#my mother always read me the books and I watched the movies every christmas
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The best childhood movies.
(I want my childhood back)
#So glad I was raised with that amazing stories#my mother always read me the books and I watched the movies every christmas#actually I still do#they bring me so much comfort#pippi langstrumpf#michel aus lönneberga#ronja räuberstochter#childhood memories#inner child#nostalgia#nostalgic#astrid lindgren
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Hi, can I get a matchup with a guy from Lockwood and Co, ATLA, new Doctor Who and Hazbin Hotel please? 😊 I'm curvy girl with long brown wavy hair and chocolate brown eyes. I'm compassionate, funny, loyal, homey, thoughtful, kind-hearted. I'm bilingual, an ambivert, INFP and Gryffindor. I have a curious mind, and I'm always up for an adventure. I'm very protective of my loved ones. Also I can be stubborn and insecure. I like reading, listening to music, exploring new places, stargazing, daydreaming, watching movies, walking in the forest, writing, taking pictures, the smell of the rain and Christmas is my favourite time of the year! ✨ Thank you so much!! 💛
this was so fun to write its also my first time writing for this many fandoms lol
i pair you with George
If English isn't your mother's tongue he finds it funny when you go around the house muttering in the second language you speak mother young or not
the two of you will swap books and write small notes on things you liked and didn't like about it
he finds it weird that you lit in the rain but joins you anyway
once he gifted you a record player and will hear music coming from your room every so often
i pair you with aang
the two of you together are just asking for trouble but not like in a bad way
more of a sort of I'm going to do something and get in trouble for doing it you get me?
aang loves to teach you about his nation and even shows you some of the types of music and literature that he would read before the war
after the war, the two of you would just go off somewhere and not tell anyone
I pair you with the 8th doctor
this man is a true romantic at heart
is always up to try anything new with you
there's a wall in his room full of photos that you have taken over your time with him
after you leave he often looks at them even in his more recent regenerations
will dance in the ran with you, you don't even need to ask he is already dragging your ass outside
I pair you with lucifer
he loves how kind you are even to those who don't earn it
will make you small ducks just cos
the two of you will swap books after you have read them
I feel like if your book where to have some form of smut in it
be prepared for the sin of pride to turn the same shade of red as his checks
#doctor who#x reader#fanfic#doctor who x reader#tardis#drwho#lockwood netflix#george karime x reader#8th doctor#8th doctor x reader#hazbin hotel x reader#hazbin hotel#hazbin hotel lucifer#lucifer morningstar#lucifer x reader#avatar aang#aang x reader#matchup
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Top 22 of 2022
I've been meaning to do this before the end of the year for obvious reasons, but I just didn't have the chance until now! Thank you everyone who had tagged me, you all are so sweet
I apologize in advance, though. My memory sucks and my perception of time is broken sdjfjdhf
Part 1: Fandom Faves
01. Favorite new fandoms of the year: SPY x FAMILY, Demon Slayer
02. Favorite new ships since this year: SPYxFAMILY - Twiyor, Cynari, ScaraLumi - Genshin Impact
03. Favorite anime/TV show of the year: Extraordinary Attorney Woo, SPY x FAMILY, Pokémon Journeys
04. Favorite movie of the year: Hmm, I honestly don't watch many movies, so this one's hard... maybe Turning Red? Haha
05. Favorite character of the year: Scaramouche/Wandered, Tighnari - Genshin Impact. Uzui Tengen, Rengoku Kyojuro - Demon Slayer. Seo HyunSoo - XXX Buddy.
06. Favorite soundtrack of the year: One of my favorite soundtrack every year will always be Liyue OST - Genshin Impact!
07. Favorite book/manga/comic of the year: sajkhfjdf this year I read lots of new Manhwas and also a few books. Some of my favorite manhwas were Define the Relationship, Perfect Buddy, Actually, I was the real one, Who made me a Princess?, Under the Oak Tree, Love so Pure (side story), Forget About My Husband, I'd Rather Go Make Money, The Marriage Business and mooore.
I didn't like the books I read this year that much, but I guess my favorite was Six Crimson Cranes. Also read some light novels and they were The Marriage Business and I'll be the Warrior's Mother.
08. Favorite game of the year: Genshin Impact and Obey me!
09. Highlight of this year to remember: March 7th when I went to Disneyland JSAFHJ
Part 2: Community Review
10. Favorite Tumblr moments of 2022: Tickletober, my 2k milestone. @vqler and @dokidoki-muffin return aaaand... I think that's the most I can remember hahaah
11. Favorite fan art of the year: I have been blessed with so much fanart this year omg, some of my faves were this one, of course because it's the first time someone drew art for one of my fics!
Also this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, and this one, but honestly, there are so many aaaa
12. Favorite fic of the year: I read good fics this year, I can't choose, but definitely some of my faves are these beautiful fics I got from my dearest friends in my birthday and Christmas, here, here and here.
13. Favorite ask game of the year: The tickly alphabet, this one and the 3 sentence fic
14. My top achievements as a writer/artist/creator/blogger: Participating in Tickletober for the first time! I didn't finish all days, but I'm happy with the result haha. Also getting to finish my 2k milestone event!
15. My own best fic/post of the year: I think I wrote a lot this year, but one of my faves to write was this Koi ga Ochitara one because I've been wanting to write one with them for sooo long!
16. My most underappreciated fic/post of the year: Probably not the "most", but this Mafuyu x Ritsuka x Yuki one?
17. A post of mine that got more popularity than expected: Omg these three Tickletober fics because they don't have a large popularity in the community, but they got more attention that I expected!
Koi Ga Ochitara, Junai Drop Out, Sign
18. Something I changed on my blog since this year: I think I did write more this year, so that was nice!
Part 3: Next Year
19. Something I didn’t post this year but would like to do next year: I'd like to work on this little AU idea thingy I have been neglecting because I feel unsure to write and post, but we'll see!
20. Goals for next year: As for this blog... maybe getting into more fandoms to keep writing haha. Also, Ginny girl is trying to write less trash, but I'd like to keep collaborating with her, because I just love how well we write together aaaa
21. 2023 releases I look forward to the most: MAHOUTSUKAI NO YOME SEASON 2! Aaaand more Genshin updates and also Obey me cards that I can actually get LOL
Part 4: Spreading Love
22. Shoutouts to people who made my 2022 a better year:
Goodness, here comes the fun part haha:
@otomiya-tickles of course my sweetie girl precious baby boo. I already told you this, but thank you for making my 2022 a loooot better, thank you for your endless support and your love! You are the best and I'm so happy to talk to you every single day! You are so so talented and smart and amazing and I love you!
@ragewerthers my frieeeend, I always have so much fun talking with you! From just daily life activities to our endless hcs about our precious Toshi *teary emoji* you definitely did my 2022 a lot better too and I hope we can still talk lots this 2023!
@wertzunge Maaaax, I think this year we talked more than any other time haha, I'm happy we're both excited about Mahoutsukai no Yome sdbfhsdf I already said this to you, but I hope we get to talk some more this year as well! Thank you for your friendship!! (Also thank you for your kind support during commisions!)
@vqler @dokidoki-muffin we barely interact with each other BUT I wanted to say that you both are amazing and super talented people and I admire your abilities and your creativity and it's so so nice to have you back in the community! You both are GREAT and I get excited every time I see art from you both. Such talented people, let me give you a respectful kiss on your forehead.
@ticklystuff omg hi! I know we don't talk much, but I just wanted to say that I really like you and you are so so so so SO good at writing ome such talent! I love seeing you in my dash and seeing all the cool amazing stuff you write aaaaa I think of you every time I see Childe, no lies. Thank you for being amazing!
@happyandticklish Queen of writing. No words just admiration. Honestly, you are so so so GOOD. I wish I could write like you and you're so kind and amazing help askdjskf We've talked a bit before and I apologize for my awkwardness aaaaa Thank you for showing us all how cool you are and for being a cupcake!
@myreygn Reeeeey! I honestly get so so shy when you mention how you fangirled when I followed you back ahahaha, thank you for always being so supportive with me! You are amazing and I like chatting with yoouuu! I hope we get to talk some more during 2023!!
@thornoisdono Thank you for the generous support in kofi aaaaa, I love every single fic you requested and hopefully, you'll see them up in the next couple of days! Thank you!
@intheticklecloset @zeke-ism @lovelynim @xsezzie @bloominggiggles @ticklish-v-93 @soft-tk-fluff @chibimochii @nnainai @tickles-tea @looneytickles @tiredleekaz @ssnicker-doodless @spongeboblevel25 @justmaybee @itslittlegiggle @tiklart @lovelymessybubbly @italeean @ticklishfanart - whether we had talked before or not, I'm so thankful for you all! I love seeing and interacting with your content. You all are amazing and make my stay in tumblr so much better! I'd love to get to know you all more this year, but I'll be always be awkward, but I want you to know that you are some of my favorite blogs EVER.
#end of the year tag#top22of2022#this took me two hours to finish omg#it was really fun though#i can't believe it's 2023 already#i hope this year is better for all of us guys
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4, 5, 7, 8, 20, and 22 for spooky asks?
4. favorite spooky movie?
Oh this is a good question. I'm super scared of horror and rarely watch it if I can help it. I really like Perfect Blue which is probably the scariest thing I've watched, lol. I also like The Nightmare Before Christmas, Paranorman, and Coraline. I also watch It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown every year. I want to learn to be able to watch more actual horror films though. Not quite there yet though LOL
5. do you have any halloween traditions?
Hmmm well, I usually go trick or treating, and if I don't, I hand out candy. We always decorate the house and it's a tradition for us to watch the aforementioned Charlie Brown movie. We also always make these Pillsbury cookies:
7. what was your costume last year?
Last year I was a sexy nun LOL or in the words of Spirit Halloween a "sinful sister". It was fun and made me feel empowered but also I don't think I want to do it again or something like that again because I don't like wearing femme or feminine stuff usually.
8. what’s this years costume?
No plans yet...It's tough because as a child I went as Pikachu every. Single. Year. From ages like, 5+. And I decided to try changing that up once I moved out of the state I lived in at the time and I never realize things are coming up until the last minute. I might pull out the nun costume again because it's already there and made. I'd like to do something else though! But I don't have much of a reason to since I don't have anyone to trick or treat with and such 🤷
20. did you like ghost stories as a kid? do you now?
Honestly I wasn't ever told a single ghost story by anyone as a kid so it's hard to say. I was (and still am) easily scared, but I was deeply fascinated by scary stories if they were based on mythology and folklore. I also really liked this book:
However I wouldn't ever admit I liked it. And it definitely scared me. But I was again very fascinated by it. Slightly because I remember being vaguely attracted to various ghosts or monsters or such.
For now, I haven't ever really watched or listened to or been told any ghost stories, but I probably would like them. But also keep in mind as a kid and now I still refuse to read creepypastas because they scare me. So. It depends KJHFKDFJHG. Cryptids usually scare me as well, unless they're not inherently dangerous or evil or bad.
22. are black cats really bad luck?
NO!!!! DEATH BY EXPLOSION TO ANYONE WHO THINKS THEY ARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't genuinely believe this but I'd like to believe that black cats are more commonly familiars to witches than other colors though! Or that they can be omens/forewarn bad luck or disaster, but aren't bad luck themselves (a la Absol Pokemon style). I dearly love black cats and would love to have one one day if it was possible (alas, my mother is deathly allergic to cats).
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The day of official aging
Today is my birthday. I continue to be older than people assume. Birthdays have always been difficult for me and have only become more so since my mother’s death (27 hours of labour). Let’s look at the previous number (it’s 38, I’m 39 today, numbers are fake and meaningless).
The Bad
I lost two uncles (one on Saturday) and a cousin, all three unexpectedly, two to accidental death, one to cancer. It casts a pal on things.
The Mundane
I had contractors redo the concrete in my basement. I bought a new furnace. I bought a new washer. I bought a new dryer. I did my own taxes. I started flossing regularly.
The Mental
I am now cautiously seeing my psychiatrist every six months instead of every three months. I started keeping a book of validation. I broached the subject of my big abandonment trauma with my psychologist.
The Good (but still mundane)
I finished building (helped finish building) wall mounted bookshelves, providing enough space for my 1,250+ books (comics, manga, and miscellany not included). I read The Count of Monte Cristo and it was rad as fuck. I read probably 100 books total. I started actively trying to watch more contemporary movies. I started shyly joining in on a bad movie night discord where I use my mouth words. I finished a 30,000+ word fanfic and wrote approximately 50,000+ words of a new fanfic. I started working 4 days a week. I saw THREE rabbits playing in the community garden at once. I made cookies at Christmas for my neighbours. I baked a cake for the first time and it was enjoyed by the person I baked it for. I got to read the fifteenth volume of Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service after waiting for a long, long, long time.
I continue to survive and manage the challenges of existence, big and small, despite everything.
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Get To Know Me Meme
@old-wild-child tagged me, so here we go✨
Top three ships:
- Bilbo Baggins and Thorin Oakenshield from The Hobbit. Fell in love with them last February and they’re my comfort ship. Also thanks to them I found a music band Of monsters and men and become a huge fan.
- Jim Hopper and Joyce Byers because in a teen show I’m always rooting for the adults✨
- And my most favorite - Geralt of Rivia and Tissaia de Vries. Yes, they don’t have any screen time together (except like five seconds) but I have my reasons to ship them. This ship was my bestie’s idea and I fell for it in a light speed. They’re my comfort ship and when the real word is too messy, I have these two and my fics <3
First ship: Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala. I’m still not over them and Padmé’s ruminations hurt my heart every single time.
Last Song: Enya - On my way home
Last movie: The polar express
Currently reading: A historical book about empress Elizabeth and her real relationship with her mother-in-law archduchess Sophie. It’s a book called "Our dear Sisi" and the author is describing Sophie’s attitude and how she treated Sisi in real life.
Currently watching: Nothing new, the last thing I saw was Wednesday and it was good <3
Currently consuming: Nothing right now, but I’m thinking about a potato salad and some Christmas sweets... Might gonna sneak into the kitchen later👀
Craving: Beat the stupid writing block I have since September...
Tagging: @misfit-among-the-angels @gingersimasnaps @bisidneycarter @gaylilsullivan @spaceclairvoyant
Feel free to post or refuse as you only want✨
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Blog Tour + #Review: KILT TRIP by Alexandra Kiley!
Welcome to Book-Keeping and my stop on the HTP Books in-house blog tour for Kilt Trip by Alexandra Kiley! I've got all the details for you below, along with my review!
About the Book
title: Kilt Trip author: Alexandra Kiley publisher: Canary Street Press release date: 5 March 2024
For fans of Emily Henry and Sarah Morgenthaler comes a brand-new Scotland-set romantic comedy. In this enemies-to-lovers romance, one woman discovers more than the just the magic of the heartland's lochs and landscapes—but not before clashing with the proud Scotsman she's forced to work with. Addie Macrae has always followed her wanderlust. As a travel consultant, she turns struggling businesses into world-class tour groups. Her job comes with the perk of jetsetting around the globe, which means never being in one place for too long—just the way she likes it. Since her mom passed away ten years ago and her father never stopped grieving, no place has felt like home anyway. But when she’s sent on assignment to help a family-run tour group in Scotland—the one place she swore she’d never go—Addie has to shed her emotional baggage and turn on the professional charm. Logan Sutherland’s family business is operating just fine, thank you very much. The Heart of the Highlands was never meant to make the family rich, rather to teach sightseers to appreciate the beauty of Scotland’s hidden gems, which are more captivating than any tourist trap. The last thing Logan wants is some American "expert" pushing Outlander-themed tours and perpetuating myths about the Loch Ness Monster. And for a travel consultant, Addie oddly doesn’t seem interested in learning about the land Logan loves. Equally put off by each other, the new colleagues clash on every company decision. Then Logan discovers Addie does have a personal connection to Scotland—it was her late mother’s favorite place, one that now lives on in a handful of faded Polaroids Addie kept from her parents’ Honeymoon. She wants to seek out the places in the pictures, but is worried that she's too late to capture the wonder of following in her mother's footsteps. Logan is convinced he can help Addie get some closure, and the two realize, when they agree, they actually work pretty well together. But Addie’s contract with The Heart is almost up, and the business is still losing money. They can’t afford distractions, but there’s no denying the intense chemistry between Addie and Logan. Besides, how can Addie do her job properly if she hasn’t explored all Scotland has to offer?
Add to Goodreads: Kilt Trip Purchase the Book: Bookshop | B&N | BAM | Amazon
About the Author
Alexandra Kiley writes big-hearted romances full of banter, found-family, and deep love. When she’s not writing, you can find her drinking tea, hiking, or gazing adoringly at the mountains of Colorado where she lives with her husband and two kids. Her novels are inspired by her semester in Scotland where she fell in love with not only the lush and magical land, but also the people who invited her into their homes and made her feel like family.
Connect with Alexandra: Website | Twitter | Instagram
My 5-Star Review
I desperately want to visit Scotland and have since I was younger. Outlander is one of my faves - I read the books as they came out (yes I'm old lol) and I adore the show - and I watched so many Hallmark Christmas movies set in Scotland 🙈 So when I heard about Kilt Trip and the chance to be part of the street team for Alexandra Kiley, I jumped at the chance! American travel company consultant travels to Scotland and meets hot tour guide in a kilt?? Sign me the eff up! 😂
I'm so happy to have been able to read an early copy of this delightful romance. I laughed, I swooned, I cried - literally every emotion ran through my body reading this book! There are some open door scenes, but they are relatively mild, what we used to call "tasteful" (even though it's not my favorite way to describe it). Logan was gaaaahhhhh just gorgeous and swoon worthy!! 😍 I absolutely loved him from jump. Addie is a strong woman, my word she is stubborn, but she's carrying so much grief with her and she's been so hurt that she has walls up for days. Logan may just be the one who can finally do that! Plus there's an amazing family, snooty sheep, adorable hairy coos, and so. Many. Kilts.
Any fan of romance needs to read this one, it's an absolute delight (even when I was crying - thanks Alexandra) and I want everyone to read it and then gush with me about it! Thanks again, Alexandra, for having me on the team!
Rating: 5 Stars!
**Disclosure: I received an early e-copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley for purposes of this blog tour.
#kilt trip#alexandra kiley#canary street press#htpbooks#contemporary romance#bookreview#book review#new release#newrelease#blog tour#new releases
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Everything Wrong With BellmoTheGreat Vol 2
-The fact that both this and the original journal were inspired by Cinema’s Sins. Specifically, there videos on Everything Wrong With… THEMSELVES! Because no movie, or person, is without sin. +1
-And speaking of Cinema Sins because I really can’t think of a better time to bring this up, I actually use to love them! Not just them but any other channel that was basically just Cinema Sins but for gaming. You know, ones like Dartigan, Charrii5, GCN, those sorts of people. Normally I’m all for people enjoying what they want but me liking these channels in particular was a sin. +2
-There’s a lot of reasons I stopped watching these channels, from the constant scene manipulation to playing dumb to make things look like they don’t make sense to repeating sins to making bad pop culture references that aren’t sins of what they were sinning to acting like “the books don’t matter” to constantly contradicting themselves (they will sin a movie/game for not explaining anything but then turn around and sin it FOR explaining two much) or in the case of stuff like Cinema Sins Harry Potter videos saying some REALLY creepy stuff like “Hermine isn’t old enough to be hot yet.” (Yes, they ACTUALLY said that in almost all their HP videos, go watch them if you don’t believe me) to thinking they can get away with it because they write themselves of as “satire” as if satire can’t still be criticised and those channels STILL putting actual criticisms in there videos. +3
-That being said, I haven’t been watching channels like Th3Birdman and others like him that do Everything Wrong With videos on Everything Wrong With videos and well, this journal IS an Everything Wrong With on myself so… I guess I can’t really escape this type of content. +4
-I’m still white! But not so white that I don’t know what New Growth means. +5
-I’m 27 years old but I have more than 22 years of gaming experience. Hey, some of us don’t just come out of the womb knowing how to hold a controller. Sometimes we wait until we get a Playstation 2 for Christmas of 2000 before we do. +6
-I was a Playstation kid for most of the 2000’s. Yes, I did have a Gameboy Advanced, Wii and DS but most of my time was spent on either my Playstation 2, Playstation 3 or Playstation Portable. +7
-I had a Playstation 3 over an Xbox 360 and I am not ashamed of that! +8
-I once played a train conductor in my High Schools performance of Goodnight Mister Tom in the beginning of the performance where Willie’s mother sends him off to live with Tom on the train despite that opening never once happening in the original book our play was based on. Trust me, we had to read the book in school, I know! +9
-One time I was asked to help sell beer at a local footy game despite not liking either football or beer. +10
-Also, I’m an Australian who doesn’t enjoy or watch the footy. Yes, that’s a sin! +11
-Inkling Michael exists! +12
-Inkling Michael: Hey screw you! I’m beautiful! Take a sin off for me! -11
-Shiver is my favourite Splatoon girl behind Marina. Yeah you heard me Frye fans who get salty that Shiver has won almost every Splatfest in Splatoon 3 so far! +12
-Hate makes me stronger. Actually, hate makes ALL of us stronger! No really, what a lot of people don’t realize it that prior to dislikes being removed from Youtube they still technically counted as likes and leaving negative comments on a post was usually enough to get that post trending. Hate really does make us all stronger! We are all collectively like the Sith in a Star Wars movie. +13
-The reason review scores don’t have any value to me is actually because it’s pointless to give a score to something that will be subjective to everyone who experiences that! +14
-Same with arguing over what game “deserves” Game of the Year. To me Game of the Year is nothing more than a meaningless title that holds no real value yet everyone is always so determined to lable what they think is the best game of that year period ignoring the fact that again, we all have different tastes and what you consider to be Game of the Year won’t be someone else’s favourite. There’s a good reason I stopped taking this saying very seriously after the 2020 Game Awards where everyone collectively overreacted to The Last of Us Part 2 winning. +15
-I went to my local Pizza Hut once, got sick and had to go to the bathroom and then a few days later the place closed down. I didn’t even put in a complaint or anything, it just happened! So yeah, to everyone in my town who’s sad over that you can blame me for it, kinda. +16
-I have Autism. And despite what some people still think it doesn’t make you stupid. But I still have it so… +17
-Those who think I don’t read any of the source material a game is based on are going to be even more disappointed when I tell them… yeah actually your right. Most of the time at least. +18
-No actually, can I just take this opportunity to vent for a second about something? The books DO fucking matter! The Witcher games would not exist if the books didn’t exist. The Batman Arkham games would not exist if the Batman comics did not exist! Every single Star Wars game ever would not exist if the Star Wars movies didn’t exist! The Simpsons Hit and Run would not exist if the Simpsons Show didn’t exist! Kingdom Hearts would not exist if Disney didn’t! This isn’t really a sin on myself or anything, I just wanted to vent about this because people genuinely think that the source material something is based on “doesn’t matter” or that they need to consult a book just to understand it while also ignoring that these adaptations are just that! Adaptations of already existing stories and characters! And even then, most adaptations you don’t ALWAYS have to consult a book thanks to a little thing you might have heard of called “show don’t tell!” Jesus Fucking Christ, media literacy really IS dead if people say that the books “don’t matter!”
-Prior to Sony removing the option to share videos and clips to Twitter via PS5 I had to censor my swear words even though I don’t have any problem with swear words. Why? Because Sony made it so that it stops you from sharing anything if your post includes a swear. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve had to do this! +19
-I’ve managed to piss off both Star Wars fans and Pokemon fans even though I love both those things. +20
-I’ve gotten 2 pics of my sona hypnotized and coiled by Kaa but not one pic of me with Miia or Alice. +21
-I don’t understand Roman Numerals. Or at least I don’t understand ones up to VI. +22
-You can usually tell just how much of a franchsie I actually know just based on how I write some of the descriptions to my commissions. “Junko from Danganropa in an interesting suit designed around the funny bear man from the same series.” HIS NAME IS FUCKING MONOKUMO YOU UNCULTURED SWINE! +23
-Somehow some of the best friends I’ve made in the past 5 years have been artists, some of whom I’ve commissioned several times, yet the most I’ve ever done in terms of actual art is a couple of sketches done on my 3DS that I did in like five minutes. +24
-Someone once tried to insult me on Facebook by calling me a Trump Supporter even though A) They were replying to a comment I made that had nothing to do with Donald Trump, B) I’m not even American and C) Fuck Donald Trump! +25
-Yeah no, I still don’t like Spec Ops The Line. Sorry! +125
-I tweet like a normal weirdo which is clearly an act. +126
-I actually, unironically enjoy Sonic and The Black Knight! It’s a pain to play sometimes if you’re playing this on actual hardware like I do because of the motion controls but I actually have fun with this game. I haven’t played Sonic and the Secret Rings yet but I’m willing to bet I’d enjoy that two. And not just because one of the characters in it is an admittedly really cute genie girl. +127
-Everyone thinks I have a massive love for Shantae which… yeah, I do! Obviously, I’ve made that pretty clear in the past, but in reality, EVERYONE has a massive love for Shantae. +128
-The only Paper Mario game I’ve ever played and have still played was Super Paper Mario. +129
-The Nohrian path in Fire Emblem Fates will forever be superior to the Hoshidens. And let me stop you right there, it’s NOT purely because of Camilla! She’s only a bonus reason. +120
-I once sold my Wii U copies of Mario Kart 8 and Pokken Tournament just because I was getting the Switch versions. Yes, that IS a sin because why the fuck would I do that as someone who’s a Wii U defender! (I DID get those versions back eventually though.) +131
-I have WAY to many games that I’ve brought but have never played! Tearaway, all the Little Big Planet games, the first two Infamous games, Astral Chain, Tokyo Mirage Sessions, Zombi U, the list goes on. +132
-I actually enjoy Detroit: Become Human and Heavy Rain. I still yet to finish Beyond Two Souls and Fahrenheit though. +133
-I’ve failed the Wrong Side of the Tracks mission in Grand Theft Auto San Andreas so much at this point that I can’t even be bothered to do that mission the legitimate way anymore! I always just park the bike on a specific roof, get off and jump onto the train to bust some caps in those gangsters’ asses. +134
-I’m sort of still a brony. Not as much as I use to be in the mid 2010’s but I still have a love for this show. +135
-I still believe that the haters of something can be way, WAY worse than the people who enjoy a thing. There’s a dam good reason I was proud to be a brony for most of the 2010s. +136
-I only got into Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared because of Red Guy. He is my spirit animal! +137
-I was enjoying Little Which Academia up to the point where I was spoiled about a pretty big plot twist around one of the characters via a meme! While I was six episodes in! I have yet to continue watching it because of that meme! +138
-I’ve never made a video game therefor I should probably just shut the fuck up. +139
Sin Total: 139 Sentence: Dante makes it into a Smash Game! (But it’s the 2013 reboot Dante!)
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Woke up with some things on my mind yesterday and decided to write something Real for once 🙃
Church has always been my family business.
One of my earliest memories is giving my mother attitude while she pulled into the church parking lot. I’d spent the morning trying to convince her that I was too sick to go to church (I was not remotely ill) and she looked at me in the rear view and said, “You’re getting to that age where you don’t want to go to church.”
I don’t remember the whole lecture (I was probably about 3) but the gist of it was that this was not a feeling I was allowed to have. As the pastor’s kids, we were never supposed to be anything but thrilled to be at church. Nevermind that we were there more often than anyone, or that from the second we pulled into the parking lot, we were being scrutinized by the bitties and the deacons, so maybe we didn’t really feel all that welcome here. Them’s the brakes, kid. You’ll go to church, you’ll stay late, and you’ll enjoy it.
When I was a teenager trying to flake out on praise team practice, my father said to me, “The Bible says if you don’t use the gifts God gave you, He’ll take them away.” I went to practice and learned to sing simple songs about a simple faith. I could sing of Your love forever. My brother-in-law led us on his acoustic guitar every Sunday morning. My brother ran sound. My sister corralled her five children into church clothes, then the van. When she was late, I had a perfect view of the whisperers, the gossips, the Did You Notice crowd.
When I moved away from home, I comforted my parents by telling them there was a good Baptist church in my new neighborhood. I never went. When they asked, I lied. Sometimes, when I can get a Sunday off. Eventually, they stopped asking. I rarely called, anyway. I sang in the car, with my friends, in dive bars for karaoke and began to believe that maybe this was somehow my religion.
My sister and I came out to each other via text on the same night. She made a joke about leaving her husband and dating girls. The kind of joke I recognized. I texted back: “So, girls, huh?” and soon we were laughing. “Girls are so pretty!” “Who isn’t obsessed with boobs?”
She left her husband that year. My parents’ adjustment period took some time, some difficult conversations, some days where I was too mad at my mother to speak to her at all. On Thanksgiving, they held a big breakfast that included my ex-brother-in-law’s new wife, my sister’s new girlfriend, and her three kids. I video called in for moral support. My father made sure I was “there” before starting a little sermon about our family’s new normal. Change is hard but can be good, or something. I was out of practice, hadn’t heard him preach in years, tuned out a bit out of habit. Near the end, he turned to whoever was holding the phone showing my face, and credited me with helping to make these changes happen. I just kind of smiled, not sure how to respond. A response I've given him many times. Then everyone went back to their bacon.
That Christmas, I came home and came out of my own closet, to much less fanfare. Everyone kind of Knew, You Know.
I think about that Thanksgiving more and more as my siblings’ children grow up, become their own people. Be allowed to be their own person at all, rather than the Optics Approved Pastor’s Kid. They wear their hair and makeup in ways my parents would never have allowed us to, in defiance of gender norms and sometimes good sense. Openly read books, watch movies, listen to music that I remember having to smuggle past my parents. They go out to plays that have nothing to do with Christmas, Easter, or any part of the Bible. They go on out-of-state school trips, far from their parents’ watchful eyes, without a single religious official around to remind them that Jesus Died For Them.
I think of those little babies, now full-fledged People, running unsupervised through Disneyland. Out with their friends with no fear of being Caught Dressed Like This. Standing up to their dick of a youth pastor. Going away for college. Prioritizing themselves over the 24-hour family business that is being the pastor’s family. And my heart swells to bursting. There is so much in this world that I can’t shield them from, that I simply cannot change. But seeing them spared a few of the specific lonlinesses of my youth heals some part of me I’d forgotten was even broken.
And I think about that Thanksgiving, and all the lonely ones I spent away from family, knowing I would have felt lonlier with them. I think I may always be a bit of a stranger to my family. I think that’s how I prefer it. But I know that I made my family a little less lonely for the next generation. When I see my father’s eyes in my face and so many others, it no longer feels like the gaze of a vengeful god.
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Green’s Party Guide to the 2023 Oscar Nominated Short Films
Every year the Academy Awards give out their annual movie awards, but all of the attention usually goes to the big categories. I am a longtime champion of the Short Film categories for Animation, Live Action and Documentary, mainly because I have made short films and I know how hard it can be to tell a story in a short amount of time. I am very excited to continue my annual tradition of showcasing the Oscar Nominated Short Films (read my 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 guides). This year’s nominated short films are available from ShortsTV both in theaters and online. I’ve watched all of them and here are my thoughts and predictions:
2023 Shorts TV poster
Best Live Action Short:
This year’s Live Action Short nominees are all from other countries. In addition to global diversity, they are all very diverse in genres too. In An Irish Goodbye (Ireland), two estranged brothers reunite after the death of their mother. I couldn’t help but be reminded of the similarities to multi-Oscar nominee The Banshees of Inisherin, with it’s rural Ireland setting, humor, and drama. Ivalu (Denmark) is about a young Inuit girl searching for her missing sister against the breath-taking backdrop of Greenland. It is co-directed by Anders Walter who previously won an Oscar for Best Live Action Short for 2013′s Helium. Disney+’s The Pupils (Italy) is about girls at a Catholic boarding school during Christmas time. Of all the nominees this has gotten the most attention because it was produced by Oscar winner Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity and Roma) and if he wins for this that would be a 5th Oscar on his mantle. Night Ride (Norway) shows a woman with dwarfism who steal a tram and a series of unexpected events occur as she continues to make tram stops. In The Red Suitcase (Luxembourg), a young Iranian woman arrives in a new country for an arranged marriage and suddenly makes a life-changing decision.
2023 Live Action Short Film nominees
Will Win: The Pupils has name recognition with Cuaron as a nominee, but it is also the most uplifting of this year’s nominees. The fact that it’s on Disney+ doesn’t hurt either.
Should Win: The Red Suitcase truly stayed with me for days after watching it. It told a highly emotional story with high stakes in a very short amount of time and left me in awe.
Best Animated Short:
I always enjoy animated shorts because this category is always showcasing various styles of animation from all over the world. Apple TV+’s The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse (U.S. / U.K.) is based on a children’s book about, well, a boy, a mole, a fox and a horse who travel together in the boy’s search for a new home. This one boasts the star power of voices Tom Hollander, Idris Elba and Gabriel Byrne as well as star producers J.J. Abrams and Woody Harrelson. In The Flying Sailor (Canada), it shows a sailor who goes flying after an explosion (based on a true story from 1917). It is co-directed by Amanda Forbis, who was nominated twice before for Best Animated Short, and Wendy Tilby, who was nominated three times before for Best Animated Short. Ice Merchants (Portugal / France / U.K.) has been getting a lot of attention because it is the first Portuguese film to ever be nominated for an Oscar. It shows a father and son who jump with a parachute from their house to go to a village and sell ice. FX and Hulu’s My Year of Dicks (U.S.) is about a 15-year old girl who is determined to lose her virginity in early 90s Houston. Based on Pamela Ribon’s memoir, it is animated but has moments of live action interspersed as well. There are five different guys she is with in this time period and there’s different styles of animation throughout. In An Ostrich Told Me the World Is Fake and I Think I Believe It (Australia), a telemarketer is confronted and told that the world is stop motion animation and now he needs to convince his colleagues.
2023 Animated Short Film nominees
Will Win: The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse boasts star power and it’s on Apple TV+, but more than that, it feels like an animated feature in 32 minutes.
Should Win: I am rooting for The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse also because it was produced by someone I interned for a while back. But I will say this: a case can be made for My Year of Dicks for using animation to tell her personal recollection...and let’s face it, it would be wildly entertaining to see a presenter on the Oscar telecast say “and the winner is...My Year of Dicks” and not get censored.
Best Documentary Short:
This year’s Doc Shorts are all completely different in their subjects and in their approaches to documentary. In Haulout (U.K.) a lonely man waits on a remote coast of the Siberian Arctic for an ancient gathering. There is a powerful environmental message to this, even if it is slow moving and has very little dialogue. Netflix’s The Elephant Whisperers (India) also has an environmental message in it to: an Indigenous couple fall in love with an orphaned elephant and work for his survival. Both have breath-taking cinematography! HBO Max’s How Do You Measure a Year? (U.S.) is a doc 17 years in the making: The director had a ritual with his daughter Ella every year on her birthday from age 2 to 18, he filmed an interview with her being asked the exact same questions each year. Director Jay Rosenblatt was nominated for Best Documentary Short last year for When We Were Bullies, my favorite of last year’s nominees. Netflix’s The Martha Mitchell Effect (U.S.) is a historical doc about Martha Mitchell, the whistleblower who was married to President Nixon’s attorney general John N. Mitchell. She was gaslighted by the Nixon Administration to keep her quiet and today through the lens of 2023, we see she was speaking the truth even though she was told otherwise. The New Yorker’s Stranger at the Gate (U.S.) is about a U.S. Marine who plots a terrorist attack on a mosque in Muncie, Indiana. But in the process of doing so, a surprising turn of events occur for all involved.
2023 Documentary Short Film nominees
Will Win: This is a hard one to predict. Sometimes the Academy goes for environmental or socio-political subjects, but recent years it has been introspective human interest stories. A case could literally be made for any of these to win, but if I had to predict I’d go with The Elephant Whisperers. It had the backing of Netflix, but more importantly it’s cinematography can’t be denied and neither than the endearing story.
Should Win: Even if the haters are going to say How Do You Measure a Year? is just a gimmick, I really liked it. Sure, we’ve seen this approach in the Up series and to an extent Boyhood did something similar in it’s narrative approach, but the way we are seeing this girl grow and mature through the annual interview tradition was intriguing and introspective. I do have to say a close second would be Stranger at the Gate based solely on the unbelievable twist and sense of surprise you don’t always see in documentaries.
This year’s Oscar Nominated Short Films can be seen online from ShortsTV and in movie theaters, including Somerville Theatre, Landmark Kendall Square Cinema and Coolidge Corner Theatre in the Boston area. For tickets and info: https://shorts.tv/theoscarshorts/tickets/
#oscar nominated short films#short films#Movie Reviews#an irish goodbye#ivalu#the pupils#night ride#the red suitcase#the boy the mole the fox and the horse#the flying sailor#ice merchants#my year of dicks#an ostrich told me the world is fake and i think i believe it#haulout#the elephant whisperers#how do you measure a year#the martha mitchell effect#stranger at the gate#documentary#film geek
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Harvey Headcanons! ☕️🛩📚
He grew up in a decently wealthy household. He always had new clothes and a clean haircut, and he was often made fun of for it at school. He just wore whatever his mother picked out for him because he didn't know any better. He wasn't exactly encouraged to explore his personal style as a teenager, and it shows.
He has a very rocky relationship with his mother, who has always been controlling over his life (particularly his love life) and is the main reason for him becoming a doctor (she's also a major reason for his anxiety/insecurities). Harvey considered a variety of options when he accepted that he couldn’t be a pilot, but his mother practically forced him into the medical field. She still tends to project her dreams onto him.
His dad is just... there. He's the type of man that simply agrees with his wife, hardly sharing his own opinions or true emotions in an attempt to appear "manly." He was rather cold toward Harvey as a child and was typically busy with work (I believe he was the CEO of something), but they've grown closer as Harvey has gotten older.
His older sister Hannah is a lot like him, but a super hipster lesbian that’s a bit more on the adventurous side. Their mother is not supportive of her at all, and it’s something that infuriates him (he loves his sister to death). He takes her to a pride parade every year so that she feels loved and accepted by at least one member of her family. She lives in the city and they meet up often, usually on a monthly basis. They both love to read and often exchange books with each other once they've finished them. He considers her to be his best friend.
He played the violin growing up (his mother's idea). He was in orchestra all throughout school, though he was never very good. He enjoyed the music, but he didn't actually like playing very much, and he *hated* being on stage.
He loves dream pop. I just know that this little hipster man gets down to some Cocteau Twins, Lush, or Slowdive. I think he also probably likes The Smiths (they're so relatable to him), but he’s not really into any post-punk beyond that. I also think he likes 70s dad rock a little bit, stuff like Eagles and America- just the classics.
He isn’t really the type to get bored easily. He didn't have a large social circle growing up, so he learned to entertain himself. When he lived in the city he used to go to the movies by himself, and sometimes even to restaurants that he wanted to try. He is painfully lonely at the end of the day, but he does enjoy his own company.
He’s a cat person, 100%. Dogs tend to need too much attention and playtime for his liking. I imagine that his partner's cat loves to rub their head on his mustache and sit on his lap while he reads. I also imagine that they tend to knock his model plane parts onto the floor while he's building them. It annoys him, but he's very patient with his furry friend!
He isn't disturbed or scared by horror movies at all. He doesn't bat an eye, especially at gore- he has a stomach of steel from his days of working at the hospital. He enjoys watching them from time to time simply to critique the medical inaccuracies.
He secretly *loves* Hallmark Christmas movies. He watches them every year from the moment they start airing. He's an absolute sucker for cheesy romance. He cries during them sometimes if he's had a little too much wine.
Okay that was long and way too deep, I'm so incredibly sorry!
I'm just jotting these down as reference points for my fan fic tbh, I thought I'd post it though? Oof ya'll, please bear with me. I'm trying to be more creative in my daily life and this is just my way of forcing myself to actually do it.
#harvey stardew valley#sdv harvey#stardew harvey#stardew valley#sdv#god im a clown#but like#i love this mans and need to get it out#sorry yall
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Can we ask you what your opinions are on some MO fics? Kinda like a review
ooh yes! Sorry you asked me this like 2 months ago but I was in europe for a class and i didn't have time to pick through the ao3 page, but now I do! This isn't like a "top 5" list or anything, this is just listed in a non-consecutive way!
thorns (the blood that jesus spilt)
idk about you, but i love going to the very last page of a fandom tag. it's interesting to see what was written at the time of a show or movie or book's release, and MO is no exception. This one is an interesting, if not heartbreaking, take on what could have happened during "Nature" if Clay had accidentally aimed a little higher.
It's in Clay's POV and it's written beautifully, perfectly encapsulating his feelings of shame and self hatred, especially since he's watching the one good thing he's ever created bleed to death on the forest floor.
death is a door that love walks through
god, another amazing one. this is partially what inspired me to write my clay death fic. this focuses more on joe and his relationship with his father when he's nineteen. his father's dead, and he's not ready, and this is another fic that perfectly encapsulates what it's like to deal with an unexpected death - it shows how joe deals with the mess around him, and every time I read it i get sucked in all over again. reading joe's relationship with his mother, with daniel stopframe, orel, posie, everyone really, is so fascinating.
a pet sematary inside of your heart.
another classic. orel/christina centered, and in this they're teenagers still dealing with their parents and all they do (or don't) do. this has a more debated art posabule headcanon, and when i first wrote my MO fic in 2019 this is what i read before writing it.
it's short and sweet, and ends on a bittersweet note in typical MO fashion.
in the night the snow starts falling.
this one is much sweeter and lighter than the last one, i promise!! this fic focuses more on Christina and how she tries to get a Christmas present to Orel on Christmas Eve. it's the cutest damn thing ever and it has a permanent place in my ao3 bookmarks.
(i take my bookmarks very seriously. only if i love love LOVE a fic does it get there, and half of these are on my bookmarks page so you know that i adore what i'm putting on this list)
sing for the damage we've done
This is a look into future Christmas Eves with the Puppingtons and Orel + Christina. It's an interesting look at how Orel and Clay deal with each other and how their relationship (or lack of one) progresses over time. I like reading things like this because I know that everyone has a different opinion on what aged up!orel would be like when it comes to dealing with his trauma and dealing with his parents and this one's no exception! definitely one of my favorites.
Better
okay, remember how i said this isn't a top five list? lies bitch, lies. the author for this was anonymous but whoever they are, may god bless them in every way possible because holy fuck this is the best goddamn thing. i typically hate clay redemption fics because I don't see redemption in clay's character arc whatsoever - since i don't believe he can be saved - but i will always always always make an exception for this fic.
i love it. i love it so much i recommend it to anyone who asks. it's such a good and realistic take on what clay's redemption would look like and it doesn't shy away from the fact that everyone in town would be hella suspicious of him. it's so good if you ignore every other fic on this list fine idc but read this one
aaaand ofc i love the fics that @rosesandoleander puts out since they're always beautifully written and thought through.
anyways that is my list!! I'm sure there's one or two im forgetting but I can always get to that later lol let me know if there's anything else!!
#re: dani talks about things#re: fic recs#moral orel fanfic#moral orel#i love recommending fics#you can always ask me for recs in other fandoms too#lord knows i got a shit ton
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brand new eyes
wanda maximoff x fem!reader
summary: having a penpal in the sixth grade was overdone, in your opinion. and handwritten letters just weren’t convenient. you weren’t happy at all to start talking to some random girl your age across the sea, but once you started, neither of you could find it in you to stop.
warnings: fluff!!!! mutual pining. badly written letters (actually the whole one shot). brief battle with sexuality. a seriously strong connection between two characters (almost soulmate territory here tbh). every single mistake here is 100% mine!
word count: 8.7k!
At first, you were sure that the pen pal letter suggestion for extra credit was stupid. Why would you handwrite a letter when you could send an email? Why would you send a letter by mail that would take much longer? It took two weeks for a handwritten letter to arrive, and only seconds for an email. It didn’t make any sense.
And then you got your first letter.
You realized very quickly why handwriting was what your teachers asked for. You never knew that handwriting could be so vulnerable, so open. You had never seen letters that were so loopy, so delicate. That letter was written so neatly and so personally even if the girl who had written it hadn’t meant it to be that way, and you knew that a computer even with all of its special fonts wouldn’t be able to do that.
You understood why the handwritten rule was there.
But you didn’t like it when it was your turn to craft something so beautiful.
It wasn’t a competition by any means, but you didn’t want your letter to look anything like the words you scratched down into your notebooks. You wanted them to be neat and pretty and most of all understandable for the girl behind the pen and across the sea, because she had done the same for you.
By the time you stopped ogling over the letters and started actually reading the words that the girl had written, you learned her name. You learned it within the first line, actually.
Wanda Maximoff.
She was obviously from Sokovia, she spoke English as her second language, and she had an older twin brother that she both adored and was annoyed by. She was in the equivalent of your grade in her country, and she liked to cook with her parents. The letter was basic and slightly elementary, just an introduction to what she was willing to share with a stranger that lived thousands of miles away.
But that didn’t make it any less special.
You started on your return letter minutes after you let her pretty words sink in.
You drafted your letter and let it sit for an hour without you looking at it, and then came back to it only to cross things out and revise it, and then put it on the expensive paper that your mother had bought for you. It wasn’t perfect, but it was yours. It started with a greeting, your name, and then into the same sort of things that she spoke about in her own letter, the things that people that went to school with you had learned in passing over the years.
It felt like giving someone the rundown of your uneventful life so far in the simplest of ways. It felt like someone getting to know you as you wanted them to, because you were telling your story. There was no other side, or truth, or lie, just what your pen and your brain decided to write. It was controlled chaos. And you adored it.
Your print was easy to read. It wasn’t loopy like hers or as “girlish”, as one of your classmates said when you brought both letters to school to get an extra one hundred. It wasn’t fancy and alluring like hers, but there was still something magical on the pseudo-aged parchment.
You sent it off to the post office the next day, and you put her letter on your desk.
§§§
By the time that your third letter from her came, you already were drafting your own. It came straight to your mailbox and when you checked the mail that morning, you were ecstatic to see it waiting for you, like a pet waiting for it’s person to come home. As usual, it started off with the gentle scrawl of your name, just a bit larger than all of the rest of the words that were on the page.
I can’t believe that it’s already been weeks of us writing. We started in August, and it’s nearing the end of October. Speaking of, is it starting to get cold there for you? It’s already cold for us. Our grandmother always makes us the best tea and soup when it gets cold outside, and I could send you the recipe if you wanted!
My brother and I are curious about one thing, and we hope that we get your answer in time, but, is Halloween really a thing? We have both heard of it, but we’ve never done it here. It sounds magical. I’ve always wanted to dress up however I wanted and get candy for it. If I were to do it, I would probably be a Disney Princess, maybe Merida. Sadly, we don’t do that here. Does it really happen in the United States, or is that a movie thing?
Hopefully you don’t mind my questions much, or my short letter. Pietro likes to read over my shoulder while I write and receive the letters, and I like to write at the kitchen table. There’s no escaping him. You’ve never talked about siblings, do you have them?
The rest of the letter was like that, aloof yet curious and bouncing around all the same, and then signed with her always rushed conclusion, which was nearly the same every time.
You read it and put the letter in the box that you had bought from a thrift store, a box just big enough for the size of the neatly folded and tied off letters that she gave you. You clipped the box shut and put it back under your desk, and then started working on your response.
Instead of just a letter, you sent her a letter in a small box that had the candy that you had gotten on Halloween night, and the mask that went with the rest of your costume. It wasn’t the Disney Princess that Wanda wanted to dress up as, but it was something. It was your something.
§§§
As the December portion of your letter writing, you and your penpal were supposed to learn of the other’s traditions during the Holidays, whether you or them celebrated or not. A huge slide show about the culture of your Sokovian friend was supposed to be shown, and you knew that there would be a lot of the same PowerPoints, a lot of the same pictures and sayings and explanations. You wanted something different. You also had no idea if Wanda did Christmas, but you had to ask.
Wanda,
I’m sure that you know that our assignment now is to present a slide show about what our penpal does during the Holiday season, but because I don’t know whether you celebrate Diwali or Christmas or Hanukkah, I’ll start with asking you about New Years, because I’ve never met a person who didn’t celebrate New Years.
What do you do on New Years Eve? I’ll start by telling you that I watch the ball drop with my family, eat food, and drink cider after it hits midnight. It’s a big deal here for us, because the new year is a time for self revolution, apparently. I’ve never done a New Years resolution, but maybe I’ll do one this year. Have you ever done one?
I know that food is very big over in Sokovia, so what kind of food do you traditionally have when you’re celebrating? Do you like it? Can you cook it yourself? Because I know that you have the same questions for me that you have to put in before you leave for Winter Break, I’ll answer my own questions.
And you did. You were thorough, partly because you thought that it was kind of you to do so because she should get a good grade, and also because she had written that she was thankful for your descriptions on multiple occasions. You had noticed that she was the more whimsical writer and that you came off as the more grounded one, and it intrigued you.
You wondered if you two would come off that way in person to other people, if you ever got the chance to meet.
When her letter came two weeks later, wrapped in aged string as always, you skipped to your bedroom, already pulling the box out from under the table and starting to read it. You smiled through the whole thing.
In her own way, not as precise or even in order as you, she had told you everything you needed to do a good slide show about Sokovia during the Holidays.
§§§
You were emotional at the end of the year. Not because you were leaving the sixth grade and going to a new building in the school and leaving behind your kind teachers, but because the pen pal assignment was over.
No other assignment had been so important to you, or eye opening. You were only twelve years old, but you were old enough to know that you had never found a friend like you had in Wanda, who was still thousands of miles away. No one else, not even the people that stood feet apart from you, offered you friendship like Wanda Maximoff did.
You couldn’t stop writing to her.
It was your turn to send a letter, the final letter that you were supposed to send, and then her closing letter was supposed to come two weeks later. You couldn’t just close it. Your entire mind was screaming at you to not close the book that you had hardly started yet.
So, as your pen rested on the parchment paper (without drafting first), you lifted it up, and changed your mentality from a “goodbye” to a hopeful and questioning one, as you hoped that she felt the same and wanted to talk just as much as you did.
Wanda,
It’s the end of the year. Technically, we should be done with our letters because it’s the end of the year, and the assignment is graded. This should be a closing letter, but I don’t think that our friendship was ever dictated by the grades that we got. We were always closer than all of the other pen pals at school that I knew, and I was hoping that you would want to continue writing.
You couldn’t write much more after that, because your pen was shaking and you were starting to get in the danger zone of dropping tears on the paper. If this was your last letter to Wanda, you wanted it to be pretty. Just half as pretty as she always made hers, if you could manage it.
You sent it off the next morning after finding an old string that was nearly the same colors as hers and getting your friend across the street to hold it down and color the outside of it for you.
§§
A part of you wanted to say that you wouldn’t have been expecting to still write handwritten letters to a girl in Sokovia in the ninth grade, but you certainly were. While everyone else in your class had lost contact after the assignments were done or tried and failed to keep contact afterwards, you and Wanda continued talking all through the years.
It astounded your parents, who were sure that in the beginning, you were just obsessed with someone who was your age and who wasn’t exactly like you. They thought for sure that you would have lost interest in talking to Wanda, but after three straight years, gas spent taking you to the post office, and money spent on special stamps and the same paper, they were starting to finally get the hint.
Because you were so close with Wanda, you hardly had close friends in your neighborhood, and maybe two or three at school. There was no one that knew you like Wanda did, and no one that knew Wanda like you did. One particular letter where you confessed probably the worst thing you had ever done to her that no one else knew was what finally let you know that she was the most judgement-free person in the world, and that you would do anything to keep her. You would never forget how the letter went, and how her response sounded.
Wands,
I’ve done something terrible. I may have accidentally gotten involved with a boy who already had a girlfriend, and I had no idea. I had literally no idea, and today she just called me out of nowhere and started crying over the phone to me, and I had no idea that he was with her. At all. It was so pitiful, and she’s not mad, and she says that she won’t tell anyone it was me, but still. She seemed to really like him, and I think I may have just ruined a relationship. I have no idea what to do, and all I feel is guilt. Nothing more or less. Should I send her something? Give her a gift card? I feel terrible because she was just so sweet about it.
The letter went on and on with your scripted rambling, so repetitive and panicked that you were shocked to know that Wanda had, in fact, read the entire thing. She got a message back to you rather quickly, and that made you both nervous about her verdict and glad, because you felt like with an answer so quick, she must not have judged you too harshly. You remembered opening it with shaky hands, and inhaling and exhaling when her first words after your nickname were “breath in” and “breathe out”.
Wanda once said that writing to you was like writing to a diary who always wrote back, and you couldn’t agree more. She knew everything, and she never judged. And, when the time came for her to put all of her eggs in your basket of trust, you did the same for her.
You distinctly remembered getting the few letters that you kept at the bottom of your letter stack, even though you liked to have them in chronological order. In the eighth grade, Wanda was having a crisis over her sexuality. Being anything but straight in Sokovia wasn’t the best thing to be, and you knew that. The first letter she ever sent you about her sexuality had dried spots on it, where she had obviously cried. Her handwriting wasn’t anywhere as neat as it usually was, and it sent you into a state of panic.
We talk to each other about everything, so here I am asking for your advice because I won’t be getting anything here. I know that usually we keep our letters formal for aesthetic purposes, but I can’t this time. Also, no one other than you can read this.
From there, she told you that she was sure that she liked women, and that she was even more sure that her parents would be upset at her. She told you that she had been dwelling on it for a while, thinking about it and having it weigh heavily on her mind. She was all over the board with it, from her parents being upset to her being afraid that you were going to be opposed to it as well, or tell her that she was “too young to think that way”. She ended the letter by telling you that you were the first person that she had ever told.
You started your letter with your own confession, and Wanda Maximoff was the first one you ever told, too. You were past having your crisis, though, and you helped her through hers without a second of complaints. You always wished that you had someone to help you when you were down and questioning yourself, so you knew that you would be that for Wanda without hesitation.
You two grew together even more, and by the ninth grade, you both knew that there wasn’t going to be anything in the world that could stop your letters.
You came home one day after a long day and checked your mailbox out of habit, knowing that a letter wasn’t due for a few more days. But there it was, wrapped and sitting pretty for you. Your name was scrawled beautifully on the front in the handwriting that got better and better with every year, but you would recognize it anywhere. A smile grew onto your face as you walked to your front door, unlocking it and rushing inside to get to your desk. Of course, your name came first in the loopy letters.
I hope you’re doing alright! Things have been busy over here on my side of things, but never busy enough to not write you back. I just wondered, have been wondering for a while, really, if we were ever going to meet. We’ve been writing to each other for years, but I’ve never seen a picture of you. I know everything about you, but I’ve never met you. You are my best friend in the entire world, but I’ve never heard your voice. One day I would love to finally meet you. Would you be open to thinking about one of us flying out? Maybe after school is over for the both of us, we could make it happen. Number
It was much longer than that, but that was what caught your attention, more than her description of her busy week did. You read the letter three times. And then again. Your heart thumped in your chest as you tried to get a grip on yourself, irrational nervousness gripping your throat like an iron fist.
You knew the day was coming. You knew that it was. You two didn’t know what the other looked like at all, and neither of you had ever asked. Sometimes, you thought about it, but other times you found that it really didn’t matter. It didn’t matter what she looked like because she was the best friend you had ever had, so you forgot about it. But that wasn’t what worried you.
The thought of meeting her nearly put you in cardiac arrest. You couldn’t meet her. What if you met and you two were totally bored of each other? What if how close you were on paper didn’t reflect at all in real life? What if you two found roadblocks in conversation that you never saw before? You didn’t want to meet her, not at all. You were terrified of it.
Because if you didn’t connect with Wanda on sight, then you doubted that you would ever be able to connect with anyone else. If you were wrong about Wanda being your person and her being yours, you would be crushed. If you figured out that the person who you gave your all for didn’t like you anymore after meeting you, you would die on the spot. You couldn’t afford to find it out.
You sat at your desk for an hour after reading her letter, smoothing your hand over the paper like you always did before you wrote your response. You knew what you needed to say, you just didn’t know how to say it.
What she had already written helped you, too. She was implying that they met up after graduation, which was still years away. You had time to hold off on it, to not talk about it for a while. You had some stall time in the bank, for sure. And you were going to use it.
§§§
You made the mistake of not putting the letter in your box.
Your mother came into your room, and she saw the letter. Your desk was typically off limits, so you were upset that she read it anyway, but what she said led all anger out of your body and made way for fear.
“You should totally go see your friend, sweetie!”
“What?”
“I’d pay for you to fly out,” your mom said. “I’d come with you, but I would pay for you to fly out and see your friend. You’ve been writing each other for three years now, and you’ve never seen each other. You guys should do it.”
“You’d fly me out to Sokovia?”
“You’re a great kid, of course I would.” You took the letter from her hands gently and put it in the box, and she gave you a look. “You don’t want to go, do you?”
You didn’t answer.
“Why not?”
“I’m scared to meet her,” you admitted plainly, and then your mother gave you a look.
“She seems so excited to, after all these years. She’s such a sweet girl, what are you worried about?”
You couldn’t answer that. Your fears were your own, and they sounded ridiculous out loud. They made no sense to everyone else, and sometimes not even to you. Wanda Maximoff was nothing but sweet and kind and a good friend, and there you were, trying to blow her off because you were scared of a possible lack of face to face connection.
“Can we just drop it?”
And you did. In fact, all four of you did, until later.
§§§
By the end of your junior year, you were done for. Not because of tests or applications or any of that, it was because you realized that you were in deep for Wanda Maximoff.
It all made sense. The need to keep writing to her, the excitement you had felt getting a letter since sixth grade, the way you marveled over her penmanship and loved everything that she said and did. You were so in love with her, and it was irreversible. You were in love with her and what the two of you created together.
And you couldn’t lose that because of a bad meeting.
You avoided the topic of going there or Wanda coming to you, and you finally got each other’s numbers so that you could text on some international texting app, but primarily, it was still the heartfelt letters with the occasional heart stamps and constant string coming your way. And you wouldn't haven’t wanted anything different.
You sat at your desk on the last day of school as you wrote to her, writing about how you were about to watch some of your slightly older friends graduate in a few days. You also mentioned how you were excited to be a senior and get through your last year of high school just so that you could go and do whatever it was that you wanted to do, because you were only seventeen, and you didn’t know anything.
Sunshine,
I can’t wait to get out of high school. It’s not bad, just boring. I wish the people here were like you, and then maybe I could actually carry a conversation with them. Have you told your family yet? I told mine. My mom was… shocked to say the least, but she was fine with it. I think she might have suspicions about us writing to each other now, but who cares? I want to know if you’re alright.
How’s your new job going? I know you were excited to get one, so I hope it’s treating you well. It’s funny that you and Piet work across the mall from each other. I knew it was gonna be like that, even though you said it wouldn’t be! You two are inseparable, it’s so cute. Does he have any idea what he wants to do after we get out of school?
I kind of think that I want to start my own business. A flower shop, maybe. You know how I sort of have a green thumb. I think it would be good for me to own something. What do you think?
You wrote for about thirty minutes more, answering the questions she had asked you in a previous letter and signing your name at the bottom, a small smile on your face as you thought about her and her brother making food together like they always did.
You loved her. You really did.
§§§
It was in the middle of your senior year when you realized what the problem with her coming was. You had been keeping it so far in the back of your mind that you didn’t even realize that the alarms were blaring in the back of your head.
You knew that if you saw Wanda in person once that you would never be able to let her go. You would have to pick up and move to her country or she would come to yours, and it would kill your mother for you to move. So, that would mean that you would be asking for Wanda to leave her own family to be with you, and you couldn’t be selfish.
So, you would be selfish in a way that was also selfless by holding off on seeing her.
You hadn’t told her that you loved her, and you planned on never admitting it. You were sure she kind of knew, even just a little, but she never said anything. The way that you were holding onto the idea of her probably said enough for her to know. You just hoped that she knew that you were in love with her as a friend, at least. Wanda was the type who needed to know that they were loved, and she so was.
You loved her without even knowing what she looked like. You loved her without knowing whether she had a nasty habit or if she was a neat freak. You loved her without seeing her in a dress or in your favorite color or even looking into her eyes. You had never even heard her voice before, but that didn’t matter at all. You fell in love with her hand writing, then the way that she wrapped her letters, and then her words themselves. And then, you just were in love with Wanda Maximoff. All of her. All that you knew. And the things that you didn’t.
You thought about a confession letter for a long time. You were terrified of it, to say the least, because what if it backfired? What if she thought that you were only interested because she came out to you? What if she thought that you didn’t mean it at all?
Or worse, what if she just completely didn’t feel that way at all? What if the feeling she got when she wrote to you was nothing but platonic? That would be the biggest nightmare of all, and you had no idea how you were ever going to be able to pick up your fancy pen and put it to your special parchment after reading that.
By the time that you finally stopped wrestling with yourself about whether you were going to tell her that you were in love with her, you got a letter in the mail. A heart stamp was on the outside and it was tied with the string it always was, and the familiarity calmed your racing heart. You opened it gently, like you did with all of the letters you got, and then you saw her familiar scrawl.
How could someone’s handwriting feel like home?
Moonlight,
I would love to tell you about everything that’s been happening here, but I believe that it’s rather boring compared to what’s been bursting at the seams in my own mind. With every letter that I’ve ever written to you since we were thirteen, I’ve hesitated with my pen over telling you what I know has been true for years. I think that, finally, I know that I have something to say to you. I’ve always wanted to admit this to you, ever since the seventh grade.
I think that I fell in love with you, a long, long, time ago. I think that I know I did. I haven’t told you, and I never intended to tell you, because I was scared. I’m still scared here, as I write this letter, but I can’t keep it to myself anymore.
Pietro already knows, but he knew before I even did. I’m sure it has something to do with us being so in sync, that he knew where my heart, love, and loyalties were before I even knew myself. I tell you everything, and something as monumental as falling in love with someone, I believe that you should know. But I couldn’t tell you. Not in the beginning, and apparently, not even after a year or two.
I’ve never seen you or heard your voice or held your hand, but I don’t need that to know that I truly have fallen in love with the person that you are. You are a beautiful person with the most gorgeous soul I have ever had the privilege of talking to, and I think that we have stumbled upon a connection that we may never see again, if you feel the same way.
If this made you uncomfortable in any way, please tell me. I’m sorry if this came on too strong, or too up front. I never want to make you upset.
It’s okay if you don’t want to carry on writing to me after this letter. I just thought that I needed to tell you after all this time. We never lie to each other, and I think that this lie to save me from possible embarrassment or losing the greatest friend I have ever had has expired. Thank you as always for reading, Moonlight.
Your Sunshine, Wanda.
Your jaw was slacked, and your mouth was open. Your heart was beating so quickly, but it wasn’t frantic. Your mind was going at a thousand miles a minute, but you were calm. You were supposed, but you weren’t. It simply felt… right. It felt like you had secretly been expecting it all along, like your soul had known the whole time, or maybe even like it had known that you felt the exact same way. It felt like you were receiving news that you had already heard about.
But that didn’t take away any from the pure elation that you felt. You set the letter down so that you didn’t accidentally wrinkle it, and then put your head in your hands to hide your smile and think, like they would help you any.
She loves me. Wanda loves me. And not in the way that friends loved each other, that’s not how she loved you. She felt what you had been feeling, a bond so strong that it could be felt on paper.
Your hands shook as you reread the letter. You scanned over it for a second time, a third time, and you were tearing up by the fifth, finally setting it down again and leaving it on your desk. It didn’t deserve the beautiful darkness of the box where it’s predecessors went, not yet. Probably not ever. You would have framed it in the moment, if you could have.
Part of you was glad that she admitted it first. You were going to, one day, maybe. But the worst part was the hypothetical wait for the letter to cross the pond. Whoever sent the confession letter would have to wait about two weeks for a response, and that felt like forever. You knew that just as much as she did, and she still took the chance to do it.
So, with the most fond and gentle smile on your face, you took out your special pen, wrote Sunshine as the entrance, and then professed your own love right back at her, trying as hard as you possibly could to make it as beautiful and raw for her as you felt on the inside, and as the one that she gave you. But, all you could think of were the first two sentences, but you knew that you were going to go for much longer than that.
Sunshine,
Oh, Wanda. How I wish we were both brave enough to do this earlier.
§§§
By the end of your senior year, you two were dancing around each other, taking it slow, as if you both hadn’t professed your love for each other. You kept writing your steady letters to each other, the same nicknames, the same doting words and pretty scratched across the paper with dark ink.
For the most part, nothing changed. But neither of you could deny the way that you wanted to see each other. And so, your time was up. You had to stop messing around.
The first time the two of you planned to see each other, it was supposed to happen over that summer break. It was supposed to be a nice experience for everyone, at a time that was actually pretty convenient.
And then, right during the week she was supposed to come, her aunt passed away, right in her sleep. It didn’t even come to your mind to think about rescheduling so fast, and that was the first time you had ever gotten an email from Wanda. She emailed you the morning that she found out, saying that she would rather send the first email than have you show up at the airport upset because you didn’t know she wasn’t coming. She was able to resell her ticket and you assured her that it was totally okay for her to not be coming, and you gave her condolences, as well. Wanda was very close to her family, and you knew that she felt that loss.
The next time the plans fell through, it was because you were going to surprise her. Your mom paid for your ticket, and you had finally grown out of your own mind and realized that it was going to be what it was regarding meeting Wanda. But, when you emailed her two nights before, spilling the beans because you didn’t want to just go to the airport without knowing how the hell to get around, you got a quick response. Turns out, she wasn’t anywhere near her house, or the airport. She was on a marine biology trip in some waters off the coast of Romania, and she hadn’t gotten the chance to write you all about it yet. You begrudgingly canceled the trip and told her that of course, it was alright. That night, your mom assured you that the two of you would just try again later.
But then life happened. You went off to culinary school, a last minute yet sure decision after Wanda had taught you that there was so much more to love about food other than the taste. She had your new address and you had hers, because she moved from Sokovia to Italy for her marine biology major. The letters came and went faster, with the smaller amount of mileage.
Long story short, neither of you had enough money to go and spend thousands on a trip, and not even one helping the other out or splitting the cost helped much. Wanda was getting increasingly nervous about whether it was ever going to happen, and though she never stated it directly, it was very obvious. You were getting there, too.
The thing that kept you going was the letters. The same as they had always been on her end and yours, they were the one constant in your life. Wherever you went, you knew that her letters would follow you, and that you would still write from your heart and send your own across the sea over to some place in Europe. You knew that as long as her letters were lengthy and detailed and that if she took the time to wrap them as gently as she had been, that you two were strong. And as long as you kept giving advice and writing her entire short stories about you week, she knew that you were still hers.
You would be hers until your heart stopped beating, and long after that. You were there for her for as long as she wanted you to be, and that was widely known.
§§§
It took four years for you to get back home and in a place where you could afford a ticket in or out. Wanda took a little longer, but that didn’t matter. It only gave you even more time to save and plan for when she came, and the date came.
You were both twenty two when you bought her the winning ticket. You were flying her out to Florida for a week and a half. The Keys, to be exact. You knew that she was going to love it and the beautiful waters that came with it, and it was away from the meddling eyes and mouths of your family, the ones who had been routing for you from afar (and in the beginning, behind your back). It was just going to be the two of you in a condo, and you knew that it was going to be heaven on earth.
Now, hell on earth was the anticipation of waiting at the airport. You had no idea what Wanda Maximoff looked like, partially because it didn’t matter while you two wrote, and also because you wanted to see her for the first time in person. You two had a flare for dramatic romantics, another reason that you two clicked so well.
You stood with a sign that you had made the night before with paint that you had mixed yourself into her favorite shade of red, a scarlet, almost pink color. You were in a sundress because it was sweltering outside, and you were almost nervous about how she would take the heat after being somewhere so cold all of her life. You were rocking back and forth on your feet without even noticing, and your stomach growling was the last of your worries. Your heart was racing and your hands were shaking, but you willed them to stay still so that she could at least have a chance of reading it.
You were sure that you were about to pass out. It seemed like it had been millennia and a day all the same with her in your life. Everything that you had written each other was really about to come to life, after ten long years. You felt almost like it wasn’t real at all, like you were about to be woken up by your alarm back in your apartment over at your old school. But it was very, very real, and all the receipts and your racing heart advocated for the truth in it all.
The gates opened, and all of a sudden, people were lazily walking out, as one would do after a long flight. You were certain that the woman who was standing next to you could hear you start to slightly hyperventilate, but you didn’t care. The only thing that mattered to you in that moment was Wanda.
A man came up from behind you and bumped you, and he said his apologies while you bent down to pick up the sign. Despite your nervousness, you stopped to tell him that it was okay, sign still face down on the floor. He grinned at you and then frowned when he looked up, causing you to mirror his expression.
Your name. It was clear as day, accented, close, and sounded like a sigh of relief and wonder floating in the wind. It came from a woman you didn’t know the voice of, and just like that, you remembered what you were doing. You left the sign on the floor, stood up, and turned around as fast as you could, eyes slightly wild as they soaked in everything about the woman standing in front of you.
Her hair was almost a cross between light brown and light red, even in the fake lights of the airport. She had light makeup on and she looked a little tired from the flight, but the look of elation on her face wiped it all away. Her pink lips were curved into an open mouthed smile, like she had forgotten the words while they were already halfway to her tongue. Your heart raced as you looked at her, and you didn’t even need to question who she was. Or who she was to you. You couldn’t look at anything but her face, the face you had been missing so achingly without ever seeing it before, the face that you knew was bound to give you comfort that you had never felt one in your life, until the end of your days. Her eyes were wide and a clear blue as they stared back at you, reflecting your exact expression, and you sensed that the two of you had already synced up and gotten on the same page, just like you had both predicted.
“O-oh my god,” you breathed out, just inches away from her. “Wanda!” You went in for an embrace at the same time, both of you somehow knowing which way to lean your head to avoid collision, and just where to put your arms. You fought shaking when you held her, your nerves completely shot at it finally happening. You were actually with Wanda, in an airport, hugging her like there was all the time to spend in the world. “Oh my god,” you repeated, and you felt her squeeze you a little closer to her. You could have cried in that moment.
“You,” she pulled back from you to take your face in her hands, her blue eyes scanning over your face like she was studying priceless art. In the back of your mind, you wondered if it was the way she looked when she watched the animals underwater. She shook her head slowly, eyes welling up with the thinnest layer of tears as her lips turned up into a smile. “You are beautiful.”
Your heart skipped a beat as you looked downwards, feeling yourself get hot at the bold and sincere compliment. You knew that anything more than about three words was going to smoke you stutter “Wanda, have you seen yourself?” She laughed, a soft sound that you had imagined hearing so many times that you almost thought you had made it up, until you saw the upturn of her mouth and the mirth in her eyes.
“I’m- I can’t believe I’m actually here,” Wanda breathed out, and you felt the same exact way. How had you pulled it off? After nearly a decade of pining that was mutual and writing to each other about every little detail in your lives, she was finally right in front of you, where you could see her and touch her.
“How’d you know it was me?” You asked after a second of grappling for something to say. “I didn’t have my sign up when you came.”
The smile that was on her face went from being flat out joyful to content, almost peaceful. It rubbed off on you immediately as you leaned back into her touch, ignoring all of the people bustling around in the busy airport. “I just knew that it was you.”
§§§
For the entirety of the day Wanda arrived, all the two of you did was stare at each other and hold onto each other, like you were both equally terrified that the gods were going to come down from wherever they resided to split you up again. There was hardly even any talking when you arrived at the condo, and it felt natural. The two of you had already spoken so much, and now you needed to catch up on just seeing her. You’ve seen her soul, her mind, her heart, and now you were seeing her face. It felt like you had always known it.
But you were the first one to speak as you held hands on the deck, her thumb drawing subconscious hearts on the back of your palm. “You have a way with words, sunshine.” The name contrasted to the sky, which was dark but illuminated with an almost full moon and stars. The city was mostly behind you, so the natural light was what you got. It was all that you needed.
You felt her content fade into joy. “Really?”
You knew that she was nervous about her English, but to you, it was perfect. From her accent to the way that she sometimes missed connotations that were specific to the language to the idioms that accidentally slipped into your letters, you loved it. “Mhm,” you hummed, leaning your head on her shoulder. “And I never would have imagined that you sounded so… sweet.”
“Sweet?” She parroted, and you smiled even though she couldn’t see it. Somehow, you knew that she could feel it, in some strange way. “Can I ask you something?” The answer was yes. It was yes, and it always would be yes. So, you said that. She cleared her throat, a quiet sound that you stored in your memory to keep, simply because she made it. “Did you… did you mean what you wrote?”
You were stumped. There had to be hundreds of letters between the two of you, and thousands upon thousands of topics. But you couldn’t question yourself for long, because then you knew exactly what she was talking about.
Did you truly love Wanda? The question came up a few times between you and your mother when you were in your first year of culinary school. Were you in love with Wanda Maximoff, or were you in love with the idea of Wanda and the mystery she brought? The question had been brought up, many times by your mother, who was only just making sure that you were being smart, and the answer never once varied. Yes. You loved Wanda Maximoff with every breath you took, every stroke of your pen, every glance at her pretty script. You knew that Wanda was it for you, and seeing her only solidified it. The way your hand fit together like they were the missing parts of a lost artifact made it concrete. The way she gave you everything back and the way you did the same told you everything you needed to know.
You leaned off of her shoulder and turned to face her, a soft smile on your face as the moon came out from behind the singular patch of clouds in the night, illuminating her features. You saw her face and her spirit through brand new eyes, and it was wonderful. It was all you could ever ask for. “Wanda,” you started, your voice quiet enough to not disturb the moment, and the sound of waves crashing not too far away. “I’ve loved you since I knew what love was, and I have been in love with you for as long as I knew what the difference between the two really was. Everything that I have ever sent to you, every word, I meant it all. And I’ll mean it for the rest of my life.”
She was staring at you blankly, with only a bit of something lingering in her gaze. Then, as soft as a breeze, she was muttering something under her breath in her mother tongue and putting her hand on your face. “Can I kiss you?”
You ignored the way that your heart surged in your chest. The moon was still out and bright, shining down on the two of you like you had paid for it to be a spotlight. “You never have to ask,” you said, and then, as fluidly and gently as humanly possible, she tilted her head and leaned forward, and you met her halfway.
§§
You had never been scuba diving before, but Wanda was in her element. She helped you suit up after she told the instructor that she was certified, and then rolled her eyes playfully when he checked behind her work. You cracked a smile. The entire time he was instructing, she was nearly bursting at the seams to get into the water, and the second he said that the two of you were allowed to go, she was holding your hand and asking if you were ready.
You never thought that Wanda could look more beautiful than she already had, but in and near the water, she was something else. She was in a state of grace and peace all the same, and you wanted nothing more than for her to be so tranquil, for the rest of her life. All you wanted in return was to be privileged to see it.
The gods that made you fear a bad trip were actually on your side, because Wanda excitedly pointed out a group of migrating sea turtles, not even paying either of you any mind at all, carrying about through nature. You smiled at them and at her, unable to decide which one was going to be the apple of your eye at the moment. You chose her.
§§§
You got out of the shower, your skin still slightly damp and the air humid from the heat of the water. You smiled at Wanda when you caught her looking at you, giving you that same blank stare that she had the first night the two of you got there. You stopped in your tracks, giving her the encouraging look that you knew she needed. “You okay, Wands?”
“I love you.”
Your breath hitched. It was the first time she had spoken the words aloud, and you both knew it. The weight of the words and the confession felt so true, so genuine, that it went straight to your heart and made it swell with warmth. A small yet generous smile stretched onto your face as you felt everything fall into place. “I love you, Wands.”
“More than I’ve ever loved anything,” she continued, like she hadn’t even heard you, and you looked back at her with a doting expression. “And, I’ve been holding off because I don’t know how to say that,” she paused, and then she fell into deep thought.
You took a step closer, assuming that the small language barrier had come up. When it took her more than a few seconds and you saw the little scrunch of confusion between her brows appear, you spoke up. “There’s no rush,” you said gently.
“If other people were to look at us, they would say that we have only known each other for three days,” she said, and you nodded. “But, I feel that we’ve known each other for thousands of years. I feel that we were made to meet, and that we were always going to no matter what came up. Why else would we both be so focused on talking to each other? I have always seen you as someone special to me, always, but now that we have finally seen each other face to face, I think that my… heart is recognizing you as it’s other part.”
You had no words in your mind at that moment, because they were all in your heart. You couldn’t open your mouth to convey the pure shock and relief that you felt at her admitting something that you had been feeling the whole time. You swallowed and felt your eyes burn with tears, but before they could fall past your cheeks, Wanda stood up and wiped them from your face before pulling you close.
Nothing mattered. Not the fact that you were still wet and she was in her pajamas, not the fact that you were in a towel, not the fact that the pizza man was knocking at the door. It was you and her, like it always had been in your mind, and Wanda’s too.
You were it for her, and she was it for you. And while you hugged it out in that beautiful condo in Florida, you silently thanked your sixth grade English teacher for making you write to a random girl your age all the way across the Atlantic, and you thanked Wanda for being the one who wrote her way right into your life.
so. uh! hiiii! i hope y’all liked it! i loved writing it, even though she was a lil bit of a challenge, not gonna lie. feedback is always appreciated!!
#wanda maximoff#wanda x reader#wanda maximoff x reader#marvel fanfic#wanda fluff#scarlet witch#marvel au#wanda maximoff fluff#lgbtq#lesbian!wanda
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Frosty the Snowman
Harry and Y/N love the holiday season but Harry takes the teasing a bit to far and well Y/N decides to give it right back.
Word Count: 5126
A/N: hello! thank you so much to @goldenbluesuit for organizing this wonderful christmas fic challenge. thank you for allowing me to participate, kate. i’m so happy i got to be a part of it. merry christmas and happy holidays to you all. sending you all a big hug and lots of love.
_____
Christmas has never been much of importance in your life.
That was until you began dating Harry.
Harry and his family loved celebrating in particular because Harry was gone for so many months of the year. They loved giving gifts, and Harry loved spoiling his family. He was a true family man who loved to be doted on by his mother and teased relentlessly by his older sister. His smile never leaves his face when he's with them.
Ever since Harry found out how you spent the holidays alone drinking wine and hot chocolate on and off and binging all the best holiday movies. He declared that was not acceptable and that furthermore and until the end of time you would be spending it with him and his family.
The first year was something out of a storybook, a house full of kids and adults, Christmas music all day, and a big festive dinner. Gifts passed around, photos being taken to be added to the end of year scrapbooks. Lots of stories being told; honestly, it overwhelmed you.
Anne found you outside wrapped up in Harry's coat that you swiped before slipping out unseen. She stood next to you, overlooking her garden with you. "My son loves you; he's brought you here not to overwhelm you but to let you know that you have a family here, and you always will." You let your tears run free, feeling comforted, and loved. "I've never seen him shine as bright as he does when he's with you and when he's speaking of you. We all want you here as much as he does." Anne then pulled you into a long hug, the motherly hug you never got growing up. Reminded you not to stay out too long.
Three Christmases later, you now take part in family traditions, helping Anne cook dinner and staying in sweats and playing family games all of Boxing Day.
It's what makes your move to London with your boyfriend of four years easy. Knowing they want you there, knowing that the love Harry has for you won't fade, you've gone through many hurdles together, and it only strengthened your bond to one another.
Four years together, and you're still learning new things about each other, like Harry having to have coffee first thing in the morning, bread was a must-have always in the house, and that he owned more mugs than he needed. He picked up that you adored your shoes, meaning you wouldn't throw them out until they were ripped and beat up enough for a new pair. Also learned that you rather eat lots of fruit during the day than making food in the kitchen because it meant more dishes that would be needed to wash. You loved doing the laundry, Harry knew it was to steal his shirts, but he didn't mind. He always knew where to find them.
The one thing that really surprised him was your love for Christmas music; you knew every song, maybe couldn't remember the name, but you would be able to sing it. It never failed to make him smile; you even knew ‘Feliz Navidad’ and didn't butcher it as he did.
Your love for Christmas music was signified because you never celebrated the holiday, and music was easy to access. It was what you immersed yourself in.
This is why Harry is confused when he hears you begin to sing ‘Frosty the Snowman’ under your breath, then switching to a soft hum in the tune of the song as you start to place your freshly washed sweats in their drawers.
Harry was not sure why you did that; you loved singing out loud. You had a decent voice, as you liked to say, but why switch.
You're clueless to Harry watching you, deep in thought, trying his best to analyze you.
Then Harry gasps; it all clicks, making sense.
You raise your head to look at him, shutting the drawer with your hip. "What?"
"You don't know the lyrics." Harry accuses.
"To what?" You step towards the bed, wanting to finish the rest of this to finally go down and each lunch.
"Frosty the Snowman."
"I do." You defend.
Harry smirks, crossing his arms. "Prove it."
"No."
"Why not?"
You frown before taking a deep breath and begin to hum the song correctly to Harry.
"Okay, you know the tune, now the lyrics." He gestures for you to go on.
"Frosty the snowman..." Your voice dies down, you rake your brain for the correct lyrics, sending a smaller prayer you're right. "had a shiny nose?"
"Oh, this is golden, love." He's laughing now. It's filling up the room.
"Harry," You whine.
"You call yourself the Christmas Queen." Harry is holding his stomach, his laughter getting to be too much. "Next, you're going to tell me you don't know the lyrics to 'All I Want For Christmas Is You.'"
"How dare you, that came out in our birth year." You're over making fun of you.
"Okay fine, but really so many years, and you never learned. You said you love all Christmas music, and well, that's a classic, dove."
You run a hand through your hair, your fingers getting caught on the tips for not brushing it out. "I never actually got to make a snowman, so I never listened to the lyrics."
"Are you secretly a Grinch as well?" Harry teases.
You throw a balled-up shirt of his and hit him square in the face; it quiets him down. "Conversation over."
You walk out of the room, leaving him alone, to his chuckling.
_____
In your home, something was always baking.
It was either Harry trying to better his last bread or you baking a new vegan cake that Gemma sent you.
It's something you both loved to do.
For you, though, it was your own form of meditation. No matter the time of day, if you felt your head spinning, you'd just head to the kitchen and begin to take out ingredients letting that be your only focus. The Great British Baking Show also brings a lot of comfort to you, Harry happily laying his head on your lap, your hand running through his hair as you just let the show play on and on.
Now, you're in the kitchen for a whole other reason; you're baking gingerbread cookies, from snowflakes to snowman and even little reindeer. Harry has invited friends over for a fun holiday decorating party. It sounded like a good idea until he left you to do it all yourself as he ran errands that he pushed off for a week.
Thankfully, there were no distractions during the time it took you to make one hundred cookies because there would be casualties during the decorating. Just as you were putting the last dozen on the cooling rack, does your phone ring causing it to cut off Paul McCartney's singing of 'Wonderful Christmastime.'
As you pick it up to answer, you check the caller id and see that it's Gemma calling.
Gemma forgoes a greeting and goes straight to the reason for her call.
"You don't know 'Frosty the Snowman!'" She exclaims more than asks.
"I'm going to kill him." You groan into the phone.
Gemma laughs, "No, no, please don't. Mum likes you too much to see you behind bars."
"Gem, he's been relentless." Thinking back to the past few days and how he'd randomly come up to you and just begin to sing the lyrics to you, not shutting up until you tickled him too much to continue. "Please don't let it come up later."
"I've got you," Gemma assures you.
"Thank you."
"As long," Gemma begins, but you groan jokingly into the phone.
"Go on," You sigh, knowing this is how the eldest Styles sibling acts.
"As long as you tell me what Harry bought mum for Christmas."
"Alright, fair." Very well, Harry would most likely spoil this himself the closer the holiday arrives.
Just as you were about to spoil Harry's gift, he walks through the kitchen, saved by the devil himself. "I'll tell you later when you get here." You tell Gemma, smiling at Harry as you bid his sister goodbye.
"Who was it, love?" Harry asks, kissing you lightly on your lips, being able to taste the gingerbread on your lips that makes him beeline to the cooled cookies.
"Gems, a huge birdie told her I don't know the lyrics to a popular song." You lean against the counter, smiling as he has a cookie in hand already; he is also a big reason you made so many.
"Hey," He says, offended, a cookie half shoved in his mouth. "I'm not huge."
"Never said it was you, hun." You smirk. "Thanks for fessing up."
He pouts, not liking that you outsmarted him.
"Might want to watch the cookies." You pinch his love handles, snatching what was left of the cookie from his hand and heading upstairs.
Harry watches you walk away, upset that you stole his cookie; also, he knows you love his winter gains.
_____
You and Harry are up fairly early, he likes to go on a run around the neighborhood, but you like going to the park. This morning you skipped your run because Harry was meeting up with a friend for breakfast.
Sure, you got up at your usual time at 7am and began to prepare yourself breakfast. You usually drank coffee with Harry and seeing as he wasn't here, you decided to skip it, instead going straight to the fridge to get the fruits and orange juice to make a smoothie. Something simple, not wanting to clean much after.
As you finally settled on the couch, getting ready to read Educated by Tara Westover, a book Gemma recommended to her then gifted to her. Tara's memoir is her story of how she comes from a Mormon background and recounts how she educated herself to go to college and learn about the world. It's a Friday, and what better way to spend it lost in a book.
You had just flipped it open when your phone rang, alerting you to a message. As much as you didn't want to check because you were finally in a comfortable position, you knew it could easily be Harry checking in who gets worried about not getting a reply even five minutes after. He's a worrier at heart.
As you retrieve it and settle yourself back down, not at all comfortable anymore, you see it's a message from Iz. She was the first friend you made on your own that Harry didn't introduce you to. Iz saw you at a coffee shop you began to frequent and complimented your tote bag that had wildflowers embroidered on it. You thanked her and shared you made it. Iz was shocked, just throwing compliment after compliment. You offered to make her one, but she said you had better teach her instead. Thus, a friendship began.
Her message read:
Radio 1 Breakfast Show. Listen in!
It was definitely a strange message coming from Iz, but you did as told.
Greg James was saying goodbye to his special guest, no idea who it was. "Before he signs off, he's going to play you one of his favorite Christmas songs," Greg says, then silences, allowing his guest a moment before speaking.
"This week's Christmas song is in honor of my girlfriend who loves singing Frosty the Snowman... without knowing the lyrics. Happy Holidays."
Your jaw drops.
That your boyfriend's voice. You are the girlfriend.
He went on record.
Harry really went on live radio to tell thousands that you don't know the lyrics to a Christmas classic.
You want to laugh because you never expected this from him and are annoyed that something personal now the whole world will know by the end of the day.
You can't wait until he arrives home.
"Harry Edward Styles!" You yell as you hear Harry open the front door.
He looks sheepish. "Yes, my darling angel."
"You told me you were having breakfast with Greg James, not that you were going to be on the Breakfast show."
"I took muffins, and they provided coffee, therefore, breakfast." Harry defends
"You exposed me to all of the UK to not knowing 'Frosty the Snowman.'"
"No one knows you're my girlfriend." Harry tries to brush it off.
"We've been dating four years; I'm not that much of a secret. Anne posts me on her story from time to time, and your friends follow my Instagram, fuck; you've introduced me to Greg." You're not angry, more annoyed than anything because he won't let this go.
"It's just to give everyone a good laugh; no one is going to hold it against you."
"No, just my boyfriend and everyone who listens to the Breakfast Show." You cross your arms before storming up the stairs away from Harry.
"Love? You're not actually mad, right?" Harry asks, pushing the bedroom door open.
"You even got Iz on it!" Your turn around with a pout on your face.
Harry laughs. "I honestly thought she wouldn't go through with it."
"Well, I see where her loyalty lies."
Harry steps close and pulls you into his chest. You sigh, wrapping your arms around him. He knows how much you love his hugs.
"I promise this is the last I mention of it."
You frown into his chest, not at all believing him. Harry pats your bum, and you take that as the queue to look up at him. He's smiling down at you, leaning in to give you a quick peck. "I promise."
"Okay, then." You lean in and kiss him, firmer this time and much longer. Harry sneaks his tongue in, instantly getting a moan out of you.
"I know how you can make it up to me." You gasp, pulling away,
Harry raises an eyebrow at you. "Do tell."
A smirk on both your faces as you guide him to the bed, very much hungry for something that wasn't breakfast.
_____
Harry has the Christmas playlist running; it's a Sunday, meaning they spend it at home doing absolutely nothing. To be truthful, they rolled out of bed past ten and still have their pj's on. Not at all bothering to change, why waste more clothes if no one will see them like this in the comfort of their own home.
You cooked grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch and now are playing a game of scrabble.
Harry puts down the word 'light,' then reaching his hand into the black pouch to pick five letters to have seven once again. You are looking back and forth between the board and your letters, thinking of the best place to place your word.
"I've got a question," Harry says, looking at you, wanting all your attention as well.
"What is it?" You're focused on your letters. Rearranging them, not putting down the 'q' in your hand. It's currently useless but will eventually give you a word to win the game. Not that you both ever keep points, oh no, that stopped after you beat harry 120 to 66, and he flipped the board, causing letters to fly everyone. You still claim that there are missing letters.
"Frosty is a cute name."
"Reminds me of that Wendy's dessert. I'm still not sure what made it so good." You say, maybe you should get up and eat some. Harry did just pick up new flavors that he had been wanting to try something about them being richer in flavor.
"You're getting off track."
"Sorry, Frosty is cute for what?" You don't let him answer before you're speaking again. "A dog, did you get a dog?" You pause, looking up at him, "a cat, did Anne find a stray and wants to give them to us?" You wait, but Harry is about to crush all your excitement.
"None of that." He shakes his head at you, and disappointment fills you immediately.
"Well, can this conversation end then? I'm disappointed."
"Darling," Harry chastises you for not letting him go on.
"Go on then, mate." You gesture him to continue. Shifting your attention away from the game in front of you.
Harry frowns, his eyebrows pinching together in the sweet way that makes you want to rub them out until he's relaxed. "Why'd you call me, mate?"
"Oh, I've called you this before." You brush off Harry's reactions; he's always dramatic.
"I'm not your friend." He states.
You furrow your eyebrows and tilt your head and really look at Harry. "Well, of course, you are boyfriend," You emphasize, dragging out the word. "You're my best friend."
"You can't say boyfriend anymore. I'm your fiancé now." Harry states proudly, but you feel a little dumbfounded, not knowing why he is saying that.
Your eyes widen when you look down at your left hand, and no ring rests on your left ring finger.
"Fuck, I missed your proposal, and the ring got lost." You pout, trying your best to stop the smirk from coming out.
"Darling, I'm sorry." Harry quickly apologizes. "I'm still your boyfriend, but I will be proposing soon." He promises. "Shit, you were supposed to not even know. I really am bad at hiding things."
"Fuck, you really are." You laugh, "but boyfriend sounds cute. Can't I still say boyfriend when you do?"
"Doesn't fiancé sound nicer?" Harry tries.
You shrug. "Not as fun, husband is nice."
"You're rejecting my future proposal, then." Harry is teasing, and you can tell by the sparkle in his forest eyes.
"Of course not, you dummy. You can be my fiancé and my boyfriend." You tell him like it was the most obvious answer.
"Seems like a lot of work."
"Rude." You stick your tongue at him.
"Right, love, well try to remember I'm your husband once we're married, no more boyfriend."
"I will, hubby. You're going to be my hubby."
You both go silent.
You burst out laughing, "That's awful, I hate it."
Harry chuckles, nodding his head. "Yeah, I do as well."
"This is why I'm the brains in the relationship."
"Right," Harry rolls his eyes at you, not at all agreeing.
"Uh, darling, I went to uni and got two degrees while you only finished school at sixteen before going off to steal millions of hearts around the world."
"Including yours." He teases.
"I was always more a Zayn girl." You correct him.
Harry throws his arms up, "Can never let me win, can you?"
"Nope"
"We're off-topic." Harry realizing how far they strayed from their starting point.
"Where did we start?"
"Frosty."
You sit back, resting against the couch; you take him in and smile at how cuddly he looks in the purple robe that he stopped letting you use. "Well, go on."
"Seeing as-" He pauses, hearing the familiar opening notes to the song he was thinking of. 'Frosty, the Snowman' is now his favorite song. "Perfectly timed, as you don't know the lyrics to Frosty the snowman."
"Gosh, you're never going to let this go," You grumble.
"Nope. I figured we will have a little fun with this."
"More fun than the breakfast show."
He gives you a pointed look.
You let out a long sigh, "Let's hear it."
"You learn all the lyrics and sing it for me, and I'll let you get us a dog or cat." Harry's grinning at his idea, knowing you'll agree without a fight.
"Can we go to the shelter?" You look like a kid on Christmas morning who had just received their presents from Santa, and in a way, you have.
"Yes, we can. Only if you can learn the entire song." Harry tells you again, wanting to emphasize the singing.
"Done deal."
"Great, I'm giving you a week."
You smile wide, nodding, looking, finally focusing back down at your words and the ones Harry has placed. You put down the word 'queen,' and this wins you the non-official game. Harry looks down at his poorly hidden score sheet and curses under his breath.
"I win."
Safe to say you lost more letters that day.
_____
It's been a week, and Harry is patiently waiting on their bed as you get ready in your shared closet. Your shared closet is large and mainly holds all of Harry's clothing. You definitely have a nice share of clothes filled with gifts from friends as well as Harry's friends and your treasured thrifted pieces. You smile at yourself in the full-length mirror.
Harry really can't begin to imagine what you have in store for him.
The speaker is set out and ready, and all that is needed is for you to make your entrance.
You shake out your hands in hopes of ridding yourself of the nerves. You look yourself over one last time before taking a deep breath and pushing the door open.
"Close your eyes." You call out.
Harry rolls his eyes but does as he is told.
You walk over to the speaker and press play, letting the music fill the room, making your way to stand in front of Harry, who slowly opens his eyes.
He gasps; he feels himself start to get hard. His eyes can't seem to take everything in fast enough. You smirk, loving the reaction you got out of him. It gives you the extra boost of confidence you were needing.
You stand there, hand on your hip in a sexy snowman outfit to go with the performance you are about to give.
The dress, if you can consider it with how short it is, has three black buttons in the center. The material hugs your chest nicely, giving Harry a nice view of your breasts that are close to popping out. The dress hugs your waist and begins to flow out right past your butt. You wore your favorite black heels that Harry sometimes begs you not to take off. You had on a plaid scarf and a black hat that matched it perfectly.
You were the human version of the snowman except for a more rated r version.
Harry is sitting his mouth wide open at a loss for words. You blow him a kiss before letting the song lyrics flow out of you.
Frosty the snowman
Was a jolly happy soul
With a corncob pipe and a button nose
And two eyes made out of coal
You sway your hips side to side, singing, enjoying the ravenous stare he was giving you. You throw the hat, letting it fall at his feet, but not even that breaks the gaze he has on you, not wanting to miss a single movement of yours.
Frosty the snowman is a fairy tale they say
He was made of snow
But the children know
How he came to life one day
You take a few steps forward, but never enough to allow him to touch you, and he's craving it; you know he is. His hands are gripping his thighs, his knuckles turning whiter by the seconds.
He still hasn't said a word. You have him mesmerized.
You sing the lyrics proudly, knowing you practiced all week for this moment. The moment Harry will never forget all the teasing he had been doing, always forgetting you win these battles.
There must have been some magic in that
Old silk hat they found
For when they placed it on his head
He began to dance around
"Baby," Harry breathes out, putting a hand out to touch you, but you take a step back before he can do so.
You smirk, shaking your head no at him. You were having a lot more fun than you expected.
You bend over, slipping off your heels, never breaking eye contact with Harry; he could very easily see up the dress that you had nothing underneath. His green eyes turned dark, and you swore your heart stopped, and you were sure he was about to attack. You were the prey, taunting him until he had enough, but surprisingly enough, he took a deep breath, and his composure was back well, just a bit of it.
O Frosty the snowman
Was alive as he could be
And the children say he could laugh and play
Just the same as you and me
You stopped right in front of him. Harry's eyes trained on your red lips, hanging out to every word you were singing. You reached a hand back and began to unzip the dress. The grin on your face excited for the next reaction you were about to receive.
Once you reached the bottom of your back, the dress fell to the floor. Harry let out a loud gasp. Your breasts on display, the small owl tattoo on your hip staring at him, he could see how wet you were, and all he wanted was his head between your thighs as you screamed his name.
You were a dream. You missed Harry's touch. It was the reason you stepped close enough for him to finally pull you in.
He led them down the streets of town
Right to the traffic cop
And he only paused a moment when
He heard them holler "Stop!"
Harry has no expression on his face as he sits you on his lap. He lets his head fall into your next, feeling how wet you are through his thin sweats. You move to stand up, but he grips your hips tightly, thrusting his hips against yours, searching for some kind of relief or a reaction from you because you still haven't stopped singing.
"Baby, stop singing." His hand is cradling your cheek as his lust-filled eyes stare at you.
You shake your head, not letting him distract you. The only piece of clothing left was the scarf, and Harry lets out a growl before ripping your scarf off your neck, throwing it off to the side.
Now you truly sit there naked in his lap, and you feel all the control you have over him. The song is coming to an end, meaning you've got to remove yourself from your favorite place to sit but knowing you'll be back there soon enough.
Frosty the snowman
Had to hurry on his way
But he waved goodbye, saying
"Don't you cry I'll be back again someday"
You sing the final lyrics in his ear before walking away to turn off the speaker, an extra sway to your hips, knowing Harry is very well still watching your every move. You stand a delighted look on your face as you wait for his praise.
"Those were the longest two minutes of my life," Harry says; he puts a hand over his heart, feeling like it might just burst out. "I'm never going to be able to listen to this song in public or around anyone that isn't you."
You smirk, thrilled to hear that.
"What did I do to end up with someone as beautiful and perfect as you in my life." He confesses.
"Probably stopped a war in a past life." You throw out jokingly.
Harry puckers his lips and makes grabby hands at you. "Kissy, please?"
And who are you to say no? He spreads his legs, letting you step in between. You slip your fingers into his hair, pulling back with enough force to have him let out a moan. You lean down and connect your lips in a hot kiss, one that has Harry gripping you tightly wherever he can get his hands on. You moan as he slips his tongue into your mouth, and you happily give up the control to him.
You pull back and rest a hand on his chest, preventing him from pulling you back for you. You wipe your thumb over his bottom lip that now has some of your red lipstick. "Seems like I won, sweets."
"I feel like the real winner here," Harry tells you cheekily, sneaking a kiss to both your boobs. You giggle, not at all surprised by his action.
"Well," You fiddle with the collar of his shirt. "Why don't you show me how winners celebrate?"
"With pleasure." Harry groans standing up quickly and pushing you back against the best. He strips as fast as he can, not without a small stumble; you're sure to keep your giggle quiet, knowing very well how easily he gets embarrassed.
He is quick to get on top and kisses you hard. His kisses are always soft, but it seems the teasing seemed to flip a switch, one that you will happily remember to look to turn on again on a later date. Tonight, you are ready for an endless night of pleasure and love.
Harry connects their lips, ready for an endless night of pleasure and love.
_____
Christmas cards were a lovely tradition. Harry insisted they started because he wanted to show off his beautiful girlfriend to his friends and family. He also liked them handwritten because it added a nice personal touch. Who were you to argue about it?
This year you were the one excited to send them out.
It read: Merry Christmas from our beautiful family to yours
You and Harry sat in front of the fireplace, four stockings hanging behind you. Harry made you sit in his lap, wanting to show off your matching two-piece buffalo plaid pajamas. You both had the biggest grins on your face, eyes shining bright. Next to you, laying on top of a box that was wrapped with blue sloth wrapping paper, was a one-year-old Australian shepherd that had spent the better of six months in the shelter because the small pup was quiet who didn't do well with people, but that changed instantly the minute he met you. You decided on the name Frosty for him. Not only did Harry get you the dog of your dreams but a small kitten as well. You brought home Snow, a six-month white Birman kitten who was the rut of his siblings, and how could you just not bring him home with you with his big blue eyes staring at you begging to add to your family because he had lots of love to give. At least that's what you told Harry what the look he was giving you meant. The two siblings laid next to each other, both surprisingly staring right at the camera, making it their best Christmas photo yet.
A photo can honestly speak a thousand words because one glance at this photo tells you how much love there is in that home and their relationship.
Christmas was all about spreading joy and love, and well, Harry accomplished just that for you.
_____
thank you so much for reading! i honestly hoped you loved it and would love to hear what you thought so send me a message if you like.
i love you!
#harry styles#gbsxmaschallenge#harry styles writing#harry styles fanfiction#harry styles fic#harry styles x reader#christmas#harry styles imagine#harry styles fluff
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LOVE LIKE THE MOVIES // BUCKY BARNES // 7
SEVEN - SERENDIPITY
Trigger warning: Alcohol, food
Masterlist
Summary: This is a story of boy meets girl. The boy, Bucky Barnes, finds himself thrown into a world that seems so different from everything he’s ever known. The girl, (Y/N) knows entirely too much about rom-coms and is quite particular about the way she eats her popcorn. Bucky meets (Y/N) a few months after returning to NYC. He knows almost immediately that becoming her friend is inevitable. This is a story of boy meets girl. This is a story about love. (Bucky Barnes x female!Reader // a few spoilers for TFATWS)
“Okay, that’s ridiculous!” Bucky mumbles around a spoonful of fruit loops.
“What is?”
“This,” he responds and points his now empty spoon accusingly at John Cusack. “This whole fate thing. The book, sure, might happen. But the dollar bill? Never!”
(Y/N) puts her empty bowl on the couch table, turning her body towards Bucky and sitting in a criss-cross style. “You telling me you don’t believe in fate and soulmates and that some people are destined to be together.”
“No,” Bucky retorts in a tone that implies it was a silly question to even ask him. “I am 106 years old. If those things were true you'd think I would've found my destined partner by now."
"Maybe you have" (Y/N) shrugs. "Maybe it's Leah. Have you called her anyway?"
Bucky looks down sheepishly into the colorful milk swirling through his bowl. "No."
“ What? Why not? “
“Because it hasn’t — oh I don't know. It just hasn’t felt right.”
He’d been debating on giving her a call many times, never actually going through with it. At first, it was for a fear of failure, rejection. Now though, Leah doesn’t cross his mind as much as before. His thoughts, he noticed recently, are occupied by another person. And it wouldn't be fair to Leah or himself to try and build something on shaky ground at best.
“ Dude, I’m educating you on romance and you are too afraid to call this girl? “
“ Educating me? You are forcing me to watch rom coms. “
“ Forcing you? “ (Y/N) gasps and dramatically slaps her hand to her chest right above where her heart is. “ Are you saying you’re not having fun? “
There’s a smirk on her face, tiny and barely there but he notices it anyway. He’s started noticing the small things. Like how her nose scrunches up when she smiles and how she twiddles with her fingers when she’s nervous.
“ If I didn’t have fun I wouldn’t be here. “ Bucky replies and bumps his leg against her knee. Truth be told, he’d be here anyway. Even if she’d make him watch the most boring movie in the entire world he’d stay right there with her. Sometimes the world doesn't seem so rough and ruthless when she’s there beside him. Sometimes he feels like he could genuinely be happy.
“ Good, “ (Y/N) responds and places a quick kiss on his cheek that very nearly gives him a heart attack. Soft touches are something she grants him every so often and while he is getting used to it, it’s still foreign. It’s something he enjoys quite a lot though.
“Anyway, soulmates finding their way back to each other despite all odds is such a rom-com stable. Like the kiss in the rain or the airport chase or the top-of-the-stairs-moment.”
“ The what ? “
(Y/N) scoffs at him as if she’s never been asked a more ridiculous question in her life.
“ The moment when the girl gets a makeover or she dresses up in some ballgown and her love interest waits at the bottom of the stairs for her and when he sees her he’s so enamored and enchanted by her and ideally there’s some cheesy 90s love song playing in the background. And she meets him at the bottom, walking in slow motion obviously, and they don’t kiss or anything but the looks they share are enough to let the audience know what they feel for one another.”
Her words are heavy with passion and longing and magic and for a second Bucky wishes, he could be the one to give her that moment.
“ But okay, grumpy. You go on not believing in soulmates. I’ll change your mind one day, trust me.”
He doesn’t doubt it for a second.
They sink back into their blissful calm as John Cusak and Kate Beckinsale reconnect on the ice rink in front of Rockefeller Center as an ocean of Christmas lights twinkles in the background.
“ I’ve never been ice skating there. Been living here for so many years now and that’s still something I’ve never done. “ (Y/N) pipes up, a longing swinging alone with her words. “ Have you? “
“ Mmmh. Used to take a lot of girls on dates there. “
“ Oh sorry, I forgot you were a big charmer back in the day. “
“ Saw the first-ever Christmas tree getting set up in 1933. '' he continues to say. Sometimes talking about the past makes him sad. It’s a time he will never be able to go back to. A man he will never be again.
But sometimes, like today, he’s able to recall little snippets of memories and remember how he felt in that exact moment. And those are worth all the pain that thinking about the future might bring.
“ That — is weird flex but actually really cool. “
Bucky doesn’t think of himself as cool. He’s a grumpy 106-year-old who is completely disillusioned with the world around him. If (Y/N) thinks so though, he’s not gonna try to change her mind.
She snuggles back into him, body leaning against the smooth vibranium arm. A part of him he never felt really belonged to himself. Something he had been given to kill, to defend, to fight. If something so dangerous can be a place of comfort to her, Maybe, he thinks, it’s not so bad after all. Maybe sometimes you just have to let go of the part and change your perspective of things.
For a while, they get lost in the movie, in the fictional love of two strangers. He remembers the romance novels his mothers used to read. The way she would get lost in them. Maybe to escape her own life for just a second and follow along with the stories and the people that seemed so much grander than her own existence as a housewife stuck in a life that seems too small to contain her in all her wonderful glory. His mother, Bucky always knew even at a young age, deserved more than she had been given. She was smart and funny and she loved her kids as much as a heart could love another. But her days were dull and her marriage was one of convenience more than anything. She had ideas, beautiful stories swirled around her head, and she’d tell them to him and his sister before she’d tuck them into bed. And yet that is where they stayed, in her mind and in her children's memories. She was never resentful though. She took things as they came and she made them beautiful.
He wonders sometimes, what would’ve come from her ideas if she had been given the chance to tell them to a bigger audience. She could’ve put those rom-coms to shame.
A knock on the front door startles (Y/N), making her get up from the couch and follow LAdy towards the entrance. There’s a definite lack of warmth where she used to be and Bucky feels himself missing her already.
“ It’s probably Robin, she left her favorite jacket here the other — mom? “
The air fills with a chaotic mix of several voices one speaking over the other while the charm on Lady’s collar underlines it all with a jingling sound like that of a small bell.
Before he can even think about how to react, (Y/N) steps back into the living room followed by two more people. A woman who looks like an older version of her and a man. They seem lost in conversation still, talking about their travel to NYC and the fact that the man, who Bucky assumes is (Y/N)’s father, refused to ask for directions.
That’s until their eyes fall on Bucky. The woman regards him with a gentle smile on her face, polite and warm as mothers usually are. The man though. There’s something in his eyes, in his demeanor, that changed once he set sight on Bucky and it doesn’t feel good. Bucky knows what it’s like to be recognized. People see him and then they see all the bodies left in his wake, all the blood on his hands, all the pain and the suffering and the —
“ Sergeant Barnes. “
They used to call him that in Wakanda, as a sign of respect, he believes. To make him realize that they do not see him as the thread he used to be but the man he once was. Other than that it’s been a long time since people referred to him as Sergeant Barnes. It’s a title he takes pride in, something he worked hard for. It also belongs to a man he isn’t anymore. Bucky isn’t sure he still earns it. Still owns it.
“ Uh — hello. “
“Dad, “ (Y/N) says and pushes past her parents to stand next to Bucky. Her hand rests on his arm as a sign of comfort and reassurance. He appreciates it very much. “ Mom. This is Bucky. “
“ I can’t believe it. “ her father exclaims, still not taking his eyes off of Bucky.
“ Dad. “
“ I can not believe it. I can’t believe you! “
There it is. Although Bucky has always been very aware that he wasn’t nearly worth (Y/N)’s time, having it thrown in his face hurts more than he likes to admit.
“ Dad … “
“ You know James Barnes, and you tell me nothing about it? (Y/N) I’ve — I’ve spent so much time researching this man revising all the information people before me have gathered and making sure his legacy and his place in Steve Rogers' life get acknowledged and now I’d have the chance to ask him personally and you — you keep it a secret from me? “
Wait … what ?
“ Bucky, “ (Y/N) says and looks up at him with her gorgeous eyes that never seem to fail at calming him down. “These are my parents and as you can tell, my dad’s a big fan of yours. “
The next few minutes are a chaos of handshakes and nice-to-meet-yous and hugs. Her mother hugs Bucky real tightly, the way mothers do when they know someone needs a hug. And she doesn’t flinch when she feels the metal arm. She just hugs him a little tighter.
“ Why are you guys here? “ (Y/N) asks as her father throws an arm around her shoulder
“ Well, you asked us to look after Lady while you’re gone. “ her mother replies as if it’s the obvious answer.
“ Yeah, but we don’t leave until Friday afternoon. It’s Thursday. “
“ That is truuuue. But dad and I thought we’d surprise you and take you out for a nice dinner since we won’t be spending Christmas together, we thought we could at least try to make up for it. “
(Y/N) shakes her head at her mother’s words. “ I told you guys, it’s not a big deal. You go enjoy your cruise. “
“ And we will but you’re our girl and we want to take you out for dinner. Give your old parents that much, will you” her father jokes and ruffles her hair as if she was just a little girl and maybe she is in that moment, wrapped in his arms.
“ I uh — Bucky and I had plans. “
“ What plans? “ her mother asks, eyebrows raised.
“ Watching movies. “
“ Oh, those aren’t plans. Go get dressed! “
“ And James will obviously come with us, “ her dad adds “ I am not done asking him questions. “
It’s not December yet but the restaurant is already decked out in Christmas lights and tastefully placed sparkly ornaments. The soft lull of Christmas carols being played on a piano flows through the room and Bucky is thankful to discover that while so much has changed, many of those songs have stayed the same. Maybe things aren’t all different right now. Maybe the fundamental things have stayed the same. Like the feeling of being with your family sitting by the tree, singing songs that have been passed down from your parents to you.
(Y/N) sits next to him, lips painted the exact same shade of red as her slouchy knit sweater. She looks so cozy and comfortable and soft and if he’s being really honest with himself, all he wants to do is hold her tight and get lost in her warmth. But this is good, as good as it can ever get, really. Sitting next to her, across from her parents who have been nothing but kind to him. They’re eating good food, drinking delicious drinks and her parents are sharing funny and slightly embarrassing stories about (Y/N). This is the first time he’s meeting anyone’s parents as the man he is now. And even back in the 40s things weren’t this calm and easy. If you went to meet a woman’s parents you better came prepared. This feels nice. Like he gets to be part of a family for just a teeny tiny moment.
“ So, how long have you guys been together? “ her mother asks around a fork of tiramisu. While Bucky only looks at her with wide eyes, (Y/N) almost chokes on her wine.
“ Mom, we’re — not. We’re friends. “
“ Oh,” her mother replies, looking unconvinced as her eyes move back and forth between (Y/N) and Bucky “ I guess I must’ve read that wrong. Shame, you would make adorable babies. “
“ Mom!”
Bucky’s sure his cheeks are the same color as her sweater and her lips and her fingernails. A beautiful bright red. Like a Santa’s hat.
“ I know, babe. You’re an independent woman who makes her own decisions and if you decide not to have babies that’s alright with us. As long as you are happy, so are we. Lady makes for a wonderful substitute grandchild. Just sayin’ if you were to have babies with Bucky they would turn out really cute. “
“ Okay, how about we stop talking about my imaginary potential future children, huh? You go tell me more about work, dad. How about that? “
As her dad starts talking about some history classes he teaches and the students, Bucky notices the change in (Y/N)’s demeanor. Her laid-back ease is gone. She keeps fidgeting with her hair and the rings on her hand. Without really thinking about it, like his body is working on autopilot, Bucky reaches out and grabs her hand under the table. It’s still weird, touching soft skin with his metal hand without the intention of inflicting pain. It’s nice though. It’s wonderful.
She doesn’t let go for a long time.
Restrooms in restaurants are places where time is slightly altered. You’re sheltered from the noises of the main room but they’re still faintly audible through the door. The clinking of glasses and cutlery, the laughter, and the voices as they flow together like waves in an ocean.
It feels like you get a break from the real world for just a moment. To catch yourself. To take a breath. To look at yourself in the mirror and decide your next steps as the music sounds from the overhead speakers in a duller version as if someone wrapped the lyrics in thick cotton padding.
(Y/N) washes her hands while looking at her reflection. Today’s a good day. It’s not going the way she has expected it but it’s a good day nonetheless. Bucky and her parents get along like a house on fire. It’s a nice feeling but it also makes her so acutely aware of all the what-ifs floating around her head and her heart. Would it feel like this if she and Bucky were more than friends? Would it feel this — right?
Before her mind can come up with an answer to her own question, the door to the restrooms swings open letting in a sliver of the noise outside. Her mother steps in and looks at her with that signature mom smile. Like she knows you better than you know yourself. And maybe that isn’t entirely wrong.
“ Your dad and I are going to take a cab to the hotel. We’ll come over to yours tomorrow before you leave. Is that okay? Bucky said he’d walk you home.”
Of course, he’d say that. He’s a gentleman. He’s Bucky.
“ Sure that’s fine. I’m glad you guys came a day early. I missed you. “
“ We missed you too, baby,” she responds and pulls (Y/N) into a hug.
“ Now tell me something,” she says and takes (Y/N)’s face in between her hands. “ You and Bucky. There’s something there. “
(Y/N) shakes free from her mother's touch and faces the mirror, leaning both hands against the marble sink. “ Mom, can you leave it. “
“ I see the way you guys look at each other. I — you haven’t been this happy in so long. He makes you happy. “
As she lifts her head and looks into her own eyes in the mirror, (Y/N) feels a flood of emotions wash over her. Emotions she’s tried so hard to suppress and others she wasn’t even aware were there in the first place. And it’s all comes crashing down pulling her under and spitting her back out.
“ So what if he makes me happy. We’re not gonna happen. I can not lose a friend and he can’t either. It would kill us both. “
“ Oh honey, “ she goes to pull (Y/N) into another hug but she just shakes her head in response.
“ No. No, mom. It’s okay. I’m okay with it being the way it is. “
“ Are you sure? “
Is she? (Y/N) looks back at herself. You think you know yourself and what you want and how you feel and then someone asks you, truthfully asks you if you’re sure. And you can only stare and wonder. Well, are you?
And sometimes it’s way easier to lie, to both the other person and yourself, than to really face your fears and your feelings and everything you do or don’t understand about yourself.
“ Yeah. I am sure. “
It’s true. New York City never seems to fully go to sleep. There’s always a light on somewhere, guiding you through the dark, guiding you home.
It doesn’t fully go to sleep but it slows down. The air gets heavier, the noise gets quieter.
(Y/N) and Bucky slowly make their way through the familiar streets of their neighborhood as the city lights and the stars fight over who gets to shine more brightly upon them.
It’s a chilly evening, winter is truly just around the corner, and the air feels pregnant with the promise of snow and yet (Y/N) feels a warmth course through her that is unlike any other. A warmth that can only be brought on by being with your loved ones.
“ It’s a lovely night,” she says as her heels create a clip-clap sound against the pavement.
Bucky has his hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his jacket and his ever-present scowl decorates his face and yet, even Bucky can’t deny that it is a lovely night. One with so much potential. For — for lovers.
“ It really is.”
“ If life was a movie, “ (Y/N) says “ this would be when we realized that we're in love"
Bucky only raises his eyebrow at her, pushing her to elaborate. And maybe it’s a bit selfish. Maybe he just wants to hear her entertain the thought of them two as something more for just a little bit longer. Even if it’s just pretend.
“ We’d get a montage of some quirky dates that we didn’t realize were dates. Then the camera would pan down on us tonight, walking underneath the stars, the city lights glowing around us. There’d be some piano music in the background to set the mood. We’d have a deep talk about our fears or messed up childhoods or the meaning of life. And then you’d make me laugh and I’d accidentally hold your hand. You’d drop me off at my door, think about kissing my lips but then end up kissing my forehead. Once you leave I’d lean against my door, sink down to my floor, and grin like a fool because that’s the moment I realize I am in love with you and the audience would sigh in relief because they knew all along. “
“ That sounds nice,” Bucky replies, eyes staring into the distance as he tries to picture it all, safe it as a mental snapshot to go back to in quiet moments.
“ Yeah, well what a shame life is not a movie and we’re not in love. What a waste of a lovely night. “
“ Guess it’s perfect for a couple, huh? “ Bucky has to agree with her.
“ Mmmh. Or at least someone not in heels, “ (Y/N) jokes looking down at her shoes.
“ You want me to find a couple? Gift our night to them ? “ Bucky asks as they continue their journey down the Brooklyn streets.
“ Absolutely not, sir! “ (Y/N) responds and links her arm with his as she pulls him along. “ I like our night. I want to keep it for ourselves. “
And so they continue their walk home. Words that want to be said, that need to be said, hang heavy in the air, and yet they both decide to stay quiet and just enjoy the silence and comfort of their lovely little night.
The door feels like mocking her as it comes into view, cutting their moment short, putting an end to this blissful night.
She doesn’t want it to end. Doesn’t want to go inside and quite literally close the door to all the possibilities this night seems to hold out to her. If she was just brave enough to reach out and grab them.
(Y/N) unlock the door and turns back around to face Bucky. Something seems to hang in the air right between them and that feeling only gets stronger as their eyes lock. For a moment all there is, is silence and an abundance of unspoken words. And a fear that comes with speaking them. Of messing something up. Of being vulnerable.
Bucky smiles at her then. She loves his smile. It’s so rare but it’s so beautiful to look at. It gives you the feeling of having done something right.
“ Thanks for today, “ he says as if there’s anything to thank her for.
“ For what? “
“ Letting me be a part of your family. Thought maybe you didn’t want your parents to know about me. Thanks for — not being ashamed of me or anything. “
“ Oh Bucky, “ she says and grabs his hand, “ You are my friend and I love you. I’d never be ashamed of you. If anything I’m a little embarrassed by the way my dad kept pestering you with questions. Uh — why are you looking at me like that. “
“ You love me? “ his voice comes out but a mere whisper and his eyes are wide in shock.
“ Yes. You’re my friend, I love you. Bucky when — when was the last time someone told you they love you? “ (Y/N) asks as her hand softly strokes the side of his face.
“ 1942 “
“ Well, guess I’ll have to keep reminding you then, make up for lost time. I love you, Bucky Barnes. “
She can’t even blink before she’s wrapped up in his arms. Despite what one would think, Bucky is always warm. Even the vibranium arm. Everything radiates warmth and comfort. She could stay here forever.
Slowly he pulls away, looks deep into her eyes, lowers his head, and places his lips against her forehead. “ I love you too. “
He smiles at her once more then leaves. And while she won't admit it to anyone, ever, (Y/N) goes inside, leans against her door, sinks to the floor, and doesn't even try to suppress the foolish smile spreading on her lips.
Robin’s laughter fills the halls of the beautiful Inn where just tomorrow she’ll say I do.
“ This was your doing! You scheming little shit.” (Y/N) grumbles from the corner of her mouth as she slides up to Robin.
“ It wasn’t, “ the red-haired girl laughs “ but I wish it was. It’s hilarious.“
Redstone Lodge is a beautiful Inn located in upstate New York. It looks out onto a lake and is surrounded by lots and lots of Christmas trees all year round. It’s made of bricks and big wooden panels. Very rustic and yet cozy and elegant. In the yard, there’s a huge tent with a wooden floor and a see-through roof. That’s where the reception will be held tomorrow.
Redstone Lodge has 35 rooms all of which have been distributed to the various guests. They’re beautiful rooms with nice decor and comfortable beds. Well — a bed. One. Singular.
“ This is like some fanfiction trope, Robin. There is only one bed? “
“ Look," Robin says and pulls (Y/N) closer “ if you want to switch, find someone to switch with. I’m sure someone is willing to. But I’m just saying that if you two are friends, shouldn’t you be able to sleep in a bed together and not make it weird? “
She has a point and she knows it and she also knows that (Y/N) knows it.
Huffing a breath of annoyance (Y/N) grumbles an “okay fine” before letting Robin be taken hostage by yet another overly excited aunt and returns to Bucky’s side as he stands on the front steps looking out into the vast area. It really is a beautiful place to get married.
“ Hey so uh — bad news is that this is the only room they have so we’ll have to share a bed. Good news is they got some movies to take up to the room and I found some really dope rom-coms. “
“It's okay, don't worry. I promise I won't hog the blanket,” Bucky says and nods his head into the direction of the lake “ wanna take a walk? “
“ Sure. Yeah, why not. “
In all honesty (Y/N) isn’t the biggest fan of walking around the woods with no particular destination in mind and yet she can’t help but feel a sense of happiness fill her as she links her arm with Bucky’s once again.
She realized a while ago that she tends to gravitate towards his left side. It isn’t a conscious decision but maybe it’s a good one nonetheless.
Maybe it’ll show him that every part of him is worth loving, even the ones he doesn’t love himself.
“ When was the last time you did something crazy? “
He doesn’t like the way those words sound tumbling from her lips. He does, however, like very much how her eyes sparkle in the light of the setting sun. Their walk had turned into a bit of a hike and by the time they’ve finally made it back to the lake, the sun is about to set. Everyone seems to have retreated back into the lodge, maybe to sit by the big cozy fireplace or up to their room with their several beds. More than one. plural.
Bucky doesn’t want to let go of their time together though. Not yet. Just a little bit longer. And if that means agreeing to one of her weird ideas, so be it.
"Uh well, I fought aliens a few months ago."
"Huh … well see that's not an answer I was prepared for I mean more like, when did you last do something stupid but fun?"
“Like dancing in the middle of a street or having a cake fight in a parking lot?”
“Yeah …. like that.”
She looks at him again with that mischief and that softness. Like a mix of all things that make you feel alive shine back at him from her eyes.
“Wanna go swimming?” (Y/N) asks and smirks at him.
“Now? It’s freezing.”
“ I know,” she replies and shrugs her shoulders “ and I know it’s silly and dumb and we’ll probably get sick but I kinda wanna do it anyway. Wait … can you get sick?”
“Huh?”
“Because of the serum.”
“You know, they didn’t exactly give me a manual when they injected it so — guess we’ll have to find out.”
“So you’re in?”
Bucky only nods his head in agreement. She doesn’t need to know that he’d agree to anything she suggests. Any little thing.
The woods around them are dark and thick and where they probably should be scary they are comforting now. They’re a shelter from the eyes of onlookers. A safe roof and walls to keep their little bubble safe and hold their moment tight and safe.
“Holy shit, it’s freezing!” (Y/N) hisses through clenched teeth as the water reaches up to her shoulders, the straps of her yellow bra the only colors shining through the dark night.
Don’t think about it. He has to tell himself. Don’t think about the fact that she’s only in her underwear. Don’t think about her soft skin and her smile and what her body feels like against yours. Don’t!
He doesn’t have to scold himself for too long before a cold splash of water hits him right in the face.
“Oh, you made a mistake” Bucky calls out to a laughing (Y/N) who tries her best to tread water and get as far away from him as possible but fails to do so, being wrapped up in his arms only seconds later.
For the next few minutes, they splash around like children at the neighborhood pool.
The cold of the night and the lake rattle their bones but neither of them seems to care as a familiar warmth wraps itself around their hearts.
It’s really fascinating how the little moments can become so meaningful. How one person can mean so much so quickly. How drastically your life can change just because of one single person and their kindness and their love.
“Oh-oh!” (Y/N) exclaims excitedly and lays little enthusiastic slaps on Bucky’s shoulder “let’s do the dirty dancing lift. You can lift me, right?”
“I have a vibranium arm…”
“Right. Yeah. Right.”
Bucky places his hands on her waist and pulls her a little closer, trying to ignore the incessant thumping of his heart that feels like it wants to break out of his chest. “Okay on 3.”
“One”
Her eyes look deep into his as if trying to search for something in them. Secrets. Hidden feelings. The truth.
“Two”
And when she smiles, almost shy, it seems for a second that she’s found whatever she’s been looking for. He hopes she likes the secret she uncovers. He hopes it doesn’t scare her off from loving him.
“Three”
In a swift motion, he lifts her up above his head, holding her strong and steady as drops of water, cold as ice, rain down on him while (Y/N) laughs and stretches out her arms.
“We did it! I’m flying, Jack!”
“What?”
“Nevermind.” She retorts and lets out another laugh. Yeah, maybe he’s freezing his ass off but to hear her laugh like that, makes it all worth it.
He doesn’t let her fall over like they do in the movie, instead, he grips her waist tighter, slowly and gently lowers her back into the water. And when she’s back right in front of him, chest against his, he should be letting go of her, but he doesn’t.
While his head keeps screaming at him to just let go, his heart tells him otherwise, makes him stay right there.
(Y/N)’s arms move across his chest and gently wrap themselves around his neck before her fingers start to delicately play with his hair.
He wonders if any person has ever felt the way he does in that moment. He wonders if maybe a poet or a writer or a musician has and if maybe they wrote a poem or a book or a song about it. Maybe that would help him understand. Maybe he could read it or listen to it and keep this moment captured in that piece of art forever. Because he fears that no memory can ever do justice to the way he feels when she moves closer.
When her hand cups his face when her nose nuzzles against his so gently as if she’s afraid he’ll pull away any second.
It’s just them and their wildly beating hearts and the woods providing them shelter and the water setting the scene and the stars shining down upon them.
It’s just them — until it isn’t.
“(Y/N), Bucky? You guys out there?” Robin's voice calls out into the night as her silhouette appears against the light coming from the porch of the Inn.
“Yes, it’s us. We’ll be right in.” (Y/N) calls back, having moved away slightly. The spell is broken and Bucky lifts his hand off of her, immediately missing the contact.
“It’s freezing, we should probably go inside.” She says and grants him a smile, though it doesn’t entirely reach her eyes and he can faintly see her shivering.
“Yeah let’s go. Get you warmed up.”
They don’t talk about their moment as they head inside and get swallowed by the group of people all hyped up with excitement for the coming day.
Bucky is sure though that as long as there are stars in the sky, he will not forget this moment however fleeting and insignificant it might seem.
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genuine question: why do you have your hogwarts house in your bio if you’re not a transphobe? i saw a post that you reblogged giving the sentiment that a sports league no longer using the name “quidditch” in order to separate themselves from jk rowling was not effective or respectful to trans people (because JKR invented the sport and is inextricably linked to it) so how is putting a hogwarts house in your bio (something made up by jkr and therefore, no matter how hard you try to separate the two, linked to her) any different from that in its logic? it only serves as an immediate surface “warning” which many trans people, poc, and others who have been victimized by jkr’s bigotry, will see and avoid.
Hello, first of all, thank you for being respectful with your question! This started out as a short post and became a very long-winded answer so I'll put it under the cut. For anyone interested, there's a TLDR at the very end.
I stand by what I said in that post: trying to make something better by changing its name and acting like that is enough is not useful or particularly clever in my opinion. Therefore, one has two choices: either you distance yourself from the material entirely, or you continue engaging with it albeit recognizing its problems.
Personally, Harry Potter has been and is a vast portion of my life. I spent entire hours of my life in this fandom, it was refuge and solace for me for years and years while growing up and I had little friends, it was comforting when I was upset and crying in my room, it was magic and enjoyment like nothing else. It is still linked to little rituals in my life and I have defined myself according to it for years. I'm 20 now and I've had "Slytherin" in my bio ever since I was 11. I started writing because of Harry Potter. I was just invited to a Harry Potter-themed birthday party by someone in my friend group for crying out loud because that's how much we love it.
As I said, revisionism doesn't work (both in theory and practice), and someone can still enjoy media while acknowledging the flaws of both author and work. That is what we do with every single author from the past. Of course, this is where you say "yes, but reading Aristophanes or Thomas Hardy or seeing a Degas or Picasso art show doesn't give profits to them directly", to which I agree. I have stopped watching her movies at the cinema, I have never seen her TCC play (even though I desperately wanted to), I haven't bought the new illustrated copies of her books (and have turned down my mother when she tried to buy them for me last Christmas), I probably won't buy the new game or new merch. I try not to give her any more money than she has because I know where her money goes (unfortunately).
I don't say all of this to justify myself (because, with all due respect, I don't have to do that to a stranger online), I'm illustrating what I have done which felt right to me. I don't think that reading Harry Potter makes you a transphobe in the same way that liking Lovecraft doesn't make you racist or enjoying Picasso doesn't make you a sexist paedophile.
JKR used to be a huge role model for me. She was the answer to the famous question "if you could have dinner with one person in the world?". Her betrayal hurt me as a cis woman and I cannot imagine how it must have felt for all of her trans fans. I understand and respect if someone feels wary or distrustful of anything Harry Potter-related, even a Hogwarts house in a bio. I understand if someone avoids me because of it.
HOWEVER, this is my internet space. This is my blog, where I post things that make me happy, whether that be theories or reblogs of fanart or whatever. I maintain that this blog is, and will always be, a safe space for LGBT+ people, TRANS PEOPLE INCLUDED. But, of course, it is well within anyone's rights to avoid it. If Harry Potter triggers you, block me. If reading "Slytherin" in my bio makes you feel like my blog could be a red flag, avoid me.
I'm sorry that it is this way, but this is a little window shop where I post my interests and reblog things I like to look at. I also post more serious things sometimes, but it's mostly MY opinion or something with which I agree. You can choose to avoid it, or you can choose to interact with it, but you must do so at your own peril, and this is the same for all things in life. You may stay around long enough to find out that I'm no transphobe, or you can leave. You can ask me respectfully (like you did, op) what my views on Harry Potter are, or you can decide I'm not worth the time. But ultimately, everyone is in charge of their own internet experience. I will always take the time to reply to the people who come knocking but I cannot tailor my blog to coddle other people's perceptions of me because today it's Harry Potter, and tomorrow it will be something else that might be misconstrued by some, many, or all.
I hope this wasn't too rambly and my point came across the way I meant it to, it's midnight where I am. If you have any more questions/want to debate this further, I'm happy to.
TLDR: I believe that liking HP doesn't automatically make you a transphobe; this blog will always be a safe space for trans people in that there will be no transphobic talk from me, BUT it is still my blog and it's your job to curate your internet experience (= if anything HP related triggers you, block me, avoid me, etc).
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