#also had to add in that quote. wow man. he has a way with words when he wants to | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

taeescript · 4 years ago

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29+1 (Part One)

𝔰𝔶𝔫𝔬𝔭𝔰𝔦𝔰: In which Seokjin is the Devil from The Devil Wears Prada, Taehyung is your work Jesus and Jimin is your handsome successful brother.

𝔭𝔞𝔦𝔯𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔰: seokjin x reader (taehyung x reader if you squint real hard)

𝔤𝔢𝔫𝔯𝔢: slice of life; ceo!seokjin (diva!seokjin)

𝔴𝔠: 3.6k

𝔴𝔞𝔯𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔰: heavy use of alcohol as a coping mechanism, a plethora of sarcasm (please don’t be offended) and a sprinkle of softness (is that a warning?).

𝔞/𝔫: this sat in my unwritten folder since 2017 no lie. I wrote the premise and a singular paragraph at that time, then just gave up. I opened it a few days ago, got inspired again and this word vomit came out (heavily influenced by a midnight Zoom call with my friends). Ngl this was so much fun to write, and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did. This will probably be in three parts. 𝔡𝔦𝔰𝔠𝔩𝔞𝔦𝔪𝔢𝔯: I did not know that DailyHive is an actual online news source when writing. This work is purely fictional and has absolutely nothing to do with the real DailyHive.

part two

Your friends have a saying: After 29, nobody shares their age until they’ve accomplished something.

In the past, you didn’t understand it. What’s so bad about saying you’re 30 or you’re 32? That’s still a young age! Sure, you’re not exactly in your prime anymore but you’re not old, right?

So, you continue in your own wondrous world of naïveté until that fateful day at your class reunion. You had simply been walking around, minding your own business when you had been stopped by an old colleague.

“Hey, Y/N, right?” she waves you down.

You smile kindly, not even bothering to try and remember her name (you sucked at names, what could you say).

“Hey…you!” you chuckle lightly, “How have you been doing?”

An everyday question leading to catastrophic effects.

“Oh you know,” she says and rolls her eyes as if you truly did know, “I’ve just been out and about. Did I tell you though? I got married last year!” She holds out her hand in which a giant diamond adorns her finger. “Wow!” you gasp, feigning interest. It’s not that you aren’t happy for her, but you are reminded of just how single you are currently. When was the last time you felt another human’s touch? Does kissing come back as easily as riding a bicycle? “Hey!” she says suddenly, “I’m actually meeting with a couple of friends from our class. You should come join! I’m sure they’d be happy to see you again!” You want to wave her off, but against your better judgment, you find yourself following in her footsteps and listening to her speak about wedding venues and honeymoon destinations.

“Oh my god!” another female voice filters in.

The “couple of friends” this old classmate had mentioned is in fact a fairly impressive size of twenty. This is also the third time the wedding announcement has been made.

“Last year?” the female continues, “Weren’t you young?”

Yes, you want to respond. Yes she was young. A full 365 days younger than she is now.

Your classmate, Sooyoung (or Kiko as she insists going by now) titters in front of you. “I mean, you can sort of say I’m a late bloomer. I got married when I was 31.”

Her words unintentionally cut into you. Here you are at 29 without a beau in sight. You take a fast swig of your beer and end up hitting the empty glass with a clink to your teeth. Nobody notices.

“Enough about me, however, how about you?”

“I started my own business actually. It’s been doing really well and it’s been a crazy mind. Imagine me, my own boss at only 33!”

You nervously join them when they suddenly laugh together.

“Hi, can I get another pint please? Actually add a tequila shot to that,” you whisper the last part to the waitress you had just stopped.

And that was how the rest of the night went. People asking one another what they had accomplished. Any moment in time after 30 would not be mentioned until somebody travelled to Uganda to build houses at 31 or another gave birth at the same age. Below 30, anything would be attributed to luck or in your case…

“What are you doing currently?” somebody asks you, “The little baby of our class.”

Swallowing your third tequila shot of the night, you wonder for the umpteenth time how you had become a part of this giant sharing circle. You wonder if it’s a blessing or a curse that you had graduated a little early and thus was younger than most of your peers.

“Well,” you start, “I’m currently working at DailyHive.”

“Ohh!” a man gushes. You recognize him as the once-upon-a-time science partner you used to cheat notes off of. “I use DailyHive nearly as much as Instagram these days. You guys cover everything from news to sports to fashion.”

You shrug. “Yeah. It’s, uh… it’s a pretty big company!”

“What are you doing there?”

Kiko-ex-Sooyoung hits the man teasingly on the shoulder. “Y/N is probably the Director of Marketing or something. Remember how she used to spend all class doodling in her notebook?”

“Or sleeping!” someone quips.

You don’t join in when they all laugh.

“I’m…an intern,” you say with as much pride as you can in a group of established professionals ranging from dermatologists to that one guy who had flown around the world as a TedTalk guest speaker.

A hushed silence befalls everyone.

“That’s…cool!” the same man encourages you, “Interns are totally rad! Everyone wants an intern spot these days.”

His girlfriend pats your arm, almost empathetically. “Yeah. I know a bunch of people who first start off as interns and then they shoot up the ladder quick enough. As long as you’re no longer an intern at 30, you’re golden!”

Once again, the entire group laughs as if she has said the most hilarious of jokes.

She composes herself and says to you, “Because after that, you should have accomplished something.”

Her words still ring in your ears as you sit at your desk this morning.

Yeah…something. All you need to do is accomplish something in the next three months before you are officially, 29 + 1.

Your fingers tap against your thighs silently while you observe the current debate that is occurring in the conference room. You barely have time to sweep the falling hair back behind your ear as your fingers ferociously fly across the keyboard to keep in track with the meeting.

Fei is arguing that the implement of a new search word system would boost users while Daniel says that it is a waste of resources. Instead, everything should be put into updating the entire system as a whole. You have long since lost track of their words as neither pertain to what you do as an intern.

“Enough,” the CEO of DailyHive holds up a hand. His one word causes the entire room to hush over – truly, the words of a god.

And that might as well be what he is. With his hair swept back and a lone tendril curling perfectly above his brow, Kim Seokjin is legitimately a walking god. Off his broad shoulders hang an expensive white linen suit bought with his pocket change and your yearly salary. A pair of sunglasses hangs in the V of the collared shirt dipping low enough to blur the lines between being fashionably professional and just downright sexy.

The snap of his fingers brings you back to the present.

He dramatically rolls his eyes and accepts that you are an incompetent minute-taker.

“I have to remember that the world just doesn’t move as fast as I do.”

- Quote: Rolling Stones 2019 Kim Seokjin.

Now if only he’d remember he had once said that.

He points at each of them with one finger, then swipes to the left. “Both of you, solve this outside. I don’t want to hear your voices any longer. You two from the marketing team, Ungroomed Stache and Acne Chin, create me a report if we are to implement Ms. Song’s idea. The two of you from…” he takes a pause here clearly having forgotten who his employees are, “The two of you do the same thing but for Mr. Hwang.”

The pair from accounting open their mouth to protest that they are in charge of only numbers, but they are ignored.

“All of you out now. Except you,” he points his finger directly at you, “Stay.”

Nobody utters a single word until they have all left and you are left alone with him. Standing before him with your hands folded nicely in front of you, you blink and wait.

He stares right back at you, picks up his coffee mug and drops it. The clatter of ceramic smashing against the ground causes a pause in the loud buzz outside the room. You know everybody’s focus has been shifted into the room.

“Do you want to kill me?” he drawls.

You take a long inhale. “No,” you say.

“No?” he repeats the word, “Well I think you do. Did you check this coffee before you brought it to me? I tasted cinnamon in it. You know how I’m allergic to cinnamon. Get me a new cup. And this mess, get somebody to clean it. I don’t want the smell of coffee in this room when I have my next meeting here in twenty. I’m taking a smoke a break.”

He stands up and brushes past you without saying anything else.

Nobody can be allergic to cinnamon. Besides if he had actually tasted cinnamon and was that sensitive, he would be dead. And good riddance to that.

Of course, you say none of this and wordlessly begin to pick up the broken ceramic pieces of the dead mug. The bustling outside the meeting room has returned back to its normal state of chaos. Seeing the ugly stain of coffee on the once pristine carpet causes you to swear beneath your breath.

“Who the fuck is allergic to cinnamon?” a new voice says, sliding up beside you.

The second god in DailyHive; the much nicer and evidently preferred Kim; Taehyung takes the mug pieces from you and drops it into the garbage bin.

Blessed with not only intelligence but devilishly model-like features, he is your desk buddy in the small space allotted for interns and your sole friend in the company.

“Tae,” you sigh with exasperation upon seeing your lifesaver, “What am I going to do about this stain? He’s going to return in fifteen and there’s no way I can get a coffee stain out of this expensive-ass carpet.”

Taehyung taps a long finger to his lips, leaves the room briefly, and returns with a roll of Bounty sheets and a can of Febreze. He promptly blots as much of the coffee off from the carpet then proceeds to pull the meeting table.

“C’mon, Y/N, don’t just stand there. Help me! Time is of the essence!”

You laugh and join him in moving the table so that one of the legs cover the stain 80% of the way. Once he is satisfied, he takes the Febreze and sprays until the whole room smells like “Hawaiian Aloha”.

“You’re welcome.” He gives an extravagant bow, the motion popping open the top button of his shirt to expose a surprisingly chiseled chest.

Fei returns back into the room holding a phone to her ear and a clipboard in her left hand. “What the hell? It smells like a Bath & Body Works in here. Intern, aren’t you supposed to be filing or something? Stop standing around and be useful.” She grips Taehyung’s arm and drags him out of the room. “Button up. This is a professional workplace.”

You give him a tiny wave as Taehyung is steered away by his girlfriend and back to the cubicles.

Taehyung may be your saviour at work, but outside, it cannot be denied that your brother is the true Fountain of Life.

A week has passed since the coffee incident (you suspect a cleaning personnel had found the stain and cleaned up after your improv as aforementioned stain can no longer be found), but Jimin still brings it up.

“I still can’t believe that he said he was allergic to cinnamon. I’ve never heard of such bullshit before,” your brother says over the phone. You can practically hear his eyeroll from across the world.

As a renowned ophthalmologist, you have not seen Jimin for close to a year as he has been initiating his new clinic, a flying eye hospital.

“You should hear his Starbucks order. I always feel like I’m ready to launch my next EP whenever I’m at the counter,” you say.

Jimin laughs. There is the muffled sounds of voices as his never-ending flow of patients have arrived for the day.

“I shouldn’t keep you,” you say upon hearing that, “You’re probably really busy.”

“No,” he says, “I’ve got a few minutes if you’ve got a few. I miss talking to my baby sister.”

“I’m not a baby anymore, Jiminie,” you say using the nickname he hated.

“Oh that’s right. Your birthday’s in a little under three months, right? My baby sister is turning the big three-oh.”

“God, don’t remind me.”

“Want me to come visit you?”

You contemplate the idea once, having not seen Jimin in quite a while.

“Only if you have time. But I feel like Mom and Dad would probably want to see you more. Speaking of which, um… How are Mom and Dad?”

“They’re good. I hear Dad is finally going to retire this year. He’s giving his practice to Kibum, you remember him? Mom will probably start pestering us about what to do for his retirement party.”

There is a pause.

“You know, it wouldn’t hurt to say hi to them once in a while.”

You sigh. “And say what? Hey, it’s me. The child that ran away from home at 18? Yeah, I’m not a doctor like everybody else in the family but a 29 year old intern at a popular app company. Whassuuup?”

“Y/N, that’s not what I – ”

“It’s okay, Jimin. I’ve come to accept that not everybody is cut out to be a doctor. I just wish Mom and Dad could realize that.”

Jimin sighs on your behalf. There is the sound of a crying child coming through the earphone. “Well, your contract expires a few weeks after your birthday, right? Who knows, you might be the next Mark Zuckerberg.”

He has never explicitly inquired about your life plan and you know this is as much as he is willing to push without asking, “What’s next after this intern hiccup?” At least he had the decency to compare you to a controversial Internet entrepreneur.

The child is crying much louder now.

“Again with my birthday. But I’ll let you know,” is the only reply you can come up with at the moment. “Okay, brother, go forth and heal the blind. I bless thee in the name of the Holy Spirit, Son and Ghost.”

There is true laughter that rings from Jimin as he ends the call. “It’s Father, Son and Holy Ghost you dweeb. I love you sis.”

“You too.” You hang up first before he can add anything else.

With that, you enter into the 7am Starbucks queue and prepare yourself in running the first single of your long overdue EP.

Seokjin leans back in his chair, watching you from inside his office. Today he has chosen a black turtleneck and a brazen maroon-nearly purple suit jacket to complete the outfit. For once, there is an empty mug of coffee beside him and his morning headache has been appeased.

He knew he had given you an impossible task.

“Compile all the troubleshooting errors we have received since the launch of DailyHive. Organize it in a manner that allows me to identify the most prominent problem. Run it through whomever you please before giving it to me. I don’t need to waste my time correcting your mistakes.”

There is an amused smile that bubbles beneath his otherwise stoic features. He cannot deny that there is, might he dare say, a cute quality about you as you manually scan through the received concerns on your laptop dating back to the initial beta tests – the ones that were lost in a data crash and only backed up with unintelligible scribblings of previous interns.

The moment you had been introduced as the new intern, you had caught his eye. You are exquisitely mundane, and perhaps the reason you had even caught him the first time was due to solely to the fact that you were older than most interns – himself even. Nevertheless, you continue to present him small surprises in your tenacity and capability to tackle challenges.

“Mr. Kim.”

His intercom comes alive with the voice of his secretary.

Seokjin’s eyes do not leave you as he answers.

“Mr. Hwang is on line two. Would you like me to defer him to a later time if you are currently busy?”

Seokjin cannot help but sigh. Hwang Junho, his co-founder, while a genius in international business is also a notorious chatterbox and gossip. There is seldom a reason for Junho to call him except to relay the cover titles of E!Magazine.

“Did he mention a reason for calling?” Seokjin inquires.

His secretary seems to be reading from a note. “He says it’s to do with the company. Something he read from Cosmopolitan this morning.”

So not E! but another sister celebrity gossip blog. He checks his watch and duly notes that he certainly has no meetings scheduled until later in the afternoon where your report would be needed to run a preliminary analysis.

“Sir?”

“Yes, put him through. But tell him I’ve got only five minutes, so he’s better give me the Cliffnotes version,” Seokjin sighs again.

Before he can be connected, Seokjin quickly says, “What’s the name of that intern again?”

“Who?” his secretary asks, “We’ve hired four since the beginning of the year.”

“The one who keeps wanting to poison me.”

“I’m sorry, Sir?” she sounds concerned.

“The one who keeps forgetting that I despise cinnamon.”

There is no response.

“The older one. Spilled coffee a while ago but still has enough coordination to pull together a decent report.”

“Ah,” she says.

He waits patiently as she searches through the database, eventually giving him your name. He gives a slight pause and then says, “Good. Now patch me with Junho.”

There is a momentary buzz as the call becomes connected in which Seokjin turns over the syllables of your name wordlessly.

“Mr. Kim. The man of the hour. How are you, my brother?” Junho’s baritone fills the office in a manner of seconds.

Despite the little annoying quirks, Seokjin cannot help but smile when hearing the voice of his best friend.

“You’ve got three minutes, Junho.”

Junho grumbles. “That’s not my fault. You were the one still on the line with your secretary. Is it still Yerin? ‘Cuz I won’t blame you if that’s the case. Did I catch you doing some naughty phone sex during office hours?”

“Two.”

“Holy hell. Fine. It’s always business with you. That’s why the tabloids are always writing you as an uptight asshole.”

This shifts Seokjin’s attention to the phone. His name is seldomly mentioned except for the features in business columns. He prefers to stay out of the limelight.

“What?”

“Put your name on Google.”

Seokjin does as he is told.

There are millions of results, but the first few pages share the same headline. He clicks on the first one with a grimace.

“Kim Seokjin. Mr. Worldwide Handsome as noted by his fans, has recently sparked Internet outrage.”

A quick skim of the otherwise trashy article brought to the surface a summary: his last dating scandal had ended badly and the repercussions of blowing off a famous celebrity’s daughter had finally caught up with him. The Internet was calling him arrogant, narrow-minded, and even greedy. “The young Chief Executive Officer of booming social media app DailyHive has been accused of using his relationship with actress XYZ to further his own business. Once he gained recognition from aforementioned relationship, he has cold-heartedly cast her away to pursue his next.” “You’re calling me for this bullshit?” Seokjin scoffs. Junho tuts his tongue loudly. “This is not bullshit. It’s affecting the image of your company. Do you think people want to download and support an app that is run by somebody who is being called cruel and dishonest? You’ve got to address this soon before it gets out of control. You’re lucky I have alerts set for these type of things. I caught it for you just in the nick of time.” Seokjin inhales deeply. “You’re also lucky that I’ve got the perfect solution in mind.” “That is?” “The Silver Gala,” Junho references the prestigious event. The Silver Gala is hosted annually and attended by the largest celebrities as well as other wealthy investors and guests. Those in the social circle shared between Seokjin and Junho often yearned for tickets to attend events such as this, as they serve as excellent networking opportunities. Besides the above, such events are circled by reporters and writers of gossip columns to get the exclusive scoop on any eyebrow-raising rumours. “The solution lies in such an event,” Junho continues, “You know how many people will be there. All you’ve got to do is show up with your average girl-next-door type and it’ll show how you’re actually really humble and down to earth. Kim Seokjin is perfectly capable of dating like any regular human being. He doesn’t use “love” or whatever to further his business. Love is the connection between two souls; two individuals who – ” “Beep. Your time has run out Junho. I’ve got another meeting scheduled right this moment,” Seokjin interrupts. “Dude, seriously. Think about it. You could bring Yerin. Everbody loves a good CEO and his secretary affair. And if that’s too juicy for you, I can introduce you to some girls. Or maybe we could go back to our university days and hit a bar, y’know?” Junho tries his best to persuade. “Fuck!” you swear beneath your breath right as you walk into Kim Seokjin’s office. His door had been open and, in your excitement to show your completed report, you had dropped all the loose papers on the ground. Four hours of organization gone, just like that. You hope that at least Seokjin hasn’t heard or noticed you as he had been engrossed in his phone call. Seokjin had in fact noticed you. He can’t help himself but follow the curvature of your bare shoulder as your bangs escape the hold of your scrunchie and sweep across your skin. “Don’t worry, Junho, I’ve just thought about it,” he says with a smile.

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mooncademia · 4 years ago

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Caught in Love

PAIRING ~ Aizawa x reader

GENRE ~ fluff

SUMMARY ~ After getting a job offer at U.A, your love life w/ Aizawa has officially transferred to school. And you loved it.

But wait...something is different about Class 1-A homeroom teacher! And it has definitely caught a few suspicious eyes.. who may or may not have an idea up their sleeves to satisfy their burning curiosity.

First day working at U.A, you realized that you didn’t have to wake up at your usual morning alarm at 5:30 a.m.

Ah yes, the pro hero days of waking up super early, going to the agency, giving Aizawa (who continued to sleep beside you) a peck on his cheek before you left were now over.

And instead, you were introduced to a new routine.

A fresh one.

However, things weren’t going to change that fast, after all, you’ve been pro-hero for years! And your sleep cycle has stuck to your 5:30 a.m alarm and Aizawa, your husband, did not appreciate that.

“We are going to work, together!” You squealed as you flung open the blankets that covered you and Aizawa. You hopped out of bed and shook his shoulder, making Aizawa mumble a groan.

You kissed his cheek passionately and ruffled his messy raven-black hair a little bit.

“Come on,” you said. “Wake up, I’m going to make some coffee.”

Aizawa turned to the side to peek at the clock on the bed side table. He let out another groan when he saw the three digits.

“Y/N, it’s literally 5:34 a.m. You just need to be at U.A at 8 and we don’t live that far.”

“Yeah, well,” you said with an exciting smile. “You can never be too prepared!”

You scurried out of the room and turned on your coffee machine in the kitchen. Aizawa turned around and saw his bedroom now empty. His wrinkled long black sleeve was bunched up to his waist and he frowned as he got up this early for the first time in months. You knew your husband was a rationally-driven man, sometimes a lone cat who prefers privacy and waking up a lot later. But what you didn’t know was that when Principal Nezu asked him if his wife could teach at U.A after All Might retired, he was thrilled.

So despite it being before 6 a.m, his excitement was bubbling over that it made him finally leave the bed.

But of course, he had to play it cool. With rational excuses, right?!

“Well, I guess I do have to review the school schedule with you,” he mumbled as he palmed the back of his neck and walked out of the bedroom.

When you saw your husband slumping down on the dining chair with his half-lidded eyes, your heart immediately flipped and you poured a nice cup of hot coffee for him.

You knew him well enough that he didn’t wake up this early in the morning for no reason. You set the cup on the table and leaned down to give him a peck on the corner of his lips as a gesture of gratitude.

But at the very last second of pulling away, Aizawa got the best of you and wrapped your waist with his strong arms, causing you to sit down on his lap—santa lap style.

He hugged you warmly and you slung your arms around his neck. Aizawa snuggled his head between your neck and shoulder and sighed blissfully with his eyes closed. You laughed with your head tilted slightly back.

Yeah, he definitely was not a morning person.

After much time of Aizawa discussing you about the school system for the millionth time during breakfast and almost having a mental breakdown of whether or not you could actually teach (we all have those moments, right?), you were on your way to U.A.

And it really took your breath away.

The school was located on the top hill in Musutafu with the whole neighborhood revolving around it. Glass windows seemed to reach the sky and when you realized how freakin’ big the campus actually was, you couldn’t tear your eyes away from the building, not even a second.

But that wasn’t the best thing of all.

Because the best thing was having to walk to work with your favorite (and sometimes most annoying, but you love him nonetheless) person beside you. It was like having your best friend as a partner for your science project in high school. Ease poured over you as you found it quite pleasant to have a strong arm to lean delightedly upon, a familiar face that peers down at you with a gentle smile, and a reassuring voice to tell you that things will be okay.

It was still an hour before class but you and Aizawa were—of course—there early.

The two of you were walking down the halls. Sooner or later you’ll have to let go of your arm that was crossed with Aizawa’s before entering the teacher’s office because one thing that you both agreed upon was to keep the relationship low-key. No one knew that Aizawa’s wife was going to be the new teacher at U.A except for some of the faculty and of course…Hizashi Yamada, aka: the loudest person in the world in Shouta’s opinion.

“Y/N!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Present Mic shouted when he saw you step into the teacher’s office. His blonde hair that was religiously shifted upward was too iconic to not be noticed from far away. You giggled at the sight as he threw his arm around his best friend, Aizawa, poking him teasingly on the shoulder. You were great friends with Hizashi and in fact, he was the one who introduced you to Aizawa in the first place.

“Oi, Eraserhead, you’re so lucky your wife goes to work with you,” Hizashi teasingly snickered with his arm still slung around Shouta’s neck. Aizawa tried to shrug him off but it only made him tighten his grip. “So they managed to get Y/N to teach here but they haven’t even implemented my great idea?!”

“Please no, Mic.” Aizawa groaned, trying again to pull away from Hizashi’s grip.

You sat down your bag. “What’s your ‘idea?’ ”

Hizashi let go of Aizawa’s neck and casually slung his arm around yours, making you giggle in surprise.

“Well of course it’s my HERO FM radio! Every Friday from 1:00-5:00 p.m!” He announced proudly (or more like promoting) making you laugh even more as Aizawa facepalmed himself. “I told the staff that they should let me add one more day, you know, because of my great increasing popularity! But they said one day a week is already “enough,” he said letting go of you to make air quotes with a disgusted expression on his face.

“Get to work Mic,” Aizawa called as he headed towards his desk to gather up some assignments for his morning class.

Hizashi winked at you before he trotted off, throwing you a thumbs-up sign. “Get ready for some ‘strict Aizawa-sensei.’ One day during U.A fest, I wanted to hear Class 1-A perform but Aizawa kept on saying that I should be on patrol duty—“

“Which you should’ve. It was your shift.” Aizawa interrupted bluntly.

“But I just wanted an INSEY WINCEY listen!!” Hizashi stomped on his feet childishly which made Aizawa roll his eyes and let out a sigh.

You went to your husband and stood on your tippy-toes to land a small peck on his cheek. Aizawa blushed at your move because of the fact that you two were in a semi-public place, but he didn’t complain at all.

“Oh, don’t worry.” You seductively caressed his shoulder and gave him a charming smile as you leaned in deadly closer to his face with your hips arched a bit. “I can’t wait to see… what Aizawa-sensei is like.”

Your tone was silky smooth and you rolled out the last word so slowly that it made Aizawa’s mouth part open just a bit. He stared at you dumbfoundedly. Your eyes flickered down to his lips and he swallowed a gulp. He felt like Cupid just shot his heart and he was totally falling for you once again because the fact that you called him ‘sensei’ totally did not make his stomach or heart heat up.

Yeah…he really was goddamn lucky to have you work at U.A alongside him.

———

“Overall, ‘Plus Ultra’ doesn’t always necessarily means you need to exceed your limits physically. But it also means mentally. It’s how your brain exercises to solve complex situations. What are your strategies like? Are you saving those who need saving in quick time while doing minimal damage to your surroundings? I hope next week’s practice can allow you to exercise these brain muscles of yours that I reviewed today because listening to your thoughts and being mentally stable/prepared is more important than how powerful your quirk is. Listen to that hero gut instinct of yours, because at the end, especially in dearest times… it’s going to help you immensely.” You finished with an encouraging smile that made the class almost want to clap at your amazing class. You were glad to see their engaging faces and raising their hands when they had a question.

Class 1-A was truly remarkable. Though, the only student that left you curiously wondering about was the small boy with purple balls on his head because he seemed to be staring at you so intensely that you swore his eyes were bugging out of their sockets.

Aizawa bowed at you when you finished and you gave him a smirk.

The class began to exchange small chats as you bowed back to Aizawa.

“Wow, I think this teacher is really good! She’s so pretty and smart!” Ashido excitedly whispered to Tsuyu behind her with her eyes widened.

“That’s pro-hero for you,” Kaminari added with his index finger and thumb pointed high up. “Plus, she even made Aizawa-sensei stand there awake the whole entire time listening.”

Some of the classmates nodded eagerly in return, truly astounded that their homeroom teacher did not retreat to his traditional yellow sleeping bag that he usually does.

“Thank you L/N-sensei,” Aizawa said, popping the class back to the board ahead. You bowed at him in return, but before you headed out, you saw Aizawa gave you the tiniest nod and wait…was that a smile creeping on his lips?!

You exhaled silently in relief. You have been so nervous and worried about teaching at U.A. When Principal Nezu offered you the position, you were shocked to even know that he had you on his mind. You previously thought that Aizawa proposed the option but that guess was quickly diminished when he told you that he had nothing to do with it.

You were just a pro-hero doing your job and when the amazing opportunity arose, you immediately accepted it, knowing that you deeply wanted to help students find their way to hero-life.

And Aizawa knew you had been nervous about U.A since accepting the offer. You have stayed up countless nights just reviewing paperwork, going over the school schedule many times, and even looking through practice exams from the past, thinking about what further lessons you can teach to these students.

You folded your lips and returned a small nod, eyes twinkling as you slid the door to head out.

The class truly captured the small moment you and Aizawa had, but then all shrugged away when they heard their homeroom teacher begin handing out today’s assignments.

As you trotted away from the class back to the main office, you smiled at yourself as you hugged your folders tighter to your chest.

Hm… I could definitely get used to this.

———

Days seemed to go by faster than you had expected.

Wake up (sometimes not that early anymore thanks to Aizawa hugging you down even after your 5:30 alarm rings), enjoy breakfast, head to U.A, teach, and then go back home with Aizawa (when everyone else is —of course— away).

You’ve had your ups and downs at U.A. Some days, work seemed to flow by very smoothly while other days, work was more than just grading papers or checking assignments. There were a few days where work overloaded and you and Aizawa will be staying up past midnight checking over paperwork. But it was times like these where you truly felt utmost grateful to have a mentor there to help you. And it was even better that your mentor was your favorite person in the world.

It has been ten days since your first day at U.A.

Which means: ten days Aizawa not sleeping a wink during your long lectures about hero work that he already confidently knows. And to some of the classmates who knew their homeroom teacher well enough that his yellow sleeping bag was his best friend, it was a bit…odd.

“Don’t you think it's weird that Aizawa-sensei stays awake only during L/N-sensei’s lectures?” Uraraka asked Kaminari on their way to the Lunch Rush.

“What do you mean?” Kaminari shrugged and chuckled. “It should be weird that a teacher sleeps during class in the first place, right?” He grabbed his food tray excitingly, his eyes focused closely on it, clearly not noticing Uraraka’s suspicious tone nor mischievous eyes.

Tsuyu popped in between with the two and let out a sigh. “Boys……You have to read in between the lines. Uraraka’s right.” She snapped her finger perkily. “Aizawa-sensei is not just awake but he’s seemed very engaged to L/N-sensei.”

Kaminari stared at Tsuyu and Uraraka obliviously as he sat down with the rest of the classmates. “Huh?”

Uraraka rolled her eyes. “You know! From the way he nods his head when she talks or oh! That smile?! I have never seen his lips tilt upwards besides haunting us on how difficult practice exams are going to be.” She tiredly sighed, thinking about her teacher’s wicked smirk every time a huge exam was coming. It was like he found pleasure in challenging the students to surpass their limits.

But Tsuyu and Uraraka knew that Aizawa’s expression when you were in the room wasn’t that wicked grin that he had when announcing an upcoming exam or event. Instead, it was a mixture of awe and sincerity. And it definitely made the two girls exchange some giggles and fun guesses.

“What’s up?” Jirou said, sitting down beside Tsuyu with her cafeteria tray, noticing her friends laughing loudly.

Uraraka leaned forward on the table to peer over at Jirou. “It's about Aizawa-sensei and the new teacher!” Her voice was loud enough that it caught the other classmates’ ears, making her furiously blush afterward from her spontaneous excitement.

But of course, of all the pairs of ears in Class 1-A, there was always the one come rushing in when it’s about his favorite subject: women.

“L/N-SENSEI?!” Mineta’s ears visibly perked up from Uraraka’s gush, clearly engrossed with the topic of the new teacher. “She’s SO gorgeous and oh lord, her—“

“Quit it, Mineta.” Kirishima slapped the back of Mineta’s head beside him before he could finish his lewd statement. He hooked his arm around Kaminari with a giant smirk plastered on his face.

“Why don’t we find out, huh?” Kirishima proposed as Kaminari tried to wiggle his way free from his grasp.

“Hey man, watch your grip!”

Uraraka waved her hand to dismiss Kaminari's racket and stared back up at Kirishima. “About what?” She asked curiously, taking another bite of her rice.

“Girls…” Kaminari mocked sarcastically with a sigh, mirroring Tsuyu’s earlier comment that she made on him. The two girls rolled their eyes and punched his shoulder.

Kirishima leaned into the group closer with slyness flickering in his eyes. He grinned and bopped his head at Jirou. “We can find out if there’s anything special between Aizawa-sensei and L/N-sensei…using Jirou’s quirk!”

Jirou scoffed and leaned back with her arms crossed before Kirishima could continue. “Uh, you’re using me to get info about our homeroom teacher’s private life? That doesn’t sound very friend-like to me if I say so myself.”

“Come on Jirou,” Kaminari whined. “It’ll be fun!”

Jirou raised her brows and sneered. “Since when did you get interested in this?”

Tsuyu shook her head and waved her hands, dismissing the rising chaos. “No, you’re right,” She said, trying not to show her disappointing face. “It’s not fair to just use Jirou to grab juicy news about our teachers, you know…even if it can be so great to the point that it makes us cheerful and excited despite upcoming exams.”

Uraraka bobbled her head up and down, religiously agreeing to everything Tsuyu had to say with a pout on her lips and closed eyes. “Or it can even help us lift our spirits.”

Tsuyu nodded. “Even if it is just a tiny bit, it can-“

“Alright, guys! I get it! Fine!” Jirou said over Tsuyu, earning grins from the boys and giggles from the girls. Jirou sighed and pinched her nose bridge. She looked up at her friends and darted a death glare at Kirishima and Kaminari. “I’m only doing this for the girls.”

It was half-true. Jirou didn’t want to agree to this for the boys. But another reason was because of school lately. With heavy workload that the whole class was dealing with, plus the hero-work after school and training, school has been…well, quite draining. And similar to the time where the whole class decided to hold a competition for “best dorm room” last year to raise everyone’s spirits from the whole villain chaos, she thought maybe this can raise spirits up again too. Even if it’s just miscellaneous curiosity or excitement. She knew and sensed that her friends needed something exciting happening, besides school work.

So the plan that Kirishima introduced was to head over to the teacher’s lounge at this moment during lunch break. Since it was merely the beginning of lunch and there was still a good 45 minutes left, it was the perfect time for teachers to be on their desks with students the last thing on their minds. Jirou can place her earphone jacks in the wall to hear the voices inside to retrieve any news from the two teachers.

“And if we got nothing, that’s totally okay as well.” Kirishima shrugged. “We can always try next time!”

“NEXT TIME?!” Jirou exclaimed uneasily, twirling her earphone jacks. “Let’s just see what happens now, and focus on next time later.”

“All right then!” Uraraka clapped her hands excitingly and bumped her shoulder against Tsuyu’s with a beam. “Mission: FIONA starts now!“

“Fiona?” Kaminari raised his brow, getting out of his seat with the rest of his friends.

Uraraka pointed her finger up in the air pridefully. “Find-Info-ON-Aizawa. I couldn’t think of an acronym for ‘ON’ so just leave it together and you’ll get—wooah!”

Jirou and Tsuyu locked elbows with her and dragged her away before she could finished, followed by Kirishima and Kaminari trotting behind their footsteps.

“If you keep explaining it’s going to be Mission: GIT!” Jirou sneered, giving Uraraka’s elbows a good tug.

“GIT?”

Tsuyu smirked as the five of them head towards the teacher’s office. “GETTING INTO TROUBLE!”

———

Lunch breaks were times where you and Aizawa could finally heave a sigh of relief and chat with each other freely. You were happy to work at U.A with Aizawa because now since work schedules were parallel, you could efficiently have the time to hang out with him. When you were pro-hero at your original agency, you’ll often come back home with no trace of Aizawa since he was still in school working on students’ assignments till late evening.

But now, you had all the time in the world to chat with him. Okay maybe not all the time, just an hour and a half, but it was definitely enough for you.

Aizawa was sitting next to you on your desk, nodding along to your talks about your recent lectures with other classes as he gave some advice on teaching.

You let out a wistful sigh and rested your head on Aizawa’s shoulder. You closed your eyes and let out a hum. “Thanks for helping me through all this. I can’t believe teacher work is this much.”

Aizawa let out a puff of air and smirked. He peered down at you from the corner of his eye. “So are you gonna apologize for all the times you were scolding me for not coming back home early?”

You shot your head back up with your eyes widened and a jaw exasperated dropped. You knew that Aizawa was joking from on his tone but you pressed your hand on your chest and squinted your eyes at him, giving him a death glare. “Excuse me? Uhm, sir, I don’t think that’s fair. And besides! All the hours you were gone, I really really missed you and-“

Aizawa leaned forward, a hand snaking to the back of your neck, taking you by surprise as he crashed his lips against yours. You were completely shell-shocked that your eyes stayed open the entire time. Sure, you have kissed Aizawa a thousand times before, but he rarely made the first move. And oh did your heart fluttered!

Aizawa pulled away with a smile dancing on his lips. “And I really missed you too.”

Before you could open your mouth to respond, you heard a loud gasp from outside, making you unconsciously turn your head towards the sound.

A muffled voice transmitted through the walls. “KEEP IT DOWN, KAMINARI!”

A female’s voice? Or was it a boy?

More muffling voices continued and you couldn’t really understand it, but one thing you knew for sure was that there was someone outside.

You twirled your head back to Aizawa. His face hardened and got up from the chair, walking towards the door.

“SH- ! HE- COMING!” A familiar voice echoed through the walls that you could only capture words of.

Aizawa finally opened the door and looked to his right.

Caught red-handed.

All five students were crunched down to the ground. With Jirou’s earplugs on the wall with Uraraka and Tsuyu beside her, plus Kaminar and Kirishima hovering right above her not missing any detail she was saying, Aizawa knew exactly what was up.

“Shouta? What’s wrong?” You asked, making your way to the door when you saw his cold expression.

You sucked in a breath when you saw the scene to your right.

“RUN!” Jirou shouted but it was too late. Aizawa immediately caught the five of them with his trusty gray scarf so fast that you swore you didn’t even notice it. His scarf rolled all five up into a bundle individually so that their arms were glued to their sides.

All of the students heated up from shame.

“Soooooo……..” Kaminari mumbled weakly, trying to make the matter less intensive. “Are you two dating..or..something?” His voice squeaked higher and higher as Aizawa’s brows got deeper and deeper.

You knew you had every right to be mad that these students who were invading you and Aizawa’s privacy, and you should! But to your surprised, your offended emotions were quickly replaced with a comical one as you saw all the students’ ducking their heads in shame, darting their eyes away from Aizawa’s hardened glare.

Ah well…they would’ve found out sooner or later.

You let out a chuckle. Aizawa turned his head at you with his eyes widened, not knowing that you would be taking this matter so lightly. But you returned him with a kind of smile that immediately released the tension of his grip and the eyebrows on his face.

The students perked their heads up in confusion from your reaction, and you flashed them a smile as you snaked your hand behind Aizawa’s back.

“Dating? Hmmm…,” you said, a lopsided smirk dancing across your lips.

“I think it’s a little bit more than that.”

And with those words, Uraraka and Tsuyu couldn’t help but squeal in delight despite still being bonded. Kaminari swore he never felt this wholesome since getting accepted into U.A, and Kirishima—on the other hand—twirled his head away from you and mumbled with his eyebrows furrowed in great passion: “…He’s so manly!”

And Aizawa? Well, he definitely looked at you in surprise for being so open, but no less than a second, he felt a warm breeze rushing through his body.

Your laugh after seeing the students’ reaction was the most beautiful sound he has ever heard.

It always has been.

And hearing that made him feel like hey…

Perhaps people knowing wouldn’t hurt! And maybe it’s because he just loved you that much, or maybe it’s that fact that he realized, that no matter if his class or the freakin’ public knows or not….

Nothing…absolutely nothing, is going to disrupt the beautiful relationship the two of you have.

#aizawa x reader #aizawa shouta #aizawa shouta x you #aizawa shouta x reader #aizawa #bnha aizawa #bnha x reader #bnha #mha x reader #mha #shouta aizawa #shouta aizawa x reader

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jonesyjonesyjonesy · 3 years ago

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heyyy, this is my first ask ever on this page so I'm not exactly sure how to start this, so ill just get right to it from one jonesy/zeppelin stan to another.

Robert apparently wrote Carouselambra about him being frustrated with Jonesy and Jimmy not being there for him after his son karac passed away,,, the song itself is great inho, it's my favorite off of ittod besides in the evening. The situation was tragic enough on it own, but it also put a huge strain on the relationships between the band members, it seems like. I can't pretend I know a whole lot about that part of their history in particular, just wanted to hear your take on it.

Hello my dear!! Welcome to my asks! I hope it is a cozy and pleasant experience. You are always welcome, no matter how inane, as I myself am the queen of inanity (I'm claiming it here and now folks).

^^ look at these boys in their 30s (36, 34, and almost 32 respectively, dear god)

In Through the Out Door is generally pretty fascinating. 'Carouselambra' in and of itself I think is one of those tracks that if it had been deeper into the canon (as if Zep had been able to make more albums), it would have been openly considered a masterpiece. That's actually how I feel about the whole album, but...instead, it causes consternation.

The track itself is one of my favorites as well. It's like Space Jam but everyone's on drugs and having a midlife crisis and WOW it's good. The actual inspiration for the track, as you say, I think was a combination of the highs and lows of Zeppelin and this includes Karac's death and the aftermath. 'Carouselambra' was originally called 'The Epic' -- I like to imagine the epic poetry it was being likened too and if epic poetry was still written and consumed the way we consume Homer and Virgil, that Zeppelin would be a perfect candidate. 'Tales of Brave Ulysses' could never.

The general consensus is that 'The Epic' was renamed 'Carouselambra' because that's what being in Zeppelin was like. Around and around on this gaudy mechanical and in the process these tragic things were happening and you only got fast glances at them or missed out on important things. And in the case of Karac, I'm sure Robert was grappling with the fact he just wasn't around (and I believe he's said as much).

This culminating with Jonesy and Jimmle not being at the funeral, which at the time, Robert had apparently said to Richard Cole, “Maybe they don’t have as much respect for me as I do for them. Maybe they’re not the friends I thought they were.”

Which is understandable! I mean, anyone that close to you dying, let alone a child. You would want your friends there (...if Robert considered Jonesy a "friend" to me is debatable considering his supposed tongue-in-cheek offer to Lita Ford to be the bassist for Zep in '77, but I'm just a bitter Jonesy stan (and I have plenty of theories and ideas about the Jones/Plant dynamic)). From what I've read, Jonesy was on family holiday, I imagine continuing with Maureen and the girls in the RV they rented for the second leg of the '77 tour -- he stole away after the Oakland debacle and drove it up to Seattle (this is from a glancing in Mick Wall's When Giants Walked the Earth, which I'm currently reading). Can that man get any more precious? And Jimmy was...Jimmy, heroin and all, although he's been quoted saying "We were all mates. We had to give the man some space.”

Potentially illustrating this, Robert commented on this in 2005: “The other guys were [from] the South [of England] and didn’t have the same type of social etiquette that we have up here in the North that could actually bridge that uncomfortable chasm with all the sensitivities required … to console.”

By ITTOD, though, we have our "relatively clean" camp friends Jones and Robert leading the charge and, I hope, having some good heart to hearts and enjoying each others' company. I really do wish we had more from that time, of that dynamic because I think it's a really interesting blip on the timeline given their distance mostly (I believe Robert said in 1971 that he had just started becoming friends with Jonesy, which I don't find hard to believe considering their opposite natures).

And then you get 'Carouselambra', all the nonsense and the mayhem boiled down into "why the fuck are we doing this"-edness. The kids are getting older, the tour is now a slog, and now you've got back pain. Kind of a sad carousel at the end of the day. “The whole story of Led Zeppelin in its latter years is in that song, and I can’t hear the words," Plant said, regarding how his voice is mixed lower than the keyboard in the first half. And there they were, in their 30s, and punk was on the rise and let's be honest, rock n' roll has never been a "middle years" kind of game.

But TO ME, that adds to the theatricality, to the idea that everything WAS getting lost and muddled. It's a brilliant, most likely unanticipated homage in my mind and Led Zeppelin WAS theatrical for as much as it was about the music, it was about the mythos and fable as well.

As a side note, I really hate how ITTOD is talked about for the most part as this like "lame keyboard album" when in fact, if Zeppelin had continued, it would serve as an LZ III/HotH vibe to me in that they could do whatever they want so they did and wow it was great. That's just my opinion, though, and I can definitely chalk it up to bias and also my love for Jonesy's post-Zeppelin work that really showcased just how fucking marvelous he is.

oh my god this got so long how did this get so long

This is just my take...I'm sure many people would be ready to contest what I have to say and that's just fine. 'Southbound Saurez' is one of my favorite Zep tracks and I stand by it.

I hope this was worth the time, lovely. Thank you for appearing in the asks and I hope you return someday. It was really lovely to take a journey into the more "academic" side of Zep...turns out I know quite a bit and I'm pretty good at rustling through the interwebs to find all the quotes I wanted to locate!

Feel free to correct me or engage in discourse kindly. I don't have time for negativity, I just turned 26 after all.

let it be known this is literally 950 words

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thetrap · 4 years ago

Text

why i think deancas just might go canon

i’ve been wanting to write this for a bit, but i haven’t really had the time until now. basically this is just a super unorganized collection of thoughts i have on why i think that dean and castiel actually have a fairly decent shot of becoming canon (and by decent shot i mean like.....a solid 5% chance. and that’s being generous). this is based off of the show itself (obviously), quotes from andrew dabb, and other things.

1. andrew dabb is deancas positive

i made a post a while back that never made it out of the drafts, but it was basically a summation of all the good deancas shit dabb has given us as a writer. here are the bullet points:

- the hug/"i'm not leaving here without you!" moment in purgatory (8x02)

- "don't lose it over one man"

- "he's in love.....with humanity"

- cas/colette parallel ("dean. stop.") in 10x22

- just the fight scene from the prisoner in general like......wow

- sam/jess and dean/cas parallel in 12x23

- "we've lost everything......and now, you're gonna bring him back" + dean's just generally overwhelming grief in 13x01

- "and how is it that you lost dean? i thought the two of you were joined at the.....you know, everything"

and these are just the big moments.

also notable is the fact that an activist sent dabb (and some of the other producers of spn i think) a book about dean and cas and why the fans want it/why it would be a good thing for the show. a few years later, meghan fitzmartin (who wrote the most recent episode!) was hired as dabb’s assistant, went into his office and posted a tweet a with pictures of the book, saying something along the lines of “doing some reading for work!”

the fact that dabb actually kept a fanmade deancas book for years.....the fact that he’s consistently written episodes with really strong subtext for years.....the fact that the dean and castiel romantic tension has only picked up since he took over as showrunner (mixtape, lily sunder, cas’s death, dean’s grief arc, the entirety of season fifteen, etc.)......idk i just think it’s really interesting that there has been such a marked shift since he was put in charge.

2. the mixtape

i know this was a few seasons ago, but it’s still relevant because like. a mixtape is not platonic. this scene was not platonic. full-stop.

and it’s not even the act by itself; it’s also the dialogue!! “it was a gift. you keep those.” this is more than likely a direct callback to aragorn and arwen in lord of the rings (that’s the first thing i thought of, at least).

the fact that dabb let this slide, like......he knows what this looks like. berens and glynn, who wrote this episode, know what it looks like. they knew precisely how this would be perceived, and then wrote and aired the scene anyways.

and that’s not even getting into the camerawork. like what?? was this shot???

yeah so. definitely not platonic.

3. the trap

honestly i thought about just posting this part of this overlong essay thing, because to me, this is the episode where i went okay, so this might actually happen.

there are SO many things in this episode that made me go insane the first time i watched it (”i left, but you didn’t stop me”) but the thing that stuck out to me the most was dean’s reaction to castiel saying, “you don’t have to say it. i heard your prayer,” when dean tries to tell him something.

like?????? he does not look relieved!! nor does he look particularly happy!!

hell, if you go back and watch the video you can literally see him swallow his words down like....jensen ackles is the master of micro expressions and that shit is Not Accidental. this moment 100% gives the vibe that there is something that is not being said. the camera following dean as he gives cas a lingering look is really interesting too.

3. dabb’s comments about dean and cas in season 15

this part is actually sort of related to the point above, since a lot of dabb’s comments are in reference to “the trap.” here are some interesting ones that i want to point out:

But the Leviathan won’t be the focal point of the purgatory story. Rather, it’s about what Dean and Castiel are going through. “They’re not going to resolve the emotional stuff, but it allows them to redefine their friendship a little bit in light of what’s happened especially earlier this season,” Dabb says. (x)

the key thing here is that dabb said that, in 15x09, dean and cas are “not going to resolve the emotional stuff.”

now. i don’t know about you, but dean falling to his knees, praying to cas and weeping feels a lot like emotional resolution to me. like, sure, things will probably be awkward between them for a while, but surely this is the peak moment of their emotional vulnerability with each other, right? surely this is the moment where they’ve resolved the issue between them? like how the fuck does it get more intensely emotional than this??

yet dabb seems to be implying that it will, which leaves us with the million dollar question: what is left about dean and cas’ relationship to resolve?

keep in mind that as of 15x16, there hasn’t been much forward movement on that front; that is, we’ve had some cute moments between them, but in terms of serious conversation about their relationship, there’s been basically nothing. so we can assume that this development, whatever it is, will occur in 15x18, since dean and cas will be separated for most of 15x17, as cas will be off with sam.

aka the episode where cas will likely get yanked away by the empty. aka the episode with the teary (!!!) conversation we saw in the promo between dean and cas.

also notable from the above quote is dabb saying that dean and cas are redefining their friendship. like....redefining how? to what?? that wording is just really interesting to me.

another quote from dabb re “the trap”:

(x)

it forces them to “start that process.” indicating yet again that the prayer scene between dean and cas is not the moment where whatever is between them is resolved. yet, from where we are right now, dean and cas seem mostly fine. which means that whatever they have yet to work out doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with their fight.

lastly:

a really significant chunk of what happens to dean in 15x09 is him confronting his issues with cas. don’t get me wrong - there are other important things that happen in the episode - but the fact that an episode where so much time/emotional energy is given to dean and cas’ dynamic is considered a turning point for dean is very notable and, to me, speaks to the importance of their relationship for the rest of the season.

4. dean/cas and sam/eileen being set up as units

i’m of the opinion that sam and dean will (by choice) go their separate ways at the end of the show. i think this for a variety of reasons that i wrote about here, and to add onto this, i think that dean/cas and sam/eileen are, in a way, being set up as two units.

this theory comes from two points:

1. the fact that eileen got brought back at all

this isn’t to say that eileen isn’t an interesting character all on her own/outside of her romance with sam, but the fact that they brought her back and then proceeded to set her up in this romance feels really significant to me. what’s especially interesting is how, even after she leaves in 15x09, we get a continuation of their romance in 15x14. i don’t necessarily think that she’s sam’s endgame in the sense that the final episode will show sam going to her or whatever, but i do think that part of the reason she was brought back was so that sam would have someone who he loves/someone he could potentially build a life with after he and dean defeat chuck.

2. the way the two couples were portrayed in “the trap”

like....just watch the future scenes in the bunker. there’s very much a sense that these are two couples living together. and “ever since the mark made cas go crazy, ever since i had to bury him in a ma’lak box.” note the use of i, not we. and then dean/cas and sam/eileen are directly paralleled when dean tells sam he needs to give it up after eileen’s death, comparing it to how dean has given it up after having to bury cas in the ma’lak box.

5. dean does not do Well without cas

this is probably an understatement. there have been a couple of notable instances in this season where the viewer is given a glimpse of what happens to dean when cas dies/is in danger of death/is separated from dean (in case the whole ass widower arc in s13 wasn’t enough).

two of these are from “the trap”:

1. dean freaking out/crying/praying when he’s separated from cas in purgatory

2. dean giving up on life/hunting after burying cas in the ma’lak box in the future world

3. dean’s reaction to cas temporarily going to the empty in 15x13

the one i want to spend the most time on is number two, in large part because sam was witness to it and i think that this might get brought up in 15x17.

part of my spec for that episode is that cas will tell sam about his deal/sam will find out somehow, and in reaction sam might tell cas about how dean reacted to his death in s13 - a conversation that was notably absent from the show when cas finally returned in 13x05. i also think that he might mention no. 2 above, basically telling cas that if he dies, dean is done. that he won’t be able to handle it/move past it. the show has been telling us this over and over for a while now, and it’s only been emphasized more in season 15. i think that 15x17 is the episode where this will finally be verbally expressed.

to me, all of this emphasis on dean giving up when cas is gone isn’t for nothing. in my opinion, it’s being done very purposefully to set up an endgame where dean and cas are together in some sense of the word. and a lot of what i’ve said above is what makes me think it’ll be a Romantic together.

5. bobo berens’ three part deancas saga

so we all know that berens is pretty much spn’s foremost deancas warrior, and what i want to point out here is how this season has been utilizing him as a writer.

this season, berens has three solo episodes (he wrote “galaxy brain” with meredith glynn):

1. the rupture

2. the trap

3. despair (formerly known as “the truth”)

so far, these first two episodes have had major deancas moments. you could even label them as:

1. the rupture (the breakup)

2. the trap (the reconciliation)

3. depair (???)

keep in mind also that berens wrote 14x18, where the dean and cas sort of had a preliminary breakup. he’s been in charge of this arc for a while, and the fact that so much of his writing this season has been deancas focused.......i don’t know, i just think it’s significant in part because, while berens has always been deancas positive, he also writes plenty of episodes that aren’t focused on dean and cas. but now, in the final season, the dean and cas emotional arc has been handed to him, and it’s been the primary focus on his writing.

(sidenote: berens was promoted to executive producer for this final season)

to me, this is all leading to a big moment between dean and cas in 15x18 - and the fact that it was at one point called “the truth,” only to be switched back to despair - makes me think that there will be some sort of confession involved. my money is on cas being the one to say it (especially since this would line up with the leak), especially given the glimpse we saw of (what might be) this moment in the promo. which leads me to...

6. cas does not cry

i saved this for last because the promo where we see teary-eyed cas is actually what pulled me back into this shitshow.

cas does not cry. like. ever. he got a little teary in 15x15, when jack told him of his plan to sacrifice himself, but we have never - never - seen him shed actual tears. and in the promo, particularly that shot where cas says “you have fought for this whole world,” it 100% looks like cas is about to cry cry.

cas has seen his son die. he has seen dean die. he died himself, over and over and over. and we have never seen him cry.

yet for some reason, in this moment of vulnerability with dean, he’s crying. i find it highly unlikely that cas would cry because of his impending death, for a number of reasons (for one, he wouldn’t want to upset dean more than he has to). so, assuming he’s not crying because of his own death, then what is making cas so emotional that he is genuinely crying for the first time in the twelve seasons he has been on the show?

my guys.....i can only think of one thing.

#THIS IS SO FUCKING LONG OH MY GOD #i'm so sorry for this i just have SO many thoughts about this and had to get them all down #disclaimer: i still think it's highly unlikely we'll get confirmed romantic deancas #but i do think there's a chance #and this is why #deancas #destiel #s15 spoilers #spec

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thoughts-on-bangtan · 3 years ago

Note

Hi! What are yours views on the recently released billboard article about bts? I assumed that people agreed on the fact that its was extremely disappointing and disrespectful towards bts but there are many ‘army’ blogs who are still defending that article

From anon: What do you think of the new Billboard article about the boys? 😓

I’ll be honest, I had a bit of a debate with myself if I want to post something about the article or not, if I want to draw more attention to it (like there’s literally anyone left who hasn’t heard about or read it), and if I want to get mad all over again. Since you’re reading this, we all know what conclusion I arrived at.

Usually I try to at least somewhat organize my answers to not jump around or angrily rant, but wow, I don’t know if I’ll be able to get that done this time so please bear with me this once. I’d also usually add direct copy+paste quotes and/or screenshots but I truly don’t want to give this article any clicks, or give that “journalist” and his writing even more direct attention, so this answer will have to do without them, I’m sorry. I’m sure you’ve all read the article, or at least seen parts of it, so you’ll know what I’m talking about in each instance.

You know, in all of this, besides the obvious awful aspects of it all, I also feel bad for the staff (not the Billboard journalist and the editors) involved in this, like for example the photographer who went in and took gorgeous pictures of the members, did his best working with them, only for said pictures to be forever attached to this dumpster fire. And the members who spent so much time during that photoshoot to get only the best results and yet, what does it even matter in the end. As well as the fact that they took time out of their busy schedules to meet the journalist, to answer whatever questions he had, to just end up having to read all...THAT.

As some pointed out, it is though very telling that none of the HYBE/BHM/BTS twt accounts have retweeted the Billboard twts with links to the article. That already basically tells you everything you need to know, as in, that the article isn’t worth our time and our braincells needed to read it.

After so many years I think most of us have come to expect basically nothing from interviews with literally any US publication, but especially magazines like The Hollywood Reporter (remember that mess?) and Billboard, and, well, the bar was in hell and yet they still managed to deliver a result that was, I think, one of or the worst article I’ve ever read on BTS. Especially since large parts of the article weren’t even about them? For a cover story about BTS, what’s up with the lack of interview, the minimal amount of quotes from their answers, the summarization of their supposed words, and the large focus on a “controversy” basically cooked up by haters on stan twt? And the “journalist”, who has shown in older twts that he has a negative bias toward BTS and ARMY, even taking direct quotes from stan twt accounts for western artists to illustrate his point, instead of, I don’t know, legit sources? Showing numbers or anything that would show credibility and a solid foundation for said argument? But instead it’s gossip and malicious accusation based on “I don’t like that this band is successful instead of my fave so I will accuse them of cheating while I ignore all the cheating my own fave partakes in”.

More below the cut:

Of course we were, once again, served the narrative that ARMY are just a bunch of manipulated teens which, let’s like talk about that for a second because there are a lot of layers to this and the further you look, the worse it looks for people like this journalist and everyone else like him openly shading ARMY.

Let’s suppose ARMY really somehow were millions of girls ages 12 to 18 (who somehow have access to enough money to raise funds for music and also match BTS’ $1 million donation and spend money on so many different charity projects every year) and these journalists, most of them men usually above the age of 30, go around and basically belittle and “hate” on them. Do we see the problem here? The fact that in this case grown adults openly, in publications they are paid to write for, bully teenagers and kids simply because they don’t agree with the musician said teens and kids have decided to be a fan of and support. And because they are girls instead of soccer loving boys, as counter example.

A truly weird hill to be willing to d*e on just to make some kind of (negative) point if you ask me.

Then of course there’s the whole thing that Mr. Journalist decided to go in with a narrative in mind and seriously sit down opposite Namjoon and basically ask him “hey, listen, what do you think about your crazy TEENAGE fans buying your music (truly the audacity, how dare they) and that they are cheating and manipulating the system? Like that’s not right, right?”. Bless Namjoon and his genius brain for being able to keep his cool and shut down that man with his amazing answer shifting the blame right back onto Billboard and how, if they don’t like people playing by the rules that they themselves have created, maybe they should look at their own system and reevaluate it instead of turning against and point a finger at BTS who, as Namjoon said himself, are simply an easy target because they are foreigners, because they sing in a language that isn’t English, and because they are Asian. And really, is there anything the US music industry hates more than foreigners, POC at that, being successful, or even more successful, than their industry supported artists? Don’t think so.

Also can we talk about how strange the argument of “bulk/mass buying” is when ARMY never goes over the limits Billboard themselves have set up, being four copies of a given song. If they truly were against people “bulk/mass buying” you’d think they would lower the number to one copy per person and that’s it, right, the way iTunes does it. And yet, they did not. Because “bulk/mass buying” is okay, just not when it’s ARMY and Bangtan.

Billboard: Buying multiple copies of the same song is bad and makes no sense. You’re cheating.

Also Billboard: Here, buy EIGHT copies of the same magazine, with the exact same contents but different covers, for $170+ in this neat little bundle.

Make it make sense, will you? Or at least be less obvious with what you’re doing.

It’s a problem when it’s done in a way that doesn’t benefit them, and the greater US music industry and their shady system, but when it does benefit them, it’s totally chill, easy, no problem? It’s so obvious, dumb, and kind of makes me want to laugh but also scream and/or knock my head against my table because it’s just so bizarre yet it’s treated like this all makes sense and is completely normal. And the sad thing is, it is normal. We, or BTS as umbrella term, are a problem because we get things done, we get achievements and #1s and numbers without giving in to payola, paid playlisting, bundles when they were still a thing, and without everything else the US labels do to push their artists into basically false fame.

And that, ladies and gentlemen and nonbinary friends, is where the issue lies.

While talking about all of this among ourselves (as in ARMY at large) across sns, as well as taking into account some pondering by journalists questioning the intentions of the article, a thought arose and, now that I think about it, it sounds just too obvious and yet here we are. Voting season for the Grammys is coming up sometime soon-ish, and Billboard is one of the major publications that the voting members look at and read when considering who to give their vote to. Now imagine you’re a voting member who until this point had a positive, or at least neutral, opinion on BTS but on Monday you sit down and read this article? Would you still want to vote for an artist being accused of “chart manipulation” and supposedly claiming they didn’t actually want to do music in English but were forced into it despite originally saying something else?

No, right?

And that’s the point.

This is nothing but a glorified smear campaign against Bangtan across lots, and I mean lots, of publications who picked up the narrative that this article presented and ran with it. The US music industry sees their success and feels threatened because they are showing that when you have true, organic success and a loyal fan following you don’t need any of the paid for tricks to achieve things, you don’t need payola, don’t need paid for playlisting on streaming websites, and don’t need US industry backing. You can do it all on your own, therefore these exploitative systems and institutions don’t make any money off of you which is obviously unacceptable. Even more so when you could actually win, or at least again be nominated, for what is regarded as the supposedly most prestigious music award, aka the Grammys. So, since they know they can’t get rid of ARMY, can’t discourage us from supporting BTS, they go for their image and reputation instead. And that’s what this article tried to achieve. Show that, wow, in the end all the “dark side of K-Pop” stories were true all along because even poor, poor BTS are puppets of their evil agency after all, are forced into things, and are used to manipulate their gullible teenage fans into throwing money at them and manipulating the charts.

How come we’re the only ones who see just how f*cked up all of this is? And the few journalists who are on our side?

Lastly, can we talk about just how weird the use of and the quotes themselves from the members were? Most felt not only out of place, out of context, but also so weirdly out of character some ARMY have started to question how much of their “quoted words” are actually theirs and how much might be, essentially, fabricated/twisted to fit the desired narrative the journalist had from the get go. I know a certain crowd, you know which one I mean, jumped onto what was said about the english songs but also especially the final quote from Seokjin at the end of the article that essentially boiled down to “we were so annoyed and overworked we said screw everything, especially our agency, and now we only trust each other” or something to that effect. Am I the only one who thinks that quote sounded nothing like something Seokjin would say? Yes, he’s said cheeky things in the past, he’s also said bold things, like his entire speech against sajaegi back in 2019, but each time he was polite and stuck to his manners while doing so, yet this? I don’t know, something about it just feels very off. Or JKs quote about how he sacrificed more than just his youth to be who he is now. While we know that is true, after all he became a trainee at a very young age and spent the better part of his teenage years as idol on stage, but has he ever spoken about that negatively? In such a manner?

Someone suggested that interviewers should publish transcripts of the original Korean answers and questions that BTS were asked in order to offer some transparency and also for us to know that what they are quoted saying are actually things they did say. I know that’s very unlikely to ever happen, just wishful thinking on my/our part, especially when a hit piece article is attached to it, but in moments like this, it really would be very helpful. For us, but also to add credibility to such articles and the context in which said quotes are used.

Now, for the ‘ARMYs’ who defended this article, to be honest, I’d very much question how much of an ARMY someone is when they can go and read this article and agree with it. How? I get that for some the things in this article played right into their manti agenda, but mantis aren’t ARMY. And the crowd who decided to, instead of blaming the journalist for the narrative he tried to push with all its negative implications, blamed HYBE/BHM instead? Are you serious? That isn’t how journalism works, or at least it shouldn’t be. HYBE/BHM can’t just go in and say “we don’t like this article, change it”, that’s not how freedom of press works, and also, do you realize how weird it is that you are blaming an Asian agency for a hit piece published by a western publication?

What was interesting though was that, as example, the online merch store Cokodive made a statement on their IG page in which they said the following:

So even they, who could’ve directly benefited from selling the magazine, decided that it wouldn’t be right because that article is a travesty. It’s a small thing in the grand scheme of things, yet it shows that it isn’t just ARMY who are being “sensitive little snowflakes who can’t take criticism” but also others outside the fandom who also see the disrespect within the article and its blatant negativity and lack objectivity.

Personally I saved the pictures but I refuse to give views directly to Billboard when it comes to the “Things you didn’t know about BTS” video as well as the behind the scenes clips of the members regardless of how beautiful they are. And I refuse to give their website and this article any more clicks than I already gave them while reading the article in the first place.

You can be critical of an artists success, you can wonder how they, specifically, managed to become as successful as they did, but what you can’t do is completely ignore shady practices of other artists while attacking those who don’t partake in any of them simply because they manage to fill stadiums and get #1s without those practices. At the end of the day, just like Forbes once said that BTS don’t need the Grammys but the Grammys need BTS, in the same way BTS don’t need Billboard and their shady articles and twts, but Billboard needs BTS for clicks and views and therefore revenue.

As longtime ARMY it also saddens me having watched Bangtan become more and more disillusioned with the US market, as well as ARMY going through the same thing. Then again, like Namjoon said in the article, it isn’t their goal to become mainstream in the US, all they want is to have a big tour and that’s it. Nothing more.

As twt says: this article should’ve just stayed in the drafts.

#BTS #answered ask #answered ask by admin 1 #Namjoon #Seokjin #bangtan sonyeondan

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misslilli · 3 years ago

Text

Felix Felicis

MSR. AU. PG-13. | tagging @today-in-fic | read on AO3

Chapter 21 - The Halloween Fair

[ DS ]

On the afternoon of the Halloween fair, I take out the costume that Miss Hannigan picked out for me from the closet. Ever since I’ve got it, I’m beyond excited to wear it. It’s a black low-cut shirt, a white, checkered suit with a blazer that ties at the waist and a flaring skirt. As I put on the blonde wig and the black beret, I turn to the mirror channeling my best inner Faye Dunaway and say to myself in a breathy, southern lilt: “My, my, don’t you just look dandy, Miss Bonnie Parker!”

My friends have been roped into manning the booths of the fair and somehow, I’ve slipped under the town people’s radars, which leaves me able to roam around the fair, albeit alone. Since I’ve known most people in this town ever since I was little, I’m never actually alone at these happenings, people tend to just pull me into their conversation as I walk by. But as luck will have it, as I’m rounding one of the booths of the fair, I find myself face to face with the one person I had secretly hoped to see.

He’s wearing a brown tweed suit with a matching waistcoat and over the white collared shirt he’s tied an emerald green tie. Perched on his head is a white fedora. ‘Shit. He’s Clyde. What the fuck?’

We stop in our tracks and stare at each other for a moment, taking in our respective costumes. He’s the first one to regain his ability to speak.

“Hey Bonnie, the laws are outside, they’re blockin’ the driveway!” His Warren Beatty impression is perfect right down to the Texan drawl. ‘God help me…’

“Gosh, I hope you’ve parked the getaway car around the corner, Clyde!” I’m putting on my best Faye Dunaway impression again as I add a wink to my statement and just continue to walk past him. My heart thumping hard against my chest betrays my cool exterior, but that’s my secret and my secret alone.

----------

[ FM ]

When we finally get to the Halloween fair that Felix has roped me into, dressed up in a costume I didn’t even pick myself. We trail the grounds together and we’re drawn to the candy apple booth. Well actually, Felix draws us to this exact booth, the little sneak, but I can’t resist his pout and pleading eyes, so we end up getting an apple each. Munching away happily, his mouth full, he asks the question I’ve been too scared to ask myself: “Hey dad, do you think Miss Scully is here too with her friends?” I hope she is, if only to see what kind of costume she has picked out for herself, but I can’t tell Felix that. Instead, I just shrug and we continue our stroll across the town square.

When we round another booth, we both stop in our tracks as we see a blonde woman appear before us , dressed in a checkered suit and a beret on her head. ‘Bonnie. She’s the freakin’ Bonnie to your Clyde. Your sidekick. No, your partner in crime. The woman you love. In the movie of course. Insert awkward cough.’.

Felix is oblivious of course, he hasn’t seen the movies and I doubt he even knows what my costume is, let alone Miss Scully’s. I scrape together the last braincells that are left in my head and a stupid movie quote is the only thing I can think of at this moment.

“Hey Bonnie, the laws are outside, they’re blockin’ the driveway!” The retort she gives me combined with her wink render me speechless until she’s well past me and Felix, mingling with the small crowd that welcomes her into their midst just a few feet away from us.

Felix does the thing I wish I could bring myself to do, staring at her retreating form in wonder and he also speaks the words that have sprung to my own mind.

“Wow!”

----------

[ DS ]

Countless conversations later and a little tipsy on the delicious apple cider they always serve at the Halloween fair, I wander along the booths when I hear a voice I haven’t heard in over a year. And could’ve gone forever not hearing again. It’s my ex-whatever Steve, talking to one of his friends.

I’m hidden pretty well in the crowd of people due to my shortness but I can still catch flashes of their conversation. When I hear my name, I stop, straining my ears.

“Dana? Oh God, no. She’s not even close to being a serious contender for a relationship.” I wince at his statement as well as the tone of his voice. “She’s just always there, you know? Like a well trained Golden Retriever, I say the word and she comes running. Such an easy lay!” When they share a laugh I can feel the flush of shame and anger crawl up my neck.

The situation he describes is exactly what I’ve spent countless hours in therapy getting over. But what he says next really drives a stake through my heart. “It’s so pathetic, but if it’s what I have to do to get laid, whatever. She’s even dirtier in bed than any hot teacher fantasy you could ever imagine and what they say about good Catholic girls is very, very accurate, if you know what I mean!”

If he weren’t the demon I have to face every time I try to get over my past, I would’ve revealed myself and give his ass a good kicking for talking about me the way he has. But not knowing how I’ll react to being face-to-face with him, I stay hidden behind a group of mummies and zombies like a fucking coward.

I’m so furious with him and myself for not being able to stand up to him. Where the hell are my friends when I need them? I haven’t seen them all evening and I could really use their company to talk some sense into me. Since they’re nowhere to be found, I head towards the bar set up in the back and slide onto a stool, ordering a shot of Tequila. ‘Fuck it! That low-life is not even worth your time of day!’

On the surface, I’m so angry I want to set this whole damn place on fire, but deep down, the past hurt resurfaces to join the hurt from his words I just heard.

By the time I’ve downed my second shot, I’ve repeated the mantra that I’m a strong woman who’s better off without men in my head about a thousand times. I see someone slide onto the stool next to me out of the corner of my eye as I order another shot of Tequila to keep the two empty glasses in front of me company.

“A third shot of Tequila is just asking for trouble, if you ask me.” I turn my head slowly towards my bar-mate to tell him exactly where to shove his smart-ass remark when I’m faced with my supposed partner in crime, the charming one with the disarmingly innocent smile on his stupid face. I’m staring him down defiantly, my eyes never leaving his while the bartender places my glass in front of me and I grab it, downing it in a swift motion, daring him in my mind to say anything else. He doesn’t comment, good for him, and orders a shot for himself, just raising his glass silently and I clink it with my empty one – I’m tipsy, not insane, chasing one shot with another.

We’re staring straight ahead during our conversation, turning our glasses over and over between our fingers.

“Which guy seems to be the problem and how many rounds of ammo do I need to take him out?,” he asks after minutes of silence. I want to lean into him for just assuming that it’s a man that has me sitting here seething, but unfortunately, he’s right. This one time.

“How many rounds you got?” He scoffs at that.

“Plenty. And I know of exactly eleven ways to get rid of a body without raising suspicion.”

“And here I was thinking the FBI frowned upon their employees giving out top-level secrets on how to hide away evidence of a crime committed.”

“I’m not going to tell you, I wouldn’t want you to be held in contempt of Congress when questioned.”

“How do you know I wouldn’t rat you out when questioned by Congress?”

“Just a hunch… Talk to me, Red. What happened tonight?” He turns towards me and I can feel his gaze dancing over the skin of my face.

“You really want to know? Well, turns out the asshole of an ex of mine decided that today might be the perfect time to make an encore appearance in my life and reminded me again why I should’ve kicked him to the curb a long time ago instead of hoping I could change him.” Looking down at the bar, I trace my finger through the condensation drops, my anger slowly dissipating and my voice growing more and more quiet. “I heard him say some pretty awful things about me tonight.”

I relax into his hand when he places it comfortingly on my back, right between my shoulder blades, and huff out a sigh. “I’m sorry.,” is the only thing he says, but doesn’t add anything else, giving me the choice if I wanted to elaborate or not.

“What I witnessed today was the way he’s always been but I just couldn’t see through the masquerade of the sweet guy, he was so kind and said all the right things and he quite literally wooed the pants off me from the get-go.”

“Love bombing.” ‘Oh yeah, I forgot, you’re a profiler. You probably already got one worked out for me, trust-issues, anxious attachment style, possibly daddy issues, in short, a hot mess. Avoid at all costs.’

“Pretty much, yeah. And I was stupid enough to believe it.” I raise my hand to call over the bartender for another round.

“You’re not stupid. It’s hard to tell the difference between genuine interest and love bombing in the beginning.” ‘Yeah, no shit Sherlock. It’s exactly why I’m sitting here torn between wanting you to make a pass at me and being absolutely terrified that you actually will.’

“How about we pass on the shots and get some water instead before calling it a night?”

“I think that’s probably a good idea, Mr. Mulder!”

“You know, after tonight, what do you say we just drop the Mister?” I nods slowly, pursing my lips.

“So just Fox?” He makes a pained face.

“No, please don’t. Just Mulder is fine.”

“Mh-hm. I guess since we’re dropping the titles, that that makes me Scully? Little odd, but alright!”

We get the check and argue back and forth about who gets to pay, him putting an end to it with a firm “Will you give it a rest, you’ll get to pick up the next check!”.

In my attempt to slide off the barstool gracefully despite three tequila shots, my heel catches onto the rail at the bottom and I stumble over the stool, knocking it over in the process. I have only his quick reflexes to thank that I don’t follow suit, his arms catching me around my waist and pulling me upright again.

He has the audacity to laugh, the bastard, and I’m beyond mortified. “Easy there, partner! Do you need a ride home? Felix is at a pajama party at his friend Suzie’s house, so I’m free to be your pumpkin carriage for tonight.” ‘NO! Yes? No. Get your hands off me. Don’t let go just yet.’

I’m so confused at the tug of war in my fuzzy head but I hate getting a cab alone and I’m in heels on top of being tipsy, I don’t want to walk home alone at night.

As we walk out, his hand finds his way to the small of my back guiding me through the crowds while making sure I don’t stumble again.

On the drive to the beach house, I manage not to fall asleep despite how tired I feel, too afraid of snoring or, God forbid, drooling onto myself. His hands find my back again guiding me up the stairs to the front door and I turn to face him at the top, even more nervous.

“Thanks for the ride, Mulder. And for listening.”

“Anytime, Scully. Good night!”

When he leans in, I start to panic that this is it and I think it shows on my face, because he only kisses my cheek, just like I did after the birthday party before getting back in the car and heading home. I can’t decide if I’m relieved or disappointed.

I can’t ignore the flutter of excitement every time his hands land anywhere on my body but what I will absolutely deny, even to myself, is the way my heart constricts in my chest when he gazes at me that way and the sense of comfort that settles over me when we’re together.

Bodily reactions I can deal with, it’s when it comes to emotions is where it gets scary.

I just don’t think my heart can survive another Steve.

#xf #the x files #xf fanfic #msr #felix felicis #🥺

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kissinginkitchens · 4 years ago

Text

You Bring Me Home—Chapter Two: Where the Heart Is

a/n: Thank you so much for all of the love you have shown to part one! I’m so glad to see that you’re enjoying YBMH so far, the story is just getting started. I hope you’ll stick around for the full thing, so without further ado, here’s chapter two! As always, my inbox is open so feel free to come chat with me when you have finished this part :) Much love, Mel <3

Pairing: Hawai'i!Harry x Original Character

Warnings: swearing, mentions of drug use

Word Count: 5.1k

read part one here

The phone screen flickers to life at the touch of Harry’s finger, flashing the exact same time that it had the last time he checked, though it feels like hours have passed since then. He sighs at the disappointing revelation and turns his phone over so that the screen meets the aged wood of the piano where it rests. In all honesty, Harry has no idea why he agreed to the interview in the first place. He had skillfully dodged the hundreds of requests for an exclusive tell-all following the untimely split of One Direction and successfully avoided the prying eyes of the general public for several months. So why had he indulged the first request from a girl he hardly knew without so much as a blink? The answer seemed a frustrating mystery to him, but to anyone else, the fluttering in his stomach when he caught a glimpse of her yellow Ford Bronco pulling up to the studio and the way he instinctively raked a hand through his hair gave the answer away.

“I know I’m late, I’m sorry!” Alani apologizes, emerging from the car with a notebook nestled under her arm and a smoothie in each hand. She closes the door with her hip before making a beeline to the studio entrance where Harry stands, his right shoulder leaning against the doorframe with the same stoic expression Alani recognizes as his signature look.

“I had to get my sister to cover for me at the café and then I got lost because Google sent me to a Napua restaurant instead of the recording studio,” she rambles in an attempted continuation of her apology. “But anyway, this is for you. A peace offering and a thank you for doing this.”

Harry gingerly takes the green smoothie from her outstretched hand and offers a curt nod in response before ushering her inside.Alani pushes her sunglasses up and settles them into her windswept waves, trailing behind Harry and taking in the space. In one corner across the room, she notices a couple of brightly colored tapestries thumbtacked to the wall with a microphone stand perched in the center, all encased behind a screen of plexiglass. The adjacent wall is lined with guitars all standing at attention and glimmering, despite the dim lighting. Harry stops at the doorway of another room with a couch and a coffee table, the floor littered with wires and pieces of crumpled paper. He motions Alani to step inside and then clears his throat, which catches the attention of two other long-haired men chatting with amused expressions on their faces.

“Sorry lads,” Harry crosses his arms with eyes glued to the floor to avoid their questioning stares. “‘Fraid I have to intrude. Can we have this room?”

One of the men grins behind a full beard, popping a peanut M&M into his mouth before standing. “Sure thing, boss man. Let’s bounce, Rowland.”

The other man, also bearded but smaller in stature with a thin, pointed nose nods silently. He continues twirling two drumsticks between his fingers and points one of them at Harry in passing. Alani offers polite smiles at the both of them, and a quiet “thank you” falls from her lips as they exit without another word. Harry closes the door behind them and gestures to the couch, which she takes as her cue to sit.

“I like the uniform,” Alani smiles, gesturing to her hair as a comment on the fact that the three men all share similar lengths and styles.

“Thanks,” is all Harry says, taking a seat across from hers and clearly dismissing her attempt at humor.

To pacify the urge to fill the uncomfortable silence, Alani sips her strawberry smoothie and steals a glance through her eyelashes at Harry who is doing the same. She clears her throat after a minute and sets the drink on the table in front of her; a notebook takes its place on her lap.

“Thank you again for doing this, I really appreciate it,” Alani offers while digging through her bag for her phone. “I’m gonna record this on voice notes, just for the sake of quoting you accurately.”

“Sure,” Harry replies, occupying his gaze with the condensation trickling from the cup onto his fading black jeans.

Dry retorts from everyone else, especially customers, have little effect on the way Alani conducts herself. But every short comment from Harry, or lack thereof, makes her feel like a bug under a microscope. She settles her phone onto the coffee table and takes a deep breath to calm the trembling that spreads from her chest into her fingers and toes.

“So first, I wanted to ask about your time in Hawai’i. Are you enjoying it so far?” Alani poses the question lightly, hoping to open him up just enough to extract the story that she’s really looking for.

“It’s nice,” Harry nods, finally meeting her expectant stare. When she doesn’t respond for a beat, he clears his throat and adds on to the statement. “Weather’s good,”

Alani musters a half-hearted smile and glances down at the questions on her page. This is going to take for-fucking-ever, she sighs.

“Is that what drew you here—vacation? Getting away?”

“Yeah, pretty much,”

The row of guitars behind the singer catches her attention suddenly and guides the next question.

“And to write or.. record?”

Harry shifts in his seat, calculating his response carefully. “Both,”

“Solo stuff?”

Alani watches as he takes a slow sip of his smoothie and crosses his legs, an action which tells her that she’s struck a dead end. Or, at the very least, a door that she hasn’t gained his trust to open yet.

“You were with One Direction for half a decade,” She recovers. “Constantly releasing new music and touring. But now you’re here, doing neither, and haven’t done so for almost a year. What is that transition like?” Alani isn’t sure if Harry will answer when she poses the question, but to her surprise he meets her gaze and nods, as if to say that he accepts the inquiry.

“It’s different than anything I’ve ever done, for sure,” he starts slowly. It’d be a lie to say that he hasn’t given the breakup and, subsequently, his future outside of the band much thought. He thinks about it every day, especially his bandmates and their supportive fans. That much he has been able to unpack privately, but the rest of it—the sudden need to escape and write new music— is still something he can’t quite put into words, so he leans into the nostalgia and hopes it’ll suffice.

“Like you said, it’s been non-stop for the past five years, so I guess it is a bit jarring to come to a sudden halt after so much momentum. Obviously, it’s nice to have the time off, but I love putting out music and touring it. I wouldn’t trade that for anything,”

Alani is grateful to have more than a couple of words of material, despite the fact that it doesn’t really answer the question or tell her anything new about the man sitting crossed legged and closed off in front of her. Looking through her notes, Alani selects another question and embarks on a new angle.

“You were really young when all of that began,” she starts, thinking about how she could never have left her family and home at just 16. Hell, she was 22 and still figuring it out. Hopefully, if all things went well with this interview and Rolling Stone, she would finally find the opportunity to do it. “Do you ever think about where you would be if you hadn’t auditioned for X-Factor?”

Harry knows that she’s playing it safe, trying to feel him out and test the buttons she can push. He also knows that he’s being difficult, much more so than usual due to his nerves. So with an unfamiliar pang in his chest, he decides to relent the tiniest bit.

“Well, I’m starting to think maybe I could’ve been a professional surfer,” he offers matter-of-factly which makes Alani flash an amused grin. Harry’s sudden humor makes the room a bit less suffocating for the both of them and she’s grateful for it.

“Surfing, huh? This I have to see.” she quips back, suddenly trying to picture him ditching the black skinny jeans for a wetsuit.

He nods with a faint smirk. “Maybe you will.”

Alani meets his gaze with a shy smile of her own and her eyes fall to his lips for a brief second. The almost imperceptible action sends another foreign jolt through Harry’s chest. She opens her mouth to resume questioning when a loud bang startles them both and causes Harry to spin in his seat, looking through the glass window of the sound booth.

“Sorry!” A man with short, blonde hair and a fading tie dye shirt laughs while lifting the tipped over drum cymbals. “Don’t mind us!”

The two men from earlier straggle in behind and poorly conceal their own fits of laughter. Harry flashes his middle finger briefly, mouthing something that Alani can’t see but knows is undoubtedly rude. She suppresses a giggle and sneaks a glance at her phone, which indicates only a few minutes worth of dialogue. When she lifts her head, the door opens and the blonde man peeks his head in.

“Hello,” he greets with an extended hand before entering and taking a seat next to Alani on the couch. “Tom Hull, or Kid Harpoon...or just Tom, whatever you like best,”

She accepts his hand eagerly, not missing the way Harry pinches the bridge of his nose in her peripheral vision. “Mahealani Hale, or just Alani. Nice to meet you,”

“Wow, beautiful name,” Tom compliments. “Sorry to interrupt, I didn’t realize you had company, H,”

“She was just—”

“I’m writing about-” The two speak at the same time, making brief eye contact before Harry turns his attention back to Tom.

“Did you need something?” He asks. Tom’s eyes dart between Harry and Alani before he clears his throat and reclines in his seat.

“Just dropping by to see if you wanted to go for lunch...” he trails off, which Alani takes as a cue to start gathering her belongings.

“Kind of busy here,” Harry offers with a glance back at the girl seated awkwardly across from him. “Another time,”

At this, Tom turns to Alani and ignores his friend’s protests. “Alani, do you eat lunch?”

Before responding, she casts an apprehensive glimpse at Harry who has suddenly become very intrigued by the drink in his lap, purposefully avoiding her eyes.

“Uh.. well yeah, but I don’t-”

“Great! Have lunch with us,”

“Mate—” Harry speaks up.

Tom grins, shrugging. “What? You plan on starving the poor girl?”

“I really can’t, but thank you for the offer,” Alani explains with a sheepish smile, standing and slinging her bag over her shoulder. “It was really nice to meet you Tom. And thank you again, Harry, I’ll see you around.”

The musician watches her shuffle out of the sound booth quietly and turns his attention back at Tom, who sits with an incredulous look on his face.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” He asks, standing. “Go after her, dickhead!”

“It’s not like that she’s-”

“I really don’t give a fuck about your excuses, go!”

Harry scoffs and rolls his eyes, looking out the window as Alani slips through the front door.

She fishes her keys out of her bag and sighs when a familiar voice says her name.

“Alani!” Harry calls from the doorway, shielding his eyes from the afternoon sun. He makes his way down the steps and over to the driver’s side where she ghosts the key over the ignition.

“Come have lunch...please?”

“It’s okay,” she purses her lips together politely. “I don’t wanna get in the way,”

Harry catches his lower lip between his teeth and runs a hand through his hair, choosing his next words thoughtfully.

“No, you’re not—you won’t,” he starts. “I would really like it if you joined us for lunch, especially since our time got interrupted. Please, let me make it up to you.”

Alani can’t help the way her stomach flips at the words “our time” that fall from his lips and she finds herself nodding in agreement before her mind has had a chance to intervene.

She makes her way to the passenger seat of the Range Rover parked behind the studio, which she learns is where all of Harry’s entourage keeps their vehicles. A variety of brightly colored vintage cars are neatly parked, and it amuses her that Harry skips all of them, instead going straight for the black SUV with darkly tinted windows. At least he’s consistent, she smirks. As Alani climbs into the car, she is met by the warmth of Harry’s scent—something woodsy and vanilla— and the fact that she recognizes it makes her heart pound.

“You can connect your phone,” Harry nods to the stereo as he buckles his seatbelt. “To the Bluetooth, I mean, if you’d like.”

“Really?” she asks, brow raised in mild disbelief.

“Only if you play something good,” he teases with a stony expression, adjusting the sunglasses on the bridge of his nose. Alani takes that as a challenge, scrolling through various playlists as Harry peels away onto the main road. Over the speakers, the beginning of “Don’t Worry Baby” by The Beach Boys surrounds the two of them.

“Is this to your liking, my liege?” Alani poses in an exaggerated British accent that makes Harry cringe, though the small grin on his face gives away his endearment.

“Yes, but please don’t do that accent ever again,”

“So you admit it, you’re the one with the accent,” she wiggles her brows, eyes peeling away from the view out her window to Harry in the driver’s seat.

“If it’ll get you to never do that one again, sure,” “Dunno, love,” she continues, watching the coast shimmer under the afternoon sun. “Think it kinda suits me,”

Harry shakes his head and checks the rearview mirror to make sure that he hasn’t lost Tom, Mitch, and Jeff in the car trailing behind.

“What’s it like?” Alani questions, studying the perfect slope of his pointed nose and strawberry pout.

“What’s what like?”

“England,”

Harry thinks for a second, recalling his London flat, lunches with his mum and sister, the streets of Trafalgar Square, and Abbey Road.

“Rainy,” is all he says.

Alani scoffs, which draws his attention over to where she lounges in his passenger seat, sitting comfortably as if it was exactly where she belonged. “That’s all?”

“What?” He questions, though he knows exactly what she means and is perfectly aware of his own stubbornness.

“Just seems like... I don’t know, such a generic description for a place you consider home,”

Harry mulls her response over, the word “home” especially catching his interest. It’s a strange concept in his mind because while, yes, England is where he has spent the majority of his life and where the people he loves most reside, he has never truly felt connected to just one place. And after spending his formative years traveling the world, who could blame him?

“It’s... safe,” he tries again, attempting to verbalize what he’s feeling. “When I’m there, I mean, I feel safe. Like I don’t have to be anyone or do anything specific, I can just... be. No expectations,”

Alani lets Harry’s words sit between them for a moment, sensing that there is still more he wants to say. When she doesn’t respond after a minute, he continues in an effort to clarify and fill the lull in the conversation.

“I used to think that London was just a starting point and that if I could make it to LA, it would mean that I had really made it, and I would feel more at home there,” he continues, slow and calculated. “But I dunno... when I’m there it still feels like an extended holiday, like I’m just buying time until I leave for the next place. London doesn’t feel like that, feels much more constant... so yeah, I guess it is home,”

As if she had read his mind earlier, Alani adds on. “Not to mention that’s where your family is, I’m assuming,”

Harry nods, once again thinking of his mum and sister. The image of their beaming faces brings the shadow of a dimple to his cheek. “Yeah,”

“What’s your family like?” She continues, truly interested and forgetting for a moment about the article she still has to write.

“Kind of small, I guess. S’really just my sister and my mum, but they’re,” Harry pauses, searching for the right words, “They’re the best. My mum’s probably the kindest woman I’ve ever met. Feel pretty lucky with that one, considering what a pest I was as a child,” he chuckles lightly and it’s a sound that Alani hadn’t heard up to this point, but one she knows she’ll replay in her mind over and over again.

“Gem’s pretty patient too—and brilliant, always the studious one,” he adds finally, a dreamy look on his face that Alani much prefers to the stoic one he always dons. .

“Ah yes, there’s always one,” she nods, catching the quirked brow he offers in response.

“Oh yeah? Are you the one in your family?”

“I guess so. School just seemed to come easily to me,”

“And what made you want to study journalism?” He questions, stopping to let a woman and her toddler cross.

Alani thinks about it for a moment while twirling a strand of fabric from the hem of her ripped shorts around her finger.

“I’ve always loved to write, ever since I was really little— like short stories and stuff. And I don’t know, I guess I like the idea of traveling and seeking out a story, too.”

Harry nods understandingly, pulling up to a curb across the street from a restaurant that Alani has frequented. It’s relatively empty at Pineapples for a summer afternoon, though most tourists don’t stray too far from the beaches, so Hilo maintains a healthy local population at all times. The pair climb out of the car and Alani makes her way to the rear where the rest of the group has parked. One of the men from earlier greets her with an outstretched hand while Harry chats with the other two that emerge.

“Hi I’m Jeff, it’s nice to meet you.” He smiles warmly, pushing his sunglasses into his hair.

“Alani. It’s nice to meet you, Jeff,”

“Sorry about earlier. I didn’t mean to be rude by not saying hi it’s just-”

Alani dismisses his concern with a wave of her hand. “Oh don’t worry about it! I was kind of nervous then, too. I don’t know if he told you, but I’m interviewing Harry,”

“Oh, right! Yeah, he did mention that I think,” Jeff recalls, “Which magazine are you with?”

“None.” Yet, Alani thinks, her mind wandering to the Rolling Stone rejection letter. “It’s for a class, I’m a journalism major. Harry was just being nice and agreed to let me write about his music,”

Jeff nods. “Got it. You know, he’s not normally this serious. Just got a lot on his mind but he’ll loosen up,” he explains quietly just as Alani and Harry’s eyes meet. She quickly averts her gaze back to the kind, bearded man standing before her.

“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.” she smiles appreciatively.

“Where’s Jeffrey?” Harry speaks up, catching her attention. She looks back to Jeff, confused, before he shakes his head.

“Other Jeff, his manager.” He explains.

“Probably already inside, he said he’d meet us here.” Mitch pipes up.

With that, the rest of the crew head into the restaurant while Alani stays a few steps behind to follow their lead.

“Y’okay?” Harry asks, shuffling along beside her.

Alani startles slightly at his unexpected presence, but relaxes as their strides fall into sync.

“Yeah, thanks. And thank you for the invite, too.” She offers, the corners of her mouth upturned softly. Harry responds with a tight-lipped smile of his own and clears his throat before holding the door open for her.

In the far corner of the restaurant near the open balcony, Harry’s manager Jeff waves the group over to the table he saved. Everyone exchanges greetings and settles into their seats, the two at the end facing each other remain open for Alani and Harry.

“Jeff, this is..Mahealani, did I get that right?” Tom gestures to Alani for approval.

She nods and waves. “Yes, but you can just call me Alani,”

“Nice to meet you,” Jeff calls from the other end of the table, glancing over to Harry in search of an explanation for her presence.

“I’m writing a piece about Harry and his music,” Alani offers. “But I’d love to talk to all of you, if you have a chance.”

Jeff nods, still shooting Harry a knowing look. “Yeah, sure thing.”

The two Jeffs, Tom, and Mitch engage in their own conversations, mostly inside jokes that go over Alani’s head. Harry watches, silent for most of the interaction and barely engaging the girl seated across from him, though he is overwhelmingly aware of her presence. When the server comes to take their order, warmth floods to Alani’s cheeks.

“Alani, hey!” the tall server greets, flashing a handsome, pearly-white smile. “Long time, no see. You’re looking good as always,”

“Mahalo, David. You look good, as well,” She smiles politely, catching onto the way that Harry sits a little straighter in her peripheral vision. David still pays no regard to the rest of the table, but his gaze momentarily flickers over Harry and sizes him up before returning to Alani.

“Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t realize you were on a date,” he apologizes, which makes Alani’s eyes bulge and Mitch snicker beside her.

“Oh no, we’re not—“

“He’s just—” Alani and Harry speak at the same time, eyes darting to one another before she explains.

“I’m... working on something—an article,” she says, and David nods understandingly.

“Oh...right. Big-shot reporter, I almost forgot,” David teases in a snide way that makes Harry’s blood boil with annoyance. “Anyways, what can I get you all? The usual for you, right Alani?”

She nods curtly while the rest of the group take turns ordering. After the server has gone, Harry notices a shift in her easy-going demeanor and decides that it’s his turn to break the ice.

“Come here often then?” He poses gently, taking a sip of his lemonade.

Her lips press into a tight line as her eyes wander to the other patrons. “Yeah, kinda,”

“Asshole ex-boyfriend ruined that, I’m guessing?”

Alani lets out an amused breath and shakes her head.

“He’s not my ex. I mean we went out, like, once in high school... and maybe a handful of times in college but that’s it, really,”

Harry studies the uneasiness in her expression trying, and failing, to understand what she’s holding back.

“Seems like you dodged a bullet,” he confides, leaning in. Alani’s eyes meet his and her pursed lips ease into a small grin, which Harry mirrors with a simper of his own. As he rests his smooth chin in his palm, she notices a large, healing scab along the underside of his forearm, and her brows furrow.

“How’d that happen?” Alani asks.

“He jumped out a window,” Mitch intervenes. “Though to be fair, he was high,”

Harry shoots a deathly glare at Mitch and turns back to Alani. “It was a one-time thing.”

“It was shrooms,” Mitch replies with an amused smirk.

“Hardcore,” Alani giggles lightly.

Mitch swirls the straw in his mimosa with his index finger while extending a pinky at Alani. “You do drugs?”

She shrugs, taking a sip of her Mai Tai. “Smoked weed a few times, though not enough to consider myself a pothead, I guess,”

Mitch snorts and steals a glance at Harry. “Pot makes our boy sleepy, and hungry. Alcohol makes him giggly. Shrooms get him buzzed just right,”

Harry’s cheeks flush and he averts his gaze past Alani where families and visitors roam the streets outside.

“Jumping out a window’s ‘just right’? I’d hate to see what going overboard looks like.” she teases, watching the blush of embarrassment creep across the bridge of Harry’s nose and cheeks.

“Keeps things interesting.” Mitch shrugs, turning back to Jeff to join his previous conversation.

Alani feels a strange sense of endearment wash over her at the thought of a giggly Harry, dimples replacing a deeply furrowed brow. In the short time she’d known and served him at the café, she’d only ever seen him reserved—polite, at best. Alani had hoped that interviewing Harry would provide some insight into his mysterious background, but she didn’t imagine that she would want to know more than what could be penned in her article. In the few minutes spent mingling with him and his friends, she began to think that maybe there was something worth getting to know, not just professionally, but before she can give it a second thought, David returns with their food.

“Thanks, Derek.” Harry says, flashing a facetious grin at David who stands confused for a second before sauntering back to the kitchen. Alani laughs, quickly clasping a hand over her mouth, and Harry’s stomach flips at the sound. He immediately wishes he knew what else he could do to hear it again.

Alani scrapes the last bits of potato off her plate and leans back in her seat, patting her growing food baby.

“I’m thinking of naming mine Oliver, you?” She sighs contentedly.

“Anne, after my mum,” he quips back, pulling out his wallet.

Alani reaches into her bag for her own, but Harry shakes his head and speaks up. “Don’t worry about it, ‘s on me,”

“Oh, no Harry you really don’t have to—”

“I don’t mind,” he shrugs, slipping his card onto the small clipboard attached to their receipts.

“Thank you,” Alani smiles, feeling warmth spread through her limbs, but she assumes that it’s mostly due to the rum in her system.

Harry pushes a lock of hair behind his ear and returns the wallet to his back pocket without another word. While there is no alcohol coursing through his blood, he refuses to believe that the burning in his cheeks has anything to do with the girl seated before him.

Alani climbs back into the passenger’s seat of the SUV while Harry settles behind the wheel. He braces his right hand behind the headrest of her seat and skillfully reverses, only becoming aware of their proximity when he turns back to switch gears. Alani peels her eyes from his and focuses on finding a playlist for their journey back to the studio, her mind racing as she clicks shuffle. Harry’s arm retreats, much to Alani’s disappointment, and his ears perk up when he hears the familiar chimes at the beginning of Fleetwood Mac’s “Everywhere”.

“‘S a good one,” Harry breaks the silence, tapping on the steering wheel. “Christine always says it’s her favorite,”

“Christine...McVie?” Alani questions with an eyebrow quirked. “You know Christine McVie?”

“Kind of,” he shrugs, the corners of his lips twitching into a smirk.

“Do you know Stevie Nicks?”

“Yeah. She lives in London,”

“Holy shit!” Alani marvels, covering her mouth in excitement.

Harry chuckles lightly, stealing a glance over at Alani still processing the news. “Big fan?”

She whips her head away from the window and scoffs. “Massive. Named my car Stevie, actually,”

“Hardcore,” Harry teases, echoing her own comment about his psychedelic escapades.

“Yes, Mr. Spider-Man. In my own right, I suppose it is hardcore,” Alani retorts.

“I thought Spider-Man climbed buildings. Don’t think he jumped out of them.”

“I’m sure he’s done his fair share of both.”

The two drive down the coast for a while without a word, Harry drumming against the steering wheel as the song dies out while Alani soaks in the view outside her window. Suddenly, she reaches over and taps him on the arm, drawing him out of his reverie.

“Turn right up there!”

“Why?” Harry asks, already putting his blinker on.

Alani doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t need to. Harry saw it just seconds after turning into the lookout and it left him breathless. The car comes to a stop and Alani wastes no time unbuckling her seatbelt and stepping into the humid air, Harry close behind. Before them, the biggest rainbow either of them had ever seen shimmers in the high afternoon sun like a wall of unbelievable vibrant hues. Harry had never seen one this close, he felt as though he could reach out and feel each color slip through his fingers.

“Are you making a wish?” Alani asks reverently, as if raising her voice too loud will spook it away.

“I thought that was for shooting stars,”

“We’re literally staring face to face with a rainbow and you’re gonna argue with me about the logistics of a wish?”

“Okay, okay,” he relents, grinning to himself as his eyes flutter close.

Harry takes a deep breath and searches his brain for something, anything, but there is only one word pounding in his mind. He doesn’t know why it stood out to him when Alani first said it, but it struck a chord within him that hasn’t stopped reverberating, so it must mean something. Harry swallows the lump forming at the back of his throat and releases the breath he didn’t realize he had been holding. When his eyes flutter open again, he steals a peek through the corner of his eye at the girl beside him and then fixes his gaze back on the rainbow.

“S’quite big, innit?” He remarks, breaking the reverent silence.

Alani snorts and shakes her head, turning on her heel back to the car.

“You’re so eloquent. Can’t wait to hear what lyrical gems are hiding in your new album,”

“Heyyy,” Harry pouts, climbing behind the wheel. “Who said anything about an album?”

As they peel away from the lookout, Harry can sense something has shifted in the atmosphere, though he can’t quite put his finger on it. He opts to ignore it and poses a lighthearted question instead.

“What’d you wish for?”

Alani narrows her eyes playfully. “You’re not supposed to tell. It won’t come true.”

Harry hums, trying to imagine what she could possibly wish for that would require such secrecy, but his thoughts wander back to the singular word that has haunted his mind since it left her lips.

Home.

Next Chapter

#harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fluff #harry styles x oc #harry styles writing #harry fic #ybmh

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magicforjournals · 4 years ago

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The Green Dress (A Story About Loki) Chapter 3 : What a mess

Warning : Not really any. In the next chapters, we'll have more Loki and reader interactions.

Three days had gone by since Maria’s birthday party… since you shared a passionate moment with Loki in a dark hallway. It was all you could think about throughout your weekend, at the grocery store, grading history tests, having dinner and drinks with Nat - you just could not stop thinking about him. You also were not certain if you should tell Natasha about the kiss, knowing how she viewed him. Quite honestly, you were unsure about your feelings regarding that night, or him. All you knew was that every night since, you couldn’t help but touch yourself as you thought about his lips on yours, his tongue wrestling in your mouth, his hands gripping your waist tightly. You could still hear his voice, moaning and whispering your name. And to think that this God had shifted your entire world that night with a single look. How could that be? You had been in relationships before, had been attracted to other men before, but none of them had ever completely and utterly fucked up your universe as this man had. You needed to see Loki again, not only because you desperately craved his touch, but you undeniably had to figure out what your next move was going to be, and how he felt about you. Oh, what a mess you had gotten yourself into.

It was snowing when you walked outside that night, after a long day at work. Not that the phenomenon was uncommon for April, but you didn’t especially like the cold and desperately wished for summer to come. You were surprised to notice that it was already dusk out, how long had you been working tonight? You started to make your way towards your car, when you noticed a tall figure, leaning against the front of it. Steve.

“What are you doing here Rogers?” You sigh, as you approach him.

“Natasha said I’d find you here. Why do you work so late on Mondays?” He asks.

You knew that you did work late on Mondays, always wanting to get all your prep done for the week, early on, and that meant staying late. You didn’t know, however, that it had become a habit of yours, and certainly not something you thought your friends would’ve noticed.

“I just have a lot of work to do I guess,” You shrug, putting your bags in the trunk of the car, and walking to the driver’s door. “You didn’t answer my question though, what are you doing here Steve?”

“I wanted to talk to you,” Steve says, standing in front of you.

“All ears,” you groan. You hated how he was tiptoeing around the subject.

“I changed my mind.” He announces bluntly. “I want you.” HE WHAT?!, you think, your body reacting to the shock.

“Y-you what?” You manage to stutter out.

“I want you, I want to be with you.” He repeats, holding your hands. You gasp and yank your hands away. “I know it’s a little late, but I can’t stop thinking about you. When I saw you Thursday night, it only made everything that much clearer for me. I want you to be mine, only mine.” He adds, getting closer to you, pinning you against your car.

You can’t breathe. This is all so sudden. In the past, you would’ve given anything to hear Steve utter those words to you, but now, with everything that had happened between the two of you, was it too late? Where was all this two years ago?

“Steve, why are you doing this now?” You whisper, thinking back to all the innocent flirting he had done with you before Natasha had intervened. “I thought you didn’t want any kind of commitment.”

“I know, I know.” He sighs. “I’m sorry, really. I was wrong. And when I saw you at the party, exchanging looks with Loki, the way he looked at you… it drove me absolutely mad.” He growls. “I can’t bear thinking of another man having their hands on you. I want you,” he says again before lifting your chin up and kissing you aggressively.

OH HELL NO. In what world does he think he has the right to do this? To just take what he wants? No. You put a firm hand on his chest and push him away, rage bubbling up.

“No Steve. You can’t do this.” You almost scream. “You can’t just come waltzing in my life after shooting me down and expect me to let you have me?! No. You just can’t do that. I don’t care what the excuse is, that you’re jealous because Loki and I LOOKED at each other or not. I look at a lot of people every day, you know? It’s unacceptable for you to think of me as something to own.” You’re absolutely furious now. All you want to do is get as far away from him as humanly possible before you punch him in the face, and you know you’ll break your hand if you tried. “I have to go.” You spit out as you open your car door.

“Wait,” Steve says, grabbing your hand again. “I made a mistake last time. I don’t want to let you go again.”

“You already did it once, shouldn’t be too hard.” You hiss at him, and get in your car, slamming the door in his face. Your blood is boiling as you pull out of the school’s parking lot, dialing Nat’s number.

“Hi, what’s up?” She asks, picking up almost immediately.

“He kissed me,” you say through your teeth.

“Holy shit!” Nat screams.

“Not now Nat, I’m absolutely fucking pissed. Where are you, I need a drink.” You say, hoping she’s at the compound.

“Home, I’ll get the wine out of the fridge.” She answers.

“Be there in 5,” you add before hanging up and speeding to her place.

You pull up to the gate, notifying F.R.I.D.A.Y you were here to visit Natasha. As you park your car, you take a moment to try and calm yourself down, quite unsuccessfully. You decide to get out anyways, grabbing your purse and making your way to Nat’s apartment. You don’t even waste time knocking, you just burst through the door, dropping your things in the entrance and making your way to the couch where you collapse, whining into a pillow you cover your face with. You feel Nat tap you on the foot for you to make some room on the couch, and you bring your legs up before setting them back in her lap once she sits down.

“Loki kissed me,” you announce, your voice muffled by the pillow still on your face.

In a fraction of a second, the glasses are on the coffee table, the pillow is gone and you’re being sat up on the couch.

“What?!” Natasha cries out.

“Loki kissed me at Maria’s party.” You repeat. “And well... I kissed him back.”

“Y-you… Loki… Ok, hold on” She says, trying to make sense of what you just told her. “How did this happen? You should’ve stayed away from him like I told you to. Did he force you? No, you said you kissed him back. How was it? Wait, it’s Loki!! ” She adds, all in one breath.

You’re blushing, you know it. You were never embarrassed to tell Nat these kinds of things, but for some reason, you were as embarrassed as a student that got caught cheating on a test.

“It happened by the washrooms, I was getting out, he was going in. We started talking, he asked if he could be honest with me, I said yes. He told me he couldn’t stop looking at me, that he liked how I looked in my dress. He asked if I was afraid of him, I told him I wasn’t, that I felt like he was probably cast aside as a child and was acting up now, and then he kissed me. And I kissed him back.” You’re talking so fast, giving Nat a rundown of those 10 minutes with Loki that you have yet to forget.

“Wow.” Is all that comes out of your best friend’s mouth as she leans back on the couch, absorbing all the information you literally just threw at her.

“Are you mad at me?” You ask, after a very long moment of silence.

“Oh no, I’m not mad. I’m … shocked.” Nat answers. “I didn’t expect that. You made out with a God! Oh my God, you made out with Loki!” She starts giggling.

You start laughing with her, grabbing your glass of wine and sipping on it. As you laugh together and get over the shock of the confession, she asks you for all the details of the kiss. As you’re rambling on about that night, she stops you suddenly.

“Wait, Steve kissed you tonight. What happened with that? How are you feeling?”

“He came to see me at school, I guess you told him I was there. He said, and I quote, ‘I want you. I can’t bear thinking of another man having their hands on you’. And then he kissed me. It was really rough, I pushed him away and yelled at him.” You reply, feeling the anger rise again.

“I can’t believe that! I see why you were pissed. You almost threw yourself at him two years ago and now he what… wants to claim you or something? What the hell is wrong with Rogers?” She exclaims. “I know I said I wanted you and Steve to date, but he can’t turn you down and expect you to wait around until he’s ready to date. That’s just insane!”

“Tell me about it. I don’t want to see him for a while,” you tell her.

“Understandable. I’ll try to keep you two apart the best I can. You hungry?” She asks as she grabs her phone.

You guys end up ordering dinner and talking about Loki and Steve for a while longer. She agrees that you are clearly infatuated with Loki and need to make sense of the situation. Although she might not revel in the fact it was Loki, she trusts you to be safe and smart, Natasha knows you wouldn’t do anything stupid. She also understands that sometimes, following your heart is what is best.

You get home a while later, having been dropped off by Maria who had been working late at the office. Nat promised you that your car and teaching material would be in the parking lot at school before you even got there. As you’re getting ready for your shower, your phone pings on the bathroom counter. Probably Nat just double-checking you got home safe. With half your body already in the shower, you grab your phone to check and your mouth falls open.

An email. How ridiculous was that? Did you really just send her an email? Loki can’t stop beating himself up, debating whether jumping off the Bifröst is a good option. You were the only thing on his mind lately, and he wanted to see you again. He didn’t know how to reach out to you. Thanks to Thor, he had learned which school you worked at and he had gotten your contact information. There were so many ways for him to talk to you, but he was afraid. Afraid of rejection. Never before, in his many years, had he been so taken by a mortal. He spent two days after meeting you - kissing you - trying to get you out of his head. He drank, lashed out, picked a fight in a bar too, everything he could think of to stop thinking about you. But the taste of your lips, your smell, the way you moaned under his touch, as soon as he was alone, all those memories came rushing back to him. He had to see you again.

He knew it was late, and that there was a very high probability you were already in bed, seeing as it was a school day, but he typed up an email regardless. After spending over 3 hours debating whether to email, text or call you, Loki settled on an email, thinking it would be more appropriate to reach out that way. He had been overthinking everything way too much, you drove him absolutely insane.

Good evening, I hope you are doing well, my darling. I, on the other hand, have been suffering. I must admit that I can not stop thinking about you. You are the only thing on my mind during my every waking moment, and at night, when I close my eyes, I can still feel you in my arms. I know this all may seem very forward of me, and I do apologize. Nonetheless, I need to see you again. Would you do me the honor of sharing dinner tomorrow night? Lovingly yours, Loki

#loki x reader #loki laufeyson #loki fanfic #loki (marvel)#green dress #green dress a story about loki #marvel #mcu #natahsa romanoff #steve rogers #thor #tom hiddleston #reader insert #marvel fanfic series

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stranger-who-writes-fiction · 3 years ago

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Back at it again with my self-indulgent comic posts. This time! It’s Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow #3, perhaps the most tonally-distinct entry yet, with shades of The Twilight Zone.

Spoilers!

So, as mentioned, this issue is the most deliberate in terms of both its pacing and its tone, IMO.

What is that tone, you ask?

To quote Alex Danvers, from “Midvale”: Hello, darkness.

THE STORY:

Kara and Ruthye are still looking for Krem Clues in the alien town of Maypole.

(Which is actually just Small Town, USA, complete with vintage 50s aesthetics.)

But the locals are clearly hiding something! So Kara and Ruthye continue to investigate, and they eventually discover what it was that the residents of Maypole were so keen to keep hidden.

Genocide, basically.

As I said, this issue struck me as very Twilight Zone; a genre story involving the build-up to a dark twist, all set against the backdrop of an idyllic small town. (Think, like, “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street” but instead of focusing on the Red Scare, it’s classism and racism.)

The wealthier blue aliens kicked all of the purple aliens out of town, and when space pirates showed up to pillage and plunder, the blue aliens made a deal with them: the lives of the purple aliens in exchange for their safety.

Which is where the episodic story connects to the larger mission; it was Krem who suggested the trade, and then joined up with the Brigands (space pirates) when he was freed by the blue aliens.

The issue ends with no tidy resolution to the terrible things Kara and Ruthye discovered, but they do have a lead on where to find Krem, now, as well as Barbond’s Brigands.

KARA-CTERIZATION:

Ironically, it’s here, in the darkest chapter yet, that we get the closest to what might be considered ‘classic’ Kara.

Which I think comes down to that aforementioned deliberate pace--this issue is a little slower, a little quieter. It gives the characters some room to breathe.

That’s not to say Crusty Kara is gone. Oh no. She is still very much Crusty. XD

But anyways. A list! Of Kara moments I loved!

I mentioned a few of these in a prior post when the preview pages came out: I like the moment where Kara blows down the guy’s house of cards, and I like that the action is echoed later in the issue when she grabs the mayor’s desk and tosses it aside. A nice visual representation of the escalation of Kara being, like. Done with these creeps. (Creeps is an understatement but you get the idea.)

Another one from the preview pages: Kara explains to Ruthye that her super hearing won’t necessarily help her detect a lie, especially if she’s dealing with an alien species she’s not familiar with.

It not only reveals her level of competence and understanding of her super powers, it also shows that, you know. She’s a thinker. She’s smart.

Amazing! Showing, rather than telling us, that Kara is smart! Without mentioning the science guild at all wow hey wow.

(Sorry, pointed criticism of the SG show fandom.)

Anyways.

I dig the PJs!

And Kara catching the bullet! Not only are the poses and character acting great, it’s also a neat bit of panel composition:

We start with Ruthye’s POV, and then move to the wide shot of the room. The panel where Kara actually catches the bullet is down and to the side of the wide shot panel--we move our eyes the way her body/arm would have to move to intercept the bullet. Physicality in static, 2D images!

Also, like. It’s a very tense moment, life-or-death, but. Ruthye’s wide-eyed surprise at the bullet in Kara’s hand? Kind of adorable.

I was pretty much prepared for the page of Kara shielding Ruthye from the gunfire to be the highlight--it was one of the first pages King shared and I was like, ‘yeah, YEAH.’ But, shockingly? The TRUE highlight of the issue?

Where do I BEGIN?!?!

EVERYTHING. About this moment. Is lovely.

From Kara holding Ruthye above the bench to explaining the concept of a piggyback ride, to telling her:

“I’m going to hold my hands here, and these hands can turn coal into diamonds, so they’re not going to let go. I’m going to keep you safe.”

HNNNNNNNNNNNG.

Ruthye’s narration--about how Kara had avoided flying as she was concerned it would freak Ruthye out--just adds a whole additional layer of YES, GOOD, YES, and her line on that splash page is great: “You see, all that time, she was worried about me.”

HNNNNNNNNNNNG. AGAIN.

To say nothing of the STELLAR ARTWORK.

And SPEAKING of that stellar artwork, Evely and Lopes continue to knock it out of the park. Each issue is distinct and beautifully crafted, a true joy to look at.

Before I jump into more of the art, a few final notes of character stuff in general.

Ruthye is the one most affected by the experience in Maypole, as she can’t comprehend how a society of people that look so nice and gentle and peaceful could have been party to such a horrible act.

One of the big criticisms of the book thus far is that Supergirl is not the main character, and I guess I can agree with that observation. Typically, in Western media, the main character is the one who goes through the most change in the story.

And, yeah. That’s Ruthye.

As I was reading the end, where Ruthye sits on the curb and Kara hugs her, I was imagining how the scene would’ve played, had King stuck with the original idea for the series: Kara as the one learning to be tough/experiencing all of this for the first time, and while I think that could certainly work...

I continue to appreciate that King literally flipped the script; that Kara, especially in this issue, is like, ‘I’ve seen this, I know this,’ as opposed to being the one going through a loss of innocence.

*Marge Simpson voice* I just think it’s neat!

Because Kara’s been a teen in DC comics for so long--ever since she was reintroduced to the main DCU continuity, actually--so this is all brand new territory, here. Having an older Kara who’s SEEN SOME STUFF.

(Alsoooooo, since Bendis made the destruction of Krypton not just inaction and climate disaster, but rather, genocide, and the subtext of a Kryptonian diaspora text, the waitress’ derogatory comment regarding the the destruction of Kryton, as well as Kara picking up the bad vibes the entire time, suggests not just a broad commentary on discrimination in all its forms, but specifically allegorical anti-Semitism. The purple aliens being forced out of their homes and into substandard living conditions, then the blue aliens--their neighbors and once-fellow residents--essentially allowing the space pirates to kill them, making them literal scapegoats, Kara discovering the remains of the purple aliens, and Ruthye’s horror at the ‘banality of evil’...yes. A case could be made, I think.)

(Which would probably require a post unto itself and a lot more in-depth discussion, nuance, and cited sources.)

(Should mention that King has brought up that both he and Orlando--the other Supergirl writer he talked to--are Jewish, and for him personally, that shaped his views on Kara’s origin story.)

I guess my point is that this issue is perhaps not as out-of-left-field as some might think, and just because there isn’t as obvious an arc for Kara, doesn’t mean there isn’t some sharp character work at play.

(I could be WAY OFF, of course, and I’m not suggesting it’s a clear 1:1 comparison. I’d actually really love to hear King talk about this issue in particular.)

Anyways.

Here’s the final page, which I think works, because as I mentioned before, there is no easy answer/quick wrap-up to the story of Maypole:

THE ART:

I mean. How many times can I just shout ‘ART! AAAARRRRRRRRRRRTTTT!’ before it gets old?

I dunno, but I guess we’re gonna FIND OUT.

There are some panels in this issue that I just. Like ‘em! From a purely artistic standpoint! Because they’re so good!

Like, I just really love the way Kara is drawn in that top panel. Her troubled, confused expression, the colors of the fading light, the HAIR.

Evely draws the best hair. I know I’ve said this before. I don’t care. I will continue to say it, because it continues to be true.

The issue I find myself running up against when I make these posts is that I really don’t want to post whole pages, as that’s generally frowned upon (re: pirating etc.) but with something like this, you just can’t appreciate it in panel-by-panel snippets.

(Guided View on digital reading platforms is a BANE and a POX I say!)

Anyways.

LOVE the implied movement of the cape settling as Kara speeds in and stops.

And, obviously, Kara flicking the bullet away is just. A+.

And the EYES, man. LOPES’ COLORS ON THE EYES???!?! BEAUTIFUL.

Also, should note the lettering! The more rounded letters for the ‘WOOSH’ of Kara’s speed (and, earlier, the super breath) work nicely, and contrast with the angular, violent BLAMS of the gunshots.

And, I gotta say, the editor is doing a really great job of not cluttering up the artwork with all the caption boxes. Which is no small task.

(I assume the editor is placing them, as editors usually handle word balloon/caption box placement, but I suppose it could be Evely? Sometimes the artist handles it. Either way, whoever’s taking care of all the text, EXCELLENT WORK! BRAVO!)

Okay I think that’s everything.

Ah, nope, wait.

MISC.

Just a funny observation, more than anything else: Superman: Red and Blue dropped this week, and King had a story in there, “The Special” (which was very good, btw.) Both Lois and the waitress swear a lot so I’m beginning to think that this is just how King writes dialogue for any adult character who isn’t Clark. XD

This is absolutely a personal preference but when Kara was like, “And my name IS Supergirl,” I was like nooooo. I know King is trying to simplify all of the conflicting origin stories and lore but I LIKE KARA DANVERS, SIR. XD

It’s almost assuredly a cash-grab/an attempt for DC to get all the money it can out of a book they don’t have much confidence in, but I like the cardstock covers! Very classy, much Strange Adventures.

(OH my gosh, can you imagine that issue 1 cover with spot gloss???? Basically the only way you could possibly improve on it.)

Okay NOW I’m done. For real. XD NEXT TIME: Kara and Ruthye go after Krem and the Brigands!

#supergirl: woman of tomorrow #long post #dc comics #supergirl: woman of tomorrow spoilers #kara zor el #comic thoughts #comic opinions #just occurred to me I should be crediting the creative team in these things #I think thus far I've included every title page?#still #will try to be better about that going forward

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geshertzarmeod · 4 years ago

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Favorite Books of 2020

I wanted to put together a list! I read 74 new books this year, and I keep track of that on Goodreads - feel free to add or follow me if you want to see everything! I’m going to focus on the highlights, and the books that stuck with me personally in one way or another, in approximate order. Also, all but two of them (#5 and #7 on the honorable mention list) are queer/trans in some way. Links are to Goodreads, but if you’re looking to get the books, I suggest your library, the Libby app using your library, your local bookstore, or Bookshop.

The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions by Larry Mitchell, illus. by Ned Asta (originally published 1977). I had a hard beginning of the year and was in a work environment where my queerness was just not welcomed or wanted. I read this in the middle of all of that, and it helped me so much. I took this book with me everywhere. I read it on planes. I read it on the bus, and on trains, and at shul. I showed it to friends... sometimes at shul, or professional development conferences. It healed my soul. Now I can’t find it and might get a new copy. When I reviewed it, in February, I wrote: “I think we all need this book right now, but I really needed this book right now. Wow. This book is magic, and brings back a sense of magic and beauty to my relationship with the world.” Also I bought my copy last July, in a gay bookstore on Castro St. in SF, and that in itself is just beautiful to me. (Here’s a post I made with some excerpts)

Once & Future duology, especially the sequel, Sword in the Stars, by A.R. Capetta and Cory McCarthy. Cis pansexual female King Arthur Ari Helix (she's the 42nd reincarnation and the first female one) in futuristic space with Arab ancestry (but like, from a planet where people from that area of earth migrated to because, futuristic space) works to end Future Evil Amazon.com Space Empire with her found family with a token straight cis man and token white person. Merlin is backwards-aging so he's a gay teenager with a crush and thousands of years of baggage. The book’s entire basis is found family, and it's got King Arthur in space. And the sequel hijacks the original myth and says “fuck you pop culture, it was whitewashed and straightwashed, there were queer and trans people of color and strong women there the whole time.” Which is like, my favorite thing to find in media, and a big part of why I love Xena so much. It’s like revisionist history to make it better except it’s actually probably true in ways. Anyway please read these books but also be prepared for an absolutely absurd and wild ride. Full disclosure though, I didn’t love the first book so much, it’s worth it for the sequel!

The Wicker King by K. Ancrum. This book hurt. It still hurts. But it was so good. It took me on a whole journey, and brought me to my destination just like it intended the whole time. The author’s note at the end made me cry! The sheer NEED from this book, the way the main relationship develops and shifts, and how you PERCEIVE the main relationship develops and shifts. I’m in awe of Ancrum’s writing. If you like your ships feral and needy and desperate and wanting and D/S vibes and lowkey super unhealthy but with the potential, with work, to become healthy and beautiful and right, read this book. This might be another one to check trigger warnings for though.

The Entirety of The Daevabad Trilogy by S.A. Chakraborty. I hadn’t heard of this series until this year, when a good friend recommended it to me. It filled the black hole in me left by Harry Potter. The political and mystical/fantasy world building is just *chef’s kiss* - the complexity! The morally grey, everyone’s-done-awful-things-but-some-people-are-still-trying-to-do-good tapestry! The ROMANCE oh my GOD the romance. If I’m absolutely fully invested in a heterosexual romance you know a book is good, but also this book had background (and then later less background) queer characters! And the DRAMA!!! The third book went in a direction that felt a little out of nowhere but honestly I loved the ride. I stayed up until 6am multiple times reading this series and I’d do it again.

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon. I loved this book so much that it’s the only book I reviewed on my basically abandoned attempt at a book blog. This book is haunting, horrifying, disturbing, dark, but so, so good. The character's voices were so specific and clear, the relationships so clearly affected by circumstance and yet loving in the ways they could be. This is my favorite portrayal of gender maybe ever, it’s just... I don’t even have the words but I saw a post @audible-smiles made about it that’s been rattling in my head since. And, “you gender-malcontent. You otherling,” as tender pillow talk??? Be still my heart. Be ready, though, this book has all the triggers.. it’s a .

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender. This book called me out on my perspective on love. Also, it made me cry a lot. And it has two different interesting well-written romance storylines. And a realistic coming-into-identity narrative about a Black trans demiboy. And a nuanced discussion of college plans and what one might do after college. And some big beautiful romcom moments. I wish I had it in high school. I’m so glad I have it now! (trigger warning for transphobia & outing, but the people responsible are held accountable by the end, always treated as not okay by the narrative, and the MC’s friends, and like... this is ownvoices and it’s GOOD.)

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. My Goodreads review says, “I have no idea what happened, and I loved it.” That’s not wrong, but to delve deeper, this book has an ethereal feeling that you get wrapped up in while reading. Nothing makes sense but that’s just as it should be. You’re hooked. It is so atmospheric, so meta, so fascinating. I’ve seen so many people say they interpreted this character or that part or the ending in all different ways and it all makes sense. And it’s all of this with a gay main character and romance and the central theme, the central pillar being a love of and devotion to stories. Of course I was going to love it.

Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl’s Confabulous Memoir by Kai Cheng Thom. “Because maybe what really matters isn’t whether something is true, or false. Maybe what matters is the story itself; what kinds of doors it opens, what kinds of dreams it brings.” This book was so good and paradigm shifting. It reminded me of #1 on this list in the way it turns real life experience and hard, tragic ones at that (in this case, of being a trans girl of color who leaves home and tries to make a life for herself in the city, with its violence), into a beautiful, haunting fable. Once upon a time.

I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver. I need to reread this book, as I read it during my most tranceful time of 2020 and didn’t write a review, so I forgot a lot. What I do remember is beautiful and important nonbinary representation, a really cute romance, an interesting parental and familial/sibling dynamic that was both heartbreaking and hopeful, and an on-page therapy storyline. Also Mason Deaver just left twitter but was an absolutely hilarious troll on it before leaving and I appreciate that (and they just published a Christmas novella that I have but haven’t read yet!)

The Truth Is by NoNieqa Ramos. It took a long time to trust this book but I’m so glad I did. It’s raw and real and full of grief and trauma (trigger warnings, that I remember, for grief, death (before beginning of book), and gun violence). The protagonist is flawed and gets to grow over the course of the book, and find her own place, and learn from the people around her, while they also learn to understand her and where she’s coming from. It’s got a gritty, harsh, and important portrayal of found family, messy queerness, and some breathtaking quotes. When I was 82% through this book I posted this update: “This book has addressed almost all of my initial hesitations, and managed to complicate itself beautifully.”

Anger is a Gift by Mark Oshiro. I wasn’t actually in the best mental health place to read this book when I did (didn’t quite understand what it was) but it definitely reminded me of what there is to fight against and to fight for, and broke my heart, and nudged me a bit closer to hope. The naturally diverse cast of characters was one of the best parts of this book. The romance is so sweet and tender and then so painful. This book is important and well-written but read it with caution and trigger warnings - it’s about grief and trauma and racism and police brutality, but also about love and community.

The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden. This is a sci-fi/fantasy/specfic mashup that takes place in near-future South Africa and has world-building myths with gods and demigoddesses and a trip to the world of the dead but also a genetically altered hallucinogenic drug that turns people into giant animals and a robot uprising and a political campaign and a transgender pop star and a m/m couple and all of them are connected. It’s bonkers. Like, so, so absolutely mind-breaking weird. And I loved it.

Crier’s War and Iron Heart by Nina Varela. I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVED the amount of folktales they told each other with queer romances as integral to those stories, especially in Iron Heart. A conversation between the two leads where Crier says she wants to read Ayla like a book, and Ayla says she’s not a book, and Crier explains all the different ways she wants to know Ayla, like a person, and wants to deserve to know her like a person, made me weak. It lives in my head rent-free.

Queen’s Shadow by E.K. Johnston @ekjohnston . I listened to this book on Libby and then immediately listened to it at least one more time, maybe twice, before my borrow time ran out. I love Padmé, and just always wish that female Star Wars characters got more focus and attention and this book gave me that!! And queer handmaidens! And the implication that Sabé is in love with Padmé and that’s just something that will always be true and she will always be devoted and also will make her own life anyway. And the Star Wars audiobooks being recorded the way they are with background sounds and music means it feels like watching a really long detailed beautiful Star Wars movie just about Padmé and her handmaidens.

Sissy: A Coming of Gender Story by Jacob Tobia. I needed to read this. The way Tobia talks about their experience of gender within the contexts of college, college leadership, and career, hit home. I kept trying to highlight several pages in a row on my kindle so I could go back and read them after it got returned to the library (sadly it didn’t work - it cuts off highlights after a certain number of characters). The way they talk about TOKENISM they way they talk about the responsibilities of the interviewer when an interviewee holds marginalized identities especially when no one else in the room does!!! Ahhhh!!!

Bonds of Brass by Emily Skrutskie. Disclaimer for this one that the author was rightfully criticized for writing a Black main character as a white author (and how the story ended up playing into some fucked up stuff that I can’t really unpack without spoiling). But also, the author has been working to move forward knowing she can’t change the past, has donated her proceeds, and this book is really good? It has all the fanfic tropes, so much delicious tension, a totally unexpected plot twist that had me immediately rereading the book. This book was super fun and also kind of just really really good Star Wars fanfiction.

How To Be a Normal Person by T.J. Klune. This book was so sweet, and cute, and hopeful, and both ridiculous and so real. I had some trouble getting used to Gus’ voice and internal monologue, but I got into it and then loved every bit after. The ace rep is something I’ve never seen like this before (and have barely read any ace books but still this was so fleshed out and well rounded and not just like, ‘they’re obsessed with swords not sex’ - looking at you, Once & Future - and leaving it there.) This all felt like a slice of life and I feel like I learned about people while reading it. Some of the moments are so, so funny, some are vaguely devastating. I have been personally victimized by TJ Klune for how he ends this book (a joke, you will know once you read it) but it also reminds me of the end of the “You Are There” episode of Xena and we all know what the answer to that question was.... and I choose to believe the answer here was similar.

You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson. I wish I had this book when I was in high school. I honestly have complicated feelings about prom and haven’t really been seeking out contemporary YA so I was hesitant to read this but it was so good and so well-written, and had a lot of depth to it. The movie (and Broadway show) “The Prom” wants what this book has.

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth. I never read horror books, so this was a new thing for me. I loved the feeling of this book, the way I felt fully immersed. I loved how entirely queer it was. I was interested in the characters and the relationships, even though we didn’t have a full chance to go super deep into any one person but rather saw the connections between everyone and the way the stories matched up with each other. I just wanted a bit of a more satisfying ending.

Honorable Mention: reread in 2020 but read for the first time pre-2020

Red White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. I couldn’t make this post without mentioning this book. It got me through this year. I love this book so much; I think of this book all the time. This book made me want to find love for myself. You’ve all heard about it enough but if you haven’t read this book what are you DOING.

In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan @sarahreesbrennan . I reread this one over and over too, both as text and as an audiobook. I went for walks when I had lost my earbuds and had Elliott screaming about an elf brothel loudly playing and got weird looks from someone walking their dog. I love this book so much. It’s just so fun, and so healing to read a book reminiscent of all the fantasies I read as a kid, but with a bi main character and a deconstruction of patriarchy and making fun of the genre a bit. Also, idiots to lovers is a great trope and it’s definitely in this book.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz. This book is forever so important to me. I am always drawn in by how tenderly Sáenz portrays his characters. These boys. These boys and their parents. I love them. I love them so much. This is another one where I don’t even know what to say. I have more than 30 pages in my tag for this book. I have “arda” set as a keyboard shortcut on my phone and laptop to turn into the full title. This book saved my life.

Last Night I Sang to the Monster by Benjamin Alire Sáenz. This book hurts to read - it’s a story about trauma, about working through that trauma, healing enough to be ready to hold the worst memories, healing enough to move through the pain and start to make a life. It’s about found family and love and pain and I love it. It’s cathartic. And it’s a little bit quietly queer in a beautiful way, but that’s not the focus. Look up trigger warnings (they kind of are spoilery so I won’t say them here but if you have the potential to be triggered please look them up or ask me before reading)

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine. When asked what my all time favorite book is, it’s usually this one. Gail Carson Levine has been doing live readings at 11am since the beginning of the pandemic shut down in the US, and the first book she read was Ella Enchanted. I’ve been slowly reading it to @mssarahpearl and am just so glad still that it has the ability to draw me in and calm me down and feels like home after all this time. This book is about agency. I love it.

Radio Silence by Alice Oseman @chronicintrovert . I’ve had this on my all-time-faves list since I read it a few years ago and ended up rereading it this year before sending a gift copy to a friend, so I could write little notes in it. It felt a little different reading it this time - as I get further away from being a teenager myself, the character voice this book is written in takes a little longer to get used to, but it’s so authentic and earnest and I love it. I absolutely adore this book about platonic love and found family and fandom and mental illness and abuse and ace identity and queerness and self-determination, especially around college and career choices. Ahhh. Thank you Alice Oseman!!!

Leia: Princess of Alderaan by Claudia Gray @claudiagray . I have this one on audible and reread it several times this year. I love the fleshing out of Leia’s story before the original trilogy, I love her having had a relationship before Han, and the way it would have affected her perspective. I also am intrigued by the way it analyses the choices the early rebellion had to make... I just, I love all the female focused new Star Wars content and the complexity being brought to the rebellion.

#red white and royal blue #aristotle and dante discover the secrets of the universe #osemanverse #star wars #queer books #lgbtq books #books #alice oseman #miri personal #wow this took so long but was so worth it!#long post #book recs #PS: if you've read any of these or have questions about any of these books #this is your formal invitation to talk to me about them!!!! even if i don't know you at all!#even if i don't follow you and even if you don't follow me!#my ask box is open anon is on!#original content

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nadezhda-wexler · 3 years ago

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A Moment In Time, Again and Again

Hello @xoxobuckybarnes, It is I, your Summer Fic Exchange writer for @b99fandomevents. Thank you for all your amazing prompts, but I ended up choosing “The Squad after ten years”. I really hope you enjoy it.

Also a few points:

1) The whole story is non-linear. It’s like a series of snapshots. It’s related, but chronologically the don’t really make sense

2) It is smut adjacent? Implied smut? Idk, It’s just a few lines because honestly, it’s my first time writing anything like that

3) There might be some spelling errors and grammatical error, sorry if they put a damper on your experience

4) Thank you @b99fandomevents for giving this chance

5) MOST IMPORTANTLY: I hope you enjoy it.

There were many reasons Amy thought that might bring the squad together- well, mainly one- Scully dying (the man was already decaying when she was in the precinct), but this was not it. In fact, this was the opposite of it.

She reads the sign again, still wondering if she dreamt it up. But nope. Norm Scully and Cindy Shatz were indeed getting married.

Amy walks into her old turf: Shaw’s Bar. She feels like she stepped into another universe, everything is different, but somehow, the same. It’s the place she came to right after her wedding. The stools are different and the bar more worn, but the place still feels warm like her wedding night. The back door leads right to the alley where she once tried to conceive (that was a low point) and judging by the fact the Hitchcock is standing right outside the bathroom with Scully nowhere in sight, she guesses even the bathroom smells (stinks) the same.

Her eyes sweep over the room, she can see Rosa and Gina huddles together and she already feels bad for their victim, Holt and Kevin are talking to Terry- it never stops amusing her seeing the very passionate Captain Jeffords squared against impassive Retd Captain Holt and Kevin. Charles is haranguing the caterers, when she hears a voice from behind: “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.”

They had just gotten into the airport- Jake is bringing all their luggage while she is trying to get her children to calm down. While Maya knows everyone in the squad, Mac has lived with them more. So Mac has decided to fill in the blanks. His stories are wild and absolutely untrue and Maya is hanging onto each word. She was looking to see where her husband was when Maya suddenly tugged her hand and asked in wonder “Did Daddy really catch a thief by sending Mac in undercover?” “No. Your daddy never sent Mac undercover because he isn’t a cop and he is a baby”. “Well, I am not a baby and dad did do that, he just didn’t tell you”

“What didn’t I tell your mom?”Jake joins them, luggage in tow. “That you sent me undercover to catch that thief” “Mac”, Jake says with fake indignation. “You weren’t supposed to tell that. It was our secret” Mac’s eyes has that same mischievous glint she has seen a million times on her husband’s face as he says he told her to maya and launches into his story. They’re loading their luggage into the cart when Jake’s phone buzzes. “That’s Charles and he has already called me 5 times and messaged me a lot. I stopped counting after 10”, Jake says. “Kids, your Uncle Charles is waiting. You know how he gets when you are late!”, he adds.

Mac, without any prompt, holds his sister's hands, so as to not lose her, still continuing with the stories of his feats, she’s sure, without missing a beat. Her heart swells as she watches her kids, Mac being a protective older brother and Maya holding onto his hands and words. Her husband’s hand slips into hers as he asks “You ready to go?” She couldn’t be happier.

"Captain Santiago"

"Captain Holt! Hi!" Apparently even his retirement hasn't made Santiago less flustered. He won't deny there is a part of him that enjoys the reverence. "How was your first year running a precinct, Captain?" He enjoys calling her Captain almost as much as she enjoys hearing it.

"Great! Super cool. Fantastic. Dope. No diggity no doubt" He briefly wonders if she had a stroke.

"Okay, you saw right through me. It's not been easy. Manhattan is completely different from Brooklyn. The squad is also new, they all just transferred about a month or two before me. So they don't even know each other so everyone is walking on tiptoes. And they follow everything I say, but don't really see me as a leader."

"Well, the first precinct I ran, I had a detective who only cared about closing cases, everyone in the squad thought I was a robot, my two best detectives had a bet with each other, my Sargent was chained to the desk and the office administrator was Gina and I had Hitchcock and Scully"

"You are right. I shouldn't complain. I don't have a Hitchcock and Scully"

"No. But that was not what I was trying to say. Once I got closer to all of them, I realised that the detective who did not care, cares not just care about closing cases, the bet made both detectives better, my Sargent saved my life, Gina is still Gina and that being a robot doesn't make me a worse Captain. What you need to do Santiago, is trust your squad. You have a unique opportunity to build this team. But you cannot do that without unflinching trust. So trust them. Help them and let them help you. And if you ever feel the need, please do not hesitate to contact me. I might have retired from the force, but not from being your mentor"

"Wow! Thank you so much Captain. That means the world to me." Some people might call Amy Santiago a teacher's pet in an attempt to mock her, but the truth is she is a teacher's pet because she is a brilliant student. She revels in learning and enjoys implementing her knowledge even more. She is a teacher's pet not just because she is adept at brown nosing- which she admittedly does sometimes, but because she will be the student that teachers can one day be proud of. He might tell her this if it did not make her explode and also because Amy Santiago understands him, so he just smiles.

They had barely reached the terminal before Charles pounced on Jake. Amy and the kids barely had the time to move away from being hit. Genevieve and Amy unload the luggage while the kids catch up. It takes the men one whole minute before they let go.

"Genevieve, thank you so much for taking the kids", Amy says.

"Of course Nikolaj loves hanging out with Mac and Maya. It's my pleasure to watch them."

"Still, thank you! And Jake-"

"NO!", Charles almost pushes her down trying to get between Jake and her. "You get him every other day Amy, you cannot poach him away today."

"Charles, I am not trying to poach him away. I just wanted to tell him to enjoy the night and have fun. Also you visited not three weeks ago and you guys FaceTime constantly."

"FaceTiming is not the same Amy! It has been 28 days, 14 hours aaand three minutes since I have been covered in Jake's musk"

“Ugh! Alright", Jake says. "Charles, why don't you take these two bags and load them into the cab while Amy and I bring the rest?"

"Okay.", Charles says almost defeatedly. "Don't be late."

Jake turns to her. "So what are your plans again?"

"I will go to the hotel, have a long bath after which Rosa and Gina will come pick me up for the bachelorette party after which both will crash with me because according to Gina quote if I am going to stand next to you as a bridesmaid, you need to at least be six and you need help with that unquote"

"I still can't believe Cindy asked you and Gina to be one of the bridesmaids"

"Well, we did help them get together."

"Yeah. And as this goes on, I will be with Charles hoping whatever he made is edible and missing you terribly"

"Stop being a sap Peralta. And have fun tonight"

"It’s Peralta- Santiago, FYI. And I will 100% have fun, but I'm still gonna miss you. I gotta go before Charles comes back. I love you"

"I love you too."

It was a tiring night and Amy just wants to take her makeup off and she really wants to be out of this dress for more than one reason. As much as she loves her kids- and that is a lot- she is glad that they wanted to stay at Holt's place. The kids love their Fauxpas (they are her kids, of course they know what faux pas means and more importantly, when Mac very proudly said it, both Kevin and Holt agreed that "it is a humorous wordplay"). Mac can never get enough of Holt's stories and Maya loves the Classics. She can recite Odyssey from memory. And both of them get away with things that only they (and maybe her husband) can- some stains of orange juice, mud in the house, a few broken glasses- all.of these are forgiven because it's their fauxchildren's doing (it doesn't work as well, but Holt was proud and Maya laughed and so it stuck). And after two days of wedding prep, she really needs a day without being worried about someone breaking something or constantly screaming. And even more than that with the way her husband has been looking at her all night, she really, really needs to be the one screaming.

She is halfway through taking off her makeup when Jake, sans jacket, (but with tie and damn, her husband looks fine) walks in. He puts his hand on her waist. "Babe, do you know how hot you look?"

"Oh is it the running mascara that does it for you?"

He pulls her in closer and from his look she knows that the screaming she was hoping is definitely happening. He says in a low voice into her ear, "No. It's you." It's like each word he says vibrates inside her. "You having been driving me crazy all day. You in that blue dress. You knowing exactly how amazing your butt looks in that dress. You taking control when everything was falling apart. It's you Ames who does it for me."

She turns around and pulls him by the tie and kisses him hard and he's lifting her up onto the counter, kissing every bit of her as he lowers his head between her legs. She thanks the stars that this is her life partner.

(And later she'll counting the same as Jake twists his wrist in the way that he knows will bring over the edge.)

Every time Jake sees his wife, he falls in love with her a little more. Which he wouldn't have believed possible sixteen years ago. She hasn't spotted him, so he takes her in for a minute. Every time he steps into Shaw's Bar, he remembers walking in as a newly wed couple. Sure afterwards the evening did take a turn, but until then it was perfect. Except before that when there was a bomb threat and an actual bomb and Teddy proposing like a thousand times. Wow, his wedding day was a mess. But still it was one of the happiest days of his life because even through all that, he was hitched to the most beautiful woman in the world. Who is now watching everyone waiting for him.

So he walks up to her, drinks in hand and says, “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.”

"Ooh , Casablanca", she takes a glass. "Yes. Charles and I watched it yesterday. We didn't even know what was going on half the time because Charles was crying and making noises half the time."

"Oh, just Charles?" "Okay fine I was crying a little too. Okay a lot. Fine I was the one who was crying the most. Happy?"

"Oh babe. It's cute that you think you should say that to me as if you didn't watch it for the first time with me"

"Oh yeah. Well, I tried. Oh before you ask, the kids are all at the Jeffords' house and Cagney and Lacey are keeping an eye on them. And the best part: without a babysitter's fee."

"Wow, I really missed friends' kids doing things for us for free. Remember when we babysat Cagney and Lacey for like three days straight, without even thinking of money?"

"And if we were to go by the amount our babysitters charge, we'd have enough money to buy Orangina for a whole month."

They move to the counter, perched on the barstools. "You know Captain Holt just called me Captain"

"He's been calling you a Captain for a year babe, you know, cause you've been a Captain for a year!"

"I know! Can you believe?!"

"Of course, because you are awesome and amazing"

"Oh, and he also said that he's still my mentor and that I can call him for advice any time."

"Wow, obviously today was a big day for you"

"I know" Her whole face is lit up. Her cheeks are flushed, from the drinks and the running around making things happen, from the many catching up and from the fact that her mentor called her Captain. Once again he's a little bit more in love. His eyes catch Cindy and Scully awkwardly shuffling around trying to dance. Hitchcock is trying to hide the fact that he's disappointed, but doing a pretty bad job of it. He sees Charles and Genevieve almost having sex which apparently is how they dance. The music changes to something familiar and his wife looks amazing and he wants to dance with her very much. "Amy Santiago- Peralta, may I have this dance? And don't worry, it's reinforced shoes so I won't even know if you step on me." "Ha ha Peralta- Santiago. You are my teacher, so if I'm stepping on your toes, it's your own fault"

"Wow, blaming the victim."

They are on the dance floor, her hand in his, hand on his shoulder, his on her waist. He can see every little detail on her face, the mascara running a bit, lipstick that's smudged. Her perfectly set hair, falling around the edges. She's beautiful.

"I wonder why all the greatest love stories are so tragic"

"Because that's what makes them great. The fact that their love is so powerful that it's unattainable."

"Well I think that it's stupid."

"What?"

"That the greatest love of our life is the one we don't have. It's categorically untrue. My favourite love story has a happy ending anyway"

"You mean Morticia and Gomez?"

"That's my second favourite"

"Well, what's your first?"

"Ours, of course" She smiles and that's all he ever wants to see.

Her hand is in his, the other moves to his chest. His are around her waist circling, as he pulls her closer and she rests her cheek on shoulder. He buries his nose in her hair and she nuzzles into his neck. If he'd imagined a perfect life sixteen years ago, not even in his wildest dreams he'd have thought he could feel like this.

#b99fandomevents #b99 fanfic #jake x amy #Okay #listen #it's my first time writing anything smut adjacent and so all I can hope for is that it isn't cringey #Also maybe the love story dialouge is a bit cheesy #and maybe it really doesn't mesh well #but i wanted it.#but honestly #i just hope yall enjoy this #i dont want my tags to be longer than the story #so ill stop.

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