#i would really appreciate if anybody wants to add onto this

[mac33cheese]

Okay hear me out on this one, Saiki kusou having a mental breakdown and age regressing

I mean shape shifting into a kid and mentally age regressing, using his old diy robot toy as a comfort object

I imagine this break down being Post Meteor but it could really be after any traumatic event

And the breakdown is sorta from a realization that of he doesn't have his powers he can't stop crisis from happening (volcano, nendo time loop, meteor, ANY of the things he has to stop when he has those dreams followed by headaches, ect) but having his powers also gives him a very hard time (guilt of the valcano time loop, Akechi incident, and just the general struggles he shows that having his powers come with).

so he sorta breaks down really bad, and his resort? Age regression. Not necessarily healthy age regression at first but I feel like if this were to be something he uses more often then he would learn how to use this as a healthy way to cope. But let me explain why age regression (should add that I am not very educated on age regression, so please feel free to correct me on literally ANYTHING I say)

It's pretty clear saiki was happier as a kid, I mean not entirely but theres DEFINITELY a difference there. In my opinion he seemed a bit more carefree? That may not be the right way to explain it but I think you can get the picture. I think he would find comfort in how his mindset was during that time. I just feel this cope would work pretty well for him (although it's pretty ooc I think) but I think he wouldnt use it in a healthy way at first, I'm not sure how to explain it.

Anyways this is just an angst headcanon idea, age regression saiki gng

[tbaluver]

Can you write the guys reaction to having a baby girl as their first child? (I'm a sucker for papa's little princesses)

Thank you and your works are the best and comforting!

Papa's Little Princess- The Love And DeepSpace Men

synopsis: when your first child is a girl! genre: fluff fluff a/n: omg this was such a cute idea i wish they were real (╥﹏╥) and thank you so much! i hope my works can continuing being comforting for you and anybody else <3 i hope this was okay and that you enjoy this! (ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ)♡ any likes and reblogs are always appreciated! enjoy!

⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆

Xavier:

His little star

A gentle father. He's the type to never yell at his daughter but he'll provide positive disciplining strategies with you.

He wants to be in every part of his daughter's life in any way he can. He wouldn't really know how to do his daughter's hair but he was willing to try ! He would watch you tie her hair, braid, and put many accessories in her hair and he would be confused on how you did all that. He tried looking up how to do her hair and his first time wasn't the best.....but after some practice with you, he would be a pro just like you!

Do NOT let these two bake together especially with the easy bake ovens. Nearly set the kitchen on fire attempting to make cookies for you. He couldn't say no to her when she wanted to cook or try baking with him. You don't know how but it ended up burnt or with the weirdest toppings ever and a broken easy bake oven.

Nap time is serious business with these two. They are not to be disturbed. She's either asleep on his chest or in his lap. Whenever you take walks and she gets too tired, he'll carry her around on his back. She'll rest her head on the crook of his neck while he holds onto her tightly.

She would have all the plushies, toys, and snacks she wants! He'll do his all to get her the plushies in the claw machine to make his little angel jump up and down in joy. She could never have enough

Loves to join her in her imaginative play whether she wants to be a princess or an astronaut. It makes playtime full of joy and adventure

Zayne:

You two would have the most polite, well mannered, and kindest daughter ever.

Loves to participate in playing house with her. He'll sit on the floor or the tiny chairs from the tea party set you gotten for her. He'll play the role with no complaints and tell her that the tea is delicious even though there is absolutely no tea in the plastic cup.

He's a doctor but he can't help but sneak a few sweet treats for her. If she wants some before lunch or dinner then she can have at least one before she eats her meal and then she'll have plenty more after. These two would have cavities later on.

He would make her all the mini snowmen and other things she wants from his evol. He finds her reaction to be adorable each time, it never gets old.

If your daughter mentions a boy, he would tell her she can have a boyfriend around 30. She would be happy and so was he. Mainly because she has no concept of time and age yet.

Your daughter loves to hear him read. Even though she was still very very young and didn't grasp everything just yet, he would read her stories and explain them with care and patience, aiming to entertain and nurture her curiosity. She loves to sit on his lap and sometimes she'll fall asleep on him.

He would let her pick any flower she wants to grow in your garden at the backyard. You would all start a small garden together and he would teach her how to care for them.

Rafayel:

Takes playing house a little too seriously. Whatever role his daughter gives him, he's giving it his all.

Oh he was so excited when your daughter first held a crayon. He colors with her a lot and eventually will introduce her to paint. He would tell her that she's doing so well even if they were just blobs. She's going to be an artist just like her papa. He'll even add some of her artwork on his so he can point it out to her if he were to have another exhibition tour.

First time at the beach with his daughter was such an emotional day for him. Hearing and seeing her squeal when her little feet touched the water warmed his heart. He held her so tightly and tenderly, reassuring her that she won't float away because her papa's got her. He teaches her a lot about how some fishes are friendly and one day he'll meet some of his fish friends.

He'll eventually tell her all about Lemuria whenever it was time for bed and he thought it's so cute whenever she wanted to hear more about it.

Would absolutely love to play dress up with her. Sometimes he'll pick some of her clothes out and he would think she is beautiful just like her mama. They'll make a little runway and model the outfits.

He would keep all the little milestones she has made and any memories. He'll keep all the photos, drawings, and any mementos to look back at the treasured memories.

Sylus:

The second person who will ever see his soft side is his daughter. You being the first.

He is protective over his daughter and with you. If anyone were to look at either one of you wrong? Sleep with one eye open.

He does not have fragile masculinity! He will let her apply as much toy makeup as she wants on his face. He'll play dress up with her as much as she wants no matter how obscure the outfits are! He has no complaints, anything to make his little angel smile and happy.

She loves hearing him sing lullabies. It puts her to sleep immediately but sometimes she'll sing or hum along with him.

If you tell your daughter no to something then she'll ask Sylus. He can't say no to his sweet baby girl. Just don't tell mom. He doesn't know what true fear is until he meets a mothers anger.

Loves to spoil her just like how he loves to spoil you. Not to the point where she's a brat though, you two would teach her to be better than that. "Just because" gifts to make her feel special without any special occasions

Anytime he would be away for business, he'll always bring you two something back. Something that you both either love or reminds him of you two or maybe both.

BONUS (All): They would all be patient fathers overall. They would never yell if your daughter showed any emotions especially if their daughters were to cry. They’re offering their own patience, love, and comfort in their own way. They would be there for your daughter emotionally as they were with you.

[snonkerdoodlewritesstuff]

Hey.

I'm not gonna ask how you are, because I know how you are. At least, I think I do. I don't know if I want myself to be true.

When you...left...I'm not sure whether left is the right word, actually. The horror of what happened...the horror of what you did to me...is something that can't be described with words. My soul was ripped apart. My heart shattered into a million pieces. My soul was wounded. My life ended when you went away from me.

And...even after all of that...I hope you're okay, my love. I really do. You...I don't think you could help it. If only we talked to each other. If only we worked things out before IT happened...maybe this wouldn't've been such a bad thing.

At any rate, I want to tell you something. Something that I never told you before, and now definitely won't ever get the chance to.

I loved you. When you would smile the way you did in the sun and we would sneak off together to do things we should'nt've been doing, I loved you. When you would marvel at little things like flowers and hummingbirds and nightingales, I loved you. I've always loved you, from the moment I met you.

I love you. I love you, even now that you're gone, even now that I'm nothing but a pile of broken pieces and memories. I love you, even though they all dragged you away from me, so that I could never embrace you again, and never have the chance to call you mind. Even after all that, I still love you.

I will always love you. Even though I'll never see you again--not for a long while, at the least--I will always love you. There doesn't seem to be anybody else for me, because my heart was yours the moment I set eyes on you. It's always you, my love. Always you...

And lastly, I will miss you. I will miss the way you were a fucking diva all the time. I'll miss the way you were so rude to anyone who crossed you. I'll miss your smiles, the way you saw the world, the way...the way you looked when you were happy, or sad, or anything really. You're fucking beautiful, sweetheart.

This letter can be read from 3 perspectives:

Crowley to Aziraphale after Good Omens season 2.

John Watson to Sherlock Holmes after Sherlock season 2. 🧐

Blade Ranger to Nick Loopin' Lopez after the crash.

There are 3 more lines to add as well for each:

He let out a sigh laden with a thousand years' worth of exhaustion and

took a look around the bookshop--his bookshop now, that Aziraphale had found it in him to abandon it. He didn't know why he stayed, given the pain it caused him, but leaving would somehow make it worse. Sinking low into the cushions of the couch, he took a swig from his bottle.

sank back into the chair, facing the other one that should've been filled with a lanky man and his stupid curly hair and stupid angelic face. His vision blurred in and out of focus from the lack of sleep--he knew that if he gave in now he would only wake up to the words, "Goodbye, John" ringing in his ears.

sank low onto his landing gear, staring at the picture of his one-- and it seemed only--love. It didn't matter how many years it had been since the accident; a part Blade was and would always belong to Nick. Looking around at the scene of the base, he headed back to his cliff, parking a little ways from the edge to keep watch over the park for lightning storms. He fought fires now. He saved lives for real. After all, that's all he could do at this point, wasn't it?

So sorry if the ending seems rushed on any of them but constructive criticism would be appreciated! Thank you for reading this!

[cwarscars]

ivory-paragon

Send me a url and I'll write some positivity for it.

@ivory-paragon

consider this a fuckin duel answer of multi-positivity goodness cause im gonna sperge over u both like some weird stalker who admires your shit from afar but is too terrible ( lazy? overworked and not around enough? idk lets ignore the fine deets ) to interact more ( as much as id love to shhhh )

SO firstly;

james aka my boy rufus - heid's boy rufus? lmao, probs not. everytime i see james on my dash, i see the fuckin' king you know what i mean? i see a passion that is inspiring, a love for the character that spans decades (im pretty certain, how long is a decade?) in a strange way, james' portrayal / love for rufus makes me feel nostalgia. i have flashbacks to advent children being realised, i remember my sister ( i wonder if she'll see this she follows me lol ) fawning over rufus in the og. it's a cosy feeling. like watching toonami or playing dirge of cerberus, i feel snuggly.

that's a weird way to describe somebody and their portrayal - but i hope it makes some sense. it's a warm, comforting feeling. i can see the appreciation for the original source material in james' portrayal and writing whilst also seeing a nice blend / respect for the newer stuff / way that rufus is written now. i know a fair few people who write with james and whenever i see the threads appear on my dash - they're the sort that i stop and read. i find james' take on rufus interesting and intrigueing, and it makes me really think about how my heid and his rufus would interact. i know that i could get something there that wouldnt be a 'typical' kinda ship. yknow? it would be something complex, potentially dark but also not without the family(sorta) aspect that comes from the shinra line & heidegger.

another thing i wanna note here in my admiration towards james is the two of yous interactions / the entire scenario that you've shaped around rufus/cloud's relationships. i find your combined passion admirable and it's very clear, i think, to anybody on the dash that the two of you have a lot of chemistry when it comes to writing. it's the kind of writing partnership a lot of rpers dream of; i love that.

@spec-b

AS FOR YOU, i know you didn't send this in for your url but fuggit, im a rebel, a bad boy -

you know i'm an absolute grade a simp for anybody appreciative of the og. for anybody willing to give it a shot ( too many turn their noses up at the older graphics ) and anybody who actually runs with it, admires and appreciates it. you do that. you not only appreciate it - but you do it justice. you insert the nuances both suggested and outright shown in the original into your portrayal and i see 'em - i see you doing it, goddamn i admire it.

it's so refreshing being able to actually reccomend something as silly as new threat to someone and see them play it, enjoy it - have fun and speak about it with such a passion / joy. it's so refreshing and so, so lovely to see. i know that if i threw up some headcanon garble to you about how heid is fearful of the north crater because in the og, he doesn't leave the highway - you'd GET IT. like, i know you'd probably see my silly ramble and understand it because your passion for the original game is as prominent ( if not more so ) than my own love for it.

i adore the depth you give cloud that he had in the original; i love that you not only play with that depth but also add your own take onto it. you play with things suggested, stuff that could have been canon had the story shifted in a slightly different direction. seeing your both extremely loyal / to-character but also alternative take on cloud is both refreshing and respectful to the original. i admire that a great deal.

i don't write with the two of you anywhere near as much as i'd like to - and that's entirely on me. i'm awful for finding the time to just write these days outside of starter calls or asks but i want you both to know that i really do admire you, i love seeing your stuff on my dash and i appreciate you both hugely as people. keep doing you, keep loving the original, keep loving your characters. you're inspirational and i hope you both know it. <3

[bakugohoex]

sleeping beside his s/o

pairing: armin arlert x gender neutral reader; eren yeager x gender neutral reader; erwin smith x gender neutral reader; jean kirschtein x gender neutral reader; levi ackerman x gender neutral reader; reiner braun x gender neutral reader

cw: tooth rotting fluff

word count: 1000+

a/n: quick headcanons because I won’t be posting long oneshots for a bit

summary: in which you have a sleeping position with your boyfriend

↞ back to attack on titan masterlist

armin arlert

His arm stayed around your waist, your head on his shoulder as you snuggled up into his body. Your leg always seemed to find his waist as you slept on him most the time. He couldn’t lie but you being this close to him was always the best part of his sleep, the low hums of an unknown song to help you sleep with you close by him. The smell of your fresh shampoo engulphing his nose, the way that even if the bed had plenty of room you’d still find yourself clinging onto his side. Waking up beside you with a “good mornin’ darling” and skimmed kisses against your face, each time holding your face to have a look at what was hidden. On the rare occasions you wake up before he does you pretend to be asleep just to feel his kisses, he’ll know that you’re pretending each time  and will still give you your well-deserved kisses.

eren yeager

His grip tightened against your waist as he kept a hold of your side, his head in the crook of your neck, smelling the perfume you had put on in the morning. It's his favourite smell, a mix of perfume, the environment you had been in. Unique to him a smell that he loved to nuzzle up into every night, something that he would never miss at all. You both love skin to skin contact, almost always finding your bare back against his bare chest, it was a sign of intimacy that he loved to feel. He always kisses your neck before you sleep, and on the occasions where you both cant sleep his fingers trail against your back. Drawings stars and scenes across your perfect back, he could envision it and that’s all that mattered. When you both finally wake up from long nights of having 3am talks, he will never not say “morning baby” before giving you a sloppy tired kiss anywhere near your mouth. He has on many occasions missed your mouth and left slobbery kisses on your chin and jaw before.

erwin smith

A man who knows what he wants, and he wants you in his bed, lying against his body. He uses the same sleeping position as Armin, but his other hand is always across his chest and on your side. He doesn’t care if it makes him uncomfortable, the need to be touching you, touching what enchants his vision. Soft murmurs are a common occurrence whenever you both do sleep, he loves being able to play with your hair as you mumble out replies. He doesn’t care if you fall asleep before him, it's more time for him to relish in having you beside him. He loves how your face mushes onto his chest whenever he wakes up before you, your cheeks squished by the impact, drool dripping onto him. He loves it, it's something only he can see, would give you a kiss on the head as he stays knowing just how much he loved you.

jean kirschtein

He hates admitting this to anybody and is glad that nobody has ever watched the two of you sleep at all. Your arms around him, his head cushioned on your chest as he lies on top of you, your legs almost wrapped around him. You both know Jean always sleeps easier in that position and you couldn’t lie yourself and say it wasn’t one of your favourite ones. The late-night conversations where you both were at peace; he’d tilt his head against your chest cuddling into your closer as you look down at him softly. The much bigger man became romanticised, becoming something that nobody else would see, his words of affirmation, “I love you…I love you more than anything else in this world.” It's on these nights of confessions of love between one another where you and Jean truly learn the most about each other. A few tears shed but you both had found a different method of intimacy that worked for you both, that proved just how much love you had for one another.

levi ackerman

The way the back of your head rested against his chest, one hand around your waist as the other went straight to the book he was reading. You always eagerly asked for him to read to you, and this was your favourite position. He couldn’t lie and say it wasn’t a position that didn’t help him, your soft snores were always heard within twenty pages, slowly letting you sleep on him as he grabbed the work papers you had pushed to the side. He knew it was hard for him to sleep but if you sleeping on him was the only way for you both to gain some normality he would allow it to continue. Even though doing paperwork would always check up on you, you’d occasionally fidget as his chest was your pillow and snuggle into him as you wanted to feel his warmth. He might fall asleep himself sitting upright but he didn’t care, dozing off as his head fell to the side and you both would wake up with pains in more parts of your body. “Tch, this is what you get for being a brat…my brat though.”

reiner braun

He was obsessed with the way you softly snored across his chest, the way your tiny finger wrapped in the material of his shirt. You had often spoken about how you could only sleep if it was on top of him, and that was one of the main causes to this arrangement that you both had made. He could be all protective and warm to you with his big arms encasing your smaller frame and you could still wrap your entire body around his waist and chest to give him your own love and affection. It worked better than the two of you had ever expected as it was a daily routine for you to end up snuggling into Reiner’s chest. You couldn’t help it; he was your big strong boyfriend and with the personality of a golden retriever how could you not love sleeping across his chest. He’s always the one to give you forehead kisses and say “I love you” when he thinks you're asleep which you definitely always hear. 

i’d really appreciate if you guys could leave a like, reblog or comment, thanks x

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[wri0thesley]

I propose slow loving sex with Gojo thank u for ur time

propose and you may receive

prince charming - gojo x reader (2.5k)

[comments and reblogs are much appreciated! // my jjk masterlist] 

warnings: afab reader, no pronouns. not sfw. minors dni! light fingering, piv sex, coming inside, soft. . . soft . . .

Most people who know Satoru Gojo would tell you that the man has two modes. Two ways of being. There is the way that he is from day to day; the laugh, the shovelling of sweets into his mouth, the constant stream of upbeat nonsense and jokes that few people are able to keep a proper track of. This is the Satoru Gojo he is with his students, you think – when the weight of being the strongest does not weigh so heavy on his shoulders.

Then, there is the Satoru Gojo in battle. There is the lift of his blindfold, the way that his blue eyes bore into his enemies – the self-assured way of talking, the ruthless precision with which he deploys his skills. This is the Satoru Gojo that does bear the weight of all of his strength; but his lips still quirk at the corners, he still cracks a joke sometimes though his tone is steely. They have shades of one another, those two personalities - but still, they are the two personalities that he chooses to show the world.

You, however, are permitted to see a different side than most people do.

You see Gojo now, with his body over yours, his soft lips brushing your jawline. You see him with his big hands, cupping your face so he has more access to your neck and your ear, the kisses coming slow and soft and relaxed. He is a large man, despite the fact that he is tall, lithe muscle as opposed to pure brawn – he cages you beneath him like he never wants you to be able to escape him.

You do not want to escape him. Not least when you finally manage to capture those lips in your own and you taste sugar on his tongue. As his teeth nip gently at your lower lip and a breathy sigh is transferred into his mouth; as his long fingers run down your body, appreciating you with a soft hum.

“I’d ask what I did to get so lucky,” he murmurs, voice low and throaty, “but I think I deserve you.”

Some things do not change; Gojo’s arrogance is always there, beneath the surface. He is lucky you find his self-confidence charming, your lips sliding into a smile as your own hands gently push up the shirt he’s wearing. His skin is warm and soft beneath it (you dread to think how expensive it was; Gojo spends money like it’s going out of style, and you have a myriad of gifts to prove it).

“You don’t shut up, do you?” You ask him, mildly, your smile not leaving your face. He laughs softly, and it feels like wind blowing through a field of flowers.

“You love me for it,” he says, all fondness, and he’s right. His shirt is parted from his top half and you admire him; unmarked skin (you suppose his technique means he’s free from the scars so many other jujutsu sorcerers learn to live with), the lean but taut muscles of his abdomen and shoulders. You run your fingers over him and he sighs, leaning into your touch like a cat. Your thumb brushes the hollow of his throat as you take a handful of his pale hair and drag him down into another kiss.

If nothing else, it occupies his mouth.

You can feel his hardness straining in his ripped jeans (pre-ripped for his convenience, with an eye-watering price tag, but even you have to admit that they make his ass look rounder and cling to his thighs and crotch in a way that makes you needy and heated if you stare for too long) as he moves his body against you, half-grinding.

You’re on the couch. You really should move to the bed – heaven knows Gojo’s is big enough for both of you – but there’s something domestic and sweet about Gojo kissing you here, amongst the remains of the sweets he’d been feeding you and with a romantic comedy neither of you are watching any more playing on the screen.

It’s so easy to feel like everything with Gojo is a life-or-death situation – to ascribe more meaning to a brush of his fingers on your shoulder or a murmur of ‘I’ll be home later tonight’ than you really need to.

This, though - this is simple, and easy. It lets you forget the world outside, just for the moments in which Gojo’s body is pressed against yours – lets you think of yourself as a normal couple.

There is nothing more romantic to you than the thought of you and Gojo being able to be just anybody.

So you spread your legs further apart so he can settle between them, sighing as his mouth moves from your own to brush kisses over your cheeks and the bridge of your nose instead.

“You’re wearing too many clothes,” he tells you, as he pulls back and tugs on your own shirt – you allow it to be removed, thrown onto the ground where you may never see it again. Much more interesting than the lost shirt are Gojo’s hands, large and warm, sliding up the expanse of your stomach and to your breasts, squeezing the soft flesh. He undoes the catch of your bra as if the motion is as easy as breathing – and maybe to him, it is. Upon your flesh being newly bared, he sighs, leaning down to kiss the swell of the curve. To find your nipple with the warmth of his tongue and tease it to hardness as he flattens his tongue against it and laps at you, the motion sending little electric shocks of pleasure to the place between your thighs. You sigh and squirm, and he gives the hardened bud a gentle graze of his teeth as he pulls back to look at you.

The sight of his blue eyes concentrated wholly on you and all of the distilled starshine contained within always makes you lose your senses for a moment. It should be unfair, you think, for him to look like that. For those wide blue eyes to seem so innocent when you know that he is not--

“You’re so beautiful,” he tells you. You know that he’s telling you the truth; Gojo is not the kind to mince his words. His hands rest on your waist, curving down over your hips to tug at your bottoms and make short work of those too. You lift yourself slightly to allow it, Gojo wriggling so that he can get them off without ever having to really move from between your legs. The bottoms go the same way as your shirt, and you are below him now in nothing but your underwear--

Though that’s barely covering anything. Gojo sighs to see the pale white of the piece you’re wearing has gone translucent from the gush of your slick, clinging to the outline of your folds and showing him just how needy the kissing and the touching and the groping has gotten. He trails a finger down and brushes your mound through the fabric, ghosting over your clit.

“This is for me, doll?” He asks you, a smirk on his face that you want to kiss off.

“You know it is,” you breathe, lifting your hips – and the smirk softens into a smile.

“Maybe I like hearing you say it,” he murmurs, increasing the pressure of his touch so he is rubbing you through the cotton; his big fingers pressing against your clit, making your hips jerk. You don’t know if you want to jerk away from the sensation of the fabric pressing against your swollen nub, or jerk into the pressure that you want so badly – so you settle for circling your hips, panting soft little noises.

Gojo smiles at you and the expression on his face is dazzling. Your heart skips a beat; he’s so beautiful. You’re so unbelievably, amazingly lucky--

“Don’t look at me like that,” he says, leaning and kissing your cheek, burying his face in the crook of your neck to kiss and lick and suck at the skin there. Your back arches as his attentions send yet more shivers down your spine, set you aflame even further. If you didn’t know better, you’d swear his face was warm – is he blushing? “If you could see yourself, you’d understand--”

“If you could see yourself,” you tell him, through the pounding need in your chest, “you’d understand exactly why I’m looking at you like that--”

“Oh, I know,” he preens, though his face is still warm. He hooks his fingers into the wet underwear and pulls them over your thighs. “I know why you’re looking at me like that! I’m gorgeous-- but . . .” He seems to stumble over his words before he manages to get a good hold on them again, before he pulls back and the flush on his cheeks is only barely there. “You don’t know how gorgeous you are, and . . .” He places a hand to his chest. Your underwear is dangling from his thumb, though you’re not entirely sure how he fully tangled you out of him in the position the two of you are still in. “It breaks my heart!”

You smile despite yourself.

“You’re being too romantic,” you tell him, though your insides are secretly all aflame and bubbling. “It’s not like you.”

“I’m wounded,” he says. One hand lands on your thigh, drawing circles and patterns on the slick skin – his middle finger gently nudges the very outside of your sex, teasing the puffy lips apart so he can brush your clit. Your gasp dies in your throat. “I’ll have you know I’m an absolute Prince Charming, baby--”

And he’s giving you that charming smile, even as that same finger presses deep inside you in one swift movement and your knuckles clench on the couch cushion. You groan aloud, lifting your hips to allow him deeper, to make you feel fuller--

Your eyelashes flutter, eyelids somewhere between open and closed, but you still see that Gojo’s own gaze is fixed on you. It’s tender. Loving. You feel strangely exposed beneath it – but at the same time, you feel warm and comfortable and right as he adds another finger and stretches you out on it, scissoring them apart. He brushes the spongy spot of your walls that always hits different and you sigh, murmuring out his name--

“Satoru,” you’re practically whining. “Satoru, faster, please—”

“Prince Satoru,” he corrects you, with a grin that’s slightly crooked to one side and more charming than it has any right to be. He pumps his fingers in and out of you a few more times, until they are thoroughly coated in your wetness, until the fire inside you has been suitably kindled and your breath is uneven and your face is hot – and then he pulls them out.

You don’t have time to whine.

Not with the sound of his zipper, the sound of him kicking off his expensive jeans – the heat of him settling over you on his knees and taking your hips to slide you easily onto his cock.

He groans out your name like it’s all he ever wants to say.

“You feel like you were made for me,” he says, and you reach up and grab a handful of his hair again. He lets it be pulled with only the softest sigh – lets you bend him over you so the two of you are cheek to cheek, chest to chest, so close that you can feel his heart beating. “Fuck, doll--”

He’s right. He fits inside of you like the missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle; warm and tight and perfect.

It’s a triumph, for Satoru Gojo to be lost for words – but he stops speaking as he fucks you slow and soft. It’s not that you and he only usually fuck hard and rough – but his job is stressful, and he is teasing and smug, and it’s more usual for you to be bent over on his bed as he pulls your hair and runs his mouth than it is for anything like this to happen.

He doesn’t seem to have any complaints about it, though – and neither do you. How can you complain when he holds you so gently? When he kisses you like he’s savouring the taste of you instead of devouring you?

He’s not speaking, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t noisy – he’s panting, groaning, moaning. He’s always loud in bed – he has almost no self-control when it comes to pleasure, you don’t think – but the noises also go right through you in only the best of ways, making you shiver and shudder. It’s unfair that his voice should sound so good. It’s unfair that he should have almost no flaws--

Some people might say his personality is a flaw, you suppose, but you unfortunately find him charming.

You wrap your legs about his waist and his cock hits deeper, brushes that same spot inside of you – but you find you do not care so much about the orgasm as you care about having Gojo in this embrace.

Not caring about it, though, doesn’t mean that is not going to happen – not with the slow thrusts of his hips, or with the sight of him with his lip bitten and his hair all mussed up from your tangling.

You’re not sure if Gojo has ever found something that he isn’t good at, and fucking you is no exception. His cock hits every spot inside of you and seems to find new nerves you didn’t know would feel so good when stimulated; your entire abdomen (hell, your entire body) feels like it’s on fire. You were slick enough before he’d entered you, but now you can feel your own arousal pooling on the couch cushions beneath you – you can hear how wet Gojo’s cock must be, on the push-pull of him fucking into you. The glide is slick and silky and searing, and your fingers flex on his back, as the tight string inside of you readies to snap.

“Sat-- I’m-- ‘m gonna--”

Your words are lost to the feel of him, to the haze that seems to descend around you whenever you and Gojo are together. You see the curve of his smile, hear him softly whisper;

“S’alright, baby--”

A stroke of his hips that has the flat plane of his pelvis pressing against your clit and you let yourself go, tumbling into the bright lights of your oblivion, your thighs tightening reflexively about him as if you want him to drown inside of you. Gojo sighs, groans, moans out your name as your cunt milks him for all he is worth, squeezing around him – and, he, too, lets go. Heat. Warmth. Gojo’s cock, twitching, heavy and perfect and right inside of you.

“I love you,” you whisper, against his collarbone, in time with the beating of his heart – and Gojo looks at you as his hips continue to roll slow and leisurely, eking out the final drops of his release as it settles inside of you like a claim, and he smiles slow and soft like honey or syrup.

“I know,” he says, quietly. “I love you too.”

He stays inside of you, on top of you, in the embrace, even as his cock begins to soften. Enjoying your warmth, your presence, your closeness.

Maybe he is a Prince Charming.

You’re not going to say that aloud to him, though.

He’d never let it go.

[fanfic-scribbles]

Crash Pad

Fandom: MCU Captain America/Avengers

Summary: You’re just minding your own business when the Winter Soldier crashes into your life. Literally.

Quick facts: Romance – established past Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes leading into Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes/Reader – Nondescript Reader

Warnings: Fluff, slight mention of blood

Words: 7801

A/N: I started writing this a few months ago and almost finished when my life got fairly shook up. Still, I’m quite proud of being able to eke out an ending. For anybody who only cares about this story, feel free to skip this note, but for anybody following my other stuff: writing is going to be slow for the time being. My mom died and things are pretty topsy-turvy right now. Writing is still a comfort, but head to hands isn’t working the same right now. Thanks for your patience; I hope this is a pleasant read for you in the mean time <3

  ~

 You’re getting ready for bed and have just turned off the living room light when you hear a clatter on the fire escape. You haven’t gotten over to shut the window yet and you wince at the thought of maybe coming face to face with a giant rat, or a raccoon, although you haven’t yet seen a raccoon and you’re pretty sure they don’t live in the city but it would probably be better than a rat the size of a raccoon–

What you get is much, much worse as a fully grown man falls through the curtains, knocks over a side table and potted plant, and crashes onto your living room floor with a wheezed (but emphatic), “God damn it!”

You freeze, unsure of whether to run or yell or maybe both. However the man flounders on the floor, unable to otherwise move much as he holds his side and– is that blood on your floor?

“Are you okay?” you ask despite everything.

He yanks his head back to look at you and grimaces. “Fuck, I–” He tries to get up, slips in what you are almost positive is blood, and slumps over with a little sigh and a handful of muttered curses that might be in another language. “I am really sorry about this,” he says lowly, like he's embarrassed to be bleeding out in a stranger’s living room. Then he shifts a little more and moonlight gleams on his arm. His very…shiny…completely metal arm, and you find a whole new way to be concerned.

You should have known the reasonable rent was a goddamn trap.

You take a few steps back, barely avoid hitting the counter, and flick the light back on without taking your eyes away from the man on your floor. He squints at the brightness and shows you a face that is, both fortunately and unfortunately, familiar. Fortunately because Captain America and the Avengers somehow got him pardoned for potential war crimes and treason even without him being present for any of that circus of a trial. Unfortunately because…war crimes. And treason. And that is definitely blood.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts out and looks a little woozy. “There were sheets– I thought the building was empty.”

“The sheeting is for the building right next to us,” you say and sigh. “I’m going to guess you are not in favor of me calling an ambulance?”

He just blinks at you a few times. Maybe he is secretly a raccoon.

“Please don’t,” he says, some life returning to his eyes, and he looks you up and down. The rubber duck pajamas must put him at ease because, while he is still tensely holding his midsection, his shoulders relax a little. “I’m so–”

“Sorry, yes, I know.” You point at the bathroom. “I’m going to get the first aid kit and hopefully I won’t have to explain to the coroner’s office why Captain America’s boo bled out on my floor.”

You’re just opening up the cupboard that hopefully contains at least some band-aids when he calls out, “What the hell is a ‘boo?’”

~

Two old t-shirts, one and a half rolls of dusty gauze, and his own homemade stitch kit later, the man is finally all patched up. “How are you not passing out from blood loss?” you ask, eyeing the mess on the nice hardwood that has definitely just lost you your deposit. But there’s no corpse to deal with, so at least things aren’t as bad as they could be.

“I’m built pretty hardy.” He sits up a little more and groans. Before you can beg him not to split his side again, he extends his hand. “James Barnes. But you can call me Bucky.”

You shake his hand (gently) and tell him your name. “Do you let everybody call you Bucky, or just the people whose floor you bleed all over?” Something moving catches your eye and you sigh at the sight of your inexpensive (but still nice) curtains blowing slightly, showing off their new stains. “Floor and drapes…”

“I’ll clean it,” he says. “I can get blood out of anything.” He winces. “I…that sounds worse than it is.”

“I imagine getting blood out of anything is a good skill for an international spy-assassin to have,” you say.

Bucky scowls. And, you think, blushes a little, though how he has enough blood to do that you don’t know. You look at the spot again. It looks big to you but maybe you’re making a fuss over nothing. No, wait, there’s still dried blood on your floor. You’re allowed a fuss. “So you know who I am.”

“Your boy made it hard to miss,” you say.

He grumbles to himself, then says, “He’s always such a drama queen. I didn’t need to be pardoned.”

“Really,” you say and look at the bloodied handkerchief wrapped around a bullet he dug out of himself. “Looks like at least one other person disagrees with you.”

“This was Steve’s fight, not mine.” He huffs. “Story of my goddamn lif–”

He suddenly falls back and you reach out instinctively to catch him. He recovers quickly, wild-eyed and stiff and you scoot back just in case. He takes a few deep breaths and seems to force himself calm. It doesn’t look very effective and you’re honestly starting to worry. “You really–”

“I did not faint,” he snaps and maybe he has more blood than you thought, or maybe absolutely all of it has come to collect in his face.

“I was going to say you really need a hospital,” you say. “But yeah, you did.”

He grumbles under his breath and then, as if predicting your protests, stands up quickly enough to waver. Serves him right, you think, but when he scowls at you, you wonder if maybe he’s psychic too. “Try not to pass out on your way home,” you say, because if he wants to leave there’s really nothing you can do to stop him.

“Funny,” he says. He clears his throat and adds, much more sincerely, “Thanks.”

For the t-shirts, for the first aid kit, for not calling the cops, for not calling the Avengers so Captain America can hone in on him like a cartoon hound, for not bitching about the floor too much– the list is many and varied and so you give him a simple nod and hope you can get even a little bit of sleep tonight because work tomorrow is going to be hell without it.

He goes back to the window and before you can point out you have a perfectly good door, Bucky slips out onto the fire escape again. You shrug to yourself and go over to firmly flip the lock. You’ve done your part– in the event he slips and hits his head, someone else can be the good Samaritan. You’re going to bed and tomorrow this is going to feel like a weird dream, if there is even a single good deity in existence.

~

You’re not sure if it’s proof of or a mark against the existence of said single good deity when Bucky shows back up in your fire escape the next evening and taps politely against your open window before he lets himself back in, scooting your new plant just an inch out of the way.

“I have a door,” is the first thing that comes out of your mouth.

“Your hallway’s too well lit,” he says, much more hale and hearty and obviously not suffering major blood loss. His hair even looks like he just got out of the shower, all soft and shiny and bouncing a bit as he twists his upper body to start pulling stuff out of a backpack hanging off one shoulder. “I got stuff to clean the floor, and a replacement first aid kit. You outta keep it better stocked, so I got you one of the good ones.”

“O…kay,” you say, for lack of anything better. There’s a hysterical laugh building up in the back of your throat as the Winter Soldier brings out some rags and a cleaning solution for your bloodstained hardwood floor, but you cough it out and say, “Thanks,” when the formerly-feared international assassin looks at you like you’re crazy before he gets on his hands and knees and starts scrubbing.

It’s not fair no one would believe you. You’re not quite sure this isn’t an elaborate daydream, but then, you like to think you’d imagine something more fun than this. You clear your throat. “Would you like something to drink?”

“No thanks,” he grunts, glaring at the floor and rubbing at the stain like it has offended him personally. It’s a little worrisome when he goes at it hard enough to maybe rub a hole right through the floor– you’d rather deal with the stain– but there’s a hard edge to his eyes that make you think maybe it’s a good idea for him to work it out in a productive, non-violent way. And if it turns violent, hopefully he has some home repair skills to make up for it.

You busy yourself with making tea, using the nice pot and the nice cups you never get to break out, and by the time it’s almost done steeping Bucky isn’t rubbing quite so hard and, in fact, seems to have made the stain do a disappearing act.

“Nice,” you say. “You want some tea? I made plenty.”

He lifts his head and tilts it as he squints at you, like he’s still not sure of you. But he shrugs, says, “Sure,” and stands up, rolling his shoulders. He looks down at the floor and nods appreciatively before coming to sit on the other side of the counter. “It’s almost gone; just a little bit more and it’ll be like I was never here.”

That last part could have been a decent joke, but he said it so seriously you just clear your throat. “Thanks,” you say and start pouring. “My landlord is going to have to find some other excuse to try and keep my security deposit.”

Bucky snorts but otherwise makes no noise. At first it’s nice, if a bit awkward, as you don’t really feel the need to fill the silence, but it becomes clear by the way Bucky glares at the plant sitting in front of him on the counter that something is eating at him. You’re not sure whether or not to pry, but it seems polite to at least ask, “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” he grunts and leans even lower to the surface of the counter.

You stare at him. “I appreciate what you did, but you didn’t have to come back,” you say gently, because a pissed-off former-assassin isn’t really a problem you want to have on your hands. “I’m not awful enough to actually expect you to clean up your own blood the day after you nearly bled to death.”

“What?” He blinks and then scowls and shakes his head. “No, it’s not that; it’s…” He picks up his cup and downs all of it, despite the fact that it was still steaming. Tentatively you pour him another cup, to which he says, “thanks,” before loading it with sugar again. “It’s good,” he says and this time he sips it.

“It’s one of my favorites. Very soothing,” you say. “Normally.”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “I wish anything was soothing. You know Steve almost ran into a goddamn minefield today?”

You didn’t know that, you don’t think anything the Avengers do is any of your business, really, and where does one even find a minefield in New York City– you don’t say any of that, but you apparently don’t need to, because Bucky is off like a shot saying more words than you’d have thought possible for him. All of it is ranting about what a reckless dumbass Captain America is, and a Brooklyn accent increasingly comes through, egged into existence by sheer aggravation. You sit and listen, transfixed not so much by the details (they’re too fleeting and sparse) but by how annoyed Bucky is with Captain Amer- with “Steve goddamn pain in the ass Rogers” and you’re never going to be able to see him again without snickering.

Bucky sighs heavily and rests his chin on the table. He looks very tired, all of a sudden. Maybe a relaxing tea and enthusiastic rant wasn’t the best combination. Then again, he also looks less tense, so perhaps it’s fine. “Why don’t you stop for the night and go get some sleep,” you say and take away his cup. “You can finish up tomorrow.”

He squints at you, squints back at the floor (that you honestly can’t tell is any different from the rest), and looks back at you. “You don’t mind?”

“Not at all,” you say and stack the cups. “When you come back refreshed you can tell me why Steve Rogers can never walk past that animal shelter without ducking his head in shame.”

Bucky’s smile is lopsided and he shakes his head. “Maybe,” he admits and hops off the chair. “I’ll just…leave the stuff here then, if that’s okay?”

You nod and he quickly picks up and puts the supplies in the empty bottom space of your side table. He goes for the window.

“I have a-!”

And he’s gone. You roll your eyes. If Steve Rogers really is as much of an asshole as Bucky says he is, then those two deserve each other.

~

For all that the Captain America mythos has been debunked for you, you’re still brought up short when you suddenly encounter Steve Rogers the next night.

On your fire escape.

He knocks his head against the railing in his scramble to simultaneously get up and face you, curses, and lifts his hands defensively. “I can explain.”

You rub your face with both hands. They definitely deserve each other. “I doubt that,” you mutter and sigh heavily. Thank goodness there haven’t been any actual fires; you don’t know how you’d get out with all these buff superheroes hanging around outside your window. “Have you lost something?”

Captain America looks at the ground for a moment, and then flashes you a smile. “…Yes?”

God, he is a smartass. “Do you want to come inside or do you want to risk some Nosy Nancy from the building across the street seeing a big shadow and calling the cops?”

That would never happen, but he slips inside almost immediately and then there he is, in all his uniformed, shield-holding glory. It’s too weird to think about, and you step back to give him (and you) space while you close the curtains. “Thank you,” he says politely and looks around. “Your apartment is lovely; it’s very…green.”

You’re not sure why he hesitates, until you see him looking at your yellowing majesty palm. “He’s coming back,” you say and go to adjust the plant for lack of anything else your nervous hands can do. “Would you like something to drink?”

“No thank you,” he says and stands with his feet shoulder wide and his hands clasped down in front of him. It is perhaps the least comforting thing he can do and for one ridiculous moment you wish Bucky was here to be in between you. You wish the Winter Soldier was here. To protect you. From Captain America.

You clear your throat. “So,” you say and grab yourself something. “Do you lurk outside everyone’s apartment at some point, or am I just special?”

For all his military posturing, Captain America squirms like a schoolboy. “I swear I wasn’t– okay, I guess I was but not intentionally? I was…looking. For something.”

“Something you dropped?” you ask him.

“A person,” he says, staring elsewhere. For a moment you have a paranoid thought he’s staring at the space where Bucky had fallen in that night, but no, he’s just looking at the window. At least you remembered to change the curtains.

“Pretty sure you can see one of those without squinting into the grates,” you say.

“He might have passed through on his way somewhere else,” Captain America says. “Have you seen a man outside?”

“Other than you?” you ask. He blushes even harder than Bucky does– and think of the devil, you have a moment where you’re not sure what you should say, but quickly come to realize that whatever is going on between the two of them, you do not want to get stuck in the middle.

You’re prepared to lie your ass off, but he apparently takes your response as a rebuke. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to make you feel unsafe.”

“It’s fine,” you say. Despite his previous answer, you lean into the fridge to get him a bottle of water. “I’m pretty sure Captain America isn’t going to murder me. And if you decided you wanted to, well, there’s nothing I could really do about it.”

He chokes on the drink he’s just taken. You instinctively lean in so you can slam his back but after a couple of hits he covers his mouth and waves you off. “Sorry, sorry,” he says and grabs a nearby dishcloth to wipe up what he just spit on the counter. “That was just…really dark.”

“I guess it’s a good thing I’m not the one lurking on fire escapes,” you say.

He rolls his eyes. The nerve. You laugh and he actually grins. Asshole. His smile softens though and he says, “I’m really–”

“Sorry,” you finish for him.

“Am I that predictable already?”

You shrug. You want to tell him it’s because he and Bucky seem very much alike in that respect. You want to but…you don’t. Whatever Bucky’s problem is, he seems to want to deal with it himself, and it’s not your place to get in between them and start snitching. “You seem the type. Don’t worry about it so much. You…look pretty worried. I’m not going to hold it against you.”

“Thank you.” His lips turn into a sad sort-of smile and he takes a slower drink. “I guess I am pretty worried. This man I’m looking for, he’s…important to me, and he’s been through a lot, and I just want to know he’s okay.”

You stare at him. He looks down. And looks down. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to babble like that,” he says and glances at you with a strained smile. “I don’t normally do that.”

“Hm.” You stare at him for several seconds and notice he is blinking an awful lot. “You look exhausted.”

“I’m a little tired,” he says, quietly, and some of the posturing seeps out of him and he lets himself slump a little more. He suddenly shakes his head and sits up straight again. “Thanks again for…” He looks around and settles for shaking his water bottle.

You hold back a laugh. “Sure. I uh…do you need me to call you a cab?”

He shakes his head firmly and, to his credit, he’s pretty excellent at pretending to be okay. You almost believe him. “I can get home all right.”

“Well, please make sure you do. I can think of a lot of people who’d be sad to think of you collapsing on the way home because you wore yourself down to the bone,” you say. “And from how you seem to worry about your friend, I bet you can think of at least one.”

He blinks, like he��s surprised, but a smile curls onto his face, warm and true. “Good night,” he says, and because you’re so nice, you don’t stop him when he goes back out the window. At this point, it’s beginning to feel like a lost cause.

~

“What did you say to him?”

“I know you don’t like the door,” you say, not even turning away from the plant you’re watering. Any time you put down the canister you forget where you left off and you are not going to kill these plants by overwatering. Not again. “But maybe you could at least tap on the window when you decide you’re going to enter my apartment.”

“Why do you leave your window open?” Bucky huffs. You can hear him sit at the counter behind you. “You know what kind of creeps can take advantage of that?”

You finish watering the last plant and turn to stare at him. “I’m starting to get an idea.”

Bucky scowls. “I’m not a creep,” he mutters.

“Polite society encourages doorways instead of windows,” you say. “It’s okay. Captain America, apparently, is also a creep.”

Bucky sits up straighter. “What did he say?”

“Not much,” you say. “He was squatting on the fire escape like he could make you spontaneously materialize. I invited him in for an explanation and after a little while he went on his way.”

“After a little while,” Bucky repeats and squints at you suspiciously.

You shrug. “He likes to vent to complete strangers, apparently. But I didn’t tell him anything about you, it doesn’t seem fair to tell you anything about him. If you want to know, I get the feeling you can go ask him.”

Bucky rolls his eyes but he stands up and stretches. “You said I bled on the drapes?”

“I already scrubbed that out, if you can finish the floor,” you say and go for the tea pot. “Do you like green tea?”

“As long as you do it right,” he says and starts scrubbing again. “I hate it all bitter.”

You go for the good matcha and start preparing it while he works out his frustrations on your floor. You glance at him a couple of times but he seems fully focused on his task, until you finish the tea and call him back to the bar.

“Steve Rogers is a pain in the ass and don’t let anyone tell you different,” he grumbles, but it’s soft and there’s a troubled look on his face as he takes his cup.

“Do you miss him?” you ask and blow gently across your drink.

Bucky shifts uncomfortably. Just as you're about to apologize for overstepping, though, he speaks. “It’s hard to go back when you’ve done the shit I have, you know?”

No. You have absolutely no idea what it’s like to live as a free man after decades of literal objectification and being used as a murder weapon for fascists. But it doesn’t seem very helpful to say that, so instead you say, gently, “I can’t even imagine.”

Bucky bobs his head and takes another sip of his drink. You’re delighted he seems to be drinking it fairly quickly, but also a little dismayed because a good matcha latte takes a decent amount of work and it’ll take a little time if he wants another cup. “I want to go back but I can’t yet. I wish he wouldn’t be so goddamn stubborn about it is all. Just because he thinks I didn’t do anything wrong doesn’t make it true.”

You nod, like any of this makes any goddamn sense to you. But maybe– maybe it doesn’t have to. Maybe Bucky’s saying all this because you’re an outside entity with no personal stake in, or knowledge of, what counts as treason, or what’s needed to lack culpability, or what it means to be an absent friend.

He rambles, a little bit, and though about half the words are proper nouns you don’t recognize, you nod along, and when he finishes his latte you make him another one, and when he leaves, you don’t mention the door. Even though you want to.

~

You’ve actually forgotten how nice it is to have someone come through the door. Case in point–

“Um, I hope this is all right,” Steve Rogers, dressed in casual civilian fare and holding a small pot of flowers, says as you can do nothing but stare at him. “I just wanted to stop by and thank you again for being so understanding. May I…come in?”

That snaps you out of your funk and you quickly stand aside. “Of course; sorry, I just…wasn’t expecting you.”

“I was just going to leave the plant with a note if you weren't here, but I’m glad you were,” Captain Rogers says and walks in, and sets the pot down on the counter.

You walk over to the fridge. “Would you like something to–” As you turn to finish the question you see him glance furtively at the window. Ah, of course. He looks down guiltily and you can’t help but roll your eyes and laugh. Well, he did come through the correct entrance and brought some pretty flowers. “All right, you did knock on the door this time; go sniff around the fire escape all you want.”

“I’m just checking something I forgot,” he says quickly and goes to the window. He’s only outside long enough for you to brew some tea and he comes back in just as you’re pouring his cup. It isn’t until he’s about to take a sip, however, that he says, “Oh– I know it looks bad, but Bucky– sorry, James Barnes– I swear he isn’t dangerous.”

“I know. I saw some of the trial stuff,” you lie. Well, you did see some of it, but it wasn’t until you heard Bucky mutter “Martha Stewart was right,” while fussing at some of the blood on his shirt that you felt safer. Strange as it is to think.

Steve relaxes his shoulders like some of the weight is off of them. “You have no idea how good that is to hear. You wouldn’t believe some of the things people say to me. I can’t really punch people anymore because I’m so much stronger now but it’s so tempting sometimes. At least when it’s online I can mime punching them.”

His annoyed tone allows you to laugh a little. “Maybe imagine the block button is a punch in the face?” you suggest.

He grins. “My friend Clint suggested printing out the most irritating comments and taping them to a punching bag. It didn’t really work but the thought was nice. The block button as a punch to the face though…”

The guy doesn’t really need more violence in his life, but he genuinely seems pleased with the idea, so you let it be. And when he starts ranting in detail about some of the comments he gets about Bucky, you make a new pot of tea– chamomile. For the both of you.

~

You don’t know how the flowers are dead already– it seems like Steve just brought them and they were so pretty you immediately looked up care instructions and followed them to the letter. Or so you thought. But now, only days later, you have a pot of dirt and withered petals.

And Bucky sulking at your counter.

“I told him I was fine,” he says petulantly.

You sigh and bring the pot over to the sink and think about what to do. “Did you tell him in person?”

“In a letter. He knew it was from me.”

The soil looks nice, so you’ll dig out the remains and try to plant some replacement seeds. Maybe that was the problem– maybe the flowers were sick or something. “Well reading and seeing are two different things.”

“He knows I cover him in fights.”

You slowly look at Bucky. His oh-so intelligent response is to bristle like a cat and go, “What?”

You roll your eyes. “He’s desperate to see you, knows you’re near when he’s fighting, and you wonder why he’s “so goddamn reckless?’”

Bucky just glares. Yeah, these two morons absolutely deserve each other.

You hope Bucky figures it out sooner rather than later.

~

He doesn’t, but he keeps coming by, as does Steve, and you resign yourself to hosting two pining idiots who keep dancing around each other.

Bucky drinks anything you give him without complaint. However he drinks the lattes and almost anything green tea a little quicker, though he tries to hide his cup from you when he does. Whether he’s ashamed of going through them so fast or embarrassed you don’t know, but you start to give him bigger cups, and that seems to help.

The first time you give Steve a cup of apple pie spice, he gives you a severe glare– which he then completely undermines by liking the blend immensely.

“I swore the next person who offered me apple pie would get popped,” Steve says, an amusing mixture of half-bluster and half-shame as he sips from the classic teacup you hope not to regret handing him.

“Lucky for me it’s not actually apple pie,” you say. “Do people really make that joke?”

The eyeroll Steve gives that is 200% sass. “You have no idea,” he says, deadly serious, “–how funny people think they are.”

~

This becomes…oddly normal. Listening to Steve talk about anything that’s on his mind, giving Bucky new tea blends just to see how he reacts to them; your apartment is no longer just you and a bunch of greenery that seems to wilt more often than not. Everything seems warmer, and better– even your plants seem healthier. (For that, though, you suspect Bucky is giving them a special mixture of something after you catch a glance of him messing with one of the pots. You want to ask him what he’s doing, but you don’t want to admit that he’s better at taking care of them than you are.)

It’s so normal, that you feel the silence only after the first few nights without a visit. They don’t visit every night, but they visit often enough that you know they’re off somewhere even without them telling you. For a couple of weeks you try to pretend the quiet doesn’t bother you, but you check the fire escape twice every night, and then once more before you go to bed.

~

The next time you see Bucky is during one of these checks. There was no tapping, no noise to otherwise alert you, he’s just suddenly back, sitting next to the window, hunched over in black clothes nearly blending into the darkness and staring out at nothing in the night.

“What’s wrong?” you ask and crawl out to kneel next to him. “Are you hurt again?”

“No,” he mutters and continues to glare at some imaginary point in the distance. “Steve was, though.”

It’s a little harder to swallow. “Is he going to be okay?”

“Yeah,” Bucky mumbles and buries his mouth further against his arms. “He’s fine, strutting around the hospital like a- like a- …” He huffs and sits back to wave his arms before he curls back in on himself. “But it was close, and he’s an asshole.”

“Mm,” you say. “Chamomile mint?”

He sighs heavily but he gets to his feet and starts to enter, only to stop and hold open the curtains for you.

“Thank you sir,” you say with only a hint of sarcasm and go on ahead to get the tea started. Bucky snorts but doesn’t say anything and you use the time the water needs to heat up to take care of some of your plants.

“Stop it.”

The snap comes so fast from Bucky you immediately stop what you’re doing. He doesn’t look as angry as he sounded, but he’s frowning pretty hard. “You're overwatering that one; jade plants are succulents. You don’t need to drown it.”

You look at the plant and set the watering can down. “Oh.” You knew that. You think. You’re just nervous. “Did you see him? In the hospital?”

“Briefly. I didn’t talk to him; just made sure he was all right,” Bucky says. “And he is. I wouldn’t leave him if he wasn’t.”

That does assuage some of your concerns. Steve is nice. You want him to be okay. And Bucky is– also nice, but god, they’re both so fucking frustrating. “You couldn’t have just–”

“Don’t start with–”

“I’m just saying–”

“And I’m telling you not to say–”

“I pay the rent for all that you sublet my fire escape; I’ll say what I want,” you manage to finish to Bucky’s consternation. You lift your head proudly and he frowns to one side. And then he…smirks. You’re not sure you like that.

“Crappiest space in the city,” he says and sits up. “You could at least get a chair.”

You roll your eyes and dole out the tea, fixing it the way Bucky likes. No sugar for this one, but plenty of honey. “If I ever have to leave for an actual fire, I’ll be in enough trouble trying to get around you.”

“Nah. I’d carry you out,” Bucky says and lifts his cup in a silent ‘cheers.’ He takes a sip and the sigh sounds content, so you assume you did it right. For a few moments a comfortable silence settles between the two of you as you sip warm drinks surrounded by greenery (that is mostly green) and life goes on in faint sounds outside the confines of your home.

Bucky sets his empty cup down with a sigh. “Do you think, if I show up to throttle him, that he’ll actually start watching his own fucking back?”

You give that some serious thought. “Will you give him time to moon at you first?”

Bucky sighs with disgust and flumps back onto the counter. “This is stupid. This all feels so stupid.”

You open your mouth because you do have a lot of opinions about honest communication and using innocent civilian apartments to dance around each other, but Bucky shoots you a glare to let you know that a, he knows, and b, he doesn’t appreciate it. You roll your eyes and go back to drinking your tea. It is a very good blend, and you’re not going to let it go unappreciated because two early 20th century boys can’t get their shit together.

Not that you’re complaining, really– you’re starting to feel like less of a disaster by comparison. Or maybe letting two strange men into your apartment makes you just as bad by default. You rub the bridge of your nose. Yeah, no one is getting out of this looking sane. You feel like that should bother you more than it does, but it’s just a fleeting thought before you go back to worrying about Steve and pouring Bucky’s cup back to full.

~

The next night when someone knocks on your door, you’re only mildly surprised to see Steve on the other side. And most of that surprise is because you can see fading bruises on his face, and also because he is holding a fairly big potted plant with tall green and yellow-edged leaves.

“Hi,” he says and lifts the pot slightly. “I got you a present.”

“Uh, wow; thanks?” you say and quickly step back to let him in, momentarily forgetting he can probably carry it around with ease. Steve places the plant on the floor near the end of your couch, where it actually looks fairly nice. He gestures at it proudly. “It’s a snake plant. The man at the nursery said it’s very hard to kill.”

“You’re not funny,” you say but you look at it appreciatively. It is nice, and you could do with ‘hard to kill’. Speaking of– “Should you be up? You look like you should be in a hospital.”

He shrugs and his face goes neutral. “I’m healing well enough that there’s nothing a hospital could do for me. And I felt so…restless.”

You nod. “Want some tea?”

“Please. I really like what you make,” he says and immediately takes a seat at the counter. Oddly enough, it’s not the one Bucky always takes. You don’t realize you squint at the space for too long until Steve looks curious and asks, “Is everything okay?”

You squint at the countertop. “Yeah, just…trying to figure out if that’s a stain or a spot.”

Thankfully there is a spot of spilled something and you quickly grab a towel and wipe it away. You think it’s a pretty good save, but Steve looks at you with a raised brow, like he’s figured something out. You freeze. “What?” What are you going to say? How is he going to react? What will you–

“Was that a coffee ring?”

You blink a few times, and then roll your eyes as your chest practically deflates. He smiles and winks. “I can’t believe you.”

“I am a layered human being who can drink many things,” you say defensively. “And if you want coffee you’ll have to ask another time. I’m not giving you anything with caffeine in it when you look like you got hit by a truck.”

“Train,” he corrects absently. “It barely clipped me.”

You sigh and go for the sleepy blend. One of you is going to have to bow out of this conversation due to exhaustion and at this point you don’t care if it’s you. However it might truly come in handy as Steve keeps looking out the window and shaking his foot. You set the cup in front of him and before you can ask what’s wrong, he takes the cup in both hands and blurts out, “I think I saw him.”

You look at the window and squint. “Seriously?”

“Not here.” Steve rolls his eyes. Like you’re the crazy one. He blows gently across the surface of the liquid and says, “Though it’s strange you’d think I saw Bucky out of your window.”

“Isn't that why you started showing up here in the first place? I distinctly remember someone with a big red, white, and blue shield lurking on my fire escape.”

“Oh, right,” he admits sheepishly, hunched over his cup. His eyes glimmer with mischief as he looks up at you through long lashes and asks, “Did I ever apologize to you for that?”

You’re brought up short by the amount of boyish charm this giant walking wall of muscle manages to pack into that look and you have to find your tongue to say, “I– y-yeah…”

Steve chuckles to himself and you give yourself a mental slap on the face. “Troll,” you mutter and sip from your mug. The liquid is piping hot and burns your tongue, giving you an excuse to grimace when Steve flashes you a beautiful smile.

~

You’re in trouble.

Not physically, not immediately, and perhaps someone on the outside might say you’re being dramatic about it, but they wouldn’t know shit about the situation. They wouldn’t know about how your hands felt as they slid over Steve’s when he handed you a new small pot of flowers; they wouldn’t know about the feeling of serenity that settled over you when Bucky abandoned some of his oh so careful control and rested his head on your shoulder for four long seconds; they wouldn’t know how it feels like you’re missing something until someone shows up at your door or taps at your window.

You’re falling in love with two people who have always been, and still are, desperately in love with each other.

Isn’t that just your luck.

~

In the end, Bucky takes your advice more to heart than you ever expected he would– you and Steve are quietly enjoying each others’ company, with you standing in the kitchen and Steve sitting at the counter as per usual, when the curtains move dramatically for Bucky to slip in, which makes Steve whirl around, and your hands jerk so hard from all the sudden surprise that your cup slips out and crashes to the floor.

“Shi-” You forget to watch your step and immediately catch a jagged shard that embeds itself right under the ball of your foot. “Ow, fuck!”

Your name is said in different voices but very similar tones of alarm and you suddenly find yourself gathered into Bucky’s arms, bridal style, and he carries you over to the couch. “Wh-” You swallow at the close proximity to Bucky’s chest and the way he holds you so effortlessly but so securely. “I’m fine; it’s just a little–”

Bucky sits down on the couch and doesn’t move you, which means you are basically sitting cross-wise in his lap. This is not something you need after your recent revelation, and it doesn’t get any easier when Steve comes back with the heavy duty first aid kit Bucky got you and gingerly takes your foot to examine the injury. His sympathetic look towards you gives you the warning you need to brace yourself before he pulls the shard out. It doesn’t hurt too terribly and he’s almost tender as he cleans your foot.

“Look at us, matching blood and all,” Bucky says lightly.

“It’s my floor I’ll bleed on it if I want,” you grumble, but you’re too distracted by how focused Steve is on fixing you up. “You…seem to be taking this well.”

“I knew he had been here since the first time I came,” Steve admits as he rolls the gauze around your foot. “There was a bloodstain on your floor still.”

“Seriously?” You had thought Bucky was being overdramatic about the supposed stain and humored him, but it…makes sense. Why else would he come back the next night. Why else would Steve continue to come by. And because Steve had kept coming, Bucky had kept coming, and…they won’t need to come back anymore, will they? They now have what they’ve wanted. Each other.

Someone says your name and you force yourself back to neutral as much as you possibly can. Steve looks curious though and Bucky says, “What’s with that look?”

“There’s no look,” you say. “And if there is, it’s only because you two have devised the weirdest meet-cute ever– decades after you actually met.”

“Hm.” Bucky continues to stare at you, but doesn’t say anything else.

~

They come back. And they both use the door.

You don’t know what you’re more shocked by– that Bucky and Steve, having come back to each other, are still coming around to you, or that Bucky is actually walking through the designated threshold. You don’t have a lot of time to think about it though because the place is…a mess.

“What happened here?” Steve asks as Bucky’s shoulders go up to his ears and he looks around the place like he’s going to find something unpleasant.

“It’s not that bad,” you say and glance around. You’ve cleaned out a few of the pots already and stacked them away in the closet, but some of the plants are still…slightly alive, for a little while. A couple are even doing fairly well– one of which being the snake plant Steve got you.

“What happened to the jungle?” Bucky asks, looking around shrewdly. You don’t like the sound of that. It feels so…probing, and raises your hackles. Why should he care?

“I wasn’t keeping them alive for very long.” You flick a yellowing leaf and keep your tone light. “I just got tired of it. What are…what are you doing here?”

You don’t look at Steve, but he clears his throat and his tone is similar to Bucky’s when he asks, “Is now a bad time?”

“For what?” You square your shoulders and face them. Like an adult. Like an adult who had two other adults just sort of crash into their life one day and start sharing space until such time as the two window-crashers decided they…didn’t need to come around anymore. “I’m happy you both found each other. You didn’t have to come back.”

Steve looks…well, he looks hurt. You don’t know any other way to describe it; it doesn’t show in his face so much as in his eyes, in the feeling you get watching the line of his shoulders lower. But before he can say anything, before you can explain yourself, Bucky speaks up.

“It isn’t like that,” he says.

You look down. It’s easier than looking at a man who feels rejected, and a man who has you completely pegged.

“What?” Steve asks.

“It’s okay,” you say, in perhaps the biggest bald-faced lie you’ve ever told.

“That’s not– no,” Bucky insists and lifts your chin. His fingers are warm and gentle and linger too long.

You pull back from his touch before you can embarrass yourself further. “You guys were literally circling each other.”

“Please.” Bucky rolls his eyes. “I don’t need to keep coming back here to be near Steve. I know where he lives.”

“And I leave my window unlocked,” Steve says. He aims a cheeky grin at Bucky and adds, “Guess I should have left it open though.”

“Shut up,” Bucky tells him but looks at you and says, “Point is: we weren't using you.”

Steve blinks. “Oh– no, of course not!”

“It’s all right,” you say, trying as hard as you can to assuage their discomfort even though you can’t put much into it. Even though you did very much want this meeting to happen, somehow you don’t feel very ‘all right.’

“No,” Bucky says and takes your hand in his. The flesh hand, which he runs up to the middle of your forearm. His touch is gentle and light, even when he grips. You can break away, but you don’t– you let him pull you in, close and closer, until there’s barely any room between you.

Steve crowds from the side and puts one arm behind Bucky, and one arm behind you. “If you only think we’re here because of each other, then it’s not all right,” he says softly.

“I know it isn’t– I know you weren't ‘using’ m–” You swallow hard. “And I know it’s not–”

They both swoop in for a kiss– for a kiss with you. Somehow they avoid bumping heads and the lip-lip-lip contact is barely there, with Steve at the corner and Bucky barely catching one side of your upper lip, but they're both there for a glorious moment that leaves you stunned.

“Oh…” you say, dumbly. You try to fight it, but a smile pulls at your lips. “Oh.”

“That good already, huh?” Steve asks quietly, slowly forming a small smile of his own.

You let out a little sigh that is immediately undermined by an uncontrollable laugh that swells from a bubble of relief at the base of your throat. “Bucky’s right, you are insufferable,” you say but you reach out to sweep your fingers in a gentle touch down Steve’s cheek and under his chin.

“You get used to it,” Bucky says.

You think about that. Even with how you’ve been, entertaining these two rotating planets over the last however many weeks or months, this would be an entirely new normal.

You think you can’t wait to get used to it.

[writingwithcolor]

Amber-haired, overly kind Black woman character

Anon asked:

Hi! I’m generating ideas for a book and one of the members of this group of teenage friends is a black woman with naturally amber/ginger hair. I don’t want to contribute to the trope of women of color having wild hair colors (like blue or pink). Her hair color isn’t necessarily what makes her special. It’s just something that is because she’s based off of someone I know who also has red hair. Is it ok then for her amber colored hair or is it inconsiderate? 

Also, what makes the character special is her unwavering kindness (also based off of a friend of mine). But, I also don’t want to make the character too submissive. How would you suggest ensuring she’s not too easily suppressed because she is a character who is selfless, kind, and caring in every aspect and (at first) will sacrifice her own happiness for someone else’s (to the points it takes a mental toll on her). Her kindness can be taken advantage of and she’s somewhat isolated but adored for her almost saint like kindness (as well as smarts in school). Is this writing problematic? She is based off of a friend of mine but I want to ensure I’m not contributing to any pre-existing stereotypes or evoking new problems. 

Thank you so much for taking the time to read and I greatly appreciate your help :)

Kindness doesn’t equal weakness or submissiveness so you should be okay here as long as you clearly understand the differences. Kindness can be both heart-warming and overbearing. It can be hard to take, even toxic, yet under-appreciated or go unnoticed. If you want her not to seem submissive, make her strong-willed. Allow her to be compassionate without having others treat her like a doormat. Let her kindness come from her want to do good by others instead of a fear of being disliked or angering people.

And be careful with the selflessness. There’s a risk of sacrificial negro business there… I’m actually very interested in seeing her learning to be kind without the self-sacrifice as a character arc as I think a lot of people are unaware of this, as well as plenty of people suffering from being a people-pleaser. As someone who’s been trying to learn something similarly, it’s good to think about why she is this way. Often this behaviour is a coping mechanism and can stem from trauma (the fawn response I believe it’s called). Especially as you mention your character being kind of self-destructive in this regard, I really think adding some space in your character development and background to this character trait is necessary.

Having her be adored for this behaviour seems deeply unhealthy as well and I think this is a great opportunity to explore this as well. Think about how this must feel to her? How she is “appreciated” for doing something that causes herself harm. It is toxic even if the people who view her this way don’t intend to or even know they are doing this. These are also usually the people who push back the first and the hardest when establishing boundaries when your character starts their healing process. People will get mad, guilt her, and abandon her for standing up for herself because she’s suddenly giving restrictions to something her friends have grown used to and often feel entitled to. Also consider what kind of relationships (platonic, romantic, any kind) your character will attract and how they will develop in terms of power dynamics as a people-pleaser.

Another thing that comes to mind is, you mention her being kind and selfless and caring, but imagine how it must feel for her to always give and never get an equal return in kindness. Even if she feels she wants this, that she maybe has to, this often breeds resentment, and in turn guilt and self-hate.

Now, take all that I’ve just said and add in that she is a Black woman. Someone who is expected to be this way. Someone who is often undervalued. Who’s expected to be strong and don’t need anybody. To not be allowed to show or even have weaknesses. How getting professional help can feel impossible with many places lacking Black therapists, the internalisation of the racism that amplifies the people-pleasing and toxic positivity.

Now, before I end up completely projecting onto your story or anybody else, it doesn’t mean that all of this applies to your character, your friend, or anybody else. Just that it is something that is true for some people and I think could be good to keep in mind and consider while developing and writing your character. Especially since without proper nuance and exploration of how selfless kindness in a Black woman has a high chance of turning out stereotypical and harmful on paper.

~ Alice

[variousqueerthings]

I’ve watched “as time goes by”

which leaves “goodbye, farewell, and amen”

which I will be watching tomorrow 

and then I will be a mess the following week at least 

but before that, maybe it’s time for a quick review of the last episode + overall the show for me at this point

1. as time goes by

I really enjoyed this episode, and add it to the list of ones that fit well into this final season. We heard three names: Radar, Blake, Frank Burns, and there’s something interesting about the nature of leaving something of Radar’s and Henry’s in the time capsule, but not for Frank

on the one hand, of course it was because none of them liked Frank and didn’t want to give him the respect, but on the other he’s the only one that got to leave without some symbolic loss (I say that, he fully lost Margaret, but she’s more than a symbol and will not be buried in the ground for 100 years!)

Radar’s innocence and Henry’s life, left in Korea. Interesting that they didn’t leave anything of Trapper’s or mention his name. It would have been Hawkeye’s job to do so, and sure, I’ll read too much into it 

youknow, I was almost kinda saddened that Charles was just messing with Rizzo, for a moment I genuinely believed him -- not that I don’t think he’s a far superior gremlin to BJ, but youknow... imagines if he’d genuinely had that instinct

Hawkeye ending up genuinely helping Margaret was good for me personally -- I do think, now I’m near the end of the story -- that they definitively have my favourite friendship on the show and I was missing seeing it much after s8. They get each other better than anyone else + bring out better, more thoughtful people, when they want to

I knew Rosalind Chao would arrive at some point! and here she is! I assume she’ll be sticking around for the finale too, which is interesting. My guess is she’s going to end up with Klinger, but who knows with this show, it doesn’t tend to take the romantic happiness route. But if anybody has that sort of character, it’s Klinger! 

funnily enough, she’s one of the only things that’s making me a little more relaxed about the finale, because she’s a brand new character, which means for her the finale is more like the main gist of the narrative

 I’m pleased that this is the second-to-last episode -- not so intense overall (although with Soon-Lee for a bit there), gives a lot of callbacks to the story and the characters, Margaret is giving me that “I need to get an A+ in being remembered in 100 years, something that is normal to want and possible to achieve” vibe that makes me love her, and Hawkeye is both ribbing her, but ultimately there to support

and Radar’s teddy-bear stays in Korea

2. s11

Overall s11 happened very much like I expected it to -- it relatively continued to be one-off episodes with the odd wrapping up of little things here and there (the time capsule, Hawkeye vs that general which is gonna be stuck in my head forever, potter’s mortgage being paid off) and both Kellye and Rizzo got to spend a little more time at the forefront, which was nice to see

it was hard for me to engage with the episodes that didn’t have some kind of thematic or character furthering device I could latch onto, because I was so fixated on how near the end this is, but alas, that’s syndication and you’re meant to just be able to watch them, I get it. Maybe on my second go-through it’ll be easier for me to focus on s10+11 without the countdown of episodes left in my head running (but also... maybe not... I always react strongly to endings -- I watch lotr every year and cry the same amount every time)

3. all of it

may end up just making a whole other post about all of it, and probably not until me head’s on a little straighter and I’m not still stuck in the middle of feelings, but what a strange experience to watch something that’s been around for quite awhile and isn’t exactly an under-appreciated show, but at the same time was never really on my radar until this year -- I feel like I’ve been let in on the world’s worst kept secret 

I’m also currently rewatching it and am near the end of s4, so I need to get on with the single-season rundowns of s2+3, which I haven’t gotten around to yet. what can I say, my process is to write out how I feel, so many more words will happen

there’s also something interesting about watching this right now in the landscape of tv, in which the ability to make anything -- never mind something that’s 11 seasons -- is severely curtailed and monopolized. I’ve watched a fair few things pre-2000s (mainly star trek), but really getting to spend time with a theme, watching it get poked and prodded and dealt with in so many ways throughout the story (and thinking that there are things I wish I had seen more of, like more perspectives from Korean characters, more episodes about Margaret’s increasingly complex relationship to the army, any episode that gives us a new Charles detail, idk... couple more with Sid, RIP we’ll never get that deep-dive into wtf is wrong with BJ) is something you don’t really get the opportunity to do these days. 

I have been somewhat exhausted by every time a new show is the Biggest Best Most Exhilarating Thing lately, so I think I’ll stick around the 60s-80s for a bit (I haven’t watched Columbo since I was a kid and I’ve never seen Magnum P.I.) 

what an odd time this has been. think it was the exact right moment for me to watch this.

[blueprint-han]

[Image ID: A black picture with the title “HOW TO SUPPORT FANFICTION AUTHORS” written in bold caps lock, colored with a winter forest picture. End ID.]

Well, this post has been made countless times, but I’m making one too because I’ve seen a lot of people say they’re new to tumblr and don’t know the whole “reblogging is better than liking” rule and other stuff. So without any further ado, here are ways YOU can support the fanfiction authors. Now keep in mind this applies to almost every author out there, not just the stayblr fandom, so if you’re a silent reader (or even if you aren’t), I advise you go through this post. Warning, this is a fairly long post going into detail, so yeah. I still expect you, the readers to read this, and if you’re a writer, feel free to lmk if i’ve written smth wrong or if you want me to add something! ^^

In this post I’ll go into thorough analysis of the pros and cons of each of the methods listed here and how YOU as a reader can show the authors whose fics you read more love and motivate them to produce content.

WARNING; LONG POST! GOES INTO A DECENT AMOUNT OF DETAIL. NOT EDITED, EXCUSE ANY TYPOS.

#1 : LIKING !

I think this is basic common knowledge, and a lot of people tend to do this. When you like the post, the author sees it, you see it, and if the author has their liked posts accessible (which majority of the time they don’t), and if someone deliberately goes to check it, then they see it. See why so many authors say just liking does nothing? Only liking says “Hey, I’m gonna tell you your story is not that good by simply liking it and not sharing it with other people. :D”

♯ PROS:

You’re telling the author that you've read their fic, and either you’ve enjoyed it to a certain extent, or you’re just saving it to read for later.

Likes are seen by you, the author and anyone who has access to your likes (which, most people don’t).

♯ CONS:

If you ONLY like, you’re not really helping the author’s work reach a wide audience because this site isn’t Instagram. Reblogging is the only way people can SEE our works. I’ll cover more on that in the next section.

In a nutshell, liking is good! But you should most likely use it in a combination with the other stuff I’ve listed below, because just the like itself doesn’t really do much in giving the author any feedback or interaction on their fics.

To clear shit up; I’m not talking about those people who don’t read the story or appreciate it in the first place. I’m talking about those who appreciate the fic, like it, but don’t leave any sort of feedback to show that.

#2 : REBLOGGING !

This is SO, SO important. I cannot stress on this enough. Let me explain WHY so many writers stress on reblogging content: 

Tumblr’s tag system is inherently fucked up, and has grown more so over the year. I’m not kidding, at first, the fic either used to show up in the tags or it didn’t, but now, sometimes your fic can be REMOVED from the tags because of,,, idk tumblr tag shit. Anyways, as you can see, it’s very demotivating for authors at that point, because the major way for people to find their content and expand their blogs has been blocked.  

Due to this reason, tumblr authors need to RELY on you, their followers to help spread their works to a wider audience. Now again, before you get me wrong, I’m not saying you ae forced to rb our works regardless of whether you like them or not. BUT, that being said, if you DO infact like the story, there’s no harm in reblogging, right? By doing this you’re indirectly telling the author — “hey! :D I liked your fic! Which is why I am gonna share it to my followers so they can read it too :D” Trust me, you’re doing nothing but helping the people who produce content for you to read. Seems like a worthy cause to hit the reblog button, right? It’s only a one, or maximum two step procedure.

Leave tags in your reblogs! Trust me, as an author myself and as much as I know from all my author friends, we oft check the tags of your reblogs to see if you found any part amazing or even if you have anything to say about the writing we put so much hard work into. Even a key smash or a “This was so [insert adjective] 🥺” is enough to leave a smile on your authors face. 

♯ PROS :

You’re !! Sharing !! Your authors !! Works !! This leads to them getting more recognition, so for the content they’re so graciously providing for free, you’re promoting their blog and helping them expand it.

If the tags are being a shit, which majority of the time they are, then you’re literally making an author’s day by reblogging! You’re showing them that you, a follower and appreciator of their works are willingly sharing their content because it deserves to be seen by more people. Again before any dumb people decide to attack me, i am talking about people who like the fic but don't bother reblogging and are silent/ghost readers. I am not forcing anyone to read anybody’s work.

YOU’RE MAKING YOUR AUTHOR SO HAPPY WHAT MORE REASONS COULD YOU POSSIBLY WANT !! 🥺

♯ CONS :

Literally none, because as far as I remember no author is against reblogging of their works. It’s quite literally the way this platform functions. Reblogging is IMPORTANT.

#3 : COMMENTING/SENDING FEEDBACK !

This kind of overlaps with the previous section, but THIS IS SUCH AN IMPORTANT STEP !! When you leave feedback, you are directly giving the author something so much more valuable to them than high follower/note counts or money. Your feedback is literally our serotonin. I kid you not the number of times I’ve received a positive comment and smiled and it has made my day. There’s a reason youtubers (though not the best example, bear with me here because it was the only one I could think of) ask people to subscribe, like and COMMENT. The subscription is like a follow, the like is ofc like a heart, and the comment is equivalent to an rb with comments in the tags. 

You might argue and tell me that a comment is basically like an ask so the reblogging step isn’t necessary, but I’m sure 99% of you use YouTube and you know that more comments leads to people’s videos boosted in the stream/trending charts. This is what reblogging does. Reblogging shares the piece with other people like minded, which leads to a boost in reads. You are literally helping your author grow.

It’s quite literally the same thing as youtubers. Youtubers NEED validation to keep their content creation going, so do writers, so do other ccs on this site. This post is however, focused on WRITERS, so keep that in mind.

♯ PROS :

By doing this, you’re giving author valuable feedback! It’s similar to what you do in rbing with tags. Interactivity with their fics boosts their note counts and helps expand their audience, so srsly, now think of it: your one comment is playing such a massive role to help ccs create more content.

Imagine how much of a difference the note counts will be in when every person who simply likes after reading the fic, reblogs, leaves a comment and sends an ask. the note counts would be high on each and every fic, which is validation in itself, but your comments would inspire the writer so much more! Please, don’t skip the commenting part. Even a simple one like: “this is so cute!” is wonderful. 

♯ CONS :

Remember, if you’re gonna give constructive criticism (which I’m sure you all are smart enough to know if different from hate), make sure the author is okay with it. Authors need to be in a specific mindset and must be ready to accept criticism, so if you’re gonna give constructive criticism to them when they’re at a low point, it may demotivate them.

Just commenting, instead of reblogging and commenting in the tags/ reblogging and then leaving an ask in their inbox, while it gives validation in plenty, will not lead to the author’s work being spread. Therefore I suggest either reblogging and commenting in the tags or reblog and then leave an ask, or comment under the fic!

!! reminder; I am not saying that if you don’t rb and just leave feedback, your feedback has no value. We authors truly appreciate every bit of feedback, but this post is aimed to help you learn how to interact with and support authors, and make them feel more motivated, because the current scenario of liking and scrolling is taking a toll on their creative abilities. Take it from a person who’s been writing for a year.

#4 : COMMSIONING VIA THEIR KO-FI/OTHER APPS !

Before any of you attack me, let me tell you that this is not a step that is 100% necessary to do. ONLY donate if you can and if you genuinely want to, and if anyone is forcing you to pay for something against your will, you need to get yourself out of there.

Regardless, if an author has a kofi and you’re able to and you want to donate, you definitely should! It’s also a valid form of support.

#5 : ADDING THEM ON REC LISTS/ RECOMMENDING THEM TO REC BLOGS

This is such an underrated option, to be honest. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen my fic was recommended onto some rec list and it’s made me smile so hard. If you like some fics, create a rec list! They’re oft very popular amongst the fans too. Making rec posts is such a great way to share your favorite stories with others. 

Rec blogs! I’ve seen a couple going around, and needless to say they are a great way to get someone else to read your favorite author’s work whilst also giving them your own feedback. These blogs oft accept recs via a form or ask box, and they leave your feedback along with their own, or else they’ll oft tag the author in the feedback post, so look! You’re basically helping your author share their fic to many more people, because you’ve given them feedback and a reblog.

♯ PROS :

Validation! Feedback! Reblogs! More exposure! Helping a blog grow! Spreading love! basically a run down of the stuff I’ve said before!

♯ CONS :

Literally no con of this. Unless, a one in a million case, this author says they don’t like receiving feedback/being tagged, and I’m sure NO person has said this before, at least none that I’ve heard of.

#6 : FINAL COMMENTS; MISC !

When an author points out about how the interactivity is drastically reducing, don’t just give them blind apologies. Yes, you feel sorry for not interacting as much, we understand, but rather show that you’ll become a better content consumer through your actions. We need to see that we’re not just throwing words into a void and that people are actually trying to be better content consumers. 

Understand the fact that authors don’t get paid for this, and 99% of the time, these authors don’t take commissions either. They’re giving you novel worthy writings for free. Take Percy Jackson: You think the author would have felt motivated to write the subsequent parts, let alone two whole series based off of it if literally no one showed that they were interested? Rick Riordan has sales, he is being paid, there are millions of people and big agencies who provide him feedback. Now take that huge amount and simmer it down to an audience of maybe 10000 people This is what fanfic authors want. They don’t want your money, nor are they telling you to risk your lives for them. All they want is, a reblog, some tags, some feedback, some INTERACTIVITY.  A sign that they aren’t throwing fics into the void and that people actually like them, some motivation to continue. Seems fairly easy to throw an rb with some tags, right?

Don’t bother to tell me that we do this for ourselves and we shouldn’t ask for likes and reblogs and feedback, because 1) you are consuming the content that we “write for ourselves” and 2) writers post their content here for interactivity and feedback. We could just not post and write and save our fics in our dungeon drafts for years. But we choose to post to entertain the readers, the consumers. And we aren’t even asking that much in return.

Don’t give me the whole “I’m scared that authors feel that comments are annoying” excuse either because seriously this has been DEBUNKED SO MANY TIMES. Istg, in the nicest way possible, if you still think writers are annoyed by interaction and feedback, after so many posts, long rants have been posted as to how we’re not, then you must truly be living under a rock. There, I said it. Please stop thinking this way, I’ll say it again, AUTHORS ARE NOT ANNOYED OF FEEDBACK, COMMENTS, TAGS, REBLOGS. WE LOVE IT. Saying this is like saying that the audience in a theatre play shouldn’t clap when the play ends because the actors would find it noisy. 🤡

I’ve seen some people saying they have anxiety issues and such, so pls note that I’m not invalidating your condition. If you’re trying to be more interactive, I really appreciate it! If you can’t, that’s fine too. You’re trying.

But for the people who have no reason other than feeling lazy to rb and comment, your lack of interactiveness is not excused. Please. Tumblr is a reblogging site. If you’re gonna consume content like authors are some sort of machines, I encourage you to go get some more perspective.

This site is not Instagram or the satan bird app. Your likes are appreciated but frankly speaking, they do nothing to the author except tell them “Hey i read ur fic but i'm not gonna support u :D” and honestly, that is detrimental to their creative capabilities and mental health. 

DON’T FOLLOW AN ACC JUST TO MINDLESS RB THEIR SIGNAL BOOST POSTS AND THEIR REBLOGS OF GIFS AND NOT INTERACT WITH THEIR WRITING AT ALL ! Trust me, authors prefer a lower amount of interactive followers than a high count that doesn’t even give them any feedback. Again your follows are appreciated, but when you’re following, you know the type of content the author creates, so the author expects that the more followers, the more interactivity. These days, this is just becoming the opposite. So don’t do it! If you’re gonna follow to read, interact with their works. I promise, this will make both you and the author happy. A win-win situation.

In conclusion: SUPPORT YOUR FUCKING AUTHORS! THEY ARE NOT MACHINES THAT HAVE NO FEELINGS TO PRODUCE CONTENT FOR YOU! FICS TAKE DAYS AND DAYS OF PLANNING, PLOTTING, OUTLINING, WRITING, EDITING, MAKING TEASERS. SO JUST SHOW THEM YOU APPRECIATE THEM WITH AN RB. IT’S THE L E A S T YOU CAN DO.

I will be liking this post here written by the lovely @chaninfused​ and @scriptura-delirus​ . Please take time to read it because if you weren’t convinced by my arguments, you will see how much frustration we as writers face on a daily basis. Please, just show support. Here is the post by @stayndays​ about how to get more people to read your work, because it also has a note on reblogging. Please educate yourself, and put an end to this mindless consuming culutre and bring up some interactivity.

If you’ve read this far, I want you to go to two of your favorite authors and leave some feedback in their inbox, and tag me in it (either tag me yourself or ask the author to do so, they won’t mind). Show your writers that our words are taking effect and you are becoming better consumers. I mean it. I’m serious. I want every single one who reads this post to do this. besides valid reasons, if you’re lazy to do this, you’re a part of the problem. PLEASE get more perspective.

Also, feel free to add to this post! I’d love to read your thoughts too, remember to be kind though. And, if I think your rb is somehow contradicting my points and is bringing down the reason I made this post, I will politely ask you to delete your comment, because this post is about being truthful about the harsh reality of tumblr consumers and how we can change it. I’m sure none of you will let it get to that point, though. <3 love you guys. 💓

And, just a reminder, don’t just blindly like this too. Do what I said before, and while I am not forcing you, I’d appreciate your reblog, because seriously, it took me 3 whole days to write this, plus, I’m sure this will help more of your followers understand the fault in consumer culture. haha, that’s it! This post was way too long uff.

also, this is ur cue to not be stupid in my inbox. You have something to say? Think I worded smth wrongly? I’m sure it wasn’t my intention to do so, point it out with manners. 

[clouds-rambles]

You being a Venti kinnie and a La Signora simp gave me an idea: the leader of the winds(who is simply Venti's best friend in this scenario) falls in love with the harbinger yet feels guilty about it because of what she did, so Venti has to push the relationship forward(possibly with some help from a certain water boy).

Think you could do a HCs post or scenario for that?

Anon you’re calling me out here. . . /hj

I keep thinking about this so I hope that it’s okay ^^;;

Pairings; La Signora x reader

Warning(s);

Keep reading under the cut!

Look the only reason you started hanging about the Goth Grand Hotel was because you really didn’t like the idea of the fatui causing unsupervised trouble, so posing as a bard for them was a great idea

And as tight lipped as the fatui are on the outside the Goth Grand was rife full of fatui secrets and shrines to the tsarista

The one person you didn’t really expect to interacting much with was Signora. But her off clock persona is much different, she often sits and watches your performances before the two of you sit at the bar and talk the night away

She’s harsh and blunt for sure, but she enjoys the conversation. And if you’re honest you’ve got the biggest crush on her

Which is wrong. Especially considering how the fatui have infiltrated your homeland

“[name] you should do it” Venti pushes, you pout

“I know, but you said you feel like something is on the horizon with the fatui. If something happened I-” you explain

“Don’t worry about it [name], you haven’t followed your heart in a long time” he smiles “I can help if you want~” Venti teases, you shake your head

Though his words do stick with you. And maybe not the way that Venti would want you to, you often find yourself seeking out Signora a little more than before

You love to see the small quirk of her lips whenever you approach her. You can’t help but notice the reddening of her ears when you compliment her. It’s almost addicting to see those expressions on her face

“[name]...” Venti trails off after seeing you with the harbinger “You’re horrific at flirting” he adds with a grin

“Shuddup” you groan lightly punching his arm “I just-” you trail off

“It’s time for me to intervine, [name] you’re in the city of freedom. And I will literally perish if you don’t get with her. You’ll be insufferable in like a hundred years when you regret it” you pout at Venti’s words

“I hate you” you sigh “But fine, what does the famous bard of mondstat propose?” you ask with a quirk of your brow

“Ask her on a date!” he exclaims, you nod “And I’ll help set it up~” he grins

Venti does, he schemes like you’ve never seen him do so before. And in honesty if Venti worked as hard as he schemed he would have gotten a lot more done in the last few millennia 

And in all honesty the date plan looked perfect, even with Venti’s intervention. Now, all that needs to be done is the date its self

“Hi” you greet Signora “I’m glad you agreed to this” you smile, you notice a slight smile grace her face

“Hm, and I’m glad for the invite [name]” she greets back, she takes your hand and places a small kiss. You feel your face heat up at the touch. The both of you move to seats and are served a glass of wine each

“I helped create this batch” you mention taking a sip

“Oh really?” Signora asks “How long ago was that?” she follows up, you wink

“I know what you’re up to” you smile “It certainly isn’t proper to ask someone their age on a date” you jest with a giggle, Signora smiles softly and hums

“I suppose not, but I will get it out of you some way or another” she half jests half promises back

“And you’ll warm up to me before then” you grin sending her a wink

“I don’t warm up to anybody [name]” she states in a blunt manner. You chuckle at her

“Of course not” you tease “And if that’s the case you’ll never know my age” you continue. Signora pouts for half a second and the conversation moves onto more suitable things, like your music and her collection of knives. 

Dinner food comes along, the two of you eat, have dessert and have an overall great dinner. 

“Come with me” you tell Signora after dinner, you hold your hand out for the harbinger to take

“Where are we going?” she asks taking your hand, you grin and wink at the woman before dragging her off towards the cathedral. The two of you approach the large statue of Barbatos. “Trying to convert me?” Signora jests with a raised brow. You giggle at her

“Depends if you’re that easily swayed” you joke back tugging her across the small body of water separating the piazza and the statue “Climb with me and see the view” you tell her as you start climbing up the statue, Signora hesitates but follows after you.

You sit in the hands of the statue before you hear the harbinger approach from behind you. You put your hand in Signora’s to persuade her to sit beside you. She does so.

“Wow” she speaks after a moment, you smile softly. This city is, in affect, your baby. To see someone you have such a crush on see it for the way you do is amazing.

“Just because you’re on official business here doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate the city” you tell her, she nods with a small smile.

“[name], tell me of how this city came to be” she half asks, half orders. You chuckle and look at her

“It’s a long story” you answer with a giggle

“Another one of the secrets you hold close?” the harbinger offers, you smile and shake your head

“No, no, the stories conflict one teller to another. What one bard sings another reprimands, then the library tells another story” you answer 

“What’s the story as you know it?” she asks, you chuckle

“A long and boring one I assure you, nothing as exiting as the tales of Snezhnaya” you respond. Signora chuckles

“You’re avoiding my questions” she pushes, you smile

“Maybe, but how else are we to continue going on dates if I tell you all my secrets now?” you ask nudging your shoulder on hers “Besides, you keep just as many secrets close to your chest” you smile. Signora hums.

“I suppose so” She replies, maybe for the two of you to share any kinds of secrets is just to show a card at a time. But, you’re cute and Signora doesn’t mind that kind of legwork. “We should do this again” she looks at you, you nod

“Yes,” you grin “I’d like that”

“So how’d the date go?” Venti asks as you walk into your home, you walk past him to drop off your things before coming back into the room

“It was... nice” you smile

Venti claps his hands with a grin “Tell me everything”

[angstyaches]

that last fic was lovely!! Felix's sensitivity about the situation was spectacular! Do you have any burping headcanons about the guys in your Shayne-verse (Shayne, Charlie, Elli, and Fee??)

Thank you!! I'm glad that the little nuances of their relationship come across in my writing, especially when I personally felt very foggy and insecure while putting that last piece together.

Speaking of spectacular, that is a spectacular question, my friend. And "Shayne-verse" makes me grin like an idiot every single time I read back over it omg.

Shayne

He tries his best not to burp near anybody, as it's one of those human bodily functions that makes him want to die rather than be perceived because of them.

If it's just him and Charlie, he'll do it, though. Mainly because he knows he'll get a stomach ache otherwise, and Charlie will eventually find out why.

He touches and rubs his stomach a lot before, during, and after burping.

He always turns his head away, covers his mouth, and lowers his face when he burps.

He sometimes wants Charlie's help if he needs to burp but can't, but being too embarrassed to actually ask, he would just take Charlie's hand and press it to his stomach.

He discovers he loves fizzy drinks, and a side effect of that is that he usually ends up needing to belch a lot.

Charlie

He gets relentless empty-stomach burps when he hasn't eaten in a long time. He thinks they're the worst, because they don't even bring any relief to the uncomfortable feeling in his stomach.

He grunts and groans a lot when he's gassy. Even if he's not in pain, he resents the inconvenience.

However, he does very much appreciate the attention when Shayne asks him if he's okay or offers to rub his back.

He also - absentmindedly - touches his belly a lot when he burps, but in certain settings, he quickly gets flustered and nervous when he realises he's doing it. (Poor baby thinks his special interests are much more obvious than they really are.)

He also belches a lot when he's drinking beer or other fizzy drinks, but he's gotten quite good at releasing the air in short, subtle increments.

Elliott

When he's feeling like himself, Elliott has no shame about burping, especially if he's just eaten/fed, or if he's drinking.

He's not 100% proud of this, but because of his competitive streak, if someone else is burping too, he'll - sometimes obviously, sometimes subtly - make sure to try to belch louder or longer. (The one person ever to notice and call him out on this has been Felix.)

His stomach gurgles a lot when he's gassy, and the air can usually be heard rumbling slowly up towards his mouth.

He hates pressure on his stomach when he's not feeling great, but if Felix offers to rub/pat his back, he'll almost always take him up on it.

Felix

He gets indigestion when he's anxious and stressed out, which usually leads to him letting out short, tight belches into his fist while making the most miserable faces known to humankind.

Out of all of my OCs, he probably burps the most when he's feeling queasy.

He grew up in an uptight household, so if he burps around anybody apart from Elliott, he'll quite often blush and grimace and profoundly apologise.

His burps can slip up quickly, so he doesn't always get the chance to look away or cover his mouth.

Unless he's feeling very sick or distracted, he almost always say "excuse me" after belching.

This is all I can think of for now, but I'll definitely add onto it if I think of more. Also, if anyone has any personal headcanons about my OCs and burping, please let me know!

Part Two

[cherry-espresso]

Gleam and Glow

Chapter 1

Pairing: Grey! Bucky Barnes x Fem! Reader

Word count: 3,374

Description: The reader has been held captive by their own mother their whole life, taught to believe the world is bad and that they need to be protected from it. That their gift needs to be protected from it. They possess 70 feet of hair with healing properties and some people will do anything for a chance at peace.

General Warnings: This story contains dark elements and various dark characters!! Do not read if this makes you uncomfortable!!!, kidnapping, violence, language, angst, whump, for the purposes of the story the reader has 70ft foot long hair that glows gold- this does not change regardless of hair color or texture, inspired by the movie Tangled.

Chapter Warnings: kidnapping, manhandling, betrayal, mention of trafficking (selling/buying of a human), John Walker, very naive reader, brief sexual implications,arguments, un-gendered pet names,choking, illusion to sexual harassment, language, please read at your own discretion.

DO NOT REPOST MY WORK, REBLOGS ARE WELCOME AND APPRECIATED

A majority of your childhood was peaceful. You got to do all the normal kid things- of course you were never totally sure what a ‘normal’ kid thing was on account of the fact that you’d actually never met another kid but, it felt normal enough. Aside from the very abnormal ‘birth defect’ you were ‘gifted’ with. You stopped considering your magical abilities as a gift by the time you were seventeen, when your mother made it abundantly clear that you could never leave the tower, you could never go outside, and you could never cut your hair.

The only thing more annoying than the seventy foot long tresses was your mother. According to her, your father was a sloppy one night stand she found in a tavern. He was a love em’ and leave em’ type of guy; he gave your mother one great romantic night and then disappeared off the face of the earth. You’ve never met him. You’ve never met anybody. Your mother has always been your only companion. She was a beautiful woman, she said you take after her more than your dad. While she was gorgeous and protective, she was also passive aggressive, rash, and ostentatious. If it was possible for her to get out of being “the bad guy” she lunged, dragging you under at the first chance. When you were younger she would tell you stories about the outside, she made it seem like a gorgeous place. She described the kingdom and the many villages outside its walls. She started with all the good things until you showed interest in escaping, then, she gave you the truth. She began to spin tales of roads rich with crime, vigilante gangs, covert groups of thugs, and rebel Viking camps. From what you could piece together, the rebel Viking camps were the greatest concern.

The rebel Viking groups weren’t actually Vikings. Your mother had said they called them The Vikings because of their rugged and brutal lifestyle. The camp they occupy is more like a small village, the structures following Norse architectural style, chalk-full of criminals and runaways. Runaways. Your mother had always explained to you that when young girls ran away from their mothers they ended up in that village living a life of crime. The very thought of falling into the wrong hands has kept you from sneaking out or from begging to leave the tower. You found ways to be content, ways to keep busy.

The tower wasn’t as big as it looked from the outside, the only living space was at the very top of the tower. The top of the tower had about two floors worth of open space, minimal and organized in the lower level and very maximalist in the bedrooms and wall decor. Mother said the rest of the tower below was sturdy white brick and vine, aged by time and the weather. Most of the exterior bricks were cracked or crumbling, so all the support for the turret came from the tower’s solid core. The roof was a chipped and rusty blue color mostly concealed by untamed ivy growth, which also hid the entrance to the tower’s turret. To your home. The only way in and out of the tower was an intricate pulley system made from twisted vine and rope. Originally, mother had used your hair to get into the turret, until one day a strand snapped from the pressure, dying and losing its magic. In an effort to protect your gift, you helped your mother make the pulley.

Crafting things was just one of the many ways you spent your time in the tower. After you’d turned eighteen your mother didn’t stick around much, if at all, leaving at night to go to the palace or the tavern, sometimes coming back in the morning and sometimes being gone for a day or two. With so much time alone the only option was to learn how to entertain yourself. Reading books, cooking, painting, testing the information you soaked up from all of the books, sewing holes in clothes, polishing leather, polishing silver, dusting, drawing in the dust. It’s a really long list. If there’s more to add you add it, forever stretching the possibilities. As the sun started to go down however, it started to seep in just how repetitive and predictable your daily activities had become. While you knew leaving the tower would be a horrible and dangerous mistake, you couldn’t help but long to be outside. To feel the grass between your fingers or to stand out in the sun, somewhere other than where it leaks through the turrets window entrance. It could never happen. Knowing this was an impossibility kept an icy grip on your stomach, a lonely sort of feeling, naturally touch starved by fate. It’s been years since the last time you asked to leave. Much before you knew how dangerous it really was out there. Asking one more time couldn’t really hurt could it? You’d be twenty soon enough, just one touch wouldn’t hurt anyone.

Mother had left early in the morning, off to do some much needed grocery shopping; if she hadn’t decided to stop by the tavern she would be home very soon. Too soon to come up with a better plan. Quickly you started to prepare for her to come home, sweeping the dining area and pulling out the utensils needed to make a special stew recipe you remember she had enjoyed. If she was going to say yes she needed to be buttered up first. Once the cooking utensils were nicely organized on or beside the unlit stove, and the dust was done away with, it was time to make quick work of anything she could use against your argument. Rushing to one of your most treasured bookshelves you pulled a discarded velvet scrap from the back of one of your more worn astronomy books. The midnight blue fabric had been torn from one of your favorite dresses when you were sixteen, unwilling to part with the shredded material, it was quickly fashioned into a long braided bookmark. Since then you’ve opted for shorter than floor length gowns or comfortable riding pants and tunics. The supposedly “masculine” style annoyed mother to no end but then again she really couldn’t understand how suffocating the corsets could become, or how difficult it was to fasten them without getting hair caught beneath the strings.

Unbraiding the bookmark allowed it to become one long thick strand, setting it on the dining table, you went to gather your hair. For the most part, you tried to keep it close to yourself. Getting any part snagged or wrapped around something was more of a pain in the ass than taking the time to gather it together. Gathering so much hair was difficult, it took time and it was unbelievably heavy. Once you were finally able to get it all in one place you started the tedious task of braiding. In order to braid it up enough to keep it off the floor you split it into three sections, braiding those separately before braiding them up into a complex Dutch braid. It took nearly two hours to finish so you could finally tie up the end with the dismantled bookmark. The complexity allowed the braid to settle halfway down your calves, keeping it neat and off the ground. Now all that was left to do was light the lanterns around the room and wait. Waiting for mother to get home was nerve wracking, if possible you’d busy yourself with starting the stew but you were fresh out of the most important ingredients.

“Y/n let down the vine!” Mother yelled from the bottom of the tower and the tension finally broke.

“Coming!” You sighed out in relief rushing to the window and lowering out the vine life you had made.

Once you were sure she was safely in the lift’s sling, you utilized the pulley system to begin pulling her up. The tower was around forty feet tall, making the trip up lengthy and difficult. When she was close enough to the window entrance you hooked the vine slack onto the wall hook, keeping it stationary, before quickly coming to help her in with the groceries. Taking the canvas grocery bags from her arms and into the kitchen, you started pulling out the items to take inventory on what she’d bought at the market.

“How was the market? Did that man give you trouble on the celery prices again?”

“Ugh doesn’t he always? Absolutely exhausting, he wanted double, and then there was a fight at the tavern again which I always have to break up.” She pulled out a chair at the dining table, sitting into it and slinging her feet up into the neighboring chair.

You slowed for a moment, pulling the bundle of carrots from the bag slower as you processed that she may be intoxicated which meant there’d be zero chance of having the conversation you desperately desired.

“You went to the tavern?” You asked, feigning excitement.

“Of course sweetheart, I promised that I would but I wasn’t there for long I promise.” She got up to meet you in the kitchen, resting her hands on your shoulders.

“Now what are we having? I’m absolutely starved.” She smiled.

“I was going to make that stew from last winter that you liked so much. Now that fall is settling in.” you started to add broth and small peeled potatoes to the pot.

“That sounds delightful darling, I’m going to go rest my eyes, call me when it’s done?” Mother started to walk away. It was now or never.

“Actually!” You cleared your throat., “Actually I was hoping I could talk to you about something.”

“Alright but let’s make this quick, mama’s feet are aching.” She turned back around to sit in another chair.

“Well as you know I’m almost twenty, an adult really and I’m already very responsible around the tower-“

“Y/n where is this going?” She interrupted, rubbing her temples.

“I want to go outside.” You turned to look at her.

“We’ve talked about this! It’s far too dangerous! You know what would happen if anyone discovered your gift!”

“I know, I know, but I’ve thought about it and no one would even know! I won’t tell anyone about it, and if they don’t know I have it then they don’t know how to use it, so it’s useless to them. If I just keep it braided I’ll be completely normal!” You came to sit across from her, hoping it’ll be convincing.

“No absolutely not, it’s much too risky! I have kept you safe for nearly twenty years! I am not stopping now! You’re far too young to understand but this is what’s best for you!” She got up and started to walk away again.

“But it’s not! I’ve never met anyone else! I’ve never had friends or met other people my own age! I’ve never even seen a real man!” You were absolutely desperate.

“Oh a man?! This is about men huh?! So you want to leave the safety of the home I built for you to go whore around for a man?!” She was absolutely furious, beyond cooling down.

“Mother no!” Your face was burning with embarrassment at the very suggestion of sexual activities.

“No truly I understand! You would rather leave this place and be used by men! Drained of your power in one of those Viking camps no doubt! I won’t hear another word, I’m going out for air and your attitude better be gone by the time I get back!” She walked over to the vine, untying it from the wall and setting it into a rustier pulley wheel that would let her down slowly, she was gone just as soon as she’d finished her sentence.

You had no choice but to sit in utter silence and shame. Swallowed by guilt that mother could ever consider you’d do that to her. As much as you wanted to leave and experience the real world, you desperately didn’t want to disappoint your mother or end up somewhere bad. Very quickly you dissolved into regret, backing over to try and undo what’s already been done, planning a way to forgiveness. Finishing the stew was the only way you knew how to start so you got to work, making this the best stew you could ever devise. Having never written the recipe down you had to go solely based on flavor and gut feeling. That was the best way to cook anyway. Once it had been spiced to taste you put the lid on the pot to let it simmer.

Almost immediately you found yourself overrun with anxiety, filled with a need to do something with your hands. To occupy your mind. There really wasn’t much to do in the tower to occupy you enough to erase this from the forefront of your mind. So you opted for the only thing that you could: cleaning. Your started polishing, dusting anything that you could and when there was nothing left you sat and you waited. The silence was absolutely deafening. You’d totally zoned out until you heard the rattling of the pot lid on the stove, snapping your head to it only to see the stew boiling over.

“Shit!” You rushed to turn it off, burning your hand in the process as you cleaned up the mess. Suddenly you were no longer hungry.

Opting to leave the stew on the stove for whenever mother would return you left the kitchen, going to your room as you cradled your hand gently. Tears stung your eyes, threatening to drip through your lashes and you curled up on your bed. Reaching for your braid with your uninsured hand, you gently took the end and rested it over your burned palm, reaching to wipe away some loose tears. Whether the tears were from the pain or from emotional discourse you couldn’t be sure. After drying your tears you closed your injured fingers around the large amount of hair, and began to hum a soft familiar melody. As the melody continued your hair began to glow a brilliant gold, almost glittery in color. Once the shimmer reached your palm, the heat faded and the wound healed. You were able to breathe. You looked to your palm, it was as soft and unharmed as it had been that morning. As it had always been. No scars or leftover pain. Just smooth healthy skin.

You couldn’t be bothered to really prepare for bed. The dress you wore was moveable, the corset easily undone as it tied in the front rather than in the back. Laying back you took a deep breath, closing your eyes momentarily to let go of all the stress that you could. After a minute of peace you pushed yourself up and off the bed, walking over to the dark wood armoire, opening it to look in the mirror, you sighed looking at your dress. There was stew on the navy skirt and what looked like a sizable carrot. You’d have to change to sleep. Lifting the skirt up closer you plucked off the carrot and disposed of it in the nearby waste basket. Returning to the armoire you flipped your braid back over your shoulder and checked the white sleeves of the off the shoulder blouse, slid your hands over the black corset, grabbing the tied strings from the vertex of the sweetheart neckline you untied the knot. Just as you’d finished untying the security knot you heard a loud grinding bang from the lower level. Pausing to listen you grew concerned.

“Mother? Are you alright?” You called gently.

When you didn’t receive a response you dropped the corset strings and left your bedroom, looking over the bannister you were met with the worst sight you could possibly have imagined. A large piece of the stone floor was broken and pushed out of the ground, slid off to the side and two large men climbed out of the dark hole below. Half a million questions filled your head. How was there a space under the floor? How did these men find you? Did they know who you were? There wasn’t time to think, you had to act. Silently and quickly you snuck back into your bedroom, burning out the lamps and climbing into the armoire as best as you could. Tilting your chin up to silence your breathing you listened. Waiting. Thinking. The men were much bigger than you thought a man would be. From what you could make out they dressed in dark clothing. Leather. Worn and hardly taken care of if at all. They were similar heights. One a redhead and the other blonde, both with rugged facial hair. You only had a brief look and the adrenaline pumping through your veins was making it difficult to focus.

“I am never doing that shit again, forty feet of crumbling bricks and thirty feet of rope, you seriously didn’t think that through?!” You could hear them arguing.

“It didn’t look that tall alright? Can we just find the chick and get out of here? I lost my good boots in a poker game with trash panda and if I don’t win them back he’s gonna tear them apart.”

It was clear they were coming for you. The only thing you could do was hope mother came home or that they didn’t see you behind all the other clothing in the armoire. The stairs creeped. Once. Twice. There was only one creaky step. They were both coming up. You held your breath.

“Food on the stove and the lamp in here is still warm. She was here recently.” They made it into your bedroom.

“If I had to guess I’d say she’s still here.” The footsteps stopped. It was silent.

Suddenly, the hem of your skirt was yanked-it had been caught in the door-and then the armoire burst open. The blonde man grabbed your arm as you struggled, ripping you from the small dark space and out into the open. He spun you around, pressing your back to his chest, his left forearm braced across your neckline and gripped your right shoulder. His right hand held a sharp silver blade to your heart.

“Well, well, well, Princess did we catch you at a bad time? These corset strings are so very loose for company.” The blonde man taunted, using the tip of his blade to pull on the cords.

You gripped this forearm, pushing back closer to his chest in an effort to get away from his blade as you struggled.

“P-please just leave me alone, I won’t tell any-anyone.” You stuttered, trying to stay calm the way your mother had taught you.

“We have plans for you, this hair of yours… hear there’s some people willing to pay a pretty penny for just a touch.” The red headed man stroked your braid, you jerked your head away.

“Oh oh oh” the blonde man laughed. “She’s a feisty one, are you sure we have to deliver her so soon? Could be fun…”

“Oh c’mon man don’t be gross he wants her unharmed. Mostly. C’mon just cloth her so we can go. Boots remember??” The red head said, grabbing your wrists and tying them together roughly. He took the dagger from the blonde, continuing to hold it in its position as the blond reached into his pocket.

“No no no no no please please I’ll give you anything you want just leave me alone!” You begged, swerving your head away from the blondes clothed hand as it moved towards your mouth.

“Bitch stop fussing around!” He slid his left forearm up to your throat, both choking you and effectively stabilizing your head long enough to clamp the cloth over your mouth and nose.

It hardly took thirty seconds before your vision started to swim and your vision started to fade to black.

“We’re already late. He’s waiting.” One of the men said as he slipped a cloth bag over your head. Your hearing went out, senses dulled as you gave in the the dark.

[qiqi-media]

Descendants fanfiction Audrey turns back time: Audrey gifts Ben the anti Magic blue bird necklace

This scene is post family day

Audrey was on edge, she knew family day was what set the plan back in action for the VKs and yet she still couldn’t stop it. Since Mal didn’t have Ben by her side this time she didn’t what move she was going to make next. She decided it was time to gift Ben with some protection before things could go any further. 

   “You wanted to see me?” Ben walked onto the bench at their usual spot. He looked exhausted, his collarbones were visible, and his former rounded cheeks were sunken in. The king was never constantly smiling yet, he now had a permeant deep frown on his face. What happened at family day really took a toll on him, especially with how his parents reacted. 

“Yeah I wanted to give you this.” Audrey replied unhooking the necklace with twin blue birds on it. She leaned over as Ben frowned deeper in confusion while she clasped it around his neck. “It’s has anti-magic on it as King, I felt you shouldn’t walk around absolutely unprotected. You’ll never know what will happen.” She tried to explain to him as the rarely angry king filled with rage.         “Mal? You’re trying to protect me from Mal, aren’t you? What is it with you about the VKs? They haven’t done anything wrong they’re good people. You and everyone else keep judging them when all they’re tryin-”

   Audrey interrupts him getting angry herself “Trying to do what Ben? You don’t know those kids, for fucks sake you barely even know me! The younger generation is one thing but come on now, you knew the elders weren’t going to welcome them with open arms. I don’t think your dream is stupid but it would be nice if you used a little common sense for once.” She yells back at him before angrily snatching up her bag. Ben was left hurt and shocked at the fact that his usually upbeat girlfriend was angry enough to curse at him when he was in need. As she was turning to walk away she stops in her tracks before looking back at him with tears forming at the corner of her eyes.  

“This is your kingdom, your country, you’re the king. So I’ll respect every decision you make for Auradon. You want to bring the VKs over, go ahead dump the whole lot over here. Is it really too much to ask as your lady that you maybe think of anything that could backfire on us?” She asks

“Making them feel like we don’t trust them won’t solve anything. Your grandmother was the one who started that argument. I appreciate your gift, I really do I just don’t like the message behind it.” Ben tried to explain to her running his hand over his forehead.

“You misunderstood the message, this is to protect you from anything now. You’re going to be King in a number of days and you don’t even have anything to defend yourself with.”

“Audrey look, I don’t have time for this could we please talk about this another time. I’ll wear it if it makes you feel better but as my lady I’d really appreciate it, if you’d help make the Vks feel more welcomed here.” Ben sighed, he was truly trying to do his best for the future of the kingdom. He didn’t want anybody to be hurt or locked away for crimes they didn’t commit. 

“Thanks, you can think of it as a parting gift.” She muttered fixing the hair that stood up during her rage. Ben looked confused at her words and tried to ask before Audrey’s next words beat him to it. 

“I’m breaking up with you, I can’t do this anymore. I can support your decisions as a citizen of Auradon who respects her King but I will not be disrespected. How you expect me to break bread with the girl who’s mother traumatized my entire family. Then when she gets here tries to steal my boyfriend.” She adds in the last sentence when Ben tries to interject to say that Mal was innocent of her mother’s crimes. “I won’t sit and deal with this anymore, grammy wants me to be the perfect girlfriend who sits and smiles at anything for you, while you want me to be buddy buddy with the Vks. I got other things I could be doing, this is over.” As she walks away from Ben who was hurt and stunned by the unexpected breakup Audrey turns back to the unhealthily skinny King 

“Please take care of yourself Ben, your people need you.”

[nbrook29]

Kiss or Slap

Sander doesn’t remember when exactly their group made the riverside near the Scheldt their new hangout spot, but he couldn’t be more grateful for it as a cold breeze washes over his overheated body, providing a momentary relief against the scorching heat falling from the sky. It’s probably why the park is fuller than it usually is on Thursday afternoons, packed with people spread on their picnic blankets, searching for a bit of shadow under the big trees and desperately craving a bit of wind. 

It’s so hot he doesn’t even feel like sketching, preferring to just lie on the grass without moving a single muscle, and dying in peace. Even the enticing smell of cinnamon rolls that Noor brought with her isn’t enough for him to reach out and take one from the basket, the action requiring too much movement on his part.

“Guys, come on, we have to start or we’ll never get it done! Sander, get your lazy ass up.” He grunts when he feels Leon’s merciless fingers jabbing him in the ribs.

“Can’t we wait until it gets a little less hot?”

“No, cause that’s not happening in the nearest future and we need new content,” Nathan butts in, followed by Noor, which makes Sander officially outvoted. So he heaves a deep sigh, puts his shirt back on and ruffles his hair to make himself more presentable, rolling his eyes at Noor’s appreciative whistling.

“Someone’s gonna snatch himself a bunch of kisses today with that smoldering look,” she teases, pretending to give him a once over.

“Is that your way of telling me you want one for yourself, sweetheart?” He’s immensely proud of himself when her entire face scrunches up in disgust.

“Eww, no, feels like incest at this point.” Which is kinda true given the fact they’ve known each other since kindergarten and became best friends making sand castles. He fires an obnoxious wink at her, fully anticipating a shove which comes as expected within seconds, with Noor calling him a creep in between laughter.

“Who should we start with? Senne? Wanna go first?” Sander watches as Leon takes out his camera equipment and checks the settings as the rest collects their things.

“I guess, yeah. And then Nathan after me?”

“I’m not doing it, man, you know Britt, she’s gonna flip out.”

“Be a good reason to break up with her,” Sander mutters under his breath, not really feeling apologetic when Nathan shoots him a glare. It would be a long time coming, and honestly, Sander can’t wait for that moment to come. Just being in her presence gives him chills, she’s that much of a horrible person. A few years ago, he read something about alternate universes and sometimes when he looks at her he can’t help but think there’s a history there with the two of them, in a past life or something. At least it would explain that weird energy between them.

If it’s true, he feels very sorry for that Sander. 

He roots for him to run far away from said devil’s spawn.

“I can go next, I don’t have the ball and chain,” Noor says innocently, but she’s smirking over Nathan’s shoulder at Sander who pretends to high five her in their shared hatred for Britt.

“Yeah, us lonely birds will sacrifice ourselves and take the hit for the wellbeing of our channel,” Sander laments playfully, making Senne snort.

“Dude, you’re on your own by your own choice.”

“And pickiness. Don’t forget pickiness,” Noor adds smugly.

Sander huffs in protest. “I’m not picky! I just...” He cuts off because he’s not about to just explain it all now.

“Just what?”

“Specific about what I want.”

Brown curls, brown eyes, shortish, lean, pierced ear, cute giggle, elegant hands and a smile brighter than the sun. 

To be exact.

“Yeah. That’s picky.”

“Whatever,” he replies grumpily, and decides to ignore Noor’s knowing look. Sometimes he feels like she has a sixth sense and can read him like a book. Or she’s just less oblivious than the boys in their friend group. That’s a totally possible option too.

Thankfully, she doesn’t push him further (she’s awesome like that), though Sander has a feeling she’s gonna grill him later when they’re alone. For now, she checks her lipstick in her phone as they all briefly plan the video.

Not like there’s that much to plan; a few days ago, they decided to shoot a kiss or slap challenge for their YouTube channel because it had been wildly requested by their viewers.

Sander still doesn’t quite know how he became a part of a YouTube channel in the first place, always considering himself to be a bit more, well, sophisticated than that? But Leon was into it from the beginning and made them all participate in exchange for free beer, until one day one of their videos blew up.

If you can call getting 100k views on one video blowing up. 

Anyway, they got semi-popular amongst Flemish teens and even managed to snatch a sponsorship with Mentos (however small the offer was) that paid actual money. And he had just managed to move out of his family house so any money coming his way he welcomed with no questions asked. 

So they’ve kept shooting silly challenges slash anything else that’s a trend at a given time and have been able to cover their art supply needs with what little they earned. And, though Sander refused to admit it in the beginning, it’s actually kinda fun. It’s definitely better than his part time job at Pull&Bear where he has to deal with obnoxious customers on an almost daily basis.

They record a short introduction near the river, quickly going over the rules and explaining that the three of them will be competing in who gets more kisses versus slaps. 

“Hey, you know what, this is actually unfair cause you both can kiss anybody,” Senne points out all of a sudden, receiving four pairs of unimpressed glances.

“No one’s stopping you from getting kisses from boys too, dude,” Sander is quick to shut him up, shit-eating grin on his face as he gives him his first (light) slap to the cheek. 

They follow Senne around the park with a camera as he turns on his charm and smiles sweetly at the girls he chooses for the challenge, doing surprisingly well on the first few attempts. But when they venture deeper into the park and he tries his luck with college girls, he gets 5 slaps in the row to the rest of the group’s utter delight. In the end, his results are a blow to his pride and even Sander feels sorry for him, giving him a pat on the back while trying to hold his laughter in at Senne’s grumpy face.

Noor does much better, naturally, as her upbeat personality and a wide smile have always made boys and girls turn their heads. She gets a kiss after kiss, blush after blush, and two phone numbers in the process. Senne argues again that it’s unfair because no one’s gonna slap a girl anyway, but Leon just calls him a sore loser while Noor shamelessly flirts in French with another girl right in front of the camera.

Sander’s very proud.

Taking a quick sip of water, he gives Leon a thumbs up and starts his round, coming over to three blond girls chilling near the skateboarding ramps, trying very hard not to come off as creepy and clarifying the kiss part being only a cheek kiss. The girls erupt in giggles, but they all grant him a light kiss. One of them tries to flirt with him after, but he shoots her down before she can get too into it.

“Such a heartbreaker, you,” Noor coos at Sander’s pained face when they all walk away.

“That’s you, and you actually enjoy it,” he quips back, sticking his tongue at her.

“I do not, shut up!”

Fifteen minutes and fourteen kisses later he’s officially in the lead, sealing his victory with a kiss number fifteen he receives from a cute redhead. He’s gloating in Senne’s bemused face about nobody choosing to slap him when he stops in his tracks.

It’s the proof of his hopeless infatuation that he’d recognize that laugh everywhere.

He looks around for its source, but he comes up short. Then, his eyes focus on the skatepark area and his heart starts beating faster.

Because it feels like a sign. Like the universe is giving him a chance to finally do something. Make a move.

“Hey, can we shoot one more try?” He asks the guys, trying to sound casual while glancing furtively in the direction of brown curls.

“You’ve already won, but I guess?”

Nobody questions him about his reasons, they just follow him to the ramp.

And he’s so fucking nervous. 

It’s incredible, really, how he generally has no problems talking to people he’s interested in, conversation flowing without him even trying, gaining easy smiles and appreciative looks wherever he goes, some natural confidence to him. 

But that boy. That boy is something else.

He makes him question everything he says, makes his palms sweat and makes his deep hidden shyness come onto the surface.

Sander saw him for the first time during Open Day at the Academie in may, strolling casually through the hallway with his friend, completely oblivious to the turmoil he was causing to Sander’s heart.

That was the day Sander saw an angel. 

Fate placed him on his path again sooner than he could’ve hoped, the boy participating in a 2 week film course at his school only several days after he saw him for the first time. And he tried so hard to convince himself to talk to him over that time, but he only managed a few smiles while passing him by in the hallway. 

That and that one stupid joke he said to him while they were waiting in line at the cafeteria that makes him cringe in despair just thinking about it. Seriously, it’s like his entire cool evaporates when he’s near him.

But, the boy laughed at it. So maybe it wasn’t as horrible as Sander is making it to be. Or he was just being nice. 

Robbe. 

Robbe, who he’s been crushing on ever since that fateful day in may.

Robbe, who was at the same party he was last weekend.

Robbe, who he talked to at that party and managed to calm his nerves enough to be charming and funny.

Robbe, who giggled, blushed and bit his lip at Sander’s dumb jokes that evening.

Robbe, who slipped through his fingers because Sander blacked out soon after.

He almost never drinks, but that one night he did, celebrating the beginning of summer break, and not realizing his usual abstinence meant he was now officially a lightweight. What an awful timing.

Robbe doesn’t notice him right away, having his back turned to him while talking animatedly to his friends. Taking a deep breath and plastering a smile to his face to hide his nervousness, he approaches them.

“Hey guys, got a second?”

He notices the recognition in Robbe’s face right away, and Sander shoots him a quiet “hi” when his eyes meet his, an unsure smile blooming on his face.

“Hey, what’s up?” One of the boys nods at the camera.

“I’m Sander, and we’re shooting a video for our YouTube channel, the kiss or slap challenge,” he quickly explains, the boys’ faces lighting up.

“Hey, we have a channel too! I’m Moyo, this is Jens, Aaron, and Robbe.” Moyo reaches out to bump his fist with him and damn, Sander has to find that channel if Robbe is a part of it.

Jens levels him with a look. “So, you want us to kiss you or slap you?” 

“Pretty much, yeah?” Sander chuckles because he’s aware it’s ridiculous, but he’s a man on a mission here, give him a break.

“I think Robbe should represent all of us, don’t you think so?” Moyo proposes, tongue in his cheek as he checks with the rest of his friends. Sander catches the death glare Robbe sends the boy before looking back at him and crossing his arms, looking a bit out of place. And, fuck, the last thing Sander wants is to make him uncomfortable.

So he asks softly, “you’re in?” and waits for agonizing five seconds as Robbe watches him, eyes narrowed, before his features smooth out and he smiles at him.

“Sure, why not.”

Relieved, Sander lets out a chuckle and tries to keep his cool. “Okay then - kiss or slap?”

Robbe squints against the sun and makes him wait another few seconds before he answers, but Sander’s not worried because there’s a soft smile on his face and obviously his angel wouldn’t-

“Slap.”

Wait, what.

He can hear his friends bursting in laughter at this unexpected turn of events while Sander can only stare in shock because how could he miscalculate the situation this much?

Gulping, confused and heartbroken, he asks, “you’re sure?”, to which Robbe nods with a poorly hidden glee.

“But you have to close your eyes cause I can’t hit you while you're looking at me.”

Heaving a deep sigh and trying to save a face despite the humiliation flooding his body, he nods and closes his eyes, steeling himself for it.

But it never comes.

Suddenly, he feels a hand cupping his cheek and he flinches a little, but then soft lips touch his in a kiss so gentle he blinks his eyes open, not knowing what’s happening.

“That was payback for you promising to call me and not keeping your word,” Robbe whispers against his lips before leaning away, something sad and wistful passing through his face. Sander is left completely dumbfounded, ignoring the hollering from the two groups as his eyes fleet all over Robbe’s face.

It’s difficult for him to collect his thoughts because holy fuck, Robbe has just kissed him and he’s internally freaking out. He finally manages to get his bearings when the remnants of a smile slip off Robbe’s lips.

“I-, Robbe, you have no idea how much I wanted to call you, but I don’t have your number.”

“I gave it to you. At the party?” He doesn’t look like he believes a word Sander is saying.

“Um, I kinda blacked out and don’t remember much after like one-ish?”

“You saved it though, I saw you typing it in,” Robbe argues again, but this time he doesn’t look so sure. “Wait, what’s your number?”

Sander watches him entering digit after digit before hitting call. He fully expects a plain number to appear on his screen, eyes widening when he sees what pops up instead.

zk bambieys 🥺🦌👁️💘🧡💖💞 calling

“Fuck, you did give me your number.” He’s not fast enough to hide his screen from Robbe, but he can't even feel embarrassment once he notices the frown disappeared from his face.

“Bambi eyes?” There's a teasing note in his voice, but his pink cheeks sell him out.

Sander scratches his head. "I was very drunk, you can't hold it against me. Also, your eyes are really beautiful," he clarifies, winking when Robbe laughs at his shameless flirting. "Hey, I tried to find you on instagram, but nothing came up. I was really hoping we're gonna bump into each other again. Sorry for being a dumbass and not realizing I had your number this entire time?”

“It’s okay.” Robbe shoves his hand into the pockets of his jeans, swaying on his heels. Sander decides to put them both out of their misery and take the initiative.

“So if I asked you out, would you say yes?”

It looks like Robbe’s about to nod, but then he bites his lip, an almost cheeky smile directed at him. “I guess you have to call me to find out.” And then he gets on his skateboard and casually skates away to the nearest ramp, pulling a surprised laugh out of Sander.

If he was intrigued before, now he’s totally smitten with this wonder of a boy, because damn. 

Their friends finally seem to regain their voices and speak over each other at what just happened, but Sander doesn’t pay them any attention, just takes out his phone again and pressing the call button. 

Watching as Robbe comes to a full stop at the top of the ramp, he cocks his head with a grin and waits until he picks up.

“Hello?”

“Hey, it’s Sander.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Robbe laughs into the speaker.

“Will you go out with me?”

He meets his eyes across the skatepark as Robbe makes him wait again.

Then, with a smile so radiant it overshadows the sun, the boy finally gives him his answer.

“Yes.”

[bakugohoex]

“catch me”

pairing: levi ackerman x female reader

cw: language, some fluff

word count: 1300+

a/n: yeah i don’t know why this is coming out at midnight either, it’s shit and makes no sense but it describes me 

summary: in which you and levi are fighting kenny’s team, with your odm gear destroyed you only have one option to get out of this fight

↞ back to attack on titan masterlist

The sound of the single word boomed through the air, Levi shouting a name of the man you had heard so much about but never met. But here he was, the person who had taken Levi in when his mother died. It was a story that he had told you a couple months after your relationship have evolved, the sympathy of growing up underground having experienced the area in your early years. It wasn’t the place for a child to grow up, but even then, Levi turned out well, didn’t he.

You saw Levi being chased by Kenny’s group, having been left with the new Levi squad, you still remained second in command. But looking after a group of well minors felt like being a mother more than an authority figure.

He swung past the group, you knew you were low on gas, having used it a lot more recently and not recharged the gases. Even your blades had been cut and worn down, but it would last wouldn’t it, well you prayed. Eren and Historia both captured in the wagon, you jumped down the cadets following, “Y/n after them.” Levi looked cut and tired and you nodded at the man, he hadn’t noticed the lack of gas, but it was fine you didn’t want to worry him.

He knew you’d know what to do, having faith in the woman he loved that she wouldn’t die over something like his. He began his own words, knowing that titans weren’t the only things you were fighting now the cadets were in disbelief but at your next move they saw it all. You went ahead going to one the men who charged at you with the gun, up in the air you missed their shot and quickly slit into their body upwards, their blood landing on your face.

“She killed him.” You felt for Jean you did, and you knew he would never hurt a human, but he needed to and the look of terror he had at how you easily murdered someone.

The cadets had moved forward, Mikasa following you and Levi, murdering these people with ease, every time more blood on your hands. It wasn’t that this was fun, but you had to stay on the buildings, being in the air had cost you too much gas but that wasn’t Kenny’s teams plan.

You noticed how Connie and Jean were in the cart and noticed the hesitance in Jean, you would definitely need to talk to the boy. You remembered what Levi had told you about Kenny and the underground, the topic was sensitive and seeing how those in his group moved just as Kenny had done. It was easy to get past them on the building but soon they started charging at you, your only option to grab onto their bodies to come closer and slash them to pieces.

You charged at them, missing their shots, even with the blood covering your eyes you easily shot your gear at them swinging to the side and stabbing both of them in the back. Their screams filled your ear but as quickly as your knives went inside of them, they came out. Falling to the ground, you knew you could only have one more use of your gear and that was to get off the building. 

You heard an explosion and could see how Jean and Armin had been grabbed and pushed to the side. Levi was safe and that’s all you cared about it might have been selfish but if you lost him, you’d have lost it all. 

Knowing this was the end, using your ODM to swing onto a balcony, but the stabbed man had other plans. You hadn’t cut into him more than the other lying corpse and you could see the man get up ready to shot you. This type of gear was made to kill humans and you knew there was more to this than anybody realised. You may be on the run, but it seemed that every time you found out information, the enemy had moved past that stage and were now onto their ultimate goal. 

It was something both you and Levi had talked about whilst moving into the area, but the way he gave you those sad dull eyes. He was just getting the pieces himself and the only man who knew the truth was a mystery to you both. You remembered that night talking about what had happened, underneath a camp fire, in his arms. His soft kisses on your temple, the sound of him whispering an i love you.

The image got whisked out of your mind at the sound of the man who you had unsuccessfully killed hitting you side where the ODM gear was, his team had left him, what had he expected to happen now?

Levi and the rest of the scouts had seen this, your damaged gear and how he began to taunt you, “nowhere to go now.”

“Clearly I didn’t do a good job of killing you.” You mocked back, you needed to think of a plan, he was going to shoot you and you knew his aim was accurate from his ability to hit your gear perfectly.

“I’ll kill you.” It was sadistically and even with him trying to get up, the wound was deep enough that he’d be dead soon.

At the bottom, the cadets continued to look, “she’ll kill him.” Levi knew you better than anybody, hell he had helped you in the corps and he had loved you more than anybody else.

“Her gear is damaged, and her knives are blunt.” Jean remembered, making Levi’s eyes widened, he hadn’t thought through it all. But in that moment, he saw how you stepped further and further backwards, the edge coming closer and closer to you.

The man stared up at you, “filthy bitch, you’re going to die.”

You saw Levi looking between you and the edge, you hoped he knew what you were planning, “can’t wait.” It was a grimace, but you remembered the long nights in bed with Levi and his past being brought up, it was comforting to know he trusted you enough to tell you it. Understanding he trusted you, you knew you trusted him and in this moment you fell.

“What the hell is she doing?” Mikasa questioned looking up at your falling figure. The sound of Levi sorting his gear out behind her.

“For fucks sake.” Levi grabbed his gear, he shook his head moving through the sky, the cadets had seen you fall just missing the shot from the man who had collapsed.

Levi moved past the buildings, and as you fell, you felt like a feather floating and the hard chest of someone. You opened your eyes looking at the man, Levi having just caught you in his arms.  “You damn brat.” He had caught you, the man you had total and utter faith in had caught you.

“That was fun.” You giggle still in his arms in the air, you leant your head into his chest, even if it was sweaty it smelt like home. 

He looked down at you emotionless, you wiped the blood from his face. His lip twitching upwards and you looked at him, “if it was so fun, here.”

In an instant he let you go, and you were falling from much higher, “catch me.” He groaned at seeing how even covered in blood and nearly dying you were having fun, how even after asking to be caught you just wanted to be in his arm. Maybe you had done it to benefit you, but he re-caught you nonetheless and you stayed in his arms moving even closer to his chest.

Standing on a building, a scowl after losing both Eren and Historia, you brought your hand up to cup his soft bloodied cheek. “We’ll get them again.” You had faith in the new Levi squad, hell you had faith in both you and Levi. Going up to his cheek, you didn’t care about the dirt and you knew Levi would feel disgusting, but he felt comforted after the failure of this mission. You’d both do it, you’d both get them back.

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