#i literally screen shotted this exact panel

[initforthelolzz]

I know that this discussion has been made countless times at this point, but I might as well make it again.

Anyone who calls Yamato a woman doesn’t understand his character, there, I said it.

I recently stumbled across that side of the one piece fandom. As in, the side that gets violent over Yamato’s gender identity. I recently had the unfortunate privilege of stumbling across an entire YouTube comment section ranting and unanimously agreeing that Yamato is a woman and cussing out all the people who “head-cannon” him as a man.

Whelp. It’s rant time again.

For starters, I accept Yamato as a man. A trans man that doesn’t necessarily pass, but has a respected gender identity by all he associates with (as far as I’ve watched).

I have multiple trans friends and family members in my life, and as an LGBT individual myself any and all representation is a breath of fresh air. Especially in shonen anime, which is the sole form of media that I consume at this point.

I’ve already made my rant about the queer rep in Impel Down, and it’s about time I spun my spiel about the upsetting discourse over Yamato and his gender identity. Because that’s exactly what it is, upsetting.

When Yamato was first introduced he wore a mask and baggy clothing, he didn’t speak and was mysteriously called nothing other than “Kaido’s son.” He was hyped up for episodes on end before he finally joined the plot, and finally spoke. In the distinct voice of a woman.

Clearly, any and all gender norms have been obliterated at this point.

When Yamato finally took his mask off and declared himself Kozuki Oden, Luffy reacted how all of us did:

It’s exactly what all of us were thinking, right? How can that be Kaido’s son?

Then of course Yamato responds with this:

And we have our answer. Yamato is a trans man, and the entire Beast Pirates crew respects that. It’s incredible, isn’t it? I was blown away, you should have heard me squealing, it was ridiculous.

Luffy was a dick about it initially, but from the moment Yamato declared himself a man Luffy referred to him by his preferred pronouns for the rest of the arc.

“You can trust him.” “He’s going to help you.”

(Paraphrased. Didn’t dig up a screen shot cause I’m lazy. Took place when Luffy left Yamato with Momo and Shinobu on his way to the roof.)

Conversation over, right?! Wrong!!

Cause some people don’t like that. They see huge tits and refuse to accept this character as anything but a woman.

It doesn’t matter that Yamato is referred to using he/him pronouns by literally everyone, it doesn’t matter that Kaido consistently calls him his son, and it certainly doesn’t matter that Yamato personally declares himself a man.

They say that Yamato is biologically female; “it says it on the vivre card!” “A manga panel calls her Kaido’s daughter!” All things I found in that comment section, repeated again and again. Of course there’s the color spread covered in big boobs and bikinis, and that’s obviously proof that Yamato is a woman like all the rest. Because all of the color spreads happened in the cannon story and must be taken as hard fact.

I mean clearly.

Canon, 100%.

No question.

“Cause Oda literally said it himself…” right? Yeah. Sure. I’ll believe it when I see an SBS or a quote from the man himself.

I understand where they’re coming from, I really do. Yeah, Yamato looks like a woman. Yeah, boobs exist. Yeah, both voice actors are female.

But all of this evidence is strictly surface level, and these people ignore the personality of the character they claim to defend on top of the way they interact with other characters in the series.

They say that Yamato only looks up to Oden, that he’s not really a trans man, he’s just “larping.” Playing pretend.

They claim to be defending Yamato’s identity. They claim that those who call him a man are trying to “steal” the character and “gender her.” Yet… doesn’t their entire argument revolve around gendering that exact character?

By that logic, who gendered the character in the first place? I dunno, maybe the guy who’s wrote the dialogue? I mean maybe???

At the end of the day I can get ticked off all I want, but people will think what that think and all I can do is try not to let it affect me. However…I know transphobia when I see it. I see transphobic discourse within my own family. I know what that shit looks like. Refusal to respect pronouns. “Well you don’t look male.” “You were born female.” “It’s all just a phase, they’re confused.”

Sound familiar?

People can believe what that like, but it doesn’t mean that what they believe is right. It’s upsetting to see this argument so often. It’s all over the fandom, there’s no way to avoid it.

People claim to be defending the gender of this character, they act as if Yamato is being attacked by the evil gays who will stop at nothing to turn everyone trans. I’m not joking, that’s literally how they worded in that battlefield of a comment section.

Yamato’s gender expression is confusing, we know. That’s the point! Oda said fuck gender conformity all the way back in Alabasta, and he isn’t stopping now. What we see in Yamato is trans representation, but not a clean rep like Kiku, we have a man who doesn’t pass. Guess what? Not all trans people pass! That doesn’t make them any less trans, and your black and white perception of their gender doesn’t debunk their identity.

I genuinely don’t understand why there has to be so much discourse over this topic. Like you’re literally arguing with Luffy himself at this point. 😔🙄

[aemiron-main]

creel crumbs for u guys: i just find it interesting that this screenshot from Victor’s Pennhurst retelling

Is from the same POV as exactly where Henry’s head was in this screenshot from Henry’s memories. It’s like we’re looking through Henry’s eyes at Alice.

Why are we literally seeing through Henry’s eyes in Victor’s retelling, but not in Henry’s own memories? Like look at this next screenshot from Victor’s retelling:

That’s not through Victor’s eyes. That’s shot through somebody else’s eyes looking at him. They could have given us a victor OTS shot, or any other sort of shot, but they chose to physically place the camera exactly where Henry’s head was placed right after he fainted. This doesn’t happen accidentally. Somebody had to take a camera and set it in that spot to get this shot.

So. Why aren’t they showing us what Victor is seeing? Why are they hiding that from us? Why not give us a victor OTS shot or any other shot? Why through Henry’s eyes in what’s supposedly Victor’s memories? It’s bizarre.

As well, let’s dig into this sequence a bit more. There’s a lot more to it with foot position etc that I’m going to dig into in the full analysis, but let’s look at Henry’s upper body for right now.

So, in this first shot from Victor’s retelling, we cannot see the position of Henry’s upper body when Victor turns around. They’ve purposefully hidden it behind the stair railing.

In this shot from Henry’s retelling, though, we can now see that Henry is laying with his head BELOW his outstretched left arm, and with his RIGHT arm away from his body.

But then, in Henry’s retelling, we get this shot looking down at Henry’s body and his upper body is in a TOTALLY new position compared to that last shot (the one where he just fainted). Now, Henry’s head is above his left arm, and his right arm is now tucked in against his body.

That scene that’s shot through Henry’s eyes of Victor going over to check on Alice has been completely cut from Henry’s memories which is such a strange choice because why cut a shot that’s through Henry’s eyes from his own damn memories (or what’s supposedly his memories?” Why are we NOW getting Victor’s pov/through his eyes in Henry’s memories?

And look at how Henry is laying here, in This screenshot from Victor’s retelling- he’s laying in the same position as the closeup shot I just talked about- he’s got his head above his left arm, and his right arm tucked into his body.

So. Why and how did Henry change positions from the hunched over position to the second position with his head above his arm?

Well, the answer to that question also answers and other question: what was up with Victor’s expression in his retelling? Why did he suddenly look shocked and rush over to Henry?

Let’s answer the first question so that we can answer the second one: how and why did Henry move? Well, when we look at the scene from Victor’s retelling that’s through Henry’s eyes, the camera rotates almost, it pans up from looking at Alice to looking at victor, and sort of “rolls” to screen right. We get that roll motion in the first 4 panels here, and then the last two panels are Victor going over to Henry.

It’s exactly like the sort of motion that would be needed to take somebody’s head from the first position (head under arm) to this position (head rolled towards screen right and above arm).

Henry woke up. He woke up, saw Alice, saw Victor, rolled over, and likely fainted again. Victor saw Henry move, realized he was alive, and that’s why Victor has that shocked expression, and that’s why he rushes over to Henry and grabs him. That closeup shot of Henry in the second panel above is through Victor’s eyes, and yet, is present in Henry’s retelling, whereas the shot through Henry’s eyes is present in Henry’s retelling.

Victor even puts his hand on Henry’s knee in the exact same way in these two scenes. The only different between these scenes (beside lighting and camera angle) is Henry’s foot position, but that’s a whole other post in and of itself.

So yeah. The setup of the Creel sequences makes me absolutely insane. Why show us shots through Henry’s eyes in Victor’s retelling, but never during Henry’s own memories? Why show us shots through Victor’s eyes (But not always through his eyes and often through Virginia’s eyes instead and sparingly, Nancy’s eyes but that’s a whole other post too) in Henry’s memories? It makes me insane.

[fluffykitteninabox]

The MHA anime is animated weirdly:

ok i just watched the new episode and i have come to a realisation

most of the "ugly" shots of characters are from the front, but the characters look perfectly fine from the side

no no don't leave, hear me out...

ugly

pretty

ugly

pretty

except these 2 shots that are the exact same angle so i don't know wtf happened here:

ugly

pretty

rambling under the cut

WARNING: SPOILERS, NITPICKING & EXCESSIVE USE OF ITALICS

Now this is very interesting to me because most artists (me included) struggle drawing characters from the side and find the front view easier.

And the specific angle that Tenko is shown from here is (for me at least) one of the hardest in general, because you have to show the way the body turns without making it look weird.

In the baby Tenko screenshot the way his shoulders are positioned and how his neck is turned is unclear and a bit confusing. Or at least I can't see it.

In the adult Tomura screenshot these parts are a lot clearer.

It's not just his face that looks weird, it's the entire thing. The face problem mostly has to do with the hair. They made it less... fluffy!

If you look at the original panel too his ear is supposed to be visible and his mouth is supposed to be bigger

but in the very next shot he looks amazing:

look at the details, you can even see how his little teeth are crooked!

Bones really half asses specific parts of episodes and puts extra effort in others..

and that's usually normal for an anime,

but there's no real logic to what scenes get the premium treatment and which don't.

Or, to be more accurate, which characters get the premium treatment and which ones don't.

Take for example this scene from the beginning of the episode:

So I'm ok with how they handled this scene for the most part. Zooming in on his lips with no sound.

cool cool cool..

You can literally read them btw, even though my gif is kind of bad. But it looks like he introduced himself using his first name first and then his last name. (waiting for someone good at analysing shit like this to find what the order is implying 👀)

Hawks' reaction was a bit disappointing however. I was expecting the eye widening to be more dramatic and..

you know... faster

Usually when you're shocked at something your eyes widen at a pace that's definitely faster than this.

I won't pretend I'm an animation expert but i think this has to do with the amount of frames they used.

I usually make gifs from screenshots instead of screen recording, because most screen recorders make my phone really slow. So I have to repeatedly start and pause the video to do that.

Obviously the amount of screenshots i manage to take depends on how fast my fingers are each time, so i might not get every single frame.

But even then the difference in number here seems odd

I managed to get 12 screenshots of Dabi moving his lips, and 17 of Hawks' reaction. And I also miss clicked once and lost about a second of Hawks so there would have been more.

The number might not sound like much, but it's weird when you look at it. Go look at the actual episode if you need to, it's more noticeable there.

Why do we need so many frames for Hawks to react to this??

This sounds like extreme nitpicking but I genuinely think it would have looked better with less frames. Yeah it's cool that it looks smooth but smooth is not always what you want.

He's shocked, this is supposed to look abrupt. It's especially odd when you look at how detailed his face is in that shot.

Why would they choose this part to get the smooth premium animation when that actively hindered the scene

and didn't choose something like... I don't know.. Dabi silently name dropping himself while we see an extreme close up of his lips???

YES I'M FUCKING BIASED BUT I AM OBJECTIVELY CORRECT IN THIS!!

Wouldn't it have been cooler if they had made him enunciate his name and we got to see that in hyper detail?

Because that's the actual important part of this scene. We should be focusing on Dabi, not Hawks' reaction to Dabi.

This is kind of similar to the issues in the Shirakumo reveal scene in season 5. We should have been focusing more on Shirakumo/Kurogiri but because Bones were cowards and didn't animate the Vigilantes flashback chapters, we had to focus on Aizawa instead because that's who the viewers were more emotionally attached to so we needed him as an audience stand in to tell us what we should feel!

I swear if they decide to focus on Endeavor's stupid as fuck reaction during Dabi's reveal instead of him I will lose my shit!!

Also I just realised why the close up shot of Dabi's mouth looks wrong. Scroll back up and look at the gif..

His teeth are too straight!

Apparently someone forgot that humans also have canines!! I mean sure, some people's are less prominent, but his teeth look like they've been drawn with a ruler!

Tumblr posting my drafts again so everything under this point is me editing the post really hastily:

not much else to say

just kind of a conclusion thing i guess

basically i think bones is focusing on the wrong parts of some scenes or focusing on the wrong scenes during an episode in general.

Like Dabi's anger at the beginning of the episode and the dream sequence in Tomura's mind should have been the focal points. That's where the premium animation treatment should have gone.

I appreciate the extra dramatic animation when Tomura wakes up, but that wasn't as important as the entirety of the dream.

Everything looked so static. Yes they had some debris floating around, but if you pay attention to the floating parts of buildings where the characters were standing, all the debris around that wasn't moving at all. It was like it was still attached to the building with invisible strings when it should have probably been moving away.

This is the same issue I had with Twice's clones in the previous episode. He's supposed to be replicating them while Hawks is getting rid of them, but all we see is a static image of a bunch of clones.

Anyway that's enough ranting I think

congratulations if you've read this far, and thank you for tolerating my annoying rambling..

[katsukisbayy]

The Wrong One (Eijirou Kirishima x Female Reader)

Hi all! This is my contribution to the BNHArem servers villain/hero swap! Special thanks to @unbreakablekiribaku for listening to me vent about this piece!

This is the masterlist for the collab! Go check out everone else’s work!

Warnings: slight cussing, reader is pregnant, Kirishima slits someone’s throat

No beta read cause this was due Saturday and I literally just finished it so if there’s typos, my bad.

Word Count; 3,620

“Ms. Y/N, you’re pregnant.”

Ever since those words were spoken to you in front of your boyfriend, one of the most notorious underground villains since UA collapsed, you were constantly followed. Whether it was by your boyfriend Eijirou, his best friends Bakugou and Kaminari, or one of the underlings who followed those three around you were never alone. Except for this particular moment when a massive job had been thrown their way. 

“We’ll be gone for less than a day Y/N, don’t leave the house. Don’t answer the door, don’t answer the phone for anyone other than me, Kaminari or Bakugou. Only those who need to know know that we’re leaving to do this job. Do not, for the love of god, do anything that could hurt you or our daughter okay?” Eijiro sighed, pulling you into a hug and resting his head atop yours. 

“Ei, I know the drill. Whether you like it or not, I know how to take care of myself. I’ve been with you three long enough to know how to kill someone if I need to. We will be fine.” You told him, wrapping your arms around his waist. He held you a moment longer before removing his arms from around you, kissing you softly, and walking out the door. He called out “Love you!” as the door swung shut. You glanced around your apartment, debating on cleaning the damn near spotless living room before deciding to watch a movie instead. You put on your favorite, grabbed a blanket, and laid down on the couch. Mind wandering to what the boys were doing, you barely paid attention to the movie before sleep found you not even twenty minutes later.

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

Eijirou Kirishima was 6’2 on a bad day, 280 pounds of pure muscle and extremely lethal to everyone but you and his two best friends. He and Bakugou tried their hardest to keep you out of that part of their lives, especially now with you pregnant, but you’d caught glimpses into just how lethal the three of them were. You’d seen Kirishima nearly behead a man using his quirk, and Bakugou AP shot a person’s head off. Kaminari had electrocuted someone to the point where it smelled like seared flesh for three days afterwards, maybe longer. Not many people, villain or hero, wanted to mess with your three boys. But some people are just stupid.

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

A loud noise from right outside the apartment door jolted you out of your sleep. Pulling your phone off the coffee table, you checked the time. 6:35pm. There was no way the boys were back yet, and you knew that anyone else would’ve called before coming over. This was bad. Quickly, you shoved your phone into your sweatpants and ran to your bedroom. As soon as your foot crossed the threshold, the front door slammed open.

“What the fuck Tsukasa? Did you need to kick the door in?” A man’s voice yelled out.

“Did you want to get into the apartment or not?” another voice, Tsukasa you assumed, responded.

“We could’ve used a credit card to get in. That normally works for me and DOESN’T ALERT THE WHOLE DAMN NEIGHBORHOOD!” You heard rustling and assumed that the men had made it into the apartment. Making your way to the closet which had a hidden door in case something like this happened, you slid the fake panel out of the way and shimmied inside before sliding it back like nothing had happened. 

Your phone was still tucked into the pocket of your pants. You knew you had to call Eijirou, or at least Kaminari because if Eijirou didn’t answer that meant Bakugou wouldn’t either. Sliding it out and unlocking it was as far as you got before you heard the men come into the bedroom. Your breath caught in your throat and you hesitated, debating on not moving or breathing until they left the bedroom and you could call someone to help you. As you move to put your phone back into your pocket, your ringtone alerting the men to your presence. 

“Shit shit shit shit shit.” You mumble under your breath, quickly moving to decline the incoming call. Kirishima’s name popped up on your phone screen, more than likely wanting to let you know that they were on their way home and to check on you and your daughter. You declined the call and shoved your phone into your pocket before crouching into a corner as far away from the panel as possible. 

“Find where they are now.” Tsukasa said calmly. The door to the closet slammed open and clothes were shoved around as they tried to find you. You hoped that they wouldn’t notice the false panel in the back of the closet. Those hopes were dashed as you felt a hand clamp onto your ankle and drag you out. Your hands scrambled around for the bat hidden in your closet and finally closed on its handle. Taking a deep breath, you swung the bat as hard as you could against your captor. The sound of metal hitting could be heard and you hoped you’d swung hard enough to do some damage. 

Pain radiated through your cheek and it took a few moments to realize you had been slapped.

“Stupid bitch. You thought you could hide didn’t ya?” A tall, dark haired man chuckled.

“Easy for you to say Kizuki, you did not get hit with a bat.” The other man was stocky and tall, with long dark brown hair glared at you. 

“What do you think Tsukasa, should we kill her or keep her?” One of the men, Kizuki, asked his partner.

“She may be useful. And if not, we can dispose of her later.” Tsukasa responded.

You reached for the bat again, hoping to strike them when they were distracted, but it was taken from your hands just as fast as you had reached for it. 

“No, no. You’re not pulling that again. Go to sleep, little bitch. You’re in for a rude awakening when you wake.” 

The last thing you saw was a fist flying towards your face before the world turned black.

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

Kirishima tried your number for the fifth time since leaving the job.You hardly ever declined his calls after jobs, wanting to make sure the three of them were fine and wanting to know the exact moment they would be home so you could have the first aid kits out and ready. If you ever did decline, you would always shoot him a text letting him know why. That didn’t happen this time, and he had a bad feeling settling into his stomach. He clicked away from the phone app, clicking Find My Friends instead. Thankfulness settled over him that he had talked you into downloading it shortly into your relationship so he could make sure nothing happened to you while you were out or for instances like this. 

“Shit.” He muttered, noticing that your phone didn’t pop up onto the screen, just a Last known location popping up. 

“Guys we might have a problem.”

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

Pain was the first thing you felt before slowly cracking your eyes open. Well, eye. Your right one was swollen shut. You tried to rub your face and noticed that your hands were tied behind your back and to a chair. Surveying where you were the best you could with one eye, you noticed you were in a bare room with nothing in it except a light, a table with an ashtray, and another chair across from where you were sitting. Your head was throbbing.

“Well, well. Look who’s awake.” Kizuki stated as he walked into the room and sat across from you. A cigarette hung from his lips, ashes falling onto the floor. 

“Why am I here? Why didn’t you just kill me when you saw someone was home?” You glared at the man, subtly eyeing him up and down. He was tall, not as stocky as your boyfriend, and you’d yet to see him use his quirk. Eijirou will still take him down in about two seconds. He was in for a rude awakening when Kirishima arrived. It was basically a death sentence for anyone who messed with you before, but now that you were pregnant with his child he was extremely overprotective.

“Why else would I keep a beautiful woman alive? There’s too many men around here. None of us can unwind after a long day and we needed someone to take care of us sweet cheeks. That’s where you come in. Now, you can either agree and this can be the start of a wonderful partnership, or you can fight back and I can give you some scars on that pretty little body.” He chuckles, standing from his chair before caressing the side of your face.

A slow smile spread across your features. 

“You have no idea who I am, do you?” You asked sweetly.

“Why would I? You’re nobody important in the hero world that I know of, and someone living where you do had to know something like this could happen. You don’t exactly live in the best area.” He smirked at you.

“Did you ever think there was a reason why someone like me was living there? Like maybe I had connections to villains and not heroes?” You saw his face go white for a split second before he regained his composure. He removed his hand from your face and slid it into his pocket.

“Why would I care if you had ties to the villains? Besides, you couldn’t have been that important to them if they left you there all by yourself.” 

“Have you ever heard of Red Riot? Maybe Dynamight or Chargebolt?” You noticed the minute the dots connected in his head. 

“No, there’s no fucking way. I would know if any of them had a bitch.” Kizuki sputtered.

“Yeah, no you wouldn’t. Riot’s really good at keeping me hidden from the world. Especially when he has Dynamight and Chargebolt helping to keep me hidden.” You chuckled seeing the color drain from his face. He knows they’re in trouble now. Hopefully Tsukasa is here too so Eijirou can kill them both and we can move without anyone knowing about me and the baby.

Kizuki opened his mouth to say something before shutting it tightly and walking out of the room. You sighed, collapsing in on yourself slightly. Exhaustion settled over you like a heavy blanket. Eijirou where are you?

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

Days had passed and you were still tied to the same chair. The only times you were allowed to be untied was when you had to use the bathroom. Kizuki or Tsukasa fed you, and as far as you could tell they were the only two in this area with you. You were unsure if it was a house, apartment, or just some random building that they were using as a base for the time being. Kizuki had alerted Tsukasa that you were “property of Red Riot” as he had worded it, and neither one of them spoke to you unless it was absolutely necessary. You were going crazy.

“Can’t you guys just let me go? I won’t tell Riot that I know who kidnapped me. I’ll tell him that I never saw anyone, my head was constantly covered. You can let me go in some alleyway and I’ll find my way home.” You plead for what felt like the thousandth time.

Tsukasa let out a low grunt and shook his head. Knowing that was all you’d get from him, you turned your attention to the TV they had brought in for you while they tried to figure out where to go from there.

Breaking news: We have yet another report to add to the slew of attacks this month, this comes just days after we broadcast rumours of villains running rampant over the city. This spate of attacks has put the entire metropolitan area at a standstill, road closures and damaged property making it difficult for commuters to get to work in the morning. Road maintenance endeavour to do its best to keep the city running, but it seems futile when these attacks continue to increase. The entire city was brought to a standstill by the mysterious villain who has still not been named, but reports show they are nothing like we have ever experienced before. 

Where are the heroes now? Who will save us from the terror overwhelming our city?

Every day the crime toll continues to rise and we have no one here to protect us. The Hero Public Safety Commission assured us earlier in the week that the crime rate would go down, that the top Heroes are out there protecting our city, but if so, where are they? Is it really safe to go out anymore, who can we trust? Would you put your life in the hands of a Hero today? When they have proved our streets are no longer safe. We still have no information on what is going on, or who is involved but we must remain observant. We will continue to report the latest news as we receive it, but for now, we must implore you to heed the warnings of the city-wide curfew that is soon to be implemented. If anyone has any information on these occurrences in the city please send them to us or contact the police, you can remain anonymous. The safety of our citizens is what is most important, stay vigilant and don’t go out unless it is absolutely necessary.

One thing we know for sure: we can no longer rely on Heroes to protect us. The streets of our once-great city are no longer safe, we are no longer safe.

It was safe to say that Eijirou knew you were gone, and you knew that he would tear down every building in the city until he knew that you were safe in his arms. The crime toll had risen drastically in the last few days and you could tell what of the damage shown was Eijirou, Bakugou and Kaminari. The buildings and areas destroyed by the three of them were always left collapsed and on fire, with the power grid having been overloaded right before the attacks. Eijirou was looking for his girls and it was only a matter of time before he got to you.

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

Ten days after your abduction Kizuki ran into the room looking terrified. 

“I passed someone on the street saying that Red Riot was in the area. We have to lea-” A loud explosion cut him off and threw him against the wall. Small slices of pain spread across your body as debris hit you. Smoke filled the room, blocking your vision and making you cough. Groaning filled the small space as Kizuki tried to move. A blonde headed figure flew across the room and picked him up by the throat.

“You think it was smart to take one of the most feared villains girl? Do you have a death wish stupid fuck?” Bakugou’s voice growled out. Relief flooded your senses. Eijirou had finally found you, now he just had to get to you.

“I-I-I didn’t know! We had just picked an apartment to ransack and she happened to be there! I didn’t know she was Riot’s girl, please don’t kill me!” Kizuki had tears streaming down his face as Bakugou pressed into his throat tighter.

“Where. The fuck. Is she?” A more familiar voice called out. The calmness in his voice was terrifying. You had never heard him talk like that, and it both turned you on and terrified you. 

“Ei! I’m right here.” You called out, trying once again to break the rope holding your hands behind your back. You felt wind fill the room, clearing the smoke in a split second. Rage overtook Kirishima’s face as he took in your disheveled state. Your black eye, though fading, was still prominent on your face. Bruises and dried blood were covering your wrists from trying to break your restraints, and you looked almost emaciated from ten days with little food. You noticed his pupils dilate slightly before he rushed to your side. He quickly cut the ropes from your wrist with his quirk, careful to not cut you while doing so.

“It’s okay baby. I’m here now okay? I’m gonna get you out of here and we’re gonna go home I promise. I just have to take care of a few things first. Can you go through the hole Bakugou made and go out there with Kami?” Kirishima asked. He slowly rubbed his thumbs over your wrists and you relaxed, leaning your body weight against him. Ten days being tied to a chair and only being allowed to walk to the bathroom had taken its toll on you. Your legs were weak and Kirishima had to wrap his arm around your waist to help you up.

“Ei, I don’t think I can walk out there to him. Can’t you carry me?” You whined in his ear.

“No baby I can’t carry you. I have to find the other fucking idiot who decided it would be smart to kidnap my girls. I’ll yell for Kami to come grab you okay? And do not move from his side. I’ll be out as soon as I get done with these idiots.” Kirishima kissed your forehead and you wrapped your arms tightly around him.

“I don’t wanna leave you baby. Can’t I just stay here until you’re done with them? It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, and the baby can’t see yet anyway. Please don’t make me leave you. I went ten days not knowing if I’d see you again. Please don’t make me leave.” You whimpered. His arms tightened slightly around your waist. 

“Go sit back down okay? It won’t take long for me to take care of them.” He kissed you softly on the lips and helped you sit on the chair you’d been tied to five minutes ago. As soon as you sat down, a flip switched in Kirishima. 

“Where’s the other one?” He growled out.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about man I’m the only one here. It was just me.” Kizuki gasped out. Bakugou’s hand was still pressed against his windpipe making it hard for him to breathe. Kirishima hardened his hand and slammed it into the wall next to Kizuki’s head making him yelp.

“I don’t like being lied to. I know there were two of you involved, now tell me where the fuck he is so I can kill you both and get on with my life.”

“You better do it man. We can make your death swift or painful and drawn out, it’s really up to you.” Bakugou shrugged casually. The sound of water hitting the floor hit your ears and you realized that Kizuki had pissed himself. 

“That’s disgusting. Shitty hair just kill him now, we can find the other one after.” 

Kirishima grabbed Kizuki by his hair and pushed him down to his knees. Hardening his arm again, he pressed it tightly against Kizuki’s neck before glancing up at you.

“Don’t watch princess.” He told you. You looked up at the ceiling before the sound of blood dripping and gagging hit your ears. A loud thump alerted you that you could look again. Kizuki’s body laid in a crumpled heap at the feet of your boyfriend and his best friend. Blood surrounded him, and you figured that Kirishima had used his quirk to slit the man’s throat. You sighed and cleared your throat.

“The other man’s name is Tsukasa. He’s the one who hit me and knocked me out when they came into the apartment. He’s in here somewhere, but I don’t know where. Eiji, please let Bakugou find him and let’s go home? It’s just those two. I’m positive he can take him on his own.” You begged. Bakugou shrugged. 

“I mean I can just demolish the place with him inside if you want me to shitty hair.”

“No. This dumbass hurt my girls, make him suffer.” Kirishima responded. Bakugou smiled and turned to search the rest of the building. Hands wrapped themselves around yours and Kirishima hoisted you up onto your feet. 

“Are you two okay?” He asked, his right hand grabbing both of yours and his left hand moving to rub your belly slightly. 

“As good as can be, I guess. I’m starving though, and I just want to go home and shower.” You sighed contently, wrapping your arms around your lover once more and leaning your head into his chest. 

“We’re not going home. We’re gonna go to a hotel, Kaminari and Bakugou are gonna grab anything you want and need from the apartment, and when you feel better we’re gonna go look at houses. I know it was just a fluke, but we need to make sure that no one else knows who you are or where you are. I can’t lose the two of you.” He glanced into your eyes and you noticed the unshed tears covering his. A massive explosion from somewhere within the building drew your attention away from each other. 

“Sounds like Bakugou got a hold of the other guy.” Kirishima chuckled. He knelt down slightly, grabbing the back of your thighs and wrapping them around his waist. You followed suit, wrapping your arms around his neck and burying your face into it. 

“Oi, you two coming or are ya gonna wait for the police to get here?” Bakugou yelled out. You looked up at him, noticing his soot covered face and smiled. 

“Yeah yeah Blasty. Let’s get out of here.”

[remmushound]

Beyond the Bay chapter 14, Seeing Ghosts (part 2)

Part 1 - https://remmushound.tumblr.com/post/659856430715764736/chapter-14-seeing-ghosts-part-1-part-2

Summary: The rest of the return home and they meet someone new

Tags: @ilo-artistry @brightlotusmoon @selfindulgenz @digitl-art-monstr

Content warning: Swears

“I heard it!” Mikey said, waving his hands around in a wide motion, “It was like BANG. Er. Hm…” Just mouthing the sound effects did not do the point justice, so Mikey stood up and wobbled over to the closest thing that looked metal, banging on it a few times to show the resounding CLANK! “Like this!”

Raph’s eyes furrowed, and then shot wide. A breath hissed through his teeth and he shook his head back and forth with a slow pace. The reaction didn't go unnoticed.

“What’s up, Big Red? You seeing ghosts too?” Leonardo asked.

Raph gave another hiss, hands coming up to scratch at his head. He bit his toothpick in half and spat both halves separately onto the floor.

Donatello followed Raph’s spit and split toothpick all the way to the floor. “I just mopped in here.”

“Yeah. I might’ve.” Raph swiped his tongue over his lips.

“This is news to me.” Leo put his hands on his hips.

Raph eyed his brother with an ‘are you serious’ look. “No the fuck it ain’t. I told you an’ dad both that sommat weird was happenin’ right before Don and Mike came home. That something was in the bathroom with me!”

Michelangelo gasped softly. “It’s a pervert ghost.”

“I knew that chastity belt would come in handy!” Donatello exclaimed. “Ain’t no pervert ghost taking my turtle-hood. Not without a fight!”

“Donnie, please stop talking.” Leonardo said quickly, and in the same breath addressed Mikey and Raph. “If he saw something, and he saw something, then… they saw something.”

“Yes, that’s how seeing things tend to work.” Donnie agreed.

“What I’m saying is that Mikey, apparently, wasn’t there when Raph had his prevent ghost encounter, and Raph wasn’t here when Mikey had his. Raph, did you tell Mikey about what you saw?”

“Nah.” Raph shook his head. “He was all… you know… seizing.”

“Then how could Mikey know about it and give the exact same account? And it’s not even in the same place! Something is here, and something is following you guys.”

“Seems like a stretch to me.” Leo crossed his arms, and though he tried to show nothing but confidence, his voice wavered as uncertainty latched upon him. 

“Your voice says otherwise.” Leonardo waved a finger.

“With all do respect, Leo, you are in our world.” Raphael said, “It doesn’t work the same as yours. Something could have gone through or…”

“I would have noticed it.” Leo flashed his teeth, “I would have senses something-- Donatello’s alarms would have picked it up!”

“Mystic stuff isn’t always so easy to detect, you know.” Donatello said, “It’s possible his tech wasn’t advanced enough to pick up on mystic traces.”

“Okay, now I’m offended.” Donnie crossed his arms.

“I speak only the truth.” Donatello stuck up his large nose.

“Guys, stop fighting!” Mikey whined.

“Who’s fighting?” Leo asked, “We’re not fighting!”

“You’re fighting with me right now!”

“No I’m not!”

“Can we not do this?” Michelangelo frowned, starting to shrink into his shell.

“I know what I saw.” Raph snarled.

“I thought it was what you didn't see.” Leo retorted.

“Heard, then!” Raph got in Leo’s face, “And Mike heard it too!”

All the arguing and shouting and pleading mixed into one near-unintelligible screaming match where just enough of each argument got through for the opposing party to make a new comeback. Through the cacophony of voices, there came a soft voice that couldn’t placed to anyone. 

“Please stop fighting…”

The barely audible words were heard even past the screaming, and it put an immediate end to all arguments. Some of the turtles were left with their mouths still hanging open, mouthing the words they were about to say except without volume. Eyes widened and one by one turned to seek the source of the voice that had spoken.

The small origin of the small voice couldn’t have stood more than three feet in height. His body was a sleek one with rounded edges and an oversized head; if there was a single pointed edge on his entire body, none of the turtles could see it. His eyes were wide, owl-like screens with white pupils rimmed in green sliding around, impossibly expressive for something clearly inorganic.

Everyone stepped back, and it came naturally to all of them that the smaller brothers were pressed back deeper into fold while the bigger brothers stood in front, eyes locked on the robot. A whirl joined every fluid motion he made looking between all of them, from Raph to Donnie to Leo to Raphael to Mikey. No one could find the breath to respond, and when the stranger took a step forward, everyone else took a step back.

“I’m terribly sorry.” The voice was the most polite voice one could imagine; he folded his hands together as he kept looking between the turtles. “I did not intend to make you fight. Or to startle you just now. I only wanted to stop the yelling.”

Still no words could be said, for they were all speechless.

“I am speaking the right language…” The robot said slowly, “I heard you all speaking it just a second ago. OH! Is my accent weird…?”

Donatello was the first one to break out of his silence, the stunned look on his face quickly shifting back to his normal, uncaring expression as he turned to look at his brothers.

“Wait, why are we stunned again? We’ve seen way weirder.”

Michelangelo let his shock fade away. “Oh yeah.”

“What’s your name?” Raphael asked politely.

The robot seemed overjoyed, giving a bounce of pure happiness. “Hello! My name is Professor Zayton Honeycutt and I am a man of science! Both literally and metaphorically.”

“I… you…” Donnie stumbled over his words as they all fought to get out at once. Though the stunned shine in his eyes remained, astonishment and excitement slowly grew to join. “You’re a robot!”

“Yes!” Said Honeycutt.

“You’re… tiny.” Raph scrutinized.

“Yes!” Said Honeycutt.

“You’re the ghost?” Leo gawked.

“Yes!” Said Honeycutt.

“You’re so cuuuuute!” Mikey ran forward to get a closer look, falling to the ground to ever so tenderly shift Honeycutt around.

“Yes!” Honeycutt said, “I am Professor Zayton Honeycutt, and I am a man of science! Both literally and metaphorically!”

“You eh… said that already.” Raphael pointed out.

“Ah. Apologies. As a robot, I do tend to make a habit of redundancy.” 

“Right…” Leo said slowly, then cleared his throat, “Well, I suppose you need our names…”

“Nope!” Said Honeycutt, “You’re Leonardo, you’re Donatello, you’re Raphael, and you’re Michelangelo!” He seemed very proud of himself, turning next to the Hamato brothers, “And you’re Leonardo, you’re Donatello, you’re Raphael, and You’re Michelangelo. Easy pattern to follow!” 

“Exactly how long have you been following us…?” Raph’s words were slow as he lumbered forward to join Mikey in looking over the robot, though without touching him.

“Oh, not that long!” Honeycutt beeped, “Only a week…”

Leo’s eyes went wide. “A WEEK?!”

“Yes!” Honeycutt said, “Seven days! Eight if you count today!”

“I…” Leo was lost for words and when they finally escaped his lips, there was very little force behind them, “How did I not know…?”

“Do not feel sad, Leonardo, I was in hiding! Not even the Triceraton Prime Leader himself could have found me!”

Raph blinked. “The what?”

“The Prime Leader!” Honeycutt repeated.

“Yeah… w-what is that?” Leo asked. He kneeled down to try and get more level with Honeycutt, but even then was two heads too big.

“That’s the name for the triceraton leader.” The answer came from Mikey, not from Honeycutt. Mikey was proud as first, beaming so wide his eyes were squinted shut. Then his smile faded and he blinked as joy was replaced with utter confusion.

“That’s correct!” Honeycutt praised.

“Mike…?” Donnie asked in his soft voice, “How’d you know that?”

“I… I dunno…” Mikey shrugged. His panicked eyes confirmed his words true. He turned to his brothers as the fear took seed in every aspect of his being. “It— it just slipped out!”

“Oh, what joy!” Honeycutt declared with a clap of his hands.

“No, no, not joy!” Mikey’s voice had grown into a higher pitch.

Honeycut tilted his head and his face panel shifted to one of confusion. “Why not joy? Knowledge is such a wondrous thing to achieve! Wouldn’t you agree, Donatello and Donatello?”

Neither of the purple ninja seemed particularly interested to respond to the robot’s query. Like a stubborn child who couldn’t take a hint that he was unwanted in the situation, Honeycutt remained patiently waiting on the tips of his feet, screen bright. To put an end to the awkward staring contest that they had unwillingly entered, Donnie cleared his throat.

“Yeah. I… I guess so…” He was extremely uncomfortable, shoulders bunched and head drawn deeper into his shell.

Honeycutt, seeming satisfied with the answer, beeped his agreement, “Yes! There is no guessing required! It is an unchanging fact of life on all planets, especially earth!”

“Wait…” Leonardo said, taking a step forward to point at Honeycutt, “You’re the andoroido, aren’t you? The android that bought all of Monroe’s rifts. Are you the one who took Don’s stuff too?”

From bright excitement to somber shyness, Honeycutt’s face screen shifted dark. “Yes. I apologize, but the Splinterson’s may not return home…”

Raph huffed hot air out of his nostrils. “Who you think you are, a free elf?”

Leonardo sputtered, and then broke down into laughter. Raph’s smile widened as his joke was acknowledged, but he was quick to clear his throat and straighten his posture to save face. Leo had enough of Leonardo’s laughter quickly, and before he could stop himself, he reacted the same way he would have if it had been Mikey laughing.

“This is a serious matter,” Leo said, “Not a laughing one.”

Leonardo made a point to laugh directly in Leo’s face, crossing his arms as he leaned so close his beak almost touched Leo’s. “Sounds like a job for mister serious then. Go on.”

“Don’t think I won’t.” Leo snorted, then turned to Honeycutt, “Zayton, I demand you give Donatello his stuff back now and give us those rifts you bought.”

“No.” Came Honeycutt’s simple answer.

“Uh.” Leo didn't know how to react at first. He cleared his throat. “I’m gonna give you until the count of three to return that stuff!”

“Oh! Okay!” Said Honeycutt chipperly.

Leo, all confidence now down the drain, began to count down. “One…”

Honeycutt’s face was still just as happy and joyful, fingers intertwined as he listened.

“T-two…” Leo’s voice stuttered.

“Oh boy, I can’t wait to find out what comes after two!” Honeycutt was excited.

“T… two and a half. Two and three quarters…”

Honeycutt still had yet to react.

“Three…”

“Yay! Good job!” Honeycutt clapped an applause, “You made it all the way to three!”

Leo’s shoulders slumped. Even without turning around, he could hear the snickers and snorts of his brothers trying their damndest not to laugh, except for Mikey and Leonardo, who were practically falling over with the force of his guffaws. Raphael cleared his throat and laid an oversized hand on Leo’s shoulder. Leo turned around to look at him.

“Why not let us have a go at him, eh?”

Leo, with no other option, agreed.

[out-of-jams]

One Chance || myg

(Amazing, incredibly badass banner made by @kimtaehyunq​ )

↠ One Chance ↞ Min Yoongi was a lot of things.

A musical genius, a guy with a bad reputation, your assigned partner for your final project.

And the last thing you ever would have expected.

Word Count: 7.4k

Warnings/Genre: College!au. Music producer!Yoongi x Singer!Reader. Fluff. Explicit language. Some angst. Mentions of alcohol. s2l. Oneshot.

A/n: Hey all you cool cats and kittens. Hope you’re all staying safe out there! I wasn’t intending to write this, but I had no other choice.

All of my works are purely fiction. Everything I write is my intellectual property and therefore belongs to me. ©out-of-jams. Do not copy or repost without permission.

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Min Yoongi.

The name stared up at you in size twelve font, black letters printed onto the white sheeted paper. Every other word on the page blurred around the edges as you tried to place a face to the name. You weren’t good with names, never had been. So with a sigh, you leaned to the side and mumbled to the girl sitting next to you in class.

“Hey, who’s Min Yoongi?”

She--Mira? Mina? something like that--glanced up from her portfolio opened up on the desk and shot you a disbelieving look. You couldn’t blame her, not really. It was nearing the end of the semester and your vocal class had worked with the music production class multiple times throughout the course of the year. Neither class was very big, so you probably should have known the names of all twenty students. Total. Ten in each class.

But hey, in your defense you’d had a lot on your plate, seeing as how you were about to graduate from university and all. Which was a pretty big deal, so memorizing the names of people you only saw a few times ever-so-often wasn’t high up on your list of priorities.

But Min Yoongi.

You recognized him the moment you saw the soft outline of his profile through the glass window of the studio door a day later. He had his attention trained on whatever was on his laptop screen, pale hand sliding across the mousepad. His dark brows were pinched in concentration and you could see the tip of his tongue digging into the side of his cheek.

Even though the overly-bright lights in the room were on, the guy still somehow managed to blend in with the slate grey walls. Hell, his icy blond hair was the only color to stand out amongst all the black clothing. The oversized hoodie and black joggers he wore looked comfortable, and had you glancing down at your own outfit self-consciously. Had the sweater, skirt and high heeled boots combo been too much? Should you have dressed down a little?

Whatever. It was too late now.

Watching him through the door made you feel like some kind of stalking creep, but you couldn’t help it.

You’d seen him around campus a few times and recognized him from whenever your classes joined together and was a little disappointed at yourself for not recognizing his name. Even though you'd never spoken a word to him before, you were a little apprehensive about being partnered together. Min Yoongi had a reputation, and not a very good one. Sure, he was talented at what he did, producing music, to the point where a lot of people in the music department called him a genius. But he was known for being standoffish. Rude. And could cut someone down with a few words from his naturally pouty lips.

You didn’t like to judge a book by its cover, or by the rumors that circulated about them. However, that did nothing for the intimidating aura that bled from the man like cologne the second you stepped foot into the room.

He didn’t even pause in whatever he was doing to spare you a glance. Just announced in a dry, rumbling voice, “You’re late.”

“Uh.” You hesitated halfway into the room, the door swinging shut behind you automatically. Two seconds in and he already hated you. Great. “Sorry. I got lost.”

That made him look up and watch as you pulled the only other rolling chair back from the desk and plopped down. God, his eyes were just as daunting as the rest of him: onyx in color and cat-like in shape, they were bottomless as he blinked at you lazily. And he slowly raised a disbelieving eyebrow.

“You got lost.” Yoongi repeated slowly. So sarcastically that you didn’t even hear a question mark at the end of it. “Aren’t you about to graduate? How are you still getting lost on campus?”

Your mouth opened and closed, embarrassed heat blossoming across your cheeks. You were blushing hard and you knew it, but that sure as hell didn’t mean that you had to acknowledge it. So you just sniffed and dug through your backpack for an excuse to break eye contact. “I haven’t been in here before.”

It was true. In a way. The hall of studios that you were in now were for the senior music production students. There was a completely different area for each year, but each student had their own assigned as theirs for the semester. So you weren’t lying when you said you hadn’t been to his exact studio before.

Which he seemed to catch on to, if the way Yoongi’s second eyebrow raised to join the first told you anything. But he let it go and turned back to shut his laptop, which you could now see was opened to a music production app. You weren’t very schooled on how to operate it, but even you could tell that he seemed to be very far into whatever it was he was making.

Though you didn’t get a good enough look at it before he closed it.

“Even though we have a month to do this, we should figure out what kind of song we’re making now instead of later.” Yoongi stated in that gruff voice of his and clicked a few things on his laptop. “Since you’re the one singing, you’ll be setting the tone--”

“Wait.” You interrupted.

Yoongi stopped whatever it was he was about to say to give you a blank look, the corners of his lips turned down. “What?”

Clearing your throat, you continued on despite the way his expression tried to cow you into shutting up. “How’re we splitting this up?”

A valid question. Not every person who created music worked in the same way. Some liked to do things a completely different way than somebody else might’ve. Last time you’d worked with one of the students from the music production class, the two of you had butted heads the whole way. He hadn’t wanted to hear your input at all, and you weren’t about to be shoved off to the side like some kind of un-opinionated mouthpiece again.

Yoongi made a noise in the back of his throat that sounded like a hum. “I normally make the track and leave the lyrics up to the singer unless they need help.”

He looked at you from out of the corner of his eye as he clicked a few buttons on the keyboard in front of him to bring the giant monitor above the control panel to life. “Can you write?”

“Yes.” The word left your mouth before you could even think about it.

“Good. You’ll take care of that then.” Yoongi slid a blank yellow notepad into the empty space on the control panel between you. “Though we’ll need to do the melody before that.”

The next time the two of you met was almost a week later. It’d been sometime late in the afternoon when you both finally had time in your schedules. Because for some stupid reason, even though both of your classes were combined to work on the project, it had to be done outside of class.

Ugh.

As if you didn’t already have enough things to stress over. Like say, securing a job for after graduation.

During the first meeting between the two of you, you’d already decided on what kind of song you wanted to make. Something upbeat, but not over the top, though not boring either. You weren’t a huge fan of sounding like every other music artist out there and apparently Yoongi had felt the same. So it’d been easy to come up with.

He’d texted over a few ideas for the concept and you’d been pleasantly surprised at how serious he took it. At how complex and layered the ideas he’d come up with were. They were a lot better than anything you could have ever dreamed up and you were beyond astonished.

Especially when he met you outside of his studio door, blond hair was secured back off his forehead by a white headband,  and greeted you with, “I finished the track.”

“Already?” Shock was clear in your voice and you watched open mouthed as he unlocked the door and held it open for you to follow him inside. The lights flickered on overhead, but you were too busy staring at his back to notice. “That was quick, holy shit.”

Yoongi shrugged off your awe and wiggled the mouse to bring his computer to life. “It was no big deal. And now we can work on the melody.”

Still gaping at the blond, you shuffled forward to drop your bag next to your chair. “Okay. Um. Where should we start?”

Pulling out his chair, he sat down and lazily dragged the mouse over to open up his production software. “Listen to it first and let me know if you want to make any changes.”

“Yeah, okay.” You plopped down into your own chair and watched as he pressed play.

The music that poured from the expensive speakers started off slowly until it tapered off into what you assumed would be the first chorus. And you found yourself unconsciously tapping your fingers against your thigh when the bridge finally hit, you had to bite your lip to contain an excited smile. The moment it ended, you twisted in your chair to see that he was already looking at you. Though he kept his face blank, you could literally see question lingering behind those cat-like eyes of his.

“Mm.” You hummed, nodding your head and trying your damnedest to keep the grin from your face.

When you failed to say anything more, Yoongi raised his eyebrows. “Mm?”

“Mm.” You finally let the smile touch your lips. “I really liked it. It’s good.”

“Yeah?” He reached out to stop the track from replaying on a loop. “Any changes?”

“Nah. I like it just the way it is.”

“Alright.” Was what he responded with, but you could tell that he was pleased beneath that hard exterior of his. “The melody then.”

“The melody.” You agreed.

Min Yoongi was extremely anal when it came to anything he attached his name to.

That was probably why he had so many music companies vying for his attention. Not only did he produce nothing short of perfect tracks, but he’d even made some cash on the side selling some of them. Or so you’d heard through the grapevine.

Which was exactly why you were left staring at the blank notebook settled across your crossed legs. The pen in your hand had yet to put ink to the blank pages hours after you’d gotten home. All because some guy intimidated the hell out of you.

Most of the songs you wrote were fine. But that was the problem.  

Min Yoongi didn’t do fine. And you had no doubt in your mind that he’d tear your work to absolute shreds should you present him something lackluster. Maybe you shouldn’t have been so quick to jump the gun and tell him you’d be fine writing by yourself.

It was way too late now.

“How long are you going to stare like that?”

Snapping out of your self-degrading thoughts, you turned to look over your shoulder. Jennie, your ever present roommate, was standing behind the couch shoving spoonfuls of cereal into her mouth. By the lack of makeup on her face and the messy bun her long black hair was thrown up into, she was more than likely about to go to bed.

“Stare like what?” You asked with a poorly concealed pout, pulling out your earbuds that’d been playing the track on a constant loop.

“Like you’re constipated or something.” Jennie waved her spoon at you before dipping it back into the bowl to scoop up more soggy cereal. “Project really giving you that much trouble?”

She didn’t necessarily know exactly what was going on with you, not exactly. Sure, she knew that you were partners with Yoongi and had been spending a lot of time with the man for the project. But she didn’t know just how much pressure you were under. Self-inflicted or not.

“These lyrics are kicking my ass.” Groaning, you leaned to the side until you were sprawled out on the couch.

“Why?” Jennie rested her arms against the back of it, bowl of milk and cereal hovering over you dangerously. “They don’t normally.”

She had a point. It wasn’t usually so difficult to write a damn song, but you also didn’t usually have a perfectionist genius as a partner. Instead of saying that though, you just threw your arms over your face. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just not cut out for this, ‘ya know? I should drop out while I still can.”

“O-kay.” You could hear her exasperated eye roll. “Don’t stress so much about it. You know, whenever you’re done being overdramatic.”

Jennie successfully dodged the couch pillow you chucked after fleeing footsteps. A buzz from your phone had you reaching for it blindly and the text on the screen had you burying your face into the cushions.

Min Yoongi: you free tomorrow?

Y/n: yeah. Same time?

His response came in not even five seconds later.

Min Yoongi: works for me

“So, see you tomorrow?” The question left your lips as you packed your stuff back into your bag. You still hadn’t been able to come up with any lyrics. At least none good enough to show your partner. So while you’d both been in the studio, you’d busied yourself trying to write and Yoongi had been doing whatever it was that he did.

He’d just powered down the computer he’d been working on and shook his head without looking at you. “I can’t tomorrow. I have plans.”

“Oh, really?” That came as a surprise. The fact that there was something or someone out there that could force the Min Yoongi to ditch working on a song. “What kind of plans?”

Ever since you’d showed up with food two weeks ago, he’d been a little more amicable towards you. Not as closed off. Which, of course, only led to you bringing some with you every day. Maybe food being the way to a man’s heart really applied to every man. Nonetheless, with the way the two of you would banter back and forth without heat made you hope that it wasn’t just you who considered him a friend.

Yoongi paused, only for a moment, but he paused all the same in throwing his bag over his shoulder before he answered. “I...have a show.”

“A show?” Your eyebrows raised in surprise as you stood up. That was the last thing you would have expected to leave his mouth. “What kind of show?”

“It’s not the type of show you’d want to watch.” He headed for the door and you scrambled to follow after him.

Leaning against the wall while he locked up the door, you folded your arms across your chest. “Why? You a stripper or something?”

Yoongi didn’t even spare you a look, just pocketed his keys and started down the hallway, apparently assuming that you’d follow. “You saying I wouldn’t be a good stripper?”

He’d assumed correctly. Your legs raced to catch up. “I never said that. You insinuated that all by yourself.”

An amused scoff passed his lips, but that was all you got in response. You weren’t about to letter the matter drop though. “So, are you?”

“Am I what?”

“A stripper.”

A pause. And then Yoongi met your sparkling gaze and shook his head with a huffing laugh. “No, I’m not a stripper.”

“Well, if your show isn’t anything rated NC-18, then can I go?”

“Why would you want to go?”

His question had you sending him a hesitant look. “Because we’re friends, aren't we?”

A heavy sigh escaped him. “If I say no, will you stop asking?”

You pretended to think for a minute before clicking your tongue. “Nope.”

He looked over at you, feline eyes squinting in contemplation. As much as Min Yoongi liked to act like he came across as aloof, he was a lot easier to read than he probably thought. And he must have found whatever it was he was looking for, because his thoughtful pout turned into a careless shrug.

“Whatever. Fine.”

“Sweet.” You grinned up at him and finally let him go on his merry way.

It was difficult to find a parking spot. You’d had to loop around the block at least ten times before you were finally able to squeeze your car into a space between two giant SUVs. The spot wasn’t exactly close to where you were supposed to meet Yoongi, but it was the best you could do.

When he’d texted you the address, you’d be lying if you said that you weren’t a little apprehensive at first. It was located on the outskirts of downtown where you’d never been before. Because the further out you went from the center of the city, the more dangerous it got.

Y/n: I’m here.

You sent the text off to Yoongi and cut the car engine. Throwing a glance at the clock on the dash, you silently thanked yourself for leaving a bit early in order to get there in time. The sun had long gone down and the moon had taken its place, so the streets were dark. Only lit up by the street lamps and lights that bled from apartment windows. Most of the businesses were closed for the night, the corner store half a block down was the only one still open.

You had about six blocks to walk and was just about to get out of your car when your phone started vibrating in your hand.

“Hello?” You answered the call, voice pitched with barely concealed amusement.

“Where are you?” Yoongi’s voice was even deeper over the phone, if that were possible. And you could hear the sounds of cars driving past him in the background.

You rolled your eyes even though he wasn’t there to see it. “I told you that I’m here.”

He sighed into the phone and you just knew that he was making a face. “Where is ‘here’ exactly?”

“Like, parked a few blocks away.” You popped your car door open, turning back to the passenger seat to grab your bag. “Give me a few minutes and I’ll be there.”

“Stay where you are.” Yoongi demanded and you raised an eyebrow. “I’ll come get you.”

“You don’t have to.” You huffed a laugh. “I have two legs, ‘ya know.”

“Really? Never noticed.” In the background, voices blended in with the sound of cars. “This neighborhood isn’t exactly the safest. So just tell me where you are so I can make sure you don’t get stabbed or something.”

“‘Stabbed or something?’” It was difficult to hide your amusement now, but you obeyed and got back inside your car anyway, letting him know what street you were on. “My knight in shining armor, you say the most romantic things.”

Yoongi rolled his eyes. You knew he did. “Nevermind. Maybe I’ll just let you get stabbed while I make my escape.”

The bark of laughter that left you was impossible to contain. “I could run faster than you and you know it. So try me.”

“I’m hanging up.”

“Yeah okay. You wouldn't--”

A click told you that yes, he would. And you were left staring down at your phone with open mouthed disbelief. How dare he? You were just about to call him back and tell him as much, when a knock on your car window had you jumping with a small shriek.

Yoongi stood right outside your door with his fist still raised and a gummy grin on his pouty lips. You just stuck your tongue out at him childishly and grabbed your bag before slipping out of your car. “You’re a bully.”

He slid his hands into the pockets of his dark colored jeans and shrugged. “Would a bully walk all the way over here to make sure you don’t get robbed?”

Now it was your turn to shrug, taking him in and pretending not to see his onyx eyes slide down your body. Yoongi was dressed casually like usual. With a plain white t-shirt and a black zip up jacket thrown over it, he pulled it off like he’d just stepped off a magazine cover. How in the hell he always managed to do that was a mystery to you. And you knew you didn’t compare to him, even with your high-waisted white joggers and grey crop top.

Whatever. It wasn’t like it was bright enough outside to matter anyway.

“That sounds exactly like something a robber would say.” You flicked your hair over your shoulder and took off down the cracked sidewalk, making sure to lock your car behind you.

“Not like there’d be much to steal.” Yoongi’s voice caught up to you right as he did, walking side by side with the occasional brushing of his shoulder against yours.

You responded to his playful jab by lightly smacking his arm. “Careful there. Keep saying such poetic words and you’ll make me fall in love with you, Min Yoongi.”

He went quiet, but you could feel him looking at you from the corner of his eye. His gaze was a weight that burned through you, a light shining through the night.

The rest of the walk passed by pretty quickly, especially when nobody jumped out of an alleyway to rob you at knifepoint. Whether or not that was because of the man walking at your side, or something else, it didn’t matter. Not when the building you were headed to for the night popped up in the distance.

It looked like any other building on the street, with rough brick siding and a glowing red and green sign advertising the bar. Situated on the corner, you were just about to head inside when Yoongi’s hand caught your arm.

“It’s this way.” He answered your confused look by tugging you gently down the alleyway right next to the bar.

“But I thought it was inside.” You glanced back behind you before looking back towards the dead ended alley.

Yoongi dropped his hand from your arm. “It is.”

“Ah, makes sense.” You nodded sarcastically, successfully drawing a smile from your escort.

“Be patient and you’ll see.”

True to his word, you saw what he meant when he came to a stop outside of a side door. There weren’t any signs or anything indicated what it led to, but you could take a guess as Yoongi pulled it open and gestured for you to enter first.

It was dark inside and you had to squint in the dim lighting in order to see anything. You were in what appeared to be some kind of entrance that reminded you of one of the speakeasies downtown. Though there wasn’t a soul in sight, just a staircase at the end of the short hall. Unless you counted the loud base of music pounding through your feet and straight to your bones. The door slammed shut behind Yoongi and then he was taking the lead towards the stairs.

The further down you went, the louder the music got until it was all you could hear. And once you got to the bottom of the stairs and turned into the room, you found out why. Bodies were packed wall-to-wall, some moving to the music pouring from the speakers and others nodding their heads with drinks in their hands. Red and purple lights made the room seem bigger than it actually was, made it easier to lose yourself in the crowd.

Yoongi had taken you to an underground club. Which just made you all the more curious about just what kind of show he was going to be performing in.

“Want a drink?” Yoongi’s voice, even though spoken directly in your ear, was barely distinguishable from the lyrics bleeding through the room.

You simply nodded, taking care not to bash your head into his nose from where he was leaning over for you to hear him. He said something you couldn’t hear, words lost to the crowd. But you assumed he wanted you to follow him when he started to merge himself into the throngs of people. Just when you thought that you’d have to try and fight your way through to keep up with him, he was reaching back to grab your hand.

Wrapped his slender fingers around yours without sparing you a second look.

He was just trying to make sure you didn’t get lost in the crowd. Yeah, that was it. There was no other reason for it, so therefore your heart had no reason to speed up. To thump in time with the bass as you followed behind him. Especially when the warmth from his palm slid into yours.

“What do you want?” Yoongi turned back to speak in your ear. Shit, you hadn’t even realized that you’d already reached the packed bar. So you forced yourself to focus on the two bartenders running around behind it, rather than the hand still in yours.

“Tequila.” You answered. Yoongi raised both eyebrows in surprise before turning back to the bar. With his eyes no longer on you, it made breathing a whole lot easier. And you turned your attention away from Yoongi’s slim back and towards the stage.

It was all the way on the other side of the room and you watched as a guy walked across it with a mic in his hands. The music was lowered and his voice cracked to life through the speakers. Whatever announcement he was making went in one ear and out the other because Yoongi turned back around with a plastic cup extended out towards you. His other hand was empty and you sent him a questioning look.

Whether or not he knew what you were silently asking, or was just making a general announcement, he answered your question. “I have to perform soon.”

You made an ‘o’ with your mouth and accepted the drink with a smile in thanks. “You still haven’t told me what you’re gonna be doing.”

You had to stand on your tippy-toes in order for Yoongi to hear you, which didn’t go unnoticed by him if the amused gleam in his eyes was anything to go by. “You’ll see.”

Which was exactly how you found yourself with another drink in your hands and your back leaning against the bar. If you were being completely honest, you hadn’t been sure what to expect. A lot of different things had popped into your mind about what kind of shows your partner liked to put on. Some ranging from completely ridiculous, to weird, to funny.

But none of them had been this.

Min Yoongi was a lot of things. A talented producer, a deep thinker, a musical genius.

Never would you have thought to add “rapper” to the list. You should have known, was a little surprised at yourself for not being able to guess. Like all other things Min Yoongi, he was incredibly good at it. Took to the stage like a natural. And you were completely awestruck, unable to look away the whole time he was up on that stage, letting words flow from his lips like some kind of poetic river.

Calm, yet bubbling over with the effortless way he captured the attention of everyone in the room. The track he rapped over was fast paced, but he had no trouble keeping up and keeping the crowd engaged at the same time. He performed three songs, but it wasn’t enough. And judging by the one last look at the crowd Yoongi took before exiting the stage, it wasn’t enough for him either.

Whoever took his place didn’t have one ounce of your attention. And maybe that was rude or whatever, but you didn’t care. Not when you caught sight of his blond head making its way towards you. He got stopped multiple times along the way by people congratulating him with pats on the back or short conversations.

By the time Yoongi finally made his way back to your side, your second drink was extended out to him with a grin on your face. You’d barely even taken a sip from it, so it was completely full and beginning to sweat water. “That was amazing!”

The performer on stage was loud, but you could tell that Yoongi heard you by the smile he tried and failed to hide behind the rim of the plastic cup. But you weren’t going to leave it at that, grabbing a hold of his shoulders and squeezing to make sure you got your point across. “Like, incredibly amazing! Why didn’t you tell me you could rap like that?”

“You never asked.” He shrugged. Yoongi wasn’t the type of person to feed off of compliments, you knew that. But that didn’t mean that he didn’t appreciate them. The way his onyx colored eyes glittered told as much. And when he tilted the plastic cup back and drained the contents, the confidence that flowed beneath his skin gave it away too. “You wanna get out of here?”

“Where are we going?”

“Patience, young padawan.”

A snort of amusement from the passenger side of your car had you throwing Yoongi a wink. He completely ignored you in favor of thumbing through the playlist on your phone. It was hooked up to the radio via bluetooth and ever since you’d left the underground club, he’d been focused on silently judging you for your music choices.

When Yoongi had suggested bailing on the club, he hadn’t really had a particular place in mind. Which you’d soon figured out the moment you stepped out the door. He’d taken the subway to the place, so you’d all but shoved him into your car before he had a chance to say no.

“You really have Ariana Grande on here?” He wiggled your phone in your peripheral and you would have rolled your eyes if you weren’t too busy merging off the freeway.

“What’s wrong with Ari?” You huffed in mock offense.

“Nothing.”

“I can literally hear the judgement in your voice.”

“Maybe you should focus on the road then.”

Now you really did roll your eyes. Though the bark of laughter that accompanied it showed your lack of annoyance. “I would if we weren’t already here.”

Yoongi looked up from your phone just as you were putting the car into park. His eyes squinted into the dark with a furrow of his eyebrows. “We’re at the beach?”

“Nope.” You popped the ‘p’ and turned off your car, quickly hopping out before you could fall victim to his flatline stare.

The scent of sea salt lingered in the semi-humid air and you paused for a moment to inhale deeply. There was nothing quite like the smell of the ocean, and when the passenger side door opened and closed, you rounded the car to wave Yoongi along. He caught up to you right as your shoe hit the wooden planks of the boardwalk. You’d had to park way back in one of the lots far away from the beach for whatever godforsaken reason.

Shopfronts, closed and shuttered by metal grates due to the late hour, greeted you as you walked down the path. And Yoongi’s presence at your side was calming. Hell, everything about that man was. Never would you have thought that about him, not at first. Not with the rocky way your friendship had started.

Neither would you have expected the warmth that bloomed in your chest everytime he looked at you with those pretty eyes of his. Or flashed you one of his patented gummy smiles. He’d somehow wormed a place into your heart with that sarcastic wit of his. No, the last thing you would have expected from your final project was this.

But you didn’t mind. Even if he didn’t feel the same way, only looked at you like a friend, you didn’t mind. Because you’d take anything he offered you. And if a friendship was all he was willing to give, that was okay too.

“Where are we going exactly?” Yoongi’s voice snapped you out of your thoughts and you glanced up at him to see that he was already looking at you.

“Do we need to have a destination?” You shot back with a wiggle of your eyebrows. “It’s all in the journey.”

He rolled his eyes skyward as if silently asking why me, but let a smile touch his lips anyway “And this journey leads to the beach I’m guessing?”

“Maybe.” You dragged out the syllables, nudging your shoulder with his playfully. “Don’t tell me you don’t like the beach.”

“Who doesn’t like the beach?”

“That’s exactly what I’m--whoa.” Your feet came to a halt right as you stepped out from between two shops, where the boardwalk met the beach. Yoongi stopped at your side, but you didn’t even notice.

Because you were too busy staring at the apparent concert that was being held further down the beach. Apparently the loud music you’d heard from the parking lot wasn’t from one of the many speakers placed throughout the boardwalk. Well, that would explain the lack of parking at least.

Even from where the two of you stood, you could tell that the crowd was huge. They took up a big chunk of the beach, bodies nothing but a dark mass in the distance as they danced to the music from the stage. You couldn’t tell who it was, not that far away. But the multicolored lights flashed into the sky like a beacon.

“I wonder who’s performing.” Yoongi’s mumble had you bending down to unlace your shoes. “What’re you doing?”

“You wanna know who’s performing?” Slipping off your socks, you threw both those and your shoes into your bag. Once it was closed up, you sent Yoongi a conspiratorial wink. “Let’s go find out.”

He didn’t move, just gave you a look before realization dawned on his face. “You want to sneak in.”

It was a statement, not a question, but you nodded your head anyway. “Come on, when will you ever have the chance to do something like this again. Don’t tell me you’re scared we’ll get caught.”

Yoongi scoffed, but leaned down to slip off his shoes in an uncharacteristic move. You knew he wasn’t much of a partier and didn’t do things like this very often. So the fact that he was caving to your suggestion had your mind whirling. “I’m just surprised, is all.”

“At what?”

A smirk was thrown your way as he stood back up, but that was all the answer you got. After all the time you’ve spent with the man, you’d like to consider yourself a Yoongi Whisperer. So that smirk probably meant something along the lines of: I’m surprised that you’re a super awesome badass.

Or something.

“Just come on.” You grabbed his hand without thinking, dragging him behind you onto the sand. When he failed to complain, you took that as a greenlight to continue doing so.

When his fingers linked themselves with yours, it took all you had to not falter in your steps. To pretend like you weren’t affected by such a thoughtless action. To calm the rapid beating of your heart.

The closer you got to the concert, the louder the music got, until you could hear the roar of the crowd over the artist on stage. It was EDM, or at least sounded like it. Of course, as soon as you got closer, you spotted your first hurdle. One you’d been unable to see from far away.

A chain link fence stood between the two of you and a night of fun. It had your shoulders deflating before you even realized it, and you turned to the blond at your side. “Should we climb it or something?”

Biting your lip, you eyed just how far up it was. Even if the two of you managed to climb it, there was no way that you wouldn’t be spotted by security. And being arrested was the last thing on your to-do list.

“Or.” Yoongi crossed over to the fence and wrapped his hands along the bottom of it. With a quick glance around to make sure that no one was looking, he lifted it up and back, bending it backwards with just enough space left at the bottom for someone to squeeze underneath.

There was no way that he would have been strong enough on his own to lift it, and a closer look had you snorting a laugh. Apparently the two of you weren’t the only ones who’d had the idea to sneak in.

“You going?” He questioned and you started forward before a smartass remark could leave his mouth.

The sand was cool beneath your body as you shimmied underneath the space between the fence and the ground. And once you were on the other side, you crouched down and grabbed the fence from Yoongi to pull back towards your side. “I’m surprised that you’re going along with this, to be honest. Don’t you hate music like this?”

He grunted as he crawled across the sand towards you. “You wanted to.”

“So?” Your voice was soft, but he was still able to hear you over the pounding bass. The fence dropped from your fingers once he was on your side, but you didn’t move, just stared up at him as he stood.

“So.” Yoongi started, extending a hand down to help you up. “Are you coming?”

His answer had warmth blossoming in your chest and a tiny smile blooming on your face. Had you reaching out to let him help you up off the sand. He didn’t let go while you brushed yourself off, but he did guide the both of you towards the writhing crowd, if only to avoid being spotted by security.

It was a good thing that Yoongi was a slim man, because it made slipping through the numerous dancing bodies closer towards the stage a whole lot easier. You’d made it to about the middle when he stopped and tugged you closer to join him in a pocket of space between two different groups of people. The scent of marijuana mixed in with sea salt from the ocean in a cocktail that usually accompanied things like that.

“Dance with me.” You spoke into Yoongi’s ear, ignoring the excited flush you felt at being so close to him.

“I can’t dance.” He stated, despite the hand he slipped around your waist and pressed into your back. Whether or not to move you out of the range of the group of girls dancing wildly behind you, or something else, you didn’t know.

Chest to chest, you’d be surprised if he couldn’t feel how fast your heart was beating. “Mm. I don’t believe you. Everyone can dance.”

“That’s a lie.” Yoongi’s lips were titled up at the corners and his gaze on you was soft. Gentle.

The flashing lights on the stage flickered through his dark colored eyes. Turned those once pools of onyx into a glittering galaxy that you couldn’t look away from. That hypnotized you like the beat that pulsed beneath your skin and drowned your ears.

“That’s not true.” Your mumble was lost to the crowd. Buried somewhere underneath the music as he moved closer. And the butterflies nestled deep in your gut fluttered their wings when his other hand cupped the side of your face.

Your eyes fluttered closed when his nose brushed yours and his breath fanned across your cheek. That was the only warning you got before his mouth was on yours. His lips were soft and he tasted like the strawberry chapstick he liked to wear. And the kiss, like everything Min Yoongi, was slow. Not in a lazy way. More like he was taking the time to savor it. To remember what your hair felt like as he slid his hand into it.

Or the way you involuntarily sighed into his mouth when his teeth caught your bottom lip. How your fingers found their way into the short hairs at the nape of his neck when you pulled him closer. How he’d had to hold back a laugh at the way you were standing on your tippy-toes in order to reach him.

You probably wouldn’t have pulled away and neither would he, if it weren’t for the rain that suddenly tore from the sky like an opened dam. Drenching anything and everything around it faster than you could blink. It had you forcing yourself away from the magnetizing pull of Yoongi’s lips to give him an eye crinkling smile.

“What was that for?” You didn’t care if you were getting wet.

Neither did he apparently, because he ran a thumb over the lips he’d just kissed, sending shivers down your spine. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“No. Break it down for me.”

He met your imploring gaze almost bashfully, eyes squinting from the rain. “I’ve liked you since practically the beginning of the semester.”

Your eyes widened in surprise. “What? Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

Yoongi shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t know how.”

Shaking your head in disbelief, you let out a small laugh. “I can’t believe you, Min Yoongi.”

He opened his mouth to respond when he was cut off by a loud clap of thunder. Both of you glanced up at the dark sky at the same time.

Everyone around you was either ignoring the torrential downpour or shrieking and attempting to use anything to shield themselves from getting wet. Once the sound of thunder echoed a streak of lightning, you knew what was about to happen next and turned to meet Yoongi’s eyes. He, like everyone else, was drenched and his blond hair stuck to the damp skin of his face. It had you grinning at the pout on his mouth and you leaned forward to press your lips to his one final time before pulling away.

“We should get out of here before everyone else decides to do the same.” You had to shout to be heard over both the rain and the noise from everything else. It was only a matter of time before the concert got either canceled or postponed due to the thunderstorm and you didn’t want to be caught in the middle.

“Yeah, let’s go.” Yoongi wiped water from his eyes and grabbed your hand to start navigating the hell out of there.

And as your eyes trained themselves to his slim back and your fingers interlocked themselves with his, you smiled. The lyrics that you’d been struggling so hard to write came to life beneath the fire in your chest. You had no one but the man in front of you to thank for the inspiration.

Min Yoongi was a lot of things.

A musical genius, a poet, a light in a sea of darkness.

Min Yoongi was nothing if not beautiful.

[writingithink]

Tangled Timelines Chapter 3 Rated: T Chapter Word Count: 5,010 Chapter Summary: The Doctor and Rose try to track down some ghosts. Notes: Hey look! It's an update!! Hopefully they'll be happening more regularly now. I'm semi doing NaNoWriMo, and by that I mean that I'm attempting to write 50,000 words this month spread across any project (including this one). I'm starting to find my groove with this fic, so *fingers crossed*

As always, many hugs and thanks for @hey-there-juliet , my lovely beta. && all mistakes are mine.

READ IT ON AO3 [copy/paste link]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/26686090/chapters/67268401

<-- Ch2

Ch 4 -->

As soon as he entered his ship, the Doctor collapsed onto the jumpseat and stared blankly at the time rotor for a few moments. And then he glared at it.

“I somehow manage to happen upon the exact coordinates for the beginning of an invasion, and for some reason you’ve put me smack dab in the middle of it?!”

The answering hum was … frustrated.

He furrowed his brows, frowning. It would be exceedingly bad, incredibly bad, astonishingly bad bad bad if something else was influencing the TARDIS. The Doctor sprang to his feet and immediately sonicked open the grating, taking a moment to place a temporary barrier around his panic before he could worry Rose.

Back at the flat, she was having tea with her mother. She’d only just managed to get Jackie to stop complaining about his apparent need to ‘make everything about aliens’, and they were now talking about the wedding. Apparently she’d found a baker who said they’d make up cake samples that all somehow incorporated bananas. Best news he’d heard (well, technically) all day, and he couldn’t properly appreciate the sentiment when he desperately needed to check his ship and parse out exactly what he was going to do about these ‘ghosts’.

First things first, he needed to make sure that the TARDIS was physically fine. That she was healthy. And actually, it wasn’t so bad. There were some minor repairs he should take care of before they next left Earth, but nothing he couldn’t leave until after they’d saved the planet. The Doctor pulled himself out from under the console and bounced over to the navigational matrix, pulling a screen with him as he went.

His mouth dropped as he looked at the recording of their last flight path. A time track seemed to just- just pop into existence, pushing them months away. His ship had immediately landed due to the unexpected error. It literally looked like a glitch in the Vortex - but there were no such thing as glitches in the Time Vortex. A whole dimension doesn’t glitch - not without some outside force acting on it.

And any outside force meddling with time was even more dangerous than whatever these ‘ghosts’ were.

One bloody thing at a time, though.

The Doctor pushed himself away from the console and began pacing.

Ghosts ghosts ghosts ghosts ghosts.

Not really ghosts. Getting stronger from the psychic energy of the entire human race. Incredibly unpleasant when one walks through you - really do feel dead. Worse than dead. Likely nothing good, and all over the world.

But they appear in shifts. There’s shifts.

So someone had to be in charge of that. Probably multiple someones. But still, there would be a central location connected to them, giving them whatever help they need to press themselves onto the Earth from wherever they really are. To do that, all around the world, they would have to have an incredibly strong signal.

An incredibly strong, traceable signal.

“Alright then!”

Headfirst into danger was just what it was going to have to be.

The Doctor sonicked open a different panel and began rummaging around for the equipment he’d need. It wasn’t long before he heard the TARDIS' door open.

“According to the paper,” his wife announced, “they’ve elected a ghost as MP for Leeds. Now tell me about this plan you’re tryin’ so hard to keep secret.”

He popped out of the grating with a backpack full of equipment.

“Who you gonna call?” he joked.

“Ghostbusters!” Rose laughed, more amused by the voice he was using than his shockingly similar looking technology.

“I ain’t afraid of no ghosts,” the Doctor finished with a little jig before dashing out of the TARDIS.

“My mum’s on her way down,” she informed him as he looked around the playground for the best area to set up the cones. Actually, should do nicely right where they were.

“Oh?” He turned on his heel and went back into their ship, pleased that she’d seen fit to set out the rest of the equipment they would need. “Let’s get these outside.”

“Doctor,” his bondmate huffed, even as she took a cone. I don’t think we should tell her yet. About the lifespan thing. Not until after we’ve gotten rid of the ghosts. Like, way after. Next trip back.

That’s fine, he agreed as he sat down his roll of wire and cone and began plugging everything in.

“We’ll still have to stay for awhile, though. Because we said we would.”

The Doctor paused what he was doing, dramatically raising his eyes skyward. It was quite a nice day, really. You’d think, with London having nice weather for once, that he’d be able to enjoy it. He opened his mouth, planning to vocalize his many complaints, but as soon as he turned back towards Rose, he saw Jackie walking up.

After the ghosts, yes. Sometime during this trip, though, please . 

He wasn’t ashamed to beg. Well … a little ashamed.

“Why’d you park all the way over here?” Jackie asked as he began plugging the wires into the cone Rose had placed.

“Got tired of the alley. Bit dingy,” he quipped. It was a lie, but better than telling his mother-in-law that not only had the flight gone wrong time-wise, but also slightly by location.

His wife shot him a worried look as she caught the thought.

Later, he promised, rushing back into the TARDIS for the final cone. He would worry about all of that later - they had important things to do.

“When’s the next shift?” he asked as he sat the cone down.

“Quarter to,” Jackie answered, “but don’t go causing trouble. What’s that lot do?”

“Triangulates their point of origin.”

“I don’t suppose it’s the Gelth?” Rose asked, visions of their spectral forms playing across their bond for a moment.

“Nah,” the Doctor responded, and she quickly shrugged off the idea. “They were just coming through one little rift. This lot are transposing themselves over the whole planet. Like tracing paper.”

With the final cone plugged in, he ran over to make sure they were all in the proper position.

“You’re always doing this,” Jackie complained. “Reducing it to science. Why can’t it be real? Just think of it, though. All the people we’ve lost. Our families coming back home. Don’t you think it’s beautiful?”

He paused to give his mother-in-law an honest answer. 

“I think it’s horrific.” 

And then the Doctor bounced back into motion, unrolling the cable that would connect the triangulation devices to the TARDIS console. They were on a time crunch, after all. “Rose, give us a hand, love.”

His bondmate sighed before following him into the ship.

She’s so upset.

The Doctor remained silent, aware that the thought wasn’t really meant for him and even more aware that there wasn’t anything he could say that would help. He plugged in the cable and turned to Rose, aware that her mother had followed them inside. This is how they could help.

“As soon as the cones activate,” he explained quickly, pointing to the monitor, “if that line goes red, press that button there. If it doesn’t stop,” he continued, reaching into his jacket to pull out the sonic screwdriver, “setting 15-B. Hold it against the port, eight seconds and stop.”

“15-B, eight seconds,” she confirmed.

“If it goes into the blue, activate the deep scan on the left.”

“Uhm … oh!” His wife leaned over the console, which he found much more provocative than the situation really called for. “This button there?”

“Hmm close.”

And he’d really, sincerely intended to send her a mental image of the correct button, but some wires must have gotten crossed there. Instead what he sent was a memory of their return to the TARDIS right after the Rhibelini festival. Eh. Oops?

“That one?” Rose smirked, pointing to another button that was definitely not close, while sending some very, uhm, creative suggestions that, unfortunately, weren’t actually feasible.

“Eehh, now you’ve just killed us,” the Doctor told her with a theatrical grimace.

With the button, or- ?

They both laughed, but only for a moment.

“Er, that one.” She confidently pointed to the correct button, telepathically informing him that she knew the whole time.

“Yeah!” he smiled before turning to Jackie. “Now, what’ve we got? Two minutes to go?”

Jackie looked down at her watch, and the Doctor was glad that she didn’t realize that he was just trying to make her feel needed. That he was a Time Lord and didn’t need her help to check the time. Because his wife had to be right - there’s no way her mum actually enjoys the act of doing laundry. She enjoys being a mum.

You like her, Rose teased over the bond.

Shush.

He gave her a peck on the cheek before exiting the ship to do the final prep work on the triangulation cones. It was go time. The Doctor raced around, calibrating each one.

“What’s the line doing?” he shouted through the door.

“It’s alright,” came his wife’s answering shout, though she really didn’t need to with his superior hearing. She could whisper and he’d be able to hear her from this short of a distance. “It’s holding!”

“You even look like him,” Jackie said to Rose, and he could hear her just fine. Not that he understood what that was supposed to mean.

“How do you mean? I suppose I do, yeah,” his wife responded, sounding pleased, though he still didn’t know what it meant. Rose didn’t look at all like him. What a strange thing to say. He tried to refocus on the triangulation equipment.

“You’ve changed so much,” Jackie sighed. “All grown up and married to an alien, living in a spaceship.”

The Doctor almost said something to Rose about her mother acknowledging that they were, in fact, already married, but then caught himself. If she didn’t already know that he was eavesdropping, no need to make it obvious. Not that it would matter either way. He wasn’t going to stuff cotton in his ears just because the humans in his life couldn’t be bothered to remember all of his biological differences.

“For the better,” his wife replied with confidence. “We have an amazing life, and we’re in love.”

“I suppose. It’s just barmy. Seeing you two like this in this box of his. Makes it hard to pretend everything’s even a little normal.”

He wondered what exactly Jackie imagined their life was like when they weren’t around. Things had actually gotten shockingly domestic lately, though it would still probably be too alien for his mother-in-law.

“Mum, I used to work in a shop.”

“I’ve worked in shops. What’s wrong with that?”

“No, I didn’t mean that,” Rose sighed.

Once again the Doctor made himself refocus on the task at hand, all the while hoping that they weren’t about to have a row.

“I know what you meant. What happens when I’m gone?”

“Don’t talk like that,” Rose ordered, distress flooding their connection, making it nearly impossible for him to pay attention to the cones.

How exactly was he supposed to save the Earth with these working conditions?

There was a smug voice in his head, with a distinct Northern accent, very pleased to point out how they were right about avoiding domestics.

“No, but really. When I’m dead and buried, you won’t have any reason to come back home. What happens then?” Jackie asked her.

“I don’t know,” Rose mumbled, as she tried and failed to imagine their future life without her mother in it.

The Doctor frowned, realizing that he couldn’t quite picture it either.

“Do you think you’ll ever settle down?” her mother continued.

Their connection was now awash with all sorts of negative emotions, and he could tell that his bondmate was near tears, which was completely unacceptable. He turned away from the cones, ready to march back on board before stopping himself.

“The Doctor never will, so I can’t,” Rose told her. “Wouldn’t want to. We’ll just keep traveling.”

“And you’ll keep on changing. And in forty years time, fifty, there’ll be this woman, this strange woman, walking through the marketplace on some planet a billion miles from Earth. But she’s not Rose Tyler. Not anymore. She’s not even human.”

Their bond somehow managed to pulse mauve.

It’s going to be okay, love, he tried to comfort her, fighting to send soothing, positive thoughts over their connection just as he finished up the calibrations. A distraction, that’s what she needed! It was certainly what he needed.

“Here we go!” he shouted.

“The scanner’s working!” Rose called out. “It says Delta-One-Six!”

“Come on then, you beauty!” the Doctor laughed, firmly resolved on drowning out all of the pain present in their shared mental space with adrenaline fueled glee. After all, he had always wanted to use these cones - they were state of the art!

He watched with wide eyes as the cones connected, immediately trapping one of the so-called ‘ghosts’ within their quasi-electric field. And then he reached into his pocket, carefully blocking their bond as he pulled out and put on a pair of 3D glasses - this was the part of his speculations that he really would rather not worry his bondmate with. At least, not yet. Not until he absolutely had to.

The ghost … thing he’d just trapped was absolutely riddled with Void particles. Completely covered, blurry head to blurry toe. Blimey.

The Doctor knelt down, adjusting the controls in order to get a more accurate read. If he was lucky, he would be able to figure out which parallel world these creatures were trying to come from. Likely a parallel Earth, but which one?

It began writhing, though nothing about the triangulation device should cause a living thing pain.

“Don’t like that much, do you?” he couldn’t help commenting. “Who are you? Where are you coming from? Woah!” He jumped back as the ‘ghost’ attempted to break out of the containment field. “That’s more like it! Not so friendly now, are you?”

He looked on as the creature faded away and the cones deactivated. While some more time would have been helpful, the Doctor had enough information to get started. After quickly picking up all of the cones, he ran back inside. Once he’d dumped them all out of the way, he raced up to the console, shrugging out of his coat and tossing it onto the railing.

“I said so!” he exclaimed. “Those ghosts have been forced into existence from one specific point, and I can track down the source. Allons-y!”

With that, he slammed the dematerialization lever, the coordinates having been inputted by the triangulation device. So handy! Finally got to use it.

The TARDIS shook violently.

Well, maybe he could make some improvements ... if he ever got the chance to use it again. The Doctor sprung to his feet and stabilized the flight.

Things seemed abnormally silent in the console room and over their bond. He was uncertain as to why, but still gave over to his natural inclination to fill the silence.

“I like that,” he told his wife as he moved around the console. “Allons-y. I should say allons-y more often. Allons-y. Watch out, Rose Tyler. Allons-y. And then, it would be really brilliant if I met someone called Alonso, because then I could say, ‘Allons-y Alonso’ every time.” He finally reached Rose and wrapped his arms around her before pausing. “You’re staring at me.”

“My mum’s still on board,” she whispered, squeezing his arms.

The Doctor looked up to see Jackie Tyler sitting on one of the platforms.

It was terrifying.

“If we end up on Mars, I’m going to kill you.”

Absolutely, bone-chillingly terrifying.

Stop being a drama queen, his bondmate chastised.

Oh, the domestics of it all! Worse than living in a house! Traveling with his mother-in-law?!

You’ll be fine, it’s hardly traveling . We’re in the same city, in the same time, Rose reassured him, rolling her eyes before giving him a proper hug.

What was he supposed to do now, though?! Bring Jackie with them? Leave her in the TARDIS? It would likely be dangerous wherever they ended up, invasion and all. The alternative was having her stay in their home to snoop around and get up to who knows what. There was no winning!

“Welcome aboard, Jackie!” he said with a wave, his smile showing a bit too much teeth.

“Where exactly are we going, anyway?” her mother asked.

“Come down, mum. You can watch the landing on the view screen with us,” Rose encouraged, releasing him so that she could meet her halfway. “We’re gonna land at wherever they’re controlling the ghosts. Are you fine to stay on board? There’s a pool, you could have a nice swim. Or watch telly in the media room. We’ll be back before you know it.”

“I’m just supposed to hang out in this weird ship of his while you’re off trying to get yourselves killed?”

“We do stuff like this all the time,” the Doctor piped in, trying to reassure her. “Only this time you’re on the TARDIS instead of at home in your flat. Which, really, is much better, when you think about it. Best ship in the Universe.”

Jackie still didn’t look thrilled as they all gathered around the view screen. She looked even less thrilled as they watched the TARDIS land in a hanger before immediately being surrounded by armed gunmen.

“Oh, well, there goes the advantage of surprise,” he sighed. “Still, cuts to the chase.”

Now he was going to have to deal with soldiers. Really, every time he thought that the day couldn’t possibly get worse. The Doctor turned to his mother-in-law as he made his way around the console.

“Jackie, stay inside. Doors shut. They can’t get in.”

“I’m not staying here! Take me home!”

“It’s too late for that,” he told her. “Shouldn’t have come aboard if you didn’t fancy a trip.”

“I was kidnapped!”

He rolled his eyes, deciding not to dignify that with a response as he took Rose’s hand. She pulled him to a stop before they reached the door.

“Doctor, they’ve got guns.”

The Doctor mentally reminded his wife that they’d been surrounded by much, much worse. Daleks couldn’t help but come to mind. 21 st century Earth guns were really the least of his concerns at the moment. Jackie Tyler accidentally breaking his precious timeship was more of a worry than guns. Whatever these creatures had planned, definitely more of a worry than guns.

“And we haven’t,” he delightfully informed her. “Which makes us the better people, don’t you think? They can shoot us dead, but the moral high ground is ours.”

With that, he tugged her out of the TARDIS behind him and closed the door as casually as he could manage.

Honestly, with all of the emergency programs he had installed, why couldn’t he have made one to deal with this scenario? A program that would immediately take Jackie home and then bring the TARDIS right back - now that would be nifty.

 They barely had a chance to look around before the soldiers surrounding them cocked their guns. He and Rose quickly raised their hands to prove they were unarmed.

Y’know what this reminds me of?, his wife casually asked across their connection.

What?

Utah, 2012.

The Doctor’s eyes swept the area as much as he could without moving his head. He could see her point.

Do you think they’d fire if I knocked on wood right now?, he asked her, just as a blonde woman in a suit rushed into the hanger.

“Oh! Oh, how marvelous!” she exclaimed, clapping.

I think she may’ve gone ‘round the bend, Rose laughed in his head as she fought back a confused smile.

The soldiers slowly began to lower their weapons as they joined in on the … clapping? Really, why were they clapping?

“Oh, very good. Superb. Happy day!”

Really, the Doctor felt inclined to agree with his bondmate on this one. Still, now that guns weren’t being pointed at them he was inclined to just go with it.

“Uhm, thanks. Nice to meet you,” he greeted. “I’m the Doctor, and this is my-”

Probably not the time to introduce me as your wife.

“- this is Rose.”

“Hello,” his wife waved with a wide grin that didn’t reach her eyes.

“Oh, I should say! Hurray!”

And there they went again with the clapping. Honestly, what the bloody hell was going on?

Think you’ve got more fans, Rose teased.

“You- you’ve heard of me, then?”

Really, where had his ship landed them?

“Well of course we have,” the overly enthusiastic woman replied. “And I have to say, if it wasn’t for you, none of us would be here! The Doctor and the TARDIS.” 

Everyone started clapping yet again. He was starting to get used to it, actually. It was kind of nice.

“And his companion, of course,” the woman continued.

Okay, not as nice. Then again, Rose was the one who didn’t want him to say she was his wife. Which was probably the smart thing to do, mid-invasion, but still. Just … didn’t feel right. As it was, she had had to cover her mouth with her hands in order to keep herself from laughing - out loud. Their bond was awash with her amusement. The Doctor found himself fighting the urge himself as he tried to politely make them stop.

“And- and- and you are?” he asked as the noise died down.

“Oh, plenty of time for that,” she evaded. Huh.

I think she thinks she’s the boss of you, his bondmate informed him.

She also thinks that I’m the boss ofyou, the Doctor couldn’t help but point out.

Bless.

“Aaaaaaanyway lead on, allons-y. Will there be nibbles?”

He fought the urge to take Rose’s hand as they followed the woman away from the TARDIS, surrounded by armed guards, stuffing his fists into his pockets. A moment later she tugged on his sleeve. The Doctor glanced over, taking out his hand when she rolled her eyes. Their fingers slotted together, perfect fit, as always.

We’ve been holding hands since the moment we met, she mentally chastised. Memories played across their bond.

She certainly wasn’t wrong.

Sorry, he told her, squeezing her hand. Not sure how to pretend to not be married, I guess.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Rose smirk.

Well, I took off my ring. Think all we’ve got to do now is not say it outright.

Before he could properly respond, something on the tip of his tongue (or whatever the telepathic equivalent of that idiom might be) about how he could do a much better job than that, the mystery woman started talking.

“It was only a matter of time until you found us, and at last you’ve made it,” she said. “I’d like to welcome you, Doctor. Welcome to Torchwood.”

With that, she flung open the doors and they entered a massive warehouse. A massive warehouse that was full of alien technology. And since this definitely wasn’t UNIT, this was very, very not good.

Blimey , he told his wife, you’re right. This really is frighteningly similar to that bunker in Utah.

Gonna nip over to that crate and knock on wood?, Rose asked, only partially teasing.

He really was considering it, actually, but … (he peeked behind him at the armed soldiers following uncomfortably close) better not. Instead he focused on the spacecraft in front of them.

“That’s a Jathar Sunglider,” he realized.

“Came down to Earth off the Shetland Islands ten years ago,” the woman explained.

“What, did it crash?”

“No, we shot it down,” she stated. “It violated our airspace. Then we stripped it bare.” 

Oh, this was really not good. The Doctor tried to sense the timelines, but they were all still so jumbled and wrong that he couldn’t make out the consequences of it, this technology that Earth really shouldn’t have right now. Not yet.

“The weapon that destroyed the Sycorax on Christmas day?” the woman continued with pride, “That was us. Now, if you’d like to come with me.”

That’s what Harriet said, Rose realized, replaying the memory over the bond, Torchwood. I didn’t even think about it, though.

No, me either, he agreed as they were led further into the warehouse. Why hadn’t he noticed anything off before? He should have felt it. On Christmas, maybe not - he’d just regenerated. But apparently this organization has been active for at least a decade, if not longer.

“The Torchwood Institute has a motto - ‘If it’s alien, it’s ours’,” their ‘captor’ slash ‘tour guide’ explained. “Anything that comes from the sky, we strip it down and we use it for the good of the British Empire.”

“Excuse me, the what?” Rose interrupted.

“The British Empire,” the woman repeated, turning around and looking his bondmate up and down, sizing her up.

“There hasn’t been a British Empire in ages,” Rose informed her, and she wasn’t wrong.

“We’ll see,” their hostess replied, a little too condescending for his liking. “Ah, excuse me,” she continued as a soldier handed her a particle gun?! “Now if you wouldn’t mind. Do you recognize this, Doctor?”

“That’s a particle gun.”

Now that he was here, now that this had his full attention, the Doctor could feel the strain on the timelines. This whole building was a threat to the entire causal nexus. His wife held his hand tighter when he showed her just a smidge of it over their connection.

“Good, isn’t it?” the woman smiled, unaware of the impending disaster that he wasn’t yet sure how to fix. “Took us eight years to get it to work.”

“It’s the 21st century,” he calmly tried to explain. “You can’t have particle guns.”

“We must defend our border against the alien,” she replied, as if that somehow gave them a free pass.

The Doctor didn’t know what to say to that, which apparently was fine, as their guide wasn’t really paying attention anyway as she handed back the gun.

“Thank you, Sebastian, isn’t it?”

I think it’s best if we just, you know, let her talk, he told Rose, studiously not looking directly at her - and really, there was a lot to take in, the warehouse was packed with advanced tech. Much too advanced.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Think she’ll give us an evil monologue?

Well, I don’t think she’s evil, he admitted. I think she’s … some sort of, I don’t know, business woman? I think she truly believes that what they’re doing here is good . Which makes them even more dangerous.

It would also make stopping them even more difficult.

“Thank you, Sebastian.”

He refocused as she turned back to them.

“I think it’s very important to know everyone by name,” she said. “Torchwood is a very modern organization. People skills. That’s what it’s all about these days. I’m a people person.”

Well that’s … nice?, Rose commented across the bond as she gave the woman a very forced grin.

“Have you got anyone called Alonso?” he couldn’t help but ask.

“No, I don’t think so. Is that important?”

Eh, oh well. It was kind of nice, though, having her asking a question for once.

“No, I suppose not,” the Doctor replied, just as he noticed a crate of Magnaclamps. He’d always wanted some, hadn’t gotten around to it, though. “What was your name?”

“Yvonne,” she told them (finally). “Yvonne Hartman.”

He let go of his wife’s hand, giving into the urge to inspect a clamp.

“Ah, yes,” Yvonne said with a smile. “Now, we’re very fond of these. The Magnaclamp. Found in a spaceship buried at the base of Mount Snowdon. Attach this to an object and it cancels the mass,” she explained, as if he didn’t already know. “I could use it to lift two tonnes of weight with a single hand. That’s an imperial ton, by the way. Torchwood refuses to go metric.”

Of course they do, Rose scoffed over the bond. British Empire, I mean really.

“Well, that’s handy,” is what she said aloud as he tossed the clamp back into the crate, wandering away to try to get a better idea of all of the other alien technology they’d managed to scavenge, commandeer or steal. His wife wandered in the opposite direction, giving him a second set of eyes even if she didn’t know what everything was. It really was a devastating amount, and the Doctor had to assume that this wasn’t all of it.

Really, it was about time they got back on track.

“So, what about the ghosts?” he asked.

“Ah, yes, the ghosts. They’re, er, what you might call a side effect,” Yvonne admitted.

“Of what?”

“All in good time, Doctor. There is an itinerary, trust me.”

Ugh, of all the things to add to this no-good-very-bad-day, he was stuck on a tour. With an itinerary.

It was his personal hell, really.

And to make it even worse, there went the TARDIS on the back of a lorry.

“An itinerary?” Rose scoffed. “And what are you lot doing with the TARDIS?!” My mum’s in there!

Oh, seriously?! He’d just managed to forget that they’d left Jackie Tyler unsupervised on the ship. Really, truly, worst day ever.

Seriously? Could you just grow up and get some perspective?, his wife snarled over their connection.

“If it’s alien, it’s ours,” Yvonne replied confidently.

“You’ll never get inside it,” he told her with just as much confidence, if not more.

“Hmm, et cetera.”

Once she turned away, they both glanced back at their ship to see Rose’s mum peek out through the doors - which he distinctly remembered telling her to keep shut.

Really, why did no one ever listen? He didn’t understand it.

With a sigh, and all of his unflattering thoughts about his mother-in-law safely behind a barrier, the Doctor turned away to continue their ‘tour’. At least the ghosts were on the itinerary. So this day had to turn ‘round at some point … right?

[elkian]

So on this reread I noticed - like, actually consciously noticed this time - Envy and Sloth have very similar designs.

And like, yeah, there’s some stylistic continuity between most of the homunculi, for sure. But it’s interesting to note that Envy, who I remind you, rarely adopts their (very different-looking) True Form, looks a WHOLE LOT like Sloth.

[Image Description: Page 69 from Volume 2, chapter 6 of the Fullmetal Alchemist mange. Envy transforms into their common appearance with a commentary about looking “young and cute”. End ID.]

Envy has a level of vanity - they prefer looking “young and cute” to Father Cornello’s form, they abhor letting Ed and Ling see their true form, so on.

Key elements of Envy’s preferred form: long, spiky dark hair, a large headband, something like a sleeveless workout top, fingerless gloves, and a sort of skort/bike shirts and skirt combo thing.

Now, Sloth.

[Image Description: Page 68, chapter 31 of the FMA manga. Greed notes the presence of his fellow homuncui, and asks after Sloth. 2 flashback-style grayed panels show Sloth’s back as they work and their shackled arm and bleeding hand.]

Sloth’s first appearance. I also noticed that Greed comments on Envy’s dress sense. Which is interesting, because it’s hard to place how it might really differ from the others aside from having more skin shown and/or less continuous coverage with more gaps?

Sloth’s appearance here has notable details: long-ish, spiky dark hair, not quite as wild as Envy’s but very similar. Something that might be a tank top or even a tube top; dark shackles; bared arms and midriff.

It’s entirely possible Envy is deliberately emulating Sloth; that is, it seems unlikely with what little we know of Sloth that they cultivate a specific style, but were probably “dressed” by Father/the transformation/whatever. It seems much more likely that Envy is copying Sloth than the other way around.

And even if the two were somehow just made in the same style, Envy is shown to be very careful in their appearance; their preferred base form is always consistent, for one thing. If they had some reason to dislike or feel insulted by looking like Sloth, wouldn’t they have tried to improve on it?

It isn’t even a matter of a default form, as far as I can tell; I’m pretty sure we’ve seen Envy recover from injury before transforming back to this form, and it’s probable their “base” form is the horrible dragon chimera monster thing.

[Image ID: FMA Manga, page 71 chapter 31. Envy immediately switches from disinterest to hostility when their appearance is insulted by Greed. They become more hostile as he references their monstrous True Form. End ID.]

Again and again, Envy shows negative and often hasty responses when provoked regarding their appearance.

[Image ID: Two-page spread from the FMA manga, the last page of chapter 65. Sloth is shown in more detail.]

Sloth is stylized - I don’t think we ever see a real hairline or detail on their face. It’s unclear if their outfit is a suspenders and tube-top combo or a tank top. Both of these details are something Envy might stylize into their headband (broad, dark, with a restrained design/homunculi node cluster) and their top (sleeveless, cropped, workout aesthetic but more elegant than whatever Sloth’s got going on). And even the fingerless gloves might be a reference to the shackles. The shackles. What the hell?

I also, while looking for these shots, realized that both of them tend to hunch over a lot (Envy especially prior to combat, although that might be related to their true form not being bipedal).

Envy can look like literally anyone. Heck, depending on the source of their regular form, they don’t need an exact human reference, either*. And yet, clearly by choice, they constantly look like Sloth. Someone who is not exactly the paragon of classical physical attractiveness. Someone who gets limited screen time and doesn’t seem to be particularly bright even to the end.

What the heck is that about?

(* A thought - if Sloth was a human who was forcibly transformed, Envy may be choosing to copy that appearance, possibly because they knew Sloth’s original form??

Notice that Homunculi with confirmed human existences prior to transformation - Wrath, Greed 2.0 - never seem to display a particularly monstrous “true” form, not like Envy’s horror dragon or Gluttony’s false gate gaping maw.

Sloth, too, never really transforms.... Hm.)

[ciarawritesmarvel]

of plans and schemes - steve rogers x reader

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader

Word Count: 2.7k

Warnings: Some language, fluffity fluff and they would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for those meddling kids and Tony

A/N: Welcome to Day Five of Hello Spring by @ibwhellospring! So it’s just past midnight which is super annoying buttt it’s longer so hopefully you’ll forgive me! With Sam meddling in yesterday’s, I couldn’t help but have some more meddling kids in this one. Anyway, I hope you enjoy, lovelies and please let me know what you think!

Prompt: Starry Night

masterlist in my bio and tags in the reblog! please drop me an ask to be tagged in bucky, steve or all the hello spring pieces!

---

“What are you guys doing?” you exclaimed worriedly, trying to pull your hand out of Peter’s death grip. He wasn’t budging though and continued to drag you through the corridor from your room, with Shuri not far behind, scuttling after you hurriedly.

“Just trust us, Miss Y/L/N!” Peter assured you.

“Yeah, it’ll all work out,” agreed Shuri, and you shot them both a warning look.

“Somehow, the fact that you can’t tell me where we’re going and are having to drag me there makes me believe that it will not work out.”

The two of them giggled and your scowling only got worse.

You reached the door of the main training room and Peter stopped, letting go of your hand and you angrily pulled away from him, placing your hands on your hips and turning as Peter scurried behind you and joined Shuri in a line that blocked you from going anywhere but into the room.

“Go in, Miss Y/L/N!” Peter urged you and you turned your glare at him.

“What the hell are you kids up to?” you asked them pointedly, making sure to look at both of them in turn in order to guilt at least one of them into telling you what was going on. All you were met with, however, were two mischievous smirks on two far from guilty faces.

“Honestly, we could stand here all night if you want, or you could just go in there and find out,” Shuri told you and you were about to scold her further for talking to her superior in such a way but the truth was...she had a point. You rolled your eyes at their antics and, without another word, walked into the training room and closed the door behind you. You heard them lock it. Oh, they were so in for it later.

You looked around the room. The usual mats and equipment were all stuffed into one corner and in the middle was a singular table, with candles and placemats and cutlery. You wandered over to it, brows furrowed in confusion and lifted the plate cover from the plate nearest to you. The smell hit you instantly and you closed your eyes, inhaled and you smiled despite yourself. Your favourite.

When you opened your eyes again, you saw a note sitting on top of your dinner.

No coming out of here until you tell him how you feel about him. We’re sick of the constant puppy dog eyes when you’re supposed to be teaching us how to be Avengers. Sort it out!

Don’t hate us,

Your students

The little shits.

“Y/N?”

And there he was. Your head snapped up as you instinctively hid the note behind your back and saw Steve standing just inside the opposite door to the one you came in. You smiled at him, though it came out as more of a grimace, as he came further into the room and arrived at the table and you discreetly slid the note into the back pocket of your jeans.

“Hey Steve.”

“Wanda and Pietro just pulled me in here,” he said by way of explanation, “I think they locked the door?”

“Yeah, Peter and Shuri did the same to me.”

“You got any idea why?” he asked and you crossed your fingers behind your back.

“Not a clue. But they’ve made us a really nice dinner.”

Steve lifted his own plate cover and you weren’t surprised to see his favourite dish at his place at the table. And a note. He picked it up and read it and you saw his eyes widen subconsciously. After reading, he tucked it away in his pocket and cleared his throat.

“Looks like they want to thank us for all our hard work,” Steve told you and your heart sank. So he hadn’t got a similar note to you, then. You forced a smile though, used to having to hide your feelings around him and sat down at your place, gesturing for him to do the same.

“Well, I can’t say no to that!”

“So you didn’t get a note then?” Steve asked suddenly, almost cutting you off as he sat down slowly, not breaking eye contact with you and you shook your head nonchalantly.

“No need for two notes telling us that, right?”

“Right.” He sounded defeated, but unfortunately you were too wrapped up in your own head and too idiotic in these matters to even begin to comprehend why. When of course, it was obvious that Steve had gotten the exact same note as you and that his heart was pounding out of his chest at this very moment, just the same as yours. The students listening in to your every word in the security room groaned and looked at each other.

The two of you really were hopeless.

Nevertheless, Steve poured you both a glass of wine and you clinked them together with a genuine smile - even if the two of you thought this was a very platonic dinner, it was lovely to spend any moment in one another’s company.

You did spend everyday in one another’s company, but that didn’t really count. As the two people in charge of running the Avengers’ Training Facility for new recruits, you spent your days in this very training room, shouting at people to run faster, train harder, lift heavier. The stolen glances across the room were enough to drive any one of your students mad, hence the master plan to get the two of you together to end it once and for all.

They hadn’t really thought through the fact that you might be even more insufferable if actually together, but...details, details.

“So, how was your day?” you asked him, leaning forward onto your elbows on the table and taking a sip of your wine.

“We were together all day, Y/N, we literally left each other about an hour ago.”

“Humour me.”

Steve tipped his head to the side as he observed you and a smile spread across his entire face, lighting his eyes with a playfulness not many other people got to see. He leaned in too.

“Okay. It was a good day. This has already made it better. How about you?”

Your heart fluttered at his admission and you forced yourself to return your wine glass to its position on the table and lean back and away from him, putting some much needed distance between you. More for your sanity than for anything else.

“Good too, thanks. But this might just make it great. It remains to be seen.”

“Oh really? A wonderful dinner with your favourite colleague isn’t a definite improvement?” Steve teased you and you cocked a brow.

“Who said you were my favourite?”

He laughed then, real, carefree, unhinged. It wasn’t his polite laugh that he gave to government officials when they made jokes on their tours, or his angry laugh when one of the recruits gave him cheek, nor the hidden snort when someone made a joke about Tony. It was a laugh that you prided yourself on discovering a long time ago, one that garnered you a pat on the back each time you’d heard it since.

The rest of the night went perfectly swimmingly. You chatted, heard more of Steve’s unrestrained laughter and joined in with much of your own. Sticking to just the one glass of wine, since you both had early morning training schedules, you found the conversation flowed freely without it, the meal demolished in minutes but the dinner never really dying down.

It was three hours in, and by this point the two of you were fully leaned in on the table, all preconceived notions of shyness or awkward crushes forgotten in such welcome company. The students that had been watching you, however, were of a completely different mindset.

They were beginning to lose the will to live.

“Why aren’t they doing anything?” Wanda whined, childish and impatient, and Shuri rolled her eyes.

“We just have to wait, Wan, this was never going to be easy,” she said with a tut and then, after a couple of seconds she added under her breath, “I mean, look at them. They’re idiots.”

“I wish you wouldn’t talk about our Captains like that, Shuri,” Peter said quietly and Shuri stuck her tongue out at him in retaliation.

“What are you guys doing in here?”

The four students froze at the unfamiliar voice in the room and turned, mouths agape, to find none other than Tony Stark in the doorway, squinting to look at what you had been watching on the screen.

“Hi Mr Stark! We’re just-” Peter began, but Pietro nudged him in the side, hard, and he stopped with a small yelp of pain.

“Is that Capsicle and...Y/N? Are you guys scheming?”

He looked stern, and the kids didn’t know what to do. They stayed quiet. Before they knew it, Tony had pulled up an extra chair and wheeled himself up to the desk.

“Why didn’t you invite me?” Tony pouted, beginning to type rapidly at the security computers, the students exchanging worried glances, “I’ve been waiting for these two to make a move since Loki was a bad guy.”

He clicked enter with a flourish and all the people in the room suddenly crowded around the main monitor as Tony changed the scenery in the training room. Tony grinned at Peter and he couldn’t help but return it.

---

You heard a sudden whirring noise mid-sentence and trailed off, looking to Steve with searching eyes. You both got up from your seats slowly, scanning the area for threats or changes when your gaze drifted upward and your eyes widened.

“Steve,” you breathed, pointing upwards and he followed your finger to look at the ceiling. He let out a tiny gasp that had you smiling. Above you, the ceiling panels faded from their usual white into a deep blue, almost black, colour, dotted with tiny shining stars. Dinner below the stars. They really couldn’t have made this more romantic if they tried.

The nerves from the beginning of the night seemed to hit you both like two freight trains.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say they were trying to set us up,” you joked with a half-hearted laugh, and Steve snapped his head to look at you with his eyes almost bulging out of his head.

“What makes you say that?”

His question was hardly a question and more of a demand and it had you backtracking quicker than you thought you were able.

“It was a joke, Steve! Jesus…”

Mentally, Steve slapped himself round the face. Twice. Little did he know, there were practically five simultaneous face palms going on elsewhere in the compound. His head screamed at him to fix it, fix it now.

“Wanna stargaze?”

It was your turn to look at him funny.

“Really?”

“Perfect end to the perfect night, right?”

You paused. Contemplated his words. The stark contrast between these words and the scared little child he’d sounded like just seconds before.

“Right.”

You lay down on your backs beside each other and stared up at the faux night sky above you. It was beautiful. Knowing it wasn’t real didn’t do anything to change that fact.

“You really think this will work, Mr Stark?”

“Just wait, kiddo.”

You hoped he couldn’t hear your heavy breathing and he hoped you couldn’t see his chest heaving up and down, up and down. Eyes may have been trained on the ceiling but the rest of your sense were anywhere but. Ears tuned in to tiny sounds of breath, of life nearby. Nose tuned in to Steve’s cologne, to your perfume. Swallowing thickly. Hands slightly clammy against the cold training room floor.

“They’re just lying there!”

“Give it a minute!”

You decided to murmur something you’d been meaning to say right from the beginning of the meal. Steve turned his head to face you.

“What was that?”

You sighed slightly, annoyed at having to repeat yourself, but you did it nonetheless. You wanted him to know. You turned too and tried desperately not to let your breath hitch at the close proximity.

“You are my favourite. Colleague, I mean.”

“I am?” he sounded genuinely surprised and it made you even more determined to reassure him.

“Of course you are, Steve. You’re-you’re basically my favourite person at this point.”

Your confession made you feel stupid and childish and foolish in every way but it was out there now and there was nothing to be done about that fact.

“You’re mine too. Favourite person, I mean.”

He echoed your delivery and you smiled at him, turning your head back to the ceiling.

“Good.”

“Or at least, second to Bucky,” he whispered quietly and you laughed loudly at him.

“Oh, you’re such an ass.”

The two of you laughed and Steve ripped his gaze from you and returned to the ceiling himself, picking a star to focus on.

“Mr Stark, this isn’t working!”

“Oh, fuck this.”

The intercom system pinged, indicating an incoming message and the two of you sat up from your position on the floor, looking at each other questionably.

“I didn’t want to have to do this, you imbeciles,” Tony began, his voice booming through the speakers in the room, “Read each other your letters. Now. That means the one in your back pocket, Y/N.”

The two of you were frozen in time as the ping sounded again and the room fell silent, except perhaps for a distinct and raucous laughter from somewhere nearby that sounded specifically like Shuri.

“You-” Steve gulped before he could continue, and you still looked like a deer in headlights, “You got a letter?”

The pieces fell into place in both your minds, slowly and methodically, the way jigsaw pieces do. Everything became obvious after a few moments of deduction. Said deduction didn’t particularly put either of your minds or hearts at rest, however and so, when you finally answered him, your voice was a little shaky.

“Yeah,” you pulled the letter from your back pocket, “I did.”

“We don’t need to read them then,” Steve ventured, “do we?”

“I think they’re the same.”

“I think so too.”

You stared at each other, a wonder and fondness in your eyes that had previously been stored in the dark depths of your minds that you didn’t share with anyone. Neither of you said anything. You couldn’t. Words failed you, expression failed you. One thing that never failed you? Steve.

It was all you could seem to think about. Everything you liked - loved - about him. And for the first time, you knew that he was thinking all the same things about you. You could see it. The thought alone was enough to make you shiver.

The ping sounded yet again.

“Kiss, fucking kiss!”

“Shuri!”

The second ping was the indicator that you and Steve needed to laugh, to break out of the reverie you’d placed each other under. You shuffled closer to him, using your hands seeing as you were still sat down. When you were close enough, you placed a hand on his chest, experimental, testing, brave.

He placed his own on your neck almost instantly, finding his own bravery in yours. His fingers traced your jaw lightly and you felt light-headed already.

“We should give them what they want,” you whispered, still leaning closer, so much closer, your other hand weaving up his chest and onto his shoulder, holding you up and him down all at once, “They did work hard for this to happen.”

“And I’ve been making puppy dog eyes at you for months,” Steve whispered back, his other hand resting firmly on your thigh, a little squeeze that sent electricity jolting through your very being, “So I think I deserve a show too.” “Oh you are such an-”

You couldn’t finish your sentence, even if you wanted to.

(eventually, Tony had to shut down the security cameras to the training room, as soon as the show you two put on became less sweet and more...scarring - Peter later told you it was like watching his mom and dad make out and while the two of you nearly died of embarrassment Tony laughed more than he should have)

[polar-stars]

PSD Quartet plz?

 Ofc, fellow PSD-Stan

Shun Ibusaki

Why I like them - I like how mysterious he is and it also adds great comedy how emotionless he always is when surrounded by the PSD-members who more than often get utilized for reaction shots and are therefore pretty expressive. I also loved seeing his hidden depth and ambitions, shame that there was no work done with it.

Why I don’t

Favorite episode (scene if movie) - Episode 23/Chapter 55 (AE Premlins), Chapter 96 (This is where he has the moment with Ryoko), Chapter 116 (That’s the Stagiare-Moment of his)

Favorite season/movie - Season 1

Favorite line - “Like hell I can give up! I’m turning things around…” (Chapter 116)

Favorite outfit - I’d say his “Prince of Smoke”-Outfit

OTP - Him x Ryoko Sakaki ❤️ 

Brotp - Him and the Rest of PSD, mainly Zenji Marui ofc. For someone outer-PSD: Akira Hayama and/or Ryo Kurokiba and him sound like a nice friendship.

Head Canon - His favorite song is “Bring Me Back To Life” by Evanescence, no you can’t change my mind on that. 

Unpopular opinion - uuuuUH, a few fanworks (x-Readers) tend to portray him as this straight-forward, smooth guy and I can’t really see that? He strikes me as a shy bean, who would be really unsure about confessing his love for a great amount of time.

A wish - I mean, it’s all over now but….It would have been nice if his obvious grudges from the Autumn Elections would have been explored with more depth. 

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen - Exactly what happened, he never got to do anything ever again ; 7 ;

5 words to best describe them - Silent, Mysterious, Stoic, Ambitious, Blunt

My nickname for them - “mop” ahhdhdGHG SORRY, I LOVE YOU SHUN

-

Ryoko Sakaki

Why I like them - Ryoko is just such a gentle and caring soul, how can you not like her? I like how mature she is in comparison to most of her classmates, but is still made out to be a person you can have fun with. She just has an insane amount of grace and elegance to her in all of her sophisticated calmness and I love her established role as big-sister-figure within the dorm and how it shows specifically when she interacts with Yuki and Megumi.

Why I don’t

Favorite episode (scene if movie) - Episode 23/Chapter 54 (AE Premlins), Chapter 63 (She helped out Soma for his Shokugeki against Alice and it was interesting seeing them interact o3o), Chapter 96 (This is where she had the moment with Shun)

Favorite season/movie - Season 1

Favorite line - “…is that what you’re thinking?” (Chapter 96)

Favorite outfit - hmmmMMM…Maybe that one dress she wears when Erina joins the dorm ovo?

OTP - Her and Shun

Brotp - Her and the PSD Members, most notably Yuki Yoshiko ofc. Outer-PSD, I’d say Ikumi Mito (+ Erina wether or not you count her into PSD)

Head Canon - Has shampoo that smells like cherry-blossoms and therefore carries the fragrance of cherry-blossoms around at all times. 

Unpopular opinion - Don’t oversexualise her please 🙃 Also in a few works, she tends to be portrayed as rather lewd or the girl who had everyone in their bed already, and I could never really see that. She kind off strikes me as someone who would want to “save herself up” for someone special so to speak and also needs a bit of time before agreeing to get physical.

A wish - Again, too late now but welp, it would have been great to see her cook again. 

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen - *mutters* the thing that happened…her never getting proper screen time again

5 words to best describe them - Mature. Calm. Friendly. Gentle. Patient.

My nickname for them - Meep, I like to call her a “Lady” but that’s it ;w;

-

Yuki Yoshino

Why I like them - How can one not like Yuki? She’s such an adorable, supportive, little sunshine girl! Her bubbliness and joyful attitude are just very endearing and it’s always massive fun to watch her. She also has a bunch of funny moments and I enjoy how overdramatic she can get sometimes. To me, she’s a very fun and lovable example of an energetic character. 

Why I don’t

Favorite episode (scene if movie) - Episode 22/Chapter 56 (AE Premlins, though I think her part was done better in the anime), Chapter 60 (First time of her crying, because bby didn’t made the AE and still she throws a party for her friendos afterwards…BBY), 70 + 69 (Her supportiveness for Megumi in her match with Ryo was just the cutest thing ever, change my mind) Chapter 141 (This is where she breaks down crying in-front of everyone), Also Chapter 63 because this is where she asks Zenji if his glasses are just for show and that’s ✨ OTP ✨(next in line for “Great OTP Moments” would be Episode 13/Chapter 28)

Favorite season/movie - Season 1

Favorite line - “I really don’t like this! I don’t want the Polar Star Dorm to be gone!! I wanted..to be with you guys and together….I…I wanted to, cook more with you!” (Chapter 141) + “We of the Polar Star are so fearsome even kids stop crying!” (Chapter 14)

Favorite outfit - Her “Red Riding Hood”-Outfit is hella cute, if it’s something casual I’d say this outfit from that one chapter cover

OTP - HER AND ZENJI MARUI, f O RE VER AND E VERRRRRRRRRR

Brotp - Her and PSD, most notably Ryoko Sakaki. Outer-PSD, Ikumi Mito and Alice Nakiri would be my picks (+ Erina Nakiri, depends on where you count her in -w-)…also hear me out……Her and Kuga. (Or her and Nene for my self-indulgence, hi)

Head Canon - She likes fruit-patterns, tropical fruit-patterns. Especially those with citrus-fruits. 

Unpopular opinion - Hm…I am sure there’s something, but idk as of now

A wish - preCIOUS BABY SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN THE REWARDS FOR THE TEARS SHE SHED. JUSTICE FOR YUKI MY FRIENDS. SHE ALWAYS SUPPORTED EVERYONE. I WAN T TO SEE HER SUCCEEED. 

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen - (I actually kinda like seeing her in the world of business in Les Dessert so kudos for that I think),  AHEAM her being reduced to a mere reaction character 

5 words to best describe them - Energetic. Spunky. Supportive. Childish. Overdramatic.

My nickname for them - Sunshine bby, Precious Sunflower

-

Zenji Marui

Why I like them - *deep breath* I like smart characters and his very role in Shokugeki is to be the smart guy, but there’s more to that…I like how he’s still shown to be a hard-worker who studies hard to survive in Totsuki’s harsh environment where he’s surrounded by natural geniuses and how he truly excels in the intellectual area. He’s also just great fun to watch wether he’s onto explaining something solemnly or greatly upset about something. I also do like the “Everybody’s-Doormat-Character” who complains about that status a lot because….that’s quite literally my life. Zenji is very relateable for me, because I too have to deal with people who never listen to me and I too am DAMN EASILY EXHAUSTED. Zenji has both serious moments and comedic moments and both work for me and I ju ST LOVE HIM SO MUCH. 

Why I don’t

Favorite episode (scene if movie) - CHAPTER 23/55 MY DUDES (AKA. AE PREMLINS) I GET EMOTIONAL EVERY SINGLE TIME, Chapter 152 (He has some damn nice panels in this, don’t judge me), Chapter 235 (listen, I also just get enjoyment out of my fave-glasses-person explaining the villainy of my other-fave-glasses-person, doNT JUDGE ME) also once again….Chapter 63 + Episode 13/Chaoter 28 because ✨ OTP Moments ✨

Favorite season/movie - Season 1

Favorite line - “I don’’t have an outstanding cooking sense, and my physical strength is below average. That’s exactly why I have a strong desire for ‘knowledge’. All so that an ordinary man like me can fight against all those geniuses!” (Best Chapter Chapter 55)

Favorite outfit - That one shirt he always wears I guess + his “Professor of Taste”-Outfit because he SMART !!

OTP - Him 👏 and 👏 Yuki 👏 Yoshino

Brotp - Him and PSD, most notably Shun Ibusaki. Outer-PSD, as I’ve said…I would have loved to see him interact with Alice Nakiri some more, given that I’d say they’re the smartest members in their Gen. Him and Hisako Arato also sounds like a nice duo. (Also hear me out, his interactions with Etsuya Eizan would be hilarious, I deserve to see t h a t. Someone give it to me, pls. Additionally…..Nene. Just give me the Glasses-Characters-Of-SNS-Spin-Off come on)

Head Canon - I’ll just pretend he also went into the world of business in Les Dessert, because he kind off does in SnKimiko as well….Try to Stop me. Fumio and him have occasional, but intense battles in chess.

Unpopular opinion - *DEEP BREATH* My son tends to get underestimated a lot and be brushed off as just a comic-relief and no-E10-Material and I just…..*sighs* People in the past, did consider Shun E10-Material and Zenji had the exact same score as Shun in the AE Premlins, so I can’t see why he shouldn’t have the same potential. I mean it doesn’t matter because we never got to see any of the two in the Elite 10 so meep, but I am just….sad about the fact that barely anyone is giving Zenji even a chance. 

A wish - *cries* I just wanted to see him cook again*

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen - *LOOKS STRAIGHT AT LES DESSERT 3 IN CONTEMPT*, (also honestly him (+ Daigo and Shoji) lusting after those two “hot” judges in RDC felt really out of place, out of character and just cringe…and I hate it.)

5 words to best describe them - Intelligent. Cautious. Calculated. Whiny. Serious. 

My nickname for them - NUMBER ONE SON

[theonewiththefanfics]

Hopelessly Devoted (one-shot)

Synopsys: The Reader has been in love with Steve for a while, but the only problem is- he’s with someone else. Bucky has been in love with the Reader for years, the only problem is- she doesn’t love him. But a night spent together at a gala might change people’s feelings.

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Genre: angst, fluff, SMUT

Warnings: SMUT; unprotected sex (gotta wrap it up before you do the devil’s tango), swearing and the usual stuff

Word count: 5771

   Y/N’s heart clenched as she looked at Steve, his hand intertwined with Dalia’s while they smiled at one another. She had been crushing on the Captain for almost four years but he obviously didn’t feel the same. But right at that same time, his best friend Bucky Barnes was giving Y/N the exact look as she curled up in Natasha’s side, the redhead lazily stroking the other woman’s hair.    Bucky sipped a bit more of his coffee, letting the bitter taste trickling down his throat match what he felt on the inside. The newest season of ‘Brooklyn 9-9’ was mindlessly playing on the big screen before a loud voice interrupted their peace.    “Listen up, jerks!” Tony’s voice boomed throughout the room. “In two days there is going to be a gala. Here in the tower, so you don’t have to be babies about not wanting to drive anywhere. It’s a black-tie event. All of you have to be there. We’re trying to make good with the public since you know... Sokovia... so please be nice. Thank you that is all.” And in a true Stark fashion, he sauntered away without taking any murmurs of protest into account.    "I really don’t wanna do this,” Y/N groaned pushing her head in the crook of Natasha’s neck, who gently patted her fellow Avenger's head.    “I know, sweetie, but hey- free booze and food!”    “It’s not like we pay for our stuff anyways. Everything is on Tony’s credit card,” the Y/H/C haired girl replied before pushing off the couch and making her way into the kitchen where Bucky was sitting by the countertop on a barstool.    His blue gaze followed every single move of hers, but most importantly how the muscles scrunched up her face in disgust.    “Not a fan of parties?” Bucky chuckled, handing Y/N her favourite mug.    “Not a fan of getting ready, not being able to stay in my PJs and having to wear heels that make my legs look fucking amazing while at the same time wishing I could just cut my feet off.”    He snorted, shaking his head and taking a big gulp of coffee.    “You sure it has nothing to do with those two?” Bucky pointed at Steve and his blonde girlfriend. In an already sour mood, Y/N flipped the man off. Obviously, he didn’t take it to heart, but then an idea popped into his head when he heard her mutter a quiet ‘what if it is?’.    “Do you want to go with me?” Bucky asked, his eyes defiantly looking at how the spoon made his drink swirl.

   “To the gala? Like together? As dates?”    “We don’t have to,” he was quick to interject. Maybe too quick, for his own liking, the fear of saying how he felt acting for him. “We can go as friends though. And still, you’d be able to show what that punk is missing out on. Get glammed up, look like an absolute princess and make the idiot realise what has always been right in front of him.”    Y/N grasped his palm, squeezing the ex-Winter Soldier’s fingers. “I’d like that. Thank you, Buck.”    A tightlipped smile was what she got as an answer, but even the small gesture had set her heart stuttering. And Y/N had no idea why.

***

   He fidgeted with his cufflink, so unaccustomed to wearing fancy clothes. Bucky was more of sweats and a shirt or jeans and a leather jacket type of a guy, but there was a difference when Tony Stark threw a gala or a party where people got hammered.    Standing by Y/N’s door his nerves got the best of him. Yes, he had offered to make Steve jealous, but for him, this was an opportunity to spend more time with the gorgeous Avenger. Three years he had been in love with the girl. They had met a few days after he’d become an official part of the team. She was on a solo mission somewhere in Guam and when the blood, dirt and all sorts of grime covered woman entered the common room floor, cheers erupting all around making her widely grin, Bucky was done for it. Just like he was in the moment she opened her door.    He couldn’t help the fact his jaw hung open. Y/N looked absolutely stunning, the deep blue gown hugged her form and it looked like a sea in the storm with every step she took. The back had a deep plunge and there would be little possibility of him keeping things modest as the opening ended just above the curve of her spine.    “You look absolutely magnificent,” he breathed out as Y/N stood before him, a palm clutching her small handbag.    “And you look like you just stepped out of a Hugo Boss ad,” she replied with a smile letting her eyes roam over Bucky’s form, but most importantly his face for it was no longer concealed by the dark brown locks. Instead, he’d gotten a haircut, quite similar to that of what he had in the photos. From back in the day. Slicked back hair, jaw shaved and back straight- there was no doubt in the girl’s mind he’d been a ladies man.    The deep rumble in his chest was a complimentary sound to that of his wide grin.    “Shall we?” he extended Y/N his elbow in a true gentleman fashion and with a mock curtsy she linked her arm through his.    The gentle music could be heard even two floors above and it encased them like a blanket when the two Avengers stepped out of the elevator. The tower had been completely redone. Or at least it looked that way, the two giant chandeliers that hung from the ceiling casting a yellowish glow over everything, while usually, the place was darker, made perfect for their movie nights.    A loud whistle came from their side, the pair’s heads whipping in sync as they saw Nat, body covered in a gleaming emerald dress striding towards them.    “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say my friend has been kidnapped and an impersonator has arrived in her place.”    Y/N went to jab her in the side, but missed, a small smile playing on her lips.    “You calling me ugly, Romanoff?”    “I’m calling you not a fan of attention yet here we are.”    That confused the girl, but her question was answered when Y/E/C eyes looked around the room, seeing everybody’s gaze settle on her. Some men’s were so predatory it made her squirm in place. Nat immediately noted how uncomfortable she felt, but the way Bucky’s jaw clenched told her, Y/N would be fine. There was no way in hell, he’d let her out of his sights.    “Made quite the entrance,” she purred in her ear before sauntering away and towards a smirking Tony.    “I need a drink,” Y/N mumbled, Bucky immediately having picked up on the words and leading them towards the bar. “Scratch that- I need like ten.”    “This is a fancy event, Y/N. You really want me to carry you upstairs?”    “Just leave me somewhere on the floor, no real need to do that,” she laughingly retorted as the bartender passed her the gin and tonic.    “No can do. If my best girl gets drunk you can be positive I’ll make sure she gets home safely. Don’t care if it’s two floors up, two blocks away or a two-hour drive.”    Bucky was grinning at the woman right until he realised what he had said.    “I’m your best girl, huh?” there was a smirk on her face, but underneath that, he saw a mix of emotions swirling. It was hard to decipher what exactly was going on in her mind, especially when he thought he saw a flash of happiness gleam through.    “I mean,” the man searched for words, but Y/N stopped his erratic heartbeat with just the touch of her palm on his. Literally, he felt his heart stop, blood freezing in his veins.    “It’s fine. It’s actually kinda… nice… makes me feel special.”    He wanted to reply with a definite ‘you are special’, but kept the words on the tip of his tongue not letting them slip past his lips. He’d already incriminated too much of himself.    “Come, let’s dance,” Bucky downed the rest of his drink and extended his hand for Y/N to grasp.    And she accepted right away. The night trailed on, but there was a moment, right when a more modern song had been put on and the metal-armed super soldier twirled her around, a wide grin splitting his face in half, Y/N found herself dumbfounded as not even for a second had she thought about Steve that evening. Yes, Bucky had said that originally they had gone as friends and she could use it as an opportunity to show his best friend what he was missing out on, but instead, Y/N was immensely enjoying the night by the brunet’s side, the laughter never ceasing. Until her eyes caught the glimpse of Dalia, snuggly sitting in Steve’s lap while his hands trailed up and down her sides. Bucky had gone off to get the pair something to quench their dry throats and Y/N took it as her opportunity to become invisible, slipping out onto the restricted section of the landing pad. Restricted to others, not the Avengers.    She looked at New York, the bright lights making the sky turn an orange hue, not a shimmering star peeking through. Y/N took a deep breath and exhaled, shoulders slumping forward as the girl leaned against the glass panel which allowed her not to fall.    “You disappeared,” Bucky’s low voice invaded the quiet of the balcony. Well, as quiet as you could get in New York. Y/N looked back at the man. He stood by the door aisle, arms crossed while his gaze simply trailed over her figure. It made her shiver and she had to break away from the intensity of his eyes.    “Just needed some air. It gets quite stuffy when there are hundreds of people around.”    Bucky scoffed but masked it as a chuckle. “And it had nothing to do with the fact Steve was being all lovey-dovey with Dalia?”    Y/N stuck her tongue out but it was a halfhearted attempt to hide her true reason for ditching the party. A silence settled over the pair, Bucky having walked over to the railing, leaning against it on his elbows, but he kept a little bit of a distance. After all, they had come as friends, even though he wished nothing more to warp the girl in his embrace any time he craved and to have her respond the same way.    “Am I a fool?” Y/N’s voice was soft as the words passed her lips.    “Why would you think that way?”    “For pining after somebody who clearly isn’t even remotely interested in me, hoping that maybe they’d notice even though it breaks my heart every time they don’t?”    Bucky wanted to laugh how perfectly her words described his own situation, but the way his heart clenched was a reminder, that he was also helplessly in love with a girl whose heart belonged to someone else.    “I think you can’t control your feelings,” with a sad look he flitted his gaze over at the girl who kept on peering into the night sky. “You didn’t mean to fall for him. I think you can choose your friends, you can choose your family, but the one thing that is out of everybody’s hands is who you love. That’s the hearts and only her decision.”    Y/N finally turned her head to face Bucky. “When did you become so wise?”    “Maybe I’ve always been that way.”    Their eyes locked, piercing blue with her sparkling Y/E/C ones. Unconsciously the pair had started to lean in, bodies moving on their own accord, two magnets having found their opposite. It was when their noses brushed against one another Y/N noted she was barely breathing and took a shuddering breath, yet still not fully snapping out of the trance.    A gentle palm, rugged but the touch utmost caring, cupped the girl’s cheek as Bucky searched for any sign that she didn’t want this, and when the super soldier found none, he softly pressed their lips together. Y/N melted against him, her fingers weaving through his hair pulling and tugging in places making him groan into her mouth. The response he got was an even harder kiss as she seemed eager to hear the sound again.    The cold winds whipped around them, but both felt hot like a forest fire was raging through their veins. Bucky’s grip on her hips was bruising, and she knew there would be marks left for her to find the next day, but somehow, Y/N cared about nothing but the feel of him against her body.    But the kiss was over almost as quickly as it came to be. The two completely and utterly shocked about what had happened. When Bucky opened his mouth to say something, a loud noise from behind startled the pair, their heads whipping around to see Tony.    “Sorry to interrupt whatever this is,” he pointed between the two, “but Y/N we need you on a mission. ASAP. Like right this second. There’s a jet ready and you have to go. Sorry.”    The look on the billionaire's face was serious, so with one last glance at the brunet soldier, the woman picked up the front of her gown and rushed off leaving Bucky cold and alone on the balcony.

***

   The morning after the gala, Bucky was in a weird mood. He’d kissed Y/N, he’d kissed the woman he’d been in love with for almost half a decade and she had reciprocated. The man’s knees had almost bucked when her fingers had woven through his hair, tugging in places, as if she needed to be closer to him. But then that stupid mission had come up, Stark having burst onto the scene a second after they had pulled away and made Y/N step onto a jet to who knows where.    Entering the kitchen blue orbs saw his best friend, yet the girl who was always by his side was nowhere to be seen.    “Where’s Dalia?” Bucky asked, not seeing the blonde by the counter as she usually shared her morning coffee with Steve.    The Captain deeply exhaled before replying. “We broke up.”    Bucky almost choked on the piece of bacon he had snatched from the pan. “What? Why?”    “Remember that gala, the one Tony threw two weeks ago?”    Bucky nodded, mind carefully selecting the emotions he was going to show. He hadn’t been able to talk to the girl how greatly the kiss had affected him, nor was he able to ask if what he had felt was real. If that had been the champagne in her system or was he delusional thinking that emotions were involved.    “She said I spent too much time eyeing Y/N. Threw a fit in the cab. Said I was obviously involved with someone else since I couldn’t keep my face together when I saw her. I'm a shit liar apparently.”    Blood rushed to Bucky’s head as the jealousy made him see red. But he pushed it down. This is what Y/N would want. He had suggested the idea, but now it might have worked and she could get what she wanted.    “Were you though?” he questioned further, scraping the eggs along the pan. “Paying more attention to Y/N than her?”    “I mean you can’t deny she looked stunning. No one had seen her so dressed up and I guess, inadvertently I did. She’s a beautiful girl, without a doubt, but that laugh… she reminded me so much of Peggy, so much of that confidence she exuded and the strength…”    The brunet hummed, mind reeling with the newfound information. He was desperate to talk to Y/N, but she was away on a mission. The girl was supposed to get back sometime that day, but every minute was almost agonising. Most importantly- she’d find out Steve was single and Bucky was afraid that the kiss they had shared had been his only chance. And he had blown it.

***

   Bucky was fidgety throughout the entire movie. And it was four hours long. When FRIDAY finally turned on the lights and people started to drag themselves to their respective rooms it was like he could take a breath. The fact that it was already past midnight and Y/N had not given a single message of her progress was nagging at Bucky, but the rest seemed calm, so he just sat tight and waited.    Also, having lost a bet to Sam who could make Steve more annoyed, he was stuck on dish-duty, but it was a good thing. His mind was able to worry about Y/N without any other distraction apart from the racing of his heart any thought of the woman induced.    The soft sound of the elevator hissing open took away Bucky’s attention. Looking over his shoulder he expected it to be Nat or even Sam, having forgotten something or just needing another cup of coffee, but instead, a tired looking Y/N exited.    His face visibly lit up as she stalked towards him, the duffle bag hitting the floor with an audible thud.    “Hey…” Bucky’s arms wrapped around Y/N’s body, the touch careful afraid she might have gotten hurt during the mission, but with how much strength she put in her own muscles, to tighten her grip around his neck, it seemed to him she was quite alright.    “Hi…” her reply was breathless, the feeling of safety and content weaving its way into her body. “Why are you still awake?” Y/N asked, concern making her forehead crease. “Did you have another nightmare?”    “No,” Bucky shook his head, a small smile on his lips. “We just finished movie night and I was left to do the dishes.”    “I thought it was Sam’s week.”    “Yeah, well… I lost a bet, so…”    Y/N snorted making her way to the kitchen and taking a glass, filling it up with water and chugging it in a span of three seconds.    “How was the mission?” Bucky asked, blue eyes looking at the girl, as she went over to the fridge and fumbled for some food. He saw her shrug in response.    “Fine. Took a bad hit while escaping, but nothing that Tony’s nanotech couldn’t fix on the way over. How are you?”    “I- I’m good. Was worried about you. When Stark sprung it on like that, it must’ve been a really tough one….” he trailed off. “I really th-“ but Bucky was cut off mid-sentence as FRIDAY’s female voice butted in.    “Your ship’s log has been processed and it turns out you haven’t slept in two days, Miss Y/L/N.”    Y/N bit her lip as to not snort at the motherly tone of the A.I. and at Bucky’s disappointed face.    “Bed, doll,” he said. “Now.”    With a roll of her eyes, the girl stood up from her stool and slung her duffle bag over her shoulder.    “Night, Buck.”    He let the blue gaze trail after her until Y/N’s form disappeared behind the corner.    “Night, doll."

***

   Even though Y/N was home safe and sound a different kind of worry ate at the super soldier. He had to be the one to break the news of Steves split. Yes, it was his best friend’s relationship, but the brunet was fairly certain that the girl would like to know from her co-conspirator. So when she hadn’t shown up for breakfast in the morning, nor lunch, nor dinner he decided to wake up his crush with a meal in bed the next day.    “Morning, doll,” Bucky mumbled pushing a strand of hair out of Y/N’s face after he had lightly tiptoed into her room and closed the door with an inaudible click.    A prominent groan escaped her throat and she opened one eye. “What time is it?”    “Seven.”    “Seven? Yeah, no, I don’t deal with single digit numbers, goodnight.”    “Love, you’ve been asleep for twenty-nine hours. You gotta eat something.”    “I’ll eat when I’m dead.”    A snort escaped the super soldier when he heard Y/N’s grumbled response, but none the less he persisted.    “Isn’t it ‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead’? Doll, come on. Breakfast’s ready.”    Finally, with a deeply dissatisfied look on her face and a groan, she turned around in her cocoon of blankets. Only her face was visible, nose sniffing the air as the sweet scent of pancakes and raspberry jam enter her nostrils, accompanied by the bitterness of freshly brewed coffee. Despite her efforts to look pissed at Bucky for waking her up, Y/N’s features softened and she gave him a small smile. And by the growling of her stomach, it seemed to agree with the hundred-year-old man.    His laughter was deep and seeped into Y/N’s bones as she untangled herself from the white bedsheets and sat up, comfort overtaking the room. Bucky took the tray he had set on her nightstand and placed in the girl’s lap.    “Okay, you and Steve might be super soldiers, but I’m not. I can’t eat this much.”    The man wiggled his brows in response as he revealed another fork hiding underneath the napkins. “Good thing I’m here then.”    Together they sat against the headboard of Y/N’s bed and ate. The clinking of utensils and hums of content were the only sounds in her room for a good while. She felt safe with Bucky, that was a prominent thing the girl noted. She felt like there was no need to pretend or hide what she truly thought. And he was definitely a sight for sore eyes.    Y/E/C orbs peeked at his face, while he concentrated on the taste of coffee. He’d brushed the hair away, this time without any products, longer strands still slipping into his eyes, yet the chiselled jaw was now covered in a stubble instead of being smoothly shaven. He looked gorgeous and Y/N’s heart suddenly started to thud a bit faster.    “Steve broke up with Dalia,” the words were uttered quietly, and in an instant, a tense silence settled over the two people.    “What? When?” that took the girl out of the moment.    Bucky sighed, intertwining his fingers, the metal rubbing across his other thumb. “Right after the party. Apparently, she didn’t like the fact he had been paying too much attention to you that night.”    It was out there, and he couldn’t take it back. The sound of a heart shattering is silent, but Bucky felt like his created the same amount of noise as an explosion would, leaving a gaping, bleeding wound in its wake. He was terrified to look away from his clasped hands, to see the happiness and glee written all over Y/N’s features when he was doomed to be alone for the rest of his life. Yet when he did glance upwards her shocked, but mostly blank face made Bucky frown.    “Isn’t that what you wanted?” he questioned, feeling his heart clench.    “I- yeah, but I- I never wanted to be the reason they broke up, not like this. But now...”    She looked to the side at Bucky, eyes immediately falling to his lips. The man’s breath hitched seeing it settle there.    “Now?”    “Now I don’t think I wanted them to break up at all,” she finally flitted her gaze back to his orbs, holding it for a few seconds, but Y/N couldn’t find the words so instead she leaned over, pulling their mouths together and straddling his lap. Instantly Bucky melted against her, arms securing her back and feeling bold he gripped her butt, giving it a squeeze. She moaned into his mouth before pulling away.        “Because of that.”    Blue eyes, wonder, disbelief and awe shining through them kept looking into Y/N’s Y/E/C ones.    “Please, tell me you really want this, that you want me,” Bucky’s voice cracked. “I couldn’t take it if your heart isn’t truly in it.”    Vigorously she shook her head, pressing their foreheads together, fingers weaving through the dark-haired man’s long lock.    “I- I don’t want Steve. I,” Y/N huffed searching for the right words. “I guess I always felt a certain way towards him because he was the first person to ever look at me like I belonged here. Like an equal. And I fixated onto that. I was scared that nobody else would see me, see that I had value. I don’t have amazing powers, just my brain, maybe a little brawl… that’s it…  But that night at the gala. I- you were the only one I could think of. Steve didn’t enter my mind once. I was so happy with you. And when you kissed me I couldn’t help but wish it was because you wanted to do that, not because you felt obliged to help me out with that ‘make him jealous’ thing.”    Y/N kept her gaze onto Bucky whose palms had settled onto her hips, her plain shirt having ridden up, allowing the man to trace invisible patterns with his thumbs onto the exposed skin.    “I’ve had some time to think about everything. Being away for the two weeks was actually a good thing because it made me reevaluate my life and what I want.”    “And what do you want?” Bucky asked, tightening his hold, afraid she’d slip out of his arms like smoke into the air. He didn't get the answer he expected but certainly wished for.    The kiss was filled with passion, frustration, feelings of inadequacy and most importantly love. As their lips moved together, a dance they slowly became experts in, Bucky had lifted her shirt over her head and settled his hands onto her hips, grinding up his crotch, to her core. A strangled moan made its way into his mouth and the man ate it up like it was a five-course meal, begging for more.    Bucky’s mind had been so preoccupied with the feel of Y/N’s hot skin moving against his, her laboured breathing and the delicious sounds her throat made, only now did he note the tightness in his pants that was becoming very uncomfortable. To get some sort of friction he rolled his hips again and Y/N detached her lips, throwing her head back in pleasure. Blue eyes watched in awe as the girl relished in the sensations overtaking her body.    “I love you, doll. Let me make you feel good,” he licked up a long stripe from the hollow of her neck to her ear. “Let me make you swim between the stars.”    Y/N let out a high-pitched whine and sighed his name, making his erection painfully twitch in its confinement. It wasn’t too gentlemanly of Bucky to groan in her ear and whisper profanities, but he just needed to feel her, needed to have her wrapped around him in every possible way, that the manners he’d possessed during the forties completely evaporated. Of course, if there was even a whisper of how she didn’t want to continue he’d stop on the spot, but her soft nips at his collarbone told him otherwise.    “You’re wearing too many clothes, Buck,” her words came out growl-like and the man couldn’t help the excitement that rushed through him.    “Then I guess you gotta remedy that.”    Y/E/C eyes narrowed in on him and she bit the corner of her lip. “Fine,” Y/N said right before her fingers grasped onto the collar of his shirt and ripped it clean down the middle.    “Fuck,” was the only word Bucky managed to rake his brains for, his already lust-blown pupils dilating so much there was no visible trace of the blue they usually sported. He left a trail of sloppy kisses down Y/N’s shoulder, over her collarbone and settled himself in the valley of her breasts while she desperately tried to rid him of the torn piece of fabric.    When his arms were finally free, completely able to envelop her in his touch, the cold metal sent a shiver up her spine while his hot skin soothed the unexpected sensation. Their kisses didn’t stop, mouths separating for a second to pull some oxygen into their lungs before resuming the breathless dance.    Bucky grasped onto her duvet and flung it out of the way, the soft cover making it harder for the man to follow Y/N as she made her way up the bed to lean against her plush pillows. Trembling arms pressed right next to her head, desperately trying to keep the man from crushing her, but it seemed like the wrong thing to do.    A harsh yank against the nape of his neck and Bucky was fully pressed to Y/N, her legs locking around the man’s hips.    “You keep doing that and well have an unfortunate situation here,” he warned when the girl ground up against him, her heat needing some friction, some sort of release.    “If I don’t keep doing that I’ll have an unfortunate situation where I have to finish things myself."    “Impatient are we?” Bucky mumbled before starting his assault on her breasts. He sucked and bit at the mounds, Y/N’s back arching up in pleasure while nimble fingers made quick work of her sleep shorts a palm slipping between her thighs.    “You are soaked,” they were words of admiration and pride- he’d gotten her to this point. It was his doing, how her body was writhing underneath his, searching for ecstasy. She let a guttural sound into the air as two long fingers rubbed around at her entrance before sliding in without any problems, her arousal making everything almost effortless.    Bucky set a slow pace, allowing Y/N to feel every push and pull, every curl of his fingertips and the flicks of his thumb against her clit. Her face was adorned by a blissful smile as she continuously whispered his name.    He worked her like that for quite a few minutes, before a sudden change in pace. With lips still attached to one of her nipples, Bucky pushed another finger into her. Y/N’s eyes sprung open before rolling to the back of her head, palms grasping at his hair which he took as a sign- the harsher the tug, the closer she was. But the soldier hadn’t found what he was looking for.    “Where is it,” he mainly muttered to himself, but the girl looked over at him, concern flashing over her features. She was just about to ask what was wrong when all the air was punched out of her, a wicked grin settling on Bucky’s face at her reaction.    “That’s the spot? Right there? Feels good, sweetheart?” Y/N’s only answer was a moan, the coil in her abdomen tightening and tightening until there was nothing left and she had to let go. Her nails dug deeply into his shoulders, some places breaking the skin, but Bucky was relentless, helping her through the orgasm and then some as her legs shook. Gentle palms soothed her outer thighs and he left a kiss everywhere a love bite sat on her chest before connecting their lips.    A hand settled on Bucky’s hip, tugging down his sweats and the boxers underneath.    “Insatiable woman,” he muttered into her mouth before dropping the annoying clothes on the ground, both people completely naked now. A groan of relief rolled off of the man’s tongue as his rock hard member was no longer constricted and instead it slapped against his abdomen.    “One word and we stop,” Y/N’s voice had a hint of innocence like she wasn’t the devil incarnate and Bucky had to slap her thigh in response. She pointed a finger at him, mouth pursed in a tight line    “Behave, you caveman,” but amusement shone through as he rolled his eyes and leaned down, pressing his forehead tightly to hers.    “Ready doll?” it was whispered with trembling lips as Bucky coated himself in her slick, the warm feel already too much to handle. He slid a few more times up and down, nudging his tip against her clit before lining up and entering Y/N. Never had he used as much strength in his life as Bucky did holding himself off from exploding.    She was tight, so unbelievably tight, squeezing and pulsing all around, the only thing he could see was white. Her voice brought him back, pleading for him to move, to do something as she desperately tried to move her hips.    A primal instinct kicked in as Bucky thrust down, completely bottoming out and going back up barely leaving his tip in before slamming again. Y/N was a mess underneath him and the ex-assassin was in love with the sight, with the breathless moans and needy whispers of his name, with the feel of how perfectly she fit around him, hugging every pulsing vein and ridge, but most importantly with her.    It didn’t take long to bring Y/N to the edge once more and Bucky was glad because there was no way he’d be able to keep things together for much longer.    “Cum, doll. Come on, I got you,” he murmured in the girl’s neck before leaning up and biting her earlobe, pulling the skin between his teeth. “You’re being so good to me. Come on, sweetheart.”    She was whimpering uncontrollably and with two more thrusts from Bucky, she shattered. It was everything and nothing all at once. Y/N’s fingers dug deep into his back, scratching, trying to find purchase all the while not feeling a thing. Her spine arched all the way up, their chests pressed together so tightly not an ant could crawl between them, sweat covered skin gleaming in the morning light.    Nothing but pleasure existed. Bucky had promised to make her swim between the stars, yet he had not expected to practically lose consciousness himself. With his mouth hanging open, eyes squeezed shut he emptied himself inside of the girl. It took every muscle, every ounce of brainpower he had left to not just drop dead on her, the super soldier ’s body completely and utterly wrecked.    Y/N spasmed under him, face hidden in the crook of his neck, trying to regain some sort of control and composure, but when Bucky weakly pulled out, collapsing by her side and instantly dragging her to his chest, she relented, drifting off to sleep in an instant. He chuckled, hearing the soft snores she’d been emitting only an hour ago, listening to her gentle breathing and feeling how his heart slowed down to match the beat of her.    He was hopelessly in love. And right before Y/N slipped under, body blissfully exhausted, the girl realised- so was she.

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A/N: I’m so mad at Article 13!!!!! Like seriously- as a person living in the EU this is not copyright law- this is blatantly taking away creative freedom from people who base their work on already existing materials- fanart, fanfic, covers etc. It’s insane people actually think this will do good. Fuck all of those assholes who voted yes.

P.S. please tell me what you think :)

P.S.S. if you wanna be tagged in future stories or have any requests, drop a message :)

P.S.S.S. please don’t repost without credit :)

[aesthetic-survivor-of-twd]

Episode 4 Trailer Analysis

Okay so first off, because Tumblr has a maximum of 10 screenshots per post i’m only going to be able to show the images that I feel are most important to show with a visual reference, and then explain the other scenes purely with text (so you may need to rewatch the trailer to understand wtf i’m referring to at some points, my apologies for that).

I’m gonna do my damnedest to keep everything in order, so let’s begin.

(This turned out to be really long, so i’m hiding it under a spoiler bar - my apologies ^_^;)

1) The Beginning

Okay, so in this picture we see Clem and AJ running from the boat which seems to have somewhat crashed into the dock after the explosion. Which makes sense given the proximity.

The reason I believe this image to be important is because it debunks the theory that any of the characters (at least Clem and AJ) end up falling overboard into the water after the explosion.

It seems that the episode is going to start with us directly after the chaos of episode 3 and we are going to need to QTE our asses out of the ship in Act 1 where we will be thrown into action right away.

You’ll notice that we can’t see Tenn, James (if he survived), ect with us during our escape. 2 people that most likely would be running out with us given that we were within the same location as each other during the explosion.

So I feel like they either were in front of us out of frame here, or they maybe did fall overboard and when we see them later on it’s because they’ve washed up on land.

Some people believe this to be a bridge Clem is jumping over, but i’m personally skeptical about that.

If anything, I think this is a hole created on the ship after the explosion which we need to jump over to escape. The wooden flooring has been broken away by something that must have exploded, because it doesn’t look like a normal hole created by rotten wood throughout the years. Plus, if you look behind Clem, there is a wooden structure with panelling that seems similar to the walls within the ship.

Also, notice how tall the bridge must be after this scene when we get a bird’s eye view of Clem leaping over the hole and seeing the water beneath her.

If you look back to previous episodes as well as the map Marlon shows us in episode 1 (which I would provide here if not for the 10 screencap limit) you will notice that the only bodies of water other than the ocean/bigass river off the edge of the map, is smaller bodies of river or streams.

Any time we have seen a bridge in this game it’s been a small one above a stream of some kind (even the title screen for ep4 with Clem’s hat seems to be a small bridge like the one near the fishing shack).

To have a bridge this big, we would have to travelling far off to the left side of the map beyond the ship, and I can’t see any bridges in that direction given how big the body of water is there (or maybe Marlon is just shit at drawing water to scale lmao).

Also you can see land in the background that seems similar to the hills Clem, AJ, Willy and Louis/Violet were spying at the Delta from.

Okay, so this one does seem to give more of a bridge vibe with the metal structures (reminds me of S2 Ep2), but i’m still going to assume it’s the ship for now since we haven’t really got any other reason to assume it’s a bridge beyond a bridge being a focus point in the title screen (which btw, I wouldn’t get too heavily focused on since the previous title screens haven’t been too literal either with their subject matter and have mostly been used to represent the episode in general - like ep3 being a view from a porthole in a boat to represent the Delta ship, ect).

Notice the reflection of the water is bright orange as well.

That’s not just a reflection of a setting sun or something, that’s a light source close to the water - something on fire.

And there’s no way a shit ton of walkers would be crowding the middle of the water unless they were drawn to a loud noise. Like they are determined creatures, but there has to be something big that happened in order to provoke them into water where they can barely even move.

Okay so more related to Act 1 which I can’t drop screenshots for (so you may need to watch the trailer again.)

Okay so this is the point where my huge wall of text from above may fall flat, and I could be 100% wrong depending on the context of this scene (In which case if I am, then i’m gonna do my best to forget this analysis ever happened after the episode drops lmao).

At the very beginning of the trailer we see Clem waking up from where it seems to be the dock instead of the actual boat itself.

This implies that the beginning of the episode actually happens OFF of the boat as opposed to on it like I mentioned above (which could also make sense given Clem was literally near the railing of the boat when the explosion happened).

BUT typical to the usual Twdg trailer fashion, we can’t 100% assume that’s what actually happened since the person making these trailers is insanely good at piecing stuff together in a way that fucks with your perception of events.

So it could mean practically anything. Here are a few basic theories:

1) Clem wakes up on the dock at the beginning of ep1 and then rushes back on the ship to find AJ or something. Because there has to be some reason her and AJ are running from the boat that close - because Clem definitely didn’t wake up that close to the boat as if you rewatch the beginning of the trailer, when Clem looks up to see the walker the ground isn’t wooden - it’s gravel. And if you look at my first screenshot you will see it’s the EXACT same terrain outside of the dock. Which means Clem is on the ground at the start of the dock.

So either Clem went BACK to the ship, or she and AJ already escaped from it which means:

2) Another explosion happens (either the boat or a grenade) and Clem gets knocked to the ground not long after her and AJ flee the ship. You’ll notice that Clem doesn’t “wake up” from the explosion as if she passed out and that the scene is shot in a way as if she just toppled over from impact and is now looking up directly after it and seeing the smoke.

What helps make this more credible is that the split second before the trailer cuts away from the scene of her and AJ running from the boat, you’ll notice that the explosion catches up to them at the exact moment Clem makes it from the dock to the gravel area of the ground (where we see her “wake up” at the beginning). 

You can see Clem reaching for AJ but not exactly grabbing him in time as it happens - which is why AJ isn’t there at the beginning with her.

LILLY APPEARS!

Okay so obviously this is determinant depending on your choices from the previous ep (AKA, why i’m fucked this episode lmao). But as you can see in the trailer, we get a bit of a showdown between her and Clem.

I think it’s safe to assume that this takes place near the boat in Act 1 as well, however you can see AJ right next to Clem so it can’t be directly after the beginning of the trailer. It must be a good few minutes afterwards when we get AJ again.

Not really much else to say about it, besides the fact that episode 4 definitely seems to be throwing us into frantic QTE spamming at the very start for a change of pace.

Our baby boys, Tenn and AJ have been caught within the sight of walkers and shit’s getting more real.

This in my opinion, seems to be happening a little bit more to the side of the dock (so close to the boat still, but maybe closer to where Willy went sailing with the supplies if you told him to take them).

I feel like this all happens AFTER the (potential) Lilly confrontation and when we are now just trying to high tail it out of the dock and away from the Delta.

AJ at some point seems to run up and stick with Tenn to protect him and it seems that the both of them only now just realize how many walkers are getting drawn to them.

At this point, this is probably where we as Clem have the moment of using the bow and arrow to shoot at them OR this is where Minnie steps in since her brother is in danger (which might lead to a potential Minnie redemption that i’m not entirely certain of given how a lot of the Delta still seem alive - so she might still be after us, especially if this is Act 1)

You see a few shots of the Delta members still alive, but the thing I find interesting about this screenshot in particular is that it’s the area from which the docks/gravel lead to the woods.

This also seems to be from a similar location where the grenade gets thrown and Clem protects AJ as a barrel explodes.

I think this either might be closer to the end of Act 1 or at the very least, the end of the “boat area” as we are nearing the woods, where the rest of the trailer seems to be located.

So I think this entire scene is literally us escaping into the woods OR where we end up in that cave together which explains why we have Tenn with us (as well as James potentially). The cave would make most sense as well given that the only rocky area where a cave could work is near the dock where they have those big rocky cliffs.

I think what backs up the possibility of the cave being close is that you can see behind the walkers some trees (so it’s in the woods most likely but I don’t think it’s too far from the docks).

The 3/4 of us most likely run into this cave to avoid the Delta, but the walkers sniff us out and end up following us in here as well.

So now we have Clem, AJ, Tenn and James(?) running through the tunnels of the cave most likely (assuming it IS near the cliffs, then there is a good chance that much like in real life there will be another passageway further into the cave that leads out somewhere.)

I’m not gonna post the picture of James since we’ve all seen it and I need to save screenshot space lol but the cut on his hand definitely isn’t anything like a walker bite or anything. I think everyone is theorising about it and honestly, I don’t really have anything new to add to it ^^;

BUT something not many people have mentioned yet is the scene of him dropping his mask to the ground.

I don’t know if I 100% buy him sacrificing himself by cutting his hand to attract the walkers to him or not, but if that IS what’s happening. The dropping of his walker mask would also be a nice way to subtly symbolise that happening as well.

Alternatively, maybe he drops it to the ground as we all sit in the cave and take a short break from all the madness.

I feel like this will be the moment where James goes off about AJ killing Lilly and where we might get a little bit of team drama going on - which then later gets cut off by the walkers entering the cave and us needing to escape.

(ASDFGHJKL MY HEART)

Okay so this is very clearly set in the woods.

I think this is when we escape the cave and we end up travelling through the woods keeping a lookout for the Delta.

If you chose Louis, then we will bump into him now and as you can see from the animated clip, that it seems like AJ goes up and hugs him first and then Clem hugs him (ayyy ninja family hug).

I have a feeling that Louis might actually be alone here.

Given that Omar is probably still sorta injured, I wouldn’t be too surprised if Aasim took him back to the boarding school (which would also make sense since in Violet’s route we also have an injured Louis with them - so it would only make sense for Aasim and Omar to be gone at this point either way).

I have a feeling that when Louis, Aasim and Omar left the boat, Louis probably told them to go on ahead while he looked for Clem. Especially since in his route he seems really hesitant about Clem going off to save Lilly herself after they all escape from their cells. I can’t see him at this point in time just leaving her, regardless of how badass Clem is.

(Unless Aasim and Omar are just out of frame - but I doubt it).

Also, not that anyone probably doubted it but I intentionally took a screenshot before Clem hugs him just to show that this scene is definitely during Louis’s route since in the screencaps where Clem hugs him you can’t actually see Louis’s mouth (where he would be bleeding if it was Violet’s route).

OKAY SO THIS IS OUT OF ORDER.

This scene should technically be near the top since it seems like the boat has sank even further at this point and we can see Clem and Violet near it.

Okay so, i’ve been seeing some people say they think this is Louis’s route because Clem isn’t wearing her badge Violet gave her (I can’t remember where it’s meant to be so I can’t really tell ^^:) but personally I still think it’s Violet’s route.

It would make sense for it to be Louis’s route if we assume the trailer is from 1 gameplay of the episode (since the wood’s scene is deffo Louis’s route), but I don’t know if I can see them not having at least one scene from a Violentine playthrough here. Especially since it’s the final trailer and how much the fans have wanted equal screentime between both characters.

In my opinion, I feel like Violet in this scene is just upset over everything that’s happened (she might not know if Minnie made it out since the explosion could have sent them flying in different areas) and Clem is comforting her.

I don’t think it’s to do with Violet distrusting Clem or anything like some people brought up.

I feel like if this was LouisRoute!Violet then she wouldn’t be as calm here with Clem, at least I think the body language would be different.

(I could easily be wrong though, i’m actually sure about this screenshot the least tbh)

The only question I have about this scene is that if it’s at the beginning, then where is Violet during the cave scene? does she just try to look for Minnie? I don’t know... I feel like there is a lot of ways this scene can be perceived both from the trailer clip and whatever the heck happens after it before we end up in that cave.

This is definitely our McCarroll Ranch flashback.

Her hair is shorter than what it is in the present (and it’s not just a weird perspective, that ponytail is definitely short).

Also, notice that we don’t get to see her outfit much?

And we also get the return of the ominious red lighting from the nightmare she had in episode 2.

Finally we get daylight! (look at the gaps where there is sunshine).

This is the morning after the shitstorm, and it seems that we end up in a barn given the hay and structure of the building (maybe James’?)

Yet again we get attacked by walkers as in another scene in the trailer we see Clem trying to block a door with walkers trying to break in, that’s also set in the daylight with interior similar to this screenshot.

ALSO, unrelated to this screenshot but we also have another small scene set during the morning where Clem and AJ look at eachother in fear/”Fuuuuck” which i’m assuming is what lead to them ending up in the barn.

Okay so this is the winning shot of the trailer where everyone freaks out and thinks Clem is probably gonna die or something.

I’m gonna treat this screenshot with skepticism like I did with the other scene of her in episode 3′s trailer holding her hand where everyone thought she got bitten for some reason, because it looked so dramatic.

I’m not saying that it’s not something serious that’s gonna happen (especially since every trailer has a clip from the end/final act of the episode and we haven’t seen one for this yet which i’ve noticed). But i’m not going to assume it’s 100% major either since I doubt they would be this obvious with it.

What I will say however, is that wherever Clem is dangling off of, I genuinely can’t see AJ pulling her up to safety. Like for AJ - a 5 year old, to successfully pull up Clem is nearly “Season 2-Clem-kicking-down-the-solid-trailer-door-in-ep4″ levels of insane strength right there. 

Clem is gonna fall and maybe pass out (maybe that’s how we get our Clem nightmare?) and we will need to find AJ again, most likely.

What’s worth noting however, is that it’s set during night time.

And given how time passes in these episodes i’m willing to be it can only happen either:

1) In act one where all the insane shit with the boat happens

2) In act 3 since it turns to daylight at some point for Act 2

-

ANYWAY THAT’S ALL I HAVE FOR NOW.

Sorry I took forever posting this, I got carried away.

(Just wait till episode 4 proves me completely wrong with everything lmao)

[67midnightwriter]

The Moment I Knew

A/N: Please enjoy this little one shot I’ve been messing with these past few days. Beta’d by the ever wonderful @sculptorofbeginnings

Angst/Fluff

Misha Collins x Reader

Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence and Death

W/C: 2172

Summary: It started out as a secret and it grew, as secrets often do.

You shifted in your seat, trying to blend in and look like just another fan. You smiled as they played his theme song, biting back a laugh while he sent you text after text as though he wasn’t currently holding up an entire convention. These were the moments you cherished, when he made you feel like the only person in world. They were fleeting, few and far between, but you burned every single one to your memory, like a tattoo on your heart that might fade in time but would be with you always.

When he came out on stage his eyes found yours, as if they were drawn by a magnetic pull. He gave a knowing wink, and you couldn’t help but grin as the girls on either side of you squealed in delight. Misha launched into a story about your morning adventures, quite literally running into a protest downtown, awestruck at how he dove headfirst into the cause, somehow scrounging up poster board and markers; easily coercing you into making signs with him with the promise of an extra large morning latte. When things had gotten too heated for your liking, you had grabbed Misha’s hand and led him away to the coffee shop on the corner.

You looked around as Misha began taking fan questions, and that’s when you saw his face. It jumped out at you from the crowd, causing your heart to palpitate in your chest, though you weren’t sure why. A few more questions were answered as you flipped through memories, trying desperately to figure out why this stranger was making your skin crawl and tingle in anticipation.

He stood up, a tan trench coat that was two sizes too big swaying as he made his way to the middle isle that led to the main stage. As soon as you saw the frayed and stained bottoms, everything clicked into place. The world slowed down as you jumped out of your chair, fear radiating off of your body as your eyes caught the glint of a gun you knew wasn’t a cosplay prop; he was the man that Misha had gotten into a fight with at the protest, and while you had brushed off his death threats there, now they seemed impossibly tangible.

The entire audience went silent as he said Misha’s name, stopping him mid sentence. The metallic click of the safety reverberated through the auditorium, urging you forward. You began to run as Misha dropped his microphone, all the color draining from his face while he took slow, unsteady steps backward. Someone screamed as he cocked the gun, and you stepped in front of it just as he began to aim.

“Don’t do this.” For a second the voice in the air didn’t register as your own. It was strong and steady, the exact opposite of how you felt currently. “You don’t want to do this.”

“Oh sweets, I think I really want to do this. Now move.”

You looked him directly in the eyes. They were a cloudy gray, hazy and rimmed in red. His pupils were dilated, and you realized that he was terrified as well. When you didn’t move he tried to aim the gun over your shoulder, but you wrapped your hands around the cold barrel and you pressed it to your chest.

“If you are going to kill anyone in this building, it’s going to be after you kill me.” He paused, his attention turning from you to Misha. His eyes bore into yours, confusion washing over them; you had caught him off guard, and now he wasn’t sure how to continue. People were now streaming out of the room, and you could tell he was getting flustered, his plan now thrown out the window. “If you are going to shoot anyone, it’s going to be me. After you watch the light fade from my eyes, feel my body go weak and useless against yours, then you can decide if you want to pull this trigger again while it’s facing another person.”

He swallowed hard. You felt his grip on the gun loosen momentarily, his hands starting to shake as the realization of the true consequences of his actions were catching up in his head. He looked over your shoulder, glancing at Misha once more. You could see in the reflection of the projector screen in his glasses that Misha was frozen, watching you with an open mouth and a pale face, resisting as Cliff tried to pull him backstage.

The lights in the auditorium went off. The gunshot seemed to echo forever. Screams harmonized as you swayed on your feet. The pain wasn’t instant. The gun was suddenly heavy in your hands as he dropped it, and you heard him fall as he backed away from you, semi-coherent apologies streaming from his lips. The front of your shirt was hot and sticky as you stepped backwards until your back hit the wooden base of the stage. You slid to the floor as the lights came back on.

Misha dropped to the ground beside you. He pulled you close, squeezing as though he was trying to hold you together. The gun fell from your hands as you reached for him, clutching the front of his t-shirt with whatever grip you could muster. One hand traveled to his cheek, forcing his gaze from your chest to your face.

“Misha, I-” Your voice shook. Tears began to spill from broken blue eyes.

“No, don’t say it.” His lip quivered.

“I love-” The edges of your vision were beginning to darken.

“Y/N please, I need you.” His voice cracked.

“You.” You closed your eyes, and he screamed.

Misha jumped as Jensen wrapped an arm around his shoulder. His touch pulled Misha from the memory, and after a few blinks the red faded from his shaking hands, the weight of your body in his arms a ghost once more. He swallowed hard past the lump in his throat, turning his attention once more to the fan that had asked the question.

He brought it upon himself, doing an interview three months after the incident when the fandom was buzzing with rumors you didn’t deserve. The headline still sat on the their coffee table, staring at him on calm nights while Vicki worked on her new book and he tried to think about anything other than what had happened; ‘Misha Collins and the fan that saved his life: “I loved her.”’ He hoped that he had done you justice.

Now, six months later, the first convention was harder than anyone had imagined.

“You don’t have to answer if you don’t-” The fan backtracked.

“No, that’s okay. It’s a long story, so I’ll give you the cliff notes.” Misha took a deep breath, and Jensen squeezed his shoulder for support. “She strode onto set her first day with a confidence that I could only ever wish to have. She was wild, constantly pushing me past limits and somehow finding the best in every situation. She felt like sunshine and-” He paused, tears burning his eyes again as her memory danced behind his eyes.

“She was made for Misha.” Jensen interjected. “We could all see it. Vicki even started calling her his ‘set wife’ after her first visit for the new season.” Jensen’s laugh eased a bit of the pain that weighed heavy on Misha’s chest.

“It’s funny, when you think you have so much time with a person you waste it. You let precious days slip through your fingers like they’re never ending, when in reality-” Another pause, another shaky breath- “I refused to let myself feel what I should have been feeling all along. I hid her away like my own little secret, because I was scared of getting hurt. I put up walls that she didn’t deserve, and on this side of things I realize that I wasn’t shutting her out, but I was locking myself up. What’s the difference betweens walls keeping out the world and fencing yourself in anyways?” He bit his lip, turning to look at Jensen before continuing. “That moment, when she stood so strong in front of that gun for me, when she could have slipped away with the crowd and no one would have even questioned it, that’s the moment I knew I loved her.”

“Did you ever try and find her afterwards?”

“There was a bomb that went off in the lobby. A lot of pandemonium that day, and there was a mixup in with what hospital she was taken to. The last I heard she was pronounced dead in the ambulance-” Misha’s voice cracked again, and he bit his lip.

“Misha looked. We all did. We spent weeks calling all the hospitals in the area, searching for her by name, looking for Jane Does… It seems like something that could only happen in the movies, but she was gone.”

The crowd gasped, and for a second Misha’s skin prickled as panic started to spread. The memory threatened to break through again, the real world in front of him blurring as he started to lose his grip on what was here and now and what was in the past. Jensen laid his hand on Misha’s forearm, squeezing it and grounding him with the sensation. He could still hear her voice saying his name, and he shook his head, ready to leave the panel before he lost his control in front of the crowd.

“Misha.”

He looked up, sure that he was hearing a ghost, but there you were on the other end of the stage. You were tucked protectively beneath Jared’s arm, standing between him and Vicki, looking impossibly small. Bright red fresh scars peaked out from the dip in your shirt, and you had lost weight, but you were there.

Misha’s microphone clattered to the ground. He was on his feet, the sound of his chair falling to the stage causing you to flinch as his legs carried him to you. He wrapped you in his arms, crushing you to his chest as you wrapped your legs around his hips. He kissed you, not caring anymore who saw, or what they thought. Your tears mixed together on his face, hot and wet, and for a moment you  just existed together once more.

“I love you too.” He managed, pressing his lips to whatever skin of yours he could reach while your laughter bubbled out.

“Happy birthday Misha.” Vicki’s hand rubbed circles on his back as she kissed his cheek, and he turned to give her a kiss as well.

“And here I thought you couldn’t out-do last years gift.” Laughter floated through your little group as the crowd behind them cheered, bringing Misha back to down to earth.

He sat you down on the ground, grabbing your hand and lacing his fingers with yours before pulling you up on stage. Jensen followed, a bright grin on his face as Misha sat back down his his chair, pulling you into his lap.

“I’m sorry guys, but I don’t think we’re going to be able to finish this panel without a special guest appearance.”

No one protested.

“Why did you hide?” Misha asked, his thumb caressing your cheekbone as his hand cupped your face. You ran your hands through the hair on his chest, pressing kisses on his hot skin while you tried to work out what you wanted to say.

“I was scared. When this started you told me that you couldn’t love me. Not after what had happened before. I was okay with that for awhile, but somewhere along the line just having you wasn’t enough. I wanted you and Vicki, and the kids. I wanted to be a part of your family.” A tear slipped down your cheek and Misha kissed it away, pulling you closer and nuzzling against your neck. “I didn’t have control of myself and my feelings like I thought I did, and that scared me. You were in control, so I did the only thing I could think to do. I ran.” You could feel Misha’s tears against your neck, and you carded your hand through his hair comfortingly. “I didn’t want to force you to make a decision that you didn’t want to make. Or maybe I was scared of you not making the decision I wanted.”

“I’m sorry.” It was a whisper against your skin, and for a moment you wondered if you heard it or felt it. “I’m sorry for so much Y/N. I’m sorry for-”

You pressed your lips against his, cutting off his apology.

“If I let you continue we are going to be in this bed for another fifteen years.” A sad chuckle escaped his lips before he kissed you again, long and slow.

“Probably.”

Words stopped, and hands spoke. Touches mended cracked souls, lips pressed broken pieces back into place. You relearned each others bodies in the dark, not resting until long after the sunrise burned through the thin hotel curtains.

[wesonerdy]

We talked to Deborah Harkness and the cast and creators of the upcoming A Discovery of Witches TV adaptation! We’ve got new details about the series, including what fans can expect and where we’ll be able to watch in the USA.

Photo Credit: We So Nerdy

  Anyone who has talked to me over the last month knows that A Discovery of Witches was at the tip-top of my San Diego Comic-Con mustsee/mustdo list! As soon as I found out that the series would have a panel at SDCC, I knew I had to find my way to that panel and pressroom. Mostly, I was anticipating news about a U.S. home for the series… information that we did get! A Discovery of Witches will stream on Sundance Now, AMC Networks’ direct-to-consumer SVOD service curated with high quality dramas, comedies and crime thrillers, and Shudder, the leading premium streaming service for thriller, suspense and horror.

A Discovery of Witches will have eight episodes in the first season, and when it makes its debut in the U.S. and Canada (on a date to be confirmed later), all episodes available simultaneously on both Sundance Now and Shudder.

While our UK friends will get to enjoy the series starting Friday, September 14 on Sky One, for now, us U.S. fans will be rewatching the fabulous teaser trailer.

To help tide us over, I also suggest checking out the interviews we did with Deborah Harkness and the A Discovery of Witches cast at SDCC! Teresa Palmer (Diana Bishop), Alex Kingston (Sarah Bishop), Valarie Pettiford (Emily Mather), Owen Teale (Peter Knox), and Lachlan MacKinnon (EP) were on-hand to tell us more about adapting this series to TV and what fans can expect.

  According to Deb Harkness, she was only interested in having A Discovery of Witches adapted as long as it was possible to maintain the integrity of the story. It was a difficult process to find the right collaborators for the project. Similarly, the actual work of adaptation was fun, but ambitious, especially in terms of blowing up the world and expanding beyond Diana Bishop’s POV and experiences.

Deb also shares her thoughts on casting the series–how the casting of Teresa Palmer as Diana was perfect, in terms of her physical appearance and spirit. In fact, Deb thinks that in the series casting as a whole, all of the actors have been on point, and this has translated to their authentic portrayal of the characters. Owen Teale agrees, and discusses the ways in which he’s taken on the role of Peter Knox and advocated for his character.

As a viewer, I especially appreciate Deb’s and Owen’s discussion of wanting to have a story that appeals to women in their 30s and addressing women at various stages of life. This also couples with the LGBTQ representation embedded in the series and the broader ways A Discovery of Witches encourages inclusion and empathy in entertainment and the real world.

  In our interview with Teresa Palmer she tells us that she wasn’t familiar with the book series when it came out. Rather it was the script that really caught her attention and Teresa instantly felt connected to Diana Bishop. (And we know that Deb feels the exact same about Teresa!) Tez shares how she loves Diana’s passion and vulnerability and the journey Diana takes to come to terms with who she is as a witch. I ask Teresa a little more about the tension within Diana, between the academic and the supernatural being, and she discusses how the magic literally bubbles out of Diana, as she wrestles with suppress that side of herself.

Lachlan jumps in before we can get too spoiler-y, but tells us about the technical elements of filming magic scenes, especially as Diana’s magic grows over the series. Teresa also discusses the chemistry test with Matthew Goode and how organic their interactions felt from day one. At about 8:00, Teresa tells a story about how she and Matthew would goof around on set, to the point that a serious scene had to be transitioned to a comedic one. But ultimately, the series is a love story with a strong element of thriller, based as much as possible in the real world.

Both Teresa and Lachlan talk about adapting a series with such a dedicated fanbase. Teresa says this helps her want to do her best with the series and how they all appreciate the love of the fans: “I also have found it just thrilling to have this kind of energy behind the series.”

  Finally, we chatted with Alex Kingston and Valarie Pettiford, who play Sarah Bishop and Emily Mather, Diana’s aunts who raise her after her parents’ deaths. Valarie and Alex speak about the ways in which their romantic relationship onscreen normalize LGBTQ relationships, especially in this world where being Queer isn’t what sets them apart. Rather, it’s one’s distinction as a witch, vampire, or daemon that they have to hide, not their love. Alex shares an interesting story about a photo at the Bishop house of Sarah and Emily wearing pussy-hats at their local Women’s March. Whereas one producer was concerned about being too political, Alex, Valarie, and Deb perceived it as being realistic. Sarah and Emily would have been at that march! Piggy-backing off of that, Alex and Valarie discuss how the key creative decision-makers on the series are women.

I follow with a question about the theme of family in the series and both Alex and Valarie talk about the tension between Sarah and Diana, motivated by deep care and concern for her niece. This also expands to a discussion of recognizing one’s ancestry and they ways in which the Bishop and Mather families have been connected for centuries.

Alex and Valarie also talk about seeing the first four episodes of the series and how impressed they are with they way the episodes have been shot, which helps to ground the story in a realism reminiscent of our world.

  What do you think? Which scenes are you hoping will make it from the book to screen? Check out 20+ images from the panel below, and make sure to stay tuned to WSN for your A Discovery of Witches updates!

Photo Credit: We So Nerdy

Photo Credit: We So Nerdy

Photo Credit: We So Nerdy

Photo Credit: We So Nerdy

Photo Credit: We So Nerdy

Photo Credit: We So Nerdy

Photo Credit: We So Nerdy

Photo Credit: We So Nerdy

Photo Credit: We So Nerdy

Photo Credit: We So Nerdy

Photo Credit: We So Nerdy

Photo Credit: We So Nerdy

Photo Credit: We So Nerdy

Photo Credit: We So Nerdy

Photo Credit: We So Nerdy

Photo Credit: We So Nerdy

Photo Credit: We So Nerdy

Photo Credit: We So Nerdy

Photo Credit: We So Nerdy

Photo Credit: We So Nerdy

Photo Credit: We So Nerdy

Photo Credit: We So Nerdy

  Filmed in the UK at Wolf Studios Wales and on location in Oxford, “A Discovery of Witches” is a contemporary love story that begins against the backdrop of Oxford academic life, in a world where small numbers of witches, vampires and daemons live and work, unseen amongst humans, hiding in plain sight. Teresa Palmer is the brilliant historian Diana Bishop, a reluctant witch denying her heritage. The discovery of a bewitched manuscript in Oxford’s Bodleian Library throws her into the heart of a dangerous mystery – and into the path of the enigmatic vampire and geneticist, Matthew Clairmont (Matthew Goode), who hides a dark family secret. As Diana and Matthew embark on a journey to understand the secrets of the ancient manuscript, their relationship develops, and events threaten to unravel the fragile peace that has long existed between witches, vampires, daemons and humans. Alex Kingston plays Sarah Bishop – Diana’s aunt, Valarie Pettiford plays her partner Emily Mather, and Owen Teale plays Peter Knox, a member of the Congregation. “A Discovery of Witches” was adapted for screen by writer Kate Brooke (“Mr. Selfridge”). Co-founder of Bad Wolf, Jane Tranter is the executive producer and Juan Carlos Medina (“Painless”) directs.

  ‘A Discovery of Witches’ Cast & Creators Give Us a Taste of the New Series at SDCC 2018 We talked to Deborah Harkness and the cast and creators of the upcoming A Discovery of Witches…

[pes2019patch]

Many games sell themselves with their gameplay, especially if they're not part of established franchises. For video games, more like any other media, including board games, neat categorisation is intensely important - likely to allow for easier marketing. But I discover more and more games that are either very different from whatever genre corset they've been wrangled into, or on the other hand of the spectrum, games with a pitch so good I'm immediately interested even though I've got no idea what the actual experience will turn out to be. Games in both of these categories have one thing in common - they treat play as something experimental, giving us a set of actions we as players may still be unfamiliar with.

Genesis Noir looks to be one such game. It's described as a story taking place "before, during and after the Big Bang". The Big Bang in this case is a literal shot, fired in slow motion at your lover, and to stop it means to stop the bullet - in this case the earth. I honestly have nothing further to add than an expectant and encouraging look, because there is something so Pratchett-like about treating the birth of our observable universe as a noir mystery that I couldn't possibly guess where Genesis Noir wants to take me, and that's great. Similarly, the demo that's been making the rounds since 2018 doesn't help me arrive at any solid impression. This is a story told without words, and the portion I've played wasn't even really a story, either. I created skyscrapers by playing swanky saxophone solos. I played a call and answer duet with another hat-wearing musician by clicking on onscreen elements like piano keys. I peeled the world back panel by panel like a comic book. I spun a train through the void using my mouse. At no point did Genesis Noir tell me what to do or how to do it, but with relatively modest means, I click here, a pulled object there, I made my screen come to life in a myriad of ways.

Afterwards I put my controller down and I wondered if what I had just played was a game. I guess you could call it a point-and-click game in the most literal sense of the term - you point your mouse at things, you click, and something happens. Point-and-click is often the genre that has become an example for a more narrative-focused type of game, because clicking in itself isn't much. But games like Genesis Noir are different. There's a number of games I see the same way - the brilliantly colourful puzzle boxes of KO_OP's Gnog, which rarely ever tells you what to do and simply lets you explore what's possible in each of its tiny worlds. Or Wilmot's Warehouse, where ordinary actions like holding items, stacking or flipping them make a game I've played for hours. Speaking of flipping and stacking - Tetris! Or the all-consuming donut hole of Donut County. Through animation and sound, they deliver a pleasant sort of haptic feedback to the pointing, clicking and dragging that makes it feel as if you're handling a toy during that stage of childhood where everything is still magical. Your parents put a battery into something, and there was noise and light. Or pressed a strategic part of a car and it sprang to new life as a Transformer. A toy car, drawn up by rolling it back and forth on a surface, moved by itself. I don't know what kids play with now, but I imagine a lot of it will be the same, really simple ways to stimulate the senses, all the more magical for you not knowing how that even works. Of course you could call all these games puzzles and be done with it. Like I said at the beginning, exact categorisations really aren't all that important. What I think makes these games special is that moment of uncertainty - you look at them and you don't immediately know what to do.

Read more

[btsorpheus]

to(BTS (방탄소년단) '봄날 (Spring Day)' Official MV; Feb. 12, 2017.)

THE BANGTAN MYTH, I

An ongoing joke among BTS’s fanbase is the fact that BTS’s song, “Spring Day,” always seems to reappear on the charts when they drop new music--even in 2020, though “Spring Day” was released in 2017.

The song is often cited as their best work. The melody is clear, sweet, and strangely nostalgic. The vocals are deeply emotional and the beat is charming. And yet the lyrics reminisce about loss, grief, and heartbreak.

Rarely do pop songs enter this dangerous territory. A lot of people use music as a relief from the tragedy and stress surrounding their own lives; willingly lending an ear to even more pain feels dangerous.

But this overwhelming emotion is also alluring. In mythology, Orpheus’s music borne out of grief was so powerful that it even made the stones weep.

1. Spring Day

“Spring Day” is a song about loss. They long for the so-called ‘spring day' as they live through an emotional “cold winter”--a period of mourning.

In its grief and confrontation of loss, it’s already an Orphic song. The music video for the song takes this a step further by taking advantage of the added visual medium to utilize Orphic visual tropes.

The opening shot of the music video shows V stepping onto the train tracks. The train is representative of journeys, not unlike Orpheus’s own into the Underworld. The modern retelling of the Orpheus myth, Anaïs Mitchell’s 2006 musical Hadestown, even uses train tracks as Orpheus’s guide into the Underworld.

The journey into the Underworld is also a descent, from the realm of the living into the realm of the dead below. Films with Orphic themes will often use spiral staircases to represent this, as originated in Black Orpheus and reintroduced in Théo et Hugo. BTS does the exact same thing in the music video for “Spring Day,” wherein the members walk down a spiral staircase--a prominent scene that’s dispersed throughout the video as a whole.

The video itself is permeated with imagery of retro, rusting, and empty backdrops. It’s clear that this is an image of the past--one of lost youth, as the imagery of the decaying carnival ride and the reference to Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” which details a fictional community called Omelas that only prospers if a child suffers, suggest.

It’s been speculated that “Spring Day” was written in response to one of South Korea’s great tragedies, the Sewol ferry disaster in 2014, which resulted in the deaths of 304 of its passenger, 250 of whom were students.

“Spring Day” may or may not be a response to a very real, very devastating loss, but that association that a listener might make remains tangible.

A last persistent, Orphic image in the music video for “Spring Day” is Jin’s Backwards Look. At several points in the video, he gazes intentionally into the camera, always over a shoulder.

It’s unclear what he’s looking for. But whatever it is, like Eurydice, it seems to be just out of reach.

2. Save Me

BTS has an intense relationship with loss. As touched on with regards to the Eurydice figure, a part of BTS’s personal identities must be sacrificed so that their public selves can survive.

They have taken this theme and given it a prominent role in what is referred to as the BTS Universe, or the HYYH Series. (HYYH stands for Hwa Yong Yeon Hwa (화양연화), translated as The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, one of their album series.)

Though it began as a series of seemingly loosely-connected videos, including short films and music videos, the underlying narrative was eventually culminated in an officially licensed webtoon (a term for digital comics) called Save Me.

A panel from “Ep.01" of the webtoon Save Me.

The story revolves around an alternate, fictional timeline of the seven members, who go by their birth names, wherein they meet as students and grow up together. They lead happy lives until Seokjin (Jin) leaves for the States and comes back to find everything has fallen to shambles: Namjoon (RM) is in jail, Jungkook and Yoongi (Suga) are dead, Hoseok (J-Hope) and Jimin are in the hospital, and Taehyung (V) has murdered his father. To save them, he must travel back in time and confront them before they succumb to their fated demises.

A panel from “Ep.02" of the webtoon Save Me.

It’s an intense, often gruesome webcomic. The reader must watch representations of the members of BTS die over and over as Seokjin tries and fails to save them. (Shockingly, the second episode opens with Jungkook’s body smashing into the hood of Seokjin’s car.) 

Save Me doesn’t even end happily--Seokjin thinks he’s finally succeeded, but he’s forgotten Taehyung’s hatred for his abusive father. In the end, he is unable to stop Taehyung from seeking revenge, and is forced to start another time loop, the success of which the webtoon leaves open to interpretation.

This very narrative is reminiscent of the Orphic myth. Seokjin traveling back in time to try to save his friends is similar to Orpheus’s journey into the Underworld to bring Eurydice back to life.

Like Orpheus, Seokjin fails--repeatedly. But both receive second chances: Orpheus through each retelling of his myth and Seokjin on every timeline he cycles through. Unfortunately, also like Orpheus, Seokjin’s attempts are in vain. The webtoon ends on his failure.

3. Run

One music video in the BTS Universe is “Run.” The opening shot of the music video is of Jungkook falling backwards into what at first appears to simply be his reflection. It’s only when he hits the surface that it’s revealed to be a body of water.

([MV] BTS(방탄소년단) _ Run; Nov. 9, 2015)

A common visual repeated throughout BTS’s videos is the mirror. Though I covered its function in the Orphic myth with regards to Eurydice and her multiple selves and only mentioned Aristaeus, Orpheus also significantly faces his double in the latter through Virgil’s poetry.

Orpheus is a man who utilizes excessive passion, called furor, to forge his path into the Underworld; Aristaeus is a god who follows the gods’ orders to the letter. Furor can only take Orpheus so far--in the end, Aristaeus is the only one of the two to succeed in his task.

But their dynamic brings up the mythic theme of the Good Twin and Bad Twin, as described by philosophical anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss. It may be easy to pinpoint Orpheus as the Bad Twin because the narrative ends with him failing in his endeavor, but in Virgil’s version of the Orphic myth, Aristaeus is the man responsible for Eurydice’s death. Would that make him the Bad Twin? Or because the narrative ends with his success, has he been forgiven and rendered the Good Twin?

Again, the morality of music becomes unclear.

4. Blood Sweat & Tears

(BTS (방탄소년단) ‘피 땀 눈물 (Blood Sweat & Tears)’ Official MV; Oct. 9, 2016)

BTS doesn’t seem to have an answer to this dilemma. The image of the mirror reappears in several of their music videos--as mentioned before, in Suga’s “Interlude: Shadow,” but also in perhaps their most iconic music video, “Blood Sweat & Tears.”

The song is one of seduction, where the object of the song’s affections is a corrupter. Jin, the protagonist of the music video, reluctantly passes through the storyline, falling deeper and deeper into the other members’ different representations of sin.

By the end, when he sits before a mirror, his reflection’s face has begun to crack. Whether his real self’s face is cracked or not is unclear--but what is clear is this divide between his parallel selves.

The Good Twin and Bad Twin dynamic is present in Jin and his corrupted self, separated by the mirror.

5. Fake Love

(BTS (방탄소년단) ‘FAKE LOVE’ Official MV; May 18, 2018.)

There’s a sequence in their music video for “Fake Love” that also uses mirrors. RM faces his reflection--which is imperfect, wearing different clothing and differently styled hair--as the shot doubles the scene against Jungkook also reaching for his.

“Fake Love” is a part of the BTS Universe. Several of the scenes from the music video are adapted into the webtoon (such as Suga sitting in an empty room with his instruments and Jimin’s drowning scene).

The song itself is about a loss of identity--“Try to erase myself and make me your doll,” V sings. It’s not a difficult assumption to make, given their other songs, that this is referencing the relationship between an idol and their fans. (Eerily enough, BTS literally have their own Mattel doll line.)

Suga only adds to this unsettling dynamic, rapping, “You say I’m not myself which you knew well,” but how can an outsider claim to know someone better than they know themselves?

Though the music video doesn’t pit RM against himself, there’s something ominous about the imperfect reflection and its unblinking stare. It’s unclear what it wants or why it exists.

Another scene in “Fake Love” that makes good use of mirrors is a sequence wherein V passes through a hall of flashing black screens that mimic phone cameras snapping photos. It’s reminiscent of a line in Suga’s “Interlude : Shadow,” wherein he pleads with the listener, “Please don't let me shine.” The music video makes it clear that this is in reference to the constant flashing cameras--from paparazzi and reporters alike--that follow them in every public appearance.

The scene also reminded me of one of Judy’s monologues in Vertigo which she delivered as Madeleine. I’ve posted a series of gifs here, but in short, Judy describes a “long corridor” covered in “fragments of... mirror” that ends in “darkness” and her death.

Mirrors have taken on a fatal quality. It echoes both the struggle between the Good Twin and Bad Twin and the Eurydice plight--both are fatal. One Twin must win over the other, and Eurydice’s story always ends in death. In the Orpheus myth, mirrors are always a danger.

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