#and leads want more staff so what is happening? but by god that does not mean give me more hours 36 is fine stop this 40 45 nonsense

[nerdie-faerie]

Texted my mum about being asked to stay an extra 2 hours because we were understaffed, so why did she follow that text up with asking me if I'm getting enough hours? Girl they won't let me leave

[auclairedetoru]

“This has been y/n and Satoru, thank you so much for watching, bye!”

The moment they reached the greenroom, y/n's smile drops. God, her cheeks hurt, nobody talks about how hard it is to fake a smile all day, it's like a workout for your face except you gain nothing at the end.

Her co-star walks in behind her, a cocky smile on his face. If she was him she would get tired of herself. How can someone be so egoistic? He loves himself more than his own mother loves him. Every second she's in his presence, she feels herself losing brain cells and getting gray hair, and as much as she loves silver locks on other women, she does not want the cause of it to be Gojo Satoru.

“Great job today, everyone! Y/n you could've been a little more cheerful toda-”

“Shut the fuck up.”

She plops down on the sofa and rests her head against the back of it. They still have one more interview left to do, so she's forced to tolerate that dumbass for a couple more hours, and it's a recorded one so she has to pretend she likes him too.

Why did she choose to become an actress again?

Right, childhood dream, worked hard for it, blah blah blah.

“Whoa! Careful there, tiger! Someone might be filming and you don't want to ruin the season before it even starts.” Gojo smirks, eyes glinting with mischief as he continues to push her buttons.

The people in charge decided to promote the filming of the new season of their show to remind people of it and get them excited, not that anyone was able to forget the last two seasons. According to the statistics, people love a slow burn story, especially when it stretches over multiple seasons. Yes, that does mean y/n has been stuck with Gojo as her co-star for three years now, as known as the longest three years of her life. Everyone around her tells her that time is passing by too fast, but it's been the opposite for her.

She's dreading this season the most. It might be the last, but it means the story will finally reach its long-awaited climax, which means her character and Gojo's will become more than friendly.

She doesn't even want to think about it.

“Leave her alone, Satoru. You still have one interview left.” his manager scolded him making the bright blue eyed man pout like a four year old not getting the candy he wanted.

The fact Gojo and y/n can't stand each other is something known only between them and their close staff, not even the director and producers know that the "chemistry" between them is something they make up on the spot and doesn't come naturally at all. They're surprised no one has figured out they don't like each other in any way, but y/n takes that as a compliment because it means that she's a really good actress who has perfected her craft and is able to fake getting along with a menace like him.

After touch ups, she goes to where the interview is being held, greeting the staff on her way and telling them she's excited to be working with them. Gojo smirks at her from his seat as she makes her way to sit on hers next to him. She mirrored him to keep up with the "we're best friends behind the scenes" thing they somehow built for themselves.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Can't a man admire his friend and co-star?” he teases, milking the hell out of the act they put on for the camera. Y/n wanted to roll her eyes but instead she forces out a laugh and takes her seat.

She ignores the way her heart flutters at his words. No need to focus on that.

A few months into filming...

“Alright, everyone!” the director calls out as he claps his hands, “Cameras rolling, sound is up, let's do this.”

Ah yes, the most important scene of the entire franchise. The first kiss scene. This is what the show has been leading up to, this is the moment everyone has been waiting for, this is the thing y/n has been looking forward to the least, in fact, she has not been looking forward to it at all, she wishes it wouldn't happen.

The scene takes place at her character's apartment, a place the set design team has made so cozy looking she wishes she could curl up and take a nap on the couch. Gojo's character is her coworker and he's coming to check on her because she disappeared from the office party after seeing him flirt with someone. That's when she confesses that she's been pinning over him for years and he confesses back before pulling her into a kiss.

“Okay you two,” the director looks at them, “not to put you in any pressure, but this is the most important scene of the entire show. All your hard work has led up to this moment. Satoru, you're the one leading the kiss, remember that she's very vulnerable and heartbroken, so you need to be gentle and soft, she's the person you love most so you're gonna handle her with the most care. Alright? Here we go!”

The apartment door closes between y/n and Gojo as the clapper loader steps in and holds the slate in front of the camera, “episode 11, scene 45, take 1!” they call out before snapping the clapper shut and stepping back.

The director pauses, glancing around one more time to make sure everyone is ready.

"And... Action!”

Y/n steps into character and hesitantly opens the door. Her expression shifts to shock as she sees Gojo standing across from her, hair and clothes disheveled. “What are you doing here?” her voice is a mix between surprise and hurt, just as the script calls for and just as they rehearsed. Gojo's eyes soften, exactly how he was instructed.

Yes, she can't stand him, but that doesn't mean she won't admit that he's really good at his job. He's not one of the most sought out actors for no reason.

“I was worried about you, you left so abruptly.” he says, letting his eyes dance all over her face only to catch her wet cheeks and red eyes, and no, it isn't makeup and fake tears, she spent half an hour before filming started watching "soldiers reuniting with their dogs" videos to get to that point.

He moves to cup her cheek, but just as scripted, she steps back, her expression flattering. She starts to remind herself of things that make her emotional to start tearing up, “I-I'm fine, you can leave.”

Gojo stares at her a bit longer than he's supposed to, but she blames it on his love to suddenly improve, and not that he's admiring her or anything, not like she wants him to admire her, that would be crazy on her part.

"You don't have to hide from me," he says with the same soft tone.

She tries to hold back the tears to keep up the strong and always optimistic personality her character is known for, and after a moment she allows a couple to flow down her cheeks. Gojo's face morphs into a concerned expression.

“I don't like seeing you with someone else,” she mumbles, her voice breaking with every word that slips out of her lips, “it hurts me, right here,” she taps on her chest with a shaky hand.

Gojo's eyes widen to feign surprise, a perfect mix of confusion and disbelief on his face, playing the oblivious character to perfection, “you... You like me?”

“For the longest time,” she sniffs, her voice thick with emotion as she starts opening up, “I held back, I tried not to make it obvious, but i can't anymore.” She drops an octave to deliver the last line, showing as much vulnerability and pain as possible.

There’s a pause, and everyone on set is on the edge of their seat. They could feel the tension between them, the two playing their roles better than what everyone imagined from reading the script. Gojo goes to take a step closer, stopping half way.

“Can I kiss you?” he asks, his voice shaking to show that his character is feeling nervous. The director looks intensely between the scene in front of him and the one on the screen, making sure that the intensity they feel in the room is accurate on camera to what's happening in real life.

It's her turn for her to be surprised, playing unsure and hesitant, not expecting those words to come out of his mouth, “w-what?”, her voice trembles as her eyes search his face like she's trying to find any uncertainties.

“can I kiss you? Please?”

Gojo takes the step forward. His voice is soft and his gaze holds hers, intense yet tender, leaving no doubt that his character has been lounging for this and wanting it for just as long if not longer than her.

Y/n takes a deep breath. This is it, she's about to kiss Gojo Satoru, the person she despises the most. She hopes it won't be awkward, the scene was going smoothly and the last thing she wants is a retake from the top, she also doesn't want to embarrass herself in front of the whole crew and become the topic of their gossip.

After a small pause, just as instructed by the director, she gives Gojo a small nod. Gently, and hesitantly, he cups her cheek as he brings his face closer to her. The nervousness on her face is mostly real and she doesn't know why she's feeling that way, she wants the scene to end already.

The moment their lips touch, something surged within Satoru and his free hand quickly grabs her waist to pull her closer to him. Did she always smell so... Devine? Why are her lips so soft? Is her lip balm candy flavoured? Why does she taste so sweet? Why can't he pull away from her?

The kiss is supposed to be gentle, a tender moment of affection, yet the way his hand was gripping the pajama top she's wearing betrays his character's intentions. But the way his thumb caresses her cheek is the opposite, grazing the warm skin softly like he's handling a little kitten. He knows he’s supposed to pull away now. He wants to. He needs to, for the sake of this scene. But something holds him there and it's making him not care about the script anymore.

It’s only when he feels a gentle squeeze on his arm that he finally pulls back. He looks down at Y/n, her lips slightly swollen from the kiss, her wide eyes bright with a spark that stirs something deep within him, making him want to lean down and kiss her again.

“cut !”

The pair jumped away from each other. They both forgot they were on a set, filming a show, and not in the comfort of their own homes.

“that was just... Wow,” the director shakes his head with a smile, “Satoru you went a little out of what I told you with the kiss, huh?”

“yeah, sorry,” he smirks with fake confidence, acting like his heart isn't beating faster than a racing car, “I just thought the moment needed that intensity, ya know? He's been waiting to kiss her for so long after all.”

“No I agree, you did the right thing. Go ahead and take five, everyone. This is one of those rare times when there's no need to do multiple takes, the first was perfect.”

Y/n lets out a breath she didn't realise she was holding and quickly leaves to go grab a water and get some fresh air. She can't believe what just happened. That was definitely not a normal kiss, it felt too real. What was Gojo thinking!? Why didn't he stick to the script and kept it short? And why did she like it so much? She's not supposed to! She's supposed to hate him and everything he does.

“Y/n? Can we talk in your trailer, please?”

Fuck... Please don't let that be Gojo, please let her ears be mistaken and it's not his voice asking her to talk in private, please-

She turns around, and it's him. He stands there, hands tucked into his pockets, looking a little... Shy? Since when does Gojo Satoru feel anything less than bold and confident? There's an unusual softness to his expression, one she only sees when he's playing his character, but without the little voice in the back of her head reminding her that he's just acting.

Despite not wanting to talk to him, she still nods and follows him to her trailer that wasn't parked far away from where they stood. She lets him in first and closes the door behind her to ensure no one can hear whatever they're about to talk about.

As they stood across from each other, Gojo's eyes dart everywhere except to her face, something he has never done before. His usual bravado is gone and replaced with an unusual hesitance. She watches him with a puzzled look on her face. Why is he acting so out of character? It's as if he's nervous to talk to her.

Eventually though, he opens his mouth.

“I apologize for going out of script during the kiss. I didn't plan it to happen and I'm sorry if it made you uncomfortable.”

Now he's apologising? Okay, something is definitely wrong. Gojo has never apologised to her in the three years they've been working together. She is starting to feel nervous herself.

“It's okay, really,” she crosses her arms across her chest, “like you explained to the director, it's what you felt the scene needed, and I respect you as an experienced actor to know what you're doing.”

“That wasn't my reason, though.”

Her eyes nearly bulge out of her skull. Huh?!

“what ?”

He takes a step closer to her, a look on his face she couldn't describe, “that's just a lie I made up on the spot. I felt a pull when our lips touched, I don't know what happened to me and it's driving me mad,” he runs a hand through his hair, a habit his manager told her he does when he's anxious, “I couldn't stop myself, so I just let whatever it is take over, but I still couldn't stop, I tried but I just couldn't pull away and I— I want to kiss you again! I want to kiss you right now!”

“Gojo, calm do-” her words fall on deaf ears.

“No! You don't understand! I want to kiss you, but you hate me! You can't even look at me without being disgusted, and I keep making it worse! I keep showing the worst version of myself around you and it makes you hate me more and-”

“Gojo! Stop!”

The look on his face is breaking her heart. He seems so desperate, struggling to put his feelings into words, but every attempt only makes him more anxious, his words stumbling over each other as he tries to make her understand.

“I don't hate you, Satoru”, his heart flutters at the sound of his first name coming out of her lips. Even in interviews, she always used his last name, this is the first time he hears her call him Satoru, “I hate how you act when we're together behind the scenes. You're always so sweet to everyone but I'm always the one you tease, and sometimes your teasing hurts.”

“I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. It's just- I've liked you, as a person, before we even started working together, and I treated you how I treated my close friends. I didn't realise I was overstepping boundaries.”

Why is it so easy to forgive him? It must be something to do with the blue I'm his eyes, it holds some sort of spell that makes everyone want to be on his good side.

“It's okay, as long as you own up to your mistakes and don't repeat them, I'm willing to see past it all and start new.”

A huge smile takes over his face, content with her answer. He is so happy, he's been wanting to do this for so long. He knew he wronged her and needed to apologise for his actions, but he never knew how to approach it.

Without warning her, he lifts her up in a hug. A squeal left her lips followed by a melodic laugh as she hears him thank her over and over again. She allows herself to enjoy the warmth of his hug. His fans didn't lie, he is really good at them.

He pulls away enough to look at her face without unwrapping his arms from around her, “Can we start new by allowing me to take you on a date? I promise I'll treat you like the princess you are.”

She feels her cheeks heating up with a blush as she nods, unable to hide the small, shy smile tugging at her lips. Gojo grins wider, his eyes lighting up with an unmistakable spark of excitement and something tender, “can I kiss you again? Please?”

She barely finishes nodding before his lips are on hers. He’s smiling into the kiss, unable to hide the joy bubbling up inside him as he realizes his newfound feelings are reciprocated.

And yeah, she did like him more than she let on. The small crush she had on him before they met definitely didn't disappear like she thought it did, instead it stayed hidden away and came back out when she felt his lips for the first time.

She never expected this nor planned on letting herself fall for The Gojo Satoru Charm™, but with him here, holding her close, and pressing a kiss filled with passion on her lips, she realises maybe, just maybe, she’s been wanting this all along.

The ending looked way better in my daydream lol. Hope y'all liked it still 💕

[rainbowsky]

GQ & ADLAD CPN

@accio-victuuri has a post about some of the CPN from the GQ feature on GG. There are a couple more CPNs that I wanted to talk about because - with the exception of a couple of tidbits - I haven't seen turtles talking about some things that really stood out to me.

Both of the tidbits being discussed by BXG are based on fake rumors from the past.

Godly Back

Turtles feel that the backless jacket might be what was referred to in the recent LRLG rumor (Apparently wangwang senbei can be a homophone sounding like 'godly back').

In this context, "You saw what I wore, can you please choose something normal" becomes hilarious. 😅

If he really was talking about GG's back, well... DD, the rest of the internet agrees with you given the hotsearch that was trending on both the main and entertainment hotsearches. 😅

Xiao Zhan's back ditch is so deep

GGDD and ADLAD

This one I wanted to dig more deeply into because it's connected to a few different CPN from a long time ago, and a lot of turtles might not be aware of all these connections.

In the GQ interview GG mentioned he was really nervous for the first performance of ADLAD.

At the time a LRLG rumor came out with some exchanges between GG and DD in the days leading up to that first show. GG talks about being nervous, DD and his staff video call him to wish him Jiayou, and at one point - presumably the last time they talk before that first show - DD video calls with GG and closes off by giving him a high 5.

The day after the first show, GG posted on Weibo.

At the time there was a lot of speculation about what that second photo was. One of the theories was that GG had screen capped DD's hand high-5-ing his phone. Some fans even tried doing that themselves (screencapping their hands up against their phone cameras to see what would happen) with somewhat similar results - photos that were an ombre of pale pink to red.

Some additional CPN

When I saw GG talking in GQ about the first ADLAD show and how nervous he was and I saw turtles looking back over the LRLG rumors from that time, I decided to look over those rumors myself. I found a couple things there that really hit me in the gut, but which I haven't seen other turtles discussing.

Magician DD

One thing that stood out to me from the ADLAD LRLG rumor was when DD told GG he could do magic, and told his staff that only GG believed him.

Back in 2021 a series of pages called the 300G were released, which claimed to be transcripts of some of the best unseen moments from The Untamed BTS (300GB of BTS footage was reportedly sold to BXG fansites). They were translated by an all-star team of some of the best BXG translators and overall fandom MVP on Twitter back in the day (god I miss those days of Twitter 😢).

Disclaimer: We must remember that these are unconfirmed transcripts. As far as I know, none of the footage that could substantiate these transcripts has ever been released, so it could just be someone's fanfic.

Anyway, my absolute favorite moment in those transcripts was an exchange between GG and DD, when GG had been struggling with nailing a scene. My synopsis from a post I made about GG and DD's personalities a while back:

GG is having a hard time getting a take right for a scene, and the director tells him to take a break. DD scoots over to where GG is resting and holds out his two fists facing downward in front of GG and asks him to pick one for a surprise. GG agonizes a bit over which one to choose, but finally picks a hand. DD gives GG a mysterious smile and asks GG to hold out his hand. GG does, and DD opens his fingers over GG’s palm. There’s nothing there. DD says, “I’ve just given you some luck, so that on your next take, you will succeed.” GG asks what is in the other hand and DD turns it over and opens it and says, “See, there’s nothing there! Zhan-ge is so good, you guessed right on the first try!” GG rolls his eyes at DD and says, “WYB, in your heart, do you think I’m more than 10 years old?” On the next take, GG nails the scene.

So it's just possible that DD and GG have a long history of this type of exchange, of DD giving GG his 'magical' support. GG is just superstitious enough that it might genuinely help him, and anyway, who could fail to be soothed by such sweet magic? 🥹

GG and Sleep

Another thing that stood out to me is when GG talked about being unable to sleep. Honestly this part of the interview really got me because I have always struggled with extreme insomnia and I could totally feel his pain. I've tried so many of the things that he's tried, and have had similarly mixed/poor results.

Anyway, aside from the aromatherapy candle CPN that's been heavily discussed in the fandom, what stood out to me CPN-wise was the fact that LRLG rumors have (I think this has happened at least a few times, but I can't recall specifics), featured moments where it seemed like GG and DD left their phone/video calls active to keep each other company when the other one was sleeping.

In the ADLAD LRLG rumor there's a moment when it seems like GG might be having difficulty sleeping and DD keeps him company.

Find someone who will keep you company over the phone while you try to take a nap. 🥹

Firecrackers

Just another quick thing from that same rumor, DD talks about wanting to set off some firecrackers for GG, which... ugh, so sweet. My god.

His staff encourages him to do it, and he says he will be 'taken away' if he does (maybe get into trouble, likely exaggerated a bit), and his staff says he'll cover for DD.

In Chinese culture (and in fact, in many cultures), firecrackers are considered very lucky because they are believed to drive away evil spirits and bad luck (which is why they're such a feature of Spring Festival celebrations).

GG and DD always look out for each other, and this CPN around ADLAD and around GG's sleep struggles really hit me hard. I love them both so damn much!

[lintwriting]

How to Write Intelligent Characters (Like Wei Wuxian!)

Wei Wuxian has a really bad memory, but he is also smart enough to realize this and then use it to insult people as a joke—WITH plausible deniability to shield him from any potential consequences.

This interplay between extreme intelligence, comical brain farts, and layered social interaction is what makes MDZS so fun to read because it creates a real complexity to both him and his environment. There are multiple layers going on in this scene, with in-jokes and social factions and miscommunications, as there is in reality. And it’s a tangible demonstration of his intelligence, that he’s able to think of this deception in the first place and so casually.

But also it make the story less monotonous by having this complexity. 3 layers.

There the first layer.

“Extremely intelligent character” Like gadget inventor characters or nerdy hackers. Their hyper intelligence is useful for plot reasons, and highly competent characters are likable. And this is not bad for a side character.

It can go too far, however, such as in the case with BBC Sherlock, when the author makes the character so hyper intelligent he becomes an unbelievable god character and wraps back around to being dislikable again. Like the author’s personal pet character who can do no wrong with the excuse of his intelligence allowing him to do anything, leading to extreme annoyance whenever he’s on screen, which is all the time bc he the main character (is that just me?) lol

Then there’s the second layer to break up the monotony of intelligence.

Wei Wuxian has shit memory. Like laughably shit memory. Much like how video games create perks that also give you cons in specific ways to make your decision to use it more satisfyingly personal, like choosing to wear shitty armor that looks pretty because you value style over function, Wei Wuxian’s extreme intelligence is often undercut by scenes of extreme brain farts.

Whether it be an almost painful level of obliviousness or an extreme failed memory check, Wei Wuxian gains a flaw that not only makes him human and therefore relatable, but also unique in the pantheon of genius characters out there because he’s a genius in THIS SPECIFIC NICHE (trademarked).

This nuance/uniqueness/realness, thus, will allow his character to say more about the real world than mr god intelligence BBC Sherlock.

For the most obvious one, he’s a persuasive essay on why intelligence is not predicated on good memory, which maps well onto his larger character trait of being a intelligent slacker in school (of which the number one complaint is that it is immaterial to actual learning and only really tests memory).

What does BBC Sherlock say, beyond the idea that a god has no need for human rules? That IS a message, but a hypothetical one, as most people will never get to that level of comical intelligence for it to be relevant. Well, I guess assholes (who are less smart than they think) use characters like him as excuses to be dicks, so there's that, but I think that's proof of how legitimately unrealistic he is. He's the power fantasy of teen boys and maladjusted adults, like Rick Rick and Morty.

The third layer is him remembering that he has shit memory and using it to his advantage.

THIS is the part that gets to me THE MOST about his character and arguably the part where MXTX proved (to me) that she’s a better writer than BBC Sherlock writing staff, especially when it come to OP or intelligent characters.

There’s an ELEVATION that happens on this third layer. This is where your character goes from a smart character to a smart person to an ABSOLUTE GOAT. This is the hype that the BBC Sherlock crew wanted when doing a smart god character but absolutely failed to nail deadass, Jesus-style.

Cheatcodes to Writing Intelligence

For one, it’s putting her money where her mouth is. BBC Sherlock creates hyper intelligence by bending the plot to Sherlock's will, like one of those Twitter fake "oracle" accounts that make predictions and then retroactively delete the wrong ones to make them look psychic.

It's not true prediction, and neither is Sherlock solving a mystery unsolvable to the audience because the writer can cheat and handwave his logic — THE VERY THING BEING SHOWCASED — by just showing Sherlock being right all the time about random things we couldn't know ourselves.

(And in Sherlock, this is mostly downplayed because the mystery is less important than the character drama (send prayers for Johnlock), but it goes from a subversion to a Game Of Thrones subversion (derogatory) when the show starts failing at the character drama too, making his stupid caricature of intelligence insulting instead of an interesting exploration of a hypothetical god trying to grow up human, Jesus-style.)

Wei Wuxian also has this hand-wave-y aspect to his intelligence. We're told and shown he's a genius inventor through the cheat code of the world's magic system. Magic without rules is famously hard to write well because any story's conflict can be solved with "well a wizard came and saved the day through GOD-like abilities" if the author is too lazy to write a satisfying conclusion.

Wei Wuxian is the inventor of Necromancy, and while yes this is sort of explained through a scene where he's arguing against the establishment to his cultivation teacher, the logic of it is very simple. "What if we reversed energy? (simplification of what he actually said)," the reality of his genius invention of necromancy is just that it's the author saying "well Wei Wuxian did it through his GOD-LIKE intelligence."

What we really get out of this is that his COUNTERCULTURAL HERESY (Galileo-Style) is revolutionary. Not so much his logic being revolutionary when the concept is THIS simple (haha reverse evil suppressing wards to get an evil attracting ward go brrr). But the story handwaves this away with just making other characters utter trash at necromancy, cheating at making him seem like a genius in comparison (simplified for scope, there's more to this).

IF that were all there was to him, he'd only be a 2 layer AT MOST. Instead, we have this third layer, where he directly reacts to information the reader has received in witty ways. (This also makes him self reacting, which is what makes us human)

The Structure of Setting Up Intelligence

Part of what makes mysteries so satisfying is that the reader is rewarded for paying attention/engagement. If they notice a clue that becomes a part of the detective's explanation later on, it's like a puzzle falling into place, where you feel like a special big boy for noticing. And if the detective manages to solve it where you didn't despite having all these clues, YOU become the dumb shitty necromancer jobber who makes Wei Wuxian look good in comparison. Metaphorically.

Similarly, we have all the clues. Wei Wuxian is smart and resourceful. Wei Wuxian forgets a lot of things. Wei Wuxian gets told he's forgotten a lot of things. What's the next logical step? Wei Wuxian smartly uses his forgetfulness as a resource!

2. At the beginning of the book, he accidentally snubs a side character by responding "I don't even know who you are" (simplified for scope's sake). At the time, he genuinely is fumbling here, messing up his social standing because of an actual brain fart, but in a way that's hilarious and better-than-you, so we think nothing of it... until he learns from this mistake right in front of our eyes!

Because later on, he REPEATS this line to the SAME character to legitimately snub them when they were making accusations of him personally attacking them. Not only is this an infuriating snub done on purpose this time, but it's a lie—Wei Wuxian remembered this asshole after the many many dumb dramas with them.

3. But it's a useful lie because it demonstrates a truth—WEI WUXIAN DIDN'T ATTACK THEM. Wei Wuxian would have motive to attack them hypothetically (read: dumb dramas), but the reality is that he doesn't care about them enough to do so, for all intents and purposes making them "forgotten" to Wei Wuxian. Best of all, people believed him because HE'S DONE THIS EXACT THING BEFORE. The plot is repeating, but nothing feels the same. LAYERS absolutely destroying MONOTONY.

3. On top of that, it's a reaction to himself. He's demonstrating both metacognition and self-awareness, here, which is something actively studied in psychology as a phenomenon humans have that other animals might not, a la Dunning Kruger and the mirror test, respectively. What's more human than cringing at your un-self-awareness and learning from it?

And the best part is that we were on every step of this journey. It feels like such an obvious move to make now, like duh you can use your forgetfulness as a form of weaponized incompetence—guys do it all the time (derogatory). Wei Wuxian even does this in a cute way with his sister when he does Sajiao/aegyo at her to get her attention (affectionate).

4. But it truly hits different seeing him do it in such a specifically crafted story, structured like a mystery or a joke where the logic or punchline is him pretending to have bad memory, and I personally would never have thought of doing this on the spot like he did. This is some post-argument hindsight shower thought shit. Genius power fantasy done well.

Shit like this is STORYTELLING and STORY CRAFTING. The repetition of the scene to make his second snub more potent. THIS IS THE POWER OF SET UP AND PAYOFF. A unique usage of the adage of how a character's greatest strength is their greatest weakness, like someone's determination making them bull-headed and stubborn. Except in reverse, necromancy style, where a fatal flaw (his memory) becomes a great strength (plausible deniability). A simple example of how characterization is about specific traits in unique ways to SHOW us his personality better than the author just telling you he's smart ever could, like in BBC Sherlock. THE POWER OF SHOWING NOT TELLING. The interplay of the contradictions within his intelligence as a way to show that he's "real" and not a god. THE POWER OF DEPTH.

All this while he is quite literally the god of his story (Jesus-style).

That's right! Time for pointing out the idolization and mythologizing of Galileo!

Now I don't know if this is true because fact checking in Chinese fandoms is a nightmare when 1. your chinese is barely fluent and 2. most chinese socmed platforms require a chinese phone number to sign up. 3. these two facts leads to a lot of fandom telephone. But I remember someone quoting MXTX on the idea that Wei Wuxian and his love interest are supposed to be the moral paragons of this story (despite the way Wei Wuxian has been demonized *haha get it? demonic cultivation. his ghost cultivation got called demonic cultivation in the most on the nose misnomer in history*). This is probably not a true quote, but it's emblematic of how it feels to be reading this story.

For one, Wei Wuxian is quite literally the moral paragon. He's one of like 3 people actively against a genocide (other than its victims). A genocide that characters within the positions of power go along with for what boils down to personal convenience's sake (ALL EYES ON RAFAH). He's one of the few characters to truly master resentment AKA ENVY (aka WEI "No Envies" WUXIAN) in a story where basically all the bad stuff happens due to envy (funnily enough the actual evil villain of the story is probably the only opp who wasn't actually jealous of him, despite arguably being the one who not only was the most envious of the whole series and the one whose envy would make sense, being narrative foils with Wei Wuxian and all). You'd never see Wei Wuxian wishing evil upon someone out of jealousy (he quite literally sacrifices himself to save his "unrequited" "crush's" "crush").

For two, this world is set in ancient times, where killing was still wrong but also simultaneously seen as honorable, like with Odysseus killing his wife's suitors in revenge being seen as honorable, DESPITE him hating it when the cyclops killed HIS crew in revenge for sheep lol. Wei Wuxian has slaughtered many people, but often in circumstances that soften the immorality of it, like the insanity defense or self defense or "this is war in ancient china" or stopping a genocide. And he acknowledges that these wrongs were still wrongs and does good in the world/changes as a person to atone.

For three, he's god damned OP. In a magic system where enlightenment is directly tied to magical ability, Wei Wuxian is one of the most powerful magic users in their world. Top of his generation, beat out only by his love interest, kinda. Morality is tied to cultivation, which is why it's called the "righteous" sects.

But it gets better, because those sects are not actually righteous. The vast majority are hypocrites or worse, and their work mostly involves killing things for "mundane" people, who treat them like nobility for doing so (depth in contradiction). The implication is sorta kinda that Wei Wuxian so powerful BECAUSE Wei Wuxian is one of the few to actually be righteous and not just self-righteous.

Thus, him being the inventor, the only non-noble, and only user of ghost path cultivation, the reverse of cultivation, thus serves to highlight his moral integrity in comparison, even when being called a heretic (depth in contradiction).

(And while people argue that his cultivation ITSELF is evil, causing the souls of the dead to be unable to reincarnate, I'd argue that that reading is a misread that gets distracted by thinking "demonic" and "ghost" cultivation are the same thanks to his title as the grandmaster of DEMONIC cultivation, when they're not the same (again, misnomer). In reality, he's the only successful user of the ghost path, which is about EMPATHY (Wei Wuxian's most signature magical ability after his flute playing skills) for the dead, playing into their resentment to help them pass, like he said in the very scene where he defies the establishment of his school and initially defines his path. The shitty jobber demonic cultivators are going evil and shit because it's actually pretty hard to put yourself in people's worst desires and hurts (wwx still went insane lol), much less if you yourself are controlled by resentment like Xue Yang or Su She was, who both technically "empathize" in that they're about as resentful as ACTUAL ghosts LMAO.)

Anyways, all this to say that the entire story is structured around hiding the fact that Wei Wuxian is the bestest guy ever embroiled in a huge mystery, who gets slandered and killed by his opps for standing up against powerful oppressors before coming back to life and clearing his name... (jesus-style). A lot of the book is him morality mogging or witty mogging randos, many of whom are cartoonishly evil or rude. Dare I say it? Yes. Like BBC Sherlock.

BOOM. Gallileo becomes the myth.

BBC SHERLOCK 🤝WEI WUXIAN

Whew, I finally brought it back around to my original point.

THIS is why Wei Wuxian is everything BBC Sherlock writers wished they were doing. Because in spite of all their similarities (seriously? both of them have a death period where their lover (rip johnlock) is mourning them before coming back to life??) BBC Sherlock's nowadays gets mercilessly mocked for being a Mary Sue and his fanfic community is dead, meanwhile Wei Wuxian is so beloved by his readers that MDZS fanfic literally has had such a huge impact it got Ao3 banned in China and then added a maximum to tags on Ao3 PERIOD. King shit.

And despite what this post seems, it's not a disparagement of BBC Sherlock as a character. I loved him, I loved the idea of exploring this demigod. Superwho-manly intelligent, but in ways that make it hard for him to function in the human world (until John). His struggles with ostracism, "weird" interests, sensory issues, etc. are alarmingly human and a great allegory for neurodivergence (while not being one of those cringe "autism savant" tropes bc he isn't literally autistic). Sherlock fic popped off for a reason, it's just that the writing of the show didn't do the legwork work that MDZS did to support his character as a god, instead it mostly did shit like "oh it's okay I'm a pretentious asshole because I'm a genius and always magically right, even when I'm wrong, because I'm god." Like if Rick Rick and Morty wasn't self-aware... T_T

That's why this post is me compiling the ways Wei Wuxian's character was crafted to be intelligent. It's not bad to have power fantasy OP characters, but it's hard to do them as well as him. It's not just the clever deceptions or witty usage of words with multiple meanings or the self-awareness and learning, or giving the intelligence flaws to make it more believable. Sherlock had all these and more.

It's the combination of it all, usually in the order of "telling" they're intelligent through abstract things like other characters saying he's really good at detectivework and them magically solving cases, then complicating that intelligence through some kind of flaw, then "showing" him overcoming that complication using concrete examples of intelligence, such as self-awareness, witty double entendres/callbacks, contradictorily using weakness or appearing weak for specific gains, and reframing the given 'clues' in a new light with the help of red herrings. This is like a steelman persuasive essay format, but with proving that someone is smart. Thesis, counter, rebuttal with quantitative evidence. There's like a mini arc build up to a mini climax/climactic moment that makes it satisfying.

The set up and payoffs are key here, as a lot of these just require a bit of legwork before the payoff, such as Wei Wuxian repeating the same line he used as a mistake into one he does on purpose or find a scenario where forgetfulness is actually helpful in deceptions or whatever the chosen scenario is. Much easier to begin with the end in mind in and then retroactively write the beginning to match, instead of creating an impossible mystery, after all. 😭😭 Best part is that I didn’t even compare the mystery writing of MDZS to Sherlock’s ass mysteries, I did it purely on the strength of how its intelligence is utilized for character drama, just as Moffat and his defenders would have wanted.

[autisticalastor]

i'm listenin' to everything

Pairing: Vox/Alastor

Rating: G

Tags: Fluff, Angst, Vox being his usual stalker self, Alastor hates technology lol

A/N: Made three (3) offhand posts about a Voxtek Assist being the key to Radiostatic realness and it haunted me until I made a full fic of it. This was a really fun one to write; hope you guys enjoy it as well! Title is from engravings by Ethan Bortnick!

Fic Tag List: @catastrophe-of-strategy

"What is that monstrosity?" Alastor asks, disgust clear in both his tone and expression. He's gesturing with his microphone staff at a sleek dark blue box. It glows blue around its edges, a glowing blue V at its center as well, with a trail of blinking red dots leading from the V to its base.

"Oh, it's one o' those Assist things Vox's company makes. Told Charlie about 'em and she decided to get one for the hotel to be like a digital assistant thing," Angel Dust explains. Of course he'd know all about it. "Try it out if ya want; it responds to Vox."

"I'm sure it does. You're aware this thing is likely just a listening device for Vox to spy on people, yes? I'm sure it does... whatever it claims to, but helping others certainly isn't its intended purpose."

Angel rolls his eyes. "Y'know how many o' these bitches Voxtek has already sold? Nobody's got time to be listenin' to all that. This thing's harmless."

Everyone else seems to be just as prepared as Angel to fully integrate this new device into their daily life here at the hotel, and Alastor isn't really sure why they're so trusting. Perhaps they simply don't understand Vox as well as he does. The moment he's alone with the Assist, he makes his displeasure known to it.

"Listen here, Vox," Alastor begins, tone threatening. The Assist seems to almost perk up at being called by name, interrupting with a cheery, "Can I assist you today?" as the previously-red blinking dots turn green. Its 'voice' is an almost uncanny replication of Vox's, but subtly more artificial somehow.

Alastor continues on, glaring at the device as if it can see him as well. "I know what your game is, and if you even think about messing with my hotel, I'll make you regret ever sinning enough to get sent here in the first place. I'll put God Himself to shame, do you understand?"

“I didn’t quite get that. Can I assist you today?” the Assist responds, waiting with blinking green lights for a response.

“Pretend all you want, Vox. You may have everyone else fooled, but I know what’s really going on.”

“I didn’t quite get that. Can I assist you today?”

Alastor throws his arms up in exasperation and decides to just wait until something interesting happens.

Keep Reading

[srn019]

"Menaces of earth renegades" - bonus piece for MMVWeek done in 2023 featuring Gemini, Snake and Top in their Satellites form.

Snake's design and interpretation belongs to @theletterwsartflap who kindly let me use it for this piece. Thank you so much, friend! 🫂

As per usual, more info/headcanons under the read more!

Writing Stardroid/Earthbots ships always came with the fun of planetary associations and the like and even more so when the three of them happened to be from the same line! The first ship was SunGemTerra but with time SnakeMerc and SaturnTop happened as well, leading to three of the MM3 bots line ending up with Stardroids relationships. ( > 〰 < )

Self-dubbed as the Starchasers, Gem, Snake and Top ended up receiving from mysterious sources (space deities? who knows, really) an extra surge of power linked to the planets of the stardroids' which have found residence in their hearts. Therefore we have:

Top's form of Titanus, Saturn's satellite

Snake's form of Caduceus, Mercury's satellite

Gemini's form of Moon, Terra's and Sunstar's satellite

now i know some of these have been "stretched" in terms of satellite so bear with me for a moment please \(๑﹏๑ ;)/

Of course when approaching this concept there was the main problem that mercury as a planet does not have a satellite of its own and neither does the sun under the technical point of view.

So when I spoke with @theletterwsartflap (since I've been allowed to use her Snake's design and intepretation because of writing together) about Snake's satellite role and reflected over the fact that the greek deity of Hermes is shown holding the caduceus, which is a staff of two snakes and the greek deity later on is named Mercury in the roman pantheon of gods, things started to line up! Kels' supervision with Snake's satellite design has also been an immense help for me ;v; thank you so much again friend for letting me use your Snake design for this.

Again, I know it's a stretch in the term of satellite but I did want the three of them to be equal in their roles, so even if astronomically it wouldn't be accurate, Caduceus Snake gets the title of Satellite too.

Top was the easiest to work on since Saturn does have satellites so choose Titanus both because it's the largest of the planet's satellites and also because it starts with the letter T as well, so felt too fitting to pass on the opportunity.

Gemini was fun to work with because I cannot help finding it amusing that even when his cloning is not the main point, he still holds the theme of duality because of his role of Moon being linked both to planet earth and the sun (because really where's the fun if I cannot be so self indulgent?). Earth has its satellite but the sun does not have one, the moon is the sun's mirror but you know what? Good enough for me to work with- if duality is Gem's thing at core then even in his Satellite form he should have that; so in the role of Satellite for the Earth and Sun, allow me once again a little of stretch in the term. He is both Earth's satellite and the Sun's mirror, both incapsulated in the same role of Moon.

There is more I could share (duality concerning the moon's phases, tidbits of stuff that was added due to my liking for astrology and so on) but without art to accompany it it'd feel too dispersive I fear so for now, that's it. If you've read so far, thank you SO MUCH ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂)⸝♡ this is story I've poured my heart in for so long so while sharing it is fun, it's also quite scary ahaha. Hope it's been a fun read at least! -`♡´-

[lenaariewrld]

dream girl

oikawa tooru ending・ᡣ𐭩

You begin walking before you’re even finished talking to Oikawa, tossing your now melted ice cream in a nearby bin and ushering Kunimi to follow you. The boy groans dramatically, following behind you nonetheless. He’s silent as you continue typing on your phone, only speaking up once you put the device away. “Where are we going?” He asks curiously, his hands pushed deep in his pockets.

You falter for just a second, wondering about whether you should tell the truth or not. Though you’d moved on from what Kunimi had done (and apologized for), you were still unsure how friendly he was with the guys from his high school. Clearly, there had been some kind of fall out between them. Before the boy can catch on to your momentary hesitation, you keep walking. Better to rip the metaphorical band-aid off now. “Oikawa asked me to join him with some duo game the university was holding.” You begin, “you don’t have to come with me if you’re uncomfortable with that,” You add, glancing at Kunimi.

He pressed his lips into a line as he walked beside you, his expression neutral and almost unreadable. He resembled the Kunimi you’d first met almost a year ago. Though, now you knew him a little better, and could see the gears turning in his head  “I’ll at least walk you there… but, I won’t stick around,”

And that’s all he says, falling silent. You reach out and pat his shoulder, a grateful smile on your lips. You wanted to ask more, to know what had happened, but that wasn’t your place. And, it was the past.

You were happy with Kunimi and the other guys in your life separately.

With that matter settled, you both continue, weaving through the decently-packed crowds of fellow college students and staff wandering around the grounds and having their own fun or advertising other fun activities and treats to get. It’s easy to find the giant ‘stage’ set up by the school’s theater department and newspaper staff in all the chaos, and even easier to spot Oikawa, to your surprise. A small group of his fangirls had circled around him from where he stood to the side of the stage. It was only about five of them at most, but even then, watching how they all swooned and giggled and twirled their hair made your stomach twist.

It wasn’t a surprise. You’d known about his popularity fairly quickly. Not only did his involvement with the school’s theater department make him a hit against those who frequented their productions, but his looks and natural charm brought in a lot of students. It never bothered you before, watching him placate them and scratch the back of his neck with a kind smile that would make any girl’s knees wobble. It didn’t bother you now, not really.

There was just a funny feeling in your chest, like a tube top that was two sizes too small being fitted around your heart.

You stop a couple feet away from Oikawa, waiting politely for a chance to make your presence known. Kunimi loudly clears his throat from beside you when a couple seconds pass without anyone acknowledging you. Tooru’s head immediately snaps in your direction. God, why were you on edge all of a sudden? You felt your hands getting clammy, wiping them on the front of your legs as subtly as you could.

“There you are! Gosh, you really kept me waiting,” He dramatically sighs as he steps away from the group, taking your hand. “This is just a little game show the newspaper staff decided to host, and you’ll be my partner for the mini games, sound good?” He whispers, leaning closer to you like he was sharing top confidential secrets. You can’t deny that it makes a smile tug at your lips. Especially when you feel his hand so warmly against your own. The other girls stare at you two, casting looks between each other and stepping away.

“Sounds good,” You squeeze his palm. “You didn’t sign me up for some triathlon, did you, Tooru?” You playfully wiggle your shoulders, chuckling as he does. You both find the idea amusing. He leads you towards the stage.

“I didn’t,”

His assurance helps calm some of your nerves, loosens the metaphorical tube around your chest. Still, the knots of your intestines doesn’t seem to untangle. Maybe the snacks you’d split with Kunimi earlier weren’t sitting right? (you knew that wasn’t right.. Hell, you knew it was that you were starting to realize the budding crush you’d been forming on the man) Your thoughts get pushed from your head as Oikawa steps onto the stage. A few other pairs step up as well, holding hands or cuddling against each others’ sides.

Oh no.

“Welcome everyone!” Another student with fiery red hair sticking up in random directions, you think his name is Tendou, greets the small crowd in front of the stage. A few people clap or mutter their own greetings. You feel your stomach drop to your feet, glued to the stage. “Today we’ll be conducting a little test! Our university’s very own ‘Marriage Game’!”

“What?” You tug Oikawa’s arm as you aggressively whisper to him, barely moving other than to pull him closer. He smiles sheepishly, his cheeks blushing a furious pink.

“I’m sorry, I had no clue, and I promise I’m not trying anything—”

“Let’s introduce our lovely volunteers today!” Tendou’s excitable voice cuts through Oikawa’s rushed explanation, and you snap your head to see him approaching you two. Tooru whispers more apologies to you before he straightens up, smoothing his free hand over his t-shirt. Tendou smiles, his head tilting to the side for a second. He reminds you of a lizard. Then he rights himself and holds out the cheap black microphone for you and Oikawa to speak into. “Names and length of your relationship please,” The other man says.

“Oikawa Tooru–”

“Y/n, and this is my boyfriend since officially five minutes ago, I suppose,” You giggle as if sharing a funny inside joke or jabbing at some clueless significant other stereotype, and Tendou giggles back. Oikawa’s hand feels warm, almost burning in your palm.

God, you felt like the ground should swallow you up whole, in that moment. Tendou moves on to the other couples and you let out the breath you’d held in, feeling like you might turn to jelly if Oikawa lets go of your hand. “You owe me for this,” You whisper, turning to look at the man. He nods dutifully, squeezing your hand. Again, you feel that twisting in your tummy and the tightness in your chest, but this time it doesn’t feel restricting. It’s comforting, like a tight hug that makes your heart thrum with happiness.

You turn your attention to the game and pay attention. Once your initial panic washes away, you feel a little more calm and ready to face this competition with the right headspace. The headspace to win at any cost.

The questions you and Oikawa get asked are pretty easy, and you breeze through answering them, laughing when he gives a bullshit answer and reveals that he actually does remember when you offhandedly told him what your favorite snack was. You never paid attention to how often you said stuff around him that he remembered and kept in his mind. Or how aware of you and your space he was. Maybe he wasn’t exactly in tune with you, but he seemed to learn and adapt.

“Alrighty, one final question for our two pairs of lovebirds,” Tendou happily announced the upcoming end of the game as he clears his throat, dramatically letting the time pass as he gears up to ask the final question. “Which one of you asked the other out first? And follow up for bonus points; when and how did they do it?” He asks, looking between you, Oikawa, and the other two. You recognise the other girl from one of your classes. Kiyoko was her name, you think. Her boyfriend smiles wide, a goofy, boyish look as he perks up excitedly.

“Well, the first time I saw her, I asked her to marry me.. I just knew immediately she was the one, you know?” He rocks on his feet sheepishly as he glances at her. Kiyoko smiles sweetly. They clearly had been together for a while, and you can’t deny that it’s an adorable sight. They continue talking but you stop paying attention, the reality slowly dawning on you that you really don’t have an answer for this one.

Worst of all was, you didnt want to lie and come up with some random story. You wanted to be able to say that something truly romantic had happened and you’d been dating the brown-haired boy who was currently resting his arms around your waist. “Tooru,” You whisper, turning your head slightly to him. He raises his brows.

“Hm?” He tilts his head, his expression curious. “Flustered all of a sudden?” He asked with a playful smirk. You frown. At this, he straightens a little, brushing some hair out of your face. It was very public, bringing this up right now, but god you had to.

“I don’t want to lie about this,” You finally tell him, staring at the random English graphic on his t-shirt instead of his face. Oikawa doesn’t move or react for a second, and you wish that he would. You wish that you weren’t on a stage participating in a dating game with someone you weren’t actually dating. But, you also desperately wished you were.

He drags his teeth against his bottom lip and finally speaks. “Okay,” He brushes some more hair away from your face, his hand cupping your cheek for a second. “Then after this game, I’ll take you on a real date,” He says with a charming smile. You watch his face, checking for a second for any playful twitches or give aways that he’s playing a huge joke on you. But all you see is the sparkle in his eyes and the fondness as he looks at you too.

Tendou clears his throat behind you both and you jump in your skin, turning back towards him. “Sorry,” You squeak out an apology, your face burning red. Oikawa laughs loudly, his own cheeks flushing. He speaks up as the other man waits impatiently, making up some false story based on one of your excursions together. You don’t really pay attention, though. No, all you can focus on is the way his hands feel warm against your skin, comforting and keeping you grounded. All you can focus on is the excitement of going on a date with him once the game was over.

Win or lose, you really didn’t care. You got him...

| three years later...

———

previous | masterlist

extras:

oikawa genuinely didn't realise it was a 'marriage game' so he was as panicked as y/n was

after the game show (which they lost), oikawa and y/n got dinner together where oikawa teased y/n a ton about her way of confessing

taglist: closed

[juanarc-thethird]

Beautiful! The next day Jaune and Harriet confront Winter. Jaune came to apologize for what happened and tries to explain himself. But Harriet doesn't care and instead wants Winter to join in this time for a three way. She talks about how good Jaune is and tempts her with him possibly getting Winter pregnant. Does she give in to temptation.

The New Guy Part 3

Winter's Office

*knock Knock*

Winter: Comen in.

Jaune: *Opens the door a little bit* Hello Miss Schnee.

Winter: Jaune! W-What are you doing here?

Jaune: I'm sorry for bothering you. I just wanted to talk about what happened yesterday. Is this a good time?

Winter: S-Sure, please come in.

For a moment Winter felt excited for some reason. Is it because of how strange this whole situation is that doesn't know how to feel this properly or is it because she hopes, no, she wants this conversation to lead to more? Whatever that emotion was, it died when she saw that the person was walking behind him, Harriet.

Harriet: *Smug* Hello Ma'am.

The two of them took a seat across from her and Jaune started talking.

Jaune: First of all, we want to apologize for missing the meeting. Time flew by and we didn't realize it. I also want to apologize for what you saw. It was a very shameless act on our part and we want to apologize. *Looks at Harriet*

Harriet: What? I am not going to apologize for that. It is something natural. We all do, it's her fault for entering my room without knocking.

Winter: Is ok Jaune I understand.

Jaune: Is not ok, it wasn't a decent act on our part and we both need to apologize.

Harriet: *Chuckles* Decent. Says the guy who used me as a Fleshlight the moment she left.

Winter: *Blushing* F-Fleshlight?

Jaune: Harriet!

Harriet: Oh you should have seen it Winter. This boy has talent. He put his hands under my legs and took me by the waist. He picked me up, he put his big dick in my pussy and fucked me like an animal. God damn, it felt so good! fuck! Just remembering those kisses on the neck and how you moved your hips, Fuck! I'm already getting wet.

Jaune: *Embarrassed* Harriet Please

Harriet: Sorry, anyways, after the fifth time that I came, I fainted. He was so scared that he took me to the infirmary while complete naked! *Laughs*

Winter: You went to the infirmary because of "that"?! Nobody informed me!

Harriet: Well it's because I had a deal with the nurse.

She takes out her phone and shows a very interesting photo to Winter.

Winter: *Red* Oh my god!

The photo shows the head nurse with her assistant giving Jaune a blowjob, while Harriet appears in the corner smiling and showing the peace sign with her hand.

Harriet: But this is the one I like the most.

She changes the image and in this one the same two people appear smiling, with smeared makeup, and their faces covered with cum. In the middle of them was the big jaune cock covered in lipstick.

Harriet: Hot right?

Winter: *Eyes glue to the screen* Y-Yes, Wait! No! Is not ok! You are not supposed to do that with the staff!!!!

Harriet: Hey, I didn't force them. I just told them that if they kept this emergency out the records, my dear parter would show them how grateful he can be. Oh and they did like it how grateful he was~

Winter: Grateful?

Harriet: Yep, and while we're talking about it… Jaune could share that appreciation with you if you put what you saw aside. You know, we're looking for a third person for an "activity" this weekend. Who knows, you might end up "stuffed" with bun in the oven. What do you say? *She sends her a message with both photos*

Jaune: Harriet what are you-

Harriet: *Covers his mouth* Do you want to be appreciated like them?

Winter sees the photos on her phone

Winter: *Red and smoking from the head* I...! I....!

Harriet: Yes?~

Winter: I need you to get out of my office, NOW!!

Out of nowhere Winter uses her semblance and drags the two out of her office.

Jaune: *On the floor* I think she's mad at us.

Harriet: *Sitting on top of him* Maybe.

She gets up and takes a peek out the door.

Winter: *Looking at her phone while sensually touching her chest* So big, fuck~ *Bites her lip and starts to lower her hand to her pants*

Harriet: Or maybe not~

[crummblycakkes]

I'm back twst tumblr with somewhat of a profile for this au (twst as god intended: criminals and villains) warning because I think this is a LOT of text

In this au, Night Raven College is a sort of juvenile detention to hold the worst of the worst: powerful mages that cannot be contained elsewhere. It's placement is on Sage Island, where no one can leave, but also coincidentally only half an island away from the top school in all of Twisted Wonderland: Royal Sword Academy

Though it's purpose is to hold and rehabilitate and continue to teach the boys stuck in nrc, the schools budget has deteriorated so much due to having to pay for building damages that it can no longer pay for real therapists and good teachers

That's where rsa comes in! this year, rsa has established a volunteer program for it's students where they will go to nrc as staff and hopefully help its poor students think about improving their lives

it ends up being way more chaotic than they expect...

So we're starting with:

Heartslabyul!

Riddle Rosehearts has two attempted murder charges, one being against a magicless human and the other being against a trained magician (his mother, celebrate! ms rosehearts almost died!) and a couple of theft charges

To get a better grasp on the situation that lead him there, Riddle actually meets Trey when he's 15 instead of 8, ms rosehearts finds out and gets trey sentenced to night raven on false charges, leading riddle to look for ways to rebel even harder

so he moved on to theft, things like small convenience store stuff that he could fit into his pockets, one time snatching a box of cigarettes an employee forgot to put away after someone wanted to see them

that's where he got the smoking habit. it felt good to break rules, doing stuff his mother would be appaled by

"how does he get cigarettes at nrc?" azul.

he gets caught and freaks out, gravely injuring an innocent employee and running home in panic

his mother is upset because she didn't even know he snuck out and now she's finding out he's stealing and hurting people, they get into a fight, the authorities come in to see Riddle being very aggressive and take him in

he doesn't like his red hair and dyed it blue the same week he became housewarden (dye from azul again) and his uniforms are oversized because I like the detail that his gym uniform is oversized

Trey Clover, like I said before, attended night raven on fake charges at first but when he was released and returned home he was jittery and nervous all the time

no one knows what happened, but one slow day at the bakery a fight breaks out and treyy is the only standing with 15 people on the ground, all injured

he claimed he didn't do it at first, but layer changed his story to being self defense, but he was carted back to night raven again

he tries to be good but it's really hard when everyone else are actual rowdy evil people and are willing to commit actual crimes for malleus draconia

design wise I wanted him to look like a bit of a nerd

I like Cater a lot but also wanted to spice up his design a little.

in Canon he's against magicam monsters but here? he's the magicam monster boss. he's lost all his sense of self and dignity just for pictures. he's sold pictures of Vil Schoenheit to tabloids before

specifically his crimes are loitering and stalking and breaking and entering and using his magic to get away with it

Rook calls him the chasseur de bonheur here, he likes to take pictures of people smiling and being happy, which would be good if he were some sort of street photographer doing candid shots with consent but he's not

no one knows where he got the camera and film (it was azul)

Deuce the baby. he's here for normal delinquent stuff and aggravated assault on a magicless human

he really wants to get better, he's just normal deuce spade

wears his bow crooked because he doesn't really know how to tie one perfectly yet and he would like to take the piercings off but people seem to like them

Ace almost didn't get in but he's shoplifter an accumulated 10k from stores including alcohol using his wind magic, so he qualified

it hasn't really sinked in yet that he's in here he's having normal teenager fun

Alan Rabbithole, the volunteer from rsa

not a girl not a boy but a secret third thing (anxious mess)

he's already regretting his decision tye moment he sees chainsmoker riddle and wonders if it's even worth it to get him to stop

[corpseybun-old]

Ight Mikevictim au is a go. Thanks to @ars3n1ck (lmk if you dont want me pinging you in the future) for giving me the confidence to actually post this lmao

It's June 21th, 1983, and 8 year old Michael Afton has only 5 days until his amazing epic birthday party at Fredbear's Family Diner. His father has been setting up his party, so he's been incredibly busy. Michael's brother uses this as an opportunity to bully the absolute shit out of him, and it culminates with him shoving his younger brother into Fredbear's mouth during his party and nearly killing him.

The poor birthday boy is rushed to the hospital immediately. Ambulances take him, his brother, and William to the hospital. William doesn't even acknowledge that his older child is in the room with him even after they get to the hospital. He's way too focused on Michael to care.

Michael's been in a coma since the bite, and it takes months of him being watched by medical staff (and William) until he finally wakes up.

He isn't immediately allowed home, he still has lots of recovery to do. He's finally dispatched from the hospital on March 12th, 1984, and he notices a distinct lack of his older brother when he and William arrive home. William brushes it off, explains that he went to summer camp. Michael realizes as soon as he realizes what day/year it actually is that it isn't even summer yet, he tries to question William more but can't get the words out right. He ends up crying because honestly dude who wouldn't he was in a coma for 9 months and now everything is wrong💀 Entire ass family member just missing when he gets back yeah man I'd be sobbing too.

I honestly don't have it as fleshed out from there. Foxybro is living alone, he got kicked out by William sometime during Mike's coma, and I like to think he tries desperately to get custody of his little brother the second he turns 18. He does not want him around William anymore after he realizes what he did😭😭

MCI happens a couple months after Mike gets home, it happens on his birthday bc I love giving him trauma and also bc I like to think William saw those masked bully kids (minus Foxybro) when working his shift at the diner and something in him just snapped.

William doesn't end up killing any of the bullies, he can't take on multiple teenagers, so instead he ends up killing some random kid after they get conveniently locked outside when Will's on his smoke break. I can't decide if this is Charlie or not, but either way, they go on to possess the puppet.

This is William's first taste of killing, and oh my god, does he go crazy stupid from the adrenaline rush. Ends up leading a kid to their death that same night after he gets back in the Spring Bonnie suit. Stuffs 'em in Chica.

I don't have the dates for the other 3 missing kids planned out yet, but William pulls the same Spring Bonnie saferoom lure trick on them, too.

Eventually Foxybro finds out what happened and puts everything together bc he knows his dad only let's himself wear Spring Bonnie. This is when he actually starts trying to get custody of Mike. God forbid his own little brother ends up being the next missing kid.

3 dead kids later and he manages to get temporary custody of him because William gets jailed. Just as the two of them are settling into things William gets released because of a lack of evidence.

Skip forward idk how long and William's taking Michael out of Hurricane. He already was so close to being found out, it doesn't help that Foxybro actually knows he did it, so one night he tells Mike to grab his stuff and they flee the town right then and there. They're on the road for a while. They bounce from place to place and don't stay in one area for too long (mainly bc William can't help himself and eventually kills someone in like every place they stop at💀). Michael only really had time to bring one of his plush friends, so he brings his Fredbear plush (I call it Friendbear so I don't confuse it with the actual robot lmfao) with him. William puts a walkie-talkie in it so he can spy on his son when he's away killing people ,and* so he can talk to him while he's away. Mike doesn't know it's his dad. He just thinks it's Friendbear talking more than usual.

Then I really don't have it planned out from there, like at all in the slightest. But yeah, that's uh 'bout it so far.

Also, yeah, I don't have a name for Foxybro if it wasn't painfully obvious enough lmfao. Might stick the whole "no one knows this kids name" thing that cannon bite victim has going on with him orrrrrr I might cook up a fitting name later. I don't have names for the missing kids either, tbh and I have no idea how to fit any of the games other than 4 into this properly, lol. Maybe Foxybro works at places? Would definitely not be using the Mike Schmidt name, though lmfao I'm not pulling a Scott here, no double names💀 Maybe he's taking all the minimum wage night jobs so he can save up for court fees? I have no idea how Sister Location would fit into this. Also ngl I'm very tempted to say William doesn't even own Fredbears or any Freddy's joint for that matter in the au because the idea of the killer just being some guy scares me personally way more then "ohhhh evil owner uses his business to kill kids ahh", lol. Might not even keep any of the Afton family's names, honestly, because this au started way, way, way before Will himself even had a name, and I know I had some stupid ass name made up for the killer so I could just reuse that.

[sytokun]

Watching the Spider-verse crunch discussion going on in relation to RWBY and the whole #GreenlightVolume10 thing has been interesting to say the least.

Of course, there's many fucked up people who don't care about the crunch, and even endorse it since ATSV did so well; but from what I've seen, most people have been sympathetic and acknowleged that waiting for the third movie to be finished in due time and treating the workers well is far better than rushing the conclusion to what could be one of the greatest animated film trilogies of the decade.

You make your best work when you don't have the gut-curling dread of unemployment and impossible deadlines hanging like a sword over your head. ASTV could have been even more amazing without the crunch.

Good God, if only we had voices this loud in the RWBY fandom. If only the RWBY fandom's loudest voices were the ones who advocate for ethical treatment above everything else, and not the ones pushing to get more RWBY content made above everything else, fighting tooth and nail and lining the parasitic company's pockets to see their beloved franchise continue, regardless of who would be ground to dust to make it happen.

I've seen many animators and artists saying they worked on shows most people look down on like Big Mouth and Mulan, and saying those productions treated them far better and they felt way better working on them, in spite of the end quality of the product. It made me at least respect the work more, because even if it was disliked, at least the people making it didn't have to suffer making it, or even gained much from it.

But with RWBY, it's a lose-lose game. The show's writing and animation quality is fleeting at best -- certainly nowhere near the level of Spider-verse. Its great moments are always undermined by the absolute worst writing decisions and character derailment in modern fiction. Outside of its core fandom, RWBY is the fucking laughing stock of the greater anime community and this is sheer fact. Nobody takes it seriously and every Tuesday a RWBY fan is going around picking fights with other anime communities or with other RWBY fans. I love RWBY but it does no favours for its own reputation at all.

If the workers making RWBY were treated well, I could care less how many Volumes they make and their quality, or how much of a laughing stock it is. But this is Rooster fucking Teeth we're talking about. Do you really think if they cared about RWBY's quality, they'd wipe out their entire animation department all at once after V9? This means every Volume's production is a literal coin-flip because there's no time to build a functioning team there with established lead animators.

So you guys want to bleed these animators and artists dry, just to get the same mediocre product anyway? Rooster Teeth had 2 years to perfect the script of Volume 9 to the finest detail and still somehow took a page out of GEN: Lock's universally hated suicide plot for their climax. We had the goodwill to give them 2 years to make V9 the best it could be, and they took that goodwill to cut episodes from it and go make the JL crossover movie instead. And even if we still get the same mediocre product, we fucking know like 80% of everyone who's worked on it are going to be crunched to the bone and left without a job afterwards, so there's not even the comfort of the staff having a good work experience or stable employment from it.

Every single thing I liked about Volume 9's action scenes, environments or characters, I have to live with the fact that the person responsible for it may never return to RWBY's production to keep making it better. There was a fight animator you really loved? Too bad! RT didn't find them valuable enough so they went elsewhere to offer their skills to Trigun: Stampede or Spider-verse instead. Oops! Those animated stories ended up doing really well are are praised for their amazing animation! Sucks that we didn't keep them around for RWBY, huh?

So, why the fuck is the fandom fighting so hard for Volume 10 then? Certainly it's not for the now non-existent animators occupying their empty offices, which as we speak Rooster Teeth is clamouring to fill job openings for. I wish the RWBY fandom knows that by pushing for Volume 10 just out of sheer stubborn attachment, they are not on the good side here, and never will be. No amount of emotional music and stellar fights are going to justify knowingly putting animators through the grindstone for another year or more, only to be tossed out until they are needed again.

You think I like this either? I really fucking don't. I believe RWBY deserves to see itself through to the end. I love its cast and world and want more people to give it a chance, if only to properly understand what they're dismissing. But real people are the cost here.

I don't care how "complicated" or nuanced you think it is because you have some imaginary box of who you think in CRWBY are good or not, or what scraps of representation you think people's livelihoods are worth ruining over -- it really is not. Either the workers are going to be sacrificed on the altar of your attachment to a fictional show, their mental health and compensation only a secondary concern, or you think that this shit is evil and should never be allowed to fucking happen.

And if the Spider-verse situation hasn't made that line clear already, then I seriously ask you to reevaluate whatever sliver of humanity you have remaining.

[melkyt]

Writing a medieval Durge/Astarion au where Durge is a warlord who is gaining territory for his fathers kingdom.

Bhaal putting all his spawn to a contest for the throne. The one who can gain the most territory with their slaughter will inherit the throne.

Durge is obviously winning, with the largest ruled lands within the continent

Cazador is a lordling vamp that has a sizeable city he controls behind the scenes. When Durge sets his eyes on spreading his reach that far and the 'leaders' dont try to bargain but get ready for a siege. He invites Durge to negotiate.

Durge humors the man and goes to his mansion and is wholly unimpressed with anything the man has to offer and decides to kill them all before he leaves, then take the city.

Cazador, as a last-ditch attempt, offers one of his 'staff' as he puts it to Durge. He brings forth seven of them dressed in white and adorned in gold. They are all beautiful in their own way.

Durge at first does not give them a second look. He has no need for slaves but then curly white hair catches his eye. He agrees to march past the city in exchange for the elf.

When the city wakes, ready for battle, they find the army gone.

Durge throws a large amount of coin to buy a mansion to stay in as his base of operations. This city is the center of this area and it will be great to cordinate its conquest from within the walls

Cazador gives Astarion to seduce and kill the Bhaalspawn. The man is a danger to the entire land and, more importantly, Cazadors' plans.

Astarion knows he is just trading one Master for another and is thinking how to best spin the situation on their way to the mansion. He expects to be put in a cell or something worse. There are stories of how cruel the bhaalspawn is even among its siblings. The corpses he leaves are always horribly mutilated and those that survive with severe mental or physical damage.

So when they arrive and Durge leads him through the mansion, Astarion is ready to kill as soon as the guards leave them, and they do. He does not want to know what happens at the end of this path.

This attempt fails as the durge just stops him by catching his wrist. "You could not kill me even if I let you." It's a matter of fact statement. The gods would not allow his death.

Astarion knew it wouldn't be that easy, but he wanted to see the reaction. It's mild by all standards. He laughs it off, a slightly nervous tilt to his voice.

The durge kicks open the door. "This is your room. Throne Room and my quarters are off limits." He guides Astarion in eith a strong grip." The servants will give you anything you want." With that statement, Durge leaves a very dumbfounded vampire who expected something to happen. It's not a lavish room and free reign of the mansion for the most part.

So begins his adventure trying to seduce Durge, who is having none of it.

Durge is focused on the war effort but finds his eyes straying to that pale skin framed by white curls and those eyes that hide fear behind the flirting. Fear always fascinates him in those he kills, but this is different. Astarion is not quite afraid of him. There is someone he is afraid of more, and Durge decides that he will find out what or who inspires a bigger fear than him and kill it.

(Sidenote, I am giggling at the idea of Durge acting like he is the worst thing ever while giving Astarion room, board, and more kindness with his disinterest than anyone has in a long time. *and also lets Astarion drink his blood eventually*. Like durge boi, ur smitten not scary xd)

[ladylooch]

Another guy hitting on Liv and Luca going into protective boyfriend mode.

A/N: Let's use this to introduce Ryder a bit more... 😈

Luca is putting the finishing touches on his blue, game day suit as the outgoing FaceTime jingle fills the room around him. He licks his bottom lip as he adjusts the knot of his tie to his throat. He smoothes the red fabric down as Liv answers.

“Hi!” She is breathless. He looks down at his phone on the bathroom counter. Liv is diagonal across her bed towards her nightstand. The hallway leading from her bedroom is dark behind her but light is visible from the kitchen at the end.

“Hi.” He smiles back at her.

“Sorry, I had my phone in the other room. I almost missed you!” Luca can hear her unclip her phone from charging as she walks out of the room.

“No problem. Are the girls there? You eating girl dinner and getting ready for Legally Blonde?” Luca picks up his phone and heads to the bathroom to grab his final touch- three sprays of cologne. 

“No.” Liv’s face immediately turns down.

“What happened?”

“They all bailed.” She shrugs. Luca can tell it bothers her by the way her eyes dim on the screen.

“I’m sorry, baby… I know you were looking forward to that.”

“Yeah.” She sighs dejectedly. “But! Ryder stopped by with a new book for me to read and offered to hang out with me instead. We are going to watch your game.” Luca pauses his last spray of cologne at the mention of New York Islanders center, Ryder Hughes, son of current Devil front office staff member, Jack Hughes.

Luca sucks his cheeks in as Liv looks off camera, presumably at Ryder. She walks back into the kitchen, raising her eyebrows as she asks the Hughes boy to repeat his question.

“Does this look done to you?”

“No, it is supposed to get way darker than that. Not golden brown but like, we should be worried it might be burnt. Banana bread is weird like that.”

“You’re… making banana bread?” Luca calls to her. 

“Yeah! I’m showing him how to make our recipe. He can’t cook either, so I told him he could probably bake like you.” Luca watches as Liv comes over to the stove. Ryder comes into view… shirtless… with light grey sweatpants hanging low on his hips. Luca takes in Liv again, knitting his eyebrows together when he sees the thin straps of her tank top. Only two straps are shown, so she definitely isn’t wearing a bra. He wonders what is on her legs. 

“Is it hot in there? You don’t look dressed for winter.” He tries for a laugh but it comes out like a cough. Luca adjusts his knot again, a little looser, suddenly finding it hard to breathe. He checks his reflection in the mirror, then turns the bathroom light off. His dress shoes clack against the wood floor of his hallway. When he reaches the open concept main area, he grabs his wallet off the counter and stuffs it into his suit jacket.

Liv is distracted with Ryder. They are lost in conversation about where he can find certain things to make a specialty cocktail he has been working on perfecting. He wants Liv’s opinion on it before he makes it for a team event next week. Luca pauses his getting ready. Is he watching his girlfriend on a date with another man? He sure as shit thinks so. He isn’t sure whether to shout at them in anger, or hang up. 

Luca has known about Liv’s blossoming friendship with Ryder for awhile. It doesn't bother him. She is free to be friends with whomever she wants. He isn’t insecure enough to not allow her to hang around other men when he isn’t around. But something about the way this interaction is going, rubs Luca the wrong way. He watches as Ryder teases Liv for her packed cupboards of chips and candy, but lack of fresh fruit.

“I haven’t gone to the store yet!” She grumbles, smacking Ryder’s bare bicep. Luca chomps on the inside of his cheek aggressively.

“Baby.” Luca quietly calls to her, pausing with his elbows on the kitchen counter, phone held out in front of him with one hand.

“Sorry! Oh my god, yes! Babe! The building heat is on override and maintenance like… can’t get it to stop heating the whole building. We are boiling lobsters in here. Actually, do you mind if Ryder uses the shorts you left here?” 

“Uh sure.” Luca says tightly. “Hey Liv, can you go into the bedroom for a second?” Liv straightens immediately at Luca’s tone. To Ryder, it sounds friendly, but Liv can hear the edge. Luca doesn’t think his innocent, sweet girlfriend realizes what is happening right now. She is too blasé about this entire thing. Luca glances at his Rolex, seeing he needs to leave in two minutes. 

“What’s up?” She asks as she closes the bedroom door.

“Livy.” Luca chuckles at her clueless face. “You realize you’re on a date right now?”

“What? No! What makes this a date!?”

“Yes.” Luca’s anger dissipated at her horrified reaction. “You’re baking together… you’re barely wearing any clothes.. he’s making you a special drink. Let me guess, he ordered take out and paid for it?” Liv’s face gets pale. “You’re on a date.” 

“We are just friends…” Liv trails off, confused. “He knows you and I are together. He suggested watching your game together!”

“You may be friends with him, but he definitely wants more than that.”

“You think?”

Luca takes a moment to drag his gaze along her beautiful features and the top swells of her breasts. Liv looks down, following his gaze, gasping at how low her top has fallen. She hikes it up quickly. 

“Yeah, baby. I think he’s into you. What’s not to love?” He quips with a smirk. “Pull that down again for me.” He wiggles his eyebrows. She stares back at Luca through the phone, looking a little ill at what he must think of her.

“I… Should I make him leave?”

“Up to you, babe.”

Luca doesn’t like it, but he also isn’t too worried about it.

Liv loves him. 

And she’s coming to see him next week. It’s his arms she’s going to fall asleep in.

And it’s him who’s going to make love to her until she’s moaning for him not to stop. 

So what is there for Luca Fiala to worry about?

[princess-of-the-corner]

how am I having more thoughts on the Cardcaptor!Katsuki thing?

Okay okay some plot notes:

I'm sticking this AU in a weird-ass place! During Katsuki and Izuku's last year of middle school!

So they're not in UA, but this is post-sludge villain so they're a bit weird, Kats is NOT dealing with the trauma well, and Izuku is still training with All Might.

This does mean they're not getting involved in the main plot of bnha yet, but they /can/ run into some characters on the adventures. (Maybe the Heroes are responding to the chaos the Cards make, maybe their future classmates are caught up in said chaos, hell you can toss a villain or two in because some of them might know things about the cards).

Also this is a CC-esque au so similar canon deviations exist. Like Katsuki being transfem but not actually out yet.

Card nonsense kicks off pretty early in.

So I'm imagining that Katsuki is having a Bad Time™ and just wants to be alone for a hot minute. Wanders off during the school day and ends up in some backrooms of the school library. Finds the book with the cards. All the cards except Firey excape(because this one vibes most with her). Kero appears and while Katsuki is like ?????? he gives the plot dump of 'hey! Magic is real! You're destined to deal with this shit!"

Izuku also gets involved because he noticed Katsuki sneaking off, followed like the little fuckin stalker he is, and saw the whole card scattering/Kero infodump thing.

Katsuki and Izuku are in a weird ass place right now because it's post-sludge but pre-ua. So Katsuki is trying to figure out what the fuck is up with Izuku and whether her life is a lie and all that but hasn't really had the push to confront all that. And at first she's pissed at Izuku but Kero is a decent mediator to this situation and it's. it's the first time any kind of adult(as much of an adult as a little cat bear thing is) has kinda. Taken control and firmly but kindly said 'hey knock that shit off' so it's easier for her to really just take a step back and take a breath and actually like. Properly be able to listen to Izuku because again: Kero is saying 'hey the guy was worried about you that's a good thing' instead of 'lmao he's worried about you he thinks you can't handle this show him you can through force!'.

bonus points for Katsuki getting dragged into Izuku's nonsense and finding out 'oh you met mcfucking ALL MIGHT and he's training you as a successor????'. Which. Yeah def spins everything because fuck it All Might is the ultimate authority on right and wrong so if All Might thinks Izuku is a good person worhty of respect Katsuki is switching it up right now. (and feeling guilty for everythig in the past so whoops more of Kero being like 'kid you're FINE!!)

Swinging over to Yue! I mentioned before but he was determined to handle the passing of the torch to a new holder better than the Clow-Sakura transfer he was going in optimistically but GOD he meets Katsuki and is like "THIS??? IS WHAT I HAVE TO DEAL WITH???"

So like. He still does something similar to last time in hiding in plain sight to keep an eye on the new holder. I don't think he'll go full dual personality again because while I love Yukito that's A Lot. But also there's like.... There's not really anyone in Katsuki's life where he could slide in as a 'haha you're not going to question me being here!'.

Which leads to the idea of Yue basically faking being a teacher and is now on the Aldera staff but he's the only sane person in this place and is constantly on the verge of killing his coworkers because holy FUCK how do y'all treat children like this????

All Might gets dragged into this because Izuku has Katsuki meet him and tbh with Izuku helping Katsuki figure out the Card stuff they get into nonsense that's /technically/ vigilantism according to the law but Katsuki is the only one who can deal with the situation.

The actual collecting of the cards happens over that school years so Katsuki has all of them by the time she and Izuku go to UA (and also they're all a bit healthier about things both each other and themselves).

At UA, Katsuki initially tries to keep to just using her Quirk for this shit instead of the cards(though she's become used to using both in tandem). This only works so well beause ofc when bigger threats come out, she's not going to hold back out of some weird 'oh it's not fair to-' no people are in danger she's gonna use everything she has to save them.

So while we don't get someone Eriol-esque crafting situations, the Plot forces her to transform the Cards into her own versions.

[sarahowritesostucky]

📖"Hydra Sanatorium"

Rated: Explicit

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Steve Rogers

Word count: 5297

Tags: a/b/o, medical institutionalization, cognitive disability, made up kinky medical things, diapers, catheters, non-con medical procedures, restraints, forced wetting, hurt/comfort, humiliation, kind!Careworker Steve, bratty!Patient Bucky, alpha Steve, omega bucky, dry humping, forced orgasm, masturbation, implied self harm, orgasm therapy, age difference (19/30), omorashi

Summary: Bucky is a troubled teen coping with the traumatic transformation of late-onset omega puberty. Steve's the care worker who's been developing too much of an attachment.

A.N. I will no longer be going to the trouble of posting extensive warnings, cautions, "Minors DNI", "smut below the break", or extra trigger warning outside of the story tags etc., like I used to. Because the staff troll has targeted my account and held it to standards that virtually no other explicit fanfiction authors are consistently held to or follow on this platform, I will now only be tagging major themes above the story summary, and other than that, the only warnings you'll see from me are the "mandatory" (🙄what a joke) community labels: mature. Sorry, but I'm not going to bend over backwards to please a bunch of antis and an illiberal, vindictive child who works at Tumblr with zero accountability for their abuse of their position. Troll: grow the hell up, and PLEASE for the love of God: never go into politics.

So here is my new sign I'm so excited to introduce!🥳Feel free to use it - no need to give credit. As Mr. Mackie likes to say to the nitwits: "Baby I'm a grownup."

Wait! I think I missed a previous chapter! Series Masterlist

Chapter 6: Inflation Therapy

Previously:

"It’s going to be okay, Buck. I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you. You know that, right?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, voice dull. “I know.”

It’s not the tantrum Steve was expecting, but somehow it feels just as bad. Because rather than reacting, Bucky’s just withdrawing. Steve watches him pick at his meal for another half an hour. With some gentle encouragement he’s able to get the kid to eat the majority of his protein, but he’s obviously getting no enjoyment from the food, his mind a mile away as he chews mechanically. It’s depressing. Steve goes into bossy alpha mode to try and give him some direction, make him feel a little more secure. He tries to show Bucky that he does have an alpha who cares about him, however temporary it may be.

“Throw your trash away, bub. Put your tray over there. Good job. C’mon now, let’s go do an activity. I’m leading art tonight. You want to give that a go?”

Bucky seems docile enough, following Steve into the art room and sitting on the carpeted floor with one of the lap desks for drawing circle. A few other patients trickle in, until they’re a group of ten. Steve hands out paper and cups of colored pencils, and takes up a spot on the carpet. He tries not to be obviously over-focused on Bucky, figuring that the kid needs his space to process the news about his parents relinquishing custody. “Okay everybody," Steve greets the group. "How are we doing?”

He gets friendly answers from the other patients, then guides them through a few warm up exercises. They do some rapid-fire sketch associations, where Steve throws out words like “recreation” and “comfortable,” and “dread,” and everybody has to sketch the first thing they think of in ninety seconds.

Then Steve tells the group they’re going to be doing a “Now and Then” project. He asks them to draw a picture of how they see themselves and their lives in the present, and gives them twenty minutes to work without scrutiny. “Try to pick one word or phrase to focus on. You can draw anything you like, to express it,” he tells them. “Something literal, or something abstract. Anything that you feel depicts your current emotions, state of being, how things are going for you in the world or simply in your head. Anything goes. Get as far with it as you can, but don’t feel like you have to rush with coloring it in or anything, if you’re trying to make a masterpiece.” He chuckles self-deprecatingly at his own drawing board. “You can always add details later if you’re as nitpicky about your art as me.”

“We can draw anything?” one boy in the circle asks. He’s not Steve’s patient but Steve knows his name, knows he’s there for treatment following a miscarriage. Steve nods and gives him a gentle look. “Yeah, Daniel. That’s right. Anything goes.” Across the circle, Bucky glances up and meets his eyes. Steve smiles sadly. “If anybody needs to draw violence or something that depicts self harm, this is a safe space to do that. You won’t get put on protocol for it, as long as you’re willing to join in the discussion portion and explain your drawing.”

Bucky and one other boy look like they’re relieved to hear that, and Steve gives them both encouraging looks before turning his attention to the sheet of paper he’s got on his own lap desk. He’s always been good with a pencil—had even considered going down the art-therapy track, back when he was in college. The only reason he hadn't wound up pursuing it was because he didn’t want to turn his passion into something he had to do for a job. But he still loves leading art sessions for the omegas on-ward. Figuring that powerless is a pretty good focus word for his 'Now' drawing, Steve picks up a mustard yellow pencil and begins to sketch.

“Okay pencils down.”

Twenty minutes later, everybody takes turns showing what they’ve drawn. Unsurprisingly, five of the boys have drawn something literal from their current stay on-ward. Two others have pictures of their families. One boy has chosen a forest scene to depict his feelings of uncertainty about an upcoming heat, and Daniel talks about his violet-hued sketch regarding his feelings over the recent miscarriage. Bucky is the last to volunteer to talk about his piece, and in fact Steve has to prompt him twice before he’ll turn his lap desk around to face the circle.

He’s drawn a person—presumably himself—in thick, brown lines. The person is sitting and hugging their knees to their chest, contained in a tiny space like a box. It’s a scratchy drawing but rather well-done, and the instant feeling Steve gets from it is isolation. Outside the box, it’s bright and colorful with a lot going on, but inside the box it’s muted and still, with heavy olive and brown lines. “What does this represent for you, Bucky?” Steve asks, forcing himself to do his job rather than crawl across the carpet and wrap Bucky in his arms the way he really wants to. “Hm? To me it feels rather lonely, looks isolated.”

Bucky shrugs, not looking up. “I guess.”

Steve asks if anybody has positive comments for Bucky’s piece. Daniel ventures, “... The lines get messier on the dark side. On the bright side, they’re all neat and specific, but then they get kind of scratchy on the other part.”

Steve hums, glad to at least have a couple people willing to participate in art tonight. Usually patients just sit around grunting and rolling their eyes at it. “Good point. I see what you mean. What do you think that technique could communicate?”

Daniel hesitantly meets Bucky’s eyes from across the circle before saying, “Um. Like … it’s more chaotic, on the scratchy side.”

“Yeah. Kind of gives it a distressed feeling, doesn’t it?” Steve looks at Bucky and gently prods, “Buck? Why do you think you chose those colors?” He gets nothing from Bucky besides a mumbled, “Dunno,” and forces himself not to push him on it. He talks to the group as a whole about colors and what they can represent. “Most people know that darker colors can indicate a sense of foreboding or depression,” he says. “But lighter colors aren’t always ‘happy’ per se. Take mine, for example.” Steve shows the group his drawing of a bear sitting on the side of a road with cars. “You’d think this should be in greens and blues, yeah? A nature scene. But I only used taupes and yellows and a little brown and olive. I think it looks kind of sallow, gives it a feeling of melancholy.”

“Why’d you draw a bear?” Daniel asks.

“Well, I’ve been feeling sad this evening. Kind of helpless, you know?” Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Bucky’s head lift up a little. “And I remember seeing this clip once on Facebook or something. A bear that’d been separated from its cubs across a busy highway. And it just seemed so sad.” He shrugs, feeling silly but knowing that he needs to be open and honest if he’s going to expect the same from his patients. “So that’s what I drew. That feeling of powerlessness that the video made me feel.”

“Why do you feel powerless?” Daniel asks.

This time, Steve does let his eyes slip over to Bucky—who is looking at him, but who quickly flicks his eyes away. “Because I’m worried about somebody I care about,” Steve says. “And I’m not sure I can help them the way they need. I’m not sure how much they’ll let me help.”

Bucky’s lips part, and for a second Steve really thinks he’s going to reply to that, but then he clams up again and looks down at his drawing board, not saying a thing. Steve swallows down his disappointment. “Okay guys, now we’re going to do a second piece, and I want everybody to try and make this one as literal as you can. Let’s all draw a depiction of what we’d like our lives to be in the future. You can draw something you’d like to have happen tomorrow, or something you dream of happening in a year, or ten years, even how you picture the perfect life when you’re old and grey. Really dig deep and think about what you want your life to be like, in a perfect world. It doesn’t necessarily have to be realistic, just so long as it represents what would make you happy. Kay?”

He watches as everybody gets new paper and starts drawing. Bucky, he notes, stares at his paper for a long few minutes before he ever picks up a pencil. He looks lost.

Steve gives them thirty minutes for their second drawings. When time’s up and everybody discusses what they came up with, Bucky has drawn a beach scene. It has a little blue bungalow in the background and a family on the sand. There’s an umbrella and a person lying on a beach towel whom Steve can tell is supposed to be Bucky. He’s surprised though, because that person is also visibly pregnant, and there’s a little kid right next to him, wearing water wings and building a sandcastle. There’s a dog next to the kid, and another person in the picture sitting in a beach chair who looks suspiciously like Steve, but no way in hell is Steve going to point that out. The Steve-person is blond, and Steve knows for a fact that Bucky’s family all have dark hair.

“Buck,” he prompts. “You drew yourself at the beach?” Bucky just shrugs, and Steve tries to draw more out of him. “... Is that one of your favorite places?” he asks.

“No.”

“No?”

“No. I’ve never been to the beach. But growing up, everybody else’s families would always go somewhere in the summer. Up to the Hamptons or down to Jersey, you know? Stay at a beach house, eat crabs, go to the boardwalk and get saltwater taffy and shit, ride the rides. It always seemed nice. Like something real families did.” His lips twist ruefully as he traces his finger from the lines of the pinwheel beach umbrella, over to the black and white dog that he drew. “... And I never had a dog. I like dogs.”

Jesus, God, Steve wants to kidnap this kid and take care of him forever. “Is the person on the beach towel you?” he asks gently. Bucky shrugs again, but then he nods. Steve nods too. “It looks like you’re pregnant in the picture. Is that what you were imagining when you drew it?” Bucky doesn’t say anything, and Steve feels absolutely pained, trying to force answers out of him like this. Across the circle, Daniel has made a little whimper and put his hands on his stomach, and Steve knows it’s time to abandon that point. “Okay,” he says quietly, moving past that little detail. “Um, what about the other people in your drawing?” he asks instead. “What part do they play?”

Bucky looks down self consciously at the paper. “They’re not real,” he mutters. “I don’t have anything right now. And I don’t even know if I want kids, but … I dunno. I drew it with a baby, and an alpha. Cause maybe that’d be nice, even though I don’t think it’s ever gonna happen.”

“Why couldn’t that happen?”

Bucky’s eyes flick up to him, reproachful. “Nobody wants me,” he says. “I just don’t see the point.”

Steve has to swallow past the horrible lump that’s formed in his throat. “Having a family of your own is a totally realistic goal, Bucky. Having children and a partner? Going to the beach with your family? Those are great things to imagine for the future.”

“I don’t have a family,” he says dully.

Steve is about to address that, but before he can, Daniel bursts out into tears and starts ripping up his paper, upset about babies and the pregnancy he miscarried a few weeks ago. Steve has to put all his effort into calming him down and escorting him down the hall to the soft room so that he can calm down. And by the time he returns to the art room, Bucky has left.

Steve sticks around for an hour afterwards, making sure nothing spirals out of control. He was prepared to spend the night on-ward if he had to, but Bucky’s behavior remains rather tame. He wets himself rather abruptly after art therapy, and Steve helps him get changed with no issues. Bucky tells Steve that he’d like to be alone, and Steve can’t force him to talk if he’s not ready. So he just watches helplessly as Bucky retreats to the soft room and curls up in the same corner where Steve found him that morning, face buried in a pheromone-treated plushie.

Steve has a talk with the overnight orderly on duty, making sure that the beta man knows to keep an eye on Daniel and on Bucky. Then he clocks out and heads home, feeling like the most useless support alpha to ever exist.

The next day, he arrives on ward to find Bucky in an unresponsive state, and the soft room having been cleared out to accommodate him.

“Moved everybody else over to the Phys-ed room,” the on-duty orderly mutters with a grimace, as they both stand in the doorway watching Bucky’s behavior. “He doesn’t answer when we talk to him. And he’s tried to bite when we go to grab 'im.”

“How long has he been like this?” Steve asks, concerned.

The beta man shakes his head. “He seemed normal when he woke up. He didn’t talk, but he wasn’t like this. We let them wander around for their AM free time, and then when I came to move everybody to breakfast, he was rocking. He won’t even look at me. Acts like he doesn’t even hear.”

In the padded far corner of the room, Bucky is sitting huddled over one of the foam rocker forms, naked, his knees planted to either side of the form and his thighs gripping it hard in stress. He’s shed everything from his body, including his diaper, and has his head resting on the front piece, his eyes staring sightlessly to the side. His thumb is in his mouth and he’s sucking it while he rocks compulsively. Steve nods grimly at the sight. “He can hear.”

The orderly looks dubiously from Bucky to Steve, and then back. “Um ... are you sure about that?”

Steve inhales deeply. “Yeah. This is a stress reaction to some traumatic news he got yesterday.”

“Oh.”

Steve goes over to kneel beside the rocker to try and get Bucky to respond to him. But when he has no success, he goes back to tell the orderly to watch the room for a minute while Steve consults his boss.

“I think he needs a course of hormones,” he tells Christina, standing in the doorway to her office because he’s too antsy to even sit down for a proper conversation. “Will you sign off on it?”

Christina nods. “Of course. What method of delivery?”

My dick, Steve thinks, though of course he’d never say that. He’s just frustrated is all. He just wants to make all of Bucky’s pain go away. “Inflation session,” he suggests, receiving a nod from Raynor. “We’ll do sense dep. after, hit him with some ASMR, some tactile stim.”

“Sounds about right.”

Steve turns to leave.

“Rogers?”

He looks back over his shoulder to see Raynor staring him dead in the eye, and gets an uneasy feeling. “What?”

“Once he’s out of this episode, I’m telling the doc to go ahead. We’re castrating him.”

Steve’s heart sinks. “Christina, please, no.”

“We should’ve done it a long time ago and you know it. The only reason we didn’t was the parents, and they’re not in the picture anymore. Steve—don’t look at me like that, Rogers. You agreed when the recommendation came down. It’s what’s best.”

Steve looks down at his feet to avoid glaring at the woman who is directly responsible for his employment. She’s not wrong, which is the worst part. Bucky’s so unbalanced, he should’ve had a therapeutic castration years ago, but his parents have always refused and Bucky’s been none the wiser. Quietly, Steve grits out, “He can’t even take the news of his folks giving him up, how do you imagine the conversation about his nuts being chopped off is going to go?” It’s snarky and unprofessional for him to talk that way to his boss, but he’s emotional.

Miraculously, Christina doesn’t call him out on it. “Not well, I imagine,” she drawls. “But what has ever gone well with this kid? After today, I want you to think about your long term care recommendations for him.”

Steve suppresses a growl. “Long term?” he repeats, and she nods solemnly. He feels dread fill his gut at the look that’s on her face. “We can keep him on ward,” he insists, hating how much it sounds like a plea. “Extended stay, and then maybe—”

“He’s not improving here. It’s been three years. He’s nineteen now. We need to think about his future. He’s in no shape for independent living, and you know it,” she says.

Steve huffs, knowing where this is going. “His family dumped him, Christina. He’s got no one. What do you expect me to do?”

“Long term care recommendation, on my desk by the end of the week.”

Steve grits his teeth, knowing there are only a couple of options there. Bucky can either be institutionalized, or sent to a group home, neither of which is promising. Steve knows Bucky, goddammit. He … he cares about him. And he knows that that’s not what Bucky needs. Bucky just needs someone to ...

To love him.

“What if I found him an alpha?” he asks, ignoring his better judgment. “Somebody who was a good fit, who could take him on?”

“By the end of the week?” Christina looks dubious, and rightfully so. She sighs at him, exasperated. “Rogers, you and I both know that nobody is gonna—”

“Just say that I did,” Steve snaps. “Would you approve it?”

Maybe she can tell what he’s thinking, or maybe she just thinks Steve’s venting and throwing out hopeless ideas. Either way, Christina nods reluctantly, her lips pressed thinly together. “Sure,” she says, obviously not believing that Steve can find someone to take Bucky on in such a capacity by the week’s end. “If you found someone who was actually suitable, I’d sign off on it.”

Steve isn’t even sure why he’s posing impossible hypotheticals, but Raynor’s agreement makes him feel relieved anyway. “I’ll need the bathroom isolated for our session,” he tells her, in lieu of a response. “And then the soft room for the rest of the afternoon.”

Christina grunts and waves him out of the office. “You got it. Now go on, get outta here.”

Steve goes.

“Buck? Hey. Hey Honey.” Steve approaches Bucky like he would a wild animal, wary of the possibility of him lashing out. Not that Steve has to worry about being physically overpowered or anything like that, but even he can take a surprise fist to the face, and he’d rather not have a bloodied nose or a black eye today.

Bucky doesn’t get violent. He seems to register Steve’s presence, as his scent shifts to something slightly more eager and his hips start rocking harder on the foam padding of the form. But his eyes don’t track Steve’s movement when the alpha kneels down beside him, and he doesn’t talk. He just keeps making these little stubborn grunts as he works on stimming himself up to another orgasm.

There’ve been several already, if the state of the rocker is anything to go by. Its red vinyl covering is shiny wet between Bucky’s thighs, making squeaky-slick noises as he moves. Steve reaches out and tentatively touches Bucky’s back. The boy’s nostrils flare and he grunts, rocking harder.

“Shh. Okay, Sweetheart. Okay. I’m gonna help you feel better, Alright bub? Just gotta let me move you around a little bit.”

‘Sexual catatonia’ is the technical term for what Bucky’s experiencing. His brain has gone into protection mode and his body is seeking out the most basic of comforting stimuli as it tries to reorient itself. He’s regressed, only able to process a certain level of input right now, and he’ll stay that way until his body receives enough signals that he’s safe and protected and wanted.

So Steve’s job is to make him feel all three of those things.

He gathers Bucky up from the rocker, shushing him and holding him in a basket restraint position until his few seconds of reactive thrashing stop. “Okay, okay. You’re okay,” Steve murmurs, keeping a low purr going in his chest for Bucky to hear and feel against his back. “Shh sh sh. Okay now. Here we go. Come on over here with Alpha.”

He all but carries him out to the hallway and into the bathroom. The nurse is already in there, setting things up. Bucky’s like a blind and deaf animal, staring aimlessly and making upset noises as he scents another person in the room with them. The orderly keeps a wide berth, but nods at Steve as they enter and points to the equipment he’s had set up for them. “Three bags there for him,” he says. “Just in case.” He heads for the door. “Push the button if you need anything else. I’ll be on station for the rest of the morning.”

Steve nods, depositing Bucky on the treatment bed. “Thanks.”

Bucky’s already naked, so that much is taken care of at least. He’s grunting a little more angrily now that he’s been taken away from his rocker and brought somewhere unfamiliar, so Steve moves around in a hurry to get them all set up. The colonics bed is shaped to cradle him in the correct position while he lies on his back. Steve guides his legs over the incline, then goes about setting up the machine.

‘Therapeutic pregnancy’ isn’t much more than a medicated retention enema, but it can help with bringing omegas out of severe emotional and psychiatric episodes. Obviously, it’s not an actual pregnancy. It’s just that the patient’s body is temporarily tricked into thinking it’s pregnant. And that’s what the nurse was referring to when he said he’d set aside “three bags” for Bucky. On the machine’s hook hang three heavy bags—all full of synthetic alpha semen.

Steve pulls a warmed blanket from the electric cabinet and drapes it over Bucky’s upper body. The omega’s eyes flutter closed as he immediately starts purring in pleasure. Steve smiles tenderly and comforts him, even though he knows that Bucky isn't to aware of his surroundings right now. “There ya go, bub. Just gimme a sec and we’ll have you feeling real good, okay?” He rolls the cart over and hooks up the bags. The machine will warm it to the natural temperature of semen as it moves through the tubes and into Bucky’s body, but first: the apparatus.

An average adult alpha knot is about the size of a regulation baseball, and the artificial knotting apparatuses that hospitals like Hydra Sanatorium use are thus sized. Uninflated, however, the diameter is small—no more than Steve's own thumb. It’s very easy to lube the thing up and slide it inside of Bucky. The omega is already aroused, lax, wet and swollen, and Steve feels his dick start to get interested when he glances down to watch the rubber nozzle slip past Bucky’s pink and pulsing rim.

If you were mine … he thinks covetously, Bucky’s plaintive whimpers echoing alongside the treacherously unprofessional thoughts in his head. If Bucky were his, they wouldn’t be in this horrible, institutionally puke-green tiled bathroom right now. They’d be in Steve’s home, in bed or in some little space in the apartment that Bucky had chosen to nest. Steve would be fucking his mate naturally instead of using all this artificial crap.

If Bucky were his, he wouldn’t even be regressed like this in the first place, because he would know down to the marrow of his bones that he was loved and wanted. Steve would make sure of it. He’d keep him healthy and happy and satisfied. Maybe Bucky would even be pregnant for real, bred up all fat and happy with Steve’s pups. Steve can’t stop thinking about the drawing that Bucky did in art therapy, how he’d drawn himself pregnant in the picture. He’d expressed uncertainty about pregnancy, but maybe if it were Steve’s pup inside him, Bucky wouldn’t mind it then. Maybe everything would balance out in his system, if Steve put a litter in him. Maybe it would make Bucky happy if he—

On the bed, Bucky whines, and Steve shakes his head and huffs at himself. If, if, if. Too bad he doesn’t get paid for Ifs. “Get it together, Rogers,” he mutters, and reaches down to grind the heel of his hand punishingly against his trapped dick—It helps, somewhat. He grasps the hand pump for the knotting mechanism and squeezes it, observing Bucky carefully as he slowly but surely inflates the rubber bulb to its full size inside the omega’s body.

Bucky’s unseeing eyes blink up at the ceiling, glossy with unshed tears. “Ahn, ahn, ah,” he grunts softly. “Ugn, ugn, ah …”

Steve uses his free hand to rub over his lower belly. “You’re okay. It’s okay, Buck. S’that feel nice? I bet it does, huh? Don’t worry, Sweetheart. You just relax now for Alpha, mkay? Alpha’s gonna make it feel good.” He’s sure it’s not the actual words, so much as it is the sound of his voice that Bucky recognizes, but even still, it’s nice to see the way that Bucky responds to him. “That’s right,” he soothes. “Good boy. You’re such a good boy for Alpha, Buck. Alpha loves you.”

He starts the flow, remaining at Bucky’s side and massaging his tummy gently while the machine begins to pump.

The therapy mimics a pregnancy in that it fills the patient’s body with a physical weight. It inflates the colon and the uterus and mimics the influx of hormones that a growing fetus would create. These physical cues help to trick the brain into thinking an actual pregnancy is taking place, and it’s that input—in addition to the naturally calming feeling of the knot itself—which forcibly tells the omega brain that it is safe and bred, wanted and protected. Only a strong and dominant alpha can keep an omega successfully bred up, after all—that’s what the basest parts of a regressed omega’s mind hang onto. And Bucky is currently fully regressed.

His thumb is back up in his mouth already, sucking away. Steve rumbles in his chest in answer to every grunt and moan that Bucky makes, rubbing his tummy for him as he slowly but surely fills out from the liquid. Steve’s sitting on a stool beside the bed, down by Bucky’s bottom where the warm blanket doesn’t cover, so he can clearly see the twitch of the boy’s taught little sac, the way his shrunken prick is getting chubby underneath the swell of his belly. He frees one hand up from the belly massage and rubs him there, smiling tenderly at the pleased chirp he gets for his efforts. “Yeah,” he whispers, working the head between his fingers like he would a female patient’s clit, nice and delicate, gliding gently from the precum his little dick keeps blurting out. “S’that feel nice, baby?”

Bucky grunts in an adorably demanding way and shoves his butt down against the knotting mechanism to stimulate himself harder with it. Steve chuckles and uses his other hand to tug on the nozzle, rocking the inflated rubber knot nice and steady against the swollen glands inside. Bucky makes a very happy noise at that, and when Steve looks up at his face, he sees the omega staring at the ceiling with bleary eyes, hand fallen away from his mouth as he pants open-mouthed and drools. A wave of renewed want hits Steve so hard, he almost feels like he’s taken a punch to the gut. “Oh, bub,” he whispers, feeling his eyes start to heat with the threat of tears. He wants to take care of Bucky so bad that it hurts. Just absolutely fucking aches. He thumbs under his cockhead a little faster, and is able to pull the next orgasm out of him within seconds.

Bucky sobs, voice caught high and pleasure-pained in his throat, still non-verbal and lost in his own head. Steve swallows heavily and glances over at the enema bags. “Almost there,” he says, forcing himself to go back to rubbing Bucky’s belly as the boy takes the last quart of semen inside his body. “Doing so well, Buck,” Steve praises, running both of his big hands over the swell of his belly.

Fuck, he really does look pregnant. With his muscles all lax from the regression, and a couple liters of cum inside him, he’s filled out enough that he looks like he could be about four months pregnant. Steve eases him through the rest of the remaining bag, praising him with a bunch of rambling words when the machine cuts off from its pumping cycle. He removes the tubing from the knot and rolls the machine back out of the way, goes to grab another couple of warm blankets from the cabinet and drapes them over Bucky’s midsection and legs so that he’s totally covered and encased in warmth.

The boy sighs and grunts happily at the sensations, and Steve smiles down at him. “I know, Love, I know. That feels really good, huh? That’s what we want. Need to show your body that everything’s okay. Make you feel like a mommy for just a little while.” Bucky’s not really hearing him or seeing him, but Steve refuses to believe that the sound of his voice doesn’t have any effect. Bucky knows his voice, he does. Steve knows he does.

Bucky’s eyes are barely open. The tears that’ve been glazing over for so long have gathered at the corners and trickled down his temples as he lies there and feels his body telling him it’s pregnant. The knot is keeping him plugged up and the liquid will have made it past his cervix by now, filling him up with a warm, heavy pressure. Steve remains close and rubs his bloated belly from overtop the blankets, maintaining a steady stream of praise in his ear.

When it’s been a good half hour or so, Bucky begins to show signs of emerging from the fugue. His eyes seem to track Steve’s movements more, and he starts to become more aware of his surroundings. He doesn’t have his words back yet, because he looks to Steve and whimpers and whines little helpless sounds, rather than asking questions about what’s going on or what’s happened. Steve hurries to hold his hand and reassure him. “Shh sh sh. Hey, you back with me, Sweetheart? Hi.” He smiles gently and pets his face. “You’re doing great. Took your treatment so well, Baby.”

Bucky wiggles in place, and Steve can see the moment he recognizes the heaviness in his belly. His hands go there, touching the swell of himself, and Steve nods and places a hand on top. “Yeah, that’s right. We’ve got your tummy all filled up. It’s okay. Just a little inflation therapy. S’it feel nice?”

Bucky looks shocked, and incredibly vulnerable, but not upset. His eyes still leak sluggish tears as he nods at Steve. “...‘pha?” he warbles, the tail end of what is probably the only word he’s capable of articulating right now.

Steve’s face pinches and he smiles and nods. “That’s right, bub. Alpha’s right here takin’ care of you. I’m not going anywhere, okay?”

Bucky whimpers, dazed, and his eyes slip closed again. But down below, on the distended curve of his belly, he hooks his pinky finger over Steve’s.

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[sboochi]

I have a few questions about your Big Four Au!

One - What are the guardians doing while Jack is missing, and especially Baby Tooth and Jamie? Is Baby Tooth there accompanying him or is he all alone? Is Pitch making any moves now that he knows Jack is gone and the guardians are all distracted?

Two - How does Queen For a Day play out? Since Jack is the embodiment of winter, him versus Zhan Tiri’s blizzard, maybe instead of the invention, he’s the one to overpower the storm and control it to defeat it? And if so, does that cause him to pass out like when he overused his blue lightning powers on Pitch and that’s what distracts the Big Four from checking in on Varian?

Three - How does Jack get home at the end? Does the combining of the moonstone and Sundrop shooting up into space being him back, like does that huge magic force being him back to his timeline like he’s a shooting star flying along with the celestial powers? And what’s the fate for his friends back in Corona? Do they stay in touch? Do people remember Jack? Is there a chance for them to always be connected or does he lose them forever and they forget about him, or like when the Sundrop flower was picked, is there a monument in honor of him after he vanishes?

Oooo so many questions ty!!

While Jack is gone, the Guardians are probably scrambling to find him, Jamie included. I've always headcanoned that after his defeat, Pitch is much weaker and can't attack them for a good while. Baby Tooth doesn't follow Jack, this is gonna be a solo journey!

Jack arrives in Corona after he follows a trail of black rocks that lead him to a magic portal. I figure something similar might happen in the end: his job there is done and the Moon allows him to go back home.

This is a place and time where magic is more present, that's why people can see him. Dunno if this contradicts canon RotG lore *shrugs*

So when he leaves, people will remember him. The story would leave it vague if Jack and the others will ever see each other again, but if magic portals can just appear, nothing says it can't happen again right??

The Corona people would absolutely make a statue to celebrate The Four, because I'm cheesy like that lol

Queen for a Day headcanons under the cut because I have A Lot to say!

Varian gets his father Quirin to agree to go express their concerns about the black rocks to the royal family

However, when Quirin lies to the king and starts to leave, Rapunzel and friends notice how distressed Varian looks. He tells them that the rocks are becoming a serious problem at the village. They tell him not to worry and Rapunzel promises him that they'll solve the problem together. Eventually. These rocks are hard to figure out guys.

The king and queen leave to go celebrate their anniversary on the mountain retreat

The scene where Rapunzel tries her best to give advice to the Coronians (??) plays like in the show, but here she makes the "oh god I hope I'll be a good ruler like my parents when I actually become queen" to her friends (Eugene still gets his own scene with her at the end like in the show so don't worry)

She asks Merida for advice - "since you're also a princess right?" - but she just shrugs and says she never listens to her mother's ruling lessons and can't help with this. They all look at Hiccup bc they know he's a future chief too, but he says something vague and changes subject (foreshadowing for when it's revealed he's running away from responsibilities)

The blizzard begins, but after the initial fun, it's clear that this is no ordinary storm. Jack tries to make it stop but he fails (he doesn't faint bc he got more powerful after becoming a Guardian)

Varian starts making a potion to destroy the rocks

Rapunzel's parents get stuck on the way to the mountains. When the gang finds out, Rapunzel wants to go find them but the castle staff begs her to stay. Eugene, Lance, the thugs - and Merida! - go instead

Quirin gets trapped in the crystal and Varians runs to Corona to get help

Xavier tells the gang about the legendary machine once used to stop a similar storm. They compromise and start evacuating people from the island to mainland, supervised by Jack, while Rapunzel and Cass get ready to start searching for the machine

Varian arrives and asks for help. With Merida and Jack away, Rapunzel has to decide between searching a possible solution to the storm or going to the village and lose precious time. Hiccup reassures her and agrees to follow Varian, but Varian won't forget this (oof)

You know what happens next: the girls find the machine, the storm stops, the others rescue the king and queen, yadda yadda

Hiccup and Varian fail to free Quirin and Varian swears that he'll get revenge on Rapunzel for abandoning him (Hiccup just. looks around awkwardly. because this is a villain arc in the making right?? uh i probably should leave yikes)

Comfort scene I was talking about before with Rapunzel and Eugene (the cupcake one)