#and i just had to get all my messy thoughts out here so ppl understand where i’m coming from

[citadelofmythoughts]

Different anon here, and not to keep talking about BS lol but over the years and seeing lots of Feelings about them, they way I’ve come to see the purpose of Sun in Blake’s story is that he was a Safe Crush.

You are Blake, recently leaving your mentor partner unhealthy relationship of four to five years. Assuming she had run around the forest during their initiation she didn’t find anyone she wanted to partner with until she saw Yang fighting. And as they grow closer, well, ID be pretty scared if I found myself developing feelings for ANOTHER partner after the last one turned out the way it did. They are different ppl yes but the brain will make connections out of anything. Last partner bad, in order to keep new partner as a normal person in my life I must stay just friends.

In comes Sun, who is a Faunus like Adam with physical features he can’t easily hide (the horns and then the tail) who is so unserious and goofy. Blake is stronger now and that’s not to say ppl who act kind also can’t manipulate you, but Sun was so shallow and surface level that he was an open book. He thought she was cute and knew she was a Faunus and that’s why he was drawn to her. Not bc she was the WF leaders daughter or bc of her semblance or use to him. Just a cute girl.

And I think she needed that. She needed normal teenage crush feelings. A goofy guy who asks her to the dance and winks at her after winning a match. Something simple and something safe.

Adam Yang and Sun do not have A Lot in common, but you can make connections that have enough similarities that show why Blake was drawn to them, why she would be nervous about them, and ultimately who her feelings ran deeper for. Because while she was having normal crush feelings for Sun, Yang as her friend and partner was getting to the root of things. Burning the Candle is iconic bc Yang opens up to Blake, compares their situations with versing about a certain thing without making it all about her or dismissing Blake’s concerns. She wants her to rest, not give up.

Where Sun, in a situation that on the surface is similar, misses the mark is bc he doesn’t give Blake space. He assumes she’s going to stop the WF and comes along in secret to help her. While his intentions are good he doesn’t understand Blake and didn’t ask her. He’s a good friend but he’s messy with it. He’s still seeing things in a shallow way. And while I do think he shows greater depth after his injury when he compares his situation to Yang’s, his purpose is to be the stand-in.

When Yang got hurt Blake left to keep her safe. She can’t run away from Sun. I know a lot of ppl don’t like him or his presence in the arc and that’s totally valid. He oversteps a lot. But for his purpose of being the Friend who wants to help who will stick up for her even if they get hurt, bc the point is to fight together, I enjoy him there for that. Some say she didn’t need him there to learn that but I think with Ilia’s arc being white gang centric and not “friend / love interest I’m afraid of hurting” focused, she would’ve needed something else to show HER that not only was she worth staying for, but getting hurt by standing beside her wasn’t a punishment.

And then we have volume 6, where Sun says his goodbyes and removes himself from Blake’s story for now. The safe crush saw the writing on the wall and even in V5 he was like “LOOK WHOS HERE”. Sun in canon has no claim over Blake and he never thought he did. He liked her yes, but at the end of the day he saw that her feelings were for Yang and he was more than fine with it.

Sun was a safe counterpart to Adam and training wheels for the V6 fight with Yang Blake and Adam. His purpose is to be the literal blueprint for “Your friends and loved ones fight with you, and would rather be hurt helping you than protected by you leaving. Which hurts much more”.

That is how I view the BS elements in the show, a crush that helps Blake get more comfortable until she stands on her own and makes that deliberate choice with Yang in V6 to face Adam head on. Just like in real life other ppl and our relationships with them shape us and help us learn about ourselves and grow. Sun was a growing element for her, not her permanent destination, which is why I enjoy their relationship and hate so much his mischaracterization as someone owed love. SUN does think he’s owed anything so why do other ppl place that on him. He knows his role in Blake’s life and he’s happy about it

That's honestly a nice way of looking at it all.

My general attitude toward him to the contrary, I don't hate Sun, he was there as a friend when Blake needed him and knew that it wasn't gonna work out between them romantically and backed the fuck off which was the right thing to do.

[ashtraythief]

Hey! So ive been a long time reader of ur underneath verse (since like.. 2018? Maybe even 2017?) and i just wanted to drop by and tell u how much im enjoying rereading ur writing! Like in general i think this is one of my fav fics series just bc its so extensive and well done and thought out and fleshed out so well it works so well? Like seeing all the different angles and the way u choose to frame things is really fun for me and kinda inspires my own writing in some aspects.

Ive never read the whole thing all in one go before so ive decided to do that right now and im just about done with the pied pipers song - more specifically willys chapter. And i kinda needed to let u know that ur series really stands out to me just bc of how many glimpses into other characters and all these different povs of the same thing like on it stands out on a technical level but then ur actual writing of these things is so good and compelling and like as an outsider pov bitch it hits the spot for me so well? Like ur writing is never stale and its always interesting.

I specifically wanted to take this time to mention that i really love willy and winstons characters and how u went about it. Like im ngl the way u wrote them kinda makes me want to cry tears of happiness for them bc they have found ppl who appreciate them and they have connections with other ppl but then the bittersweet tang of jensen and willy is kinda fucking me up rn /pos djjdjdjd like in general u really do the bittersweet jensen is stuck undercover angle really well and it HURTS so good

But yes i dont really have a good concise message or comment to leave beyond the fact that i keep stopping every few sentences to get up and jump bc im so excited about what im reading i need to get rid of that excess energy lol so sorry if this is all over the place and a really messy message! I just really wanted to let u know how much im enjoying reading it all rn. Thank you so much for sharing ur writing with us and for continuing to write for this series its so fun!

omg nonnie, I'm kinda speechless here (this is the second wonderful message in two days so I'm kinda overwhelmed. is it send wonderful messages week somewhere??)

I just am so grateful and this message made me so happy. never apologize for maybe not having a five point outline lol, this is amazing.

The underneath verse has always been my fandom baby, so praise for it is already amazing, but the pied piper fic and Winston and Willy epsecially, it just makes my heart so full. Ten years ago, they definitely started out as stock characters of mob drivers, because I didn't think this fic would get so big, but then it did, and Willy especially became a real character. a) because I knew he'd fall in love with Jensen too, as anyone does really and b) because I looooove the bittersweet undercover Jensen shtick where I write from other character's POV and the reader knows how wrong they're getting it but they don't *mu har har* (yeah I'm a little mean sometime. sorry?)

but in all seriousness, the Willy chapter, I'ev been working on that for months. And I kept adding things and rewriting things and trying to get it perfect even though I know that most people who read the story mostly care about Jared and Jensen (which is totally fair and understandable), but I care about him and there are a few people out there who do too (and I love you for it, so much), but with Willy, I just wante to do this /right/. I've come to love him so much, and he's come to be so important to Jensen, it felt like he and Winston really deserve their own story told even though that's kind of ridiculous because they're not real, but they're a little real to me now. All this to say, nonnie, this comment and your appreciation of Willy means so fucking much to me. And my poor alpha reader who read like four drafts of this (seriously, M. is a saint) and my beta readers who then had to beta four iterations of this. To know that this effort is appreciated this much honestly make me cry a little (I am not having the greatest time right now, so I cry easily but the point still stands. Thank you.)

This message was actually such an energy boost I'm currently trying to fix the next timestamp, lol so I'll have something to post next month. You're a true treasure, nonnie <3

[catmaidetho]

:0 i would love to hear how you write etho!

after making that post and going to bed i've realized that it's so hard for me to describe all the thoughts that go into it so

tl;dr: i have consumed an ungodly amount of ethoslab content to the point that writing him is kind of second nature

you could also probably go thru my archive for etho text posts i've rb'd, cuz those have also influenced me a lot and i'll link a few at the end. i also sincerely recommend watching and rewatching his hc7 because that is like, everything i love about etho in 40-smth episodes.

long and kind of complicated/messy answer under the cut. i tried to go as in-depth as i could w/o being overly rambly

when you think of etho, what do you think of? you probably think "mysterious cryptid redstone guy who is scary." that is the devil talking. he is not mysterious, a cryptid, or scary at all. he is just a guy who's reputation is bigger than him.

here's some (very basic) traits i'd assign to etho before any of those:

humble

reflective*

confident

competitive

friendly

mischievous

avoidant

*reflective in the sense that he mirrors other people's energy.

originally i had a whole rant typed up explaining these personality traits, but i realize you are probably a fellow ethogirl and a lot of these need no explanation. if you want an explanation/to better understand why i chose those personality traits, i am going to once again recommend his hc7, as well as checking out anything he's done with team canada (pick a series and just start watching. if you dont know where to start, one of my beloved mutuals has a neat little guide for ppl new to etho's content that includes some staple team canada content.)

some things i apply to my etho that make sense to me that might go overlooked by the casual enjoyer:

he is so incredibly neurodivergent coded. i am not going to make any assumptions on etho's brain structure, i dont think its my place, but seriously. give your etho some silly thing to be super passionate about on the side. make him easily distracted/get off topic easily. make his storage system start out well but quickly descent into chaos as he gets too lazy to use it.

he goes with the flow! this goes along with me describing him as a reflective person. he "yes, and"'s stuff like there's no tomorrow. he takes whatever energy is thrown his way, and he chucks it right back at you. he gets dragged into shenanigans and goes "oh this might as well happen! let's see how far we can take it."

he likes to avoid problems he doesn't see as immediately his own/aren't immediately affecting him. his response to moon big was literally "i'll let the other hermits deal with it. look this low gravity makes not having elytra so much easier! lets go build a bee farm." if it doesn't affect him right this instant, or there's nothing he can do about it, he will worry about it later (and probably forget to worry about it.)

he prioritizes the "fun" factor above all else. if you know what the bamboozler is, you understand this. also, the bee farm i just mentioned. if there is a very efficient/straight-forward way to do something or a very fun way to do something, he will go with the fun way most of the time. if the only option is boring, he'll find a way to make it fun.

his reputation precedes him, but his reputation is a little inaccurate to modern times. someone who doesn't know him very well might think he's menacing or scary, but the reality is that he's just a silly little guy. don't get me wrong, there is a reason he's seen as menacing, and if he wants to be he can be, but most of the time he's just here to chill.

his humor is very roundabout. he tells a very long story to get to the punchline, or he tells something that plays into stereotypes so much it's ridiculous. here are some examples. he is also a professional "your mom" joker, like i literally cannot link enough examples his staple joke is "your mom."

most importantly, i think, is that etho doesn't take himself too seriously. i think a lot about the quote from cleo that goes like, "etho doesnt say he's a grownup, he giggles and runs away." so dont make etho too serious!

HE IS LITERALLY JUST SOME GUY. i cant stress this point enough. he should have "just some guy" energy. tiny voice he's doing the best he can. things happen to him and he is mildly bewildered. something goes wrong and he needs like, one second dedicated to panicking before he does anything about it.

just for bonus content, some of my favorite posts/clips that heavily influence the way i interpret/write etho. he is so ^-^ | he calls food poisoning an adventure | evidence that etho's a former scene kid | obviously your mother never loved you 'cause you're some sorta monster :) | "you jerk" compilation | etho teasing scar in among us

[single-malt-scotch]

i have watched bdubs and scar and so im gonna talk abt SL again like i did before. obvs spoilers!

i keep my posts pretty meta/only about the game, its mechanics, balance etc so i have no bias on players own actions. but i do want to talk about players and the final moments for a minute here!

obvs i like bdubs a lot and hes been very good at getting to almost the finals in all the series. hope ppl realize that more. if he had more hearts like scar did im sure he could of have gotten further too. etho's ep isnt out but i saw him die in scar's and scar's ep was wild for sure. i mean damn, there was hardly a way etho could have escaped scar when he landed right on top of him, insane. obvs i dont have a view on the others i havent watched but it was interesting to see how they ganged up in this series for the end. scar winning made me happy too, hes a really good player!!

bbut onto the gameplay. i dont wanna repeat myself so im kinda using this as an overall conclusion + specific thoughts about the finale.

its been established clearly that mods assign specific tasks to people at times. and the warden/wither + bogey were not something i enjoyed. this season felt way too "directed" as it went on... and i also think the tasks ability to grant you so much good stuff (a LOT of hearts) is what kept everyone out of being red so easily! which is probably why they did the bogey zombies. which is really just poor balance that no one clearly tested (i recall grian implying before that they dont really test anything but dont quote me on that). maybe a way to have improved that would have been reds were the only ones to gain hearts, and yellow/greens could not. i knew from the start that the heart giving mechanics this season were kind of pointless or overpowered. gifting one heart? really...? that doesnt add up to much of anything in the long run imo unless you manage to get hearts from multiple people. and then on top of that you get hearts back from the secret keeper too. i would have loved if this season was simply "no regen and thats it!" like a sorta UHC deal where you only can heal with specific items (and not 30 hearts prob? bc i understand the tasks were kind of a way to possibly make them die).

on big forced tasks it only made sense with this episode, since everyone is red, so i dont mind that. but again.... they had to force this to happen which is annoying to me. also in terms of balance i really wished they bring back strict rules on enchantments because that also gets frustrating to watch. but perhaps i just like fairness in combat due to watching so much UHC, which also is a death game.

the other issues i had were with reds and red tasks. as pointed out they forced reds in the previous sessions but no one had any time to do red tasks?? and admittedly it was kind of boring bc people couldnt interact about it without failing. but they could not team up properly and i think that is what red life is all about. all the reds coming together because they *need* to face yellows and greens, and hunt people down. but instead the few reds there had to be alone to do their traps, another social issue with this series where tasks often pulled people away from others and left them with videos where they were very alone. there being no space for greens and yellows to exist and get hunted is something i think is great in previous seasons too and it just didnt happen. all that getting forced in that one session just didnt flow well to me.

really even trying to look back at episodes, i cant recall any notable interactions between people i enjoyed minus some brief pauses when they were traveling to do their tasks. there just wasnt a lot of typical socializing! and thats what i didnt like with this series. this plus the balance issues of lives just made this series feel messy, and the length of the episodes due to tasks could be kind of boring if the task was boring or even felt too stressful to force them into places where they could just die (these kinds of dangerous tasks given to greens or yellows felt unfair, as if it was trying to force them to die, and as a viewer i wouldnt want the game make my fave die!).

and as i mentioned in a different post, the lack of fixing some issues in multiple seasons is wild to me. this season faced the same issue as limlife where deaths were not in chat. the episode after, they fixed it (still with some bugs). and then it happened again last session.... and they didnt fix it! this is also annoying bc people dont react to the deaths at all which you kind of wanna see you know? actually im not even sure why they still did it this way. i imagined the clock running out made it more complicated for the system of fying to work. but why this season....? seemed like pretty forward deaths. idk the tech side, but they had 3 solid lives like all the other season, and there were never issues with the death messages happening at all.

but anyways. theres multiple parts of this i mentioned above that just made this gimmick feel so messy and unbalanced, and sometimes not super interesting to watch. it was way too complicated some times. i know theyll likely never do a repeat of the old versions but man idk if i cant find myself liking future seasons if they start stacking so much on top of what is a simple concept. it has started to feel like the three lives havent mattered at all/arent really the focus-- the anxiety of having three times. and the stakes become less and less due to some of these new gimmicks (the ability to gain lives in so many easy ways- limlife and secret life- is why imo) makes death feel less of a problem especially when we know how buddy buddy everyone is now. people need to be limited like before, and be more anxious. 3L, LL, and DL had people quickly establishing their friends bc they knew right from the get go that the series really depended on them being alive and nothing else. the only focus was to stay alive and not die. DL was where ppl kinda chilled a bit on alliances bc they knew each other more but, death was still right around the door with health being tied, it still brought a similar kind of anxiety for players.

i do hope people like grian can recognize these issues behind the scenes bc genuine critique for this series/season is important. like i hope they dont brush off the fact "hall monitors" were an issue-- they can ignore them openly in their videos.... but there is a reason why its a problem that started at all. the concept was way too subjective and hard to judge! so id hate for them to decide "eh, lets not listen to them, im gonna keep doing this and not consider the issue for a new season" right? and hour long episodes? thats crazy, and i dont think it was good for a lot of cc imo, because it made me way less likely to watch or even finish others' episodes. i hope that makes sense... stakes need to be raised, and i think limlife still achieved that to some degree because time was still very sensitive and risky to take. but then SL comes in bringing way too many things that keep them alive far too easily, leaving very little concern as long as they got their task in.

and last thing is from the outside pov i get concerned about this season happening only 6 months after the last one. because that would very very easily cause a burn out/inability to make more gimmicks real quick. i find this particularly odd bc this season too place through multiple holidays...! not sure if they thought this one through very well. considering how much limlife changed things in a way that was a bit more complicated, and then have SL with even more going on.... id just be worried about how much new stuff would even be made after this.

before this season started i was thinking to myself that i would be fine if this was the last one (it was speculation off some posting 3L compilations that was being me think itd be 'over' bc that was the first season). and truly i would be fine if they stopped forever for for a long time. i dont want to start disliking this series if they keep going in this direction... i will ALWAYS enjoy seeing these people play together and it will no doubt keep me watching but, i would hope that i will enjoy what they do for the next seasons and not fall down this path of convoluted, unbalanced and complicated concepts.

[ca-suffit]

anon from this ask: https://www.tumblr.com/ca-suffit/757613676896337920/im-sorry-your-takes-are-generally-pretty-great-and?source=share

first thanks for hearing me out and your thoughtful response. had to think about it a bit and analyze some of my own biases. i think i have a certain amount of trust in the show around what I expect they're going to do with lestat in terms of examining the privilege he has (a white abuser in the spotlight telling his story would be a great topic to unpack, especially via daniel), but i know that's fully based on nothing! it would just be such a waste if they didn't. so I am putting more expectations on an objectively minor glimpse of information so I'll pare that back in my reply.

the one thing i wanted to clarify and emphasize was the 'groundbreaking'-ness of whatever lestat is doing here. i am not really arguing that he appears to be doing something cutting edge or never been done before, and i don't think he needs to be. (practically speaking, we're talking about art within an art aka a tv show, the art of a fictional character, there are limits.) given the large list of influences, they appear to be leaning into recognizable fashion and sound, but just because it's pastiche doesn't make it, like, uninteresting as a queer performance. on a more meta level, it's really fucking cool to see them leaning into glam rock and queer influences after the heterosexualization of Queen of the Damned, and letting a lead queer character be trashy and messy and also polarizing - not everyone is going to LIKE his music.

and yes it will speak to the individual. not every queer person will find this interesting. i guess what i wanted to defend was the elements of queer fandom who feel seen or moved by what they've decided to do here and i hate to see that get dismissed as memes alone or like no real queer person would find this good/worthy, as some of the other asks have implied, or that it's ONLY a symptom of white fandom. but i get that your blog in particular makes a space for fandom critique and there certainly is a lot of critique, and a lot of uncritical ~slay queen~ type response. i wanted to offer an alternative perspective, i guess. (and when I think of lestat making himself into a "queer icon", i personally don't mean a champion of activism or a beacon of positive representation. he's a horror character at the same time and has done terrible things. this is why I like the show, though.)

lastly, your point about the other characters and their art connections: absolutely!!! the fact that EVERY character here has an art connection for me makes this tv show a queer text in general. I want to add these art connections are complicated. lestat is as much a monster about music as it gives him humanity. louis's struggle with photography feels like a coda about his former struggles about his homosexuality. claudia giving up on her passion for the stage through armand's abuse is heartbreaking.

emphasizing lestat as the only artist would be a mistake. I think what sets him apart for me is that his art and also his queerness vs, say, louis and his art and queerness, is more of a divide between public vs private. louis did make an attempt to enter a public space and was shut down/discouraged. lestat reaching an in-fiction iconic status is a matter of privilege (as well as his personality, lol). i don't really have an argument here, just responding and hopefully adding to the discourse.

hi and thank u for coming back!!

despite what some ppl want my reputation to be, I do actually like talking about things and giving space for multiple perspectives. it helps nothing to take sides and be at war with each other all the time. a lot of why this fandom has gotten worse is bcuz ppl are doing exactly that. u can like whatever u like, but understanding the criticisms of the thing are crucial too. a big issue surrounding lestat is that ppl aren't used to his whiteness (or whiteness in general) being commented on. white fans, especially, will find it rly jarring to be perceived that way and take it rly personally. there's so many ppl here who think I'm calling them racist just bcuz I'm talking about lestat and prbly his white ignorance or smthing. they apply it to themselves and feel like a bad person for liking him. then they shut down and block me, even if our conversation was calm. white fragility is a hard thing to overcome.

there's not much u can do to avoid maybe being clumped in with white fandom if u like lestat, but it's not like the reality is that those are the *only* ppl who like him. that lie they perpetuate that everyone else is a lestat hater, loumand shipper or whatver is bullshit. they're overly simplifying a deeper issue bcuz they're racist, manipulative, and stupid. plenty of ppl like lestat and aren't part of that group. but u are gonna have to get used to being judged for liking him in some ways bcuz this fandom *has* made association with him a red flag. it doesn't mean *everyone* is gonna be hostile to u about it tho, but it does mean ur gonna have to change expectations and be a lot more open to hearing criticisms of it all. ppl aren't rly dismissing him outright or saying ur bad for liking him, it's just a fatigue surrounding his character and the fierce protection of whiteness this fandom has built around him (alongside anne's racist history and favoring of him too already). I mean, it seems like ur already aware of this, but just to put it into words too. lestat has always been an interesting, fucked up character and ppl should feel free to identity and explore whatever with him just like any other character.

tbh a lot of his point has been to be a little stupid and cringe anyway. idk how ppl read his narration and take it srsly and believe he's actually hot shit. he should be a disaster idiot rockstar with an ego that doesn't match his actual presentation. I'm hoping they might explore a lot with that. he's having a mental breakdown in every book but doesn't seem aware that he is, so what better way to explore that than with the white rockstar angle. that's p much all of them anyway lol and if ur queer (and a vampire having a neverending existential crisis) then even more so prbly.

[seakicker]

sorry just since we’re kind of in the juju advice corner rn… idk how to feel comfortable being super vocal :( i feel like my voice sounds weird and i usually just kind of get breathy and pant if that makes sense… idk i love hearing my partner moan but i just don’t know how to be vocal myself without being hyper aware of how i sound :/ idk if you had any thoughts to share on this

NO DONT APOLOGIZE it makes me feel rlly happy to be trusted w things like this yknow... being able to talk w ppl and share things w each other even if its thru an anonymous feature rather than face to face or anything... idk. just makes me happy to be able to help you guys out using my own experiences and feelings too #enfj

so firstly this ask made me giddy in a way cuz im also EXTREMELY vocal and i love knowing im not alone, so know that you're not alone in it either! i go on and on and on and ramble to the point where it sounds like, literally incomprehensible to my ears but if i have anything to say here, it's that you shouldnt feel embarrassed about how you display and express pleasure bc that's what having sex is all about, yknow?

i totally get the insecurity of worrying about how you're "performing" during sex and not necessarily in the traditional meaning of performance in bed-- i think people generally associate that with like, physical skills like how many times you can make someone come in a minute and all that, but i mean it more in a "performing like an actor" type way. making sure your hair looks nice, you're not twisted in a 'weird' position, you're not making a 'weird' face, that sort of thing. i think it's important to remember that you will make 'weird' faces and that you will look a lil disheveled and messy, but so will ur partner and that's just part of the fun! why shouldn't sex be fun and messy and weird... that's the best part yknow... there's no embarrassment in just coming as you are (pun intended) bc just as you said you love hearing your partner moan, there's a 110% chance they love hearing you moan too so i'd say there's nothing to worry about. i think a lot of the fun w sex is just seeing your partner feel good and getting that satisfaction of "im the reason they feel like that... nice" so i'm sure your partner gets a real kick out of seeing your faces and hearing your moans.

remember that sex isn't so much about looking good as it is feeling good-- you don't have to forcefully suppress your sounds to have a good time! breathy voices r cute, pants/gasps r cute, moans r cute, squeals r cute, all of it. i think in general im just a really big fan of promoting the idea of acceptance as an extension of understanding that many things w sex are natural and normal-- of course you know the distinction between unnatural (ie unpleasurable pain) and natural, and things like the sounds you make and how you feel will always fall into the latter imo

[thatbitchsimone]

I also love Angelica and think she's so great - there's another video on her youtube where she says people should only lose their virginity in their 20's - what do you think about this? I agree with her sentiment to an extent and I do think as a woman I was put into many situations that make me feel used now and I am sure this can negatively affect men as well.. I just kind of felt ashamed/worried after watching the video because she said that having sex very young can negatively set you up for life and I agree to an extent but I think there's more nuance to it than a 20 minute youtube video can express.. And also I think the problem more with me is I didn't know to express my boundaries or communicate and people took advantage of that sometimes.. and just how women are socialised etc etc

i was just gonna watch that video but it looks like shes deleted all of those videos (which sucks ass bc she had an amazing video about the tumblr nymphet community and its parallels to nambla and how it has negatively affected us that got seduced by that little subculture back in the mid 2010s) so unfortunately i cant answer this properly bc i dont have the full context and i dont have her arguments etc but i can still give some of my immidiate thoughts on it so here we go

i think losing ur virginity/wait with sex until ur in ur 20s is probably ideal tbh and i would absolutely encourage it for anyone who is in their teens rn and havent had their sexual debut yet. main reason being that u will be old enough to understand sex and its risks and effects and u will have had time to figure ur own body out more and u will most likely have at the very least basic level emotional intelligence and maturity that is required to have safe and healthy and enjoyable sex. like u have just finished puberty and just left teenagehood behind which is a messy and confusing and rough lifestage for all of us and ur now entering adulthood and have gained some perspective etc and u are way more in tune with urself (at the very least compared to when u were a teen) and both ur body and brain will be developed enough to be able to handle sex and have a realistic attitude around it and while ofc u can still be manipulated and u may still be somewhat naive it wont be anywhere near AS easy to manipulate u as it would have been earlier bc thats just how it is. u might still be vulnerable maybe sure but if ur vulnerable now u were even MORE vulnerable when u were a teen. its just how it is. thats how growing up works. u will probably have a way easier and more enjoyable sexual debut in ur 20s bc u will have a headstart in so many ways both physically and emotionally.

BUT im not gonna pretend like its that black and white and simple. Many girls (and boys but im focusing on women here) have perfectly normal and healthy sexual encounters when they are teenagers and i rly dont believe that sex will just automatically traumatize and harm u when ur a teen bc lets be real here, the key here is that u explore sex with UR PEERS, boys and girls within ur own age group, NOT ppl that are 20+ when u are like 14-16. when ur a high schooler and u want to explore sex u do it with other high schoolers. ppl ur own age. I think its perfectly fine and normal to have sex when ur a teen, but that is assuming u are having sex with other teens. NOT ppl that are like 5 years older than u. thats when actual impactful long lasting harm becomes highly likely. feeling like u got used and heartbroken by a boy in ur school aka a boy that is ur peer and ur own age will hurt and suck and will leave an impact on u but its a very different impact than the one u will be left with if u felt taken advantaged of by someone much older (not a teen). the dynamics are whats important here i think.

sex and relationships are messy and yes u can always get fucked up from it thats just how it is. u cant avoid it. u just need to be able to handle it and maybe ur not ready to handle it until ur like 25, thats fine. dont do it then. like if u dont think ur ready, just wait until u are. if ur like 15 and feel ready then go ahead but STICK TO PPL UR OWN AGE when ur that young. u gotta be equals. period.

[zhongrin]

Rinnnnn!!!! Hope ya are doing great these days! ❤️❤️

Wdym typo? I thought Moray eel Zhonglee is your hubby? /j

help 🤸

Wait ya mean you hc Zhongli as a kind of messy? And forhejeibejek so cute how you're controlling it for your hubby aaaa, you truly complete each other <33

Ikr?? I can't speak as fancy as the both of them like 🏃💨 hope my Zhongli drabbles are already enough heh. (BTW! can I send ya some drabbles from time to time too? <3)

LMAO ngl I somehow understand that, stan Meitham <33 (plssss it's also so cute dodbejkwk)

HELP RIN I would never simp for Zhongli (although some ppl are doubting that heh-);; but I had some troubles the last day in which I thought my Ayato phase came back but it didn't. I still love Baizhu with my whole heart ❤️🤸

HELP RIN you're so cute, but no need to do that mwah <33

Yes Changsheng was literally all the time like: aight, can ya get together now? Can't handle Baizhu nor you acting like this 🙄

IKR QIQI IS SO CUTE I wanna hug her so bad frfr ❤️❤️

HELP WHERE DID THE DOLLS CAME FROM?? 🧑‍🦯

Ah I see I see, but he surely thought his dear friend is lucky to have a follower like you <33

LMAO ALHAITHAM 😭 I mean he totally would omfg.;; But yes I can understand the relief of his then heh

Ikrikr he surely was but he also was confused at first when he saw me walking up the stairs, limping a bit but also he was like "Who is this? Never seen her" like new patient yk

Then he saw me tripping and ofc he rushed over to help me and was like "Oh she is clumsy. But adorable. Wait WHAT-;;"

What can I say? He fell 0.0000001 seconds faster than me heh.

Next question! <3

Do you have any pet names for your hubby's? If so, what are they and also maybe why it is that specific pet name? <3

(help Rin I thank you sm for answering my long ass asks with such long ass texts, I really appreciate it and I really enjoy reading it aaaaaa <33❤️)

i am!! ty for asking ehheh i hope you're doing well too and baizhu is giving you enough kithes <3

moray eel zhonglee gOODBYE I AM DEAD HLSDJFKLJSDFS no but fr they're so funny looking i cannot- also APPARENTLY THERE'S A DRAGON MORAY EEL VI WE'RE ONTO SOMETHING HERE in an alternate universe, liyue is an underwater kingdom with dragon moray eel zhongli ruling over the city

not exactly messy but he hoards a lot of things. yk how asian parents keep the sauces and containers from takeaway food? ....... yeah.

you can send me drabbles yes ofc that would make my day???? hsldjflksjdklf you don't even need to ask helphsldkfjklsjdlf but you don't have to ofc!!! never feel pressured to do so, although pls know that i would treasure them forever if you ever do so 😭

......... vi vi vi what if. imagine both baizhu and ayato pining for you- 👀

where did the dolls come from you ask? uhhhhhhh- we're writers we have ✨unlimited✨ imagination :D

"oh she's clumsy" -> "oh that's adorable i want to protect her- wait what-" is the only valid reaction nodnod would you say baizhu is protective of you then bc i can totally see that hehe <3

pet names!!!!

i have a lot for zhongli hehe i call him xiànɡ ɡonɡ / hubby, lónglí (mashing character for dragon + last character of his name), li, darling, dear, love.... i actually had a whole post about it sldjfklsjdlf ALSO ALSO since you're a selfship enthusiast if you're interested there's this collab you can check out hehe

for al haitham.... actually not that much bc he doesn't call me by nicknames too much either!! but i do call him haitham, dear, beloved, babe (to fluster him mainly lmao)!! and he usually just calls me by name (meirin / mei / rin) but on private he might use habibti or love <3

how about you and baizhu? what kind of nicknames do you have for each other? also!!! what kind of dates are your favorite? <3

(and pls it's no problem at all, i'm glad you like the long responses bc i. i gush about my selfships a LOT WAUGHHJDSFH i enjoy reading your asks too wahhh they always make me smile <3)

[bluesandboos]

BESTIE ANON IDK IF YOU'RE STILL HERE BUT I AM AND I STILL HAVE MORE CONTENT FOR PART 2

another line break so im not annoying ppl!

here are some more immaculate vibes because, you know, they were immaculate!!

okay, so then people started to clear out but i managed to capture my man dibu!! on the tv ofc not irl. he was crying :( (but also :) you know)

and we headed out of the park to start walking... somewhere. i think there were some tourist sights nearby so we thought we'd just knock those off while we were in the area. but the people were beginning to party!! (as they should). the honking was non stop. im 99% sure that people got into their cars just to drive around and honk and be happy.

unfortunately i couldn't make my fam stay to watch the whole trophy ceremony because they aren't Football Minded and Built Different like me (it was super hot that day and we were hungry so we kinda wandered around looking for food and here's some vids i have) (very unnecessary side note but at one stoplight, a very cutie young man rolled down his window and showed me a heart symbol with his hands and these days i have very little faith in men but holy shit in that moment i Fell In Love. that's what that messi magic does to you i guess)

(we went to the jardin japonés bc it was on our way, which is supposed to be very nice and peaceful with all this lovely greenery and koi ponds but literally all you could hear was the honking)

PEOPLE WERE GOING CRAZY (as they motherfucking SHOULD ofc) and obviously drinking so we got some fun sights like this (don't know if you can tell, but it was like ~13 people on one car that they drove off in)

our airbnb was about three quarters of a mile from the obelisco, so we were heading towards there but little did we know that the entire population of buenos aires (probably argentina) was walking there as well. THERE WAS SO MANY PEOPLE

and everyone was just so happy! singing, dancing, vibing, drinking. immaculate vibes had returned.

also we tried to go to mostaza to get a dibu burger but the line was too long :(

i kept wanting to party with everyone at the obelisco but my fam was all like "no. you will die. or your phone will get stolen and we won't be able to find you" and i was like "that will be best death and i don't care" and they were like "-_- stfu we're going home" and i was like :(

we kept trying to find dinner but everything shut down early. i think restaurant/store owners were nervous about overcrowding/crowds getting rowdy? we ended up buying a bunch of chips/instant noodles through the security door of a convenience store lmao

^in this vid, the mass of people are all headed to a train station. i think you can kind of hear them singing? but yes, as you can imagine "muchachos" was on blast.

and then this was the headline of the newspaper i saw at a cafe the next day :)

(honestly i should've stolen it as a souvenir but 1) i am not a thief, especially in a foreign country and 2) an older gentleman wanted it after i was done. also i don't speak/read/understand spanish very well)

and, well, that was the day of the final. literally the best day of my life.

i WISH we could have been there for the parade, but unfortunately we left very early on the morning of 12/20 to go to patagonia

literally as we were about to fly out of AEP (the domestic airport in ba), la scaloneta was flying into EZE (international airport), allllll the way across town. i'd actually been tracking their flight all day because they were supposed to land AT AEP very close to when we were supposed to leave and we were nervous we'd have a hard time making our flight if the crowd was too much. fortunately/(unfortunately for me bc i wanted to catch a glimpse), they re-routed to EZE and instead i got watch them disembark on a tv playing at AEP.

so for approximately 30 glorious minutes, leo messi and i were in the same city. like an hour away from each other. (this is the second time in my life leo messi and i have been in the same city. the first time was in march 2021 when i went on vacation in paris. unfortunately the people i went with did not want to go to a psg match because they are Lame. also i have standards and did not want my first live professional football match to be a psg game lmao)

ALSO LMAO all they were playing on the tvs at the airport were replays of the game. and people really got into it too, cheering at the penalties as if they didn't know what was gonna happen. but of course, it is an Objectively Good Game as well.

and bestie, that is pretty much it. a summary of the Greatest Day of My Life. literally altered my brain chemistry. i was always a Messi Stan of course, but being in ba turned up the dial a lot more and now im somehow even more obsessed. i even created this blog! im following twitter accounts that report Breaking News that anto may not be enrolling the kids in a parisian school (messi to barca confirmed!!!). the other day i read an unverified tweet that messi was going to sign with PSG for one year, go to MLS, and then play in the 2026 wc and it put me into a depression for the rest of my night. my delusion is at an all time high.

also i still have the shoe tan from the uncomfy walking sandals i wore that day

but it was all worth it :) my off-brand messi jersey is the greatest thing i own even though it's lacking that newest star.

like i said before, im not argentine/from argentina, but on that day, in true gianni infantino meme format (may he suck a dick), i felt argentine

also i ate the GOAT chips. bc i had to, ofc. he's the GOAT

also argentina is a beautiful country!! i highly encourage everyone who is able to visit

thank you for asking me bestie anon and letting me get on my soapbox :) i hope this ask satisfied you even though i talked too much and probably added way more details than you wanted lol. this was so much fun to type out and reminisce :) im sad it's over, i wanna go back!! but isok, we got the third star and everything is good :)

[t-lostinworlds]

gosh i read this and i was trying to piece together my thoughts about it but first i scrolled through the notes and saw this and i usually don't do a reblog on a reblog but i agree with everything that's said above so much i just had to. but with a few things to add

okay, first off, i'm all for the cut-his-dick-off-when-he-cheats attitude and i'm probably one of the many ppl who'd have a difficult time forgiving a cheater (but i do believe not everything is black & white and ppl can change and learn and grow and yada yada). i usually do have qualms when cheating fics end in with the reader forgiving the main character but surprisingly, this ending didn't make me feel that way. if anything, i felt satisfied with how it turned out. and that's bc of how well you showed both sides and wrote all the emotions that just made me understand them both AND most importantly, The Growth™️. like i came out of this not thinking one was the villain and the other was a victim, i came out of is thinking that they're both so human—messy, emotional, confused, stupid, but also, kind, forgiving, empathic, loving and so forth.

with that said, i really don't consider this a "cheating fic" per se, to my interpretation of it, at least. it's a fic mostly of grief, heartbreak, self-destruction, betrayal but also learning and growing and healing and second chances. like, the cheating part was, not really small, but it wasn't the main focus of the fic. it simply was the point where everything finally came to a head. like a very cruel and hurtful wake up call for both of them.

did i want to smack bucky upside the head with the way he acted and what he did and basically abandoned her when she needed him bc he was a goddamn coward who was so far up his ass and who had no functioning brain cell? YES. very much so. the amount of times i called him stupid was unmatched. Now do i understand why he acted that way and understood how he was pushed bc of what he was going through? absolutely. his explanation made me see things from a different perspective that i couldn't see him at a point of no return. a.k.a. he's not past forgiveness in some way. don't get me wrong, what he went through in his life doesn't excuse the shitty things that he's done in his relationship. it's a contributing factor yes but it doesn't mean he's immediately excused bc of it. but it does make me empathize with him more bc he's only human after all. he made mistakes. he regrets it and is actively trying to right it and do better. bc he's someone who definitely needed guidance and help, someone who was broken and who in turn didn't know how to handle his emotions and ended up hurting the one he loved most.

but the important thing was, you showed how both of them are on the path to healing not only from what happened between the both of them but individually as well with their own respective demons. and i'm glad they took the time to find themselves on their own first and then decided to stay friends and that reader actually tried to look for someone else before even entertaining the idea to start over with her and bucky's relationship. like it's not immediate, it took time and as it should have done. especially with bucky still needing to prove himself.

but yeah, you showed the growth of them as individuals so so well that the "them" i saw in the first couple of paragraphs weren't the same ppl in the ending. it gave me hope that hey, maybe they will get their happy ending this time around. bc i don't consider that ending the actual ending for them. it's more of a beginning, starting something entirely new bc again they're not the same ppl. and i feel they're healthier mentally and emotionally now so there's a higher chance of them working out. it's only a journey from here and i have faith that they will get their actual happy ending.

I loved you once B.B

Bucky Barnes x Reader 

Masterlist

Summary: Loving Bucky Barnes was never easy but breaking your heart seemed to come naturally to him. A love story about your heartbreak,his betrayal and a chance at redemption.

19.1 k words

Content Warning: ANGST, heartbreak, cheating, mature themes, +18 SMUT, MINORS DO NOT INTERACT (Pussy job, penetrative sex p in v, sad/angry sex? Rough sex mixed with a little pain. It will make sense once you read it) . Fluff, mentions of bad mental health from both Bucky and reader, graphic violence, character's death, mentions of women trafficking as well as assault.

A/N: Wow 19k words. Im sorry this took so long to finish but as you can tell it is super long as I promised. Buckle up y'all, this is sad. Also this is my first time writing a proper cheating fic so if you can/want let me know if you like it or not. You're welcomed to send me an ask with any comments, questions, etc., you have on this 😊

A/N 2: Regarding asks Also there will be an alternate ending

Post dividers by @firefly-graphics

Now  

"Fuck you," you spat the words.    

Tears fell from your eyes as they made their way down your neck, making dark spots in the collar of your red turtleneck. Even when pain was drowning you, beauty never left you. Bucky felt as if he were watching a beautiful Renaissance painting—a tragedy of sorts.   

"Is that all? I really don’t have time for this."   

He didn’t recognize his own words or the indifference they came out with. He didn’t mean to say them, but it was as if his own body was working on autopilot, and he was only a spectator to the shitshow it was causing. He wanted to stop. He wanted to apologize. He wanted to say so many things, but the only thing he was capable of was hurting you.   

"Are you kidding me? That’s all you’re going to say?"   

"What else do you want me to say? You know what happened, you saw her with your own eyes. Anything I say is either going to make you angrier or make you cry even more. Let’s just be done with this, you’ll eventually get over it."   

The sound of your hand connecting with his face put an end to his sentence. The hit didn’t feel as such, his skin barely processed it as anything more than a simple graze, but once the initial shock wore off, the sting came along. But it didn’t compare to the pain he felt in his heart when his eyes connected with yours once again.   

"I always knew you were capable of many things, but not once did I think you would ever be this cruel."   

Your eyes drifted to your hands, your right hand playing with the ring you wore in your left. A sigh left your lips, and more tears fell before you finally slid it off your finger, placing it on the table next to you.   

A bucket of iced water. Painful, burning, scorching coldness— that’s how Bucky would describe looking at you while silently breaking your engagement. His mind was telling him to get on his knees, beg, and try to fix everything he had broken. But the darkest part of him, the one that had taken over his life was assuring him you were bluffing. You couldn’t leave, you always stayed. You always fought for him, even when he didn’t deserve it.   

"What are you doing?" he asked, his eyes rolling with the uninterested façade he had perfected.   

"I’m done, I can’t keep doing this anymore." You turned your back, strong and determined steps leading to his apartment door.  

Please, fix this.   

His trembling hands made their way to your wrist, anything that could mend the cracks in your heart that seeped with pain, the cracks he had caused with his own selfishness. Before his fingers could even graze your skin, your hand quickly swatted away his pathetic effort to stop you.  

"God, stop being so goddamed drama—"   

"Don’t fucking touch me."   

"Don’t try to contact me ever again, I won’t answer."   

"Can you just—"   

"If I ever see you again I swear I’ll murder you. I didn’t kill you the first time we met but I swear I’ll do it if you even dare to breath in my direction."   

Your words hurt, it seemed as though each one stabbed him right through the chest in a taunting way, a reminder of how much he had screwed up. Bile rose to his throat when you recoiled at his proximity, and the hate in your eyes burned him with such force that he was sure you wouldn't wait until the next time you met.   

He deserved it either way.  

Bucky's eyes opened just as the car jolted, his heart racing against his chest, his ears buzzing. For a fraction of a second, he's confused, not remembering why he was in the car, but the fogginess of his thoughts was replaced with anxiety when he heard the tracker beeping on Sam's thigh. 

"Good, you’re awake. I think we’re almost there." Sam kept his eyes on the road, occasionally glancing down at the device that told him where to go. Judging by his demeanor, his friend didn’t seem as nervous as he did, if at all. It wasn’t like Sam had a reason to, he was the only one who had fucked up.  

He looked out at the vehicle, and the passing trees in the darkness of the night numbed his mind while he tried to forget about his dream. No, it wasn’t a dream, it was his worst memory to date. Usually, his nightmares were about the crimes he had committed while being the Winter Soldier, and he could blame them on his consciousness not being there with him. His own body didn’t belong to him, so he couldn’t keep blaming himself for the things HYDRA had forced him to do.  

With you, on the other hand, he could not blame anyone else but himself. His mind wasn’t tortured by a secret organization in hopes of ruining his relationship, nor was he forced to hurt the person about whom he cared the most to save thousands of lives. He did it all by himself, and now the nightmares have not only scared him but hurt him all over again.  

You started to show up in his dreams more frequently once Sam told him they needed your help. As expected, the super-soldier's first reaction was total and complete refusal. His friend thought it was a childish reaction the former winter soldier was having to avoid the awkwardness of meeting you again, only knowing your relationship had ended on bad terms without hearing the specifics. But the blue-eyed man wasn’t doing it for himself, he was doing it for you. The night you left, you made it clear you didn’t want anything to do with him, or even anything related to him, your resignation from the Avengers Team and subsequent evaporation from the face of the earth was a strong message to leave you alone.  

After a few hours of arguing, with both men going back and forth on why they did or didn't need you, Bucky finally agreed to go look for you. Lives were at stake, and no matter how hard he tried to look for a solution that avoided you, there seemed to be none. Before he could ask where to even start looking for you, Sam pulled out a device that seemed familiar to a phone. You had given Sam, and only Sam, a tracker that could find you anywhere in the world and could only be unlocked by a password you had whispered to him  

The depth of his tormenting cycle of thoughts didn’t let him register they weren’t on the road anymore until his partner stopped the vehicle. They were surrounded by tall, dense trees, and the crickets and cicadas that hid in the dark made an orchestra that filled the emptiness of the night. Sam grabbed his gear, the sound of a duffle bag being opened broke the rhythm of nature.  

"Why are we stopping here?" Bucky asked with a frown. His own duffle was placed across his back, the tinkering of the metal inside it annoying him slightly.  

His friend threw an annoyed look at him before rolling his eyes and scrambling through his belongings. "As I said like twenty minutes ago while you were brooding and having your own pity party, this thing shows her inside a building in the middle of the woods. I’d like to take a look around the area before going in blind."  

"Oh."  

Normally, the super soldier would’ve had a comeback for the annoying yet harmless insults his friend and partner would throw at him, even a snide comment. But this was different, no matter what Sam would say, he could only think of what was about to happen. So he let it slide, submerging himself in his own thoughts while Sam threw the little flying robot he nicknamed "Red Wing" into the air. Once it was hovering above them and Sam made sure to have full control of it, they began a walk that would last about thirty minutes before the device would find any signs of life.  

Sam and him were waiting somewhere near the alleged building, Sam's robot scanning the surroundings.The thumping in his chest returned, and his fingers became ice cold.He was so close. Close enough to see you, close enough to talk to you, and perhaps close enough to apologize. 

How would you react to seeing him? Would you be happy to see him? Probably not, considering the last thing you said to him was that you would kill him if he ever came near you. He knew he deserved it, but hopefully time changed your murderous resolution. Maybe even forgave him.  

Could you ever forgive him?  

A slight swat from Sam brought him back from his thoughts, silently letting him know they were ready to go. Bucky could sense it before the place was even visible, the vibrations of the music resonating through the ground. The smell of smoke, alcohol, and humanity reached his nostrils right as they saw the line of cars parked in a plain field next to what resembled a warehouse.  

To an untrained eye, it would look like a normal, unsanitary, and probably unsafe rave done by stupid people. But the polarized windows of the cars, the shine coming from the inside of the guards' jackets, and the lot of security cameras installed in the building told another story. Whatever or whoever was in there was dangerous, and as usual, you had gotten yourself in the middle of it.  

Bucky wasn’t an idiot. He knew you couldn’t stay away from helping people, no matter how hard you tried. He saw the breadcrumbs, microscopic, little clues that he could recognize as your style. A missing girl suddenly returning to her family, a kidnapped journalist in the middle of war returning to their respective embassy. A child trafficker falling from his hotel room in the twentieth floor. You had always been... effective when it came to missions, sometimes going overboard with your methods, but Tony, Steve, and himself had always guided you towards the good and righteous path that a person with your abilities was supposed to take. 

You lost all three of them in the span of a year.  

They were lucky that it was relatively easy to get inside, and even luckier that their clothes didn't draw too much attention to them. Sure, they seemed to be wearing more clothes than needed, as most people seemed to enjoy themselves topless and/or pantless, but with the darkness of the room barely being lit by the flashing blue and red lights, no one really noticed them.  

Guys, girls, and people he wasn’t sure how to label were grinding against each other. Hands touched him, pulling his jacket, and he had to push them all away, trying to make his way through the sea of people. The inside of the warehouse could pass for a functioning club, with couches, dance floors, and screens accommodating everyone inside.  

Bucky wasn’t sure he had ever seen anything like this; the debauchery that people showed shocked his old-fashioned ways. He was sure he had seen several people inside each other, whether it was fingers, tongues, or dicks, no one seemed to mind that everyone else could see them. How had you gotten yourself into the middle of this disguised orgy? What were you even doing here?  

Both men made their way to the front of the place, where a private section was installed looking over the dancefloor. Two large guys guarded the stairs that connected the lower and upper levels, allowing mostly attractive girls to ascend. Both men agreed that if you were to be found somewhere, it would undoubtedly be there. They scanned the room, looking for any way they could access the VIP level without having a pair of tits and long legs.  

He had never understood scenes in movies where they showed time slowing down. Every time he had been in a fight, whether it was as himself in the forties or as the winter soldier, everything seemed to happen too fast to process. Even the night you left, time had seemed to go at an abnormally fast pace, and by the time he could finally react the way he wanted, it had been too late.  

He never understood those scenes until he saw you walking to the protective railing surrounding the edge of the private section. Above the deafening music, the moans, and the music, he could hear your voice talking to someone else.  

It was as if he was seeing you for the first time. Your beauty had remained the same your hair, your eyes, and your lips all looked the same, yet his heart started racing just as it did all those years ago. You weren’t dressed like everyone else dancing around him, your black dress with a dangerous deep cleavage was sensuous, but it held a certain level of class that made you stand out from the crowd.  

Thump, thump, thump.  

Time moved at a slow pace, the slowest he had experienced. He was grateful for it, as it allowed him to appreciate every detail from you. The way your lips came close to the drink you had in your hand, the drumming your fingers did on top of the railing, the glint in your eyes—he knew it meant you were lost in your thoughts.   

Bucky had never been more grateful for the way time passed. Until he saw a pair of hands sliding across your waist, fingers gripping your hips so roughly, he was sure they would leave a mark on your skin. A semi-attractive man whispered words in your ear, his beard scruffing against your skin. You smirked, turning around to plaster your lips against his in a kiss that could make a pornstar blush.  

He knew you'd moved on; nearly a year had passed since the last time he saw you, and you'd probably found someone to sleep with, but he wasn't ready to watch you become someone else's. His mind was prepared to face your happiness, but his heart wasn’t. And even now, he was sure you were just tagging along with the man, using him for information for whatever mission you had gotten yourself into, yet he felt as if what remained of his heart had been ripped out of his chest.  

With strong, rough movements, the man turned you around, pressing your body against the railing. As his hand grabbed your neck, your hips grinded against his, your mouth open as you licked your lips. 

The super soldier couldn’t take it anymore, his heart begged him to stop the torture. He wasn’t even sure where Sam was, nor did he care. He cared about you, and he could only think about what he had lost. With the last of his dignity, he began to look away from you and your companion, who had leaned over to your ear once more. Except this time his eyes found Bucky’s, his fingers tightening around your neck.  

He knew. Somehow the man knew who he was and, most importantly, who you were.  

Your eyes widen slightly, searching through the sea of people dancing downstairs. But it didn't take you long to find those blue eyes you once adored. He was there, looking exactly the same as the night you left him, along with your heart.  

"I know who you are." The man whispered in your ear—a threat not so subtly hidden behind every word.  

But you couldn’t dwell long on his words because ice-cold eyes looked back at you. Ice cold eyes brought back the pain you thought you left behind, and the rage surfaced once more as you remembered the promises you made him.  

Cold metal was pressed against your neck, the edge of it grazing your skin. Bucky’s eyes widened in alarm, and his hands turned into fists, making him look like he cared. Like he actually had a heart.  

He barely took two steps in your direction when the wicked smile you wore stopped him. It was sinister. It was deadly. And when you turned to the man to say something, his grip faltered as one word left your lips.  

"Good"  

Your head connected against the man’s nose, a crack let you know it was most likely broken. You barely heard the man’s yells when bullets made their way to you, a couple of them grazing your skin. The room that was once filled with hips swaying, alcohol, and moans had transformed into a frenzy of screams and people running to get out of the building.  

The crowd tried to take Bucky away; their desperate attempts at escaping dragged him away as he fought his way through the sea of people. Seconds passed, and he could hear your grunts as well as more shooting coming from the upper floor, with girls running down the stairs, some of them with splashes of blood staining their clothes.  

He didn’t know whose blood it belonged to, and that frightened him.  

Sam’s voice pulled him out of his trance. "What the hell happened?"  

His friend had managed to make his way to him, both of them still getting pushed around. Bucky offered him a quick glance before resuming his previous task of making his way to the stairs.  

"Her cover is blown," was all the explanation Bucky offered, and somehow it was enough. Before any of them could add anything, screams came from the front door, three bulky men were making their way there while carrying very large and dangerous guns. "Take care of them, I’ll go help her," the super soldier said without leaving any room for discussion.  

When his fingers finally grabbed the banister of the stairs, Bucky was close to losing his mind. Climbing two steps at a time, he finally found himself a scene that froze him in the spot.  

You were there, your black dress ripped in some places, your makeup ruined by mascara running down your cheeks, and blood splashes tainted your flawless skin. Bucky had managed to get there just in time as you twisted a man's arm to an unnatural angle, the crack of his joint popping out of place was followed by his screams. You had managed to kill/knock out everyone except for the guy who had previously had a knife to your throat, and Bucky knew better than to think that was just a mere coincidence.  

After the last man fell to the ground, blood sputtering out of his neck, you lifted your gaze towards him. He couldn’t read you as easily as he had once been able to and he hated it. Before, he was sure he knew you better than you knew yourself, more than once already sure of your likes and dislikes before you asked him for an opinion. He had treasured those times in his mind, and the memories were as comforting as they were painful. A constant reminder of what he had lost.  

He was right there, right in front of you. The man you fell in love with when you still had a heart. The man who still had a tight grip on it and who would probably always own it. He could keep it for all you cared, your heart was tainted with memories you didn’t wish to keep.  

It was the first time both of you were this close, every scream gone as you were absorbed by your own bubble. He looked so familiar that your own body reacted the way it used to whenever you saw him. Your heart stammered in your chest, and even after so long, the butterflies in your stomach appeared for a millisecond. He was the man you had once loved, he was the man with whom you imagined a future together.  

Then, you remembered why all your hopes and dreams had been destroyed.  

Bucky noticed the hurt flashing through your face, your jaw tightening right before you made your way to him. For a moment, he thought you were about to hug him, your desperation to reach him in your long strides mirroring his as his body begged him to touch you. He wanted to apologize, beg for forgiveness at your feet, and profess the love that he wasn’t able to forget.  

Perhaps if his mind hadn't been plagued with all the things he wanted to do, he would’ve noticed your foot rising to give him a solid kick on the chest.  

The force and unexpectedness of your attack launched him back to the railing, throwing him over it. His back landed with a loud thud on the floor, fortunate enough for him, everyone else seemed to have dissipated and his fall wasn’t that high up. A second later, you jumped from the banister, landing on top of him with your knife in hand. Your knee found it’s place on his chest, feet pressing his hands flat on the surface. Before Bucky could even muster a word, the blade was pinned against his throat.  

"I told you if I ever saw you again, I would fucking kill you." 

Then  

Steve had changed so much in the years they had spent apart. His friend, who had once been the fragile little Brooklyn boy he would protect with his life, was now a fully grown man with a strength that could crush a person if he wasn’t careful enough. He was also now his protector, not from bullies that would harass him because of his own stubbornness but from a secret organization that wanted to take over the world. That and his own fractured mind.  

He had lost control once the man had given him the commands to bring back the deadly assassin they had turned him into. He remembered it all, but it had felt as if he was under water the whole time, falling deeper and deeper the more he tried to fight against it. His own body didn’t belong to him, no matter how hard he tried to control it.  

For a year, he had thought it was possible to lead a normal life; his time spent in Romania had given him false hope that he had gotten away from his captors. How foolish he had been, thinking he could ever be far away from his grasps. He wasn’t the man he was before, just a weapon designed to hurt people.  

He supposed he was lucky Steve still saw good in him, at least enough to turn against his teammates and friends to help him clear his name. And now, as they drove to one of Steve’s friends' hideouts, he couldn’t help but feel guilty about everything that was going on. If he hadn’t lost control, Steve wouldn't be a wanted criminal. If he wasn’t captured, a shit ton of innocent, good people would still be alive. If his mind had been stronger, he could’ve broken free of HYDRA's mind control.  

Maybe it would’ve been better if he had actually died when he fell from that train.  

Steve parked outside an abandoned apartment complex, it seemed no one had lived there in years. He threw a questioning eyebrow at Sam, who just shrugged before getting out of the vehicle. Another of Steve’s friends had decided to help him out of loyalty to Steve, not because he particularly liked Bucky or entirely believed in his good side.  

All three men walked inside the building, not a sound inside other than their footsteps and heavy breathing. Steve looked around for a couple of seconds before making his way to the second floor, his intuition telling him where to go. He stood in front of a door with a big C plastered on it, his friend's hand hesitating before knocking on the wood.  

After the third knock came back without an answer, Steve decided to open the door. He had called a name while crossing the threshold, looking around for any signs of life inside the apartment. Bucky was surprised to find the apartment filled with computers, blueprints, documents, and lots of military-grade equipment. Everything gave away the signs of someone working there, yet there was no one who took ownership over them.  

It was too late when Bucky heard you standing behind him, with his feet being swept by your leg and effectively knocking him down. The wooden floor amplified the echo of his fall, catching Steve and Sam’s attention. Your frame landed on top of his, gun aimed directly between his eyes.Bucky's hand reached to grab your ankle in an effort to destabilize you, but the barrel of your weapon was pressed right on his forehead.  

"I wouldn’t do it if I were you," you said coolly. "I promise you, I’ll blow your brains out before you can even land a hit."  

After your words filled the room, Bucky’s eyes finally took their chance to look at you, actually look at you.  

God, you were beautiful.  

Maybe it was only your physical beauty that had taken him by surprise, or the fact that you had taken him down so easily with just one leg movement. Or even the fact that you seemed to have no fear towards a man who was being marketed as a "dangerous and armed terrorist." Whatever it was, Bucky couldn’t deny the fact that you were the most beautiful human being he had seen.  

After a few explanations from Steve’s part and some begging for help, you released the super soldier from your hold, weapon holstered in your back. Your hand extended to help him get off the floor, and you offered him a charming but wary smile.   

You told the three men to make themselves at home and take anything they needed. Bucky had chosen to keep guard, being by himself in the top floor while looking out through a window that hid him from everyone else. He was stewing in his own complicated thoughts when he heard a knock on the wall. You were there, standing a few feet away from him with a shy smile on your face as you extended to him a cup filled with hot coffee.  

Thump, thump, thump.  

"Sorry about the whole thing holding you hostage," you said as he welcomed the cup.  

His fingers accidentally grazed against your own, and it was as if he had touched electricity itself. Heat extended from his hands all through his body, and his ability to think was thrown out of the window. He looked at you, and he couldn’t tell if you felt the same or not, but he could feel how your eyes burned him, with a curiosity behind them that was so easy to read that he was surprised you were the black ops/spy Sam had told him.  

"It’s whatever, I would’ve done the same thing if I were you." Bucky answered after a few seconds.  

He turned to look through the window again, trying to keep his thoughts in order. You settled down next to him, the warmth of your skin reaching his own. Nothing could be heard other than your breathings, not even the cars outside or the sound of the busy city that hid you. And for the first time in a long time, Bucky felt relaxed with someone he didn’t know from the past.  

"I’m James."  

He could’ve sworn he heard you smile before you gave him your name. 

Now  

"What the fuck are you doing here, Barnes?"  

The music was still on, as were the blue and red lights that lighted up the darkness in the room. Bucky could feel the breeze of your breath on his face and the smell of expensive whisky and tobacco in every word you said. He wasn’t surprised, the man that you knocked out probably tried to impress you with them.  

But behind the traces of blood, alcohol, and gunpowder, he could smell your shampoo. The same peony smell mixed with lavander filled his nostrils, and it brought him back to the many nights you had spent together. Your fingers were drawing circles on the skin of his back, and his nose was buried in your hair.  

You, on the other hand, were reminded of the suffering he caused you with every passing second.  

"I told you to stay away from me," you muttered.  

Your hand pressed the edge of the blade on his skin, and you were sure if you kept going you were going to start drawing out blood, but you couldn’t care less. Bucky Barnes had always been an expert at instilling unwanted emotions in you, and it was difficult to keep those emotions at bay right now. 

You felt anger. You felt resentment. You felt pure, long-lasting hatred.  

"Maybe I should slit your throat right now, that’ll make you stay away from me permanently."  

Your words were intimidating, filled with the same promise you had made him that fateful night. This was his chance, his chance at the apology that had died out in his throat when you closed the door behind him. This was the chance he had chased in his dreams for almost a year.  

But he couldn’t say anything.  

He loved you. God, he loved you so much. He missed seeing your face other than in the few pictures he kept or in the memories that did no justice. Because even now, as you threatened to kill him, you were a dream come true, just like the first time he saw you. 

"Say something!"  

"You’re beautiful."  

Your grip faltered on the knife, your eyebrows slightly furrowing at his words.  

No, he couldn’t do this. He couldn’t come back out of nowhere, say some cheesy, basic compliment, and make the walls of hate you had built crumble. Even if he had only managed to knock down one brick, he didn't deserve it. You knew it, he knew it, and everyone else who knew what happened between you two knew it.  

Then why did your heart flutter at his words?  

"Hey," Sam said, breaking the silence, your head snapping in his direction."I know he’s an asshole, but I would appreciate it if you didn’t kill my partner."  

You look back at Bucky for a few seconds before giving up, throwing your knife to the floor. Sam leaned over, his hand extended to help Bucky get up.Your murderous eyes went from Bucky to Sams, your gaze softening at his friend.  

"I told you to only contact me in emergencies," you grumbled.  

A hiss left your lips when you touched your arm, one of the bullet wounds was still seeping blood. Bucky thought about telling you something, but this time he listened to the rational part of his brain that told him to shut the fuck up.  

"Believe me, if we had a choice, we wouldn’t have come," Sam said.  

Your eyes flickered between both men, not convinced about helping them. Well, on helping the blue eyed super soldier. A pathetic excuse for why you couldn’t help them died on your lips once you saw his blue eyes. Please, help us they begged.  

You didn’t owe him anything. You shouldn’t help him, but in the back of your head, Steve’s voice rang through. Good ol’ Steve Rogers and his everlasting moral lessons. That's what we have to do, he said. 

So you put aside your feelings because helping people mattered more than an idiot who broke your heart.  

"What do you want?" You sighed.  

"We’re looking into something... odd. A bunch of pregnant women missing, still in their early stages of pregnancy. Most of them show up dead after giving birth, but the babies are nowhere to be found."  

You shrug. "They take the kids, so?"  

It was cold, you were aware of it. But after the things you had seen, the things you had done, you were aware that people kidnapping woman for their babies wasn’t something out of the ordinary, let alone something that required Captain America to look into it. Things like that were always forgotten, pushed back into a slew of cases alongside more missing women. 

"They had traces of the super serum."  

Fuck.  

You laughed. A joyless, cynical type of laugh. Destiny, of course, had to be a jerk. 

"Well, you’re in luck. I think we’re tracking down the same people." Sam raised an eyebrow at you with a simple request for you to elaborate. "A girl showed up dead in México a couple of months ago, she’d been missing for almost a year. Autopsy showed she had a miscarriage before dying, the bleeding killed her. The remains had traces of the serum too."  

"Are you saying that—?" Sam couldn’t finish his sentence, the thought sending chills along his spine.  

"Yeah."  

The air is somber between the three of you. Sure, the flag smashers were a problem when they appeared, as you knew from all the news reports you'd seen.People with ten times the strength of a normal human being were dangerous, especially if they were associated with a terrorist organization. 

This was different, though. This was sinister.  

Groans coming from the top floor broke the eeriness that surrounded you, making you finally remember why you were here. You tore apart part of the black dress that was once pristine and wrapped it around your arm.  

"Look at this guy over there," you said, motioning behind you. "He has intel on this, he’s the one that gets the girls and delivers them."  

"Well, let’s take him in and—"  

You cut Sam off. "No. Look, you came looking for me because this is my specialty. I know how to handle guys like him, and I sure as hell know he won’t tell us shit if we take him to a precinct and threaten him with some jail time. He’s a big fish. A few phone calls and he’ll be out in no time." They knew you were right, but they didn’t like your arguments. "We do this my way, or you better pray you find them before I do."  

Sam looked hesitant. He knew what you were going to do to the man, and his good conscience chastised him for even thinking of letting you torture someone. But the rational part, the part that knew that in this case there wasn’t much of an option, knew that they needed you, and perhaps you also needed them.  

"Just, don’t kill him." Sam said before walking away.  

Compromise. You could do compromise.  

"Fine," you said, rolling your eyes. 

After Sam slammed the door shut on his way out, you were reminded of the fact that you weren't alone. Bucky’s eyes were already looking at you, the same apologetic eyes you had seen before you kicked him in the chest.  

"Thanks for helping us." He spoke, thinking it was an appropriate way to break the ice, but it only managed to make you scoff.  

"Let’s make something clear, I’m not doing this for you." you spat. "I’m doing this because Sam needs my help and so we can save those innocent girls and stop any more from being taken. This doesn’t change anything between us, as soon as this is over, you go back to leaving me the fuck alone, got it?"  

Say something. Fight for her. Explain what happened, his mind begged him.  

But he couldn’t, because even if it had been almost a year since he last saw you, he was still the same coward who let you walk away without a fight.  

So he agreed.  

"Yeah."  

"Good. I’ll meet you outside." 

Then  

"Thanks for the coffee." Bucky said before taking a sip.  

Droplets of water fell from his forehead, a strand of unruly black hair was hanging on the side of his eyebrows. The towel that hung from his waist, showing his torso all the way down to that sculpted V of his abdomen, made it too difficult to concentrate on the files you were trying to organize.  

The man was hotter than the sun.  

"No problem." you smiled at him.   

You had no idea it would be the best and worst decision you'd ever made when you suggested Bucky stay with you while Steve went to rescue the others.You liked Bucky, and the few days you spent with him while Steve and the others gathered everything they needed so they could go find Zemo had been nice. Sure, he was a man of a few words, but it didn’t bother you. It was weirdly comforting to be able to enjoy someone’s company in silence. And the times he spoke, he did it out of pure curiosity, curiosity about the world, about what had happened while he was in the ice, but mostly about you.  

He asked about your cases, how you met Steve, and how you came to partner with some of the most powerful people in the world. He asked about your life, about your childhood in the orphanage, and what made you choose to help people. He asked so many questions, yet he still respected you when you didn’t want to answer some of them. He asked, not to pry, but to get to know you, and in return, when you asked him something, he was as honest as he felt comfortable being.  

And that was the problem. No matter how much you tried, you knew your days with Bucky Barnes were numbered. Ever since you were young, you knew that being in this line of work would prevent you from having a normal life. You couldn't have a normal relationship. You weren’t meant to have the love story your favorite movies portraited, the white picket fence and the family of five wasn’t in your future.  

Neither was he, maybe in the forties he would’ve came home from war and found himself a pretty girl to marry. But now, after everything he had seen and everything he had unwillingly done, he probably wouldn't want a relationship any time soon. Or maybe not at all.  

But after three weeks of being cramped up in the same little apartment, you were getting used to him. You had developed a little routine together that always ended up with a cup of coffee at the end of the day. Sometimes both of you would just sit in silence, taking in each other's company while you sipped on your cups. Other times, just like now, he would sit next to you as you watched whatever movie you had decided to put on.  

You had to cut this at the root before it became too hard to let go.  

"So, you’re going to Wakanda?"  

He sighs. "Yeah. Steve says they have someone that might be able to help with... help with my..."  

"I know." You finished for him, suddenly placing your hand on top of his. He tensed at your touch, both of you looking down at your hands before you took away yours, embarrassed at your own lack of control. "Well, if you’re not too busy there, I could go visit you sometimes."  

"You would?" he questioned.  

"If you want me, too," you shrugged, trying not to reveal your excitement. 

He looked at you, his thoughts unreadable through his face. For a moment, you thought he was going to reject your offer, but something changed in his eyes. He smiled, the faintest, littlest hint of a smile you had seen, but it was there.  

You made him smile for the first time.  

"Yeah. I’d like that."  

If someone were to ask Bucky when he first felt he could love you, it would be right now. With the dim light of the TV lighting up your face and a shy smile on your lips as you told him you were willing to travel such a long distance just to see him.  

And as you lay next to him, your head against his shoulder, you thought to yourself that maybe you could be selfish for once and allow yourself to enjoy his company a bit more. 

Now  

There were drops of water leaking out of a pipe, he could hear them from the other side of the room. Everything around him was dark, it seemed the only source of light was on top of him and the woman on the floor pleading for her life.   

"Please don’t do this," she begged with a Spanish accent. "I don’t want to die, please."   

He wanted to move, he wanted to throw away the gun in his hand, but it was like he was a spectator of his own life. His body was not his, or his breathing. Not even his heartbeat listened to the inner panic attack he was having. Nothing belonged to him.   

"Kill her," a distorted voice told him. His eyes glanced at him quickly, and he noticed the man had no face. No one around them had one.   

Everything felt like it was in slow motion. His finger moved, pressing the trigger of the gun, but he refused to give up. He had to try, even if his own consciousness was trying to kick him out, sucking him into the pool of darkness he had been resting in for a long time.   

But even if he tried for years, he couldn’t win. He was powerless.   

Broken.   

He could only witness how the other "him" obeyed. The woman's eyes changed from scared to lifeless in less than a second. A splash of crimson staining his combat boots kept his attention. He couldn’t hear what the other people in the room were saying, he didn’t exist anymore, or he didn’t want to. The sound of the water leak was deafening now. Growing louder and louder until it consumed everything around him   

He didn’t want to be awake. Not like this.   

And as he felt himself disappearing, he hoped this was the last time he came back to the surface. He would rather be surrounded by emptiness.   

Yet something interrupted him, pulling him back up.   

A woman's voice, so familiar it made his heartbeat change.   

"Bucky!"  

Bucky's eyes opened wide. His head was spinning, his breathing was rapid, and his heart felt like it was going to burst through his chest. The adrenaline in his system made him dizzy, and he could feel his hands shaking. And he was feeling. A lot. Scared, angry, hopeless. So many emotions constricted his chest, burying him under their weight.  

"Bucky," you repeated. His head snapped at you, showing you a pair of wide, terrified eyes.  

Your feet almost moved. A pure protective instinct filled you with dread at the fact that you couldn’t help him anymore. Your head and your heart were in conflict. In one hand your heart begged you to go to him, stroke his back as you peppered kisses along his shoulder. Then you would lie back in bed while your hands surrounded his body, your front pressed to his back in a way to say, I’m here, I love you, and everything will be alright.  

On the other hand, your brain told you to turn in the other direction. Walk away from the night terrors that plagued his mind and let him suffer in silence. He wasn't your responsibility anymore, and you shouldn't be concerned about helping him with whatever was wrong with him. 

Was it possible to hate and care about someone at the same time?  

"Nightmares?" you couldn’t help yourself from asking. 

His left hand rubbed his eyes, a sigh leaving his lips. "Yeah. Sorry if I woke you up."  

"You didn’t."  

You sat at the table in front of the couch he was lying on, a steaming cup of lavender tea between your hands. The cling of the spoon clashing against the ceramic filled the uncomfortable silence between you.  

"Where’s Sam?" he asked, sitting straight as a couple of droplets of sweat fell down his forehead.  

"He has a contact in the city. He left to meet them."  

"Oh."  

Whatever else he was about to say died on his lips. You noticed he seemed to do that often since meeting again, his eyes speaking the words he would never say. Sometimes you would catch him looking at you, the frown on his forehead deepening with the passing of time. It made you wonder if he would now be open to answering your questions.  

"He said you’re going to therapy."  

He was taken aback by your question. It probably was the first time you said more than the necessary to him. Also, it was the first time that you showed any sort of interest in his life.  

"Uh, yeah. Court mandated."  

You hummed, sipping on your tea.  

"Does it work?"  

You saw the hesitance in his eyes. The way his jaw clenched and his grip on the couch made his knuckles white made you think he was about to change the subject with a witty, bitter, or sarcastic remark, or maybe even just ignore the question at all. You wouldn’t be surprised if he did, by the end of your relationship, he was an expert in it.  

Bucky didn’t change much after all, you thought to yourself  

But he broke the silence.  

"In some ways." he started, his gaze dropping to the floor. "The nightmares don’t come as often anymore, and I don’t feel the need to shoot every asshole that drives a shitty car with a shitty exhaust pipe." You chuckled at his confession, making a slight smirk show on his face. "But she’s too much."  

"What do you mean?"  

He sighed. "She pisses me off. I hate that she keeps trying to make me feel better by just saying my life is better now and I shouldn’t feel like shit anymore. But it’s not that easy. Just like it’s not easy to follow the stupid set of rules she gave me."  

He looked up to see your reaction to his words, expecting to see the same hardened look you’ve given him the past couple of weeks. And it was just that what greeted his eyes, your lips slightly pressed together and your eyes decorated with a slight scowl that only showed up for him.  

But behind the tough exterior, he could see your eyes had softened. For a brief second, your eyes showed care and understanding to what he siad before going back to the usual void stare you gave him.  

"She sounds like a bad therapist." He shrugged in agreement, he couldn’t say anything against the truth. "She also sounds like a bitch."  

He laughed. The type of laugh that caught him off guard and made his lungs run out of air. Granted, your joke might’ve not been as funny as his laugh was giving it credit for, but he had always been fond of your bluntness.  

You couldn’t help but laugh with him too.  

Laughing with Bucky felt foreign yet so familiar at the same time. It felt like reminiscing on a memory you didn’t remember you had, a bittersweet memory that brought back the same good feeling of the memories you built together  

But moments like that couldn’t last forever. Your heart couldn’t afford to remember.  

A text message from Sam lit up your screen, saying his contact had useful information. You stood up from the table after texting him back and drank the rest of the cup's contents. 

"You should try to get some sleep, we have a long day ahead."  

His shoulders dropped slightly.  

"Yeah, you’re right. I’ll try to."  

With nothing left to say, you walked away, leaving Bucky in the loneliness of the night.   

You didn’t go right away to the room you had adopted as your own, though. He heard you going through the kitchen, a dim sound of clinking and pouring reaching him due to his enhanced hearing. He didn't think anything of it; maybe you needed more tea before going to bed. 

Your steps brought you back to him before you placed an object on the coffee table right beside him.  

A cup of lavender tea. 

Then  

"It’s kinda late to be outside, huh?"  

Bucky jolted at the sound of your voice, your presence taking him by surprise. He was completely sure that when he left a couple of hours ago his house was empty and you hadn’t sent a message of your arrival.   

Something had happened? Was someone injured? Were you in trouble?  

His questions died on his lips as you cut the space between you and him short, your arms tightly embracing him. Your head found its place in the crook of his neck, his long hair falling on your face. His hands took a second to respond, but they eventually wrapped around your waist, bringing you closer to his chest.  

You stayed like that for what felt like ages, just taking in each other's warmth. He missed you, even if he tried to deny it every time his thoughts would wander to you. He tried to convince himself that his reclusion made him miss everyone he considered a friend, and in a world where everyone seemed to want him dead, you were one of the few people he trusted.  

He had been staying in Wakanda for nearly six months, and out of those six months, you had visited him at least once every month. The duration of your trip would vary, sometimes you would stay only a few hours, with most of your time spent in his hut while sharing stories of the outside and his progress. Other times, you'd stay for days, with the longest stay being a week and a half. In those cases, he would show you the surroundings, the forest that surrounded the back of his hut or take you on a long walk alongside the river that crossed his home. Sometimes you'd sit outside and stare at the stars, your only company being the animals and the flora. 

He also came to hate every time you would leave, feeling like a part of himself was leaving with you.  

One of his hands landed on the side of your hips, the other searching for your face.Your grip on him grew tighter once his fingers brushed the skin on your face but you eventually let go, allowing his hand to guide you slightly away from him.  

"What happened?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.  

You didn’t respond, but one look into your eyes, and he knew the answer. Whatever it was, it had affected you to the core, the broken look in your eyes could only be compared to the one he saw every time he looked at his reflection in the mirror.  

His forehead rested on yours, both your eyes closing at the contact.  

"It’s ok. I got you."  

His hand found yours as he guided you toward his bed. It wasn’t until then that he noticed you still had your tactical gear on, dirt and crystals still hiding in some places. He grabbed the buckle of your vest, his eyes asking for permission to get it off. A slight nod gave him the confirmation, beginning the process of somewhat freeing you of the events you had seen. He got rid of his own garments too, leaving you both standing in front of yourselves with only underwear covering you. He dragged you into bed, your frames covered by the light white sheets on his bed. 

Not many times had he allowed himself to think of you in a sexual manner, knowing how his body would react in a lustful way. But as he found himself looking at you with barely any clothes on, the desire was left on the back burner of his brain. You needed him. You needed his comfort, and he was more than willing to give it to you.  

He would give you anything you asked for.  

His hand rested on your face, tracing circles across your cheek, your eyes closed at the soothing action.  

"I’m sorry." Your voice trembled. He could see you wanted to say more, but words failed to come out of your mouth  

Bucky’s heart ached. He had never seen you in such a vulnerable state, and his mind was going cray at the thought of not being able to do anything to help you.  

"It’s ok, sunshine. You don’t have to talk about it."  

So you lay there, head against his chest, as he kept you between his arms, with nothing other than the sound of the crickets outside his hut surrounding you. And for the first time in a long time, you felt what being loved felt like.  

That night, you kissed him for the first time. You didn’t stop, not even the next morning when he woke you up with breakfast already made and a cup of lavender tea. 

 Now  

"Bring him to the table!" you yelled.  

Your hand swept across the surface, knocking over every piece of paper, pencil, and piece of equipment. The vibrations of the heavier objects on the concrete floors matched the beating of your heart.  

Bucky dropped Sam on the table. The man had gone unconscious on the ride to the safe house, the bullet wound that oozed liquid crimson was most likely the cause.The same crimson color now stains Bucky's clothes, and his leather gloves were also covered in a thin layer of it.  

You brought your knife to slash through his clothes, the sharp metal cutting through them as if they were butter. The hole on his shoulder seemed to have no exit, the bullet was still inside him. You were glad Sam wasn’t conscious for the next hour.  

The super soldier hovered over you for the entirety of the time you spent cleaning through the fragments that splintered from the bullet. Everything went relatively well until Sam started waking up, his body contorting in pain as you dug through his wound. Bucky brought him a bottle of vodka while you injected him with some local anesthesia.  

Hours later, the wounded man was now resting on the only bed the safehouse had, his breathing bringing great comfort as it meant he was still alive. After half a bottle of vodka and a some painkillers diluted on his IV, you were sure he wouldn’t wake up until tomorrow.  

The faucet sprayed cold water onto your palms. Your nails desperately tried to scrape away the traces of blood that still lingered in your skin, leaving red marks all across your knuckles. Dirt and dried blood were trapped underneath your fingernails, and no matter how much you tried to dig it out, it would stay right there.  

Bucky’s footsteps brought you out of your trance, the heavy sound of his combat boots felt deafening with each step he took. You tried to tune him out, focusing once again on the sound of water, but it seemed as if Bucky had made it his purpose to be as loud as possible. You held onto the sink so strongly that you were sure it would snap.  

A deep rage came from your stomach, spreading all over your body. The anger constricted your chest in such a way that you weren’t sure if somehow you were buried under a collapsed building, its weight invisibly crushing you.  

It was his fault. It was all his fault.  

You didn’t remember walking outside the bathroom, nor did you remember walking up to him and slapping away the cup of water his hand held.  

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" you barked at him.  

"I—"  

"I gave you one task. You had to wait until I gave you the signal so you could come in. Not guns blazing, not punching everyone that comes your way, not drawing everyone's attention to us. Your only fucking job was to wait for the distributor to show up and wait for my goddamn signal."  

"What did you want me to do? Just stand there and do nothing?" he argued.  

You were taken aback by his response. Part of you expected him to just let you scream at him and give you the same soft eyes he always gave you when you spoke to him.You weren't expecting him to snap back at you or to defend himself. 

Maybe if things hadn’t gone sour between you two, you would’ve listened to what he said, and in return, he would’ve listened to you. But the anger was too strong to be subdued.  

"I wanted you to follow the fucking plan."  

"He was about to torture you!"  

Bucky's thoughts returned to the old factory turned whorehouse.The way you had purposefully gotten caught and how they had tied you to an exposed pipe line. He could still hear the sound of the man’s hand smashing against your cheek.  

"I can handle myself! I told you guys to stay put until the distributor was there. He knows I’m after him, and this was our only chance to catch him. And now he’s god knows where and Sam got fucking shot."  

A heartbeat passed before Bucky came close to your face. His big frame towered over you, and his breathing hit your face.  

"You’re fucking delusional if you think I was just going to let anything happen to you."  

You scoffed, "Oh, so now you care?"  

"I’ve always cared."  

You pulled away from him, your eyes rolling at his pathetic words.  

"Sure."  

Perhaps it was the fact that you had been in danger no longer than a couple of hours ago, or maybe it was the heat of the fight that had left some residues on him. Whatever it was, it made Bucky courageous enough to reach for your arm.  

"Look at me."  

You swatted him away.  

"Don’t fucking touch me."  

But this time he wasn't going down without a fight.Not again.  

"I know I was an asshole at the end of our relationship, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care for you anymore."  

A bitter laugh came out of you. All of this had to be some sick joke. "When you care about someone, you don’t treat them like that. You didn’t care about me, and you sure as hell didn’t love me."  

His hand tried to touch you again, and this time you let him. You were tired. Tired of fighting with him. You closed your eyes as soon as his skin came in contact with yours, his touch consuming all of your senses.  

You opened your eyes to find him staring back at you, the blue eyes that once hurt you shining the same way they did the first time you kissed him.  

"I did love you," he whispered into your lips. "I still do."  

His words burned you like someone had branded you with hot iron in the chest.Even after all this time, he could still hurt you, Why couldn’t he just leave you alone? Why did he have to bring back the past you so fiercely tried to leave behind?  

"Don’t." Your lower lip quivered. "Y-you can't just break my heart and then come back into my life and just say you still love me."  

"I never stopped loving you."  

Those five words were all it took to tear down what little control you had over yourself. A year ago it would've broken you to hear them but now they only brought a deep sense of indignation. 

With a quick move, you pulled his hand away from you, your hands pushing against his chest until he hit the wall. You wanted him to hurt. You wanted to carve his heart out of his ribcage and throw it far away, maybe then he would understand what it felt like.  

"Where was your love when I needed it, huh? Where was your love when I had no one else? Where was your love when I reached for you every night but you were already gone? Where was your love when I begged you to love me, to be there for me?" Your hands were clutching his jacket, and your vision was blurred by tears."Where the fuck was your love when you brought that girl to your apartment?"  

Bucky never saw you like this, not even when he stomped on your heart with his indifference. Under the anger, the hate, and the surface indifference you showed him, he could see how broken you were. He could see how you were constantly struggling to put the pieces of yourself back together that he had torn apart. 

He hated himself for extinguishing parts of you. 

"I’m sorry."  

A lapse of judgment.  

That’s what you would tell anyone who asked you why you kissed Bucky that night. You would say that you had been blinded by the pure rage his mere presence would bring you. Or perhaps you would take the easy route and you would say that with everything that happened that night, almost being tortured and Sam getting hurt, you had acted in a primitive instict of searching comfort.  

The truth was different. You could lie to yourself and say that you didn’t needed Bucky, not after all the things he had done. You lied to yourself constantly when you told yourself you were over him. You also lied to yourself when you claimed that your one-night stands had fulfilled you in the same way that Bucky had. 

You couldn’t feel anything, not ever since you walked out of his apartment. You had tried different people, different cities. You had tried different alcohols and different drugs. You had tried anything that could help you fill the emptiness that had found a permanent home inside you. You felt nothing, not until you saw those cerulean eyes again.  

Your kiss was aggressive, your lips smashing against his with strength and your hands finding their place in the back of his head. It took a second for Bucky to kiss you back as he thought his mind was playing tricks with him. But after you pressed yourself against his chest, his body reacted on muscle memory alone, his arms surrounding your waist.  

It wasn’t what you expected, though. You thought that the specks of love that remained between you would be enough to bring back whatever it was that you were missing. Instead, you were met with the most intense hatred you've ever felt, mixed with the melancholy of what could've been. 

He tasted like the past, but he still hurt like the present.  

So you made a decision.If you couldn't bring yourself to love Bucky Barnes anymore, you would hate him with all that remained of your soul. You would hate him until both of you burned in the flames of your agony. You'd despise him until you'd ripped every part that matched the ones he'd so easily broken. 

"I hate you," you whispered between kisses. "I fucking hate you."  

Your words were daggers to his heart. His chest tightened, and his grip on you faltered for a second before he snapped out of it. This wasn’t about him. If you needed to tell him how much you despised him, he would gladly let you kill him with your words. It was the least you deserved.  

"I know," he mumbled against your lips.  

He felt your body guiding him through the room until the back of his legs hit against the couch where he would sleep. Your hands pushed against his chest, making him sit on the couch while you straddled his lap.  

Clothes flew across the room, and you found yourself tearing his shirt apart in two while he only pulled yours off.You'd worry about that later; right now, nothing was more important than feeling your skin against his. 

Your hands traveled over his chest, fingers grazing every part of his abdomen as you trailed down to his zipper. You palmed him over his jeans, his cock already hard, and you felt it twitch against the fabric with every touch you gave him. Groans left Bucky’s lips.  

"I hate you," you repeated as a mantra.  

He shouldn’t make you feel this way, but as you see his head going back when your hand opened his fly and found it’s place around his cock you felt your own desire pooling in your lower belly and the aching in your core became unbearable.  

With swift movements, Bucky got rid of his pants and his underwear while you remained on top of him. With your frame still covered by a black lace bra and your black tactical pants on, he couldn't help but feel exposed when he looked at you.Deciding he didn’t wanted to be the only one naked his hands went to the side of your hips in efforts to get you rid of the fabric but your hand swatted him away.  

Beg me, your eyes said.  

For a moment, he considered tearing your pants apart the same way you had done with his shirt. However, the seriousness behind your eyes warned him that he might end things too soon if his stubbornness got in the way. So he gave in.  

"Please, Sunshine." His hands gripped your waist, his hips grinding against your still-wrapped core, sending shivers down your spine."Please, let me see you."  

You relented, unbuttoning your pants and throwing them away with your panties. In what were the longest seconds of Bucky’s life, you unclasped your bra, finally getting rid of the last barrier your body held on to.  

You stood there, completely naked, staring at Bucky.He remembered the way your breasts felt when he held them. He remembered how soft your skin was. He remembered that if he bit on the skin of your neck, right where the jugular is, you would clench around him. He remembered. In the lonely nights when he needed some release, he would close his eyes and imagine your lips around his cock as he fisted himself in the solitude of his apartment. 

All those memories didn’t compare to watching you in the flesh, with hungry, hateful eyes on him as you walked back to straddle him again.  

His cock twitched once your legs fell to his sides, the heat of your body settling on his crotch. You sat on top of him, your wetness welcoming him once you lowered yourself. His length placed itself right between your lips, and a groan left him.  

"Fuck."  

Your hips began rocking in slow but sharp motions as he felt his cock coated with your slick. Slowly, you built up a rhythm that made both of you moan. His hands landed again on your hips, his fingers pressing on your skin in a way that was certain to leave bruises the next day. Your own hands gripped on Bucky’s biceps for stability, and you squeezed them every time you would feel him brushing against your clit.  

You felt amazing on top of him, but that wasn’t what made his heart pound against his chest.  

It was your eyes. Your eyes never left him, no matter how much pleasure you were pulling from both of you and how badly you wanted to roll your eyes as the coil inside of you tightened. Your eyes, which once showed him what love could look like, now looked at him with a simmering hatred he could not shake.  

His chest tightened at the thought of never seeing them again. The electricity that ran through his body was replaced by a deep sense of hopelessness, and the more he kept his gaze on you, the more it amplified. You must’ve sensed the change in him because your movements stopped.  

Broken eyes now stared at you with the ghost of tears in them. The anger that had driven your actions and your thoughts through all this had now subsided, allowing itself to mix with melancholy.   

I love you. I’m sorry. I miss you. His eyes said.  

I hate you. I’ll never forgive you. I wish I never met you. Yours answered.  

And in the middle of the lust that was taking place right on the couch, both of your hearts broke again.  

You pulled him back for a kiss that tasted of desperation and sorrow as tears fell from both your eyes. The saltiness of the tears bled into the kiss and mixed with it.Quickly, your hand guided his tip to your entrance. You needed him inside you like a person lost in the desert needs water. You craved him with every cell in your body, and it tore your heart apart.  

"So tight." He moaned in your mouth as you sank into him.  

The stretch of his length burned as you forced yourself to take him fully. It hurt, and even with your arousal completely covering him, you weren't prepared to take his thick length.You didn’t care though, you hoped it would make you forget your heartbreak. Bucky tried to stop you as he felt you struggling to take him in. His hands held your waist, but you shook your head before you started bouncing on him.  

You didn’t want love from him. You didn’t want tenderness or care. You wanted roughness. You wanted strength and aggressiveness until the only thing you could feel was the ache between your legs.  

The super soldier gave you what you wanted.  

Bucky’s pace was brutal, his cock hitting the sweet spot only he could reach. The sound of his hips colliding with yours filled the room, bouncing off the walls and echoing through the hallway outside.In the back of his mind, Bucky was thankful Sam was knocked out with meds so he could be spared from the obscene orchestra your bodies played.  

The pain quickly turned into pleasure. Your walls hugged him tightly, each thrust carried a strength that left you breathless. At some point your legs had given in, the only reason why you kept bouncing was the snap of his hips pushing you. He didn’t let go of you though, instead he pushed you against his chest in an embrace that surrounded you tightly.  

Your head rested against his while your hands stayed on his chest. The sadness that mixed with the pleasure numbed everything else except for the bubbling up of your release. It pained you to admit that no one else could make you feel like Bucky, you had tried to find someone who could replicate what his touch could do for you, but no one ever came close.  

You hated how much you missed him and how much you needed him.  

"I wish you would’ve stayed dead." you panted. The poison behind your words shredded his heart. He knew you were saying it to hurt him, he knew you didn’t mean it, but the conviction behind it felt like a kick in the chest. "I wish we never brought you back."  

"Me too." he finally admitted.  

Bucky felt your walls constrict around him, and he could tell you were close. He drew you in for one last kiss, the kind that took your breath away. The type of kiss that was a solace in a world of agony. The type of kiss that meant a promise that carried forever.  

You tightened around him as you came, and his thrusts slowed down as he rode you through your high. As you closed your eyes, more tears fell from the corners, so he reached out to wipe them away.Once you had recovered a little, his brutal pace came back, this time chasing his own release. You brought your lips to kiss his neck, feathery, soft kisses, and he felt his balls tightening. He was so close.  

He tried to pull out so he could fist himself to the end but you didn’t budge, instead whispering in his ear.  

"Inside."  

He came harder than he had done in the last year. You felt his cock twitching inside as he covered your walls with his cum, the mess between your release and his own dripping out of you. You kept bouncing on top of him, making sure to return the favor by guiding him all the way through the end.  

You stood up, the feeling of emptiness making you shudder when his cock left you, and his cum started leaking out of you. You turned to go find something to clean yourself up, but his metal hand stopped you. He guided you back to the couch before he walked towards the bathroom. A few minutes later, he came back with a towel, and he positioned himself right between your legs.  

He cleaned you up just like he had done for so many years before.His other hand caressed your thigh as he made sure to wipe everything. And just as he always did for years, once he finished, he kissed your inner thigh, a couple of inches away from your pussy.  

Bucky threw the towel to the floor, he would worry about it in the morning.As for right now, the only thing he wanted was to hold you close. So he did. He thanked the couch was big enough to fit you both as you layed together. He pulled the blanket he used to warm himself every night over you, and his arm surrounded your waist, his grip making your back settle against his front. His left hand traced lazy circles over your stomach while the other was used as your pillow.  

For a few seconds, both of you allowed yourselves to reminisce in the past. He kissed the top of your head as you snuggled against him like you usually did. And as you felt his warmth behind you and inhaled his scent, everything seemed to be alright once again.  

Except they weren’t. Bucky wasn’t the man who made you feel secure anymore, and you weren’t the woman who trusted him with all her heart. Both of them belonged to the past.  

"I don’t love you anymore. I will never love you again." you broke the silence.  

Bucky held you tighter as his heart broke once again.  

"I don’t deserve your love." He whispered. "But I’ll still love you forever." 

Then  

Loving Bucky Barnes was never easy.   

It wasn’t all bad, though. For many years you had been together, three and a half to be exact, where you could imagine a life with. Three years where there was no one you trusted more or preferred to be with.Three years that were the happiest of your life.  

Those were a few of the reasons why he had asked you to marry him. And those were also a few of the reasons why you had said yes.  

You had told yourself at the beginning that you couldn’t get attached to him for the safety of your heart. It didn’t matter that his touch felt like home or that during the times you spent apart, his eyes would be the only comfort you would find in your dreams. He would bring more heartbreak than love.  

Oh, how right you had been.  

Unfortunately for you, the heartbreak would come in a way you couldn’t have prevented.  

The snap came and took him away from you. One second he was standing next to you, the next he was turning into dust that flew into the wind. The last thing he had said was your name and after that half the population was gone.  

The years went by in a blur. Between nights filled with drugs and alcohol and days spent cramped up in your apartment, you were wallowing in the type of sadness that the rest of the population could understand. You kept your ring in your finger, it reminding you that what your memories craved for were real.  

Bucky had been real.  

With his departure, he had also taken your heart. 

After a particularly bad night where you crashed your vehicle into a contention bar, Tony had taken it upon himself to help you, offering you a home close to his secluded one. You took it, not because you wanted to get better but because you wanted solitude. But if life had taught you anything about Tony Stark, it was that he was as stubborn as they come.  

Every morning he would bring you breakfast along with a visit from a certain little baby that always wanted to be held by you, and sometimes she would be able to bring a small smile to your face. With time, the little baby turned into a little girl that would ask for a sleepover every once in a while, and you would gladly accept the offer to allow Tony and Pepper a night alone.  

Things got better. You visited Steve and Natasha at the compound and even allowed yourself to go in missions of your own, as it turned out not even The Snap could make criminals take a break. You even went to one of Steve’s depressing support group meetings, never returning for the next one.  

You couldn’t be strong all the time, though. Some nights, when the pain was so strong that it drowned you and the grief was too powerful to keep at bay, you would find yourself staring at the hundreds of pictures you had taken of him. Most of them were of you together, but there were a few you took when he wasn’t looking. The sunset behind him as he breathed in the clean air of Wakanda, or the small smile on his face as he tasted the food he cooked for you both.Even when he was reading some of the books he kept under his bed and a few wrinkles would show on his forehead as his whole focus remained in the text, he always looked beautiful.  

With time, everything felt like a routine. Waking up alone, eating alone, going outside alone. Sleeping alone. Everything seemed to be stable, not good or bad, but just stable. You were sure this was the best you could do, or at least the best it could get.  

That is, until a ray of hope appeared. 

Time travel was the answer. Taken as a whole, it seemed like something out of a science fiction film, but it made sense.Bring the stones back and along with them everyone that had died. Surprisingly, it had worked, everyone that had been snapped away came back just as they had left. It should have been a moment of joy. It should've.  

The thing about hope is that it comes with a price. Natasha and Tony were the price to pay.  

Steve left shortly after.  

You understood him. You understood why he left everything and everyone behind to go live a life with the woman he had always loved. You would be a liar if you said you wouldn’t have done the same if you were in his position. You understood why he did it but it still hurt to know you weren’t enough of a reason to stay and live a life together.  

It seemed like you were on a streak of losing people. Wherever you turned, more people kept leaving your life. Wanda was gone, turned into the madness that grief could bring. Thor left to save other planets that needed him. Bruce... well, you weren’t sure where Bruce was, but he didn’t try to contact you.   

Everyone was gone but Sam and Bucky.  

Bucky. Your Bucky. The man you had spent the past five years crying for. The man who made you the happiest you'd ever felt.The man who felt like home.  

But he wasn't your Bucky any longer. 

This Bucky didn’t kiss you with the same tenderness he did so many years ago. Instead, he'd barely move his lips once yours touched his in what you'd call a mediocre peck.He also never initiated a kiss, it was you who always reached out for him.  

This Bucky didn’t held you at night. Instead, he'd turn around, his back to you, and even if you reached for him between dreams, he'd guide your hand back to your side of the bed.Some nights, he would even choose to sleep on the floor of the living room when he thought you were asleep. It was as if the thought of touching you seemed appalling to him.  

This Bucky never hugged you. 

This Bucky never talked to you with love  only with annoyance and indifference.  

This Bucky never woke you up with breakfast.  

This Bucky never tried to sleep with you.  

This Bucky never said I love you.  

Because this Bucky didn’t love you.  

But you held hope, foolishly. Every day you tried to talk to him, show him in every possible way that you were still here with him. Every day you tried to make things better between you, you poured your heart and soul to try to fix what you didn’t even know was broken.  

Things got worse a couple of months later.   

As it turned out, time had taken a toll on Steve’s body, and one night he went to bed and never woke up. You found it a bit ironic the man out of time had finally run out of time.  

His funeral was held on a sunny spring afternoon. People from all over the world showed up to say their final goodbyes to the man who had saved the world so many times. Friends, people he had saved, and heroes paid their respects to him. The first super soldier had finally been put to rest.  

After everyone had cleared out, you went back to drop one last token for his departure. It was a picture of the both of you. Steve’s arm hung over your shoulders while both of you held a couple of beers. It had been the first time you had seen Steve outside of work related situations. That was the beginning of your friendship.  

As you got back to his tombstone, you saw Bucky standing in front of it. His eyes were void of any expression, and he didn’t seem to be talking to Steve’s grave either. Bucky was just there, staring at the place where his best friend was buried.  

He didn’t seem to notice when you stood next to him, nothing in his body gave any signs of acknowledgement. You gave him a couple of minutes before you reached for his hand. You knew that, even if he didn’t show it, he was in great pain. He had lost his last connection to the life he had once lived.  

You wanted to be there to help him through his pain.  

The contact only lasted a few seconds. Your touch surprised him, as he had jolted once your skin grazed his own. He turned his head to the side to give you a glare that you’ve never seen before. His eyes had been filled with pain, as you guessed, but they also carried hatred and disdain. He must’ve seen your expression, because a second later his eyes changed to a neutral expression.  

"What are you doing here?" he muttered.  

The shock of his stare lingered in you for a moment, but you quickly returned to yourself, a friendly smile on your face."I came to leave a little parting gift."  

He hummed in acknowledgement, not sparing another glance at you as you put the photograph against the headstone, right in between the dozens of flowers that decorated it. Both of you stayed silent after that, the sounds of the birds and the faint rumbling of cars were the only sounds keeping you company. It was peaceful. It was good. Just the two of you enjoying a moment's calmness in silence. 

For a few moments, you felt comfortable next to him. The first time in months since he came back. But good moments like that never lasted long.  

Without notice, he turned around. Long, desperate strides guided him towards the exit of the graveyard. He wanted to create distance between you and him, find somewhere that was as far away from you as he could be. You felt how you were losing him.  

But you fought for him, even when he seemed to not deserve it.  

"Bucky." You called for him. He stopped in his tracks, but he didn’t turn around, so you took that as a sign to keep going. "I know you’re hurting right now, I am too, but I’m here for you. I’ll always be here for you."  

He didn’t answer for a few seconds, and you thought you had made a breakthrough. Maybe this was the time when things went uphill. This was the little push he needed to start healing and perhaps to try to rebuild the bridges that had burned. This was the little thread of hope you'd hung up on.  

You were wrong.  

"You have no idea how I feel," he said before leaving.  

That night you came back to your cabin, and Bucky’s things were gone. The only thing left was a note that rested in the middle of the bed.  

I found an apartment in the city. I need space.  

You didn’t see him for a couple of months after that. You considered tracking him down but ultimately gave up as he had asked for space. He needed time on his own, and you could give it to him. You would give him anything he asked for.  

You kept your word until Strange came to visit you, announcing news about Wanda. She was dead.  

You barely remembered tracking down his address or making your way there. It wasn’t until you were facing his door that you realized what you had done. He asked for space but in that moment, you couldn’t give it to him. You needed your Bucky.  

Knock, knock, knock.  

It was late in the night, and you could hear the TV going on in the living room. He had to be home. After a few minutes without an answer, you knocked again, but the only thing that welcomed you was silence.  

"Bucky," you called. Your voice was broken, you tried to fight the tears away, but saying his name broke what little self-control you had left. "Please open the door."  

You rested your forehead against the door, finally allowing yourself to feel everything you had been pushing back ever since the fight with Thanos. Pain, grief, loneliness, hatred, sadness, despair. A cocktail of emotions ran through you in an overwhelming way and seemed to want to drown you.  

"I know you’re in there." You cried. The tears that ran down your face landed on the floor. "I just— I know I said I could be strong for the both of us, but... I need you."  

You knocked on the door again, this time with the side of your fist. The desperate sound of your knocking bounced through the walls of the deserted hallway.  

"Please Bucky, please open the door. Wanda is dead." Your own cries stopped you from talking, the hole in your chest seemed to get bigger and bigger with each passing second. "Nat, Tony, Steve, Wanda. All of them are dead, and I—I can’t. I can’t keep losing people. I can’t lose you."  

You couldn’t do this alone, not anymore. Your heart couldn’t take it anymore.  

"I love you. God, I love you so much. I know you want space, but right now I need your love, Bucky. I need you to love me like you used to. Please love me." You begged.  

And you waited. You waited for what seemed like hours, but it probably was just thirty minutes until you accepted he wasn’t coming out.  

 You left with half a heart that night.  

Two weeks later, you came back to his apartment, ready to demand an explanation. Your love for him was strong, but you needed him to talk to you. You were ready to fight for your future. You were ready to fight for your love.  

"Bucky!" you yelled as you knocked aggressively. "Bucky, open the fucking door!"  

The door didn’t take long to open. It surprised you, your confidence and anger faltered for a second. This was a sign, perhaps it was him being ready to fight for you too. This was him showing you he still loved you.  

Except the person who opened the door wasn’t Bucky.  

It was a girl. A short brunette that was covered by Bucky’s black T-shirt and nothing more.  

"Hi."  

You wanted to scream. You wanted to burst into tears. You wanted to burn the world and leave everything behind. You wanted to die. But the only thing you could do was stay there and stare at the girl.  

"Umm, Bucky is not here." She said awkwardly, your intense stared made her uncomfortable.  

"Do you know where he is?" You questioned her. The words came out rougher than you intended, but as the heartbreak and despair set in, you couldn't care less. 

"No. I, um, when I woke up he was already gone." She pulled the hem of the t-shirt down in an effort to convey her nervousness, but it only infuriated you more. "Are you a friend of his?"  

You wanted to laugh. God, this couldn’t be happening.  

"Yeah, of sorts."  

"I can let you in so we can wait for him, but I have to leave in like twenty minutes."  

"You can’t call him?" you asked, bitterly. You knew Bucky had gotten a new phone but he never gave you his number.  

Her face blushed before she answered. "No, uh. We met last night, and he didn’t give me his number.  

"Oh."  

You didn’t know what would be worse, if he had seen this girl ever since he left your cabin or the fact that he had a one night stand with a random girl. It didn’t matter, though, Bucky Barnes had crushed your heart.  

The girl, whose name was Clara, kept her word, leaving minutes later as she had to go to work. She seemed like a nice girl who had no idea the man she had slept with was engaged. And perhaps in another world you would’ve been nicer to her if your heart hadn’t collapsed in on itself when she opened the door. Maybe she was a little naïve, as she let you stay inside the apartment so you could wait on Bucky. She had also asked you to give him her number, the digits scribbled on a piece of paper.  

You broke down the moment she closed the door behind her. You thought of trashing the place, breaking every piece of furniture he owned, and burning all his clothes in a pit in the middle of his living room. You imagined yourself hurling the stupid leather jacket he seemed to be fond of lately.You also thought about settling for burning everything to the crisp, wanting to see the look on his eyes once he saw his apartment consumed by flames.  

You didn’t do any of those things, though; instead, you waited. This time, hours actually went by, the once bright morning turned into the darkness of the night, and you never moved from your spot on the couch, not even to turn on the lights.  

Bucky came back to his apartment around 11 p.m. When he noticed the apartments' lack of lightning, he felt relieved not to have to deal with the girl he had taken home the night before. By the looks of it, she left a while ago.  

He turned on the light before taking of his jacket, placing it on the coat hanger next to the door.As he walked to the kitchen to get a glass of water, he tossed his keys on the counter.He had to change the sheets on his bed and do laundry tomorrow. The glass was half full when a voice behind him spoke.  

"You have a nice place here."  

The glass dropped from his hands into the kitchen sink. His head snapped quickly towards you, finding you seated in the middle of his couch. He turned off the sink, before making his way toward you. You couldn’t be here, not today of all days.  

"How the hell did you get in here?" he barked.  

He didn’t mean it like that, not in the way it sounded. He wasn’t angry at you being inside his apartment, he was scared. Scared that you had arrived at the wrong time and seen something you weren’t meant to see.  

He finally stood in front of you and saw it. Your nose was slightly puffy and red, like you had been crying for some time. Your shoulders were slumped, defeat washing over your posture. But the thing that hurt the most to see was the pain behind your eyes. It wasn’t the normal type of pain of loss or grief as you had experienced these past months. No, it was something else.  

It was the pain of heartbreak and betrayal.  

It couldn’t be.  

You couldn't have been here when she was still in his house. There was no way, life could not hate him this way. It had to be something else that broke your heart, he had hurt you many times this past couple of months, and today was probably the day it all crashed down. It had to be that.  

"Clara let me in."  

No.  

"Nice girl, she left her number for you."  

You knew, you had seen the girl who was apparently named Clara, he didn’t really remember it. Bucky knew he had to do something, anything that could save your relationship. Perhaps if he begged you not to leave him, to let him explain everything that had been going on with him, and if he spent the rest of his days making it up to you, then you would stay. Maybe you could forgive him.  

He didn’t do any of that, though. The same thoughtless attitude washed over him like it had done ever since he came back. It was as if his brain forced him to act this way in order to protect his own heart in the long run. 

Instead of doing everything he could to fix this, he shrugged and crossed his arms over his chest.  

"How long?" you asked. Bucky could see your eyes watering as you tried to keep yourself together. He hated himself. "How long have you been cheating on me?"  

His mouth answered without his permission.  

"Does it even matter?"  

Maybe he was right. Maybe it the answer wouldn’t change the way you were feeling; if anything, it was bound to hurt you more. But a part of you wanted to know the truth, to extinguish the other half of your heart.  

You didn’t budge, so Bucky finally answered, not before rolling his eyes. "She’s the only one. I met her yesterday in a bar. "He shrugged. "It just happened."  

You knew the answer, yet it still hit you with the force of a thousand bricks. He admitted it. He fucking admitted it and he didn’t even show a single morsel of remorse. There weren't any apologies or begs, no promises, or big romantic and sorrowful speeches. You could feel your own love being smothered, the flames that had once brought so much warmth to your soul were replaced by cold and emptiness.  

Bucky Barnes didn’t love you anymore. 

Now  

Bruises covered your body as well as new injuries that would probably give you more scars. Dirt and blood slid down the drain, exhaustion settling in as your muscles relaxed. The droplets of water fell against your body, washing away everything that had happened today.  

You found the intel, you knew every single name of everyone involved with the heinous experiments you were chasing.  

You had almost died, one of the guys Bucky and you had cornered, had a bomb attached to his chest. You tried to stop him, your gun pointing at his head, but you were too slow. The explosion shook the entire structure, causing a chain collapse of the floors around you. 

Bucky had jumped to protect you, his body acting as a human shield, deflecting some of the impact.His flesh arm had a large metal piece embedded in it, as well as some burns on his back. The explosion had knocked you both out of the air, and the resulting wave had thrown you both across the room. 

As you tried to shake away the confusion and the ringing from your ears, you felt his hand find its place along your face and travel to your stomach. As he scanned you, blue eyes looked at you with fogginess but also deep concern. 

"You ok?" he had whispered.  

You nodded, but your mind was still fuzzy, perhaps you had hit your head, but you couldn’t remember much.  

But you remembered the desperation. You remembered everything crumbling apart as you tried to make your way to the exit. You remembered Sam’s voice screaming through your earpieces to get the fuck out of there. You remembered Bucky's hand always keeping you safe, guiding you through the clouds of cement and smoke.  

You also remembered how Bucky’s steps faltered before collapsing. Neither of you had noticed he had a second piece of metal scrap buried between his ribs. If he had removed it, his enhanced healing would have taken care of it, but the extenuating movements had caused damage to his lungs, bleeding, and a lack of oxygen, causing him to pass out. 

You remembered screaming for Sam’s help, begging him to help you save Bucky. You remembered the tears falling from your eyes as you tried to pull Bucky to safety, begging him not to die, begging him to wake up. You remembered the fire catching up to you, it’s warmth burning your skin. You wanted to kill Bucky, you would be happy if you never seen his face again, dance on top of his grave as you celebrated the end of his existance.  

Then why were you fighting so hard to save him?  

"Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. You can’t do this to me!"  

"Bucky wake the fuck up!"  

"Please! I can’t lose you like this!"  

Fortunately, Sam came for you, him and all his Captain America glory had saved both of you, his wings protecting all three of you as you carried Bucky outside. You had barely gone a few steps ahead when the building finally set one last explosion, ending with everything on it's way.All three of you landed on the floor with a thud as the shock wave reached you.  

You focused your attention on Bucky's wound, which was already healing, but his lack of response worried you.His breathing was barely existent, and his heartbeat was decreasing. You had straddled his lap and began performing CPR on him while asking Sam to go fetch the adrenaline shot you stored in the vehicle. You had punctured Bucky's chest with it, and after a few seconds, he had woken up.  

You remembered clinging to him as he tried to sit straight, the desperation finally gone from your body.  

The body behind you wrapped his hands along your waist, pulling you out of your memories and spreading the soap he had covered you with. Bucky's fingers traced all the way down your body, removing every trace of stress. 

After everything happened, Sam told you to go back to the safehouse while he met with Joaquin to try and start locating people with the intel you had gathered. You thought about fighting him, but one look at Bucky and any fight you had left was done.  

A knowing look from Sam told you this wasn’t just to let both of you rest and get cleaned up. It was a second chance.  A second chance at the talk you had avoided to had with Bucky ever since that night you slept together.  

You drove back to the safehouse, and once you had gotten inside, everything crumbled apart inside of you. As you reached out to Bucky, your tears had fallen, your hand lingering in his fleshy arm, right where his wound was.His hand cupped your face, his thumb tracing the stream of blood that fell from your eyebrow. In the silence of the room, no words were exchanged, but both your hearts understood.  

Just for today, you would allow yourselves to comfort each other.  

His lips peppered kisses along your shoulder as he cleaned you, his lips sometimes finding your neck or your lips when you would press yourself against him. As you spread the shampoo over his head, your fingers massaged his scalp with the tenderness he had missed, his eyes closing every time you hit the right spot. 

After drying yourselves and changing into new clothes, you both layed on the bed, covered over the head with the thin white sheet you had. You faced each other, blue eyes meeting yours. Your fingers found his face as you traced along every crevice and line you hadn’t seen before. Bucky appeared to have aged years in the time you hadn't seen him, but he remained as beautiful as ever. 

Your heart ached in your chest, and you couldn’t fight it anymore. You had denied yourself the other feelings that remained inside of you other than hate and betrayal, but today, as death seemed to call for both of you, it was clear you didn’t want Bucky Barnes to die. A part of you hated him so deeply you weren’t sure you would be able to stop, but no matter how strong the hatred was, you were sure a part of you still loved him.  

However, that part of you was broken. Battered and bruised to death by his own doing but it was still there. It was locked inside the thousand-foot wall you had built around it to keep it safe. Refusing to ask questions, refusing to talk to him, and refusing to admit the pain you were in. But in doing so you hadn’t given yourself the opportunity to heal. To move on.  

So you allowed yourself to feel and to talk. For both your sake and his. 

"Why did you do it?" you broke the silence. His breathing faltered as your hand retracted back to your side. "Why did you hurt me like that?"  

Bucky struggled to find the right words. You were asking him the same question he had asked himself for many, many nights. He asked himself that question when he wouldn’t reach for you at night. He asked himself that question when he didn’t open the door for you.  

He asked himself that question when you walked out of his life.  

You deserved the truth. The whole, unapologetic, heartfelt truth. So he gave it to you.  

"The first time I came back to myself, after fighting Steve in the helicarrier, I realized the world had moved on without me. My plans, my family, and the people I knew were all left in the past. They all moved on without me, everyone was gone except for Steve. I had a plan, after the war I would go back and find myself a beautiful girl to marry." A sad smile posed on his lips as he reminisced. "I wanted the white picket fence and three kids package. Cookouts with my family and friends while I was still a war hero. But all of that was gone the moment I woke up in a time that wasn’t mine. My dreams were gone."  

He paused before reaching for your face, his eyes closing before opening again, tears streaming down his cheeks."Ever since I woke up, I was a man drifting in a time that wasn’t mine, in a life that wasn’t mine. I didn’t have any dreams, or aspirations other than to survive and perhaps discover the truth. Nothing made sense to me, not until I met you." His thumb wiped away the tears you didn’t know they were falling. "You were the very first person, aside from Steve, that was kind to me. You talked to me, listened to what I had to say. You showed me what this new world was about, how to survive in it, and above all, you never doubted my innocence. It wasn’t because you knew me like Steve did, or because he had asked you as a favor. You were my friend, the very first I made when I was lost. And along the way, you turned into more, you were my new dream. I fell in love with you, and suddenly it didn’t matter that I wasn’t supposed to be here, or what it could’ve been because with you, I finally felt like I belonged somewhere."  

A sob escaped you, his words burning your heart, branding them with the love you once felt for him. The heartbreak and the pain came once again, but it felt different. It was comforting in a way that scared you, terrified you. You knew he had loved you once, but you had stored those memories far away where they couldn’t hurt you. Because it was easier to tell yourself that Bucky had never actually loved you than to think he had loved you and had still betrayed you.  

"But no matter how much time passed or how loved or comfortable I felt, I was still scared. I was terrified. Terrified of the same thing happening again. Every day, I'd tell myself, 'Something is going to happen, something is going to take me away from you, and when I come back, another hundred years will have passed.' And it did happen. When Thanos snapped me away, I came back, and to me only seconds had passed, but for you it was five years. Everything had changed again, even you. There was this sadness that seemed to have nested behind your eyes every time you looked at me. And every time I looked at you, I could see how much you had suffered because of me, it was my fault, and I couldn’t do anything about it."  

"It wasn’t your fault." You tried to argue, but his words interrupted you.  

"I felt like it was. I felt like I must’ve had some sort of curse that would always take me away from what made me the happiest, and in return, I would hurt everyone around me with it. I had died once again and the world kept going, once again. And I tried really hard to fight those thoughts, but it was as if a cloud of darkness would whisper to me that I didn't belong here anymore.That everything had changed once again, and it would happen again and again and again until I finally died. And I didn't know what to do; it was as if this voice was drowning me, washing away every ounce of happiness I had left inside me until all that remained was anger and resentment." 

His voice had broken, as had his ability to hold back the tears.He had buried this for so long, too embarrassed to say them aloud, to admit how he had messed up everything because he was afraid.He wasn’t the man who had sworn to protect you against everything, he was a coward. A coward who had let his own fear hurt you in ways he could never fix.  

"I’m sorry. I’m so sorry." Bucky kissed your forehead. "You didn’t deserve any of what I did to you, and I don’t think I could ever forgive myself for doing that. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when you needed me, I’m sorry I pushed you away when all you did was trying to help me. I’m sorry I slept with someone else. I'm sorry I messed everything up because the truth is, you have been the best thing that has ever happened to me, past and present, and if I had to go through all of the pain, torture, and heartbreak all over again just to meet you, I would." 

You stayed there in silence for minutes. Neither of you dared say anything else that would break the silence. Both your hearts had been through a lot today, from the threats of death to the realizations of love and pain that had been confessed. But amongst the suffering and the torment, both of your hearts began to heal, and the pieces that had been ripped apart came back to where they belonged.  

You took his hands into yours, your lips kissing his knuckles. "I don’t know if I could ever forgive you for what you did." Bucky’s eyes closed in ache, he knew it was a possibility, but it still hurt to know there was no hope, but your words stopped him from spiraling. "But I would like to try."  

Hope. A tiny silver of hope. 

"Do you think there is a chance for us in the future?"  

You considered it. Your mind and your heart still pulling towards different directions but none of them letting you decide. Would you be willing to risk your heart once again for Bucky Barnes, or has the damage been too great to be fixed and covered? "I don’t know."  

"That’s ok. I'm not going to ask about it again unless you want me to." 

He kissed you one last time. His lips still had a subtle taste of smoke and burned, but above it was something overpowering, something both of you felt as he deepened the kiss. You both tasted redemption and forgiveness. 

Forever 

"Thanks for helping me."  

"Don’t thank me, I’m only doing it for the beer."  

Bucky and you chuckled at his poor attempt at a joke, your footsteps echoing in the half-empty apartment. A couple of seconds later, your mattress landed with a loud thud in your bedroom, making you happy to be finally done. You threw yourself on the bed, Bucky following you close behind, his heaviness bouncing you off. You turned to your side, resting your head on your hand, and he replicated your pose.  

It had been a year and a half since you decided to bring Bucky back into your life, and things had changed dramatically since then.You stopped doing solo missions and moved to New York, where you split your time between assisting Sam and Bucky with their shenanigans and volunteering at the woman's shelter Sam had connected you with. 

In the beginning, it was difficult to adapt to a tamer lifestyle than the one you had lived in the past year, but listening to all those women, the things they had been through, showed you that sometimes the thing people need to start healing is to have someone along the way.  

Bucky and you had become friends, just as you had been when you first met. It took time to get back to the beginning, but soon you found out how much you needed him as a friend, not a lover or a soulmate but just someone with whom you could talk. And, over the course of the many nights you spent talking, forgiveness found its way into your heart.You didn’t forget the past between both of you, but along the way there was understanding and care.  

"How was your date?"  

You shrug. "It was ok, not that great to be honest." 

During this time you had gone on a couple of dates, even went out with a guy for a couple of months, and since you and Bucky were ‘just friends’ you thought it would be uncomfortable to talk to him about them. But he had developed a habit of surprising you, and as it turned out, he was okay with it. When you asked why he was okay with it, his response surprised you. 

"I love you, I’ll always love you. But if you need me as a friend and nothing more, then I’ll be your friend."  

Your heart was still reluctant about him, after all, pain is a thing you can hardly forget. That had been the reason why you had tried to find someone else. Someone who could make you laugh as hard as he did, someone who could make you blush with just a cocky smile, someone who could calm you down and make everything better by simply holding you close at night.Someone who could make you happy. But all of them failed, because they weren’t Bucky Batnes.  

No one ever compared to Bucky Barnes, because after all the lies, heartbreak, and death surrounding you, he was still the only person who felt like home.  

Blue eyes stared at you and all you could feel was your heart racing. He was the man you had once loved and he had betrayed you, but time had mended your heart. The part of you that hated him was gone, and instead the love you felt for him came back, maybe not as strong as it once was but it didn’t matter. Your love was willing to build itself up, your love was willing to let him in one last time.  

"Ask me" you uttered. Your voice was so quiet that you thought he wouldn't hear you, but his puzzled expression told you otherwise. 

"What?"  

Your hand grabbed his, your thumb was drawing circles on his skin.  

"Bucky, ask me."  

Bucky’s heart stopped. A part of him had always told him that you would never want him back, and he couldn't blame you. He had hurt you in so many ways that he could never forgive himself. He had been sure the best he could have from you was friendship, and he had made his peace with it. Having you as only a friend was better than not having you at all.  

But you were giving him an opportunity, and he would be damned if he didn’t take it.  

"Would you—" he paused, clearing his throat.The nervousness inside him erased his ability to speak. "Would you like to go out for dinner? As in a date?"  

You made it seem as if you were thinking about it, but he didn’t worry about it. He knew your answer already.  

"Yeah, I guess I can make time for one date."  

You smiled. You gave him your biggest, most genuine smile in a long time.He smiled too.  

Loving Bucky Barnes hadn’t been easy. But as you both lay in your beds, his hands caressing your face and new hope brewing between you, your heart told you that this time would be different. 

He wasn't the same tormented man from another time you'd fallen in love with, and you weren't the same broken but hopeful girl he'd loved with all his heart.You both had hurt each other, but you had also grown, both of you in your own ways, and yet destiny had brought you back together.  

This time, neither of you was scared. 

This time, loving him would come as easily as breathing.

If you like the story please interact: reblogs, likes and comments go a long way. Feedback is always appreciated! Feel free to message me about it.

Tag list: @wintasssoldier @fallenoutofrose @cjand10 @nouk1998 @smplymrvl @littlemiss-yeehaw @magnificentsvn @kentokaze @gostodosopa @musicgirl44 @rebloggingmyrecs @mbindzus-blog @pampeop @buckystwilight @blackhawkfanatic @miss-i-ship-it @bibliophilewednesday

[twilightofthe]

Aight, one last serious post for a bit. After that I think I might back off on some rants and stuff that I’ve been doing because I created this blog to be a positive place, and tbh, discussing stuff I don’t like just makes me upset, especially since I feel like I’m just shouting into either an unhearing void or at an audience that is watching and is distinctly unimpressed

Basically though, I wanted to apologize for the slightly salty posts I’ve made recently (and one like, yesterday lol) complaining about how people portray Anakin’s intelligence. I realize I came across as critical and accusatory of people who are just having fun and likely mean no harm, and it wasn’t fair of me to be all snappy about it. So yeah, I’m extremely sorry about that. I likely hurt people and that was not my intention. Please have fun and headcanon Anakin as anything you want. I love and support you and even if we can’t agree, we can def still be friends!

But, I will take this opportunity to kinda ramble a bit about my own personal experiences with this, and why I view Anakin the way I do, what his character means to me, and why it’s kinda exhausting sometimes to engage in fandom because I have the misfortune of having the unpopular opinion regarding a character, and how hard it is to respect other people’s takes when it seems that every time I give my own takes, it’s like I’m immediately shot down for them and refuted for the popular opinions, like I’m not allowed to believe this thing myself. Why I sometimes just gotta rant a little bit, and why no one should take it personal or as a criticism of them.

This below all delves very intricately into my own personal mindset and life experiences. It’s personal. Please remember this is a very personal post.

Now, to me, I totally understand Anakin has made every mistake in the world. I know he turns into a monster and hurts/(in)directly kills everyone he’s ever loved. I know that. I’m fully aware that he makes mistake after mistake after mistake. I know he’s a flawed character. I’m not saying he’s perfect. He’s far from it.

But at the same time, I can relate to parts of his character. His anxiety, his upset at not being able to live up to the standards he feels everyone’s putting on him when really no one is but him, the feeling of being constantly on the edge because you feel like your entire life is in a spiral and you don’t know how to stop it and every choice you make out of desperation makes things worse, how everyone around you just keeps making so much better choices and it’s like, why can’t I do that? What’s wrong with me? Why are they always right???????

And I love the fact that canonically, despite his utter disaster-ness, he has the potential to be good, to rise. That he is a canonical Gifted Kid, mega-intelligent but just totally unsure how to direct that so he flounders more often than not unless it’s in relation to his few specific interests, giving the feeling like I’m a fake and really there’s only one thing I’m good for. The need to do ANYTHING for validation from others because that’s what feeds you.

I’ve suffered this same insecurity and anxiety and self-hatred I can see in him my whole life, the same inability to properly manage my life like I’m supposed to and that everyone else seems to have figured out, how I could be so much more if I actually knew how to rise to the occasion instead of constantly crash and burn

I love Anakin so much because he is enough like me that I can sympathize and feel for him, but also different enough that when I see him tear down the path of self destruction, I can feel relief that I’m never at that point, and also sympathy that he fell that far (amidst my anger at him for hurting my other faves lol)

I LOVE that he has that ability to be smart and capable but just doesn’t know how to apply himself all the time, love it so much, and that’s why it’s a struggle sometimes when I feel that every time I try and say something showing off that side of him, like comment on something smart and creative he would have done, or something he HAS done right, immediately there’s people responding to me like UH NO ACTUALLY HE IS NOTHING BUT A PURE DUMBASS :) :) :))))))))))) HE DOESN’T HAVE THAT ABILITY/WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO DO THAT BECAUSE IT’S TOO SMART/SENSIBLE/GOOD FOR HIS POOR FEEBLE MIND, PERHAPS YOU MEANT SOMEONE ELSE MORE CAPABLE?

I’m not kidding about this. I said Anakin was a good cook once? I immediately got a response saying no, he can’t be, he’s a feral gremlin who eats bugs. I tried to start a convo about him having an emotional/meaningful conversation with one of his loved ones about something because he notices something wrong with them? Someone instantly refuted me because “nah he’s too clueless and oblivious to have that kind of emotional sensitivity ever”. I write something in a fic that shows Anakin doing something cool? In comes a guest commenter passive aggressively with something along the lines of “oh your Anakin is SO MUCH smarter and capable than he should be it’s almost OOC, but I’ll believe it for now haha”

I’ve got more instances I can recount, but I’m stopping here. I totally respect people’s headcanons, and right to have fun, I do. I cannot stress enough that people can and should write what the want. But to me, when it feels like people don’t always want to ever consider my takes on his character, when it’s like fandom is constantly churning out reminders of how much they believe he doesn’t have a brain, well, like

It’s like, when you relate to a character like that and keep getting your opinions and ways to relate shut down by the majority no matter what you do or say, it just feels like everyone is telling me “SMART PEOPLE don’t ever fail at things! People with REAL gifts and talents don’t ever waste them or make mistakes. If you’re struggling, if you crash and burn, if you don’t quite have your life together, it can only mean you’re just plain stupid and a failure for the rest of your life. As a Fool, you can’t ever be considered successful or do something right— because that would be doing something Smart and you have Proven Yourself Dumb. All of your accomplishments and thing you’ve done right can either be attributed to someone else deemed More Capable, or could have been done better by something else, so those good things don’t mean anything. Since you acted the fool once, a fool is all you’ll ever be.”

I’ve struggled with that kind of talk from other people and especially from my own insecurities my entire life.

And I know that’s not what people really mean, I know fans are just sharing their headcanons. I know no one wants to hurt anyone, they’re just making a joke and having fun! I call Anakin a dumbass all the time! SW fandom is 99% good people who just wanna play with their own toys and gush about things that they love! I know this is like 90% good faith!

But it gets harder to believe sometimes the Dumb Anakin headcanons are just innocent headcanons and not genuine beliefs when people Will Not let me have different ones without playfully— or not so playfully —reminding me of how wrong they think I am and what they think about his intelligence level and abilities.

And because my own personal history with anxiety and self-destruction, being overwhelmed with that talk really just hurts, and I will never be able to make that hurt response go away, no matter how irrational it is.

But yeah. That’s how I relate to Anakin. That’s why I see him this way. That’s why I cannot resist complaining sometimes. I’ve been at a very low point recently and these negative thoughts have just been worse so I’ve been more cranky about it, but I promise I won’t bring it up too much.

Thanks for listening.

I’m probs not gonna post anything “rant”-related on here for a very long time— or do my damned hardest to try not to.

[faebriel]

ok going to be toxic for a moment. absolute LEAST favourite take on c!niki is people calling her a popular high school girl who is really nice to everyone except the mentally ill TM. yes i KEEP seeing this take in c!niki crit/analysis circles and tbh it is both vile and dumb as hell. going to keep it classy and outline why in dot points

i really think a lot of this stems from the murder attempt post-exile bc ppl have gotten it into their heads that c!niki thinks c!tommy is annoying -> c!tommy gets louder and more brash when he's healing post-exile -> c!niki thinks child abuse and torture is cool which is. do i have to say that's not what happened bc that's not what happened. and yet I keep seeing this idea informing people's takes

the other side is her reflection on c!wilbur's suicide but AGAIN learn your lore #gatekeeping. obviously c!Niki's view of suicide is shitty but it's extremely tightly linked to c!wilbur abandoning her sorry ass in manberg and then lowkey implying he was going to let her die as collateral with no communication despite saying they would come get her which is a dick move /understatement. of course it's wrong that's what makes the conflict between these characters interesting. she spent the entirety of nlm deluding herself into thinking c!wilbur didn't die, he just left, and THAT is why that goes on to inform how she thinks of his death. that is not popular girl behaviour that's a very clear pathway of trauma informing her very flawed thought process

c!niki is literally mentally ill if you can’t tell that by season 4 idk man. i can’t help you here. she is Not the neurotypical popular girl in this case she would get pushed down the stairs. it weirds me out to flatten her out SO much to the point where you're overlooking like 70% of her character from season 2 onwards

plenty of characters don't know shit about mental illness in dsmp and yet the only one who cops a similar amount of shitty stereotyping in this regard in my experience is like...c!phil? and even then he just gets the love and light ❤️ treatment. i know the high school jokes are jokes but come on. c!niki is not the NT who knows nothing about mental illness she is the deeply messy friend who sets fires when she's upset and you just sit there like :| bestie have you considered therapy and she's like 🔥 it's ok im engaging in my hobbies and I've cut off toxic people in my life (all her friends). please get the stereotype correct

it deeply fucking annoys me that i could make a post looking at how, say, c!wilbur doesn't understand how mental illness and trauma and healing works given how he views his own mental health, ghostbur, and c!tommy's trauma after c!dream killed him and people would be like awwww my poor little tomato. people don't take this weird reduce-the-character-down-to-a-high-school-stereotype angle. (YES i know c!wilbur is seen terribly in some circles but i am mostly talking about wilburian adjacent analysis circles smile.) also it's just a weird angle to look at c!niki from i'm sorry i don't want to automatically point the finger of fandom misogyny but you see how this looks when you're only treating one of the only female characters in this discussion like this right <- this is the only point im lowkey serious about everything else is mostly just bitching

i’m not even saying “she’s never done anything wrong” or “she’s never had any misunderstandings of mental illness” i’m just saying that string of like ten words makes my eyes roll back into my head whenever i see it (EXTREMELY too often) anyway

[syuga-s]

feelings are a fickle thing

w.c 15.2 k pairing. Jungkook x gn!reader, Yoongi x gn!reader genre. PURE ANGST bc I'm f*cking insane, suggestive themes, ANGST! a/n. MDNI!!!!! I throw some curses here and there, mention of the word “sex”. this is not inspired by Jungkook or Yoongi whatsoever, they're just my in my brain 24/7 and thought they'd fit well in here. Jaehyun and Yugyeom cameo!! I truly apologize bc this is not a nice story, it's full of immature (wounded) ppl that don't understand themselves, there are no ill intentions but it's just very messy.

Ever since you took Jungkook with you to Olivia’s birthday, all of your best friends haven’t stopped asking about him.

You met Jungkook in college. You hadn't come across him until your spring semester, but you officially became friends when you were sophomores. (around the time he started taking the same classes as you). Soon you became close friends and every free period was spent together.

Classes were over for the day? Time to go get some drinks with Jungkook. You didn’t eat breakfast today? Jungkook would take you to the nearest café just so you could grab something. You had time to kill until you had to go to your extracurriculars? No matter how many hours, Jungkook would stay just talking with you.

It’s safe to say you did everything with him. There were even times when instead of going out with your best friends, you would make plans together, just the two of you. You just fit together with him so well.

Of course, both of you had your own lives outside your friendship. It never crossed your mind why you would never talk about if you were dating or something. But you felt it would be better not to pry into his love life; simply because you didn’t want him to ask you about yours either. It was like some unspoken agreement. You made sure not to talk about the drama outside your friendship under no circumstances, it was better for both.

Keeping everything fun.

Two years into your friendship, other people started questioning the nature of your relationship. Every classmate was so sure that he was in love with you or that you were in fact going out. For (both) your sake, you just ignored them. You refused to be awkward about the closeness you had built with Jungkook. Moreover, you wanted to avoid ruining your friendship for that matter.

But your feelings changed once you graduated.

In the blink of an eye, you got yourself an internship in another state and had to move. In just a few weeks, you were already more than 2,000 miles away, but you certainly didn’t stop talking to Jungkook. Naturally, every day you were apart, it made you miss him more. Your conversations remained uninterrupted, day after day. Both of you texted non-stop. And when you weren’t texting, it was because you were already on a call or face-timing. Not for a moment did you get tired of telling him about your day and every little detail about your mundane activities.

And it turned out to be the same for him. He was always excited to hear how was your day. Just by talking to him and hearing you say, “I’ve been dying to tell you this all day!” made his whole week.

You weren’t even going to stay there permanently. He knew you were going to come back in a few months, still, he felt like part of him was gone for good.

Around three months had passed, and he needed to see you asap. One day, you told him you were craving one of the rum and cokes he used to sneak in when you were in college. And that was it, the perfect excuse for him to make a quick trip to see you for the weekend. The fact that you were like 40 hours away didn’t stop him whatsoever.

After that, you realized how good he was at surprises. You had absolutely no clue that he would fly to you. He had your schedule memorized, so he knew you wouldn’t be busy once he arrived. And well, he had actually asked you in the past days what were you going to do on the weekend, just to be extra sure.

”nothing really, you know I still feel like an outsider around my coworkers lmao, I’ll probably have a few drinks while I watch a movie”, “why do u ask?”

“I wanted to face-time you, we can drink together then 👍”

Just like that, his plan had been accepted, authorized, ratified and ready to be implemented. He could only hope for you to be happy to see him after all these months.

His flight would depart Friday at 5 a.m. and he asked Jaehyun and Yugyeom a few days ago if they could give him a ride to the airport. He asked them to stay at his place the day before, and they didn’t waste any chance on teasing him once they arrived at his apartment.

“The lengths you go for love, couldn’t be me”

“Dude, at least tell me you’re already together or something”

“I can’t believe you’re traveling that far, man”

“They’re my friend, I want to see them”

“Yeah, your friend without benefits.” The silence after that lasted for a few minutes, and there was a smug smile plastered all over Yugyeom’s face. It screamed that he was pleased with himself and his remark.

Jungkook was confident about what he was doing. The only thing in his head was that he wanted to see you. It didn’t have to mean something else. He didn’t have any other intentions. He just wanted to be with you, like when you were back in college. You had been part of his life for almost 4 years, and now he had the chance to go see you, so why wouldn’t he do it?

He kept speaking with his two friends about his plan and aside from their bantering, they were actually happy for him. They didn’t mention it in front of him, but they could physically see he felt different about you. Jaehyun admired everything he had done for him to drop everything for a few days just to spend them with someone whom he had yet to admit he had feelings for.

Yugyeom didn’t buy either that you were just friends, but he was supporting Jungkook nonetheless.

It was time to get some sleep, and he couldn’t close his eyes. He started getting nervous about how would he spend the weekend with you? That was the only thing he didn’t think through. His head was running in circles. Already 3 a.m. and he didn’t get any rest whatsoever. As he was showering, he had an epiphany. How could he not think about it sooner? He was determined on taking you to all the touristy places you wanted to go but haven’t been able to since you moved. Consciously or unconsciously, he just wanted to see you happy around him.

The drive to the airport was silent. While Jaehyun was focused on driving, Yugyeom was fighting to stay up and Jungkook’s mind was everywhere and nowhere at the same time. The car smelled like coffee, and Yugyeom couldn’t remember the last time he was up before it was dawn.

“Thanks for driving me guys, I owe you” Jungkook squeezed their shoulders while he was filled with anxiety. ”Yeah, no problem man, how are you feeling?” Jaehyun asked and eyed him through the rearview mirror. Catching on how he was fidgeting with his phone.

“Didn’t get to sleep, so kind of worried but excited, you know?”

“Man, you should ask for one of those sleep masks at the plane”, Yugyeom chimed in, “you'll have the best sleep ever, I swear.“

“What makes you think I haven't slept on a plane before?”

And he actually did sleep. Twice. The only flight he could find on such short notice had a layover, he didn't have to wait much, so he didn't mind it at all. He fell asleep once again on the second flight and woke up more excited than ever.

He really was dying to see you, and suddenly felt like it had been years since he had you in front of him.

As soon as he got out of the airport, he searched for the nearest store to buy what you had mentioned to him. The rum and coke that sparked his trip.

Now it was time to call you. He didn't want to lose any more time and simply tapped on your contact.

Nothing felt off to you. Jungkook had already told you he would be calling today. It was a bit earlier than you had expected, you were just arriving at your place, and you hadn't even got the chance to get out of your clothes. Still, of course, you answered him at the second ring.

“hello? who is this?” you asked before he could speak.

Him, quickly catching onto you, “hello this is your Uber speaking, I'm currently outside.”

You were bad at this, you couldn't continue joking with him even if your life depended on it. All you ever did was laugh as soon as any word came out of his mouth. Just like you did now.

“I thought you were gonna call later, and that it was going to be on FaceTime if I recall?” You asked while you put your phone on speaker. Soon, you started undressing to get out of your work clothes.

“Yeah about that…” he sounded unsure on how to continue his words and after a loud sigh, he simply uttered, “I just flew 8 hours to come see you.”

Huh?

His words left you standing in your underwear, asking yourself if you heard him right. Your heart didn't even know if it should get excited or scared.

Jungkook called your name. A good minute had passed without a sound being heard from your side of the line. He laughed and added, “I’d really like to say that I am outside right now, so I need you to text me your address, alright?”

You were still confused, but finally blurted an “okay”.

You heard his laugh again. He was endeared by the way you were acting, your little to no words were making his heart skip a beat.

For you, hearing him laugh like that at you, made your cheeks turn pink. And when he told you “I’ll see you in a few minutes then, and calm down it's just me”, it made you mentally slap yourself, he wasn't meant to notice how he caught you off guard.

“Text me when you're here” was how you ended the call and proceeded to send him your address.

Well, how are you not going to be caught off guard when he says he's at the same geographic point as you???? When just a few hours ago he was at your hometown or so you thought?? When even a few minutes ago, you still believed he was just calling you? BUT NOW HE’S ON HIS WAY TO YOUR PLACE?? AND YOU’RE GOING TO SEE HIS FACE AFTER WHAT FEELS LIKE YEARS?

You were still in your underwear with all these thoughts running through your mind. You had no business blowing this out of proportion. Jungkook was right, it was just him.

And it hasn't been years, easily it's been a little bit more than three months. Three months that you haven't seen the person you’ve liked for over a year, but that you recently came to terms with. Nothing more.

You pulled yourself together and quickly dressed up. You also managed to clean your place up a bit, already assuming that Jungkook would stay. More like wanting him to stay with you.

His text came too soon, you were still mentally preparing yourself to see him when you were replying that you were coming downstairs to get him.

Once he got his eyes on you, he proved to himself how much he had missed you. In his eyes, you looked even better than before. Like an even freer version of yourself. Living on your own and doing your own thing suited you so well, and he felt something swell up in his chest.

You wore a beaming smile on your face, one that was just for him. You could swear he got even taller. His hair was definitely longer, and it was a look that had you daydreaming about running your hands through it.

There was just fondness behind the eyes of both of you. And both were terribly awkward about it. One couldn't even tell you were friends from the way you were acting around each other.

Both managed to giggle a bit. Jungkook’s coolness, absolutely gone the moment he put a step into your personal space. But now you were positive you could be excited, having him next to you made your soul know that something had come back into place.

You walked back to your apartment, your heart frantically beating and your head unable to imagine how you came into this exact situation.

Jungkook started to feel a little nervous around you, not necessarily a bad feeling, but his body kind of forgot how it felt to be with you. He just liked you too much to ever admit it to someone else, let alone admit it to his own heart.

You let him into your place and asked him to get comfortable, it didn’t leave your mind when he said he flew 8 hours to get here. You went to get him a glass of water, while he left his backpack in some corner of your living room. Then he placed a brown paper bag on your coffee table before he sat on your couch.

To you, the situation felt like it came straight out of your dreams. To be fair, this was one of the most romantic things someone has done for you. You started zoning out in the kitchen for a bit, soon to be brought back to earth when you heard Jungkook’s tired sigh.

You came back to the image of him pushing his hair back while his eyes were closed, and you almost tripped on the carpet. When he heard you back, he sat straight again and reached for the glass that was in your hand. “Thought you were going to bring out the good stuff.”

You chuckled at that and sat on the armchair next to him. “Kookie, I really don’t mean to sound rude, but what made you come here?” You said with an airy laugh, trying not to lose your smile to make him answer you. He left his water on the coffee table next to the bag, which you hadn’t noticed until now.

He had a smug expression on his face and signaled you with his eyes to grab said bag. It certainly had your curiosity, so you got up to see the contents of what he had brought. You still had your smile on you, which quickly broke into a laugh as soon as you saw what it was. You playfully hit his leg, and his face seemed pleased about your reaction.

“What?! You said that you wanted one!”

“Well yeah, but I didn’t think you’d come all this way for that!”, “i’m glad you’re here though, I was really looking forward to drinking with you tonight.”

Jungkook thought it was great that you didn’t put much thought into what he did. Because he clearly hadn’t come here just to bring you something you could have bought yourself. It even made him feel at ease that you could spend some time as friends. Restating that there were no other intentions for him besides seeing you.

The night went by fast, he made you the drink you had been longing for the past week, and then you switched to the beers you had in your fridge. All those hours were spent talking and talking. One would think that you had already told him everything about your life here, but you didn’t even know how there were more and more things to talk about. Ultimately, you ended up gossiping about both of your friend groups. Both of you only knew them by name, so it was all on good intentions. This was thanks to the alcohol you had just downed and the fact that you were in your little bubble, far away from everyone you knew.

And basically, that’s how you spent the whole weekend with him. Never-ending talks while you visited all the spots filled with tourists. Every meal, snack, and drink was shared with Jungkook. As if time had brought you back a few years ago. But it had this different feel to it. Something that you couldn’t accurately pinpoint.

Could it be the fact that you were older now? Or that you didn’t want to let him go after spending the past days together? Maybe you didn’t want to hide your feelings for him any longer.

You knew he eventually had to go. But Sunday came much too fast for your liking. And Jungkook was also upset. Upset that he had to go back to his reality far away from you.

You hugged him for the first time in three days. Somehow, both didn’t realize that there had been no physical contact between you until now. And he hugged you back. His discontent about leaving, melting away in your arms. A moment where just the two of you existed. You softly said to him, “thank you for coming all your way here, I never imagined you would do this.”

He stayed silent and preferred to keep holding you, he was afraid he would end up doing something else if he looked at you in the eye.

“I’d like for you to come back again sometime, but I’ll be back home before you know it.” You broke the hug at that and gave him a feeble smile.

“You promise?” he raised his brow and put his hands in his pockets.

You rolled your eyes at him and assured him that you would return soon. You said your goodbyes and urged him to leave before his plane took off. “Please text me when you land home, Kookie.”

Jungkook ended up way more confused about his feelings when he returned home. He still thought about you all day, just like he did before he went to see you. But now it felt borderline obsessive. You consumed his every thought, and he started thinking that he couldn’t handle it.

How did you end up not talking with him anymore?

●○●○●○●○●○●●○●○●○●○●○●●○●○●○●○●○●●○●○●○●○●○●

Back to first semester at college, that’s when he met Mai.

They were such good friends for years that not even Jaehyun nor Yugyeom, and most definitely not you, noticed that they had been friends with benefits since you were all first years.

Mai has always been sweet. Almost overwhelmingly full of energy. You were aware she and Jungkook knew each other, but never did they make it seem that they were more than friends.

You had the chance to meet her when you shared some marketing classes once. And one day, you ended partnering up for a final project, who would’ve thought that she’d become one of your closest friends since then.

You loved talking to her. It was one of those really good friendships where you feel like you’ve known each other for years. You hadn’t been able to form a relationship like this with someone else from college, so you made sure you talked every minute you had together.

One day, after your classes had ended, both decided to go for some coffee.

That afternoon, she told you all about her past relationships, and you did the same. You understood each other so well as if you had been living the same life, but there was this particular story about someone from campus. Someone whom she referred to as her ‘fuckboy’.

She never wanted to tell you their name because she said that you knew them. And to be completely honest, you weren’t dying to know who this ‘mysterious fuckboy’ was. Your mind was somewhere else in that period of your life.

Once you were gone for your internship, all your friends from college kind of drifted away, except for Jungkook, obviously.

But for him, it was different. At least it had been different with Mai. She was still there for him. She’d always been openly in love with him.

So, their thing never ended. Not even when he just came back from seeing you. He still kept looking for her. Called her every other night when he was longing for someone he couldn’t have. In his mind, a relationship with you wasn’t something that could happen. He wasn’t in love with Mai, but she was all he had.

He was so sure that he could never have you, even though you’ve never done anything for him to think that way. His brain couldn’t amount to believe that he could be in a relationship with his perfect friend, so he had settled with having you as that. His best friend, who knew almost everything about him. Everything, but the fact that he liked you a little too much.

To him, that was the only way he could have you in his life.

Even after the remaining six months of your internship, you still felt the same way about Jungkook.

You wanted to feel excited about coming back and seeing him again, but ever since he visited you, you felt him switch. He started keeping many things to himself. His replies came hours later. He was no longer asking you about your day. He just felt off. And for your well-being, you wanted to assume he was having a rough time at work.

When you were finally back in town, Olivia and Van went to pick you up at the airport. Days ahead, you had planned a little get-together at a restaurant with your friends, just so you could quickly catch up with them. You had missed being with the people you loved. And as one would expect, Jungkook was one of those people.

When you let him know about your plan, he bluntly replied, “Sure, I’ll be there.”

Aside from those three, you invited a few more friends, one of them being Mai, too of course. To your surprise, she was the first one who arrived at the restaurant, and she gave you one of the most effusive and affectionate welcomes you could have expected from someone.

It made you happy to see her again after graduating, you didn’t talk much all these months, but the friendship was still there, and you loved that. You introduced her to Olivia and Van for the first time, and all of you started chatting about your return.

After a while, Mai and you turned to talk to each other, while Van and Olivia talked about who knows what.

Minutes were still passing and there was no sign of Jungkook, so, you excused yourself and went out of the restaurant to give him a call. No answer.

You let a few minutes pass and tapped his name again. This time he picked up.

“hey you” you gently greeted him. And just with that, you made him feel weak. Weak for you.

There was no way he could reply rudely to you. To someone who made him feel that way with just their voice.

“hey there stranger.” He said while pinching the bridge of his nose, feeling dumb for not knowing how to talk to you all of a sudden.

“By any chance, do you remember if you had something to do today?” you started telling him in a teasing tone.

He let the silence take over the call.

You were confused, and a little anxious that he was acting this way. Yet, you still tried to reassure him. “hey if you’re worried about meeting my friends, you don’t have to talk to them…”, “Mai is here too if that helps in some way!” Not even knowing if that was the case.

Your friends were never the problem. And of course, he knew, there was no way that he would forget that you were back. That you were finally on the same time zone as him. But he also knew that Mai was going to be there. She had asked him if he was going to show up. And he wasn’t sure that he wanted to do that. He felt somewhat guilty about it all.

Although, to the onlookers, which included you, Mai, literally everyone; there was nothing wrong with the situation.

He apologetically mumbled your name and replied, “It’s not that, but I don’t think I’ll be able to make it”, “I’m really sorry.”

Trying to find out why he wouldn’t go was pointless. You wanted to avoid interrogating him, so you simply accepted his words. You were sad, yes, but you thought that now that you were in town, it would be easier to plan something and go out with him any other time. “Don’t be silly Jungkookie, there’s nothing to be sorry about, we can go out another day!”

He chuckled at your attempt to sound bright, and he felt even worse. There was nothing that he wanted to do more but to see you. Yet, his head was battling with his poor heart.

“We can talk later, okay? Have fun with your friends, please.” And then he hung up.

You were dumbstruck at that, but made your way to enter the restaurant again.

Olivia was the only one that saw your face as you were walking to the table; and somehow she knew it was something that she couldn’t ask right at this moment. Her eyes remained on you, slightly worried about how you were feeling.

You didn’t want them asking what happened or who’d you talked to. There was no need to feel upset or down when you just wanted to enjoy being with your friends. You could perfectly mope a little when you got home.

Now, while your plates were empty and with more drinks on their way, all of you started talking again. This time, it was Mai’s turn to update you about her life. Everything started well, she told you her niece was born a few weeks ago. You stayed on the baby topic for a while, just for her to change it up to her new job. Nothing out of the ordinary. Then suddenly, she dropped a bomb. A landmine of some sort.

“god i’ve been dying to tell you this”, she paused, not knowing how to string together the piece of information. “okay so, you remember that I told you I had a ‘fuckboy’, right?”

You were even excited to hear about it. To you, it was just some juicy detail about her life. Idle talk. So, you nodded at her, your anticipation on an all-time high.

“i’m actually relieved he didn’t come because i was looking forward to talking to you about this!”

He? You didn’t invite many guys. The others weren’t here yet, and the only one that knew Mai was. Oh…

“ it’s Jungkook!!! there i said it” It came as a soft shout, and she immediately kept talking about everything that has happened with them lately.

There hasn’t been a time when you turned your eyes so fast to look at Olivia. Both of you shared a look that lasted a millisecond. You were able to tell her, “ARE YOU LISTENING WHAT I’M LISTENING?????” without uttering a single word.

It’s obvious to mention the fact that Olivia knew how you felt about Jungkook. Someone had to know about the little crush you had on your friend. She knew every thought that has ever crossed your mind about the ‘bond’ you had with Jungkook. So, to be hearing what your other friend was saying about the relationship she had with him, was a shock. Olivia couldn’t even begin to imagine what you must be thinking.

First, it felt like something shattered inside you. You’re not sure if you heard a glass breaking in the restaurant, or if it was just your heart. But there was no time to feel something else. You had to collect yourself because you couldn’t let Mai see you wearing your heart on your sleeve. You had to act like everything was alright and shifted your resentment into excitement. Putting on the act that you were surprised about this piece of information.

She ended up telling you that they were still seeing each other. Most importantly, that he was the one who always called her. Inviting her to stay the night every so often.

Suddenly, you got the whole picture. You came to realize that they’ve been together all along, even before you met him, and that they’ve had this thing going on for about 4 years AND still counting.

All you could think was, “We’re friends, being involved with Jungkook is not okay, at all.”

You were truly pissed, even though it wasn't your place nor your right, to get mad about this simply because, he can do whatever he wants.

You've never been in a relationship whatsoever, he didn't owe you anything, but you were still hurt.

What if you got everything wrong, and he just sees you as a really good friend? And now, how could you let anything happen between the two of you? How, when Mai told you all that’s happened between them?

Everything that happened after that conversation, was a blur.

You vaguely remember which ones of your other friends arrived, let alone at what time or what you spoke with them.

Thankfully, no one noticed your mind had you on autopilot in some way. But now you wanted to run away from there. It had been too much for you.

When all of your friends wanted to jump into another bar nearby, you apologized and gave them the first excuse that came to your mind.

”You should go!” — “i’m starting to get tired from the flight actually, i didn’t really sleep much last night because i was eager to get here so…” you stated with a soft laugh.

“Oh my god, you’re right! i forgot you came here straight from the airport!”

“Aaw babe, you should go home and get a really good sleep”

You took out your wallet to leave them part of the bill, but everyone stopped you and Van spoke, “it’s our treat, don’t even worry about it, we’re here to take care of everything for you, we missed you.”

All of them insisted, and even one of them chimed, “you’ll pay for all of us next time, so don’t think this will happen again.”

Everyone broke out in a laugh at that, and you gave up on trying to leave them money. After that, you got up to individually hug them while telling them goodbye.

You loved your friends, but honestly, this was taking too long. You tried to keep your words to a minimum, hoping they would catch on to your tired self. In the end, you raised your voice so all of them could hear that you were more than grateful that they came to see you and that you were feeling happy thanks to them. Which was partly true, but some things were occupying your head, thus making it hard for you to focus on the people you were supposed to be valuing the most.

Olivia, who was now next to you, whispered, “want me to take you home?”

And you shook your head. She brought her hand to your cheek and both wore a dim smile on your faces. Your best friend, understanding your need to be on your head for now. “i’ll be there in the morning then.” You closed your eyes and nodded at her, accepting her company, knowing you would need someone to talk with about what you found out tonight.

With that, you waved at your friends for the last time and got out of the restaurant.

You waited for a taxi for what seemed like forever. Everything and everyone, always taking too long, exactly when you need to get away from the world. Squeezing your eyes shut, you softly spoke, “please, i just want to get home.”

And the universe did listen. A woman pulled up right in front of you, and you felt relieved.

“Where to honey?” You gave her your address and she nodded once. “Got it.”

On the way home, as you looked out of the window, you started feeling numb. You let out a heavy sigh and your driver asks, “heading home hun?”

“yeah, it’s been a really long day” and you threw your head back on the seat. She noticed your voice was taut. She didn’t voice her concern, instead, she tried to comfort you, saying that you were just a few minutes away.

“Thank you so much”, as she was speeding a bit more, she answered with the same friendly smile she had when you hopped into the taxi.

Looking out the window once again, you started feeling at home. Your building now in front of you and the woman gently lets you know you had indeed arrived.

You paused your movements, your body no longer in sync with your impatience to enter your place. Managing a tight-lipped smile, you blinked yourself back to your surroundings. Finally, you took your wallet out and handed your god-sent driver the cash you owed her and made her keep the change at the premise of swiftly making you get home.

She looked at you through the mirror. “Thank you honey”, “and also i want to say, whatever’s making you heavy, just sleep on it and i’m sure you’ll know what to do in the morning.”

As you were gathering your bags and making your way out, she says, “take care, alright?”

“You too”, “thank you so much once again, i mean it, have a good night.”

The darkness of your place washes over you once you’re inside.

You left your bags and suitcase at the door and turned a lamp on your way to your bedroom. As you were walking, you made a mental note to thank your brother tomorrow for keeping your apartment this nice and clean. Something less on your list to worry about.

You finally got into the comfort of your room and felt that the only way to get on your bed was to throw yourself face down on it.

After a while, you turned to face the ceiling for a few minutes. You were tired, but there was no sign of you actually wanting to sleep. It was an emotional weariness. An exhaustion you did not know how to get rid of. But it surely would not go away with a nap.

You leaned back on your elbows, and suddenly the emptiness of your room made you feel strange. There were little to few clothes hanging in your closet. Your desk with no sign of you either.

You knew that you had taken most of your things with you when you left, and that you put away the rest of them.

But you didn’t consider that the lack of life in your room would make you feel worse. As if you didn’t exist.

“what the hell”

You knew you had to calm down. There was literally nothing you could do about Jungkook and Mai.

Talking to yourself was the only option now.

“I doubt that the right thing to do is act upon my feelings”, “i can’t be the person that dismisses the feelings of my friend just because i wanna act on mine.”

“And why am i getting ahead of myself? What if he’s not even remotely interested in me?”

You brought your hands to your face and groaned at your thoughts. It was way more uncomfortable hearing yourself say these things out loud than you thought.

“who knows, maybe something will happen in another life”, “if i’m lucky, later in this one.”

You were so annoyed, your eyes were still closed, and whined a small ‘i don’t know'.

“I don’t know if i should simply let go right now or try something. Maybe i’m not ready for a relationship despite how I feel, but when would be the right time? There’s no such thing as that. I can’t leave it in the hands of time, i know i should do something because if i don’t, i’m gonna regret it for years, so what’s stopping me?”

While contemplating your last question, you fell asleep.

The next day, you decided to stop talking to Jungkook altogether. there would be no action directed at him anymore. didn’t search for him again, so your chat abruptly died.

He didn’t look for you either after, so you were sure you did the right thing.

Months passed, and occasionally, you’d see Mai’s Instagram stories just to be hit with the fact that they were still going out?, not knowing if they were officially together was unnerving. it was the first time you wanted to know something so bad just to have some sense of peace of mind.

Olivia heard your complaints every time you saw they went out or were at his apartment. and especially when Mai would post pictures of him playing the guitar.

Once in a while you would see how you left your conversation and hate Jungkook’s existence a little, but then you’d get further up on your texts and see how he made you laugh and how constantly you told each other ‘i miss you’, ‘i want to see you’ and even the simple ‘love you’s’ within your goodbyes.

One day, you were at your desk, wrapping up something you had been working on, but you didn’t get up from the chair. The need to write a letter to Jungkook came over you, and you immediately tore off a blank page of your journal.

“I don’t know if you wonder why I stopped talking to you, but I feel like I’m ready to explain myself. Also, I want to start by saying that I’m genuinely sorry and this isn’t an excuse for ghosting you. I want you to know that when I distanced myself from you, it was because I thought that drifting away was my only choice. I was having a really hard time with my emotions and to be completely honest, the only way I know how to deal with my feelings is to disappear. It took me so long to overcome my anger towards you and how you made me feel. You’ve always been my friend, so when I finally accepted how I felt about you… I found out about so many things that got me confused and made me realize how messy everything was. I’ve never told anyone that I’m actually dying to talk to you because I don’t know anything about you anymore, I’ve been in the dark about your life for so long that I don’t know if you’d want me back in your life after what happened. Not only that, but I’ve never thought that acting on my feelings was the right thing to do because I can’t ignore what I know. I felt selfish and dumb for being unreasonably optimistic, I dare say even hopeful that something would happen between us. But after all, I want you to know that I’ve never stopped caring about you. You’re so important to me.”

You never sent it, of course. Yet, the act of writing what you had on your chest, helped you more than you thought. The idea of Jungkook and your emotional distress started to lose their depth after that. A rush of calmness washing over you for once.

●○●○●○●○●○●●○●○●○●○●○●●○●○●○●○●○●●○●○●○●○●○●

Today was one of your best friends' birthday, Gigi’s birthday.

There was nothing out of the ordinary going on for you this particular day. You got up, cooked something, did laundry for a bit, went to pick up the cake you bought for your friend, got back home and started cleaning the mess you’d left in the kitchen, wasted some time on your phone, and then you started getting ready.

If you had known you were gonna take this long to find an outfit, you would’ve started HOURS ago, but thanks to your poor time management, you were now running an hour late.

You hadn’t actually met Gigi’s friends before, so you struggled a bit with your awkwardness. Everyone at the table was already eating when you arrived, so you had to wait until another one of her friends got there to order something. You were relieved that you weren’t the last person to show up.

An hour later, your phone screen lighted up with a notification. Someone unknown was trying to send you a message through Instagram. You quickly dismissed it, thinking it was one of those spam accounts, but then the same person contacted you through Facebook too, so now you were curious and went ahead to reply.

You thought that, whoever sent them, didn’t really know you.

For starters, you don’t like flowers.

Second, why would they send them anonymously? It was fucking creepy, to say the least.

You felt it was a really shady because who actually knew your address well enough to send flowers? You were thankful that you weren’t home because you would’ve pissed yourself.

But on second thought, it had to be someone that you knew. Someone who has taken you home before, but who?

You can’t get out of your head that if they thought it would be this big-ass romantic gesture, it wasn’t.

Also, the note had you racking your brain, there was simply no context to it.

’Bouquet of flowers that goes well with a soul made of colors’

No one that you know has ever told you ‘your soul was made of colors’ before.

Gigi said, “Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that it isn’t true, you’re the light of my life, but, i really don’t understand? like, give me some context.” Your friend getting annoyed with a piece of paper.

There was just no way to recognize that verbiage. That incidentally sounded very cliché too.

You knew the flowers weren’t at fault, they were cute, but you couldn’t help but look at them with dislike?

You never thought of asking who sent them, you kept it to yourself in hope that, that someone, would reach out and ask, “did you get my flowers?”, but that text never came.

Not only that, but you wanted to believe they came from the one person you missed the most. But you wouldn’t even dare to mention his name every time one of your friends asked, “who do you think sent them?”

The following days, every time you would glance at the flowers while you were cleaning, you’d spend a good number of minutes just asking yourself the same questions over and over again.

One day, you even sat on the table looking at them with your chin on your hand, brows furrowed, not knowing who had sent this to you. It wouldn’t stop being a big question mark to you.

●○●○●○●○●○●●○●○●○●○●○●●○●○●○●○●○●●○●○●○●○●○●

Jungkook never reached out to you about the flowers. He had never done something like that for someone, so, he didn’t know what to do after they told him they had delivered them to you. When he thought about it, he was sure you’d know he was the one who bought them for you. He wanted you to know that he was sorry and that he was thinking about you still.

Sorry that everything turned out an absolute mess. But he didn’t want you to think about the negative side of it all. That’s why he came up with that poetic little line. Always in love with how you’d dye your hair different colors without a care in the world. To him, it was a reflection of your soul. Dying to be seen by everyone.

His mistake was that he never mentioned any of that to you. That’s why he never got a text from you. His hope for talking to you again, soon gone.

He wanted you back in his life. He felt miserable without seeing you. You two were in the same town, but if felt like you were miles away from him once again.

It was hurting him more than any other breakup he had experienced before. He saw how you just disappeared from his life. You were like a faint ghost, yet when you gave signs of life in your account, he saw how happy you seemed, just living life. Always with your friends and as pretty as ever.

He didn’t know what to do after he left things with Mai. He never told her why they couldn’t see each other anymore. She would rather not hear that he was in love with someone else. Because after all those years with him, she already knew that.

Mai would have wanted to ask him to stay with her at that moment. But she knew that she’d be prolonging his resistance. Conspiring with his discomfort. Jungkook has been already ‘gone’ for a year, at least. So, she preferred her words stay with her.

No matter how many years Mai had been expecting this talk, she never wanted to be ready for it. All she could muster up saying was, “let’s hope you don’t regret this.” All the hurt from her heart poured into those words.

Jungkook didn’t want to feel guilty anymore. He had the vague idea that you knew what was going on between them, but Mai didn’t know how he felt about you. And that made him decide he didn’t want to deprive you of the affection Mai felt towards you.

“I don’t think I will.”

He was tired of feeling like he’d handled everything in the worst way.

Jungkook felt lost and slightly confused. He wished he knew how to stop thinking about you. He felt like he was missing a piece of his soul. Definitely missing his peace of mind.

He remembered the last words you exchanged in that phone call and felt knots in his stomach. Wishing he had done something different. Hell, even said something different.

What have they done to me?

What have I done to myself?

There’s no point in wishing something else, it won’t change what had already happened.

Jungkook couldn’t deny anymore that he’d been feeling your absence in his core. Not quite sure what he’s supposed to do next, but, remembering your eyes and the way you smiled never failed to make him get annoyed at himself for having all these details about you, carved into his head. The notes of your voice and your laugh still playing in his head.

He promised himself then and there, that he’d try everything in him, to get you back.

He would stop denying the love he felt for you. Stop denying himself of being truly happy with the person who understood everything that he was. Only after messing up, he realized that he never should have run away before giving himself the chance to let you know how he truly felt.

A few weeks passed until he ended up building his courage to talk to you. Also pondering which way would be the best to reach you.

Just like that, all those months without talking to each other came to an end.

●○●○●○●○●○●●○●○●○●○●○●●○●○●○●○●○●●○●○●○●○●○●

It was February.

You woke up to get ready for work. Without opening your eyes, your hand reached to grab your phone and turn off the alarm. An eye open now, you scrolled through the multiple notifications from different apps. Next thing you knew, you had a text from someone. Someone you didn’t expect, at all.

Jungkook

“today is a perfect day to be happy”

That text, single-handedly, made you get out of bed.

What was the reason for that? You haven’t talked in months.

Why did he reach out to you today? On Friday? Out of all days?

You knew he was joking with what he said. It was something your mom would send. He always chose not to be serious, so it kind of made you laugh. Knowing he hasn’t changed after all.

That text, had you confused all day. Should I reply? Do I want to reply? What can I say to that?

You hadn’t been able to focus on your work all day. You were slower and kept spacing out a lot. Not one of your coworkers had seen you like this, they were even unsure if they should ask you what was going on. And thankfully so, they never asked because how would you explain that?

The friend I was in love with and mind you, I never knew that he was fucking with one of our friends for 4 years, just texted me this morning after us not talking for months.

Luckily, despite how you felt, the day went by fairly quick.

Once you were home, you decided to follow his game. You answered, “why”.

The conversation kept a casual note. You just talked about work and all you’ve been doing lately. Before you knew it, everything felt as if nothing had happened between you. As if the recent blank period hadn’t existed at all.

Valentine’s was coming up this week, and you had zero expectations for it. There was nothing for you to do. All your friends had plans with their partners, so that left you to spend the whole day eating and catching up on your dramas and anime.

You talked on the phone to Olivia the next day, her mostly wanting to talk to you about what she did with Kevin, her boyfriend. And for you to help her what to give as a gift for her upcoming anniversary. But she suddenly brought up Jungkook into the mix.

“what have you been talking about, then? it’s been like a week, right?”

Your laugh came up like you were nervous of talking about him. “mostly work, why?”

She laughed about your response and went straight to the point.

“he didn’t invite you to anything yesterday?” Apparently, it was a laughing fest because that made you chuckle once more.

Then you hummed, thinking about the best way to put yesterday’s situation. “i don’t know if i imagined it or if i wanted to believe that, but i thiiiiiink he was throwing hints about going out.”

“i played dumb though”, “also got me thinking that maybe something happened between him and Mai.”

Your friend couldn’t believe how dense you could get at times. But she didn’t say anything, she simply asked you, “something like what? like they fought or something?”

“not like that, but i don’t know, i’m just making up theories” your giggle coming out once again.

“i saw that she went out with another friend and JK kept telling me that he wanted to go out, but none of his friends wanted to haha.”

“mmmm, he definitely wanted to go out with you. maybe he was hoping you’d take pity on him and end up telling him ‘aw, we should go out then’, I’M SURE OF IT.”

“yea- about that, we kind of already have plans sometime in the next week, hah.”

You heard your friend mumbling something that sounded very much like an ‘oh my god’.

Then she laughed loudly into the speaker. “WHERE ARE YOU PLANNING TO GO, TELL ME EVERYTHING.”

Nervously, you started explaining how the conversation went. “mmmmm, i don’t know yet.”

“he just asked if i was busy next week and i said ‘not that i know of’ and he asked if i wanted to go out and i said yes and THAT’S IT.”

“mmmmm let’s see what happens”, “and listen i didn’t know if i should say it but i thought it was weird that he texted you after all this time, i know that technically you never stopped being friends but, you know, feels kinda sus BUT, who am i to know… just keep me posted about your plans.”

With that, your conversation about Jungkook ended, and you moved onto another subject.

Days were passing and Jungkook actively chose not to tell you where you were going nor at what time you’d see each other. All you knew was that it would be on Saturday.

He’s always been like this.

But that’s exactly what you liked about him. He was always spontaneous. Life felt different with him. Freer. Like nothing could tie you down. Always up to do something new without being scared of the ‘what if’s’.

The weekend came. And it’s been the most nervous you’ve ever been this year. But you could also say that you were excited.

Because it’s been a long time since you’ve seen him.

Your mind refused to think about what happened last year. The memories you had with him before all that, flooded your mind. And it somehow made you hopeful. Hopefully, maybe nothing has changed between you, and maybe, just maybe… you could carry on with how things were on that weekend you spent together.

All you could think about was how you felt back then. How happy you were when you saw him at the entrance of your building. How attracted you felt to him. How your heart jumped when you heard his voice in person once again.

You were hoping that, all that happened one more time, today.

When you finally arrived at the restaurant, he told you, he was already there waiting. His eyes were searching for you incessantly, that when they found you, the weight of the past few days, weeks, months was lifted off his shoulders.

It was the same thing all over again. Both of you were awkward enough to act like you’ve never met before. Afraid of giving each other a hug after all this time.

Once you were past that, you started talking like you always have. The same friends from 5 years ago. Sharing laughs over something one of your friends did. Telling the other how someone from work got you frustrated, complaining about it, like you were talking about homework or a school project.

He had seemed to be doing well at his work. He sounded happy talking about it. But the conversation eventually came back to talk about the dream he’s had since forever. Thrilled just by contemplating going some place far away and live off music on his own. Kind of lonely if someone asked you.

What you didn’t know is that he has never talked about that with anyone but you. He always felt comforted telling you about everything that was on his mind because you never questioned his feelings, you always supported him in what he thought he wanted.

While you talked, Jungkook started thinking deeply. How did someone like them came into my life?

In his mind, it was very present how he managed to lose you once. He wanted to imagine how you felt when you grew apart these months thanks to him. Had you been angry? Sad? Did you hate him?

But none of that mattered anymore. While looking at you, he didn’t see any trace of resentment or hatred. He knew how you were towards people you didn’t like, and he felt like he wasn’t part of them and felt relieved.

A few beers later and you still weren’t drunk. Nor tipsy.

Unconsciously, or possibly, ignoring on purpose that you were feeling a bit on edge with this situation.

It wasn’t that late, but a sudden shift in you made you want to leave. Jungkook hadn’t done anything wrong, but your gut was telling you something and your head didn’t want to ignore it despite not understanding.

“i have to head off now, Kook, it’s getting late for me.”

“ah, don’t say that, i was about to ask you if you wanted to come home and have some shots.”

Your stomach twisted at those words. Were you disgusted at that? Was it your nerves? They weren’t butterflies fluttering, for sure.

In the attempt to not turn things awkward, you pretended to be surprised and asked him what kind of shots.

“i think i just have tequila right now, haha”

You playfully looked at him with narrowed eyes as if you were considering going along with his plan, when in fact you just wanted to run from there.

A single glance to your phone and you declined his offer. “i really need to go now haha, i’d like to but maybe next week or something? what do you say?”

Jungkook naively smiled at that and nodded. “sure, we can do that, just tell me when you’re gonna be free.”

You got closer to him to give him a kiss on his cheek and part ways. While walking away, he half-shouted “tell me when you get home!” which you responded by waving at him.

On your way home, something felt off to you. And it was really hard to shake off that feeling. Everyone always says you need to trust your gut, your instincts, intuition, or whatever. But no one tells you how to navigate through those things, those emotions that seem to be overpowering your thoughts.

You didn’t know for sure what Jungkook’s plan entailed. Maybe you were getting ahead of yourself, already anticipating an outcome you didn’t like. Countless “what-ifs” flash through your mind, and every single one leads you to him trying to have sex with you.

For the second time tonight, you felt uneasy, your stomach twisting uncomfortably.

His words repeating in your head.

ask you if you wanted to come home and have some shots

ask you if you wanted to come home and have some shots

ask you if you wanted to come home and have some shots

Why weren’t you trusting him? It genuinely made you believe he wanted more. You were starting to feel a little disappointed in yourself for having those thoughts.

It’s always been the two of you. Many times you’ve spent time with him alone. But some lines were never crossed. Not even when he slept at your place a year ago.

Somehow, him taking you to his home, changed everything.

Were you going insane? After all, he’s a man, why else would he invite you back to his place so soon? And just to have a few drinks? You were sure his vibe was somewhere else, and the last thing you wanted was to complicate things after him coming back to your life.

Tonight you were able to realize that things change and nothing can come back and be how it was. You were excited, and you thought you would feel a million pretty things to be exact, but that wasn’t the case, maybe your expectations were a little too high.

Being able to experience this was definitely something, kind of eye-opening, so you could know that you have no control over love.

As you were thinking that, a text, from someone who refused to let go of you (it was mutual to be perfectly honest), lighted up your phone screen.

Yoongi.

He always appears at the worst best times. Just like that first night, when you decided to go out by yourself to a bar in a city where you didn’t know anybody, thanks to Jungkook messing with your feelings.

Your gazes found each other in the crowded room; the spark of attraction ignited. You talked, danced, laughed, shared a few drinks, a joke and, before you knew it, he said: "your place or mine?". Neither of you were looking for a serious relationship but somehow one night turned into a week, then a month and here we are, a year and a half later.

Things with Yoongi were easy. Your talks were funny and cute, you felt at ease around him, like you had known each other since forever.

But all he was, was your something. And both of you were perfectly good with that.

In one of your many nights together, you told him you lived in another state. “i figured.”

“it would be too much for this poor city if we could actually be together.”

You laughed and followed up his thought, “we could end up being a public menace with the way we’re always all over each other.”

You were curled up against him, and he was rubbing your arm.

“Do you already know when you’re leaving?”

You pursed your lips and told him, “mmm i still have like six more months.”

He seemed to think it over. But he already knew what he wanted to do before his words came out.

“Well, i don’t know about you, but i’m not letting you run away from me that easily”, he paused. “would you like if I went to see you once in a while?”

All you could do was smile. You wanted to toy with him or say something witty, but your head quickly decided to eagerly nod at Yoongi.

“Are you serious? You would do that?”

The look you had in your eyes made him giggle. “well, obviously, I’d rather not stop seeing the person whom I can’t seem to get my hands off.”

“Plus, i don’t want to forget how your tongue tastes in my mouth.”

“We can’t let that happen, right, baby?”

The hand, he had on your arm, had now moved onto your thigh. The air in his room no longer felt cold. And the way he called you baby, had you breathing embarrassingly heavier.

With his other hand, he grabbed the right side of your face and took his time inspecting it. He knew exactly what he was doing to you, and it just made him crave you more.

When he finally kissed you, you moaned. The tension he built up made you needy for him. Adding the fact that, just minutes ago, this man had told you he wanted to keep seeing you, the distance not fazing him at all.

“Did you just moan?”, “how are you so shameless?” He said while smirking. Clearly satisfied with your reaction.

You hid your face in his chest and mumbled, “it’s your fault, shut up.”

●○●○●○●○●○●●○●○●○●○●○●●○●○●○●○●○●●○●○●○●○●○●

Amazingly so, no one knew about that thing you had with Yoongi. He was your precious little secret and well, it was kinda hard to explain what you were doing. There was no reason to talk about him since you weren’t living in the same town.

It didn’t mean that he wasn’t part of your life though, he was actually very present in your day-to-day.

Even though you both were overwhelmed with work, you made time for each other almost every night, even if it was just an hour.

In this time apart, you actually got to know each other even more than you thought, and your head started thinking about him way more than before.

You already knew he was an audio engineer, but until now, he told you how much he enjoys being in concerts and festivals. That his job makes him travel a lot, but it’s not as fun as you would think.

After finding out you had similar taste in music and that you loved being in that environment, he started inviting you to countless concerts. Concert invites turned to visits to your hometown, and those visits turned to promises of traveling together some place else.

This time around, Yoongi had you excited about life.

Your daydreaming started to include him.

And soon, you began to feel confused. This was the first time in your life that you had been talking to two guys.

Last year, you wouldn’t have imagined you’d feel this way about Yoongi. Just until now, you understood what ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ really meant.

Maybe you never saw it as something potentially romantic because your heart was still set on Jungkook at the time.

But situations change. And it’s more than possible for one to feel different about someone because nothing’s the same anymore. It’s not because people change, essentially we do, but it’s mostly because something made us think differently. You opened your eyes. And there’s no way to fix that, you just have to let it happen.

Even though you took some time apart from seeing Jungkook, you still talked to him. You just needed time to sort out your thoughts about that last time you saw him.

You still like him very much so, and your newly found confusion about what to feel for Yoongi, made you want to search for Jungkook again.

You were sure you were doing something wrong. Nothing was set in stone, but that didn’t stop you from feeling guilty about it.

Exactly when that guilt was running through your mind, Yoongi texted you.

“i miss you, i’ve been thinking about you all week”

“i’m going to be there next month for a few weeks, so don’t make any plans”

“can’t believe i didn’t know i was one of those people that catch a 6-hour flight just for some kisses”

●○●○●○●○●○●●○●○●○●○●○●●○●○●○●○●○●●○●○●○●○●○●

There are days when things happen too quickly. Things you never planned.

You had a couple of days when you just wanted space. Maybe it was because you haven’t allowed yourself some time to process the past rollercoaster of emotions you got yourself into.

But that’s all you wanted, a few days to have some time alone, to recharge, before Yoongi arrived next week.

You’ve been doing this for years, and people were always concerned with you when you disappeared for a few days. You really wish you could follow the same advice you give to your friends.

“Don’t run away when things are hard, your friends are here for you.”

“Don’t drift away from me.”

But that’s all you’ve ever known, dealing with yourself on your own. You’re aware that it may not be healthy, but when you’re alone, you try to overcome your problems, feelings, or whatever’s bothering you. How can a little time to self-reflect be wrong?

This time, Olivia and Van exaggerated a bit. It had been like four days you hadn’t talked or texted anyone and their mind went to think the worst had happened to you. What ticked you off, was that four days had to pass before they checked on you, but whatever.

Turns out that Olivia and Van reached out to you because Olivia’s birthday was coming up on Monday, and they wanted to know if you were going out with them on Saturday.

obviously, yes, what kind of friend do you think I am???

Saturday came, and you never imagined this day would turn out like this.

First. You had been with Olivia since early in the morning. Breakfast was nice cause you were able to catch up on everything that happened since you last saw each other. Later, you decided to go get your nails done for tonight, but Olivia’s car died at like 1:00 p.m. Totally out of nowhere.

“Has this happened before?” You asked. “No, never, I really don’t understand why it won’t start.” Olivia started getting nervous because she didn’t have someone who could run to help. Her ex wouldn’t even answer her, and everyone else was far from where you were.

And you thought life wanted to have some fun because maybe it was a coincidence that Jungkook’s work was nearby, and he was just getting off. Really JUST a coincidence. “Don’t worry, actually I think Jungkookie can come to help us, just let me ask him.”

But tell me, why are you nervous to call him? It’s just him.

So, you called him to ask for help, and he was a lifesaver in its absolute glory. He arrived in about 15 minutes and got the car started immediately. You didn’t even say hello properly, you just waved at him as soon as you saw his car approaching you.

“He looks nice.” Olivia whispered to you while Jungkook was closing the hood of her car, then said to him, “I can’t believe you got here so fast, my dad or my sister would have got here in at least an hour!”

You could only manage to see their interaction unfold in front of you because you had no words. It’s been years since you were speechless because of someone. You literally couldn’t find the reason for being on edge like this. He giggled and told your friend “well, you’re lucky I work close by and that I got off early today.”

You were leaning against his car now, and it got you even more nervous that you couldn’t see his eyes because he was wearing sunglasses.

Well now you have to say something, now that you’re feeling two pairs of eyes on you.

“How was work today? wasn’t there a lot of traffic on your way here?” You finally spoke, your eyes directed at him, and he just smiled as he heard your voice at last.

It has been more than a month since he last saw you and, currently, he was certain that he had missed you.

“Yeah it was cool, and you know, you can’t escape traffic.” You nodded shyly and Olivia wanted to help you, she hasn’t seen you behave like this in a while.

So, she asked, “Have you eaten already?” and before he could say something she kept explaining, “We’re gonna go eat with my family for my birthday, you can come if you'd like!”

Now it was his turn to be a little uncomfortable at this. He would rather not get in the middle of your plans as much as he wanted to spend time with you, so he declined.

“No, don't worry about it! I’m actually going to see one of my friends to grab something.” You asked him, “Are you sure? I mean, you did us a big favor with her car” And he said almost exclusively to you, “It’s okay y/n, you know you can ask me anything.”

You would be lying if you said you didn't have your body on fire with those words.

But you were still feeling awkward around him, and you just wanted to get into the car again. Olivia took her chance to talk again. “You could cut the tension with a knife in here, right?” She felt an intense glare coming from you and continued, “Well, if you can’t come with us, we should get going y/n.”

You turned your eyes to Jungkook and said, “I guess we’ll see each other another day”. He gave you one of his biggest smiles and replied, “Sure, just tell me when”, “bye Olivia”. You got close to him and hugged him. Almost a whisper, “Thank you for this, I mean it.”

And with that, you got into Olivia’s car and asked her, “Are we really going to go with your family?” She was retouching her makeup a bit, as you were putting your seatbelt on, she let out a weird laugh, “Oh god y/n no, I was just trying to be polite with him, I saw you being weird so… that's why we're ‘eating with my family’” Olivia made quotes in the air, so you could finally understand what she meant.

“Can we go for something to drink? I’m dying for something, coffee, tea, 5 shots of vodka anything please” Olivia laughed again as you told her this. The weather today was really hot, you mentally patted yourself in the back for your outfit choice, you could be ugly sweating if you had chosen something else.

As soon as you got yourselves a bubble tea, you started to calm down and process everything that happened half an hour ago. “Can you please tell me why the fuck I was so shy back there?” Your head now in the dashboard of your friend’s car.

●○●○●○●○●○●●○●○●○●○●○●●○●○●○●○●○●●○●○●○●○●○●

Evening came, and you honestly just wanted to relax and have some drinks to celebrate your best friend’s birthday. However, the interaction you had earlier with Jungkook would not leave your head.

At the time you arrived to the bar with Olivia, you were feeling somewhat anxious. You wanted Jungkook to be there with you.

You were waiting in the queue until the staff could assign you a table. Van and her boyfriend were the first ones to arrive, so they took the task to adopt you tonight, the reason being that you were the only single person in the group.

I want to invite him.

You’ve been texting all day, but you weren’t sure you could show up with him tonight. You didn’t know who did Olivia invite, and you were worried that it was inappropriate to treat this as if you could invite whoever you wanted.

The first drink arrived. It was very naïve of you to think it would relax you whatsoever. All that alcohol did was make you desperate to have Jungkook right there, next to you.

I really really want to invite him.

Eventually, (like 10 minutes later), you finally asked Olivia if it was okay for you to ask him to come with you. Just after she told you it was totally fine, you thought how dumb it was for you to worry about something like that.

It didn’t take you more than once to ask Jungkook if he wanted to come, he almost ran to you. You could’ve sworn he was ready to be there even before you thought about inviting him.

You weren’t even halfway of your second drink when he called you to say that he had arrived at the bar. In the matter of a few minutes, you no longer were the ‘single’ friend in the group. Now you had your Jungkookie.

There are days when things happen too quickly. Things you never planned.

‘Things’ meaning ‘kissing’.

The thing is, that first kiss you shared, was long overdue.

All your emotions were conveyed in the touch of your lips. From your frustrations, resentments and regrets to your purest ones, as affection in its greatest form and lastly, the burning desire that had just ignited inside both of you.

It all happened on pure instinct. You hadn’t shut up for 5 minutes, and he was hearing you intently, looking straight in your eyes.

Then the urge to kiss was all you could think of. He could no longer focus in what you were saying, and neither did you. why am I talking?

Jungkook’s heart started beating faster. Not because he was nervous, but because your face was so close to his, and he could smell your perfume fused with the alcohol you’ve been drinking. Even though none of you was able to register how fast it happened, it still wasn’t happening fast enough.

For a long time, Jungkook kissed you. He pulled back a little. He was still staring at you, and you stared right back as Jungkook kissed you again, entirely different from the first time.

You blushed at the thought that there were people watching you share this moment. But you were happy. You weren’t confused right now. It just felt right to be here with him.

You didn’t think you’d get to do this in this universe. Kissing your friend whom you had been pining for 2 years.

“I think we should get back.” You shyly told him with a smile.

He returned you his most precious smile and his hand slid down your arm until it reached your hand and intertwined your fingers with his. “Let’s go then.”

●○●○●○●○●○●●○●○●○●○●○●●○●○●○●○●○●●○●○●○●○●○●

You stayed with your friends through the rest of the night, but you never let go of Jungkook’s hand, and he wasn’t planning on it either.

The night ended when Olivia got much too drunk to stand up on her own. Van and her boyfriend handled the account at the bar, while you and Jungkook took care of taking your best friend home.

He drove you to her home while you stayed in the back seat with Olivia to help her stay conscious in Jungkook’s car.

You got closer to the console and rested your head on the side of the driver’s seat, your hand dying to get a hold of Jungkook again.

“Thank you.” It came as a soft mumble, and suddenly the traffic light turned red.

Jungkook turned his head to see you, and the way you were looking at him caught him off guard.

Your eyes were looking upwards at him, with stars in your eyes, sparks falling on him, and you spoke again, “you’ve saved us twice today.”

His gaze was still fixated on you, he smiled and said, “i already told you, you can ask me anything and i’ll do everything for you.”

The softness in your voices made you think that you would never forget a single detail of this night. All you could do was appreciate how strange and brief the most beautiful moments in life are.

You got to Olivia’s house and Jungkook helped you carry her all the way to her bed. And as much as you may have wanted to stay one more hour with him, you kissed him goodbye. And kissed him again. Then he kissed you. And his hand went behind your neck and pulled you closer to his face, even if it was physically impossible. He wanted to kiss you until one of you couldn’t even breathe anymore.

That feeling. That desire. Where was it coming from?

“I’ve been waiting for the longest time to have you like this.” He spoke to your ear while catching his breath.

“You’re the one who was late, dummy”, “but we can’t do this tonight.”

“I know, but I just don’t want to leave you here. I feel like you’re going to disappear from me.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Kookie.” You moved your hand down his face, and rested it on the back of his neck. He tightened his arm around your waist, and you closed the distance again to give him a kiss on his cheek. “I’ll see you next week, alright?”

He nodded at your words and as he was pulling back from you, both his hands hastily went to grab a hold of your head just to give you the last kiss of the night.

Neither of you said anything else, you just giggled at his actions and sent him off to his house.

You both could not help but be drawn to each other.

●○●○●○●○●○●●○●○●○●○●○●●○●○●○●○●○●●○●○●○●○●○●

Monday and everything was going according to plan. In perfect harmony.

Yoongi was finally arriving tonight and you couldn’t be more excited to see him. It was almost a joke when you told him you were counting the hours until you were next to him.

But first, you were going to spend all day with Olivia, celebrating her birthday.

After collecting her birthday cake and flowers, you made your way to pick up your best friend to take you to the restaurant where Van, her boyfriend and your other friends would be waiting for the two of you.

After all the birthday antics directed towards your best friend, you almost felt bad that now all the attention had been brought to you and what happened last Saturday.

Even Olivia’s attention was all over you, urging you to tell them everything, EVERY-THING.

Van’s boyfriend was the first one to literally ask about Jungkook. “So who’s the handsome guy, huh? I liked him.” One raised eyebrow, eager to hear what you had to say.

Everyone went quiet, listening carefully to basically your whole story with Jungkook until the other day. Faint gasps were heard. Hands over mouths, eyebrows raised. One would think you were telling the most dramatic story ever heard in this century.

You started telling it with a lot of enthusiasm, but as you went on and thought back about why you stopped talking to him, it all felt so vivid once again. It was upsetting to feel like that over something you thought you had already put behind.

Once you finished, Van spoke, “Well, I know I didn’t see much of him but, he seems really nice towards you, I could tell he likes you a lot.”

“He actually helped us get my car going the other day, he REALLY is nice, like, he didn’t have to go do all that, but he got on his way as soon as y/n called him, fucking Kevin wouldn’t have done that for me…”

Van’s boyfriend had his chin resting on his hand, just nodding at everything your friends were saying, taking in all the information. “We should go on a double date.”

“Like, this Saturday.”

You laughed almost in disbelief. Brows furrowed “Are you sure?”

“Why wouldn't I be?!! I told you I liked him!”

“Babe, you like everyone…” Van said while patting his hand.

“Well I like him most, he looks cool and like he can hold his drinks”, “text him right now and tell him that.”

“Tell him that I INVITED him!”

“Not fair you guys”, Olivia told you and pursed her lips. “I want to go tooooooo.”

“Well you can go but, heads up, we’re all gonna be busy eating each other’s faces.”

Van raised her index finger, clarifying that thought, “WITH OUR RESPECTIVE PARTNERS.”

You did send Jungkook that text and he responded straight away, but you kept joking around with your friends, that you forgot to text him back. “Of course I’ll go, I’m dying to see you” “tell them I say thanks for the invite too 😉”

But also because something else was on your mind.

Your attention went to your friends and occasionally to your watch. The thrill to see Yoongi, after a year of him existing solely through your screen, was on a new height.

The thought of him being already on his way to see you had you acting 100x sillier with your friends. And you actually couldn’t wait anymore to be in his arms.

Soon, a text came.

“I’m waiting to pick up my bags, it’ll take me around 20 minutes I think?”

“Where are you? are you still with your friends?”

You didn’t waste any more time at that and you hurriedly said goodbye to everyone. It almost seemed out of the blue. But you couldn’t care any less, you needed to be with Yoongi now.

You went to the airport as fast as you could and thankfully, you were the one that waited Yoongi for a couple of minutes.

The instant you saw each other, Yoongi dropped his bags and opened his arms. This made you run towards him to not hug, but to cling to his torso.

His scent assaulted you. This fresh citrusy smell, like warm wood, was all you could perceive. It reminded you of the countless days and nights you spent with him. Wrapped in his clothes and arms. You missed him.

He beat you to say it first though. “i’m not gonna deny that i missed you a lot.”

“Yoongi… i really really wanted to be with you.”

“I’m here now.”

With a groan, you buried your face in his neck and he quickly began stroking your hair. “i missed you Yoongi.”

He was thankful that you couldn’t see his face right now because he was flushing. He giggled and told you, “me too y/n.”

“I say we should get going now so I can show you how much I miss you, what do you think?” He finally put you down, still in front of him. Then when you bent down to help him with one of his bags, he stopped you and took your hand in his. “Tell me.”

“what? you want me to tell you how needy I am for you?” You wanted to give him the most puppiest eyes ever, but the way you were craving him got in the way you held your gaze.

He grabbed his bags and then whispered to your ear, “it would be nice, but i already know how needy you get around me.”

He was right, still you smiled like a kid caught doing something naughty.

“do you now?”

“you shouldn’t be surprised baby, just because we didn’t see each other for a year doesn’t mean i forgot everything about you”, “i couldn’t stop thinking about every little thing that i like about you.”

“god Yoongi, please stop talking or i swear i’m going to do something indecent.”

The smirk in his face hasn’t gone for a while. “when has that stopped us before?”

“but alright, i’ll be a good boy and wait for you to be indecent at your house.”

He ended with a kiss on the top of your head and both started walking towards the exit. You went for one of his bags to help him carry it, mostly with the intention of holding his hand once again.

●○●○●○●○●○●●○●○●○●○●○●●○●○●○●○●○●●○●○●○●○●○●

I don’t know why I always want to run away?

I want things I can’t have.

I’m confused now. I felt so good on the weekend, but I don’t know what to feel as of now.

I want Yoongi. I don’t know if I should wait for that possibility but, he’s what I want.

And now that I experienced what I always wondered and wanted, and actually enjoyed being with Jungkook, I can’t see past that. Is it normal? Is it bad?

Am I getting my feelings mixed up? Right now I feel like I don’t know myself. I was so happy on Sunday. I felt so calm, life was treating me so well.

But until yesterday, when I started telling my friends about Jungkook, I started to remember about last year and, I got so insecure.

Today I craved Yoongi’s attention. I felt so needy. Why are my feelings suddenly so strong with him?

I know I can’t keep myself closed up, that I need to experience relationships, but I also feel like I’m in no hurry. But when I say that, I feel like a coward. Just keeping myself safe without learning. I know I shouldn’t be scared of getting hurt, but I can’t help it when I literally don’t trust anyone.

As much as I love Jungkook, I can’t trust him.

Strangely, I don’t even want to know what he’s thinking. I just want to be sure of what I feel, because when I know that, I’m certain that I won’t be afraid of the outcome.

What’s making me feel like this? Is it him? Is it my fears or something else in me?

I don’t recognize my feelings right now, I’m not even worried, I just feel uneasy.

Maybe it’s uncertainty? I hate not knowing what I should do.

When will I make up my mind?

Maybe if it were someone else, I wouldn’t be overthinking this.

Something tells me that things with Jungkook won’t be right. I can’t see my future with him.

I have this idea of what I want to feel when I’m sure that I’m in love and I don’t know if I’m romanticizing it too much, but this isn’t it.

I have the sensation that my freedom’s been taken away.

I don’t understand myself, while I wasn’t sure of anything, I still feel like it was nice to be with him.

But now I know that I don’t want something serious with him. He’s not my person.

If he was, I wouldn’t be thinking of someone else.

I wouldn’t be thinking of how much I want to be with Yoongi and do everything with him.

I’m not in love.

I won’t keep this going, because I know it won’t make me happy.

I don’t want to sneak at night. I don’t want to tiptoe in the mornings so no one knows I was there. I don’t want silent awkward car rides. I want to feel loved.

I don’t know if I’ll hurt him, I feel guilt all over again. But I haven’t forgotten what I promised myself. That I won’t make myself go through things I don’t want to do, just because I don’t want to hurt their feelings.

Maybe this was bound to happen and maybe I just messed up our friendship.

But it’s just another ending. Feelings change and I can’t do anything about that. I won’t force them on me just for the sake of someone else. How could I know that I’d end up feeling like this?

I shouldn’t have kissed Jungkook.

[edai-crplpnk]

Part 3: Thoughts and Feelings

I happen, as you may have guessed, to have many of those regarding tops and doms. This is a disorganised list of them made by me at 3am, I apologise in advance if it is a little messy maybe.

By default assume that I am always talking about mlm dynamics here because I am way to ignorant about wlw dynamics to say something interesting (outside of: i would really love to write a fic between my service top chara and a stone butch chara because i find it really touching when queer ppl of different communities bond over their own iteration of a common identity), and straight dynamics have common points but also a lot of different stake and for now I'm gonna leave it to them to figure out, I do not have the time for this lmao.

Also I have decided to give this list some pompous title to make it look like there's a plan so:

1 - Being a top makes you human

And being a bottom does, too.

Allow me to explain.

When I started being active in fandom, I was very wary of describing characters as tops or bottoms, and of anyone who did so. (Let's put it frankly: I was a little stupid.) I bought into the idea that it was objectifying and "fetishising" (and honestly now I try to avoid that word as much as possible because I've found that 9 times out of 10 the people involved in the discussion would be unable to define what they mean by that, and so would I). That people were people, not tops and bottoms, and that reducing someone to this was bound to be dehumanising.

Dear readers: it is not.

To me, this idea comes from the same place as stuff like, "I think everyone would be bi without social norms/is actually bi/should be bi." or, "If there were no patriarchy/social norms, no one would be trans."

First of all, we don't live in a patriarchy-free society and most likely won't, while it's not a good reason not to try to get there, it's absurd to base your reflection of what life would be like in that hypothetical words to talk about how we should act in the real one.

But what is more important for me here is that this also comes voluntarily or not, along with the idea that people would not have an identity in an ideal world. And I am not fond of that. My gender, my manhood, and my masculinity are not things that are sad collateral damage from a brutal society. They are a joyful part of what makes me human. My love and attraction for men is not a restricted view of humanity. It's genuine and rich and extensive.

People have tastes and preferences and that's good, that's what makes them people. To give my characters sexual preferences and feelings about the various position they could be put in or take on during sex is not reductive, on the contrary. It's rich and it makes them diverse and distinct and it gives them an individual essence that is not that of every single other around them.

I will try to not ramble too much about my own personal life here, but I will just say that being helped to understand all of this has also done tremendous things to my ability to accept and embrace the fact that I am a gay man, because it has allowed me to view it as the joy and rich and precious individuality and shared love that it is, rather than the previous framing of it that I had of it being somehow a fault because, I'm not gonna lie to you, living in primarily queer and feminist spaces does not always make it easy to be able to think "men are neat". (And while I absolutely understand why because it is true that the violence brought by men, in general, onto women, in general, is extreme and entirely disproportionate to how it goes the other way around, the way it's framed is still an issue if it makes gay and trans men hate themselves or gives the tool to white women to threaten and get black men killed, but I digress.)

2 - Clichés are okay sometimes, actually

I will nuance this, I promise.

Sometimes, when people say that having characters that are tops or bottoms is okay, they will put an addendum like "but it's important to not equate personality and top/bottom or dom/sub, you can have any looks and personality and be a top/bottom/dom/sub". And, of course, I agree with the sentiment, fem tops are cool, shy tops are cool, dominant bottoms are cool, you get the gist. Part of saying that tops and doms should be treated as humans and embraced in their diversity has to mean that you want characters of various looks and personalities to be tops and doms!

But I have some issues with that, or rather, with how some people frame and think it albeit really agreeing with the statement in itself.

First, as per point 1, I personally think that seeing sexual preferences and dynamics as part of the characters' personalities is important and humanising. So while, yes, tops can have various personalities, of course, I think that it's important that it doesn't mean "my character's preferences are entirely unrelated to their personality".

For example, in the second series I shared earlier, some of Kankurou's personality traits are that he likes to show affection to others by doing things for them and is quite domestic (he's shown loving to cook for his siblings for example), that he tends to catch on feelings very easily, but doesn't necessarily wants to act on them in a romantic/committed way, it's more that for him love and attraction are only very mildly separated, so while he doesn't want to date all of his hook ups (or any, really), he does tend to view those encounter as also a very emotionally charge things and that while not necessarily ashamed of that, he is someone who cherishes privacy and modesty a lot, and is not necessarily comfortable with exposing himself. These things transpire in him being primarily a top, or rather in the specific ways that he is. Part of the dynamic he likes is being able to put himself at the service of his partners because he is often quite emotionally invested in them and their pleasure, and finds joy and fulfilment in being able to provide this for them, while also often finding it a more comfortable position to be in because the focus is less on him and it allows him to be more private about how he feels and make it more about what his partner want and like and feel like.

It's not that someone with this personality has to be a top, a bottom could like all of that, mix and match works with almost any combination, but his identity as a top, how he does it and why he likes it are very directly tied to his personality, and it's cool.

The second thing is that often this will come alongside a suspicion for any character that will tick too many boxes of the same archetype. It's okay that a chara is a top, and maybe it's okay if their also the masculine, or tall, or dominant, or idk what other cliché associated with tops, but if he's all of that, then he will be seen as too cliché and therefore bad and unrealistic or objectifying. While I'm sure that's the case sometimes (many times even maybe, I genuinely don't know) and I understand where this suspicion comes from, I think that it's also important to recognise that some people just do fit certain stereotypes, and are still people.

There is intrinsic issues with clichés that are actively stigmatising (like, no, i will not answer "queers are groomers" by "it's a generalisation, but it's okay that some of us are" OF COURSE) but some are most problematic in that they make blanket statement and, more importantly, I think, in that they are viewed as a negative thing.

The main issue with "gays are effeminate and always friends with girls and they like shopping and not sports", for example, is that it's just plainly not true for a number of people, and it's dehumanising in that, once again, it negates the diversity of individuality within a given identity, but also it's that the sub-text (or sometimes full on text) is "and that's bad". Yes, I have a character that is gay and effeminate and always friends with girls and who likes shopping and not sports. The big difference between me and bigots is that I appreciate those are human traits that he has because he's a person, not categories made to other him without thinking about what they mean for him, and that I think he's neat and that it's cool he has things and people he likes and preferences that mark him as an individual.

The third thing is probably less important (or is it? I don't know anymore) but it's fair to say at this point I'm not trying to keep this short anyway so I will still say it. It's that another thing that can be heard is, "It's okay if you have stereotyped characters, as long as it's not All Of Your Characters. It means that it's just that, yes, some people to happen to fit stereotypes, but that they're just some within a larger diversity." and I think that I don't agree with the idea that characters have to be people.

I love to write characters that are people, as I think this whole post is making very clear, crafting characters that have complex personalities and personal tastes and strong individualities is something that is very dear and important and joyful to me. But I have also written things with characters that are no people, and I certainly have loved works that did the same.

What I mean by "characters that are not people" is that it's also an option to write characters as symbols, ideas, forms that are meant to represent complex or more general feelings or experiences, and not contain a human individuality and logic of a past and a set of traits and experiences building their present self. This is how an astronomical amount of art functions, paintings, poetry, tales and fables, myths, a lot of theatre, and I'm sure, even if maybe less, a lot of novel-type writing too.

This isn't an issue, and it's not an issue in porn either. I will use the word this time, it's okay to fetishise characters in porn. That's quite literally what porn and fetishes are for. Representation of erotic ideas, topoi, imaginary, figures, etc. within a human character that is not written like a person, is not bad, it's a lot of what porn is. (And it's not even what I write at all, I'm not defending my church here, I just think it's very valid and cool.)

I think that what is important is to be aware of it, both as writers and readers, when this is what we write or read, and that characters are created equal in this. If you have human and complex characters in your story but suddenly there's that one chara who is a symbol of an idea or a cliché and not meant to be treated as a person, especially if it's a marginalised character, we're getting into very iffy territories.

Of course, it's important to be mindful of the fact that stereotypical figures, symbols, fetishes and the rest are always soaked in harmful social norms and we have to think about that too, but that does mean we have to burn all and every symbolic figures and characters because, again, the harmful social norms will never be fully gone of anything you'll do. Better know that than do something that you think will free you of them but will only achieve to make you stop thinking about it.

3 - Hurting people is not easy nor inconsequential

We're entering more the dom side of this than the top side now. (And once again, although I wholeheartedly believe in and love sub tops and dom bottoms, I think it's dishonest to act like topping and dimming are not to things that are linked in our imaginaries whether we want it or not and that, therefore the issues regarding the representation of both of those are interconnected and interdependent, just as are, shall I say since I'm here, the way we think about men, and the way we think about masculinity, for example.)

I think there is an assumption that, of course, being a sub (especially in a context of more "intense" kink, like pain play or, idk, fisting or whatever) is challenging and vulnerable and potentially dangerous, so it's important to make sure the sub is really wanting and ready to receive that, but that since the dom is not the one in physical danger and isn't the one who is going to receive and suffer (albeit with pleasure) through this violence (albeit consented), it will be less challenging for them.

I don't think this is entirely wrong, just as I don't think that the same type of belief being held towards tops and bottom is, because there is often more intrinsic physical risk to bottoming and/or subbing than there is to topping and/or dimming. However, I think the depth of this disparity is really overestimated.

As someone who is both verse and switch, I will tell you that I find it immensely scarier to top and dom, and I say that even as bottoming is not exactly easy either lmao. (Another day we should talk about how sides don't get enough appreciation either. Writes sides! Over a fourth of my smut fics do not have anyone top or bottom. You don't even have to do any of this!)

Hurting people, even when they want and like it, is not easy. Being the one who is made to take all the decisions is not easy. Being the one mainly responsible for checking everyone's safety (which isn't always the dom's role, but often is) is not easy.

More generally this boils down to something that is very important and way more general than anything sex or BDSM-related to me that is: being in power is not intrinsically easy or comfortable. It is exactly what it says on the tin: more power. It will often come with more resources to protect yourself, and more autonomy so you can flee a situation of violence, so in that, yes, it is a protection, but it can still be a very violent situation to be put in. (For example if you can't see where I'm heading: men tend to have more resources to protect themselves or get away from situations of abuse, but male socialisation, in itself, is not intrinsically less traumatising than female socialisation is.)

All that to say, domming can be a very vulnerable and scary and draining position to be in, and it shouldn't be overlooked simply because it is often (and not even always) less physically dangerous.

What that means too is that you need to consent to sub, and you also really, really need to consent to dom.

I've rambled about this before I'm fairly certain but I feel like while (in people who do actually care about consent which I will admit is not a given) there is a general understanding that anything violent done to someone should be thoroughly consented by said someone, the acknowledge that it should be thoroughly consented by the person who hurts is a bit slipped under the rugs sometimes.

This is something that I wrote a lot about in The Smell of the Rain, but I fundamentally think that making someone do something to you without them being fully aware of and okay with the impact it will have on you, including "negative" (quotation mark for "pain in painplay isn't negative per see but it's still pain") is abusive and a breach of consent. Letting someone do something that hurts you without telling them, when it's someone who does not want to hurt you, is a breach of consent.

This is complicated because of course, I don't want to say that anyone who has struggles upholding their boundary is a vile abuser, and that being unable to say no or stop during a sexual activity is active sexual assault. I certainly have been there many time, this shit is HARD. (And it can be hard for tops and doms too, it's to be noted.) It's something that is messy and takes time and work, but it's important. And it's not important just because you owe to yourself to be able to do that (and you do) but because you owe that do the partner who do not want to hurt you or force you, too.

I think it makes sense to think of things like that, because ina situation of abuse that is how it work, you aren't abusing someone who wants to harm you by letting them do. And because we often discuss consent in regards to base (which again, makes sense) this is what we think of. Making people who might hurt others know to not do that. (Not sure we're succeeding but-) But if you are writing about a relationship that is meant to be healthy and where characters have good intentions towards each other, then this is not the right perspective to have on consent than to think of it as "making sure that the person to whom something is done wants it" and not "making sure that both parties involved are equally aware of the meaning of this act for both, and both want to go forth with it.

Unless there is a reason why one of the two character is a likely victim and the other a likely abuser (which can happen), I don't want to frame consent between my character as "person who might be abuse and person who might be abusing need to make sure that doesn't happen" which will go on to dehumanise one of them (again, if there is not a precedent that realistically causes that, and then it will likely fall on the top/dom) but really as "two people who are all in capacity of hurting the other in various ways, trying to not do that".

Well. It is now 5am, I've been at it for 3 hours, and I'm sure there is a lot more to say but this is probably way more than enough for today lmao. I will now sleep so tomorrow can be another day full of loving tops and doms and other men loving other men. I will also not proofread this post for evident reasons, so I hope it won't happen to be a nonsensical sleep deprave mess. Bye 👋

I wish more fanfic writers were empathetic to tops and doms. I think a lack of empathy there explains a lot of the fandom discourse around the idea that it’s racist to make characters with darker skin the top or seme or whatever.

Part of why it bothers people, I think, is that in fandom spaces—for a variety of reasons—people have somehow come to a consensus that it’s fine to have submissive and degradation oriented fantasies, but not fantasies about making someone submit or doing the degrading. SOME people don’t let themselves think about the interiority of those that could actually deliver them what they want, sexually. And I don’t even just mean actual sex! I can tell when a fic author actually gets off on topping or domming. Those people are kind of rare in fandom, but their fics really stand out if you know what you’re looking for. Side note—I think there’s a lot of untapped potential in whump writers, who could probably write really wonderful nasty smut, but who are ashamed of writing something sexual and worried about backlash (so they just stick to narrative torture for now).

If you instinctively think that writing a character as a top or dom means they’re incapable of having interiority or complexity because YOU can’t write a compelling top or dom character for shit, then you might also think that any writing of people of color as tops or doms is inherently bad or offensive writing. And this is sad for everyone, but it’s especially sad for the actual tops and doms of color in the real world who have to read people saying that they don’t exist, or that characters who feel like them are offensive and racist.

Ironically, the people who claim that writing a character of color as a top or dom automatically makes that character a racist or brutish stereotype are reenforcing that stereotype. I want to see more compellingly written top and dom characters who have actual wants and conflicts. Give me more woobie, extremely emotional doms. Give me self esteem issues, or the struggles of being mistreated by subs, or feeling reduced to what they can provide sexually but not seen as a good person outside of that, please.

tldr; I wish more people knew that it’s not an insult to write a character as a top or dom, and therefore that it’s not an insult to write a character of color as a top or dom.

--

[silkgonerough]

Astro Observation/Rants #3 (includes moral support for ppl with harsh aspects between their big 3)

🍰UNDERRATED ASPECT COMBO: Mercury sextile venus + mars when I tell you the amount of crazy situations I’ve talked my way out of and the amount of free things I’ve talked my way into is simply ridiculous.. The mixture of both I think gives someone a rlly nice and sweet way of talking but with a certain tact and persuasion with how their saying it if that makes sense? Which equals a real charmer in words but also someone very skilled in how to get what they want through what their saying. If you have this as well start using it to your advantage trust me it works!!!

☹️Does anyone else who has Pluto or Saturn on or aspecting the ascendant in a harsh aspect have an intense self awareness that kind of keeps them from doing certain things bc it gets to much be too much or you get too paranoid over what others will think of you?

😪Being a Sagittarius but with Saturn as my dominant/elevated planet is really not what I signed up for... I thought I was getting my fun carefree casual storyline but Saturn said it’s the struggle for me. RIP to young me who only looked at cookbook astrology and rlly thought I was doing something...

🙃Ppl who have their sun or ascendant squaring your own ascendant usually have habits or just certain things they do that tend to annoy you or make you judgemental in how they present themselves to the world and others around them. My virgo rising squares my moms sagittarius sun and I can’t take her anywhere 😕

🥵Venus square mars is so hot yet such a disaster in synastry😭 like maybe it’s because I attract relationships that tend to be as messy as something out of a Netflix original but I’m always so attracted to guys who’s venus’ square my mars... and then they open their mouths😪

📚If you know someone with mercury in an aspect to saturn compliment their intellect, writting skills or just knowledge in general!! Ppl with this aspect tend to feel insecure with being considered “smart” even if they really are! Most ppl I’ve met are able to articulate their thoughts rlly well and are like walking dictionaries almost? They way they talk when explaining definitions or concepts is also lowkey hot🥵maybe that’s just my Virgo rising talking tho...

💖Sun in any aspect to venus but especially the conjunct/trine as an aspect between two people is the official hype man aspect!! The venus person hypes the hell out of the sun person and vice versa!! Probs the loyal fan who’s always in your comment section😘I love this aspect sm tho you just love the entire being of the other person! one of my fave celebrities has her venus conjunct my sun and I am deeply in love with her🤪

😩WHEN WILL THE UNIVERSE GIVE ME ANYTHING OTHER THEN A DAMN PISCES ARIES OR LIBRA MAN ITS GETTING OLD give me my Scorpio or Capricorn man😭🙏 (except dont bc all of hell will break loose and it’ll be me invigoratingly opening the gates)

🌗If you have your sun in a harsh aspect to your moon (square or opposite) your childhood was probably not the most fun in the home life and you probably understood the harsh reality of marriage or just unhealthy relationships in general from the parents :/ the whole sun/moon inner conflict was also probs pretty prevalent and caused social issues with peers at school.. honestly such a sad aspect to have as a child bc everything’s so hard and you don’t understand why bc you don’t rlly understand yourself yet :( but once you grow into it and figure out how to balance your emotions/moon to your overall personality/sun one can become the strength where the other is weak and it creates a sort of wondrous enigma of a person and ppl can become rlly entranced in your personality! It’s called layers bitch😜

🤫Scorpio/Pluto in the 3rd house (I have both🤗) could be someone who has a lot of secretive hobbies or interests that they don’t share with a lot of ppl but may have a secret social media accounts for them👀 not the type to tell ppl if they like someone but the ppl who are close to them will catch on or honestly figure out just by asking them straight up bc once confronted we get all embarrassed and you can see it on our faces super easily! We love our mysteries, plot twist or literally anything that requires digging deeper or making theories when reading or watching something. No surface level shit here🙅‍♀️

💸Mars in 2nd house may have a shopping addiction or may be bad at saving money. They usually binge shop and are the types that went to a grocery store for more untensils and came back with a waffle maker and a bunch of baking supplies😅 stingy if you eat their food without permission... the type to freak out if they left their fave shirt at their friends house after a sleepover lol, probs has a thing for food and sex together or sex in a really luxurious place with candles and rose petals.. it’s go big or I’m going tf home with them. Have furniture in ur home their not fucking in a god damn roller rink🤣

🌟People with Mercury in Aquarius/aspecting Uranus seem to really like talking about scientific theories or futuristic concepts!! All the ones I’ve known have had really grand ideas and seem to like anything related to the mystical but also seemingly holds a lot of innovative undertones! One of my friends who has Mercury in Aquarius aspecting Neptune/Uranus has a thing for the Disney short films which honestly is like a mix of neptune and uranus in its art forms! I’ve always thought it was cute how eager she is to show me them☺️

🌊From what I’ve observed an aspect that can make someone kind of bad at confrontation or like vocalizing their feelings until it’s too late and their bursting like a freaking geyser is Pisces mars. It doesn’t rlly take a lot to have them feeling some sort of way either with or without a valid reason (this is just an observation from the ones I’ve seen I don’t want to generalize!!) but the way they get angry is like a baby’s tempter tantrum and because I’m a Sagittarius I can always see thru the bullshit and I’m like is anyone else seeing this? I think overall besides Scorpio having a water mars signs is exceptionally hard so I cut them some slack but at what cost😫

🤤Mars conjunct Jupiter people are yummy. The men and women both are so hot and the men are always exuding big dick energy and usually thats what their giving👀

🌎All my big 3 create harsh aspects to one another (sun square moon, moon opposite ascendant, ascendant square sun) I honestly don’t know how I made it this far without literally exploding from tension but to anyone with these I guess my advice would be to refrain from taking things too personally bc it’s usually never that serious we’re just already a bit insecure in ourselves and how we present ourselves to the world! Your perception of how others view you vs how they actually do are usually very different in a good way but we tend to self sabotage ourselves into acting the way we think others want us to! I think having so many conflictive yet different sides of yourself creates a very influential character. It’s kind of like living in many completely different places throughout your life. The change is always hard and you don’t always feel secure but your experience and perception on things are really unique and you can offer other ppl a whole new perspective on who they are bc you yourself are always looking through the world through conflicting yet contrasting lenses.

[shanastoryteller]

not to bring up the wei qing discourse again, but i was reading your yiling wei au again and i thought of an explanation that better fits both canon and chinese naming traditions, and i'm pretty sure no one brought it up during the discourse itself. iirc you cited madam jin as a reason to change wq's name, but the thing is that when you use furen (madam), you're supposed to attach your husband's name, which means that madam yu is actually the odd one out skdhskf. an argument could be made for how it symbolises the fraught tension between yzy and jfm, but yeah.

however, your name still stays the same. so madam jin's name would have stayed the same. she just would've been referred to as jin-furen. you can see this with jyl, who's referred to as jin-xiao-furen (young madam jin). also, i'm pretty sure cultivators keep their name regardless of their sect (see: su she and luo qingyang). it's just that most of the disciples we see are clan (familial) disciples, not sect (outer) disciples, which is why their family name is the same as the sect name.

so what i initially thought, upon reading your au, was that wq changed her name to emphasise her declaration of loyalty to wwx. family names in chinese culture is incredibly important, and to change your family name is to essentially turn your back on your ancestors. so what i read was wq turning her back on the wen legacy and declaring her loyalty to wwx in a way no one can refute. even marriage can be written off as political, but the changing of a family name hits a lot harder and more irrevocably.

her marriage to wwx, then, would've been inferred from her position in the entourage and her proximity to him.

btw, if you're comfortable with it, could you publish this publicly so more ppl are aware of this? it's okay if you're not skdjjs but i know a lot of cql fans don't have a lot of knowledge of chinese customs and stuff so yeah this might be helpful

hi! it’s nice of you to point all this out, but it was where i was going to begin with

my point with madam jin wasn’t that she changed her name after she got married because she got married. i’ve written people getting married in the untamed universe before i made that tumblr fic, and i didn’t have them change their name, because i was aware that that isn’t really a thing in chinese culture. and tbh i find character name changes to be a little jarring as a reader, so i avoid them when i can. 

my point with madame jin - and at the time i thought she had a jin last name that she used outside of the madame title but i’m pretty sure that’s incorrect - and others is that in canon it seems like people are running around with clan family names without actually being part of the main family. this could just be because of messiness of the drama or because i’m just bad at keeping track of everyone’s names

so how i handled this in lynchpin was i had it being a thing where people take on the clan name while they’re apart of the clan. except for the jiang, who are little rebels. 

so it would be like, for example: 

birth name: wei ying; courtesy name: wuxian; clan name; jiang wuixan

so like, anyone could refer to any disciple in gold “young master jin” without knowing their real name. and people could either use their clan name or not, but most would as a sign of status and allegiance, but doing so wouldn’t be giving up their name

I UNDERSTAND THIS IS NOT CANON

the point is that i thought it would be interesting and a fun and useful convention to throw into fic. even though it’s not historically accurate, i think that that’s fine because there’s no historically accurate way to address large governing clans of magic knights because those didn’t exist

so when wei wuxian clarifies wen qing’s name is now wei qing, it’s to show he’s gone against the jiang practices he grew up with and in his clan people use a clan name. 

it’s significant for the wen especially, because there’s a reveal in that universe (that, in all fairness, i never got to because after everyone got so upset about it i really didn’t feel like getting into) that they give up their birth name wen to only go by wei. 

i’d had this scene that i really liked where someone claims all the wen have to be killed and wei wuxian was just like “what wen? there are no wen here. there are only wei.” but again, this whole thing caused so much drama that i just wasn’t interested in getting into it again 

even though i didn’t go into that, when we see wen ning later in the fic, he’s going by wei ning 

it was never about wen qing getting married. that’s why she’s introduced first as madame wei - to show that’s she’s married to wei wuxian, the clan leader of the wei - and then wei wuxian gives her name as wei qing. they’re signifying different things. if the point had just been to show they’re married and her name is wei now, he wouldn’t have clarified her name in front of everyone, since people obviously already know who she is 

jiang yanli is in the same fic, married to jin zixuan, and i don’t refer to her as jin yanli. it wasn’t a marriage thing

did i expect that everyone who read my tiny tumblr fic would have also read my 100k monster fic and know i was bringing in similar ideas? 

of course not. 

but i also hadn’t expected everyone to jump down my throat about changing her name because she got married when i at no point ever claimed that was why she changed her name, nor had i had literally any other married character change their name

i thought i could just do what i usually do and go on to fill in worldbuilding and reveal in other installments so i didn’t feel the need to go into a deep dive of my motivations from page one

anyway

thank you for the information. i like the idea because it’s similar to the idea i already had. great minds think alike.