#it literally talks about looking on at the world with curiosity wonder and joy and being open to whatever path lies ahead of you in stride?

[ember-owlet]

25 days of agere moodboards

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ day 14 : a song that reminds you of regression  -> to the sky ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

♪ Birds-eye view, awake the stars 'cause they're all around you Wide eyes will always brighten the blue Chase your dreams, and remember me, sweet bravery 'Cause after all those wings will take you, up so high So bid the forest floor goodbye as you race the wind And take to the sky (you take to the sky) ♪

[cssiop]

LATE CONFESSION... marcus rashford

marcus confesses to olivia the crush he used to have on her years ago.

marcus rashford x fem!oc word count: 2k

THE SIX-YEAR-OLD MARCUS used to hate it when his parents bumped into an old childhood friend, the one they hadn't seen for two decades and then talked to for what seemed like forever. from children to work, from their wives to their husbands, they would go over the world again, sometimes wondering about the life path of some, the studies they had chosen, and the way they had changed physically. then a joke or two would be thrown in, about the number of wrinkles they had accumulated since then, the responsibilities and the pressure of work too, a far cry from the high school years spent partying and having fun.

the six-year-old boy was getting impatient, huffing and puffing, crossing his arms with a sulky look on his face, wanting his mother or father to finally put an end to this interminable and more than useless conversation for him. but the childhood friend he didn't know would lean over, big smiling eyes on his face before exclaiming, "is he your youngest?" and then would pinch his cheek, as if they knew each other. and the conversation would start again, never stopping, and six-year-old marcus was fed up.

only, his youngest version should have known that he would also become this person one day, almost twenty years later, crossing paths with someone from his past, who, even for a short time, had taken an important place in a moment of his life. olivia, his classmate from the age of thirteen to fifteen. marcus had just bumped into her during a party in the center of manchester as he was about to leave, the watch on his wrist already announcing five o'clock in the morning. normally, he would have apologised and not lingered, but not this time, marcus had recognised the girl in a flash.

"holy shit," a smile crept onto his face, contagious as the same one found its way onto olivia's lips.

"oh my god marcus?!" her eyes grew wide and she laughed childishly, "hi!" she exclaimed excitedly, happy to see the man she was cheating with during tests in year 10.

a similar laugh escaped from between the footballer's stretched lips before he spontaneously opened his arms, inviting her into a brief but nostalgic embrace which she gladly accepted, "olivia! i wasn’t expecting to see you there!"

"well neither did i, what are you celebrating?" she asked as she stepped away from the boy's body, a smile still plastered on her face.

"not anything really, just enjoying a bit with the guys before the season starts again," marcus stated with a small smile on his lips, assuming that olivia knew he was a footballer.

"yeah i saw that, you’re a footballer now," she pushed marcus' shoulder with her fist to laugh as he pretended to be hurt, painting a new wider smile on olivia's face.

"well yeah," the player scratched the back of his neck as the red rose to his cheeks, "and you, what are you doing in manchester?" curiosity overcame him; the reason they had lost contact was that the girl had moved hundreds of miles away.

"i just moved back in!" joy intermingled in her words as she told her newfound friend the good news.

"that's amazing! when did you move back in?" marcus also felt happiness fill him after olivia's words.

"literally today, that's why i'm here," she giggled, "to celebrate my new start," her glass was raised in the air and the player didn't hesitate to do the same with his to clash them as two 'cheers' rang out at the same time from their mouths.

their conversation then went on and on; the girl explained to him the business studies she had undertaken before finally setting up her own company and the reason why she had come back to london. the six-year-old marcus would have been surprised to see himself enjoying this kind of conversation today, listening attentively to olivia, well almost, more hypnotised by her features which had matured and defined themselves over the years. she was still as beautiful as ever, if not more so.

if he could have, marcus would have stood there for hours admiring her as he used to do in secret in class but unfortunately, jadon sancho decided otherwise. when the english player felt his teammate's hand on his shoulder and his loud voice, he held back from rolling his eyes.

"you can't be serious marcus! we said it was a night out between lads, no flirting with chicks!" he laughed and marcus felt a gasp of exasperation come from between his mouth.

"i was not flirting, she's a friend from school, olivia," introduced marcus, giving a somewhat apologetic look to the girl who only seemed amused by the situation.

"oh my bad, nice to meet you olivia," a charming smile now graced jadon’s lips as he held out his hand, and annoyance flared in marcus at his friend's behavior.

"nice to meet you too jadon," the woman had recognised the english striker at a glance, the euro last summer had taught her well about the members of the english men's team.

the three of them started talking, much to marcus’ dismay, and after a while, he was forced to cut the conversation short and almost kick jadon out of the way so that he would leave them alone.

"well...it was great to see you again, marcus, but i should go home now," sighed olivia with a smile that the player returned.

"it was, yeah. i should go too," thousands of thoughts ran through the player's mind as a question burned his tongue, he hesitated to ask it before finally finding the courage to, "by any chance, do you need a ride home tonight?"

olivia didn't need one, her friend was already supposed to give her a lift home, but just for marcus, tonight, she needed one.

"i do, actually."

…

"it's weird that we didn't hang out that much outside of school because we used to get along well during class," marcus softly stated as he drove through the capital under the direction of olivia who showed him the way to her new london flat.

"i think that we had different groups of friends so you know," she shrugged before pausing and then resuming, a new memory flashing through her mind, "and also, i think your friends didn't like me that much."

confusion took over marcus’ facial features as his eyebrows furrowed and his gaze turned stealthily to olivia, "what do you mean?"

"literally every time i'd come near them, i'd always feel like i bothered them," she replied with a small smile in retrospect.

"what? they were literally all in love with you, like everyone," marcus almost exclaimed, very disturbed by the difference in their memories.

he remembered the discussions between them as soon as she passed by their group and the low compliments that they declared to each other.

she remembered their evasive looks as soon as she started talking to them as if they already wanted the conversation to be over, as she seemed to annoy them so much.

a story really always had two sides.

she blinked several times, "what?" it was olivia's turn to be lost.

"everybody had a crush on you."

olivia couldn't believe it, "okay," she turned her body towards marcus who was then forced to alternate his gaze between her and the road, "let's say it's true, how come nobody ever asked me out?" she continued, her hands moving in all directions to support her question.

the corner of his lips edged up faintly at the woman before he returned his gaze to the road, "because you were unattainable, you were too...good. no one thought they had a chance with you."

"how could you even be so sure of that?" her voice went high-pitched as confusion crawled on her face all the more.

today's marcus let a small laugh escape from between his lips as he thought back to the fifteen-years-old marcus; the one who would have done anything for olivia, the one who was nervous but also happy every time she decided to sit next to him, the one who always hoped that by some miracle she would confess her feelings to him in the corner of the playground one day, the one who was excited to go to class in the morning only to see her, but most of all, the one who only thought of her at night when bedtime would come.

marcus thought hard about that old him and then, biting his lip, said softly, almost in a sigh, "because i was one of them."

a sidelong glance was enough for him to see olivia's mouth open wide along with her eyes. then out of nowhere, she tapped him on the shoulder, a big smile now on her mouth, "no way?! and you never told me?!"

she laughed then, not at his confession but rather at the adrenaline that flowed through her veins after it.

"i already told you. you were too good for us, me. i was shy and so scared of being rejected," his cheeks flushed as he did his best to avoid olivia's laughing eyes to his left.

"but if you never try you never know," she declared, a smile still beaming on her lips.

"olivia," he finally found the courage to look her in the eye, "you were smart, pretty, nice to everyone, you liked and played football," he listed all her qualities and the girl felt herself sink into her seat, a flustered smile on her lips, touched by all these words, "and i was just marcus rashford."

olivia frowned at his words, "what do you mean 'you were just marcus rashford'? i literally passed math because of you!" she exclaimed in all seriousness, almost angry at him for reducing himself to his name, to so little.

a laugh then echoed through the car as he threw his head back, grinning from ear to ear at olivia's words. he dragged her along with him for a while before a comfortable silence settled in where they were both still processing everything they had just said to each other and the way this night was turning out.

and as marcus parked downstairs from her building, he ended up asking her another question that he didn't know would have such nice consequences, "if i had asked you out back then, what would you have said?"

a smile that could only mean good news made its way onto olivia's face and she looked into ben's oceanic eyes, "definitely yes," she paused, "i had a crush on you too marcus," she breathed out and giggled happily, "why do you think i always sat next to you in class?"

the man's eyes opened wide, so wide he thought they would pop out of their sockets, "really?" he asked softly as a smile settled on his face once more.

"hell yeah."

"well...we look like two fucking idiots now," marcus laughed, dragging olivia along as she stretched her full lips and crinkled the corners of her eyes in hilarity.

the fifteen-year-old marcus would have jumped up and down when he heard that his feelings were reciprocated by the girl, and that same marcus would have let olivia out of her car and simply said goodbye, without trying anything more, too shy to do so. but tonight, marcus was no longer fifteen; he had gained more self-confidence and self-assurance. so today's marcus, seeing olivia open the door and put her feet on the ground, was not going to give up his chance.

that same marcus called out to her to turn around and with a charming little smile, asked her in complete hope, "could i get your number before you go?"

[illegally-blind-and-deaf]

People often wonder how I'm so happy and optimistic

Honestly I think it comes from experience and life and observing society.

I think as we grow up in an ever-growing tumultus world of confusion, anger, violence and hatred it becomes hard to see the good things. The media and news is flooded with bad news of wars and rumours of wars, murders, crimes, everything bad. There's hardly anything good in the news nowadays, unless it's a massive thing.

I think this constant barrage of negative information unconsciously teaches us to notice all those bad things in life, makes us feel that the world is falling to a point of no return and especially teaches us that happiness and goodness and joy can only be found in big things and events.

We seem to think (from my observation,) that happiness only comes when life is perfect, or when other big milestones happen, such as getting married, getting rich, etc.

In reality, that's not true.

We do not get joy from sitting around and waiting for these things to happen. We do not get joy when the world is fixed. We do not only experience the euphoric happiness of life when big major events happen.

The beautiful thing about happiness is that it's so simple. We are led to believe that happiness is a complexity that we can continue reaching for but will never grasp, but I don't think that's the case.

(Of course, those of you who are struggling with genuine concerns and mental illnesses, etc who are literally limited are the exception because happiness is really hard to find when there's a chemical imbalance in your brain, but this is more targeted at us who don't struggle with those things. Maybe this might help you, maybe not, but just keep going, you're facing a really hard battle, I love you.)

Let us look at a little child. The epitome of pure, wholesome joy. I don't know if you've seen little kids (we're talking 8 and below) but they have such a powerful goodness about them. Of course they're going to mess up, they'll make mistakes, they'll do s oome bad things. We're human, not perfect. But children have an inherent, unbiased view of the world and when they look at it, all they see is a new place for them to discover with excited curiosity and amazed wonder. The get excited over a butterfly. Or a bug. Or a flower. Or food. Or literally the thought of doing something. When was the last time we saw a butterfly and got excited? Or we skipped down a street with a flower in hand? When was the last time we saw a really cool car and watched it with wide eyes and an open mouth?

We have lost the wonder in noticing those little things. Those flowers and bugs and cars and trains have now become just part of every day mundanity, a part of the backdrop of our tumultuous lives. We've been led to think that being childish (in a good way, as in being excited and happy over little things, etc. Not being stubborn and unwilling to share) is a bad thing. It's not.

Mostly us (those who have experience significant trauma are the exception,) remember our childhoods, our early childhoods, as a time of golden innocence, where the world was wonderful. What's stopping us from looking at things like that again? Why shouldn't we smile at the massive fluffy could above us and imagine that we can pull them from the sky? What's wrong with getting excited about a dandelion and watching the seeds blow away in the wind? Why shouldn't we enjoy the warmth of our bed on a winter's morning, or play in the fallen leaves in autumn? Why shouldn't we be allowed to rediscover the beauty of nature?

Some of you may be thinking that life is too hard to do that. That there are too many things going wrong or bad to experience happiness.

Let me use my life as an example. Do not compare your struggles with mine, or think that you're weak because everyone is struggling with different things and THEY ARE ALL VALID STRUGGLES.

I'm going blind. I struggle to maintain friendships and I feel like a complete outsider in every friendship group. I wonder if I'll ever find someone who lives me the way I love people and I spend a lot of time in solitude. I worry that I'm not good enough for my dream universities and that I might not be able to do what I want in life.

Yet I'm still happy. I still laugh with joy whenever I walk past a very specific part of my street because it has the most magnificent view. I can still say I had a good day even with all my struggles.

Why?

How?

(Part of it is because of my religion which has definitely helped me in a lot of it, but becay se we all have different beliefs and values I'm focussing on a more general thing.)

Because life is hard. Life is the most challenging thing. There will be times when we want to just give up. But life isn't only about the hard things. Just because things are hard, doesn't mean they can't be good. An author can spend many challenging months formulating and drafting a book, wondering many times if they should just give up, but the reward of their own book being published and the learning and growth they experienced in the journey of writing the book makes everything worth it.

We cannot give up because things get hard. We must keep going.

Sometimes things don't get better. I'm not going to magically be able to see again. But I can still be grateful for what I have and see the blessings that are in my life. And they don't have to be dramatic, grand things.

I'm grateful for the clouds, because they're pretty. I'm thankful for the sun, especially in late autumn and winter afternoons. I'm thankful for cups of tea with buttered scones on mum's fancy china. I'm thankful for books, for technology, for my friends who still talk to me and listen to me even when I do seem a bit much. I'm thankful for what I can see now and that I had the chance to experience sight. I'm thankful for the time I have to be alone because I can do the things i live, like read or write or just think. Im grateful that i have the opportunity to even consider the possibility of going to a prestigious university and that I have a chance. I'm thankful for my talents and skills and I'm thankful for learning so I can develop more. I'm thankful for my creativity, for leaves. I'm thankful for the butterflies, the dandelions, the trains and the really awesome cars.

There is so much good in the world. It doesn't have to be majestic or grandiose to be good. It can literally be a shower. Or chocolate. Or a really funny cat video. It can be anything that makes YOU happy.

Happiness comes when we seek out those little things. When we make the effort to notice them. To put on music that makes us feel better and to do the little things we love. To go outside and look around us, not on the pavement. When we take the time to really think about what we have and the potential we have.

These are just my observations on why I'm so happy and optimistic. Because I don't wait for happiness to come in a grand fixing of my problems, but because I go out, I become like a little child and I learn to enjoy the small little things that give me bursts of joy.

[thedo0zyslider]

Watching and Listening - 2k words

Oli is a listener, but doesn't really know yet. Pix however, does 

A03 Link

For the first few months of this new world, Pixl thought he was one of a kind. He didn’t think anyone else Watched like he did, they hadn’t last time.

That was until someone popped in. Literally popped in. He wasn’t a natural inhabitant of this world, server, whatever you wanted to call it. He'd been put here forcibly, and Pix had to assume Pearl had done it. She was the only one Them that really bothered with this type of world, well besides him of course. He was more about living in the world than messing with it though.

The newcomer's name was Oli, and he was quite the strange one. Pix hadn’t seen him in person much, but he'd felt his arrival. He'd watch the newest member of their little world occasionally, more than watched their other server mates and never for more than a minute or two. It usually brought a much needed sense of joy to his days, since it seemed Oil was determined to be comedic relief even when no one was watching normally. Or maybe he was just like that. And a bard, he'd apparently just accepted that he was a bard now, and had committed since then. Pix didn't mind that though, he was a bard with a pretty nice voice. The archaeologist had been tempted to stay around and watch a bit more whenever he caught Oli singing, though he sadly couldn't hear it that well with just his eyes.

Oli was also a traveling bard apparently. He had a habit of showing up at the Ancient City randomly, usually begging for fireworks. Not that he needed to beg much, Pix had made sure to have more fireworks than he'd ever need himself and was far too kind to hoard them. The brunette wondered why he didn’t bother Jimmy instead; the one who actually sold fireworks; but Oli was weird. And he really hoped the bard was bothering other empires as well, mostly because they needed to experience this guy.

Oli had also made a habit of showing up in his empire without a need for fireworks, presumably just there to pester the archeologist he seemed so drawn to. Pixl could guess why he was drawn to him, he'd figured that one out a month ago. But it took the bard a little longer, but that's okay, he was new. You get better at this thing with time.

"Do you hear things?" Oli asked one day, and if Pix was anyone else he would've rolled his eyes and laughed at the ridiculousness of the question. But he was not anyone else. Here he was Pixlriffs, the unusual archaeologist who always had an ear to lend. So he did just that, he listened to Oli continue his question while maintaining his normal sense of mild curiosity.

"Do you hear weird sounds? Sounds no one else hears, whispering in your ears when you're completely alone and you've checked five bloody times that you're by yourself?" So he Hears instead. Not quite the same, but close enough for me. If Pix used any of his eyes he would see that Oli hadn't moved much. The so-called bard was still sitting on his half restored wall, looking downtrodden and giving the brunette a curious side eye.

Ah, he was new to this, wasn't he? The archeologist thought, holding back a small chuckle. Might as well be cryptic with his answers while he still could.

"No," Pix responded, pausing just long enough for Oli's hope to falter. "But I do See things."

“Oh?” Oli muttered quietly, a small invitation for Pixl to elaborate, which he did. He had nothing else better to do really, no one else to talk to at the moment either. It also felt a little cruel to leave Oli hanging as well, because he certainly wasn’t getting answers from Pearl anytime soon; if the way he talked about her said anything. (Disdain, he talked about the goddess with a lot of disdain. Pix would hate to see what their next meeting would be like, though it might be quite funny to spectate)

“I see things no one else sees,” The archaeologist began slowly, continuing to build the wall as he did. He wouldn’t move Oli from his seat just yet. “I could see what Scott’s doing right now if I wanted to, even if he’s halfway across the map.” He practically heard Oli’s jaw hit the floor behind him. “I guess you do something similar? But with hearing?” Pixl smirked. Being cryptic like would never, ever get old to him.

"You got extra eyes or something?" Oli probably meant it as a joke, since he seemed so lost for words. But little did he know that Pix did indeed have a few extra eyes, ones that were itching to be used just a little. They'd been restless since the server started, despite Pix’s reluctant use of them every once and a while, so might as well use them once more. A little longer than normal couldn't hurt.

"Maybe I do," He smirked, closing his two normal eyes and pausing his building. It was always a bit overwhelming using his sight, especially after months of barely doing so. He still heard Oli’s yell of surprise though, and allowed himself to snicker. After making sure no one else was near Pixlriffs opened his real eyes again, if only to not freak out the bard. It'd be enjoyably creepy to have someone looking at you without really looking at you.

Oli was investigating the purple eyes now floating around his head, trying to poke them. It didn't really work, because Pix moved them away every time he got too close to actually touching one.

"Getting poked there is still poking me in the eye." He huffed, feigning annoyance.

"Sorry," Oli's tone was a little sheepish. "Just curious." The archaeologist hummed his reassurance.

"You should have something like this as well," He began his explanation, a little surprised at how quiet the bard was. "It's more of an ear thing though, and you can't see when using them."

"That's…weird," Oli blinked, his gaze still on Pix's eyes. He was quite fascinated by them, wasn’t he?

"You get used to it," Pix simply shrugged. There wasn’t much else to say, being able to Hear and See like this was just one of those things you had to learn to live with.

"So do you just like, open your eyes? Or?" The bard inquired further, now focusing on Pix’s face again. He was awfully curious, and the brunette wasn’t opposed to playing teacher for a few minutes; someone had too after all.

"It's kinda like…" The archaeologist paused. It was challenging, but important for him to describe this properly. "Like using a weird kind of sixth sense, I guess. I have to close my two human eyes and focus on seeing to be able to do it."

Oli nodded, seemingly considering his words carefully. "Can I….. try it now?" He muttered, failing to hide the nerves slowly creeping into his voice.

"Sure" Pix hummed. "Though I'm not sure how Listeners work, not fully anyways. We don’t have many run-ins with your kind." He shifted closer, helping Oli down from the half built wall. He was sitting on quite the high perch, and Pix had no idea how he climbed four feet of smooth stone. But, again, Oli was weird. The archeologist noticed how the bard twitched at his words and let out a small smirk.

"Listener, eh?" Oli said. "That what I am?"

"Yep," he hummed in confirmation.

"Well what about you?" The bard asked, leaning forward like a curious cat. Oli really liked getting in people’s personal space, Pix had noticed, but maybe he was just a physical touch kinda person; like Sausage was. The two did seem like they’d get along well.

"A Watcher." No use in being all cryptic now, so Pix made his answer straight to the point.

"Figures." The blonde huffed, seemingly a little disappointed. "They don't have a very creative naming system, do they?"

"No, they don't." Pix laughed. "Now focus," He flicked the bard's forehead lightly, getting a startled squeak in response.

"Alright, alright! You're so mean to me Pix!" Oli gave him a light shove in return, causing the archeologist to smile. There he was, there was that weird little bard Pixl knew, instead of the unusually somber one that had been present until now.

"Close your eyes and focus on the sounds around you," Pixl laid a calming, steady hand on the bard's shoulder as he spoke his instructions, noticing how the latter began to fidget with some kind of energy; the brunette couldn't tell if it was anxiety or excitement. Probably anxiety, Oli struck him as someone with a lot of internal, bottled up and unspoken worries.

Oli hummed quietly to himself as he followed Pix’s instructions, taking deep breaths every so often. It took a few minutes, but Oli made a small gasping noise and turned his head in the other’s general direction.

"This is weird , Pix," The bard stated, head darting wildly around. It was getting harder and harder to not make another feline comparison to Oli if he was being honest.

"You'll get used to it," Pix soothed. "It just takes time." He removed his hand from Oli's shoulder, letting the other experience his new power for a few minutes without further distraction. It was kinda funny actually, to watch the bard whip his head around in surprise everytime a new noise reached his ears.

"How'd this happen?" The archaeologist asked when his friend had settled down again. He was curious, you didn't just become a listener or watcher randomly.

"I'm not sure," Oli shrugged, leaning against the wall dramatically, and Pix didn't even think you could do that dramatically until now. "It started after I got here though, after my ender dragon fight." The bard blinked his eyes open, apparently a minute was more than enough Hearing for him.

His interest piqued further. "You said you were stuck in a void, right? Listening to two people talk?" The archaeologist remembered how the other man had mentioned offhandedly, as it was the moment he realized someone else in this world was at least a little similar to him.

"Yeah," Oli answered cautiously, sliding down the unfinished wall until he reached the ground below.

Pix’s voice turned gentle with his next words. "That's when they took you."

" Oh. " Came the bard's eloquent reply. "That's a little…" He was rendered speechless for the second time that day.

"Messed up?" Pix offered.

"Yeah, like really messed up. They kept me there for decades ." Oli paused. "Well, I think it was decades. It might’ve been longer,"

"I think it was a hundred years, at least." He felt bad when the blonde flinched at his words. The brunette sat down beside the bard, offering a sympathetic pat on the back.

“Well how’d you become a Seer or whatever they're called, since we’re sharing traumas now,” Oli muttered, and Pix was sure the conversation was just to fill the somber silence. But Pix was happy to fill any silence, especially if it made someone feel better.

“I’m, ah, not really sure,” He sighed, pushing his glasses up on his face. “I don’t remember much before this. I don’t know if I was born one or if they…made me forget.” Pix’s gaze grew distant, and he felt arms wrap him into a small side hug. He allowed himself to lean into the touch until Oli moved away, a luxury he often didn’t give himself. The bard didn’t need to say he was sorry for it to be felt.

“How long has it been?” Oli whispered.

“Centuries, probably,” Was Pix’s almost broken reply. He wasn’t a big fan of this topic, if he was being honest. It made him feel a little broken, incomplete, and like a chunk of his soul was missing. He saw the second hug coming before he felt it, and remembered to put his eyes away again.

The two ended up sitting like that for a while, not talking, just sitting in the presence of another person. Sitting with the only person in the world like them, and thinking over what they had both learned and remembered. Pix decided it was nice, doing this, he decided having Oli around was nice and inwardly thanked Pearl for sending him the little scamp.

He could get used to this.

[thetoxicgamer]

Forget Starfield – the Most Important Space Game Leaves Game Pass Soon

As eager as I am for the Starfield release date, those of you who have Microsoft's PC Game Pass subscription have a more pressing deadline approaching. On January 1, Outer Wilds, one of the greatest space games ever created (and unquestionably one of the most significant, in my humble opinion), will no longer be available through the subscription service. Don't worry if you haven't played it yet; you still have plenty of time to see the wonder for yourself. Outer Wilds is a tough game to talk about because at its core it’s a game all about discovery, and the more you know ahead of time the less impactful that sense of wonder becomes. Nevertheless, I’m going to try, because I feel fairly comfortable saying that anyone with a penchant for space exploration owes it to themselves to discover this clockwork galaxy first-hand. To set things up, you step into the shoes of a Hearthian. This four-eyed creature is one of the inquisitive inhabitants of Timber Hearth, a planet somewhat akin to our own – albeit one that exists at Outer Wilds’ smaller scale, which feels perhaps comparable to the larger worlds of Super Mario Galaxy. From there, you’re tasked with making your first trip to the stars in a rickety ship and meeting up with your fellow explorers on the planets that inhabit your solar system. The hook – I even feel a little bad giving this away, but I’ve gotta give you something to tantalise your tastebuds and even developer Mobius Digital has been relatively candid about this by now – is that Outer Wilds traps you in a time loop. For reasons I definitely won’t tell you, you’ll set off on that initial flight over and over again, your only consistent progression coming from the knowledge you gain along the way. If that sounds off-putting, let me reassure you: Outer Wilds isn’t really a roguelike game. The reset feels more like a boon than a restriction – think of it like performing scientific experiments and making adjustments as you go. Wondering what will happen if you wander into that cave network slowly filling with sand, or jump headfirst into a black hole? There’s no need to worry about consequences, as anything that does go wrong simply brings you right back to tweak your plans and try again. Another critical part of your journey is the ship’s log, an ever-growing spider web of discoveries that keeps track of everything you’ve found, and even hints at what your current knowledge might point to. This means you rarely feel lost or overwhelmed, as your every revelation is kept safely organized, and provides you with plenty of possibilities for each subsequent launch. Outer Wilds - view from the cockpit of a spaceship looking out at the sun and several planets orbiting itThis frees you up from potential paranoia and lets your curiosity run wild. The galaxy is your toy box, and you’d struggle to find a more glorious chest of wonders. Every planet is a unique, hand-crafted puzzle box to unlock – quite literally so. Director Alex Beachum began the project in 2012 as a master’s thesis, building it out into the final project that was released in May 2019 to wide critical acclaim. Each of the locations you can visit – planets, moons, asteroids, and space stations alike – makes use of the progression of time in its own distinct way. Uncovering and unwinding the pieces comprising each of them gave me feelings almost no other game has managed, and that’s without delving into the existential contemplation that brought me to tears in its climactic finale. I couldn’t tell you exactly whether they were tears of joy, sadness, or perhaps everything in between – but Outer Wilds has stuck with me more profoundly than almost anything else out there. Bethesda’s space RPG promises the wonder of discovering over 1,000 Starfield planets. Elite: Dangerous lets you ferry cargo across huge distances, while No Man’s Sky generates you an unlimited array of unique locations to uncover. Yet Outer Wilds, one of the smaller-scale space games I’ve played, manages to capture the wonder of space exploration better than perhaps anything else out there. Among all the beauty of its design and the personal stories it tells along the journey, something that perhaps doesn’t get talked about enough with Outer Wilds is just how much fun it is to get around. The best advice I can offer to a new player is, “Just go for it!” While your initial steps will no doubt be tentative ones, as you get to grips with the game’s physics you’ll be able to use your jetpack to slingshot yourself across planets, just barely teasing on the limits of gravity as you soar right on the fringe of flinging yourself out into space. Outer Wilds achieves this because it isn’t afraid to eschew reality. This is a game that clearly draws from a deep love of science, yet it opts for the physics of fun over accuracy to the laws that govern our universe. Even at quick observation, it’s clear that a lot of the ways the physics operate aren’t realistic, but they’re just close enough to feel right on a surface level while giving you a level of control that nails the balance between challenge and frustration. Outer Wilds - Riebeck, an astronaut in a rudimentary space suit, plays the banjo by a roaring fireThis isn’t the first time Outer Wilds has left Microsoft’s Game Pass service – it was actually dropped in June 2021, only to return in January 2022. So we’ll hold out hope that it comes back again in the future, because it’s the sort of game everyone should have the chance to play. The Outer Wilds DLC, Echoes of the Eye, isn’t included as part of the Game Pass offering either – but don’t worry about that. For a first playthrough, I’d recommend just sticking to the base game anyway, as Echoes of the Eye feels more like a supplemental adventure designed to be experienced after you’ve explored everything the original release has to offer. If you do still want more once you’re done, though, it’s well worth considering. So, while we wait on the dynamic Starfield quests of next year, take some time this holiday season to visit Outer Wilds. I promise it’s worth your while. If you fancy some more irreverent space action, High on Life sales and Game Pass charts show that the new FPS game from Justin Roiland’s Squanch Games is already off to a rip-roaring start. Read the full article

[thescreaminghat]

Ok but Viktor is so DELICIOUSLY mischievous in Arcane???

Like, I think a lot of us went into the show with the impression that he was going to be this no-nonsense, stoic counterpart to Jayce's brash personality, and while Viktor is level-headed and calm, he has such a biting humor that gives him so much personality and life (at this point I think Viktor is responsible for 90% of the sassy and funny quips in the show).

And I really enjoy the fact that the writers gave him this liveliness and soft-spoken charm (and how well Harry Lloyd voiced the lines), because it makes Viktor so human, so optimistic, and so kind, especially when you consider how he literally talked Jayce down from committing suicide. You can feel the passion and energy bubbling underneath his calm exterior, and the little details (like Viktor being ready to risk his own position to help Jayce by sneaking into Heimer's lab only to come up with the ridiculous but hilarious lie of "Oh silly me! I thought I was going into my bedroom but I was actually unlocking a restricted area using these oversized keys" when he gets caught red-handed) is so...perfect? Like you can easily imagine that, as a kid in Zaun, Viktor was likely just as mischievous and willing to get into hijinks as Ekko or Powder. XDD

And OH MY GOD CAN WE TALK ABOUT "TIME TO CRANK IT"??? Again, Harry Lloyd's soft-spoken delivery and gentle accent for Viktor is so perfectly executed for the joke. So the setup in ep 3 is this: when they're working on the hextech research, Jayce exclaims that they'll need to "crank it" (referring to the stabiliser machine, I believe), and Viktor, caught off-guard in his thoughts, says, "Yes, yes, we need to...cRANK it," and what's so perfect about this scene is the awkwardness that Viktor gives to the word. Like, it comes across as Jayce using "slang" or very casual language in his excitement that Viktor finds really amusing and charmingly unexpected, so Viktor tries to emulate the way Jayce says "crank it," but he has a tiny voice crack when he says the phrase (as he's holding in his laugh) that makes the scene so adorable. And then later, the payoff is that right before they test the stabiliser, when Jayce is nervous and stone-faced, Viktor lightens the mood by saying "Time to cRANK it", with his emphasis on awkward syllables, but he says this with, again, that delightful humor and mischief in his eyes. It's such a wonderful and cute scene, and it really captures how Viktor and Jayce are bouncing ideas and emotions off of each other as Science Boyfriends and how Viktor is VERY empathetic, in-tune with social cues and sensitive to other people's feelings (at this point Viktor is so supportive and encouraging of Jayce, and I think that's really important given how Viktor himself may have been at Jayce's low point before he went to Piltover because of his own difficult circumstances).

Anyways, this is to say that once these two have the worst breakup ever according to lore and Viktor falls into a deep depression without any help from Jayce I will look back at these early interactions and cry my eyes out for the hurt that Viktor, a rational but charming innovator who saved a man's life by believing in him when no one else would, will ultimately experience.

Edit: The way Viktor acts and carries himself ISN'T reflective of a man detached from himself and humanity, or a man broken by poverty or his disability. His playfulness, his joy - this is someone filled with happiness, youth, silliness, curiosity, and most importantly, a belief in and love for the world.

[fallinfl0wers]

hellooo! this is the first time i request something from a blog :D could i request headcanons of diluc, scara, kazuha and xiao when their s/o tells them they're pregnant and possibly how they'd get used to having a kid? tyy! dont forget to take breaks and relax!

Literally baby-sized trouble.

summary: you're pregnant! how does he react to the news and how do the get used to your child? includes: diluc (26 bullet points), scaramouche (24 bullet points), kazuha (17 bullet points) and xiao (35 bullet points) warnings: fem!reader, pregnancy, children, non-explicit/non described giving birth, mostly fluff with a little bit of hurt/comfort and angst. format: headcanons thank you for your request!! this was so fun to write! >< imagining the characters being soft with children is just so cute :") i specially like these four a lot >< when i wrote this i was in a xiao mood if it wasn't obvious that his turned out longer than everyone else's lol, and it's also the first time i write for kazuha so it was shorter than the others, but i think his is the sweetest ><! i hope you enjoy it! ps. the names and meanings- i got them from google, feel free to correct me if there's anything wrong with them ><

Diluc

He's going to stop functioning the moment he hears the news from you.

Literally, he's still as a rock and completely taken by surprise.

He... can't say he'd never wanted children. He's pretty traditional and, since he has this beautiful relationship with you, he assumed it might happen sometime in the future.

But oops guess it will have to happen in the close future, since you're already pregnant.

After staring at you with widened eyes for a while, he speaks up: "...is... is it true?" You hold his hands on yours with a smile on your face, nodding. "Yes, Diluc. We're going to be parents." Hearing your words, he starts to tear up as he hugs you, his touch almost hesitant, as if you were so fragile he could break you if he wasn't careful. "...thank you." He'd whisper between silent tears, hiding his face from your sight.

Very supportive and very protective!

You will have the most comfortable of pregnancies. He will make sure you don't need to move a single muscle to get anything you want.

If the two of you aren't married or engaged yet, he's going to propose to you very soon, keep that in mind ><

He starts reading every book he can find on pregnancies and babies so that he knows what to do to help you when you give birth and how to take care of his child once they're born ><

You have to convince him that yes, you can go and eat in the dining room and you don't need to eat everything in your room or stay in bed all day and yes, you can still do most things and no, he doesn't have to worry so much.

But yeah, in later stages of your pregnancy he gets more overprotective because he doesn't want anything to hurt you or your baby :(

He couldn't be calm enough while you gave birth and had to wait outside of the room, which only made him more nervous </3

But when he finally held your little baby on his arms for the first time, he broke down crying.

You two had a boy! He looked a lot like him, too... with the red hair and eyes... so cute...

He's not sure of what to name him, he'd thought of some names before, but they all disappeared when he saw the little bundle of joy in his arms;;

So you two will have to think about a name again!

In the end, you settle for Felix; name meaning "happy" or "lucky"!

Diluc is a very busy man, but he still does his best to be there for you and his son as much as possible!

He's also not very sure as to how he should interact with him...

But he does know he LOVES playing with him as soon as he starts to understand how to play with his toys.

But... there are not so cute parts about having a kid, after all.

At times, he worries whether or not he'll be able to be there enough for him.

He wonders if he can be a good father, given how awkward he is with his emotions.

What if when Felix grows up he starts hating him for being absent? He wouldn't be able to stand it.

You always reassure him as you both put the baby to sleep on his crib.

All Diluc wants is for his son to have a happy childhood and a loving family, but worries he won't be good enough of a father.

However, when Felix's first word is "'iluc!" as he stretches out his tiny arms towards him, he thinks that maybe, just maybe, he can do this right.

Scaramouche

He thought you were joking, so he laughed.

When you didn't laugh along with him and was met with your blank face, he understood you were serious.

He never even thought he'd be with anyone in a relationship before you came along, let alone have a child with anyone... So he's obviously very shocked and confused as to how to proceed.

After an awkward moment of staring at each other, he cleared his throat and crossed his arms, looking at you with an equally blank face. "So? What do you want me to do about it?" "H-huh?" "In the sense of- what do you want to do? Keep it or not." You huffed, and when he heard your determinated answer, he sighed and gave your head some soft pats. "Alright, alright, whatever you want, I guess."

Okay listen here- it's not like doesn't care but it isn't like he cares so much either...

This man would do anything for you, really, and that's what happens.

He does anything and everything for you, because he's worried about you and not necessarily about the baby you're carrying.

It's not like he hates children- because you can't hate anything you don't perceive as equal or superior to you and a baby ceirtainly isn't either for him-

It's more like he doesn't know what to do with them because he's never been around children enough to understand them.

He's overall very indifferent towards the child ngl.

Then he sees you cradling your baby -a girl- in your arms and his mind just... goes blank. Huh, so that's what a human looks like right after being born.

Your little daughter looks more like him than she looks like you, sorry. But he can clearly see on her face some factions that will look like yours as she grows up.

But...

"Now what?"

He'll help you look after her however he can, since he doesn't want you to be too tired because he never knows when he'll have to leave for weeks or even months without notice.

He's not entirely cold or indifferent towards her, even if sometimes he might resent her a bit for taking away some of your attention.

But like when you were choosing a name for her, he gave a few suggestions and in the end you choose one of the names he thought of!

Her name is Hikari, name meaning "light"!

Due to the nature of his job, he doesn't want to be seen around either of you at the moment in public. It would only put a target on your backs.

And it takes a long, long while for him to warm up to her.

It disheartens you a little, but when you see him looking down at Hikari's sleeping form on the crib, softly poking her cheek with a strangely child-like curiosity on his eyes, you feel at ease.

And he thinks that he can probably handle this parenting thing better than he ever expected. Maybe it's not that bad, after all.

Ceirtainly, he thinks, as he holds her in his arms one day after she spoke her first word to him, this parenting thing is not really that bad.

(Her first word was "papa!")

Be ready, because once he gets attached to your daughter he won't stop spoiling her!

Kazuha

"Are you sure, love?" "Yes, I'm sure. We're having a child!" A smile painted itself on his face as he leaned in to kiss your forehead. "I hope I can be a good father for them."

So the Kaedehara family is getting a new member, huh!

Not that there's much left to his name, especially now that he's a fugitive... but he's excited nonetheless!

Although he's not one to settle down for long, he will make an effort for both you and the child, since it's not good for someone who's pregnant to wander around.

He's very protective, but not in an overbearing way! He simply wants you to take it easy and relax, he can take care of everything else on his own!

That being said, he's not rich like Diluc or Scaramouche, so he's also going to work harder than ever to get everything you or the baby need in advance so that neither of you have to stress out!

He's the one who takes it better out of everyone here, he's not extremely worried or outright indifferent, he's simply worried enough, excited and happy!

He already knew you were the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, so the idea of having a child with you didn't scare him or intimidate him in the slightest!

He's still a bit worried, though.

He is a wanted fugitive in his homeland, after all...

He can only do so much and wish for the situation in Inazuma to change soon, so that he can take both you and his child to see the places he loved to spend his time at when he was a child.

But for now, he's happy enough simply holding his child on his arms, sitting next to you in your small shared home.

You have a girl too! She has Kazuha's hair color and your eye color, she's super adorable ><

He wants you to name her, and you both agree on naming her Izumi, meaning fountain or spring!

"Kaedehara Izumi... it has a nice ring to it." He'd say, smiling down at her.

While Kazuha enjoys travelling more than anything in this world, he's reticent to leave you and your daughter alone or even bring you along with him. So he stays around for as long as you need it.

He will talk a lot to her all the time, so don't be surprised when she picks up very complicated, flowery words from a young age!

He wants her to grow up to be free as the wind and be able to do whatever she wants without fear, so he wants to do his best to be a good father for her!

Xiao

You can practically see the panic on his face when you tell him the news.

It's the most scared you've ever seen him be, and you've been there to help him through his karmic debt.

So yeah, he takes it the worst out of everyone.

"I'm not mad." He manages to tell you before disappearing to somewhere else in a panicked haze, he needs to sort out his emotions quickly before he can properly talk to you about it. The last thing he saw before he disappeared was your eyes, glinting with sadness. And that only made him feel worse if that was even possible.

It takes him the whole day to come to terms with his feelings on your pregnancy and finally face you again.

He's really, really afraid of hurting you and your child. Not to mention he fears he might've passed some kind of curse from his karma to either of you through the pregnancy :(

Like he said, he isn't mad. He's just scared.

He... he literally never, never thought he would get to be a father.

Family was a foreign concept to him, as were a lot of other things you've slowly helped him understand throughout your time together, so knowing he can have one of his own now... makes him happy, and scared, at the same ime.

He's worse than Diluc when it comes to protecting you and worrying about you.

He won't let you do anything alone, even if he doesn't want to be near you because he doesn't want the karma to harm you or your child in such a vulnerable moment of your lives.

Okay so that aside-

How do people care for babies?

What is he exactly supposed to do?

And- do half-adepti babies need any sort of special treatment in comparison to human babies?

He has no idea on what to do if it doesn't involve a physical fight with a tangible foe, so he goes asking for advice to everyone he knows that could have knowledge on that field.

Verr Goldet and Ganyu are a great help for him. Xiao listens with attention to everything they have to say and asks everything he doesn't understand.

Ganyu tells him about her own experience growing up as half-human so that he can understand what raising a half-human, half-illuminated beast baby might entail.

He also goes to Zhongli for advice and he gets more of the same advice he's already heard, along with many, many reassurances that sound like everything you already tell him every day.

He's very worried, but as the months go by and your child's birth comes closer, he can't help but feel a little excited about it.

Everyone who knows him is happy to see him openly happy for a change on those small moments when he gets excited about his new family with you.

When your child is born, Xiao doesn't want to hold him. It took too much willpower to stay as close as he was right now, standing next to your bed as you held your baby in your arms.

He was so adorable, so small, so fragile, so pure- Xiao was afraid of touching him and breaking or tainting him--

He was already crying, he'd started crying the moment he saw you holding your son for the first time.

He feels so... strange. He's crying, but this isn't a painful, or sad feeling. He feels... happy, but scared, but...

The feeling starts to make some sense to him when he finally convinces himself that it's okay for him to hold the little boy in his arms, when he stares with awe at his face.

The baby looks a lot like the both of you. Arguably, more like him, since he has the same hair and the same bright eyes, but in his face all he can see is you.

And he cries more.

You both named him Liàng, name meaning brilliant!

Xiao does his best to try and get used to parenting, and it gets hard at times.

But he tries, and that's all that matters. He tries to be a good father, and is always there to protect both you and your son from anything trying to harm you.

Even though he was so scared at first, you know he loves the new family you've formed together.

Especially when you catch him trying to hold a conversation with your son, sitting down on the bed next to him as he toys with a soft teddy bear, the two of them surrounded by pillows.

The soft look and smile he wears while he does so tells you that everything is going to be alright.

The three of you are going to be alright, and Xiao wants to make sure of it.

His son will never have to live what he lived or see what he saw. He will make sure of that, no matter what.

[whattheheckmidoriya]

Flowers and Sunday Nights pt.3

Part one & Part two

Pairing: Aizawa Shota x Reader

Genre: FLUFF BABYYY

Word Count: 1,586

Warnings: Literal fluff all around with a very soft Shota♡

Description: [Request by: @chelysian ] hi there! :) i wanted to tell you how much i adored both parts of “flowers and sunday nights”!! i think those two are some of my absolute favourites out of the many aizawa imagines i’ve read! ahh i just love the way you write aizawa :’) if you are still taking requests, my i request some fluffy head canons/imagine about aizawa and the reader’s relationship after “flowers and sunday nights”? thank you love <33

Join the taglist here!

Author's Note: The love yall have for Flowers and Sunday Nights has me CRYING 🥺 thank you so, so much for the love and I hope you enjoy!

•••

Shota never thought he deserved to be loved.

All his life he believed one thing: love is too good for a man like you.

 He never dared entertain the idea of love— never felt like he was even worthy of thinking about it. All he could do was let his chest cave under the weight of those long, cold nights he spent broken and tired after drowning himself in his work, wondering if there was anything left for him to fight for.

Part of him believed he deserved the aches that choked his heart. Surely nothing good was ever meant to be within his reach. His scarred hands had no right to ever touch any sapling of warmth.

And yet, nothing has ever felt so right like the touch of your skin under his knuckles.

He didn’t understand how he ended up here, with eyes full of a fondness so pure and ethereal he swore Heaven graced him with an angel to call his own. A newfound sense of warmth settled over his chest, a sensation he welcomed far too easily and with little doubt. Internally, he was kicking himself for smiling like a love-sick teenager, but he couldn’t help the soft curling of his lips or the way his eyes closed in pure joy as a low chuckle rumbled through his chest.

He’s changed. The sharpness of his sore eyes had softened into something brilliant, full of barely concealed wonder and adoration. He was gentler now, his touches warm with care and reverence. His smiles were wider— brighter— than before.

If he was being honest with himself, he still didn’t know what he was doing; this whole love thing was all so new to him. He’s still learning to love, still learning to be loved. Most of the time he felt so lost, so confused, too afraid he’ll one day wake up and everything he was just getting to know would slip through his fingers.  

But the flowers in his hair were enough to keep his heart at ease.

Warmth blossomed in his chest, his heart mended with the growth of fresh harvests and refreshed by the sweet balm of morning dew. A sapling of renewal tickled his soul with a tenderness so unreal he almost fell to his knees. Nothing in this world had ever made him believe himself worthy of such serenity, yet he can’t deny he’s no longer wallowing in the pit of solitude he once made himself at home in.

True to the wishes of your heart, he was always there. Every single Sunday night. He might’ve had about a thousand other things to do, but he somehow always met you with a hopeful look in his eyes and a bouquet of flowers in his hands.

He was easy to fluster, easy to tease, yet hard to unravel. There was always a breath of hesitation before he talked, before he remembered the flowers curled around his fingers. Never had he felt so lost, so unprepared and vulnerable. It drove him mad. But something about the glimmer of wonder in your eyes told him it was all worth it. Your ghostly touches soothed his nerves, your laughter was a breath of life in his withering lungs. It was you who little by little melted his worries away like the pooling colors of a warm summer sky.

Your fingers worked gently through his inky strands of hair, tying it up in a bun before pulling out two strands at the front to frame his face. His eyes followed your hands with curiosity gleaming in them, watching as you picked more flowers from the bouquet to decorate his hair with. Carefully, you slipped the flowers over his ear before dotting his hair with colorful buds of petals.

He leaned into your touch, a shaky breath pushing through his nose while his skin tingled under your warmth. Slightly, his eyes softened as your fingertips trailed over his cheekbones, over his scars, and lingered by the corners of his lips so gently as if he were fragile under your touch.

Locking eyes with him, you smiled at how his eyes twinkled with devotion under fluttering lashes. “You’re so beautiful,” you sighed, pulling him close enough for your lips to press against his forehead tenderly. His breath hitched, eyes widening as heat rose to his cheeks.

As you pulled away, he observed you carefully, almost as if searching for a hint of a lie in you. His heart fluttered under your loving gaze and all he could do was encircle your wrists softly so he could feather your knuckles with softhearted kisses while his lungs begged for him to breathe.

He couldn’t speak. He could barely breathe. He never thought he’d be intoxicated by the sweet sound of your voice. But if intoxication was this good, he wanted to be ruined by a love like yours.

“Thank you,” he choked out, voice strained with emotion as his lips moved to the back of your wrists. His hands shook as they held you, too afraid he’ll lose you if his fingers were to uncurl from around you. “Thank you.”

You kissed his cheek, catching the tear that had fallen from the corner of his eye. Another kiss feathered his face, then another. More tears raced down his skin as his shoulders shook with silent cries. Your lips graced his forehead, his eyelids, the scar by his cheekbone, cleansing his skin of the tear tracks that stained his face.

“Hey, hey,” you cooed, pressing your forehead against his, prompting him to meet your gaze. “Listen to me, okay?” Cupping his face, you caressed his cheekbones tenderly, smiling as he leaned further into your hold. “You are beautiful,” You repeated, pouring every bit of love your heart and soul could carry into your words. “You are so, so beautiful both inside and outside, alright?”

How was he even supposed to reply to that? His heart ached under the weight of the love that swelled in his chest, his mind unable to comprehend how he got to this moment. Part of him swore he was no longer on Earth— there’s no way love like this could ever link itself to him on such a broken world.

His brain was going a thousand miles an hour, his heart threatened to seize at the sight of your loving gaze. No words escaped his lips when he parted them; instead, a shaky breath escaped his lungs as his shoulders shook with another silent cry that made his lips quiver ever so slightly.

All he could do was pull you into his arm, close to his chest in an attempt to squeeze you into his heart. One hand kept your head over his heart while his other arm wrapped around you tightly as he fell onto his back under your weight, taking you down with him. A lingering kiss was pressed onto the top of your head as hot tears silently escaped from the corners of his eyes.

Shota breathed in the moment. The scent of your shampoo. The aroma of a rainy day. The perfume of the flowers you so carefully adorned his hair with. He allowed himself to be submerged under the care of your love, letting his heart swell as his arms tightened around you.

You pulled away ever so slightly, catching a glimpse of the hero who lied beneath you. A breath of astonishment pulled from your lips, your heart seizing at the heavenly sight of him.

Inky strands of hair slipped from the hair tie, spilling onto the floor like rivers under a night sky. His eyes were glossed over with emotion as he stared back at you, a world of wonder and serenity replacing the restlessness that once weighed on his gaze. Small mounts of petals dotted his hair, each sapling of color glimmering like stars in the sky above.

He looked angelic.

Slowly, his hands trailed over your figure until they cupped the sides of your face gently. Scarred fingers caressed your skin delicately, tracing over the curves of your lips almost hesitantly.

“I love you,” he breathed lowly, his words rumbling through his chest softly. A trembling breath blew past his lips, his hands shaking softly as they held you close to him. “I love you so much.” 

His cheeks were bright with heat as you smiled at him, his eyes widened with wonder while you gazed at him so tenderly he swore he forgot how to breathe for a moment. You leaned in, your lips mere inches from meeting his own. Carefully, you pulled a tiny bundle of petals from his hair, twirling it between your fingers as a smile curled at the corners of your lips. Shota gently plucked the flower from your fingers, sliding it over your ear before letting his fingers trail down the curve of your jaw.

“I love you, too.” Shota’s eyes widened in awe, threatening to gloss over with emotion once more. A beat of hesitation passed before, he tugged you towards him, connecting your lips in a slow motion of love and reverence. He melted under your weight, his heart leaping as your lips gracefully moved with his own.

Separating from each other with swollen lips and rose-tinted cheeks, he smiled. His lips stretched dreamily across his face, a brilliant sparkle twinkling in his eyes as a breathy chuckle rumbled through his chest.

Shota never thought he deserved to be loved, but maybe he was starting to believe otherwise.

☆

Aizawa taglist:

@beecca9 @bandaidfaerie @zawasleepingbag @retaaschilling @rvgrsbrns @samx-jpeg

[multiplefandomsblog]

request(s); IZURU SMUT WITH AFAB READER - IT DOESNT MATTER WHAT THE CONTENT INCLUDED IN IT IS,I JUST, NO ONE REALLY WRITES FOR THE SCARY M A N 😢😢😢

paring(s); Izuru x AFAB!reader

warning(s); cussing, woAHH reader is a prostitute hired by enoshima, reader is AFAB, oral sex (m receiving), humiliation kink whoop, degradation kink double whoop, ah yes dirty talk, degrading names, spit-play,  prositution, multiple orgasms, wall sex, slow and steady wins the race, dumbification, begging, dacryphillia, sadism, kind of like fuck or die???? but not really??????? AND DEAR LORD I HAD NO IDEA WHAT I WAS DOING WITH THIS GOD oii

note; i actually had a dream similar to this— also i lowkey got attached to these characters and now im seriously considering making a series of this???? DHSBJDDBF IDK IT REMINDS ME OF, LIKE AAAA IDK

wc; 4.1k+

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Everything was terribly boring. 

It was funny; that had been the only thought Izuru seemed to have in his brain, even as you were on your knees sucking him off like he was your last meal. Glaring down at you, he stifled a disappointed sigh. In all honesty, you weren’t bad; but he knows he could do much better, perhaps even find much better. It was almost a guarantee that he’d get someone else to do the job for him much better. 

Sitting on the throne of a comfortable chair, he had barely broken a sweat, nor had he even moaned a single time. Of course, that would frustrate you; you were squeezing whatever couldn’t fit in your mouth, ‘faking’ moans—or at least that’s what you told yourself you were doing—to send vibrations down his spine, and swallowing all the filthy pre-cum of his cock had released. And the man didn’t even have the gall to at least pretend to like it. 

It irritated you.

Why had he even accepted Enoshima’s offer for you if he hadn’t even been enjoying it? You hadn’t even touched yourself yet, and you were the one completely soaking in your panties—whilst you swore you heard him sigh, and not one of pleasure. Every part of it was humiliating for you.

“This is boring, get off.” You perked your head up, popping your lips off the unsatisfied pink tip, and to your humiliation, you looked up at him with sad, puppy dog eyes; ones that you hadn’t even purposely put on. You felt your heart drop all the way down to your stomach, “Boring…?” Well, that did it. 

Desperation turned into anger, and before you knew it, you had been crawling on this man’s lap, thighs straddling him, and hands digging into his shoulder as you looked down at him with feigned dominance. You gritted your teeth, he hadn’t a single reaction, just a look of genuine curiosity, and the same look of bored annoyance. He didn’t seem to like being suddenly touched, not like you even cared. Boring, huh? You’d prove to this self-entitled fuck, you weren’t as boring as he thought you to be. 

“... What do you think you’re doing?” With his question of genuine intent to know, his dull tone of voice seemed to have affected your interpretation of what he truly meant to say. Despite the condescending and almost offended tone, he truly wanted to know. Someone like you, crawling into his lap as if you hadn’t been face-to-face with possibly the world’s most dangerous human being; brought a small spark of interest in his chest.

Maybe you had some potential, he would think. “Are you trying to prove yourself to me?” With his eyes gleaming with curiosity and anticipation, you leaned back as you felt him lean in. With his nose inches away from yours, you shrunk just a slight but kept your act as strong as you could hold it for.

You gulped, gaze and grip faltering underneath his piercing gaze. Suddenly you felt small again. Your previous surge of dominance seemed to crumble and collapse as he brought his hands up to grope at your hips, reminding you who was really in charge here. He narrowed his eyes as he felt your hesitance and yielding, his large hands that had cupped your ass had practically been supporting all your weight as you backed down in the body and in mind. Damn it. He wondered where your confidence went, it was only just getting fun— but perhaps, all good things come to an end.

Well. He wasn’t going to let you give up that easily.

Suddenly, he let go, causing your ass that had once been held up by his hands, to fall back and knock onto his knees harshly; and you swore you could see a ghost of an expectant smirk on his face. Surprising you further, Izuru uttered 4 words that only seemed to confuse you, yet excite you all the same.

“Go on then. Try.” Your breath hitched, averted eyes now confused and focused them back onto the long-haired male. “W- what?” Izuru’s eyes narrowed at you, and the impatient look he had sent to you almost felt like a reward as you felt yourself growing more sodden. “Try and prove that you aren’t just another hole. That’s why you’re still here, no?” He spoke, and you swore you could hear his voice lower in tone.

He rested his hands on the armrests of his chair, leaning back ever so slightly as he got comfortable; as if he was about to watch a performance made just for him—which hadn’t been far from the truth.

But to your surprise and not his, you obeyed. 

If this was your chance to prove yourself to him— the ultimate hope that everyone seemed to be intimidated by—you’d take it. Of course, you would. 

Despite the growing anxiety in your heart that you’d mess up, you pushed it down and put one brave façade; he would sense your fear if you displayed it too much. 

Your efforts turned futile anyway; you should’ve known he’d sense your hesitance. 

Acknowledging your hesitance you thought hadn’t been too obvious about, Izuru brought it up. “What’s stopping you? Your fear?” Izuru hummed, leaning down to peck at your chest, “Well, that’s understandable; you should be scared.” Followed by the light sound of his lips against your heated shoulder. 

“... Though I assume that’s not what you’re afraid of at this moment.” Assume? More like knew. You were so predictable to him, a flick of your finger could tell him exactly what you’re thinking. With a tender gaze you were surely seeing wrong, he stared up at you expectantly as he waited for your answer. 

“Well?” You gritted your teeth at his sudden gentleness, taking more offence to it than you should have. You didn’t like being treated with kid gloves, not by him at least; for all you know, he kills children. “I’m not scared of anything—” He was huge, of course, you were terrified. ”How do you know I’m not just trying to slow it down, so you’re ready for it?” You challenged, shifting yourself above his tip that still glistened with your saliva from the earlier blow. Izuru looked at you, nearly taken aback. 

It made you feel incompetent. As if he thought you couldn’t do it, as if he thought you couldn’t give him the best night of your life. Of course, you’d be offended. No one likes being underestimated, especially not by him. It just brings you a whole new different feeling of humiliation. 

And he knew that. He just wanted you to hurry up, you know, provoke you a little. Foreplay was… Boring; he’d think with a small smile.

“Surely, you’re not that idio—” He cut himself off with a sharp inhale, lips parting and eyebrow twitching from the way your slick cunt slid over the tip of his dick, sinking in with ease. “I- I’m not what?” You breathed out, a shaky, smug grin contorting on your face as you tried your best to conceal the fact his dick had felt like it had literally been splitting you in two. “Hnnahh— Jesus-” You dropped your head for a second, nails digging deeper into the material of his suit; surprisingly, he didn’t care all that much about the material damage—at the moment, he cared more about the fact you hadn’t even sunk half his dick in yet, and you already looked like you were near-tears.

Maybe care would be an overstatement. 

You bit down on your once-smug smile, jaw going slack as you felt the pleasant curve of his dick, rub against your vaginal walls ever so slightly—following the movements of your own heavy panting. “You shouldn’t be so cocky, S/o.” He didn’t seem to hear the irony hiding in between his almost-mocking words.

You scoffed at his taunting statement, staring him straight in the eye as you walked further into his trap, and sunk down lower—stifling a wince as you felt him sink in you alarmingly deep. How big was he!? Well, you already knew the answer to that question. Your jaw still hurt from earlier. But that stretch had been positively incomparable to the stretch your pussy had currently been experiencing. 

Izuru pursed his lips, silently groaning at the way your walls clamped onto him as if you were already trying to milk him of his cum. You were so tight, he noted in his mind; well he wasn’t going to complain. As a sex worker, he would’ve expected you to be looser, easier to slip in; it seemed one of his predictions had been incorrect. 

In a dry, uncaring tone, he addressed the bead of sweat forming on your forehead from the stretch. “Can you really take it? You look like you’re in pain.” the part that irked you the most had been the small undertone of genuine concern for your being. Yeah, Izuru; the ultimate I-don’t-care-if-you’re-dead, cared if you could take his dick. 

Maybe your heart would’ve been swelling with joy, had it not taken a large hit on your pride. You were a sex worker, not the protagonist of a fucking romance comedy. 

You could feel yourself growing angrier and angrier by the second; a large part of you just wanted to get him off and leave—but there was a larger part of you that… strangely wanted to please this man, prove him wrong.

Don’t get me wrong, the urge was purely sexual. 

Rolling your eyes at his ‘concern’, “Can you just- Nh!” you held your breath before clutching onto his suit a little more desperately than you wanted to as you sunk the rest of him inside you. Embarrassment made its debut in your reddening cheeks as you unwillingly let a few whimpers slip out. “—B- be fucking quiet? For on- Mn! O- once?” He paused before retorting back in that same blunt tone, seemingly unamused by your curses as he had been busy watching your bodily reactions closely, as well as feeling them first hand. “... You’re shivering.” He addressed the tremor of your shoulders, as well as the contractions of your walls against his cock. 

“It- It’s cold.” You lied through your teeth, to which he found annoying; surely, you knew that he would read through that lie, so what was the point of even trying? 

Sighing in annoyance, he bucked his hips, exhaling sharply through his nose as you yelped and collapsed onto him, body going limp as you felt him hit your sweet spot. With a slightly panicked moan, you dug your shined face deeper into the crook of his shoulder, causing him to shiver as he felt the breath of your moan hit his neck. “Hnn-! A- a- already?” Izuru scoffed quietly, “I thought you wanted me to be quiet. Which one is it?” Izuru’s condescending voice kissed your ear, and you felt your own shivers being sent down your spine from his voice alone. 

Putting on an annoyed façade that would soon shatter, you rolled your eyes—something you would probably be doing often tonight. “You’re really annoying, you know th-? Oh-! Oh fuck-!” You moaned, eyes shooting open, revealing your dilated pupils to the wall behind him. With your hands fanned out on his suited back, you arched your back against him, grinding slowly as you hugged him off the back of his chair. 

Mewling quietly, you found yourself trying to stifle your own moans, so you could hear better his own; only to pout as you heard nothing. Your sole purpose and presence with him at this moment had been to please him. You… needed to please him.

And only Atua knows what Junko’ll do to you if she finds out you didn’t satisfy him. 

Sighing in slight frustration, you felt him tense underneath your touch as you locked your lips onto his neck, lips searching and exploring every inch of the sensitive skin of his neck. Izuru’s eyes widened a fraction, only to lid as he felt himself growing bored again. “What are you doing?” You muffled against his neck, “I’m trying to find your erogenous zone—“ a large grin grew on your face as you felt him go rigid and stiff against you—as if he wasn’t already rigid and stiff—as you grazed your teeth on a certain spot on his Adams’s apple, a sign that you hit the jackpot.

“There, huh? I never would’ve guessed…” You spoke through gentle moans caused by Izuru’s natural reaction to fuck up into you harder. He shivered, sure, he was good at everything; but even he didn’t know he had an erogenous zone—or rather, where it was.

And now you had this information. 

You felt your confidence sprout back up again as you felt him melt, slowly but surely into your embrace, and slowly but surely, you tried gaining back control of what had been happening. 

That had been your plan; but as soon as your hands reached up to tangle your fingers in his hair, he flinched, nails digging into your hips harshly. “Hands off.” He growled, crimson gaze darkening in irritation from your feather-like tugs. 

Yeah, your plan. 

His scalp was sensitive, and he had made the mistake of reacting so strongly to your touch to it, right in front of you no less. It was a weakness; one you’d surely take advantage of as you fucked this man. Or rather, as he fucked you. Izuru grimaced as he could practically hear the mischievous grin in your voice, “Yeah?” with a warning tone, Izuru tried stopping you, “S/o.” you probably shouldn’t have felt as excited as you did from his warning voice; especially from a guy like him, but there was a part of you that really wanted to know what would happen—what he was warning you about. 

So you made the best mistake of your life; and tugged the already impatient man’s hair. 

Izuru hadn’t given you the time to even inhale a single breath, as he had you pinned to the wall in half a second. Shit, he’s fast. Well, what did you expect? Izuru was definitely more than ordinary—and as you still felt the stretch burning between your legs, you knew that more than anyone. “I- Izuru?” Izuru sighed as you shrunk underneath his hold, forcing him to hold you up by his hips that had been pressed up against you. Your cattiness seemed to disappear the moment he manhandled you to the wall; it was predictable. All bark, no bite. He wondered why he wasted his time with you. 

With your eyes wide and helpless, Izuru remained unamused. “Let’s get this over with.”

Underneath the shell of your body, you could feel your blood boil as the man thrusting into you, had given you that familiar condescending stare of pity. He didn’t seem very pitiful as he watched you writhe and squirm underneath him from his unrelenting pace, though you could still read the emotion clear as day; your eyes glared right back at him—though you could barely see where you had been glaring, as your vision had been blurred from your own tears.

He was planning to push you to your limits, because, maybe when you’re sobbing and begging for him to stop; maybe then, you’d be less boring. 

‘He was the ultimate at everything; of course, he would be good at this too-’ “Fuhh...- fuck!” Your first orgasm of the night washed over your body, shaking uncontrollably as you had been less than prepared for it. You’d often have to fake your orgasms or get yourself off once the person using you was done. So you, whether it was fortunately or unfortunately, weren’t used to cumming so quickly. Previous thoughts of distaste had been long forgotten, as you had now been completely weak; moments away from breaking down and throwing away your dignity to prolong sex with Izuru. 

Sobs spilled out of your mouth as Izuru helped you ride out your high. The man watched you from above, hands hooking underneath your thighs and slamming you against the wall harder than your body had gone slack in your arms. For him, it felt more like he was pleasuring you—but for some reason, he didn’t mind all too much. 

Through tear-stained eyelids, you glared at him, your warm body still trembling from the near-mind-blowing orgasm he granted you. “I- I can take it.” At least, you thought you could. In all honesty, you didn’t care. You wanted it, and furthermore, he hasn’t even cum yet. Your job wasn’t finished. If you had to be fucked until your mind broke for him to cum, you’d do it. You didn’t have a choice—but even if you did, you wouldn’t deny him; you’d have to be insane to. 

“How... persistent…” Izuru murmured quietly to himself, bringing a hand up to tap your chin, causing you to perk your head up and flush at the gentle touch; the way he looked at you made you feel as if you were a mere science project being examined. It may have not been ideal, but being gazed at like nothing but a lowly bug is better than being ignored.  

It was so easy to fuck you into submission, he thought. Grunting, he pulled all the way out, lip twitching at the lewd squelch of your pussy. He almost lost himself in the way your walls fluttered around the tip of his cock once again, before tightening as if you were trying to welcome him back in.

Izuru, with a sharp inhale, roughly slammed back in, hitting all the right places despite the thrust being as quick as a flash of a camera. You gasped for air, you felt as if you had just been punched with his hips—and before you could recover from it, you felt him pull out yet again, only to slam back in, a small exhale huffing out the man’s lips as he kept on doing that same repetition. 

“F- faster— Pl- please!” You choked out as tears welled up in your eyes, his thrusts had been so powerful and forceful, yet so calculated; as if he was aiming for your G-spot every time he thrust in—which he was. He growled under his breath, voice still monotone but more strained than before—it was almost impossible for him.  

“You’re too tight to go fast.” He deadpanned, “if I go any faster, I might break you.” He didn’t really care whether he broke you, but who in their right mind would want to be broken? 

It was almost comedic how quickly you perked up at the mention of being broken. “I- I wanna! Really bad, r- real bad! Please!” You blabbered and begged like an idiot, your dignity long gone. He hissed at the way your pussy gushed with your juices and excitement, struggling yet again to piston himself into you. “Do you only think with your cunt?” Izuru narrowed his eyes down at you, disbelief and disgust gleamed in his red eyes; and it only made you squeeze around him unwillingly.

You shrunk, shaking your head as a babyish pout contorted onto your lips. “N- no, I-” The slow slapping noises of his hips on yours grew in volume, and your eyes widened as you could feel and hear him getting more frantic, hitting you deeper—places you were sure weren’t even supposed to be touched were abused by the crown of his growing cock.

Through a tone that tried its best to be calm and composed, Izuru shakily breathed out. “Open your mouth.” 

“W- Huh?” With slurred speech and crossed eyes, you tried your best to find his red eyes through the tears that blurred your vision. You were so fucked out, you weren’t even sure if he had actually said anything or if it had been your imagination.

“You heard me, don’t play dumb.” You hadn’t been playing dumb; you were dumbed. But Izuru held no patience for your games, and you could definitely feel that in his increasingly painful grip on your ass—he was sure to leave a bruise on your skin. With a confused look in your eye, you hesitantly dropped your jaw for him, whimpering and jolting as you felt something wet spew into your mouth. Before you could whine or even get the chance to complain, Izuru had forcefully knocked you against the wall again, lightly hitting your head as he steadied you against the surface with one hand as he used the other to close your jaw.

You hadn’t even registered the fact you had spit into your mouth as your mind had been too foggy from the intense feeling building up in your stomach once again. “Swallow.” Without so much as a questioning noise as a reaction to what he had done, you obeyed. Swallowing thickly with bleary eyes, you tried your best to keep eye contact with the man who seemed way too calm for the aggressive pace he had been maintaining like a pro.

Not thinking much of it, you dropped your jaw and flattened your tongue down against your chin; it was almost instinctual as you obediently showed him you had swallowed all of it. It seemed to please him, as he traced his thumb absentmindedly over your jawline; it almost felt like a reward, to be touched like that. His gentle hands differed greatly from his pace that fastened within each second that passed the both of you by. 

Your moans grew in volume, and you could feel yourself getting overwhelmed by how fucking good it felt to be fucked by him; moans and groans turned into full-blown hysterical sobbing as you felt your second climax approach. He grunted in frustration as he felt your walls clamp around him once again, convulsing as you gasped for air, his breaths huffing out in small intervals as he tried to get himself to his own high. 

Nothing was said as you threw yourself into him, hugging himself close to you as if he was your lifeline despite your twitching body—you weren’t sure how long you could hold on before you passed out, but you tried your best to stay conscious. He hadn’t cum yet.

It may have frustrated him, but it also frustrated you. Running your hands down his neck to his well-defined jaw, you cradled his skull before attaching your lips onto his neck desperately, practically slobbering over him like a dog as you kissed and sucked at his neck—to which he groaned quietly at. It was a terrible job, you were necking him so sloppily, and he hated himself for grading your performance when really, he should’ve been indulging in it.

The sounds of his hips slapping against yours, combined with your small moans that you tried to muffle against his neck, had overwhelmed his senses and he found himself going blank in the mind for less than half a second. 

It was dangerous, to leave yourself vulnerable like that. 

So without another word, sound, or thrust, he hoisted you up and dropped you against the chair; in which you unravelled like a velvet carpet over the soft, plush furniture. Your legs wrapped around his waist as you didn’t want to part from him, you didn’t want it to stop. There, he continued his assault to your already battered cunt, grunts and sharp sighs spilling out his mouth as he concentrated on getting himself to climax. 

“F- fuck, Izuru— Izuru, you’re splitting me- in t- two!” You sobbed out, arms flying up to wipe your tears away that prevented you from seeing the esthetical man above you. With his hair looking like it was flowing behind him, and the thin layer of sweat shining on his skin, you felt your heart beat a little faster— what?

You hadn’t even been able to register the dread of the realization of your feelings, as, without warning, Izuru creamed inside you. His hips stuttered to a stop, and he leaned himself completely over your body that had folded over the back rest of the chair, nose meeting the crook of your mid-chest. “Hhah...” He panted, clammy hands that had been gripping onto your skin tightly, loosened as he took a second before getting up and off you. 

You scrambled up from your position on the chair, legs and pussy numb as you struggled sitting up.“Wait Izuru—!” You called out for him, catching his attention as he cleaned himself up with a convenient towel Junko had left on the table. 

Zipping up the fly of his pants, he stared at you, waiting for you to continue what you had been planning to say as he flattened the creases of his suit. 

“W- were you...” You gulped, flushing as you recalled what you had done earlier. “Were you satisfied?” Your voice had been meek, afraid of his answer for more than one reason. Junko really would show you despair if she found out you didn’t satisfy him. “... I’ll let her know I was.” You sighed in relief, shoulders going slack as you fell back on the chair. You’d live another day.

[neoculturetravesty]

He’s never called her pretty

Image taken from here.

Pairing: Doyoung x Florist!Reader Genre: Angst, Romance, Fluff Warnings: Might have dropped a couple of f bombs. Word Count: 4982

Summary: Doyoung has a cruel realization that being an idol has hindered him from being the best boyfriend to you. 

 A/N: This is my first fic ever, and I can’t really believe I’m doing this. But inspiration hit me and I had to let it all out. Let me know what you think!

“Has he ever even told you you’re pretty?” Doyoung hears through the curtains, and he knows he’s walked in on something he shouldn’t have. He doesn't know how he ended up here but he certainly can’t reveal himself now. He knows he shouldn’t be here but a pressing instinct tells him that the conversation concerns him and suddenly, he’s found himself rooted to the spot, unable to move his feet, sinfully listening in. 

Moments ago, he had walked into the venue and for a while, he had just stopped and stared. He had known his girlfriend was talented, but watching her work for the very first time with his own two eyes took his breath away. People would talk about your skills all the time, but somehow, it never registered in his mind. He felt a bout of shame as he realized this. You weren’t just a florist, it seemed. You were an artist, because what Doyoung saw in front of him was unlike anything he had ever seen. That’s why people talked about you.

When an unassuming usher walked up to him and asked if he was a guest, all he could manage was “I’m looking for Y/N.” He had to remind himself that he was here to surprise you and he needed to make himself less conspicuous before someone recognized him. The fact that he was ogling at the decor whilst clutching onto a bouquet of red tulips didn’t help the matter. So he had tried to follow the usher’s instructions as best he could to find you. That’s how he found himself here, hidden behind a veil without meaning to be hidden.

It felt perverse, the fact that he was not letting his presence be known, but curiosity had him unable to walk away. He listened in.

“Well… not in so many words.” Doyoung feels his stomach drop before he hears the reply to the cruel question, because the voice that answered it was a voice that he had memorized perfectly in every part of his mind. It was yours.

He could hear you from miles away, that’s how attuned his ears were to the sound of your voice. He knew it was you that answered that foul question, as much as he stood in that moment, hoping it wasn’t because these were not the words he had ever expected to hear from you.

“How long have you guys been together, again?” He hears another pestering, unkind voice and his heart races.

“Not long, maybe about 5 months?” your voice is meek, Doyoung can sense your discomfort through the thin veil that hides him.

“Have you met his parents?” It’s a different voice this time, but this one is just as unkind. Doyoung wants to move, to say something but he’s not supposed to be here in the first place, and truth be told, he wants to remain hidden because he wants to know.

“Well, no. Not yet. They don’t live here, so not yet.” He can tell you’re cornered, you’re uncomfortable, you want to leave and you don’t have to say the words for Doyoung to know exactly how you feel. 

“How about his brother?” 

“Well, they’re both really busy, he’s just… never had a chance I guess.” Now, he should do it now. Doyoung should barge in and take you away from this. Who are these women anyway to be cornering you with such invasive questions?

“So you’re saying in the 5 months you’ve been together, he’s kept you a secret… even from his family.” A secret? He hasn’t kept you a secret, he’s just been waiting for the perfect time.

“I don’t think I’m a secret.” Doyoung’s heart leaps in his chest and he suddenly feels hopeful because you’ve said the words as if you heard his thoughts. 

“Y/N… I don’t know how to tell you this, but I think he’s going to break up with you.” the unkind voice declares with a tone laced with feigned pity. It makes Doyoung sick.

“Yeah, Sooji is right. Y/N, sweetheart… men don’t wait that long if they’re in it for the long run.” 

There is a shuffling of feet and then the first voice says “I’m so sorry, Y/N, but it would be better this way I think. I know men like him. He’s had his fun so now you’re a liability. I think he’s going to cut you off sooner rather than later.”

Doyoung hears the ruffling of clothes and more shuffling of feet before it all turns silent. Yet, he finds himself unmoving, his mind racing, his body still. He notices that he’s holding onto the red tulips a bit too tight. Red tulips. ‘You are my perfect love,’ that’s what he remembers you teaching him about them.

So why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you defend him? 

Doyoung can’t explain it, but all he feels in this moment is anger and betrayal. Why did you let those women talk about him like that? To talk about the two of you like that? Why didn’t you speak up and tell them to keep their noses out of your business? Why didn’t you tell them to knock it off because they don’t know about you, about how the two of you were together? Unless…

Unless you believed them. 

Had he ever told you that you were pretty? Doyoung thinks, really thinks about it. He thinks back to your first date. You had closed your flower shop early for him, to protect him from prying eyes and unwanted camera lenses. You had turned the blinds on the windows down and showed Doyoung your creations. You had worn a white sundress with your hair down and when you had smiled up at him from behind the sunflowers, Doyoung had actually found himself a loss for words. He had never felt that before, the feeling of losing his speech because a girl had actually taken his breath away, simply by smiling at him. He remembered stupidly wondering if he had fallen in love at that moment or if you were really just that beautiful that you turned his brain to mush. Had he told you that he thought you were pretty then? No, he hadn’t. Not in so many words, your answer replays in his mind with a sting.

But did you want to hear it? Doyoung hadn’t thought so. You were far beyond the need for meaningless expressions, he had presumed. It’s why he was drawn to you. Being with you was as easy as breathing. You were okay about the fact that the two of you couldn’t go on dates… or proper dates, in the way real people did. You always seemed comfortable enough sitting next to him on the couch as you lazily browsed through Netflix. You were never in a mood when Doyoung forgot to text you back because he was in the studio, and you always met him with warmth even as you waited because his practice went on for a bit too long. Doyoung didn’t think you were the kind who’d wait around for her boyfriend to tell her she was pretty. 

‘Of course she wanted to hear it,’ Doyoung thinks in a moment of crippling realization. He was a fool. What woman wouldn’t want her boyfriend to tell her she was pretty! What woman wouldn’t want her boyfriend to take her on dates, on proper dates where she could doll up and be pampered? What woman wouldn’t want a boyfriend she could take pictures with and post them for the world to see? He was a fool. He had taken your kindness to mean something else. Comfort. Contentment. Complacence. He was a fool. 

And now these women had convinced you that he wasn’t interested in you. And you had believed them. Why else would you have fallen silent? Truth be told, he hadn’t done much to show you what you meant to him. Now that he looks back, it was always you putting in the effort. He was a fool. And now here he was. Hidden quite literally behind a curtain in a room he wasn’t supposed to be in, head in his hands. ‘You are my perfect love,’ the tulips mock him so he drops them. He gets out of there, only one conclusive thought in his brain: ‘She deserves better.’

You loved events like these almost as much as you loved running the store. Your fingers were stained from creating the floral sculptures and your back ached a little. But your heart was happy. You stood back and looked at how you took a simple venue and turned it into something magical, if you might say so yourself. You saw the gleam in your client’s eyes and you felt proud of yourself. You had done well. You took a deep, content breath and let it out in a happy sigh. Decorating for events like these reminded you why you loved your job. What you didn’t like was that inevitably, at times like these, you were met with so many invasive questions. 

“You work so much, don’t you get tired, Y/N?”

“Is being a florist really worth it?”

“Don’t you ever want a real job?”

“Are you dating someone, Y/N?”

“I know a guy, I could set you up on a blind date!”

Over the years, you had learnt to tune them out. They didn’t bother you, not really. You were happy in the true sense of the word, and meaningless gossip didn’t change that. You had learnt to work in silence, usually with your Airpods in, letting them out only when your trusted employees came to give you a hand.

You stood in front of your creation one last time, committing it to memory. It had taken you about a week to create all these floral sculptures but now that you stood here looking at the finished product, you felt it was worth it. You spent some more time taking pictures of what you’d made and proudly posted them on your Instagram. 

You felt a sense of accomplishment, as one would feel at the end of a project that ended in success. You wanted to celebrate, have this tiring week end in an exhale. And if you asked yourself, there was no one else you wanted to share this happy moment with but Doyoung. You smiled as you thought of him. You realized that your mind somehow sneakingly thought of him every time you felt a surge of joy. Surely, that had to mean something.

He had said he’d meet you today after you were done and the two of you could celebrate together. You were in a happy daze as you went into the changing rooms to get out of your stained clothes and into something prettier. Not even the women that bombarded you with personal questions while you changed could get you out of your blissful state. You swiped some color on your lips and let them throw questions at you. You answered them on autopilot, just to be polite.  

When you were ready, you went back to your makeshift workstation at the venue and looked at the leftover flowers. White carnations and anemones, an odd combination, but these are the only ones that remained. You put them together anyway and tied them with a ribbon when you were happy with what you made. Doyoung always appreciated it when you brought him flowers. He had joked how it was supposed to be his job, but what could he do when he was dating a florist. So you did all the bringing of flowers in the relationship. ‘He would surely like these’, you thought to yourself with a stupid grin on your face. 

You clutched onto the flowers as you took the bus to your boyfriend’s apartment. You wondered if he had eaten. He had been so busy lately. Maybe you’d get him food when you got there. As you neared his building, you had a sudden bout of self awareness on how you might look. You were dolled up, holding onto a bouquet of flowers, making your way to an idol’s building. You looked so foolishly conspicuous that you almost had to stop to laugh at yourself. You giggled, mentally smacking yourself on the forehead, and took a detour. In your early days, Doyoung had taught you how to get to his building without being seen, because as you would have it, there were always a bunch of people with cameras camped outside, ready to catch a glimpse of him. He had explained this to you so apologetically that your heart had ached for him. 

You would never admit it to anyone, but you kind of enjoyed the thrill of taking a roundabout way every time you came to see him. It made you feel like you were the heroin in your very own spy thriller. You took the back door of the next building and made your way to the fire escape, eyes on the landing of Doyoung’s building. The leap over was narrow and you managed it every time without fail. 

“Success!” You thought to yourself, as you landed, creeping in the shadows of his building till you were finally inside, keeping one eye on the group of people camped outside. “Don’t catch a cold, guys,” you thought, still grinning to yourself as you finally made your way to his apartment on the fifth floor. 

He had told you to let yourself in, so you punched in the code and finally stepped in. “It’s me!” You called out to let yourself be known. You made your way in and saw your boyfriend leaning over the kitchen counter, head bowed over a bowl of something. ‘Good. He’s finally eating’ you thought and walked towards him, giving him a kiss on the cheek “Hi, babe.” you smiled at him, cupping his face from the side. 

You could see that he was clenching his jaw a little and the fact that he doesn’t look up from his bowl of porridge makes you wonder if he’s had a tough day. “I got you flowers, let me put them in a vase real quick.” You say, not wanting to push him. Maybe in a while, after he had eaten, you could hold him and ask him if something was the matter. 

You turned to grab an empty vase, one you had gotten him, and filled it with water. For a while, the only sounds are the gentle rustling of leaves as you place your arrangement in the vase and Doyoung stirring his porridge. Suddenly, you hear his voice, his tone low. “What do these flowers mean?”

“Hmm…? Oh, these?” you give him a warm smile. Doyoung would ask you this every time you brought him something. So you’d make sure to bring him something new each time. “White carnations generally symbolize innocence and pure love. And these anemones… they symbolize sincerity. Although this little guy is stained a little pink, so it could also mean forsaken love. But it’s not it’s true color, so I’m going to let it slide.” you try to joke to lighten the heaviness you feel in the air.

Doyoung looks pensive, like he’s thinking your explanation over. “Forsaken love.” he repeats, like he’s feeling the weight of the words on his tongue. 

“Hmm… but the clients ordered white anemones, I guess this one got a little stained on the way.” you say, trying to keep the tone conversational, but you can feel the air getting tenser, burdening down on the two of you. So you reach out a hand to stroke his hair “Are you okay?” you ask kindly but the words have barely left your lips when Doyoung flinches away and turns to face you. 

Your heart drops. Something has changed, that much you can sense, but you’re so confused. “Doyoung?”

He looks impatient, but not with you. You can tell you’ve found him amidst a battle with himself. Like he was working out his thoughts but you walked in and interrupted and now it’s all messed up. “Don’t you ever want a real boyfriend?” he asks suddenly, looking down at you, eyes distant.

“A real boyfriend?” you repeat, looking up at him. You can’t help the concern that shines in your eyes, even if you try to downplay it. You just want to reach out to him but you dare not; not when he’s protecting himself from you. 

“A real boyfriend.” He turns the phrase over. “Someone who wouldn’t hide you like he’s ashamed of you.” There is venom in his tone now.

“But you’re not ashamed of me, Doyoung.” You say his name, wanting him to hear you pronounce it with love and kindness. “You’re not hiding me because you’re ashamed of me. You’re hiding me to protect me.”

He scoffs then, looking away and places his hands on his waist. Like you’ve said the most ridiculous thing in the world. “Doesn’t it make you worry that you haven’t even met my family yet?”

You take a step closer to him but he moves away and your heart aches once again. You can’t help the hurt you feel. ‘But that’s what he wants.’ You have to tell yourself ‘He’s trying to hurt me because he’s hurting.’ 

“Do you want me to meet your family, Doyoung?” You ask carefully, saying his name once again, this time to anchor yourself. You never could say his name with disdain. 

Doyoung laughs. It’s cold, the way he stands there to mock you. But you know him too well. He’s trying to be cruel, to block you out, and a strange part of you wants to know how long he can keep this facade up. “Wake up, Y/N. Don’t you think that if I wanted you to meet my family, it would’ve happened already?”

You look up at him and this time, you can’t hide the confusion that contorts your face. You were trying to be patient with him, trying to keep your calm and kindness while he spat venom at you. You knew he was hurting. You just wished you knew what brought this on. “Doyoung… what’s wrong? Can you please tell me what’s wrong?” You walk towards him, wanting nothing more than to close the gap between the two of you.

“Don’t you think that if I wanted to keep you, I would’ve… I would’ve… Y/N, don’t come any closer.” He blocks with his forearms as you reach for his face, turning his body away from you.

“Doyoung, look at me, please. Please.” You gently plead, still reaching out for his face while he blocks you and keeps moving away.

“Haven’t you wondered why I’ve never taken you out on a date? Why I’ve never been the one to bring you flowers? Why I’ve never stayed the night in your bed? Why I’ve never kept any sign of you in my room? Why I’ve never introduced you to my family?” He’s spitting at you now with his words, one sting after another, but you’re fighting back. You’re still reaching for him and he’s still moving away, he’s still blocking you, he’s still protecting himself. But you can see his walls faltering, you hear the tremors in his voice.

“Doyoung, please, just let me--”

“--Y/N, have I ever even told you you were pretty?” At that, relief washes over you as you finally understand what’s up. Those women. Had they tried to corrupt his mind as they had tried to corrupt yours?

“Don’t you see it, Y/N? I don’t wanna be with you, I don’t wanna be…” he’s breaking now, and you can tell he doesn’t have the energy to keep it up any longer because his lies end in a sob and he’s doubling over, like he can’t hold himself up anymore.

And so you hold him. You put your arms around his neck and kiss him on the cheek “Doyoung. It’s okay. Baby, it’s okay.” You kiss his cheekbone, you kiss his jawline, you take his face in your palms and make him look at you. You press a gentle kiss on his lips.

“It’s not okay.” He croaks, his chest heaving from the sobs. 

“Shhh… baby, breathe.” You coo at him, standing on your tiptoes to kiss his forehead, combing his hair away from his face with your fingers. You kiss his cheek and then his lips tenderly, once, twice and a third time. You pull back to look at him.

He falls into you then, burying his face in the crook of your neck. “I’m sorry…” he sobs, and there is such sincerity in his voice that your heart breaks into a thousand pieces. You never wanted to see him like this.

You turn your head and keep pressing kisses to his temple while he remains buried in your neck. “Shhh, baby. I’m here. I’m right here.” You cradle the back of his head, run your hands across his back to soothe him till he calms. 

He takes a deep breath and straightens, wiping his eyes on the back of his hand “I’m sorry.” He says again and you coo at him once more, shushing him, kissing him on the lips.

“You’re so cold.” You rub his shoulders as you notice him shivering. “Come, let’s get you to bed and warm you up.” He doesn’t protest as you take his hand and lead him to his room. 

The house was quiet today and that told you no one was around. Doyoung’s room was as well kept as ever and you smiled as you saw the plant you had given him alive and thriving on his windowsill. ‘No sign of you in my room’ you scoff internally as his words play over in your mind. Doyoung was so bad at lying. You dimmed his lights and got into his bed, lifting the covers for him. “Come here.” You invite him in.

He obeys this time, like he doesn’t have the energy to fight anymore. He gets in, placing his head on your chest, throws an arm around your waist and a leg over your legs. You encircle him in your embrace. ‘He wants to be held.’ You thought and so you held him tight. Like you were trying to take his pain away. You tucked the covers around him, cocooning him in as he clung to you. You stroked his hair and kissed the top of his head over and over, wanting to let him know that he was loved. But you knew that soon you’d have to use your words.

So you took his hand in yours and pressed a kiss to the back of it before you said “I love you, Doyoung. So much. You’ve given me your heart. Don’t you know that’s enough?” But as soon as the words leave your mouth, you wish you hadn’t said them, at least not now, because a fresh pool of tears run down his eyes. You wipe them away with your thumb and kiss the top of his head, tucking it under your chin.

“It’s not enough.” He sniffles. “I can’t give you what another man can give you, Y/N. I can’t hold your hand and walk you home because I’d be worried someone with cameras would follow me. I can’t pick you up after work and take you to the movies because what if someone recognizes me. Fuck, I can’t even let you into my home by the front door. I have to make you jump between buildings and risk your safety like that because I’m such a selfish man and I need you. You don’t deserve any of this.”

Your poor, sweet boy. You press a palm to his forehead “I had no idea you had so many worries in this head of yours.” You muse, a smile in your voice.

“Any other man would show you off so proudly. He would take pictures with you and post them for the world to see. He would take you out to dinner, he would kiss you without fear of getting caught. He would visit you when you had an important day to cheer you on. I haven’t given you any of that. I can’t give you any of that. Do you know I didn’t even know how good you were at what you did until today? Because I can’t just show up to support you. It’s always you making all the effort. You’re the one that has to change your plans according to my schedule. You’re the one that has to come to me all the time. You’re the one that has to plan all our dates. You don’t deserve any of this.” There is so much regret in his voice, so much sadness that suddenly, you’re a bit irked. None of that means anything to you, so why is he feeling that way?

You frown at him now “Doyoung. What makes you think I want any of that? Do you think I’d be with you if that’s the life I wanted? If that was the kind of relationship I wanted?” you try to lift his chin to make him see your face so he knows your words are true.

He looks at you sadly then shakes his head “You shouldn’t have to settle, Y/N. Just because I can’t give you these things doesn’t mean you have to stop yourself from wanting them.”

You’re getting impatient now. Why doesn’t he get it? How could you possibly make him understand? You’ll just have to use your words. You sit up and pull him up with you so you could look at his face when you talked.

“Listen, you sweet, stupid, broody boy.” You smack him lightly on the head. “I don’t want any of that. I’ve never been one to like any of that. I don’t want a boyfriend that’s worried about performative grand gestures all the time. I hate that, and I know you know that about me. I don’t want fancy dates, I don’t want to post our pictures all over the internet. I never did that with any of my other relationships!” Doyoung makes a face when you mention this part, but you continue, “This,” you hold his hand in both of yours, “This is what I want. Just to sit next to you. To watch movies together cuddled on your couch. To come to see you at the end of the day and know you’ll be waiting for me. To sit together and talk about our day. To cook together and have Taeyong make fun of our failed attempts. To hold your hand and just… exist with you. This. This is what I want. Don’t you think that if I wanted something else I would have asked?” You didn’t expect it, but you are irritated at him. This was rare… this was something you hadn’t felt toward him before.

Doyoung’s expression has softened as he looks at you. He sighs “You have to bear so much because of me. I know people ask you questions. People wonder why you’re with me. They make assumptions about you. They spread rumours about you. You shouldn’t have to go through any of that.” 

“Doyoung.” You say, and this time, he’s hurt your pride a little. He has underestimated you. So your voice is serious “Do you think that I’d be with you if I didn’t have an amount of determination? Do you think I lead my life worrying about what people say about me?”

He smiles then, a real smile, an amused smile and he leans over to stroke your head. “That you are. Determined and strong.” He tilts his head and kisses you and you kiss him back.

You pull back but keep his face in your palms. “Please don’t let other people’s opinions affect you, Doyoung. You know I love you. You know I am the happiest I’ve ever been. Who cares what other people say about us?”

He pulls you into his chest and holds you and lets out a deep exhale, like he was holding his breath this entire time and now the worst is past. He holds you contentedly, like he finally believes you are his for the keeping. He holds you like a relief and he can’t stop the swell of happiness in his chest or the smile that keeps growing on his lips. “What have I done to deserve a woman like you?”

“You must have been a saint in your past life. But for now, you can feed me. I’ve had a long day and all I want to do now is carb-load on Chinese takeout that my boyfriend will buy me.” You pout at him, narrowing your eyes.

He kisses the tip of your nose and says “I’ll get you everything on the menu.”

“That’s the spirit.” You pat his chest twice and get up “You make the order, I’ll go set the table.” You say, starting to move to the kitchen but Doyoung grabs your wrist to stop you. 

“Y/N…” he says and stands up, making you turn around to face him. He comes closer and suddenly, your heart flutters. He tucks your hair behind your ears and looks at you so tenderly, you feel like your legs have turned to jelly. 

“You are so beautiful.” he says in a voice barely above a whisper but it washes over your body like a thrilling chill first, followed by the warmth of spring sunshine. It’s stupid, the way you’re blushing like you were a silly teenager and you can’t possibly stop the grin that’s making it’s way on your face. Your eyes are sparkling as they look into Doyoung’s sincere ones. So this is how it felt. Maybe having your boyfriend tell you you were pretty wasn’t overrated after all.

Copyright © 2021 NeoCultureTravesty. All rights reserved.

[littlefireofhestia]

hi! i'm sage and i was going through the "hestia devotee" tag and found a post of yours that said you were open for questions about her. i don't know how old that post is or if you're still taking questions, you can ignore this if you're not, but since i'm here i wanted to talk/ask about something.

i'm a baby witch (like the babiest of babies, almost a new born) and most of my experience is through reading and watching since i don't currently have time or resources to do any practice other than lighting incenses or candles or working with crystals. and i definitely don't know any form of divination, like tarot or pendulum, that would allow me to do actual deity work and properly communicate with them.

the thing is, i've researched deities from multiple pantheons multiple times, mostly out of curiosity, but the moment i came across a prayer to hestia my heart skipped a beat and i immediately felt a kind of comfort. it could have been nothing, but i still researched all i could about her and just. i've never felt this drawn to a deity before, much less felt a pull to actually worship one. but i feel very much that way about her.

i looked up ways to honour her and i'm genuinely shocked at how happy it's been making me. i'm finding joy in domestic activities i used to loathe, like washing the dishes or helping with house cleaning. i tried baking a cake all by myself for the first time and lit an orange candle for her while doing it. it turned out absolutely delicious, i discovered i actually really enjoy baking and even started my own cook notebook with some of my grandma's old recipes. i make a point to always tie my hair back when i'm doing something that makes me think of her or in her honour, like making tea or baking or making dinner for my family or cleaning, because i saw people talking about how she appreciates veiling but i don't know how to do it so i just tie my hair in a bun instead of putting on a scarf. and i used to hate tying my hair, but now i feel very good about it!

i've always struggled with feeling connected to religion and never really understood how that could bring peace to someone, but i haven't felt this grounded or loving towards my family and pets or in peace with myself as much as i have since i started doing things as acts of devotion to hestia.

now, on to the actual problem: i'm scared it's all in my head. i'm worried i'm not enough of a witch to worship a deity yet, since i'm still trying to learn ways of communication and can't directly ask her if she's with me. i'm scared that the little things i'm doing aren't enough and the comfort and faith i feel while doing them are my imagination and not actually her watching over me and appreciating my effort.

anyways, i'm really sorry for dumping these worries on you but i didn't see many hestia related blogs and i really needed to ask someone about this. is what i'm doing enough of a worship right now? do you have any tips on how to worship her better? thank you!

Hi Sage! I don’t know when you sent this ask so I’m sorry if it’s been a while since you sent it and my response is late. When I read this ask for the first time I nearly cried tears of joy. Before anything I do want to say that you’re doing amazing sweetie!

I’m always open to questions about Hestia.

First off, there is no prerequisite to worshipping deities. I am admittedly not a witch and worship the gods exclusively for religious reasons and not for witchcraft. I have not learned many divination methods yet (although I have used the very handy Greek Alphabet Oracle a few times) and my rituals are still relatively basic, mostly not even occurring on an altar. But I have felt Hestia. I have been in her presence. I have received dreams from other deities and signs. None of this is required to happen to believe in or worship the theoi, but I just want to assure you that beyond doing some research to figure out who you want to pray to and how to do prayer and ritual, there are no prerequisites to worship. My first prayer to Hestia was literally me throwing a scarf over my head and talking to her in the dark with a flashlight to represent a flame. No formal structure. Didn’t even know how to correctly hold my hands yet. And still she accepted me.

The vibe you get from Hestia is very much similar to my experience. I’ve been drawn to her for YEARS but didn’t know I could worship her. But she’s always felt like home and comfort and just right for me. I never ever had a reason why she was my favorite deity before becoming pagan. She just was. My connection to Hestia has been a fact for over a decade that I just didn’t know was religious until a year and a half ago. Me wondering if I could worship her is the reason why I started researching Hellenic Polytheism in the first place. She brought me to this faith and I am so thankful to her for that.

You finding joy in domestic activities you used to hate is something I’ve discovered through Hestia too, although it’s still a journey I’m early on due to depression and physical disability and having a lot of work to do on figuring out how to make things accessible for me. I’m excited to go further for and with Hestia.

I understand the thought about it being all in your head. I had those thoughts early in my practice too. Basically, belief is a process. It takes time to switch from whatever religious thought (or lack thereof) that you grew up with to polytheism and worshipping a variety of deities or even just one deity, and from there to truly believing in them. I’ve been practicing for a year and a half and it probably took me at least nine months to truly feel secure in my faith in the theoi. Research, pray, do ritual, devote acts to the gods, think about the gods, notice the influence of the theoi in your daily life, and gradually that belief will solidify. You may or may not receive signs, which may or may not speed this process up. I promise, if you want to believe in the gods, in Hestia, it just takes time.

Also on feeling that you aren’t doing enough, the video at the bottom of this post (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odhRRYqQo8Y) might help. And I promise: you are doing enough, you are enough, just as you are.

Now as for worship tips. You are honestly doing great so far. Thinking of her while doing household chores and tasks or dedicating those tasks for her is a great way to worship her. I’d also recommend checking out her Homeric and Orphic hymns, one translation of which can be found here, and a copy of the Homeric hymns can likely be found at a local bookstore or definitely through online ordering. The Homeric hymns can also start to teach you some stuff about prayer structure, but prayer doesn’t have to be formal. Sometimes I just sit and talk to Hestia, or to any of my other deities. Tell them about my day, thank them for things in my life or the world, and sometimes asking them for things (although I find that I ask for aid much more rarely than when I prayed as the Catholic I was raised to be). I also have perpetually in progress playlists I have made for my deities, and if I want to spend some non-ritual time just focusing on a deity I’ll put on their playlist and read something religious or talk in religious discords. I actually had my most profound spiritual experience with Hestia while doing this.

Last but not least, worshipping Hestia, or any other deity, is something you have your whole life ahead of you to do. Take it at your own pace. Faith is all about the journey. The destination is irrelevant. There is no deadline or leveling up system, no authority checking your progress. As I have experienced time and time again, the gods will very much meet you where you are. A few months ago I was in a deep depression and did not do any ritual for several months. When I finally did a ritual again, I felt Hestia’s warm hand on my shoulder, as if to say “I miss you, welcome home”. I promise, Hestia will always welcome you home.

P.S. I know this ask is anonymous but Sage, feel free to message me with any additional questions about Hestia or worshipping deities in general. I’m here if you need any more help.

[d-criss-news]

Nine Songs: Darren Criss

When Disney, Phantom Planet and Mr Hudson collide: Glee star, Emmy and Golden Globe winner and musician Darren Criss talks Andrew Wright through the pivotal songs in his life and the unexpected ways they found him.

“When we are younger, our gateway drugs to a lot of popular things don’t come from the sexiest of places. It’s up to you how proactive you want to be with your curiosity from there, and how far down the rabbit hole you want to go, if you go down at all.”

Choosing the songs that define you is a tricky business to say the least, especially when the power of song has provided an ongoing soundtrack to your life. “When you’re as avid a music consumer as musical artists are, trying to pin down Nine Songs is difficult,” Darren Criss laughs. So much so, his final choices only really crystallise as our conversation draws to its close. “It’s hard for me not to see the value and joy in literally everything,” he explains. “The curse of the creative person is that your ideas and your interests always move way faster than your body can execute.”

Criss is a creative par excellence. As well as his Emmy and Golden Globe winning performance in The Assassination of Gianni Versace, where he played serial killer Andrew Cunanan, to his upcoming role in Muppets Haunted Mansion Halloween special as The Caretaker, he’s also a prolific musician. Criss enjoyed a decadent musical consumption since childhood, so “this was a bit of an archaeological dig,” he admits. As such, everything from jazz standards, to 808s, punk rock, ‘90s teen pop, and musical numbers are excavated in the course of our extemporaneous journey through the music he loves.

Equally on his mind is how to go about approaching the task of creating his Nine Songs, full stop. “The interesting social experiment is: Are my answers going to be songs that actually shaped my life and were formative to me as an artist? Are they songs that were formative to me as a human being? Or am I picking songs that I think represent who I am to people that do not know me? All three of those things aren’t necessarily the same thing.”

He reaches a conclusion of sorts. “For the purposes of making some kind of decision, I’m gonna lean less into trying to look cool to your very cool readership, and more into the literal, ‘What made me think about music in a different way? And hit me in a very emotional way?’ I think that’s probably the healthiest route.”

Embracing the accessibility that characterises Criss’ picks - or at times the initial touchpoints that led him to them - are something he vacillates over during our chat. “I’ve seen a lot of other people’s Nine Songs and they’re super cool. It’s like Leonard Cohen B-sides and old opera records and stuff. I’m gonna be pretty honest with the pop culture zeitgeist of how I grew up but explain why there is so much value in those moments.” His contemplation continues into the next day, Criss’s publicist passes on his regrets at being tentative to admit how he encountered one of his song choices via the Shrek soundtrack.

A yearning to reinterpret accessibility and the value attached to it drives Criss, however. He tells me that a festival performance that applied the anarchic verve of punk rock to a more refined Great American Songbook number remoulded his perception of music entirely. His love of the fusion of these two genres in particular symbolises the salient musical backdrops of his childhood - the guitar bands he played in with friends, and his musical theatre endeavours that led him to Broadway and multiple Ryan Murphy juggernauts, including his breakthrough playing Blaine Anderson in Glee.

Criss employs these contrasting musical lexicons, and other areas in between, on Masquerade, his new EP. Comprising five stand-alone “character-driven” singles, it sees Criss donning different musical personas. “I’m leaning into people that might know me as an actor,” he explains. “Because if actors can do Shakespeare, romantic comedy, and then do a horror movie and wear a prosthetic nose and a wig, I didn’t understand why I couldn’t just do that with music.” The song “walk of shame” draws on jazz-standard chords interlaced with hip-hop production, “i can’t dance” looks to new-wave, and “for a night like this” is the product of Criss’ goal to create the ultimate end-of-the-night crowd-pleaser for a new-year bash, wedding or bar mitzvah. “This is all of the parts of me as a lifelong fan of these genres, trying my hand at servicing the pieces of them that I love.”

“I really love all styles of music and understanding what makes them unique and special and what makes them really pop. There are so many things that really make things sing - for lack of a better verb - and I like acknowledging those things and celebrating those things.”

“So, let’s begin. I have runners up and shit, and I have artists, I don’t just have the songs, so we might have to pick them as we go.”

“Part of Your World” by Jodi Benson

“When people read this, they’ll go ‘That’s cute, he likes Disney songs’, but it’s more profound than that. Some of the most formative pieces of music to hit me at a very early age would have been any of the songs that were coming from ‘The Disney renaissance.’ The early-mid ‘90s explosion of The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and Beauty and The Beast.

"One of the through lines between the three of those musicals was Howard Ashman, who is one of my all-time heroes. Dramaturg, songwriter - he really was the voice behind what made those songs great. I have always loved Howard’s lyrical sensibility and also Alan Menken, his partner who wrote these songs with him. There was a musical structure to a lot of the songs which I would unconsciously pick up in my own songwriting, not just musically, but the idea that not only did somebody make these songs, but they wrote them for a story.

“There’s a clip of Howard Ashman vocal directing Jodi Benson, who was the original voice of Ariel. It’s a wonderful example of his genius, where not only was he songwriting but he was storytelling in the way he would tell her how to perform it, and you can really see the song coming to life in that clip. That’s when you cross the street from ‘It’s a song’ to ‘This is an experience.’

"There are certain ingredients that are required to elevate music that goes beyond just a nice melody, a beautiful orchestration and a good voice. There are things that are required to really give a performance a characterisation, context and a vulnerability, that he architects in real-time with Jodi Benson. You see that what he’s doing is what makes the record so special, and that’s something that’s always been inspiring to me.”

“MMMBop” by Hanson

“I think my love of Hanson was because some people didn’t like it, so I was like ‘Fuck you, I like this, how do you feel about it?’ But this is difficult for me, because you know, I’m speaking to The Line of Best Fit and we’re trying to be cool! Although, do you know what’s cool? Being accessible! Writing a pop hit when you are 10 years old. Being in a band with your brothers and you’re all below the age of 15, you have a record contract where you are writing, producing and performing songs that are doing well.

“I was 10 years old when their first album Middle of Nowhere came out, and I remember reading somewhere that there were these kids that had a record. At the time, I was playing guitar and I was writing songs, but in my mind I was a kid, and that was it. I couldn’t be on the radio; you had to be a grown up to do this.

"This was the first time where I realised ‘Holy shit, kids can do stuff!’ It’s the value of seeing yourself in the media - that’s a whole other conversation to talk about - but there’s an immense value in feeling like there’s a piece of you out in the zeitgeist and doing well because it’s encouraging. You go, ‘Holy shit, maybe I can do this as well.'

“When you see children doing things, you’re ‘Wow, this is so cute and fabulous’, but then when you actually look at it you go, ‘This is miles above what most people in this age group are capable of,’ and that’s all I saw, because I was in the same age group and I was so inspired by that. This whole album was really a turning point for me, where I was like, ‘I can do this, I can do music too, because these guys can.'

“Ooh La La” by Faces

“This song really blew my mind. It became my own theme. It’s that ‘Make your heart sing’, nostalgic moment when you’re a teenager, driving in the car listening to it, playing guitar with your friends and you’re singing “I wish that I knew what I know now / When I was younger.” You’re like, ‘because I’m an adult now, I’m 15-years-old. If I only knew what I know now.’

“I was doing theatre from a young age and I was part of a young conservatory called A.C.T. in San Francisco. By way of somebody who knew somebody, I had an audition for a movie. As a kid not being near New York or Los Angeles it was really exciting, and this audition was for a film called ‘Max Fischer’, which would become the movie Rushmore, which would become one of my favourite movies of all time by the now very distinguished Wes Anderson.

“Separate from my own objective love of Wes Anderson, when this movie came out I was just around the age of getting into my own sort of identity with music, but also movies - indie movies - and trying to assert who I was. So, I see this movie Rushmore and I love it. I love the soundtrack, I love it so much, it’s one of my favourite albums ever. This song is the end sequence, and the way it made me feel - the vocals on it, I could play it on guitar and it was part of a cool movie - it really represented a lot in my life.

“And because of the acting thing, and Rushmore being great - it’s about this kid in high-school who's misunderstood but has his own agenda - everything about it was just so fucking cool to me. To this day, I cite that song as one of my favourite records of all time.”

“Recently Distressed” by Phantom Planet

“A guy that really formed the way I would sing and write songs is Alex Greenwald, the frontman of Phantom Planet. I went to see Phantom Planet because I loved Rushmore and I found out that Jason Schwartzman [who had been cast as Max Fischer] was also the drummer for a band called Phantom Planet.

"So, when I saw their name on the bill I went, but I didn't know their music. I was barely 14, but their set blew my mind. It was Rock and Roll, but I loved Alex Greenwald’s voice. I loved everything, and I would follow their career from there. I always tell people that my voice is a combination of me trying to be Alex Greenwald, Paul McCartney and Rufus Wainwright, but failing. Alex was incredibly formative for me.

“One of their biggest records was a little while after I first saw them, which was the song for The O.C., "California." That was more of an Elvis Costello thing, and they employed a lot of stuff that sounded to me like The Beatles and a lot of ‘60s mod/pop-rock. But later they would employ things from Fugazi, Radiohead and harder shit, and that eclecticism, again, only accelerated my love for Phantom Planet.

“Recently Distressed” is from their 1998 album Phantom Planet Is Missing. This was a cool rock song that employed these George [Harrison] and Paul [McCartney] background vocals and included all of the things that I loved. It was harder but melodic and employed minor 4th chords and more complicated chords than I was used to. I had grown up with power chords - which are very Gregorian - on a lot of alt. punk rock, like Green Day or Nirvana, and if Kurt Cobain was using power chords then that’s how I was playing guitar. Hearing this music was like ‘Oh, I’m using full chords, not sevenths, minor 4th chords, diminished chords’, shit that I would learn to use more and more.

“When you haven’t experienced much, anything that gives a hint towards possibility, even though it’s probably always been there, you’re like, ‘I like this, I’ve always kind of liked this, but it’s very encouraging to hear somebody else do it and it’s gonna make me reconsider my possibilities.’ That was literally the moment that my power chords turned into full barre chords.”

“Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk” by Rufus Wainwright

“I forgot the other day how I got into Rufus Wainwright, because all of this stuff I was getting into quite young. It’s like when I talk to 11-13 year olds, it’s funny to think that this was when I was really starting to build my musical identity. But then I remembered, and I didn’t want to say because I didn’t want to sound uncool, because he is such a revered artist who exists in a much cooler place than what I’m about to say.

“I loved soundtracks and I would always buy soundtracks for movies that had cool playlists. I had the Shrek soundtrack, and there’s a cover of Leonard Cohen’s seminal “Hallelujah” that Rufus does and he smashes it, and I’m like, ‘Who the fuck is Rufus Wainwright? What a beautiful voice.’ Then I saw that he was going to be at the Virgin Megastore in San Francisco one week, so I go and he’s there promoting his new album Poses. I remember I didn’t have enough money to buy the album that day, so I had him sign my sneaker and I saved that shoe.

“The first song on Poses was “Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk”, which is a very dark and reflective song about his own battles with addiction, but he’s singing it over this really beautiful, whimsical song that has a lot of really great wordplay. I always love when artists, especially lyricists, can encapsulate an idea with not exactly what they’re talking about. The song’s called “Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk”, it’s not called “Addiction”. Its talking about things that he craved and how that’s representative of other things that he’s gone through. There was a sophistication and elegance to that that I really gravitated towards, that I didn’t possess but wanted to shoot for. So when I saw him, that was a big one for me and he would also continue to influence me later in my life.

“I’ve become friends with Rufus since. I’ve performed with him and we’ve made records together, which is crazy. His songwriting was very complex and punk-rock, but he had this classic cabaret voice, the kind of voice that I don’t have. I was fascinated that there was somebody that could write this really dark material but have such elegance on top of it. He was virtuosic on the piano, which I thought was very cool because musicianship is always the thing that gets me going the most about artists.

“You know what? People say, ‘Don’t meet your heroes.' I completely disagree. Chase the living fuck out of your heroes. I’ve spent a lifetime doing so, it’s made me a better artist, and I’ve sometimes got to meet them and work with them. I’ve worked on music with Alex Greenwald of Phantom Planet. I’ve performed with Hanson. I’ve performed those Disney songs with Alan Menken at The Hollywood Bowl.

"This is all because there are people that I love who I have put on my vision board, and the things that they have done are the things that are bringing me to them. So it is nuts, but at the same time you’re like, ‘Well, what else did you think would happen?’ They did stuff that some part of me connected with, so obviously there’s a magnetic pull towards that person.

“Rufus Wainwright is one of my absolute favourite artists of all time and like I said, me trying to sing like him and failing is a big part of my own journey as an artist.”

“3x5” by John Mayer

“John Mayer’s another guy that came around when I was 15. I heard a song of his on a middle-of-the-night, singer/songwriter college radio show. This is where I used to get music. You would listen to these carefully curated playlists that you wouldn’t be able to hear anywhere else, and the host played “No Such Thing”, a new song by this young kid who had just dropped out of Berklee College of Music - John Mayer.

“I’m listening to this song and I’m like, ‘Not only is this guitar playing really interesting, but the lyrical value and everything that is going on here ticks all the boxes.' It was jazz, but it was pop. And he did something that all these other guys and girls I’ve mentioned did. They made something very unique and very accessible.

“I immediately went out to buy this album, Room For Squares, and I listened to it over and over again. It was an album that was really formative for me. "3x5” is a really beautiful song that employs a lot of chord structures and melodies that blew my fucking mind at the time, and it made me wish that I could write songs like that.

“That album was a huge turning point in the way I played the guitar, because it was the first time in my life where I would look up tabs. Up until this point in my life, if I heard a song I could play it instantly. It was like a party trick, I would get how it worked if I heard it, because most of the songs I would hear on the radio - especially those that involved a guitar - were [centred around] power chords. And now I’m hearing all of these ninth chords and thirteenths, and I’m like, ‘What the fuck is this?’ So I’d have to look up tabs.

“I think any young artist can attest to this - when you try and learn other people’s shit, it’s the best tool for educating yourself. Playing other people’s music really helps you lock in what your own style is. Trying to learn these songs - and sometimes pulling it off and sometimes not - really changed the way that my hands moved around the guitar and considered chords and voicings that I’d never really thought of.

“There’s another tie to musical theatre here, where I remember seeing Audra McDonald, who is a very venerated theatre actor, and she did a cabaret. If you’re familiar with cabaret culture, it’s more about performing the story of the songs – ‘Life is a cabaret’. She did a John Mayer song because she thought it was from a musical theatre show, and I was so tickled by this, because I was like ‘Yeah, if you really think about it, I don’t think he knows this and I don’t think his fan base even thinks about this, but there’s a number of his songs that feel very theatrical in the way that the lyrics play with each other and the way the chords move’.

"When I saw this I thought, ‘That is why I like John Mayer’, because yes, he’s an amazing guitar player, but he’s also a really strong songwriter.”

“Cabaret” by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes

“Also, around this time growing up in San Francisco, as a guitar player playing music with your buddies, the number one thing that you play is punk rock. There are different parts of the spectrum of punk rock, there's the NOFX, Swingin’ Utters, like real punk, punk. And then there’s the pop-punk thing that was happening at the same time, which was also equally influential - blink-182 and Green Day.

“Fat Mike was the frontman of NOFX. I loved NOFX, and Me First and the Gimme Gimmes were a supergroup of different members from different punk bands, of which Fat Mike was one of the main architects. They would cover songs and turn them into punk rock songs. They have an album of hits from the ‘60s, and they also have an album called Me First and the Gimme Gimmes: Are a Drag, and that record is just a tonne of musical theatre covers that are done through punk rock.

“That was completely in line with everything I loved at this time of my life but didn’t really know how to articulate. I loved punk rock but I also really loved musical theatre. Not only the performative element of it, but there was a real musicality to musical theatre that wasn’t as present in some of the other shit that was popular at the time, just harmonically, or where chords would go. There was a sophistication I loved that seemed to not exist in punk rock.

“Then hearing Fat Mike at The Warped Tour going ‘Alright, which one of you Motherfuckers loves Julie Andrews?’ and hearing a mixed bag of reactions, because people were ‘What? I was not expecting that from you, sir?’ And then they start playing “My Favourite Things”, a classic Rodgers and Hammerstein song which is very accessible, but sophisticated nonetheless. And I am just living. I’m like, ‘This has got the attitude and simplicity of punk rock, but the sophistication of a beautiful song.’

“That was the first time in my life where I went, ‘It’s just all music. All these categories and boxes are completely arbitrary.’ So I thought, ‘I can do that.' I was playing power chords in punk bands but I realised that you can take chords and make them into other rhythms and voicings and have the same song. I could take a punk song and make it jazz. I could take a jazz song and make it country. So, quite providentially, I would end up on Glee, where they took popular songs and would sometimes do their own versions.

“By that point, I had been doing this my whole life. The first time this ever became a possibility for me was seeing Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, and that way of thinking about music and genre. I’ve put that into Masquerade, and it’s all born from that moment of ‘Oh my God, nothing has to be one thing. It’s just about how you look at it.'

“Cabaret” is from a pretty famous musical that I would’ve probably heard about later in life, but I first heard that song as a punk song and then I went back and heard the original. It doesn’t matter how these things happen, the inspiration happens and then you can go from there. But Me First and The Gimme Gimmes were a huge gateway drug and I play “Cabaret” now every year at my festival. That’s why the festival is called Elsie Fest, because it covers the song.”

“Modern Nature” by Sondre Lerche

“One of the great joys of being a younger brother is that you get to inherit the music of your elders. My brother and I were both really proactive consumers of music, so we would share stuff with each other all the time. But then he would come home from college, which is like coming home from a music festival essentially, right? He was in a new time zone with new people, so he’d bring home these mix CDs that he’d made from people that he’d heard about, and he brings home this guy named Sondre Lerche.

“Hearing this guy blew my mind, because he also was using jazz chords and drawing on musical theatre. Musical theatre’s a massive category, so I can’t just say that musical theatre sounds like one thing, but when I say this, I’m referring to The American Songbook, the jazz standard songbook. “Modern Nature” was a duet that I would go on to play many times with one of my oldest musical collaborators, Charlene Kaye. When we got to college and we both found out that we loved this guy.

“There was a much more whimsical way to how he wrote these songs. And what’s crazy is that loving this guy meant that we also loved Rufus Wainwright, that we also loved these other artists. But Sondre was the first time I considered that I loved that type of music, but I didn’t know that you could be a singer/songwriter and put out music that sounded like it.

“I don’t know if ‘twee’ is the right word to use, but with “Modern Nature” there was a playfulness about it, and again, a musicality that I really gravitated towards. There is a through line - there was a sophistication that was accessible, and me trying to learn those songs did make me rethink the way that I was writing music. The structures were weird and different and I liked that.

“To this day, I find myself writing songs that I think might be difficult for people to ingest, because they’re a little too left of centre, and I realise that I’m trying to write like Sondre Lerche, or I’m unconsciously just copying him.”

“Everything Happens to Me” by Mr Hudson & The Library

“I was in an H&M in Stockholm when I was 21, and I heard this really cool groove and the lyric was “Why must I always play the clown?” It was sung with a really thick British accent, had an 808 feel on it, and lyrically it had an attitude. Who would say something that sounds so like you’re in a Gilbert & Sullivan musical, but it feels hard? It was cool.

“I went home and looked this up and it was off the record A Tale of Two Cities by Mr Hudson and the Library, which would really, really fuck me up. I bought the album immediately because I loved this song. I had to order it on the internet because I couldn’t find it. It was doing well in England and he was on the festival circuit in the early-mid 2000s, but the first song on the album was a musical theatre cover with 808s.

“It was a pared-down, sort of a hip-hop version of “On The Street Where You Live” from My Fair Lady, and I’m like ‘No fucking way, this guy gets where my head is.’ I’d thought about punk rock musical theatre, but I never thought about 808s and 909s scoring these beautiful songs. I go down the track list and he has “Everything Happens to Me”, which is another very famous standard, and he had this really cool, what we would now call chill-hop, ‘study beats’ version of this song. I was like, ‘This is it. This guy gets that good music is good music and you can reinterpret it to offer it as a new song.’

“I would later become great friends with Mr Hudson. I got to meet him years later when I was with Columbia Records, and they said to me ‘Who do you want to meet?’ He was at the top of my list. I went to London and we’ve been friends ever since and have created all kinds of music together.

“He told me a story where Tyler the Creator went up to him once at Coachella and said, ‘Oh man, “Everything Happens To Me”, that’s like my song.’ We both wondered if Tyler the Creator knew that it was a Chet Baker cover. And we were thinking how cool it is that you can offer these songs to a new audience through a different lens. Tyler’s a smart guy, he’s very cultured, and I’m sure he did know. But it’s more the idea that if someone experienced this song and didn’t know that it was a cover, and this is like the first time they ever get to experience it.

“Mr Hudson would go on to do his own thing with Kanye and was on 808s & Heartbreak and has had his own career. I think “Supernova” was a hit in the UK, it didn’t really cross over here to The States, but before that moment for him, that Mr Hudson and The Library album changed my life. People use that phrase willy-nilly, but this literally was a turning point in my life. It all had to do with the same thing that happened with these other songs, where I saw someone do what I always wanted to do but didn’t really know how to pull off. Where he had this fusing of old songs delivered through a contemporary lens, but also laced it with his own original material that also employed the things that made that old songwriting interesting.

“It’s like changing the font of a great essay but finding the font and figuring out that that font is its own art form. He really displayed that marvellously on this.”

The Masquerade EP is out now

[incorrect-ikevamp-quotes]

Comte’s 4th Birthday Story Event: Before the Clock Strikes Midnight

REEEEEEEE Ik it was a long time ago but life has been a [redacted], so I figured better late than never HAHA

So without further ado, anybody who’s curious feel free to click for more--I’ll put it under a cut for spoilers as per usual~

So in this story it’s the usual, a few days before his birthday, and they’re discussing a bump in the road. Essentially, it appears a friend of Comte’s is going to be celebrating a wedding, and as such he’s going into the suburbs/affluent part of the region to be able to attend. It’s only a few hours away from the mansion, but he will be gone for a few days with the arrangements made for his stay. 

While this wouldn’t typically be an issue, MC has some things to take care of and opts out of attending with him (preparing for his bday probably LMAO) and Comte is immediately big sad. My favorite dramatic fool is already pouting, though he fully accepts and respects her decision. Besides which, he fully intends to be back in time to celebrate his birthday as well. He notes that he’s always admired how driven and independent she is, and has no intention of getting in the way of that. He’s just going to miss her, is all.

He says as much, figuring there’s no point in hiding it: “I really wanted to bring you with me to attend…but I suppose it simply can’t be helped” … “That’s not it…I guess I’m just wondering if you’ll miss me as much as I’ll miss you while I’m away.” 

And MC’s just like “Aw, it’s okay it’ll only be a few days.” While Comte’s response is a very mature, high-pitched whining sound at a frequency only King (Theo’s dog) and Theo himself can hear. When MC tries to reassure him once more, his Hamlet impression continues: “Even the prospect of a few days away from you feels unbearable.” 

Naturally, as any man do that loves his wife, he draws her close and proceeds to bang the living daylights out of her. I would offer details, but I have no deets to give beyond: [Well MC, it appears I won’t be letting you get much sleep tonight.] 

Brief intermission for the vague sounds of fangirl cardiac arrest. 

The scene opens again to him doing his walk of shame (the slut) down the walkway and into the carriage that will take him to his friend’s house. His thoughts carry the regret of burdening her with his desire, though MC is pretty much on cloud nine and unable to stop thinking about the heady night they shared in a good way. Bruh and the sly look when he figures out why she looks like that--I’m boutta call the police, he is going to make women and men alike act up. 

MC scrambles to cool his already returning desire by insisting he will be late if he indulges any further, and he laughs and agrees easily–albeit with the slightest hint of reluctance. My favorite part in this exchange is that he kisses her forehead, adding that it’s because she’s the most adorable person in the world to him (a moment of silence for our uwus). 

Fast forward to Comte trying to get home after the festivities are over. Problem is, it’s been raining like a mOTHERBLEEPER, and as such carriages have no safe way to traverse the roads at the moment. He waited out the first day as patiently as possible, but after the second–and no sign of stopping–his Leeroy Jenkins instincts kick in. He notes to the coachman that he’s aware he’s asking a lot, but they fully intend to take the long way which invites the least risk–and the rain is ebbing, even if the progress is slow. 

It’s interesting because there’s another echo of his main story in this moment. He essentially showcases a desperation to return before the day ends, though without context it’ll probably seem a little strange, so I’ll do my best to explain. Basically, in his main story, MC notes that she doesn’t really care how different they are. Different time, different species, different experiences, so on and so forth. She hammers home that what matters is that the present is something that they actively share. It’s theirs. And no amount of divisions he desperately tries to draw will change that fundamental reality. 

And it’s a little moving to see how deeply he takes it to heart? I think it’s one of those wonderful phenomena, personally–the way a person can influence how you think and act with their sentiments. Sometimes someone says precisely what it is we need to hear, and it changes us–while it can be for the worse, it can also be for the better. He notes that he spent so many birthdays; among the people serving his house when he was little, raising hell with his friends in his younger days, so on and so forth. Not unlike Leonardo, he says that after so many “special” days the faces become a blur, the festivities lose their luster. It’s just another day, at this point. 

Note, one interesting thing here that stands out to me is that I feel like this is a reflection of both of their larger struggles. Where Comte can’t stand the relentless flow of time rendering him the only constant (and something of a ghost, never fully present), Leonardo can’t bear birthdays because it means remembering people who still mean the world to him, but are long gone. People he can never see again, never laugh with again, never share his life with again. And I think that’s a very profound pain, an anguish that just keeps on settling its weight. (Oh, Sisyphus…)

Comte’s is similar, but different. He actively works to keep his distance-- unlike Leonardo, he approaches immortality in the pragmatic way. He knows getting close will hurt, so he opts out of that–keeps a step behind, an easy smile on his face. Betrays only fragments to anyone, always has his guard up. But the downside of being so guarded means you eventually feel hollowed out and alone; nobody truly knows or understands you. There is a distinct loneliness in that approach, where memories only become reminders of how nothing ever improves and how bereft you are of warmth. 

Leonardo, at least, gets to have the joy of being known from time to time. But loss and estrangement from those people means double the pain in the long run, because he loved them fully. Comte chooses to live in the cold to protect himself, but ends up in a kind of catch-22; the cost of forgoing loss means a constant deadening of his own feelings. It means living in a kind of fog, where there is a distinct discomfort in the silent obscurity of your own heart. 

There’s something I’ve come to believe in my short course of living, so I guess I still need time to determine how true it is. But…I feel like, when people live this way, where who they are is a lie or it’s at the very least carefully concealed, we in part start to become that lie. I think it’s fascinating because Comte seems to have so much personality to him. He’s dramatic, he’s thoughtful, he has a sense of mischief about him, he has strong ideals, and he has an even more ironclad moral grounding. And yet, when he talks about himself, he always uses descriptions that hinge on emptiness. Like he’s worth so little, worth nothing. And that’s what I mean–he’s been trying so hard to glide on the surface that he has come to believe he really is equivalent to something that ephemeral. Like there’s nothing more inside him, or if there is, that it will never be worthy of much. I think it really speaks to the ways behavior impacts the psyche, even though the opposite tends to be considered the only possible cause and effect relationship. 

He’s so determined to live for and in the future while he’s in the present, that he forgets to enjoy himself and really live. And while that approach is certainly understandable, I do think he loses parts of himself along the way. Only to be rediscovered and placed back into his hands by MC: [Today–this moment–our now, I don’t want to miss it for anything.] And that's not even touching on how quick she is to make them a we; she's not letting him keep that distance. It’s not “you have the ability to share this day with me” it’s “we’re here and in this together.”

I feel like what I love about this is that it’s not only about how sweet he is on MC, but also about how much he’s truly living again for the first time. His defenses are slowly inching their way down, he’s letting himself hope and want things and look forward to things again. The thing about being a responsible person is that–while responsibility is all well and good–sometimes you become so mired in doing the right thing and planning the most optimal outcomes that you just aren’t thinking of yourself anymore. That is, if you ever were to begin with. He went from the careful cultivation of a life as an aristocrat, to a life that spoke of more freedom and fun beyond those iron wrought gates, before he returned to the structure of what he knew. Freedom speaks to him I’m sure–we all need it in some measure to survive. But I do think a good portion of that was unfulfilling for him after a point. It was only feeding the void that was beginning to form inside him. He was instinctively retreating into himself to avoid pain, and in doing that the only result was feeling like a coward and a fake. He wasn’t happy, he wasn’t able to be himself, and nothing was fulfilling–every single day just another forward march. 

I think it comes as no surprise he took up Vlad’s initial invitation so willingly. 

But then I digress, back to the story. There’s another timeskip and it finds him racing down the hall of the mansion. He’s hoping to make it in time but knows he’s racing against the clock, and fully expects MC to be asleep by this point in the night. Midway along his path he thinks he spots MC and falters in his step, blinking. He decides to hang back, watching the figure enter his room with a great deal of curiosity and resists every urge to burst in after her. He hears MC speak into his pillow, her voice muffled but clearly despondent: “I miss you, Comte. I hope you get back home soon…” 

Comte pretty much dies right there. I literally have no better explanation for it. He freezes, his heart sputters and stops. He’s just completely taken aback. 

And then, naturally, he goes about feral with desire as is his modus operandi: “Oho, I heard something incredibly cute just now. Were you also having a hard time spending so long apart?”

MC: “…!”

[Startled, she turns around and her eyes widen and widen.]

MC: “Comte, how...”

Comte: “Took a detour in areas with less rain.”

MC: “?? Wouldn’t that still be hard in weather like this?”

Comte: “I told the coachman I wanted to see you as soon as possible. Even if it was only for a second, I wanted to spend today with you…”

[Everything I was thinking while in the carriage spills out of me long before I can help it. I am reminded again of just how utterly irreplaceable an existence MC is in my life.]

Comte: “Even so, it seems interesting that I would find you in my bed”

MC: “...! A--Ah, I’m so sorry for entering without permission!”

[I quickly grab hold of her before she can scramble out of my bed, coaxing her to sink back into the sheets.]

In between a lot of intense making out and [redacted], the larger overtone is that her reciprocated ardor just destroys him inside:

MC: “It was...because I couldn’t stop thinking about you, about wanting to see you…”

Comte: “!”

[You know just how to drive me mad with desire.]

Comte: “I’m the same...the first thing I did was look for you. Even though it was only a few days, your voice, your body, everything...I missed you”

[Because today, our ‘now’--I never want to lose a single moment with you as long as you’re by my side...]

Comte: “I’m so happy to be able to be with you, right here and right now.”

It gets funny too because Comte is trying to take it slow, but when she tells him “Happy birthday” and goes on to say she was so glad to greet the day he was brought into the world by his side, he just loses all control LMFAO. It ends with them getting more heated and [redacted], to the point where he doesn’t even hear the clock strike midnight. 

And if him being the cutest and sexiest romantic wasn’t obvious enough, he spends the next morning just sighing blissfully with her in his arms:

[The next morning, when I wake up, MC is still fast asleep. I mean, given she only fell asleep a few hours ago. I’m still reveling in the afterglow of a sweet night filled with her cries, the way she looked at me and held me. MC...]

[I relax to the sound of her breathing steady with sleep, stroking gently at her hair as I hug her from behind.]

Comte: “I’ve had countless birthdays. In an endless life, I was convinced it was just a day that would come and go every time.”

Comte: “It was only after meeting you that I could understand there was no such thing as an overlapping or identical moment. I don’t want to miss a single second by your side...that’s what I think now.”

[I admit the truth of my heart, brushing a kiss against her cheek. Over and over and over again, showering her in my affection--]

But dun dun dun!!! MC was awake the whole time, so when she fidgets a little at how ticklish his kisses are, he 👁

[Oh, I see. Well then, two can play at that game...]

Comte: “Your punishment is to stay in my arms just as we are...how’s that?”

He gets his mischievous (and hilarious) revenge for being revealed (HORNY TIME), though it’s so suffused with love it’s hard to call it revenge hahaha. She reminds him to go easy on her because they have his birthday party to attend later, and he agrees~

Honestly after such killer hurt/comfort spice fluff, I can only tremble at the thought of what his 5th year bday story will be

It’s either going to be Some Angst^TM or even more killer fluff, and either way that means my days are numbered

[yukimoji]

Oooh your requests are open, I'm so excited! Could I ask for a Tanjiro x Reader in a modern AU setting (Kimetsu Academy, perhaps?) where Reader visits Tanjiro (who's crushing on her) at his bakery and he sees her playing with his siblings? It just warms his heart up and they're all like 'You should marry our brother!' and ahhh just fluff galore! Headcanons, scenario, short fic, anything is fine with me, whatever's easiest for you! Thank you so much! ~Oblivion~

(a/n: hi again!!! thank you so much for requesting! this is such an adorable request, im literally so soft rn ya hear??? tanjiro is such best boy im 😔✊✊,, i hope you like this and have a great day!)

(this became longer than expected, are headcanons supposed to be this long??? per usual, there will typos and grammar errors! happy reading!)

Total words: 1770+ words

Genre: Fluff

No manga spoilers

Warnings: None

Will You Marry Our Brother? ( Kamado Siblings x Reader, Tanjiro Kamado x Reader) I Headcanons

During your time at Kimetsu Academy, you had the pleasure of meeting the owners of a nearby bakery, the Kamado family. You shared classes with the eldest son, Tanjiro Kamado. You became good friends with the boy, and eventually you met his younger sister, Nezuko Kamado. You adored his sister and the two of you instantly became close friends, because of her kind and caring nature.

Since Tanjiro was your classmate, you usually sat beside him. Each chance that he would get, his attention would be focused on you, chatting and asking about your day with an obvious flush in his face. Honestly, you thought it was kind of cute, seeing him all flustered up all around you. You sort of got a crush on him, not that he knew about it.

You would hang out with Nezuko in-between school breaks, eating Lunch with her as the two of you would have girl talks. She would always keep you company, and if ever you needed someone to lean on, you bet that she would always be there to support you.

You could say that you were more than shocked when you discovered that they had four more younger siblings. You didn't have the honor of meeting them properly, because of your busy schedule and just the overwhelming amount of academic pressure on your shoulders that hindered you from visiting their bakery. However, judging by the wonderful stories that Tanjiro would tell you in the middle of school breaks, they seemed like absolute sweethearts, and you were looking forward to meeting them.

However, you would later have the chance to meet them. It was a peculiar day, and the teachers weren't as harsh on you all like they would normally. Not only that, you craved for something sweet and warm. You just wanted to just bask in positive vibes, and you knew exactly where you wanted to go.

Your legs stopped in front of a small shop, and almost immediately, a wave of gentleness hits your body with so much comfort. You entered the bakery, a bell ringing as you begin to salivate at the sight of the delicious treats displayed on the counter. Nezuko takes notice of your presence, and turns around to welcome you with a big smile on her face.

When you finally picked out the goodies you desired from the shelf, you made your way to the cashier to pay for them. As you got near, you heard little strange noises coming from below the cash register. Confusion began to grow as you recognized the strange noises sounded like the sound effects from a popular mobile game. You became even more perplexed as Nezuko's expression hardened, and she instantly marched behind the cashier in slight annoyance.

A loud squeal of surprise erupted as the sound effects abruptly stopped. Then, suddenly, a young boy emerges from the cashier, a sheepish look evident in his face as he rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment. The moment he notices your figure just standing awkwardly behind the cash register, he immediately turns red and mutters incoherent apologies as he would repeatedly bow profusely. You just give him a reassuring smile, and you said something about also liking the game he was playing.

You learned that this boy is Takeo, one of Tanjiro's younger siblings. As he continued to check out your treats, he couldn't help but find you so familiar.

Are you the girl in his brother's lockscreen photo?

After you paid for your orders, you introduced yourself to him, and his suspicions were confirmed. He couldn't help a mischievous smirk form on his lips, as he vividly recalls all the moments his brother would dreamily talk about a girl named [ Y / N ].

You asked him to play one round of the mobile game he played before with you. After seeing how the bakery was not really busy and getting Nezuko's approval, he accepted your offer. You bonded with him over the game, and the two of you had so much fun! You were pretty sure that you played more than one round with the young Kamado!

You were absolutely great at the game, much more so than him! You beat his high score, and he wouldn't admit it, but he swears he will beat your score one day. He could not wait to totally tease his brother about this.

Later on, you meet Hanako, Shigeru and the youngest, Rokuta. You were absolutely delighted to finally meet them. They were exactly how Tanjiro described them, they were all such big sweethearts!

Hanako and Shigeru almost immediately took a liking on you! They bombarded you with so much questions, asking you about your favorite color, animal, and all the little things you liked. The would listen to your answers eagerly, big smiles never fading from their expressions.

They would absolutely invite you to play a few games with them! They looked absolutely precious and you didn't have the heart to say "no". You played so much games with them during your stay, the most prominent being "Tag" and "Hide 'n Seek".

After they become tired from running around so much, they settled on listening to your jokes and puns. You swear they have the most adorable laughter in the world!

Just seeing them being giggling and laughing so much melted your heart into a puddle of joy. These two were absolutely cute and adorable, and they radiated so much positive energy that just fill your entire being with warmth and love.

They think that you are absolutely beautiful and wonderful, just like how their brother described you to be!

And then, there's little Rokuta. At first, he was a little shy to approach you. His big eyes looked at you with so much curiosity, and when you told him your name, his face immediately transformed into one of recognition.

Oh! So you're the [ Y / N ] my big brother keeps babbling about!

You would dote on him so, so much! You couldn't stop the squeals from escaping your mouth as he would adorably babble and tell you about his day! His big eyes hold so much innocence and purity in them, and your mind went absolutely bonkers about how cute this little Kamado is!

When he deemed he trusted you enough, he would raise his little arms up, and his tiny hands would make some grabbing motions. Nezuko would chuckle at his actions and tell you that he wants you to pick him up. You stifled a scream of absolute delight, mustering all willpower not to cry from sheer happiness. A cute and cuddly toddler wanted you to pick him up? Don't mind if I do!

The moment Rokuta is in your arms, he immediately embraces you, his little arms just wrapped around your shoulders. Nezuko cheered you on, commenting about how Rokuta had now grew attached to you. He was nuzzling on your neck, feeling secured in your hold as you silently thanked the gods above for giving you this oppurtunity.

Unbeknownst to you, a pair of Crimson hues stared at you with so much adoration from over the counter.

Tanjiro watched how the whole thing unfold. From your little game matches with Takeo, to your giggling fits with Hanako and Shigeru, and to how you held Rokuta in your arms with so much tenderness. All of this left Tanjiro feeling so much warmth and affection in his chest, and he wanted to cry out from the sheer joy of how much you had gotten along with his siblings.

You were absolutely Wonderful. Exquisite. Magnificent. Beautiful. Stunning. Heavenly.

Just so drop-dead gorgeous.

He's in absolute euphoria.

The boy won't admit it, but he's imagining his future with you. Seeing you being so happy with his little siblings makes him wonder what a family with you would look like. Gosh, how much he wanted to spend the rest of his life with you.

He practically had hearts in his eyes as he kept staring at you like a lovesick puppy, not noticing that Takeo was leaning against the counter with a smug expression on his face.

"Gosh, Nii-san. I knew you had a crush on her, but I didn't know it was this bad."

Tanjiro snaps from his day dream, and he could feel so much blood rush to his face. He was so embarrassed, much more so that Takeo had caught him looking at you all this time! Takeo laughs at his brother's red face, and Tanjiro could only shriek out erratic noises to desperately request Takeo not to get too loud.

You heard a commotion from the counter, and you turned to see a completely red-faced Tanjiro waving his hands vigorously to a guffawing Takeo. You could only giggle at the sight in amusement, and when Tanjiro makes eye contact with you, his face gets even more redder.

In your arms, Rokuta shifts from your neck to look at his big brother. Noticing how the two of you gazed in each other's eyes, he claps his hands in delight and looks up to meet your [ E / C ] orbs.

"Ne, [ Y / N ]-san, will you marry my big brother?"

THE WHOLE BAKERY JUST EXPLODES IN HYSTERICS

Takeo laughs harder than he had before, grabbing at the edges of the counters to prevent himself from falling to the ground from the amount of amusement he was getting from the situation.

Hanako and Shigeru just burst out in full excitement, jumping and smiling at you, asking you repeatedly if you wanted to marry their big brother. They practically pleaded with you, their wide eyes constantly staring at you, in hopes that someday you might officially become their big sister.

Nezuko chokes in shock at her drink. She didn't expect Rokuta to say those words! She immediately goes to your side, and just repeatedly apologizes to you in behalf of Rokuta for putting you in such an awkward position. But, she cannot really lie, she would love for you to become her sister-in-law.

Tanjiro just looked at you in horror and fear. His face had hit the utmost redness it could possibly have attained, and he only wanted to crawl and hide at this very moment. He didn't want his crush on you to be revealed this way! He had special plans for that moment, but it didn't matter anymore, because you now know about his overwhelming feelings for you! Gosh, he felt so humiliated, and it didn't help that you were in such an awkward position just because of his attraction on you!

But then, he was caught off guard by your breathtaking smile. The next words sent Tanjiro's mind into a frenzy, desperately struggling with the urge to faint out of sheer bliss as the bakery exploded again into cheers of celebration.

"I would love to."

[ghostdrew22]

Déjà  vu? || Draco Malfoy

Requested: No Pairing: Draco Malfoy x ex!fem!reader Warnings: Idk if this is angsty or not because I initially thought it was but it feels a bit like soft sadness to me? Summary: Y/N getting deja vu as you watch Draco with his new girlfriend (H/N - her name)

WORDS : 1950

Lyrics from “Deja Vu” by Olivia Rodrigo (but I got lazy and only used certain parts)

~~~

Car rides to Malibu Strawberry ice cream, one spoon for two And tradin' jackets Laughin’ 'bout how small it looks on you (Ha-ha-ha-ha, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha, ha-ha-ha-ha)

“Draco stop!” A voice exclaims before being followed by laughter. You know that you shouldn’t turn around, that it’ll hurt too much, but it’s been said many times that curiosity killed the cat.

He’s holding the very same ice cream order, strawberry and pistachio, and sporting that familiar warm smile that used to comfort you when you got a brain freeze from the ice cream. It had been your idea, ice cream in November, and he’d hated it at first but grew to love it just because it made you happy. That very same order that you’d made him try, strawberry and pistachio, but not for the two of you this time.

It’s difficult to know what you were expecting, something new? Different? A part of you had always known, even while you were the one in H/N’s position, that your moments with Draco would soon be documented and used for a modern remake. If your relationship had been a book, theirs is the movie adaption. If your relationship had been a song, theirs is a cover band’s rendition. Maybe, deep down, you were expecting just this- to see him treating her the same way that he’d treated you.

Those pale hands, that used to fit so comfortably in the expanse of your own, are now tucked safely in-between hers. Oceans of blue that used to run over your shivering figure every November when you made this exact Hogsmeade trip, are now tracing the lines of her face and committing them to memory. Lips, cold and slightly chapped, that were once coaxing laughter from your lungs with horrible puns and crude observations, are now completely and utterly consumed with the sole objective of entertaining her the very same way that they entertained you.

It’s a bitter sight, one would think, but you can’t bring yourself to be jealous. It’s an odd sort of feeling, deja vu, to know that once this moment belonged to you, and now you have to watch it play out in front of you. You know what’s going to happen, down to the footprints that’ll stain the path back to Hogwarts, but this time it’s not you. This time, even though you know what’s going to happen next, it’s not your laughter that’ll be filling the silence as he walks back to school.

Watching reruns of Glee Bein’ annoying, singin’ in harmony I bet she’s bragging to all her friends, saying you’re so unique, hmm

“Draco’s obsessed with this muggle show called Glee. He makes me sing along with him every time we watch it.” She says with a small laugh and a shy smile.

Why, in God’s name, did you decide to study in the library today? Sitting on the other side of the bookshelf behind you, with Millicent Bulstrode, is H/N.

“That’s horrendous.” Millicent replies with a laugh. Maybe if you’d tried harder to be friends with her then she would’ve told H/N that Draco used to do that with you too, that you’re the one who introduced him to muggle tv shows in the first place.

“It’s cute, he’s so… different.”

You swallow hard and try to pour your focus back into your books. That tone, sweet and infatuated, was the tone you used only months before when you spoke about him too. Once again you’re on the other side of the looking glass, staring back at a distorted reflection of yourself. It had been you bragging, drowning quite innocently in your adoration for him and feeling the need to sing your praises out to the world.

Way back when, you were the one forcing him to learn the lyrics to all of your favourite songs. The two of you would lose track of time singing along with the actors and complaining about the unnecessary drama, it was this little world that the two of you created. But now that world, that you built on love and trust, can no longer afford to accommodate you both. Now it’s his world with her.

Without even realising it you start to wonder how it must be when he’s with her. Does she sing off-key too? Does he pepper her with kisses after and make fun of her singing? Do they binge watch episodes or only do one at a time? Does his laugh still drown out the talking whenever something ridiculous happens? Is his favourite character still Sue?

How many pieces of your time together did he take from the puzzle, to form a new one with her?

So when you gonna tell her that we did that, too? She thinks it's special, but it's all reused That was our place, I found it first I made the jokes you tell to her when she's with you

“This alcove is where I come when I want to be alone, no one really comes here.”

No one but me, you think to yourself as you stop in the hallway and overhear Draco whispering to her. Of course he took her to your alcove, why wouldn’t he?

A part of you wishes that he’d tell her that it was you who found this spot, that it was you who’d trudged along the castle one night in a desperate search for some peace and quiet. You want her to know that this was your safe space, that you were the one who invited him there and allowed him to relish in the safety that it provided. It was you who laced your fingers together with his own and dragged him behind you until you’d landed in the spot, you who had to listen to his complaints about how small and cramped it was until he finally got comfortable and fell in love with it. You were the one he used to wrap his arms around and make promises to in the silence of the night, when nothing beside the two of you existed in that alcove.

It’s all blurring together, then and now are nothing but two sides of the same rusted coin. How can you possibly distinguish between your memories and reality when the boundaries keep crossing?

You almost want to laugh at how identical your relationship was to the one they have now. Jokes that you came up with in the sludge of sleepiness, when the two of you used to hide out here on nights when you both felt sad, are now being repeated into the very same air that you breathed only months ago. Promises that you’d both agreed to back then, are being remade in the safety of the night that now belongs to them.

“I love you.”

And

“Forever.”

Are being whispered between the two of them, assurances and pacts to be together till the end of time.

But now you wonder, how long is forever?

Do you get déjà vu when she’s with you? Do you get déjà  vu? (Ah), hmm Do you get déjà vu, huh?

The smell of toast and freshly scrambled eggs wafts through the Great Hall and you struggle to resist the urge to moan out in excitement. Breakfast is your favourite meal and, really, the only meal that’s worth anything. As you plop down in your seat and start to pack your plate in your food you fail to notice, in your sheer joy, that Draco’s sitting across from you with H/N by his side.

It’s not until you’re done piling up your favourites, like an Olympic gold medalist in training, that you notice the couple sat across from you. You observe discreetly as Draco outstretches his hand all over the table to get whatever she wants to eat, and you have to struggle to focus as a wave of déjà vu washes over you.

When had you stopped being the one he arranged plates for? When had he started saving a spot beside him for her, and not you? Literally you know that the answer is roughly around 3 or 4 months ago when the two of you had broken up, but he’d stopped being yours a long time before then and you’d both known it. Little moments of love, that had been the basis of your relationship, had fizzled out into distant memories way before you’d both decided to call it quits.

“Butter or jam, Y/N?”

You’re about to answer, on instinct really, when you realise that he’s not even speaking to you.

But he said your name. Didn’t he?

Do you call her, almost say my name? ‘Cause let’s be honest, we kinda do sound the same Another actress I hate to think that I was just your type

“It was mortifying!” You exclaim as you recount the events of earlier to your best friend.

“How bad could it have possibly been?” She asks with a laugh as she settles into your bed comfortably.

“He looked her dead in the eyes, and called her ‘Y/N’, and to make it one hundred times worse, I was sitting across from them when he did it so they both immediately turned to look at me!” You cry out in embarrassment as you drop your face in a pillow. “I’ve never prayed so hard for the ground to open up and swallow me whole.” You mumble against the fabric and you hear her laugh again.

“Why are you so embarrassed? It wasn’t your mistake.”

“It’s not about that, it’s about how easy it would’ve been for us to return to our roles as boyfriend and girlfriend. I almost answered him!” You sigh. “It’s been what? 3? 4 months? And my mouth still acts on muscle memory. We’re so familiar to each other that we still act on instinct.”

“Are you sure it’s not just because your names sound so similar?” She raises her eyebrows at you and you scoff. “Really? Y/N and H/N sound nothing alike?”

“Nope, not at all.”

“Okay, if you say so.” She shrugs, “But deep down I think all three of you know that there’s more similarities present than you’d like to account for.”

You huff in response and cross your arms. Is she right? Does Draco have a type?

Even worse, are you just Draco’s type? Nothing more and nothing less than just another girl who ticks all of his favourite boxes?

I know you get déjà  vu I know you get déjà  vu I know you get déjà vu

It’s on one morning, on one of your good mornings, that it happens.

Months of watching the two of them recreate the love that you’d had with him, suffering in silence and scolding yourself for thinking such awful things about them, finally come to a halt when you receive the acknowledgment that you’ve been so desperately craving.

She walks onto platform 9 and 3/4 in a dress, a purple dress that looks eerily similar to the one you’d worn two years before on this exact platform. She’s smiling brightly, excited for the new school year, and Draco’s waiting for her by the door with a smile that’s just as bright. When his eyes catch her own and she slips her hand into his, he stumbles backward in shock slightly. He immediately looks away from her and searches the crowd, scanning over people climbing into the train and saying goodbye to their families, in a desperate attempt to find you.

It’s too much for him, to see her standing before him and looking like a replica of you, and he needs some sort confirmation to know that he’s not imagining this similarity. The dress wraps around her waist the same way that yours had wrapped around your own waist, and it compliments her skin in a way that’s hauntingly memorable. He knows that he’s seen all of this before, and he knows that it wasn’t with her.

You’re standing a few paces away from the door, watching the scene unfold, and when his ocean blues finally meet yours, you know.

He smiles at you, the first time he’s done so since you broke up, and mouthes exactly what the two of you need to hear.

“Déjà vu.”

And then it’s over- the moment, the agony, the months of confusion- it’s all packed up into a neat box and stored away. He turns with her and they walk into the train together, happily.

You remember this, being the one in her position and walking by his side. You remember the feeling of utter joy that had consumed you, it’s all the same really.

But maybe this time when he promises forever, he’ll mean it.

~~~

This was meant to be way angstier but I got lazy and ended up just wanting to write it out before I ran out of love for the idea.

Anyway, I kind of like it...

love you all,

jean <3

[idy-ll-ique]

Art.

Pairing: Steve Rogers x F!Reader

Genre: Fluff, little bit of Angst

Warnings: jealousy and insecurity

Requested: nope

Summary: In which Steve is into art but Y/N is not.

Author's Note: Hiya peeps! Haven't got anything to say specifically so,,, enjoy the fic! Hope you like it!

[Y/H - Your Hobby]

---

"Oh my God, this is awesome!"

"It is, isn't it?" Y/N smiled softly, staring at the pure joy on Steve Rogers' face as he stared at the beautiful painting in front of him. "So much! Ah, realistic paintings, they're always so amazing. Do you like them?" he grinned, putting an arm around her shoulders. "Sure, they look cool," Y/N shrugged, not really understanding the painting. It was aesthetically pleasing, though.

Well, anything to make her boyfriend happy. They were at an art gallery in Brooklyn, which Steve loved to visit. Y/N, knowing how much Steve liked art, and her, always accompanied him. Steve and Y/N had been dating for nearly a year now. "Yeah! I know you aren't into art, but thanks for coming."

Y/N scoffed, burrowing closer to him. "You're my boyfriend, bro, anything for you." She giggled when he gave her a playful shove, immediately pulling her back to him. "Don't call me that, I'm your boyfriend," he chided jokingly, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "Sure you are." Steve laughed, ruffling her hair.

"We've been together for a year." They stood in front of an abstract painting. Just as Y/N was about to retort, they heard someone clearing their throat. Turning around, they saw a woman standing there, smiling at them. "Hello, I'm Tiffany! You're Steve Rogers, if I'm correct?" she addressed the man.

"I am, and this is my girlfriend, Y/N Y/L/N," Steve answered with a polite smile, unconsciously pulling Y/N closer to him. He didn't like the way Tiffany was looking at him. "This is my painting, do you like it?" Tiffany asked. There was something off about her... "Ah, sure sure, it looks really good." Even though he didn't trust Tiffany, he couldn't lie about the art.

"Thank you! What do you think about it, Y/N?" Tiffany turned her smile unto Y/N. The woman blinked and glanced at the art. "It's nice," she shrugged truthfully. "Ooh, I'm so glad! The meaning is truly wonderful, I worked hard on it," Tiffany clapped her hands. "Yeah… the meaning…" Y/N cleared her throat, looking away from her.

"If you wanna see more of my art, you're very welcome to check it out! This one is on sale, actually, if you would consider," Tiffany offered, looking directly at Steve. "Oh no, not here to buy anything, just to admire," Steve chuckled, waving his arm in dismissal. "Okay, okay, but if you want to ever talk about art, you can give me a call. Toodles!"

With that, Tiffany handed Steve a business card, turned around and left. Steve stared at the card he involuntarily accepted, scrunching his nose. "Oh God, that—" He cursed, throwing the card into a nearby trash can. "What about her? I think she was lovely," Y/N lied, giving him a quick smile.

"She was clearly condescending! Ugh!" Steve rolled his eyes, "Anyway, we don't wanna ruin our day. Let's continue with the art!" Y/N's mind wandered as she casually latched on Steve's arm, ignoring the words he was saying to her. She couldn't help but think about Tiffany and how it was clear that she was hitting on her boyfriend.

To be honest, Tiffany was kind of better than her. Steve and Y/N had no common interests, why was he even interested in her? Why wasn't he into Tiffany? Steve's main attraction was art, he loved it more than anything else in the world and yet he continued to be with a woman who had absolutely no curiosity in said thing.

Why?!

Y/N softly groaned.

Oh no, this was gonna be a problem.

Which she was gonna fix.

---

Impressionism is a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time), ordinary subject matter, inclusion of movement as a crucial...

Y/N blinked and yawned, throwing her phone on the bed. "Ugh! Why is art so fucking boring and frustrating?!" she moaned, rubbing a hand over her face. She sat up all of a sudden, squinting at the clock in the corner of the room. It was 4:56 am. "Or maybe I'm just tired…" She lay back down on the bed and kept her phone away.

The thing is, ever since that one visit to the art gallery, Y/N's little confusion about Tiffany and Steve had turned into the biggest insecurity of hers. Since that time, she had been limiting her meetings with Steve, as was she learning more about the thing that made Steve most happy: Art.

Steve hadn't questioned her as of yet, which was good. He didn't suspect a thing. She knew he didn't like Tiffany, given how he had called her unsavory things and also immediately threw her business card in the trash. Y/N just couldn't help feeling like she didn't belong with Captain America, Steve Rogers.

Steve, meanwhile, also awake, was sitting on the balcony in his room, thinking about his girlfriend. Why had she been acting so weird for the past one month? Absolutely refused to be around him for more than half-an-hour, sounded tired every time they talked and knew surprisingly a lot about paintings.

How? And why? He sighed and got up, stumbling into his bedroom. A little talk tomorrow won't hurt, right? Running a hand through his hair, he plopped down on the bed, lay down and finally decided to sleep.

---

"Y/N? Sweetie, can I talk to you?" Y/N glanced at Steve. "Yeah, what happened?" she smiled when he sat next to her, putting an arm around her. "Is everything okay with you? Lately you've been… kind of strange," he whispered. "I'm fine! Just having trouble sleeping, that's it," Y/N muttered, resting her head on his shoulder.

They were sitting in his room at the Stark Tower. "No, it's something else. I've known you for a year, my love, tell me. I'm here for you," he assured her, brushing her hair with his fingers. "Fine! It's Tiffany! She got into my head," Y/N groaned, burying her face in his neck. "Her?! That— sorry," Steve blushed when Y/N gave him a pointed look.

"Look, I get it, man. You're Captain America, you're America's hottest man or something and women literally flock to you all the time but she— she likes art. Just like you do. You both know so much about it, it's insane! I'm only thinking, why am I with you? I've never been interested in art, and Tiffany actually seems like a fun person to be around."

"So you got a little insecure?" Steve teased, pressing his lips to her temple. "I haven't slept in a month! Why do you think I know so much about art all of a sudden?" Y/N huffed, looking away from him. He froze. She gave up her sleep just to make sure she was… worthy of his affections?

"You're lying."

"I'm not lying. I slept at 6 am yesterday. Today, technically speaking. I had to be at my job at 8, and I got half an hour of sleep all because I was researching impressionist art— Why are you looking at me like that?" Y/N deadpanned. Steve continued to stare at her, a look of disbelief and incredulity on his face.

"I want to tell you something very important." He pulled away and turned to sit face-to-face with her. "What's that?" she mumbled. "I love you. I love you so much, Y/N, you're the most gorgeous woman I've seen, we are happy together and I like that. We have different interests, of course I know that, but it doesn't matter."

"Why doesn't it?"

"Because when we're together, next to each other, I have the best time of my life. Everything is blissful when you're with me and it's… it is euphoric. You don't need to learn about art just to hang out with me, I like rambling to you! Unlike artists, who would most definitely interrupt me at all times, you listen. And I like that. I also love listening to you talk about Y/H."

Y/N teared up at his words. "Thank you," she managed to blurt out, sniffling when Steve laughed and pulled her into his arms. "Off the bat, I knew what that bratty woman wanted. But I didn't want it because I already have it better," he chuckled, rubbing her back in soothing motions.

"I love you too," Y/N mumbled into his shoulder, smiling softly when she felt him pressing a kiss to the top of her head. All of a sudden, there were knocks on the door. "Come in," Steve called out and Sam poked his head into the room. "Steve, we have a meeting in 15 minutes, just a heads up. Hi Y/N!"

"Hi Sam!" Y/N greeted enthusiastically. "I see you're doing better now," Steve smiled, wiping her tears away when Sam left. "I needed to talk and we did, I'm… I'm not insecure anymore," Y/N admitted, playing with the hem of the t-shirt she was wearing. "I'm glad we could sort this out. I gotta go now, talk to you later?"

"I'm not going anywhere. Bye!"

She smiled when he leaned over and gave her a chaste kiss. "I love you!" he called out when he left the room. "I love you— close the door, you turd!" She laughed loudly when he turned around with a raised eyebrow. "I love you too, Steve," she grinned cheekily, bursting into boisterous laughter when he closed the door behind him.

Outside, Steve only smiled, happy that his girlfriend was doing much better.

See, a little conversation didn't hurt.

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A/N: Hope you liked it! Leave a like if you did, thanks for reading!