#found it like a couple years ago and i recently remembered it and by god its so good

[sunnnfish]

Ouuugh fucking. The Dolls of New Albion. Hate trying to articulate how much i love things. Very powerful piece of media. Plus its a musical/opera whatever its got banging musical catered specifically to me. <3

[johnbrand]

Fathering Normality

“And then I just shoved it right in!”

Luke grunted as he thrust forward, drawing a laugh out of his friend Colton. Luke had been recounting the entire night before to him, going over every detail. How it started as a boner, how that boner led him to a bar, how that bar led him to rubbing up against some girl, and how that girl led him to shooting multiple loads directly into her tight pussy.

“It was exhilarating!” Luke recalled, the natural masculinity giving his voice a gruff, dense texture. “And all I can think about now is…doing it again…and again!”

Luke thrusted once more, trying to relieve the pressure building up in his thick cock. Colton could not help but happily smile along with his friend, very familiar with the experience of breeding a woman himself. In fact, his girlfriend had recently found out she was pregnant. When Colton had first received the news, he had been ecstatic. When Luke had received the news from Colton days later, he had not been.

Just a week ago, Colton and Luke had been in the same positions; Luke dramatically recounting some tale while Colton laid back and listened. Although, that time had been more violent. “What do you mean she’s pregnant?” Luke cried. “What are you two going to do? You’re too young, neither of you have secured jobs. We all just barely graduated from college a few years ago!”

Argument after argument flew by, but eventually Colton could not handle it anymore. His friend was supposed to be supportive, happy for the couple as they were with the situation. Then a strange thought came to Colton’s head–maybe Luke would be more supportive if he was able to see his side of things. 

Colton had shot the bullet directly into Luke’s head without hesitation. There was no way his gay friend could have understood the joy of breeding, fertilizing, and bearing fruit other than by being converted to try it himself. Of course, Luke did not remember the sound of the gun firing, dropping to the floor, or his limp body being handed over to local enforcement. Colton did not even think Luke remembered the past version of himself. And now that Colton had met the new model, he hoped he would soon forget too.

Gay Luke had been fun. A little bit on the shorter, skinnier side, but still a ball of energy. He always had a theatrical flair, and he kept himself well-maintained, but he had commitment issues and terrible spending habits. This Straight Luke though, had nearly made the equally heterosexual Colton blush. He was now much taller, more muscular, with that ball of energy transformed into sheer masculine confidence. Luke still held that capacity to put on a performance, but now it was powerful and captivating. 

Colton had contacted Luke at the end of the incubation period, not knowing what to expect. Yet he would have never predicted the stacked body-builder in a plain, short-sleeved button-up and dirty jeans appearing at his door. Sure, there were some things Colton felt a little guilty about. Luke’s former luscious locks had thinned out and shortened into a tiny quiff afflicted by male pattern baldness. His hygiene had definitely taken a hit; Colton had smelt the new funk as soon as those massive shoes had come off at the door. But the conversion affected everyone differently, so because Luke appeared obliviously overjoyed with heterosexuality, Colton felt that he could be too.

“So I just started countin’ as I rammed in. ‘One, two,’” Luke continually thrusted to display his point. “And eventually, it had to be like on 15 or 16, I felt that first burst of ecstasy. After that I lost count, I just went into hyper-mode.”

Colton chuckled, getting up to grab us some beers. He tossed one to Luke.

“Thanks bro,” Luke cracked his cold one open. “By the way, what did you call me over for anyway?”

“Oh man, I thought I already told you,” Colton half-lied. “My girl’s pregnant: I’m gonna be a dad.”

Luke’s eyes lit up, “DUDE! That’s awesome! Congratulations!! God, if only I could be so lucky, right?” 

Colton cheered to that, smirking at the possibility. He had been right when he had chosen to father normality. Thanks to him, one could metaphorically say he would soon be fathering twice the amount of children as a result of Luke’s conversion.

[jo-writes-fanfic]

Love & Mischief

Loki x Female!Reader

Rating: M (Mature)

Warnings: There's nothing explicit, some allusions to sex, probably language, violence, and heavy descriptions of grief and loss, although there is somewhat of a happy ending.

Word count: About 2.9k

Synopsis: You're Asgard's goddess of love and loyalty, but you've lost your god of mischief, how do you move forward?

Author’s note: This is set in Thor Love and Thunder. Also if you've ever seen the last scene of the show Reign, it has an inspiration in this fic too. I've had a lot of grief and loss in my life lately and this felt very therapeutic to write. I've tried writing for Loki a couple of times but always chickened out, so I really hope y'all enjoy this and hopefully there will be more to come!

I am no longer using a taglist! Instead if you would like to be notified when I post new fics follow my side blog @jo-writes-fanfic and turn your post notifications on!

“And what are you the goddess of?” 

The words resounded in your head again and again and again.

When Hela said those words to you, years ago, you had fired back, so sure of yourself and your role in Asgard, your role in your life, your role in his life. 

But now…

What was a goddess of loyalty and love who no longer had love? Who no longer believed in such things as fate and security in love? 

Your powers should have died when he did. 

It was an odd pairing to many, you knew. But it worked perfectly, your strengths and weaknesses worked in tandem and created a love worth fighting for. 

But the fight was gone. 

The god of mischief (and betrayal- some would argue) and the goddess of loyalty and love were a match made in Valhalla. 

Until he was gone, ripped from you so violently that you still woke up screaming from nightmares regularly. 

You sat next to your king in New Asgard during another security council meeting. 

You were completely zoned out, thinking of bright blue-green eyes, dark curls, and a blade-thin smile. Valkyrie nudged you. “Hey, tone it down, you're bumming out the whole room,” she whispered. 

You sighed and blinked out of your reverie, and finally noticed that the mood of the room, despite the recent good news that had been received (you can’t remember what it was - honestly, you forgot to pay attention, these meetings were very dull and tended to drone on) was altogether glum. 

“Sorry,” you whispered back and reigned your mood in. 

Normally, your powers were extremely helpful; tightening the bonds of loyalty in those around you, increasing love in both romantic and familial bonds, reading others moods - often influencing them, and sometimes even manipulating loyalties. But currently, drowning in grief as you had been the past several years, your powers were more of a burden than anything. 

The heaviness in the room instantly lightened, and the conversation flowed in a more productive direction once more. 

“We need to talk about these moods of yours,” Val said once she was satisfied that the meeting was going better. 

“No thanks,” you grumbled, and promptly zoned out once more. You really preferred it when Thor was also a mess, before he got his shit together, and you weren’t the only one that hadn’t moved on from the repercussions of the war with Thanos. But you know what they say, misery loves company. And back then, no one nagged you as much to get your shit together. 

“A little help here?” the king asked you, irritation in her tone. 

Another disagreement had broken out, this time a fist fight. Honestly, you found it amusing and were inclined to let it go on for a while, but when Val glared at you, you stood up and clapped once. 

Everyone stopped their movements immediately and looked up at you. 

“Enough,” you said sternly. “Asgard, though we may have differing opinions, we all fight for the same thing, the prospering of New Asgard. Remember that,” you ordered, infusing the room with compliance, reminding them of their bonds of loyalty. 

Everyone looked sheepish and sat back down. 

You flourished a hand to Val and said, “My king,” giving her the floor. 

She gave them all a rousing speech, it was honestly quite good, some of her best work, and then ended the dreadful meeting early, much to your relief. 

“Good job, boss. Well, I’m off-” 

“Not so fast,” she said as she caught your arm. 

You sighed once again. 

“Do we need to talk about this? About Lo-” 

“Don’t say his name,” you hissed and the tension in the room raised significantly as your anger and grief filled the space, making the large room feel claustrophobic.  

She sighed and took your hand. 

“Look, I can’t pretend to know what you’re going through and what you’ve lost. We can all feel it from time to time and I know it’s an incredibly heavy burden. I’m just concerned for you and want to help you,” she said. 

With tears in your eyes, you nodded. 

“I’m concerned about me too,” you mumbled. 

“What can I do to help? Tell me.  Anything,” she practically begged. 

“Nothing, unless you can drag him back from Valhalla,” you muttered and brushed past her. 

And life continued to trudge forward. As a goddess, never had such a short amount of years felt so long, an eternity really. 

You felt as if you were stuck in a time loop and every day was close to the same. 

You woke up and for a split second forgot he was gone and reached across your bed to find it cold. Then, a wave of grief hit you that was so heavy, each and every time, that you forgot how to breathe. 

Eventually you forced yourself out of bed, shoved some food in your mouth as you rushed out the door and met Valkyrie for early morning training. Then you usually sat by the sea and stared as the sun rose in the sky, thinking of him but trying so hard not to. And again, you forced yourself on. 

You completed your daily tasks as the King’s right hand goddess; meetings, meetings, and more meetings usually. Most nights you sat at the bar, watched Valkyrie drink an ungodly amount, then when you got bored enough you walked through New Asgard. 

You walked and walked, thinking if you moved enough, if you stayed ahead of your sadness, maybe it wouldn’t catch you in the morning. 

It always did. 

Rinse and repeat. 

There were differences of course, sometimes, you had to leave New Asgard to do the whole ambassador thing. Occasionally Thor came to visit and brought along his various cohorts and problems.  

Today was one of those days. You were improving in your hand to hand combat skills, according to your King, through your daily rigorous training sessions, which pleased you since you spent most days feeling like you wanted to fight the whole nine realms. And then, following your routine, you sat on the cliffside and stared at the sea. 

You never even got to give him a proper funeral, you thought, which then made you think of Frigga and the beautiful funeral service for her that you had watched through tears. 

A voice called your name, you looked back and for a moment, a blink and you miss it moment, you saw him. A flash of green-blue eyes and inky black hair, your heart skipped a beat and the vision was gone. 

You shook your head in an attempt to clear it, honestly these flashes of him you’ve been having lately should be concerning, but instead you clung to them, desperate for any connection to him that you could get. 

Although the true sight before you was one that made you smile, as Thor came up and wrapped you in a bear hug. 

You wheezed and when he finally put you down he chuckled heartily. 

“How are you?” he asked and you gave him a look like he should know the answer to that question. 

“Well I have something that should cheer you right up,” he said as he steered you back towards the town. 

“Does it involve needing my help to fight another dangerous life-threatening bad guy?” you asked wryly. 

“Perhaps….” he said. 

You huffed a laugh and said, “I’m in.” 

The threat you were fighting turned out to be a whole lot more dangerous and life-threatening than you anticipated. 

Which is how you found yourself on a ship with Thor, Jane, Valkyrie, and Korg on an unfortunate adventure to confront the God Butcher. 

Watching Thor and Jane fall back in love was not doing much for your mood. Val handed you another drink and you downed it. 

“Hey, hey, you’re totally bringing down the vibe, mate. This is supposed to be about love,” Korg said to you. You huffed and rolled your eyes. 

You made an effort to lessen the dark cloud you’d brought on the ship. 

“Do you think you’ll ever find love again?” Val asked you, after she confessed that she’d avoided any serious relationships for decades. 

“No,” you said, like it was final. 

“Really?” Korg asked. “Shouldn’t the goddess of love fall in love easily?” 

You shot him a glare. 

“I love. I love a great many people. But true love, like soulmates and shit, that only comes once in a lifetime. And after you’ve had it, you’re pretty much ruined for anything less. So no, I don’t think I’ll ever truly find love again,” you said with a sigh. 

“Heavy,” he replied and you cracked up. 

You laughed so hard you snorted, and at first your friends looked at you in shock, then joined you in laughter, and the room filled with love once again, the love of friendship, and you realized you’ve been overlooking the amount of love you actually had in your life due to your grief. 

You grabbed Val’s hand and patted Korg’s disembodied head, and watched Thor and Jane reignite their flame of love. 

“I love you all and am grateful for all the support you’ve given me,” you said. 

“No final confessions,” Valkyrie said, “this is not the end for any of us.” 

You nodded and then the ship reached its destination. The shadow realm yawned open in front of your vision and you gulped. 

You had this horrible feeling, like dread, in the pit of your stomach, and you saw him again. That flash you’ve seen so many times recently, but more and more frequently since this misadventure started and that dread molted in your stomach into resolve. 

You were certain and you were ready. 

Of course the plan went immediately sideways. You crossed swords with Gorr the God Butcher and your heart threatened to pound out of your chest. 

Yes, your sword fighting skills had improved, but not enough to be a good match for a seasoned warrior and god killer. 

“What are you the Goddess of? Are you even worth my sword?” he growled out. 

You gritted your teeth and went on the attack. Your rage filled the space as you dodged, slashed, and pushed him as hard as you could. 

You could hear your friends yelling, but you couldn’t lose your focus even for a moment as he pushed back and fought with skill beyond your own. 

And you realized you’d been doing this all wrong. You were fighting without your biggest asset, your own natural gifts and abilities. The powers that made you a goddess of Asgard. 

He didn’t notice your impact on his mood because your rage didn’t even touch the deep well of his own, he didn’t feel your rage due to the mountain that was his own. 

No, rage wouldn’t work, you thought, and as your swords crossed again you used your other hand to grab his. 

Your power was more potent when you were skin to skin.

You poured love and loyalty into your enemy, thinking only of happiness and good memories, trying to lessen his rage. Trying to decrease his fight, hoping to convince him to put down his sword. 

Your breath caught into a gasp as his emotions infected your own. His love and loyalty were intertwined with an ocean of grief. Just like your own. 

And you were drowning. 

His emotions, his rage at the injustice and unfairness and unending sadness felt so close to your own emotions that you were thrown back into a memory. 

Your worst memory, actually, the day you lost him for good. And you knew your enemy was in his worst memory as well. The origin of his grief. 

Just like you watched the origin of your grief as it unfolded in front of you once more. The reason for your nightmares, the reason you woke up screaming, you stepped back and gasped as the memory overcame you. 

And Gorr did the same. 

You think the sound might be the worst part. Loki’s choking. Or maybe it was the snapping sound, like a branch, a snap that ended everything for him. And for you. 

And then there’s the sight. You couldn’t even describe it, it was too awful to explain. You’ve never spoken about it, even in the therapy sessions your King forced you to attend. 

He thudded to the ground and you gasped as the vision cleared. 

You were drowning in your own grief and it was clear Gorr was more accustomed to drowning than you. 

He recovered one second quicker, and your battlefield reflexes were not quite up to par. 

You slashed your sword up but all it did was clang against his where it was embedded in your stomach. 

All the air whooshed from your lungs. 

“You are not a god that deserves death, are you?” he said as he cocked his head. “But you lost faith in yourself, in what you stand for.” 

You weren’t even sure you felt the pain. Maybe the shock inhibited your ability to feel any pain. You’d been injured before, sure, but you always felt the sharpness of it. But of course you’ve never been hurt this severely. 

You tried to speak, but it came out as a groan. 

“I am sorry,” he said and slowly slid the sword from your abdomen and you fell to your knees. Blood gushed and you saw that flash again. 

“Beautiful,” you mumbled as you saw the flash of a wry smirk, eyes full of love, and a hand outstretched towards you. Beckoning you. 

Finally, you thought. 

The last thing you heard was Thor roaring and your king calling your name as she caught you before your body hit the ground. 

There was darkness, utter darkness, and then a solid weight beneath you. 

You realized you were laying down. You were laying on the most comfortable bed you’d ever had the pleasure of sleeping on. 

Sleeping? Are you sleeping? Wasn’t there something…something painful? You couldn’t remember. 

You blinked your eyes open and let out all the air in your lungs. 

Your eyes filled with tears, this time happy tears. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, you cried happy tears. 

Loki laid beside you, close enough for you to touch, staring at you with such love in his eyes that tears spilled down your cheeks. 

“Oh,” you gasped. 

He reached out and cupped your cheek, wiping the tears away. 

You sobbed, and he shushed you even as he pulled you closer. You buried your face in his bare chest and he crushed you against him, so tight, tight enough that you were sure he would never let you go again. 

He ran his hand up and down your back, and with a start you realized you were void of clothes as well. 

You awoke in the afterlife just as you would have every day of the best years of your life with him; naked in his bed after a night of making love with adoration in his eyes as he watched you sleep. 

You took a shuddering breath and pulled back to look at him in the eyes once more, your hands never leaving his body, you ran them up his chest, across his face, twirled your fingers in his hair. 

“This is Valhalla, isn’t it?” you asked. 

“Yes, my love,” he said, and kissed the fresh tears on your cheeks away. 

Then he kissed your lips. It was a delicate thing at first, but then it molted and grew until it felt exactly like it used to. The kiss cemented you to him, secured you right where you should be, where he had been waiting for you. 

And all of the pain you experienced before that kiss didn’t even matter anymore. Because you loved him and he loved you, and that’s all. 

His lips moved against yours and your tears mixed with his and it was perfect. You loved him, that’s all. 

You weren’t angry at him for dying and leaving you alone. You weren’t drowning in heavy emotions anymore. You held no grudges or hard feelings over anyone or anything anymore, not now that you were in the arms of your greatest love once more. 

“It’s been so long,” you gasped out when he pulled back and smiled. 

“I know,” he said with a small smile. 

“I’m sorry,” you said. 

“I am as well,” he replied, simply and sweetly. 

You felt light as a feather. You felt released from your pain and anguish. You were with him again, and that’s all that mattered. 

“Isn’t the introduction to Valhalla traditionally supposed to be much different?” you asked. 

He smirked and mischief twinkled in his eyes, “It is possible I managed to bend some rules for you.” 

You huffed a laugh and pulled him into another kiss. One that could’ve lasted seconds or could’ve lasted a lifetime. It didn’t really matter. You had eternity in the hall of warriors with your Loki, and you were secure knowing you died fighting for the ones you loved. 

“Would you like me to give you the grand tour?” he whispered in your ear as he pulled back from your lips and began kissing his way across your skin. 

“Maybe later,” you said as you wrapped your arms around him and pulled him atop of you. 

“We have an eternity,” he promised and kissed you, slow and deep. 

Tagging those who showed interest in this fic (thanks for the support!) : @thespiralstaircasewriter @bellaisasleep @elly-hiddlesherloki @izhunny @drachenkinder @spacefloosie

[rainbowsky]

GQ & ADLAD CPN

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

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

Godly Back

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

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

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

Xiao Zhan's back ditch is so deep

GGDD and ADLAD

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

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

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

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

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

Some additional CPN

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

Magician DD

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

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

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

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

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

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

GG and Sleep

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

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

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

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

Firecrackers

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

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

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

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

[kookslastbutton]

Too Late to Dream ༓ jjk (m)┃ch. V

✑ Summary: You did it. You married your college professor. You even bought a house together. Against all odds, everything had fallen into place. But after two years of marriage, you begin feeling something was missing. You want a baby but your husband can’t say the same.

Pairing: economics professor!jungkook x fem!artist!reader

AU/Genre: angst, smut, fluff, marriage au, age gap, series

Rating: M, 18+

Word Count: 3,342

Warnings: 8-year age gap, mentions of professor-student relationship (oc was a Masters student), jk has milk obsession, oc injured, both lonely :(, mommy issues, lots of family drama/in-laws, fighting, pent-up issues/desires, jk has daddy issues, jk being good hubby to oc

Now Playing: Make It Right, Tryna Be, Infinity, It Will Rain, Heaven+

A/N: I've heard the requests and I think it's time to fulfill them–how did they get together?! Yes, it's here and I'm excited to finally share! Also, yes this took up whole chapter so a tiny break from present-day stuff but we'll be back at it next chapter. 💞

<< ch. IV ༓ ch. Vl >> | series masterlist

Before marrying you, Jungkook had the same routine. He got up, showered, brushed his teeth, put work clothes on, grabbed breakfast, and ran out the door with twenty minutes to spare. Trying to find a parking spot at 7 a.m. at the university was no joke and he had to leave early or some college kid would take the last spot and not think twice.

His night routine was similar. Jungkook finished the day between 5 and 6 pm, slowly regretting he ever agreed to teach evening classes. He’d kick off his shoes, eat dinner, grade some of his student’s papers if needed, brush his teeth again, and went to bed.

It was a constant cycle and with no one around, not even a pet, Jungkook’s life was fairly quiet and systematic. Sometimes his buddies would come over on the weekend for a couple of hours and that surely rocked his world.

But that wouldn’t happen often during the school season due to his ridiculously packed teaching schedule. The most recent person he’d hang around during those months was Taehyung and if he wasn’t free, Jungkook would spend his time at the grocery store–stocking up on milk.

4 years ago

“That was two weeks ago man,” Jungkook says, pushing a cart with five-gallon jugs of milk to his car. He’s on the phone with Taehyung who's reminiscing about the grand opening of the new art exhibit and how “lovely” it was to meet you there.

Jungkook doesn’t need reminding though.

He clearly remembers seeing you there and Taehyung happily making a complete fool of him once he found out who you were. Thankfully you hadn’t seemed to mind too much since you and Taehyung soon moved on to discuss various art theories, masterpieces, and underrepresented artists.

“You didn't have to stay y'know.” If Jungkook didn't know any better he'd think Taehyung was salty. "You could've left at 8 pm like you planned. __ and I would have been fine."

Jungkook winces hearing the man's argument. He did think about going home at 8, but it unsettled him to leave you alone with Taehyung. His colleague was enjoying himself a little too much that night and there’s no telling what he’d do or say when he’s overly comfortable.

Jungkook had to stay until you left.

"Are you kidding me? Leaving you unsupervised would've been the worst idea after all your endless blubbering." Jungkook pops the trunk of his car, stuffing the jugs of milk inside. "God knows what you'd scar __ with."

On the other line, Taehyung smirks through the speaker. "No, that's not it......you weren't going to leave me alone with a woman, an attractive one at that."

Jungkook grabs the last jug of milk, slamming it on the floorboard. "Student, and stop talking about her like that. She's my stu—"

"Say student one more time and I'm going to take all your milk and give it to Yoongi hyung's cats."

"I swear to god, Taehyung, if you touch my milk I'm never going to another art museum or wine tasting with you again." Jungkook is very protective of his dairy products.

"That's okay. I don't need you when __ says she'll be happy to go with me sometime." Smug bastard, Jungkook thinks. There's no way you said that.

"That's bull Taehy—"

"Look she's in her masters and is literally eight years younger than you. It's not that serious so stop acting like she's fresh out of high school. Besides, you said it yourself, she's not a child."

Jungkook grunts, shoving the cart into the others. "She's a young lady who happens to be enrolled in the school. As faculty, we have no business thinking or talking about her outside those terms."

"For fucksake, Kook. You always make things so complicated!" Taehyung's baritone voice cracks through the speaker. "I'm just trying to get you to admit that you're into her some way or another. How many other students have I stayed to talk to and you couldn't give a—"

Just then a loud, high-pitch screech interrupts the call. Jungkook whips his head around immediately. He doesn't spot anything at first but a string of profanities remains audible in the distance.

"Jungkook, are you okay?"

"Yeah, but someones screaming and I can't tell where it's coming from." Jungkook walks around the grocery parking lot, eyes darting left and right. "Oh shit!"

There, near the bus stop, you lay on your side with your right leg stretched out and blood running from your temple. You try getting up but you fall right back down, cursing sharply.

"Taehyung I gotta go, it's __. I don't know what happened but she's laying by the bus stop and I think she needs help!" Jungkook shuts his phone and races to where you lay. He kneels next to you with sheer horror on his face. "__, what happened? What can I do?"

"Damn college boys, Dr. Jeon," you spit, dragging your leg up as far as you can. You reach for your bag which had flung about a foot away when you crashed. "So fucking eager to get off the bus and—oh damn that hurts like a bitch!"

"What hurts?" Jungkook lunges forward to catch your torso from slamming on the hard concrete. "Stay still okay? We need to get you to the hospital."

"I'm all set, but thanks. It'll likely heal in a day."

Jungkook shakes his head and wraps an arm under your back and legs. "Can you put your arms around my neck?"

"Dr. Jeon, I appreciate what you're doing but I don't want to go to the hospital. Please."

You're serious. No trace of bluffing or even simply trying to act tough. You really don't want to go.

"You need to be checked by a doctor sweetheart," Jungkook insists. "Whatever happened has made it so you can't walk. C'mon, my car is nearby and I'll drive you over."

"No, wait!" He feels you push against his chest.

"__. I'm not leaving you without making sure you didn't break a bone or something. I don't want to make things worse but you don't look so hot right now. So please, let me take you." Jungkook lifts you up when you give a barely consenting yes.

"You sprained your ankle pretty bad hun." Dr. Kim Seokjin draws your attention to the X-ray scan. "Second degree." He points to the visual of your partially torn ligament. "There's going to be a lot of swelling so you're gonna need to stay off your foot for at least 4 weeks."

"Do I have to stay here?" is your first question.

"For the first couple of weeks, we strongly advise—yes." Dr. Kim moves on to the next X-ray scan. "You also cracked a rib which will also take about 4 weeks to heal, or more. Of course you're head has suffered a mild concussion as well but it's very mild thankfully." Dr. Kim catches sight of Jungkook next to you, staring at the scans. "You're wife's going to be okay," he says mid-diagnoses.

"We're not—" you start to say but Dr. Kim continues talking.

"Wife, girlfriend, lover, what have you. The point is, much of what we have here will recover with a month of rest, ice, and elevation." He takes a pen from his pocket and starts jotting down something on paper. "I recommend two weeks here for moderation purposes. If things look good, you finish the healing at home. Still, be careful though, no funny business."

The blank looks on both your faces tell Dr. Kim he wasn't clear enough. "Yah, my filters going to die with you two doe-eyed deer. No funny business means no sex!"

"Oh god!" You outburst, mortified by the thought. Jungkook whips his head to your slack-jawed expression. "Dr. Kim, it's not like that between us."

The older man suddenly zeros in on your professor, eyes narrowing slightly. "What's the matter son? Having trouble getting it up?"

Jungkook jolts in his seat, startled by the crass response. "I—no, what? There's nothing wrong with my—"

"We're not together!" You shout before Jungkook's sentence finishes. "We're friends." Saying that your professor brought you here sounded a little odd for some reason, especially when Dr. Kim was already convinced you two were a thing.

"Mhm sure, heard the same thing from my wife before we went off and eloped." Dr. Kim treads to the door. If he has a dime for how many times he's heard that "we're friends" bs he'd be...well, he's already rich so never mind. "Let's move on to something more productive now, like getting __ settled in a room. The sooner she starts the healing process, the sooner she can be good as new again."

"Thank you Dr. Kim," Jungkook says, slowly standing up to stroll you and your wheelchair out of the room. You didn't like it but the nurses insisted you be in one to keep pressure off your muscles.

"Yeah yeah." Dr. Kim waves him off. "Just remember what I said, no funny business. Especially here at the hospital. You don't know how many times I've heard the nurses catching their patients on top of one another at 2 am in the morning. That better not be you two, whoever you are to each other."

"Yes, doctor." You both reply, thankful of the fact that neither of you are in any position to be looking at each other.

"Is there any way I can be here for less than two weeks?" Jungkook watches as you plead with the nurse. It worries him that you're still anxious to avoid medical attention.

"I'm afraid not," the nurse says simply. "If you need anything, press the call button and I'll be in as soon as I can."

Once the nurse leaves, Jungkook pulls up a chair next to your bed. "Stupid question but how are you feeling?"

"I'm in an ankle brace, my rib burns, and my head is still dizzy. I'm trapped in the hospital for two weeks and all because a bunch of nineteen-year-old boys couldn't wait to hit up some frat party," you groan, not bearing in mind your tongue. "I'm sorry for dragging you into this Dr. Jeon."

"You didn't drag me into anything __. I'm glad I was there when this happened and I'm even more glad that you're here, getting help." Jungkook clears his throat before continuing. "Even if it isn't ideal for you."

You ignore the subtle pry for information. "Please, Dr. Jeon. You don't have to stay any longer. It's the weekend and I'm sure you have plans."

Jungkook gives a faint smile. "So, you're saying this is none of my business?"

"No, not—not at all. I mean if you want to stay then I guess you can but I don't want you to feel obligated or anything."

"I want to be here," Jungkook says simply. "But you know that's not what I meant. I'd like to know why it bothers you when anyone tries to help you...if I may."

"Just habit," you mumble quickly, averting eye-contact. It's not your professor's job to bear the weight of your problems.

Jungkook nods in reply, pretending you gave a satisfactory explanation. He wishes you'd tell him but if you didn't want to share more then that was your choice —he wasn't going to force you. "I understand." He grabs his phone from his pocket and rests his elbows on his knees. "Are you hungry?"

"Huh?" You look back at him, his question going right over your head.

"I asked if you're hungry. It's about dinner time so I can get you something if you want. I also have a bunch of milk in my trunk that needs to get to a fridge. But I can place the order now and pick it up in my way back here."

"Milk in your trunk?" Is the only words you repeat, dumbfounded. "Like chocolate milk or...?"

"Nah, Whole Milk." Jungkook grins at your scrunched up face. You try to hide it but not very well. "Don't look so disgusted. Milk is good for you."

"Yeah when you're ten years old."

"On the contrary!" You flinch when his voice rises, along with his eyebrows. "Milk has a lot of health benefits as adults. It has thirteen essential nutrients and helps maintain muscle and bone strength. I drink at least two full glasses a day, if not more."

"I'm sorry but that's nasty." You shudder at the thought of drinking milk in your twenties let alone your thirties. "You really enjoy it? The taste?"

"Yup, always have since a baby! Loved it so much that my mother-" You raise an eyebrow to which he abruptly switches topics. "Anyway, do you want me to pick you up something or no?"

You giggle, a little uncomfortable with whatever he was about to disclose to you.

"That's okay, no thanks."

"You sure? Otherwise I'm gonna be eating in front of you." Jungkook knows how this sounds — he's trying to force you to eat. But the truth is, he just doesn't want to eat by himself tonight. He also doesn't want to leave you alone this early, especially when you obviously detest being here, for whatever reason.

"I'm sure," you say. "But...if you want to come back you can. Not like I have anything to do anyway."

"Good then." Pleased, Jungkook opens up his phone contacts. "Give me you're number in case you change your mind while I'm out."

Over the next couple of weeks, Jungkook continues to stay by your side. He leaves to teach his classes of course and to go home late at night, but he stops by every day—hours at a time.

You keep insisting that he not come so much but he always makes the same excuses. "I just brought food" or "You're on my way home from the university". Sometimes he brings in class notes too.

Due to your current predicament, you're missing a lot of content so Jungkook thinks it best to go over key principles with you and takeaways from his lectures. He says it's his duty as a professor–never minding the fact that many of his other students are in a predicament of their own yet he’s not bothering to do jack for them.

"Look Dr. Jeon, I appreciate what you're doing but you really don't have to. I'll be perfectly alright to catch myself up from the textbook and study guides. You don't have to keep stopping by." You try again but Jungkook keeps his wall just as strong as yours.

"I know I don't have to __. I know that I could leave right now, take all these lecture notes home with me, and not feel guilty about a thing. But I told you I was going to be here and I'm going to keep to that no matter how many times you urge me to leave. I also want you to call me Jungkook outside class but have you allowed for any of those to happen?" Jungkook tosses the folder of notes in his sachel, a loud thump following. "A simple thank you would suffice."

"I am grateful, I really am. But I never asked to be given so much of your time. I feel bad because maybe you're just one of those overly nice people who feel it's their duty to stick around or what not when someone's in trouble. I don't need to be pitied over! Also, you said I could keep calling you the usual, so Dr. Jeon it will remain!" Why you're raising your voice, you don't know but it's happening either way.

"Yeah I did," Jungkook quips, matching your tone. "But after the last, nearly two weeks I think we ought to be on a first-name basis! And I'm in no way pitying you okay? I'm here because I care dammit! I don't want you to be alone and I don't want you to be behind in getting your Masters. So I' try to be be here every day for at least fifteen minutes if not more!"

You don't fully process what he says so you reply to what you remember most. "Why? Why can't I call you Dr. Jeon? It's been that way from the start, twice every week. So why do I need to call you Jungkook all a sudden?!"

"Because it makes me feel younger, you insulted my milk after I first took you to the hospital, we've been eating dinner almost every night since your injury, you told me about your childhood cat named Mr. Muttonbottom, and you just called me by my first name so there are no take backs! Now, if you're done making a fit, do you want bibimbap or jajangmyeon for dinner tonight?!"

What the actual hell? You cease your arguing at once, hearing your professor, or excuse you, Jungkook, all fluffed up. Obviously, you're not the only one high-strung over being stuck in the same routine day in, day out.

"Jajangmyeon...please," you mutter.

"Thank fuck," he swears. Yeah that's new too.

"Sorry for getting mad earlier." You mumble the words as soon as Jungkook returns with the food. "It just feels odd that you've been here all the time...you're my professor."

Jungkook mauls over your choice of words, stiffening ever so slightly. "Well, I'd like to think we're sorta friends now but alright. Does this actually bother you __? I don't mean to make you uncomfortable, you know that." He places the bag of take-out on the small desk near your bed.

"No, it's doesn't bother me." you just don't know how to react or what to say besides a measly thank you. More so, you don't want to make someone feel responsible for you...you should take care of your own shit without bringing others with you. It's not the best mindset, you're aware, but its the one you have.

"Okay good because to be completely transparent, I'm sorta here for me too. I live my myself, eat by myself, talk to myself....I do most things alone so it's nice having someone else to be around." He's not sure where to set his eyes, so he looks downward, fumbling with the napkins in front of him. "I'm making this awkward, sorry."

Feeling the strange need to offer comfort, you stretch a hand over Jungkook's arm. "I get it. It's nice having someone around too."

You and Jungkook hold each other's gaze for a few seconds more, letting the brief silence do the rest of the talking. Maybe you've been looking at this a little too one-sided.

"How are you feeling today? Any better?" Jungkook cracks open the bowl of Jajangmyeon, handing it to you with a pair of chopsticks.

You take the steamy food and gesture to your ankle which has swollen down a good amount. "Still more healing to be done but it's better."

Jungkook hums in approval. "That's comforting to hear. Dr. Kim going to discharge you soon?"

"Yeah, I think so. A few more days and he said I should be able to rest up at home."

"Really?" He chews on his bottom lip. "Well great, uhm , do you have stuff going on when you get back?"

You think a moment, trying to recollect if you made plans with Na-Rae. "Maybe some but not much. I don't have a ton of people around me right now either...down here I mean."

"Well, do you wanna go out to dinner then?" Jungkook pops the question more causal than expected. It's almost like he planned this or at least has been thinking about it for a bit. "We've been eating together for a while now and I think it might be a nice celebratory thing."

"Are you asking me on a date...Jungkook?" Because it defiantly sounds like he is, as indirect as it may be.

His reply is barely audible but you hear it and for the first time, your professor sounds truly timid. "Uh, well...let's go with "hang out", like friends do."

A/N: so yeah, thats how they got together 👀😅 anyone surprised? Thinking about a drabble for thier first date now haha. Anyway, next chapter we get back to present day stuff where more drama goes down. Also, adding a chapter bc this flashback took the whole chapter lol. Lmk your thoughts 💞

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[quillswriting]

Writerblr Introduction

Intro to Me!

🪷 Hello all, I'm Quill and I've been writing since I could remember honestly. 

🌺 I'm currently 22 and I go by she/her pronouns. I'm in my undergraduate degree, about two semesters away from graduating with a BA in Biology. 

🪷 I met my husband playing D&D so I am constantly working on D&D stuff for our group to play - either for my husband to DM or for me to DM.

🌺 My main area of writing has been modern fantasy in recent years, with some sprinkles of sci-fi, romance, or high fantasy thrown into the mix. 

🪷 I have a couple of projects that causally work on, though that list fluctuates quite a bit sometimes lol. Most would be categorized as either YA or New Adult. 

🪷 I look forward to interacting with others and talking about our WIPs! 

🌺 My asks are open - always feel free to drop an ask or a comment or to start a chat!

🪷 I love sci-fi, fantasy (of all types!), worldbuilding, the found families trope (I might have this in several of my stories lol), supernatural fiction (like vampires, werewolves, witches, etc)

🌺 I have two other blogs - a witchcraft blog (+ a few random things), @mystics-scribes, and a bujo/planning blog, @quills-planning

My WIPs

project.ties

My main WIP and the first in a series of modern fantasy novels following a vampire woman from the viking age. Her family is being hunted and threatened, so she’s called to protect a family that forced her out just about two decades earlier. 

project.worldsD&D

My D&D campaign series, I'm currently working on Adventure 2 of 3 since we wrapped up Adventure 1 about two months ago. The PCs are going from the Steampunk fantasy world of Adventure 1 to the Science Fantasy world of Adventure 2 while following and investigating the Divines they encountered throughout Adventure 1.

project.survival

A science/high fantasy/political drama story, as either a pixel video game or a visual novel, following a group of young adults (that are aliens) attempting to survive a game their gods have divised in order to test if their species is still worthy of living - if they fail the game their entire race will be wiped from the face of their planet and all other planets they inhabit. 

project.videogameD&D

My Husband’s custom TTRPG system that’s based around some of the basics of D&D. It’s mostly all his, but I’ve been assisting him quite a bit - especially with typing things up so he has organized notes and things for himself and the nine players (!!!!). 

project.witchcastle

My on and off visual novel project that’s mostly for fun to learn different vn mechanics, especially since project.survival is going to at least have some vn mechanics (even if it is a pixel game)

What I’ll Blog About - Posts & Reblogs

🪷 project.ties updates on writing and worldbuilding

🌺 project.worldsD&D updates on outlining and prop creation

🪷 project.survival updates on writing and worldbuilding, with some artwork thrown in there

🌺 project.witchcastle updates on writing and worldbuilding, also with some artwork

🪷 Writing advice, my own and reblogged

🌺 Intro posts from others

🪷 Visual novel design guides and information

🌺 Game design guides and information

🪷 Book announcements from myself and others

🌺 Please let me know if you'd like to be on my tag list!!

[iridescent-petrichor]

we’re just friends, right?

Pairing: Steve Harrington x Reader

Warnings: none, just a classic jealousy trope with a side of accidental confessions :D

Words: 2.4K

A/N: been gone for forever lol but i moved so!!! that was stressful!!!! but im back now so hopefully more fics coming soon !!

You’d been friends with Steve for a couple of years now, getting quite close to him after the demogorgon attack at the Byers' house with Jonathan and Nancy. The trauma bonded the two of you more than you had expected, especially when you kept having to band together to protect the kids every year since.

Today, though, was an ordinary afternoon. You stood at the counter of Family Video, watching Steve stumbling in, still throwing his vest on as he rushed into the building.

“Hey!” He smiled when he saw you, swerving around a customer not much older than either of you as they left, finding his usual spot next to you.

“You know you were supposed to start an hour ago, right?” You asked, biting back a smile.

“Yeah, sorry, I didn’t expect to run so late today.” He sighed, finally getting his outfit situated, looking at himself in the reflection of a television, patting his hair down.

You knew he went on a date the night before. He told you and Robin about it for hours before it actually happened, and you spent most of his rant ignoring Robin’s pitying looks.

“Was it something with…” You trailed off, honestly not even remembering the girl’s name. He’d gone on so many dates recently that you found it hard to keep track.

“Margaret! Or- Maggie.” He exclaimed, the smile on his face when he said her name making your stomach churn. “Yeah, I actually spent the night.”

You knew what he meant by that. It’s not like he was being subtle about it, waggling his eyebrows with a sly grin on his face. Turning away, you tried to busy yourself so he didn’t see the frown growing on your face.

Steve, oblivious, kept talking. He continued mindlessly about Maggie and their date and how wonderful she was and how well she listened and how he’s considering asking her out again.

“I was thinking dinner and a movie this Friday, what do you think?”

“She’d love that, I’m sure.” You muttered, already trying to tune him out. You turned your focus to the movies you were stocking, losing yourself in your thoughts while you easily set the new releases on the shelf on the display at the front of the store.

It didn’t take long before you noticed how quiet the store was. Looking up, you noticed Steve must’ve gone to a different part of the store, already distracted by something else he had to do. Brushing it off, you went back to work. Plus, it’s not like you were jealous of Maggie. Definitely not.

You couldn’t help the sigh escaping your lips, pushing your feelings down like you were so used to doing. You and Steve were such good friends now that there was no way you were gonna confess your annoying feelings for him just to ruin everything you two had built over the years.

The rest of your shift was… difficult… to say the least. You knew Steve could sense something was wrong, but you managed to sneak out of the conversation every time he was about to bring it up. That lasted for hours until you quickly clocked out and waved goodbye to him, taking a slight detour on the way home.

 Pulling up to an all too familiar house, you climbed out of your car and made your way up to knock at the front door. There was an audible shuffling throughout the house before the door swung open, revealing another dear coworker of yours.

“Hey!” Robin smiled, opening the door wider to let you in.

You followed her into her room, collapsing onto her bed once she shut the door.

“Jeez, what happened to you?” She asked, taking a seat next to you.

“Steve.” You groaned, sighing heavily.

“Oh god, is it that date he had with that girl?”

“Maggie.” The name tasted sour on your tongue, and Robin stifled a laugh, laying down next to you.

“You know he doesn’t actually like her, right?” She asked, laughing lightly when she saw the confusion on your face. “He doesn’t like any of these girls, that’s why he never takes them on a second date.”

“That’s the thing, Robin!” You shot up, suddenly upright in her bed. “He said he’s thinking of asking her out again! Dinner, movie, this Friday!”

Robin was quiet for a moment, clearly not anticipating that.

“Yeah.” You said, giving her a disappointed look.

“Listen, I haven’t been friends with Steve for as long as you have, but I do have eyes.” Slowly, she sat up as well. “Whenever you’re not looking at him, Steve stares at you like… like you’re the greatest thing in the universe. Honestly, I’m surprised you haven’t caught him, he’s practically drooling over you every time you’re in the room.”

You shook your head, rolling your eyes at Robin. “I think you need glasses, Rob.”

“I think you do!” She laughed, shoving you gently.

“Whatever.” You muttered, glancing down at your hands that sat in your lap. “I should head home, anyway. Gotta prepare for my shift tomorrow.”

Robin nodded. “Same here. I’ll see you at work!”

You got up, Robin following you as you walked to your car. She hung back at the front door, calling out to you as she started to close it.

“Think about what I said!”

 And you did.

The whole drive home you couldn’t help getting your hopes up, thinking that maybe there is a chance that Steve Harrington actually liked you.

Your mind wandered to everything he said, always giving you his full attention like you were saying the most important thing in the world

But that’s just how he was. It’s not like that’s exclusive to you.

Still, though, there was a small but ever-growing spark of hope deep within you that Robin started, festering until you parked your car in your driveway and trudged into your house, making your way to your own bedroom.

Despite your frustrations, you kept replaying every memory you could hold onto of Steve. You began overthinking everything – every little touch, everything he’d said to you, the way he said it, the way he looked at you, when you would catch him staring…

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

You groaned, slapping a hand over your eyes.

You’re delusional if you think he’d ever actually like you.

The doubt within you was still stronger than your hopes, bringing you back to the reality of having a crush on someone who was only friends with you because you killed monsters together.

You finally decided to go to sleep, tired from a long shift and a day of overthinking, unrequited pining, and false hopes.

 The next morning came far too soon, and now the light shining through your window was keeping you from falling back asleep. You stumbled out of bed, getting ready as fast as you could before throwing a Family Video vest over your shirt and driving off to work.

When you arrive, you see Robin first. She perks up when she sees you, waving as you enter. You wave back, the grin on your face only faltering when you notice Steve standing towards the back of the store, chatting up some girl.

“Shit.”

“Yeah.” Robin gave you a tightlipped smile as you stood next to her, looking away to avoid the pitying look in her eyes.

“It’s fine. It’s fine. It’s not like I’m in love with him.” You can tell by the way she looks at you that she doesn’t believe a word you’re saying, and at this point, you’re not sure you do either.

Steve hears your voice, thankfully not actually hearing the words you were saying, easily slipping out of the conversation with the girl he’d been talking to so he could make his way behind the counter next to you.

“Hey, you’re on time!” He smiled, folding his arms as he approached you.

“Yeah, I can actually manage that.” You quipped, mimicking his pose.

“Okay, okay, like you’ve never made one mistake.” He rolled his eyes. Robin took a step back, slowly making her way out of the room while the two of you talked.

“Nope. Never made a single mistake. Not once.” Steve’s eyes widened, faux shock in his eyes.

“Oh, really? You sure about that?”

You didn’t have the chance to respond before a loud throat clearing made the two of you jump back, seeing the girl from moments ago standing in front of the register, frustration evident on her face. She was giving you the dirtiest look she could muster, but Steve waved it off, quickly ringing her up before he turned back to you.

“Anyways, did you hear the kids are planning a dnd campaign?”

The girl scoffed, grabbing her movie and leaving the store. Steve didn’t look back at her, and you had to bite your cheek to hold back the grin on your face.

“…Y/N?” Steve waved a hand in front of your face, getting your attention.

“Oh, yeah, sorry.” You forced yourself out of your thoughts, looking to Steve. “What’s up?”

“…You’ve been weird lately, you okay? Any demogorgons in your head?” Lightly, he knocked on your head, making you laugh.

“Yeah, no, yeah, I’m fine.” Just grappling with my feelings for you.

“You sure?” The concern in his voice made you weak, and you take a breath to hold everything back. Every confession on your tongue, everything you took the time to notice when no one else would. How he always checks the darkest corners of a room when he walks in, and how he never fully lets himself relax. How he still keeps that stupid bat in his car because he’s terrified that if he doesn’t have it and something happens he won't be able to protect anyone. How he hates driving at night because he’s worried something’s gonna leap out of the shadows. How he checks in on everyone else because no one ever thinks to check in on him.

“Y/N?” You look up, seeing Steve still standing there, giving you a concerned look.

“Yeah,” Then, more convincingly, “Yeah, I’m sure.” You give him a warm smile that he returns, trying to ignore the worry in his eyes.

The way Steve looked at you made your head spin, and for a moment you let yourself pretend that he could actually think of you that way. That he could care for you. That he could love you.

You turn away, trying to busy yourself despite how dead the store was. It was the middle of the day on a Thursday, so everyone and their mothers were spending their time anywhere but there. You felt like you were underwater, stuck in your own brain analyzing every little thing Steve did.

The way he stood so close to you, the affection he gave you, the way he looks at you like you’re the only person that matters, always making sure you’re okay…

Yeah, I’m fine. It’s not like I’m in love with you.

“What was that?” You froze, risking a glance at Steve. He stood there, looking just as surprised as you felt, and you knew you were in deep shit.

All those days hiding your feelings and biting your tongue finally came to a head.

“I-” You tried to speak, but you couldn’t do anything more than stand there like a deer in headlights.

“What did you say?” Steve took a tentative step closer, and you felt like the world was closing in on you.

“I mean, c’mon,” You scoffed, looking anywhere but him. “It’s not like you didn’t know. Everyone knew.”

“No, I think I would definitely remember knowing that you were, what was it, in love with me?” You couldn’t tell if he was mocking you or not, and you felt your mouth dry up, staring harshly at the ground.

“Steve.” You warned, voice weaker than you wanted it to be.

His eyes widened when he realized you were shutting down, frantic to make sure you wouldn’t get the wrong idea.

“Y/N, if you told me sooner you were in love with me then I wouldn’t have had to go on all those stupid dates!” He rushed, putting his hands on either side of your shoulders.

You made eye contact with him, brain short-circuiting as you tried to process what he was saying.

“Hey,” His voice gently brought you back into the present moment, giving you a small smile. “Do you remember a couple of years back, at Jonathan’s place, when we were all waiting for those demodogs to show up? And everyone was exhausted and terrified and trying to prepare for a war against these stupid… things from another dimension?”

“Yeah. I remember.” You said quietly.

“Well, I was trying to get ready, and I looked over at you, and you were talking to Max. She was trying to pretend she was okay but you said you saw that she was terrified out of her mind, so you sat with her for a minute calming her down. You made sure she knew that you wouldn’t let anything happen to her, that you would make absolutely sure that none of the kids were getting hurt.” You remembered it like it was yesterday. Max was shaking, but she was trying so hard to stand strong, so you pulled her aside and tried to reassure her. You didn’t even know Steve noticed when that happened.

“Then,” Steve continued. “When we were all waiting for the monsters to come to kill us all, you stood at the front of the group, more than ready to protect everyone with your life. It was… I mean, I was terrified for you. I thought that I was going to lose you, and I would never have the chance to tell you I was in love with you.”

You felt your heart swell. “…What?”

“You know,” Steve laughed, “I’m surprised you didn’t see right through me. Robin immediately did; she gave me hell every time I told her I had a new date. I figured you just didn’t like me back.”

“Are you kidding, how could I not?” The look on Steve’s face made you slap a hand over your mouth, not wanting to spill anything else you’d been holding back.

“So… What do you say we get dinner tonight? My treat.” He offered, grinning from ear to ear.

“I’d love that, Steve.”

[gloxk]

“Mary Jane.”

Gojo satoru ~

Summary: Your best friend was a snake. She slept with your boyfriend at a party. Everything shattered when you saw them. Your heart broke, leaving you with hatered and resentment. But two can play that game. Didn't she know? Karma’s a bitch.

W/C : 2k+. READING TIME: 10 minutes.

Setting: Modern Au, Reader is in their 20’s.

Song inspo:The best I ever had (Limi)/ Birthday S*X (Jeremih)/Drunk in love (The weekends version)/What you need(the weekend.)

A/N: Happy kinktober. It’s been a minute. (I've returned just for this years kinktober) idk i’ve just been busy fr. I haven’t been writing at all 😭. But I was on tik tok right, and i saw this lil video abt a story. So yall know those reddit stories? Bro this story was fucking outrageous, i tell ya. So boom bro got cheated on by his gf and she slept w his best friend. I was like damnnnnn 💀 ain’t no way. So bro turned around n fcked his ex best friends sister. The crazy thing is HE RECORDED IT. AND HE SENT IT TO BRO. I got carried away w this one. (I was high asf.) But anyway please enjoy! My grammar might be fucked up i didn’t feel like prof reading. Mdni/ageless blogs you will be blocked. 17+.

Warnings: F/M relations,Jealousy, angst if you squint, friend dumping, lewd behavior, DRUGS & alcohol. (mary J) mentions of Ex, BJ’s, Male receiving, unprotected sex (I got a little nasty w this one)

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You sat there disappointed in your dry phone. It was like looking at a blank screen. The night was cold, dark, and quiet. Everything was different now that you cut off your toxic-ass best friend. Deleting all the pictures and videos of you two. All the happiness and laughter y’all had shared just for it to be ruined in a few hours. The incident only happened a few days ago.

You decide to scroll through your alt account’s Instagram feed hoping to see something interesting. Something interesting indeed popped up. A little green circle around your ex-best friend’s profile picture. “Curiosity killed the cat ya’know?”, It surely killed you as soon as you clicked it. She was with your Ex. Your face scrunched in disbelief. You couldn’t help but muster up a pitiful laugh. What was going through her goddamn mind? Did she know the alt belong to you? Was the random pinterest boy profile picture not convincing enough? You nearly tossed your phone to the ground you felt tears bubbling up in your eyes. You remember the whole thing like it was yesterday. The horrible things you said to each other. But one thing she said in particular stuck in your head. “You aren’t even together anymore! Why the fuck do you care Y/n?”, Those were the last words she said to you, the last words you needed to hear to leave her alone. It hurt you so much, the girl you known from middle school betrayed you.

It was late maybe around 11 pm. Your mind was filled with anger. You couldn’t stop thinking about it. You told her everything and she did the same. You two grew up together. When you introduced your boyfriend and best friend they hit it off. They were so cool with each other that it seemed like a dream come true. Having your best friend actually like your boyfriend was extremely rare to come by. Your dream came short-lived after you found them fucking in a bathroom at a party. It hurt so fucking bad. You clenched your shirt trying not to cry. That night broke you, you lost everything in 4 hours. All it took was a couple of shots and one blunt to have your whole world crash. In a fit of rage, you decided to go through her entire Instagram feed. Scrolling through every single post. In a recent post from earlier today, you saw a dump of her stepbrother. All of the pictures were silly, cute pictures of him. You couldn’t lie, he was fine as fuck. You saw her stepbrother a couple of times when y'all were younger, but god did puberty hit him good. He was tall and muscular with a sharp jawline. He has white hair and beautiful ocean-colored eyes. He had a couple of arm tattoos as well. You sat there trying to remember his name. You looked over the caption trying to find something leading to him, the caption read: “HAPPY 19th BIRTHDAY @satoruxgxjo! I hope 19 treats you good lil, bro :).” That was his name! You finally remembered him. Satoru gojo, it was definitely moan-able. You DM’D him almost immediately.

(Y/n): “Hey! I saw your birthday was earlier and I wanted to wish you a happy 19th birthday!” You didn’t know what you expected him to say back to that. You didn’t know if you wanted him to immediately block you or text you back. Maybe if he blocked you would be able to move on and heal. But all you wanted was revenge. After two minutes you got a notification from Instagram. (satoruxgxjo): “Yo, I appreciate it. it’s been a minute. How have you been?” A smug smile arose on your face. You instantly texted him back. (Y/n): “I’ve been amazing. Recently I had just got some za from a friend and since it’s your birthday maybe we can roll up?” You watch as your text goes from Sent to Seen. Your heart immediately went faster.(satoruxgxjo): “Lmao? That was quick but sure. I don’t mind. Addy?” Your face was sinister. If he could see your face right here probably think twice about his current decision. You sent him your location, (Y/n): “I mean it’s not like we don’t know each other Saturo, just pull up :) We can catch up!”, You were so happy that this was gonna work out perfectly. (satoruxgxjo): “Who is Saturo? It’s Satoru* n I’m otw.” That happiness quickly faded into embarrassment. How could you forget his name already? You repeated it 10x to remember it, while repeating his name you quickly got up and rushed upstairs.

You dressed yourself in a loose shirt that hung off your shoulders, your chest was the only thing holding it up. Underneath you made sure to treat your guests to an easy reveal no bra and pink Victoria's Secret lace panties. Your hair was messy letting little strands of hair frame your face. You rushed downstairs to set everything up, you grabbed an open bottle of Hennessy and accompanied it with a jar of bud including a pack of Raw’s. Everything was set for the most part. You dimmed the lights and played some sensual music. You turned your TV on to some random Netflix show to make it seem casual. You soon turned your attention to the door as the doorbell rang. A wicked smile placed on your face, your hips swaying to the music. You opened the door and smiled at your victim—I mean visitor. “Heyy~.” Your voice filled with a welcoming tone. Luring him in like a fisherman. “Hey, Y/n.” He had a basic white shirt on, and his muscular body filled it out nicely. His lower half was hidden behind grey sweatpants, He had on white cross that were no longer white. His tall frame continued to tower over you. He sounded so nonchalant, but his blue eyes told a different story. He couldn’t stop looking at your bare shoulders. “Come in hun.” You moved out of his way and motioned him to the couch. The table caught his attention immediately. You made your way to the kitchen swaying to the beat of the music. “Henny? Whatcha got this for?” He picked up the bottle with an eager smile. “Why else Satoru?” You winked at him. Watching him open the bottle and pour himself a shot. “Well, Hopefully, it’s not for little ole me. God, you wouldn’t make such a silly mistake and give an underage boy Hennessy? Right?” He asked mocking you. A smug expression on his face. You couldn’t wait to wipe it off. “Oh of course not! I would never do such a disgraceful thing. But..I won’t tell if you won’t.” He threw his head back and he gulped down the shot of liquor. The burning sensation only made him crave it more. “You know I don’t kiss and tell.” He chuckled as he watched you sit down on the couch. He soon followed you and plopped down beside you. “You ever rolled before?” You looked at him as you picked up the grinder. “Nah, I’m more of a pipe or hookah person. Ya’know?” You giggled at him. He was falling into your trap without even knowing. “Lemme show you how to roll then.”. You took him through the basic steps. Letting your hands guide his. After a few attempts, he was able to get a good enough roll for a beginner. “And now ya gotta lick it.” You bent over his lap using his muscular arm to hold yourself up. You dragged your tongue over the paper making sure to seal it. You took the joint from him and began to light it. His eyes watched you dangerously. After a couple of pulls, you handed it back over to him. He pulled a heavy hit making him cough. You poured another shot for the both of you. Handing him a glass of liquor. “Oh? Is that for me? How kind.” Your hand sat between his thighs. “Of course.” He took the glass and knocked it back, and you followed his lead.

You weren’t slightly drunk nor were you high. But you couldn’t say the same for Satoru. He almost finished your bottle of Hennessy. His head was between your neck and shoulder. He was mumbling incoherent nonsense, you didn’t particularly care what he was babbling about. He was lying between your legs using your chest to keep him propped up. His hands rubbing your thigh, “Mm..please.” He mumbled desperately. “I told you not to drink too much Gojo. Now look at you.” You laughed as you rubbed his head. “.. I know. m’ sorry. Please y/n. Please.” You were confused you didn’t know what he was asking for to be quite frank. “You should get an Uber to take you home.” You nudged him to get off of you. He didn’t budge at all. His eyes looked up at you pleading with you. “I don’t wanna go. I wanna stay with you. lemme stay.” He was so whiny while he was drunk it was pissing you off. “Okay, you can stay.” He hummed softly in response. “upstairs?” You whispered in his ear, he nodded his head. You moved off the couch pulling him off with you. You walked him up the stairs to your bedroom. He was stumbling up the stairs you had to hold him up. Making it to your room in one piece was the hardest part. Opening the door his hands never left your body, If anything they became more needy. His fingers roamed around your back as he began to tug at your shirt.

You grabbed his hands telling him to stop. “I don’t know...if we should do this...I’m sure your sister wouldn’t like this.” You smiled as you pushed him on the bed. Of course, she wouldn’t like her brother sleeping with her ex-best friend. But that made it more exhilarating. Satoru groaned at your words. Bringing up what you and his sister had going on at a time like this was a low blow. “Don’t fuck with me Y/n. You’ve been touching me all night. Saying little shit to me. I’m ready now, and you’re gonna act like this?” You heard the frustration in his voice, looking down at his gray sweats pants you saw what else was frustrated. You laughed at him. “Oh look who’s mad at me. I’m just trying to respect you and your sister's relationship.” Your hands go under his shirt and rub his abs. He laughed as his arm covered his face. “Ah, so I understand why she called you a conniving bitch now.” Your smug face was quickly wiped with confusion. “Oh…Yeah? She gonna think I’m more than conniving after this.” You grabbed him by his hair pulling him closer. Your lips clashed against his, you could taste the intoxication on his tongue. The kiss became sloppy fairly quickly. His hands continued to roam over your back. He followed your lead not allowing your mouth to leave his. He yanked at your shirt, he wanted to pull it off of you. Sitting on his lap, you took off your shirt and tossed it to the side. His hands went up to cup your breasts. His fingers ran over your hardened nipples, his expression was darkened with lust. “So fckin pretty.” He sat up leaving kisses on your neck and chest. You assisted him in taking off his shirt and tossed it over to yours. Leaving kisses on his neck and slowly moving downward to his chest. Taking your precious time with him. He was so impatient, whining if you didn’t kiss him. You used your finger to trace his v-line teasing him enough to push him. You got up and slowly removed his sweatpants leaving him in his tight boxers. Licking your lips at the sight, it was a delectable sight indeed. Tracing the bulging print through his Ethikas. “Oh my god…” You stuttered in disbelief, this man was packing. Satoru felt you tugging his boxers, he lifted his hips and allowed you to yank them off of him. The cold air hit him drawing out a long sigh. Those blue eyes watching you with a dangerous glint, those eyes screaming out for you. “don’t play with me Y/n.” He whispered, almost as if he was begging you to make him feel something. You seated yourself between his thighs, looking at him with awe. Your hands running up and down his hardened dick. You gave him kitten licks on his tip, licking away any pre-cum. He growled at the teasing, “C'mon.” his hand caressingyour cheeks. You smiled as you quickly put your mouth around the tip and bobbed your head up and down.

His tip hits the back of your throat every time. Satoru’s hand pushed your head down so he could feel you deep-throat him, “Fuuucckk, just like that.” You pulled your head back with an angry expression. “Nobody likes a head pusher.”, You glared at him. “Nobody likes a fucking teaser.” He mumbled. You laughed at his audacity as if he was the one in control. You slipped off your underwear and climbed on top of him. Letting him slide in slowly, inch by inch. You threw your head backward, rolling your neck. Low moans escaped your mouth as you felt his hips grinning against yours. “Go faster.” His tone completely shifted from whiny and desperate to frustration. He wanted more, He needed more. It wasn’t enough for him. You looked so pretty going up and down on him. His eyes watched your body lift itself off of him and right back down. Your nails dug holes in his chest, “That fuckin’ hurts Y/n.” He gave you a sadistic smile as he dug his nails into your hips. You shrieked in pain. You could quite literally feel his nails penetrate your skin. That didn’t stop you though, you couldn’t care less about anything other than cumming. Your mind became foggy and filled with a certain haze. “Mm. Keep going. Dnt stop.”, Those words left Satoru’s mouth, his thrusts were sloppy and no longer had rhythm. His fingers found their way to your clit and played with you to make sure you came before him. Your moans filled the room as you were so close. You stopped as you finally reached the bliss you been begging for, panting heavily trying to regain the breath you once had. The feeling of warm liquid filling you was a slap in the face. You soon realized you didn’t use protection. You looked down at Satoru whose eyes were closed with a smile of his face. “Oops, m’sorry i’ll get you a Plan B in the morning.” His hand gripped your ass while you sat there in disbelief. How could you fuck up this bad? You smiled as you seen him cover his face once again, “Don’t worry about it. I have some in the bathroom.”. You got off of him and made your way to the bathroom.

When you came back you saw sleeping Satoru, under your sheets wrapped around your blanket. It was a cute sight to see him so vulnerable, you were about to fuck up his life. You crawled into bed next to him, cuddling him. He turned around and placed his head between your breast, his arm wrapped around your lower back pulling you close. You took out your phone and took a couple of pictures. This bitch was gonna know “Fuck my man, I fuck your brother.”. You unblocked her number to send her a little treat. “When Satoru comes home tomorrow tell him I had a wonderful time. (3 attachments sent).”.

You turned off your phone and cuddled the sleeping boy, kissing his forehead and cheeks. “Mm, she's gonna fuck you up when you get home.” You whispered in his ear. His phone was soon blowing up, From his mom and sister. “I don't care, you don't know how long I've been waiting to fuck you.” He muttered under his breath. You laughed, He wasn’t going anywhere. Not just yet.

[urdepressedslut]

May I request a shapeshifter!reader x platonic!avengers/Bucky where the reader was experimented on by Hydra and received her powers there? The Avengers try to recruit and help reader but she’s freaked out from all that’s happened and Bucky helps her overcome the fear and stress and learn to use her powers? Lots of angst but also lots of fluff if possible? (I also want to add your username is amazing lol /gen /lh )

oooooh I've never written a shapeshifter!reader, but I'm very interested with the whole idea. hope you like what I've come up with🥰

Tragedy

♡ Pairing: Platonic!Avengers!Bucky Barnes x Shapeshifter!Fem!Reader

♡ Summary: A new shapeshifter recruit has a hard time adjusting to the team, she feels out of place. Bucky knows what it's like to be the outsider and fight to have control, so he comforts her.

♡ Warnings: angst, fluff, talk of hydra experimentation, mentions of past torture, mentions of Bucky's trauma, anxiety, depression, tony being tony

main masterlist ✧ inbox open

The Avengers compound had been chaotic for the past week, tons of missions, plenty of people getting burnt out— overall it was busy. The compound had gathered some new recruits, adding some much needed people to their team. It would take awhile before they were respected like all of the original Avengers— but they’d get there in time.

A pair of invisible twins had joined the team, taking time with Wanda to master their ability, practice being stealthy. They also had the ability to read minds, which is why Wanda wanted to work with them.

A boy at the age of 19 had just been recruited, his ability being super strength. He was strong, fast and overall almost as in shape as some certain super soldiers. Steve had taken a liking to the boy immediately, noticing he wasn’t just enhanced— but he had a good heart as well, sweet as pie. Steve didn’t hesitate to take him under his wing.

Lastly, there was you. You were the most recent recruit— having just been released from the asylum. Yeah… asylum. Unlike the other new recruits, you had a battered past and a scarred brain. You didn’t have an easy journey to become apart of the team. Truthfully, you didn’t want to be an avenger— you were just trying to survive.

You had been rescued almost a year ago from a hidden HYDRA facility. Almost thousands of bodies littered the building, the scattered evidence that HYDRA had been secretly experimenting on innocent people. The team had scopes out the entire building with heavy hearts, not finding any sign of life— until they had found you. He had found you.

James Buchanan Barnes.

Hidden underneath the facility through a tiny window, you were being held, chains keeping you locked int the confined space. The team remembered that image perfectly, the way they shuttered in horror that you had had to live like this for god knows how long. It was an unsettling day, but a victorious one at least. They had saved you and brought you to medical center immediately. After tests had been done, scans had been run— you were moved to an asylum.

To say you were difficult would be an understatement. But it was just that, you weren’t difficult— you were traumatized. You didn’t feel in control of your body, your mind— your abilities. You were spiraling, the newfound freedom unfamiliar— uncomfortable. You were kept in a white room for a couple months, until you showed signs of progress. You’d speak when you had to. You’d eat if you were told to. You functioned more normally as the days passed, as the therapy sessions came and went.

Truthfully, it was all bullshit. No one recovers from that kind of life. The life of imprisonment and torture.

How could you?

You recovered enough to be allowed out of the white room, walking the halls of the asylum. You knew you didn’t belong here, you weren’t what they labeled you as… crazy. You were struggling to adapt to your new life— that’s all.

Soon enough, your therapist thought you were stable enough to move on to bigger things— like joining the Avengers. She had briefly told you that she talked with a Mr. Fury, and that you had been invited to be an avenger. You wanted to laugh at the offer, how does one even get an offer like that? Although your declines were ignored and you found out quickly that if you didn’t obey and join the avengers, you’d be locked up again at the asylum.

It was either you adapt and do good— be good. Or you were back to staring at the white walls. You chose to not put up much of a fight and let them guide you to the compound. In the back of your mind you wondered if you would always be kept somewhere against your will. The Avengers were good compared to HYDRA, but ultimately— they were holding you hostage just as HYDRA was.

Guess you should be used to it by now.

The introduction was embarrassing, everyone staring at you like you were fresh meat— yeah you were, but the stares had you feeling incredibly self conscious. Everyone seemed nice, offering to help in any way that they could to help you adjust easier. You thanked them quietly and kept to yourself, the team didn’t hear much from you ever.

Unlike the other new recruits, no Avenger spoke out to take you under their wing. Nobody wanted you around.

It was a particular rough training day that had things falling apart.

You had wandered into the training room on your own, sitting crisscrossed by the large mirror. You were trying to meditate, since your little scare this morning. You were a shapeshifter, and could transform into any being, take on their appearance— but not without difficulty. You could only transform if you had touched something. It was unlike any stories that were ever told about your kind— shifting was painful. Back at HYDRA, you were chained down to a table while guards would bring in different kinds of creatures, different suffering innocent people. They beat you into shifting, torture you until you took a different form.

When you woke this morning, your heart was beating scarily quick. Your limbs were cold, your fingertips and toes numb— you had identified it quickly as a panic attack. You dreamt of your days back in HYDRA— the days you were tortured for hours on end, days on end. You found yourself wanting to shift into a muscular guard you had seen in your dream— appear stronger and bigger. You felt you needed to be on alert, protect yourself from the dangers of your dream. The feeling quickly flowed throughout your body, the familiar pain of shifting coming on fast— so you tried everything you could to calm down. That’s where you found yourself sitting in front of the mirror, attempting to meditate.

Bucky wandered into the room, getting ready for his own workout when he noticed your small form on the floor. He watched through the reflection as you had your eyes shut, your chest rising and falling with deep breaths. He was no expert, but he had an idea of what you were trying to do— possibly what had happened. His heart clenched at the sight, feeling terrible that someone else had to go through such things.

Sure, he had read your file— but that was no way to get to know someone. He was waiting for a good chance to introduce himself, maybe show you around. He found that rather difficult, you were very good at staying hidden— sneaking out of a room without notice. He admired your stealthiness, but he didn’t want you to feel like you had to be around the compound.

“Hey.” He started, feeling bad when he saw you jump slightly at his greeting.

You met his blues through the mirror and turned quickly to face him, standing up along the way.

“Hi.” You greeted quietly.

He smiled at your gentle voice, deciding to stop at a good length away— not wanting to make you uncomfortable.

“Haven’t really gotten a chance to introduce myself since you got here. I’m Bucky.” He held his flesh hand out.

You eyeballed his hand, knowing that you would gain the ability to take his form if you touched him. You took a deep breath, enjoying the cool air traveling down your throat to your lungs— before you raised your hand.

“Nice to meet you Bucky, I’m (Y/n).” You said quickly, pulling your hand back to your side— ignoring the tingling sensation that his touch had left.

It wasn’t the unpleasant feeling of shifting either— it was just a pleasant buzz.

“(Y/n), what do you say after I’m done in here— I’ll show you around the compound. Introduce you to everybody.” He offered and immediately regretted his words at the expression of horror on your face.

You gulped, the thought of meeting so many faces all in one day— it was extremely overwhelming and anxiety inducing. You didn’t want to mess up your first impression, you wanted to have gotten a good nights rest before you met everyone. You probably looked a mess, your hair— your clothes—

“(Y/n)?”

Bucky’s voice snapped you back to the moment and you shook your head, scratching the back of your neck in embarrassment. Being caught in a little moment there.

“Uh… I’d rather meet everyone another time… if that’s okay.” You whispered out, nervous that he’d get mad at your refusal.

He noticed how nervous you were to tell him no, on one hand he was proud that you had spoke up— knowing you came from HYDRA. Another part of him was saddened at your hesitation— no doubt you were waiting for a beating or some kind of torture.

“Of course, we can go at your pace.” He told you in a soft voice, hoping to keep the conversation smooth and calm.

You weren’t prepared for the kindness and you felt thrown off at his response. It took you a second to gather your thoughts before you could talk again.

“Thank you.” You whispered so quietly that you were sure he didn’t hear you.

Bucky had though, and even if he didn’t respond— he felt his heart hurt at your scared quiet voice. He hated HYDRA— so fucking much.

The conversation ended soon after, giving you time to excuse yourself to your room while Bucky started his workout— all his thoughts of you of course.

You hadn’t given him a full answer in his offer. He knew you didn’t want to meet everyone yet— which was fine. But he still wanted to show you around— if you wanted to.

After he showered and cleaned himself up, it was the late afternoon. He headed up to your room to retrieve you.

He knocked three times before waiting patiently. He could hear the faint thuds of you inside, and by the sounds of it— you hadn’t been expecting a visitor.

The door swung open and your eyes widened at Bucky standing there. For a second you wondered if someone was setting him up to do this… talk to you.

“Hey. Was wondering if you were still up for the tour?” He asked hesitantly, waiting for you to decline.

You thought for a moment, taking in the way he looked clean, his hair seemed freshly washed and shiny. Your eyes wandered to his outfit, jeans and a navy blue henley that complimented his eyes. You smiled little at how put together he looked.

“Just you and I?” You wondered, swaying on your feet.

He nodded and shoved his hands into his pockets.

“Just us. Whatta ya say?”

You wondered how much it would hurt to find out he was indeed being forced to hang with you. It would sting— but would it really be anything new? You repeled people and that’s the way you liked it. No one had the chance of hurting you if you didn’t let anyone in.

You gave in regardless, taking a chance. Knowing that this was going to hurt.

“Okay. Lemme get a sweater.” You told him, sneaking back inside you room— grabbing a gray knitted sweater.

Pulling it over your tank, you exited your room and closed your door with a click. Turning towards him, you were met with happy crinkly eyes, his warm smile beaming into you. It was hard not to smile back, but you managed somehow.

“Where to?” You asked.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry. First stop— the kitchen.” He announced dramatically.

You could tell he was trying a little too hard to make you comfortable. But it was an appreciated gesture— you just couldn’t stop thinking about how much this was going to hurt.

Every sweet gesture was just another rock being placed over your chest. Eventually your bones wouldn’t be able to hold the rocks— they’d crack them and crush your heart.

You said nothing as you followed behind him, wandering through the hallways until you both entered the kitchen— which was full of avengers. Your anxiety spiked immediately and you wanted to disappear from all the staring.

“Heyyyy! Look who it is! It’s the rookie— are you done hiding from us now?” Tony asked dramatically, fake being hurt.

His question was fair, but you couldn’t find yourself able to answer with all eyes on you. You could feel yourself start to sweat, your hands cold and becoming numb. Some may think you’re being dramatic, but you just weren’t mentally prepared to meet everyone.

“Tony don’t…” Bucky warned lowly, trying to keep his voice down as to not bring any more attention on you.

“Oh c’mon Barnes— you have to be a little curious as to where she’s been hiding this whole time. Let’s remember this is my property— I deserve to know who’s living in it.” He said as a matter of factly.

You swallowed and tried thinking of a response. Maybe you should apologize. You wondered.

“She still deserves privacy Stark.” Natasha voiced from the corner of the room.

Tony rolled his eyes, turning back towards you with a smirk.

“Sooo what’s up rookie? Where ya been?” He asked.

Despite many trying to defend you— they were also curious as to where you have been. They knew of your arrival and hadn’t seen you much since then, besides Bucky. But he was only just starting to talk with you today.

“I’ve been in my room mostly, trying to adjust.” You managed to make out, your throat was still tight with nerves.

Bucky looked to you with a pitied gaze. He felt bad that he had put you in this position.

“You should totally come to a famous Avengers movie night sometime kid.” Tony suggested, and a bunch of the surrounding Avengers nodded.

You relaxed just slightly, although Tony was pushy and loud— you could tell he had good intentions. You nodded your head and attempted a small smile.

“Yeah, that sounds great. I’ll definitely make it one night.” You told him, and he smiled in triumph.

“I’m not too hungry anymore— wanna get outta here?” Bucky spoke from beside you, and you felt relief at his words.

“Yes please.” You whispered to him, earning a smile from the soldier.

You two waved your goodbyes and headed out of the room, heading towards the living area. Bucky immediately spoke up once you two were away from the rest.

“(Y/n), I’m so sorry— I didn’t think they’d all be in there. Please know that I didn’t do that to you on purpose.” He apologized and you took him by surprise by grabbing his metal hand.

“It’s fine, I believe you.” You reassured him, “Besides, Tony is right. I need to stop hiding.”

Bucky softened his gaze and held your hand properly with his metal one, getting your attention on his blues.

“Hey, you don’t have to rush into anything. You go at your pace, okay?” He told you, his voice smooth and gentle. “I know what it’s like to switch to this lifestyle after living with…”

He trailed off, knowing your story from the file but he didn’t know if you knew that. Of course, you had assumed everyone knew your story— kind of sucked, but you didn’t have a choice in the matter.

“I know. Its much different here than Hydra.” You finished for him. “It will take time but I’ll get there. I already feel better now that I can talk to you.”

“I’m here if you ever need to talk— about anything. I’m not so sure how great I am with advice but… I’m a good listener.” He told you.

You smiled and gave his metal hand a tiny playful tug.

“Thank you Bucky.”

He nodded and gave your hand a playful tug back.

“Don’t need to thank me, just know I’m here for you.”

A/N: haven’t proofread this— ignore spelling mistakes🥰

[anpanbun]

Nearly Forgotten

(An AU of @liloinkoink's Lamplight AU..... inspired by that one tumblr post about ancient tattoos and forgotten gods)

It was after school and young Martyn was on a mission. He stood on his tip toes to reach up, and, with all the gentleness he could, shifted the right rabbit ear of the antenna the slightest bit further along. The staticky noise of the TV faded as his favorite channel sharpened into view. However, instead of his favorite after school cartoon, something that would forever change his life came onto the screen.

-----

Martyn wasn't an anthropologist, he was maybe the furthest thing from it. A prospective radio host finishing his broadcasting degree, but, when he was a child, one documentary forever sparked his interests beyond that. The documentary was about ancient humans and societies, which should have been torturously boring to a small child. Instead, he was drawn in by the whole program. In particular the story of a mummy found in the Alps with a unique tattoo.

The tattoo was on the mummy's chest, over his heart, eight lines in a starburst pattern and four squiggles in the middle. The program had claimed it was used for some sort of ritualistic purpose.

Little Martyn didn't think much of it at the time beyond the pattern being cool, but over the decade or so after he found that the design had stuck with him.

In school it was what he doodled in the corners of his homework. It was the pattern he looked for in noise. When he was bored it was the thing he looked up.

So it only made sense that in the fall, after his first internship in university gave him a little extra cash jingling in his pocket, Martyn found himself outside a tattoo parlor.

And now, a week later, he's staring at the starburst and squiggles first tattooed on the chest of a man thousands of years ago.

"This looks perfect. Thank you so much, man!" Martyn fist bumped the artist, a man, with some of the coolest hair and tattoos Martyn had ever seen, named BigB.

"Not a problem, just remember the care instructions I told you before we started and it should be healed up in no time."

-----

When B had said "no time" he hadn't been joking. It being fully healed in a couple of days felt almost too fast, but maybe that's just how it worked?

As he was examining the healed tattoo in the morning light of his bathroom, he got the sudden feeling that something was off. He couldn't put his finger on it, but if he'd looked closer it was almost like it was easier to see the tattoo in the mirror than it should have been with the bright morning light streaming in from the window behind him. Almost like the tattoo was faintly glowing.

-----

Martyn was very fortunate that the old apartment he rented had a gas stove. It had taken him a while to adjust to using it, but recently he had finally gotten the hang of it. Water boiled quick, nothing ever boiled over or burned, and he managed to cook everything to perfection.

-----

It was early winter when something noticeably changed. The first bad snow fall of the season was expected to roll in, so his friend Jimmy and Jimmy's roommate Tango, who rented an actual house with a woodburning fireplace, invited him to stay over.

"Thanks again for letting me crash here, Tim."

"It's no problem Martyn! What kind of friend would I be if I let my buddy freeze to death in his apartment!"

They were sitting in front of the fireplace enjoying the extra warmth. The power was still on thankfully, but the snow was really picking up outside.

Tango was in the middle of a story from his engineering class when, out of the corner of his eye, Martyn swore he saw a form flicker in the fire, a hand reaching out.

His head snapped to the fire, his voice sounded startled, especially when he saw it was still there, "Do you guys seen that?"

Tango and Jimmy followed his line of sight. The moment their eyes met the fireplace, the hand melded back into the rest of the flames.

"See what?" Tango asked.

"The flames, they looked- they looked like a hand," the moment he had started the sentence Martyn realized that what he saw would sound insane, "so.... I thought you guys might have seen the optical illusion too? But I guess you missed it?"

"Huh guess we did, that sucks! It must have looked cool!" Jimmy answered.

The conversation moved on after that, and eventually Tango and Jimmy retired to their rooms. The both of them wanted to take advantage of the power being on a little longer to sleep in their own beds while they could.

Martyn sat in front of the fireplace for a while longer on his own. His knees were curled up to his chest and his head rested on them. He was looking out the glass patio doors into the swirling snow.

It was in the quiet moment alone that it reappeared. Martyn noticed the firelight in the peripheries of his vision brighten significantly, so he turned his head. That's when he saw it again, the hand, made of fire but reaching out to him.

Maybe it was stupidity, maybe he was tired, maybe it was some of the million of other excuses he could make up. The truth was, though, that something came over him, he was enthralled by the flames. Looking at them made a warm feeling rise in his chest.

He reached his own hand out to meet the fire.

Jimmy's door opened with a creak, shockingly loud in the bated breath silence that had been there before. Martyn snapped his hand back.

"Oh good, you're still up, I think the power finally went out," Jimmy said as he flopped onto the sofa behind Martyn, "it started getting cold in my room."

Tango joined them not long after saying the same thing, and the three settled in to sleep.

Martyn kept a close eye on the fire until he finally fell asleep. The warmth of the fire outside and in his chest finally lulling him to sleep. His mind replaying over and over again the moments before Jimmy had opened his door.

Martyn's hand had met the fire's, his hand had met and it hadn't burned.

-----

After that realization Martyn did the thing any sane person would do. He went camping.

He waited a week or so, of course, for the snow to melt, but he went camping.

Because where else was he going to get a bonfire?

-----

Staring at the towering flames in front of him, Martyn only then took the moment to consider if this was actually a good idea, but only a moment. He needed to know.

A warmth in his chest had slowly risen up as he had built the fire, from excitement or nerves or anticipation he guessed. It didn't take long though. Within 30 minutes or so of the fire reaching its full height, the hand reappeared for the third time. This time Martyn didn't hesitate, the instant he saw the hand reach out of the wall of flame he lunged towards it.

Like they had that night, the flames of the hand licked at his skin as they met. He couldn't help but laugh because he had been right. The flames fully consumed his hand but he only felt a warm tickle. The warmth in his chest condensed into a warm ball right over his heart, right where his ancient tattoo rested.

He was too busy being amazed to react in time when the flames, seemingly no longer content with just brushing up against him, tightened around his hand and pulled. He floundered, suddenly the warm feeling he had felt like a burning brand over his heart. He tried to pull away, but the fire overpowered him and the last thing he saw was bright white light as the entirety of Martyn was pulled into the bonfire.

-----

The white light faded after a moment, Martyn blinked away the lingering spots. A bit delayed, but his body continued the reaction it had been doing before and he tried to take a step back.

He was stopped though and finally he looked forward to where the fire had been.

In front of him, in place of the fire, was a man. The man's hand was wrapped around Martyn's in the same way the flames had been, holding him still.

The man had a wide, wolfish smile, and wild brown hair. He had some sort of animal ears, wolf maybe, Martyn thought. What stood out most though, were his eyes. They were the blue of the hottest flames a fire can have. They were mesmerizing.

"Hello Martyn," the man said, "I am Ren! I am finally able to speak with you, my only acolyte. My savior."

[g0ldenzinnie]

Thief

Couple: Yuta x fem!reader Genre: Fluff, meeting, cursing. Like a little suggestive but in the end and really, It's like very little. Sinopse: Your boyfriend breaks up with you, and in the way you met a new person... but with the wrong foot. DISCLAIMER: I had this story saved for years, like I did this when I was in high school, so if it's not that good I'm sorry, but since Yuta's birthday was recently, I wanted to upload something. But don't worry, I have something prepared for this spooky season with the dreams *spoilers uwu* Word count: 2,65k

A good man, a gentleman, he would never disrespect you. That’s what your friend said when she introduced him. A long time ago, you believed it, of course. But now you were heartbroken, crying in the street because now ex-boyfriend dumped you for some other girl. You didn’t want to know about anyone. You wanted the earth to swallow you up, for humiliating yourself in front of everyone in that restaurant, waiting for… let’s call him mister X. So that later, Mr. X would break up with you over the phone. And to top it all off, you hear his new chick in the background saying, “Baby, would you like a second round?”. Are you kidding me? You thought. You were waiting for him, in your best dress in the most elegant restaurant in the city, while he was bonking some bitch in your apartment. “Shit!” You screamed, after the call ended, punching the table. Everyone looked at you like you were some kind of freak.

You couldn’t stand it anymore. You run out of the restaurant, starting to cry in the middle of the sidewalk, going to your friend's department that was close by. That was the moment when you heard a scream behind you, “Excuse me, Miss!” You thought it was some drunk guy, so you kept walking, ignoring his call. Besides, you weren’t in the mood to speak to anyone. He insisted. “Miss!”. Obviously now talking to you, but still you didn’t turn around. You knew it was rude, but who cared? You were angry and tired of everyone. So when the guy finally screamed “Hey you fucking thief!”, finally you turn around and face the waiter who attended you. His hair was long and red. It suited him well. His eyes, you remembered, were dark brown, and he was wearing a white blouse as a uniform. He was very handsome. He received you with a wide and beautiful smile, yet now it was in a single line with a pissed expression. “Excuse me?” You said, giving him an outraged face. He makes a grin, taking his tongue out in disbelief. “Don’t you think because you’re pretty, you're going to get away with this” You didn’t know how to react since he insulted you but also made you a compliment. You cross your arms and looked at him up and down approaching to you. Not going to let him intimidate you, especially in this shitty day. “I'm sorry to break it to you, but I didn't steal anything.” “Oh really?” He says, still agitated by anger. At this point, he was in front of you, separated by just a meter. You found yourself distracted because of his beauty. How was it possible that every feature of his face was perfectly calculated? It was like he was sculpted by the gods themselves. You took a step back and put your hands on your waist. “Yeah. Look, I’m not having a good day. So, can you please just find the right girl you are looking?” You say, turning around to walk away from this super cute, but freak man.

However, he grabs your wrist firmly. “And don’t you think I had a bad day too?” The fact is that he did. His boss was in a mood today, so he kept him doing double work, like washing the dishes and attending the people. His day was getting worse and worse, but then, he saw you. Showing up in that gorgeous dress, with your eyes as shiny as the stars, and that smile? He thought for a moment he was being punished when he found out you were waiting for your so-called boyfriend. Besides, he didn’t even dare to shown up. That jerk didn’t know what he was missing. So when he finally decided to make a move, he saw you doing what you did in the restaurant and his anger grew. He couldn’t believe what you did, but you didn't know it yet. So you asked, “What the hell is wrong with you? I told you I didn't steal anything.” You shoved his grip, now very angry. “Then what is this?” he said, showing you the receipt of your order. Two martinis and an expensive wine. First you ordered the wine for mister X, his favorite. Then a half hour came by and you ordered your first martini. After that, another half hour and another martini. Just when you were finishing your second, the douchebag decided to call. And we know what happened next. You forgot of everything when you received the call, as result you also forgot about your debt. The words that were supposed to come of your mouth, were trapped in your throat. “And well? You are not a thief according to you.” He said looking expecting to see a reaction. His boss yelled at him when you storm out of the restaurant. Indeed, what at least he deserved now was an action from you. And you definitely gave him one. Tears started to come from your eyes as you sobbed, uncontrolled. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” You say, cleaning your tear with your hand and covering your face. “I’m such an idiot. It’s just that this day couldn’t get any worse.” Your head leans back, seeing the dark sky. The embarrassment made you unable to see him. “First, my boyfriend breaks up with me over the phone. Then, I humiliated myself in that restaurant. And now I'm ruining it for their staff, and to you.” You said, finally looking at him. With his frown of confusion dedicated to you. You laugh of frustration, remembering something. “Besides, I left that ridiculous expensive bottle unopened. I didn’t even take a glass because I wanted to open it with him. Since it was his favorite, why did it have to be his favorite?!” The boy in front of you was silent. You drop your gaze, with your tears still coming from your eyes. Everything was quiet, you believed that he was thinking of the many ways to kill you because of your stupidity. But then, you hear him laugh. Actually, he was chuckling. You couldn’t believe what you were seeing. He was really creepy, but his laughter was cute. “What kind of person cares about an unopened bottle of wine?” His gaze was all but angry. He found you quite funny and cute. More than ever, after seeing your reaction. “I would be concerned about the charges that I would have to pay.” You look at him in panic, realizing about the consequences. “Shit, the restaurant is pressing chargers?” You say, covering your mouth with your hands in panic. Shaking, as the final punch of this terrible day comes by. You didn’t want to go to jail. The boy notice this and shakes his head, taking your hand into his. “Hey, easy.” He says watching you carefully. "They aren't going to press charges if we go down there now, and fix this whole issue." His voice was calm, with his eyes lock into yours. The gaze he dedicated to you was full of confidence and security. Suddenly, you felt that with him, you were secure. That he wasn’t lying. “Okay?” He asks you, making sure you understand what he's saying. You nod and he smiles. “Good, let’s go”

The boy takes your hand and starts to walk to the restaurant. You were nervous, your hands were sweating, but he didn’t seem to matter. Actually, he squeezes your hand to give you some comfort and decides to talk. “So, what's your name?” You look at him in surprise, realizing you didn't tell him your name, and also you didn't know his. “You know, to not call you thief every time I want to talk to you” You let out a laugh. “Ha, ha, very funny.” You say, smiling. But then you say your name, he smiles, nodding. Like, your name really fitted you. “What about you? You didn’t tell me your name in the restaurant.” You ask him curious. “I’m Yuta” He responds. When you finally reach the door, he stops you. “Wait, you have um…” He points to the lower part of his eyes. You realize he was referring to your smudged makeup. “Shit” You say, trying to wipe it with your fingers, however it was worse. Yuta quickly reach in his back pockets to take out a tissue and handed it to you. “Thanks.” You say shy, fixing your mess. He watched you carefully, trying to understand how a gorgeous woman, like you, was suffering for some bastard. “Can I be real with you for a sec?” You lean your head, confused. “Sure” You respond, nervous. “You shouldn’t be sad for an idiot like that.” You stop cleaning yourself, reflecting what he said. He notices your reaction and sighs. “I’m sorry, but I can’t stand at the idea of you… you're so beautiful and here you are. Crying because of a douchebag who pretends to be a man.” You let a nervous laugh, dropping your arms to the side of your body, tired. “Look, maybe I think about him like that in the morning.” You say, raising your shoulders, defeated. “But he just broke up with me, it’s a normal reaction to be sad.” You say, finishing cleaning your makeup. “I would never break up with you.” He says like a normal stuff to say. By his tone, you could easily say he meant it. But you couldn’t stop remembering, you just met him. Even if his words were sweet as honey, you’ve met five minutes ago. Two hours if you count the time you spend with him in the restaurant. You just smile at him and hand him his tissue. “Thanks for everything.” He looks at the tissue in your hand, and shakes his head. “Keep it. You need it more than I do.” You laugh and nod. “Yeah, I think I do.” He laughs with you and points with his head to the door. You nod and finally enter the restaurant.

His boss was so angry, but Yuta handle him very well. After all, you finally pay your bill and Yuta wraps the famous wine in a bag. He also called you a taxi since it was late. You said it was fine, but he insisted. Said that they were many creepy people out there. Now you were outside, since the taxi arrived. You turn around to face Yuta, who also insisted on being with you until you entered the taxi. “Thanks Yuta again, and again, sorry for everything.” He shakes his head and gives you that wide smile. “Don’t worry. Besides, you added more adrenaline to my day. Nothing happens over here.” You smile and stand up, nervous. You didn’t know how to say goodbye. For example, you didn’t want to just wave at him because he has done a lot for you in the last hour. But also you didn't want to risk anything by making a bold move. Apparently he read your reaction, since he started to lean forward, placing a hand in your arm to give you a kiss on the cheek. You could smell his cologne, and his lips felt soft against your skin. You felt goosebumps of his proximity, as warm in your chest. He separated from you, still with his hand on your arm. His gaze was sweet but also unsatisfied. If he just met you in another circumstances, that cab wouldn’t be for one person. And that wine would be opened in his apartment, where he could fully appreciate your beauty. But maybe next time. You didn’t know Yuta yet, but he was definitely a fighter. After that moment, you blush and murmur a quiet bye. You enter the taxi and these droves off. In the road, you realize, you don’t have his number. You lean your head back in frustration, now your day couldn’t get any worse. ���What the hell?” You say giving up on life, opening the bag where the wine was. You were going to get drunk eventually, so why don’t start now? When you took out the bottle, you see a sticky note attached to it. With a telephone number and a message, “If you need someone to share it. Send me a message when you get safe, Yuta.” You smile and safe the wine, for that special occasion.

[darklydeliciousdesires]

Light on the Darkside - An Original Story.

Well, guys, here it is! I've been planning this premise for a while, but very recently the pieces of it all fell together, the main characters virtually materialised by themselves, and here we have it. I won't lie, it will be quite dark for the first couple of chapters, and if you are easily triggered by depression, suicide or anorexia, I'd give it a miss, but I have injected a lot of love and heart into it, and some comic moments as well. It does start to lighten considerably by the third chapter.

I had to AI my main characters in their appearance, unfortunately, since I can't really find anyone in reality to face claim them to.

So, here we go. Please remember to be kind and give me a reblog on this, as original fiction is so very overlooked on this site, any help promoting it would be greatly appreciated. I would love to hear your thoughts, too!

Tag list - In the comments. Please DM to be added/removed.

Words - 4,137

Warnings - 18+ throughout. Topics cover depression, suicide and eating disorders. Minors DNI!

The fateful swing of a pendulum; some say it is as precarious as this, the thing that bridges the gap between life and death. Swing too far and the darkness engulfs you forever, eternal sleep settling over a body, whether willingly or not. Not enough, and it swings you back into the light, again, whether willingly or not.  

For James Kingston, on the 21st of March, 1997, it wasn’t willingly.  

The wings of death had opened to him, shrouded him in the alluring caress of her inky, feathered shadows, enveloped and lifted his consciousness away from it all. His body should have followed.  

It hadn’t.  

“James Nathaniel Kingston, twenty-three years old, found almost asphyxiated on the bathroom floor by the 999 caller twenty minutes ago. Both forearms slashed and approximately thirty co-codamol and twenty ibuprofen tablets imbibed with half a bottle of tequila.” 

Light. Dark. Noise. So much noise. Pressure lifted from his arms, applied once again when the wounds began to gush. More shouting. A light shined into his eyeballs in turn. A tube down his throat.  

“Just let me fucking go.”  

It had been quiet, where he’d temporarily found himself. Quiet and devoid of everything, exactly what he wished for, a slither of peace finally filling the void of emptiness that had opened within him to such an extent, nothing could fill it comfortably. And god, how he’d attempted to.  

In the end, the burden of existence had weighed upon him with an immovable, unfathomable pressure, his resolve breaking, toppling, his foundations crumbling like an ancient tower under the brutal duress of a wrecking ball. Slipping into it, he’d taken the large knife, just about coherent enough to open both arms and watch the river of red flow, witness his life draining out in a gush of crimson that glittered sticky over his dark clothes. 

Vomit, a surge of it exiting his mouth into a receptacle held by a man in hospital clothing, telling him not to fight it. Charcoal. God, that was foul. He’d been so close, happily floating his way into the eternal embrace of death. How dare they interfere with it. 

“James, come on. Lie back, buddy. Let the tube go.” 

Heaving again, he yanked it from his throat, his fist connecting with the doctor’s face, vomit and blood splashing all over. Hands pushed against him, held him down.  

“I need all available staff in here to hold him still!”  

Oh, no. “Get the fuck off me!” His booted foot lashed out, connected with someone, something, a yelp sounding, his bloodied forearm hitting a nurse in her throat. “Get off me or I’ll fucking break your neck!” 

Multiple hands fought against his thrashing, the tube plunged back into his throat. More charcoal. More vomit. “Okay, his stomach is clear. Sedate him so we can actually stitch his arms up.” 

It took six members of the A&E staff to hold him still, until the effects of the drugs injected into his system sent him back into a world of pure, beautiful black, his body stilling. He was finally under control, his blood type attained, three units of AB negative lined into his arm, the nurse who he’d kicked in the chest beginning to stitch him up.  

She showed him all the care he likely wouldn’t have thanked her for, remarking to herself that what she was witnessing was no simple cry for help. This young man, he’d wanted death, sought it avidly, the cuts she stitched so deep, she was surprised he’d survived going on those alone. Twenty-three and he was so weary with whatever he carried mentally, he’d only seen this, something so horrific, as a viable exit plan.  

In the waiting room, two of his friends were seated, the young men revealing a little background on him when she’d gone out to give them the relieving news that he’d survived. They were members of the same band, a band who by all accounts was just beginning to take off, James the lead guitarist of the outfit named Nocturnal Descent.  

She’d tentatively asked if they had any clue why he’d done it. The taller of the two, with full sleeves of tattoos and two bleached streaks in the front of his long, dark hair had shaken his head. “He’s a bit moody sometimes, bad tempered an’ all. Unless he’s been drinking then he’s larger than life, but nah. Nothing that’s made me think he’s about to do himself in. He cuts himself sometimes, likes the pain, he’s into the whole blood letting thing and whatever, but nah. No idea.” 

Witnessing the older scars that flecked his arms, she could believe that. 

“He’s been quiet for a bit,” the other man had confirmed, while he’d sat picking at one of his long, ginger dreadlocks. “Wasn’t nothing that made us wonder if he was alright or not. Just gets like that sometimes. Especially when he’s tired. Jim likes his sleep.”  

How close he’d come to finding that eternally, the nurse thought, finishing up her stitching. She then cut him out of his vomit stained, blood drenched clothes, giving him a little wash down so at least he was fresh and comfortable when he did finally come around.  

“God, fella,” she marvelled, “I’d bloody kill for your hair.” Poker straight, jet black and only a few inches from reaching his waist. He likely did little to keep it so beautiful, too, such was the injustice there when men possessed lovely hair, or amazing legs, and it not be anything they particularly put an effort into.  

“Well, that’s you all sorted. I certainly hope you’re more pleasant than you were before when you wake up again.” With that, she left him there in the room he’d been moved to in the side ward, likely to remain until he was assessed by doctors. Bodily, he’d need some time to heal and recover from the physical trauma of attempting suicide, but it’d be what was going on up in his head that would be subject to the deeper assessment.  

It was an hour before he finally began to come around a little, able to hear voices outside of the room he was in. He groaned faintly, his thoughts all plummeting down into the very depths of the dark once more. 

“Fuck. Still alive. Steve’s a prick.”  

Steve, he guessed, had likely been the one who’d found him and called an ambulance. It wouldn’t have been Snedders, who’d already been too stoned to move more than three feet when James had decided to lock himself in the bathroom and end it all.  

No, once Liam ‘Snedders’ Snedderley hit the weed, his speed decreased to that of a tranquilised sloth. Amazing really, for a man who could drum with such velocity, a whirlwind of ginger dreadlocks swirling as he did. This? It was definitely Steve. His best mate, who at that particular moment he loathed.  

“Just wanted to die, but no. Selfish bastard couldn’t even let me have that. Top grade twat.” 

Whether there’d be a time to come where he’d lighten such hostility, he didn’t know, attempting to lift his arm and scratch his nose but finding he couldn’t. Opening his eyes, the lights of the room obnoxiously bright, he grumbled, looking down to see his bandaged arms both fastened into wrist restraints.  

“Usually got a bird on my cock when I’m bound up.” His thoughts were accompanied by a little smirk that quickly faded, tuning his ears to the voices coming from outside of his room. “Ahh, fuck. The duchess is here.” He’d recognise the shrill tones of his mother even through a lead lined box. 

And she was on form, as usual.  

“It's this whole scene he’s gotten himself into, that’s what’s brought it on! He started listening to this black metal nonsense when he was fourteen, had started a band by sixteen and now his entire life revolves around the darkness of it!” 

The doctor she was talking at rather than to cleared his throat, wanting to at least attempt a little diplomacy in how he handled the balance of fact, and remaining tactful with a woman whose son had just made a serious attempt on his own life. “Mrs. Kingston, it’s a little more complex than that when we are dealing with clinical depression, of which I am inclined to suspect your son is suffering from severely, should we take his actions into consideration.” 

Her ranting to the contrary continued. Truly, nobody knew it all like Carole Kingston, James lying there wishing he’d stabbed himself in the ears so he didn’t have to listen to her. His music was his solace, something he could pour the darkness within himself into, make the noise in his head and the bleakness in the epicentre of him a little more bearable to deal with. She’d never hear that reasoning, though. Never hear him.  

“Carole,” he heard his father speak tersely, not even needing to witness him to know that he was likely pinching the bridge of his nose after removing his glasses. It was an Alan Kingston go to when aggravated. “You know he’s gotten a lot better since he started the band. The doctor is right, though. I think it’s been going on longer than we wanted to admit.” 

Thank fuck his dad wasn’t working nights and he wouldn’t have to deal with his mother alone, with his head torn to pieces. That strong Liverpudlian lilt that most found either comedic or grating never failed to soothe him. 

“For how long, would you say, Mr. Kingston?” 

“Ahh, probably since he was about eleven or twelve, you know. We just thought it was teenage hormones, moodiness. They didn’t talk about it when we were kids, all this depression stuff, so we didn’t really know it was that we were dealing with. Well, I think I always had an inclining, but I just shoved it down, you know. He needs us to acknowledge it now, so we can get him well. Whatever that looks like going forward.”  

“I want him back home with us,” she spoke hotly, “where I can keep a flippin’ eye on him!” 

“Should’ve definitely gone for a fucking noose.” James thought darkly, actually snorting a small burst of laughter through his groggy state. 

“Carole, he’s twenty-three,” Alan began in reasoning, “he’s a grown adult. You can’t babysit him every last second of the day.”  

He smiled at that. At least his dad always fought his corner.  

“I’m afraid that likely won’t be an option for him currently. He needs to be further assessed once his sedation wears off, but I personally will be recommending that James is sectioned under the mental health act.” 

“Sectioned?” Carole spluttered, her mouth dropping wide. “You want to throw my son in some asylum? And what the bloody hell has he been sedated for?” 

“Woo, I get to go to the funny farm,” he thought, his thoughts raining sarcasm. “Better than wrath of the mother, though.” Sarcasm was the drug-addled response, his temper placated enough not to begin vying for escape at the thought of being committed against his will.  

Out in the corridor, his father feared for whoever was charged in actually moving him to the psychiatric facility he knew James would likely end up in, though. He might have been slight, but he was all lithe muscles and long limbs at six feet three. And god, he’d seen his son fight before when finally growing a backbone against his school bullies.  

Sedated might be the best way to keep him, as much as it pained him, knowing his precious boy only had confinement and a course of medication that would probably zombify him in his immediate future.  

“Mrs. Kingston, James was in quite a state while having his stomach pumped. He became extremely violent with a number of staff members attempting to treat him, so sedation was the only logical course.”  

Sedation and restraint, his wrists burning beneath the padded leather cuffs that tethered him to the bed. Well, he had kicked one nurse in the chest and threatened a second with breaking her neck, he could just about remember. He felt bad about that. While he might have been a brawler when presented with anything that threatened him, James had never, ever been the type to hurt a woman.  

Quite the opposite, he liked to think.  

Women and his treatment of them were the last of his worries at that moment, though, listening for a little longer to what the doctor had to say before succumbing to the need to doze. He felt tired down to his bones. When he did come around again, he saw his dad he sat sitting at his bedside, Alan smiling wearily at him. In all of this, he was the last person he’d wanted to hurt. Truly though, he’d thought of little else as his life had faded upon the bathroom floor. Only his elation to leave it behind.  

“It’s quiet. Where’s the duchess?” 

At least his sense of humour was intact. “Gone to get herself a cuppa,” he confirmed, shuffling his chair closer as he reached to rest a hand on his arm. “Scared the bloody life out of me, you did. How you feeling now, kidda?” 

“Sick, but not like I want to throw up or anything.” 

Alan nodded, his forehead creasing with a deep line of concern. “Not surprising, with the number of tablets they had to pump out of your stomach.” His eyes saddened, thumb pressing against his inner elbow. “Why’d you do it, lad? You know you can always come and talk to your old man here, if you’re not feeling right, eh? Always said that, haven’t I?”  

His mouth twitched, James trying to find a way to word it that wouldn’t hurt his dad more than he already was. Truly, there was little adequate recourse to the truth of the matter. “Just don’t wanna be alive no more, dad. It’s fucking meaningless, innit?” 

“Here now,” he soothed, his hand reaching to grip his shoulder. “Don’t you say that, me lad. Got the bloody world at your feet, eh? The band’s starting to take off, you’re out there doing what you want to do. It’s got all the meaning in the world, mate.”  

He sighed through his nose, his eyes falling down to momentarily gaze upon where he was restrained. “Nah. Don’t feel like that. Just feel fucking empty, dad.”  

“Well, that’s apparent. The doctor thinks he knows why, and I happen to agree with him. Getting it through to your mother, though, different story. As you might guess.” He paused for a second, drawing himself up a little taller in his seat. “They think you’ve got clinical depression, kidda. If I’m honest, I reckon you’ve had it a while, you know. I blame myself, for seeing it and not doing anything, watching you become withdrawn and all that.”  

James shrugged. “Ain’t your fault. Just the way I am, innit?” 

“It doesn’t have to be, mate,” Alan stated, James seeing it there in his face, the fear, the anguish he’d caused. And he was still here putting him through it. Yeah. Fuck Steve for calling that ambulance. Fuck himself, too, for being like this in the first place and putting people through all of the worry. “They can treat it with pills, try and mend whatever it is in your head that’s broken. It doesn’t have to be like this, eh?” 

“Wouldn’t be like this at all if people just let me die, like I want to.” He didn’t say that aloud, though, staying silent for a few moments, his eyes flitting over to the other side of the room.  

“You want me to leave you alone for a bit, son?” 

“Nah,” he sighed, turning back to his dad. “Can you undo these straps, though?” 

“Can’t, mate,” he lamented, “you pose what they’re calling a significant violence risk. Apparently, you went full Vinnie fucking Jones on the team who were trying to save your life. Little shite.”  

You little shite; it had been his dad’s go to since he was about three whenever he played up. His mouth twitched, something resembling a small smile curling the corner of his full lips. “Ain’t that little no more though.”  

“Yeah, the nurse with a boot shaped bruise coming up between her knockers knows all about that!” 

He puffed his cheeks, eyes widening a little. “Doubt I’m popular.”  

“I’m sure she’s had worse than that in her time, kidda.” 

“Yeah, but kicking her in the tits?” James exclaimed, snorting a little laugh. “That ain’t my style, dad. Not unless they like it a bit rough.”  

The little snap of teeth his son followed that statement with had Alan wheezing with quiet laughter. “Bad lad. I’ll never bloody forget you coming down the stairs with that girl Helena, and the poor lass is doing her best to cover the bloody bite marks all over her chest with her hair. And then your mother sees ‘em and gives you the death glare. ‘So, you’ve been up there shagging all afternoon, have you?’ she shouts, and I’m sitting there trying not to laugh at the smug look on your face.” 

God, Helena. That had been a while ago, the girl he’d been with for just over a year at sixteen. “Said she looked like someone had flung her in a piranha tank.”  

Alan’s wheezing amped up considerably at that, a small slither of relief settling in him to see his boy smiling a little. It was a momentary reprieve in a harrowing situation. God, if Steve hadn’t been there. Alan had hugged him tightly upon arriving in the waiting room, thanking him over and over for kicking the bathroom door down and acting quickly, clearing the vomit from his mouth, wrapping his arms in towels and calling an ambulance. He’d saved him. He’d always been a good lad, Steve.  

“Look at you now, though. Grinning like an idiot, being that smug little shite I love with all my bloody heart, mate. Can’t be that bad all the time, can it?” 

James didn’t blame his dad for seeking out a silver lining at all, although the truth wasn’t so simple. “Doesn’t matter, dad. I can be onstage with the band, out drinking, biting on tits while I’m shagging some girl ragged, laughing my arse off and all that, but underneath I’m still the same. Still got all this shit I can’t get rid of.”  

“I just don’t understand it,” he huffed, scratching his thick beard. No. And that was the problem. Nobody did. “We’re going to get you some help though. You just need to sit tight with it. You aren’t going to like this one bit, lad, but there’s talk of having you sectioned. I think the doctor wants to have you further assessed and they’ll go from there, but personally I think it’s the best place for you right now.”  

“Do I have any say in that?” 

His mouth straightened into a thin line, shaking his head. “No, son. Chasing thirty co-codamol and twenty ibuprofen tablets with half a bottle of San Jose and then opening up both your bloody arms takes that away from you. You need help, James. Help I don’t think you’d actively go and seek on your own.”  

The hidden undertones were clear, rippling in worry just below his father’s strong surface. If he was allowed to leave the hospital of his own volition, he’d simply go and finish himself off and actually accomplish it. It was true, too. James had already earmarked the motorway bridge over the M6, should he find his way out of the looming threat of being sectioned. He doubted he’d survive a truck smacking into him at seventy miles an hour.  

The door opened, revealing his mother, a steaming paper cup in her grasp. As soon as her eyes found his, she did what he least expected. She sobbed. He was expecting rage, a tirade, a full-blown stream of haranguing. For that moment, at least, it didn’t materialise, Carole striding around to the other side of the bed and placing her tea down, her throat pinched as she cried, reaching for him and stroking his hair as she kissed his forehead repeatedly.  

“You, and it, and you could have...” Only squeaks followed, Carole hugging his head as she broke down. “You nearly died, James! You nearly flippin’ well died, you silly bloody thing! Why did you do it, love? What happened?” 

He winced, feeling slightly smothered, the scent of her very strong perfume a little too much for his senses as she continued to hug him. “Like I just said to dad, it’s how I feel all the time. Just hollow, innit. Don’t wanna be here.”  

Straightening, her hands went to her hips, cocking her head. “That’s bloody absurd!” 

Oh, here she was.  

“Carole,” her husband warned, “go easy. He doesn’t need chewing out right now.” 

“I beg very much to differ!” Turning back to her eldest, she stared at him with wide eyes, James desiring nothing more than wishing he could unfasten himself and put some distance between them. “James, you need to snap out of this. Acting glum is one thing, but trying to kill yourself, without a second thought for your family?” 

“Carole,” Alan spoke again, looking exasperated. 

“It’s all this bloody black metal, isn’t it? Corpse paint and death! Bleakness and sorrow, you’re bringing it on yourself!”  

Alan was just about to speak, his son getting in first. “Mum, I love you to bits, I do. That isn’t anything to do with it. Stop looking for things to blame it on. I’m not happy and I could listen to all that pop music shit like Sam does and it wouldn’t make a fucking difference, I-” 

“Language!” she cut in with. 

“Oh, piss off!” 

“Don’t you bloody talk to me like that, my boy!” she raged through her tears, Alan standing up and moving quickly to her side of the bed. 

“Come on, this isn’t happening now. He ain’t in the state to hear you being irrational. Go wait outside for me. Drink your tea and have a ciggie, calm down a bit, eh.” Picking up the paper cup, he steered his wife in the direction of the door, shushing her when she made further attempts at protest. “I know you’re upset, petal, but this isn’t about you. Go on, now.” 

Shutting the door, he turned back to the bed, taking a very deep breath. “Better?” 

“Yeah. Thanks, dad,” he confirmed, the unpleasant feeling in his stomach that his mother’s tirade had left beginning to sink again. It wasn’t her fault really; she was just very highly strung. She only did it because she loved her children deeply, but he and his younger sister Sam did often feel either stifled or prickled by Carole’s particular brand of parenting. “Can you do something else for me?” 

“Of course I can, lad.” 

He beckoned with a little jerk of his head. “Can you scratch my nose, just above the piercing? It’s driving me more mental than I already am.” 

Alan beamed, wheezing a soft laugh. “Must be, kidda.” Reaching, he scratched at his nose, patting his cheek gently once done before he sat down again. “I remember when you did that. Ice, a whacking great bit darning needle, and blood all over the sink. Daft sod, eh.” 

A doctor came in to check on him not long afterwards, telling him that for the immediate moment, he was being restrained under the mental health act on a temporary hold, subject to further assessment come the morning. He wouldn’t be allowed out of his restraints, or transferred to a ward. He would stay where he was until a bed was found at a psychiatric facility, the doctor assuring him they’d attempt to find somewhere within the Warwickshire area.  

His dad only stayed a further ten minutes after that, James feeling woozy again after being administered a sleeping pill, the doctor feeling it best for him to stay medicated in order to rest after his ordeal.  

“I’ll come by tomorrow on me dinner break to see you. Love you all the world, lad.”  

Not being particularly affectionate, he didn’t expect to hear the same back, but the smile his son gave confirmed it. Poor kid, he truly couldn’t comprehend just how bent out of shape he was at that moment, but he could at least take some comfort in the fact that the problem he’d tried to pretend didn’t exist for so long was finally being treated.  

As for James, all he could do as he fell into a synthetically delivered sleep was despair that he was still there to be treated at all.  

[misc-obeyme]

Ok since I know you're the god of all things barbatos, I was wondering if you (or a follower) remembered a fanart of him? It was barbatos getting dressed for the day, like shirt, pants, I think a sash(?), jacket etc. (all the stages of getting dressed was on 1 page) it wasn't chibi or any extremely different style than the game style either. I found it I think 2 years ago? Like I have searched high and low and I can't find it 😭 and I love it so much

Dearest anon. I am trying to respond to your ask in a normal way, but I just end up keysmashing about being called the god of all things Barbatos. I just- I mean- me??? Really?!? a;daflkdfkjf

Anyway, as it turns out, I think I have what you're looking for. I could say that I obtained the location of this post using my godly powers, but the reality is that I'm just really good at Google Fu.

Is this it?

If so, please note that this a repost that states the poster had permission from the artist to post it. I clicked on the link to the artist's twitter, but it seems to be inactive? Their art is very good though. I love the way they drew Barb getting dressed! (Also his little butler sash is called a cumberbund!)

Anyway, I hope that's it! If not, I do recommend using a standard web search engine for fanart that's older than like a couple months. Because you will never find that using the Tumblr search lol. It's only good for recent stuff. And even then it's iffy!

[the-one-who-lambs]

I was tagged by @ane-doodles!

Get to Know Me Game

rules: answer + tag six people u want to know

fav color: I don't have strong opinions about my favorite color, but I like violet and green.

last song: Apink - I'm So Sick. I love how their sound has matured in recent years

currently reading: I actually haven't started another book after finishing the last one a couple weeks ago... I guess I'm in the middle of reading this article for research purposes though. My graduate school research is based on wind storms in the Arctic, its effects, and how it has evolved. I'm looking to publish a paper soon, but I need to zone in on a specific application, and I'm looking at vessel icing (when ice from sea spray coats the outside of ships) right now.

currently watching: I'm not much of a TV series person... A couple weeks ago, though, I watched an episode and a half of the new Fallout series with my best friend @iamuxie.

currently craving: God. Everything? I'm really craving fish tacos, specifically the fish tacos that -- holy shit I don't remember what the restaurant was called. I had to look it up, I'm so ashamed. Okay I found it, it's tilapia with shredded cabbage and cream poblano sauce, and I usually ordered them with fried mushrooms. Anyway if you ever find yourself in San Antonio, Texas, where I had the pleasure of living for four years, check out Tycoon Flats and get the fish tacos

coffee or tea: TEA I don't really like coffee much at all but I have tea pretty much daily. Today I had some roasted dandelion root tea, which.... ironically is said to be a good substitute for coffee

Tagging (picking the last six moots from my notes): @mooner3 @tobernaut @miswantstocry @buried--bones @p4r4n0rmal-exe @salilaoceania

[rallamajoop]

On Donna (and Claudia) Beneviento

So, having spent the last couple of months absorbed in the world of RE: Village, somehow what’s really got my inner-canon-sleuth going this time is the issue of timelines. Just how long was Miranda posing as Mia before she was found out? Just how old are each of the Four Lords of the village? The game’s not telling us, but can I puzzle it out…

There are probably no ‘canonical’ answers to questions like this, at least in the sense of ‘answers the writers have agreed on and written down.’ Even putting aside all the usual complications of writing for games, RE: Village is a horror title structured around a gothic fairy tale: genres built on dream-logic and atmosphere. You may as well ask the ‘canonical’ backstory of Cinderella’s evil stepmother, or Dracula’s three ‘brides’: there isn’t one, because that’s not the point.

And yet, RE: Village provides just enough tantalising hints that I can’t resist the challenge of hunting answers that are, if not definitive, at least consistent with all the (limited) information we get. Which is how I wound up writing up this whole spiel about the four lords and who joined the family when (now up over here) – only to realise that the section on Donna Beneviento alone was getting so long it really needed its own post – so here we are.

Here's what stands out about Donna: Miranda has (very canonically) been experimenting on her villagers for a full century. Her daughter’s death in the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1919 is as explicit as anything in this game gets. The four lords and their household crests are presented like an institution that’s been around for generations (Do Not Ask why a small Romanian village needs as many as four lords. It’s a fairy tale, and that’s the wrong question).

And yet, Donna herself logically can’t have joined Miranda’s family any more recently than 1996 – a mere 24 years ago.

We know this, because it’s the year of death on Claudia Beneviento’s grave (1987-1996) – and that grave already existed when she was adopted by Mother Miranda. What little we know about Donna’s past comes from her gardener’s diary, and he talks about both in entries only days apart. There’s no year provided, but the dates are November 10-29. It could have been 1997, it could have been 2019 – but it’s a year I’m old enough to remember either way.

So did it really take Miranda that long to ‘complete’ her little family collection? Or could there have been a previous cadou-empowered Lord or Lady Beneviento? And should I be reading so much into a date on a gravestone, which for all I know should have read 1896, and which made it into the game by accident? I have no idea, but we're going with it anyway.

But wait: we have more dates! We never meet the gardener himself, but he’s given the name Josef Simon in the note he left on the Iuthier house in the village. And if he left that note in person, he must have been still living in the village as recently as 2017, because (and this is where it all gets deep into nerd-analysis territory), there’s a child’s drawing on the wall of Iuthier’s house dated to that year.

Why does this matter? Well, his last diary entry ominously ends with him taking an invitation to visit Donna’s house to see his ‘departed wife’. And that’s all the more ominous, considering the Duke’s statement that ‘none of her playmates have ever returned’ – not to mention, well, everything that happens to Ethan down there. The looming implication is that the gardener died soon after writing that last entry – meaning those entries were written after he’d shut up the Iuthier house, meaning that Donna only became her mould-empowered self as recently as 2017 (or even more recently still).

(God, do you see why this shit had got me so hard? It’s like solving one of those grid-based logic puzzles where if Mary is wearing a red hat and Adam wasn’t in the house on Thursday, which of the household could’ve been present at the time of the murder? This isn’t even supposed to be a detective game, GDI!)

But before we get too far down this particular rabbit hole, it’s worth remembering we don’t know for sure that the gardener died within days of Donna joining Miranda’s family. Or, to take a slightly darker angle, we don’t know for sure that the gardener who kept that diary was the same gardener who shut up the Iuthier house after 2017. Maybe ‘Josef Simon’ is a completely new gardener, who kept that old diary around to remind himself why he should absolutely never breathe too deeply over Claudia’s grave, or accept any of Mistress Donna’s invitations to come inside for tea…

Claudia Beneviento herself is a figure so mysterious that I’m a little suspicious her grave (let alone those bizarre dates) only exists at all due to some miscommunication between the writers and the environment asset team, or as a relic of a couple of very different stories getting awkwardly redacted into one at the nth hour (notes that came with the artwork say that her house was originally conceived as belonging to a doctor, the doll-theme only added later, which isn’t surprising). Taken at face value, a woman in mourning dress with a creepy doll obsession and a 9-year-old’s grave in her garden screams that Claudia was Donna’s daughter, whose tragic death she never recovered from. It fits with the greater themes of the game too: Miranda and Eva, Ethan and Rose, Donna and Claudia?

Only problem being that the gardener’s diary suggests that Donna's personal tragedy was something else altogether.

If the gardener is to be believed, Donna’s story is that of someone who shunned others from childhood due to ‘the scar over her eye’ (a birth defect?) choosing instead to talk to people only through the ventriloquist’s doll made for her father – then cut off from the world even further by her parents’ tragic deaths. (Notes on the artwork go further, suggesting that her parents committed suicide at the waterfall, but this never made it into the game.) Where does a dead 9-year-old girl come into that? Is she Donna’s sister, her cousin or aunt? It’s damn hard to find space for a daughter in the gardener’s account, but the fresh bouquets on the grave suggest she was at least someone important. It all feels like a story that’s been hastily patched together at the last minute (and very likely, it was).

Donna’s powers present a similar dichotomy: hallucinogenic plants and autonomous living dolls? The only common theme there is ‘spooky shit’. (God, it’s like Heisenberg and the lycans all over again!) I don’t mean any of this as a serious critique of the game or story: Donna’s house stays with people for a reason – horror’s often more effective because it’s incomprehensible – but Donna-the-character is a cypher.

Speaking of Donna's medical report, that confusing line about how she "divided her Cadou among her dolls in order to control them from a distance" is (inasmuch as I am qualified to translate it) a little clearer in the Japanese version. A more literal translation might be more along the lines of "has shared her own cadou with her favourite doll to control it from a distance" ‒ which certainly adds context to why it's Angie's remains you bring back to the Duke. What's in all those other dolls is open to question: more experimental cadou, or is them moving just another illusion? We'll never know for sure.

That's about it for hard info. Still, for what it’s worth, have some rampant speculation!

Suppose Donna and Claudia were sisters, Claudia the treasured ‘normal’ sister, to Donna’s disfigured recluse. Suppose Claudia died, and their grief over the loss of their one 'proper' daughter led Donna’s parents to throw themselves over the waterfall, leaving her all the more alone. Yeah. Just let that settle in for a moment.

Alternatively, suppose both of Donna’s parents (and perhaps even her ‘normal’ sister) lost their lives to Miranda’s quest to integrate all four noble houses into her own twisted family. The success rate for cadou experiments was notoriously low. Suppose she resorted to Donna last because her deformity made her that much less desirable – only for Donna to survive, to be ‘adopted’ by the very woman who murdered her whole family.

Now imagine Donna living under the shadow of inevitably being supplanted (yet again) when her new ‘mother’ manages to revive the true daughter she really wanted all along…

Now there are some horror stories for you.

As a side note, I’ve seen some articles claim Donna had a female family member called Bernadette who died in Miranda’s experiments. This isn’t based on much: the only evidence is a 21-year-old “Bernadette B” mentioned in one of Miranda’s case notes, shortly before the success story of “Alcina D”. Notably, “Alcina D” is recorded as being ‘of noble birth’, while “Bernadette B” is simply noted as ‘no occupation’, which doesn’t really support the idea the B stands for another important family. Being nearly as old as ‘Alcina D’, Bernadette would have lived and died generations before Donna and Claudia. So even if B does stand for Beneviento (and it probably doesn’t), it doesn’t add much to Donna’s story.

And on a final note, did anyone else notice that of all the four lords, Donna is the only one who gets called by her first name? Like, Heisenberg is ‘Heisenberg’ even to his mother, brother and sister. I don’t think anyone but the Duke ever says Dimitrescu’s name aloud (let alone calls her ‘Alcina’). But Heisenberg mentions his other two siblings twice, and both times they’re Donna and Moreau. Not Beneviento and Moreau, or Donna and Salvatore: Donna and Moreau.

Now, maybe he’s just lazy (Beneviento is a bit of a mouthful), but while everyone else in the Duke’s spiel is called by their last name, Donna gets to be Donna Beneviento. Naturally, she’s ‘Mistress Donna’ to her gardener too. Possibly Angie is part of the reason ‒ logically, she's a Beneviento too, and we need some way to distinguish the two of them ‒ but it certainly speaks to how she's thought about, by family and by the writers.

No other first name is spoken aloud at all, AFAIK – you have to find Miranda’s experiment reports at the very end of the game to learn Moreau and Heisenberg’s first names (‘Alcina’ is at least written on her diary as well, much earlier on, as well as in Miranda’s separate case notes on experiment 181).

I doubt there’s much significance behind this detail, but it does kind of back up the idea that Donna may be the baby of the family – the youngest in years and the youngest when she was turned. And somehow still the most mysterious, for all that we arguably have more information about her past than any of the other three.

Please don’t take that as suggesting she’s just an innocent little baby, though. There’s a tendency in fandom to portray her as perfectly talkative and functional with the right audience (never mind that she speaks only a few words in the whole game, and canonically preferred to ‘talk’ through her Angie even to the gardener who’d known her since childhood, and who clearly cared for her deeply). Her backstory is tragic as fuck however you fill in the blanks, but all those fucked up murder dolls didn’t come from nowhere.

It's probably a mistake to treat Angie as a separate entity at all, when she's functionally Donna's own alter ego: very plausibly her way of acting out her own childhood trauma, from which she never recovered or matured. And trauma exorcised into a new vessel isn’t trauma that’s gone away.

[wildestdreamcatcher]

The Nuclear Family

Summary: A look into Summer and Lennon's relationship through his perspective

TW: Mentions of grooming, trauma, crying, implied panic attacks

A/N: This story is going to be really long with 1582k words. Boarder found on this website

Everything always seemed perfect. We were like one of the families you saw on my postcards or sitcoms. The poster child for the “American Dream”. Something you only see on TV and movies. My parents were happy with each other, never really argued, and it always felt like they were sickeningly in love. Summer was always seen as the more outgoing one in the family: she made friends easily, very talkative, she was kind, and polite. I remember people at church always used to tell her that she was beautiful; it was like she had this charm over people at a young age. That’s what helped her win over the pageant judges, teachers, the priest, and everyone else around her. Everything shifted so fast when Jake’s true personality was revealed.

Jake was around a lot, my parents were best friends with him, he went to our church and Summer was obsessed with him. Everyone loved him, and some people still defended him after it came out he raped Summer and had been for years. I didn’t mean to see them like that but instead of minding my own business, as she liked to remind me; I saw him kiss her like he was in a fucking rom-com, like she hadn’t just turned 14, like she hadn’t just finished 8th grade a month ago, like he wasn’t 38 years old. I remember when I told my parents, I remember Summer screaming and crying when my parents called the police, how angry she got when she found out he even got prison time at all. She changed completely: she stayed in her room all the unless she had a summer sports practice, had to use the bathroom or get food. 

Everything changed so quickly, nothing was ever normal. We all started doing therapy: family therapy, separate therapy, and my parents were also doing couple’s therapy which might’ve been for the best seeing as how they seemed distant for a few months after what happened with Jake and the stress from the whole situation started to boil over into an otherwise happy marriage. Summer had gotten really into journaling about what happened with Jake and painting to distract herself. She’d never let anyone see them but recently I had started going through them, maybe for once I’d understand her if I did. Her room was forbidden to me: it was neatly decorated with the baby blue and white color scheme, her easels wth unfinished paintings, the shelf of Precious Moments and Barbie dolls she had recently started, the Aqua Net she had always had to replace every month and the hundreds of dollars worth of makeup on her vanity. She had posters of Madonna, Kate Bush, Stevie Nicks, Jon Bon Jovi, and Renaissance paintings covering her walls. I could only dare to step into it when she wasn’t home and pray to God she didn’t catch me going through all her shit. I’d be dead if she did. 

I walked downstairs for breakfast and saw Aria and Kai sitting beside Summer at the table again. One would think it would be a bad idea to have the on and off again boyfriend of your daughter’s best friend always to be around but somehow: Aria and Kai always acted normal when they were here. They didn’t argue or try to make out in Summer’s bedroom and Summer never seemed like she was a third wheel or anything. They had become their own trio ever since Aria became Summer’s only friend and started dating Kai who was friends with Summer too but he had started to distance himself from Jude ever since Jude started getting into drugs and spending all of this time with Mindy. Aria was always here even if Kai wasn’t. She even spent all of Christmas break with us last year. I missed when Summer would always hang out with Roxanne or the girls she used to be friends with at church. They were always nice to me or tried to include me in their plans, they used to take me to the arcade with them all the time but that was back when Summer liked me. When Roxanne and Summer were inseparable, when the people at our all church still liked us and didn’t practically shun us. I just sat there at the table, dreading the car ride to school with the 3 of them. 

I sat there in Summer’s blue Camaro she got for her 16th birthday. I knew she had been saving up for it with her shifts as a waitress and with the money from the dinner, my parents, and both of my grandparents all gave her, she was able to get it for her birthday. I just tried to drown out the conversations the 3 were having with the Duran Duran album in my Walkman. 

When I walked into the school, I noticed Trevor Halton couldn’t keep his eyes off of Summer while she just smiled sadly at him. I read in her diary that they had been dating each other secretly for 5 or 6 months but they split a few weeks ago. She didn’t think she was ready to be in a relationship, no matter how happy she was. I wondered why she would deny herself of that happiness she could’ve had, she ranted about how nice of a guy Trevor was so why would she sabotage that for herself? She caught me staring at her and rolled her eyes, taking books out of her locker. 

Summer and I promised Mom and Dad we would be nicer to each other but she made it so fucking hard. When I got in her car after school, she said she take me to get food and go to the arcade after school. We used to hang out a lot before everything that happened with Jake and younger me would’ve been so thrilled for her to hang out with me. I used to think it would be so cool to have my older sister hang out with me all the time and drive me everywhere but now I just nodded and looked at her skeptically. 

“Why are you being nice to me right now?” I asked her.

“I think I’ve been too harsh on you! Everything has been so hard lately and I don’t want to make this any harder.” She sounded sincere. 

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I actually had fun with Summer with the arcade: she beat my high scores, won us a bunch of gaming tokens and prizes, and taught me all the hacks she learned to beat the games. She bought me dinner and let me into her life a little bit. It felt odd that she was telling me things I’d already known from reading her diary, like I was intruding on something I shouldn’t have known. She was about to leave, I noticed Summer looked nervous when she saw this man get out of his car and he looked just like Jake. The only difference was that his eye color was different. It scared Summer, she started tearing up a little bit, and when she tried to hold the steering wheel when she got into the car her knuckles were white. 

“Summer, I-” 

“Just drop it! Just fucking drop it, Lennon!!” She yelled at me like it was my fault all of this happened. We didn’t talk at all in the car and she just walked into her bedroom, slamming the door. I could hear her cries coming from her bedroom since our rooms were in the same hall. 

When I saw her in the kitchen again after our parents went to bed, I started asking questions. 

“What happened back there, Summer? Jake’s in prison and he’s going to be in there for at least another year!” I tried to sound confronting but she just sounded angry. 

“Do you not fucking get it, Lennon! I thought I was over everything but I’m not! I wanted that to be Jake. I keep having these fantasies in my head that everything wasn’t as fucked as everyone made it seemed, that everything will go back to fucking normal when he gets out of prison and I know-”

“This sounds ridiculous, Summer! Jake was so fucking awful, he ruined everything. This is so delusion! We went through of all your outbursts, all of your meltdowns, the therapy appointments, all of this shit for this not to happen!!” We whisper-yelled at each other in the kitchen, both praying to God Mom and Dad didn’t wake up. I couldn’t understand why she would practically profess love to the man who ruined our lives!

“I don’t know why the fuck I bother trying to get you to understand me! It was stupid for me to waste my money and time on you today because you’re always going to make everything about you!” 

Summer walked away to her bedroom. It didn’t make sense as to why she wanted to be apart of my life now when she couldn't fucking stand me anyway. She was the one who barely interacted with me for a year, she hardly talked to anyone for that matter. Even when we all got together for Christmas, she just distanced herself from everyone except for Mom and Dad. Nothing seemed to please Summer or make her happy no matter how hard anyone tried. All I could do was go back to bed and pray that Summer would leave for college pretty soon.

@sadlonelyyogurt @blowflygrls @cusineverreallyknown