#kinda cool to see the memories written in word form if that makes sense.

[thoughtsofapessimistttt]

No I didn’t give up on you, I just decided that I deserved better

[planetamarte]

i'm going to be mean and nitpicky to this show. sorry. 2k word wall of text and spoilers incoming

i havent fully rewatched most episodes since they aired i just rewatched like. the first half of season 1 sometime last summer. so my memory is foggy due to this + the gripes i have with the pacing that i will get into. this is not a coherent review or anything im just going off the top of my head. do not take my word as gospel plz form ur own opinions <3 maybe we disagree thats the magic of media analysis

the premise of the show is a fun concept. like. many iterations of sonic have existed forever and ever. a multiverse concept with sonic isnt just jumping onto the multiverse "trend" that spiderverse influenced, sonic as a franchise has its right to use the concept imo. WHICH IS WHY i don't understand why they tried to make this series fit into the mainline game universe instead of being its own thing like sonic boom. like. what? you have not just SONIC living in green hill (overusage of it aside, game sonic has been stated to be houseless and wanders from place to place, and why is it just Green Hill? it's on south island?) but also KNUCKLES, tails, rouge, amy, big, and SHADOW. if this is the game universe, where the hell is the master emerald? why the fuck does knuckles live in green hill? tails is from west side island and has workshops in mystic ruins, central city, etc etc? rouge and amy have been implied to live in central city and station square or whatever? big just goes wherever the fuck as well. i dont think shadow had ever been to green hill in his life before this. where the fuck is omega. when i first watched s1 i still considered myself a casual sonic fan and i was like huh some of this isn't right.

one thing other people have criticized that i disagree on is sonic's characterization. prime sonic fits pretty well at this point in the timeline i'd say (being after advance 3, as ian flynn stated). like if we're gonna go basing characterization on time, sonic at this point is very much still a kid who makes mistakes and is growing. throughout the gameverse timeline he's subtly gone from having high energy and impulsive decision-making to a cool older teen brother type, i think; but this is more due to brand marketing for a mascot character rather than in-universe growth, i'd argue. (also sonic characters don't... age.) i do have gripes with trying to write sonic, a static character, into a big character arc with development just for the sake of conflict. i guess you could make an argument about the target audience of kids seeing themselves in him but i don't care enough to get into this that much, really. (also to me prime sonic is PEAK adhd and shows a lot of non-empathy and i think the hatred for him is rooted in ableism and general hatred for kids but anyway.)

the little sequences with sonic and shadow in the first couple episodes. sonic is collecting rings, cool! something from the games we all recognize. but then in new yoke when he's all distraught and in an unfamiliar place, he goes Wheres my fuckin rings ... and it never comes up again? like it was an odd thing to bring up and then not use within the story, considering the franchise this is. SAME GODDAMN THING with shadow and the chaos emerald. the whole bit where he first shows up and is looking for a chaos emerald and then it gets lost in the void later on made me think it'd be an important plot point. but then we just never see it again until (spoilers) the timeline is reset and shadow chaos controls the paradox prism to fuck knows where. also why does sonic seem surprised at robots having no flickies too?? if this is after advance 3 that just doesnt make any damn sense eggman has done this before

the shatterverses are kinda. insanely boring to me. they're fun concepts! i love the idea of fucked up worlds that happened as a result of sonic not existing, new yoke especially (i still think it should've been written new yolk). nine is a really fun villain and one of the things i consistently liked throughout the show - a version of tails that never met sonic, fell into the doom of it all and closed himself off because of it, and now that he's met him he sees what good there could be and he's so desperate to keep it that he becomes destructive about it. come ON. rusty rose and thorn rose are super cool too! i love the character arcs they go through as fucked up versions of amy. rusty rose being a cyborg serving eggmen and going through the feelings amy goes through when she gets left behind, thorn rose wanting to protect nature SO much that it's to its detriment. and the three roses calling eachother sisters by the end was super cute.

everything else though. like a pirate world and fucked up overgrown jungle are fun in concept, the jungle especially since it's an antithesis to new yoke but still touches upon sonic's environmentalism factor. these worlds are SO. EMPTY though. i know there's like environment budgets and stuff regarding animation, i'll give them that. at least there's other pirates in no place, but there's really nothing else going on in boscage maze? no other people? how fucking big is this jungle? im being nitpicky i feel like cinemasins. i just can't remember anything else about these worlds to really care and give more criticism. a lot of things are so repetitive that theyre forgettable, as happens in this show. some of the character dynamics from the fucked up worlds are pretty cool though i think. like in s3 for example when dread knuckles has a chance to get to the prism but helps black rose instead and declares her captain - that made me sick to my stomach. my god. knuckles and amy acting like siblings in every universe.

i hate that rouge was the only character (besides big but he does even less in this series) to not be the "main" one of a shatterspace. rebel rouge is kinda just girlbossy to get the story going, prim rouge COULDVE been good since boscage maze's theme of selfishness couldve put an interesting twist to that element of rouge but All Of Them are selfish and not just her, and i still dont remember much of what happens in no place to have anything to say about batten rouge. just the fact that the one obsessed with beautiful jewels is dread instead of rouge.

i also cannot STAND. the fucking horde of eggmen. these are the worst villains in the sonic franchise right next to the deadly six. how do you have nine and the fucking chaos council in the same show. i don't even remember their goddamn names but these arent even characters theyre just Archetypes. the main mister doctor eggman is whatever he's kinda just eggman but then we have the Old Man, the grown ass samurai weeb man, the edgy teenager with videogames, and the fucking baby. abort that thang. and theyre focused on for SO. LONG. throughout season 2. by the finale of the show i was so fucking glad to just see normal eggman again even if it was 5 seconds like i'm so sorry they slandered your image like this doctor.

another continuity criticism - why does sonic seem surprised at the idea of having a robot copy of himself? you can't just tell me this series is canon to the games, make chaos sonic, and then pretend metal sonic (edit: and all of eggman's other robot sonics) never existed?? hello?? also the fact he just existed for one episode is sad to me. like what the

the fight scenes are fun i guess. this is a show to sell action figure toys. the choreography is cool and i did enjoy the references to the unleashed intro and shadow's brawl render n shit, i do love the animation of the show overall and i wish the games used more squash n stretch and were as expressive as this. but MY GOD do the fight scenes drag on. i remember watching one episode in s2 when it aired and having to run it back a couple times cause i didn't process what the fuck just happened. so much of the fight scenes feel like they were just there to fluff up the episodes. maybe cause i just watched it but s3 is especially bad with this i feel. like we're standing in this fucking battlefield discussing a plan for the 5th time. oh they're winning the battle. oh they're losing. oh they're winning again. ARE WE DONE. WHERE IS SHADOW

(this show is paced like it was supposed to have weekly episode airings, in fact! what the fuck is up with that! why is there so much repetition about plot shit i already know, i don't think kids are that dumb! why are there huge-seeming cliffhangers to the episodes that i can keep watching and see the resolution to in less than 5 seconds! i hate what the emphasis on bingewatching has done to tv shows. i had so much fun with the weekly fandom discussion and theorizing that happened when fionna and cake was airing, and it couldve been SO COOL to have that with this series for what it's worth and we did get Some between seasons, but instead we got a situation where i could open twitter in the morning and see a clip of s2's ending right when i woke up on the day it aired. like okay.)

speaking of shadow. i love him so much in this show. i cannot emphasize this enough he's one of the best parts about this show right next to nine and rusty rose. ian hanlin is right up there as one of my favorite shadow voices with david humphrey. i could go on and on about shadow's characterization forever but i love him here. he has Reasons to be angry (and he's right to be fair, it IS sonic's fault) and has his own ways of dealing with things that he Explains so people get why he does it, but then he understands when he's wrong and overall has a pretty calm demeanor. he's not just trying to one-up sonic, he's protecting the world!!! as he vowed he would!!!! but it also feels like they wanted to have him in this show Really Bad and at the same time wrote him out as much as possible?? which has been something a lot of sonic writers have done with him due to all the infamous locks on him as a character, to be fair. but half the time he'd just Disappear and i found myself thinking more often than not WHERE IS SHADOW. it feels like metal virus in idw, in a sense, where he's just conveniently written out cause if he were there a lot of plot shit would be over a lot quicker. another iteration of shadow beating tails' (nine's) ass wouldve happened in record time if shadow could go in the shatterspaces, i'm sure of it.

(also what the hell was that thing when he tried to enter one of the portals and was pushed back and the slowmo sequence focused on him with the glitch effects made it seem like there was gonna be different shatterverse shadows but nothing came from it? hello?? i'm telling you the amount of theories we had from moments that amounted to nothing is so disappointing)

(edit like 5 minutes after i posted: that "so retro" sequence with sunset green hill from advance 3 made me fucking sick WHY WAS GEMERL STILL IN THE EGGMAN SPRITE. WHY WAS IT A CLASSIC SONIC SPRITE WITH GREEN EYES. WHAT GOES ON!!!)

that's all i have to say i think. i did have fun watching this show!! don't get me wrong!! it just frustrated me the more it went on. as i said i wish i liked it as much as i did in the beginning lmao. it would've been a lot better as 1) its own thing rather than trying to fit into the gameverse and contradicting that a shit ton and 2) executing the multiverse thing a lot better. which is kinda just the whole show. well thats it from me

i wish i liked sonic prime as much as i did when it started but wow this show kinda sucks LMFAOOOOOOO

[spencersawkward]

I love your ff first of all, I'm obsessed and second of all I would ask you a suggestion, idk if maybe is that too much and you're totally free to not do that but you ever thought to do something in the line of the knive kink? I think it will be awesome

i'm so sorry this took so long! big thanks to my guardian angel @voidsfilm for giving me inspiration bc i literally struggled with this one more than i should have. never written a knife kink but i’m glad i tried lol.

summary: reader finds an antique knife that Matthew's kept in a drawer.

content warnings: unprotected penetrative sex, fingering, oral (male receiving), knife play (no blood drawn), Soft!Dom MGG, degradation and praise.

word count: 3.6k

masterlist

if there is one thing I absolutely despise, it's working out. getting sweaty, running until my legs hurt and my lungs are burning for air... not really my thing.

but when Matthew brought up the idea a couple months into our relationship, I couldn't say no to him: he had a goofy smile on his face and the kind of look in his eyes that made me relent and ask what kind of stuff he wanted to do.

I think that I've found the one thing that Matthew can't make fun.

"I'm gonna pass out." I bend over and set my hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath. Matthew slows to a stop a few feet ahead, turning around and making a strained expression.

"oh, come on." but his voice is pretty breathless, too. he gently guides me off the path so that we don't get in the way of the other people out enjoying the day. a couple walks by us with their dog, strolling calmly, and I feel a rush of envy. if our workout routine had consisted of a few pleasant ambles around the city, I would have been totally willing.

"Matthew, I wanna go home." I whine impatiently. the only nice thing about this is that he's got one of those stupid sweatbands on his head to keep his hair out of his face, and it makes him look like a 1980's housewife.

"we can go home in fifteen minutes." he smiles, puts his hands on his hips, stretching in an exaggerated way.

"do you promise?" I brush a piece of hair out of my face.

"promise," he's lucky he looks so cute in his workout outfit. "we can even get one of those fancy juices for you on the way back."

"seriously?" I light up. this might actually be worth it; they have this amazing mango and lime combination that I can't ever manage to recreate with our own blender.

"if you beat me to the rock, then sure." he references the enormous boulder in Central Park that we both gawked at on our first date-- ever since then, it's been the end point for our runs. my lips curl into a grin.

"you're on." I take off, making sure to push him out of the way in order to gain a head start. he lets out something of a protestation but is quick to follow. I can feel his feet pounding behind me, trying to catch up.

I may not be good at running long distances, but I'm sure as hell faster than he is.

...

it's quiet when I step out of the bedroom, drying my hair with the towel and wandering into the living room. Matthew is sitting at the table with his sketchbook, drawing god knows what while he waits for me to finish up.

"what are you up to?" I ask softly as I plop down across from him. my head is slightly tilted while the towel rubs my scalp.

"I'm not really sure." he shrugs, frowning and holding up the notebook from a distance as if that'll help him figure out what to do.

"can I see when you're done?"

"of course," he sets it on the table again, then runs a fingertip across his chin. "actually, can you do me a favor?"

"sure."

"I have a set of colored pencils in the desk over there," he points to an old piece of furniture under the window. "would you mind getting them for me?"

"yep," I reply, getting up and leaving the towel on the table. "least I can do after kicking your ass."

on the walk past him, Matthew grabs my waist and pulls me into him, attacks me with tickles. I squeal and hit his shoulder.

"stop!" I laugh.

"you barely beat me!" he gives a dazzling smile and finally lets me go. I lightly smack him upside the head and head over to the desk, rifling through the drawers for the colored pencils he wanted.

as I push around various art supplies, glue sticks and random paintbrushes that look to be on the brink of falling apart, my fingers pass something cool and metallic. I grab the thing and pull it out.

it's a knife; like, a fancy one with an intricately decorated handle and what seems to be a pretty dulled edge. before he can notice what I've found, I start to move the thing between my hands curiously. there's a nice weight to it, but it's definitely old.

"hey, Matthew?" I ask warily.

"yeah?" so unassuming and sweet.

"why do you have a knife?"

there's a scratching as he gets up from the table to walk over to me. I lean against the desk. Matthew doesn't seem too bothered by what I'm saying at all, only gently taking the weapon out of my hands and examining it himself.

"oh, yeah!" he lets out something like a laugh. I raise an eyebrow and wait for him to continue. "do you remember when we went antiquing in Cape Cod, like, a month ago?"

"yeah." I nod at the memory. he'd been lucky enough to get some vacation days and we'd spent them sitting by the water with glasses of wine and nothing but time to talk. it really was a great trip, now that I think about it.

"I found it there." he still hasn't looked up and I realize that there's something he's not telling me. I don't know what I'm missing, but I start to get nervous.

"...why?"

"I was gonna ask then, but I guess I just forgot." his tongue darts out across his bottom lip as he lifts his face to meet my gaze. my heart thuds when he opens his mouth again. "I kinda wanted to try something."

"like?"

"I've been thinking about maybe using knives... in a sexual way."

"what?" I frown, confused by his wording. Matthew seems to realize that he's phrased it awkwardly and shifts his stance. he keeps glancing between the object and my face like he's worried about scaring me away.

"I don't mean I'm gonna stab you or anything," he laughs. "I just mean I think it sounds fun."

my hand finds his, brushing my palm over the steel to touch it myself again. there's a curiosity that burns through me now, something I'm a little unsure about but not enough so to deny the possibility of trying it.

"what do you wanna do with it?" I peek up at him. he bites his lip. we're speaking in gentle tones and I notice that our bodies have gotten closer within the last few moments. a warmth, a tension.

"like, pressing the blade flat against your skin while I fuck you." he takes the thing and demonstrates. the cool silver rests on my neck, too dull to really threaten a serious cut if he were to move too quickly. a shiver runs down my spine at the sensation of the metal.

I gulp, feel the curve of my throat push against it when I swallow. it's nice.

"oh." is all I say. Matthew is watching me intently, but he doesn't make any motion away from it. like he's entranced by the sight of me with a knife to my throat.

"are you interested?" he asks.

I mull it over. on the one hand, weapon play is something I've never considered in my sex life before. Matthew and I aren't vanilla, but this hasn't crossed my mind. that said, now that I can really feel it, there is a desire forming in my stomach. it would be a strange, new sensation.

"yes." the confirmation makes him smile a little. he lowers the thing and instead wraps me in his arms, kisses me passionately until our tongues are dancing over each other. I love how he holds me, our torsos against each other while my body leans slightly back to accept the weight of his touch.

he goes to my head like alcohol. and it's even more surreal when I feel the blade move under the hem of my shirt to rest against my back. I smile into his mouth. he doesn't do anything with it, just leaves it to remind me.

he starts to rut his hips against my lower stomach, getting aroused at the proximity of our bodies and the heated nature of our kiss. there's an urgency to all of it, like he's holding back. I don't want him to hold back; I want him to give me everything he has, everything beneath the surface.

my fingers twine in his hair and tug on the ends, causing him to groan into our embrace. there's no way we're going to make it all the way to the bedroom with the way he's grabbing at my body, so I stumble backwards towards the couch until the backs of my thighs hit the arm of it.

"you're horny." I giggle slightly when he pushes the hem of my shirt up my body, his nails dragging over my ribcage and trailing the object along with it. I feel the excitement growing.

"I'm just glad you're willing to try this." he murmurs the words, holds our foreheads together before his lips eagerly seek mine out, again. somehow, even with a weapon leveled against me, I can sense the love in every single action. I wouldn't have said yes if I didn't trust him to treat me with the utmost care.

I work at the buttons of his shirt, pushing it over his lovely shoulders and arms as he unclasps my bra. we're fervent, greedy in our movements, trying to kiss despite the attention needed to remove our clothes. mostly we just tangle up in each other until there's nothing left but my shorts for him to shove down my legs. he keeps his pants on.

"c'mon, beautiful." he mutters, pushing my legs open so that I'm sitting on the arm of the couch. he tilts my head and leans closer to suck on my bottom lip, and then starts to massage my tits. I can feel the handle of the weapon against my nipple.

when he reaches to slide his finger between my folds, I hiss out a breath at the cold sensation of his skin.

"is this because of me or the knife, baby?" he asks, corners of his mouth twitching up while I moan into his mouth. he starts to rub my clit with the collected wetness, teasing me too much. I want to fall back, but I can't. I won't let myself.

"both." I find myself turned on by the way the blade sits against my ribs again. the edge is just sharp enough to elicit a reaction from my body.

"feel that?" he angles the thing the slightest bit. I exhale and nod.

that isn't the response he's looking for, however, because he moves it so that it's under my chin. goosebumps on my skin while I pant uselessly against the weapon. I can feel it press harder with every breath out of my lungs, and I love it. I love the risk it brings out of me.

while Matthew dips his index inside my pussy, I writhe against it and tilt my head even more so he has better access.

"look at you," he lets out a dark chuckle, thrusts into me to the last digit. "you want more of this, don't you?"

"yes, sir." I breathe. my neck is actively moving against the metal. I glance down at his body and see his erection straining against his pants, craving release but finding none as he plunges his fingers in and out of me. I can hardly breathe from sheer focus on the sensations he's giving me right now.

"what are you looking at, sweetheart?" he quickens the pace of his movements and uses the object to make me focus on his face.

"you're hard." the words nearly die on my lips. he stares darkly at me, lifting his brows just enough to make me question whether I should have spoken at all. I bite my lip in anticipation.

"and what are you gonna do about it?" his voice is raspy as he stands back, removes his fingers from my pussy, and lets me drop to my knees. I'm weak both from the stimulation and from the loss of it, but I make quick work of undoing his belt, pulling the pants down his legs until I'm face-to-face with his cock. it sits against his stomach, throbbing impatiently while he watches. he uses the metallic point under my jaw to angle my face up to his.

"are you gonna suck me off, baby?" he smirks. I nod rigorously with wide eyes and an open mouth, dragging my tongue along the underside. Matthew's nose scrunches up for a moment at the shock of contact when I tease the head. all his concentration is on watching me wrap my hand around the shaft and pumping him gently. "spit on it."

I obey and spit right onto the tip before rubbing my thumb over the top to gather the precum. as I start to swirl my tongue and move my lips onto him, he throws his head back, lets out a wanton noise. it urges me on. I take every moment with a deliberate attention to the veins and sensitive spot he has.

"that's it, that's it." he rasps while knotting his hand in my hair. the other keeps the knife pressed to my throat. he lets me move on my own for a bit, gauging my desires from the way my eyes attempt to memorize the sight of his face above me, that jaw dropped in licentious craving. I can tell that he wants to fuck my face, but I go slow just to draw it out a little. it makes the soreness of my jaw worth it when he gets all impatient and flustered.

I hollow my cheeks and bob on his dick, bat my lashes, pull myself off him for a second just to kiss the tip.

"can I use your mouth?" he asks through a restrained groan. I open it and nod, sighing at the feeling of his fingers twining through my hair again before he pushes back into the opening. now that he's got full control, he starts to develop his own movements, sometimes meeting his thrusts by pressing my face against him.

he gets deep in it, never losing his grip on the knife, until my nose is pressed to his stomach. my throat closes instinctively around him even more tightly, and he lets out a guttural moan.

"such a cute mouth when I'm using it." he thrusts until I gag and then he's smiling. "get up."

he removes himself so fast, my eyes water at the sudden lack of blockage in my throat. I gulp air while he hooks his hands under my arms and hoists me up. I'm about to turn around so I can lift my leg and give him better access, but he sits me on the arm of the couch and parts my thighs.

"I wanna see your pretty face." he leans down and pecks my cheek. I smile at the surprising tenderness-- although it doesn't last long. steel sits against the space between my neck and collarbone. it's only a moment before he positions himself between my legs and slides his cock into me.

my back arches and I look him in the eyes, gasping.

"fuck, baby." he drags out the first word as he inches inside. I mewl helplessly at the way he stretches me out, my pussy clenching every few seconds. he keeps one hand on my lower back to support me and bring me closer to his pelvis, and then we're staring into each other's eyes as he finally settles in it.

his hips start to thrust into me, hopeful for any kind of contact while I accustom myself to the shape of him. it happens every time, despite the amount of times we've done this. and I'm bad at patience, but he's worse. his body stutters against mine.

"is it good enough, sir?" I ask quietly. he tightens his grip on my back and on the blade, the edge threatening my skin the perfect amount. I suck in a breath at the way it stings a little.

"you're doing perfectly." he recognizes what I want to hear as he finds my sweet spot and begins to hit it repeatedly, smoothly works my body. I swear there are planets in my eyes when I stare at the expressions on his face, both of us so wrapped up in each other that every other thought becomes obsolete.

he moves the knife to under my chin to rest on my throat.

"feel that?"

I nod so the edge bites more. he smirks.

"just to show you who you belong to."

my hips push up to meet his thrusts, needing more stimulation, more friction. what I want is for him to be relentless, to slam into my body with the kind of hunger I know he has. there are sounds, movements, that he's made before that make me want him to use them. but he's withholding, probably hesitant about the dangerous object on my pulse point.

"I belong to you, sir." I egg him on. he likes the sound of that, grunting and starting to pound into me.

"yeah? you're my dirty little whore." he speaks through gritted teeth. I shiver.

"mhmm."

"I use you how I want, when I want." his fingertips dig into my skin and he yanks me closer so that he can hit a new angle. I let out a surprised noise when he brushes my g-spot. it's otherworldly and I expose more of my neck to him.

"my little slut likes pain, huh?" he nudges the weapon harder into my skin. it doesn't draw blood, but I can sense the mark it'll leave. I love it.

"yes, sir." we're both getting needy, but we can't hold each other the way that we want to in our given positions. my palms are occupied on the arm of the couch to hold myself up and one of his hands is too busy holding the object for us to fuck as deeply as we need.

"are you gonna take it like a good girl when I cum in it?" he mutters. he runs his tongue over my jawline and the weapon nicks my skin. I moan at the mingling of sensations that's building all across my body.

"yes, sir." I plead. it's nearly unbearable, how much I want him. we're chasing our orgasms and I know what will finish me off. he knows, too.

Matthew drops the knife. it clatters to the ground, but there's no time for me to register it with the way he grabs my hips and lifts me into the air, my legs wrapping around his waist while he keeps fucking into me. he maneuvers us with shocking ease, laying me on the couch and positioning himself at the right moment so that I can drag my nails over his back and keep my thighs locked around him.

"mmm... baby, I'm gonna cum." he drives into me recklessly, both of us finally able to cling to each other. the angle is just enough to stimulate my clit and I nod, using the leverage of my legs to pull myself to him and roll my hips for friction.

Matthew slams my body into the couch, grunting in my ear as he finds his climax inside me. it's so deep, I have to work to keep the yell inside, but he's not done. he rides it out and plows into me while I reach the edge.

"tell me how it feels." he orders in my ear. I sigh.

"so-- so good, sir." my voice is thin. "I'm close."

"show me." he leaves bruises on my hips with his hands. I feel the knot finally snap, every muscle in my stomach spasming chaotically. I finish with a loud moan, begging him to drag it out further. my vision nearly goes black at the tide that threatens to overtake my body.

"Matthew--" I gasp. he moans quietly at the way I say his name, still rocking his body into mine while I come down from the shocks of orgasm. it's nearly overwhelming, the pleasure running through my body.

slowly, we come to a stillness and he drops his head into my shoulder, panting. he doesn't let go at first, but then he withdraws from my pussy and lets me take a rest. I lay there on the couch while he kneels between my legs, pressing gentle kisses to my neck.

"I love you." he repeats it over and over.

"I love you, too," I hope he can feel the meaning, despite the sheer exhaustion in my tone. he runs his fingertips across the red marks where the thing went a little too deeply, but I'm not worried about it. "we should try that again, sometime."

"you liked it?" he smiles brightly. I love the lines by his eyes.

"definitely."

he lets out a cheerful noise and buries his face back into my throat because he knows how much it tickles. I screech and giggle, my legs kicking wildly around me. more contented than ever before.

[starbuckie]

𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭, 𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐰

challenge: 200 followers challenge by @angrybirdcr

prompt: “there may have been a slight misunderstanding, but nothing we can’t fix.” and locked in the trunk of a car

pairing: bucky barnes x reader

words: 5,504 words

warnings: post-endgame, bucky’s kinda a dick, enemies to friends(?), swearing, angst, mentions of violence, talk about sexual assault, guns, bickering, jealousy

summary: bucky had been adjusting to the new familiarity of having a stable routine, right until she walked in.

a/n: I DON’T NOT OWN ANY CHARACTERS ALL CHARACTERS BELONG TO MARVEL. okay, great, done that, but congratulations on 200 followers!! i had so much fun taking part in your writing challenge, so thank you so much. imma be honest, there’s not a lot of romance in this, it’s some enemies to friends type of shit and i genuinely did not think this fic would get so angsty and dark and actually long, but i had an idea and ran with it mid way through the old fic with this prompt. also i had an idea for an epilogue to this, so tell me if you want that part 2 because i am on the verge of writing it. this is not proofread by a beta, but i edited it myself and hope it is okay. anyways, now that we’re done with that, please enjoy this rollercoaster of a fanfic i’ve written.

main masterlist || sebastian stan characters masterlist

Life in the twenty-first century was strange, Bucky concluded. Though he’d been free of HYDRA for around nine years technically, being a fugitive and in another realm didn’t give him much time to learn about the modern world. As soon as he came back, Steve had left him and he had to move on without his childhood best friend. It was hard for him to adjust to this century, with the new rules and the whole scene in general, but he seemed to make it through just fine. He’d come to peace with the fact that there was no escaping the fighting at all, falling into a steady routine that became his holy grail. 

In the new Avengers compound in Upstate New York he felt content and more sure of himself than he’d felt in a very long time. Everyone in the tower was quiet and kept to themselves mostly, still dealing with the aftermath of losing so much in so little time. But in that silence Bucky felt like a free man, able to walk around without fear of being hunted down every second and time to really look about this new world.

There were still times when he woke up in a sweaty panic, disoriented and terrified until he realized he was in the safety of his room in the compound. He’d flinch at loud noises in the quiet and his heart would stop, something that went by unnoticed by everyone else, though he didn’t blame them for it. Bucky felt extreme guilt for the horrible things he had done as the Winter Soldier, memories of bloodied and dead bodies, bodies he had made fall to the ground motionless. It wasn’t him, he knew, but his hand still had pulled the trigger. When he found something new a smile would split across his face, ready to tell Steve what he had discovered, until he remembered that the rambunctious blond boy was gone, a wrinkled grey man with a new family in his place. It still hurt him to think that he had left him so easily, with barely a goodbye. Bucky still had days where he felt so incredibly tired, left still on his bed as horrible thoughts ran through his mind, anxious about the future.

But then he found new things everyday, things that seemed to outweigh the bad by a whole lot. He’d found cool ranch Doritos were the best chips and that he really liked the season of fall with the leaves falling around him as he took a serene walk. He found that he really loved Frozen, the songs and Sven the reindeer making him crack a smile every time he watched it. He found that he could sleep in on his days without missions and Wanda liked her pancakes with an unhealthy amount of syrup on the side to dunk them in. He found that Sam was actually really funny, always making the worst puns or the dirtiest jokes at the most inappropriate of times. He found a new sense of respect and warmth in the family they’d built together, learning how to go on without those that they loved. He found that he was really enjoying his new routine and his new sense of peace with himself.

All until she walked in.

Bucky could still remember the exact moment she flipped their world upside down. Sharon had fawned over her, talking about one of her old SHIELD buddies who was finally coming back to the states. After the organization fell in 2014, Y/N L/N fled to Hawaii, running away to the one place she knew no one would find her. She was done fighting, or that’s what she believed until Thanos showed up. 

It was shameful, really, that Y/N was aware of all the problems that went on, yet did nothing to help. They needed her help, she knew they did, but she couldn’t bring yourself to go help her friends. Originally she was trying for a settled down life, planning to retire from the constant fighting, but after a few failed relationships Y/N realized that she wasn't cut out for that white picket fence life. Those had just been the dreams of a fourteen year old Y/N L/N, left empty and hollow by the horrors she had seen during her time at SHIELD. There was nothing left waiting for her, no family, no friends, but she was too stubborn to get back into the fight, so she stayed in her humid Oahu apartment and waited for something interesting to happen.

Well, maybe Y/N shouldn’t have wished so hard, that “interesting thing” showing up in the form of being snapped out of existence by a large, purple grape.

When she came back she felt nearly indifferent, knowing that five years had passed by her, and though Y/N felt nothing but emptiness she knew that it was time to go back. It was her duty when she had joined SHIELD to always be there and protect, and she had failed that job. But Y/N was more than ready to make up for it. Nothing like Thanos could ever happen again, so she called Sharon, one of her closest friends and previous commanding supervisor at the organization. She was ecstatic to have Y/N back, probably a bit too much, and before she could have second thoughts the girl was on a plane overlooking JFK, ready to land in New York.

So when Y/N walked in, with a tight-lipped smile and butterflies anxiously fluttering in her stomach, Bucky couldn’t help but despise her. Maybe he had formed his opinion off of Sharon’s explanation of her past, but Y/N got the life of settling down that he didn’t and he was infuriatingly jealous. 

“Hey, Bucky, Sam, come meet Y/N!” Sharon said excitedly. Her hair was put back in a headband neatly, two suitcases in hand as she looked at the two tall, muscular men. Of course Y/N recognized both of them, she hadn’t been living under a rock. Keeping up with the news of the Avengers and remaining SHIELD officers had been one of the only things keeping her from coming back, hearing of the terrible fights and destruction done to whole cities. She recognized Sam Wilson, the infamous Falcon being marked down as a “war criminal” in 2016. She never believed that crap, if he and half of the other Avengers were locked up there had to be a good reason behind it.

Then, there was James Buchanan Barnes. Now, she knew him from her eighth grade American history books, reading about the brave Howling Commando who had given up his life for saving the country, but Y/N knew him better as the Winter Soldier from her time at SHIELD. The fight in 2014 had been brutal, hectic in all forms, but she’d caught a few glances at the metal-armed man. He hadn't been in his normal state, with being controlled and tortured by HYDRA at the time, but the kid inside of her freaked out, remembering memories of gossiping with her friends about how hot he was in the textbooks and how much of a hero he was. That man was still in there somewhere, hidden by decades of reprogramming and mind-wiping, and Y/N was finally seeing him in the flesh. She would be working with him daily, living in the same space as him. The thought made her giddy like a middle schooler with her first crush,though his presence was intimidating as well.

“Hi there, I’m Y/N L/N, it’s a pleasure to be working with you.” Sticking out her hand, she gave a bright smile, already growing out of her nervous state. 

Sam quickly shook Y/N’s hand, giving a warm greeting in response to her introduction. Then she turned to Bucky. “It’s nice to meet you, Bucky.”

His cold, dead glare locked onto Y/N, staring straight through her soul. It felt like he could see every insecurity and guilty action she had, and she didn’t like it one bit. “That’s Sergeant Barnes to you.” Without another word, he walked out of the room like a petulant child, leaving Sharon, Sam, and Y/N flabbergasted. 

“I’m sorry, Y/N, he’s usually more friendly than that, I’ll go check in on him,” Sharon furiously said with a painfully fake smile. Sam grabbed the new girl by the arm, linking it with his own and led her in another direction as he explained the usual training routine and schedule for the week. 

And while she was completely enraptured by Sam’s comforting words and the exciting compound, her heart still felt heavy from Sergeant Barnes’ cold greeting. 

-

She had tried to be nice. She really had. But after two months it was pretty clear Sergeant Barnes wasn’t getting any better, and Y/N was beyond pissed off. Childish, is what he was being, fucking childish. 

It started off with leaving every room she came into, blatantly ignoring her presence. When she would say hello every morning he’d grunt or even worse, he wouldn’t answer her at all. Y/N had begged Sharon if she knew why the sergeant was acting up, but she didn’t know either and just asked her to ignore him and his “crappy, old-man behaviour”. Sam wasn’t very helpful to Y/N’s cause either, but he was a great mentor and an even better teacher.

Sharon was really the only person Y/N had in her phone, her parents dead and no boyfriend accounted for. The rest of her family had wanted nothing to do with her when she joined SHIELD, but that was okay with her. She knew what she had gotten herself into, and it was an extreme risk to even be acquaintances with her. But now, living with several others in a compound that seemed so large after the great loss, Y/N became part of their family as well. 

It was nice to have friends again, as years of solitude on an island where she knew nobody had made her nearly desperate for more human interaction than with the teenagers who worked the cash registers at the grocery store. Y/N became an integral part of the Avengers (she could actually say that aloud now), going on missions and kicking ass just like she used to. Of course, Sergeant Barnes’ behaviour in and out of missions stayed the same, but she usually tried her best to not take it to heart and move on. After all, she couldn’t have everyone like her.

But one day they both snapped.

Y/N was sitting with Sharon and Wanda, eating lunch and talking over their most recent mission with them and Barnes in Cairo. It hadn’t been a necessarily bad mission, per se, but she had run back into the building to get Wanda out from under a fallen pillar, which apparently was “severely dangerous”. Looking back, she could see how it was, putting her entire team’s secrecy and mission in volatile danger, but Wanda was like her sister and in Y/N’s heart she knew that she had to. Bucky had had to grab them both, nearly dragging her back to the jet before the building had collapsed. He’d been beyond angry with Y/N for the stupid decision, but when they landed he just huffed and stomped away. The redhead was grateful for her and so was Sharon, but lunch was just for a simple stern talking about mission protocols. 

“Y/N, I know that you’re a fantastic agent and even better friend, but when we’re on missions we need that agent. You can’t let your feelings and outside life get in the way of our objective.” Sharon said in a firm voice. Y/N dropped her head in her hands and rubbed her face tiredly.

“I know, Sharon, I’m sorry, Wanda could’ve probably gotten herself out but I just let my instincts act too fast and ran back in without another thought.” She groaned. “Plus, I just caused more damage than anything else. It won’t happen again, I promise.” Wanda and Sharon nodded in understanding just as the Asshole Supreme walked into the kitchen.

“You talking ‘bout how Y/N fucked up the mission yesterday?” Sergeant Barnes grunted. While Sharon and Wanda gasped in shock, Y/N’s eyes were trained at the plate on the table in front of her, not daring to make a sound. She muttered out a sorry and got up to put her dish in the sink. As long as he was here, he was going to make her life a living hell, and as much as she wanted to lash out, it would be cause for her dismissal from the team. While her old, solitary life was what she had once dreamed of, Y/N now saw her future among these people, this family, somewhere she finally felt a part of despite Barnes’ horrid behaviour. “Sorry?” He scoffed, “Sorry doesn’t make up for the fact that I had to run back in for you. Sorry doesn’t make up for the extreme risks we all pull to save your ass out in the field.”

“Bucky, stop.” Sharon yelled.

But he ignored her words and sauntered over to Y/N with a knowing smirk, leaning down to meet her level. His warm breath hit her face and she could stare into his deep eyes, swirling like a raging storm of blues and greys. “You shouldn’t even be out there, L/N. I mean, you haven’t had training in years, it’s not like you were anything special either. Just another agent, hoping to get to work in the big leagues.”

“Shut up.” Y/N whispered meekly. Tears were just barely being held in, her chest feeling empty and hollow with anger and guilt. Is this what it felt like to want to kill someone with so much vengeance? 

“Where were you when Thanos came? Where were you, L/N? We needed all the help we could get, but there you are, in fucking Hawaii, with you little fucking margaritas on the fucking beach-”

“Shut the fuck up!” She screamed. The room went dead silent with her voice. None of the team had seen Y/N look so angry, so sad, so vulnerable, at one time. It was easy for her to hide her emotions and Wanda refrained from trying to toy with her mind, but shame was overwhelming the girl by the second and Sergeant Barnes was right, as much as she didn’t want to say it. She was a coward, thinking she could run away from the “hero life” so easily. They’d caught her, and Barnes was making her face that truth right now. “Don’t you think I know that? Don’t you think I know, that I was absolutely scared shitless of returning here, facing all of you after what you endured for so long?” 

Y/N took a deep breath, laughing mirthlessly as tears ran hot down her cheeks. “I’m sorry that I came back, I really am, but I’m trying my damn best to make up for what I did. Being scared is no excuse for why I ran away, I was fucking terrified of having one more thing to lose. My family is dead, SHIELD fell, and I had no one to lean on so I ran as far as I fucking could. But I’m back now, I’m ready to serve up to what I left behind, and you better fucking deal with it because this,” she jabbed a finger into his broad chest, “is not fucking it. I’m not going to live with your shitty behaviour anymore, Barnes.”

He, Wanda, and Sharon all watched as she slammed the plate into the sink, storming out of the room. They could hear her door slam shut, and the two women glared at Bucky.

“What the hell is your problem, Barnes” Wanda hissed in a scarily low voice. Fuck. He knew he’d messed up then, gone farther than he ever dared to with insulting Y/N, and both of the women were severely overprotective of the new Avenger. 

Sharon walked up to Bucky with large strides, delivering a slap to the side of his head. Yeah, he definitely deserved that. It was dead silent in the kitchen, the tension still high strung from the fight seconds before. “You better go apologize, Barnes, I swear to God this has gotten far too out of hand. You two have a mission tomorrow, estimated a month, and wheels are up at 2300 hours. I need you two to go get the intel quietly and undetected and we can’t have both of you arguing the whole damn time, so you better fix things by then.”

The blonde agent walked away, Wanda trailing behind her, but not without the middle finger from both of them. A mission? Tomorrow? With Y/N? This was going to be horrible. Bucky ran a hand over his face and trudged off to his room. 

It was going to be a long month.

-

Y/N stared out of the window as they flew over the clouds above the Mediteranean Sea. Eleven in the morning in Italy gave a clear view of the skies, light blue as far as she could see. They were ready to start their descent into Azzano and the woman glanced to the man beside her, his stormy blue eyes glaring in any direction but hers. The sergeant had avoided her all he could up until they boarded the jet, and even then he only spoke to her when necessary. “Hey, Barnes, we’re starting to descend, go get ready.”

The brunette looked over to Y/N and grunted in response. Oh well, it was better than him yelling at her. His little outburst in the kitchen had her pissed at him more than ever, but the words thrown around still rung true in her head. But now wasn’t the time to think about that.

She paid careful attention to where she was supposed to land, a shaded facility almost five miles south of where they had to get the intel from an old, but rebuilt HYDRA base. The same base where James Buchanan Barnes was once held captive, experimented on and tortured until Steve Rogers came to save him. Y/N didn’t care much for Barnes usually, but she also didn’t know how he’d react to being in a location with such horrible memories attached to it. They had both been at the mission briefing the day before of course, he knew what it entailed and he seemed unfazed, and he was always good at hiding his emotions. As the jet touched down finally, the agent thought back. Well, sometimes he was good at hiding his emotions.

Making sure her comm fit snugly in her ear, Y/N unbuckled herself from the seat, heading back towards the wall of weaponry they kept in the back of the jet. Barnes was already there dressed in hs black kevlar tactical suit, hugging his body nicely and vibranium arm on display. When he was around her he tried to hide it, and she saw him joking around and being comfortable in other’s presence with it out, wondering what made her so different. She personally found it fascinating, the beauty of the gold and black metal with the incredible Wakandan technology, but she respected his privacy and tried to not think too much about it. 

Y/N threw a vest on over her own navy blue tac suit, tightening her combat boots before she fully zipped up. Were they finally ready?

Three guns perched in holsters by her waist.

Two taps to her earpiece and Barnes’ breathing in her ear.

One mutual nod with the sergeant himself, and they were off, slowly making their way to grab the intel, not a trace to be left behind. 

-

Getting stuck in the trunk of a car was not in the plan. It definitely wasn’t. Bucky remembered every single inch and cranny of that meticulously planned out schedule, every move, every kill they had to make, but not once was it mentioned that Y/N was to get stuck in Baron Zemo’s car without any weapons on her.

“L/N, what the hell do you mean you’re in the back of Zemo’s car.” He seethed, already searching frantically around the large remains of the building for her. It had gone smoothly, she was just supposed to quickly check inside his car as he searched the base. It’ll be so much quicker if I do it, L/N, is what he had said, but now he regretted it. Like the incompetent fool she was, she was spotted and ended up shooting out half of Zemo’s goonies before dropping all her weapons to the ground and running when she ran out of ammunition.

“There may have been a slight misunderstanding,” Y/N whispered into her comm, “but nothing we can’t fix! Just come find me, Barnes, and all will be well.”

She could hear his angry curses and jostling, which she assumed he was running to come find her. It wasn’t entirely Y/N’s fault she had run out of ammo. Some of it must have fallen from her pockets during the shootout and when she saw the car she thought it’d be the perfect place to hide. Until she realized that no one else was at the partially burned down HYDRA base besides Baron Zemo, the person who Sharon had told her to avoid at all costs, and she was in his damn car. Practically her death note.

“If you had just listened to me you wouldn’t have been caught!” Bucky furiously whispered through the comms. 

Y/N rolled her eyes, though he couldn’t even see her, and groaned. “I did listen to you, Barnes, I checked the damn car, but we weren’t expecting his guards to find me so I killed them and hid. Is that actually so bad?” 

“Yes it is!’ He explained. “Give me your coordinates.” She checked the small watch on her wrist, pushing a button on the side that gave a small holographic image of the time and her coordinates on a world wide map. Reciting them for him, Bucky followed, continuing to berate her as he did so. “And you’re right, L/N, I asked you to check the car, not fucking jump inside it!”

This time Bucky could envision her rolling her eyes as she groaned even louder in very Y/N L/N fashion. “Would you rather I be dead?” She asked. It had been a few seconds, but she still received no response. “Barnes?” Crackling. “Sergeant?” Absolute nothingness. “Sarge?”

The trunk of the car opened as the woman let out a squeak, the broad frame of James Barnes hovering above her, some dirt smudged around the annoyed expression on his face. “Don’t call me that.” He grumbled.

He reached his hand towards her, grasping her own tightly before pulling her to a sitting position. “Why, you had all the ladies calling you that back in the day?” She mimicked a much higher tone, nearly resembling Snow White if the princess were high on drugs and had a Brooklyn accent. “Hey, Sarge, we goin’ dancing? Sarge, you goin’ to give me some sweet lovin’ tonight? Oh, how I’d just love for you to shove your fat, ugly head up your a-”

A loud beeping from his wristwatch cut her off. With a glare, the man let go of Y/N’s hand, checking to see what the problem was. A small red tracker on the map moved, and both of them knew they were in deep shit. “Crap, Zemo’s coming this way. That’s one of the trackers I set up on the ground and we gotta go quick.”

Faint whistling from Baron Zemo made both of them panic as Bucky tackled her back down and quickly shut the door behind him. Footsteps were approaching, the whistling getting louder and a door opening let the two Avengers know that they couldn’t get out anytime soon. Y/N could feel Bucky’s racing heart against her chest, hers beating just as fast. He turned to face her, a lot closer than both of them expected, lips dangerously close and noses nudging against each other. Ther breaths mixed together, the hot air of the car doing nothing to help her current close quarters with the man. 

“Can you bust us out of here?” She whispered hurriedly, rather uncomfortable with the present situation.

“We’ll die if we leave now. He’s much more prepared than we thought and with half his men down he knows something is up. Zemo wasn’t even supposed to know we were here so we’re far too unprepared and you lost your damn weapons. There’s no way we can go out so we’re going to stick in here until he gets out.”

Truth be told, Bucky was terrified and had no clue what to do next. Being stuck in a small confined space with Y/N had to be his worst nightmare, especially after he didn’t apologize for his shitty behavior last night. And the night before. 

And the several months before that.

From his view Y/N seemed to be uncomfortable and as the car started moving, she wiggled around, struggling to get as far away from Bucky as she could. He too was extremely uncomfortable, but as her wriggling continued, his already tight fitting pants seemed to get even impossible tighter as she practically grinded on him. 

“Would you stop squirming around?” Y/N shot him what would’ve been a questioning glance if not for the pitch blackness of the trunk, and heard his loud sigh, warm breath fanning across her face. “I’m sorry, I’m having a situation, uh, down there and your wiggling isn’t helping it too much.”

Her face heated up, not knowing what to feel after he said that. Was he… flustered? Y/N had never seen Bucky Barnes anything less than grumpy or professional before.

When she said nothing, he assumed the worst and thought she saw him as a disgusting and creepy person. Before that moment he’d never had any particular care about how Y/N felt, but he knew that there were still a lot of perverts, if not more perverts than back in his day. With his four little sisters always getting catcalled and the crude men who thought women were their property, Bucky knew it was definitely terrifying to be assaulted or any situation such as this. 

There wasn’t much he could do, but he shifted so they weren’t lying down hip bone to hip bone. “Sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable, I don’t want you to think I’m a pervert or anything, it’s just been a while since I, well, y’know…”

“I understand, Barnes, but thank you for apologizing.” Y/N said carefully. It was weird to hear the now shy and surprisingly considerate sergeant apologize to her, but she had to admit that her respect for him had gone up. 

He cleared his throat in return, trying to turn in any other direction besides hers as they listened to the tires of the car bumping along the road, heart wildly thumping. 

It was quiet. Far more quiet than it had ever been when either of them were in the same room. As Y/N stared down at Bucky’s head, almost resting on her stomach, she saw the man she’d read about in middle school. For a moment she was able to look past the last few months of fighting and hatred, and see the noble sergeant she’d admired for so long. 

“You can rest your head if you want to, I knew keeping it up like that must be hurting your neck. I promise I’m okay with it.” She reassured him. With a small hesitation, Barnes submitted to his screaming neck muscles and laid his head on her stomach, the vest providing cushion. A few more seconds of silence and gathering courage, and she finally asked him the question she had been wondering since her first day at the compound. “Why do you hate me?”

I’m jealous, he wanted to say, but he wasn’t brave enough to say it. With a small sigh, he managed to get out, “I don’t.”

“Then why are you so cold to me all the time?” Emotions that were borrowed so deep inside Y/N’s chest seemed to come barreling out, seeping into every question that she asked. “Am I really that horrible an agent? Do you not think I’m trying my best? I know I made a mistake, I wasn’t there when you all needed me, but I’m trying so, so damn hard to make up for it. I swear on my life, and every one that comes after it, that I’m-”

“It’s not you, it’s me, God damn it!” Bucky exclaimed angrily. Both of their blood ran cold in fear that Zemo might have heard them, but the radio continued to drone on in the background, nothing seeming to have changed. He took a deep sigh and tried how to best explain it to her. Even though he’d probably never have Y/N’s forgiveness for insulting her so plainly and hurting her so much, he felt as though she deserved as much as his reasoning as to why he “disliked” her so much. It was difficult for him to say, having to also put his pride away for once to just admit it. “I’m jealous of you, Y/N. You got the sweet life for a while, and that’s all I’ve ever wanted. When you look at us who remain, not a single one of us was planning to be an Avenger. You were getting the dream home, the kids, the family that I’ve wanted since I was a boy back in Brooklyn, and all you had to do to get it was run away. It was so simple.”

Y/N’s eyes widened, not at all expecting that. “It wasn’t all too much ‘sweet life’, you know? It was my dream when I was younger, I thought being an agent was temporary and then I’d move into a big, old house with a loving spouse and have millions of little carbon copies of myself to occupy my days. But the truth about what we do is that we can only stay away from it for so long, Barnes. With people like us,” she squeezed her eyes shut, letting the final tears roll down her cheeks, “there’s no running away from the hero's life. It's just who we are. We’ve already done too much to change that part of our lives.” 

Y/N felt him nod through the fabric on her skin, sniffles letting her know that he was crying too. They were connected. All the shouting, all the yelling, the pain, the battles, the fore, the blood, the years of torture, all led to this moment. This historic moment in Y/N and Bucky’s relationship where they both waved white flags, wet faces and hearts filled with sorrow for the life they never had. 

“I’m so sorry for the way I dealt with my anger and jealousy, Y/N.” Bucky croaked. 

“I used to idolize you when I was a kid.” Y/N recalled with a faint smile on her face. “In the eighth grade I wrote a history paper on you, Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, American hero and inspiration to all. And you know, I always kinda had a crush on you. Wondered what it would be like if you were still alive, if you would’ve gone home after the war, if you would’ve had a family. No matter what wild thoughts ran through my head, though, you were always my hero.” Bucky took her confession in shock, pure amazement and surprise coursing through his body. Maybe a little bit of sadness, longing for that old life, maybe a bit of bashfulness of her having a crush on his as a schoolgirl. “And then I met you and you were this grumpy, irritable old man who seemed to despise me as soon as I walked in the door. Definitely not what I had expected.” He opened his mouth, ready to apologize again, when her next words cut him off. “I want to start over, don’t you?”

How was she so calming? Her words were exactly what he needed to hear and didn’t need to at the same time. Her voice brought back all the old memories of running around New York with Steve as a kid, reminding him of his wise ma in a way. “There’s nothing I’d like more than that, Y/N.”

Y/N smiled to herself, looking towards the top of the car. “Perfect.”

And with the twinkle in her eye and his head resting on her stomach with a small grin, it really was.

[kyoupann]

Please do more of the writing head canons. It’s really interesting to see other people’s ideas on the topic, so if you can be bothered, I would highly appreciate more, thanks bye <3

Y’all don’t know how happy I am to talk about these headcanons, they are my babies and I love them so much :’) thanks for asking g <3

Handwriting Headcanons

Same dynamic as before, try to guess whose handwriting it is before reading and tell me how many you got right! <3

You can find the first post here (no need to check it tho)

Quick disclaimer: halfway through making my initial notes, I remembered I had one (1) single lesson of graphology in my applied linguistics class, but that was a year ago and some information might be off. I just thought it was neat to include.

Another quick disclaimer: I don’t know much about Hylian, but I like to think it has a similar stroke system to Japanese, so the pressure and accuracy of your strokes play a major role in your handwriting (among other things, ofc.) so there are some parts where I focus more on that

(First Row, from left to right)

Sky

Our first boy is mother hen! Believe it or not, he has the prettiest handwriting out of all of them! Sky: probably has nice, even elegant handwriting because Sun forced him to practice when they were little. In the end, that paid off because his handwriting is the prettiest one. There’s no pressure, but he is confident in what he writes that his lines aren’t thin. Mistakes? what is that? this boy has impeccable grammar and spelling. No mechanic errors to be found in his letters! I’d like to think that many of Hyrule’s classic/staple poems were originally written by the firt king aka sky child. Like, imagine, after a retiring from being a Person of Power (as the first ruler), Sky finds comfort in the arts: revisits his old woodcarvings and starts writing poetry about the world he still doesn’t fully understand. wowie. tldr: sky writes poetry and you can pry it from my cold dead hands.

This is what one of his letters would look like: 

Next one is the one and only, our Hero of Time

2. Time

I’ll die on the “Time didn’t know how to read and write” hill. His handwriting is simple, not pretty but not messy. It has some grammar and spelling mistakes here and there. Can become unreadable if writing in a hurry, he sorts of forgets spaces between words are a thing/letters have different sizes and lowercase letters end up the same size as capital letters. I’m not saying he sometimes forgets to write articles: he just doesn’t want to. Honestly, he just has this dad-neat handwriting. He is a gentle dad and writes like a dad, if he puts too much pressure onto the paper, his handwriting become too sharp/angle-ish and ends up looking ugly. And as much as he would like to not care about it, in the end he does (:

Malon taught him how to write and it was quite the experience. At first he didn’t want to because he was ‘too old’ to learn and it was torture at first, but now look at him devouring his cowboy novels. 

A chunk of his handwriting: 

*sniff* such a dad quote.

3. my mansss, your  4x1 deal at Target: Four

Look, my boy is patient! He could do some nice and fancy lettering if he wanted to. He was taught that handwriting and spelling said a whole lot about him as a person, you know, like a first impression kinda thing; so he always proof reads more than twice before sending ­a letter. Super rare grammar mistakes.

The faster he writes, the more slant his writing becomes. Under stress/ when not sure how to write things down, run-on sentences are everywhere and his handwriting is inconsistent in general (I don’t headcanon each part of him having completely different handwriting because handwriting becomes muscle memory over time. It’s just slightly different variations of the same, like idk  Vio’s handwriting is neater than Green’s and Red writes hearts instead of any dot/circle and no, I do not take constructive criticism on that, jk i do.) Adding on to each of the colours’ handwriting, I’d think Red and Green write with words slanted to the right( inclined), Vio is a mix of the opposite, so reclined and straight, and my mans blue a true neutral writes straight (kinda like Time’s).

The logic behind this is that inclined writing supposedly means honesty and need for giving (and getting) affection; reclined means, as you can probably imagine,  defensiveness and repression of true feelings, but also shows great concentration; straight handwriting means self-control, observation and reflection as well as distrust and indifference. But as complete being (tm), Four just writes as in the image example which is not too straight and not too inclined, and I believe that’s a good middle for him

HOWEVER, if I’m feeling in the mood for crack, I totally accept this boy to have the ugliest, chicken scratches-looking handwriting! :’D It’s just funny to think that someone like him, who has to be precise and careful in his work, can't write neatly to save his life. 

One of his letters would look like this: 

Also I just LOVE how his hero titles look in this font ksksks

and that’s

(Middle row, from left to right)

4.- Mister Bunny Boy - Legend

His uncle taught him how to write. I’d call his handwriting pretty and neat at a first glance, but he presses too hard on the paper, most of the time staining the back or the following page. Sometimes will retrace some words if he doesn’t like how it looks (which only makes it messier). According to my notes, a thick or strong handwriting represents determination/commitment.

As I also headcanon him to know many languages, mechanical errors are more present than grammar ones; that is, weird capitalisation of words. Punctuation is somewhere in between; uses too many commas when he should just cut the sentence. he mixes punctuation from two languages or more in writing when too distracted (or too focused, because, well, pressure.); when he writes for himself, he has almost no problem following said language’s punctuation rules. Also, this is just polyglot culture, and I’m projecting a bit, but when he forgets a word in the language he’s writing, he just replaces it with its equivalent in another language because we don’t care about fluency, but rather functionality. in this household (more on that in my language hc, ksksks).

An example of his writing:

so powerful

4.-  Mr. Wolfman, howl me a song - Twilight

I don’t have much for him because 1) I don’t think he writes a lot and 2) he is a hands-on/visual learner, I’ll die by that. He only learnt how to write because Ulli insisted it was important and he was not about to disrespect his momma; he IS That Guy, but doesn’t really write enough to have neat handwriting.

Many people seem to overlook the fact that his house is filled with books and write him as completely illiterate (which if not explored properly, ends up feeling a bit disrespectful and full of prejudice, but go off I guess; and that’s on my core Headcanons for Twi); however, he sticks to simple sentences. Knowing how to read and understanding a text is different from knowing how to write them. Like, when we would see a semicolon and understand its position in the text, but didn’t understand the nature of it. Is this clear? idk i’m sorry. So yeah, boy reads a lot, writes very little.

As for his Actual Handwriting, as opposed to Legend, his handwriting is thiccc but not because he presses into the paper; he is just that messy, he has no sense of ink-flow-control, he does what he can with what he has. To the untrained eye, his handwriting illegible letters like v, n, u are very similar; when he makes notes for himself he does it in the form of doodles or small ‘icons’. But! He reads a lot, so he rarely makes spelling mistakes (: he is your go-to guy when you don’t know how to write a word.

An example of his writing:

He keeps a journal, sue me.

3. My first born- Warrior

Okay, first off... I accept this is completely biased. I saw the idea and said “That’s True”. If you haven’t, please read Effective Communication; or The Lack of Thereof by htruona, a fic where the boys reflect on the language barriers between them. It’s incredibly funny and probably what made me start making these silly notes. So, if you’ve read that fic, you know where I’m going.

My man, Warrior, can’t fucking write. I mean, he physically can, but it’s very bad. Here’s the reason for it, tho, and it’s not his fault: Technically, he knew how to write alright but he joined the military and whatever note he had to write had to be concise or in the worst case coded. He mixes capital and lowercase letters. If we consider that he joined the military at around 15, his handwriting and grammar had yet to continue developing. Just think about how after summer break, your handwriting was always slightly worse than before because you didn’t write for an entire month. Now think what 2 years can do to that. Hmm, not cool, dude. He makes quick notes, when writing he’s all gotta go fast. he is the lighting mcqueen of writing; good for emergency messages, not ideal for love letters. His punctuation also suffered a lot, he only know full stops and commas and hardly uses them. A sentence for him is either one word or fifty without a single comma, no inbetween.

His hero title and an example of his writing.

(Bottom row, or what I like to call “fuck cursive” row)

7.- Magic man - Hyrule

I’m basic and I do agree with the popular headcanon of he not knowing how to write because well, y’all know his Hyrule. He only knows how to write his name because that’s important, same with numbers. I don’t see why would he write/read except checking the roadsigns. (he can even use this as an excuse for getting lost frequently; he thought it said something different.) But I do think that because his habitual reading consists of roadsigns, his ‘punctuation’ is weird af and places full stops/points/periods at the same level of his words and his commas/question/exclamation marks below them. Yk, creative license. Sadly, I don’t have much about my magic hands man so here’s what his writing would look like if he actually wrote a paragraph:

Man, I love Hyrule.

8.- Man, I don’t understand this boy -  Wild

Cursive? ain’t nobody have the time for that. He woke up and had to save the world in his underwear while not knowing how to read nor write.  He learnt during his journey and was taught by multiple people from different regions, that explains his inconsistent spelling of things and names for them. So Wild knows language variations for many items and uses them interchangeably (even if they aren’t exactly the same). Another headcanon related to writing/language skills that I’ve been thinking about is that if the shrine was able to cause amnesia, I’m sure there were other areas in the brain affected which leads us to language disorders such as agraphia and aphasia. But that’s a story for another day ksksksk

An example of his writing (after relearning)

9.- The best of sons - Wind

I don’t have much for him and that makes me sad. Look, he’s a kid, doing kid things like stabbing dudes on the head. This boy was taught cursive by his grandma, but could never do it and no one needs it anyway. His handwriting is good enough for his pirate life, Tetra is the one to handle Official stuff, he just gotta sign. Spelling and grammar mistakes abound. He is still relatively young and can correct his handwriting if he desires. But same as Wild, with how many times he’s been thrown out and hit his head, I’m starting to consider some language disorder for him as well.

An example of his writing:

aaand that’s it.

Thanks, y’all for showing interest in this silly thing uwu it was fun to finally talk about this. If you ever want to discuss ideas/headcanons(especially if they are related to language and culture), I’m your person (: I’m always happy to hear new headcanons. Feel free to add anything to this post either in a reply or in a reblog, I’d love to hear from y’all <3<3

[jungwon-crush]

(1) home - enhypen

(listening to the song while reading the chapter is recommended~)

rolling green hills stood before me. i closed my eyes as i laid on the wet grass that dampened my hair, while cool breeze flew around my figure. i should appreciate this type of weather since winter is starting to approach, i thought to myself. i want to laze in autumn forever.

"byeooolll!!! byeol byeol byeol byeol byeol!!!!" a nasally voice exclaimed. i internally sighed at the call of my name. there goes my relaxation time.

i stood up from my position, whilst the setting sun gazed at me, and began to search for a hiding spot. i need to at least give him a hard time looking for me, as compensation for ruining my moments of being alone. i barely get the chance to be by myself in nature.

as i looked around, i finally found a shrub to conceal myself in. so, as quietly as i could, i made my way to the bush.

i attempted to place myself inside it, forgetting the fact that i was a complete eighteen year old.

"owww!" i quietly screamed to myself. even though i wore a lengthy brown skirt, i somehow managed to get pricked by a thorn on my right knee. i guess my kilt moved around a lot while i was trying to adjust my stance.

unanticipatedly, the same voice that yelled my name just a short time ago appeared behind me.

"wh-what are you trying to do? imagine being so stupi-"

"shut up, jungwon!" i turned around to see the boy staring at my situation. his two hands covered his mouth, as if he was struggling to hold in his laughter.

"i hope you know that you look like a cat stuck in a tree. except you're a really big cat and that's a very small tree." he giggled.

"oh, be quiet! if anything, you're the cat. now, get me out of here!"

to be honest, i did not need much assistance. i was just in the mood to bother the boy who kept snickering at my condition.

he sighed at my request. nonetheless, he continued to move towards me. his hands found his way to my waist, while i placed my own hands onto his shoulders to steady myself as he lifted me off the hedge. he then placed me back onto the moist grass that i was previously laying on.

once he let go of my frame, i started to dust off my skirt and shake off the coarse leaves on it. i suppose jungwon took that as a cue, because he began to brush the strands of grass out of my braided hair.

with a hue of pink spread on his cheeks, jungwon complained, "and you wonder why others assume that i am older than you! i really do need to stop babying you.."

i crossed my arms and stuck my tongue at him. in return, he mirrored my actions and ruffled my hair.

"it's already sunset, byeol. we should go back home before it gets dark." jungwon said as he forcibly took my hand and led me out of the plain.

i rolled my eyes, "i thought you said that you needed to stop babying me? come on wonnie, please let me stay here a little longer! you can go back home by yourself so heeseung doesn't get worried."

"i'm not leaving you alone in this area. why were you not at your house in the first place? everyone's noticed that lately, after school, you always seem to be out. these days, i constantly look out my window and expect you to be in your usual spot in the living room, but you're never there."

i tugged at the long sleeve of his button shirt, "i don't wanna talk about it, how'd you know i was in the pasture anyways?"

"jake told me he saw you coming here after he finished his classes, he sounded concerned so i came to look for you. and talking about it helps, you know that. i've never allowed you to bottle up your emotions, i've listened to every single word you've uttered since we were kids." jungwon glanced at me with hope written in his luminous eyes.

"i hate how persistent you are. are you like this around other people too? you should take care of yourself too, wonnie."

"don't change the subject. let it out, byeol."

when it comes to yang jungwon, i can never resist.

i huffed into the air, "my dad... he... he  told me he'd return to lutton last saturday, and now it's thursday a week later yet he's not back. he sent me a letter saying that he's still in the city, his boss asked him to work for an extra amount of days there."

"mr. sun's gone again?" jungwon questioned. he moved closer to me in order to put his left arm around my shoulders. i realized that he does this a lot, especially when he notices that someone is under stress.

"mhm," i replied dismally, "i don't blame you for not noticing though, whether he's in lutton or not, he's barely at home. i think we all know that ever since my mom died 6 years ago, my dad avoids staying at the house for too long because our place is filled with memories of her."

"he's been coping like that for too long, when will he come to his senses? does he ever consider the fact that his daughter has been going through a hard time too?" he commented as they reached a district near their neighborhood.

"wonnie, you know his excuse. he always pulls the 'i work hard because of you' card. i can't even argue with him about the issue because, like i said, he's never home. i just want to distract myself from him because this matter has been getting to me a lot. so, recently i've been wandering outside our community. i don't want to disturb you guys with my troubles as well. i don't like seeing you lot get constantly frustrated over my issues."

jungwon grumbled, "byeol, suddenly dissappearing makes us fuss more. we share our problems, remember? whether they're big or small - when niki's bike got stolen it wasn't only him who went looking for it. all of us put effort into finding out who robbed it. we all know that your father's always been... something else, which is why we're here for you. anyways, forget him, have you been sleeping alone? what have you been eating for dinner? most importantly, are you doing your homew-"

the moment those questions left his mouth, i immediately put my hands over his lips. "everytime i mention my dad being gone in a conversation, you start nagging! sometimes i wish you would stop talking."

jungwon let out a muffled,"im gonna lick you." accordingly, i placed my hands back to my side again.

the boy annoyingly flashed his middle finger towards my direction. however, he quickly stopped due to an old lady passing by who gave him a judgemental glare.

it was hard to hold in a sneer.

he hurriedly picked up the discussion again while he scratched the back of his neck, "you still didn't answer my questions."

"i've been surviving on instant noodles and spam."

"heeseung would approve, but i don't. so, you're gonna eat with us at sunghoon's tonight."

"i'm not gonna oppose that, sunghoon's mom makes the best carbona." my stomach rumbled at the thought of pasta.

jungwon screeched as a response, "i know right! and the garlic bread she makes too? she's a five star michelin in my eyes."

i nodded my head in agreement. we were nearing our vicinity already.

"moving on, what about sleep and homework, byeol?"

"i sleep just fine. i'll probably ask sunoo to stay over tonight though to help me with homework. thank god we're both in the same class this year."

i glimpsed at jungwon to see his reaction, but instead of wearing an accepting look, his brows were furrowed and he looked... displeased?

"i bet sunoo hasn't even done the homework, after school today he went to niki's house straight away. all they do is just watch recorded shows - i can help you instead." he suggested.

"trust me, sunoo did the work."

at this sentence, jungwon's tone became a bit more aggrivated, "how would you know?"

"he did the assignment in our study period while i was sleeping. i saw him finish it when i woke up. he sits directly in front of me, conveniant, isn't it?" i grinned.

jungwon answered with a disheartened mumble, "fine, byeol, you do you."

why's he so irritated about sunoo doing homework for once? i wondered, isn't it a good thing that he's finally starting to put effort in school?

due to me spacing out, i did not register that jungwon and i already arrived at our neighborhood.

after bidding goodbyes (the goodbyes being another lecture of how to take care of myself from jungwon because i am already a legal adult), jungwon reminded me to go to sunghoon's house for dinner. he was about to unlock his front door until i ran up to him and pulled his form into my arms.

his arms went stiff for a while, but they ended up finding a way around my lower back - like they always do. he placed his chin above my head, this way i was in the perfect position to nestle in his chest.

"in all seriousness though, thank you wonnie. for always taking care of me." i whispered.

he clicked his tongue, "there's no need to thank me, byeol. i know by now that my prescence is a blessing."

i chuckled while he played with my  tangled hair underneath the nightfall. his fingers intertwined between the locks, then he released me.

he gently pushed me using his shoulder and said, "now go change for dinner."

taglist: @wonwobbles 

a/n: hiii first chap!!! i kinda hate how i wrote this so i'll probably redo it when im free again djdjdj. anyways the rest of the characters will be introduced in the next chap <3

[capri-ramblings]

Hiii~ I love your writing and simply adore the way you write Vil! I wanted to request scenarios of Yandere! Jade, Vil, Azul and Cater having their darling 'willingly' return to their side after being given an opportunity to depart (i.e. an open door, or someone coming to get them) or just going to their side if you've done the escape thing before. I apologize if that's vauge or has been done before. You're wonderful~

Firstly,I'm sorry this took very long despite it being one of my earliest asks, and secondly,since I've written a couple of Azul works, I hope you don't mind me omitting him from this one, it's just that with Jade's plot I felt like I would've written it a bit too similar if I included Azul. And thirdly, This is my first request with a Cater feature in it uwu ♥️ give him some love ya'll our magicam senpai. Hope you like it, Twisty! (*´ω｀*) Vil is a Character I find kinda hard to write for but I'm happy you find him satisfying 🤧

Requests under works. Please refer to Pinned post before sending one in.

[ W e l c o m e H o m e ]

Vil Schoenheit

When you slammed the giant mahogany doors behind you, breathing ragged and worn, the sound of familiar footsteps descending the stairs made you lean your head against the door before turning around to see Vil.

His perfectly lined brows were arched, haughtily if not unbearably unimpressed. He was wearing his nightwear, the gentle colour of the satin material made him seemed as if he was glowing underneath the beam of the crystal chandeliers.

"Did you like the fresh air?" He asked, hands gracefully trailing over the marble railings of the stairs.

"Rook mentioned a crescent moon appearing tonight."

You let out a sigh, defeated and dry.

"If there was,I must've missed it. You know me,Vil. Always in a rush."

He didn't let it pass his lips but you knew he wanted to scoff, to mock your response and degrade you as he often did.

"I take it the open space wasn't to your liking?"

Vil stopped at the foot of the stairs and he had this knowing look in his eyes. It almost seemed smug.

"No,I mean—" Your voice trailed off,gaze lowering as you replayed the scene in your head.

You had found a chance to escape,to run from everything Vil had imprisoned you in, and for half a moment, you were free. Your legs carrying you through the open air as your feet finally came in contact with soil after so long of staying indoors. You caught the whiff of the rose garden behind the Manor and the gates of your nightmares were right in front of you.

All you had to do was push pass it, and freedom was yours.

But then you stopped. Your feet halted and the sudden silence overwhelming you at that moment brought a sense of dread to your system. How long has it been since you've last seen the world? It shouldn't sound so... soundless,right?

"Past the gates and you're free."

That's what you told yourself. What you attempted to tell yourself. But the crushing weight of returning to a society that didn't seem to even recognize your absence made your want to hurl yourself away from it all. At least Vil kept his eyes on you, and maybe a life where you were doted on was far better than a life where people simply forgot about you.

"Use your words, Daffodil." You looked up and Vil was already looming over you, his hand propping your chin up as his thumb trailed over your lips.

"Didn't I teach you how to talk?" He was cooing,coaxing you to place yourself in his arms, and it worked. You leaned into him willingly and gently began closing your lips over his thumb.

"I made a mistake. I want to come home,Vil." You sounded so genuine, so soft. It made him wanted to place you on his lap and have you ride the erection building up underneath his clothes until you couldn't form proper words anymore.

But he held himself back. Tonight was not the time. There would be other times for him to spill his seed inside of you, for now, he should indulge in your submissive acceptance.

"I'm always here for you, Daffodil."

Jade Leech

Jade had kept you in his home under in Coral Sea for so long that when you finally pushed pass the ocean's surface, the thick air of the land almost choked you.

The fins on either side of your neck hissed at the contact and your eyes squinted from the intrusion of the the sunlight. You actually had to bring one webbed hand to shield yourself from it.

Everything felt so different. So foreign. Your scales bristled in annoyance. Was this the world you so craved before? The world you actually lived in before Jade turned you into his own kind?

Maybe you felt differently about it then, but now, all you wanted to do was dive back into the comfort of the sea. Where you truly belonged.

And back down you did go, and immediately after submerging into the water, your scales glistened and your fins flapped happily against your skin. The coolness of it all washing over you pleasantly.

When you reached the entrance of Coral Sea, Jade was there, dutifully waiting for your return. You wanted to rush over to him, aching for the familiar contact of another mer against yours,the human air felt so pungent after all. It really did feel like you were a fish out of water.

Ah,but the whole reason you went up to see was because you had an argument with the mer-male. Swimming over to him so eagerly would just be telling him that he was the sound one in it.

So,you kept your pace slow and deliberate, until Jade extended his hand and you took it in yours.

"Was the world big enough for you up there?" He asked, the slight hint of laughter lacing his words as his gaze fixated on you.

You pursed your lips and sighed, expression grim.

"Maybe a bit too big. There weren't any humans of any of their ships, but it smelled like there was just a crowd of them earlier..."

"Oh? But don't any of it feel familiar to you? You used to live up there too once, that's what you said, right?"

You knew he was going to bring up the argument sooner or later, but for Jade to bring up a subject this quick meant he really was annoyed by your outburst earlier. But could he blame you? He had a tendency to hover over you like a mother octopus with its brood and though he has given you many freedoms ever since he was convinced you weren't going to run away again, it still felt a little suffocating.

"I wouldn't have said it if you just let me be for once." You snapped, brows furrowing as your arms crossed over your chest. You swam further ahead of him too then turned back to face him. A small act of stubbornness.

"This is all I want" You pointed to the slight distance between you and him. "I'm not going run away again or throw corals at you. I just want to have my own space. Don't you trust me?"

Jade did. He did trust you now because you've finally shown him that your life above the sea was a mere past you couldn't even properly project into your own memory. He's waited so long for this too and when you were throwing your words at him earlier, he thought he'd have to keep you on a leash again, the notion of letting you swim above was hard for him to digest because if you hadn't fully converted into the form he's given you then Jade had made a mistake and he would've risked losing you.

But he didn't lose you. You came back to him. You asked him to trust you.

The smile curling on his lips then was one of deep endearment for you and when he swam to your side, you swore you could feel him glow.

"Of course,I trust you,my angel reef."

Cater Diamond

He was soundly asleep, curled in his thick blanket when he felt his bed got weighed down as someone slipped in-between the blanket and him.

Cater half yawned, half uttered an incoherent "What?" before he recognized the oh so familiar curves of your body pressing against him and the scent of the new shampoo he'd just bought for you lingering in your hair.

You were clinging to him, head nuzzling into his chest and hands gripping the side of his arms as if your whole life depended on you.

He smiled in the dark then. He had left his front door unlocked purposely after all. Call it a trust fall test.

"Hey,this is my bed, y'know" He murmured, lightly inching away from your touch as he rubbed his eyes. You simply pulled him back towards you, your form curling into a slight ball as your legs came in-between his. It was such an intimate response. Did you know what you were doing?

"Hm, it's gonna cost ya a lot more rent sleeping here with me, y'know? Are you okay with me charging more?" He was leaning into you now,his warmth making your squirm underneath him. You understood what Cater meant when he used the word 'rent', but you didn't move away or started crying like you used to do before. No, you felt more accepting now, Cater could feel it in the way your body seemed to yearn for his.

He couldn't help himself from chuckling though. The sight of you all needy for him was immensely adorable, he was half tempted to snap a picture, but then it would've ruined the mood wouldn't it? It's fine, he could settle with imprinting this memory in his mind. This moment of victory of his.

"Suit yourself then. But I gotta ask why are you so cold, cupcake? Did you take a long walk outside by yourself without your coat again? It's near winter, y'know. You could've gotten sick."

Not as sick as he was but that wasn't the point. The point was that you did decided to take advantage of the front door being left unlocked, and you did try to run away, but only to realize how dark and eery the neighborhood seemed for someone who wasn't all that accustomed to it. How each passing sound lurking in the shadows of the alley made your skin crawl and your throat dry.

It was terrifying, you realized then standing in the darkened empty street. And when you heard the wind breeze through the chilled air, you subconsciously held out a hand, searching for the familiar grip of Cater.

It was weird. An unsettling feeling you were aware you shouldn't oblige to, and yet, you had never felt so happy to have been inside Cater's house. To be held by him. To hear his voice. It was like you were falling into a trance of madness.

Oh,but isn't that just love in its purest form?

"Hold me,Cater" You whined, burying your face into his chest, earning a small laugh from the male who wrapped his arms around you and placed a chaste kiss on your forehead.

"Sure thing, cupcake."

[bellemareyouserious]

Panic Room

warnings: tom wilson x f reader, mention of alcohol, mention of toxic relationship, swearing, SMUT

word count: 3,682

authors note: WOW y’all its been a hot minute since i wrote anything!!! i was inspired to write for @hockeynetwork​‘s fic exchange, this story is for you @ihaveamillionfandoms​ !! i really hope you enjoy it! (special shoutouts to @tkuhnhackl​ for helping me edit and to @coffee77cat​ for sending me so much hot Tom for inspo)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Panic. 

You're 3 shots and a couple of drinks deep when you spot your ex boyfriend through the crowd. You could've sworn it was a drunken hallucination but the second glance tells you it's a nightmare come to life. The fear sets in quickly when you shoot a side eye to your best friend at the exact same time she spots him. She's in the middle of the dance floor with some random guy attached to her back so she can't do much to help you besides motioning for you to get some air. 

The drink in your hands is funneled down your throat before you're speed walking to the bathroom on the verge of a panic attack, praying your ex didn't see you. The breakup was nasty and only happened a couple of weeks ago, though it felt like years since you've seen him. The relationship should've ended months before. You kept making excuses for him and blaming it on yourself. Looking back on it, the toxicity was all him and you finally figured out you deserve better than that. So you left. 

He didn't take it so well. Called you every name in the book, tried to turn your friends against you, even tried to convince your parents to talk to you for him. You knew you made the right decision when he trashed your car before your 12 hour shift. Even though it was finally over, the emotional trauma left behind wasn't so easily forgotten, which is why even seeing him sent you into fight or flight mode. 

The path to the bathroom is crowded and dark. You definitely have a slight buzz that isn't helping either. You finally spot the small sign and practically run around the corner to get there when you run face first into a broad chest and nearly fall backwards, but two strong hands catch you before you hit the ground. 

"Oh my god I'm so sorry are you okay? I didn't even see you comi- hey is that you y/n?"

Before you get a chance to be embarrassed about the situation you quickly recognize the large man in front of you as Tom Wilson from the Washington Capitals. Or just Tom to you. 

"H-hey Tom, it's okay I ran into you. Thanks for uh, catching me," you stutter out, still in panic mode from seeing your ex. You see the confusion on his face as soon as you feel your hands shaking on top of his arms. You've known Tom for a couple of years now through your job. You started as a nursing student intern at Medstar and eventually worked your way up to becoming a full time pediatric nurse. The Capitals often visited the kids staying there and you happened to meet Tom one day on their Christmas visit, immediately blushing and thinking of how hot this guy was. Your coworkers were quick to spot how he was making you feel and kept teasing you about it until he walked in and heard the whole conversation. Your face when you saw him in the room had to have been priceless; he cracked up when you turned around and realized. It was one of the most embarrassing moments of your life but when you went to lunch that day there was a note waiting for you on the fridge. "You're cute when you're embarrassed. Text me sometime. Xo Tom" with his number attached to it. You couldn't believe he had an interest in you but you needed to play it cool and wait a few days to text him. 

You talked to him constantly the first couple of weeks, and you really thought there could be something between you two. However, with both of your jobs being so damn hectic, there was little to no time to see him and things fizzled out pretty quickly. You were bummed but the two of you still occasionally talked over the last few years and hung out as friends a couple of times.

Now he's standing there holding you, on the brink of a breakdown, in the middle of a loud and crowded club. Perfect circumstances, you think sarcastically. 

He lifts your chin up with one finger and looks in your eyes before he speaks this time. "Hey look at me. Are you okay? What's wrong?"

"I uh, saw my ex on the dance floor and I'm kinda freaking out," you manage to get out while looking over your shoulder for any sign of your ex. 

Tom's demeanor instantly shifts from soft and serious to protective. "Has he hurt you? Do I need to beat his ass?" Now he looks around despite not knowing what he looks like. You chuckle to yourself but put a hand on his chest. 

"No you don't need to beat his ass but I appreciate the offer. He's never touched me but he can get scary when he's drunk. It didn't end well," you undersell how badly it ended so Tom wouldn't actually kill him tonight. "Just the sight of him put me into a panic but I feel a bit better now."

His eyes fixate back on you to find worry still written on your face. "Well now that I know that I'm not letting you be alone in here. Nobody should ever feel that way," he all but barks out. You flinch away from the sound slightly, his thumb rubbing your arm instinctively when he notices. "Do you still want to go to the bathroom for a minute? I'll wait here for you."

His strong presence alone calms you enough to feel okay again, though you want to make sure you don't look a mess before returning to your best friend. "Yeah, that would be great actually. Thanks, Tom," you smile at him as you slipped into the bathroom. Your hands brace the sink as you take a look at your flustered state in the mirror, not too bad for someone who basically saw a ghost. Your face is beet red but other than that, not even a hair out of place. Impressive. You’re glad for at least that, Tom seeing you like that and looking like a hot mess would've been even more embarrassing. You smooth your outfit swiftly before returning to Tom. 

"You okay?" he asks at your return and you give him a small nod. "Okay good, let's go get you some water," he holds his hand out for you to take and intertwines your fingers easily, making your heart skip a beat. Your eyes flick down to your hand and back up to Tom's face just in time to see the hint of a smile pulling at his lips while you weave through the crowd. The flush on your face is more prominent now, you’re sure of it. 

The heavy beat thumps against your chest, distracting you from your irregular heartbeat and dizzy thoughts. You run into someone and realize it's y/b/f/n. 

"Oh my god, y/n. Are you okay?! Sorry I couldn't get away from that guy in time to be with you. I think your ex left but I can't be 100% sure-" their rambling stops when they realize you have a giant man attached to your arm. "Oh wow, Tom right? How lucky is y/n that you're here tonight?!" They grab Tom for a hug, he looks surprised that they remember him and returns the hug, never letting go of your hand. "I'm so happy you're here!" you hear them yell in Tom's ear over the music. They look between the two of you and gesture back to the dance floor, "Shall we?" They reach for your free hand and drag both of you onto the crowded dance floor. Your eyes meet Tom's again as you raise your eyebrows at him, earning a laugh. 

You are starting to feel better and more comfortable just by having Tom's hand in yours. A poppy song starts playing so you start bopping along when Tom suddenly twirls you around and draws you back into his arms, face inches from yours when you start to feel the butterflies. It feels like you could stay this way for hours and be content with it. 

You sense Tom is thinking the same when he gives you a shy smile but he immediately surprises you by turning you back around and attaching himself to you, hands gripping your waist. You’re glad to be facing away from him just so he couldn't see the growing flush on your face. His mouth dips down to your ear and you shiver as he whispers, "Is this okay?" in a low voice. Your enthusiastic nod makes him giggle; meanwhile his hands grip your hips even tighter. Y/b/f/n catches a glimpse of you and wiggles their eyebrows up and down with a smirk. If you were closer to them, you would've smacked them in the arm. 

Y/b/f/n picks up their phone and is on a brief call before striding back over to you and Tom. "Hey, my friend is gonna pick me up and I'm staying at their place. Tom, you okay to take y/n home?" they ask suggestively while looking between the two of you; you both just laugh and Tom speaks up first. 

"Yeah I think I can handle that, as long as it's alright with y/n," he looks down at you expectantly and your heart speeds up once again. The effect that one sentence had on your body was almost embarrassing. 

"Y-yeah, yeah. Go with your friend, be safe," you completely stutter out. 

Y/b/f/n pulls you in for a hug and murmurs, "You owe me one, kid. Be safe and have fun," they wink at you and wave goodbye as they disappear into the crowd. 

….

The traumatic events of the night are just a memory now, Tom's frame against yours the only thing on your mind. The way his hands travel your body, how perfectly his body moves in sync with yours, the tension between you is electric and you both know it. 

In the spur of the moment, you turn to face him and interlock your hands behind his neck while pushing your hips towards him. His eyes sweep down, taking in your form while his lip is drawn between his teeth. The rhythm of your bodies never stops, just gets closer and more desperate for each other. The world seems to freeze when he looks into your eyes, down at your lips, and back up to your eyes again, silently asking permission for what he's wanted to do all night. You stop breathing for just a second before moving your hand to his cheek and going in for the kiss. 

It's slow at first, wanting. The way his lips envelope yours sends your mind wandering, hoping this night ends with you in his arms (and his bed). His tongue slowly slides into yours, making you melt into him even more. The rhythm of your tongues mimics your bodies and you're craving his touch everywhere. His hands come up to rest on your ass and you immediately remember you're in a public place. You break the kiss just to catch your breath while looking up at him through your lashes, seeing the blush on his face makes you want to jump on him right then and there. 

"Do you maybe… wanna get out of here?" you ask shyly, as if you weren't just dry humping on a crowded dance floor. His low laugh sends shivers down your spine as he nods.

"My place or yours?" he asks in your ear. Before moving away he places a soft kiss right below your earlobe and you can feel your heart rate speed up instantly. 

"Yours? If that's okay?" His hand finds yours and the walk outside feels unbearable. The crowd of people only slightly part to let you by, every moment you're not attached to him feels like eternity. It's a bit chilly outside and with how hot you already are, it makes your whole body shiver.

You're finally at his car and he opens the door for you, a hint of amusement in your smile. "Wow, what a gentleman, thank you," you tease, but before you can get in he lays a firm smack on your ass. The feeling goes right to your clit and turns you on more than you'd care to admit. His smirk shows he knows exactly what you're thinking.

"What was that about being a gentleman?" he breathes out while closing your door. The second he gets in the car, you are buzzing with electricity. Everything he does gets you hotter. The car revs and you're speeding off to his place, his hand on your thigh moving upwards until you think he's finally going to touch you but then he pulls away.

By the time you get to his house, your underwear is soaked with anticipation. He practically throws the car in park and runs around to your side of the car to open the door for you. Even for a hookup he's a gentleman, although a small part of your mind wants it to be more than a hookup. You never stopped thinking about him even while dating your ex. 

Tom's hand reaches for yours as he helps you out of the car, both of you eager to get inside. He fumbles with his keys before the door is finally unlocked. As soon as you walk in, he slams the door shut and backs you up into it. Your breath catches in your throat while you take in the sight of him; the way his shirt strains against his biceps, how his pants hug his waist just right. His eyes are doing the same to you while one hand hits the door next to your face and the other cups your cheek. He can't stop staring at your lips when he whispers, "You have no idea how long I've wanted this." It makes your knees go weak, but his body pressed against yours keeps you upright. His kiss is urgent but tender, one hand roaming your body. The kiss deepens and you're left breathless, fingers tugging on his hair and clawing at his chest, silently asking for more. He gets the hint easily and suddenly his hands grip under your thighs as he picks you up. The kiss is never broken while he walks backwards towards his room, his knees abruptly hit the side of his bed and you both fall on it, giggling the whole time. He puts his hands on your legs and picks you up once again, turning you around so he's on top of you. His kisses trail from your neck down to the hem of your top and his hands find the bottom of it. He looks up at you asking for permission, so you lift yourself up so he can take it off easily. 

His eyes go wide as soon as he sees your bare chest. "So fucking beautiful," he groans while moving his mouth towards your already hard nipples. His mouth is around one licking and sucking and you can't help the small moans escaping your mouth. Your hand finds his shoulder and you motion for him to take his shirt off. He's straddling you now and easily removes his shirt, the sight one you could never get tired of. His wide frame is chiseled and you can't help but reach out and touch it. Your hands trace his muscles before finding his button and undoing it. He bites his lip and sighs at the almost contact but you continue to move slowly just to tease him. Once his pants are finally off, he moves down the bed to take yours off. A whine catches in his throat when he sees you in nothing but your panties. He comes back up to kiss you, tongue darting in your mouth with impatience. His finger moves down your body leaving goosebumps in its place. He hooks your underwear around it and pulls them down around your ankles. His finger finds your clit easily, making you moan into his mouth. His thumb starts circling your clit while his strong fingers move to your soaked pussy. He grunts when he feels just how wet you are. 

"Fuck baby," he pants out, "so fucking wet for me huh?" You just nod in response, unable to form words. "Is this okay?" he asks while mouthing sloppy kisses down your stomach. 

"Yes, yes babe," you whine. The pulse in your clit is making it hard to not push his whole face down so he can give it the attention it needs. "Please, Tom."

His tongue finally finds your throbbing clit, slow and timid motions at first while he gets a feel for what you like. He licks a stripe down and back up through your slit, nose brushing your clit on the way back up. Tom’s tongue is moving in circles making your legs shake. He sucks your clit into his mouth and you can't control the noises that come out of your throat. His mouth comes off of you with a pop and he's smirking up at you between your legs before he suddenly puts one finger into you making you gasp. He pumps it into you a couple times before adding a second one and curling them in just the right way. Your chest is heaving and you can feel your orgasm building slowly when he pulls out of you. He stands up next to the bed and pulls his boxers down, hard cock finally springing free. You look up at him through your lashes and reach out to touch it. His eyes flutter shut the moment your hand is around him, slowly pumping him before you're kneeling in front of him to put it in your mouth. 

He looks so fucking pretty like this- lips red and swollen, dick eager to be in your mouth. His hand grips your hair, pulling your head back slightly before you lean in to kitten lick the tip. You swirl him around in your mouth briefly before taking half his length in your waiting mouth. His hips buck at the contact, fist tightening in your hair. You can feel him watching you, so you look up at him innocently before moving so his cock hits the back of your throat. The moan that leaves his mouth is so fucking hot so you keep going, moving his other hand to your head so he can better direct your movements. He goes gently at first but feels your moans around him so he increases his speed and starts to fuck your face. There's spit running out of your mouth and tears threatening to come out of your eyes but the look on his face makes your pussy quiver. 

He slows his motions and lets go of your face before helping you up. He signals for you to get on the bed while he gets a condom from his bedside table then rips it open with his teeth. Once it's on, he climbs over you and looks over your body before finding your eyes and brushing your hair back. You can't help but smile and blush at how the whole night has played out. 

His thumb comes up to rub at your cheek before asking quietly, "You ready?" You nod and return the favor of pushing his hair back while locking your legs behind him. He runs his cock through your folds and pushes into you gently. You both gasp at the feeling while he bottoms out. He gives you a second to adjust when he pulls almost all the way out and thrusts back in, making you whimper. Your walls are already fluttering around him, nails gripping his back. 

"Fuck y/n, I'm not gonna last when you feel this fucking good," he groans in your ear. He picks up the pace and starts thrusting even quicker, pelvic bone hitting your clit in the best way. You can feel yourself getting close when he slightly changes angles and makes you feel like you're floating. You move your body along with him, nails dragging down his back causing him to bite your shoulder. His cock is hitting in just the right place and you start to unravel underneath him, walls clenching as your orgasm hits. 

"Fuck Tom, I'm cumming," you whine while bucking your hips to meet his. The moan that escapes your lips when you finish just inches him closer. You're still out of breath, but you clamp your walls down on him making him curse softly. His thrusts become erratic and you know he's close. 

"Cum for me, babe," you whisper in his ear and pull on his hair, eliciting a loud gasp. He pumps into you a few more times and then stills while a string of curses falls from his lips. He kisses you sweetly before collapsing next to you on the bed. 

You both look at each other at the same time and you move to put your head on his panting chest. His arm comes firmly around you and gives you a small squeeze, fingers running through your damp hair. 

"Wow," he breathed out. "You're incredible, you know that?"

You can't help but giggle. Only 1 night spent with him and you already feel like a princess. 

"You're pretty incredible yourself."

"Remind me why we've never done that before?" he teases with a smirk. "Can I ask you something?" You just nod lightly in response. "Can I take you on a proper date?"

Your head whips up to look at him, the cheesy grin on your face hard to hide. His eyes light up as soon as he sees your expression. 

"I would love that, Tom," you answer cheerfully and he returns the smile. He leans down to kiss you and you both let out a content sigh. 

Hopefully this was the beginning of something special. 

[paradox-psyc-hoe-sis]

Loki x plus size!reader

Loki x reader, Thor x reader (platonic), Natasha x reader (platonic).

Word count: 2.13k

Warnings: none, really? Angst I guess, mention of weight gain, stretch Mark's, cellulite, insecurity, etc.

A/n: Heyo! The reader in the story is shorter than Loki, and has stretch marks, cellulite, and is plus size. If any of these topics trigger or upset you, then please don't read! Also, I kinda made Loki an ass in this, but i really didn't mean to make him that much of a jerk whoops. Anyway, enjoy it! I'm currently writing part 2 of sticky situation, but I'm finding it a bit tricky, I'm sorry for the delay! Hopefully it should be up soon. - Aphrodite :)

(Gifs not mine! Credit to owner :3)

• Asgard was different to earth.

• Growing up, asgardians are taught to love and appreciate their, and other's, bodies. No matter what colour, shape or size, there was never any discrimination or bullying because of a person's body.

• You and Natasha were close friends, so you spent a lot of time around the avengers, often in the avengers tower.

• When you first met Thor, you knew you'd be best friends. You both grew close very quickly, and treated each other like brother and sister.

• After about a year, Thor wanted you to go and see Asgard. You were hesitant, knowing that all asgardians were as skinny and beautiful as models, but Thor really wanted you to come and meet his family. Of course, you said yes.

• When you first got there, you met all of Thor's friends and were shown around. It was only on your second day in the palace when you ran into Loki. Thor told you he had a brother, but you had no idea what he looked like or what his name was; when you bumped into him, you were surprisingly quite cool and collected. You forgot about all of your insecurities and worries as you'd been treated extremely well by other asgardians.

• However, that was not the case with Loki; he had never seen somebody as beautiful and Goddess-like as you. He didn't know what to say, and when he doesn't know what to say he results to sarcasm. He didn't mean to seem cold and cruel, but he couldn't help it.

• "I, um, I don't believe we've met. My name is y/n, I'm here with Thor."

• You stuck your hand out to him, which he did shake, but he seemed bored and uninterested. He looked you up and down, and you suddenly became anxious.

• "A midgardian, I see. Well, I'm the brother of your meat head of a friend. The name's Loki."

• You told him you were pleased to meet him, then left to go and get breakfast with Thor. You found him decently attractive; his dark hair, piercing blue eyes, tall stature. You would've been head over heels if he wasn't as disinterested and arrogant as he was when you met him.

• When you left, he mentally scolded himself for not being more polite. He truly was speechless when he saw you. You were short, your body defined with soft curves yet your stomach protruding outwards a bit more than others. Your arms and legs weren't twigs like the other asgardian women, but were larger and patched with cellulite. He found you beautiful, like a Queen in her true form, yet you found your body disgusting, like a pig mixed with a human.

• Throughout the next couple of days, Loki watched you. While you were talking with Thor, reading in the library, at one of the museums; wherever you were, you always looked so calm and tranquil. However, your mind said otherwise. Yes, Loki could read minds, but invading your thoughts made him feel guilty. Instead, he could sense your emotions, and found that your calm shell hid the raging fire in your mind. He was desperate to know more.

• Whenever Loki was in the room, however, you liked to do the same to him. You'd study his features, watch as he sipped from his golden goblet and intricately turn the pages of his book. You rarely heard him speak, and when he did, it was never to you, but his voice was cold and sharp. His responses were always witty and well thought out, and you were dying to know what was going on inside his mind.

• One night, after dinner, Loki thought it would be a good idea to 'accidentally' lock you out of your room. When you were about to enter your room, you realised it was locked, so you went to find help. Loki was the first person who you found.

• "Excuse me, Loki? I'm kinda locked out of my room, you wouldn't know how to help, would you?"

• You had just come from the great banquet, which he had missed. You wore a long, dark green velvet dress with gold accents, which had a long slit running from your right foot up to your thigh. It proudly showed off your legs, arms, and chest, even revealing a little bit of cleavage. You were scared to wear it, but Thor convinced you that you looked amazing in it.

• Loki helped you back to the room, unlocking it for you. He wore his usual green and gold outfit; perhaps there was a running theme in Asgardian clothes.

• You invited him into your room for a drink before bed, which he happily obliged to, and you thought that this cod be your chance to get to know him better. Luckily, he was thinking the same thing about you.

• "So, y/n. What part of midgard are you from?"

• "Umm, I'm from New York. What's life like on Asgard?" You didn't really want to talk much about yourself, you weren't used to having a lot of attention on you.

• Instead of answering you, Loki stared directly into your eyes for a few moments. A cold sensation grew in your mind, and suddenly you felt yourself remembering your worst memories. The image of your friends calling you fat in school flashed before your eyes. The face of your high school boyfriend after he told you that your stomach was disgusting. The memory of crying while stood in front of a floor length mirror, studying the new stretch marks on your thighs. And countless images of a set of weighing scales, the number increasing slightly each time

• Your vision was blurred as these images repeated over and over in your head, and you began crying. You didn't know what was happening, or where you were, but all you felt was pure sadness washing over your body. Suddenly, the visions stopped, and you were sat back on your bed, with Loki next to you. He looked scared, puzzled, and concerned all at the same time. Thor had warned you that Loki had magical abilities, and mind reading seemed like a fitting power to match his personality. You stood up from your bed and wiped tears from your cheeks. You couldn't stop crying, but your tears turned from ones of sadness to ones of anger.

• "What did you do to me!?"

• You tried to shout, but it got caught in a sob. Instead, your voice cracked, and you sounded similar to a screaming cat.

• Loki didn't reply to you, but he merely looked down, not wanting to meet your gaze. His face had guilt written all over it, and you knew that he saw all of your visions too.

• Without a word, you marched to the door and left. As soon as it closed behind you, you ran down the halls of the palace. You didn't care who saw you, but you needed to get to Thor.

• Once you arrived at his quarters, you didn't even bother knocking on the door before walking in. Thor was sat up in bed, reading a book that you could only guess was written in Asgardian. You were a mess; mascara running down you cheeks, red lipstick smudged at the corner of your lips, eyes and cheeks pink and puffy from crying. You explained everything to him, and he understood what you felt. Although he couldn't really comprehend why you hated your body so much, he understood that you needed to get back home.

• After you cleaned yourself up in his bathroom, you both left back for Earth. You were still wearing your green gown when you arrived back in the avengers tower at 2 in the morning. Thor went to his room after making sure you were okay, and you were left alone in the common area. Sitting down on the grey sofa, you let out a loud sob and began crying again. You made sure you weren't being too loud, as you didn't want to wake up the entire tower, but soon enough Natasha found her way to the living room. You had your head in your hands, so only knew of Nat's presence when she put a warm hand on your bare shoulder.

• As soon as you felt her touch you, you stiffened up and stopped crying. Before looking up at her, you sniffed and wiped at your eyes, trying your best to convince her that you weren't crying. You stood up, and looked up at her. Even with Asgardian golden heels, you were still shorter than everyone.

• "Hey, it's alright." She gave you a sympathetic smile before pulling you in for a hug, and as soon as you both had your arms around each other, you couldn't help but start crying again. She stroked your hair as you cried on her shoulder, and your mind went fuzzy with the typical haze of crying. She guided you to her room and managed to calm you down, and helped you get changed into a pair of her pyjamas. Once you laid down on her bed, you were asleep. Nat didn't sleep much anyway, so she was fine staying up and watching over you.

• When you woke up the next morning, you felt like crap.

• Natasha always buys pyjamas 2 sizes up, to get the cozy oversized feeling. Her pyjamas were the perfect size for you, but you became conscious of how they perfectly fitted your legs and stomach, and how much of your body was on display. Your clock read 7:38 am, so you decided to get up and go to the living area.

• When you got there, Nat was cooking in the kitchen, and Thor was sat and the island. You could already hear them talking quietly as you walked into the room, but they stopped once they saw you. The warm scent of pancakes and syrup lingered in your nose as you walked up to them both. You walked to Thor, who gave you a hug, and then you sat down. Nat squeezed your hand once you were fully sat, and placed a plate in front of you. On the plate was a stack of pancakes that rose to the level of your chin, drizzled in maple syrup.

• "I'm going back to Asgard later to talk to Loki. You never have to go back there, and he's never going to lay a hand on you again."

• You gave Thor a tiny nod and rubbed your forehead. It was more than rude for Loki to enter your mind without permission, but you couldn't get him off your mind. At least he felt bad after doing it, and he must have had a good reason to do so. If only you could turn back time to ask him why.

• Once you ate breakfast, you got dressed. You always kept some clothes there, as you spent more time in the tower than your apartment. You wanted something baggy that didn't show off any of your curves, so you opted for an oversized jumper and a pair of mom jeans. A few of the avengers were off on a mission, which left only Nat, Thor, Bruce and Peter. Peter was at his apartment, and Bruce was still in bed, so it gave you some peace and quiet.

• Thor left for Asgard half an hour later, and Nat had gone downstairs to train, leaving you alone. About an hour went by before you heard a strange noise come from the kitchen.

• You got up from your seat in front of the sofa and turned around before you saw Loki, stood in front of you. He wore an all black suit, which made him look twice as good as he did in Asgard. You wondered how he could be here, when Thor had gone to give him a piece of his mind, but you weren't in the mood to talk to him. Instead, you turned around and plopped yourself back on the sofa, and continued to scroll through Netflix.

• "Listen, y/n". He came and sat next to you on the sofa. "I know what I did was wrong. But when I first saw you, I was speechless. You are so beautiful and look like the Gods sculpted you out of clay and I...I just didn't know how to react."

• You shifted in your seat and turned to look at him. You noticed the sincerity in his eyes, and cocked an eyebrow as if to make him continue.

• "And, when I sensed your emotions all I felt was hate. Last night, I let my emotions get the best of me, and I just had to see what fueled all of that negativity. I...I'm sorry."

• You were both confused and happy at the same time. Sure, you were more than pleased that he had apologised, but he thought you were beautiful? How? You couldn't understand what part of you he liked.

• "If you don't completely hate me, I'd be honoured to maybe get you lunch?"

• You smiled, telling him you'd be happy to. God, how were you going to explain this to Thor?

[stabletwooriginals]

CHAPTER TWO: Equestrian Wasteland

Panic attack! A surprising, yet well described reaction LittlePip has to the vastness of the great outdoors. The little ghost story about the outside just being a black void also comes back one final time.

The prospect of finding Velvet shrinking dramatically phases LittlePip surprisingly little. Instead she just kinda starts looking for her by seeking a high vantage point. This pro-active attitude and little time spent on feeling sorry for herself is endearing, as well. I think this is gonna change at certain points, considering all the stuff that is going to happen to her. But maybe I'm confusing my memories with Project Horizons, in which the main character spends quite some time feeling sorry for herself. (And considering what happens to her, I don't really blame her.)

I love the light emitted by a terminal described as "the soft green glow of a poisoned apple". Horse gonna think of apples.

LittlePip remarks on the sturdiness of the StableTec terminals, looking new while everything around it decayed in some form. I think this actually has a (horrifying) explanation in lore. But we won't get to it for a while.

On it, we get a message from Velvet asking, or rather pleading the reader not  to look for her. LittlePip's enthusiasm is curbed by it, but not her plan. While she is considering her options she gets distracted by a light in the distance. So, uh, the issue that Velvet doesn’t want to return just gets shoved to the back row until it has to be confronted again at a later date. Seeing as finding Velvet is the bigger issue anyway, that's not very hard to accept for now, at least.

Oh and there is a encrypted message on there too. We don't learn anything useful about it and LittlePip downloads it for the heck of it. In my opinion, a weird place to stick this beat, as it draws attention only to get pushed aside immediately again and the payoff it has at the end of the chapter brings a minor revelation at best. This information could have been given later as well.

Now I was forced to admit how foalish that vision was.

 Reading FoE made me realize they say "foalish" in the original show too. At least in season 1, which is all that existed during the time FoE was being written. Isn't that wild? Discord gets a mention very late into the story, otherwise all the world building is propped up on lore that existed *before* the fandom really reached it's peak!

And LittlePip runs straight into a slaver trap. I appreciate the effort to have her not recognize the shotgun and how the details of the situation slowly unravel until the dreaded clarification "They're slavers, you idiot". Makes it relatable that she fell for their trap.

Thinking about the slavers LittlePip mentions her "repertoire of colorful metaphors". Interesting to tell us about it instead of letting us see for ourselves later. Because, well, she undoubtedly does have quite the repertoire of colorful metaphors.

I absolutely love that the description of the music the Spritebots makes captures the song Pinkie Pie uses in the episode "Swarm of the Century" to remove the Parasprites perfectly. Even the first time reading I had that song in my head at this point.

LittlePip being a swift learner is yet another endearing trait on display when she sees one of the slavers fire his shotgun at the Spritebot and notices how the weapon works. Let's hope there is some kind of fight soon where she gets to implement this newfound knowledge!

I wonder why the raiders decided to attack the slavers. The slavers clearly didn't anticipate this and I doubt LittlePip or Montgomery Jack (the other slave) are such evidently high-tier cargo worth stealing. But hey, I got my wish for a fight and establishing LittlePip's talent with a bobby pin and screwdriver to unlock her shackles is already paying off too.

This kinda leads into a larger question of what raiders are and what they want, but I'll save that for later. Once we met a lot more of them.

Well, seeing how the raiders are beating them up, that probably wasn't why they started the fight either. Also, like with the slavers before, they throw in a threat of sexual violence against LittlePip that feels kinda cheap to me. Like, yo, enslaving her and/or threatening to kill her apparently isn't enough to paint them as bad guys? I understand that this is mainly a taste thing, as some people don't mind a story that is painted this dark this casually. I just feel like the story would not lose it's tone without them, while being more upsetting than it needs to be with them. At least here, in Chapter Two.

LittlePip’s first fight is awesome. It's scary, it's fast and has a few surprises. The biggest one probably being that the question of killing others hasn't come up yet. If we are familiar with Fallout (at least 3 and onward) this shouldn't be a hard question to answer, but LittlePip tries to avoid it here.

Montgomery, like a more experienced Fallout player however, finishes the raider off and starts to loot them. Showing LittlePip the ropes of the game. How nice of him. Then he robs her. That's not how I play Fallout, but the games pride themselves with their choice of options, I guess.

That he instructs LittlePip to check the bodies, she therefore has to puke into the river because of it and sees Montgomery's shotgun reflected in the water behind her head is just great dramatic storytelling. I can just see the movie version of this in my minds eye.

However, LittlePip actually manages to get out of this with a little luck in finding the raiders shotgun next to her (which is a combat shotgun, unlike the regular one the slaver had and Montgomery is holding now) and by packing everything she learned about the two weapons into a convincing argument. Making her win the fight before it started, which is just genuinely bad-ass.

Finally LittlePip makes it into Ponyville -- pursued by a sniper. Can't catch a break!

No, she or he could just wait until I came out.

Something that might not be very noticeable yet is how FoE has kind of a inverted societal structure when it comes to gender. MLP had this too, to a degree, as it was targeting young girls. Here, we can see it transform the order pronouns are used in a common phrase. It might read as a typo or error but we will see that female characters tend to enjoy higher privileges and hold the highest positions of power. Of course that would affect their language as much as other phrases are transformed due to them being horses. See: "What the hay?"

 A pile of torn-up cloth rotted in a corner, smelling foul, like ponies had urinated on it repeatedly.

Nooo, Rarity's work and art :(

 Finally, we get to read the encrypted message from earlier. It's Applebloom’s final words to Sweetie Belle, letting us realize that at least some of the Apple Family has been in Stable Two when it closed and it's first Overmare was Sweetie Belle, Rarity's younger sister. That’s cool to know, but doesn’t affect much of our understanding of anything yet.

Level Up! New Perk: Horse Sense. As we saw, LittlePip is a swift learner. I usually feel like whatever LittlePip learned in the chapter influences the perk she receives at the end. But shouldn't a perk only affect her after she got it? The allusions to RPG mechanics kinda fall apart a little bit when you think too hard about them.

Since they are a "Footnote" I'll just imagine that LittlePip leveled up and received the perk sometime *during* the chapter. Ah, now the world is right again.

[out-of-jams]

Airplane Mode | Track 10: So What | jhs

Summary: Set in the same universe as Love at First Touch by bagelswrites.

In a world where a bruise marks the first touch of your soulmate, time is the only thing that matters. The marks take hours to appear, sometimes even days if you're really unlucky. Once First Touch is initiated, both parties only have a few weeks to find the other. From then on, the body begins to reject any form of sustenance other than the touch of the other. If one fails to find their soulmate, they starve to death.

So what happens when your soulmate is an internationally famous idol?

And you're just one fan in a sea of many who can't even speak the same language.

Pairing: Hoseok x Fem Character

Word Count: 3.1k

Genre: Fluff. Angst. Idol!au. Smut. Soulmate!au.

Warnings: Explicit language (you already know).

Words written like this are spoken in Korean.

             | Previous | Next | Track List | Masterlist |

“Eunjae-ssi!” 

The high-pitched yell of her name made Eunjae shrink into herself with fear. With a grimace, she debated whether or not to answer the call or hide inside the room she’d just passed. In her defense, it was barely past 9:30am and she was already sweating with how much work was being forced on her poor, tired body.

Eunjae had arrived at Big Hit bright and early, just like Soyeon had requested. She’d reported to the stylist department shortly after being shown there by an overly helpful, much too awake for the time receptionist. Immediately, the lead stylist that Eunjae was appointed to shadow, Tiffany, had put her to work. Luckily, she’d been born in America before her parents moved them back to Korea a few years after. So she spoke enough English for Eunjae to be able to understand the gist of it.

The stylist department wasn’t overly large. Not that she’d expected it to be seeing as how Big Hit only had one group debuted under them. Though there were rumors flowing through the grapevine that Bang PD was training a new set of boys to debut sooner or later. How reliable that source was, Eunjae wasn’t sure. But it didn’t matter to her either way.

Not when she was too busy running back and forth between the production department and stylist department. With the boy’s comeback rapidly approaching, it was one of the busiest times for the stylists. Not only did they have to relay important concepts between production in order to coordinate themes, but they had to create and prepare the looks for each stage and award show for each boy as well. 

Long story short, Eunjae had gotten her soulmate at the wrong time.

Wiping a sleeve of her sweater across her brow, she paused in the middle of the hallway. Bodies passed by her without a second glance, each and every one of them rushing to get to wherever they were going. The air in the whole place was tense in the most subtle way. Like right before a drop on a rollercoaster.

“Eunjae-ssi!” The call was closer this time and Eunjae had to force herself not to jump in front of the cart of props being pushed her way. 

And so, with a sigh pushed through pursed lips, she turned with an armful of rolls of fabric. Tiffany was walking towards her with an arm thrown out, like that could somehow stop Eunjae in her tracks. 

Well, she supposed, I guess it kinda did.

With her reddish-brown hair thrown into a neat french braid, Tiffany puckered her pink painted lips with an expression that Eunjae couldn’t discern. The stylist was only two years older than her, but with the whole “respect your elders” Korea had going on, all Eunjae could do was bite her tongue as the older girl came to a stop in front of her with her hands on her hips. 

“Where have you been?” The tone in Tiffany’s accented voice was punctuated by a raise of her brow.

“Taking these fabrics to--”

“I sent you off to do that fifteen minutes ago.” The girl raised both brows now with a huff. She waved a hand around in exasperation. “You need to move faster.”

Tongue in cheek, Eunjae shifted the bundles of fabric in her arms to get a better grip. Why they’d felt the need to pile it so high that she could barely see was beyond her. “Sorry, I--”

“No sorries!” Tiffany pointed a finger back down the hall, just narrowly missing nailing a passing staff member in the face. “Hurry up and drop that off and then get back. We have a lot more work to do.”

The girl spun on her heel and took off back towards the stylist department before Eunjae even got the chance to respond. And boy, did it take all of her self control to not throw the rolls of fabric under the girl’s feet to make her trip like some kind of cartoon character. While not someone who angered easily, Eunjae found herself having to contain the urge to snap at the other girl.

Miles would be proud of her patience.

And so with a sigh, she turned back around and continued her journey to the correct department. What she wouldn’t give to be back in bed.

                                                 A few hours ago

 Paradise. 

That was the first thought that came to mind with eyes still shut somewhere on the precipice between sleep and waking. It wasn’t the annoying fight-or-flight inspiring iphone alarm that roused her from dreamland. No, with senses trained to ignore the ringing of an alarm, Eunjae would have had no problem staying asleep. But the constant tickle on her cheek slowly dragged her from the deep embrace of slumber.

A noise sounded in the back of her throat as she turned her face further into the warmth beneath her head. The scent of fresh laundry mixed with something else that she couldn’t put her finger on almost lulled her back to sleep. Eunjae didn’t want to move. Why would she, when she was the most comfortable that she’d ever been? 

Between the softness of the blanket pulled halfway up over her head and the feeling of fullness, of comfort, of god-I-want-to-stay-here-forever. If someone were to tell her right then and there that she’d died and gone to heaven, Eunjae would have believed it without hesitation. 

At least if it weren’t for that annoying tickle that feathered across her cheek yet again. 

She was closer to waking now and the complaining groan that emerged from deep within her chest warned the tickling to stop. But stop it did not. In fact, Eunjae could have sworn that she heard a melodic, breathy laugh from somewhere above her. That paired with the slight shaking of her pillow sent off faint alarm bells in the back of her mind. 

“Wakey, wakey.” 

The words were whispered, voice deep with a vocal fry that sounded like it wasn’t quite awake yet either. That, accompanied by another tickle to her cheek had Eunjae squinting her dry eyes open in a glare. Sunlight filtered in through the curtains drawn around the window in her bedroom and a stream nailed her right in the face.

“Ugh.” A gremlin like grumble passed her lips as she blinked rapidly to bring the world into focus. 

It took a minute too long for the memories to rush back to her. Cuddling up next to Hoseok. Eyes drifting shut. Falling into the dark embrace of sleep.

Ah, shit. Well, that would certainly explain the constant bump-bump-bump of a heartbeat playing on a loop through the ear pressed against the firm, yet giving, cushion of Hoseok’s chest. With a glance upward from the safety of her blanket burrito, Eunjae caught his eye. 

Hoseok blinked down at her, drowsiness evident in the way he drew a hand down his face, like he could wipe the sleep away. His hair was a mess, but he somehow managed to make bed head look like a fashion statement. And Eunjae would be lying if she said she wasn’t slightly envious of his way to look front cover ready first thing in the morning. Hell, she definitely didn’t want to look at herself in a mirror.

And it was right at that moment when another round of the obnoxious, triggering iphone alarm played from somewhere behind her. Blindly reaching back, Eunjae’s fingers trailed the soft sheets on the bed before finally hitting the cool glass of her phone screen. And if you asked her, she’d blame her half-alert state on the fact that she had yet to remove herself from Hoseok’s person. 

In her defense, it wasn’t like he was moving either.

In fact, Hoseok was still trying to blink himself more into consciousness when Eunjae switched her alarm off with a glare at the time displayed. Whoever invented mornings really needed to be fired. Groaning, she dropped her phone back onto the mattress. It bounced once, twice, three times, before finally falling to the floor with a muffled thud. 

With a sigh, Eunjae turned back to squint up at the man she was stealing warmth from. Hoseok glanced down at her from his own phone clutched in his hand as she mumbled out a, “Morning.”

God, she really hoped she didn’t have morning breath. Talk about embarrassing. 

“Morning.” Hoseok’s lips twitched in amusement. Whether it was because of what she knew she must have looked like fresh out of sleep, or because of something else, Eunjae wasn’t sure. But for her sanity, she chose to ignore it. 

She covered her mouth as she broke out into a jaw splitting yawn and politely extracted herself from Hoseok’s side. His arm slid from her without complaint and she couldn’t resist extending her arms above her to stretch her muscles. It wasn’t that she was sore or her body was at all in pain from the way she’d slept. Quite the opposite in fact. Eunjae felt refreshed in a way that she hadn’t ever before. The short nap in the back of the van and the brief moments of skinship didn’t measure up to the way she felt after a whole night of being together. 

Maybe she could get used to a life without coffee if that was how she’d always feel in the morning.

Or maybe she was just being delusional.

“Sleep well?” She couldn’t help but ask the man lying next to her. 

Hoseok was tapping away on his phone in a way that made Eunjae assume he was texting. But he looked up at her question and nodded with a soft smile. “Yeah. You?”

Eunjae gifted him with a smile of her own. “Yeah. Sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I was tired.”

Hoseok cocked his head to the side and wet his lips with a flicker of his tongue, tasting the words before they left his mouth. “It’s okay. I was...also.”

“I don’t blame you.” Sadly, it was too early for Eunjae’s brain to be able to translate to Korean. She could only hope that he’d understand what she was saying, or at least get the gist of it. “You had a long day."

As he went to reply, the alarm on her phone screeched to life and she felt her eye literally twitch in irritation. “Mother fucker.”

She could have sworn that she turned the damn thing off. 

With a string of mumbled expletives, Eunjae turned and dove for the device lying innocently on the floor. Hoseok’s raspy laughter followed her the whole way down. 

                                                Present time

 “Finally!” Tiffany’s voice greeted Eunjae’s ears the second she entered the room. 

The older girl was standing all the way across the spacious area in front of a mannequin’s torso. She had fabric of different textures and colors draped over one shoulder as she narrowed her eyes at the mannequin she was shoving pins into. It was wearing an untailored piece of clothing that had yet to take shape. Instead, it just hung off the mannequin like a giant poncho. A line of measuring tape was thrown around Tiffany’s neck, not that she needed it. Seeing as how she’d worked as Hoseok’s personal stylist for multiple years, she had to have had his current measurements memorized by now. 

“Come over here and hold this.” The words were spoken without looking up, the girl just assuming that Eunjae would obey without hesitation.

And obey she did. 

She did really want to keep the internship, afterall. Besides, what was a little hard work in the face of things? Though it wasn’t really the work that was getting under her skin.

But like a person who wanted to not anger their superior, Eunjae crossed the room filled to the brim with fabrics and crafting supplies and half naked mannequins. There were a handful of other stylists in the room, but they were all busy doing their own tasks and didn’t even look up as she maneuvered around them. 

Luckily, Tiffany was only a wardrobe stylist, meaning that they wouldn’t have to touch makeup. But that also meant that they had to design the wardrobe. Which Eunjae absolutely loved. From the way a measly sketch would turn into a beautifully crafted piece of clothing, to the sights, sounds, smells that came from warping a strip of fabric into shape.

“Right here.” Tiffany nodded at where two different pieces were slowly unravelling from the placement needle shoved between them.

Eunjae held them together without hesitation and watched intently as the girl resumed tapering off the collar of what might have been some kind of grey...jumpsuit? She wasn’t sure. But either way, Eunjae was there to learn . And while pushy and rude, Tiffany knew what she was doing. She’d been at it for years and Eunjae still hadn’t finished college. So it would be stupid of her to not take advantage of the opportunity while it lasted. 

With one last push of a pin, Tiffany stepped back and nodded at Eunjae to let go. Appearing satisfied, the brunette haired girl slipped a pack of gum out from the pocket of her work apron. She outstretched the package towards Eunjae in a silent offer, but she had to decline. Not because she didn’t like gum, but well, she’d learned her lesson.

Just that morning, after Hoseok had returned back to the dorm to get ready for the day and Eunjae stumbled out of the shower to brush her teeth, she’d discovered a problem. Well, maybe not a problem per se, but it’d definitally been a learning experience. Because apparently when every type of food and drink (besides water) turned to garbage on her tongue, that extended to toothpaste as well. Eunjae had almost thrown up right into the sink at the discovery.

Which only sent her on a downward spiral of confusion. How would she brush her teeth if the taste of toothpaste made her sick? Would she still need to brush her teeth, as disgusting as that sounded. Since the soulbond made it so Hoseok’s touch, the energy exchanged between them, kept their bodies nourished with the exact amount of vitamins and nutrients necessary for a perfectly healthy body, did that extend to dental hygiene as well? It wasn’t like her breath smelled or anything. So perhaps the science of soulbond got rid of bacteria in the mouth also? Eunjae had no idea, and she’d only given herself a headache.

“Suit yourself.” Tiffany shrugged and popped a piece of gum into her mouth before returning the package to its original place. 

She nodded at a pile of sketches littered on the long work table stretched from one end of the room to the other. It was piled with stray pieces of cloth, pencils, scissors, piles of measuring tape, bundles of needles and a plethora of other sewing supplies. “I need you to take those sketches over to Production and have them approve them before they’re made.”

“Gotcha.” Eunjae crossed the room and scooped the sketches up, ignoring the papercut she got on her finger as a result. 

“And try not to take forever. We have a lot of things to do.”

“Of course.” Eunjae clenched her jaw around the sharp retort that threatened to fly from her tongue and headed for the exit instead. Her words were mumbled under her breath as the door closed behind her. “Back to production I go. Dashi run, run, run.”

Eunjae’s phone was going off like crazy.

Literally every second it was vibrating with yet another text message and she had to implore all of her self control not to look at it. Not that she had time anyway, with how much she was still running around like a crazy person. Though Eunjae could already guess who it was exactly that was blowing up her phone.

Yesterday she’d been added to a group chat between the maknae line. So it was more than likely that Jimin and Taehyung were sending memes back and forth to each other again. Either that, or Miles had finally overcome his shock at being introduced to them via FaceTime last night. He’d refused to speak to her after that (“Why would you call me when I didn’t even look presentable ? Jesus, Jae, you’re the worst. And you made Jimin, my future husband by the way, see me at my worst. I’m not talking to you.”) 

Not only was her phone burning a hole into the pocket of her jeans, but her stomach was growling like a woman starved. It was way past noon and Eunjae was starting to get hangry. Especially with the way Tiffany was becoming harsher and harsher with the way she barked out her orders. Which was really making Eunjae wonder what it was that she’d done wrong to get on her bad side. 

It wasn’t until she was halfway between the wardrobe department and the elevators that her phone began vibrating in a cadence that differed from her texts. And with a glance at her surroundings, Eunjae made sure that there was no one around who would snitch to Tiffany for her being on her phone. Luckily the clothes that she held could be easily swung over one arm as she wrangeled her phone free. 

Hoseok’s name flashed across the screen and, with one last look around her, she slipped into a hall closet.

“Hello?” Eunjae whispered into the darkness of the cramped, stale smelling closet.

She could have sworn that a broom was digging harshly into her back, but ignored it in favor of the rare occurance of Hoseok calling. In fact, it was the only time that he’d bothered calling her. Normally he would just resort to text messages if he needed to communicate when they weren’t face-to-face.

The scratchy noise of Hoseok clearing his throat sounded in her ear before he greeted her with a cheerful, “Hello!”

When he didn’t add anything else, Eunjae prodded. “Is everything okay?” 

“Yes! I tried to...text. But, uh,” He paused for a moment and the only noise Eunjae could hear were the footsteps of people passing by in the hallway outside of her closet. “Hungry?”

Ah, so it wasn’t just the maknae line who had been texting her then. Eunjae almost facepalmed at the realization and then felt a sliver of guilt at inadvertently ignoring his messages, before remembering that she hadn’t really had a choice. She nodded at his question as if he could see her. “Yeah. I’m guessing you are too?”

“Yeah.” Hoseok said something else into his end of the line, but it’d been too fast for her to discern. After failing to receive a response, he tried again, but slower. “Meet in studio? Mine. You remember where?” 

Running her tongue over her bottom lip in thought, Eunjae found herself agreeing to his words before she could think too hard on it. Hopefully Tiffany would let her have a lunch break. She’d have to, right? “I remember. I’ll meet you there soon.”

[bitter-sweet-farmgirl]

Heal the Broken

OC gave her all to Thorin when they were in a relationship together, but when he suddenly moves on from her, she tries to learn to cope with a broken heart.

MASTERLIST

OC(s) Used:  Estelle

Word Count:  2,224

Warning(s):  Insinuations

Translation(s):  None

Inspired by 'Scars:  Neon Feather Remix' by TobyMac, Feat. Sarah Reeves.

~~~

Had you on my mind, I

Had a little time, I

Know we kinda overdue

I walked through the gardens, feeling the last rays of the dying sun caress my skin as I stood in it's orange light.  The earth cooled as night fell and the air became chilly, causing me to shiver and wish I had worn something more, substantial as the sun dipped below the horizon.  

All I could think about was the tall, long dark-haired, stony, yet kind-hearted, deep voiced, handsome, and strong dwarf I was in love with.  He was a constant presence on my mind, no matter the hour or activity I was involved in. 

But we hadn't spoken in days.  I had passed by him in the hallways of Erebor, but the royal home of Dwarves had truly lived up to its other name of 'The Lonely Mountain' as Thorin ignored me.  We had been so in love only a few days ago.  But we just stopped talking.  Something happened.  We argued for the first time in several months.    

Turnin' back the pages

To our younger days,

yeah

It made me think of when we had first met, of when we'd first begun courting.  We had been so young and naive then.  We'd thought that all we needed was love, that love solved everything.  We hadn't realized what problems love brought with it when it entered a person's heart and bound them to another person.  

I can still imagine you

Boomin' like the thunder

Chasin' life with wonder

With fire that could light a room

I could still see him, walking into a room where I was.  He had a presence that was unignorable.  His voice rumbled and rolled like the thunder in the rain showers that fell and watered the earth

during the summer.  It was so deep and sexy.  When he was alone with me, his voice grew even lower, into the tone he reserved for those he loved.  

We had chased after life together, exploring everything it offered and trying new things.  I could still see the smirk he'd worn after I'd made my first shirt of mail.  It had been a bit, well, uneven.  I'd been so proud of it until I'd seen what he had made.  It was a silver necklace, inlaid with a blue crystal.  Utterly perfect.

Even though Thorin was sometimes portrayed as unfeeling, I knew otherwise.  He had a fire within him, a passion that never ran dry.  After he came back from extended leaves required by his Kingship, he would come to my apartments and kiss me senseless, longing invading his heart for me.  

And his walk...  My heart would pound as I saw him swagger into the room.  His hips would swing about in the most alluring ways.  

In those days when we both attended court events, he would walk into the room and just stare at me, and I could feel his gaze even when my back was to him.  He brought fire to me, wherever we were, and there were days when I wanted nothing but him.

Bottom kinda fell out

Waited for the rebound

But you never made a move

And then everything changed.  We argued, and grew apart.  Where there had once been an unbreakable bond, there was only fragments that threatened to break at any given moment.  I thought it was just a phase we would go through, that Thorin would miss me and come back.

But he never did.  Months went by and he wouldn't even glance at me.  It hurt, to see him laugh at something someone else said, to know that he didn't even think of me anymore.  That he didn't desire me like he used to.  

When life cuts so deep

Try and remember

So I tried to forget him, but it just cut deeper.  I could never look for another Dwarrow because none were like him.  And I only wanted him.  Everyone else lacked something that Thorin had.  

I tried to be strong and bear it, but there were days when it just became too much, having to watch him flirt with another Dwarrowdame, and see that smile that he'd reserved only for me being given to another woman.  

Then I found an unexpected comfort in someone I'd never dreamed of being able to help.

You, you're not alone

We've all been there

Scars come with livin'

Thranduil saw my hurt when I visited his kingdom one day, and he drew me aside to ask what had happened.  He knew the feelings I tried to hide, and could see hurt in my eyes.  Hurt he'd once felt.

He had scars in the same places as me.  The same parts of his heart had been broken and never mended.  Life had treated us the same, even though we were of two different races.  

You, you're not alone

We've all been there

He told me of the days when his wife had still lived, of how broken he'd been when she'd passed on.  I could see tears in his eyes as he described her, of how she'd laugh over the silliest of things, of how her smile would brighten his darkest days.  

Another unexpected person also offered his help.  Legolas told of the day his wife had miscarried the child they'd so dearly wanted after so many centuries of failure.  

So, lift your head, lift your head

Lift your head to where your help comes from

They helped me bear my burden, and see that someday good would come out of this suffering.  That one day I would look back on this and see the good in it.  Perhaps it was Mahal's way of preparing me for some higher calling, to be able to help others in the same situation.

You, you're are not alone

We've all been there

Scars come with livin'

I would bear the scars as long as I lived, and it still hurt to see Thorin taking another maid out for a walk in the gardens when I had known such love and devotion from him before.  But what was life without heartbreak?  I had known hurt before, when my mother had passed onto the halls of Aule.

Life ain't got no sequel

We all broken people

I would have only one chance here, and I wanted to make the best of it.  I began to see the broken pieces in other people, and tried to help them mend them if I could.  Everyone had some hurt that had never healed, and still burned within them, causing pain.

The only road to found is lost

Oversimplifying

Ain't no shame in trying

As I continued walking my path in life, I found that my heart was healing, that I was overcoming my loss.  That after wandering through the dark for so many years, I finally knew my calling.  I had tried, and I was stronger than before.

Passion never counts the cost

Now you won't take my phone calls

You won't text me back at all

When I'd first fallen for Thorin, I'd never thought about what would happen if we had grown apart.  What would happen if I gave him all, and then he let me down.  My passion for him had overridden my common sense, and I'd gotten hurt, badly.

I just wanna see you

I can't stand to see you gone

I still wanted to see him, to talk with him, and say I still loved him.  It was impossible for me to forget my love for him.  It still hurt that he never came to see me anymore.  It was like there was a massive void in my life.  I had never realized just how big a part he played.

Yesterday I missed you

Yesterday I played your song

Tears fell as I plucked the strings of the harp, deeper tones echoing through the air as I played a song I'd written for Thorin.  There was deep tones, and then a happier, wild tune that compelled the listener to tap their foot and dance along.  It was my way of describing him within my music.  I rarely played the song, it brought up memories that made me miss him even more.

I'm oversimplifying

I'm oversimplifying

I just tried to do small tasks everyday, to pull myself from the hole I kept trying to push myself into so I could just fade away and escape from the hurt I felt constantly.  Everyone told me to push through it, but I couldn't.  I only functioned when I simplified.

But try and remember

You, you're not alone

We've all been there

Scars come with livin'

Thranduil was always trying to console me, even on the days I tried to push him away.  He knew what I felt on a daily basis, knew which scars hurt on what day, after what event.  He knew all too well how easily the scars formed.

You, you're not alone

We've all been there

So, lift your head, lift your head

Lift your head to where your help comes from

Now, more than ever I relied on Mahal for help.  I didn't understand why he had given me this tribulation, but it was for a reason.

There come a day when I felt a tug to be light-hearted through my pain.  I tried, I tried so hard, but it felt so unfamiliar, so wrong that I wanted to shy away.  But there was still that gentle, loving tug on my heart, telling me to cheer up, that I tried again.

You, you're are not alone

We've all been there

Scars come with livin'

Scars come, scars come, oh, scars come

Oh, scars come with livin'

Scars come, scars come, oh, scars come

Oh, scars come with livin'It doesn't matter who you are

I'd learned through it all, that everyone had scars, no matter their age or position, they'd all felt hurt that haunted them, that followed them around and tried to push them down on a daily basis.  

Thranduil had scars, both in physical and emotional form, and there he was, governing a kingdom and raising a son all at the same time.  Although I knew that he still hurt greatly from the death of his wife; she had been his most prized, best loved, and her loss broke him.

This world gon' leave some battle scars

It doesn't matter who you are (who you are)

This world gon' leave some battle scars (battle scars)

It doesn't matter who you are (who you are)

This world gon' leave some battle scars (battle scars)

It doesn't matter who you are (who you are)

This world gon' leave some battle scars (ooh)You, You're not alone

I was a wiser person today than I was yesterday, and the years before.  I knew that everyone had scars from their own personal battles.  No one could say they didn't have scars and not be lying.  I would be lying if I said I had never been hurt by Thorin's leaving.  But I was not alone.  

I had Thranduil, and Mahal.  Mahal cared so deeply for me, and his love was helping me through this battle in my life.  With his help, I would make it through this.  

We've all been there

Scars come with livin'

You, you're not alone, you're not alone

So lift your head up (scars come, scars come) (head up)

To where your help comes from

Lift your head up (scars come, scars come) (head up, head up)

Oh, scars come with livin'

Lift your head up (scars come, scars come) (lift your head, lift your head, lift your hea-hea-head)

To where your help comes from

Lift your head up (scars come,

scars come)(lift your head, lift your head, lift your head)

Every day I would wake up with dread at facing a new day, a new experience.  The unknown.  But Mahal had worked in my heart, and was helping me heal, a little bit at a time.  He was helping me, giving me the strength and fatherly love I needed right now.

Oh, scars come with livin'

Lift your head up (scars come, scars come) (head up, head up)It doesn't matter who you are (who you are)

This world gon' leave some battle scars (battle scars)

Lift your head up (scars come,

scars come) (lift your head, lift your head, lift your head)

It doesn't matter who you are (who you are)

This world gon' leave some battle scars (battle scars)

It doesn't matter who you are (who you are)

This world gon' leave some battle scars

I had become secure with who I was, and it no longer hurt me to see Thorin with his current betrothed.  Mahal was the only one I bowed to, the only one who truly knew my pain and had helped heal it.  I could walk around with a smile on my face, feeling a true joy spark within me.

Watching the orange sphere begin to settle lower on the horizion, I smiled, feeling immense gratitude towards Mahal.  He was my King, the only King I would call mine.  He was my father.  He had such divine power that I never dreamed of.  Power that had helped heal a broken heart and make it whole again.  

He was the true King.

[mor3tti]

Boy Wonder & The Young Goddess -Part Four-

Dick Grayson (titans) x Reader

(Dick Grayson GIF not mine)

Uhhhhh, surprise? I’m back, I think.

I owe each and every single one of you an explanation for my absence. When I finished and posted the third chapter I thought I was going to be able to keep caught up with the oncoming chapters but the problem was that they weren’t written yet. I kept coming back to try and write the next chapter and with each try I fell out of the motivation to write it. After how many months and FINALLY finishing my exams I am now back and ready to go. Love you all, I missed Dick Grayson.

This will be a series! So stay tuned for more chapters to come!

The plot: When Y/N gets a sign from the gods to go after a troubled girl, she stumbles upon and reconnects with a dear friend from her past.

Warnings: the use of the word ‘fuck”

Taglist: @nightshade7117 @yetitty @affection-rabbit @drabby-abby @caitsymichelle13 @caswinchester2000 @peterunderoos96 @sataninsatin @chewie-redbird @bad-bitch-khaleesi @peqchynero @bookish-and-shy @kokofri14 @bluexangels @multifandoms916 @blue-and-yellow-jjk-pjm

Some usernames didn’t work so I’m sorry! You might have changed your username without me realising!

Masterlist for Boy Wonder & The Young Goddess

Even as an Amazon you still somehow got migraines, and yeah if you’re wanting to know they’re still a mega pain in the ass. The tea session with Gar had sparked some suppressed emotions which is probably a positive thing but damn did they mess with your head, literally. The best option was to swallow yourself in the mattress that was very much calling your name. Your knees were close to your chest as you tried to wait out the pain. Surprisingly in an apartment full of vigilantes there were no painkillers, then again Dick is more of the ‘brooding and ignoring the pain’ type of guy. 

Another bolt of pain shot through your temple as your fist grabbed the sheet which followed with the rest of your body clenching in pain. A quiet “fuck” left your lips as you smacked the bed trying to get the frustration out without blasting out the windows with an energy tantrum. As the storm moved from where Dick was in town it settled over you and surrounded the tower with a hollow shower of rain, thankfully no lightning and thunder. The calming rhythm of the droplets gave you something to focus in on instead of the pressure that was clouding your mind.

You stretched your hand out from under the pillow and held it above where you and Dick once laid this morning, slowly lowering it onto the still crumpled bedding. It was an odd feeling. The bed felt uneven without him even though your whole life had been balanced this entire time. You couldn't start wanting him now, especially after the mini lecture you had given him this morning about Kory and putting her first. You sharply retracted your hand and slid it back to the pillow before anyone noticed, even if the apartment was just about empty. 

As you were settling in bed Gar was settling into the corner of the couch watching the rain fall. He thought that he might as well take this moment for granted. There was no one after him, no one currently fighting their way into the apartment and especially no one to interrupt him. It was just a silent conversation between his open thoughts that still danced around your prior conversation and the rain’s simple song of serenity. Unknown to him, that serenity wouldn’t last long. 

-

Kory and Rachel were ahead of Dick as he finished paying for the small lunch they had. His hand was struggling to fit in the tight pocket as he was desperately trying to push the coins away somewhere. As he looked up from the change dilemma he noticed how far ahead the others were and jogged to catch up. The concrete was still covered in a thin film of water as it released the remaining smell of rain and the city noise around him cut into his ears. You would be surprised at how deafening the city can be but as his phone bleeped a passing car honked. His phone rattled around in his jacket pocket as the screen lit up with a stoic message from Donna.

Donna-Received at 12:48pm

I’m coming to the apartment. Don’t be alarmed if you hear a knock at the door.

The screen slowly dimmed and got ignored as the notification got sucked away by the soundtrack of the city streets.

Sure, Dick hated how loud the city was but after this he would loathe it. Soon the cars and busy people would be replaced by your screaming and tears.

-

The screen close to the door lit up with a message of ‘intruder’ which caught Gar’s attention. The tiles were cool against his feet when he turned to go wake you, motivated by his state of panic. As he reached for the doorknob he pulled himself away biting his lip as he tossed up whether he should wake you or not. The alert rang through the apartment again but was interrupted as the elevator doors slid open. As Gar’s eyes made contact his stomach dropped. This wasn’t good. And it wasn’t bad. His calming afternoon quickly turned into a nightmare. A pair of leather boots stood in front of him with a very particular rope attached to their hip. 

“With that look on your face I’m betting you didn’t know I was coming?” Her smile pressed into her dimples as she flicked her dark hair from her eyes. Gar got caught back to the situation in front of him and coughed out a chuckle trying not to look at your bedroom door in hopes of keeping your presence a secret. 

-

Rachel had bounced into the passenger seat as she gulped down the remainder of her second coffee of the day. She went to jam it into the cup holder but it was occupied by Dick’s phone. He was too focused on trying to see the oncoming traffic as the car pulled out so she grabbed it and played with it. She missed having a phone, having some form of property other than her clothes. She tapped her boots together as she threw the thought around of trading her boots for a walkman but it was interrupted with an ear piercing siren coming out of the phone’s speaker. 

“I SWEAR IT WASN’T ME!” Rachel screamed as she tried shutting the noise off. Dick’s head whipped around to see a red flashing notification come across his screen. It was a security camera image with the word ‘intruder’ pasted along it. There stood Donna looking up at the camera with a disgruntled expression across her face. He slapped the steering wheel and pushed the gas pedal down as Kory and Rachel sat confused and alarmed. 

“You know it’s just Donna right? Not some psycho killer maniac.” Kory pitched in as she leant forward to see just how angry Dick was but she didn’t see a face of anger. She saw a face that was caught up in the many flashes of childhood memories between the two of you, a face laced with fear. She lowered herself into the back seats and knew it involved you.

Really? As soon as she steps into the city Donna has to show up. Here we go again, around the twist. Two Amazons in the same apartment, wonder if it’ll even be standing by the time I get there. “Fuck!” This launched out of Dick’s mouth without his intention. Two pairs of eyes met his but he knew he had to focus on getting back to you before Donna did something to ruin it all, again.

-

Plan of attack: keep Donna in the lounge room and keep it quiet. If one of you knows you’re here then I’m stuck dealing with two Amazons. TWO!!! 

Gar wanted to squeal and rip his hair out but he knew he had to try and keep a calm facade for the fate of this building. He had explained that they didn’t have phones so there was no way of Dick letting him know she would be coming, she just shrugged and agreed on how having no phones was probably their best bet at not being found and captured. That’s one topic off the checklist. Donna had taken the same position he had earlier on the couch as he offered her a tea which she gratefully accepted. His breathing had become shallow as he was silently praying for Dick to get his ass home now. 

As he turned from facing the kettle back to the rest of the apartment he scanned the area for any remnants of you being there. It was a bit of a saviour that your armour melted back into you even though it was entirely weird and kinda gross. No belongings means no clues. He crossed his arms up and smiled to himself at what could be a successful plan of attack but as he stared out the windows his smile wavered. Donna wasn’t exactly paying attention to him but that damn calm facade had to stay up. 

Looking back at him was your sword in all its glory lying along the outside coffee table. He heard you out there last night with Dick, talking and silencing the giggles you shared. You would definitely kick yourself later for leaving it out there. The kettle was reaching its boiling point and so were his ideas.

Click. 

As the water settled from its boiling point so did his momentary worries. If she can’t see it then she won’t know. New plan of attack. Distract. Gar rushed and made her tea as he smoothly asked if she would want to sit at the kitchen island bench, his excuse? It was right under the heater. Her face twisted and she hummed but came over to him anyways. Lucky for Gar his suspicious attitude was overrun by what she thought was a boyish charm. 

The elevator doors couldn’t open fast enough as the trio stumbled into the apartment with all the groceries immediately hitting the ground. The clambering footsteps alarmed them both as they were met with three other huffing faces. There was no fire. No damage and most importantly no you.

“Okay, what is going on around here? First the apartment doesn’t let me in and then you guys act as if you’ve seen a god damn ghost!” Donna’s voice was raising higher as the seconds passed by. Gar stared past Donna’s shoulder right into Dick’s eyes. I know. Dick’s eyes twitched as he read what Gar’s face was saying, but the reality was that he didn’t actually know the truth. 

-

You shifted beneath the covers as your senses came to, immediately hearing a full apartment. Hey, more food in the house makes me happy too. As you got up off the mattress you listened in and it wasn’t exactly joyful talk, you could feel the anxiety in the household. 

Danger. 

Dick.

You flew across the room and swung the door open, nearly ripping off the hinges. Your fists were glowing ready to fight but you were met with something much worse than a fight. You heard Dick sharply inhale a breath as Kory got in front of Rachel. She didn’t know your history but she knew two Amazons in the same apartment meant trouble.

“What the he-“ She turned from facing the elevator and her frame shuddered. Donna’s sentence got caught in her throat as she stared at you. Her chest was crumbling and you could feel it. She tried swallowing her breath but her dry throat wouldn’t allow it. Instead it came out as a single sob. 

Your stance hardened as her gaze turned cold, glazed over. You knew if you fought her that you would win either way. Each muscle slowly relaxed as you returned to a standing position. This isn’t a time to fight. 

“Donna just listen don’t start jumping to any of the ideas going through your head.” Dick was stepping towards her trying to settle anything, something to stop this. There was an eerie silence filled only with the sound of breathing. Her eyes didn’t stray from yours.

Dick looked as if he was trying to approach a wild animal with his hands up and a calm but shaking voice. His boots squeaked against the tiles and it all broke as if a pin had dropped. 

A gold stream of light ripped through the apartment. “Y/N!” There was immediate screaming as everything broke loose. It was as if the sun had entered the room, light was streaming everywhere as they had to shade their eyes. Dick shut his eyes, trying to get through to you with his thoughts knowing you’d be able to hear them, pleading for you to stop. He had the wrong impression. 

Inside the ball of light wasn’t a battle. Every strike Donna threw you blocked. This isn’t a time to fight. You would let her beat you to a pulp, pummel you into the ground but you wouldn’t lay a hand on her. Another blow came but it burnt. You back jolted as her heel came into contact with your chest. The fibres from the rope dug themselves into your neck as your knees dug into the floor. The light faded but the rope continued to glow. 

Rachel gasped and clung onto Kory as the air was withering it’s way out of your lungs. She had you trapped with the rope around your neck and everyone sat there watching you choke. Now the tables have turned and you look like the intruder.

This isn’t a time to fight. Your hands came up to tug the rope and pull her closer to you. Her boots skidded against the floor and as you looked up to her eyes, they were no longer cold. Instead they reflected you in the pool of tears. Another sob worked its way from her chest and her body struggled to hold it together. She was shaking her head not being able to process who was in front of her. Dick could feel her betrayal and confusion from the other side of the room.

As you tugged the rope again she came that one step closer. A hushed sentence came from her trembling lips. 

“You’re alive?”

As her breath left her body you left the building in a spark of light and her rope puddled on the floor. She couldn’t take her eyes off where you once were as everyone else kept still in the remaining silence.

It was as if she’d seen a ghost.

[aspoonofsugar]

Hey! I feel kinda disappointed by Jean's words. It was as if he was siding with Eren's genocide plan aka the thing that I feared the most. The 104th seemed somehow chill with Eren's announcement of wanting to massacre humanity which again I didn't expect. What do you think?

I am really frustrated with Mikasa and Armin at this point.Why does yams keep pulling them back and forth?One moment it seems like they will finally grow separate from eren n make those hard choices but the next moment they go back to being passive again?Mikasa had such a big realization last chap and yet here we are again her and armin flying around shinganshina,it didn't even occur to them to talk to eren?What are they even doing?kids like gabi n kaya r changing but the 104th are still babies.            

Hello anons!

These are different asks, but can be answered together.

I disagree with the 104th being chill with Eren’s plan:

This panel makes clear that they are all shocked by what Eren is doing and the fact that it may be his love for them what motivates him horrifies them all. This is made clear by the contrast between the horror in their eyes and the happy memories they all have.

I have written about everyone’s reaction in this meta.

All in all, this conversation is the conclusion or at least the following act to their previous confrontations aka the one in chapter 108 and the one in chapter 118. I have talked about these two previous arguments here and here.

It is interesting to compare these three conversations they had because all in all we are seeing a progressive breaking of the status quo.

This is mostly evident when it comes to Armin and Connie. All in all, Armin acts as the brain of the group aka its rational part, while Connie as the heart aka its most emotive part.

Since the beginning of the arc Connie has been showing more and more anger and disappointment. He does so in chapter 108 and even more so in chapter 118 when he almost hits Onyankopon and needs to be physically stopped by Jean. And of course he completely loses it in this chapter.

At the same time, Armin is shown to be able to control the others less and less. In chapter 108 he offers the best solution to their current situation and is able to somehow makes sense of everyone’s issue. On one hand there is Mikasa who refuses to fight Eren. On the other hand there are Connie and Jean who have their doubts (either emotional or rational) about him. Armin comes up with the idea of talking with Eren to become sure of his intentions. This idea is accepted and the argument is solved.

In chapter 118 the others accept his plan to help Eren and let themselves be convinced by his rethoric, but they do so with much more doubts. In the end they all choose to trust Eren, but they do so with less convinction than before. Mikasa’s change is especially interesting because in their previous confrontation she insisted on defending Eren, while in this one she shows much less idealism and Armin is the one who insists in defending Eren.

Finally, in this chapter Armin completely fails to convince the others. Both Jean and Connie refuse his POV. Jean tries to rationalize what Eren is doing and he also goes back to what originally were Mikasa and Armin’s own arguments aka that Eren cares about them. Connie is on the other hand not even offering an argument anymore, but simply acts on his raw emotions.

Basically, it is interesting that in this conversation, the positons of the characters have ended up somehow reversed. Jean has taken Mikasa’s place into defending Eren, while she is silent much more like Jean was in chapter 108 where all he did was to show his indeciveness and listen to all the others’ POV. Here, it is Mikasa the one who is silently listening to others and simply shows concern for Falco. At the same time, Armin and Connie have somehow inverted places too when it comes to power dynamics in the sense that Armin used to keep everyone under control and Connie kept repressing what he feels, but in this chapter he is the one who “wins” the argument i.e. he acts as he wants and refuses to find a compromise and to sacrifice what he feels and wants.

All in all, I think that it shows how the group is symbolically emotionally shaken and Armin’s rationality is simply too weak in this moment to unify everyone. His arguments sounds weaker adn weaker and they will keep being so until Armin won’t propose more drastic and efficient solutions. All in all, the rationality which imposes itself in the chapter is the one represented by Jean’s discourse and it is a cynical form of rationality. It is the rationality Jean has been struggling with since the Uprising. It is the one Jean must finda happy equilibrium with.

Similarly, Mikasa who represents the emotional part of the group who should balance Connie out is silent because she must probably still sort out her feelings towards Eren and what is happening.

In short, everyone is in disarray right now and they need to change the current situation.

As I have written in my meta on this chapter, I think Connie won’t follow through with his plan and I actually think that a confrontation with Falco might help him. All in all both him and Falco are two extremely generous and loyal people who have been given a lot of trouble in exchange of their good intentions. Both of them have been holding up pretty well up until now, but Connie is finally breaking. Personally, I think that this would be a nice moment to have Falco show some negative feelings as well considering he has basically accepted everything which has happened to him and has simply tried to protect others. However, he has been turned into a titan by the cruelty of a person he looked up to and he indirectly killed his older brother. It is true he might not remember everything immediately, but I think that it is a pretty huge trauma and that it should affect him somehow. Maybe seeing that he is not the only one suffering might help Connie to cool off.

At the same time, I think Jean’s conversation with Onyankopon makes clear he will eventually choose to oppose what is happening and he will probably be the one having a final confrontation with Floch.

As far as Mikasa and Armin are concerned, I have expressed my feelings on them in the post linked above. In short, I think their reactions were better than Jean and Connie’s. They both disapprove of what Eren is doing, but they are too passive in facing the situation.

That said, I disagree with the idea that what they have done this chapter made no sense:

They had to stop the Pure Titans or they would have attacked the civilians since the Walls have disappeared. If they had not taken care of it, it would have been a repetition of what happened at the beginning of the story. Even when it comes to stopping Eren, there is what Reiner said this chapter. Eren is basically a God right now or at least they think so. However, him being unable to control the Pure Titans is something which shows he might not be as invincible as they all think. Even when it comes to talking with Eren, this is what they wanted to attempt at the beginning of the arc and were cruelly shut down in chapter 112, so it makes sense that they are not fond of this possibility right now.

All in all, they have had a very short time to deal with the whole situation. They had a short conversation which exploded into a fight and was interrupted by an emergency they all had to devote their attention to. It is natural they are all feeling exhausted and somehow empty. This is why Annie coming back and Gabi reminding them of Eren’s passion might help them move on.

That said, I totally get the frustartion at them and I agree that they all need to grow. If it can be of some consolation I think this is precisely the point and they all will do it.

Thank you for the asks!

[pinknerdpanda]

Hey, Clarence

Characters: Castiel/Clarence x Reader Word Count: 1,674 Warnings: Fluffity fluff fluff.  Requested by: @yourewelcomeforbeingmyfriend Beta’d by @shy-violet-soul

A/N: This was written for my Merry Manda’s Christmas Drabbles. It is simultaneously based on “Winter Wonderland” (per the request) and also kinda “Hey Jude.” I wrote this as a continuation of Clarence and Clarence Returns from the last two years’ Christmas Drabbles. You don’t necessarily have to read those for this to make sense, but it would certainly help. Also, they are some of my favorite pieces I’ve written for Christmastime, so I hope you will indulge me and go give them a looksee. I hope you enjoy!

Gif Credit x

Hey, Clarence

Today has sucked.

Not so much in an earth-shattering, life-altering way. There was no singular catastrophic event that brought me to this conclusion; more a trail of small, shitty things that, on their own wouldn’t be so bad, but together - well, like I said. Today has sucked.

My cat ran away first thing this morning. I immediately dressed, frantic as my brain volleyed various “worst-case-scenario” thoughts around. As I opened the front door to begin my desperate search for my beloved feline companion, I nearly screamed when I found her, sitting on my doorstep, impassively licking her front paw and gazing up at me expectantly.

Then, when I got to work, I somehow managed to spill my coffee all over myself and my boss simultaneously five minutes before an important meeting. A meeting, which I would find out later, was doomed from the start - coffee stained blouses notwithstanding.

It has been downhill from there, really.

My resolution for the steadily fading year has been to - as the Beatles so eloquently put it - “take a sad song, and make it better”. The idea had struck me when someone in the bar picked “Hey Jude” on the jukebox, mere moments before the ball dropped. There may have been fireball involved. It’s all a bit hazy, now. But, inebriated or not, I’ve spent the last eleven and a half months actively trying to keep myself from wallowing in self-pity when life doesn’t go the way I want it to. 

Which is how I found myself standing outside a trendy boutique downtown on a Monday night with a cup of hot apple cider clenched between my mittened hands. There’s only two weeks until Christmas, and I thought maybe rustling up a little Christmas cheer might keep the day from winding up a total bust. Two years ago, I'd found myself in the same spot when I’d met Clarence. Well, he said last Christmas his name was actually Castiel, but the adorable blue-eyed angel will always be Clarence to me. I sigh wistfully, missing my friend before turning my gaze back to the shop windows.

The shops downtown have all agreed on a theme for their displays this year - Winter Wonderland - in an effort to foster a sense of community between the businesses. I think there’s a competition involved, but I can guarantee that this display will be winning no awards.

Dozens of severely angled Christmas trees - all fashioned out of white paper - form a semi-circle in front of a stark white backdrop. More white paper has been manipulated into the shapes of what I can only assume are meant to be angry icicles and hang upside down from the ceiling. That’s not even the worst part. The five mannequins are all posed incredibly awkwardly; their plastic bodies contorted in unnatural positions that no flesh-and-blood person would be capable of. The icing on the cake is the weird-ass, monochromatic clothing they are all sporting. It looks half dystopian futuristic, half Grandma’s attic chic. It’s 100% the worst.

“That would appear to be less ‘Winter Wonderland’ and more ‘tortured in the bowels of hell’. 

The familiar, gravelly voice makes me jump, nearly spilling a hot beverage on myself for the second time today. I whirl around to find the blue-eyed angel (what even is my life these days?) smiling warmly at me, a flicker of amusement playing across his face.

“Clare - er, I mean, Castiel, was it?” I stumble foolishly over my words.

 “Clarence will be just fine.” He grins wider. “You know, we really should stop meeting this way.”

His joy is contagious and I find myself leaping happily towards him. He wraps his arms around me, holding tightly. Somehow I manage not to spill a drop on either one of us. Maybe this day is finally starting to look up.

“How did you find me?” I pull away from him, surprised to find a wet spot blooming on his tan coat where my face had been pressed against his chest. When had I started crying? 

He smiles knowingly at me and I sigh, wiping away the trails of fresh tears.

“Let me guess. You heard my prayer?” He nods. “Which isn’t very fair; it wasn’t really a prayer. I was just thinking about you and how we met.”

He gestures toward the next window, shoving his hands in his pockets as we walk. This window is more inviting. Two snowmen - both nearly as tall as the handsome angel at my side - are angled to face each other. Adoring smiles brighten their faces and their twig hands intertwine between them. A pair of cheerful cardinals suspend over their heads carrying opposite ends of a banner adorned with a red heart in their beaks. Red and green holiday baubles frame the large glass barrier containing the couple. 

“Now this,” I sigh, “this is more like it.”

“Yes,” he almost whispers. “It’s a beautiful sight.”

From the corner of my eye I see Clarence, his attention focused not on the window, but on me. A flood of warmth fills my face, despite the chilly air whipping around us. I don’t know if it’s the blush on my cheeks or the realization that he’d been caught staring, but his gaze drops to the ground suddenly and he clears his throat.

“It’s, uh,” he looks back up and tips his head toward the display, “this is much more wondrous, in my opinion.”

I nod, unable to comprehend this newfound tension now blossoming between us. As though he can sense my confusion, he takes a small, almost tentative step toward me.

“Y/n, do you remember the first time we met?” Clarence narrows his gaze, his head tipping slightly to one side and his lips pressed together.

“Of course. It was right over there,” I point to a shop across the road, it’s own window dressed in lovely sparkly Christmas tableau. 

“You were - and continue to be - so lovely. Even with no celestial power to confirm my perception, I could see the beauty of your soul. From the moment you spoke, I felt drawn to you in a way I didn’t understand. I was in no position at the time to articulate this - nor had I a right to. I’m not exactly convinced that I have a right, even now, but when I heard your subtle prayer tonight, I felt a surge of joy I haven’t felt before. I wanted nothing more than to be here with you, as we were that first night.”

I blink rapidly. What is happening? Is he - is he saying…

Clarence takes another step closer to me, his cerulean eyes glittering gleefully under the street lamps and one corner of his mouth turned upward, but only just. He reaches a hand out, his calloused fingers brushing against my cheek, moving a stray lock of hair behind my ear.

“I still don’t understand - “

I huff a breath, interrupting him and muttering “That makes two of us.”

He only smiles wider. “I don’t understand, but I knew I needed to tell you, and, perhaps…”

The smile falters gently and I realize his fingers are still grazing the curve of my jaw. His thumb brushes across my bottom lip and his gaze follows the movement as he swallows, distracted, I assume.

“Perhaps what?” I sound breathy, like the heroine in a rom-com. 

His eyes jerk up to meet mine again, fingers curling under my chin to tilt it upwards.

“Perhaps,” his tongue sweeps across his lips, “perhaps I might kiss you.”

It’s a statement, but there’s so much endearing uncertainty in his tone, it sounds like a question. My brain has ceased all word-forming function for the moment, but I manage to nod once.

And then he’s kissing me.

As uncertain as he’d seemed, I think I expected clacking teeth and squished noses, but it’s not. It’s slow and graceful, his lips soft and warm against mine. It’s just the opposite side of chaste for a moment, but then I feel his hand slide into my hair, pressing our mouths together more firmly as he moans softly.

It’s like mixing Mentos and Diet Coke, or baking soda and vinegar - Pop Rocks and Pepsi. Is that a thing? Whatever, the point I’m making is that one second I was fine and the next I feel combustible. Every nerve ending suddenly shifting into overdrive as my heart thrums against my ribs.

He pulls away just when I feel like my lungs are going to give out. I’m relieved to see his chest heaving rhythmically; I’m not the only one affected so deeply by the kiss. He presses his forehead to mine, a rough laugh punching from his lungs as his entire face lights up. I’ve never seen him smile this broadly. 

His hand slides down my arm before clasping my mittened palm.

“Well,” I start, but the brush of something cold and wet against my cheek startles me. Looking up, I realize that large, fluffy snowflakes are just beginning to fall from the sky. Clarence holds out his free hand, a look of soft wonderment brightening his already lovely face as the flakes land on his palm.

Is it possible that I’m actually living in a rom-com and just don’t know it?

“Perfect,” he sighs, his thumb rubbing gently against the wool covering my hand still clasped in his. 

“Talk about making a sad song better,” I mutter, tossing my cup in a nearby trash can before sticking out my tongue and tasting the cool white drops.

Clarence tips his head to one side again, an adorable confused expression on his face.

“Nothing.” I wrap my free arm around his, clinging to his side against the rapidly falling snow and sighing contentedly.

“Y/n, would you like to get a cup of coffee with me? I know a nice 24 hour diner nearby,” he grins. “It holds some special memories for me.”

Leaning up, I press a kiss against his cheek, the scruff on his jaw tickling my lips. 

“Sounds like a date, Clarence.”

----

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[mszegedy]

30 Days of Autism Acceptance: Days 17-26

This is a list of questions by @autie-jake (full list here), where you’re supposed to answer one per day for every day of April. I keep forgetting to do these daily, so here’s all the days since my last post. My last post is here.

April 17: Have you experienced ableism before? If so, how did it feel and how did you handle it?

Yes! Actually, it made my childhood so bad that my brain decided to forget it. So, clearly nothing to write about here.

April 18: Discuss how you felt when you felt when you first learnt you were autistic vs how you feel now.

I’m not good at the whole “remembering how I feel” thing. My memories of my feelings are all semantic memory. I know as a 6th grader I thought autism was super cool and I read a whole autobiography of an autistic savant because I wanted to find out more about it (Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammett). After a lot of intense research, I decided that I couldn’t conclusively self-diagnose, and regretfully slinked away back into not understanding or advocating for my needs. Sometime later, an actually autistic coworker of mine looked at me for like five (5) minutes, and was like, “Hey, have you been diagnosed with autism yet?” I’ve since adopted her as my second mom, for that and other reasons. I’ve had very few moments in my life when I was sad to have an autistic trait, and I got over it fairly quickly.

April 19: Talk about scripting. Is scripting something that you normally do? What kind of situations do you have a script for? Does it help you?

People don’t like my apologies, so I have a couple apology scripts saved. Otherwise I tend to just wing it and fail spectacularly. The apology scripts tend to sound… scripted, but they’re better than just doing it myself, I think.

April 20: Discuss stimming. In what ways do you stim? What does stimming mean to you? What do individual stims that you do mean? Do you have any stim toys? What would you like people to know about stimming?

Pressure stims are the most important stims for me. I’m more likely to be squeezing a part of my body than not. If nothing else, I can cross my legs tight and squeeze them together. This doesn’t have any specific function; it’s just something I do that makes me feel better. When I’m stressed, I do it more.

I also do motion stims. Often my way of locomotion is more like dancing. This is a little strange, because I don’t otherwise dance. I always feel happy, relaxed, and in control when I do that. When I’m sad or tired, my feet are too heavy for it. I am also very animate with my hands when I talk. When I taught English in Hungary for the first time, the first question I was asked whether all Americans talk with their hands as much as I do. (I don’t think they do. I have it on good authority from at least one American I trust utterly that the way I use my hands is rather unique.)

I have two improvised stim toys for pressure stimming (a scarf for wrapping very tight around limbs, and a butterknife for applying waves of uniform pressure). I also recently found one of those head scratchy thingies, and now I use it every five minutes or so. It’s a little inconvenient with headphones on, but I’m rather creative with it, anyway. I don’t actually like light touch or tickles, but generally the head scratchy thingy can be given enough pressure to provide a substantial stimulus.

April 21: Give a shoutout to some of your favorite autism blogs/autistic bloggers

UM. HMM. Like 10-50% of the people I follow are autistic, but hell if I can remember any of their handles.

I reblog from @nonbinary-hawke and their native issues-related sideblog @finding-my-culture like multiple times a day but I’m pretty sure they kinda just tolerate me? I’m mostly cut off from the actual native community I’m supposed to be part of (the Siberian one), so I try to follow American native issues with kind of a “not my lane but I’m still sympathetic” vibe, and their blogs are most of my way of keeping in touch. But we have a lot of other random things in common too; similar age, similar neurotype, similar fandoms, etc. So I’m pretty much always gonna have a platonic tumblr crush on them, given that and how much I respect their principles.

@autisticadvocacy is ASAN’s official blog, I think, and it’s always posting useful and relevant articles.

@autisticjoy and @autismisaokay are two blogs I’ve followed for most of my time on tumblr. I get the majority of my autism-related content from them.

@autistic-noodle is the first autism-related blog I ever followed! I highly recommend her; if I haven’t unfollowed her after all this time, then that means that they’ve never reblogged anything that’s triggered me, which is pretty darn impressive.

@bogleech is my favorite webcomic artist, which is a vaunted honor coming from someone with ¾ of a special interest in webcomics. I’m not actually sure if he’s autistic, but he posts enough autism-related content to justify being on this list one way or another.

I’ve definitely learned at least one useful thing from @autisticlifehack. What was it? Who knows?

@autistic-flirting is very cute, if not very active.

Shout out to @tikibats and @dreamfriend, who I actually know IRL.

April 22: What are some social rules that do not make sense to you/that you don't understand?

I’m, uh. Actually not sure? I can usually explain stuff if I think hard enough. There’s some stuff I’ve never bothered to figure out, but none of it’s so pressing that I can actually remember it.

Oh! Actually! One night during freshman year of college, I went to the computer lab to do my homework in a not-at-all-revealing bathrobe. I’ve received several explanations on why this was wrong, but I don’t remember any of them.

April 23: Do you have any internal rules? What are they?

LOTS, wow. If I didn’t have them, I wouldn’t have any shred of consistency whatsoever. I am nothing but these rules. Some of them feel more like strong opinions that can be taken or left, like the ones pertaining to writing style, but even those I follow 99% of the time. They range from really foundational moral ones like, “Everything with a mind intrinsically deserves your friendship and understanding,” and, “Every neurotype deserves to exist,” to, “Always wrap code to 80 columns (unless it’s highly nested like Lisp, in which case consider 100 columns),” and, “When mixing fruit flavor tea, always pour the syrup before the tea.” It’s quite the hodgepodge.

April 24: Talk about community. What does the autistic community mean to you? Is it important? How does it feel?

I haven’t had much of a chance to actually participate in any autistic community yet. I don’t even really participate in the tumblr autistic community. It’s just sorta me, my second mom, and a couple random people I get to see occasionally. (Also, my dad, but we don’t talk about my dad.) Most of my friends are neurodivergent in some way, though, so I’m happy with the people I have. (Not that I don’t enjoy hanging around neurotypical people, too. But it feels good to not have to work to make yourself be understood.)

April 25: Do you know any other autistic people off the internet? Is anyone else in your family autistic or are you the only one? Do you wish you knew more?

See yesterday’s answer! I wouldn’t do this if I were doing these day by day, but I’m totally justified here, because it’s literally the previous paragraph.

April 26: In what ways can allistic people better accommodate you and other autistic people? What would you consider helpful?

It’s a broad question. My mom has been getting better at not punishing me for my autistic traits, but the other day she still antagonized me for stimming at the dinner table. (I’m 22. Nearly 23.) So it’d be great if she didn’t do things like that. Not even gonna talk about what my dad could do better. (The ways he does accomodate me seem unintentional.)

Outside of that, I appreciate it when people give me very clearly-worded instructions, broken down into small steps, with every possible detail specified. I appreciate it even more when those instructions are in written form, because I can only remember two or three of those when they’re spoken aloud.

I appreciate it when food places with complex menus have the option to just sit down with the menu, without a time limit, and make up your order. Sandwich and wrap places, like Subway, make me very uncomfortable for reason; Subway has an extremely combinatorically complex menu, and you’re expected to make up your order while they’re making the sandwich. I’d like to spend some time staring at a sheet with each sandwich ingredient listed and explained, and the ways they can be combined, first.

The current switch to online classes has been great for my ability to understand lectures, and terrible for my ability to do classwork and homework. Hearing the lecture through headphones circumvents most of my auditory processing issues, and seeing the lecture slides clearly circumvents most of my attention issues. But when it comes to doing classwork and homework, executive dysfunction rules me. I do wish my executive dysfunction were better accomodated for even in the case of normal classes (and probably careers), but it’s hard to guess what form that would take. I’ve run out of brainpower for good ideas.

For the rest of the month I will do these questions daily, one at a time. Hopefully.