#taking a sort of break here so that’s why I’m posting less but I’m still making and posting my moodboards every few days or so

[y-vna]

Thank you so so much for 600! 🫶🏻🫶🏻

#taking a sort of break here so that’s why I’m posting less but I’m still making and posting my moodboards every few days or so #anyway I can’t believe this 🙀

[sister-lucifer]

Goodnight, Darling 

Lucifer x Gender Neutral Reader 

Summary: Reader cant sleep, so they decide to go find Lucifer 

Genre: Fluff 

Content/Warnings: Lucifer and Reader already have a bit of a relationship but it’s mostly implied, Luci being sweet, very eepy reader

Like my writing? I take requests! NSFW or SFW for any fandoms in my bio (request rules + masterlist in pinned post)!

Also, please reblog! it’s free, takes two seconds, and really helps me out 

Feedback is encouraged and appreciated:)

Not fully proofread! Let me know if you see any errors!

You’re not sure what time it is now, and you don’t care to turn over and check. The only sound in your room is the rain thundering down from the night sky, tapping on your window in a soft, erratic rhythm. It’s dark, but not too dark, a bit of light can still reach you from the hallway. Your blankets are as comfortable as ever, thick but not heavy and just warm enough. It’s the most ideally peaceful environment you could ever imagine. 

So why aren’t you asleep?

You’ve been asking yourself that for almost an hour now. By all means, you should’ve been out like a light. You spent all day today running errands and scampering around to do all those things you didn’t have time to this week. You’re exhausted. 

So why. Aren’t. You. Asleep?!

You groan in frustration and stretch out a bit before turning onto your side. You stare at the wall for a few moments, wondering what else you could do. 

It’s too late to make tea, you’ll make too much of a ruckus in the kitchen.

The only melatonin in the house is used by Asmodeus, and he guards his beauty sleep with his life. There’s no way you could sneak into his room. 

It’s probably not a good idea to do any sort of engaging activity, that’ll just wake you up more. 

Nothing, nothing, nothing. Maybe you’re doomed to just lay here until the end of time. You’re starting to wonder if you pissed off one of the brothers enough for them to curse you. 

Wait. 

One of the brothers… 

There’s an idea. 

Before you can stop yourself you’re out of bed and on the ground, carrying a blanket with you on the way. You waste no time getting out of that stale room, and soon you’ve started down the hallway. Your feet patter softly on the pristine tile floors, and the only other noise is the rain coming down outside and video game soundtrack from behind Levi’s closed door. It’s definitely bedtime in the House of Lamentation. 

As you pass by the rooms of the younger brothers, you debate for a split second stopping by each of them, but you don’t. Levi won’t be going to sleep any time soon, Mammon sleep talks, Asmodeus is too stingy about his beauty sleep, Satan kicks in his sleep, and the twins’ unbearable snoring will certainly keep you awake. 

But that’s alright. You’re not looking for any of them. You’re headed for the red door at the end of the hall that’s cracked open just slightly, allowing some soft lamp light to leak out. 

You knew he’d still be awake. 

You press your palm to the door and gently push it open, the soft creaking alerting Lucifer to your presence. He looks up from the book he’s reading in bed, quirking a brow upon your appearance.

“…Human?” He questions, but he doesn’t seem unhappy to see you in the slightest.

“What are you doing here? At this hour, no less.” 

“I’m alright,” You assure him, shutting the door behind you, “I just can’t sleep.” 

He gives a nod of understanding. 

“I see. And you think I can help with that?” 

“Mhm,” You reply simply. You walk up to Lucifer’s bedside, not saying anything but silently asking for his attention with just a look. You clutch the blanket you brought to your chest, making your intentions clear. 

Lucifer sighs. 

He looks at you for a long few moments, and you almost think he’s going to say no. 

But then he marks his page, shuts his book, and sets it on the beside table. He opens his arms and pats the bed next to him. 

“Come on.” 

A tired smile breaks out on your face, and you eagerly crawl into bed next to Lucifer. You fit perfectly up against his side, and his warmth is the perfect sense of comfort in the cold HoL. You curl up a bit, trying to get as close to him as possible. He wraps an arm around you as you pull your blanket over yourself, sighing with content when you finally, truly feel like you could fall asleep. 

“…Comfortable?” Lucifer asks. You only nod in reply. You don’t see it, but he smiles at you before he leans down to kiss your head. He reaches over to turn off the lamp before making himself comfortable as well, though he’s careful not to disturb you. 

After a few moments, you feel him stop moving, and your eyes slowly fall shut. 

“Goodnight, Lucifer…” You say softly. 

“Goodnight,” He replies in kind. 

“I love you,” You add without thinking.

And then there’s silence. For a second your eyes open, and you worry that maybe that wasn’t the right thing to say. Lucifer inhales slowly before finally giving his answer.

“…I love you too,” He says, giving you a little squeeze. 

You relax completely at that, your eyes shutting one more. You lay there only a moment or two before finally, finally, you can feel yourself falling asleep.

#obey me #obey me shall we date #lucifer #lucifer obey me #obey me lucifer #lucifer x reader #lucifer x reader fluff #obey me lucifer x reader #obey me lucifer fluff #obey me fluff #obey me x reader #fluff #gender neutral reader #obey me x gender neutral reader

[codfanficedits]

Being with you too.

CW: A little bit of angst? Portraying of an unhealthy relationship/a break-up

Fem!reader x Simon 'Ghost' Riley

Little note: I've posted part one on another platform too and people requested a part two. I hope this doesn't suck ass!!

Part One here

Being with Simon meant you had to go to quite some gatherings with him, but you didn’t mind at all, you enjoyed socializing with people, especially new people. It meant you could tell people all about him, about how handsome he was, how the two of you met, how he was different from all the men you had met before. Not a bad word you leave you lips when you would talk about Simon. After all, how could you badmouth the man that had been nothing but good for you?

Being with Simon caused you to come into contact with the Los Vaqueros, one of the forces he had to partner up with in order to keep the world a better place. Alejandro was a nice man to talk to, a bit of a dominant type, talking over you all the time, but you didn’t mind it, after all, he was praising Simon for his good work, and that brought a smile to your face. You did like his counterpart, Rudy, a lot more. The man was quiet, but his eyes were bright, attentive even and you liked how you could tell how well he listened to you, it was way more active than Simon would listen to you, Rudy’s eyes would never leave your face, not even when you somehow got to your favourite TV show. It was so different from Simon and it brought a weird knot to your stomach. You felt bad for even thinking such things, especially when Simon loved you so much. Of course Simon listened to you, he just showed it different.

Being with Simon was reason enough to break off the conversation with Rudy, leaving him with a puzzled look on his face when you came with a lame excuse to go to the open bar. The internal war of feelings still going on, and to ease yourself you decided to bring Simon a drink, to make the feelings of guilt go away.

A smile on your face as you approach him, his back turned to you while he talked to Gaz. You could feel your heart drop when you heard snippets of his conversation.

“….talks too much…”

“…even after….missions…”

Your mouth runs dry, your hands tremble but you take another step towards him, needing to hear what Simon is saying. It couldn’t be about you? Right? He would never say such things.

“I’m telling you Gaz, she just never, ever shuts up. After our last mission I came home and the moment I stepped foot in that house, she was next to me. Like a goddamn leech sucking away the life out of me.”

Being with Simon was the reason why your heart just got shattered into your chest, the fragments piercing through your lungs as you struggle to breathe properly, hot tears forming in your eyes as his words engrave in your brain. He was supposed to be your safe haven, he was supposed to be different. You want to do all sort of things, scream at him, throw the beer in your hands to the back of his head, cuss him out, call him his father. But you can’t. Instead you turn around, silent steps away from him.

Being with Simon became a lesson on how you couldn’t even trust the person you loved so dearly, it taught you that you do indeed talk to much, making you a flawed human that should learn to shut up. You can’t even remember how you came home, the drive was a blur. Getting into the apartment was a blur, but there you were, sitting on the couch, all alone.

Leaving Simon was the hardest thing you’d ever done. Part of you wanted to change for him, chat less, talk less, shut up more. But you knew you’d advice friends to leave a man who would dare to talk shit about them like this. And you knew you would never trust another word that would leave his lips again. Those same lips that had kissed you so much, and again you could feel that war in your chest going on, your heart chattering, your lungs struggling to breath, your stomach flipping. But you couldn’t let a man break you like this. Because excusing the way he had mistreated you would be a mistake.

You made yourself the promise that no one would ever knock the wind out of you again, not like that, not like him. When you pack your stuff you wonder how you should let him know you’re leaving. Would you wait for him? Call him? Text him? Give him the chance to explain himself? Maybe it would just be one big mistake. But your heart knew better, your mind knew better, you knew better. The sadness in your chest makes way for anger. Calm anger, no more tears running down your cheeks anger, but a I’ll fold my clothes neatly in the suitcase while I leave you anger. You won’t call him, text him, wait for him, no you’re disappearing out of his life. Erasing yourself out of his narrative, and part of you wants to be there when he comes home and find everything stripped from your existence, you’re taking as much as you can load into your car. The spoons you bought? They’re coming with you, the toilet paper you bought two days ago? It’s yours and loaded into your boot. That PlayStation you got him for Christmas? Into the passenger seat it goes. Even the duvet covers are coming with you. You’re content when your car is full with all of the stuff you had bought in the years the two of you had been together and you start the drive to one of your friends. Leaving Simon would be the hardest and easiest thing you had done.

Being with you meant that Simon had to drag you along to the gatherings from work, each one more annoying than the others. You would always be so happy to talk to people, and for him it was a nice break, every word you said to others, was a word you didn’t have to say to him. He would know what you’d tell people, always boosting about how much he loved you, it made him sick to his stomach, the happiness on your face while all he could feel was disgust.

Being with you caused Simon to dread it whenever you had to meet new people he worked with. He could see you talk to Alejandro, seeing you narrow your eyes whenever Alejandro would interrupt you and talk over you, a smirk on Simons face. Because now you knew how annoying it is whenever someone talks so much. Simon could see you talking to Rudy, the poor sucker was being caught in your whirlwind of words and Simon was just really happy he wasn’t in Rudy’s position right now.

Simon turned around when he saw Gaz approaching. “She just never shuts up huh?” Gaz was the first to make a snarky remark.

“Never, she just talks too much.” Simon said with a sigh. “I’m never at peace, not even after I come home after a my missions.”

Simon shook his head. “I’m telling you Gaz, she just never, ever shuts up. After our last mission I came home and the moment I stepped foot in that house, she was next to me. Like a goddamn leech sucking away the life out of me.”

A soft chuckle leaves Gaz. “Man I don’t even know how you hold up.”

Being with you was the reason why Simon could drink this night, after all, you would be his ride home, so he had nothing to worry about. He hadn’t even noticed you had left, no instead Simon was too busy having fun with the people that he actually cared about. While you were struggling at the apartment, he was dancing and drinking. While you had made up your mind and had found the strength to leave, Simon was too busy cracking stupid jokes with Price. While you were content and driving towards one of your friends, Simon was finally ready to leave, and it wasn’t until that moment that he noticed you had left. All he could feel was annoyance, because this meant he had to take an expensive cab home.

Being with you was the reason why he dreaded going home, stepping foot into that house again. But this time it felt different. The apartment felt colder than usual, not as warm, not as cozy. And you weren’t there to greet him at the door. Maybe you were asleep? He stumbled to the bedroom, but it was empty, too empty. Simon noticed the duvet covers missing, he opened up the closet and noticed your clothes missing, his heart starting to race when he realized something was wrong. Did someone break in? No, it would be weird for a burglar to just take the duvet covers and your clothing. Did you leave? No, you wouldn’t have the balls to do so. Maybe you just went to a friend?

He stumbled to the kitchen, opening up the fridge. His eyes widening when half of the groceries were missing. The orange juice you had bought was gone, the meat, the cheese, even the beers you had bought just for him were gone. The realisation that you might’ve left finally dawned up on him, and it brought him a lot of peace. He could just spent time without have you yap an blabber all the time, he didn’t have to listen to your constant talking about those dumb shows you watched. It nearly felt as if the Gods had blessed him. Being left by you turned out to be harder than Simon had thought. He had enjoyed the silence for a while, but when he woke up in that large, empty bed, he couldn’t help but miss you next to him. He thought he would enjoy eating his breakfast in silence, but the silence that lingered in the apartment was an eerie one, and loneliness crept up to him. He tried to reach out to you, but you had blocked him on every single platform he could reach you on and for the first time since he had met you, he found himself longing for your words, the way you spoke, the way you were so passionate about all the topics you talked about.

Being left by you made him realise how much he loved you.

Leaving Simon broke you down, but you managed to pick yourself up again. It took you a while, but you slowly found yourself trusting other again, and although you were still weary of talking too much, you still had that some passion in your voice whenever you talked about something, even your silly TV shows. You went to the store, getting yourself a tub of ice cream before your favourite show would start. Your cart bumping into someone since your mind was busy with the cliffhanger of last episode. “I’m so sorry.” You mutter quickly as you look up.

Rudy.

His eyes light up a little too quickly as a smile forms on his lips. “You never told me if Big Edd and Rose ended up staying together.”

#call of duty modern warfare 2 #cod mw2 #call of duty #cod mwii #cod x reader #angst #ghost x reader #ghost x you #mw2 #rudy cod #alejandro vargas #alejandro cod #angst with a happy ending #happy ending #breakup #fanfic edit #fanfic #cod fanfic #fanfiction #fanfics #ao3 fanfic #ao3fic #ao3 writer #ao3 #archive of our own

[pepsiiwho]

Hey I’m just very curious- do you think you could expand on your thought here: “Persephone isn't a good mother and, imo, would have a very strained, tentative relationship with her actual son (and now daughter hahahahah damn....)”? It’s not a common take I’ve seen- at least in the parts of the fandom I frequented- and I’d like to know more about where you’re coming from. Like I know Nyx isn’t a good mom- particularly to Hypnos- but it’s way less common that I see people saying Persephone is a bad mom.

To be clear, I’m not disagreeing or being confrontational or anything- I’m genuinely curious to hear your thoughts. Also what’s all this about the timeline implications? I don’t have a computer to play the early access on and so I have to hear about it second hand. All to say if you could tear yourself away from Hades 2 long enough to formulate a coherent response I’d be eternally grateful.

Sure! I just got to the final boss in hades 2 so I probably need a break. Ignore the shaking and cold temperature of my skin, I'm normal! Long post under the cut!

Okay lets see, first thing: any nyx or Persephone freedom fighters out there who wanna defend their mommies or whatever do it somewhere else, I don't give af. This isn't directed at you, I just gotta cover my bases. Anyway,

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure Persephone (Pers) loves zagreus, I won't say she doesn't. She lost him once and that grief drove her to leave hell entirely, leaving her husband and home behind for solitude of her own creation. You don't get grief like that unless you loved someone, or the thought of someone, deeply. But, having said that— she was gone for (functionally) all of Zagreus' childhood, adolescence and a non-zero portion of his adulthood. A charitable read of their situation was that she wasn't absentee by choice, not knowingly at least, and if she knew she would've never stayed away as another woman raised her child and her husband abused said child because of her toll on his mental. My read is that she left, abandoning her husband and baby and when Zagreus went to find her she wouldn't even come back with him. He reached out, found her, begged her to come back and she wouldn't. The reasoning for WHY is something I've forgotten honestly, I haven't played HADES story mode all the way through in years, but regardless she didn't instantly come back and will herself into her son's life. Any deniability she had was gone by that point, imo.

And let's say, for argument, she came home and instantly was heavenly and kind and loving and everything zagreus needed then— doesn't change the fact she abandoned them.

I don't think you get to be a good parent when you missed all of your child's most formative years. That sort of loss is something you don't get back, time that doesn't get to rewind just because you made a mistake. I think a common fandom take with hades fans is that the family is fractured but whole by the end and everything is okay. That's nice, I guess, but I think it's boring and uninteresting. I much prefer a read that zagreus moved heaven and hell (literally) to get to his mother and he finally got what he wanted and still wasn't satisfied. She wasn't the goddess he expect. Not the. mother he expected. She was .... something else.

Theres a degree of negligence in her actions that just are unavoidable.

Unless I'm completely misremembering the events of the first game, (which is a real possibility, me and my best friend have done so much insane HC talking over the years canon and Fanon get blurry quickly—) I think she's a bad parent. And this isn't even touching on how her absence made Hades a worse parent and abusive figure to his son. I think of that quote from... somewhere, that was something to the effect "an abused child's saddest realization is that they didn't have a normal parent and (1) abusive parent— they had (2)" Zagreus had to have thought that if she hadn't left, abandoned him, he wouldn't have to endure what he does.

As for time line mess: it's too vague. (It's funny you sent this when you did, I actually was just talking about this with my bestie, all of 15 minutes ago. You cursed me, witch)

So assuming I understood hades lore, with only the first game as our point of reference (no myth, no outside media, just the in game text) Hypnos, Zagreus, Than and Meg are around the same age. Thanatos and Hypnos are twins, meaning they're the same age and it's implied that meg grew up around the twins and zagreus as well. Zagreus openly references their shared childhood with nyx and achilles and probably other characters I forgot. But what matters is that if they grew up together that tells us one of two things:

Gods are functionally made like human children are. Not for a purpose or function but just because the parent wanted them (or had an accident) and then a aspect is applied to them at birth/conception OR

Gods are created by their parents to fulfill some sort of need that the parent didn't/couldn't/shouldn't do themselves. This seems to be the more textually supported answer, if Nyx and her fucking high school football team worth of children mean anything.

Neither option is one I like, because they don't make much sense to me in relation to humanity but that's neither here nor there. Personally, I think godhood should work like the concept of storks do in that when humanity needs a new figure to pray to or invoke, a child is 'born' and delivered to the parent. So, by this logic, the base needs of human begins would come before all else right?

So just within Nyx's family, the ages should really go Chaos > Nyx > Fates [?] > Hypnos > Than > Charon > etc etc etc. Because human beings must sleep before they die and then die before they're transported to hades and so on and so on.

But in THIS model, Hypnos and than would be considerably older then humanity and everyone else in the house, hades included. Which means they'd be far too old to have grown up which zagreus. Or maybe zagreus is way too old to be acting so childish? It's hard to say. Neither answer is particularly satisfying. That also doesn't even bring into account the olympians. And don't event get me STARTED on Melione. God. The timeline has major implications for her and her story depending on where she falls on it.

But that's a whole other rant. Like this is already getting long as shit. I hope this made sense and I'm glad you asked! I enjoy going on my senseless rambles.

Well, back to the horrors (hades 2) <3

#the funnies #hades persephone #this is so much sorry guys I just am so normal all the time #hades game

[silver-ink-iron-words]

T_T

This is so touching!

I was going to wait until tomorrow to post this. But then I was like, I've already made them wait long enough, and what's the harm of posting two things in one day?

Felt it'd be nice to have Part 6 be a little less plot-driven. You'll see what I mean

-------

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

QPR, Part 6

“[Hero], come on!” the villain called, from where they laid sprawled on the couch. “You said it wouldn’t take that long!”

“Hold on just a sec.” The hero’s voice floated from the kitchen. “They’ll be done soon.”

The villain scowled and flopped back on the pillows. “You never see Do-yun making Ha-rin wait around forever.”

“That’s because tv shows have this magical trick called the jump cut.” There was the sound of an oven door closing. “We'll just let them bake, and then they’ll be so good you won’t even remember the wait.”

The villain groaned.

Then they heard the sound of running water, and burst up, rushing into the kitchen. “Are you doing my dishes?!”

The hero jerked their head up like they’d been caught vandalizing. “I was just going to do a few while we waited.”

“Okay, one, you do not need to do my chores on k-drama night. And two, how long is the baking going to take?!”

The hero glanced to their phone on the counter. “’Bout fifty more minutes.”

The villain gaped. “That’s most of an episode!”

“Well I didn’t want us to have to pause the show during a big scene. This way we can – Jesus your hands are freezing!”

The villain had come up behind the hero to hug them, pressing their hands on the hero’s stomach.

“Come watch tv dear,” they said into the hero’s shoulder. “I’m cold without you.”

The hero shook their head, but also cracked a small grin. “You’re evil.”

The villain matched their expression and pressed their hands more. “Of course I am. It’s the only way I can get you to cuddle me.”

In the end, the brownies were, in fact, good enough to make the villain forget why they were annoyed in the first place.

---

“Oh my god,” the hero said.

The villain fidgeted. “Do you like it?”

“Like it?” The hero looked up. “[Villain], it’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”

The hero was holding a small fluffy teddy bear, its fur the black, grey, white, and purple of the asexual flag.

The villain beamed. “Really?”

The hero nodded gleefully. “He needs a name.”

“I think the tag says its name is ‘Fuzzy’ or something. You could – ”

“Ferdinand,” the hero decided, assessing the stuffed animal. “Ferdinand Bearnsby. The next Prince of Denmark.”

The villain wrapped the hero in a hug. “I’m so glad you like it.”

---

“So is [Villain], like, a law-abiding citizen now?” the hero’s friend asked.

“Uh, sort of?” The hero gazed around at the restaurant’s outdoor seating area. “They still break minor laws, but I think they’ve really toned it down to stress me out less.”

“Hey, that’s great.”

The hero swirled their iced tea with their straw. “Yeah, I guess.”

The friend quirked an eyebrow. “You don’t agree?”

The hero sighed. “Okay, so don’t ever tell [Villain] this, but I think their ‘devil may care’ attitude is maybe, kinda . . . a little bit cool?”

The friend grinned. “Oh really?”

In return, the hero’s smile was sheepish. “It’s a little embarrassing to admit, but I secretly wish that they’d behave more like their old villainous self sometimes.”

“Hm, well I suppose that – ”

Something enormous crashed into the street, making all the dishes clatter. The hero and their friend both whipped their heads around to see the cause of the noise.

“[Villain]!”

“Oh hi [Hero]!” The fifty-foot tall mech waved at the two of them. “Fancy meeting you here. How did you know it was me?”

“[Villain], why are you in a giant robot?!”

“Isn’t it cool?” The villain spun around, their heavy feet cracking the pavement and the machine's hinges screeching with every movement. “I finally figured out how to get the power system working.”

“This is illegal.”

The villain laughed. “Ah okay, I see the issue. But, fear not my darling, for I have” – they pulled out a sheet of paper that looked miniscule in their enormous metal hands – “a permit!”

Soon after, the mech continued walking down the street, while the hero followed them, shouting at the top of their lungs.

The friend watched them go, and then chuckled. Those two maniacs were perfect for each other.

---

A-spec stories taglist:

@feline17ff , @piept , @doublericenobeans , @vioqueenofmushrooms , @pigeonwhumps , @thelazywitchphotographer , @taramacgay

#asexual #aromantic #qpr #hero x villain #villain x hero #aroace #ace #aro #qpr pride #qpr concepts #heroes and villains #villains and heroes #villain #writing snippet #writeblr #aspec #aromantic spectrum #asexual spectrum #wholesome #fluff #Hero - 'they'll be done soon' #Also Hero - 'just fifty more minutes' #not a prompt

[kbrick]

Peak Drarry: Celebrating Incredible Writers - aibidil

Peak Drarry is a series of posts celebrating the absolute treasure trove of talented writers in this fandom, and a reminder of how lucky we are to have them here with us. I’m kicking it off with one of my all-time faves, @aibidil​. 

✨AIBIDIL✨

I’m guessing there are very few people involved in the Drarry fandom who haven’t heard of aibidil. Aibidil has been showering us with quality fic since 2017 and has over sixty offerings on AO3. Her works were some of the first I consumed when I fell headfirst into Drarry during covid, and had a lot to do with my desire to write my own. I still distinctly remember being blown away by A Hag, a Hex, a Tale of Redemption, by how aibidil had managed to create such a compelling, funny, and heartfelt fuck-or-die fic, one that stood out from the rest. So, why should you read aibidil’s fic? Here are a few reasons:

They are creative and get you thinking

Sometimes there’s a trope or two thrown into the mix, but even then, the trope is merely a jump-off point into something much bigger. Trope: Ginny and Harry break up and Harry finds solace in and then love with Draco. Aibidil comes along and says, okay, fine, but make the problem Ginny’s unwanted pregnancy, have Harry experience emotional turmoil over that fact (not that Harry-Abandonment-Issues-Should-Be-My-Middle-Name-Potter identifies with an unwanted fetus, no, of course not), have him spend the rest of the story sorting through his complicated feelings, and make the whole thing a testament to reproductive choice (this fic is called (Un)wanted, by the way. It’s incredible). Trope: Malfoy wears a skirt and Harry goes feral. Aibidil’s take? Malfoy wears the skirt because he and Hermione are leading a protest against the gendered, outdated Ministry dress codes (Beards, Booty Shorts, and Binaries).

Abidil’s stories don’t always skew political (although I love when they do), but they always have something to say. In A Hag, a Hex, a Tale of Redemption, Draco must come to terms with what it means to love someone, and how consent plays into that (does a lie negate consent?). Truth and love also play a role in When Times Are Dire, when Harry and Draco must pretend to marry to save the world. But is it pretend when they really are joining their lives and families together?

Beyond the deeper moral and ethical questions present in these stories, aibidil’s fic always manages to be creative and interesting. Abidil comes up with some of the most inventive sorts of magic (you really have to read her latest, Always Already, for one of the most thoughtful depictions of magical time travel I’ve ever read). Her premises can be angsty, like what if Astoria tells Scorpius—on her death bed no less—that he is actually Draco’s child with Harry (when by now and tree by leaf)? They can also be downright silly, like what if Draco can’t stop hiccoughing for days (Upside Down, Holding One’s Breath)? But one thing of which you can be certain: they’re never, ever boring.

They’re a master class in characterization

So, aibidil can dream up interesting, different, thought-provoking storylines, yes. But she also gets it right when it comes to characterization. Her Harry and Draco are always recognizable to me, no matter how evolved and changed they’ve become. There is something essential there, something true to the characters we know and love, that is ever present. And I think that’s because aibidil truly empathizes with and cares about her characters. This knack for getting in a character’s headspace means that aibidil is able to create some of the most fully formed, well rounded and realistically portrayed versions of Harry and Draco I’ve read. Whether it’s Harry in When Times are Dire enjoying the way his children sort of take his love for granted (because Harry wants that for them so badly, wants to be a constant, unquestioned source of support in their lives) or Draco in Always Already shoving down his snark in order to be as inoffensive as possible as a sort of penance for the war, you both recognize and feel for these characters. They’re flawed and imperfect, but they’re trying, and you love them for it.

There are moments in aibidil’s fic that leave me breathless because of how well they nail down the essence of a character in just a few words, or a single exchange or situation. For instance, in When Times Are Dire, Draco and Harry take a trip to the zoo and Draco buys Harry an absurdly enormous ice cream sundae after Harry recalls a time his aunt and uncle bought one for Dudley but not him. “Harry found himself at a loss for words,” aibidil writes. “He thought he’d worked through his childhood zoo issues. He’d been here so many times as an adult, without the abuse of the Dursleys. He had so many wonderful memories here, so many trips with his kids. But no one had ever bought Harry an ice cream before [emphasis mine].” The way Draco understands Harry, and the way he helps Harry to understand something about himself in such an everyday sort of scene is beautiful.

In Pure Imagination, Harry and Draco, experiencing depression after the war, are given a potion that allows them to tap into their imaginations completely, the way a child would. They have an excellent time on the potion together, imagining all sorts of things, including taking a trip to a Muggle skate park (together), which they agree to do at a later date. But afterward, Harry retreats and doesn’t go to the skate park (a decision that gives us incredible insight into the Harry of this story, come to think of it). In their joint trip to the counselor’s office later, Draco tells the counselor that imagination is dangerous because it opens people up to disappointment. “It’s smart that I don’t allow myself delusions like thinking I can somehow have a fulfilling career, even given my past,” he says. “It’s smart that I don’t allow myself the delusion of thinking Potter might want to spend time with me when he’s not high on a fucking imagination potion.”

And doesn’t this cut right to the heart of Draco? Whether he’s being cruel the way he was in canon, or being cool and indifferent, the way he is at the beginning of Pure Imagination, he is someone who struggles to believe in his own self-worth, and has found an entire arsenal’s worth of methods to hide this fact, even, sometimes, from himself. 

They’re just so damn funny

And finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention one of the absolute best things about aibidil’s stories. Because on top of incredible storylines and beautiful character work, aibidil is fucking hilarious. I don’t think I’ve ever read through anything of hers without laughing out loud. Oftentimes, the humor is situational, like in When Times Are Dire when Harry and Draco tell their children that they’re in a relationship (when they’re actually not) and proceed to have one of the most awkward exchanges of all time with them, which leads to Harry clarifying that they are together ‘sexually’ (He says that. To his children.). Or in Auld Acquaintance, when Harry comes through the floo looking like a teenager and Draco finds himself torn between the ghost of attraction his own teenaged self had for this version of Harry and the fact that to his mature, grandfatherly eye, Harry looks “doughy…like an underbaked infant.” Or in Starve Your Distractions, Feed Your Focus, when a coupled-up Harry and Draco have to work out with a very sexy Neville, who is wearing joggers that leave little to the imagination.

Sometimes, though, the hilarity is in the form of amazing dialogue (her Harry and Draco banter is always top-tier) or of others’ observations of the Drarry dynamic, like when Neville says (in Always Already) this about Harry and Draco’s teasing of one another: “Don't mind them. It's like their little traumatised child-warrior foreplay or something.” Aibidil is always aware of the story she’s telling, and of the Drarry-ness of it all. These are not simple men, and theirs is never a typical, simple relationship, and you know what? That can be funny. As Harry says in When Times are Dire: "Ah yes. I'm a cheap date. All it takes to get me in bed is to almost kill each other, survive a war together, work together over decades, have children who fall in love and get married, get married for political reasons, pretend to be in love for two years to all friends and relatives, become grandparents together, and take a controlled substance to open up enough to tell each other the truth. That's all."

See? Easy.

Finally, I shouldn’t leave out the fact that aibidil’s acronyms are the best of all time (her most recent fic’s C.O.C.K. is my new favorite, but there are oodles of excellent ones).

Recommended For…

Everyone. Listen, if you enjoy laughing, or exciting and original storylines, or fic that makes you think, or fic that reveals the beating hearts of our favorite characters, aibidil’s catalog of work is for you. There is angst in places, there is smut in places, but that’s not really the point of her fic. The point is the journey, the character development, and the ridiculous amount of joy and energy contained in all of these stories. Here are a few you might want to check out, but honestly, you can’t go wrong with anything she’s written.

Top 3 Fics Over 25,000 Words (by kudos)

Dating for Dads in Denial (25k) - In which one wizard designs and another reluctantly patronises a magical matchmaking service, amidst the chaos of children and parenting.

when by now and tree by leaf (46k) - When Scorpius Malfoy is saying goodbye to his dying mother, he doesn't expect to hear her confess, "Your father slept with another man and became pregnant with you." 

Moldova’s Magical Tea (32k) - Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood, and—to everyone’s surprise—Draco Malfoy are opening a magical tea shop to revive wizarding tea culture. Harry, who is unemployed and trying to find his way in post-war society, wants to help his friends with their new business—but that means spending a lot of time around Malfoy. 

Top 3 Fics Under 25,000 Words (by kudos)

Back to You (8k) - The eighth years make Harry and Malfoy go head to head and back to back in a question-and-answer drinking game. The worst that can happen is they end up drunk, right?

The Usual (9k) - Harry finally tries the new magical coffee shop on Diagon Alley. A story in which Draco is Up To Something™ and Harry is going to get to the bottom of it, and to the bottom of that sixteen ounce to-go cup.

Beards, Booty Shorts, and Binaries (9k) - Harry was hoping for a quiet day at the office, but Hermione and Draco are waging a war on discrimination with beards and skirts.

Kbrick’s Picks (in order of obsession)

When Times Are Dire (130k) - Magical Britain is screwed, and it's once again up to Harry to save it. This time, by marrying Draco Malfoy.

Always Already (170k) -  It's 2004: Harry teaches primary school and loves his job and friends; It's 1980: Harry has to fight Voldemort, again; It's 2004: Draco is a trainee Healer and reformed member of society; It's 1980: Draco has to face his father's cruelty; It's 2004: Harry and Draco definitely aren't lonely or depressed or traumatised; It's 1980: Harry and Draco listen to Kate Bush and watch Dallas and drive a 1979 Ford Cortina; It's 2004, it's 1980, it's...

Pure Imagination (15k) - An eighth-year tale of depressed happiness, reluctant imagination, and conflicted hope. And skateboarding.

.

#drarry #peak drarry #fic recs #writer rec #amazing writers #drarry fic rec

[mcdynamite]

Dream

Little late posting this, but written for the @wolfstarmicrofic prompt for February 4th: Dream. Sort of failed miserably at the "micro"fic part, but here you go! 3.3k of Wolfstar! (CW for mention of The Prank, but the story takes place months after it actually happens. Happy/hopeful ending guaranteed!)

Now posted to AO3!

The Gryffindor Common Room is uncannily quiet late at night, long after its many residents have retreated to the safety of their beds. What is ordinarily a bustling, cacophonous space becomes one of stillness… of silence.

But Remus has never minded the quiet.

On the contrary, he quite likes it – the way he can hear the crackling of the hearth as it radiates warmth into the large, empty space. Sometimes, on nights when sleep is even more elusive than usual, he finds himself sitting on the plush couch nearest the fire, keeping the tower’s resident fire-dwelling salamanders company.

Tonight is one of those nights, and he’s only just turned to the next chapter in his novel when he hears the soft padding of footsteps coming down the stairwell from the boys’ dormitories.

He’s not terribly surprised to see that the boy who emerges from the shadows is one he knows quite well. Achingly well, if he’s honest.

Sirius looks exhausted and skittish when he steps into the firelight, and he jumps, slightly, when he lays eyes on Remus, who stares silently up at him from where he’s lounging on the couch. A year ago, one of them would have made a quip about not being able to sleep as they settled in comfortably beside each other, words long having ceased to be necessary.

But this isn’t a year ago. This is now, and even though Remus forgave Sirius for his ill-conceived “prank” on Severus Snape some time ago, things are still different. They’ve been different ever since that night, even after their reconciliation following James’s frantic Floo call to Remus’s cottage on the night Sirius ran away from home.

They’ve only been back at Hogwarts for a few weeks, and though Remus is loath to admit it, the two of them still seem to be finding their footing with each other.

This isn’t a year ago, and Remus knows that’s why Sirius stops short when he first enters the room.

“Remus,” Sirius says softly. His voice is hoarse from sleep, tainted with an edge of guilt Remus desperately wishes weren’t there.

“Hi,” Remus breathes. He closes his book – offers Sirius a small smile. “You’re up awfully late.”

Sirius smiles hesitantly, his eyes darting around the room like he’s waiting for something awful to come leaping out of the shadows. He’s like this often, now – ever since he ran away – and even after weeks of seeing him like this, it doesn’t break Remus’s heart any less. “I’m sorry,” Sirius mutters. “I didn’t know you’d be down here. I can go, if you-”

“No, don’t,” Remus interjects quickly, because even after everything, Remus craves Sirius’s presence like a sprout craves sunlight. Sirius still looks hesitant, so Remus pats the cushion beside him. “Really, Sirius, it’s okay.”

We’re okay, Remus wants to say, only he doesn’t, for fear of being proven wrong.

Still, Sirius flounders for a bit, and Remus wonders if the other boy is really going to flee back up the stairs, after all. But eventually, Sirius sighs and makes his way over, sitting a foot or so away on the other side of the couch.

It’s yet another thing that’s changed, in the last few months. A year ago, Sirius would’ve sat so close they’d be touching from ankle to shoulder – practically on Remus’s lap. Remus quickly pushes the thought away, because if he thinks about it for too long, he may do something terribly embarrassing like cry. Instead, he focuses on the much more important problem at hand, which is the fact that Sirius is still plenty close enough for Remus to notice the trembling in his hands.

Remus swallows and stares at his friend’s shaking fingers, feeling rather wrong-footed. He hates this – God, he fucking hates this. He hates that Sirius is hurting. He hates that things are so strange between them, nowadays. He hates that the strangeness does nothing but make Remus feel like he’s missing a limb – trying to walk without a leg – and that it makes him feel unable to comfort someone who means more to him than anyone could possibly imagine. More than Remus has even admitted to himself.

“Sirius,” Remus says, setting the book on the table beside the couch. “Are you alright?”

The question makes Sirius curl in on himself, and Remus waits patiently for a response, if he’s going to get one at all.

“I-” Sirius starts, then cuts himself off with a sigh. “Yeah, I… it’s fine, Rem. Just a bad dream. You know how it goes.”

Remus does know how it goes, is the thing. He knows better than anyone, because he and Sirius have been sharing the darkest hours of the nights for years after bad dreams – after visions of glowing yellow eyes and sharp teeth have Remus waking in a cold sweat, and memories of shouted curses do the same to Sirius. They’ve talked each other through the aftermath. Held each other at the worst of times, occasionally waking up the next morning so tangled together that Remus couldn’t tell where he ended and Sirius began.

But they don’t do that anymore. Not since…

Remus doesn’t want to think about that, right now.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I know.”

There’s a long pause before Sirius speaks again.

“You know…” Sirius says tiredly. “I’m not sure I can remember the last time I had a good dream.”

The statement takes Remus by surprise, not because he’s surprised to hear that Sirius feels this way, but because he’s surprise to hear Sirius say it. It feels dangerously close to opening up, and that’s something the two of them haven’t done with each other in a long, long time.

“There are nights where I don’t really dream, or at least, not that I remember, you know?” Sirius continues. “But I can’t remember the last time I dreamt about something that was good. Something that made me happy.”

Remus’s heart beats unsteadily in his chest, because this, strangely enough, is not something he can relate to. Remus does have good dreams, on occasion, and a great many of them feature the boy with whom he is currently sharing a couch. He’s done his best to shove them to the back of his mind, whenever he wakes up from them. He relegates them to that ever-expanding box of Sirius-related memories that would be better off forgotten and moves on, only now… Sirius is right beside him, prodding at the box with long, aristocratic fingers, and Remus can feel the lid beginning to slip.

But he’s been silent for too long, and he should know better, because Sirius Black has never been able to resist filling a silence. “Do you have good dreams, Moony?” he asks softly.

Remus won’t lie, but that doesn’t mean he has to tell the whole truth. “Sometimes,” he says noncommittally, praying that will be enough of an answer for Sirius.

It’s not. Of course, it’s not.

“Yeah?” Sirius asks, turning sideways to face him – one elbow propped up on the back of the couch and a knee resting on the cushions between them. “What about?”

“Mundane things, really,” Remus answer diplomatically. “Everything’s so awful, out there in the real world, for people like me. Sometimes I dream that I just… disappear. Get a little cottage somewhere off the beaten path, with a garden, and a crup or a kneazle, and I can just sort of… exist, you know?”

It’s all true, even if he’s leaving out the most important parts. The part about Sirius being there with him, cooking dinner together in a tiny kitchen. The part about the bed he shares with a boy with long, wavy black hair and shining grey eyes, that leave him waking up hard and aching with want.

He swallows, and Sirius studies him for what feels like an eternity. Remus is certain that his face must be giving something away. He’s never been particularly good at poker.

“Sounds lonely,” Sirius murmurs, and it cuts through Remus like a knife.

It is, he wants to say. It is, because at least before, I could trick myself into thinking that maybe I wasn’t so crazy. That maybe you could be there, after all.

Instead, he says, “It’s not. Not always, at least. Sometimes I’m not alone.”

There’s a flicker of something sad and haunted in Sirius’s eyes. “Good,” he whispers. “I don’t want you to be alone, Moony. You don’t deserve that.”

Remus blinks at him – barely even thinks before uttering, “Neither do you.”

He nearly chokes on all of the words left unsaid in the silence that follows. There’s a palpable tension in the air, and Remus wonders if perhaps it’s all in his head or if Sirius can feel it too – if Sirius can feel the crushing, all-consuming weight of Remus’s love for him, attempting to bully its way out of Remus’s throat and into the open, like water testing the integrity of an overburdened dam.

Sirius’s gaze is a weighty thing, when it finally settles on Remus again. “Your dream sounds nice,” Sirius says. Remus feels his eyes begin to sting. “Practical, but sort of cozy. Like you.” His ears turn crimson when he says the last, and Remus has to wonder whether he meant to say it at all.

“You could do it too, you know,” Remus says tightly. “There’s nothing stopping you.”

There’s another pause – a long one.

“We could do it together,” Sirius says.

He’s poking that box of memories, again, and this time, the lid goes tumbling off.

Remus laughs wetly and quickly brushes away a tear he never granted permission to fall. “Sometimes we do,” he confesses. “When I dream about it.”

He glances at Sirius, who’s looking at him with wide, teary eyes, and finds that he can’t stop now that the lid is off the box, now that the dam has begun to crack under the pressure.

“Sometimes you come with me,” he says, voice shaking. “And you laugh at me when I fuss over the garden. You bring that muggle record player you have and never turn it off. And sometimes we quarrel about dinner, or whose turn it is to feed the crup, but we’re-” Remus’s voice breaks, and he sniffles. “We’re happy.”

He feels a bit like he’s losing his mind when he finishes, and he can’t bring himself to look at Sirius. It’s as close to a full confession as Remus will ever get, and Sirius is an idiot, sometimes, but he’s not stupid. He’ll be able to put two and two together, and then Remus’s secret – the only one he’s kept closer to his chest than his lycanthropy – will be out. Exposed like a wound that will never fully heal.

Sirius’s voice is strained and soft, when he speaks again. “Remus,” he croaks. “Remus, I…”

He never finishes the thought, and Remus’s blood begins to burn with shame.

But then… Sirius murmurs something else. “Remus, I want that.”

They’re the words Remus has been longing to hear for years, but dismissing them is astonishingly easy.

“You don’t mean that,” Remus says flatly.

“I do, though.”

“No, Sirius, you don’t,” Remus snaps, rising to his feet. “You don’t know what you’re saying – what I’m saying. You don’t know what you’re agreeing to, it’s-”

“No, Remus, listen to me,” Sirius pleads. He reaches out, nimble fingers encircling Remus’s wrist, and Remus freezes. It’s the first time they’ve touched each other beyond an accidental bump in the halls since the night of the prank, and his skin suddenly feels too tight for his body. He’s so shocked, he can’t even bring himself to resist when Sirius pulls him back down to sit on the couch again, much closer this time. Their knees brush against each other, and the contact burns hot like a brand.

Remus looks at Sirius – meets his gaze properly – and is stunned to find that his grey eyes are filled with tears.

“I know what you mean,” Sirius insists. “And I mean what I’m saying, Remus, surely you know that.”

“Sirius, it’s just a dream,” Remus counters tearfully. His heart is dangerously close to cracking open right there inside his chest, and he’s not ready. God, he’s not ready to have his heart broken by the conversation he knows is coming. “And you’re not… you don’t feel that way about me. Not like I do for you.”

“Remus,” Sirius whispers, soft and urgent, like Remus is the one breaking his heart, and not the other way around. ���Everyone knows. Everyone knows that I- that I-” He can’t seem to get the words out, but Remus knows what his imagination wants to fill in at the end of the sentence. Two words that simply cannot be true.

Until Sirius Black, unpredictable as ever, does what Remus has never, in four impossibly long years, been able to do.

“Everyone knows that I love you, Remus,” Sirius says, tears streaking down his alabaster cheeks. “Everyone except you.”

Remus forgets how to breathe. “What?”

Sirius sniffles and releases his grip on Remus’s wrist in favor of tangling their fingers together. “I have no right to say that, Moony, I know that. I do. Especially not after… what I did last year. But Gods, I- I can’t do this any longer. I’ve been disowned by my family, Remus, I haven’t talked to Reggie in months, and I’ve still never missed anyone as much as I’ve missed you.”

Remus shakes his head, unable to believe what he’s hearing with his own ears. “Sirius, we talk to each other every day-”

“But we don’t, do we?” Sirius argues, desperate. “Not like we used to. Not like I wish we did. It’s different, now.”

“Of course it’s different!” Remus hisses, his fingers tightening around Sirius’s, even as his own heart tries to pull away. “It’s- I can’t… I’m not…” He huffs in frustration and fails miserably at blinking back the tears that won’t stop coming. Sirius looks utterly devastated when Remus glances at him.

“I know,” Sirius mutters brokenly. “I know, Remus. You can say it.”

Remus takes a shaky breath, and he thinks of all the things he’s wanted to say to Sirius for the last few months – all the questions he’s never asked – but they’re questions he knows Sirius won’t have answers for. Sirius will never be able to tell him why he sold Remus out to Snape, that night, because Sirius doesn’t know why. That much has been clear from the moment it happened.

So Remus doesn’t ask. What he says, instead, is this:

“I don’t understand why it had to be you,” Remus whispers, and he can’t look at Sirius’s face, right now, so instead he looks at their joined hands. “That’s the most fucked up part of this whole mess, Sirius. When I think about it…” He pauses. “When I think about things that I wish were different, my first thought is never that I wish the whole prank never happened – it’s that I wish it had been someone, anyone, other than you who did it.”

Sirius is silent – head bowed and hand shaking in Remus’s grasp, despite how tightly they’re clinging to each other.

“I know it sounds mad, but it’s true,” Remus continues. “Because I love James, and Peter, and Lily – you know I do – but not…” He takes a deep breath and raises his eyes to meet Sirius’s. God, what a messy, tragic pair they make.

He squeezes Sirius’s hand.

“Not like I love you.”

Sirius’s breath hitches softly, his red-rimmed grey eyes flitting back and forth across Remus’s face while the words hang in the air between them. The silence is deafening, ringing with the truths that have finally been voiced after years of silence – that Remus and Sirius’s relationship has never been quite like the others. That it’s always been a different sort of love.

Of course, it’s Sirius who ultimately shatters the silence, and Remus hardly has time to register what’s happening before Sirius chokes out a sob and launches himself into Remus’s arms, clambering into Remus’s lap and wrapping around him like a koala. The broken apologies that emerge between sobs are the final blow to Remus’s fractured heart, and he feels the moment it cracks open, bleeding desperation into every cell in his body. He winds his arms around Sirius’s body and holds him close – just like he used to after their worst nightmares – and stops trying to fight the tears.

“I’m sorry, Remus, I’m so sorry,” Sirius pleads, breaths ghosting over the exposed skin of Remus’s neck. “Please, Remus, you have to believe me. I’m so sorry. Forgive me. Please.” I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

Remus knows – he’s always known – and he forgave Sirius a long time ago, only because he knew Sirius would never forgive himself.

“I know,” Remus murmurs, holding Sirius so tightly he’s nearly surprised Sirius has any air left to speak. “And I do. It’s okay. We’re…” He pauses, because, he wants to tell Sirius that they’re okay, but they’re not. Not really. Not yet. “We’ll be okay, Sirius. We will. I swear it.”

He hears Sirius let out a shuddering breath, but he feels, more than hears, Sirius murmur into the skin of his neck, “I love you.”

“I know,” Remus says again, burying his face in the crook of Sirius’s neck, where the soft wool of his sweater gives way to smooth skin. Sirius’s arms tighten around his middle. “I love you, too.”

“I want-” Sirius starts, interrupted by a soft hiccup. “I want to have good dreams again, Moony.” His voice sounds so small – like that of a child – and it makes Remus ache.

Slowly, gently, Remus extricates himself from Sirius’s grasp so he can look Sirius in the eye. His hand hardly feels like his own when he lets it rest against Sirius’s flush cheek, brushing away the still-falling tears with a careful swipe of his thumb.

They’ve shared a bed dozens of times, before. Spent entire evenings on this very couch with Remus’s head in Sirius’s lap while they laughed with their friends. Sirius is straddling him right now, in this very moment, but this – Remus cradling Sirius’s face in his hand, stubbornly thumbing away tears while they stare at each other, gazes open and honest in a way they’ve never been, even before the prank – is undeniably the most intimate thing they’ve ever done.

And Remus knows, now, what he’s denied for so long – that there will always, always be a part of him that loves Sirius Black, and miraculously, he thinks Sirius may always love him, in return. It may not be tonight, but one day, Sirius will gather the shards of Remus’s heart and put it back together. Breathe love into it like oxygen. And Remus will do the same for him.

Maybe they can start right now.

“You will,” Remus says softly, a wobbly smile on his lips. “But for now, you can borrow mine, if you’d like.”

Sirius’s eyes widen with wonder, and God, Remus loves him. He loves him so much it hurts.

Remus doesn’t know this, yet, but in two years, the two of them will lay together in their bed and bicker teasingly about who kissed who first. Remus will claim that it was Sirius who first leaned in, and Sirius, ever the contrarian, will say the opposite. But they’ll smile through the playful disagreement, and sooner or later, the argument will end with one of them cheekily fitting their lips together in a successful attempt at distraction.

But this isn’t two years from now. Not yet. So for now, Remus doesn’t particularly care whether it’s him or Sirius who initiated it. His only cares in the world are that Sirius tastes like mint toothpaste, and his lips are soft and pliant against Remus’s own, and that their first kiss is a little wet with tears and a little devastating, but still perfect.

It’s perfect because it’s them – RemusandSirius – and for now, that’s enough.

For now, Remus Lupin kisses Sirius Black and smiles, because for the first time in a long time, he knows that his favorite dreams are finally, finally within reach.

#wolfstar #wolfstar microfic #but not a microfic at all #wolfstar fic #wolfstar angst #wolfstar fluff #wolfstar hurt/comfort #love confessions #The Prank #Remus Lupin #Sirius Black #Marauders Era #happy ending #angst with a happy ending #forget #mcdynamite writes

[bullet-prooflove]

When I fold, you see the best in me The joker and the queen

Companion piece to One Night

You see the fall coming. It starts the week before Sharon’s anniversary. Vince becomes more subdued, his mood brittle. He cancels plans, ignores your texts, dodges your calls. This time of year it’s hard for him, you understand that more than most.

You give him his space, whatever issues he needs to work out they aren’t with you and you don’t want to put that additional pressure on his shoulders. He has enough to think about with both Bode and Luke.

It’s late when he comes by your office. You’re standing in front of the whiteboard surveying the latest helicopter surveillance images of the forest.

The reason you were selected for this posting was because of your experience shutting down weed farms in the Appalachian Mountains, the strains that were coming out of there were potent, too potent for the kids whose hands they were finding their way into. High levels of THC were causing psychotic breaks in users as young as twelve years old.

Then there was the violence. A family of eight had been found slaughtered across three of their properties, each one containing a ransacked grow. You’d managed to catch the perpetrators as they off loaded the product to local contacts.

You’d been brought in when something similar had started to occur in the local area, there was a spike in high school students suffering from hallucinations and psychological issues. Three hikers had been killed up in Lakeport after they’d stumbled across a farm during a nature walk and there was some sort of Hatfields/McCoys style feud going on between two rival growers that was spilling out all over the place.

Vince stands beside you as you study the board, his fingers reaching for the yellow magnet you’ve placed over one of the images before he guides it a few miles north.

“I was out there earlier today.” He tells you, his fingertip trailing along the river. “If there is a farm it’s more likely to be here, closer to the water source, there’s less trees so more access to sunlight for the grow.”

“Thank you.” You say softly before writing the coordinates on the board with the marker.

“I’m an asshole.” He says abruptly into the space between you and you sigh, gesturing for him to take a seat on the battered couch that you sometimes nap on.

He winces as he lowers himself down onto the sofa, you can see the stiffness in his movements. You’d heard about the structure collapse over in Elmsdale, it had been an all hands on deck situation for the rescue crews. You note the dust in his hair, the streak of dirt still smeared across his cheek and realise he must have come straight here after his shift ended.

His fingers thread through yours, his thumb chasing over the back of your hand.

“I haven’t been fair to you.” He says quietly. “I’ve ignored you, shut you out…”

“I know why you did it Vince.” You say softly. “You forget that I’ve been through the same thing, that I know what it’s like when a birthday or anniversary comes around. Sometimes cutting yourself off is the only way to get through the day, to survive it.”

That’s the thing Vince forgets about you is that you get it, what he’s going through because you’ve been there before. You’d lost a partner back in Tennessee, the man you’d planned to marry. You still kept that ring in a velvet pouch at the back of your underwear drawer.

Jacob may be gone but his memory still lives on inside of you, the same way that Sharon’s still does in him. You will always treasure the time you spent together but that story is over, it’s time to start making new ones. That’s the part that Vince struggles with, the book is closed but sometimes a couple of pages fall out and he has to confront the loss all over again.

“I felt guilty.” He finds himself telling you. “That by being with you I was somehow betraying her.”

He shakes his head as he purses his lips together.

“Sharon wanted me to move on, she wanted me to be happy.” He says gruffly before he tilts his head up to look at you. “You give me so much joy Annie. I wake up with a smile on my face, I sing in the shower, I’m finally living again and that is because of you, your love, your patience.”

His forehead comes to rest upon yours, his thumb ghosting over the apple of your cheek.

“Just don’t give up on me.” He pleads, his voice breaking just a little. “I’m know I’m messy…”

“Vince…” You sooth, your fingertips trailing along the line of his jaw. “I could never give up on you.”

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@keyweegirlie @unknown6669991 @caffeinatedwoman @thebejeweledwatercat @muligatorrr @yousigned-upforthis @zippeylay @humongoussharktyrant @vaneyvfs @@elenkafoxik @@choppedgalaxynerd @lokiwife2021 @@apsolutno-nista @@russiantabby @@hatska-the-dragon @kmc1989

#vince leone #vince leone x reader #vince leone x you #fire country #billy burke

[tomat0esofalltomat0e]

MORE TOH + FNAF

Listen. I know it’s goofy. But like smh I’m just gonna have fun with this and draw reference sheets and silly sketches because I want to🔥🔥🦅(btw this post is pretty long)

AFTON BROTHERS AS HUNTER(s) AND CALEB(s)

Why do I always draw CC so goofily, he looks so goofy when I draw him help. Anyways I thought it would be fun to name the grimwalkers by like old names they were called in the fnaf fandom like “Terrance” and for CC…I didn’t give him one.

Thought it would be silly to make everyone call him CC because literally no one knows what his name is…(I guess Garret and Evan are good assumptions tho)

I’d say they have similar dynamic to in fnaf 4, expect the bullying is muchhh less, Terrance prolly doesn’t like being around his little brother all the time and thinks it’s “uncool” but is always put on duties with him because CC is too young to even have his own staff yet let alone go on missions…

Here are the 1630 little guys!!! They’re the same age I’d say they would be when the bite of 83 took place..only that doesn’t happen..(at least not in the same way? I’m trynna figure it out but spoiler alert they both DIE)

Anyways with Michael I’d say he takes on more of the Caleb role than CC, because he’s the eldest he does a lot of the looking after them and trying to also make some sort of money so they prolly didn’t have schooling, perhaps CC and Elizabeth would both sneak off to listen in on the other kids to learn more.

CC is a Caleb in the way that he plays games with Eli and also teaches her things too as she’s the youngest

Ok so this is when they go to the Demon realm, I’d say Michael goes in first with a mysterious witch and Elizabeth witnesses and tells CC, CC Ofc believes Elizabeth because they’re close siblings they always believe each other! So CC and Elizabeth both go in together and eventually things change between them, they drift apart, CC meets a palismen called “Shortcake” (so this is this universes version of Flapjack, only the fact that Shortcake doesn’t belong to this universes Evelyn)

Ofc they get murdered, still trynna figure out how CC will end up dying but…it’ll be around the same time Michael gets murdered by Eli Caleb and Philip style so yeah

ANYWAYS

Heres a break from the madness, toh + fnaf au Elizabeth meeting kid Belos

Yes William IS a rabbit in this au. His essential form.

This might be my last post on this au for nowww might make little sketches and draw like this au as frames from the show or like maybe draw references for Evelyn and the Owl House residents, we’ll seeeee

#my art #still dunno how to tag this? #the owl house #fnaf #the owl house au #toh x fnaf #HOW DO I TAG THIS HELP ME #fnaf au #Michael Afton #cc fnaf #Aftons? #Wittebanes?

[spiderdramaqueen]

so, i’m finally writing a post about my ren/doc/red king/martyn au i mentioned here.

it’s called complementary quartet au (or cq!au for short), because Ren’s and Red King’s color is red, while Martyn’s and Doc’s is green, which are complementary colors on color wheel.

in this au, traffic life and hermitcraft are different universes. also only third life happened at the start of the au.

cq!au is set in season 9, during Ren’s king arc. rift that grian found doesn’t lead to empires. instead, one day, Red King (RK for short) and his Hand come out of there. mentally, they’re still red lifes. so needless to say they’re pretty hostile to the new server, especially to the players who ‘were’ in third life. besides, it’s hard for them to believe that on this server you can respawn infinite amount of times and you don’t have to battle to death.

and then they meet Ren and Doc, and new problems arise…

okay, let’s start with relationship chart at the beginning of an au.

now let’s examine every pair closer.

Ren and Doc. these two are in established relationship at the start of cq!au. but they’re kinda in a fight because of Ren’s kingship. Doc didn’t declare Perimeter’s independence yet tho. Ren and Doc didn’t took an official break in their relationship or anything, but they started seeing each other less than before and there is some sort of tension between them at the moment. they both miss each other, but too stubborn to actually talk it out.

RK and Martyn. they’re in love with each other, but didn’t talk about it yet! it seems that everything is good between them, but meeting Ren changed things. Martyn is trying to get closer to Ren. seeing this, RK… he doesn’t feel jealous (…it’s a lie), but he’s… thinking. he doesn’t think that Ren is a good king, but at least he’s living on a peaceful server and has a lot of friends (while RK has only enemies and dead allies). so, he distances himself from Martyn, because he thinks it would be the best for his Hand. (at some point they have a conflict about it, but maybe i’ll elaborate on this in another post, because this one is getting long already. let me know if you’re interested i guess?)

RK and Ren. they’ve seen some pieces of each others’ lives in their dreams. things are VERY tense between these two at the start of an au. Red King despises Ren and think that he’s an unworthy ruler. secretly, RK’s also envious of Ren’s peaceful life and doesn’t know what to do with this feeling. meanwhile, Ren is a little bit scared of his alter version. but they grow closer to each other after RK and Martyn have a fight (again. i’ll need a whole another post for this)

Ren and Martyn. as i’ve already said, Ren and RK have seen bits of each other lives in dreams. therefore, Ren has seen Martyn in his dreams before. the most vivid dream was Martyn promising to “go through as many crits as he can” and then taking three painful swings of axe to kill him. so. Ren is wary of Martyn even tho he seems cool. at the same time, Martyn is very curious to get to know this version of his king better. he likes to spend time with Ren. eventually, Ren warms up to Martyn.

Doc and RK. oh, these are fun. their first meeting was literally RK attacking Doc. so, they start with some sort of rivalry. but in the end they both have a lot of fun with it. RK can blow off steam and his pent-up blood thirst with Doc. plus, he respects Doc as a worthy adversary. Doc was irritated with him at first, but now he enjoys thinking of new ways to counter RK’s attacks. though RK’s red life morality kinda unnerves him sometimes. when Doc declares Perimeter’s independence, RK supports him.

Doc and Martyn. probably the most chill guys here, they’re on a good terms. RK told Doc a lot about Martyn, so Doc thinks Martyn is a nice guy, even tho Martyn likes to mess with Doc every now and then. and Martyn heard a lot about Doc from Ren. he’s extremely curious to find out why he and Ren fell apart. these two also grew closer after rk-martyn argument.

so, even tho these four definitely have some troubles at the start, with some time they get to know each other better and overcome their problems and end up in a weird and funny polycule.

if you have questions or just want to talk about cq!au, my askbox and dms are open!

i actually have more bits about cq!au scattered in my friends’ dms lmao, so i think i might post some of them later too. i also drew some stuff for this au but idk. don’t really like these scribbles.

#i'm sorry if there're any mistakes in text #hermitshipping #trafficshipping #rendoc #treebark #docmartyn #rk/ren #selfcest #cq!au

[quillkiller]

I have just seen this and maybe you have talked about it before but Effie x Walburga

I’m like shaken because I can’t imagine James mom ever wanting to be with someone probably cruel from birth. I mean they would have been together in the fifties, idk it made em giggle

would you all still love me if i said i was a walburga defender… :(

ok ive been pondering this all day, and ive also spent an insane amount of time on public transport trying to find a post i made in defence of walburga. @sugarsnappeases pulled up her laptop as my own personal hacker and stalker and couldnt find it either. however i found a snippet of an ’what are ur unpopular opinions’ ask and found this:

and that’s the gist of it. if anyone remembers the post i made or know how to find it pleaseeeeee send it to me. me and kara went through hell and back to try and find it :(((((((

anyway!

1. i hate the concept of people being born ’cruel’ or ’evil’. people are people and sometimes people do bad things. i think its important to still acknowledge that abusive people aren’t monsters who just couldn’t help themselves. abusers are people and those people chose to treat you like that. that was a choice they didn’t have to make, but they did. abusers aren’t monsters or monstrous. it’s important to me, due to personal experience, to remember that abuse is a choice. it allows me to feel betrayed and hurt and angry that a person chose to do that to me

2. i think walburga was a victim her whole childhood. atleast my own depiction of her. it’s different when she becomes an adult, has children, etc, and she should know better. there’s no excuse for her abuse towards her children/no excuse ever for abusive parents. and i want to be very clear about how there are NO excuses !!!!!! i am not team walburga and will never ever be team walburga !!!!!

3. walburga was a woman in the 70s, she held no power over orion what so ever. he was the man in the house. the head of the family. the abuse was allowed because quietly sat back and allowed it. absolutely ridiculous to me that walburga would be worse than orion. i simply think its an ignorant and misogynistic take. a silent father will always scare me more than the active abusive mother. like.. the patriarchy in the 70s in pure blood families ? lets be real here

ive seen posts saying orion was scared of walburga and thats why he never did anything. like are we being serious here. no way she got to choose her husband. and he’s a powerful man from a powerful family. in the seventies. why woud he be scared of her she has absolutely no power what so ever

4. i love exploring the womens narrative in the marauders fandom because their canonical narrative is based on sexism and the nuclear family. i guess you think it’s outlandish that effie would fall for walburga (cruel from birth) because shes james’ mother, and the anti walburga in the way she opens up her home and basically adopts sirius and makes a home for him ? to me that’s not interesting sadly :/ i love effiebarty because i get to explore good housewife effie tearing down her walls and acting on her desires and urges. like…. i want her to leave both james and monty behind out of pure selfishness. like.. im the girl writing the baby killing fic where lily is the sole survivor….

5. to me walburga is sort of similar to alicent from house of the dragon. what did she ever do that wasn’t expected of her? she was a girl in the 60/50s in a powerful family and had less choices than either reg or sirius ever did. she didn’t leave like sirius did. she stayed like regulus. and for similar reasons reg stayed probably. and she’s a woman. her sons are more priveliged than she will ever ever be. even disowned sirius is more priveliged than her.

6. i want to be very clear again. i am not a walburga apologist. i think there’s a clear distinction between her child- and adulthood. at some point the abuse becomes a choice. she didn’t break the cycle and she’s bad and rotten woman who abused her children. no excuses !!!!!!!!!! however. it is interesting exploring the circumstances which led to the woman she is

7. to actually answer your question. i dont necessarily care for effie/walburga but i can see the appeal. maybe i’ll get into it we’ll see……. like honestly they wouldn’t be that different from jegulus?

#walburga black #sorry that you came to the defender of problematic women for giggles and all she did was defend problematic women :(

[dreamsgazer]

Day 12 - Grand Finale: whatever you wish for!

12 Days of Christmas | Masterlist  

Warnings: slightly NSFW

(dunno why Tumblr didn’t publish this on the 25th, but here we go!)

Of course, the first time that he says it out loud he is buried deep inside you, his cock still twitching, his lips pressed against your ear chanting his muffled I love you, I love you, I love you.

It doesn’t make it less meaningful.

Wrapping your arms and legs around his frame, you hold him while the aftershock of your shared peak fades.

Later, laying in his arms, your head on his chest, you look at London outside the stately wall of windows in Tangerine’s bedroom. Tomorrow it will be Christmas and while this year you won’t be able to make it home, you know the day will be equally great. In some ways, London has become a second home to you.

Sighing happily, you hold Tangerine a bit tighter, and he brushes his lips over the top of your head “You good?”

“Very much so.”

Despite your cheerful tone of voice, he senses the hesitance in your words. His fingers trace paths over your skin “Talk to me.”

“What you said earlier –“ you hesitate, an unusual bashfulness washing over you “did you mean it? Or was it a sort of – uh, a post orgasmic sentence?”

His chest expands under your cheek when he quietly chuckles “Should I be offended by this question, love?”

“I think you should answer it,” you retort, pushing yourself up to look at him.

Good Lord, but he’s magnificent.

Laying against his pillow, his hair a mess of tangled curls after all the times you have grabbed them to ask for more, to beg him to let you come, your bites blooming over his neck, lips still swollen after all the kissing, Tangerine looks like a man who has been really and thoroughly fucked.

Despite the pride it fills you knowing you were the one who made him come again and again, you hope your face doesn’t betray too much the sudden nervousness it’s gnawing your chest.

Tangerine frowns, his hand caressing your cheek “If I were a better man I would tell you to grab your stuff, leave, and don’t come back. I still think I should tell you it was my cock talking and it didn’t mean anything.”

You chew your lip, unsure of what to tell him. He knows you love him. You have been the first one to tell that out loud and while you know – you truly, really do – that he certainly cares for you, that he has deep feelings for you, you can’t help but wonder if he is ready – willing – to take a further step in your relationship.  

“I still think this is the most fucked up decision you could take,” his smile his both tired, regretful, and full hope “but I’m exhausted to fight the supposedly good battle. If you want me, then you can have me.”

It makes your heart ache hearing him talking like that of himself. As if he’s in some ways cheating you.

You gently take his face in your hands “I want you, Tangerine. Everything you want to give me, I want it.”

He blinks, quickly, clearly filled with too many emotions and thoughts. His hand slides through the mess of your hair, securely wrapping around your nape and pushing your face towards his.

The kiss is slow, and tender and meaningful. It conveys his commitment, his love. You answer in kind.

Tangerine breaks the kiss only to press his lips on your cheek, smiling when you giggle, and then murmurs a single word in your ear.

It’s his name. It’s his real name.

His Christmas present for you.

--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->--->

Yay, we did it! I want to thank you all of you who liked, reblogged and commented. I had a great fun writing these fics!

Also, for everyone who want to send an ask (and yes, I still take them), I will now start answering them (perhaps I’ll be a bit slow, but worry not). 

#tangerine x reader #tangerine bullet train #tangerine x fem!reader #tangerine x fem!plus size reader #bullet train fanfic #12daysxmas

[cricketnationrise]

Hi! I’m so excited to leave a prompt! 7:12am, Dex, and the Haus kitchen!

hey if this is your prompt come say hi properly!

want your own ficlet? rules here [ONE WEEK LEFT]

🏒🏒🏒🏒

haus kitchen, 7:12am

Dex wakes up to the scent of warm cinnamon wafting down the stairs. There’s something so nice about waking up on his own, no alarms, no practice, no shifts at the student center – just a rare Saturday with no obligations. In fact, Dex is almost asleep again, so comfortable in his blanket cocoon, when he gasps – Bitty is visiting Jack this weekend. He rolls over to check the clock and frowns. It’s just a little after seven on a Saturday, usually the Haus is totally still, only faint snores of hockey players to disturb the peace. But today, there’s spices in the air and if he strains himself, Dex can hear the coffee maker bubbling away. 

Quickly getting socks on his perpetually cold feet and throwing on his warmest sweats, Dex climbs the stairs to the main floor and makes his way silently to the kitchen. The sight of Nursey carefully drizzling some sort of brown sauce into a bundt pan stops him in the doorway. His tongue is poking out the side of his mouth in concentration. It’s cute.

Nursey finishes his drizzling and slides the pan into the oven, setting an alarm on his phone. As Nursey bustles around gathering up his dishes, Dex spots a second bundt pan sitting on a cooling rack. It’s clearly the source of the smell and Dex can’t help but drift into the kitchen properly, drawn inexorably toward the aroma.

A quiet “holy shit,” slips out when he gets near enough to see the beautifully baked Monkey Bread inside. The biscuit pieces are a perfect deep golden color underneath the caramelized butter and brown sugar topping. The mixture is actually still bubbling around the edges – clearly fresh from the oven. Dex’s mouth waters; he hasn’t had Monkey Bread since the last Christmas his grandma was alive – no one in his family has had the heart to make it since. He’s so lost in his sense memory that he doesn’t register the water turning off. 

“Fucking hell, Dexy, make a noise why don’t you?” Dex turns to see Nursey clutching the counter with a death grip, his other hand braced over his heart, the very picture of cliche startlement.

“Sorry – I just – Monkey Bread?”

“Yeah,” Nursey says, still breathing harder than normal, “I woke up randomly early, couldn’t go back to sleep – had a craving. My Auntie used to make it once a month like clockwork. Figured I’d give it a go. Share with the team if it went okay enough.”

“I’d say it went more than okay. It smells amazing. Just like my grandma’s.”

“High praise indeed. Poindexter seal of approval,” Nursey teases.

“Doesn’t come lightly,” Dex jokes, “There’s usually a rigorous application process.”

Nursey’s eyes crinkle up as he laughs, no less devastatingly beautiful for how quiet it is in deference to their still-sleeping Haus-mates. Dex feels his breath catch in his throat.

A soft chiming breaks the moment and Dex reminds himself to actually exhale while Nursey checks his phone.

“The first one’s done cooling,” he says, moving to the counter. He pauses, then looks at Dex for a long moment, searching. Dex holds still, uncertain, but Nursey must find whatever he was looking for in Dex’s expression because he beckons Dex closer with a jerk of his head. “Help me flip this? I don’t want to drop it now and ruin it.”

“It looks so good I’d even eat it if it fell on this floor, but sure.”

“Wouldn’t want you to catch something – you know we’re only four days post-Kegster, the floor is still half biohazard.” Nursey pulls out the platter that Bitty normally piles high with cookies and lays it over top of the bundt pan, then hands over a set of oven mitts. “You hold that side, and I’ll take this side and we’ll flip on three, okay?”

Dex nods, Nursey counts, and they flip the pan in perfect sync with each other – clearly d-men magic is good for other things besides hockey. Nursey carefully pries the bundt pan up, revealing a perfectly formed ring of biscuity-cinnamony-buttery-gooey goodness. Delicious, yes – good for their diet plans, no. Dex will be eating at least a third of it regardless.

“Here,” Nursey says, handing over a fork. “Dig in.”

There’s no talking for a while after that, just the soft groans of delight at the taste, the contented hum of well-fed hockey players.

#cricket writes #omgcp #ficlet fest 3 #nursey #dex #year 4 #Anonymous #check please

[shayshaybiscuit25]

I think people are moving on from CE’s most recent IG posts a bit too quickly.

Yes, he’s been spotted in PT again so people are mad all over again, but think about what he did before it happened.

Last week, on superbowl Sunday Ab posts herself skiing in France with her friends. This led people to immediately wonder if he was with her in France. Then, right during the middle of her trip, he posts a video of his dog (in real time, as it was in fact snowing that day), which more or less gives away he is at home without having to actually post his home. This immediately breaks the narrative that he could be in France with her. Since he posted this to his IG, I’m taking it as he wanted people to know he was with his pup. At home.

Sidenote: If AB was hoping people would think he was in France with her, her bubble was burst by him showing himself elsewhere.

This week, CE once again posts himself, this time in LA with the Russo bros and others at the brewery where Russos are invested in. Once again, the pics show CE without AB.

I also think it’s interesting that his IG is more or less business only now, and his two recent posts happen to go with work/brand (dog - jinx/dog dad brand) and work partnerships/ad promo (brewery and Russo brothers) WHILE showing his whereabouts without HER. Even if the LA pics are likely a month old, the fact was that he posted them on Monday and the Russo Brothers reposted same day. The GP is not going to go digging to see when those pics were actually taken. So IMO, the intention is to say I was here and recently.

Sidenote: this inadvertently throws a wrench into the AB living in LA whole time narrative she put out in her interview last month. His brother doing a cameo and showing his dog also hinted that when CE isn’t around, he has his brother or family look after the dog. What about his wife? Where is she? Then he goes to a brewery with industry colleagues to promote the place, but his wife is also missing there.

Why any of this matters: it doesn’t really if you don’t think it means anything. But I think it feels a bit strategic on his end.

However, AB. Tigers don’t change their stripes. She’s been still trying to prove she’s around him by following those comedians two days after he was seen at the comedy show (where nobody mentioned her).

I feel she’s been doing the same old thing she’s been doing for two years but this time her plans sort of got outted by him going against the script.

Her friends hid her from the apres ski party video but then larger video taken of the whole party showed she was with them (big LOL). To me, she’s still playing the same old game and she’s never changed her tune. I think a wrench just got thrown into her trolling because he also posted as well.

It’s very easy to tell she gets her friends to help her with the hiding narrative. How convenient right before Vday she’s suddenly being hidden from a post - I think their intention was to make it seem like she “left” to go home and be with him for Vday. Only to then get outted as being there for that ski party anyway. And lo and behold, DM later gets a “sighting of them on actual Vday” which seems very suspect but also convenient.

If you pay attention, it becomes easier and easier to tell this chick is 1000% behind all of her own trolling. She does this on purpose and while I won’t accuse her of being some type of evil mastermind (she’s not), I do think everything she does on her SM is intentional. I think she gets her friends to help her and I wouldn’t trust her as far as I can throw her.

Okay.

[angelsandarsenic]

The more I think about it, the more I realize how much there is to question about the genloss finale

Here's my theory

So someone tagged this on a post I made about Ranboo bowing at the end (this post)

and it made me think—"well hang on, supposedly Ranboo had broken free of Showfall Media’s control?" Except he didn’t! Because Hetch (hedge??? Hatchet?? I’m sorry I didn’t catch the name) wasn’t actually a good guy! Or on the other hand, maybe he was at first, but then Showfall put him under their control, but I highly doubt that one, given his presence in the mall and all his cryptic nonsense. He was super sketch from the beginning, I don’t even need to explain how, y'all know.

So then that begs the question: what’s going on with Ranboo? The mask is still on, the wires and the Showfall media bit in the back are still connected (and Hetch convinced them not to take it off and admitted he had some sort of control over it) but they more or less seem to be acting of free will? But at the same time, there were those moments that didn’t quite make sense; primarily, as I mentioned in the post before, Ranboo bowing at the end, but also when his whole demeanor shifted and he stabbed the guy. Finally, even after spending the entire episode angsting about his friends dying and not being able to save them, he simply stood and watched Charlie get mauled by the security beast—not even reacting. I suspect that since Showfall has no qualms about killing people in the first place, the entire premise of the gore filter and Ranboo discovering the truth was planned, the entire thing is an entertainment show (like irl). I think for the sake of it, they turned off his mask, or it did get damaged when The Puzzler shocked him, so plenty of the third episode is his own actions, but I think Showfall is still in control. I’m honestly not sure if Ranboo listening to the viewers or putting in his own code to the computer was part of that script, but I doubt it would have mattered.

Here’s the specifics:

I think Showfall Media is having trouble controlling their people. I won't speculate whether Showfall is aliens, demons or whatever, but we know that it's not human and specifically that it's still having trouble imitating human life. (Dear gods, isn't that creepy? I funcking love it).

As we've seen, the Filter is breaking more and more throughout the episodes. In the very beginning, Ranboo wakes up in the cabin and the mask isn't on. They don't know where they are, they're distressed, and they try to take the mask off. It isn't until the jar breaks and Ranboo is investigating the ashes that it turns on. I've been incredibly puzzled with why Showfall would turn the mask on then and why Ranboo would have such an upset reaction to it, but after seeing the finale, I think that Showfall was afraid Ranboo would remember something and realize what was going on too soon. Since they can supposedly reanimate people, "rewire, rescript" them and we saw with the tapes at the end (and I think Ranboo said) that there are prequels to the Social Experiments, I bet the ashes belong to someone who died in the episode right before. Then, when the mask turned on, Ranboo remembered the feeling of them getting in his head and panicked. Unfortunately, it was too late.

Right after that, they became the perfect scripted character. The next part that I want to mention, I thought was strange even before the second or third episode came out. It's when Charlie says "Uh oh! I think our contestant is running out of slime! I mean slime- I mean slime-". It reminded me of a skipping record and you can see his smile falling and getting slightly more distressed the more he says it. Because this is where Charlie is supposedly talking to the cameras, I think that lead him to start to remember/realize the truth, but the Filter kept him from saying it, and since this is the very beginning of a new show, the characters have just been "rewired" so their brains are as under Showfall's control as they can be. After that episode, there were no more shots of anyone talking to the cameras.

In the transition to the next episode and when Ranboo wakes up in the chair, the mask is still glowing. It flickers a little bit, but ultimately stays on, and being freaked out when you wake up tied to a chair in a warehouse is a completely normal reaction. I think it was when the Puzzler shocked him though, that the mask started to actually glitch and break. Specifically, the Puzzler insisted on zapping Ranboo anyway, with enough power to knock them out for a minute, and we saw the mask light flash and turn off, and Ranboo said his brain felt a little fried and foggy. Afterward, Puzzler insisted that he didn't mean to do that much, honest.

The Puzzler was a human, just like everyone else in the cast. Whenever he had his mask, however, he was holding it up and away from his face, which I thought was strange, why do that? Of course, the Puzzler is just a strange guy, but he was surprisingly helpful along the way; his puzzles didn't have any real consequences that people didn't almost directly walk into and he even let Sneeg go when he said he needed go to the bathroom. That could of course be chalked up to comedy, or Showfall not understanding humans, but Showfall is smarter than to let them go simply because someone said to. (I won't get into all the little things the Puzzler did and said, or all the glitches/inconsistencies, this will be long enough as is, but oooh there's so much to dissect). I think the Puzzler was Aware and trying to help Ranboo, while staying under cover so he wouldn't get found out. At the end, he even says "I've been doing this for over thirty years, this group is by far the most unbelievable--you fucked up the whole thing!" Because he's aware and he made it so easy for them!

Before you come at me saying "oh but Angel, everyone DIED" LISTEN--the Puzzler gave them very obvious and plain notes saying "DON'T PRESS THIS BUTTON" and "NOT HERE" with arrows pointing to the right stuff. Sure he was supposed to be the Puzzler, so it would be reasonable to assume they were tricks, but everything he'd shown up until that point was just as much of a flop as if they were legit (which they were). Meanwhile, Squiggles is in the corner saying "ooh a button you should press it" and other such stuff. As for Nikki, yeah that one sucked. As the Puzzler said though, he wasn't expecting her to come in there and said he felt bad. After seeing what happened to Sneeg, I bet he was afraid the Showfall goons were coming for him and got spooked and shot too soon. Why would he have been hiding anyway? Furthermore, he released everyone on the carousel sooner or later even though they were supposed to die.

When the Puzzler blows up at the end, he didn't get revived. Showfall revived Charlie at least three times, Sneeg like- twice, and if they can do that so easily, then it's no wonder that they're so chill about killing off their characters. So why didn't the Puzzler come back? When Ranboo and Charlie found his little memorial thing, they were sorry for him, they didn't view him as a Showfall puppet even though he was one of the game masters. More importantly though, is that on Puzzler's memorial is a giant sign that said "TERMINATED". Terminated is intentional, Showfall Media killed the Puzzler, because they realized he wasn't under their control.

I think they also killed Sneeg permanently too. He was more aware than anyone else right before he ran, I think, which is why he ran and struggled so much. He also kept coming back to awareness multiple times, such as when the Puzzler put the hat on his head, backward and covered in gore. Running away during a livestream forced Showfall to restrain and mask him again on screen, so they couldn't have that happening again, then Sneeg interfered with the final puzzle. He seemed very mind controlled through the whole rest of the episode, but someone pointed out that in the final part with the wall, Sneeg held Austin back, not because Showfall wanted them to succeed, but because if Austin kept pushing and panicking, they would all get crushed. It also makes sense that if he knew he'd been through this all several times, then he knew he'd be reset when he died.

We're almost at the end, I promise. If you've stuck around this long, great job, I hope it wasn't too chaotic. Anyway, all of this to say that

Showfall is still figuring out how to control humans. In fact, I think their control is flimsy and relies on the Filter to work. Hetch said that Ranboo passed a test or something, so it wasn't all scripted and planned, plus people keep breaking out of the control. On the other hand, the masked "employees" (robots?? they're filled with wires) are completely controlled and only imitating people.

The way they control people is most effective with masks, but if you break the illusion that everything is fine, they'll wake up. That's why the Filter is so important and it's a problem when it glitches. That's also why all the streamers had their little setups in the mall that looked like their actual offices/rooms and why Charlie, unlike Puzzler, didn't have a mask, but supposedly his set was the cabin where he grew up.

Showfall needs the mask to control Ranboo (and it was broken in the last scenes (how did that happen?? can it still work??)) but he was still under their control for the entirety of episode 3. They may have killed him, but he'd not dead. Side theory— using the mask versus not having a mask for everyone else, while obviously a way to keep Ranboo’s identity a secret, it might canonically end up attached to his face. What if he’s already becoming one of the robopeople?? We saw their skin underneath, but there are all these wire and the control thing attached to the base of his skull and it’s controlling his brain. What if he becomes a monster or on the flip side, terribly injured when he ever takes it off

Ok so what's the deal with Hetch?

Even when he's "helping" Ranboo, he always tried to convince them to just keep going, don't resist, and trust him. Even when Showfall's control is supposedly glitching, Squiggles is on screen, which I found strange, and Hetch's help is never helpful. Hetch says at the end of the Spirit of the Cabin that Ranboo "made it to episode two", implying that he's well aware of what Showfall is putting on (which isn't the same way he presented in the finale), then even saying "I hope you're good at puzzles".

This, combined with Hetch's lackluster attempts to "help" Ranboo in the finale and him convincing them to keep the mask on and not leave, then faking his death, all strongly support the idea that Hetch is a Showfall Media "employee" (The Founder???) who is trying to manipulate Ranboo whenever the mask starts failing and they start waking up. Then of course, the end of the finale proves Hetch was evil all along.

Everything we've seen so far is a big experiment for Showfall Media, but what is it all for? Are they gonna take over the world??? Guess we'll just have to find out.

#Ranboolive #generation loss #genloss theory #genloss spoilers #generation loss finale #generation loss ep1 #generation loss episode 2 #Showfall media #Angel rambles #sneegsnag #charlie slimecicle

[kidgetrash]

Kidge One-shot - All You Have To Do Is Ask

Character:  Keith Kogane, Pidge Gunderson/Katie Holt

Pairings:  Keith/Pidge

Warnings!:  None, really. Some tears. Happy ending.

Summary:  Post Season 8 off on a tangent, Keith is leaving to join the Blades while the rest of the Paladins stay on Earth.  Pidge, with her feelings for Keith, tries to tell him how she feels...

A/N:  I am not dead!  I am back on my bullshit!  Feeling emotional about my ship and had to write this!

All You Have To Do Is Ask

‘You’re really leaving?’

Keith turned as he shoved the final t-shirt into his bag to find Pidge standing in the doorway.  She was wearing her new lab coat rather than her garrison uniform, and it suited her.  ‘Well, yeah.  Kolivan and Krolia need help distributing aid to all the planets in the alliance.  Without Voltron, I’m not needed here.  At least I can do some good out in…’

‘Who says you’re not needed here?’  She interrupted.

‘I’ll do better out in space.’  He slid the zipper closed.  ‘I’ll be much more useful.’

She folded her arms stubbornly.  ‘We need you here, Keith, there’s plenty to be done on Earth.  The garrison…’

‘Has enough heroes.  I won’t be missed.’

‘Says who?’  Pidge spat.  She has been wrestling with her feelings for the paladin before her for well over a year and realised, as much as she hated to admit it, she was deeply, irrevocably, head-over-heels in love with him.  It was embarrassing.  Her heart raced when she thought of him, not to mention clammy palms and her stomach having what could only be described as some sort of gastrointestinal distress.  She had tried to hide what she felt in the hope it would pass, but much to her dismay, she found herself in the situation she was now.  Facing a personal ultimatum that this was her last chance, the one opportunity she had to take to tell him the truth.  Even if nothing came from it she had tried, and that was what mattered.

‘No one said it, but I know it’s the case.  I am needed up there.  Not here.’

‘You are needed here, more than you know!’  Pidge took two steps towards him.  ‘If you’re not here…when you left for The Blades before, that was bad enough, but now…now…’

He looked at her, her cheeks flushed, eyes blazing, her bottom lip trembling.  She was so passionate about what mattered to her, easily elated by the smallest breakthrough, or riled to anger when it counted.  But he didn’t remember seeing her like this before.  This was a different kind of passion, and it intrigued him.  Not that he had time to consider it.  He had places to be.  ‘You’ll get over it.  I need to go where people need me the most.’

‘I need you the most!  I mean, we!  We need you most!’  She rapidly corrected herself as tears began to prick at the corners of her eyes.  ‘And I don’t want you to go.’  She murmured the last quietly.

He sighed.  She hated goodbyes, he knew that, and she had been forced to say it so many times to people she cared for, but she survived every time.  This was no different.  He came to her, stopping less than an arm’s length away, and looked down at her, not comprehending why she was this upset.  ‘You’ll be fine.’  He rested his hand on her shoulder.  ‘And I’ll still come and visit.’  He could admit, if only to himself, that he wished she meant this in the way he had wanted for some time, on a personal level.  He was struggling to keep his relationship with the youngest paladin that of friends and colleagues, having started to notice every little thing about her and how it made him feel…more than he did for the others.  He knew leaving was the only way to set this right and avoid what could only be a one sided disaster.  He could dream, though.

She swallowed hard, she realised she was about to break her promise to herself.  ‘Right.  Well, have a safe trip.’  And she turned, leaving his room as she gritted her teeth, letting her tears run free as she bit back her sobs.

‘Hey, Pidge…what happened?’  Lance walked past her, noticing her tears as he levelled with her, but she just waved her hand at him and hurried away.  He frowned, having noticed the youngest paladin’s longing looks at Keith, and though he really couldn’t see why, he did recognise it.  Something must have happened.  ‘Mullet, what did you do?’  Lance marched straight into his room where Keith was putting his bag by the door, ready for the off.

‘Good to see you too.’  Keith replied at Lance’s indignant snapping.

‘What did you say to Pidge?’  He poked at his shoulder as Hunk walked in.

‘What happened to Pidge?’  He hooked his thumb over his shoulder.

‘I didn’t do anything.’  Keith pushed Lance’s finger away.  ‘We were just saying goodbye.  You know she hates them.’

‘What did she say, exactly?’

Pidge slammed into the lab, kicking a trash can across the room out of sheer frustration.

‘Couldn’t do it, huh?’  Matt called from their adjoining offices.

‘Not even close.’  She sat down hard on the swivel stool, making it spin.  As she turned by the bench she grabbed a spanner before stopping herself on the next pass and smashing the circuit board sitting there for all she was worth.

‘That isn’t going to fix things!’

‘No, but it might make me feel better!’

‘Pidge?’

She froze with her arm in the air as Keith’s voice came from the door she had entered through.  Her tears had mostly dried up by now but that didn’t mean her heart was ready to see him again.  She had been prepared to possibly never see him again.  ‘We said our goodbyes, Keith.  What more is there?’

‘Lance and Hunk said you were upset.’

She spun on the chair, still brandishing her spanner.  ‘Is that that this is about?  The fact I got a bit teary?’

Her eyes were no longer the watery amber pools then had been just minutes ago, now they blazed with a fire he was more used to seeing in battle.  ‘I just…uh…I wasn’t sure if I said something or…’

‘I wasn’t kidding, Keith.  I will miss you.  But you’re determined to do this so get gone, go.  I’m not doing another goodbye just to soothe your ego.’  She spun back to the table and started smashing the circuit board some more.

‘Okay, then.  See you, I guess.’  He rubbed the back of his neck, unsure how he was supposed to react or respond.

Pidge listened as he left before whacking what was left of the circuit board three times in quick succession before throwing the spanner onto the table.  He was actually going and she still hadn’t been able to tell him how she felt.  She was an idiot and had no one to blame but herself.  Maybe it was for the best, but right now she didn’t know how that could be possible.

Matt waited a full three minutes of Pidge sitting with her head in her hands before he spoke, coming to the adjoining door between the lab and office.  ‘So, you’re just going to let him go?’

‘Yeah, Matt, I’m just going to let him go.’  She sniffed loudly.  ‘He wants to go and I’m not enough to keep him here.  Happy?’

‘Of course I’m not happy.  I don’t like seeing you like this.  I just don’t want you to have any regrets.’

‘Too late.’  She dropped her arms onto the bench and rested her chin on them, staring at nothing as reality beat down on her.

‘How hard could it be to tell him the truth?’  Matt pushed.

‘Too hard.’  She mumbled.  ‘I just don’t do good with feelings.’

‘You do, just not these ones.’  He finally crossed the room and rubbed her back soothingly.  ‘If you could have, what would you have told him?’

She sighed heavily, her breath shuddering through her petite frame in a way that had Matt hurt for her.  ‘I guess…I’d ask him to stay.  Not for the garrison, not for the rest of the paladins.  For me.  Because I’ve loved him so long I don’t know how…’  She paused as a small sob wracked her body.  ‘I don’t know how to carry on if he leaves again.’

‘Why couldn’t you tell me?’

Pidge’s head shot around at the sound of his voice, this time coming from the office doorway.  Her cheeks flamed as Matt took a step back, allowing her space.  She wasn’t sure if it was to put him out of striking distance, as she really felt like punching him out right now because he had obviously set her up, or just to give her space, but she couldn’t consider that right now.  Her mouth worked a few times, but nothing came out, unable to form any words after unknowingly confessing to the man she loved.

‘Why couldn’t you just tell me?’  He repeated as he came forward, allowing Matt the chance to slip away and out of the door.  ‘I just don’t get it, I thought we were close, that you could tell me anything.’

‘We were, are.’  She corrected herself, getting to her feet and backing up two steps, hoping to keep some distance between them so she could continue to think clearly, but the hurt and confusion in his eyes threatened to addle her further.  ‘And that’s exactly why I couldn’t.’

‘I don’t understand that.’  He shook his head.  ‘Shouldn’t stronger feelings make it easier to talk to me?’

‘No!’  She threw her arms up in the air.  ‘Not in the slightest!  You’re leaving and I might never see you again, even if you do say you’re going to visit, but if I had told you, if you knew, like you know now, you might avoid Earth all together just to save us having another awkward conversation like this one!’

‘I still don’t understand why this has to be awkward.’  He took another step towards her as her back bumped into a rack of spare parts.  He was still some way away but she couldn’t help feeling cornered, even if she could easily have escaped.  ‘Why would telling me you love me be so hard?’

‘Because…’  She started as he got ever closer.

‘I’m listening.’

‘Because…’

‘Yeah?’

‘Because nothing I say could make you feel the same way!’  She blurted as he reached her, one hand coming up to rest on the shelf beside her head.  ‘And nothing I say could make you stay.’  She murmured.

He sighed, lowering his gaze as he did so before speaking in an equally hushed tone.  ‘Quiznak, Katie.  How did you never realise that I’d stay…but only for you?’

‘You’dwhatnow?’  She garbled as he suddenly looked up at her through his eyelashes, a small smile on his lips.

‘Ask me to stay.  Not because the team need me, not because the garrison needs me, but because you need me.’

She took a shuddering breath before letting it out, her voice coming in little more than a whisper.  ‘Stay, Keith, please?  For me?’

His free hand came up to cup her cheek, angling her face towards him as his lips approached hers.  ‘For you?  Anything.  All you have to do is ask.’

Note:  No trash cans, spanners, or circuit boards were harmed in the writing of this one-shot.

#kidge #kidgetrash #kidge fanfic #voltron