#i personally dont ship them but its fine if u tag this as ship!!

[howlonomy]

theyre super affectionate besties that hold hands to me :]

[evelynpr]

Might be a hot take as a bkdk and tgck truther here, but I find izuocha endlessly fascinating, beautiful, but also tearfully tragic.

I see their love for each other as something representative of their innocence and naivety when they only knew so little about who they were, and what was to come.

I think the main barrier of their relationship is that its rooted in how they see each other very idealistically, specifically that they're attached to the image of their Best Heroic Selves, and not the deeply selfish, destructive, freaky, and egotistical parts of them. To each other, they need to keep fulfilling that image or else that same person they looked up to would almost die in front of them, and that would be too cruel. Although that hero is still there, that same person they looked up to is not the same now because of...well...everything.

Izuku had barely even talked to girls when he first met her. She was Izuku's first ever real friend (Sorry Kats, everyone and him knows he was terrible), so he saved her in that entrance exam even if it was so dangerous. She gave a new meaning to his derogatory nickname just by being a friend that believed in him. After that, she saved him several more times (Blackwhip and Megaphone are the biggest samples iirc). It makes perfect sense that she is Deku's hero.

Ochako hardly knew what it meant to be a hero when she first got into UA. Just by reaching out to some kid tripping, she made a new friend who would then save her in that exam, then save him again in return. This boy then became someone who was always working so hard to save everyone in trouble, and she realized she wanted to be just like him too. "I want to save people"

But...Deku changes. The weight of One for All is on his shoulders and he needs someone to carry this burden with him. He continues to want to save other people at the expense of himself, still not letting his true selfishness and ego ever show- and it only grows more and more unbearable.

Then...Ochako fell in love with Himiko. Truly, relentlessly, selfishly and devotedly in love with a girl who then dies giving her blood to her- the greatest expression of love Himiko could ever give.

Not that they can't love each other because of this happening (and...so many other things oh god), I'm honestly not sure how to explain it- But them ending up together after losing that innocence and naivety? After Ochako will forever grieve the girl who showed her love in its most beautiful and ugly form? After Izuku changed so fundamentally as a person that the butterflies of a nice girl talking to you doesn't exist anymore? After that simple image of being a hero and being in love has completely changed for them both?

Even so, I believe they still love each other. There is no label I know of that can properly describe them though. They are each other's image of being a hero when it comes to saving people. Aside from Shoto, no one else can grasp the grief of the person you tried to save dying in your hands. They would no doubt try to cope with these losses together, and just try to get better together...but so much has changed. They've changed. The world changed. What are they now? Who are they now?

"What happened...to us?"

[jessicas-pi]

it's actually, genuinely, honestly hilarious that in a fandom where popular ships include characters who are biologically related, characters with a 10+ year age gap who met when one was a teenager or even a child, and characters who have tried to kill each other, people hate on a friends-to-lovers ship with a <2 year age gap where the characters have a deep emotional bond and plenty of romantic subtext, because "they're siblings". my brother in the force they are literally not.

[caruliaa]

bad decision maker (me)

[emmkitt]

NEW INTRO TIME

i am actually floory’s number 1 fan real and true

my main blog is @emmkittycat so likes and follows will come from that account i think idk i still dunno how tumblr works💔

i cant believe i have to put this but i do. anyways impersonation is a HUGE boundary for me so please dont pretend to be me / claim to be me wtf. idc if you kin / pretend to be my fictional characters but i am a real person hi hello you arent me thanks.

hi. im ememmemt or baxter

he/they/she/xe, 20, INTP

i am autism 🔥 i use tone tags on occassion but u dont need to use them all tbe time when interacting with me ,unless tone could be easily misinterpreted

i love floory, mephone4 and dr fizz! ANDoetrope. AND ZOETROPE. they are my favs ever!

my designs for characters are all FREE TO USE!!! also i normally hc sexualities and genders for the characters i design but these are just MY headcanons. so like if u wanna draw like, for example, my bot design as gay or like my floor design as agender or whatever thats perfectly fine HDHDH.

i dont mind if u get inspired by my art!! i allow reposting my art for non commerical use as long as proper credit is given (a link back to this tumblr account)

dni:

-general dni, homophobes, racists, pedos, zoos, that shebang

-pro ship. pro ship does not = ship you dont like. pro ship means pedophilia, incest, etc. otherwise illegal stuff that is being glorified or romanticized. (i kno sometimes people write that stuff to educate or as a coping mechanism; thats fine, i usually dont consider that proship. romanticizing or making these pairings seem OKAY is BAD and i dont want to interact with people who write this stuff for their own personal enjoyment, thats sick. (not the cool sick.))

-object show enjoyers 😡 /JOKE

i dont block often and i only usually block for one of two reasons:

A. you have done something absolutely heinous and i never want to run the risk of ever having to interact with you. (or youre in my dni. which is mostly heinous things.)

or

B. i just saw a lot of irrelevant posts from you in one of the like 4 tags i regularly browse and i just got sick of it.

if youre not in my dni and i have you blocked its probably safe to assume its because of option b. either way i probabblyyy dont want any dms from anyone i have blocked, so pls dont block evade to ask ‚why did u block me??’ cause i really dont owe anyone an explanation. (i usuually dont block tjough. i literally have like 3 people total blocked lmao. so this hopefully wont be an issue. )

[sethdomain]

want my shipping takes that ill still probably get hanged for??? here we go. theyre basically all "everyone chill out" ...it seems like most people are just submitting ships theyd get cancelled for, not takes on shipping. ill do that after in case i completely misread what you were asking for

if ccbeeduo didnt want to get shipped they shouldnt have made their characters get married and have a son and fall in love. natural byproduct, really shouldve expected it. i still think ppl should have chilled fr but like, they both had plenty of examples of what fans were like, they shouldve taken that into account before making those character decisions.

cdapduo discourse was absolutely batshit insane and everyone who posted with a banner saying either "slime is quackity's son and if you ship them you're weird DNI" OR "they keep flirting, if you call slime quackity's son you're weird DNI" pissed me off. how about no one's weird because actually its a roleplay with lots of different perspectives and you can do whatever you want forever . obvs i understood people who were like "i believe this thing, dont fucking yell at me for it" but it sucks that people had to make banners for that fr.

in the same vein, the discourse with emeraldduo. though that one i dont/didnt see as much, i did still see those same banners. even as a family sbi fan, i never saw someone shipping emduo and thought "yeah let me go yell at them and tell them not to interact with me because i personally think theyre family-coded." the devotion is ambiguous but powerful.

Heat Waves was the funniest fic ive ever read because idgaf about either of those guys so it was just like 20 chapters of some guy crying and jacking off and then getting rejected.

i think rarepairs are based as fuck and mischaracterizing guys to fit your ship is fine do whatever you want forever!!!!!!!! people complained to hell and back about fanfics tagging characters and ships and them being ooc . WHO GIVE A FUCK THEY WROTE THAT SHIT FOR FREEEEEEEEE!!!!!! ALSO MANGOBALL'S MONSTER/CHEATER CHEATER WAS A MASTERPIECE

karlnapity was not perfect polyamory i see people glossing over the fact that when they first talked about polyamory quackity started attacking and biting when karl and sapnap kissed and thats fucking FUNNY i want to see more of THAT.

sorry for writing so much i have a lot of opinions

JESUS ANON, honestly idgaf bro i take any spicy opinion as long as its not going straight to 'i love pedophilia/incest' territory that my only rule man

For beeduo, idk if u mean the cc ship or the c ship cause honest to god i was a huge inniter back then and dont follow their stuff closelt that much, but im just gonna assume u mean the rpf cc shipping. Honestly, I don't really agree with ur take, its a bit victim blamey, both ranboo and tubbo were like young and in their naivety expect their fans to uphold their boundary to just not ship them in a rpf way and i think you should've respected their wishes man. You sometimes gotta be reminded that dsmp was just them guys having fun and if they want to rp as a husband then whatev man :p

I agree bruh, i think people were just sscared of a little doomed faggot in action

phil and techno doesn't even act like father/son in the dsmp canon anyway, they act like old bestie

imma be fr idgaf abt heatwaves but that sound awesome

sometime the back of my mind say that, but the evil demon that wants everything to be perfect take over anon.. its hard... I need to get mad at people...

no cucking is allowed in karlnapity... #lame

[natsmagi]

maybe a weird question but ive been wondering this for a while and i kinda wanna hear ur opinion, would u still consider it hetbending if i headcanon natsume as a trans man and tsmg as a trans woman and ship them like this? cuz those are my hcs and sometimes i wonder if its like problematic?? Like id get it if ppl didnt agree with my headcanons thats just differing opinions of course, and thats fine, but im scared bc i dont wanna like, turn gay ships straight and stuff? Either way i hc both of them as bi, but still :( im worried im doing something bad fhfhgjdh sry if this makes u uncomfortable to answer?? I just wanna hear opinions abt this? I truly dont wanna hurt anyone!!

waaa ur fine no worries!! i dont mind answering questions like these at all!!

i guess its sorta nuanced? i suppose by definition it would be considered hetbending, esp if one has an altered appearance to suit the assigned gender. but then theres also the headcanon aspect of it. since it is a headcanon that would make these genders be how you view the characters in their source, rather than altering them for ur own silly amusement

since these things are so nuanced i personally tend to tackle it from a portrayal point of view. Have i altered these characters to make one look like a man and the other a woman? if so, id say it should be tagged and considered as hetbend even if both or one party is trans and their sexualities are bisexual, because the point of tags such as "hetbend" or "genderbend" are so people who dont wish to see their favorite characters altered in these ways dont have to see it. these tags are used out of courtesy! Now, if you've taken the characters and headcanon one as a man and the other a woman but there have been no altercations and they look the exact same except for some pronouns and maybe some clothes change then id say it doesnt need the hetbend tag, as clothes do not have a gender and you can go by whichever pronouns you want while being a gender that said pronouns arent commonly applied to

Basically; if the appearances are altered it should be tagged accordingly out of care and consideration for those who dont wish to see that sort of thing for whatever reason. i dont get why people act like theres some morality thing at stake for tagging things like genderbend? trans or cis, the character looks different now which may be upsetting to some, so tag it!!! we're all just here to have fun!!!!

i also want to say enjoying or creating "hetbends" does not make you a bad person nor are you erasing queer rep, especially if you are keeping their queerness!! the original characters will remain the same no matter how much we may alter their gender and appearances in our niche circles, and there will always be a VAST majority of people representing the canon, so really theres no need to worry about wishing to indulge in the things that make you happy. none of us wish to hurt people with what we create!! and that is the REASON its tagged accordingly to begin with. So again; if you feel you have altered the characters to a point where some may be uncomfortable PLEASE tag it. and if there are things that make YOU uncomfortable PLEASE MUTE IT!! we tag things FOR YOU!!!!

[ch0cocrave]

(on anon cuz im ranting abt tadc LOL- you know me irl from school and i have the V plush yayayyaa)

anyways ewww a frickin proshipper interacted with my tadc post and they had literally the most uncomfortable tadc ships (imo) on their blog :[

they also had cyn x n and just -sigh-

i check every blog that interacts with me and its been fine until i ran into this person LOL-

why do i do this to myself 😔

it gave me an extra reminder to not post more tadc content in the future 🫶🫶

(ok but crazy how uncomfortable the tadc fandom makes me sometimes LMAOO)

(also the ships in question were jax x pomni (there is no chemistry between them??? the ship just feels weirrd), jax x gangle (ok why is this a thing, jax fucks with gangle so bad, and no its not because he "likes her", its because he's literally an asshole, there is no "good side" in him), and jax x ragatha (idc if people ship this, i would understand why, but just their relationship in my own story makes me dislike it. its just blegh, personally dont like it, but i dont hate anyone for shipping it))

BTW! forgor to mention- ur free to tag me in specifically loo or gummigoo posts (or the fudge monster or max and chad or anyone else from candy canyon kingdom) cuz i havent seen anything bad of them (yet..) so yeah >:] have fun w/ that

also irrelevant but holy hell the trip to the jail was SO FUN, my dad sent a picture of us in one of the cells and i was just all smiles lol

u certainly helped make the trip memorable, i seriously havent had a friend as great as you in years /srs (and istg there was not a MOMENT i thought u were being awkward, i just had a TON of fun <33 )

ok bye sorry for rant, i just dont wanna draw or sleep lol

Proshippers should just climb into that dirty hole they dug themselves into and just STAY there. Nobody wants them. Nobody cares about them, and what kinda mindset do they have in the first place to even come up with that stuff and think its okay. ( AND CYN x N???? T^T COME ON THAT'S SOME SWEET HOME ALABAMA TYPE SHIT )

Those people are gonna grow up to be pedos ISTG-

And the whole TADC fandom in general is just WEIRD... ugghhhh just why can't people just enjoy a show without shipping everyone and EVERYTHING <:[... ( the most anyone would be is like good friends or smth bro )

Also heheheh happy I made the trip fun :]]] always makes me happy to hear that stuff lmao

[stitchwraith-stingers]

8 and 14 for hazel pleaseee

I DIDNT SEE THIS IM SO SORRY IM ASSUMING U MEAN THIS ASK GAME

8. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

only using her for shipping / not being able to seperate her from dev and not the other way around

ill forever keep saying this bc i genuially dont want to argue over someone thinking i hate pancakes but i dont care if u like devzel ok, good on u if u rlly like them like that, i personally think their dynamic is made 2x as boring when made romantic and nor am i personally a big fan of dev (shaking my head to let anon know that i will fistfight behind a costco if u have bad takes on him) but at the end of the day its just two different opinions i wont go out of my way to find content i dont like, and i completely understand how fascinating their current situation is, you are not a bad person for liking them or making content about them and whoever tells u that is a dumbass

but it pisses me off when i or others make "hey what the fuck wheres all the content of her when shes our main protagonist" and people go "erm but i see so much art of her" as a gotcha when thats clearly not what were talking about, were talking about people who have fun with her character and put her in silly senarios

i wont ever not point out how, or how in her own tag its impossible (for me!!!!) to find something where she isnt just mentioned at all and she isnt just "devs girlfriend / therapist" in fanfics, which she has half of what he has and theres only 30 fics where he isnt mentioned and id bet only 5 of them are directly centered around her, say what you want about how interesting they are as characters but neither one has to 100% revolve around the other w the whole wish thing, the way people were calling her selfish ohh my god i can tell they havent watched more then 5 episodes and you cant name anything else about her, i get not finding any of other other connections good but if people can make fics expanding on what the hell dev and irep were up to (guy who appears twice) or expand on dale (guy who appears 4 times + 1 min as a gag in another episode) u can make shit up about them its fine . collect the scraps and complete them out of love

this is just a small thing, so idrc, and as someone who is aroace and just finds shipping fun sometimes (i put characters into a concuction in my head to see what i come up w, its a fun game), the way people would go to other random clips and go "see!!! they like eachother like that" when its like, a refrence to her phone case and shes had an entire episode where she worries for 8 hours BECAUSE she got told someone likes her like that, the way people immediatly jump to make everything about shipping in small details, guys people can just be Good Friends its ok, not everything needs romance in canon and if anything i think this would be the one series which it 100% doesnt need (yes patrick i think the whole tootie/timmy/trixie thing was annoying at a point) does that make sense . like putting a puzzle piece in the wrong place

anyways live laugh love hazel wells she is so cute i wish for everything in her life to go right

14. Assign a fashion aesthetic to this character.

hm, i dont know alot about fashion at all but i really like the idea of her being punk / alt in general, maybe she does tone it down a little bit in her casual wear when shes an adult but its a huge part of her life lol

[choclamilk]

someone making a joke about being a "mole" isnt the same thing as someone actually doing it. do you honestly think "being a mole" is the reason people are angry? it's the horrible bullying and harassment that comes after. most people wouldn't have cared about it had people not started getting attacked afterward. there isn't 'infiltration' they just joined a group chat they didn't even want to be a part of- that's nothing. the issue is that they bullied people.

the issue here is that b*ddie fans refuse to admit that that's horrible behavior. obviously there are trolls or whatever everywhere, but it's not just about that. there are shitty people in every fandom. the issue that people take with b*ddies is that this is behavior that has been present in that side of the fandom for years, with everyone. thats why people are upset. that's why people who dont ship b*ddie are tired of b*ddie fan's annoying ass behavior.

you wanna talk about how awful some buckt*mmy fans are, fine. good. anyone who uses racist language is a bad person and people should be calling attention to way characters of color are treated in media and fandom. but conveniently you want to ignore the racist b*ddie fans going into poc's inboxes to call them slurs, you want to ignore the misogynistic b*ddie stans who hate any woman that dates either buck/eddie, you want to ignore the bigotry and harassment faced by actors and actresses that they've endured for years. suddenly none of that matters and the only people causing problems are people who like b/t? get the fuck out

u r making up imaginary scenarios to get mad about because where the hell did i say i was ignoring how racist buddies are or how shitty they treat women in the show? it’s funny u say that because bt on twitter say lou/tommy get more hate than women ever did which is just wrong. i’m literally black i don’t stand for that shit and i never will. that bt shipper wasn’t joking bc ppl in the replies were saying they would join and do it. it’s the same shit—yall just love to play the victim. u r hiding behind anon ask 😭😭😭🙏 we are tired of bt annoying ass behavior bc yall can’t even tag shit properly on tumblr & are fantasying a latino man’s death. ITS WEIRDDD

[caruliaa]

zukka is kinda wild to me a little bit just bc like. atla has been ever for so *so* much longer than cs and yet a ship for it w minimal amnts of actual canon subtext outside one episode regularly takes up an insane amnt of my dashboard meanwhile carulia has like. the level of overt romantic subtext as a if a hypothetical different show had a relationship intended to be made officially romantic in the last season of a show only for that season to get botched somewhat due to quarantine and yet im the only one making content for it even semi regularly

[moonguilt]

i am intimidated by the raw chaotic energy of people who do not tag their reblogs. i have yet to unlock the hidden knowledge they possess

[dirt-str1der]

Catabolic seed by the scary jokes somehow makes me so emo its def the line — Is bad luck really such a crime ?

[ariereii]

god... clowns stop shipping atsushi and kyouka challenge

[philtstone]

For the touches meme: MCU ship of your choice with#8 :)

#8 -- shielding someone with their body

u can also read this on ao3 <3 to say "this prompt got away from me" would be an understatement and yet i still have the temerity to follow it up with "and there might be a part two!" lord. anyway, apologies to kaadhu because she doesn't go here at all but also she did give me the green light to be self-indulgent with this one, so.

the "Jonah Day" was inspired by a scene from Abraxas's phenomenal fic series "Just Two Guys" which was in turn quoting Anne of Green Gables. naturally i had to give it my own little spin. the fic concept itself was inspired by "Jazz Standards Vol 3" by sixes_and_sevens and "In the Woods Somewhere" by @rebellconquerer, both of whom are brilliant authors whose versions of these characters are inspiring in how much they are rich and full of feeling and complexity. i wanted to try my hand at the idea without there being an associated plot arc. hopefully i did it justice bc ive been working on this for a week and i have other Responsibilities so if i dont post it now and be at peace with its imperfections ill never get anything else done. this fic is part of this series and while technically a stand alone i guess the emotional beats of it are very much tied into their previous growing. i wanted to show that they have a process for working through things but that it's inevitably still evolving.

anyway. with that out of the way -- enjoy! (or if you're kaadhu, hopefully i can make it up to u with the star wars prompts im gonna work on next)

It’s one of those days. 

It’s like everyone woke on the wrong side of some bed, and the world has not thought to slow down and accommodate them, and the headaches Sarah has started getting every few weeks, which she refuses to call pre-migraines, have settled at the back of her skull. 

Also, it is raining. Badly.

Cassius used to call ‘em Jonah Days. Only person had it worse in the world, he’d say, was probably Jonah and his whale.

Sarah does not have a whale, but she does have that headache, and has spent all day tracking down a mistake on a license she ordered three weeks ago and trying to make up for the work she missed last week when AJ had the stomach flu and had to spend an afternoon at the hospital. It had just been her at home; Rhodes had called on Sam’s behalf, and Bucky had had to fly out on short notice, something half classified with a tension undercutting it that left Sarah’s tongue feeling dry. He got back in yesterday. Yesterday was not as much of a misery as today but still dragged itself out, and was prolonged enough that they only had time for a brief kiss hello and the curt acknowledgement that Sam was alright. Whatever had happened, Bucky was not happy about it. She’d noticed, of course. His face was drawn, and everything he said came out like the second half was being held as a careful package at the back of his throat. Sarah, distracted by life, had not thought about it too hard. On the rare occasion the rarer mission (getting rarer still) is genuinely awful, she has realized he’ll always find a way to call her. Sometimes, as a reassurance for her. Other times, for his own sanity. Once he called barely three hours after he left, like by some prescient intuition he knew she’d be sitting at the kitchen table on the verge of a panic (another one of those Days). Another time, in the middle of the dairy aisle at Wal-Mart, she picked up the phone to him crying. 

Nothing like that happened this time. He’d said I’m fine, quietly, into her temple, and Sarah had been too tired to try to coax anything else out of him, so she let it be. 

When she gets home, today – The Jonah Day – stomping into the kitchen with as much purpose as she can muster, Bucky is sitting at the kitchen table, something pale and unkempt about his face, and nursing an empty mug of tea. 

She knows it’s tea because of the glittery little tag that’s hanging from the edge of the mug. In truth this should be her first red flag: there’s only one kind of tea he drinks, and a rare handful of occasions he drinks it on. She’s never had a great love for honeybush, but the stuff Ayo’s wife Aneka sends is nice-smelling and strong enough to be medicinal. Sarah’s not in any mood to be catching flags today, red or otherwise. She shuffles in and wonders where they’ve put the ibuprofen and nearly steps on the cat, who scratches her foot in her yowly attempt to get away from Sarah’s sandal.

“Shit –” Her elbow slams into the cabinet as she startles – “Argh! Out of the kitchen, Alpine – Cass! What’d I tell you about getting these dishes done after school? Do I look like a dishwashing service to you?”

That had been the deal. There is an abstract part of her that knows Cass is working on a science project and an even more abstract part of her that knows that, in the regular routine that’s emerged, Bucky would have reminded him. 

Clearly he has not. Sarah is too tired to process why that might be. Maybe he forgot. She doesn’t think he got much sleep last night, which isn’t exactly uncommon. She remembers waking up to an empty bed and a rumpled sleeping bag on the bedroom floor. She’d nearly tripped over that, too.

Could be that’s what got the whole day going.

“Can you get Cass?” Sarah asks, only half-looking at Bucky. She walks through the remainder of the kitchen and peers into the coffee pot to see if there are any dregs left from the morning. The rainstorm outside seems to have turned into a thunderstorm; Sarah can hear its low rumblings. Are there leftovers in the fridge? No. And no one has bothered to think of dinner, either. She swallows back the urge to curse on her next prolonged inhale, the delay in reply rubbing her already edgy nerves wrong for no reason. “Bucky.”

“Hm? Oh.” In a side glance, she can see him shift his elbows on the table, rub at his eyes and nod. “Yeah, um. Yeah, I’ll get him. Let me put this in the sink.”

Another rumble. If the power goes out she thinks she might scream.

Speaking of the sink: she tosses the thermoses the boys left on the kitchen counter into it with a dull clang and wonders if she has time to take a shower. It doesn’t occur to her that maybe she will feel better if she takes a moment to breathe and perhaps ask Bucky for a hug – Sarah’s habits of self-reliance started well before her first marriage, even – but anyway, she feels disgusting. She smells like sweat and fish and she wants to sleep for ten years and cry at once. She’s worried if he gets too close she’ll cringe, or snap, or something foolish. Still. He has to enter her space to rinse the mug out. She tries not to look at him lest the crying overtake her and attempts to source a granola bar to maybe take the edge off her headache. 

Overloud footsteps thunder abruptly down the stairs. Suddenly, Cass is barreling in, an overdue apology loud on his tongue. This happens a half second before his hip knocks into one of the kitchen chairs, which drags, scrapes loudly, and pinches an unassuming Alpine’s tail between its leg and the table’s. 

Alpine shrieks.

“CASS!” Sarah yells, forgetting herself. 

“I’m sorry!” yelps Cass immediately, wide-eyed and penitent. 

“It was an accident,” Bucky says quickly. He’s straightened beside her, and his voice has something strained under the placating instinct, “it’ll be fine –” 

One free hand comes up in front of him in a gesture she knows very well. “For the love of God!” Sarah yells. “No, it was not! I have told you a million times, Cassius Wilson –” Bucky’s hand is too close to her. She grabs it, to bat it away, shove it back towards him. Alpine is still yowling holy vengeance. Cass is apologizing more loudly now, and she does not notice Bucky’s shoulders tensing, and her hand connects with his a split second before the rumbling beginnings of thunder turn into a full blown clap outside.

With the piercing pop of breaking ceramic the mug in his hand explodes, spraying its pieces all over the floor. Sarah’s mouth lets out a startled little cry and she does not realize why that is until she looks down, heart in her throat, and realizes his other hand has shot out and grabbed her wrist.

A reflex, probably. Her tendons are pinching but Sarah knows this kind of thing can spook anyone on a good day. And she’d been yelling so loudly, right in his ear.

“Sorry!” says Cass again, reedy with the fright he gave himself, the suddenness, the mundane violence of a cup breaking and the spring storm. His voice is thinned out with the upshooting squeak of pre-teen concern and in a moment Sarah’s anger fizzles. She can hear the rain lashing at the windows. 

“It’s alright,” she says, parroting Bucky’s earlier words, “it’s just a mug.” 

Bucky is still holding her wrist. The angle is awkward – Sarah is too close to him and too far away from him at once and her forearm is bent low, towards the kitchen counter. The metal pads of his fingers dig into her bones, pushing them together, and when she comes to gently tug away, she can’t move it an inch. “Ow,” comes out of her mouth, muttered and mostly surprised, before she can stop it.

“Alpine!” she hears Cass say. “No, you have to get on the table or your feet’ll get hurt –”

Poor Alpine has not had a moment of peace since Sarah entered the kitchen. She’s never loved thunderstorms and beyond her own pinched tail and trodden foot the tiny cat is tense and staring at Bucky and Sarah with wide, alert, too-knowing eyes. Sarah cannot process this. She is looking at Bucky’s face. Every line of his body is iron hewn, pupils large and dilated, lips too red and parted where he is breathing heavily. He’s staring at the floor, and the broken ceramic, but there suddenly isn’t a doubt in Sarah’s mind that he isn’t seeing jack shit.

“B,” she tries. “You okay?”

Nothing. His grip on her arm is so tight that she’s started to feel it in her elbow. She can see blood trickling down his right hand thumb where she realizes the broken ceramic cut into his palm; he didn’t startle and drop it, then.

“Mom?” Cass has noticed them. “Uncle Bucky?”

“James,” Sarah says, as steadily as she can. “Let go, please.” 

She bites her tongue just before the rest of the sentence comes out; she would not, in a million years, in any lifetime, say You’re hurting me when Cass is still in the room. 

“What’s wrong with him?” 

“We all just had a fright,” Sarah says, trying to subtly shift her shoulder. “Cass, put your running shoes on. Then go to the supply closet upstairs and grab the hand vacuum and dustpan.”

“But –” 

“Tell AJ not to come down ‘til we’ve cleaned the broke mug. We don’t get it clean soon Alpine might hurt herself.”

This is motivation enough to manage him. She thinks for Cass this must still be one of those momentary incursions of chaos into routine that are sprinkled throughout her own childhood. She watches her son nod rapidly out of the corner of her eye, and then he scrambles away and back up the stairs.

“James,” Sarah says, once he is out of earshot. “I need you to hear me. We’re in the kitchen. You broke a mug by accident. There’s a rainstorm outside. Please let go, you’re hurting my arm.”

He is not entirely frozen because she can see the minute trembles in his chest and chin and bloodied right hand. It’s not a lot, but it’s started dripping onto the floor. 

“James. Bucky!” 

The pressure on her wrist is starting to edge past uncomfortable and into a territory Sarah doesn’t want to think about. She doesn’t think he’s squeezing any harder, only the shock has started to fade, and she is really feeling it now. It might even bruise. Not badly – Sarah knows her own body well enough to guess – but enough that the idea makes her sick to her stomach. She can see the dull brown of the last drops of tea from the mug, splattered onto the pale grey of his indoor t-shirt. Those will stain for sure, she thinks. Her head pounds. Her brain feels like scrambled eggs. A tiny shard of ceramic bites into her pinky toe, between her sandal straps, and she can hear AJ’s inquiring voice from upstairs, asking loudly what happened. Knowing her children he will be down in a moment and heedless of any possible danger, broken mug related or otherwise. 

“Baby,” she says, “forgive me.”

She reaches forward with her free hand and fits her thumb and forefinger into the groove beneath where his rotator cuff should be. Sarah presses as hard as she can. Like a flipped switch the grip on her hand releases and Sarah has to bite back another curse when the frozen deadweight of the vibranium prosthetic freefalls and crashes directly onto the ground, just barely missing her shin. 

She is not in any place to understand what the effect must be outside of a shock, but immediately Bucky makes a strangled noise of surprise and slumps back against her cluttered kitchen counter with the imbalanced movements of some leggy baby animal. 

Only, for perhaps the first time, Sarah is acutely aware of how large he is, how ungainly and imposing all that muscle can be. 

“Be careful, the mug –!” she hears herself yell anyway, entirely instinct. 

“The mug,” Bucky repeats, slurred, blinking. His right hand reaches up to scrabble at the thin air to his left. She can see the fumbling movement of his wrist, the way his body leans. His eyes meet hers, wide and startled and questioning. He’s seeing her. She didn’t think it would make such a difference, but she nearly cries. The sound crawls up her esophagus but does not quite make it out.

“Sarah?” he asks, voice small.

Jesus Lord, Sarah thinks. The whole thing happened so fast – nothing long or drawn out about it. Hell, she could pretend it didn’t happen at all. He stares at her, and then the shattered mug on the floor, and then his arm, deadened and inert. Finally his eyes land on her wrist, which she has cradled instinctively in her other hand, and is rubbing. Dread floods into his expression. 

“It’s alright,” Sarah says, “It’s fine, you got spooked, we’ll just –”

She tries to reach for him, working both with and against her own instincts.  

“No,” he chokes. 

She can see him beginning to tremble.

“James –”

“No!” The sheer panic in his voice does not help her own at all, “Stay – wait, don’t, please –” He pulls away from her and his foot nudges one of the larger mug pieces with a loud scraping clink. Between this and his sudden movement Sarah flinches. 

For a long moment, Bucky gapes at her.

Then, slowly, he sinks down to the floor. The tremble in his body becomes more visible. His remaining arm comes up to wrap around the crown of his head, half-covering his face. His knees are pulled up to his chest, like he is trying to make himself as small as possible in front of her. You’re gonna get ceramic in your jeans, Sarah wants to say. The wreckage of the mug spreads out around him.

“Mom?” calls Cass’s voice from the stairs, followed by footsteps. “We got the vacuum! Should I –”

“Stay outside the kitchen, Cass.” It’s immediate – hoarse-voiced but louder and firmer than Sarah thought him capable of right now. His face is still covered. “Too many small pieces on the floor, I’ll clean it up myself. You too, AJ.”

Their footsteps stall. “Okay!” she hears. Sarah sways in place. 

“Sarah,” he says, into his single arm. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. Oh, God.”

It’s alright, Sarah wants to say. She managed it earlier, didn’t she? Her wrist is more or less fine now. Maybe a bit tender, but nothing that couldn’t have happened a million other ways.

The words don’t come out. Instead, to her horror, a small sound like a sob does. 

It’s alright, she urges herself. Just say it.

“I love you,” is what she says instead. She leaves the kitchen to fetch the dustpan. It’s only once she’s hit the laundry room and locked the door behind her that she lets herself begin to cry.

**

By bedtime, Sarah’s wrist is properly tender. The kitchen has long since been cleaned. In between her stint in the laundry and AJ’s innocent declaration that she needed a shower, Bucky went ahead and ordered them pizza for dinner, so that was one more thing she didn’t have to think about too. No one put the boys to bed properly but when she checked in they had managed alright themselves. When she enters the bedroom the storm outside has dulled to a simple drizzle and her chest floods with relief. He’s there. And not in the sleeping bag, either. He’s on their bed, curled up to face the wall, and his face is pale. 

Sarah ignores her bathroom routine and crawls onto the bed beside him. He hasn’t re-attached his arm. She saw it in the den, earlier, tucked away behind the cushions on the daybed he used to use.

She takes a deep breath. She’s spent most of the evening trying to detangle between her residual emotions from the Jonah Day and the very real thing that happened downstairs. She sat in the tub for twenty minutes thinking about what words she wanted to use. 

Bucky beats her to it.

“Has it,” he starts, sounding miserable. “Your -- your arm.”

Sarah doesn’t want to lie. “It’s ...”

“Jesus,” he whispers, this awful undertone of disgust weighing it down into the bed.

“I was going to say it probably won’t even bruise.”

Bucky doesn’t reply. She wonders if he hasn’t reached out to check the wrist himself because he’s scared of himself, or if he’s scared she will be.

“I’m sorry for not being more careful earlier,” Sarah says after a long moment, looking at her toes. They’re in desperate need of a pedicure. “For – yelling. Being rough. I should have been more aware of my surroundings.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” she hears, delivered into the bedspread. 

They have two spreads on this bed. One Sarah has had for always – it’s quilted, with small squares of yellow and blue, and small stitched flowers that Sarah’s grandmother said were meant to bring a sense of safety into a bedroom. The other is red – burgundy pattern bursts, even a bit of purple. The material is thicker-woven and heavier and very new, and bought after much careful consideration (and her own encouragement that he get something he liked) from one of Bucky’s favourite vendors a few months ago. She knows it is called a kitenge and loves that it is on her bed.

“B,” Sarah says finally. “If I’m an adult I’m responsible for how I behave when I know certain things about others. You have to –” she fists her hands into the sheets, searches for the right thing beneath the tension in her throat, “respect that. Respect me by acknowledging that.”

There’s a long moment of quiet. 

“Thank you for apologizing,” Bucky says softly. Then, after another long pause, “I’m sorry for not telling you how – how bad I was feeling. And for scaring you after. And for ... fuck. Sarah. I’m so sorry.”

Sarah swallows around her dry tongue.

“I know. You still feeling rough?”

“A little. My head got really loud and I couldn’t stop it.”

“Because of last week’s thing.”

Sarah doesn’t like calling them missions. Sam says she doesn’t want to give ‘em the dignity of a proper name lest they end up having power over her life.

“It wasn’t anyone’s fault.” 

“Did you call –”

She can’t see his face but she can perfectly imagine the way his eyes scrunch shut on a frown. “Didn’t realize it was bad until it was … bad. Thought I could work through it yesterday. With – routines.”

“The tea,” Sarah realizes. Simultaneously she feels heartbreak and a keen sense of frustration. She should have noticed, she thinks. Then again, the plain reality is that she will have her own bad days, and she is only human. Also, she very much knows the desire to prove you haven’t mistaken your newfound ability to control. Still, still, still – 

“Just, since then,” she starts.

“I called Dr. Naimi while you were in the shower,” he says quietly. 

It’s been about a month with her, so Sarah would have been ready to understand if he didn’t at all. Just barely, but ready. Sarah likes Dr. Naimi and Dr. Naimi likes Sarah. Trauma specialist is an added perk of her proximity to them, and Sarah’s cheerful memories of LSU.

Sarah lets out a long exhale through her mouth. She can see his right hand where it’s curled up by his stomach. He’s put bandaids over the cuts from the ceramic. She knows he doesn’t need them – those cuts would’ve self-sealed within fifteen minutes – so she is left wondering if the decision was made for the boys’ sake, or maybe hers, or even his own. Easy not to think about something if the evidence is covered up and away. Sarah rubs at her eyes, which are dry and gritty from her earlier cry.

In a sense she’s stalling the instinct to reach out to him because the back of her brain is still working through the newer, more temporary instinct that’s appeared. But she does need to change. Bucky is already in his sleep clothes, faded grey sweatpants that he’s wearing holes into and that garishly orange t-shirt memorializing Cass’s first grade Lion King play. Sarah leaves the bed. She brushes her teeth, wraps up her hair, wipes her face. She comes back into the bedroom and shimmies out of her jeans, then bypasses her usual tank top for the navy blue t-shirt folded neatly at the top of his drawer. The shoulders hit halfway down her biceps. She crawls back onto the bed, in front of him this time.

Bucky’s still wide awake.

“You gonna stay awake all night?” she asks.

“No.”

“Promise?”

She watches him touch his tongue to his bottom lip, which is looking raw, like he’s been doing that all night. He trembles on the inhale. “I’m better,” he repeats. “I’ll do some – um, those exercises before bed. Forgot to do ‘em last night, I was real tired I guess.”

This bedroom’s good for those – it’s got so much stuff in it, and sentimental stuff too, he can go through picking out things he can see and what they’re made of and how they feel to touch and lull himself to sleep like that. Sometimes he does it teasingly and lists what she is wearing while he takes it off. 

His eyes have cast down, a very deliberate avoidance of hers. Swallowing against her own mind she scootches forward and lies down in front of him. Then she pulls at his shoulder – firm, but with gentle hands. 

“Sarah,” muffled, into the pillow.

“Need you to hold me.”

“You don’t have to –”

“For me. For me, James.”

He relents, balancing on the ball of his empty shoulder, and smoothes his free hand over her arm and around her back to pull her towards him. His fingers, which are so familiar to her by now, splay open between her shoulder blades. They don't tremble, but they’re very careful. Sarah has to work hard not to notice. Still, he ends up half covering her. She lets her tender wrist lay gingerly against her collarbone in the hollow between their chests and breathes in and out in long steadying breaths. Where their bodies touch (at her hip, her cheek, where his shoulder digs into her breast) the pressure is just minutely too much but enough for Sarah’s purposes. She winds one arm around him, tangles their legs together, closes her eyes, and wills herself through her pounding heart to re-memorize the feeling: the deep-seated thing within herself that’s come to associate his body touching hers with safety and security. 

Sarah doesn’t newly believe herself a fool. Reality coexists with her convictions and they’ll just have to work their way through it. The blankets beneath them are contrasting in their fabrics and soft against the bare skin of Sarah’s neck. 

“I love you,” Bucky whispers. It’s said in the same way she said it earlier. Sarah nods, and holds him tighter.

[alurrina]

I personally prefer top Steve and bottom billy (sometimes switching), but I 100% agree. Many writers (as good as their stories are) are constantly making Steve seem like I little baby and feminise him to another extent. And I really hate it. I honestly get so mad and upset when writers COMPLETELY change their personalities, and almost all the time they make Steve out (not in a rude way but) to be the biggest fucking pussy and make billy this edgy bad-boy thing while Steve is all sensitive and innocent. Or without saying they change the setting (eg). Them holding hands or kissing out in public as if they’re ass’ wouldn’t get beat half to death. I find it more interesting when it’s kept to its true era and shot like that, u know? And y’all just change their personalities to much. It’s not even them anymore. And I’m taking about when it’s not tagged in it, (like that “oh this person is like this, and that one is like that etc”) that these ppl really think that’s how the characters act. Like CLEARLY THEY ARE BOTH JUST TWO MASCULINE GUYS- SO WHY. IS ONE. MADE OUT. TO BE A LIL BITCH??? I DON’T GET IT!!!

And BRO. COME ON. BILLYS OBVIOUSLY A BOTTOM. STEVES A TOP. AND JUST BC OF THAT, DONT MEAN STEVE IS A WOMAN!! WHEN DOES HE EVER ACT LIKE THAT?! BUT THEY STILL TREAT EACH OTHER THE SAME. STOP MAKING ONE GO ALL BITCH OR SOME SHIT AND THE OTHER AN ASSHOLE. ITS WEIRDDDDD

And I fucking love harringrove along w a lot of other shit, buttt- ppl are just constantly making Steve go all bitch. Make him a baby n scared of anything and neeeeds Billy’s protectionnnn 🥺🥺 like are u shitting me? Since when did he act like that? And when did every person in the world accept lgbtq+? They didn’t. (In that era). Or they make it seem like billy has this… DEEP and HUSKY VOICE- while Steve’s is high and woman-like. He’s never acted like that. Also after everything. Billy needs all the TLC! CMON NOW! And all this shit I’m picking on is fine- IF. IT IS PUT IN THE TAGS. THAT THIS IS HOW THEYRE GONNA ACT. LIEK IMSORRY BUT DID NOT ONE HEAR BILLYS VOICE IN THAT SHOWER SCENE??? “PLenTy oF biTcHeS iN tHe sEa.” Like butch? His voice is high than mine!! And If they were to happen! Steve would NEVER constantly always be bottom! HES KING STEVE!

And I don’t just mean them. It’s almost like every single fandom that writes stories abt other ships. This post is just specifically abt harringrove. Just pisses me offff.

Me when I’m reading a really good fic, then they make Steve CRY bc billy punched someone-

I’m in-