#internalized hate against a group you actually belong to

[a-very-tired-jew]

I know for a fact I am no longer safe in one of my discord servers and the physical community it represents. This is a community of people that I see twice a year and in the past have created fantastic memories and moments with. I know that even though I will be at the larger event everyone in that particular server is at, I will not be attending any of the get togethers or parties. In our international politics channel there are several people who openly post antisemitic conspiracies and rhetoric. They've only thinly veiled their violent hatred of Jews through the now accepted veneer of "anti-Zionism". In fact, they often post memes or political comics from well known antisemites that are absolutely dripping blood libel and antisemitic conspiracy, but under the guise of "anti-Zionism" or "criticism of Israel". Every single one of them posting this type of stuff has posted "Punch a Nazi" memes on the server and on their personal social media since the beginning of this month. They do not see the bitter irony of posting literal antisemitic memes and cartoons while posting that they'll fight Nazis. The other goyim of the server have only ever posted anti-Israel and antisemitic articles, not understanding that they were pushing Hamas propaganda, and only myself and the three other Jewish members of this 150+ person server have pushed back. When we do push back it goes silent, there's no apology or understanding, and then they're back at it a few days later.

Nothing is ever posted about the hostages, violence against Jews globally, or the like. Not a single thing about the Bibas family or Lifshitz.

But if it's something they can attack Israel and the Jews for? You be they'll post it in the next few days. And I hate it. I hate that what I thought was my nerdy con family is in fact rife with Leftist progressives who believe they're not antisemites and would "Punch a Nazi" are actually repeating antisemitic Soviet Era and Hamas propaganda verbatim and believing it. And here's the thing, all of us are professionals in some capacity or another that have been active in Leftist and progressive spaces for years, if not decades. We share resources, action plans, and how we go about supporting our local and national communities. We cross post and tag each other about things that may be outside of our respective circle but relevant to what we're fighting for. We come up with new ideas and talk about building up our communities, providing resources, and doing everything we can to remain safe while advocating. And yet... out of the 150+ members on the server with whom I've worked with, shared drinks with, cried with, and everything in between...only the three other Jews have offered any sort of comfort to one another. We've simply watched from the sidelines as this community drowns itself in Hamas's propaganda and quote things from the literal 1988 charter calling for our extermination. I know I won't go to any private events anymore with these people because I cannot trust them. I will continue to offer my expertise and years of experience though. I truly believe that the work we have done and can do for groups that are being targeted by the Trump admin is beneficial. I will always continue to help and advocate for them, even groups I don't belong to or have only the barest of connections to.

But trust?

Nah.

[rootspiral]

hi, hello!! i absolutely adore your deep dive series into the aaa episodes, and i was wondering if you could/would feel like expanding further into agatha’s guilt towards wanda and all the emotion she shows in the first episode, when she sees wanda’s corpse? the way agnes seems to value human life is especially interesting to me, considering how much agatha has killed (and i understand agnes is a character in what’s supposed to be a very stereotypical detective series, but i remember how you said agnes is in some ways agatha at her most transparent). anyways, i thought i’d try to pick your brain a little more on the subject, because your takes are very interesting to me!

Hi hello to you, thank you for stopping by! And also thank you for your interesting question, consider my brain officially picked. I'm gonna ramble QUITE a bit because I want to talk about Agatha and misogyny first (as requested by @leoleolovesdc ) but hold in there, I'll get to wanda too.

To get to the point directly, I think that Agatha's actions are steeped in internalized misogyny, and I think it's something she inherited from her mother and the salemites. It's actually pretty common for marginalized communities or individuals to turn against their own and replicate the patterns of the oppressor, looking to ease their self-hatred or for outside acceptance or a sense of control. Think for example about super conservative wives voting against their best interests, think about all the homophobia and biphobia and transphobia and acephobia (etcetera etcetera ad infinitum) in the queer community.

The persecution of witches was essentially a war on a kind of womanhood that went against imposed gender norms. Witches (in the marvel universe and in real life) were more often than not women who lived independently, who knew herbs, who didn't marry, who worked as midwives etc. And talking about the salemites specifically and the way they treated Agatha: they did to Agatha what the external world did to them, they replicated a pattern. They targeted the odd one out, the woman in their group who was the most different, and called her evil and essentially tried to burn her at the stake.

We don't know a thing about evanora, but I would BET that a lot of her hatred stems from her own internalized misogyny / agatha being born female, and I honestly wonder if Agatha would have found it harder to love a daughter the same way she does Nicky or Billy, without any of her internalized bias kicking in. Since she was a kid Agatha had been hurt and persecuted by other witches, she's pretty much wired to mistrust and hate them. And it gets even more muddled and complicated because she hates witches but loves witchcraft, she hates women but is sexually and romantically attracted to them. She yearns to belong, but she ends up torturing and killing her own community. She allies with people like that disgusting prick who violated Jen.

Enter Wanda, who is essentially Agatha 2.0: she was born doomed by the narrative or, to say it like evanora, she was born evil. Evanora would have had a FIELD DAY with Wanda. The Scarlet Witch? The destroyer of universes? She would have tried to kill her on the spot. There is A LOT Agatha instinctively hates in Wanda, she's a woman, she's a witch, she's dangerous. Agatha does what the salemites did to her and what men did to witches: she replicates a pattern. She punishes Wanda for being too alone and too different and complicated and scary. And yes Agatha is doing it to get her hands on chaos magic and all that comes with that, but this is all the baggage she brings in.

There's the other side of the coin: Agatha hates women and witches, Agatha loves women and witches, and Agatha hates and loves Wanda. She's been essentially killing and running away for the past two centuries, refusing to dwell on the consequences of her actions, but we know that she is no unfeeling psychopath, that's just a role she plays. We know all her actions weigh on her. With Wanda that sense of guilt is even stronger because Wanda is not a random witch she kills and abandons in the woods, she has to live with her and witness all of Wanda's pain up close, how lonely she is, how scared she is, the grief of losing Pietro and Vision, it's all there to torment Agatha. She cannot be a child about it, she can't close her eyes and cover her ears and go lalala until it's over, she has to take it all in order to get what she wants. And what's worse, Wanda is so similar to her that Agatha can picture exactly what she's feeling down to her bones, that's empathy to the max. And she goes through with her plan and does horrible things to Wanda anyway.

Knowing Agatha like we know her now, I'm convinced that her guilt about Wanda is especially hard to deal with, but Agatha has always refused to deal with any of her inner struggles, so Wanda just goes on the pile together with all the painful and complicated feelings she's pointedly ignoring, and which are not haunting her at all, thank you very much!

Except when she's Agnes, because all the feeling are still there but she doesn't know where they come from. I'd say that more than transparent Agnes is unfiltered, she doesn't know she should censor her struggles like Agatha does. Based on Agnes, we can plainly see what the biggest issues on her Inner Pile of Shit and Sorrow are: grief over Nicky's loss, anger and yearning for Rio, extreme loneliness, and guilt over those she hurt, with a particular emphasis on Wanda.

[smoothbrainstuff]

Did you know just drawing without worrying about cleaning up is really fun.. wow... that's crazy!! Anyway this is Internal Tempo (IT) who I've been mentioning briefly over the course of multiple posts

He's an odd model of iterator, not belonging to a specific generation as he was made of spare parts. Yeah, it is Total Eclipsing Sky's sibiling, attached by a bridge like LTTM and Five Pebbles. Safe to say the two of them don't get along for.. reasons I'll get into. Internal Tempo is actually closer to 100HP and sees them as their sibiling instead. IT loves pearls they're a total information nerd, it's collection is quite impressive. The pearls he wears on his outfit are his favorites! Mostly videos of his slugcat, Revenant

Talking WAYYY more under the cut now

Internal Tempo was first conceived because of spare superstructure parts leftover from the creation of Total Eclipsing Sky, being hobbled together and attached to his "brother". At first the top of IT's structure was solely used for factories and production, but eventually low-karma citizens from TES would begin to be relocated to live there instead, IT becoming a ghetto. The cause for the overpopulation in TES resulting in this unjust action was because of a mass migration from the surviving citizens of Ten Scales of Karma, a iterator in a nearby group who poisoned her Ancients nectar with void fluid. Internal Tempo hated this immensely, not only was the land surrounding him being polluted to keep TES's city clean, but his population was suffering and he had no power to fix it. Internal Tempo is not a god like the rest of their kind, they were a tool, it didn't have any command over citizens or a say what happened, he was a means to an end that came with the added bonus of more hands to work on the great problem. He was a hunk of scrap meant to play second fiddle to a god amongst gods, Total Eclipsing Sky knew and reveled in this

After the Ancient's extinction it got a little better for IT, he finally received full access to his and other local groups, beforehand only being contacted by TES and 100HP. Lacking most learnt social etiquette has left Internal Tempo with a reputation of being reclusive and anxiety inducing, all it's messages definitely have the vibe of people on discord who speak in all lowercase and add periods to the end of messages 24/7. Despite this fact after many cycles Internal Tempo and Last Nights Song begin to date after clicking almost immediately. Their logs of information help her immensely in keeping track of events when her systems shut down for half the day

Things begin to go awry when a heavily injured purposed slugcat manages to crawl it's way close enough to be picked up by IT's structure organisms, being ferried up to his chamber so they could save it. Through mildly clunky medical care Internal Tempo is able to save it, having to use free blueprints on chat rooms to fill in the missing parts. This slugcat, who will be named Revenant as a reference to their comeback from the brink of death, was created by TES and modified to have bat-like features. Figuring this out begins IT's delve into the rabbit hole of what the void TES has been up to. And it's bad. Enough to finally push Internal Tempo over the edge to plot against their golden brother. Hell has no fury like it's desire for vengeance. One that only gets worse when suspiciously modified scavengers begin ransacking 100 Hopeful Prayers

But this will cost him his body, an eye for an eye. All caused by a pearl and the campaign of a slugcat guided by them. Time will tell, a clocks internal tempo

[iorekbyrinson]

shc drabbles: asriel belacqua, or, the Double Lion that ISN'T a Double Lion

ok so asriel has literally. haunted me since he got typed as a double lion. and this isn't to say that interpretation isn't correct.

however HOWEVER - do I think that's his sorting? no. I think he's a Lion secondary (that sometimes tries and pulls a Marisa Coulter-esque Snake sec), but his primary? Hufflepuff, baby. this is one of fiction's TRUE evil Badger Lions, and, to be honest, it's not even that hard to see how.

compare and contrast with Erik Lehnsherr, his nearest counterpart. Magneto has a kind of Badger-y shell on his Primary that dovetails with the dehumanizing aspects of his cause, rallies people behind him (it implies a kind of group care without him ever kind of NEEDING the group if that makes sense), and may well be something borrowed from his old mirror Charles Xavier, who Badgers so hard it sometimes hard to see his own Snake-yness. Anyhow, I digress. What I'm saying is - Magneto is the true Double Lion. He has his Cause, and when we see him in First Class, it's a typical low-health revenge fantasy Cause. then Charles intervenes and tries to guide him to a kind of belonging, a reckoning within his sense of unity amongst mutants (and humans, because Charles doesn't discriminate), but once that philosophy goes against Erik's newest Cause (born bloodstained and dripping the SECOND after the coin goes through Shaw's skull), he abandons Charles. and that's Erik's journey throughout these prequel movies especially - he finds a Cause, something disrupts it, he Improvises, then discovers a new one, hidden like an ember deep within. it's all internal and driven and NATURAL AND NORMAL to Erik to do this. he's a Lion.

now take Asriel - Asriel Belacqua, who EVERYONE knows to be a bit of a tight-arse and basically has never related to anyone, ever. his daemon is a snow leopard because the dude basically has the Arctic wastes swirling around inside of him. now that coldness; where is born it from? does it come from a particularly frozen Cause, a sense of isolation on a journey no one understands? when we see Erik on an equivalent journey, he's never ALONE like that - not really. Erik is either brooding or dangerously damaged or ticking over until his Lion comes roaring through. Asriel? even when he's getting what he wants, his glee is - dangerous. he's described as having eyes that glitter with savage amusement or rage. what I'm trying to get it as Asriel has an EXTERNAL primary - and what is his External Primary geared towards? hating humankind.

Now, without getting into the weeds of analysis too much, Asriel is supposed to be a cipher for Satan, the one who wants to destroy Heaven etcetera etcetera. And what we can take from this is Asriel feels fundamentally APART. Excluded. And he HATES it. he hates how the Authority and the Magisterium have curried the world into their little factions of power and belonging, he hates how he perceives himself as the ONLY one to see all this, he hates how Lyra, who is a real Lion primary, can survive on her own rage and power and instead he is burdened by it, because if there was ever someone who didn't have a LIFE outside of his raison d'etre, it's Asriel. It's hard to see, but once you see, you can't unsee it. And boy oh boy, does Asriel dehumanize HARD. He sees it fundamentally in tune to a greater plan (the plan being that he will free the world from oppression, but he shows precious little actual FERVOUR for the people he's supposedly freeing, because as we say, he hates them), and literally anyone who comes in his path he doesn't see as valuable/sees as expendable becomes Not Important. Roger Parslow, the child, who he sacrifices to open the new world. Lyra, time and time again. Even Marisa.

SPEAKING of; Marisa Coulter, Double Snake, is the only one who has ever gotten past all of this destructive Badger armour. Because she's a Loyalist - and Asriel UNDERSTANDS that. His one misstep outside of his mission was in his personal life when he threw caution to the wind to have an affair with Marisa, have their baby, and then grant that baby to Jordan College. Who knows, maybe this was the seed of him starting to dehumanize EVERYONE. But she's the only one he bows to, ever, even slightly. When she's injured in the last book, he lifts her and carries her to his aircraft with a gentleness NO ONE ELSE sees in the books. When she wakes in the other room and despairs of what comes next, whens he asks why he didn't just tell her he was trying in actuality to save Lyra/save the fate of humanity, he says wearily "I lied because I thought you'd believe a lie." At his weakest, at his most vulnerable, he turns to Marisa, because she's the only connection he has left to whatever human being was inside him. And his ending - falling into the abyss with her to save their child? That's the most these toxic, twisted Loyalists could ever give their unparented child. A fitting ending.

@wisteria-lodge I'd love to get your thoughts on this. What say you, Badger Lion, or Double Lion Asriel?

[merwgue]

(This is neither a pro nor anti post. It's just me analysing what's written about cassians' personality and fears OBJECTIVELY and trying to understand why he acts a certain way. do with that what you will, if this reaches you amd you dont like it, cope.)

So, my dad and I had a very serious discussion about ACOSF, you know, the important things in life. And we got stuck on Cassian because, honestly, that guy is just…weird. You can’t just throw around terms like “weapons master” and “commander” and then act like a brooding teenager who's constantly seeking approval. And then I wondered—what did make Cassian turn out like this? Is there a support group somewhere for fae males who struggle with validation issues? I’m starting to think there should be.

Don’t get me wrong, I love sarcastically hating on Cassian—especially when I joke about hoping Elain’s prophecy comes true and makes things a little more interesting. But when I pause the snark for a second, I can’t help but think it’s kind of sad, really. Cassian’s situation is actually tragic if you break it down.

Cassian, in many ways, is a victim of his own insecurities and the society he’s grown up in. He’s constantly trying to fit in but never quite gets there. He’s always trying to please someone, especially Rhysand. There’s this deep-rooted need for validation—probably stemming from his childhood as a bastard in Illyria—where he was treated like an outsider. Psychologically, this is a textbook case of someone with low self-esteem. He’s never really believed he deserved to be in the position he’s in, and it shows in the way he talks about himself, constantly referring to himself as a “brute” or a “bastard-born warrior.” That’s classic negative self-talk right there, and if you don’t accept yourself, it’s impossible to truly accept others.

Cassian doesn’t just want to belong. He wants to be seen as more than the brute he calls himself. He’s constantly aware of this divide between who he thinks he is (a muscle-bound, lowborn warrior) and who he wants to be (someone Rhysand can rely on and the mate Nesta can respect). And this is where it gets interesting because this isn’t just insecurity. Cassian is caught in an identity crisis—he’s trapped in the psychology of cognitive dissonance.

Let’s break this down. Cognitive dissonance is when someone holds conflicting beliefs or attitudes, and it leads to mental discomfort. In Cassian’s case, it’s the belief that he’s just a brute, a soldier, a low-born bastard—juxtaposed against the role he’s trying to play: a respected commander in Rhysand’s court and Nesta’s equal. He knows he doesn’t quite fit into this polished world, but instead of working through these feelings of inadequacy and dealing with his imposter syndrome, he clings to this role while tearing himself apart internally.

And here’s the kicker: validation-seeking behavior runs deep with Cassian. Everything he does, from his attempts to train Illyrians to the way he handles himself in the Inner Circle, is driven by his need to prove his worth. And this need for external validation is so strong that it blinds him to the toxic dynamics he’s enabling. He can’t protect Nesta from Rhysand because he’s spent his entire life trying to earn Rhysand’s approval. So when push comes to shove, Cassian defaults to the behaviors that have kept him in the Inner Circle’s good graces—being Rhysand’s loyal brute, a yes-man who ignores the fact that the power dynamics around him are actually pretty messed up.

Now, we’ve got to address the elephant in the room. I get it—Cassian should absolutely be defending Nesta from Rhysand’s controlling behavior. And while I totally agree with that sentiment, let’s really think about why he doesn’t. The simple answer? He can’t. Why? Because Cassian has spent centuries bending over backward to gain Rhysand’s validation. Cassian’s sense of self-worth is so tangled up in Rhysand’s approval that he doesn’t want to jeopardize that hard-earned status by going against him. It’s the classic case of dependency theory—Cassian’s entire self-concept is tied to this external source of validation. If he loses that, what’s left?

This isn’t just about power dynamics; it’s also about Cassian’s own emotional immaturity and insecurity. Cassian desperately wants to be seen as worthy—worthy of being High Fae, worthy of being part of the Inner Circle, worthy of being Nesta’s mate. But deep down, he’s terrified that he’s not. This makes his character less of the confident warrior we’re supposed to root for and more of a man who is constantly trying to prove something, even to people who already care about him. He’s perpetually stuck in a cycle of self-doubt, seeking external validation instead of working on internal healing.

So even if we suspend disbelief for a moment and say that Nessian could work as a couple, it’s just not the right time. Nesta has her own emotional baggage, and Cassian has to get over his own issues of insecurity and unworthiness. Both of them need to heal individually before they can even think about being healthy partners for each other. Cassian needs to stop trying to please everyone—especially Rhysand—and start working on his own self-acceptance. Until he does that, any relationship he’s in, whether it’s with Nesta or anyone else, is going to be built on shaky ground.

In conclusion, while it’s fun to joke about Cassian’s flaws, when you dig deeper, you see that his issues run much deeper than just being a brute with muscles. His insecurities, his constant need for validation, and his inability to stand up for the people he loves are all signs that he’s not ready for a healthy relationship. If anything, Cassian’s story should have been less about romance and more about the journey to self-acceptance, which, let’s be real, is a long time coming for him. To love someone, you need to love yourself first.

[chillygourami]

What Type of Fish Yulia is?

actually— i was doubting whether red devil angelfish makes a good match for Yulia’s nickname from Floyd in terms of character

but it seems rather fitting for her.

originally, if you’d asked her the question “what type of fish you are” Yulia would choose pleco.

just there somewhere at the back (at the aquarium bottom), never with a group of other colourful fish, eating algae and calmly minding her business. being invisible, you’d say

and yet! she never feels as if it’s her place to be there, away from everyone

The Red Devil Angelfish may seem too aggressive for her, too bold mayhaps. But the thing is: Yulia is very protective of what belongs to her, down to every little responsibility.

want to taunt her a bit? take her pen without asking. logically it would seem like too meaningless to make fuss over, Yulia would just flash a polite smile and say:

— Please refrain from taking my things without asking.

with just slightly gritted teeth. but internally she’d be screaming in rage, especially if she doesn’t really like you! that’s how petty her possessiveness can get!

Yulia’s territorial nature PEAKS when she’s alone to fend for herself, without a group of friends. Sort of like being bold and assertive works as her defence mechanism.

When Ace approaches her and Grim on the very first day, just before destroying one of the Great Seven’s statues, she would smack the hell out of him with a broom (or at least attempt to) simply because she hates when her work is interrupted.

However, when Azul takes the Ramshackle away, she pins the blame onto herself for not being able to properly negotiate. that’s exactly why she doesn’t hold much of a grudge against Azul after (compared to Jamil where she couldn’t find a reason to blame herself), but still gets that drive to fight for her dorm till the end. If she didn’t have Ace, Deuce and Jack at that point, she would’ve metaphorically pulled out Azul’s hair to get her home back and pin the blame only after that, even if it had been logically not the most correct course of action at this moment. having friends and those she can rely on in case something happens mediates her GREATLY, just like Red Devil Angelfish feeling more calm in a group

but she still is quite a jealous lover though :D whenever someone would flirt with her chosen one, and i mean Azul here, oh boy they are looking for a death stare at least.

[rosecreates]

The Devil Within

On a night where Nimue regains another, rather awful memory of her past during her trance, she runs off to vomit into a bush in the forest whilst plagued by a terrible headache, and unknowingly is followed by Astarion, who isn't keen to let her completely get out of explaining what's wrong.

Word Count: 2,524

Pairing(s): Vague Dark Urge/Astarion during their friends-with-benefits phase

Characters: Nimue (My Dark Urge), Astarion, Alfira mentions

Warnings: Spoilers for Act 1 Dark Urge stuff. It's for the most part introspection into my Dark Urge Nimue. Lot's o' angst with...some comfort, sorta, it's Act 1 Astarion so he sort of does his own weird way of trying to help. Dark Urge-typical violent themes. Light emetophobia warning, as whilst it's not descriptive Nimue vomits due to her urge. Not proofread.

A/N: I wrote this on a whim, first time I've written anything BG3-related actually and first time in a long time that I've written anything outside of Tumblr RP, so forgive me if Astarion's character isn't written the best or in general if the writing isn't great. But it's mostly about Nim anyway and I wrote this for fun. Title is from the song by Digital Daggers, "The Devil Within". The song is practically Nim's urge talking to her directly.

Light pink eyes look around, the little elf they belonged to finding her vision bleary as she processes what's going on. Her head is absolutely throbbing. And red. There's so much red. All over her, all over the ground at her feet- blood. It's blood. The ground is white marble, once pristine but now positively drenched in ichor. But from what, the elven girl wonders, as her sight grows clearer, and her gaze finally finds the source.

The sea of corpses that lie many feet in front of her, before a pulpit where a priest is hunched over with a knife sticking out of his back. She recoils, horror consuming her face, screaming as she falls unto the bloodstained ground. She feels ready to vomit, and gods, her head aches so badly. And yet. And yet, there is a certain satisfaction that she feels, despite the bile that feels ready to consume her. Satisfaction?

Soon, realization dawns on her at what had transpired.

It happened again.

She had done this.

The little elf was the sole one to blame for this grisly crime.

-

Nimue snaps out of her trance with start, breathing heavily as she regained her bearings, her head hurting once more as, just like in the memory, she felt ready to puke.

Another memory of the past, it seemed, and a violent one at that. One that appeared to indicate that these blasted urges she'd been suffering from ever since she awoke on the Nautiloid truly had always been with her, even before she'd been afflicted with amnesia. And the incident with Alfira...wasn't the first time she'd ever blacked out and committed murder in her life, either.

But there were still too many questions she had about the nature of this urge, and why she was saddled with memory loss. But her infuriating butler won't tell her anything. No matter how much she tried to press him when he appeared to her the night after she killed Alfira, he didn't budge. She hated indulging her urge, but she wouldn't be opposed to letting it direct her for once against that ugly creature that called itself Sceleritas Fel.

Alfira...her mind wanders back to that night. The grief she'd suffered immediately after the unintentional murder returns- as if it ever left, because it certainly didn't. Nimue had been ready to welcome Alfira as part of her camp, to become yet another member of the group of wayward strangers united by their need to find a cure for the tadpole in their heads that Nimue found herself de-facto leader of.

Nimue had internally declared herself their protector, despite the fact you could hardly call a woman constantly fighting against her urges to kill all of them in cold blood fit to protect just about anyone. But she thought she had control over those urges. A foolish thought in hindsight, but she thought that redirecting them towards her enemies and using the urges to make her at least a decent protector was working.

In the end, she was only trying to lie to herself, and had underestimated how truly catastrophic her urges were. That underestimation of them led to Alfira's death. Sweet Alfira, who wanted to just go on an adventure with people who were nice enough to help her with her still-ongoing journey to finishing a song for her deceased teacher, who'd perished to gnolls only a short time prior. Nimue finds a slight smile forming on her face as she thinks about the tragedy of it all, of having reunited the apprentice bard with her beloved mentor through a gruesome death perhaps even more awful than the demise Lihala had faced, before shaking her head rapidly.

She hates this. She hates it. None else in this camp are any the wiser to it, thinking her to be their stoic but well-meaning leader, who tries her best to protect them whilst also helping who she can at the same time, but not without asking for compensation. What would they think, if they learned how she usually only helped others because she wanted to spite her urge? How she hasn't the faintest idea of a moral compass, only going by what would make her party happy and to resist against this vile urge hers?

How deep down, she's really just a wretched coward who doesn't even know who she is beyond what fragments of memory slowly resurface, who feels only cold apathy in face of most people beyond her companions, who doesn't even truly understand her own emotions. That is, all except for the fear that drives her, the fear of losing control, and the even worse fear of being alone. That fear is pathetic, she knows, and yet it is also part of why she's managed to continue having enough willpower to remain as she has been.

No one needs to know a thing of what a monster she really is beneath the perfect ethereal facade of a mild-mannered but good-intentioned leader she puts up. But how long can she keep it up? How long until the others start to realize what frigidity lies within the heart of their beloved leader Nim?

She doesn't want to know. If she can keep this up forever, she happily would. She just needs to keep her wits about her, to fight against her urge even harder, now that she knows it can take control of her even when she trances. She has to admit, ever since Alfira's death, she's been trancing even less, and she's been plagued by horrible memories whenever she did trance.

How was she supposed to deal with the prospect that she could trance and then wake up to find herself standing over the corpse of one of her beloved companions? They, who were all that kept her connected to whatever humanity remains within her otherwise monstrous being that hid within the skin of a High Elf?

Dammit, she really is going to be sick. With haste, she gets up from her bedroll as quickly as she can, a hand over her mouth to try to hold it back. She doesn't want anyone to hear her, to see her in this sort of state. And she retches into the nearby bush once she thinks she's far enough away from camp, shaking as her head is still gnawing at her.

"My, you look positively dreadful for once."

She freezes.

Astarion.

Of course the only other fucking elf in camp, who experienced the same sort of trances that had him semi-conscious and bore the same keen senses, would end up breaking from his trance and catching her running from camp with vomit barely held back in her throat and throwing up inexplicably. Of course he would. She has to wonder how he didn't catch her when she murdered Alfira, frankly.

But in fairness to those godsforsaken urges of hers, they weren't stupid. They had gotten Alfira a little farther from her companions before maiming the poor bard. Still, she has to wonder if the vampire knew more than he was letting on.

Or maybe she was just paranoid. Yeah, she's probably just paranoid. Because she's afraid, and god her head is agonizing right now but she can't let him know. He's certainly the one person at camp who'd perhaps make the least fuss about learning her darker nature, but she still doesn't want him to know.

No one needs to know. Nor should they. It's why she never pried into her companions' pasts unless it was truly necessary. She'd say it's because they didn't pry into her past, but she'd been frank with them that she didn't remember anything at all of it. Rather, none were all that nosy, and so she wasn't nosy either, despite her admitted curiosity.

"Had a bad trance, that's all. Sorry if I broke yours."

The icy stoicism was up in full force as she tried to brush it off, even though anyone who was at least mediocre in reading people could tell there was more than she wanted to tell. The way Astarion's crimson eyes narrowed said as much. His beautiful blood-colored eyes, that she'd love to tear out of his skull slowly and carefully to admire from up close- shut up shut up shut up.

"I saw you scurry away from camp as fast as you could and vomit into that bush there, darling."

Of course he saw that.

Her gaze remains cold as it looks at Astarion, pretending to be entirely unfazed. "...And if I did?"

"Normally? I wouldn't care much, but I've noticed you've been...how should I say this, quite disheveled lately, in comparison to that almost irritatingly perfect composure you usually have. You've only ever been anywhere near this much of a mess on that lovely night you and I lost ourselves in one another's bodies. Obviously a good kind of mess, unlike this."

Ah yes, that time where Nimue had taken up the vampire's offer of a night of carnal pleasure, all in hopes of distracting herself for a while from, well, mainly her urges, but also from everything in general. And it had worked. Kind of. The pleasure barely managed to be louder than the urges. It's not that she hadn't enjoyed that night, but it barely achieved what she wanted. And she wasn't sure how 'there' Astarion had been during it. He'd looked so...far away, even though he was right there at the same time.

Still, anything was better than nothing when it came to her damn urges. And right now, she's focused on Astarion not managing to pick at her enough to get insight into her true mental state. He may be being very...casual about this for the most part, but he clearly wanted answers. She's not exactly sure why- it doesn't matter anyway, because she won't give them to him.

"Where are you going with this?" She queries, brow raising slightly.

"What have you been seeing in your trances recently that's caused you to be in this kind of state, darling?"

At least he thinks it's just her seeing bad things in her trances. Her gaze does not move from him as she proceeds to answer with cool-collectedness.

"It's nothing, really, Ast-"

His unimpressed look makes her stop, before she weaves together another sentence to try to get him to stop.

"...It's just been some memories of some difficult battles, that's all."

He narrows his eyes at her. He doesn't buy it. "You may think no one notices, but we've all seen how you delight in spilling the blood of your enemies."

"You can enjoy killing their enemies whilst being haunted by nearly losing your life, or an ally almost losing their life."

He scoffs. "Please, your blatant lack of self-preservation is painfully obvious, as much as I loathe it."

Astarion had certainly made no secret of how he dislikes Nimue going and helping others, especially when it put her or others in danger, that's for sure. Or well, Nimue usually only put herself in danger. She'd rather die than anyone else.

They fall into silence for a few moments, Astarion waiting for her to finally tell what's going on, and Nimue not wanting to say anything. Nimue breaks it first, when she realized Astarion wasn't going to budge.

And perhaps because she wanted to take the chance that she could tell him at least a little of what's going on.

So, she sighs, and in her soft, and right now quite weary voice, she finally explains a little. "...I've been slowly getting back pieces of my memory. But the memories...aren't good ones."

Most of her trances have actually been occupied by the memory of the night she killed Alfira, but he doesn't need to know that.

He tilts his head to the side, and his face shows he just wants her to continue. Begrudgingly, she does. "Tonight, the memory I got was...of a younger me, surrounded by corpses, in...a church, I think. The memory distressed me enough that I felt the overwhelming need to vomit. So I did. And I have a headache. Probably because of not getting great rest."

Astarion evidently listens closely to each word, and nods once Nimue finishes, his arms crossing as he speaks. "Well, it's good that it seems like your memories aren't lost forever." He starts, before he seems to pause to contemplate what to say or do next.

It seems he's not really sure how to proceed, actually. Nimue silently questions why he came if he didn't even know what to do when she fessed up about what's going on. "You're aware you don't need to keep this to yourself, mm? I'm sure the others would let you vent your troubles and help you gladly."

Nimue's gaze finally falls from Astarion to the bush beside her she'd puked in earlier. "...I didn't want to trouble them." It's not a lie. They all have their own problems. Although there's a lot more to this than her simply not wanting to be a burden.

Astarion rolls his eyes. "How about you stop playing the woefully selfless hero already? You've already helped them plenty. They could do to help you a bit in return."

Nimue doesn't respond, her gaze staying on the bush. A minute passes before Astarion dramatically sighs, shaking his head, prompting Nimue to look at him once again. "Tell me, do you plan to try to trance again soon, or not?"

Nimue shakes her head. "I don't think I'll be able to, if I'm going to be honest." Astarion makes a sound of annoyance, before walking closer to her.

"Well, luckily for you, I don't plan to either."

"You don't have to stay up with-"

"Shush, darling. First, let's return to camp, yes?" He motions for her to follow him, and she follows silently, them returning to camp side by side, before he leads her onto the rock formation at the camp's center. At first, she's confused what he's doing, but he soon sits down, and pats the spot beside him, signaling for her to do the same. She obeys, and he proceeds to point up at the sky, where from here they get a lovely view of the starry night sky above.

Ah. He was getting her to stargaze with him. To get her mind off the bad memory.

And, well, she can't say she's upset about it. The stars tonight are gorgeous, she has to admit. She always did love the stars, or well, she'd loved them since she spent her first night camping with everyone. And Astarion- befitting the meaning of his name- was quite fond of them as well.

This was...really nice. Her head still hurts, but it feels like it hurts a bit less right now. And her urges had decided to be quieter now, giving her a welcome slight reprieve for now.

Neither her nor Astarion uttered another word, but simply admired the stars together. Tomorrow would surely have an endless amount of horrors awaiting them as always, but that wasn't right now.

Right now?

She felt the closest thing to peace she had in a long while.

[zorkaya-moved]

P4 VERSE RUNDOWN FOR NOW:

International student from Russia. She's that student who does all work and then either sleeps in class or reads some complicated literature or books. Teachers either hate her or like her, she is the student that keeps getting on Kinshiro Morooka (King Moron) nerves because she's smart, a prodigy and he knows it by seeing her grades and giving her tests. He makes it very clear that he does NOT like her, she's on his shit list and will never recover (not like she wants to). Very opinionated and straightforward. She has many people who circle around her as she's known to be charming and charismatic, but she also doesn't seem to really belong to any group.

Moved to Inaba the same time P4 Protagonist (Souji Seta/Yu Narukami), they're also in the same class since it was just easier on the school to keep tabs on new students and 'maybe two new students might get along.' Zarina joined the class a couple of days after P4 Protagonist (Souji Seta/Yu Narukami) because she was moving in.

Sokolova lives alone despite her age. Only if you get close to her will you learn she lives alone, but aside from that people think she lives with her grandparents. It's quite obvious that her family is rich and she is rich as well, but she does work on some days, which makes her unavailable to hang out with on certain days.

Zarina doesn't have a palace and doesn't have a moment where she must face her true self. She is the character that is fully aware of herself and her inner self without denial of herself. This is why her persona doesn't 'evolve' or change. She is the constant and 'stagnant' character who may not always be present in the labyrinths as well.

Her Arcana is DEATH and her Persona is MORANA. She is the never-changing Persona User, her elements are double of Dark and Ice. She is weak to Fire instead of Light.

She joins the crew as a Persona user by following the main gang when they dive into Yukiko's Castle. Teddy finds her first and gives her the glasses and they find her hold her own against shadows but they find her being pushed back because she's looking exhausted and tired. It's obvious she awakened her Persona without the presence of the main team. Upon asking, Sokolova would explain what she was doing there (following them) and that she awakened this new power on her own without any help but the awakening made her feel weak and she's glad they came to help her out.

The Investigation Team will only learn of Zarina's... 'unique' views on life and very different outlook when Naoto joins in because she starts to snipe the other with some remarks that have never been shot at anyone else. What does it mean? Zarina's cynical and survivalist self may just throw some sprinkles here and there.

It becomes quite obvious the longer you spend with her that she does NOT fear speaking up against adults or speaking with adults about topics that teenagers her age do not speak about, especially when it comes to research and crime related discussions. Dojima could say that kids like Zarina probably suffered in childhood from some life-changing experience, which he would be correct about. .

Is she a part of Russian mafia still? Yes. However, in Persona 4, she actually wants to become a lawyer or... maybe something else. Currently, she is trying to find what she wants to do aside from her family business and that's why she wants to live in a 'normal' environment. Thus, seeing the murders in Inaba, she knows it cannot be a normal human who did that. She's seen enough death to know a variety of ways how someone can be killed. Upon anyone asking how does she know so much, she says that she's an avid fan of crime documentaries and crime studies.

[doylewesleywalls]

You Could Vote for an Honest, Mature, Intellectual Adult with Gravitas Who, on Philosophical Grounds, Actually Happens to Be a Conservative, If It Weren’t for the Fact that for Some Reason You Desperately Need a Shitstorm by Doyle Wesley Walls Via Flickr:

accepts & invigorates hate groups if they like him

doesn’t understand freedom of the press 

demands loyalty to himself instead of the U.S. Constitution 

admires authoritarian leaders, wants to be one 

driven by spite 

selfish 

mean-spirited 

makes classless, rude remarks about the physical appearance of the wife of one of his political opponents; goes on to compare her to his own wife 

insensitive 

vulgarian 

obstruction of justice 

takes a red carpet with him on his airplane 

unread 

Said “Two Corinthians” instead of “Second Corinthians” 

poor vocabulary; poor communicator 

racist 

abusive toward women 

philistine 

poor businessman 

cheater (on wives & business associates) 

delusional 

egotistical 

refuses to return classified documents that belong to the American people; keeps these documents in locations that are not secure; shows them to people who are not authorized to see them in order to make himself look important and innocent of wrongdoing; someone with a knowledge of history should explain the saying "loose lips sink ships" to him 

braggart 

immature 

born on third base, thinks he hit a triple 

dangerous 

tells an anxious nation to drink bleach to fight COVID 

profits by dividing Americans against each other 

needy brags repeatedly about acing a simple test used to detect mental impairment; “Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV,” Trump kept saying for us as if he were a Rhodes Scholar 

considered a jackass on an international stage 

placed his name on a joke of a university 

insecure 

has a toady for a doctor and directs the toady to release a health report that makes him sound like the best physical specimen ever to serve as President 

called for violence instead of the peaceful transfer of power 

liar 

manipulator 

attacks a female journalist from the Fox "News" Network (of all places) for asking an appropriate, legitimate question at a presidential debate; Trump suggests she might have asked him that tough question because she was probably menstruating; he routinely insulted journalists publicly for asking tough questions 

crybaby 

makes arrogant claims about himself 

withheld $391 million in military aid to Ukraine over “favor” 

kisses Putin’s ass 

disrespected the scholarly process we call “science” 

disrespected Evangelicals behind their backs 

disrespected American soldiers who died fighting Nazis 

con man milking the poor for their money and votes

stochastic terrorist

[dontkickmyshin]

Weak Hero as Idols pt.3

Grape (Sam Lee)- Uses the stage name Grape and has matching hair. Looks away every single time he sees Wolf, who just smirks at him. Fans ship them because they don't know why. Is the visual and is proud of it; mans definitely has an intense skin care routine. Goes shirtless a lot to show off his abs. Has a reputation in the industry for being arrogant. Posts on Instagram a lot. Blocked Wolf on all social media accounts. Close with Eunchan, and is friendly rivals with Robin. Has gotten in a smoking scandal, and apologised, but didn't actually stop.

Wolf Keum- Very controversial but very popular. Has the thirstiest simps (me) and is known for his unique visuals. Rebels against his company and manager a lot but they don't say anything because they're scared of him. Has beef with plenty of other idols. Would go for a sexy/bad boy concept and rarely interacts with fans. He has also gotten into smoking scandals but unlike Grape and Gerard, he doesn't care and just continues. Openly shades other idols. You will never catch him in a dating scandal. Bullied Grape when they were trainees, and is known for being very stoic. Never does fanservice and his fans go crazy when his shirt lifts up slightly.

Jimmy Bae- Very problematic and openly beefs with Wolf Keum, and both of their fandoms hate each other. Probably has gotten cancelled at least five times but makes good music so people forgive him quickly. Posts thirst traps on Tiktok and does a lot of fanservice. Exposed for being a bully back in school but continues to make music anyways. Makes very loud and boppy rap music that his fans eat up. Has won several awards but his reputation is starting to decrease.

Donald Na- The face of Versace. Probably has a black card. Is an ace soloist who is good at everything. Has unique visuals. Is the same age as the others but started a company that the others belong to. Is slightly controversial because of all the tattoos that he has but is still highly loved. People love his outfits. Would have a sexy/mysterious concept. He has definitely done something like hiding in a bin to stay away from saesangs (stalkers). Kingsley is his manager. Has the thirstiest fans after Wolf Keum. You will never catch him doing aegyo.

Jake Ji- Rep is a lot better than his actual personality. He has never been in a scandal. His group is unproblematic and stylish. Owns a single snake for a pet that he wraps around his shoulders during lives. The ambassador of some famous brand. Treats fans like friends, but is actually closed off. Is the main rapper and the lead dancer. Reads manga at important events. Does fanservice sometimes. Never listens to his manager. Does controversial things like tweeting about BLM and holding up pride flags. More international fans than K fans. Throws on a hoodie and jeans and is worshipped as a 'fashion icon'.

[infiniteglitterfall]

Sorry, Thicc Cat Butts, are we supposed to believe that this shit is NOT antisemitic, or are we supposed to believe that Jews as a group are committing genocide?

Which is it?

Are we still expected to believe that "criticism of Israel is not antisemitic," after people have spent more than a year and a half actively, LOUDLY confusing Israelis with Jews?

I've been told for a year and a half that Israel is "an ethnostate," by ignorant fools like you who neither know nor care that about 73% of Israel is Jewish.

Or that 20% of it is Arab - people they would absolutely call Palestinians, if they knew or cared that these people existed.

Or that a couple thousand Palestinians immigrate to Israel annually.

Or that "ethnostate" and "zios" are white supremacist terms that explicitly mean they want a country without Jews and that Jews are sinister warmongers who secretly run the world.

You guys are chugging the white supremacist bullshit. And your entire cover story for it is that Jews are the real white supremacists.

And the same ignorant fools claim that Israel is ALL "Zionists."

That "Zionism"/"Israel"/"Netanyahu" are all one genocidal hivemind.

That this imaginary hivemind is out here trying to convince Jews to confuse Israel with Jews.

That it's actually "the Zionists" who want us to hear you guys making your very rational and informed statements about Jews and think, "Oh! That's antisemitic!"

OBVIOUSLY none of you have meant Jews when you implied you meant Jews.

DEFINITELY none of your bullshit is blatantly antisemitic.

You'd KNOW if it were. Because you've definitely put in the work to identify what antisemitic garbage you've internalized, and uproot it!

Wait. Are we supposed to believe you don't hate Jews? Maybe we're supposed to believe your hatred for Jews is justified.

You came right out and said "your people," to Jews, who were talking about your people demonizing and killing Jews again.

Every fucking bit of groundless leftist ideology about this issue has been designed to provide an excuse for you to kill Jews.

Genuinely, fuck every single goyish leftist who either believes this shit, or is too scared of the violent tankie Nazis among you to say anything. All of you SUCK.

I have been an out, gender non-conforming, queer, trans person, for 28 years.

Experiencing the hatred and exclusion and suspicion against trans people, against bi people, against aro and ace people, has been a series of horrible and traumatizing experiences.

But ABSOLUTELY NONE OF THEM have come CLOSE to watching the left go FUCKING BALLS-OUT NAZI.

I can tell you which local coffeeshop isn't safe for me to go into with my star of David on, because they'll tell me it's a hate symbol and call the cops.

I have a plate in the backseat of my car that belongs to someone I was friends with for 23 years. Who saved my life. Whose life I've saved.

It's been there since before she dumped me for posting to Facebook too much about antisemitism and about anti-Hamas protests in Gaza.

These 15+ posts, over the course of six or seven months, were apparently "a vile endless steaming heap of Zionist dreck" that made her feel like she was "being dragged backwards through broken glass."

I've watched the violence against Jews pile up higher and higher.

I can list synagogues that were firebombed around the world. I can tell you about months of arson against synagogues and Jewish schools in Canada. I can list people who had their star of David necklaces or yarmulkes ripped off. I can tell you about both the French girl and the French woman who were gang-raped to "free Palestine."

I can tell you about a year and a half of useless protests on campuses and in front of synagogues that do fuck-all for Gazans. Not so much as a small donation to humanitarian aid. Nothing.

I can tell you about a year and a half of a """"pro-Palestinian""""" movement openly stanning Hamas, and actively helping it silence the actual Gazan activists it's literally tortured and killed for years.

And now I can tell you about your asses firebombing and killing Jews in the US. You shitty fucking garbage-weasels.

I can't tell you about any queer or trans organizations that have been firebombed in the past 40+ years. I can tell you about one club shooting.

I can't tell you about any gang rapes designed to make a statement against, say, "schools transing our kids."

I can't point to a coffeeshop that would kick me out or call the cops on me for Ordering While Visibly Trans.

Has it been terrifying to travel while trans? Sure.

Have people fucked with me at the Canadian border? Yes.

Has it been terrifying at times to just exist while trans? Yeah.

Have people in my life had shitty abusive reactions to me coming out as trans? Once or twice.

Was I also absolutely fucking shocked by how much worse my personal experience of antisemitism was?

Yes, and it keeps fucking getting worse.

It has been abundantly clear to me that the pro-Palestine movement's antisemitism, anti-Israelis-as-people sentiment, glorification of violence, and all the other components of the shit stew that I'm currently too angry to articulate, were going to lead to extreme violence, including against Jews in diaspora. I have been telling y'all for over a year and a half to collect your fucking people and you will not do it. I have been trying to educate gently and with nuance and provide a voice that is neither "there's no antisemitism in the movement" nor "antizionism is antisemitism." And yet somehow for either the message does not get through or frankly many of you just do not give a shit. Setting Jews in Colorado on fire will not free Palestine and frankly you are really stupid if you think it will, and also you and I are different because as a general principle I think setting people on fire is bad and you don't.

Anyway I could not be more fucking over it. Your movement is cooked as hell and is also not in any sense "leftist" or "radical." It's actually reactionary as fuck. At this point if you continue to refuse to speak up in your activist spaces and collect your people I will no longer be assuming you just need some gentle education, I will assume that it is intentional and you either agree with the bullshit or are prioritizing your personal social standing.

[atlabeth]

everything happens for a reason part 11 - zuko x fem!reader

Memories, where'd you go?

part 10 | masterlist | part 12

a/n: alternative name for this fic: y/n gets a crush on every pretty girl she meets. yue, katara, and now suki. she can't help it (and she questions why they're all connected to sokka in some way lmaoo)

anyways, this is kind of filler but it establishes some more with relationships and finallyyy gets us into ba sing se at the end. i know it's a lil annoying because there's a lot of episode-to-text writing, but i promise it'll get more freeform as it goes on

also i know that i just posted something yesterday but i have literally zero patience. like i cant hold chapters i have to post them as soon as i write them loll

wc: 5.3k

warning(s): some feels over zuko as per usual, but overall a pretty tame chapter

chapter title comes from memories by panic! at the disco!

Zuko could barely sleep anymore.

He didn’t know when his life became so complicated, but he wasn’t a fan of it.

Back when it was just him, his crew, and the open sea — it was simple. He had a job, a straightforward mission. Find the Avatar, capture him, return home to the Fire Nation and regain his honor.

Now, the waters were more muddied than ever. Now on the run from the Fire Nation just like the boy he was chasing, all he really felt nowadays was anger.

Angry at the world for setting him on this path, angry at the Avatar for refusing to see what was necessary, his sister and her friends for turning against him, angry at the waterbender for making things so damn hard.

He didn’t want to hurt her. A part of him wished that she had never come back into his life, if it meant he wouldn’t have to constantly be fighting against her. He hated himself for the thought, but maybe it would have been easier for her to remain a memory of a lover than his active enemy.

Late at night, when he was reaching fruitlessly for sleep that would never come, he saw her face. The carefree energy from their childhood morphed into the shock and disappointment from both the North and their fight with Azula, and…

It made him wonder what in Agni had happened to them.

He—

He didn’t know. The way he felt about her, it was different than anything he had experienced before. Zuko didn’t know what it was, but he understood that it was special. And now… it felt like he had just thrown it all away.

Zuko couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened with her in that town — what he had done to her.

He had burned her to try and get to the Avatar, and he hadn’t even allowed a glance back at the damage he had done. He had heard her cry out in pain, pain he had caused, and he didn’t even look back.

What had happened to them? What had happened to him?

He kept telling himself that the mission was the only thing that mattered. And it was, wasn’t it? Capture the Avatar, regain his honor, get his old life back and finally be enough for his father. He didn’t have time for friends, or for these feelings he had, or— or for anything but capturing the Avatar. Because the Avatar was the key to everything, to his honor, and that was all that mattered.

But now…

Now, he didn’t know what he was supposed to do. He didn’t know what was right, or what was wrong, or what path was the one he had to take.

Zuko just wished things could be like they used to be.

~~~~~~~~~~

She didn’t really know when everything had become a mess again.

It all started out fine, like it usually did. Toph had become fully integrated into the group, any past squabbles put to rest in the name of a stronger friendship emerging between all five of them. Katara continued to work on Aang’s waterbending (oftentimes Y/N joining them in their sessions) while Toph slowly but steadily beat earthbending into him — literally.

They had all been working hard for so long that, by decree of Aang, it was ‘vacation time’. They would all get to pick out places they wanted to spend as a break, and after it was over they would get back to work.

Aang had chosen some sort of field with musical groundhogs, and Y/N had opted to revisit an Earth Kingdom village that she had passed through on her journey to the North. Sokka had complained the whole time about how they were ‘wasting valuable planning time’, but had finally conceded after the promise of ‘all the planning his heart could desire’ from Katara after their mini-vacations were over.

Y/N was actually feeling somewhat relaxed for once, but she had forgotten the golden rule — never let your guard down. Everytime she let her guard down, something bad happened without fail. So it shouldn’t have been any surprise with what happened in the desert.

Because after one trip to the Misty Palms Oasis and a journey into the desert with a professor to a long lost library, Appa had been taken by desert raiders.

It was… less than favourable. During their escape from the library, Professor Zei had insisted on staying behind, and now the five of them were stuck in the middle of the desert with no way out and zero guidance. Add some brewing tensions between Aang and Toph because of her being there when Appa was taken, and they had a recipe for a huge disaster.

And a disaster they had. Multiple disasters, actually.

There was only so much she and Katara could do to hold the group together, but by some miracle, they made it out of the desert with only one Avatar State mishap.

(And an incident with cactus juice, but… she didn’t really want to talk about that.)

....at least they had the information about the Eclipse. That was about the only thing keeping her together at the moment.

They had to get the information to the Earth King so they could formulate an attack with his warriors, but without Appa, they had to resort to more traditional methods of travel. Add in one passport problem, and that was how Y/N found herself braving the Serpent’s Pass alongside a refugee family with a baby on the way.

It was… intimidating, to say the least. Despite being surrounded by her element, Y/N didn’t feel any safer from the challenge that faced them. She took a deep breath, trying to tamp down on her fear the way her mother had taught her, as she followed the group, but her thoughts were soon interrupted.

“Hey.” She turned to see who the voice belonged to and was greeted by the girl that had teased Sokka early — Suki, if she remembered correctly. “I haven’t seen you around; are you with the Avatar or that family?”

“I’m with Aang,” Y/N explained. “I’m from the North, and they offered me a spot with them after they helped us defend our tribe against the Fire Nation. I’ve been with them ever since.” Suki nodded as they settled into a comfortable stride.

“That’s cool. Are you a waterbender?”

She gestured to her waterskin and smiled. “Yeah. I’ve been training with Aang and Katara ever since I left.” Y/N then turned her gaze back to Suki, raising an inquisitive brow. “Your makeup — what’s it for? I heard you talking about the Kyoshi Warriors back there; is that some kind of thing with Avatar Kyoshi?”

Suki grinned, her every expression heightened by the sharp reds and blacks above her eyes. “We’re a group of all-female warriors that use the teachings of Avatar Kyoshi and her partner Rangi to defend our home and the place she founded, Kyoshi Island. I’m the leader of our village section.”

“Wow,” she murmured, her eyes falling to the ground for a moment before finding their way back up to the warrior. “That’s really cool. You’re really cool.”

She laughed and shrugged. “Thanks. I’ve been training as a warrior for almost my whole life, so it just comes naturally. I like being able to protect people, and there’s no better way to pay back my home for all it’s done for me like protecting the whole village.”

“Wow,” she repeated with a small laugh of her own. “That’s really brave. I gotta say, I’m kinda jealous — I would love to see what would happen if Master Pakku met you all. Katara literally had to beat the sexism out of him in order to train to be a master.”

Suki chuckled. “Sounds like what I had to do with Sokka. Guess it’s a thing with Water Tribe guys, huh?”

At the mention of Sokka, she internally laughed. There had to be some kind of connection between the two of them, the way their interests kept aligning. “Sokka… he’s had it hard. I can’t blame him that much for any kind of attitude he had before he met you. Pakku, on the other hand? He had to have had something better to do than fight teenage girls.”

“You would think so, right?” Suki agreed. “And Sokka… I know. He’s got a heart of gold underneath all that, he just needed a little push to get it out.” As Y/N glanced over at the girl, noticing a slight pink tint under the white makeup, she gasped.

“La’s fins, are you two a thing?” she exclaimed with a grin.

Suki flushed even harder as she suddenly became very interested in the ocean around her, but she couldn’t help the smile on her lips. “No! I mean— yes— but… but—” she stopped to gather her thoughts before making eye contact again with a sheepish smile. “We’re not… really a thing, but… I do like him a lot. I didn’t really think I was going to see him again after they left the island, so this is really nice.”

“Then what are you waiting for?” Y/N asked. “I can already tell that he cares about you — have you seen how careful he’s being with you?”

“Well—” Whatever kind of excuse Suki would’ve made up was interrupted by a rock falling out just under Than, one of the refugees they were with, saved in the nick of time with Toph’s earthbending.

“I’m okay!” he reassured, but no sooner had the words left his mouth before the Fire Nation ship in the distance started firing.

“They’ve spotted us!” Sokka yelled. “Let’s go, let’s go!”

Aang flicked his glider open and deflected the blast, and Katara grabbed Y/N’s hand as they all began to run. Another blast rocked the mountain, causing several boulders to fall just above Suki. Y/N didn’t even have time to shout out a warning before Sokka tackled her out of the way, but it was ultimately more of Toph’s quick earthbending that saved him.

“Suki, are you okay?” Sokka brushed dust and pebbles off of her uniform as he examined her, and once he was satisfied he grabbed her hand and helped her up. “You have to be more careful! Come on!”

As the two of them caught up to Y/N and Katara, she gave Suki a knowing look. The warrior only blushed once again and glanced away.

After hours of navigating the pass, they were only about halfway through. Sokka made the executive decision to set up camp for the night to give everyone time to rest, and then they would get up at the crack of dawn to finish their trip. It only took a few minutes for Y/N to get a fire going, and soon everyone had settled in with their sleeping bags. Sokka got up from his spot as Suki wandered closer to the edge, and Katara nudged Y/N with her shoulder.

“Hey. How are your hands doing?”

“They’re fine,” she answered with a small smile, flipping her hands over as proof. Where there were once red burn scars on her palms only tiny white marks remained — one benefit to healing via waterbending was that most injuries were able to fade away completely after enough sessions. Her burns weren’t very serious and she was able to heal them almost immediately, so both her and Katara were sure that the marks would be completely gone soon.

The mental scars wouldn’t fade as easily.

“That’s good. And you’re taking care of them, right? Like, you’re not beating up people while we’re not looking?”

Y/N grinned. “No. I think I’ll leave that to Toph.”

Katara chuckled and nodded, turning her hands over in a final examination before nodding. “Good,” she repeated. The silence between them, although comfortable, stretched out for a little too long before she spoke again, this time much quieter. “He did this to you.”

“Katara…”

“I know,” she said. “I know you probably don’t want to hear this from me, or really at all, but… I’m worried about you. Zuko isn’t good for you. Every time we’ve run into him, he’s hurt you. And you deserve so much more than that.”

“You don’t understand,” she countered. “You don’t know Zuko like I do. You weren’t there when I was. I know you think I’m insane for still believing in him, but I— I can’t let go of him, Katara. I know the Zuko I love is still in there somewhere, and I have to try and find it. For me and for him.”

Katara’s eyes were full of nothing but sympathy as she sighed — it was obvious she didn’t believe her words, but in true fashion she was still trying her best to be supportive.

“Okay. I don’t understand it, but… I don’t think I can change your mind.” Y/N chuckled sadly and nodded, Katara’s piercing gaze meeting her own once more. “It’s just… Why are you playing with fire when you know you’re going to get burned?”

And for once, Y/N didn’t have an answer for her friend.

~~~~~~~~~

The night went by quickly, which Y/N was thankful for. It meant that the nightmares didn’t last as long.

After a quick headcount to make sure no one had fallen off the pass overnight and an even quicker gathering of their things, they set off to finish their journey.

It went just as well as she had expected — a giant serpent, the namesake of the pass, had attacked them while crossing through an underwater section. Thankfully, she was able to aid Katara and Aang in defeating it with waterbending with no casualties

But in the wake of one disaster there was always another, and before Y/N knew it a baby had been born. She was mostly there for moral support — Katara had it all handled, and Y/N didn’t expect anything less.

But finally, they had made it across the pass, and they were so close to Ba Sing Se that she could almost smell the city air. Sadly, though, that meant it was time for them to part ways — Aang to find Appa, and Suki back to her warriors. After some sad but hopeful goodbyes with Aang, it was time to bid farewell to Suki.

“Are you sure you can’t travel a little longer with us?” Y/N questioned, apparently not above pleading to try and get the girl to stay. “You’re— you’re amazing, and we’d really love to have you with us.”

“I can’t even imagine what travelling with the Avatar would be like,” she smiled, causing Y/N to get her hopes up for just a moment before they fell back down. “But I can’t stay. I have to get back to the Kyoshi Warriors.”

Y/N sighed, her gaze falling slightly downcast. “I get that. I just really wish you could stay. Or that I could meet your warriors. You seriously don’t know how cool you are, Suki.”

“Well, if you’re ever in town on Kyoshi Island, find us. I’m sure we’ll be able to work something out and do you one better than just meeting them all,” she said with a grin. “I think it’d be pretty cool to have the first waterbending Kyoshi Warrior.”

Y/N was unable to prevent the heat rushing to her cheeks as she smiled shyly, once again averting eye contact. “That would be amazing. I’ll have to find my way back there after the war.”

Suki bumped shoulders with her, causing a startled laugh to spill from her lips. “We’d love to have you.”

“Wait, why does it sound like you’re saying goodbye to her?” Sokka questioned as he walked up to the two of them. Y/N winked at Suki and gestured at him with her head, walking off before Suki could protest to find Katara.

The conversation the two girls were sharing was an extremely thinly veiled excuse to eavesdrop on the lovebirds, and when they kissed Y/N actually had to hold back a scream.

Sokka deserved this. She knew how much he beat himself up over every little thing that went wrong, and it was about time he got to relax even for a moment. She only hoped that Suki would be in their corner of the world sooner rather than later.

What could she say? She was already fantasizing about life as a Kyoshi Warrior.

~~~~~~~~~

Although they had parted ways, they soon found themselves reunited with Aang to stop yet another Fire Nation threat.

“For the love of Kuruk,” Y/N murmured as she stared into the distance, her eyes wide at the sight of a large mechanical drill. “That was Ty Lee who just took down all those soldiers. And if she’s here, Mai and Azula are with her too. Guys, It’s one thing to stop this drill, it’s another thing to take those three down with it.”

“The question is, how do we do it?” Aang questioned.

“Why can nothing ever be easy?” Sokka lamented. His gaze remained trained on the drill for a moment before he realized theirs were on him. “Why are you all looking at me?”

“You’re the idea guy,” Aang said.

“Wait, so I’m the only one who can ever come up with a plan?” he protested. “That’s a lot of pressure!”

“And also the complaining guy,” Katara muttered, drawing a chuckle out from Y/N.

“Now that part I don’t mind,” Sokka admitted.

“Well, Sokka— you were a huge help in the North, and you figured out a way to defeat the Fire Nation during that eclipse at the library! Plus, there’s all that stuff that Katara told me you did before I joined.” She patted him on the back. “If anyone can figure out how to take that thing down, it’s you.”

He shrugged nonchalantly, his ego only slightly bolstered. “...okay. I think I can do it.”

“That’s the spirit!” she said with a smile.

Unfortunately, that smile faded as a young guard came running up to the wall. “Excuse me, Avatar and friends — I’ve heard that you’ve dealt with that… that pink girl down there before.” They nodded and he continued. “It would do us a great deal of help if you could come down and look at our injured soldiers, then.”

Y/N and Katara nodded in unison and started to follow the guard, the remaining three trailing after them. They ended up inside the wall, in what looked like an infirmary of sorts with all the cots and soldiers lying around, and the two waterbenders exchanged looks.

“You know what to do?” Katara asked.

Y/N hummed in acknowledgment, and they both knelt down next to separate cots. “This definitely looks like Ty Lee’s work,” she murmured as she bent water up from the pot and molded it over the man’s arm.

“What’s wrong with him?” the general questioned. “He doesn’t look injured.”

“His chi is blocked,” Katara explained. “Who did this to you?”

“Two girls ambushed us,” the soldier said, moving his arm as he regained feeling. “One of them hit me with a bunch of quick jabs and suddenly I couldn't earthbend anymore and I could barely move. Then she cartwheeled away.”

Katara sighed as she bent the water back into the pot. “You were right, Y/N. That was Ty Lee — she doesn’t look dangerous, but she knows the human body and its weak point. It’s like she takes you down from the inside.”

As if struck by lightning, Sokka lit up. “Oh, oh, oh! What you just said — that’s how we’re going to take down the drill; the same way Ty Lee took down all those earthbenders!”

“By hitting its pressure points!” Toph exclaimed with a grin.

The breakthrough brought a steely determination to Aang’s features as he looked out into the distance. “We’ll take it down from the inside.”

~~~~~~~~~

Like everything they did, it seemed so simple on paper. But now that she was actually inside the drill, it felt a lot more nerve wracking. Toph opted to stay outside where she could see and try to slow down the drill with the earth at her disposal, which left the four of them to somehow take it down from the inside.

Sokka led them through a hallway with a myriad of valves and pipes as he thought out loud. “I need a plan of this machine — some schematics that show what the inside looks like. Then we can find its weak points.”

“Where are we gonna get something like that?” Aang asked.

Sokka thought for a moment before he took his machete out and hacked a valve off a pipe. Y/N instinctively took a step back and shielded her face from the hot steam. “What are you doing?” she cried. “Someone’s gonna hear us!”

“That’s the point!” he exclaimed. “A machine this big needs engineers to run it, and when something breaks—”

“Someone will come down to fix it!” Katara finished with a smile at Aang, a sentiment the boy returned happily.

It was surprisingly easy to take down the engineer once he arrived — with a little bit of frozen mist on Katara’s end, they had the plans they needed. Sokka’s expertise combined with the blueprints got them to the beginning of the outer shell.

“Wow,” Sokka muttered. “It looks a lot thicker than it does in the plans. We’re gonna have to work pretty hard to cut through that.”

Katara crossed her arms. “What’s this ‘we’ stuff? The three of us are gonna have to do all the work.”

“Look, I’m the plan guy!” Sokka explained with a gesture to himself. “You three are the ‘cut up stuff with waterbending’ guys. Together, we’re Team Avatar!”

Katara and Aang looked wholly unamused while Y/N chuckled. “Team Avatar. I like it.”

“Thank you,” he smiled. “At least someone appreciates my genius.”

“Tui’s gills, why do you have to keep boosting his ego?” Katara complained. “Let’s just get this done before it gets worse.”

The three of them got in position — Katara and Aang on opposite sides so they could pass the stream of water between them, and Y/N making the point of the triangle to work on the other side on her own. They were hoping it would be more efficient being able to cut through both sides at the same time, but it was proving to be much more difficult than they had imagined — halfway through the three of them were already exhausted.

By some feat of strength they were able to completely cut through the brace, but their hard work didn’t pay off in quite the way they had imagined — when the beam only shifted a few inches she groaned.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” she breathed as she wiped sweat off of her forehead.

“At this rate,” Katara paused to inhale deeply, “we won’t do enough damage before the drill reaches the wall.”

“I don’t know how many more of those I have in me,” Aang said sadly.

A large creak suddenly rang throughout the large chamber, and they all looked up for the source.

“Did you hear that?” Sokka asked, already backing up to make an exit. “We took it down! We gotta get out of here, fast!”

Just as they reached the door on the other side, a crackle followed by the sound of a man’s voice dashed their hopes. “Congratulations, crew. The drill has made contact with the wall of Ba Sing Se. Start the countdown to victory!”

A collective silence hung in the air between them, the threat now even more imminent as their situation sunk in. Mai and Ty Lee had proven effective in taking down any Earth Kingdom threat posed at them, and despite Toph’s skill they knew she couldn’t take down something like this on their own.

They either had to figure out a way to destroy this drill, or the Fire Nation was going to make it into the city.

Sokka ran back over to the brace and pushed against it, putting all his strength into the feat but to no avail. “Come…. on! Move!”

Katara started pacing around in a small circle, crossing her arms again as she tried to think of something. “This is bad. This is really bad.”

“Sokka, that’s not going to work!” Y/N didn’t mean to snap, but the grinding of metal on metal combined with her nervousness got to her. She sighed and ran her hand over her face. “I— I’m sorry. But it’s still not going to work.”

He groaned as he leaned against the brace. “We’re putting everything we have into busting these things, but it’s taking too long!”

Suddenly, Aang jumped up from the ground with stars in his eyes. “Maybe we don’t need to cut all the way through! Toph — she’s been teaching me that you shouldn’t put a hundred percent of your energy in any one strike. Sokka, get in a fighting stance.”

Sokka complied and as Aang talked through his points, he demonstrated it on Sokka. “You've got to be quick and accurate. Hit a series of points and break your opponent's stance. And when he's reeling back, you deliver the final blow. His own weight becomes his downfall, literally.”

As Sokka fell over from the attack, Katara lit up. “So we just need to weaken the braces instead of cutting all the way through—”

“—then I can go to the top of this thing and deliver the final blow!” Aang finished.

Y/N helped Sokka up from the ground, his spirits not dampened at all. “Then boom! This whole thing goes down!”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Y/N asked, flexing her fingers to refresh them for all the bending she was going to have to do. “Aang, Katara and I can handle the braces. Focus on getting up to the top before anyone sees you.”

He nodded and they all met each other with determined eyes. “Everyone inside that wall, the whole world — they’re all counting on us.”

“Here, take this. You need this more than I do. ” Katara took her waterskin off and handed it to Aang. “Good luck. And be careful.”

Y/N noticed a slight blush on her cheeks and she had to hold back her smile. That was definitely something she was going to tease her friend about later — when they weren’t trying to stop the Fire Nation from breaking into Ba Sing Se.

“I will,” he assured. Aang slung the strap of the waterskin around his shoulder and took off, and Y/N and Katara got to work breaking through the rest of the braces.

With the knowledge that they only had to cut through half of each column and the revitalization that came from having a plan, their work went by much quicker. Just when they finished the final brace, it all went wrong.

“Good work, Team Avatar!” Sokka cheered. “Now we— Y/N, duck!”

She didn’t question Sokka as she immediately dropped to the ground, something she was immensely thankful for as a blast of blue fire seared past her. Her eyes snapped up to the source of the attack and narrowed in recognition.

“Of course they’re here,” she growled as she pulled herself back up. “We gotta go, now!”

Katara and Sokka nodded and they all started running. Bringing up the rear, Y/N was able to hear Azula’s words right before they split off into an intersection:

“Follow them! I’m going to find the Avatar.”

Sure enough, when she allowed a glance back, Mai and Ty Lee were closing in on them. She flicked open the cap of her waterskin and bent some out, managing to freeze it at just the right moment to block the incoming daggers from Mai. Still running, she melted it quickly and let it fall to the ground before freezing it again, creating some ice on the ground that would hopefully give them a few more seconds of leeway.

“That should give us some time!” she yelled as they turned a corner, finally turning her attention back to the path in front of them. “Any idea how we’re gonna get out of this thing?”

“Maybe!” Sokka yelled back, slowing to a stop as they came to a dead end, a large hatch the only thing at their disposal. He started tugging on the wheel in an attempt to open it, and when Y/N joined in they were able to wrench it open.

“Slurry pipeline?” Katara frowned as she read the sign on the wall and looked at Sokka. “What does that mean?”

“It’s rock and water mixed together,” he explained as they looked into the rushing liquid underneath the hatch. “It means it’s our way out!”

Katara nodded and climbed in, Sokka following close after. The sound of metal footsteps got closer and closer, and Y/N ducked inside just as Mai’s knives clanked against the hatch. Never before had she been so happy to be floating in a stream of slurry.

The rest of their mission went by surprisingly easy — at least, on their end. All it took was some waterbending — earthbending, when Toph joined them — and encouragement from Sokka (though unappreciated by Katara). Whatever magic Aang was working at the top of the drill had done its job, because soon enough the drill had collapsed in on itself.

And now, they had reunited on the top of the wall overlooking the sunset. After the chaos that had been their day, it was nice to just relax for even a moment. And there was no better way to do so than with her friends.

“I just want to say, good effort out there, Team Avatar!” Sokka exclaimed as he threw an arm around Y/N’s shoulder.

“Enough with the ‘Team Avatar’ stuff,” Katara said dryly. “No matter how many times you say it, it’s not going to catch on.”

“I like it, Sokka,” Y/N smiled. “I’ve liked it this whole time.”

“You always appreciate my genius, Y/N,” he mused. “That’s why I appreciate you.” She laughed and leaned her head against his shoulder as he continued to list off names.

“How about… the Boomeraang squad! Eh? See, it’s good because it’s boomerang, and it has Aang in it—”

“Yeah Sokka,” Toph interrupted. “We got it.”

Aang grinned and scratched his head. “I kinda like that one.”

“The Aang Gang. Ooh, the Fearsome Fivesome!”

“You’re crazy,” Toph muttered as she walked away.

“Wait, Sokka—” Y/N pulled away from him and held up her pointer finger. “Aang Gang — what if we combine it, so it’s just the Gaang? But still with Aang’s name?”

And at that moment, Sokka looked more proud than ever. “Oh, you— you are a genius.”

“Oh, spirits,” Katara groaned. “Why do you insist on encouraging him?”

“You’re just jealous of our name-making abilities,” Sokka said haughtily.

She rolled her eyes but couldn’t stop herself from laughing. “You two are completely ridiculous, you know that? Let’s just get into the city before the trains stop running.”

Y/N and Sokka winked at each other as they all started walking, unable to keep the smile off of her face. She always thought it was amazing — they went through insane things every day, but at the end of it all she was always able to smile because of them. And as her gaze drifted towards the city in the distance, she hoped it would hold true.

She had no idea what Ba Sing Se had in store for her.

-

shit is gonna happen next chapter so i hope you all are READY bc im not

perm tags: @dv0412 @siriuslyslyslytherin @maruchan77

atla tags: @marianne1806 @brown-eyed-thang @akiris

ehfar tags: @chandies-sideblog @zacatecanaaaa @anzanity @randomthingssss @escapingthoughtsandsecrets @shanksfav @shephard17895 @ilovespideyyy @carisi-sonny @selfship-mishaps @i-belong-in-fandoms @ilistentotayswifttocope @i-make-questionable-choices @3leni

[oitommothetease]

Invisible String (11/?)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female reader (Modern AU)

Word Count: 2.3k words

Warning : fluff, angst, shitty Steve, Don’t ask me why I make Steve so unlikable in every thing  I write( PS I’m still mad at endgame Steve), mention of sex

If someone had told you that you would wake up snuggled to your boss — naked — you would have told them to fuck off and leave you alone. Not that the idea of James in your bed was repulsive, no, it was actually quite the opposite. You wanted him so much that it scared you because he — well, he was so gorgeous, and you were you. And he even looked better lying in your bed while the sunlight peaked onto his face from the window, making his stubble and hair appear golden-ish. Even as hard his exterior was, everything about him, mostly sleeping in your bed, appeared soft. 

“You know, watching people while they sleep is kinda creepy,” James said, his voice gruff from sleep and you felt heat rushing through your body. God, his morning voice was so hot. It took a second for your brain to register his words and when it did, you moved your gaze away from him.

“You’re beautiful,” you blurted out. You could feel him rumbling as he rubbed his still sleep-dazed eyes.

He gently lifted his hand to place it on your face, caressing your cheek softly with his knuckles as he said, “You are beautiful."

You jokingly rolled your eyes and shifted your face slightly to plant a kiss on the inside of his palm. “Don’t you have a club to run?” 

“The club can wait,” Bucky’s hand trailed off from your face to your waist and he flipped you, situating you on his lap and kissed you lazily while his hands roamed around your body. 

***

Bucky felt like he was dreaming, he felt as if any moment you’ll slip out of his grasp and he would have to wake up. This was too good to be true, you were too good to be true. After an incredible morning, which included him pounding into you in your bed and then on the kitchen worktop and then in the shower. He couldn’t keep his hands to himself, he needed to touch you — feel you — make sure you were here with him safe. 

It wasn’t just sex, it was so intimate that it felt so much more. The time when he wasn’t buried inside you, you’d talk about everything. He told you that when he was a kid, he loved baking. His mom worked, so he spent most of his time helping his sister with her new hobby. Rebecca soon grew out of it, but Bucky didn’t. He told you he’d love to open a bakery in a foreign country.

“You know, we can go to Europe,” you suggested. “You can open a bakery and maybe some chocolate whiff is all I need to break out from my writing slump.”

Bucky’s heart ached at your confession, he was delighted to know that he wasn’t the only one that was fantasizing about a future with you. He had never told his ambitions to anyone, mainly because when he did tell someone, they laughed at him. His career and exterior did not match his dreams, and soon those dreams died. But you made him desire that peaceful life. He wanted peace and tranquility in his life with you. Maybe tomorrow he would wake up and realize that this was some dream, and he was alone in his apartment and not in your bed. 

“Have you thought of a name yet?” you asked, “For the bakery.”

“Did you recall that song you were humming?”

 “No,” you said, “But I’m sure it will make a great bakery name.”

You curled up into his chest, you were almost asleep. He kissed the top of your head, refusing to succumb to sleep, holding you tightly so that even if this was an elaborate fantasy that his mind had conjured, he was adamant to still make the most of it.

***

After leaving your house to get ready for work, that's when he finally realized that this was real. You were his, and he was yours in a sense that no amount of words could comprehend. You hadn’t put any official labels on your relationship, but the way you moaned his name and breathlessly whispered, “I’m yours. All yours.” multiple times in his ears was enough.

Bucky hated when people called him James, it reminded him of his father, but the way you said his name with adoration filled in your eyes and tone made him content. You made him feel content and happy with everything you did without even realizing it. Bucky hoped he could do the same for you — make you feel at peace.

“I’ve been calling you since morning,” Steve commented the moment Bucky entered his office. He eyed the group of people — Steve, Sam, Clint, Pietro, Wanda, and Peter in his office before exhaling. Although Bucky was their boss, that didn't deter them from treating him like the friend he was. He didn’t mind that either, these people gave him a sense of belonging — a family, and he would give his life for them just like they would for him.

“I was asleep,” Bucky lied. And of course, his friends didn’t buy it.

“I came by your place this morning. You weren't there sleeping,” Steve retorted. He didn’t like how his best friend who he saw as a brother was hiding things from him. 

Fuck, Bucky thought. Admittedly, he wasn't at his place, he was at yours. He didn’t know what to say when six sets of eyes were looking at him expectantly. He couldn’t tell the truth, he wasn't a kiss-and-tell kind of guy. He wanted to avoid telling because you met these people every day, and it would become awkward for you; but mostly he didn’t want anyone to find out because it was so new for him that he was scared to even mention your relationship, terrified of jinxing it. 

Just when he was about to muster up an excuse, a soft knock on his office door snapped everyone’s attention towards the entrance. Bucky’s relief was short-lived the moment he realized it couldn’t be anyone except you. Now everyone was looking at Bucky impatiently, waiting for him to respond. 

If it were anyone else Bucky would have asked them to go away, but it was you. You were knocking at his door. He wanted to see you, see the marks hidden behind the concealer or collar when he sucked your neck a little too hard the previous night and this morning. Mainly, he wanted to see you.

“Come in,” He said, ignoring the stares his friends were giving him. His breath hitched at your sight, you were really breathtaking. You weren't looking at him or anyone in the room. No, you were holding two coffees and a bag of donuts in your hand. Your eyes were focused and you were looking inside the bag, searching for a dish to put his donut in, when you said, “I knew you'd skip breakfast after you left this morning. I brought you -” 

“Y/N,” Wanda cut you off.

Bucky internally thanked Wanda because he didn’t have it in him to stop you from speaking.  And that’s when you finally looked up and were met with seven people staring at you. Sam, Wanda, and Pietro were looking at you with a smirk on their face. Peter looked down at his feet. Clint was clueless and confused. Steve wasn’t looking at you, he was staring at his best pal who lied to him about his whereabouts. And Bucky’s eyes were fixed on you and when yours landed on his, he smiled at you and shook his head, telling you that he got you.

“What are you doing here, Y/N? Your shift doesn’t start till night,” Pietro informed, he was clearly teasing you. And soon a sense of understanding came to Clint’s senses when he joined the dots and his eyes widened before a smirk formed on his lips.

“I… I,” you stuttered. Your brain couldn't come up with an excuse this quickly. Bucky opened his mouth to say something, but you raised your hands and the packet of donuts with it and excitedly said, “I brought doughnuts!”

“Thank you!” Bucky exclaimed, swiftly walking towards you, taking the donuts from your hand, and placing it on the table. He draped his arm around your waist before leading you outside his office. His friends knew now, he wasn’t going to tone down the PDA in front of them. He just didn't want you to feel awkward or under anyone's subjection.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” you started once you were away from everyone. “I wouldn’t have if I knew -”

Bucky’s lips landed on yours, stopping your rambling. His arms snaked around your waist, pushing you flush against his chest, and you wrapped your hands around his neck. “It wasn’t your fault,” he mumbled adjacent to your lips and you sighed in relief.

“I just wanted to bring you breakfast since we couldn’t have it,” you pouted, flusteredly thinking about the morning activities that stopped you from having breakfast.

Bucky beamed down at you and planted another soft kiss on your lips. “How about I make it up to you at lunch,” he suggested, “I'll bake something for you too.”

You nodded excitedly and were about to leave when Bucky gently took your wrist in his hand. “Doll, text me when you reach home, yeah?”

***

Bucky dreaded going back into his office, he knew he would be bombarded with questions and knowing smirks. He decided to rip off the band and entered the office. “Okay, go for it, ask away.”

“How long has this been going on?” Steve was the first one to question.

“I mean, officially since last night.”

Sam was about to drop a snarky comment when Pietro chimed in. “Who asked who out?” 

“I asked her out,” Bucky answered, and was bewildered. “Why is that important?” 

“I knew it!” Wanda cheered and raised her hand, palms up, towards the blond. “Pay up,” Pietro grumbled before handling her sister 20 dollars.

“You guys bet on us?” Bucky asked and was met with amused snickers from everyone except Steve. Peter stepped forwards before saying, “I had no part in this, Mr. Barnes.”

The twins rolled their eyes before Steve interjected another one of Sam’s almost snippy comments. “She is the reason you attacked Rumlow, isn't she?”

Sam raised his hands in frustration and turned towards his husband. “Come on, babe. You just had to ruin the fun.”

Bucky exhaled and answered honestly, “Yes, but I can’t tell you why. You just have to take my word for it and trust me that he deserved it.”

“Buck, I’m not saying I don’t trust you, but you have to understand where my fear is coming from,” Steve said, “I know Rumlow and I know he's planning something big. We have to be careful. You can't be distracted by this girl, pal.”

Bucky was furious. He did not expect his best bud to say that. Steve knew how much Bucky pinned for you, he knew how much Bucky wanted you. How could he just say that about you after knowing all of this? “That’s rich coming from you after you told me to be happy.”

Bucky huffed in disbelief, his voice filled with venom. “Well, guess what, pal? She makes me happy.”

Nobody dared to intervene between the childhood friends. Everyone knew that Steve was saying stupid shit out of concern, but Bucky couldn’t see it. Bucky would fight anyone for you, even his best pal.

“You attacked our enemy because of this girl that you’ve been with since what — a day?” Steve scoffed sarcastically, and Bucky’s breath was drawn and his fists balled.

“I attacked him because he-” Bucky cursed himself and inhaled sharply. He couldn’t do this to you, it wasn't his decision to tell. You had decided that nobody would find out about what Rumlow did to you, not even cops, and Bucky respected your decision. He wouldn’t do this to you, especially not out of anger and in front of multiple people you didn't even know.

Before Steve could say something, Bucky’s phone vibrated on the table. A text, Bucky assumed it was you, informing him that you had reached home. You — thinking about you made him take a breath and calmed him a bit. He decided he would text you in the privacy of his office, after his friends would leave. He would text you back or better call you when he wasn’t fuming with rage at his best friend, then he would take you out on a lunch date. 

Bucky was about to reach for his phone when Clint finally spoke up, “Steve, we will be careful, okay? We will contact our sources and find out about Rumlow’s plan.”

All the heads present in the office accepted this decision. Sam scolded Steve and Bucky and made them hug out their issues like kindergarteners. Peter offered to make a drink and everyone made their way downstairs towards the bar, leaving the office and Bucky’s phone unattended.

What Bucky didn’t know was that Rumlow’s plan was already in action, in reality, he had even succeeded in his plan.

If Bucky had checked his phone, then he would have realized it wasn't a text from you, instead, it was a text from an unknown number with an attached photo. The picture was of you tied to a chair, your eyes half-lidded with drugs and tears, and a bruise forming on your left cheek.

TAGS :  @bananapipedreams @akkinda10 @rivers-rambles21​ @emmabarnes @valsworldofcreativity @boofy1998 @marvel-3407 @mybuck @priii @coffeebooksandfandom @ladydmalfoy @shaking-a-jar-of-bees @elizamalfoyy

[heauxplesslydevoted]

Everybody Talks (Ethan x MC)

Summary: At a conference hosted by the American Medical Association, Ethan stumbles upon an unpleasant conversation about his girlfriend.

Warnings: None

~v~

Ethan watches as his girlfriend owns the room. At the American Medical Association conference in their own city of Boston, in the large ballroom of The Ritz Carlton, he quietly observes from the corner as she excitedly chats with a Dr. Catherine Stanley, a renowned surgeon from Columbia, while everyone within an arm's reach of her is drawn in by the sheer magnetism of her presence. He’ll never get tired of watching her like this. Naomi is completely in her element. Whenever she’s in a deep conversation about medicine, her posture loosens, her nose crinkles, and her voice takes on a pitchy breathiness the more and more excited she gets.

So caught up in thinking about her, Ethan doesn’t even notice that she’s walking up to him until she’s within a few feet. She smiles brightly as she leans against the bar. “You’re not mingling.”

“You’ve known me for over three years now. I’m not one to mingle.”

“Come on, there has to be someone here you want to talk to.”

“You.”

Naomi rolls her eyes. “Mhm-hmm, you’re so charming, Dr. Ramsey.”

“I’m being very serious. Why wouldn’t I want to talk to the keynote speaker?”

When Naomi found out they wanted her to speak at the conference, she was almost certain they meant to speak to Ethan and that she accidentally answered a phone call meant for him. But they in fact wanted her, the newest and youngest head of the diagnostics team. Her meteoric rise up the ranks of Edenbrook had made quite the splash in the medical community, where everyone knew everyone. Whether she realized it or not, Naomi had become a wunderkind and everyone wanted a piece of her.

And while she was nervous, Ethan couldn’t be more proud of her. Naomi is brilliant, and it’s about time more people were rewarded with being in her presence long enough to see it.

Naomi groans and runs a hand along her midsection. “Don’t remind me that I’m giving a speech soon, my stomach is already in knots.”

Ethan holds up his tumbler of whiskey, angling the glass towards her. “Want some liquid courage?”

“No, eating or drinking might make it worse. I won’t feel better until I’m on the other side of it.”

“In the three years I’ve known you, I’ve never seen a shy bone in your body. Where are the nerves coming from?”

“I’ve never done something like this,” Naomi responds. “I’ve never given a speech in front of hundreds of people–maybe even more, this place is packed. Public Speaking is the only class I ever got a B in in college.”

Ethan gasps teasingly. “The horror.” He chuckles softly as Naomi pokes him in the rib. Moving closer, Ethan clasps a warm hand around Naomi’s shoulder, massaging gently. “You’re going to do just fine. Better than fine, even, you’re going to be amazing. You’re smart, charming, funny, and eloquent, and the directors knew what they were doing when they chose you to speak. And besides, nearly all of Edenbrook is here to support you. Lahela might’ve even snuck in a camcorder.”

It's a slight exaggeration, but a lot of physicians practicing at Edenbrook belong to the prestigious association, and did not want to miss the chance to see one of their own speak.

“Ugh don’t remind me. It’s easier speaking to a crowd of nameless, faceless people. What if I forget my speech? What if my accent becomes super obnoxious and no one can understand me? What if I trip on stage?”

“You could always picture everyone naked, I’ve been told that it helps.”

Naomi blanches at the suggestion. “No, I don’t want to picture all of these people naked.”

“Good, because that was a trick suggestion,” Ethan murmurs. He rests his forehead against Naomi’s, his lips hovering mere centimeters from hers. “The only person you should ever be visualizing sans clothing is me.”

“Lucky for me, I get to do a lot more than just visualize.”

The happy couple share a kiss before Ethan nuzzles his face into the crook of his girlfriend’s neck, whispering quiet words of encouragement and affirmation.

On the other side of the bar, a group of women watch the jarring public display of affection play out. Ethan Ramsey was notorious for hating medical conferences, never engaging or interacting with people. He was also known for being perpetually single, so to see him so open with another person felt like foreign.

“I still can’t believe the two of them are together,” Dr. Nicole Harrington whispers to her group of friends as they gawk at the pair. While she works in New York, it’s hard to not be aware of the story behind Dr. Ethan Ramsey and his young protege Dr. Valentine, especially since she’s in touch with so many Boston-based doctors. “I can’t believe Ramsey is so open with her.”

“I think they’re cute,” Nicole’s friend, Monica coos. “I’m a hopeless romantic.”

The third member of the party, Greta stays silent. She’s one of the two people within their group with actual ties to Edenbrook, her husband having been attending there for almost 8 years now. Her husband Ashland keeps her up to date on all the ins-and-outs of hospital gossip, and she knows all about Ethan’s messy entanglement with his former resident.

“He wasn’t even like this when he dated Harper Emery,” their last friend Angelica whispers. As a neurologist herself, she’s worked alongside both Ethan and Harper for a long time, and while the hospital knew of their relationship, if you weren’t looking for the extremely subtle signs, you’d never know they used to be together. For years, at that. But for some reason, Ethan can’t seem to go 5 seconds without being near Dr. Valentine. Within the walls of Edenbrook, it's becoming harder and harder to see one without the other. “And she’s Harper freaking Emery for Christ’s sake.”

The conversation pauses as someone on stage taps the mic, gathering everyone’s attention. Out of the corner of her eye, Greta watches as Ethan plants another kiss on his lover’s forehead and she disappears in the crowd before she’s introduced as the evening’s guest speaker.

Ethan doesn’t know why his girlfriend was ever so nervous because as soon as she accepts the microphone and starts to speak, he’s transfixed.

His tunnel vision is split when he hears an aggressive whisper from a few feet away. Frowning, he turns around, fully prepared to demand that whoever has the gall to interrupt Naomi’s speech should shut the hell up, but he stops when he realizes that they’re talking about her.

“She’s been a member of the AMA for what, 3 seconds and she’s already giving speeches? Are we in the freaking Twilight Zone?”

“I guess it pays to keep Ethan Ramsey’s bed warm.”

Greta scoffs, finally acknowledging the conversation. “Ashland tells me everything about the two of them, and it’s all so messy. She’s been leading him around like she’s dangling an apple in front of a horse since she got to Edenbrook. He gave her preferential treatment her intern year, and miraculously she gets the coveted fellowship on the Dr. Banerji’s team. He gets promoted, and surprise, surprise, he gives her the team, wrapped up in a neat little bow. Never mind the fact that she should be nowhere near leading a team, she killed a patient her intern year. So for him to be...parading that young girl around is tawdry and disrespectful to the hospital.”

If this was a cartoon, Ethan is almost positive his face would be very red and steam would be wafting out of his ears because that’s how angry he is. The audacity of these women to stand a mere 8 feet away from him and trash talk the woman he loves is disrespectful on so many levels.

Obnoxiously, he clears his throat, garnering their attention. The only one with the decency to look slightly embarrassed is Monica, as Ethan catches her cheeks flushing under his harsh attention.

Angelica stands up straighter, “Chief Ramsey, we were just–”

“Participating in a misogynistic diatribe against a fellow doctor,” Ethan finishes. “Question, did any of you graduate at the top of your classes from a top 10 ranked medical school?” No one dares respond. “Out of the 4 of you, did you guys save Naveen Banerji’s life while he was dying of sepsis? Have you spent your after hours holed up in the NICU with your patient’s newborn baby? Any of you face a near death experience and come back to the scene of the crime in order to help more people?”

Ethan’s eyes narrow at Angelica and Greta in particular. “When Edenbrook nearly shut down, I don’t remember seeing your face as we worked tirelessly in the free clinic Dr. Banks, nor do I recall seeing your husband Mrs. Park. I don’t remember him lobbying to politicians or attempting to secure funds during fundraisers, but I do recall seeing him show up at parties without you to flirt with nurses.”

Greta balks at Ethan’s words, clearly not expecting him to unleash such anger. “Dr. Ramsey, I’ll have you know that my husband–”

“Is spreading vicious gossip and lies about a doctor with higher ranking than him. Dr. Valentine got her spot on the diagnostics team fair and square. She was the number 1 intern so Naveen picked her. When I left the team, she was the last tenured member at the time, with the most experience in how a team of such magnitude ran. She was the best pick for the job.”

“Over the course of her time at Edenbrook, she has more than proved that she earned her seat at the table, and to suggest anything else is an insult to her strengths and talents as a doctor, as well as my judgement. To suggest that I do not know to remain professional while I’m at work and the only reason she’s in the position that she’s in is because of our private relationship isn’t just a lie, but a dangerous and slanderous one as well. And if someone so much as ever implies it again, I will slap them with a lawsuit so fast their head will spin, and the closest they’ll ever get to practicing medicine again is slapping Band-Aids on kindergarteners.”

The group of women receive a threat loud and clear And they remain silent not wanting to be at the receiving end of anymore of his wrath.

Ethan sighs heavily. “Well, now that this pesky conversation has come to an end, I’m going to continue to listen to Naomi’s speech. The one that she was hand selected to deliver, while the rest of you are in a position to do nothing more than watch from the crowds.”

With the catty group of women stunned into silence, Ethan smiles, his work complete. “Enjoy the rest of your evening, ladies.”

They watch as he downs the rest of his drink before sauntering off. Once he’s gone, Monica huffs out a shaky breath. “Well...I’ve always said there’s nothing more attractive than a man defending the woman he loves.”

~v~

Tags: @mvalentine @choicesaddict5 @professorkingslay @maurine07 @aka-calliope @bluebellot @whimsicallywayward15 @blossomanarchy @takemyopenheart @jamespotterthefirst @fanmantrashcan @whatchique @ao719 @x-kyne-x @colourmeshy @paulfwesley @the-pale-goddess @writinghereandthere @ramseyandrys @perriewinklenerdie @aworldoffandoms @thatcatlady0716 @drakewalker04 @canknot @hatescapsicum @lapisreviewsstuff @senseofduties @badchoicesposts @ethandaddyramseyx @chasingrobbie @zodiacsign1 @choices-lurker @my-heart-beats-for-ya @adrian-motherfucking-raines @riverrune @edith-eggs1 @thatysn @bellcat2010 @blainehellyes @cecilecontrera @junehiratas @choices-love-affair @openheart12 @caseyvalentineramsey @desmaranj @nazario-sayeed @aestheticartsx @ruinedbypixels @nooruleman @rookie-ramsey @uneravine @choicest

[lostbbygorl]

LEVI ACKERMAN AS A YOUTUBER:

✨ It was Hange's idea, not Levi's

✨ Levi hates attention usually, so when Hange suggested he start a channel that millions of people can view anytime, he wanted to smack her

✨ But then Erwin and Mike kept harping about (Mike wanted to see him do a sparkly intro)

✨ He wanted his friends to leave him alone, so he grudgingly decided to make one video

✨ It was a rant video LMFAOOO

✨ He basically exposed all his friends names and the fact that they wouldn't leave him alone until he made a video

✨ Well, everyone liked that. I'm not kidding, he's like a 30 year old Joanna Cedia man rose to fame lightning fast

✨ Even though his video kinda lacked structure, it was FULL of meme potential and Gen Z did their thang so Levi's suddenly trending

✨ Levi is the only one from the group who doesn't use social media so when Levi and Hange show him that the whole internet is simping for him his eyes widen like in that scene where Eren suddenly titan shifted

✨ He saw that his comments under the video were mostly positive and that men and women alike were complimenting his good looks and he's super confused cause our rough baby is actually super soft and insecure and he doesn't understand that it don't matter if he ain't tall and tanned and that he's scarred, he's fine asf

✨ Well that was an ego boost and Levi realized he wants to make videos

✨ Levi is shy asf so his intros are super curt and he gets straight to the point

✨ His viewers love his dry, dark humor and unfiltered behavior

✨ Wattpad authors love his deep voice, and well, so does everyone else

✨ His viewers are a literal CULT and Levi's like Corpse Husband but with a face

✨ He's still wondering what the main focus of his channel should be so for the first one month of running it, he usually takes subscriber requests

✨ Levi isn't as ~mysterious~ as he likes to think he is lol. His subscribers figured out his undercover teddy bear personality as soon as he stuttered in the second video's intro. Also, all his psychology student fans kept posting body language analyses in the comment section. His second video was basically him reacting to the memes people made

✨ After that, he started making house tour videos and working/studying productivity tip videos and just YOLO cuz his fans eat whatever up

✨ Levi DEFO has an aesthetic house and bedroom. He's too tidy and classy not to

✨ With each video, you can see the editing getting better

✨ His following keeps growing and he finally opens up a social media account he barely posts on

✨ Levi finds meme culture annoying so the memes that people send him just get eyebrows raised at

✨ Levi TRULY started loving being a youtuber when he started getting paid cuz that check was SWEET (I mean he's a capricorn guys cmon)

✨ He reacts to memes and Gen Z slang cuz he has a mostly Gen Z fanbase and now he's getting trendier much to his friends surprise

✨ He starts saying "All facts no printer" and "spill the tea" unironically. He also likes the grunge and alt aesthetic

✨ You know what else comes with being a handsome edgy older youtuber? THIRSTY FANS

✨ Levi knows what fanfiction is but he doesn't know fanfic terminology so when Hange comes over to his house one day and starts laughing hysterically at "Levi x Reader 18+ smut" he's confused

✨ When Hange and explains and shows him the smut his soul leaves his body I-

✨ He reviews his smut very seriously on his channel the next day and the SMUT AUTHORS HAVE ALL DEACTIVATED-

✨ Levi isn't extremely fond of the way he's being sexualized but he's a grown man and he's just gonna take it though he hopes it'll stop. You know what Levi does like? FANART

✨ Levi finds it impressive that his young fans can use him as a source of creativity and that he's someone's muse. He makes it a habit to like whatever fanart he comes across on social media and leave an encouraging comment

✨ The first time Levi smiled on his channel was when he saw a chibi fanart of himself

✨ Levi doesn't really wanna do collabs initially but when a younger, more experienced youtuber suggested a collab he wasn't against it surprisingly

✨ The internet BROKE when THE Sasha Blouse made a video with Levi where they made dalgona coffee

✨ Levi didn't realize how big Sasha is till he saw all the comments on social media and he considers the collab with Sasha his first celebrity encounter

✨ Sasha and Levi end up becoming an unlikely friendship duo and fans LOVE the personality contrast (I love Levi and Sasha's interactions and I love personality contrasts so stfu Levi and Sasha's friendship >>>>>)

✨ It takes Levi at least a year to realize how big his impact is. He first realizes this when a little girl recognizes him in public and tells him all starry eyed that she started cleaning her room more after watching his videos and he's internally crying

✨ Levi also makes more friends because of this platform and Sasha isn't the only one. He surprisingly became fast friends with Eren, Connie, and Jean (AKA the kings of the gaming world), and he's on better terms with his cousin Mikasa ( A well known fashion vlogger) after he opened his channel

✨ He is now the father of younger, more chaotic youtubers and he honestly loves the light it brings to his life

✨ Has he changed after fame? Well yes and no. Levi is the same hardworking, introverted, sophisticated man he was before fame, he just grew better communication skills and has a wider friend group now

✨ He doesn't think he's above anybody though he has more confidence now, and he treats his fans very politely. He's super humble and anybody who has met him praises him

✨ Youtube brought only positive changes to his life and he doesn't express it much but he's very grateful to for his subscribers and fanbase

✨ He never knew that he'd actually like being surrounded by so many bright people and that he'd actually like broadening his horizons and making new friends. He's experienced many different things like playing horror games with Eren (he didn't flinch) and mukbangs with Sasha

✨ He liked each experience in his own way though he liked some less than the others

✨ After a life of gloom and loneliness, this is a nice change for him and he's quietly but warmly welcoming it. He feels accepted and he feel like he belongs after blowing up. People love him for his weird humor, scars, and brash personality. They want more of him and he's influenced them in a good way

✨ Levi goes to bed every night tired yet happy after his actual job, his job as a youtuber, and his many fan interactions

✨ And the money too of course BUT BESIDES THE POINT-

✨ Overall, his channel is super binge worthy and 10/10 content

✨ Do subscribe

[j-amespotter]

★ august [pt. 1] - s. b.

“you weren’t mine to lose.”

Pairing: Sirius Black x Slytherin!Reader, Regulus Black x Reader (mentioned)

x. x. x.

Summary: As one of the Order of the Phoenix’s freshest recruits, love certainly was not on Sirius Black’s mind the summer after he finished school – especially not with a Slytherin, who just happened to be his brother’s girlfriend.

Genre/Warnings: angst, alcohol, language, mentions of death & war, infidelity, implied smut 

Word Count: 3.1k

A/N: august but from the guy’s pov?? i think yes. this was the first one-shot i wrote for this series so let me know what you think! lmk if you wanna be added to my taglist. p.s. i do not condone cheating!!!!!! 

masterlist

Your lips were centimeters apart. It seemed too late to change course, but he had to ask. He had never done something so reckless, which for him, was saying something. “Are you sure?”

He was scared of the answer. One look at you told him you were scared of answering. “We’ve never… I mean, I’ve never done this before,” you whispered. Your noses grazed against each other, tantalizingly close. 

His hand hovered underneath your robes. It felt large against your bare stomach. “We can stop.” 

“I don’t want to stop.” With one hand around his neck and the other on his chest, you tugged him closer. The moment your lips met erased his doubts so fully that if he stopped to think about it, it would have scared him.

Your shoes slipped off as he delicately lifted you off of your feet. Gently, he laid you down on his bed and paused to stare at how small and trusting you looked in the moment. It was only your fifth visit to his flat, yet you already looked like you belonged. He would never have expected someone from his forgotten life to fit into his current one so unquestionably. 

*One Week Earlier*

It was getting easier and easier to slip away from Regulus these days. While you were accustomed to seeing less of each other during the summer holidays, now you were more distant than ever. You knew why, of course. Being a Slytherin, you were privy to an entire host of secrets – Regulus was too. Hogwarts’ rowdiest, most divided class graduated just a month earlier, and many of your friends, if you could even call them that, had chosen a side in this war. His side. 

You knew Regulus agreed with the Dark Lord’s philosophies and marveled at his promises. However, it was not until this school year that you realized exactly how much your boyfriend worshipped the elusive man responsible for the murders of so many innocent people. He would scour the Daily Prophet for news, eager but not uneasy. He trailed after Snape, Avery, and Mulciber, and the whisperings about the three of them were hardly positive. It was rumored that all of them had been "marked." You didn’t know exactly what that meant but worried Regulus was next. 

He sensed your fear but didn’t say much to soothe you. Perhaps he thought he could convince you to join him – or, at least, stand by his side as he signed away his services. You weren’t interested. In fact, you were terrified. Though your family was prominent, prosperous, and pureblood, they never participated in what your father coined to be “blood politics.” Your indifference, which occasionally transformed into blatant disgust, over the growingly common prejudice among your peers ostracized you from your fellow Slytherins. You managed to keep your reservations to yourself for the sake of House unity but could no longer remain silent. Not when your childhood love drifted further and further away from you. 

It was slow, but of course, there was a final straw. In his last letter, Regulus wrote that his cousin Bella was teaching him how to duel “the proper way.” As someone who saw nothing substandard in your Defense Against the Dark Arts education thus far, you could only imagine what Bellatrix Lestrange would consider to be the “proper” way to duel. You had limited experience with the woman, having only caught glimpses of her as a child at Grimmauld Place and as Regulus’s date to her wedding. Nonetheless, the rumors about her were becoming increasingly hard to ignore.

So you sought the one person you thought may listen to you. Of course, there was the issue of finding him. You had no idea where he lived, though you doubted he would be thrilled to meet you, especially at his place of residence. You thought of writing to him but could not risk seeing and sending the words you had not yet uttered aloud. 

Ultimately, you decided that the best course of action was to find him in public, no matter how difficult it would be. You knew if you willed it hard enough, fate would bring him to you – and you understood the power of your love better than anyone. 

It took six days of solitary walks through Diagon Alley for you to finally find him. It wasn’t easy at all. You managed to keep your parents at bay by entrusting your safety with your pureblood Slytherin status. However, what was once the most bustling shopping center in the Wizarding World became drearier by day. More wanted posters appeared on brick walls as the number of disappearances grew. Within days, there were fewer groups of visitors for you to huddle behind without drawing suspicion. 

He was in the Leaky Cauldron with a shorter man, someone you recognized to be Peter Pettigrew. They were huddled together but deep in conversation. Actually, it seemed as though he was doing most of the talking. You found yourself staring at his muscular, tattooed arms as he gestured wildly at Pettigrew, who stared at him with wonder, excitement, and apprehension all at once. Despite the normal-looking exchange, both men gripped their wands tightly and took turns periodically glancing over their shoulders. 

Peter was too far away for you to read his lips, but checked his watch and jumped in surprise. You inched closer, hoping to find an in for your mission. Finally, you were close enough to hear his parting words. “Sorry, Padfoot... Mum’s waiting for me. You know how she gets, especially now.” 

“Alright, mate. Get home safe. I’ll see you… when I see you.” 

You were not stupid. You had no idea what that meant, but judging by Peter’s stiff nod, there was definitely a predetermined meeting time and place that they could not risk anyone overhearing. Given the circumstances, you could hardly blame them. 

Your interaction with Sirius Black was limited, but you had heard enough about him to know that he was reckless, devil-may-care, and according to his brother, inconsiderate of everyone’s feelings. Hearing the sincerity in his goodbye to his friend sounded quite the opposite, or perhaps was just a sign of the times. 

Peter scurried away and out of sight. You saw Sirius reach for a pouch in his pocket, out of which he scooped a handful of Sickles. They clattered onto the table. Before he finished counting his change, you slid into the seat across from him. 

Startled, Sirius stood and pointed his wand at you. His motions were seamless. It was as if he could kill you with a single swish. You hardly had time to wonder if you would be as skilled with your wand as he seemed to be when you finished school. “Listen, I just want to talk. Please sit down.” There weren’t too many other customers in the pub, but there was no doubt your exchange was attracting attention. 

Sirius sneered at you. “Why would I want to talk to you? Did he send you? Whatever it is, I don’t want to hear it.”

It surprised you that he knew who you were. Regulus was convinced that Sirius abandoned the Black family once and for all and did not care for his extracurricular activities. Granted, much of your scheme relied on the fact that he did. “No, he didn’t send me. I need to talk to you about him, actually. In private.”

He looked apprehensive but curious. You sighed in relief as he lowered his wand and sat down, “Whatever you have to say, you can say it here.” 

“Please,” you tried again. “I’m no threat to you.” 

He stared at you, and in his pale eyes you saw something so familiar yet so foreign. “Fine. Follow me.” 

He swiftly led you out of the pub. Although you were eager, you maintained an acceptable distance from him. The air was sticky; you could feel your flushed cheeks. You always hated summer because of the unbearable weather and because it was always the longest you would spend apart from Regulus. However, you found yourself entranced by the way Sirius’s neckline glistened. There was a warm glow radiating off of the little bits of his exposed skin, slightly tanner than his brother’s. You were surprised at how easy it was to distinguish these details. You always considered yourself to be too young for and morally above noticing Regulus’s physique. It was far too shallow to remark on a man's physical beauty and far too desperate when all you could see were his neck and arms. 

“Get your license yet?” 

You shook your head. “No, not yet.” 

“Okay,” said Sirius, extending a hand. “I’ll take you with me.” 

You were used to Side-Along Apparition, so your surprise was more at your surroundings. You landed on a street in front of a very tall building. Craning your neck to observe the one in front of you, you asked, “Where are we?” 

“London,” he answered vaguely. He had not let go of your hand. 

“I figured. But this looks like a Muggle building.” 

“Got a problem with that?” He snapped, and as if he had just realized what he was doing, he let go of your hand as if it was rotting. 

You internally groaned at how sweaty it was. “N-No. I’ve just never been around here, that’s all.” 

You waited for a snarky response, but received none. Instead, he pushed open the door of the building and led your to what you could only assume was his flat. 

“I would say make yourself at home, but don’t.” Sirius did not have guests often, and when he did, they definitely did not include his little brother’s girlfriend. Damn, he thought to himself. Wait until James hears about this. 

You were still in school – although, so was he, just a month earlier. But you were in a rival house. And worst of all, he had seen you in the same position, perched onto a sofa with inquisitive eyes, when you both were children at his parents’ house. It was curious to him that you looked just as out of place then as you did now. 

“I know this is strange, but I have no other choice.” Your voice broke off and for the tiniest millisecond, he felt sorry for you. “I think he’s… I mean I feel that… that R-Regulus is planning on joining the Dark Lord.” “Call him Voldemort, will you?” Sirius interrupted irritably. 

You flinched. “I really shouldn’t.”

Though he was annoyed, he understood and did not probe you further. “Listen, I don’t know what you thought trying to find me, or even how you found me for that matter, but I can’t help you. I know what you’re worried about and you’re probably right to be worried. But I tried talking to him before I ran – I mean, left. He won’t budge. He’s in too deep. Sorry,” he added. 

Your eyes glossed over. “I figured you’d say that.” Tears streamed down your rosy cheeks. “S-Sorry, I don’t mean to load this on you. I just feel so alone sometimes. And so scared for him. He really has no idea what he’s getting himself into, does he?”

Sirius stared at you, contemplating whether he should tell you what his dim-witted brother was really getting himself into. He only started to see it for himself now. “I’m not sure what I should tell you, but I understand. If you want to talk about it…” 

You glanced at him in wonder, cocking your head to the side. “Er, thanks. But I should get home. My parents must be worried. Can I Floo out of here?” 

You looked even more upset than before, and Sirius felt guilty for leaving everything so unresolved. Although, should he really care about your feelings? Anyone who willingly chose to spend time with a tosser like Regulus probably deserved whatever hell he would put them through… although… 

“Yeah, I installed one,” he said, gesturing to the fireplace. 

Wiping your eyes nimbly, you stood and smoothed the front of your robes. “Thank you. Sorry if it was a bother.”

“No problem. I know… I know that you aren’t like them. And I know what you’re going through. Probably better than anyone.”

You smiled at him, and without warning, his stomach flipped. It couldn’t have been the first time he’d seen you smile, but it was definitely the first time you smiled at him. Maybe you had once before when you were children. For now, all Sirius seemed to hone in on was the soft dimple on your right cheek and the way your eyes lit up almost automatically. 

“If you ever need to talk about it, you can always come around here.” He knew it was strange for him to offer you that, but you had known each other for so long. You both had the same doubts… perhaps you lacked the bravery to act on them as he did, though he could hardly fault you for that. 

“Thank you, Sirius,” you said softly. 

☆

It was more than sex. You would spend hours talking, entangled in his bedsheets, watching the sunrise together for several mornings in a row. Sirius glanced warily at the clock on his bedside table. “Where do your parents think you are?”

You were drawing circles on his bare chest. “I told them I was with him.” 

Despite being the reason you sought him out, it became an unspoken rule between the two of you to not mention his name. The subject of Regulus and, by extension, the war became as taboo as saying Lord Voldemort. 

He hated it. He tried to convince himself that he was acting on lust, that he just needed to relieve his stress of the war and Order training, but he couldn’t. Not when every time you arrived unannounced, he scribbled excuses to get out of dinner with the Potters, or drinks with the boys, or hell, even Order meetings. 

Sirius wished he could explain it to James. Surely, his best friend would convince him of the stupidity of engaging in an affair with his brother’s girlfriend. But then he would watch you wearing his shirt, sipping wine, and dancing barefoot in his kitchen. He would imagine you wrapping your arms around his waist on his new motorcycle and his insides would implode. Then, he would decide that he did not want to be dissuaded. He was falling for you. One look at you told him you were falling for him too. 

“Where have you been, mate? The parents are driving me up a wall about you. Lily’s convinced you’ve got a girlfriend or something,” joked James. 

They were sitting in the pub on a night Sirius knew you had a family function to attend. He swallowed bitterly as he wondered whether or not Regulus would be there. Were you together right now? Did you confess? Was he angry? Were you crying?

Noticing his best friend’s silence, James raised an eyebrow. “Do you? Have a girlfriend or something?”

Sirius knew he could not lie to James, but he debated exactly how much he wanted to delve into the subject. “Or something.” Before he could he stop himself, the secrets were spilling off of his tongue. 

When he finished, Sirius wasn’t sure if he felt better or worse. He tried to focus on James’s hazel eyes as they widened at every turn in the story. “Mate… you’re fucked.”

He tried not to ponder at these words too hard in the hopes that he wouldn’t splinch himself Apparating back to his flat. It didn’t shock him to see you there – he had allowed you too much access to everything and he had no intention of taking it back.

Emerald green dress robes were slipping off of your shoulders. With pearls draped around your neck and pieces of hair straying out of your topknot, Sirius could not help but swoon at how beautiful you looked. He wondered briefly what it would have been like if you had chosen him over Regulus. What if there was no foul play? Would you be happy? Or would you run away, as you had with his brother?

He was still tipsy. James’s warnings ran scattered in his brain, ringing like a siren. But they mattered little now that you were in front of him. “How was–” 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” you interrupted. Then you stepped forward and tugged at his half-unbuttoned shirt, pressing your lips against his. “Make me forget.” 

“Consider it done.” 

Your bare limbs tangled together as you shared wine-drunk, open-mouthed, sporadic kisses, giggling and whispering words of sensual encouragement. How did you become so in sync in a matter of weeks? Sirius had never fallen this hard. “I’m yours, (Y/N).” 

You hummed in satisfaction, fingers wound up in his hair. 

“I mean it,” he urged. “I love you.” 

You didn’t respond. Strange, he thought to himself. You never hesitated in reciprocating, ever. When he jumped, you jumped with him, no questions asked. He glanced at the clock from over your shoulder and watched it strike midnight. It was the first of September. “You’re due at King’s Cross today, aren’t you?”

You nodded, not meeting his eyes. 

He chuckled darkly. All of a sudden, he felt cold and strangled. He wanted to push you far away and yet, pull you close to him so you had no hope of escaping. “Will you write to me?” 

“Sirius…” 

“Don’t,” he snapped. “Don’t say my name like that. I should have known… fucking snake.” 

He hadn’t let go of you. “I’m sorry darling,” you whispered, “but I can’t give up on him yet.” 

It was all he had to hear. He couldn’t think of how he was going to recover from this, not when you were lying right in front of him. “I think you should go.” 

“M-Maybe someday we can–” “Forget it.” He should have seen this coming from the second you walked up to him in the pub. You had come to him for Regulus and now you were leaving him for Regulus. Yet another bit of happiness his brother snatched away from him. But even so... he was your first and Regulus would never know. He would never know that you lost yourself in him. His no-good elder brother. But none of that mattered now, not when you were going back to him. After all, at the end of the day, you were his. 

I should have known. Sirius silently cursed at himself, watching the retreating figure of the girl he had fallen in love with. He should have known that you were always on borrowed time. You were gone quicker than the seasons change, and left with him your sweaty, sun-kissed memories. 

PART 2

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