#idk maybe i should just focus on those instead of trying to do everything within two days

[loveyourlovelysoul]

I am just a random nobody online, but I really want to let you know that you are not alone. Please never think not even unconsciously that you're not enough or deserving to ask for or receive the help you need to receive. You totally are enough and you will receive it too. Maybe it won't be from the people you are interacting with now but don't give up on hopes and on searching for help even somewhere else, and keep asking for it too, even more than once if you think it can be necessary: at times people (even the ones around us the most) cannot really hear our call, so instead of closing off when we feel unheard we can ask again and be even more clear about our needs, maybe wording them differently and giving them (and our fears/anxieties) the right importance like even just saying "I'd really need a hug right now: please, can I get one from you?". Keep voicing your needs with no fear of being judged. Let yourself be vulnerable in front of those you feel like it's okay to. In the end someone will answer and fulfill your needs, even just partially (to start with).

Honestly I am not a doctor or a professional figure in any sense so I cannot really give you answers or proper solutions or prescriptions (these should be done on you specifically), but I hope you can at least feel a bit of comfort and understanding in these words. It's really heavy and painful to go through bad stuff, especially when they seem to keep coming and never stop: the trauma mount that these create really feels too much to bear with, especially if you feel alone fighting against it all and trying to survive to the escalade/dismantling of it; all that can really play with your nerves and cause deep emotional imbalance and stress that shows in your body too, since mind and body are heavily connected. Try to listen to your body when this happens: I think it wants you to find outlets for that huge amount of energy that anxiety and stress may be causing you to store within yourself when you spiral/overthink/overstress (it may be a reason why you may esperience a burning feeling or may even tremble or breathe heavily or even stomachaches or shoulders/back tension: your body is trying to respond to your mind's impulses and give you signs about them/help you let things out/survive).

Idk if you already know of and/or have tried any technique to distract/"ease" yourself when you start spiralling (so to gain again a little control over yourself and to process your anxiety in a different way: eg. *alternate* nose breathing, 5 things focus or walking back and forth in a room alone or in nature, talking to yourself out loud -not inner talking- or singing, yawning/drinking, moving your eyes in the 4 directions -slowly-, hugging/touching your legs/body or anything comfy for as much as you need while you hyperventilate -if you reach that point- until it feels better, journaling, yoga...), but I hope you keep taking care of you as you can, and do anything that helps you to feel less stressed and get the lowest amount of external negative/overwhelming inputs (eg. not staying much online/looking at the news, trying to get away from other's people problems at least for a little; maybe you can try doing other things that can help you relax all your senses as well or focus on another sense instead of eg. sight to "calm" it, like listening to calming music with your eyes closed).

Keep taking as many breaks as you need and go slow. Do not feel guilty for not doing much. Try to not rush anything as the need to get away from/push away something, even a feeling, "asap" will just make it more present/important and everything may get worse (at least in my personal experience it was so, I cannot tell without a doubt about you ofc). It's almost impossible to not do that at times, I know, but with patience and time, and talking with yourself as if you were a scared child reminding yourself you're still safe despite the very overwhelming feeling and finding ways to stay present like touching solid stuff around you/feeling the ground/holding something near your stomach, you'll be able to (again it worked for me, not sure for you as we're all different). I also hope you'll soon find the right people able to really help you as you deserve and that can give you the right suggestions and support. Please, do not give up! I am cheering for you<3

[bunnymedley]

girl im so glad u asked so basically

for one thing, some people (gamer losers) are already whining that the pale garden is boring or empty and the designers are lazy etc but a) no it's not and no they're not and b) i think it's doing exactly what it intends to. the natural comparison is to the deep dark but in contrast to that biome, which sticks out harshly against the rest of the underground with its glowing blue sculk and alien appearance, the pale garden being basically a normal forest but drained of colour and sound makes it feel familiar but wrong, it's a place you've seen dozens or hundreds of times but everything is unnervingly off. i'd be interested to see more unique aesthetics or features added to the pale garden but as it is i think not having some really distinct and out-there blocks/foliage/structures works well for its eerie atmosphere. maybe if more was to be added, could they program those features to generate further into the garden while the edges are more familiar-but-off? then you still get that feeling when you enter but things become less familiar and more ominous as you venture further in. it would tie into the focus on hearts too, with the garden itself growing stranger as you approach its heart

secondly the aesthetic of the forest is just so inviting for builders because the pale grey look makes it perfect for representing a burned, ashy forest. imagine what kind of builds you could make with that appearance. and again that idea of the environment being hurt or lost plays into its features, it could suggest that these creaking hearts are like parasites that have drained all the colour and life from the garden, sweeping through like a quiet, unseen fire, with its ashy trees left alive only to serve as the hearts' hosts

in terms of the creaking itself, i do think it could potentially serve to be more dangerous than it currently appears. maybe it could just deal more damage, or maybe its attacks could apply an effect? maybe something quite unique like idk, making you hallucinate more creakers with the fakes still approaching if you look away but vanishing when they come close, so it's difficult to keep track of the real one, or maybe something existing - maybe even wither. that might be too harsh but having the creaking apply the wither effect could not only tie into that potential idea of it having drained the life out of its surroundings, but create a lot of room for narrative implications connecting it to the wither itself

and when making the creaking more threatening, i think maybe it should attack the player regardless of whether they're looking at it if they're chopping away at its heart. instead of standing still right in front of you as you kill it, imagine if it rushed you once it saw - or felt - what you were doing. if you were trying to quickly break its heart and it rushed toward you only to crumble a few steps away as you hacked it away just in time. maybe you'd want to locate the heart and then purposefully lure the creaking away from it (as far as it can go within the 32 block radius) by making and breaking eye contact, and then backing up to the heart without looking away so you can then break it in time without the creaking closing the distance. that could be a way to tie together two of the main incentives of tool tier progression: linking the ability to mine blocks faster with the ability to kill mobs more easily

finally as a more out-there and game-y idea: a practical use for creaking hearts. what if you could turn them into a kind of alarm? in contrast to the sculk sensor which detects sounds (or vibrations), this alarm would tie into the vision mechanic by keeping an eye out for any nearby mobs and making a creaking sound to alert you of anything entering the vicinity. you could head into one of those vast caves and look around for ore, and have a creaking alarm watching your back for any mobs trying to sneak up from the dark crevices of the cavern. idk if this would rly work or be needed or anything, and maybe it could be kinda cheap if it just nullified the iconic stealth of the creeper, but it could be a fun concept!

i have so many thoughts about the new minecraft drop rn it looks so cool and they could do so much with it

[hale-of-stiles-heart]

wrote out a list of things I wanna get done over the next few days and just looking at it is so daunting, no wonder I've been putting it all off for so long

[imperiuswrecked]

To me, it doesn’t make sense to make Magneto the main villain because it has been done so much before and it would connect it so much to the Fox Films. Also I think there is a GREAT laziness in writing Magneto especially in films. He generally didn’t want to kill all humans, subjugate them yes because he doesn’t trust them. Which isn’t a ‘good guy’ move in itself and he slips in and out of.

He legit murdered genocide I think when he was going to kill all humans. Like no.

I also think that the average cinema goer likes Magneto too much… or maybe that is me. It would also require them to recast the most famous faces of the franchises?

Like is anyone going to care if they recast Jean, Scott, Iceman, Rogue, Kitty, Beast even Mystique but Magneto? I don’t know. I have long been a fan of an actual Jewish actor playing Magneto but following Ian McKellan would be difficult for the casual fans to accept. I don’t think Fassbender left such an amazing impression.

Even my most average MCU fans friends (and god they love the MCU 😤 but I see past it) still talk about how much they want to see a Magneto solo film.

To me I would put the focus on their reveal and sentinels. Then again I thought they’ll go through Krakoa stuff. Like it turns out the mutants have been living on this Island etc

With the ‘simpler times’ comment I have to for the sake of my sanity have to think that it was because Pietro knew where he was. Things were clear to him, as much as it hurt he had his sister. The following trauma had not occurred. Again I don’t think this is true but I am trying to reason bad writing. He didn’t doubt his morality but was indebted and controlled. Shitty actions were out of his control.

I don’t read Avengers so I didn’t know he was shelved for so long.

I think the Trial of Magneto is trying to ride on the coattails of Wandavision because even though she’s not a mutant a lot of the internet was wanting Magneto to show up. So what is the best way to get those fans who wanted to see that? Set up a family comic book where they establish the family again because I guess the MCU fans heard they’ve changed their background and themselves didn’t like it.

I see the Trial of Magneto as something poorly thought out as they saw what the audience was interested in. The timeline kind of clashes uncomfortably with Inferno. Which makes me think it was wedged in there to ride the Wandavision train and undo the retcon on the side of the main storyline.

Thank you for reading my essay/rant

Ok so I'm going to first say you have a lot of great thoughts and great on picking up the whole forced feeling. You are right, it does feel wedged in there and it does feel forced because that's exactly what Marvel did.

The Trial of Magneto was supposed to be an X-Factor plot, it was Leah Williams next arc, here's an article link talking about her podcast: link (yes I know it's bleeding cool but I don't have time to listen to the podcast)

Leah Williams tells us that X-Factor was canceled because Leah's pitch for the Magneto/Wanda story for X-Factor, now called Trial Of Magneto, became such a popular pitch at Marvel but they thought the reader numbers for X-Factor wasn't big enough for this story, so they wanted it as a separate comic. And canceled X-Factor #10 rather than seeing it run as originally planned, with the Trial beginning in X-Factor #15. Williams says she only learned about the cancellation of X-Factor when she was writing #9, so as she had to finish the series quickly, squeezing six issues worth of story into those last two issues, calling it "cramped and rushed".

So I'm not a fan of Leah but the way Marvel treats it's writers has always been terrible so this cancellation doesn't surprise me. Could this be about W*ndaVision? It's likely, but it's more likely this has to do with Hickman bowing out. It's no secret literally everyone hated the retcon and I always knew it would be undone but I didn't think it would take 6 years but here we are.

Hickman leaving is a bigger thing, he stated in an interview ( link ) that he had planned Krakoa and X-Men to be a 3 arc story, and he wasn't allowed to move onto the 2nd arc because the clowns at Marvel liked the idea of Krakoa too much and I'm so mad because that's exactly the kinda behavior that annoys me with the fans, them thinking Krakoa is just a fun playground for the mutants to mess around with.

"Oh, plans have changed entirely," Hickman says. "When I pitched the X-Men story I wanted to do, I pitched a very big, very broad, three-act, three-event narrative, the first of which was House of X. And while this loosely worked as a three-year plan, I told Marvel upfront that I honestly had no idea how long the first part would last because there were a lot of interesting ideas that I had seeded that other creators would want to play with, and so, we left this rather open-ended. I was also pretty clear with all the writers that came into the office what the initial, three-act plan was so no one would be surprised when it was time for the line to pivot." Hickman continues, "However, I also knew that I was cooking with dynamite, and it was very possible that what I had written in House of X, and the ideas contained within, was not actually the first act of a three-act story, but something that resonated more deeply and worked more like Giant-Size X-Men, where it would represent a paradigm shift in the entire X-Men line for a prolonged period of time. So, during the pandemic, when the time came for me to start pointing things toward writing the second-act event, I asked everyone if they were ready for me to do that, and to a man, everyone wanted to stay in the first act. It was really interesting, because I appreciated that House of X resonated with them to the extent that they didn't want it to end, but the reality was that I knew I would be leaving the line early."

I'm so MAD because the thing I was predicting, that Hickman would have it come crashing down and everything would be revealed to be terrible and Mutant Death Sex Cult Island wasn't a paradise is never going to happen because the fucking CLOWNS at Marvel don't want him to move past it. I may have my personal gripes about some of Hickman's writing but we can't deny the man wrote one of the best if only the best Marvel Event with Fantastic Four/Avengers/Secret War.

As for the simpler times comment, like I have my theories that I wrote out here, and that's what I think is most likely but I do think Pietro's life has never been easy or simple once his adoptive parents died. Pietro could be drinking to a time before the Brotherhood.

I would love for a Jewish actor to play Magneto and any other characters who are Jewish. I would love for a Jewish writer to be able to write them too. However Ian's performance literally set him in the minds of the people as Magneto, not even Fassbender's bleh one note Magneto could compare. Imo the only reason people liked the younger Magneto was because he was young, handsome (? ig idk i dont simp for him) and they could ship him with young professor X (cowards. where is the old man ship???) But I feel like a new actor could definitely fill the role if they are Jewish and the writing was good.

Magneto's writing in comics... well I just wish we could have a Jewish writer for him. There's some great stuff for him but I feel like characters like him and Doom could be written better by non white/american writers.

Although by today's standards the og X-Men trilogy doesn't hold up I will defend the first two movies with my life simply because after Blade these movies opened up the idea that a good serious, non campy version where characters called Magneto and Cyclops were taken seriously. X2 in my mind was the definitive X-Men movie. Was it totally comic accurate? No, but it doesn't do what the MCU does, it doesn't treat the watcher like they need to have their hand held through all the military propaganda and "hints to the comics". Also side note; the reason no one cared about any of the other X-Men being recast is because all through most of the X-Men movies the focal story point has been Professor X vs Magneto. If they really want people to care about those characters/actors then we would need stories that focused on them. Not like how Storm barely had any character growth or plot in the og X-Men and even young Ororo got mishandled by the script. This is why I feel we should have "origin movies" for the X-Men that don't do what Wolverine Origins did and try to make a whole new cast but instead should use the stories as they are. If it was Kurt's story then we would see him join the X-Men, and have the other actors revolve around that. Same with each of the others, the X-Men work best when they are working off each other and each given enough screen/page time to shine. Unfortunately we all have our favorites, even movies and writers, so those are who are going to be pushed for fans to love.

Thank you for your long rant and sorry for my own long rant/reply.

[kachulein]

... Long rant incoming ...

There's been a topic I've been wanting to rant about for years but always kinda chickened out of it. Tonight, I got really agitated about it out of the blue but once again, I decided against speaking up and instead went to go watch a video. And guess what, the youtuber in that video said exactly what I've been wanting to rant about (the video wasn't about said topic btw). So I kind of took this as a sign to speak up and rant.

What the youtuber said was as follows:

"I find it really strange that people don't believe pretty people can be insecure."

And this is honestly the sad truth. Yes, I am aware that pretty privilege exists and I've been frustrated about that for a vast number of times myself but this is not the focus of what I want to talk about in this post.

I've noticed that the so to speak "pretty people" don't always get the longer end of the stick. When someone is viewed as "pretty", most people automatically believe that they must love themself and have an amazing life. "Pretty people" aren't allowed to be sad, to have insecurities or to struggle with their mental health. When they try to speak up about their struggles or insecurities, their feelings are very often invalidated because "A pretty person like you has no business being insecure/unhappy. If you call yourself ugly, just think about all those people who aren't as pretty as you, what would they have to say? Should they just hide in a corner crying all day? You should feel lucky". As if being pretty is the utmost goal in life and apparently also a natural protection against insecurity and mental health problems.

This mindset is so harmful.

Mental illness and insecurities don't discriminate, they can affect anyone regardless of who they are or what they look like and whether other people perceive them as "pretty" or not. It seems as though you're only allowed to struggle if you're "ugly". But then again, who the fuck decides over what is "ugly" and what is "pretty"? Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder and what Person A finds beautiful doesn't have to align with what Person B finds beautiful (and isn't that a beautiful thing in and of itself? That all of us find beauty in different things and people, and that this way, everyone has someone somewhere on this earth that thinks they're beautiful?).

People need to realize that only because they think someone is good-looking, the person in question might not share the same opinion. You might find beauty in someone else but they might be unable to see that same beauty within themself. Imagine you'd go to your friend and be like "I think you're so pretty, so from now on, you're not allowed to have any insecurities anymore and if you try to tell me about them, I won't take you seriously because you're so pretty". That would be such a dick move, wouldn't it? So why can't we just learn to take people's insecurities and struggles seriously regardless of what someone looks like? Why is measuring someone's level of attractiveness an appropriate way of deciding how valid someone's struggles are?

There's actually a song that I really enjoy that kind of talks about this topic. It's called "Pretty Head" by Transviolet. There's a line saying "And I'm so happy, 'cause aren't all the pretty girls happy?" And this really hit home for me when I've listened to this song for the first time a few years ago. I started to really think about this line and realized that when we see a person we think is pretty, we automatically assume that, idk, they must be having a great life, 'a better life than we do', a loving family and loving friends, a loving partner, a lot of self-love and healthy habits and a lot of money, etc. But why do we associate all of that with attractiveness? Because of pretty privilege, maybe? It just doesn't hold true for everyone and we shouldn't discuss one end of the stick and ignore the other.

Dismissing someone's struggles and insecurities, not even specifically related to appearance but in general, can be so harmful. It leaves the struggling person feeling so alone and alienated from other people. Knowing that they're not being taken seriously/that their struggles are being invalidated may cause them to stop opening up and eventually bottling everything up and just further isolating themself from others. It can make someone feel so alone with their struggles, feeling like there's no one there to listen to them, to support them, to share their feelings with. It's a very lonely place and I just think we should give everyone the chance to be listened to, regardless of what they look like or who they are.

Alrighty, this was a long rant and I'm sorry it's so emotionally charged. It's a very personal issue for me and I've just wanted to put in my own two cents. If you read all of this, thank you, I really appreciate it, and you!

TL;DR: People can struggle and feel insecure regardless of how conventionally attractive they're deemed as. Their appearance shouldn't be the judge of whether their struggles and insecurities are valid or not. Anyone can have insecurities and struggles and everyone should get a chance to open up and express themselves without being dismissed and having their feelings invalidated.

To end this on a more positive note: Make sure you check out "Pretty Head" by Transviolet, it's a really cool song. <3

[godsporncollection]

Saturday Morning Session

(personal commentary in italics) (sorry for how inconsistent i am at this, i’m trying new medication, so my focus comes and goes unpredictably, but i didn’t want this to take weeks)

Russel M Nelson -  strengthen your testimony (?)

"I understand better what he meant when he said 'behold, i will hasten my work in this time.'" 

Y'all have been strengthening your testimonies and i, and your children, thank you. did that inclusion of "your children" feel off to anyone else?

I can see the work on the temple outside my window and that makes me think about how we need to remove the old debris from our lives. I too think of the temple as 'old debris' that should be removed from my life.

"the gospel is a message of joy" I cannot roll my eyes hard enough

that was short. what was the topic? blab for a five minutes?

Dieter F. Uchdorf - god is Among Us

I had to move lots when I was a kid because there was a war on. i thought about the missionaries who came to the country of their enemies to bring us the gospel.

i was a kid in a war-torn country > missionaries > god has not forgotten us > we will be heirs of god > how could we complain when we have that? > the atonement > mistakes are okay, just gotta keep repenting.

what would jesus teach if he was among us today? the same thing he's always taught. "the savior always teaches timeless truths, to everyone, a message of hope and belonging, a testament that god has not abandoned his children that god is Among Us."

jesus says to love one another and to be full of charity towards all men. i would like to see it.

anyone else feel like these talks are just. empty? like, they're not feeling it either?

if jesus came into your home today, he would see into your heart and i'm gonna waste a couple more minutes by expanding on that. one look into his eyes and we would be forever changed by the realization that god is Among Us.

back to me, i wish i could go back and tell myself to stay on the right track because god is Among Us, so i'm gonna tell you instead. god is Among Us.

"line upon line" *gag*

god is Among Us

Joy D Jones - abuse is wrong unless you use it to teach kids about the gospel

"have you ever wondered why we call 'primary' 'primary'?" as someone who understands how language works, no.

because kids are importanter than everything else

god trusts us to be nice to our kids; that means no abuse, even if we're angry. whoever needed this reminder should be shot.

hey, maybe you can "combat the evils of abuse" by not fucking raising your kids in an abusive cult!

analogy of a kid who fell out of bed because he "didn't get far enough in" = he wasn't indoctrinated enough, with awkward collage of pics of kids for a minute.

eyring said to get 'em while they're young

love all the pics of black people that try to say "see? we don't think black people are inherently evil (anymore)!"

analogy of a soldier in boot camp. drill seargants are mean, but that was necessary because apparantly it's the only way this guy can learn how to hide. also, apparently this guy is "our friend". not my friend, thanks.

"how can we do the same for our children?" don't fucking act like a drill seargent to your kids! ffs

"wouldn't we rather have them sweat in the safe learning environment of the home than bleed on the battlefields of life?" first of all, fuck you. second, dramatic much? third, fuck you, kids shouldn't have to learn about life in a hostile environment. does this woman have kids? are they okay? fucking hell, five kids were raised by a woman with this mentality. what a bitch.

"eternity is the wrong thing to be wrong about." i got news for you. of course, if i ever spoke to this machine, that topic wouldn't be my top priority.

I need a fucking drink.

Jan Eric Newman - teaching the gospel is good, but you can't force a testimony on others

anecdote about a local old woman getting birthday gifts. she taught us some good things when we were growing up, so thanks, sister davis.

another teacher, at college, was a "master teacher." he loved me and the lord. he taught me to learn doctrine on my own and that "changed me forever."

just sayin', if you're taught how to learn on your own, but didn't exercise enough critical thought to gtfo of this cult, maybe the teacher wasn't the best.

it's good to have good teachers.

the ancient nephites and lamanites had good teachers, and "there was no contention among them!"

"how can we teach more like the savior and help others become more deeply converted?" nope, nope. nope.

1st, "learn all you can about the master teacher hismelf." so, we're sticking with the term "master teacher." cool. doesn't sound weird at all.

ask yourself questions about how he taught, then do that.

read "teaching in the savoir's way."

2nd, use bullshit stories. oh, no, it's a story about how somebody is grateful for the pandemic because her adult child read the BoM for the first time during it. she said it had made "literal miracles."

3rd, "remember that conversion must come from within." guess jan and "joy" should have compared notes before speaking.

"children inheret many things, but a testimony is not one of them. we can't give our children a testimony any more than we can make a seed grow; but we can provide a nourishing environment, with good soil, free of thorns that would choke the word."

Gary E. Stevenson - kindness

story about a study where rabbits were fed a high-fat diet, but those under the care of a loving researcher didn't gain as much weight.

only christians can intuitively understand that this means there's a reason to be kind to others.

jesus said love one another.

addressing primary kids - be kind. here's a story about a kid who stopped being a bully because the bullied kid said it hurt.

to the teens - social media makes bullying worse, clearly satan is using social media against your generation. do what you can t make these spaces safer. if you're a bully, "stop it."

to the adults- "we have a primary responsibility to set a tone and be role models of kindness (get wrecked "joy"), inclusion and civility."

from ballard- "i have never heard members of this church to be anything but loving, kind, tolerant and benevolent to our friends and neighbors of other faiths." k, but, like, you know it's not just a difference of religious belief that’s the problem, right?

i'm heartbroken to hear about prejudice against blackasianlatino people or of any other group. i love how that section was really only about race, with a blanket "any other group" thrown in as an afterthought so they can't be accused of being homophobic.

in the winter of 1838, jo smith was in prison and why do you think that happened, gary?

church members were driven from their homes and the residents of a town across the river gave them food and shelter. that generosity saved the lives of many of them.

god is a compassionate care-giver.

Gerrit W. Gong - disjointed anecdotes of human experiences, idk

i miss my dad. he was adventurous, except regarding food.

i saw a guy be mean to a lady selling ice cream. he smashed all of her cones. the image of her trying to salvage the cones haunts me to this day.

story of the good samaritan.

be like christ this easter.

"we recieve inspiration as we counsel together, listening to each person, including each sister and the spirit."

does this guy have a topic?

he’s is just giving a list of random human experiences and parables.

*displays a lack of understanding of instagram.*

he's listing something throughout this, like, he keeps counting, but i have no idea what and his voice is making my adhd medication run away, so i'm not listening to this again.

Henry B. Eyring - temple worthiness

today i'm feeling light and hope, like the first day i went to the salt lake temple

i'm an oblivious fucker who didn't notice my name being pinned on me, so i thought the woman who greeted me was an angel because she knew my name.

thought he could remember being in the temple before, but a voice that was not his own (that's how you know it's true and not something he just told himself) told him he was remembering heaven.

confused "holiness to the lord" with "this is a holy place." i know both phrases use the word 'holy', but like, those contexts mean separate things.

i also had this feeling during my wedding in the logan temple.

i think henry should get checked out, he suffers from frequent hallucinations and it's good to know how your brain works differently from others when in a leadership position.

during my wedding, i had a vision of a house and the officiant said to live in a way that you can walk away easily. a year later, my father in law bought the exact house and my wife and i lived in the guest house for ten years. then i got the call to move somewhere else on assignment from the church and we walked away easily.

scripture from jesus about temples.

if you're unworthy in the temple, you won't be "able to see, by the power of the holy ghost, the spiritual teaching of the savior that we can recieve in the temple."

"when we are worthy to recieve such teaching, there can grow, through our temple experience, hope, joy, and optimism throughout our lives. that hope, joy, and optimism are available only through accepting the ordinances performed in holy temples."

i forgot how simple a baptism is, so i'm gonna tell you how amazed (and a little concerned) i was when my youngest daughter stayed to do baptism for the dead for all of the names on the list that day. maybe i'm just super comfortable in the water, but that doesn't sound hard, actually. i used to almost enjoy doing those.

quotes the primary song 'i love to see the temple.'

remember to be worthy so you can live with your family forever.

[captainsjack]

I am SO MAD there isn't more Shus content. I really liked Phsyc as a kid, just started rewatching it. Within the first episode I was like hell yes childhood best friends to lovers I ship this so hard! And then I found out it's a rare pair bc fandom is racist. Also JRR is half Mexican, and i guess bc he passes it's never addressed in the show and both his parents are played by white actors? How cool would it have been to have had half Mexican Shawn? Idk I'm only on S2, I would love your thoughts

yUp :) you’re 100% correct my dude.

(1) i get the concept of wanting to make a show about platonic love and childhood best friends, like it’s a great idea and i’m here for it and more shows should focus on these kinds of aspects instead of your basic forced romantic love story. but the thing is, if this is what they were aiming for, they... just didn’t do it well.

there’s a difference between friendship love and ... what shawn and gus have. (like obviously they have that too but it goes beyond that as well). if psych wanted to make a show about best friends, they really should’ve toned down the codependency, obsessive jealousy, gay jokes, etc. because, from my experience, that’s just not what a friendship is like.

storytime that no one asked for: i met my best friend when we were 3 and she’s been my best friend for 16 years. we went to the same elementary, middle, and high school together, just like shawn and gus. we’ve always been super close. but we don’t act like shawn and gus.

shawn and gus are each other’s only friend. they spend 24 hours, 7 days a week, 365 days of the year together. they walk next to each other with their bodies pressed together. they touch each other longingly for no reason. they’re constantly just like... gazing lovingly at each other. they joke about dating each other. people constantly mistake them for a couple.

there’s a difference between regular long time best friends, and what shawn and gus are. look at any other tv show with best friends - jess & cece (new girl), alex & mer (greys), ross & chandler (friends).  THOSE are best friend relationships. that’s how me and my best friend are.

but shawn and gus are so much more than that. gus knows everything there is to know about what makes shawn spencer, Shawn Spencer. he’s literally the only person shawn lets himself be real around. he’s the only one who can see past shawn’s facade. the only person who has been there since the beginning and has first-hand knowledge & experience of all of shawns trauma. he’s the only person shawn really lets himself open up to. not to mention the fact that gus is the only one who is never, and has never, been deceived by shawn, whether in regards to shawns emotions or his “psychic-ness.” all of shawns love interests are kept in the dark. but gus knows the ins and outs of shawns personality - his biggest secrets and deepest fears. he’s the only person that’s been a constant presence in shawns life. he’s the only person shawn keeps coming back to. gus is the one who claimed shawn on his taxes. gus is the one who shawn can’t ever fathom not being in his life.

i know what best friends are and what they feel for each other. and this is SO much more than that.

here's a second story you didn’t want to hear: i met my other best friend senior year of high school. let me tell you - that relationship was so much different than what i have with my childhood best friend. we would go everywhere together and do everything together. people constantly mistook us for a couple. i talked about her constantly and she was the first person i would ever want to talk to if something happened. it didn’t mean i loved my other friends any less, but it was just such a different relationship. we were exactly like shawn and gus. down to the details almost.

and yes, you guessed it. i eventually fell in love with her. and when i told my other friends, they had already known before i did.

maybe you have to have first-hand experience of situations like these, but its really obvious to me that shawn and gus’s friendship is completely the same as me and my friend from high school, and not at all like me and my childhood best friend.

because, to me, you shouldn’t have extreme, unhealthy jealousy of the person your friend is dating. you shouldn’t be upset when they start dating someone. you shouldn’t sabotage their relationships because you don’t want to share them. and, obviously, i’m not saying this is healthy in any respect, even if you’re in love with someone, you gotta have boundaries, but. like. this definitely isn't something you do with a normal best friend. i don’t know about you, but i wouldn't propose to someone else and include my best friend in the proposal.

i don’t really know how to explain it, other than, you can’t really understand the difference between a regular best friend, and something that’s just so much more than that, that you end up falling in love with them, unless you experience it yourself. those little touches, glances, half-assed “date me” jokes, mean something. if you know, you know.

i guess what i’m trying to say is that, if psych wanted a show about best friends, then they didn’t achieve that.

because what they gave us was a story about childhood best friends falling in love, and never doing anything about it because they’re too afraid to risk their friendship.

and, maybe, if the show had been made now, they wouldn’t have been as scared to have a main queer couple in a show. maybe they wouldn’t have forced the only woman character with the main guy, just so they didn't have to deal with admitting the fact that shawn and gus belong together.

if they wanted the main love story to be between jules and shawn, then they shouldn’t have written shawn and gus with so much chemistry.

and even if i’m wrong about all this, if my idea of friendship isn’t correct, and shawn and gus are “normal,” then at the very least, it was a missed opportunity. a chance to have a queer interracial couple as the main part of a show. it was something we deserved.

(2) again, you’re correct. people go ape shit for “best friends to lovers” and “partners to lovers” and mutual pining, and all the other tropes shawn and gus embody. but, make a black guy a part of a ship, and all of the sudden, people say “hm.. i just can’t see them as anything more than friends :)”. because people can’t comprehend black people as rounded, fully developed people who deserve love. i can’t find it atm, but there’s this really good post that talks a lot about this (in regards to mcu, but still stands).

(3) again, you took the words right out of my mouth. there’s an interview with james where he explains why he’s only played white characters in the past.

also, here’s some more discourse about it x x x x.

in summation, shawn and gus are in love, psych fandom hates black people, hollywood is racist, and we deserved more from psych :)

[dungeonsandkobolds]

Hey there! I'm seeking some advice... Recently my DM felt really upset and under appreciated. We had a session where all us ADHD players were really off task. She hasn't talked to the group for a whole week but just sent a message saying that we will now have player "report cards" where she tells us what good and bad we're doing, she also assigned us one shots so we can appreciate what its like to be DM. (PT 1)

the thing is... is that most of us HAVE DMd before. And we give her feedback at the end of every session, we clap for her, we ADORE her stories and her NPCs. And for the most part that was one... maybe two bad sessions. Within the last year she's DMd 3 one shots, and a long term game for us, all games were unprompted by us and she chose. Is this just burn out? Do we need to stop playing, or does she just want to play? PT 2. of 2

Hey so wow this is a tough one

I’d like to preface this by saying this is very much an interpersonal issue, so take everything I say as advice from someone who doesn’t know personally anyone involved in the scenario. Definitely take what I say if you think it helps, but reassess in terms of what you know from the people. 

What I’d suggest is collect all the players thoughts on this and select like a spokesperson to have an open chat with your DM? One where they express what the players feel and the DM expresses what she feels and importantly both people hear each other out. If you do it the group talking to her, unfortunately those situations can often turn out to make the person talking to feel attacked, so yeah one on one would be my advice. 

I’d suggest to focus on the way things make you feel, instead of talking about the other persons’ actions (cause that can sometimes come off as a little accusatory). 

Clearly everyone is allowed to have off sessions, and it’s particularly something to be aware of when you’re playing with a group of neurodivergent people. People are never going to be at 100% for 100% of the time. That’s why I run my sessions always as opt in, and people can take a break whenever they want. The reports cards do sound like they’d attach a level of anxiety to the sessions which could overall make y’all not want to play, so I personally think they’re not a great idea. 

However, you should definitely hear her side of the story out, without trying to think to much about her intentions (i know it can be hard to do when things go a bit wrong). Again, I don’t know much about the people involved, but I’d suggest that people generally don’t react this strongly if it’s only a couple of sessions that have been a bit off? 

Idk the situation, but my main advice would be to have an open and honest conversation with your DM - and avoid assuming anything about what’s happening in her head until you do. Sometimes when you’re DM-ing for a group, there are things that feel off to you that the players don’t realise - because they’re majority in the group, and they’re playing off of each other. Things can get out of hand/be normalised that the DM doesn’t massively like, because everyone else in the DnD group is cool with it. 

So it’s important to go into this conversation without ideas in mind of what she’s going to say, and be open to listening and feedback/criticism of what you’ve been doing and be prepared to make changes - on both sides as well! It’s also important for her to listen to what y’all have to say and express your own concerns about this as well

DnD is about cooperation and communication! It’s always important to have check ins with how everyone is feeling 

I hope this is helpful! I tried to do my best with what you’ve sent through to me, and present some balanced advice! I’m sure my followers will have some more suggestions as well

If you’d like any more help/clarification on some points feel free to send it through. 

[pokkop15]

(Ok so I was a fool and had had a lot of this meta written up yesterday and instead of saving it as a draft while I watched critical role, I, like a fool, just left all the tabs open and then went to bed after the episode. Then firefox crashed in the night and everything was lost. Press F to pay respects I guess cause here I go again.)

First off, Aradia is best girl and I am so happy she's RELEVANT again. I had a whole preamble the last time I wrote this post, but I can't remember what it said other than mentioning that this is gonna be a long post beneath the cut and that I have other metas that will kind of overlap with what I'm saying in this one so I will try to keep my discussion of the narrative styles of the The Prince and The Muse to only what is relevant to this post and to what is RELEVANT. Also previous metas should be reblogged directly before I post this to make it easier to check them out before hand or to reference them more easily.

The main points of focus will be: The differences between how the two Time gods interact with The Muse and her narrative, as well as the general level of metatextual awareness of characters within Candy. | The juxtaposition of the Knight and the Maid. | The possible suppression of the Ultimate nature of The Knight, and by extension The Seer. | The Muse's unique state of power and presumed Awakening | I swear there was more but I flat out don't remember what they were.

One last thing. I am a rambly motherfucker so if you haven't read my previous metas, here's your warning to expect a very long and very chaotic mess of a post beneath the cut. Also for anyone confused anytime I emphasize someone as 'The Class' it's referring to their actions as a potential narrator and as an Ultimate Self. For example, the difference between The Muse and the Muse is that 'the Muse' would be for character moments like when the dead cherub possessing Jade's corpse in Candy is just talking with Davebot and Aradia, while 'The Muse' is for when talking about her influence over the narrative. (There's a lot of different ways I put emphasis on words or phrases, but “The Class” was the one I felt really might need clarification)

I find it interesting how Davebot acknowledges and shows distaste for The Muse interjecting her narration and thus inhibiting his ability to live in the moment. I find this interesting because as an Awakened god of Time, he is simultaneously living in every moment but as a Knight, and as The Knight, he is also intrinsically separate from those moments as he is the Ultimate One who Wields Time. Aradia on the other hand is the Maid of Time, who while almost assuredly having reached the pinnacle of her god tier after the hundreds of years we now know her to have lived, is not ascended to her Ultimate Self. As a Maid, Aradia literally embodies her aspect. As such she doesn't worry about living in the moment because she is the moment. Because of this Aradia is more prone to just accept, agree, and repeat the sentiments The Muse dictates in her constant exposition. However, despite acknowledging the narration, Davebot still ends up being incredibly passive in the face of it. Even though he has an Active class and is a dreamer of the Active moon, Dave himself has always come off as an incredibly passive character to me in a lot of ways. (Even the aspect of Time itself and its heroes are specifically denoted as incredibly Active in the {official and Canon} extended zodiac test [which means its contents are NECESSARY, RELEVANT, and TRUE]). Always acting under the direction of other characters, subject to The Lord's rule over Time, and constantly struggling with his seeming lack of control. Here, even after reaching his Ultimate Self, he still only makes passive-aggressive remarks instead leaving the flow of the story and the big decisions to others. (In my last post I went into deeper detail about the nature of, and relationship between Aradia and Dave's classes and how that affected their sessions, but I can't remember what the tie in was unfortunately so for now I'll leave it at this and move on)

Among the human players of sburb, the Strilondes have always been the most genre savvy and possessed the most awareness of the narrative and its' influence, (although Dave was never near the levels of Dirk and Rose). But up until this upd8, direct interactions with the narrative have been few and far between in Candy (at least as far as I can recall). I mentioned this in my previous meta as being a result of The Muse being the type to inspire characters to action whereas The Prince is far more heavy handed in is dictation and rarely attempts to hide his presence in the narration these days. But we see here once again, that not only is The Muse bad for the people under her influence, she's also just really not good at constructing a story. She relies too heavily on tropes and cliches, on plot contrivances; she tells too much and doesn't show enough, (something that should literally be her greatest strength as a Muse). Yet despite this, Davebot and Aradia are seen multiple times to interact with her dictations directly and Aradia even points out on page 284 that she is aware of The Muse “observing (their) every action and noting its relevance : )” (the emphasis on 'relevance' being mine). As such we can infer that it doesn't take an Ultimate Self to recognize The Muse's narration. But if not that, then what? If it was just pre-disposition of character that let them notice, then between her own abilities and self awareness, surely Candy!Rose would have by now, but she hasn't. Then is it proximity? Maybe The Muse is getting complacent and starting to unknowingly imitate The Prince and his methods? Or is it because both Davebot and Aradia are Heroes of Time? The aspect opposite The Muse's. After all, The Muse did express that the way (either Aradia specifically or that the both of them) experience time is “woefully unfamiliar” to her. Perhaps that makes it difficult for her to write a story that resonates with them fully. Whatever it may be, all the information up until this point doesn't come to a head so much as it is something that I believe to be RELEVANT.

With that, let us switch gears while keeping the previous information in mind. As I said before, in spite of all the active components of Davebot's Mythological Role, his character has often been passive. And the precise story beat I want to focus on right now is his Awakening to his Ultimate Self. Candy!Dave was out on patrol with a wife who he loved, but who also had very much always been the driving force of their dynamic. He was pulled to the ancient bunker by the narrative where a hologram of Obama expertly guided him through a conversation like a true politician, somehow knowing a lot about Dave while at the same time withholding “classified” information as if that word had any meaning without a country or government holding Obama accountable. (Unless of course Obama was still answering to someone... *Cough cough*the authors*cough cough*). Look, all of this is me saying that Obama was a leftover contrivance of The Prince that The Muse utilized for her own means. Dirk was a skilled programmer and engineer. He had a deep understanding of how to build AIs that could easily impersonate someone. He had an even deeper grasp of how to manipulate Dave. Dirk built the bots. The Bots. The bots that are supposedly NECESSARY for one to Awaken to their Ultimate Self and survive. And yet even if that is TRUE, it isn't true. The Prince claims he was a special case but his powers are of the soul, not the body. And it is the body that breaks down. And we know that Rose really was suffering in her path to Awakening, but I will remind you that her poor condition was first established through narration that we know was under the control of The Prince. Further more it happened prior to the Meat/Candy split, in which the Canon still possessed TRUTH, which is why it still remained RELEVANT in Candy (and it was obviously NECESSARY in Meat for reasons about to be discussed). Both Rose and Dave ultimately played a passive role in their Awakenings, guided to their Ultimate Self by another even though they are both Active players. I believe that The Prince established these rules about Ultimate Selves and built the robot bodies as a way to give him an upper hand against the two characters most likely to overtake him. Because to reinforce a point from a previous post, Rose is the only full on published author among the players and Dave himself has written comics and presumably screenplays for his films, making them the two people who might not only do a better job than The Prince or The Muse, but just do a flat out GOOD job. The Seer especially, which is why The Prince went through the extra effort to disrupt her sense of self as she was coming into her Ultimate Self. If these two had played an Active part in their own Awakening and without The Prince’s influence I think they both would’ve been quite capable of giving The Prince a run for his money. But the humans are not the only players in this game...

As I've already alluded to, Lord English (The Lord), was almost certainly his Ultimate Self. Awakened and Empowered by the treasure (a juju so powerful that it enabled John to retcon things in a way that overrides the timeline instead of splitting it, and it did so without even granting him its actual power). When The Knight awakened, The Muse described it has having all of Time flow through his consciousness, allowing him to experience every instance of his own self. Conversely Jade described that her Ultimate Self would be “like... one ultimate self distributed across multiple bodies. so in multiple places and states at once. every jade that exists is like a light being shined through a thousand cracks in the timeline.” (Hey remember those cracks in the universe that had light peaking through them? Idk, seems RELEVANT if you ask me.) So if we reasonably assume that ones aspect heavily affects how one's Ultimate Self first Awakens and how it operates than that means there will be similarities between those who share aspects. If Awakening for a Hero of Time is an experience of everything that ever has, is, or will happen to a version of themselves, and Lord English possessed a juju that allows one to retcon and not split, than the combination of those powers would make it so he could be the singular instance of himself while at the same time always be “Already Here” than there is truly no difference between Lord English and the theoretical Ultimate version of himself. And since the Muse consumed Lord English at the end of Candy, granting her the power to punch a wormhole in the black hole. This is also presumably where she gained the power to “...exist in several narrative structures at once” (pg 286) (also see the above explanation of Jade's Ultimate Self for why that is RELEVANT). Because of this, we can assume that The Muse is just as indistinguishable from her theoretical Ultimate Self as The Lord was. But these powers and this simultaneous existence is not without consequences because the Muse's collapse at the end of this chapter is almost assuredly a result of Meat!Jade's rebelling against The Muse in chapter 6 (specifically the action on page 167/168). And finally, to tie this back to the imposition of bodily destruction to those who Awaken their Ultimate Self, it is worth noting that The Muse does not possess a body of her own to be destroyed. Instead inhabiting the body of various Jades.

Alright, so once again sorry if you thought there would be some big culmination to this post, and hey, what pumpkin?

[lenniewip]

Nothing Stays the Same Forever

Stiles was having nightmares.

“Do you need me to come over?” Stiles could hear the flat out exhaustion in Scotts voice through the phone.

“No.” Stiles said trying to keep his voice steady. He shouldn’t have called, he knew that, but he had been so close to having an anxiety attack that he had dialled Scott’s number before he could convince himself not to.

It wasn’t like he had an abundance of friend’s he can call upon either.

“You can go back to sleep now.”

“Call me if you need me.” The words were muffled behind a yawn.

Stiles didn’t get back to sleep that night.

//

It was only a matter of time before the rest of the pack found out about Stiles nightmares.

Scott is terrible at keeping secrets and it’s actually a wonder that the whole of beacon hills doesn’t know that he’s a werewolf yet.

Still it surprised Stiles when Derek approached him.

“For you.” Derek grunted out the two words, shoving a book into Stile’s hands, without actually asking him if he wanted it.

Stiles stared at the book with furrowed eyebrows. “What’s this?”

“A book.”

Stiles would usually have a sarcastic comment to say here, and it spoke volumes about how little sleep he was getting that he stayed silent and instead flipped open to the first page.

He did a double take. “Is this a spell book?!”

“You could call it that. There’s a section on protection magic.”

Stiles eyes scanned the pages. “There’s magic for that?”

“There’s magic for everything.” Derek says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, and maybe for him it is.

“You know I’m not a witch though, right? I can’t use this.”

“You’re a spark Stiles. You have magic. It’s up to you if you want to use it.” Then he walks away.

Stiles stares at the space Derek had once been. “Goodbye to you too.”

//

That night Stiles can’t get to sleep.

He flips through the pages of the book idly. The writing is small and long winded, and it’s almost impossible for Stiles eyes to actually focus on anything the book says.

He picks up his phone instead, and hovers over Derek’s contact information. The whole pack had traded numbers for emergencies, but he had never actually used Derek’s number before.

Derek had also never given him a spell book before.

Stiles: This book is impossible to understand. Aren’t there wards that other people/witches, who actually know what they are doing, have made that I can just buy online and save my eyes the torture of trying to read this?

Derek: You should never trust a stranger’s magic.

And that’s such a paranoid, and very Derek Hale response that Stiles can’t help but roll his eyes.

Still he tries to read the book again. Within the first five lines he falls into an uneasy sleep.

//

He keeps trying to read the book for the rest of the weekend without much luck.

Stiles: There has to be spark notes or something. It would take an army of Lydia’s years to decode this thing.

Derek: Lydia could probably read it in an hour, you’re probably just too tired. Go to sleep.

Stiles: It’s not that easy.

Derek: I know.

//

Stiles: So I found a chapter on enchanting weapons that looks fairly comprehensive

Stiles: Question: Should I get a sword?

Derek: Absolutely fucking not.

Stiles: How rude.

Derek: I’m not saving your ass when you stab yourself.

Stiles: Double rude.

//

“What are you doing here?” Derek stood in his doorway with a questioning frown.

“Nice to see you too, big guy. I came to see you obviously, are you going to let me in or what?” Stiles said with an eye roll.

Derek moves to the side to let him in. “Scott isn’t here.” Derek said, still sounding confused.

“I didn’t think he was.” Stiles turned to face Derek with a big grin dropping his bag off his shoulder as he did so. “I wanted to show you something.” He pulled a small pebble out of his pocket.

“A rock? I think I’ve seen one somewhere before.”

“Don’t be an asshole. Just, tell me a lie.”

“A lie?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m a vampire.” As the words left Derek’s mouth a rune that Stile’s had drawn onto the rock glowed.

Stiles beamed. “It’s a lie detection rune. All in all not much use seeming as all werewolves are natural born lie detectors, but the important thing is I was able to read enough of that spell book to make this, and it worked. Turns out I’m a fucking baller witch already. Did you-”

Stiles stuttered to a halt when he noticed the small smile on Derek’s face.

He was now coming to the realisation that he had never seen Derek smile before this.

He would have remembered.

//

“Have you ever seen Derek smile before?”

Scott gave Stiles a curious look at the question, and then shrugged his shoulders. “I guess? Probably? I mean the dude’s not a robot. He must have smiled at some point.”

“Yeah. Must have.”

//

It’s rare that Scott doesn’t answer his phone when Stiles calls, but today is one of those days.

It’s more out of helplessness that he even tries texting Derek at all.

Stiles: hi

Derek: hey

Stiles: Do you ever actually sleep?

Derek: You messaged me first?

Stiles: Yeah but I wasn’t expecting a response?

Derek: Oh

Derek: I can go if you want?

Stiles: Wait

Stiles: If we’re both awake anyway you might as well keep me company

The next response takes enough time to come through that Stiles briefly panics that Derek really did go to bed.

Derek: I don’t think your dad would appreciate me coming over at this time.

Stiles actually laughs out loud.

Stiles: I meant keep me company over text

Derek: oh

Derek: What did you want to talk about?

Stiles: Anything

Derek: Did you want to talk about your nightmares?

Stiles: Anything but that

Stiles didn’t think he could talk about them if he wanted to, but he really didn’t want to find out. He wanted to forget about the nightmares.

He wanted to forget about how in every single one of them someone he loved would get hurt because of him. Or by him.

Stiles: What did you do today?

Derek: I went for a run

Stiles: You’re really bad at this

Derek: Sorry.

Stiles: don’t be

Stiles: Did you really only go for a run today?

Derek: it was a long run

Stiles: still.

Stiles: You know there are other things you can do right? You could go to the cinema or something. Or have a picnic. You might even meet people

Derek: You can meet people while running

Stiles: Name one person you’ve met

Derek: Pat

Stiles: Who the fuck is Pat?

Derek: We go jogging together sometimes

Stiles: Nice, is she hot?

Derek: Gross Stiles. She’s 74

Stiles: Oh my god

Derek: What?

Stiles: Your best friend is a 74 year old woman?

Derek: I never said she was my best friend?

Stiles: What do you guys even talk about?

Derek: Idk. Life. She gives good advice.

Stiles: This is the cutest fucking thing I’ve ever read

Derek: Shut up

Stiles: No way. I have so many more questions. Is she also a werewolf? Do you go to her for supernatural advice? Or just day to day ‘how do I get my barista to like me’ kind of advice.

Derek: Who asks for advice about getting their barista to like them?

Stiles: Unimportant. Stop dodging the question.

//

The next time Stiles has a nightmare he doesn’t bother trying to call Scott first.

//

At some point texting progresses into phone calls.

And it’s different than talking to Scott. For one Derek never sounds tired so Stiles never knows when exactly to stop talking. So he doesn’t.

He talks until his throat grows dry, and he’s feeling tired enough that he can go for another couple of hours of sleep.

Derek never complains.

Stiles is just enough of an asshole that he takes advantage of that fact.

//

Sometimes in the morning after they just picked up their text conversation wherever it was last left off, and soon enough Stiles is texting Derek daily.

And Derek always texts back.

It was during one of their phone conversations that Stiles finds himself asking Derek where he had even found the spell book to begin with.

“It used to belong to my dad.”

Stiles jaw drops open. He knew for a fact that Derek didn’t have much left of his family, and the fact that Derek had leant him this book at all must have meant Derek trusted him. A lot.

Stiles didn’t even know how to trust himself, so how the fuck did paranoid, over protective, lone wolf Derek fucking Hale come to the conclusion that Stiles was trustworthy?

Derek’s faith felt like a physical weight in Stiles hands.

//

That night Stiles had another nightmare.

This time he’s holding Derek’s heart in his hands as blood drips through his fingers.

He wakes up in a cold sweat with tears streaming down his face.

//

“I think if I ever see a pixie again, I might go feral.” Isaac bemoaned during a pack meeting, rubbing his arm where one pixie had bitten him.

“You’re learning magic, right Stiles? Isn’t there a spell you can use to just get rid of them all?” Scott adds on looking at Stiles with pleading eyes.

“If there is I haven’t come across it yet.” Stiles says. “But, and hear me out, I did come across a weapon rune that I want to try out.”

“Nope.” Derek interrupts the thought before it could fully form.

“Come on!” Stiles complained, narrowing his eyes at the werewolf. “You all got wolf-y claws. I want a sword.”

Derek shook his head. “I love you Stiles, but fuck no. I’m not letting you have a sword.”

The whole room goes quiet and every single pair of eyes land on Derek.

And Stiles really wants some elaboration on that sentence.

But Derek looks extremely uncomfortable, and a little bit like he wishes the ground would open up and swallow him whole, so Stiles forces himself not to make a big deal.

And it’s difficult. Stiles is a maker of big deals. He can expertly craft a mountain out of a mole hill. It’s his speciality.

When he sees Scott’s face light up Stiles elbows him in the side to stop him from saying anything to make the situation worse.

Scott thankfully picks up the hint. “So what else do we know about pixies?”

It’s a terrible subject change but it does the job.

//

It is impossible for Derek to be in love with Stiles.

Stiles doesn’t even entertain that thought, because it’s ridiculous.

But the words ‘I love you’ definitely left Derek’s mouth in front of a whole room of witnesses. Which brings Stiles to the conclusion that maybe Derek thinks of him as family.

And that’s a lot.

Stiles knows what happened to the rest of the Hale family (everyone does). And Stiles knows that he could never replace them, but he also doesn’t know how to live up to them either.

Stiles doesn’t know how to be enough for Derek.

Except if Derek already loves Stiles then maybe Stiles has already done enough…

Maybe all he has to do to be enough is not change.

And maybe to not change all he has to do is ignore the fact that the words ‘I love you’ came out of Derek’s mouth at all.

So that night when Stiles has a nightmare he calls Derek, and they talk for hours on the phone. Neither of them mentions anything about love.

Nothing changes at all.

//

Nothing changes except the whole pack now thinks Stiles and Derek are secretly dating.

//

Stiles nightmares don’t stop. Derek features in almost all of them now though, and they always end the same way. Stiles stood above Derek his heart in his hands.

//

Stiles jerks awake from one of these nightmares to the sound of loud banging on his bedroom window. His heart leaps halfway up his throat as he practically falls out of bed.

“Stiles?” Derek’s voice sounds muffled through his window.

“Derek? What the actual fu-” Stiles jerks back his curtains and stops dead because Derek looks…not great. He’s shaking heavily and his eyes were flickering between the regular pale blue and the glowing omega blue. “What happened?” Stiles wrenched open his window to let Derek in.

“You called me.” Derek’s voice still sounded muffled and Stiles realises it’s because he has a mouth full of fangs.

Stiles gave a confused look to his phone. He’d fallen asleep texting Derek and he must have accidentally dialled him afterwards.

“You were crying. A lot. And you sounded like you were in pain.”

“Oh.”

Derek’s eyes came to meet his, still shaking. “I didn’t know they were that bad.”

Stiles steps closer to Derek, opening his arms, and Derek falls into him.

“It’s okay buddy. I’m fine.” Stiles rubs his hand on Derek’s back, and Derek slumps forwards into Stiles embrace.

They stay that was until both their breathing evens out, and Derek’s eyes stop changing colour. Then they stay there for a while longer.

//

Derek starts coming over regularly after that night.

A lot of thee time they don’t even talk, they just lay there, side by side, staring at Stiles ceiling.

“Do you get them too?”

“Get what?” Derek grunts out.

“Nightmares.”

“…All the time.”

Stiles turns his head to look at Derek. “How do you…cope.”

“I don’t sleep a lot.” Derek admits.

It makes more sense to Stiles now how Derek is always awake to answer his texts or calls.

And Stiles thinks that maybe Derek was lonely too.

Maybe he was saving Derek just as much as Derek was saving him.

//

It’s inevitable really that Stiles falls in love with Derek.

How could he not?

//

Usually when Derek comes over (which is a lot these days) Derek leaves when Stiles gets tired, but sometimes Derek falls asleep first. And Stiles lives for those days.

He pines for the days where he just gets to fall asleep next to the person he’s fallen so madly in love with.

Derek is always gone when Stiles wakes up.

Stiles tries not to take it to heart or over think it, because every time he needs Derek to be there he always comes back. And that’s enough.

It’s more than enough.

//

Nothing stays the same forever.

It’s raining the day that Stiles wakes up first.

It’s raining and Derek is hugging him tightly. And Stiles can hardly breathe because he doesn’t want to ruin this.

What he really wants to do is turn onto his side and cuddle Derek right back, but that would probably be taking it too far.

So instead he just lies there, and tries not to move. But Stiles can never stay still for long, and eventually his shifting causes Derek to stir.

“Stiles?” Derek’s voice is low and thick with sleep, and Stiles can’t make any actual words come out of his mouth.

“Hmmm.”

“Go back sleep.” Derek mumbles. And then he hugs Stiles tighter, and his nose finds its way to Stiles’ neck.

And Stiles breaks. Because he’s never wanted to hold someone so much in his goddamn life.

But that’s when Derek wakes up fully.

Derek jerks away from Stiles all at once.

Stiles automatically tries to stop him, but he’s too slow. A small whimper leaves his throat without his permission.

“Shit Stiles. I’m so sorry. My wolf… I thought… I’m sorry.”

Derek sounds so pained and Stiles just wants to take it all away.

He flops backwards onto his pillow, covering his face with both hands. “Don’t apologise.”

Derek lets out this noise that breaks Stiles in a whole new way. “What should I do?”

Love me back.

The words don’t leave Stiles’ mouth.

“Stay. Please.”

“Okay.”

Stiles peeks through his fingers when he feels the bed shift slightly as Derek sits tentatively back on the edge.

And Stiles knows everything can’t stay the same.

“I have a confession to make.”

Derek gives him a sad smile. “Please don’t tell me you actually got a sword.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “I didn’t get a sword.”

“Oh thank fuck.”

“I’m in love with you.”

And Derek goes silent. The only things Stiles can hear is his own thundering heartbeat and the rain.

“Please say something.”

“I’m not good with words.”

“Then do something. Please.” Stiles begs.

And Stiles expects Derek to leave, but then Derek is kissing him. Derek kisses him and his teeth brush Stiles lips because Derek is smiling.

“I love you too.” Derek said as he pulled back. “But you already knew that.”

Stiles gapes at him. “No I didn’t? How would I know that? You love me?!”

“Yes you did? I told you during a pack meeting. I know you heard me. Every one heard me.”

“Oh god.” Stiles breathes. “I’m an actual fucking idiot.” He narrows his eyes at Derek. “You are too. That was a terrible confession. Did not give me the impression at all that you were down for making out. Next time use flowers or poetry, or just the actual words ‘Stiles I’m in love with you’. We could have been together this whole fucking time.”

“Sorry how is it my fault you couldn’t extrapolate that from ‘I love you’?”

“I’ll have you know that there are seven different types of love asshole. Example, I love Scott, and I tell him that all the time. I do not however want to kiss Scott. Ever.”

“You tell Scott you love him all the time?”

“It’s called having a healthy communication. You should try it sometime.”

“Sorry. Let me try again. Stiles I’m profoundly in love with you. You are the air in my lungs, and the blood in my veins. You are everything to me. The world would not spin without you.” Derek deadpans.

“Fuck. You’re such an asshole.” Stiles laughs and wraps his arms around Derek’s neck. “You’re perfect for me.”

[ladybugsfanfics]

Stangers On A Train [4/4] | Tom Hiddleston

 Pairing: Tom Hiddleston x reader

Style: part 4 of 4

WC: 2.2k

Warnings: drunk reader, awkward people, idk really, feeling like you’re being creeped on?

Summary:  “we make contact before trying to steal the last seat on the subway/bus/train and I end up in your lap and fuck you, I’m going to stay here because I’ve had a really long day and this seat was mine” - prompt source

A/N: so, this is finally here, the end to stangers on a train. Hope you all enjoy this, and yes, this is instead of a new part of Shut Up And Kiss Me, sorry. I didn’t have the time to write another part, and since this was already written, here you go. 

Previous | Series Masterlist | Masterlist

It takes so many rings before he answers that you almost believe it will go to the answerphone. But then you hear his soothing, deep voice tiredly say, “Tom Hiddleston, who am I talking to?”

You snort at that, which elcitics a laugh from him. 

“Y/N,” he says, voice fond even though the sleepiness still clings to it. “It’s two am, why are you calling?” 

“Uhh, I have a slight problem.” You press your lips together, forming a thin, nervous smile as you await his response. 

“Problem?” 

You nod. “Uhh, yeah. I’ve been out with friends and had a few drinks,” a little chuckle follows the ‘a few’ because it was probably one too many, “and I have to walk because I missed the last tube and it’s so long and my feet hurt and I’ve walked a little in only socks but it hurts so much and I don’t have much power left on my phone and also I’m a little afraid and like it’s dark and the middle of the night―”

His laugh interrupts your rambling. “Give me ten minutes, I’ll pick you up. Where are you?” he asks. 

You look around. “I don’t know.” Even if he can’t see it, you shake your head as you say so, as if acknowledging your own stupidity. “Some buildings are here, and a… I don’t know.”

Tom sighs. “Anyway you could find out?” 

“Maybe,” you reply and take your phone away from your ear. You press the speaker button, and move into google maps. By choosing somewhere to go, you get your own position and press it. The ‘share your location’ button is pretty handy right now, and you have only done this once before. You find Tom in your contacts and send it to him. “Done.”

“Got it. I’ll be right there.” 

“Don’t use long. I want to see youuu,” you say, drawing out the ‘you’ in a singsong-y voice. 

He laughs. “Don’t worry.”

You stick your tongue out and roll your eyes. “I don’t worry. I overthink. There’s a difference.” 

“If you say―” 

He cuts off. You look at your phone and notice it’s shutting down. Great, just great. That means you have to wait without talking to him. You let out a huff and sit down on the curb, which gives your feet some rest. It feels great actually, to just sit down. 

It does not feel so great when a man walks past, and though he doesn’t really look threatening, there’s something about the look he sends you that has chills creep up your spine. During the next minutes it takes for Tom to arrive, your heart pounds in your chest. The slight tipsiness you’d felt before vanishes, replaced with an anxious feeling of dread. 

Tom will be here in a second. Tom will be here in a second. Tom will be here in a second. You repeat it like a mantra in your head, but it doesn’t calm your nerves nearly as much as you would like. 

The car that pulls up to a stop on the other side of the street doesn’t sit well in your gut either. But when Tom gets out of it and his tall frame makes its way across the street and to you, relief floods your system. You stand up, shoes in one hand and smile at him. 

“You got cut off,” he says as he pulls you in for a small hug. You wrap your arms around him, breathing in the fresh scent he brings.

“My phone shut off.” You linger in the hug a few seconds longer than you should, but since he doesn’t pull away you don’t think too hard on it. Though your heart does flip a thousand times, which feels good but also breaks it all at once. 

Tom pulls away eventually, and takes your free hand in his as you walk back to his car. “Why would you believe it a good idea to take off your shoes?” he asks.

“You really think these are good for walking?” You shove the pair of high heels in his face―though not too in his face. It’s a black pair with a thick heel and straps that snakes their way up your legs. It’s not necessarily that they’re uncomfortable, but rather the fact that high heels in general gives for tired feet after awhile. 

“No, I don’t think they are.” He opens the car door for you, letting go of your hand as you sit down. The absence leaves a cold sensation in your fingers―had his touch really been that hot?

You do your best to fasten your seatbelt, but the end won’t connect with the thing it’s supposed to fasten in. Your focus is on that as you hear the car door close as Tom gets in. His laugh rings in your ear as you sigh and give up on the belt. 

“I’ll help,” he says, leaning over and dragging the belt with him. Your breath catches at his closeness. His breathing mixes with yours, the nearness of him having your gut churn and your heart twist in agony because god he is so close why not just lean over and press your lips to his and―

Click. 

The belt clicks into place and the smell of Tom’s cologne falls away from your nose as he pulls back into his own seat, pulling on his own seatbelt. He starts the car, and you do your best to regain your breathing because he was so close. 

It’s a silent ride back to your apartment. All you can think about is how close he was. How dry your throat is. How much your gut hurts as it churns and churns and churns. How you feel cold as his touch isn’t on you. How you wish to press your lips to his. How you wish to press your lips to his neck, his chest, other places. How you wish to touch him, let your hands explore his body. 

And all of it has your body heat up, sweat just a little because god it’s hot confined to this space. 

Finally, Tom pulls to a stop in the guest parking outside your apartment. You manage to take off your seatbelt, but you don’t get to open the door as Tom is already on the other side. He smiles as he lends you a hand, which you happily take. The touch burns you, but it’s better than the cold you had before, better than not touching him. 

He helps you all the way up to your apartment, letting you lean most of your weight on him as you walk. Though the few stairs you have to walk up aren’t that promising as you don’t want to put your shoes on at all. 

“I’ll carry you,” offers Tom. 

You shake your head. “No, I can’t… You can’t―” 

But Tom doesn’t take ‘no’ for an answer and crouches for you to hop onto his back. You do. His arms feel secure under your thighs, the touch creating a tickling feeling where it happens―which you try to ignore but it’s a good feeling.

Your arms wrap around his neck, though you make sure not to choke him. Seeing as he feels so secure, you lay your head down on his back. The little rumble of a laugh it elicits has you smile. 

It’s over too fast. Tom puts you down as he stops by your door. You fiddle with the keys, and hope he doesn’t decide to leave as he’s helped you. After all, he doesn’t have to stay. But everything within you wants him to. The alcohol in your blood might make you a tad bolder than you usually are, and that might just have things go the direction you want it to. 

You open the door and walk in, putting your shoes down with your other shoes. Thankfully, Tom follows you inside, closes the door and takes off his shoes. You try to suppress a smile, but it makes its way across your face despite it. 

“You want something to drink?” you ask, glancing his way. 

“That depends,” he says and leans against the doorway to the kitchen. 

“You can choose wine or water.”

Tom chuckles. “I’ll take a glass of water, thank you.” 

You pull out two glasses, find a bottle you have in the fridge and fill both glasses with water. You hand one of them to Tom and take the other one yourself, taking a sip. Even being cold from standing in the fridge, it isn’t as cold as the absence of Tom’s touch. 

Only moments ago and you already miss it. Maybe there’s something in it when you’re in love; you miss those small things because you only get them during certain moments. And now that that moment is over, you don’t know what to do. 

“How much did you really drink?” asks Tom and sets down his glass on the counter as he leans against it. 

You press your lips together. “Just a few… too many.”

He gives you an amused smile, though he doesn’t comment. Instead, he quietly leans against the counter, ocean eyes smiling as he looks at you. The way they seem to study your face has heat crawl into your cheeks and you press your lips even tighter together. 

“You wanna watch a movie?” you ask.

“It’s still the middle of the night,” he replies, though amusement colors his voice. “I better get home.”

You put down your glass on the counter and walk the few steps over to him. “Please stay,” you say and make the best puppy dog eyes you can. 

Tom shakes his head. “I can’t. I might have a day off tomorrow, but I can’t stay here the whole night.”

Everything in your stomach tells you to tiptoe, tilt your head a tiny bit and press your lips to his. A quick peck, just something to let the hunger, the need to do so, at bay. But you don’t. You look up at him, try to look as innocent as possible. 

“Okay,” he says, “I’ll stay.” He picks up the glass off water, downing it all in one big sip. Your throat goes dry seeing his long neck stretched, seeing his adam’s apple move as he swallows and noting the way his lips fold around the rim of the glass.

God, you have to get yourself checked, Y/N, this is way out of line. 

But then again, hadn’t you been on a date? Not today, but before. And he was so nice, but you can’t believe anyone who’s nice likes you that way. 

“What movie are we watching?” 

You blink up at Tom, who smiles warmly. You swallow, throat and mouth dry. “What would you like to watch?” 

“You asked for a movie, you pick,” he says and you roll your eyes. 

Nevertheless, you pick the movie. You find a romantic one on Netflix, and, both out of boldness from the alcohol and the fact that you are pretty close, you snuggle close to him as the movie plays. 

He drapes his arm around you, letting you rest your head on his chest. His heart beats loudly in your ear, faster than you would expect. Maybe he likes the movie, he probably likes the movie. 

Close to the end, the couple gets back together. The final ‘real’ kiss plays on the screen and you sigh at the sight. Louder than you thought, because Tom stirs, sits up a little and lets you fall down with your head in his lap. His fingers start to play with your hair, and a smile creeps on your lips he gently combs through. 

When the credits start rolling, you turn in his lap so that you face him. His gaze is on you, looking down with a fondness you haven’t seen before. A fondness that has your gut churn. 

All you have to do is lean up and―

You don’t react before he pulls away with a red face. He presses his lips together and his eyes go a little sad by the fact that you had no reaction. His eyes meet yours and even though you can’t see your own face, you know it’s colored in shock. 

He kissed you. His lips were on your lips. He made the move.

And you didn’t kiss back. Nor are you telling him you want to. You just lie there, staring up at him with wide eyes as his face contorts more and more into someone that wants to flee the situation. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, “I just… I thought perhaps…” 

You shake your head. “Don’t be.” Your voice sounds small in your head, barely there. “Do it again,” you say breathlessly, throat too dry to function. 

He does. This time you notice, and you kiss back. Your arm snake to the back of his head, steadying him as you press your lips against his. It’s not much, it feels a little awkward, and you would want the situation to be a little different. Yet it’s better than anything you could have imagined. Fireworks spark in your gut, heat burns your palm where your hand is in his hair and his hand is on your cheek, and the tingling feeling you have felt many times around him comes back, adding to the pleasure of the kiss. 

All you can think is finally. 

Finally.

permanent tags:  @devilbat @adefectivedetective @gamillian

tom tags:  @inlovewith3 @bookgirlunicorn @mindlesschicca @justawriterinprogress @wolfsmom1 @loser-alert @satanskatze @timetravelingsociopathicwalker @wiczer

tags:  @sabine-leo @sunshinein17 @o-sacra-virgo-laudes-tibi @lys-syl @rjohnson1280

bold in the tags are people tumblr won’t let me mention

[blandacheadcanons]

Let’s talk about AC: Odyssey

Overall, the game was a 7/10. I liked it, primarily because it’s shiny new content and because i get to play as a woman for the whole game (and Kassandra hnngggnng) but there were some issues which, for me, undercut the emotion of the whole thing, especially the ending.

spoilers and bitching below, proceed at your own risk

An ADHD dream and nightmare

in general, the way i played Black Flag, Origins, and Odyssey was tantamount to “Okay, gotta go to - squirrel!”

Now, that problem (not really much of a problem but y’know) starts with me. I have ADHD, so I’m already prone to being unfocused in my game play. But it doesn’t help that the map is littered with side missions, collectibles, and shiny things.

That, on it’s own, is not much of an issue. So it’s a bloated game; that just means there’s more to love. and I do love this game. however, the overwhelming amount of side missions and the fact that you’re practically required to play them in order to level up enough, means that the game loses its focus.

in Black Flag, this was somewhat remedied by the fact you’re never really under-leveled, so much as under-prepared. In Origins, it was offset by the intensely emotional story and clear motivations. In Odyssey, neither of those things were present.

Breaking the game

Throughout its life as a series, Assassin’s Creed has done something few other games have done: justified the fact that it’s a video game. We, the player, play as Desmond/Layla/whomever, who is playing through the memories of the historical character. The Animus can essentially take a puzzle and build the edges and group the pieces by color, but it still needs a human to put the pieces in place. the puzzle - the memory - itself cannot be changed.

Now, in Odyssey, there is no more justification. Yes, I’m talking about the choice mechanic.

This aspect of the game just... breaks everything we know about the series. the way the animus works. the way we play the game. the lore went from decently put together to flat out incoherent.

I love Kassandra. and I love that she’s the canon character. but if female leads for some reason come at the cost of consistent story-telling, i’ll take the consistent lore.

Way too big

traveling takes for-fucking-ever. Look, Ubisoft, I know people loved the naval portions of your games. but that’s not an excuse to make everything fucking HUGE and spread out over a dozen islands. If you must have such a huge game, give us fast travel to an island right away. restrict it however else you like, but for FUCKS SAKE.

Clash of the Titans (and the original premise for this series)

from AC1 to AC: Black Flag, each game has been defined by its historical setting. It was the Crusade Game, the Renaissance Game, the Victorian Game...

Origins began to lay the framework for a more mythology-based portion of the series.

Well, Origins walked so that Odyssey could fly by it on a motorcycle. Throughout the game, i wasn’t about the historical figures i would meet. I was wondering where and how the mythology would be making an appearance.

On its own, this is not a bad thing. It also makes sense, given that Ubisoft seems to be shifting to the Isu for plot in the wake of Juno’s death.

It is, however, still rather jarring. It also doesn’t look like we’ll be getting more of the historical thing because AC: Ragnorak is looking like the next game.

I love mythology as much as the next person, but...I don’t even know what to say.

The Ending

the aforementioned lack of focus and emotional intensity led to a...lackluster ending. I went for the best ending where Kassandra saves Alexios and the family is reunited.

Alexios’s heel-face turn seemed so sudden. Like he’s furious up until he touches Leonidas’s spear, and he suddenly sees the light? I’m not saying that it can’t happen, but in a game brimming with mythology and magic, this was the thing that strained my suspension of disbelief.

And this was right after Kleon shot him in the back, too. but is it ever brought up? is his faith in the cult shaken by the fact that one of his “family” just tried to kill him? does Kassandra use it as evidence that the cult is using him?

nope. not once. not even a little bit.

And these are just some nitpicks, but for me, both Alexios’s subpar voice acting and Kassandra’s quiver disappearing (idk if that was a common thing or just my game) undercut the emotion of the scene.

cutscenes are not the time for errors like this, people!

too short

As much as I complain about a bloated game, the main storyline was way too short. If you play only the main story line, you’ll probably have uncovered about half the map. maybe less. Why do i care about the map? I don’t. But i do care about an underdeveloped story.

Maybe there was more plot that ended up on the cutting room floor, but ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether the game was slashed to ribbons or wasn’t there in the first place. We got a game that was too short.

The lack of length also exacerbates the tone problem. Had we had a longer story with more Deimos/PC interaction where cracks appear in Deimos’s armor, and he maybe even does something uncharacteristically charitable (out of more than pure shock), i could then buy his behavior on Taygetos as a last-ditch effort to maintain his self image in the face of his shifting world view.

If we’d had cutscenes like Syndicate where we could see a few moments from Alexios’s perspective, I could understand how that world view shifts and how the cult treats him.

but instead, we get an exponential graph of Alexios’s development. and it’s a damn shame.

Loss of Identity

for every AC game, there’s a million video essays laying out the problems with it. And in every one of those essays, there’s a line to the effect of “this game doesn’t feel like an Assassin’s Creed game.”

Previously, i was always of the school of thought that were was no “feel” of an AC game. the nature of the games is to change, in big ways and small ways, between games. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

But now, if you had me play this game and then AC1 and told me they were in the same series, i would never fucking believe you. The already thin common threads between games has been completely broken, even more so by going back in time. Origins had a similar problem, but it at least referenced the rest of the series with the hidden blade and the establishment of the Assassin Order. the only things “Assassin’s Creed” about Odyssey are the Isu and the title.

Other Nitpicks

Layla does not get out of the Animus nearly enough. I know most people hate the modern day line, but i like the break from all the historical action.

not calling Deimos Alexios/Kassandra in the subtitles. I know it was probably easier on the devs but just imagine the feels if the name changed when Deimos was being more vulnerable/letting his compassion show.

Kassandra can full-on see Atlantis and a Sphinx and still be amazed by every mythological creature that crosses her path.

people move way too much in dialogue cutscenes

animation and cgi are becoming so real that it’s creepy again

i appreciate the move to Actual Eagle’s Vision, but leave it in these games. I don’t want to get to the middle ages and be seeing out of a raven within a century of Atair’s Color Coding Eagle Vision. That’s not how evolution works.

While cool, the introduction of literally magical armor and weapons further proves that this isn’t a historical series anymore.

There is barely a stealth mechanic in this game, and when it’s used, it’s just used to pick people off before we’re noticed, not to avoid being noticed.

in a world where there are mercenaries and those mercenaries have to kill each other either for money or just to move up in rankings, mercenaries killing each other should not be illegal. if i try to fight one more mercenary and end up getting killed by the swarm of soldiers that just pony up out of no where, i swear to God...

why are soldiers acting as cops anyway doesn’t Athens have real, actual cops or equivalent

I think Ubisoft finally remembered they were rated M in Origins and Odyssey but it honestly just makes it harder to play around my parents

That’s as much as i can think of off the top of my head if i can think of more i’ll add it

[rigelmejo]

i’ve been watching Handsome Siblings on netflix only in chinese to just like. see where i’m at.

and now that i’m on ep 4 it would feel kind of weird to suddenly switch back to english subs ok, for one.

but anyway like general level-wise: i am pretty much at where i can follow a lot of the gist of scenes even if i don’t pause to translate - but then i’m going to be relying on visual context a lot more. which is fine, it means i can go watch a show with no english subs to rely on Ever and at least follow along.

i do notice that if i PAUSE, i can catch the specifics of a lot more scenes. There’s a scene where the two princess sisters are talking to their nephew (who is a spitting image of Jiang Feng), and then after he leaves - discussing telling him to go take a mission to kill Xiao Yu’er, and then when he leaves the two princesses discuss their plan. I paused over and over after EVERY line that episode, because I really wanted to know the specifics of what they were saying. A lot of lines I could read, and there were a lot of one-words-in-a-sentence i had to look up for a more precise understanding. Same with a scene later in the town said-nephew and his girl kickass companions go to - i could follow the gist, but paused after some lines (and looked up a couple words) for more specific details. 

I will say that the more characters you learn, the easier life is. Really! The more characters I know, the easier my gist-guess is right, the easier remembering new words (made up of known characters) is, and looking up new words is VASTLY easier because I know their pinyin and can look them up faster than drawing. 

If you’re going to do this: I’d still recommend using googletranslate to look up multiple characters you don’t know/phrases, since you can draw and easily get the correct result looked up. I’d recommend pleco if you know the pinyin, or if its a single word (because pleco’s definitions are more thorough and explanatory than googletranslate’s), or if it might be an idiom. 

I would recommend that if you like watching stuff on the computer, to get the learn-with-netflix dual subtitle add on, and just click your subtitles for a definition on-the-video-itself instead of needing to open an app like me. 

---

I am immensely excited and happy that I can watch a chinese show with no english and follow the gist now. That is a huge amount of progress for me compared with August 2019 when I started (and only knew ‘ni hao/wo hen hao’ and the numbers ;w; ). I am so proud of where I’ve gotten to. I definitely think really focusing on increasing known frequent words helps a lot. (Also, reading a grammar guide - grammar is again becoming understandable, so idk my brain is just acclimating again i guess). I’m going to keep focusing on frequent words, and the 2,000 most common characters, for a while and hopefully eventually this payoff will translate to reading as well.

If you DO happen to want to try watching a chinese show without english and testing yourself/studying, I have some mild recommendations you might take into consideration. 

1. If it’s too difficult, do it a little, then come back to it in a few weeks, repeat. This task really only gets enjoyable once you understand enough to be ‘comfortable’ with the remaining ambiguity you still don’t comprehend. That is going to be different for different people. I am comfortable with a pretty high amount of ambiguity/lack of understanding, so I can at least try to watch even stuff-i-barely-grasp at least a little for practice until my brain feels fried. But I’ve been trying this for months... its only NOW that my brain feels relatively okay just watching without pausing, without feeling Completely overwhelmed. And if you do intend to watch without pausing much, you’ll have some degree of not-understanding-everything. Likewise, if you plan to pause the show (and how much you plan to pause it) should be tolerable for you as well. If you have to pause everything, understand everything - do you know enough words to do that in a timely enough manner to get THROUGH an episode? If it takes you a long time, are you willing to intensively focus and look things up that entire time? Basically - what is your tradeoff between you being able to pause and focus intensively on looking things up, versus you being able to watch without pausing and interpret from the words you know/context only. Whatever balance is most enjoyable/bearable for you is when this will start being something that’s easier to do regularly, instead of only occasionally as practice. At least, that’s how it was for me. I’m only finally at  a point where I can do this regularly - before I could only do this for maybe 10-20 minute chunks of time occasionally. 

2. Pick a genre of show/material you are going to engage in frequently. If you’re ALWAYS watching case-type shows, those words and those scenes will be more familiar to you and easier for you to interpret from context and with less looking things up. If you try this with a wildly different kind of show, you may know MANY less words and many scenes may be harder for you to comprehend the gist of. I watch a TON of case type shows so they’re very easy for me to see and pick up words I’m familiar with, single out the parts that are ‘important explanation’ versus ‘some crowd saying unimportant WOW oh No how Horrible’ type lines. So i can cherry pick important things to pause and look up words for, and guess at what kind of line i’m trying to interpret (i can guess if it’s about a case, an emotional discussion, a simple ‘lets do X’ statement etc - because i’m familiar with the plot type). In a similar vein - an easier show/material to do this with, may well be a show you’ve already watched in your native language/with your native language. For all the same reasons - you will be much more familiar with the context. I could in theory watch Guardian again (which i’ve rewatched... a lot) and I would probably follow the plot very easily. But I like a challenge too much apparently, and I’d rather practice with things I can’t fall-back on my existing knowledge for as much. A show I’ve never seen has much less I can rely on for context, BUT the trade off is I can really clearly test how well i’m comprehending the plot and lines - because they are all completely new to me, so I either comprehend or I clearly do not understand what’s going on/obviously misinterpret. So it’s a very quick way for me to see if I’m achieving anything or not. Whereas if I was watching a show I already saw, I might learn new words noticably, but I wouldn’t be able to tell if I’m getting better at understanding overall plot with no english to rely on (since I already saw it before with english).

3. If you’re like me - maybe pick a show either heavy on action, or heavy on daily life. While I am familiar with case-type shows... I generally think (for me) they’re harder to follow when your existing vocab knowledge isn’t high enough to follow it... They’re big on mysteries, on plots that are actually not what they appear, and surprises. They’re big on ‘strategies’ and I find for myself, strategies are kind of hard to follow when I know less words. In contrast: if you pick a daily-life type show, you’re more likely to either know the words or NEED to know the words at some point because they’ll be useful to you. And the scenes should be relatively easy to comprehend visually even when you don’t know the words. (My caveat being - if you want the language specifically FOR understanding certain genres, by all means go for the topics you’ll actually be using - if you’re gonna read a ton of wuxia, or case-stuff etc, then go for stuff you’ll Actually Use which might well be THEM). For me... my end goal is to be able to read creative fiction, so wuxia settings and fantastical settings and mystery-words and period-words are all things I better get used to. So I haven’t really watched much daily-life stuff (although there are daily-life scenes WITHIN a lot of dramas, and I do think they’re some of the easiest scenes to follow and comprehend). 

Now, why might you pick an action-heavy show: easy to comprehend. Especially if you often watch action-oriented stuff already. The first chinese show I watched a whole episode of in only-chinese (it’s first episode, so that’s when i figured out the entire show’s set up) was The Shaw Eleven Lang (I really wanted more of Zhu Yilong’s acting in my life okay?). I DID in fact, manage to follow the plot. Without pausing much, because I was just watching it with dinner. What made it easier to follow was SO MUCH of the dialogue was really straightforward - stuff like ‘i want that sword’ or ‘i hate you’ or ‘lets eat and drink together to celebrate’ or ‘you need to go save/kill x’ or ‘do you think i’m pretty’ etc. So much of the dialogue was NOT schemes/plots/mysteries, it was really straightforward ‘we are doing X, we like Y, we hate Z’. Which for me are the sentence types I find the easiest to understand, and especially found the easiest at that point in time. In addition, because the show has so much action, often the dialogue is accompanied by action scenes that make it pretty freaking CLEAR what their objective is/what they just said. Yes, there are still plenty of unknown words to look up if you want to pause - but it should be obvious enough that you might have a decent guess at what they mean before you look them up (I had to look up words like sword, princess, clan leader, but those were pretty clear even beforehand from the context of the scenes). After I watched the first ep (which i don’t think i could even find english subs for), I watched the second ep with eng subs to see if i’d interpreted the plot correctly so far - i had. It felt pretty motivating to get through 40 minute episodes without much pausing, and know I’d followed along. I think, at least if you’re already an action-show/movie watcher, action series are going to be a relatively approachable thing to try watching in just your target language. (Another positive is a lot of verbs as commands lines, in context, so for me it’s easier to pick up new verbs, and those kind of lines are very easy to pick up in context - also lines like ‘xiao xin’ be careful, bubi, meiguanshi, danxin, ni fangxin, etc - all these short lines that are easy to understand in the context they often come up in).

 (Also, do I recommend The Shaw Eleven Lang? Well... I need to go back to watching it but uh... it’s definitely AN EXPERIENCE... with wild fighter-game-tetsuya-nomura-would-be-proud kind of costume designs, wild af scenes so far, and uh as far as i can tell Zhu Yilong’s on point to play a pretty crazy bastard in it... also there’s a LOT of genuinely kickass girls and kickass main women, which i appreciate, i believe also the main women are all 30+ which is refreshing in general in any-show tbh. also just... everyone in the show is kickass... that’s the point... its a lot like to me, if a absolutely Wild fighting game got a budget for a full drama and just went wild on the plot - very fun to watch, very bizarre... not particularly deep but like, did you play Square enix’s The Bouncer on ps2 for a Good Plot or for an absolutely wild bizarre Time? This show is like the game The Bouncer... just freaking Wild conceptually). 

And now, I am watching Handsome Siblings, and managing to get through episodes with only a little pausing for when I want to figure out specifics. It is also very action-scene heavy. At least for me, that’s been making it a lot easier to follow the gist of. There’s scenes where robbers attack - and even if I don’t know every line, its easy to figure out the gist of what’s being said. There’s scenes where people fight - again, very easy to follow. The parts I’ve been pausing the most on are the sisters plotting, because I feel that’s probably the most intensive-mystery in this plot so far, and because I want to make sure I interpret the details correctly when they’re mentioning them (since I think they’ll play out more in the plot later). I think the fact this show is Action-Heavy is making it tremendously easier for me to follow then like... me trying to watch Nirvana in Fire would be. The very straightforward action scenes are much easier to follow using visual context, at least for me, compared to dialogue heavy scenes where the vocabulary is not going to be emphazised with visuals nearly as much. (Another bonus of Handsome Siblings, at least so far, is the dialogue heavy scenes ARE accompanied by visual flashbacks to EXPLAIN the dialogue). Another bonus for Handsome Siblings: the writing seems very straightforward and decently paced. You don’t have to wait long for new scenes, for new developments, and that means a lot of dialogue and action is doing something right away and has a lot of context you immediately see result in something else. For me that just makes it... approachable and understandable in the kind of way like... movies like The Mummy were paced, or Indiana Jones, or Independence Day... do you know what I mean? It’s fun to watch even if you couldn’t understand, and the structure makes it quite comprehensible again even if you heard no dialogue at all. So for me, at least, it makes the balance of ‘ease of watching versus patience to look things up slowly’ much easier. Because its ease of watching is pretty high even for scenes where actual words-you-know isn’t high, so you can save looking-things-up for only when you WANT to, not necessarily as something you need to constantly do just to catch the gist. 

---

I tried reading again - I tried reading the novel for the Sleuth of Ming Dynasty. It was BRUTAL because I apparently know NO dynasty-royalty-govt related words (which really explains why Men With Swords political scenes I know so few words lol). I got through 10 out of 39 ‘small’ pages on my phone for the first chapter. I think I managed to follow it, the grammar thankfully was really straightforward and I imagine the original author is quite talented. The difficulty was in the very common use of turns of phrase and idioms for so many parts of sentences, which were all new ‘words/phrases’ i’d never seen before.

[afewmarvelousthoughts]

No Surrender Pt. 5

Request: hey i love your writing!! i was wondering if you could write something where the ready and bucky are in the same hydra facility and try to escape together. idk maybe that’s bad but i love your writing!!

Pairing: Bucky X Reader

Summary: In the winter of 1945 Hydra captures Sargent James Barnes. After months spent unconscious, he wakes up in a cell with you and a new addition on his left side. Quickly it becomes clear that being locked up together may be the best bout of luck either of you has had in a while… Maybe together the two of you have a chance of making it out of this hell alive. Now, 69 years later the two of you are brought back together, scars and all. War changes everyone it touches but maybe, together, you can both find some kind of peace.

Warnings: Just fluff and feels. 

A/N: Well. This is the end of the line (couldn’t help myself). Thank you all for being patient with this one as it’s taken me a hot minute to circle back and wrap it up. I hope you enjoy the end of this story! 

Tags are open!

@mywinterwolf @disagreetoagree @breezy1415 @peachthatdrinkslemonade @wonderlandmind4 @stevehesaidabadlanguageword @buckysstar @for-the-love-of-the-fandom @siriuslycloudy2  @krugeforeveryone @jewelofwinter @get-loki @just-a-littlebit-of-everything @wildmoonflower @cutie1365

Two days later Bucky is about ready to scream.

It’s been nothing but an endless sea of paperwork and protocol—getting reestablished as, well a person—setting things up with the V.A., finances, procuring necessities like clothes and a cell phone. He was exhausted.

Steve was off helping Hill and Stark with something to do with their new plan they were calling ‘The Avengers,’ leaving Bucky blissfully alone. 

The bliss was short-lived at best. 

Alone, it was hard to shift his focus from the shadows flitting around in his mind, almost impossible to calm down his instinct to be prepared to fight at any moment. 

He finds himself wondering about you, how you’re doing, what your day to day was like, and wanting to just hear your voice. After staring at his phone and pacing for almost an hour he finally gets the gumption to call you.

It feels like the phone was ringing forever, certainly long enough for him to doubt his decision. Hell, you were likely helping Steve and the rest right now. He felt silly and more than a little useless until-

“Oui?” Your voice is cold, tentative. Of course, he’d forgotten to send you his number.

“Hey, Y/N, it’s-”

“Bucky! Is this your number now?”

He lets out a little awkward laugh, “Yeah, as of yesterday. I’m a fully functional modern American.” Functional, could he tell a bigger lie.

“Excellent. How are you?”

“Well… I’ve got some time and was wondering if that invitation was still open?” Silence hangs a little longer than he expected.

“Of course. Come on over.”

“If you’ve got other plans… I don’t wanna intrude.”

“You’re not intruding. I… Please, I’d like for you to come.” Something in your voice makes concern rise in his chest. “Do you need a ride or anything?”

“Nah, I’ve got Steve’s bike. Fifteen minutes ok?”

“Perfect.” Was that relief he heard? “I’ll see you then.”

It’s just before noon as the bike thunders onto your quiet street. Just like a few nights ago he feels like a nervous kid at the thought of seeing you. Add that to his concern he can’t shake that he’s imposing on your life—he’s a wreck. Doubt, anxiety, and a million other emotions swirl in his mind as he knocks.

They all flee when he sees you though.

He had been so used to you being a vision of poise in your well-tailored creams and whites, your vibrant lipstick, hair always exactly where you wanted it… Right now though, you remind him more of the woman he first met. Beautiful still but haunted and hurting.

The circles under your eyes are dark, lips a little too dull. Your hands tremble a touch as you gather your cardigan tight around your frame, the oversized garment covering your teeshirt and leggings.

You offer him a half-smile, “Come in.” As he follows you up the stairs the scents of coffee and cigarettes hit his nose.

“I just made a fresh pot of coffee if you’d like some,” you say once in the kitchen. Before he can respond you turn to the cabinet, taking a mug down with a shaking hand.

“Y/N?” He asks, coming up behind you, plucking the mug from your grasp and taking your hand in his. “What’s wrong?” You say nothing, your eyes cast down at the floor.

He shouldn’t be here, he knew it was a bad idea. He releases your hand, “I can go. I didn’t mean to-”

“Please don’t,” frantic, red-rimmed, eyes shoot to up, your hand suddenly grasping his tight. You look surprised by your own reaction.

He remains frozen, unsure of what to do. Well, not entirely. What he wants is to gather you in his arms, wants to breathe in the smell of your hair, kiss you until you smile… None of those things are right, he knows this, but desire doesn’t always listen to the rules. Sternly he reminds himself who you are--decidedly not his--and who he is--someone undeserving of a dame like you. 

Your tongue flits out, moistening your dry lips as you hold his gaze. “I just…” You take a tentative half step forward, closing the small space between the two of you and rest your forehead against his chest, breathing deeply.

Bucky’s heart thunders, so hard he knows you must feel it. When your hand releases his he expects you to pull away but instead your arms wrap around his torso, holding on as if you’re scared he’ll run.

It takes him longer than it should to get his arms to curl around you. He’d embraced Steve and even you briefly since being back but here, alone, this is different. It had been… shit decades since he’d held anyone or been held like this. An ache he’d been forcing down begins to rise to the surface at an alarming pace.

You turn your face to press your cheek against his pounding heart. “I don’t… I don’t want to be alone…” Your breath hitches and he holds you tighter.

“Ok… Ok,” he breathes into your hair stroking your back. The two of you stand for a bit, holding on with all your might.

“I’m sorry,” you release him, wiping a few stray tears from your eyes.

“For what?” He couldn’t fathom something you’d need to apologize for.

Turning to the coffee pot you gesture to your self, “For me. I’m… I’m just tired…”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” without thinking he cups your face with his metal hand, turning you back to him. A tear sneaks from the corner of your eye, instinctively he dashes it away with his thumb. “Here,” he takes the mug you had as well as one that must be yours as it still has a bit of coffee in it, “let me.”

“Black?” He asks as he pours, noting the lack of sugar or cream near the pot.

“Oui.”

There are papers strewn on the little breakfast nook table so he heads that direction, both mugs in hand. You sit heavily in one of the chairs, wrapping your hands around the warmth of the mug, breathing deep. He takes the spot opposite from you.

Bucky sips the coffee, it’s damn good and the silence that hangs between you two isn’t uncomfortable.

With your eyes glued on the steam rising from between your hands, he lets the details of you sink in. Silver strands wink in your hair making it seem to sparkle in the sunlight--beautiful despite its disheveled state, the lines on your face are so fine as to almost be imperceptible, freckles lightly dust your nose and cheeks, cheeks that are slightly sallow as though you haven’t been eating enough. A muscle ticks ever so slightly near your right eye, and there’s a nicotine stain on your right index and middle finger.

Your eyes rise to meet his. While your body may not show the decades of your life he can see them clearly there. He can’t help but wonder if he and Steve had, in some sick way, been luckier…

“Do you wanna talk about it?” His voice is soft. The corner of your mouth ticks up a bit but you shake you head no.

“You have your own ghosts to deal with, you don’t need to trouble yourself with mine.” Tentatively you take his hand in your own. “You being here is enough.”

Admittedly, he’s somewhat confused as to how his presence could bring anyone comfort. Hell, he could hardly be alone with himself comfortably… Still, it does feel good to know he can do this for you.

“You won’t be burdening me, Y/N. After everything, you’ve done for me… Let’s just say I have space for your ghosts too.”

Swallowing hard you take a shaky breath, averting your gaze back to your coffee. Bucky worries that he’s said the wrong thing, somehow made this worse, until after a moment you speak.

“I… I went to see Peg the morning after the party. It…” He notices your accent is more pronounced as your emotions surface. “It was not a good day for her.” Your eyes squeeze shut, “She didn’t know me.”

For a moment you just breathe, holding his hand in a death grip. “She’s the last… the last person who truly knows me knows because she lived through it all with me and… when she’s gone… I feel like a part of me will die too.”

It occurs to him at that moment, Steve must have felt something like this when Bucky didn’t know him. The thought makes something ache deep within him. Some day he’ll find a way to make that up to Steve.

You shake your head, “I’ve stared in death’s face so many times and not been afraid… but this… I’m terrified.”

Gently, he takes your other hand in his. “I know it’s not the same as living through it but… I’d-” He struggles to find the words suddenly. “Well, I’d be honored to know you, to truly know you, Y/N.”

Your eyes hold his once more, he swears there’s a little more light there than before.

The rest of the day is the best day Bucky can remember from the last 70 years. There’s no hurry, no stress, just you.

You talk about your life before the war. Growing up in Lyon with your older sister and twin brother. Days spent running through Renaissance era streets, Roman ruins, and more modern fare.

Summers spent with your mother’s parents in the Auvergne countryside. It was so similar and yet so different from his own childhood in Brooklyn. He loved watching you light up as you remember little details, things you hadn’t thought of in so long.

Every time a record ends there’s another ready to go. Leisurely, the two of you munch on cold chicken, bread, cheese, and fruit for lunch while Bucky reaches back into his fractured mind for memories of his own childhood.

He’s surprised to find that even without Steve to back him up, how talking helps him grasp things, make sense of the chaos. It’s nice even if it aches a bit to remember them, his Ma and Pa and sisters.

As the sun begins to set you both settle on the patio, whiskey and cigarettes in hand.

“You know,” you sigh out a cloud of smoke as you stare at the sunset, “I still haven’t ridden a rollercoaster.” Your head rolls, resting on the back of your deck chair, to look at him, a small smirk on your lips.

“What?!”

Your laugh rings in the quiet evening. “Surprisingly, there haven’t been many opportunities. And…” You pause as though you’re unsure of your next words, stamping out your cigarette to stall. “And, I was waiting for you.”

For a few moments, you hold one another’s gaze, unmoving, hardly breathing.

“Well,” he clears his throat breaking the connection. “I guess that’s one thing we can still do. I think the rest of my promises are a little too late to keep.”

“How so?”

“I’m sure you’ve had pizza, Brooklyn doesn’t have a baseball team anymore, and I’m pretty sure all the dance joints I knew about closed a long time ago.”

“We don’t need a joint to go dancing you know.” There’s a spark in your eye as you pick up your phone, music beginning to play from unseen speakers a moment later.

Bucky feels his mouth go dry. You hop from your chair and stand in front of him, hand extended, eyes wide and expectant.

“Dance with me.”

“I…” he averts his gaze heart suddenly racing faster than the swinging beat of the song. “I don’t know if I remember how.”

“Only one way to find out.” He glances up at you, unsure. “Haven’t you kept me waiting long enough Sergeant Barnes?”

He can’t help but smile at the playful grin lifting your lips. It had been long enough.

Taking your hand he rises. This was a fast song, he knows there’re steps involved but he can’t quite remember them. His brows knit, body frozen trying to find this buried knowledge.

“Hey,” he glances down at you. Your face a mask of understanding, “Stop thinking so much, just listen.”

Closing his eyes he focuses on nothing but the music, its fast beat, energetic dips and sways, and the feeling of your hand in his. In an instant his mind is filled with smoky clubs, the sensation of sweat dripping down his back, laughter, salt on his tongue, whiskey burning in his throat--and the dance.

It takes a couple of songs to fall into it but on the third you’re both in sync, moving to the music, dancing the Lindy, smiles huge. As the music wraps up he spins you out and rapidly back into him, pressing you close to his body.

Your head falls back and you laugh breathlessly. “And you were worried,” you tease.

“Doll, I’m just gettin’ warmed up.”

“I bet.” Suddenly your lips are on his.

Of their own volition, his hands rise to cup your face just before it registers that he cannot do this. You’re DumDum’s wife, or… widow rather but still… You’re also a good person, someone who’s spent the last seven decades fighting for the right side whereas he-

Instead of holding you closer his hands gently push you away as he steps back. He tries to ignore the surprise and hurt in your eyes, tries to deny the fluttering in his gut.

“I’m sorry I-”

“No,” he cuts you off. “I… I just… I should go.” He takes a few more steps back. “It’s… I told Steve we could do dinner and,” his words are tripping over themselves almost as fast as his heart’s beating. “Yeah, I just have to go.” He doesn’t look at you as he goes through the open patio door, can’t look at you because he’ll loose his shaky conviction.

“Bucky,” you lay a had on his shoulder as he reaches his jacket. It’s gentle but he flinches nonetheless.

“Thank you for today, it really was wonderful.” He doesn’t look back as he bolts from the warmth of your home.

Steve doesn’t ask any questions when he storms into the condo without a word, neither does he say anything for the next few days regarding Bucky’s near-total silence. He gives him space, without leaving him alone entirely. It’s a tactic Bucky remembers using with Steve back when they shared a shitty apartment and Steve was often in a mood. He appreciates it.

After waking up in a cold sweat the fourth night since his afternoon with you he paces his room for hours, feeling like a caged animal. He can’t tell if he wants to scream or cry or punch something. All he knows is that it feels like there’s a swarm of hornets in his skull and he’d give anything to make it stop.

He doesn’t know what possesses him but he suddenly goes to the desk where he’d laid the beautiful journal you’d gifted him. With a shaking hand, he touches the letters on the front—reminding himself that those are his initials, his name. Opening the journal for the first time he pauses. A letter addressed to him in your delicate script lays against the first page.

Swallowing the guilt bubbling up he opens the unsealed envelope:

Bucky,

I want this to be a place just for you so leaving an inscription seemed wrong. In my years I’ve found that, even when it hurts, putting pen to paper to account for both my sins and triumphs reminds me of who I am—who I’ve been. Use this book as confessional or time capsule (or not at all), whatever soothes you. On these pages, as with those who love you, there is no judgement—only freedom. Thank you for everything you have done for me. I hope that in time I can repay you the debt I owe.

Always,

Y/N

His eyes burn with tears. How could you think, truly think, you owed him a debt. You who’s presence drove him, helped him survive the hell he found himself in. You who never stopped looking for him. You…

With your petal soft lips, smoky voice, and gentle touch. Who was one hell of a dancer, soldier, and spy. You… who he undeniably wanted with every fiber of his being and could not allow himself to have.

Wiping away tears he refuses to let fall he fishes a few paperclips out of the office supply organizer on the desk. Carefully he aligns your letter on the first page, clipping it in place. Despite your reservations about leaving an inscription, he wanted your words here.

Initially when he thought of writing in this journal he thought he’d only put down good things, because you were one of those good things. However, as the pen hits the first page what pours from him isn’t good.

He writes until the sun brightens his window. Pages upon pages filled with horrific things… things he’d done or had been done to him. A few times he had to stop, stomach-churning from the memories. But now, as dawn chased away the shadows in his room, he felt lighter somehow.

Taking one last look at your letter he presses his lips to his fingertips and then your swirling signature before closing the journal.

Moving quietly he heads to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. The routine is soothing, clearing the remaining shadows inside of him.

When Steve gets up a little over an hour later he looks surprised to see Bucky in the living room reading a book.

“Morning,” Bucky says as Steve cocks an eyebrow.

“Morning.” He pours a cup and heads to the living room.

After a few minutes of comfortable silence Steve speaks, “You ok?”

Bucky doesn’t answer immediately. He doesn’t want to lie to Steve but his gut reaction is to play tough for him, to make everything seem better than it was. That wasn’t good for anyone though.

“A little better.” He takes a deep drink to give himself a moment more. “Not ok… but-” He shrugs, unable to find the words.

“That’s just fine, pal.” Steve takes a deep breath. “I think I’m going over to see Peggy. She’s had a good morning so far. Wanna come?”

“Are you sure?” He did want to see her. But… you may be there and he wasn’t sure how to apologize for being such an ass just yet.

“Yeah. I think…” A shadow crosses Steve’s features for an instant. “I think it would be good for her to know that you’re a secret she doesn’t have to keep anymore.”

Bucky nodded. If he could take that off of her, of both of them, he would.

A million times on the drive over he thinks to ask Steve if you’ll be there. He just can’t quite find a way to word it that doesn’t sound ridiculous or like he doesn’t want to see you—which he does, desperately.

As they pull up he swallows the question and steels his nerves. If you were here so be it. He’d deal with his jackassery like a man.  

Steve doesn’t knock, just opens the door and leads them into a townhome similar to yours. 

They head up to the main level. Things were slightly less open than your place, it hadn’t been updated for a decade or so. There were more personal touches in this space, however. He notes family photos on the walls, some framed children’s drawings, and pauses--it hadn’t occurred to him that Peggy had kids, a husband, a family.

“You comin’?” Steve goads at the base of another staircase. Bucky nods following him up.

A nurse reclines on the sofa in the small open sitting area at the top of the stairs. She smiles upon seeing Steve.

“Captain Rodgers,” her eyes widen a bit when they notice Bucky but she says nothing. “Miss Y/N is in there, she’s still having an excellent day.”

“Thanks, Amanda.”

The men head down the hall and your laugh rings out of an open door making Bucky’s heart lodge in his throat.

“I’ll be right back Peg.” You head out of the room to meet them looking polished and vibrant, so different from when he left you.

Bucky expects scorn but you, of course, offer him nothing but a gentle smile.

“I’m so glad you could come.” Your voice drops, “Steve, you and I should tell her we have a surprise and then you can come in Bucky.”

“Sounds good,” Steve smiles at him. All Bucky can do is nod before the two of them head back into the room.

He’s not sure he’s ready for this. In his mind Peggy is young, vibrant, overflowing with moxie… But as soon as Steve’s golden head swings out of the door waving for Bucky to come in he knows he has to find a way to handle it. For them. For all of them. With a deep breath, he wills one foot in front of the other.

“What on earth are you two up-” Peggy says as Bucky enters the room. She stops, a shaky hand catching the gasp falling from her lips.

She looks smaller, her hair white, but her eyes glint with a fire that is still distinctly Peggy Carter. Bucky can’t help but smile.

“James,” she was the only one who called him by his first name. “It… is it really…”

“Hey Peggy,” he says softly, reaching his right hand out to take her fragile extended one. He keeps his left hand tucked firmly in his pocket.

Her gaze shoots to Steve and then to you, “You did it.”

You shake your head, “Not exactly. But, he’s home.” Bucky feels your gaze on him but is unable to meet your eyes.

“We’ll give you two a minute,” Steve says leading you from the room.

For a moment Bucky stands awkwardly, unsure of what to do.

“You look awkward with your hand shoved in your pocket like that, James.” His cheeks burn a bit. She laughs, eyes sparkling. “Come sit,” she gestures to the chair by her bed.

Slowly he takes his hand out and does as she requests. She reaches for it and he obliges. Tenderly Peggy studies it, running her frail fingers over the joints.

“Y/N told us what they did,” she gives his hand a squeeze with more strength than he expected. “I’m so sorry we never-”

“Don’t.” Peggy looks at him, a tear threatening to fall. “Y/N said the same thing. Knowing you all looked, that you tried, that’s enough Peggy. You did all you could.”

“Did we?” She looks into the middle distance for a moment, seeming to struggle with something. “Regardless, here you are and I get to finally thank you.”

“For what?”

“Because of you, I met, Y/N. Without her, I don’t know where I’d be but I doubt it would be anyplace good. She’d disagree, of course, but she has kept me going many times.”

Bucky can’t help but smile, “She has that effect doesn’t she?”

“Indomitable, that’s how Howard described her. Never to her face, of course,” she laughs a little. “He’d be damned if he ever got caught saying something ni-” Bucky takes a ragged breath and Peggy stops.

Stark had been in his dream the night before… What he’d done.

“Look at me,” Peggy says, voice stern. He does. “What happened was not your fault. Do you understand me?”

Bucky blinks in shock, “You… you know?”

She nods, “So does she, Steve too I would think.” He must look as terrified as he feels because Peggy grabs his hands in hers.

“We tracked you. From the moment there were whispers of a man with a metal arm… but we were always three steps behind. There were times she was close to finding you…” Peggy pauses, gathering herself.

“If you’re scared that she doesn’t know, hasn’t known all along, the things that…” He nods not wanting her to continue. “Well, don’t be.

“We’ve all done things, James. Terrible things that haunt us, things we’ll take to the grave.” She tucks a strand of his hair back in place. “But we did them of our own volition. In a way, your hands are cleaner than any of ours.” He snorts an empty laugh, unbelieving.

“You know,” her tone was lighter as she takes him in, “you were always the one that got away for her.”

“What d’you mean?”

A smile fills Peggy’s face. “She loved Dugan, truly, but you were always the ‘what if’ that never got to be. Just as Steve…” her voice cracks a touch. Bucky squeezes her hand. “A lot of us had those what-ifs back then. You move forward and build your life, a good life, with what is there but it doesn’t mean you stop wondering… stop wanting.”

“I… She deserves more than me, Peggy.” Bucky’s head spins a bit. How could she know?

“Shush. Both of you have a second chance, something so many of us would have given anything for, don’t you dare waste it because you’re afraid.”

He manages a nod, barely able to keep the tears at bay.

The two of them talk for a bit. He tells her how he met her niece, how much she helped, and Peggy gushes about how proud she is of her. She tells him about her family, how it had been to see Steve again. It feels like only a few seconds before there’s a gentle knock at the door.

“Mind if I pop in?” Steve asks, beaming at the two of them.

“Of course not,” Bucky stands, giving Peggy’s hand a gentle pat. “You two chat.” Her frail hand wraps around his before he can step away.

“Don’t forget what I said, James.” That fire burns in her gaze and he nods, knowing better than to ever argue with Peggy Carter when she has that look.

The nurse isn’t in the seating area but he can hear someone downstairs. Through the sliding glass door, he sees you leaning on the balcony railing. Before you can notice him he positions himself in such a way that he can still take you in without being seen.

You have one arm across your chest, the other leisurely brings your lit cigarette to your lips. After a deep inhale you puff a perfect ring into the air, grinning with self-satisfaction. Bucky can’t help but smile too—he’s not sure he’s ever seen you quite like this, so relaxed.

Howard had been right when he’d called you indomitable.

Despite the way his breath catches in his throat he moves into your line of sight. Despite the riot of his heart against his ribs, he opens the door. Finally, despite the weight of self-loathing resting on his soul, despite his past, despite everything… he cups your face in his hands without a word and kisses you deeply.

Immediately, you melt into him. If he’s being honest with himself he expected you to pull away, push him off, reject him—but no.

Every nerve ending sings. His fingers tangle in your hair. Your tongue flits out teasing him. The world falls away until two soft laughs from inside make you both freeze.

“I do love it when people listen to me without argument,” Peggy says with a laugh.

Bucky looks at you, cheeks almost as red as your lips but your smile is so bright he knows you’re not the least bit ashamed.

“Though I didn’t expect you to take my advice so soon, James.” Bucky turns, grasping your hand in his, to face Peggy and Steve.

“Wasted enough time,” he says smiling down at you.

“I should have known you’d stick your nose into this, Peg,” your tone one of false annoyance.

Peggy laughs as Steve pushes her onto the balcony. “That’s what you get for having spies for friends, my darling.”

The four of you spend the better part of the next two hours in easy conversation as music plays from the small speakers in your cell phone. Mainly the guys listen to you two tell stories of your time in the field together, memories of your mutual friends, putting pins in some of the time he and Steve missed.

Peggy bobs her head along to a song that’s just kicked up. “It’s too bad we couldn’t all have gone dancing together. We’d have turned heads.” Steve gives her a sad smile as she looks at you.

“Well,” Bucky says with a twinge of mischief, “someone told me the other day that you don’t need a joint to go dancing. I bet we could figure something out.” He tugs you out of your chair, “Come on.”

“What’re you up to?” You say with a laugh.

“You’ll see. We’ll come get you two in a minute.”

Without further explanation, you follow him downstairs. When he and Steve had gotten in earlier he saw a sitting room on the second floor with a record player. It would be perfect.

“Help me push this furniture out of the way will ya doll?” Turning to you he flashes a bright smile. Your eyes glitter as you nod.

It doesn’t even take ten minutes to get the space suitable. He even fixes the lighting to give it a dim feel while you pick an album you know Peggy will love and start it playing.

“Will you go get ‘em?” He’s almost giddy—it’s such a foreign feeling but he’s glad for it.

Peggy’s giggles trickle down as Steve carries her down the stairs, insisting all the while she can walk and demanding to know what they’re up to.

As they come into view Bucky spreads his arms wide, “Welcome to your own private dance. Best part is, you’re in full control of the music.”

“Bucky!” Peggy exclaims as Steve sets her on wobbly legs. “Oh, this is wonderful!”

The opening notes to a song Bucky just barely remembers hearing before kick up.

“I think I owe you a dance,” Steve says taking her hands.

“You’re damn right you do, Captain Rogers.”

You and Bucky hang back for a minute as Peggy and Steve begin a slow, tender, movement in the cleared makeshift dance floor. When Bucky looks down at you a tear finds its way down your cheek.

He immediately wipes it away with a cool metal finger. You catch his gaze, your own filled with joy and a little sadness.

“May I?” He holds out his hand much as Steve had a moment before to Peggy.

“I suppose, Sergent Barnes.”

Bucky pulls you close. As the singers croon “It’s been a long, long time” he can’t help but note how perfect it is for all of you.

There was so much loss, so much pain, but Peggy was right. Here, in the circle of his arms was his second chance at a life. 

Looking up into his eyes you whisper the lyrics, “You'll never know how many dreams I dreamed about you.”

He stops your dance, takes your face in his hands, and plants a quick tender kiss on your lips. 

Looking down into your eyes he’s overcome with excitement, and terror, and happiness as he realizes that you were worth the wait, worth the fight--but he didn’t have to fight this, not anymore. To you, to this feeling, he could surrender. 

[calumsvapor]

wherever you are | c.h

word count: 2357

warnings: cursing

pairing(s): calum hood/reader

notes: soulmate au. the povs in this are kind of weird. it’s 2nd person, but you don’t get that good of a view into the reader’s thoughts until near the end. it’s sort of from calum’s point of view but not really. idk just read it lmao :)

for as long as he could remember, the skin on his chest above his heart was occupied by the small lettering. by the time he entered grade school, calum knew that the letters spelled out the lyrics to his soulmate’s favorite song.

once he entered high school, calum was convinced he didn’t even have a soulmate. surely it was possible for the universe to mess up, or maybe his soulmate died earlier on in their life. all calum knew for certain was that the song the lyrics came from didn’t exist.

despite this fact, he was still amazed by the people all around him, brushing hands with someone they barely knew, locking eyes, and grinning from ear to ear as their markings flashed red before fading into their skin. 

calum wanted to write the songs that people fell in love with. he wanted his lyrics tattooed above the hearts of the people who would bump into their soulmate while rushing through the halls, or while standing in line at a coffee shop. he wanted to write the songs that people listened to on repeat, sitting alone in their bedroom, trying to hear a small piece of their other half in the melody.

the years flew by, and before he knew it, he was writing songs and performing. he and his friends from australia had become more and more popular with each passing month, and their songs were played all over the world. calum’s dreams had come true.

so why did he still feel so empty?

maybe it was because he and the rest of the band were still in the middle of their new album, and he hadn’t completely figured out the lyrics to one of the songs he was writing for it yet.

or maybe it was because everyone around him was meeting and settling down with the people who they knew would complete them for the rest of their lives. even most of his bandmates and crew had someone. michael had crystal. luke had sierra. 

and calum had his guitar and his notebook.

“why do you think you don’t have a soulmate, cal? you’re a great guy and anyone would be lucky to have you.” 

calum sat on his plush leather couch, on the phone with his friend and bandmate, ashton irwin. due to the pair’s single statuses, around 50% of fans were completely convinced they were each other’s soulmates, which wouldn’t be too bad, honestly, besides the fact that his favorite lyrics were most definitely not from an ariana grande song.

“because i’ve googled this one line about a million different times on a million different days, hoping that maybe some singer somewhere just came out with a new song and i’ll finally get a sign that i won’t be alone forever.”

“maybe that just means you have to write it yourself.”

of course. why hadn’t he thought of that before? 

“sorry ash, i have to go write a song. i’ll call you later.”

with a chuckle and an “alright,” ashton ended the call, leaving calum alone with his thoughts. 

after around three hours of sitting alone with his guitar and his notebook, with approximately zero ideas and zero words written on the paper, calum set down his things and decided to find a nearby cafe to take a break. he was in los angeles, after all, and anyone who lived within 20 miles knew there was no shortage of coffee shops.

once calum decided on a fitting store to get his caffeine fix, he ordered his drink and sat down at a small table by the window. instead of pulling out his phone and brainstorming like he expected, calum found himself switching his gaze between the street beyond the window and the barista behind the counter, making his drink. 

hey, just because he doesn’t have a soulmate, doesn’t mean he can’t recognize a pretty girl when he sees one.

eventually, his name was called, and he left the swirling mess of a chasm that was his mind and walked over to the pickup counter. as he was handed his drink, he met eyes with the woman who he’d been observing just moments before. the woman, of course, was you. the cafe was empty, save for calum and yourself, so he had no problem with making small talk - just a little mindless flirting - even if it was simply to kill time. 

“busy day, huh?” he said, a small smirk adorning his features. you let out a shy laugh, and for some reason, calum found himself thinking that if somehow, someway, you turned out to be his soulmate, it wouldn’t be so bad.

“yeah, i’m absolutely swamped. you wouldn’t believe how many people come in for coffee at 2 pm on a tuesday in the middle of a workweek.”

“since you have so much time, why don’t you sit down and have some coffee with me?” calum quipped, the smile on his face never fading.

with a smile and a nod of your head, you maneuvered around the counter and walked over to the table for two calum had previously been sitting at. 

“so, i’m just gonna cut to the chase,” calum started, “what’s your favorite song?”

“if i’m being honest,” you said, pausing, “i would have to say i don’t know. none of the music i’ve heard so far has really spoke to me enough to be considered my favorite song, and on top of that, i’m not really that in touch with current music.”

the bright smile on your face wavered as you met calum’s eyes.

“sorry, i know it’s a really important topic, given how things are, but i just don’t have an answer,” you finished with a sheepish, almost guilty smile.

“don’t even worry about it, it was a dumb question anyway. if it makes you feel any better, my soulmate’s favorite lyric is from a song that doesn’t even exist. just don’t tell the gossip magazines.”

“why would i tell the- oh. you’re famous, aren’t you? i knew i recognized you from somewhere!”

calum laughed a bit at your obliviousness.

“yeah, i’m the bassist for 5 seconds of summer. maybe you’ve heard of us?”

“mhmm! i think i’ve heard a few of your songs. she looks so perfect, right?”

“you really need to catch up on modern music, sweetheart.”

blushing at the nickname, you asked calum for some song recommendations, and you spent the rest of the afternoon discussing anything and everything, right up until customers started getting more frequent at around 4.

“so what days do you work? can i swing by tomorrow around the same time?” calum asked, fiddling almost nervously with his fingers, a stark contrast from his bold and flirtatious behavior from earlier. 

you grinned and nodded happily, then waved goodbye to him as the door swung open then closed again, the bells hanging above it making a pleasant ringing sound.

on his walk home, calum couldn’t stop thinking about you. and yet he couldn’t figure out why. the fact that you didn’t have a favorite song meant nothing. it was just too good to be true. he had lived 23 years of his life, happily believing, no, knowing, that he was soulmate-less. and honestly, he felt it was for the better. he could focus on his music. he could focus on his dream. he was living out his dream right now, and if not having a soulmate was what it took, it was well worth it.

so when he finally got home, calum flopped back down on his couch and scribbled down the lyrics he had memorized by heart before he even turned 13.

he then stared at the paper for a good 30 minutes.

it almost felt like stealing. the lyrics, in theory, were his, and it wasn’t like some other artist had written them into a song yet, so there wouldn’t be any legal issues, but he didn’t really come up with them himself, did he? were they really his to write and record if it was just dumb luck that had tattooed those words onto his chest?

“what do you need, cal?” ashton’s groggy voice sounded from the other end of the phone.

calum had gone about his usual evening routine, then decided to go to bed around 10, since there was nothing left for him to do. but then after 3 hours of laying on his bed and staring up at the ceiling, he decided he needed some help.

“i really don’t know if i should write this song, ash. i have absolutely no ideas for the melody, the lyrics don’t even feel like mine, and honestly i’ve been doing just fine without a soulmate. i don’t really see why that has to change now. not to mention that i just met some girl at a cafe and she’s… i don’t even know.”

“cal, slow down. do you want me to be honest with you? i mean completely and totally honest?”

“yeah?”

“you should write the song. and i think the reason you haven’t yet is because you’re scared. you’re scared that even after you finish this fucking song, you still might not find her. you’re scared that this girl you met isn’t gonna be your soulmate, and you’re scared that you’re going to be alone forever, surrounded by everyone that already met their soulmates, and you’re going to feel like complete and utter shit for ever believing that you had a soulmate in the first place. and i think that’s complete bullshit. you can’t just throw away your one chance at finding someone because you’re scared. that’s not how the world works. now goodnight, calum. think about it.”

with that, ashton hung up, leaving calum in the dark of his room, his words playing like a broken record in his head. and even though he hated to admit it, ashton was right. and he’d put this off for far too long already.

after you and calum’s first meeting, you were disappointed to say you didn’t see him again for another two weeks, and by the end of the first, you had accepted the fact that he just wasn’t interested in you once he realized you didn’t have a favorite song. 

which was completely understandable, seeing as once you hit your 20’s, it seemed like people only cared about meeting their soulmates as quickly as possible.

so you could imagine your surprise when, exactly at 1:45 pm, the bells dinged softly and the cafe’s doors swung open, calum emerging from behind them, swinging his phone around like a trophy and smiling wider than you thought possible.

“hey, y/n,” he said, breathless to the point where you almost believed he sprinted all the way there.

“hey, cal,” you replied, matching his elated expression, “what can i get for you?”

“you can sit down with me and listen to this,” calum gasped, still trying to catch his breath. 

“and what’s this?” you asked, motioning to the file pulled up on his phone, his thumb hovering over the play button, and his other hand holding out a pair of headphones for you.

“modern-day music.”

you grabbed the headphones out of his hand, inserting one into your ear and motioning for him to take a seat. once the two of you had been situated at a two-person table, he put the other earbud in and clicked play. 

once the three minutes of the song were over, you took the earbud out and stared at him in awe.

“shut. up.” you said, no hint of a smile on your face.

calum’s gleeful expression dropped to a look of confusion.

“you wrote that?! no fucking way!”

a look of relief passed over calum’s face as he grinned at you once more.

“yep. took me two weeks.”

“so that’s what you’ve been doing while you were too busy to visit me. i can’t say i’m angry.”

the two of you took some time to catch up on everything that had happened since you first met. you’d been coming into work and interviewing at various jobs in your free time, and he had been writing and spending time in the studio recording the demo you’d just heard.

as the pleasant conversation dwindled to an awkward silence, you finally remembered what you were going to say when you’d first heard the song.

“by the way, i think i finally have an answer to your question. that song is and will always be my favorite song.”

“you really mean that? you’re not just saying that to be nice?”

calum honestly couldn’t believe his ears. he may have been living out his dream of making music, but during the past two weeks, he’d learned enough about himself to know that a life with you was his new dream, whether it was as soulmates or just as friends.

“would i lie to you?”

calum smiled at that.

“no, at least i hope not.”

“i especially liked that one line…”

you then proceeded to recite the lyrics written on his chest word for word.

“it’s just amazing how you can write such meaningful and amazing lyrics. i could never do anything like that. i remember once in like 7th grade we had to write a song about the louisiana purchase or something and it was absolutely terrible. i mean we got an A, but that was only because-”

“can i kiss you right now?”

and with that, your rambling was stopped in its tracks.

“what?”

“you heard me,” calum said, the same smirk on his face as when you first met him.

with that, you leaned across the table, grasped the collar of his t-shirt tightly, and pulled him forwards. calum let out a short gasp of shock at your uncharacteristic boldness.

as the tips of your noses touched together, you felt a strong burning sensation right above your heart. as you looked down, you noticed a red glow, shining through the thin fabric of calum’s shirt. 

calum placed his large, warm hands over your own as you looked straight into his deep brown eyes.

“take me on a date first, cal.”

[the-canary]

Weekends Like These. - S.R

Summary: You’ve seen him here and there throughout your little outings. You just never that it was going to turn into something else. (Modern!Reader/Steve Rogers) 

Prompt: “The hold you have on me is unsettling. It makes me restless, but I like it.”

A/N: this is for @bvcks writing challenge. ahh, i tried to focus on something like what i try to do on the weekends and it tail spinned into this. idk it’s really any good but i like the tone of it. 

Feedback is always appreciated. 

You’re living in New York. Greatest city in the world, shouldn’t you be happier?

At least, that’s what the Hamilton song told you once, but since moving you had felt nothing but tired, drained, and alone. It wasn’t like you had come here alone on your own. Wanda had been the one to push you into looking for something in your field when nothing came up in your sleepy hometown. She had even helped you moved into a cramped little apartment, that shouldn’t really be called such a thing, across from hers. However, both Maximoff twins have already established themselves in the city and had each other when they were here -- they didn’t, like you, have canceled plans with friends (Wanda and Viz) because they were working overtime in their little shop on a weekend.

You were used to being alone, but this loneliness –New York loneliness- was different than what you had felt before. In a way it was driving you mad: how could you be on a street full of people and still feel like the loneliest, most miserable person in the room?

However, for now, you just had to keep moving with your brunch reservation. Yet, you weren’t expecting a tall, blond man to already be sitting there instead. You were at a loss for a moment, wondering if things had gotten mixed up and whether you could ask someone to be moved, but all the staff seemed to be busy at peek brunch hour.  

The blond looks up from his cell phone, as you question hesitantly: “Excuse me, are you waiting for someone?”

“I was,” he answers with a sigh. You notice tired blue eyes like the man hasn’t slept in days. It makes you pause for a moment, the man obviously needed more relaxation than you ever did in that moment.

“Wait, did they send you over here?” he questions as you shrug, ready to excuse yourself when he gets up and pulls out the chair in across from his. You blink in confusion as he gives you a small but tired smile.

“My friend just canceled on me,” he explains as if sensing your instant distrust and well, he couldn’t blame you, “I’d hate to have lunch alone, and if you didn’t mind--”

“Okay,” you answer back with a growing smile of your own, as he looks at you with a look of confusion before it blooms into general excitement. Maybe, the loneliness you had been feeling was starting to override your own self-preservation.

“Okay, sure,” he agrees, though you think it more likely that he is just telling himself that as if to try to get himself to calm down, though you aren’t sure why.

You take a seat as he moves back to his. You’re silent and a little awkward for a second before the waiter comes in and asks if you would like anything to drink.

“I’m guessing you got canceled on too, huh?” he asks.

“My friend is having a spring sale at her shop at the last minute,” you explain a little annoyed that Wanda had decided to do so, but you could understand the need for the extra cash especially if there was a big event nearby.

“My friends barely just woke up,” the blond admits with a laugh, “Overworked until who knows when.”

You laugh as well, as the waiter comes back with your drinks. Blue eyes look at you before he states nervously while rubbing the back of his neck, relief that he wouldn’t spend brunch alone making him forget something so basic, but also maybe something else as well: “Oh, I’m Steve Rogers by the way.”

You state your name with a laugh before looking through the menu and wondering what you should have. There isn’t much talk between the two of you as you eat, but that someone is there makes it slightly less scary and lonesome.

And that’s the first time you spend a weekend with Steve Rogers.

The second time it happens is completely by mistake. You were simply walking, aimlessly looking around the space where Wanda’s shop was close to after you had spent the morning helping her when you notice a familiar figure standing near the fountain not too far away from the Lincoln Center. You pause, wondering what the man was doing there, ignoring the fact that he came to your mind every once and a while since that Saturday, but you were still too cautious to ask for his phone number after brunch.

You’re stuck between walking over to him and being mortified that you are going to make a fool of yourself when he turns slightly to his left and sees you there. You don’t notice blue eyes twinkling at a distance as he watches you look like you are talking to yourself.

You eventually get the courage to walk up to him, as he turns and pretends to be surprised to see you: “Hey Steve, what are you doing?”

Being stood up, is what he wants to say as he can’t help but sigh out. However, he doesn’t want to bother anyone with that as he shrugs.

“Had extra tickets to the Met,” he remarks, trying to hide the also evident disappointment in his tone of voice. You keep looking at him and obviously not letting you know that he had just bought them before his date had called him, “But some people canceled on me at the last minute.”

“Oh,” that’s all you manage to say before going between looking at the museum and Steve, “Do you want someone to accompany you?”

“I--” your question clearly catches him off-guard for a second, as you wait. Blue eyes stare at you as if waiting for the point where you are going to laugh and retract your remark, but instead, you’re patient though understanding if he did decide to say no.

“If you don’t mind,” he manages to state as you shake your head and tell him that you have nothing to do for the rest of the day.

“Lead the way,” you laugh as Steve motions you to follow him up the stairs that you were used to seeing on TV only every so often, but for now you were here for something completely different.

You don’t know how, but you end up visiting all three Met centers that day, as Steve had your attention the entire time, as he goes on and on about the artists and what he loves about each of them. You learn something new and for once, Steve doesn’t feel like he’s bothering anyone with all this, as he ignores the fluttering in his chest for now.  

“So, you’ve met this guy twice now?” Wanda asks, obviously very curious over what you had done after you had left her shop last weekend, “And he isn’t weird or anything, right?”

“Not from what I’ve seen,” you remark, thinking about how Steve was always kind though maybe a little too rash in brief stories he had shared about his youth.

“Then, why didn’t you get his phone number?”

“I don’t know,” is the only way you can answer that question as Wanda sighs, knowing that you were obviously more entranced with the history and art around than the blond hunk who had ended up inviting you.

It’s another three weeks afterward before Steve ends up finding you roaming around the Schwarzman Building after he had just gotten out of a lecture about Walt Whitman. Steve isn’t sure why he went, it was something that had caught his attention, but at the sight of you looking over the glass cases are part of another exhibit within the library, Steve couldn’t help but feel that he was in that one John Cusack movie.

Your eyes are sparkling over the little trinkets on display and he just wants to know what you are thinking, as you clutch the pile of books that are in your arms a little tighter.

“Once I pass’d through a populous city imprinting my brain for future use with its shows, architecture, customs, traditions,

Yet now of all that city I remember only a woman I casually met there who detain’d me for love of me…”

Steve freezes for a moment at the one piece of poetry that he seems to still remember from the mini-lecture and while he can’t help but start to overanalyze what it means to you and to him, everything else stops when he hears his name being called.

He wants to run, to have time to think of everything but your presence in front of him chases all those thoughts away.

“Steve, what you are doing here?” you ask him with a bright smile. He swears he stops thinking for a second, before smiling -- for once, he won’t overthink everything of his adult life and move forward with the little chances that he has been given.

“I was at the Walt Whitman lecture,” he explains.

Your attention is completely on him as he explains his love for the American Romantics and as you both end up going to lunch once more, not too far away from the library, and Steve can’t help but think that there has to be something more to this as silly as it may seem.

“So, you’ve met this gal three times now,” Bucky starts off before taking a sip of his beer, “But, you haven’t even tried getting her number.”

“It’s not that easy, Buck,” Steve tries to explain but his best friend gives him a look that he doesn’t believe his bullshit.

“Likes the art, poetry,” the man runs down the list of everything that Steve has told him, “Used to get into arguments with people over just about everything. This gal sounds perfect for ya, Stevie. What’s the problem?”

Blue meets blue and at that moment James knows, as he lets out a ragged sigh.

“Your luck’s gonna run out eventually, bud,” Bucky explains as best he can to get through Steve’s stubborn head, “Don’t make a choice you’re gonna regret.”

Steve doesn’t say anything, but he knows where his best friend is coming from. He just doesn’t want to hope that it won’t be all worth for nothing.

He sees you two weeks afterward, on the opposite of Broadway with a pamphlet in your hand and following a man within a blue shirt with a small group. Steve pauses for a moment, as he is able to watch you smile for a second while looking at the old buildings.

He wants to stop and ask --to say-- so many things, but instead, he keeps moving forward because he has things to do and the sea of New Yorkers keep pushing him farther and farther away.

Steve just didn’t think it would be the last time he saw you in a very long time.

“Come on, you’ve been moping around for a whole month,” Bucky declares as he watches Steve sit on his couch, “We gotta met Wan and her new friend.”

Steve pauses for a moment before frowning, as Bucky just shrugs.   

“Don’t worry about it,” Bucky shrugs, “I’m sure ya’ll find her again. Just wait.”

Steve doesn’t say a word as he moves back into his own room, fully knowing that his time and luck was going to run out eventually.

You aren’t sure what Wanda or Pietro had planned when they ask you to come over to visit them in their shared Brooklyn townhouse. Maybe, they had gotten tired of watching you go out every other weekend to find someone in-between 8.3 million people -- it was like finding a needle in a haystack and your friends worry about you just a tad too much.

Maybe, it was a stupid idea but there was so much more to it, you just weren’t what it meant. However, you kept moving forward with your life as best as you can. You end up going with Wanda to a cozy little farmer’s market not too far away from her home in order to get some more things for dinner.

Maybe, I should just give up, you think absentmindedly to yourself as you look at the flowers and fruits mingling together while sinking into your own self-doubt when you were going to see him again. But, this certainly wasn’t a Lifetime movie either.

It’s at that point when you hear it. Wanda’s voice mingling with two others, but one of these catches you off-guard the most. You look around while trying to calm your heart down.

“And where is this wonderful friend of yours, Wanda?”

Blue eyes meet yours for a split second as Wanda motions you to walk over. It’s then you can see the blond man biting his bottom lip, as you freeze for a good moment.

It seems that luck had finally been kind to both of you.

It’s a few weeks afterward between texting (you finally have each other’s phone numbers), gatherings with friends, and maneuvering between schedules to have everything finally settle in. It’s Saturday evening and you’re sitting in a small cafe with Steve across from you with a pastry and drink at the side. You aren’t sure how exactly you got to this point, it all seemed a bit serendipitous but at the sound of the soft music and the general sweet ambiance..it just seemed right.

“So what are you thinking about now?” you laugh, as he looks over the band playing in the back.

“That the hold you have on me is unsettling,” Steve admits, after finally admitting to himself after such a long time,  as you stop and look at him with wide eyes,  “It makes me restless, but I like it.”

“When did you turn into such a Walt Whitman?” you laugh, as he shakes his head at your comment.

“What I’m tryin’ to say is that,” Steve remarks with a bashful smile, “I would like to officially ask you on a date, be official after all these.”

You feel the embarrassment rushing up your spine as you look away bashfully before deciding it wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all.

“So, would this be our first official date?” you ask as a smile blooms on his face, “Or would that have been back at the brunch place?”

There was actually so much to choose from by now.

“This,” Steve responds, “This would be a good start.”  

You, and maybe even Steve, had come a long way from the loneliness you had felt within such a big city and this was certainly the start of something new -- with only more lovely weekends and days to follow.