#like yeah the endgame can drag and the twist is. Something. and some of the character writing can be wonky and the puzzles

[violentlydefending]

maybe nobody's played plvspw and maybe plvspw is insane and maybe it takes place in britain but it's still better than aa5 and 6 i'll die on this hill

[etrosgate]

the nonary games port of 999 is worse than you think

it's fine if you play the port, or even prefer it. but i'd like you to know what you're getting into.

9 hours 9 persons 9 doors for the nintendo ds is a masterpiece of a game, with wonderfully snappy dialogue and a quickly paced narrative that avoids many traps of visual novel writing (such as being overly obvious and repetitive) with a ludonarrative cohesion that makes SO many of its aspects initially perceived as flaws into an active strength of the experience. the endgame twist is very possibly the best in gaming history.

i think i've made it pretty clear that i really fucking love this game, and recommend it to everyone.

so

i used to say "the ds version is better, but it's fine if you play the port for its various quality of life features" but im no longer able to have that stance, now that i know the extent of how it kinda butchers its narrative. it's not super obvious, but that subtlety honestly makes it worse to me.

it's the difference between a good game, and a incredible game.

in the end, this boils down to the "novel mode" versus "adventure mode" gimmick that they decided to build the port on.

if you choose to play in adventure mode, it removes almost all of the narration and rewrites that aforementioned incredible dialogue to awkwardly shove in some (not all) of that information, resulting in overly obvious and clunky writing that seriously drags some scenes out. the descriptive text in general is actually incredibly important in a way i can't describe, and though it will forcibly shift to novel mode to show it to you very occasionally, it's not Nearly enough and you will miss out on some of the most memorable striking moments because of it. i cannot overstate how much the impact of the ending is affected by this.

if you choose novel mode, you do get narration (very important). HOWEVER. the writing is still the adjusted one done to facilitate only playing adv mode, so now the dialogue is overly obvious and clunky and slow AND (despite changing+taking out some of the narration entirely) repetitive (all the things i said 999 very cleverly avoided 🤔?) and then, for some ungodly reason, it is actively difficult to play the game in novel mode. the game will Constantly shift you back to adv mode so you have to spend the entire game checking to make sure to switch back (something even i found difficult to remember to do, as someone familiar with the game).

so neither way to play the port is good. also they changed the final puzzle to be worse. and a LOT of ludonarrative things i cannot actually get into due to spoilers.

"how much of an impact could these small changes actually have?"

well this is anecdotal, but me (and many other people i know) who originally played 999 on the ds and thought it was a masterpiece, years later went on to play the port version and thought "huh. it was still good, but it's like the magic was gone. i guess the game's just not as good as i remembered, one of those things that doesn't hold up to your memories of it."

and then we replayed the ds game. and found out that the game we remembered DOES still exist! it's just as fantastic, the magic IS THERE. the port just made the game worse!!

anyways, so what were those quality of life changes i mentioned earlier?

in the original ds version of 999, every time you reach an ending you have to start from the beginning of the game again, fast forwarding through the text and replaying the puzzles. (the port changed this to having a flowchart where you can just jump to decision points)

HOWEVER

as someone who Very recently replayed the ds version, i truly don't think this is as much of a pain as you might expect.

skipping text isn't a big deal. yeah it takes a bit, but it's easy to watch a youtube video or something while you're waiting the 5 minutes it takes. using an emulator, you can even speed up the text skipping to an even greater degree. if you can't physically hold down the button, you can find something to hold it down for you, and on an emulator you can rebind the key to be something easier to do that with (like the space bar)

redoing puzzles isn't that big a deal either. not only do you still have to redo some puzzle rooms in the port version anyway, it can be pretty fun to figure out how to essentially speedrun rooms you've done before, and you don't redo them that many times (i would recommend a walkthrough anyway for deciding which endings to get, so making that redo time even shorter is a bonus).

and please trust me when i say those hassles don't just exist bc the game is old, there is artistic intent involved in their inclusion that (for me at least) ends up enhancing the game more than they detract from it.

if you really need the accessibility of voice acting, i might genuinely recommend watching an LP of the ds version instead. yes, i really do think some guy from 10 years ago reading out the text will give you a better experience than a genuinely good cast of voice actors reading the port's. bc the writing of the port's dialogue is so fucking bad lol.

btw, if you're scared off at the prospect of reading a little more now without being able to choose adventure mode... if you've played danganronpa (and most of you did!) 999 is shorter, faster-paced, and has LESS READING.

okay im done

i'd recommend THIS WALKTHROUGH, even if you don't want to use it for the puzzles, it'll give you good info for how to get each ending (especially recommended for true ending), and a general order to do them in. i'd recommend doing getting all the endings (except coffin, which is just the true end cut short) EDIT: thank you to tlblitz for recommending this walkthrough, which gives additional hints for the puzzles instead of just telling you solutions outright

if you've already played 999 (or are just curious about specifics), this video details all the changes mentioned here and more, and it gets all the way into spoiler territory. maaaan did it open my eyes to everything i had subconsciously picked up on in playing the port. (i though the first part about the dialogue was being too nitpicky but then i did a side by side comparison of the beginning of the game and op. was not exaggerating. that port dialogue is AGGRAVATING).

EDIT

i forgot to mention. if you emulate the game, there's a visual glitch that messes up the sprites a little, but you can fix it really easily! in DeSmuME, go to Config>3D Settings and set the renderer to OpenGL

also, here's a mod that increases the text speed, if you find that bothers you.

and i figure i should put my reasons for not just tolerating, but loving the hassles that come from the ds version onto the base post (reposted from another reblog)

major major 999 spoilers below (and some vlr spoilers too)

-----------

to me, one of the coolest aspects of 999 (and zero escape in general) is how much the experience of playing it reflects the narrative

the final twist isn’t just that the text on the bottom screen has been akane, but that you’ve been playing as HER the entire game, not junpei (and with turning the ds upside down for the sudoku, you finally do so for the first time)

in the narrative, you spend basically the entire runtime getting to know her as June, but in the ludonarrative, (the actual Playing the game) you get to know her as Zero. and those annoying bits are a big part of that.

every time akane reaches her death in a timeline, she has to go back to the beginning and start over, because that’s how her powers work. she has to redo all the puzzles, has to wait through all the dialogue until she gets to a point where she can nudge junpei to another route. (in vlr, sigma+phi have a flowchart not just because it’s more convenient, but because that’s how Their powers work).

so subtly, without noticing, you start to reach her point of view. the first time you see the ninth man die it’s shocking and horrific, but even just on your second playthrough the horror doesn’t affect you much. for junpei and everyone else, these sequences are just as terrifying in every route but not for you, cause you’ve seen them before. you can’t be affected by them in the same way, what matters now is finding the futures you haven’t seen yet.

speedrunning puzzles by skipping the clues and zoning out while you wait for the dialogue to finish aren’t just game things, but diagetic events, of akane going through the motions of something she’s done over and over.

when i replayed the ds version recently (something i hadn’t done in a LONG time), i felt so close to akane in a way i never did in the port, because i’d been through the same experience as her. i understood how she could be such a kind and sensitive person who rationalizes away putting all these people she loves through all those the moment to moment horrors in pursuit of a timeline where she and everyone she care about lives, because i’d become detached to them through repetition too.

i completely understand why people wouldn’t enjoy that, but i’m a pretentious gamer who LOVES when mechanics are technically “worse” in a way that is characterful or thematic. so the frustrating bits of 999 add to that experience much more than they detract from it for me haha

[astromechs]

ok hear me out

what if 2024 is the year cosmic marvel star wars au lives again except this time i combine it with my au where cassian and jyn met years before the events of rogue one instead (except i'm further changing things in this version) and it's the most niche combination of blorbo nonsense i can concoct

dramatis personae and other bullshit under the cut

(a lot of this is taken from notes i made in 2019, but i'm tweaking this a little bit)

rich rider – a jedi, the only known survivor of order 66/the jedi purge (at least, as far as he can tell). he wasn’t sure about a lot of the politics during the clone wars, and the jedi essentially being turned into soldiers therein, but he tries to keep the values of the order alive as he moves from planet to planet, helping others.

gamora – think the kind of mara jade/emperor’s hand role from the old eu. taken from her home at a young age and raised/trained in secret as palpatine’s assassin. if any of his apprentices are out of line, it is her job to eliminate them, as well as complete any personal assignments that the (now) emperor requests. she hates him, and has been trying to find a way out.

peter quill – a beloved separatist hero during the clone wars, until something happened that he won’t talk about. now, he looks to avoid any affiliation, not joining the fledgling rebel alliance popping up in some corners of the galaxy, but not with the empire, either. gets most of his income working as a smuggler, running spice and other contraband, and seeks to undermine the empire in whatever little steps he can manage.

going with the original rogue one supplementary material backstory of cassian being from fest/a separatist world as a child because that works better for my narrative beats here tbh. also he's been with the fledgling rebellion for.... ever.

my idea for jyn is that her identity was, in fact, sold out to the empire by reece tallent (see: i'm taking a plot point from rebel rising and then i'm twisting it and then ignoring most of the rest of the book). so she has palpatine's assassin after her... and the rebel alliance trying to find her before the assassin does.

so yeah jyn's the inciting incident for the whole thing and our various and sundry parties collide and go on wacky misadventures. mostly i want to watch rich and cassian have a knock down drag out argument over WHO'S GOING TO SACRIFICE THEMSELVES FOR THE OTHERS and everyone else stares at them like they're fucking stupid, which they are

also jyn and peter are preexisting friends in this universe. considering my endgame ships as riderquill and rebelcaptain + gamora ot3. sorry 2 break up starnovamora but this ot3 i literally just invented two seconds ago has so many narrative possibilities i want to explode.

[pleasantanathema]

Miche Zacharias | Ripe

Pairing: Miche x Fem!Reader

Rating: Explicit (18+ Only)

Warnings: Breeding, Cum Eating, A Lot of Cum, Multiple Orgasms, Established Relationship

Word Count: 1.7k

A/N: This is part of my Nine Muses Event to celebrate 9k! Follow the link to read more fanfics I’m writing to celebrate. All this excessive cum is dedicated to the love of my life @titan-fodder​, thank you for always encouraging me and hyping me up 💖 

          “I can smell when you’re ovulating. It’s sweeter,” Miche buried his nose into your neck, stubble sending sparks up your skin, “thicker.”

           “There’s no way you can smell that.”

         Insistent hands pulled at your shirt, fingers sneaking underneath to rub against your sides.

           He moved you easily, like a doll on strings, pinning you against the door and caging you in with all his brawn. Your palms pushing against his chest were useless; Miche had always been like this, some unmovable force in your life. Always pressing against you, capturing you when you least expected it, just because he could. Because he knew you wanted him all the same.

           “Babe I can smell a titan a mile away, of course I can smell what’s happening in this sweet little body of yours.”

           A purr almost left your throat from how good it felt to have his large hands smoothing over your stomach, thumbs dipping below your waistband to tease closer to what he wanted. Your fingers curled into the green threads of his shirt, toes stretching as you tried to get closer. He dipped his head with a smirk, tongue sweeping into your mouth without question, dark, acidic notes of lingering wine stinging the back of your cheeks. It was bitter, addictive.

           Thrills spread across your back as you kissed him, sloppy, open mouthed and sinful. You liked being his dirty little secret, always fucking him when no one was looking. You’d done it for years, curling around each other late at night, drinking down cum and slick like hidden ambrosia.

          Long fingers wandered further into your pants, sinking into the wetness between your folds. A gasp left your mouth, but still you kept chasing his lips, drowning in him.

           “I should breed you,” he whispered.

           The words made your ears burn, made your lungs feel too hot. It was like you were already in the hazey headspace of sex and he’d barely even touched you.

           “Think about it,” his palms were white-hot heat as he stripped you, lips sucking at the tender places on your body that made you keen, “we’d make the prettiest babies.”

           You would, gods you knew that. Miche’s seed would be strong, virile, would create babies with brilliant green eyes and pretty faces. Something was churning in your belly, something deep, something blooming and ripe that was screaming to take part in the miracles of sex.

           “Everyone would catch on if I started swelling with a baby-sized bump.”

           “They would. But you’re mine anyways, doesn’t matter.”

           He finished tearing the clothes away from your body, heavy fingers trailing over your stomach as he stood, skimming up to your breasts to pinch at your nipples.

           “Get on the bed.”

           You already knew what he wanted, crawling onto sheets that smelled like him—leather and coffee, warm and inviting, like home—and pressing your face into the pillows, arching your hips up as he stood at the edge of the bed stroking his cock.

           “Fuck. Look at that pretty pussy.” A massive hand cupped your ass, his thumb making you shiver as he stroked over your folds, dipping the tip into your wetness so he could watch it stain his skin. “Let’s see how much cum you can take.”

           The burn of him sinking inside of you was always a shock, a smoldering pleasure that made you feel so weak, so full. He used to have to prep you, but over time he learned you liked the arousing pain, liked to feel every fucking inch of him as he took his time letting your cunt suck him in.

           His fingers were already on your clit before he even started moving, making you whimper and nearly buckle from the influx of pleasure that invaded your system.

           “Been smelling you all fucking day, baby. Want you to milk this cock.”

           You almost toppled over when he started to thrust, little waves of delight spreading up your spine with every drag of his cock along your walls. He knew how to play you, circling your clit so perfectly that you were already shaking. Your lower belly already hurt from clenching, all the euphoria rushing to your head and making you feel drunk.

           “God you get so fucking tight,” he grunted, starting the kind of brutal pace that told you he was already aiming for the endgame, ready to fill you up and watch you drip.

           “Fucking god, Miche, you can’t just—” but he could, your walls clamping before you could even enjoy the build up of orgasm, Miche pinching your clit just enough to wring your orgasm out of you. It almost hurt, so fast and hot and had your pussy so tight that you felt like you were going to burst around his cock.

          The tight squeeze brought him closer, had him releasing your clit so he could use his long arms to pull you up by your shoulders. You were still spent, body only moving in response to his powerful hips slapping into your ass. He loosely placed his hands around your neck, pulling you back harder with the fresh leverage.

          Your whole world felt centered around the drumming of his cock on your insides. It all still burned, like a warm, wet glow between your legs, filled to the brim with him. You were gasping and moaning, little sounds you just couldn’t help, too overwhelmed, too lost.

          Those massive hands of his got tighter around your throat. Miche’s grunts were kissing your ears, like a rhythmic hymn that he loved to pray.

          “Yeah, fuck, gonna breed you, baby, fuck my seed into you.”

          Lewd words and sounds made you flush, heat racing up your neck to your ears.

          He almost choked you when he came, hips stilling for a moment so you could both feel the way his cock pulsed. It was already too much cum to keep in, dribbles spilling out over your pussy and around his cock to paint the inside of your thighs.

          But he didn’t stop.

          Miche pulled your back to his chest, stretching your aching muscles as you stayed on your knees. His cock was still hard and twitching inside of you, fat and heavy as he started to push back into you. Your head dipped back against his shoulder, one of his hands holding your neck while the other splayed across your stomach before moving lower. Two fingers slid along the folds of your cunt, spreading around his intrusive cock so he could feel the mess he left behind.

          “I’ve got you, baby,” he groaned, lifting those fingers to your mouth. You took them in, mewling at the taste of cum and slick pooling against your tongue. He kept your mouth stuffed with the digits, allowing you to scream around them as he picked up his pace.

          He was a man determined. He promised you cum, threatened to breed you, and he was going to.

          You could feel the power within his thighs as he slammed into you, feeling his cock buried so deep you knew you would feel its ghost lingering within you for hours, days. Your used, sensitive clit was signing from his balls against it, your legs nearly crumpling from the force of his enormous body against yours.

          This time your pleasure was building, each plunge of cock sending you higher and higher into the clouds of ecstasy. It was too good, too much, and his cum just kept trickling down your legs as the time passed. It was mesmerizing to focus on the feel of the wetness spurting from your conjoined bodies with every rock of hips.

          Miche licked up your neck, beautiful nose sniffing in the scents of your sex, your skin.

          “You’re so fucking ripe.”

          He withdrew his fingers from your mouth, brushing the wet knuckles over one of your bouncing tits, twisting at your nipple.

          “W-want more,” you choked out, neck arched entirely back onto his broad shoulder.

          “More what? Tell me.”

          You took a moment just to gasp with everything thrust of his cock, trying to keep your wits.

          “Cum, mphf, want more of your cum.”

          He cursed into your neck, moving his hands to push your hips down, to bounce you on his cock like you were a tight little cocksleeve. He mumbled something about needing to feel you again, long fingers stretching back to your clit that was spread over him. It was electric, had you spiraling, pussy spasming against him, slick gushing with every crest of pleasure that came over your body. Your ears burned, your throat was dry, your head tingling with desire so forceful you felt like you had exploded. Your climax had you splitting apart, and also sucking him in so deep that it had him pouring his load into you.

          You were both so out of breath, you falling back onto your hands and knees on the mattress as Miche finally pulled his still throbbing cock from your cunt. You were ruined, the tightening of your belly making cum continuously bubble out your hole, drooling onto the sheets.

          “You look so pretty covered in cum.”

          Miche’s fingers were back between your legs, making you yelp as fingertips glided over your clit. Then he smoothed his fingers down your thighs, gathering what cum was still traveling down your legs. He pushed that lost cum back inside of you, making your fists tighten into the sheets. Over and over again he repeated the motion, taking his time to gather every viscous droplet and push it back into your quivering cunt.

          “Can’t let any go to waste,” he chuckled, eyes gleaming as he marveled over how much cum you could take. What still leaked out he gathered again, coaching you onto your back so he could dip his cum covered digits past your lips. You licked against his knuckles, sucking them in with a greedy smile.

          “Tastes good,” you cooed, observing how he was still enamored with staring at your glossy pussy.

           “Get used to it, I’m keeping you stuffed with cum until I put a baby in you.”

[sortasirius]

what makes you think the writers want deancas? not trying to be an asshole, i'm just genuinely curious as to why you think that. i know berens' episodes are pretty heavy with subtext so i can see why you'd say that he wants it, but i'm not so sure about the rest of the writers/dabb. it seems like meghan isn't a huge fan either, given her "they twisted it so fast" tweet :/ of course she's a very new writer (think she's only writing one ep this season?) but still

OKAY this is a great question, welcome to my dissertation.

I’m going to address the end of your question first. Meghan is actually DeanCas positive, she has been for quite a long time. She actually, a few years back, posted a picture of her reading a literal book about Destiel and captioned it “writing reading” or something like that.

This whole thing just comes out of a boiling over of tensions because of how nasty fandom twitter can be. Like I said here, I think this has just gotten blown out of proportion, they shouldn’t have posted all this randomly disparaging stuff, but also like...can you blame them? The fandom is a lot, we always have been, and they’re probably also under a gag order not to talk about the finale, and are annoyed that people keep asking.

So nah, Meg is not anti Destiel.

To the first part!! So let’s take a look at the show runners since Cas has been around.

Seasons 4 and 5: Kripke

Seasons 6 and 7: Gamble

Seasons 8-11ish: Carver

Seasons 11ish-15: Dabb

So starting with Kripke. Okay, yes, I will be the first to admit that we have some pretty incredible Destiel moments in these seasons, but it’s less directly written into the plot and much more from Misha and Jensen’s uhhhh ~chemistry~. The only times it was directly written into the script was when the episode was handled by someone like Edlund (“On The Head Of A Pin,” “The End,” “My Bloody Valentine”). And you have to remember, if in season 5, there are moments here and there where you’re like huh that’s suspiciously romantic dialogue, remember that Cas took Anna’s place. Anna was supposed to be endgame for Dean, but due to a myriad of issues and Misha’s general greatness, Anna was replaced with Cas.

Onto 6 and 7. Hmmm. Gamble. 6 and 7 are my two least favorite seasons and that’s no secret, and that’s not only due to the plain old weird shit in the overall storyline, but also that homegirl killed off Cas in s7 and then Bobby like four episodes later. (Also it ALWAYS rubbed me the wrong way they couldn’t have Baby in that season lol). We still had some great DeanCas moments, but again, it wasn’t really written into the overall arc (until they had to change the end of season 7 because of tanking ratings and bring Misha back lol, anyone remember the fact that Dean kept Cas’ jacket and would randomly dream of him? Yeah.). But we still had those moments, those distinctly romantic moments, probably the best example in these two seasons is from Edlund again, specifically “The Man Who Would be King,” I wrote a little about that here.

We move onto Carver, who gave us, at this point, the most overt DeanCas season with season 8 (season gr8 is a better name imo), and this is the first time Dean and Cas’ relationship is directly written as an arc of the season.  I mean, you have everything in Purgatory, Dean “seeing” Cas everywhere, the fact that he felt so guilty that Cas stayed in Purgatory that he manipulated his own memories to think that he was the one that failed Cas, because he couldn’t comprehend that Cas would want to leave him, and let’s not forget Dean snapping Cas out of Naomi’s hold on him in “Goodbye Stranger.”  It was a very obvious shift, not enough to alert the general audience, but more than enough for most of us in fandom.

It’s also important to note that this is when Andrew stopped co writing with Loflin and started writing his own episodes (”Hunter Heroici” anyone?)  I like Loflin fine, but Dabb was able to stretch his legs a little bit more once he stopped co-writing, and we also began to see some DeanCas themes in his solo episodes.

In any case, them and their issues being a big part of the seasons continued with Carver, and Berens entered the scene, his first episode (”Heaven Can’t Wait”) is one of my favorites, with human Cas and the fanfiction gap and Dean and Cas just generally being awkward and funny and sweet.  This is Bobo’s FIRST episode, remember that.  He comes right out of the gate with it.

Also in Season 9, this is when Dean takes the Mark of Cain, and the Cas/Colette mirror is born, so obviously, Dean and Cas are the fabric of the season once again.  This is also the season where Metatron says Cas is “in love with humanity,” and then immediately refers to Dean as Humanity so uhhhh yeah.

Onto season 10, Dabb and Berens continue with their greatness (I could write pages on the DeanCas date in “The Things We Left Behind” alone).  And then we have one of the best scenes in the entire show in “The Prisoner” where the Cas/Colette mirror continues and Dean, driven by grief and pain and rage and the Mark, still doesn’t kill Cas.  He still can’t kill Cas.

Season 11 is important because it takes choice away from both Cas and Dean, and shows us, as the audience, how much losing each other takes out of them. We saw in season 10 how much losing Dean takes from Cas, but what about Cas losing Dean?  Dean loses his choice with his connection to Amara this season, and loses even more when Lucifer reveals he’s been possessing Cas, and plays on Dean’s connection to Cas like a mockery.  It’s also worth noting that, similarly to season 8, Dean breaks out of the connection with Amara when he’s worried about Cas, and that’s something that even SHE is surprised by.

But then season 12, the beginning to the Renaissance.  This is when we get the writer’s that become important for what Dean and Cas are today, and, truly, why I believe they want canon Destiel as much as we do.

This is the first season with Dabb’s writers: Davy Perez, Meredith Glynn, Steve Yockey, and of course Bobo all come in with their incredible talents and gave us episode after episode of good content.  “Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets” is probably my favorite, probably the best example of what I’m saying.  An episode where Dean is called out by an enemy directly, told to “roll the dice” on Cas’ life.  And Dean won’t, it’s not even really a hesitation.  And this comes from a character that has known Dean for ten seconds.  I also wrote more in depth about this episode here.  There are also some.....distinctly domestic details we get this season, specifically in “The Future” (written by Berens and Glynn) with the mixtape.  The most tropey of tropes mixtape.  Yeah, I’ll just leave that one here.

And then season 12 ends with Cas’ death, but also with the parallel between Sam and Dean with Jess and Cas.  Sam literally has to drag Dean away from Cas, just like Dean had to drag Sam out of his burning apartment in the pilot.  The episode drives it home in every way that it can: Dean is the one left kneeling by Cas’ body, while Sam goes to find out what is upstairs.  Dean is the one who stares at the sky, finally broken.  This isn’t a random thing, this is Dean’s whole arc, it’s the entirety of the beginning of 13.  Dean’s pain, his anguish, his anger.

Season 13 starts with them burning Cas, with Dean, who has begged God to bring him back, who has split his knuckles punching a door, standing, staring at Cas’ pyre with brokenness on his face.

I mean.....

Anyway, season 13 is where it gets interesting (well, I think all of this is interesting but I’m a writer nerd so).  So Cas comes back from the Empty in “Advanced Thanatology” written by Steve Yockey, and then a wombo combo of “Tombstone” by Davy Perez next (”Brokebacknatural” as the PR said at the time).  Listen.  This is the part that SPN crossed a line that they couldn’t come back from.  With Cas being Dean’s “big win,” the fact that Dean and Cas watch movies together, “I told you, he’s an angry sleeper.  Like a bear.” Talked about it here.

This is where, in my opinion, the network stepped in, but the damage was already done.  They had already established that Cas was Dean’s big win, that Dean’s poor coping was not due to Mary’s disappearance, but solely due to Cas, and that Dean and Cas have more married energy than anyone else.  The network had nixed blatant canon at this point, and they writing room had been pushing the boundaries of what the network would allow. 

After these episodes, we see a marked drop off of DeanCas heavy scenes.  They’re still there, still a part of the fabric of the season, but not as...obvious as it had been in early season 13.

And this continued through season 14, we’re back to scraps of Destiel scenes here and there, but to me it always felt like there was something bubbling under the surface, something distinctly unsaid in the themes of the season, even after the walk back of obvious “Dean and Cas are in love” scenes.

And then we get to season 15, which, y’all know I talk about all the time.  What’s important here is that Bobo and Glynn are both executive producers, calling more of the shots than ever before.  Additionally, it’s important to note that, though they only co write occasionally, Glynn and Berens refer to each other as “work husband” and “work wife.”  Each episode has just turned up the volume, and, not for the first time, but certainly the most obvious, Dean and Cas ARE the season.  Sure, they’re trying to beat God, they’re trying to finally find peace, defeat the final big bad, but really?  This season has been about Dean, and Dean’s relationship to Cas.

And not only do we have obvious and clear Destiel in nearly every episode, but we have episodes like “Last Call” which canonize bi!Dean (wrote about that here).

And, maybe most importantly so far, we have “The Rupture,” the breakup, and “The Trap,” Dean’s confession (both written by Berens).  And here’s the thing.  These episodes feel connected, but also feel like they’re missing something.  Beren’s last episode is 15x18, “The Truth.”  We’ve all spec’ed about what could happen in this episode, and I think *I* know what it’s leading to.  But for it to be leading to that, it means that the network has to have approved what we’ve all been waiting for years for.

Who got this change to happen?  Who got the network to change their minds?  It wasn’t us.  It was them.  I am fully convinced that Dabb and Berens quite literally put their careers on the line for Dean and Cas.  They believe in them, they’ve shown that from the beginning, but the only thing standing in the way was the network, never allowing them to take the final step. 

So, to answer your question: I think the writers want canon DeanCas because they’ve already shown us that they do.  Take a look at their episodes, at Dabb’s, at Beren’s, at Glynn’s, at Perez’s, at Yockey’s.  They’ve been telling us what’s going on with Dean and Cas for years.

Sure, I’m not in their heads, I guess I don’t know for *sure* that this has been their thought process, but if we put it all together, from the marked shift when Dabb fully took over in s12, to the change right after “Tombstone,” to the new shift, the blatantly romantic shift in season 15, what else is there?

I’ve said for a long time that we, the SPN fandom, are beyond lucky to have the writer’s that we do.  They’re all going to go on to have prolific careers and we were lucky to get them at the end of our little show.  I give them a lot of credit for what we have in the show today.

Just remember, they’ve been telling us in all of s15 who Chuck is.  He says he’s the writer, right?  But a writer who doesn’t have control of his characters?  A writer who wants to do the same ending over and over because it “works”?  That doesn’t sound like a writer, it sounds like a network exec.

They’ve been showing us what they want for years, and the way s15 is going?  I think they may have convinced the network to let us have it.

[bloody-bee-tea]

Joke

This starts out as Xicheng, but they break-up. The endgame is Mingcheng.

When Jiang Cheng steps into the café, he’s calm and collected and he inwardly laughs at his own thoughts, because the only thing he truly is is numb.

But he at least hopes it comes off as calm and collected.

He doesn’t have to be a genius to know why Lan Xichen asked to meet him here, what today’s discussion will be about, and if Jiang Cheng is being honest, he expected it to happen a lot sooner.

Because of course Lan Xichen would want to break up with him. 

It was only a matter of time—always has been, really—and the only truly surprising thing about their relationship besides the fact that Lan Xichen had been willing to enter one, was the fact that he endured Jiang Cheng for this long.

So really, this talk is long overdue.

“Wanyin,” Lan Xichen greets him with a smile when Jiang Cheng finally makes it over to his table and he’s surprised to see that Lan Xichen already ordered his favourite for him.

Jiang Cheng didn’t expect Lan Xichen to waste anything on him anymore, but then again, Lan Xichen is unfailingly polite.

“Xichen,” Jiang Cheng replies as he slides into the booth and for all that he pretends to be calm and collected he can’t quite meet Lan Xichen’s eyes.

“You seem—tense,” Lan Xichen starts with and Jiang Cheng can’t help himself, he snorts into his coffee.

“Shouldn’t I be tense when you call me here to break up with me?” he shoots back, momentarily forgetting that he wanted to come off as calm and collected and when he drags his eyes up to meet Lan Xichen’s gaze, he seems honestly surprised.

“You know?” Lan Xichen breathes out, and he does seem apologetic but it doesn’t change the fact that this will probably be the last time they will ever speak like this.

“Of course I know,” Jiang Cheng scoffs. “I expected it much sooner, to be honest,” he then adds, always unable to keep even a single thought from Lan Xichen and Jiang Cheng only drops his gaze again when he sees Lan Xichen wince.

“Wanyin, don’t,” he pleads and Jiang Cheng knows that this is at least half the reason Lan Xichen is breaking up with him.

His self-deprecation is simply too much for him and Jiang Cheng can’t even fault him for that.

“You are lovable,” Lan Xichen says and it’s a bold enough lie that Jiang Cheng laughs straight in his face.

“Just not enough to be loved by you, right?” he gives back and he knows that he’s making this unreasonably hard on Lan Xichen, but he can’t help himself.

He can never help himself.

“Wanyin, sometimes people just don’t fit together,” Lan Xichen whispers and Jiang Cheng scoffs, because he knows that better than anyone.

He sees that day after day after day with his parents, and in hindsight he should have never gotten together with Lan Xichen.

He’s too much like his father—gentle and soft and peace-loving—and Jiang Cheng is too much like his mother—sharp and cruel and angry.

Their relationship was always doomed.

“You will find someone who is better for you,” Lan Xichen whispers and Jiang Cheng has to give it to him, he almost sounds like he believes it. “You will find love again.”

Jiang Cheng’s mouth twists, because he knows it won’t happen.

It was already a fluke that Lan Xichen fell in love with him; it’s unlikely that Jiang Cheng will get this lucky twice over. 

Sure, Jiang Cheng will fall in love again, eventually, that much he’s certain about—he always did love too easily, too quickly—but the reverse is much harder to come by.

And Jiang Cheng is definitely not going to hold his breath for it.

“Sure,” Jiang Cheng says and then rubs his forehead. 

“Wanyin,” Lan Xichen says and he sounds pained.

“I’m not—it’s okay, Xichen. We both knew this was coming, after all,” Jiang Cheng says with a sigh and a small shrug, because they had known. 

Jiang Cheng even expected this much earlier. 

“I don’t want us to part on bad terms,” Lan Xichen says into his tea and Jiang Cheng even manages a small smile for him.

“We won’t,” he promises, because if they do, it would just be unnecessary hard.

They have to see each other regularly, because of work and because of their brother’s, and if they are constantly fighting that would just put a strain on everyone.

Besides, it’s not like Jiang Cheng can be mad at Lan Xichen for realizing his enormous mistake and getting out of dodge before Jiang Cheng’s temper can erupt and ruin something between them that cannot be repaired.

“Thank you,” Lan Xichen earnestly says and despite how much it hurts, Jiang Cheng knows that he could never be mad at Lan Xichen.

He will need some time, that’s for sure, because he loves Lan Xichen, but he will get over that.

Jiang Cheng dealt with his crush and unreciprocated feelings before. He can do it again.

And when Lan Xichen smiles at him, he knows that it’s worth it.

~*~*~

Love finds Jiang Cheng a little bit quicker again then he expected it to.

But one day he’s hanging out with Nie Huaisang and Nie Mingjue and everything is fine, and then the next day there are butterflies in his stomach when Nie Mingjue laughs.

Jiang Cheng freezes for one second, before he shakes it off.

He’s used to dealing with unattainable crushes-mostly because for him, everyone is unattainable—and he honestly enjoys Nie Huaisang’s and Nie Mingjue’s company too much to let this ruin anything.

Jiang Cheng very deliberately does not think about the fact that by now, those two are like the only friends he has left.

It’s not a thought Jiang Cheng enjoys.

Jiang Cheng excuses himself for a moment nevertheless, pretends that he has to use the bathroom, when really he just needs a moment to let it sink in that he’s in love with Nie Mingjue, and then he very heartfelt says “Fuck me.”

“And here I thought you’d rather have my brother fuck you,” Nie Huaisang suddenly says from the door and Jiang Cheng startles so badly he lets out a little yelp.

“What the fuck, Huaisang!” he hisses, but Nie Huaisang only smiles at him.

“And again, I think you should rather say that to my brother,” he easily says and Jiang Cheng’s stomach drops.

He barely accepted his own crush; he’s not ready for anyone else to know about it.

“No,” Jiang Cheng tries, shaking his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Nie Huaisang gives him a judging look, and despite having to endure Lan Wangji for entire evenings sometimes, no one gives judging looks like Nie Huaisang.

“I saw how you used to look at er-ge,” Nie Huaisang says and Jiang Cheng goes cold. “And I see how you look at da-ge now.”

“I don’t look at him any kind of way,” Jiang Cheng rushes out and then walks past Nie Huaisang to close the door behind him.

“Sure,” Nie Huaisang easily says, but he’s judging Jiang Cheng and his every life-choice and Jiang Cheng knows it.

“How can you even know?” Jiang Cheng desperately says. “How can you possibly know when I just realized it a few moments ago?”

“You always were slow on the uptake,” Nie Huaisang says with a shrug but it’s not unkind, not mean. “You’ve been looking at da-ge like that for a while now.”

Jiang Cheng wants to protest, wants to deny everything but Nie Huaisang silences him with a look.

“Do not even try to play dumb,” he threatens and Jiang Cheng deflates.

“Don’t say anything,” he pleads with Nie Huaisang, because the thought that Nie Mingjue should find out about his feelings is the single most terrifying thought Jiang Cheng has had in his life.

“And why not?” Nie Huaisang says, narrowing his eyes at Jiang Cheng. 

“Because you’re the only friends I have left,” Jiang Cheng whispers. “Because I don’t want to lose this, too.”

He didn’t completely lose Lan Xichen after their break-up, but it was understandably a bit awkward and they never got over that stage. They are polite to each other and are able to do small talk, but that’s about it.

And now that Lan Xichen is dating Jin Guangyao it even got worse, in Jiang Cheng’s opinion, which has a lot to do with Jin Guangyao’s glares, but it didn’t fundamentally change anything.

That change happened before Lan Xichen’s new relationship and so now Nie Huaisang and Nie Mingjue are the only ones Jiang Cheng has left.

Alone for that, he would never say something, the fear to lose this as well too great.

“You’re not going to lose anything,” Nie Huaisang says with a frown. “You would only gain something.”

“And for how long?” Jiang Cheng says with a bitter laugh. “Until I confess and Mingjue regrettably tells me he doesn’t feel the same and then it gets awkward?”

“He might say something different,” Nie Huaisang says, but the thought that Nie Mingjue might reciprocate his feelings makes Jiang Cheng panic almost more than the thought of him saying no.

“And then what? He endures me for a while, before he too realizes that I’m too much? Too angry and too stupid and too sharp and not soft and good enough? You think I want to do that again? If Lan Xichen couldn’t stand me, you think there’s anyone out there who could?”

“I can stand you,” Nie Huaisang says and he honestly sounds a little bit hurt. 

“Yeah, because you can tell me to fuck off when I get on your nerves. It’s different in a relationship, Huaisang. Mingjue would have to endure so much of my shit and he’s not going to like it.”

“You don’t know that,” Nie Huaisang tries, but Jiang Cheng only laughs in his face.

“Please. Not even Wei Wuxian can stand me for longer than a week,” Jiang Cheng says and his mouth twists bitterly when he remembers how Wei Wuxian flees their apartment more often than not lately.

“That’s because he doesn’t know how to properly appreciate you,” Nie Huaisang gives back.

‘There is nothing to appreciate about me’ is already on the tip of Jiang Cheng’s tongue but then he swallows it down.

He’s too tired to have this fight with Nie Huaisang today and so he simply shrugs.

“Just don’t say anything,” Jiang Cheng whispers instead and Nie Huaisang looks about as unhappy as Jiang Cheng feels. “Please,” he adds, when Nie Huaisang doesn’t say anything for the longest time and Nie Huaisang deflates.

“Fine,” he agrees, but he doesn’t seem happy about it at all and Jiang Cheng wonders if this is already enough to break this friendship as well.

He doesn’t know what he’s going to do if it does.

~*~*~

Jiang Cheng is not entirely sure how he ends up with Nie Mingjue kissing him, but he figures it must be a dream. 

A dream now and a nightmare later, when Nie Mingjue inevitably realizes his mistake and that’s the thought that makes Jiang Cheng push Nie Mingjue away.

“Wanyin,” Nie Mingjue says and he looks at Jiang Cheng with such an intense feeling that Jiang Cheng can feel himself blush, but he still shakes his head.

“No,” he gets out and he hates himself a little bit for how his voice shakes. 

“No what?” Nie Mingjue asks, a small frown now on his face and Jiang Cheng gets up from the couch to put some distance between them.

He wants nothing more than to repeat what they just did, but he knows they can’t. Right now there’s still a chance they can somehow salvage this; if they continue then that will be lost as well.

“You’re confused,” Jiang Cheng says and presses his hand to his mouth. “You didn’t mean to do that, I know,” he reassures Nie Mingjue, tries to somehow make this situation more bearable, but he can tell that Nie Mingjue is not convinced by anything he says.

“I’m giving you an out here,” Jiang Cheng hisses when Nie Mingjue tries to reach for him again, and Nie Mingjue shakes his head.

“I don’t want an out, Wanyin,” he says. “I am not confused and I absolutely meant to do that,” Nie Mingjue tells him and Jiang Cheng’s stomach drops.

So it will be like with Lan Xichen; he will be happy for a short while only to lose everything in the end. 

“This is the worst decision you have ever made in your life,” Jiang Cheng tells him and he watches as Nie Mingjue’s face falls.

“You’re not a terrible decision, Wanyin,” Nie Mingjue tells him, but Jiang Cheng shakes his head.

“Of course I am. I am the worst decision. You should ask Xichen all about it, I bet he has many a thing to say about that.”

“Yes, he does, actually,” Nie Mingjue says, and Jiang Cheng was not prepared for how that hurts. “He warned me that it would be hard,” Nie Mingjue goes on, but before he can even properly finish that sentence, Jiang Cheng scoffs.

“If it’s so hard to love me, why even try? Don’t strain yourself on my account,” he hisses out but Nie Mingjue shakes his head.

“He said it would be hard to make you understand. To make you believe that I love you.”

“Hard enough that he’d rather not have anything to do with that at all,” Jiang Cheng presses out. “Maybe you should take his example and get out while you still can.”

“Wanyin, it didn’t work out between you because sometimes it just doesn’t. It has nothing to do with how lovable you are or if Xichen was willing to put in work. Sometimes it’s just not right.”

“And sometimes I’m just too much trouble.”

“No offense, but I think the most trouble in my life is Huaisang,” Nie Mingjue says with a wry smile and it’s surprising enough of a joke that it startles a laugh out of Jiang Cheng. “You’re welcome to try for second place, though.”

Jiang Cheng understands what Nie Mingjue is doing; he’s subtly letting him know that even though Nie Huaisang is the most trouble in his life, Nie Mingjue still values him above everything, but it’s not the same for Jiang Cheng.

There are blood ties tying Nie Mingjue and Nie Huaisang together; it would be different with Jiang Cheng.

“Let me love you,” Nie Mingjue says when Jiang Cheng kept silent for too long. “What’s the worst that can happen?”

There are a billion things that can happen but only one worth speaking out loud: “I’m going to lose you and Huaisang when this inevitably ends.”

“And you think that after everything that already happened we can just go back to normal?” Nie Mingjue curiously asks and Jiang Cheng realizes with a sinking feeling that no matter what Nie Mingjue’s answer to that is, his is no.

Nie Mingjue talked about love; Jiang Cheng will not ever forget that and he will not be able to be just friends.

“Then what’s the harm in trying?” Nie Mingjue asks, clearly reading the thought right off Jiang Cheng’s face. 

“The harm is that I end up with a broken heart again,” Jiang Cheng hisses, but he sees Nie Mingjue’s logic and his self-preservation instinct isn’t strong enough to simply walk away from this now.

“Maybe you’re going to break my heart,” Nie Mingjue says with a shrug. “Or maybe we end up very happy, all hearts unbroken.”

It’s a nice thought, that, but Jiang Cheng thinks it’s highly unlikely that he should end up that lucky.

But  maybe Nie Mingjue is right. Maybe Jiang Cheng should take this chance, even if he does end up unhappy; at least then his pain will have meaning instead of simply breaking everything off now.

“Fine,” Jiang Cheng huffs out after long moments of deliberation but Nie Mingjue shakes his head.

“Fine what? You didn’t yet say how you feel about me,” he says and Jiang Cheng knows him well enough to see the teasing glint in his eyes. 

“Fuck you,” Jiang Cheng says with feeling, but then he steps closer to Nie Mingjue. “You know how I feel.”

“Do I?” Nie Mingjue asks, tilting his head in consideration. “It seems to have slipped my mind. You should remind me.”

Nie Mingjue is already 100% more asshole than Lan Xichen ever was and Jiang Cheng has to admit that he’s delighted by that.

“I’m in love with you,” he admits, almost easily with that new revelation, and Nie Mingjue rewards him with a huge smile and a sweet kiss.

Jiang Cheng figures that this is worth it, just for that combination. 

(When they pass their one, five, ten year anniversary Nie Mingjue very pointedly does not verbally tell him “I told you so”. He saves that up for the wedding.)

Link to my ko-fi on the sidebar!

[rkin413]

All 77 of my current AUs

I’m probably going to instantly regret making this post but it’s four in the morning and also I desperately want to talk to people about these things.

This is just. Copypasted from my AU list page. Some stuff might be outdated in a week. Who knows. Not me.

Star Vs The Forces of Evil:

Monster Carvers (link) - Main Star Vs AU. Stomco endgame + Tom stays with Marco + Star raised by Monsters (specifically Buff Frog). The titular antagonists were originally going to disappear after the prologue what the heck happened???

Pretty Cure vs the Forces of Evil (link) - Exactly What It Says On the Tin, Pretty Cure x Star Vs.

unnamed Pirate AU - Star Butterfly has a perfectly nice, unbearably boring life as a high-class lady, with little to do other than wait to be married to her arranged fiancé that she’s never even met. A week before her wedding she sneaks on board a shipping vessel in the hopes of having an adventure. She gets a little more adventure than she bargained for when the ship is attacked by pirates.

“"Cannon”“ - A cannon-adjacent AU that started as a crossover with Monster Carvers

unnamed Infinity Train AU feat. human!Star and human!Tom.

unnamed Post-Cleaved AU featuring forced humanizations, amnesia, and one small time hiccup. Also Dave and Wrathmelior are missing, so that sucks for Tom.

unnamed AU where Marco goes to live with Tom for a while instead of Star during Lint Catcher

How to Train Your Dragon:

Outsiders (link) - Main HTTYD AU. Instead of watching the entire Berk fleet sail off to their dooms with Toothless, Hiccup and Astrid free the arena dragons and take Toothless while he’s being brought to the ship and then they all get the heck out of dodge. Dagur accidentally set himself adrift with Heather back when they were both small. Snotlout learns the hard way that being the Heir/responsibility kind of really sucks actually??? Stoick has to deal with his son going rouge. And Gobber and the Berk Teenagers have to deal with Stoick and Snotlout respectively.

Modern Riders/Time Travel AU - Modern!Hiccup is dragged by his cousin into an unwanted camping trip with the other riders and one electrical storm later, they find their cell phones aren’t working any more. Also are those flipping dragons?! On Berk, Stoick and the other vikings are shocked to find a group of teenagers in the woods who bear a shocking resemblance to some of the members of a dead generation of children.

Unsevered Bonds - Modern Riders (minus Hiccup) meet a time displaced Hiccup who recognize them as his reincarnated friends, even if they don’t remember their former lives.

How To Train Your Lusus - Everyone are trolls on Alternia. Hiccup is a brownblood who’s probably the only troll in existence to get a second Lusus (Toothless) after his first one (Stoick) is killed. Astrid is an oliveblood that Hiccup is flushed for, Fishlegs is a yellowblood, Snotlout is a blueblood, the Twins, Dagur, and Heather are all purplebloods. Dagur killed both his and Heather’s lusus so now he’s trying to take care of her even though she absolutely hates him (and not in a black way), and he had an unrequited pitch thing for Hiccup at one point before they flipped pale (and are actually Moirails now). That’s pretty much all I have for this one.

unnamed Harry Potter AU - Does not actually take place at Hogwarts. Everyone attends Dumstrang (possibly) and the topic everyone avoids is Care of Magical Creatures, because the local Dark Lord is Drago Bludvist. Main trio is Hiccup, Snotlout (Pureblood cousins), and Fishlegs (Muggleborn)… somehow.

Dragon Gang (link) - Mob/Mafia AU set in the vaguely 1920s in a Fake Country so no one can call me out on inaccurate geography.

Rebuilding Bridges - Set in a Multiverse where RTTE and The Hidden World are mutuality exclusive. (Pt.1): After dealing with Drago but before dealing with Grimmborn, Hiccup and Toothless once fought a witch intent on ‘harvesting’ dragons. Now ten years after the dragons have left her apprentice seeks revenge and kidnaps Zephyr and Nuffink, and a panicked Hiccup and Astrid are contacted by the Very Retired and Very Much Done With This Kid witch. Meanwhile in the RTTE-verse, The Dragon Riders only just got back from informing Berk about Johann’s treachery, when some crazy lady spontaneously appears in the middle of the Edge with two terrified children she intends to feed to dragons. Yeah, that’s not happening.        (Pt.2, spoilers for this AU I guess???): Zephyr and Nuffink and their parents have safely returned to New Berk, but their world has been shaken by what was and could have been. Zephyr and Nuffink, after bonding with Dagur in the other timeline, decide they want to try and help him in theirs. This was perhaps not their best idea. Meanwhile, the Nightlights escape the watchful eye of their parents to go exploring outside the Hidden World, and quickly meet the hatchlings of their dad’s brother! (so… their cousins, then?)

Something Wild (name subject to change) - Several years after Berk (along with most of the Archipelago) is attacked and taken captive by a far more advanced foe, Stoick is able to free most of his people but what he finds when they get manage to regroup back to their island is less than a relief- Berk ravaged and their elderly and children, left behind by their captors, missing. To make matters worse, the dragons are still out there, now with some kind of devils riding and aiding them. Now Stoick, Gobber, and the rest of the people of Berk must find safety and a way to fight back against they’re new foe, find what happened to those who are missing, and figure out who these dragon riders are and whether they’re friend of foe (gee i wonder where the Berkians went and who the dragon riders are golly what a mystery). (aka the feral/semi-feral!dragon riders au i keep trying to create)

Lost (name subject to change) - Alternate attempt at the feral/semi-feral!dragon riders au. Several years before the events of the movie could happen, a raid on Berk not by dragons, but by other people, leads to the destruction of an entire generation when the raiders manage to capture the Teenagers of Berk and ship them away. While in captivity, they meet and ultimately befriend the dragons that in another life would be their partners and together they all escape. Unfortunately, they’re Thor-knows-where, and with no one they can trust (or understand) except each other, getting back to Berk might take a while…

The Lego Movie:

Hero with Two Faces of Yellow - Another ‘Emmet and Rex share a body like Good Cop Bad Cop’ AU

Peacemaker AU - Main Lego AU. About a year after the Duplo aliens attack, Emmet is attacked and presumed dead, but he’s actually been taken by General Mayhem to meet Queen Watevra Wana'bi, who remembered and missed her ‘father’. Later, Rex ends up jumping into an entirely different timeline by accident (this one) and decides to try and play the long game by befriending Emmet, who’s now living in the Systar System. That probably won’t work out for him the way he wanted.

Miraculous Ladybug

MiracuClass Knows AU - Prior to Volpina, each member of the MiracuClass finds out the identities of Ladybug and Chat Noir, and just sort of collectively become their secret keepers. Inspired by Epiphanies by PFTones3582 on Fanfiction.net.

Miraculous Sburb AU - The MiracuClass play Sburb and end up dragging a good chunk of Paris in with them when they enter the Medium. Marinette is a Light player, Adrien is a Doom player, and that’s all I got. Gabriel probably definitely dies.

One Is Silver and the Other Gold - aka the Marikimno Brot3 AU. I headcannon that Marinette, Kim, and Nino were close friends as little kids that drifted apart a few years prior to the start of the show. In this AU, that never happened. Also, Alya becomes Adrien’s best friend instead of Nino, and Nathanel becomes their friend too somehow? (someone help Alya, she’s an extrovert and both her friends have social skill levels in the single digits.)

The Ladybug and the Monkey - Main Miraculous Ladybug AU. My take on the ‘Fu chooses Kim to be the second Miraculous wielder instead of Adrien’ AU that I’ve somehow seen multiple times.

Sleeper Miraculous -  AU where instead of the Miraculous being handed out, they’re transported magically to their wielders after they’ve proved themselves somehow. The Miraculous still need to be ‘activated’ by the Guardian to be used on either a permanent or temporary basis, so Ladybug still has to go to Master Fu at first before she becomes the new Guardian, but she knows literally none of the other members of Team Miraculous’s identities. They have a chat group, too, where Ladybug updates team members on whose Miraculous she’s going to activate, and both Chloe and Kagami never blow their identities. Contains both mild Classmates + (even milder)Adrien salt and sugar. (define irony: wanting to punch someone in the face for being an a-hole only to realize that said a-hole is you).

Miraculous! Pretty Cure! - Another Pretty Cure AU. Yep.

Mesapia AU - Butterfly!Marinette AU with a few twists - 1) instead of just facing the villainous user of the Ladybug Miraculous, all of the Miraculous have been lost to villains (save for the rabbit). Marinette frequently empowers her classmates (+Adrien, who’s still under house-arrest in this AU, Luka, and Kagami) to fight the Miraculous Villains, who are also all fighting each other; and 2) This isn’t so much a Kwami Swap as a Kwami Scramble, no one uses their canon Miraculous here (except for Fu briefly, and Emilie had the peacock before what happened to her)!

Boys vs Girls AU (name subject to change) - Marinette vs Lila with the Boys (+Kagami) on Marinette’s side and the Girls on Lila’s.

Labyrinth - Almost the entirety of the MiracuClass go missing (+Lila, Luka, & Kagami, -Chloe) and on a related note, eight very young children wake up in an ever-shifting, monster-filled underground labyrinth and grow up together. And two of them have some special, appearance-shifting jewelry…

Mad Gabriel - Miraculous Ladybug x Mad Father, starring Adrien as Aya, Marinette as Dio, Gabriel as Alfred Drevis, Nathalie as Maria, and everyone else as the doctor’s victims (Lila is Ines).

Miraculous Royal AU - A fantasy AU starring the MiracuClass (shocker) spread out across three fantasy kingdoms.

Quartz Butterfly AU - AU in which Jagged Stone takes the role of (a significantly nicer but still villainous) Hawkmoth as Quartz Butterfly, with Penny taking on Mayura’s role as Songbird. (yes i know peacocks aren’t songbirds SHHHH).

MiracuTrio AU - AU based on fanofanimation’s submission to terrible-miraculous-ladybug-aus, where Kim becomes a permanent member of the team after Party Crasher.

Mitterlicht - horror-ish AU inspired partially by various horror games, Lucidstuck, and Underbright (no, really).  After receiving their Miraculous for the first time, the temporary heroes start having less-than-restful nights. Things quickly go from bad to worse when fragmented, panic-inducing dreams turn into nightly (and solitary) trips into a dark world full of monsters that want to take something referred to just as their ‘light’- a bright light that acts as both a beacon to the hostile creatures and the only way to return to consciousness every night -which just so happen to be in the exact spot (and in many cases, are also vaguely the same shape) of their Miraculouses.

Mirakatsu - Aikatsu AU

Ladybug: Don’t Deal With Hawkmoth - (aka the result of listening to the Cuphead Rap Battle 50 million times) Cuphead AU where Ladybug and Chat Noir have to go around beating up akumas and collecting their butterflies to avoid getting akumatized by Hawkmoth.

Miracle Thieves - a phantom/gentleman thief au where Marinette and Adrien (who have been thieves for years) unwittingly steal a pair of magical artifacts and decide to team up afterwards. Includes Fox!Nino, Journalist-determined-to-expose-their-identities!Alya, and possibly Tiger!Markov.

Homestuck:

unnamed AU inspired by To Live a Normal Life

unnamed Harry Potter AU

Merged Sessions AU - An AU where our favorite trolls and the Beta Kids are all part of the same session

Same Side of the Scratch AU - AU where the Beforus Trolls replace the Alternian ones, and when both sessions get scratched the Alternian Trolls end up in communication with the Alpha Kids

Same Side, Same Session AU - Combines both of the two immediately above AUs, The Beta Kids and Beforus Trolls have a session together that fails and gets Scratched, then the Alternians and Alphas play the game together while the pre-scratch players (all alive) travel to their session and have Meteorstuck Shenanigans.

Relief Was Just a Dream (name subject to change) - aka the mandatory Troll Rebellion AU, inspired by a fic I don’t remember the name of on A03. Sweeps after Karkat and Feferi are (seemingly) culled, Ace Legislacerator Terezi Pyrope -one of the best despite knowing she’s one wrong move away from being culled for her disability- is called in to investigate a series of traitorous attacks on more and more ships. Weirdly, the trolls seen most in the attacks don’t even seem to exist, all seem to bleed a painfully familiar cherry red, and have powers that even Her Imperial Condescension doesn’t seem to have. (not a no-game au)

Freetime AU (name subject to change) - AU where Bro leaves Dave on Dad Egbert’s doorstep, and Dave and John grow up as brothers.

Megaman:

Pokemon Network - Hub lives Pokemon AU with at least two protagonist teams. Team A: Lan, Hub, Mayl, Dex & Yai in Kanto. Team B: Roll, Glyde, Gutsman (Gus) in Kalos. What are Chaud and Protoman/Blues up to? ~Secrets~

Sailor Moon:

Inverse Corruption - When Beryl scours the Earth looking for her reincarnated generals she fails to find them, but she does manage to find the senshi instead. Sailor Moon has to unknowingly face the very girls who were supposed to protect her, fighting side-by-side with the Shitennou instead. (the boys are highschoolers to the girls middleschoolers)

Hazbin Hotel:

Infernal Relations - Why did Lucifer and Lilith wait so long to have a child? Simple; they didn’t. Unbeknownst to Charlie, her parents both had and lost a child thousands of years before she was born, a fact that will have far more of an effect on her hotel than she could possibly realize (even if she had known).

Apprentice Charlie AU - AU where Charlie gets into a fight with Lucifer and leaves before she ever thinks to create her hotel and Alastor ends up finding amusement by taking on an apprentice. (inspired by Helluva Teacher by Sol_Victoria on A03)

Phineas and Ferb:

Cursed Cats AU - AU based on the song Black Cats of Halloween. Phineas, Ferb, and their friends are cursed by a demon who turns them into black cats, save for on Halloween night. They’re then thrown into a world of magic and have to find each other, their way back home, and a way to break their curse, preferably in that order.

Danganronpa:

Online Gamer AU - no one dies/non-despair AU where no one is a super/ultra highschool level anything, no one has met each other in person, and they all play Among Us together. Junko always dies first and she’s low-key going to hurt someone over it.

unnamed AU where the murders of the killing game happen differently (aka the mandatory dr au)

unnamed AU inspired by ask-the-dr-reset-kids - After an incident that forces Hope’s Peak to temporarily close it’s doors, Class 78 all transfer to a different school. Junko is in jail, Mukuro is coping, Izuru is looming somewhere, the Ultimate Despair are waiting like sleeper agents to cause the The Most Despair Inducing Event in History, and Makoto is straight up not having a good time (and has very good reasons not to tell anyone).

unnamed AU where both Class 77 and Class 78, including both Junko and Mukuro but without Chiaki end up playing the Killing Game together.

Double Mastermind AU - similar to the above, both Class 77 and Class 78 wake up one day with no memories of their school lives. They’ll have to work together, somehow, to find out where they are, how to get back to civilization, and how to get back their memories. Meanwhile in the control room, Makoto and a sort-of-but-not-really-reformed Junko are working together as the Masterminds behind the mystery. Well, Makoto’s working, anyway. Junko just kind of wants to give Makoto daily migraines. Contains Junko/Makoto hateshipping.

unnamed Taka Lives AU where instead of switching roles with Hiro during the third trial he just manages to survive the murder attempt. He does not, however, get out unscathed…

another unnamed Taka Lives AU where Makoto, at Kyoko’s urging, decides to stay with Kiyondo the night he would have died, throwing a huge wrench into the would-be-blackeneds’ plans.

Asassain!Makoto AU: The Killing School Life - an au where Makoto is secretly the Ultimate Assassin.

Assasain!Makoto AU: The Killing Mystery - au that’s basically the one directly above but takes place in a non-despair (or maybe averted despair would be more accurate) timeline. After receiving and turning down a job to assassinate a certain up-and-coming politician, The Black Mask (Makoto) alerts his would-be victim, an old former friend, that someone is out for his life.

Remnants of Hope AU - AU that takes place after the end of School Mode, with the class not being picked up by the future foundation right away. (does this. does this actually qualify as an au i’m not sure.)

unnamed Class Swap AU

unnamed AU where Makoto and Kiyotaka are brainwashed into Ultimate Despair in addition to Class 77. Contains both sweet and very effed up Naeishi, as well as Despair!Makoto+Izuru friendship (or as close as Izuru can get, anyway). Technically another 2 (or 3, sort of) masterminds au.

Soulmates AU - In a world where most people are colorblind until meeting their soulmate, Makoto Naegi walks into Hope’s Peak Academy colorblind, blacks out, and wakes up to color. As it turns out, the same thing happened to everyone else!

Scrapbook AU - After entering into Hope’s Peak Academy, Makoto started a scrapbook/photo album of himself, his classmates, and eventually even the class above his own during their time on and off school. It soon became a class diary of sorts after being discovered, shared among everyone… then a chronicle of the events leading up to Class 77 going missing, The Tragedy starting, and Class 78 sealing themselves inside the school bunker, before returning to it’s original purpose as Class 78 lived inside their homemade bunker. In canon, Junko found and burned it. In this timeline, it’s an amnesiac Makoto and his classmates who find it, hidden under the floor in Makoto’s room.

Amnesia AU - A boy wakes up in a school(?) with no memories of where he is, how he got here, or even who he is. As it turns out, there are fourteen other people here… and all of them have the same memory loss he does! (may or may not be an IF Bad End AU)

Polychain AU - Another different Victims and Blackends au, that extends well beyond the original Killing Game. The Tragedy occurs very differently in this one… initially. Also features Junko escaping after the Killing Game, and Hajime and Shuichi being half-brothers and kids of the survivors.

Unnamed AU where Leon and Taka also attended Makoto and Sayaka’s middle school.

Ghost AU - After being killed, the victims and blackened are forced to stick around and watch the Killing Game happen, believing they'll be allowed to move on after they leave. Turns out, they're very much wrong- but at least after it's over their classmates can see them! Too bad they're the only ones.

Teachers Assistant AU - inspired by a fic I don’t remember the name of on fanfiction.net. After Nagito blows up a building and gets suspended, Chisa is forced to take a Teacher’s Assistant or be fired. Somehow, a very reluctant Makoto gets the job, despite being in the class below her own. Cross-class shenanigans ensue.

Unnamed Timetravel AU inspired by a fic I don’t remember the name of on fanfiction.net where Makoto and Alter Ego, the only survivors of the Killing Game, are sent back in time to Makoto’s first day attending Hope’s Peak - Makoto mentally and Alter Ego physically. Not as dark as the premise sounds, at least theoretically.

Crossover

Dagla!Adrien AU - Adrien isn’t the son of Gabriel and Emilie Agreste, but instead his parents are a Modern Dagur and Mala. He still works for Gabriel as a model, but otherwise has had a very different upbringing (most notably the inclusion of a lot of people who have cared about him for his entire life, such as his best friend Zephyr Haddock) and acts more like Chat Noir both with and without the mask. He still befriends his canon friends, becomes Chat Noir, and falls in love with Ladybug. (HTTYD x Miraculous Ladybug)

unnamed Adventure Time x Star Vs AU

Miracutale - Lila pushes Marinette down a hole, Adrien tries to catch her but fails. Undertale ensues. (Miraculous Ladybug x Undertale)

Sailor Bella (name subject to change) - AU inspired by some art from Turning-the-Tides, Princess Serenity reincarnates not into Usagi Tsukino, but Isabella Garcia-Shapiro, and her Senshi are reincarnated into the boys. I have no idea who Endymion became if he exists at all in this AU. (Sailor Moon x Phineas and Ferb)

unnamed three-way crossover between Harry Potter, Miraculous Ladybug, and How to Train Your Dragon.

unnamed Steven Universe x Undertale AU - After returning from the Jungle Moon, Steven and Connie end up stranded in an alternate timeline where they meet what appears to be another half-gem going by the name of False Topaz (Frisk). Things get a little more tricky when it turns out that gems and humans coexist somewhat… on one side of a giant, seemingly uncross-able mountain range live humans, on the other gems, and after a war between the two a few centuries ago, both cultures have a kill on sight policy. To make things more complicated, gems seem to be very different in this timeline. (note: Frisk is not actually a gem, just disguised as one)

unnamed Undertale x Star Vs AU - There’s a new face at the Silver Bell Ball - Frisk, heir and ambassador for the Kingdom of… Monsters?! Star and Frisk are quick to befriend each other, but despite that, Star can’t help but feel that Frisk doesn’t like her… And Frisk may have more than one secret to share… or maybe to keep.

unnamed Miraculous Ladybug x Danganronpa AU - The Worst Most Despair Inducing Event In History was localized to Japan (but the effects are spreading), and the six survivors of Hope’s Peek, aided by Kagami’s father, whom Byakuya naturally has connections to, immigrate to France to pick up the pieces of their lives. Meanwhile in France, Ms. Bustier’s class gain five new transfer students after the events of Miracle Queen.

Games -  (everything)

Wild Things - (everything)

[prince-toffee]

I don’t care if the character is good. I care if the character is interesting. I don’t know where the morality police came from, I don’t know why people try to justify actions of villains, I don’t know why all characters need to be good. I don’t care if they’re justified, or right. ‘Do I care when they’re on screen?’ is the right question. The character can be a pure saint, but what does it matter if they’re pure good if they’re boring to watch? I love villains, love, love, love villains, but if a villain is just... boring, then what the hell is the point of even showing them on screen?!

For me spop is a prime example of this. I’m sorry, I really am, but I don’t care about... anything in that show, except for Hordak, Entrapta, and maybe Shadow Weaver. The Princesses do nothing for me. This one’s the sassy one, this one’s the hippie one, this one’s the blue one, again. I don’t care. I’m sorry. We learn nothing about them! We have no flashbacks, no lore, nothing! Show me Mermista’s father. The Whispering Woods are apparently sentient, can Perfuma talk to it? Show me how Frosta’s parents died, and give her a consistent personality. In her bio it says Netossa doesn’t have a kingdom, why? Show us Spinerella’s kingdom. Show me Entrapta’s backstory, her parents, her childhood, explore her kingdom! I’m interested, show me more! Show me The First Ones, they’re evil or something right? That was the plot twist, right? I think? Why weren’t we shown a satisfying and fulfilling climax where Adora kicks their asses? Show me George’s past battling against the Horde. Angella is immortal according to her bio, maybe. Show me that!

This show is bone dry! No meat! This show somehow manages to be empty and slow and drag while also going at break neck speeds. The only character I can’t complain about, who is my favourite Princess is Glimmer. Glimmer is great, I love Glimmer. Not s1-3 Glimmer, s4 Glimmer. Compromised Glimmer. For three seasons Glimmer was just another Princess, Adora’s best friend. But after Angella dies, then it gets fascinating. Glimmer has the responsibilities of Queen thrust apon her, and all those lines spoken in season 3 are paid off, Glimmer slowly becomes her mother even though she doesn’t want to be, she doesn’t want to be a coward, she wants to be at the frontlines helping her friends. And that pressure forces her to consult Shadow Weaver and go down a darker path. Her rise to power paralleling Catra that season, and then her descent catalysed by desire for power paralleling Shadow Weaver who forges the same relationship with her as with Micah, it’s all great. Glimmer wants to, is responsible for, protecting her kingdom, the whole world and as the Horde grows in power she feels the need to use increasingly more drastic measures to protect everyone.

Glimmer isn’t at her best in this season, but she is the most interesting at this point. And then in s5 she likes Bow I guess. The Mara Razz stuff is also pretty interesting, but that was in s4 and by that point I was just turning off my brain. I kinda feel like s4 was a filler season.

And then, when I’m given so little, we get to Hordak. And he, I cannot stress this enough how much this means to me even though it is the bare minimum, he has a flashback, an artistic, stylised flashback! With a thematic colour palette. With a tease that will be paid off, of our endgame bad guy. A flashback that tells us about the character’s backstory, about the lore of the universe, about themes that are relevant to the whole meaning behind the character and to the conversation he and Entrapta are having in that moment. We see the world from his perspective, we don’t agree with him, but we understand him. And guess what? That scene wasn’t even originally meant to be apart of the episode! Because of course it wasn’t! Because spop is the definition of white bread!

Fuck! Shadow Weaver does it even better! She has an entire episode dedicated to her, and it’s all a flashback, it’s amazing, we see her younger, we see what makes her go down a darker path, we see a meaningful relationship between her and Micah, we see LORE, LORE, LORE, I LOVE LORE, it’s lore that makes no sense timeline-wise, and complicates everything even more without expanding or explaining anything, and not paying it off later, but at least it’s something. I love Shadow Weaver, from her design, which is perfection to her voice which is gorgeous to her actions and writing which is marvellous. I love this irredeemable pure evil disney stepmother because she’s interesting, she’s fascinating! She steals every scene she’s in! Shadow Weaver is the best character in this entire show. I can’t stress how amazing Weaver is, and we all slept on her. I swear she’s like the only competent character in this entire show. She’s refreshing.

And to show you that I’m not just an edgy loser that hates heroes because they’re dumb and villains rock, I’ll say this. Not even Horde Prime is as interesting as those two. He’s this universe conquering monster that is pure evil and that is right up my alley, I should love him.... but I don’t. He sucks. He’s nothing. I feel nothing. I’m not intrigued, not interested, not captured. You know why? Because he’s a reskinned Princess. He’s not important, he doesn’t matter, he’s a cardboard cut out. He alludes to somethings that may or may not have happened in the past, we never see any of it. He’s like a weird Catradora shipper for some reason? He’s this super powerful monster that destroyed planets, he conquered half the universe, he brainwashes half our main cast, and the planet, and yet... I feel nothing... because deep down you know... that this is the last season and the hero will win and there will be no lasting ramifications, and if there will be we won’t see it. Oh no he couldn’t trace them because the ship blah blah blah. Fuck you. Sucks. The heroes are untouchable, he’s not scary, he’s incompetent, oh so you can just mind control people? and you didn’t do that right away, why? He’s stupid. And yeah Hordak is stupid too, but Hordak has a backstory and a love interest and thematic meaning, unexplored, but it’s there. Prime has nothing. I don’t know who or what he is. He’s an after thought. And what contributes to me not giving a fuck is the fact that s5 as a whole is terrible and it rots my brain, and I turned off my brain as I skimmed that season, I blacked out.

Anyway back to Hordak and Weaver. It’s strange when we get to them, because Hordak, in particular, is so unimportant and is so separated from the rest of the show, it feels like he’s in a completely different show from the rest of the cast. Even Weaver is important, she’s directly connected to Adora and more importantly Catra. Hordak? Sure his actions matter to the plot, his backstory and his lore matter to the plot, but he himself doesn’t matter. Sure the portal is the catalyst for the s3 finale and it calls Prime, the clone trauma is important to Catra’s arc in s5, but Hordak the person, is unimportant, Hordak the individual doesn’t matter. He’s less then a side character. He’s so disconnected from the entire show. He feels like he’s in a completely different show. Which strangely enough was welcoming for me. It felt like I could just like Hordak and Entrapta in that small corner of the fanon over there, away from all the drama. Hordak, from his design to his personality to his existing backstory, was so different and stood out from amongst the crowd.

At first it was wow this guy looks cool I’ll proceed to theorise what he’s about, and then when we actually got a story behind him at first I was disappointed, but I quickly began digging into the potential of it and you couldn’t stop me. An exiled and shunned clone with a genetic disease who wishes to prove himself to an uncaring god, his mental state is so fascinating to pick apart, don’t tell this isn’t the most interesting thing in this show... I don’t know what the conclusion of this cluster fuck is.

i hate wrong hordak

[everlarkficexchange]

must work hard, tolerate cats.

Prompt 140: In Panem AU where Peeta is a Mail Order Husband. As the youngest son of a merchant class Capitol family, he has accepted he will never inherit the family bakery. But when his family contract him to an arranged marriage to further the business he will never own, he escapes by signing up to a programme to relocate and marry a district woman. Why Katniss needs a husband, is up to the author. Everlark endgame :) [submitted by @louezem] by @mendontprotectyou/lesbianophelia

The Everdeen women pick him up at the train station. As promised in the letter he received, Katniss is wearing a blue dress. She’s sure by his standards, it’s simple, but it’s actually the nicest thing she and her sister own. Not that there’s a lot of money to spend on stupid things like clothes. Just a few years ago, she would have been wearing this to a Reaping. Not to meet her husband. 

God. Her husband. She still isn’t sure Prim will survive to the end of the week for what she’s done. The worst thing is, Prim is right. There’s no other way to claim the Apothecary. One of them has to be married, and Katniss absolutely won’t let it be her eighteen year old sister. That doesn’t mean she wanted her to go off and pick a husband for her. Let alone one from the Capitol. Peeta Mellark. That’s his name. Apparently he comes from a long line of merchants – something that Prim is certain will work in their favor. Rich assholes from the Capitol who ran a chain of bakeries. Katniss really isn’t sure how that translates into him being any help at all at the Apothecary, but then – she isn’t really sure how she’s supposed to be much help at the Apothecary, either. It’s theirs, though. It belongs to them, rightfully. That’s what Prim keeps saying. It would have from the beginning, if their grandmother hadn’t so hated the joy her mother found with their coal miner father. And Prim is such a natural healer, and with their mother so recently dead in the war, isn’t this such a wonderful way to honor them? A wonderful way to honor them that apparently includes Katniss marrying some random asshole from the Capitol. Great. He kisses the back of her hand and she yanks it away before she can help herself. They’re in public, and they’ll need to be convincing in the Justice Building tomorrow, but also, god, she doesn’t want him to be touching her. He’s fine enough looking, she guesses. Medium height, stocky, blond hair. He’s got what’s clearly at least three holes in each ear from piercings he was clever enough not to wear to District Twelve, and the shirt he’s got rolled up around his forearms is probably made of fine enough fabric to keep them all in bread for a week. “Katniss,” he says, and his accent twists the name, makes it so much longer than it needs to be. “It’s so nice to meet you,” he says. “And you must be Prim. Pleasure.” His smile doesn’t quite meet his eyes. She doesn’t trust him. Not even a little bit. “So, is the Toasting–” She can’t help the absurd bark of laughter that escapes her. “We’re not Toasting,” she says, and something in his eyes lights, just a little. “Sorry to disappoint,” Katniss doesn’t feel sorry, but it escapes anyway, just manners. “I read–” “Katniss doesn’t need a husband,” Prim is explaining, something genuinely remorseful in her tone. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to say so in the letter, but it’s why I talked about the Apothecary so much.” “You wrote the letter?” Peeta asks, and Katniss is struck by how open he looks, suddenly. As if she would have written those letters. Or the ad in the first place. Must work hard, tolerate cats. “Wait– so if you don’t need a husband–” “I need to be married.” Katniss’s voice is flat. They probably shouldn’t be getting into this right away, on their walk to the house in the Seam that they’ll probably get to leave tomorrow, assuming he goes along with this. “To get the store. And we need –” She cuts herself off, hating that she admitted to needing anything. “You could work with us. For us.” “I –” it’s obvious that he’s attempting to work this out. “Not – you don’t want a husband?” he asks, and there’s something in his voice that she can’t place, not at all. Not until a smile breaks across his face like butter across hot toast. “Okay.” It’s a full grin, now. “That’s – I can work with that.” … 

  He can do much more than work with that. By the time Katniss wakes the next morning, Peeta has gone to the Justice Building by himself. She wants to be irritated by the nerve when he slides what’s obviously a deed across the breakfast table, but it’s – oh. It’s in her name. Well. His name, too. Looks like he decided to change from Mellark to Everdeen. “Aren’t we supposed to be married for a week first?” Katniss asks, tracing her fingers against the embossed seal. “Yeah.” Peeta bites his bottom lip. “But I – uh. People tend to listen to me. Sometimes.” She hopes he doesn’t think he ought to get used to that. … 

  Her objections to a Capitolite husband begin to feel more and more stupid as the days drag on. Peeta doesn’t talk much about the Capitol, maybe because he knows Katniss doesn’t actually care, but she overhears him mentioning something to Prim about how he used to work twelve to sixteen hour days at his family’s bakeries. Of course he’s telling Prim and not her. Because she tries not to be alone with him if she can help it. He’s polite, but she hasn’t been exactly warm to him and he hasn’t seemed to care much, which seems odd for someone who was so prepared to come and have a Toasting. One night, in the darkness of the bedroom, Prim lays in the bed beside her and shares everything she knows about the man who lives with them. Starting with his family being horrible and ending with him making the decision that marrying some random District girl would be better than marrying the woman his parents picked for him, a woman from a long line of Gamemakers. It explains enough, she guesses. Why he was so relieved that Katniss didn’t want a husband. Why he’s so willing to work. And work, and work, and work. He never even complains, though she’s always waiting for him to crack and mention how irritated he was to have to haul the new delivery back from the train station. But he doesn’t. He even builds new shelves one weekend, sturdy and reinforced, and packs everything from the boxes onto them before either of the Everdeen women are down the stairs in the morning. Prim launches herself at him, hugging him so hard that it must hurt, and then he’s laughing, sharing pastries from the bakery next door – which he’s apparently set up a trade deal with – and telling them all about when he saw a cake stand go crashing to the ground because it wasn’t steady enough. And then he passes the bag to Katniss when all that’s left is the lonely cheese bun he managed to trade for and says, “Here. Your favorite.” And she can’t look away from him the rest of the day, try as she might. 

  …

  None of the Townie girls can, either. And she’s surprised, one day, to realize just how much that bothers her. It shouldn’t. Business is booming. It’s better than she ever expected it to be. “Do you get lonely?” she asks one night when she finds him still awake in the middle of the night, a mug of tea cupped loosely in his hand. “It just – doesn’t seem like you have friends.” He laughs softly. “Doesn’t seem like you have many of those, either,” he says. And she wants to be annoyed, she does, but instead she finds herself smiling. “Yeah,” she says. “But I have my sister.” “I think, technically, I do too,” he says, and before she can be too horrified, he clarifies. “She’s my sister-in-law, right?” “Oh.” Katniss shifts her weight. “Okay.” … “This is a good life,” Peeta says one evening. They’re out on the porch, watching the sunset. Prim went inside to get a drink of water. “It’s – better. Than what I left.” She’d like to be prideful. To hate him for lying to her, or something. But there’s something in the way he looks at her that tells her that this is the truth. Her hand finds his, and she’s somehow unsurprised when it flips over beneath her palm, large fingers threading in the spaces between hers. It’s nice, somehow. He’s nice, somehow. “It’s a good life,” Katniss agrees, half wondering if he might ever want to kiss the back of her hand again, the way he did when they met. “I used to work so much longer days, in the Capitol–” he starts, but she’s already worked up the nerve to say the next thing, and it falls out of her mouth before she can stop it. “You should take me out, sometime. On a date. That would be – I think I wouldn’t mind.” He squeezes her fingers, just softly. “I think I wouldn’t, either.” 

[hand-crushing-crusher]

BAKUDEKU FIC REC 

Hey all! Quarantine has been dragging on, so here are some BKDK fics to fill your time.

All fics are completed works unless the [∆] symbol is next to it. Please note there will be no ABO fics in this rec, just cause I made a seperate list for that HERE

Enjoy!

1. ∆ The Space Between by Kanae_vR

Holding his expensive camera tightly between his hands, Midoriya Izuku looked up at the once-white letters displayed on the black storefront banner. “The Hard Luck Bar,” he murmured to himself, unsure if he was getting ready to enter or flee.

Amateur photographer Midoriya Izuku is stuck in a rut and desperate for a change of pace. Deep in his city's grimy underbelly, he finds exactly what he's looking for in the form of an underground punk sensation on the verge of their big break, fronted by a foul-mouthed firework of a human being.

Loud, brash and passionate, Izuku may have just found the creative spark he needed, as well as something new to set his soul ablaze.

2. Album Title in Progress by bkdkink

"I mean, technically, sure. Anyone able to sing can sing. But am I good at it?" Deku left the pen alone so he could gesture as though he was weighing two different invisible objects. "...Yeah, I'm okay."

Now that got a chuckle out of Katsuki.

"I wouldn't call that just 'okay'." -- OR; Izuku's singing makes Katsuki realize sex is Real™ and uses those feelings to make a bomb-ass(lol get it? cuz his quirk is...) album while also helping a self-doubting Izuku realize how fire his mixtape is.

3. After Hours by Morpheel

Dialing a wrong number was no unusual occurrence. Everyone did it once in a while, and Katsuki was well aware of that fact.

However, possessing this knowledge made it no less aggravating for him to discover — a full two minutes into his rant about his day — that he’d been venting his frustrations to a complete stranger. As if that wasn't enough, said stranger was also inexplicably determined to hear his story to its end.

4. While You Were Sleeping by Belkacaramelka (annabelleg)

The one where quirkless fanboy Midoriya Izuku rescues Pro Hero Todoroki Shouto, gets mistaken as his fiancé while he is in a coma, and gets caught up in the most unlikely fake engagement... until his childhood enemy and Todoroki's classmate Bakugou Katsuki tries to catch him out, and they both end up discovering a lot more about each other than they'd expected.

Quirkless AU based on the film; endgame BakuDeku. -- Katsuki didn’t know when the change had happened: how he had gone from asking why Todoroki chose Deku of all people, to wondering why it was Todoroki that Deku chose. Troublesome Deku, who cooed like an idiot at cats, tripped at a random catcall and sang badly. Who, despite everything, proved that it wasn’t the quirk that defined a person. Deku, who was too much, not his, and undeniably off limits to begin with.

5. ∆ Hummingbird Heartbeat by Tokiji

“The knife went through his fucking chest, Kirishima.” Katsuki spat his name into his face, mouth twisting into a vicious snarl, teeth and all. “You know that's where his heart is, right? And his fucking lungs? All the vital shit?”

Kirishima blanched. “I-I know, I just meant—”

“What, you mean to tell me that your stupid fuckin’ ass is so ignorant to forget that he lost a shit ton of blood, hah?! Yeah, it was a flippin’ knife wound, oh hoo-ray, but look at the nerd now! He’s fucking dying because of it!”

6. Addiction by MiraChaDoodles

An abundance of freckles smatters his sun-tanned cheeks, and dark green waves curl around his face. But Katsuki gets hung up at his eyes. They’re huge and green, innocent and filled with tears, just li—

Wait.

Holy shit.

Is that... Deku?

---

Or... the first time that Katsuki gets off to a porno, Deku turns out to be the star.

7. In Another Life by hollyandvice (hiasobi_writes)

Katsuki's never been one for gentle words, but from the wild panic in Deku's face, he knows this is the time for it.

"Deku—" The weapon presses a little harder against Katsuki's forehead and he stops, getting his bearings. "Fine. Midoriya, then. Look. I'm not going to hurt you. I swear. I'm just looking for some answers I'm hoping you can provide."

After a battle gone awry leaves Katsuki stranded, he seeks out one of the few people he really trusts: Deku. Except when he finds his hero partner, he looks completely different, and the first thing he does is put a gun to Katsuki's forehead. So that's different.

Canon-divergent future fic where Katsuki gets sent to a parallel universe during a villain battle. One where Izuku's a cop instead of a pro hero, and Katsuki himself has been dead since middle school. In a world that's different enough to be strange and similar enough to be familiar, Katsuki does whatever it takes to find his way home.

8. F.U. by warschach

Izuku smiled; Katsuki understood why people warned that the devil wore a Sunday hat and fine clothes because deception worked better if no one expected it.

Not anymore. He knew Izuku’s evil ways, and his ass might be a 20 on the hotness meter but Katsuki held grudges.

“Izuku,” he sneered; he too could be evil right back.

(or Katsuki's a football player; Izuku's a cheerleader; they have a rivalry until it isn't one)

9. Oh My God They Were Roommates by Maginot

Bakugou had really, actually moved in with Deku.

They were roommates.

Oh my god, they were roommates.

In which Bakugou's hero insurance bills seem to climb with every explosion he makes, and Izuku happens to have an extra bedroom and an absurd amount of patience for his childhood best friend.

10. And It All Keeps Coming Back to You by GuardianMira

Ground Zero and Deku are the world's top two heroes, constantly knocking each other out of the number one spot. Their rivalry keeps them both sharp, and while Katsuki would prefer to be the undisputed champion, he’s not unhappy.

The thing is, he’s still a virgin. It’s not like he’s shy. He just doesn’t want to waste his time with people who aren’t good enough for him. But he’s admittedly let his personal life fall by the wayside so that he could focus on being a big damn hero. Anyway, now that he’s finally thinking about it, it’s clear there’s only one person who’s worthy of being with him. His oldest friend. His rival. His permanent pain in the ass. The only hero alive who comes close to being Ground Zero’s equal: Deku.

[kyogre-blue]

You know, when I first started trying to finish up Shippuden and saw all the salty discourse, I thought that it was fair, sure, for people to have set their expectations based on what was given earlier in the series, but that it was also unsurprising and maybe even understandable that Kishimoto would ultimately change directions and settle for something simpler for the ending. 

The thing is... I was too generous. Kishimoto did change directions, but he also kept dragging out his old ideas way after they were no longer applicable, or even outright detrimental to what he was writing now. 

What I mean by this:

1) Why does everyone complain about the broken aesop about hard work? I’ve see some people say that, well, hard work was never a real aesop in the series, of course it isn’t ultimately supported. 

But the story itself keeps bringing up hard work! Even as late as Naruto’s meeting with Hagoromo. The story has long since moved to super powers by destiny and the new moral thrust is about “gaining power by connecting with others” and cooperation. This is pushed all over the Obito fight and is also explicitly the difference between Ashura and Indra. Ok, fine. It’s fine in itself. 

AND YET Hagoromo still talks about how Ashura had the support of others AND “hard work” at least twice. This is completely inapplicable at this point, but Kishimoto still wrote it in, more than once. Of course no one can let it go, because he can’t either. 

2) Why are people so surprised and resistant to NH as the endgame? It’s a... fairly obvious pairing, all things considered, yeah. 

But Naruto is still fishing for NS even after his last ever manga interaction with Hinata. I’m completely serious. Even after Neji is dead, Naruto still tells his dad that Sakura is his girlfriend, and Minato compares her to Kushina, meta-referencing Kushina’s words to Naruto to find a girl like her. 

That’s blatant ship tease! Of the wrong ship! And NH never speak again in the manga! Like... why... At this point, Kishimoto had to have known what his endgame was. They would have probably started production of The Last or something by then. And yet he still baited the wrong ship for literally no reason. 

3) Why does everyone harp on about the shinobi system not being fixed? I like these meta, but I kind of expected it wasn’t that big a deal that the series didn’t really end on anything meaningful for that. I mean, 9 out of 10 JRPG will have something about racism, discrimination, corruption of those in power, broken systems, etc. But when they end on you fighting god, it’s not generally considered a problem. 

You guessed it, it’s because Kishimoto brings it up all the way to Madara’s death (literally two fights away from the end), and it’s never addressed properly. 

Sasuke’s nonsensical plan and reasoning are at least kept vague enough to obscure what issues he’s referring to. He’s just mad at the world and wants to get rid of hatred without anything specific being said about where it’s coming from. That whole dialogue is a mess in other ways, but it’s almost smart of Kishimoto to not go into the shinobi system stuff anymore. 

Too bad he didn’t apply that to Madara (or Obito, for that matter). Literally immediately before he’s shanked by Kaguya, Madara reiterates why he thinks the world is unfixable and he even get a montage of how correct he is, how things are still terribly broken even generations after Hashirama, who was apparently the only one to ever try to change things in a meaningful way. A montage!

This is never addressed. At all. Naruto twists Obito around to talking about giving up dreams and the memory of his comrades (???) which has nothing to do with the actual issues, and then no one ever bothers replying to Madara in any way at all. And then he dies. 

Bro, he was already totally gone on the whole savior of the world thing. Why underline how he had a point? What was the reasoning? 

Of course no one can let it go if you do that??

[samsexualdeancurious]

Hold on Tight (You Know She’s a Little Bit Dangerous) (NSFW)

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Words: 2,832

Prompt: Post-Endgame. Sam drags Bucky to a bar to try and cheer him up, and they run into one of Sam's old military buddies.

Warnings: Unprotected sex (wrap it up, kids)

Written for @saxxxology for her September 2019 Angel request

Title from Dangerous by Roxette

Betaed by @mrsimoshen

---

If there’s one thing that hasn’t changed that much over the many decades Bucky’s been alive, it’s bars. Low lighting, the buzz of conversation broken by someone who’s either a happy or an angry drunk, music that could probably be turned down a few notches. It’s a little warmer than he would like, with his long sleeves and single glove to cover his arm. Sure, the technology has improved and Bucky doesn’t really recognize most of the brands on the shelves behind the bar, but the vibe is the same. Something about that is kind of comforting, even though a bar is probably the absolute last place he wants to be tonight.

“Two of whatever’s on tap for me and my buddy,” Sam is saying to the bartender as the two men slide onto stools. Two beers in tall glasses are pushed towards them a few minutes later.

Bucky might not particularly want to be here but he can’t deny that a beer might be exactly what he needs tonight and he accepts the glass when Sam nudges it toward him. He tries for a small smile - it feels more like a grimace - before taking a sip. It’s decent. Not his favorite beer in the world - his favorite doesn’t exist anymore - but he doesn’t mind it too much.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in!”

A woman has appeared on the stool on Sam’s other side, all bright smiles and brighter eyes. How anyone can be so happy, Bucky has no idea, but she’s pulling it off and doing so well. Somehow her presence isn’t overwhelming at all.

“Y/N!” Sam says, leaning over to give her a one-armed hug. “Long time, no see!”

“Five and a half years,” she replies, smile never faltering. “Heard you got caught up in the Blip. How was that?”

“Dunno, can’t remember it,” Sam chuckles. “Probably a good thing. What’ve you been up to? Still with the military?”

“Just retired, actually. Five years of office work, you know how it is.”

“Looking forward to retirement?”

“Hell yeah.”

“Congrats.”

She signals to the bartender and orders a beer for herself. As she waits for it, she glances around Sam to Bucky. As soon as their eyes meet, she very obviously gives him the once over and then smirks.

“Gonna introduce me to your friend?” she asks, nudging Sam.

He glances over at Bucky, who shrugs. “This is Bucky,” Sam tells her. “He works with me. Buck, this is Y/N. We served together in the Air Force.”

“Nice to meet you,” Bucky says, reaching out his good hand to shake hers around Sam.

“What’s with the glove, Michael Jackson?” she teases, gesturing to his glove with one hand and picking up her beer with the other. “Hiding something cool under there?”

Bucky blushes, tucking his gloved hand against his belly. He’s never felt nervous about someone seeing his arm before but he really wants this new woman to think the best of him and he’s pretty sure she wouldn’t associate with him if she knew the truth.

“Buck’s a veteran, too,” Sam says before Bucky can come up with a response.

Y/N studies him for a minute and then her eyes go wide as things kind of click into place. “Ah,” she says. “Understandable. Didja get one of those fancy new ones from Wakanda?”

Bucky’s pretty sure his face is on fire now. “Yeah,” he mumbles.

She’s looking at him with a new appreciation and, dare he say, a new hunger. He’s still surprised, though, when she hops off her stool and comes around to sit by him instead of Sam.

“What am I, chopped liver?” Sam complains, pouting a little.

“I know you,” she reminds him. “I wanna get to know Bucky.”

Bucky musters all the confidence he can and shoots Sam a smirk. “Yeah, Sam. She wants to get to know me.”

Y/N laughs, a wild sound that makes Bucky’s heart beat faster. He hasn’t met a woman who made him feel like this in decades, if ever. The last date he went on was with Connie at the Stark Expo before he left for the war and while that went well, he definitely didn’t feel like this. He was a different man then, though, and Y/N is a very different woman.

“I don’t know if you actually do want to get to know me,” Bucky admits once Sam has turned away to talk to someone else.

“Don’t be silly,” Y/N scolds gently. “Of course I want to get to know you. Any friend of Sam’s is a friend of mine. Besides,” she nudges his arm with her elbow, “you’re cute.”

Bucky chokes on his beer. Sam looks concerned but Y/N just laughs, slapping his back until he gets things under control.

Things go a little better from there. Y/N is surprisingly easy to talk to. Part of that is because she dominates the conversation and Bucky doesn’t have to talk quite as much; part of that is because she seems genuinely interested in what he has to say when he does speak. Bucky soon finds himself relaxing, body turned to face her. He leans in when she speaks, eager to hear what she has to say and let her know he’s interested in her. Her body language is equally as open and when she puts her hand on top of his, Bucky’s heart does a happy leap.

“Wanna come back to my place?” Y/N asks, leaning in so her words are just for him.

Bucky glances over his shoulder at Sam to see that his friend is deep in conversation with a pretty Asian woman. “We should let Sam know where we’re going,” Bucky says.

She smiles, giving his hand a squeeze. “Of course. I have to hit up the ladies' room. Meet you at the door?”

He nods and she kisses his cheek before slipping off her stool. He watches for a moment as she weaves her way through the crowd before turning to bump Sam’s elbow.

“Sup?” the man says, twisting around to look at Bucky.

“Y/N and I…” Bucky says tentatively, suddenly nervous.

“You heading out?” Sam finishes with a smirk.

“Yeah,” Bucky murmurs, rubbing the back of his neck.

Sam just winks. “Have fun. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Face on fire, Bucky leaves a few bills to cover his part of the drinks and then heads off toward the door. He’s only waiting a few minutes before Y/N shows up, a bit of a bounce in her step. She takes Bucky’s gloved hand without hesitation, smiling brightly at him.

“My place is a couple of blocks away,” she says as they step out into the night. “Wanna walk?”

Bucky nods and lets her lead him off down the sidewalk. His heart is racing with excitement and nerves and he’s glad she’s holding his gloved hand so she can’t feel how sweaty his other palm is. She keeps up the conversation as they walk, easing Bucky into telling some stories from his childhood - the ones he doesn’t think will cause too much alarm.

Y/N’s apartment is in a nice complex with a doorman and a security guard. They both clearly know Y/N and they eye Bucky warily when he enters but Y/N’s brightness seems to put them at ease. She waves hello to them both as they pass before leading Bucky up the stairs to the third floor. Her’s is a few doors down from the stairs, differentiated from the others by a colorful summer wreath on the door.

“Home sweet home,” she says, flicking on the light to reveal a clean, modern apartment - white walls, cool neutral-toned furniture, splashes of blue and green in the form of rugs and art pieces.

“I like it,” Bucky tells her honestly, taking it all in.

She grins over her shoulder at him as she locks the front door. “Thanks. I’m pretty happy with it. Do you want something to drink?”

“Water would be nice.”

She fills two glasses from the faucet on the front of the fridge and Bucky gladly accepts one. It's been so long since he was in this position and he’s not quite sure what to do with himself.

Y/N drinks some of her water and then sets the glass by the sink “Bucky,” she says softly, moving in close to him. “You do know I didn’t just bring you here for water, right?”

He nods, turning his own glass in his hands. “I’m, um. I’m a little out of practice.”

There’s no judgment in her eyes. “Been a while?”

If a few decades counts as a while. “Yeah, it has.”

She smiles, settling her hands on his hips. “That’s okay. I don’t mind being on top.”

Arousal shoots down Bucky’s spine. He reaches around her to set his glass down and then loops his arms around her waist, pulling her against him. She laughs quietly and tips her chin up so he can kiss her.

Things escalate quickly from there and it’s only minutes before they’re stumbling into her bedroom, so wrapped up in each other that it takes her a second to turn the light on without breaking the kiss. She guides Bucky over to the bed and he sits down heavily when the backs of his knees meet the edge of the mattress, pulling her into his lap. Her fingers play at the hem of his t-shirt and Bucky breaks the kiss, gloved hand flying down to grip her wrist.

“Whoa,” she says, freezing. “Everything okay?”

He draws a deep breath, steadying himself. “Sorry, I just… you’re okay with… me? Right?”

She frowns thoughtfully, bringing one hand up to cup his cheek. “Do you mean your arm? Why wouldn’t I be? It’s just a part of you. Maybe it’s made of a different material but it’s still yours.”

He relaxes a little and kisses her again. She loops both her arms over his shoulders, pressing their bodies together. Bucky is rock hard in his jeans and he’s pretty sure she can feel it.

“Want me on top?” she asks when they come up for air.

“Fuck yeah,” Bucky gasps against her lips.

She kisses him firmly and then pushes at his shoulders, lifting her weight off his lap. “Then get this shirt off and lay down for me, big guy.”

Bucky doesn’t hesitate this time, pulling his shirt up and off, and taking the glove with it. Y/N’s eyes go right to his metal arm but they don’t linger long, instead moving to admire his torso.

“Damn, boy,” she says as he scoots up to lay in the middle of the bed. “That’s a sight I could get used to.”

Bucky blushes even as he toes off his shoes, letting them drop to the floor. His socks follow as he watches Y/N begin shedding her own clothes. He bites his lip at the sight of her bare body as she strips down to her panties, a lacy green pair that make his mouth water. She’s absolutely stunning, every inch of her - even the thick, knotted scar that curls around her right shoulder.

“Gonna ride this cock,” she cooes, fingers quickly undoing his belt and jeans so she can pull his pants down. He lifts his hips to help her out. His boxers follow and his cock smacks against his belly, eager for attention. Y/N makes a happy noise and wraps her hand around his cock, smirking when he gasps and his hips jerk. “Oh yeah. Gonna treat you right, Buck.”

“Let me… gotta get you ready,” Bucky manages, reaching for her.

“Oh, yeah?” She allows herself to be tugged up to straddle his chest, smirking when Bucky’s eyes lock onto that hidden space between her thighs. “You wanna eat my pussy?”

Bucky nods, gripping her thighs as tightly as he dares. He doesn’t want to hurt her.

She curls forward, one hand tugging lightly at his hair and drawing his eyes up to her face. “Don’t be afraid to leave bruises.”

He growls and pulls her up further so he can finally get his tongue on her pussy. She gasps, bracing herself with the hand in his hair and the other against the headboard. Bucky hums happily, eager to make this wonderful woman - who doesn’t seem to care how broken he is - feel good. He’s a little out of practice but gets the hang of things quickly and has her cumming on his face in no time. She’s quiet when she cums, breath stuttering and body pulsing above him. Bucky holds her in place, keeping his mouth on her until she’s giggling and squirming away.

“Fuck,” she gasps, sliding down to straddle his hips and blanket him with her body. “That was… wow.”

He grins, running his hands over her back, and then moans when she grinds her slick pussy against his cock.

“Gonna ride this big dick now,” Y/N purrs, nibbling at his collarbone.

Before Bucky can formulate any sort of response, she reaches down to line things up and sinks down onto his cock. He gasps, head flying back against the mattress as he’s engulfed in what feels like liquid heat. Y/N doesn’t stop until Bucky’s balls deep in her cunt. Only then does she pause to take a deep breath and grin down at him.

“Feels so good,” she tells him, sitting up and bracing her hands against his chest.

She rolls her hips experimentally and chuckles at the choked sound Bucky makes. His hands settle on her hips, firm enough to bruise, when she starts to move. He can’t take his eyes off her as she bounces on his cock. When she leans back and puts her hands on his thighs, he almost cums right then. The sight of her, all soft curves and strong limbs and that tight, tight pussy split open on his cock, is something Bucky’s pretty sure he would never get tired of. She’s still quiet, the only sounds in being little hitches of her breath, his own groans, and the dirty, wet slide of his cock in her cunt.

“Not gonna last,” Bucky manages, hands sliding up her sides to cup her breasts.

“That’s okay,” she answers, arching into his touch. “I wanna feel you cum in me. Fill me up, big guy.”

Bucky groans at those words, hips jerking beneath her. His thumbs flick over her nipples and her own hips stutter. One hand flies up to grip his metal wrist.

“Cold,” she breathes. “Do that again.”

He obeys, using his metal hand to tease her nipples until they’re puffy and tender, and she’s making little whimpery noises that go straight to his cock. That’s when he brings his metal hand down to her clit, rubbing careful circles with his fingertips. Y/N’s whole body jerks and it seems like mere seconds before she’s falling apart above him. The rhythmic pulse of her pussy around his cock is more than enough to pull Bucky over his own edge. He drags her down into a kiss as he pumps her full of cum, the hand on her hip keeping her in place while his other hand rubs her clit until she pushes it away.

“Fucking hell,” she gasps against his lips. “For someone out of practice, you sure know what you’re doing.”

He grins, grinding up against her as he rides out his aftershocks, before gently guiding her to lay next to him. She snuggles against his side without any hesitation, throwing one arm over his chest. He tentatively wraps his arm - the metal one - around her.

“Gonna stay the night?” Y/N asks, hooking one leg over his.

“Would you let me up if I said no?” he replies, tone light and teasing.

“Hmm, probably not.”

He laughs. “What if I needed to pee?”

She sighs dramatically. “I suppose. It’s the first door on the right.”

Bucky drags himself from the bed, chuckling, and goes to do his business. Y/N uses the bathroom right after him and then she flicks off the bedroom light and they crawl under the covers together.

“What do you want for breakfast tomorrow?” she asks as she settles against his chest once more.

“How does pancakes sound?”

“Pancakes sound great.”

He smiles into the dark, fingers playing along the curve of her spine. She shivers under his touch, her own fingers gently tracing the scarred line on his chest where skin meets metal.

“Gonna tell me about this?” Her voice is soft, curious but not pressing for anything he’s not willing to give.

“Maybe someday,” he answers as his hand finds her scar. “Will you tell me about yours?”

He can feel her smile against his collarbone. “Guess you’ll have to stick around and see.”

Bucky tilts his head to press a kiss to her hair. “I might just do that.”

---

Like this fic? Support me longterm on Patreon HERE or make a one-time donation on Ko-Fi HERE.

—

Team Forever: @mrswhozeewhatsis @laughing-at-the-darkness​​ @tumbler-tidbits​​ @imsuperawkward​​​​ @emoryhemsworth

[notcanoncompliant]

Panty Lines

(Background: The snap happened, got reversed in like six months, Tony didn't die and everything's fine. Endgame? What Endgame?)

**

Peter's doing this because he's curious; he's got chronic science brain, the natural inclination to know.

That's why he's wearing these white lace boyshorts.

Buying them had been a clinical operation: he'd picked the safest option to start, a decent middle ground between 'boxer briefs' and 'panties' (he still can't say the word out loud without his face heating up) to ease himself into the idea. It'd still taken a few more days for him to actually put them on, but now that he has...

He can't stop looking.

Sinful, he thinks, the word inspiring a bloom of embarrassed excitement as he twists a little shyly in front of the full-length mirror. It's not a quality he's ever attributed to himself (or to anything, really), but it's...well, it fits.

The panties are weightless, delicate white contouring perfectly to his hips and his thighs and the curve of his ass. His pale skin looks faintly tan in comparison where it peeks out through the intricate detailing.

He lowers a hand to tentatively run fingertips over the swell at the front, and the touch is translated, magnified, in equal parts by the fabric itself and the thrill of the moment. When he looks up, he sees pink spread across his face and down his bare chest.

Flushed and wide-eyed, sporting a semi, he feels daring and electric; he wants someone to see, wants someone to follow the path of his blush themselves, kiss their way down to that line where pale skin transitions into intricate lace. Kiss him through it.

Would it feel like this? A light brush of lips, the rasp of a goatee--

It's only the tinny call of his cell phone alarm that stops him from beginning to explore in earnest.

He turns away from the reflection with some effort.

As he changes into a regular pair of boxer briefs and pulls on his jeans, he considers playing hooky for the first time since he started at MIT.

*

By the time classes are out and Peter gets back to his apartment, he's mentally exhausted (as usual) but happy (as usual for Thursday nights, specifically). It's his night off from patrol, and the only thing he has to expend energy towards is his call with Tony, later.

They've had the ritual going since the reversal of the snap: one call a week, same day, same time. It used to be just a phone call, but Peter had accidentally pressed video call the one time, so now they talk via webcam and he gets to see Tony every Thursday evening.

He's going about his standard pre-call tidying (picking up only the area of the living room that's visible via webcam, so what) when he finally gives up avoiding the idea scratching at the back of his thoughts.

The panties are in his bedroom, folded at the bottom of his underwear drawer...but they could be on him, instead.

He's been low key dying to put them back on since he took them off, wondering if it'll feel the same (of course it will, but what if it doesn't) and what it's like to just...walk around. Just wear them.

Pausing his half-assed cleaning, Peter goes in and changes. Sheds his jeans and boxer briefs and slips back into the lace with something like nervous anticipation. They do feel the same, still light and secure, still look like fresh snow against his pale skin.

He leaves his t-shirt on and wanders back out to the living room to finish up. He has an hour; he could keep them on for a little while and change before Tony calls--

But he wouldn't have to change, or cover up; he sits at his desk in front of the computer the whole time, so it isn't like Tony can see anything below the waist in the webcam. Peter could sit there for an hour, squirming in his new panties while Tony carries on obliviously about his day and his projects and whatever weird articles or memes FRIDAY's been showing him.

And maybe Peter could 'remember' something he wanted to show Tony, so he'd get up and Tony would see.

What would he say if he saw them--

But Peter absolutely can't do that. They're friends, now, close, platonic friends, and he kind of feels like an ass for even considering throwing a white, lacy wrench into things.

Tony finally talks to him; real, actual sharing of feelings and thoughts, no more hiding out of some misguided belief that Peter can't handle seeing his mentor as anything less than divine, like he hasn't always known that Tony's a deeply flawed human being and loved him anyway.

He's even said it; those three words. Said it a couple months in, the first time he accepted a video call to see a shaking, pale version of Tony who let out a hoarse sob and cried relieved tears as soon as he saw Peter's face.

They hadn't actually done much talking that night; Peter had just sat close to the laptop, tears trickling down his own face as Tony told him he was so glad Peter was alive, that he got him back. They'd spent minutes crying silently, Tony's eyes roving over Peter's face like he was memorizing him.

The "I love you, Tony," had slipped out quietly, thoughtlessly, and Peter'd felt poignant elation when Tony had given him a small, shaky smile and said "I love you, too, kid."

....So, yeah. They're friends.

Friends that don't talk about the way Peter still blushes whenever Tony compliments him on, well, anything. Friends that absolutely don't mention how Tony stumbles a little over his words if Peter answers a call shirtless. Friends that...

There's a muffled metallic chunking sound as the deadbolt turns, and apparently they're the kind of friends that don't knock, because Tony's striding into his apartment like he owns the place (he technically does, and it totally doesn't do things to Peter if he thinks about it too much).

"Hey kid, surprise--Oh. Huh." Tony's brows shoot up towards his hairline, and Peter yanks the hem of his shirt down to try to cover himself.

"Jesus, Tony, hi, what're you--you're supposed to knock--"

"I see that now. I'm seeing a lot of things. What're you wearing?"

There's a safe way to handle this; Peter could go pull on some sweatpants, tell Tony that he's doing the college experiment thing, laugh it off and blush while Tony gives him shit. They can eat dinner and catch up in person, and this could become another thing they never talk about. Because they're not the friends that talk about this.

Peter clears his throat, and doesn't do the safe thing.

"Panties," he answers, face heating as he releases the hem of his shirt, "obviously."

"Obviously," Tony parrots, his eyes glued blatantly to Peter's lower half.

They're still hovering at that line, the one that exists in wordless agreement. There's still a chance for one of them to back off. But Peter's not thinking about that.

He's thinking about his sudden, desperate need to know how Tony might feel about the way his blush spreads all the way down to his chest. He's wondering if that stupid pornographic adjective would drift through his friend's brain, what other words might be there in its place.

And now he's thinking about how Tony's not even moving, just staring at him, so Peter's going to have to be the one to cross that stupid line.

His shirt hits the floor with a soft flump.

"So, what do you think? Because I think I like them," Peter says, proud of the way his voice is only a little strained.

Tony's gaze is disbelieving and conflicted and hot, practically a physical touch as it drags up Peter's body.

"Do you really want to know?" Tony asks.

He's looking into Peter's eyes, now, searching his face, and the small intimacy erases the last dregs of doubt Peter didn't even realize were still there.

"Yeah, I really do," he says.

****

Might do a second part, let me know if I should 😘

[finnofamerica]

When My Baby Found Me - Sirius Black X Reader

Summary: It’s been twelve years since you last saw Sirius, and he gets more than a surprise when he comes back. 

Word Count: 2377

Date: 10.01.2019

|| Masterlist || 

“Hey mom, Colin wants to come over, is that okay?” Your son bounced over to you, silvery eyes looking up at you like puppy dog eyes. You pushed his hair out of his face, still not over the fact that it was the same shade as yours. It’s been eleven years and he’s just getting ready for his second year at Hogwarts. He was a Hufflepuff, and you couldn’t be prouder, but you could see all the ways that he took after his dad and it broke your heart. Still, you loved him more than anything in the world.

“Yes, Benny, of course, I love having Colin over.” You smiled down at him, pressing a kiss to his freckle covered forehead. 

“Mom, stop,” He whined, rubbing a sweater-clad arm over his forehead with a pout. A few taps on your kitchen window catching your attention. 

“That’s the post, dear, will you get it for me?” 

“Yes, mom.” 

You turned back to your tea, humming lightly as the sweet and spicy smell of peppermint wafted into the air. 

“Hey, mom?” 

“Yeah?” 

“This is Uncle Remmy’s owl, but, all he sent was the paper.” Ben stared at the paper in his hand, and put out a little birdseed for Remus’ owl. “Mom, who’s this man? They say he’s a murderer.” 

He set the paper in front of you only for you to see the screaming face of Sirius Black. 

“Don’t worry, Darling, I used to know him, y’ know,” You gave your son a sad smile, “He’d never hurt anyone.” 

“Mom, can we go get Colin now?” 

“Yes, I’m sorry, I don’t know what we’re waiting for.” You tapped your forehead with a wink, letting him know that you were losing your mind. “How do you want to go? Broom or Floo?” 

“I don’t think you can fit Colin and me on a broom,” Ben laughed. 

“You’ll never know. Mothers are capable of a great many things.” 

Still, you held your son’s hand with one hand, and floo powder in the other, announcing where you were going and you were off. 

“Did you know that Colin got petrified this year?” Ben talked your ear off excitedly as you stepped into the Creevey’s living room. 

“Mr. Creevey, how are you?” You smiled, pulling Colin’s father into a hug. 

“Oh, dear, woman, I told you to call me Eustace,” He gasped, thick brows shading his eyes, “I’ll never get used to you climbing out of the fireplace like a demon. It’s good to see you, Y/n.” 

“We just wanted to borrow Colin for the weekend, Benny here has taken quite the liking to him.” You shrugged, Ben was at your side nodding along. 

“Please Mr. Creevey?” Ben clasped his hands together like he was begging. 

“Sure, just make sure he’s back by Monday afternoon,” Eustace nodded, “I want to make sure he’s ready to make the train at the end of the week.” 

“You’re a blessing, Eustace. I’ll bring you some floo powder when I come back, that way Colin will have a way to get around, though be careful to hide it from your muggle friends, we wouldn’t want them asking questions you can’t answer.” 

“Ah yes, no be gone with you, you’re making my house smell like magic.” Eustace shooed you off, making you laugh with his pretend grumpy attitude. 

“Miss Y/n, you’re so cool,” Colin said in awe as he stepped into your living room. 

“I’m glad you think so,” You laughed, “My friends thought I was lame. They were only joking of course.” 

“Mom, we’re gonna go upstairs now.” Ben pulled Colin away, making you laugh, you wondered what a couple of twelve-year-olds had to gossip about. Most likely something about how cool Harry Potter is. 

You felt bad, not being able to see Harry all these years. You tried once, but Petunia absolutely wouldn’t hear of it. There was no way she’d have a witch in her house to corrupt Harry. She was angry, you guessed, still jealous over the fact that Lily got to be a witch but she was normal. So you kept your distance, writing to McGonagal about his progress. You were immensely proud of him, and McGonagall was immensely furious that Dumbledore sent him to live with the Dursleys instead of sending him to sit with you. You simply reminded her that you were never named godmother. She still insisted that you were the closest thing he had to family. 

You sat at your kitchen table, parchment and ink in hand. 

Rem, 

Do you really think he’s out? It’s been so long, I hope he’s safe. I’m more than certain he will seek out Harry first, he’s always been dutiful to James and the boy. Congratulations on the DADA job, by the way, I know you’ll do great. I do hope you’ll write to me about Ben’s progress, and Harry’s too. 

Best wishes, 

Y/n. 

You rolled up the parchment after the ink dried, tying it with a little ribbon and securing it to Remus’ owl and sent it along its way. 

“Mom?” Benjamin asked as he stopped on the platform, seeming hesitant to board the train. 

“Yes?” 

“Can you tell me about dad, one more time?” 

“Benny, you’re about to board the train!” You snorted. 

“I know but, mom, please?” He pouted. 

“You and your damn freckles,” You cursed, making him beam, “Okay, what do you wanna know?” 

“The day he asked you to marry him?” 

“Ah, a good choice, well,” You paused as you thought, building up the details in your mind. It was just a few days after Lily and James’ wedding and you were all still high off of the love in the air. Naturally, you were walking with Sirius on your way to get some groceries. 

You were wandering down the market aisles, Sirius had his arm on your shoulder like usual. You were humming the wedding march under your breath, memories of Lily’s dress frequenting your mind. 

“Little love-struck, are you?” Sirius laughed. 

“Maybe a little,” You shrugged, “It just makes me happy to see them so happy. ‘Sides, makes you think.” 

“Think about what?” 

“Y’know, the future? James and Lily were always endgame, I’ll admit that, but y’ know, what about us?” 

“Y/n Y/l/n, are you asking me to marry you?” Sirius gasped jokingly. 

“Well, I’m more asking about how you would feel about marriage.” 

“Y/n L/n,” Sirius stood in front of you, “I don’t have a ring or a plan, but I do love you. What do you say? Wanna marry me?” 

“You’re an idiot, of course, I’ll marry you.” 

“Now go on, get on the train, I don’t want you to miss it.” You gave him one last kiss on the forehead, “And don’t forget that Uncle Remmy is teaching this year, so he is Professor Lupin inside of class hours okay? Try to talk to Harry, he needs a little help now and then.” 

“Okay, mom, I will.” 

“I love you, good luck at school!” You called after him, quietly chewing on your lip. He gave you a wave over his shoulder, running to catch up with Colin who was waiting for him by the train. 

“It is crazy how they grow up, isn’t it.” A familiar voice caught your attention. 

“Molly!” You beamed, “How are you?! It’s been so long.” 

“I’m good, dear, I’m good.” She smiled, “I heard that boy of yours is in the same year as Ginny, and a Hufflepuff, how nice.” 

“Oh, the twins must be gossiping again, what have they to say about strange madam Y/l/n?” You joked. 

“Well, they are in awe about all the mischief you used to get into. They think they have a thing or two that they can learn from you.” Her eyes twinkled, “I say, the less trouble they get into, the better.” 

“Well, I’d love to teach them something someday, they seem like wonderful boys.” 

“They remind me of those friends of yours.” 

“Well, there is no denying that.” You laughed. 

“Really, how are you dear?” She asked. 

“I’m fine, really,” You shrugged, “I just found out that there is a killer on the loose but other than that I’m fine.” 

“You don’t really believe he’s a killer do you?” 

“It doesn’t matter what I believe,” You twisted your wedding band on your finger, “The press has already dragged his name through hell. In Azkaban or not, he’ll have to spend the rest of his life hiding away.” 

“You wear the ring but don’t use his name. Does Ben know?” 

“He knows what his father is like, but no. He doesn’t know.” 

“You better tell him soon, or he might wind up with a shock.” 

“How’s Harry?” 

“Good, last I checked. We take good care of him.” 

“I know,” You gave her a smile, “It saddens me that he doesn’t even know that I exist.” 

“He will, one day.” 

“Thank you, Molly, for loving him like the mother he deserves.” 

“I’m a mother, it’s what I do.” She gave you a smile. 

The months slowed as Christmas came around, Ben was one of the fortunate kids who got to come home for the holidays. So here you were, Christmas eve, Ben was upstairs getting ready for bed. You told him if he doesn’t sleep Santa won’t come. What you weren’t expecting was a knock on your front door at nearly ten o’clock in the evening. 

The man standing at your door was dirty, his clothes were ragged, and his hair was shaggy - though if memory serves, his hair had always been shaggy. 

“Sirius?” You gasped, disbelieving your eyes, but there was no way to mistake those silver pools. 

“Hey, Love,” He smiled, “I really hope you didn’t run off with another man while I was away.” 

You knew he was joking, but your heart still ached. You pulled him inside and into a hug. God, he held you so tight, like he was making sure you were real. 

“What took you so long?” You asked, tears welling in your eyes. 

“Well, I got a little tied up.” His eyes were watering too. “You look just the same. As beautiful as I remember you.” 

“You’re dirty.” You whispered. 

“Ah yes, well, that couldn’t be helped.” He shrugged. “Merlin, I missed you.” 

“Me too,” You tiptoed, kissing him. He was so familiar, so missed, and so loved. 

“Mom?” 

You tore away from Sirius and turned toward your son. 

“Who is that man?” He asked. “Is that the man from the paper?” 

You could see your son begin to panic, his eyes watering as he backed up against the wall. 

“Mommy why is he here?”  

"Wait, you have a kid?"

"I think we should all just sit down." You breathed, taking you twelve year old in your arms and curling up in a chair together. 

"Ben, remember how you were asking about your dad?" You asked, he nodded, tears still pooled in his silver eyes. "Sirius, this is Benjamin. Your son." 

You chewed you lip as you waited for his reaction. 

"My son?" He breathed. You nodded. 

"But mom? He's a killer." 

"He's not. He is my husband and I know he'd never hurt Lily and James Potter. They were family." You said with definite confidence. 

"Then how come he went to Azkaban?" Ben asked. 

"Because that shrew Pettigrew sold my friends out to Voldemort." Sirius growled. 

"But its okay now, Benny. Your dad is back with us." You smiled. "You two have a lot of catching up to do, so how about you head to bed, and we'll talk about it tomorrow okay?" 

"Okay, mom." He pecked your cheek, heading back upstairs in his pajamas. 

"He looks just like you." Sirius mused.

"He takes after you. Fiercely loyal and all that, and a bit mischievous from what Mcgonagall tells me." You laughed. 

"Minnie, how is she?" 

"She's good. She's been watching after Harry." 

"You seen him?" 

"Petunia wouldn't let me. Even though Harry should probably be living with us." 

"I'm gonna go see him." 

"Sirius, you are a wanted man, and even with Remus's help, no one is going to believe that Peter Pettigrew is still alive." 

"If I can find him and capture him, I can-" 

"Sirius," you said softly, "you've waited twelve years for this. You can wait a few days more. You're home now. We have a beautiful son upstairs in bed right now. And we can collect the rest of our family once this gets cleared up, but for now, Sirius please take a shower and come with me to bed." 

"You're as bossy as ever." He smiled. 

"You love me."

"That I do." 

TAGS: @diggorysghost​​ @niffleurs​ @siriuslyimmoony​ @carolinesbookworld@untildawnremus​ @thoseofgreatambition​ @nosebleednougats​​ @moonynprongs​ @marauderobsessed​ @theboywhocriedlupin​ @astertist​ @swellwriting​ @blimey-ron​ @dyngflwrs​ ​ @fortisfiliae​ @essenceoflumos​  @bluemadcnna @theseuscmander

BONUS:

A year later things weren't perfect by any means, but they were better. Over the Christmas holiday Harry stayed with you and your son and husband. 

"So, you're the one who got me the broom?" Harry asked, sitting criss cross on your carpeted floor. 

"Yeah, well, kinda. It was my idea and I supplied the money, but Minerva picked it out." You tucked your hair behind your ear. 

"You've been looking out for me the whole time haven't you?" He asked. 

"I've been keeping tabs. I am married to your godfather, after all. And I was friends with your parents." 

"How come you never visited?" 

"Petunia wouldn't let me see you, I wrote her so many letters and I begged her so many times, but she never cared, as far as she was concerned, I was nothing." 

"I'm sorry." 

"You have nothing to be sorry for, Harry. You're with us now and you are welcome to stay as long as you need." You smiled. 

"Listen to the woman. She's bossy anyway." Sirius joked, gift in hand. "This is for you." 

"Uncle Remmy!" Your son rushed into the kitchen, pushing past his father. Some little homemade trinket in his hands. 

"All right, all right," you could hear Remus protesting as Ben pushed him into the livingroom. 

"Its time for the family photo!" Ben grunted. 

You all posed in front of the Christmas tree a charmed camera floating in front of you. Remus and Sirius were at your sides, the boys in front of you. 

[weirdochick56]

I love you too, you big dork- Bucky Barnes One Shot

Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: Explicit language. Fluff. A bit of angst.

Disclaimers: I don’t own any MCU characters/plots.

Word Count: 6, 034 words

Summary: Bucky and the Reader are best friends. Best friends who are in love with eachother, that is. When the Reader walks in on a conversation Bucky is having with Sam, Steve and Thor in which he says he doesn’t love her, she’s too heartbroken to face him. But maybe a little bit of distance is all it takes to make someone realize that they need someone more than they realize. 

A/N: Guys, I literally refuse to watch Endgame. I’m so scared someone I love (literally the entire cast) is gonna die so yeah. I’m good staying in my world where Infinity War and Endgame don’t exist. (I’m joking. I’m sure I’ll watch it eventually.)

*

You groan softly as another strand of hair gets caught in your lip gloss, and begin peeling it off your lip slowly. Your eyes darted everywhere, hand clutching your small purse so tight, your knuckles turned white. 

There were a lot of people here. Too many to count, actually, and you found yourself bumping into partying bodies every five minutes and having to stumble past in your tall heels after muttering a small ‘sorry’. It was a bit overwhelming. 

When Tony said he was going to be throwing a party to celebrate your latest win, you expected something of a more...intimate nature. Just the Avengers and a few close friends. Not such a huge party, with all the lights and bar filled with drinks and snacks.. and you certainly didn’t expect this many people to be invited. Most of which were celebrities and world-renowned corporate leaders, no less.

You weren’t afraid to admit that although being a superhero and working alongside the world’s mightiest heroes, you felt utterly inferior to all the beautiful models and actresses surrounding your every angle. I mean they were all so tall and slender and just...mesmerizing. And you were just, well, you. Good old’ Y/n. Ordinary and safe. Dull. Tedious. Boring.

You weren’t big on all the glitz and glamour and mystique that came with being an internationally-known hero. Your abilities had given you an advantage when it came to war tactics and fighting and being a wonderful warrior on the field- which granted, also gave you a great advantage work-wise, but other than that, there wasn’t much more to you. 

Most of your life had been miserable thanks to how ‘special’ your abilities made you and consequently, most of it was spent inside your own head rather than caring about your outer appearance and social habitats. It wasn't until you’d been recruited into SHIELD and later on the Avengers and found a purpose- that you started caring about the way you presented yourself to the rest of the world.

Even now, clad in a gorgeous black bodycon cocktail dress, soft curves all on display, and your hair pinned up into an elegant bun with only a few strands framing your delicately-painted face- you couldn’t help but feel utterly uncomfortable. Out of place in this glamorous party entirely.

Your gaze finally lands on a familiar face amidst the colorful party lights huge party crowd and you can't help but heave a relieved sigh.

“Tony!” You tap on his shoulder, having to practically yell over the music. Tony halts his conversation with the famous party guests. 

“...uh sorry, just hold on a sec.”  He smirks charmingly then he spins around to face you. “Ye-” he stops mid-sentence when his gaze lands on you, eyes widening like two saucers and jaw snapping open. “Holy shit,” he breathes, eyes wandering over your face and body a hundred miles per minute, his gaze unbelieving. 

“Damn, kiddo. I knew you were a stunner but damn.” His eyes are practically bulging from his head. 

You feel yourself blush aggressively, smiling in your usual shy manner to hide how much you didn’t believe what he was saying. “Thank you.”

“You look stunning, kiddo.” He smiles brightly, flashing you those pearly whites.

You roll your eyes at him, shaking off the compliment as smoothly as you can. “Thanks. Hey, have you seen Bucky?” You frown, looking around for your best friend. “I know he said he didn’t wanna mingle, but I thought he’d be chilling out in a secluded corner or something for sure. I mean, it’s what he usually does.”  

When you face him again, Tony is smiling down at you, all..knowing and self-important.

You instantly shrink away from his condescending silence, crossing your arms over your chest defensively. “What?”

He laughs smugly. “Nothing. I’m just wondering what exactly it will take for either of you to admit that you love eachother.” 

You’re taken aback by Tony’s words, freezing momentarily with shock. You can’t help it when your heart races at the idea of James Buchanan Barnes actually loving you back but quickly shake the notion off, not wanting to dwell on something that could never happen and as a consequence only hurt you. 

You push an innocent smile out onto your face, ignoring the extreme resistance from your facial muscles and how sick to your gut your next words make you feel. “Well, of course I love Bucky. He’s my best friend.” 

Your shrill tone causes you to mentally cringe as you leisurely swallow the bile creeping out your throat, physically forcing it back down your esophagus.

But Tony sees right through your poorly-executed act, sighing and shaking his head as if he knew. And he did know.

“We both know exactly what I mean kiddo. You can’t keep acting like you’re not completely head over heels for eachother forever.”

You suppress your fluttering heart as much as possible, opting to instead paint a measured smile that could fool the pants off anyone on your face. Choosing your words carefully, you are even more careful to speak them with a breezy kind of casualness to your tone. 

“Ugh. Me and Bucky? Pfft, that’s honestly gross. He’s like a brother. Can you imagine dating a brother?” You scrunch your nose up in disgust then force an amused chuckle as if the notion is absolutely ludicrous even though it’s literally been the only thing on your mind for the past year. “Nothing like that could ever happen between us.”

Every word that comes out of your mouth is a single stab to your chest, but you try to keep your voice leveled and light as a feather. You hadn’t expected it to be as painful to say out loud as it was, though, and despite your resolve to fool Iron Man, your voice wavers slightly. You cringe mentally when Tony raises a single, skeptical, dark brow. 

He knew. He always knew, dammit.  

“Whatever floats your boat kiddo. I guess.” He sighs. “I’m pretty sure I saw him hanging out with Thor, Steve, and Sam out on the balcony.”

You facepalm, eyes lighting. “Oh shit, yeah! How come I didn’t think of that!?” You smile brightly up at Tony, leaning in to kiss his cheek. “Thanks, Tony. love ya’!”

You hurry off as fast as you can in heels (which is a surprising amount). You hear Tony laugh behind you, mumbling under his breath. 

“It’s only a matter of time, kiddo.” 

*

When you approach the balcony, you see all four men seated across from eachother, loud laughter erupting from their mouths and a bottle of some unknown substance settled in between them. 

Bucky sat with his back to you, and you lick your lips when you notice his long hair gelled back into a neat man-bun, your favorite hairstyle on him. His suit jacket was carelessly thrown over the couch he was sitting on and the sleeves of his dressing shirt were rolled up, exposing his veiny flesh arm and his menacing steel one. His back muscles flexed whenever he shifted positions and for a moment you genuinely questioned if James Buchanan Barnes could be considered a kink. 

Literally, anything and everything the man did was sexy. God, he made the most mundane things sexy. Like frowning, or making pancakes or laughing. You sigh, thinking about all the cute facial expressions that handsome face could twist and spread into. 

Interrupting your train of thoughts, you focus back on your friends. They seemed to be having a great time, and you were slightly jealous about not being invited to be a part of the mini-celebration. 

You raise a determined brow, ready to join the party when something abruptly stops you mid-step. It’s Bucky’s voice. It sounds...off.

It’s hushed and pissed-off, very unlike the demeanor the rest of the group gave off with their boisterous laughter and witty smirks. So unlike it, in fact, that it forces you to nestle behind the slightly cracked balcony door and eavesdrop on their conversation. 

Okay, yeah, not your proudest moment, but you were curious as to what the trio of friends could’ve possibly said to Bucky to get him so worked up. His teeth were gritted and his hands were clenched into fists as he leaned threateningly forward. 

“Would you stop fucking saying that? She’s a kid, for fuck’s sake! I could never feel something like that for her.” 

You frown. Who was he talking about? You? You decide not to jump to conclusions, secretly holding onto the hope that it wasn’t, because deep down you know if it was, your heart would be broken.

“...I could never feel something like that for her.” You shudder, waiting for someone else to speak with a racing heart.

Steve sighs. “Buck, man, I love you. You know you’re like a brother to me, but that’s exactly why I have to be completely honest with you.” He leans in, a sympathetic smile tugging at his lips as he pats Bucky’s shoulder comfortingly. “You’re in love with Y/n. There’s no way around it, man, I’m sorry. You’ll have to stop denying it to yourself eventually.”

You swallow a gasp, heart fluttering. Shit, they are talking about me, you cursed mentally, clutching your hands to your chest and pursing your lips tightly. 

The seconds seem to drag on into minutes and then into hours until finally, Bucky speaks up again, voice somewhat defeated. 

“She’s a kid and my best friend. I can’t have feelings for her,” he mumbles decisively and your chest clenches, eyes prickling with unshed tears.  

Sam clicks his tongue sympathetically. “That’s the irony of love, man. You don’t really get to choose who you feel it towards.” 

Thor frowns. “But...Y/n is extremely beautiful. An astonishing character, as well. And she is without engagement.” His frown deepens. “I’m failing to see exactly what the issue is?”

Bucky sighs defeatedly then he turns to the god with a small sad smile that makes your chest ache. It’s devoid of any and all hope which slowly begins to kill yours as well. 

“She is stunning, isn’t she?” His smile lightens up a bit, light grey eyes getting a far-off look. “I always thought she was a classic beauty. Like the ones you saw back in our time, Steve.” He looks at his best friend, who smiles and nods warmly in quiet response. “She’s so smart, too. Do you remember when she first arrived here? How she fixed that problem Tony had been struggling with in his lab for weeks in just a few minutes?” He pauses to laugh incredulously. “It was like-” he motions his head blowing up, making explosion sounds. 

You suppress a giddy giggle, pressing a hand to your mouth as you listen closely. 

“A-and she’s so fucking kind and giving. She never says no to doing you a favor. Ever, no matter what it is or how hard it may be. She’s always more worried about our comfort than her own. It’s so sweet.” He chuckles. “Most of the time I’m worried she’ll neglect herself if she’s hurt in our stead. Because that’s just the kind of person she is.” 

His expression grows serious but still soft and tender. “She wakes up earlier than all of us and goes to sleep later than all of us, working. She thinks no one knows or notices because she thinks no one cares enough to want to know or notice. But I do. I always do,” he mumbles softly, picking at his fingernails. 

A long silence stretches and your heart is beating so erratically in your chest, you’re sure it’s in the process of bursting from your ribcage.

Finally, Steve speaks. “See? You can lie to us all you want Bucky, but it’s yourself who you can’t run away from.”

Bucky blinks as if snapping out of a trance. He clenches his jaw tightly, plunging his fingers into his hair and rubbing hard, messing it up. “Fuck,” he growls, frustrated. 

“I don’t love her. I don’t.”

You take that as your cue to walk in, a disturbingly convincing smile plastered on your face. 

“You don’t love who, Buck?” You play it off smoothly, casually strutting into the balcony.

Sam’s, Steve’s and Thor’s eyes immediately snapped towards you. Bucky, took a few seconds to fully view you. 

He stiffens up at first, then slowly shifts to you, a small smile on his face. It freezes there, though, when his eyes land on you, all dolled up. 

It wasn’t like you at all to dress up. Most of the time, you opted to hide underneath big hoodies and baggy shirts and pants. You just didn’t feel comfortable giving anyone the power to be able to judge your appearance in any way, shape, or form. 

As a superhero, you usually hid behind a large cloak, shielding a bit of your face and body effectively from the public. You’d decided you’d try something out of your comfort zone today. 

So the shock factor was already there, but watching Bucky’s face morph from a very forced relaxed smile to completely gobsmacked expression, lips parted, pupils dilated, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed thickly was absolutely worthy of a picture. 

Sam interrupts your little moment, wolf-whistling.

“Well shit, Y/n. I had no idea you all of that underneath...” he laughs lightly, gesturing towards you lightly. 

Steve elbows him sharply as you raise a brow at Sam. 

“Really Sam?”

He shrugs, rubbing the sore spot on his ribs. “What? It’s true.” 

Steve sighs, rolling his eyes at his best friend before turning to you with his usual chivalrous, soft smile. “You look gorgeous, kid.”

Thor’s smile is brighter than the sun as he takes you in shamelessly. “You are quite the sight, Y/n. Such beauty has never been heard of or seen in all the nine worlds!”

Fighting off a raging blush, you snorted in a very unladylike manner. “C’ mon guys. Stop trying to make me feel good about myself. We all know I’m not that much to look at.”

They all immediately shut your statement down. “Y/n, babe, have you seen yourself already? You’re gorgeous,” Sam huffs, rolling his eyes. 

You try to protest, but Thor quickly cuts you off, a wolfish grin spread on his handsome face. “Y/n, you underestimate your beauty. It shines brighter than many of the stars in this galaxy, I’ll tell you that much.”

You bite the inside of your cheek, trying really hard not to cry with adoration. You didn’t need their approval to feel good about yourself, but it sure was nice to have the accolades of a demi-god.  

“Y/n,” Steve pulls your attention back to him, a comforting smile pulled over his lips. “You’re a beautiful woman.”

With their earnest faces and watchful eyes, you give in to the urge and hide your boiling hot face in your hands, groaning. “You guys! I’m gonna cry.” 

They quiet down and you slowly pull your hands from your face. You’re met with Bucky’s soft gaze, pure, earnest admiration lining every part of his gorgeous face, making his eyes shimmer with a certain honest beauty you’d never seen on him. 

Your breath hitches at the beauty of the way he looked at you. The softness, the sincerity. The support.

You pause, looking at him and for a moment forgetting other people were in the same room as you. right now, only he and you existed. 

You waited with a caught breath for him to say something. His eyes watered, you bite back a gasp at how raw emotion lining his eyes and expression to the brim was.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispers quietly. “Absolutely beautiful.” 

Your heart races and a soft smile tugs at your lips. “Thank you, Buck.” 

He stares at you for a minute longer before swallowing sharply and looking back at his others friends, almost like he just realized they were there. 

You notice the trio looking at him with ‘told you so’ expressions, smug smirks curling their lips. Sam snickers. 

You have hope for a split second. Hope that he’ll turn back around and declare that he’s been in love with you too, that he wants you just as much as you do him. And your heart inflates with happiness and love and you hold onto that emotion for safekeeping. 

And then it’s broken when Bucky shakes his head firmly ‘no’. 

The guys’ faces fall. They know what that means. They don’t know that you also know what that means, but it doesn’t matter because somehow Bucky has once again managed to fix and break your heart in the matter of a few seconds. 

He turns back around to face you and you notice that although he still has that tenderness to him, that softness you saw a few minutes ago, it now looks tortured in his gaze. Repressed.  

He smirks playfully as if to cover it up, but it looks forced. 

“Maybe we could wingman eachother. I’ll get you some hot Hollywood actor only if you promise to get me a Victoria’s Secret model.” He chuckles and winks at you. 

You suppress the fresh wave of tears threatening to spill over and force a small smile. 

“I think I’m good, thanks. I’ll uh-” you push past the huge lump in your throat. “I’ll see you guys later.” You spin on your heels headed for the door.

With one last glance over your shoulder, you catch Steve’s eye. He smiles sympathetically. And mouths a small ‘sorry.’

Before you fully make it outside, you catch a small bit of their upcoming conversation. 

“Really dude!? Friend zoning her? Why can’t you just admit you’re absolutely gaga about her?!”

Bucky groans under his breath, exasperated. “Have you thought maybe it’s cause I’m not?”

You walk away faster, unable to hear more of the conversation. Too painful.

*

The next morning, you walk into the kitchen and find Bucky sitting on a stool, sipping on a cup of coffee. 

You barely spare him a glance, headed straight for the fridge. Normally, you’d be chatting him up, hanging onto his every word and watching with ever-growing excitement and intent as he told you about whatever new adventure he’d been on to conquer the still-unknown 21st century. But not today.

“Oh, mornin’ doll,” he chirps happily, excited to see you. 

You merely smile politely, closing the fridge door behind you softly. “Morning James.” 

And then you simply walk out, water bottle in hand. 

Bucky freezes, raising a brow. 

“James?” he mumbles under his breath. 

*

That afternoon, Bucky is lounging on the living room couch, watching one of your favorite movies of all time, Scream.

When he sees you, he instantly perks up, excited at the prospect of watching a movie with you. “Hey doll, look I’ve got-” 

You cut him off sheepishly. “Sorry Buck, I can’t speak right now, I’m a bit busy.”

He visibly deflates with disappointment but smiles understandingly nonetheless. “Oh..okay.” 

 And with that, he sees you leave in a hurry, suspicion nudging him in the back of his mind. 

He gets worried. Were you...were you mad? But why? What did he do?...

*

The next time Bucky sees you, it’s been a few days since he’s talked to you. You were always rushing off somewhere, suddenly entirely busy. He was getting suspicious...and hurt. You never seemed to have time to be more than just polite to him. 

The other Avengers, on the other hand, got more than just a few minutes of your time.

He was convinced he’d done something to anger you. He just didn’t know what and it was driving him nuts to try and figure it out. 

He’d asked Steve and Sam for help earlier that week but all they’d done is make him feel worse about the whole thing. 

“I just don’t know what I’ve done,” Bucky growls, frustrated. 

Sam and Steve look at eachother, snickering. 

“What?” Bucky frowns. 

Sam sighs. “I think we’ve called you out on your bullshit enough times, Buck. You’re a grown-ass man. Figure it out.”

So he decided to ask the only other person who could tell him what was wrong with you; you. 

And so Bucky waited, hiding out in your room until you come back in.

You sigh as you step into your room, kicking your shoes off and curling your fingers around the ends of your crop top and tugging upwards, intending fully to take it off. 

 “Oh my God, doll, stop!” Bucky’s gruff yell startles you so much, you accidentally send a vase hurtling towards his head.

 He shrieks, ducking down just in time to dodge it. It crashes on the wall behind him, breaking into a milling tiny pieces.

Holding a hand to your rapidly-beating heart, your huff. “Jesus fucking- Bucky! You scared the living heck out of me, you dickhead!” 

He smiles sheepishly. “Sorry, doll.” 

“What are you even doing here?” you breathe, brows furrowing in confusion.

He suddenly grows stern, posture straightening out and eyes leveling with yours, arms crossed over his broad, muscular chest. “Can I know why the hell you have you been avoiding me?” 

You’re taken aback by his bluntness, but manage to mask your shock fairly well with fake innocence, pretending to be busy taking your socks off.

“Avoiding you?” You snort. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I haven’t been avoiding you.” 

He chuckles humorlessly, voice gruff with simmering anger. “Oh, don’t lie to me, doll. We both know I’m able to see through your bullshit easily.” 

Something about how sure he sounded in the last statement hit a nerve within you. Your blood boils. How can someone so oblivious to how you felt about them be so sure that they know you so well?

“Stop, Bucky. Okay? I haven’t been avoiding you, so just...leave me alone,” you heave a tired sigh. 

“No.” His response is so quick, so resolute, it nearly gives you whiplash.

You laugh incredulously, raising a brow at him. “No?”

“No.” 

His response is easy. Almost too easy. 

You scoff. “Why?”

He snorts, looking at you like you’d grown two heads. “Because you’re angry with me and I have no idea why, doll.”

“No, I’m not,” you mumble quietly.

“Yes, you are.” 

“Okay. How do you know that for sure?” You challenge. 

The corner of his mouth curls arrogantly. “Your fists are clenched and you’re biting the inside of your cheek.”

He was right. Ugh, of course, he was. You slowly release your clenched fists and relax your tense jaw, sucking on your teeth and avoiding his smug gaze. Your blood boils, even more, swarming your head with angry thoughts. 

“Stop acting like you know me,” you suddenly snap, eyes watering. 

Gosh, why did he know you so well? Why did he have to make not loving him so hard? Why did he have to know small cute details like that? And why did he have to be so- perfect and beautiful?

“But...I do know you,” he states like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Like there was no other answer but that one.

You wanted him to stop having the upper hand here. But who were you kidding? He always would. Because you were in love with him and he wasn’t in love with you. 

“No, you don’t,” you hiss, hands slowly clenching into fists again, trying to contain your ever-growing anger.

“Yes, I do,” he insists again, so sure of himself. 

“No, you don’t,” you growl. 

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you-”

“Why are we even arguing about this!?” He snaps aggressively before his tone softens. “C’mon doll, we sound like children.” He sighs, licking his lips and runs his fingers through his hair. “l- look, the point is, you’re pissed at me. I just need to what the hell it is I did to deserve it, is all, alright?” 

You bite your lip. “Listen, James just leave me alone please I’m-”

“No, see!? Since when do you call me James? Honestly, Y/n! What the hell have I done to you to deserve you treating me like this?”  His voice cracks as he steps closer to you, hands reaching out to touch you. “Why are you pushing me away?” He whispers softly, hurt.  

That’s it. You can’t hold back all the overwhelming emotions bubbling within you for the past few years anymore. All the hurt and anger of years upon years of loving a man who could never love you back like you did him, come bubbling to the surface. You break like a festering sore after it’s been holding back all it had inside for far too long.

“You made me fall in love with you!” Your scream is powerful, deafening. 

Bucky’s eyes widen, mouth snapping shut, body freezing. If it weren’t for the situation, you would’ve laughed at him. he looked like a deer caught in headlights. 

But you can’t stop now that you’ve started. Unable to avoid vomiting your confession onto him, you continue, fingers gripping your hair.

“Y-you‘re just- there,” you breathe, licking your lips to moisten up your dry mouth. “In me, all the time. Every fucking second of every-fucking-day and I just-“ you lick your lips then chuckle humorlessly. “I’ve tried so fucking hard to fight it off when I realized what was happening. So, so hard. But that only made it worse and before I knew it, BAM!” You clap your hands together. “There you were Bucky Barnes. Everywhere within me.”

Bucky breathes in a sharp breath. “Doll I-“

“And it just drives me absolutely insane. Like- why couldn’t you just stay my best friend? Why couldn’t you just make me want you as a friend? W-why did you have to go ahead and be all sweet and kind and gorgeous and perfect and just-God. You give me butterflies.” You open your eyes as wide as they’ll go. “Did you know that? Butterflies Bucky, I mean...who the fuck gets butterflies?”

“Doll.”

“And I’m just so...” you laugh humorlessly, searching for the correct words to describe what you felt towards this man. This man who- despite everything- you couldn’t help but love.

“Doll.”

“...pissed at you. Because you can’t fucking love me back. Yeah, that’s why I’m pissed! Because here I am, young n’ foolish Y/n; entirely, completely, undoubtedly, fully, stupidly, ludicrously in love with you, James Buchanan Barnes. And there you are, treating me like a kid you can never love back. as anything other than your little sister. So ther-!”

It happens in just a few seconds and you don’t feel it until it’s happening, but Bucky strides up to you in just a few steps, gripping your jaw in his big warm hands before tipping your head back gently. 

Your eyes meet and you swear your limbs are live wires, full with charged electricity every time you look into his beautiful stormy irises. There is so much tender care in them. So much pain and hope and beauty all swirling and creating such a divine turmoil that the breath gets knocked straight out of your lungs, almost like you’ve been punched in the gut or something. 

“Buck?”

Then he crashes his lips against yours and it’s...not everything you dreamed of. No, because what you dreamed of could never compare to what Bucky’s lips on yours felt in real life.

Soft unlike anything you could’ve ever imagined, but firm and anchoring all at once, you can’t help it when you suck in a sharp breath through your nose. Kissing him was like feeding your greatest craving and sedating your every heartache momentarily. Kissing him was like having someone charge you with electricity, your fingertips tingled and your cheeks heated up and you’d never felt more alive. 

It takes a moment for your brain to somewhat process what was happening right now. Bucky kissed you. He was kissing you right now. And it’s only when you begin to comprehend what’s happening, that you respond to the kiss, hands gripping his neck and fingers tangling in his soft strands of hair as you kissed back with all the passion and hurt and anger and love you felt towards him. 

He pushes back, deepening the kiss. Everything about it was demanding and soft and somehow you couldn’t help but think that it fits you and him too well. Like it was how it was always meant to happen. In a heat-of-the-moment kind of way that also said so much more than words ever could. But also soft and kind of inconvenient. Unexpected and all-consuming. You and Bucky. 

The kiss is gone almost as soon as it started and before you know it, Bucky pulls back. You’re both panting softly, and you can feel his warm breath caressing your nose and nothing has ever felt so incredible. 

You’re still unable to fully process what had just happened, your heart is still beating erratically in your chest and your lips are tingly with all sorts of emotions you can’t fully make out right now. 

His hands, all warm and rough and big, are still cupping your jaw, as he tenderly traces a finger over your cheekbone and he’s gazing into your eyes, searching. Searching for an answer. 

“Say something, doll. Please,” he begs quietly.

You blink several times before responding in a passing breath. “Why?” 

He sighs, slumping slightly against you. “Because I love you. As more than just a friend.”

And there it was. All you’d ever wanted to hear the past few years. What haunted your sleep, the very heaviness in your heart that only grew with each passing day. And there it was, staring you right in the eyes. 

You instantly push away from him, tears blurring your vision. “Don’t lie to me like that,” you rasp, voice broken with overwhelming emotions. 

Bucky sputters, panic rising in his stormy grey eyes. “Oh my God doll, no! That’s not it at all, I would never-” 

“I heard you the other night. At the party,” you sob, aggressively wiping at your tears as they rolled down your cheeks. “You told Sam, Steve, and Thor that you could never feel something like that for me. And you meant it.” 

He shakes his head, face twisted into a regretful frown. He says nothing.

Your anger and immense hurt at his silence rise within you in uncontrollable waves of emotion. Your lips quiver in preparation for another wrecked sob to escape your lips.

“I understand,” you rasp. “Can you just-“ you sigh, turning away from him to hide the tears the rolled down your cheeks insistingly. “Leave please?”

“No.”

You wipe a fresh set of tears rolling down your face before spinning around to face him, indignantly livid. “You-!”

“I love you.” His eyes are a stormy grey that leaves you breathless and for the second time, you catch wind of that same raw feeling in his eyes as when he’d seen you all dressed up in that balcony. Vulnerable, raw, carnal.

“I’ll repeat that in case you couldn’t hear it. I. Love. You.”

Your breath catches at his words as he leisurely steps closer to you in short, cautious steps. His eyes never leave yours, their intensity blazing through your very being, alighting your nerves and making your heart pound erratically. You’re frozen in place at the certainty with which he says his words. Astounded.

“I am in love with you,” he gulps, his voice breaking with emotion. “So entirely, completely, undoubtedly, fully, stupidly, ludicrously in love with you, Y/f/n Y/l/n,” he laughs a little as he uses your own words against you.

A joy so unlike anything you’ve ever felt blossoms in your chest and you swallow the growing lump in your throat. “A-are you...serious?”

You don’t know if you’ve mumbled anything coherent, seeing as your heart is thumping so erratically in your ears you can’t hear anything else.

He’s close enough to kiss now, his breath warm and inviting as they softly caress your cheeks. He gently grips your hands in his and leans his face closer to yours.

His nose is brushing against yours, his eyelashes flutter and tickle your own eyelids and your breath gets lodged in your throat, lips parted as they anxiously await his own. They never come though, and just when you think he’ll kiss you again, his lips switch directions and press against your cheek instead, kissing away a tear with a touch so tender and caring, you shiver.

You swallow hard, voice raspy and breathless. “Really?”

His metal hand is cool against your flushed skin as he pulls back to look into your eyes again, earnest and kind.

“Doll I am so confused and unsure about so many things.” He chuckles softly, then turns serious. “But you are not one of those things. Never have been, never will be.”

The vigor in his honesty is striking.

He looks you in the eye. “The only reason I force myself to wake up every damn morning is because I know I’ll be able to see your face. It’s because no matter how dark it gets in here,” he points to his head, then grips your hand and slowly brings it to his chest so it rests over his fast-beating heart. “Or here, I know I’ll always get to see your beautiful smile the very next day. The only light at the end of the tunnel. I just- sometimes my head gets so dark and my heart just breaks over and over again without repair and I think I’ll never get out but-”

“Buck,” you whimper in interruption, too pained at the rawness of his hurt and suffering. 

“No, let me finish, please.” His voice cracks but he still smiling at you with such overpouring joy, you don’t know if he’s sad or happy or both.

 “But then I remember I have you. Even if it’s just as a friend. And that was completely fine by me, doll. Because I got to know you. And I mean really know you, I got to see all your sides. The dedicated, hard-working, focused one. The funny, sarcastic, goofy one. The passionate, fiery one. God, you have no idea how much I love it when your eyes light up when you’re pissed or fired up or when you laugh.” His smile widens. “I also got to see the honest, kind, loving caring side of you. You were always there when I fell apart and you were the only thing that got me through it. All of it. You’re loyal and sweet and selfless and I didn’t care that I wouldn’t get to hold you in my arms or kiss you or call you mine if it meant that I wouldn’t have you anymore.” His eyes water and he grips your fingers tighter as if holding you back from running away. 

“I’ve never met a more beautiful human being in my life. You’re the opposite of me. You’re light and hope and kindness and love and I just- I didn’t want to ruin that. You. Us.”

He laughs incredulously. “But I love you. I love you. God, I’ll never get tired of saying that. It feels so good,” he breathes out to himself giddily. 

It takes a while for him to notice that you haven’t said anything in the span of the past few minutes, but when he’s snapped out of his own ecstasy,  he turns to look at you, the smile falling off his face. 

You’re frozen in your spot, tears freely rolling down your cheeks. 

Bucky groans. “Oh God. I’ve completely messed this up, haven’t I.” He begins freaking out. “I-I’m s-so sorry doll. I didn’t mean to scare you into anything. We can just stay friends just please don’t avoid me again. I promise I won’t-”

“Bucky,” you finally speak up, stopping him with a stoic and expressionless face.

He gulps loudly, “yeah?”

A sweet, tearful smile breaks out on your face.  “I love you too, you big dork.” 

He laughs, relieved. 

You smirk. “Kiss me. Now.”

 He quirks a brow but returns your smirk. “Gladly.”

Then you both lean in and just when your lips are about to meet again, a voice comes booming from the intercom in your room. Or well, many of them. 

“FINALLY.”

 ***

Honestly, IDK. I need some fluffy romance in my life so here it is. 

A Special thanks to:

@wildefire - my Marvel tag (thank you!)

And of course my incredible forevers!

@jessikared97

@lilypalmer1987

@ladyofletters67

@meowsekai

[cywscross]

Do you know of any fics where Stiles and the nogitsune have a good relationship? I'm not talking a romantic or sexual one, more something like friendship. Or maybe mentor/mentee? Idk. I just think there's a whole lot of potential for them to interact in a more positive context. Especially considering the nogi has been trapped under the nemeton for decades. Kinda random I know, so soz for that. I just didn't know who else to ask since I rarely read fics in this fandom anymore.

Here are some I really enjoyed:

Toothed Morality (Send Me Flowers) by rightsidethru

“The world is a dark place, moje kochanie; it is one filled with monsters, always ready to gobble you whole. Be wary of the promises they give: seal every vow with blood and bone and Name. A True Name, one that will bind them to their word.”

“But how will I know that they’re telling the truth, Matka? Couldn’t they lie…?”

“You’ll know, mały płomień.”

Robber Foxes (Have No Fears) by RayShippouUchiha (WIP)

In the end all Stiles really has left is his dad, a lonely house, the key and deed to the loft, and a chest filled up with emptiness.

A void, yawning right behind his sternum.

That and the laughter of a fox trapped right beneath his skin, echoing in the hollows of his skull, whispering behind his teeth.

Stiles should have known it wasn’t over.

Magic stains everything it touches after all.

Impurity by rei_c (Part 7 of  Pan of the Preserve, WIP)

There's a fox in the tree. Stiles likes foxes but this one is keeping his tree from growing so it's gonna have to go.

or,

What happens when a nine-year-old Pan-ling meets a thousand-year-old nogitsune.

The Child of Frost and Flame by rightsidethru (WIP)

A series of interconnected stories set in a post-Deathly Hallows Hogwarts/Teen Wolf AU. The endgame pairing will be Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski.

Bonds and the Breaking Thereof by rei_c

"We should consider Stiles' suggestion," Peter says. Derek opens his mouth to argue; Peter holds up a couple fingers, says, "Let me speak, Derek." Derek's lip curls but he closes his mouth, nods for Peter to go on. "If Stiles doesn't spend time with us, he's only spending time with it," Peter says, blunt. "And how long do you think Stiles will cling to us if we don't give him something to cling to?"

or

In the aftermath of their separation, Stiles and the nogitsune make a deal to stop the killing. Stiles is hanging onto his pack bonds by a thread but how long can he fight to be part of the pack when no one there wants him, and a nogitsune wearing his face does?

Shadow In The Mirror by EclipseWing (they’re a lot more merged in this)

"When the sun catches him at the right angle, his shadow twists until it looks almost like there is a nine-tailed fox, trotting at his heels."

the murderer (sitting next to you) by pprfaith (background)

Body disposal is such a drag. Stiles hates it. Lucky for him, there's a solution for his ennui.

(Yeah, it's Peter.)

Fuck it by kiranightshade (WIP, very brief bit in this)

Stiles has no more fucks to give. Scott can go to hell. In fact, Scott is never going to discover werewolves in the first place. And he's certainly never becoming alpha.

In which Stiles decides they should never have stopped Peter in the first place but time travel is a tricky thing and it rarely ever goes to plan.

And my Where Poppies Grow drabbles starting here.