#but i have NO original concepts that I haven't seen already

[mitigatedchaos]

You're smart, so you've probably already noticed that my style is very much about dividing things into component parts.

In my Belgium example in the other post, I immediately split Belgium into the national layer ("national interest") and the sub-national layer (Belgian groups). I then split the sub-national layer into groups ("rogue army unit," "legislature," "croissant-eating civilians").

This allows me to narrow in on and isolate the problem component ("rogue army unit"), which allows me to examine better ways to achieve leverage and thereby convert force into traction. It also allows me to notice when something is missing ("this is happening because the PM wanted it" vs "this is happening because the PM is weak").

You can probably see where this is going.

I haven't seen that much of the Universal Century timeline of Gundam. I've seen part of the Mobile Suit Gundam compilation movies, Gundam: The Origin, and Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn. I've also seen just a bit of one of the sequels, enough to see the Earth's colonial occupation forces rough around beating people up for kicks.

My first exposure was the PS2 game Federation vs. Zeon. That has multiple campaigns which cover key events in the UC timeline (as these events happen to overlap with mobile suit battles).

Based on this limited information (someone such as @irradiate-space could comment on how accurate my description is)... The oppression of the Spacenoids creates emotional political motive power that can be used as the driving force for a political movement. From this perspective, the Zeonism of Ghiren Zabi is an ideological machine which transforms the reaction to the oppression of Spacenoids into colony drop operations. These colony drop operations then create a security dilemma for Earth, as well as hatred and resentment towards the colonists which reduces the dimensionality of the Earth's response. This leads to more oppression of Spacenoids.

This feedback loop then creates more colony drop operations.

If we want to save the Spacenoids, then we have to figure out a way to break this feedback loop.

First, decompose Zeon into the Spacenoid people ("Zeon") and the Zeonist ideology ("Zeon"). Second, decompose the Zeonist ideology subject to Ghiren's influence ("freedom for Spacenoids through military domination of Earth") into two parts { "independence for space colonies," "military domination of Earth" }.

We can now see that one of our objectives must be to disconnect Ghiren from the Spacenoid people, so that their emotional self-conception does not require supporting him. This creates a void. We then see that we need to create a Spacenoid independence movement, a new ideological machine, which transforms the emotional reaction to the oppression of Spacenoids into reform of the Federation government.

This new independence movement would divert the supply of personnel and materials away from the colony drop faction. However, in order for this new movement to successfully reduce support for invading the Earth with giant robots from space, it must have a reasonable prospect of success.

Therefore, we must functionally decompose the Federation government, identify the power networks, and determine how to gain leverage over key nodes in order to shift the internal balance of political power within the Federation away from oppressing Spacenoids. The Federation government's oppression of Spacenoids may also be the result of a lack of development or strength internally, an empty space. For example, the people of Earth may not especially want to oppress Spacenoids, but there may be no structure which converts their desire into actual oversight of the occupation forces, or the structure which does exist may be underfunded, or not have the right personnel.

Unaligned or anti-aligned forces who benefit (or perceive themselves to benefit) from the current system may act to stop us. We must have courage. Those who seek peace and love must also be strong. They must be daring.

Overcoming the legacy of Ghiren Zabi, shifting down the estimated likelihood of space war, is a generational project, which will primarily benefit those born near or after its completion. Those who wish to save the Spacenoid people must have the determination and will to wage peace. They must have talent, and they must have maturity, and they must love truth. They must be willing to fight even if victory is uncertain.

Remember, if the Spacenoid people were entirely without virtue, then they would not be able to wage space war.

Death to the woke! Exterminate the liberal-communist vermin! You do not count as human!

You know when you send these, I don't know who you are, right?

Anonymous asks aren't connected to a larger body of work which demonstrates a time commitment to a particular ideology.

It's impossible for me to tell if you are a sincere right-wing ideologue, an actual Communist trying to radicalize me against right-wingers, a troll who time-traveled from 2004 and has decided to return to the art of trolling, or just someone trying to see how I react.

You might even be someone hoping for a spectacular maneuver that defeats this ask in one move, because you think that's what people need to see.

[travesty-majesty]

Oh to start a tournament/poll blog ...

[navree]

if james gunn is reintroducing a new dc movie universe with a batman that's had a few robins under his belt and is taking on a new one then this upcoming batman and robin should have been about miss stephanie brown, in this essay i will-

[sailforvalinor]

.

[nyandere-exe]

I've been mentally preparing to Ashley-blog but I ain't ready for it yet... Soon it will hopefully come...

[buckymorelikefuckme]

and baby makes three

(the reboot)

bucky barnes x fem reader

words: 11.3k

warnings: **18+ ONLY** friends to lovers, pining, smut, oral (f receiving), breeding kink, pregnancy kink, cockwarming (kind of??), trigger warning for having troubles with getting pregnant. it's still super fuckin soft despite all of that though, i swear.

a/n: okay so it's currently 6am as i'm typing this and i haven't been to sleep yet bc i decided to just heavily edit this instead of rewrite it bc i'm lazy i guess idk. this was posted originally back in 2021 i believe and it's still on ao3 it's just orphaned rip. i promise i'll be writing and posting new stuff soon ok pls have faith in me and cheer me on bc it's hard and scary and i don't wanna disappoint anybody :( ANYWAY, as usual, any and all mistakes are my own. if i've missed anything important pls let me know so i can correct it. feedback is encouraged (pls) and appreciated (i am begging...)

The idea of you having a child one day always seemed foreign and very unlikely. Sure, you liked kids well enough, but having one of your own…

It’s a thought that’s sat in a corner deep in your mind, buried beneath a million other impossible concepts; a thought that you’ve only ever glanced over and never gave your full attention, having ruled it out ages ago as something you just couldn’t—or wouldn’t—do.

And then, on a day like any other, it pushes its way to the forefront of your mind, making itself known and unwilling to leave.

You’re going into the clothing store to find a new cardigan after your most favorite one got eaten by the dryer. Usually you’re a single-minded shopper, walking into a store with tunnel vision and on a mission to get what you need and that’s it.

Today, however, you make the mistake of letting your eyes wander on your way to the sweater section. Your gaze just so happens to land on the baby clothes… and your steps falter. It’s there that you see it, a tiny, pink onesie with a sleeping teddy bear printed on the front, displayed on an even tinier hanger. There’s matching pants with teddy bears all over them and ruffles on the butt and all your brain can muster up is cutecutecutecutecute.

Your feet carry you closer and before you realize what you’re doing you pick up the outfit, letting out a coo when you realize the teddy bear is fuzzy, softly rubbing your thumb across it. Somehow, you walk out of the store, not with a new cardigan, but with the cute baby outfit and a bow you thought looked adorable with it.

It’s not until you get home that it hits you, that you bought baby clothes for a baby you don’t even have.

The feeling that rushes through you is hard to describe. Shame? Embarrassment?

...Yearning?

No. Definitely not. Nope.

There’s absolutely no yearning going on here, not for a baby. You’ve never even had that desire before and you certainly don’t see yourself having it now. You shake your head to clear it, telling yourself you’ll take it back tomorrow.

Except you don’t take it back. You conveniently “forget” and it stays shoved on the top shelf in your hall closet. You pretend you don’t pause in front of said closet throughout the following days—weeks—chewing on the inside of your cheek and staring at the door like you can see through the wood at the evidence of your impulsive purchase.

It gets harder to ignore, though, when you start getting ads for baby clothing brands. And baby toys, bottles, handy little gadgets for new parents, nursery decor… It’s endless.

Then, as if it wasn’t already bad enough, all of your childhood friends start popping out babies like it’s a brand new trend. You don't think you've seen your social media this flooded with pregnancy announcements and baby arrivals, ever. Your emotions are mixed; happy for them, and for their excitement, but there’s also a weird discomfort settled in your stomach.

You hesitate to be that person who thinks the universe is trying to tell you something, but you do wonder. Why else would you suddenly have these feelings? Why else would there be baby stuff everywhere you look now?

It brings on other thoughts, as well. In this day and age, it’s not too unusual for women to have babies without being married, or without a significant other at all. There is the pressure, still, to at least be in a relationship, but considering you’ve been practically in love with one of your closest friends for the last two years, it’s safe to say that you’re tragically single, so having a baby with someone is out of the question.

And god, do you even want a baby?

As soon as the thought crosses your mind, with a sudden clarity that hits you like a ton of bricks, you realize you do. It feels like a freight train has slammed into you. Your mind’s eye supplies you with images of a swollen belly and wide smile, a precious baby wrapped in a soft blanket, cradled in your arms, a gummy grin and happy giggle.

Emotion consumes you then, longing like you’ve never felt in your life, chest aching with how badly you want that.

It’s not as if you’re too young. You’re plenty old enough and you’ve got a secure job. You don’t subscribe to that whole biological clock nonsense, but you do feel that if you are going to potentially have a baby, it might be better to do it now while you’re still in relatively good health.

You groan, dropping your face into your open palms, the movie you'd been watching to try and distract yourself long forgotten as it continues to play on the television.

This is a lot to think about, you ponder to yourself. Taking a deep breath in and releasing it slowly, you decide the mature thing to do is give yourself more time to ruminate on it. Having a baby is no small decision. You need to be absolutely certain it’s what you want. It’s going to change your entire life, everything, and you’d be responsible for a new life. So, you’ll have to give yourself a few months to decide and then you can go from there.

***

You’re scrolling through yet another article on your laptop, engrossed in every detail of the process of artificial insemination and the symptoms and side effects that come with it. So engrossed, in fact, that you don’t hear the key turning in the lock, the door opening and closing, and the heavy footfalls that follow.

It’s only when Bucky asks, “Whatcha reading?” that you are even aware of his presence.

You startle so hard that your knee slams into the underside of your table. Ignoring the throbbing pain in your knee and your wildly beating heart, you close your laptop with a snap and turn to Bucky.

“You could knock,” you grouse.

“Why give me a key, then?” he retorts, unapologetic.

You roll your eyes and grumble under your breath, “Clearly, it was a mistake.”

“You didn’t answer me.”

Brows furrowed, you ask, “What?”

He gestures to your laptop. “What were you reading? Your nose was nearly smushed against the screen.”

You blink, trying to think of a reasonable excuse and coming up empty.

“Nothing,” is all your brilliant mind can supply.

Bucky’s eyes narrow for a few seconds, and you pray to every higher power and all that is holy and good that he won’t press further. You remain frozen under Bucky’s suspicious stare, hearing that Old West shootout music playing in your mind.

Thankfully, it seems the deities are feeling indulgent, as Bucky chooses let it go.

He holds up the bags he carried in. “I brought lunch.”

You perk up instantly. “Did you go to that one place—?”

“With the fried rice you like so much, yes,” he finishes for you, smiling.

“You’re the best,” you sigh, stomach rumbling eagerly.

“I know,” he replies, solemn and dramatic like the idiot he is.

He begins taking out the styrofoam boxes and chattering on about something dumb Steve did the other day, and you mean to listen, you really do. It’s just. That article is still lingering in your brain. There’s so many steps and hassles. Plus, it’s not cheap. It would be a hefty investment.

You’d only researched it because, after months of contemplating the pros and cons of having a baby, you determined the pros far outweigh the cons. But then the problem was: how to even make it happen.

Your first thought was that you didn’t think you’d let just any man come inside you, for many obvious reasons. You’d shuddered to think of it. Then there was surrogacy, which is admirable and wonderful, but you’d quickly dismissed that idea as you realized you wanted to actually carry the baby yourself. So that led you to artificial insemination. You weren’t sure how you felt about it yet. There was something a little too clinical about choosing a random man’s sperm to have injected into your uterus.

Bucky’s still speaking as he grabs plates and forks, unaware of your inner monologue. “And then he got Sam involved,” he’s saying, scooping out food onto the plates, “which, as you know, I always think is a dumb thing to do.”

“I want to have a baby,” you blurt, eyes widening at your outburst.

Bucky fumbles with the spoon, sending fried rice flying, muttering curses as he tries to catch it with no luck as it lands with a dull clunk on the table. The silence that follows is loud. It feels like your heart is in your throat as you wait for him to just say something, anything.

“This is… quite a mess I’ve made,” Bucky finally observes. His voice is a bit higher than usual. “Where’s your vacuum? Actually, do you have one of those mini ones? Or would Clorox wipes be better? You know what, I’ll do both.”

He nods decisively then turns an expectant look towards you. His eyes look a bit wild, but you wisely keep that to yourself.

Wordlessly, you direct him to your hall closet. You realize your error a second too late when he opens the closet and reaches for the vacuum on the top shelf, where the purchase you’d made months ago also rests. His fingers get caught in the plastic bag when he grabs the handheld vacuum and its contents spill out. He goes to catch them right away, but once it registers what they are, he lets go of them like they’re on fire and nearly drops the vacuum on his foot.

Heat has been steadily creeping up your neck, but now your whole body feels aflame with embarrassment. The two of you stare at the baby clothes lying unassumingly on the floor for a long moment, until Bucky quietly walks back to the table with the vacuum clutched tightly in his fist. He flicks the switch on and it whirs to life, sucking up the bits of rice scattered around the table.

There’s another lengthy silence after he turns the vacuum off and you're unable to find the right thing to say to break it. Bucky does it for you.

“So… You’re serious.”

You meet his eyes and sigh heavily. “Yeah.”

He blinks a few times before clearing his throat, schooling his expression carefully. “I didn’t realize you were seeing someone.”

You cough lightly and start picking the peas out of your fried rice. “Well, that would be because I’m not.”

“I don’t think I follow,” he admits slowly.

You sigh again, lowering your gaze to your lap. “Look, I’ve thought about this a lot, okay? I’ve given myself months to really make sure it’s what I want. I’m in a good place in my life to have one, Bucky, and I don’t want to feel pressured to wait until I might get married.” You lift your gaze to his. “I want to have a baby,” you repeat firmly. “And I don’t need a partner to have one.”

You’re not sure why you feel the need to defend yourself. It’s not up to Bucky what you decide to do. You don’t need his approval, or anyone else’s. Maybe it’s because, even though you know it's not true, it feels like you're making too hasty of a decision.

After a beat, Bucky amends, “Well, I mean… You do…”

“Oh my god, shut up, you know what I mean,” you groan as you smack his arm, glad that he's not calling you crazy or trying to talk you out of it.

He doesn’t even flinch, the jerk.

“Wait, so what were you reading when I got here?” he suddenly questions, brows furrowed.

“Nothing,” you say too quickly, guiltily.

“Let me see your laptop then,” he counters as he crosses his arms over his chest.

You flounder for a second, scoffing. “What? No!”

“It can’t be that embarrassing, just show me,” he wheedles.

“Absolutely not.”

“Let me see!”

“It’s private!”

“Don’t be a chicken.”

Your eye twitches. “I’m not a chicken.” Bucky smirks and before he can even open his mouth you interject with a finger pointed accusingly at his face, “Do not start clucking at me, Bucky. I’ll kick your ass,” you threaten, though it's weak and you're not the only one who knows it.

You glare when his smirk only widens. Slowly, he moves his arms like he’s gonna flap them like chicken wings.

“Ugh! God, fine! You wanna know what I was reading?” You open your laptop and slide it over to him, turning it to where he can read it. “There.”

Bucky scans the page, then scans it again, eyes flicking all over like it’s in a different language. His cheeks grow redder and redder as he reads and you get a small sense of satisfaction at the sight.

“Wow,” he mutters finally. “You’re turkey baster serious.”

“James Buchanan Barnes,” you say, pinching the bridge of your nose.

“What?” he asks innocently.

When you make eye contact with him, you purse your lips to keep the laughter threatening to bubble out at bay, but the ever growing smile on Bucky’s face is hard to resist and you find yourself snorting a laugh that leads to uncontrollable giggles. Bucky’s laughing with you, his eyes crinkling on the sides. The tension you hadn’t realized you held in your shoulders loosens and you nudge his knee with yours in silent thanks.

“So,” he says after you've both calmed down.

“So,” you repeat, dragging it out, drumming your fingers on the tabletop. “I’ve been doing research, checking out all of my options, and while artificial insemination seems like the best choice… I don’t know, there’s just something too clinical about it,” you reply, voicing your concerns, “It doesn’t feel right. I know I said I don’t need a partner, and I don’t, but… Having absolutely no connection is weird.”

You shrug, waving a hand as if to say oh well, putting an end to the conversation, and pick up your plate to carry it over to the microwave. You reheat Bucky’s food while you’re up, and then you both start eating in comfortable silence. He gets halfway through his meal before speaking up.

“Have you… I mean, did you think about… I’ve heard that, uh. Some people ask another person…”

He trails off, clearly frustrated that he can’t just spit out what he’s trying to say. You think you understand what he means, though.

“I read up on surrogacy,” you say, biting your lip. “But I don’t think I’d want someone else to carry my baby.”

“Oh, no, I didn’t mean—I wasn’t suggesting, uh, that. Not that there’s anything wrong with it!” he rushes to say.

You tilt your head. “What did you mean then?”

“Well,” Bucky starts, stilted, licking his lips. “For the artificial insemination, have you considered… you know. Asking someone you’re close with?”

You frown, not following.

“For—for the sperm,” he clarifies, shifting in his seat.

“Oh,” you breathe, blinking rapidly, surprised as you think of how to reply. “Um. No? I wouldn’t even know who I could ask, to be honest. That’s quite the request, you know? Who would—“

“Me,” he interrupts, determined and cheeks flushed, “I would.”

Your own face heats. “Oh,” you say again, quieter.

You can say, with full confidence, that not once did it cross your mind to ask anyone to help you, but you especially would have never given thought to asking Bucky.

For a list of reasons, really, with “it’s Bucky” being right at the very top. Like—sure, yes, you’re in love with him, but after two years of no signs of reciprocation you’ve learned to stop dreaming, to stop hoping. If the attraction was mutual he would have shown it by now, right? And on top of that, his friendship means the world to you and you wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize it. You'd never forgive yourself if you ever managed to fuck up the one good, constant thing going for you.

“Bucky,” you start, slow and careful, “this… This isn't something you can just jump into. It’s something you should think about for a while.”

He contemplates that for a second. “You’re right,” he concedes with a nod. “But…” He purses his lips, glancing away for a minute before turning back to you, leaning forward. “Okay listen, this is important for you. It’s going to change your whole life. You said it yourself, not having a connection to the sperm donor feels wrong. You’re my best friend, alright? I—care about you. You should pick someone you can trust.”

He clenches his jaw after he finishes speaking. You sort of hate the way your heart both flutters and plummets at his words. It’s nice to know you matter to him, just not in the way you’ve wanted for too long.

And if you’re really honest with yourself, Bucky would be a great choice as a donor. He’s in great health, has strong features that would look wonderful on any gender. But would you be able to handle the repercussions of having his child? Would you be able to look at your baby and see those features without it sending a pang through your chest every single time? You can’t say for certain.

Yet, the chance to have that type of connection with him, selfishly, sounds too good to pass up.

“At least think about it for a few days,” you murmur reluctantly.

It’s the most acceptance he’ll get and he knows it. A smile blooms across his face and you have to swallow down the warring emotions rising within you.

***

With the amount of research you do on the subject now, it doesn’t take long for you to find out that there are at-home kits for artificial insemination that are much easier (and cheaper). It’s easy to settle on that, clicking on the info to order your kit with butterflies fluttering in your stomach.

You read through the instructions online and it all sounds simple enough, until you get to the part where it says that having an orgasm after injection helps increase your chances of conception.

Blinking, heat crawling up your neck, you read that step several times, hoping you read it wrong, but it doesn’t change.

You… You can’t masturbate with Bucky’s sperm inside you. That’s a line you refuse to cross.

And besides, he’s a healthy man in his thirties who exercises regularly and eats fairly healthy food! You probably—definitely—won’t need to take that step. It’ll be fine. Probably.

Once the kit arrives, you call Bucky and ask him to come over so you can explain the process to him. Since he’s only across the hall of your apartment building, he’s there a moment later, letting himself in with his key.

“Let’s make a baby,” is how he greets you.

“Hold your horses,” you reply, fighting back a laugh. “I gotta walk you through everything first.”

He plops himself down next to you on your couch. “Fine, fine. Go ahead.”

Squaring your shoulders, you begin telling him how it all works, and what parts he is key for. You speak through your awkwardness, avoiding eye contact, when you explain that he’ll need to masturbate into a clean, sterile cup. You leave out how it’s suggested for you to also masturbate, deciding it’s not pertinent information for him to know.

“When do we start?” he asks once you’re done.

“I have to take an ovulation test first to find out the best days for me to conceive, but once I do that we’ll be able to, um.” You gesture vaguely. “I’ll be able to do the injections.”

He nods. “Alright.” He looks at you then, taking your hand in his and giving it a squeeze. “I’ll be here every step of the way, okay?”

“I know,” you say, smiling. “Thank you, Bucky.”

“You’re welcome,” he returns softly.

“No, really, thank you,” you assert. “This is a lot to take on and I can never fully repay you.”

Bucky shakes his head. “I want you to be happy, and I can see that having this baby is going to do that. I’ll do whatever I need to do to ensure it happens.”

You pull him into a hug, willing yourself to not cry. You’re not sure he’ll ever understand what this means for you, personally, or that you’d ever find a way to express it. He’s giving you so much more than just a baby.

***

The first injection time comes and you find yourself fidgeting where you sit as you wait for Bucky to bring over the, uh… sample. You do your best to not think about what he’s doing in his apartment, to not think about exactly how he’s collecting his sperm.

Now is not the time, you mentally scold yourself. Get it together.

A timid knock at your door alerts you to his presence. The fact he’s knocking says a lot about his own level of embarrassment about the situation.

His cheeks are pink when you open the door. “Uh, hi.”

“Hi,” you return.

He clears his throat and lifts the small cup in his hand. “Here’s… well, you know.”

You gingerly take it from him, not knowing what else to say, but when he smiles somewhat crookedly and turns to leave, you find yourself asking, “Will you stay?”

Bucky’s steps pause. “Huh?”

“Will you—I mean… Would you mind staying?” You shift on your feet. “This is a big moment for me. I-I don’t want to do it alone.”

“Are you asking me to…?” He trails off awkwardly.

“Oh! God, no, I wouldn’t—no,” you assure, huffing a laugh, “I’m doing the injection, I just need a little moral support. That’s all.”

Bucky smiles. “Sure, I’ll stay.”

Relief floods through you. You step aside to let him in, closing the door behind him. He follows you to your bedroom and just before entering you stop in your tracks, nearly causing Bucky to bump into you.

“Um,” you mutter, turning to him. “You’ll have to, ah, sit out here,” you explain. “I have to be lying down…”

Understanding dawns on him. “Oh! Right, right, of course. Sorry.”

“I’ll let you know when I’m done,” you promise.

He nods and watches you close the door. You walk over to your bed and sit down, glancing at the syringe you’ll be using and biting the inside of your cheek.

This is it. There’s really no going back after this. Sure, you may not get pregnant the first time, but Bucky’s already said he’d help you for as long as it takes. It’s just… very real now. You don’t feel any doubts, though. You want this.

Inhaling a large breath and slowly letting it out, hands shaking, you take the lid off the cup and pick up the syringe. You remember the instructions, making sure there’s as little air sucked in as possible when you draw out the semen, and getting rid of the few air bubbles that you see. You grab your pillows and lie down, propping them beneath you to lift your hips.

“Here I go,” you mumble to yourself, taking another deep breath and releasing it.

A couple minutes later, the syringe is empty and you’ve got your legs pulled up to your chest. You cover yourself with your blanket and call out Bucky’s name.

“You okay?” you hear through the door.

“Will you come here, please?” you ask.

He walks in cautiously, making sure you’re decently covered before entering fully, wisely not commenting on your position. “Well?”

“I did it,” you whisper.

He stays quiet, letting you parse through your thoughts. You blink when you feel tears threatening to gather in your eyes. He’s beside you in an instant, crawling in the bed and lying down, taking your hand in his.

“Congratulations,” he says softly.

“Don’t congratulate me yet,” you reply, sniffing and wiping at your eyes.

“Still,” he presses. “You’re one step closer now.”

He pulls your hand up and kisses the back of it. You give him a watery smile. The two of you lay there in silence for a moment before Bucky breaks it.

“This isn’t how I pictured myself making a baby.”

It startles a laugh out of you and Bucky grins, pleased to have helped ease the tense atmosphere. He distracts you with idle conversation after that, talking about his plans for the upcoming weekend, asking about yours, tells you about the newest stupid thing Sam did; he talks and talks and talks, until your anxiety is gone, and then he stays to cook dinner for you.

Your hug when he gets ready to head back to his apartment lasts a couple minutes longer than usual. Bucky quietly allows it, dropping a kiss on your forehead when you pull away.

“Same time next week?” he jokes, making you crack a smile.

“Goodbye, Bucky,” you reply exasperatedly as you close your door.

“Bye, sweetheart,” he returns over his shoulder.

***

Weeks pass. More injections. Pregnancy tests taken.

But nothing happens.

All of your tests come back negative.

When reading up on artificial insemination, and pregnancy in general, you’d understood that there was a chance it wouldn’t happen right away. You thought you were fine with that, that you’d be alright with the waiting and all. Looking at your growing collection of negative tests, however, has a sense of dread building within you. You do your best to quell it, telling yourself there’s no need to stress over it. Yet.

Besides, your mind supplies in an overly cheerful manner, there’s still one more method to try!

***

The next time Bucky brings over his sample, he lets himself in, like always, and passes along the cup with an encouraging smile. You try to smile back, but it feels more like a grimace. He either doesn’t notice or he at least pretends not to, thankfully.

But when he goes to make himself comfortable to wait, you’re reminded that you haven’t told him about the, uh… change in procedure, so to speak.

You clear your throat delicately. “I don’t think you’ll need to stick around this time.”

Bucky frowns. “Why not?”

“Because…” You trail off, cheeks pinking, yet not finishing the sentence, because how do you explain this?

“I promised you I’d be here every step of the way,” he recalls. “I intend to keep that promise.”

You wince. “I really appreciate where your heart is, Bucky, I really do, but I literally cannot let you be here for this injection.”

“Why not?”

You look heavenward for mercy. “I have to…”

When you don’t finish your sentence again, Bucky raises a single brow, gesturing for you to go on. “You have to… what?”

You huff, throwing your arms out. “I have to orgasm, okay?”

His eyes go a little bit wide, but you can tell he tries to control his reaction. He swallows, shifting where he sits on the couch.

“Oh,” he mumbles. “Have… have you had to do that before?”

“No. Well, I mean, it was suggested, but I never…”

His eyebrows furrow. “Does it help or something?”

You absently scratch your neck. “They say it increases the chances of conception.”

“But you haven’t been doing… that.”

“I didn’t think I’d need to.”

Bucky inhales like he’s going to say something, but then doesn’t.

“Yeah, so, I don’t think you should be here,” you utter, quickly adding, “No offense.”

“No, yeah, that’s fair, um. I’ll just—I’ll head back to my apartment,” he states as he stands. “You can—I mean, if you still want me to—I can come back over? After you… uh…”

“I’ll let you know,” you reply, voice tight and high.

He nods, looking lost and like he wants to say more but thinks better of it. Finally, he mutters a soft bye and is out the door.

Alone now, your stomach feels like it’s tying itself in knots and your heart is doing its damnedest to beat out of your chest. You try to tell yourself that it’s just another injection, that this is the same as any other time you've done this, but you know it’s not. It's really, really not.

Laying down on your bed, syringe in hand, is much more nerve wracking than before. On your left lies a new addition to your routine. You don’t know why you’re acting like such a prude all the sudden. It’s not like you’ve never masturbated before. Though, you suppose the major difference is that you didn’t have Bucky’s sperm hangin’ out in your vagina all those other times while you did it.

“Quit being such a goober about this,” you tell yourself.

This has to be done for a reason. If you want to have a baby—and you do, very badly—then you’re gonna have to deal with the process.

Once you’ve injected the sperm, you reach for your bullet vibrator next to your left hand. The instructions say not to insert anything, only to stimulate your clit. You try to clear your head, think of it as a chore or something, yet it’s hard not to think of a certain someone.

The vibrator buzzes with the press of a button. You adjust your hips, making sure they’re tilted, then bring the vibrator to your clit. The first touch makes your stomach tense and thighs spasm.

You close your eyes, running the toy along your slit. You really don’t want to drag this out, would prefer to get it over with as quickly as possible, but your mind begins running away with images.

Bucky, settled between your spread thighs, one hand resting on one of them, the other controlling the vibrator. You imagine he’d tease you, slowly trail it along the crease of your thighs, over your hips; everywhere but where you wanted it.

Bucky would probably give in once you whine and beg enough, once your desperation bled into your voice, and hold the vibrator directly to your clit, drink in your cries of pleasure like they’re the finest whisky.

He’d mutter soft but firm encouragement, tell you how good you’re doing, how good you sound. He’d start circling the vibrator, going from quick to lazy swirls, then he’d change the setting to a higher one just to hear you whimper. His free hand would run up your torso to pinch at your nipples for added stimulation.

When you imagine him leaning down to add his tongue into the mix, your mind blanks as your climax hits you, a ragged moan forcing its way out of your throat. You’re quick to turn the vibrator off and toss it to the floor, deciding you’ll worry about cleaning it later, chest heaving as you pant for breath after an intense orgasm.

Shame and embarrassment consume you, mock you for using Bucky to rub one out. You’d given in to the fantasy so easily.

Truthfully, it’s not the first time you’ve thought of him while pleasuring yourself, but the context this time is completely different, and you feel immediately guilty. Admittedly, it’s probably irrational.

That doesn’t stop you from cringing at your actions.

***

You’re sure you’ve bought out the entire pregnancy test section from the convenience store down the block. Currently, there are six different brands in front of you, all promising the most accurate results.

Bucky is sitting in your bedroom, quietly waiting for you to pee on all of them so you can both find out what they say. You chug the last bit of your third bottle of water even though your bladder is fit to burst at any moment. Turning the faucet on for modesty, you make quick work of the tests, then wash your hands.

And wait.

You call Bucky into the bathroom with you. The two of you quietly sit on the edge of your bathtub, counting down the minutes. Part of you wishes Bucky would say something dumb to break the tension, like he usually does, but you're also kind of glad he's just here, next to you, a silent comfort.

It seems like hours have passed when you’re finally sure you can check them.

The first one is negative, and so is the second. The third, however, reads positive. Your heart begins racing, clutching at the counter, but before your hopes get too carried away you read the rest. To your dismay, they are all negative. You stare down at them all, eyes falling on the loan positive test multiple times, knowing that it’s likely a false positive, yet stupidly hoping otherwise.

Your chin wobbles. Bucky hugs you from behind, resting his cheek on your shoulder.

“What do I do, Bucky?”

At your broken whisper, he sighs. “I don’t know, sweetheart.”

Neither of you know what to say or do after that. Bucky continues offering quiet support, his solid presence at your back, and you’re grateful. Eventually, he leads you out of the bathroom and into the kitchen, sitting you down at the table as he starts preparing dinner.

When you’re both eating the spaghetti he made, he breaks the silence.

“Do you think…” he starts, pausing to think of how to phrase his question before carefully carrying on. “Are you going to stop?”

“I don’t want to,” you answer, the implied but hanging heavy in the air.

Bucky sits his fork down. “I know you want this, very much.” He pushes his hair out of his face as he leans forward, elbows settling on the table. “But I hate seeing how sad you get when the tests come out negative. I feel so… powerless. Like I could be doing more or something.”

“You’re doing all you can, Bucky,” you assure.

“That’s the thing, though. I don’t think I am.”

You frown. “What do you mean?”

He licks his lips, locking his fingers together. “I think we should have sex.”

Your fork drops to your plate with a clang, eyes going wide.

“I apologize for how blunt that came out,” he states with a wince. “But, I mean, think about it. You’ve only been using my sperm from a syringe, and up until the last time, you hadn’t been, um, orgasming with it.” You look away, bashful. “I just wonder if maybe trying the old-fashioned way would give you better results.”

“Bucky,” you start, opening and closing your mouth a couple times before shaking your head. “It’s one thing for you to offer your sperm, which I’m thankful for, truly, but… Having sex?”

“I’ve already told you I’m willing to do whatever I need to do,” he retorts earnestly. “Your happiness means a lot to me, okay? I hate sitting around and watching your heart break every week. You’ve tried it your way, now I think we should try mine.”

“I-I don’t know,” you hesitate, chewing on the inside of your cheek, knee beginning to bounce under the table.

His hand slides onto your knee, stilling the movement as he ducks his head to meet your gaze. His eyes are impossibly sincere and your resolve crumbles in an instant.

“It won’t… It’s not going to change anything,” he assures. “I won’t allow it.”

You swallow roughly. He may not, but your heart is going to take its toughest beating yet. It’s going to be hopeless trying to overcome the inevitable emotions that come with sex.

Even so, somehow, your longing for a baby eclipses all of this. Now that you’ve imagined holding your child in your arms, raising them and loving them, you can’t go back. Not anymore.

“Okay,” you allow, softly.

Bucky’s shoulders relax, lips tipping up into a devastating smile.

You’re so fucked. (Pun intended.)

***

Two nights later, you’re pacing in your bedroom, impatiently waiting for Bucky to arrive. You’d been unsure whether or not you should dress up. You didn’t see the point, honestly. Still, a small part of you wondered what his reaction would be if he saw you all done up in lingerie. At the moment, you’re in an oversized t-shirt and pajama shorts.

It’s Bucky, you think, and this isn’t a normal situation, it doesn’t matter what I’m wearing.

You hear his key turning in the lock then and your heart begins hammering away. He calls your name as he enters.

“In here,” you reply, twisting your fingers nervously.

He walks into your room looking just as on edge as you are. He also seems to have had the same idea about his attire, comfortable in his white tee and sweatpants. His feet are bare and for whatever reason that feels way more intimate than it has any right to.

“Hey,” he greets.

“Hi.”

You bite your lip, eyes flitting around your room and coming back to settle on Bucky. He huffs.

“This is ridiculous,” he declares, “It’s just us.”

“Right,” you nod, biting the inside of your cheek.

“It’s not gonna be weird.”

“Nope.”

His jaw ticks. You stare back at him. It only takes a moment for you to realize that somebody has to make the first move, so you steel yourself and turn on your heel, walking towards your bed.

“I’m keeping my shirt on,” you announce as you unceremoniously drop onto the mattress, grabbing your pillows to stuff them under you.

Bucky follows at a sedate pace, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. He pauses next to you, taking a second to roll his shoulders, then he climbs in and settles in front of your bent legs. He gingerly places his hands on your knees.

“May I?” he asks.

Mouth suddenly dry, you nod. He moves his hands to the waistband of your shorts and tugs. You lift your hips to help him slide them down and off, along with your underwear. Gently, he spreads your legs.

Your breathing has picked up considerably, eyes firmly trained on the ceiling. You know you’re already wet and are blessedly thankful he doesn’t mention it.

The first slide of his fingers has you inhaling sharply. He slowly gathers your slick and trails it up to your clit, lightly circling it. Your mind recalls your fantasy, but you quickly shove it back to the depths of your thoughts, lest you do something idiotic like tell him about it.

He spreads your legs more, adjusting his position between them. His fingers move down until he can sink one into you. You gasp, hands shooting out to grasp your sheets. He wastes no time and begins thrusting his finger inside you.

It becomes quickly apparent to you that it’s going to be very difficult to hold back any noise or reactions. Goddamnit, you will try, though!

When he decides it’s time to add another finger, you feel yourself clench around them, and his soft fuck does not go unnoticed, evident in the way your pussy traitorously clenches again.

“Can I…?” he asks, voice cracking, but doesn’t finish his thought, making you have to break your staring contest with the ceiling and look at him.

He’s not even looking back at you, he’s staring at his fingers, watching them pump in and out of you, half bent over with a slack jaw, like he wants to…

He meets your eyes then, licking his lips.

Oh.

Swallowing around the sudden lump in your throat, knowing you’re probably going to regret it, you nod.

He’s leaning over and sucking on your clit before you can even blink. You cry out, thighs trying to clamp around his head, but his free hand shoots out to hold you open. It makes you squirm, fisting the sheets even tighter. His fingers curl inside you as his tongue licks around them and you whine, high and needy, and then mouth is back on your clit, tongue swiping over it, sucking on it with loud, obscene noises.

His hand comes up to grab the hem of your shirt, shoves it upward until it’s bunched underneath your breasts. Those fingers ghost back down your torso, goosebumps erupting in their wake.

He speeds up his thrusts and your hand flies down to grip his hair. You don’t think you’re meant to hear the quiet grunt he lets out, but you do, and it has you panting even harder. Your orgasm is building, fast, and you pull on his hair in warning.

“Bucky,” you say on a gasp.

Using his arm to hold you down, his free hand joins, thumb swiping over your clit now as he dips his head to slide his tongue in alongside his fingers. It draws a yell out of you, the ever expanding pleasure within you bursting into the hardest orgasm you’ve experienced thus far in your adult life. You know you’re moaning, bucking into the sensations coursing through you, and you’d feel abashed if you didn’t feel so fucking good.

Before you can become too sensitive, Bucky withdraws his fingers and sits up. You can’t even really catch your breath, though, because in the next second he’s whipping his t-shirt off and shoving his sweatpants down far enough to free his cock.

Your thighs do clamp closed then, at the sight of how thick he is, and he tries and fails to keep his smirk hidden.

“Oh, shut up,” you wheeze.

“Didn’t say anything,” he counters.

He doesn’t let you argue, choosing that moment to shuffle closer and line up with your opening. Cautiously, he eases himself inside, inch by inch. Your mouth drops open, brows furrowing as he fills you, stretching you so perfectly. When he’s in as far as he can go, the breath wooshes out of him, his head falling back. You know he’s trying to be polite and let you adjust, but—

“Oh my god, move,” you demand, impatient.

He huffs a laugh, dropping his heavy lidded gaze to yours. “Bossy.”

“Did you really expect anything else—oh!”

The grin he aims your way after grinding into you is downright sinful. You mentally tell yourself to kick him for that later.

He grabs your hips and the pillows and settles you closer to his lap, changing the angle, then pulls out and glides back in, creating a painstakingly slow rhythm.

You have to close your eyes. You can’t look at him anymore. You knew he was probably a god in bed, but to now have firsthand experience? There was no way you’d be able to fuck anyone else without comparing them.

His grip on your hips tightens, the only warning you get before his thrusts turn sharp.

“Fuck,” you cry out, your hands reaching up to grip the pillow beneath your head.

The sound of your skin meeting his is harsh in the otherwise quiet room. Well, okay, you’re not exactly being quiet, but you can’t be blamed for that.

Bucky, however, is nearly silent. The only thing you hear from him is heavy breathing. You wonder if he’s holding back, the thought crossing your mind for a split second, and then you’re clenching around his cock, trying to see if you can gain a reaction. And boy, do you get one.

He grunts and sucks in a breath, lips parting as his eyes squeeze shut. His hips pick up their pace and hair falls into his face. You find yourself wishing he was closer so you could brush it out of the way.

Stop it, you scold yourself.

He pauses to grind into you again, your walls fluttering around his throbbing cock, and you both sigh. Bucky leans forward, hooking your legs into the crooks of his elbows, and resumes his brutal pace.

“O-Oh,” you whimper.

The new angle is heavenly, his cock dragging along a spot inside you that you thought nobody else could find. Unable to help yourself, you clutch at his arms, nails digging in.

“Shit,” he groans, thrusts faltering.

He lets go of one of your legs to slip his hand between you, rubbing at your clit and sending you that much closer to your second orgasm. He can tell you’re close, but you’re gonna need something to push you over the edge. He leans down even closer, breath fanning out against your cheek.

“C’mon,” he pants. “Let go.”

You shiver when his tongue flicks your earlobe and sucks it into his mouth, keening as the pressure builds. He thrusts harder, faster, and when you grasp his hair and pull, he growls and latches on to your shoulder, biting down. You gasp from the added pain and then you’re coming, shuddering and whining through your release. Bucky isn’t far behind, raising up and fucking into you savagely before pausing abruptly, groaning as he finally comes. He lazily thrusts a few more times to draw it out, then stops, stilling with his cock inside you.

Your hair is sticking to your forehead, as well as your shirt to your clammy back, breathing in lungfuls of air. Bucky is softly caressing your thighs, letting out shaky breaths as your pussy continues to flutter around him.

It takes several moments for you to gather your wits, for the rest of the world to come filtering back in. You are truly and completely fucked now, in every sense of the word.

“Well…” You trail off, voice scratchy.

“That was…”

“Mhm,” you mumble.

Bucky sighs heavily. “Let’s hope it worked this time.”

You hum. “Thank you for your service,” you reply with a lazy salute.

You yelp when he pinches your hip, kicking at him in retaliation. The jostling reminds you, with a gasping groan, that he’s still buried balls deep inside you.

“Um.” You cough lightly. “You wanna, you know… pull out?”

He looks down where you’re connected like it hadn’t even dawned on him. “Oh, uh. Well, I thought maybe it could, like. Help.”

His gaze stays locked, fingers flexing on your hips, and you feel like squirming again.

“I think it’s good,” you say quietly.

Bucky finally glances back up at your shy tone, cheeks pinking. He clears his throat.

“Right.”

Carefully, he eases his softening cock out of you, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from making a noise.

You can’t hold back yours, though, gasping once he’s gone. You feel unbearably empty, but refrain from voicing that incessant thought.

Bucky’s intense eyes stare at your pussy until you reach for the throw blanket next to you. He watches you throw it over your lap, drawing your legs up to your chest, and takes that as his cue, jolting into action.

“Okay, so.” He starts, then stops, climbs off your bed and pulls his sweatpants back up. “This was—I mean, if it doesn’t take this time, we can… try again.”

“Yeah,” you mutter. “Sounds good.”

He nods, bending to pick up his discarded t-shirt. “Great. I’ll just, um, see myself out, I guess.”

You nod, sending a smile that doesn’t quite reach your eyes in his direction. He seems to contemplate something for a second, then leans down to kiss your forehead before saying a quick goodbye and leaving.

As soon as you hear your apartment door shut, you let your tears fall.

***

It’s not really like you mean to avoid him after that.

Honest.

You simply become busy, that’s all. You definitely don’t go out of your way by taking the stairs in your apartment building to avoid possibly bumping into him in the elevator. No, you take the stairs because you could use the cardio. It’s important you stay healthy right now. And when he texts you to ask if you want to have dinner, you can’t help that you’ve got boatloads of work to catch up on—all five times he asks.

Okay, so, that’s a lie. You’re totally avoiding him. But what on earth are you supposed to say to him now? You don’t think you’d even be able to look him in the eye anymore, not after the fuck of your goddamn life.

That night confirmed what you already knew for the last two years: Bucky absolutely ruined you for anyone else.

More than anything, though, you were angry with yourself. He’d only offered because you weren’t getting your desired results the other way. You should have been able to separate your feelings and emotions from all of it. After all, none of this was about whatever you feel towards Bucky. This was about trying to conceive a baby.

You try telling yourself to get over it. He’s your best friend, you can’t just cut him off because you’re a spineless pansy.

I just need some time, you reason. You can give yourself a few days to wallow over what could have been and then you can reach out to him and pretend like everything is fine. Because it is.

***

Flash forward two weeks to you attempting to sneak into your apartment, only to jump out of your skin when you turn around and find Bucky sitting on your couch, an unreadable expression on his face.

“Oh, good, you’re still alive,” he drawls.

His tone suggests annoyance. You suppose you deserve that.

“Hey,” you say after a pause.

He stares at you for a moment longer before speaking again. “I thought we agreed we wouldn’t let it get weird.”

You agreed, you almost say, thankfully biting it back. You drop your purse on the entryway table, sliding your shoes off and making your way over to sit next to him.

“I’m sorry,” you mumble. You tug your sweater sleeves down and tuck your feet beneath you. “I haven’t ever… I’ve never been intimate with a friend before. It was just… a lot.”

It’s a half truth, at least. You haven’t had sex with a friend before. Or, well, not one you had feelings for.

“You could’ve just told me,” he replies, reaching for your hand.

You nod. “I know, and I should have, I just. Things are all out of whack lately with the whole… trying to get pregnant thing.”

“If I overstepped in any way—” Bucky starts, but you’re quick to interrupt.

“You didn’t,” you promise. “You’ve been nothing but fantastic throughout this whole ordeal. Honestly, Bucky, you’ve done way more than anyone else would have in this situation. I just had a lot going on in my head and let it get the best of me. I’m fine, I swear.”

He searches your eyes and must find what he’s looking for.

“Don’t shut me out again,” he pleads.

Heart cracking in your chest, you can only nod, shuffling closer to pull him into a hug. He buries his face in your neck and holds on tight.

***

Another week passes.

Bucky is with you as you wait for the results of the latest pregnancy test. He’s reassured you that you’ll keep trying until it happens if it didn’t work this time.

When the timer on your phone goes off, you release the breath you’ve been holding. You take tentative steps over to the sink and gingerly pick up the test.

Positive.

Your stomach swoops. It’s positive. You check again, reading the digitized screen, but it stays the same. Positive. Holy shit.

“Okay, wait, no, I need to do more. I can’t get my hopes up again,” you mutter, rushing to open the cabinet under your sink to dig out several more varieties of tests.

You don’t even wait for Bucky to leave before you’re peeing on the other sticks. He’s seen it all at this point anyway, and he doesn’t seem to care, sitting on the edge of your tub with an anxious expression. The downside is that you have to wait another few minutes for these tests to finish and you can’t sit still, pacing back and forth in the small space of your bathroom.

The timer goes off again. You feel like you’re going to throw up when you finally work up the courage to look down.

Every single one of them… Positive.

A shocked, happy laugh escapes you. You cover your mouth, turning to Bucky with wide eyes.

He rises to his full height, coming closer and peering down at the tests, then back to your teary eyed expression.

“Did we…?”

Words failing you, you nod, giggling in astonishment. Bucky’s face breaks into the biggest, handsomest, most gut-wrenching smile. His happiness is palpable and you’re suddenly so overcome with emotion. Your hands are gripping his face and angling it to align your lips to his before you register what you’re doing. He freezes and you hurriedly pull away, taking a few steps back.

“I’m so sorry, I-I don’t know why—”

“Shut up,” he cuts you off, closing the gap between you in a single stride.

He kisses you like his life depends on it, pressing your bodies as close as possible, his hands cupping your cheeks. You clutch his shirt desperately, never wanting to let go. He steals the breath straight from your lungs when he swipes at the seam of your lips with his tongue, moaning happily when you allow him access. A feeble whine from you after he flicks his tongue against yours makes him break the kiss.

“I have a confession,” he breathes into the miniscule space between your mouths.

“What?” you question distractedly.

“I’m in love with you.”

Your gaze shoots up to his, astounded. He brushes stray hairs off your forehead, runs his thumbs softly under your eyes.

“I’ve been selfish this whole time,” he reveals. “I couldn’t let you choose some random stranger to be your sperm donor, to father your child, couldn’t bear the thought of you carrying their baby, because I’ve been in love with you since the moment I met you. I wanted to be the one. And I’m sorry for not telling you sooner, but I’m not sorry I did it.”

You’re hearing the words, yet your brain can’t seem to make sense of them. Surely you’re hearing him wrong. You can’t possibly have this too, right? You can't have Bucky and have his baby…

But he’s here, very real and solid beneath your hands, looking at you like you’re his entire world.

“Bucky…” You trail off, struggling to find the right words, at a complete loss. “I-I’ve loved you for so long now, I didn’t think you…” You shake your head, a giggle escaping you as you stare at him in wonder. “I couldn’t let myself hope.”

He grins, relieved, planting a few chaste kisses to your mouth. “I know this entire circumstance is totally backwards, but I want you, and I want this baby. I meant it when I said I’m not going anywhere.”

Fresh tears gather in the corners of your eyes. “Are you sure?” you still ask.

“I’ve never been more sure of anything.”

You have to kiss him then, uncaring of the tears that trickle down your face. The only thing you are focused on is the way his hands trail down your back, pausing to squeeze your ass, then grip underneath to lift you. Your legs wrap around his waist, arms locked around his neck, as he heads for your bed. He makes a point of throwing your extra pillows on the floor before settling between your thighs and kissing the hell out of you.

He pulls away only to undress you and himself, but he’s always back as quickly as possible, lips pressing kisses wherever he can reach. You impatiently tug at him until his lips are attached to yours again. The way he fucks his tongue into your mouth is nothing short of indecent and it sends a rush of pure want all the way to your core.

When you bury your fingers in his hair, gripping it tight, he grunts, biting your lip. You whimper and he grins as he pulls away.

“You make the most beautiful sounds,” he praises, his hands beginning to sweep down and up, tickling under your breasts.

His thumb and forefinger pinch one of your nipples and you gasp, back arching off your mattress. He repeats it on the other side, just to hear the same noise.

“Bucky, please,” you beg.

“Please what?” he prods. His hands drift further to the creases of your thighs, spreading them open. “What do you need?”

You whine, canting your hips up. “You, I need you, please.”

“You have me, sweetheart.” He tilts his head and you make a noise of frustration. “Use your words, darlin’.”

“Fuck me, please,” you burst out, feeling your pussy clench around nothing.

Bucky smiles, slow and torturous. “Yeah? Want me to fuck you? Fuck this perfect pussy until you’re so full of my come that it drips down your beautiful thighs?”

“Oh god,” you mumble.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he teases.

His fingers slide down your slit, gathering your slick then thrusts two fingers in at once. You groan brokenly, shifting your hips to try and get more friction, but he holds them down with his metal arm. Agonizingly slow, he begins fucking you with his fingers. It’s good, it’s amazing, but it’s not enough. Not when you know what his cock feels like. He takes his precious time fingering you and you’re sure you’re going to lose your mind before the day is done.

“You have no idea how incredible you felt around my cock,” he tells you in a ridiculously conversational tone. “I was trying to think of any excuse I could come up with to have you at least one more time.”

He shifts until his mouth is directly above where you’re dripping for him, and he waits until you make eye contact with him.

“But now I’m gonna spend the rest of my life making you come apart on my cock any chance I get.”

You hardly have any functioning brain cells at the moment, but even if you could form a coherent sentence you wouldn’t have been able to say it aloud, because then he’s descending and all you can feel is the wet warmth of his mouth.

He definitely doesn’t hold back this time, that much is apparent in the way he devours you, lips and tongue drawing out noises you’ve never heard yourself make, pressing his face so far into your pussy that he has to come up for air. His mouth and chin shine when you chance a look down, and when you clench on his fingers his smile goes smug at the corners.

He plants kisses along your hips, the insides of your thighs, around where his fingers are buried within you. He curls them, in search of the spot he found last time. He knows he found it when you try to close your thighs around his head and cry out. Now that he's found it, he angles to brush it on every thrust of his fingers and attaches his mouth back on your clit.

You chant his name, nearly sobbing as you approach your climax, until finally you fly over the edge. Your vision blurs and you’re not sure if you’re making any noise now, unable to hear past the blood rushing in your ears. Bucky helps you ride it out until you’re shuddering from sensitivity.

He kisses your thighs again, trailing them up your stomach and between the valley of your breasts.

“So good, did so well,” he mutters.

Weakly, you lift your hands to trace them down his toned stomach and around his back, down further so you can cop a feel of your own, smiling at his grunt of surprise.

“That was great and all,” you say, arching your back so your chest presses against his, “but I do believe I asked you to fuck me.”

He arches an eyebrow. “Who said I was done with you?” It’s apparently a rhetorical question, as he continues before you get a chance to reply. “I’m gonna fuck you until you come, and then I’m gonna keep fucking you until you come again, and only then will I come so deep inside you there’ll be zero doubt I’ve put a baby there.”

Your legs are lifted and thrown over his shoulders in a blink, his cock pushing into your pussy, dragging out a high-pitched moan from you. There’s barely a pause and then he’s fucking you, just like you asked. The pace is brutal right from the start, a steady rhythm that has you mewling and writhing in pleasure. Bucky is watching his cock as he thrusts in and out of you, his mouth hanging open slightly as he pants. He hikes your hips up a little higher and you jolt through your startled moan. This angle is divine and the telltale signs of your second orgasm start tingling at the base of your spine.

“Can feel you,” Bucky says through panting breaths, “so close. C’mon, let me feel you.”

He pulls you down on his cock, grinding into you, his thumb reaching to rub tight circles over your clit. You sob through your release, shuddering against Bucky as you clench around him. He groans, still barely moving as you come down from your high.

“Fuck,” he grunts. “Come here.”

He helps you sit up, still seated on his cock, making you both hiss from your movement. Your arms automatically wrap around his shoulders and his around your waist. He kisses you so sweetly, a stark contradiction to the way he just fucked you. When you pull away, resting your foreheads together, he grins.

“Hi.”

You crack a smile. “Hi.”

“Ready for more?” he asks, wiggling his eyebrows.

“You think you got it in you?” you tease as you play with the hair at the nape of his neck.

The light smack to your ass startles you and you let out a soft sound of surprise, hands tugging his hair harshly. Bucky’s eyes light up.

“Interesting,” he muses.

Another slap, a little harder than the first, and you’re whimpering, your walls clenching around his still hard cock.

“I’ll play with that later,” he promises, voice breathy.

You bury your face in his neck and start shifting your hips. He takes the hint, gathering you as close as he can and thrusts up into you. He can’t pull out as far this way, but the snap of his hips more than makes up for it. You mouth at his collarbone messily, kissing and licking your way up to his jaw, biting marks wherever you see fit. You make it up to his mouth and he kisses you, wet and filthy. You suck on his tongue and a ragged moan claws its way out of his throat. The need for air eventually has you pulling away.

“It’s a good thing you love me back,” you whisper in his ear. “Nobody else could ever compare to you.”

He growls, fisting your hair and yanking your head back to look him in the eye.

“Nobody will ever compare,” he corrects.

You moan. “Yes,” you agree, whining, “No one else could’ve given me a baby.”

Bucky thrusts harder and faster at your words. You’re picking up on a few hints and you can’t say it’s not doing it for you either.

“Filled me up so good, fucked me so well. Gonna be round with your baby soon.”

“Fuck, fuck,” he keens, hurrying to lay you flat on your back so he can fuck into you easier.

The sound of skin meeting skin fills the room, your cries of pleasure mixing in with Bucky’s grunts and curses. His grip on you tightens almost painfully as he chases both your and his orgasm. You’re sure to have bruises tomorrow and you already know you'll be poking at them to remember this moment.

“C’mon, baby, wanna feel you too,” you beg.

His thumb finds your swollen clit once more. It’s beyond sensitive now, feels like a shockwave coursing through you, and without any warning, you come. You spasm around Bucky and he swears under his breath, thrusts going sloppy. With a final groan, he comes inside you, his hips moving seemingly on their own as he draws out both your pleasures. Slowly, he comes to a stop, but he leaves his cock buried in you like he did last time.

You know you’re gonna feel too empty when he does pull out, so you don’t mind sitting like this for a while. Bucky softly runs his hands across every inch of your skin he can touch and you bask in the affection. You card your fingers through his sweaty hair, smiling when he hums happily. It takes only a minute for you to notice the way his hands migrate to your stomach, and when you do you kiss his shoulder.

“Maybe we should go again later,” you suggest faintly.

Bucky grins. “We can do it a hundred more times if you want.”

“Guess I better enjoy it while I can.”

His smile goes soft at the edges.

It’s not lost on you how incredibly crazy all of this is. There will undoubtedly be a conversation, a much needed one that isn’t going to be simple or easy, but it’s necessary.

For now, though, you bask in Bucky’s warmth and loving embrace.

***

Keys jingle as they unlock the door and you perk up where you’re sprawled on the couch. Bucky enters, arms laden with bags from the convenience store.

“They didn’t have the banana ice cream you asked for,” he announces, continuing before your pout fully forms, “but they did have the double chocolate brownie kind you love so much, so I got that, as well as the sour gummy worms, beef jerky, and fried pickles from the deli on your list of demands.”

“What about—”

“And your strawberry Fanta,” he adds with a fond, slightly exasperated smile.

You’re unable to stop your expression from going soft and dreamy.

Ever since you and Bucky figured out where to go with your relationship, he’s been even more attentive and accommodating (and that’s saying something).

You expressed your worry about the possibility of something going wrong, that one or both of you would get bored and leave, or there’d be a big fight that neither of you could forgive. He was quick to reassure you of his commitment, told you there was no way he would ever get bored of you, and that as long as you both promise to talk things out in a calm, mature way, then you’d be alright.

It all sounded so easy when it was put like that. The more you thought about it, though, the more you realized he was right. It wasn’t fair to either of you to already give up before you’d even started. So you’d taken a deep breath and leaped.

Now, you’re five and a half months in, your belly steadily growing and making everyday life increasingly uncomfortable. The changes to your body were physically and emotionally draining, to say the least. Moreso the emotional side. You’d hoped you wouldn’t be one of those pregnant women with strange cravings, and for the most part they were pretty tame, but you do like to dip your sour gummy worms in banana ice cream. Bucky didn’t attempt to hide his disgust over that.

“What did I do to deserve you?” you ask on a pleased sigh.

He places your small cornucopia of goods on the coffee table. You sit up, huffing for breath during the struggle. You go to reach for the ice cream first, but Bucky catches your hand, lacing his fingers with yours and kissing your knuckles as he kneels in front of you.

“You were yourself. Smart, kind, selfless, unbelievably sexy.” You snort at that, but he’s undeterred. “And you’re giving me the best gift I could ever dream of. A family.”

Instantly, you’re crying. He’s grown accustomed to the mood swings by now, taking it in stride as he wipes away the tears with gentle hands.

“Stop being so disgusting,” you blubber through your hiccuping cries. “You’re such an asshole.”

Bucky laughs. “I love you too, sweetheart.”

You sniffle, kissing him. “Love you,” you grumble.

He leans down and plants the softest of kisses to your belly. “And I love you, little lady.”

The idea of you having a child one day always seemed foreign and unlikely, but life has a way of turning out exactly how it’s supposed to… And you wouldn’t change a thing.

[xamag-draws]

BBR thoughts 2024

Since I mentioned that I finally dusted off an old project of mine and was ruminating on how I'd remake it, I thought I'd elaborate a little, now that I've solidified some concepts. For funsies

This is gonna be a bit of a long and unfocused one, but I don't share my personal thoughts here often, especially the stuff about my projects I always marinate in. And for once it's something that people have existing context for, so hey why not

So for anyone who hasn't been following me for a gajillion years, The Black Brick Road of OZ was a webcomic that I posted around 2013-2015, back when I was in highschool going on college (which is kinda crazy to think about). It was sort of a darker twist on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, although I definitely leaned a lot more into dark humor more than anything in those first few chapters

I don't think it's available to read anywhere anymore, and I know people have been asking me about it. So here's the full proper archive of BBR, as full as it can be with deceased Flash

I totally used it as an excuse to shamelessly and self-indulgently experiment. It had interactive pages and GIFs and was wayyy too overproduced for what I could handle or what was necessary, but I did have great fun making it while it lasted

Unfortunately, that excess and the fact that I've changed too much as a person by the time I was in college is what ultimately killed it. The direction I wanted to go in was practically unrecognizable from the original idea started back in 2011, so there were many old hold-ups that I felt ruined it

At the time I kinda wished I could start/rewrite it all over, but considering that I pretty much had the entire script done at that point, it felt like a pointless sisyphean task. So I just put it on a shelf and didn't look back for about 8 years, because I didn't know what else to do

Now to be fair, the nature of my art has always been iterative and cyclical; when I feel like my creative juices have run dry I prefer to leave a project to marinate and move on to something else; cycle through other old things and bring in new skills and perspectives into the mix when I'm ready again. Not very productive, but it is what makes me happy to work on my OCs; I'm doomed to hit a wall with them eventually and I need some time to be able to find a new direction

So that said, I'm glad that BBR was left to marinate for that long. I don't think I was prepared, emotionally or intellectually, to tackle it again until now. The Wizard of Oz book (and the entire series of them, really) has always been near and dear to my heart, but there's a lot of context around it that I'm only unpacking now that I'm older

I think I always inherently feel negatively about the stuff I've made in the past, like its faults always jump out to me more than the positives, especially the more time passes. I've never liked that, and I do really appreciate the kind things people have to say about BBR to this day. The fact that it still can be recognized and remembered is very sweet

When I left it, I already found it "kinda cringe", and that feeling only deepened with years. When I took my first look back at it, asking the question "how would I rewrite it now?", at first I took a very cynical approach, as in "everything would have to be torn down"

But the more I sat on it, the more I found that I still see some merit and charm in the ideas I was putting out; I just didn't know how to execute them at the time (not to pretend that I know what I'm doing now, but I certainly know more at least). Turns out a lot of my old concepts could be changed substantially with just a few small tweaks. So I'd say that's a nicer way to think about my previous work

If you haven't seen yet, I posted a first draft of my new designs for some of the characters (the main group, the Goods and the Wickeds). Definitely subject to change, but more or less how I see them now

I'm just playing with these concepts; by no means would I attempt to remake BBR right this moment. Call it a pipe dream among my other ones. But just for fun, this is the direction I'd like to take:

Nowadays I'd probably make it a visual novel, with more emphasis on the visual part than the novel because I'm no English prose writer by any means. It'd still let me play a little with the interactivity while helping cut some corners on the drawing part (only some, I imagine I'd go hog wild anyway)

I've always intended for some events inspired by the sequel books to take place in BBR's past. Stuff like Jinjur's revolt or Ozma's rule preceeds the main events here. So I think it would be fun to follow the past of a few key characters alongside the main story. One chapter focusing on the present quest to see the Wizard, then one focusing on the past events (that are maybe reflective thematically); rinse and repeat

I'm also sticking a little closer to the original text in some regards. Not everything that I enjoy from the books would be translated here, it's still just a very loose fantasy on the material; but I'd like to be closer in spirit at least

I like mature, wise and powerful Glinda, I like kind and vulnerable Tin Man, I like the Wizard being a pathetic yet loveable liar, so I'm sprinkling in more of that for example

I'd like to keep some whimsy, but make it more grounded and a bit more serious to be coherent in tone. I think the original TWWOOZ book was a more realistic fantasy in some ways, even for the standards of the time; I like its simple but vivid tactile descriptions and details like bringing attention that Dorothy needed to eat and sleep

I find it funny that Baum specifically was averse to making his books scary or unpleasant, finding that unnecessary for telling a compelling kids story, but they still can get pretty dark and disturbing, at least for our modern sensibilities. Let's just say that I intend to use the Evoldo and Chopfyt storylines for my purposes. In that way, I feel like a "darker" Wizard of Oz retelling can still mostly be tonally in line with the original and balance it with enough heart and occasional humor

I slowly grew to appreciate the quaint old-timey quality of the original series, as well. The first book is both timeless and very much a product of the 1900s. Originally I tried to give it a little modern or at least anachronistic spin, but it was moreso because it's what I knew best, so these days I'd rather intentionally lean into the time period. Still not fully historically accurate by any means, but at least directly acknowledging the influence

The events of the story span across 40 years of these characters' lives, so I'm drawing inspiration from the entire so-called La Belle Epoque: the time period around 1880s-1920s. Basically I'm cooking, and my soup is old Victorian fashion morphing into Edwardian fashion and slowly inching towards flappers

Some new Dolly outfits

Lots of crazy things, political changes and innovations were happening at the turn of the century, which I think is noted and reflected by Baum in the books as well; the character of Tik-Tok might not blow any minds now, but he was one of the first robot characters in literature at that point; and don't even get me started on Jinjur, etc. Plenty of really interesting stuff one could lightly ponder in an Oz adaptation these days

Aesthetically, art nouveau has always been a big artistic influence for me, and it'd definitely be its time to shine here. John R. Neill's illustrations of the Oz books often keep me company as well. Nouveau architecture in particular fits that fairytale whimsy extremely well imo

I'd allow myself a little bit of art deco here and there, but ultimately its intimidating geometrical splendor is an antithetical to the flowery nature of nouveau and I associate it with a completely different era. Definitely fitting some characters like my Wicked Witch of the West, but shouldn't be overused

One of my main problems with the original BBR was that eventually I lost track of what it was even about; and the original ending felt too mean and unfulfilling to be worth it. Now I'd like to stick to the theme of home and family as my main theme, but in a different, more bittersweet way than in the book

An interesting connection I made is that a lot of my aforementioned older key characters (the Witches, Jinjur, the Nome King, etc) all came from the same reformatory as kids, that's how they know each other. In my recent research I learned that in those reformatories it was usually frowned upon to release the children back to the families, which were seen as the original corrupting influence regardless of the circumstance. The reformatory did everything in its power to cut that connection and make itself the only family those wayward kids were supposed to know and love. That's an unexpected tie into the theme of home that I'd like to explore as well

So yeah that's the current state of it. I have a bunch of outfit concepts I'm slowly cooking, although I'm now sure whether I'd post them... But I do miss these funny guys, and I'm glad some people still do as well :)

[luludeluluramblings]

Ooh, love the switched at birth concept..

People who writes this trope usually do the other kid who was switched at birth as a spoiled brat, but I absolutely adore the idea of the oc instead being a platonic sibling yandere! Like their whole life they spent it craving a family that was caring, even if they came from somewhere poor. What's the pint of money if your family doesn't even know what you spend it on?

Now they tracked down their bio family and their fellow switched at birth person. They expect bitterness as they learn of the reader's decent life with a loving family, the home-cooked meals, the family days, the basic school drama, and the joking bickering between everyone there. They logically should feel jealous and spiteful of what they should have had. But every time the reader pops up to go show them like a childhood place or offer their bed so the oc could stay the night in what was meant to be their original home, they physically can't. Because that means the Reader would have been forced into their own neglected childhood. So instead they choose to keep the Reader and Bio family away from Gotham, because it's their little slice of paradise. Screw Damian and all of his "blood heir" sibling opinions, the oc is Reader's sibling. They're basically adopted each other already. The Bat Kids had each other for a majority of their life, it’s only fair that the Oc gets their found family now, right? They already had a chance with the oc, why bother letting them connect with Reader if they couldn't even be kind to the kid they raised?

Switched at Birth Blurb...

I actually haven't seen this trope used, so someone link me to that work cause I wanna read it regardless.

But, exactly this, dear anon. My favorite aspect of the whole thing, is the OC realizing the Bat Family would basically adore Reader with the possibility of the fam not even neglecting Reader from how sweet they are popping into OC's head. Leading OC to spiral into madness and self-doubt further, and cling to Reader even more.

And, the OC using reader as a twisted form of revenge. Letting the Family love and adore them. Introducing Reader to the family and wrap them around their finger before snatching them back and hogging them all for themselves.

Taunting Damian about having the affection of his only blood sibling. Showing off how they're a more attentive sibling than Dick and Tim. Mocking Jason with how unworthy he is to be around Reader. I'd even say they'd go full scorched earth and rub it in Duke, Cass, Steph, and Barbara's faces. (Maybe even Alfred's.)

Like, let OC be a total bitch to the Bat Family and have their revenge, while being completely sweet on Reader and not letting the family get close to them.

[lycheeloving]

a concept I've been rotating in my head for a really long time now is an AU where the entire Justice League is yandere... with multiverse stuff, because I'm still me <3

They have some sort of machine in the Watchtower that can be used to contact and monitor other universes and even open portals, they've been in contact with a bunch of other Justice Leagues and help each other out in case of extreme emergencies.

However, they all spend a lot of time at the machine doing things unrelated to what it's supposed to be used for. They each watch a different civilian in a different universe, are basically obsessed with them, you could even say they're stalking them... They all try to do this secretly, as they're aware that this isn't exactly behavior that's seen as normal and healthy (and morally sound). Some of them are more successful at hiding it than others.

I imagine Batman would be the first to connect the dots that they're all obsessed with someone, gather evidence of everyone doing this, call everyone to a meeting and confront them with said evidence, only to then reveal that he's been doing the same thing...

And then he suggests bringing their obsessions here, as this behavior has caused them all to be distracted and get worse at their Justice League business, but if their darlings were here, they would no longer have to worry if they were safe or not! Additionally, as they're all from different universes, nobody would think to accuse the Justice League of this universe to be responsible for the kidnappings, nobody would be able to even connect the dots that the kidnappings are related! Batman tries to make it seem like he's suggesting this because he's worried about their performance, and not because he wants to get his darling closer to him, close enough to finally touch.

Everyone eagerly agrees, of course (after getting over the embarrassment of "Oh shit, Batman saw me stalking someone"). After some preparations, like choosing and remodeling rooms so the objects of their affections will hopefully feel comfortable being kept there (well, as comfortable as possible, considering the circumstances), they all work together to discreetly relocate all of their darlings from their original universes to their new home, the Watchtower in this universe.

Each darling gets their own room (that they share with their yandere, of course), but there's also rooms that are accessible to all of them, like a living room, a kitchen, etc, so they don't have to be alone when their yandere is out on patrol.

Everyone in the League tries to justify it to themselves by repeating how they're helping so many people, they've never asked for anything in return, they deserve this, but subconsciously they're all aware that what they're doing is not ok, they just don't care enough about that to stop. It's too late for that now anyways, their darlings are already here, they can't just return them!

I want to write something about what it's like to be the darling of the different members of the league at some point (and about the darlings escaping], but that might take a while, we'll see. Feel free to suggest Justice League members I should include though, I haven't quite decided about who exactly I want to be involved in this AU (other than the obvious Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. and probably Flash)

I've already written for: Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Superman

date night

flirting / threesome with a different hero

[trancylovecraft]

Hello Girlie! I saw that your requests are open (even with the hiatus, take care of yourself:3) so, I wanted to know if it's okay if I make my own? From Yandere Lucifer Morningstar's general headcanons(from Hazbin Hotel), perhaps the reader could take Eve's place, being the "first sinner" or/and converted demon like Lilith.

If you're already maxed out with Requests, that's fine! I will order in another time, take all the time you need❤️You can ignore this if that's the case

(HAZBIN) YANDERE! LUCIFER MORNINGSTAR x EVE! READER: Headcannons

RECEIPT ✂- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

BARISTA'S NOTE: HEYYYY GIRLIE!!! THANKS SO MUCH!! i love that u requested him cause he's one of my favourites (i had a lot of fun with this req, LOVE THE CONCEPT) and would be if it wasn't for Carmilla :]. FANDOM: Hazbin Hotel

Thank you for ordering!

Come again soon!

Lucifer Morningstar! King of Hell, King of Pride and one goofy motherfucker!

Also a dangerous yandere to have.

I headcannon Lucifer as a Desperate, Possessive, Protective and Worshiping yandere.

Desperate in the way that Lucifer is just so lonely. Even when he did have something with Lilith in the beginning (They never got married in this scenario), It never felt connected. Even as the ugly duckling amongst the angels, He loves you because maybe.. Just maybe, You think like him, Maybe you love him. And he NEEDS you to love him too.

Possessive in the way that this ties into his Desperation, So enamoured and focused on getting you to love him that he's bitter towards anyone who you even glance at. You're his, Lucifer gets antsy if you even look another persons way (God forbid, Adams.). You should look at him, Listen to him and his ideas.

Protective in the way that he's terrified of losing you. You're still only mortal, And if you die then you'll fall into hell (If not, Heaven) and even Lucifer knows that's no place for you to be! You're too good for a place like that, He needs to make sure you'll be fine with him down there.. Especially with all the sinners running about.

And finally, Worshiping in the way that he just adores you. I mean, Come on. You're gorgeous, Intelligent, Curious, Brave and everything else he could ever want! How could he not worship you so?

So to establish you as an Eve! Reader, We're gonna go off my interpretation of Eve since we haven't seen her in the show yet.

You are you, Created from Adams left rib while the actual Eve was created from Adam's right.

God made both you and Eve to give Adam a choice of wife, Whichever one he chose would stand at his side for all of eternity. However the one that he didn't choose..

Well, You weren't quite sure what would happen to them, But you knew that you didn't want it to be you.

Eve was made beautiful, She was made pure and orderly. In other words, Eve was subserviant. Though you loved her like a sister, She was very much unlike you..

You on the other hand was made intelligent, Curious of the natural world and adventurous to the last letter. You craved knowledge, You craved to experiment.

In other words you were messy, Subserviant not to man but to your carnal desire to learn. But both you and your sister knew very well of what happened to Adam's first wife, So you knew that you had to go along with it all.

Lucifer came across you one day when he gazed upon the garden of Eden. He was startstruck when he saw you bathe within one of Eden's many springs, Washing your body on your lonesome while humming some original symphonic tune.

Lucifer was lured to you by your song, Him being an avid musician was not immune to your call. But he was even more entranced once he saw you in person, Your body only a silhouette in the fireflies that danced around you.

Of course by now he had been banished, So he watched you in the form of a snake in a tree.

Lucifer thought you were stunning at first sight, Watching as you bathed yourself in springwater and sing your siren's song. And he felt awkward, Nervous to approach you especially after his banishment.

So that's all he did, He just watched.

But that changed once you turned you caught eye of him too, Pausing your bath once you saw the pretty white snake hanging from the tree just a bit away from your spring.

Sure, Eden has a lot of animals, Snakes included but you've never seen one with such gorgeous white scales like this one. So you're curious, Beginning to churn your way through the waist-deep waters towards him.

Lucifer instantly starts panicking, You're actually approaching him?! As much as he does want to talk to you, He certainly hasn't gained the courage yet!

You make your way over and finally reach him with a small smile on your face, Reaching your arms out you bring the snake into your hands with suprising ease. You look at it closely, Smiling.

"Hello there.. How'd you get all the way out here?"

Lucifer near melts in your hands once he hears your spoken voice, Just as angelic as your singing. He can barely do anything in your hold, A warm, Passionate feeling starting to burst inside of him

"..I- Erm-"

You squeak, Dropping the snake onto the ground like you had touched hot coals. You weave back in the water, Staring dead at the coiling snake. It had spoken, Human language.

You ask who he was, Shocked once Lucifer speaks up and stammers while telling you that he was an Angel. He apologises profusely, Saying sorry for intruding on your bath.

You calm down once you find out he's an Angel, One of the good guys, Right? You hadn't met many angels, And its not like you had any experience of deception anyways.

Besides, His mannerisms were rather charming despite how awkward they sounded. You giggled as you apologised for dropping him, Reaching down to pick him up once more.

Lucifer and you talked for the entire night, Too enraptured in conversation for either of you to sleep.

He talked about the stars, The seas and the sands. How he himself had saw their creation and marveled at their beauty. You listened intently, Soaking it all in while your eyes gleamed at him like the stars under the night sky. Lucifer took pride, His stammers getting less frequent as he went on.

He also spoke of his ideas, His plans for the future and his vision for humanity. And you actually listened, You agreed, You suggested and spoke of your own ideas and he agreed in full. Wide eyed, Almost as if you read his mind.

And in that moment, You were just.. Perfect.

He had to leave once your sister came looking for you, Not wanting to be seen by her. Unfortunately he hadn't told you his name, But he supposed it was better like that so it wouldn't be known that he, Lucifer had been meddling in human affairs once more.

But he came back, He had to, You gave him such a good feeling. It was like you knew him, Like you agreed with him and accepted him as he was.

He couldn't give that up, No, He needed to come back.

And he did, For the next few weeks he returned to you at night when you were alone. In the form of a snake, One easily able to hide his presence. He spoke to you, Always excitedly hurrying once he had a new idea or invention he wanted to show you.

And you listened, You always did. He listened too, Once you told him of your situation with Adam. You lamented how much you just wanted to explore, To not be tied down by the weight of a husband.

Lucifer sympathised with you once you told him you had no choice, That Adam needed to marry you or you'd be tossed away like leftovers.

Lucifer started to bring you artefacts, Things you asked for and ones you wanted to study. Lucifer always stammered once you kissed the top of his head, If he was in his humanoid form he would be red from head to toe, Something he was glad you could not see.

He took you around the garden, Showing you the highs and the lows of this place. He showed you the rivers and the fields, The mountains and the valleys. Everywhere you could possibly go, Including the border of the gardens.

You thought he was funny, His jokes always brought a hearty laugh out of you. Lucifer always made an effort to tell more in your presence.

Lucifer wishes he was in his humanoid form so he could play his violin for you. Your voice is so beautiful and you sing to him every night, He wishes he could do the same for you.

You affectionately refer to him as simply just "My Angel" since you have a personal belief that he was sent to guide you. Lucifer doesn't correct you despite your beliefs, It gets him more praise that he desperately craves anyways.

Whenever you were away however, He still kept a close eye on you. Especially when you were around that sleaze of a man, Adam. Lucifer didn't like Adam, Especially after he had met you.

He watched as Adam was free to put an arm around your shoulders, Eve having the other. The way Adam boasted about himself, How he kept loudly asking which one of you should be his wife.

You didn't like Adam, But you needed to be wed so you weren't thrown away. So you kept tossing your hair like Eve always did, Laughed at his stupid jokes and leaned just a bit closer into him.

And it made Lucifer furious.

It boiled up in him like a stewing pot. Couldn't he see that he was making you uncomfortable? Couldn't he see that he wasn't good enough for you? Lucifer doesn't blame you, But hell, Does he wish you looked his way.

He wanted to save you from this, Get you away from Adam so that he can have you all to himself you can be happy! That glint in your eyes is gone, He needs you to get it back.

But Lucifer can't do anything. With the close eyes of the angels above watching them, There's no way he could do anything too drastic. As much as he wants to help, As much as he wants to snap Adams neck with his own bare hands. There's not much he can do..

But Lucifer is sure that once Adam chooses Eve, He'll be there to pick you up and sweep you down into hell where he can finally show his true form to you entirely.

He's sure of it.

But one day he had gotten distracted, You were with Adam so he hadn't been present at the time. But when he went to look back, Watch over you like he usually does.. He stops.

Eve is sobbing on her knees, Full on wails as Adam tenderly holds your hands. Lucifer realises what had happened by the look of uncertainty on your face, The way you looked at Eve with sympathy and fear.

Adam had chosen you.

Lucifer is shocked, He's pulling out clumps pf hair and slinging curses. Its unlike him, He sounded like a wild animal. He was so sure that Adam, As shallow as he was, Would choose the blonde beauty of Eve.

But he had chosen you, Not being as shallow as he had thought. Adam tells all the angels that he has officially chosen you, That you would be his wife. His chosen to be wed.

Lucifer can barely hold back anymore as he starts breaking down in an anguished rage. How could this happen? Aren't you gonna object to this? What about him, Did your time with him mean nothing?

But you just nodded slowly, Agreeing to be his wife.

It takes Lilith to calm him down, Rushing to his side as he starts hyperventilating, Trying not to break anything more. She speaks to him, Tells him of another way he can get you back.

And its a good idea.

You're wandering in the garden once more, Searching for your sister after she ran off sobbing. She'd be tossed out of the garden, You don't want that, You love her so you need to find her to see if there's a solution for everybody.

But you find your way to a deeper part of the garden, Where you were forbidden to go. You didn't even realise until you reached a clearing, Finally spotting the massive tree in the middle, Higher than all the rest with beautifully ripe fruit hanging from them.

You realise your mistake, You go to turn around but before you do you hear the voice of your friend, The angel.

You spot Lucifer coming down from the branches, Beckoning you over with that same excited voice, The one that you trusted with your life. And despite all of your instincts yelling no, You go towards him.

He greets you as cheery as ever, Slithering down from the branches yet he still kept a good distance. You tell him that you didn't mean to wander this far into forbidden land, Thinking that he was The Angel sent to bring you back.

Lucifer just shrugs it off though, Telling you that it's no big deal. You raise a brow before he beckons you forward, Congratulating you on your marriage to Adam that went by quicker than it should have.

You thank him nervously but tell him you have to go, But before you can leave he calls you back, Informing you that he came here to give you an engagement present. Something of his own making, Something he had worked really hard on..

You still trust him but the twisting feeling in your stomach gets worse once he presents to you a ruby red apple from behind the tree. Your eyes light up at it however, It was the most gorgeous apple you had ever seen. No blemishes or freckle out of place.

It was mesmerizing like a hypnotists watch, Your eyes kept on the carmine shine. You didn't even notice the gleeful giggling coming from Lucifer, Like a little girl on her birthday about to open her first present.

You took the apple into your hands once offered and despite all your better judgement, You placed it upon your lips before taking a bite into its skin. You chew, It's sweet, So sweet. It was the most sugary taste your tongue had held, Yet the pungency of the sour aftertaste came like a storm surge.

You snap out of it, Watching as the ruby red apple in your hand starts to rot away in record time. Mould and maggots already starting to fester, You scream and drop it to the ground, But by the time it hits it had already withered to the core.

You feel weird, You feel horrid. Suddenly you become aware of your naked form, Instantly rushing to cover your parts you start to yell at Lucifer, Begging him to tell you what you had done, What that apple really was. What spell had he put you under to take a bite of that thing? How stupid you were-!

But you snap your head up and the snake was no more, Instead a man with ivory skin and rosy cheeks. Platinum blonde hair slicked back with the most giddy grin you had ever seen on anyone before. Your eyes widen, And suddenly the knowledge of who you've been talking to hits you like a freight train.

He tries to talk to you but he can't get a word in. You scream, You cry, You wail. Accusing him with his own name, Lucifer. You start to hyperventilate, Backing away with him with a horrid stomach ache while storms brew in the sky above.

Lucifer tells you that its okay! He's found a way for you to get out of your marriage, He just tells you to listen to him and that it will be okay!

But you don't, A sudden chill runs through Eden and you know in your core that its not just you who has felt the consequences of your actions. Storms brew, Critters around you start to get violent. You yell and scream once he comes close, Trying to bring you into embrace.

Lucifer is taken aback, This isn't how he imagined it. You were suppose to listen to him, Like you always did. But instead you just kept wailing and wailing calling him a monster, The devil that he was.

You're suppose to listen to him, Him. To his ideas, To his words, To anything that he says. So why aren't you lending him an ear now?! He just doesn't get it.

Wings sprout from his back, An arm lunges around your waist and constricts around you like the snake that he was. You can't struggle in his hold, His power too strong as he raises you both into the air with the flap of his wings.

The storms are high, Dark clouds above and winds so whipping it could cause lacerations. Lucifer tells you that you're coming down with him now, That you will be siphoned away to hell with him forever.

Lucifer thinks your just overreacting, And hey! He's been there too and its not like he's actually angry at you, No, Just at the people around you. He knows you'll understand why he's doing this, That's why he tells you what he had done to your sister.

You go deathly silent once he tells you he's got Eve as collateral, When he explains with that same awkward yet now manic demeanour that you were so use to before. He says that he won't hesitate to take her out if that's what it'll take for you to listen, All while smiling like this is an everyday affair.

You and your sister had always had a rocky relationship, Especially since you were put in competition with each other from day one. But you loved her and she loved you, You cared for each other when you could despite your frequent quarrels.

So you had no choice but to agree, A smile lights up on Lucifer's face as he places a chaste yet stomach churning kiss upon your lips. It's nasty, Disgusting. You're still sobbing profusely as your altitude drops, Your climate becoming much hotter and humid.

You feel your body contorting, Mutilating itself. Breaking down and building back up into a wretched caricature of your former self. Horns, Talons, Features of creatures you hadn't even seen before coming upon you.

You scream through the pain, But Lucifer keeps a hand firmly placed on the back of your head. Cold comfort in your new inferno as he tells you how excited he is to finally have you with him full time.

You barely listen, Your body was not yours anymore, It didn't look as such. So how could you listen to his giddy ramblings? The ones you so loved to listen to before..

You shut the eyes your new body had melded, Falling into the darkness of your mind.

Desperately hoping that this was all a dream while the devil caressed your cheek.

[asneakyfox]

man if you haven't seen the original "ed & stede are hetero-coded" post we're wanking about rn you're really missing out

like hetero-coding is not a thing for reasons several people have already discussed. but i can think of some things a person might mean by calling a queer fictional couple "hetero-coded" where i'd be like, well, i don't think that's a good word for it but i understand what you're trying to say. for instance, there's the claim we've all heard before as part of steddyhands izcourse where people claim monogamous relationships are less queer than poly ones; that's dumb, but i understand the logic that leads to it. or if you claimed that despite being the same gender two characters are nevertheless rigidly reproducing heterosexual gender roles; again, dumb, but i'd get where it's coming from.

but the post that caused the current wave of discourse isn't saying any of that, what it says is that gay people invented the concept of emotional intimacy so ed and stede are straight because they don't stare directly into the camera while stating exactly what they're feeling in sufficiently explicit terms

[kanmom51]

PJM2 is coming

MUSE

I literally cannot contain my excitiement.

Sitting her, at work may I say, putting these words on paper, so to speak, because f***ing hell, wtf JM?

Where to start?

The colour concepts? The choice of name? Choice of font (That JM popping to eye)? The flower? The links to TTU (notes sheet and flower)? The whole play with Closer than this? The dropped lyrics?

This man is a friggin genius (not that we didn't know this already)...

There is so much to talk about, and he hasn't even started with the promotions, and we haven't even seen the concept photos or the album and the songs. Name, colours, 2 lines of lyrics and we have our hands full already. They certainly know what they are doing.

Before I jump in, I want to, once again, state very loudly and clearly that everything written here are my opinions, which are based on what we've been handed so far, and could change the more we are shown.

So, let's get it...

JM fetching this from the purple locker (which we don't see are purple off the bat and only when the lights turn on). Notes for The Truth Untold.

His wittle thumb with his crescent moon.

The notes title : La lettra - The letter. Hmm... interesting.

And then this:

We have the flower:

and this that makes me believe that yes indeed, it is the silhouette of a Smeralso.

Some of this I am yet to see where is going. like the referencing of "the letter", The truth untold, the flower... (she says, all while thinking of the choice this Festa to stream LY Seoul final with said song and the changes that JM and JK chose to make to it)...

All that and more in one little short clip.

And then we have that little 'chat' opened up by BH, and those lyrics. Oh, those lyrics.

All references that indeed can be connected with army. I mean, that's what JM is king of.

All also a clear reference to a one Jeon Jungkook, if you are only willing to look and see.

Rain

Snow

Crying

We have this:

Which they have BOTH chose to bring up once again in 2023, JK happening to do so during JM's Face promos, not to mention the rain reference in SNTY (and of course, goes without saying Still with you, but that's back in 2020, while they have both managed to bring it up and reference it once again in 2023).

Remember this?

Oh, and what about this?

And then we have these:

Remember JM tearing up after winning MMA for BS&T ?

JM getting emotional and crying only followed by JK tearing up.

*If you haven't seen this one yet, go watch the full live.

And who can forget JK during MOTS ONE as well, seeing JM crying, distress clearly showing on his face, just waiting for the moment he can go and comfort JM.

If these are actual lyrics for a song to come or lyrics that were dropped, one thing we know, and that these words, these lines, they were written by JM, and he made a clear choice to share them with us.

And in doing so, sorry, I'm still not believing this all while sitting here gushing and knowing this was coming (no, I didn't know this specifically was coming, but the feeling that they were going big or going home, that I've had ever since July 2023... took some time and many tribulations, but we are getting there folks). Sidetracked as I always am, lol.

Back on track.... in doing so, JM is basically standing on a rooftop screaming at the top of his lungs:

Not 1, not 2, but 3 JK references in that little shared piece of lyrics clearly written by JM, for an album we are yet to see and hear.

Anyone, and I mean anyone that is a BTS army, that has seen original content, that has followed their Twitter account or seen older tweets, that are open and willing to see it, will KNOW that these lyrics are JAYKAY!!!!!

And let me backtrack a second here...

Cause I did mention that these references could be understood as if they are made for army, right?

So yeah. Army references or JK references? I am going to say both, leaning very much to the JK side of it. Cause that's how they do it. Time after time after time.

Let's mention the colour choices as well.

We have the background colours.

We have the yellow.

And then we have the album concepts.

2 concepts.

Blooming

and Serenade.

Which happens to be Yellow, same colour threaded through Serendipity.

And we even have purple thrown in there too.

Notice how all the lockers are painted purple. The colour of army you may say, but also JK's colour (so again, army and JK?).

And he's pulling out the music sheet from this purple locker.

Those lockers representing his inspiration for his music perhaps?

Giving us these lyrics, then telling us the album is called Muse (or telling us the name of the album and it's meaning and then dropping those lyrics, take your pick regarding the timing, cause basically, same same), showing us the music being extracted from those purple lockers... ya think his muse is that entity he's talking about in those lyrics perhaps (even more so if we see the references as both for army and JK)?

Rhetorical question, btw.

And then we have the mint green.

Perhaps this is what JM was talking about when he told us in his birthday live, if memory serves me right, about going to the starting point, or more so starting from the beginning trying to figure out himself as an artist?

Also, cannot help but think of this image here:

I cannot wait to see his concept photos, and where this is all going.

We talked about JK being so loud during 2023 (well, he's had his super loud moments before that, but 2023 and his lives were smoking). And JM, well it felt (and I say felt, cause it's not really true, and I'll explain why) was quieter, more subdued, especially during JK's Golden promotions.

But here's the thing.

JM and JK have their own special oh so different ways of being loud and showing us themselves (and it shows even more so seeing that JK, for whatever reasons he had for it, did not write his songs for Golden - not saying he did not have influence on the lyrics or choice of songs with lyrics he wanted). JK did it through his choices in his photo shoots and styling for his songs and album. He did it with his lives and his total fanboying over JM. And JM, he does it through his art, which includes also but not only his lyrics.

Those two are both loud as fuck. And JM, well if these sneak lyrics are a promo of more to come (which, they probably are seeing that we have Face to fall back on as an example), then he's as loud as a frigging foghorn.

And last but not least, before I go:

Lookie here...

D-31

[mirrorcatcreditcard]

ALNST analysis about Luka's "Drowing Bloom" Patreon post and his page

The following analysis is formulated in response to this query from a mutual of mine. The post states as follows:

I just read the new, free Patreon post and. huh. what do you mean "LUKA has never felt insecure in his life" lmao. isn't it official information that he used to have low self-esteem? how does "had low self-esteem" and "has never felt insecure in his life" go together. unless it's another definition of "insecure" that's being used here? I'm somewhat confused but also that's a funny sentence tbh

I'm here to talk about that, though I'll mainly be dissecting the new Patreon content.

The following content will contain discussions of Luka, Hyuna, Hyun Woo, HyunLuka, child abuse, unconventionally/potentially uncomfortable love and relationship, bullying, and social isolation.

To begin this discussion, I will clarify any doubts that may be had about the exact wording. (I haven't been able to find any translation analysis/translators who can clarify because Patreon posts are already translated, so you'll have to excuse my limited capabilities.)

In the post, Luka's "insecure" mentioned above is related to the word "uneasy" of the first sentence; but when I put it through a translator to get each word separately, they were all spelled differently while having mostly similar/related characters. The words originally came out as "unstable" when the sentences were together. When I translated them on their own, I obtained three different results.

불안합니다 "He is anxious/I am anxious."

것입니다 "feeling anxious"

불안하다는 "I feel anxious"

After wasting about an hour and writing an unnecessary amount of analysis I ended up scrapping, I come to the conclusion that they are all synonymous and simply changed for grammar reasons or clarity.

(If you care, here's a list of English equivalents for the different groupings: uneasy, anxious, insecure, unstable, nervousness, trepidation. Someone who knows Korean can correct me if I'm wrong about anything.)

Next in line, I will analyze the overall picture of Hyuna and Luka's relationship through the years. (Read also, we finally get HyunLuka analysis through the flowers + Hyun Woo mentions.)

Hyuna and Luka were intimately close as children. With the addition of Hyun Woo, the three are almost always depicted together, like inseparable friends. Hyuna consistently allowed Luka to engage in behaviors other humans saw as off-putting or disgusting around her. Lacking expressions and engagement in interaction, disregarding others' presence and emotions to the point of being physically hurtful, and constantly sucking on or biting objects and Hyuna herself—she accepted it all and even showed that she did not consider it queer/unnatural. Luka repeatedly expressed his "love" for her as possession and desires for control. He has been conditioned to believe that care/love is obsession and obedience. He is not able to force the girl he loves (physically and mentally) but wants her near him and subordinate to him so she can never have to worry again and he can control everything around her. This is in direct relation to the fact that he has no worries for his future because his path had already been set out for him since the concept of "Luka" existed.

But don't forget Hyuna's side of this relationship. Hyuna, who originally had her precious brother with her and led both Hyun Woo and Luka in playing together. Hyuna loved Luka so much that she would let him do anything he wanted, really. One of her canonical regrets is how permissive she allowed herself to be with him. People think that Hyuna doesn't love Luka anymore or simply cut it all off when her brother died. That's simply not true. The fandom has labeled them as "tragic heteros," and I think that's a fitting title. They're beautiful opposites. From the start, Hyuna has always been seen as the extroversion to Luka's introversion. She jumps into situations, and he follows.

Luka's love is insecure (translated flower-wise as anxious) because of their past and conflicting ideals. It says in the Patreon post that "LUKA thought the whole time he was away from HYUNA. About what he should have done, and how on earth he could be more connected to his loved ones than blood." I'd like to point out that loved ones is plural. Luka has loved more than just Hyuna in his life. And the loved ones he had either had someone who was blood related who he felt was closer than him (jealousy) or shedding blood seemed like the only way to have those people close to him (obsessive behavior).

Hyuna loves so strongly that the flower used means that her love is "without measure." Hyuna doesn't look back yet still holds affection and care inside, locked away because addressing the love means addressing the trauma. Her "love" also connects to the revolution and freedom. She has an emptiness inside of her, and she makes the steps to fill it with her own two hands. She will not drown in grief and let the two ones she loved most being removed from her life make her stop reaching out for her love of freedom. She was a girl with no idea what she was doing when she escaped, but she has grown into a woman who is determined to live her life for herself.

The contrast and similarity is striking.

Luka's description makes him sound weak, the image of lying down and feeling water flow over your hand comes to me. The acceptance and surety of fate and letting life be is the behavior I struggle to find a word for that isn't complacency. He feels inactive, only pondering how he could have changed things but never doing anything.

Hyuna's description sounds desperate and bold. We know from "All-In" that she still gets vivid flashbacks even when soaked in noise and distractions. She is a person who works impulsively and passionately, putting her whole heart into something. Littered with regrets—she has to push on to survive.

Yet, these two are so similar.

They held the love inside of them deep down, never speaking of it aloud except in the only ways that they know how to show themselves—song. Their flowers are both colorful because of their individual beauties that they show in their own way. It is Hyuna who was insinuated to have influenced Luka in seeing the stage as a place where he can be in control.

They are both empty due to loss, both coping by leaving the past behind and physically unaddressed (despite different mentalities behind the actions). While Hyuna doesn't look back and distracts herself, Luka wears a mask and deludes himself, and they both pretend the world is going to work out the way they need because they are in control in their own minds. They're simultaneously trapped in their ideologies, and this conflict is the reason they are the "tragic heteros" of the narrative.

Moving on, I will talk about the page whose image I will provide below. (ID in alt text, English only)

As much as I consider Herperu the lowest of low, I cannot discredit his words and say he knows nothing of Luka. He made it his personal mission to know every detail of his finest creation. Luka was tailor-made after all, with many fans theorizing that he was created in a lab/test tube-like container. While I cannot give you canon facts for something unstated, I can give you a handful of theories concerning why Heperu claims Luka has low self-esteem.

Luka may have had confidence issues from his ostracization in Anakt Garden. (He was ignored by his peers and, in an official comic, shown to be treated like he didn't exist/wasn't significant. Assuming this was normal behavior given to him in his days at Anakt Garden, there is good reason to believe that when Hyuna left/grew distanced after Hyun Woo's death, so did his only hold on interaction with a fellow human.)

Luka is conditioned to believe everything Heperu tells him unconditionally and holds onto the sentiment of how he will be no good if he isn't "talented enough" as well as his mandatory duty to be the god among men of idols. (He must always be in perfect shape in order to present himself. There can never be a flaw. His autonomy does not exist. He is a good for others to take from. He must be a model pet.)

Luka's only confidence came from his performance and acting, he had no real confidence in himself as a person, away from cameras, or off-stage. (He seems to have adopted Hyuna's philosophy of singing giving a person freedom to express how they are, seeing as he is more expressive on-stage and masks everywhere else.)

Herperu's words could be what is a common case of "assuming you know what a creature wants/is feeling from researching instead of asking directly." (Segyein see humans like humans see animals. If an animal shows certain behaviors, we consult resources in order to know how to view and approach the situation. If research told Heperu that Luka had low self-esteem, then he would believe that rather than ask his pet how he feels.)

Heperu could be gaslighting Luka into thinking he has low self-esteem or gaslighting the press into thinking Luka is "humble" or whatever.

I, personally, don't have full trust of segyein's descriptions of humans because it's obvious that they very rarely (if ever) ask the human how they're feeling or neglect to even do simple analysis of humanity. (Also, Heperu is incredibly selfish and manipulative, without a single thought or consideration being about Luka's comfort, happiness, or healthy living. Honestly, I hate that alien. I hope his dick-shaped head-body snaps in two.)

To wrap this analysis up, my conclusion is simple. It is up to a fan's interpretation to figure out whether they think Luka has low self-esteem, is in a constant state of surety, used to have low self-esteem and has now changed that state of mind, or exists as a mixture of multiple states in multiple areas. Canon's conflict stems from information we cannot fully be sure on, and the creators remark about the complexity of Luka's emotions and the inability for almost anyone. "We don't know if anyone will ever know LUKA's heart..." They admit that there is a limit and that he is a difficult creature to understand.

Extra: my personal theories

Personally, I believe that Luka has low self-esteem due to his view of himself as worthless without his trained skills and inferior to segyein by existence. I believe he has never been insecure because he has never tried to drift from the path that was paved for him. I believe he still knows that the love between him and Hyuna is insecure because of the instinct that the Patreon post mentions; it would be more accurate to use the synonyms "uneasy/unstable." He is stable/secure in his livelihood so long as he follows the life that he knows no alternative from; his relationship is unstable/insecure due to the trauma on Hyuna's end and his forceful nature; he had low self-esteem either from his peers' isolation or from Heperu's reminders that he is only worth something as long as Heperu deems it so.

Thanks for reading.

[wittymumbledon]

been tinkering with this self-indulgent little thing for a lil' while now, but I think it's finally ready to release into the wild - I've seen a few takes on the concept of a Gravity Falls and Jekyll and Hyde crossover already - and with the nature of things there's likely going to be quite a bit of overlap - but nonetheless I wanted to try and make my own take on it. (I will note, though, that I was quite inspired by @maruchanart - especially in regards to Bill's design :])

Now - "The Strange Case of Dr Pines and Mr Cipher" is quite the mouthful (and no doubt quite the painful hashtag) - so from here onwards I will simply refer to this as

The Strange Case AU

I haven't worked out the details yet - and the details that I have are likely to change considering I originally based this off the musical and am now also reading the original novel but- As it stands -

This AU will be loosely based on a combination of the original Robert Louis Stevenson novel and the later Jekyll & Hyde musical. If I end up making any sort of animated content I will likely use the original 1994 recordings (they're gorgeous, can you blame me?), but I am most visually inspired by the 2001 production (the one with David Hasselhoff in it - I've already stolen his ponytail for my Ford lol)

Though the AU features the GF cast (those of them that were around in the 70s and 80s anyway), it will be set back in the early 1800s like the original story. We'll sort out the time anomalies as they arise - I don't want to think about it too hard right now I imagine there might be some shifts to a couple family trees though...

The roles of Jekyll and Hyde will - understandably - be played by Dr. Stanford Pines and Mr. William Lucipher

Stanford's character remains mostly the same - he is still a brilliant scientist, curious about the strange and a workaholic to the core - but he leans more towards the egotistic (there's a lot more of his "Why didn't Rudolph use his red-hot nose to burn his oppressor's workshop to the ground?" side showing through)

The main roles get a lot muddier from here - especially considering some of the character changes between the novel and the musical - but Fiddleford mainly plays a joint role of Lanyon and Emma, with some Utterson thrown in where suitable (and potentially a bit of Lucy too--see I told you it gets muddy real quick). A brilliant mind for mechanics and mathematics, but also a mind prone to paranoia. He is in perpetual conflict over his feelings about Stanford's experiment and his feelings about Stanford himself.

Stanley mostly replaces Utterson from either version of the story, an likely whatever parts of Lanyon that can't taken over by Fidds. After getting disowned - and lacking his twin's much higher social reputation - he ends up working at a factory.

Feel free to ask about more details (might get me to finish the artworks faster lol) or make your own suggestions/speculations! :3

[ryin-silverfish]

Ghost Month Special: Heibai Wuchang

Today is the middle of Lunar Seventh Month, a.k.a. Zhongyuan Festival, and I feel like there can't be a more appropriate day to do a deep dive on my favorite ghost cops, a.k.a. the Black and White Impermanences, a.k.a. Seventh and Eighth Master, a.k.a. Tua Di Ya Pek, a.k.a. Xie Bi'an & Fan Wujiu.

Now, I've talked briefly about them in my Chinese Underworld post, and if you watch C-dramas or play certain Chinese games, you might have seen these two + learned a few things about them already. But for those who haven't, here's the five-minute summary:

-they are (one variant of ) Chinese psychopomps, who show up to take the souls of the deceased to the Underworld.

-they are also ghost cops, who go after troublesome ghosts that are disturbing the living.

-both wear tall hats with four characters on it (which also varied), as well as nearly identical black and white robes.

-for their Hokkien, Taiwanese and SEA versions, there's a significant height difference between the two; the white-robed one is tall and skinny, while the black-robed one is short and stout.

-the White Impermanence is often depicted with his tongue hanging out of his mouth (reminiscent of those who died by hanging) and a more cheerful expression, while the Black Impermanence is dark/blue-faced (reminiscent of death by drowning) and relatively more grim and fierce.

-the White Impermanence is also worshipped as a god of wealth by some.

However, outside of these bullet points, their tales and trajectory of development are a fascinating rabbit hole. I'd call them thorough folk gods, who evolved out of the greater existing character archetype of "ghost bureaucrats fetching people to the Underworld" and became their own unique characters almost entirely through folklore and oral legends.

So, without further ado, let's dive in.

Impermanence

The Great Spectre of Impermanence could arrive unexpectedly. (无常大鬼，不期而到) ——Sutra of Ksitigarbha's Fundamental Vows

To start talking about these two, we need to go into the general category of beings they separated out of later: Underworld officials.

Some conceptions of those petty ghost bureaucrats that mirrored living ones already existed in the Han dynasty; in burial goods and "grave scripts", there were paperwork dedicated to those officials, who were supposed to keep track of the Dead People Belongings List and maintain the segregation between the dead and the living.

Their characterization would get expanded a lot as time went on, in Northern-Southern dynasty and Tang legends, but this isn't an article about the ghost officials as a whole.

We are still tracing the origins of two specific ones, and to do that, we have to start with etymology——the "Wuchang" in their names.

It is the translation of the Buddhist concept of "Anitya", referring to the impermanence of everything, which is always changing and dying and being reborn, with no constant to be found.

Yeah, you can see why a word describing the fleeting nature of life might eventually become associated with death and native psychopomps at some point in the Northern-Southern dynasty.

In the 39 chapter translation of the Dhammapada (interlaced with additional parables) by Fa Ju and Fa Li, the "Killing Spectre of Impermanence" (无常杀鬼) was first mentioned in the "On Impermanence" (无常品) chapter.

Another name for this grim-reaper-esque figure was "The Great Spectre of Impermanence", which appears in the quote at the beginning.

It appeared earlier than Ksitigarbha's Sutra, though: in another Northern-Southern dynasty translation of the Sutra of Golden Light, a Great Spectre of Impermanence was mentioned as this scary being that swallowed a king's younger son up whole.

By the Tang dynasty, the Spectre of Impermanence had appeared in both poetry and Buddhist text collections, as a generic name for the ghost that came to get you when you die.

However, the name wasn't exactly common or widespread, as made evident by all the N & S. dynasty and Tang legends about ghost bureaucrats where they were just referred to as, well, ghost bureaucrats.

Similarly, the Scripture on the Ten Kings doesn't mention anything about a Spectre of Impermanence. Instead, the second variant of the sutra says there are 3 ghosts working under King Yama——the "Soul-seizing Ghost" (夺魂鬼), "Essence-seizing Ghost" (夺精鬼), and "Spirit-binding Ghost" (缚魄鬼), responsible for dragging souls away in chains to the tree near the Underworld entrance pass.

(Their names might have corresponded to the idea of the Three Souls, each grabbing one of them, or the alternate division of Hun-Po plus the "vital force/essence".)

Right after that, however, they mentioned two demonic-looking birds sitting on the tree, one of which was named the "Bird of Impermanence", who would angrily scold and torment the dead for their misdeeds.

In this text, whatever the birds were, they were seen as a separate thing from the 3 ghosts that brought the souls of the dead to the Underworld entrance.

(A brief tangent about the 2 variants of the Ten Kings Scripture: the first could be found in the Dunhuang manuscripts, its name was 佛说预修十王生七经, and, as Teiser's translation of the scripture at the end of his academic book has showned, didn't have the 3 ghosts or the birds.)

(The variant mentioned above is 地藏菩萨发心因缘十王经, which is likely a Song dynasty Japanese apocrypha based on the first variant.)

Buddy Ghost Cops

When the ghostly officials of the Tang legends showed up, they could be alone, in pairs or in groups.

It was only in the Song-Yuan era that the idea of ghost cops showing up in pairs began to populate, and the first mention of the "Two Spectres of Impermanence" appeared in Vol. 3 of the Song dynasty 随隐漫录.

However, even without the word "Impermanence" attached, in various Song texts, the idea of there being 2 ghosts coming to get you instead of a single one or a group had already showed up with more frequency than before.

Come Ming dynasty, the Two Spectres of Impermanence got even more notable mentions in vernacular novels: a descriptive poem in Chapter 115 of Water Margins brings them up alongside the "Generals of the Five Paths" (五道将军), another native Underworld deity that showed up in Tang novels.

Plum in the Golden Vase, a.k.a. "that one Ming classic novel that often got censored and un-classic-ed because of its graphic sexual content", also has a folk Precious Scroll singing session (a story within a story, basically) that mentioned them.

In this story, King Yama sent a pair of "Impermanence Spectres" after Lady Huang, the protagonist of the scroll, who were also referred to as "Divine Boys/Acolytes of Good and Evil".

Now, the Boy-Acolytes of Good and Evil (善恶童子) were a pair of existing Underworld deities that had appeared in Dunhuang manuscripts and Ksitigarbha-themed artworks, responsible for recording the good and bad deeds of people respectively.

Their first mention was in the Tang translation of Surangama Sutra, and according to the second variant of the Ten Kings Scripture, the one recording bad deeds was said to look like a Raksha, while the one responsible for good deeds just looked like a regular divine acolyte.

Plum in the Golden Vase might have briefly aluded to that quirk too, in the story-within-a-story, where it was said that "Good people are welcomed by the acolyte(s), while bad people get the Yaksha(s)".

In the earlier Song dynasty compendium, Yijian Zhi, there are also mentions of two kids leading a fortunate guy's soul out of the Underworld, as well as showing up to inform some guy's wife that her days were numbered.

The second story is kinda funny, because after she had pretty much rolled over and accepted her fate, the two kids suddenly returned and were like "Excuse me, was Zhao your maiden name, or your husband's?"

Upon being informed that it was the latter case, they were like "Dangit, almost got the wrong person." Immediately after they left, another woman in the neighborhood whose surname was actually Zhao died.

Both stories do not use the specific name of "Acolytes of Good & Evil" for them, though, nor are they described as recorders of good and evil deeds.

For all I know, these two kids could be just like the pair of "young boys in blue robes" (青衣童子) who led Taizong into the Ghost Gate and the Underworld proper in JTTW Chapter 11: generic ghost workers.

But in Plum in the Golden Vase at least, they seemed to have been absorbed into the larger category of the Impermanence Ghosts, even though the Impermanence Ghosts still weren't their own characters yet, or gained any iconic uniforms.

Rather, it's more that 1) the catch-all name of "Impermanence" has become somewhat widespread for the generic ghost cops, though not yet universal, and 2) the Underworld apparently has a buddy-cop system in place now, where there had to be two ghostly officials for every newly dead person.

Psychopomp Outsourcing

In the late Ming and Qing dynasty, we got another twist on the Wuchang thing: Zou Wuchang, literally "Walk as Impermanences".

I've talked before about the early version of Taizong's trip to the Underworld, where Cui Jue/Ziyu, instead of being posthumously made a ghost judge, was a living official working part-time for the Underworld.

Well, Zou Wuchang is similar, but less prestigious, and you don't get paid either. The Underworld is short of hands (somehow), so they just grab a random living person and be like "Go fetch dead people for us."

The earliest mention of such a tradition in the Ming dynasty 语怪 placed the custom in Fengdu, the famous "ghost city" of Sichuan.

According to the text, when someone's soul was yanked off its streets to work as part-time psychopomps, they just fainted on the spot, and would revive after a few hours or overnight. The phenomenon was so common, the locals weren't even shocked, nor bothered getting them any medical attention.

Yuewei Caotang Biji goes further into the rationales of why Underworld needed those living conscripts. Apparently, all the living people clustered around a sickbed created a blazing aura of Yang, which certain venerable/fierce/brutish individuals also possessed in abundance, and was anathema to the ghost cops.

They were beings of pure Yin, after all, while the conscripts, whose bodies were Yin but still had plenty of Yang-aligned Qi, didn't have to worry about that.

Zou Wuchang was also not gender-exclusive, and there were mentions of multiple female conscripts in Qing legend compendiums.

Also, though the recruitment was forceful, you could actually retire after serving for a number of years——in one tale from 庸闲斋笔记, a woman fought the conscript for her mother-in-law's soul, who took pity on her and reported back to the City God.

In response, the City God said he'd send a report to Yama to see if she could be spared, and also released the conscript from her duty on account of her kind heart.

The popularity of this tradition across multiple sources and a long stretch of time signalled that, to an even greater extent than before, the ghost cops weren't generic ghost cops no longer: they are The Impermanences, which is only a few step away from developing into their own characters with unique iconography.

Black and White

First: where did their signature robe colors come from?

According to the first variant of the Ten Kings Scripture, officials under the Ten Kings were supposed to be dressed in black robes, riding a black horse, and carrying a black banner.

But in Tang folklore compendiums, that dress code wasn't a thing at all. A Taiwanese paper actually goes through tales of ghost officials inside Taiping Guangji where their appearances were described, and counted 22 cases of them wearing yellow robes, 7 cases of red robes, and only 8 stories involving ghost officials in either black or white robes.

Though ghost officials in black as well as white robes never appeared in the same story, they did have two things in common: 1) they tended to be quite tall, and 2) almost half of them were carrying weapons of some sorts.

The very late Ming/early Qing novel, Cu Hulu, also has a character ask Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha a bunch of questions in Chapter 12.

One of them was about the discrepancy between the depiction of Underworld officials in temples and the ones he personally saw, and he mentioned that the statues of "Impermanences" were 1) dressed in mourning robes and 2) about a Zhang and two Chi (3+ meter) in height.

Which suggests that, by the novel's time, the ghost cops had already gained a set of uniforms, one associated with funerary affairs.

(Also: I love Ksitigarbha's answer to that particular question——"Yeah we used to have a really tall ghost cop like that, people just call him 'Wuchang' because they don't know what the heck he is. Also, Impermanence isn't actually a real name, it's a concept.")

However, as far as I know, the earliest mention of a pair of ghost cops, one in white and one in black, was in Vol. 19 of Yuewei Caotang Biji. And the story is quite funny.

Basically, this Sun guy was temporarily residing in someone else's house, and the host's mother was severely ill. One day, the family servant boy carried in some dinner for him, and because Sun was busy with something else, he told the boy to put it on a nearby table in another room.

Suddenly, a white robed guy just appeared out of nowhere and entered the house, followed by a short black robed guy.

Sun hurried into the room, saw the two guys stealing his dinner, and angrily yelled at them. The white robed guy noped out of there, leaving the black robed guy behind and hiding in a corner, unable to exit the room because Sun was blocking the door.

He kinda just sat outside and kept an eye on them for a while, before the host of the family suddenly showed up, telling him that his mother had just spoken.

Basically, the ghost officials had come for her, and one of them happened to be cornered in the room by Sun, so would he please move? She didn't want to be punished for showing up late.

The host didn't know if it was true either, and was just going out there and checking. But the moment Sun went and sat somewhere else, the ghost in black scampered out of the room. Soon afterwards, wailing began to come out of the mother's room, suggesting she had been taken away.

As hilariously pathetic as these two unnamed ghost cops are, the only thing connecting them to the Heibai Wuchang of much later times is their robe colors, and the black-robed one being short.

There are no tales featuring both 1) a pair of ghost cops in black and white, and 2) the pair being referred to as "Impermanences", though.

The middle-late Qing stories that do refer to the ghost cops as such tend to only feature a single Impermanence: unnaturally tall, dressed in white robes and hats, either holding a fan or carrying strings of paper money on his shoulders, sometimes bleeding from his eyes or nose/mouth.

(Yep, you know how the White Impermanence is often seen as the older of the two sworn brothers? As far as their historical existence goes, he really is the older guy.)

It was in the 19th century 醉茶志怪 that we saw the first signs of the two converging. In the three stories with "Impermanence" in their titles, two featured the "white-robed ghost cop in tall hat" alone, one of which described him as looking like a 10+ years old kid, standing at the side of the road like a temple clay statue.

The third story, however, featured a sighting of two giant ghosts, one in white and one in blue/green, near the City God's temple. Out of the four people involved in the encounter, three died after a few days, and the only survivor was the one who had his line of sight blocked by the palaquin.

How did 1 become 2?

How did the single unique Impermanence become the Black and White Impermanences?

Well…it's a complicated question with no definitive answers. We know that in the (probably Qing dynasty) Jade Records, there are already mentions of a pair of ghosts called Huo Wuchang ("Life-is-Impermanent" or "Living Impermanence") and Si Youfen ("Death-Has-a-Part").

The former wears a black official hat and formal robes, holds brushes and papers in his hands, with blades on his shoulders and torture tools on his belts. He has big bulging eyes and is often laughing.

The latter has dirty, bloodied face, wears a white robe, holds an abacus, carries a sack of rice on his shoulder and has paper money dangling in front of his chest like a necklace. He has a sad frown on his face and is always sighing.

As you can see, there are similarities, but also notable differences from the "iconic" Black & White Impermanences. Whereas the White Impermanence is usually depicted as the cheerful one in white robes, carrying an abacus and wearing strings of paper money, here, he is the sad and grim one.

Their jobs also differ: instead of fetching souls to the Underworld, in the Jade Records, these two are responsible for pushing the dead off the bridges after they have drunken Mengpo's amnesia soup, into the scarlet river so they can reincarnate.

Personally, I view them as a transistory stage between the "Generic Impermanence Ghosts" and "The Two Unique Psychopomps We Know and Love", one strand of the folk god evolutionary process that was captured in written sources.

A Japanese paper goes into another strand in the evolution: the addition of the Black Impermanence. Namely, he might have grown out of a ghost that commonly showed up in City God worship and parades, the so-called "Wall-touching Ghost" (摸壁鬼).

The claim was based on very late Qing newspaper illustrations, where the Black Impermanence was depicted as holding up his two arms like this:

Which was a gesture commonly used by the "Wall-touching Ghost" during parades in the Jiangsu area, who also wore black robes and tall hats.

The author of the paper then dug into sources about the Wall-touching Ghost, and not only found records of the parades, but also a Qianlong era Mulian opera script, 劝善金科, that paired him together with the Impermanence Ghost as fetchers of the dead.

(The two were also given names in this opera: the Impermanence Ghost is named Ba Yang, and the Wall-touching Ghost, Wu Qi.)

Earlier mentions of the Wall-touching Ghost in Qing folklore compendiums, however, didn't depict him as a ghost cop. The story in 夜航船 just described it as a ghost thing that hid between walls and used its chill breath to suck up people's souls.

Another story in the 1878 浇愁集, even though it described the ghost more——dark-faced, holding its arms up like in the drawing, could turn into a cloud of black smoke and disappear into walls——still had it as your typical "ghost shows up, people die" ill omen.

So the paper's proposition is that, after the White Impermanence has separated out of the "Generic Ghost Cop Impermanences" and become his own thing, people in southern Jiangsu built on their existing Wall-touching Ghost and made him into the former's partner, absorbing most of his iconography in the process.

Similarly, the "tall and short" pair-up that was popular in Fujian and spread across Taiwan and SEA might also be a result of parallel local evolution, together with the name Xie Bi'an and Fan Wujiu.

Xie and Fan

Yes! At last, at last, we are getting to the most well-known and popular origin story, a.k.a. the Nantai Bridge Tale.

A summary: Xie Bi'an and Fan Wujiu were a pair of best friends/sworn brothers from Fujian, working as constables for the local magistrate. One day, while they were out on a mission, they saw a storm brewing. Xie went back to grab umbrellas while Fan waited for him under the bridge.

Unfortunately, the downpour soon began, causing the river to flood. Fan, unwilling to break his promise, continued waiting for Xie under the bridge and drowned. When Xie returned and saw his sworn brother's corpse, he hang himself out of guilt and grief too.

(…As a casual reader, I, always wondered why "waiting ON the bridge instead of under it" never crossed his mind as an option. Okay, sure, it was raining. But that's all the more reason to not stand under the darn bridge.)

Touched by their loyalty to each other, the City God/King Yama/Jade Emperor appoints them as ghostly constables, responsible for fetching the dead to the Underworld.

This story bears a lot of similarity to the fable of Wei Sheng in Zhuangzi. Basically, the guy made a promise to meet a girl under a bridge, the girl didn't show up, there was a flood, and, unwilling to leave, he drowned while still clinging to the bridge pillar.

Zhuangzi's opinion of the guy wasn't too high, because honestly, what a stupid way to die.

However, Sima Qian held him up as an exemplar of loyalty and keeping one's word, and the reading stuck. For later folktales about Wei Sheng as well as others that adopted the basic premise, like one tale in the 七世夫妻 story cycle, it also tended to get turned into a straight-up love story.

Though the Nantai Bridge Tale is the most popular version of their backstory, it's far from the only version. One version has them as Tang dynasty officials, working under the historical figure Zhang Xun, who died during the Anshi Rebellion.

While they were trying to get reinforcements, Xie was caught and hung on the city gate by the rebels, while Fan accidentally drowned.

When Zhang Xun was made a City God after the city fell and the rebels killed him, these two also became deified as his attendants.

In another version, Xie was a filial son with an aging mother, who had been wrongly imprisoned because of a friend's crime. During the Lunar New Year, Fan found him crying in the cell, and, upon learning about his sad backstory, released him secretly to visit his mother, on the condition that he returns after seven days.

However, his mother died soon after his return. Busy with her funeral, Xie did not return in time, and Fan, unable to answer to his superiors, committed suicide via drinking poison. When Xie returned and learned of the terrible news, he, too, hang himself.

And these three are far from the only known versions! Like, seriously, there are probably as many variations of the story as there are variations of the objects they held in their hands.

Though some elements stay more constant——using their deaths to explain their iconography, Xie being more commonly associated with the fan, umbrella, and abacus and Fan, chains, everything is subjected to changes and regional differences.

(For example, SEA oral legends tend to associate them with opium. Most of the time, they are constables or mercenaries employed to track down opium smugglers and other criminals, but some have them as Robin Hood-esque opium smugglers.)

Anyways, I hope this long post has offered some insight into the two iconic, yet also somewhat obscure ghost cops. I might add an "Appendix of Fun Facts and Tales" that doesn't fit into the main body of the post, but for now? That will be all.

May the readers who celebrate it have a nice Zhongyuan Festival.

Bibliography:

蔺坤:《无常鬼考源》

大谷亨：《黑无常的诞生与演变—— 以江苏南部的摸壁鬼传说为中心》

陈威伯、施静宜：《七爷八爷成神故事研究》

江義雄：《臺灣「黑白無常」與「范謝將軍」研究》

吳彥鋒：《臺灣七爺八爺傳說及其與信仰關係研究》

中国国家博物馆藏《十一面观音变相》的阐释

劉榕峻：狂放不羈、怪異獨特：談香港藝術館展出的「揚州八怪」

Stephen F. Teiser, The Scripture on the Ten Kings and the Making of Purgatory in Medieval Chinese Buddhism

Fabian Graham, Voices from the Underworld: Chinese Hell Deity Worship in Contemporary Singapore and Malaysia

CBETA: 《地藏王菩萨本愿经》

CBETA：《佛说地藏王菩萨发心因缘十王经》

夷坚志/支癸07，“赵彥珍妻”

《金瓶梅词话》，Chapter 74

《醋葫芦》，Chapter 12

《劝善金科》Vol.5, Part 2

The Jade Guidebook: Appendices, translated by David K. Jordan

Journey to the West Vol.1, Chapter 11, translated by Anthony C. Yu

[lynnie-ee]

Day 9; What if.

╰┈➤"Silver watches you from afar at the library, never adventurous enough to talk to you. Will he gather the courage to do so, or will it be too late by then?"

╰►Gender neutral reader, one-shot, 1.4k words. Angst in the final part.

╰► Character: Silver.

╰►Note: The prompts are based on words I found interesting and then I put them on a roulette to decide when I would write about them, lol. English is not my first language, so please let me know if there are any grammatical mistakes <3. Not proof read, I haven't written in a long time, so I apologise if anything is out of character.

╰►Masterlist / Inktober Masterlist.

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You look pretty when you're concentrated.

That’s what Silver believes.

That’s what he has thought for months now, observing you from afar but never actually speaking to you. He had no reason for it, he reasoned. You weren’t classmates, you weren’t in the same year, you weren’t part of the same club as him, and you didn’t go to Diasomnia often. But still, he found comfort in observing you after class, two tables away from you in the library, too focused to even notice his gaze.

Lilia had suggested to him the library as a better place to study, saying that maybe he wouldn’t fall asleep so quickly there, with so many people around, but he wouldn’t be too distracted by sudden noises, as he would be in Diasomnia, and Silver followed his advice.

The first day he failed, horribly. He chose a corner that was way too lonely, making him fall asleep through the whole evening before the librarian went to him to ask him to leave due to the late hours.

The second day was better, as he chose a more transited table, with enough people passing around to keep him alert. But it was way too crowded, and when he got up to look for another book, someone else had already taken his seat.

On the third day, he found a nice spot, with few people and a lot of silence. He took a seat at the table next to the window, and that’s when he saw you. He knew who you were, as everyone in the school. A magicless student from another world wasn’t often seen around, after all, but you never had the opportunity to talk before.

And he found encouragement in how dedicated you seemed to read the giant books that awaited next to you, all of them providing you with information about a world you knew nothing about yet. At first, he gazed at you when he felt himself about to fall asleep, but a few weeks later, he watched you just for the sake of it.

His father had spoken to him about the concept of love at first sight, quite a lot of times, but he never thought much of it. He was a knight, he had a duty and no space for anything else for anything but his family, even less for affections originated from things as superficial as someone’s appearance.

But then he saw you, and it was more than that.

And you started to greet him after weeks of sitting on the same spots of the library, as you thought it’d be polite to do so, getting surprised at the soft reddish tone that appeared on Silver’s cheeks when you spoke to him. You never believed he’d be such a shy person.

From then on, you still sat in the same seats, but would engage in conversation, from time to time, even if it wasn’t often, as you were occupied most of the time with the pile of books that always followed you, never becoming smaller. Silver, on the other hand, was also busy with his homework, which he could finish faster if he hadn’t started to daydream as he gazed at you.

“Hi, Silver, had you been doing well?”

“Yes, I have, thank you for asking.” He answered with his usual blunt voice. “I’ve seen you struggle with History of Magic, perhaps you’d need help with it.” He’d add nonchalantly.

“I’d appreciate it, thanks for the offer.” You’d answer with a soft smile.

Yet he remained silent, not being able to offer his help, as you quickly went to your seat after the brief greeting. You had a test for tomorrow and no time to lose. And he had a report to finish for Crewel’s class, one that would be finished already if it wasn’t for his gazing habits.

“Lilia told me you were good at physical training, is that right?” You asked one day, as you carried your books as usual.

“He's right. As a knight, it’s important to have great strength.”

“Would you mind helping with a certain exercise Vargas taught us? It’s far more complex than I thought and I’d like to know before the next class.”

“Of course, I wouldn’t mind helping if I can.”

“Thank you, Silver.”

From then on, and after he had helped you with the exercise, you’d speak more often. About school, about your friends, about his training. About the restaurant you’ve been wanting to go to for the past month. About how he was free the next Saturday. About you telling him that Grim would stay with Ace and Deuce for the weekend. About him saying he had errands to run that day. About you asking him if he’d like to stop by the restaurant to join you for lunch.

Then you started to hang out at Diasomnia more frequently, saying it was nice and quiet as long as Sebek wasn’t around. It was natural, Silver thought, as you were Malleus’ friend, Sebek’s classmate, and an avid fan of the Pop Music Club, of which Lilia was part. You had a lot of reasons to be there, he believed, and he didn’t think much of it when you stayed even if it was only him, without Malleus, Sebek or Lilia.

But one day you’d stayed late, none of you noticing the darkness outside, too concentrated for it. Silver was quite proud of himself, getting focused enough to read for long hours, only noticing how much time had passed as he felt a light weight on his shoulder. You had fallen asleep. 'How funny', he thought, he was usually the one doing that.

So, he put all your books in your backpack and picked you up to carry you towards Ramshackle.

When he went back to his dorm, he realized. Was there something different in the way he held you, as if he was carrying a rare treasure? Or in the fondness he felt when you thanked him half asleep for bringing you home? Or in Lilia’s teasing when he arrived at Diasomnia, as he claimed to have raised a Prince Charming who treated his beloved with kindness?

But he knew he was no Prince. He was a knight, with a duty. To Lord Malleus. To his father. To his family.

Yet, when you confessed that you saw differently, one day, in the middle of the library, he couldn’t bring himself to reject you, too enamoured by the affection of your gaze and the tenderness of your voice.

'A knight can also be capable of love', Lilia had told him when he confided his worries.

You were perfect for him, after all. He could imagine you accompanying him through his training. Staying for the night at Diasomnia. Getting close to all the people he adored deeply. Fighting with Sebek at late hours when he wouldn’t allow you to have a night snack. Backing away when Lilia offered to make it for you. Laughing with Malleus as Sebek and him would try to convince the vicehousewarden to stay away from the kitchen. Coming back with him to his room to sleep in each other’s arms.

Coming back to his homeland with you for the holidays. Sending you letters when he was away in his fourth year. You moving to Briar Valley after graduation. Malleus becoming king and making him one of his main knights. Coming back home at night to your smile, after long days.

But then he blinked, once, twice, thrice. He had been falling asleep more often, lately. His eyelids were too heavy for him to avoid it, he couldn’t blame himself for it. He turned away his gaze from the window, looking at the seat that was two tables away.

The seat was empty.

It had become unbearable, the loneliness of that place. You wouldn’t come back with him to Diasomnia, or to Briar Valley, or to a home that was both yours and his.

You wouldn’t come back at all.

He was a knight, he couldn’t leave himself failing once again, as he had already failed the duty he had to you.

Only leaving him dreaming of what could have been if you hadn’t put yourself in front of him when Malleus attacked him during his overblot. If he had protected you from the pain and the fear that he observed in your eyes as you faded away in his arms.

Now you only existed in his dreams, and it wasn’t enough for him.

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