#hated to leave out his early life stuff because it’s genuinely super interesting but it wasn’t really relevant so I had to cut it :(

[solena2]

So.

Tommy isn’t Theseus. Every time I see Techno’s analogy about Tommy being Theseus brought up I’m filled with endless rage and I’ve DECIDED!

That it’s about time I explained just why it’s so objectively incorrect.

-

First: a bit of backstory on Theseus, because I doubt many of you actually know much about him beyond what Techno said in his “so you want to be a hero” speech, which left out a lot of relevant details.

Theseus was a demigod with two fathers and one mother. His fathers were king Aegeus of Athens and the sea god Poseidon, and his mother was Aethra, Aegeus’ wife. Aethra raised Theseus on her own, far from Athens to avoid him being assassinated.

Aegeus left him nothing but a sword with the Athenian crest and a pair of sandals, buried under a rock so no one else could get them.

When Theseus came of age, he took the sword and sandals and headed up to Athens, slaying various monsters along the way. (It pains me to abbreviate it that much, but Techno left out everything before the Minotaur so it won’t help me much in debunking his analogy.)

Once he got to Athens, he met up with his dad, chased out his stepmom Medea, (yes, that Medea) and killed some people. Then comes the relevant part.

Crete had won a war against Athens a while back, and because of this, every seven years Athens was forced to send 14 tributes to be killed by the Minotaur. (Yes, this inspired the Hunger Games)

Theseus decided he’d volunteer and kill the Minotaur, thus ending the tribute system for good and getting one over on Athens. He promised his dad that if he won, he’d come back in a ship with white sails, as opposed to the standard mourning black that signified the death of the tributes.

So he went to Crete, met king Minos and his daughters Ariadne and Phaedra, and got sent into the labyrinth. Ariadne gave him a magic ball of string that kept him from getting lost, allowing him to find the Minotaur and then safely get out afterwards, providing he could kill it.

He killed it, led his other 13 tributes out, and sailed back home. On the way, Athena told him to leave Ariadne stranded on a tiny island in the middle of the ocean, so he immediately did so, because Theseus was an asshole.

He got home, his dad committed suicide because Theseus forgot the white sails and his dad assumed he’d died, Theseus became king and married Phaedra, and then the fun began, because again, Theseus was an asshole.

First, he cheated on Phaedra with Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, so she left and took the kids. Next, he and his other asshole friend Pirithous decided to kidnap themselves some new wives. Theseus decided on Helen of Troy, who was a child at the time, and Pirithous decided on Persephone, which resulted in both him and Theseus getting stuck in the Underworld for a while due to pissing off Hades.

Once he got back up, he killed his son for fucking his wife, which is messed up on many levels, and then left Athens because his people were rightfully not super okay with that.

Then he goes and meets Lycomedes, who throws him off a cliff.

-

Next, let’s talk about Techno’s speech a bit.

He starts off by accusing Tommy of being a power hungry dictator (paraphrased), before asking him if he wants to be a hero.

Then, he provides what is apparently the archetypal example of heroism, something often associated with selflessness, kindness, and generally giving at least one singular solitary fuck about other people.

Theseus! Heroic hero who does heroic things, like, uhhh *checks notes* cheating on his wife, kidnapping children with plans to forcefully marry them, leaving people alone on tiny islands with no supplies, killing his kid, etc. etc...

So we’re off to a great start.

Then, he gives a short summary of Theseus’ life and times! He skips the first part of his life completely, which is hilarious to me because it’s the only time Theseus ever did anything actually heroic or selfless, and gets straight to the meat!

“Let me tell you a story, Tommy. A story of a man called Theseus. His country was in danger, he sent himself forward! Into enemy lines. He slayed the Minotaur! And saved his city. You know what they did to him, Tommy? They exiled him. He died in disgrace, despised by his people. That’s what happens to heroes, Tommy.”

-Technoblade

So first off, he doesn’t mention... really anything other than the Minotaur and the exile, which is leaving out a lot of relevant details, like why Theseus was exiled. (You know, killing his son in cold blood?)

Second, he doesn’t give details in general. Not that he should’ve given a full telling, or anything, but I’m always surprised by the shortness of this speech when I go back and listen to it. He pretty much just gives the barest bones of an argument and expects his audience to take it at face value. (Which they do, but it’s still bad practice)

From the more accurate (if still brief) summary if Theseus’ life I’ve just given, I’m sure you can see why this might be more than a bit dubious, as an analogy. Given cc!Technoblade is literally an English major, and doubtless knows significantly more about the myth than I do, I’d imagine this was never intended to be taken at face value.

Over and over again, c!Techno proves himself to be an unreliable narrator, and over and over again, the fandom at large takes his word as gospel.

-

Now, as far as a more in depth argument for Tommy as Theseus goes, I will attempt to debunk that as well, because there are some genuinely good points to be made.

First of all, most people make Dream out to be the Minotaur. Given the time this speech was made, I imagine Schlatt was the intended target of that, but with latter events in mind, Dream does make much more sense.

I’d say this is honestly pretty fair, but I don’t think Tommy takes the role of Theseus in that narrative. I’d argue he’s much more analogous to the role of Ariadne, giving the tools required to defeat Dream but ultimately not doing so through his own power, but because someone chose to take those tools and make use of them. This also provides the very interesting characterization of Punz as Theseus, which is an incredibly unique take that I hope some a Punz enthusiast does something with, because I don’t know enough about his lore to make a good analysis on that.

The idea of Schlatt as the Minotaur, as was probably intended by Techno at the time, makes much more sense, though I still think other characters fit the role better. Firstly, Schlatt wasn’t killed, he died of a heart attack, and if someone had killed him I think it’s more likely to have been Wilbur or Techno who did it than Tommy, as Tommy was still very hopeful and idealistic at the time, at least compared to his character now. You could posit Tommy as Ariadne again in this situation, given he was the one to mastermind the final charge, and though I think Tommy as Ariadne is an idea that’s worth further exploration, I’d say Fundy futs the Ariadne role here much better, with him giving the spy’s diary before being effectively shunned and left out in the cold by both Pogtopia and Manburg, much like Ariadne was abandoned in the original myth.

I’d posit the Theseus in this scenario as Techno, Wilbur, or possibly Philza, as they were the ones to actually kill things in the 16th, though Techno and Wilbur’s killings were more in the metaphorical sense, taking the second life of L’manburg.

As for the exile, Tommy exile was alike to that of Theseus only in concept. Both were sent from their kingdoms for a crime, resulting in a falling out with someone close to them, and had a precarious relationship with heights while they were gone, but that’s about where the similarities end and even then they’re superficial.

First of all, Tommy’s exile was far more because Dream was looking for an excuse to do it than because briefing actually means anything on the SMP, given how Dream had been griefing bases and blaming Tommy for it for a while before it went down. (Fun fact, Bad and Skeppy were going to burn one of his discs over this, but one of them got sick so they had to cancel the stream.)

Theseus’ exile, on the other hand, was entirely deserved, especially when you consider how serious a crime killing family was in Ancient Greek culture. It was pretty much the biggest no-no in existence, and I’m almost surprised he wasn’t just straight up executed for it.

Second, Tommy’s falling out with Tubbo was almost entirely due to outside forces, (Dream) rather than because anything Tommy had done. Though Tommy’s cavalierness towards the trial and attempts to threaten Dream with Spirit doubtless didn’t help things, Dream surrounding L’manburg in obsidian walls and threatening them to exile Tommy was entirely his own choice, and not something that can be pinned on Tommy, no matter what the apologists may say.

Meanwhile, Theseus’ falling out with Phaedra had begun long before his exile with him cheating on her. Him killing his son was merely the last in a long line of dominos to completely destroy their relationship.

Last, Tommy nearly killing himself is very different from Theseus being pushed off a cliff. Tommy’s near suicide was the direct result of physical and emotional abuse at the hands of c!Dream for what was canonically, I believe, several months? (Correct me if I’m wrong on that one.) Tommy almost jumping off a pillar because he was deliberately isolated from his support systems is nothing like Theseus being killed because he was a cocky asshole who thought he was god.

-

So that’s why I don’t think Tommy is anything like Theseus, and why I’m filled with endless rage by the completely uncritical acceptance of this parallel, but it’s not the whole reason it pisses me off.

It also pisses me off because, as stated earlier, cc!Techno is an English major. He knew what he was doing with this. The fandom’s insistence on refusing to acknowledge his character as an unreliable narrator is, in my opinion, acting as a massive kneecap to what could be a great analysis of how he thinks.

Specifically: why does c!Technoblade think Tommy is like Theseus?

Of all the Greek heroes to pick, why that one? Was it just the tantalizing opportunity to parallel Schlatt with a horned monster, or was it because c!Techno has some genuine in-character reason to think this myth specifically applies to Tommy.

Now, we all know people in the SMP have a habit of analogizing Wilbur and Tommy. The assumption Tommy wanted to be president, the belief that Tommy nominated Tubbo directly, the belief that he was intentionally deceiving Techno about Pogtopia’s intentions regarding Manburg... all of these stem from Wilbur. There are more cases of this, of course, but several analyses have been done in the subject already, and this is long enough without more padding.

So why does Techno think Tommy is Theseus? Well, it’s simple, isn’t it?

Wilbur is Theseus.

To be continued, because this is already too long and my brain hurts.

[tiedyemillenialbullshit]

Hope is a Heartache

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Avenger!Reader

Summary: You and Bucky are a series of missed opportunities, but will that stop you both from being happy?

Word Count: 2.6k

Warnings: Mentions of alcohol, sexual situations, swearing, angst, LOTS of angst, fluff

A/N: I’m not sure when I became the kween of angst, but here we are. I think if I wrote smut, I’d die so maybe someday I’ll try that. For now here we are.

Written listening to: Hope is a Heartache by LEON

“How would I ever tell her that? What, that I think she’s the most stunning, hilarious, powerful, brave, most amazing woman I’ve ever met? She’d freak out, I’m like her best friend on the team, Steve.”

“I don’t know pal, but I can’t keep looking at you like this. Every time she walks by you stop breathing.”

Bucky never felt so sick to his stomach as he did when he thought about you and whatshisface. You had been on the team about as long as he had. You were both “freshmen” as Sam loved to joke, together. At first, you annoyed the shit out of him. Always going on about how he needed to try harder at this or move faster at that. Buck always confided in Steve about how much you pissed him off until finally one day Steve snapped. “DUDE. YOU. LOVE. Y/N. If you won’t admit it to me, at least admit it to yourself.”

Bucky remembers telling him exactly where he can shove it before stomping out of the Captain’s office to the gym. He had walked in on you taking some sort of frustration out on a punching bag. You didn’t hear him come in, so he stood in the shadow of the doorway and watched you. You stopped after a few moments to rip your gloves off, fix your ponytail, huff out a swear or four and decide to start punching again sans gloves.

Bucky knew in that instant he didn’t want a different partner on missions. He didn’t want you to want to go on morning runs with anyone else. He didn’t want to trust anyone else besides you.

You remember that day too. You were pissed at him, convinced he was trying to make you look bad because in Steve’s eyes, he could do no wrong. So who cares right? Oh you just wanted to hit him. That’s why you had elected to not place your boxing gloves back on and instead just rely on the tape wrapping your knuckles to not break your skin open.

You heard something behind you, and when you spun around you saw him watching you. At first, this wasn’t startling, the asshole had a serious staring problem, but he wasn’t mad. He was just watching you move. Nothing about his demeanor was menacing like it usually was. It was like Frosty had melted and standing before you was this man.

You decided then that you didn’t anyone else sparing with you in the gym, you didn’t want anyone else giving you a hard time because you couldn’t chug a beer as fast as Thor, and you didn’t want him to want anyone else as his partner.

It was like something clicked into place that day, a thread between the two of you pulled taught. You couldn’t place the feeling, you never had it before.

“Earth to Bucky. *white noise* Paging James Buchanan Barnes *white noise* Will the tin man please join us in this debriefing-“ Bucky finally recognized Sam was talking to him.

“Sorry, what?” Buck knew he was red in the face, but honestly didn’t care. Not after the sleepless night he had after witnessing you kiss your new boyfriend goodnight.

“We were discussing Wednesday’s mission, Bucky. You good?” Steve had a concerned look on his face for his best friend.

You were staring right back at Bucky as he sternly answered “I’m fine. Couldn’t sleep last night. Kept having a nightmare about some prick invading my space.”

The team exchanged glances, but that just confirmed to you that he did see you kiss Nick. You thought you heard someone shuffling inside quickly after giving your new boyfriend a lingering kiss goodnight. What was his fucking problem?

“I hate it when that happens. Maybe you should just try minding your own business in real life, then you wouldn’t have nightmares about it at night.” You shot back not breaking eye contact.

Bucky stood and left. The team knew better than to try and reason with a pissed off super soldier, so they let him leave the meeting early.

You practically ran out of the meeting as soon as it was concluded.

“What the fuck was that about?” Nat asked as she was following you uninvited into your room. Besides Bucky, she was your closest friend. Your closest friend, and your nosiest friend.

“Bucky saw me kissing Nick last night and took that as a signed permission slip to act like a fucking asshole, I don’t know. He never likes any of the guys I bring around. Honestly, that’s probably why they don’t last.” You really liked Nick, and you weren’t going to let Bucky scare this one off. Which would be a feat, seeing as your best friend was the former Winter Soldier.

“Y/N, do you think he ‘scares’ all of them off because he wishes he was them?” Nat looked at you without giving away too much of her thought process.

“What, like he wants to be my boyfriend? Come ON Nat, this is Bucky. It’s BUCKY. Even if he did have feelings for me, he’d never tell me. Because he’s BUCKY.” You weren’t sure why you were secretly hoping she argued with you about that. You always liked Bucky. But you were a professional, those feelings got pushed down a long, long time ago.

“I don’t know, Steve said-“

“OH. So now Bucky and I are the topic of your pillow talk, Nat? Great! Look, just because it worked out for you and Steve that way doesn’t mean it’ll work out for me and Buck like that.” You shot back.

“WOAH. I was going to say that Steve said he had been off lately, it probably doesn’t have anything to do with you, Y/N.”

“Oh, well, I mean, I knew that. Whatever, okay?” You stumbled. “It’s not going to happen. I’m with Nick and I’m happy for once. Whatever his issue is, he can talk to his therapist about it, I’m done being that too.”

One year later

“Y/N. Hi. Uh, I didn’t know you were going to be here,” Bucky stammers to you as he’s holding the hand of some innocent enough looking blonde.

“You mean in my own kitchen? Funny how that works out. I was just leaving.” You say to him. The thought crosses your mind to introduce yourself to his new play-thing, but that will just make it seem so much more permanent. You hope your self-dismissal makes her feel awkward enough to leave but you know that won’t happen.

After the disaster that was your relationship with Nick ended after 9 months, you swore off men, including Bucky. He had eventually apologized for his behavior during that debriefing and things seemed to go back to normal. You now realize “normal” is just your funny way of saying “compartmentalizing.” Things were okay between you two because you never talked about Nick and he never asked.

After it ended between you two, he didn’t even ask. You chucked it up to him giving you your space. But that was a few months ago, and now you see why he wasn’t asking you about it.

“Night, Y/N.” Bucky calls after you.

“At least one of us seems like we’ll have a goodnight,” you yell back at him as you retreat into the hallway.

You think you hear him mumble something to his date and then you hear footsteps behind you, so you slow your pace a bit.

“What’s your fucking problem? Amanda doesn’t deserve your wrath the first time she comes over.” Bucky hush yells at you.

“The first time?! Buck, our rooms are right next to each other or did you forget that?” You actually yell at him.

“Oh trust me, how could I forget? With all the sex you had for 9 fucking months straight, the sound of you moaning is literally engrained into my mind forever and you KNOW how hard that is to do.” Bucky is screaming at you now.

“FUCK YOU JAMES.” You yell as you turn and walk towards the stairs.

“DON’T FUCKING CALL ME THAT,” he screams.

Good. Now no sex for him.

You wait until you get to the stairwell to let loose the tears threatening to spill over. You didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of winning the fight. You two had fought so many times in your friendship. The other Avengers knew to just leave two be when you got into these kind of moods.

You and Nick didn’t work out for a lot of reasons, but the biggest one was your relationship with Bucky. He was so protective over you, and a few months ago when that stopped you realized you didn’t miss his protection, you missed how he looked at you. You missed the possibility that there was something there between the two of you. It was clear he had given up, and you hated that. He felt cold and distant. Shortly after that, Nick stopped coming around and you didn’t care.

Just as you sit down to let yourself unleash in between the second and third floors, you hear the first story doors open. You go completely quiet as to not want to alert anyone you were sitting on the stairs crying like a teenager experiencing their first heartbreak.

You think you hear whimpering or what could be shushed crying. You lean over the railing to look down at who it is. Sitting there with his head in his hands is Bucky. You don’t make a noise.

“Fucking collect yourself Barnes, she’s just being a bitch. Deal with her tomorrow.”

You didn’t realize you had that much of an impact on him, you only wanted to ruin his desire to have sex with her.

Satisfied and feeling slightly guilty, you walk back to your room for the night, not caring if he hears you.

Two months later

“Is this seat taken?” You turn to the side and look up to see Bucky looking down at you sheepishly.

“Where’s your hot date? I saved two seats for you and Amanda,” you say back to Bucky, genuinely interested in where his date was. After that awful night, you decided to put forth an effort to make things better with him. No one is kidding themselves that when you have personal stuff going on behind the scenes of work partners, it makes work in the field that much harder.

“Uh, she’s not going to make it,” he says with sad eyes.

“Oh, is she okay?”

“Uh yeah, we’re just not. We broke up this morning. Thanks for saving two seats though, that was nice of you Y/N.” Bucky sits down next to you and you wrap an arm around the back of his chair.

“I’m sorry Buck, I really did like her. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I am now,” he looks at you with a slight smile to his face. You hold his gaze for a few seconds longer than normal before ruffling his hair as the DJ comes over the music.

“Ladiesssss and gentlemeeennnn please welcome to the stage…”

“I can’t believe Sam dragged us all to a strip club for his birthday,” you whisper in Bucky’s ear as the music gets louder.

“I know, look at Steve I think he’s about to have a stroke.” You and Bucky share a laugh and for a second, it’s like you’re back in your early days on the team when it seemed like all you two had was each other.

Once the girls found out the Avengers were in their midst, it was game over. If Sam’s goal was to black out tonight, he accomplished that almost immediately. Liquor was free, dances were free, and unsurprisingly the team was having an amazing time. Besides the waitresses and a few dancers, no one came into your circle, and it ended up being a really fun night. You and Bucky were having so much fun, you couldn’t remember the last time you laughed as hard as you were.

You even noticed Bucky turning down a dance or two, redirecting the girl’s attention to Thor, or the much more enthused, Sam. You expected a newly single Buck to want the attention, but he was not having it.

As the night went on, you caught Bucky staring at you, and more and more you held his stare with a curve to your lips that was reserved just for him.

“Coincidentally” the strip club was next to Sam’s favorite bar. The team decided that was the logical next destination, but you were exhausted and it must’ve been showing on your face.

“Hey doll, why don’t you say we Irish exist these assholes and head home? I’m exhausted.”

“Fuck. Yes. PLEASE let’s go!” You exclaimed as if Bucky was reading your mind. You didn’t want to be the one to suggest it, but you were so happy he did.

You both stand in line with the team but disappear behind everyone as they all head in. Bucky throws an arm around your shoulders as you walk down the street.

“You know, I’m kind of glad it’s just us the rest of the night, that was too much togetherness for me,” Bucky says. You’re blushing and you know he means he’s happy to have a friend, but you find your stomach buzzing with the hope he means something else.

“Same here,” you laugh, “what do you want to do? Grab a cab and head home? Movie? Are you spent?”

“For you? Not at all.” He’s got that dumb grin on your face that makes you want to either kiss him or smack him so he stops distracting you.

“What’re you staring at sweetheart?” You realize it’s getting harder to hide your emotions. He just broke up with Amanda, and maybe it’s the alcohol or the atmosphere, but you can’t stop the word vomit.

You stop him on the sidewalk under the streetlight. There’s no one really out on this street.

“Are we ever going to get it right?” Ope, there it is.

“Get what right?” Bucky is looking at you confused and you’re hoping you can somehow telepathically tell him you mean the two of you. Together. Finally.

“Us.”

Bucky just keeps staring at you like he did that day at the gym. Neither of you say anything, he’s got a hand on your upper arm, resting there.

The regret starts to set in. Things were just getting back to a good place between the two of you, and you just ruined it.

“You know, Amanda and I didn’t work out for a few reasons, but the main one being... ugh, shit, the main reason is that she isn’t you, Y/N.” Bucky just spoke the words you’ve wanted to hear the most but it doesn’t register at first.

He must see that either on your face or through your lack of response. You feel him pulling you in, and right before he moves his lips over yours, it hits you like a train. You love him. Your stubborn, angry, beautiful, amazing Bucky.

You kiss him back with an intensity you didn’t know was in you. You break the kiss and start giggling against his mouth.

“What! I’m not that bad of a kisser!” He’s laughing now with you.

“Sorry, sorry, I just can’t believe this is finally happening. And on a secluded street, under a street lamp. Write a romance novel already, Barnes.”

Your lips to God’s ears, a group of people start walking your way. Bucky looks around and pulls you into a small walkway between two apartment buildings.

“Come here, I wasn’t done with you.” He’s kissing you up against the brick wall like a man starved and you don’t care if anyone sees you, you’ve never felt this happy in your life.

“Let’s just do this, you and me. I’m sick of pretending like you aren’t my person,” you say against his lips.

“Y/N, I want nothing else, ever.”

[hes-writer]

To You (4)

Summary: harry dates y/n to get closer to her best friend

Warnings: mild angst (what else lol), not a lot of dialogue for this one, and a bit of fluff

Word Count: 2775 words

A/N: I've had the worst writer's block for this series but then inspiration struck me at 2 am and I had the chance to write a lil sumthin sumthin for the next part :D

Read the full series in my masterlist (bio)

As I mentioned before, this story kind of goes backwards.

____

As self-deprecating as it is, Y/N couldn’t help but feel her guard lower with each fleeting glance at her phone. She didn’t mean to, really. It wasn’t as if she was bored out of her mind because she was the opposite of that. 

Going on her phone and tapping on Instagram was more of a distraction from studying if anything. She was hounded by piles of homework and pages of readings to do by the end of next week. It seemed that her brain was working in constant overdrive to try to remember the endless concepts and theories that were catapulted at her with no signs of stopping. Her eyes were straining from the constant stimulation from her laptop screen, and from trying to read the small letters plastered on the computer. 

Y/N was studying on her designated studying days, as usual. She was quite proud of sticking to the schedule, except for the few weeks that she opted to coddle herself in the confines of her warm blanket because that was around the time that she found out her boyfriend, Harry, was only using her to get close to her best friend, Louise. 

——

In retrospect, Y/N should have seen all the signs blaring right in front of her face all along. She gave herself facepalms more than she could count by the way she was—quite literally—blinded by love to realize that Harry’s feelings were nothing but a façade. That Y/N was nothing but a pawn in his game; a character to manipulate, disposable in order for him to get the woman he actually wanted. And Y/N had no doubts that her ex-boyfriend was treating Louise like a queen. 

Y/N wore red-tinted glasses while she was with Harry and she didn’t see the red flags rising every time he shaped their evening around Louise’s schedule. She thought that Harry was making such a good effort in getting to know the people close to Y/N’s life that he insisted on having Louise around whenever they hung out with her friends. 

Harry asked endless questions about Louise; from where she worked to what she was interested in—to which Y/N had foolishly answered, believing that she had found the perfect man to share her life with. But she should have known when he didn’t do the same for her other friends. Hell, he didn’t even do the same to her!

___

When Harry and Y/N were just friends, he didn’t bother getting to know her as thoroughly and comprehensively as he did with Louise. In fact, it could be argued that Harry hated Y/N when they were first introduced by—and this was ironic—Louise! 

Louise spoked highly and excitedly of ‘my friend, Y/N’ and with Harry being the loved-up simp that he was—wanted to please Louise by appearing interested in her friend. He guessed that he was probably too good of an actor (not to toot his own horn) because that meet up turned into a set-up. 

Louise had planned a date for her friends, Y/N was indifferent to it; she was even a little excited because she thought that Harry was sort of nice. Despite the fact that he was indirectly rude to her in their first meeting, Y/N didn’t hold grudges on people for their first impressions. She believed that anybody could have a bad day and that might just be the time when Harry was dragged by the arm to be introduced to her. 

Y/N understood if that was the case. She was not too keen on acting nice and friendly after a stressful day at work, or a hard study session at the library. So even if Harry was practically snarling at every word she said from his seat around the rounded booth table of the bar—she agreed to go on a first date with him. 

——

Harry was in shambles.

He got himself into quite an intricate mess trying to attain the woman of his dreams. He was such a pleaser that he was now contemplating inside his car, outside of Y/N’s address. Was this all worth it? Of course, it was. As much as Harry would like to say that this was part of his plan to make Louise his girlfriend, it really wasn’t. 

But that didn’t mean that he couldn’t use it to his advantage. 

It was a good thing that he was early—about twenty minutes or so. That was only because he was huffing the whole time Harry was buttoning the clutches of his dress shirt, shaking his head at the bathroom mirror and reprimanding himself for letting his lovesickness to get him deeper than he would like. But hey, the sooner Harry got to Y/N’s place, the sooner this ‘date’ would be over. 

So here he was, hidden in the shadows of the night sky and shielded by the heavy tint of his Range Rover. Palms were pressed on the lush leather steering wheel as Harry formulated how he could turn this around in his favour. He was already in Louise’s good books for even agreeing to this in the first place—why not make Y/N his own personal wingman?

Granted, that she didn’t actually know Harry well enough but maybe this date could reach Louise’s ears about how much of a romantic, perfect, and chivalrous gentleman Harry could be. That would surely make Louise like him, right?

Wrong. Absolutely wrong.

It was safe to say that Harry was feeling guilty the moment he decided to use Y/N in order to get to her best friend, but that ship sailed long ago when anger and frustration took over. Why in the hell was he so perfect to Y/N’s eyes that she had gushed about him to her best friend minutes after he had dropped her off?

Why did Harry have to knock on her door with a single-stemmed rose clutched in his fingers, doing a little bow to add humour when she opened the door? And what in God’s name possessed him to say that she looked beautiful that night in her pretty, deep green dress that he thought was absolutely gorgeous on her—but his heart was with another woman—fully knowing that it would look better on Louise?

“Why. . . just why,” Harry asked himself as he sat at a table with Y/N, Louise and her boyfriend, Dylan. 

That was what being romantic got him. That was where declaring Y/N as his unofficial wingman ended him upon. A double date with the woman he wanted with Y/N looking at him as if they’ve been together for years, when in fact, they had only known each other for a few weeks. 

Harry’s pride was too big to admit that this time; he couldn’t get the girl. And so, his bruised ego declared that this date was just another unplanned situation that would benefit him—somehow, someway—in the future. 

Wrong again. 

Because a month later,  Y/N was running off to her lecture with a bag strapped over her shoulder, leaving Harry a passionate kiss on the lips. He was quite ashamed to say that he enjoyed the affection, but not enough to ignore the throbbing of his heart

Harry wasn’t all in with his relationship with Y/N and he knew exactly why. For months, he had been pining for Louise and well, he ended up with her best friend, Y/N. Now that was just super unlucky for him. And he wasn’t usually a mean person, but Harry was very annoyed with fate (or destiny) for leaving with an ultimatum. 

First, leaving Y/N risking her tattling to Louise about him breaking her heart was a no-no. Second, staying with Y/N until she realizes that both of them were no good together. The latter was a much more pleasant choice, except the fact that it could take months for Y/N to acknowledge that she and Harry were both too different for each other. 

—— 

It was another four months later when Harry drew upon an epiphany very similar yet completely different from the ultimatum he had presided. 

Y/N was sure of her feelings more than ever, even dropping the ‘L’ word during a drunken stupor of wine and bubbly champagne. Harry was sure that she hadn’t remembered her confession the next morning because she never brought it up. However, those words that escaped her lips were enough for Harry to overthink each night one or the other slept over. 

Sometimes Y/N’s snores would serve as background noise to his serene imagination, wondering why the images of Louise and him doing couple-y stuff were now replaced with Y/N’s figure instead. 

He also pondered if his memory was so impeccable that he could hear Y/N’s laugh fluttering in his ears while she was sound asleep beside him or was it just because she released a chuckle every time he made a horrible joke?

(It was true. Y/N never left Harry hanging in the air with a questionable punchline of a head-scratching joke. Both of them knew that her giggles were pity laughs. Harry was thankful for it and Y/N just couldn’t resist painting a genuine smile on Harry’s face, looking so proud that he had made her laugh.) 

Harry was certain that his feelings for Y/N wouldn’t quite reach the threshold that he held her for now. But it seemed that he was getting a lot of his sworn predictions wrong lately. Sure, their first encounter (and the second, and the third. . .) were purely for satisfaction’s sake. A mere plot for Harry to build his boyfriend resumé for Louise. 

Harry wasn’t sure when his feelings shifted from civil and friendly to an ever-evoking, lovesick puppy. 

Maybe it was the way Y/N walked, straight into his heart and stole it, keeping it safe in her tender hands when she pressed a lingering kiss on his lip while she ran off to catch the bus. The way Harry would pout when Y/N forgot the routine she had set, resulting in him whining her name and sometimes chasing after her to get his much-needed kiss. He even started calling it his ‘good-luck charm’ because it seemed like without it; Harry came home more drained and tired than usual because nothing went right that day. 

Or maybe it was the way she giggled while reading something on her phone, laptop, or a book—even if it was for school purposes. How absolutely pleased he was to hear her melody of giggles, straining his ear to listen more closely and wanting to do nothing more than to hear it again because it was music to Harry. It usually ends with Y/N’s heaving breaths, begging him to stop tickling her. 

Was it because she was the most adorable little thing while she was asleep? No, it couldn’t be, Harry thought, even though the admiration in his eyes cannot be described as anything other than glazed over with love and affection with the way he stared at Y/N’s sleeping face. 

But why can’t he stop thinking about her when she wasn’t around? Harry felt like he was missing a part of himself as soon as he shut the door to his house because Y/N had to go to her own place. 

Why did a smile splinter his lips visualizing Y/N studying at her kitchen table with a topknot wobbling on her head and a pair of her thick-rimmed glasses slipping down the bridge of her nose? Harry still remembers the first time she asked him to redo the bun on her head, complaining that it was loosening and that she couldn’t focus when strands were haywire. 

Harry made sure to be extra careful as to not accidentally pull on her scalp, stretching the hairband around his fingers. 

Now, he only had a minute experience in hair styling, reminiscing to his long-haired days were he slipped his hair into a neat ball in a few seconds or less. But this was Y/N, his girlfriend, who had an adorable pout on her face. The finch between her brows deepening when she tried to understand the concepts written on the screen yet she would giggle when Harry would ask her, ‘Am I hurting you?’ and shake her head ‘no’. 

——-

So it was a bit questionable when Harry jumped at the chance to kiss Louise when the time came. 

She had just broken up with her boyfriend and called Y/N for comfort. However, Y/N was about to leave for an exam worth half of her grade and she couldn’t just not attend it. She may love her best friend with all of her heart, but not enough to waste thousands of dollars to redo a course because she missed the final exam. 

Hence, why Harry was sent in place of Y/N instead. And that was also how his plump lips managed to lock itself with Louise’s’ glossy ones. He should’ve felt guilt stab him right away when he tasted wet, salty tears on his tongue when he battled for dominance with Louise. 

Harry should have pulled away when his phone buzzed in his pocket; a message from girlfriend that she had just finished her exam and was ready to be picked up now so that she could give love and comfort to her best friend. 

Harry’s subconscious must have reminded him that this was the woman whom he had spent months pining on; desperately trying to make her his yet failing. And now that he had the chance to, he couldn’t stop. 

Instead of doing everything his conscience had practically yelled at him to do, Harry’s brain had buffered—his body numbed every nerve except the ones controlling his mouth because their persisting kiss was captured by a photographer hidden amongst barricades that Harry had failed to take notice of. 

Harry was sure that his presence was hidden to the best of his abilities, but he guessed that Louise’s hands had pulled his hoodie off in the midst of their make-out session, revealing his side profile and the unruly curls on his head. 

And that was how Y/N identified the image on her phone the time she felt her heart being ripped out and crushed into pieces. That, and the fact that Harry wore the same clothes she had seen him in before she left. 

____ 

And now, as Y/N paused her thumb from scrolling away from the image on her screen, the same pain and heartbreak still throbbed in her chest. 

She couldn’t seem to forget, as a lot of people say, what Harry did to her. Despite the fact that he was spotted outside her door, leaving boxed gifts of chocolate and flower bouquets a few minutes ago—Y/N simply didn’t have the capacity to sweep everything under the rug. 

The wound was still fresh—feeling air was enough to have her hissing, aiming to cover the cut in fear that it would become too painful to even ignore. For weeks, Y/N had to wallow in agonizing self-pity to remind herself that Harry didn’t deserve her or her love for him and now she was somehow ready to run back into his arms? 

She absolutely despised the way her hands twitched to send him a text. To leave him a voicemail or to simply tap his contact just to hear him speak to her again. Y/N was ashamed to admit that he thought about knocking on his front door just for another chance at seeing him again. An opportunity to ask him if he was happier with her (ex) best-friend—if Harry loved Louise more than he did with her. Or—and most of all—if Harry ever did love Y/N during their short relationship. Was everything just a game to him? 

She was doing good so far; she was strong enough to withhold from the urges of communicating with an ex. However, Y/N knew it was only a matter of time before Harry took extreme measures to speak to her, unlocking her door with the spare key she had given him. One day she would be met with his figure in the hallway with a sad smile on his face and three long-stemmed sunflowers in his hand and Y/N wouldn’t be able to resist him. 

Y/N hated herself for being so weak whenever Harry was involved. He was her Kryptonite; getting too close to him was what ripped her to shreds. 

___

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[seasidefallenangel]

hq characters with a neurodivergent s/o

✰ neurodivergency refers to someone with adhd and/or autism.

sugawara koushi;

○ he tries his best to offer as much support as possible. he can’t say he understands a lot of it, but he absolutely sympathizes with you. you don’t have to worry a ton when you have more off days, or in the event you have rsd, that he’ll get upset with your feelings. he knows you genuinely can’t help it, and very rarely gets upset to point where he’d need a little distance from you

○ picks up on the concept of hyperfixations fairly easily. he can’t even begin to imagine how horrible it is - if one day he woke up and his passions meant nothing to him anymore. if you have a hard time making friends because of how quickly and intensely your interests change, he makes an effort to try and get into some of the new stuff you pick up. he can’t always guarantee he’ll like it or anything, but he’s always willing to listen to you infodump

○ if he spots any sort of fidget toy/stressball/etc, he’ll buy one for you. he’s not sure if they actually help you a lot, but you always seem super grateful for it. he’ll take notice of what ones you tend to reach for more and try to gear towards getting those ones for you

○ as patient as he is, he does have his moments where he can get overwhelmed with you. times where your impulsivity, aggression or other symptoms of neurodivergency become too much for him to handle can lead to him snapping a little. he’ll make sure to leave the room as he knows it’s not your fault and you don’t act like this on purpose, but he’s only human. he makes sure afterwards to let you know he’d never blame you for what you can’t help, and to not be too hard on yourself in these situations

nishinoya yuu;

○ there’s honestly a fair chance he had adhd himself, even if he doesn’t realize it. you’ve never explicitly said you think he is to his face, but sometimes you hint that the way you treat certain things is really similar

○ he’s a big believer that being spontaneous keeps a relationship fun and interesting, which is both a blessing and a curse. on some days, something new and unknown is exactly what you need to stimulate your brain and keep your attention. other days it’s hard to find purpose in doing anything at all, and keeping up with his energy proves to be difficult

○ he really doesn’t want to get annoyed with you, but it tends to happen pretty often. he recognizes you’re not purposefully trying to make him mad and in return he’ll try his hardest to never lash out at you. there’s been a few moments where it was just  impossible to control himself (another sign of someone who’s nd, you noted afterwards), but both of you understand each others grievances and are able to work past it

kageyama tobio;

○ at first, he’s not going to take you seriously. he’s the type to say that you're just avoiding your problems, making up excuses, overreacting. the “if you want to do something, then just do it” type of person. he doesn’t really think he’s coming off as being an asshole, but when there’s a very noticeable rift between the two of you, he starts racking his brain for what might’ve made you upset and eventually puts two and two together

○ it takes time, as many things like this do. you’ll have to really sit down and explain things to him, and he slowly starts to understand. he’ll tell you some of this stuff reminds him of himself before brushing it off and never questioning it again. you absolutely suspect he’s on the spectrum but won’t bring it up until he either asks you or starts thinking about it himself - which happens when you accidentally mention how volleyball seems to be his special intrest

○ it can be... difficult to say the least. he can’t really keep up all that well with sudden shifts and the irritability you often show over things that seemingly don’t matter. sometimes it’s hard for him to not take things personally, and the fact you two seem so similar in this regard raises a fair amount of problems. you both have to learn from the issues and work together to co-exist peacefully, but it’s very worth it in the end

tsukishima kei;

○ tsukishima will pick on almost anyone for almost anything. this is something he will absolutely never joke about. he made the mistake once early on - something about a test grade - and had to deal with your emotional outburst, following a meltdown, over how you tried so hard but nothing makes sense. you can’t just sit in a class and learn like he does, you’ll never be normal, never be good enough-

○ he had to stop the downward spiral in the middle of the sidewalk, but he was too shaken up to worry about embarrassment. that sort of reaction wasn’t normal by any means, and when he got home that night he tried looking into why exactly that happened. the complete shift in attitude the next day was jarring you to, but the genuine apology was even more jarring. he doesn’t apologize easily, but something about having made fun of a neurological disorder you’ve suffered with your whole life just doesn’t sit well in his stomach

○ he picks up extremely quickly, even for him. he’s very perceptive of when you’re more on-edge than usual and reminds himself to be patient with you. he’s not coddling in public (unless you’re having some sort of breakdown or panic attack) but it’s noticeable that he doesn’t make any sort of jabs at you like he does with most others

○ helps tutor you without any gripes. he won’t lie and say he gets how hard it is for you to understand certain concepts, but he’s aware things don’t come as easily to other people like it does to him. very thorough in explaining whatever you have difficulty with and tries coming up with real life examples to help it make more sense. if it does become too much for him (he’s still a high schooler regardless of how he acts), he’ll end the session and let you know it’s nobody’s fault 

kuroo tetsurou;

○ one of, if not at the top of the list, the best people to date if you’re neurodivergent. he takes this extremely seriously and doesn’t doubt you at all when you explain how it feels like everyday your disorder slowly rips you apart until there’s nothing left. every part of your life is affected by this and he wants to be able to help you feel as normal as possible despite everything weighing you down

○ puts a lot of time and research into your disorders. he wants to understand what’s helpful and what’s counterproductive without bothering you about it since he doesn’t know if you might react badly. he has a very good balance of figuring out how to help you cope in certain scenarios even if they’re not ideal and removing you from a situation where things are just too heavy for you to handle

○ he really stresses how important it is you talk to him about your boundaries, things you need, moments where you’re overwhelmed, etc. he can’t imagine life has been that easy for you thus far and tries to do everything he can, from helping with schoolwork, getting fidget toys, introducing you to new things that may help, and anything in between. he never wants you to feel as if you’re a burden or difficult because of what you can’t control, and will bend over backwards to prove it

kozume kenma;

○ kenma is fairly well versed in online topics and this is one that comes up often. given how perceptive he is towards the world around him, he was pretty easily able to figure out that something was different about you far before you started dating. he doesn’t speak about it much with you but does a lot behind-the-scenes to help make everyday life easier

○ given that kenma is always getting into new games and franchises, he’s able to help make the time in between hyperfixations more bearable. you had described to him how empty and monotone everything feels when you aren’t focused on something specific and he really hates picturing you so lifeless because your brain just won’t let you consume things normally. even if you aren’t playing the game so much as just watching his do it, he feels better knowing there’s something distracting you

○ something important to remember is that you’re not the only one who can act out or get overwhelmed easily. kenma hates being pushed out of his comfort zone and imagines it the same for you, so he makes sure to never put you in a place where you might face sensory overload or anything of the sort. he expects the same treatment back. infodumping is fine and he’ll nod and listen to you, but if there’s a point where you become suffocating then he’ll ask you to take a step back and give him a moment. wants to avoid triggering anything rsd-related so he’ll specify this isn’t your fault and that everyone makes him feel this way at some point

oikawa tooru;

○ quite possibly one of the worst people to go through this with you at the start. oikawa puts his soul into everything he does even if it shatters him, so some of your behaviors might not sit well with him. a lot of people who are neurodivergent have something they naturally excel in and in the same vein, end up dropping or disregarding because they no longer hyperfocus on it. it reminds him too much of a certain kouhai who had all the ability oikawa did with none of the years of practice it took him to get there, and puts a bad taste in your mouth

○ explain to him it’s not fair that he treats you in a way that implies you enjoy living like this, because you’d give anything to keep interests you have for longer than a few weeks or months, regardless of how much you try to force yourself to stay into it. he re-evaluates himself and realizes he’s in the wrong. he’ll never fully understand how it affects you but he’ll listen and learn about it, ask questions, study how he can help. he compares how you hyperfixate to how much he’ll focus on volleyball and knows this has to be an equally giving relationship in regards to respecting the other interests

○ he’ll have his moments where he can’t pretend that he’s able to handle your mood swings and inability to just sit down and pay attention to something. you tell him he wouldn’t be normal if he was somehow okay with everything you do. an afternoon where he practices in the gym by himself and you sit and binge watch something is good enough for some breathing room without causing any unclosable rift to appear. he’ll may sure he’s listening intently when he comes home and you go into detail about a new hobby of yours. he’s trying his absolute best, i promise you

bokuto koutaro;

○ it’s highly likely bokuto has adhd himself. it’s one of those things adults just say to kids when they’re being hyperactive without actually knowing all the things that come with having adhd, but the older bokuto got the more he looked into it and realized it might actually be a thing for him. there’s a lot of neurodivergent-related issues you have that sometimes fly over his head or he has to go back and think about again, but he’s the last person who ever wants to cause any issues for you

○ he’ll ask you questions regarding if you think he has adhd and some of the signs that make it recognizable. he’s terrified at the idea volleyball might just be a hyperfixation of his, but feels much better when you explain special interests and how if anything it would fall under that category for him. these conversations are a very intimate bonding moment for both of you, given how vulnerable you really have to be to let all your weaknesses be known without worry of ridicule. he wouldn’t trade the knowledge of having your trust so deeply for the world

○ bokuto, for as supportive as he is, can stimulate your brain in a bad way. he’s easily excitable and often has volume issues, and more than a few times has he triggered sensory overload for you. he feels horrible whenever it happens and wants to comfort you so badly, but knows the best thing is for him to just quiet down and leave you be. he never takes it personally and goes into “emo mode” because he knows how serious it can be. the only time he’ll get close in this moments is if you have a panic attack because of it in which case he tries helping you steady your breath and stop shaking. normally you’d hate being touched when you’re like this, but his arms and warmth work wonders for your psyche

tendou satori;

○ it’s terrifying how in-tune he is with you. it’s almost like you’re just talking about the weather instead of you trying to scratch the skin off your arm while your brain got the better of you. stimming, hyperfocusing, lack of interest, social interaction issues, you can talk to him about literally anything related to your neurodivergency and he’ll be on the exact same wavelength as you. he’s able to adapt very easily and can read your irritability, mood swings and any triggers you might have. is excellent at getting you out a situation before it becomes too much for you to bear

○ tendou is another character who always has something new to show you, so he’s also very good at filling the gap between hyperfixations. he’s somehow able to completely keep up with your infodumping and even will do something similar of the sort right back you. he loves finding new games and anime and will automatically partake in anything you show him. it really helps you mentally since you never feel like you’re talking too much or uncomfortably passionate about anything since he seems so genuinely interested in what you have to say

○ is extremely protective and defensive of you when it comes to others questioning why you act a certain way or do certain things. there’s probably a little bit of a personal tie there since he got bullied for being different when he was a kid, and he absolutely hates when people are derided because they don’t follow the falsely conceived notion of normalcy. you’re not harming anyone, why should it matter what you’re doing? if you’re insecure about stimming in public though, he invests in fidgets cubes for you to keep in your pockets to play with secretly so nobody notices anything out of the ordinary. his main goal is to make sure you’re happy no matter how much your head tries to tell your otherwise. really, he just loves you more than anything else

kita shinsuke;

○ if anyone else treated this the way mr. no gaps does, you’d absolutely freak out on them - but for some reason since it’s kita it comes off as comforting. he’s the type that doesn’t let you use disorders as a restriction or excuse to let yourself settle for mediocrity, but he makes it obvious that he wants to see you thrive despite the things holding you back. he’ll never put you in a situation he thinks will trigger any sort of attack, rather things he know you can handle if you put a little more faith in yourself and your abilities

○ if he sees you’re spiraling and can’t take any sort of outside forces interacting with you a ton then he’ll make sure you have a day or two off to yourself. he won’t criticize or ridicule you for anything and goes along with whatever whims you feel (or in same cases, don’t feel like doing anything at all.) understands there’s a very important balance you need to maintain in order to go through life feeling even semi-decent and doesn’t want to jeopardize any progress you’ve made towards helping yourself

○ likes to play casual volleyball in the backyard when you’re stable and attentive enough to understand what’s going on around you. if it becomes a hyperfixation of yours then he’ll be glad to go more in depth so long as it doesn’t hit a point where it’s damaging your ability to interact with anything else. he’s a big believer that moving your body and being outside helps relax you, even if you’re not enthusiastic at the moment about it. he won’t let anybody - not your family, not an outsider, not even yourself - look down on you for any disability you have

✧·ﾟ: *✧·ﾟ:* 　　 *:·ﾟ✧*:·ﾟ✧

✰ this was stupid self indulgent but idc!! i’m neurodivergent myself and let it be known that if you say you have hyperfixations and you’re not nd i will stick your arm in a deep fryer <3

[rint4rous]

hogwarts au! oikawa

a/n: wrote this with a bad headache LMAO so if you see mistakes no you didnt <3

yeah help

anyway

oikawa toru

sixth year slytherin

captain of slytherin quidditch team

this one. very popular with the girls.

always gets gifts and confessed to, he turns them all down nicely tho

he flirts with them a little but never goes out with anyone

thanks but no thanks, hes focusing on quidditch

mostly hangs out with hanamaki, matsukawa, and iwaizumi

you, sixth year gryffindor

a chaser for the quidditch team

actually you and oikawa had a bit of a rivalry thing going on

because oikawa was getting good grades AND is good at quidditch

and it doesnt even look like hes trying.

and he lowkey comes off as arrogant sometimes

and youre like i hate geniuses

the two of you met during first year when he tried playfully hitting iwa in the hallway but iwa dodged

and you happen to be speedwalking past and then next thing you know you get slapped???

you stop walking and turn to oikawa

hes like HOLY CRAPDFHJSHJR

“I AM SO SORRY-”

“it’s alright!”

“are you sure??”

“yeah, it was an accident, right? …. unless it wasnt?”

“NO I SWEAR IT WAS AN ACCIDENT”

“i thought so! see you ‘round!”

then you skip away

yeah. yall dont really start competing and shit until you found out your mom and his mom had BEEF??? WHEN THEY WERE IN SCHOOL????

you found that out at the end of first year

“i heard tachibana’s son is in your year. or i guess she’s oikawa now.”

youre like yeah what about it

“my dearest y/n, you’re a smart little girl, okay?”

“so make sure you’re better than that oikawa kid, alright?”

and little innocent you is like “ok”

so start of second year, you study and work extra hard

but here’s perfect little oikawa who always knocks you down to second place

at first youre like. i’ll just work harder!

and he joins quidditch and so do you

so you try hard at that too

you’re not like a sore loser or anything so when slytherin wins you shake his hand with a smile

but by the end of the year you’re just kinda :/ now because you never see him studying or practicing spells so how the fuck is he BETTER THAN YOU AT EVERYTHING!!! ITS NOT FAIR!!!!!

third year you come into school with like not very good feelings abt oikawa

and your mom was on your ass about your grades and you’re like omfggg im TRYING OKAY IM TRYING SO HARD

too bad tho thats when he starts liking you …

middle of third year is when you start expressing those feelings for oikawa out loud

“i hate self-centered geniuses. come back down to earth, will you.”

he heard you say when test results came back

and hes like is she talking abt me? lol nah shes probably talking about stupid ushijima over there

and then he finds out you were in fact talking abt him

hes kinda hurt lol

then when the new term rolls in

and the two of you just start talking shit about each other and start arguing all the time

“what’s the answer, l/n?”

“fairy wings.”

“oh my bad, i didn’t realize she said oikawa, and not l/n.”

“oh sorry, i thought you wouldn’t know the answer so i answered for you! i saved you from embarrassing yourself. you’re welcome~”

your seatmate yaku was holding you down with all his might and HOW IS LITTLE MAN ABLE TO HOLD YOU BACK HIS GRIP IS STRONG BRO

the whole class s ighs here we go AGAIN

the teacher doesnt even bother sending you guys out to hall anymore because this happens so much

you always try to sabotage each other in potions

one time his eyebrows almost burned off after his potion exploded in his face

makki and mattsun like LMFAOWFEHERGUYER

then when the year ends you’re like ranting to your mom like “i hate geniuses. who does he think he is? just because he can beat me at everything?? i’ll show him. i’ll make him eat dirt in the field. i’ll wipe that dumb smirk off his face. i’ll-”

your mom: omg my little baby so full of hate just like her momma

fourth year you’re so determined to beat oikawa at something

he sees you in the library, unprovoked, once and he comes up from behind you like

“aw, is l/n gonna try beating me again this year? you know there’s no point in trying.”

you: hold it in hold it in hold it in YOU’RE MATURE NOW Y/N L/N. YOU SHOULD BE MORE MATURE THAN THIS DIMWIT IN FRONT OF YOU. inhale exhale inhale exhale

“aw, is oikawa gonna try beating ushiwaka in quidditch again this year? you know there’s no point in trying.”

way to be mature

poor oikawa tho you pressed a wrong button so he just leaves silently

you kinda regret it after

so this year goes like the last and so does the next

“arent you tired?? of competing with oikawa all the time??” your friend semi asked you

“kind of”

“then stop?? you dont have to fulfill your mom’s high school revenge lmao”

“ughh eita i know but im too far in”

one time you were out breaking curfew #savage

no but seriously you couldn’t sleep so you thought some fresh air will help, the dorms were super suffocating right now

you were stressed after your mom’s monthly letter

beat oikawa this beat oikawa that

you turn at a corner and you see the man himself, ALSO BREAKING CURFEW

now the both of you are looking at each other like 👁👄👁

“GOD L/N I THOUGHT YOU WERE A TEACHER I NEARLY DIED FROM A HEART ATTACK”

“shush before we both get caught”

“right sorry sorry”

“so what the hell are you doing breaking curfew.”

“what are you doing breaking curfew.”

“i asked you first”

“so?”

“just answer the question, oikawa.”

he looks around, making sure the coast was clear before he motions you over to him and as you walk towards him

you see the door hes standing in front of

he drags you in there and what you see is

a bunch of practice dummies

“yeah i,, practice my spells here at night. contrary to popular belief i’m not a genius like ushiwaka or tobio. i’m flattered you think so, though.”

and youre like he... actually practices?? he is actually human?

“what’s with that look? you wanna join me practice at night?”

“as if-” and then you see the book of spells and you guys aren’t even learning any of this YET. and you are determined not to fall behind oikawa “sure.”

oikawas like pardon?

you: i SAID SURE.

and so now at night you practice spells together

only because you want to beat him as if

the arguing goes down a little because you get caught up in beating each other at who gets to do the spell right first that practice runs super late sometimes and you dont have energy to fight with each other that early

everybodys like ??? huh????

but then you’re back to the usual bs in the afternoon and everybodys like oh okay so the world isnt ending yet

so anyway !! yall are practicing again

you’re pointing your wand at a practice dummy and trying to focus so you dont accidentally do something dumb

"hey why do you hate me so much?”

LITERALLY CATCHES YOU OFF GUARD AND BREAKS YOUR FOCUS

“it’s not because i hit you when we were first years right? it really was an accident i swear-”

“you still remember that?”

“well yeah… because i cant think of any other reason why you don’t like me.”

“um… trying too hard to please my mom, i guess. what about you? why did you try so hard to beat me at everything?” you ask, regaining your focus for the charm

“idk, you never paid attention to me unless i did.”

you scoff, “why? you don’t like me or anything, do you?”

“i do tho??”

he literally said that just before you chanted the spell and you got caught off guard and

“stupefy!”

it almost hits oikawa

oikawa: WHAT DID I DO

you: SHITHEAD DONT SAY THAT WHEN IM ABOUT TO DO SOMETHFIBEFH

“HOW DID THIS EVEN HAPPEN???”

“I DONT KNOW IT WAS FUN COMPETING WITH YOU WHEN WE WERE SECOND YEARS AND IT JUST DID?? I TRIED SO HARD SO I CAN IMPRESS YOU AND I GUESS MY PLAN BACKFIRED BECAUSE I DONT THINK YOU LIKE ME VERY MUCH”

now youre staring at each other and you’re both red

he kinda quiets down “and you’re a better rival than ushijima anyway. i don’t mean any of the stuff i said, i swear. i know you don’t like me but i just needed to let that out or i will go insane.”

and hes just looking down all shy

at this point you actually dont know if you like oikawa or not

i mean??? you spent like 3 years butting heads with this dude

and he liked you the whole time?? hes crazy this man is crazy.

maybe you were just in denial the whole time

because?? you could’ve stopped competing with him at everything

maybe you did enjoy it somehow

he did make your life at school interesting

“let’s go out on a few dates and we’ll see.”

his head just whips up and his eyes like light up and hes so EXCITED

in the time before you officially started dating

you find out from iwaizumi that even tho he smiles at a lot of girls its actually rarely genuine the only girl hes ever seen oikawa smile about genuinely was you

and that his mom actually didnt approve of him playing quidditch at first because he had a bad knee but he pushed for it because he really wanted to

he has like a smug and a flippant demeanor but hes very attentive and super caring !!

hes super passionate and hard working at what he does and

i guess now you finally realize you are falling

it takes five dates until the two of you officially start going out

if you tell third year you that you were dating oikawa she would never believe it but here you are, walking to class with him

when the two of you walked in the classroom talking

like TALKING NORMALLY AND NOT THE USUAL “i will choke you in your sleep” “ooh, kinda k-” “don’t”

it was already sus when the arguing toned down a bit but now that its like. REALLY GONE?? everybody is so confused

LMFAO matsukawa asks like “what happened?? are you guys broken?”

“no???”

“how rude! dearest y/n and i are dating now!”

everybody in this class: see now thats crazy. that is crazy.

makki: maybe we didnt hear him right. say that again oikawa

oikawa: me and y/n are dating.

everybody: oh okay bc we thought you said you and l/n were dat- WAIT SO YOU AND L/N REALLY ARE TOGETHER??? 

you: unfortunately

oikawa: h-hey :((((

everybody: SO WE DONT GOTTA LISTEN TO YALL ARGUE FIRST THING IN THE MORNING??? YOU HAVE TO TREAT THE WHOLE CLASS TO BUTTERBEER I THINK WE DESERVE IT AFTER THESE THREE YEARS OF CONSTANT YELLING

nobody was as SHOCKED as your moms

“y/n, baby, i know i did not just hear you say you’re dating the oikawa kid. repeat that for momma again.”

“i’m dating the oikawa kid.”

like?? MOM THIS WAS TECHNICALLY UR FAULT

“so toru, what did you wanna tell me?”

“i have a girlfriend now! her name is y/n l/n.”

“l/n? surely not THAT l/n’s daughter, right?”

“oh it is that l/n.”

when your families have dinner together for the first time

THE TENSION LMFAO

but they do try hard to get along. they try super hard.

they start getting along because MAN YOU AND OIKAWA WERE SOO CUTE AND THEY WANT YOU TO GET MARRIED AND THEY HAVE TO GET ALONG IF THEY WANT IT TO HAPPEN. THEIR GRANDKIDS ARE GONNA BE SO CUTE!!!

“ma, we haven’t graduated yet-”

your mom, ignoring you: THEYRE GOING TO HAVE THE CUTEST HAIR

oikawa’s mom: AND THEY’RE GOING TO BE SUPER SMART LIKE THEIR PARENTS!

your mom: AND WE’LL BE THE BEST GRANDMAS.

momma oiks: PERIOD!

steals your books from you in the halls so he can carry it for you

you tease each other with pet names and shit???

he’ll try to kiss your cheek in the hall but iwa grabs the back of his robe and pulls him away “you’re gross”

“you’re just jealous iwa!!”

when your houses arent playing each other, he goes to your games and vice versa!

tries to distract you in the field

“hey beautiful”

“toru don’t or i will make iwa knock you off your broom.”

“you're so mean”

so anyways yall r couple goals

"listen well, kindaichi, kunimi, your senior is showing you how to get girls.”

kunimi, without looking up from his book: what are you gonna teach us? accidentally slap the girl and get her to hate you for three years while you secretly pine over her during that time before confessing that you liked her the whole time and you go out on five dates and officially start dating? too much work

oikawa: LISTEN HERE YOU LITTLE SHIT

[wordsandshawn]

Breakup Letter

This is based on a request where y/n is blackmailed to break up with Shawn, so of course there’s angst. Hope you enjoy!

|| message me || masterlist ||

Word count: 3.4k

~

Tears fall from your eyes because of the heartbreak making a home in your chest. As you take pen to paper, it feels so wrong and the opposite of what you really want. It makes you feel like a horrible person, but you feel so trapped and you don’t know what else to do. This is for the best, you keep reminding yourself, but it still doesn’t change the sinking feeling in your stomach and the ache in your chest. Your heart hurts so much at the thought of not being with Shawn anymore. It hurts so much that you feel physically sick.

Shawn is so proud of the reputation he has created. Not only is he proud of it, but it also serves as the foundation to his career. Part of his appeal is how clean cut and genuine he is. He was young when he was discovered, and his past is relatively unproblematic. He is notoriously a nice guy, and from personal experience, you can attest to the fact that he deserves every bit of the reputation he has acquired.

Although you’ve been dating Shawn for nearly nine months, he’s also in the middle of a publicity relationship with a singer that is supposed to promote both of their careers. Ever since the beginning of your relationship, you and Shawn agreed to keep it private. At first, it seemed like the best idea. Then the publicity relationship came up, and after discussing it at length, both you and Shawn agreed that it was just another part of his career. You felt confident in your relationship and you truly viewed the fake relationship as part of his job.

After he started the publicity relationship about two months ago, it became even more important that you kept your relationship a secret. If Shawn was caught with you, there would be repercussions that could affect his reputation and career.

Earlier today, you received a text message that made your world stop and left you feeling like you had no choice, leading you to writing the letter, packing up your stuff, and walking out of the condo you shared with Shawn in Toronto.

Break up with him or these will be sent to TMZ and everyone will know he’s a cheater and a liar.

Reading the words made your heart nearly stop, even before you viewed the attached pictures. Your hand holding your phone was shaking so much, you couldn’t see anything clearly, but you didn’t have to. As terrifying as it was to receive that threat, your immediate reaction was to tell Shawn. You were confident that he would know how to handle it, that you would figure it out together and things would be okay. You didn’t think you would ever oblige to this outrageous demand.

However, as you clicked off of the message, starting to open facetime to call Shawn, a second text appeared. And don’t even think of telling him this is the reason. If you tell him instead of breaking up, his career will be ruined. These photos aren’t the only thing we have on him.

After reading the second message, you didn’t immediately click facetime. Instead, you let the words sink in. You read and reread the messages, trying to wrack your brain for what to do next as everything suddenly felt like it was falling apart.

An hour later, the letter is completely written, and most of your items are out of his condo. You leave the breakup note on his kitchen counter along with your keys and take your bags, showing up on your best friend’s doorstep.

She ushers you in as the tears roll down your face. She’s asking questions, none of which you answer. Taking your bags and putting them aside, she walks you over to the couch, making sure you sit down before going to the kitchen to make tea. You take this time to respond to the person who sent you those earlier messages, I did it. Now delete those pictures.

You pray that this will be enough to assure those photos are never released and Shawn’s career survives unscathed. Shawn won’t receive the letter until he returns to Toronto tomorrow, a homecoming that you had both been looking forward to since the day he left a week ago, but now his return will only mean him reading the letter and everything changing. Suddenly, you’re dreading tomorrow instead of looking forward to it.

That evening, you share the briefest possible explanation with Tiana, your best friend. You tell her that things weren’t working out between you and Shawn, and that you had decided you needed to take a break from the relationship, to move out. She’s blindsided by this information because she thought everything was going well between the two of you and she can’t believe you would decide to move out so quickly. You lie, telling her that things hadn’t been good and that you and Shawn weren’t seeing eye to eye anymore.

The next afternoon, you’re still on the couch, having barely moved in twenty-four hours. You can tell Tiana is worried, but she doesn’t say anything, knowing that you’re getting over a breakup and you’re allowed to mope.

The doorbell rings, and you immediately tear your gaze away from the tv to meet your best friend’s eyes. She looks confused at first, but you scamper off the couch and into the hallway where you’ll be hidden from view if she opens the door. You don’t say a word, but you know it’s Shawn on the other side of the door because his flight has landed, and he probably made it back to the condo, meaning he saw the note. You expected that Shawn would show up here once he read the note and realized you were gone. You had turned off your phone because you couldn’t take the thought of seeing any messages from him, and you didn’t trust yourself not to reply and run back to him.

Although you can’t see, you hear the door open, and then Shawn’s voice. He doesn’t bother with pleasantries. “I know she’s here. Please let me talk to her.”

“Who?” Tiana replies, playing dumb.

“Y/n. I know she’s here. Please just let me see her.” He pleads.

“No. She wants space, Shawn. Just go home.” She responds, coldly. Tiana is one of the kindest, sweetest people you know, but she knows how to act tough when she has to, something you’ve always admired about her.

“She can have space. She can have all the space she needs, but it can’t end, not like this. I just need to talk to her. Just for two minutes,” The last word falls from his lips in an almost desperate whisper, “Please.”

His last plea almost breaks your resolve, but you remind yourself that this is for the best. You remind yourself that this has to be how things go, and you remain hidden, even as your heart breaks at the sound of his voice, at the way he sounds so broken.  

“Go home Shawn.”

“Y/n,” Shawn shouts loudly, knowing you’re in the apartment and you can probably hear him. “Please, y/n, please talk to me.” Is the last thing you hear before the door closes. Seconds later, you’re face to face with your best friend and you collapse into her as the tears fall again.

She guides you back to the couch where she sits down next to you, trying to understand what is going on and what you are going to do next. “You sure you don’t want to just talk to him?” She questions softly.

You shake your head, fresh tears streaming down your cheeks.

“Did he do something? You can tell me. Did he cheat? Did he mess up?” She asks.

You shake your head again. He did nothing wrong. Well nothing except maybe accepting advice from his PR team, but you can’t exactly fault him for that. It’s part of his job, to listen to them. They’re supposed to have his best interest at heart. They’re supposed to be in control of catapulting his career to the next level, of curating the reputation, the character of Shawn that sells the most. That’s their job.  

“Y/n,” She says with a sigh, “What’s so bad that you can’t just talk to him? When has there ever been something you couldn’t talk to Shawn about?”

“I can’t talk to him about this.” You finally manage to say.

“What about me? Can you talk to me about it?” She questions, and you can tell she’s starting to feel worried. Even she can sense that this is more than just a regular break up. When you shake your head, and then pull away from her, she senses that you’re not ready to talk about it. The truth is, you’re not sure you’ll ever be ready to talk about it. Although she wants to push you for more information, she doesn’t. She simply rubs your back and lets you cry until you’ve run out of tears and fall asleep on her couch.

The next few days pass in a blur of tears. You manage to pull yourself together enough to show up to work each day, but that takes everything you have in you, so by the time you get back to Tiana’s apartment, you’re exhausted and end up falling asleep super early only to wake up about an hour later and spend the rest of the night tossing and turning.

You block Shawn’s phone number and delete all your social media apps. If you didn’t need your phone for work, you probably would have turned it off and put it in a drawer somewhere. You know that Shawn has been contacting Tiana almost nonstop, so you can only imagine your phone is flooded with messages from him. You know it isn’t fair to him to end the relationship like this and he probably hates you for it, but it is the only way to keep Shawn safe and give him a chance to be happy in the future.

Shawn’s happiness is what means the most to you, so if you have to leave his life in order for his hopes and dreams to come true, that’s what you’ll do, no matter how much it hurts you. That’s what you do for someone you love more than anything.

It’s been another long day at work, and you can’t wait to get home just so you can fall asleep. Anything that allows you not to feel the deep ache in your chest has quickly become your favorite past times, which basically means alcohol and sleep.

As you’re walking to your car, you see someone out of the corner of your eye. At first, you don’t think anything of it, assuming its someone else walking to their car after work to. However, when that person continues to follow you, your pace quickens, fear rising within you.

You’re almost to your car when you her your name called out in a familiar voice. You spin around just to come face to face with Shawn. “Are you stalking me?” You question. The pull you feel in your heart is so strong it takes all your energy to not run into his arms. You’ve missed him so much. All you want is for him to wrap his arms around you and tell you he loves you and everything is going to be okay.

“No, maybe.” He says, stopping a foot away from you and running his fingers through his hair. He looks hurt, and you can’t blame him.

“Shawn, you can’t be here.” You say, looking around, worried about being seen. He has to know that it’s risky to his publicity relationship. Even when you were together, you never stood around talking in a public parking lot. Truthfully, you never had to.

“You won’t answer my calls. Tiana won’t let me in. What else was I supposed to do?” He questions, sounding desperate.

“We can’t be seen together,” You say, almost frantically, still glancing around. You’re worried about Shawn’s publicity relationship if you’re spotted, but more than that, you’re worried about the threat in the text message, the even bigger threat to Shawn if you didn’t do what they said.

Shawn steps closer to you, “What’s wrong? What happened? Are you okay?” Shawn is probably the only boy in the world who could get broken up with and then show up at your workplace to ask if you’re okay. That’s one of the reasons you love him so much, one of the reasons you’re not sure if you’ll ever be able to stop loving him, no matter what happens.

“Nothing happened, Shawn.” You lie.

He steps closer, his pull on you only getting stronger with the closer proximity.

Knowing you can’t be this close to him without completely breaking down, you shove him. You take two of your hands, press them flat against his chest and push him back. He takes a step back, caught off guard.

“I don’t want to be with you.” Saying those words and pushing him away hurt you more than everything so far. Writing a letter and ignoring his phone calls is one thing but lying through your teeth is a completely different kind of pain.

“I don’t believe you.” He says so forcefully it catches you off guard. Truthfully, you’ve hurt him so much, and you don’t understand why he won’t just give up on you. What you’ve done is unforgivable, and he doesn’t deserve any of it. But somehow, he knows that this is more than you just deciding to hurt him and walk away without even talking to him or trying to fix things. He knows you so well that he knows you wouldn’t do this to him. A part of you is grateful that he doesn’t believe this act you’re putting up, but the other part of you wishes he would just let it go, hate you for a while, and then move on and be happy. That’s all you want for him.

You take a deep breath as tears flood your eyes. “I can’t,” You whisper.

“Meet me at the condo, please. Just talk to me. I can fix it. I know I can, but I just need you to tell me what’s going on with you.”

Shawn presses your elevator key card into your hand, the key card you had left on the counter next to the condo key and the note.

“Please.” He breathes, before turning and walking back to his car, knowing how risky it is to stand around in this parking any longer. You get into your car, and double check the parking lot one more time, making sure that no one spotted the two of you together, and then you sit there in the parking lot and cry.

You saw Shawn’s car leave shortly after you got into your car. He couldn’t stay, but you know that he’s going back to his condo to wait for you. After sitting in your car until you run out of tears, you turn your car on and drive out of the parking lot. You thought you hadn’t made a decision, but when you park your car in the designated stall next to Shawn’s car in the condo’s underground lot, you realize the decision was made the second Shawn pressed the key card into your hand. As much as you wanted to stay away to protect him, it was breaking you, and knowing that he wasn’t willing to give up on you so easily made you realize that you weren’t able to give up on him like that either.

You barely knock twice before the door swings open, revealing Shawn. “You came,” He whispers in disbelief.

“I’m sorry,” The words fall from your lips just like your resolve to keep this a secret from him.

“Please, just tell me what’s going on.” He pleads, stepping back and letting you enter the condo before closing the door behind you.

You turn to face him, taking a deep breath, and it feels like everything crumbles around you. You watch this beautiful boy, the boy you love more than you’ve ever loved anyone before, and you remember the threat. Fear rises within you again. As much as you want to fall into his arms, you’re scared. Finally, you say, “Your music has to come first. Your career comes first, and I just can’t be the person you need right now.”

“That’s bullshit, and I think you know it. My music has never come before you. Music, that’s my job, but you—you’re my life, y/n. You’re never not the person I need, right now, and always.” That sentence causes you to stop in your tracks. Everything freezes for a moment as you simply stare at Shawn. “I’d give up music in a second if that meant you’d move back home with me and I could wake up next to you every day.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to give it up.” You whisper, hesitantly looking up at him.

“I know, but I’m telling you I would. If I had to choose, I’d choose you every time.” He says sincerely.

You sigh, closing your eyes then taking a deep breath. When you open your eyes again, you say, “I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“You’re really freaking me out. Please, just tell me what is going on. Y/n, you can tell me anything, you know that right?” Shawn says, taking your hand in his. Now that you’re alone in his apartment, you can’t think of a single reason not to let him touch you.

You pull your phone from your pocket and unlock it, opening the text from the unfamiliar number and showing it to Shawn. He reads the text and you watch his expression turn to anger. You expected him to be afraid, just like you were when you read it, but he’s not.

After a few seconds, some of the anger melts away, and Shawn says, “That’s it? That’s why you broke up with me?”

You nod, “I’m sorry Shawn. I’m so sorry. I was scared. I am scared about what is going to happen to you.” You ramble, but Shawn just shakes his head, stepping closer to you. He wraps his arms around you, pulling you close.

“Y/n, love, nothing’s going to happen. I’ll call Andrew, we’ll get the number traced, it’s okay.” He reassures you.

“But Shawn, they said they had stuff on you, stuff that could ruin your career.”

“How bad could it be?” He questions, sounding so carefree, almost like he’s not feeling the weight of the situation.

“I don’t know, that’s why it’s scary. I mean, how did they get those pictures of us? We’re so careful.” You say, inwardly chastising yourself just thinking about it.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Shawn says, trying to get you to stop thinking and stop freaking out, even just for a moment. “It’s okay. I know you were scared, but I’m not letting us end this relationship because someone on the other side of a screen told us to.”

“I’m sorry.” You say again, hiding your face against his chest.

“I know you are,” He says softly, kissing the top of your head. “It’s okay. We’re okay.” He pauses, just holding you in his arms as you treasure the feeling of being close to him that you so desperately craved for so long.

“But don’t ever do that again, Y/n. Next time you want to break up with me, at least talk to me about it first.”

He tries to lighten his tone, so it comes off as a joke, but you hear that sense of fear in his voice, the feeling of fear of losing you. You know because you feel the exact same way. Even though you were the one who initiation the breakup, and even though you knew exactly why you had to do it, to protect Shawn, you don’t ever want to have to go through that again.

“I promise I won’t ever do that again,” You respond, meaning every word of that promise.

“Good.” He says, a small smile forming on his face before letting you out of his grasp. You meet his gaze as he says, “I missed you.”

“I missed you too.”

[tillthelandslide]

Jersey Love (Part 2) : Coffee Date

Hi everyone, here’s part 2 of Jersey Love, I really hope you all love it as much as I do. I am having a lot of fun writing this series... I love you all for all of the amazing support you have offered. Warning: 4.5k words haha - L

Tagged: @harrysthiccthighss @thereisa8ella @magdelen69 @henrythickcavill @hc-geralt-23 @kissthatlifeaway @darkbooksarwin @august-w-princess @speakerforthedead0 @pixie1484 @constip8merm8 @tigerbroadwaybaby @agniavateira @summersong69 @aestheticallywinchester @stephartrave @al-wiisa @henrycavillfanpage @intenselikes @anat2507 @ellixthea @aguspalazzo @1ookatthestars00

(if you would like to be added to my tag list, feel free to message me, if you are new to my blog then I post Henry Cavill fanfics and make Henry Cavill fake Instagram posts, my requests are open so feel free to request anything and I will try my best to make your vision come to life)  

Part 1

Coffee Date

The next day you and Henry had agreed to go out for some coffee. You agreed to meet at 10am but you arrived a little early to ensure you weren't late, you hated being tardy so often arrived way in advance. You went to this coffee shop a lot so the staff knew you and knew your order. A teenage girl called Jess had greeted you on your way in. She was your neighbour and she kind of became attached to you when you moved in next door, she referred to you as her cool older friend and you became her role model as she wanted to work with animals too. She led you to a table near the back of the shop. The shop was quite a new place and had a hipster looking decor, instead of the usual café chairs and tables, the shop had booths like a diner and Jess led you to one which seated 4.

"Would you like your usual Yn?" she said making you smile, she was such a sweet girl and was always so kind to you.

"I'm actually waiting for someone but thank you Jess" you said, making her smile and nod, she tucked her pad into her apron before beginning to speak again.

"Molly told me you have a date with Henry Cavill, is that true?" she whispered, making you laugh, Molly was the same age as you and owned the shop (she was the main reason you came to the shop), you told her that you had a date and she had asked who the lucky guy was. 

"It is. You're going to have to promise me not to freak out when he's here though" you said, making her nod, you knew she was a fan of Henry’s work, she had told you the first time you had met her. You remember asking her what it was like living in Jersey and she said “I like it here for now, but I want to leave when I grow up… grandma says nobody makes it out of Jersey...expect Henry Cavill”. She then went on to tell you how she had seen all his movies (her favourite was man of steel) and she couldn’t believe he grew up in Jersey, she has also told you that she had never met him before but wanted to.

A couple of minutes later, Henry had arrived, greeting the staff as he came in, you texted him before telling him where you were sitting so he came over to your straight away. You checked him out as he came in, your eyes scanning him up and down. His hair was styled perfectly, a few curls loose in front of his face which made him look even hotter, you swore he had gotten bigger and he was dressed very stylishly again, wearing jeans and a turtle neck and he had a pair of glasses adorning his face.

"Hello" he said, coming to stand next to where you were sitting, you placed your palms on the leather of the booth's seat, pushing yourself up so you were close to Henry as he placed a kiss on your cheek before sitting down opposite you.

"Hi." you said, leaning forward on your hands, admiring him just a bit longer.

"You look lovely as always" he said, making you blush again. You were dressed very casually in a cozy white cropped jumper, black skinny jeans and a pair of vans. Your hair was styled in loose curls, drooping behind your shoulders, two pieces at the front which always strayed from the rest framing your face.

"As do you. Very dashing" you said, making him giggle. Jess came back over saying hello to Henry who smiled and said hello back.

"Hi, welcome to Molly’s, my name is Jess and I will be taking your order, if you need anything, just call me over. What can I get for the both of you?" she said, pulling out her notepad, you always found the little introduction they had to say very cute, especially when she did it. You had insisted that she didn’t have to do it with you but you guess she did it because you weren’t alone.

"Hi Jess. Could I have a plain black coffee please?" Henry said, offering Jess a smile as he spoke, which made her blush, before he looked back at you.

"The usual please Jess, thank you" you said, still resting your head in your palms. Just when he thought you couldn't get any cuter. Jess walked away and you saw her wink at you and mouth "he's so hot" which made you giggle behind your hand.

"You have a usual" he said, sounding impressed.

"Yeah. It's shameful really" you said, pushing your hair behind your ear.

"Why's that?" he said, finding himself leaning forward too.

"I come in here way too much. It's on the way to work so I pop in to say hello and get my morning coffee. Molly, the owner is my friend… I think I pay their rent with how much I send here" you said, making Henry laugh, Henry loved how you had your own little routine.

"That's great. Bet they love you here" he said making you giggle.

"Hmm. Not sure about that… It is nice to know Molly though, she lets me try out new cakes she’s made… for free" you said making Henry chuckle.Jess then bought both your drinks over on a tray, placing the black coffee in front of Henry with a biscuit and some sugar and placing the other drink in front of you with a your favourite biscuit.

"Thank you, that was very quick." Henry said with an impressed tone. Jess blushed deeply making you smile widely.

"Jess here is the star worker of this establishment" you said, making her roll her eyes at you and chuckle.

"Thanks Yn, you only think that because I make sure they have your favourite biscuits everytime you come here" she said, smiling at you and making Henry chuckle at her which made her eyes sparkle.

“And I love you for it” you said, making Jess laugh before she walked off.

"She's my neighbour. And a huge fan of yours, I might add, don’t let her know I told you." you said, making Henry laugh before saying "It will be our little secret, she’s really sweet" which made you want to hug him because he was just so kind.

"What's that then?" he said pointing at your drink.

"It's my own little secret." you said, taking a sip, Henry raised his eyebrows at you, to which you copied making you laugh.

"Try some." you said, offering him the cup.

"Hmm I don't know Yn, you could be trying to poison me" he said, but then took a sip. You saw the look of pure satisfaction cross his face before he closed his eyes, humming deeply, his tongue flicked out along his bottom lip to get another taste. You clenched your thighs together at the sight.

"Oh that's good. What is it?" he said, making you shake your head and take another sip.

"You're really not going to tell me?" he said, chuckling, pulling your cup towards him and taking another sip.

"Hey, you’ve got your own!" you giggled, making him laugh and to which he said “But yours is better” before he pushed it back towards you.

"So what have you been up to besides work?" he said, drinking his drink and looking into your eyes. His concentration never on anything other than you.

"Nothing much really. Work has been super busy recently, I've only really had time to work out, eat and sleep. I make sure Jess comes over as much as she can." you said, making him smile, he was so interested in what you do.

"What have you been up to at work then?" he asked again, his hand resting against the table making you want to reach out and hold it.

"We've mainly been trying to enrich our current conservation projects and assessing if they're working and trying to figure out how we can improve them. I've also taken up some more keeper duties because one of the keepers is on maternity leave, it's fun but can be quite tiring, especially when I have a full day of meetings after" you said smiling, your job made you happy so you couldn't help but smile.

"That sounds amazing Yn." he said.

"What about you Hen? How was filming?" you said, you knew you asked this question last night but you didn't really get to hear a genuine answer.

"It was amazing. I'm so excited for everyone to see this. I've been a huge fan of the Witcher games for years and now the books too and playing Geralt was an honor. I chased down this opportunity and was over the moon when Lauren cast me" he said, making you smile at how passionate he was about it.

"Couldn't imagine you with white hair, yellow eyes and scars everywhere" you said, leaning forward and tracing where Geralts scars are in the games. You quickly pulled back when you realised how weird that must have been.

"Sorry. Just trying to picture it. I'm a big fan of the games too. And the books" you said quickly trying to recover from how embarrassing that was, seriously Yn, who the heck just touches someone’s face you thought, blushing a deep shade of red.

"I don't mind at all love. And really? That's cool, more stuff we have in common" he said, finding more things out about you that he liked.

"The trailer comes out soon so you'll see what I look like then, not trying to give too much away because I could get in trouble but I don’t have scars across my face like Geralt in the games does" he said, winking at you.

"Bet you still look hot though" you said, a smirk on your lips, you said it to see what reaction you got back.

"Obviously" he replied, you were glad he didn't tease you, but instead made light of it. Deep down he had butterflies at the fact you called him hot.

"How long are you here for?" you said, you had finished your drink but had your hands wrapped around it to keep them warm.

"Until the new year" he said positively, happy he was here for a couple of months.

"Wow that long huh? No filming to be done?" you said, you pushed your cup to the other side of the table, placing your hand against the table, the other rested in between your legs.

"Trying to get rid of me already?" he said, jesting with you. You shook your head and pushed your hand forward a bit more, wanting him to hold it.

"We've finished all the filming and press tours so I'm free as a bird for now" he said, grasping your hand in his, finally you thought, glad that he had the courage to do it because you sure didn’t.

"I'm glad. Many plans?" you said, glancing down at your cup before flashing your eyes back up into his, before he got the chance to answer your phone started ringing.

"Shit I'm so sorry, I'll turn it off" you said, making him shake his head.

"It's okay, answer it" he said, you pulled your hand from his, it instantly felt cold as you took your phone out from your pocket, Henry saw a picture of you and the guy from yesterday and saw the name "Lewis"

"Hey Lew. Can I call you back? I'm on a date with Henry" you said, looking at Henry and seeing him smile. He thought it must have been going well for you to tell someone about it so openly.

"I know. I hate to interrupt but Josie needed me to tell you that you don’t need to work tomorrow, she’s got someone to fill your shift on keeper duties, she said you’ve been working too hard." he said.

"That's great news Lewis, thanks for letting me know, tell Josie I said thanks too. I'm with Henry, can I call you back later?" you said making him laugh over the phone.

"How's it going? Fuck yet?" he said, laughing loudly making you pull the phone away from your ear and rolling your eyes at Henry making him laugh.

"Goodbye Lewis." you said hanging up and placing your phone back in your pocket.

"Sorry about that, my friend and colleague Lewis called" you said, tucking the same bit of hair that always falls in front of your eyes, behind your ear.

"Everything okay?" he said, his hand reaching out to hold yours again making your stomach flutter.

"Yeah, the keeper manager just wanted to let me know I don't have to work my keeper duties tomorrow" you said, squeezing his hand.

”So no plans tomorrow then?” he said, he raised his eyebrows suggestively making you smirk.

“That is correct yes, what’s going on in that head of yours Hen?” you said, giggling to yourself making his face light up. He loved how you already called him Hen.

“Would you want to go on a walk with me tomorrow? You can meet my dog and we could have a picnic” he said, you could see the excitement on his face and it made your heart flutter.

“That sounds perfect.” you said, squeezing his hand.

“I’m curious, what was your favourite character to play?” you asked making him smile, he loved that you were interested in him and he appreciated the fact you didn’t ask the same questions that interviewers asked.

“Ooh that’s a hard one. I’ve honestly loved them all for different reasons. Superman will always have a special place in my heart. I also loved playing August Walker, I had never really played a primary antagonist before so that was interesting” he said, the thought on his face was truly adorable and it made you smirk to yourself, a couple of lines appeared on his forehead when he thought and you wanted nothing more than to reach over and smooth them out but you decided against it.

“I loved Fall Out, Jess made me watch it and I have to say Henry.. The moustache works really well for you. Not many guys could pull that off” you said making him chuckle.

“Thanks, I grew to love it but was glad when it was gone” he said.

“Would you ever grow it back?”

“For the right role” he nodded.

“Shame” you said making him furrow his eyebrows again, the same creases appearing.

“Why’s that?” he said, leaning forward slightly, your faces close together.

“You looked really hot” you said, making him cough nervously which just made you smirk. He thought wow this girl really likes messing with me and leant back a little bit, not knowing what to say.

“Your fans sure think so.” you said, squeezing his hand.

“Haha, maybe I’ll grow it back” he said, making you giggle.

“Maybe not yet, Geralt with a moustache…I’m just not seeing it” you said, both of you laughing loudly.

“Do you want to stay here for a bit longer? Or we could go somewhere else?” he asked.

“We could go somewhere else?” you said making him nod.

“My car is just outside, I could show you my house, you can meet my cats” you said, making Henry smile.

“Yeah I’m up for that. Didn’t picture you as a cat person” he said making you chuckle.

“I’m both. I love dogs but I grew up with cats, when I moved here we agreed as a family that it's best if I am the one to look after our family cats” you said, making Henry nod along.

“Ready to leave then?” he said, making you nod, you called Jess over.

"Don't work too hard now okay? Still up for coming round on the weekend for a movie night?" you said, the both of you standing up. She nodded and hugged you tightly. 

“It was lovely to meet you Jess” Henry said, shaking her hand which made her blush again. The both of you then left, and you walked Henry to your car. It was a black audi and Henry imagined you driving something smaller but thought it was cool that you drove a car like this.

"This is me" you said, making him smile and walk to the other door, opening it and sliding in. You got in the driver's seat, turning on the engine, your music began to blast and you quickly turned it down, apologising for the noise.

"Nice car. Pictured you driving something smaller" he said, making you chuckle.

"What can I say? I'm full of surprises" you said, beginning to drive to your house. The journey was filled with the both of you walking about music, working out, filming, conservation, games, books... You arrived at your house, parking on your drive. You opened the door and Henry walked to you and smiled down at you.

"This is nice" he said as he looked up to your small house, you leant forward and placed your head on his chest, he leant down and kissed the top of it making you smile. His fingers grasped your chin and lifted your head so your eyes met. He slowly leant in a placed his lips against yours, you had missed this, missed the feeling of his soft lips against yours, missed how his tongue ran perfectly across your bottom lip, easing your mouth open slightly, you had thought about this a few times when he was away was and wondered when the next time you got to do this would be. You sighed happily against him now it was actually happening again. His hands grasped your waist tightly, lightly pushing you against the side of your car, you gasped as your back hit the car, his lips moving feverishly against yours, your hands were resting against his chest, running along it, down over his abs, resting on his hips. His tongue felt amazing against yours and you could feel him resting against your core. Kissing him was a surreal feeling, you had only kissed a few times but every time you felt the same way, it was new and exciting and you knew you would never get used to it. You pushed him away lightly, not wanting to get carried away, especially in front of your house where all your neighbours could see. His breathing matched you, deep and uneven.

"Sorry, just really wanted to do that. Have since I saw you yesterday" he said, his forehead resting against yours, his hand still on your waist.

"It's okay. We just shouldn't get too carried away" you said, placing a peck against his lips, he took a step back, creating some space between you to alleviate some of the tension.

You took his hand in yours, leading him up the small steps to your house, you took your key out of your bag, opening the door and stepping inside the threshold. One of your cats, Marley, instantly came running to the door, meowing up at you making you coo at him. You took a few more steps, turning round to see Henry closing your door, he leant down to stroke him.

“Hello, nice to meet you” he said, rubbing behind your cat's ears. You smiled down at him and his eyes met yours before he stood back up.

“That's Marley” you said, gesturing towards the cat.

“This is really nice.” he said, walking behind you into your living room.

“Thanks.” you said, moving your laptop off your sofa and gesturing for Henry to take a seat.

“Would you like anything? Some water? A coffee” you said making him shake his head, instead he grabbed your hip and pulled you towards him, making you squeal slightly in shock, he pulled you until you were sitting in his lap, your legs flicking to the side, his arms wrapped around your waist.

“There, that's all I want” he said, making you smile, your hand came up to his hair, fiddling with the bits that had fallen, the other grasping the back of his neck lightly..

“Think your hair is longer than before” you said, your voice coming out much quieter than you had intended it to.

“Hmm, maybe” he said, looking down at your lips again. You both gasped as your other cat jumped up behind the both of you, making Henry turn his head to see what it was.

“Jesus that scared the crap out of me” Henry said, making you both laugh.

“Meet Milly” you said, stroking her head gently.

“Hi.” Henry said, his own hand stroking her lightly. She jumped back down, strutting off into another room. Henry looked back towards you, his eyes instantly flicking down to your lips again making you blush.

“I can’t get enough of you” he whispered, his forehead resting against yours as his eyes closed. Your fingers were grasping the hairs at the back of his neck making him hum against you, he moved forward and inch, his lips barely touching yours. Everything felt so intense, every touch ignited sparks, every sweet word or compliment had you blushing, every kiss shook your core and you knew he felt it too.

“Henry” you uttered, making his eyes dart open, you looked into each other's eyes, his eyes flicked from yours to your lips before they crashed down against them. You gasped against him bruising your lips against his. It was messy and passionate, like nothing you had ever experienced before. His tongue became familiar with yours again, pushing against each other, he tilted his head, kissing you at a better angle, a more comfortable one, you felt him suck the tip of your tongue, the feeling was new but my oh my it felt good. You didn’t want to stop kissing him but you knew you would get carried away if you didn’t. You moved back slightly, placing sweet kisses against his lips trying to lighten everything. Henry’s head fell back against the sofa, he sighed deeply (clearly trying to calm himself down, you’ve only been on two dates Henry, calm down he thought to himself) before looking in your eyes again. His eyes were dark, the usual blue shade nearly taken up completely by darkness, he pulled you closer, his head resting against your neck and he placed soft and sweet kisses there.

"I liked seeing how you were with Jess earlier, it was really sweet, you can tell she looks up to you" Henry said, saying what was on his mind as he placed sweet kisses to your neck.

"She's amazing. Her parents aren’t around that much, they're both super busy and hard working because they both work in a hospital. So when I first moved here I went to introduce myself and she was on her own. I felt super bad so I invited her around here whenever I was free. It's nice, she's like the younger sister I always wanted but never had" you said, making you Henry look at you.

"I'm so impressed by you." he said, making you blush, not expecting that from him.

"Don't blush, it's true. I'm not easily impressed but I'm struggling to find a single flaw in you" he said. You were speechless not knowing what to say, his hands were cradling your face sweetly.

"I could say the same for you" you said, brushing your nose against his.

"I have many flaws, believe you me" he said chuckling to himself.

"I doubt that very much. I have some of my own too, but they make me who I am. I don't let them get me down but instead just try to be the best me I can be" you said, Henry had a dumbfounded look upon his face making you furrow your eyebrows at him.

"What?" you said, shrugging your shoulders at him and crossing your arms.

"You're just perfect. Even the fact you said that makes you perfect" he said making you laugh.

"You're in over your head Henry" you said, wrapping your arms back round his shoulders.

"Maybe, maybe not" he replied, kissing you sweetly.

"I had a really nice time today, it was good to catch up. Feels like we just picked up things from where we left off, it's nice, feels right" he said, you nodded letting him know you agreed.

"I had a really nice time too. And yeah I thought it might have been awkward or something but it wasn't. Feels right like you said"

"I should probably get back, Kal's probably driving my mum crazy" he said, you nodded and got up from his lap, he stood up shortly after you, placing his hands around your waist again to pull you in for a hug.

"Need me to drive you back?" you said, pulling back to look him in the eyes.

"That'd be amazing thank you, I walked to the café" he said.

On the drive back you decided to tell Henry what was on your mind.

“I know we haven’t known each other that long and we’ve only been on two dates… but i feel like this is where I’m meant to be in my life right now… with you, getting to know you” you said, glancing to the passenger seat where he was sitting.

“I’m so glad you said that. I feel the same way. I’m excited about this, I haven’t felt this way in a long time, I feel this need to be around you and if I’m honest I don’t want to fight it. Who knows what’s going to happen or where I will be in a month's time but I want to spend this time I have here with you ” he said, holding your hand as you drove, his words made your heart burst.

“Let's do it then” you said, looking over at him.

“Let's do it.” he said, kissing your hand.

You pulled up to Henry’s childhood home when instructed and placed the car in park, turning to look at him.

“Your childhood home is huge” you said, glancing at the house.

“We’re a big family” he replied, holding your hand. You lent against the headrest and Henry’s free hand came to rest against your face making you close your eyes and lean against him.

“I’ll see you tomorrow? I can pick you up at yours?” he asked, making you open your eyes and nod at him with a small smile on your face.

“Sounds perfect” you said, both leaning in for one last small kiss.

“See you tomorrow” he said, as he opened the door. You watched him walk inside, opening the door you saw his dog Kal jump at him, a look of pure joy and love on Henry’s face as he looked down at him and you smiled to yourself, this man is truly something special you thought.

Let’s do this you thought to yourself, Henry turned around and smiled at you, waving you goodbye. You didn’t know what this was going to be, but it was sure going to be spectacular.

Part 3

[petri808]

@ktdkvalentines​ for Syd on Ig Valentines Exchange

Bakudeku College Au. TW: panic attack, anxiety, some angst w/happy ending based on the request.

Izuku Midoriya was in a great mood that Fall morning as he arrived at the college campus. His first day of his first year away from home, ready to start the next leg of his journey. He’d chosen this university for its good reviews and psychology program. He wanted to do something good in his life and what better way then helping others who’d suffered like he had. Not that he’d had a horrible life but growing up in a single parent household created some attachment issues and bullying when he was younger left him with anxieties. All through high school he’d worked extra hard to get to a point where he could function most of the time, and he was proud of how far he’d come. That growth is what led him to pursue a career in psychology, to take his negative experiences and turn them into a positive one.

So, he wasn’t ready when he walked into the dorm room and saw the familiar blonde hair and red eyes of his nightmares looking back at him. 

Oh, this couldn’t be happening! Izuku swallowed hard, a mantra of calming statements flooding his brain as a silent staring content ensued. Neither man said a word, but the longer this went on for, the voices in his mind slowed and were replaced with questions. He was starting to realize... did the blonde even remember him?! He couldn’t tell if it was confusion, or maybe pain on the man’s twisted features, but it certainly wasn’t the angry boy he’d grown up with.

“Wow, Izuku is that you?” The man spoke with no malice in his tone, even rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “Been a long time, huh?”

“Yeah... about 7 years I think.”

“H-How you been?”

“Okay, I guess. A bit surprised to see a familiar face.”

The blonde’s shoulders dropped slightly, and he averted his eyes to the ground, “probably not who you’d hoped to see again...”

“I didn’t say...”

“No, no, it’s okay.” The man waved his hands to stop him. “I— I owe you an apology Zuku. And I’m not looking for forgiveness cause I don’t deserve it, but I hope we can, I don’t know like start off fresh, I guess, since we’re stuck in this room together.”

Izuku blinked in confusion, what had happened to Katsuki Bakugou in these past 7 years?! He was certain it wasn’t all arouse, or that the man was trying to bring his guard down, because Katsuki sounded genuine. Until the age of 2 or 3 they were actually really close, but for some reason by the end of their first year of primary school, he’d started picking on Izuku, or taking out his anger on the smaller boy. He had no idea what triggered it, but in the end, he was left emotionally scarred. Now, the man standing before him exuded a broken version of that 3-year-old child he once knew.

“You’re right. I lost count of how many times I ran home in tears because of you. We were best friends and it really hurt when you started picking on me and being mean to me.” The pain evident in his voice rang out into the small, shared room. “I don’t care why you did it. But,” Izuku continued with a sigh, “you’re right, I don’t wanna rehash the past either, so if we can just start over and put up with being roommates, we’ll see how it goes.”

“I’d like that. A-and I know it might not mean much but am sorry Zuku— about how I’d treated you. I promise, I’m not that guy anymore.”

“I believe you.” And he did, for now. Deep down, Izuku always tried to stay positive because if he didn’t, and allowed the irrational thoughts to fester, it could pull him right back into an episode. He didn’t fully trust Katsuki yet, but if was serious about going into the counseling field, he also knew it was important to continue moving forward. That didn’t mean divulging all of his secrets, or telling Katsuki about his own struggles, but he’ll stay alert to make sure that at any sign the man was slipping, he’d get out of there.

As the first two months crept along, the roommates went about their own business with very little interactions at first. It was a bit weird to Izuku, to be in a shared room where their beds were literally just a few feet from one another’s, yet they were lucky to go beyond a good morning or hello. In comfortable situations, he was a bubbly person who genuinely enjoyed talking to people, so the stillness of their room was unnerving. Of course, this was better than feeling fearful around Katsuki, but how are they to move forward and maybe become friends again, if they weren’t interacting?

So, because they weren’t talking, Izuku did the next best thing and observed. One thing that had not changed about Katsuki, was being meticulous. The blondes side of the room was always neat and tidy, books or stationery on the desk stacked perfectly, clothes in the closet organized by color and type, even the bed was always made with crisp corners. Early to bed and early to rise, the man had a ritual of sorts. If he wasn’t studying at his desk, he’d be on his bed reading or listening to music. Even the way Katsuki ate was curious to Izuku, constantly wiping his hands or face of any residue. There were a few things the blonde requested of him, no scented candles or strong, smelling fish type meals, and to leave his side of the curtains closed, something about the sunlight bothering him. They were simple enough requests to acquiesce to.

The man rarely left the room except to go to class and as far as he could tell, Katsuki had only one other friend on the campus who’d occasionally drop by. A nice guy, very friendly named Eijiro Kirishima. Well, he assumed they were friends because most of the time, his roommate stayed quiet while Eijiro did the talking. Izuku was pretty sure he spoke to the man more then Katsuki during these visits. They seemed unlikely friends really, one happy-go-lucky, and one anti-social... kind of reminded him of their once friendship now that he thought about it.

Izuku could appreciate the idea of sticking to familiar surroundings. Their dorm room was a sanctuary for him as well. He avoided large, crowded areas as much as possible, and if he didn’t know anyone, did his best to be inconspicuous. But within their room, with just the two of them, it should be a comfortable experience. Before coming to the school, he’d wondered what his roommate would be like or imagined making friends, so it was a little disappointing. By the third month it was a close friend of Izuku’s that suggested he make the first move to engage Katsuki in conversations. Start out simple, maybe learn any hobbies, what music he listened to, his major, etc. Forget the fact he knew the man and pretend as if he’s trying to make a new friend. Ugh, he hated making the first move. Izuku preferred being engaged not initiating it because it drove his anxieties up. But they were right. ‘Think of it like practice,’ Izuku reasoned with himself, ‘pulling a difficult client out of their shell.’

It was a lazy Sunday around midterms when Izuku decided to make a move. As he sat rested on his bed similarly to Katsuki, with his back against the wall and a textbook propped on his legs. Every few seconds, he glanced over the book’s edge, side-eyeing the blonde who was also nose deep into a chemistry textbook. Should he say something? But the man looked preoccupied, and Chemistry is a difficult subject. Maybe he shouldn’t bother Katsuki? He didn’t want to be annoying or anything and it wasn’t important really. Then again, the guy was always preoccupied with something or other and if he waited for a perfect moment, what if it never came? Would he wait forever? No, this was as good a time as ever.

Izuku lowered his book. “H-How’s the studying going Kacchan?”

The blonde turned to look at him briefly. “Fine.” Then returned to his reading.

“Oh, that’s good.”

Ugh! It was always so hard to get a read on Katsuki! His affect and tone were flat, no anger, amusement, nothing, just his common one worded response. It was rare for the blonde to give or maintain eye contact, so at least the man looked at him this time.

He tried another question. “I noticed your chemistry book, is that your major?”

“Yup.”

“Um, what do you do with a chemistry degree?” Izuku asked genuinely.

This time Katsuki surprised Izuku when he stopped and put his book down before engaging. “I’m fascinated by the chemical reactions of fire and combustion. How it works, why it occurs, how it can be manipulated, stuff like that. And I don’t know, I could be a scientist, or maybe do pyrotechnics, just work somewhere I don’t have to talk to too many people.”

“Wow! I mean I was never good at math and stuff to understand, but it sounds pretty interesting.”

“I guess so. What’s with the questions all of a sudden?”

“W-Well,” Izuku shifted his body to face the man completely, “we’re roommates. I don’t expect us to be full-on friends, but I figured it would be nice to talk sometimes.” Katsuki’s silent reply of nothing forced him to make a decision to continue talking, because he assumed if the man wasn’t interested, he would have turned away. Silence wasn’t exactly a normal response, but maybe the blonde really wasn’t sure what to say next. “I don’t expect you tell me super personal stuff— just small talk. Like, um, what kind of music do you like?”

“Alternative.”

Izuku’s eyes flashed with surprise at such a quick response. Okay, so Katsuki was fine with answering. “I like that too! Well, some,” he giggled. “Though I mostly listen to pop now. What about movies?”

“Horror films.”

“Oof,” Izuku cringed. “I can’t handle those they scare me too much!”

“I remember. It gave you nightmares.”

Bouncing on the bed, Izuku’s legs moved to hang over the edge in his excitement. He was really surprised in a good way that Katsuki remembered something so mundane about him. “Wow! You still remember that?! Yeah,” he laughed, “I’ll stick to sci-fi or action. Plus, I’m not fond of theaters anyways so, I just watch stuff on my laptop.”

“Why not? You used to be the outgoing one.”

That made Izuku flinch because he wasn’t ready to tread into that territory with his former bully. “Oh, you know, it’s always crowded, and you have to deal with parent-less kids causing a racket in the place. I rather just enjoy my movie without all that.”

“Makes sense. I don’t care to go to places like that either.”

“Yeah, I noticed that— is there anything you do like or hobbies maybe?”

“Just exercising in the early morning, by myself, except since Eijiro inserted himself, I tolerate him.”

So, that confirmed what he’d already suspected. Katsuki kept his body in really great shape and that hadn’t gone unnoticed by Izuku. But since he wasn’t much of a morning person, he didn’t notice what time Katsuki left the dorm, only the man’s return, showered and refreshed. Needless to say, the blonde male with wet hair was nice to look at and smelled good too. “Oh,” his face heated up at the thought of it, but he needed to play dumb. “So, that’s what you do in the mornings. I wondered about that.”

Things between the roommates settle into a comfortable routine. As another month passes by, Izuku still needed to start the conversation, but at least Katsuki would respond amicably or engaged with him, and to his delight with the help of Eijiro, they’d even managed to get the man to go out to dinner once. Those years of dread and angst were melting away, and soon enough Izuku looked forward to spending time with his old friend.

He still couldn’t get a full read on Katsuki’s demeanor. The man’s emotionless responses made it difficult to tell whether or not he was even enjoying anything. So, Izuku could only assume that by participating, he didn’t mind. The old Katsuki would say whatever he was thinking, good or bad, and while he got the sense that he would do so as needed, such as letting him know about the scent issue, it would be really nice if it didn’t feel like a guessing game all the time. Regardless, the progress they were making to rekindle any sort of relationship was a win in Izuku’s mind.

“Here.”

Izuku looked up from his desk to see a plastic shopping bag held in Katsuki’s hand. “What’s this?” He took it tentatively.

“I saw it at the store. You still into this stuff?”

He opened the bag and pulled out the latest action figure of his favorite comic book character. It was a figurine he’d been saving up his spare money to buy. “Kacchan,” Izuku looked back up curiously at the man. “Is this for me? How’d you know?”

Katsuki just shrugged. “Just remembered you were obsessed with the guy.”

“Thank you, really, but I can’t except this gift, it’s not even my birthday.”

“Just take it. Think of it as an I’m sorry gift if it makes you feel better.”

As Izuku sat there stunned, the blonde simply went back to his bed without another word and picked up a book as if nothing significant had just occurred.

“T-Thank you, Kacchan.”

“Yeah, no prob.”

His face heated up and a smile took over as he stared at the action figure for a few seconds before staging it prominently on his bedside table. Izuku had left all of his collectibles at home, so it was nice to have something in their room. But even more important, was again, Katsuki remembered something about Izuku from their childhood and took the time to get this gift. Despite their long rocky history, this small act meant the world to him. It was the first true moment to make Izuku think, maybe they really could be like they once were.

Finals were approaching in barely two more weeks, and some students were already stressing out. The anxiety in the air felt palpable to Izuku. He could feel it practically oozing off the other students. Of course, everyone dealt with stress in different ways. Some went inwards, the pressure fueling them to work harder while other’s went the completely opposite route of goofing off and procrastinating. Other’s might stress eat, binge caffeine drinks, and friends banded together in study groups. But then there are the ones who took out their frustrations and stress on others.

Bullies. The bane of Izuku’s existence.

Most of the time, he could easily avoid their type around campus. He’d developed a sixth sense for such individuals which his therapist explained as a heightened sense of energy levels. It’s really not as mystical as it sounds, rather that, those like him that suffer from a high level of anxiety, are sensitive to other people’s emotional outputs. Being bullied or harassed himself certainly sent his anxiety’s skyrocketing but seeing it could also trigger a problem depending on the severity.

Hence his current predicament...

It was the end of the day for Izuku and he was ready to just get back to his dorm, eat something, and dive into his studies. One of his teachers had released the finals study guide early, so he thought it best to get a head start. But as he made his way past the row of dorm buildings, Izuku spotted something that sent a cold chill down his spine. Three men cornering a fourth. They were at least 50 yards away and he couldn’t hear everything they were yelling. Something about a group project, pulling weight— One man had grabbed the victims shirt and was semi-lifting him up while the other two men just watched and egged him on.

Oh, this was not good! Izuku’s memories started to replay and his experiences were brought back to the forefront. The men’s faces were so close... he could almost feel the hot breath wafting over, spit hitting his face, or the smell of the bullies breath. It made him sick to his stomach. Izuku’s heart raced, his throat began to close up, and breathing grew erratic. He needed to get out of there! The red piercing eyes of his nightmares took center stage in his mind’s eye... all those times he was harassed and battered by Katsuki rushing back like a wave to toss him against a wall of sandy hair.

‘Deep breaths, deep breaths, deep breaths!’ Izuku screamed in his head, ‘calm down, calm down, get back to my room! It’s not you, it’s not you... it’s not him! It’s not him!!’

Izuku picked up the pace, a fast walk over a running sprint to avoid being noticed. The last thing he needed was to draw attention to himself and risk becoming the new target. He dug his nails hard into his arm to force his mind towards a physical distraction, but it wasn’t working.

A deep voice screamed, cursing at the top of its lungs, and filling Izuku’s mind, just like that long ago day. The worst attack, the one that finally pushed his mother to move him to a different school. All the fear coursing through his veins rush back, heart pounding against his rib cage. Katsuki had grabbed him, hand fisted into his shirt as he pushed Izuku up a wall and off his feet. He could still feel the cold stone wall behind him juxtaposed to the pain from his hot throbbing lip and swollen cheek where he’d been struck.

He burst through the dorm room door, stumbling, spilling his bag onto the floor as he fell to his knees, gasping for air because his jaw felt locked up and he couldn’t get enough air. All of his muscles were tensing up, imagined or not, it felt like he was suffocating. His body was shaking, sweating— he wanted to puke.

“Whoa, Zuku, what’s wrong?!”

Katsuki had rushed over and dropped to the floor, grabbing Izuku by the shoulders to hold him up and steady. But he couldn’t answer the man in words. Tears were streaming down his face as he did his best to focus and answer the man, but it was tough, fighting against the rapid assault of images in his mind and cursing blaring in his eardrums.

“Fuck, um, allergic reaction?!”

Izuku shook his head violently, no.

“Choking?!”

Again, Izuku shook his head violently, no.

“Panic attack?!”

Izuku now adamantly shook his head, yes!

“Okay, okay, shit, panic attacks, um, it’s been awhile, what do I— oh, right, okay, okay, d-don’t move!” Katsuki stumbled back to his feet and ran out of the room, coming back within a minute with a cup of ice cubes from the common kitchen. He takes one, two, three, shoving it into Izuku’s mouth. It took a bit of effort to get the man’s jaw to open wide enough to shove it in. “Close your mouth all the way, try to get the ice to touch the roof of your mouth.”

Seconds after the ice touched, it sent a brain freeze from hell shooting through Izuku’s pain receptors. “Ahhh!” He spat out all the melting cubes as his hands fly up to his head, cradling, squeezing to counter against the physical pain, “cold! Cold! Cold!”

At that statement, Katsuki slumped back onto his haunches in relief. “Oh good, it worked.” He then took Izuku’s hands with an even soft tone. “Look at me.” Once the man complied, he continued. “Focus on your breathing, inhale when I say to, exhale when I say to.”

Izuku struggled against the embers of irrational thoughts coupled with the brain freeze coming down. His breathing stayed haggard, jagged as he fought his own mind to follow Katsuki’s instructions. But every time he’d start to struggle, the man would refocus him back to the breathing by pressing his thumb nail into the webbing of Izuku’s hand. Not very hard, but enough of a sting to bring back his focus on the physical. It took about 15 minutes until he could breathe in time with Katsuki’s words.

Be it the overwhelming sense of release or sheer exhaustion, Izuku collapsed on to Katsuki’s chest. His panicked breathing whittled down to silent sobbing. The blonde didn’t move or flinch and held the man up, simply keeping his arms around his back without a word. Minutes dragged by as the tears finally slowed.

“Thank you, Kacchan,” Izuku breathed out. “How’d you know what to do?”

“Let’s just say, I’ve had my share.”

Izuku sat back, rubbing away the moisture drying on his cheeks as he looked at his roommate with new eyes. “You? W-When? I-I mean if you don’t wanna say, it’s fine, I’ll understand. We probably both have a lot a secrets.”

Katsuki thought for a moment. “If I tell you what happened, you gotta come clean too.”

He hadn’t expected that, but after what had just occurred, perhaps it was time. “Okay,” Izuku nods.

“In middle school I was sent to a therapist because of my anger issues and diagnosed as a high functioning autistic. Frankly, I don’t know how much to believe in that, but in the end, the therapist was a good thing.” Katsuki leaned back against a desk leg. “The short answer, I learned the reason I’d started bullying you was because I was getting frustrated with myself which lead to anger, and I wrongly took it out on the closest person to me.”

“Why were you frustrated? I thought we were fine...”

“It had nothing to do with you. It was me and I don’t know, I just started feeling different, I didn’t like being around people, didn’t understand or even care about anyone because I couldn’t figure out how to fit in. Yet I’d watch you make friends so effortlessly and I got mad. There’s a lot more to it, even blamed my mom for some of it, but I just didn’t know how else to get it out except through anger. It took a few years to learn to control myself. That’s one of the reasons I got into exercising. If I start feeling frustrated, I can take it out that way now, burn off the excess energy I guess.”

Izuku was a little taken aback at the idea Katsuki’s been diagnosed on the autism spectrum. The man didn’t seem like he had a mental disorder, but the clues were there. The aversion to certain stimulus, social apathy, his fixations on certain elements. “Wow... I had no idea. It doesn’t excuse what you did, but I’m glad you’ve come this far.”

“So, what about you?”

“I don’t think it was just the bullying that started it all. After my dad left us, I was already vulnerable, it’s why I latched onto you so quickly. So, when you started— I-I felt extremely hurt. You were my first friend, my best friend Kacchan and when you started hurting me... I don’t know what was worse, the physical pain or the mental ones. By the time I moved schools, I’d developed anxiety and depression, and it got so bad my mom finally took me to a therapist where I worked all through high school to get it under control. I do really good now, but sometimes things trigger me.” More tears resurface to cloud Izuku’s eyes, but he kept them from spilling. “Today, on my way here, I-I saw a guy being harassed and it brought it all back again. Nothing was working, so I just thought if I could just get to safety, a-and I don’t know, I figured I could get it under control once I was alone. But I’m glad you were here, because I don’t think I could have. You really, saved me today Kacchan.”

“It doesn’t make up for anything. I’m the asshole who made you like this.”

He snorted a laugh, “that’s for sure, but the cause became the cure.”

“What?”

“You caused this, but today you cured it. That means a lot to me because I do want to forgive you.”

“No. I don’t deserve a second chance. I’m content that we’re at least on speaking terms again and I could make amends somehow.”

“Kacchan, everyone deserves a second chance.” Izuku’s smile returned. “We were kids. You didn’t know better. And you’ve changed, that’s the important thing. I think we’ve both changed.”

“How?”

“Well, it’s those experiences that helped me to find a new passion in life to help others— people like us who are struggling with something. Turn a negative into a positive.”

“How the hell do you do that? You just had a panic attack and you’re already sunny smiles again. I mean you were always like this, and it’s me, I just don’t get emotions, but if you wanna forgive me, I guess I can’t stop you.”

Izuku shrugged. “Nope you, can’t,” he smiled wider. “Right now, this is probably the happiest I’ve felt in a very long time.” He stood up and extended a hand, helping Katsuki to his feet. “Dinner, my treat.”

“I don’t feel like going out.”

“I know,” Izuku smiled. “I’ll order in.”

[honeypiehotchner]

you’re so golden -- Steve Rogers x Reader one-shot

Hello! This is 100% a self-insert lmao when I can’t sleep I like to imagine stuff like this. All fluff lovies xx.

Warnings: Some talk that makes prude!Steve blush, boob-holding (is that even a phrase?), some teasing/fluffy talk of sexy times, mentions of nightmares and therapy, that’s basically it, it’s tooth-rotting fluff

Living with a bunch of Avengers can be many things, but one thing it isn’t is private.

There is no privacy when Tony is around, or Sam and Bucky, for that matter. Hell, the only one who really respects privacy around here is Steve, but go figure with that one, right? America’s golden boy, of course, he’d know to knock and wait for a response before entering, to not ask certain questions, or to avert his eyes quickly if he happens upon you in an indecent situation (your swimsuit came untied last summer, no further explanation needed).

You still snicker when Natasha calls him a prude. He makes it too easy, quite frankly. 

Like right now. You’ve just finished working out, so you’re in the kitchen, making yourself a sandwich. Your body is covered in sweat, so you shed your tank top, hating the way the material clings to your damp skin. This leaves you in cropped leggings and a sports bra.

Natasha sits at the bar, sipping her water with a smirk on her face. You’re not sure why, until you see Steve practically bolt past you to get to the fridge.

“Steve!” You laugh, turning around to face him. “What are you doing?”

“Just getting some water,” he says firmly, like he has to force each word out.

“Okay…” You raise an eyebrow. “Are you not looking at me for some reason? Scared I’ll burst into flames?”

Natasha muffles her laughter into the palm of her hand.

Steve downs the entire glass of water before shoving it back under the dispenser, his eyes focused on it as if it won’t fill his glass correctly if he doesn’t stare it down.

“Steve,” you chuckle, knowing exactly what’s got him acting this way. It’s your lack of a shirt. “It’s just a bra.”

“Exactly,” he swallows, bringing the cup back to his lips, still not looking at you. “It’s just a...bra.” He says the last word quietly, quickly before guzzling more water.

“I know you’re a super-soldier,  but don’t drown yourself,” you tease, turning back to your sandwich. “You know, just a bra is technically a shirt. I’ve worn it as a top before to a music festival -- hell, some girls only had glitter covering their boobs. But I wore it with shorts, too, not even leggings. They barely covered my--”

Steve coughs loudly, discarding the cup in the sink before sprinting in the other direction. You shake your head with a laugh. Who knew that Steve Rogers, a man who looks like that, could be such a prude.

“You are so bad,” Natasha sings. “He’s scarred for life now, you know.”

You shrug. “Isn’t he like, a hundred years old or something? He’ll get over it.”

+++

That very same night, the lot of you are sitting around, throwing stories back and forth. Sam and Bucky are caught in a feud trying to one-up each other, and somehow (you don’t really remember, but it’s not impossible) the topic of boobs got brought up. 

“Do you ever do this thing,” you look to Natasha, “when you’re just laying down, and you just hold your boob?” You bring your right hand up to cup your left boob over your shirt, smirking at how everyone’s eyes follow your hand -- except Steve’s. Steve, well, becomes Very Interested in his hands.

“Yes!” She laughs. “It’s comforting, I don’t know why.”

“I know why,” Sam says, grinning like a madman.

You roll your eyes, taking your hand away. “It’s not sexual, asshat. It’s just comforting.”

“You guys also stick your hand down your shorts,” Bucky chimes. “On the side,” he slides his hand down his leg to show the spot. 

“That too,” you nod. “But the boob thing...that’s even more comforting. If I’ve ever been crying or something, it just helps calm me down.”

Steve, who has gone completely red in the face, stays quiet, but this time, he’s looking at you. Your eyes meet his and you smile softly, wondering what it was that made him finally look at you. Regardless, you won’t question it.

+++

Nightmares are the bane of your existence. Truly.

They’re practically unavoidable, and you know that. Therapy can only do so much to keep them at bay, and that’s when you actually attend. You haven’t been in a while. You can blame it on being busy with missions all you want, but that’s not really it.

There are just some things you don’t want to talk about.

So, now you lie awake in bed. It’s four-thirty in the morning, and you know that in half an hour, Steve will be waking up to go on his run. He runs every morning without fail, rain or shine. You’ve never understood why he runs in the rain, though. Lightning is a thing. And to quote Sam, “We have treadmills in the gym.”

Five o’clock rolls around and you hear Steve’s alarm and movement in the room next to you. Ten minutes later, his door opens and closes. 

You close your eyes, wondering if your body will give it up now and let you sleep, but she doesn’t. You huff, lazily opening your eyes. Another night with shit for sleep.

A knock sounds on your door, dragging you from your bed. You pull the door open, tiredly raising your eyes to meet those of a certain super-soldier.

“Steve?” You murmur. Despite knowing he’s the only one awake at this hour, his presence still surprises you. He’s not one to knock on your door this early.

“Morning,” he chuckles, eyebrows furrowing. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” you nod, leaning onto the door. “Didn’t sleep.”

He frowns. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” you wave your hand. “What’d you want?”

“I uh…” He pauses, scratching the back of his head. “I knock on your door every morning to see if you want to run with me...you’re not normally awake.”

“Trust me, I’m not awake right now by choice.”

He smiles, but the worry still seeps through. “Did you...um, did you try…?” He trails away, bringing his hand up to his chest, cupping his left pec. It takes a second for your mind to register what exactly he’s doing, but once you do, you nearly burst.

“Oh my god… No, I didn’t actually.” You shake your head. “Some nights I forget about it. Too many thoughts, and...yeah.”

Steve nods. “Do you...do you want me to help?”

“Help?” You raise an eyebrow. “You trying to take advantage of me while I’m sad, Rogers?”

“What? No!” He takes a step back, holding his hands up in surrender.

“Relax,” you laugh, reaching out to grab his hand, pulling them down. “Sure. You can take your shot. Come on.”

Steve walks slowly into your room, eyeing you and waiting for you to kick him out. But you shut the door and tug him over to your bed.

“What helps?” Steve asks, kicking his shoes off.

“Uh…” You sigh, sitting down on your bed. “I...Well, this is ridiculous, but could you...hold me?” It’s the one thing you know that has helped in the past, but obviously it’s been years since you’ve had someone do that for you, and holding a pillow isn’t the same.

“Hold you--?” Steve accepts the strange request. “Yeah. I can do that.”

“Don’t be weird,” you laugh, scooting up and stretching out. “Hey, at least I have more than just a bra on,” you tease. 

Steve gives you a look, and for the first time, he looks you up and down. From the leggings to the oversized t-shirt, landing on your eyes. You find gentle worry there in his eyes. An old voice in the back of your head nags you for trusting him so much. Acting like a gentleman is sometimes used as manipulation, but not here. With Steve, it’s genuine.

He was raised to be a gentleman, sure, but this is a different time. He could trade in the niceties for being a dick -- he’s pretty enough for it -- but he doesn’t. Maybe that’s what makes him different.

“Are you sure?” He asks, walking to the other side of the bed.

You sit up tiredly, leaning back on your palms. “Steve. We’re not about to have sex. If you’re uncomfortable, just go run. It’s okay.”

“I’ll run after you sleep,” Steve says firmly, finally sitting down.

“Alright,” you exhale.

You lie back down and turn on your side, waiting for Steve to do something. You feel the bed dip as he lays next to you, turning on his side. He drapes an arm over your waist, pulling you into his chest.

Your eyes close almost on instinct. Steve’s heartbeat thumping softly against your back causes your breathing to deepen.

“Better?” He asks, his breath fanning the back of your neck.

“Mm,” you sink further against his chest. “Yeah.”

He chuckles softly, his arm tightening around your waist. “Go to sleep.”

“Shut up and maybe I will,” you snicker, elbowing him in the ribs. “I’m surprised you’re so talkative. Normally you’re turning red and coughing by now. Or drowning yourself.”

“Shhh,” he says, but you know he’s smiling. His lips barely graze your neck, but it’s enough to send a jolt down your spine.

You stay still, letting yourself savor this feeling. You’ve harbored a small, but albeit obnoxious, crush on America’s golden boy. How could you not? He blushes when he realizes you’re wearing a sports bra or even the time when you wore a deep v-neck shirt. You don’t have a big enough chest to show any cleavage at all, and yet he was as red as a tomato.

His innocence has only made him adorable, and your subtle innuendos became your choice of flirting tactic. 

You don’t know what changed. You never imagined Steve being possible of this -- holding you tenderly, not fumbling for words or burning up. Right now, he’s calmer than you’ve ever seen him.

But it seems so wrong. Did you force him into this? You don’t think so, but you worry. He’s not normally like this, so you can’t help but wonder if he’s doing it because he felt bad for you.

“Hey, Steve?”

“Yeah, doll?”

Doll. That’s new. You thought it was something only Bucky says, but then again, Bucky calls any woman he sees doll. 

“You can go run,” you murmur. “I don’t think I’m gonna sleep anytime soon.”

He shifts, and you think he’s getting up, but he pulls you closer. “Do you want me to go?”

You wait a beat. You smile. “Not really.”

He chuckles. “Then I’ll stay.”

“Okay.”

Silence covers both of you. The tender kind that only two people who know each other well can share. No tension lives here, no anxiety. Only peace.

“Y/N?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you mind if I try something else?”

“Sure,” you shrug softly. “Why not. What do you wanna try?”

Your breath hitches when his fingers tease the hem of your shirt. Surely, he’s not…

But he is.

“Is this okay?” He asks, fingertips ghosting over your stomach, not going any further until you say so.

“Yeah,” you murmur, not believing your ears or eyes or body.

Tentatively, Steve’s fingers trace your ribs, goosebumps rising on your skin everywhere he touches. After what seems like hours, his palm cups your left breast, gently, no ulterior motive in sight. You lean into the touch, knowing he can feel your heart racing against his hand, but not caring. Because right now, it’s too soothing.

“Is that better?”

“Better,” you admit sheepishly, hiding your smile in the pillow.

And damn him, the combination of the weight of his arm around your waist, hand on your breast, breath on your neck, and heartbeat on your back -- all of it lulls you to sleep. 

A restful sleep, the one you know you’ll only have here, safe in the arms of America’s golden boy.

+++

When you wake, Steve is still there, his run a forgotten thought when he has you in his arms. You turn around to face him, smiling dumbly when you see his eyes are closed.

His hand slips from your breast to your ribs, and you hold onto his wrist, keeping him there. Your free hand traces the lines of his jaw, his nose, his cheekbones. The golden, hand-crafted, wondrous boy. Here in your bed, sleeping soundly.

The clock reads 11:46 AM, and you’re sure the rest of the team is wondering where the two of you are -- though Tony probably knows.

Still, you make no move to get up. His weight isn’t trapping you, but his softness is. Your heart has never known a gentle touch, and yet here he is.

Steve senses your movement and opens his eyes, fingertips twitching against your skin. You watch as the blush dusts his cheeks upon realizing his hand is still underneath your shirt. Giggling, you let him slip his hand away.

“Did you sleep well?” You tease.

“Did you?” He counters, genuinely asking.

“I did,” you nod, voice barely above a whisper. “Thank you.”

His eyelids flutter his silent welcome. You can’t stop yourself as your hand cups his jaw, thumb brushing against his cheek. This tender, golden boy.

He tips his chin forward, hand on your back pressing you forward until your lips meet his in a gentle, longing kiss.

“I’ve waited three years to do that,” he says, kissing you again.

“Me too,” you admit, lips ghosting over his.

Golden sparks explode behind your eyes when your lips collide. His arms cage you in, holding you close, keeping you safe. The gentle touch you have never known has finally arrived in the form of America’s golden boy. Your golden boy.

[sokkastyles]

Thanks for asking! I realize I never elaborated on the Jet/Zuko parallels so here goes.

Season one Zuko/Jet are both extremists, though on opposite sides of the war. Zuko will stop at nothing to capture the Avatar. Jet will stop at nothing to rid the world of the Fire Nation. Zuko is the fallen prince, while Jet is the war orphan, both trying to restore what they’ve lost. And both have significant interactions with Katara.

Focusing on book one first, I’ve already written about how Jet manipulates Katara, which makes it worse not only because she did have romantic feelings for him, but because she was totally taken in by his whole freedom fighter thing. He also manipulates Aang and tries to manipulate Sokka, but Katara was the main one who felt betrayed by him. Katara has such a big heart and fighting spirit but at this point in the story she is fairly naive, and it shows here. She probably never considered before this episode that somebody fighting on the right side could be a bad person.

I also looked up the mouth wheat thing because I’ve seen it a lot in anime for similar “tough guy” characters and as that other post I reblogged said, it is a stand-in for cigarettes. I also found out that it’s supposed to represent a banchou, which is a juvenile delinquent gang-leader. And Jet is the leader of a bunch of feral kids, although they are ostensibly revolutionaries. Longshot, Smellerbee, and the Duke do seem like they have good intentions, and they often call Jet out on his behavior.

I also think there’s a comparison/foil with Katara’s interactions with Zuko in book one, which revolve around the necklace and his attempted kidnapping of her. Zuko tries to manipulate Katara using her mother’s necklace but is not very good at it. Not necessarily because he has any moral compunctions but because he’s just not that socially adept. He is most often the victim of his father and sister’s manipulations and the few times he tries to copy them he fails ridiculously, because he is incredibly literal-minded. He’s blunt and often fails to understand things that aren’t directly spelled out. He is not a manipulator.

I’ve also seen people compare Jet flooding the Fire Nation village to Zuko burning down Kyoshi Island, in order to make Zuko look worse, but as I’ve said before, Zuko burning down Kyoshi Island was not intentional, it was something that happened as a result of reckless firebending. That doesn’t make it any less bad, but it seems like it’s been popular recently to add this to the list of things that make Zuko “problematic,” so much so that I actually forgot that scene and was surprised when I rewatched the scene recently and discovered it wasn’t the intentional razing of the village that some people on tumblr make it out to be. Zuko’s fault there was simply not caring about the collateral damage in his pursuit of Aang. He wasn’t intentionally trying to burn down the village. Plus, if we were being honest, all the gaang would cause destruction wherever they went given how much bending they do. That’s not something the show dwells on, though, the way that superhero movies don’t dwell on New York getting destroyed for the hundredth time (unless it’s a deconstruction of the genre).

What Jet does is much more deliberate. He’s aware that what he tricks Katara and Aang into doing will cause the deaths of innocents, and dismisses Smellerbee when she tells him so, and he’s aware that the gaang will not approve of his actions enough to hide it from them. There’s also an interesting elemental parallel/foil, Jet destroys a village with water and Zuko destroys one with fire - foreshadowing that water can also be destructive? Hama, anyone? Robert Frost said it. 

I think I know enough of hate to say that for destruction ice is also great, and would suffice.

Anyway.

Book two, the Jet/Zuko parallels/foils are much more explicit, and highlighted by the fact that they actually meet in book two. Zuko’s on redemption road, although he doesn’t know it yet. Jet explicitly states that he wants redemption, although he’s still doing the same things he was doing before. He enlists Zuko in helping him steal stuff because he thinks he’s entitled to it, and I guess you can argue about whether it was justified, since the captain was treating the refugees unfairly, but Jet mostly seems interested in stealing food for himself and his group. To be fair, Prince “ew, poor people” Zuko doesn’t exactly have egalitarian motives, either, which is why helping Jet steal food is a regression in his arc. It’s him donning the Blue Spirit identity (although without the mask) once more because he’s trying to get closer to the material life that he lost. It’s also hilarious that when Jet asks Zuko to do this, Zuko’s dumb ass is like “well, Uncle did tell me to make friends.” Sometimes I wonder who was more naive, book one Katara or book two Zuko. Iroh is like “god, I leave him alone for five minutes and he joins a gang.”

When Jet keeps pressing Zuko about joining the Freedom Fighters, Zuko says no. Again, not for any moral reasons, but because he knows that if Jet keeps pressing, he might find out who Zuko really is. Zuko is honest with Jet when he says “I don’t think you want me in your group.” Not for good reasons, again, but the claim that Zuko somehow manipulated Jet is absolutely wrong. Jet was the one who approached Zuko and made assumptions and got pushy when Zuko said no.

Jet does genuinely want and try to change, but his major temptation is finding out that Iroh is a firebender, which he finds out right after he gets pissed that Zuko rejected him so I do think that was part of his motivation for going after them, considering how pushy Jet acted with the gaang when they rebuffed him. Jet, of course, fails the test, although what happens to him certainly isn’t his fault, even if he did make mistakes. It’s a tragedy that in the end, the choice to turn his life around was taken from him, and he was betrayed by the people who he thought were the good guys. This also highlights the theme that sometimes people on the “good” side can be not nice people, which in turn paves the way for Zuko’s redemption and the wider theme that it is actions that matter the most, not which nation you are from. Separation is an illusion, folks.

Zuko’s test happens first when he attempts to steal Appa, the last time he dons the Blue Spirit mask, and then in “The Crossroads of Destiny.” Unlike Jet, Zuko doesn’t know he’s being tested, he doesn’t know he needs to change, although Iroh keeps telling him he does. The change happens in Zuko without him realizing it.

Katara tries to heal Jet, and Jet dies. Katara almost heals Zuko, and Zuko betrays her. And this time Aang is the one who almost dies, who Katara has to heal. This certainly contributes to Katara’s mistrust of Zuko later on, all three of these events tied together. And all three boys are people she has romantic tension with.

Which brings me to another reason I dislike Jet, or rather, what he is meant to be in Katara’s story. Many people have pointed out that Katara is romantically attracted to Jet, and his superficial resemblance both to the “bad boy” trope, and to Zuko. There’s a reason Zutara shippers make this comparison, although I believe its purpose in the narrative was actually to be anti Zutara and provide support for Kataang, but because the writers really didn’t know how to write Kataang properly, it ends up as the opposite.

Recently I saw a post by a popular blog that was anti Zutara that cited Jet as an example of Katara having “low standards.” And like, I can’t entirely blame the post for its misogyny (Katara is FOURTEEN) because this is what the writers want us to think. Katara’s attraction to Jet is very much playing on the “girl develops a crush on the jerk who doesn’t care about her” stereotype. This is, subtly, one of the ways that the show punishes Katara for not returning Aang’s crush. Interestingly, in this episode Aang doesn’t get jealous of Jet at all, and doesn’t even notice Katara’s attraction, but that’s because Aang in this episode is also still naive and in his early stages of his attraction to Katara, and also thinks Jet is super cool. Sokka instantly hates Jet, though. And Sokka is right, but he also has flavors of the over-protective big brother. I do remember that this episode left a sour taste in my mouth because of the (thankfully downplayed) implications that Katara is a silly girl who falls for the “wrong” types of guys because women don’t know what they want and need a man to help them “discover” their feelings. I also think this is meant to be subtextual in Katara making the hat for Jet which Aang ends up wearing, because Aang is the “good guy” who really does care about Katara, you see? Thanks show, I hate it. To be fair, I blame the writers for this, not Aang. Aang is just having fun hanging out in a treehouse and gets to wear a cool homemade hat. It’s the writers who put this weird misogynistic pressure on Katara.

It’s funny though when people compare Zuko to Jet in order to prove Zutara wrong, because when you compare the two, Zuko is the one who ends up looking better, the one who works hard to repair his damaged relationship with Katara, who genuinely did change. The one whose life she could save after he had done the work to save himself.

[zeoia]

I am a warm and loving person. I always have been and always will be.

Growing up, I had to be responsible very early on. I had no choice but to be mature for my age. After all, my mother wasn't there, and we needed a mom. My father was clueless, emotionally detached as an alpha male type. Currently he's not as bad as he used to be, as he finally acknowledges that when I cry, it's not to make him angry. I am crying because I am hurting. And when I am hurting I need comfort.

It used to be about his comfort. He hated seeing the tears. He'd tell us don't you dare start crying. I bottled up emotions. I withheld feelings at home. But they kept coming out during school. I'd isolate myself to cry.

One time I had an extreme outburst to the point of getting violent. I felt unheard. I'd been unheard for so long. People weren't understanding.

I had to separate from my biological mom as a child because she was incapable of taking care of us. This created a sense of longing. There was a hole in my heart and I kept wanting to fill it up somehow.

My father remarried when I was going to middle school. I told him I was fine with it. But honestly I didn't know any better. I was nine, going on ten. How was I supposed to know that I was just saying okay because that's just what I felt dad wanted to hear.

The marriage lasted throughout middle school and fell apart during high school. My stepmom was a scary person. Especially with her son around. She became very controlling. We weren't allowed in her chairs. Not allowed to watch her television. Weren't allowed to eat her foods. She made a mental note of the amount she had left. And anytime something went wrong, despite her son being the one who had always been the one to get into trouble, somehow, my brother and I were shouldering the blame for stuff we didn't do.

We were far from perfect little babies, but the worst we did was stay up past bedtime playing video games. He was a habitual liar. A thief. He was frequently breaking into houses, including our own. The first time I remember interacting with police was because of him. He broke into a girl's house. I was so nervous and I felt small. Because I was. I was so very small.

The divorce process was messy. She wanted to take our house away. Our home. The place that my brother was building bonds in. He frequently went outside spending time with neighbors. Unlike her son, we were still kids. By this time he was approaching adulthood. We couldn't be subjected to that.

We did manage to keep the house somehow. But... Maybe it would have been better to have lost it. To have moved downtown. So my father would stop acting like it was our fault that we stayed out here.

You see, my father has this habit of saying how he wanted to move downtown, closer to where everything is, but would tell us that "you guys wanted to stay here with your friends" in a mocking way. As if a teenager and a preteen know any better. Of course we wouldn't know of what opportunities existed for us downtown. We didn't live our lives in the future. We lived our lives in the moment. Looking at the future just wasn't a thing.

And the only future I COULD think of was the inevitable end. The inescapable fate that every living being shares. Because I wanted it. I wanted it to hurry up and take me so I could stop feeling sadness. the shameful feelings that would make other people uncomfortable.

I had been tired of moving. Tired of leaving people. My childhood involved way more goodbyes than I could deal with. And I continued to be desperate to fill that hole my mother left.

In this home, we finally had a permanent place. Some sort of stability. I didn't want to let go of anything. I couldn't let go of anything. After all, every time my mother visited us, I kept having to let go. I had to let go of the person who was willing to let me cry. I had to let go of the person who frequently told me I love you. this isn't to say that my father was unloving. I still remember every day when we still lived in the apartments, my brother and I would be home alone and we'd hear the door unlocking. And we'd make a mad dash to the door to jump into his arms to be hugged by him.

But this came to an end eventually. Growing up was awkward, and it made me withdraw more. My father expected me to be more ladylike. Despite telling me stuff like "do your best" I often felt like I was failing, even if I wasn't actually failing. Things were hard for me in school. On top of the stress of the divorce, my grades were getting worse. The transition from middle school to high school was uncomfortable. I told myself I was done with goodbyes, so why did I have to say goodbye to my best friends again?

I still remember people I considered my best friends, all the way from third grade. Donna. Jessica. Tina. Martha. Karen. Rae. Megan.

Graduating high school I didn't want to let go. I was tired of letting go. Despite my frequently feeling slightly out of place, I clung to Rae and Megan. We worked the same jobs for years. And then when Rae left for college, it was just me and Megan. Two weird kids with little ability to actually make new friends.

Megan and I did everything together. I went to her house frequently. We even went to the same community college. But as an adult things were getting different. She was very interested in dating, and I was getting more into self discovery. Online, I was making friends with people who liked the things I liked. I got involved with fandoms. She was too, actually.

But our interests didn't always overlap. But in my desperation to keep doing things with my only real life friend, I forced myself to enjoy the things she did. I didn't care for super heroes. Didn't care for being a "Potthead" as they called themselves. I don't know if that's still the term. She liked a lot of things that were very white, euro-centric. I liked things that were. Well they felt different. I liked webcomics and other things I found online, rather than mainstream media. Sometimes I tried to convince her to do something that I liked to do, but she wasn't really having it. If anything she just had a preference for insulting it and making me feel bad for liking things that really weren't her taste.

Honestly I don't remember what started the build up of animosity. I remember that I lost my grandmother on my dad's side and I felt terrible because I never got to really know her. My depression was absolutely awful then and I couldn't bring myself to go to work often. I remember one day when we were looking at our paychecks and she gave me this condescending "well maybe if you didn't call out so much." And I told her "hey how would you feel if your grandfather died? What would you have done huh?" And she got mad at me for making her even think about it. Me, actively in mourning about the death of a loved one, and she's the one mad because I dared to ask her to put herself in my shoes.

The rift was growing so much bigger. But we both still wanted to hold on because we both had nobody. I... Honestly couldn't tell you what it was that was the final nail in the coffin. Maybe it was all the guilt tripping she did. She told me that she was tired of having to go everywhere with me and that it cost money to drive me from place to place, ignoring the fact that I was always going the same place with her. Work. School. We planned it out so it was convenient. And I often bought things for her. I paid for food, gave her gas money, and I even sometimes would splurge on something she had her eye on. Like. A figure or a toy. She had bills and I didn't, so I had the spending money for it. Because I had to make sure that I wasn't going to say goodbye again.

But we did. It was messy. She called me a petty bitch. I don't even remember everything. I just know that I was alone again. Secluded. Isolated. I had nobody. Nine years of friendship and the void was bigger now.

I was desperate to keep finding people. I kept surrounding myself with groups. Getting deeply involved in fandoms in an attempt to connect with people. I leaned heavily on people emotionally, especially if they got closer to me and interacted with me more. People who did anything for me, I would cling to immediately. I wanted to do everything with people who spent time with me. I became addicted to attention.

And that addiction is why I'm in this mess today. It's true that I have managed to surround myself with genuine people who love me, but sometimes something bad lurks about. Especially in a place full of mentally ill people.

[shadow-stars16]

The crows in school(modern)(Singaporean edition)

TW ⚠mentions of eating disorders

Kaz

Kaz dislikes the uniform strongly because he thinks he looks weird in it as the rest of his wardrobe is filled with Black colour clothes except his school uniform. Kaz is always judged by his classmates since he doesn't talks much except to Jesper some girls would even gossip about Kaz and how dangerous he is. Even though with all the gossiping and the dislike from his classmates his teachers were being unhelpful for telling Kaz to just talk to his classmates which doesn't works. Kaz also gets good grades in like every subject and would sometimes help Jesper by giving him to copy his homework only Jesper not other classmates because Jesper is his best friend and only friend. One day Kaz walked passed a group of girls gossiping about him and realised this are his classmates so he went up and asked whether there is any homework. Kaz knew that the girls were gossiping about him he pretends to not hear it and asked the girls if there was any homework. The girls were in shock and one of them replied"errrr.... I don't know ask the teacher I guess." Kaz just replied with alright and he walked away. Kaz also joins a CCA( co cirliculum activity) since it's compulsory so he joins the robotics club with Jesper. Kaz is also adopted by Jesper's parents but he didn't change his last name as Jesper's parents leave it up to him.

Jesper

Jesper is okay with the uniform he just doesn't likes the rule that specifies no jewelry. Jesper compared to Kaz was a litteral mess, his worksheets are all crumpled but in the end he miraculously still managed to pass for many subjects but he does especially well in math. Jesper is not interested in any CCA like litterally no, since CCA is compulsory he is just forced to join one and he joins concert band, he does not enjoy and even skips practices sometimes since his father forced him to join after a year he quits concert band to join robotics club with Kaz. Jesper also occasionally goes to the library to borrow some books to read to Wylan generally Jesper is a chaotic mess and he scores mostly B's. Jesper also takes D&T( design and technology) as one of his subjects, he likes D&T and always finishes his work faster than anyone in his class(usually a few lessons ahead of everyone) . Even though he can finish school work on his area of interest he struggles with other subjects and often seek help from Kaz or Wylan or he just doesn't cares at all. To be honest he just seeks help because he needs to move on to the next level or else he gets retained.

Inej

Inej is the girl who much prefer to wear PE(physical education) attire than uniform because the PE shorts are way more comfortable than the skirt. Inej scores well for all PE assessments like no shit she's even better than the guys. She is in volleyball as that's one of the only sports CCA girls can join. Inej likes to play volleyball but hates her CCA mates. Most students in volleyball are just the mean girl type and Inej hates them to the core. Inej is also a really polite student which makes her many teachers favorites which make her look stuck up. Since inej scores really well for PE and she cares about it, she is her PE's teacher favorite student. Since inej is also a minority in Singapore she oftenly get makes fun of because of her skin colour and she chooses to ignore it. Inej mostly gets a B4 or a B3 for every class. Inej also goes to other sports class outside school such as taekwondo( Korean martial arts which involves like self defence) (if there is any of y'all who know more about taekwondo even more than me feel free to correct if I'm wrong). Sometimes Inej secretly wished that she had a lighter skin tone so she wouldn't be made fun of.

Nina

Nina is a really loud and popular girl in school, she's okay with school uniform and doesn't bother too much about them either. Nina have a lot of friends and has a huge Instagram following, she doesn't has the best grades for school to be honest she always just gets a C5 or a B4 and tends to fail one or two subjects. Nina also tends to joke around with teachers which some of the teachers don't mind. Before she was this loud and popular girl in school, she suffered from body image issues and had an eating disorder because of bullying from her classmates,since now she's a little slimmer than before and also transfered school as her classmates from her previous school makes fun of her body. Nina does not really care about school she genuinely cares for her friends and spends time writing cards to her friends for maybe the start of school or end of school since she had so many friends. Even though Nina doesn't seem like she cares about school she does do her homework all the time and does pretty okay for test. Nina finds a special interest in biology though for some reason maybe because of her heart rendering powers, but Nina wants to be a social media influencer which kinda had nothing to do with school. As Nina's popularity grows people thought that Nina was mean when they first started befriending her but it is not she just has too many friends and hangs out oftenly with only a few friends. Nina's Instagram stories are all filled with memories of her going out with her friends and talking about mental health everytime she talks about mental health she looses a couple of friends even though she feels sad about it, she knows that they are not mean to be and they should go. The closest friends she kept by her side all supported everything she did and she returns the support to them too. Nina's CCA is concert band and she plays the trumpet she likes concert band as it is fun and enjoyable.

Matthias

Matthias does not feel anything about the school uniform. Matthias is mostly very loyal to his friends he isn't the super popular type of guys but he has a few friends and his life works out fine with them. One particular not so masculine trait about Matthias is he likes cooking but he doesn't lets others know since they might think that he's gay. He scores pretty much like an B3 to an A1 for any subject that he takes. Matthias is the type of guy who sticks to a routine like waking up earlier just to work out or go for a run at like 4am and sleeping at like 8pm. Matthias rarely post on Instagram most of his post were only just workout stuff or his pictures when he occasionally went out. Matthias does half his homework when he is eating breakfast the other half from the previous night. He doesn't enjoy waking up this early and wished school would start later but he knew working out in the morning is better than working out after school. Matthias is in NCC( national cadet cops) a uniform group CCA, Matthias is also really good at PE like Inej. A lot of teachers like him because he is very hard working and puts a lot of effort into his work. Matthias also takes F&N( food and nutrition) , he usually gets really good grades. He is partnered with Inej for F&N and they usually come out as one of the best in class, they are a really productive duo and they know how to complement each other as friends.

Wylan

Wylan looks really cute in school uniform for some reason every feature of his just complements the school uniform and Jesper compliment him about it everyday. Wylan is a very smart person he gets like A2 or A1 for basically every subject and particularly excels in music he usually gets near to full marks for every music test and he is very happy about that even though his father is not the most happy about that since he should be scoring as well for his other subjects so he can inherit his wealth. Jesper and Wylan hangs out all the time in school they usually hang out at Jesper's house after school and he helps Jesper with his homework. Sometimes during the school holidays Wylan would come over for a sleep over and Jesper, Kaz and Wylan would just talk forever. Kaz can talk to Wylan about architecture building and how much is some art piece worth and they all chat happily together. Ones they decided they are going to go to bed, Jesper takes out Wylan's favorite book and reads it to him until he falls asleep. Wylan finds Jesper's voice mesmerising and could call asleep just by Jesper reading stories to him.

[inviral-a]

Actually  wanna  talk  about  some  stuff  about  William’s  life  &  the  people  in  it  rn  so  I’m  going  to  smash  out  a  big  messy  post:  

In  my  hc  Williams  mother  was  pretty  awesome,  she  was  a  single  mum  but  she  did  everything  right,  up  until  Umbrella  got  rid  of  her  so  they  could  have  total  access  to  William  since  he  was  a  minor  (14) when  they  first  contacted  her  about  him  participating  in  the  training  facility.  It  wasn’t  anything  Linda  did  wrong,  she  was  a  good  person  & did  her  best.  William  has  extremely  fond  memories  of  her. &  maybe  it  was  this  positivity  &  warmth  in  William’s  early  life  that  ‘sheltered’  him  from  becoming  the  same  breed  of  monster  that  a  lot  of  his  collages  became.  

Anyway  we  also  have  his  wife  Annette.  She  was  smart  as  hell  &  also  apparently  a  bad  ass.  A  lot  of  people  judge  Annette &  make  fun  of  her  but  like  her  motive  for  behaving  as  she  did  in  RE2,  particularly  in  the  remake,  was  because  she  was  thinking  of  the  greater  good,  not  just  of  herself.  She  is  a  very  complex  character,  she  was  wracked  with  guilt &  took  it  upon  herself  to  try & stop  G/the  spread  of  G /  the  outbreak  in  the  city  herself,  which  though  seems  kind  of  silly  from  an  outside  perspective,  is  entirely  understandable  from  HER  perspective  given  how  closely  she  worked  with  William -  like  it  does  actually  make  sense  that  Annette  would  feel  full  responsibly  for  what  was  happening  & feel  driven  above  all  to  try & stop  it. I  also  think  she  was  a  huge  factor  in  William  being  motivated  to  leave  umbrella & take  G  elsewhere.   Annette  seemed  to  be  the  “voice  of  reason”  between  them  since  William  was  so  invested  in  his  work,  another  thing  that  made  sense  given  this  had  been  an  enormous  part  of  William’s  life  since  he  was  15-16.  William  needed  that  influence,  Annette  was  really  a  lot  of  William’s  connection  with  “reality”  or  with  the  world  outside  of  Umbrella  in  a  lot  of  ways. Makes  sense  for  them  both  though  given  it  seems  the  two  of  them  didn’t  actually  intend  for  G  to  be  a  weapon.  That  seems  to  be  very  much  in  line  with  Annette’s  character.  The  two  of  them  clearly  wanted  to  be  able  to  spend  more  time  with  their  daughter  as  well.  Annette  is  the  one  who  reminds  William  how  long  hes  spending  at  the  lab &  that  Sherry  misses  him.  Honestly  the  whole  letter  is  a  pretty  good  insight  into  the  Birkin  family  &  what  was  really  going  on  with  them.  I  think  it  really  shows  how  normal  they  were  outside  of  Umbrella. Honestly  it  doesn’t  make  sense  for  Annette  or  even  William,  to  be  genuinely  evil  people  with  this  in  mind -  I  mean  the  fact  Annette  &  William  ever  had  a  relationship  with  this  in  mind  indicates  that  William  wasn’t  the  same  breed  of  megalomaniac  sociopath  as  what  is  common  in  the  series.   Annette  seemed  to  love  William  because  he  wasn’t &  they  appeared  to  share  a  vision  of  improving  the  human  race,  genuinely,  genuinely  seems  they  had  the  idea  of  ultimately  helping  all  people,  rather  than  wiping  out  select  individuals  they  didn’t  agree  with  or  who  weren't  “worthy”  of  “evolution”  & putting  themselves  as  the  rulers  of  this  ‘new  world’.  That  wasn’t  at  all  the  Birkin’s  shtick.

&  speaking  of  Sherry  herself.  Though  she  was  a  little  ‘neglected’  at  times  her  parents  clearly  both  loved  her  dearly.  Sherry  is  a  really  smart,  mature,  well  adjusted  kid  in  RE2.  I  mean  be  freshly  12   &  survive  what  Sherry  did.  She’s  not  a  child  who’s  ever  been  abused  or  who  has  not  been  treated  or  ‘raised’  right.  She  is  a  little  lonely  because  her  parents  worked  so  much  but  overall  she’s  credit  to  them &  you  don’t  often  have  a  kid  turning  out  that  way  if  you  don’t  love  it  &  nurture  it  to  some  extent.  Speaking  of  its  something  Annette  gets  mad  hate  for,  more  than  William  weirdly  enough  (  🙄 ),  this  idea  that  Annette  was  never  there  for  Sherry.  Not  true.  Out  of  the  two  of  them  shes  clearly  the  one  who  spent  most  of  the  time  with  Sherry.  Though  she  went  to  work  &  put  a  lot  of  time  into  her  work, out  of  the  two  of  them  its  obvious  Annette  is  the  one  who  went  home  at  the  end  of  the  day  &  cared  for  their  daughter.   William  was  the  one  who  worked  ridiculous  hours,  like  spending  almost  an  entire  week  at  the  NEST, without  coming  home.  He  was  also  noted  to  frequently  go  at  least  a  whole  day  without  sleep.  William  was  the  one  doing  all  the  hard  hours  at  the  lab,  away  from  Annette &  Sherry  who  were  obviously  at  home.  It  seems  Annette  only  worked  of  a  day  time &  came  home  during  the  end  of  the  day  to  obviously  look  after  Sherry.

I  also  find  it  super  funny/stupid  how  the  fandom  seems  to  pretend  that  the  Birkins  were  totally  cold  to  each  other,  with  William  being  totally  uninterested  in  Annette  who  was  just  there  because  she  couldn’t  take  a  hint  or  that   Annette  was  this  controlling  woman  &  William  was  just  her  dumb  bitch. Like  to  some  extent  maybe  but  overall  William  was  still  the  “breadwinner”  so  to  speak.  Like  what  I  think  was  common  for  most  families  during  this  time  period  William  was “the  man”  who  worked  stupid  long  hours  &  was  expected  to  handle  the  finances &  business  /  “important”  aspects  of  their  lives  &  Annette,  while  also  working  herself,  handled  the  family  aspect,  ie  raising  their  daughter  &  looking  out  for  the  welfare  of  all  of  them  ect.

Although  unlike  what  is  “expected”  of  such  a  family  I  think  Annette  did  have  a  big  influence  in  everything  because  William,  regardless  to  his  position  at  Umbrella,  respected  her  thoughts  & opinions  &  thought  she  was  fully  capable  of  making  decisions  for  them.  William  was  definitely  a  “ask  your  mother”  kind  of  guy  & I  don’t  think  he  was  doing  too  much  without  Annette’s  knowledge  or  approval  but  it  also  seems  that  was  actually  a  mutual  thing.  Annette,  apparently,  greatly  admired  William &  never  felt  he  was  incapable  of  anything  or  that  she  had  to  control  anything.  They  actually  read  to  me  as  equals  in  their  relationship,  not  one  dominating  too  extensively  over  the  other.

Also  been  meaning  to  talk  about  Wesker . .  .   I  think,  with  all  this  in  mind,  Wesker  was  probably  William’s  only &  strongest  “male”  role  model.  William  didn’t  know  his  father  &  never  really  bonded  with  any  of  his  mother’s  boyfriends.  He  doesn’t  remember  being  overly  fond  of  any  of  them  or  having  really  anything  in  common  with  any  one  of  them.   Keeping  in  mind  William  met  Albert  when  he  was  only  15  & Albert  was  17.  He  very  quickly  became  someone  William  admired  &  looked  up  to  because  he  was  just  that  ‘cool  older  guy’  that  William  was  so  alike  but  so  unalike  in  the  sense  that  while  William  was  a  little  shy  & timid,  Albert  was  confident  & collected  at  all  times,  they  were  completely  opposite  in  that  sense.  That  being  said,  its  probably  true  that  the  Albert  that  William  saw  &  who  lives  in  William’s  mind  isn’t  the  real  Albert  or  at  least  thats  not  who  he  remained.  Its  a  very  idealised  version  of  him.  One  that  was  born  of  William  knowing  him  since  they  were  basically  kids  &  being  so  close  to  him.

Which  is  why  he  does  have  trouble  believing  /  understanding  who  Albert  becomes  in  later  years.  Because  its  not  really  who  William  thought  he  was.  &  it  is  difficult  to  come  to  grips  with  that  or  understand  it  entirely.   William  &  Albert  started  to  ‘drift’  apart  during  the  “Alexia  incident”.  William  fell  into  his  depression  &  Albert  became  more  interested  in  Spencer  in  the  meantime  perhaps  as  a  distraction  for  the  ‘chaos’  Alexia’s  existence  had  caused  in  their  work  place  that  quickly  formed  into  its  own  obsession.  William  probably  always  assumed  Weskers  “odd”  behaviours  were  because  of  Alexia  as  well  as  he  didn’t  seem  too  pleased  by  her  either  but  regardless  if  Alexia  didn’t  happen  &  things  had  continued  at  the  Arkley  facility  its  possible  William  &  Annette  wouldn’t  have  happened  &  Wesker  never  would  have  became  as  focused  on  Spencer  as  he  did.  Just  seems  to  be  a  perfect  storm  of  events  to  me. 

This  is  the  time  where  everything  “changed”  between  them  &  they  began  going  “their  own”  ways.  Regardless,  William  never  stopped  thinking  of  Wesker  the  way  he  knew  him  so  knowing  Wesker  now  feels  like  an  entirely  different  person  &  it  feels  like  a  change  that  has  just  came  out  of  the  blue  for  William.  But  thats  one  of  William’s  problems.  He  doesn’t  notice  a  whole  lot  outside  of  his  little  bubble  so  when  he  does  notice  something  he  tends  to  feel  a  little  blindsided  by  it.  Again,  trying  not   to  speak  too  much  on  Weskers  POV.  I  am  majorly  speaking  about  my  own  take  on  Wesker  here  because  thats  my  default  as  I  don’t  have  one  I  write  with  or  anything.  I’ll  probably  make  a  HC  post  focused  on  him  on  my  multi  at  some  point  that  goes  into  things  a  little  more  too !  But  for  rn.  Wesker’s  probably  the  only  “negative”  influence  in  William’s  life  but  he  wasn’t  always.  Wesker  being  “evil”  is  kind  of  a  new  thing  for  William. 

[krokonoko]

the heart wants what it wants. and as much as I love my angst, sometimes I need me some freaky shit like,,, Lacho AUs in which the cartel is not a factor and Lalo and Nacho are just. REGULAR ASS BOYFRIENDS.

LOTS of assorted headcanons under the cut!

shield thine eyes, there’s some heavy ass fluff incoming.

Lalo has his own little restaurant. No one knows how it stays afloat with the erratic way Lalo’s leading it, but it seems his family’s somehow just absolutely loaded, so he can afford it. Honestly sometimes it feels like he just uses it to fuck around with new recipes. Like there’s no real rhyme or reason to what he’s doing, but everyone loves his food, he’s really good with the patrons and if he parties the whole night through then it doesn’t matter cuz the next morning the kitchen still looks spick and span and Lalo’s awake and chipper, ready for the next day! How does he do it? No one knows, especially not his staff. But when someone asks, he just laughs it off and changes the subject and oh my god he’s so charming how could anyone resist him? -

Lalo’s still on the antisocial spectrum and manic af in this AU, so his approach to relationships and emotions is a bit different than your neurotypical one. He seems to have a penchant for breaking rules, can be manipulative at times, and certain things don’t affect him the way you’d expect. But most of the time you wouldn’t even know, cuz generally he’s a really affable guy who’s a lot of fun to be around. He’s genuinely trying not to step on anyone’s toes. That being said, you don’t like him then yeah, he don’t give two shits. -

Nacho used to be part of some gang, but got out in time. He now studies business or something like that. He’s super ambitious and keeps badgering his papá about investing into technical improvements that would make his shop more effective and streamlined. Manuel gets heart burn every time Nacho runs the numbers by him. He’s been running the shop for longer than Nacho is alive, he’s not gonna contract new debts after it took him so long to pay everything off...! And Nacho insists that’s how business WORKS, it’s all about investment and growth. Manuel says with a smile that when the shop is Nacho’s, he can stuff it with all the novelty apparatuses that he wants, but he’ll have to wait until Manuel is no more, and Nacho is like papá don’t be so overdramatic...!! And Manuel laughs and pats Nacho’s back because actually he’s really proud of his son and the fact that he’s so concerned with the shop and they’re HAPPY GODDAMMIT -

For some reason this AU doubles as a modern AU as well. Which means smartphones exist. Nacho spends. SO much time on Instagram. Photos of his car. Photos of Nacho leaning against his car. Gym selfies. All over the damn place. And Lalo doesn’t understand insta cuz he’s a tech averse king, but he still secretly checks out Nacho’s blog all the time cuz yummy! Sometimes he comments on Nacho’s posts with a bunch of. really weird emojis, half of which don’t mean what Lalo thinks they mean, and Nacho thinks it’s cringe af. -

They’ve been having this thing going on for about a year and they’re both suuuper casual about it, like, SO casual, especially Nacho, wow he is so incredibly low key about this, like he is not too all over this or anything, just the right amount of relaxed, laid back, so cool, yeah. -

Just that Lalo is actually incredibly flirty all the time and courts the hell out of Nacho, he’s almost a bit gentleman-like about it, almost a bit old-school, and Nacho thinks that’s kinda dope and the way Lalo treats him like he’s the sexiest thing on earth sometimes comes across as a little condescending but there’s something about it, too, that makes Nacho sometimes lie awake at night thinking about it, brushing his thumb over his lower lip and thinking about the way Lalo pulls him in for kisses. -

When Lalo picks Nacho up from the gym, Nacho smiles when he sees him. When Lalo cracks a crude joke about making people swallow condoms, Nacho chuckles. When Lalo makes him food, Nacho enjoys it. When they walk along the sidewalk in the evening, Nacho casually bumps into Lalo and Lalo puts an arm around Nacho. When Lalo is close, Nacho feels comfortable, and warm, and drawn to him. -

Nacho has had a couple of girl- and boyfriends, but he’s only ever introduced Manuel to his girlfriends. Manuel’s known that Nacho’s into boys ever since he came home early to teenage Nacho and Domingo sitting on the living room couch 6 ft apart with their shirts rumpled and their faces red as beet. But Nacho didn’t seem to want to talk about it, so Manuel respected that. He’s a bit concerned cuz he’s afraid Nacho feels like he can’t talk to him, but he wouldn’t wanna push him. -

So all of Lalo’s attempts to meet papá Varga have been met by Nacho with stone-walling and general avoidance. -

But Lalo’s a very family oriented person so he just decides to make it a surprise dinner! At first Manuel is a bit wary cuz alright, what’s going on, who is this guy? But then Lalo turns up the charm and he’s just one of these guys who are absolutely stellar at wooing older ppl. So he keeps charming circles around Manuel with food and jokes, and Manuel kinda starting to like this guy, and when Manuel wants to get himself some more beer- nonono you stay put Sr. Varga, I’m gonna take care of this for you - and then they get to the part of the evening where Manuel tells childhood stories about Nacho like how he cried when he lost his first tooth and Lalo is just ab-so-lute-ly ENTHRALLED by it all and before you know it he and Manuel are BFF. -

all the while Nacho just. SEETHES in his corner. -

Manuel leaves and Lalo and Nacho start cleaning up the kitchen, and they’re very quiet until Nacho just goes “are you going to tell me what the hell all that was about?” and Lalo’s like “???” and Nacho’s just. “That little sing-and-dance you just did there? Like. What’s your end-game here. If this was some kind of attempt to get to me through my, dad, to, idk, somehow get emotional leverage over me, istg...!” And Lalo’s gets honestly serious and looks and Nacho all earnest-like... “man... is it really that hard to believe that it’s important to me that your dad likes me...?” and then he goes “you know what, Ignacio, you seem upset. Why don’t you just go home and leave the kitchen to me, yeah?” and so Nacho does, and he’s really angry at Lalo, and he doesn’t really get what just happened there. -

a couple days later his dad calls him and Nacho is kinda concerned but Manuel doesn’t pick up on it, he’s just like “Mijo, I just. Wanted to say how important that was to me, to meet your boyfriend, he’s a really nice y-...nice man.” (Nacho notices the gap where the “young” should have been lmao) and actually Manuel is trying to be like “Mijo, I am supportive of you please notice that I am trying to tell you that I think this is super okay!” but Nacho is so busy being confused cuz he’s never referred to Lalo as his boyfriend in his head even though they’ve been at this for over a year. So Nacho’s kinda monosyllabic and like “so. he didn’t upset you or anything?” and Manuel’s like “noo, he was really friendly. You didn’t give him a hard time, did you, Ignacio...??” Manuel gets all stern and fatherly...!! “Let me tell you one thing. Not a single one of your girlfriends has ever been this polite or interested in me. This man, he’s being serious about you. Maybe it’s time to stop being cautious.” -

and that’s when it starts to dawn on Nacho that that’s. Honestly all there is to it. Lalo wasn’t trying to manipulate him or whatever. He honestly just noticed that Manuel is an important part of Nacho’s life, and wanted to connect with that. And that is- actually. really sweet of him, what the fuck?!? -

Nacho lays awake again that night and notices that there’s something going on in his chest, like something big and warm blooming there and oh my fucking god you can’t be SERIOUS this is RIDICULOUS he’s way too old for this shit, AND way too worldly-wise and all that! -

So Nacho drives by Lalo’s place the other day and asks him whether he wants to go for a drink and so they go to a bar and sit there in silence for a moment until Nacho goes “my dad asked about you” and Lalo chuckles and is like “yeah? at least someone who misses me!” and Nacho rolls his eyes but he’s kinda got it coming now. Anyway, so, Nacho starts explaining that his dad is the most important person in his life, and he is soft and sweet and precious and a national treasure that must be protected at all costs and if someone was to hurt him and all that jazz. And Lalo’s like, yeah, no, I get it. Family is everything. And your dad is a really cool guy.  The problem is that for Nacho, it’s just been him and Manuel against the world for so long, he’s gotten kinda prickly about letting anyone else get close to his dad. But maybe this is good, and maybe, oh god he doesn’t really wanna think about it in that much detail, but like, Lalo gets it, and they leave the bar together and Lalo immediately gets out his phone and calls Manuel like “Sr. Varga, I’ve been wondering how you’ve been doing! What, Nachito? He’s doing fine. No, nooo, he’s not been mean at all. Couldn’t if he tried. Well, I hope you have a great evening. Yeah, talk to you soon!” and Lalo’s just absolutely obnoxious about this, winking at Nacho and everything and Nacho sighs and accepts his punishment. (Later Lalo’s gonna be like “of course you were right, I did have ulterior motives. I was just trying to butter you up for the dinner I have planned with my uncle Hector!” and Lalo keeps talking about how much he loves his tio and how he’s basically a father figure to him and such a great guy. But then they meet him and Lalo only introduces Nacho as “a friend”, and Hector is this grumpy old guy who hates absolutely everyone and everything, can’t go two sentences without being racist, sexist or homophobic. And Nacho’s like aaalright, guess I gotta deal with THIS now. But they don’t meet him that often so it’s alright.) -

OH but Manuel is still a BIT conservative about SOME things?? Like, he’s fine with Nacho having a boyfriend, but does he have to be so. you know. old...? Like. He’s not your sugar daddy, right Ignacio...? You’re not expecting him to keep you, right Ignacio...??? And Nacho is kinda pissy because UHM?? the implications?? He would never?? He’s nobody’s trophy boyfriend. He does like getting paraded around like one every now and then but he’s not. He buys his own damn stuff. But yeah sorry Nacho, that’s just how parents are sometimes lmao -

ANYWAY the point is, they. They care. Nacho cares Lalo. And seeks out his company on his own accord without any outside influences forcing him to. And Lalo cares Nacho. And they kinda start to accept that this is. a thing. And Nacho learns to accept that he can let himself feel save and comfortable around Lalo. And they’re just regular ass boyfriends. Who go on vacation together. Who have just fantastic sex without any coercion or backstabbing involved. Who fall asleep on the couch watching movies together. Who celebrate each other’s birthdays. All that freaky shit!!! 😭😭😭

[mrs-nate-humphrey]

So I have a curious question: as both a writer and someone who genuinely seems to care about Dan Humphrey and his character arc, how would you handle the concept of a "dark!Dan" arc, given the chance? As much as I HATE Dan's season 6 storyline and Sara Goodman's handling of the "dark!Dan" thing, I can't help but feel that there's a small nugget of something interesting there. S6!Dan was clearly written just to prop up Chuck, but I wonder what might have been if the writers still cared about Dan.

this is actually a difficult one to answer, mostly because i have too many thoughts. well, here’s to trying! (to the surprise of Nobody, this got pretty long!) 

uh so, the thing i noticed about dan on first watch but became even more clear while i was rewatching certain episodes is that he’s very... passive isn’t the right word, nor is tolerant, but at the same time, something along those lines? dan keeps quiet when people hurt him or disappoint him - he doesn’t really do anything with that hurt. notable example is vanessa’s coming back? vanessa tries to pick up where they left off, and dan sorta goes along with it to the extent where both jenny and rufus need to tell vanessa that things aren’t how they were before when she left + that she actually really hurt dan - because dan isn’t telling her this himself. 

basically, dan seems to be, by nature, VERY non-confrontational.

given this, i feel like dan’s whole exposé thing in s6 is very out of character  - being like “oh yeah i’m going to actively ruin the lives of the people around me and show no remorse!” feels super uncharacteristic to dan, especially out of the blue like that. 

when it comes to “tolerance” - i don’t know what better word to use,  but throughout the show we see a few instances in which dan spends time with people he doesn’t like, for his own benefit or simply because it’s easier than getting out of that situation. for example, him hanging out with chuck for the charlie trout story, despite regarding chuck with the highest distaste - he puts all that aside because he needs that story, and he’s determined to get it, because he wants to succeed so badly. to some extent, i think that is bad writing (i don’t see dan forgiving someone who hurt jenny that easily or that casually) but at the same time it does fit in with the rest of dan’s character - imo he forgives georgina too easily in the s3 arc, which. does he really believe that she’s changed? maybe! but it feels weird to me because it’s like, while dan seems to have such high morals for himself he doesn’t really care what his friends are like, which i think is INTERESTING. 

based on how you interpret the show canon, dan i think has had somewhere between 1 and 5 friends before the whole thing with serena, & most of these friends are his family (which is sad, i mean. rufus is rufus, alison LEFT, and jenny’s his little sister so there’s definitely things he can’t possibly talk to her about) or vanessa, who left pretty abruptly and hurt him pretty badly. i think given this, it makes sense that he would get into really weird and unhealthy friendships, because he doesn’t have much experience with healthy friendships and ends up just settling. 

when we’re talking about dark!dan, these two things become super essential to me - dan’s non-confrontational slightly passive attitude to his friends, and the fact that he, potentially, could get in unhealthy friend groups and not realise it. i joke a lot about how the dan & georgina dynamic in s6 was my favourite part of the season, but it’s not actually a joke!! i can see how like. dan is still “friends” with georgina, and georgina loves to call the shots, and dan doesn’t mind doing what he’s being told. georgina for the most part seems sympathetic to dan’s problems, and dan, enabled by that friendship and her being there with him, goes and causes absolute havoc. sounds right! like, not the exposés themselves, but just the fact that someone needed to Be There Encouraging Dan to be Bad - i think That’s how it’d start. 

i can imagine dan getting in with the wrong group of people, or whatever - like, dan having friends like s1 carter baizen. and it’d start innocently enough, like “oh these kids who are millionaires and billionaires don’t ever face any consequences for their actions and end up treating people from other class brackets like shit” and evolve into something like dan scamming nate at poker out of spite, and then realising that he’s in this group wayyy too deep, because, yes, he hates the rich kids as a matter of principle, and he’s been bitter about it for a long time, but “isn’t this going a bit too far, guys?” at this point though, much like jenny surrounded by her clique of mean girls, he doesn’t have an easy escape. “no,” carter will say. “we’ve only just begun. do you trust me?” and dan’s friendship is just Like That, which is not great, but he says yes and he means it. 

so that’s one possible dark!dan arc i’d give him - joins a group and his intentions at the time aren’t even Inherently bad, and then just gradually slowly finds himself doing worse and worse things. at first it’d be reasonable stuff - maybe he does the anon call to yale that gets blair’s acceptance rescinded, maybe he’d find some way to mess up chuck’s business deal behind the scenes - things he can rationalise away as things they had coming because blair and chuck did something wrong and if they hadn’t, none of this would be able to affect them. then suddenly he finds himself sabotaging serena and nate and he’s like. holy fuck, what is wrong with me? that would be an interesting thing to explore. 

another thing - i can’t believe i got this far into this response without mentioning jenny. but: jenny.

dan’s canonically not too pissed off about people treating him terribly. it’s what he’s used to, and he doesn’t expect any different! jenny, comparatively, is ready to say ‘fuck it’ to everyone and do whatever she wants to do to get what she wants, even if she hurts everybody around her on the way there - but that’s not what this is about, this is about how dan would never react recklessly and maliciously if someone was bad to him. but if someone hurt jenny??? 

unpopular opinion, but i can see him being gossip girl in THAT very specific context. girls in school are being cruel to his baby sister? he needs to shift the focus away from jenny. he needs to do something to keep his sister safe. so he creates a website, “gossip girl.” he starts blogging about one of the popular girls in his class, serena van der woodsen, because if people are busy sending tips about the girls in his grade, they’ll back off and leave jenny alone. i think if someone hurt jenny really, really badly, dan would basically go, ‘okay, i’m done being a good person’, and running gossip girl or doing something equally big that enables him to hold power over the group of girls who ruined his sister’s life? it could work.

the thing about dan being gossip girl is it makes no sense how the show did it. “a love letter”??? no, no way. dan and serena BOTH know that gossip girl is malicious and cruel and nasty in the early seasons. they both express their distaste/hatred towards the site and whatnot. dan’s “i could just write my way into the story” thing doesn’t sound right to me either, and his whole “i actually secretly wanted to be just like you guys” thing makes me shudder because. hey, whoever wrote s6, did you even watch your own show?

but dan being gossip girl because he’s bitter about the dynamics in high school, the privilege a few groups of people have, because he sees girls like jenny being treated terribly and harassed and pressured and coerced into things they don’t want to do, and he’s like, this is fucked up, why is nobody doing anything about this, what if i did something about this - and he starts gossip girl hoping that it’ll show people how none of their “friends” are really their friends, or that it’ll just form some sort of consequence for kids who never face consequences... like, i can see THAT happening and i think that’d be interesting to explore for a character like dan, especially if at some point jenny gets to like. smack him in the face with a handbag or something and go “you’re so righteous! you only made things worse with your stupid gossip site, dan!” and he’s like oh shit. but he doesn’t know what to do at that point - he’s been running the site for like 3 or 4 years and he doesn’t know who he is without it. 

dan being gossip girl also makes sense given his non-confrontational nature - he can cause conflict without getting involved directly in the conflict, so it’s comfortable for him.

okay, so! wow, this got long, but you must’ve known that it would when you sent me this ask, haha. to summarise: 

dan is very non-confrontational and often tolerant of the wrong people, this could be explored in a certain direction such as if he allied with toxic and dangerous people

dan never really fights for himself, but he’s naturally a protective person, so if something were to happen to jenny, i see that as the most major and natural incentive for a dark!dan arc. 

wow, everything i said fits into 2 bullet points! who would’ve thought.

[ziracona]

I think you've said the your first plan for Frank's fate was a lot different than what happened in fic? Do you mind sharing what your original idea was?

Sure!

So, originally, when I added Legion to In Living Memory--which was by far the biggest rewrite I did to my outline--I planned out Susie’s arc and Joey’s more or less as they appear in-fic. However, almost none of what happened with Frank was planned. So, when I write, characters often do stuff I don’t understand at the time or only partially understand, or figure out the reasons behind later, which can be a little bit of a hassle but isn’t too bad. Unfortunately, they also not just incredibly infrequently will decide to do shit I had no idea they would do ahead of time, and like, I can’t stop them, because like it or not, if I did, I’d be writing them OOC, so I just kind of have to go with it. When I got to The Lost, the section with Frank was supposed to be very different. He was supposed to show up, and Jeff was going to be low-key nice to him. I think in the original outline draft, he was a little more fucked up still than he is in-fic, so in the outline, Jeff bumps into him upstairs while looking for the tape, easily incapacitates him when Frank attacks him, and is super surprised by winning the fight in like 0.8 seconds, and realizes how fucked up he is. Frank is kind of freaked out, because he’s super weak and at someone who he would expect hates him’s mercy, but Jeff just is kind of silently like “it’s okay--don’t worry” and doesn’t tell anyone else he’s there so that he won’t be in trouble, and they leave with the tape. When I actually wrote the chapter, that changed to Frank being more healed at this point, and them actually fighting him, and some of what ended up in chapter, but Jeff was mostly just expected to be like “Okay, but we’re not going to kill him. We’re going to show mercy even if he wouldn’t, and let him go.” because Jeff is, well, Jeff. And instead he was like “Hey uh can I do a thing?” and I was like “Uh yeah I guess” and he just went off and was unreasonably nice and compassionate to Frank Morrison for like 40 pages and I was like...This is going to butterfly effect update everything. Shit.

And it did. Thanks Jeff. (Sincerely though, it’s much better the way the cards fell and the way I ended up writing/developing Frank and Julie and also Jeff and Joey and Susie too).  Originally, Frank was going to be slightly conflicted (as Jeff would still have been unexpectedly merciful to him), but to a much, much lesser extent. He was never a monster--he’s kind of a shitty person, but not without redeeming qualities, and he’s still in his early 20s. [To be fair, though, in ILM, Frank gets away with a lot. Like, going back and reading Tenacity, Adrenaline, and Grit alone, he does some sincerely fucked up stuff to Meg that he is allowed by the compassion of the rest of the cast to come back from. Meg doesn’t get enough credit for how nice she is to Frank by the end of the fic. Which I mean, everyone nice to the Legion is going to be automatically juxtaposed with Jeff, who is the most compassionate and selfless man ever, but credit where it’s due, Meg is a super, super kind person. Lets Frank go in Vs. because he helped Susie and because it would make Susie sad, doesn’t try to get revenge on him even though he’s caused her lasting PTSD and some pretty big trauma for petty reasons, is willing to believe he and Julie could/have actually changed, and while at fic-end she’s still kind of at “I am sincerely glad for you that you’re not who you used to be, but also, being close to you is traumatic for me because of what you did to me in the past, so I do not want to be around you,” (which is already a both valid and incredibly generous place to be at towards him), she feels further compassion for him because at this point he really does sincerely regret and feel guilt and shame for the things he’s done and wish he could change them, and extends the possibility that maybe in the future she will heal enough that that’s not the case anymore and there might be a future where they could be okay with each other, or oven become friends. And I know that next to Jeff people don’t all be looking as amazing as they would otherwise haha, but that’s like, that’s such a kind and strong and compassionate choice to make towards someone who has hurt you. Forgiveness is such, such a valuable thing, because it just is never merited, it’s always an act of compassion, and I really love her for that. I know I’m totally derailing the actual question so I’ll get back to it now though--sorry--I just have a lot of love for Meg Thomas.]

But uh yes, back on topic. Frank was never a monster. Legion is super interesting and I love them because they’re in a class all their own, which I know I’ve said before. But like, “teens who murdered one guy once spur of the moment because one of the group was in trouble” is such a different mental/psychological/ethical/emotional place to be coming from than any of the other killers. Frank is kind of a shithead, but he does genuinely love and care for his friends, and would be willing to suffer for them. He’s definitely got Reactive Attachment Disorder too, which is part of why he has such a hard time getting to trust Jeff eventually. 

So, as aggressive and kind of shitty but not wholly without redeeming qualities, his original story would have seen him usually an aggressor (tries hard to stop Susie, hurts Meg, gets on Joey’s case for anything kind he does, kills survivors pretty brutally & threatens people to try and keep them in line, etc), but also having moments of sympathy and humanity (letting Quentin go in Distortion/Iron Maiden, conflicted about Jeff helping him, being willing to get incredibly hurt by the Entity to protect Joey, fighting Ghostface to save Susie even though their relationship is not good right now, etc), and getting kind of mixed results in his ending. He would still have saved Susie in Vs. and been helped by Meg, who would still have offered him temporary Clemency because he saved her girlfriend and she’s got some honor, and would have escaped with Julie and the rest of the survivors and allies and made it back to the world. However, instead of sticking around to help patch up Jeff etc, Frank and Julie would have booked almost immediately in 600 Seconds (I doubt he would have stopped to help the truck driver either), and ended up with an uncertain fate. In the original outline, they kind of go off Bonnie & Clyde style and live together on the run. They send Susie and Joey postcards and such sometimes, but are kind of just MIA at the end, and it is unclear/up in the air if they will escalate into violence again, or be convinced by their old friends to come meet up and maybe try living a different life. I am not sure of details beyond that, because that outline kind of burned to death with the first actual paper draft of The Lost, as at that point I was pretty sure what Jeff was choosing to do would drastically change Frank’s future and decisions. I was kind of unsure how to feel about that at first. 

I’ve never like, hated Frank, but when Darkness Among Us released, I did not like him. Didn’t hate, but like, he was kind of vaguely portrayed as an angry, violent white boy who thinks his sad backstory gives him the right to commit murder, and despite that was wildly not just like, liked, but like, stan-style liked and pretty frequently really woobified too in big chunks of the fandom right after release, while the much more canonically sympathetic Joey got super sidelined (probably for race reasons) and so did Julie. So, I certainly didn’t like, plan to give him as big even a role as he had? I wanted him to be complex because he just was, but uh, it was surreal for me that I ended up having a deep emotional attachment to Frank hecking Morrison, but like, I guess here we are lol. And I’m not sorry. It was a good way for the story to go, and improved the plot. My frustration with the initial portrayals I saw were p valid, but I just didn’t end up writing Frank that way, or seeing him that way when I got to know him, and the person he was in ILM is someone who I am happy got and chose to take a shot at redemption and a good life with people who loved him. I care about him a lot. I think after The Lost, and certainly by the first draft of The Cat I was fully on board with how I knew then that Frank’s story was going to go, and it’s a kinder, softer story than I had planned, but I’m glad it was. I’m glad the stupid rat boy got a redemption arc. It’s so fkn hard to actually choose to change if you do bad stuff in real life, and it’s pretty damn valuable if someone can face the guilt and responsibility of what they did, accept it, and try to find some way to make right. He had a stacked deck in life, and got pretty lost out there for a while, but he beat the world, in the end. Frank let himself get pretty hardened and chose to throw out a lot of humanity before he decided to stop, but he did, and he earned a little bit of hope in the end. I don’t know if his ending is fair or not, considering all the bad shit he did, but I also don’t think it has to be. I don’t remember the exact line, but Jeff’s right when he says that life has always been unfair to them, but never in ways that were good, and that unfair can be a good thing too. Life is so rarely unfair to human beings in a way that is merciful or kind, and it’s really kind of amazing the rare times it is. I’m happy things ended up how they did. : )

[Also: fun stupid fact as a last note here. When I decided to expand Frank’s role, I was like “Okay, I can definitely see the value of this character arc and story change, and I like it and am on board, but you absolutely cannot sideline Joey to give Frank room,” like--I was not going to end up like

nuh-uh, so I literally invented a rule for myself that any time Frank got new content that wasn’t in the outline, I had to give Joey new content too so he wouldn’t get bypassed/sidelined and his arc and narrative would get the value and consideration and time it deserved alongside Frank’s and not accidentally, good intentions or not, end up getting overshadowed, and I really did stick to that. Like it got kind of funny to me. But I’m also glad I did because now Frank has a cool and well developed, hard-earned redemption arc, Julie gets one too, and I get *EveN MOooREe* Joey being a wonderful character screen time. Just good for everything all around. <3 ]