#anyway soon I'm going to hang out with a friend on her birthday!!! because I'm her favorite clueless little jester I guess!!!

[brown-little-robin]

I am so clueless but luckily my friends still love me sldkjfslkdjfk

if I had a nickel for every time I asked my friends to hang out on a specific upcoming day and then found out that that was their birthday, and I had Already been told their birthday, I would have.... at least three nickels.

oops!!!!

[randomshyperson]

Five Times You Go Through Wanda Maximoff's Window - [HS Challenge]

Summary: A clumsy spider and a grumpy witch are roommates in Avengers Tower. And it takes you five missed windows to finally get things right. [Prompt]

Warning: None, fluff and funny, spider!reader and emo!wanda, avengers being a family, happy ending | Words: 2.937k

A/N-> This was such a funny one to write because I always wanted to try the Five Times Prompt! I hope you guys liked it.

General Masterlist | Wattpad | AO3 | Holiday Season Masterlist

-&-

The first time you missed a window in Avengers Tower, you still didn't know the place properly. 

You had just come out of a fight and your costume was still smoldering. You stumbled between one window and another and thought you had counted the floors correctly when you balanced yourself inside, and almost fell out again when something pushed you.

Your spidey sense acted immediately, of course. It was a disastrous situation, to be honest. You jumped like a frightened animal away from the magical energy of the witch, the true owner of that room and window, while instinctively hitting her right in the face with your webs.

Wanda yelled angrily, and you, hanging from the wall, only had time to fall straight to the floor before she hit you in the chest this time.

Of course, the confusion attracted the attention of the other Avengers - Vision, and Steve appeared just before Nat, the men confused by the whole thing, but the widow, as soon as she saw the younger witch trying to untangle the webs from her face, burst into laughter.

You were blushing a lot when you went to apologize.

"I'm really sorry Wanda, I thought it was my room."

"It's fine." She retorted between her teeth, and it didn't look like it was fine at all. You rubbed your shoulder, the magical blow left your skin sore and Wanda sighed. "Sorry about the hit. I thought it was an intruder."

Natasha interrupted the whole thing with another chuckle, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes that threatened to return every time she looked at Wanda's grumpy expression over the webs. "You two are clearly an example of attention. You've just earned some extra training."

You and Wanda grumbled in unison. Of course, Natasha was just tormenting you and the training was going to happen anyway, because Wanda escaped as many of them as she could and was already getting sloppy, and you well, in the routine of neighborhood friend and university, it was difficult to attend all the Avenger commitments.

Wanda had no trouble hitting you in training, and you almost thought she was doing it with a certain satisfaction. You couldn't blame her, she would certainly have got away with it if it hadn't been for your disastrous encounter earlier.

You just hoped that future interactions between you would be friendlier from then on.

-&-

The second time you missed a window in the Tower, your intention was not to be late.

This was because Natasha had asked - or politely threatened - you to organize your spider routine, if that was possible, and be present at the introduction of the New Avengers.

Well, that was rather unfair. In addition to your full-time job as a New York superhero, you also had college and your job as a Daily Bugle Photographer, so it should be understandable that delays would occur. But maybe that was your fault, for missing three birthdays in a row, and not even making it to Captain America's shield ceremony last month after Steve retired and assigned the job to Sam Wilson.

In any case, you tried to get to the tower for Kate Bishop's introduction to the team and ended up in the wrong room again. 

Only this time it was worse, as you ended up bumping into the owner of the bedroom who certainly wasn't expecting to see anyone.

Wanda didn't fall to the floor with the impact only because you acted quickly and held her by the waist, turning your bodies so that the entire collision was on your back. Half the items in your backpack made a cracking sound behind you, but you didn't have a chance to check.

You were still grunting in pain when she pushed you away, and the action caused her towel to fall to the floor.

"I-I..."

"Don't look, you pervert!" She demanded infuriatedly, her face as red as yours. You turned away immediately, but the bedroom mirror allowed you to see her bending down to pick up the towel and you thought it best to close your eyes tightly.

"I swear to God I didn't mean to-"

"Zip it." She cut in, holding the towel tight against her body. "Out." She ordered, and you didn't need to be told twice.

You stumbled out with your eyes closed until you found the door, and Wanda had to look away and bite her lip to hide her smile for all the times you hit your head on something before leaving.

You didn't find her again until half an hour later when you had already met Kate Bishop and discovered that she would probably be a friend. She was a very funny girl, and your close age made it easy to get friendly with her. 

She had just commented that it was amazing to have another Avenger going to NYU, and how you could go to classes together and have coffee when Wanda reappeared in the room and dropped something in your lap.

You stared wide-eyed at the red spider's underwear, clutching the item as if you expected it to disappear.

"You forgot it in my room." Said the witch with an indecipherable expression, but with eyes sparkling with mischief. Of course, she left out the part about the item falling out of your backpack during the disastrous encounter earlier, and that was enough for Sam to chuckle knowingly with Clint and Natasha from the kitchen counter when they whistled at the comment.

You turned as red as the colored garment. "I dropped it in her room." You tried to clarify in embarrassment, but Clint added.

"Oh, yes, that happens." He taunted, and you huffed in embarrassment as you got up to find your backpack and remove that outfit from their sight. 

You only missed Wanda's satisfied look when Kate didn't invite you to take her to university again and the subject was forgotten.

-&-

The third time was intentional.

The Avengers were going through a very difficult time since the whole Winter Soldier thing became public, and even with Steve retired, Mr. Stark still wanted closure on the murder of his parents with Mr. Barnes. 

It wasn't your business, but at the same time, it was because the Avengers were one big family and anything that happened to one had an impact on the whole team.

The atmosphere was rather miserable because it seemed that everyone was going through heartbreaking situations at the moment. Natasha and the Red Room, Bucky, Tony and Steve's drama, and Kate with her mother's arrest. Then there was Vision and the Space Stone that had been giving him nightmares, and well, Wanda, who was celebrating her first birthday alone since the death of her twin brother.

So the third time was intentional, because you had cupcakes in your backpack that were a bit of a mess, and you only came in after knocking.

Wanda still had to get used to the image of you hanging at that height.

"Hi." She greeted, not hiding her own discontent about that day. You continued to sit on the edge.

"Hey." You said with a small smile, twirling your bag in front of you. " I won't be bothering you, I just came to bring you something."

She grimaced, biting her lip. She wanted to say that you're rarely a nuisance, but instead, she remained silent.

You take out a closed box from your backpack, a little crumpled, but the contents are safe. There are several colorful, well-filled cupcakes from your favorite place in the center. All with little birthday decorations.

"I didn't know your favorite flavor, so I brought you one of each. If you're allergic to anything, we can throw it away." 

Wanda doesn't take the box held out to her. "Hm, I don't... celebrate today." She says clumsily, looking away. You swallow dry, nodding.

"I didn't think so, but I wanted to... I don't even know what I wanted. I'm sorry, that was stupid of me. I'll take these away and leave you alone."

But Wanda grabbed you before you could leave the room, and instead of pulling away, she hugged you. Quickly, as a thank you, but it warmed your cheeks.

"That was sweet of you, okay? Thank you." She murmured just as embarrassed, busying herself with grabbing the box of cupcakes because she didn't know what to do with her hands.

You smiled. "No problem, Wanda." You say, and before you lose your nerve, you add. "To be honest, the cupcakes are just an excuse. I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to tell you that I'm here if you need a friend. I know how hard days like these are, and being alone is sometimes not a choice, it's the only option. I wanted you to know that there are people with whom you can share this pain. Or if you don't want to talk about it, these cupcakes."

The next hug is longer and makes you wish you'd missed the window more often, even if this time it was on purpose. Maybe when all the drama has passed, and Wanda trusts you to become friends, the window will stay open for you.

For now, she lets you stay to watch sitcoms with her and grimaces when you stumble out the window to answer a spider's call. 

It's stupidly dangerous, she texts you that afternoon.

You respond with spider and web emojis.

-&-

The fourth time, you were bleeding.

Almost unconscious, and struggling to crawl through the windows. Fearing that the exhaustion and injuries would be enough for your powers to fail, and inevitably cause you to fall from the tower. 

Perhaps it would have been better to take the front door.

You felt yourself losing consciousness, and your right hand detached from the glass. Before gravity could do its job, a familiar prickling sensation covered your entire body and you were pulled into Wanda Maximoff's room.

"What happened?"

She looked worried, almost desperate to be honest. Your appearance was probably not the best. Well, who could blame you? You've just guaranteed New York's safety for a while longer after one of the most intense fights in months. Why do villains dressed as animals always land such hard punches?

You try to smile at Wanda, to make a "You should have seen the other guy" joke, even though Rhino wasn't badly hurt and the victory was more thanks to your new electric friend and his tricks that knocked the big guy out, than to you. Maybe you're losing your grip.

Wanda didn't laugh, her powers put you against the soft cushions and the next thing that left your mouth was a grunt of pain when she touched your ribs.

"I'm gonna call Bruce-"

"No, I'm fine." You tried to move, but your body hated the idea. So did Wanda, because her magic became harder to ignore. "Please, Wands, I shouldn't be out there."

She frowned. "What do you mean?"

And you have to ignore the pain to keep talking and try to look casual about it with a shrug that makes you wince. "I was still recovering from the last fight. I thought I could handle it."

"You're unbelievable." She grumbles, seeming to remember beyond her own busy routine, the image of your bandaged arm after the last villain you encountered. Clearly, it had been against the advice of the rest of the team that you had joined another fight, and obviously, the consequence of your stubbornness was swinging yourself utterly wrecked into her window at dawn. "You need an x-ray."

You groan but are unable to resist her magical efforts that force you to your feet and drag you into Bruce's lab.

The whole thing becomes a blur in your injured head. But you know that you've been given a hard time by at least half the team, until the medication kicks in and you feel better enough to realize that you're already lying on a bed, with Wanda Maximoff beside you.

"Sorry about the scare." You mumble, and you don't need to clarify any further for her to understand exactly what you mean. You know you'll probably have to work harder than that to remove your nearly dead figure from her memory, but that's a start.

Wanda doesn't take her eyes off the book but sighs. "It's okay." 

You know that's not true. So you try to be honest with her.

"Today is one year since Aunt May died." You say quietly, just loud enough for the two of you in the Avengers' infirmary room to hear. Wanda immediately raises uncertain eyes. It's your turn to sigh and look away. "I just... couldn't keep myself from doing anything. When Miles' suit warned me about Rhino, it was the perfect distraction."

Wanda absorbs your words for a few seconds until she puts the book aside. She leaves the armchair and approaches the bed to sit down next to you. 

"Next time, ask me to distract you." She says, one of her hands going up to your face and caressing some of your bandages. "We could watch a movie, or go out to eat. Or even..."

But she doesn't finish, her cheeks suddenly reddening. You give her a lopsided smile. "What?"

"I don't know, anything you want." Says the witch, turning her face away. 

Mentally thanking Bruce for the painkillers that allow you to move, you sit up properly to lean toward her. "All right, I have a suggestion." You whisper, and it's the first kiss between you as you break the distance.

Wanda's lips are soft against yours, shy as she never is. Only with this kind of thing, of course. The goth girl who won't let anyone give her a bad look and has a punk attitude all the time, but can't keep her gaze if you wink at her from across the room. And always blushes when you text her that she looks pretty when she's concentrating on the Avengers meetings.

She's the one who separates, although just as breathlessly, she warns: "I'm still mad at you."

You bite back a smile, absorbing for a second the image of her swollen lips and flushed face. "Well, I suppose I should distract you from your anger then." 

She snorts good-naturedly at the statement, but you kiss her before she can comment. The two of you keep smiling throughout.

-&-

The fifth time, it's a new window.

Well, actually it's a whole new place because Wanda Maximoff has left Avengers Tower and moved to suburban New Jersey. And you were late.

The whole team had already helped with the move and left after an afternoon snack at Wanda's new house. For the first time in a long time, New York had no villain after Spidey, and you were stuck in university bureaucracy.

You apologized dozens of times by text message for not being able to help with the move, and in fact, the whole team laughed at the situation. It was just bad luck that you missed such a fun afternoon.

It was late evening when you arrived on the dark balcony. Through the windows, the lower floor was empty and perhaps you had strange habits because you didn't even consider just ringing the bell. One tug of the webs and you were at the second-floor window, tapping on the glass for Wanda to let you in.

"We have a door, you know." It was the first thing she said. And you smiled, slightly distracted by the figure fresh out of the shower, still with damp hair.

"We?"

She scrunched her nose, her hands working to remove your backpack and jacket. "It's just semantics." She retorts, but you keep smiling. You let the jacket fall into the backpack on the floor before sliding your hands around her waist. 

"Oh, of course. For a second I thought you had found a roommate." 

She rolls her eyes bemusedly. "You know the invitation still stands."

You smile, your anxious fingers drawing patterns across the exposed skin at her waist. "Well, Captain Rogers' influence is making me a bit old-fashioned but before I move I'd like to do a few things first."

"Hm, is that right? Like what?"

Shrugging as if your heart wasn't racing in your chest, you retort. "Like... marrying you, for example."

Wanda hesitates, surprised more than anything. She looks at you as if she's trying to decide if it was a joke, but you don't feel her magic in your mind. 

"Do you really mean that?" She asks almost unsurely, and you sigh before letting go. You duck down to pick up your backpack again and reveal the real reason for the extra half hour of your journey from the university.

A little velvet box hidden in the front pocket. 

"I was saving it for our anniversary, but I don't think there's such a thing as the right moment. Every day I'm ready to marry you, and I don't need a dinner party for that." You declare nervously and swallow dryly when you meet your girlfriend's watery eyes. "B-but I can totally ask you next week-"

She breaks into a tearful laugh, pulling you close again. "Shut up, you fool."  She says practically against your lips before kissing you hard.

It's only later in the evening, after you've laughed and kissed and lost yourselves in hours of pleasure exploring each other's bodies, for the first time holding hands with golden rings on your fingers, that you, still breathless with Wanda almost asleep against your chest, ask:

"That means yes, right?"

She uses magic to throw a pillow in your face.

[wonderlandwalker]

Desperate Measures | Remus Lupin x Reader

Marauders Masterlist / Taglist / Inbox

Summary: (Part 1: Desperate Times) After your break-up Remus doesn't know what to do with himself, but when he finally gets to see you again he promises himself to make it up to you by any means he can

Content Warnings/Tags: fluff, small amount of angst, big amount of smut, minord dni, 18+, unedited writing, still not sure if smut is my strong suit but won't stop me from trying

Word Count: 3.4k

A/N: A lot has happened while I took a break from writing for a little while but it basically comes down to the fact that I still struggle with my mental health on a daily basis and writing isn't always my priority. While I do not plan to stop writing any time soon, the intervals of them will probably continue to stay longer. So thank you to everyone who has the patience to wait. Anyway, today is my birthday, so this is my small gift to all of you for the occasion xx

His friends didn't dare say anything, no, they could see how he was doing, they didn't need to ask. So they let him sulk, and it's not like they hadn't tried to cheer him up, but there was nothing that seemed to work. Not the speech from James, not the distractions Sirius tried, and not even the chocolate muffins Peter swiped from the kitchen could get a smile on his face. Just letting him wait it out seemed like the best option. But as time continued to pass and Remus continued to sulk, they realised a more hands-on approach was needed.

They weren't sure if talking to you would go over well, so they decided to test the waters by talking to your friends.

"What do you want Potter" Lily glared at James as he sat down next to her.

"Don't you think it's time she apologizes"

Now see, all of them were used to the incredulous looks Lily would give James, but this one beat the record.

"What in the seven hells are you on about"

"Remus has suffered enough, he hasn't left the dorm in nearly a week."

"So?"

"So. Whatever fight they had she clearly seems fine" he gestured over to where you were sitting a little further away, breaking your pastry up into small bits to eat as you laughed with Marlene over some joke he couldn't hear.

"Don't you think she should apologise to him by now, they always make up eventually"

Lily dropped the exasperated expression as her face turned to stone while she spoke her next words.

"Yes, James, she seems fine. I found her crying her eyes out on the bathroom floor. Just because she is coping better than Remus doesn't entitle him to anything. "

James's overconfident demeanour dropped slightly. He had been worried about his friend all this time, he hadn't stopped to look at how it affected you. But when paying closer attention he could see Lily was right, there were bags under your eyes and they were still a little red, you must have cried even more after the night Lily was talking about.

"You know I care for her as well, but Remus is being stubborn, he won't even talk to us, won't even tell us what happened, we just thought that if she saw the state he is in, she'd maybe forgive him, get through to him"

"There is nothing to get through about. He broke up with her, now he's suffering the consequences, good riddance if you ask me"

Now it was James' turn to look startled

"Hang on a second. They broke up?" Lily copied his expression

"Yes they broke up, what did you idiots think was going on"

"We figured they fought, they fight sometimes but they always make up" Lily started shaking her head as she answered him.

"Not this time, he broke her heart, James. Even if he did regret it, I'm not sure she'd forgive him, and I don't think she should either"

Taking a last look at you, James bolted from the table. All this time they had simply assumed he was irritable because of a fight, but you had broken up. Not only that, it was Remus that had broken up with you. No, this would surely not do, not if they could help it.

Over the next few days, they came up with a plan to, in the easiest of terms, get Remus to beg for forgiveness. It all started with the party

"I'm really not in the mood Sirius" Remus was stretching time the most he could, but Sirius wasn't letting up.

"You've been cooked up in that bed for nearly two weeks now, people are starting to wonder if we've killed you with one of our pranks. Besides, if nothing else there'll be liquor, liquor solves everything"

Normally Remus would have argued, but strangely enough, this time Sirius had a point. But Sirius had a mission too. Yes, he was following the plan step by step. He had talked to Marlene, who had promised to get you to the party as well, which was probably a much easier task than he had been left with, seeing how after last week you had decided it was no use sitting around moping any longer.

He dragged Remus down to the party going on in the Gryffindor common room, poured him a glass of the strongest thing he could find, and got him settled on the couch. For a moment he debated getting Remus to dance, but that might have been a bit too ambitious. Either way, Remus was here now, Sirius's part was done.

Remus saw you standing on the other side of the room, and either you hadn't noticed him yet or you were simply ignoring him, but you seemed to be in your own world. And he was fine with looking at you from where he was, after all, that's the fate he had resigned himself to. He was fine with watching you because you seemed like you were enjoying yourself.

But it didn't take long for his so-called plan to crumble down like a poorly constructed house of cards. Because he saw someone walk up to you, he saw someone get close to you, someone who wasn't supposed to.

What was Evan Rosier doing at a Gryffindor party? But he didn't have much time to think about it, because he saw Evan walk up from behind you, and at first you seemed startled, but when you turned around to face him you seemed to light up. You pushed up on your toes to hug him and Remus's stomach started to twist. Not in the way it always used to when it came to you. His insides used to do somersaults every time he got a smile out of you. No matter how sour of a mood he was in, it would light him up.

His friends used to poke fun at him for it, but they soon realized you were the only thing that would cheer him up when their usual methods had run out, and they surrendered to the spell you seemed to have him under.

But this was nothing like that. Evan secured his arms around you and you let him, why did you let him? He knew he had been avoiding you, but he couldn't have missed this much. He sat there and watched, his body seemed to have turned to stone as if you had been Medusa herself. His eyes he couldn't keep off you, it was only when Evan pulled back that he thought the nausea that had bubbled up in his stomach would disappear, but he couldn't have been more wrong. Because the moment he did, Evan took off his jacket, and put it around you. The green colour of it engulfed you and Remus was filled with it just the same.

He felt as if he wasn't in control of his own body as he stood up from the couch, walking in your direction. He wasn't even sure what he would say, what he would do, but he could no longer sit and watch idly. So when Remus reached you he did the only thing that made sense to him, he pulled you in and kissed you. He kissed you like he had thought about doing every minute for the last few weeks. He had wondered if your lips were still as soft as they used to be, what a stupid question, he thought now, of course they were.

For just a second his life is back the way it should be, you're kissing him as if it's pure muscle memory, and perhaps it is because only a moment later you seem to come to your senses and pull away. But you're still looking at him, and your eyes have him just as Enchanted as the first time he saw you. He recognizes a small sparkle in them and promises himself to make it ablaze again.

"Can we talk, please" He is ready to get down on his knees and beg you, because he doesn't know if he can stand being without you anymore. He would drop to the floor and grovel for your forgiveness if that was what it took, but of course, you don't make him. Even before he's always been ready to tear his heart from his chest and give it to you the moment you requested so. He would watch it continue to beat as he ripped it out because by now it was entirely yours anyway, it wouldn't stop as long as you were near, wouldn't dare let you down.

You nod your head to the stairs leading up to the dorms and he walks with you until you're in the dorm, the door shutting behind you. He wants to push you up against the door and trail kisses down your neck like he used to, but he can tell you have something to say, so he sits down on the foot of your bed, trying not to fidget with his hands too much.

"You really hurt me Remus" The way your eyebrows slightly pinch together and the slight pout on your face makes him once again regret every single word he uttered that night. He's trying to think of what to say, how to continue. Because he's gotten this far and he's determined not to mess up again. But what is there to say, what can he say other than the fact that he's sorry, which seems like too much of an understatement for the situation he created.

"I know" is all he can come up with, and it's true, he spent so much time thinking about what he had done and how it had hurt you.

"I don't know if I'm ready to just move on as if nothing happened"

"I know" Remus wants to smack his own head for his response. This was his one chance to make it right and he couldn't even form a coherent thought.

"I'm sorry" is all he can say next, and he wants to smack himself again for the oversimplification. But you look at him as if it's enough, as if you know the weight those words truly hold behind them. He wouldn't be surprised if you could see right into his mind, you've always been able to read him so well.

"Please let me make it up to you, I promise I will" You look at him again, and walk closer to where he is sitting.

"How exactly do you propose to do that?" Your tone has shifted, and he's still nervous, but no longer for the same reason. It's the kind of nervous jitters he still gets when he's close to you, the kind that makes him want to pin you down underneath him and spend eternity looking at you. Except this time he's not sure what to do. He usually knows exactly what you want, has got your body memorised like a map that leads to treasure. But now he needs to tread more lightly, not taking any chance of having read it wrong.

But you walk towards him until you've slotted yourself between his open legs, and he knows it is all going to be okay, because you start to softly move your hands through his hair in a way that makes his head spin, and he grounds himself by pulling you closer, hugging his face to your stomach. He lets himself enjoy it for a few seconds before he remembers the promise he just made.

He starts to leave small kisses going up your torso, and ghosts his fingers over the back of your thighs as you're still standing in front of him. He holds your body closer to his and hears a small moan leave your mouth. And it's only softly, but he hears it, and it’s his sign not to stop.

His hands move with a mind of their own, trailing further up until he reaches under your skirt, finding the soft flesh of your ass and giving it a gentle squeeze before he retracts one of his hands to slap it. And now he’s sure, because the sound that leaves you is no longer hesitant, it's pleading. He grabs onto your legs and flips you over onto the bed behind him, your head hitting the pillow as he hovers over you.

You move to kiss him, and he doesn't dare refuse. It’s different from earlier, more desperate. Not only his but your emotions showing through it, it's harsh, too much teeth, too forceful, but he can't find it in himself to mind. He kisses you back with just as much passion, and while he could spend eternity like this, he had something else in mind for now. So he moves his lips down your neck, and you arch into him immediately, giving him better access to the spot he’s looking for.

“Remus please” he doesn't need to be told twice, not today at least. His hands inch up underneath your shirt, delicately moving it up your body until it reaches your head, and you don’t hesitate to shrug it off and throw it off the bed. He’s enthralled for a moment, the sight before his eyes so familiar yet so captivating.

He makes quick work of his own shirt and moves back to leave open-mouth kisses down your chest as his hands once again travel down. But he doesn't make you wait long, because it’s followed by him moving your underwear to the side, sliding his fingers over your folds, feeling how wet you already are for him. His mouth is still busy on your chest, reacting to the sounds you make as he’s sucking bruises into your skin. With his free hand he tugs down your bra, finally giving him full access to your chest. The moment his mouth grazes over your nipple you moan out his name and he starts circling your clit before inserting two of his fingers into you. Your body immediately remembers the feeling and he can feel you already starting to clench around him, but he’s not about to question it. He’s still using his thumb to trace patterns onto your clit as he moves his fingers in and out of you, searching for the spot he knows will make you see the stars. He curls them once again and from the sounds leaving you he knows he’s found it, relentlessly hitting it as if it's his only goal in life, and right now it is.

It doesn't take much longer until you’re panting and writhing underneath him, and he has to use his free hand to pin your hips down on the mattress. As moans and whispers of his name continue to stream from you he wonders how he ever thought he could make peace with never hearing you say his name again, but he doesn't dwell on it for long as he feels you spasming around his fingers, clenching as if your body is trying to keep him there. He coaxes you through it until your breathing turns back to normal and he pulls his fingers out, hovering back over you as he cleans them off with his mouth, humming at the taste.

You’re starting to come back down from your haze and he can feel your hands travelling over his body before one of them drags over the bulge in his trousers. The friction makes him close his eyes and sighs, dropping his head in the crook of your neck. You’re trying to undo his belt when he snaps back to reality, catching your hands in his own as he stops you.

“What’s wrong?” The concern in your voice makes him want to soothe away any worries you might be carrying, and he’s quick to tell you.

“Nothing’s wrong darling, I’m just not finished apologizing yet.” It’s not that he doesn't want to feel your hands on him, pumping him as he loses his composure, but he’s already painfully hard from making you cum on his fingers, and he wasn't finished.

And so with a final kiss to your lips he shifts back down your body until he's face to face with your pussy. You’re fidgeting underneath him and he uses his hands to lock your legs in place, holding them open so he can do exactly as he wants. He starts by tickling your inner thighs with kisses, enjoying the feeling of your skin against his. Normally he would take his time, get you desperate underneath him, but he’s the desperate one now, so he doesn't waste any more time. His tongue flattens out over your entrance and a whine of his name leaves your mouth, followed by more moans that make him rut into the mattress, seeking for some friction of his own.

He distracts himself by massaging the fat of your thighs, trailing over the stretch marks he adores. You're rutting your hips into his mouth and when your hand finds purchase in his hair, tugging on it as his tongue enters your folds, he no longer tries to hold back. His attack on you is so sweetly malicious, your taste intoxicating hum further than any liquor could, he grinds down and moans into you. The vibrations make your breath hitch and he can feel you getting close again. The soft pleas and whines coming from you are a melody he will orchestrate for as long as he can, his nose bumps against your clit as his tongue is still busy lapping up your juices and it makes you twitch under him.

“That's it darling, cum all over my tongue” He's craving it just as much himself, every shaky breath from you and every time he feels you clench he gets closer to his own high. All he wants to do is get you there so he can let go himself. He doubles his efforts, remembering what you like, listening to your body react, and with his mouth still busy between your legs you suddenly go still, your body motionless except for the small flexes of the muscles in your thighs. He knows better than to stop, coaxing you further until the filthiest of moans come from your mouth, relentlessly thanking him, although he's certain he should be the one thanking you.

He's still chasing your sweet taste as he can feel his cock straining impossibly hard, the tip pulsating as he finds his own release, too caught up in you to even care that he is coming in his trousers, whines leaving his mouth as he still laps up anything you give him. He doesn't stop until you push his head away and he glances up at your face, a thin layer of sweat glistening above your eyebrows. You're radiating pure ecstasy and he can't help but smile at the sight. You silently ask him to come up by tugging the back of his neck towards you and he wouldn't even dream of doing anything other than complying.

“I've missed you Remmy” it's barely there, your voice a whisper in the now quiet room, but it's more than enough for him. He leaves featherlight kisses over your face, from your forehead to your cheekbone and finally finding his final destination on your lips. It's soft, sensual and full of pent up emotions and apologies, but the way in which you settle yourself next to him, cuddling into him with a content sigh as if he's the puzzle piece you fit next to let's him know that despite everything, you'll always find your way back to each other, even in the most desperate of times.

Taglist: @hesperdern, @lexmoon17, @y0urm0m12, @dreamingofmarauders

[yoonia]

🖋️ I just finished Blooming Wallflowers and felt so sad that it ended so soon! Can we have a snippet of what happens after? are they going to continue seeing each other? will OC's daughter get to be closer to Mista Joonie? 🥺🥺 I want to see them hang out again in a less stressful time (because poor OC always stressing!). it would be cute to have Joon helping her out with the girls again. he can finally have a taste of OC's homecooked meal and she gets to make him dinner for once. that'll be sweet. I just love the concept of home date night 🥺

💌 for my love letter, I just want to say happy belated birthday �� I've been following you for a long time. even if I'm no longer around much on Tumblr, I still come back from time to time and wonder what you'll be sharing this time. It's always exciting to find out that you post something new. your stories always feel so comforting, even when they are the most heart-wrenching angst ever! Your blog and your presence have always felt so positive too. just like how you are creating this lovely event 🥺 I think that's the reason why I still stick around no matter how much negativity has grown on Tumblr, because I know there's at least one writer here who still spreads positivity and exudes a comforting aura just by being here (and that's you!)

I love how you touch on real life issues and how you present them in your stories. even in the short ones, we get to feel the character growing through your fic and it feels really fulfilling to experience it 💜

For Blooming Wallflowers, I loved how you wrote the characters. even the daughters. often fanfics aren't so accurate when it comes to writing children (how they speak, behave, etc) yet you always make these characters feel so real, and I love that 💜🥺

Thank you for sharing your talent with us. I hope you have a wonderful birthday 🎂

Thank you so much for reading Blooming Wallflowers! I'm glad you enjoyed the story and are loving the characters. Your idea made me think of cute moments between Joon, OC, and the girls, but as always, my mind think otherwise the moment I began writing the ficlet haha. Anyway, enjoy your moodboard and this "little" snippet, love!

— title: Dinner with Mista Joonie | pairings: Namjoon x female reader| genre: firefighter!Namjoon, single mom!reader, mature, friends with benefits!au | word count: 1,150 words — summary | Namjoon comes to join you and the girls for dinner.  — ratings & warnings | +18 / M for mature; allusion of a one-night stand, memories of hooking up, sexual tension, implied smut scene: public sex, kitchen sex, morning after sex, food play, implied oral sex. 

— original: Blooming Wallflowers by @yoonia — fic drop date: Oct 28th, 2024 — song companion: sleepless

“You should’ve let me help.” 

His deep voice draws a smile to your face, yet you make no move to turn around. Not even when you can feel him approaching you from behind. 

“You’re doing enough to help already,” you answer him as you rinse the last of the dinner plates under the running water. A large hand takes the plates out of your hand right as you are about to slip them into the dishwasher, taking over your work. 

“I don’t see how I’m helping,” Namjoon says as he continues setting the dishwasher to do its work so you can get to rest. 

You wipe your hands dry using the kitchen towel before handing it to him. “For one, you took my distractions away from me,” you answer with a whisper, nodding towards the living room where your girls are busy flipping between their assortments of storybooks. “What did you tell them so you could escape?” 

Namjoon grins. “Hana asked me to read them a story before leaving. I told them to pick a book each that I could read for them.” 

Shaking your head, you let out a soft chuckle. “You shouldn’t fall for their puppy eyes. You were only invited to join dinner, not to babysit the girls.” 

“It’s well deserved. They’ve been so proud about helping their Mom prepare the delightful dinner tonight,” Namjoon says, shrugging. He moves to rest his hips against the kitchen counter and crosses his arms over his chest, drawing your eyes towards his toned muscles, his t-shirt straining over them, and a flutter rising in your chest. “Thank you for inviting me, by the way.” 

The damn flutter goes wild when he says this with a smile. A dimple appears. Your skin grows warm. “It was a pleasure. I’m just honouring a promise I made to you.” 

It truly was. Ever since the night at the supermarket, you have wanted to cook for him. Imagining him eating TV dinner after working to save people’s lives—or pets, maybe?—makes you feel bad.

But seeing him tonight at dinner was a whole other matter.

You had expected it to be awkward. A single man sitting with a single mother and her two kids shouldn’t have seemed so normal. And yet, he blended in so nicely at the table. He even didn’t blink an eye every time any of the girls left vying for his attention. From bragging about their roles in helping you set up dinner, to showing off their artwork from today’s class. Even Suzy came out of her shell and chatted with Namjoon, asking him about his job and if firefighters really do get called to take kittens down from trees. 

“Well, I’m honouring the meal I received tonight. Step one is pleasing the princesses over there with good storytelling.” 

Shaking your head, you turn back to the kitchen sink to wipe down the mess. “I swear you’re too good at this.” 

Namjoon comes to you with a deep chuckle, surprising you when he wraps his arms around you from behind. 

“What are you doing?” you hiss at him while looking over his shoulder, afraid that your girls would catch their special guest hugging their mother. 

“They’re still busy, don’t worry,” he whispers to your ear, deep voice vibrating from his throat, and those harmless flutters travel down south, settling right between your legs. 

“Since you said that I’ve done good—” he whispers, his lips brushing at your skin. “Does that mean you’ll finally agree to go on a date with me? I told you, I’m okay if we’re out on a weekday. I’m not always on night shift, and might be working on the weekend anyway.” 

You swallow down your words and the tightness in your chest. You promised yourself that the night you spent with him on your bed would be the only time. With so many things going on in your life, this would be the wrong time for you to start anything. Not even with the first hot guy who managed to catch your eye. 

But Namjoon has been insistent. Exchanging numbers had given him the chance to text and call regularly, from catching up with your day, to flirting, and often ends with him asking for a date, or a quick hook-up, a quick repeat of your first night. Yet you have been resilient so far in refusing him.

Some part of you have been expecting that he would eventually give up and move on. Another part of you has always known that you will regret everything if you ever let it happen. While the rest keeps reminding you that he doesn’t deserve to be pulled into your mess, even if you really, really like him. 

Feigning your disinterest seems to be futile. But then again, immediately continuing your hookup the next morning after you first brought him to your bed during the morning after breakfast might have sent a different message. Because having him finally have a taste of you on the kitchen counter that morning, with him lathering maple syrup on your bare breasts to lick off of your skin instead of pouring them on his pancake, was not the right way to show each other that there was no passion between you once the alcohol wore off. 

But, maybe, just maybe, you have always known what that would do to a man who is so persistent in his chase like Namjoon does. 

“Will this Wednesday be good?” you find yourself asking once the fight leaves your body. “I’ll be off work early and it’s my Mom’s day to bring the girls to her shop.” 

It’s too easy to give in, after all. And you are surprised to find how quickly the weight is lifted from your shoulders once you stop denying your feelings. 

You can feel his smile on your skin as he presses a kiss on the side of your neck. A promise. It draws a shudder through your body when you are reminded of what those lips on your skin did to you last time. “That’s my day off. So it’s perfect.” 

You open your mouth, ready to turn to face him, when Hana’s voice calls out, 

“Mista Joonie!” she yells from the living room, and both of you are quick to separate, right as your little girl comes barrelling into the kitchen with her books. “I found my book!” 

Chuckling softly, Namjoon steals a quick peck on your cheek before stepping away. “Duty calls,” he says with a wink, and off he goes to follow Hana back to the living room. 

You watch their receding back as they leave you in the kitchen, smiling to yourself as you watch Namjoon listening with rapt attention as your youngest blabber on about her favourite book and how her sister had chosen something just as good for them to read together.  

Thank you for your sweet words. your message really means the world to me. And thank you for following me and staying with me for so long. I wouldn't still be here if not for readers like yourself who has been here with me.

Here's my little gift for you 💜

𝖙𝖜𝖎𝖑𝖎𝖌𝖍𝖙 𝖋𝖆𝖑𝖑 𝖘𝖊𝖗𝖊𝖓𝖆𝖉𝖊: dia’s birthday bash 2024 ⇝ closed!

[mrsfrecklesmarauders]

"Wow, Lily!" Remus exclaimed as soon as he saw her "You look lovely..." she smiled "I didn't know this was formal, otherwise I would have worn something else" he added, looking at himself.

Lily Evans looked beautiful today. She was a pretty girl on daily basis. But today she was radiant. She had made the effort of picking up a nice dress and she had put on makeup with bit of glitter on her eyes, and she had straightened her hair. Instead of lose curls, her locks were perfectly combed.

"Thanks" Lily blushed.

That made Remus even more nervous. He had been trying to convince himself that this was just a hang out between friends. But everything just indicated otherwise.

"Look, I'm wearing the necklace you gave me"

Remus had to admit it suited her.

"Oh! Nice!"

Bloody James Potter. Ever since the incident with the necklace on Lily's birthday, the girl had been acting odd. Remus had lied and said that the necklace he gave her was his mum's when it was James who bought it for her.

"Moony," James had begged with puppy eyes "Lily is not accepting it coming from me. But she's gonna love it coming from you! She hates me but she likes you well enough"

If James wanted to conquer Lily, he was doing a terrible job by giving Remus all the credit.

"Are you sure you don't want it back?" Lily asked unsure. "It was your mum's after all"

Remus regretted this so badly. But he had promised James that he wasn't going to say anything.

"Noo! Noo!" he exclaimed "Keep it, honestly! It looks better on you"

Remus wished Lily wouldn't be looking at him like that when she should be looking at James. He purchased the expensive jewel after all.

"You look nice as well, Remus"

Were Lily's eyes sparkling?

"With this old sweater?" he pointed to himself.

"It suits you. It is nice" Lily smiled, putting a lock of hair behind her ear.

Remus liked Lily Evans because she was cool, funny and different than any girl that had made his life impossible in the past. It was easy between them. They didn't have awkward moments. They were genuine around each other.

So, why was Lily acting weird? God no, please no. Remus had only accepted this as friends. Lily couldn't fancy him. James would kill him.

"So..." Remus cleared his throat, as if he could break the awkwardness between them "What's the plan?"

"I was thinking we can go to the cinema in the castle!" Lily exclaimed "Sometimes they play good movies"

Watch a movie in silence. Good. Remus could do that.

"Sounds great"

Lily giggled "Cool"

"Lead the way..."

Friends watched movies together, right? Lily probably wanted to hang out with Remus because she didn't have anything better to do. Right?

The walk to the cinema room was painfully weird. There was silence between them. Remus was used to Lily speaking bollocks that made him laugh. Now, she was eyeing him every two seconds and smiling to herself.

"Never been to the Hogwarts cinema before"

"Oh, me neither" Lily confessed "Severus didn't like it..." she swallowed as if mentioning him hurt her. Remus knew that twat had been her only friend but they didn't speak to each other anymore. Remus didn't know why.

"And I didn't want to go by myself..." Lily continued "I heard they only play old movies anyway but some are good..." she looked at him "Good thing I have you now to go"

Remus faked a giggle "It is odd to go to a school that has its own cinema" he said "It would be a nice experience"

"Yeah I guess" Lily let out a soft chuckle.

"What are you in the mood to watch?" Remus asked.

"Ha?" Lily blinked in surprise.

"What kind of movie?" Remus clarified.

"Oh" Lily sighed "Maybe a romance"

Oh fuck...

This wasn't a date. This wasn't a date. This wasn't a date.

Although it looked like a date when they arrived to the place. The movie for today was good: Ten things I hate about you. But nobody inside cared about the movie per se. There were only couples snogging.

Not only Remus got uncomfortable but Lily as well, as they looked at each other and blushed.

They already bought the tickets. Too late to ran away.

"Do you... Want to sit over there?" Lily pointed to an empty corner.

"Sure"

Lily led him to one of the front rows to the right side. The movie hadn't started yet. So they heard the kissing noises, sighs and giggles around them. Remus was too disgusted and nervous to eat but he stuffed popcorn to his mouth to have something to do.

"Have you watched this movie?" Lily asked to break the silence.

"Yeah it is really good" he answered "Have you watched it?"

"It is one of my favorites" Lily smiled.

And when she scooped closer, Remus moved away.

This was a bad idea. A terrible one.

"Shame nobody is paying attention" Lily looked around. Then she moved closer to Remus.

"Stupid people" Remus chuckled, moving further and further away from Lily "What's the point of coming to a theatre to snog? They can do that anywhere"

Lily looked at him curiously. "True" she nodded, then sighed "It must be nice, though, to snog someone..."

Shit, shit, shit....

"I mean obviously, not here!" Lily clarified going red as a tomato "Or now! But like... Like snog someone that you really really fancy... You know like after the movie and when the bloke walks you to your house, or your dorm in this case...."

As Lily spoke, Remus imagined the scene in his mind. It used to be amusing to hear her talk before but Remus didn't know what to do when Lily was flirting with him... Potentially!

"And then you and him are both so happy and at ease that everything seems perfect... And the bloke just kisses you right before you say goodbye... And he thinks about you all night long and you think about him as well..."

Bam! Remus felt the pain on his butt as he fell to the floor. He had been unconsciously moving away from Lily so quickly that he fell from the seat.

"Oh! Are you okay, Remus?" Lily asked.

Remus groaned in pain, maybe he could pretend to be so hurt that he could cancel the whole thing.

"Yeah... Yeah" he said as he stood up and got back into his seat "I'm delightful"

Remus wished he didn't feel sorry for leaving Lily alone. She was laughing now.

"You are different than other boys I know, you know?" she smiled as she ate some popcorn "Sweet and adorable"

Why couldn't Remus be a prick so Lily could stop imagining nonsense?

Before Remus could respond, the movie began and Remus was thankful. Maybe he could ignore her until the movie was over and by that time he would have figured a gentle way to reject her. Or maybe tell her the truth about the necklace and let bloody James deal with the consequences.

Although everyone was distracted by an annoying and loud feminine laughter that entered the room. Remus heard a few "Sh sh". And when he turned to see who this annoying girl was, Remus was surprised to see Alecto Carrow. This was the girl Sirius had been snogging for the last couple of weeks. Remus knew this because watching them provoked an indescribable pain on his chest and a horrible rage that made him want to pull that girl's long black hair.

And fuck his luck because today she was entering the bloody cinema with none other that Sirius Black himself.

Remus sunk on his chair and he noticed Lily getting very very pale, trying to cover her face as well.

Remus hadn't told Sirius or any of the Marauders about his plans with Lily this evening. He had heard James saying the team was going to have an extra practice. And Remus assumed Sirius would follow him.

Remus couldn't say no when Lily asked him to "hang" early this week. But the counting days to the present, Remus had been divided in between canceling Lily and disappointing her or convincing himself Lily just wanted to do something as friends and only that.

Now Sirius was the last person that should find him in this predicament.

And thanks to Remus's shitty luck, he and his stupid girl sat in the row in front of them.

"Do you want me to get you anything?" Remus heard Sirius asking her in a low voice.

Thank God he hadn't noticed them. Maybe it was the fact that Remus and Lily were both very sunk on their chairs and practically covering their faces with the popcorn bag and soda respectively.

"No, darling" Alecto shook her head "I don't eat that garbage"

"Good thing" Sirius smirked "You're sweet and tasteful enough"

His comment provoked a loud laugh from his companion that made everyone shush her again. Although Remus saw Sirius rolling his eyes when she didn't notice. Was he getting bored of her already?

"Remus..." Lily leaned to whisper, he face covered by her large soda "Did you tell... him... about..."

"No!" Remus whispered back before Lily said 'our date'.

"Maybe we should go somewhere else" Lily whispered and Remus saw her very red and worried "Black is gonna ruin everything"

Remus couldn't agree more. Even though he wanted this date or whatever it was ruined. He didn't want Sirius to see him.

"I've seen this movie plenty of times already" he commented.

"Me too" she whispered back.

They nodded in agreement. They had to get out of here. It was sickening anyway the way Sirius was trying to put his arm around the girl, how they were smiling at each other and possibly leaning in to snog...

But as Remus was moving, he tripped (his stupid luck again), and all the popcorn fell on top of Alecto's head. She screamed, making everyone look their way.

Sirius turned furiously "Hey, wanker! Watch..." he stopped when he recognized him, his eyes widened "Moony?"

Remus was frozen. Then Sirius’s eyes moved towards Lily who was trying her best to cover her face.

"Evans?" Sirius asked. Then looked suspiciously between the two.

Alecto was watching them curiously.

Lily faked a smile but her face was as red as her hair or even more.

"What a coincidence, ha?"

It was Lily who was shushed this time.

*****

“What I do in my free time is none of your business, Black! And I shouldn’t give you explanations of what I do or don’t do!”

It was after the incident that they had been kicked out of the room. The four of them. They didn’t seem to care much, expect for Alecto maybe. But Sirius had bombarded Remus and Lily with questions. And Lily was the one who had the courage to answer.

“Is it wrong to go out with Remus?” Lily continued “He is not only your friend, you know? You don’t own him! And he is free to do whatever he wants!”

In the meantime, Sirius couldn’t move his eyes away from Remus. And Remus had his eyes fixed on the floor.

“It’s okay, sweety!” Alecto exclaimed “Nobody cares that you’re on a date with him”

“We’re not in a date!” Remus and Lily protested at the same time. He looked at her in surprise, and she looked away as she blushed.

“I think you make a pretty good couple” Alecto continued, ignoring them.

“We’re not a couple” Lily got even more red “And if we were, I wouldn’t tell you, It is none of your business”

It was then that Sirius started laughing. Remus knew this was more of a Sirius’s reaction. Everything was amusing to him. He wanted the world to entertain him. The bastard.

“What’s so funny, Sirius?”

“Prongs is gonna love this!” Oh shit “Did you bring Evans here to snog her behind his back?”

For a second Remus wished that Sirius was jealous of the whole thing, but he was just taking the piss.

“Oh, that’s right” Alecto nodded amused “Potter used to have a crush on you, right Lily?”

Why did Sirius had to go out with the most stupid girls?

“We came here as friends!” Remus said. He side glanced at Lily. She was looking down with embarrassment.

“You know that bringing someone to the Hogwarts Cinema is for a good snog, right?” Sirius smirked, looking between the two.

That explained all the couples from before.

Alecto gasped “Is that why you brought me here?”

“Well, I did want to snog you” Sirius confessed, just like that. Remus rolled his eyes.

Lily, on the other hand, was red as a tomato and looked very embarrassed.

“I didn’t know, Sirius” Remus sighed with exasperation “I’ve never been”

Remus didn’t know that with that comment, Sirius and Alecto’s eyes would turn to Lily.

“Wow, Evans” Sirius spat “Trying to get advantage of my Moony?”

“Lily!” Alecto exclaimed, with that annoying laughter of hers “I admire your courage. Asking a boy out and insinuating a snog must be challenging…”

God, there were making her look like a…like a… Remus couldn’t say it.

“You’re gonna break Prongs’s heart” Sirius added “I hope you don’t do the same with Moony”

“Going for all the friend group, ha?” Alecto teased, then grabbed Sirius’s arm “Well Sirius is out of the market, darling”

Remus couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He turned to look at Lily who had her eyes filled with tears. When she noticed Remus was looking at her, she looked so embarrassed that she ran away as fast as she could.

“Lily!” Remus called for her, but she ran fast.

“Oops” Alecto said “Did we say something wrong?”

Remus was furious. He might’ve not like Lily that way, but he cared for her.

“You can be a complete, arsehole sometimes, Sirius!” Remus snapped. Only to Sirius. He didn’t care about the fake of Alecto. “I don’t recognize you when you behave like this”

Sirius seemed uncomfortable “Moony, it was a joke…”

“Fuck off!”

“You are the one having a date with Evans!” Sirius snapped, but Remus ignored him.

Remus got out of there before Sirius could say anything else. Sometimes he couldn’t believe how much Sirius had grown. Sometimes he was far from what that sweet ten-year-old boy used to be. Sometimes Remus couldn’t believe he fancied him still.

Sirius wasn’t like this. Not really. He just liked to behave like an idiot sometimes.

Remus found Lily crying in the main patio. His heart broke when he saw her vulnerable like that. People used to make fun of him a lot back at his old school. Lily reminded him of his own self. Pre transition Remus lost and scared because he didn’t want to be different.

Remus took a seat in the bench next to her without saying a word. Lily stopped crying but sniffed a few times.

“I swear I didn’t know that the cinema was a place to snog, Remus!” Lily said with a desperate voice “Like I said, I’ve never been! Now I never want to go back” she shook her head “What? People just don’t fancy watching a movie these days? Bloody hell!!”

Remus found himself smiling.

“It’s okay” he said “It is not your fault. People are just stupid to prefer a snog than a good movie or worse a good book”

“Right?” Lily snorted “What do they have in their brains? Mud?”

Remus shrugged.

“A good book doesn’t break your heart” Lily said, sounding more like the girl he knew.

“Or give you herpes”

“Or make your lips swollen”

“Or pass you their saliva”

“Eeew!”

Remus giggled and Lily followed. Suddenly things were going back to normal.

“Remus, can I ask you something?”

Remus looked at her. “Of course, Lils”

“And can you be honest?”

Remus nodded, and placed a hand on his heart “I solemnly swear”

“Do you…” Lily swallowed “Do you like me?”

"Of course!” There was no doubt.

“No but, like like me…”

“Oh” God, not this again. Remus didn’t want to break her heart or lose her. She was a golden friend. One of the few people that understood what it felt to feel like an alien in this school.

“You’re a lovely girl, Lily…” he started “But…”

Lily let out a breath of relief.

“It’s okay if you don’t” Lily explained “It’s just that after my birthday…” she unconsciously grabbed the necklace on her neck “Mary and Marlene had been filling my head about how you must fancy me, because a boy doesn’t give necklaces like this to a friend, besides, it is your mum’s…”

Well, the necklace was from the boy that fancied her, but it wasn’t Remus.

“Oh Lils,,,” Remus was finding the right words to say.

“I just wanted to believe that idea…” Lily said, blushing again “I thought how we got along so well, and I just felt comfortable around you… And I filled my head with this story of a nice romance between us… That’s why I asked you on this date…”

So, it was a date!

“But it was so uncomfortable, wasn’t it?”

“It’s because we are not meant to be more than really good friends, Lily” Remus said with a smile “I’m not the bloke for you”

That was James. She didn’t know that yet.

Lily let out a soft chuckle.

“It was an awful date, anyway” Remus added.

Lily gasped “Remus!”

They both laughed now, more comfortable than all had been clear.

“I gave you the necklace because I like you” Remus thought he ought to cover for James still “Maybe not like that. But I do like you” he added “I swear that I’ve never gotten along with a girl before. And it feels pretty great….”

Lily nodded “Hence my confusion”

“It is easy with you. We can talk about anything. And we like the same books. And we like to complain about my dumb friends…”

“Your friends are really really dumb” Lily giggled.

Remus thought about James. He thought about Sirius’s comments, did he have to be an idiot?

“Sorry about Sirius” he said “I know you think he is a twat but sometimes he says mean things because he feels attacked or doesn’t like something”

Lily shook her head “So, he was jealous of us?”

“Ha?” Remus wished his cheeks weren’t on fire.

“Potentially if we were dating” Lily concluded “He wouldn’t like it, I bet”

“Why?”

“Because Potter would feel like I am a lost game and Black wouldn’t like that, right?”

For a second Remus had hope that Sirius was jealous because he fancied him back. But Lily was right.

“And maybe Potter would finally leave me alone” Lily bit her lip “Remus, would you date me?”

Remus grinned “As much as I would like to help you…” he said “I appreciate my integrity, and James would kill me if I were to date you”

Lily scoffed “He doesn’t own me!” then grabbed his arm “I can date any boy I fancy”

“But you don’t fancy me, yeah?”

Lily shook her head carefully “Bloody hell, no. Don’t get angry, Remus"

Remus faked a gasp “You just broke my heart, Lily Evans”

Lily smiled “You rejected me first!”

She hit his arm gently and then she giggled which made Remus smile. He was so glad Lily and him were okay. That nothing had changed between them.

“Bloody Mary and Marlene” Lily tutted “I’m glad we sorted this inquiry”

Remus was glad as well “Yeah me too”

Lily was still grabbing his arm, but Remus didn’t care. This was how it was supposed to be. Just good friends. Comfortable around each other.

Then he added “Hungry?” he asked “Want to go grab something to eat?”

“Yeah, please!” Lily exclaimed “It’s a date”

Remus raised an eyebrow.

"But not like that!"

Remus laughed.

[s1lly-billy]

TAKE THE CODECICLE LORE FOOD TAKE IT

Today (Nov 2) we got another lore stream

And HAPPY FUCKING DIA DE LOS MUERTOS TO EVERYONE WHO CELEBRATES IT!!!!

ALRIGHT NOW TIME FOR BIG LORE

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1. Juanaflippas reappearance.

The dead eggs came back just for today and we got lots of angst from ALL of the players

Lore wise, this was fucking big. It's now confirmed the "Juanaflippa" that has been hanging out with Charlie this entire time is indeed *not* our old Juanaflippa. This is confirmed because today, the juanaflippa that came back remembered everything.

Baby's first toy

The iron sword

The rap

The missclicks.

But none the less, she was extremely nice and loving to our codey Charlie. She was SUPER physically affectionate and hugged Charlie practically the entire time he was there. She was also super happy to see everyone! But nonetheless, there is some deep shit behind her appearance. She wants Charlie to get rid of the code all over him, wants him to heal, and still wants to hang out with him in the fucking rat king they made.

(ALSO FUCKING EPIC MENTION TO THE FACT SHE HAD A TRANS FLAG AND CHARLIE CHEERED??? THAT WAS WHOLESOME AS FUCK AS SOMEONE UNDER THE UMBRELLA.

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2. "Juanaflippa" (aka Codeflippa)

An update on what we got from (real)Juanaflippa is that she's completely and utterly not Juanaflippa. She's not at all apart of her and she's not connected to her. But she does know how to immitate her (to a limit ex. The "accent")

I personally don't think Codeflippa has any real intent against Charlie. She genuinely seems to love hanging out with him and meeting new people. She's never tried to hurt Charlie, and I doubt the infection is intentional.

In past streams Charlie has brought up the code to flippa and she said she doesn't know what that is.

She's also expressed fear to her dad about the man. You know, the man with the glasses in the picture.

(I wonder when we get a update on that.)

If she is trying to hurt Charlie and/or infect him she's being put up to it.

(In my opinion)

Possibly by the federation, as they've stated she's a released experiment, or... A failed one.

I'll let you think on that.

ANYWAY

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3. Slimecicle lore affects (aka Codecicle)

Slimecicle is still under the illusion that "Juanaflippa" is normal and was brought back to life as a gift for his birthday. On a positive note, he's a lot happier knowing for once in his life his egg is here. And she doesn't seem to be leaving. She's happy with him and hes happy with her!

On a negative note.

The code from Juanaflippa has been affecting his body so much and he's just deterioting more and more into code.

And he seriously doesn't have alot of body left before it's taken over completely.

(Theory)

Now while I'm all for a full slimecicle code skin I'm pretty damn sure things are going to go South soon. This arc will be over. And Codeflippa as much as I love her... Shes going to die.

ANYWAY HAHA

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4. Charlie lore but with Cellbit

(Slash lore 💀)

As many know Cellbit is going fucking crazy. He's sick and fucking TIRED of the federation. They're taking his kids and he wants them back. NOW. Cellbit may not like Codeflippa, but he's not above using someone who he believes is using his friend to his advantage. Thus, using Charlie and his absolute murderous will to tear anything apart living or dead for his daughter. Without hesitation.

"In a heartbeat."

Cellbits will to destroy the federation and get his eggs back and Charlies will to keep flippa with him, f0r3√3r. Make the perfect pair! They're going to commit attrocies together and no matter what they're going to protect their eggs at a moment's notice.

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Charlies still in a delusion. Not able to see the glitches falling off of everything he has the capacity to feel.

:]

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(Also side note I've been trying to split these up better and organize them so they're easier to read and understand for people who struggle with reading, collecting points easily, and multilinguals cause idk any other (qsmp) languages rn so I can't exactly translate these without Google lol sorry for the lil rant)

[marc--chilton]

(mgv) au where adam and lawrence lose touch after adam is saved from the bathroom without his help, both assuming in the aftermath that the other never wants to see him again -- lawrence doesn't even know adam made it out for the longest time. after that he thinks of him daily, particularly lingering on the memory of adam spilling why he took the job to stalk lawrence.

i'm good at it and i need the money. i, uh. i'm.... pregnant. i can barely scrape by just feeding myself and paying rent, so....

he remembered, vaguely, having placed one bloody hand on adam's cheek and one on his still-flat stomach, promising in a rattling breath, "i'll get help. you'll get out of here-- both of you."

it's adam who reaches out five years later. a message left at lawrence's desk phone at work he lets play while he hangs his coat up. the shaky timbre jolts him to his core.

he doesn't make sense at first, calling him 'andy' and mentioning a 'gig', but it becomes clear the call was made in secret by the way his tone shifts to something trembling, desperate, and terrified. lawrence manages to piece together only a few things from the hasty message; adam is living with someone (a friend? a mate?) who he's certain will kill him one of these days, and he's pregnant again (the likely catalyst for the call in the first place)

as he scrawls the address to a cafe to meet at that adam manages to list off through his sniffling, lawrence wonders with no measure of dread if adam managed to terminate the first pregnancy like he had planned. whatever is going on that's enough to bring a spitfire to tears is cruel to inflict on a pup.

the next time lawrence sees adam again, he's just as scrawny and pale as he was in the bathroom. only now he also holds faded yellow along his jaw and dark circles that have bruised just as brightly. his gaze is downcast when he explains in hushed tones how he had to move back in with scott ("the boy who stabbed you with a nail on your birthday?" "oh-- uh, yeah, i didn't think you'd remember that.") because the money he had saved for the abortion was stolen by his shithead landlord as rent money, and with medical debt, trauma, and no job on his back, he ended up kicked out anyway with the "bonus" of being too far along to terminate.

scott wasn't his first choice, but he was the first one to say yes and adam wasn't in the position to be picky. maybe they could figure out co-parenting -- the pup was his, after all. but adam knew scott better than that; scott didn't let him in out of the goodness of his heart, he wanted a warm body to knot whenever he pleased. that's why adam was there now.

"i can't bring another pup into this, lawrence, i can't. i can't even go to the clinic behind his back 'cause he keeps all our money with him and--"

"is that....?" lawrence had followed adam's jittering line of sight to where it kept flicking outside to where a little girl sat in a jalopy pretending to drive with a dog plush in her arms. adam had her stay in the car as to not 'manipulate' lawrence into taking them in if his heart wasn't in it, parked strategically so she was in full view from the booth.

"y-yeah," adam says back, fighting off waves of nausea from nerves and morning sickness. "sorry, couldn't leave her home, scott gets pissed if she bothers him and i couldn't risk it."

a splinter of his broken heart catches lawrence in the throat. he hopes jigsaw catches wind of him one day soon. "could you introduce me?" he asks him, head dipped so he has to look up to adam through his lashes -- a willful assurance that if he refuses, lawrence will respect the decision. in a small (publicly acceptable) way, lawrence is submitting to him despite holding their fates in his hands.

trina, he comes to learn, already knows about him. kind of. while adam excuses himself to have a minor episode in the bathroom, she asks if he's the bathroom pirate. "my daddy's got a friend with a pirate leg he met in the scary bathroom. is that you?" lawrence immediately adores her.

they're moved into lawrence's place in two days

misc notes:

adam's bondmark detox from scott is so harsh that lawrence has to keep a close eye on him to make sure he doesn't start miscarrying out of stress, and he still holds some scarring from scott's teeth

while using his 'claim' of an omega and production of a pup as status symbols to appear as a more attractive alpha, scott doesn't let trina call him any form of 'dad'. he opts for 'alpha', which chills adam to hear her refer to him as once they're out of there because it's like. giving him power even when he's not there.

trina learns a (child-friendlier) version of how adam and lawrence met after scott uses it to mock adam's vulnerability. adam leaves out the worst details.

"bothering scott" = when she sneaks out of her room past her bedtime to creep to the living room where scott is watching mtv and sit silently on the other end of the couch. she was completely silent until scott barked at adam "come get your fuckin' kid!" when she struggled to hold back crushed, apologetic whines ("you gotta leave him alone, baby," adam stressed as he rushed her down the hall, "you remember what happened last time? we gotta stay out of his way so it won't happen again, okay?")

[storiesbyjes2g]

3.163 See about me

Desiree woke up at a decent hour again, and I think I have it figured out. I put her to bed pretty late after our sweet potato adventure, so maybe if we keep her awake until we're about to fall out, she'll keep normal sleeping hours. We go downstairs for breakfast instead of having a bottle in the nursery. This time we try mashed carrots. Again, she eyes the jar curiously, probably hoping for another round of sweet potatoes. I start up the airplane, but this time when the spoon gets close, she smacks the carrots off the spoon and plays in it, making a huge mess.

Like, where did that thought even come from? What about breakfast triggered playtime? I mean, she went to town on those carrots. My child woke up and chose violence. It was so random and kind of hilarious, honestly. Maybe they weren't mashed enough for her tastes, heh.

"Uhh...I thought you were hungry," I said. "You know that's breakfast, right?"

She shrieked and giggled and looked so happy. I let her have fun and make a mess of everything in sight. Eventually she remembered what we were here for and let me feed her the carrots without any mishaps. Once again, she ate the whole thing.

"Was it good? Did you like it?"

Her face took me all the way out.

After all that fun and mess, the carrots were just okay I suppose. We'll have to try them again another time. She's getting to be so smart though, listening to the tone of our voices and learning our body language. I keep saying this, but it'll never stop being true. I love watching her grow, especially on the heels of her birthday. Things in her brain and body are happening fast to prepare her for toddler life. I know she's gonna own that too.

I got her bathed and cleaned up the mess. Around 11, we received an unexpected yet welcomed guest. Justin came by to check on me, and I appreciated it so much, even though we were getting ready to get dressed for the cemetery. Like I said before, we rarely hang out or talk, and my life could definitely use more testosterone, so I let him in. Less won't mind the delay. It's not like we're itching to lay our mother to rest, anyway. I woke up with zero plans to do the memorial today, but Sophia checked me. My mind was on Desi, and she knew it. She said I'd been busying myself with her to avoid it. I didn't see it that way, but she pointed out how I didn't even talk about Mama anymore. The more I keep things inside, and longer I put this off, the harder it's going to be, she said. She's right; she always is. So I texted Less and told her today was the day.

Like everyone else who's checked on me, he wanted to know how I'm holding up. His parents passed away many years ago as he is the youngest of five, with a substantial age difference between him and his older siblings. His parents had two sets of twins back to back and thought they were done. I guess they got a little reckless right before little Justin showed up, heh. His parents and the oldest brothers are gone, and the middle twins are quite old and probably on their way out soon, too. I knew he came from a big family, but that was news to me. I couldn't imagine dealing with losing my entire family and living without them for so long. He was basically the only child, so he's used to being alone. Still, I admire his resilience.

"How do you cope?" I asked.

He keeps himself busy, mostly. He has lots of friends because he frequents the karaoke bar where we met. He also joined a mixology club to meet like-minded sims and do what he loves. Working in a bar never appealed to him. The hours suck, and it only pays well at the highest levels. His social life was too important to give it a try, so he joined the Mixing Crew. It scratches the itch to make drinks while also creating a special bond between friends. I knew clubs like that existed, but never thought about finding one that suited me.

I loved learning more about him, and I especially appreciated the visit. We chatted for a little while longer before Sophia joined us and gracefully told him we had to leave. She knew I'd let him stay as long as he wanted and would put off this burial ordeal for another day. I love her so much. She keeps me in check and makes me do the hard things. Mama's advice from ages ago flashed across my mind. Think about what you want for your life, find someone who fits, and don't settle until you find her. Make sure she is the one person you can't live without. Take your time. One and done. Sophia is definitely my one and only, and she fits my life so well I can hardly believe it sometimes. I've always been grateful for that speech Mama gave. Sometimes I think it's the only thing that kept me focused when I was drowning in options, heh. I feel fortunate to have had a mother who cared enough to share her scars and the ugly parts of her life and had the hard conversations, just so we wouldn't repeat her mistakes. (sigh) Let's do this thing.

[tea-and-secrets]

.

(1)

I need to ramble about an ex friend real quick

Lets call him [RED] since that's not his real name but the similarities between him and this character are uncanny, and let's call me [GREEN] since that's my name.

So this guy. We've been friends since grade [REDACTED]. We've always been good friends. He's pretty cool, always been pretty cool. One day, in grade like [REDACTED], he just stops talking to me for some reason. Why, you ask!? BECAUSE HIS GIRLFRIEND CONVINCED HIM TO CUT OFF ALL HIS FRIENDS. but this isn't about his ex-girlfriend (boyfriend? Partner? Never bothered to update but I'm pretty sure his ex girlfriend was trans too). We managed to make up after that.

Anyway, we'd spent most of our childhoods on and off between this strange state of friendship and him not even acknowledging my existence. Grade [REDACTED] we were friends, grade [REDACTED] we weren't, grade [REDACTED] we were friends, grade [REDACTED] we were acquaintances, grade [REDACTED] was rocky but we eventually made up. And most of grade [REDACTED] was fine.

Then his ex started to say and do some pretty awful shit, including encouraging him to s/h. She was pretty horrible to me too, even when we were friends. Anyway, covid hits and we start losing contact, and then grade [REDACTED] starts and we're pretty much besties again since we never saw his ex again (where did she go?). We also met this one kid, who's gonna be important later on, who let's call [GREY].

(2)

Anyway, me and [RED] have a few more fights, and we end up in a low point. This is like the end of grade [REDACTED]. We're still friends, but it's not good. Me and [GREY] ended up getting closer over the summer, since we conveniently lived super close. [REDACTED] grade starts and me and [RED] get super close again, to the point of me confessing feelings for him that I've had since we met (Also confessing that I hated his crush (who let's name [BRONZE] since I'm an unoriginal whore), which leads to me never talking to [BRONZE] or any of her friends again, which i was fine with cause I'd always hated her), and he cuts me off for like an entire day or two or three. Which sucks, obviously, but we get over it and are besties. [GREY] and [RED] are also close, which makes sense.

Soon, me and [GREY] share each other's first kiss and start dating, and [RED] is PISSED. no clue why. So anyway, with a clueless little [GREEN] now dating a clueless [GREY], and a [RED] who seems to hate me and doesn't talk to [GREY], we end up having a fight that ends with me in tears and I do something that I very much regret (I set something of his on fire after school. Little [GREEN] was a pyromaniac -- i still sort of am).

Anyway, [GREY] forgives me since they knew that I was being impulsive and irrational, but [RED] is still not talking to me. Then, suddenly, the whole class save for [GREY] and my other best friend (Uhhh…. [CRIMSON], sure) starts hating me. Then, suddenly, the whole school. I ask [CRIMSON], and they (at the time she) tells me that [RED] had not only told everyone what I did, but also spread a shit ton of rumours about me. I was basically shunned from everyone and everything, until I had to move away later in grade [REDACTED].

Keep in mind, I was [REDACTED] years old when this happened.

(3)

Anyway, time skip a few horrible months, and I finally get in contact with [RED] again. He's convinced we're still besties, and by then I'd blocked grade [REDACTED] out of my head, so I start hanging out with him again, and invite him to my [REDACTED] birthday party. but for some reason he seems very uncomfortable with me. I ask him why, and it turns out that he's not comfy with how "friendly" I'm being.

Unbeknownst to me, I was acting like the end of grade [REDACTED] never happened -- which i was because i couldnt REMEMBER the end of [REDACTED] grade. So we have another fight, and we're basically never as good friends again as we used to be. We're still distant acquaintances.

Time skip another few horrible years, to about a month ago. During [REDACTED] grade, me and [GREY] had decided not to date, but we are still very good friends (occasionally with benefits). By now, [GREY] and [RED] are also friends. [GREY] gives me [RED]'s snapchat, and we start "chatting."

He asks me how I've been, and I return the favour. A few selfies. Some mutual updates on a game we like. He asks about school, and I tell him how junior high and high school had been since we last talked, since that's what you do. I ask the same, and he starts going off at or on me for - something?? I can't tell, but he doesn't seem happy.

Anyway, I don't answer his nonsensical rant, and he texts me a few weeks later "Hey, [GREEN], what's up??" So I, not liking him and now remembering why we stopped talking in the first place, again don't answer. A few days later, a lot of friends I had saved on snap from our old school had blocked me. Apparently, according to [GREY] at least, [RED] spread more rumours about me. His excuse? "Payback." IT WAS TWO YEARS AGO!! YOU CAN GET A NEW ONE!! You didn't have to make everyone hate me over it!!!

Anyway, yeah, we still haven't talked since then. I hate him and he hates me and I can't watch the character [RED] without thinking about him. It sucks, but I'm glad he's out of my life.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA if I told my friend I think they're making a mistake by moving/ am not up for a long distance friendship?

my friend(they/them) just started a LDR with their gf(she/her). they met ~3 weeks ago. they've met irl once for a weekend, after that they have been talking about moving out to her pretty much ASAP.

last week we were planning to hang out one day and I woke up to texts from them saying they were cancelling our plans bc they had started driving across the country to their gf at 3am to meet her kids because she expressed not wanting more kids (despite my friend having stated from the beginning of the relationship that they want to carry a child of their own and this is important to them, which she'd previously been enthusiastic about) this made me feel a bit abandoned (my problem ik) but also seems like a really bad idea and if anything a reason to hold off on meeting the kids because of a new found incompatibility. I haven't really heard from them all week. it sounds like they'll probably be back in town mostly to get their stuff before moving.

I'm not really sure exactly how this will play out, but my friend instantly started hanging out with me less and canceling plans as soon as they met, and I am kind of worried about them with how fast this is going, and kids being involved. my friend has repeatedly stated that I'm their "only friend", that I'm very important to them, want me to be there for their wedding and the birth of their child, and talked about me visiting them out there (I'm not really comfortable w this bc their gf is anti vaxx and open carries firearms which is a no no for me, my friend has also said they are uncomfortable with all that btw which feels icky bc they're rescinding boundaries for her). they even suggested me flying out there for my birthday next year ? which I found kind of weirdly insulting, like id have so little going on on my birthday that I'd want to go to the Midwest to be a third wheel and hang out with kids (im a bit younger than this friend in my early 20s and I'm uncomfortable around kids- they just find me boring and it's too much responsibility)

anyway the WIBTA - I want to tell this friend that I think this is kind of a bad idea, and that I'll be there for them if they are back in town - but that I don't plan to travel out to them or call/text much. we never text or call because we know we just don't work that way as friends, we've acknowledged this before - but they keep talking about how we'll stay in touch as if this hasn't been discussed? i feel disrespected by how unrealistic that is, I feel I can't really say a proper goodbye bc realistically that's what it would be and they're in denial of that.

Would this be cruel? I know it will upset them. it's not like im expecting to be able to change their mind, that was never realistic and this is their decision. but I feel like this is something I need to be upfront about to protect myself emotionally. but I'm not sure if my own anger from feeling abandoned for what I see as a potentially very bad situation (even though I know it's not personal) is clouding my judgement, and maybe I should just keep feigning being happy for them? but also I don't want to ghost when they leave, and I really am 100% sure we won't be able to keep in touch long distance. not just bc I don't want to - they started ignoring me when we lived in the same town and their partner was long distance - why would it be better in reverse?

What are these acronyms?

[anonymousbeefriendfanfics]

B with Asra and Nadia mayBEE?

I'm very punny I know

Sure! I adore you and your puns!

Fandom: The Arcana

Characters: Asra & Nadia

Warnings: None

Fluff Alphabet prompt: Boo! - How do they feel about surprises, giving and receiving?

Asra

Let's be honest here - Asra lives for surprises. He has a tendency to live life one minute at a time, so if you're going to be with them, you're going to get used to spontaneity.

That said, if you hate surprises, he'll do his absolute best to avoid them, but... it still happens kinda frequently. They do try to soften the surprise element, though, and will let you know about their new ideas or plans as soon as possible.

But anyway! Assuming you're on board, Asra loves surprises. So, so much. It's practically part of their love language at this point. They're constantly bringing you little surprise gifts - "I just saw this in the market and thought of you!" - or arranging little surprises for you! You'll come home from a long day at work to find that the upper floor of the shop has been transformed into the most relaxing place he could create, with oversized pillows and the fluffiest blankets strewn everywhere, and plenty of their best tea, and incense sticks burning a soothing scent, and just... everything they could think of.

Asra's favorite part of surprises is the reaction of the person receiving them. He lives for the look of surprised excitement, the way their eyes light up and the way they smile. It's addicting, and as absent-minded as our favorite magician can be, his favorite people are often on his mind whenever they see things that said people would like.

They also just enjoy surprising people in general, like showing up unannounced to bring them lunch or just hang out, and playfully spooking people from behind or popping out from behind something. That's one thing Asra and Faust have in common - both of them enjoy games and harmless pranks, and Asra is associated with the fox for a reason! You've lost count of how many times you wake up and roll out of bed only to end up in a magical sinkhole of pillows, or slip your shoes on only to find them, somehow, made of water, or misplace a book or something only to find it in the most unexpected place... The prank wars with Asra and Faust will be epic!

As for being the one getting the surprise, Asra absolutely adores it. They'll love anything you give them, truthfully, but they're a curious one - mention you're planning something and suddenly he's like a child impatiently trying to find their present before Christmas comes. Good luck hiding it with Faust around, too, because she can slip into the tiniest of places to search. Best to keep it quiet until you're ready.

Throw a surprise party for Asra's birthday. Chances are, he might've forgotten it, too - after all, I don't imagine Asra is one to keep track of dates very well, and the calendar he's got is almost always at least a month behind whenever it actually is. Invite all their friends, make a big deal out of it. Make them feel really special for once, because he is special!! Asra might feel a little embarrassed being the center of attention, but trust me, the reminder that they're loved and appreciated is well worth it.

Also, if you can give him random little gifts?? Perfection. It'll make Asra's entire day to know that you found something and thought of him - or, even better, made something for him. Your skill level doesn't matter, so long as it's done with love, Asra will see the beauty in it and cherish it forever.

Nadia

I don't think Nadia is one for surprises, at least, not in the beginning. She's the Countess of Vesuvia, she needs everything to go smoothly and she must be on top of everything at all times. Surprises stress her out. If you'd asked her earlier, she'd tell you she hates them. 'Surprise,' to her, means some sort of prank pulled on her by one of her many sisters, or some stunt Lucio has pulled, or something being wrong that she must attempt to fix, a courtier showing up unannounced to insist upon speaking with her. All negative things, nothing good ever comes from a surprise. That is... until she meets you.

You change things for her. Showing up unannounced is no longer an annoyance that she must make time for, but a pleasant moment she wasn't expecting. Bringing her gifts isn't something that must leave her mentally scrambling for political reasons, but a completely harmless, well-meaning gesture.

She doesn't even realize her perspective on surprises has shifted until you grab her by the hand and tug her gently towards a mystery destination, cheerfully informing her you have a surprise for her. Her shoulders instinctively tense at the word, but for once, she isn't dreading what you have in store - no, this time she's eager to see what it is you've prepared, and she feels the flutter of excitement in her chest for the first time as you lead her. Perhaps it's a soothing spa day you've arranged in that incredible pool-sized bath to help her relax, perhaps you're leading her to a secluded room for a little tea date, or maybe you're leading her outside to go and gaze at nature together - whatever it is, she will surely love it, and surprise takes on a different meaning for her.

On the other hand, Nadia is one who surprises you constantly, though she prefers not to think of it that way at first. She absolutely showers you in gifts, little tokens of her affection, and she often plans things for the two of you as well, surprising you with little trips to various places and the occasional date to go somewhere more special and intimate. She's a very busy woman, so she doesn't often have the time for much in the way of event planning, but she wants your company wherever it is she's going and does her best to make it enjoyable and not just... work. Impromptu stops are very common on these little trips, as she'll see somewhere that she'd like to show you or a cute little shop and pause the journey to go explore.

Writing Masterlist 🐝 Requests Open!  Tag List 🐝 

[iantimony]

not a yearly roundup! just a tuesdaypost!

the yearly roundup coming soon!

listening: playing some podcast catch-up, also did some KONGOS, thanks beloved mutual celestialtourguide. Odysseus by Brian Keane was also linked in a server I'm in and I like it.

reading: there was exactly one day in which I and a bunch of my friends all overlapped in the same place so we were able to convene at beloved mutual celestialtourguide's apartment on this past Saturday! in there I noticed the volumes of "Witch Hat Atelier" on the shelf and WHILE SITTING THERE HANGING OUT I zoomed through the first two volumes. I borrowed 3 and 4 and read them that night. I have since read through volume 9. I am forcing myself to stop reading for today and will space out the last three available volumes in the next few days because it is more fun than just binging even though it's sooo easy to binge, especially a manga. I love you libby I love you my public libraries, all the volumes were available with no waits. apparently there is a new volume in January and an anime coming out sometime next year so I'm now very excited for that.

some really really good characters in here. I haven't checked yet but I will be SO disappointed if people aren't smashing Qifrey and Olruggio together like dolls. listen there is just something so . something. about one wiping the other's memory like that. has it happened before? who knows. it's fine. it's so good. the tassel swap. augh. and not to bring the cnovel shizunfucking into it but beldaruit and qifrey too huh. anyways. I didn't know it was still in progress when I started reading so now I'm really excited to have a series to keep up with!

Contemplation of a Decaying Corpse: The Japanese Art of Kusôzu: content warning for graphic corpse decay. it is a little funny to me as described as "feeling horny? go look at a rotting corpse, you won't be horny any more"

Thread: What do Ancient Greek myths tell us about the Greek view of Omegas? (ghostwriterofthemachine, loosingletters): REALLY fun. love a little omegaverse metafiction. formatting probably looks best on desktop.

watching: watched most of the single Chanukah hallmark movie. fun to watch in a 'laughing at weird hallmark choices' kind of way.

Getting My Life Together for the New Year (Morgan Evelyn Cook): her again! she has a lot of Youtuber Vibes (idk if that means anything but whatever). good background noise.

why does wicked look like that? (Mina Le): color grading discourse! fun little history recap of the wizard of oz and film grading in general! she does pronounce "Fiyero" as "Fero" a few times and it made my brain go friends at the table mode lol

playing: fallow

making: working on the fingerless gloves! these will be a birthday gift for my mom instead of a holiday gift lol but I had other stuff for her so it's fine.

eating: made this pineapple bread to use up some crushed pineapple leftover from a kugel! I pressed in some pomegranate seeds into the top as well. it came out tasty but it was a bit of a harrowing bake - there was a point where the edges were cooked but the center was still raw?? which was scary. it took an extra FORTY minutes (!!!!) from what was prescribed in the recipe to cook in the center and thankfully it didn't burn the edges. it was a little dry because of that but still tasty! made it for a Chanukah hangout with some friends, have had some delicious latkes in the past week, all is well :-)

also made the overnight oats ratio from this reddit post, it was good but I feel like the oxidation of the banana made an impact on the taste after a day or two. still edible, just hmm.

misc: posting this on a Monday night and will be writing up my yearly roundup tomorrow on the last Tuesday and last Day, Period of 2024!!!!

[jordiemakesartorsmth]

realized a post i wanted to make here didn't upload, so here you go:

first, here's some art for my tav, Alyraema Daevion'Lyr. I love how they both turned out even though the right one is obviously still a WIP (she will have clothes soon i swear)

a short a little comic. the picture i took didn't turn out as clear as i wanted it to, sorry about that. anyway, the little character is saying "Demisexuality/romanticism, I love you so much!" This is me. I'm the one in love with demisexuality/romanticism

I drew Kuromi in a cute little dress. also I drew Jaiden Animations' vtuber model because i thought it looked neat. used this to practice shading with colored pencils :3

also there's a bat doodle cuz i was bored

egg sheeran. that is all

little sketches i did for practice before making my friends' birthday presents.

little doodles i did because i was bored. two of the sketches are of my cat, Boba, because i love her so much <3

i also drew the magic conch shell from SpongeBob to practice still life (the room me and my friends hang out in at college has a magic conch shell and we ask it questions. it's fun :D)

i also drew little guys. one is high on weed because why not. the other is loosely based off of one of my good friends (who i may have a deep feelings for. no, i will not elaborate)

this was based off of an image i found on tumblr. it was a pretty neat image of vines on a lamp post that resembled some sort of creature. i unfortunately was not able to find it, but if someone is able to find it, please send me a dm and i will include it in a reblog of smth.

some practice with braids in two different styles. also a sketch of a bird statue i have in my room

i have some more sketches i may be willing to share if anyone wants to see more, but that is all for now. hope you enjoyed a look in my sketchbook!

[urbanxfantasy]

What’s currently going on with Toni and the gang?

So the thing is not a whole lot has been going on the past few months because Real Life happened to basically everyone in my discord group and we've been collectively busy, but I'm going to take this opportunity to summarise what's been going on for the past few years because people I haven't written with since 2016 are here again and explaining what's up with Toni now is an endeavour.

So:

(Tumblr I swear to all that is holy stop moving my read more)

2016-2018

2016 was a hell of a year for Toni. The absolute worst year of her life. Her adopted nephilim sons were murdered as part of infernal politics, Zeke vanished with his brothers in the wake of it, she herself was killed by Hanael due to actions taken to protect Lucida, and then Lucida herself was killed by a different demon anyway after expending her life debt bringing Toni back.

She doesn't do grief well. Can't sit in sadness. She got angry, because anger can save her when everything else is gone, and right then everything else was gone. She left New Orleans with one goal in mind; find a way to kill the demon who killed her children. At the time, she expected this goal to follow her into the afterlife.

At some point in her search for answers she came across Zeke, out on a depression bender after becoming disillusioned with his brother's quick rush into their next misadventure, but they parted ways again soon after.

2019

Toni met Mara (then possessing and going by Malcolm), the literal Whore of Babylon and queen of the NOLA crossroads, online and arranged a coffee date. Discovering that they rather enjoyed each other's company, the pair began to hang out more often. A few months later Toni made Mara her first birthday cake, and the demon's strong reaction to being shown basic kindness means they've been best friends ever since, even if Mara did insist on telling her that her body was "10/10, would posess"...

Ray, one of Mara's underlings and her current lieutenant, was assigned as Toni's bodyguard. Proving to be extremely food-motivated, he has since become Toni's roommate.

2020

Due to the pure coincidence of @concentratedbitterness picking a royal demon name out of a hat and landing on Andras: When Toni learnt that Marquis Andras, the instigator in her children's murder (and factor in much more of 2016's chaos besides) was causing problems for Mara in a bid to expand his own territory by snatching away the one she has worked tirelessly for centuries to make profitable, she sensed an opportunity for at least some petty revenge and threw what resources she had behind the pit demon. However, twists of politics and the revelation of personal secrets (first, that Toni is a former hunter and competent exorcist that the demon had neither suspected or guarded against, and second that Mara has a son whose creation was engineered by Hell to be a God Killer, who had not died during birth as she had lead Hell to believe but was in fact hidden away and being raised by his angelic father) forced more drastic action.

Mara needed to kill Andras.

Toni wanted Andras' death to be by her own hand.

Toni then asked Mara to possess her. Combining the demon's strength and power reserves with Toni's hunter background and research into the weaknesses of that one Marquis in particular, they brought the bastard down.

(In the intervening time, Malcolm, who Mara had intended to re-possess, was set free by Ray...)

Unfortunately, weakened in the aftermath of their victory, they were captured by other demons. This forced Mara's husband, the angelic father of her hidden son, to come out of hiding to rescue her, leading to his own capture by Heaven soon after. In a bid to protect his family, he agreed to take up his long dodged responsibility of overseeing the realm of Purgatory on the condition that they be allowed to come with him. Therefore, Mara (now in possession of a new, brain-dead host after Toni kept telepathically scaring off any conscious girl she tried to pick off the street) found herself dragged to Purgatory against her will, leaving Toni in possession of her earthly estate.

Around the same time, Malcolm, who had been taken on as an appentice by the long-time patron and distant relative of the Brockways, the warlock Santiago de Castilla, kidnapped Ray after rediscovering the notes of Santiago's former apprentice snd reignited an experiment begun on Ray several years earlier; a process to cleanse a demonic soul.

After a negative reaction to part of the experiment lead to Ray tearing off Malcolm's leg and escaping, Toni reconnected with her former roommate. Though her relationship to both parties was strained (with Ray for letting Malcolm go despite the risk he posed to Mara and herself, and with Malcolm for obvious reasons) she offered whatever assistance she could in seeing the experiment succeed, as in it she saw an opportunity to rescue her condemned-by-birth children, if something could only be done to retrieve their souls from Hell.

In the time between their rescue and Mara moving to a new host, Toni became aware through observing Mara and Hanael's private conversations by proxy that Han had begun a put rebellion in Hell which was taking full advantage of the chaos sewn by their assassination of Andras.

After a few months getting affairs in order, Toni and Mara are able to reconnect digitally if not in person. At the same time, Zeke quit his depression bender and reconnected with Toni. After being forced to confront both their grief and feeling for each other they became an official couple.

Toni also took on magic lessons with the fae queen Anna, in order to improve her glamour skills. They came to an understanding regarding Toni's part in her estranged husband's assassination.

With some nudging and woo-to-demon-speak translation work from Toni, Mara transitioned to drawing on Purgatory's energy source as opposed to Hell, suffering many of the same side effects as Ray was during Malcolm's experiment. Noticing the similarities, Toni encouraged the demon to allow information to be shared with her former adversary, helping the experiment with Ray along. Within a few months, Ray was shown to be successfully unbound from Hell.

2021

Toni then heard through the grapevine of supernatural contacts the Han's rebellion continued, but was struggling as the Crowns recovered from the earlier chaos. There lied the next opportunity; to secure her children's souls and take some manner of revenge on the royals who were complicit in their deaths all at once. With Mara's help she made a contract and braved a face to face meeting with Han to present it; all sensitive information gathered on the Crowns during years of overlooked observation and the location of Mara's remaining caches, in return for Han bringing her children along for the ride when he eventually made his run for the door.

While this took place, Mara was crowned Queen of Purgatory, and announced the annexation of the New Orleans territory during the official banquet. What seemed a petty and ill-considered move on its face was actually a calculated play in Toni's favour; resources spent on the territory dispute were resources not available to combat the rebellion or the rescue that relied on it. Meanwhile, New Orleans had been Mara's home base for centuries, with protections against such disputed built into the foundation. All they had to be was activated, and opposition was driven out over night, providing a secure territory for the escapees to retreat to. For security reasons, Toni's family was also moved inside the territory for their protection, revealing the supernatural to them in the process.

Purgatory also began taking in refugees from Hell, with the possibility of freeing them in the same manner as Ray.

Though not without complications, Toni's children were successfully retrieved from Hell, and brought to Purgatory for their own protection. Preparations began to adapt the experiment to their needs. Part of this experiment required drawing blood from the nephilim themselves. While Eli had stabilised and begun to recognise his mom enough to allow it, Asher, who had been much younger at his death and much further along in his demonization, pretended to allow it only long enough for Toni to get close enough to become dinner, then devoured the whole of her lower left arm before anyone could intervein. Devourement being somewhat irreparable, no healing magic would restore it.

Unfortunately, Mara had unintentionally become pregnant with a second god-killer. Heaven discovered this and came knocking at Purgatory's door, spurring Toni to make a deal with Anna for mutual protection of each other's children should trouble come knocking. Anna, learning of Toni's arm situation, offered a fae prosthetic, assuaging Toni's suspicion about the cost by declaring it payment for not going full scorched-earth in her revenge and preventing others from doing the same.

The pregnancy would almost kill Mara, if not for an instance of cross timeline time-travel. Mara's daughter 'Fig' (birth name Antonia), who had been forcibly taken as a ward of Heaven and trained to fulfil the role of the antichrist after it had been rejected by Mara's son in her own timeline, had rebelled against her teachers and jumped through time, seeking the familiar energy signature of Han and Audrey's own god-killer infant daughter. Han, after deducing who she was, attempted to introduce her to Mara in the hope that her power might allow her to rescue the demon from her lethal pregnancy. However, contact between this timeline's foetal Fig and the alternate timeline's adult Fig proved catastrophic, with adult Fig absorbing the very essence of the unborn child and irradiating Mara and her host. Mara re-possessed Toni with her permission and remained dormant within her through months of grief. Only Toni's need to move on with the experiment with her own children convinced the now not quite a demon to take a new host.

The experiment proved a success with Eli, but failed for Asher. Grieving her own child while still not having time to process and box away Mara's grief from the latest possession, Toni threw herself into her work of documenting everything they had achieved and learned.

And then she collapsed.

It turns out that being possessed by what she would later call a 'semi-divine entity' had left Toni with irreparable damage to her health, as Mara had changed her body over the course of her own recovery in order to draw in sufficient energy from Purgatory without knowing the long term consequences it would have for her friend, only to cut Toni off from that energy when she left. She now requires a higher calorie intake to avoid hypoglycaemic crashes, is medicated with a medicine Anna used to regulate her own energy when pregnant by Andras, and must moderate her magic usage to avoid knocking herself out.

Mara's husband also died around this time, leaving Mara as the sole regent yet unable to properly control the realm.

2022

Anna's realm suffered repeat incursions from Hell due to problems caused by the rebellion. When the Crowns refused to take action in accordance with the tithe treaties, Anna cut ties and declared war on Hell. Toni found out about this when the deal she had negotiated to protect her own children was called in by Anna to protect Labella.

With their refugees energy situation proving to be a struggle in an already unstable realm, Toni saw another opportunity and negotiated temporary access to the fae realm's energy in order for Malcolm to try a further experiment on former tithe slaves.

And then there was the bomb.

Hell had smuggled a bomb through agents posing as refugees into Purgatory and planted it at the wellspring of its energy, devastating the realm at large and nearly killing Mara, who ended up possessing Toni again for a brief moment before finding a new host to return and oversee the damage. Though claimed as an assassination attempt, it was a cover for Prince Stolas to steal the remains of the infant Fig in order to do further research into the god-killers.

In the aftermath and with some far less than gentle threats negotiation from Toni, Malcolm was convinced to start working with purgatory in order to solve the refugee energy crisis. To do so, Audrey and Ig tracked down the soul of Augusto de Castilla, Santiago's son, who had been burned at the stake as a result of a deal with Mara to rescue his father from the Spanish inquisition centuries ago. He was an expert in alchemy and time magic.

Also, Toni's little sister started dating Leroy Brockway, Malcolm's nephew. Due to this, she invited Lee's family including Santiago to her family's Christmas dinner. Where Eli, upon learning that Santago's familiar Magdalena had "the same name as Mr Augusto's", spilled the beans about Augusto which until that point had been kept from Santiago lest he do something dangerous.

In the damage control conversation Toni had with Santiago immediately after this, he revealed a book he'd been given supposedly by someone from the future. One of the authors was Antonia herself. She might have thought it was some kind of trick, if it hadn't contained finished paragraphs based on notes she had only just written and not yet shown anyone. It is a book she is already writing without realising, despite swearing to never write a boot on her experiences since Gabriel (the angel of prophets) suggested it to her years ago. She does not want to think about the implications.

It's worth noting that Mara has a blood-vendetta against the entire Brockway bloodline, so when Toni found out Lee had gotten Hannah pregnant, Toni shot him in the ass (she was aiming to kill him, but Hannah pushed her and threw her aim).

Current

Toni is trying to ignore that she's doing prophet things while edging ever closer to doing even more obviously prophet things.

There is an ongoing thread of Toni pointing a celestial-enchanted gun (that Han designed) at Han and telling him to stop threatening to kill her on a whim all the time.

Due to a series of unfortunate and very stupid events, Han crushed Malcolm's hands and no one has managed to convince him to come back to purgatory if and when he recovers yet.

Hannah's pregnancy is ongoing but the timeline has been intentionally blurred until we have time to nail down some key precursor plot points because there's a whole reincarnation thing in here somewhere.

------

Most of these plot points are expended on if you read the drabble tags:

Toni's Drabble Tag

and @concentratedbitterness: HERE

I don't know where anyone else involved keeps theirs.

[queen--kenobi]

AITA for reminding my future wife (18F) that I love her?

Throwaway account because I don't trust her stalker not to find this and use it as proof I'm a bad person 🙄

I (19M) have been in love with this girl, E, since we were young. I even told one of my older brothers, we'll call him Tyw, I was gonna marry her and that E and I were destined to be like him and his late wife were. She knows this. We talked about our wedding when we were 14 and 15.

When she turned 16, she started acting real cold around me, and I don't understand what I did. It doesn't matter because I'm going to marry her, but it bothered me a little. I just chalked it up to her getting really early wedding jitters. I decided to go ahead and plan our wedding so she wouldn't have to worry about a thing.

When she turned 17 she started talking to one of our mutual friends, D (19M). We're a close-knit community so everyone knows everyone. I thought it was just her trying to make me jealous so I just stopped talking to her for several months. I don't play petty games. Anyway, I couldn't take not talking to her so when Tyw went to go check on her family and their business (they work for us), I tagged along. I talked to her, and I told her as soon as she turned 18 she'd officially be mine. It shouldn't have been a surprise; we'd been talking about it for going on 4 years now. She acted like I'd slapped her. I also told her dad I was gonna propose, and he got super mad at me. E has always been a Daddy's girl so maybe that's why she got weird on me? I don't know why her dad doesn't like me, it's not like I did anything to him. I may have taken teasing his youngest, and E's younger brother R(14M) too hard, but that's it! I don't know what her dad's problem is.

Anyway, about 3 months before E turned 18 she ran away from home with D. At first I thought D kidnapped her! Naturally me and my brothers picked D up and questioned him. We did rough him up a bit, but like. I thought he kidnapped my future wife, I was totally justified! Tyw found a train ticket D left, and it was to the biggest city in our state. The only reason I didn't go right away was because another one of my brothers, Tyl, lives in that ciry. He could protect her if needed.

We roughed D up a bit more, and I guess we killed him at some point? I mean he deserved it because he forced my wife to leave me so idc.

I will say I might have taken it too far when I flayed him before we dropped him off at home. In my defense we brand all the guys who work for us. It's a cultural thing so you can't get mad at me it's totally normal here. Besides they know what they're in for we've been doing this forever. Plus, it's an honor to get it. I didn't flay him entirely, I just removed his brand because he didn't deserve it anymore, on account of him being a traitor.

R, her younger brother, turned 14 that week. He's a hard worker and his family has always listened to mine, so my brothers and I decided to give him the brand early. He was the youngest to get it.

I wrote E letters telling her all of this. My brother Tyl delivered them, although he refused to tell me where she lives. Sometimes I think he has a thing for her? Not the point. It does bother me, though. E never responded to any of my letters. Tyl eventually told me she probably didn't want to hear from me because I killed D. If I could explain myself in person, I knew she'd forgive me!

The day before her birthday I had Tyl make arrangements for me, her, and him to go to lunch. I wanted to surprise her and show her that I was serious about marrying her and making it work. I took a train to her city. I eventually found out where she worked. It was weird, two rando brothers (Ae and Aem) were hanging off her arm! I really didn't loke the way Aem was looking at her. I'm pretty sure he was stalking her because he was following her everywhere. I also heard he'd announced she was under his protection? I admit that pissed me off because that's my job as her future husband.

I waited until she closed to talk to her. This guy came up to her and started harassing her? He threatened to kill her. I couldn't sit back and watch, so I killed him. E seemed totally surprised to see me, which was nice. I had hoped to surprise her. She took me back to her house and let me stay on her couch as a thank you. I woke up before her so I fixed some stuff around her place.

She woke up, and Tyl came by so we all went to lunch. Tyl didn't get reservations where I wanted, which pissed me off a little. When we went to lunch, I gave E a hair comb made of gold with pearls in it. It was a huge deal because it's a way to announce an engagement. She didn't open it and kept trying to give it back, which pissed me off because it was expensive! Tyl even tried to get me to take it back. And then Aem came in and asked E to a birthday dinner at his family home and gave her a gift? She accepted it too, probably just to be nice. I snuck my gift into her handbag because I was tired of arguing with her.

After we took E home, Tyl got really mad at me. He doesn't get mad often so this really threw me off. He was saying I embarrassed him and her by trying to do a public proposal. He said that I was coming off too strong and that I should give her some time? I absolutely think he just wants her, but still. It bothered me. I just wanted E to know I love her and think about her! When I went home, I talked to Tyw. He said when I bring her back I should remind her of her place. I'm thinking if branding her before our wedding? I'd normally wait until after, but Tyw does have a point.

TL;DR: My future wife ran away, so I wrote her letters to remind her I loved her and even tried to surprise on her birthday. I even killed 2 men for her. She and one of my brothers think I took it too far, but another one of my brothers said I need to remind her of her place. I just did this all because I need her to know I love her. AITA?

[greeen-bean]

Friday

"Maybe it just takes seventy years to get the hang of being alive."

"'I'll never forget what dear old John Lennon said: We're more popular than Jesus now. They attacked him for it that, I'll tell you. But he was right. It was a religion.'"

"'They gave these girls something very safe to love. Something that would never bite them back. In the sixties, everything would bite you back if you were a girl.' I wonder whether that's why I love The Ark. Because they're safe. But they're not, are they? They still managed to bite me back when I got too close."

"'Were you part of beatlemania?' I ask her. She chuckles and looks down at the table. 'Well, that was a long time ago,' she says."

"When am I going to get to visit Granddad next? Who knows when I I'll have my next day off? What if he dies before then? What if I've already seen him for the last time?"

" Friends come and go. Right? I've been through this already so many times before. Friends are good for a while, but eventually, you have to move on. 'Best Friends Forever' is an imaginary concept. No one can be friends forever. Not with me anyway. Doesn't matter. It's all good. I've still got The Ark."

"He huffed a laugh. 'Are those the only two options? 'Fancy' or 'deeply in love'?'"

"'I get it.' 'What?' 'I get why you lied.' I smile weakly. 'I do stuff like that too. Back at home, with my school friends. I just say things to be liked and... stay silent about stuff I care about. Because I feel like no one cares about the "real me". But with Juliet I felt a bit more like myself.'"

"Sometimes I look at Rowan and can't remember what he used to look like. [...] He had rimless glasses and short tight curls. His jumper was way too big for him. As soon as we both learnt that we each wanted to be in a band we were best friends. The boy next to me isn't anything like that boy. Not bright-eyed and excited to tell me about the new guitar he got for his birthday. Not dragging me to the music block to show me he could play the baseline of a Vaccines song. No laughter. No wonder. We got what we wanted in the end, though. Didn't we? We wanted to be in a band."

"Lister starts tapping out a quiet jazz beat on the drums. [...] I start pressing the buttons on my lunch pad in time with Lister's beat. It isn't on, so it doesn't any sound apart from rhythmic clicks. [...] Rowan starts plucking a few notes in time with my button-pressing and Listers beat. [...] Lister starts singing under his breath. 'And when he gets to heaven,' he sings - words I don't know, and a tune that goes somehow perfectly with the chords Rowan is making up on the spot - 'to Saint Peter he will tell: one more soldier reporting, Sir. I've served my time in hell.'"

"Sometimes I think about taking drugs. Sometimes I think it might help. When I see Lister smoke and drink, I know it's bad, but I understand why he does it. So he doesn't have to think. I hate thinking."

"' You know I love you, right?' he says, his voice sounding different, low, right next to my ear. 'I know you and Rowan have always been a team, but... I love you too... okay?'"

"'Do you ever imagine what would happen if we just... ran away?' asks Lister, suddenly. [...] 'I think about it all the time,' I say. God I want to try. 'Do you?' 'Yeah?' God, I just want to go. 'I should try it,'"

"I could go and see Granddad. We could celebrate my birthday and he could make me hot chocolate and we could play Scrabble."

"I step backwards, away from him, away from the window. 'I think I'm gonna go,' I say. His grin drops. 'Jimmy... are you joking?' I step back a little more dropping down from the pavement. My heart is beating so fast.I feel so fucking good. 'No,' I say. [...] It's silent apart from the pattering of the rain. 'Where are you going?!' He shouts at me. Oh God, I could go anywhere."

"Juliet or Jimmy? It's an obvious choice, right? I need to talk to Juliet. Jimmy will have to wait. I can message him on Twitter later. He'll probably never see it anyway. Juliet is the priority today. I need to talk to her. I need to repair the mess I've made."

"'Whatever's troubling you, it'll go away.' I look back at him and say, 'What?' He he taps his finger on the steering wheel. 'I know it can't be easy being someone like you. D'you have friends around you? People to support you?' I mumble something about being fine and close the door. Enough of that."

"I want Angel to come with me. I don't know why, but I do. Is it because I know I won't be able to get through out of here alone? Maybe. Is it because I feel drawn to her? I don't know. I don't know why I feel anything anymore. Maybe it's just because she's the only fan in the world who knows who I really am. I don't want to just say goodbye and never see her again."

"'My Grandma's dead, I say. She stops talking. 'My mum and dad have always worked. They're divorced and they've both got big business careers that take them all over the world, which is why I've lived with my grandparents since I was little. But because of that I've never been close to them. They they don't really care about me that much so I don't speak to them very often.' She doesn't talk. Our shoes splash against the road. 'My older sister goes to university in America. We don't really talk. She doesn't like people knowing we're related.'"

"I go to the front of the pews and sit for the first time in weeks, months, I don't know how long, reach out to God. He's Waiting. He always is. No matter how long I go, no matter how shit it all gets, at least I have one or two things waiting for me. God doesn't care whether I have one pound or one hundred million. God doesn't care if I make a mistake, if I fuck up again and again and again. God asks me 'How are you?' and I just start crying. I try to be quiet but I can hear my sniffs echoing from the stone walls. God says, 'Say something,' and I tell Him that I don't know what to say, and He says, 'Anything you've got.' But I just cry some more. God tells me, 'Everything that happens is making you stronger,' and I want to believe Him but I can't. 'I love you anyway,' He tells me. At least someone does."

"'But the trouble is, while asking for help is always good, it's impossible to keep relying on others to solve your problems for you. There comes a point where you have to help yourself. Believe in yourself.'"

"There is one thing I'm sure of. One thing I know is the right decision now. Not stupid. Not sad. Not pitiful. I'm freeing myself. I'm leaving The Ark."