVENGE IS COMING on the walls here. He’d counted at least eleven snipers that he could see on the way in, and knowing both the band’s reputation for over the top security measures and the limitations of his one good eye, probably at least double that number that he hadn’t noticed. If he weren’t here by Toki’s express invitation, he’d be so many different kinds of dead right now. 

He didn’t need any recon inside this place for The Plan—it would never work to pull anything there, not with so much security in every nook and cranny. But he’d always been curious, so here he was. 

“And none of the other guys are here?” Magnus pressed, still looking around. Fuck, this place was huge. (This could have been his.) “Not even Offdensen?”

“Nah,” Toki replied offhandedly, “they thoughts I was on the plane and tooks offs withouts me to goes on a ski trip, ands now they’re stucks in a blizzards. They can’t gets back and I can’t goes theres. So, I calls you!”

Without any warning that Magnus had picked up on, Toki reached out and grabbed his hand. It wasn’t like he threaded their fingers together or anything, but the surprise connection was more than Magnus felt comfortable with, an uncomfortable feeling in his gut that he wasn’t used to at all and had no idea how to label. (He didn’t do guilt; he didn’t do ‘cowed by how open and naively friendly someone was unexpectedly being’ either. It was definitely, one hundred percent neither of those things.)

“Come ons, I shows you around!”

The young guitarist pulled him from room to room, chattering nonstop. It was annoying in an informative, easy to tune out the rambling bits sort of way. This was the room where Dethklok hung out and played video games, this was the room where they hung out to watch tv and eat snacks, this was the room where they hung out in a surprisingly small hot tub for five male billionaires who didn’t seem to like each other’s company that much, this was the cavernous kitchen that they frequented when they wanted more snacks or possibly even a meal. It was endless and irritating, and Magnus didn’t actually want to spend a ton of time with this babbling idiot, but he reminded himself that this was all part of The Plan and sullenly continued to let himself be dragged around and shown all the shit that he could have had, but didn’t. 

He did ask for a drink, though, to blunt the edges. Toki gestured to someone in his blind spot, and moments later a cold beer was handed to him by a hooded servant. 

“And this ams my room,” Toki told him proudly, tugging Magnus into . . . the smallest room he had seen yet. It was basically a stone box with an on-suite. Model airplanes hung from the ceiling, action figures crowded the edges of his bookshelf, and the desk was piled with unfinished projects and puzzles and crap. One of the pictures hanging on the wall over the narrow bed and beneath a double-sided battle axe was an early promo shot of the band, and another was a close-up of some scary zombie-looking asshole’s face, maybe a relative or something. The rest of the walls were mostly just decorated with taped up posters of boats, planets, and sharks. 

“This?” Magnus repeated. “Seriously? You have . . . and entire fucking mansion that’s tricked out with all kinds of cool shit, but this is your room.”

If it had been him, he’d have his own arcade, giant tv, and hot tub in his room, so he could do all those things on his own if he wanted to. Plus a bitching sound system. Plus bigass windows to let some actual fucking light in. Plus . . . god, was that bed from IKEA or something? Was all of this from IKEA? Riches were wasted on this kid, Magnus decided scornfully. He had no idea how to appreciate what he had at his fingertips. 

Toki shrugged. “I gots all the rest of the place if I wants that other stuff, so this ams just all stuffs I mades by myself. Evens the desk, I puts that together. Just Toki’s.” He met Magnus’ incredulous look with a sudden grin and squeezed his hand. “Comes on, let’s go back to the others room and watch a movies!”

~

It wasn’t until halfway through the movie that Magnus wasn’t even paying attention to—he was looking around and trying to appraise the cost and potential EBay value of anything he saw that wasn’t nailed down and small enough to fit in his pocket—that he realized Toki kept scooting closer to him on the couch. That, after all the hand holding, finally started to set off alarm bells. 

Did the poor simple bastard have some sort of crush on him or something? How embarrassing. So embarrassing that he couldn’t decide if he wanted to try and snap a picture to sell to some gossip rags later or not. 

That was totally why he felt weird and jumpy, and only more so once Toki had inched close enough to rest his head on Magnus’ shoulder. A weird, warm, hyper-awareness bloomed anywhere Toki touched him—first his shoulder, then his side, then (Magnus absolutely did not gulp when this happened) his thigh. He had to wrestle down the impulse to start bouncing that leg restlessly, because he didn’t dare shake him off and potentially ruin The Plan. 

So he stayed still. And the thing about the warmth was that Toki was just radiating with it, and the longer he was so close the more it spread. Magnus felt as though he might incandesce at any moment and he fucking hated every second of it. 

He tried directing his attention to the tv and remembered it was December, so Toki had picked a Christmas movie at random. On the giant screen, Sarah Jessica Parker was covered in egg and screaming in a kitchen. Not the best distraction ever. 

“Needs anything?” Toki asked casually, as if everything was just fine and dandy, apparently somehow not noticing that Magnus was on the verge of starting to worry he might have a heart attack. 

“No,” Magnus grunted. A way out would be great, thanks. He remembered he still had a beer in one hand (his fourth or fifth, at this point) and raised his unencumbered arm to glug the rest of it down. 

“You sures?” Toki pressed, looking up at him with guileless eyes. 

Shaking the last few drops out and tossing the bottle down the couch, Magnus started to say Another drink, something stronger this time, but he couldn’t. Toki’s lips pressed warmly, nervously against his, kissing away the aftertaste of beer. 

He had not come prepared for this. 

He didn’t even need to be here, it wasn’t necessary to The Plan. 

Toki was too goddamned nice, inviting him here and showing him around like he genuinely wasn’t a threat, like he was someone Toki actually enjoyed being around. (Magnus thought pretty highly of himself, but even he had to admit that most people didn’t ever appreciate his presence. Or if they did it, usually wasn’t for this long. Jealous douchebags, that’s all they were, the whole fucking human race.) 

Magnus took it anyway. Fuck it, why not? It had been one thing when he was still in his twenties or thirties, hot in a rough-and-tumble bad-boy musician way, getting his share of action after playing a gig at some nothing bar, but at his age and painful lack of fame and fortune, to have anyone this young and ripped pressed up against him was a rare occurrence. He was taking the kiss out of spite, he told himself, and gave back as good as he got. 

Surely he wouldn’t regret this later. 

Toki sighed against his mouth, bright blue eyes fluttering open. “Thanks you, Magnus.”

“Uh.” Magnus fought against instinctively grimacing at the thanks, which he wasn’t used to. He licked absently at his lip, not realizing he was doing so until the tip of his tongue brushed Toki’s lip too and made the other man giggle. Fucking giggle. “For what?”

“For beings here,” Toki told him. “Is nice to nots be alones on Christmas, don’ts you thinks?”

Magnus wanted to say he’d ever particularly noticed Christmas one way or the other before, but for some reason it (the lie) stuck in his throat. “. . . Yeah, I guess.”

Something in Toki’s eyes shifted and he suddenly looked . . . he looked lonely, as familiar a sight as though Magnus was recognizing it in a mirror (which he definitely never did). He wondered what Toki was gunning for here—a friend with benefits, or something more than that? 

Something ‘just Toki’s,’ a little holiday closeness with someone he thought actually cared?

(That thought didn’t make Magnus feel like a two-bit white masquerading as something better, not even a little bit.)

“You wants to sees my room agains?” Toki whispered?

On the tv, sappy holiday ambiance music played as the movie went out of its way to establish that everyone was friendly and happy and appropriately paired up now, all two-by-two sheep marching into Noah’s ark before the winter flood. 

“Sure,” Magnus said. 

He wasn’t a sheep, he told himself, it had just been too long since he’d last gotten laid. 

Christmas had nothing whatsoever to do with it.

#metalocalypse #12 days of dethmas #hammertooth #magnus hammersmith #toki wartooth #pre DSR

[lillaskiten]

Ok so fantasy high is definitely a new obsession because i even wrote fanfic about it. First time posting any of my writing so like, be gentle. anyway this happened because i think The Ball is a stupid nickname but the potential for drama is delicious. Also fabriz is good. The “The Ball” Thing Summary: Riz stands up for himself after it’s all over. Not everyone is thrilled. Important conversations get interjected with important shenanigans.

Despite everything, The Bad Kids were in good spirits when they stepped out of Principal Agueforts office. It had been a harrowing spring break. Between evil shadow clones, demons and beings of pure nightmare it was sure to leave its mark. Jawbone really had his work cut out for him. Adaine still wasn’t over dying for the first time. Fig also died for the first time. She’s good though.

But now they were back in Elmville, heroes once again despite multiple murders, thefts and property damages. It’s familiar and invigorating.

Gorgug took Zelda on a date as soon as they got back. It wasn’t gonna heal over night, but they were working it out. Fig planned an actual vacation for her and Gilear who, gods know how, actually made it back. Adaine, Kristen and Tracker held a celebratory welcome home party at Mordred manor to actually try to get acquainted with their new home. Riz and Fabian immediately met up with their respective mothers to barrage them with the tales of their adventure.

It was good. They were home.

Walking out of the school they couldn’t help but notice Riz walking especially upright. He smiled like he did when on the verge of a breakthrough. Stepping out into the school parking lot he stopped them with certainty that was almost certainly unfounded.

“I would like all of you to follow me to my office,” he said with a glint in his eyes.

“Uh, sure... Why?” Adaine was first to question.

“Please just come along, I happen to have an announcement!” the triumph in his voice was unmistakable.

“That you can’t tell us in the parking lot?” Kristen said.

“Of course not!” though everyone could see how he barely held whatever it was in. “It needs to be official.”

Well, it was Riz. Whatever it was it was probably important. They all shrugged and followed him down to the old office building. Wondering quietly, and in Fabian and Fig’s case; very loudly, what this announcement was about.

~

The office was cleaned and rearranged from the scuffle at the beginning of their adventure. The four who had been subjected to said scuffle walked in carefully. Fabian especially. He shuddered just thinking about nightmare-Riz.

Boggy croaked happily and Fabian felt a little better.

Real-life-Riz must’ve come here as soon as they got back. The space was impeccably clean and so clearly lived in at the same time. It looked like an IKEA display room for deranged detectives. The conspiracy board already had a new case starting to form on it and beside an old coffee cup on the desk lay the Nightmare King file, now with a big red CLOSED scribbled on top.

The Bad Kids tumbled in and filled the space in both spirit and person. At Riz’s indication they all got situated on the floor, each seemingly trying to out-weird the others in their sitting position. Well, Adaine sat prim and proper with boggy in her lap, silently confused over her friends antics. Riz stood, king of his castle, behind the desk. He filled them each a cup of black sludge that was almost coffee. Everyone but Kristen pulled a face when handed their cup.

“The Ball, will this put hair on my chest or make it fall out?” Fabian grimaced.

“Uhh, Both?” Riz waved him off. “But! That does bring me to my announcement…”

Everyone leaned forward in mild anticipation. Was it a new case? Whatever was happening on the conspiracy board? Was he and Sklonda moving? Was he an honorary detective? Was his father actually alive and in hiding and now needed their help on his most dangerous mission yet? (That last one was Figs suggestion.)

“I…” He took a deep breath.

“Wait is he like… coming out?” Kristen whispered to Adaine.

“Didn’t he already? And you think every announcement is someone coming out!” Adaine whispered back.

“Well, she’s right like 50% of the time you know?” Fig squeezed in and plopped a piece of popcorn in her mouth. at least it wasn’t a clove.

Riz paused.

“Did you bring snacks to my heartfelt moment of vulnerability?”

“Oh shit it’s gonna be heartfelt?” Fig exclaimed. “Dang, we are seriously unprepared.”

She quickly conjured a bowl of popcorn for the whole room. They descended on it like a pack of wolves.

After Adaine had broken up the coming fight and divvied the popcorn so that everyone got exactly as many as they wanted in comparison to the others (with any excess given to Boggy) Riz stood there with popcorn in his hand and a little less triumph in his voice.

“So what I was trying to say was…” He paused and looked around the room for any possible interjection. Fig looked like she still had something on her mind but a look shot her down. He coughed and tried to regain that triumphant feeling he’d been carrying all day.

This was his moment. Time to bring his character development to a head!

Boggy croaked happily. Yes, he could absolutely do this!

“I hereby relinquish my status as The Ball,” He said with grandeur, looking each of his friends in the eyes (or eye in Fabians case). “I formerly ask you all to stop calling me by that name.”

“Of course,” Gorgug and Kristen said in unison.

“That’s it?” Adaine said.

“Oh I never really liked The Ball either,” Fig said, chewing popcorn.

“WHAT?” Fabian was aghast. He had stood up and slammed his hands on the desk. “But. You. Are. The Ball.”

“Yeah well I never actually liked that nickname,” Riz said. He looked at the others behind Fabian. “I thought now, with all we’ve been through, I could tell you and still keep you as friends.”

“Of course you’re still our friend, you really thought something like that could get rid of us?” Adaine smiled softly like only she does. “It’s a stupid name anyway, the only one who actually cares is Fabian and maybe Ragh.”

“We should tell Ragh right?” Gorgug said, already on his chrystal. “I’m gonna tell Ragh.”

“Hey shh! I think we’re getting to the good part!” Fig elbowed him, pointing out Fabians red face. Then she shoved a fistful of popcorn into her mouth.

It seemed that Fig was conjuring more and more popcorn for every passing second.

Fabian was sputtering before he finally got the words out:

“But… but it’s our thing! We’re Fabian Aramais Seacaster, son of Bill Seacaster and captain of the bloodrush team, and The Ball!” he gestured wildly at himelf, then at Riz, then himself again. “What? Is the captain of the bloodrush team supposed to be best friends with some… just… not The Ball?”

The rest of the Bad Kids had quieted down, all impressed at Riz for actually hearing Fabian call him his best friend without crying. It was the fifteenth time by the way. Not that they kept count.

“Can’t our thing just be that we’re... Riz and Fabian?” Riz answered. Mostly weirded out by this harsh response.

“NO!”

“Why are you making such a big deal out of this?”

“Because… well…” Fabians mouth tried desperately to form any words to his own liking.

“What?”

And Fabian did something the others had barely ever seen before. He was quiet and thought out his next words.

For a while no one said a thing.

“Hey Fabian did Riz tell you he’s gay?” Kristen interjected into the silence.

“What?” (Fabian)

“WHAT!?” (Riz)

Riz threw daggers at her. Like a literal dagger. It struck the floorboards just short of her.

Boggy croaked happily and her heartrate lowered.

Adaine turned and elbowed her.

“What did we say about outing people for drama, Kristen?” she hissed.

“Even though it is fun it’s still very uncool,” she sighed. “But you know, this is a safe space. And like, I have a plan.”

Adaine rolled her eyes and held Boggy closer. Kristen was lovely but sometimes her impulsiveness really got the better of her. By the desk Fabian was staring at Riz, then back at Kristen, then back at Riz.

“You told Kristen but not me?” he looked actually, genuinely hurt. Which for Fabian still looked a tad like an overreaction.

He could see Riz look away. Everyone else turned awkwardly and drank their almost-coffee. The only one who seemed somewhat comfortable was Gorgug.

“Oh, uh… He told all of us actually,” Gorgug said, thinking he helped clarify the situation.

Four sets of eyes turned to glare at him with various levels of “stop talking.”

“Oh don’t you remember?” he pointed at Kristen. “You me and Adaine were talking about Asexuality, and then Fig came in and you” he pointed at Riz, whose ears were turning red under the green skin, “told us, just super casually, that you were gay and then told us to… to not… tell… uh… uh…… Traacker?” He realized his mistake too late.

Everyone looked at Fabian in horror.

“While I don’t really get why you wouldn’t want Tracker to know,” Thankfully Fabian was still thick when it counted. “I’m still hurt you didn’t tell me, I’m your Best Friend!”

“Well to be completely fair” Riz said. “I told Ragh before I told anyone here.”

Fabian looked almost as wounded as Kristen.

“He is actually very sensitive.”

Fabian looked around the room. A place of traitors. Even Ragh was a traitor and he wasn’t even here.  He didn’t feel so bad about not wanting to stop calling The Ball “The Ball” though. That was nothing important compared to this revelation.

“I’m sensitive, The Ball…” Fabian smiled. “I’m the most sensitive.”

“Ok…” Riz fixed him with a glare. “Then be sensitive to my feelings and call me Riz! It’s not that hard, you’ve done it before.”

“Well, not intentionally! And… just… you know what!” He turned dramatically. “Kristen, WHY did you decide to out my Best Friend in the middle of this, frankly inconsequential, conversation?”

Kristen almost choked on the coffee.

“Mm… You see it’s all part of my Master Plan!” She had a smug smile plastered on her face. “Our adventure is done, over, and through it, all of us have sort of grown and had revelations and just MAJOR character development. Just look at Riz! He realized he was gay and got comfortable enough to stop chasing our approval all the time…”

“I didn’t chase after your app-“

“You did.” Kristen said matter of factly. “Now he’s finally decided he’s not The Ball, he’s an adult! A man! and it’s not just him. I’m secure in Yes? now, Adaine is stepping into her role as the elven oracle and like everyone has had a sexuality and gender chat with me except you. And I want to have one really bad because I think there’s a lot that might be going on here.”

Fig paused her popcorn massacre to play the bassline for Fig and the Sig Figs newest hit “F*ck The Man And Also Being A Man Or A Woman”. It was massively popular.

“And with you…” Kristen hesitated. “Well basically you just got rejected by Aelwynn and after that got progressively sadder?”

“Wait, so your master plan is to get Fabian to talk about his feelings?” Adaine raised an eyebrow.

Kristen shrugged.

“OK!” Fabian decided to put a stop to this. “Why is THAT something we’re working through? Right. Now?”

“Because I am so sure it has something to do with the The Ball thing,” Kristen said, looking a little too excited.

“Ok, oookay,” Fabian said again. “There is no ‘ The Ball thing’.”

Which made everyone around murmur that Yes, there was clearly a “The Ball thing” and it was very weird. Fabian looked around for any ally in the room.

Boggy croaked happily.

“Why do you insist on calling me The Ball, Fabian?” Riz was done playing games. He stared down Fabian who almost shrunk under the force of it.

Fig shoved in another fistful of popcorn.

“Well maybe…” Fabian said, mentally unhinging his jaw to let it say whatever it was going to say. “Maybe it’s true that it’s our thing! And maybe I like that, and thought you liked it too. Maybe it represents our friendship? Maybe it feels like you’re taking away our whole dynamic, you know? Maybe… Maybe I can’t handle Riz?... Maybe Riz is just too close?”

Riz stood dumfounded. Everyone else shoved more popcorn in their mouths.

“Maybe I love you Riz!” He concluded, like he just figured it out himself. “Maybe I’m in love with you, maybe that’s it.”

There was a painful few seconds when Riz just stood quiet. Fabian stood still. A man who was unarmed and naked against a man with every knife sharper than his last.

Then Riz leaned in and kissed him. A quick peck on the lips while their audience erupted into giggles and celebratory shouts.

“Fabian,” Riz looked into his eyes and laughed. “I cry when you call me your best friend. Of course I’m in love with you! I’ve had a weird, sad crush on you since freshman year!”

“I can’t believe not one of the Bad Kids is cishet!” Kristen laughed. Then she shouted: “IS THIS WHAT TRUE BELONGING FEELS LIKE?”

Boggy croaked happily.

Adaine patted Riz on the back while Gorgug quietly started giving Fabian tips for their first date (which, of course, everyone else was going to hijack). Fig was already writing up lyrics for a song about them. Was “The Pirates Ball” a good title? She’d have to workshop it. Kristen felt like it was only right to commemorate this LGBT miracle by once again kissing every other Bad Kid on the mouth.

“Ok that’s it! Out! Everyone out!” Fabian started shoving the rest of them towards the door. Kristen first.

“Hey what gives this is great news!” Fig protested. “Also I’m gonna need the whole story of pining and realization and stuff to make this song really POP!”

“Nope, you’re going out!” He dragged her out by the bass.

“But whyyyy?” Fig groaned while holding on to the doorframe.

Fabian smiled like he hadn’t in weeks.

“I’m gonna get my kisses in.”

#been debating whether or not to put this up for two weeks so here it is #fantasy high #fabriz #fantasy high fic #that's it those are the tags #also idfk how people format the fics they post so this is what is looks like!

[anistarrose]

The Truth About Me and the Truth About You (TAZ Balance One-Shot)

Summary: AU where everything is the same except Tres Horny Boys have the Red Robe’s Stone of Farspeech number.

Word Count: ~2000

Warnings: none

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18979621

Title is from Touch-Tone Telephone by Lemon Demon! (which I’ve referenced for fic titles before but that was a different fandom so shhhh)

This started off as crack and slowly morphed into angst, which is honestly a pretty good summary of my writing process in general. Inspired by a certain MBMBAM bit, and specifically this post by @mspainttaz!

Edit: now with a Part 2!

Barry doesn’t get a lot of phone calls — hardly even enough to justify owning a Stone of Farspeech in the first place — so it startles him when it vibrates, and a wave of excess magical energy emanates from him and knocks several maps of the moonbase off his desk.

“Hello?” he answers, immediately chiding himself for forgetting to disguise his voice.

“Hi,” Magnus replies cheerfully on the other side of the line. “Is this the Red Robes?”

The wisest course of action by far, Barry knows, would be to simply hang up and block the number — but he’s been so lonely, and it’s so easy to visualize familiar shit-eating grins on his family’s faces…

“Yes,” he replies slowly, careful to will a rasp back into his voice. “This is indeed ‘the Red Robes,’ as you put it.”

On the other end, he hears Taako wheeze in the background as he struggles to muffle a laugh, while Merle hisses: “This just a phone number you can call!”

“Yeah, uh — how, exactly, did you get this number?” Barry asks. If they share it with Lucretia, she might be able to track him this way unless he immediately puts some highly specific wards on the stone —

“Oh, Merle won this scrying bowl thing in the Fantasy Gashapon,” Magnus explains matter-of-factly. “Or at least, I think that’s what it was? Leon wouldn’t tell us because Taako stole his candy, so we had to look it up ourselves — but the point is, we asked it for your number and it just gave it to us!”

“Okay, so only like half of those words mean anything to me —”

“They made the Relics and you’re talking to them on the phone!” Taako chortles in the background, evidently not realizing Barry can hear him. “Their number was on Fantasy Scrying Google!”

Barry sighs. He can only imagine how much the boys’ shenanigans must confuse normal people, who don’t have inexplicably hazy memories of search engines from other planes of existence.

“Does L — does your Director know about this? Does she endorse you… prank-calling me, at this ungodly hour of the morning?”

“Oh yeah… we weren’t supposed to be talking to you, we were? Shit.” Magnus genuinely sounds just a little bit guilty. “You won’t tell her, right?”

Barry almost laughs, because he and Lucretia currently are about as far away from speaking terms as you can get, but he catches himself.

Think, Barry. You can use this.

“I suppose I can keep your secret, Reclaimers,” he rasps, “but I will need something in return.”

He can practically hear Magnus tense up on the other end of the line. “What do you want?”

“Simply a few pieces of information. A question for Taako, actually — where did you find that Umbra Staff?”

“With a dead guy?” There’s a rustling sound, as Taako presumably moves in closer to Magnus’s Stone of Farspeech. “Or a dead lady, I guess you said it was — I thought we went over that last time, in the lab? You amnesiac or something?”

Barry narrowly holds back a retort of Not right now, I’m not. If he had corporeal hands, they would be trembling.

“Yes, we did go over that last time,” he replies, “but you never told me where physically. Which is why I’m asking you again. Is that understood?”

“Oh, why didn’t you just say so?” Taako asks him. “It was — uh, let’s see, near where the gauntlet was! Wave Echo Cave, right?”

“Of course.” Barry had already guessed as much, but his mind is still sent racing — if her Umbra Staff was there, why wasn’t Lup? Even if Taako and the others couldn’t remember her, why hadn’t she been with them? He’d always speculated that her lich form had been trapped at the site of her death somehow, but he’d personally gone back to Wave Echo Cave after the destruction of Phandalin, and there had been no sign of her there — and if she had been able to leave the cave on her own, surely she would have long since found her way back to them…

“Can you tell us who you are yet?” Magnus asks, his familiar voice yanking Barry back to the conversation. It’s just in the nick of time, too — Barry watches his skeletal hands resolidify, his fingertips having nearly dissolved into stray, formless magical sparks.

“Maybe in like… I dunno, seventeen episodes.”

“You said ten episodes last time.”

“Well, I lied. That’s what you get for talking me behind the Director’s back. See ya!”

The second his Stone of Farspeech disconnects, he collapses down into a kneeling position, running through the self-collecting exercises he’s honed over the years of loneliness — counting to ten, thinking back to happier days aboard the Starblaster, shifting his vision into the spectrum in which he can make out thousands of glowing silver threads attached to his robe, stretching up through the roof of his cave and towards the moon. It takes a few minutes, but he feels his magic coalesce into a much more solid, almost tangible form — it seems that talking to the boys was a net positive for his stability in the end.

“If Taako can find your umbrella after all these years, then we’ll find you too eventually, Lup,” he whispers. “I promise.”

***

They don’t trust you. How can you get them to trust you, before…

Barry isn’t pacing, exactly, but he is drifting in wide circles around the perimeter of his cave in basically the best way pacing can be approximated by a lich, hoping for an idea to come to him.

Maybe I should have expected it, with all the ominous warnings I gave them, but if I’d acted more cordial, they might’ve started to remember bits and pieces —

On his desk, his Stone of Farspeech buzzes, and Barry just knows exactly who it’s going to be before even he answers.

“Hey, is this the Red Robes?” Magnus’s voice is quieter this time despite his greeting being almost exactly the same, and there isn’t any muffled laughter in the background either.

“Just the Red Robe,” Barry corrects. “There’s only one of me.”

“I opened the tube,” Magnus whispers.

“Oh.” Barry mentally kicks himself — he’d been so focused on trying to get Magnus to trust him that he forgot all about the tube. “Right. I should have known you would.”

He lets the rasp in his voice dissipate as he goes on — Tres Horny Boys haven’t spoken to his living form in about a year now, anyways. Magnus shouldn’t recognize him. “Do you see now why I asked you not to open it?”

“Can you understand it? I know what I saw — hell, I’m looking at it right now and I can see it just fine, but… I know I’m in a red robe like you, but I can’t think anything else about it. It just all turns to — to static. I can’t think.”

“That’s what I was afraid of.”

“Do you know why I was in Refuge?”

Barry sighs. “I don’t know if I can tell you. Not ‘cause I’m trying to hide things, but just physically.”

“Is it because of the Voidfish?”

Barry doesn’t say anything.

“I swam in its tank.”

That gets a reaction out of him. “You what?!”

“It showed me there were other voidfish — and then there was a boat, and a — a bunch of moving circles, I think they were supposed to be planes, with a light and this big darker plane —”

“Shit. Magnus, you need — you can’t think about that. You can’t think about what it showed you. If — if certain people find out that you know, then everything — everything we’ve been working for will fall apart —”

“Everything we’ve been working for?” Magnus echoes. It sounds like he’s struggling to form the words — whether due to the static filling his mind, or simply out of sheer disbelief, Barry isn’t sure.

“Oh, no — no, I didn’t mean — ah, fuck, Magnus, it’s gonna seriously damage your brain if you keep up the questions like this. You need to push this all to the back of your mind, and just —”

“Just trust you?”

Magnus still doesn’t trust you. He’ll never trust you — none of them ever will. You’ve ruined everything already, just cut your losses and hang up. Block the number.

He can feel the despair corrupting his form, red sparks leaping down his robed arms — but he can’t hang up, he can’t cut off this line, this lifeline, this bond connecting the two of them, he just can’t. He can only cling to it, and put his faith in his family like always — no matter how little they reciprocate it.

What would Lup do? She’d remember he isn’t in his right mind, but she wouldn’t give up on him, either.

Magnus doesn’t say anything for what feels like an eternity — is he oblivious to Barry’s breakdown? On the verge of a breakdown of his own?

“What do you think about me?” he finally asks.

“Excuse me?” Barry chokes out. His voice has that low hiss in it again — involuntarily this time.

“Like, what kind of person am I? You… you know things about me that I don’t, even I can tell that much, so… what do you think I’m like?”

Barry answers slowly, afraid of saying something that would get blocked by static — or worse, making another slip-up that Magnus can actually process. He doesn’t want to know how Magnus would react to hearing that the Red Robe thinks of him like a brother, no matter how sincere that sentiment is.

“I think that you can be impulsive in ways that are sometimes… frustrating, but you’re also incredibly dedicated to protecting people, and I admire that. That impulsivity and that dedication, they spring from the same well of — the same well of willfulness, I think, that same well that makes you such a fighter. I don’t know if I could have kept going after something like Raven’s Roost —”

The second he hears the words Raven’s Roost out loud, he immediately regrets them. It’s completely true, that losing a loved one and knowing beyond any doubt that he could never get them back would destroy him, both figuratively and literally — but he shouldn’t know about what happened to Magnus, not in that much detail. Nor should he bring up a painful subject like that, especially given what Magnus thinks of him at the moment —

“I will see Julia again one day,” Magnus assures him in a low, confident voice, as if having read his mind. “In the Astral Plane.”

Barry doesn’t let out a literal breath of relief, but is met with a similar sensation as a wave of stability washes over his spectral form. It’s a far better reaction than he’d dared to hope for.

(Should he tell Magnus that Governor Kalen was long dead, quickly and quietly killed by a crimson lightning bolt that neither he nor any of his mercenaries had seen coming before being tossed in a secluded river, body never to be seen again?)

(No. He’ll save that story for if — when — Magnus can remember who he was, when they’ll all be safe and able to finally rest after eleven long, grueling decades. It still feels far away, that day of relaxation, of freedom — but it also seems tantalizingly closer than it did just a few minutes ago, when the familiarity of Magnus’s voice and the stubbornly persistent hope of finding Lup were the only things holding Barry together, and just barely at that.)

“Well, hopefully you won’t end up in the Astral Plane too soon,” he says eventually.

“Yeah, I —” Magnus’s voice is genuinely warm for a moment, but it cuts off quickly. “Shit, I think I woke someone up. I’ll be seeing you again whether I want to or not, won’t I?”

“Take care, Magnus.” Before anyone on the other end of the line can overhear anything incriminating, Barry switches his Stone of Farspeech off.

***

(Thanks for reading, feedback/reblogs are welcomed as always!)

#taz #taz balance #barry bluejeans #magnus burnsides #merle highchurch #taako taaco #rosalia writes fic

[tyranttortoise]

I’m not the anon who asked but can i please get that soulmate with sans’ brother’s s/o thing but with the papyrus personalities?

*I wanted to get an imagine out quick because I’ve got friends flying out tomorrow for my birthday (which is the 17th!), so I won’t have much time to write anything for a couple of weeks.  We’re going to New Orleans, and you guys remember how much I love that, so I’m super excited.  I need a vacation so bad, and I can’t wait to see them.  

I think this meant with Papyruses in general, so here’s the other half of an imagine I did a while back where you’re dating Papyrus, but soulmates with Sans.  

In this one, you’re dating Sans, but soulmates with Papyrus.  I’mma stick most of it under a cut.

UT!bros*You’re dating Sans.

Papyrus doesn’t understand the resonance – not at first, at least.  It comes as a tightness in his SOUL, an elation whenever he’s near you, and a feeling of uneasiness whenever you’re away.  At first, he considers it a feeling brought about by genuinely wanting to be your friend.  After all, you’re dating his brother, so he knows you’re a great person.  You exchange numbers almost immediately, and Papyrus even surprises himself with how eager he is to text you and call you.  

The three of you become mostly inseparable.  If Sans doesn’t invite you over to their house, Papyrus calls you up with a spaghetti invitation.  The two of you spend a lot of time in the kitchen, re-creating the cooking show Chopped that Papyrus was blown away by, while Sans acts as a rather biased judge.  Papyrus sends you pictures and texts every day when you’re away, and it’s beginning to seem like you talk to Papyrus more than your actual bonefriend.

Papyrus is satisfied with being your ULTIMATE BEST FRIEND EVER until you start staying the night at the skelebros’ house.  At first, he was excited at the idea of a sleepover, and he got into his best pajamas (the ones with MTT in robot form all over them) and popped a huge bowl of popcorn, preparing for a movie marathon.  You end up sandwiched between the brothers, covered in a big blanket, but after three movies, you’re exhausted and start to nod off.  Sans wakes up at some point and nudges you awake so the two of you can go upstairs to rest in his bed, and Papyrus… attempts to stall you.  You brush it off as him being eager to finish the last movie, but Sans’s smile seems different when he cracks a joke toward his brother.

Papyrus doesn’t even berate him for using a cheap pun.  

That night, while you’re sleeping in the next room on Sans’s mattress, Papyrus can’t stop rubbing his palm against his sternum and wondering why he feels so… anxious.  

You didn’t sleep well, but you felt like you had the worst case of heartburn ever and internally admonish yourself for having late-night pizza before bed.  Something seems off with Sans, however, and he’s not in the bed when you wake up.  Over the next few days, he seems to become more and more distant, picking up extra shifts and only giving you one-word replies when he texts back.  

It comes to as no surprise when he breaks up with you a week later.  “just not compatible.  sorry, kid.  but hey, no hard feelings, right?  paps would be really upset if you stopped coming by the house, so if you still wanna be friends…”

UF!bros*You’re dating Red.

The moment Edge meets you, he realizes that the universe has an even worse sense of humor than his brother.  

The pull in his SOUL is unmistakable; he’s no fool, and he knows that it’s clearly resonating with yours.  However, his brother’s arm is around you, and you’re laughing at something Red’s said – some stupid joke, he’s sure – which only serves to deepen his scowl.  

How could you – you of all the people out there, the one that’s dating his brother – be the soulmate of the Great and Terrible Papyrus?  He’s outright rude to you from the start, refusing to use your name (“HUMAN, DO NOT LEAVE YOUR DIRTY DISHES IN THE SINK LIKE MY LAZYBONES BROTHER!”) and jumping on you over every small slight in an effort to drive you out of his house.  He even surprises Red by snapping at him when Red tells him to chill out, and then sequesters himself in his room.  

His SOUL is vibrating so hard that he feels like he’s going to break apart, but he pushes it down.

Wait… it isn’t vibrating at all.  It’s clenching tight, yes, but the vibration he felt was his rattling ribcage.

HAVE I REALLY FALLEN THIS FAR?  OVER A SIMPLE, SLOVENLY HUMAN?

He tries to avoid you, but one day, you confront him and straight-up get in his face, demanding to know what you did wrong and why he hates you so much.  Edge attempts to flee the conversation (he can’t think over the pounding in his skull, or the way his SOUL feels as if it’s writhing within his body), but you block his path and jab a finger bravely into his chest, lecturing him over his behavior.  Red isn’t around, and you’re determined to make peace with his brother so you can feel comfortable hanging out at your bonefriend’s house.  

Edge can only stare, his expression stricken, as you muster up every bit of your courage to demand to know why he hates you.  

However, you weren’t expecting to choke on the words…

Tears cloud your vision as the word hate catches in your throat.  You’re not even sure why you’re crying – or why your chest feels so tight.  Are you on the verge of an anxiety attack?  Was this a mistake?  Or –

– or is it just that the idea of him hating you hurts?

That’s absurd.  You barely know each other.  Still, as soon as the first tear rolls down your cheek, Edge shocks the hell out of you by gathering you against his chest.  His hold is borderline tender, and for a long time, he doesn’t say anything; he simply holds you while you calm down.  

… Is he shaking?

“I DON’T…”

He hesitates, and you attempt to lift your head, but he holds you tighter, refusing to allow you to look at him.  

“… HATE YOU.”

The two of you don’t speak of what transpired in the hallway that day, but Edge is noticeably nicer to you.  He never mentions the resonance to Red, so his brother remains oblivious.  Of course, you and Red eventually go your separate ways, and you don’t see Edge for several weeks.  

And then, you run into him at a grocery store… and your heart feels like it’s fluttering.  

US!bros*You’re dating Blueberry.

Stretch knows what’s happening the moment he meets you.

The resonance is strong enough that he can feel it in his entire body, however, he’s had enough experience with concealing his true feelings that it doesn’t show.  He had been eager to meet you – his brother has been going on and on about you for weeks, so he knew you had to be a great person – but he never expected his brother’s datemate to be his soulmate.  

He plays it off spectacularly.  He’s friendly toward you, makes plenty of puns (you always laugh at his jokes, and whenever you both end up firing off puns together, Blueberry pretends to be so exasperated), and spends plenty of time hanging out with you and his brother.  He’s always there to offer advice, his sends you memes late at night, and he can kick your ass in every version of Mario Party there is, and yet… he also always gives you and Blue your alone time.  He gives you space, or naps on the couch, and you end up considering him your best friend.

He never tells Blueberry that you’re his soulmate.  He would never do that to his brother, who’s obviously head-over-heels for you – and you love Blueberry, too; Stretch can tell.  Blue’s the kind of person that would break up with you if he knew, and Stretch can never allow that.  

After all, he just wants his two favorite people to be happy, and he’s content with you as his best friend.  Just having you around is enough to make his soul sing.

Who says soulmates can’t be platonic?

SF!bros*You’re dating Blackberry

*heh.  guess i’ve just got that shit of luck, huh?

Mutt should have known that he wouldn’t be worthy of a soulmate.  After all, he’s spent a good portion of his life feeling guilt-ridden and worthless, constantly trying to make up for his previous bout of selfishness.  

So, it comes as no surprise that he would get tested here.  

It also comes as no surprise that he doesn’t react to the resonance.  He could never do that to his brother.  Blackberry’s been a touch-starved mess, yearning for love and affection, and he finally has it from you.  And you’re good for him!  You temper him, keeping him grounded and from having his anger make him impulsive.  You give him a kindness that no one besides Mutt has, which only makes Mutt’s soul swell even more with admiration.  

The three of you spend a fair amount of time together, since it appears that Blackberry feels the most at ease when he’s around his brother.  Mutt, however, avoids being alone with you, and aside from the occasional joke and wink thrown your way, you never become great friends with him.  Although he acts normally around Blackberry, he keeps his guard up, and always seems to twist any efforts you make to get to know him back onto his brother and how magnificent he is.  

Whenever you’re sleeping in Blackberry’s room, however, Mutt spends the night outside with his hood pulled up, chain-smoking dog treats and clutching his chest.  It’s hard to ignore the throb of his SOUL, but he does his damnedest.

Though, he resolves never to drink around you for fear that he’ll get too drunk and blurt something out – or even worse, try to hold you.  He knows that all it would take is one hug, and all his years of repentance would be out the window.    

(*Imagine Masterlist)

#undertale imagine #undertale #underfell #underswap #swapfell #soulmates #this one was fun to write #i think edge's was my favorite #and i've always been a big fan of platonic soulmates too #i definitely think you can be best friend soulmates #and stretch is the perfect skele for that

[admiraltitmouse]

Some Reddie fluff with smutty undertones.

1350 words

Shit was getting weird.

More than what Richie or Eddie bargained for. Of course returning to your home town you could hardly remember--clearly your brain blocking out a lot of shit wouldn't be a luxury vaction. Though it wouldn't explain why Richie couldn't recall the good moments from his childhood either, something else was going on, there was something wrong with Derry.

Eddie was one of the people that were in all the good memories that were coming back to him. Their relationship was odd, if it was anyone else that Richie's unfiltered relentless jokes were directed to he would have had his teeth kicked in. Eddie as a kid would hate to admit it but he liked the attention--he knew in some weird way the jokes were Richie's way to express his love.

Richie was in his room of the Inn. The sun had been down for hours and chances were the rest of the gang were fast asleep. Being a borderline insomniac Richie occupied his time drinking whiskey, scribbling jokes down in his note book and pacing the room while he thought. He finished what was left of the whiskey in his glass before setting it down on the side table. The glass knocked against the wood drowning out the knocks on the door, it wasn't until the sound continued that Richie processed what was happening, standing in his boxers he frantically looked around for some pants.

"just a minute" he said loud enough for his guest to hear.

"stop jerking off and let me in" Eddie spoke from the other side of the door.

Richie's brows perked and his eyes widened. He stopped his search for his pants and went to the door, opening it a crack to see a distressed Eddie, his hands fidgeting and his eyes fixated on his shoes. Richie opened the door the rest of the way, "what's up Ed's?" his tone was concerned, Eddie looked at Richie and smiled slightly "I am freaking out, Richie" Eddie told him with a shrug of his shoulders, Richie placed his hand on his shoulder, human contact comforts some, or so he is told, "come in, I'll fix you a drink and we can talk about it" Richie stepped out of his way to let him in, he closed the door behind them and returned to thr bottle of whiskey and glass he left on the side table.

He poured a half glass for Eddie who was now sitting on Richie's bed, Eddie took the glass and sipped it as Richie took a swig out of the bottle. Richie knew well enough he wasn't the right person to talk about what the fuck was going on but he would do anything to help Eddie feel better. Richie joined him on the end of the bed. Richie's weight bringing Eddie closer to him as he sunk into the mattress, Richie made a face of 'well fuck, no more late night burger runs' and Eddie made a half smile and soft chuckle as their shoulders bumped together.

Richie smiled at Eddie but it faded when he remembered he was on a verge of a panic attack less than 5 minutes ago "what's on your mind, Eds?"

"so much...It, the fact we are all probably going to die, I am mad I forgot so much, I am mad I forgot about you and that I married that cow. I have wasted my life and now I am going to die-" he started to spiral.

"-hey, hey, hey. You aren't going to die" Richie assured him, though definitely not believing his own words, he had his own fears. There was silence between them again and Eddie let out heavy sigh. Richie had his impulse to lighten any situation and like word vomit he broke the silence with "didn't realize you were into beastiality Eds" He had a shit eating grin on his face. "fuck you" was all Eddie could say. They both laughed and fell silent again.

"I have missed you without knowing I missed you, does that make any sense" Eddie spoke again. Richie made Eddie feel something that he was longing for this past 27 years, he felt complete. Richie looked at Eddie, pained by what he was hearing and seeing, a broken man. Richie thought he was the only broken one in the group- they all had their problems. Richie stood and took another swig of the bottle of whiskey before setting it down. His heart was racing and his mind going a mile a minute, emotions boiling to a peak. He started to pace, back and forth a few times before Eddie stood infront of him, Richie stopped before he could bump into him. Eddie wrapped his arms around his torso. He frowned as he slowly wrapped his arms around Eddie's shoulders. He embraced him, tightening his grasp. Eddie nuzzled his head on Richie's chest and Richie had his chin resting on his head.

"I've missed you s-so much, Eddie" Richie told him, his voice cracking, his arms tightened around Eddie again. To Richie confessing that he missed him was like saying he loved him. Richie did love Eddie but Eddie was a married man- and he didn't want to complicate Eddie's life any more than it already was-at least that was the reason Richie convinced himself not to kiss him right here and now. In reality Richie feared regection, he couldn't risk losing Eddie, not now, not after just getting him back.

Richie had one hand between Eddie's shoulder blades and the other with his fingers laced in his hair. Eddie had let out a soft, content hum. His eyes were closed and he felt calm, "this is nice." Eddie commented, Richie's heart fluttered "if anyone came in here, they'd think we are gay." Richie replied, his word vomit. Eddie let go of Richie and Richie relunctently let go of Eddie, regretting what he said because it was indeed very nice. Eddie was staring at Richie, and Richie shifted in his spot a little uncomfortable by Eddie's gaze.

"what?" Richie piped up,

"just making sure you look as stupid as you sound"

"verdict?"

"your stupidity is incurable and spreading"

He replied, before bringing his hands to both sides of Richie's face, along his jawline, bringing him down to his level to kiss him. Their lips pressed against each other, soft biting and licking. The passion between them growing as the kiss deepened, Richie's hands also craddled Eddie's jawline. There was no space between them their bodies pressed together. Eddie's thigh grinded on Richie's groin. Their hands moved from each other's faces and now explored eachother's bodies, unsure what to touch or grab. This was new territory for them, to be with someone they actually cared for- to feel real passion.

"fuck.." Richie moaned against Eddie's lips as they parted. He grabbed his own growing erection, giving himself a slight tug "Sorry" he apologized feeling as if he had ruined a nice moment between them with his desire to fuck him. Eddie's cheeks went red, he looked at his tenting boxer shorts and smiled widely, pleased with himself.

"are you just fucking with me?" Richie panicked, remembering being bullied and fucked with as a teen. He was genuinely afraid that no one could care for him and that everyone was messing with him. "you're such a fucking idiot, Richie Tozier" Eddie exclaimed loudly his arms flailing as he start muttering nonsense. Richie felt foolish and embarrassed. Eddie was still baffled and was going off about Richie's comment, Richie tuned it out as his embarrassment faded and a smile formed on his face "-of course I love you, you idiot." Eddie blurted out. That, Richie heard. Eddie was like a deer in headlights, his dark brown eyes widening. Richie couldn't stop grinning, he lifted up Eddie and spun him around, beyond thrilled to hear those words, "Ha, ha. You love me" he said, impersonating Nelson from The Simpsons as he set him down.

"I love you too, Eddie Spaghetti"

"don't call me that."

#I can't write #But reddie makes me want to #Reddie #Richie Tozier #Eddie kaspbrak #It chapter 2 #it 2019 #Be kind

[johnny-and-dora]

darling, you’re my everything

for @amyscascadingtabs - happy birthday my love! <3

“Hey, Ames?” He begins, and everything is perfectly fine until she looks up at him and he literally feels any capacity for rational thought leave his body and he’s almost asking something stupid, like ‘wanna get married?’

or, april 29th, 2017.

read on ao3 -

The morning of April 29th is – unsurprisingly, given the shear dopeness of the romantic epiphany the night before it – mildly chaotic.

Later, when he’s drifting off on the couch while Amy makes flashcards for the sergeant’s exam, he’ll begrudgingly admit that he probably should have been paying more attention to his futile attempts at a romantic breakfast; for now, as Jake stands in their kitchen wearing his girlfriend’s pink fluffy dressing gown and daydreaming of Amy walking down the aisle, the burnt pancakes are very clearly her fault.

Because it’s all he can think about, now, like someone opened the floodgates to a whole new subcategory of Amy fantasies he’s been deep diving into all night, unable to sleep – Amy showing off a sparkling engagement ring, Amy as a glowing vision in white, Amy laughing at him as he fumbles with the rings or his vows or otherwise somehow manages to make himself look like an idiot in front of everyone they know.

(And yes, when he pictures it currently their wedding looks suspiciously like something out of Tangled, but he can work on that. Or maybe not, except he’s not exactly sure where you buy that many lanterns from and if they need a permit for that and he has zero idea what they’re going to do with a horse and a chameleon afterwards so overall it’s probably best that he leaves the planning to Amy, if she…)

(Well, he’s pretty sure she’s gonna say yes. God, he hopes so.)

The point he’s agonisingly slowly lumbering towards is that he has not had a lot of sleep, wrapped up in fleeting dreams of proposing and weddings and maybe being actually, properly married, officially Not Dying Alone and all the euphoria that comes from realising that he’s ready for that, that he might have been lucky enough to have found someone to tease and to surprise and to love for the rest of his life. It’s a lot to process.

Therefore, his burning of what was going to be a super romantic breakfast is by his logic, completely and utterly Amy’s fault. That being said, he’s not a complete monster - it’s not like he has the heart to tell her that she’s entirely to blame when she traipses into the kitchen in her old lady glasses and his hoodie, looking hopeful at the promise of breakfast.

“Pancakes?” She asks – the hope quickly eases into familiar endeared exasperation the second she clocks the blackened breakfast crime scene he’s been caught red handed in. Jake rubs the back of his neck sheepishly, hoping that he’s not visibly radiating the I wanna marry you vibe that he can feel strongly emitting from his chest.

“Uh, they were formerly pancakes at some stage before they mutinied against me to become gross charred bricks.”

“Mmm.” She hums sarcastically as if they appear even slightly edible, then quickly kisses the pout off his lips.

“Sorry. I got…distracted.”

“It’s okay, babe, we’re out of milk and orange soda anyway – let me go.” She firmly dismisses his protests before he can even say anything, a sign of the truly spooky psychic link their partnership has naturally formed over the years; he sighs one last lament over his culinary failure as she disappears into the bathroom and quickly returns with contacts in, her hair in a messy bun and a soft smile on her face.

Just like that, the pancakes don’t even seem to matter anymore - then he has the disgustingly cliché thought of we’ve got forever for pancakes anyway, like forever with someone isn’t merely a faraway abstract Disney concept and more of a real, tangible thing. Jake feels the very strong urge to lie down and preferably take a day or two to process that feeling on top of all the other ones that seem to be clouding his ability to be a rational human being.

He hopes he’s not going to be this weird all the time now, but judging by the direction and speed of his current train of thought there seems to be very little hope.

She’s leaning over the kitchen counter scribbling down a shopping list when he comes to his senses, because of course she is -  he resists the urge to tease her now that he really, truly knows her and he knows her lists are an anchor that keep her organised, keep her steady, keep her sane.

Instead, he watches as she taps the pen against her lips, brows furrowed in deep thought as she mentally categorises the contents of their fridge, and imagines the glint of silver on her ring finger.

He’ll blame on overtiredness and being a general lovesick idiot, later; in the moment of mild chaos, it is absolutely her fault.

“Hey, Ames?” He begins, and everything is perfectly fine until she looks up at him and he literally feels any capacity for rational thought leave his body and he’s almost asking something stupid, like ‘wanna get married?’

Everything is perfectly great until before he knows it he’s almost asking ‘wanna get married?’ - like he’s asking what she wants for dinner or what the weather is going to be like today. Like he’s not asking the most important question of his whole life before 9am on a rainy Saturday while trying to waft away the smell of burning from permeating the kitchen, while half asleep and wearing her pink fluffy dressing gown.

Like he didn’t just have baby’s first romantic epiphany less than twelve hours ago and isn’t still very much almost giddily coming to grips with what that actually means. And all because she’s scribbling down a shopping list for three items that he knows she’ll remember, and how stupidly endearing and consistent and so very Amy that simple action is.

He almost says something very, very stupid – like ‘wanna get married?’ or ‘wanna secretly elope to Paris?’ or ‘we could just go down to the registry office, like today, because I’ve recently realised that you’re the one person I want to spend the rest of my life with, if that’s cool with you’ – and then he gets distracted practically praying that his poor, poor brain to mouth filter that has to deal with this shit on a daily basis hasn’t packed its bags and retired to Florida, because ‘wanna get married?’ is definitely absolutely not how you’re supposed to ask the love of your life to wed you in holy freakin’ matrimony, he knows that, and he doesn’t even have a ring yet and-

“…Jake?” Amy’s doing that face reserved just for him where she’s half amused and half genuinely concerned, and he expertly deduces that he’s been weirdly silent for far too long and therefore hasn’t just acted on one of the more questionable impulses of his life, brought to you straight from the guy who once owned six separate massage chairs. Small mercies.

“Yeah. Sorry, it’s nothing.” He waves a frantic hand in panicked dismissal, downplays it like his heart isn’t doing awe-inspiring acrobatics in his chest right now, bounces on the heels of his feet a little to try and dispel the nervous energy that’s coursing through his veins.  

In the moment he realises he hasn’t just accidentally proposed to her, Jake also makes the executive decision to get some kind of proposal plan together soon so he doesn’t risk accidentally dropping a proposal into casual conversation – because yeah, ‘wanna get married’ is perfectly okay, but if he’s gonna do this, he’s gonna do it properly.

No ‘Celebration’ blaring loudly in the background or confetti cannons or cheap plastic one dollar rings this time. He’s going to do it right.

If he’s going to propose to Amy Santiago, certified actual most incredible amazing human/genius on the entire planet, it is decidedly not going to be while he’s wearing a pink fluffy dressing down and shoving a failed breakfast into the trash. That’s a Peralta guarantee.

“Okay, weirdo.” She gives him a smile with a fleeting hint with suspicion before going back to digging through her purse, and his heart rate slowly but surely returns to normal.

Jake’s going to need a binder. Maybe even with the good types of tab this time, if he can figure out what criteria makes a good type of tab first.

He also needs to calm down so he’s not on the verge of a cardiac arrest every time he’s in close proximity to his girlfriend, because he’s pretty sure that even if she wasn’t the best detective he knows she’d figure him out before he can even scrape the finances together to buy a half decent ring. Maybe he just needs to lie down in general.

“I’ll be back in fifteen minutes. Try not to burn our apartment down in that time?”

“Coming from the woman who seemingly insists on testing our smoke alarm twice a week.”

She rolls her eyes and gently reaches up to cup his face and kiss him goodbye, which is mostly sweet and only slightly satisfying because he knows that means she doesn’t have a good comeback. As the door swings shut behind her he busies himself with cleaning up the kitchen, overwhelmed with another wave of excitement at the idea of marrying his best friend.

Because he’s ready, now – really, he’s probably been ready for a while, deep down. Maybe the second that she kissed him in the back of the ambulance in Florida or when he forfeited yet another bet just to see her smile or when the Nine-Nine was saved from getting shut down and she showed him just how hot she finds his moral compass.

The typo in that crossword puzzle shines out like a beacon in the night; but thoughts of Amy and loving Amy and marrying Amy have been brightening up the darker corners of his life for longer than he’d care to admit.

It’s all her fault – all that determination and kindness and brilliant enthusiasm. The way she’s so stubbornly cemented herself into his heart a, refusing to leave just as she refused to let him work their first case alone, demanding to be taken seriously with a fierceness that both irritated, impressed him and slightly turned him on. She is warmth, joy, that bubbling kind of laughter that just lights him up every time he gets to hear it – but she’s also tougher than she looks and stronger than she knows. There is absolutely no-one else like her.

And the plan, absolutely, startlingly clear in his otherwise sleep deprived and cloudy mind, is to marry her.

(And, on an unsurprisingly extremely chaotic yet magical evening in mid-May, he does.)

#b99 #b99 fic #jake x amy #peraltiago #my writing #this is pure chaos and perfectly represents the state that my overtired brain has been in for the past few weeks #i hope you enjoy <3 #shut up sian

[johannas-motivational-insults]

1.5k Giveaway: Satisfaction ch. 2 clip

Okay, here’s the promised snippet of Satisfaction chapter 2 for you all, my way of saying thanks for all the support and getting this blog to 1.5k.

If you are new here and have no idea what all this is about, you can read chapter 1 here. It is very NSFW, be warned. This clip, however, is not.

CONTENT WARNING for references to self-harm and child abuse.

Placing her mug on the table, Adora fixes her with a resolute stare. “We need to talk about it.”

Catra sinks back in her chair with an obstinate sigh. “Do we really?”

“Open and honest communication is the cornerstone of any healthy relationship,” recites Adora, a maxim they’ve heard many times over in therapy.

Catra’s ears flick, perking up slightly as she leans in with a lewd grin. “Hmm, therapist looks good on you.” Her tongue flits out over her lips. “How about you put on a nice blouse and some glasses? I’ll call you Annika.”

Though her lips twitch into a smile, Adora won’t let the joke distract her. Holding her girlfriend’s gaze, she speaks quietly but firmly. “Catra.”

“Ugh, fiiiiine.” Scowling, Catra flops back again. She squints at some point down the hall, nibbling her lip and fiddling with her mug. “I know it’s important,” she admits. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

Dipping her head into Catra’s line of sight, Adora says, “Look, I’m really sorry.”

Eyes falling shut with a sigh, Catra tells her, “You don’t need to apologize.”

“No, I do,” insists Adora. When Catra meets her gaze, she continues, “I should’ve known better, should’ve known bringing that up would upset you.” Grimacing slightly, she adds, “I know you had it way worse than I did. In that way, anyway.”

Catra glares down at the table. “It’s not your fault. I’m just pissed that I reacted that way. We should be able to have a reasonable conversation about our sex life, you know? Without her getting in the way.” She growls the pronoun with disdain, plops her half-full mug down rather aggressively. The hot liquid sloshes and splatters on the table and Catra curses under her breath.

Adora’s eyelids flutter. “Wait, you’re embarrassed?”

“Well, yeah,” admits Catra, scratching behind her ear. “And I’m pissed that I haven’t seen her in years and all that shit is still fucking me up so bad.”

“That’s how trauma works,” says Adora.

Catra’s eyes snap up. “You did not just T word me.”

Arms crossing over her chest, Adora purses her lips. “Okay, you’re doing that flippant defensive thing and it’s not helping. Do you want to leave this unresolved? Do you really?”

Catra scowls and looks away, crossing her arms. Her ear twitches. “No.”

“Then drop this immature bullshit,” Adora scolds her.

This time when Catra meets Adora’s eyes, hers are wide and vulnerable. She looks on the verge of tears, shining eyes and trembling lips. “Adora…”

“Hey,” Adora says softly, leaning in to lay a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I know it’s hard for you.”

The tears start to leak out and Catra buries her face in her palms, elbows braced on the table. “Shit,” she mutters.

Drawn by some force she can’t control, Adora gets up and kneels beside her, wrapping an arm around her waist.

Catra shrinks into herself at the contact. “It’s fine,” she insists. “I’m okay.”

Gentle fingers stroke her side as Adora murmurs, “It’s okay to not be okay.”

That’s not what Catra wants to hear right now. She doesn’t want to hurt like this. Doesn’t want there to be a reason for it. Her throat aches but she manages to hold in all but one choked sob. That tension builds and spreads until her whole body is shaking. Desperate for an outlet, she slams her fists down on the table.

“I hate this,” she growls through gritted teeth. “I hate her.”

Tears now stream unimpeded down Catra’s cheeks, splashing between her hands. Her fists clench tighter, claws digging into her palms. The destructive act and the pain it causes releases some of the tension in her body, but unfortunately not the sorrow burning her eyes and strangling her throat. She’d have to dig deeper for that, draw blood, but she doesn’t do that anymore. Not for years, a fact both she and Adora are proud of. She has better ways to cope now, or at least she’s supposed to. Why is talking so hard? Why does it still make her feel so weak?

She’s pulled from her thoughts by the scrape of Adora’s chair against the floor as it’s pulled around the corner of the table. Adora settles on the seat, close to Catra but not touching her. It took her a long time to learn that Catra sometimes can’t stand being touched when she’s upset, especially about stuff like this. It goes against her smothering nature, but she does it. Catra appreciates it more than she knows.

“I’m sorry she did those things to you,” says Adora, and Catra’s ears prick up. “It wasn’t right, and it wasn’t fair,” she states, her tone assured but gentle. “You didn’t deserve it.”

The swelling in Catra’s throat grows at each of the affirmations and, unable to speak without crying, she settles for a nod of thanks. More tears escape her eyes and she drops her head with a shuddering sigh.

Noticing Catra’s claws digging into her palms, Adora decides to intervene. Loosely grasping both her wrists, she pulls her hands closer and begins to slowly massage them open. “You don’t need to do that,” she tells her. “Talk to me.”

A muted sob and a sniffle later, Catra shakes her head and buries her face in Adora’s chest. Adora sighs in relief, wrapping her arms around her girlfriend’s shoulders. Catra’s tears wet her sweater, but she doesn’t mind. Far from it. She hates seeing Catra adrift and feeling so useless, unable to help. Holding back from initiating contact goes against every fiber of her being. But now, taking Catra’s weight and letting her muffle her quiet sobs in her chest, Adora feels she has a place, a purpose.

In mere moments Catra’s breathing evens out, allowing Adora a sigh of relief. She nuzzles Catra’s hair, leaving a couple of pecks on her crown. On impulse she drags her lips to the side and kisses the back of Catra’s left ear. It flicks against her nose and she giggles, then quickly says, “I’m sorry, it tickled.” Suddenly she snorts and breaks into another fit of giggles. “Sorry!”

“You are such a dork,” groans Catra, lifting her head and pressing a kiss to Adora’s lips. The gesture surprises Adora and her tiny gasp eggs Catra on, a quiet rumble echoing out of her throat as she nips Adora’s lower lip and gives it a little tug. Adora rests one hand on her face and pushes back, chasing Catra’s lips and working her tongue between them. Catra lets out a pleased hum and allows her in, caressing her tongue a few times before pulling back and pecking her lips with finality. Her mischievous yet sweet smile is a sight for sore eyes.

Still cradling Catra’s cheek, Adora scans her face with concern. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I just… had a moment.” Catra wipes her eyes, wearing a reassuring smile that looks to be genuine. “I feel better now.”

“I’m sorry,” murmurs Adora.

“It’s okay.”

#spop #fanfic #catradora #adora #catra #satisfaction #writing #child abuse #self-harm #milestones #giveaways

[notquiteaghost]

there isn't enough nonbinary jon sims content, here is... well i started writing this as headcanons but this is really a not!fic about nonbinary jon sims. it’s 3′300 words

it contains: nonbinary trans masc autistic jon, jongeorgie, lesbian georgie, trans guy martin & tim, trans woman sasha, team archives trans solidarity, and not-insignificant amount of internalised transphobia and references to misgendering & general cis people bullshit

(also ftr i am heavily basing jon's experiences here as a nonbinary autistic person on my own experiences as a nonbinary autistic person) (this is like 80% projection) (what else is fandom for!)

also on AO3 if you prefer your 3k of bullet points to have better spacing

tiny baby [jon] who knows she isn't very good at being a girl but doesn't have the words to articulate why

her grandmother thinks kids clothes should be durable and practical so even tho jon is not a kid who climbs trees or plays football, her wardrobe is exclusively straight jeans & 'boys' t-shirts & large jumpers

she keeps her hair roughly shoulder length because that's the length it's always been but strangers still 'mistake' her for a boy a lot. this makes her feel a way she again hasn't got the words for

when she starts secondary school she continues to dress 'masc', never starts wearing makeup, never gets any interest in dating, generally fills out the checklist for everyone else assuming she's a lesbian

she knows she's definitely not a straight girl, so she shrugs and decides sure, she's a lesbian. it's a moot point, mostly, seeing as even if she did have any interest in dating she's the only gay person her age she knows

but she does get involved in some community support stuff – she spends a lot of time in the library as a teenager, and one of the librarians is a lesbian who takes jon under her wing a bit

coffee mornings and book clubs and things like that. sixteen year old jon and a dozen queer women all in their late twenties at the youngest. they joke a lot how often they forget jon isn't also a thirty-something

(this is that autism feel of having no interest in your peers but getting on great with adults)

and then she goes to uni, and then she meets georgie

georgie is a Very Out lesbian. she goes to clubs, she's heavily involved in the lgbt society, she has a rainbow flag hanging in her bedroom window. yknow.

jon likes her a lot, and still isn't really sure if it's romantic or not, but assumes that's more due to being gay than anything else

(no one has told jon about asexuality yet)

so when, one night when they're meant to be studying in georgie's room but instead are mostly drinking shit cheap wine and complaining about their professors, georgie looks at jon with this soft look on her face and asks to kiss her, jon says yes

and then they date

they're both living in one of those massive student houses with a thousand bedrooms crammed everywhere and only a kitchen for a communal space. georgie has lived there since coming back to finish first year, and jon moved in halfway through second year after a somewhat disastrous flatmate situation

so after they graduate, moving in together seems like the natural progression of things even tho they’ve only been dating for two months

jon is still, when asked, identifying as a lesbian and using she/her, but is also still dressing what other people now call butch. she always feels kind of weird about that term, but again, just chalks it up to the mess of complicated feelings being a gnc lesbian does genuinely involve

and then, finally, jon meets some actual trans people

jon has, circumstantially, known trans people. thanks to georgie, jon goes to a lot of lgbt soc things, and is passingly familiar with most of the lgbt people on their campus

but there’s a big difference between nodding at someone when you see them in the library and having an actual, proper conversation about gender

so, jon goes to a lot of social events because georgie does. without georgie, jon would probably not leave the house except to go to work and to the library (jon is not doing postgrad. jon’s library habits do not particularly reflect this)

mostly at these events, jon sits in the corner and reads, and only talks to other quiet antisocial people, while georgie circles back periodically to report on her social butterfly escapades

and at one, one of the other quiet antisocial people is a trans guy

he’s called harry, and he asks about the book jon is reading, and after they’ve been talking a while he says, “sorry, you probably get this a lot, but what pronouns do you use?”

jon just blinks at him and says “what”

“well, i’m trans, so i’m always really cautious about assuming,” harry says, easily, and this does not answer the question jon was asking

jon.exe has crashed

she(?) eventually says, “uh. she? i’ve never– she”

and harry, who has spent the last forty minutes discussing dante with jon and is already sure they’re going to be friends, says “want the trans 101? you’re making a face like you need it”

three hours later georgie finally reappears with the intent to actually interrupt (she’s drifted past periodically, but jon was always deep in conversation with harry, so she left them alone) and get going, and jon gets harry’s email address and is then very quiet as they walk arm-in-arm back to their house

just as they turn onto their street, jon says, “i, ah. i think i might be trans?”

georgie, who has for the past couple months been having something of a crisis after realising she definitely loves jon but she isn’t in love and she can’t figure out why, says “oh thank god”

jon, very bemused, “that wasn’t the reaction i was expecting”

“i think we should break up,” georgie replies, and jon stops walking. they’re four feet from their front door, but it’s late, no one’s about, so georgie decides sure, they can have this conversation in the street

“you– because i’m trans?”

“i love you, i really do,” georgie steps closer, takes jon’s hands in hers, “but i’m not in love with you. and it was driving me crazy trying to figure out why, but if you’re not a girl–”

“i can’t tell if i should be offended by this or not,” jon says, somewhat dazed, “i’ve been trans for an hour, georgie, i don’t know if this is transphobic yet”

georgie laughs, and presses a kiss to jon’s cheek, and says “it’s nearly midnight, we both have work tomorrow, let’s table this for later. we can look up names and what word i should use when i complain to other people how you always leave your shoes in the middle of the floor when we aren’t both on the verge of passing out”

and that sounds reasonable, so jon nods, and kisses georgie on the mouth, and then they go inside

the next day jon stops by the library on the way home from work and checks out almost every baby names book they have. georgie comes home and he’s sat at the kitchen table making a spreadsheet

“you don’t have to make it this complicated, you know,” she says, hooking her chin over his shoulder to read what he’s already got. the spreadsheet has a lot of columns.

“it’s my name,” he retorts, and she hums agreeably, then points to ‘jonathan’, which has relatively few ticks in any pro columns (god, this nerd), and says, “isn’t that your grandfather’s name?”

it is. he doesn’t talk about his grandfather a lot – doesn’t talk about his family a lot full stop, but she knows, even though he died when jon was still a toddler, the stories his grandmother told had a significant impact

“my parents didn’t name me after anyone,” jon says, quietly

georgie nods. she doesn’t say they’re not here now to offer an opinion, because that’s far harsher than jon deserves to hear, and it’s not like she ever needs to remind him of it either. he’s definitely already beating himself up for taking so long to come to this realisation there’s no one left around to tell him how they’d have reacted

“i think it suits you,” she says instead, and jon nods, and then she moves away to make a pot of tea and some pasta (it’s technically jon’s night to cook, but she was anticipating coming home to find him already hyperfocused beyond the point of no return)

a week later, jon looks up from the spreadsheet to where georgie is curled up on the sofa reading and says “ugh, fine, you win, you were right”

(georgie hadn’t pressed her point any further, jon is just like that)

“jon?” she asks, and he makes an exasperated noise and nods, then closes his laptop dramatically and stands. most of his spine pops when he stretches

“this calls for celebration” georgie says, also standing, “franco’s or monsoon?”

“franco’s. i’m going to eat a pizza the size of a car”

so then jon is actually going by jon, and using he/him, and isn’t dating georgie anymore but is still living with her and spending most of his time with her and factoring her into all his major decisions

he talks to harry, and other (binary) trans people, and reads a lot of blogs, and after a few months gets a referral to charing cross gic

by the time he starts at the magnus institute, he’s had top surgery and has been on T for years, and passes as cis completely, and he doesn’t know how to articulate it but this is. bothering him.

he’s not exactly… he likes being stealth, he doesn’t need to flaunt his personal life. he can understand the impulse, but he doesn’t share it. his feelings about gender and romance are no one’s business but his own

but. everyone assuming he was a girl itched – being miss simms, georgie’s girlfriend, she, it felt like wearing a coarse knitted jumper. it was exhausting

and, for a while, everyone assuming he was a man was a relief. it didn’t make his skin crawl, it didn’t make him want to scream, it was nice. it felt good.

it didn’t feel right. but it didn’t feel bad, either, and jon has never been gendered in a way that felt right. he thought that was just part of being trans

except. he moves to london, and he starts at the magnus institute, and he wears shirts and slacks, and the long skirts and patterned dresses some of his colleagues wear keep catching his eye the way men in three-piece suits used to, and that terrifies him

he was lucky, in a way, having no family left to care when he transitioned – if anyone reacted negatively, he could just cut them out of his life, and his social circle was already queer enough that was hardly necessary

but that doesn’t mean he escaped internalising a whole swathe of shit about what being trans should mean and how he should act and what he should want and if he wants to wear skirts then is he even a man? was he making it up all along after all?

naturally, he deals with this by ignoring it. he’s a man, men don’t wear skirts, he doesn’t wear skirts, that’s that.

he manages to keep that up until he’s made head archivist, and he’s given three assistants who are all also trans

(he doesn’t know if elias did it on purpose. elias knows he’s trans, of course, because he’s never bothered to get the name on his diploma changed, but the way elias reacted lead jon to assume elias may also be trans. and if that’s true, then selecting only trans people for the archives staff feels like a kindness more than anything)

and, the thing about them all being trans, is even if jon and martin are both rather fond of being stealth, and sasha and tim aren’t used to being out at work, and none of them are exactly friends, they’re the only people who ever come in the archives, so the archives very quickly becomes the Safe Trans Zone

they all vent a lot about cis people. sasha will walk in and the first words out her mouth will be “the next person to ask me if i’d had the surgery is getting their own surgery when i cut their tongues out”, and tim will make a commiserating noise and offer her the pack of donuts martin brought in

so when, on one of the rare afternoons when jon leaves his office to lean against tim’s desk and brainstorm organisational system ideas, martin walks back from the break room upstairs with a scowl and says, bitterly, as he sits back down, “oh so when cis guys wear nail polish it’s inspiring and breaking down gender roles but when i wear nail polish, jenny from HR gets to side eye me and ask if that means i changed my mind, because surely i’m the one who’ll do that and not all the men who didn’t have to do hours of therapy to establish they are definitely, one hundred percent for sure a guy!”

tim and sasha both make the standard commiseration noises, and sasha says something about the supervisor at her last job trying to say it wasn’t appropriate for her to wear trousers, and jon stops listening and runs away moves back to his office

he hadn’t noticed martin is wearing nail polish, is the thing. or, he had noticed it, but he hadn’t thought about it, and now he’s thinking about it. he’s thinking about it a lot

martin had– martin is a guy. martin is definitely a guy, if something of a feminine-leaning gay guy, the kind of feminine-leaning no one ever questions in cis guys, and it hadn’t occurred to jon to question martin, either, even though he’s trans, and. and.

he’s still circling round a revelation he can’t quite make himself have an hour or so later, when martin sticks his head round the door

“you, uh. you alright?” martin asks, incredibly tentatively. it says a lot, jon thinks, about how nice martin is, that he’s asking even though there’s a 90% chance jon will tell him to fuck off “you kind of disappeared abruptly, earlier. i didn’t upset you, did i?”

jon stares at him for a long moment, then says, “can i see your nail polish?”

“oh!” martin’s cheeks flush, just slightly, as he steps inside the office and lets the door shut behind him “uh, yeah, of course. it’s a little chipped, now, but, yeah”

martin’s nail polish is a light, pastel blue. it’s neat, and even, though his nails aren’t that long, and jon thinks he remembers martin saying something about mostly painting his nails to try and get himself to stop biting them. jon’s never really gone for nail polish, but it’s. nice.

“it’s, uh. it’s a good colour, on you,” he says awkwardly. martin flushes even more

“oh, um, thanks? did– are you alright?”

if jon was a different kind of person, this is where he’d open up to martin, and this would be the beginning of them becoming actual friends

jon is jon, though, so he just shoves all his emotions back in the box they escaped from, nods, and says “i didn’t sleep that well, is all. not really up to socialising”

(an aside about s1 jonmartin dynamic: jon is very good at shittalking martin when martin isn’t around, but in the face of martin’s genuine care and concern, he defaults back to a far more friendlier tone than he’s aiming for. he knows, on a level, that he and martin could be good friends if he ever got his shit together, but that is something else he’s currently repressing. he doesn’t need friends! he isn’t desperate for social contact at all! what’s loneliness!)

martin says “ah, okay, i’ll just– i’ll leave you alone, then”, and then jon makes himself focus on work, and then when he gets home he opens the group chat he’s still, thankfully, in with the trans people who got him through his first gender crisis and sends ‘help i don’t know if i’m a guy after all’

three people immediately send back a link to nonbinary.org

and that’s the rest of jon’s evening

he reads through every article. he reads several articles multiple times. he opens several new tabs, and gets a notepad to make a list of books, and eventually remembers to reply in the group chat

a week later, he bites the bullet and writes an email to georgie

nothing long, just, they still tell each other about big life events

and then, another couple weeks after that, when martin brings him tea, he says, “ah, martin, could i– do you have a moment?”

“of course,” martin says, and lets the door swing closed again, “what do you need?”

“i, ah. this isn’t very professional, so, you don’t– you are perfectly welcome to say no, of course, but i. um. would you– come clothes shopping with me?”

(ideally, jon would have asked georgie, but as much as he loves her (still), they haven’t talked properly in years, and she is cis. the best cis person he knows, but still a cis person. and he’d just, rather have a trans person, for emotional support, and no one in the group chat lives particularly nearby anymore) (or, well, some of them are, but when he asked they all told him to get over himself and ask one of his ‘lovely’ coworkers)

(why does he ask martin and not sasha?) (well, dear reader, he is nursing the beginnings of a crush) (not that he knows it. but that’s absolutely what’s happening here. martin is sweet and lovely and jon definitely finds him annoying and overbearing. yes. nothing else. no other emotions.) (his chest feels all weird when martin smiles because he doesn’t like him. that always happens around people he dislikes.)

“oh!” martin says, surprised. “uh, yes, of course, is– is there an event or something…?”

jon takes a moment to stare at the wall above martin’s head before he makes himself say, “i. am non-binary, and i need– different clothes.”

“oh, god, have we been–”

“no, no, this is a, a very recent development. he is still fine,” jon says, quickly, then pauses, then adds, more haltingly, “i think. i might, if – they, as well, maybe? just, to see”

“of course. d’you want me to tell tim and sasha?”

martin, jon thinks, is maybe not all that bad “yes, please”

“cool,” martin smiles, “i’m free this weekend? for shopping?”

“this saturday would be good, yes”

and then jon and martin go shopping! it’s probably not that successful of a shopping trip, because it takes jon like four shops before they admit what exactly it is they’re looking for, but they go to several charity shops and have fun trying to one-up each other with the most ridiculous/inexplicable item of clothing, and at the end of the day jon has three skirts (a knee-length black a-line skirt, a full-length black skirt, and a full-length black skirt patterned with red flowers), two necklaces, and a skater dress they probably can’t get away with wearing to work, but they really liked the way the skirt moved when they spun

other things that happen include lunch at a cafe where the staff definitely think they’re on a date and only martin notices and also martin is dying, both of them only managing to walk past a secondhand bookshop twice before they cave and go inside, and then emerge half an hour later both holding three books (two poetry anthologies and a sci fi novel; a psychology book and two history books), and martin somehow talking jon into trying on skinny jeans and then, again, leaving this mortal coil

jon doesn’t buy the skinny jeans, which is for the best really

the first time jon wears one of the skirts to work, sasha does a victory lap around the archives because “hell yes skirts are so much more comfortable, and now you swish! tim you should get a skirt. skirts for archives uniform”

and jon is still a prickly antisocial bastard but now he’s an outly nonbinary prickly antisocial bastard, and sometimes they walk into the archives at 2PM smelling of tobacco and holding a bottle of vodka, and then the archives staff all do shots and dramatic readings of the most ridiculous fake statements, because sometimes that’s how you cope with cis people, and that’s! valid!

#the magnus archives #jonathan sims #georgie barker #martin blackwood #jongeorgie #yelling at clouds #fic tag #draw jon sims in skirts. thank you.

[diningpageantry]

Gay Vampire... Gampire?

Archive Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18215168/chapters/43207382

Chapter 5/10 of It’s A Handheld Disaster

Word Count: 1099

Chapter Summary: Joking conversations turn into genuine affection, blurring the lines of intimacy for the two boys.

SIMON

gaystrell: i'd be shocked to find out you don't look like a mountain troll

bi-sammy: t

bi-sammy: take that back

bi-sammy: coward

bi-sammy: bold words for a man who probably looks like a cryptid

gaystrell: you know i can't even argue against that

gaystrell: my friends say i look like i'm a step off from being an actual vampire, so i can't say i don't look like a cryptid

bi-sammy: wait

bi-sammy: you what

bi-sammy: im actually cackling please tell me youre kidding

gaystrell: all but the teeth, baby

bi-sammy: thats so fucking funny holy shit what

bi-sammy: your new name is vampire

bi-sammy: gay vampire

bi-sammy: gampire

gaystrell: you know how easily i can hit block, right?

bi-sammy: oh no! mr. gampire threatens me!

I keep a hand clasped over my face, snorting quietly. In attempts to be quiet, I hope the hand over my face is silencing enough that it doesn't annoy the other visitors (or get me kicked out).

The tiniest part of me wants to ask something I've wanted to know for a while, but the rational part of me is too scared to ask. How do you even bring that up? “Hey I know we're online pals, but I have no idea what you actually look like. Would you mind flipping on that little camera and snapping a pic? Just real quick? So I know I'm not mad and slightly crushing over a faceless arsehole who gets me to laugh like crazy?”

gaystrell: what, do your friends not say you look like something ridiculous?

bi-sammy: what friends?

bi-sammy: i mean penny. she says i just look stupid.

bi-sammy: i dunno i just. look like me?

Impulsively, I click on my camera app and stare into it. I look a lot of things.

I look tired. Hungry. Overworked. Constantly on the verge of a fit.

I look like a disaster, that's what I am. An unkempt, clueless disaster.

bi-sammy: i dont look at myself too often, honestly

bi-sammy: i wish i had friends to tell me shit

gaystrell: what about parents?

bi-sammy: hah

bi-sammy: you mean davy???

bi-sammy: have i really not told you this before?

gaystrell: no..?

bi-sammy: im a foster kid

bi-sammy: im in the system

bi-sammy: really don't know fuck shit about my parents

BAZ

Something in me stops, cheeks flushing as I suck my lower lip into my mouth. The text bar blinks, seemingly taunting me. I don't know what to say. I don't know how to help him.

I… want him to be okay. I want more than that. I want him happy.

Why am I such a fucking softie for him?

Why can't I solve this?

gaystrell: who's davy then?

I leave the message, and wait. And wait and wait and wait.

It's fine, though. I know he's sort of busy, and he goes around and does a good bit throughout his day. Still, I leave my vibration setting on as I turn on my telly, mute it, then work on writing.

Eventually, he pops back up.

bi-sammy: foster parent

bi-sammy: not for long though

bi-sammy: its hit the road once im 18

bi-sammy: its okay tho im gonna find a flat with penny and it'll be fine

gaystrell: does he even care for you? how long have you been with him?

bi-sammy: years

bi-sammy: he likes his foster cheques but ://///

bi-sammy: hes shit i guess but i try to ignore him

bi-sammy: he doesnt hit me so i just remind myself to be happy about that

bi-sammy: that and not being in a home

gaystrell: that's not very comforting

bi-sammy: its not bad i dont mind

bi-sammy: why whats your family like

What is my family like?

gaystrell: complicated.

gaystrell: not terrible just

gaystrell: nothing it's not as bad as your situation i have no reason to complain

bi-sammy: no wait no im serious im curious dont feel put down by me

bi-sammy: shit sorry i dont wanna be a downer shit

gaystrell: don't apologize it's fine

gaystrell: it's just…….. strange for me, that's all

gaystrell: my mum died in an accident when i was five and my dad remarried when i was seven

gaystrell: i have some half-siblings, but they're all pretty young

gaystrell: we're just ridiculously posh and have too much money

gaystrell: and life got all odd when i got diagnosed

bi-sammy: diagnosed???

gaystrell: i have hemophilia type a

gaystrell: pretty shit case too

gaystrell: i have to be careful and all that so dad just pulled me from school a few years back in case

gaystrell: i online school, you numpty. that's why i'm always online

bi-sammy: shit

bi-sammy: fuck youre right

bi-sammy: that makes a lot of sense shit

bi-sammy: fuck thats some bullshit

bi-sammy: how do you interact with people?

gaystrell: i don't.

gaystrell: i have two mates, and ones my cousin

gaystrell: the other is his “totally and completely, absolutely straight” friend

bi-sammy: you have me

gaystrell: don't be a sap, snow

bi-sammy: im serious im your mate

bi-sammy: i care about you baz

The changing pictures of the television screen flicker on my face as I stare, barely able to swallow.

I should tell him. I need to tell him. It's too much--I can barely take knowing it myself.

Opening a note file, I throw it all out. Every word I need to say.

shit, i care about you too. too fucking much. to the point it's weird, probably, and im nearly sure you don't feel the same, but shit. simon you're so bloody fantastic and i think about you a lot and you're one of my only friends. i feel so guilty never being enough for you, but just thinking of you makes me soft.

i know i've never said this, but i want us to keep this. the talking. the constant contact. i want to see your face--i know im mean, but i bet you're actually gorgeous. i want to verbally talk to you. i want to reach through my screen and hold you. i want you to know how much i care, simon, because i do care. i care too much.

My jaw sets, eyes scanning my words once. Twice. A third time.

It aches like a flame, burning my chest. It's too much to say. Not enough to hide behind. It's blunt and out there, and the truth. I don't like it being the truth, but it is.

It so unfairly is.

I look at our chat, scrolling up and back down before typing out a quick cop-out.

gaystrell: i care about you too, simon

#it's a handheld disaster #carry on #snowbaz #fic #fanfic #fanfiction #mine #simon snow #tyrannus basilton grimm-pitch #tyrannus basilton grimm pitch #baz pitch #simon #baz #heeheheheheheh