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sillyblues · 11 months

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𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐎𝐘𝐈𝐍𝐆 | 𝐦𝐢𝐠𝐮𝐞𝐥 𝐨’𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚 𝐱 𝐠𝐧!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

ੈ✩‧₊˚ 𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬: you overhear a couple of spider-people talking about you and miguel

ੈ✩‧₊˚ 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬: inspired by a scene of a drama i saw in tiktok at 11:30 pm whoops here’s a small scenario while i work on that hiding pregnancy with miguel fic

part 2

You hummed to yourself as you walked towards Miguel’s room. You were so excited to talk to him about how your days went and if you were lucky, maybe you’d get to hear how his day went as well. It wasn’t like he doesn’t talk about himself, of course he does, you two were practically the bestest of friends now. It’s just that nowadays, he seemed more stressed and preferred to listen to you talk. Or at least you hoped so. He never really complained each time you rambled his ears off (which was like 83790134 times a day oops).

But a mention of your name in a hushed conversation stops your tracks.

“... [Name] is pretty close to Miguel, huh?” the conversation was actually a bit far from where you stood but thanks to your extreme superhearing, you were able to hear what they were talking about. You tilted your head. I wonder why they’re talking about me…

“Nah, I don’t think so. Miguel doesn’t even seem to like them.” You grumbled under your breath. That’s just what it looked like to others. They didn’t know that you know Miguel’s favourite empanadas are the ones sold by a Mexican granny on a stand right around the corner outside the building. They didn’t know that Miguel actually remembers what you say to him and even reacts to your stories. If that isn’t what you call friends in their natural behaviour, you don’t know what to call it.

“Yeah, it’s probably because they never stop talking. Their mouth just never know how to close for at least 10 minutes.”

“Miguel is probably annoyed at them. I wonder how he manages to keep his patience from running out with them.”

You bit your lip. Yeah, they were right…You admit that you talk a lot and you do feel a bit bad about it. But your friends haven’t told you to stop talking or that you were bothering them yet so you thought it was fine with them. If your friends said something about it, you would definitely stop and try to talk less for them. You were sure your friends would say something if they were uncomfortable, especially Miguel. You believe in them and you believe in him.

“I know right! If I was him, I would…” so you took a step forward and continued to walk towards your destination. Only this time, you weren’t humming.

“Hi, Miguel! Good afternoon! Such a lovely day, isn’t it?” you quirked up immediately as soon as you stepped foot into his office. As usual, he was on top of his floating station. Most of the time, he worked on planning and storing files with Lyla about which planets had been reported with anomalies. Sometimes, he watched videos of his daughter Gabriella and himself despite having already seen them countless times.

Miguel was lonely. You could see that. Sure, he had Jess and Hobie and Peter, but Jess was pregnant, Hobie was busy fighting against the government and being cool, and Peter had Mayday. You try your best to be with him because maybe he would feel less lonely with you around for him. Maybe he would be distracted by whatever you say from his exhaustion and his pain.

You swung yourself and landed on his platform. He was standing with multiple yellow screens hovered almost around him. His hands were on his waist and there was a glare on his face as he stared at it. He gave you a brief glance before turning his attention back to his work. Well, looks like today is a busy work day for him, huh.

“Hey booo,” Lyla appeared in front of you and waved. You grinned at her. “Hey, Lyla! What’s up?”

“Ugh nothing much, except for Mr. O’hara on his red flood apparently.” She leaned and covered the side of her lips to whisper but it was no use to the said person with his abilities.

“I heard that.” His exasperated response was instant but he didn’t look away from the screen.

“Really? You did?” She asked with a higher and tightened voice with amusement. She then flashed a quick message to you.

Miguel has been working even after you left three days ago. He wouldn’t take a rest no matter how many times I told him.

What? You looked at the back of his head in alarm. Worry immediately settled in your head and you furrowed your brows. Before you could convince him to stop, Lyla quickly made the message disappear and announced, “Oops, my power is running low. Gotta charge them now, byeeee.”

“I literally just checked your levels yesterday. Come back here—” he was cut off by her disappearing form.

He groaned and in his frustration, he swapped away the nearby items on the table. Most of them were papers but unfortunately, he didn’t notice he also swept away the teddy bear that you gifted him. It was similar to one Gabriella had and you knew this from the videos you watched with him. You thought how nice it would be to have at least a physical reminder of your love and not just ones you can see and hear.

“I’ll get it, don’t worry!”

From his strength, the bear was flung high and without even thinking you walked backwards as you focused on its direction. You were being stupid because you forgot that you were on top of a floating platform and the floor wasn’t endless. The bear was almost near within your reach and with just one more step, you would be able to get it.

That one more step didn’t step on any solid floor but instead on air and so, you fell but not without the teddy bear in your hands.

“[Name]!” Miguel shouted and you looked at him and finally, he was looking at you now. He ran at your falling figure with arms reaching out to you and for a second, you thought there was a tinge of panic and desperation laced in his hoarse voice and wide eyes.

Sticky web was shot at your chest and you were quickly pulled towards him. You were hit against his figure and he caught you in his arms. You stilled and flushed, your ear was pressed against his chest and you could hear his roaring heart that beat so fast. He immediately shook you by your shoulders and yelled at you. “What were you thinking? Why weren’t you looking?”

“I mean, I was trying to catch it—” you flinched.

“Are you stupid? ¿y si te lastimas?” his nails were digging into your skin and his grip was beginning to hurt. You tried to laugh but came it off weakly.

“I just don’t want to see my gift get dirty. Besides, I’m fine—,” you tried to joke, hoping it would ease the tension and calm him down.

“Just shut up! Shut up!” he pushed you away with a growl, “Stop being so fucking reckless. I could have done it by myself. Stop annoying other people by doing stupid shit like this!”

He was breathing heavily, anger so deep in his eyes. Your eyes were wide and tears threatened to fall as you listened until it finally fell once he said his final word. Maybe the realization had finally settled in Miguel’s mind at what he had just said. His eyes widened in panic and reached out to you but you took a step back.

Your head hung low as you let his words sink in. Annoying? You couldn't even laugh bitterly like you usually do in situations like this. They were right. You were annoying him. You bit your lip. Had you been a bother to him all this time? How come Miguel never said anything?

Suddenly, his cold indifference to you was so clear and obvious now. Memories of him visibly annoyed with a frown flashed through your head. The sudden awareness made your head hurt and it burned your heart. It throbbed with a pang and you felt incapable of breathing, the pain overwhelming.

No, Miguel wasn't responsible for telling you this. You should've known better, you called yourself his “bestest friend”. You shouldn't have talked to him. You shouldn't have approached him in the first place.

You were annoying. You were a nuisance. You were a problem.

Stupid. Stupidstupidstupidstupid—

“[Name], I,” he sighed, “I’m sorry. I didn't mean—”

“No, it's fine,” you wiped your tears and pressed the teddy bear you gifted him and wanted to catch for him. You wonder if this bear was also a bother for him. Maybe it was. Everything related to you is irritating. You were tiresome. “I should be the one to say that. I’m sorry.”

“I need to go now. I’m really sorry, again.” With a brief glance at him, you immediately turned around and swung down. You almost ran as you made your exit from his office. You did the know where exactly to go, only anywhere without him and far away from him. Strength had left you once you were outside his office and you walked and walked and walked.

Maybe if you left, nobody would find you annoying anymore.

#blue writes! ✧˖*°࿐#spiderverse 2 #across the spiderverse #spider man: across the spider verse #spiderman 2099 #atsv miguel #miguel o'hara #miguel o'hara x reader #atsv angst

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gmanwhore · 11 months

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You are not immune to G-man being Benrey's dad propaganda. Anyways uh fic below

G-man looked around the party, but could not smile. He was so glad to make Tommy happy of course, but there were people who suffered because of it. There was someone still suffering. He looked out the window and saw the lone skeleton just standing there. G-man got up and walked towards the door, heading to the parking lot.

"Hello Benrey."

"Hey."

G-man took a step closer to the skeleton and waved his hand. The flesh returned to Benrey's bones. He knew Benrey could do that on his own but was just refusing to. Looking him in the eyes would be important here, and when he was a skeleton it was not the same.

"You were always invited. You don't need to stay outside."

Benrey rolled his eyes.

"They don't want me there. They killed me. I was always a nuisance, right?"

"Only Dr. Freeman thought that ever. Tommy misses you, he wants you there."

Benrey stared G-man down. He adjusted his tie against the discomfort of the glare.

"I know this will mean nothing to you, but I want you there. You are still my son and I love you."

"You're right, it means nothing to me. You…you never loved me. Did you?"

Benrey looked hurt but was trying so desperately to hide it. No emotion entered his voice like always, but it threatened to burst in.

"I did. I always have. And before you say I preferred Tommy I know why you think that but it was not true. I now realize that I am to blame for what happened here. I am to blame for how you see yourself. I also…never complimented how strong you are. You were so hungry and angry, you could have killed me so easily yet you distracted yourself and I had the gall to try to push you away."

Benrey looked almost shocked.

"You're admitting it? The whole thing?"

G-man nodded. He watched Benrey go through his emotions, trying to figure out what he was feeling and for just a second there G-man saw something he hadn't seen for years, one that sent him back to a day on a planet for away when he found a small child alone and scared and he did something he would be called insane over.

"I made you feel like a monster. I feared you and you knew I was scared and that is no way to raise a child. I am so sorry Benrey."

Benrey looked up at him.

"You could've left me when I was a kid."

"Would…would you have preferred that?"

Benrey thought hard. G-man was scared of the answer but prepared for anything.

"The city was destroyed by another…Bright, that's what my species is called right?"

"That's correct. It appeared you budded off of it as it was feeding."

"So that was like the only person there right? So it would've found me. You know more about Brights than me, what…what would have happened?"

G-man now had to think hard, recalling everything he had heard and learned.

"Well, considering that it was destroying an entire city, I would say it was not likely to be the kind to raise a child. It probably would have eaten you. I assumed that when I found you, which influenced my decision, among other factors."

Benrey shrugged.

"Then I'm glad you found me. Yeah, you were a shit dad at times but at least I'm alive."

"I am sorry. You deserved so much better."

Benrey sighed.

"Ok but like…I think about you watching me and being all scared, right? Then I remember when you would do something cool like just float through space with Tommy and I on your lap or when I hurt my knee and you looked really worried that I got hurt and you picked me up and made my favorite food that night so like I can't hate you! And I really want to hate you! But I can't because you're cool sometimes but you also try to just push me away and it's not fair! I can't hate you and I can't like you and if you were fully a shit dad I wouldn't feel so bad!"

The two stood there in silence.

"I don't forgive you but I also don't not forgive you. I wanna have cake. Let's go."

G-man nods and holds the door for Benrey as they both enter. Almost as soon as Benrey went in, Tommy ran up to him and gave him the tightest hug.

"Benrey! I knew you'd come back!"

Benrey hugged him back tight.

"I always do."

The two went over and got some cake. G-man just watched from the sidelines, able to smile now.

#hlvrai #half life but the ai is self aware #benrey #gman coolatta #hlvrai gman #hlvrai benrey

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hebimoonlightwrites · 2 years

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"𝓨𝓸𝓾 𝓱𝓪𝓿𝓮𝓷'𝓽 𝓬𝓱𝓪𝓷𝓰𝓮𝓭 𝓪𝓽 𝓪𝓵𝓵!"

Writer's corner: this is my first story! It's a character x reader one-shot! Hope you like it!

Warnings: none

Summary: ICHIRO X READER

You and Ichiro are childhood friends. You meet him again after a lot of time when you come back to Ikebukuro after becoming an hostess flight. You haven't forgotten your friend or your crush for him, though...

“It’s been so long since I visited this place last time..”, you muttered to yourself, taking slow and elegant steps on some dry leaves. Most of them were floating around, as if they were lulled by the kind and cool wind it was blowing. It was raining, but it wasn’t a big deal at all. It made you smile, instead, while your mind was being wrapped by your childhood’s memories. You remembered everything about it: the orphanage, the teachers, your friends and all the games you were used to play.

You didn’t have any relatives when you were only a kid and used to live in an orphanage there in Ikebukuro with other little poor unfortunate children. Although you were lonely, you weren’t sad, because you enjoyed spending your time with other kids who were as unfortunate as you were, fooling and playing around, going outside and creating new stories thanks to that imagination, which has always been an actual treasure of being kid.

As your feet stopped, standing on an old rail, which had been abandoned since your childhood, some other memories reached your mind. You focused on the blear shape of a kid who used to be your best friend. All you remembered was that his name was Ichiro Yamada and that his eyes were particularly gorgeous: his right one was green, while the other one was red.

This characteristic made you remind of how he used to chuckle happy when you told him how beautiful his eyes were for you. He kept telling you that he didn’t know why he had those eyes, but you’ve always believed it was a lie; probably he knew but didn’t want to tell you. Ichiro had struck as a different kid in the orphanage. He had always been brave and had guts. His sense of justice was what really struck people, especially those who used to work in the orphanage.

He wasn’t an only child; you remembered he had two brothers younger than him. They also played with you and Ichiro sometimes, but the memory you had wasn’t clear enough..

Among what seemed to be a chaotic storm, you were there, still walking on those abandoned rails, trying to focus on the place. Unluckily you couldn’t see well around you; it was foggy too. Although you didn’t manage, you seemed to be able to understand where to step. That place hadn’t any kind of mysteries for you. You knew every millimeters of that muddy ground, covered with dry leaves.

How many games you all played there!

You and the others imagined to be in a train when you went there to play. Each of you sat among the rails, fantasizing to go to other countries, worlds or even planets. It was so magical!

You stopped walking as the wind blew, caressing softly your blue hostess’ uniform. A thought became stuck in your head: where was Ichiro? Did he manage to get adopted with his little brothers? He was alright?

You had been forced to move to Europe after you had gotten adopted and, luckily, you had had a good family.. They made you study and supported you and your dreams. Indeed you had become a flight hostess, as you had always dreamed of.

But those Yamada kids?

Where were they?

You needed to know.

Suddenly you jumped as a thunder resounded in that place, waking you up from your deep thoughts. You had to run back to your hotel. It was already quite late and you needed to get prepared and rested for your next day flight. Even if you had come back home to Ikebukuro, you had to go away again because of your work. Thinking about it, you sighed. You’d have loved to stay there for more days, at least a month, and discover again all those places of your memories and meet the people who were with you in your childhood.

Who knows, maybe those kids who were used to be your friends had their own sons now! Maybe they were married or, who knows, perhaps even rich!

You smiled and turned to go back and leave that abandoned rail. Suddenly you gasped as you heard a sound behind you, like if there was someone else, walking among those dry leaves on that muddy ground.

Immediately, looking towards an enclosure a little far from you, you saw a dark shape. It seemed to be a young but tall man wearing a white hoodie and a blue and red jacket. You didn’t know who he was or why he was there, walking alone under the rain, but despite of it, you smiled at him. It was incredible how some people could have been doing the same thing as you in that moment. This thought was strange but fascinating at the same time.

While you were standing there, looking at the man, he was still walking and didn’t seem to have noticed you, until he stopped moving and lifted his head, pointing his eyes towards you. You were about three meters away and now you could see him more. He was tall, dark hair and... his eyes..

You gasped, unable to believe at what you were looking at.

Could it be...?

“Ichiro...?”

Although you had whispered that name shyly, his echo resounded, as if you were closed in an empty room. Your heart beating got faster than before and you could feel your breath becoming heavier.

No.. maybe that man wasn’t Ichiro..

For a moment you thought to have seen those eyes, that gaze. Maybe it was only a mistake and the fog didn’t help at all.

But why wasn’t the man speaking or walking away? Why wasn’t he explaining that you’ve had mistook him for someone else?

“Y/N...?”, he finally spoke, whispering your name, as you had done some seconds before.

He opened his eyes wide as you did too. You looked at him, focusing on those characteristics you remembered about him: he hadn’t changed at all. His skin was still soft and his hair appeared to be as well but, most importantly, his eyes and his gaze.. They were the same. Even if he had grown up, he had still that gaze which made you fall in love with him when you both were children. You couldn’t do anything but admit to yourself that he had been your little crush since you both were used to play as kids.

The silence created between you and that man was eliminated by a joyful chuckle Ichiro himself let:

"𝓨𝓸𝓾 𝓱𝓪𝓿𝓮𝓷'𝓽 𝓬𝓱𝓪𝓷𝓰𝓮𝓭 𝓪𝓽 𝓪𝓵𝓵!"

You smiled.

©hebimoonlightwrites_tumblr Please, do not copy my contents nor repost it without my permission.

#hypmic ichiro #ichiro yamada #hypmic #hypnosis microphone #hypnosismic #hypmic x reader #hypmic scenarios

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dav3katz · 2 years

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Could I request Aradia x Troll!Reader who's very anti-social?

Aradia x anti social! Reader

- first of all, she has dated sollux, so if you think she cares that you’re anti social, you’re very wrong

- but she’s pretty social, especially with those of the dead! So you have to deal with people pretty often, unfortunately

- and also sollux . Don’t worry he hates it too

- however! If your anti socialism is due to being socially anxious she wont subject you to more than is necessary and typically distracts people from your general presence

- but she’s still aradia, so she is still like “this is my beloved!! Look!!”

- but doesn’t mind spending alone time with just you of course, she’ll float around random timelines with you, which is her version of being alone

- but if you’re so anti social that sometimes you need a break from even her, she tries to understand and hangs out with sollux instead ! But she gets kinda down about it from time to time so sollux kinda talks to you about it and is very . Rude about it lol

- all in all though she doesn’t mind you being anti social but… you’re gonna have to deal with people.. she can only enable it so much .. yk

- doesn’t mind though like truly she doesn’t

- like sometimes you guys are just hanging out, completely alone and that’s totally cool and she doesn’t mind that, she doesn’t NEED to be around people tbh

- she still tries to converse with people normally when you’re around though, thankfully I think it’s fine since you can talk to sollux since he’s just as anti social as you (probably) which is truly the beauty of dating aradia and not being the most social in the world . You don’t really need to socialize with other people and feel awkward

- aradia still loves talking to you though !! If you don’t wanna talk and just wanna listen that’s okay, she will talk about whatever with you. Or simply nothing at all. It all depends really.

- and also still never shuts up about you to everyone else which can be funny since it’s likely most of them have never had a conversation with you

- takes you out a lot, if that wasn’t obvious

- like, will not stand for you being inside 24/7, you need to get out!! It’s nice fresh air

- and it’ll make you feel better . Or maybe it won’t . Who knows . Doesn’t matter . She’ll let you be anti social all you want but you need to get outside

- if you’re anxious she will do whatever you ask her to do for you socially, but she will ask about it

- “aradia tell vriska I’m not helping with her fucking bullshit.” “Why can’t you?” “Just do it.” “Okay fine!”

- and definitely talks to you about it

- “I just worry about you!! To be fair, I think everyone does? It’s okay to be antisocial but it’s like you only talk to me and sollux and like? I don’t know. It’s just not practical to only talk to the same two people, it can honestly get kinda lonely? I just think you should expand your horizons, even if it’s only a little bit! It can be one more person! It doesn’t matter. I just.. worry about you sometimes!”

#aradia x reader #aradia megido x reader #hs x reader #homestuck x reader

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blossom-hwa · 3 years

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so I joined an ateez collab yesterday and was yelling to mai about a possible elemental kingdom au kind of like avatar but also not really anyway it doesn’t fucking matter mai was yelling back and now we have this. you have been warned

(I have bigger plans for seonghwa mostly because he’s the one I'm writing for this collab.............. seonghwa brainrot commence)

tagging: @applejongho @mangomingki @wingkkun because all of you need to see this SUFFER

anyway without further ado

ATEEZ ELEMENTAL KINGDOM AU OR WHATEVER IDK WHAT TO CALL THIS

tw: cursing

seonghwa

magma prince, born of an earth/water dalliance gone too far :/

lives in the water but is an outcast, so he’s forced to live on his own by the underwater volcanoes except when he has to come to the palace for ceremonies and such

doesn’t really manipulate water specifically but can control magma hence why I'm calling him a magma prince

he’s a prince because his mom was ocean royalty, anyway she disowned him so we don’t really care about her (fuck everyone who made seonghwa feel like an outcast :/)

has scales on parts of his body like the rest of the ocean dwellers because they descended from sea serpents, his range from black to deep royal blue which INFURIATES the court because those colors are the purest meant for ROYALTY like even his mom’s scales aren’t as deep/pure as seonghwa’s so ha in your FACE

except seonghwa isn’t a fan of the scales because it just makes him feel even more like he doesn’t belong in his own skin :///

friends with fire prince hongjoong and ocean prince san, both of whom are some of the few who treat seonghwa like an actual person and not just an outcast :/

takes very good care of the animals who live around the volcanic vents! a lot of the other ocean dwellers are scared of them because they look so different but seonghwa knows what it’s like to be an outcast so he keeps his little area as clean and welcoming as possible :)

it gets lonely around the volcanoes but honestly seonghwa prefers that over when he has to be at court for ceremonies n stuff. like yeah there might be water snakes around his place but they’re nothing compared to the snakes in the palace badum tss

hongjoong

fire prince of the dragon clan

there are two clans of the fire kingdom, one descended from dragons and the other descended from phoenixes, and they’re Rivals

dragon clan is allied with the ocean dwellers since sea serpents are related to dragons, phoenix clan is allied with the air dwellers because they all can fly n stuff

but anyway more on phoenix stuff in mingi’s part

has scales too, though his are more on the neck while seonghwa’s around around his ribs/waist, also they’re bright red/orange not blue

can produce and control dragon fire, which is destructive and primarily used for offense, so hongjoong’s been trained for an early age how to use it for max power/destruction

meets seonghwa on one of the few times hwa comes to the surface to chill in the sun and he’d just accidentally set fire to a small part of the beach and when he sees hwa he’s like HELP ME PUT THIS OUT

except hwa can’t control water he can only do magma so. yeah

san was nearby though and helped deal with it and later joong was like what the fuck kind of ocean dweller can’t control water and seonghwa was like. I'm half you dickwad

obviously they become friends after that. if they didn’t I'd give you permission to slap my face

but also after that hongjoong learns to keep a much tighter rein on his powers, like yes he’s being trained for destruction but he has masterful control over his abilities

could be considered a fire prodigy in all honesty

yunho

earth boy!! very powerful earth bender

can definitely do a lot of destruction with his powers but prefers to help things grow instead! talks to his garden and swears up and down that his plants grow bigger and taller when he does

good friends with both mingi of the phoenix clan and hongjoong of the dragon clan

earth dwellers aren’t allied with any side of the fire rivalry so they serve as the arbiters/judges when disputes come into place which is fair because earth is solid and stable and just (most of the time)

which is why yunho is able to balance this sort of friendship between the two boys :) does NOT meet with them together though that would be a recipe for disaster (not necessarily because of hongjoong/mingi themselves, they know how to behave, but the neurotic clan elders would throw a hissy fit)

runs a small restaurant in the capital that mostly caters to the working class, people always ask why yunho doesn’t try to do “more” with himself, that he’s wasted potential running a restaurant when he could potentially be a general or something in the army because of his earth bending prowess

but yunho doesn’t care, he’s happy where he is and he develops his bending as a way to protect and help himself and others, and from his friendship with hongjoong/mingi he’s pretty sure he wants to avoid clashing with earth royalty at all costs ksjndksjh

yeosang

air prince :) also he’s blond in this au you can’t change my mind

not particularly one of the strongest benders, but he’s very intelligent and wise which people value a little less than they should but yeosang doesn’t really care, he’s just going with it

imagine! yeosang in flows white robes!! floating on the wind!!!

yes air dwellers can fly sobs because they control the wind

and while yeosang isn’t necessarily the greatest at using his powers for fighting or whatever, he’s very good at flying and has a lot of fun with it along with air noble wooyoung

best friends with wooyoung by the way, no one really gets it because yeosang is quieter and doesn’t yell as much while wooyoung is the definition of Chaos

but wooyoung brings out the rowdy side in yeosang and their screams/yells echo in the air when they get together

a little wary of wooyoung’s friendship with san mostly because he’s a prince and understands the consequences of wooyoung, an air noble, being friends with the allies of their supposed enemy (water is allied with the dragon clan)

(maybe he’s a little jealous too)

but in the end it’s always still woo + yeosang against the world, floating in the sky and doing what they can for their people <3

san

WATER PRINCE WATER PRINCE WATER PRINCE

he’s actually the reason I birthed this au I couldn’t get ocean prince san out of my mind

flowy clothes and a crown of shells and pearls! likes shiny things and will trade with earth dweller merchants for new bits of crystal and jewelry!! tell me he isn’t a dream!!!

one of the beloved princes of the ocean, honestly probably the most loved because he’s so smiley and handsome and all around a very good boy until it’s his turn to perform the ceremonial dances and he turns into a demon

the brightest blue scales run up from his waist to his ribs, another one of the purest colors of royalty

uses his status to get away with being friends with seonghwa (aka people won’t yell at him if it’s obvious he disappeared for a while to the volcanic vents) but keeps their friendship kind of under wraps because hwa is afraid of retaliation when he has to visit the court :/

truly does not give a shit about hwa being half earth, if anything kind of envies it because he’s always curious to explore the volcanic trenches but as a normal ocean dweller the heat would be too much for him if he stayed too long

kinda scared of the animals near the trenches but he warms up to them after some periodic visits

friends with air noble wooyoung! even though it’s kind of (?) breaking alliances but neither of them really cares because they’re so much fun together :D

mingi

phoenix nobility, not quite a prince but close

phoenix fire has defensive and healing properties, so it can’t actually burn people but it can heal and protect from dragon fire/regular fire!

mingi is well-versed in the art of healing even though he’s a little clumsy sometimes :/ luckily phoenix fire doesn’t burn or there’d be major issues skjnsdkjh

can fly! phoenix descendants have a limited ability to fly, not as much as the air dwellers who can literally control the wind to help them, but it’s often enough to get them out of tight spots

only problem is mingi doesn’t like to fly very much skjndgjhn heights kinda suck

but when he does it’s fucking majestic, these orange flaming wings extending from his arms that clash beautifully with his red/orange hair

imagine seeing it at sunset oh my god that’s a dream

the phoenix and dragon clans are in negotiation with each other most of the time because ~hostilities~ but mingi doesn’t often participate in the direct talking because he’s better at working behind the scenes

ridiculously smart and likes to debate with yunho over things because seeing issues from a neutral perspective is very helpful and something mingi doesn’t think people do enough

what he’d really love to do is talk to hongjoong because an opposite perspective would be even better, but people don’t like that happening :/

secretly admires dragon fire because it’s so cool how dragon descendants can control so much destructive power with such ease

(he doesn’t know it but hongjoong admires phoenix fire just as much because god damn sometimes he wishes he was born to heal rather than destroy)

wooyoung

air noble!!!!! bitch if you thought I was making this man ANYTHING but an air dweller you do not know me

likes to watch the sunrise from his vantage point in the mountains :) sometimes wakes yeosang up to watch with him but only when he’s certain yeo won’t cut off a limb if he does skndjsgh

if yeosang is like the soft sea breeze against your face in the summer, wooyoung is the biting, almost playful nip of wind against your nose and cheeks in the winter

very playful! loves to make collect friends!!

can play the flute and absolutely 100% uses it to annoy said friends

you can often hear his screeching laughter and the yells of yeosang + others bouncing off the mountains skjdnsgk

is always on duty for patrolling the mountains because he’s one of the best at flying, but it’s fine because wooyoung enjoys being able to make his rounds and talk to people along the way

sometimes gets a little sidetracked with talking (and maybe eating the food people sometimes give him) but wooyoung is a lovable person no one can get mad at him for too long (which is a problem because he knows it)

thinks the rivalries between elements is dumb af, is literally friends with ocean prince san and earth dwellers 2ho and would like to make friends with mingi (yunho has mentioned him before) if he could just stop being in twenty places all at once

(mingi’s a busy guy wooyoung give him a break)

almost lost his shit when san told him he knew a magma controller, but hasn’t met seonghwa yet because hwa is shy and not very open to strangers

anyway I just think wooyoung air noble who has a personal mission to make as many inter-elemental friends as possible. shrugs

jongho

IF YOU TRY AND TELL ME THIS BOY ISN’T EARTH I WILL CLOCK YOU

earth boy and a prodigy at that! his bending is more advanced than some people twice his age

originally got stuck in training for the army because his bending was just that good, however he really hated having to use his powers solely for fighting so he left and became a blacksmith instead

why a blacksmith? here’s a secret

jongho can metalbend

which is why he sort of has this very good touch with metals and which types to use with which sorts of crafts

in very high demand for weapons like swords and such, but also makes jewelry and toys and pots and pans for regular day to day life

he also gets the “wasted potential” thing that yunho deals with a lot, but jongho has thick skin and those sorts of comments roll of his (broad) shoulders very quickly

LOATHES IT when generals and officials come to him with commissions and expect them to be done first and foremost like jongho doesn’t have around ten other projects hanging out in the background, but he just has to receive them with a smile

(maybe leaves a tiny unnoticeable dent in a general’s sword or something bc even if it’s unnoticeable, jongho knows it’s there and there’s some satisfaction in that)

friends with air noble wooyoung mostly because he is able to deal with woo’s bs, air prince yeosang is always asking for tips

meets yunho through wooyoung and 2ho strike up a nice friendship!

really just jongho stronk boy who can move the earth and will not hesitate to cause a subtle earthquake if some official gets uppity with him <3

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the-crows-typist · 3 years

Note

Since your latest post says you’re back, I’d like to request a ficlet with Azul x F!mc with the random word as curious. I’m so glad to hear you’re back as I really enjoy your writings, thank you 😊!

Thanks a lot Anon, I hope you like this piece of mine.

CW: Minor mention of bullying, Angst with a Happy Ending, minor mention of wound, wound healing and potential OOC

Word count: 3,435

The Possibilities are Endless

“I made a promise to you.”

Curiosity. Inquisitive, wondering, ready to poke around and figure something out. Around him, all he ever saw the deep blue, the seagrass, the fish he could easily catch with one of his tentacles. Octopi like his were curious by nature and often to a slightly violent extent. He would peak his head over the surface, watching the seagulls cry overhead and the humans walking over planks of wood. In the disguise of the night, the young boy could always watch humans at their most natural and most vulnerable and wonder to himself what life would be like had he been born a human.

He doubted it would be any different from the life he lived day today.

As fun as learning was, it was boring not being able to share it with those who cared. Time with his classmates was bad during classes and all the more during recess but during the times Azul could escape their grasp quick enough, he would swim to lonely areas around the school to read and write his learnings in discarded shells, flipping through page after page of borrowed books from the library learning and taking in the information written on paper.

His hand halted on a picture of children playing; the light brown color of dirt, the bright colors of shirts and dress, the happy yet dirtied faces of the youth who continued to pass the ball to one another. The young octopus' shoulders hung low, his eyes training down and at nothing. Would his life be that different had he been born human? Would he be able to play with the other children had he been given two legs instead of eight?

There was a sniffle and Azul's rubbed his eyes, forcing himself to breathe slowly. Suddenly something hit his head, something like and equally small. A red sandal floated down to his lap, a kid's shoe. From above, a shadow loomed over him, and on instinct, he gathered his things and rushed to the nearest hiding place. There was the smell of blood in the water, the boy taking courage to peek from the safety of his hiding place.

A girl whose hair flowed in the water like a ribbon speared a fish right through, her mouth covered with a breathing apparatus, eyes protected with goggles, and a red sandal missing from her left foot. Azul looked at the Sandal at his hand then to the girl who expertly drove her spear into another fish. He had never seen a human this up close before and with that spear, he could easily get hurt…Looking at her again, she reached down, patting her empty foot while bubbles released from her breathing gear.

The boy moved slowly and glided through the water while leaving all but the sandal behind. He stopped in his tracks when she turned around, her eyes shined brilliantly behind the foggy looking goggles and immediately trained to the sandal in his hands.

"Y-yours…?"

He offered the sandal to her, both hands holding it up. She nods her head, taking the shoe from him and slipping it back on. Her hand moved, palm motioning him to follow and finger pointing up. Come with me. He hesitated for a moment, knowing that she came to the sea to hunt and with a spear full of nearly dying fish didn't help her image any better. He pointed at the spear to his chest, finger pushing to the skin and she shook her head. At that moment, she took his wrist and swam up with a swarm of warm bubbles floating around them. Azul wondered if following this human girl to the surface was a good idea if leaving the school so suddenly was all right but seeing her hold him without disgust…

It struck a chord with him.

She gasped when they broke the surface, the sun beating down on them from high above. It was the middle of the day, a time when sailors slept and the water becomes calm. Next to them was a small boat where the girl threw her spear in along with her gear. Without the goggles, he could see her clearly, she had eyes like molten gold and hair stringy like seagrass. "I'm sorry I had to bring you up here with me. My oxygen was running out and I couldn't hear you."

"It's okay." He said softly, his eyes lingering to the boat then to her. "Um…Did you come here to look for fish?"

"Yup. Fish are easier to catch than chickens or boar." She laughed, her teeth shiny and smile wide, it was cute and Azul couldn't help but sink into the water to hide his blush. "But it kinda does suck when they're really small, though. I wish I could capture bigger fish so I can have a feast but usually, adults have to do it or I get pulled in trying to catch it."

"Like groupers?" He asked. "The big kind?"

"Yeah! Those are really big and taste good too. A light grilling and some salt really go a long way." Azul looked down at the water again as the human moved to chuck her shoes into the small boat. "What's your name, by the way?"

"Azul."

"Like the color blue?"

"Huh?" The girl looked to the side and Azul's heart sped up, thinking he said something wrong. "I saw this book once that your name means blue. I was just wondering if that's the reason why you have that name. Your eyes are pretty blue, too."

"I can ask my parents later…"

Their brief meeting was cut short when a voice from afar yelled, the girl quickly getting onto the boat as it waddled in the water. "I'll wait for your answer tomorrow. Can I see you here again?" She asked, her wet face smiling down at him and he nodded. "Great! Bye, Azul!" With a snap of her fingers, the small anchor pulled up and the boat sped away with a torrent of water. The two of them waving goodbye as the distance between them grew and grew.

"Tomorrow…"

When he got back to the classroom, the teacher scolded him for being late and the usual pattern of torment began again but somehow the promise he made with the girl with the golden eyes made him push through. He didn't sleep easy that night, especially with the excitement he held in his heart. He couldn't wait for tomorrow. He couldn't wait to see her.

Their new meeting place was along the rocky cavern where she could sit and on her lap was a book propped up for him to see. Her finger pointed at a word. "See? Azul. It means blue in different languages." Azul leaned against the rocks' the push and pull of the water against his dark skin. "It's a possibility. I never really thought about it that way."

It was his turn to show her something, a shell with scribbles of writings. They figured early that books from underwater were not easy to bring on land so Azul immediately switched to the gathered shells he had. "I like to read grimoires sometimes and I put anything I find interesting into a shell. Any spell I like is in there."

Taking the shell from his palm, the girl took a look at it and reading its inscriptions. "This spell…"

Azul nodded his head. "It's a spell to change the color of something. It can be anything too."

"Can I try it out?"

"Can you do magic?"

"A little bit."

"Do it."

Taking a small rock into her hand, the girl looked to the shell to recite the color-changing spell. "Like a rainbow in your palm and voice ever calm, may the item you wish to change be yours to arrange." The rock began to glow, reflecting a myriad of colors like glass under the summer sun. Its shine subsided, the stone suddenly a deep blue. She held it up, staring into it. "Wow…"

"Pretty neat, huh?" Azul smiled up at her when she nodded. "This is super cool! What else do you know, I want to show this to my family later." It was shell after shell of small spells that almost lit up the cavern they stayed in and soon, the floor was littered with shining rocks and off-color stones. The girl sighed, trying to regain her breathing while Azul collected the shells to his chest. "You shouldn't use your magic all willy nilly, you might overblot."

"That's okay. I'm strong, I can't overblot!"

Azul's grimace and amusement weren't hidden and the two laughed with each other, their soft voices echoing through the empty cavern.

"Will I see you here again, Azul?"

There was a silence between them, a beat of hesitation, but Azul leaned against the soft rock with a smile. "If only you bring another book with you."

The next day, she was late to the meeting but Azul paid no mind to it. In her hands was a big book about mountains and their animals and on her knee was a scratch. "Are you okay?" he asked, pointing his nubby finger at her wound to which he just shook her head. "The kids I play with can be rowdy at times but I didn't want to play with them anymore after that." She set the book down and opened it.

He looked at her eyes, those pretty gold eyes of hers, and his shoulders hunched a small bit. He knows those eyes. When they droop and look at nothing when the brows are low and furrowed.

"Hold still."

With a careful hand and concentrated magic, Azul continued to look at her knee as he let magic flow from within him to her knee. The skin began to close and the pain had subsided, her eyes widened while his closed.

"Azul?"

He opened his eyes, a hand had stroked his drying hair. He pushed himself too much, it seems, and his friend took to letting him rest against the rocks. Her smile was soft and her eyes no longer looking like they were before, the eyes were warm and the brows relaxed. The wound on her knee was smaller now.

"Thanks." She told him, bringing her legs to her chest. "Here. I'll tell you about elephants."

He leaned in further, careful not to wet the book. "Huh, they're different from the ones we have in the sea."

"Sea elephants, right?"

"Yup. They're all blubbery and have really large noses. We don't usually see them around here but I heard they can get pretty mean." He looks down at the rock in thought. "But they are pretty big like land elephants." The girl closes the book with a huff. "I'll take your word for it. Now, show me what you've got."

Smiling, he set a few shells down.

"Here's the spell I saw today—."

Azul rested on the rocks, his hand tracing the markings on the shells he brought. The cavern was empty and silent, his mind whirling to the girl he was supposed to meet in that same spot. He turned the shell over and traced his finger on the grove patterns.

"Azul, sorry I'm late."

She came in, drenched in water. "What happened?" He asked suddenly and she just smiled at him, a smile he didn't exactly trust was telling the truth. "I just thought to take a shower on the way here, that's all." His eyes followed her as she sat down with a book on her lap. "Was it the kids again?"

Her shoulders slumped and her lips were pursed. "I…They get rowdy. I thought I could outrun them." She took a look at her drenched form with an awkward laugh. "But at least the book is safe. It's about plants this time." Azul continued to stare at them, blinking and nudging the shells forward. "You protected the book from them, didn't you?"

"I did." With a watery smile, she nodded her head and brows furrowed. "…I did."

She clutched the book closer to her chest and Azul reached over to pat her good knee. "Azul, you'll always be here, right? You're never going to stop being my friend, right?" Golden eyes mixed with clear glass, her voice sounded so desperate and broken that Azul couldn't help but feel the sadness drip from her lips. He squeezed her knee just a little bit.

"I will. I promise."

The next time they met, they were on the small boat they met in with Azul holding onto its bamboo fixtures. "What's life like in the sea?" She asked suddenly, her feet paddling against the water. "It's mostly wet and there's a lot of fish around…" Azul began, his eyes downcast at the water below. "School is like a record and people can be mean sometimes, you have to look out for sharks of giant squids, and the currents are sometimes a butt to deal with."

Her golden eyes flickered for a moment and she chuckled, eyes closed, smile light, and brows furrowed. "Not much different from life on land, huh? But having pretty fins or tentacles seems fun too." She looks to Azul and for a second she hesitates.

"Can you turn me into one?"

He is silent for a moment, surprised and confused why someone on land would want that. "Um…" He stuttered, his face flushed and eyes downcast. "I don't think…My magic can do that, yet." Her golden eyes remained warm and she shook her head. "I'm just kidding."

Yet Azul had a feeling she wasn't.

"Is it because of the kids?" He asked curiously but she stayed silent, opting not to answer and instead asked a question in return.

"You'll always be my friend, right?"

He nodded his head without a second thought but was confused why she would think to ask that.

"I…I will. Of course, I will."

She rubbed her knee, feeling for the closed wound and sniffling after being exposed to the cold water of yesterday.

He waited in the cavern the entire day, waiting for her to show up. His shells were prepared but with no one to look at them. He should have known this would happen, he should have known it was too good to be true. He sulked against the smooth rock and felt the washed brush and leave his back. She never came.

Had he done something wrong? She would have told him.

Perhaps she got bored of him…The spells he showed were the most basic as they come, it wasn't enough. Azul pulled away from the rocks and looked deeper into the empty cavern. Something cold froze his insides yet licked his body like fire, he felt his eyes sting.

He should have known better.

He left the shells on the edge and went back to sea, never looking back from the place he once held hope in. He forced himself not to cry. He forced himself not to feel sad and only let his feels show when he found himself in his special spot.

He covered his face, remembering their chance meeting, her red sandal, and golden eyes. He remembered her smile, the promise they made. Azul shook his head, telling himself to forget. Forget. FORGET!

Suddenly, a piece of seaweed hit his head and the voice of two boys whispered above him. "I told you that wasn't a trashcan, Floyd." One chided. "What, I'm just gonna throw wherever this and get in trouble? C'mon Jade." He swats the piece of seaweed out of the pot and popped his head out. "Do you mind?"

"Ack!"

Two eels floated before him and one's eyes were wide in surprise and the other the mix of amusement and a face that just oozes of 'I-told-you-so' energy.

"I'm not a trash can, I'm your classmate."

"Huh? Oh wait, you're the one we have science class with." The culprit said, pointing a sharp finger at him. "What's your name again?"

"Azul. Azul Ashengrotto."

"Okay, Octie."

"It's Azul!"

His life turned around when he met the twins, the power that he grew was immense. While Azul was not good at sports as much as the twins; he excelled in books, in his studies, in business. His power allowed him to grant favors, to hold power over those once thought to be strong. For once in his life, no one thought to ever look at him as the stupid, lonely octopus he was once was nor did anyone think to lay a hand on him.

And things were fine that way.

But more often than not, he would catch himself thinking about the girl he once became friends with and wondering what she was doing or if that wound on her knee was doing okay. Even after the sudden departure, their brief friendship never left his mind nor did the memories lose their sweetness. His feelings were a mix of resentment, curiosity, or sadness, and even guilt.

He would look up from the seafloor to the shining surface above and wonder if she would be there waiting.

"Azul, there's someone who wants to see you." Says Jade.

But the business was always his priority. He turned away from the surface but his heart never could. "Coming." He swam away but his feelings stayed in one place, yearning and hating for the day he'll come to see her.

Though time heals wounds, the bitter sting of remembrance was something he disliked immensely. Azul's trips to the sea were less frequent and when he did, it was usually to visit his family and help around. With school done for the year and the family business running smoothly, there wasn't much he could do now but bide away his time.

He swam through the open ocean, his legs propelling him around the deep blue. He would resurface no long after to look at the sun and the water around him, his eyes adjusting to the sudden appearance of light after he had been in the dark blue depths long. It was noon, a time when fishermen slept and left the waters quiet.

He swam in a certain direction, to a place he once knew. A cavern-like entrance where he pulled himself up and bare feet touching the ground. For the short time he had spent there, he had memorized every crevice and detail.

"It's like it never changed."

He walked further in and looked in the deepest nook, he saw a tinge of color. Old shells packed into a neat pile, his old shells that he gave away to his friend. Looking back on it, he realized the two of them went through the same thing and wishing the same wishes. She was just more vocal about them.

He picked one up from the pile, it was the spell that allowed an object to change its color.

"Ah, this one takes me back."

Even how short their friendship was, he had fun just talking to her. While it was sad he never got to see her again after that day, he enjoyed it while it lasted. He returned the shell to its pile and moved to turn around, a figure stopped blocked his path.

Red sandals, eyes like melting gold, hair stringy from seawater, and a spear with two fish held to their side.

"Azul?" Her voice was just as he remembered.

The moment was short and Azul's breathing stopped for only a few seconds. A warmth passed through him, a wave of nostalgia. "You're back." He said, his shoulders bobbing through his airy laughs "I waited for a long time, y'know? Now look at us, we're bigger now." She discarded her spear to the ground and ran towards him, one of her sandals leaving her food as he hugged him.

No words were said between them, their arms looping around each other in an embrace both seemed to be ready and yearning for. Her nose buried into his shoulder and his hands in her wet hair. "I'm sorry." She whispered. "I'm so sorry I left. I just couldn't—I had to leave. I wanted to go to you but—! She sputtered into your skin. "I had no time left to say goodbye. I'm sorry."

"I made a promise, didn't I?" He said, pulling away from her.

Their foreheads connected, ah, how long had it been since he felt so vulnerable? There were so many things he wanted to say and he knew she also felt the same. Perhaps another time the two of them could put two and two together.

"I'll always be here."

#works from the typewriter #twisted wonderland #twst #Azul Ashengrotto #azul ashengrotto x reader #azul x reader #Female reader

118 notes · View notes

hornime · 3 years

Text

hq as my discovery weekly | part one

warnings: this is completely sfw, combo of fluff and angst

characters included: kenma, akaashi, oikawa, suna, koganegawa, ushijima, bokuto, kuroo, hinata, kita, terushima, iwaizumi, osamu, kageyama, sakusa

a/n: this was a random idea i thought of but i think it’ll be really cute haha. maybe you guys’ll find some new songs in the process! totally encourage anyone to use this idea if they want cus this was super fun to write!

playing... one through fifteen / sixteen through thirty

↪ “cotton candy lemonade" by blu detiger: kenma kozume

i've been up too long, something's wrong / watch the rising sun / turning all my nights to days

i've been on my own, come find me now / i'm lonely to the bone / but I don't feel so low when you're around / let's run away from home

you'll bе my kaleidoscope, my color in this life / watching thе world fade away

kenma is not the most extroverted and he’s in his head a lot, so he’s someone that might not always see the ‘color’ in things that exist around him. but when it comes to you, well, you’re someone that makes him look up from his screen a little longer than usual.

↪ “love affair” by umi: akaashi keiji

don't overthink this is love / maybe it's just a crush

i hope what I feel is enough / maybe this is just lies

i wanna know how to feel, what to feel, what's right / i never know / 'cause when it gets real, I just run away / and hide from you

akaashi gets anxiety. he used to be certain about a lot of things—his intelligence, his skill, his happiness, but most important to him was his feelings for you. he’s overthinking again, he knows it, but he’s getting an uncontrollable itch that maybe this is all in his head; he doesn’t love you, he just think he does. but when you’re in his arms, breathing even and eyes fluttered shut, he remembers what you always told him: it doesn’t matter what he knows, it matters what he feels. and he feels like the luckiest man alive.

↪ “coke” by iii addicts, danice: oikawa tooru

come closer, i been eyeing you from way over / so it's time i come for some closure

had to let her know that you could lick this / shake it up, it's gonna probably gon' bust

why, tell me why / why am i not satisfied / every time i cross that line / i feel it, i feel it

oikawa feels like tantalus: a man constantly reaching for a goal just out of reach, straining his muscles and screaming his voice hoarse just for a glimpse of an unattainable destiny. he’s desperate to get ahead, and while he may be running at top speed at all times, the finish line doesn’t seem to be getting any closer. his worst fear is that, some time he’ll slow his pace and look back and realize he hasn’t gotten very far at all.

↪ “baby powder” by jenevieve: suna rintaro

i'll put up with you babe / there's somethings I won't take / baby don't feel me false / yeah that turns me off

you're making me so high now / you're everything I'd ever want / you're keeping me so dry now / you're everything I'd never want uh

plastic on the floor but it ain't for me / ima go up to the place that i'd rather be

suna is straightforward. he won’t deal with your bullshit, and he learns that you won’t deal with his either, which makes you so appealing. when he starts letting more and more of you in, he feels you slipping through his fingers. you wanted to be friends, so you treat him as one. he doesn’t remember when he started wanting more.

↪ “chandelier (instrumental version)” by paquin: koganegawa kanji

instrumental so no lyrics lol

koganegawa is bubbly. he’s a bouncer: he bounces between social circles, bounces colors behind his eyes, and bounces back after adversity. he’s an amiable guy, and it’s landed him plenty of friends and opportunities, but best of all, it’s landed him you.

↪ “l-over” by u.s. girls: ushijima wakatoshi

my lover has no heart / magic moving blood around that body / he's cool to the touch / i don't see him much / but when I do, he does nothing for me

can you imagine trying to get / some satisfaction out of a stone?

spare me any talk of your future life / i don't know what I'll do without you

ushijima is stubborn. he’s deadset on achieving his goals for the future, and if you can’t work with them, you better work around them. you’re tired of how he grounds you; you thought it was a blessing at first, having a guy that knew what he wanted and would always act as a constant in your life, but you’ve started to see that he’s not a lighthouse anymore, he’s an anchor. he’s an anchor that’s chaining you to the ocean floor and will drown you if you, even for a second, stop kicking your legs to stay afloat.

↪ “magic!” by リアムMAZE1981: bokuto koutarou

and when you smile at me that way / well you can warm the coldest day / it's magic

and all i have to do is think of you / to make the music start to play / then i dance down the street / and the people I meet stop and say hey hey

and when you want me you just clap your hands / and I'll be with you right away / then we'll float on a breeze / while the leaves in the trees softly say hey hey / magic ways, my friend / you love the girl with magic ways and it's true / i might as well give in

bokuto is bright. he tramps around the world with the light of the sun illuminating his face. there is nothing in the universe that could ever drag him down, especially not with you around. you’ve cast some kind of spell on him, he’s sure of it, because your very presence makes him certain that he’s immortal. he must be, because when he’s with you, he’s withstanding the heat of a thousand suns that erases the darkness in every shadow, corner, and crevice of his life.

↪ “i hope that u think of me” by pity party (girls club): kuroo tetsuro

i hope that you dream of me baby / nightmares are what dreams are baby i-i-i / i think I'm fallin' out of love

you tell me that it's easy to be / you tell me that it's easy to be with me but you lie-i-i / why do you lie all the time?

kuroo is focused. he takes note of everything when he’s working on a task, down to dotting the ‘i’s and crossing the ‘t’s. he often finds himself with tunnel vision, unable to think of anything but the current responsibility at the top of his every-growing to-do list. somewhere along the way, he lost track of you—must’ve loosened his grip on your hand and your fingers fell through empty space. he’d look for you, back in the void, but he’s busy. he keeps moving, unaware that you’ve turned back, walking in the opposite direction as him to find the life before him that you barely remember.

↪ “the leanover” by life without buildings: hinata shoyo

kiss me, break my mind, close the door / black steel, break my mind, close the door

if i lose you in the street / i say, i say, i say, i say, i say, i say / wassup, wassup with you? / wassup with your friends?

hinata is unfazed. he knows that, when things go bad, there’ll always be something there to right them. so when your paths diverge—maybe your schedules don’t work out, your dates get canceled, your nights home become more and more sparse—he’s not worried. not one bit. because at the end of the night, he knows that you’ll always find your way back to one another, and you’ll always greet him with open arms. and he’ll always do the same.

↪ “ladyfingers - edit” by funding secured: kita shinsuke

instrumental so no lyrics lol

kita is polished. he works hard during the day to be with you at night, dancing in little circles in the small kitchen of your shared home. he looks at you with fondness and appreciation, thanking his stars a million times over for granting him with someone like you. he’s a tree, stable in the harshest of gales, but even trees like to sway with the wind sometimes.

↪ “black madonna” by cage the elephant: terushima yuuji

makes no difference here, so let's be real / black madonna, my black flower / nowhere left to run, nowhere left to hide / you're not havin' fun, i think that you should ride

climb so high, don't hear a sound / don't you forget what goes around, comes around / climb so high, tell me how to feel

call me when you're ready to be real / black madonna, my hallelujah

terushima is hedonistic. he’s never concerned himself with thoughts of the future, or of the past, or of anything, really. all he can think about is making each moment as willing to be lived as possible. you, on the other hand, are practical, too practical in his opinion, and he wants you to let loose, lighten up a little bit. maybe in the long run, it won’t be the best idea to let him take you by the hand and on a midnight adventure, but you haven’t thought that far ahead yet. guess he’s already rubbing off on you.

↪ “mother nature’s bitch” by okay kaya: iwaizumi hajime

everybody / please give a warm welcome to / to this current mood

here i am / easy to please / here i am / okay with it

here i am / desperate for attention / here i am / being mother nature's bitch

iwaizumi is hardworking. he does the best he can with everything he tries; sometimes that amounts to something and sometimes it doesn’t. most times it doesn’t fulfill his expectations, as high as they are. when you’re around, his borderline hatred for himself disappears. when you’re there to tell him how great he’s doing, the tension in his shoulders dissipates.

↪ “smithereens” by rasharn powell, ab001: miya osamu

found my power / and my brethren / in a tussle with the world itself

see if I’m david, you’re goliath / there’s some power in defiance / put my heart in a slingshot / we been cycling away for days

searching for freedom always / likeness of an orgasm been had / empty with a peace that just don’t last / petite mort, then born again

osamu is pioneering. he opened a small business and eventually branched out, managing chains of his restaurant across the nation. it may not be a flashy job, but it’s a solid one, and a draining one. there are days of back-to-back shifts, afternoons overwhelming catering orders, and nights spent sleeping over on a cot near the kitchen. when he dreams, curled up with the smell of onigri still lingering in the air, he can only think of ‘what if’ he’d chosen another path, a path with a more obvious end, a more obvious definition of glory. but he still wakes up at dawn, conquering his own corner of the sky, knowing that his life, while it may be small, is not insignificant.

↪ “must be” by lou phelps: kageyama tobio

must be the henny on the ice / must be the diamonds that I buy / might be the shit that I write / whatever a n**** do and say, that's what I like

i'm on the cloud as i walk the front door / that's a boost, that's true, that's loo

yeah, um, i'mma need my space / 'cause you's a bum-bum, can't be standing next to me, uh / forgive me for my sins / don't tell me this is wrong if it feels right

kageyama is cocky. he’s good at what he does, amazing, actually, and he sure as hell knows it. he’s surrounded by people that make him better, people that he makes better, and he can’t think of a place he’d rather be. he’s on his way to carve his way into the moon and he’s not going to tolerate anyone that wants to keep him on earth.

↪ “jealous” by eyedress: sakusa kiyoomi

you could have anyone you want / why would you want to be with me? / you know, I'm nothing special

don't tell me about your problems / if you're not trying to solve them / don't ask me for my help

sakusa is independent. he’s not one to see himself as part of someone else’s orbit, opting to act like a random rock, floating in space with no origin and no destination. he’s worried that, if he gets too close to you, he’ll end up getting drawn in by your gravity and either crash land or burn up. neither seems appealing, and the idea of a safe encounter hasn’t even crossed his mind, so he’s going to keep moving on an endless trek towards the stars.

#haikyuu!!#haikyu #hq #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu angst #kenma #akaashi #oikawa #suna #koganegawa #ushijima #bokuto #kuroo #hinata

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thiswasinevitableid · 3 years

Note

for the mermay fills: indruck, 25, any rating

Here you go! I went with SFW for this one.

The thing no one tells you about journeys of self-discovery is that they’re really fucking boring.

Duck’s been on this highway for days, and another highway for the days before that. He wanted to see the desert in the spring, but it’s involved fewer super-blooms and more butterflies dying on his windshield than he hoped.

Now he’s on some two lane strip of barely paved road in the vast expanse between Las Vegas and Reno. Green catches his eye to his left; a ribbon of well-watered trees shines in the distance. Closer to the road are dueling picket signs shoved into the ground, some demanding the preservation of the tiny pocket of wetlands and others proclaiming this the site of the Hungry Man Casino expansion. The signs continue all the way to the tiny town of Kepler, where he pulls into a gas station in front of Tarkesian’s General Store.

After filling the tank and chatting with the owner and his incongruous New York accent, Duck decides to stop in Kepler for the night. The road north is mostly open range, and he’s already had one near miss with a cow on a pitch black stretch of asphalt. The lone place to rest is the Reconciliation Motel Court and Casino. He gets his key, pulls up to the chipped door, and flops onto the burnt orange bedspread for a nap.

He doesn’t wake up until eight at night, wondering what the hell is wrong with the other guests that they’re all playing music loud enough for him to hear. He counts at least six separate voices, their overlap meaning the lyrics turn to gibberish. It’s still hot and stuffy in the room, and maybe outside will be quiet. He pulls on his swim trunks and rash guard; a peek out the window at the pool shows it’s empty and that, plus the general sparseness of the parking lot, makes him confident enough that he won’t bump into anyone and try to make up some lie about being shy or mormon or whatever the hell else would explain a dude keeping a top on to swim.

But, just his luck, when he latches the pool gate shut, he discovers he’s not alone. A man with silver hair floats in the pool, eyes closed. When Duck sets a towel on the chair, his eyes fly open and he dives under the water, giving Duck twin shocks: glowing red eyes and a long, jet black tail.

“What the fuck?” He says aloud in case someone else is watching and can explain why there’s a fucking mermaid in the pool.

The merman resurfaces, blinking at him, “How in the world did you get in here?”

“Uhhhh…” Duck points to the gate.

“You...you see the pool? Do you see the motel as well?”

Duck turns, wondering if this is some kind of prank, “yeah?”

“Apologies” the merman swims to the edge of the pool nearest him, “it was such an unlikely future I am having a hard time processing it.”

“You’re havin a hard time”

“Oh, oh of course, this is all very confusing to you. Here, have a seat.” He gestures to one of the pool chairs. Not knowing what else to do, Duck sits.

“Now, have you heard singing while you have been here?”

“Yep. Thought it was the other guests.”

The merman shakes his head, “They are sirens. As am I. We are the descendants of sirens who lived here in the days when there was far more water in this area. As the water dwindled, we made our home in that river and wetlands” he points towards the south end of town, “and then the founders of this fine establishment decided to catch us and use us to lure people to their rundown casino. Since you are about to ask, a siren song shows you what you want; turns out many people want the promise of easy money, food, or sex. But you...somehow you do not seem to respond to it.”

Duck shrugs, “Guess not.”

“I wonder...hmm, perhaps you do not want anything?”

“Don’t think that’s it. Been drivin up and down the country lookin for somethin I want but can’t name.”

The merman rests his arms on the concrete, “You must tell me everything about your travels.”

“I mean, uh, they ain’t all that excitin-”

“I have been stuck in this pool for three years.”

“Okay yeah, more excitin than that. Also, what the fuck?”

“There are ones like it in almost all the lower level rooms. I get stuck out here because I will not sing, but due to having future sight I am too valuable to do away with.”

“This ain’t gettin less fucked up.”

The merman laughs, “Perhaps that is why you don’t fall prey to our song; you are just very honest.”

“That a nice way of sayin I can’t lie for shit?”

“I suppose so.” He grins, sharp teeth glinting in the yellow streetlights, “regardless, I am glad you are not susceptible. I haven’t spoken to anyone aside from the owners in months. They even keep me from my own kind.” His tone is breezy, but Duck sees the flash of pain in his eyes.

“What’s your name?”

“Indrid. Yours?”

“Can’t you see it comin?” He teases.

“Yes, but I want to hear you say it. I get ahead of others often enough as it is.”

“Duck. It’s a nickname.”

Indrid flips his tail once, “Care to join me for an evening swim, Duck.”

“You ain’t gonna eat me or anythin, right?”

“I only taste humans when offered” His tail undulates hypnotically as he pushes into deeper water. Then he pauses, “that was meant as flirtation and not as a threat.”

Duck slides into the water, smiling when he meets Indrid’s nervous gaze “Yeah, I got that.”

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

“See, you can tell it’s a saguaro because--fuck” the camera slips from Duck’s hand, only for Indrid’s to shoot out and catch it before it hits the water.

“Thanks, ‘Drid, startin’ to wonder what I’d do without you.”

The mer, cheek resting on the warm concrete, shifts sideways so he can bump Duck’s knee with his forehead, “The feeling is mutual.”

For the last two weeks Duck’s stayed at the motel, watching his fellow occupants walk zombie-like through doors or stagger from them in a daze when their money runs out and the owners kick them to the curb to make way for new targets. Following Indrid’s instructions, he delivers messages between the trapped sirens, the kind they dare not sing aloud, brings them things they’re missing, like favorite foods or things to do, when he can manage it.

He’s also careful to spend time in town, away from any lingering influence of the siren songs. Leo Tarkesian gives him a job in the store, and he strikes up a friendship with a woman going by the name of Mama, who comes in once a week with beautiful wood carvings for Leo to set out for sale. It turns out her family used to own the motel before Reconciliation swooped in and stole it in what Mama insists was an illegal move.

“Worst part is, they crowed about creatin jobs, bringin’ in more tourists. But they won’t let no one outside their inner circle work there, and folks who stop never leave and visit the rest of town. Now they’re gunnin for the state park. But they ain’t gonna get away with it this time.”

More than anything, Duck spends his time with Indrid. The siren tells him stories about life in the wetlands and river, Duck tells him about his travels, about his home, talks with him until the stars come out, would stay until they go away again except the mer tells him he needs his sleep.

Indrid is a very encouraging conversation partner, disdain and aloofness only appearing when he has to speak to the owners of the motel. He’s also very affectionate, resting his head in Duck’s lap or winding his tail around him whenever he stands in the water. Which is why, when he asks Duck if he’s made up his mind about what to do come fall, his fingers are stroking the humans back and his tail is lazily petting his legs.

“I dunno. I could go back and finish my degree, become a ranger and all that. But what if I’m only doin that because I feel like it’s what I’m supposed to do?”

Indrid brushes Duck’s hair from his forehead, “When you think of the future where you meet that goal, how do you feel.”

“Happy. Content. Like, like there’s a thing I can do to keep the world healthy and whole. Sometimes I feel like I’m supposed to be out there savin the world, solvin every problem, makin everythin better. And that’s too damn much. But when I think about havin some forest or park or somethin where part of my job is to care for it, help it grow...yeah, think I could do that.” He smiles at the image of his future self those words conjure.

Indrid smiles at the current him, brushes their noses together, “It seems to me that you have your answer.”

Duck loops his arms around Indrid’s waist, “Then again, could just stay here, look after you and the other sirens forever.”

Chlorine stings his eyes as Indrid zips backwards, looking as if he’s been slapped.

“‘Drid? What’s wrong?”

“You cannot stay here any longer.”

“What do you mean? I wanna stay. I wanna be with you.”

“No! Don’t you see? This is how the song gets you. It is making you think that your greatest wish is to stay in this crumbling motel, looking after a siren who has seen better days.”

“Hold the fuck on” Duck tries to swim to him, only for Indrid to swim further out of reach, “‘Drid, it’s real fuckin insultin to tell a fella that the only reason he feels how he feels is because of a magic song. Maybe I am startin to feel the effects, but I know that when I think about you, no matter how near or far to this fuckin pool I am, I wanna be with you. I’ve fallen in love before, I can recognize the feelin from a mile away. And it’s what I’m feelin now.” He crosses his arms, daring Indrid to argue.

The siren swims to him, cups his face in cool hands, “It’s what I feel too. Why do you think I cannot ask you to stay? I am a prisoner here, Duck. If you remain for my sake, you will be one as well. I cannot do that to you. I know the agony of being cut off from the world you love, and you have so much love yet to give it I cannot, will not, rob you of the chance to do so.”

“I…” Duck he mirrors Indrid’s touch, runs his thumbs along his cheeks.

“Please” Indrid kisses him once, softly, “please, if you love me, don’t stay here and make me watch you decay.”

Duck pulls Indrid as close as he can, kisses him until his lips ache and the siren is pliant and purring in his arms.

“I’ll go. I fuckin hate the idea of leavin you here, but I’ll go.”

“Thank you.”

“There’s just one thing you gotta let me do first. Will you let me introduce you to another human? She’s got almost as much cause to hate Reconciliation as you do, and I got a hunch you two might be able to help each other out.”

Indrid cocks his head, then nods, “Of course, my love. Just tell her to wear earplugs and bring something to write on.”

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

The cottonwoods rustle in the summer breeze as Indrid floats lazily down the river on his back. A family is picnicking outside the visitor center, but only the youngest member of it sees him. She waves. He raises his tail in reply, smiling when she spills her drink in delight.

Most sirens give the heavily trafficked parts of the park a wide berth, still wary of interactions with humans. Indrid doesn’t blame them; Reconciliation was chased out ten years ago, but their memory lingers like smog. He himself stays clear of unfamiliar groups of humans whenever possible.

But today, the futures show him the park is welcoming a new ranger. And so he swims back and forth, hoping the recent arrival will see him. Hoping he remembers.

“I’m sorry sir, but swimmin ain’t allowed in this chunk of the river.” A teasing drawl drifts over his shoulder.

He spins in what he hopes is an elegant way, accidentally splashing the figure on the bank behind him.

“Of course.” He grins, swimming over and resting his arms on the bank and batting his eyelashes as the ranger crouches down to meet him, “how very rude of me. I am terribly sorry.”

Duck’s smile is brimming with years of stored up affection, the lines on his face hinting at stories Indrid cannot wait to hear, “S’okay. For my favorite roadside siren, I’m happy to make an exception.”

#indruck #indrid cold/duck newton #mermay

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calligraphist-artemisia · 3 years

Text

This Could Be the Start of Something

Written for the Kidge Spring Event!

Prompt 4: Rose or Carnation | Free Day

Summary: AU - Canon Divergence. Pidge hears the sound of voices late one night and creeps downstairs to investigate. Who would have thought that would lead her to a new friend?

Also posted on AO3 under the username Kishirokitsune

❀ - ❀ - ❀ - ❀ - ❀

Katie felt as though she had only just laid her head down to go to sleep, soothed by the sound of her father reading a bedtime story, when all at once she was wide awake. She laid in bed, mystified over the reason why she was no longer asleep and was about to close her eyes when she heard an unfamiliar voice coming from downstairs.

As quietly as she could, Katie slipped out of bed and padded across her room, gently pushing the door open so she could hear more clearly. Maybe it was just her parents listening to TV? They usually turned it down for the night, but it could be that they forgot. She held her breath as she listened, picking up first on the voice of the stranger and then, a little more clearly, her father responding.

There was someone else in the house!

But why? It was so late at night. They never got visitors that late!

Katie looked down the hall at her brother's room, wondering if she should go and wake him up, but quickly decided against it. Matt could be kind of grumpy when she woke him up before he was ready. He'd probably think she was being silly.

She would just have to solve the mystery on her own.

She crept down the hall to the stairs and slowly made her way down, listening all the while to make sure none of the grown-ups were moving around. It sounded like they were in the kitchen, which was perfect for her because she could even look in from the window cut-out at the bottom of the stairs and see who was there without getting seen herself. (She and Matt had practiced a few times to get the angle right, so she was pretty sure she could do it.)

Katie stayed close to the wall and very slowly moved into position until she could see her mom and dad, as well as a strange man with dark hair all sitting around the kitchen table. She listened for a moment to try and figure out what they were talking about, but it all sounded kind of boring and adultish.

She was about to turn around and go back upstairs when her mother said: “Travis, I wish there was some way we could help you and Keith, but we're too much in the public eye to take him in if anything were to happen.”

Keith? Who was Keith? Why would they need to “take him in”?

Katie tried to see more into the kitchen and find out if there was anyone else in there with them but wasn't able to see anything else from where she was. It would be risky, but she would have to crawl beneath the window and peer around the wall instead.

The question was: was it worth the risk of getting caught?

Katie took a minute or so to decide and eventually figured it was worth taking a chance. What was the worst that would happen if she got spotted? Maybe a brief lecture while her mom took her back upstairs?

She was about to make her move when she heard the sound of a chair scraping across the floor. She froze in place, her heart beating hard in her ears, as she heard a quiet, indistinct voice ask... well, something that she couldn't make out, followed by her mom saying: “It's just up the stairs, dear. First door on the left.”

Katie nearly tripped over her feet as she turned and hurried back up the steps, avoiding the spots she knew would creak and alert her parents. She probably wouldn't be fast enough to avoid being seen by whoever was coming up the stairs, but if she was in bed and pretending to sleep, then no one could prove that she'd been up. (She felt only slightly bad about lying, but it wasn't like it was a bad lie! She wasn't hurting anyone. She just didn't want to get lectured.)

She made it to her room and began to shut the door, but at the last minute left it open just enough that she could see who was coming upstairs.

It turned out to be someone who looked to be around her age, wearing a sweater with a deep hood that obscured their face from view. They stopped at the top of the stairs and looked to the left where the bathroom was located and then, as if they could sense that Katie was watching, looked directly at her door.

Their eyes seemed to glow in the dim light, not unlike a cat.

Katie held her breath for a moment, wondering what they would do next, and was somewhat disappointed when they continued on to the bathroom and shut the door.

What next?

Her curiosity was far from satisfied – she still didn't know if they were the “Keith” mentioned by her parents or why they would need to take him in. Why were they visiting so late at night? And what was with wearing a hood while inside?

There was only one way she would be getting answers to those questions and that was by asking, so Katie opened her door and took one step into the hall, where she waited for them to leave the bathroom. She wouldn't stop them if they didn't want to talk, though she'd be really disappointed if they went back downstairs without saying anything to her.

She stood up a little straighter when she heard the toilet flush and then the sink turn on. Nearly a minute later, all sound stopped and the door opened.

“H-hi!” Katie squeaked, suddenly overcome by nerves.

They stopped and stared at her. “Why are you watching me?”

“I'm sorry!” Katie blurted out. “I didn't mean to! I heard voices and I was curious... Mom and dad don't get visitors this late. I, um, I'm Katie.”

They seemed to relax a little at her response. “I'm Keith.”

So he was Keith. That was one mystery solved, but she still had so many questions! Katie fidgeted, not wanting to blurt them all out at once and scare him away. She'd heard other kids in her class talk about it enough, sometimes saying it directly to her face, and she knew she needed to slow down and give others the chance to understand what she was saying, but it was hard!

“I should go back,” Keith said, though he made no move towards the stairs.

It struck Katie as odd at first, but then she wondered if he was just as curious about her. “Or you could stay here,” she blurted out. “With me. We can talk. Or play a game. Or... I mean, we could just hang out. It would be kind of like a sleepover, but not at the same time. I don't know. I've never had one. I mean, I've got Matt, but he's my brother so that doesn't really count, you know?”

“Uh...”

Katie sheepishly ducked her head, feeling the warmth of a blush spread across her face. “Sorry, I know I talk a lot. You don't have to stay here with me.”

“I've never had a sleepover either,” he said, much to her surprise. “I don't think... I'm not allowed to. I should go downstairs.”

Thinking quickly, Katie said: “But if your dad's asking my mom and dad to take care of you, then that means you're allowed to have sleepovers with me!”

Keith tilted his head to one side as he mulled over what she'd just said. “Maybe? It's just... I'm not... I'm not normal.”

“You look normal to me,” Katie said with a dismissive shrug.

When she looked back on that night years later, Katie would always identify that statement as the one that truly paved the way towards a momentous friendship capable of withstanding any hardships thrown its way. At the time, however, it was just a single step towards getting to know the mysterious boy who was a little lonely, just like her.

Keith joined her in her room, where they sat on the plush rug in the very center, and Katie showed off the glow-in-the-dark stars that were plastered all over the ceiling. To her delight, Keith recognized some of the constellations that her dad had painstakingly mapped out, and was even able to name them!

“My dad takes me out to go stargazing sometimes,” Keith admitted shyly.

“You can't tell anyone, but sometimes me and Matt go sit on the roof with his telescope to try and see more stars. It's kind of hard here in the city, but we manage,” Katie told him. She bit her lip as a new question floated to mind. “Do you know why your dad is here talking to my parents?”

Keith nodded. “Uh-huh. It's 'cause he's a firefighter. He was just doing desk work for them for a while, but they want him to go back out and help people and he agreed. But it's dangerous and if anything happened to him, there isn't anyone around who can watch me.”

“What about your mom?”

“She's... gone.”

Katie picked at the long fibers of the rug, unsure of how to respond to that. “Well, what if I talk to my mom and dad and tell them you should stay with us! I know they said we can't, but I don't see what the big deal is.”

Keith said up suddenly, both hands raised to keep his hood in place. “I told you, it's because I'm not normal.” He paused for a few seconds. “Can you keep a secret?”

“Of course I can,” Katie responded as she sat up as well. She held out her right hand with all fingers except her pinky curled in towards her palm. “Pinky promise!”

Instead of looping his finger with hers, Keith pushed back his hood in a fluid motion. He slowly twisted to face her, his eyes downcast as he waited for her reaction.

For a moment, Katie was rendered completely speechless. She'd been ready to protest that of course he was normal, but that was proven wrong in an instant. His skin wasn't only dark, it was purple and he had a pair of vertical, pointed stripes rising up from the underside of his jaw. His eyes really did reflect gold in the dim lighting and she wished she could see what color they really were, but that thought flitted away when she noticed his pointed, almost elvish ears, and the fact that his hair faded out to a brighter shade of purple near the ends.

“You're an alien?” she whispered. “Omigosh, this is so cool! I've always wanted to meet an alien, but all of the kids at school say they aren't real! This is the best secret ever! I promise I won't tell anyone else. Not ever!”

Keith lifted his head, his eyes wide. “You really don't mind?”

Katie emphatically shook her head. “I think it's really, really cool! Can I ask you some stuff? You can say no if you don't want to tell me.”

“I, uh, don't really know that much,” Keith said, sounding flustered. “I grew up here on Earth and my mom didn't talk a lot about what it's like, you know, out there. I know she liked it here because of how peaceful it is. I think... I think there's some kind of war happening, but it's really, really far away, and that's why she had to leave. She's out there. Somewhere.”

Katie wasn't going to let the news that he grew up on Earth dampen her spirits. He was still an alien! Or, well, half alien, which made him super awesome in her opinion.

As she asked whatever question popped into her mind, they slowly laid back down on the rug. Questions gave way to sleepy remarks and jokes that left them both giggling until slowly Katie drifted off to sleep with a smile on her face.

Keith turned his head to watch her, marveling over the fact that he had found someone who wanted to be friends. And slowly, he too faded off into the realm of dreams.

#voltron #kidge #kidgemas #kidge spring event 2021 #fanfiction #in which pidge and keith meet as children

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duketectivecomics · 4 years

Note

You might've answered this already and I just didn't find it, but one thing that always perplexed me about Duke was how old he was in comparison to the other Batkids. It's obvious he's younger than Dick and Babs, and I pretty sure he's younger than Jason and Cass, and older than Damian, but I cannot tell if he's meant to be Tim and Steph's ages, younger, or older. Could you help me?

You’re all kinds of good here, anon!!! I answered a similar ask abt the Order of Adoption but didn’t dive into specific ages on that post BECAUSE well they didn’t ask lmaooo but ALSO:

Comic ages are very fluid usually! While Years™️ might pass in the canon proper, or while time seems to slow to a crawl, having a character’s age outright stated is something that occurs very rarely for most characters, if at all!

Because it’s always much easier to have a floating age range to work and play around in! It’s easier to keep a character Perpetually 12 or 16 or 25 or mid-40s or- you get the idea. SO, with that in mind. Let’s do our Best to Break Down What Age Duke Might Be Currently A N D how it might interact with the Other Batkids!

(Warning for a Very Long Post, lots of issue citations, and a LOT of comics terminology regarding specific runs/events/continunity. I’m gonna try to keep it as clear/concise as possible ofc but plz keep these things in mind! If you’re not at least marginally familiar with Bat-Comics, you might find yourself feeling a little lost here!)

So from the Zero Year arc we see a common Trend that plays out pretty consistently with Batfam comics: a Life-Changing Event Occuring while the protag is Young™️.

(Batman (2011) #30)

With how Duke is drawn in these particular issues, and given the trends of the past, I’d place him in the 8-12 range. The historic precedent being ofc that that is the same range that canon usually places both Bruce and Dick at for their Tragedies™; the more benign reason being that he... just very much Looks to be drawn in that Range. He’s very clearly an Older/Prepubescent child here.

Fast Forward to his Next Appearance in the Endgame arc and-

(Batman (2011) #37)

He’s definitely older! He’s wiser! And he’s giving Batman a fistbump lmao. Again, no strict age given here BUT, since they condensed each Robin to a Year or Two tops with Bruce (its n52 and its fucked up is what it is), we can assume it’s been at least 4-5 since Zero Year (which would mean if we go off the age range I proposed for that year, then theoretically he could be anywhere from 12-16 here, and I think that tracks pretty well. Not Perfectly and Certainly Not so well with Pre52 continuity ofc, but I’ll talk about that later!)

In We Are Robin, while its not stated Directly In The Text, it IS given as an Informational Tidbit that Duke is 16 (specifically this can be found at the end of issue #4)! (Sweet sweet canon confirmation FINALLY)

We know that WAR takes place Fairly Soon after Endgame (almost immediately, give or take a month or two given that Duke’s been placed in a few foster homes at this point and has racked up Quite A File) now, again id like to remind y’all that while this is a NICE starting point to have, keep in mind that comics are fluid and this may be retconned slightly/ignored in later stories bc Keeping Duke 16-ish is in DC’s Best Interest at the moment. (Having Relatable Teen Characters afterall is a Good Marketing strategy™️. And the longer they can Keep them Young, the Better)

With that in mind let’s take a moment to Highlight the fact that Duke and Damian have crossed paths at this point AND the storylines that have occurred during this year that were meant to be in conjunction with one another!

Because Prior to Endgame, Damian had Died! And just a year (in real, meat-space time) before We Are Robin, he was resurrected and had begun his “Year of Atonement” in the Robin: Son of Batman maxiseries. Midway through both this series and WAR (and, we can assume, midway thru this “Year” for Damian) the Robin War begins/ends and we see at least one major Moment between these two boys who will soon call one another brothers:

(Robin War #2)

Given that R:SoB is followed up VERY quickly by Teen Titans Rebirth (in which Damian celebrates his 13th birthday), we can conclude that Damian would be 12 during this time (well, 12 and 1/2 to play it safe lmao). That being said, this Confirms about a 4yr gap between Duke and Damian! (One Batkid down at least! but he’s the key to the others so put a pin in him!)

As We Are Robin draws to its conclusion, DC was releasing another arc that would eventually flow into the Rebirth Era, by the end of which, Bruce would approach Duke with an Idea (which involves Bruce becoming Dukes temporary guardian & as he states Many Times “Trying Something New” with Duke).

And thus the Rebirth Era begins, and Duke began his Year of training (most directly encapsulated by the Cursed Wheel arc in the All-Star Batman run:

(All-Star Batman #1 (back-up story))

Bruce introduces Duke to a training regimen that Alfred has named “the Cursed Wheel”. It encompasses all the training Bruce and the other bats have undergone and condenses it down into color-coordinated segments that will take Duke a Year to Complete.

It can be assumed that by the End of this Year Duke will somehow miraculously still be 16, despite, again, an entire ass year passing.

There’s one story that takes place mid-year in All-Star Batman, and the Cursed Wheel is meant to be capped off by Duke’s first Official Day as the Signal (in the titular Batman & the Signal ofc) BUT, near as I can tell after this story, Dukes age is not brought up again. So until they DO bring it up either in Batman & the Outsiders or whatever future run Duke becomes involved in, we can assume DC will be working with the idea that he’s meant to be in that 16-18 range from here on out (ie still a minor).

But, dear anon, you might be saying “okay, that’s cool, but how does that relate to my question abt how he falls in with the other Bats?” You’ll have to be a little patient with me here, but I think I may have cracked the code!

Keep in mind I’m gonna be addressing both the Post-Crisis to Flashpoint Continuity (ie mid-80s to 2010 in comics history) and the N52-slash-Rebirth Era (2010-Today). Its generally agreed by fandom and DC alike that these points of rebooting &/or Major Events constitute the era of “Modern” comics, and that everything from the 80s-on might more or less be canon on some level, even if not All of it is.

(Plus, most of fandom usually likes to borrow elements from both eras and much more rarely from stories before it, SO-)

Lets do a quick rundown of how everyone who’s Closer to Duke’s Age, Relates to each other first, age-wise:

Given that Jason was 15 when he died, in A Lonely Place of Dying its established that Bruce had become increasingly reckless since his death, and by the end of the story, Tim has stepped in to fill Robin’s shoes (he states that he’s 13 during this story btw). Pretty soon after, Stephanie Brown is introduced & established to be about a year older than Tim (wish I could pin-point a specific issue BUT, i unfortunately haven’t read any Tim OR Steph-involved comics that predate No Man’s Land... Besides the aforementioned Lonely Place and Young Justice technically, but im working on remedying that soon!)

NOW, during the No Man’s Land event, Cassandra is introduced, and pretty soon into her Batgirl run, its revealed that she’s around the same age as Jason (or at least how old he Would Have Been, had he not died.) Now, given that Jay has an August bday and Cass has a January one, fandom sometimes likes to play around with the idea of one being older than the other (OR even speculating/placing them in an AU as twins/siblings, given that Lady Shiva (Cass’ mom) was a Possible Candidate to be Jason’s biological mother but that’s a Whole Other Thing i wont get into here.)

The point being, Cass, in this era of comics, IS slightly older than Tim and Steph. At Tim’s start as Robin, their ages could either line up like: Tim-13, Steph-14, Cass-15 (being a few months ‘behind’ Jay), then Jason at 15/16 (depending on how soon Tim filled the role after Jay died in April) OR Jason-15/16, Cass-16/17 (in this case she’d be a few months ‘ahead’ now instead)

So brief detour to talk New 52, however! Because Tim, Steph & Cass all got switched around from where DC originally left them prior to the reboot! Now I haven’t read much of them in this era, other than Batman & Robin: Eternal, so my Understanding of their current ages is Spotty at Best. The general consensus seems to be that while before N52, Stephanie had been attending her first year of College (& doing VERY WELL i might add), with the reboot she was set back a few years alongside Tim to a vague Late-Teen state (so 16-18-ish, instead of a Very Clearly Established 18/19). Cass is probably the worst off for this reboot, given that B&R:E basically constitutes her new origin for the new continuity, and does nothing to confirm her age (all I really know is that she’s a Vague Late-Teen too... Probably? Maybe?), given how much they infantilize her, and subsequently how fandom in turn has taken to infantilizing her too, theres a semi-popular fanon that places her Younger that Tim and Steph. And I, for one, propose that we ignore that bc its Weak Sauce my dudes.

Some fans chose to ignore N52 continuity due to this vagueness, and will stick to the ages established before the N52/Rebirth reboots. But its something to keep in mind regardless bc we’re all obviously going to pull from what’s most familiar to us!

But WHERE could we place Duke with regards to them, then? Because them being “Late Teens” is certainly much too vague to work with!

This is Where Damian is the key!

Because Damian is one of those rare exceptions to the Reboot Rule. His story flowed almost seamlessly over from before to after. While he was made a Robin at the age of 10, he continued to grow and learn even after the universe was being rewritten to suit the whims of DC editorial.

If we choose to ignore how everyone else’s ages and origins were swapped around, and stick with the growth that was presented before the reboot, then we can draw some interesting conclusions!

Firstly, though Stephanie also had Died and subsequently Returned, she hadn’t lost much, if any time, from the Ordeal. At the start of her Batgirl run, she is enrolled at a Gotham university and making headway with a more firm foot in the Batfamily (even to the point that she and Damian spend a few issues bonding. At this point in time, Damian is definitely 11, and again, Steph can be assumed to be 18/19 during the course of her run. We’ll assume 18 for clarity’s sake.)

So, then when Damian is 11, now our line up is as Follows:

Dami - 11, Steph - 18, Tim - 17, Cass 19-21 (the range depending again, if you subscribe to Cass being either older/younger than Jason).

WHICH MEANS, If during Robin War Damian is 12 (and a half) THEN We’ve got an age line-up that Potentially looks Like This:

Dami -12(and 1/2), Duke - 16, Tim - 18, Steph - 19, Cass - 20-22 (And Obvsly Jason, Babs & Dick at their varying Older Ages than everyone here)

and im just now realizing i Didnt include Harper in this line-up, but thats bc she’d also throw a big wrench in all this. I’d personally throw her in with being Steph’s age, but I’m pretty sure she was supposed to be either that, or between Steph and Cass (again, since its N52, i believe Cass was/is assumed to be Younger than Steph, but that contradicts the assumed following of pre52 canon that we have for the above line-up, obvsly, and so we ignore that lmao)

All this to say, however, that canon and fandom is what you make of it, and if you want to wiggle these ages around a little, you’re more than allowed! God Knows i usually like to skew the Tim-Steph-Cass age group to be a tad older than this in my own fic writing, and I like to have Duke start as a Robin at 14/15 instead of 16, but that’s just bc I like the dynamic potential it could bring with them being Definitively Older that him, and thus in a more secure place to be Mentoring him right alongside Bruce & the others.

But you might see these age ranges and want to do something Different (say, making Tim, Steph, Cass, & Duke all the Same Age at 17 instead! And that very well tracks with how current comics kinda looks right now!) and you’re absolutely valid to do so! Because again, comic character’s ages are meant to be fluid, not fixed!

And at the end of the day, its all about wanting to see these teen heroes kick serious ass haha

#duke thomas #guest starring:#batfamily #damian wayne #tim drake #stephanie brown #cassandra cain #randywrites #randys meta #meta #asked and answered #anonymous asks #this was A LOT and i tried to throw some humor where i could #but uhhhh yeah!!! i hope this helps anon!!!#also just realizing its TWO AM WHERE DID THE TIME GO #ah well. Worth It

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dakotacrisis · 3 years

Text

Ursula

Okay so with that whole Cruella movie thing going on there is a post floating around about why they haven’t done something like this for Ursula who is mysterious and cool and has this interesting untold backstory. That just reminded me of the fact that back when Maleficent first came out 7 years ago I was thinking about that same premise but with Ursula and wrote what is basically a plot synopsis for an Ursula backstory I created and never did anything with.

I also didn’t want to hijack the original post I had saw addressing this so I am posting it here.

---

Ursula is from a race of merpeople with tentacles instead of fish tails that abandoned their home in the deeper part of the sea when food became scarce. During the move baby Ursula got separated from her family and found by a passing octopus who sees her and takes her to Atlantica. The then childless King Poseidon and Queen Amphitrite take Ursula in as their own. A couple years later Triton is born.

At first Ursula is a normal child. She is raised in a loving but strict home and groomed to assume the throne of Atlantica as she is the oldest child. Triton will get the other half of the sea to rule and start his own kingdom when the time comes. The King and Queen are actually really happy about having multiple children since it’ll divide the workload of ruling to a more manageable degree.

King Poseidon is strict and stern with a stubborn streak and a short temper. Despite this he is also a very brave, wise, caring, and protective father figure. While he may act distant and aloof he deeply cares about his children and is not afraid to be downright silly to make them smile. He takes a vested interest in teaching Ursula magic as she had an affinity for it as a child. Triton on another hand is taught more combat by Poseidon.

Queen Amphitrite is confident and charismatic with an effortless grace and elegance. She is highly intelligent and a gifted diplomat able to persuade others easily. She has a habit of being vain about her looks but only when out in public. In the comfort of her home with her family she is much more laid back and almost childlike and bubbly. She loves her children and takes a leading role in their studies and teaching them how to be leaders.

As children Triton and Ursula get along fine. They tease and fight like normal siblings do, but you can tell that there is a lot of love between them as well. As teenagers they are still close but puberty, maturity, and peer pressure cause them to make poor decisions.

Life goes on and while Ursula does face prejudice from some of the kingdom for her species she is assured by her family that they love her and she doesn’t need to change to please others. While it does help she still carries a certain resentment for those who do hate her just because of how she looks.

Growing into a teenager is where it really comes to a head. Ursula is a proud, intelligent, kind of arrogant and flamboyant young lady. She often has to fight back against the harsh comments and passive aggressive treatment of her peers which gives her a thick skin and pessimistic attitude.

Triton as a teenager has grown up to be very much like his father. He is stubborn and short tempered with a tendency to be dismissive and highly opinionated. He still cares about his family, especially his older sister, Ursula, but with pressure from his friends starts to act colder and more distant with her. When he stands up for her when she gets bullied he is ostracized by his friends. Eventually he stops helping altogether although he knows it is wrong and feels guilty about leaving her to fight her battles alone. As the bullying gets worse and her best friend, Triton, becoming more and more distant with her Ursula gets angrier and more selfish so to keep herself safe.

One day things are going a little too well. People are nicer and happy to see her. Confused at this sudden turn around but encouraged by her brother she opens up to them and starts to enjoy herself believing that maybe things are turning around.

This goes on for a couple days and Ursula lets her guard down and enjoys herself with her new friends. It is her birthday and the kingdom gathers together to celebrate. Ursula invites her new friends as her personal guests to the festivities. Unbeknownst to her though was that this was a long term con to get to this exact moment.

A thing about Ursula’s species is that they are predatory hunters. They hunt down live fish and other aquatic life for nourishment and like sharks get attracted by blood. This was a problem growing up for Ursula as it was a natural part of her biology that she had to learn to control but does go out and hunt away from the kingdom as needed.

Her peers use this information to their advantage and gift her a bunch of chum. Angered that her friendship with these people was all a ruse to embarrass her Ursula goes into a rage. She uses her magic to animate the chum and have it chase and stick to the party goers. Her parents try to calm her down and manage to get through to her for a moment to stop but at this point the blood from the chum has attracted a group of sharks that break into the party and start chasing everyone.

Poseidon, Triton, and the guards are able to drive the sharks away but the damage has been done. Everyone blames Ursula for the shark attack despite the fact that they only showed up because of her bully’s “gift”. Despite everything Ursula does get a lecture from her mother about learning to control her temper and that she was not taught magic to use it in such a way. Ursula tries to explain her side of things but is shrugged off and told to lay low while they fixed things. Ursula is essentially under house arrest and encouraged to not so much as leave her room as much as she can until things die down.

Triton comes by to check on her and tells her that it was messed up what those people did to her. One act of aggression did not make her a bad person and her species definitely did not. Ursula asks him that if what they did was so wrong then how come he didn’t say anything when she unwrapped their present? How come he’s been pushing her away these past couple of years? Did he think she wouldn’t notice that he abandoned her to defend herself?

Triton gets defensive and tells her that it was not like she made it easy all the time to defend her. Could she try to be a little more sociable and nice to people instead of holing herself up with her spells all day? People would probably like her better if she didn’t act so strange.

Ursula is stunned. He did not just tell her that it was her fault that she has been ostracized by the community because of her species and her keeping herself locked away from others was what was most beneficial to her mental health. He did not!

That’s not what he meant--

It sure sounded like that’s what he meant.

Ursula, please, let them talk about this.

No. She’s done talking. She’s done waiting for everyone to accept her. They are never going to accept her. Not as one of them and certainly never as their queen. If Triton, her brother, her best friend, could not see what was happening, could not support her, then she had nothing left here.

She flees the castle. A massive search is launched to find her but Ursula has retreated to one of the farthest and darkest reaches of the ocean. There she hones her power. Her memories also morph turning her reasonably pleasant childhood into a lonely recollection where neither of her parents loved her. Her teen years are even worse as she takes the rejection and scrutiny and amplifies it tenfold in her mind until she has convinced herself that everyone in the kingdom hated her and didn’t care about her at all. The only thing she has from her old life being the nautilus shell her mother had gifted her on the birthday everything went wrong. It was a symbol of power and her right to be ruler of the ocean.

Sometime during her isolation she befriended two moray eels, Flotsam and Jetsam, that she enlists to spy on Atlantica for her. There she sees preparations being made for Triton’s coronation. She crashes the coronation and while at first everyone is scared and guards are called Triton recognizes the necklace and his long lost sister and swims to embrace her and welcome her home.

Ursula is not taken in by his sincere relief and gratitude that she is back and tells him that the throne was hers alone. Triton of course is confused because he does not understand why she is so angry with him. He did not choose to be king alone, everyone thought she had runaway never to be seen again years ago. They were supposed to rule together as brother and sister until she left.

Ursula goes on a rant about how he couldn’t have truly believed that. They had never been friends. They were never even family as far as she was concerned. She alone was supposed to rule the seas and she was here to reclaim her birthright and she was ready to take out Triton to do it.

Triton is now angry that his sister does not believe him and hurt that she hates him now. He tells her she does not deserve the throne after abandoning it and the two get into a large fight. Triton’s brute strength versus Ursula’s magic. It is pretty close with Ursula almost getting the upper hand before Triton manages to knock her back and she is subdued. Unable to do the deed of sentencing what was once his beloved sister to death he instead banishes her back to where she came from. Ursula vows to have her revenge and take back her crown.

Back in Atlantica Triton stares at the one remaining portrait of Ursula that remained hanging in the palace. A family picture of Poseidon, Amphitrite, Ursula, and Triton. Triton has it taken down and hidden away. It would be better for future generations that Ursula be seen as an evil sea witch that must be avoided than the rightful queen of the ocean she had been raised to be. He has his own growing family to worry about after all and it is better if they don’t know who she really is.

Epilogue brings news to Ursula via Flotsam and Jetsam that Triton’s youngest daughter has been seen skulking around sunken ships. Interesting. Be sure to keep an eye on this one.

END

---

gosh I wish I had 17 year old me’s motivation to write this and fully flush it out.

#give ursula a good backstory cowards!#i know no one is gonna care about this but I do dang it!#ursula #the little mermaid #not ml

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demonfox38 · 3 years

Text

Completed - Baba is You

I can't believe this is the first game I've perfected on Steam.

Like, I don't like achievement systems in video games, okay? I prefer to set my own goals. Sure, there are some achievements that are interesting, like learning to use a certain mechanic in a cool or efficient manner, visiting hidden rooms, or even running around with nothing but my character's default busted sword just to prove a point. Mostly, I just want to finish them. I don't go jumping through flaming hoops because I want people to think I'm cool. I'm from Iowa. I'm critically uncool by design.

If a game is good, I will put in the extra work. Like, getting 100% souls in "Castlevania: Aria of Souls" and 200.6% map completion in "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night" is now just routine for me. With "Baba is You"? Well, circumstances are just a teeny bit different.

"Baba is You" is a puzzle game from independent developer Arvi Teikari. Your primary goal in the game is to create statements out of nouns, verbs, and conditions and use those generated rules to complete levels. It's basically catnip to programmers. These puzzles are packaged in cute, scribbly animations and gentle music. Ultimately, its soft presentation is the figurative sheep's clothing under which the wolf of this game lives, dragging its players through increasingly more complex situations, sitting there, laughing, its whole world wiggling in its adolescent mockery of you and your sluggish brain.

You're not always even Baba. I know. The absolute betrayal.

I originally saw this game being streamed back in 2019. A frustrating feeling overtook me as I watched the player work through the puzzles. I could feel myself solving them before she could, and it was making me itch. I didn't want to have any more spoiled without giving it a shot myself, so I purchased the game, put in a few hours, and then dropped it for two years. Hell, the major reason I came back to it was that I was babysitting my mom's very needy poodle, and I was more or less trapped on the couch with her during her entire stay. Had to do something. So, I decided this was it.

"Baba is You" really is the ultimate "Yeah, I'll get back to this" game. You know what I mean? There's always a handful of games that you make a little headway into, and then you think, "Yeah, I'll get back to this" and then drop it. I try not to be this way. Video games are expensive, and I want to get as much value as I can out of them. But man, does this game get overwhelming.

I mean, the TAS for a 100% run is currently around an hour and forty-five minutes. That's for 226 puzzles. That is a lot.

Granted, you don't have to finish every puzzle if you don't want to. The game can let you slide free with your first ending after completing only three subworlds on the main map. You know how many people get to that first ending? Like, we're talking maybe getting through 3 hours of gameplay or so. As of this posting, it's around 7.8% of all players on Steam. In comparison, here are first time ending numbers from other games I own on Steam:

"Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon" – 38% (Cleave the Moon)

"Trine" – 29.6% (Completed!)

"Dust: An Elysian Tale" – 23.9% (…And the Dust Settles)

"Fez" – 14.7% (Kill Screen)

"Psychonauts" – 13.2% (I Thought That Was Unbeatable!)

"Typing of the Dead" – 12.9% (Experimental Fiction)

"Final Fantasy VII" – 9.4% (End of Game)

That's right. From a percentage point of view, more players will put 80 hours into a 20+ year old RPG than 3 hours in this game. So, what's up with that?

At first, I wasn't struggling terribly with the game. I was making a pretty steady clip through it, stopping occasionally to check out the game's wiki. (BTW—view that on a laptop browser, not a mobile one. The background makes it hard to read some of the verbs and conditions.) My first tap-out in 2019 happened around the "Forest of Fall" block, when the game started introducing teleporting puzzles. My second brain-snap happened about 18 hours in the game when I accidentally created the phrase "Level is Key" in the puzzle "Fragile Existence," and then I realized that I could both create this level as Baba and had to create another level as a flag to win the overworld map.

And then there was a submap.

And another.

Holy crap, my brain was not ready for the mess that was Depths and Meta.

At one point, I stopped myself and reviewed why I was overcome with despair at my own stupidity. A part of it is yes, the game looks very cute, and the language used in the puzzles is very simple. So, when you don't get it, it's like saying you don't get "Sesame Street." And hey, maybe you wouldn't if it was in Mandarin and you only speak English. But, I did want to beat myself up for my sluggish responses and my growing feeling of helplessness. Why couldn't I beat the simple sheep game for babies? Was I really that stupid?

I think it helped to know what troubles I had my playthrough harder. This included:

Using text to push objects past barriers. (Yes, text exists in the world, and unless it's floating, you can use that text to move objects around. It's like hitting a car with a stop sign.)

Assuming attributes on an object that weren't actually assigned (i.e., assuming a door was locked or a wall would prevent me from moving through it, even if that wasn't the case.)

Manipulating text to double-layer nouns or break up commands by wedging an inactive/non-solid object in them. (See: Prison.)

Realizing that "you" doesn't always have to go to a certain destination. Sometimes, "you" just need to have something move over there or push something into where you want to go.

Remembering to use the "Wait" button to let moving objects finish their paths.

"Defeat" is a condition that applies only to "you", not objects in your possession. (They may instead be destroyed by "Sink").

Some rules need to be created and destroyed in the same turn.

Things that move on their own can be used to carry commands through obstacles.

Sometimes, you've just got to count your steps when you're taking an action and see if you can reduce them.

And granted, despite my stupidity, there were some puzzles that really clicked! I particularly enjoyed using the "Word" condition, as it allowed for me to treat both words and objects as a noun to make assignments. There were also times where I had to spell out the commands I wanted from letters left on the map. Fun! Natural! And hell, who doesn't enjoy a good block pushing puzzle, now and again? Super easy. Makes sense. Key is push, door is open. Of course!

Ass is Hot! Of course! (Wait, that wasn’t the solution...)

I tended to lock up more when the "Defeat" piece was on screen. I mean, you can always undo your mistakes, and there's no life limit or anything like that. But, hearing your player character go splat when you mess up is flinch-worthy. Additionally, I hated having to build complex paths for objects to follow. Like, screw the entirety of Adventurers. Also, learning what the "Lonely" condition meant felt very unnatural. It was hard to even tell why I was splatting until I read up on what it meant.

Interestingly, changing the language of the game only affects the menu's language, not the game itself. (I was wondering if adding a layer of comprehension to objects would stop me from auto-assigning properties to them or not. Makes sense that it's all in English, considering the "form objects from letters" puzzles.)

I felt bad when I finally gave up on putting effort into solving the puzzles on my own. I did. But, I was also 18 hours deep into my file in a single week, and I wanted to get back to my other hobbies. I felt that if I gave up on "Baba is You" again, I wouldn't finish it ever. And then, those 18 hours truly would be wasted. Also, I felt sick that only 7.8% of people had gotten to the first ending screen. The game isn't bad! It's hard, but not bad! I wanted to at least give it enough dignity to finish it off, even if I was more or less reading what I needed to build with one eyeball and building it with the other.

And hell. Given all of the version differences of this game and the amount of time that has passed since its release, it is a teeny bit YouTube proof. Not completely invulnerable, but I did catch a difference or two here and there. And it's not like the wiki's the clearest with what you need to do, even when they're telling you exactly what to do. You've got to mind your space with your words. At the very least, don't push anything aside or wreck it until you absolutely must.

I can't emphasize how much I felt bad about giving up. I mean, it's one thing to look at guides for other game types. You can get knowledge on how to beat a boss or level, but you've physically got to develop the skills needed to vault through that goal. With puzzle games, knowledge is 99% of what you need to accomplish your task. The rest is just putting in the solution as elegantly as possible.

92.2% of players didn't bother to do even that.

I won't pretend to say I know enough about puzzles to make an excellent puzzle game. However, I do think brevity would have helped this game. Like, think of puzzle games people like. "Tetris," right? Even a long game of "Tetris 64" lasts me a couple of hours at most. "Portal"? That's a handful of hours supported by plot and fun dialogue. So is the sequel. "Panel de Pon" / "Tetris Attack" / "Puyo Puyo"? Those are like "Street Fighter" arcade campaigns. Like, 15-20 minutes. To have a puzzle game go on for hours and hours without any character motivation or plot in sight? Yeah. That's going to burn a lot of people out.

Like, this game could have just the over world, a single hidden world, and then the Center portion, and that would have been more than enough. And then you know what could have been done with the rest of the puzzles? Put them in a new game! "Baba is More!" Bam! A second game, now with extra "Inception"-styled mind screws! Twice the money earned! (Yeah, okay. This plan might stink of capitalism.)

Making 226 puzzles is impressive. However, brevity is the soul of wit. Sometimes, design can be contradictory like that.

But, its achievements? Perfectly laid out. Truly finishing the game is likely to net you everything. I only had to put in a couple of hours after the true ending, and really, only fifteen minutes of that was solving the puzzles. The rest was just finding what I had missed. (I've heard rumors that "Baba is Baba" is bugged, but I think you just need to look up how to get the Level is Win solution in Meta figured out. The rest is elbow grease.)

I don't know if I can recommend this game. Again, having a case of the bad feels over that statement, especially since it seems like the developer has his heart in the right place. I'm hesitant to recommend this because when I was playing it, I had a migraine that lasted three days straight. Granted, there were possibly some external factors to why I had that. A fat polar vortex. Stress from work. Some hormonal influences. Not enough caffeine or water. Just generally living in the United States in the early 2020s. Plenty of things to crush my skull. I don't think it's in good taste to recommend something that will cause others physical pain. I mean, I'm used to games cracking my hands, but that's not exactly healthy behavior. I certainly wouldn't want to give someone an epileptic attack. Why would I want to drive a nail through their skulls, either?

I do think the game is solidly designed. It's a smart little cookie. But, it is unintentionally discouraging to get through, especially if you feel like you can't ask for help. Like getting a clue or an explanation is cheating.

Look. Try. Try hard. Be as honest and earnest as you can be. Just don't expect to do everything in your life alone, okay? I mean, there are times you've got to get an external perspective. I frequently had to crash after school with mathematics teachers and badger professors to explain topics outside of class. You think I was going to come up with how there are different kinds of infinities on my own? Hell no. I'm not creative in terms of mathematical proofs. But, I sure as hell can explain how different infinities work now! Even post-schooling, I still research topics, particularly when building or fixing things. I wouldn't have learned half of the things I've learned about maintaining game cartridges or building dollhouses without suggestions from professionals and enthusiasts. It's just part of life. You ask for help so you don't burn resources—especially something as valuable as time!

#post game evaluation #baba is you #demon is purge

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writingforevren · 3 years

Photo

WIP Intro Coming Soon

Excerpt - The boy who fell in

POV - Eros Rosario

Words - 1761

I was twelve or thirteen when it happened; On that day I had gone closer to land. I had always enjoyed watching humans my age hang out together and have fun, though I was too nervous to talk or interact with them- which could be due to the fact I was worried they might judge me for my rather… Unusual appearance. So I just watched them and wished... and watched... and that night I was just minding my own business, floating under the water as you do, when I heard a splash. Somebody was sinking and they weren't trying to stop themselves. I swam quickly and grabbed them, bringing them to the surface. I was worried; What if he’d drowned? I mean he had sunk, so what if something had happened to him or somebody wanted to kill him or something? I had no clue but all I knew is that I wanted to help.

At first he didn't breathe. I couldn’t help but think, Oh crap did he die? Humans needed to breathe right? He was motionless. I leaned forward and gently slapped his cheek. "Are you alright?" I asked softly and watched as his eyes fluttered open and his gaze settled upon me.

"Wh- who are you?" He jumped back away from me as he caught sight of my tail. "What are you? and what're doing to me?" he asked again and I could sense fear in his voice.

"Hey it’s okay! I’m just here to help, okay? I thought you were gonna drown so-” I tried to explain that I was there to help- that I wasn’t trying to hurt him, but… he didn’t get it.

"G-get off of me you're a monster!" he exclaimed and pushed his hands against my chest, sending this feeling of pulsing pain, causing me to fall backward on the sand. My chest throbbed and it was so painfully hard to breathe, I squeezed my eyes shut and focused on steadying my breathing. "What did I just do? What did you do to me?!" He cried, his voice was very shaky and I could tell he truly had no idea what was going on.

"P-please I was just trying to help..." I stammered through the painful pulsing that ran through my body.

"I- but can't you see I wanted to sink... why'd you- why would- why would anyone save me?" As I opened my eyes, there were thick tears rolling down the boy's cheek. I felt bad… It was obvious he was hurt and fragile so I couldn't blame him for lashing out at me but... a monster? It still hurt.

I took a deep breath and laid back on the sand as the pain subsided. "Nobody deserves to die... we are all a part of this planet and we all have our purpose, now I dunno what yours is, but I promise you whatever is going on in your life is nothing compared to the amazing things that will come in the future." I tried to cheer him up, despite the fact that’s not really something I’d had to do before. Usually I told myself those things when I felt down, I had never actually said anything like that to someone else before.

"I- what's your purpose?" He had asked.

I felt- Well I didn’t know the answer and that’s something I had been trying to figure out. But I couldn’t exactly say ‘i don’t know’ I highly doubt that would’ve worked "mm perhaps it's to help save the world..." "Or maybe it's to save an innocent life that was far before their expiration date." I gave him a warm smile.

"Are you an angel? Are you sure I'm not dead? Is this a test of some sort?" he started asking all these questions that I found himself utterly confused as to where to start.

"Uh-” I paused for a moment. “No, Yes, and No, I'm not an angel, I'm actually a siren.” I replied, I wasn’t exactly thinking, I didn’t understand that he would judge me for being a siren, I didn’t know all the false rumours that humans had spread about us, Which makes me wonder what other false information humans are taught.

"I- A siren? Holy crap a siren? PLEASE DON’T EAT ME!” He yelled and put his hands up in front of him.

"Why would I eat you? I literally just saved your life..." Obviously he wasn’t seeing the logic here, If I wanted to eat him I would’ve just waited for him to drown and then ate him. It would be so much easier than what I had done.

"Because sirens lure humans to eat them?" He answered hesitantly, looking as if he was ready to run away at any moment.

I shook my head. "No... I eat fish also fish eggs are nice they have this sort of popping feeling in your mouth and they have a really strong-”

"So you don't eat humans?" he interrupted, and seemed genuinely confused.

I shook my head again "No I dunno who would wanna eat a human- I think I accidentally bit someone one time and they didn't taste very good."

"Oh..." He looked down.

"Why do you sound disappointed? did you want me to eat you?"

"Uh- n-no I just uhhmmmm I dunno I wasn't disappointed-" he stammered.

"Why're your cheeks red?" I poked his cheek. Once again I was naive and had no idea what a blush was considering I had never met a human or someone with pale skin; All the sirens I knew had darker skin and were at least tanned.

"This is a really weird situation- I don't know what to say… s-o I'm not dead?" He seemed to have calmed down at least a little bit at this point.

"Nope- you seem alive to me... Also why does this cloth take so long to dry and why do humans always wear them?" I leaned over and started to peel the wet shirt off of his skin.

"D-D'you think you could not do that?" He stammered and pulled his shirt back down.

"Hmm…” I ignored him and leaned closer to his face "you're a nice one~”

"Wh-what's that supposed to mean?" He shrank back onto his hands behind him.

I leaned forward and cupped his face, it was so soft. I briefly pressed my lips against his which were soft and warm. "I mean you're pretty and your skin is soft."

"I- uh- thanks" The boy flushed bright red and averted his eyes.

"Mhm... Wow, legs feel different than they look." I ran my hands along one of his legs "What's this hard part?" I bonked his knee.

The boy quickly retracted his leg "Ow shit that was my knee and that hurt-"

"Oh- sorry-"

"Uhm do you mind me asking what sirens actually do with humans if they don't eat them?..."

"Mm well it’s a bit different, A lot of sirens are just lonely and lure sailors to keep them company for the night. Most of the time the Sirens have no idea where they came from so they just dump them on a random plot of land which is usually pretty far from where they should've been, so a lot of the sailors are reported to have gone missing after going to these parts of the water where there are sirens. Probably some random person came up with the idea that we eat them 'cause he saw one of us and that we have sharp teeth y'know but like worse sirens do to humans is like sometimes we can leave bites- I mean I never have but sometimes there are teeth marks and pretty dark bruises.” I explained.

"Oh-"

"Mhm..." I smiled

"Is this a dream?..." He asked, as he looked around the beach.

"Uhm no I don't think so- why?"

"I just tried to drown myself, so technically I could be in a coma- Sirens are mythology- and also you are incredibly attractive and I feel like only my dreams could make you."

"Am I not real enough for you?" I pouted and leaned on his chest

"Uhm- I'm just really confused mate..."

"Mate? but wait, you're a human..."

"I- what?"

"Oh wait- do humans not have mates? Mm ah yeah right I should probably explain that too. Sirens generally have to choose a siren mate before they're eighteen so that we don't go extinct considering we actually don't find each other that attractive compared to humans.”

"I eh... Okay-”

"Mmm do you have a mate?"

"I- ehm no I don't- I mean I've never even- I’ve never even kissed anyone before..."

"Never? why not? I kiss pretty much everyone I like-"

"Oh eheh- just different for humans I guess..." He laughed awkwardly and seemed to be looking anyway other than myself

"Can humans not sense when someone is mutually attracted to them?"

"No- Sirens can?"

"Mhm I mean I could tell at first you didn't like me but then you realized what was happening and you are now very attracted to me." he smiles. "That's why I knew if I kissed you, you wouldn't reject me."

"Oh-"

"Mhm..."

"So you're on land- how does that work?..." He changed the subject.

"Well I can breathe both air and water so going on land isn't much of a problem however the sunlight does burn our scales so we can't really go to the surface in the daylight also we can't really move around that much without legs" I swished my tail around in emphasis.

"Right but uhm do you need moisture to survive?"

"Mhm we have to be in water uhm I think it was at least 6 hours a day otherwise we'll start to dry out."

"okay cool- ehm..."

"Do you have water at your house?"

"Uhh I mean yeah?"

"Can I come with you?"

"As much as I'd love to say yes- no-"

"... So you have magic right- do you think you could figure out the spell to give me legs? Because I'm bored with the ocean. it's so big and all I do is swim around and eat fish."

"I have magic?"

"Well obviously you just shocked me when you got scared."

The boy was so confused, the look on his face said it all.

"The sun's gonna start coming up soon so I'll see you tomorrow night meet me here 'kay?" I smiled at him.

"Uhm alright I guess-"

"Mhm" I cupped his face and pecked his cheek before turning and swimming away back into the sea.

Thanks for reading!

This is something I wrote about a month ago and just got around to editing, it’s more to introduce you to the characters and the way that sirens work in this world. I probably won’t include all of it in the final story but I wanted to give you a little taste of the story idea.

Taglists

General Writing - @weirdfishy @wannabeauthorzofija @annlillyjose @iespeciallyme @radiomacbeth @opes-magnas (ask to be +/-)

A Song From The Deep - (ask to be added)

#writeblr #writing #creative writing #original writing #amwriting #teawrites #wip: a song from the deep #urban fantasy #mythology #new wip #fiction

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platypanthewriter · 3 years

Text

Unless...? Ch. 2/4

The next Monday, Steve waited, twanging random chords, but Billy didn��t show up. After another unproductive hour, Steve took the risk of driving by his apartment and knocking on the door, and Billy smiled just as bright, his eyebrows high and startled.

“...hi,” Steve tried, and Billy laughed, shaking his head.

“...we could get a pizza,” he said, looking from Steve into his apartment, and backing in to hold the door. The light behind him gave him a glow of warmth, and Steve smiled, thinking how sad and lonely it was to wish Billy Hargrove was in his house to welcome him every night after work, like Billy didn’t have his own life to live.

Steve grinned and shook his head. “Thanks,” he told Billy, and sidled in, keeping his hands in his pockets.

Billy dropped onto the couch, watching him, and glanced at the TV. “We could—we could see what’s on,” he suggested, and Steve nodded, laughing for no reason.

His cheeks felt warm. “Y-yeah,” he nodded, clearing his throat.

They watched something with a hospital—Steve had no idea what—too focused on how feverish he felt, warm and restless, and yet cool enough that he twice caught himself leaning into Billy’s shoulder.

Billy leaned into him, finally, and Steve let him.

Steve couldn’t help wishing he was a kid, again, instead of a grown man—a kid that could curl close around Billy, and rest against his shoulder. He swallowed thickly, and tried to focus on the TV show, and not the way its flickering light accented the tattoos across Billy’s stomach, or the way the pizza grease gleamed on his lips.

After a couple slices, he got up to leave, and Billy blinked up at him, his smile cautious. “You...don’t wanna stick around?” he asked, and Steve blinked, then couldn’t help a fond grin.

“I can’t stay for a sleepover, I have work in the morning,” he said, and Billy laughed, cocking his head.

“Maybe...this weekend?” he suggested, and Steve wanted to curl up on the couch with him again, but imagined the awful night he’d have, sleeping on the couch in his jeans—or buying pajamas, and a toothbrush, to stay the night in another man’s front room.

“Uh,” he answered, trying to picture it. “Maybe?”

“After work,” Billy said, leaning over the arm of the couch so his butt stuck out in his tight jeans, and Steve’s face felt hot as he looked away, embarrassed like he hadn’t been since middle school for wanting to stare at somebody fascinating.

He remembered pretending to be Han Solo, and his face heated further—he’d posed in the mirror, his shirt open like Harrison Ford’s, but even once he got older and had some muscle tone, he’d realized, he’d never look that...magnetic. “Maybe sometime,” he creaked out. “After work. I guess. We could...do that.”

His goodbye was awkward, and he fled down the stairs without looking back, hoping Billy didn’t think he was insane for showing up at his apartment and mumbling replies while Billy watched TV.

That Friday night the musical guests were Steve’s old friends, a group he’d played with in highschool and college, and he’d struck a deal to get them to come out after their European tour that involved way less bribery on his end than he’d anticipated. “Sure, man,” Dalton said, laughing. “We’ve been wanting to see how a band runs a bar.”

It was fun to see them, and they even wanted to play some of his old crap instead of just their new set, so he let himself get bullied into singing. When he glanced over, Billy waved, and Steve waved back, like a dork.

Robin stared between them the whole set, speaking of dorks, and he was gonna tell her off, but she stomped over to wave her arms at Jonathan like they had some kind of secret conversation going on.

Steve took the high road and ignored them whispering, wandering over to the bar again.

Billy slid him a shot of whiskey. “Sounded good up there,” he said, coming over to lean in front of Steve, and Steve sat up straighter, so their faces weren’t inches apart.

“I used to play with them,” Steve said, shrugging, and grinning. He opened his mouth to explain and Billy snorted.

“I do listen, jesus. Sounded like they were trying to, uh, lure you back, actually.”

They had been, and Steve was considering it—not permanently, but for a local event or two. “Mmmn,” he said, sipping his whiskey.

“Do-d’you think you’d go,” Billy asked casually, grabbing his paring knife partly by the blade to cut a lime, and going still, his eyes clenched shut, as he cut his thumb open and squished lime juice in it at the same time. He set his jaw, and he looked so long-suffering Steve started giggling.

“Shit,” he snickered. “Wash it, I’ll get you a band-aid.”

“It’s fine,” Billy shrugged, stepping over to hold his hand over the sink, and Steve followed, taking Billy’s hand carefully in both of his and checking the sliced-open skin. It was right inside the first bend of Billy’s forefinger, and he squeezed it, sighing. It welled blood.

“Stop that,” Steve hissed at him, turning Billy’s hand in his to rinse it gently. “Don’t make it worse.”

Billy let himself be tugged around, smiling. “I’m not gonna bleed out, Harrington,” he said, and Steve rolled his eyes, and handed him a wadded up piece of paper towel to press against it. “I’m gonna get you a band-aid.”

“Yeah, gimme a good one,” Billy told him, and Steve nodded, rifling around for fun band-aids.

“We’ve got bug-eyed kittens,” he reported back, and Billy raised his eyebrows.

“...not even Power Rangers,” he said, and Steve grimaced, nodding, and suppressing a smile.

“Not even Power Rangers,” he agreed with a heavy sigh. “I’ll put in a complaint.”

“...I better at least get a kiss to make boo-boo better…fucking hell,” Billy trailed off into a mutter, screwing his whole face up like he’d bitten the lime.

Steve laughed, glancing at Billy’s rapidly-flushing face, and then lifted Billy’s kittened finger and pressed it to his lips, and then he felt his face heating hotter than Billy’s, and slid a ten dollar bill across the counter for the whiskey.

Billy just stared at it, so Steve grabbed it and stuck it in his tip jar, instead. Steve’s old band yanked him back up on the stage, and they’d brought him more whiskey, which he mostly doled out, but they seemed to think he should drink his own present.

By the time the bar closed up, Steve was just lying on his back on the stage, his feet hanging off the edge. The lights were refracting, like, four times as much as usual, he said to the air, and then Billy’s voice laughed.

“...Billy,” Steve said, rolling onto his side to look at him.

“Hey,” Billy said, crawling up on the stage to sit next to him. “Uh, Robin—she said I should...take you home.”

“Ohhhh,” Steve said, then reached out to pat Billy’s knee, and missed, kind of, his fingertips brushing warm denim. “You don’ gotta,” he said, “I’m...fine.”

“I think you’re pretty drunk,” Billy told him, and his voice sounded really nice, which Steve told him.

“You sound nice,” he sighed. “But I’m okay,” he said again, stroking Billy’s knee, and squeezing it, a bit, so he wouldn’t lose it now he’d found it. “I’ll sleep...here. On the...on the microphone cords,” Steve announced, realizing he couldn’t feel them.

Billy caught his hand, laughing, and held it. “Beds are better, though, huh?” Steve watched his face, thinking aloud about how Billy’s eyes looked different under the lights, and Billy caught his other hand, when Steve tried to touch his mustache. “Lemme take you home,” Billy whispered. “Slumber party, remember?”, and Steve nodded, then narrowed his eyes.

“...hey,” he mumbled.

“Hey, what?” Billy asked, pulling him up to sit.

“...tricked me,” Steve accused him, and Billy nodded slowly.

“Oh, yeah, I’m pretty tricksy,” he said.

“...that sounded unneesslarily sarcas...tic,” Steve accused him. “Sarclastic. I...conoclast.”

“Wow,” Billy told him, scooting him to the edge of the stage, and then jumping down himself. “Okay,” he said, pulling Steve off into his arms, and Steve studied his face, rubbing both thumbs over Billy’s mustache, as Billy laughed, trying to yank his head away from Steve’s hands without dropping Steve on his ass.

“Heya, Tom...Selleck,” Steve told him. “...your cheeks are really...really warm.”

“Oh my god,” Billy muttered, hauling Steve out past Robin, who just waved. Billy finally stopped trying to keep him upright, and just scooped him into his arms, and Steve hugged him around the neck. “Oh my god,” Billy repeated, as Robin laughed.

“You’re a—bad—traitor!” Steve yelled at her, waving a fist over Billy’s shoulder, and she gave him a thumbs-up. “...bastard,” he mumbled into Billy’s collarbones. “Sorry. I don’t wanna...should’n be your problem.”

“You’re not a problem,” Billy said, trying to unlock his car with Steve’s legs across his arm.

Steve kissed his cheek and whispered “Thank you,” like he was five, and Billy nearly dropped him, scrambling to get the door open, and dump him inside. He didn’t wait for Steve’s apology, either, slamming the door and pacing around in the parking lot making growling noises.

When he yanked the door open and climbed into the driver’s seat, Steve opened his mouth to apologize, and then remembered to put his seatbelt on, but it caught around his arm somehow, and finally Billy leaned over to help, and Steve sat very still. As the mechanism clicked, he reached up and rubbed his thumb over Billy’s upper lip. “Hello Mr. Caterpillar,” he said, and Billy stared at him, then started laughing as Steve’s hands explored his mustache and jawline.

“Fold your hands while I’m driving,” Billy told him, and Steve nodded, crossing his arms as Billy started the car, and checked his phone. “...kinda curious where you’d take us,” Billy said, backing out, “—but it’s pretty late, so—”

Steve nodded vaguely, studying Billy’s hand on the gearshift. It was bigger than Nancy’s, and it’d been warm. He liked it, he thought, but he kept his hands to himself as ordered, until they got to his house, and he thought about the artsy floating cement stairs his landlord had convinced him were cool. “Billy,” he whispered, and Billy nodded, looking over. “Um,” said Steve, trying to formulate a perfect sentence, and unbuckling his seatbelt, to lean in and watch Billy’s eyes widen. “...Billy,” he started again, and Billy bit his lip, his eyes wide, as Steve whispered, “...I m-mustache you to help me inside.”

Billy burst into snickers, shoving Steve back against the door, then came around to help him out.

“You should stay,” Steve told him, once they hadn’t died on the stairs, and Billy’d stopped swearing. Steve’s arms hurt from Billy’s fingers digging in as he tried to keep them both upright, and Steve took his shirt off to rub at them, tottering into the kitchen to pull a bag of Reese’s peanut butter cups out of the cupboard.

“...candy,” he said, waving it, and Billy laughed, scooping Steve’s shirt up off the ground, and laying it across the kitchen island. “What are your tattoos,” Steve asked, pushing the bag at him. He staggered over to yank at Billy’s shirt—and Billy let him, taking shallow breaths as Steve fumbled with silky blue cloth and tiny buttons, and slid clumsy hands over his chest. He didn’t actually get any more buttons open, but Billy’s shirt was already open halfway down his chest.

Billy sat the bag of candy on the kitchen island too, catching Steve’s fingers as they slid around his sides. He laughed breathlessly. “What are you doing,” he asked, and his voice cracked, which was hilarious, until Steve’s fingers caught on a ridged scar. He pushed Billy’s shirt away from his shoulder, ignoring the butterfly tattoo covering the rough skin, and spread his fingers to feel that it’d been a long, jagged cut.

“...what happened, no,” Steve asked, running the palms of his hands over Billy’s chest, as much as he could, with Billy’s hands gripping his wrists.

“...just being a moron,” Billy whispered, as Steve stroked it more gently, feeling the skin under his fingers shiver. His breath was warm.

“...why’d it...scarring so bad,” Steve asked, the soddenly drunk part of his brain unable to accept Billy wasn’t his, and he had no right to know. “What—what happened.” He leaned half against the kitchen island, and half against Billy, concentrating on his words instead of his feet.

“I just fell, I was drunk,” Billy said softly, and Steve nodded, watching his face, and waited, running the back of his knuckles gently over the twisted skin. “I didn’t go to the hospital,” Billy whispered, finally, laughing. “My uh, my Dad said if I was such a dumb shit, I could just bleed out.”

Steve bit his lips together, and nodded. “...no,” he said, and Billy snorted a laugh.

“No?”

“You can’ do that,” Steve told him, fighting with his numb mouth. “You can’t bleed out.”

“Okay,” Billy said, smiling a little softer, and Steve brushed a thumb over his mustache again, and got his hand smacked away.

He stroked his hands up Billy’s sides, and stopped when Billy inhaled sharply. Steve crouched for a second to brush his fingers around a bruise.

“Oh, that’s—” Billy laughed again, and Steve stood up again, staggered, and steadied himself against Billy’s shoulders. “That’s just…”

Steve waited, muzzily, for Billy to say ‘I tripped,’ or something, but he tried to back away into the kitchen island, shaking his head. “...what is it,” Steve asked.

“I’m dating somebody who knows I’m a dumb shit too,” Billy said, forcing another laugh, and Steve pushed away, stumbling a little as he yanked the freezer open. “...whatcha doing?” Billy asked, and Steve groaned.

“Making coffee,” he muttered, looking over his shoulder, and nearly falling as his balance shifted. “Can’t talk about this drunk.”

“We don’t need to talk about anything,” Billy said, clenching his fingers on the edge of the counter. “I was just dropping you off—”

“The fuck are you dating, She-Hulk,” Steve mumbled, spilling ground coffee across the counter, and Billy elbowed him out of the way with a sigh, scooping the mess into his hand, and dumping it in the sink. “...I thought She-Hulk was cool,” Steve told him, feeling bereft, and Billy started laughing again, leaning his face in his arms on the counter.

“I’m not battered,” he laughed. “I’m not a weakling.”

“No,” Steve huffed, tottering over to the cupboard with the coffee mugs. “But...She-Hulk’s an asshole,” Steve announced. “...treat you...right.”

“Holy crap,” Billy wheezed, cackling.

Steve reached out and rubbed Billy’s back through his shirt, feeling him shake with laughter. He felt solid, muscled and sturdy, and Steve’s hand lingered, thinking about the way Billy’s voice had shaken calling himself a dumb shit. Steve stroked his spine like he was a cat, leaning against the counter next to him, and Billy just let him, leaning while Steve ran his fingers through Billy’s hair.

“Jesus, you’re so drunk,” Billy mumbled, his voice muffled by his arms. If he’d been somebody Steve was dating, Steve thought, he’d have leaned over and kissed Billy’s nape, where his hair had fallen down past his chin, and the chain of his necklace showed against his neck. Steve ran his thumb up and down the gap between Billy’s hair and the collar of his shirt, feeling bones through smooth, warm freckled skin.

“Lemme play you a song,” Steve whispered, into the quiet of their breathing, and Billy twitched. His skin was hot to the touch.

“...what,” he whispered back.

“Lemme play you a song,” Steve said, louder, smoothing his hand over Billy’s shoulder blades. “Y’know...payback. F’r—for me being, um, a pain in the ass. I guess.”

“...you’re not a pain in the ass,” Billy said softly, and Steve yanked the collar of his shirt down and smacked a kiss there, as Billy made a weird noise like a Disney elephant.

“What the fuck,” he whispered, and Steve laughed, stepping back, and tucking his untrustworthy fingers under his arms.

“Sorry,” Steve mumbled.

“...okay,” Billy said, after a long pause. He cleared his throat. “...you, uh...you want me to make some coffee?”

Steve went still, staggered by the brilliance of the idea. “...you’re perfect,” he said. “You’re not a dumb shit. I love you.”

Billy groaned into his arms. “...go siddown, jesus christ.”

“I love you so much,” Steve told him, stumbling along as Billy put a hand on each of his shoulders, and walked him out to the couch. “Let’s get married.”

“Yeah, sure, straight boy,” Billy told him, turning him in place, and shoving him backwards to sprawl across the couch.

“Oof. ...we could get straight people married,” Steve told the ceiling. “For—for taxes.”

“No one does that,” Billy called back, laughing.

“We could, though,” Steve told him. He could hear the water running into the coffee pot, and he sighed happily, then let himself roll off the couch with a loud thud. The coffee pot rattled as it hit the counter, and Billy came running out of the kitchen as Steve sprawled in front of the couch, stretching to reach his acoustic guitar.

“What the fuck,” Billy said, dropping to sit next to him. “Don’t just fall off the couch, I thought you’d died.”

Steve leaned back against the couch, strumming. “You could live here/Sleeping next to me,” he sang, with the ease of finding notes that always hit when he was drunk off his face. “I could write you songs/Make my drunk ass coffee.”

“Jesus,” Billy whispered.

“I don’t play music for dumb shits,” Steve told him, and Billy’s chin jerked up. “So you can’t be one.”

Billy stared at him, then burst out laughing, as Steve tried a few more lines.

“Marry me, Bartender Billy,” he crooned, and Billy laughed harder, burying his face in his hands. When the coffee beeped, he got up and brought Steve a cup, and sipped his own, sitting shoulder to shoulder with him on the floor, as Steve tried random chords.

“Weddings are fun,” he pointed out, and Billy coughed, then wiped his eyes.

“...friends don’t get married,” he pointed out, softly. “Drink your damn coffee.”

“They could if they wanted,” Steve huffed, strumming, and leaning his shoulder against Billy’s. “Marriage for frieeeeeends,” he sang. “Fun never eeeeeends~”

“Shut up, nerd,” Billy snickered, leaning his head on Steve’s shoulder with a sigh. “What about when you...if you meet somebody you—actually. Want. Want to, uh, marry.”

“I turned down like four dates in the last couple weeks,” Steve laughed, leaning to bonk their heads together. “I mean. I had plans, y’know? With you.”

“...that doesn’t—”

“What would you wear,” Steve asked. “I’m thinking...Las Vegas. Hawaiian shirts.” Billy started snickering, and Steve grinned at him.

“Not getting married to anybody wearing a Hawaiian shirt,” Billy declared, and Steve idly strummed Your Song, by Elton John. Billy sighed, his head heavy against Steve’s shoulder. His voice was soft. “You can’t even bother to dress up?”

“Oh, no, you want a tux?” Steve laughed, seguing into the Wedding March, and Billy snorted a laugh. “I can wear a tux. Or you want me in what,” he narrowed his eyes at the kitchen, thinking, then shot a thoughtful glance down at Billy. “...you want me to wear the lace, huh.”

Billy spit his coffee, and scrambled up off the floor for paper towels, as Steve nodded.

“Okay,” Steve nodded, the time since he’d drank, and the coffee, starting to help him string words together if he paid close attention. “We talking, like, lace under the tux, or some kinda...man-dress,” he asked, squinting as he tried to picture it, and Billy yelled incoherently, stomping back over.

“Friends don’t get married,” he hissed, dabbing at Steve’s carpet, and Steve switched to a note-by-note rendition of Pachelbel’s Canon in D, having spent long minutes at several weddings listening to it.

“I don’t want you marrying somebody else, though,” Steve muttered. “I bet she wouldn’t like slumber parties.”

“...you wear a lace thong under a good suit, and I’ll marry you,” Billy said hoarsely, and Steve laughed, delighted.

“That sounds uncomfortable as shit,” he declared. “You’re on.”

“Oh my god,” Billy whispered, groaning into his hands, and Steve yanked him in close again, by the back of his shirt.

“We gotta pick wedding music,” he said, switching songs again, and Billy glared at Steve’s hands on the guitar.

“...are you playing the Scorpions at me,” he asked, and Steve shrugged.

“You recognized it, Mr. Hair Band,” he pointed out, and Billy sighed, settling in next to him. “‘Course, really, I’d write you a song,” Steve told him, “—for our wedding,” and Billy sighed.

“You’re so weird,” he whispered. He consented to write down their ideas, though, sitting there scribbling with a pen in one of Steve’s music-writing notebooks, and Steve snapped his picture. It took about eleven tries, and finally Billy’s head was leaned back on the couch cushions as he laughed, his legs in a relaxed sprawl, and Steve set him as his lock screen.

“What about a beach wedding,” Steve suggested.

“Mmm,” Billy snorted, his mouth quirking, and Steve took his picture again. He looked tired, his head resting in his folded arms as he grinned.

“You don’t think I’m serious,” Steve told him, and he laughed.

“Nope,” he said, smiling. “I think what you are is drunk.”

When Steve started to fall asleep for the third time, he scrambled to his feet—more clearheaded, but still clumsy—and drew Billy up with him.

“I should head out,” Billy said, and Steve grabbed his wrist and hauled him into the bedroom. “...the fuck is happening,” Billy asked, in a weird thin voice.

“Slumber party,” Steve said, biting his lips, and looking as pleading as possible. “I, uh, I’ve got some of those flannel pants, y’know.”

“You want me to sleep in your bed,” Billy whispered, blankly, and Steve stumbled over to his dresser, and poked around for the feeling of thick flannel.

“Look,” he said, temptingly, “—they’re plaid.”

“I don’t give a shit if they’re plaid!” Billy squawked, holding his hands up, and Steve waved a pair in the air.

“They’re soooooft,” he said, coaxingly. “They’re waaaarm.”

“Why are you doing this to me,” Billy groaned, but he held out a hand, and Steve smacked some flannel pajama pants into it.

“Listen to your husband,” he said, and Billy smacked him with the pants, over and over, until Steve was laughing so hard he had to sit down on the bed, and Billy stomped out, through the kitchen, and into the bathroom. Steve pulled his pajama pants on, and a t-shirt, remembered he hadn’t given Billy one, and looked up to see him hugging himself and shivering in the doorway.

Steve could finally see some tattoos, in the dim light of the reading lamp—a smoking skull on one shoulder, and words along Billy’s collarbones. He had his arms folded over his chest, though, and Steve drug his eyes away.

“Hey, bro, c’mere,” Steve said, waving his hand, and Billy sighed, then came in, and even crawled in the bed when Steve leaned way over and pulled the blankets back.

Now he was shirtless, Steve kinda didn’t want to cover him back up. He crawled closer to look at Billy’s tattoos, and Billy curled up like a pillbug, yanking on the blankets. “Get off the blankets, you—fucking—bro,” Billy growled, and Steve bit his lips.

“...can I see your tattoos?”

“Jesus. Some other time,” Billy muttered, yanking on the blankets, and Steve threw them over him, but he could still see the elegant black outline of the butterfly over Billy’s collarbone and shoulder, and he tried to lean and see more, subtly.

“...fuck are you doing,” Billy sighed.

“I like your butterfly,” Steve said truthfully, and Billy laughed sharply, reaching up to brush his fingers over it.

“I was in this stupid group,” he muttered. “I mean,” he said, rolling onto his back to frown at Steve, “--the--the women there weren’t dumb, it was stupid as hell I was in there. I just went ‘cause—” he gripped the tattoo again, digging his nails into the scar, and Steve crawled closer, reaching out helplessly to squeeze Billy’s foot.

He laughed, unsteadily. “They, um, they’d all had--way worse, you know, fucking--terrible shit. Happened. But the--um, the group leader lady would ask me shit. And they’d kinda--they’d talk to me, after a while, I kept pretty quiet and they got kinda--brave, y’know, and they asked about my skateboard—” he pulled his arm out of the blankets, and ran his knuckles over the tattoo Steve had seen, on his arm. “I told them about Max,” he said softly. “She’s my sister, we got this dumb tattoo together, hers is a camaro—”

Steve laughed, lying down to listen, and Billy’s cheeks reddened as he cleared his throat.

“Anyway,” he said, reaching up and touching the butterfly, and the scar it concealed, “--they had--they had scars too, and one of them--she was rad,” he laughed, “--she said we should all get tattoos. Sort of...reclaim the scars, she said. They asked me about the lady that did ‘em. We all went, we all got tattoos.”

“...that’s really cool,” Steve told him, reaching out, chickening out, and sliding his fingers between Billy’s, instead of touching his jagged scar.

“Yeah, we still meet up sometimes,” Billy said, watching Steve’s thumb rub his hand. “I’m not very good at listening to them, I guess."

“That’s okay,” Steve told him, just wanting him to look less depressed, and Billy's mouth quirked.

Steve shivered, and Billy punched his shoulder. “Get the fuck in bed.”

“Yeah,” Steve said, grinning, his stomach a little fluttery. He crawled back to his side of the bed and switched off the light, then slid under the covers, reaching out for Billy’s warmth. “Are you little spoon or big spoon,” he whispered, and Billy started laughing again, a little hysterically. He shook with snickers as Steve slid both arms around him, hugging him close, and then he was stiff as a mannequin for a long second before muttering “God fucking damn it” and slumping back against Steve’s chest.

Even after bartending all night, he smelled good, and Steve let himself drift. He heard Billy whisper ‘Harrington,’ and then, ‘Steve’, but he felt weighted with drowsiness. He felt Billy’s stubble brush his cheek as he drifted off.

Steve woke up refreshed and warm, on the wrong side of the bed, all by himself.

#harringrove #Just hugging as friends and hand-kissing as friends #Steve dying of confusion #Billy dying of gay #platypan #platypan fic

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deoovat · 4 years

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Do you ship Sonknux? And if so do you have any headcannons for them? :3

oHBOY YES! Sonknux is actually my second favorite ship.

I do have head canons! Let’s see...

-> Knuckles actually has a very heavy reliance on Sonic when it comes to adapting to the rest of the world.

-> Knuckles had never even thought about leaving his island ever before until he met Sonic. Sonic instilled in Knuckles some of his wonderous nature that for the first time in his life he could say... he was curious about the outside world. Knuckles had always known it existed and had visited the surface before(on very rare occasions) but Sonic made him actually want to see more of it.

-> Sonic beneath all that playful and arrogant demeanor really does care about Knuckles and pays close attention to him.

-> Noone would think someone like Sonic could understand someone like Knuckles but Sonic spent a good amount of his first couple years befriending the echidna really trying to figure him out. Sonic can very much see past people's fronts and isn’t easily fooled. But Knuckles was hard to grasp ahold of. Once he realized how genuine Knuckles was did he realize that Knuckles wasn’t really putting up a front. He was cautious, angry, defensive, and stone-hearted for a reason. Nothing about Knuckles was an act.

-> Since Sonic can see through people pretty easily, the blue hero was the one to spot just how lonely Knuckles was far before Knuckles even came to the realization himself. Which made the blue hedgehog feel real bummed out about it.

-> In his own way, he’d tried to barge his way into Knuckles life but was met with resistance of every kind. However, Knuckles is the one who made Sonic realize that he wasn’t being genuine to himself. Which is why Knuckles didn’t trust him for a long time.

-> Sonic was used to being treated like a hero and welcomed everywhere with open arms. Knuckles... didn’t treat Sonic like a hero. He didn’t even know who Sonic was or what he’s done time and time again for Mobius. Which was... refreshing, for Sonic. He sort of made him grow up in a way.

-> Sonic was a hero, but when they met he was still a teenager. Who made stupid and borderline dumb decisions, bites off more than he could chew, says mean things sometimes when he didn’t mean it, and even had the occasional temper tantrum. Knuckles saw these sides of him and didn’t excuse them because he was a hero. He gave him that confrontation the blue hedgehog didn’t know he needed in his circle of friends. He could really be himself around Knuckles, with no filter and no sugar coating of his behaviors. Being around Knuckles actually gave Sonic room to reflect on himself and question some of the things he did.

-> Knuckles respects Sonic but he doesn’t turn a blind eye to those faults. And despite fully recognizing the less admirable parts of him and letting Sonic know time and time and again just how much of a pain in the ass he is, the echidna still eventually becomes one of Sonic’s closest friends the more years they grow together.

-> Truthfully, in these two cases, they fall for each other in very different ways. But Sonic would realize it first.

-> Knuckles thinks Sonic is too reckless to be a hero, but he thinks Sonic’s free nature is still beautiful in all of its flaws. He’s even envious of it sometimes. Sonic turned the world he looked at with distrust that could be full of possible enemies to a world that’s full of variety and wonder. Sonic’s impact on him he believes, messes with his Guardian duties because he really does make him want to leave that island of his. A feeling the echidna never thought he’d ever EVER be able to feel.

-> So while Knuckles does fall in love with Sonic he doesn’t realize that what he's feeling is actually love until Sonic approaches him first about it.

-> Sonic fell in love with Knuckles and absolutely knew it was love when it happened. Knuckles looks at him in a way no one else does and it’s always made his heart skip a beat or two. Knuckles has this genuine complexity to him that Sonic likes losing himself in. He likes getting to understand Knuckles and knowing he’s only able to do so because the echidna somehow, seems to trust him more than anyone else. He earned that. It was one of the very few things that took Sonic so long to earn that he really cherished.

-> And not to brag, but Sonic thinks that having some stoned face, powerhouse tough guy like Knuckles, who lives in a floating paradise in the sky and would drop everything just to back him up in a fight, as a boyfriend is a fairy tale envied by MANY.

-> Plus his boyfriend is a hot-head, and Sonic has a thing for hot-heads. He thinks Knuckles adorable when he loses his cool.

-> In many ways this relationship can work and at the same time, can fall apart.

-> Knuckles wouldn’t ever want to restrict Sonic of his freedom because that’s the biggest thing he loves about him. And Sonic wouldn’t ever force Knuckles to abandon the life he’s lived for so long just to run away with him. (Though it’s his wildest fantasy to be honest, Knuckles running away with him.)

-> Their relationship requires a lot of compromises to work but as they grow together and into adulthood, they absolutely get better at it

-> They work with Tails over the years to help install some sort of security system on the island that can make it easier for Knuckles to leave it for longer periods of times. Cause honestly, going on adventures with his boyfriend his favorite thing to do.

-> And traveling becomes so much more fun and invigorating for Sonic when he has his boyfriend with him.

-> Sonic does embarrassing little things like bring Knuckles flowers and pretending to serenade him in front of people. He’s incredibly silly with trying to play up the romance with his boyfriend but Knuckles finds his silliness endearing.

-> Sonic is not shy about letting people know that Knuckles is his boyfriend. He does it even when it’s not necessary. Knuckles is constantly embarrassed by this but is flattered. Sonic will introduce himself to people and without any hesitation say “And this is my boyfriend, Knuckles.” Eventually, Knuckles starts doing it here and there as well.

-> Knuckles doesn’t care what other people think but he’s a very private and quiet person and he shows his affection for the hedgehog more by taking action than using words.

-> Sonic is always asking Knuckles about how he feels, and if he’s enjoying himself when they’re together to encourage the echidna to communicate his emotions more. Since Knuckles gets stuck in his head a lot trying to figure out how to work himself around a relationship.

-> Knuckles is quiet but he’s very physically affectionate with Sonic.It took them a while to get to that point but while Sonic is absolutely shameless with throwing “I love yous” at him, Knuckles often responds in wholesome affectionate gestures like, kissing Sonics forehead, rubbing their noses together, holding Sonic’s hand, holding Sonics hand to his chest, etc. etc. He’s very hands-on with the blue hedgehog.

-> Sonic doesn’t take any offense and he knows Knuckles is saying it without words... but when he does open his mouth and say the words “I love you.”, Sonic is always left red as a tomato, speechless... and shamelessly asking him to say it again. (Which of course he does.)

-> Knuckles and Sonic are both switches so they trade roles very often depending on the mood.

-> Sonic and Knuckles jokingly insult each other a lot but it’s all fun and games. However, if someone insults Sonic and Knuckles is there, the glare that they would receive would be strong enough to make them apologize almost immediately.

-> Which of course the blue hero, loves.

-> Knuckles, in all his seriousness and sincerity, has a pretty naive soul. He’s cautious for a reason after all. It’s not hard to win him over if you know what you’re doing. The echidna is torn across those lines of “Wanting to trust people” and “People are too dishonest to trust.” So Sonic is very protective of Knuckles because of how gullible he can be. He doesn’t want Knuckles to change that part of him because he feels that is what makes him, Knuckles.

ok this got way too long I'm sorry but THESE are most of my head-canons for these two, I hope you like them! (*๓´╰╯`๓)

#knuxonic #sonknux #Knuckles the Echidna #sonic the hedgehog #my headcanons #this ship while not my otp is very close and dear to my heart #asks

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