#at this point you’d think I’d put it in a pinned or in my bio or something but NOPE | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

tittyblade · 4 years ago

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tumblr etiquette 101

a list that is nowhere near exhaustive, from yours truly.

First off, welcome! Whether you’re a twitter veteran looking for anything but whatever twitter is, or a new user just done signing up, glad to see you in our ranks beloveds! Welcome home. Refer to this quick tour to make sure your fandom experience (or tumblr experience in general) is a positive one!

Disclaimer: I know it’s long, but please try to read or skim through til the end if you’re new here! This is by no means meant to be a rule book (for the most part lol), only a guide to help you get settled easier!

1) Your blog

This is where people will see and interact with you, so put some effort into it!

Try to choose a name (url) that’s simple. You can see it as your brand, it’s how people will perceive you and remember you. If you’d like to interact with other users here (and not use the site just for the content) it’s better to have something short and sweet, preferably without spaces. (Of course, these are only suggestions.) Rest assured, you can change it literally any time you want.

Have a theme. Utilize the tool that lets you edit your blog’s color or the font of your bio! You can make it match your profile picture, or your blog if it has a theme of its own. Make it feel homey :]

Fill in your bio. People will be checking out your profile probably more often than you think. Don’t leave it empty! Put in any information you’re comfortable with sharing and isn’t too personal (like your age if you’re a minor, or other TMI that can be found on other people’s carrds). It’s always better to add a name/nickname people can use to refer to you by, but feel free to use your blog description to shitpost still.

You can have an intro post. More often than not, you’ll see a blog have a pinned post, a post permanently appearing at the top of a blog until you pin another post or unpin it. You can make one of those, if you’d like to introduce yourself in more length, link any other socials or a carrd, and show others visiting your blog how you tag things so it’ll be easy for them to navigate. Not an obligation.

Keep your anonymity and your safety. It should go without saying, but there’s no harm in repeating it just in case. Your comfort, privacy and safety has the utmost importance. Don’t share any information you don’t want to. Don’t share your age if you’re a minor, or any other incredibly personal info. I’d encourage you to go by a nickname that’s not your real name, (blog name, your brand, remember?) since there’s safety in anonymity, and that’s lowkey one of the big deals of tumblr, but that’s up to you still.

Choose what you want to be visible. Your liked posts and who you follow are all things you can set to keep to yourself and hide from the publics eye, how handy! You should go through all the setting while you’re at it, set it to your comfort.

Side blogs are a thing. You can have multiple blogs that you can use for different things (see: different fandoms, art blog, etc) to keep them organized or away from your followers. Just remember that the replies and off-anon asks you send will be from your main blog, as well as where you follow other blogs from.

2) Interacting with others

You’ve set up your account, now comes the fun part!

Follow to your heart’s desire. If you care about others seeing who you follow, fear not! In tumblr, usually only two types of blogs keep their following visible to others: newbies, and big blogs using it to point people on other good blogs’ direction. Just turn it off, and go ham following people.

Customize your dashboard. Gonna mention just two things here: this is another reason why it’s really important that you follow blogs without sparing, your dash will collect dust otherwise; and you should turn off “best stuff first” in your dashboard settings, to have a better community here and all.

Follow tags. You can set it in your settings that posts with your followed tags appear on your dashboard.

You can check the og post for edits and context. When you see a reblogged post you don’t understand the context of (or don’t recognize the character in case of fanarts), click on the profile so it will take you to the original post. From there you can check the original poster’s tags to get the context, or see if there have been any edits made to the post, since when you edit a post it doesn’t update any past reblogs.

Send people asks... This is how you make mutuals, people! Do it off-anon if you’d like them to know your blog, or anon if you’d rather not! (You can still end your messages with a signature to show you’re the same person, -[name] is one example.) Send them nice messages, ask their opinion on something, discuss things, or just straight up shitpost lol. Go wild. The sky’s your limit and it’s definitely more than 280 characters.

...and let them ask you! You can set your preference in the settings, do it on desktop tumblr to access more settings tho! What you can customize on mobile is limited (like letting people ask you things anonymously, that’s only on desktop settings). In my personal opinion, it’s always better to tag their username (or a nickname you give them, if they’re a friend) on that post, since you wouldn’t want your interactions with your friends to get buried in your blog forever.

Comment on posts. If you have something to say but don’t want the post to appear on your blog you can add a comment. The owner of the post will get a notif for it, but for anyone else you need to tag them.

For the love of god, reblog. People will only see your liked posts if you have it visible to public and they specifically go on your blog to look at them. You like something? You reblog. It’s already hard for posts to circulate properly, if you don’t reblog them literally no one will see them. If not for anything do it for the artists. Just hold and drag on mobile to fast rb.

3) Your Posts

Finally here! Don’t be a lurker, post and engage!

Make use of “read more”. If your post is long, add it. That’s what you clicked on earlier to expand this post. On desktop leave an empty line and you’ll see three dots appear, and on mobile type :readmore: on that empty line.

Draft a post to come back to it later. Pretty self explanatory.

Queue your post. Whether it’s your own post or you’re reblogging, make use of the queue feature to a) not spam reblog and fill up the dashboard of people following you and b) keep your blog active while you’re gone. Mess around in the settings, it’s fairly easy to set up.

Schedule your post. Same as queueing, the only difference is you get to choose the exact time your post will go up. Handy if you want to schedule a post for certain dates like april fools, or 5 years in the future for some reason.

Format your texts. You can do all kinds of fancy stuff here (that’s a link, try pressing on it). Twitter doesn’t have this, make use of it. Changes depending on whether you’re on mobile or desktop. (Desktop has less features.)

Check your stats. If you’re trying to understand the algorithm better or want to look at some pretty graphs you can get your data on that on desktop tumblr.

@ people in comments. You’ll get all the notifs when people comment on your posts but they won’t see your reply unless you tag them in your message.

4) Tags, and tagging a post

This is where my earlier statement “this isn’t a rule book” stops being applicable. It’s not a war crime to go against these, I won’t come chasing you (don’t take my word for this) but you’ll work up a bad rep. Just saying lol.

Do NOT crosstag posts. It’s really tempting to add unrelated tags to increase your posts’ interaction, I know, but that’s not what tumblr is about. Don’t be a dick and make other communities’ experience worse for them.

Always tag your posts with “crit/critical/discourse/etc” if it calls for it. There’s no exceptions to it. This is the reason you see people migrating to tumblr. Let people enjoy things.

Don’t main tag a critical/negative post. If your crit post is about “Thing”, you add the “Thing critical” tag, but not the “Thing” tag. People block crit tags if they don’t want to see it, don’t shove it in their faces by main tagging it.

If you don’t want to see something, just block it. Another reason why people are able to survive on tumblr. You don’t start discourse, you don’t make call-outs, you block. You can find something for every community you can think of if you go looking for it. The worst of the worst probably won’t ever appear on your dash, but if you’re worried or feel the need for it, you know where the block button is.

Feel free to shitpost or ramble. More often than not you’ll see people rb a post with a comment, and their elaboration will be in the tags. The tags are only visible on your profile and the notifications of the owner of the og blog. Just a thing people do.

Reblog artists’ posts with nice comments in the tags! Commenting on a drawing is usually done through the tags (Not an obligation, again, just a thing people do. Feel free to add your comment on the rb itself if you’d want other people to see it tho!) and leave nice messages for the artists! It’s a win-win for everyone involved.

If you have more than a single follower, always use the common tw warning tags. You don’t need to tw everything, but tw’ing some common things is the bare minimum human decency. Keep it safe for others.

Tag a post “long post” if it’s really long. Pretty self explanatory. Don’t make people scroll through all that please lol.

You can use them to organize your blog. This is more of a pro tip, if you’d like to not miss a post in your blog, cause they will start pilin’ up soon enough.

#Liveblogging is pretty fun. If you’d like to talk to people during streams, don’t forget to add the relevant tags still! Again, you won’t show up on people’s dash otherwise.

Whew! That got out of hand. Hopefully I didn’t bore you too much. Check out blogs like @heritageposts and @hellsite-hall-of-fame to honor our past o7. @mcytblr-hall-of-fame too maybe :eyes:. Anyways, don’t forget the most important rule of them all:

Enjoy your stay! You’re meant to have fun on here while also making friends (if that’s your thing). Just be kind and respectful of others, you’ll get the hang of the rest! <3

#mcyttwt #mcytblr #dream team #dream smp #mcyt #dsmp #tumblr #how to tumblr #gonna tag ppl now so more users will see it lol #dreamwasteken #georgenotfound #karl jacobs #technoblade #sbi #twitter #twitter discourse #sbitwt #sleepytwt #sleepy bois inc #HOLY shit this took so long omg my back literally hurts rn #the fuckin lengths i go to make sure tumblr doesnt get tainted w twt LMAO #anyways if youre seeing this you should follow me look at how sexy i am i spent the last 2+ hours typing this goddamn list out #also: ignore how i literally sound like its 2014 at some parts here lol i tried my best #also ignore how wack the paragraph breaks are tumblrs formatting hates me and its 4 am im too tired for this #third also: some bits here are supposed to be ironic keep that in mind pls #rolan.txt #long post #save #yes im tagging my own post as save what about it

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dragimalsdaydreams · 2 years ago

Photo

[image ID: 4 images of Tighnari from the game Genshin Impact. the first 2 images are the same front-view, full-body screenshot, while the next 2 images are the same back-view, full-body screenshot.

the first front and back views are unedited screenshots of how Tighnari appears in the game. he’s light-skinned with teal/brown eyes. he has straight, smooth, black/teal hair cut straight at chin length, with some neon green, “leaf-like” accents in his bangs. he’s got tall, pointed black fox ears on the top of his head, and a black/teal fox tail with green diamond/circle patterns. he’s wearing midnight blue pants with red accents, and a midnight blue hoodie with green/magenta accents. the hoodie has one long, skin-tight sleeve, and one short, loose sleeve. he’s wearing one white sash with red/blue/gold accents wraps around his upper body, and a magenta wrap with white/yellow accents holds the white wrap up around the waist, along with a cyan/magenta/grey rope. another large, green, leaf-shaped sash hangs off the back of his right shoulder. a silver latch with cyan accents sits on one shoulder, while the other shoulder has a large yellow flower, which pins up the white sash. a large golden disk with tangerine/pink/lavender accents and long extensions of filigree sits on the back of his right shoulder. he’s wearing black gloves with gold/grey/orange/cyan accents, and dark blue, calf-high boots with black/white/gold/neon green accents.

the next two front and back views are heavily edited versions of the original screenshots. Tighnari’s skin is now dark brown, and the hair and ears are dark teal. the ears have been widened, rounded out, shifted down, and given green accents matching the tail. the hoodie has been changed to a dark teal vest over top a yellow/orange long-sleeve, striped shirt. the pants have been shifted to dark teal, and the boots now have a magenta/orange/yellow color scheme. the two sashes have been reduced to one green sash with some leaf-shaped corners hanging off the shoulder. the gold disk on his back has been changed to a gold chain hanging between the two shoulder latches, holding smaller orange/pink/lavender-accented golden disks. more pink/purple flowers have been pinned around the large yellow flower on his shoulder. most of the red/blue/cyan/neon green accent colors have been shifted to appropriate yellow/orange/pinks, all the silver has been shifted to gold/bronze, and all the blacks/whites have been shifted to a different color.

end ID]

I can’t believe Genshin released a character catered to me specifically (field ecologist, bio nerd that loves to share botany facts, antisocial academic, foxboy, etc.), then nerfed him with the worst design in the entire game. his color palette, clothes design, general silhouette... it’s all just a huge mess. even knowing this going in, he ended up being a lot more involved that I’d originally anticipated-- even more than Yanfei, who used to be the most ambitious one of the bunch! I still a lot of fun, but good god I’m glad to finally put this lad to rest...

I have a lot more thoughts about my process/choices, so if you’d like to read on, my full design notes and more detailed image descs are under the cut!

EDIT: I added some orange/yellow/green to the pants to break up the blue, I think they work better now

before I get into it, I have to admit... I messed up the light source on Tighnari’s back view. I had assumed that the light source was locked to the character rather than the screen itself, so I thought the light source would flip to the right side of the screen when I flipped the character around. I only realized that the light source had actually stayed on the left side of the screen after I’d already shaded most of the edited aspects, so it was easier to just flip the light source on the unchanged aspects too (mainly the tail and hair). to be clear, the flipped light source is not meant to be a “fix”, that’s just a silly blunder on my part, and there are prolly still some wonky shadows I didn’t catch...

and one more note for clarity: while I usually refer to “viewer left/right” when describing these things-- that is, the left/right that you, the viewer, see on your screen-- I’ll be doing something different this time. since I’ve got both the front and back views here, I’ll be referring to “subject left/right”-- that is, the left/right that Tighnari himself experiences. it may get a bit confusing when describing the front views, but it’s the best way I can think to keep the directions straight

now, let’s first discuss the broadest aspect of this redesign: the color palette

I think we can all agree that the OG design is... a lot. there’s firetruck reds. there’s midnight blues. there’s neon greens. there’s tangerines and magentas and cyans... it’s Too Fucking Much. which is shocking, because as much as I complain abt half of Genshin’s designs, I’ve almost never had a problem with the color palettes. Genshin palettes can be boring at worst, but I usually love most of them!

if this were any other character, I prolly would’ve just cut some colors from Tighnari’s palette and called it a day. I prefer limited color palettes in my own art, and I find it more effective to capture a character’s tone/vibe with just a few colors. however, given the bizarrely hectic approach compared to other Genshin designs... I get the impression that Tighnari is supposed to be a wild mix of colors, to represent his botanical work and the vibrant flora of his home

thus, rather than using my typical visual art perspective, I approached Tighnari’s design from my florist perspective-- hello friends, genuine florist here, at your service!

while I’m hesitant to use too many colors in my digital art, I have a completely different perspective at work-- I LOVE to make vibrant, multicolored arrangements! I think floral work has honestly improved my color theory in a very hands-on way, but I never considered extending that approach to my art before, which feels silly in retrospect lmao

anyways, I get requests for “bright and cheery” arrangements a lot, so I reconstructed Tighnari’s palette around that idea-- a mix of mostly bright, poppy colors, tempered with deeper, richer jewel tones; warm and cool colors complementing and enhancing one another rather than clashing

another problem is that the colors are all so completely separate from one another in the OG design, it feels like my eyes hit a wall every time they shift from one part to another. I see the midnight blue, then my eyes slam into a wall of firetruck red, or I see flat white, then my eyes hit a wall of magenta. in my redesign, I tried to make the colors flow into one another-- blue to teal to green, then yellow to orange to red. there are clear sections of warm vs. cool colors, but I tried to make sure that little accents of one section would dip into other sections, and that no one section of color felt too overwhelming

additionally, I use black/grey/white verrryyy sparingly in my own work, unless black/white serves as one of the big base colors. Yanfei and Yoimiya, for example, both use black/white as broad base colors, so I was happy to continue that. in Tighnari’s OG design, the black/grey/white just clashes with every other color in the piece, and especially with the “bright and cheery” floral palette of his redesign, so I tossed them completely

also, I need to point out the black gradient on Tighnari’s hair specifically, cus’ it’s just so unbelievably ugly

[image ID: the OG back shot, cropped to just Tighnari’s head. the ears and crown of the head are a flat, dull black, which sharply fades into a dark teal down to the tips of the hair. END ID]

the black is so flat, and stops so hard before the teal, it looks like a fine layer of dust or drywall fell on Tighnari’s head! dust your head, boy!!

also note that there’s no more silver metal in the redesign

[image ID: the OG and edited front shots, cropped to the left shoulder latch. the OG latch is silver, while the redesign is gold. END ID]

mixing metals is considered a big fashion faux pas b/c different metals usually clash. obviously this isn’t a hard rule, cus’ mixed metals can work, but they have to be balanced very intentionally-- like with Zhongli’s design. Tighnari’s metals, on the other hand, are mixed very... messily. none of the metals match each other or any other part of the design, and they just look ugly all together

since gold complements Tighnari’s new palette better than flat grey, I just cut all the silver. however, the “golds” vary across my redesign b/c they already vary in the OG, and I’m not sure whether that’s the lighting or genuinely different metals. I’m more willing to mix bronze/brass with the gold, though, because they’re all warm metals, so I just kept it

finally, palette talk DONE

so, Tighnari’s ears.

[image ID: the OG front shot, cropped to Tighnari’s head + ears. his ears are tall thin, and sharply pointed. the outsides are black, while the insides have bare pink skin, with some tufts of black fur lining the inner edge. this gives the ears a thin, delicate look. the ears are based at the very top of the skull, sticking straight up near the crown of the head. a dangly gold, leaf-shaped earring hangs off the base of the right ear. end ID]

good god.

as a furry and connoisseur of fluffy ears, I gotta say: Tighnari’s ears look like shit. they’re naked and flat, and they move like flimsy pieces of wet paper. I get that fennec foxes have somewhat less fluffy ears than other foxes for heat dispersion, but this just ain’t it.

to fix them, I took some tips from the best ears in the game-- Gorou’s!

[image ID: a front-view screenshot of Gorou, cropped to just his head + ears. he’s got smaller, triangular ears, modeled with rounded fluff inside the whole ear. the backs are a golden brown matching the hair, the inner edges are creamy white, and the innermost ear is pale, fleshy pink. end ID]

it’s like Mihoyo forgot they already had the golden standard here to reference from, smh

anyways, my redesign works off of similar design principles:

[image ID: the edited front shot, cropped to just Tighnari’s head + ears. the ears have been widened and the tips rounded, matching real fox ears. the bases have been shifted forward and down towards the sides of the skull, with the outer edges of the ears leading down towards the same level as the cheeks. the bases are dark teal, matching the new hair color, with lighter teal fluff ringing the inner edges, and a pale teal for the innermost ear. the dangly leaf earring has been flipped to the base of the left ear, and two studs (one pink, one tangerine) have been added to the outer edge of that ear, while the right ear has one lavender stud. end ID]

using real fennec foxes as reference for the shape and fur distribution, I tried to mimic the way fluff is modeled in Gorou’s ears, to give the ears a fuller shape

I flipped Tighnari’s leaf earring from his right to his left ear b/c it interfered with the flowers on his right shoulder. the extra studs match the colors of the glass circles on the gold disk (or gold chain in the redesign) on his back

I also mirrored the circle + diamond design from the tail onto the backs of the ears, to extend the shape design across more of the character

[image ID: the edited back shot, cropped to Tighnari’s head + ears. the base color of the ears is dark teal, while the tips are green. a half-circle of dark teal is cut out of this green, and a green circle sits inside the half circle. a green diamond sits at the center of the ears, straight down from the circle. the dangly earring and the gold backs of the studs are visible from the back. end ID]

I also shifted the ears down because... look, I’m a biologist first, human second. while I appreciate that Mihoyo doesn’t do double-ears for their animal people, I still get a lil insane about ears based at the top of the skull. I’d ideally move the ears down a little further, but it felt a little too off-model from OG Tighnari, so I settled for the current redesign. I’m just imagining a little more ear hidden behind the hair that leads down to the ear canal, since the new position already implies that. maybe the ear canal is even a tiny bit higher than in regular humans-- I’m willing to allow that

and since we’re already here talking furry biology, I shifted Tighnari’s tail down as well

[image ID: the OG and edited back shots, cropped to the tail/pants area.

both tails have a dark teal top half and a green bottom half. a half-circle of dark teal is cut out from the green, and a green circle sits inside the half circle. a green diamond sits at the center of the tail, straight up from the circle. while not visible from this angle, this pattern repeats on the sides of the tail as well. the pants on both designs are long and puffy, with wider, flared-out bottoms that pinch into slightly thinner cuffs. the base fabric is split into vertical strips or folds, giving the pants a visually ‘striped’ pattern.

the OG tail is based at the waist, just under the magenta waist wrap. the base of the OG tail is also more black, fading into dark teal further down. the pants framing this tail are midnight blue, with single strips of red fabric on the outer sides of the legs.

the edited tail is based at the bottom of the hips, just under the bottom edge of the shirt. the base of the edited tail is fully dark teal. the pants framing this tail are dark teal, with lighter teal cuffs, single strips of green on the outer sides of the legs, and single strips of orange along the inner thighs. additional strips of lighter teal fabric cut diagonally down the rump and back of the upper thighs, angled down towards the inner legs.

end ID]

now the base of the tail actually extends from the end of the spine~

also note the lighter panels on the redesigned pants, framing the tail. the pants and tail are the same dark tone in the OG, so it’s hard to tell them apart. changing the pants to a teal hue only exacerbated the problem, so those lighter panels help block out the tail as separate from the pants

this is also part of the reason I made the inner section of the pants lighter

[image ID: the edited front shot, cropped to the pants. the cuffs are lighter teal, with a single stripe of green on the outside of each leg, and a single strip of orange fabric vertically bisecting each pant leg. the outer half of each pant leg is dark teal, while the inner sections are a very pale teal. the fly section has a strip of dark teal fabric, with yellow ties lacing the sides together. end ID]

but as you can see, the pale inner section of the pants is only visible from the front, so it didn’t help the tail issue much, lmao. I kept it anyways, tho, cus’ it breaks up that big block of dark pants from the front, and helps the eye move more smoothly across the figure

now, let’s talk sashes

[image ID: the OG front and back shots, cropped to the sash areas.

the main white sash is wrapped loosely around the waist and pinned up to the front and back sides of the right shoulder by the big yellow flower and gold disk, respectively. this sash has stripes of firetruck red, blue, and light gold around the edges, with some gold diamond accents. either a matching white sash or an extension of the white sash hangs from the front of the right shoulder, pinned in place by the yellow flower. it’s long and squared-off like a scarf, hanging down to mid-thigh and folded into a few vertical strips. this sash also has red/blue/god accents, with some metallic gold diamonds hanging off the end. an additional small block of fabric hangs over the scarf-like sash, folded wave-like so that both the outer midnight blue and inner orange are visible.

a magenta-purple wrap holds the looser white sash in place, wrapping snugly around the waist in an wide strip. this wrap has yellow stripes/patterns with some zig-zag patterns. a white cord is tied around the center of the wrap, holding an orange bead, a cyan bead, a Dendro vision, and magenta hip bag. a couple of cyan/purple/grey ropes hang from the bottom of the wrap, the ends pinned to either hip.

a different sash hangs off the back of the right shoulder, large enough to end around mid-calf, and pinned in place by the giant gold disk. this sash is leaf-shaped, with a couple of additional thin, tapering strips of fabric hanging underneath. the sash is green, starting lush green at the pinned base, then fading to yellow-green near the tips. some darker green patterns emphasize the leaf shape.

end ID]

I already discussed my thoughts on white in this design, but I just need to emphasize how jarring this white sash is in Tighnari’s design. it’s weirdly distracting, and feels especially bland compared to the leaf-shaped sash on his back. why relegate the lush leaf symbolism to just his back?

it seems obvious to just combine the two sashes into one single design

[image ID: the edited front and back shots, cropped to the sash areas.

the first white sash is now fully green, with darker, dull green stripes and circles lining the edges. the scarf-like sash has been changed to a couple strips of green fabric in long, tapering shapes, ending around mid-thigh. the additional block of fabric has been changed to a couple small blocks of fabric shaped like leaves, framing the yellow flower. the large green sash on the back has been downsized to a very small, single leaf shape, ending just past the elbow. all the sashes and leaves have stripes/patterns/circles of darker, dull green that emphasize their shapes, and their tips fade to yellow.

the cord over top of the magenta wrap has been changed to yellow, and the grey parts of the hanging ropes have been changed to pink for a pink/purple/cyan color scheme.

end ID]

this pulls the leaf shapes and green palette onto his front, mixing the shape/color design more evenly across the body

you may have also noticed that I drastically reduced the size of the sash hanging off the back shoulder, and I have a good reason for that!

it’s not visible in a still image, but in-motion, the sash creates a flowing, trailing shape behind Tighnari when he runs/walks. that would be fine if the sash was the only thing back there... but he also has a tail. so Tighnari has these two big, distracting shapes trailing out behind him when he runs, and it really muddles his overall shape in-motion

but even in the still image, that massive sash covers too much of his upper body for my liking-- cus’ who wouldn’t want to get a full view of Tighnari’s stupid shirt?

[image ID: the OG front shot, cropped to the upper body.

underneath the white sash, Tighnari is wearing some kind of midnight blue hoodie. the hood has a magenta back, and is pooled around his neck, black drawstrings hanging down his chest. the left sleeve is short, wide, and loose, with thin, vertical blue stripes. this leaves the left arm bare at the elbow, before the glove. the right sleeve is skin-tight and covering the full arm, with some vertical stripes of neon green down the outer arm. there’s a light green, “leafy” filigree symbol across the chest of the hoodie.

Tighnari also seems to be wearing a midnight blue, skin-tight shirt underneath the hoodie, which hugs high up his throat. this may be the source of the skin-tight sleeve? but it’s unclear, considering there’s no loose hoodie sleeve on that side.

while the right side has a yellow flower, the left side has a shoulder latch hanging over top of the shoulder. the main strip of the latch is teal edged in silver, and each side of the latch (front and back of the shoulder) ends in a round, silver buckle. the buckle has a clover engraving, and a decorative tassel hangs from the front buckle-- cyan with an orange bead at the top.

end ID]

like, what is this? what the hell is this?? one long, skin-tight sleeve, and one short, loose sleeve? hello??

the “hoodie” look is also weirdly anachronistic. like, I know Genshin is a silly mix of “modern” and “ancient” fantasy, but the hoodie makes Tighnari look a little too much like... just some guy I could meet at work.

but before I could reconstruct the shirt, I had to figure out what stylistic base to work off of-- that is, what cultural base. but because Sumeru is a horrific frankenstein of a country, I had to make some executive decisions

so I looked up Tighnari’s namesake, then the natural range of fennec foxes, then chose the country that was closest to modern-day Spain, and got Algeria. then I googled Algerian fashion and worked from there. but looking at Tighnari’s wiki again, it seems a new note about Amazigh influence was added more recently, and I wish I had known about that earlier so I could’ve referenced more Amazigh fashion too 😭... ah well, at least I chose one of the right countries, and his sash is kinda reminiscent of Amazigh fashion...

ANYWAYS, I settled on this

[image ID: the edited front shot, cropped to the upper body. the hoodie has been changed to a vest/shirt combo.

the shirt is a long-sleeve button-up with loose/puffy sleeves tucked into the glove cuffs. the base is pale yellow with a burnt orange collar + edging, burnt orange vertical stripes across the fabric, and gold buttons. the collar of the shirt is lower than before, leaving more of the throat bare.

the vest is open at the front, with a high, straight-up collar. it has a dark teal base and lighter teal collar + edging. there are also a couple of visible pockets on either side of the vest, each with lighter teal top edging.

the shoulder buckle has been mirrored underneath the yellow flower, though it isn’t very visible. the silver on the latches has been replaced with gold, and a little circular pocket magnifier hangs next to the decorative tassel on the left shoulder.

end ID]

a lot of the Algerian fashion I found seemed to favor vests, which was a great way to balance warm vs. cool hues in the shirt vs. vest. a lot of the shirts I saw were usually white, but since I’m staying away from white, I just made the shirt a nice dull yellow, to complement the vest’s teal. I also tried to give the shirt a “loose-sleeve” look, as I saw in references-- a bit similar to Kaeya’s loose sleeves, but still distinct in shape. I think it gives his upper half a nice silhouette~

I also gave the vest a bunch of pockets, as a nod to the utility vests field scientists love to wear, to store all our small tools, samples, and cool rocks <3. realistically, Tighnari would store his pocket magnifier in one of those pockets (and the magnifier would have a little flippy cover to protect the glass), but I thought it would look fun hanging off his left shoulder latch~

and since the front is essentially split by the vest, I shifted the green symbol from the front to the back of the vest instead

[image ID: the edited back shot, cropped to the upper body. most of the back of the vest is visible underneath the green sash, showing the light green, “leafy” filigree symbol that was originally on the front of the hoodie. when the top of the symbol hits the collar, it circles around the bottom of the collar in two lines. end ID]

but speaking of baubles, let’s get a load of that flower!

[image ID: the OG front shot, cropped to the right shoulder. a big yellow flower is pinned to the front of this shoulder, while large, swooping, gold filigree curls up behind the flower from the gold disk on the back. end ID]

y’know what I thought as soon as I saw that big yellow flower? I thought, “oh, Tighnari saw a broken flower and stuck it on his shirt! I do the same thing at work when I see a broken flower-- I stick them in my headband! :) ” then I heard his “hobbies” voice-over and I felt so vindicated!! YES SAME HAT!!! I’ll just paste the voice line here, it’s very cute:

“Leaves and flowers often drop onto the ground of the Avidya Forest, sometimes perfectly intact. Leaving them on the ground would be such a pity... I can't help but pick them up and keep them as biological specimens. They can be used as educational materials for Forest Rangers or as decorative pieces. Very versatile.”

anyways, Tighnari needed more accent colors on the sash, and I was already treating him like a flower arrangement anyways, so I just added more flowers! I think I spent a good 2 hours researching Algerian flowers for this, lmao

[image ID: the edited front shot, cropped to the shoulders. the flowers have been labeled, and are as follows:

Anacamptis morio: this is an orchid, with many small, purple flowers growing off a long, thin, stalk-like inflorescence. the flowers have the typical orchid resupinate shape, with a modified “lip” and surrounding petals. two stalks of these flowers sit just behind the original yellow flower, curving up and out, high over the shoulder.

whatever the hell: the original yellow flower. it has bright yellow petals and a dark center with what might be a few yellow stamens. the petals are broad, round with pointed tips, and arranged in a double-layer radial pattern.

Iris tectorum: this is an iris, with three long, drooping sepals, and another three shorter petals. most of this flower is purple, with lighter patches near the center. this iris is pinned just underneath the yellow flower, hanging a bit downwards.

Linum grandiflorum: this is a flax flower, with the typical 5 broad, round petals arranged in a neat radial pattern, and 5 small stamens. this flower is pinned just to the side of the yellow flower, just underneath it.

Moricandia arvensis: these small pinkish flowers have a cruciform pattern of 4 petals with a few yellow stamens. a couple of these flowers are pinned just to the side of the flax flower.

end ID]

anyways, please ignore the fact that these flowers prolly all grow in different biomes than the jungle-type biome of Avidya forest; I already had a hard enough time trying to find the right color flowers to fit this palette... also ignore that the sizes are off b/c I couldn’t draw them too small (I KNOW the flax is way too big..)... also ignore that that the flower structures are a bit off b/c it would’ve been WAY too much detail for a Genshin design if I drew them accurately... please just be gentle, it’s been a while since I’ve gotten to be academic about it all...

I have no idea what exactly the yellow flower could be, though. it’s so generic, it could be literally anything. but before anyone suggests it-- I doubt it’s a sunflower, since it doesn’t look like a capitulum inflorescence, and the petal shape/arrangement is wrong

and fun fact! the Iris tectorum is Algeria’s national flower!

also note that the orchid serves as a replacement for “thing sticking off the right shoulder” in Tighnari’s silhouette, b/c the gold disk on the back is just too stupid for me to handle

[image ID: the OG back shot, cropped to the shoulder/upper back region.

the main disk is massive-- at least the size of a spread hand. three glass circles of different colors/sizes/placements are set into the gold-- one large tangerine circle, one medium light pink circle, and one small lavender circle. floral engravings decorate the disk, surrounding the glass circles. elegant, swirling, filigree projections curve from the side and top of the disk, curling high over the shoulder.

additionally, there’s a large gold loop set on Tighnari’s upper back, underneath his hood and the sashes. vine patterns are engraved in the loop, and two flowers (respectively purple and pink) sit on the loop.

end ID]

like, ok I admit, it’s very pretty. I like the orange/purple/pink palette with the gold, and the filigree is pretty on its own

but like most of Tighnari’s design, it’s just too much, y’know? I can excuse impractical accessories if they fuck hard enough, but this just crosses the line into obnoxious. like what even is that thing??

but since I still like the idea of a gold accessory on the back, I just reconstructed it into something else:

[image ID: the edited back shot, cropped to the shoulder/upper back region. both the shoulder latches are visible from this side, and a gold chain drapes between them. three gold disks hang from the chain, each with a single glass circle set into the disk. the center disk is the largest with a tangerine circle, while the two smaller disks to the sides respectively have a light pink and lavender circle. each glass circle is engraved with a simple 5-petal flower, while zig-zag patterns are engraved in the bordering gold disk. a few small, flat gold coins hang between the disks. end ID]

I think this is an elegant way to keep a shiny-gold trinket on the back (complete with the tricolor accents~), as well as nod to that... flower loop(?) on Tighnari’s OG back, under the sash

speaking of filigree, I also removed the excess “filigree” design on Tighnari’s boots

[image ID: the OG and edited front shots, cropped to the boots.

the OG boots reach mid-calf, leaving a small gap of bare calf between the top of the boots and the bottom of the pants. the main block of material around the calf and sides is midnight blue, the tongue and top of the foot is white, and the toe box is black. the thick cuff is midnight blue with two horizontal stripes of neon green. filigree patterns decorate the sides of the shoe-- lighter blue on the midnight blue sections, then midnight blue when they trail into the white. the outsole/tread is gold, and the laces are very dark blue with silver latches.

the top of the edited boots has been lifted to reach the bottom of the pants, leaving no gaps of bare skin. the main block of material around the calf and sides is dark magenta/purple, the tongue and top of the foot is orange, and the toe box is magenta. the thick cuff is light magenta with a horizontal stripe of orange around the center. the filigree patterns are gone, replaced with a single yellow diamond at the center of the top of the foot (in the orange section), framed by a small yellow circle on either side. the outsole/tread is still gold, and the laces are yellow with gold latches.

end ID]

shape-wise, the filigree just doesn’t do much for Tighnari-- it’s too “flamboyant” and “wispy” for his character, if that makes sense? the “leafy” symbol on his vest feels floral enough to stay, at least, and it feels more intentional than the other filigree designs. imo, circles/diamonds feel more simple and “practical” for Tighnari’s overall shape design, and better match his ears, tail, and sash.

you may also be wondering why I lifted Tighnari’s boots up higher, and to that I say: have you ever heard of ticks??

any field scientist (or even just... hikers...) knows that open cuffs are just begging for ticks and burrs and bites. Tighnari knows better than that!

which brings us to the gloves-- why are the cuffs so damn wide?

[image ID: the OG back shot, cropped to one glove. while the glove is slim-fitting around the hand, the cuff widens into a thick, wide flare up the arm, reaching midway up the lower arm. this forms a wide, open cup around the wrist area. the base color of the glove is black, with some horizontal stripes of cyan and silver around the cuff + a small bronze buckle. the main palm of the glove + small patches on the pads of the fingers are orange. this glove sits on the left arm-- the one with a short sleeve and bare arm. Tighnari seems to be wearing a skin-tight, purple glove or sleeve under the main glove, ending just under the elbow. end ID]

Tighnari could collect rainwater in those things!! time to slim down

[image ID: the edited back shot, cropped to one glove. the cuff has been drastically reduced in size, now tucked snug against the sleeve of the arm with no open gaps. the cuff is still thick, reaching about midway up the lower arm. the main glove is dark teal, the cuff is teal, and a small section between the glove and cuff is light green. the cuff also has a thin yellow strap around the middle, latching with a small gold buckle. notably, claw-shaped points have been added to the tips of the fingers, to accommodate claws underneath. an additional screencap of the palm in full view shows how the palm “padding” has changed-- now all yellow. the main palm padding has been split into three sections-- one large section under the base of the fingers, one large section under the base of the thumb, and one small section opposite the base of the thumb. the patches at the pads of the fingers have also been enlarged a bit. end ID]

now the sleeves can to tuck comfortably into the glove cuffs; ticks BEGONE!!

added claws b/c all the animal people in Genshin deserve claws <3

and I only changed the padding cus’ I prefer to follow the natural curves of the palm in my own art. emphasizing those rounds and shapes makes for a much prettier design than just laying one flat cover over the palm, imo. especially for gloves that are meant to subtly nod at fox pads~

and finally, Tighnari’s skin tone

[image ID: the OG and edited front shots, cropped to Tighnari’s face. the OG face is pale-skinned, with black lashes/eyebrows, and two-toned brown/teal eyes with light teal pupils. the edited face has dark brown, warm-hued skin, with dark teal lashes/eyebrows to match the hair, and the same brown/teal eyes but with dark brown pupils. end ID]

I mean, there’s not much to say tbh. Genshin’s colorism wasn’t necessarily excusable before, but at least the reference nations before this point aren’t necessarily “““known””” for having darker populations (weak excuse, dark people are everywhere, but the bar is on the ground, here). but Sumeru? the stand-in for Africa/the Middle East?? a nation where most of the dark-skinned characters are enemy npcs?? where the dark-skinned characters are barely even dark in the first place??? disgusting

anyways, Tighnari just looks better brown too, imo. his silly lil leaf hairs stand out better against dark skin, and the warm tone I used works well with his new clothing palette. I considered giving him cool undertones rather than warm, but I think contrasting the warm of his skin against the cool of his hair/ears works better, considering the mix of warm+cool across his whole outfit

also gave him dark pupils cus’ he just looks so dead-eyed in the OG...

oh and I changed the shade of his lashes/eyebrows to dark teal, to match his hair. not very noticeable, but it’s important to me lmao

#tighnari genshin impact #genshin impact #ganch redesigns #/chewing on a stalk of hay/ fixing Genshin characters ain't much but it's honest work #long post

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britishassistant · 4 years ago

Note

Crowley kid! Yuu gets kidnapped by one of the villain dorms and Crowley is touring the the lair and just come across his kid, just chilling their designated chair snacking and roasting the villains, maybe joking around with the minions a bit and then they see each other and it’s like that Spider-Man pointing meme

Thank you for the ask, dear anon!

This kiiinda got away from me a bit, but I thought it would be good since this blog has now reached over 200 followers! Whoo! Thank you all for your support!!

Crowley was just popping by to see how Leviathan’s operation was running.

He liked to do this kind of thing, show up when the supervillains competing for his attention least expected (or appreciated) it and demand they show him how their operations were running. The reactions and sights he got to see where always so much more honest than what a prearranged visit could offer him.

Take Leviathan-kun, for instance.

The young man is uncommonly nervous in Crowley’s presence, not quite stuttering, but clearly not far off from it either. He keeps adjusting his glasses minutely, making the light flash off them even as he rattles out his salesman’s spiel of guarantees and flattery.

The thieving corvid inside Crowley preens. Today was an excellent day for a surprise inspection.

There’s clearly something going on right now that Leviathan was desperate to hide from him, which just makes Crowley want to dig deep and uncover whatever this dirty little secret is and drag that wriggling, struggling weakness into the light.

Great Seven, he loves his job.

It doesn’t take long for him to ferret it out—as desperate as Leviathan is to redirect his attention the loyal minions moving like schools of fish through the lower levels of the lair, he doesn’t have the authority to do anything but totter after Crowley as he strides towards the control room of this fine establishment, his cane clicking against the ground with every step.

Great Seven, he loves his job.

There’s the raised voices of Leviathan’s lieutenants emanating from within, along with...someone else?

Crowley pauses, taking in the scene inside.

There is a person is tied to a chair in the center of the room with one of the Leeches hanging sideways off of their lap, arms wrapped around their shoulders as he leans backwards and swings his legs back and forth. The chair is beginning to teeter dangerously.

“Floyd, if you make us fall again, I’m suing you for damages.” A familiar voice quips.

Crowley’s insides go cold.

“Aha! So mean~ I’d never let you get hurt, Shrimpy~” The reckless and violent twin coos, nuzzling close.

“You already did.” The most kidnapped reporter in this city deadpans. “Twice.”

“Bold of you to assume that you’d be able to press charges in the first place, Yuu-san.” The sadistic and coldblooded twin grins.

“Azul likes me better than you two, he’ll represent me if I sell him my kidneys.” Yuu says loftily. “Plus I have witnesses, like that guy...there...”

Well, that’s ruined his dramatic entrance, but Crowley slams open the doors anyway, making his cloak billow and letting those leeches see the angry flash of his eyes.

“A-hem!” He booms. “What exactly do you think you’re doing? Is this how you think professional villains behave?!”

The sadistic twin stands to attention, bowing shallowly to him, as though that will keep Crowley from noticing how he’s moved in front of the hostage and his violent brother, who’s curled over Yuu with his feet planted firmly on the ground and is cocky enough to think baring his teeth at Crowley is somehow a good idea.

“Floyd.” Leviathan’s voice is clipped, moving towards his henchman and the captive. “My deepest apologies on behalf of my staff, sir. I’ll instruct them to take the prisoner back down to the holding cells to continue the inter—”

“No, you will not.” Crowley commands, swirling towards the aquatic supervillain. “You will release them from your custody immediately, and as I am so gracious, I will be sure to educate all of you about how violating personal boundaries—”

“Oh, come off it, you old crow.” Yuu drawls, one eyebrow twitching. “Don’t start pretending like you care now.”

The sadistic brother makes a small, choked noise. Leviathan has gone so still it’s doubtful he’s even breathing. Even the violent twin is staring at the reporter like they’ve grown a second head.

He clears his throat to hide the small sting in his chest at the remark. “W-why I don’t know whatever you are talking about, stranger I have never met before. I will arrange for an escort to guide you home, as I am so gracious.”

The reporter scoffs. “Well, isn’t that just the story of my life. I told you last time, I don’t want any of your goons within ten blocks of my apartment, remember?”

“Yuu, while I always appreciate your sparkling wit, please stop talking.” Leviathan mutters, eyes focused on Crowley. “Are you aware of just who this person is?”

“Who he is? Of course I know who he is.” Yuu’s exasperation is evident in their voice. “He’s my bio dad.”

Crowley bristles, feeling his feathers puff up in alarm. “Hatchling!!”

Leviathan chokes, wheezing for air as he gasps out, “Bio—what—?”

The sadistic Leech brother is visibly startled, whipping his head back and forth between Crowley and Yuu, lips moving too fast to read though no sound comes out.

“Eeeh~? The big scary boss man is Shrimpy’s dad? No waay~” The violent Leech brother jabs a thumb in his direction. “Who would fuck him?”

“HOW DARE YOU—!”

“Nobody.” Yuu says. “I was born via in vitro fertilization.”

“Hatchling~!” Crowley whines, disliking how wrong-footed his child leaves him. “That is hardly kind!”

Yuu lets out an undignified snort. “Sure, because that compares to dumping me back on Uncle Divvy after a week out of the test tube with instructions to leave me under a bridge somewhere.”

Both Leech twins pin him with equally unnerving stares, and Crowley has to remind himself that he is three times the villain they’ll ever be, that they couldn’t actually hurt him even if they did both attack at once.

Leviathan is just leaning against his desk, mouthing “Uncle Divvy” to himself with the sort of frquency usually reserved for those afflicted by Divus’ hysteria gas.

“We talked about that!” Crowley pleads desperately. “It was to make sure that you could grow strong through adversity! I could hardly expect you to take up my position if you grew up soft and dependent, now could I?”

“Babies are soft and dependent, that’s the whole point. I’d have been dead within the week if Uncle Divvy hadn’t given me to Mom and Dad.” Yuu sighs, slumping back into the chair. “Whatever. I’m never taking over from you and I don’t want any of your money. Can I go home now?”

“I’ll arrange for a car as I am so gracious—” Crowley states firmly at the same time as Leviathan interjects with “Ah, let me take you—”

He shoots a poisonous glare at the young upstart, and then at the unprofessional lackey who’s still clinging to his child.

“No thanks, to both of you.” Yuu sighs. “I’ll just call Yuuken to pick me up—”

“Eeeh?! But Shrimpy, he’s so lame and boring!” The twin in Yuu’s lap whines. “I can’t even squeeze him properly!”

“Yeah, that’s not really a negative here.” The reporter quips, putting up with the way the merman whines and nuzzles into their shoulder, teeth dangerously close to their jugular.

“I don’t like him.” Crowley sniffs. “He’s too good an influence on you.”

“Well, guess whose business that is?!” His offspring asks cheerily, before dropping back into their irritated moue. “Not yours. I’ll spend time with whoever I please, you can go suck an e—”

“I’ve called you a cab, Yuu-san.” The sadistic Leech brother pipes up, pulling his phone away from his ear. “It’s already paid for, so please don’t worry about it.”

The reporter frowns again, before shaking their head with a tired sigh. “Thank you. I need to go sleep off a migraine, so untie me and I’ll see you three next week or something.”

Leviathan moves forward to tug swiftly at the ropes pinning their arms behind their back and pulling his henchmen off of them, finally. “Let me escort you out at least. It wouldn’t do to have any more unpleasant surprises before you got home.”

“Fine.” Yuu pins Crowley with that look that always makes him want to squirm. “Have a lovely day, Dire Crowley-san.”

“Likewise.” He watches his heir walk out as the violent Leech twin calls out “Bye bye, Shrimpy~!”

He turns to those two upstarts, drawing himself up to his full height. “I am certain I don’t need to impress upon you the fact that none of what went on in here leaves this room, yes?”

The sadistic one meets his eye for a moment, spreading his hands wide with an unpleasant smile. “I am unsure of what you mean, Crowley-sama.”

“Yeah, dunno~” The violent one chirps from where he’s now perched in the recently vacated chair.

“Well, suffice it to say that Divus came up with a very interesting potion to affect merfolk, some years ago.” Crowley allows himself a cruel smirk. “One that gives them legs permanently. Shame it doesn’t do the same for lungs. I will not tell him how...carelessly you boys have been treating one of his most prized experiments, as I am gracious, am I not?”

He watches the pair of them swallow reflexively with a thrill of dark satisfaction. “Yes, Crowley-sama.” They chorus.

“Wonderful!” Crowley chirps, clasping his hands together. “Now, I think it’s time for a special lesson on respecting the personal boundaries of one’s hostages, don’t you?”

#ask #twisted wonderland #twst #supervillain au #dire crowley #twst crowley #azul ashengrotto #twst azul #leviathan #jade leech #twst jade #floyd leech #twst floyd #twisted wonderland yuu #twst yuu #yuu takes none of crowley’s shit #azul x yuu #jade x yuu #floyd x yuu

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just--another--daydreamer · 4 years ago

Text

How they realize that they are in love

» Katsuki Bakugo // Shoto Todoroki // Izuku Midoriya x gn!reader (no pronouns used)

» Genre: Fluff & Angst » Summary: Just some HCs about Baku, Todo & Deku (seperately) and how they realize that they are in love » Warnings: fighting, death, injuries & swearing (Bakugo) implied abuse (Todoroki) panic attacks, overthinking & mentions of fighting (Midoriya) » Words: ~1.7k » Author's Note: These were fun to write, if you’d like to see them for any other characters, feel free to ask! This was inspired by @/costellos, check their stuff out

You can find a link to my Masterlist etc in my bio and pinned post

⋘ ──────── ∗ ⋅◈⋅ ∗ ──────── ⋙

» Katsuki Bakugo:

Bakugo realizes that he is in love with you when you put yourself in danger to help him

Usually, Bakugo would be furious if someone else saw him as a person in need of help and tried supporting or even protecting him in a dangerous situation, but this time it feels different

Instead of anger boiling deep within Bakugo, close to making him explode, he feels an unusual numbness at first, while he watches your body fall to the ground after taking a hit for him. Even though he is often unable to identify his own feelings and is out of touch with them, he notices that change withing himself

The numbness quickly gives way to fear. He tumbles forward as he screams your name. For the first time in a while he is not sure what to do; he wants to check if you are alright, if you are alive, if you are still with him. But he also wants to charge forward and rip the person who hurt you to shreds

He feels helpless, unable to decide and unable to push those sudden overwhelming feelings aside. Instead, shock is freezing his whole body, only allowing his arms and legs to tremble. His mind is racing and screaming and calling him weak. Weak for needing your help, weak for not being able to protect you, weak for not killing this damn bastard in front of him

“Bakugo!” Your voice is feeble and barely audible over the sounds of the fight, but he can still hear you. You reach him through the clouds in his mind, through his own voice in his head tormenting him

He regains control over his body and it only takes him a few blows to knock out the enemy

In the next moment, he is cowering next to you, pulling you close, checking your vitals. Once again, his fingers tremble. You are alive, but in dire need of help

Bakugo hates being afraid and he pushes the feeling down with full force, trying to let his anger take over once again. The anger that numbs his senses, makes him care less about the people around him, makes him unapproachable and lets him keep everyone at a distance

“You damn fool!” His voice cracks. “I didn’t ask for your fucking help!” You look up at him with half-lidded eyes. “Baku-” “Shut up!” The pain in his throat from screaming is a welcome one. “Just shut the fuck up! I didn’t need you to save me, dammit!” A lump forms in his throat, taking his ability to speak. He can feel tears in his eyes, but he wipes them away before they can fall

Bakugo leans down and puts his arms under your body to carry you to an ambulance. Under his breath, he mutters, “I’m so glad you’re alive.”

» Shoto Todoroki:

Todoroki realizes that he is in love with you when you are patient with him

Most people in Todoroki’s life expect a lot from him, if not way too much. His father expects him to be the perfect hero and successor to him since the day his quirk awoke, UA expects him to always be one step ahead of everyone else and he puts those expectations on himself as well. Even though it is not hard for him to be all those things at this point in his life, having someone around who is patient with him and does not care if he fails or lets himself go from time to time is a relief

Like on most days, Todoroki and you walk home together after class, since you have to go into a similar direction. Most of the time both of you walk in silence or you try making conversation with Todoroki only to be met with silence or short answers

Todoroki knows that he is not the best person to be around at all times, that he does not always get jokes or acts distant with people – he just does not know what to say and how to react to certain things

Having friends is hard for him. Either he overshares about his past or keeps people at a safe distance. Todoroki needs time to figure out this new thing called friendship for himself. Can he even call his classmates friends? Can he call Midoriya, Iida and Uraraka friends? Can he call you a friend? What do you and the others call your relationship from your perspectives?

He has known you for a while now and you walk together every single day and you talk and you text, so you are his friend, right?

“Todoroki?” you catch him a little off-guard. “Hm?” “Would you like to hang out some time?”

He looks up at you and tries reading your expression. A friendly smile, waiting for his answer. It is his decision. You are not deciding for him, you are not demanding anything from him. Not many people have ever asked him to decide things for himself in the past. Everyone always decided in his place, especially when it came to big things like becoming a hero. It is a simple yes or no question over a small thing, yet Todoroki has trouble coming up with an answer

You seem to notice his hesitation. “It’s totally fine if you don’t want to hang out,” you calmly tell him. There is no undertone in your voice, only genuine kindness. “You can take your time deciding, you can take your time getting comfortable with having friends, or even just the idea of it.” Did you have another secret quirk that allowed you to read minds? Todoroki pushed that thought away. “Take your time. I promise that whatever you say, I won’t be mad or hurt by it. Alright?”

Even though you do not say anything to compliment or embarrass Todoroki, he feels himself blushing. Just a little, but he turns his face away to not let you notice. You are patient with him. You want him to be comfortable with you, you do not want to push anything on him. A warm feeling spreads through his body and for a second, Todoroki thinks that he is losing control of his fire quirk, but he quickly realizes that it is something else – something nice and good

“Yes, I’d love that, actually.” “Okay, great! I’ll text you then?” “Yeah.”

The two of you part ways but the warm feeling stays

» Izuku Midoriya

Midoriya realizes that he is in love with you when you comfort him

Whenever something goes wrong during a mission or a patrol, that he goes on during his internship, Midoriya is quick to blame himself for what happened. He himself and everyone around him makes him think that he needs to be a perfect hero even though he is only an intern and a student

It starts with overthinking his steps, replaying the scene in his head again and again, and sometimes even ends in panic attacks. Most of the time he tries to deal with those things alone and disappears in his dorm room, but over time you have learned to see the signs that Midoriya is not doing well and you have been trying to find ways to comfort him

You both sit on his bed as Midoriya talks about what happened earlier. The civilians that got hurt, the villain who got away, his own inability to save everyone and stop the bastard. His voice is weak, tears run down his cheeks and sobs shake his body every now and then

He goes on and on about the mistakes he made until you interrupt him

“Midoriya.” Your voice is soothing yet insistent. “Not everything that happened today is your fault. Maybe even nothing. You are still in training, there are adults who are responsible for you. Putting someone as young as you and me out there is a risk, because we make mistakes. But that’s a way to learn. We learn from our past mistakes and become stronger. The next time you are in a situation like this, you’ll be able to handle it just fine.”

Some more tears run down his face, so you pull him into an embrace. Midoriya appreciates your words. He really does. But for now, he has lost his ability to speak

“You are not alone with this. And it’s not your fault.”

Another choked sob leaves Midoriya. He hugs you back, clings to your shirt and buries his face in the crook of your neck. The way your hands draw patterns on his back soothe him until he eventually stops crying. But he does not want to let go just yet

“Thank you,” he whispers after a while. “Thank you so much.” He is not alone. He knows that he can talk to you about this, about anything. He just wishes he had the courage to open up more often

You stay like this until it gets dark, until all the other lights have gone out. Until everything is silent and Midoriya can only hear your and his own breathing. He feels oddly warm and safe in your arms, so he hopes that you will never get up to go to your room, but he knows that you have to, eventually

Suddenly, one of your hands is on the back of his head, your fingers running through his hair. Midoriya has a hard time stopping himself from leaning into your touch more. “I hope you know that I’m here for you, Izuku.” You never call him by his first name. Midoriya’s heart skips a beat and heat rises to his cheeks. He is glad that you cannot see his face right now because he is sure that it is as red as a tomato

“The same goes for you.” And he wholeheartedly means it

You linger there for another moment before finally pulling away. Midoriya does not want you to, he wants you to stay there, with him, forever. But he cannot have that. Not yet at least. And even though the circumstances that lead to this are not the best, he wishes for this to happen again soon

#midoriya izuku x reader #bakugou katsuki x reader #todoroki shouto x reader #midoriya izuku #deku #bakugou katsuki #todoroki shouto #midoriya x reader #bakugou x reader #todoroki x reader #midoriya #bakugou #todoroki #x reader #x you #x yn #x gender neutral reader #bnha x reader #bnha x gender neutral reader

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forgetful-dorito · 3 years ago

Text

Here’s my gift to Bio Anon for the MCYT G/T gift exchange! I kinda took the second prompt and stuck it in a dryer on tumble-dry, then shook it up even more. though, I did have a lot of fun brainstorming ideas for how to use the prompt, so I hope you enjoy my little word vomit :)

(also in this au Tommy never got exiled because screw the green teletubby) word count: ~1.3k

cw: food at the beginning, some very mild fearplay, and so much swearing. So much. It was like I got possessed by Tommyinnit while writing this I’m so sorry

“What the fuck.”

Tommy had just wanted a snack.

It was 2 am and he couldn’t sleep, understandably so considering all that happened in the past few months, so he decided to get up and make himself something to eat. Nothing too heavy or time consuming, but enough effort to distract him from the thoughts that had been bothering him.

He had walked down the dark hallway to the kitchen, turning on the fluorescent lights and yawning. Stumbling over to the cabinet, he pulled out a small loaf of bread, and turned towards the fridge to get the cheese and mayo. Since he was still blinking the sleep from his eyes, it took him a few moments to register the fact that there was a tiny human watching him from the countertop.

A tiny fucking human. Standing with its hands in an open bag of peanuts. Looking as surprised and frozen as he was.

“What the fuck.” Tommy finally spoke up, and that was the cue for the tiny person to start fleeing off the counter.

Sleep gone from his mind, Tommy raced to catch the thief. It wasn’t a very hard battle, the poor thing seemed absolutely terrified. He gently pinned him down, putting as little pressure on the tiny guy as possible.

In the blink of an eye, Tommy found a sewing needle stuck in his thumb. He swore heavily, picking the needle out. He used more force this time, wrapping the escaping tiny in a fist and bringing him up to Tommy’s face.

The Tiny stopped kicking, instead he stared in horror at Tommy.

“Alright, I’m gonna give you three seconds to explain who you are and why you’re in my house stealing my food.”

The tiny pondered for a moment, but gave in after Tommy squeezed a little harder.

“AAH, don’t squeeze me like that! And I thought you’d know already, considering you humans blew our SMP to smithereens!” He spat the word ‘humans’ like a curse word.

Huh?

“Stop fucking around with me! Who are you?” He looked a little closer at the tiny….wait…..was that his shirt? And his pants?!

“Wait….you seriously don’t know?”

~~~~

After internally freaking out and a very long and painful conversation with Phil (he wasn’t really ready to see him yet, but this felt important enough to ask him about. Being the oldest living member on the server has its perks) it turns out, Phil knew what was going on!

Apparently no one bothered to tell Tommy that the myth about “tiny people” that live in the walls and start tiny governments was real. Who just leaves that out of a conversation?! What the fuck Phil?!?

To be fair, it looks like Phil was the only one who knew about these tiny people. They started springing up everywhere around the SMP, and they were always dressed like one of the server members.

Another thing that the myth conveniently forgot to mention, was that these tiny people were the complete opposite of the people they were based off of. Tommy didn’t understand what Phil meant by that, but after remembering the way Tiny Tommy acted he got it. Since Tommy was loud and brash and so, so cool, then tiny Tommy was quiet and careful and a total douchebag. Easy enough!

At one point, he had seen a tiny Tubbo lurking around Snowchester. At first he didn’t recognize him, the little guy had bright blond hair for some reason. But after he realized, he tried to strike up conversation. It was good old Tubbo after all! Except he couldn’t make it past a few sentences of conversation before he realized this was not the same Tubbo he knew.

For one thing, this Tubbo was actually normal. There was no talk of nukes, no mention of some horrific scandal he had committed, nothing! Just some pleasant conversation about the weather and gardening.

It was absolutely disgusting.

Mental note: make sure to tell Tubbo how awful his tiny double is.

Jschlatt’s tiny double was actually really nice.

When Tommy had found him, he was open and kind. Tommy had immediately assumed it was a trap, but after getting to know him, it was quite the opposite. He was kind and caring, and all around an amazing father figure.

He was fine with being lifted up and carried, so they would often be seen together, working on one of Tommy’s new carrot farms with Schlatt perched on his shoulder. Honestly, it was like having a tiny parent hovering over you, worrying over your bruises or if you’ve eaten enough.

Tommy didn’t have the heart to tell him that was the most parental attention he’s received since he can remember.

One day, while working on the garden, Tommy had asked about tiny Technoblade. He didn’t know why, maybe it was all the wanted posters of his former brother. They had started appearing a few weeks ago, and though their last interaction was shit, he was still worried.

“Oh…..Techno?” Jschlatt asked, fidgeting from Tommy’s shoulder.

He grunted, pulling a few grown carrots out of the ground. He loved his farms, but they were hard work.

“He…..oh how do I say this in a nice way….”

“Just spit it out. I’m a big man, after all. I can take it!” Tommy said, piling the dirty carrots onto a wheelbarrow and puffing his chest out dramatically.

“Well…alright I’ll just say it. He died a long, long time ago.”

“…WHAT!?”

As it turns out, Tiny Techno is not very good at surviving. Jschlatt had admitted that before he had lost his third life, he had the survival instincts of a sheet of paper.

“Yeah, one time I saw him fall off a cliff while reading his chat. It wasn’t pretty, I think I used up all my healing potions on him.” He commented as Tommy brang the hose over to wash the carrots off.

That was certainly something he’d never expected to hear. The Blade DOES die, I guess

Later that day, after tiny Schlatt had said his goodbyes to Tommy, Tubbo had come by to visit.

Tommy had expected some news about Snowchester’s government, or maybe a new cookie recipe, but he was certainly not expecting Tubbo to start screaming bloody murder.

“TOMMY, WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED?!” He yelled, pacing around his little garden.

“ALL I WANTED WAS TO FIND MY FAVORITE PEN, I DROPPED IT BEHIND MY COUCH! I GO TO PICK IT UP, AND MY HAND TOUCHES SOMETHING WARM AND HAIRY. WARM. AND. HAIRY. I LOOK AT IT, AND THERES A TINY BLOND ME SITTING ON THE FLOOR HOLDING MY PEN. WHAT THE ABSOLUTE FUCK.”

“Woah big man, calm down!” He handed Tubbo one of his nicer-looking carrots.

“Please, calm yourself, have a carrot.”

Tubbo absentmindedly took the carrot and sat down, munching away while still yelling about how the tiny person in his walls stole his pen.

Tommy, being the absolute dickhead he is, decided to call Tubbo crazy.

”Sorry Tubs, but I think you got one too many hits to the head. Tiny people living in your walls? That’s just crazy.” He shrugged, staring at the clouds above.

Tubbo bristled. “TOMMY WHAT THE HELL, YOU THINK IM LYING?!”

”Nah, I just don’t think you’re telling the truth” he smirked.

Tommy soon found a half eaten carrot thrown at his face, and rightfully so.

(I hope you enjoyed my weird crack-take on your prompt Bio. I had a lot of ideas for the story, including a lot more characters and cool game mechanics, but I didn’t know how to incorporate it all into the fic before the deadline. Im going to be on vacation for the next couple weeks, but if I find time I’d love to edit it and flesh it out more, maybe fix the pacing make it more enjoyable. have a great day! :] )

#mcyt g/t exchange #mcyt g/t #tommyinnit centric #tw swearing #tw food mention

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carnationcreation · 4 years ago

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can you do 15 with reggie peters pls❤️

TITLE: 3 Simple Rules (Reggie Peters x reader) [MUSICAL THEATER AU]

✌🏻Masterlist Taglist, Requests, and Works in progress!

Please check bio to see if requests are open before sending any in!

Request: can you do 15 with reggie peters pls❤️

Prompt/summary: [Musical Theater AU] Reader has to explain the three simple rules of the theater to Reggie. (And also help him out of trouble)

Word Count: 1,411

Authors note: From my AU prompt list on Tumblr!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There were three rules that came with being in the theater department at Los Feliz High School.

Rule One: No talking in the wings.

From the moment I met my co-star Reggie Peters at auditions, I knew he was going to be a pain to work with.

For example, he did not prepare an audition song. Instead, he broke out a guitar and took a request from Mrs. Harrison and wowed with his impressive vocals instead. His lines were half memorized and his wardrobe was not fit for the dance portion of the audition.

For Christs sake we’re doing NEWSIES!

The rehearsal period was over a month long and every week about thirty students crammed into the auditorium to relentlessly rehearse and prepare for opening night.

My character, Katherine, didn’t dance much other than in King of New York. The big tap dance number I had to master next week.

A lot of my time was spent waiting in the wings for my next cue. Unfortunately, so was Reggie’s.

“Wait was that my cue?”

“SHHHHH!” I said, looking anxiously to see if the stage manager on the other side of the stage heard us.

“Oh come on,” he said, “they can’t hear me over the music.”

I rolled my eyes before grabbing his hand and dragging him to the hallway of dressing rooms right behind the stage.

“Do you seriously not know anything?”

He looked at me confused.

“The rules of being in theater?” I said, when he shrugged I continued, “One, no talking in the wings. Two, no eating or smoking in costume. And three, always show up early or else you’re late.”

“I didn’t think this was that serious.”

I scoffed, “Why did you even sign up for this?”

He shrugged, “Mrs. Harrison cornered me in English and said she needed someone who could actually sing for Jack Kelly.”

I rolled my eyes, “You better keep your mouth clean. I don’t want to have to kiss someone who’s breath stinks every weekend.”

Suddenly, the door we just came out popped open.

“(Y/N)! It’s almost your cue! Reggie, what are you doing out here?” Julie whispered.

“Nothing. Let’s go Reginald.”

“It’s Reggie!”

Rule 2: No eating in costume

The snack table near the dressing room was kept stocked with lots of different things, and it was meant for those out of costume or stagehands since we didn’t get to eat dinner until afterwards on show nights.

I’d never been a stickler about eating in costume considering I’ve done it myself numerous times. At least I was always careful about it though, putting on a jacket or blanket over me to keep stains from getting on the meticulous costumes our school would make.

“What are you doing?”

I tried to keep my voice low, but the shock and panic that went through me when I saw orange smears on Reggie’s vest from the pack of Cheetos in his hand made it come out in a squeek.

He looked up at me frantically, “I forgot!”

I huffed in frustration before running into the womens dressing room to grab paper towels.

Reggie tried to take them from me when I came out but I slapped his hand away.

“You’ll try to rub it, you need to pat the stain out.”

The wet paper towel made the brown vest look darker, but at least I got the orange out.

I grabbed his hand and dragged him back into the dressing room, “Stand there.”

He stood where I pointed right beside the electrical outlet and watched me silently as I plugged in the hair dryer and set it to the cool setting. I put it on it’s lowest setting so I could carefully listen so we wouldn’t be late for our cues. Luckily it was Pulitzer’s solo so we should have enough time.

I looked up and noticed his cheeks were red, “What? It isn’t too hot is it?”

“Uh- no I just- we’re in the dressing room alone-”

“And I’m getting the stain out of your shirt so Katie won’t go nuts when she sees your costume almost ruined. No one’s gonna say anything Reggie, especially not to me. This happens more than you think.”

He nodded and looked down at the vest. It was still slightly damp but not enough to be noticeable on stage.

“Thank you,” Reggie said as I pulled the door open.

“Next time put a jacket on before you eat. Three simple rules Peters. Remember them.”

Rule 3: Always show up early or you’re late

It was almost the end of our show run. The past few weeks had been amazing and it was saddening to think that tonight I would have to say goodbye to Katherine.

As I sat in my dressing room I heard a knock at the door, Julie entered and stood behind me as I pinned my hair up for my wig.

“Have you seen Reggie? It’s almost 10 minutes till places.”

“No I haven’t, has he messaged Luke about being the understudy?”

She shook her head, “Katie said he hadn’t.”

I felt anxiety rise in my chest, hopefully we wouldn’t have to delay the show just to get someone in costume.

I peaked my head outside and just as I did Reggie Peters came sprinting down the hallway.

“Where have you been?”

“I got a flat on the way, how much time do I have?”

“10 minutes till places. If you hurry you might not be late.”

He nodded.

“Rule number 3 Peters!”

He shouted over his shoulder back at me, “I know!”

I rolled my eyes. Having pity for the boy, I decided to try and help.

I went and grabbed his mic from the stage manager and updated her on the situation. With it in hand I went back to his dressing room and knocked.

“Come in!”

Reggie stumbled around the room finding pieces of his costume to pull on.

“Sit,” I said once he had the pants and shirt on.

I handed him the vest and tucked the mic pack into the back of his belt before letting him run the wire up through the shirt.

“Do your hair, I’ll get the makeup ready.”

He tousled his hair and I couldn’t help but stare. Him clearing his throat brought me back to reality and I began applying the foundation and powder to his face. The entire time I felt his eyes looking at me causing my face to become unexplainably hot.

Finally I pressed a cut up makeup sponge covered in black and gray eye shadow to give him the look of a dirty newsie.

“All done,” I said. I tried to stand up quickly so I could go and get my face to not feel like it’s on fire.

He grabbed my wrist, “Thank you.”

“For what?”

He sighed, “You’re always helping me with something.”

“Well,” I smiled, “Hopefully you’d do the same for me if the situation was reversed. Besides theater geeks look out for each other.”

“I’m not a geek!”

I laughed, “It’s almost time for places. Let’s go Peters.”

The final curtain call had most of the cast in tears. This was the night we’d have to put all the props away and say goodbye to Newsies.

I neatly put my costume away before turning off my dressing room light for one last time.

I’ll admit. Working with Reggie wasn’t all that bad. At least he was a good kisser and took a mint before the finale each night.

I pulled my duffle bag over my shoulder and walked towards the entrance of the school.

“(Y/n)!”

I looked behind me to see Reggie jogging to catch up with me.

“The rest of the crew is going to iHop, are you coming?”

“I dont know,” I said, “I’m kinda tired.”

“Come on,” he groaned.

“No Reginald I’m tired and sad the show ended.”

He smirked, “And going with the rest of the cast will make the grief a little less.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Please?”

I walked off leaving him to trail behind me.

“Please (Y/n)!”

“Why do you want me to go that bad Reginald?”

“It’s Reggie,” he said, I smirked, “And... I don’t know anyone else that well.”

I stopped and turned to him, he looked slightly embarrassed.

“Please? I don’t wanna go by myself.”

I sighed, “Fine. But you’re buying me a milkshake.”

He smiled widely and before I could react pressed a kiss to my cheek.

As he pulled back he realized what he had done causing us both to blush.

“Is that against the rules?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*If you signed up for my taglist but don’t see your name please message me!

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#julie and the phantoms #julie and the phantoms imagine #jatp #jatp imagine #au imagine #julie and the phantoms au #reggie peters #reggie peters imagine #reggie peters x reader #jatp reggie #jatp reggie imagine #jatp reggie x reader

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elsanna-shenanigans · 3 years ago

Text

August Contest Submission #14: Of Flowers and Child-Friendly Scissors

Words: ca. 5,500 Setting: mAU Lemon: No CW: Brief mention of blood, Angst

The gentle fragrance of freshly cut flowers had always been nostalgic for Anna. She awoke to it every morning, and like clockwork she’d rise and perform her morning routine. With a large mug of sugary coffee in hand, she’d head down from her apartment to the shop floor below to get to work. Visually, she could never get enough of the array of vibrant colours. It overwhelmed her senses as much as the smell.

Raking a hand through her messy red hair, Anna wandered around the shop floor surveying her stock. Swapping her mug for a pair of pruning scissors from the counter, she walked around clipping the flowers on display, changing their water and creating easy to pick up pre-made bunches for her customers. Her mother had always hated being trapped in the family run business but Anna was the opposite: the quiet allowed her time to think. It was her only space in the universe, and she lost herself within it.

Caught up in her own world, she didn’t even hear the gentle chime of the bell as the door opened.

“Excuse me -”

Anna leapt out of her skin; almost chopping her fingers clean off.

“Oh my god, I am so sorry!” the customer flew to her knees beside Anna, taking her hand in her own.

Anna blinked, still as a mouse as she met bright cerulean eyes. She opened her mouth to speak, but her eyes followed her customer’s down to her hand. Scarlet glistened in the morning sunlight, and it took Anna a moment to realise it was her blood. She panicked for a good ten seconds, wondering if perhaps she really had cut her fingers off. Flexing them made her realise she hadn’t.

“I am such an idiot,” Anna yanked her hand back from the stranger as she scrambled to her feet.

“I shouldn’t have snuck up on you. I really am so sorry!” the woman chased Anna back to the counter where she clambered in drawers for the first aid kit.

“It’s okay, really. It’s not the first time. I should really be issued with child-friendly scissors,” she said, running around like a whirlwind. Once she had found the box she was looking for Anna tipped it upside down, spilling the contents of bandages, plasters and antiseptic cream across the counter.

“Sit down, let me bandage it,” the customer told her with a stern tone. It was enough to give Anna pause. Taking a minute to really look the woman over she realised she hadn’t met her before. The village was small; small enough to know every resident. A visitor, then, she assumed.

Silently, Anna obeyed and took a seat, the woman getting straight to work with light and delicate fingers, gently cleaning the wound and applying the dressing.

Anna found herself captivated by her guest: irises were a deep blue peppered with flecks of grey, eyes narrowed in intense concentration. She brushed away blonde hair from her face as she worked, strands so pale they almost lacked all pigment completely. The snow white skin of her arms were without blemish, and Anna’s eyes dared to wander further, past the chain of the silver locket resting on her collarbone, further still to the soft summer dress in muted tones of lilac. She was so lost in her that she didn’t even notice when the mysterious stranger had finished tending to her hand.

“Are you okay? You look flushed. Do you have a fever?” the woman held her hand to Anna’s forehead, and Anna, abruptly snapping out of her daydream at the surprisingly ice cold touch, almost died on the spot.

“I am fine! Totally fine!” she replied far too quickly, backing up as much as her chair would allow, her free hand grasping the arm rest, knuckles white.

Get yourself together! She berated herself. Taking a deep breath, Anna looked up again to greet her customer.

“I haven’t seen you around. Are you visiting?” she asked, keeping her voice surprisingly level as she swiftly changed the subject.

“No, I moved in last week,” the woman replied, finally taking a step back, and Anna breathed out a sigh of relief. She wasn’t sure she’d survive a whole conversation pinned down in the chair… though looking her visitor over once more, a part of her lamented the loss of contact. Just the thought of being pinned down by the enigmatic blonde was giving her more of a thrill than she cared to admit.

“Wait, you just moved in?” Anna suddenly processed her words. She had to think hard. There were no houses up for sale. That kind of news travelled fast. Unless -

“- my grandmother passed away last year and she left her cottage to me. I sat on it for a while, wondering whether to sell it… but my life turned upside down recently and well, here I am, moving into a village where I know no one.”

“You moved into number 6. You’re Rita’s granddaughter,” Anna said, taking a moment to compare the woman before her to the elderly lady who used to visit so often. Forgetting herself, Anna quickly continued, “I know it was a while ago, but I am sorry for your loss. She really was the heart of the village.”

“It’s okay, really. It’s been weird stepping into her life. People talk to me like I should know her, but I hadn’t seen her since I was a child. I have no idea what she was like, or why she bypassed my parents to leave this to me. But here I am, standing in your shop. Life just goes on. It’s quite cruel really.”

And here I am also talking to you like you’d have known her. Anna could have face-palmed. She was making a fine mess of this first meeting.

“Anna Noakes,” Anna held her hand out: the one that wasn’t bandaged, “I run the florist. Big surprise, I know, seen as that’s where we are,” Anna held her other arm out to gesture to the flower covered room. The chuckle it drew from Elsa made her heart soar.

“Well, Anna Noakes,” Elsa took her hand in greeting, “the florist who should only be issued with child-friendly scissors, it is a pleasure to meet you. I am Elsa. Elsa Frost. What would you recommend for a first date?”

Anna caught the look of mirth in her customer’s eyes. She was never living that down.

Pursing her lips, thoughts flicked through the various flowers she had in stock which would appeal to a man. It wasn’t a request she had ever had before, but it wasn’t completely unheard of for a woman to buy a man flowers.

“Does he have a favourite colour that you know of? Is he sentimental?” Anna asked as she dug through some bunches of freesias to reach the gerberas behind.

“She,” Elsa corrected, “and I have no idea.”

Anna froze. Slowly, she turned back to Elsa, who was flicking through her phone. She is seeing a woman? And she talks like it’s no big deal? It was an alien feeling for Anna, who had always been surrounded by her friends and family in this village. It wasn’t that she didn’t like her lot in life, but explaining to them that she may very well not be into men seemed impossible in a small community where no one deviated from traditional expectations.

Elsa held up her phone unapologetically and pointed to a picture of a brunette.

“Isn’t that a dating app?” Anna asked, tracing the emerald eyes and chestnut locks of the flawless woman on the screen. She was beautiful, and successful, judging by the brief bio she caught just beneath.

“Yes. We’ve been talking for a few days and we seem to click. I’m kind of nervous. I really want it to work.”

Anna caught the shy smile from Elsa, and she could not help but empathise with her sincerity. She was adorable.

“I wondered whether to give her roses -”

“- No, you’re not taking roses. Too overdone,” Anna dismissed it immediately.

“Let me make you something special. Peonies are beautiful, as are gerberas… maybe alstroemerias…” Anna murmured, moving around the store plucking individual flowers from buckets until she appeared back at Elsa’s side with a small bunch full of bright reds and yellows. Anna looked between the bunch and Elsa, wondering if perhaps she had made an error. The flowers didn’t reflect their purchaser at all, but before Anna could put them down and start again Elsa leaned forward and inhaled the sweet fragrance.

“They are perfect, thank you.”

Anna gave her a small smile, unable to bring herself to change her mind. If her customer liked them then that was that. They’d be fine. A date wasn’t about the flowers anyway. It was about the people, and she was sure Elsa would have a fine time.

Accepting payment, Anna bid farewell to her new customer and slouched back in her chair as she watched her leave, a goofy smile on her face. It would be nice to have a friend her age in the village. Especially one who must have gone through the same kind of trials Anna was going through.

“I wonder when I’ll see her again.”

—-

The incessant ring from the alarm jolted Anna awake. She slapped it off, only for it to buzz again a few minutes later.

“Snooze, snooze,” she murmured. One alarm was never enough.

Crawling out of bed to that perfumed scent of fragrant flower meadows, Anna repeated her morning routine, with the addition of cleaning her wound and reapplying her bandage. Taking more care not to cut herself, she got back to tending and pruning her flowers.

She was alert to the chime of the door, and looking up her heart raced at the sight of Elsa. Two days in a row. I am blessed.

Putting her scissors down with care, Anna rushed to her feet to greet her.

“Hey! Back again already?” Anna asked, smile bright.

“Just checking in to make sure you’re okay.”

Anna blinked, not understanding.

“Your hand,” Elsa pointed out.

“Oh!” The penny dropped. “This,” she held out her bandaged hand. “Well, it hasn’t fallen off yet so I guess it’s good?” Anna made light of the topic, though Elsa’s concern did not waver.

“Anyway, how did your date go?” she asked, and Elsa’s expression faded to something more melancholy.

“Not so great…” she admitted, and instantly Anna felt for her. Dates were cruel; dating apps even worse: Anna had experienced enough to know that much.

“Oh, I’m so sorry! I really hope it wasn’t the flowers – God, I’d hate to think I ruined your chances -”

“- No, it wasn’t the flowers. We just didn’t get on in person as much as I had expected,” Elsa said, eyes looking anywhere but at Anna.

Why would I suggest gerberas? I should have gone for muted hues. Something that suited her character. I’m such an idiot.

“Have you ever used a dating app before? They are pretty terrible,” Elsa made idle conversation as she browsed a selection of the pre-made bunches available.

“Yes – no, kind of… after my ex I swore off dating forever.”

“He was that bad?”

Anna let out a small chuckle. “No, she was not that bad. Not really. I just wasn’t ready to come out to everyone… Which I still haven’t really done. Which I am still not ready to do. And I don’t even know why I’m telling you this.”

The flash of surprise on Elsa’s face made Anna freeze for a moment, but the gentle smile that replaced it reassured her that she hadn’t made a mistake in confessing that to her.

“Did you date her here?” Elsa asked curiously, not seeming to miss a beat.

“Oh, hell no. She lived in the city. I travelled. Could you imagine if the village knew? It would be the gossip of the century.”

“I don’t know. Fitting in seems kind of boring, don’t you think?”

Anna was caught in her gaze for a long moment, those irises flickering with something darker. Had they been in a bar in the city Anna might have mistaken her customer’s intense look as an invitation to flirt, but they weren’t in a city. This was her village, and Anna was supposed to be serving the woman.

A ding from Elsa’s phone distracted them both.

Anna took a breath, almost relieved the tension was broken. She needed to stop letting Elsa fluster her. Threading her fingers through red hair, she tried to work out exactly how she was going to do that when Elsa continued, “Looks like another match. You ever think women find it corny for a partner to show up with flowers? Am I being old fashioned?”

“Absolutely not. It’s like the pinnacle of romance,” Anna said, resolute in her conviction. If any of her past dates had showed up with flowers she’d have been flattered; she’d have swooned.

“Mmm,” Elsa hummed, still checking her phone. “She wants to meet.”

“Isn’t that a little soon?” Anna frowned, voice laced with concern.

“Probably. But she does look cute. What do you think?” Elsa held her phone out. Anna sucked in a breath as she looked the redhead over in the image. She was stunning: glamorous. Anna felt a twang of envy as she looked over the photo. The woman staring back at her was much like Anna, and yet she was more refined, more city-smart, she had a proper job. It only served to remind her why she hated dating apps. Everyone on there always showed off their best side. Filtered photographs and high paying jobs weren’t everything… even if a small part of her wished she could have that lifestyle.

“She looks great,” the lie rolled off her tongue so easily. Anna had learnt the hard way how cruel the dating world could be, and Elsa needed to learn this herself. It wasn’t for Anna to judge.

“In that case, what flowers would you recommend?”

Anna smiled, even if it was a sad smile. Those girls would never know how lucky they were to have someone take these dates so seriously.

Changing it up, Anna picked bunches of muted purples and whites, with just a flash of yellow; selected from her best lilac, asters and crocuses. “The hope a new love can bring.”

“Do they always mean so much?” Elsa asked, examining them closely.

“Definitely. I could go on for days, but I won’t bore you.” Anna shot her a knowing grin.

“Maybe when I next pop by,” Elsa said, accepting the bunch and proceeding to purchase them.

She’ll be back. Anna held onto the thought. It was beginning to dawn on her that if Elsa really was planning on staying here permanently then these little visits might become more frequent than she ever could have dreamed. And for reasons Anna wasn’t entirely sure of, she was looking forward to them already.

Anna was about to bid farewell to Elsa, when she hesitated, an ivory hand lingering on her bunch of flowers still on the counter.

“I really am so lucky I found you. I have no idea what I’d have done without your help. I’d have been lost in a world of poorly maintained supermarket flowers,” Elsa admitted, and it was enough to draw a nervous laugh from Anna.

“I don’t know, probably not messing up your last date?” Anna replied, cheeks rosy in embarrassment. The arched eyebrow Elsa raised in response made her glance away.

“Maybe it’s the opposite. Maybe I am just so hopeless that even the best flowers in the world can’t convince a woman to sit through a meal with me.”

“No, absolutely not!” Anna said without conscious thought. “I mean, anyone would be lucky to have a meal with you. You’re lovely. And kind, and considerate, and just -” she stopped herself before her mouth ran away with itself. “I just mean… you’re trying. Which is more than any of my dates ever did. They don’t know how lucky they are. You’ll meet the right person, eventually. Never give up.”

Elsa cocked her head, and for a moment Anna worried she had overstepped some kind of boundary.

“Thank you,” Elsa said sincerely. “I worried when I came here that I wouldn’t meet anyone who’d get me.”

“Oh?” Anna asked in surprise.

“A young independent woman from the city moving into a sleepy old village? Everyone here seems so set in their ways.”

She wasn’t wrong. Anna felt the same, and she had lived here her entire life.

A question tugged at Anna, and she considered not asking, but curiosity got the better of her. “Why did you move here?” It was an innocent enough question, or so she thought.

“Well…” Elsa hesitated, and for a moment Anna wasn’t sure if she’d continue. The way she clammed up made Anna wish she had never asked at all. It was such a contrast to the happy woman who stood there moments earlier. “We got serious so my girlfriend at the time moved in… and then we split a few years later. Do you know how hard it is living with your ex full time? It was okay while we weren’t seeing people. But when she started bringing people home…”

Anna watched those bright eyes fall into despair. Instinctively, she reached out and pulled Elsa into a hug.

“It hurt so, so much.” The raw emotion was evident in every syllable. “But I know she has nothing. Nowhere to go. So now I pay the mortgage and she lives in my apartment in the city,” Elsa said with the deepest of sighs.

How does someone even end up in that situation?

“I couldn’t throw her out onto the street, but I couldn’t live there either. So here I am, trying to start fresh. A psychiatrist would have a field day with me, I swear.”

The way she tried to lighten the mood made Anna squeeze her even tighter.

“No – no.” Anna shook her head. “You’re amazing, and thoughtful. Your ex is a fool,” she paused, debating how best to tell her that renting her apartment out for free to an ex was crazy. “Don’t get me wrong – you totally need to fix your apartment situation, but you’re doing what you think is right. You’re being a good person. Don’t ever feel bad for that.”

Anna pulled back enough from Elsa to look her over. She could now see how clearly she was suffering beneath her upbeat persona. She still loves her. Anna supposed it made sense now. Why else would she be trying so hard to find someone new? Or maybe she’s just trying to find a way to heal.

“Thank you. For both the flowers and the pep talk,” Elsa said gratefully, pulling away from Anna’s arms and collecting the flowers from the counter. Anna felt an emptiness at the loss of contact, and she wondered if Elsa did too as she watched as she wrapped one arm around herself self-consciously.

“Anytime. I’m here every day of the week. Literally. Except Sunday. I have Sundays off.”

Anna opened her mouth to give Elsa something more: advice? Encouragement? Just a friendly goodbye? No words followed. She watched, a bleakness filling her at what she had just learnt. It didn’t seem fair that someone trying so hard had suffered so much misfortune.

I hope she finds what she is looking for.

—-

It wasn’t often Anna didn’t sleep well, but here she was, wide awake long before her alarm had even gone off. She rolled out of bed and, like every morning, proceeded to perform her morning routine.

She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about how Elsa’s date went, and more importantly, how Elsa was doing. The more she thought about her the more Anna realised she barely knew a thing about her. Had she moved here with anyone? Could she have another soul to confide in at home? She certainly implied she didn’t.

Maybe I should drop by after work. Just to make sure she’s settling in. Without even consciously realising it, resolving to check in on Elsa that afternoon gave Anna an extra spring in her step as she flipped her open sign on the shop door to closed.

Keeping busy from idle thoughts, she continued to put the finishing touches on the flower arrangements for the wedding at the church later that day. Despite being a small, inclusive village, it was situated in an idyllic location and passing trade kept her afloat: especially weddings, and she needed her sole focus to ensure these would be perfect. Even if that meant no customers for a few hours.

Caught in the concentration of her job, she didn’t hear the door gently chime as it opened some time later.

“I hope I’m not disturbing you -”

Anna almost hit the ceiling. Holding her poor, beating heart, she turned to face Elsa. Had it been anyone else she’d have been thinking up a very tort reply involving reading and shop signage. But it was Elsa, and all of Anna’s irritation faded away in an instant.

“Sorry,” Elsa said with a sheepish smile, seeming to realise that she had made Anna jump out of her skin yet again. “I’m not normally this sneaky. I feel like you’re going to think I am doing this on purpose.”

“No, really, it’s fine. It’s great to see you again!” Anna said a little too enthusiastically, and instantly she wanted to face-palm. Way to sound desperate.

Immediately changing topic, because Anna needed to think about absolutely anything except her joy of seeing Elsa, she asked the one question on her mind. “How was your date?”

Elsa let out a low sigh. “I think I must have fool written all over my face.”

Anna nodded in understanding, not pressing her for any further details… and then proceeded to shake her head vehemently when she realised just what she had been agreeing to.

Elsa’s face softened, and for a moment she stood uncertain, one hand playing with the handles of her tote bag.

“…I actually got you a present.”

“A present?” Anna asked, both in pleasant surprise and anxious anticipation. What could ever have possessed Elsa to buy something for her she’d never know.

“Yes. Just something to say thank you for your help these past couple days.”

“I mean, you didn’t have to. My job is to supply my customers with perfect bouquets. If anything I should probably be giving you a refund for how well they’ve gone down.”

“Stop that,” Elsa’s voice held an edge that silenced Anna. “I loved them, and that’s all that matters.”

As much as Anna wanted to argue that that wasn’t the point, she remained quiet.

“Listen, don’t thank me too quickly. I pass a shop every day on the way to work and I saw it and thought of you and…” Elsa hesitated. “Just open it.”

Anna frowned but reluctantly accepted the neatly wrapped gift. Delicately, she pulled at the yellow ribbon and unpicked the sunflower paper. She looked between Elsa and the plain brown box beneath in curiosity. Chocolate maybe? She wondered, proceeding to slide the box open. To her surprise, Anna looked down at a dinky pair of black and white scissors, complete with blunt, rounded edges and topped off with a safety cap. Her eyes traced the cute cartoon panda faces over the grip.

She blinked in disbelief. “You bought me childrens scissors.”

“I did.” The absence of any shame in Elsa’s tone was both as amusing as it was humiliating.

Taking a breath, Anna finally looked up, keeping her expression as stern as she could as she inwardly melted at how adorable the gift was. “I want you to know I am both flattered and offended in equal measure.”

“Good. That’s what I was pitching for,” Elsa said, eyes alight with mischief. “Perhaps when rude customers sneak up on you, you won’t almost chop your hands off.”

“That was one time, and you weren’t rude.” Anna rolled her eyes.

“You said it had happened before,” Elsa retorted with folded arms and that arched look Anna was coming to enjoy a little too much.

“…So I did,” Anna conceded as she popped the scissors down by the counter.

“Can I get you a drink?” the words had already left Anna’s mouth before she realised how weird that was. They were in a flower shop. Elsa was shopping, not having afternoon tea.

Before Anna could backpedal and come up with excuses for how ridiculous the offer was Elsa’s musical notes had already left her lips, “I would love one.”

“G-great! Tea or coffee? Or juice, water, soda, alcohol?” Anna stammered, caught off guard.

Is my milk even in date?

“Coffee is fine.”

I really hope my milk is in date.

“Can you watch the shop for a minute? My kettle is upstairs.”

Elsa nodded, and with that Anna sped upstairs, taking two at a time. Setting the kettle to boil with one hand and grabbing a random mug from her pile of washing up with the other, she quickly got to work cleaning it and mixing up a cup of coffee.

I really hope she likes instant coffee. How many sugars does a normal person take? …Was the milk in date? Pushing all fears aside, Anna charged back down with the mug, almost spilling it as she skidded to a stop. I really hope I don’t kill her.

“World’s Number 1 Florist?” Elsa mused as she accepted the coffee. Anna frowned, not understanding until Elsa held the mug up to take a sip. “If it’s on a mug it must be true.”

The regret from picking that dumb mug was eclipsed by the playful twinkle in Elsa’s eye. Anna felt her cheeks redden, and feared for a moment Elsa would comment further, but she simply turned away and began wandering around the small shop floor, admiring the flowers on display.

At ease in her company, Anna went back to the arrangements she was working.

“So, you live above the shop? Isn’t it weird having your house as your business? I don’t think I could ever do that. Like, where is the boundary? You must end up working so many hours,” Elsa made idle conversation, but Anna didn’t mind. It was a nice change of pace to have company.

How strange. She couldn’t help but notice. She always left the shop closed when she needed to really concentrate on a big order, but somehow Elsa’s presence didn’t disrupt her flow in the same way every other person did.

“Yeah, it feels a bit like that sometimes,” Anna nodded in reply, not pausing in her work.

Elsa continued looking around, sipping her coffee as she took in every detail; from the range of flowers to the rustic design of the displays.

“Do you work here alone?”

“Yes. My grandparents owned the shop, and left it to me after they passed a few years back. My mum didn’t like being tied to it so she left way before. But even though I’m kind of stuck here I do enjoy it.”

“Your mum left?”

Anna sucked in a breath. She supposed she should have been more careful with her choice of words, but now she had mentioned it there was no taking that back.

“Yes. When I was 8. She wasn’t really mum material,” she said diplomatically. Explaining to Elsa that her mother liked the alcohol and drugs more than her own family felt impossible. “I see her sometimes, and we got along okay, but my grandparents are the ones who raised me.”

“Wow, I’m sorry to hear that,” Elsa said empathetically, pausing to really look at Anna. She avoided her gaze, not needing, or wanting her pity. She had enough of that from the village. Being so small had its disadvantages, and everyone knowing everyone’s business was one of them.

“Don’t be. Family problems, or maybe just life problems. I know I’m not the only one,” Anna said, thinking back to Elsa and their conversation about her grandmother and her ex. Her life was just as complicated, even if it was for completely different reasons.

“Life problems, indeed,” she agreed soberly, not prying for further details, and Anna respected that. It was a far cry from the gossip mongers she usually served.

Wordlessly, Anna continued arranging the wedding bouquets, acutely aware Elsa was now watching her every move with interest.

“Do you ever get lonely working here?” she finally broke the fragile silence that had fallen between them.

“I… don’t really notice? Maybe?” Anna wasn’t sure how to answer the question. “I try to keep myself busy. With so much to get done I don’t have time to think about much else. I need to get the flowers ready for the wedding this afternoon, and then for the church sermon tomorrow. And next week there are two more weddings.”

“Oh! I am sorry; I didn’t mean to keep you from anything -”

“- No - no, you’re not. I didn’t mean -”

“But you have Sundays off?”

Anna let out a low sigh. She hadn’t meant to offend the woman, though she did wonder if Elsa had even read the signage on the door when she let herself in.

“Yes. I don’t open but I sometimes,” always, “get things ready for the week.”

Elsa pursed her lips and for a moment Anna thought she might say something else, but instead she took a long sip of her coffee, finishing the mug.

“Thank you, for both the coffee and the chat. But I really shouldn’t keep you any longer.”

You really don’t have to go. But as much as she wished for it, Anna couldn’t voice the words out loud.

“…Thank you for the scissors,” she settled with, and it was enough to draw a smirk from her new friend.

Anna’s breath caught as Elsa leaned in dangerously close, pinning her to the counter. The brush of her arm against her own sent sparks through her. Teal eyes glanced down, catching the pale pink of her lips, and for the briefest of moments Anna thought she might lean just that touch closer.

The sound of Elsa placing her mug down on the hard surface behind snapped her back to reality.

“Be safe with them.”

Anna nodded wordlessly, unable to move from where she stood frozen as Elsa stepped out of the shop.

—-

Am I reading too much into it? Anna sat on the windowsill, gazing across the village, mug of coffee in hand. It was what she loved the most about living above the shop: from here she could see past the green, to the collection of shops on the other side, the tall spire of the local church peeking above large oak trees, and beyond to the series of cottages. She counted along each roof, picking out Elsa’s cottage.

Craft scissors. Completely and utterly unsuitable for the precise clipping of her flower stems, and yet she adored them all the same. But what did they mean? They were such an unusual gift. And the seriousness offset by the playfulness… Elsa was impossible to work out.

Don’t be a fool. A smart city girl like her would never look twice at a school drop out like you.

Anna had seen the bios of those successful girls on that dating app. Designer clothes, immaculate makeup, high flying jobs; a lot like Elsa. It was a far cry from Anna’s messy bedhead and clumsiness.

She let out a low sigh. I wonder if she’ll stick around for long. Who was she kidding? As soon as Elsa sorted her relationship and apartment problem the girl would be out of this village in a flash. What else was to keep her here?

The sharp ring of her alarm made her leap out of her skin. In retaliation she tossed a book over, knocking it clean off the bedside table. Instead of shutting it up however, it continued to squeal in an even higher pitch.

“Stupid alarm,” she grumbled as she got up and reset it.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door. It wasn’t even 8am yet. God, who’d want flowers at this time?

“We’re closed!” she called out. After a second knock she rolled her eyes and headed downstairs.

I swear if it’s Mrs Peterson again. She knows I’m closed yet every Sunday she -

“- Elsa?” she said in surprise, the air knocked out of her completely at the sight of her. Anna blinked. In contrast to her previous two visits, Elsa wore a longer and brighter floral dress, complete with a wide brim straw hat.

“Sorry. I saw movement by your window and I just… well… I got you some flowers…” she trailed off. Anna frowned, glancing between Elsa and the bunch of vibrant crocuses in her hand.

“Are those for me?” Anna asked, dumbfounded. “The shop has plenty of stock. I don’t need -”

“- They aren’t for your shop. They are for you,” Elsa clarified. Anna looked down at them again, unable to understand the gesture.

“I know you have a whole store full of them, and they probably mean something entirely significant that I do not know of,” Elsa said as she thrust the bunch out to Anna, “I picked them because they are the only thing growing in my garden… aside from the sunflowers, and they were so tall I felt too mean to take my scissors to them.”

Anna accepted the bunch tentatively, still not entirely sure what was happening. No one had ever gifted her flowers… or scissors for that matter.

“You know, I really should have gone with the sunflowers,” Elsa lamented, and Anna snapped back up immediately. “They are just so much more you.”

More me? Anna opened her mouth to question just what she meant when Elsa continued, “you could come by and see them, if you have any free time today. I’m not exaggerating when I say they are taller than us.”

Anna met Elsa’s vivid blue eyes squarely: so brave, yet so vulnerable in that moment.

“We get along well, don’t we? If I am imagining it please just tell me. I seem to have a terrible track record.”

She looked back down at the flowers, a variety of purple hues with flashes of white and yellow. They were as bright as they were beautiful: as gentle as snow, as warm as summer.

“Please say something before I perish on the spot.”

“…Please don’t perish. That would be awkward for everybody involved,” Anna finally said, giving her an apologetic look.

A soft chuckle escaped Elsa’s lips. “I’m making a mess of this, aren’t I? You’d think asking someone on a date wouldn’t be so difficult.”

A date?

“No. I am. I’m not - I don’t -” Anna paused and took a breath to get her thoughts straight. Everyone in the village will know if I see a local girl. Yet somehow the threat of that seemed so far away compared to the promise of a date with Elsa.

Don’t over think it.

“I would love to visit. I mean -”

Don’t worry about tomorrow.

“- I’d like to go on a date. With you. Together. Obviously. Please make me stop talking.”

Long fingers threaded between her own, and Anna let out as gasp as Elsa boldly pulled her close.

“Together sounds perfect,” Elsa’s words were like velvet, and Anna had to pinch herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.

Just enjoy today. The future can wait.

#elsanna #submission #august 2021 contest #prompt: flowers #CW: blood #cw: angst

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softboywriting · 4 years ago

Text

Can’t Hurry Love | Peter Mendes

Summary: You and Peter have been best friends for years and one day you wake up to realize you’ve fallen for him. When he finds out you’ve never been kissed, he decides to offer himself up as practice. One thing leads to another and well, maybe you’re meant to be more than friends. [friends to lovers] [first kiss]

Word Count: 2k

|Masterlist in Bio|

Note: None of my works should be posted anywhere outside of my linked accounts. I do not give permission to repost with or without credit to my accounts. Please notify me of any reposted fics.

No one tells you that falling in love with your best friend is the most terrifying feeling and simultaneously the best and most freeing relief. You don't know when it happened, what changed in you. You don't know why it happened. There is no pin pointing the moment you realized that your best friend Peter is the only person you want to share your life with. There wasn't a dynamic shift, a romantic gesture, a heart felt confession of love. Nothing. One day you woke up and met him at the end of the block to catch your bus to the college campus and your heart did a little flip flop when you saw him.

Perhaps you had been dreaming that night and you don't remember. That was your initial explanation for your new found feelings. You know, those temporary feelings that come with a dream about someone. It has happened before, not with Peter, but with other friends, crushes, random strangers you met in classes. But the feelings never went away, they became more insistent and every touch, every joke, every gesture became more than just a friendly feeling. They became soul crushing, heart clenching emotional moments that you replayed in your head every night before sleeping.

So here you are, three months later, walking up to Peter's house with your friend Haley. It's been hell, living with this secret and you've only told Haley about it. You're here for a party that Peter's brothers are throwing. They are going to the college hockey championships. It's a big deal around here. You brought Haley since she is absolutely gaga for Raul and she's been begging you to get her in with him since his last break up. She will be a good fit, and a far better girlfriend than any of the other girls Raul has dated. That is, if Haley can hit it off with him.

The moment you get in the front door the house is packed with people. Wall to wall partying. You part from Haley as she wanders into the kitchen and you head up the stairs. You know just where Peter's room is, you've only been here a couple thousand times since you were thirteen. Up the stairs, to the right, across the guest room and up the stairs in the closet to Peter's room in the attic. Could he have the guest room as his bedroom? Sure. But where's the fun in that? The attic is bigger and way more private.

You push open the door at the top of the stairs and you're hit with a gust of cold air. Typical. The balcony doors on the far side of the room don't latch properly because the frame broke years ago. He's gotten used to the freezing cold room in the winter, it's nothing new. He has a heater, a desk top thing he got online but it doesn't do much.

"You're here!" Peter cheers and gets up from his desk, discarding his console controller on the seat. "I've been wondering when you'd show up."

"Sorry, I was late because Haley was getting ready." You sigh softly. "She really wants to hit it off with Raul."

Peter chuckles. "Is she pretty?"

"Yeah of course. It's Haley. You remember? Blonde, short, great clothes."

"Oh! Yeah. She's going to school for fashion design right? Yeah she's cute, way nicer than his last girlfriend. Raul will probably like her. Did you introduce them?"

"No, I ditched her and came up here. She knows how to flirt."

Peter laughs. "You're so mean."

You shrug. "I don't like parties and I'm not playing matchmaker."

"I know." He puts his arm around your shoulders and walks you to the massive beanbag chair at the end of his bed. "I have my own bottle of whiskey. We can have our own party. Its even the apple kind."

You sink down into the soft beanbag and he drops next to you, reaching for said bottle on the bookshelf beside it. You haven't drank together since the feelings started, and you know it's a bad idea to start.

"You want to play never have I ever?"

"Uh, sure. But I know basically everything about you?"

"Not everything."

"Yeah okay." You laugh and he puts his legs over yours. "Alright, never have I ever accidentally stolen something."

Peter takes a drink from the bottle and grimaces. "That's not fair. You know it haunts me."

You smirk. "Well, I told you I know everything."

"Alright fine. Never have I ever had a first kiss." He drinks and passes the bottle to you.

You don't take a drink and pick at the hem of your shirt. This has taken a sharp turn very quickly.

"Wait, what, for real?"

You shake your head. "I've never been kissed."

"What?"

"You heard me."

Peter takes the bottle from between you and sets it aside on the floor. "How? Why?"

"It just hasn't happened."

"But you've had a boyfriend?"

You shake your head. "Never had that either. I just don't like getting close to people. I thought you knew this?"

"So you don't know how to kiss?"

"I know how! I just haven't done it yet. It's not that weird okay?"

Peter leans forward to look at you. "Do you wanna know what it's like?"

"Yeah, one day I guess."

"I mean, I could be your first kiss. I'm someone you trust and I'm not going to judge you if it's bad."

Your heart stops, a cold sick feeling grips your stomach. Does he know about your feelings? No, he's just trying to be nice. He wants you to be comfortable. He doesn't know. He can't. You're going to have to play this off. "I don't know. We're friends, what if it's weird?"

Peter repositions himself so he is sitting in front of you. "Never have I ever wanted to kiss my best friend." He takes a drink and hands you the bottle.

You roll your eyes, stomach aching. "That's not fair."

"Drink."

"I don't-"

"I know okay? Shawn told me. He said he overheard you talking about me with someone. I know you have a crush on me."

"What?! Shawn doesn't know anything!" You shove the bottle at Peter and get up. "I can't- you just believe him?!"

"Why are you getting so defensive?"

"Because! It's not- I don't- I'm scared okay?!" You ball your fists in your hoodie pocket and stare down at the floor.

Peter shifts and stands up, you see his sock covered feet in front of yours. "Can I talk now?"

"Yeah, sorry." You mumble.

He puts his hands out in front of him, palms up for you to grab them. "Hold my hands."

You do as he says and he closes his fingers around yours.

"It's okay that you have a crush on me. We've been close for years now. I know you have a hard time opening up to people and that's why you don't date. It's normal that you'd develop feelings for me since I'm someone you trust and you're comfortable with."

"But you don't like me like that."

"Actually," he chuckles and squeezes your hands. "I do. I'm sorry I brought it up like this, that wasn't fair."

"It's okay."

"Look at me, please?"

You look up and he leans in and kisses you quickly. Just a small press of lips before you can fully register that it happened. Your body reacts nonetheless. Heart pounding, a cold sweat on your neck. It feels like a dream but more like a nightmare.

"You okay?"

"I think I'm going to puke."

"Oh." Peter steps back and grabs his trash can, holding it up for you. "That's not reassuring."

"No. It's not you. It's me. I'm freaking out."

Peter sets the can down and wraps his arms around you as you start to shake. "It's fine, everything is fine. Take a deep breath."

"Peter no!" You feel it happening and then it comes up onto Peter's chest, not quite throw up but still gross like bile. "No no no."

Peter steps back and sighs shakily. "This isn't the worst thing." He pulls his hoodie off and tosses it aside into the hamper. "It's fine, don't worry. It's fine."

You sit down on the bed and cover your face. "It's not fine. I just upchucked on you!"

"You did and it's fine." Peter hands you a water bottle from somewhere and sets the can by your feet. "I'm washable and so are the clothes."

"I'm so sorry."

"Why? Because your body reacted? I've done worse." He sits down on the floor across from you and stretches his legs out. "Maybe if we keep talking it'll get easier."

"Or I'll puke more."

He bumps his foot against yours and strokes it over your ankle comfortingly. "Are you scared we can't be friends? Or are you upset about something else?"

"I guess I've never been in this situation and I'm scared we won't work out if we go for more than friends. I don't want to ruin my friendship with you. You're my best friend, I can't lose you."

"That's okay. We don't have to do anything you don't want to. Just because we have feelings doesn't mean we have to act on them."

"I know but...we... everything is messed up now. I'd rather go back to suffering in silence." You take a big drink and rinse your mouth out.

Peter pushes up off the floor and kicks the trash can aside. He crawls on the bed behind you and pulls you back against him. "Let's just start slow. We'll test the boundaries and figure out if we really want each other."

You tuck your feet against his and he pulls the blanket from behind him over the both of you. "Cuddling?"

"Mmmhmm. The most basic form of affection."

"I don't know about that." You grab his hand on your chest and put your fingers through his. "I feel like there are more basic things."

"Oh shh." Peter chuckles and presses his nose against your hair. "Can I confess something now?"

"Yeah."

"I've wanted to be more than friends for over a year now. So, you're not alone in feeling conflicted about everything."

You turn in his hold and face him. His arm falls on the bed between you. "Really?"

"Mmmhmm."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Why didn't you tell me?" He laughs.

You reach up and touch his nose. It's so cute when he laughs and it crinkles up. "I was scared."

"So was I."

"Do you think we should be together?"

"Yeah. I think knowing everything about each other and yet we still have these feelings means something. I think it's special. You can't hurry love and we definitely haven't done that."

You nod. "Can I kiss you? I want to try."

Peter nods.

You take in a deep shaky breath and scoot closer. "Close your eyes."

He does as you say.

You press your lips against his and he doesn't react. It's just lips on lips.

"Can I kiss you back?" Peter mutters.

"Uh-huh."

Peter slides his hand into your hair and cups the back of your head. Suddenly it's not just an awkward lips on lips situation, it's a real kiss coming from your real best friend. He licks against your lip and you freeze. "It's okay," he says into your mouth. "We can stop, just say when."

"Stop."

Peter pulls back and looks at you, a smile spreading across his face. "How was your first kiss?"

You lick your lip and feel a flush rising up your neck. "Good. You're...you're pretty good."

"Are you sure? Maybe I'm really really horrible but you have nothing to compare to." He teases and you shove him.

"Peter! That's not funny!"

He cackles and gathers you into his arms. "Okay okay. I promise I won't tease you about it. I'm glad it wasn't bad."

You tuck your face into his shoulder and wrap your arms around his back. He smells good, like laundry and body wash. "I'm not so scared now."

"Good." He rubs his hand up your back and plays with your hair. "I'm not going to let you feel unsafe. I promise, I'll be everything you need."

"Pinky promise?"

Peter laughs softly and hooks his pinky with yours. "Pinky promise."

End

----------------

*****Note: none of my works should be posted anywhere outside of my linked accounts. I do not give permission to repost with or without credit to my accounts. Please notify me of any reposted fics.*****

#peter mendes #mendes triplet #mendes triplets #mendes triplets au #peter mendes au #peter mendes fic #shawn mendes fic #shawn mendes au #shawn mendes imagine

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k-llama-llama · 5 years ago

Text

Tell Me Everything

Stray Kids AU: 9th member

Tori x Stray Kids

Felix decides it’s time for him to get the scoop on Tori’s secret life

A/N: I’m SO SORRY about how late this is....please enjoy! Please check out my PATREON (patreon.com/kllamallama) for exclusive posts you can’t get anywhere else, as well as lots of other cool benefits!

Requests are OPEN and your feedback is still greatly appreciated!

Masterlist and other Follow Me links in bio!

“What you working on, Baby?”

Tori looked up from her laptop, cringing at Felix’s lame attempt at sounding flirty.

“None of your business....and don’t call me baby.”

“I’ll call you baby if I want to, Baby.” He hopped up on the bed next to her, resting his head on her shoulder. “Seriously, though. You’ve been cooped up in here for hours.”

“I’m working.” Tori said simply. “Why? Do you need me for something?”

“No. Chan just looks like a lost puppy so I figured I’d see if anything happened.”

Tori’s eyes widened in shock. “With me and Chan? Nothing, why?”

“I’m not an idiot, Tor. I know you and Chan are back to doing....whatever you were doing before.”

Tori knew there was no point in hiding it. She grabbed Felix’s hand. “Please, Lix....you can’t tell anyone. We’ll get in so much trouble and we promise we won’t let it-”

“Woah, woah....Park Heechul.” Felix laughed. “Your secret is safe with me.”

“Promise?” She breathed.

“Promise.” He nodded. “You guys aren’t causing problems, so no one is worried about it.”

“Perfect.” She sighed, before her eyes widened. “What do you mean....no one? Who else knows?”

Felix shrugged. “I haven’t talked about it with anyone, but I’m pretty sure Jeongin knows. And if he knows, Hyunjin probably does. And I kinda think Jisung was picking up on-”

“Urgh!” Tori collapsed back into her pillows. “We’re so screwed.”

“It’s fine, Tor.” He patted her stomach. “You guys are being super obvious, but none of us mind.”

“Really?”

“Really.” Felix smiled. “Now let me see what you’re working on.”

Tori sat up quickly, but not fast enough to stop him from opening her laptop.

“Oh, a song?” Felix examined it.

“Yeah, a song.” Tori tried to pull it away before he saw what else was on the screen.

“And is that producing notes? Why wouldn’t Chan just.....” Felix leaned closer. “Is that email from JYP?”

Tori slammed her laptop shut. “What email?”

“I can read, you know.” Felix shook his head. “Why are you getting producing notes from JYP? You could just ask one of the guys.”

“They don’t....exactly know about this song.”

“Really? Can I see it then?”

“No. It’s a secret.”

Felix stared at Tori for a second too long.

And then tackled her.

Before Tori knew what was happening, she was pinned on the bed, Felix sitting on top of her with the laptop open and out of her reach.

“Is this for our next album?” Felix was saying as he scrolled through the email. “There’s a lot of notes here so it must not be just for fun.”

“Give me back my computer right now!” Tori struggled to get out from under him.

“I suggest you begin thinking about choreography....as if we decided to-” Felix blinked, leaning closer to read what was on the screen. “Film a music video? Tor, what the hell is this?”

“It’s nothing! Please, Felix.” She begged.

Felix let her up, allowing her to pull the computer away.

“That song isn’t for the group, is it?” Felix asked quietly.

Tori swallowed and shook her head. “It’s not....It’s just something I’m working on....but I showed it to JYP and he liked it and wants me to....”

“Go solo?”

“Do more with it.” Tori corrected. “It was just an idea, anyways.” She shook her head, tucking her laptop under her pillow. “I knew you guys wouldn’t like it and that’s what I told JYP, so it doesn’t matter anyways.”

She swallowed, looking down at her hands. She wasn’t sure why she was so conflicted about this whole thing. She didn’t want to go solo or leave the boys. She didn’t have any dreams of standing on a stage by herself as the biggest star. But still, she was really proud of this song and she knew that people would love it.

But it wasn’t worth causing problems for.

Felix sighed loudly. “Tor, can I ask you something?”

“Of course.” She said quietly.

“Do you want to release this song?” He looked her straight in the eye.

Tori nodded. “Yeah.” She said honestly. “I...I’m just really happy with it. But it wouldn’t suit the group and is just kind of a side project so I-”

“What’s holding you back from releasing it?” Felix asked.

Tori fumbled for words. “Well....I mean....I don’t want you guys to think that....this isn’t about....I’m not trying to....”

“We are.” Felix nodded, deciding the answer for her.

“No, Lix.” She said quickly. “I mean....yes, you guys are my primary consideration. But I’m not unhappy.”

“You’re not unhappy with us. But would you be unhappy if you gave up this song?” Felix asked.

Tori just stared at him. She had poured her heart and soul into this song, and while it would never be worth more to her than the boys, she knew it would hurt to give it up.

“Tori...” Felix gave her a small smile. “You don’t have to lie to me. You know I’m your friend before anything else, right?”

“Of course I do.” She nodded. “But...I don’t want to cause problems because I’m doing stuff on my own.”

“None of us....not one of us, would be mad at you for going after something you care about.” He insisted. “This is your thing. So do it. Be proud of it.”

Tori bit her lip. “But what if they’re not happy? We did so much to stay together, Lix. I don’t want to be the one that tears us apart.”

“Aw, Tor.” Felix reached forward, pulling her into a hug. “You’re too sensitive for your own good.”

“I think it’s a Canadian thing.” She offered with a weak laugh.

He snorted. “Whatever it is, I’m putting a stop to it.”

“What do you mean?” She rested her chin on his shoulder.

“What I mean is that you are going to keep working on this song, you’re going to keep talking with JYP and figuring stuff out. And when, and if, you want to release it, I’ll have your back.”

“You mean it?”

“Of course.” Felix smiled against her hair. “But you should probably tell Chan.”

“I don’t...” Tori searched for the right words. “I will, but I just want to wait to see if I get a better idea of where this is going. He’ll stress and I don’t want to do that to him.”

Felix was silent for a moment. And then he nodded.

“Okay.” He said quietly. “I’ll keep your secrets. But I didn’t think you’d be so sneaky when I became friends with you.”

“I have to keep you guys guessing.” She laughed, before pulling back to look him in the eye. “Thank you. I really don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have you for a best friend.”

Felix grinned. “I’d joke right now, but honestly you’re my best friend too. So don’t do anything to make me hate you.”

Tori shrugged. “You know all my secrets, so I don’t think there’s anything I could do that would catch you off guard at this point.”

“Good.” Felix settled back down onto the bed. “So let’s here the song, Park Heechul. This better be good.”

Tori flipped her hair. “As if I would ever write something less than amazing.”

“I’ve heard some of your early stuff, so don’t get too full of yourself. Play it or I’ll go tell everyone you’re dating Chan again.”

“Yah, fine! Fine, I’ll show you.” She opened her computer, mumbling under her breath. “Jerk.”

“Idiot.” He shot right back at her, a bright smile on his face.

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biotic-boshtet · 3 years ago

Text

Aftermath - Chapter 6

Read on AO3

Start from the beginning

Years

Norah Jean comes to slowly at first, then lurching up as she registers the sound of several different alarms reverberating through the room. Instinctively she reaches up to turn off her hearing aids. The hearing aids aren’t there.

“Shepard, do you hear me? Get out of that bed now- this facility is under attack.”

She squints in the bright lighting, bare feet touching the floor just as a tremor rips through wherever she is. She wobbles, bracing herself on the bed until she can steady herself, accidentally pinning a lock of loose hair down with her hand, tugging uncomfortably. Why is her hair loose? It’s never loose, not even to sleep.

“Shepard. Your scars aren’t healed yet, but I need you to get moving. This facility is under attack.”

The voice over the intercom sounds familiar, but Norah Jean can’t place it. The room she’s in a freezing cold.

“There’s a pistol and your armor in the locker on the other side of the room, hurry!”

The sound of gunfire grows, and Norah Jean looks up to see a heavy mech tearing through a target she can’t see. Another rumble tears through the structure. Her whole body aches.

“Grab the pistol and armor from the locker. You don’t have time to wait around, Shepard! Grab your weapon and armor!”

“I’m getting there, I’m getting there, sheesh.”

“Shepard, we don’t have time for you to be difficult, get that armor on, now!”

Armor on. Four minutes. She’s gotten slow. When was the last time she put her armor on? Used to be sixty seconds. Doesn’t feel right either. Rubs wrong. Norah Jean absently rubs her right pauldron and freezes. There should be a gouge there. Her favorite gouge. She never got it replaced because she liked the way it looked, how it broke the clean lines of the iconic N7 stipe. Because only fools had perfectly maintained, scratch-free, dent-free armor all the time. The padding isn’t broken in yet, the ceramic plates are too shiny, and the joints are too stiff.

“This pistol doesn’t even have a clip.”

“It’s a medbay. You’ll have to find one yourself. Someone’s hacking security and trying to kill you.”

She falters for just a second when she spots the familiar black and gold insignias in the corridor, stooping to grab the clip from the floor. She’s not sure where she’s seen it before. It’s hard to fight the unease churning in her gut. She pushes it away as the beginning of a migraine blooms in the base of her skull. Keeps walking in armor that isn’t hers.

Taking out the mechs is easy enough, with clean shots to the head. Efficient. Quick. Automatic. Thankfully she hasn’t forgotten how to do that. The collar padding rubs uncomfortably on her neck. Norah Jean rips half a dozen strands of hair from a shoulder joint for the zillionth time.

After dozen more twists and turns and a lot more mechs shot down, Norah Jean finally runs into another person. And, by the looks of it, one she can actually help.

“Shepard? What the hell?”

She dashes into cover, crouching beside him. He’s a biotic, she knows instantly and cringes internally at the way his field rubs against her own, like a pair of balloons. “Looks like you could use a hand?”

“What are you doing here? I thought you were still a work in progress.”

“I just woke up. You probably know more than I do.” She snaps back at him.

“Right. Sorry about that. I’m Jacob Taylor, I’ve been stationed here for- Damn it!”

Another wave of mechs shows up. Both Norah Jean and Jacob make their moves. Clean shots to the head.

“Things must be worse than I thought if Miranda’s got you running around. I’ll fill you in, but we better get you to the shuttle first.”

She takes a deep breath, shoving her curiosity down. “Give me the abridged version, then.” She pops out of cover long enough to send a shockwave clear to the other side, scattering the mechs, blue glow subsiding as she ducks back down. The mechs that didn’t get blown clear off the platform get back up.

“Heh, pretty good for someone who just woke up.” Jacop pulls one of the remaining mechs into the air, dispatching it with a few shots. “Anyway, two years ago, the SR1 went down over Alchera after an attack by an unknown ship. Most of the crew survived, but you died. We put you back together.”

Norah Jean does the same with the very last mech within a few seconds. Biotics are the only thing that feel right. Everything else is different. Wrong. She died. But her biotics are a familiar buzz, humming underneath her skin like a live wire. Two years.

She follows Jacob through the next few rooms until they come across a man bleeding on the floor, and Norah Jean is struck with the same eerie familiarity she felt with the voice over the intercom, Miranda.

“Bastards got me in the leg.”

“I think…” She closes her eyes against the already dim light in the room. “I think I remember you, Wilson, right?”

“Yeah. That was me. How about we talk about this after we fix my leg?”

Her eyes flick up towards the hopefully stocked first aid station on the wall. She gets there and back before Wilson can complain too much. The applicator is different than she remembers, fumbles with it for a second before applying it correctly. She gives him a hand up.

“Thanks, Shepard. Never thought you’d save my life. Guess that makes us even now. I thought maybe I could shut down the security mechs, but whoever did this fried the whole system, completely irreversible.”

“We didn’t ask what you were doing. Why do you even have security mech clearance? You were in the bio wing.” Jacob crosses his arms and eyes Wilson.

“Weren’t you listening? I came here to try and stop this! Besides I was shot, how do you explain that?”

Norah Jean pinches the bridge of her nose. “You’re all fucking strangers to me, lets get someplace with a lower ratio of angry mechs, and then we can sort out whose fault this is.”

“Right. We need to find Miranda. We can’t leave her behind.”

“Forget about Miranda! She was over in D wing, the mechs were all over that sector. No way she survived.”

“A bunch of mechs won’t drop Miranda, she’s alive.”

“Then where is she? Why haven’t we heard from her? There’s only two possible explanations, she’s either dead, or she’s a traitor!”

“It doesn’t matter right now. Right now, we need to go! If Miranda’s as good as you say, she’ll probably be waiting for us at the shuttle bay.”

“You’re probably right, Shepard. Wilson, drop it, let’s go.”

The door on the other side of the room whooshes open and a squad of mechs marches through, guns drawn. Norah Jean swears under her breath.

“Wilson! I need you to overload the safety mechanisms on that container. It’ll take out the mechs and clear a path to the door.”

“You better be right.”

The crates explode easily, taking out all five mechs. Jacob stands up and turns to her.

“Okay, we took ‘em down, but this is getting a little tense. Shepard, if I tell you who we work for, will you trust me?”

“This really isn’t the time, Jacob.”

“We won’t make it if she’s expecting a shot in the back.”

“If you wanna piss off the boss, its your ass, Jacob.”

“The Lazarus Project, the program that rebuilt you, its funded and controlled by Cerberus.”

Cerberus. It finally clicks. The humanity first terrorist group. Black and gold. Fucked up experiments to “give humanity an edge”. Akuze. For a second all she smells is blood and acid, all she hears is the wind howling over empty sand. She blinks. Back to reality. Cerberus. Two years.

“I spent a good bit of time wiping out Cerberus labs. Why the change of heart?” Her corona flares and dies with her steady breaths, but her biotics remain under her control.

“Knew we shoulda replaced than damn implant.” Wilson mutters, eyeing her with nervously.

“Those answers are way above my paygrade, but the gist of it? Things change. The Alliance declared you dead. They gave up. Cerberus spent a fortune bringing you back. Look, I’d be suspicious too, but right now we have to work together. I thought you deserved to know what’s what. Once we’re off the station, I’ll take you to the Illusive Man. He’ll explain everything, I promise. But we have to get to the shuttles first.”

“Fine. Lead the way.”

Wilson stepped forward, punching in his security code on the door panel. “Come on, through here, we’re almost to the-“

The door opens, revealing a woman in a black and white catsuit. Her pistol is aimed squarely at Wilson’s chest.

“Miranda? But you were-“

Miranda pulls the trigger. “Dead?”

“What the hell are you doing?”

“My job, Wilson betrayed us all.”

“Even if you’re sure, did he deserve that welcome?” Norah Jea’s corona flashes briefly before she smothers it down again.

“He sabotaged the security systems, killed my staff and would have killed us.”

“Are you sure about that Miranda? We’ve known Wilson for years, what if you’re wrong?”

“I’m never wrong, I thought you’d have learned that by now, Jacob.”

Shepard twitches her hand away from her gun. “Okay. What’s out next step.”

“We get on the shuttle and we go.”

“What about the rest of the people on this station?”

“This is the evac point, if they’re not here now, they’re not coming.”

“We can’t leave without knowing for sure, we have to go back and look.”

“Don’t you get it? The only one worth saving is you. Everyone else is expendable.”

“She’s right, we all knew the risks when we signed up. Without you, there’s no point to any of this.”

Expendable. The thought turns her stomach. She sighs. “Let’s go. I’ve had enough of this station to last a lifetime.” She died two years ago, and the people who brought her back were expendable. She needs a drink.

“Or two in your case.”

Norah Jean turns to Miranda. “I need at least a dozen hair pins or something. I’m not going anywhere until I can get this damn hair situated.”

Miranda sighs and digs into a belt pocket, pulling out its contents and examining them. “The best I can do is seven pins and a hair tie.”

“I can work with that.” She takes the pins and hair tie and braids her hair, out of practice hands moving slowly to make sure the braid is neat and tight. Tying off the end, she works it into a flat coil at the base of her neck, using the pins as frugally as she can. “There. As long as I keep the helmet on, it should hold up.” Her head is pounding, and the pins certainly aren’t doing her any favors, but the hair is dealt with for now. Maybe she should just cut it all off. Its been two years since she’s braided it.

She checks over the pistol and shotgun assigned to her before putting on her helmet and following Miranda and Jacob to the shuttle bay.

“What? Veetor is injured. He needs treatment, not an interrogation!”

“We won’t hurt him, we just need to see if he knows anything else. He’ll be returned unharmed.”

“Your people tried to betray us once already, if we give him to you, we may never get the intel we need.”

“Prazza was an idiot and he and his men paid for it. You’re welcome to take Veetor’s omnitool data, but please, just let me take him.”

“Tali, you don’t have to just take Veetor and go, we could work together, just like old times.” Norah Jean knows Tali’s answer, even before she asks, but she’s so desperate for something familiar, she’ll try anything.

“I want to, Shepard, but I can’t. I’ve got a mission of my own. It’s too important for me to abandon, even for you. When its over, if I’m still alive, we’ll see what happens.”

“Sounds dangerous, what are you up to?”

“I don’t think Cerberus needs to hear about it, but it’s in Geth space, that should tell you how important it is.”

Norah Jean nods, then turns back to Jacob and Miranda. “Veetor is traumatized, and he needs medical care. Specialized medical care. Tali will give us the omnitool data and take him back to the flotilla.”

“Understood, Commander.” She tries to ignore the icy note in Miranda’s voice.

“Thank you, Shepard, I’m glad you’re still the one giving the orders. Good luck out there, if I find anything out there that can help you, I’ll let you know.

Norah Jean stands in the semi dark as the QEC powers down, rubbing her temples. Two years. Gone. She died. The door opens behind her.

“Hey, Norah Jean, just like old times, huh?”

She can’t turn around fast enough, stumbling over her own feet to come face-to-face with her best friend. He’s wearing black and gold.

“Jeff!” Her voice cracks, and she knows her face is doing something ugly as she tries not to cry. He throws an arm around her shoulders, rubbing her back, and it’s all she can do to keep her composure as she hugs him.

“It’s okay, I won’t tell a soul that Commander Shepard is an ugly crier.”

“I thought I was all alone.” She pulls back enough to wipe her eyes. “I can’t trust anybody here. They’re all Cerberus.”

“Well, you’re not alone anymore. You’ve got me.”

“I can’t believe it’s really you.” She wipes her eyes again, sniffling as they leave the QEC room.

“Look who’s talking, I watched you get spaced!”

“I got lucky, there’s a lot of strings attached. How’d you end up here?”

“It all fell apart without you, Norah Jean, everything you stirred up? The council wanted it gone. They broke up the team, sealed records, and I was grounded. The Alliance took away the one thing that mattered most to me. Hell yeah, I joined Cerberus.”

“You really trust the Illusive Man?”

“I don’t trust anyone who makes more than I do, except you. But they aren’t all bad. Saved your life. Let me fly-“ He pauses, looking out the windows into the dark hangar. “And there’s this. They only told me last night.”

Norah Jean watches as the lights slowly illuminate the massive ship docked there. The Normandy. Only she’s twice her original size. Black and gold. The wrong insignia. Two years. The SR2.

“Its good to be home, huh, Norah Jean?”

“Yeah. I guess we’ll have to give her a name.”

The captain’s quarters were disgustingly huge. The empty space echoed and the fish tank was too loud. The lights didn’t turn all the way off. The personal bathroom was nice. Even if she didn’t recognize the ghost in the mirror. Two years.

The clothes in the closet fit her well. They aren’t hers. They’re all stiff and new. No familiar comfort of an undershirt too worn to wear under her uniform. Its all utilitarian, even the civilian clothes look like part of a matched set. The wrong colors. Black and gold stare her down everywhere she looks.

The desk is big. A model of the SR2 catches her eye. Then she sees the photo. She died two years ago, but the photo on her desk was taken mere weeks before it happened. She and Kaidan sit on the bench on the back porch of her parents’ house in Anchorage, doused in golden sunlight. Neither of them are looking at the camera. They’re so focused on each other that the rest of the world might as well not exist. Two years is a long time to be gone. That photo had only existed in two places, her own omnitool and Kaidan’s. The Norah Jean in that photo died. Maybe she doesn’t exist anymore. The frame goes dark when she turns her head away.

Dr. Chakwas would be lying to herself if she tried to say she hadn’t been waiting for the Commander to drop by. If very nearly felt like old times, the Commander’s boundless curiosity leading them through several rounds of questions. What she’s been up to the last two years, why she was here now, this and that. Then Shepard gets a look of sheepishness that would fit better on a new recruit than Commander Shepard, scuffing her boot on the deck and glancing around the medbay.

“Have you got another question, Commander?”

“You’ve got a pair of clippers in here somewhere, right, Doc?”

“Yes, they should be in a case on the shelf in the back.”

“I’m gonna borrow them, thanks.”

“Of course, Commander.”

The buzz of the clippers is almost as comforting as her biotics. Their weight in her hand feels good as she flips the switch on and off a few times. Turns them back on.

Her hair falls away as easily as those two years. Brown curls just barely brush her shoulders. She can’t place the feeling she gets as she looks in the mirror, recognizing a little more of the person who stares back. The lights are still too bright, but her head hurts just a smidge less.

When the Commander returns the clippers, gone is the three feet of rich brown curls, replaced by a bouncy bob, pinned back and away from her face. She carries herself differently, like a weight has been lifted from her shoulders. She seems surer of herself than she’d been a few hours ago.

Chakwas stops her before she gets out of the medbay door. “You know I was half worried you’d come back with a buzz-cut. Your new hair suits you.”

“Yeah? I figured it was time for a change. Thanks again, Doc.”

“Any time, dear.”

#aftermath #norah jean shepard #jeff joker moreau #jacob taylor #miranda lawson #karin chakwas #mass effect fic #mass effect 2 fic #goodbye shitload of dialogue i hated writitng u #this just in #writing sucks and is hard #mandi writes #we broke 10k words boys

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just--another--daydreamer · 4 years ago

Text

About zombies and other dead things

» Hitoshi Shinso x gn!reader (no pronouns used)

» Genre: fluff » Summary: Getting ready for the school festival with Shinso turns out a little different than you had expected » Warnings: mentions of (fake) blood and death » Words: ~1.2k » Author’s note: can you tell I suck at titles and summaries? everything about this is a lil random

You can find a link to my Masterlist and additional info in my bio and pinned post

The voices of the students running around outside in front of the main UA building mixed into a single, faint buzzing that reached you through the rather thin walls of what was supposed to be a haunted mansion but was not quite finished yet. Class 1-C had been working just as hard as all the other classes to finish their attraction for the school festival in time, but they were a little behind.

You, along with the other students of your class had been spending the whole morning with finishing touches on your haunted house before the festival would open at nine. It was eight in the morning and you already felt tired again after running around campus, getting the costumes ready, putting up the last decorations and kicking some of your lazy classmates’ asses even though you wished you could sit around just like them but that was not possible just yet.

“Y/NNNN!” You turned around to see who was screeching your name, only to be met with the face of a mummy, messily wrapped in something that looked more like toilet paper than bandages. “Why don’t you have your make-up on yet?” “I-” “We need you as our zombie to welcome our guests!” The mummy continued without letting you speak. “I was just help-” “The make-up and fake blood are over there! And take Shinso with you!” The mummy shoved you toward the table where the make-up was waiting for you. You took it before making your way through the dark corridor to find Shinso.

That did not take too long. He casually stood at a corner, clearly hiding from his overly enthusiastic classmates, eyes glued to his phone. “Make-up time,” you told your friend and dragged him away from his hiding spot with your hand grabbing his wrist, ignoring his protests. You walked to a back room where the costumes were hanging, and a single, lonely coffee machine sat on a table for the overly tired students to use. The room smelled like cheap coffee and boxes from someone’s grandmother’s attic, which was probably where the costumes had come from. Luckily, no other students were there.

Shinso sat down on one of the chairs with a sigh. “I’ve never used make-up in my life, so if you could do mine that would be great,” he told you. “I can help you with yours too if you wanna, but it’s gonna look like a mess.” You shrugged. “That sounds like a deal to me.”

You sat down and faced Shinso, then opened the small make-up box. “What are you supposed to be?”, you asked. Shinso took a quick look at the list laying on the table that detailed everyone’s roles, positions, and costumes for this event. “I’ll be one of the people responsible for scaring the visitors.” Shinso could not sound more bored. “A corpse dangling from the ceiling.”

“Let’s get to your make-up then.” You took a few brushes as well as white and dark face paint. “I’ll start by making you look more dead.” “More dead? Are you implying that I already look a little like a corpse?” Shinso chuckled, causing you to smile as well. “Sometimes, yeah.” You leaned forward and began working on Shinso’s face. His skin became paler, the circles under and around his eyes darker. As a cherry on top of the cake you squeezed as much fake blood out of the small plastic tube as you could, smearing some around his lips and eye. Shinso sat perfectly still the whole time, closely watched your concentrated face, complied to everything you told him to do to make the process easier.

Having his eyes on you like that and being so close to him was making you a little nervous. You made more mistakes with painting his face and your hands started to tremble as you tried to save Shinso’s make-up.

“I’m done,” you sighed after a while and offered Shinso a hand mirror. He was satisfied with the result. He looked dead and was ready to scare some other students – preferably some from the hero course if he was being honest.

“It’s your turn now.” Shinso moved his chair a little closer to yours until your knees touched. “So, you’ll be the zombie inviting everyone into our haunted house?” “Yeah, a great job.” Shinso heard the irony in your voice and chuckled quietly. He reached out for one of the brushes and got started. The mental image that he had created of what he wanted you to look like when he was done quickly turned out to not be possible with Shinso’s level of make-up skills, so he began to improvise. Leaning in close, he tried for every single stroke with his brush to be perfect, but they kept turning out a little wonky.

You were shifting in your chair, heart racing at how incredibly close Shinso was coming. “Stop moving,” he ordered, breath fanning over your cheek. “Sor-,” you began but were startled by Shinso who put his hand beneath your chin to steady you and stop you from moving so much. His touch was firm and sent a shiver down your spine. Heat rose to your cheeks and you wanted to hide your face but Shinso’s grip made that impossible.

Shinso guided your movements, made you look to the right, then left, then right again. Most of the time gently, with his fingers only brushing over your skin, sometimes with a stronger grip but never aggressive or hurting you.

“Now,” he mumbled while turning your head again, “look at me.” You expected him to finish your make-up and inspect it, but instead he leaned in even closer. Your heart stopped when his lips touched yours, so very gently. Shinso only lingered there for a moment and did not give you enough time to react or even return the kiss when you wanted to. So, when he leaned back, a cute blush adorning his cheeks from embarrassment, you grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him back in.

Shinso’s lips had a faint sweet taste to them, you assumed that it was the fake blood, but you could not be bothered to think about that too much at the moment. One hand gently holding your chin, the other one on your back, he pulled you a little closer. You closed your eyes, tried to memorize what kissing Shinso felt like because it was over too soon.

“We’re gonna mess up our make-up,” he mumbled against your lips with a chuckle. A short peck landed on your lips before Shinso pulled away. His face glowed bright red in a flustered state that you had never seen him in before. “Now you’ve got some fake blood on your lips too.” You looked in the mirror and shrugged. “It fits my zombie look.”

Shinso took a quick look at his phone for the time and grimaced. “Our shift is about to start,” he told you. “But before that, I wanted to ask you if you’d like to look at what the other classes are doing once we’re done?” Your face lit up. “Like a date?” Shinso nodded. “Yeah, like a date!” “I’d love that!”

You agreed on a point to meet later and before you left the break room together, you pressed one last kiss to Shinso’s cheek, only to see him blush again.

***

MHA tag list (male & gender neutral): @thatcucumberwhore @shortshiro

Strikethrough means I couldn’t tag you

#shinsou x reader #shinsou hitoshi x reader #hitoshi shinsou x reader #shinsou #hitoshi shinso #shinso hitoshi #x reader #x you #x gender neutral reader #x gn!reader #x yn #bnha x reader #bnha x gn!reader

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deans-mind-palace · 4 years ago

Text

Suspirium (Pt.5)

Pairing: Prof!Sam x Reader

Summary: You’re in your last year of your Classics and Mordern Languages studies and you’re majoring in Latin and English. Then you get assigned to a different Latin teacher. And damn, he loves his subject. Too bad that he’s also hot. What is just a childish crush soon develops into something way more complicated.

Word Count: 1,220

Warnings: Awkwardness

Author’s Note: Chapter 5. There will be more or less 12 chapters. You can find all parts with the tag suspirium on my blog. Also over the guide to my blog (the pinned post) and on the masterlist.

Or you catch up here: Suspirium - Masterlist

You stood outside the door of Sam's office and nervously looked at the name tag attached to the white door.

Professor Winchester Member of the ancient languages department

For the fourth time you clenched your fingers into a fist and were about to knock when you let your hand drop again. If you were honest, you didn't know why you were so nervous. Sam was a nice guy who offered to help you with your book and wanted to meet you in his office at 4:00. Yet you felt this dull feeling that made you hesitate. Today you realized for the first time that Sam was your professor. The lecture you had come out of two hours ago had proven that he was a pretty good professor on top. You were trapped in an inner conflict.

He was your professor. So what? He was just trying to help you. You had a lot of respect for him. But he was still the same man from the café! Was he?

Finally you struggled through, took a deep breath and raised your hand to knock when the door was ripped open and the wood disappeared under your knuckles. Sam almost ran you over. Surprised, he paused and his hazel eyes stared at you amused. "Y/N. How long have you been standing there?" he asked you with a smile. Embarrassed, you stroked a strand of hair from your face and stepped from one foot to the other. As soon as he smiled at you and his hazel eyes sparkled, all your doubts were gone. "I thought I'd get a sandwich before you get here. I was just gonna run so I'd be back when you got here." You started laughing out loud. "You're amazing." He made a gesture that went through his brown hair. You realized early on that it was a gesture of nervousness. It relieved you that he was nervous, too. "I get to hear that all the time," he replied, winking at you to mask his excitement. Was he flirting with you? There was a red glint covering your cheeks. Sam looked at you, then his eyes widened. "I - oh, damn. I didn't mean - that sounded wrong." His cheeks turned pink and he coughed.

"No, I - don't worry." you calmed him down by putting your hand on his arm. When you realized what you were doing, you quickly pulled it back. Sam looked relieved and didn't seem to notice. "Come in." He opened the door a little wider and let you step into his office. It was lined with bookshelves. The shelves contained all kinds of Latin works, as well as dictionaries, essays and epics. The books and loose sheets were scattered about. Some even in front of the shelves or in stacks on the floor. A large brown desk stood in the middle of the room, in front of it two chairs. On the wall to the left at the back there was a green sofa with the filling pouring out of its seams. The walls, which were not covered by bookshelves, were decorated with maps of the Roman Empire, pictures of archaeological excavations, Rome and a box with some Roman coins. So Sam was a nerd through and through.

"Sorry it's such a mess," the young man apologized. "It's comfy," you said. The smell of cinnamon, sandalwood and old parchment filled your nose. It took you a moment to categorize it. You knew that smell. When you hugged Sam, he smelled the same. It calmed you down immensely. "Thank you. Please sit down." He pointed to one of the chairs after removing a stack of books. You expected him to sit at his desk, but he sat down right on the chair next to you. For a brief moment there was silence between you, but it was not an unpleasant silence. The sun was shining through the window and the bookshelves groaned and creaked as soon as the sunlight shone on them. Dust danced to its own melody through the air.

"So what did you think of the first lecture?" Sam asked and you heard the curiosity in his voice. You thought about how to put your thoughts into words. "It was... different." The sparkle in Sam's eyes faded and an uncertain expression flashed across his face. You felt the urge to put your hand on his arm again, but you pulled yourself back together. "I totally enjoyed it. You made the lecture lively and unconventional. You were responsive to every student. It was interesting and instructive. It was refreshing, in a way." you began to elaborate on your remark. Sam smiled warmly at you and you realized that you would do anything for that smile. "I hope the others felt the same way," he muttered. "De gustibus non est disputandum. There's no accounting for taste," you replied and Sam laughed out loud. "Probably, yes. Your interpretation today was very interesting and I look forward to reading your analysis. But actually it was your book that I called you here for today. And because I wanted to discuss something with you." You swallowed and your throat got dry. Uh-oh.

"Did you bring the manuscript?" he asked you. "Uh, yeah - sure, of course." Hastily, you pulled the pile of stapled pages out of your bag and presented it to him as your personal sanctum. His thumb ran across the pages and he flipped through the manuscript once. "Wow, that's a lot," he said with a smile. You blushed. "This is a copy. You can keep it and go through it. Whenever you have time, you can write some notes and we'll go over it." Sam nodded and his brown hair bounced up and down as he loosened the collar of his shirt with two fingers.

"I've been thinking about something. You seem to share my passion for Latin and you're about to get your PhD. Besides, I'd like to help you with your book. But I want something in return." He probably paused for a second between his words, but in that second my imagination went crazy. What did he want? Money? Favors? Sex?! He was handsome and smart, and there were worse candidates. But this was Sam. You didn't think Sam could do something like this. Or could he? Actually, you'd only known him for three days. What made you so sure? But Sam interrupted your thought process abruptly. "Well, well." He scratched his neck. "I could use some help preparing my lectures a-and we get along just fine, so I thought-" As confident as Sam was in the auditorium in front of all his students, he actually seemed quite shy and insecure with you. You thought he was cute, and you liked the privilege of knowing that side of your professor. "-which is why I thought maybe you could be my teaching assistant. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, if that's convenient. Then we'll spend some time preparing the content of the next lecture and afterwards we'll go over my notes in your manuscript together." He paused for a moment and his eyes looked for yours, to see some kind of approval or rejection in it.

"What do you think of that?" You were still trying to process the fact that he didn't want to have sex with you.

Wanna get tagged for recent updates on this story? Head to my bio and add yourself to my Sam taglist or drop an ask in.

Sam Tags: @ashthefirefox @rintheemolion @fortheentries @vexhye @traceyaudette @zeppette @thewintersoldierswife @outofnowhere82 @mimzy1994

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