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dragonbarbie · 10 months

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𝐖𝐇𝐘'𝐃 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐎𝐍𝐋𝐘 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐌𝐄 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐘𝐎𝐔'𝐑𝐄 𝐇𝐈𝐆𝐇?

modern!aegon ii targaryen x reader

rating: 18+, minors dni

summary: reader thinks aegon can never be more than a one night stand, and aegon is intent on getting her to give him a chance.

word count: 2.5k

tags: modern!au, smut, drunk!aegon having sex with sober!reader, voyeurism, exhibitionism, tity sucking, pussy eating, p in v sex, unprotected sex

note: i very much write fanon!aegon, not the canon, show!version.

sidenote: is this lowkey inspired by my irl situationship who wont quit calling me every time he gets drunk?? maybe

it was a regular friday night for aegon. his frat was throwing a big party, and he had organised everything down to the last detail. he had a reputation to maintain after all, known affectionately as the king of parties of dragonstone university. he had already drunk his own weight in alcohol, flirted (and then proceeded to get handsy) with a couple of girls but he’d been too distracted to follow through with any of them.

his mind instead wandered back to a couple of weeks ago, at another party, where he’d met y/n. she’d been chatting to cregan stark, wearing a little black dress that hugged her in the best way imaginable. he knew, looking at her enchanting laugh at stark’s dumb joke, he had to have her. putting on his most charming smile, he’d approached her.

she’d been wary of him because of his reputation around campus (who wouldn’t be) but after a few disarming jokes as his fingertips grazed the side of her thighs, he’d managed to convince her to give him a chance.

drunken steps were then taken back to her dorm room, and they’d had what aegon could only call amazing sex.

now hold on, you have to believe him when he says amazing, alright? he’d slept with too many women to count, after a while the nights blended to the point that he couldn’t much differentiate between what having sex with each of them had felt like. so, when one such night stood out for him? it meant it had met a very high bar indeed. after all, he thought, he didn’t go around spending the night at every girl’s place.

he'd thus expected a little warmer treatment come morning and was rudely shocked at her attempting to throw him out. still, wearing his jeans in such a hurry that its button and fly was undone, unlaced shoes, bare-chested as he held his rumpled shirt in his hand, he’d had the audacity to offer her a lazy grin and promise “i’ll call you.”

“please” she’d snorted with an amused look, “everyone knows aegon targaryen is not the type to call.” taking no note of his offended expression, she’d shut the door in his face.

he’d been wondering about those words ever since. sure, she hadn’t been wrong but, hey, he’d meant the lie this time! with tits that great, ass that perfect, why wouldn’t he want a repeat of last night? he’d thought to himself.

determined to prove her wrong, he’d asked around the frat house and found out her number. but as his hand had hovered over the call button, something had stopped him. she’d caught him spot on, he realised. he wasn’t a relationship guy, and she wasn’t expecting the relationship-thing with him. perhaps it was best he left her alone.

he’d done just that, at least while sober. drunk aegon on the other hand, found it much easier to pick up the phone and dial her number.

“who is this?” there was panic and sleep in her voice, having picked up an unknown number at 2 in the morning “sweetheart! you picked up” he’d grinned, words slurring. he could practically hear the eyeroll on the other end. “aegon… to what do i owe the pleasure?” “i was just missing you.” he sighed. “sure.” nothing in her voice indicated that she believed him.

“i’m actually not far from your dorm. how about i come up with a bottle of tequila and we can… catch up?” he suggestively added. “it’s 2:14 am…. on a tuesday.” she pointed out, but her words didn’t seem to mean much to him as he replied, “so?” an exasperated sigh could be heard over the phone, “good night, aegon.” click. he stared down on the iphone in his hand in disbelief, she’d hung up on him.

he decided maybe he’d come out too strong, so the next time he texted first. he’d stared at the text for a couple of minutes, and when he saw that she was online but hadn’t bothered to text him back, he’d walked over to the nearest girl and proceeded to make out with her in the bathroom. until he was interrupted with a buzzing in his pocket, “just a minute” he’d mumbled against her lips, unbothered by her disappointed expression as he fished for the phone in his pocket hurriedly.

he saw that y/n had finally replied to his ‘u up?’ with a ‘depends.’ his brow furrowed at her response in confusion, he typed back ‘on what’.

the notification arrived with a ping. her response read ‘are u drunk?’. something told him instinctively to lie. he typed out a no, but once the message sent, he realised it had autocorrected to ‘yo’. he corrected it to a no and sent again, only to find the same mistake committed again. it was only after a string of typos had been sent, did he blink and realise autocorrect wasn’t to blame at all, his damn fingers just refused to cooperate with his inebriated brain.

ping. after receiving the string of nonsense, she finally replied ‘i got my answer.’ “aegon?” the girl in front of him looked at him impatiently, only to have him grab the handle of the bathroom door, leaving with a quick “gotta go”. he immediately called up y/n as he walked out of the party, but the call went straight to voicemail. all four times.

thus, every night aegon had gotten drunk since, he found himself being distracted by thoughts of y/n, frustrated at her refusing to engage with him.

that night too, once the clock on the wall started to look to him as if it were melting off and his feet seemed to stumble wherever he walked, his brain suddenly thought showing up to her dorm was the best idea ever.

reaching her door, he ran a hand through his hair before knocking. no response. impatient, he loudly whined “y/n! c’mon, open up!” met with more silence. he whipped his phone out, blinking at the bright screen as he concentrated to make sure it was without typos, he sent her a text, ‘m 0utsidee’. he pounded with his fist on the door one more time, before a door opened, but not the one he was standing in front of.

three doors down, y/n stood against her doorframe in her small black shorts, red tank top riding up slightly to reveal skin just above them. “wrong fucking door, idiot.” aegon grinned as he walked towards her. “you’re lucky baela’s out of town for the weekend, otherwise she would have kicked your ass for banging on her door like that.”

ignoring her, he pouted as he leaned his head against her door frame, looking too much like a wounded puppy. y/n felt a tug at her stomach at how undeniably cute he looked. “why don’t you ever pick up my calls?”

“why’d you only ever call me when you’re high?” she asked instead of answering. “what?” he mumbled, confused. “high….why’d you only ever call me when you’re high?” she slowly repeated, as if talking to a two-year-old. “i’m not interested in someone who needs to be drunk to call me. i don’t want to be your booty call.” she shrugged. his lower lip jutted out further at her response, crease appearing between his brow. oh, gods, y/n found herself thinking, how could someone manage to look this pathetic and this cute at the same time.

“you’re not a booty call.” he groaned in protest. after all, there were enough girls at that party willingly throwing themselves at him, he could have been with anyone, and yet… it was her door his drunken steps had taken the path of.

“go home, aegon. it was a one-time thing. it’s not happening again.” she insisted. her words seemed to have no effect on him, as he placed a hand around her waist and pulled her closer to him, close enough for her to feel his breath on her face. he bent down to her ear and whispered, his words slurring, “let me show you all the reasons that this should be more than just a ‘one-time-thing’.”

he pressed his lips to hers, softly at first. she didn’t immediately kiss him back, but the feeling of his lips on hers felt more intoxicating than whatever it was that she could smell off his breath, and she found her lips moving against his within seconds. he bit her lower lip playfully, at her response. she parted her lips to allow him to slide his tongue past them. his hand, meanwhile, slid under the material of her tank and travelled upwards, thumb pressing against her nipple as he squeezed her breast. breaking from the kiss for a second, he smirked at her, “didn’t bother wearing a bra to greet me?”. “i was preparing for bed!” she hissed in response. “excuses” he shook his head at her, teasing.

with his hand he lifted her tank to reveal her bare breasts. “aegon!” she attempted to keep her voice low, lest her neighbours wake up to the scene, “we’re in the middle of the hallway, anyone can walk in!” the idea of someone catching them only made it all the more exciting for aegon, “relax.” he told her with a laidback smile.

before she could protest, his head dipped and he captured her nipple in his mouth. a moan escaped her lips at the feeling, and she stumbled back, her back hitting her doorframe. aegon continued his tongue’s assault on her sensitive nipple, one hand gripping her waist to keep her in place, the other reaching behind her to squeeze her ass. her hand held the nape of his neck, as her head was thrown back in pleasure at his actions. she whined when he abruptly stopped.

he kneeled down and his fingers reached up, pulling her shorts and panties down her legs, causing a shiver to go up her spine. chewing on her lower lip in nervousness she weakly said, “we should go inside” but she couldn’t deny that the thought of getting caught made her even more wet. there was a hint of recklessness and danger in his eyes, “where’s your sense of adventure?”. he threw the clothes inside her ajar door, then lifted one of her legs over his shoulder. she audibly gasped as she felt his tongue upon her already soaking pussy.

“aegon…ah!” her hand gripped his hair as his tongue played tricks on her core, her eyes rolling back till she could see stars. his grip on her thigh remained firm, and she was certain she would be waking up with a bruise. “close… so…close…” she had begun to say after a few minutes, feeling her muscles tense, when he stopped.

he stood up and started to undo his pants, freeing his length. he grabbed her by the waist, letting the tip of his cock tease her folds. she was already moaning for him, “want me to take you right here? make you scream my name, till your neighbours come checking?” she swallowed at the thought, lust overtaking her eyes.

“let’s do one thing.” he smiled as if he’d struck upon the most perfect idea, but the gleam in his eyes told y/n it couldn’t be anything good. he turned her around by her waist, hand coming to her front to rub her clit as he whispered in her ear, “you see that door?”. she knew he could only mean the door to the elevator which was the way to enter her dormitory floor. she managed a nod in response, unable to form words as his fingers pressed down on her so ruthlessly. “keep looking at it.” he commanded as he grabbed her hips back to push his cock inside her. “aegon!” she gasped at the feeling.

he entered her completely in one go, pulling out punishingly slow before pushing back in. he continued speaking as he impaled her, “someone’s gonna walk in any moment now…” he teased, “…and see you in this mess… see you bent over, taking me from behind…like a whore” the thought embarrassed her, yes, but what embarrassed her more was that she found herself almost wanting it to come true.

“even when they walk in, i won’t stop.” he threatned, his thrusts becoming faster. “you’ll be on display for everyone to see… to see how well you take my cock.” he gathered her hair in his fist in one hand, and she felt him pulling it lightly. “yes, oh, yes!” she found herself moaning, eyes intently trained on the door. “you’d like that? of course, you would, little slut.” she only whimpered in response, his words bringing her closer and closer to her edge. “you’d love to have everyone see just how well you receive a ‘booty call’” he chuckled. she could feel herself going weak at the knees at his pace and dirty talk.

“aegon… i—ah!” pleasure spread over every inch of her body, as she came all over his cock. he continued to thrust into her, chasing his own orgasm, until he emptied inside of her with a grunt.

her legs felt wobbly as he pulled out of her, turning her back around to face him. “next time i call—” he panted as he spoke, exerted from their activities, “—pick up.” she smirked, in contrast to his dominating actions mere moments ago, his words now sounded more like a pleading request; one she felt gracious enough to grant him as his juice and her own dripped down her legs. “i will. promise.”

his pearly white teeth showed as he grinned at her response, pleased. “oh, but i’m not nearly done with you for the night, just yet.” he lifted her up, her legs instinctively wrapping around his waist. he shut the door behind them as he walked back inside her dorm.

the next morning, she didn’t kick him out like the last time. she let him linger around her bed, aegon placing a trail of kisses down her body as a manner of greeting her good morning. he was needy and showed it by being as tactile with her as could be. yet she felt comfortable with his touches, allowing herself to lie with him for hours, their legs tangled. even as she bid him goodbye from her door, she had to practically tear her lips off his, neither able to get enough of the other.

she felt content as she’d shut her door behind her, leaning against it as she thought back to the night that had passed, when her phone started to ring. she picked it and smiled as she saw the name being displayed, ‘aegon (don’t pick up)’.

“see i am the type who calls. a lot” she laughed at his words through the phone, able to hear him standing right outside the door. “and also the type who does breakfast. what do you say, brunch in an hour?”

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theminecraftbee · 17 days

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you know what au concept i have flashed back to recently? the jimmy dating simulator hell au. which is to say: an au idea i had and i think posted about before where jimmy gets isekaied into being the protagonist of a dating simulator with all of his friends (that he flirts with/are commonly shipped with him) as the dating options and at FIRST when suddenly, all of his friends are OPENLY into him, it's great! he's preening under the attention, he's like "yes. haha. actually i AM great glad you finally noticed." and then bit by bit he's like. oh no. wait. what happened to my friends. and has an existential crisis about the world suddenly and horrendously revolving around him.

anyway i have been thinking about that again. i'm still not sure how i'd write it without either being A) too mean to the concept of dating games (which is to say, i don't really play them, and i worry i would come across as an outsider making fun of them because of that more than 'i love video game existential horror') or B) being too mean to the idea of like... fanon and shipping (two things i am Fine With, to be clear, i just love the idea of 'you are forced to meet a warped reflection of someone you love, and they have become warped around you'.) but it's also SUCH A GOOD PREMISE and if i can figure out how to make it work i'd love to. (or love to see someone else make it work if that happened.)

anyway all of this is to say: i know in the original post i joked about jimmy figuring it out because grian's too nice to him. but you know what, dating games absolutely have the tsundere one. i think it would be interesting if jimmy figured it out because scott was too nice to him. because like... in a lot of ways, THAT ONE would be the right kind of warped for jimmy to go. wait. this isn't someone fucking with me for the bit. .......why isn't this that.

all of this is ALSO to say: undecided on whether i like this premise as pretty fully horror (only jimmy knows something is wrong) or i choose someone who i think is like, wholly unattracted to jimmy even in fanon (and also honestly to make it work, basically wholly unconnected to him in the plot) to make stuck as the One Other Guy who knows something is wrong. if i had to do that i am thinking real hard and landing on. maybe cleo? that might just be me being a cleo guy but i think honestly cleo or like, ren might be the most effective ones for that slot.

all of this is ALSO ALSO to say: so like do we make this just a "jimmy has to live his life like this" horror or add the "time loop to get all the routes!" flavor of horror to it. so many options,

#trafficshipping #empireshipping #........once again i use the shipping tags because they're probably NECESSARY but also i'm not sure i'd call this premise a ship premise ;-#in fact i'd say it's #it's kind of the opposite. of a ship premise. despite relying implicitly on. the idea of. anyway.#MAN IF I COULD JUST FIGURE OUT HOW TO /PLOT THIS OUT/ IT'D BE SUCH A COOL PREMISE TOO.#or maybe finally use it as the excuse to learn renpy lol (<- will not do this)

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ghostyv · 10 months

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I wanna talk about something real quick.

Ok warning I go off on a tangent about fanon legend.

TLDR:Legend isn’t a prick; he’s just jaded, his teasing is from a place of love, and the “rivalry” between him and wars is brotherly and legend is actually extremely compassionate, people just take one small trait and act like it’s the entire personality.

People love to act like Legend’s such a major prick but when you reread LU, he’s really not. Legend’s actually pretty nice. Yeah you can call back to when sky talked about how he doesn’t pay much attention to his attitude, i get that—he doesn’t pay much attention, but he’s not as big a prick as his fanon version suggests. I noticed this when I was watching those LU as tiktoks/vines/random vids on my phone videos on YouTube. Legend’s always made out to be the world’s biggest douche to Wars and yeah I get it’s exaggerated but it’s made out like they hate each other. They don’t in the slightest. I’ve seen genuine siblings who act worse to each other—firsthand. I’m the eldest in my sibling group and have two younger brothers who show no mercy to neither each other nor me, I’ve been insulted by them more than anyone. Legend loves these guys. I think the only reason he can sometimes act like a jerk is one, he doesn’t notice it and two, he most likely tries to keep everyone at arms length because he’s lost people close to him and doesn’t want to go through that again. He’s not some shallow prick—he cares deeply. Take for example in the comic about mipha’s diary. Wild says “I know you love to tease” tease implies just joking around, for one, and two when wild tells him it was Mipha’s, Legend says “ ‘was,’ sorry to hear that” and wild tries to brush it off and he goes “no, i really mean it. I’m sorry to hear that.”

It brings wild some solace. Legend knows loss and he’s not heartless. He knows where people’s limits are and teases lovingly—for some people that’s a love language. My cousin and his best friend are like that, they tease relentlessly but know it’s all out of love. Another instance—legend and Hyrule seem to be two of the closest out of the group. He’s protective over him and a direct call to that is when they were fighting the shadow and Hyrule tries to jump in the fight and Legend grabs his arm

The point to this entire post is that Legend’s only trait isn’t that he’s some prick. He’s so much more complex than that. His teasing is from a place of love, he doesn’t hate Wars like fanon would suggest and honestly their “rivalry”(and it’s a stretch to call it that) is brotherly if anything and his sourness would mainly be an attempt to keep folks at arms length because he doesn’t want to be hurt again.

#I am the number one Legend defender #if he has no fans I am dead #good lord have mercy #bee buzzes #about linked universe #linked universe #legend lu #legend linked universe #lu legend #long post

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kiragecko · 1 month

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cherrystainedknuckles

I guess the only problem with being asked to take a “marie kondo approach” is that in order to find any fanfic that appears to be based in actual canon timeline and plot points and characterization (which does exist, and I’m not sure why fanon fans seem insistent that it doesn’t), I literally have to search for hours. I’m not joking, I consistently make fic rec lists, and I have to search for hours and hours for actual canonical basis. same thing with character tags on tumblr.

I’m not saying fanon fans have to stop enjoying fanon or making up their own content. I’m just saying that when the tags used for both fanon tim drake and canon tim drake are the same tag it just becomes incredibly annoying sometimes, and I understand why people who like to engage with canon (me, often) become frustrated

I have definitely had periods where I got incredibly frustrated with fanon! Around 2019, I was wondering if I needed to leave the Batfandom, because it had been so long since I read a new fic where the characters felt 'right'.

But, if you're willing to, I'd like you to consider what you mean when you divide 'fanon' from 'canon'. Because I struggle to find a hard line between the two, for several reasons:

1. Fandom is transformative. Every fanfic is going to have some interpretation of the source material. The line between what is too much interpretation and what is acceptable is different for every person. For me, I find it can even vary based on writing style or other odd things - lighthearted fic can have more noncanonical stuff in it than heavier fic, and still seem true to canon.

2. 'Canon' is subjective. I do not consider the movies or video games to be 'canon', and it annoys me when things from those creep into the fic I'm reading. (I'm okay with SOME Battinson.) Some aspects of the cartoons are okay. I consider precrisis Jason Todd to be an alternate reality version, but Donna's precrisis origins are more canonical than the dumb retcons. Wayne Family Adventures isn't my main version of the characters, but I'm not bothered if some elements show up in my stories. I'm ignoring most of the nu52, but I like Duke and I'm still watching this new Lian to see what happens. I doubt your divisions are identical to mine.

(Also, some things that I think of as 'fanon' have shown up in nu52 canon! I do not accept them as any more canon because of this.)

3. Most 'fanon' is based on canon. Canon Tim has weird sleep habits. 90s Dick is really lighthearted and joking around some characters in ways similar to fanon. Dick can canonically not be trusted to take care of himself if his mental health gets low enough. Jason likes classical literature. Etc.

These are exaggerated and/or twisted in a lot of fic, but where is the line where they stop being canon? I wouldn't bat an eye at a lot of this stuff, if it didn't show up SO OFTEN.

4. Most 'fanon fans' do know some canon. What line are you going to set where it will be 'enough'. And are they allowed to mention parts of the canon they haven't read yet? Is anyone allowed to talk about Dick's early Robin days, or only the tiny amount of people who have read the golden age stuff? A lot of the 'mistakes' I see are obviously made by people who have read ABOUT canon, but don't know quite how it fits together.

5. 'Canon' is FULL of contradictions. Yes, there are canon events. Yes, there is characterization that is consistent across 3/4s of comics. But. I'm still working on my sidekick timeline. I've devoted days to figuring out ages and passage of time. I've spent over a decade trying to figure out Jason Todd's motivations, and why Tim treats him the way he does. I've read all the 90s and early 2000s CANONICAL character assassination of Jason.

I spent years thinking that Donna's death was almost as foundational as Jason's, only to later discover that I had just happened to read the specific comics that focused on the fallout, and she only stayed dead for a short time. That happens to fans ALL THE TIME! We read a character summarizing an event we haven't directly read, and just accept it as what happened. But characters have biases, and not all writers care about accuracy.

I've read some Tim Drakes that I consider to be almost entirely 'fanon'. And quite a few that were so scarily 'canon' that I got chills. (Not all of which were similar to each other.) But the vast, vast majority have fallen somewhere in the middle.

I definitely do not want the responsibility of deciding which ones count as 'canon'! And I think I would strongly dislike anyone who tried to decide for me.

Being frustrated is logical, and I empathize. But the original post was about the impossible expectations some fans feel. The expectation to read thousands of comics, synthesize all the contradictions, and come to conclusions that match the 'true fans'. That's a perfectly reasonable thing to be complaining about.

If that's what some fans are experiencing, of course they're not going to want to engage with canon! There's no way for them to succeed, so why should they even try?

When you join THAT conversation to discuss your frustration about fanon, it strengthens that perception. When you call them 'fanon fans' it emphasizes their belief that you don't think they belong. And rather than trying to change, it's more likely that they'll double down. Canon is full of gatekeepers, so they'll avoid it.

#gatekeeping #fandom policing #fanon #canon vs fanon #usually don't do stuff like this anymore #I'm old and tired #but sometimes the words want to come out

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apocalypse-shuffle · 1 year

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BATMAN | BATFAMILY (assorted canon)

────────────────────

“Long Overdue” (Bruce Wayne x Batmom!Reader)

| Reader was with Bruce in the past but grew distant after Jason’s death. No one tells her when he comes back from the dead until Bruce is forced to bring her in on an ambush when they’re overwhelmed.

-Jason and Batmom!Reader reunion.

| SFW, canon typical action, cursing, past death of a child, Reader & Bruce are divorced, -angry!reader

| This is like half fanon half UTRH/Batman:Hush. I’m really just fucking around with canon rn. Also the pictures used are just for aesthetics and have no contextual meaning to the story. (pic source: Batman - Three Jokers comic)

| 1k+ words

| parts: one, spurt, two, three, four, five, six/six point five, seven.

Bruce clears his throat for the third time in ten minutes.

In contrast you roll your eyes for the third time in just as long before bending over to switch on the A/C. The Batmobile got stale whenever Bruce started binging. The vehicle not smelling like old blood and sweat stopped being important once your ex husband neglected his duties as Bruce Wayne.

Once upon a time that negligence would have worried you. Still does even if you vehemently tamp it down.

Another clearing of his throat.

“Spit it out already.” You hold your arm tighter to your chest at a bump in the road as you watch him, bullet wound treated rudimentarily enough to hold you over until you get to the cave but still adding to the scent of blood.

Bruce isn't a meta-human; he still emoted even if he did it in such small increments that the untrained eye wouldn’t catch on. You were far from untrained though; you’ve been speaking Bruce almost as long as Alfred has and so you see the twist of fearangersorrow that flashes across his face.

The same damn twist of fearangersorrow from the last days of you and Bruce’s relationship. This time around your stomach doesn’t drop and your body doesn’t flare, mirroring those same emotions. You don’t answer Bruce's natural pull at all in fact, only sigh as you do your best to keep your arm from jarring.

“I didn’t come here to fight. Say what you want.”

Not that you expected to get much leeway on that front. Asking Bruce to communicate without a million half truths was like asking a baby to scrape the paint off thirty feet walls. It could be done technically, it would just take a lot of patience and outside assistance.

His hands tighten on the steering wheel, gloves creaking, before he works through the motions of forcing himself to relax.

“You’re not going to like it.”

“Bruce, when's the last time I liked anything that came out your mouth?”

“You were on a video call with Dick and you laughed when I was complaining about that mite infestation in the cave.”

Of course he would remember that, living filing system that he was.

“Yeah, I was laughing at you,” you clarify with a tiny snort and Bruce gives you his faint smile.

“I know,” he says voice gone soft. You have to clench your eyes shut against the onslaught of emotions that tone elicits. How long has it been since you’ve heard it? “I'm…sorry.”

You don’t think he’s talking about the joke.

“Bruce-”

“I know,” he repeats before pausing. You recognize the active way he’s composing himself and something in you can’t help but to shrivel up. What could be so bad that he's acting nearly as off as when he had to explain how Joker killed your son to you?

Your heart pumps faster in your chest like it wants to run away from the impending news, and you have to open your mouth so that your breaths don’t begin to stutter. No more, not after Jason, you can’t take another death.

In an attempt to avoid the nearing collision of your anger and worry at Bruce gearing up to drop yet another bomb on you and straight up verbally expressing he’s sorry about it beforehand - which what the hell? - you run through what you know.

He could just be acting funny about a shared account you forgot to separate. That’s always a possibility. You focus on keeping your breathing level.

You’d seen Dick and heard from Babs tonight, talked to Dick on how to not burn down his house whilst cooking just three afternoons ago and he’d mentioned Alfred doing fine then. Hopefully that still rings true. The newest Robin that’d been dragged out of a collapsing building last week would still be recovering and no one had mentioned Timothy adding to his injuries so it likely wasn’t him that had Bruce like this, and you haven’t heard anything negative or otherwise about Batgirl.

Even this new Red Hood guy didn’t seem to be much of a problem outside of you not knowing who the hell he is and him being all up in your business earlier. You’d take a lot of shit over the dysfunctionality of you and Bruce’s relationship, but not from a stranger. Besides, you weren’t omniscient - that was more Alfred’s deal - so you weren’t exactly the best gauge on the greater intentions of the city’s newest crime boss. You made a habit of not looking too closely at Gotham’s vigilante scene if you could help it.

Joker did go by that once though, right before his metamorphic dip in a vat of acid green, but you knew it wasn’t the clown under that helmet. For one, Joker didn’t fight with Hood’s brute strength and honed finesse and secondly you knew for a fact the green haired bastard was in Arkham right now. Alive and well.

Your hands clench at the reminder.

“You let him live!”

“We are not executioners, Y/n!”

“Uh uh. Absolutely not, that’s where you’ve got me fucked up.” You take a deep breath before gesturing towards the expanse of Gotham. “When you choose over and over for this man to live you are explicitly signing everyone else’s death sentences, and how you don’t see that is beyond me.”

The way Bruce shakes his head is almost reflexive.

“We always stop him before he can do anything like that.”

“Oh really? Always? Because I got a son six feet under that says otherwise, and last time I checked so do you.”

Bruce twitches. “We don’t trade lives.”

You stare at him, your frustration a harsh nearly livable thing at that moment. The memory of him throwing you off the Joker, of the screaming match afterwards, makes your tongue taste like ash.

“Sure we do,” you murmur. “You just won’t see it that way.”

“We. Don’t. Stoop. To their level, Nightfall,” he accentuates gruffly and just as suddenly as it came your anger rushes away with the next gust of wind that lashes at your face.

An argument on methodology is not what you came here for. You're furious about The Joker, you have no doubt you always will be, but that fury isn’t what drove you to hunting Bruce down on a random rooftop. Joker isn’t what got you back in your suit on this night. Bruce is.

Bruce Batman who’s clearly getting ready to turn this into a thing again.

“Bruce. Bruce stop it.”

You look at him. Really look at him for the first time in weeks and something just…clicks. Bruce and you have been standing at a precipice this whole time. This was it. How Bruce handled Jay’s death was either going to make or break you. And if Dick going virtually no contact had been the trial run the continual state of your marriage wasn’t looking too good. No more kids to patch up the cracks. No more looking away from new cracks formed.

Your mask gets pulled off a second later.

“My baby is dead, Bruce. We had to bury our mangled son today and you want to go out and be Batman when Bruce Wayne is needed at home. I don’t want to argue philosophies, I want you to leave the cape at the door and be here for me as my husband.”

Problem was that Bruce hadn’t been able to do both, and by the end of that interaction you’d punched him for it. Punched him for your son too. One failed attempt and all of a sudden he couldn’t kill Jason’s killer or let you do it for the both of you. No, he’d cracked down instead. It would be inexcusable and he’d clash with you the whole way.

You can admit to yourself that you gave up because you didn’t want to be faced with the possibility of Bruce throwing you in jail over the Joker. He’d stopped you from wiping him from the earth three times at that point, who’s to say he wouldn’t have eventually caved and gotten you committed?

Bruce couldn’t balance being the husband to a grieving wife and being the grieving father of a murdered son. Couldn’t handle being Bruce Wayne when The Batman was so much simpler; easier to hide behind than confronting everything. So he retreated.

In a way you understood, the death of a child wasn’t something you walked away from at all in some cases and it certainly changed you in every situation, but you were supposed to have been able to deal with that blow together.

Bruce’s voice, tight and broad, less Bruce and more Bat once more, brings you out of your head.

“A few weeks ago the Red Hood made his presence known after an undisclosed amount of time hiding below the radar in Gotham with a duffel bag full of severed heads.”

You hum lightly having already known this. Dick got chatty when he was stressed.

“A few days after that Red Hood and I got in an altercation wherein he unmasked and gave me his blood and fingerprints. Both that I then tested…”

Behind your mask you squint, breath rushing out of you as another possibility you hadn’t dared to let yourself think comes to mind. Grief’s most dangerous wish. You start shaking your head. It's a useless attempt to not let the pieces come together.

“The results matched that of Jason Todd’s,” there’s a moment of brief wrenching stillness before he adds quieter, as if his veneer of control has suddenly been punched out of him. “Our Jason….”

…TBC

NOTES: Hope you enjoyed! Comments would be appreciated if you wanted to leave one! I read all of them, I only don’t respond cause this is a side blog.

P.S.: It’s gonna come off like I hate Bruce in the later chapters (only sometimes irl) so yeah. Apparently I’m just getting out some general Bruce frustrations with this, so fair warning. This is not a happy ending for his ass.

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bigb-enthusiast · 4 months

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Hi! I don't watch much Bigb because I don't have time to watch more than one or two life series povs usually, but I feel bad about making him an afterthought in my content cause he has such good vibes. As the local Bigb enthusiast. I wanna watch a few of his videos at least, if there are any you can recommend that are particularly useful for getting a better idea of who he is generally, or if there's any advice you can give on how you think he should be portrayed that fanon tends to get wrong?

Hii! I can help uhh the best way i Can help you with portraying him is like? Watching every episode? But yk. Its a lot of episodes. But heres some i can help with

3rd Life episodes 12 + 13 (his finals)

Last Life episodes 4(pt 1 + 2), 5, 7, & 8

Double Life episodes 3, 4, & 5

Limited Life episodes 6, 7, & 8

Secret Life episodes 1, 2, 5, 7, 9

Sorry i just gave you (and whoever else follows this) like 18 videos 🧍 he just used to split his videos into parts and then also he showed more of his character further as the season(s) went again id really recommend watching Every video of his cause theres just so many details you can find but i picked what couldve been seen as more important within his character

Fanon wise he is normally not going to betray people on purpose, its usually by force of the game and hes actually rather caring. He tends of isolate but also stay quiet when theres more than at least 2-3 people in an area unless hes Really close with them, despite isolating a lot hes very easy to force or drag into an alliance and also when he does he tends to become super clingy to at least one person such as ren and then cleo who despite betraying he tried to get back with her whether its on good terms or an alliance for at least around the 3-4 seasons that happened after she declared he was dead to her, ive seen people characterize him as innocent which no his first interaction with joel EVER in 3L was a big dick joke /t /lh, and also he is also portrayed as ruthless or mean specifically during the soulmate scandal. He wouldnt have really did it if he knew it hurt scar THAT bad (which in canon it DIDNT. Sorry scar did NOT care)

#salt talks #bigbst4tz2 #trafficblr

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rottenpumpkin13 · 10 months

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SEPHIROTH HEADCANONS

[these are my headcanons, meaning the way I view him in my head and may not follow popular fanon]

↘︎ Sephiroth is a big enjoyer of puzzles of any kind. Mahjong, sudoku, jigsaw puzzles, riddles, you name it. He doesn’t see the allure of video games but will jump at the opportunity to play a multiplayer that has him competing against someone else.

↘︎ He’s generally a calm and intorverted person in his day-to-day life, but when angered he becomes scary as hell. For lack of better words, he shows signs of the in-game callous monster he is.

↘︎ He does have a sense of humor, okay?? It’s just what most people would describe as dark and dry. His kind of humor is saying the most off-hand comments with 0 expression and making people lose their shit. He is also proficient in sarcasm but has to be annoyed beyond measure to use it.

↘︎ He can drive, however friends and people who have previously been driven around by him refuse to do it again. He drives likes he’s playing Mario Kart while maintaining a scarily calm composure. He manages to do this while still abiding by the traffic laws.

↘︎ Sephiroth maintains a healthy diet and prefers not to stray from his strict regimen. Having said that, he will never turn down: a) Angeal’s cooking, b) pasta, c)sweets.

↘︎ Due to his sheltered childhood, Sephiroth was never allowed to indulge himself in sweets and other junkfood like the other kids. So when he’s old enough to control his own diet, he includes moments of utter gluttony where he inhales candy like a madman.

↘︎ “Sephiroth why don’t you cut your hair?” With his JENOVA cells? If he cut it shoulder-length one morning, it’d be down to his waist again by the following afternoon. After many attempts at keeping it at a reasonable size during his youth, he gave up.

↘︎ Now he simply keeps it long because he thinks it looks cool. Vanity spares no one. He also has a habit of sitting on his hair accidentally.

↘︎ He’s notoriously knows as being cold and unwelcoming toward people. However he does a complete 180° when he’s with his friends, and people have even reported seeing him act extroverted.

↘︎ Unintentionally a cocky bastard.

↘︎ Sephiroth isn’t a very creative person, which is something he laments greatly. He isn’t apt at drawing, writing or anything that could allow him to express himself artistically

↘︎ Give our boy any mathematical equation though and he can solve it

↘︎ Sephiroth takes joy in fucking with troopers and other SOLDIERs. He loves saying weird and uncharacteristic things and watch the realization that he’s joking dawn on them

↘︎ Big into astronomy and loves reading books about it. And he has a disdain for astrology and thinks it’s nothing but drivel

↘︎ He abhors gossip and thinks it immature and unprofessional. But if you feed him certain tales he’ll become angrossed and not let you leave until you’ve thoroughly recounted every detail of it.

↘︎ Claustrophobic. It may have everything to do with being given mako showers and being kept in those tight tanks for hours. He developed a certian disdain for being enclosed in tight spaces. He also can’t stand to wear multiple layers of clothing and can only handle one layer at a time.

↘︎ Yes he likes cats.

↘︎ People who say he’s humorless don’t know he once laughed so hard, he had to be sedated because he was on the floor unable to breathe. Context? Genesis angered a chocobo and it chased him for an hour. Angeal has it on video.

↘︎ Sephiroth can cook. How? Do you really think a SOLDIER trained to survive in the wilderness wouldn’t know how to hunt, prepare and cook his own food?

↘︎ That being said, he can only cook very basic things.

↘︎ He yells at the TV, but only when it’s a nature documentary and the prey is making unwise decisions while running away from the predator.

↘︎ He makes overexaggerated faces while eating something he doesn’t like, but that’s as far as he’ll go complaining about food-wise

↘︎ Sephiroth’s favorite kind of gifts are the practical and functional ones like socks, blankets and sword oil.

↘︎ Impulsively buys toys and childish knick knacks. Proceeds to keep them in a secret drawer with a lock and key. Don’t judge him. He’s making up for lost time.

#ffvii #ff7 #final fantasy 7 #final fantasy #sephiroth #ff7r #final fantasy vii #ffvii crisis core #sephiroth headcanons #ff7 rebirth #headcanons

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the-cat-and-the-birdie · 5 months

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Okay okay with all the script hate for ATSV I'd like to at least take a moment to praise How they did Hobie right

And why they got Miguel wrong.

Mini-Ramble: The Concept of 'Can-dom'

a.k.a the writers really love Hobie and just fucking hate Miguel and it's borderline funny.

-------------

So, you know we are called fans, and we have a fandom. The fandom writes 'fanon'.

But what do you call the group of people who write canon?

And can the people who write canon also be a fandom in and of itself?

As someone who has worked on TV and film sets in NYC - across a couple of different departments - I can assure you:

YES.

And they act JUST LIKE US.

And I call it Can-dom.

And there's no better example of this, than the ATSV script.

Look at how they talk about Hobie:

To the writer who described Hobie as 'strong, long, and skinny-hot' and his guitar as 'throbbing' idk what you were on that day but keep it up.

Look at them rubbing their little writer hands together going 'hehehe they're gonna love this mfer to death he's so hot'

Miles calling Hobie cool and Hobie agreeing is literally just the writers complimenting themselves on how insanely rad and attractive they made their own character. I love it.

They could've done so much worse or described him as rowdy or cocky or rough but they're just like 'he's hot. really fucking hot.'

And everybody was in on it.

The designers read the script and was like 'really really attractive? the coolest fucking guy you've ever seen? ok boss'

and then drew a black cop killer with natural hair and beautiful sharp black features

Then the animation team looked at Hobie and was like YEAH HE'S SUPER FUCKING COOL

Then made a supercool technology just for the insanely rad punk character

AND THEY WENT TO DANIEL KALUUYA and had him do the super cool ironic funny lines for the super cool rad fan-favorite-to-be character

And then the whole production team looked at Hobie and they all looked back at their work and his arc and lines and design and animation style and they were like

Because after months and months and months of collective effort and going 'this guy has to be so likeable that disliking him is almost a moral failing'

And then just like us they finally saw the finished product and we're like

'THAT'S A WRAP. CUT. SEND THIS SHIT TO THE PRINTERS. He can't get any cooler we did it.'

Cause as someone who has worked in TV & Film and had been in the offices I can tell you:

Screenwriters are not some big wigs that come to work in suits and sit around on chunky laptops in complete silence sending emails

They are normal ass people in a cramped ass office and cubicles who joke with their co-workers, come in in jeans and a 'casual tshirt', and sit there chilling revising the same script a dozen times because they came up with a new idea that HAS to be in it. And sometimes they be having dogs in the offices.

They're dorks just like us. That's how they got there. By obsessing over the tiniest minute shit in stories and getting way too into characters and writing out our little stories.

To think they were squealing about Hobie Brown this whole time for years while making him.

And then giving him to the fandom and we're like FUCKING THANK YOU HE'S OURS AND WE LOVE HIM.

I know a lot of the time it may come off as a shady corporation manipulating the punk aesthetic for revenue - while it is that - its also an office full of writers and animators and designers literally making a mini fandom between them and snickering at their own jokes and ideas as they write this story I love it

It makes me think that - while the language towards Miguel is like.. undoubtedly questionable and something of necessary discussion -

I also just think that the office fandom just.. didn't fucking like him.

Like in the writers room over time they didn't like him and wanted to bully him 'ayo this dude is a clown and he's wildin out like a BEAST'

And putting in lines of Gwen clowning him just because the writers wanted to make fun of Miguel 😭😭😭

like.. just the thought of that.

- and the thought of the ATSV writers team just ganging up on him only for the animation team to turn around and be like 'give him the thiccest ass imaginable. make it clap when he walk'

HILARIOUS.

And then for the production team to have to look at this script of Miguel and look at his dummy think design and just sigh and be like 'fine okay the lines are fine but you HAVE TO TONE THE ASS DOWN'.

We bully our OCs all the time

And yeah they took that shit wayyyy too far cause like... The Spot murdered people why are y'all not looking at him and also Gwens dad is an asshole

But a part of me feels like the writers and production were fandom before fandom was fandoming.

Just like us they hyperfixated on two characters, the same characters the fandom would later.

And like the fandom originally did, they really really liked Hobie and just REALLY REALLY REALLY didn't like Miguel.

We're all like 'haha let's bully the shit outta Miguel as a little treat' and then they start taking it too far 😭😭

I'm just going to lay myself to (semi-)peace with this thought. I know it's pure speculation - I repeat, speculation - but like, writers are genuinely just like us. I wouldn't put it past them.

With the way the script is narrated I wouldn't be surprised if the first draft they put

**MIGUEL collapses to the ground with GABRIELLA in his hands as she DEPIXELATES. A look is devastation crosses his face. Ha, get owned, you fucking idiot.**

-------------------

Also they absolutely know about fanfiction. I haven't heard them talk about it and I don't know how much they know. But they know.

They may not be in the shows fandom, but they've usually been into older fandoms like Star Trek and thus know about the fanfic and shipping stuff.

If you read this far!! Hey hi how ya doing thank you for listening to my rambling. I wouldn't call this a full essay cause it's just my thoughts and opinions and like.... thoughts???

Anyway here's Hobie to make up for the fact I just said a whole lotta nothing

(actual picture of me arsoning the Sony headquarters if they fuck up Hobies characterization and make me regret this post lol)

Bye.

#am I too optimistic?#NO PROOFREAD HAHA #spiderman #spider man #atsv #marvel #across the spiderverse #hobie brown #spider punk #spiderpunk #miguel o'hara #miguel o hara #miguel ohara

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theglidingbat · 4 months

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Ghostbat headcanons because I'm in no-minhkhoa content hell

Bruce loves giving minhkhoa forehead kisses and nose kisses, during tender moments or when he's feeling sentimental, minhkhoa always grumbles about it but it's one of the little things he enjoys

Adding onto the previous one, minhkhoa rarely kisses bruce tenderly his kiss more fierce and filled with passion and hidden emotions he refuses to reveal.

Minhkhoa will make fun of Bruce's clothes and fashion choices but yet can be seen with wearing his turtleneck, bruce will narrow his eyes as Minhkhoa pretends to be ignorant, he never returns the clothes by the way.

But if bruce ever decided to take minhkhoa's clothes he has to hear multiple snarky remarks, only to be tackled when he tries to take of Minhkhoa's green hoodie , ghostmaker would rather die then admit he likes his boyfriend in his clothes.

So they definitely got married at some point right?

I feel like bruce knows how to cook but pretends to be shitty at it around minhkhoa just so he gets to see minhkhoa cook, minhkhoa knows this and indulges him anyway

Listen, I think the "minhkhoa can't feel love" thing is bullshit because he does care a lot, even if he's terrible at it, he's not even trying per se but bruce is one of the very few people he actually cares for, Bruce thinks that's how minhkhoa just is, he doesn't realise he has special treatment expect the name thing.

But a fun alternative is that he knows that he gets special treatment from minhkhoa and loves it, and gets extremely possessive and bratty about it too.

I know it's retconned or whatever but Rhea being minhkhoa's first love and after everything minhkhoa still likes to distance himself, bruce who's probably witnessed atleast half of their relationship will always feel like and know that he won't ever have the same place in minhkhoa's stone cold heart like Rhea did and it kind of hurts him

Minhkhoa doesn't even deny it, why bother lying to a man as smart as Bruce? Bruce should be able to handle the truth, he still cares for Bruce but he's sure (scared) of the fact that bruce would die or disappear, or worse forget him because of his own stupidity (empathy)

Okay enough angsty from me I swore I would be an account without much angsty shit but here we are.

Minhkhoa loves grilled cheese. It's a headcanon me and my irl friend thought of as an old inside joke but yeah that's the only American food this mother fucker tolerates, with tomato soup and everything. Specifically if Bruce makes it with the crust cut.

The grilled cheese is more of a crack headcanon but eh.

Someone make a fic of Minhkhoa teaching Bruce's white ass how to make rotis (I've been leaning into minhkhoa being half Tamil or of Tamil origins loads lately and it's my favourite fanon hc of him)

Bruce can't get it in a perfect Circle and it pisses him off, minhkhoa laughs at his face.

One very silly thing I love to think is that during a chase scene in their past minhkhoa would pick bruce up and make a run for it and sticks through their adulthood, an explosion is about to go off and before bruce can do anything minhkhoa has him in a carry as he runs away with him.

Them Falling back into old habits, bruce latching onto minhkhoa and pulling his hair during a immature argument, minhkhoa screaming and trying to shake him off as Talia tiredly sips her tea, they're all 40 and the batkids finally see where exactly Damian gets it from.

My personal headcanon is that during btk era bruce had freckles, minhkhoa won't admit it but he misses them,as Bruce grew his freckles faded.

And that's it for my latest Ghostbat headcanons, do note that these are extremely self indulgent and may be occ but eh who gives a fuck

#bruce wayne #ghostbat #batman #minhkhoa khan #ghostmaker #my babies

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sporkberries · 1 year

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Tim Drake and Red robin

Aka the whole identity problem.

So there’s a lot of discussion over Tim and what identity he is going to take up- this is by no means recent, it's been going on for over a decade. So for a lot of people who are newer to comics I want to explain why Red Robin isn’t really an option as a permanent identity for Tim, and what Red Robin means to Tim personally

So first off, for expositions sake, Tim didn’t create Red Robin. The costume nor the identity. It originated in the Kingdom Come Storyline and belonged to Dick Grayson

(Dick Grayson, Earth-22) Honestly i don’t want to get into the can of worms of Kingdom Come and it’s not that important to my point so just know this is where Red Robin comes from.

Okay now the first appearance of Red Robin in Main Continuity was in Countdown to Final Crisis where the mantle was taken by * drum roll*

Countdown #14 Jason Todd!! This is also not very important because Jason mainly does multiverse shenanigans that isnt important to my overall point. I just find it very funny that Jason was Red Robin before Tim. Also he kills an alternate universe version of the joker- Good for him!

Now into the stuff that actually affects Tim and why he chooses to don the Red Robin Mantle in the first place-towards the end of Tim’s robin run. Where we see Red Robin stalking Tim around Gotham.

Red Robin in Robin(1993) #177 This Red Robin ends up being Ulysses Armstrong( a gang leader and recurring baddie from Tim’s Robin run) and to say the least he does some not very nice things!! Said things including luring Tim into a warehouse and blowing him up(what is up with robins and warehouses seriously?) anyways looking good tim!

Robin(1993) #181

After this injury Tim wears the Red Robin cowl to hide/protect his identity while he takes care of Ulysses. And in the ensuing fight a bunch of children get blow up- it’s great and definitely good for our protagonists declining mental health, Now for a bit more exposition after this incident Tim helps break Jason out of prison who then dons a cringe batman suit and kills a shit ton of people- the infamous Battle For The Cowl storylines ensues. With Dick Grayson taking the mantle of Batman and Damian Wayne being gifted the Robin mantle. Though Dick wasn’t wrong to do this(which is a whole other thing to argue about) it upset Tim and he needed a new costume to wear on his quest to bring Bruce back. He chooses Red Robin, as it’s an identity he considers dirty and disconnected from both his previous titles and the rest of his family.

Red Robin(2009) #1

Tim is at a VERY dark place in his life during the Red Robin run. A lot of fanon characterizes Tim as pretty depressed and sad and almost all of that stems from this period of time exclusively- and it makes sense. Tim underwent a series of very serious and brutal losses under a pretty short period of time( Steph[briefly],his dad, Conner, Bart, and Bruce all dying). And though pretty much everyone was right to doubt him about the whole Bruce being alive thing that rejection definitely didn’t help things. For Tim Red Robin offers a sort of outlet he doesn’t have to be Tim he doesn’t have to necessarily be a good person he just needs to do what needs to be done( I’d argue for the beginning of Red Robin that’s his main philosophy)

Red Robin(2009) #2

Red Robin(2009) #4

In Adventure Comics(2009) #3 Tim reunites with Conner while he’s in Paris, where in Conner says this

Conner knows Tim better than anyone, keep that word Punishment in mind. As it comes back up again in** Red Robin(2009) #9**

And okay this being brought up again is a joke but i still think its true. Tim IS punishing himself. He hates he situation he’s in he hates that he can’t save anyone he hates that he keeps making the wrong decisions(having the children be near the bombs, helping Jason get out of prison, and basically everything that’s happened in Red Robin as well) Tim IS a good person and he has a very strong moral compass- so betraying any aspect of his conscience- pretending to be someone he’s not HURTS him.

At the end of Red Robin(2009) Tim tries to kill Captain Boomerang, the man who killed his father( see: identity crisis) , or he very nearly tries to anyways. He wants to kill him, HE IS ABOUT TO KILL HIM. but he doesn’t.

Red Robin(2009) #26

Tim is at a crossroads. He’s hurting but he still WANTS to be good. He ends up doing the right thing but is that what Tim wants? Tim is changing he’s not Robin anymore he’s becoming his own person his own individual.

So you may ask, what happens after this? Does Tim figure out who he wants to be? Does he make a decision? HAHA silly you!! NO!! Dc resets the whole universe, retcons Tim’s backstory erases all his character development then un-retcons his backstory etc etc leaving Tim Drake in character limbo for essentially a DECADE.

So all this backstory withstanding why do I think Red Robin is a bad choice for Tim as an identity(discounting the fact he’s not even RR anymore but just robin which is stupid and also dumb) ? Well Red Robin was never MEANT to be permanent- Red Robin was a temporary means to end, a tool to get to his destination. I see Red Robin as a chrysalis of sorts. Tim as Robin was the caterpillar, red robin was the chrysalis and his next identity would be who he becomes, or rather who he DECIDES to be. Having Red Robin as Tim’s main identity is a disservice to his character but also doesn’t allow him to complete his arc. Tim doesn’t have an identity he chose and wanted for himself; he hasn't even moved on from ROBIN. In order to develop as a character Tim NEEDS to discover an identity for himself, abandoning the robin mantle entirely.

I think there is hope, a lot of Tim’s content since and including Urban Legends have been largely about him discovering himself and searching for his identity. Let’s just hope DC actually follows through.

#this was inspired by a poll i saw where people were voting for what tims identity should be and somehow Red Robin had the second most amount #of votes #boggles my mind #Tim Drake #Tim Drake Meta #Red Robin #Robin #Batman #dc #spork says stuff #long post

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buckybarnesss · 6 months

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Blessed post where you detail the storytelling points proving Derek's very young age both when the fire happened and during the show. And it's during the show too, because we may have been watching for six years but the story actually spans about two if I'm not mistaken?

The college-age-Derek-when-the-fire-happened truthers have been around forever and my favorite line from them is: "Why do you want so badly Derek/Kate to have been statutory rape? Just so your fave can claim more suffering?"

And it's not untrue that we like to see our faves suffer because it makes for compelling storytelling. The jokes and memes about the hurt-comfort are true. But this isn't that? No one ever walked up to J*ff D*vis and asked him to write up the story in a way that keeps supporting a timeline where Derek was 16 when the fire happened. He did that all by himself and it's not on us that we went along with it and didn't just discount the actual storytelling for retconning claims D*vis made in some interview or panel or other.

And more importantly, why are these people so passionately for this retconning? That's the real question. Why do they want so badly for Derek to have been 19 or 20 or even 22 (which would be beyond a stretch no matter how you retconned it) when the fire happened? Why is it so much more palatable to them -better yet, why do they think it would be so much more palatable, so much less the suffering for Derek if he'd been college-age? Is it maybe a secret third idea that it's not even rape if he's a legal adult? That being underage is the only thing that made Derek/Kate not actually consensual? That made it rape?

The funny thing is that Derek is not even my favorite. I do like him but I also happen to like Allison and Scott just as much. And it's Stiles that happens to be my favorite, and I am very much in love with Sterek, but I liked both Derek and Jennifer (however complicated the ship ended up being) and I liked him with Braeden especially because she was the first canon love interest (Paige aside) he got that was actually a good match for him, that genuinely cared for him and didn't hurt him. The point is that Derek doesn't have to be your favorite to call out what Kate did to him as what it actually was, and it doesn't make you sexist either (I've seen the argument, they're really that stupid).

Obligatory addition that Sterek is fanon at the end of the day. So is any other ship involving adult Derek and a teenage character. So @ Derek haters (there's a Venn diagram that shows the impressive overlap between Derek haters and the above-mentioned truthers) who love accusing Derek of being what Kate actually was: canonically Derek had Paige when they were both 16, then he was 16 or even 22 and Kate is established older than Derek (which is what makes 22-year-old Derek impossible when the fire happened because Kate was 22 according to the chem teacher whose name I forget and who told her how to burn the Hales down), then he's an adult and he has Jennifer (who is a high school English teacher and that speaks for itself) and then he has Braeden (who was, like, a marshall or something years ago, before losing her job obsessing over hunting down Malia's mother or something, and I'm pretty sure that also speaks for itself on the question of Braeden's possible minimum age). Even that scene with Erica in season 2, poorly executed as it was, had Derek literally throwing off of him the only teenager that made a move on him (what Erica was actually going for is not the point here at all).

I haven't touched the show in years and I didn't watch the movie either, so correct me if I'm wrong about any of this. But anyway, thanks for reading my rant. It's defending Derek o'clock apparently because there's just some things in this fandom that can really grate your cheese.

thank you anon!

yeah i do not know where people got the idea of derek being much older. in the presentation pilot script derek is specifically said to be 19 but they realized that if the fire was 6 years previous than he would've been 13 when he was involved with kate so they aged him a few years so he'd be 16.

of course that still isn't super great but jeff clearly had a specific story in mind for what happened with derek and how the fire occurred. picking up on those storytelling cues isn't us wishing bad things upon a character and it doesn't make me or anyone else a bad person. it's us engaging with the story and understanding what the creator is trying to convey to their audience without it being explicitly said.

and while it's conjecture that kate was a substitute teacher because it was never confirmed in canon i think there's evidence to support the idea between the on fire novel and how in season 2 the the argents infiltrate the school system. her being a substitute would explain not only how she was able to gain such access to derek but also how she knew to approach harris and how to approach him to get the information she wanted.

when i was watching the show while it was still running from 2012-2014 it was pretty accepted fandom wide that derek was very early 20s and had been 16 when the fire happened. it has only been since i returned in 2023 that i've seen an uptick in the idea that derek wasn't underage when he and kate were involved.

peter and cora's comments in visionary about age were tongue in cheek. it was show winking at the fans about how they were shit with character ages and timelines. and even then despite how messy the teen wolf timeline is we can be reasonably certain of a lot of events within canon and suss out ages and such.

derek wasn't in his 30s during the show. he wasn't even over 25. he was barely in his 20s. scott and stiles treat him like a peer because he is one. the idea of him being some much older guy needs to be put to rest.

i didn't go into detail with kate's behavior in that post because it was about whether or not derek graduated beacon hills high but like kate is a sexual predator. the narrative is very consistent with her behavior.

she makes several suggestive comments about both jackson and scott. in the tell when she's tormenting derek at the hale house she says:

"this one grew up in all the right places. I don't know whether to kill it or lick it."

that is not ambiguous. i've discussed kate and derek before here and here.

her behavior towards de-aged derek isn't ambiguous either.

kate argent is a sexual predator that likes teenage boys. she groomed and raped teenage derek all the while planning to murder his family. this doesn't get any better if derek had been older and was in a consentual relationship with kate.

there's a very consistent story throughout the entire show of derek's consent and body being violated by others for their own gain. kate, gerard, deaton and scott, the twins and kali, jennifer and even the nogitsune.

and yet antis like to turn that all around on derek which i've discussed here about how derek isn't a perfect abuse victim and how it's been used against derek here.

when people deny what happened to derek it's with the same reasonings that people deny men can experience sexual assault and rape. like, how many times has a female teacher engaged in sexual misconduct with a male student only for the comments to be that he should've been grateful and enjoy an older woman's attention? look at the way the news coverage of mary kay letourneau was handled.

i have discussed derek's turning of erica here, here and here. more here about the subject.

the whole sterek thing. it's whatever to me at this point. antis seem to think they're gonna make people stop shipping it when they're not. there's no moral high ground.

#my blog #thoughts on teen wolf #teen wolf #rape tw #sterek

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valaenatargaryensdragon · 1 year

Text

I've Got You

pairing: Fanon!Jacaerys Valeryon x Female OC

summary: Daena's still hidden with the servants and one just cannot seem to leave her alone.

Word count: 2,0K

Warnings: Fluff, Angst, incest, blacks won, soft dad Daemon, protective dad Daemon, protective Jace

Masterlist 1

Masterlist 2

Daena eyed Jack seeing him already watching her every move making her even more uncomfortable. She fidgeted with the sleeve of her dress feeling irritated that a man like Jack was making her feel so dirty.

"Dana" Daemon called earning her attention. She walked over to her secret father. He held up his empty cup with a 'please' in his eyes but she knew he could not be polite. She knew Jace and Luce were watching her, one softly and the other shocked having heard of her heritage a while back after catching her and Jace in his room in a not-very-appropriate position, not that it was very bad, they have never gone all the way anyways.

"Anything else, your grace?" Daena asked after having filled her father's cup. Rhaenyra shook her head silently dismissing her. Their relationship did not improve much over the last couple of moons, it seemed like it had worsened after Jace told his mother of the affection he held for Daena, she was strongly against it wanting him to marry Baela and stay faithful to her. Baela did not care much, she held no more than brotherly love for Jace and she knew their marriage will be boring anyways.

Daena moved out of the door but not before catching Jacaerys' eyes watching her leave with a hint of a smile. He sent her a wink when their eyes met making her cheek blaze with a blush. She scurried down the corridor looking for the small dots every now and then on the walls, Jace had drawn them on himself seeing as she kept getting lost in Keep. Red meant kitchen, green meant the cellar, and white was her rooms.

"Dana" She paused hearing her fake name being called. She turned to find Jack following her with a weird smile on but she decided to ignore that and smile back just to be nice.

"They needed more cakes" He explained. She nodded and continued making her way through the corridors silently. She was thinking through options for a present to Jace whose nameday was coming up soon.

"I would pay a whole golden dragon to know what you are thinking of" Jack joked. Dana raised an eyebrow, why would he be interested in her thoughts?

"Just a new cake recipe" She lied. She got good at lying but it seems two people always caught her, Jace and Daemon Targaryen.

"I cannot wait to taste it then" He chuckled. Daena was about to take a left turn seeing a slightly bigger circle on the wall there even obvious to others no but Jace told them to never erase them using his younger brother Aegon as an excuse and no one dared defy the crown prince, the heir to the Iron Throne.

"Let's go this way, a short cut" Jack pointed to the opposite corridor. Daena was a little confused, Jace has never mentioned a shortcut to the kitchens.

"Are you sure? I do not want to get lost" Daena rubbed her hands together feeling a nervous sweat building on her palms.

"Of course, I take it all the time" He reassured. She nodded letting him lead the way.

The corridor was dark with barely any torches lighting the way. Daena shivered at the coldness in the air but did not comment.

"What do you want Jack?" Daena questioned. She knew he wanted something, this was not the way to the kitchens, although she did not know her way around much but a nagging voice in the back of her mind was telling her that there was no way this was the way to the kitchens.

"Whatever do you mean, dear Dana?" Jack asked turning to look at her with a mischievous smirk on his lips.

"This is not the way to the kitchens, what do you want?" Daena paused under a torch feeling uneasy in a dark part of the corridor. Jack stepped closer to her leaving barely two feet in between them.

"Is it not obvious? I have been giving you hints all week, Dana, I like you" Jack answered. That did not explain the dark corridor and the fear she felt in her bones.

"I am sorry Jack, I do not want to seem uncaring but I do not share those feelings with you" Daena shook her head in denying. Jack took a deep breathe before stepping closer to her trapping her against the wall.

"Let me prove you wrong" He begged. He leaned his head down trying to capture Daena's lips but she moved her head to the side.

Jack did not like that at all, he grabbed her chin forcing her to look at him. He had a glare set on his face daring her to move her head away from him again.

"Relax" He did not give her time to refuse again and slammed his lips down on hers. She squirmed and wiggled trying to get out of his hold. His lips were chapt and rough biting into her lips and making cuts all over her lips. She tried screaming but his lips muffled her words. His hands moved to grab her wrists and held them in place by her sides.

Daena felt panic rise inside of her as he continued to kiss her and hold her against her will against the wall. She tried twisting her wrists out of his hold but he was still stronger.

"Let me go" She demanded breathlessly when he pulled away. Jack smirked down at her, he has never looked eviler than he did now.

"Why should I? I tasted your lips and they are the sweetest thing I have ever tasted" He responded. He leaned his head down to pepper kisses across her neck and collarbone.

"Just let me go!" She yelled wiggling. She felt dirty and in need of a hundred baths.

"No way little girl, you taste divine" He whispered in her ear. She shuddered trying to push him away. He let go of one of her wrists to push some of her hair back when it fell over her neck so he could mark her even more. She immediately tried using it to her advantage but still, he was stronger.

"Let her go!" A voice boomed from the darkness. Daena's head snapped in that direction, there was a silhouette that no one can recognize but that voice was too familiar for her to not know.

"Prince Jacaerys" She whispered relieved. Jack scrambled away from her when he heard the name leave her lips. Jace walked closer to the pair with a smirk on his face. Jace walked over to Daena eyeing the bruises already appearing on her neck.

"Is this how you treat ladies?" Jace asked. One of his fingers moved to trace one of the bruises, his heart shattered at the sight of his beloved hurt. Daena whimpered moving away from him and that made him even more furious.

"My prince I was just-" Jack did not know how to justify what he was doing.

"Just what? If I had not passed this way you would have raped the poor girl" Jace's voice raised in volume making Daena jump. Jack's eyes flashed to look at her for a second and that was enough to strike fear into her, she shuffled closer to Jace for some safety, and reassurance that nothing will happen, and Jack will not hurt her.

"It was not my intention" Jack's eyes watered and his lower lips quivered sensing the danger.

"Get away from here before I cut off your cock myself" Jace hissed through his teeth. Jack scrambled away from there fearing the anger of the heir.

"Thank you" Daena whispered. The gravity of the situation finally fell and damn broke. Tears streamed down her face and her body shook with her sobs.

"Oh darling, come here" Jace pulled her into his arms trying to comfort her. She clung to him as if he was her lifeline. He held her against his chest thanking the gids for sparing her from such a fate. He will not let her out of his sight ever again.

"I w-was so s-scared" She whimpered. Jace never wanted to hear those words coming out of her mouth ever again.

"I've got you, darling, come" Jace stirred her away from this damned hallway. He did not know what compelled him to come this way, this hallway led to the dungeons after all but he was thankful he listened to his instincts. Daena did not know where he had taken her until she heard the sound of her father's voice.

"Jace?" The queen questioned. She knew of their relationship but she did not approve and besides it was unlike him to show affection in public knowing she would not like that. Daemon on the other hand grew concerned at the sight of his shaking daughter.

"There has been an incident" Jace explained. Daemon stepped over to the two and placed a hand on Daena's back. She looked up at him, eyes swollen and red from crying.

"What happened?" Daemon asked running a hand through her hair.

"Another servant tried getting his way" Was all Jace said and Daemon understood. His blood boiled with rage, how dare a lowlife to touch his daughter.

"Who is that son of a bitch?" Daemon quizzed. Rhaenyra was frozen at the information, no matter how much she dislikes Daena she would not wish such a fate on anyone even her worst enemies.

"Jack" Jace wanted Daemon to go into a fit of rage, he wanted Daemon to kill Jack with Dark Sister knowing he was needed to comfort Daena who was still holding on to his tunic shivering from head to toe. He did not dare look below her eyes at her bloody lips or the blueish bruises on her neck.

"I will kill him" Daemon pulled Dark Sister out and moved towards the door but Rhaenyra's voice calling his name made him pause at the doors.

"Do not be irrational, we will put him on trial " She tried calming the situation. She moved from the table and over to her son and stepdaughter. Jace just then noticed that the rest of his siblings were not there, even Luce was nowhere to be seen.

"Irrational? He tried raping my daughter and you want me to be rational?" Daemon hissed glaring at her. He hated how she disliked Daena, she accepted Baela and Rhaena but could not seem to stomach Daena as if her sons were bastards themselves.

"He will be dealt with the right way, Daemon. You cannot just barge in there and demand his head, servants will talk and question your protectiveness over a servant and rumors will circle around" Rhaenyra explained. She moved over to Daemon as she spoke. His glare did not waver for a second.

"Let them talk! She is my daughter" Daemon tried walking out again but this time it was Daena's voice that stopped him.

"Her grace is right, my prince, please do not kill him because of me. I am more than grateful for a trial" Daena moved out of Jace's embrace much to his dismay, he wanted to keep her in his arms and protect her. Rhaenyra watched the father walk over to his daughter with a softened gaze, she has never seen Daemon so soft, so gentle with any of his children Baela, Rhaena, Aegon, or Viserys.

"But he hurt you" Daemon placed his hand that was not holding Dark Sister on her cheek. She smiled sweetly at him and shook her head.

"I am alright, Prince Jacaerys saved me" She whispered. Daemon's eyes flashed to his stepson grateful. Daena leaned into her father hugging him around the middle. Daemon wrapped his free arm around her shoulder holding her close.

Rhaenyra felt a little guilty for being so hard on the soft girl, she was still Daemon'd blood meaning her blood. They were cousins and she was being a bitch. She could see the love her son held for Daena and she knew there was no stopping him from loving Daena, even if she forced him to marry Baela.

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karmarox · 6 days

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Kallamar the Coward, Pt 2: Famine and Pestilence

Expanding on my previous Kallamar headcanon, I wanted to go more in depth on these two, particularly because of how often I see fanon treat their relationship as kind of one note (IE "Heket is the strong girlboss and Kallamar is the wimp so lets see her push him around and bully him cuz it's funny har har har").

It's easy to presume that after the sealing of The One Who Waits and the Bishops' injuries, Heket took over as "leader" of the Old Faith, being the one to take charge in meetings and sermons, speaking first despite her injuries, commanding the others, and being especially mindful and doting of Shamura and concerned over their mental state.

Heket isn't particularly strong. She's only a bit stronger than Leshy. In fact, by the time you reach her, it's pretty easy for your Cult to have grown enough that she's practically a pushover compared to how limited you are when you only have Darkwood and the starting Cult facilities available to you.

The second youngest ended up being promoted to a parental figure, due to the eldest being in no state to lead, and the second eldest having evidently broken down from the stress and nobody acknowledging he had his own trauma despite how "light" his injuries were compared to everyone else.

I think Heket's view of her elder brother would have definitely been damaged after she was forced to step up due to his failings. But even then... I think she does care about him. Unlike how instantly ready Narinder and even Shamura are to criticize Kallamar, and unlike how the common fanon portrayal is ready to have all of the bishops tear Kallamar apart for the sake of the joke of him being a flat character, Heket never directly insults him. At most she's pushy and commanding and hard on him.

I'd like to think she wants him to help again. To get out of whatever funk he's in and be the responsible one that took care of her and Leshy and Shamura at the start. So she pushes, tries to get him to take charge. She knows her own weakness even if she won't admit it. She wants, needs him to be the Bishop she knows he can be, knows he used to be. Even in his cowardice and unwillingness to move she still has him as the second in command and wants him to work together with her to manage the Old Faith and, once the game happens, deal with the Lamb.

But dealing with trauma isn't as easy as just giving the victim a "push" to try to make them get over it. Heket is tragically unaware that if anything, her trying to force Kallamar out of his comfort zone might actually be making things worse, making him recede deeper and deeper into his anxieties, failures, and resentment.

Just look at how doting Heket always is towards Shamura. Even after all that's happened (even after everything was Shamura's fault it was their fault all their fault everyone is like this now), Heket looks up to Shamura the most, follows along everything they say, tries to do what she thinks will make Shamura proud. Even when Shamura hasn't even tried to hide that Narinder the traitor is and always will be their favorite!! How could Heket still care about Shamura? How come she's never showed any of that concern for him? Why does he have to be strong and tough it out all the time just because he's the elder and "only" lost his ears?

Kallamar resents Shamura, potentially even sincerely hates them because of everything. But Heket? Heket hurt Kallamar in a way she doesn't even realize. Really, they hurt each other. Not to the extent Narinder did to all of them, but unlike what Narinder did, these wounds are invisible.

It's tragic what brother and sister have been left to. Heket would never openly call Kallamar a coward or failure like the others, but she's clearly disappointed in her senior falling apart when everyone needed him most. Kallamar cares enough to still be by her side whenever she asks, but resents her for always pushing him around, and for the favoritism she shows towards Shamura despite all that he's done never openly being acknowledged. On the one hand, he's ready to criticize her leadership abilities behind her back (such as when chatting with the Lamb). On the other, once his little sister is dead (SHAMURA'S FAULT ALL THEIR FAULT AGAIN) he's immediately ready to disown and sell out Shamura. Some might say it's all to save his own skin because he knows he's next, but what if it's also because without his little siblings he doesn't have any reason to serve the Old Faith anymore?

But maybe... now that their responsibilities are gone, things can get better. Who knows, maybe one day they'll actually be able to communicate. Kallamar still holds a lot of resentment, and Heket is definitely not acclimating to the Cult well and seems to have just become a bitter, angry person to everyone around her now that she's been reduced to a mortal, but now that he's much more like his past self, I can see him trying to dote on his little siblings again. His relationship with Shamura and Narinder are probably damaged beyond ever even considering repair, but Heket? She'll always be the little frog he had to take care of while Shamura was busy playing favorites.

#Cult of the Lamb #Kallamar #Heket #character study #headcanon #my stuff #my writing

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aetheternity · 1 year

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"Venti stans are low key annoying complaining about Venti not being the main focus of the Windblume festival."

First off we do not care. Second off ok???? Literally every character stan complains about their fave not getting enough screen time hop off.

It isn't even about screen time for me. It's about the fact that Venti hasn't truly felt like Venti in several updates. The last time he truly felt like himself was during Weinlesefest but even then he still didn't feel like the Venti we met all the way back during the first archon quest. And I don't wanna hear "hE hAd cHaRaCtEr dEvLoPmEnT." Cause no that isn't what happened, he regressed as a character. He's becoming fanon Venti in game. He gets used for alcohol jokes and Paimon calls him lazy then he dips. 🙄

"He was just in the Lantern Rite.." Shut Up. Shut Up. Shut all the fucking way up! He was terrible in LR and honestly if you cut Venti out of LR you basically have the same event. He did literally nothing of substance and he shouldn't have been there at all.

The first Windblume festival centered around Venti and showed us more of Venti being Mondstadt's archon. The second Windblume festival has barely anything to do with him. Excuse us if we're fucking disappointed, we have every right to be. Like I said literally every character's stans complain about them not getting enough screen time. Yeah sure if every Mondstadt event centered Venti it'd get old but the biggest problem is they decided to center a MONDSTADT EVENT around fucking SUMERU CHARACTERS. Fucking Collei gets more screen time than any Mondstadt character. Which wouldn't be a problem but this is a main Mondstadt event. Even though Venti was in LR 3 he wasn't a main focus he was a background character to the rest of the cast. Which is what Collei should've been cut out Tighnari and Cyno.

Mondstadt has so many underutilized characters and their screen time got spliced for the Sumeru fuckers who already have too much screen time. The entire last five updates have had Cyno in almost everything and Tighnari as well and while Collei has less screen time than them she has yet to be under used. If this was about Collei meeting up with Amber again they could've had that in a different event. If this was about Collei facing her anxiety it could've happened in a different event. They should've just had Sucrose helping Mondstadters cause guess what? You think this is going to be the last time a nation's event gets characters bombarding in? Hell no Fontaine is coming soon we're one hundred percent going to get nation festivals with random characters that have nothing to do with anything probably until the end of the game.

We'll see how happy ya'll are when your fave gets less screen time for some randos that have nothing to do with the nation you care about.

#venti #windblume breath #windblume festival 3.5 #tw vent #idc if this sounds entitled #like what're you going to do about that #like we literally just got Mika introduced and he has less screen time than the sumeru cast so far #we have fucking Noelle and oh shocker I didn't see my baby Diona anywhere looks like they forgot about her again!#this is a main Mondstadt event you can't slap the title Windblume festival on it then have it mostly center randos from other nations #even if Venti wasn't the focus Collei should've had less screen time #She has plenty of time to get over her damn anxiety in another event this shouldn't have been so about her #genshin impact #come at me fuckers #i said what i said #i said what needed to be said #And I'm not taking it back #And yes I am saying all of this while having enjoyed Cyno's appearance but I am still disappointed and I have the right to that

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sherifftillman · 1 year

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busy streets and busy lives • ralph penbury x reader

A strange day at work gets even stranger when you meet a man who claims he's from 1926. With no certainty as to when he can get back, you decide to take him in until that time arrives.

masterlist | prev. | next

Tags: Timewasters (series), modern!au, slow burn, mutual pining, idiots in love™, fluff, some angst, swearing and mentions of adult themes throughout, eventual adult content, alcohol content, drug content, penbury is a fanon surname

Word count: 8.8k

A/N: Here it is, folks. The one you've all been waiting for. Enjoy. <3

I might have been a tiny wee bit self indulgent at one point in particular. Bet you can't tell where.

You frown as you swipe to answer the call from Scott. "Who died?"

"Woooow," a very familiar sarcastic response rings through your ear. "Can't a friend just call up another in this day and age?" You let the silence linger just long enough for him to then add, "Yeah, I'm chatting shit. No, I was going to ask, are you running late?"

You frown, "No, I'm not long about to close up now. Why'd you ask?"

"Well, Ralph texted me." He puts on a voice, the way you all do when talking about your flatmate. "Good afternoon, Scott. I hope you have been keeping well, and that the snow hasn't interrupted your daily life. I would like to request your assistance, I am aware that we have been tasked with making dessert for the Pal Valentine's Day meal later, but unfortunately I have noticed that we are severely lacking in eggs. I was simply wondering if, by chance you could bring some up to the flat? I would be most grateful, and willing to more than compensate you financially! Regards, Ralph."

You groan, "I asked him to get eggs this morning, he didn't want to because there were kids throwing snowballs and he was scared he'd get caught up in it. I told him to suck it up, because they can smell fear, but he's clearly too chicken-shit to go out there."

"Aww, he's never even had a snowball fight before? What even was his childhood?!" You rasp, hoping to quickly evade that topic. "Oh my god, you thinking what I’m thinking?”

You grin, “I think I am. You wanna rally the troops?”

“On it.”

You look up from your phone, still giggling, to see two of your sales assistants watching you, looking at each other and waggling their eyebrows at each other. You shake your head, “At this point, you’re well beyond barking up the wrong tree! My friend Scott and I are planning something,” you flash your eyes mischievously, and they tut back at you.

“Well, at this point, it’s not like we were expecting you to have some hot date on the other end of the line, is it?” One of them jokes, nudging the other as they run off and busy themselves at the other end of the store, still cackling.

“You two are lucky you’re my favourites!” You shout after them with a laugh. “Can I trust you to close up tonight?”

“Nah, we’re gonna loot the place,” one answers with a false sincerity.

“You poor sods won’t find much here,” you point out. “But thank you, you’re the best!” You singsong as you head past them to the back room.

“Then pay us more!” Another jokes.

“If I had control over who earns what, d’you not think I’d have done that by now? You wound me,” you dramatically push your hand to your chest as you walk backwards through the door out of the main shop floor. Once you’ve collected all your belongings, and put on all your layers, it’s pretty much time to close anyway. You salute your colleagues with a, “Godspeed getting home tonight,” and brave the cold.

Since the roads hadn’t been salted by the time you needed to get to work, you’d walked there, and while you would much rather be sitting in a heated car than feeling your cheekbones freeze over, it’s quite nice to walk through the streets of Croydon, watching the thick snow fall with the slightest bit of sun still peeking through. A gentle little reminder that longer, warmer days are just around the corner, and that winter’s soon at an end.

You’re greeted in front of your tower block by all your friends, all with varying expressions. Scott and Connor are eagerly plotting, Anna still looks a little unsure, and Grace just looks like she’s fed up of the cold. “So, what’s the plan, who’s getting him to come downstairs?” you ask once you’re with them.

“That’s what we were just deciding,” Scott replies.

“My suggestion was that Anna would be the least suspicious, but she wants no part of this,” Connor pulls a face and Anna slaps his arm.

“Shut up! I still think it’s mean,” she frowns, and you hold her arm comfortingly.

“Listen, who’d you rather be the first people to engage Ralph in any kind of snow fight, us or those little pricks up there?” You jerk your head over to where a group of middle school-age boys are playing around together.

She sighs, “Fine, but I’m aiming for his feet, okay?”

“Aw, but it’s fifty points if you hit his face,” Scott teases.

“Okay, okay, before Grace gets hypothermia, let’s just get this over and done with, shall we?” You ask, and Grace nods from somewhere beneath her fluffy hood. “Scott, he asked you to pick up those eggs, didn’t he? Just make up some guff about how they’ve locked the front doors so he needs to come push the button to let you in.”

Scott nods, texts something, and within a few minutes pumps his fist with excitement. “Okay, he says he’ll do it! I told him to wrap up and let me know when he’s on his way down.”

“Tell him you’ve had to step away from the doors so it doesn’t look like you’re loitering,” Connor adds, “so he can’t just run back.”

“Okay, this does feel a little mean, now,” you admit, and Anna looks at you incredulously.

“No, no, you don’t get to back out now! Not after all that talking me round!”

“Yeah, c’mon, you two have been smooth sailing for ages now, surely there’s something that you can only get off your chest by a one-time snowball pelting?” Scott asks, and you think for a moment.

“He did watch the rest of that new show we were watching without me and then spoiled the ending,” you ponder.

“Jail.” Grace pulls her hood back momentarily to stare at you with wide, serious eyes.

You nod, “Yeah. Or a snowball to the shoulder. Both are the same punishment, I think.”

“Totally,” Connor sneers, and you and Grace both flip him off - or you assume that’s why she’s holding the back of her hand up to him, it’s hard to tell with her wearing mittens, but it does put everyone into a heap of laughter.

Connor’s phone beeps, and he gasps as he looks at his screen. “Alright, gang, he’s on his way down! Lock and load.”

You all get into position, snowballs in gloved hands, as you watch Ralph push the door open with ease, walk through it and look back with a frown. He tentatively moves forward one cautious step at a time, his big baby-cow eyes darting around all the while. You all hide a little further back each time until he’s inevitably in line with you all. He looks at Scott first, then his hand, then around at all of you. “Oh, fiddlesticks,” he whispers.

“This is for your own good, mate,” Connor grimaces as you all throw your missiles at him. With a half-scream, half-squawk sound, Ralph tensely curls himself up in self-defence, holding that position long after he’s been hit. “See, mate, that wasn’t so bad, was it? And that was all of us!”

“I thought you were all my friends,” he glares indignantly at you all, and you nod.

“Yeah, which is why we did it knowing you wouldn’t get hurt,” you point out. “You’re alright now, aren’t you?” He nods tentatively. “See? And the best bit, is now it’s your turn, and you get pick of the lot as to who you hit first.”

“Just hit me first, if you like, I won’t mind, and I won’t hit you again, either,” Anna shrugs, but Ralph studies all of you.

“Who’s idea was this?” He eventually asks Anna, who quickly points to you and Scott.

“Wooooow,” Scott shakes his head, but Anna simply flips him off.

Ralph bends down, eyes still flitting between all of you, as he grabs two handfuls of snow and immediately flings them both at the two of you. While you get a tiny little lump that just grazes your chest, at least he landed it with Scott, as that one flew out of his grip and straight into Scott’s mouth. A laugh bubbles out of Ralph’s lips and you all grin back at him.

“Okay, that was good, but a good snowball is two handfuls, smushed together into, yeah, that’s it, just like- ack!” Connor is silenced and humbled by Ralph throwing his third and far bigger snowball, straight into his stomach. “Prick,” he laughs as he scoops another one up to toss at Ralph again, who manages to evade it this time. “Mine was way bigger than theirs!” He makes another, adding, “Although, while I’m here, if you’re not retaliating…” Before extending himself to standing and throwing one at Anna with an almost evil cackle.

Anna gasps, “Only not to Ralph, asshole!” And throws one back at him with a giggle.

Before long, you’re all running around, including Ralph, throwing snowballs at each other and laughing like you were kids again. You’d never had thought, at your big age, that this is how you’d be spending a snowy day, but it brings back good memories of you and your four oldest friends, knocking at each other’s doors after the local news had announced that your school was closed, taking old bin lids up the steepest hills you could climb to slide down again. You look over at Ralph, with the apples of his cheeks glowing as red as his ears and the tip of his nose from all the cold, his whole face lit up as he catapults snowballs in the strangest fashion, and wonder what snow days must have been like for him. Obviously, he wasn’t sledding down hills on bin lids, but you’d have thought he and Victoria and their friends would have had friendly snowball fights. Though, you remember, from what you’ve learned of Victoria and her friends, perhaps those weren’t so friendly when aimed at Ralph.

Your thoughts are interrupted when another snowball hits Ralph, though not from any direction that any of you are standing. You all look over to the gang of young boys, snickering at each other for having landed one on “one of the oldies”, especially commending the offender for “getting the posh one”.

Though rage boils through all of you, it’s Grace, already warmed up from running around, who pushes her hood back to give them all a death stare and tell them, “You’ll regret that.”

As though called to arms, the five of you form a protective wall in front of Ralph and start hurling snowballs at the group of pre-teens at top speed until one of them yells, “Alright, alright, truce! Mercy! Whatever word gets you to stop!”

Just as you all stop, one more snowball flies up above all of you. Over your heads, down, down, and lands perfectly on top of the head of the kid that the others were praising for hitting Ralph. All your friends spin around on the spot so that all of you, as well as the boys, could stare in disbelief at Ralph, who has a small but very proud smile on his face. “Oi, that was sick!” One of the boys yells out. You mouth to Ralph that that’s a good thing as the other boys start laughing and cheering for him, too.

“Okay, alright, we’ve all had our fun,” you start holding your hands up in the air, “but this isn’t getting Palentine’s dinner ready, is it?”

“Isn’t it Valentine’s? That’s tomorrow, innit?” One of the boys answers.

“Nah, isn’t Pal-a-tine the wrinkly geezer from Star Wars?” Another asks.

“I thought it was that place that’s always fighting with Israel,” another comments.

“Maybe pay more attention to your teachers, yeah?” You ask them with a slight nod. You turn to the others. “Still meeting at Anna’s?” You ask, and they all non-verbally confirm. “Cool, see you guys in a bit. Ralphie!” You shout for him and he springs to attention, practically jumping to stand next to you. You smirk, “Ready to go get those eggs I asked for this morning?” He nods sadly and you nudge him towards the row of shops.

As you walk away, Ralph mutters, “I know I’m not supposed to interfere with knowledge about those world wars, but have there really already been ones in space, too?”

Had the snowball incident not already happened, you’d have absolutely messed with Ralph by convincing him that Star Wars were actual battles that took place in outer space. However, enough guilt consumes you that you correct him by trying to explain the entire movie franchise to him as you buy the eggs you need. Though he listens intently and nods attentively, you can tell from the vacant look in his eyes that nothing’s really going in, but at least he’s trying.

Baking with Ralph sounds like a nightmare, but he’s a diligent little helper when he’s trying. He measures your ingredients for you and he’s quick to wash up your equipment once you’re done with it. You’d only planned to go for the safe option of a simple sponge cake, predicting disaster, but the speed at which you’re all done leaves you pleasantly surprised. You’re even able to snap a little photo for Ralph’s instagram without him noticing. Once you’re all dolled up, he suggests you both take one to “show” his instagram and twitter accounts, but you opt to keep that one for just the camera roll. You’ve not seen or heard any speculation about your potential love life revolving around Ralph, and you’d like to keep it that way.

Once you finally get to Anna’s, after explaining that the boys outside of your flats had since decided to gather all the snow in the street to make one giant snowball, and had recruited you and Ralph to roll it when it got too big for them to, until you two couldn’t either. “Perfectly understandable reason,” Connor nods in understanding, and the others agree.

Once all the food is laid out, you’re glad that you all a) worked up an appetite and b) ended up pushing dinner back on top of that, because everybody preparing separate dishes has definitely overestimated what six portions of each part should be. Regardless, it’s another night of eating food, chatting away and ending with dancing around Anna’s living room, much like Ralph’s second night with you.

Another morning of February 14th, another empty bed to wake up in. You sit up, stretching out your arms, and grab your phone to look through the folder in your phone labelled “shitty mspaint valentines” to send to your friends and some of your coworkers, to make them laugh. You’re met with some laughing reactions, some rebuttals and a couple of reactions that you can tell were written with a sarcastic eye roll, which only spurs you on more.

You also post a photo you took yesterday to Ralph’s instagram, to keep his brand alive:

You’re about to drag yourself out of bed when the door opens to reveal Ralph, holding out a tray with two plates piled with waffles, two glasses of fruit juice and two mugs of tea. You watch him carefully set it at the foot of the bed and then sit next to you with your lower lip out in an affectionate pout. “Aww, Ralphie, what’s all this about?”

“Well, usually tradition would have it that Father and I would take Mother and Victoria breakfast in bed on St Valentine’s Day morning, as a tradition, and so Victoria insisted that tradition still be upheld even after our parents… Well, let’s not already put a dampener on the day before it starts! You’ll have to forgive the absence of flowers, I used to have the luxury of picking them out of the garden, but none of the plants in the flat are flowering, and it would be criminal of me to steal from others’ gardens, and all the florists were specifically selling bundles that were far too big for such a gesture, an-”

“Deep breath,” you coach him as you put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “It’s sweet that you still wanted to uphold your little tradition. You know, my dad used to leave me and Mum Valentine’s cards on the doormat, each from “a secret admirer”, though it used to terrify me at first because I didn’t realise it was him!” You pull a face as you take a bite out of a waffle, and Ralph laughs softly. “’Course, after a while, it’d get a bit embarrassing having your dad be your Valentine, but hey, it was one more than I’ve been getting these past few years!” You finish your mouthful and wave the rest of the waffle at him. “These are pushing the boat out for you! Get you!”

“Yes, my dear American friend recommended them to me! And I managed to successfully cook them in the toaster oven!” Ralph chimes gleefully.

“Look at you go!” You beam proudly. “Soon enough, you won’t even need me!”

“Oh, don’t be preposterous,” he mutters under his breath just before taking a big sip of his tea. “Any plans for the day?”

“You mean, other than beating the hoards of men waiting for me outside that door with a stick?” You joke, and Ralph chuckles lightly. You shake your head. “Might just do another self-care day. Be my own Valentine, as if things weren’t sad enough!”

“Well, perhaps I could join you, and we would be our own ones together,” Ralph offers. He awaits your reaction with bated breath. If that goes well, perhaps he could segue into asking you to be his actual Valentine, and that would be at least one more step above simply being housemates, over being bedmates, even.

You take a deep breath in. Maybe you could ask Ralph if he’s willing to take it the slightest step further and be each other’s Valentines. It’s just an arbitrary title, really, but at least you’d have one this year. And, whenever Ralph finally leaves, at least you can remember him as more than just your flatmate who you platonically shared a bed with. Wistfully reminiscing over a Valentine does sound more romantic.

But, you have to respect his boundaries. If he felt comfortable enough to make you breakfast in bed, he would have accompanied it with a request for you to be his, but he didn’t. He’s offering to be his own Valentine, parallel to you. Message received. “That’d be nice!” You put all your effort into trying not to sound disappointed.

It works, as Ralph reads your reaction as being very happy with that idea, and he daren’t tread over that line. “Very well. So, what does being your own Valentine mean?”

“For me? Junk food, junk TV, and in this weather, wearing at least two blankets at all times,” you count off on your fingers, making Ralph laugh. “Though I better head out and get you some of your favourites, too.”

He frowns, “There’s no need, you’ll catch your death of cold out there!”

“I mean, obviously I’d get dressed first,” you pull a face. “But yeah, you deserve to get spoiled a little, too. I mean, you did all this for me,” you gesture to the tray, but Ralph rasps flippantly. “Plus,” you add with a smirk, “don’t want you hoarding all my favourite snacks.”

“There it is!” Ralph grins, pointing a finger to you and leaning in so it hovers close to your nose, making you laugh.

“You caught me!” You hold your hands up in mock guilt. “I’ll head out in a bit, okay?”

Once breakfast is over, and you’ve washed up after you both despite Ralph insisting he would do it and trying to get in - which resulted in some rather creative ways of blocking him out of the kitchen - you get dressed ready to brave yet another cold front.

You know what Ralph’s most favourite sweets are. Jelly Babies. But the ones he loves the most aren't the kind you can get from any shop - of course not, that would be too easy, and this is Ralph. No, his favourites come from an old fashioned sweet shop that lives on the same street as the shop he works in. You remember its location vividly. as you'd made a point to think about memorising it and nothing else the day you'd dropped off a treat to Ralph while at work and seen his latest idea in action - an immersive display where he dresses up to fit in with it too. But you'd firmly blocked that mental image out of your head. Of him surrounded by Wild West imagery while wearing a cowboy hat, a plaid shirt and very well-fitting jeans. You definitely hadn’t focused on that at all.

The trek to the old high street is a long one, especially since the snow that wasn’t quite gritted over had formed a barrier of sludge along the roadside that was creeping into the remnants of yesterday’s clean, soft, crunchy snowfall. You make the most of the childlike wonder that comes from stomping through it while you can, before it inevitably ices over into a deathly lumpy terrain.

You spot someone ahead hobbling through the snow, walking in your direction. You watch them carefully, unsure whether to try and help, casually walk past or actively avoid them, when an unmistakably pungent aroma precedes them. You study them a little closer and shout in recognition, “Homeless Pete!”

The man looks up and grunts at you. “How‘ve you been? Not seen you in ages!” He shrugs. Heart sinking, you note, “You were walking with quite a purpose there. Headed anywhere in particular?” Your fears are confirmed when he points over to the block of flats Ralph showed you that he’d emerged from almost half a year ago. “Oh… Today? It’s working?!” You ask, feeling your heart hurl through the ground. He nods, then gestures to you and flashes you a hopeful look. “What?! No! Not me! No, d’you remember, you brought a guy back with you from the 20s? Well, not these 20s, the nineteen-twenties.”

He looks blankly at you. You groan, “Please don’t tell me you’re some kind of past Pete who doesn’t know about Ralph, I don’t need a migraine today.” The name seems to resonate with Pete, which is promising. “Yes! Ralph! You remember! He was all dressed up like he was in the army! And he ended up coming back with you! And then he ended up with me! S’pose I better… Could you hold off on using it until I can get him there, too?” Your words hang heavy with sadness, but you knew this day was coming.

Pete stands there in silence for a moment, thinking. He traces the air from time to time, then claps his hands, making you jump. He mimes scratching at a beard along his own stubble-covered jaw. “You mean, you’ve seen Ralph with a beard now?” He nods, pointing downwards in front of himself. “You’ve spoken to him?” Another nod. Pete looks up at the tower block, then at you, gestures with two hands towards the building, then makes an X shape with his arms, waving them down.

“Please just fucking speak, mate.” You sigh, but he just repeats his actions. As you look lost again, he holds his two hands out again, but stops, looking at you in waiting. “So, that’s you and Ralph?” You guess, and he nods. He moves his hands up towards the building. “You and Ralph went to the place with the… Time machine.” Saying it out loud still sounds insane, even after all this time. He holds one hand close to him, and waves the other one out at you. “Is that one meant to be him?” Another nods, and then the crossed-arms gesture. You frown. “Ralph… Didn’t go in with you?” He shakes his head. “Why not?” He shrugs.

The sorrow and confusion you’ve been feeling this whole conversation start to curdle into all kinds of other feelings. There’s still some confusion there, but mostly it’s anger, frustration, disbelief. He knew how cautious you were about this day finally arriving. He knew of all the countless sleepless nights you’d spent trying to figure out things like how to hide him from your landlord, what to do if he ever falls ill. He knew that every time you picked up your post, you feared a letter from the government with big red letters asking to confirm the identity of the man who’s been claiming to live there despite not being legally registered to. He knows that you’ve been up until all hours some nights searching desperately for some kind of explanation for this phenomenon, since it can’t just be something that only Homeless Pete knows about.

Things had been going so well, especially since Christmas. You’d made peace with the fact that the clock was very much ticking with how long you’d have left with Ralph, and especially after Brighton, you had been telling yourself over and over to not sweat the small stuff, and to just enjoy having him around. You’d figured that with your feelings for him growing stronger the more that he’s around, it’s better for everyone if, instead of constantly counteracting them with the negatives, you’d just let yourself get over him quietly.

Maybe you should have been more forceful. Created more boundaries. Made it more obvious that he can’t just cheat his own fate, who knows what kind of damage he’s done to… Literally the entire universe, anything could be possible! You’d thought you’d always made it so clear to Ralph to always be preparing for the day he goes back. That no matter how great the life is he’s made for himself here, at the end of the day, all this is, is a learning experience for him to take this level of confidence back with him to his own time.

Forgoing the sweet shop, and any other shop for that matter, you make a beeline home, your steps far more deliberate and angry than the gentle march you had been taking through the snow. Even the sight of the lift in your building angers you, so you push your way up the stairs up until the ninth floor, storming through your front door.

Ralph looks over at you from where he sits on the sofa, delight on his face, which quickly falls when he sees your expression. “Is everything alright?”

“Is it?!” You screech. “Have a guess who I saw out there.”

He frowns. “I’m not sure, I didn’t quite think there was anyone out there who upset you to that degree. Would you like some tea or something to calm down?”

“Don’t you dare tell me to ‘calm down’ when you are the reason I haven’t felt ‘calm’ for almost six months now!” You hold your forehead, and Ralph looks back at you, confused, sad and a little scared.

“I - I quite apologise, is there something I’ve done that’s brought this -”

“Don’t you go giving me the ‘oh, yes, quite’ spiel,” you mock his tone, “not when you’ve been lying to me under my own roof! I trusted you!” You stop yourself when you hear your voice crack at that last sentiment.

He swallows hard. “In what respect have I been dishon-”

“I saw H.P. while I was out, didn’t I?! Going towards that block of flats. So I tell him, I say, oh hang about, Pete, let me go grab Ralph so he can go back. And what do you think he told me?!” You ask, now stood next to the couch, squatting down to get eye level with Ralph.

His eyes dart as he wrings his hands, his eyes squeezing shut and open over and over again. “Yes, well, you see, that -”

“Right, all this umm-ing and ahh-ing is just… Annoying me even more,” you state, rubbing your temples. “I just want the facts, Ralph.”

“You said not to talk about anything from that weekend,” he mutters, and you look at him in disbelief.

“You’ve been holding out on me about this since November?!” You ask incredulously.

“You said! Not to talk! About anything! From that weekend!” Ralph jumps to his feet, punctuating every gap in his sentence with a chop to his palm.

You stand back up to level with him. “Yeah, as in all the shit about - God, are we really gonna drag all of that into light again, now?!”

“Well, if we could just talk about it, calmly,” Ralph gesticulates, but you scoff.

“You gave up all rights to that the moment you started lying to me,” your voice shakes. “It’s you, Ralph. You’re the one person I don’t expect to lie to me, since I don’t lie to you.”

He rasps in disbelief. “That’s not entirely true, now, is it? Or else you wouldn’t react so harshly. There’s something you’re hiding from me, isn’t there? Has your sense of charity finally worn, is that it?” He speaks with the venom in his tone that you’ve only ever heard whenever he’s talking about himself. “What, have you been counting the days down until you could throw me back out? Is that why you’re up until the ungodly hours, researching how to get rid of me sooner?”

You groan, pressing your fingers into your eyelids. “You can’t keep doing this, you can’t just keep making yourself the victim here when that obviously isn’t what I want!”

“Ah, yes, well, you must forgive me for not realising sooner that everything here is exactly as it always has been for my entire life,” Ralph spits. “People pretending to care about me to then use me for my money, or my social status, is one thing, but I have nothing here. Nothing but… Being a pitiful little man.”

“How many more times are we going to have this argument, Ralph? Everybody loves you here!” You punctuate every syllable of the first word with claps. “It’s not just because they pity you, because they don’t know you! They don’t know how you got here, or anything about your shitty family, people just like you! You have to stop being so narrow-minded and start seeing how this,” you gesture in circles in front of him, “affects the rest of us! Especially me, I’m out here having to - to keep track of what secrets I’m keeping and what lies I’m telling to who.”

“Yes, well. Nobody asked you to,” he mutters, looking at the floor.

Your blood now boiling, and all rationality out of the window, you scoff, “Oh, so now you’re ungrateful?!” His eyes snap to yours, but you carry on before he can interrupt you again. “I put my job on the line every time I have to leave early for you. I put my entire livelihood on the line harbouring a fugitive that doesn’t legally exist anywhere, not to mention that I have no clue what to do if you ever need urgent medical attention, if my landlord suddenly decides to kick me out, I don’t know how I’m going to keep them from finding out about you and potentially charging me a fuckton extra, I just - You can’t just think about everything I risk for you even once, can you?”

He frowns, “How dare you say that I don’t care?! I keep a healthy diet, despite all the times you decide we’ll just take away food instead, I keep to myself as much as possible other than the things that you have me do, and whenever I do leave the flat, I leave no trace that I was ever here!”

“Look, we’re getting away from the main problem, here, and I’m not skirting around it any more,” you shake your head. “Why did you lie to me?”

“Strictly speaking, I’ve never told a lie, merely omitted my meeting with Peter from any conversation between you and I,” he points out, and you scowl at him. He sighs, “But you don’t understand. If I told you that, you’d want to know why. And I can’t - there are far bigger things at play here,” he shakes his head.

You look at him in disbelief, “Like what?! Are you some kind of time-travelling spy? An intergalactic detective?”

“Clearly not,” Ralph scoffs.

“Then what, Ralph?” You raise your voice. “What possible reason do you have for - for causing me all that grief all those months ago, just to then go against the one thing you were supposed to do, putting the fate of whatever’s out there at risk all while only living the life of half a person, hm? Why would you choose to stay here like this?!”

“Because I’m in love with you, obviously!”

You and Ralph stare at each other for what feels like hours of silence. His wide, terrified eyes boring into yours as his whole face turns red. His lip quivers and then, suddenly, he pushes past you as you’re still frozen on the spot. You just about turn around to see the last of him rush out of the door, carrying his shoes in his hand.

His coat still hangs on the door, and you can see the snow is falling again. Not realising you’d been holding a breath in the whole time, you groan it out as you grab his coat, wrapping it around your arm to avoid it dragging on the floor, and head out to follow him. You see the display above the lift counting down and curse yourself for having worn yourself out on the way up here earlier.

You huff your way back down the stairs and try to find any trace of where Ralph could have gone. You study the footprints in the snow, vaguely recognising some in the shape of Ralph’s shoes, and decide that it’s as good a lead as any to try and follow them, though they quickly disappear once you get to the main street area. You notice someone loitering and decide it’s worth a shot.

Running across the road to meet them, you ask, “I know this sounds strange, but have you seen a guy go past? Had on a fuzzy blue jumper and no coat, I mean like -”

“Like he was wearing the Cookie Monster’s skin?” They ask with amusement. You sigh with relief, nodding hurriedly and they point, “Went towards the old high street, looked like he was tweaking.”

You thank them and start running as quickly as the resistance from the snow will allow you. It doesn’t help that the wind happens to be blowing the snowfall directly into your face, causing you to constantly stop to rub your eyes or sputter at whatever lands on your mouth.

Once you get back to the street you’d just been to moments before, you sigh with exhaustion as there doesn’t seem to be any trace of him. You still begin pacing the street, looking in every shop window that you pass. You wonder whether he’s hiding at his work, where you wouldn’t be able to get near him, and whether it would be worth asking in there. You’re on good enough terms with his colleague now, and perhaps the eclectic owner of the store might lift your spirits a little. There’s an awful lot of emotional weights on your chest right now, and you’re not sure which ones you’re supposed to be holding. You’re not entirely sure of anything right now, other than that you need to find Ralph.

Not paying attention to what’s in front of you at all, you end up almost vaulting over some poor baby’s stroller as their mother tries to get past you. “Oh my god, I am so sorry!” You apologise hurriedly, and she looks at you with a weirdly knowing smile.

“You looking for the guy who’s been cutting about in just his jumper?” She asks, gesturing to the coat in your arms.

Your eyes widen, “Yes! Oh my god! Have you seen him?!”

“Nice fella, helped me get the little’un across the road amongst all the snow. Really posh?” You nod again, hoping to egg her along. She eventually tells you, “Yeah, I told him to hurry up and get inside, he’ll catch his death! He went over there, towards them flats.” You don’t even need to look in the direction she’s pointing to know where she means.

You thank her profusely, adding a, “Cute baby!” over your shoulder as you quickly make your way down to your next clue.

Thankfully, it’s more than just that, as you find Ralph leaning against the wall of the building just next to the front door, squatting not far from the ground, his arms crossed over his torso and his head sunk low.

He doesn’t look at you as you walk over to him, but you hold his coat out in front of him. “At least put this on, yeah? That mum’ll have your throat, otherwise.” He silently reaches out for it and stands to put it on.

“He’s not here,” he mutters quietly. “Peter, I mean.”

“So, that was your answer to all of this?” You ask, your voice strangely calm considering how tumultuous your internal monologue is. “To just run back to your old life and leave this one all unanswered and up in arms? No care as to how it’d affect anyone else?”

“Of course I care about - well, I suppose the cat's out of the bag. Of course I care about you. It’s why I thought I shan’t burden you any further. I’ve already insulted your generosity by assuming you hadn’t the agency to tell me that you didn’t want me, without taking into account that perhaps you were being genuine. It’s what caused all that trouble when we were in Brighton. And I didn’t want you to feel any more obligated to do anything more out of - I can’t describe it as anything other than pity, but I never wanted you to feel as though you had to pity me, either.”

You sigh, “Look, I get it. It’s complicated as all fuck. Trust me, I’ve been trying to work out all the ins and outs and ups and downs of it all for months, now. But anything here, it just - we don’t know what it’s gonna do, you know? There’s far bigger forces at play here, you literally travelled through time, surely that’s cocked the universe up cosmically somehow? I don’t even know,” you groan in frustration.

“Well, obviously, I wouldn’t have agreed to stay unless I absolutely knew it wasn’t going to put you at any risk. But Peter stated that… Lauren and the rest, they’ve yet to make any sort of return. And since they could have chosen any time, they surely would have by now. I think… I think they stayed, in the past. And it’s not as though the sky’s turned upside down as a result, or that the world is being run by lizard people, now.”

“Depends on who you ask,” you mutter to yourself with a smirk, before looking over at Ralph. “I’m just hurt that you didn’t think to tell me. I know, I know, it was that weekend, but still. You could have told me that you’d thought it safe to stay, regardless of when you’d figured it out.”

“Would you have still been mad at me?” He asks quietly.

“Honestly? Probably,” you shrug. “I’d probably have argued the toss with you over every single possibility that things could still go wrong. But I’d never, ever force you to come here. Haven’t I been saying it all along? I don’t want you to leave. I’ve been dreading the day that you’re not in my bed anymore, that the flat becomes too quiet again, that I’ll have to spend my evenings watching TV alone without your constant nagging.”

“I thought that rather bothered you,” the hint of a soft smile just about tugs at the corners of Ralph’s lips.

“Oh, it does,” you admit, laughing softly, “but I don’t even want to think about a life where I won’t hear any of that, again. You know, and - and just being reminded of you all the time. All our friends always asking after you, and talking about you, never letting me get over you. I’d stay up at night, staring at the bedroom door from the sofa, wondering what’d be worse; that, or you living your old life meaning that you’d never have existed in mine, meaning I’d have no memory of you at all.”

“I’d always perished the thought of leaving - well, all of you, but especially you,” Ralph’s voice is still quiet. “You’d always - always tell me to tell my sister and Lauren to shove it, but honestly, I don’t think I could ever do that without you there with me. Even if they were to throw me out and I had to find my own way around, nobody else would hold a candle to…” He takes a deep sigh. “I always… I know I’ve always been the hopeless romantic, it’s one of my biggest flaws. And after falling for Lauren as soon as I’d seen her, and everything that happened thereafter, I swore to myself that I’d never let myself do that, again. That’s why I joined the French Foreign Legion, so I could focus on the task at hand, and learning how to build a camaraderie with my fellow soldiers. Except none of them wanted to do that. And so I left, and I ended up right here, and it was only a few streets away that -”

“That some dickhead spilled coffee all over you,” you finish his sentence with a smirk.

“I told you then as well, didn’t I, you’re far from one of those,” Ralph looks at you softly. “But I felt it all come back again. Everything I felt when I first saw Lauren. And before Lauren, when it was Maggie. And before Maggie, when it was - oh, heavens, you don’t need to hear about all my failings. But every time, I acted too quickly, and I only caused myself shame and heartbreak. And when I ended up here, I needed - well, something or someone, anything to anchor me, I had no clue what was happening to me. But you were so kind to me, from the very beginning. And I didn’t want to jeopardise your generosity by ruining it the same way I ruin most other things. So I kept my feelings to myself, for once, hoping that the time to leave would catch up before I let my feelings grow. But here we are,” he sighs. “I suppose I shall have to come clean to the others, and seek refuge with one of them. Though not one of your friends as well, I would never put you in that position. I’d have to perhaps tell Loz, out of all of those…”

You frown, “But why would you have to?” He opens his mouth to answer, but you interrupt him, “You’ve not once asked me how I feel about you.”

“Yes, well, you made some things rather obvious in the flat,” he replies coolly.

“Fair enough,” you nod, “but don’t you think I’d only overreact like that if I was really upset? And that I’d only be that upset if I cared about you so much that it’d break my heart to think you could have lied to me? You’ve yet to ask me how I feel about all of this.”

Ralph wrings his hands together, wincing as though bracing for a physical impact as he asks, “Of course, my apologies. So… How do you feel?”

“It’s hard to say,” you admit, trying not to laugh at his offended face. “Okay, I know, I’m being a dick again. I’m just… I dunno, even though, like, I know now that I can say it, it’s still not easy to just, say out loud for the first time.” You let out a long and shaky breath. “I think that… I’ve never been in love before. But if feeling safer being around you, and always wanting to share my life with you, and dreading the day I never see you again, and my heart soaring every time your face lights up with happiness… I think all of those things are the kind of guff people talk about in those romance films. And I didn’t think those kinds of feelings happened in real life, but… I think I know it, now.” You hold his face in your hands and finally say the words that have been dying to leave you all this time. “I love you, Ralph.”

He looks awestruck back at you. You study his face for any other reaction at all, and after a few beats, any sign of life since he remains unmoving, but he soon gleefully grins, leaning in to kiss you. You meet him halfway, moving your arms to wrap around his neck as you press peck after peck against his lips. His arms wrap around your waist as you just kiss him, and nothing else, because nothing else matters. You only break away from each other for air, and to turn your heads to then resume kissing each other as the snow falls around you both.

It’s only when someone clears their throat to get your attention, commenting, “I know it’s Valentine’s Day, but Christ on a bike,” as they push past you, that you actually step away from each other for more than a split second.

You catch Ralph’s eye and hold your hand out to him, “Wanna go get some jelly babies, put on those face masks that make you look like you’re glowing and curl up watching crappy movies and stuffing our faces?”

“I could enjoy watching paint dry in your company, my love,” Ralph smiles warmly at you as he takes your hand, and you take a step back, aghast, but still intertwined with him.

“And where was Ralph the smooth-talker hiding this whole time?!” You ask incredulously, laughing as you fall into step with him.

“Oh, that’s nothing, darling,” he comments, and your heart flies into your throat. You’d heard him call you that in your dreams a hundred times over, but actually hearing it drives you wild. “As I said, I’ve always been quite the hopeless romantic. I’m afraid you’re going to be seeing that at full throttle, now.”

You cackle so hard you bend double. “Oh my god, I can’t believe I’m gonna see Full Throttle Ralph,” you just about manage to choke out the name through your laughter, and he frowns at you.

“I’m simply warning you that, in agreeing to our courtship, you understand that Ralph Penbury does nothing by halves.”

“Oh god, I’m gonna have to do a lot of catching up, then!” You joke, but he squeezes your hand.

“Oh, good gracious, no, you certainly don’t have to do that! You already do more than enough for me, and I don’t show love just to receive it back, anyway,” he shakes his head.

The journey back to your flat takes the best part of an hour, mostly because you keep interrupting your walk to pull Ralph in for more kisses on the way. You can’t help it, the way his face blushes with the cold just makes him look so adorable, who wouldn’t want to kiss him?!

Plus, when you’d gone to pick his sweets up, he’d told you he had somewhere else to be, run out of the shop, and returned minutes later just as you were leaving, with a bunch of flowers. “I’m cutting it a little short, I know, but would you like to be my Valentine?” He asks as he offers you them.

You take them as you exchange the bag of his sweets into his hands, gasping, “How did you find these so last minute?!”

“Well, they were in our window display,” he admits bashfully, and you laugh.

“Wait, these are from your shop?!”

Ralph nods. “Yes, but I don’t think they mind, too much. Babs was punching the air and telling me to ‘Get in, my son’, but I couldn’t leave you outside and I was technically born in time to be her father, let alone son,” he shakes his head, causing you to laugh even more.

“Shit, I forgot to answer you, didn’t I?!” You look over at Ralph adoringly. “I’d love to be your Valentine, Ralphie. D’you wanna be mine? I’m afraid the sweets won’t last nearly as long as these, as an offering, but -”

“They’re perfect. As is my Valentine this year,” he beams, kissing the part of your forehead not obscured by your hat.

Once you get home, you change out of your snow-soaked clothes and decide to wear the pyjamas you’d both gotten for Christmas from your parents. You wonder whether to tell your friends right off the bat what’s happened today. You know Ralph can keep a secret, but ever since you’d said those four words to him, he’s been practically shouting his devotion to you from the rooftops. As much as you can’t wait to share in this big milestone of yours with your best friends, you just want nothing more than some uninterrupted time to spend catching up with all the affection you’ve been so desperately wanting to give to Ralph this whole time, and vice versa. Besides, they’ve all got dates tonight, too. You don’t want to interrupt their evenings. That’s what you’ll tell them when they inevitably find out.

Instead, you spend the afternoon and well into the evening pampering yourself and your - Boyfriend? What would you even call Ralph? Although that remains short lived as he realises that face masks are just a barrier preventing more kissing from happening, and he pouts until he’s got full access once again. Every peck comes with its own sweet nothing - a declaration of love, a compliment, a comment of gratitude. Although he’d told you it wasn’t necessary, you do try to match his energy - but it just becomes exhaustive after a while.

You had your heart set on ordering from your favourite Chinese takeaway from this morning, before the day's events had transpired, but Ralph is more than happy to eat from there, as well. You even go so far as to try and teach him how to hold chopsticks, though his adorable attempts to keep interlocking your fingers to pull your hand to his lips to to kiss it instead are far more adorable.

After watching some cheesy rom-coms - or rather, spending the night cuddling and constantly kissing Ralph some more while Sandra Bullock tries to find love over and over on the TV - you eventually retire to bed. As you do, your phone chimes its specific tone to tell you the group chat has updated. Laying in bed, you unlock your phone to see a photo of Scott and his partner, on their sofa with a glass of wine each, which is then followed by Grace sharing a snap of her and her boyfriend wearing face masks together in her bathroom. Anna sends a mysterious snap of two fancy-looking meals and two glasses being clicked together, one certainly in her own hand but the other is held by a mystery man, and Connor shares a very sweet photo of him and Ralph's friend Lauren in a restaurant booth together.

Ralph's head rests on top of yours as you show him the photos, and you can feel his smile getting wider at the photo of his two friends from different parts of his life here sitting so closely together. You lean your head up to grin at him, "Should we?”

He smiles back at you as you switch to your camera app. You aim it at you and Ralph and look back over at him, for him to press a kiss to your forehead. You close your eyes, smiling into it, and tap at the screen, your muscle memory still knowing exactly where the shutter is without having to see the screen. You type “happy vday from me and my valentine, too 😘”, hit send, laugh loudly with Ralph as you see all four speech bubbles show up at once, and then put your phone on silent and lay it face-down on your nightstand.

You roll back over to snuggle up against his chest, and he wraps his arms around you, tucking your head under his chin as he embraces you. “Goodnight, my love,” you hear him whisper in your ear. “Pleasant dreams.”

“Night, Ralphie. Love you,” you mutter back, holding him tight and breathing in deeply, finally free to indulge all you want in the prospect of having a relationship with the man you’ve been in love with for the last five months.

next chapter

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