#i did this while half asleep

[dictatortirah]

He knows what's wrong

He knows his actions are causing him to deform, although he has no plans in completely stopping. But he's not ready to face it when it really takes ahold of him.

Every cartoon knows that once you've reached the limit, there's no going back. And you will lose every bit of the person you were before.

Good thing he's stuck 24/7 with a weird annoying kid with rainbows inside him. I guess he does have a use

[azzo0]

Infinite Memories

Summary: It's Katsuki's 25th birthday. After celebrating and cleaning up, you take him on a trip down memory lane.

Pairing: Bakugo x f!reader

Contains: established relationship, implied childhood friends to lovers, reader takes a bath with bakugo but nothing nsfw, foofy foofy fluff

wc: 1.2k

Katsuki made sure everyone at the party knew he was forced to be here and didn't like this shit at all, but you knew that was far from the truth. Standing with a glass of wine in your hand, you couldn't help but grin at him as he sat with his friends, Sero's arm slung around his shoulders. He was smiling unawares. He was totally enjoying this. 

Everyone had agreed to hold Katsuki's birthday party at his parents' house, given they had an enormous backyard. Mitsuki had cooked an amazing dinner while you and Mina decorated the backyard, leaving the boys to get the cake. It was supposed to be a surprise for Katsuki, but of course, he had to go and say he already remembered it was his birthday. It was just like him. You couldn't count the number of birthdays you tried to surprise him. He even acted like he was confused, but you knew better.

After the party, you and Katsuki stayed back to help with cleaning up. You dumped the plastic plates in a trash bag and then helped Mitsuki wash the dishes while the birthday boy removed the decorations in the back. 

"Are you sure you guys don't want to stay?" Mitsuki asked one last time as you two stood in the doorway. 

"No, ma," Katsuki said, "It's been a long night. Gonna go home and sleep."

"You can do that here, too," Mitsuki insisted.

"We won't fit in my old bed, you know that too," he sighed. 

"Alright, then. Good night." Mitsuki pulled you in a hug and gave Bakugo's cheek a smooch despite his protests. 

As soon as you entered the apartment, you took off your heels, kept the food Mitsuki had packed for you and joined Katsuki in the bathroom. He stood shirtless in the bathroom, brushing his teeth as the bathtub filled with warm water. You stood in front of him, grabbing a wipe to remove the makeup from your face. He rinsed his mouth and took the wipe from you, tilting your face towards him as he gently cleaned your face. 

You guys undressed, stepping into the shower cubicle, big enough for two. Katsuki sat on the step stool, and you shampooed his hair for him, followed by cleaning his back while he scrubbed the rest of his body. He did the same for you afterwards, massaging your shower products into your hair and washing your back while whispering sweet nothings in your ear, planting an occasional kiss to your neck. 

You joined him in the tub after that, your head on top of his chest while his fingers brushed through your wet hair, his eyes closed, "Did you enjoy the party, 'Suki?"

"A little," he replied. You could feel his voice reverberate in his chest. 

"Just a little?"

"Very little," he opened his eyes, looking at you with a smile, which told you he did enjoy the party. You shifted to kiss him, working your way around his jaw and onto his face. He caught your lips in a lazy kiss, his hand tracing up and down your spine. It was getting very late, and Katsuki had to go to work in the morning. 

In the bedroom, he sat on the bed as you did his skin care for him, patting serums and moisturisers onto his skin. He crawled under the covers once you were done, resting his head against the headboard as he watched you do your skincare in front of the mirror. You caught his eye in the mirror and glanced back, "Don't go to sleep. There's something I want to give you, birthday boy."

"Okay," he replied, his crimson gaze following you as you left the room. He fought to stay awake as his eyes slowly shut. 

"You're falling asleep," your voice brought him back to his senses. 

"I'm not," he retorted. 

You smiled and sat beside him, slipping under the blanket. You handed him a photo album. He took it from you, looking down at it. It had a beige leather cover with a heart engraved on the front. Inside the heart was a word in italics: Us. 

He opened the album and was greeted by a picture of him and you as toddlers, only two years old. A smile danced on his lips as he looked down at the picture. You were crying in it because he had snipped one of your pigtails while he sat on the floor with a pair of scissors, a gleeful grin on his face. Under the picture, written in your handwriting was, 'I'm not sure which one of the adults left you alone with a scissor, but I'm still mad you cut off my cutesy hair.'

"Heh, I was a fucking hair stylist!" Bakugo exclaimed, all his sleep gone. 

"Hair stylist, my ass. You just cut off a huge section of my hair." 

He turned the page to see more baby pictures of you two, with a picture of you guys standing in your elementary school uniforms on the next page. You were grinning at the camera while Bakugo pouted, looking like he'd stab someone with the stick in his hand. He found your commentary under the pictures hilarious, 'My boyfie does not like school.'

The album brought back so many special memories he had with you. His fingers stopped over a page with a picture of you wearing a crown made of different flowers while he stood beside you, little ears dusting pink, 'He decided to marry me when we were six.'

"Where did you get that picture from?" He groaned, running a hand down his face in embarrassment, "I don't even remember anyone taking a picture of us!"

"Well, my father had it," You smiled, glancing up at him. He still blushed like he did when he was six. 

He flipped through each page with you, smiling at the wholesome ones and scoffing at the embarrassing ones, each turn of the page a reminder of the constant and unwavering support you gave him to this day. In this album you made him, he took a trip through his middle and high school days he spent with you. You also put a picture of him receiving his award for making it to the top two, 'Proud of you, Dyanamight- your #1 fan.'

There was a picture of your guys' engagement and wedding. He shook his head and laughed at them, blinking away the tears that were starting to form. How far he had come with you. The last picture was a fresh one. It was from the party. He was looking at you as you stuffed your mouth with the cake, 'Happy 25th birthday, Katsuki.' Mitsuki was the one hopping around with a polaroid camera. He was sure you got it from her.

"Thank you, y/n," he said, looking to his side to see you had fallen asleep on his shoulder, your mouth ajar. 

His hand searched for his phone under the pillow. He opened the camera app, switching to the front camera. He snapped a picture and stared at it for the longest time. It was beautiful, with the bedside lamps casting a golden hue around you two. He found it adorable how your cheek was mushed on his shoulder with your mouth open. He'd get it printed on his way to work and put it in the album. 

He'd slowly stick more pictures in it over time. When pages would run out, he'd add more pages because he still had infinite memories waiting to be made with you.  

[silvers-not-home]

rewatching double life right now but through jimmys pov and just realized how violently ill rancher duo makes me /aff

like there's no way there's a duo THIS healthy in this series. the whole fucking point of the life series is betrayal and deception and blah blah blah all that jazz but rancher duo never did any of that. they always told eachother their plans, ideas, schemes, where they were going. and even if they didn't cough cough jimmy going into the deep dark cough cough he still came clean and told tango anyways. we have someone who's death is such a staple in the fandom/series that it's become a whole thing and someone who's death you go "oh yeahhh i forgot about that one, how'd he die again?"

they're both so ignored and the fact that they pay so much attention to eachother literally makes me sick to my stomach /hj /aff

like i don't know much about flower husbands but like. i know it probably wasn't.. the healthiest of any of the ships so take my words with a grain of sand here. jimmy was practically invisible to scott no hate love him to death but c!scott IS on my hit list and tango is just so blatantly ignored by the watchers and other members sometimes i literally forget he's there and when i do my autism shoots up like a firework.

jimmy is mocked in a /lh way but we're talking abt their c!versions so that might not be as lighthearted as you think c!jimmy sorry bud so much to the point no one takes him seriously and tango is so forgotten that no one takes him seriously. though they might not be taken seriously when they're together they're still known throughout the server. jimmy has what tango doesn't: patience and less impulsive thinking. and tango has what jimmy doesn't: rage and more tactical thinking.

while tango is going absolutely apeshit over the ranch burning down and everyone is basically taunting him, making him even more upset as if either of them need that jimmy is the one to hold tango back. he doesn't want him rushing in not because they share health and trying to keep himself safe desert duo im looking at you, you toxic bastards /aff but because he genuinely CARES about him. because when they go after scar and grian they want to be prepared and logical about their attacks. he'll still listen and follow through with tangos plan but not when they don't have one, he was so excited to bring the warden to grian and scar because he genuinely believed that they would get revenge the safe way (as safe as you can get anyways)

and when the plan backfired he didn't get mad or upset at tango. he helped him through it with the knowledge they could both die just by one small slip up but damnit if he's gonna take them out he's standing tall next to him.

they never got mad at eachother. not when the plans backfired or when jimmy died and lost all his stuff and had to travel across the whole server just to not get his stuff back or when jimmy went into the deep dark, putting them both in danger or when tango got them both killed in the FIRST EPISODE, activating his curse again (i know it wasn't technically jimmy that died but he still lost a life so i'm counting it anyways shut up)

because grian would've been pissed (talking about character versions still stick with me here) at scar if the roles were swapped, probably would've kept him at their base for the whole damn season actually. but jimmy listened to tango, obviously he was upset but never at tango. he just wanted to know what lead up to that and from that they made a plan.

the difference between team rancher and desert duo is when scars falling grian yells out for him, not because he cares about scars safety but because he cares about his safety.

meanwhile when tangos falling jimmy jumps after him while screaming his name, making sure that if he's going to die it's tangos name staining his tongue and without the selfish intent of keeping himself safe.

because when grain looks into scars eyes he only sees himself. meanwhile when jimmy looks into tangos eyes he sees tango looking back.

[hyperdramas]

those big brown eyes | lee seokmin

pairing: lee seokmin x reader

warnings: intended lowercase (omg lyr is trying something new), non-idol au, boyfriend!seokmin, kissing, fluff, pet names ('baby'), reader is a sucker for seokmin's big brown doe eyes (who wouldn't be)

now playing: golden hour, jvke requested by: my sweetie pookie @realmofclouds

shuffling through the house after finishing your cleaning spree in the kitchen, you peak your head in the living room, smiling as you see your boyfriend sitting on the couch, scrolling on his phone without a care in the world.

"what do you want for dinner?" you ask, approaching your boyfriend as he looks up from the screen, a smile on his handsome, pointed features as his horn-rimmed glasses catch the light and wink at you.

"whatever you want, baby. i'm very hungry, so i'm not picky." seokmin muses, and you nod, looking down at him as he reaches for his phone again.

seokmin's hair had changed—it was shorter now, cut neatly, but still brushed across his forehead in the cutest way possible. the familar checkered hoodie you had bought him to wear wasn't too tight, but was compressing just enough to show his muscles straining as he stretched like a tired cat. those horn-rimmed glasses—damn those things—sat on seokmin's sharp nose neatly, pretty, sparkling brown eyes and equally pretty, long eyelashes sitting under their rims.

oh, did your boyfriend look like an angel from heaven.

"seokmin, you're so very pretty," you say out of the blue, and seokmin looks up at you, phone froze in his hands as his cheeks start to heat up. "you are too, baby."

"no, minnie, i wanna focus on your face right now, okay?" you say, hands flying to his warming face as seokmin pauses. his eyes are cloudy, but focused just enough to where he could see the little imperfections on your face that he had memorized from the first time he kissed you.

seokmin stares up at you with those big, sparkling, dark brown eyes of his—they wink in the sunset, a testament to his gaze locked onto you. without thinking, your hand pulls away to trace one singular finger across your favorite features of his—the sharp slope of his strong nose, the small beauty mark that graced his cheek and nose, the soft curve of his upper lip.

even his long eyelashes and curve of his strong cheekbones scream at you, taunting you and whispering nothing but "kiss him" over and over again.

"the voices are telling me to kiss you." you whisper, and seokmin almost breaks eye contact, eyes welling up with tears as he fights back from the laughter that erupts from him just seconds later.

"i was going to ask if the voices were good or bad, but they're telling you to kiss me, so they're probably good." seokmin says, voice deep and calming as you lean down, breath fanning over seokmin's face as you bring a hand under his chin.

"i think i'll listen to them." you smile gently, and seokmin doesn't stop you, brown eyes still shimmering as he sweetly whispers, "don't let me stop you, baby."

his lips feel like sparks on yours, and you nearly loose your footing as his hand snakes around your waist before he pulls you down, bringing you to fall on the couch lightly, his legs spread to make room for you in the middle.

seokmin's hands are warm, and his slender fingers graze your back in just the perfect way—your skin tickles with goosebumps as your lips continue to mesh with his, and once you pull away, both you and him are floored.

"that was amazing." you whisper, shocked by seokmin's ministrations, even if you started the kissing session. seokmin smiles at you, pure joy lighting up his face as his hands are still on your waist.

"and you're amazing, so of course i have to show it to you too, baby." seokmin gives you another soft peck on your lips, still burning from seokmin's breathtaking kiss.

"if you look at me with those big brown puppy eyes, i'll get nothing done," you muse, and seokmin looks up at you with those exact eyes, causing you to become flustered and finally get the urge to push yourself back up from in between seokmin's legs.

"okay, for real, i'm going to make dinner now." you say, and seokmin watches you as you go, phone back in his hand. "okay, baby."

"i'm leaving now, for real." you say again, eyes darting between the kitchen doorway and seokmin's frame. he smiles at you, knowing what you want, but pretends to play dumb and stand there.

"okay. bye now." you say, and after a few minutes of standing at the door pitifully, seokmin stands up, chuckling as he walks to you and extends his hand.

"now, let us cook." seokmin smiles jokingly, and you can't help but laugh, leading your boyfriend into the kitchen with butterflies in your stomach.

[johnslittlespoon]

Buck + Bucky Timeline Info

For fic writers or just curious readers!

Referencing different archives and articles, I've done my best to compile John and Gale's Air Force timeline pre–England, because I feel like a lot of it gets muddied and sometimes we wanna write pre–MOTA canon events lol. Hope it comes in handy!

They meet (on or around) March 29, 1940 and become Flying Cadets at Randolph Field in Texas until August 30, 1940.

Still Flying Cadets, they move to Kelly Field in San Antonio, Texas from September 9, 1940 to November 14, 1940.

Both promoted to 2nd Lieutenant Air Corp Reserve on Nov 15, 1940. A bit unsure on the events before their next promotion, because Gale seems to have gone to Barksdale Army Air Field in LA in March of 1941 for advanced flying school, but haven't found anything on whether John went too; I'm assuming he did.

Both promoted to 1st Lieutenant, Air Corp on April 25, 1942. Not clear on whether this took place in LA or back in Texas or elsewhere.

Became instructors for the 29th Bombardment Group at McDill Air Force Field in Tampa, Florida on May 25, 1942.

Promoted to Captain and transferred to Gowan Field, Boise Idaho, but possibly at different times? All I can find is that by October they were both for sure there, but Gale was promoted to Captain on July 28, 1942 and transferred then, and John was promoted to Captain in August of 1942, but it doesn't specify when he transferred.

At Gowan Field in October of 1942, Gale was promoted to Commanding Officer for the 350th Bomb Squadron/100th Bomb Group, and John was promoted to Operations Officer for the 100th Bomb Group.

Transferred to Walla Walla Army Air Field in Washington in November of 1942.

Transferred to Wendover Army Air Field in Utah in December of 1942.

Both promoted to Majors in Sioux City, Iowa in January of 1943.

Transferred to Kearny, Nebraska (assuming to Kearney Air Force Base) in February of 1943. Cue P1 of MOTA!

In May of 1943, John traveled with an advance party to Podington, England to prepare the base for the 100th Bomb Group. On May 27 1943, Gale (with the 100th) left for Bangor, Maine. From there, he flew out across the Atlantic and arrived at Thorpe Abbotts on June 9 1943. And we know what happens from then on. :-)

If any of this is incorrect or you have extra information to add to the timeline, please let me know!! I wouldn't be surprised if I've missed things, but this is how their flight school/pre–England timeline went to the best of my knowledge. Hopefully this is helpful for some other writers too! I can throw together a timeline for their missions/events during MOTA as well if that's something anyone's interested in; it's easy enough to find mission dates in comparison to finding these pre–100th dates, but it might be nice to have them all in one place. x

[television-overload]

The Most Popular Man in D.C.

(X-Files Fanfic)

[read on AO3]

-.-.-

In the months after Scully is returned from her abduction, Mulder starts getting catcalled on the street on an almost daily basis. At first, he doesn't think much of it, but after a few weeks, he finds it odd enough to mention to her.

She walks into the basement to find him putting pins in a map of D.C., hunched over his desk in concentration.

"Mulder?" she asks with an amused look on her face, paused in the doorway with her eyebrow arched.

With a brief glance up at her, he asks, "Scully, do you think I'm attractive?" Her hand almost slips off the door handle.

Her mouth falls open to answer, but she has no clue what words might come out. What is it he's wanting her to say? He doesn't look like he's joking. In fact, he looks deadly serious.

"I–"

"I just mean, if you saw me on the street, would you—you know—whistle at me?"

His question startles a chuckle from her throat, loosening her tongue. "Whistle?" She stares at him incredulously. Where is this coming from?

"Yeah," he says. "Whistle, wave, shower me with unsolicited compliments?"

Normally, she might laugh, assuming this to be one of the goofy bits he does when he's in a good mood, but something genuinely seems to be concerning him.

"Why do you ask?" she says, brows furrowing as she enters the room fully, shutting the door behind her.

He puts another pin on the map, near the grocery store she knows he goes to near his apartment in Alexandria.

"Scully, in the last month or so, I've been catcalled by random women nearly every day, all over D.C." he begins. "On my run, at the gym, even once when I went to pick up more fish food at the pet store. All over."

"Catcalled, Mulder?" she asks.

"Yes!"

"Is that so unusual?"

His brows slant in clear concern. He needs her reassurance.

"Look, you're a... not wholly unattractive guy," she starts cautiously. "And these places—the gym, the park where you run... You'd be covered in sweat, wearing that— that sleeveless Knicks shirt you have..." She trails off, blushing profusely and hoping her hair conceals it.

"But, the PET store, Scully," he insists, thankfully too worked up to notice her pink cheeks. He gestures wildly at the map before him. "All of these pins are places where I remember it happening. All in the last month."

Oh boy. "Putting that eidetic memory to good use, I see," she says. She surveys his slightly manic appearance, gauging how worried she needs to be about his state of mind.

"There's a clear concentration in certain areas," he says, ignoring her comment. "Look: about four blocks from my apartment, see? There's a cluster of them, all near this corner."

She looks where he is pointing, and indeed, there are six pins huddled close to each other while others are more spread out.

"Do you have a theory?" she can't believe she asks.

"I was hoping you would," he says, a little defeated.

Well, if she's not about to be dragged into a wild goose chase investigation based on some theory he's concocted, then she's back to finding this entire situation hilarious again. "Why should I have a theory?" she asks, suppressing a smile as she crosses her arms and looks up at him.

"I don't know," he says, shrugging awkwardly. "You're a... a woman."

She rolls her eyes. "Thank you for noticing."

"No, but maybe you have some insight. A different perspective."

"Some kind of womanly intuition?" she asks doubtfully, challengingly.

"Well, yeah."

She purses her lips. She has no immediate answer for him, so the office falls silent. He slumps back into his chair, looking far more bedraggled than he ought to at just past 8:00 am.

No, Mulder, she doesn't have some insider secret about the female mind to explain this so-called phenomenon away, but... Man, that is a lot of pins on the map. All in the last month, he says?

Why are her toes tapping incessantly on the floor beneath the desk?

"Mulder," she starts, hardly believing the words that are about to come out of her mouth. "If you're that worried about it, maybe we should go check out some of these areas of concentration."

He looks up at her, just as surprised to hear the suggestion come from her lips.

"Really?"

She wants to roll her eyes again, but there's a knot of something she refuses to acknowledge as jealousy in her chest that prevents her from doing so.

"Only if you're that concerned," she says, hoping she sounds firm and not at all interested in why her partner is getting hit on by women left and right.

He fumbles his way to his feet, stabbing himself in the palm with a pin accidentally in the process. He curses under his breath and shakes his hand out while eagerly shoving his arm in his jacket sleeve. "Okay," he says. "I think we should start by my gym, that's where it happens the most."

"Fine," she agrees stiffly, trying not to picture him breathless after a workout and surrounded by his loving admirers.

She drives, because she needs something to do with her hands. He navigates. It's his steps they're retracing, after all. He knows best what direction they need to head in.

They park on the street, exiting the car and getting a feel of their surroundings.

"There's my gym," he points out. She's not exactly sure what they're looking for, but she keeps her eyes peeled all the same.

After a few minutes spent wandering near the entrance, she's about to call it quits, but then a muscular little brunette calls out from across the street, grinning from ear to ear as she shouts, "Woo! I'd pay your dry cleaning bill just to watch you work out in that suit, handsome!"

Before either of them has time to respond, or even come to terms with what just happened, the woman disappears into a storefront. A yoga studio, Scully deduces from the sign out front.

"See?" Mulder says, swinging his hand out toward the other side of the street. The suddenness of his speech startles her out of her tense posture, and she forces her shoulders to relax.

"I give her points for creativity," she says, marching primly back to the car and throwing the driver's side door open.

The next place they drive is the grocery store, just a stone's throw away from his apartment building. Once again, she parks, and they wander about, but this time, their fellow pedestrians are blissfully silent. She looks around. There's the grocery store. Beside it, a pawn shop. On the other side, a place selling herbal supplements... and possibly also other "herbal" remedies. RadioShack across the street. Not much going on at—she checks her watch—8:47 am.

"Notice anything unusual?" she asks, watching as an older couple hobbles into the grocery store arm-in-arm.

His shoulders lift in a shrug. "It's quieter than usual," he says. "I'm not usually here this early on a week day."

She nods. This stop might have been a bust, but at least she didn't have to hear another cheesy one-liner directed at Mulder.

They're not so lucky at the next, and—she decides—final stop.

About a block down from the coffee shop in Georgetown that he frequents when he has to wake her at an ungodly hour, two women loiter outside a shop advertising high-quality tattoos and piercings. One takes a drag from her cigarette, then calls out, "Let's see a smile on those pouty lips!" The other woman chuckles, puffing out a cloud of smoke.

Mulder gives an awkward smile and nod in their direction, and Scully promptly grabs him by the arm, ushering him hurriedly back to the car.

She stews in silence on the drive back to the Hoover building. She knows she has no right to do so, and yet...

"You see what I mean, Scully?" he asks. "You gotta agree that something's unusual."

Does she? He's an attractive man. YES, okay, she's attracted to him. Can she fault other women for noticing? Maybe they could do to keep their mouths shut and leave him alone, sure, but wouldn't most men kill to have that kind of attention given to them?

"I don't know," she answers, her hands gripping the wheel.

"I'm serious. I've lived here for years, and this has never happened before. Then all of a sudden..."

"You're reading too much into it," she snaps. Then, softening her tone, "I mean, if they won't leave you alone, tell them to back off. Tell them you're an FBI agent and can arrest them for harrassment."

"Scully..."

"It's not an X-File, Mulder," she says decisively. "We've missed enough work as it is. Just forget about it."

His jaw shifts like he's about to argue her point, but instead he says the words she's always longed to hear from him.

"You're probably right."

-.-.-

She tries to forget about it.

On Thursday, he cheekily informs her that he had been called a "handsome devil" that morning while stopping by the bank. Friday, the descriptive term is decidedly less work-friendly, but he saunters in looking quite pleased with himself.

Gee, she sure is glad she told him not to worry about all the attention he's getting. Now, he actually seems to be enjoying it.

The weekend can't come soon enough. At 5:00 on the dot, she bids goodbye to his boyish smile and wishes him a good weekend. At home, she finishes off half a bottle of wine and watches some trashy reality TV until it's bedtime, and she promptly passes out.

-.-.-

Saturday, she wakes up feeling stupid. After popping a few advil, she deep cleans her kitchen, tossing out the now empty bottle of wine and even dusting on top of her cabinets, a task that requires standing precariously on the countertop with a featherduster in hand.

As the clock ticks closer to noon, though, she begrudgingly pulls herself away from her work and readies herself for her afternoon commitment with her sister. On the way to Melissa's dumpy—temporary—apartment, she picks up lunch from her favorite Chinese place. It's been months since Melissa came to town. She's not the kind to stay put in one place for long. If Scully hadn't been abducted, or whatever it was that happened to her, Missy wouldn't have been there in the first place.

The apartment is one she'd found on short notice when she heard what had happened, and came to support their mother throughout the ordeal. It pays by the month, and has a serious ant problem in the kitchen, but otherwise isn't the absolute worst living situation Scully could fathom. She liked having her sister nearby, even if it was only for a while.

Now, the ceaseless call of adventure summons Melissa once more, and it is time to go. Scully had promised to help her pack her things this weekend, and now the day is here.

"You sure you don't want to stay?" she asks, loathing how the sentence makes her sound like her 15 year old self when Missy had first left home for her first (and only) year of college.

"You don't need me, Dana," her sister says. "Besides, you know I can only handle so much of Mom telling me what I should be doing with my life."

"She means well," Scully assures her.

"I know she does," Missy says with a smile. "And I know you're no stranger to doing the complete opposite of what she tells you, too."

Scully breathes out a laugh.

"Come on, help me take these boxes down to the moving truck." Melissa shucks her jacket off, tying it around her waist in preparation for the physical labor it would take to carry multiple loads of boxes down four flights of stairs. One of the worst features of this apartment building is it's permanently broken elevator. Moving in must have been a nightmare.

Bending to pick up her first box, Scully catches a glimpse of something on Missy's right wrist, visible now that her jacket has come off.

"What's that?" she asks, brows furrowing.

"Hmm?" her sister asks. Her eyes follow Dana's to the marking on her skin on the underside of her arm. "Oh, I got that while you were in the hospital. You're like 90% of my impulse control, Dana."

Her teasing tone does not negate the heaviness that comes from mentioning that horrific time for her family. That time when she was all but lost to all those who knew her.

"What is it?" she asks.

Missy sets her box back down, and Scully does the same. "Check it out," she says, drawing closer so Scully can see.

On her wrist is a small cross tattoo, remarkably similar in shape and size to the cross Scully wears around her neck.

Strange. She's fairly certain Melissa hasn't been to mass in years, much to their mother's chagrin.

"Why?" she asks, genuine confusion lacing her voice.

"Don't go all 'Mom' on me, Dane," Missy jokes, smacking her in the shoulder. "It's just a tattoo."

Scully shakes her head. "No, I mean, why that? Why a cross?"

"Oh." Melissa looks down at her wrist in thought, then back up at Dana. "It just... seemed to be the thing to do."

"Something to remember me by?" Scully tries to joke, though she's aware of how morbid that sounds, to live to see the way her sister planned to memorialize her.

"Actually, no," Melissa corrects. "It was your partner."

Huh?

"Mulder?" Scully asks, wondering how on earth her necklace—the symbol of Christianity—relates to her unbelieving partner.

"Yeah, it was— Look, it's not really my place to tell, but I saw the way he relied on that necklace of yours for strength while you were gone. Not once did I see him take it off. It was like, if he didn't let go of it, then he wasn't letting go of you. I admire that."

Scully still doesn't understand. "So, the tattoo..."

"Is a reminder to have hope," Melissa finishes. "To have that same belief in others that Fox had for you, even when things looked hopeless and we almost gave up."

Scully's heart twists painfully.

This marking on her sister's body is tangible proof of what Scully has known all along:

That her partner is something special. That his uncommon belief in the unbelievable leaves an impact, not just on her, but on others whom he interacts with.

She still finds it hard to fathom that there had been weeks and months where Mulder was out there, spending time with her mother and sister while she was missing, or lying comatose on a hospital bed.

"When you came back, and when you got better, I knew it was him that saved you," Missy says softly, as if she can hear her thoughts and doesn't want to disrupt them. "I know it's him."

Her sister's piercing eyes meet hers seriously, and she turns away, lifting the box back into her arms to serve as a distraction.

"We don't want to keep the movers waiting," she says, forcing her thoughts away from Mulder. Away from the dangerous thoughts that had filled her head all week.

Missy's eyes brighten, and she grins.

"Don't keep him waiting," she warns.

-.-.-

Scully hands her sister the last of the boxes, and Missy stands up in the back of the truck, brushing the dust off her hands with a satisfied sigh.

"That's the last of it," she says proudly. "Oh, wait—"

She turns quickly, rummaging through a few boxes before triumphantly extracting a small piece of paper.

"Here, give that back to Fox, will you?" she says, handing it to Scully.

"What's this?" she asks, turning the glossy paper in hand to look at it properly.

In her hand, she holds a photo of Mulder from one of the times he'd been locked up on trespassing charges that ultimately wouldn't hold. He'd gotten a kick out of getting his mugshot taken, and so had requested a copy of it upon his release, and the small sheriff's department in Idaho had granted his wish.

But why did Melissa have it?

"I stole it from his apartment," she says, answering her unspoken question. "Made some copies, spread them around."

"You— you did what with them?"

"Just gave them to some friends," she says, smirking as she plops down on the edge of the truck bed. "You know I make friends wherever I go."

"Yeah, but why?"

The conspiratorial smile on her sister's face comes straight out of their childhood.

"Has Fox been getting an unusual amount of attention when walking around D.C. lately?" she asks nonchalantly, concealing a wider grin.

"Missy, you didn't!" Scully says, her jaw dropping.

"You didn't see him, Dane! He needed a pick-me-up!" Melissa raises her hands in defense, smiling at her sister's reaction.

Scully scoffs, but only to prevent a burst of astonished laughter from escaping. "A pick-me-up, not someone to pick him up," she says in as chastising a voice as she can manage.

Only Melissa would do something like this. She should have known.

"So it did work after all," Missy surmises. "Good. He needed a confidence boost. Has his ego inflated terribly?"

This time, Scully does laugh. "Sure, maybe after he got over the paranoia of suddenly being the most popular man in Washington, D.C."

"I guess it would come as a shock," Missy says, eyes bright with mirth.

Scully smacks her sister in the arm. "He was convinced it was some kind of conspiracy!"

"Oh, well," Missy says. "The real conspiracy is how you won't hit on that man yourself."

She's going to miss her sister, she reminds herself. Just be glad she's been in town this long.

Nope. She still wants to throttle her.

She shakes her head.

"Melissa..."

-.-.-

The compliments—because Scully refuses to call them catcalls—continue for the next few months, though with decreasing frequency.

After thinking it over for the weekend, she decides not to tell him. Maybe some day, years from now, when they can laugh about it.

For now, she lets other women say her thoughts aloud, and delights in the way his cheeks turn rosy when she's with him to hear their cheesy pick-up lines.

She wonders how she didn't notice before, the way these women look just like people Melissa would hang around with. Choker necklaces around their necks, Doc Martin shoes... Mulder was onto something with his map. The gym: across the street from a yoga studio that Missy had gone to a few times. The herbal supplement place, one that Missy had definitely stopped by on occasion. The tattoo parlor. Self-explanatory.

Now that she's in on the secret, whenever it happens, it's like Missy is there for a second. It makes her feel less far away. She thinks of these women being handed a photocopied flyer with Mulder's face on it, and wonders what on earth Missy had specifically told them to do.

Whatever it was, it had been effective.

Funny. She never really pictured introducing her sister to her partner, but now she wonders how she didn't see it before. She's glad Missy stepped in to look after him while she was gone, even if it involved a prank of questionable taste. She wouldn't have expected any less from her sister. And maybe that was just what Mulder needed.

She tells him at the funeral.

It's too early to find the humor in it, like she'd hoped they would someday. But his lips do curl into a small smile. Remembering.

It still happens on occasion after that. And when it does, Mulder takes Scully's hand and whispers, "See? She's never really gone."

Melissa Scully had left her mark on Washington, D.C., even in the short time she'd been there. She left her mark on Mulder in the same way.

Years down the line, when the number of Mulder's admirers has dwindled to one, Scully lies awake, picturing his face as he whispered sweet words to her. His constant. His touchstone.

"You were right, Missy," she breathes into the still air of her lonely apartment. Sometimes it feels haunted by her ghost. Tonight, that brings her comfort. "You were right."

She thinks she hears the echo of a sultry whistle.

-.-.-

Tagging: @today-in-fic @agent-troi @baronessblixen @captainsolocide @cutemothman @deathsbestgirl @edierone @enigmaticxbee @figureofdismay @frogsmulder @hippocampouts @invidiosa @randomfoggytiger @skelavender @teenie-xf

[arttsuka]

Fishies

[smallishcrumbs]

douelb lief shenanaginas

[y-rhywbeth2]

I feel like Bhaalists have a fucked up view of pregnancy...

Like Amelyssan expressing her disdain of the idea she'd ever given birth to a Bhaalspawn, and calling them corruptions of the doctrine. Sure Bhaal wants more murderbabies and presumably encourages his followers to have more little Bhaalists because the number of people who are going to worship Bhaal as their patron deity rather than appeasement is low, and he needs more followers in order to spread his will and get that world of death populated only by undead, his children, and his followers rolling.

But all that lives essentially defiles the world by doing so in the eyes of the god and his followers, so it's more like bringing life in specifically for causing more death is a necessary evil than anything else. (While Malar protects the pregnant and children in order for there to be more prey to hunt, Bhaal doesn't seem to share this outlook that I've seen.)

To this end, not only creating life but having to nurture it inside your own body for nine months (or less or more, for some demihumans) sounds something between a sacrifice and/or a punishment in the eyes of the doctrine and a psychological minefield,

[forzafinally]

I am getting this off my chest once and we're not talking about this again. In my personal opinion it is a mediocre album by her standards. Firstly it's too long. More songs does not equal a better album. Sometimes some songs deserve to be left on the cutting floor for a reason. After a time the songs start blending together because sonically they sound very similar.

Secondly the lyrics. They're clunky in a lot of places I'm sorry. The annoying part for me is that she's capable of writing better songs!! Folklore showed that. Red showed it. I don't understand why she's backsliding like this.

Okay also this is probably not applicable for everyone but personally I do Not appreciate the way the fandom just bullied Joe Alwyn and are now coming up with all these takes about how the album is actually not about her relationship but about her experiences™️. Where was this energy 6 months back? And I'm sorry, but I can't find it in myself to be sympathetic towards a multi-millionaire who can definitely afford to go to therapy and get the help she needs while selling out stadiums on her world tour.

Lastly, the thing that disappointed me the most was that the whole album cycle was marketed as a more mature folklore but it turned out to be something that Red era Taylor would have probably written and rejected. I guess the main reason I'm so disappointed is because she is definitely capable of doing better!! She has done it before!!

Overall maybe she needs less yes men and more people to say that hey maybe this isn't the best direction to go album wise. (Don't come at me with the Braun controversy because there are two ends of being extreme and both are equally harmful).

Again. I'm not saying it's all bad. I think it could have been a wonderful album if she'd cut it down to 12-14 songs, polished up the lyrics and shaken up the production a bit. Songs like my boy only breaks his favorite toys, loml, who's afraid of little old me and I can do this with a broken heart definitely show that the potential is still there. All I'm saying is that it's definitely not her best work.

[desiredblud]

HAPPY VALENTINES TO EVERYONE!!! HERES SOME TWIYOR ART FOR YOU LOVELIES!! MWAHHHH HAVE A GOOD DAY!! ❤️❤️

[d011zk1ll]

*Chews on them*

I am cooking (I burnt it)

[avanchnzel]

a moment of rest

[nathsolkyoako]

Noc you motherfucker

No editing we die llike men

Experiment

This was a stupid idea

Maybe he had a few too many drinks, or the smoke from his frequent cigar breaks finally clogged up his walnut of a brain

Alright what, led up to this, was he was at one of the taverns and he saw one of the “companions” that worked there and he was just wondering! the thought slightly grazed his mind, and for some fucking reason he got back to the ship and found out everyone was gonna be a while getting back and it seemed like a good idea to ask alphonze if he’d ever done type of work like that cause he’s a service bot! He was just curious!

Turned out the answer was no, but there was a program in case it was asked of him. and alphonze offered to “show him” and he’s trying to let him make his own choices and if they’re both fine with trying it it was fine.

And he said if asked he could just delete the whole thing from his memory banks so it’ll be like it never happened. it doesn’t have to mean anything! Win/win

And now they were locked in the crews quarters, so no one, if they came back unexpectedly, could walk in on accident, both their clothing folded neatly beside them (alphonzes fault, he insisted) and he was laying on the ground, in his underwear, with the warforged sitting above where his stomach should be putting a strange pressure there and-

“So if I do something uncomfortable then your going to have to tell me”

And they were “discussing” it

“Okay”

It wasn’t a bad thing. It was good really, he doesn’t mind! He was just already nervous and “talking” about it wasn’t making that feeling in his gut go away

“And I don’t gain or feel anything from this so I don’t know what feels good or bad”

Friends can fuck eachother it happens! It doesn’t have to matter!

“Mhm”

Were they friends? Do friends heartbeats race when the other is nearby, close enough to hear him whir?

“Pain and pleasure have very similar symptoms, for lack of a better word, so it’s difficult to tell which is which in this context”

That made sense

Alphonze had a habit of over explaining. Maybe he just talks a lot ‘cause he usually doesn’t get the chance. When Gryffon was at Edison kingdom the warforged usually didn’t speak unless they were asked something. It was fun listening to him ramble about the smallest of things, how (or why?) alphonze knows so much was beyond him but he doesn’t mind the chatter.

“And I don’t Want to hurt you in this situation because, usually, Sex isn’t supposed to hurt so getting a verbal confirmation every so often would help…”

While he spoke Gryffon traced the dull outline of midsection. To be more fluid in his movements a lot of Alphonzes torso was made with smaller thin metal panels that overlap each other (imagine those Fuckass slugs but on a bigger scale) …he never quite payed attention to them until now

“Look if there’s something bothering me I’ll let you know” gryffon said after a pause. Thatd be easier than going through every fucking scenario. They’ll figure it out

“Are you sure?”

Alphonze hummed under his hand. Did he always do that? He’d never gotten this close to him to notice.

It felt nice.

“Yes”

“Alright “

[tardxsblues]

[starmocha]

my tablet alarm woke me, and when i attempted to unlock it, it kept refusing my password to the point of “permanently locking” so i was forced to do a factory reset

now basically everything in my tablet and the sd card were wiped clean

i haven’t backed anything in the last 3 months, so 3 months worth of stuff are gone