#not to mention the horrendous interest rate i got fucked over with :)))))))))

[queercatboyrights]

anyone got any tips on getting art industry jobs w/o a college degree bc holy fuck this shit is horrendous /oAo;\

[b1rdcatchers]

currently obsessed with olympic pictograms so i'm rating them

simplified images of different sporting events/locations helped athletes and tourists navigate the country even if they didn't speak the language, resulting in a win for accessibility and graphic design everywhere. below are a few notable sets.

^1. London, 1948: 5/10. aggressively old-timey, but i like the figure drawings

^2. Mexico City, 1968: 10/10 love the color choice, love the waves, love the weightlifing

^3. Grenoble (winter), 1968: 9/10 a mild headache is worth it for the slay

^4. Munich, 1972: 4/10 not my favorite but set the precedent for future pictograms. the group shots are fun

^5. Moscow, 1980: 6/10 munich plus wiggles :)

^6. Los Angeles, 1984: 4/10 they look like crash test dummies but points for good posture

^7. Sarajevo (winter), 1984: 9/10 the additional lines give dynamism but don't distract from the central figures!!

^8. Barcelona, 1992: 7/10 i like the calligraphic influence

^9. Lillehammer (winter), 1994: 10000000/10 absolutely perfect little guys. actually it's one guy and he does all the sports

look at this shit it's delightful why did they keep changing pictograms after this when they obviously struck gold

^10. Atlanta, 1996: 3/10 boring but points for being caked up

^11. Nagano (winter), 1998: 6/10 interesting paint-like strokes, deduction for luge which is actually a seeker of hermaeus mora come to kill me

^12. Sydney, 2000: 10/10 theyve all got little boomerangs :')

^13. Salt Lake City (winter), 2002: 5/10 based off cattle branding icons apparently? not my favorite but i have to respect the new direction

^14. Athens, 2004: 9/10 horrible cropping as to exclude their horrendous mascot but i love love LOVE when they take inspiration from the cultural history of a location!! in this case, cycladic figurines (pictured below)

^15. Turin (winter), 2006: 10/10 no notes i love it

^16. Beijing, 2008: 10/10 historical reference goes HARD

pictured: seal script, a predecessor to modern chinese lettering. you may recognize it from its use in avatar: the last airbender!

^17. Sochi (winter), 2014: 12/10 i love him he's just a fella. like that's my guy there he goes

^18. Beijing (winter), 2022: 8/10 i do like the calligraphic strokes but not as much as previous examples

HONORABLE MENTIONS

^equestrian events and kayaking at rio, 2016

^cycling at berlin, 1936 (all others were superimposed over the circle while this one fully incorporates it)

^biathlon at vancouver (winter), 2010: so fucking badass it's like a cartoon villain

Thank you for indulging my autism event :)

Links: Summer, Winter

[1kook]

skirt chasers - drabble iii

this a skirt chasers drabble in case u couldn't tell uhhh here’s i and ii lol

summary; “I think the alcohol broke my amygdala. Your epidermis looks pretty today— did you use that toner I told you about?” warnings; alcohol mention, tit sucking, unprotected sex, use of the pull out method, uhh making out??? ratings; mature (18+) misc; educational abolitionist!jungkook, drunk jk, mentions of throwing up lol, jk is an anatomy frEAK, more skirts, more jk has questionable kinks wc; like barely 2k

notes; i wrote this in like 40 mins bc i couldn't stop thinking about STIMBO jk from skirt chasers and how cool he is enjoy xxxx also i barely rmr shit from anatomy bc it was the worst course of my life so pls bear with me

His first mistake is getting drinks with the boys. You like to think you know your boyfriend pretty well, know what he’s good at, where he excels, where he thrives, and well. Drinking doesn’t rank too high on the list.

Jimin calls a little past midnight. “Kook’s on the table,” he slurs into the phone, too loud and too sloppy for a Wednesday night phonecall.

“Ha?” you mumble back, rubbing your eyes until you see stars. The room is dark, practically spinning from how out of it you are. Chaeyoung is dead asleep in her room, so even whispering feels like a crime. “Where are you guys?”

Some bar on the south side of town, that strip where all the newly turned twenty-one year olds go to get wasted. Jungkook’s supposed to be studying for some big exam he has on Friday— at least, that’s what he told you —so it takes a few minutes of convincing on Jimin’s part until you’re shrugging your coat on, blindly navigating through your apartment for your keys and wallet. You briefly consider taking an Uber, but ultimately decide you’d rather get stabbed to death on a public bus so at least your family can sue the city afterwards.

Jungkook is indeed on the table, except the table has long since tipped over. So now he’s just sprawled across some dirty bar floor, puppy-soft head of curls spilling over his forehead. He’s so cute, so adorable. You want to kill him. “Up,” you command, channeling the strength of twelve football players to haul your beefy boyfriend off the ground.

“Baby,” he beams, looking at you but not actually looking at you. “I think the alcohol broke my amygdala. Your epidermis looks pretty today— did you use that toner I told you about?”

You don’t even know what that means, can’t even question him, because then Jin is angrily yelling at you to cover his tab. You pay with a stiff middle finger, flail the three dollars in your wallet at him, before sweeping away your poor damsel in distress. “You’re supposed to be studying,” you huff, can’t even be mad when he stops to throw up in a bush outside the bar. You’re so embarrassed, pretend you don’t know him as you pull up the bus times on your phone.

He’s huffy by the time you get on the bus, sniffling against your neck as he cries about his common hepatic portal vein thing— you don’t fucking know.

Chaeyoung isn’t too impressed with you when you bring him home, dump him on the couch while she steals your AirPods from your room. “Explain yourself,” you demand, and his head rolls back.

“I hate school,” he complains, slaps a hand down against his forehead. You’re certain he’s concussed himself this time. Then he’s bending over, head held between his hands. “Wanna cry.”

You sigh, kneeling in front of him. “You’re almost done,” you comfort him, hand on the back of his head. He’s so sweaty, and smells like all his friends colognes at the same time. “You’re smart, baby, you can do this.”

Your words have the opposite effect, because then he’s rocking forward childishly, nearly rams your skulls together and kills you. He’s reached the point of his insobriety where he’s too sad and huffy to think, sadly leaning against your shoulder as if that’ll somehow solve all his problems. You doubt it will, but there’s really nothing much you can when Jungkook reaches this point, so you settle on softly patting the back of his head until the fool is fucking snoring against you.

Chaeyoung blesses you with her divine retribution the next morning by using up the last of your body wash, and then you’re left to deal with a hungover Jungkook on a Thursday morning. You’re pretty sure he had a class that morning, but he wakes up too late for you to even try to convince him to still go, and then he’s moping on your couch in last night’s clothes. You’re getting ready for your internship, blouse half buttoned, pencil skirt wiggled up to your waist.

“Abolish exams,” he mutters, numbly staring at the ceiling as you wipe his face with a cleansing towelette. He doesn’t seem remotely interested in the shower or the pancakes you made, which lets you know this is a much more serious issue than just a drunken episode. “Aren’t they stupid?” You nod. “Sure, test me on every damn thing we’re learning right now as if science isn’t always changing and I’ll have to keep learning anyway.”

He looks over at you, under-eye bags absolutely horrendous. “Tests are stupid,” you agree, and it seems to be exactly what he wants to hear as he sinks into your arms, face buried in your chest. “Too stupid for smarty-pants Jeon Jungkook.”

Jungkook groans, flops over you on the couch all smelly and gross. “They test you for memorization and not comprehension,” he adds, finally wiggling out of his stinky clothes.

With Jungkook, you can never tell where things are going. One minute he’s cursing the education system and the next he’s kissing along your neck in his rambling fury. “As if I these materials will somehow become nonexistent once I’m working,” he huffs, hands on your thighs. Your breath hitches in your throat, fingers digging into his biceps as he mindlessly kisses down the valley between your breasts. “Shit’s so fucking stupid,” he spits, bunching your skirt around your waist.

“Jeon—“

“I’m just trying to be a fuckin’ pediatrician, for fuck’s sake,” he growls, hastily undoes the front buttons on your blouse. Your black bra comes into view, heart pounding in your chest as Jungkook makes quick work of reaching behind and undoing it, pushing it away, and cupping your breasts in his palms. He guides one of your legs around his waist, tucks it around him as he gets to work raining down kisses on your tits. “So pretty, doll,” he murmurs, pretty pink lips leaving smooches down your chest.

You bite down on your lip, watch through hazy eyes as those big doe eyes flick up at you, tongue swirling around your nipple. “N— Not tired anymore?” you pant, hands in his hair. It’s still dry and knotted from last night’s adventures, but you don’t mind. Not when Jungkook’s hard cock is flush against your thigh.

“Nah,” he confirms, rolling his hips forward against your core. Oh he was horny horny this morning. Or was he angry horny? You don’t care, either way you were winning. “I serenaded you last night, y’know?”

You snort, but it morphs into a whimper when he captures your rock hard nipple between his perfect teeth. “Not a serenade,” you whimper, fingernails running along his scalp, “if I’m not there.”

Jungkook leans back, lets you breathe for a second as he unbuckles the front of his pants, jeans pulled down around his thighs. And of course he’s hard as fuck by now; this was Jeon Jungkook you were dealing with. He could get it up and going in two seconds flat at the mere sight of your collarbones. “You were there,” he insists, capturing your hand in his all romantic like until you’re flustered and shaking him off. He levels you with a cheesy grin, presses your palm against his chest. “Here.”

You gag. “That’s disgusting.”

Jungkook laughs, all squeaky and airy because he’s never given a fuck about looking cool in front of you. His next words only prove your point. “Why? Don’t like being nestled against my left lung and esophagus, all sexy like?”

You roll your eyes, tug your panties aside to give him a full view of what his dorky anatomical talk has done to you. “Dick me down or go away,” you say, pointer finger nudging his chin up when he stares too long

He snaps his teeth at you, almost bites your finger, the fuckin’ weirdo. “Sassy today,” he teases, presses the tip of his cock against you. Both of you groan, watch as he glides himself up and down your folds, angry mushroom head pushing against your clit. “Always so wet for me,” he mumbles shakily, eyes zeroed in on your wet folds and how slick they feel against him. “Didn’t stretch you out again.”

“Yo— You’re mean about that anyway,” you pant, pulling him closer by those firm ass cheeks of his. “I can tell when you’re using me as a reference model.”

Jungkook gasps as if he’s genuinely scandalized by your claim, follows your wordless command and finally lines himself up with your quivering entrance. “I’m a hands-on learner,” he offers, his cheeky smile still on his face until he finally sinks into you and his features twist up all pretty. “Your pussy’s just so pretty, baby,” he grunts, hand on your hip.

Your face feels warm, from the pleasure that rolls over your body and the vulgarity of his words. “Shush now,” you say, try to sound strict and in command, but he’s got his other hand cupping your jaw, looking at you like you’re a goddess and not some dorky college student in their even dorkier internship uniform.

“Temptress,” he mumbles, pushes past your clenching lips until he’s flush against you, your walls spasming around his cock because he just feels so good. “Tried to sneak past me in that tiny skirt.” He draws back, lets his swollen head catch at the entrance before sliding back in, pace slow and sensual, too intimate for some random Thursday morning. “Little doll just needs to be fucked in the morning, doesn’t she?” A pitiful whimper catches in your throat, eyes rolling to the back of your head with every glide of his dick back inside of you.

“N- Not my fault you have naughty eyes,” you whimper, hand coming up to bite at your knuckles as Jungkook continues to fuck you so sweetly. “Fuck.”

Jungkook ducks over you, wavy hair tickling your forehead as his hot breath fans across you. Smells like the mouthwash you made him take and hints of last night’s alcohol. “Can’t help it,” he husks, capturing your lips in his. Sloppy and wet, tongue clashing with yours as he guides you along, hips slowing to rhythmic ruts that have you moaning after each roll.

A few drawn-out thrusts later and you’re coming, body so sensitive this early in the morning, and it certainly doesn’t help that Jungkook looks like that (sweaty and worn, dark eyes watching you writhe beneath him). Surprisingly, it takes him a few more rushed thrusts before he follows, barely managing to pull out in time before his sparkling cum is splattering over your tummy and the skirt bunched around it. “No,” you whine, melting into the couch. “Jeon, this is my only one,” you complain, rubbing a hand over your eyes as if that’ll somehow make your legs work again enough to push him off.

Jungkook says nothing as he tucks himself back into his boxers, chest heaving from exertion as he crashes back onto the couch. “Liar,” he responds after a moment, out of breath and half asleep again. He’s still technically hungover. Hand lazily drawing circles on your knee as you sit up, wiggling your skirt back down. He gives you this indecipherable look. “I hid the other one under your dresser.”

You smack his arm. “Why the hell would you—“

He tackles you back into the couch, presses the stain into your skirt. It must feel gross against his naked tummy, but Jungkook doesn’t seem to care. “Makes me too horny,” he announces, pout pressed against your neck. “I had a teacher fantasy the other day. Did I tell you?” You roll your eyes, resigning yourself to this new life squashed beneath your boyfriend. “You were my high school anatomy teacher and I failed, so you made me stay after school for supplemental lessons—“

“That’s an abuse of power,” you point out, back to carding your hands through his now sweaty and greasy hair. “And you would never fail an anatomy class, that’s literally your comfort area of study.”

“Listen,” he stresses, lifts his head until he’s peering at you with these humongous Bambi eyes. “You spanked me and—“

“Go get my skirt.”

Copyright © 2020, 1kook on tumblr. absolutely NO reposts allowed.

[shutupaboutandraste]

“  you  keep  using  that  word.  i  do  not  think  it  means  what  you  think  it  means.  ” for Adaar x Dorian? Welcome!

Excellent choice let’s goooo! I mention another Adaar Inquisitor in this little drabble and that’s because my Inquisitor is brother to my friends’ Inquisitor so I usually try to include them both ^u^

Words: 1565

Pairing: Dorian/Inquisitor Adaar

For @dadrunkwriting​ 

Tramping around Ferelden was hardly Asaara Adaar’s favorite activity. In fact, he would consider it one of his least favorite. The entire country seemed to be made of mud and mountains with nary a plain or decent stretch of flatland to be found. Weather in the Free Marches was far more predictable, more comfortable, far better than anything Ferelden had to offer. Yet, his distaste didn’t have anything on Dorian’s. ​

“Inconceivable!” Dorian hissed, for probably the fifth time since they had started their trek through the Hinterlands. Asaara rubbed his palm around The Mark, reminding himself that at least Dorian was easy to look at.  

Varric laughed, “Sparkler, believe you me, it’s conceivable.” 

“The King of Ferelden can’t be chosen by single combat,” argued Dorian, “That’s horrible politics. Hilarious, but horrible.” 

“It’s how they do it here, I swear!” promised the rogue, adjusting Bianca over his shoulder with a winning smile, “Hell, I think Hawke would have preferred that too. Not that they ever got the chance to become Viscount.” 

“Didn’t they kind of prove that by beating the Arishok?” asked Asaara, turning his head slightly to ask. It was always a way to check if their last companion was still around. Or, at least, if it was visible. When his teeth grit at noticing the very obvious lack of Cole, the spirit hybrid appeared at the side of his eye. Good. He was getting better at reminding them that he was there. 

Another deep rumble came from Varric, “I guess you’re right!” 

Dorian scoffed, but said nothing. Clearly, the ways of the South were too much for his delicate sensibilities. Asaara didn’t mind it--his mind wandered to his elder brother Arug, who would have reveled in such simplicity. In another life, the two might have been Arvaraad and Sarebaas, but Asaara liked to think their own style of mage and protector worked out just fine. Fine enough that Arug had felt comfortable staying back at Skyhold at any rate. 

Besides, it was hard to actually talk to Dorian when Arug hovered. Magic unsettled Arug on a good day, but Dorian seemed to do so in particular. And, whether Asaara liked to admit it or not there was something undeniably charming about the Tevinter altus. (Not magister, he had to remind himself, just the son of one.) 

To be fair, it could be hard to talk to Dorian in general. The man was proud, charismatic, and bold like a pristine sunset that reflected itself back in a lake. He talked quickly, usually in circles around other people, but not Asaara. He could hang on every word like gospel. It had begun with inquiries into the time magic that Dorian had studied. Devouring the information had been thrilling, but Asaara came out with plenty of notions. Notions such as the obvious understanding within Dorian’s eyes, but that his speech could twist the truth to get even the best to believe in his work. Or, perhaps, more worryingly, that Dorian’s eyes sparkled when he was excited. That his smile made Asaara’s heart twist ever so slightly. Asaara was rarely tongue-tied, but he had to focus on his words more when Dorian was around.

Still, it didn’t mean Asaara had endless patience. Dorian could be a vain, proud braggart who thought that he was the Maker’s gift to magic. Once one knew him better, that shed slightly, but he could still be pretentious. And, Asaara reminded himself constantly, Dorian was still of Tevinter while Asaara was a Vashoth Qunari. 

 The conversation moved, Cole whispering to himself. Asaara was glad of it-- Cole was muttering his thoughts again. His fingers gently tapped Cole’s wrist which got the other to stop, apologizing quietly. There were many people Asaara found easy to be angry at, but Cole wasn’t one of them. Where he could argue with Vivienne until they were both blue in the face or ignore Cassandra until she looked ready to hit him, Cole was just trying to help. Not berate him with opinions or Chantry nonsense. That didn’t always make what Cole had to say easy to hear. 

So, when Dorian exclaimed, “Inconceivable!” again over something very conceivable-- something about Ferelden fashion and shield maidens-- it was Cole who said Asaara’s thoughts out. 

“You keep using that word,” hummed Cole, “I do not think it means what you think it means.” 

“...Pardon me, Cole?” 

“The word,” Cole continued, “Not believable. It blocks the idea of possibility. An unending wall for the dream of something strange. You use it for things that have already happened that you simply don’t understand. But Adaar understands the difference.” 

“...So are these thoughts your’s or his?” asked Dorian, directing the question toward Cole but looking at Asaara. He grimaced. 

“They were his…” admitted Cole, “But I began to wonder, too.” 

Asaara shrugged, trying to offer Dorian a charismatic smirk, “He’s not wrong. You aren’t using that word correctly.” 

“Yes, I am. Varric--” Dorian’s face dropped as Varric gave him a sheepish smile. He huffed, “Alright then, I’ve been made a fool of. Let’s move along through this horrendously massive forest before a bear decides to go after The Inquisitor again.” 

His face twisted into a mockery of a pout. After knowing Dorian for some time now, it was easy to pick out expressions. This one was embarrassed, his eyes darting toward the trees to avoid looking at any of them, but with his chest puffed out like a peacock. Perhaps, Dorian was too easy to look at. Most people couldn’t watch someone as if they were an exotic animal, learn their habits, learn which lines of their face crinkled certain ways to show their feelings.

Two mages and two rogues were also probably not the best equipped to fight Ferelden wildlife, which made Dorian very right in that regard. Asaara admitted that after a long morning-- Cassandra bleating at him, Iron Bull’s hearty laughter starting to grate his ears mixed with Blackwall's preference for traveling with Sera who was her own jar of bees-- he had probably made a mistake in a hasty party. Not that he minded. Each of the three were the most pleasant of his company. Still, he didn’t want to have to fight more bears. 

They pressed on, hoping to reach one of the camps before nightfall while they looked for herbs for the healers. Once that was all collected and the farms checked on, they could be on their way. Still, a gentle silence hung over them. Fennecs raced by them as the headed upward through a mountain. What Asaara hadn’t expected was for Dorian to softly break the silence between them while Varric animatedly began discussing something with Cole. 

“You’re quite intelligent, Inquisitor,” he remarked. 

Asaara’s lips twitched as he forced himself not to scowl, “For a qunari, I know.” Bastard. It was always the pretty ones who ended up being bastards. 

“No, I mean.. Yes, but no!” Dorian realized his fumble as he began to search for words, “Kaffas. I mean in general. Most people aren’t as smart as you are.” 

Asaara rolled his eyes, “I think the members of the Inquisition each have a plethora of intelligence.”

“Do not bullshit me, Inquisitor,” huffed Dorian, “It doesn’t become you.” 

Asaara whipped his head to look at him, surprised, “Doesn’t… Then what does become me?” A curl of suggestiveness pulled at the side of his mouth turning into a bit of smugness. 

For a moment, he watched Dorian’s eyes soften. Edges rounded as a smile ticked up softly. Those two perfect lips pursed before a twisted, pleased smile of his own graced Dorian’s face. If the wind felt knocked out of Asaara by that soft sudden change of face, he did not let it show. He had become quite good at that over the years. It came with pretending not to be bothered that everyone thought you were just another stupid Qunari-- or that you were just another violent Vashoth. 

“That smile for one,” said Dorian, “I should like to see it more often. Perhaps over tea in the library once we get back.” 

Had he heard that right? Koslun’s balls, Maker’s ass, Andraste’s shitty mabari, and Fen’harel fucking take him he had. Perhaps his own eyes brightened. Perhaps, he gave a little too much away as his cheeks darkened up, unused to the kind of attention Dorian had just bestowed upon him. Perhaps, it was just enough to keep Dorian interested since his expression didn’t change. Asaara let out a breathy chuckle, keeping his voice even as he nodded at Dorian. 

“I look forward to it,” he said, “So long as you’re not throwing books around in a huff again.” 

Much to his delight, he saw Dorian’s eyes sparkle.

Earlier today, if someone asked him if he thought Dorian would ever look his way, he might have replied ‘Inconceivable’ without hesitation. Now, that prefix has been dropped entirely. Dorian flirting with him was entirely and completely conceivable and right in front of him. And, maybe, just maybe the Hinterlands looked a little more beautiful, a little less muddy. 

He paused, adding, “And, so long as you call me by my name. Inquisitor is so dreadful on the ears after a while.” 

“Asaara, then,” agreed Dorain, giving him a polite nod, “An almost musical name, really. You will have to tell me what it means.”

Inconceivable, indeed.

[bakugou-tm]

ANTI!! HERO!! BAKUGOU!!

So I started writing a draft, then this happened...

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

The day you two first had met was like no other day Bakugou had ever experienced.

And he was a professional villain of sorts, so he’d had his fair share of strange days. Even then, the day you suddenly barged into his life took the cake.

It was mid winter, the weather just as dark and shady as the bar the ash blond was found in, sitting in his usual bar stool furthest away from the rest of the no goods in the shitty bar.

Though it was far from undercover, the villains established the hole in the wall bar as their own. Though you wouldn’t see any big name villains hiding out there, the rest of the low life hoodlums took over the joint as a place to lay low and talk amongst each other.

It’s exactly what you would imagine a villain bar to appear like: constant fights, horrendous smell, drunk lunatics, shady mistresses latched onto filthy criminals. 

It was no Hamptons, but it was home for the villainous ash blond.

Bakugou Katsuki, otherwise known as Ground Zero, was a rather sneaky one. Nobody quite classified him as a true villain, rather a vigilante or anti-hero of sorts. He did what he wanted, period. Nobody has ever caught him in the act of crime, hints his name of zero losses, so he was safe enough to walk in the streets.

But then again, he would never be caught seen in a local coffee shop, it wasn’t exactly his type of place. Admittedly it would seem the villains would despise such a ‘pansy’ of a villain, but after years of his intricately dark work he’s established a name for himself on both parties.

His name alone set fear into the hearts of villains and heroes, just because of how mysterious and cunning his work could be. Nobody knew how much blood was on his hands, nor what he was planning next. In some lights he could be seen as a villain, in other lights he could be seen as a hero.

But his only rule was, never call him a hero. Because Bakugou Katsuki most certainly was no hero.

So there he sat, at his usual hangout on a Friday night, coming up with his next move for the following week. He may had been a villain of sorts, but his work was far from sloppy. He had to keep up to his name of course.

His trademark style consisted of black skinny jeans, the usual stylish tears in them along with his dark hoodie with his signature orange X plastered across it.

His small glass cup of gin remained untouched as he stared out the window, looking past the buffoons that inhabited the establishment. His calloused finger swirled around the smooth rim, his fiery eyes flicking to every movement outside.

The traffic outside mostly consisted of beat up cars driving by, possibly a group of people most likely apart of a gang clogging up the streets. All expected traffic on one of the most dangerous streets in Japan.

The only figure he wasn’t expecting was your own, not only daring to walk down the dark street but even having the nerve to swing the door open to the very bar.

All eyes fell on your form, including his own, after all your presence alone was enough to act as the brightest light in the darkest tunnel.

Besides your practically glowing presence, your outfit alone was enough to raise questions. There was no question at all that you were a hero, your (f/c) leotard giving away that fact.

The fact that you were clearly a hero wasn’t the first part, anyone dressed in attire such as your own was playing a dangerous game with the given crowd. Admittedly he had to give you credit that your chest was fully covered though distinctly noticeable with the spandex like fabric. But your bottom half was a different story. 

You did have thigh high boots that matched the color of your leotard and arm sleeves but to your demise, they stopped just at the part that desperately needed to be covered. The ash blond didn’t even need you to turn around, just by the sight of your hour glass like hips he knew there was a delightful package following from behind.

Bakugou had never seen such a radiant being such as yourself, and he had come across a good amount of heroes himself. Even with your rather rated r style hero costume, you radiated nothing but pure innocence. He swore he’s seen you on TV before, but it was nothing compared to you in person.

Your skin was so insanely perfect, looking like velvet to the touch and every inch and curve of your body looked like it was shaped from perfection.

Not to mention the supple (h/c) locks that cascaded along those downright teasing shoulders of yours topped off your entire look.

The ash blond hadn’t even noticed himself squinting from your sheer glowing beauty until you began to move, trouble immediately coming your way.

“Woah there sweet cheeks, why are you in such a rush to move you just got here.”

Your body froze in its place when a rather large man stood before you, his two sloppy looking followers standing on either side of him.

“I am sorry to be so rude, but I have other buisness here.” You said firmly, your dazzling (e/c) eyes staring the man straight in the eye.

Your boldness seemed to humor him, a low chuckle escaping his lips as he folded his arms, his small friend deciding to speak up.

“Boss, I’m pretty sure that’s the lass that just made the top ten hero list.”

This caught the attention of Bakugou, his head whipping over to analyze your face once more. Of course that’s who you were, how could you forget?

The youngest ever hotshot to make the top ten pro hero list, people loved you. Between your powerhouse solar quirk and your charismatic personality, you had the love of millions all around the world.

Yet you choose to vacant yourself in a filthy villain pub, the atmosphere already attempting to taint your clear image.

“Ah yes I’m Starbolt, I’m pleased you recognize me,” You said with a warm smile before turning back to the larger man before you, “But I am currently looking for a villain who I’ve heard has been snooping around this area, so if you’ll excuse me.”

Your polite nod and walk came to a stop when you smacked square in the middle of the man’s chest. You prepared to move back to take another route until you felt large palms keep your hips in place causing a squeak to escape those perfectly plump lips of yours.

“You’re awfully bold showing up here Starbolt, I was even gonna let you off easy but you look too damn good to resist.”

Your eyes had widened when you felt the familiar pair of hands move down to the curvature of your ass, your hands clenching as you grit your teeth uncomfortably.

The sound of sneering and footsteps only made it worse. Did these fools not care that a villain could be amongst them? You’d love to blast them all to the sun, but as a pro-hero it was against the law to use your quirk on civilians. 

“Sir I apologize again but I’m not interested, I’m on a mission and-”

Before you could finish you could feel the hands jerk off your skin, a sigh of relief escaping your lips before you felt a new arm wrap around your waist.

A small yelp escaped your lips once more when you looked up to the new nuisance, only to freeze when you were met with practically flawless features.

His sharp jawline was enough to slice through metal, matching all the other sharp features on his face. To his messy blond locks to the fierce vermillion eyes, he simply took your breath away at the sight.

“Get your grimy hands off Magnus, this doll is here to see me.”

Your eyes widened slightly in confusion at the sound of this, looking back up to the mysterious man until you heard a sneer.

“This bombshell is with you? I ain’t buyin’ it, you can’t just claim everything’s yours Zero-”

The large man began to storm forward before a serious of cracks came from the blond’s hands, effectively startling you and the man before you.

“Starbolt here and I have some unfinished business we need to attend to, don’t we love?”

Your eyes blinked up to the man besides you, confusion written all of your expression. Bakugou picked up on it quick enough as he moved his lips close enough to your ear to make it appear as if he was showing affection rather than whispering.

“Unless you want to get fucking groped all night by those shitty clowns, I suggest you play along.”

Eyes widening in surprise you felt a warm blush arise to your cheeks when his teeth harshly tugged at your earlobe. The action shocking the large man before you enough to begin to buy Bakugou’s story.

“A..Ah yes, it’s entirely private and I wish to commence with it right away.”

This final comment had even the large man blushing as Bakugou snorted, realizing you had no idea what you had just insinuated.

“S..Shit Zero, look how eager she already is, I don’t know how you do it man but kudos to you.” The large man said in defeated before stomping off to his previous table, leaving you two alone.

Raising a brow in confusion, you glanced over to the man who got you out of the tricky situation as he removed his grasp from you and sat back to his stool in the corner.

With a small cough you followed him, offering a warm smile as you sat on the stool beside him, “Gee thanks sir, it’s so difficult having to keep a cool head with perverted civilians like that.”

Bakugou rose a brow at this, tilting his head over to you and looking over your features. Were you just ignorant or stupid?

“Civilians? I think you’re a bit lost babe.”

Blinking at this you furrowed your brows slightly, biting at your lip as you shook your head to the offering bar tender before looking back to him.

“W..Well I am a bit lost, I’m looking for a villain named Gambit. My agency told me his last whereabouts were at this exact bar.”

At this the ash blond bursted into laughter, causing your lips to form into a slight pout before he pointed to the corner at the front of the bar.

“Fucking Gambit? That bastard has been sulkin’ over there for a few hours.”

Your head whipped over to the villain, giving Bakugou the chance to admire your perfectly bare neck and collarbone that sadly disappeared underneath your uniform.

“Oh my.. thank you so much I have to-”

Bakugou took a swig from his glass, lazily looking over to you began to ramble and stand up until he saw a bright green orb glow in your hand causing his eyes to widen as he realized what you were doing.

Quickly grabbing your wrist he snapped you back in your seat, bringing your attention back to him as the glowing of your hand returned to normal.

“What is the meaning of this? I must get to that villain and capture him, these people are in danger!”

Bakugou’s eyes were wide and a bit annoyed at this point. He couldn’t believe it, after everything that had just happened you truly believed this was a regular bar. For a minute he assumed you were playing dumb to fit in but now it all made sense.

The reason you didn’t bother disguising your hero costume, the reason you didn’t try to blast Magnus to the sky... you weren’t lying at all. You were completely oblivious to the hell hole you walked into. 

“For fucks sake,” Bakugou hissed, keeping you in his firm hold as he grabbed your chin and whipped it back to meet his own face, “You’re in a damn villain pub love!”

The ash blond would be lying if he didn’t admit how hilarious it was to watch your face go from angry to blank in just mere seconds.

Suddenly your narrowed (e/c) eyes widened in surprise and those perfect pinched lips of your opened slightly, the look was downright adorable to the ash blond. Your gaze meeting his alone almost made him choke on air.

That is, until your face flipped into one of anger. Your once beautiful blank expression was overtaken by your mouth agape as if offended and your eyebrows furrowed aggressively.

“You mean you were lying?”

Bakugou clicked his tongue at this, his signature scowl now matching your own, “First of fucking all, I never lied about shit. And secondly even if I did, I can because I’m a damn villain!”

Your expression grew angrier as you stood up, letting the barstool slide behind you aggressively as you grit your teeth.

“So you too are a villain!” You growled angrily, your eyes glowing which Bakugou would be lying if he said it didn’t surprise him in the slightest.

“Well.. not exactly a villain sweetheart...” Bakugou replied with the click of his tongue as he finished his gin, “More of a vigilante in your prissy hero terms, but I sure don’t have a clean fucking slate.”

Bakugou turned his eyes away from you, not wanting to give you his attention with the tantrum you were about to throw but much to his surprise you threw more than just a tantrum.

A firm grip grabbed his collar and suddenly he was met with the glowing green energy you had formed once before, “So I will bring you along with everyone else in to the authorities.”

To say the ash blond was shocked was an understatement, everything about you was a wild card. By first glance you were a delicate fragile flower, at first words you were innocent and ignorant, but now getting to truly know you it was clear you got down to business.

But even with this, Bakugou knew your innocence could easily be flipped in his favor. And to say he wasn’t intrigued by your unique nature would be a lie, he wanted to explore every part of you now.

Inside and out.

“I wouldn’t fuckin do that princess, it’s about twenty to one in this bar. Once the whole street gets involved? You’ll never see the damn daylight again.”

His threat seemed to get to you slightly, but you only gripped his collar tighter and narrowed your eyes, “Then I’ll simply take all of you down, sorry to disappoint but I’m stronger than I look pretty boy.”

Bakugou only smirked at this, vermillion eyes filled with mischief as he raised a brow.

“So you think I’m pretty.”

Bingo. Your (e/c) orbs stopped glowing as your grip faltered in the slightest bit. Soon you began jumbling over your words, giving Bakugou the perfect opportunity to snatch you.

In seconds your wrist was held against your chest, his muscular arm pinning it so you couldn’t resist. He easily could’ve flipped them behind your back and had you on your knees, but that would cause too much of a scene. Eyes were already on the two of you, he needed to be smart about this.

��Listen Miss Starbolt, I don’t think you realize the situation you’ve just clumsily danced into,” Bakugou hissed into your ear threateningly, just the sound of his deep voice vibrating against your skin making you shiver, “Big guy over there? His quirk knocks little lads like you out in seconds, no matter how strong you are. I already know his wack job of goons would have their way with you all night and believe me a girl like you doesn’t deserve such pests like them laying a finger on your perfect skin.”

At this you felt heat rushing to your face, not sure of which made you more flustered his compliment or the scenario he put into your head.

“And to be quite honest hot stuff, I may be an vigilante but that certainly doesn’t mean I won’t hesitate to blast your ass to the damn moon,” Bakugou growled before his lips curled up into a smirk, the feeling of his warm tongue licking the shell of your ear making you physically jump in the air as a squeak like sound escaped your lips.

“Not to mention, watching you walk around in that skimpy costume of yours makes me want to claim you as mine right here on this fucking counter.”

Just the sight of your silk (s/c) skin turn into a row of goosebumps made Bakugou chuckle in amusement. He loved how just his words alone had you a mess before him, number ten hero his ass.

Inhaling deeply you pulled away, your sparkling (e/c) eyes being covered by your long lashes as you bashfully looked to the side, not daring to make eye contact.

“I..It’s not by choice...” You muttered, letting your fingers cascade through your silky locks, “My quirk is dependent on the sun, no solar energy to charge my quirk, no power.”

Bakugou blinked in surprise as your confession, a grin reaching his lips as he took his pointer finger under your chin and let his thumb grip the top before lifting your gaze to meet his.

“Don’t worry love I don’t think you’re a tramp like those other horrendous pros out there that are only popular for their fucking sex appeal,” Bakugou said, his eyes burning into your own before that mischievous look appeared back in his eyes, “Also, you shouldn’t be telling a villain how your quirk works, gives me the perfect way to take advantage of you.”

Something about the way he spoke those last words made you bite the inside of your cheek, your blush returning to the tip of your cheeks once more as your lips formed into a pout. This time it wasn’t a pout of anger, they seemed to be pinched together as if confused what to think, or how to even act. 

The ash blond chuckled at this, flipping his small shot bottle upside down before nodding to the bartender and standing up.

“Relax princess, I’m not trying to make any moves I’m just teasing you cause you’re so fucking ditsy,” Bakugou said with a sneer as he motioned his head to the back hallway as if beckoning you to follow, “Such a pure angel like you would’t be able to handle a fucking train wreck like me, I’d only taint what rare purity you contain.”

Your cheeks only reddened more at this, cautiously following the mysterious anti-hero down the hallway. After a few turns and walking in silence, he finally opened the door to the alleyway behind the building.

“I suggest you walk the west direction, anywhere east and you’ll get hounded.” Bakugou muttered, hands in his pockets as he turned to you.

“I..I can fly...” You muttered, hovering off the ground slightly for proof before landing back on your feet as you bit your lip.

His eyes gave your form one last glance before he nodded, simply giving you a curt nod before turning back to the door.

As much as he wanted to ask you to stay, to take you back to his place, to explore every crevice of your brilliantly molded body and mind, and to create you to become his own... he knew now wasn’t the time. If there ever were a time, it would come and he would cease it.

As for now, he would let you live in the light like he once did, soaking up the fame for just a bit longer.

He tugged the sturdy metal door open, beginning to step forward before your voice was heard once more.

“(L/n) (F/n)!”

His motions stopped, his teeth gritting at the sound as he turned his head slightly back to you.

“What?”

“M..My name... it’s (L/n) (F/n)...” You mumbled, his body now turned completely to your own as you fumbled with your hands and looked down, “Look, I still don’t completely agree with your ways or beliefs but.. you did help me out of that situation and I know that can’t be coincidence..”

At this you looked up at him with those killer eyes, eyes that made him simply unravel and strip away any bit of self will he had left. He could only hope you weren’t going the direction it sounded. Because if you uttered any sentence along those lines, he might just lose control.

“(F/n)...” Bakugou growled dangerously low, a clear warning to prevent you from saying anymore, but it was a warning you absentmindedly ignored.

“You saw something different in me and that’s why you helped me, I know you’re interested and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t either.” You said, slowly beginning to walk towards him, ignoring the screaming thoughts in your head telling you to run as far away from this man as you could.

Bakugou refused to look you in the eyes again, knowing any sanity he had left at this point would be thrown out the window. He just couldn’t, what on earth were you doing. Why were you doing this to him?

His overwhelming thoughts came to a silence when your smooth digits slid across his cheek to cup his chin. Such a gentle action that sent chills throughout the boys body.

“Why did you help me Ground Zero?”

Damn it. Damn it. Damn it!

Without much room to speak or even think, his rough grasp suddenly caught your hips before he slammed you against the brick wall behind you causing a yelp to escape your lips before he slammed his fist beside your head and gave you a dangerous look.

“Fucking hell (L/n) you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into!” Bakugou shouted, teeth gritting so hard he swore he would need surgery. After looking up to your wide child like stare it only made him worse, “You’re trying to pry at the wrong fucking door princess, and once you open it there’s no going back you hear me?”

Your mouth opened slightly, lips agape in the slightest as you looked down as if contemplating the offer. Part of Bakugou wished you would walk away now and save yourself from whatever you were trying to open up. But the other half of him had never felt so alive, he truly was able to crack at your hero shell with just a few words, what he could do with more words and actions simply made his heart race at the thought.

Biting your lip you looked up to him, the firm glint in your eye was easily recognizable to when you first entered the bar before. He knew before you even said a word what choice you had made, and ever since you muttered those four words his life had never been the same.

“I can handle it.”

[razberryyum]

The Untamed and The Living Dead movie Thoughts

SPOILERS AHEAD!

If you haven’t watched the movie, it’s best not to proceed cuz you will be spoiled.  

OR, if you have already watched the movie and love it completely, AND you stan Yu Bin and will not put up with any criticism about his performance, it’s also best not to proceed cuz you’ll most likely be annoyed/upset with me. Let’s just agree to disagree right now and move on with our separate happy lives.  

Overall Rating for The Living Dead: 3 Lil Apples out of 10

Yeah, I know that’s pretty harsh…I waffled between 3, 4 and 5, but I had to settle on a 3 in the end because I don’t think I’ll ever rewatch this movie and there were just so many problems I had with it, that I realized I can’t say I liked the movie much at all.  

Before I go on, let me first address the big white elephant in the room: no, WangXian does NOT cameo in The Living Dead nor are they even mentioned in any capacity that would assure us they are still together and happy in the movie’s timeline. At one point Wen Ning does mention them in the same sentence, but only in relationship to himself (that they saved him) and the past. For those of us desperate for confirmation of WangXian happily ever afterness in the world of CQL (“us” meaning me only most likely), we get no assurance whatsover. This is especially disappointing since the movie apparently take place years later after the events of The Untamed so it’s really sad that we have no idea if they are together. Of course in the world of the novel, we know they are absolutely together, happily married, everydaying everyday, but it would’ve been nice if we were given some tiny morsel of comfort for WangXian of The Untamed.  

Not only does Lan Zhan not make an appearance, he’s only mentioned by Wen Ning once, as I indicated above. As for Wei Ying, he’s mentioned a few times and he kiiiiinda makes a cameo…but honestly, I wish they didn’t even attempt that cameo cuz it was so bad. It’s basically the backview of some extra dressed as Wei Ying and dubbed over by someone else that’s not Lu Zhixing-laoshi. Or if it is, the dub was so bad that it didn’t even sound like him anymore.

That’s actually one of my main problems with the movie: the dubbing or sound mixing just sucked. Every time there was dialogue it sounded very obviously that it was on a different track. I didn’t even feel like the characters were saying the words because their voices sounded detached from them. Whereas in The Untamed, I sometimes would completely forget that with the exception of Nie Huaisang, everyone’s line reads were performed by voice actor because the voices were blended so well within the scenes. I don’t know the technical terms of all this dubbing stuff so hopefully I’m making some sense.

Another big problem was the CGI. Holy crap was it bad. It was so bad at no point was I able to immerse myself into the action scenes…I didn’t feel anyone was in danger because they were being attacked by a bunch of obvious and bad CGI. One of the worse scenes that they showed THREE times was when the sister (Xiao Qing) being burned up in CGI flames. First of all her acting was horrendous (why was she covering her ears while she’s being burned alive??) and then the fake fire just made me groan out loud. I didn’t even want to look it was so embarrassingly bad.  

I’m trying to figure out when they shot this movie…in order for them to be able to release the movie so soon after the show, the filming had to overlap with The Untamed’s filming, right? So I guess budget was still tight, probably even tighter than the main show, since CQL probably didn’t start actually seeing the money it made from ads, etc until towards the end. Either way, it feels like they didn’t put much money into this movie, especially not the effects. And if I’m going to be honest, I think they probably just had their second…nay…probably third unit direct it. Or at least, they had their third unit decide on some of the casting cuz some of the performances were…OOF. One thing I really appreciated about The Untamed is that even with most of the background actors, there was hardly a glaringly bad performance. I’ve said before the worse really was the actor who played Wen Ruohan, which is a shame cuz he’s more than an extra, but overall all the performances by the supporting characters ranged from decent to strong with hardly a weak link. Here, in this movie, I would say most of the performances from the new cast members were very mediocre. In fact, the only truly consistently good performances from beginning to end was Zheng Fanxing (Sizhui) and that cute little girl in the beginning:

I was kind of sad when she got killed off cuz she was adorable and definitely a MUCH better actor that the dude who played her older brother…at no point was I remotely convinced he was scared so on the other hand I was happy he died. But I thought she was going to burn to death or something because it didn’t seem like a good idea to have her hide in a wooden cupboard with a lite stove…that was so stupid and weird. Btw, what the hell was with that cat screeching sound effect?? Sounded like someone was throwing a cat, but like WHY?  

As for the three new players introduced for this movie—Gao Han as Xiao Yi, Wang Yifei as Xiao Qing and He Longlong as Zhou Zishu—I’ve never seen their work before, and nothing about their performances in this movie makes me interested in what they will do in the future. To be fair, Gao Han tried…you can totally tell he was trying REALLY hard in some of his scenes, but for the most part, he either overacted or strangely enough, underacted. He was just really inconsistent. I know Zhou Zishu was supposed to be a red herring so the fact that he started out looking sketchy AF was supposed to be a ruse since our narrator was entirely untrustworthy, but even in the context of that false narration, he was really bad. As for the sister played by Wang Yifei…just look at her performance as she’s being burned up again.  

By the way, I’m gonna say this now: if Wei Ying and Lan Zhan don’t even get to share a fucking real hug between them throughout the entirety of The Untamed, then I don’t think some generally unimportant-in-the-greater-scheme-of-things couple should be allowed to freaking KISS in anything related to the world of CQL.

I understand it’s all about the censorship, etc etc, but if any hetero couple deserved to share an onscreen kiss, it would’ve been Shijie and Jin Zixuan, and since even they were deprived of that, then these two nobodies should not have been granted this privilege. Seriously, fuck whoever decided to stick that moment in the movie. That’s just fucking unfair and really annoyed me. There better not be any more of that kind of nonsense in the Nie brothers‘ movie.  

The last I’ll say about performances is that sadly, I felt as if there was something off about Yu Bin’s. I totally understand that this is a different Wen Ning than the one we saw in the show—he’s older, more mature, since God knows how many years have passed already—so I don’t mind that he’s more serious. But at the same time, he was just so uneven that I couldn’t get behind his performance at all. He was always one key off, if that makes any sense, so it almost felt like someone else was playing Wen Ning entirely, someone who is completely unfamiliar with that character. And his work in the…whatever fuck that place was…Yin Metal purgatory?? (and for those who are familiar with Guardian, that place was giving me bad flashbacks to Dixing)…was kind of cringey overall.  

I wanted to love seeing Wen Ning be a badass wise uncle, so I actually feel really sad that I couldn’t enjoy his performance in general. However, what I absolutely did enjoy was seeing uncle and nephew bonding and working together…  

…just wish those moments weren’t marred by all that bad CGI.  

Wen Ning’s new look gave me pause though: not that I didn’t appreciate the whole metal look, but I kind of couldn’t figure out why Wen Ning added the chains back to his ensemble when he got rid of them back in The Untamed already.

I mean, if the black veins on his neck don’t attract attention, walking around wearing heavy, clangy chains sure would probably alarm people as well, I think.  

Last thing on Wen Ning: again, not that I didn’t appreciate his newfound ability to hulk out, but yikes, that whole effect was ruined by yet again bad CGI AND a really goofy score. Sounded like something they “borrowed” from Naruto.

Except for that one piece of music, I did like the score for the rest of the movie, especially in the opening credits since it definitely evoked a sense of creepiness. The images in the credits were good too. I can easily imagine that being the OP creds to a horror anthology.  

As for the story, I was fine with it. I liked that they related the family to Nightless City because apparently they are the ones who helped make Nightless City nightless? Here I thought it was the surrounding lava but I guess there were lanterns lighting the place up that I just somehow missed completely.  I liked the plot twist with Xiao Yi and his “sister”…although I did guess there was some incesty thing going on in the beginning…just didn’t think I would be right and wrong at the same time. I thought they would relate their relationship back to Wen Ning and Wen Qing somehow, considering the sisters shared the same name…this was before the “incest” part was confirmed of course…but they never really did so having Wen Qing share the same name as Xiao Qing felt like an oddity in the end. It’s also odd how they used the same phonetically sounding last name of “Xiao” since of course I immediately thought of Xiao Zhan (different characters). Like, couldn’t they come up with completely different names? Overall, the plot wasn’t bad, as mysteries go, at first I couldn’t figure out why the Yin Metal all of a sudden had all these new powers and why the metal wielder, Zhou Zishu, would become a ghost puppet himself, but with the plot twist, all of that was explained so I was fine with it. The last shot of “Xiao Yi” in the Yin Metal purgatory made me guffaw; yeah, that didn’t look suggestive AT ALL. 

The Living Dead actually makes me look forward even more to the next movie, The Fatal Journey. I’m hoping that since it’s potentially about the Nie brother’s past and Jin Guangyao, that perhaps there will be less need for CGI as it will focus more on just dialogue and story-telling. Not to mention, again, apologies to Yu Bin fans, but those three actors are generally stronger performers, so with them at the helm, I’m expecting/hoping for greater things.    

Since I’ve been mostly negative, I wanted to leave on at least one positive note: Sizhui is still an adorable puppy. His dads, wherever they are, whatever they’re doing during the movie, must be so proud of him. 

[nastybuckybarnes]

Wicked Games  -  Four

Pairing: Bucky x Reader Soulmate AU

Summary: Everyone in the world has a soulmate. And until they meet that soulmate, everyone in the world stops aging at 25. Wrongfully accused of a horrendous crime and on the run, you happen to bump into the man who’s been avoiding you for the past seventy-five years.

Warnings: Language, Fluff? Rape and Abuse mentions

Word Count: 2.1K

A/n: I’m really tired rn and idk how good this chapter is. I just wanna write the spicy stuff lmao

MASTERLIST 1  2   3 Series Masterlist

~*~

“Eat.” You startle awake as a bowl of mush is tossed into your lap.

“Why?” You ask, not understanding why this cop hasn’t turned you in yet.

“Because if you don’t you’ll die,” he says matter-of-factly. You roll your eyes and struggle into a seated position in the bathtub. “It’ll kinda be hard to eat with my hands stuck behind my fucking back,” you snap, not bothering to try and stay on his good side.

“Jesus Christ,” he murmurs, leaning down and carefully uncuffing one of your wrists only to cuff it again in front of you. “Now eat. Then we talk.” You roll your eyes but scoop some of the mush up on your fingers and carefully bring it to your mouth, tasting it with the tip of your tongue then shovelling it into your mouth.

Bucky watches you with a disgusted look on his face as you scarf down the food.

“Why did you kill Rumlow?” He asks after a minute of you eating. You look up at him then back down to the bowl of food. “You’re not legally allowed to question me until I have a lawyer present,” you inform. He rolls his eyes and crosses his arms over his thick chest. “I’m not in uniform. I’m asking you as the man who saved your life. Maybe the only man interested in actual justice and not revenge. If you’d tell me why you killed him this would all be so much easier.” You chew slowly then shake your head.

“I’ve learned not to trust cops,” is how you reply. It’s more than enough to clue Bucky in.

“C’mon. Get up. You’re gonna take a shower and get changed and then you’re gonna give me the reasons as to why you’ve been on the run this whole time. If you listen and you’re good, I’ll be able to help you. Got it?” You nod slowly, allowing him to carefully pull you to your feet.

“I’m gonna let you out of your cuffs and lock the door. Just know that I’ll be waiting outside with my taser and pepper spray, should you get any ideas about escaping. You’re stuck here with me. Towels are in the cabinet and there’s body wash in the shower somewhere. I do advise cleaning all this blood up first though.” he nods to the sticky substance coating the floor and walls of the bathtub. You nod and let him help you out of the tub.

“You have twenty minutes. There are no windows in here and only one door that I can lock from the outside. You have no way of getting out so don’t even try.” You slump your shoulders but nod again, rubbing your raw wrists after h takes the cuffs off.

“Twenty minutes start now.”

He leaves the bathroom and locks the door. After standing there for three minutes, you turn the water on as hot as it goes and let it wash away the blood dirtying the tub. Once the tub is clean you strip off your clothes and grab a facecloth from the closet. It takes a moment to find your courage, but you’re glad you do because the hot water feels absolutely incredible on your aching skin.

The pressure is perfect and cleans the mud, blood, and grime of the past few days right off of your skin.

You enjoy the warmth for a moment then get down to business; ignoring the pain in your wrists as you begin washing your body with the mahogany body wash.

You feel clean and refreshed, your hair finger-combed and washed with an expensive looking shampoo that smells like lilac.

Once you're finished you step out of the shower and wrap yourself in a fluffy white towel, looking around the room and pondering what to do next. You know you can’t escape, so there’s no point in trying.

Something inside of you is telling you to trust this cop. That he’s not like the others and he'll actually help you. He won’t be like Rumlow.

The still-prominent bruises and cuts all over your body remind you of just how awful Brock was, and you shudder.

“Are you decent?” He asks through the door, snapping you out of your haze. “I... you didn’t give me any clean clothes,” you say softly, afraid that he’ll take advantage of your vulnerable state.

“I know.” The door opens and you scream as he walks in, terrified and cowering in the corner. “Please don't! I-I’ll do anything! Please don't!” He freezes in his tracks, curses twice, then tosses a bundle of something at your feet and dashes out of the bathroom, locking the door behind himself.

You wait for a moment, tears streaming down your cheeks as your heart races, then end down and inspect the pile of stuff. He’s given you a t-shirt, a pair of boxers with the tags still on, and a pair of sweatpants that look three sizes too fucking gigantic.

Nevertheless, you put the clothes on then sit on the floor across from the toilet, your eyes focused on the door as you hear the lock click.

“(Y/n)... I... fuck. I won’t touch you, okay? Not... not like that. I won’t take advantage of you or anything. I promise. Okay?” You wipe your cheeks and watch as the door slowly opens. Bucky looks at you, all curled up in a ball on the floor, and his heart breaks.

“He touched you, didn’t he?” You don’t look up at him, nodding your head yes.

“(Y/n) I’m going to be very blunt with you now, you have to answer me truthfully because this will change the entire case. Did Brock Rumlow sexually assault you?” You nod once more, biting back a sob.

“Fucking Hell...” He trails off and scratches the nape of his neck. “I always knew he was a bad guy, but I never thought...” he looks at you then takes a deep breath. “Do you have any cuts or bruises from him?” You glare up at him and shake your head, not liking where this is going.

“I’ll stay right here. I just... I need to see them. It will make everything a lot easier for you.” You take a deep breath and carefully pull the shirt off, feeling embarrassed at being shirtless in front of this stranger. But some strange part of you is telling you that this is fine.

He sucks in a sharp breath when he sees your torso.

Your ribs are darkened, stained with bruises from either cracks or full breaks to the bones. You have multiple deep cuts that look like they’ve been stitched together by a three-year-old, and other fading bruises that cover the rest of your body. Around your neck are still very prominent bruises in the shape of fingers, indicating that you’ve been choked, and he can see similar bruises on your hips.

“C-can I put it back on now?” You ask, your voice wavering. He nods and looks away as you pull the shirt back on.

“Jesus. Come out here. I’m gonna make you some tea and you’re gonna start talking, understand?” You nod your head yes and follow him out of the bathroom, fighting tears the whole way as you realize you’ll have to relive everything that awful man did to you.

~

Bucky’s quiet as he boils the kettle, mulling over everything he’s just found out.

You most likely killed Rumlow in self-defence, called the cops to tell them that, then hung up because you remembered that they probably won’t take your side over their dead buddy’s anyway.

He slides a steaming mug over to you and you stir in a spoonful of honey. “Thank you, officer.” He shakes his head at you. “James. My name is James.” You nod and keep your eyes down. “So he hurt you, huh?” You don’t answer, taking a sip of the hot beverage and trying to block out the painful memories.

“Well... this changes things. I’m almost thinking we should hand this case over to a different police department because ours is too personally attached to the case. But Pierce would never accept that. Fuck, this is a mess, isn’t it?” You nod, not looking up from the speckled grey countertop.

“Hey, I’m not gonna hurt you. Relax. You’re safe here with me, I promise. Hell, this is the safest you’ll probably ever be. Nobody will hurt you here.” You nod skeptically and take another sip of tea, letting the liquid burn your tongue and throat on the way down.

“What’s gonna happen to me?” You can’t stop the words from slipping out, but he doesn’t seem to hate the question. “You’ll stay here for a little while. Get better while I see who at the station is open minded. Then... I don’t know.” You nod, biting your bottom lip.

“Do you know why he did that stuff to you?” He asks softly, wanting to figure out why on earth Rumlow would want to harm someone who looks so delicate and fragile. You look up into his eyes for a split second, displaying that you have information that he needs and wants, then look back down to your tea.

“I don’t expect you to tell me everything right away, but you will need to come clean and confess at some point. Okay?” you nod, understanding that much. “Good. Now I-” knocking on the door cuts him off and you snap your head up. “Buck? It’s me, Steve. Open up.” Your heart drops as you recognize the voice of one of the cops who chased you through Walmart.

“Go up the stairs into the first room on the right. It’s a guest bedroom that nobody ever goes in. Hurry!” You discard your tea and run as fast and as quietly as you can up the stairs and into the room, closing the door halfway and sitting on the floor, one hand covering your mouth as you try to slow your heart rate.

“Hey Steve,” James’ muffled voice says from downstairs.

“Thought I’d see how you were doing. You were pretty heated at work the other day and pretty distracted yesterday. I just wanted to make sure you’re alright.” That’s the second man, Steve.

“I’m... tired. Confused. Frustrated. I just want this case to solve itself. I mean, it doesn’t make sense for her to just kill him, there must’ve been a reason. And there was clearly a fight between the two fo them. What if she was the victim but got the upper hand somehow? What if he's been abusing her this whole time and she finally had enough?”

Steve whistles, “you’ve been thinking about this a lot, haven't you?” You hear James sigh. “Yeah. I’ve had to. I don’t want to send an innocent person to jail, Steve. There’s just so much we’re missing from the story and I want to have it all figured out already.” You hear them moving around below you.

“I’m sure we will, Bucky. But it’s gonna take time and patience. But we'll figure this out. I promise.”

You hear someone sigh again. “I just... what if she’s hurt? What if Rumlow... what if it’s him who’s the bad guy in all of this and she’s just.... innocent?” You hold your breath as you wait for Steve’s response.

“Then we’d better find her and help her.”

~

The door gets slowly pushed open and you watch as James walks in. He sits down across from you on the floor and stares at you.

“Steve’s gonna be seeing who at the station is open-minded, and from there we’ll decide what to do. If things are really rough, we might send you to a different. police station to confess. But until then you’re gonna be staying here with me. I’m the only one who knows you’re here and I’d like to keep it that way.”

You stare at him as he stands up and offers you his hand, hesitating for a moment before putting your hand in his and letting him pull you to your feet.

The feeling of his skin against yours sends a spark of electricity racing down your spine, a shiver of pleasure following right after it.

His eyes widen for the briefest of moments and you swear you see genuine fear in them, your own eyes widening as warmth spreads from where your hands are touching.

He drops your hand quickly then motions for you to follow him out of the room, leading you back downstairs to the kitchen to grab a snack and finish your tea.

~

TAGS: PERMANENT TAGS:

@smolbeanbucky @wildefire @inumorph @impalatobakerstreet @nanna022 @mummy-woves-you @m-a-t-91 @wtfholland @bookgirlunicorn @beautifulwisdom2001 @deep-sea-glitter @mrhiddles-81 @iamwarrenspeace @bitchacho25 @escapetheshackles @i-know-i-can @buckyssoul @avnngrs @swoonhui

MARVEL:

@fallenangelfangirl @look-to-the-stars-and-wish @maladaptive-ninja-returns @cliffordasparagus @april-14-blog @potteritis

Wicked Games:

@lilypalmer1987 @bisexualfangirlsblog @i-am-always-famished @clarysthing @starkxpotts @e-wolf-98 @i-run-on-green-tea @nerd-without-a-cause @jamesbuckybarnes13 @theonelittleone @bradfordsgreekgod @littledeadrottinghood @ashlebetty @izhetbean @mu-mu-rs @bruisedfaye @bisoueffleurer @itsphinee @spnsquirrel @my-suga-kookies

Bucky:

@chuuulip @nerd-without-a-cause @natashasnight

[smores100]

once again we’re in full agreement lol. What’s your take on s3 remakes you’ve watched? Wondering how you feel about Skam FR as it’s kind of a similar situation to me where the chemistry & beauty is there but the writing and style is iffy (overwrought &overdramatic). My favorite s3 is druck. As a wlw I had high hopes for españa but it was p slow/v desexualized—a whole discussion, but my other gay friend & I were disappointed given how remakes with guys don’t hold back in that respect.. Thoughts?

Honestly re: wtfock tho I really do wonder if they had like one good writer in the room surrounded by fools. Bc it really does feel like some group projects I’ve been in where I feel like I’m the only one who’s not a fucking fool and carry the whole thing while having to fend off bad ideas (but when the majority rules, those bad ideas/execution get put in). I wonder if that’s what happened w wtfock.

re: wtfock, lol group projects are the worst….idk what wtfock’s writing process was like, but i’d love to know it. according to their wiki there were 3 writers this season? all seem to be male, naturally. did the two other writers have good ideas but there was a main writer who overruled them and did his own thing? or maybe they’re the rl one brain cell squad, that would explain a lot :p in any case, i’m unimpressed (friday’s clips did not help with that).

as for the other part of your ask….oh damn i have so many Thoughts on that, lol. this is probably gonna get long and messy, but you asked for it!

* druck - my absolute favorite. it’s the only one i’ve watched since s1, so that definitely played a part in my emotional investment and attachment. still, there was more to it than that. it was the closest to og imo in vibe and style (it felt small, real, lowkey, quiet, natural like og, as opposed to - as you said - overwrought and overdramatic + overproduced like the others); they cast an actual trans guy to play a trans character, if you wanna talk about a skam remake doing something REVOLUTIONARY? druck is the one; i loved matteo’s and david’s characterizations, how they both had a bit of isak and even in them, and the role reversal in some scenes, made things feel fresh *and* fit their characters/story; i LOVE that teens matteo and david were played by actual teens michi and lukas!! they’ve completely ruined me for all other remakes, bc thissssss is how it’s supposed to be! thisssss is how it should look like! THEY ARE KIDDOS. and they (druck and michi/lukas) truly captured what it’s like to be young and fall in love for the first time, the awkwardness and the nervousness and stuttering and fumbling around, the softness and pureness and innocence of it all!!! also they have THE BEST dynamic - other people might prefer all the hot kissing and steamy making out and the smouldering looks, but me? i just couldn’t get enough of their dumb chaotic energy, best friends who love each other deeply and are also constantly little shits to one another. gimme them pranking each other and playfighting every day! and then being soft and THE HANDS and matteo being a clingy koala basking in david’s affection :3 i also loved how for the most part they didn’t just copy/paste og’s storyline, they made some changes and knew how to make *other* changes accordingly for it to make sense and fit the story *they* were telling - for example, replacing the ‘call your gf’ scene with matteo’s panic attack/breakdown (one of my fave scenes), or their reunion at the end of ep 7 (replacing the desperate kissing + sex with a comforting and relieved yet also bittersweet and melancholic hug), or even matteo getting advice from his drug dealer instead of the school’s doctor, lol. also THE BEST BOY SQUAD, hands down. and matteo is my favorite isak bc to me he felt like his own character instead of just another isak, he was different and reletable and a constant Mood. that being said - it wasn’t perfect and it had its issues. there were a few times when i did feel they stuck too close to og scenes and it didn’t *entirely* work for me, just felt a bit off; i will forever be disappointed that they didn’t directly address and acknowledge matteo’s mental state/depression, bc there were enough signs imo to indicate that he did suffer from something. they mentioned ‘therapy’ in mia’s, alex’s and kiki’s cases, i truly thought they would with matteo as well, but alas, they dropped the ball on that one; i was extremely upset with david’s outing, but i’ve since calmed down and have managed to see it in a more positive light, tho i still have mixed feelings about it and am not fully on board with that decision, still wish it had been done differently (but at least! it wasn’t brushed off and was addressed immediately and eventually led to david having agency and yelling out his pain!!! which was good and important and cathartic); also eps 8 and 9 were pretty messy writing-wise, things either didn’t make sense or would’ve made more sense had the clips were organized differently (that random ping pong clip….?). overall tho, the good outweighed the bad, and it remains my fave

* skam france - now that’s a tricky one. the way i felt about it in the first half of the season, is different from the way i felt about it in the second half of the season, is different from the way i feel about ever since watching druck’s s3. it’s funny you should say how similar it is to wtfock for you, bc i’ve been thinking the same thing for quite some time. those neighboring countries sure have a shared flair for the dramatic! fr’s s3 was pretty much the first s3 i watched (i gif-watched half of skamit, couldn’t get into it). i wasn’t planning to (i was extremely unimpressed by the couple of s1 eps i tried watching, and same by axel’s acting in those first two seasons), but even is the loml and they got me gooood with their eliott pov trailer, which might have affected my excitement over it during the first half. back then i really enjoyed it for the most part, despite some clips being rushed or missing the point thus not fully having the required effect (their locker room scene, for example, or the ‘generalizations are bad’ convo), or how much i hated basile (a character so obviously written by a man it’s amazing), or the cheesy piano music. there were enough good things for me to focus on instead (more in a bit) that i could ignore the things i didn’t like or weren’t as good imo. however, all the positivity got sucked out of me when yann noped tf out after lucas came out to him bc WAY TO MISS THE POINT OF SKAM!!! and things went downhill after the director’s IT’S NOT DISNEYLAND IT’S FRANCE 2019 comment. i’m getting all upset just thinking about it, but to say *that*, to explain that horrendous decision bc lowkey homophobic reactions are realistic!!! only to THEN be all ‘haha jk yann isn’t homophobic! we just wanted you to *think* he was! he’s actually an awesome friend who took several days to reflect on all his past wrongdoings while his bff was at home having a nervous breakdown bc he believed his bff hated him!’ ughhhhhhhhh, miss me with that shit. great that they had yann apologizing for his past comments, but the way in which it was done was for pure shock value and angst, completely ooc for his character (all season he was all ‘tell me tell me tell me let me help let me help let me help’ only to do *that*?? nahh), and interesting how out of everyone the only black character was the only one with a negative reaction (remind you of anyone), highlighted even more during ep 7 aka the ott lucas coming out tour. then ep 8, that should have been 100% all lucas and eliott and building up to eliott’s manic episode suddenly had that weird random pov changing clip in the middle of it which truly wtf, basile was still basile, lucas thanked chloe for outing him, more scenes felt rushed, they had sex in school where people could come and go in front of huge windows in broad daylight and luckily didn’t get poisoned from licking all that paint! and i did not like the flatshare, i absolutely hated mika and lisa kicking lucas out of his room - which he pays rent for! - and manon not even trying to put up a fight, and them being like ‘roommate isn’t just a place, it’s a way of living. that’s a family, and you’re more like a cousin.’ ‘a second cousin.’ ughhhhhh and then when eliott was recovering from his depressive episode, they *still* didn’t give lucas his room back or at least let eliott stay there, he was sleeping on the couch, i’m aldjlajdafj. can’t believe i’m gonna say it, but TAKE NOTES FROM WTFOCK. tl;dr there were some good moments in the second half, but i was feeling bitter more often than not about certain things, so my enjoyment wasn’t as high as when it first started. and after watching druck, druck’s brand is definitely much more my style. plus, i was already struggling with making myself believe axel and maxence were in their teens, but after druck it’s completely impossible, so i just pretend they’re in college or something lol. all my issues with it aside, i’d still rate it higher than wtfock, bc overall the writing was better, more coherent, and made much more sense. i also liked lucas’ friendship with the girls; i loved that instead of copying the underwater kiss + 21:21 like some others have, they came up with their own thing i.e. polaris, which i thought was lovely; the lucas/manon crying in the middle of the night together in front of the tv was one of my fave scenes of the season; also love how we were introduced to eliott on the first week! and they spent time together! and specifically the piano playing scene, ohhhh; and in general elu are sweet and i reeeeally like axel and maxence and their friendship. so yeah, it had some major issues, but i’d rather have a coherent story with something done for shock value and drama ONCE than an incoherent story with several shock value moments.

* skam espana - sorry to hear you girls were disappointed! i only watched half of it, so i can only comment on what i saw. i decided to binge watch s1 and give s2 a shot when i heard they were giving cris isak’s story - it felt a bit weird to me, but it was also something different and new, and i did have an appreciation for their decision to have a wlw season (also much more revolutionary to me than showing a gay bashing), so i was intrigued and willing to try it. sadly i didn’t really vibe with s1? it’s totally a personal preference i think, maybe even a cultural thing idk, but it felt very fast and loud and hectic to me, idrk how to explain it. i was just more into the chill more lowkey vibe of druck and skamnl. but i still gave s2 a shot, and idk, it still wasn’t my cup of tea. i thought it was ok for the most part, but there were some things that bothered me - joana/cris felt underdeveloped to me? and things b/w them felt like they were moving so fast from the second they met, like jona was so intense and forward ALL THE TIME, they had like 6 almost kisses in a really short time, like shhh slow down. i remember disliking their ‘call your gf’ scene, it felt really petty and kinda mean to me? bc i felt like joana came on to cris *really* strongly and *very* frequently, so cris was more than entitled to feel hurt and betrayed when she found out joana had a bf, but then cris was kissing a dude and joana positioned herself and her bf in front of cris so she’d see them kissing too, and i just didn’t like bc seriously?? cris is valid, just apologize to her and explain?? idr much else tbh, they had some really cute and sweet scenes afterwards, i’m still against doing the underwater kiss + 21:21 so i was kinda meh about that (tho aesthetically speaking it was BEAUTIFUL, and i’m like, fiiiiine girls deserve an underwater kiss too, i’ll allow it just this once!), and that cuddling clip in ep 6 i think was sweet and the last one i watched. like i said, i was less vibing with this remake, and iirc it was going on during druck’s s3 and skamnl’s s2 - which were my faves, plus skamfr was on too i think and i was lowkey following it too, so….there was just too much all at once and something had to go, and it was skamesp. it was also around the time when panaphobia-gate happened, so *shrugs* i’m not wlw myself so your opinion on it being desexualized is probably more valid than mine? i just know when i did watch, there was a lot of kissing and making out and being cute and touchy with each other, so i thought it was ok? as i’ve mentioned before, i don’t need to see a naked butt or anything like that to *get* it lol, i thought they were lovely! but that’s just me. i will say that my faaaave part was most definitely the cris/amira friendship. they were so wonderful! one of the best skam friendships imo. i might one day go back and finish the season just for the heck of it, but they didn’t do anything major or highly offensive that made me have negative feelings towards it, it was just a personal preference + circumstances (too many remakes!) that made me be less into it and drop it before the end.

[frozenartscapes]

Change My Mind? ...Not Really

Ok, so this is probably an unpopular opinion...

Comparing Steven Universe to something like Avatar: The Last Airbender after Change Your Mind and stating that SU comes even remotely close to A:tLA in terms of quality is waaaaaay overselling things. Spoilers below.

Change Your Mind was good. Even great, in some parts. That bit where Steven re-fuses with his gem was probably the best animation the show ever had. I enjoyed some of the characterizations. I enjoyed the new fusions, and Lapis and Peridot’s new forms. Also the CG’s new forms. And White Diamond was a very interesting villain.

But one episode does not make a show. And even something like Change Your Mind has its flaws. Numerous ones, in fact. That doesn’t make Steven Universe bad, per se, but going on to compare it to one of, if not the most, highly rated, well-loved, critically acclaimed animated shows of all time and saying they are even close to each other in quality is a bit much. Maybe calm down from the fan-hype high you have after watching the episode before making that claim.

Like, it was a good episode, but I was serious last night when I asked, “Now What?” The show has no conflict. No more unanswered questions. We went from barely getting any information or plot development to suddenly the whole main conflict is resolved in one episode. One. And even a bunch of minor conflicts and questions were thrown in there too. Will Peridot and Lapis reform with stars? Check. Will Blue and Yellow join Steven’s side? Check. Will White Diamond brainwash anyone? Check. What will the CGs reformations look like? Check. Do the Diamonds’ ships form a Voltron-esque giant robot? Check. What do the gem fusions of Steven + Pearl/Garnet look like? Check. Who is the temple fusion? Check. Does White Diamond turn good? Check. Corruption cured? Check. Sadie still in her band? Check. New version of the theme song? Check. Lars comes home? Check. Everything happened in this episode. And it made for one awesome episode, yeah, but it got to a point where it was just one thing after the next. It was like the Crewniverse watched all those rant videos about the show, picked up on the fact that every one of those videos mention how nothing happens in the show, and said, “Oh yeah? Hold my beer.”

But let’s talk Avatar for a second. Because I thought about this last night but at first thought it unfair to compare these two shows, but since seeing a post doing just that I’m gonna now. Imagine for a moment, after watching three seasons where there was a clear, defined villain and an evil force that must be stopped by a pacifistic lead, after witnessing all the oppression and suffering the Fire Nation and specifically the Fire Lord cast down upon the world, after learning how conflicted Aang was about killing him, they just...redeemed Ozai. Like, he and Aang talk it out in just the span of one episode and suddenly every evil and horrendous thing Ozai and Azula and every other terrible person from the Fire Nation has ever done is forgotten. It’s ok everyone! The Fire Nation are the good guys now! They’ve learned their lesson, and we can all just sing and laugh and be happy all the fucking time. Isn’t life great?

Yeah, I don’t think people would be happy about that. And the thing is: in Avatar, they had a better shot at doing that than Steven Universe, because Avatar actually took the time to delve into its villains’ backstories, and revealing that while they’re still morally in the wrong, it’s not just as simple as everything being black and white. There are complications. The reasons for the things they do change, depending on the character and that character’s relationship with others and own emotional growth and personality. They redeemed Zuko, but over the course of the entire length of the show, because going from an abusive family that rewarded morally wrong behaviour and punished anything else to helping the very people trying to stop that family isn’t as simple as talking only once. Other characters like Azula were even more complicated, as she was trapped even deeper in that negative lifestyle to the point where it permanently fucked up her mental state. And then there’s Ozai, who was the end all be all of morally terrible people. Someone who could not be redeemed. Someone who could only be defeated. The only way Aang was able to do so without killing him was by physically stipping away any power Ozai had.

So compare that to Steven Universe. You have a sympathetic character from the ruling, evil dynasty that seemed the most likely to eventually join Steven’s side in Blue Diamond. You have a ruthless, goal-driven character who does the wishes of her superior even if it’s wrong because the repercussions of not following orders create a deep, pathological fear in said character, in Yellow Diamond. And then you have the end all, completely uncaring leader of said evil dynasty that has conquered thousands of planets, killed billions, including millions of its own kind, enforced a strict and oppressive social structure that resulted in mass cullings of anyone who didn’t fit, created horrific experiments with the still-conscious shards of the physical beings of its subjects, and rained down a forced mental illness that permanently disfigured their subjects minds when said subjects disagreed with them: White Diamond. Zuko, Azula, and Ozai, respectively. In Avatar, it took Zuko all three seasons to complete his full redemption arc. In Steven Universe, Blue Diamond wasn’t even mentioned by name until The Answer, 74 episodes in. Azula and Ozai didn’t even get redemptions, although Azula was given a few sympathetic moments. Yellow had, what, maybe a facial expression here or there until finally doing a 180 personality shift in the latest episode?

Now before you get your pitchforks, hear me out: I’m making this comparison because it shows the difference between doing a villain redemption right, and doing it wrong. Avatar took a long time to develop its villains. It made sure to establish them as more than just The Bad Guys - they were also individual characters on various levels of the morality scale for various reasons. They did this by establishing them as regular characters, even if only by mention, from episode one. They had some episodes that barely focused on them, but then others devoted entirely to them. There were episodes that beautifully compared them to the heroes. There were episodes that humanized them. There were episodes that highlighted what life was like from their side of things. Steven Universe did none of that. The most development we got for the Diamonds was in the last few episodes, and it only happened after they learned who Steven really was. And even then, we never got a sense of the problems they themselves were struggling with until Change Your Mind. We never really saw Blue’s emotional issues with regards to how they treat each other, just her mourning Pink all the time. We never saw just how much pressure Yellow was put under by White Diamond, nor her frustration at how she works so hard but receives next to no praise. And we certainly never got the sense that the reason White was such a perfectionist was that she herself was terrified of being labelled “flawed”. All of these things only came up in Change Your Mind. And even if there might have been hints I’m sure people are going to reach for in other episodes, it still would only apply to the very few episodes in which the Diamonds had any focus.

The result of this is an extremely rushed and forced redemption arc. Hell, even Peridot had a more developed redemption than the Diamonds. And it didn’t have to be that way, either. This wasn’t the series finale. It was just the end of this season. If they really wanted to redeem all three dictators in one episode, why didn’t they just stop it there? And then have the return to Earth kick off the new season? Why not have another special event or episode that focuses on Steven showing the Diamonds Earth? Have them finally find beauty in organic life. Have them initially be confused about it. Have then stumbling a little bit but eventually learning just how wrong they were. Have them admit just how wrong they were. And then at the end of the special, we finally get to healing corruption. Something that has been the main conflict since day one. Something that was an incredibly complicated subject. Something that had a huge impact on all the current characters in the show. Something that really should have been done in its own episode where more time could have been given to it. I know they probably will once the show gets started again, but that initial event of healing the corrupted gems is done, the Diamonds have gone back home, and any chance for conflict to arise is over. Even Jasper no longer seems like she’s going to be a source of conflict.

So, no. Steven Universe is not as good as Avatar, and isn’t even in the same league. This one episode still doesn’t change how horrible the pacing is for the rest of them. It still doesn’t change that in 160 episodes, well over half, at least, contribute nothing to the plot. And while they might establish some character, it’s always from Steven’s perspective. There was never an episode in which Steven wasn’t there to witness it, meaning the entire show is viewed from his - considerably biased - point of view. We never got a chance to see characters like the Diamonds acting without Steven present. We never got any development without Steven being the driving force behind it. Had a show like Avatar had done that with Aang? We never would have had episodes like Tales of Ba Sing Se, or Zuko Alone, or Boiling Rock, or Ember Island. And we certainly wouldn’t have gotten moments like Zuko and Azula’s Agni Kai, or Sokka asking Suki to teach him how to fight, or basically every character interaction with Iroh. Steven Universe wanted so badly to focus on Steven, and only Steven, that it shot itself in the foot when it came to character development and plot execution. It didn’t seem to know what it wanted to be for most of its episodes. And Change Your Mind was such a cluster fuck of wrapping up loose threads that people are still confused as to whether or not this was the season, or series finale.

Avatar had a clear and concise beginning, middle, and end. It knew what it was, and where it was going. It knew how to do character development and plot execution properly. Each season finale finished up the main conflicts of that season, leaving the largest arcs for the series finale. And it doesn’t try to redeem its villains all in one fucking episode through the “Power of Love”. Don’t even try to say the two shows are on the same fucking level.

Oh, and the animation was fantastic all the way through A:tLA, getting better with each season, instead of one beautifully animated scene in one episode and everything else being a hodgepodge of off-model characters and constantly changing styles.

[singingwordwright]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Shadowhunters (TV) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, Lydia Branwell & Alec Lightwood Characters: Alec Lightwood, Lydia Branwell Additional Tags: Friendship, Introspection Series: Part 2 of A Series of Completely Not Awkward Encounters

He’s never had a stuttering problem before.

Alec wouldn’t consider himself exceptionally eloquent, but he can at least rely on his brain being able to string a few words together and have them come out as a cogent, coherent sentence.

So why is it that the mere presence or thought of Magnus Bane can render him incapable of uttering a single sensible word?

He explained himself badly when he told Magnus he’d proposed to Lydia. And he’d made an even worse mess of it when he tried to convey just where his mind was after that soul-shattering, life-changing kiss at the wedding-that-thank-the-Angel-never-happened.

And now here he is, staring at his phone for the fiftieth time in almost three weeks, waffling on whether or not to press the Talk button.

These weeks have been the longest of his life. In part, that’s because he knows every day Jace is missing is another day Valentine gets to spend pouring his poison into Jace’s already confused brain, doing who-knows-what to him, convincing Jace he’s something he’s not.

But also, the weeks have been long because he still hasn’t arranged that date with Magnus.

Magnus hasn’t pressed him. At first, that seemed to be because Magnus was giving him as much space as he needed to try to hunt down Valentine and get Jace back. He made it clear that he was available to render whatever aid they needed, free of charge, and then he disappeared to his loft.

They’ve texted, and oh, Alec has been just full of words when it comes to trying to explain to Magnus how afraid he is for Jace, and how exhausting day after day of fruitless searching has become. Especially now that he’s once again in nominal charge of the Institute. His parents are back in Idris—and wasn’t that a cold farewell, at least on his mother’s part?—explaining how they managed to lose one of the most promising shadowhunters of a generation to Valentine.

All in all, It just hasn’t exactly seemed like the right time for sweet nothings, and he thinks Magnus understands that. At least, he hopes that’s the explanation for the very pointed toning down of Magnus’s typically extravagant flirtations.

But inertia has set in. Or maybe it’s anxiety. Whatever, something’s making him hold off on calling and offering to cash that rain check for Magnus. And then it becomes A Thing. An “I haven’t done what you were expecting me to do and I know I don’t have any good excuse for it so now I’m even more reluctant to try to explain it” thing.

The texts are becoming less frequent, though. Stilted. And he has no idea how Magnus manages to put so many words into a gaping chasm of silence.

The ball is in your court, Alexander.

I can’t chase after you any more. Especially not under the current circumstances.

If this is going to happen, you need to be the one to come to me this time .

It’s sort of like the wedding all over again. Magnus coming only so far, and then waiting, waiting for Alec to make up his mind, find his resolve, and close the distance.

Only this time, the distance can be measured in miles instead of feet.

A rap on his open door startles him into almost dropping his phone. He immediately looks up, with a ready glare for Clary or Izzy or whoever has the cosmically bad timing to bother him right now, just when he’s trying to find his sac and push the damn button.

Instead, it’s Lydia, and he just can’t glare at her. Instead he musters a halfhearted smile and shoves his phone in his pocket.

“Bad time?” she asks, giving him a quizzical look.

“No.” Alec shakes his head quickly, his eyes darting to the side of her face. There’s nothing to see now. Rune and warlock healing took care of her broken jaw almost as soon as he’d found her on the floor of the office, but her face had still been horrendously bruised. The last vestiges have since faded, but it still makes Alec’s fists clench to think how hard Hodge must have hit her to put her down for the count like that.

Lydia’s not exactly a delicate flower, any more than Izzy is. He’s sparred with her enough—and wound up on his ass on the training room floor—to know that very, very well. It’s not like she needs Alec’s protective instincts.

But she has them anyway, if for no other reason than sheer gratitude.

Besides, they’re now jointly in charge of the Institute.

The irony doesn’t escape him that this is the exact situation they would have found themselves in had they actually gone through with the wedding. It’s actually a really good deal for both of them; all of the partnership, none of the closeted-homosexual deceit, angst, and conflict.

Total win-win.

Lydia is overseeing the day-to-day demon-hunting operations while Alec is spearheading the search for Jace. She’d argued early on that he should let her do that job, because Alec’s better suited to the diplomatic functions of running the Institute and because he’s just too damn emotionally involved in Jace’s case. But she quickly saw just how futile it would be to expect him to sit on the sidelines while she was out looking for his parabatai.

So now they’re both receiving a crash course in areas where they have a natural and understandable deficiency. Alec is trying to curb his impulse to bust heads for leads, and Lydia is learning to gracefully smooth things over when Alec comes dangerously close to failing on his end.

“What’s up?” he prompts when she continues to stand there, studying him like a specimen under Izzy’s microscope.

She frowns briefly, then takes one step into the room, no more. “Alec, if you were in the middle of something... important ...I can come back. There’s nothing in the reports from last night’s patrols that can’t wait.”

He can’t quite meet her eyes, because how the hell is he supposed to explain that he can’t bring himself to even call the guy he literally left her at the altar for? “I wasn’t.”

He hasn’t spoken to her about Magnus since she got out of the infirmary. Which is stupid because he knows she’s not holding a grudge over what happened, but it still feels like an off-limits area.

That sort of sucks, because if he could bring himself to speak about it at all, he could definitely use a rational and sympathetic ear. Izzy is just too invested in him having a good experience with the first actually attainable guy he’s had any interest in, and he and Clary aren’t those sorts of confidantes, however much they’ve bonded over their mutual distress regarding Jace.

But talking to Lydia about Magnus? That’s a whole barrel of awkwardness and embarrassment he doesn’t need right now.

He wishes Hodge hadn’t turned out to be a traitorous asshole for more than one reason. Once upon a time, he could have confided in Hodge. Yes, even about this. Maybe especially about this.

Alec can’t claim to have much of a gaydar—at least not one that’s undergone any sort of field-testing. He probably wouldn’t have even noticed Magnus’s interest if Magnus hadn’t bludgeoned him over the head with it. But he hasn’t forgotten the weighted way Hodge referred to Magnus’s tastes as “exquisite.”

He’s reasonably certain that wasn’t just about jewelry.

Lydia gives him a shrewd look, one of her eyes narrowing a little more than the other. “How’s Magnus doing?”

She tosses the question out almost like a challenge, though not an unkind or belligerent one. Similar to the way she would invite him to spar. And Alec has no doubt he could end up on his ass here, too, if he’s not careful. But if she’s going there, he owes it to her to follow.

Alec swallows and folds his arms over his chest. “Um...good. He’s...he’s good.”

For fuck’s sake, Alec, how many languages do you speak again? That internal voice sounds a lot like Jace. That’s the best you can manage?

Lydia nods slowly, then her nose scrunches a little. It’s frankly adorable and not for the first time Alec half-wishes he could have felt for her the things she deserves to have someone to feel for her.

“Really?” she asks, blinking. She looks so gently confused that he doesn’t feel the trap closing around him until it’s already sprung. “I ask because I’ve noticed he hasn’t been by the Institute except to check on the wards. And you haven’t left the Institute except for patrols or to chase a lead on Jace. Has Magnus been accompanying you? If so, neither Isabelle nor Clary has mentioned it.”

He stares at her a moment, his mouth hanging open. “Okay, that was a play straight out of Izzy’s book, wasn’t it?”

He can almost hear his sister coaching her. Disarm the unsuspecting male with a clueless mein until it’s too late for him to back out of the confrontation .

She smiles and the tension between them is gone in an instant. She leans against the wall and folds her arms across her chest, though on her it’s casual rather than defensive.“That’s was good, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, you carried it off pretty well there. The diplomacy lessons are working.” He can’t help but chuckle, propping a hip up on his desk. “Seriously, though, Magnus and I, we’ve been, you know. Texting. Back and forth.” Though not as much this week as we were the week before .

One of her eyebrows lifts and that’s much more the sort of direct stare he would expect from her. “Yes, and...?”

“And what? I’ve been busy.”

“Sure, of course. We’ve all been busy.” Her mouth twists. “Busily chasing our tails, which I’m sure is exactly the way Valentine wants it.”

“That’s what I’m saying. There hasn’t been time—”

She holds up a hand, forestalling him. “How much time do you think we have, Alec?”

“What do you mean?”

“Valentine has the Mortal Cup. If we don’t get it back soon, he’s going to come after us, after Idris , and he’s going to bring an army with him. We all know it.” Her gaze drills into him and he knows she’s right. These days, here, now, are the calm before the storm. “Even if that takes him a while, in the meantime he’s probably going to go after Downworlders again, especially the powerful ones. So I’m asking you, how much time are you willing to waste before we’re caught up in a war we might not come back from?”

Alec rubs the back of his neck, which has been aching with tension and a lack of comfortable sleep since the day of their aborted wedding. “I have to find Jace—”

“You know as well as I do we haven’t had a single credible lead on Jace since Valentine took him. You really think tonight’s going to be any different? Or tomorrow?” Her eyes drop and she seems to shrink in on herself a little. The arms crossing her chest now make her look like she’s hugging herself. “Alec—take it from someone who didn’t have nearly as many days as she should have with the person she intended to spend her life with. Seize your chances now, because there might not be a later.”

She pushes herself off the wall and turns, pausing when she’s halfway out the door, speaking over her shoulder. “Besides, if you dumped me at the altar for someone you had no intention of following through with, I’m going to have to kick your ass and I’d really rather not.”

Once again, the capacity for speech is beyond him, and by the time he recovers, she’s gone, leaving him to stew in the knowledge he doesn’t just owe it to Magnus and himself to see where this thing between them can go.

It’s the least he can do to thank her as well.

He digs his phone out of his pocket before has has a chance to second-guess himself.

“Magnus? Hi...Um, no, nothing’s wrong...No, no change in the search for Jace, either. I was just...um...I was wondering if you were free tonight…you know, for that, uh, that drink we keep talking about...”

BUY ME A CUP OF COFFEE!!

[distant-rose-archive-blog]

The Fourth Musketeer

Note: I owe someone out there a Beth/Gideon fic and I was working on it rather diligently until my laptop decided to die and I lost a big chunk of it. It was 5,000 words and I only saved like 3,700 of them so I decided to take a break because I was so angry. During that break, I was talking to @welllpthisishappening​ (as par the course with me) and during a conversation, we somehow created a fourth Jones sibling for the Little Pirates ‘verse, which through a monkey wrench because I had all of their lives mapped out and now I have to redo a huge chunk to make up for this cutie that we came up with. (I’m really not mad, if anything more amused because I get to play around with this universe more.) Anyway, @welllpthisishappening​ is entirely to to blame for this monster right here, which I both love and hate her for. Anyway, if you’re unfamiliar with the Little Pirates ‘verse and wish to read more, here’s a link to my pseudo-master post: [LINK]. Please note: Anything under Ever After verse is a bit null and void at the moment because it doesn’t take into account Ned’s existence.  Summary: After her horrendous pregnancy with her daughter, Emma Swan was pretty set on not having anymore kids…or so she thought. Rated: T+ Word Count: 7,200+

It all started at Granny’s when they had to meet her parents and siblings for dinner. The joint Charming-Jones clan was big enough to warrant a second table being tacked onto their booth and the kids were banished to the secondary table while Emma sat between Killian and Henry. The kids, for once, were getting along and minding their own business. They all seemed to be focused on Emma’s younger sister Ruthie, watching as she began to draw on her placemat with more artistic skill at six years old than Emma had in her entire life. None of them seemed to notice anxious energy surrounding Snow and David, but Emma had picked it up almost as soon as she walked into the dinner. Her parents were looking at them with nervous smiles, their hands interlaced tightly on the table.

“So…we have news…” Snow started somewhat nervously.

“Very exciting but unexpected news,” David clarified giving Snow’s hand a squeeze in support.

“Okay…I will have to be the judge of that, but I can’t necessarily tell you if it’s exciting and unexpected if I don’t know what it is,” Emma replied, giving them both an impatient look that blatantly expressed her desire for them to just come out with it. She had never been very good at guessing games.

“Well, umm…we’re pregnant again,” Snow announced with a somewhat self-conscious smile. “It’s a bit of a surprise, but we’re happy about it.”

“That’s awesome, Grandma!” Henry laughed, leaning over to brush his hand against theirs because he couldn’t necessarily hug them while being trapped in the booth by his mother and stepfather.

“Congratulations both of you,” Killian replied before Emma could even comprehend fully what her mother had said. “How far along are you?”

“Twelve weeks,” Snow replied.

Her small smile grew before Emma’s eyes until it was beaming. David’s expression matched hers; his own smile dazzling and so big that the corners of his eyes crinkled a bit. Emma couldn’t remember the last time that she saw them smile like that. Fuck, her mother was actually glowing. She was the only pregnant woman that Emma knew who actually glowed when pregnant. Emma had always felt like fricking Emily Rose from that weird exorcism movie that she watched on On-Demand one time because it was free, especially with Beth. Her last pregnancy was horrible.

“You’re pregnant?” Emma croaked out before she could stop herself. She was still coming to grips with her mother’s announcement. She hadn’t been expecting it, especially since they were now either entering or currently in their forties, at least in a physical sense. They were getting a bit old to be handling babies.

“Bit slow on the uptake today, huh Swan?” Killian murmured in amusement as he wrapped his arm around Emma’s shoulders and placed a kiss on her temple.

And that’s when Emma saw it. 

There was a particular gleam in Killian’s blue eyes. Over the course of their marriage, Emma had learned that Killian was quite expressive with his emotions and had specific looks that expressed them. Her favorite was when he was feeling particularly naughty and the kids had made themselves scarce and he would look at her with smoldering eyes and a wicked smirk that promised absolute sin. However, he had other ones like when he was observing their children playing in the backyard where his entire face went soft and his eyes were tranquil or when he was irritated while reading in another language and he couldn’t remember the translation, and his eyes were narrow into hard points as they examined the text. The most common look these days however was an exasperated eye roll whenever one of the kids (mainly Wes if they were being honest) did something particularly careless and stupid like trying to hot-wire David’s truck.

This particular look, however, Emma had seen emerge just before their wedding when he had been playing with little Alexandra Herman and it was something she had become increasingly familiar with over the course of their nearly decade old marriage. It was a look very similar to the softness he had for their little trio of pirates but it held more yearning and more wistfulness and it always ended up being entirely focused on Emma. It was a look that so clearly said “I want a baby.”

Dreaded pirate captain was a title he once treasured, but Emma knew that Killian Jones did not covet any position more than he coveted being Daddy. He loved being a father and everything it entailed from checking for monsters under the bed to torturing their little ones with tickling fingers while snuggling on the couch. Killian had their pediatrician on speed dial and was dangerously close to being a bubble wrap dad. He knew exactly how to make mac and cheese the same way that Granny did because that’s all Harrison would eat once upon a time when he was smaller. He knew all the names of Beth’s pirate stuffed animal army from Captain Bear to Gertie. He also knew exactly how many blankets Wes needed to fall asleep and how to arrange them so their little blonde boy was snuggled up like a burrito. Killian lived and breathed to be Daddy.

And now, without even saying a word and just by looking at him, Emma knew that he wanted another little one to add to their little crew. He wanted to add a fourth musketeer.

It terrified her.

It wasn’t that Emma was entirely against the idea of more kids. Quite the opposite. There was nothing more attractive than Killian Jones holding a baby, especially if said baby had his pointed ears and smile as all three of their little pirates did. Making that image a reality had its appeal, but pregnancy sucked. Each and every one of her pregnancies had been taxing and, for lack of a better term, an event. For Henry, she had given birth in prison. Harrison had been so large that he had nearly ripped her open. Wes had been a breach baby. Beth had been nearly a month early and was almost born on the Jolly Roger. As much as she loved her kids, she hated pregnancy with a capital H. Killian would never pressure her and he had been gracious when Emma said that Beth would be their last, but she hated disappointing him.

The look in his eye didn’t leave for a second that night, but Killian made no mention or hint towards the subject of babies to Emma. He did, however, pepper Snow with questions on their plans for the new baby, what the doctor’s recommendations for her health and how the kids coped with the announcement of their latest addition.

When they returned home and put the kids to bed, Emma waited for him to broach the topic but Killian merely kissed her forehead and picked up his book, some old tome in Latin, to read while she turned on the television to watch the latest trash television show on ABC.

The “baby look” (as Emma took to calling it) and the lack of discussing children continued on into the next week. Emma watched as he stared more wistfully at infants in carriages and made silly faces at toddlers in Granny’s Diner to keep them entertained. She nearly lost her shit when he offered to hold a young haggard-looking mother’s baby in the grocery store as she loaded her purchases onto the conveyor belt, cooing and bouncing the child as he did so.

Watching the scene made Emma’s biological clock scream at her, reminding her that she was nearing the end of the fourth quarter fertility-wise. She was well aware that she was about to hit the two-minute warning; her forty-first birthday was about to approach in the upcoming months. They really needed to talk before Emma’s ovaries overrode her brain and she did something drastic.

“Okay, Killian. Out with it,” Emma snapped abruptly that night as they prepared for bed.

Her husband blinked at her in surprise, obviously not expecting the outburst. He gave her a puzzled look as he closed his book and gave her his undivided attention.

“Out with what, Swan?” he asked with a small frown.

“You’ve been acting…different since Mom’s...announcement and you’ve got that look going. That look when you want something…something that we’ve discussed several times.”

“If you already know what I want, then why do you need me to say it, Emma?” he asked her, running his hands through his hair. 

She quietly sucked on her teeth when he used her actual name instead of his patented “Swan.” It meant they had crossed over into the realm of a serious conversation and Emma wasn’t entire sure she was prepared for it.

“Because I need to hear you say it, Killian…” she said it so quietly that for a moment she wasn’t sure that he heard her.

“You want hear me say it? You want to have this conversation?” Killian clarified with a furrow of his brow. “Because I was pretty certain that this conversation was done nearly five years ago and you weren’t interested in opening up again and I sure as hell am not interested in starting a fight.”

“Just say it!” she commanded, squeezing her eyes shut.

“I want another kid, Emma,” he stated softly. “I want another kid so badly it hurts, but I know you don’t so I didn’t think it was up for debate.”

“It’s not that I don’t want another kid,” Emma started and before she could properly think about it, she began blurting out nearly every thought she had on the issue. “Want is not an issue. If the whole process of pregnancy, childbirth and childrearing was easy, I would give you as many kids as possible because you’re the best goddamn father in the world, but that’s not the issue here. We have three children. Three wonderful, demanding, wild, crazy children. I love them with everything I got, but bringing them into this world wasn’t easy. Pregnant in my thirties was tough enough, I cannot imagine how tough it would be now. Especially with all the risks. Birth defects, still births and miscarriages are much more of a risk now than they’ve ever been…I’m not sure I could survive that…not to mention, we’re old. I hate to say it, sailor, but we’re going a bit gray,” Emma finished. 

Her fingers dug into the flesh of her palms as she recited all the information that she looked up on the internet while she had been sitting in the Bug on stakeout this afternoon. She was pretty sure her palms were bleeding, but she ignored it. 

“I know the risks, love. You’re not the only one who knows how to use Google anymore. Yeah, there are risks, but with age, we are older, wiser and we’ve now been around the block a few times. Hell, we now know how to handle a kid who knows how to start cars without keys. Look, Swan, I’m happy. I love our kids and they’re more than enough, but I’m never going to stop wanting more children with you because what we make is perfection, though sometimes that perfection is...a bit rough on the edges...but any child with you as a mother couldn’t be anything less than perfection…”

“You always know exactly what to say, don’t you?” Emma said softly, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. She hadn’t expected to get this emotional during this conversation, but he always knew what buttons to press to get a response from her. She both loved and hated him for it. “It’s almost not fair…”

“It’s not fair,” he agreed. “But I want nothing more than a little girl with blonde hair and green eyes. I want a little Swan.”

“You have Beth,” Emma chuckled wetly. “And she would take that statement as an ultimate betrayal.”

“Or she would be excited at the prospect of being an older sister and having someone to boss around,” he countered.

“Beth? Our Beth? We talking about the same girl? Because she would hate the idea of being an older sister, especially to another girl. She would have a fit because that means she won’t be Daddy’s special little girl anymore and she would have to share you.”

“She already shares me with Henry, Harrison and Wes,” Killian scoffed.

“Your relationship with our daughter is very different than the ones you have with our sons and that’s fine. This isn’t a criticism because I honest to God love that you two are so close, but yeah, you have very different with her than you are with the boys. She knows it and she loves it. She wouldn’t want to share it,” Emma replied with a shake of her head.

“Sharing is a part of life though,” Killian responded with a heavy sigh, refusing to acknowledge Emma’s commentary on the nature of his relationship with their daughter, not that she expected him to. Killian, who prided himself on being a good father to all of their children, did not want to acknowledge the idea of possible (most definite) favoritism. She could understand that. It wasn’t particularly the nicest thing to come to terms with.

“It is,” Emma agreed with a sigh. “But before we discuss this further, I need you to ask yourself this…Are you sure you really want to go all the new baby nonsense again? Sleepless nights? Spit up? Changing diapers? Messiness? A good few months without sex? Going through potty training again? Yes, potty training, you remember that nightmare, right? Not to mention, I would be out of commission for a few months with a new baby. Money really isn’t an issue for us, and yes, we can convert the office back into a nursery, but do you think you can handle being interim sheriff? And deal with the dwarves on your own without killing them? Be professional without me and without my Dad because I doubt he wants to leave the farm this time around? And if the answer to any of those questions is no, this conservation has to end now.”

Killian’s eyebrows rose at her words and Emma watched as his mouth opened to speak but nothing came out. If the conversation they were having wasn’t so serious, Emma would have laughed at the fact she had rendered her normally verbose husband speechless.

“Swan…are you saying that this is actually on the table? That you’re actually considering this? This isn’t just all hypotheticals?”

“I’m asking you if you’ve really thought about this beyond the baby fever nostalgia and remembered how shitty taking care of a baby is both figuratively and literally, and if that’s something you’re willing to do still while we’re getting old…fuck, we would be the oldest parents at high school graduation.”

“No, Snow and Dave will be there right beside us with their little one. Our child would automatically have a playmate there. As for the challenges, yes, I have thought about it, but any challenge, any struggle and yes, all the sleepless and sexless nights are worth it. Even if we get another hellion with a penchant for chaos, it would still be worth it because there’s nothing in the world that’s better than having children with you and I mean that with every fiber of my being.”

“Okay…” Emma replied, letting out a heavy breath. She couldn’t think of a legitimate response. She was feeling a bit tongue tied at the moment.

“Okay?” Killian repeated with a hint of inquiry, leaning forward a bit. “You never said whether you were seriously considering this…but what do you say, Swan, we give it one last good try…?” His voice trembled a bit on the last few words and he was looking at her with something akin to desperation.

And that was the question there, wasn’t it? Did she want to give it “one last good try” and all that it entailed? It meant commitment. It meant genetic disorder screening, prenatal vitamins, fertility shots, specialists, possible treatments and a horde of doctors telling her that late in life pregnancy was far from ideal with high statistics on everything going wrong. No, she didn’t want any of that hassle. It was too much. However, the image of Killian playing with the baby in the grocery store was burned into her mind. Though she couldn’t get herself to say it out aloud, Emma privately admitted to herself that she loved and even wanted to see him hold another child while softly singing sea shanties and whispering stories about his days on the Jolly Roger while he thought Emma wasn’t listening.

“No, I don’t want to try,” she said softly and she watched his face crumble for a moment before he was capable of masking his disappointment. It was that final look that affirmed her decision.

Emma moved forward and opened the top drawer of her nightstand. She bent down on her knees and began riffling a bit through the junk before finding her birth control pills. She could almost physically feel the weight of Killian’s eyes as on her as she picked up the foil package and lifted them up so he could see them.

“Emma…what are you doing?” he asked quietly.

She ignored him as she stood back up and walked towards their bathroom with a sense of purpose. She pushed the door open and made a deliberate choice not to close it. She stood next to the toilet and looked back at her husband who had scrambled to the edge of the bed, obviously wondering to himself what the hell she was doing. The lines of his forehead had never looked so pronounced.

“Emma…?” This time his voice was louder and the silent question more present.

Emma closed her eyes for a moment, steeling her nerves. When she opened them, she looked Killian straight in the eye as she deliberately dropped her birth control pills in the toilet and flushed. Once more, her husband opened his mouth to say something but was speechless. Emma had never seen him more confused in her life.

“I don’t want to try.” Emma repeated with a sigh, “but I don’t want to not try…or at least I don’t want to try to prevent it. Trying means doctors, treatments and I know you…you will look up ever old wives’ tale about fertility and probably eat a huge fucking lemon whole just to make yourself more fertile or some nonsense like that…I don’t want the hassle…but if it happens…and that’s a big “if” because like I said, we’re old…then it happens and I would be okay with that, but if it doesn’t happen, don’t beat yourself up about it because, you’re right, we make some amazing kids and we already have three good ones down the hall. Okay?”

“Okay,” he replied softly and now, he had tears in his eyes and a smile so hopeful that it made Emma’s heart ache.

He opened his arms, gesturing for her to come to him and she nearly sprinted into them. They both started to laugh and cry at the same time as they embraced, holding each other so tightly that Emma was sure they were going to give each other bruises. Killian wiped at her tears and began to kiss every inch her face, still chuckling between each one.

“Tell me this isn’t a dream…” Killian murmured against her hair and Emma got the impression that he was trying to hide the fact he was legitimately crying now by burying his face in her hair.

“It’s not a dream,” she murmured, running her hands down his back in a soothing gesture. “But it’s also not a guarantee. We agreed to not try but not prevent, remember?”

“I know, I know, Swan,” he murmured, rubbing the pad of his thumb against the apple of her cheek.

He captured her lips with his in a brief but intense kiss that was full of promise. He pulled her close until he had firmly slotted himself between her thighs, his hips rolling against hers. Emma couldn’t stop the soft sigh that escaped her lips and she moved to run her fingers through his hair, dragging her nails lightly against his scalp in the way she knew he liked. He replied to the gesture with a deep groan that rumbled in his chest and his eyes were dark as he pulled away.

“If you don’t mind, I would like to start this “not trying” business right now…” Killian murmured against her lips.

“No one is stopping you, especially not me,” she replied softly.

Before she had even finished her sentence, she found herself on her back with a very amorous Killian Jones hovering above her. He captured her lips in another fierce kiss that held more emotion that Emma knew what to deal with. Giving her bottom lip once last nip, he changed courses; his nose brushing a sure line along her jaw as he worked teeth and tongue torturously against her skin. He nuzzled his head against her throat before worrying his lips against the pulse point in her neck.

“I love you…” Killian whispered it so quietly that she almost didn’t hear it.

“I love you too,” she whispered back and she hooked a leg around his waist, knocking her hips against his. “Don’t stop.”

“I won’t,” he replied, biting gently. “Never, ever.”

Killian had always been a thorough and attentive lover; it was one of Emma’s favorite things about him. However, he was extra zealous in his efforts that night and there was a renewed sense of purpose that seemed to power each caress, kiss and thrust. It was as if he was physically trying to will a child into existence with every fiber of his being despite Emma’s insistence of “what will be will be.” When they finished in a sweaty boneless heap of limbs, Emma caught him absently worrying his thumb against her abdomen as his eyes fluttered shut and he rested his head against her shoulder.

As Emma predicted, it wasn’t that easy. Even after months of vigorous and almost embarrassingly near-constant lovemaking, there was nothing. Emma watched as her mother’s stomach swelled and hers remained stubbornly flat. She tried not to feel bitter when Snow gave birth to another boy while her own womb was empty. Though she knew that it wasn’t going to be an automatic success in the same way her other children seemed to be, she privately became fearful that their no longer subtle efforts would be fruitless and wondered if their kids could sense the unspoken disappointment and desperation growing between them.

Worse, Emma was starting to wonder if she was menopausal. Over the course of the months, her periods had gotten lighter and less regular. She hadn’t bled in early two months, but she also hadn’t felt any of other pregnancy symptoms that she had with her other kids. With the boys, she had incredibly sharpened senses and near constant queasiness. With Beth, the symptoms had been amplified to the point where she had barricaded herself in the bathroom due to the near constant vomiting and diarrhea. 

Now, she was just tired and dizzy, which unfortunately led to her being short with everyone including her kids. She had yelled at Wes the other day so heatedly that she thought her normally cool-as-a-cucumber son would be reduced to tears. Emma knew she had gone too far when Harrison embraced his younger brother afterwards. As long as they had been alive, Harrison and Wes had never had the best relationship, but that day she saw Harrison captured his little brother in a hug and look at her like she was an alien. Emma Swan had never felt like a bigger asshole than she did in that moment. She was a terrible mother and maybe it was best that she didn’t expose another innocent child to her shitty parenting skills.

She couldn’t bring herself to tell Killian her suspicions; she didn’t have it in her heart to crush the dream. She did, however, book an appointment with their family doctor to confirm the fact that at forty-one years old she had entered early menopause just as she was just getting around to the idea that she actually really wanted another kid as badly as her husband did. The irony was not lost on her.

“You’re not menopausal,” her doctor stated bluntly as she looked at the results of her blood test. “Your estradiol levels are normal. If you were going into early menopause, they would have greatly decreased. Your estriol levels are pretty high though. Dollars to doughnuts, you’re pregnant, Emma.”

“What?” Emma blinked.

“You’re pregnant. This shouldn’t be such a surprise. You haven’t been using any form of prophylactics, you’re sexually active and you’re in relatively good shape. I have less concerns for you than I did for your mother with Robbie, however I do have to remind you that being pregnant in your forties is risky business and you’re more likely to run into complications such as Down’s syndrome and pre-eclampsia.”

“I can’t be pregnant. I’ve had no other symptoms. No vomit. No smells or cravings. Not even sore boobs. None of the usual mess,” she replied in disbelief.

“Not every pregnancy is the same, Emma. You know this. Sometimes not all symptoms present themselves. It happens. Regardless of symptoms or no symptoms, blood doesn’t lie. Your estrogen levels are through the roof. I would like to take an AFP, HCG and a hormone inhibin A test, if that’s okay with you? Maybe even an ultrasound?”

“Yeah…” Emma croaked, still in shock. She had prepared herself for the worst and now her doctor was telling her she was pregnant. It felt like she was in a fever dream.

Emma ended up leaving the doctor’s office in a daze, barely holding onto the tiny ultrasound photo in her hands. When she had come to her doctor this morning, she had done so with the expectation that her doctor was about to tell her that she was entering menopause and her baby making days were behind her. Now, she was leaving with the knowledge that she was eleven weeks pregnant with a baby the size of a fig and said fig had come up healthy on the test screenings so far. Praise the Gods for small blessings on that front.

Shit, what was she going to tell her kids? Killian was a non-issue; he would be through the roof with excitement over the news. Her kids who had no knowledge of the fact their parents were trying without really trying to get pregnant over the last six months were another issue entirely. Henry would be okay with it. He was grown, out of the house and very much focused on his own life. Harrison would be okay, he would probably give them a bit of lip but he would get over it fairly quickly. Wes and Beth? Their reactions would be anyone’s guess, but Emma was preparing herself for the Apocalypse. A meltdown of epic proportions was in her future and she could feel it.

Her husband and kids were on all couch, yelling and playing some racing video game on the big screen when Emma arrived home. She stuffed the ultrasound photo into her pocket and observed them for a moment, gathering her bearings. Killian, who was still getting used to using the one-handed game controller that Henry had gotten him for Christmas, was in last place with Beth in third. Wes and Harrison are neck-and-neck with Killian indiscriminatingly sending them complications from his last place position in hopes of letting Beth gain the lead.

“I win!” Harrison shouted.

Harrison thrusted his fist into the air in victory as his character crossed the finish line ahead of Wes’s character which had spun out to the side and allowed Beth to gain second place. Killian, in an act of fatherly selflessness, paused his character to allow Wes to finish in front of him.

“That’s because Dad kept blue shelling me,” Wes grumbled, tossing his controller and crossing his arms in front of his chest. Her youngest son was incredibly sore loser as they had long since learned.

“Nothing against you, lad, but I was trying to give your sister a fighting chance for once,” Killian replied, dropping the controller in order to ruffle Wes’s blonde hair. 

Ever the tough guy, Wes tried his best to wriggle away from his father, but Killian caught him and decided to up the ante by giving the boy big, loud, smoochy kisses. Wes protested loudly and Emma couldn’t help but smile at the scene, her hand subconsciously resting upon her stomach. He was such a good father. This new kid was going to be so well loved.

Beth caught sight of her first. Her eyes lit upon seeing Emma standing by the door. She immediately scurried off the couch, running towards Emma until she had wrapped her arms around Emma’s knees. Beth looked up at Emma with a delighted grin and little gurgling giggles emitted from her throat.

“Hi Mommy!” Beth greeted sweetly.

“Hey kid,” Emma replied with a small laugh, running her hands through her daughter’s long dark hair. The girl’s wild mane was forever tangled and Emma did her best to work through the knots.

“Swan,” Killian greeted with a small smile, still holding a squirming Wes against him.

“Mom! Help me!” Wes cried out dramatically, making Emma laugh harder. Their current youngest son had a flare for the dramatics and Emma wasn’t sure if it was genetic or something he learned from watching Killian.

“Resistance is futile. She won’t help you,” Harrison grinned wickedly, leaning forward to tickle Wes’s ribs as Killian held him in place. “No one will save you now, Westley.”

“Actually, I do need to borrow your father for a moment,” Emma said with a small smile before looking down into her daughter’s bright eyes. “Is that okay?”

“Is Daddy in trouble?” Beth asked curiously.

“No, Daddy is not in trouble, but Mommy and Daddy need to talk,” Emma replied, tapping the end of Beth’s nose with her finger gently. Her daughter scrunched her face in response to the tap and Emma never realized how many freckles her daughter had until that moment.

“She said ‘need to talk’!” Wes exclaimed in stage-whisper to Harrison. “Dad is so in trouble!”

“Dog house,” Harrison said in agreement.

“Daddy’s in trouble! Daddy’s in trouble! Daddy’s in trouble!” Beth began to chant in a sing-a-long voice, the boys joining in as she got louder.

Emma sighed and brought a hand up to bury her face in. Maybe having another kid wasn’t the best idea they had ever had. They could barely control the three they had as it was.

“Alright, alright,” Killian sighed as he released his hold on Wes who immediately moved to tackle his much larger brother. “That’s enough from the peanut gallery. Mom and I are going to go talk, please do not burn down the house or commit any ritual animal sacrifices while we’re gone, aye?”

“We will do our best,” Harrison responded with a shrug as he successfully pulled Wes off of him. 

It was almost comical how little effort Harrison put into fending himself off from his younger brother. They were the closest in age out of their brood with only fourteen months between them, but they couldn’t have been more different from each other like day and night. Emma privately wondered what the unborn child inside her would be like when it finally made its appearance. Intelligent and kind like Henry? Strong and gentle like Harrison? Wily and witty like Wes? Fearless and commanding like Beth? Or would it be something else entirely?

“But we make no promises,” Wes tacked on, rubbing at the bruise that was beginning to form on his left cheek from being tossed by his brother like a ragdoll.

“Naturally,” Killian replied dryly. “I wouldn’t have expected any less.”

Emma reached down to give their daughter a brief kiss before meeting her husband’s eyes and tilting her head towards the stairs in hopes he would get the hint. He nodded in response and gave her a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. She reached for his hand as they climbed the stairs, intertwining their fingers and giving his hand a squeeze in solidarity, trying to tell him without words that everything was going to be alright.

Killian sighed and ran a hand through his hair as she closed the door to their bedroom behind them. The smile on his face was positively nervous and it was clear that he, like their children, thought he was in some sort of trouble despite her reassurances otherwise.

“Alright, Swan, what is it? Whenever someone says the words “need to talk”, nine times out of ten I’m not going have a good conversation,” Killian replied, sitting on the bed and looking up at her expectantly.

“Like I said before, you’re not in trouble. So I guess this is the one instance out of your ten scenario,” Emma replied, playing with her hair as her nerves started to get the best of her. “I thought this was going to be easy, but honestly, I feel so unprepared and finding out about it kinda put me in a daze so I apologize for not coming up for a cute way of telling you but…”

She pulled the sonogram out from her back pocket and nearly shoved it into Killian’s chest. Surprised, Killian took the photograph into his hands automatically and Emma watched as he took in exactly what he was holding, his eyes nearly popping out of their sockets.

“Swan, is this what I think it is?” Killian asked, breathlessly.

“Yeah…” she replied, unable to stop the smile that spread across her face so wide that her cheeks hurt. “Congratulations, Dad. The fourth horseman of the Apocalypse is on his way.”

“Her way,” he corrected absentmindedly as he studied the sonogram. “It could be a girl. Why didn’t you tell me that you thought you were pregnant, Swan?”

“Because I didn’t know,” she replied with a small laugh. “When I made the appointment, it was because I thought I was menopausal. My period stopped but I didn’t have any pregnancy symptoms and I didn’t want to tell you because I wasn’t sure and I didn’t want to disappoint you because I knew how much you wanted this baby…And well, I’m definitely not menopausal because you’re holding actual photographic evidence that there is a eleven-week old fig inside of me right now…a healthy eleven-week old fig…”

Killian dropped the sonogram on the bed and pulled her to him, arms wrapped around her in a vice grip. Emma pushed her fingers into his hair, caressing the soft strands as Killian rested his head between her breasts for a moment before dropping to his knees so that he was eye-level with her stomach. With misty eyes, he placed a kiss against her lower abdomen. Emma felt her heart triple in size as she watched him.

“Hello there…” he whispered to her belly as he pulled away. “I know you’ve been around for awhile and we haven’t spoken yet, which is awfully rude of me but in our defense, we didn’t know about you, however, allow me to make amends by introducing myself. I am Daddy and the delightful creature who are you’re inside right now is Mommy. We love you very much and we’re very excited to meet you.”

Emma had promised herself that she wouldn’t cry, but that promise was broken as she listened to her husband talk to the unborn little pirate inside of her. It had made all six months of trying but not trying completely worth it. She didn’t think it was possible to love Killian anymore than she did in that moment.

“How are we going to tell the kids?” Emma murmured as she continued to play with his hair.

“I don’t think that will be a problem, Swan,” Killian replied with a chuckled, looking up at her with some mirth in his eyes. “Because I’m pretty sure we have three of the world’s worst eavesdroppers standing outside our door listening to each and every word. Isn’t that right, Jones crew?”

There was a loud creak and hushed whispering from outside their door. Emma groaned, taking her hands out of Killian’s hair and rubbing her eyes. For the second time that night, she wondered if bringing a fourth child into the fold was a good idea.

Killian got off his knees and kissed the top of Emma’s head as he rose to his full height. He immediately went over to the door and opened it, exposing their three sheepish-looking children.

“How did you know we were there?” Wes asked, looking very impressed with his father.

“Because I’ve been living in this house longer than you’ve been alive,” Killian remarked before tapping his foot on the floorboard beneath Beth’s foot. “And I know that board creaks when stepped on. Valiant effort I must say, but a very rookie mistake. It’s not polite to listen in on other people’s conversations. Mom and I were having a very adult conversation that wasn’t for your ears.”

“Is Mom really having a baby?” Wes asked bluntly, ignoring his father’s lecture.

“Yes. Mom’s pregnant,” Killian affirmed with a sigh.

“Jeez, another one? You think you guys would have learned after having these two,” Harrison remarked, jutting his thumb in the direction of his younger siblings.

Wes let out an offended squawk and hit Harrison between the ribs while Beth, who had been looking at her parents with the most betrayed look, burst into angry tears. Both Killian and Emma sucked in a breath. In the haze of emotions, they hadn’t prepared themselves for a round of Hurricane Elizabeth.

“I don’t want a baby, Daddy!” she cried, stamping her foot.

“Why not, minnow?” Killian asked gently, getting on his knees so he was eye-level with their five-year old. “Don’t you want to be a big sister?”

“No!” she shrieked, giving another stamp with her foot. “I don’t want a baby! You have us! There’s three of us! You don’t need it! You don’t need another baby! You have me! You have me! I’m your baby!”

Emma sighed as she leaned against the doorway looking down at her daughter having an absolute meltdown. Well, this reaction was predictable. Killian looked up at her with a helpless expression, not sure how to respond to Beth’s tantrum. Harrison and Wes watched in fascinated interest as their sister’s face turned purple.

“Hey, hey…” Killian murmured, soothing Beth’s shoulders in hopes of quelling her tantrum. “This is exciting. You get someone new to play with. Maybe she will even play pirates with you and help you terrorize your brothers and you won’t be so out-numbered. That would be fun, right?”

“No because then I wouldn’t be the Pirate Queen!” Beth cried harder, tears dribbling down her cheeks in earnest.

Killian’s brow furrowed, obviously not following his five-year old’s logic.

“And why is that?”

“Because there can only be one and you’ll want us to share and there can’t be two Pirate Queens, Daddy. There just can’t!” she explained as if it were obvious.

“Says who?” Killian asked, squeezing her shoulders.

“Everyone,” Beth replied seriously. “There can be only one, Daddy. Everyone says so.”

“Good to know someone’s been watching Highlander,” Emma remarked with a chuckle before joining Killian on her knees to get to Beth’s level. 

He was doing a shit job at damage control. For someone so close was to their daughter, he didn’t seem to understand the root of the problem. Beth didn’t want another child to ruin the dynamic and hierarchy that already been established, especially when it came to her father’s affections where she was number one as the only girl and the youngest.

“I know this is scary and new, but it’s also exciting, Little Beth,” Emma said, tugging a strand of hair behind Beth’s ear. “The new baby isn’t going to replace you, I promise. We are still going to love you and your new baby brother is going to love you so much. I guarantee he is going to follow you around and want to be just like you because you’re such an awesome sister.”

Both boys snorted at the statement and Emma gave them both a withering look that made them both step back a bit.

“Baby sister,” Killian corrected.

“Oh no, this one is definitely a boy. A dark haired, blue eyed boy. I can feel it,” Emma replied with a smirk.

“Care to wager on that feeling, Swan? Because fatherly intuition says it’s a blonde haired, green eyed girl,” Killian responded, raising his eyebrows at her.

“What do you say, Little Beth, should we wager a full month’s worth of diaper changing and ice cream on a boy? Since fatherly intuition doesn’t exist and Daddy is full of crap?” Emma remarked, pulling Beth to her side.

“If there’s ice cream involved, I want in on this,” Wes remarked, joining Emma’s side. “And I’m Team Brother because one Beth is enough.”

At his words, Beth looked positively offended and with the maturity of any five-year-old, she stuck out her tongue at Wes. Emma sighed and mentally counted to ten.

“Traitors,” Killian admonished his youngest children without much heat. “The two of you are traitors.”

“Sorry, Daddy, but there can be only one Pirate Queen,” Beth replied, not sounding the least bit remorseful.

Harrison who had been quietly observing for the majority of the squabble took that moment to join his father’s side, looking at Emma with apologetic eyes as he placed a hand on Killian’s shoulder.

“I’m Team Sister because the world cannot handle another Wes Jones.”

“You’re right,” Wes said with a smirk. “The world cannot handle any more of this kind of awesome.”

“Well, that’s definitely a word for it,” Harrison muttered under his breath.

“Alright, enough with the witty banter. It really gets tiring after a while,” Emma huffed. “The stakes of the wager are as follows, an entire month of diaper duty carried out by the losing party. Kid or kiddos on the winning party get ice cream. We have ourselves a wager?”

“Aye, love, it’s a deal,” Killian replied, leaning forward and sealing their wager with a brief kiss that made all of their three children gag.

“Good because I’m going to make you eat your words because fatherly intuition does not exist,” Emma declared.

And in the end, she was right because six months later she gave birth to a son; a dark haired, blue eyed son whom they named Edward David Jones but affectionately called Ned. Emma practically cackled when they placed him in her arms, looking at her husband like the cat who ate the canary.

“You know what Neddy is telling me right now, Killian?” Emma asked, as she held her newborn son to her breast.

“What Swan?”

“That you and Harrison are going to have a lot of fun changing his shitty diapers.”

[pisati]

told my mom earlier about how A was going on a road trip halfway across the country to visit friends just because he had the time, and I was a little sad bc I would’ve gone along if I did too. if it were 2018/2019 I would have, I had that whole year off. and she went “yeah, and you wouldn’t have had to deal with COVID either. man, that was such a waste of a year.”

that honestly really stung. 

I’ve been trying not to see it as a waste. I thought at first that I was taking the time to recover from burnout. didn’t think the fatigue would persist and even worsen with down time. I had the time to work on my health, and while I didn’t make that much progress, I still was able to see a lot of doctors and at least eliminate a few things. I had time to myself, outside of the pressure from that fed job application and a year’s worth of jaw pain. 

I did want to road trip by myself. I wanted to go to arizona. but I figured I could handle maybe 5-6 hours of driving a day, and at that rate I would’ve taken 2 weeks to get there and 2 weeks back, from what I gauged at the time. I didn’t know who would watch my rats for a month, and I couldn’t make them go with me. it just didn’t seem like a good idea at the time, and I didn’t have anyone who would go with me. I suppose I could’ve just gone. said fuckit and gone as far as I could. one of these days I think I’d still want to, if I ever have the time. but I just don’t think I can do it alone. not with my fatigue. 

I don’t want to have regrets about my gap year, but I kind of do. I do wish I’d done more with it. I just didn’t feel like I could, at the time. I told my mom I’d have time to clean around the house while she was at work, and I really thought I would be able to. I thought I’d maybe need a week or two of down time to recover and then I’d have the energy to clean. and then a week or two turned into months, which turned into a year. I spent so much of my time just trying to gather the energy to get out of bed. trying to wake up. I’m still doing that; I kind of like closing at work now because I have the time to wake up far too early, get up, eat breakfast, hit my crash, and slowly wake up just about by the time I need to get up and shower and get ready to leave. the only issue with that is that it doesn’t feel like time I have to myself. I spend my entire fucking morning just trying to wake up. I didn’t get my crash nap two days ago and I was dragging ass all day. I just felt so tired; I had that heaviness behind my eyes all day. it’s not always that much better even if I do crash, and sometimes it takes me so long to wake up I’m still drowsy even after I shower and get started at work. 

I can’t blame myself for being like this, I don’t think. I don’t know if it’s something I’m inadvertently doing to myself. I don’t think so, at least. I’m definitely not making it up, but what if it was my diet? somehow that doesn’t feel right either. if it were, wouldn’t my meds work? I’m on a literal amphetamine right now and I’m still crashing so hard I can’t move. I wish I knew what to do. I wish anyone did. I’m trying not to feel like my gap year was a waste of time but it makes me feel sick to my core thinking how, if I’m like this for the rest of my life and if I keep getting worse... I’ll feel like my whole life was a waste. I don’t even feel like I can fully enjoy it with what I have now; I can’t fucking remember anything. maybe I do have the energy to do some things, and I know I’ve accomplished a lot and I can still do a lot, I can still do good things and interesting things, but I don’t know how long that will last. I don’t know how I can enjoy what time I’ve still got when I can barely remember anything day to day.

mom also asked me if I’d consider reapplying to the agency. I shook my head. I just can’t. she told me they’re desperate, I said, yeah, they were desperate when I was applying too. she said it’s worse now. I’d be making really good money and I’d have government benefits. she’s not wrong, it would be real cushy. she said I’d only have to work every other week right now and it’d be so easy because I guess she knows a lot of incompetent people in there, so obviously it’d be a breeze for me. I just can’t do it. I have moral and ethical issues with the existence of that organization to begin with. and I’m just not suited for that environment. I told my mom that, and she said of course I am, I just didn’t know. but I know. I fucking know. I can’t do another stuffy desk job, and they won’t want to hire me anyway because I will not compromise on my political positions. I’m probably way further left than they’d like. and I don’t know how quiet I could keep myself. not saying I would end up leaking classified information, but honestly I just don’t think I could live the kind of double life they want me to live. I don’t have the energy or the brain power right now to do that job, and I don’t even want to anyway. I didn’t want to when I applied. I wanted the pay and the security. I wanted the satisfaction of getting another job in my degree field. I was (and honestly still am) afraid of having this degree I worked so hard for and not doing anything related to it outside school. but I just can’t do that to myself again. that is not an environment I’d be happy in. and after experiencing that level of misery already... I just can’t do that to myself again. I already have depression. I still have my days, even being in this job I like. I don’t want to veer into oncoming traffic to and from the clinic every day, so that’s nice, but I wouldn’t exactly call myself 100% stable either. I refuse to put myself back in an environment where I’d end up feeling like that again.

--

therapist asked me to think this week about why I’m so hard on myself, again. why I turn my thoughts back in on myself; notice when I do that, what caused it. I haven’t honestly had the time or the energy to think about it, and I’m afraid it’s going to be the same story as the last two weeks. I really have just been too fucking tired. I don’t have the energy to hate myself. my life right now is working, taking care of my pets, trying to sleep, trying to wake up, and crafting when I have the energy. I have my worries. I have my stresses. this is a horrendously stressful time to be living in. I’m not taking things out on myself, I’m worrying about where I’m headed from here. once this is all over, in god knows how many years because people here are fucking morons. I’m worried about my health. if I catch COVID, of course I’m worried about potentially dying, but I’m more worried about a secondary post-viral syndrome. I’m already fatigued. what if it worsens my fatigue and I end up bedbound? I want to plan my life going forward. I want to hope I’ll be able to continue education in something, I’m pretty sure I want to pursue animal care, and I’m going to go about it like that’s the plan, but I still worry. I think I’m scared to even get my hopes up about that because my health is slowly declining and I worry that if I catch COVID that’ll be it for me. my therapist has kind of tried to stop me when I talk like that, because I know it sounds like I’m letting my fears stop me. I’m not. I’m just laying them out. these are the things that I have on my radar, they are worries of mine, but I’m going to do what I think is best for me despite having those worries. I don’t think I’ll ever be the kind of person who won’t consider the possible outcomes of something. I’m going to overthink things, that’s just how I am. I don’t like it, it isn’t always helpful, but I think my therapist is right in that I have this serious drive to protect myself from pain. that’s honestly what it is. I have a need to position myself in the corner of the room; I need to be able to see every possible angle and assess every possible threat before I make a move. it’s not going to keep me paralyzed in the corner, but I need to be aware of the possibilities. 

it’s interesting that she pointed that out to me. a lot of the things I do, I do in self-defense. she pointed out that I tend to hold back with friends; if they indicate they’re not interested in having a conversation, I don’t press. I told her about farm jam last year, how they were ignoring me and talking over me. I mentioned the group going to the watering hole, telling my friend to tell me when they were going because I wanted to go, and he didn’t say a word to me when they went. I was sitting there, waiting for someone to ask me to join, and they didn’t. so I didn’t go. I didn’t want to trail behind them like a lost fucking puppy, still not having anyone to talk to, watching them all have a grand old time together while I just sat on the sidelines. and she was right to tell me that I could have pushed. I could have gone, I could have tried harder to insert myself into conversations. it is a two-way street. I know the way I talk about it it makes me seem like I don’t think my friends care about me; I had to explain that I know that’s not the case. it’s just that I felt left out and I didn’t want to force myself into their little circle. and I do that because I can see myself continuing to be ignored and left out and I’d rather spare myself the pain from that. 

I already know I have a tendency to reject people before they can reject me. I forget what else we were talking about where she pointed out that it was self-defense... hold on.

...

I think it was my negative thought patterns. how I learned to parrot my mom. I’d start talking about something good and then immediately jump to the bad things about it. it could be my attempt at “humility”, or some kind of defense from getting too happy about something. I feel like I remember telling my therapist that one charlie brown quote comes to mind: “I think I'm afraid of being happy because whenever I get too happy something bad always happens”. she kind of made a face at that. 

she’s right that I try to avoid pain. I still don’t think I’m comfortable telling her about all the shit I went through with dumb boys. but I guess there’s a reason I’m still single and have no real plans to change that. or, rather, no strong feelings about that changing. I’m still not sure how I feel. it’s been a long fucking time since I’ve felt cared about, and sometimes I’m glad my memory sucks so bad because feeling that absence was so fucking painful.

she asked me if I wanted to change. if I really did want to change my thinking, probably because I mentioned it would take a lot of energy. that kind of hurt; I wondered if I was giving her the idea that I didn’t actually want any kind of change. that I was just going to give her excuses. I wasn’t saying that as an excuse, just stating a fact about this process. it’s nearly a lifetime of internalizing these behaviors and defense mechanisms that I’ll really have to work to undo. and I can’t even gather the energy to spend more than a minute or so thinking about why I do these things to myself. I told her I do want to, I just don’t know where to start or how to go about it. this is all I know. and I was relieved to hear she agreed with that. I think that was her assessment to begin with, but I think she wanted to hear it from me first.

---

bedtime I guess.

[graceivers]

Review #98 - The Contract

The Contract Author: Melanie Moreland Genre: Billionaires & CEOs, Contemporary Romance Rating: ★★★★ Recommendation: give it a shot; once was enough Summary: Richard VanRyan is in need of a wife to turn his image around. Katharine Elliott is in need of a secure, paying job. The two had a rather antagonistic work relationship. How, then, can they possibly pull off being in a fake relationship with each other?

Female Lead: Katharine was very cool. She was too forgiving in my opinion, but I guess that was made this character. The best part of this character was surely her resilience and strength. Given that she witnessed her parents’ tragic deaths, her injuries, her less than stellar time in foster care, and then having to put up with Richard’s cruelty for a year, Katharine was undoubtedly a tough and brave woman who deserved a lot after all she had gone through and sacrificed for others. And even with all that adversity, all she was was kind. She was kind and patient and knew which battles to fight. Katharine never asked for much—certainly not for herself. Moreland struck an excellent balance between reserved, cautious, self-sacrificing Katharine and “Go fuck yourself, VanRyan” Katharine. I liked this character very much. Male Lead: There was something wrong with Richard. I mean that both seriously and not seriously. On the serious side, I found his logic perplexing. His timetable to persuade the Gavins that he was a changed man made little sense to me. His attitude and behavior with Katharine seemed all over the place at times. And maybe part of that was just his thought process and him trying to gauge his feelings for her as they changed. But at some points, his behavior—kissing Katharine in private when there was no show to put on—contrasted with his attitude—not interested in love and relationships. Did he want in her pants? Yes. Was that an adequate reason as to why he was being tenderly affectionate with her in private? No. However, Moreland did in the end show development and progression in this character albeit slowly and perhaps not completely. Did I expect him to suddenly not be a jerk anymore? Probably not. But geez, he was so snippy sometimes. Katharine was a saint for putting up with him and finding it in herself to love him even if the sweet parts of him were hidden somewhere in there. Plot & Writing: The Contract was an enjoyable book, I swear. But this is going to be another one of those reviews where I might have more questions and critical things to say instead of squealing and heaping it with praise. Again, I repeat and maintain that this was a good book, one that I liked. Let me just explore some of the parts that made me think a bit more than perhaps intended.

First, while I sympathized with Richard’s reluctance to talk about his past given his parents’ neglect, I was honestly expecting something more dramatic and traumatic. That past certainly explained why he was so cold as a grown man, but he made it sound so horrendous like something grossly horrible had happened to him. Yes, the neglect was terrible. But his story in comparison to Katharine’s background? I thought the latter won out, which unfortunately made Richard look a little more like a jerk than he already was. A side note regarding this, it was actually not my favorite that Katharine pestered Richard so much for his story. Did I believe he needed to talk about it? Yes. Did I appreciate Katharine’s compassion in response to Richard’s revelation? Yes. But she was kind of pushy about extracting his past from him. She told him what happened to him freely of her own volition. Her badgering Richard for his story was not my favorite.

Let’s move on to the actual relationship between Richard and Katharine. Yes, I liked this true enemies-to-lovers trope going on. I particularly enjoyed the fact that Moreland didn’t overdo the whole sexual tension thing. Were there aspects of it? Absolutely. But I think what helped the author’s cause was that Katharine and Richard were true enemies at the beginning. There was zero antagonistic sexual tension going on, and I was grateful because that is one trope I could probably do without. And while I did like the growth of the relationship and watching them move from enemies to allies to lovers, I had a difficult time deciphering when those shifts actually happened. Are they ever truly clear cut in real life? No. But there were just some times I couldn’t wrap my head around the direction of the relationship. How was Katharine comfortable kissing and being affectionate with Richard in private before she knew she was in love with him? How did Richard go from being a cruel boss to her to then someone so desperately in love with her? One thing that particularly bothered me was the fact that Richard only started talking to Katharine in a civilized manner and even remotely noticed her when she got a makeover. That was a little… sad to read. Surely just about any girl would look infinitely more beautiful with a swanky new haircut, expensive clothes, and makeup on her face. And sure, yes, Richard got to know Katharine as a person, so that helped his cause, but really… Katharine was only worthy of Richard’s time and attention after she got a makeover on his dime? Pardon my language, but to quote Katharine, go fuck yourself, VanRyan.

And briefly, again, some of the logic of the events in the book did not make sense to me. As I mentioned before, Richard’s timetable to dupe the Gavins did not compute. If he was trying to avoid suspicion, why did he rush the engagement and then marriage? If anything, finding out a guy like Richard with his playboy past rushing into marriage so quickly would only increase my suspicion rather than subdue it. And normally pragmatic Katharine went along with it? No sense, I tell you. Also, what was with that part where Richard’s boss was like, ‘I know where Katharine is, but I’m not gonna tell you because you have to figure it out yourself or else you’re not worthy’ when Katharine left Richard? What was that? Seriously. Yes, it kind of made sense that Richard should have figured it out on his own, but the inadvertently and yet wholly sinister way his boss’ intentions there came out was very strange. Richard getting his job back also seemed illogical; okay, maybe less illogical and more undeserving but still odd nonetheless. The Gavins were like, ‘Richard, we think you’re lying and you haven’t changed, but we still want to give you a chance anyway; we have a strong feeling about it!’ What? Seriously? Not much sense there either.

And on a side note, how unfortunate it also was that Moreland didn’t really give Katharine any long-term aspirations. So, what did this woman honestly do after all this drama was settled? She became a part-time assistant to her extended ‘family’, volunteered more than she worked a legitimate job, and had babies for Richard? Katharine had so much drive throughout the first half of the book; she was someone that had essentially been working all her life. And now she more or less lounged around because she married a rich dude? That was pure fantasy stuff right there, and this time, it did not sit right with me. Moreland reducing Katharine to essentially a housewife ‘because she deserved time off after all the drama in her life’ did not cut it for me. At all. Favorite Part(s): Richard asking for consent from Katharine before initiating sex! I did a mental fist pump the two times I saw it occur, especially when Katharine had explicitly said no sex during their arrangement and neither had fully come to terms with their feelings for the other yet. Good stuff right there, I’m telling you.

But also, Richard desperately seeking the approval of his new boss and the Gavins. I thought that relationship was written the most beautifully. We really saw Richard vulnerable, and though never stated explicitly, it was so obvious why he craved their approval—that after the absolute neglect from his own family and just about everyone else, there was finally someone in his life that seemed to care about him. Of course, then, Richard wouldn’t want to disappoint them in fear of someone leaving his life again when he so desperately wanted them to stay in it. I could maybe even argue that his relationship with his new boss was equally as important to cultivate as much as his relationship with Katharine (if not more?). Final Thoughts: Oh, The Contract played at my heartstrings. As a romance about true enemies-to-lovers, yes, I enjoyed the book. But there were a number of details that struck me as odd as mentioned above. Did those things detract from the experience of reading this story? No, not if my rating means anything. But certainly had those specific issues been addressed, the book would’ve gotten an even higher rating. In the end, I would still recommend reading The Contract if enemies-to-lovers is a favorite trope of yours, or fake relationships, or billionaire romances with a Cinderella effect. I think there’s something here for everyone to at least give the book a shot.