#so anyway here this for y'all in case anyone might find it helpful

[wanderingelvis]

Honey, I need a part 2 of that Elvis x Innocent Reader ask. Y'all can't leave me hangin like this lordy

I'm so pleased you liked it! It means so much! 🥰! Anyways, here's part 2!

Here’s a link to Part 1 of Elvis x Innocent!Reader for anyone looking! 🧚

🧚🏻 Masterlist 🧚🏻

word count: 2,119

pairing: Elvis x Innocent F!Reader

Things had gotten better for you recently, since you'd opened up to Elvis about the struggles you'd had in your classes, actually. You hadn't exactly made any friends, even though you were desperate to, but the teasing from the other boys and girls on set, had definitely stopped for the most part. Sure, you would see them looking at you, whispering to each other and giggling, clearly saying something about you but they wouldn't confront you anymore, and you were grateful for that.

You wondered if Elvis had spoken to someone, but you didn't want to ask, in case Elvis hadn't and asking him would put him in a difficult situation where he might feel that he should've.

You actually found the Mafia quite scary, they all wore dark clothing, would brandish guns that they had on themselves, and say words that your Momma had forbid you from ever saying. You wondered if Elvis had ordered them to say something, you knew that if any of the Mafia would ever tell you off, you'd probably run and hide under your bed and never come out again. Whenever you were around Elvis, which was a lot these days, you'd often find yourself in the company of the Mafia. Elvis could tell you were scared of them, you'd go quiet, shuffle as close to Elvis as possible and focus on whatever work you were doing, whatever book you were reading or whatever picture you were drawing - trying to make yourself as invisible as possible.

In all honesty, Elvis liked that you were scared of the Mafia, that it pushed you to be more reliant on him. He knew that none of them would dare look at you in a funny way, let alone hurt you, because they knew he was already obsessed with you, even if that fact would just fly right over your head.

But right now, you had some time off from rehearsals and you'd already run straight to Elvis' dressing room. You would always go to him, or his environment whenever you had any spare time, like he'd told you to do and like you liked to do.

Elvis was already there, looking through mockups of different outfits for his next tour. He wanted more jumpsuits, and that's what had been designed, hundreds of them for him to choose from.

You came in quietly, not wanting to disturb him, but you were greeted with that kind, friendly grin as Elvis asked you how your day was going, listening intently as you babbled away, telling him everything from the songs you were performing in rehearsal to how the door handles on the rehearsal door had been painted to white, but you preferred the old light blue color.

"M'sorry, m'talkin' a lot, Momma says that's a bad habit I got," You said softly, after realising how long you'd spoken for. You were just so happy to have a friend, you felt like no one else wanted to talk to you, so when Elvis let you, you'd talk his ear off. You hadn't realised how long you'd been talking for, but Elvis never seemed disinterested, not once. He would watch you intently, studying your face as you talked, nodding along and throwing his head back with laughter and chuckling loudly when you said something that amused him.

"S'okay honey, it ain't a bad habit, I could listen t'ya ramble on all day besides, sounds like you've had a busy day hm?" Elvis said.

You nodded, grabbing your copy of A Little Princess to read during your downtime. It wasn't the most advanced novel, but you were enjoying it. Your education hadn't been the best as a result of your mother prioritising auditions over school, but you could pick things up quickly when given the help, and you'd started reading more and more.

"Can I read in here for a bit, please?" You asked, never wanting to assume.

"Of course, little un', I'm just going through some outfits for the first-leg of the tour." Elvis said.

You got off the couch, sitting on the soft, plush, fluffy carpet, leaning your book on the low coffee table in front of you. Elvis parted his legs, and as time went on, you'd naturally lean back to sit in between them, the both of you in comfortable silence as you enjoyed your book and Elvis scanned through the outfits, every now and then lowering a piece of paper to show you a design he particularly liked, and to get your opinion on it.

After about twenty minutes, you put your book down, chewing a little on your lip, debating whether or not to ask Elvis about the incident that had happened before.

He'd never actually told you what 'give a head' meant, he'd just bushed over it and you felt a bit nervous to ask again. But you were curious, and he had said he would tell you.

"Um..." You piped up, before questioning if you really should ask Elvis. Elvis moved the piece of paper he was looking at to the side, looking down at you and raising one eyebrow, noticing you were looking a little confused and unsure.

You chewed your fingernails anxiously, your mind going back and forth as to whether or not you should bring this up. As you were thinking through your third reason why you should bring it up, you were taken out of your thoughts by a large hand, pulling your little one away from your mouth. You turned to see that Elvis was leaning down, stopping you from chewing on your nails.

"Now that is a bad habit baby, what's on your mind little girl?" Elvis asked as you gazed up at him with those big, wide eyes that could make him melt.

"It's stupid," You said before he cut you off.

"It's not stupid, Y/N, if it's botherin' ya, which it clearly is, you can tell me, I ain't gonna judge, I ain't gonna laugh, okay pretty girl?" Elvis assured.

"'Kay." You smiled sweetly. "I um, I keep hearing things on set or at the parties and I feel real stupid all the time because I don't know what people are talkin' about, like when Paulie Matthews asked me if I 'give a head' and I don't know what it means and I think it might be about being in charge of somethin' like if I'm the head of somethin' but m'not sure." You said, looking up at Elvis with nothing but innocence.

Elvis paused, he knew he'd have to tell you, but he knew it would be overwhelming for you to take in.

"Well, it's about sex," Elvis said gently, stroking your hair as you rested your back on his leg as you sat cross-legged on the floor. "Do you know much about that, honey?"

You simply shook your head, feeling a little anxious. "No but I wanna know," You paused a little, with Elvis simply watching you, not pressuring you or pushing you. This was a very delicate and sensitive topic, one that Elvis wanted to make sure was done on your terms. He knew that you could be overstimulated easily, so he would make sure he could be there for you, as slowly or as quickly as you needed him to be. "I think." You said.

"What would you like to know, little girl?"

"Um, well, I don't know really where to start really, I know that sounds stupid, but it's just a lot and, and I get confused sometimes with all of it and it's just sorta scary sometimes," You paused, fiddling with your fingers with your cheeks heating up into a pink shade. "M'sorry, that sounds dumb."

"That doesn't sound dumb, Y/N. Sex is a very special thing, so it can be scary to start with, s'only natural, little un'." Elvis assured. A small smile formed on your face as his words brought you comfort.

"How about we start with the basics? Do you know what sex is?" Elvis asked.

You nodded cutely, your head bobbing up and down eagerly, trying to impress Elvis and show him that you weren't as dumb as everyone thought.

"Uh-huh!"

"Wanna explain it to me then baby?" Elvis said cooly.

"Um, okay, it's um, well, um," You said, tripping over your words. "A man puts his thing into a lady and um, well, it makes a baby!" You said, relieved you'd got your words out.

"So you know where babies like you come from?" Elvis said with that shit-eating grin he always had, teasing you and making you giggle, covering your face a little with embarrassment.

"M'not a baby Elvis!" You blushed with a bashful giggle. "And of course I do! I really want to have a baby and be a mother." You said with keen earnest.

You'd always wanted to be a mother and be able to give all the love you had consumed inside of you to another being. Secretly, you wanted Elvis to maybe be the father, but you would never tell him that, even if secretly, he knew.

"Really?" Elvis said.

"Uh-huh! I would really like to be a mother! I think I would really like to have a baby!"

"I think you'd be an amazing mother." Elvis said with complete sincerity. He knew he was right, you were the most loving, caring and sweet little thing in the state, no, in the country.

Your heart was practically bursting, squirming about with delight. Elvis smiled, besotted with the sweet thing sat in front of him. "Really? Do you think so?" You giggled.

"Look at you, getting all flustered." Elvis teased. "But you're still a little one yourself, I ain't putting a baby in that belly just yet." He said, before he realised what he was saying.

Your eyes went as wide as a bush baby at his words. You didn't think he'd ever look at you in that way. Sure, you wouldn't really hesitate to admit you had a little crush on him, but he was the biggest superstar in the whole world who could have any woman he wanted, you never thought he was being anything but caring towards you.

Elvis got up from the couch, heading over to the drinks cart. "Want somethin' to drink, honey?" Elvis asked, pouring himself a scotch.

You asked for a Coca-Cola which he grabbed from the fridge, walking over and handing it to you as you stayed sat on the carpet.

"Doll, are ya sure you wanna keep talkin' about this?" Elvis checked, not wanting to make you uncomfortable - that was the last thing he'd want.

You nodded. You were hesitant of course, and Elvis could see that. He assured you that you could both take the conversation at your own pace, stopping as soon as you said so.

Elvis went on to explain to you what 'give a head' meant, your eyes went wide, and your nose scrunched up cutely, Elvis laughed a little at your reactions, but never patronised you. You asked endless questions, and Elvis answered every single one.

You felt fortunate to be around Elvis, he let you take everything at your own pace, which you loved as you always felt like you were a little slower to pick things up and felt a little behind everyone else. Growing up, your mother would berate you for not learning your audition lines fast enough, but despite always trying your very best, you could never quite catch up.

Elvis treated you differently though, he never rushed you, not once. When you didn't understand something, you could lean up on your tippy toes and whisper it into his ear and he would gently explain what was going on, guiding you and helping you, no matter how big or small.

"Now, I think that's enough for one day." Elvis said, placing a light kiss atop of your head. "C'mere, little un'," Elvis softly demanded, gesturing for you to join him on the couch. He opened his arms for you crawl into, cuddling you close.

He was proud of you, it was an intense conversation but you handled it well. "How are you feelin' pretty girl?"

You smiled up at him, telling him that you were overwhelmed but happy, which he understood. "How's about you tell me about your new book, little lady?" Elvis asked.

You nodded eagerly, beginning to ramble on about everything you loved about the book, what you think will happen and all the things you thought Elvis would love about it too.

Elvis watched, thinking about how cute you looked. He looked at today as a breakthrough in your relationship, he knew it wouldn't be long before he took the next step with you.

Naturally, you were completely oblivious to what he was planning, but you trusted Elvis, you knew he'd always protect you. You were his.

[grounded-gryphon]

I'd Die (Again) For Y'all (Chapter 8)

Prev

wc ~1100

Martain Manhunter, Cyborg, and Wonder Woman shuttled down to a meeting with the GIW the next morning. J'onn was not happy with the situation. But he said nothing to his companions of his concerns.

THe flight down was without incident and they met the GIW in Illinois, a state J'onn had not previously been to. As a scientist, he found the floral monoculture across much of the state concerning, but it did make for many location for an unobtrusive meeting.

The agents were already waiting for them, ostentatiously armed and alert.

J'onn landed the shuttle beside their van and led the team out. As soon as J'onn stepped into view, the GIW agents aimed their weapons -- very odd weapons -- at him.

"What is the meaning of this."

---

Flash was late.

He wasn't very late -- he got sidetracked by a hostage situation in Topeka. And all these cornfields looked the same. (How did people live like this?)

So instead of being in place before the 'GIW' assholes arrived and sneaking into their transport with the thumbdrive Bats had given him, Flash arrived just in time to see the assholes pull guns on Martian Manhunter.

Which had not been part of the plan. At all.

MM had his own bad experiences with government, and no way was Flash going to let these goons mess with him. Without waiting even long enough for a quip, Flash dashed in and yanked the weapons out of the agent's hands.

Stopping far enough out they couldn't make a grab for them, Flash held up the weapons (and one weird looking sensor thing. "Looking for these?"

There was a moment of silence and then everyone was yelling. Huh. That was why Bats was so uptight over folks at most of the JL meetings. It really was annoying.

/"Flash,'/ came J'onn's telepathic voice -- he didn't have a problem talking over everyone. /'What are you doing here?'/

Oh… right. No was supposed to know he was here. Even the team. "Plausible deniability," Bats had called it.

That was annoying.

"I was… um… just passing through? There was a thing in Kansas and… anyway, am I interrupting something? I'll just… yeah."

Flash zipped away (taking the guns and sensor with him, of course). He'd give them to Bats. Having strange tech to play with might keep the Bat from lecturing too much, right?

Nah… He wasn't that lucky.

---

Oracle had a headache.

With Cyborg on an away she was handling the cyber side of the Phantom/GIW investigation on her own. She was also trying to track down Red Hood, because having Hood offline and out of touch overnight after he and Red Robin disappeared together was not reassuring. Everyone always worried about Tim, which was fair. But a few times Oracle has… accidentally hacked Jason's comms when he was in the middle of a nightmare. Jason being alone with Tim would not have been good for him, either.

(Jason was doing better, she knew he was doing better. And Tim /had/ checked in with her before going to one of his safe houses that she wasn't supposed to know about. But he'd kept his audio off and comm to text only the rest of the night and not answered any of her questions. And that wasn't at all concerning.)

Except that they had both disappeared right around the time Phantom escaped. There was no way Hood could have gotten around Watchtower security on his own, but if he'd somehow gotten Red Robin to help him…

But Tim was okay, even if he'd gone quiet. Probably just so deep in a case he lost track of time. Hopefully not so bad he started hallucinating.

It should not be this hard to find the legal basis behind the GIW. Federal agencies could run dark, but the laws to create them had to be on the books somewhere. And laws were public information. But all her searches came back empty. Not surprising. If anyone had gone before Congress and openly advocated a bill to investigate Ghosts, they'd have been laughed out of the next election.

The CIA and FBI both had a history of dealing in paranormal, but this wasn't either of theirs. If only because none of their agents would be caught dead in the get ups she'd seen photos Flash had uploaded after his run to Amity Park. Plus, she had a few contacts on that side of Alphabet City and none of them had even heard of the GIW.

It was time for a different approach. Past time, really. Oracle had been so worried about Tim and Jason she'd missed an obvious step.

Pulling out of all the secure government files she's spent so long getting into, Oracle started a new search. Common ghost terms.

Then back into the congressional data base.

Spirit turned up patriotic goop.

Specter… right… should have expected that.

The next few terms got similar useless results.

Ectoplasm. That wasn't real, right?

Hell, it couldn't hurt to try.

Huh. Ectoplasm turned up a dozen times scattered across a handful of environmental bills. As a potential clean energy source?

Huh.

"Batman. I found the laws, sending you the information now."

"Understood."

"Nightwing needs me monitoring tonight, but I should be able to dig a bit deeper. I'll keep you updated."

"Hn."

"Oracle out."

Okay, so she had the legal handle she needed now -- bill names and numbers. With that, zeroing in on the GIW should go a lot faster.

Her comm beeped.

"Oracle, Hood."

"Hood. Everything okay?" She tried to keep the worry out of her voice.

"I'm good, O. Somethings come up, though. A personal project is going to take up more time than expected. Calling in a favor -- keep B off my back for a bit and stay off my comms."

"Hood--"

"If you don't, I swear to God I will set off an EMP grenade in each of my safehouses and destroy every comm, tracker, bug, and camera you or any of the others has ever managed to get no me."

"You can't--"

"Roy can get me a back up helmet in 24 hours. Try me."

"Fine, but you owe me a girls night -- movies, makeup and nailpolish."

The threat told her he was serious -- he absolutely would do it.

That he didn't hesitate or argue before accepting her terms… that was almost frightening.

"And I need a way to reach you in an emergency."

He did hesitate then. "I'll make sure Re-- Red Robin knows how to find me."

And… he signed off, leaving Oracle right back where she started.

Worried.

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

Next

Thought we'd take a lot at what the JL is up too. Didn't get this one edited.

Flash is based on my vague recall of the Justice League show from 20 years ago. Hope I didn't mess up the character too bad.

taglist

@8-29pm @admiralwidow @ailithnight @androcat191 @andsatisfactionbroughtmeback @annkan7 @apointlessbox @beacedocrime @beepboopimaproblemchild @blep-23 @breesperez139 @bun-fish @chaos-n-kindness @charcoalstainedbones @consouling @crystalqueertea @d4ydr34min9 @darkstarsapocalypse @drowningroane @enderglace @ever-changing-weirdo-3100 @everything163 @fenanoni @firegirl108 @fisticuffsatapplebees @gaelic-holiday @ghostpyre @gildedphoenix @girlnic @greenmuffinofdoom @help-i-need-a-cool-username @icedbluesoul @idkmrpianoman @idontgetpaidenoughforthisshit @igotafewbadideas @introvert-even-on-the-internet @istillhavenosociallife-blog @jaggedheart11 @jarlyd @kaneking-ken @kjoboo91 @lazy-bouqet @liandrin @library-cat-in-the-window @meira-3919 @mentalcarebear @mokakacoco @mossy-bonez @mygood-bitch99 @nexthenerd

[wildwoodgoddess]

For everyone who wanted a female Sherlock Holmes, A Study In Garnet is now available!

I spent last year serializing A Study In Garnet for my Patreon supporters, and now, as promised, the book is available for purchase in ebook and hardcover for everyone!

I'm so excited, especially about the hardback version. Y'all, it's SO PRETTY! I found a fabulous print-on-demand printer that has made my hardcover dreams come true.

Anyway, before I geek out too much about the print version, I just want to thank everyone who has liked and shared my posts about this book and the research I did for it. I appreciate the support!

Here's the blurb for the book:

January 29, 1881:  Afghanistan ruined her body, but London has broken her heart.

Dr. Siân Watson longs to shed the male disguise she used to join the British Army, but when you look like a bloke, it’s easier to amputate a man’s leg on a battlefield than buy a dress in London. Undaunted, she heads to the Criterion Hotel to find help. But when a chance encounter with an old friend leads to meeting the mesmerizing Sherlyn Holmes, Dr. Watson’s plans are upended—faster than you can say “the game is afoot.” 

Now, instead of going home to Wales, she’s moving into 221B Baker Street with Miss Holmes, whose piercing deductions are as thrilling as they are unsettling. Life with the world’s only consulting detective is powerful medicine, but as they hunt for whoever is murdering cab drivers across London, Watson fears her growing affection for Holmes might injure her more deeply than any bullet. As Holmes’s obsession with the case pushes Watson into risks she swore never to take again, she must choose: whatever respectability a woman doctor can earn—or Sherlyn Holmes. Both is not an option. 

When their quest for justice lands them in trouble with the law, Watson fears she has survived one war only to fall in a different kind of battle—one that may destroy what’s left of her heart.

*******************************

I also wanted to share this endorsement from my author friend, Gabrielle Harbowy, because I really loved it:

"If you think you're done with Sherlock Holmes retellings, think again. Meredith Rose has written an excellently researched and executed period mystery with a deeply compelling queer and genderswapped Holmes and Watson. The subtle, masterful brush with which she portrays the queerness of the time, and the intensely caring yet neurodivergent Holmes, carries just the right touch. It's everything I didn't realize I needed from a Sherlock Holmes book." —Gabrielle Harbowy, author of Aether's Pawn

You can get the book in either hardcover or ebook on my shop page. I offer shipping for the print version worldwide, and I'm offering a 15% discount on all my books, using the discount code BOOK15 at checkout.

Thanks for supporting my creative efforts, and I hope you will enjoy the book. If you know anyone who would enjoy it, please forward this info to them. I'm going to be hard at work on book 2, so stay tuned!

Take a look at A Study In Garnet in my shop

[silvertws]

You know what? At this point I have more written posts than fanarts... I mean, I could post old ones, but idk if it would make sense you know? Anyway.

You may wonder, is this gonna be another Steve Saga or something post?

Oh no, I may be hyperfixated, but I still do love other fandoms, even if they are dead.

Speaking on dead fandoms.

Hi Origins Crew fandom :}

How are y'all doing? How's the feeling of never knowing what was supposed to happen to your favorite character in OoO, SNO,SAO...? Oh and the unfinished storylines in MHO? FTO? do we wanna talk about the cliffhanger in OZ? I mean, luckily some people posted videos about how the storyline was going to go, so at least we got that.

(to clarify, I'm not mad at anyone who was part of the Origins Crew DW, I could never)

Anyway.

Some backstory on how I started watching Origins.

It was summer of 2019 I think? Pretty sure at least, I know it was before I started highschool because I sucked at English before I started watching Origins.

Anyway.

First series was OoO S1 from Brandon's POV, at least that's the first video that got recommended to me, I'm unsure what episode it was, I can't remember if it was before or after the Aphrodite's ball (we don't talk about those, you guys know why. You know.) So I'm not sure if I even watched it all, but I think at the time I did go back to watch it from the first episode.

Anyway POVS right? With OoO S1 I watched Brandon (*cough cough* Brandeen), Jakey, Brian, Colin and some of Xylo.

And can I just say... IT'S BEEN 3 SEASONS, 3 SEASONS IT TOOK TO GET RID OF A FUCKING SWORD, A SWORD, COME ON. AND WHY THE FUCK, CAN SOME PEOPLE COME BACK TO LIFE, AND OTHERS CAN'T, WHAT PLOT ARMOR IS THIS- Istg that was probably the most annoying thing of them all, nothing against the creators, again I feel like I need to clarify! But it's just my personal dumb opinion that I hope nobody takes offense to???

Anyway.

I feel like I should make a post for every Origins Series I've watched, but idk if that would make sense lol TwT

Besides my personal preferences when it came to all the series, I am very grateful to the Origins Crew, they're the reason I'm here today, the reason I know English and they were the first group that really opened my eyes when it came to the LGBTQ+ community and helped me discover myself.

I know that from an outside point of view it might seem dumb, but I do owe a lot to them, all of them, even the ones who left a year before Origins dismantled, even the ones who joined just before people went their separate ways.

Because even if people might say that the storylines were dumb or maybe cliche (which, in some cases they definitely were) in the end, I still loved every moment of it, every episode every dumb character who didn't make any sense or that was weirdly overpowered (I REALLY want to specify which ones but I don't want the whole fandom to come at me, please, any fandom but this one) but to be fair they kinda all were in some way? Or at least had the potential to in my opinion.

I'm not good at keeping a conversation stick to one topic, I tend to sideline pretty often and I apologize for that. TwT

Also idk if it's just me, but when I find a group of people there's always that one that for some unknown reason I just like more and that one who I dislike, again, for no specific reason, just the vibes???

Like for Hermitcraft and Empires it's Pearl, for Fable it's Ulysses, (I love this fish boy with all my heart if anything happens to him I will cry) for Origins it was Colin and Brandon, don't ask why, I have no idea, I just did, still do consider them my favorites.

I kept watching content from the Origins creators after everything went down. Including the drama with some of the creators I suppose... (I still don't understand most of it)

From Devi Devi Academy/anarchy to Glitch generation, to My Hero Eternity, I watched some of the Fnaf content Bryan made just for the nostalgia.

Holy fuck how I miss these fuckers.

Like it was the whole dynamic they had in the group, the mini games videos in character were so entertaining to watch! Especially the crossovers, I tend to rewatch them from time to time even tho I know basically everything by memory at this point.

Honestly they really inspired me when it came to creating my own storylines, and roleplaying, some people may call it cringe, and I get it, but I still think it's fun.

It's been a year.

Well, more technically, but I didn't have Tumblr at the time of the anniversary I suppose? Can you even call it that?

The Origins fandom never felt too big, in my life I've only talked to one other person who knew about them, and it was pretty fun, we watched the uh.. second episode of my Hero Eternity together making theories and stuff, talking about my hero Origins and wondering which characters canonically knew that you know, mr "I killed both my bio parents" was actually alive. (Which from what we know, Flex knows, and I think Colin, not sure tho, because in the 3rd episode, when they were interrogating the hero, our edgy boy mentioned how he had an old "friend" who could get information and data really easily, and now, we all know Mario definitely wouldn't do that plus, did he even interact with the L.O.V.E. as a whole? I don't think so? So the only option that makes sense to me is Colin)

Anyway I drifted away from the concept once again because once I start talking I won't ever stop.

This is a long post, as usual, cause I write a lot when it comes to things I'm passionate about.

I'm very attached to Origins, all the characters, all the storylines, all the silly little things. And I'm never going to stop missing it I suppose? Not in a "omg how dare they break the group apart blabla blabla..." No, I'm just very nostalgic when it comes to it.

I owe everything to them, part of who I am today is because of them.

PS: if anybody wants to talk about this fandom I suppose, please do, please let's start a conversation. I have so many things to say.

Like you know in SNO when people didn't know Lucas and Brandon were SIBLINGS???? and they SHIPPED THEM??? yeah, hi it's me, I'm the problem it's me, HOW THE FUCK CAN YOU JUST DROP A BOMB LIKE THAT ON THE LAST EPISODE MAN, AND HOW DID I NOT EXPECT IT????? luckily for me, mine was very much platonic shipping, so uhhh yay??? Don't come for me guys, it was years ago, please ToT Also I did kinda Ship Lucas with uhh was it also called Jakey???? I don't remember anymore my friend will probably remember this because when the series was happening I'd just go on and ramble about the fact that I didn't know who I should have shipped with the angel boy.

Man shipping anyone in any of those series was HELL, LET ME TELL YOU, HELL. ABSOLUTE HELL, HOLY FUCK THIS IS WHY I DON'T SHIP CHARACTERS AT ALL.

Ok actual PS now:

Please, let's all sit and chat in front of a glass of tumbjuice/tomb juice??? (idk how to spell that, don't come for me) and not get cursed by anything while we do so.

Let's just vibeeeeeee :D

[iiep-wop]

Right first chapter for a hypothetical Jedtavius fanfic I might write, THIS CHAPTER IS VERY MUCH NOT EDITED YET I literally just finished writing it 😭 The premise is that Jed is in a shit ton of trouble and finds out that there is a way for it all to go away. It all requires the tablet.

Human AU where Octavius is Museum Curator and Jed is just some random guy in a heap of trouble.

Tw: slight mention of thought about su1cide

Anyway here it is, I really hope this makes sense 💀

(holy hell I only just found the read more bar thing, sorry it was talking up all of y'all's feed before 😭)

“OhShitOhShitOhShit”

This is all that went through Jedediah’s mind as he raced through crowded streets, the air thick with the stench of car fumes and suffocating summer heat. Looking round wildly, he ducked swiftly into an alley, hiding himself behind a dumpster. He only hoped he’d been quick enough to not be seen. Three large figures stormed past as he held his breath, waiting silently as the shouts of his pursuers melted away into the regular noise of the city. He hesitantly stood up, casting a glance around the hiding place, eyes quickly adjusting to the gloom of the dingy path.

You could hardly call it an alleyway; it was long, and you could probably fit a small truck in it if you tried. A large garage door sat on the opposite side from the dumpster, red paint cracked and peeling enough to show the rusted metal beneath it. Beside it, a small sign read: “Loading Bay entrance, please do not obstr-” in bold letters. The last few letters had been covered by a tattered sticker; colours faded and stained by time.

Now he had calmed down, Jed was curious. He’d not been paying attention to where he was going before, only running to where they weren’t. Cautiously peering round the corner, he was met with the entrance to the Natural History Museum. Or the stairs up to it at least.

God why was that building’s entrance so high up.

Stepping back into the ally, he raked his hand anxiously through his sandy hair as he thought of a plan. They weren’t ever going to stop looking for him, that was for sure. He just needed somewhere to hide for the day until he was sure they’d gone.

Then it hit him. There was no way that they’d think to look for him in the museum. Hell, there was no way he’d think to go in under any other circumstances.

Jedediah Smith was a man in debt.

It wasn’t his fault; he’d kept telling himself. He just happened to have gotten himself mixed up with the wrong people on the wrong day. And now he was certain they were going to kill him if they found him.

It also probably didn’t help that he thought he could fight his way out of paying the man in charge back.

At this point, he might as well disappear. No one would notice, it's not like he had anyone left to go to anymore. If it were possible, it’d be the only way he’d be able to save his own ass from the shit he’d gotten himself into.

Putting on his hoodie, Jed walked hastily into the museum, quickly checking to see if anyone was around. Seeing how empty it was, he relaxed, sauntering up to the reception with a relieved grin on his face.

A small woman sat at the desk, typing quickly into the computer, dark hair obscuring her face.

Jed slammed his hand dramatically onto the counter. “Mornin’ sugar”

The receptionist looked up, glaring at him through her hair.

“One ticket please.”, he continued, placing a handful of various pieces of change onto the desk.

She lifted an eyebrow, sighing as she counted the coins into the machine.

“Thank you for supporting-”

Jed had wandered off before she could say anything else.

Sidling around the museum, Jed mused at how empty the whole building was. He could understand why, the place was fuckin’ boring. Nothing really interested him, although it wasn’t like he was paying attention to any of the exhibits anyway.

Absentmindedly, he strode into a dimly lit room, large, display cases built into the walls. He stopped a moment, intrigued, peering down at the tiny scene in front of him. A small western town bustling with tiny, still, life. On the platform of the train station, a small figure stood, commanding a crowd of workers watching him from the opposite side of the tracks. A plastic hat sat jauntily on top of his head, obscuring his face from view, as he pointed at the rails.

“He seems to know what he’s doing,” Jed thought to himself amusedly “God I wish I was that put together.”

Suddenly, he heard a faint chuckle from the bench in the middle of the room.

“Enjoying the miniatures?”

Jedediah whipped his head around to see a man, not much older looking than him, sat calmly in the centre of the room. Notebook placed on the seat beside him.

God how long had he been there?

Jed turned around properly, quickly standing up straight and scowling.

“So what If I’m interested in ‘em?”

The man pushed his glasses up his nose in amusement, “I didn’t want to interrupt, but you did look like you were going to fall in.”

His voice was clear, resonant sounding and Jesus Christ, he was British.

“Yeah, thanks for tellin’ me.”

Turning back around, Jed rolled his eyes, silently mimicking what the man had said.

“The miniatures are new, you know. We got them in today.”

Why won’t he shut up? He just wanted to come in here to get away from the guys chasing him, not to be pestered by some curly haired, European prick.

Jed looked back at the man and smiled sarcastically. Or at least tried to. He’d never been great at getting the expression right.

“Look, I know you’re tryin’ to be friendly and all, but I’m kinda busy.”

He began to stare intently at the diorama again, he didn’t know why. He supposed that if he was gonna say he was busy he might as well look it.

Even if it was a bullshit attempt.

The man sighed and picked up his notebook, “Evidently.”

“What?”

“Well evidently you’re busy. Staring at the same miniature for ten minutes, god it must be such hard work.”

Now Jed was actually getting annoyed. The man had begun to scrawl into his notebook, hunched over slightly as he wrote. His slightly greying hair was neatly combed back, a few flyaway curls softly resting on his forehead. Almost cherub-like, in a way. If a cherub was some tall, British nuisance.

“Now who even are you? D’ you just come here to watch people wander round?”

“No?” the man said questioningly, looking up from the notepad “I work here.”

He gestured at the plastic name badge pinned wonkily to his jumper. Jed could barely make out what it said in the dim light, but it appeared to read “G. Octavius, Museum Curator”

“And? Still doesn’t make it any less weird.”

“For your information, I was in here first. I was sketching the diorama before you came and put your ass in the way.”

“Alright. I’ll leave if you tell me one other even vaguely interesting thing in this here building.” Jed stated defiantly, “Then I’ll get my ass out of the way of your drawing ‘o curator’.”

Octavius lifted an eyebrow, as if to say “you fucking idiot”, before lazily pointing his pencil down the hallway.

“Just down there, we’ve got the tablet of Ahkmenra. I’ve heard it’s got some pretty mystical properties.”

Jedediah frowned, raking his hand through his hair. The hell did he mean “I’ve heard”? If he was curator surely he’d know. He practically owned the fuckin’ thing anyway.

“Fine, I’ll go.” He drawled, rounding the corner “You can get your pretty little drawing done in peace princess.”

Octavius’ lip quirked into a charmed smile as Jed peered accusingly back round the corner. How long would he have to spend hiding in this godforsaken museum with this man before he could be sure it was safe outside.

And now, he’d been kicked out of the most interesting room in the building, to go and see some- tablet.

The room holding the tablet had a strange air about it, it was long, the path down the middle guarded by four dark jackal statues. Jed stuffed his hands into his pockets as he walked, feeling a strong sense of unnerve as he approached the coffin and tablet at the far end.

Small spotlights shone on the shining tablet, illuminating the intricate carvings etched into the gold. As much as Jed hated to admit it, Octavius was right, it was pretty fuckin’ interesting.

Nine individual squares were indented into the metal, seemingly on a rotating system, each one bearing a symbol Jed didn’t understand. There was something alluring about it, calling him to reach out and just touch it. Even for a second.

He froze, hand mere inches away from the smooth gold. Even if he did hate this place, he wasn’t just going to touch some ancient artefact. Who knows what kind of security they’d have on it.

His eyes were then drawn to the plaque besides it. He thought as he read. Something weird was happening to him, he’d never enjoyed places like this. They bored him. So why was he so interested all of a sudden.

The words “make various objects or people disappear” hit him flat in the face as he read absentmindedly.

He’d been hoping to disappear since he got caught up in all of this debt business. Wouldn’t it all just be better if he didn’t exist anymore? Jedediah had been thinking of various ways to do it, but none of it was really... disappearing. Was it? Besides, he still had so much to live for. Or that’s what he’d been repeating to himself.

He was in so much debt it would make a banker cry, had a sub- par job which he was on the cusp of losing and lived in a shitty flat with no more family to crawl back home to. It all sounded like not alot to live for really. The idea of disappearing that this plaque had proposed to him made everything sound so simple.

Blinking a few times, he snapped out of the trance he had sent himself into. Was he really going to believe some plaque in a boring old museum that told him he could disappear?

But the idea had settled uncomfortably in his mind now. He was right there, he could take the tablet and make himself disappear with it. It would make everything so easy wouldn’t it?

With that, he made his plan.

He would find somewhere to hide once the museum closed, and then, before anyone noticed anything suspicious, he’d make it all go away. Press the buttons on the tablet or some shit, and then he’d vanish.

If he had been thinking straight, he would have realised the flaws in this plan. But the idea had set itself into his mind. The tablet was calling out desperately to him and the only way he could stop it was by doing what it wanted him to do.

Disappearing. Simple enough.

Jedediah kept an eye out for good spots to hide in throughout the next few hours, all the while trying to avoid Octavius and his damned smile.

The night guard whistled cheerily as he did his pre - lock up round, barely taking the time to check for people as he dragged a long grey duffle bag behind him. Jed watched silently from a concealed corner under a flight of stairs, hoping desperately not to be found.

The call of the tablet had begun to wear off, doubt beginning to spread through his mind again. Why the hell was he following the imaginary orders of some tablet? He was going mad, he was sure of it. However, it was too late for any second guessing. It was now or never.

The warm glow of sunset seeped through the narrow windows in the tablet room as Jedediah entered, bathing the jackals in orange light. He slowly approached the tablet, gingerly reaching out for it as the sunset deepened. Gently, he pulled it off the wall, sinking down onto the floor with his back pressed against the glass of the sarcophagus. Jed sat silently for a moment.

How the hell was he supposed to do this? Why the hell did he do this?

Quiet footsteps began to echo through the halls again, startling him. He needed to figure out how this worked now.

As the footsteps neared, the tablet began to glow dimly in the now darkened room. Jed’s eyes widened in fear. He was going to be found out. Why the hell was this blasted thing glowing, and why now of all times!

Step, step, step.

The footsteps sounded like they were outside the door of the room. They were.

The light emanating from the tablet was now more of a shine than a faint glow, illuminating his face as he looked up guiltily at the man in the doorway.

“What the FUCK are you doing?”

It was Octavius, his eyes were wild and furious, glasses clenched in one hand, a long tan coat in the other.

Dropping the coat, he ran over, grabbing the other end of the tablet from Jedediah.

“You don’t understand! It was callin’ for me!”

“I know I said it was interesting but this is too far sir!” Octavius grit his teeth, features sharp and angry in the bright glow of the tablet.

Jedediah tried to move his hands further up the tablet in order to snatch it back, fingers scrabbling on the edges of the individual squares in order to gain traction.

The tablet glowed brighter as his hand reached the central square, every segment shining like a floodlight into their eyes, blinding them.

Octavius threw himself backwards in shock from the light, covering his eyes as the tablet clattered to the floor.

The world went far too bright for a moment, every colour fading into pure, blinding, nothingness.

And then it all went black.

[tobiasdrake]

Back into the Underworld, the worst place on Mesa Island. Then we have unfinished business with the Demon King.

Hahaha, I know, right!? Prophet's poker face would be amazing if he didn't keep whispering to himself about his cards at a volume that can be heard from space.

Anyways, I should probably get out there. No more putting this off. As much as I desperately want to. You probably don't know this but I had a bad experience down there and....

...actually, you probably do. You're the one who sends Quarble to me every time, after all. We've been in this together from the start, in a way I never really understood before.

I'm sorry I got offended when you wanted to wear a cool hat too.

Anyway... I guess we should get to work. Partner.

So this is what the Underworld of 500 years ago looks like. Mostly the same.

I suppose that makes sense. This place seems the least likely to change out of anywhere. Oh, shit, and Burning Tirade is probably still around.

Huh. Well, that was relatively straightforward. Jump jump get stabbed Musical Note.

That kind of implies that this manifested essence of crystallized physics is the only thing holding back the Underworld from spreading across Mesa Island.

Are we sure it's okay for me to just. Like. Take it? I'm just saying, if the Underworld starts growing out of control, I'm giving all-a y'all an I Told You So.

You guys built a suspension bridge!? I was just expecting, like, a bunch of planks across rope.

This is incredible. Great work!

In any case, onward to the Forlorn Temple. This is, allegedly, where the Demon King lives. I imagine we won't be able to break the curse without--

FUCK YES ROCKET SILO WOOHOO

This is exactly the kind of funhouse shit I'd fill my evil palace with!

--jamming a kunai in the eyes of each of those four grotesque heads of his. Without a question, we're here to kill the fucker responsible for this cycle.

I have a good feeling about this. Demon King summoned Bugle Thyroid to keep an eye on me when it was my turn at bat. But after I killed him, he didn't come back for Soldier's turn. This implies that stabbing a fucker between his goddamn eyes does have a lasting impact on the cycles.

The way I see it, if we cut off the invasion's quadri-heads, it might not even matter anymore that we're trapped in a time loop.

Probably won't be that simple. Time bullshit never is. But there's no downside to decapitating a warmongering bastard so it's worth a go all the same.

...uh....

I think a king died here. Sucks to be him, I guess.

I am hyped and ready to go. Ready as I'll ever be, in fact.

I've always relied on your advice, Shopkeep. You got anything for me with this one?

Helpful. Thanks.

I suppose that makes sense. We all know what he is and it's not like anyone's ever beaten one of him before. So.

I guess we're going to wing it.

Is this all you do? Sit here and wait for the promised day when you get to go out and harass the last vestiges of civilization?

And I do mean harass. The cycle requires you to fail at exterminating us so we can grow a new society and spawn a new Messenger when you hit that one. We even prop it up in the same place every time so it's not like it's hard to find.

Is this all your immortal existence amounts to? Sit sit sit sit fireball sit sit sit sit sit? You look so bored. Do you not have card games or something you can play with your demon minions?

Seeing you here, I... almost feel bad for you. Please understand that I mean this in the meanest way possible - like, full-throated hate here - but you need to get a fucking life. Besides the four brambleboned dipshits that had their skulls hot-glued to a flesh horror, I mean.

Oh, yeah, no. He's not coming. You'd be surprised how easy it is to perforate someone's internal organs when they're eagerly throwing themselves on your sword.

I know you guys were, like, designated besties from the moment of your demonic rebirth in whatever fucked-up lab Aephorul used to transform you. But he's done. Wasted him like bread crust. You want to fight about it?

Buddy, I've got enough Time Shards to buy way more insolence than this. You want to start running a tab?

This can't be all you've got. The Dweller of Strife was the most powerful Dweller ever to exist. It took a legion of Solstice Warriors during the Eclipse to bring it down.

Did you chucklefucks actually make it weaker when you were bonded to it? This poor bloated mass of flesh is so pitiful now, it can't even do anything more than vomit fireballs and hope no one notices how pathetic it is.

I thought it was just Bowling Tapir having that problem. But no. This is a huge downgrade too. Everything Aephorul tries to improve gets fucked up beyond recognition.

It's a good thing you can fly away to safety whenever Messengers show up to the cyclical battle. Otherwise, we would have slaughtered you long ago.

Lining up the shot. I've got eyes on target and I'm coming in hot. Locking on and here... we... GOOOOOOO!

AAAAAAND Straight up the asshole! I can't believe this is all you've got. I spent my whole mission afraid of you.

It's done, Luana. This went in a completely different direction than I was anticipating. It's been a very weird day. But your unfinished business is complete; I have sodomized the Dweller of Strife.

I don't know if you'd be proud of me; You're kind of a shithead. But I'm proud of me. And that's what matter-- Wait, what's it doing? That doesn't look like dying in agony.

Oh cool, new form. Yeah, that looks way more Dweller of Strife-y than the previous. I think I killed the Acolytes so now it's free from their crippling handicap.

...wait. Shit. That's bad for me.

It looks angry. Hey, are you mad? You look mad.

OH FUCK LASERS

I THINK IT'S MAD

NO NO NO NO NO GO AWAY PLEASE I AM TRYING TO WET MYSELF AND RUN FROM YOU

I think it actually got angrier when I jumped on a rocket! Why!? WHY ARE YOU SO MAD ABOUT ROCKETS!? LUANA I THINK I MADE MISTAKE--

Oh, look. The ceiling. ...OH FUCK THE CEILING

ABORT ABORT ABORT ABORT ABORT ABORT ABORT Hi Strifey how was your day ABORT ABORT ABORT ABORT

Oh wow. So that's what the unyielding fury of eclipse magic burning like a thousand moons looks like. I've always wondered. No matter how many times you read about it, you're never prepared to see it in person.

Don't you agree, Strife?

Yeah, you agree. If I had to guess, I'd say your mistake was chasing me.

Guess this W belongs to you guys, Luana and Solen. But I'm proud to have done my part.

In the butt.

Look at it. Can't wait to show this to Shopkeeper. She's been watching me so she's probably already facepalming as we speak. This is a story I'm going to be weirding people out with at parties for the rest of my life.

Holy shit, are you the Fleshmancer? Wow. What a privilege to meet you! Is it true you once got your ass kicked by an irate cook wielding a frying pan?

In any case, I disagree. Gonna be pretty hard for you to keep burning down our village without your glorified matchbook here. Meanwhile, I've got all the time in the world.

See you around.

Assclown.

[psychelis-new]

Hello! Thank you for all the readings you do for us :) a lot of them carry sound words of wisdom for me!

Might I suggest a pac topic about understanding one's goals or desires.

I understand that you cannot tell someone else what their goal in life is or should be ... but I keep getting this feeling where I wish I gained clarity on what I think I should be doing vs what I really want (ofc another important factor is what skill do I currently posses but this is about dreams and skills can be learnt). Maybe I'm being naïve and foolish, that such clarity only comes from within, by meditation or journaling, communicating with oneself.. or maybe one has to utilise the opportunity infront of them and rest is just wishful thinking. Maybe it is me holding on to the wishes of my past self and now I've grown a couple of months or years and have a changed perspective.. yet I am unable to zero down on one path / decision. I do not know what was intuition vs what was a passing fantasy. Again, I apologise if I'm being naïve, if this ask was too vague. Thank you

No question is vague or useless and I don't think you're naïve or foolish or any other bad word you called yourself with (don't do it please, not here--- not allowed on my blog!^^).

To answer you shortly: you said it, I cannot tell you what you should do. I have done personal readings too in this sense, and I could never get real a solution to anyone's problem. But, as done in those times, I can try and bring suggestions. This though, firstly brings me to one of the latest readings I posted about gaining clarity/leaving this rut, and secondly... yes I can think about another type of guidance pac to do. But... why do you feel you have to choose?

(it's gonna get longer now)

You said "I wish I gained clarity on what I think I should be doing vs what I really want": do you think they really have to be different? And why so? You're in a great place imo: you already have something you really want to do. Many don't (and ofc, it's fine y'all). So what is blocking you? "I do not know what was intuition vs what was a passing fantasy": intuition comes out of nowhere while a passing fantasy has a reason and... is passing, you can change it, and grow annoyed by it. Sometimes intuition too goes away, but honestly... you can try everything you come up with and see in practice how and if they work for you. I think sometimes (not necessarily saying it's your case ofc) we stop ourself just at the thought/imagination of something and give too much importance about what we should do and just confuse ourselves when we already have a bunch of options/ideas/gut feelings and things we'd like to try in front of us or that we know we can create. But we just fear it's not The Right Thing™, or we're not good enough or any other doubt a mind can think of, so we just keep ourself stuck in this confusion, while maybe we should just take a leap and try them and see if they can work for us or not, also as a job (making a business plan or such could be of help too -there are many samples online-).

Again, I'm not saying you're wrong or anything: we all go there -in that confusion- every once in a while: it's life and what we're supposed to go through anyway, imo. We leanr things about us too this way.

Sometimes answers and clarity don't come at us when we want but when we are ready. And ofc I understand that life/society pressure us so much and want us to "just take a decision/road asap and follow it until we leave this planet" but that's not how it goes for everyone and that's okay. Some people just do a job and then find their true call later on in life (there are loads of directors and actors that were working 9-5 before changing career). Sometimes we need to experience different paths and to even make mistakes and follow wrong paths to understand what our soul call is (hi!! :D I don't even remember how many different things I did lol). And tbh, we don't have have to follow it exactly or as a main focus (we can do two things too at the same time and see, we don't have to choose one immediately or at all), we can do something else that we still enjoy and live a happy life anyway.

I do agree that it could be of help taking time to meditate/journaling as in knowing yourself deep down, your core values, your beliefs, and ofc your likes and dislikes, what you may get to do and what you really would never do (not just as careers per se but as situations in those careers: eg. travelling could be a thing? Same country/different countries? Both? Having to deal with others? It tires you or you love it?... such questions imo. And also what would you like to do with your job, do you wanna be known, what's your main goal in this life, how do you wanna be remembered, how much you want to gain money-wise?...). You mentioned skills too: sure, you can learn skills for anything, but have you asked yourself why some things just come naturally to you anyway? And what are these related to? Not saying they are there necessarily to tell you something or guide you in a certain direction (they don't always related to a job), but... it's still a side of you that is good to understand I think. Even just for further usages.

Just don't fall into the trap of taking any random opportunity (unless you really need money: just read well any contract condition, even the smallest, before signing anything) just because you need to do something asap or you feel rushed to do something out of your life (you're already doing it, even if it's not bringing you money). It'll come to you, don't stress over it. Just try things you feel like trying and think you may enjoy (trust your guts) and you'll find your way.

Anyway yeah I will try to do a guidance pac when I can (maybe on insta Idk, I have already something career-wise planned on there), but maybe this answer can help you as well for now. At least a little.

Take care!

[coinandcandle]

Okay, okay I know this sounds like a load of bullshit but I’m desperate 😃

okay so basically me and my sister bought a vhs tape from the thrift store, and immediately I felt something wrong with it, but we played it anyways and now I think we have a demon or entity attached to our house and us.

I’m not really a witch or anything like that but I have mad respect the others practisers and just find your blog really interesting, but I’m totally willing to do like a ritual or ritual burning to get it off of us, especially because my sister leaves for her flight back home in like two weeks and I don’t want that attached to her in case something bad happens.

First, thanks for enjoying my blog!

Sorry to hear that you're dealing with this. Has something happened that makes you feel like there is now an entity attached to y'all? If you haven't experienced anything supernatural aside from a bad feeling then perhaps there was nothing wrong with the tape, to begin with. Sometimes we just get wigged out by things and that's perfectly normal.

If there is an entity attached to the tape I doubt it's malicious. Often when there is just a spirit or something bopping around they're just chilling and maybe occasionally playing a prank, but are relatively harmless. Kinda like how spiders hang around the house. You might not like it and it may creep you out, but ultimately they aren't there to hurt you, they're just hanging out.

This doesn't mean you have to just deal with the entity, you can tell them to leave. Usually a simple statement, out loud and firm, is enough to set a boundary for a spirit to leave you alone. Just like "hey if there is a spirit here from the tape we watched, we need you to leave." and it would be a good idea then to politely dispose of the VHS tape (like recycling it, for example).

If it's a home-recorded tape then maybe your local library would be interested in it for record-keeping purposes. My library keeps home videos on file (with permission) for future reference in the genealogy section.

I hope this helps a bit! If anyone else has any insight for anon please feel free to leave it in a comment or reblog! <3

[daisywords]

On “realistic dialogue”

You may have heard of a book being praised for having “realistic dialogue.” But what does that really mean? When writing dialogue, should we be striving for realism at all costs, or are there other factors to consider?

First, let’s look at what makes dialogue realistic in the first place. Most dialogue is meant to mimic natural human conversation—or, in other words, the characters are supposed to be speaking without planning their every word ahead of time.

Real-life conversations usually fit into the category of “unplanned discourse,” which just means what you probably think it means. “Planned discourse,” on the other hand, includes things like news articles, essays, or instruction manuals. That isn’t to say that anything spoken is unplanned and anything written is planned, however. A speech might exhibit more features of planned discourse, and a text message might look pretty unplanned, for example.

Dialogue in fiction is an interesting phenomenon, because it’s usually planned discourse masquerading as unplanned discourse. If you’ve ever struggled with your dialogue sounding not like something your character would say, but rather like something you, the writer, would write, that’s why.

Features to include:

Let’s say you have a character who needs to tell another character about an interesting encounter. You might have something like this:

“When I was leaving the hotel, I was approached by a man in the lobby, who asked me if I had met Sarah yet. I thought he must have been mistaking me for someone else, so I told him he had the wrong person. But then he just slipped a piece of paper into my bag and walked out the door. After that, a woman came around the corner and asked if I was Sarah”

This sounds a little stiff. It might be perfect, for example, if a character is testifying in court and is choosing their words very carefully. They’ve probably thought about this little speech ahead of time. But what if we want to make it sound more like the character is relating this story to a friend in the car right after being picked up from the hotel? They might say something more like this:

“So I’m leaving the hotel, and this man comes up to me. He says something like ‘Did you meet Sarah yet?’ And I’m thinking he’s mistaking me for someone else. And I try to tell him that, but he just puts this piece of paper in my bag, and leaves. And then this other woman comes around the corner. And she asks me if I’m Sarah.”

So what’s the difference here? The first one you probably noticed is that the character tells the story in present tense instead of past tense. Why would they do this? It is something that happened in the past, but the truth is that a lot of English speakers don’t realize how often we slip into the present tense to talk about past events when we are speaking.

Another change is the use of deictic determiners instead of articles. “This man,” “this piece of paper,” instead of “a man,” “a piece of paper.” The sentences are also structurally simpler, and the connections between ideas are not as explicitly defined. Words like “because” are used less, in favor of letting the ideas stand as separate sentences, or the use of a simple “and.”

Unplanned discourse also uses less passive voice—it focuses on who’s doing something instead of what’s being done to something else. “I was approached by a man” is passive, while “this man comes up to me” is active, and thus the second phrase would be more likely to appear in unplanned discourse.

Features to leave out:

On the other hand, there can be such a thing as dialogue sounding too realistic. What?

Well as you may have noticed, people aren’t always the best at expressing themselves in a very concise way. People reword sentences, interrupt themselves, and stumble over their words. And we use a ton of filler words. Have you ever recorded a conversation and tried to transcribe some of it? If you haven’t, you might want to try it, just for fun!

If you do, you’ll see why you probably don’t want your dialogue to sound exactly like someone talking in real life. It would get pretty painful to read. Things that we ignore and filter out when we listen to someone in real life stick out on the page.

Let’s look at a real-life example from a conversation I recently transcribed for a project:

“I don't know, like they couldn't like—each newspaper had, like, different things. Like that time like, I don't know what, but he like couldn't move properly very well. Like he's just really slow, couldn't speak super well, all these things.”

How might we want to rewrite this to turn it into good dialogue? Here’s what I came up with:

“I don’t know. Each newspaper said something different, but basically, he couldn’t move very well. He was just really slow, couldn’t speak super well, those sorts of things.”

What’s the difference?

Well first, we took out the filler word “like.” We’re used to hearing this and other filler words in conversation, so much that we may not really notice them. But we can get sick of them really quickly when we see them in writing.

From the real example, you can clearly see that the speaker is starting her sentences without knowing how she’s going to finish them. This makes her much less concise. She’s abandoning sentences and starting new ones, making her speech less efficient.

In rewriting, I could have made this even more concise. We could have changed it to something like this:

“The newspapers didn’t agree on the details, but he had trouble moving and speaking.”

But to me, that sounds like a different character is speaking. I can’t imagine the original speaker really saying something that way—so it’s a balance.

In dialogue, we don’t generally want to sacrifice efficiency for realism. The best dialogue has both: it packs a lot of meaning into a few words, and it sounds like something a person might actually say. I guess that’s the bottom line: as a rule of thumb, use the more realistic features I’ve mentioned when they retain efficiency, and don’t use them when they don’t.

In conclusion

Most conversations will be pretty “unplanned.” Using more “planned” features can demonstrate that this is something the character is saying very deliberately or has thought about before. Some characters can use more “planned” features than other characters—what does this say about the character? Do they often think before they speak?

Remember: good dialogue doesn’t imitate real speech exactly—and that’s okay.

Some features of unplanned discourse are better to include in dialogue than others:

Give these a try:

Present tense

Active voice

Simplistic structure

This/that/these/those

Use sparingly:

Lack of concision, roundabout speaking

Filler words

[mypoisonedvine]

𝙼𝙴𝙴𝚃 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙼𝚄𝙽𝚂𝙾𝙽𝚂 - chapter 10: all the love in the world. FINALE.

𝚜𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚜 𝚖𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝

𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚜𝚞𝚖𝚖𝚊𝚛𝚢 - the end is just the beginning.

𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚍 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝 - over 10k

𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 - SMUT (18+ only, I warned y'all from the beginning), emotions, angst, fluff, more stepcesty stuff, brief pregnancy mention/discussion, reader's mom gets a first name sorry if that breaks the illusion for anyone

(thank you to everyone who read this series, it's been such an adventure and I'm glad I could take you with me <3)

Eddie cleared his throat as he stood in front of the crowd gathered in the backyard— small, but still a crowd.  "Well, um, hi," he waved at the seated guests, most of whom waved back.  "Bet you never thought you'd see me in a suit, right?" 

Scattered, polite laughs rippled through the group.

"Um, neither did I.  And I never thought I'd see the day that my uncle got married, either, but here we are.  Wayne's never had much luck with the ladies— I guess it's proof we're related, right?" he chuckled nervously, scratching the back of his neck briefly.  "Anyways— I knew something was different when he came home from dinner with a 'friend' —" Eddie gestured with dramatic air quotes— "and couldn't stop smiling.  I've got some pretty great friends but, they don't make me smile like that."

He glanced at you, and you offered your best reassuring smile-and-thumbs-up combo.

"He told me a couple days later that he'd met this woman,” Eddie continued, glancing down at the cards again.  “Apparently he helped her find something at the hardware store.  I was so happy for him that I resisted the urge to make an insensitive joke about if he was going to 'nail' her."

You snorted out an embarrassed laugh, and you caught your mom’s expression: clearly a little shocked, but thankfully, amused.

"And, uh, I met her a couple weeks later, and she said she liked my hair,” Eddie recalled.  “So I knew she was cool.  But most of all, I knew she was right for my uncle.  He's a pretty stoic guy— and I don't think I've ever seen him laugh in my entire life the way he can laugh in one night with Donna.  They're so right for each other it's nuts.  It hasn't been an easy road to today for either of them.  I think some people think you can only love one person in your life, but they're wrong: you can have an amazing life, and an amazing family, and an amazing daughter with someone…"

Your heart was in your throat already.

"...and you can still find happiness with someone else down the line.  And I can’t think of anyone more deserving of that than you, Donna."

Shit.  You were worried about crying during your own speech.  You hadn’t even considered that you might cry over Eddie’s.

"Donna, you're too nice for your own good.  You took me in just because you love my uncle so much— and that says everything about the kind of person you are.  You've given me a roof over my head, you've given me way more credit than I deserve, and you've given me a really cool sister.  She's actually cooler than me, which is annoying."

You laughed a little, but bit your lip when a sob almost came out.

"Wayne— I won't say too much because I'm not about to cry in front of all these people.  I think everything I really need to say, you already know.  But in case you don't… you're more of a dad to me than my father’s even been.  I’d be in the clink or in a ditch somewhere if you hadn’t been there to straighten me out.  I know I didn’t always make it easy on you… actually, I almost never made it easy on you.  You taught me almost everything I know, except the guitar— and I’m gonna need you to teach me how to find such an amazing lady, and how to make it last.  Deal?”

Wayne nodded at him, and the guests clapped politely as Eddie left his place standing in front of them to give his uncle a hug and his new aunt-slash-mother-figure a kiss on the cheek.  On shaky legs, you stood up and hoped you could find some way to follow that.

Your heart raced as you found yourself facing all those guests; last time you’d been standing in front of them all, you’d been behind your mother at the altar, so they were all looking at her.  Now you were alone and had all their attention to yourself; Eddie took his seat and shot you a thumbs up before you started.

You glanced down at your notes, holding onto them for dear life.  Thank everyone for coming & joke about beer, the first line of the first index card read.

“Well,” you began, feeling your heart rate pick up, “I’d like to begin by thanking you all for coming.  It means so much to us that you’re here, and I know you all wouldn’t miss an opportunity for free beer.”

It was a safe joke, and it got a safe laugh, and you looked at the next line for guidance: When Mom first met Wayne…

“When Mom first met Wayne,” you repeated, “she… actually didn’t tell me.”

That seemed to surprise a few people.

“I guess she was afraid that I wouldn’t approve, either of him or of her dating again at all.  Sadly, her fears weren’t… totally misplaced,” you admitted, cringing slightly.  “But only because, when it comes to any man who wants to be in my mom’s life, I have incredibly high standards.  And anyone who knew my father knows why.”

You flipped to the next card.  DAD it said at the top, with more notes of the points you wanted to cover beneath.  You froze, wondering if you had the strength to go on with what you’d written.

“Um… after my dad passed away…” you started, voice getting a bit weaker— they were all staring at you, that was something you hadn’t properly appreciated when you were preparing this speech, that they’d all be staring like this.  “It was hard, obviously.  It’s not easy for anyone to lose a partner, or a parent.  I know it was harder on my mom than she let on— she was trying to be strong for me.  And I was just trying to pretend like everything was fine.  But it wasn’t, and we were both hurting a lot.  Our family was… broken, it was missing something.  And, of course, no one could fill the space my dad left behind— but I didn’t know someone could make my mom that happy again.”

Shakily, you put the card at the back of the stack and stared at the next heading: WAYNE.  Hard working, compassionate and passionate, nicer than he looks.

“Wayne, though, is truly a special man.  He’s hard-working, compassionate and passionate, and I’ve learned that he’s not as intimidating as he looks,” you smiled.  “I wouldn’t have blamed him at all for basically ignoring me completely— he knows I’m not a kid anymore, and he knows he doesn’t exactly need my approval to be with my mom.  But, he also knows how important we are to each other, and he’s been nothing but supportive of me.  Congrats, Mom, you might’ve gotten one of the last good ones.”

Again, polite laughter for an easy joke— if perhaps a bit more feminist than your average piece of wedding-speech-humor— but when you glanced up, you caught a smirk on Eddie’s face.

You looked down at your cards again, turning to the next one.  EDDIE it said at the top… but the rest was blank.  Fuck, you’d been putting off this part to the very last second— and the last second passed about ten minutes ago.  You let out a nervous “um” as you stalled, trying to imagine what the fuck you could possibly say about Eddie.  “A-and, well,” you choked, “what could I say about Eddie… that hasn't already been said over police radios all across the county."

They laughed, but you only cared if Eddie laughed at that one, so you'd know if you'd gone too far.  You heard his laugh first and loudest, and you smiled to yourself.

"But, in all seriousness: Eddie, you're…" you trailed off again.  You looked at him, which was a huge mistake; the way he was looking at you was just overwhelming.  You glanced down at your cards again quickly.  "You're definitely one of a kind," you decided, "and I'm… really, really lucky to have you in my life."

The crowd was filled with awwws, but you refused to look up from that blank index card.  It was your only protection now— you felt terribly vulnerable in front of everyone, admitting things you hadn't even admitted to yourself.  You took a deep, but shaky, breath in and out.

"They say you can't choose your family," you continued.  "And even in this case, when we're not actually related, it's true.  But— but I'd choose you anyways."

For a second, you almost thought Eddie was tearing up, but he was looking down and it was dark out already, so you couldn’t quite tell.  You flipped to your last index card.  Close out.  

“It’s so special to be with you all here tonight,” you nodded, “celebrating Mom and Wayne— the hottest couple in Hawkins.  Cheers!”

Glasses raised and clinked, and you gave your mom and your new stepfather a hug on your way back to your own seat.

As the night progressed, dinner turned to dancing and slightly heavier drinking— although it turns out older crowds don’t go quite as bananas for free alcohol as high school and college students do, shockingly.

“Can I get you a drink?” Eddie asked you after finding you keeping mostly to yourself in the corner.

“I’m, uh, not much of a drinker,” you informed him.

“Will you come dance with me?” he asked next.

“I’m not much of a dancer, either,” you laughed.

“Neither am I,” he assured with a laugh, extending a hand out to you.  “Just come with me.”

You gave him a look.  “What’s with the insistence?”

“I want you to have fun, is that so terrible?” he pressed.

“Since when is dancing with you ‘fun’?” you noticed.

He gave you a wide grin as one song faded out, and the next one began: Into The Groove by Madonna, the one Eddie had heard you singing along to loudly in your room however long ago.  “I know you dance to this one,” he smirked.

Groaning in defeat, but smiling a bit as the guilty pleasure song played, you took his hand and let him drag you to the middle of the yard.  Of course, for a song like this, dancing together is more just dancing near each other, but he was right— it was fun.

“I’m tired of dancing here all by myself, tonight I wanna dance with someone else!” the lyrics announced as you and Eddie bounced around uncoordinatedly; maybe you looked sort of stupid, but hey, you already had the uncomfortable fluff of a Pepto Bismol pink dress on so it wasn’t like you were ever at risk of looking elegant or anything…

Thankfully the weather was nice and the dark evening was getting even cooler, so working up some heat dancing this way actually served as a protection from the chilly breeze— Eddie had a flush on his face by the time the song was almost over, a rosy tint over his nose and cheeks and the slightest shine on his forehead from the exertion.

In a few minutes, the music changed, from fast and upbeat to something slow and gentle— you recognized it as soon as that familiar voice began to croon: “I can hear so much in your sighs, and I can see so much in your eyes…”

You smiled a little, remembering singing along to The Beach Boys when Eddie was practicing his guitar.  You thought instantly that this song would sound so much better if he were singing it instead, even if you loved the original.

Some people left the dance floor, some couples got up to dance, but everyone had stopped the energetic dancing and had begun to move much more slowly, holding each other… it was all very romantic, except that you were just standing there staring at Eddie as he awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck.

“There are words we both could say…”

He cleared his throat, and when he opened his mouth, you were so afraid he was about to make an excuse to leave.  I’m gonna get a beer, you want one? or I should check in on the happy couple or something— and, hoping to stop him, you suddenly put your hands on his shoulders.

Looking at you again, he blinked those brown eyes quickly but stepped closer to you anyways.  Your hands were still on his shoulders, but you never actually found the strength to push him away, so he put his hands on your waist and suddenly you were slow dancing.  “But don’t talk, put your head on my shoulder…”

Your breathing was shaky and you hoped he wouldn’t notice; his thumb moved slightly where it held your waist through your dress, and you felt every touch amplified by your anxiety-awakened skin.

“Come close, close your eyes and be still,” the gentle singing played from the speakers, “take my hand and let me hear your heartbeat.”

Hesitating at first, you leaned your head forward and let it rest on his chest; he tilted his head down to look at you, but you didn’t look back at him, you just couldn’t take that right now.  You really could hear his heartbeat, even without pressing your ear right up to him, even through the white button-up dress shirt; it was strong and fast, and your eyes fell shut.

“Being here with you feels so right, we could live forever tonight,” the song continued, “let's not think about tomorrow and don't talk, put your head on my shoulder—”

Swaying together, you felt Eddie hold you a little tighter, but he could never hold you tight enough.  He could never hold you long enough.  

“Thank you,” he whispered, and you blinked your eyes quickly so you could lean back and look up at him.

“For what?” you wondered.

“Being nice to me,” he replied.  “Just for tonight— you can be mean again tomorrow.”

You laughed a little, looking down at where his shiny black shoes stepped in time with your pink kitten heels.  But then you felt his hand on your waist squeeze gently again and you sighed.  Silence returned, but it wasn’t awkward, just… quiet.  Except for, you know, the music, which went on as you danced together.

“Don’t talk, put your head on my shoulder…”

When the song ended all too soon, you stepped back slightly and looked up at Eddie, wondering if he could see everything in your eyes— it felt like he could, it looked like he could with the way he was looking back at you.

There was only a second of silence before the next song came on, and the melody played on plunky synths gave it away instantly as Take My Breath Away by Berlin.  You exhaled a quick laugh and Eddie took his hands off your back.  “I hate this song,” you announced.

“Me too,” he agreed, “so cheesy.”

You nodded and crossed one arm over your chest to hold the other nervously, starting to awkwardly glance around the reception.

“Wanna get out of here?” he offered, and you looked up at him.

“Eddie, we can’t leave,” you said when you realized what he was suggesting.  

“Yeah we can,” he dismissed with a wave of his hand, “just for a few minutes— they won’t even notice.”

You hesitated before nodding; “Y-yeah, sure…”

He grabbed your wrist and guided you across the yard to the fence, specifically the darkest corner of the fence where he took a cursory glance to make sure no one was looking before lacing his fingers together and holding them down for you.  “Here,” he offered, tilting his head towards the fence.  

You started to lift your foot before you put it on the ground again.  “Wait.  You’re not gonna look up my skirt, are you?”

He sighed.  “Do you really think so little of me, sweetheart?”

Sufficiently guilted, you stepped on his hands and let him give you a lift up so you could grab the top of the fence, just barely getting the leverage you needed to pull one leg over.

“Ooh, cute lace,” he praised lasciviously.

“God damn it,” you hissed, flinging yourself over and managing to land upright on both feet on the other side— it was easier to get down this way because a hill was just starting and the ground was a bit higher.  Eddie hauled himself up a moment later, jumping down onto the other side and dusting himself off afterwards.

You walked up the hill together as he promised to take you to some place he knew about— you just hoped it wasn’t too far, because these silken flats weren’t exactly built for distance.

It wasn’t far at all, actually; it was just past the treeline, over the highest point of the hill, and when Eddie guided you out to where he’d stopped, you gasped at the view.  From here, you could see nearly all of Hawkins— twinkling lights in rows and columns, cars driving down streets, the old church, the town hall—

“Oh my god,” you breathed.  “From here, it almost doesn’t look like the shittiest little town ever.”

He laughed.  “I know, right?”

“When did you find this place?” you asked.

He sat down on the grass and patted beside him for you to sit, too.  “Well,” he began as you tried to find a comfortable way to sit in the dress, “it must’ve been about a week after I moved in.  I went on a walk and sorta just stumbled on it.”

You laughed and sighed simultaneously, shaking your head.  “I’ve lived here for years, and never knew I was one hill away from the best view of the town; you’re here a week and you find this.”

“I think your problem is you have all these amazing things right in front of you,” he decided, “but you don’t know how to look for them.”

“Is that supposed to be a metaphor?” you pressed.

He shrugged.  “It’s just something I noticed.”

A long lull fell in the conversation while the two of you looked out over the lights of Hawkins.  The music from the reception seemed to follow the wind, and with a gust of breeze, you heard guitars and melodic singing: Josie’s on a vacation far away, come around and talk it over…

You laughed, just to yourself, but then started to laugh harder until you were holding your stomach and falling back into the grass.

“What?” Eddie laughed with you.  “What’s so funny?”

You tried to tell him, but you were laughing too hard to make sense.

“Come on,” he whined, and you composed yourself enough to string a sentence together.

“I hated you,” you laughed, “god, I hated you in high school!  You were so… loud!  And you didn’t care what anyone thought of you— and back then, I thought that was a bad thing, I thought it was impossible.  And now— now that nothing can ever happen with us, of course that’s when I start falling for you.”

You didn’t even care that you’d said it, you didn’t even care that he was looking at you that way or that it felt like getting stabbed in the chest.  Your laughter stopped, and you bit your lip to keep it from turning into tears.

“And I just think that’s funny,” you concluded.

“Yeah,” he smiled, looking down at the ground, “yeah, it is funny.”

You were looking out at the horizon, the lights all over Hawkins going out as stores closed and families went to bed and your sleepy little town really slept, when Eddie scooted a little closer to you.

“One question,” he requested.  “Uh… remind me why nothing can ever happen with us?”

“‘Cause my mom, and your uncle,” you sighed.  Your eyes glanced down at your legs, seeing his stretched out beside them, one ringed hand resting on his bent knee as the other kept him propped up in the grass.  “They’re married, in case you didn’t notice.”

“Yeah,” he sighed, “they really love each other, huh?”

You nodded.

“Wayne told me when he was gonna propose to your mom,” Eddie said suddenly.  “I asked him what he was gonna say, and he said, ‘I’m just gonna tell her the truth.’”

You smiled.  “That’s why they work.  The truth is exactly what she needs.”

“What do you need?”

You looked down at the grass.  “I… I don’t know.”

"Maybe," he whispered, "I could finally tell you the truth, too."

You gave him an expectant stare, and he coughed a bit, but continued.

“Okay, well, the truth is,” Eddie began, “I like who I am when I’m with you.  I know you don’t, really, but… I do.  And when I’m not with you, I’m usually thinking about you.  ‘Usually’ as in, ‘always’.”

As he looked at you, searching your expression for some reaction, he leaned in a little closer.

“And I had a bit of a thing for you in high school— I mean, as much as I could, without ever talking to you,” he added.  “Except that one time.”

You remembered it well, normally, but suddenly you forgot everything you ever knew as he moved even closer, his face right in front of yours, his eyes giving you a look that made you shiver.

“And I love you,” he leaned in to kiss your cheek, “I love you,” he kissed the other, “I love you.”

He kissed just beside your nose, and you whimpered: “Eddie—”

He held your face in both his hands, pulling back to look at you closely.  “No, don’t break my heart just yet.  Let me tell you one more time.  I love you.”

You took a shaky breath.  “I thought you hated me,” you whispered.

He looked hurt, and as a tear fell from your eye, he wiped it away with his thumb.  “No, no baby— how could you think that?”

“Because…” you trailed off.  “Because the way I love you makes me hate myself.”

With him giving you that devastated look, you figured you had to continue before you made it too much worse.

“You’re everything I wish I could be,” you explained, “you’re crazy and you’re confident and you’re free.  You don’t care what people think.  And I’m—”

“Uptight, self-conscious, and perfectionistic?” he finished, and you frowned.

“Hey…” you mumbled defensively, looking down, but he lifted your face again.

“Those are all the things I love about you,” he explained.  “I love everything about you.  I knew how you felt about me back then— it didn’t stop me from having a massive crush on you.”

“First it’s a ‘bit of a thing’, now it’s a ‘massive crush’?” you noticed with a raised eyebrow, and he laughed as his cheeks tinted.

“Can’t get anything past you, huh?” he sighed.  “Yeah, I was really into you.  I told myself that you were really this creative, passionate, wild-and-crazy sort of girl beneath the goody-two-shoes shell— that you were just waiting for someone to break you out of that prison you built for yourself.  And I imagined that it was me, that one day you’d ask me for something and we would start talking and you would end up begging me to take you away from it all.  To steal you from that asshole Gary and sweep you off your feet— and we would get in the van and leave it all behind.  Fuck Hawkins, fuck high school, fuck everybody.”

You sniffled, clutching at his tuxedo jacket’s lapel.  “Eddie…” you whispered, not sure how to say anything more than that.

“We’d find shitty jobs and a shitty apartment somewhere in the middle of a town that actually matters,” he continued, “and we’d sleep on the floor the first night because there wasn’t time to pick out a bed.  I could play guitar on a street corner and buy you flowers with whatever coins people toss in the case, and you could take enough pictures to cover the walls so we don’t need wallpaper.  And we’d find a stray cat in the rain and bring it inside and name it something metal like Sabbath or Zeppelin.  And it would all be so stupid, so massively irresponsible, but it would be our stupid irresponsible little life together.  And it would be fucking beautiful.”

Biting your lip, you still couldn’t stop yourself from crying as tears fell down your heated cheeks.  “Eddie, that’s what I wanted,” you sighed.  “I didn’t know it then, but that’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“Then let’s do it,” he whispered, and it was you that closed the gap— it was you that kissed him, finally, holding on tighter to his jacket as you inhaled sharply and pressed your lips onto his.

They really were soft, just like you thought they’d be; but he tasted different than you expected, maybe because he hadn’t smoked recently.  But he tasted like the way the air smells after it rains, and beer, and the leftover sweetness of wedding cake frosting.  You breathed against his skin and tasted it more as he deepened the kiss, letting yourself really melt into it, letting him hold you tighter and move his lips with yours however he wanted.

His hand gently reached up to hold the back of your head; the other stroked your cheek one more time before drifting down to your waist.

It was surreal— it was hyperreal— it was Eddie, you were kissing Eddie.  Eddie Munson, the freak, the loser, the delinquent; Eddie Munson, your technical-relative; Eddie Munson, that guy who wouldn’t sit still for the damn yearbook photo.

Somehow, thinking about it like that just made you smile a bit and kiss him harder.

What was originally gentle and comforting and sweet started to shift after a few moments, as he opened his mouth wider and gripped your waist harder and let you feel some of that hunger— god, you knew the feeling too well, and you scooted forward in the grass to press yourself to him a bit.  He hummed, low and soft, and you whimpered in return as your noises were nearly lost in the kiss.

You held on tighter to his lapel, then reached up to squeeze his shoulders, and he groaned— fuck, it was the sexiest thing you’d heard since… no, actually, it was just the sexiest thing you’d ever heard.

Gasping against his lips, you pushed him down roughly by those shoulders, pinning him to the grass as you swung your leg and straddled his lap.  “Fuck,” he muttered, pulling you down to kiss him again.

It was shameless now, all lips and tongue and teeth— when he gently bit on your lower lip you thought you might really go actually crazy— as your hands gripped at his shirt to feel his chest while his touch ran down your back, up your legs, basically anywhere he could reach.

Just when you thought this was it, you were really going to get it over with right here and now after all these years, he broke away.  “Baby, wait,” he choked out, shrinking back, and you froze as you pulled away by sitting up slightly.

“What?” you asked, terrified you were about to get your heart kicked back into its cage when you freed it for the first time in years.

“Th-this is a rental,” he blurted out, motioning slightly at the tux he had on.

After a moment’s pause, you started to laugh.  And he laughed, too.  You relaxed slightly and sat back on his thighs; he sat up and pulled you into a hug, kissing the side of your head while it was nearby.  The laughter died down, and the moment passed, and you let each other out of the embrace.  

“We should probably get back now,” he decided, and you nodded in agreement.

He took your hand and you ran together through the grass, back towards the sound of the backyard reception, back to the real world.

The whole crowd of guests stood out front and waved as Wayne and your mom drove away — for all the effort you put into getting a nice vintage Cadillac for the send-off, it looked pretty tacky with the streamers and cans tied to it, clanking as it drove down the cul-de-sac.

When they were out of sight, you and Eddie took one more deep breath before turning to the guests behind you.  “Thank you all so much for coming!” you announced.  

And that was basically what you did for the next fifteen minutes: shake a bunch of hands, wave goodbye, thank everyone for their attendance and gifts.  When they left, the rest of your work was only beginning, and it was nearly midnight!  Eddie offered to wash dishes and take out the trash while you took down decorations and paid the guys coming to take back the rented stereo equipment.

Thankfully, with the two of you, it went pretty quickly.  There was more to do, but it could wait until the morning; it’s not like having tables and chairs set up in your backyard overnight is a crime or something.

When you were done with your tasks, you leaned up against the entryway to the kitchen, finding Eddie drying the last plate.  He looked over his shoulder at you for a second, smiling, before drying his hands and setting it all down to face you:  his jacket was long gone and his bowtie hung untied loosely around an unbuttoned collar that exposed a hint of clavicle and chest hair.  

“So, house to ourselves,” he noticed, glancing around.  “We throwin’ a rager or what?”

You smiled softly, glancing down.  

He approached you slowly and carefully, reaching up to hold your shoulders when he was close enough.  Even now you felt a little shaky, a little nervous to be this close to him even when you’d already kissed, but his gentle smile soothed you; so you did it, you stood up a bit taller and kissed him.

It wasn’t as sudden as the last one, so it wasn’t as rushed, and yet there was a creeping sense of urgency to it because you both realized it could go somewhere— maybe it didn’t have to, but with an empty house and no time limit or deadline coming up, anything could happen tonight.

As you clutched his shirt and pulled him closer with an inhale through your nose, feeling his hands take your waist and press you to him, you realized that you wanted it to go somewhere.  Not just anywhere— you knew exactly where you wanted this to go.

“Bed,” you blurted out, pulling back to look up at him.  “We— we should go to bed.”

“Okay,” he agreed, sounding a little breathless, “top or bottom?”

You laughed as he started guiding you with him already.  “Mine, for sure,” you decided.

“Aw,” he pouted as you walked through the bedroom door, “I’ve been thinking about getting you in my bed for ages— not gonna let me have my fantasy, huh?”

As you fell back onto your bottom bunk, pulling him down with you, he got the angle wrong and smacked his forehead on the wood between the mattresses; you laughed, covering your mouth when you felt guilty for it, and he scrunched up his nose as he held his head for a second.  “That was my fantasy,” you joked, and he laughed in return as he ducked a little too dramatically now to join you in the bed.

The lower bunk could feel a bit like a cave sometimes, in a cozy sort of way— but with Eddie on top of you, it was like it was all closing in on you as his weight dipped you both deeper into the mattress than ever.  That probably sounds horribly claustrophobic, but it was actually nice.  You felt safe and shockingly not-vulnerable considering the circumstances, even as he started to unzip the back of your dress while he kissed you again.

For your part, you were absolutely flying through his shirt’s buttons, sighing when it was opened and you could run your hands over his warm skin beneath.  His tattoos looked better than ever peeking out from under a tuxedo shirt, though you only got a brief glimpse of him before his lips on your neck all but forced your head to tilt back.

“Sensitive,” he noticed with a whisper, but just one word said like that made you mewl and work harder to get his shirt off.  But before you could get it all the way over his shoulders, he managed to get your dress down enough to expose your chest— and he hungrily sucked on your breasts as soon as he could.

“Oh god,” you whined, hips rocking up into nothing.  

“Here too,” he laughed as he kissed from one to the other, looking up at you for a second.  “Are you always this… responsive?”

You almost laughed imagining that Eddie really thought Gary had ever gotten this kind of reaction out of you.  You bit your lip and shook your head, and a little snarl curled his lips as he growled at you.  

“Just for me, then?” he assumed, and you nodded.  “That’s so sexy— you’re so sexy…”

“You too,” you admitted as he suckled at your chest again.  “I-I thought about this.”

“Yeah?” he breathed.  “I thought about this, too— a lot.”

You smiled proudly, before he broke away and sat up slightly to tug your dress off down your legs.  He purred again as he admired you laying there beneath him, naked spare for your panties, but he surprised you by coming back down to kiss your stomach— not exactly where you expected him to start, but okay— and beginning to move lower and lower…

Oh, fuck.  He looked up at you as he kept making his way down, fingers tucking into your panties so he could slide them down your thighs.  

Even obviously knowing what was coming, you gasped loudly when his lips latched onto your pussy.  “F-fuck!” you choked as his tongue lapped at you eagerly, suction tugging on your clit until your insides throbbed helplessly.

He held onto your legs and pushed his face harder against you, sliding his tongue deeper inside you, shutting his eyes tight while he seemed to feed on your need until you had to grab on to the support beams on either side of your head.  You felt him smile down there— cocky little shit— and go even harder.

The pleasure was heavy on your gut, like a weight keeping you pinned down, even though you longed so much to rock up into it for more.  “I— oh my god…”

He moaned against you, the most perfect sound muffled by your body, his fingers digging a little harder into your soft skin.  He was ruthless, and when you were nearly screaming, he just took it as a sign to go harder on you— he chased your pleasure fast enough that he had it captured in just a few minutes.

“I— I’m— oh god, Eddie,” you whined.  “I’m… I’m so close…”

He nodded and hummed against you but refused to slow down for even a second, just shutting his eyes tighter as he focused all his strength into keeping your hips still so he had total control over the way his mouth took you apart piece by piece.

One of your hands shot down and took a tight hold on his hair, but his groan of pain actually sounded rather pleased.  “Don’t stop, don’t stop,” you begged, “oh my god—”

Your neck craned back and your spine arched so hard you lifted off the bed for a second, and he just opened his mouth wide and left his tongue stuck out so you could ride it shamelessly, the fireworks going off behind your eyelids as your orgasm shook your body.

You said his name a few more times, not really meaning to but needing to, and his heavy breaths fanned over your flushed skin.  

Only when you shakily sank back down into the bed, loosening your grip on his mane, did he break away and sit up to look down at you with a swallow and satisfied sigh.

“What’d you do that for?” you panted, unable to fight your own smile at the sight of his: wide and sparkling with slick that dripped down to his chin.

“‘Cause somebody oughta,” he explained, finally taking his shirt off all the way since you never actually got around to it.

“But I didn’t mean to come so fast…”

“It’s better this way— I already know I won’t be able to last long with you,” he admitted, leaning forward and capturing you in a messy kiss that tasted like— well, I bet you can guess what it tasted like.  Wedding cake, of course!

His breathing was heavy, too, as he tried to divide his mental energy between kissing you and unbuttoning his tuxedo pants; once that was done he pushed them down his thighs just enough that he could guide your hand to his aching cock, and you let out a long whimper of a breath as you wrapped your fingers around it.  God, it was literally hot, he must be burning up, and the drip of arousal running down made everything all smooth as you ran your fingers over the delicate skin.

“Put it in for me,” he instructed you under his breath, so as he lowered his hips down, you lifted your own a bit and guided him to your opening.  He gasped before he was even inside, just feeling your heat on the very tip of his cock; and as he delicately slid in, you groaned and dropped your head back.

A deep satisfaction filled you— literally— when his hips were flush with yours, full to the brim and gasping as he laid down on top of you.  

“So perfect,” he breathed as he brushed loose hair away from your face.  “I love you so much.”

You really didn’t wanna cry right now, it would be stupid, right?  It would be too weird.  You reached up and grabbed onto the back of his neck to make him kiss you again.  “I love you too,” you replied only when you were ready to say it without your voice breaking.

He started to move, careful and slow, and for some reason you just needed to say it again, mumbled into the kiss.

“I love you,” you repeated, reaching up to hold onto his back.  He nodded against you with a sigh of his own.

“I know,” he promised, “I know…”

And even if he knew, it just felt good to finally say it, and not even feel bad about it— not a drop of guilt or regret or self-consciousness.  That could wait for the morning.

Holding each other tightly, you found a steady pace— and then it was Eddie’s turn to hold onto one of the beams by your head as he buried his face in your neck.  “God,” he grunted, “so fuckin’ wet— you’re dripping for me, sweetheart…”

Whimpering, you let your nails dig into his back and your legs wrap around his hips.

“Fuck,” he moaned, kissing your neck hungrily.  The stretch inside you was pleasurable enough, but then with his lips and tongue and teeth on your pulse, a tingling feeling danced up your back and you nearly sobbed from how good it felt.  And then he let go of the beam to toy with your hard nipple, and you thought you might lose your cool again right away.  “Fuck!” he said again, louder, as he picked up his pace.  “Y-you squeezed me so tight, baby, did you feel that?  Oh my god…”

You hadn’t felt it, until he made you do it again, and you noticed that time with a wavering cry of his name.

“Promise me something,” he panted as he lifted his head to look down at our face.  “Never stop saying my name like that.”

He kissed you before you could properly agree to it, slipping his hands under your back the next time it arched so he could hug you tightly as he thrusted much, much faster.

“Fuck, m’gonna come,” he whimpered, “I’m sorry— I really wanted to last longer, but god, you’re so— you— fuck!”

“S’okay,” you insisted, “just come— oh my god, Eddie, I want you to come—”

“Baby, baby,” he whined pleadingly as his head fell onto your shoulder, “don’t say that, I don’t want it to end so soon…”

“It doesn’t matter,” you promised, “just come, please, inside me—”

“Christ,” he blurted out, taking a tight hold of your hips and tossing his head back as his movements became a blur against your numbing, sticky walls.  “I— fuck, you’re sure I don’t have to pull out?”

You nodded as you gripped his arms.  “I’m sure, please please Eddie—!”

He gasped loudly and gave you an extra sudden, sharp thrust— and you started to feel it, his cock flexing in you, his heat flooding you, both of you panting as you started to still.

A long sigh accompanied his collapsing onto you, catching his breath between kisses all along your neck and face.

“I really, really tried not to come that fast,” he laughed breathlessly, and you just hugged onto his torso tighter.

“So did I,” you promised.  “I-it’s fine, really… I’m definitely satisfied, I mean, fuck— that was… fuck.”

“Yeah…” he agreed.

And you both fell asleep in seconds.  Because it was nearly two in the morning and you’d been working on the wedding shit all day and it was actually kind of a miracle you stayed awake long enough to do that in the first place!

You woke up hours later, the only light in the room just slivers of moonlight leaking through the window; he was behind you, holding you close, breathing on the back of your neck.  You held on tighter to the arm in front of your chest, leaning your head back into his chest, not expecting him to stir and sleepily plant a kiss on your head.

“Are you awake?” you whispered so softly there was any noise, but he nodded.

“Barely,” he admitted.  “You’re so warm…”

He hugged you tighter, then kissed you again— then lifted his head to kiss under your ear, by your jaw, just over your pulse…

You didn’t even mean to grind your ass into him, it was just that what he was doing made your back arch.  “Sweetheart,” he breathed, and that made you even hotter.  “I need you again.”

It was so easy to slide right in, your body still leaking his come from before, but even without that he could get you wet in seconds; you moaned lowly and tried to arch your back deeper to angle his cock just how you thought you wanted— but he grunted and pulled your back into his chest, wanting to feel as much of you as he could.  It made the angle of his thrusts a bit less natural and yet it forced him to rub right against your spot, and you shut your sleepy eyes tighter at the feeling.  “Fuck— like that, Eddie, just like that…”

He nodded in agreement and turned his gentle pecks on your shoulder into a full-on assault of tongue on anything he could reach, getting more desperate for you by the second.

That one lasted much longer— maybe hours, you were totally unable to keep track of time, but at some point he rolled you onto your stomach and rutted on top of you slowly.  He never had to pick up his pace to send you right into your first orgasm… or the second.

“Oh my god,” you sighed, “I’ll come again, oh fuck—”

“Good,” he praised roughly right into your ear, voice gravelly from sleep, “good— keep coming.  Don’t ever stop coming for me, baby, I love feeling it… I love hearing you, sound so fuckin’ pretty, sweetheart.”

You whined and bit your lip, reaching up to grab a handful of your pillow— but his hand reached over yours and interlaced his thick fingers with your shaking ones, soothing kisses trailing the side of your face as you sobbed softly.  He kept praising you and you, following instructions, kept coming until it wasn’t really a matter of counting them anymore— it was just this never-ending feeling that swallowed you whole, which would be scary if you were alone.  But he was right there with you, promising he’d never let you again.

It ended as gradually and softly as it started, and he hugged you into him for you to fall asleep again much more easily than you’d think after a wake-up like that.  When you awoke for good, the sun was high in the sky.  You couldn’t see the clock, because you were too busy looking up at his sleeping face, but you guessed it was at least nine or ten.  It was the latest you’d slept in years.

You didn’t want to wake him up, but staring at him and playing with his hair didn’t satisfy you forever, so you started to plant tiny kisses on his chest, and that stirred him from sleep with a happy groan.

“Hey,” he greeted, and you weren’t ready to see his eyes again, in the light of the day, knowing how easily you’d given in to him after trying to resist for so many reasons for so long.  You weren’t ready to wonder if this was just getting out some pent-up energy before parting for as long as you needed to be regular step-siblings. 

You just shut your eyes and laid your head on his bicep as he sat up on his side to look at you.

“Sleep okay?” he asked, and you snorted.  

“I mean, I slept great,” you smiled, “when I was sleeping.”

“Me too,” he agreed as he kissed your cheek.  “Open your eyes, baby, I wanna see you.”

“Mmm…” you groaned in protest, burying your face in the pillow when he tried to hold it. 

“C’mon,” he whined, “I miss you.”

“I’m right here!” you promised, but you gave in and let him turn your face towards him as your eyes blinked open.  You were right— you weren’t ready.  The way he was looking at you was impossible to ever move on from, and you’d never be able to do it if he asked you to.

“So, are we—?” he started.

“Don’t,” you said quickly, reaching up to lay a hand on his chest.  “Don’t ask me what we are, okay?  ‘Cause I don’t even know.”

“I… was just gonna ask if we were gonna go out for breakfast or cook ourselves,” he explained, and you felt a heat on your face in embarrassment.  “I kinda worked up an appetite there, believe it or not.”

“Oh,” you sighed, “um, I can cook something.”

You made a move to get up and he pulled you back down.  “N-no, wait,” he frowned.

“I thought you were hungry,” you noticed.

“Yeah… but I don’t want you to go,” he sighed, keeping you close.  There was a brief pause as you laughed softly, his arm wrapping around you.  “And also I wanna talk about that thing you don’t wanna talk about.”

“Ugh, Eddie,” you groaned, “can’t it wait a little longer?”

“Sure, but can I at least ask you to be my girlfriend first?” he requested.

“You know I can’t,” you sighed, “I’m already your stepsister.”

“See, here’s the thing— I was thinking about that earlier,” he explained, “and what I realized is that… I don’t actually… care, so—”

“What if I care?” you wondered.

“You can’t exactly make that argument when you’re naked in bed with me,” he noticed.

“Well, maybe it was—”

“Don’t tell me it was a mistake,” he interrupted firmly.  “You’re not much of a liar— I was there, sweetheart, we both know that was the farthest thing from a mistake.  All the time we spent not doing that was the mistake!”

You smiled, because you couldn’t deny that.  Misguided?  Sure.  Poorly timed?  Definitely.  But nothing truly wrong could feel that right.

“We don’t have to call it, you know, that,” he offered, “boyfriend and girlfriend— if you don’t want to.  As long as we’re together, it’ll be fine.”

“But people can’t know we’re together,” you insisted, “least of all Mom and Wayne.”

He nodded.  “Okay.”

“What are we gonna do when they get back?” you wondered.

“Guess I’m gonna have to go—” he reached up and knocked his fist on the slats above you— “back upstairs.”

“I’ll miss you,” you whined, cuddling harder into him.

“Okay, I’ll come down after they go to sleep,” he decided, hugging you tighter as well.

You spent the rest of your week alone together for the honeymoon very… similarly to a honeymoon, actually.  Damn near every room in the house was defiled and you were so exhausted you ended up calling in sick to work most days.  It was well worth it, obviously; Eddie had so much energy and lost time to make up for, meanwhile you were just happy to let him shower you in affection and bring you in an hour more pleasure than you’d had in the rest of your life combined.

“God, I can’t, I really really can’t,” he insisted as your lips latched onto his neck and your hips grinded in his lap. 

“You said that last time,” you remembered.

“I know, but now I mean it!” he sighed, dropping his head onto the back of the couch.  “What are you doin’ to me, woman?  Trying to kill me?”

“Maybe,” you giggled, licking his neck and purring as you felt the muscles in it shift under your tongue.  “Isn’t this how you always wanted to die?”

“Yeah,” he admitted, “but I can’t croak so soon— you’d miss me too much.”

For all his insistence that he couldn’t go again, that ten times in four days was too much, he was guiding your movements in his lap hardly ten minutes later, watching with heavy eyes as you sank down onto his cock over and over.

“Fuck, so pretty,” he breathed, biting his lip while he drank in the sight.  Thick hands ran up your thighs as you bounced on him, slipping around to grab palmfuls of your ass while you rode, and you moaned happily.

It’s easy to guess that you got a bit spoiled by that week.  Eddie had you addicted to him in moments and kept you around his finger (sometimes literally) so easily.  As such, it made you dread even more each day that you got closer and closer to the return of the newlyweds.  You couldn’t even imagine going back to normal after this— and what even was ‘normal’ before?  You never really had one.

Even if it was just a matter of keeping it a secret, you knew it wouldn’t be easy.  Maybe if it had been easier, the plan would’ve lasted a bit longer.

They returned from their trip on a Wednesday afternoon, and you all sat at the table together to talk about how much fun they had and all the fishing and hiking and relaxing they did.  It was good to see them again, but even just sitting across the table from Eddie felt odd.  Even just being apart that night while you and your mom went out for dinner alone felt odd.  Even just sleeping in separate bunks, after you chickened out on sharing from the fear that someone would burst in and see your cuddling, felt odd.

Eddie got up first, but he went to the bathroom to shower and shave before you got up so you couldn’t even try to sneak in a quick good morning kiss.  Instead, you started preparing breakfast in the kitchen, taking a break to brush your teeth when the bathroom was free and he was watching TV.  Other than offering to make him a piece of toast, you didn’t say much, mainly because you were still kind of waking up.

While you were finishing breakfast preparations you heard Eddie come into the kitchen and step up behind you, but you didn’t say anything, and neither did he for a second— not until he was standing just a bit too close.

“This is way too hard,” he whispered.

“Hm?” you wondered, shivering when his lips gently brushed against your neck in the next moment.  “E-Eddie, we can’t—”

“I know,” he agreed under his breath, “that’s what’s so hard.  Not being able to touch you, or kiss you, or…”

You were trying to resist, really, but his fingers were just barely tickling your sides through your shirt while his tongue teased your ear and it made your knees a little weak.  Okay, a lot weak; you just had to let him spin you around so he could kiss you on the mouth, hard and needy.  

You were so caught up by it that you didn’t hear the sound of movement on the other side of the wall.  You just reached up to wrap your arms together on top of his shoulders and let him deepen it, tilting your head a bit as you fought back a moan.  

He started to guide you back, and you barely questioned it, and the two of you all but fell into the dining room, nearly colliding the table; and it was a good thing you didn’t, since that would’ve put Wayne’s coffee at risk of falling off the table— he, by the way, was sitting at the table next to your mom, something neither of you had taken the time to notice, until the man gruffly cleared his throat to get your attention.

You pulled away from each other with a gasp; Eddie coughed lightly while you wiped your mouth with the back of your hand, wide-eyed as you took in the way the two of them were staring at you from their seats at the table.

“Good morning,” Wayne finally offered, and Eddie nodded with a nervous laugh as you tried to decide where to start.

“S-sorry,” you decided to say first, “we were— it’s not— he was just—”

He was just what, helping me decide if I should get a new flavor of toothpaste?  He was just saying ‘good morning’ the European way?  He was just helping me butter my toast?  Oh god, that sounds even worse…

“Oh, you don’t need to act so shy about it,” your mom promised with a tilt of her head, which made you switch from shock to bewilderment.  “I actually always thought it was strange you never kissed in front of us before now!”

Eddie raised one of his eyebrows as he looked at her in confusion.  “Um… well, we never kissed at all before— before, you know, a couple days ago…”

“Wait, really?” she laughed.  “That’s a little odd— being involved all this time and waiting so long to kiss?”

You blinked, choking as you tried to reply to that.  “We— we weren’t involved!  Until now!”

Wayne tried to cover his smile with his hand, but it couldn’t hide his laugh.  Your mom looked at him and then back at you.  “What?!” she yelped.  “Wayne and I— we were so sure you two were—!”

“No!” you blurted out.  “We weren’t… why would you think that?”

“Because it was obvious,” Wayne explained flatly.  “We’re old, not stupid.”

“You were so clearly interested in each other!” she went on.  “We figured you’d started dating and just didn’t tell us because— well, you didn’t need to!  You really weren’t?”

“Of course not!” you insisted.  “Mom, we’re— you know… related!  Kind of.  That doesn’t bother you?”

“It didn’t seem to bother either of you,” she noticed.  “But, you’re both adults, you can do what you like.  You were classmates long before Wayne and I ever met.  People marry their high school sweethearts all the time.”

“O-okay, to be clear,” you stammered, “we went to high school together— but we were not sweethearts.”

Eddie gave you a look, crossing his arms as if he was amused by all this, and you shook your head.

“But— okay, well, thank you, I guess, for your… blessing,” you decided.  “And we’ll… try not to kiss in the kitchen too often.”

That night, after saying goodnight to Mom and Wayne, Eddie followed you into your bedroom and shut the door behind you.  He sat next to you on your bed, even though you kind of expected him to climb up to his own— but you didn’t have any complaints when he pulled you into a kiss that built quickly in intensity.

You brushed your fingers through his hair (as best you could with how tangled it was) and hummed as he gently held your waist, but when you were afraid you wouldn’t be able to control yourself if it went on much longer, you had to cut it short.

“Wait,” you gasped, pushing him back gently until he stopped and looked at you with big, wide eyes.  “We can’t…”

“Why not?” he wondered.

“Because…” you trailed off, finishing your sentence by pointing in the other direction.

“Because…” he repeated, squinting his eyes as he looked where you were pointing.  “Because, the wall?  Aw, babe, I know I get a little carried away but I don’t think the walls are gonna collapse.”

“No, the other side of the wall,” you sighed.

“The bathroom?”

“The other side of that.”

“...the water heater?”

“Eddie!” you whined.  “The other side of that!” 

“The master bedroom, final answer,” he nodded.  “What— Mr. and Mrs. Munson?  What about ‘em?”

“Um, their… presence?” you clarified, not sure what he wasn’t getting.

“If they know we’re together then we don’t have to hide it,” he pointed out.

“That doesn’t mean I wanna fuck with them in the house,” you returned with a frown.

“I’m sure they’ll understand,” he smirked, “you know— if the bunk bed’s a-rockin’, don’t come a-knockin’ or something like that.”

“That’s… not a saying.”

“Okay, but, close enough,” he pouted.

“Still not having sex with you while our parents are home,” you insisted.  He didn’t seem too disappointed, though— actually, a mischievous smile grew on his face as he looked at you.

“I noticed something,” he informed you.  You raised your eyebrows and waited.  “Your mom said people marry their high school sweethearts all the time.  You said we weren’t sweethearts.”

“Yeah,” you agreed.

“But you didn’t tell her we weren’t getting married.”

Your eyes went wide and you bit your lip; he looked way too fucking proud of himself as he leaned in closer and poked you teasingly in the stomach with his fingers.  You tried to lean away or cover yourself with crossed arms but it wasn’t working, and neither were your attempts to stifle your laughter.

“You’re soooo into me,” he noticed in a playfully mocking voice.  “You wanna get maaarriiieeeddd—”

“N-no, I don’t,” you denied with an eye roll, “I— I just didn’t notice she said that.”

“You wanna have my baaaabbiiieeesss,” he continued anyways, and you nearly choked on your own throat.

“E-Ed, we’re too young for any of that right now,” you insisted.

“Okay,” he nodded, pausing for a second.  “How about now?”

You snorted, shaking your head at your own amusement with such a stupid joke.  “No, I mean, like, the future.”

“Future,” he affirmed, “as in, tomorrow?”

“No!” you groaned.  “Like, someday!”

“Sunday?”

You whined and dropped your head on Eddie’s shoulder in defeat, making him laugh and reach up to rub your back.  “You’re horrible,” you mumbled.

“Mhm,” he agreed as he softly kissed the top of your head.  “Just promise me something?”

You lifted your head to rest your chin on his shoulder so he could see your face; he reached up and held it gently, caressing the height of your cheek with his thumb.

“You tell me when it’s ‘someday’, okay?” he asked softly.  “I don’t care if it’s ten days from now or ten years.  You just say the word, and we’ll do all that boring grown up stuff we’re not old enough for yet.  Deal?”

You smiled and nodded.  “Okay.”

He hummed and kissed the tip of your nose before gently capturing your lips again, holding your chin between his thumb and forefinger.  “Oh,” he said suddenly as he pulled back, “by the way— you can keep my ring you took.”

“I… thought you forgot about that,” you admitted sheepishly, and he grinned, shaking his head.

“Of course not,” he cooed, “but it’s better that you have it, since you wanna be the next Mrs. Munson so bad.”

“I don’t—!” you began to disagree, but he cut you off with another kiss.

Someday came January 19th, 1988.  It was a quiet day, but otherwise typical for life in your little rental place up in North Hawkins by the lake, which was usually filled with Eddie's raucous practicing on the Warlock alongside the hand-me-down furniture and framed (award-winning) photos on the wall.

Nothing specific made you realize it— he was just laying back on the couch and fiddling around on his acoustic (specifically his new acoustic you'd gotten him for his most recent birthday) while you arranged and rearranged the magazine spread due in a few days— but you just… knew that it was time.

“Wanna get married?” you blurted out, and he looked at you with a tinge of shock on his face before he smiled.

“You know I do,” he grinned.  “Hop in the van, we’ll go to the courthouse—”

You interrupted him with a laugh as he was sitting up and setting his guitar aside.  “I figured we would just start, like, planning it…”

He groaned disappointedly as he flopped back onto the couch.  “You make me wait this long and then you say we have to wait more?”

“You don’t want a wedding?!” you scoffed.

“I do, but I’d rather get married now and just do the wedding whenever we have the time,” he explained.  “Doesn’t it sound fun?”

You smirked.  “Well, I figured once we were married you’d want kids right away.  And I’m not interested in a maternity-bridal gown.”

“Y’sure?  I think you’d be real cute like that,” he cooed.

"I think you should keep dreamin', pretty boy," you winked in return.  

He hopped up off the couch and crossed the room to kiss you suddenly— holding your face in his hands, keeping you close, saying so much with no words at all.  You fell into it so quickly that you were the one leaning forward for more when he pulled back.  He smirked at you proudly; "So, courthouse?"

You sighed.  "How come you always get your way with me?  Why is that?"

"'Cause you're just so wildly, stupidly, counter-intuitively in love with me," he answered confidently.

"Oh, right," you smiled.  "I almost forgot."

Eddie cleared his throat as he stood before all your family and friends— Jonathan, the Hellfire club, your coworkers and colleagues, your mom and stepdad, and even Eddie's father who had been granted furlough so he could attend. A small gathering, but still a crowd.  You could tell he was nervous; you were, too, of course, and you looked down at your white dress and your hands holding his to try to remind yourself that this was real.

"Well, um, hi," he addressed them before he began the vows he'd written and rehearsed a thousand times for today.  "Bet you never thought you'd see me in a suit, right?" 

THE END

[lasquadrasfuckhouse]

Hello!

Maybe some la sqadra headcanons with s/o, who is super fixed on pets? Like, they want to adopt every animal from the shelter, and cry every time they see a abandoned pet on the street. S/o just loves pets so so much that they would do everything to have more

Ofc it's just a proposition, bye bye!❤

AW I LOVE THIS

la squadra with a partner who loves animals 😻

risotto ✂️

he gets it. he has a soft spot for small cute things

he's very fond of how doting u are to every creature but he'll keep you in check, gently pull you away from a passing animal shelter and the like. pets take commitment and u both have very demanding jobs as is

he will help u set out bowls of water for all the strays and little creatures tho

if u bring home a lost pet he'll want you to bring it to the shelter and let the people there find its owner but you count as small cute things he's soft for (because everyone is small compared to risotto). give him puppy eyes for long enough and he'll give you a few days to find the owner yourself but it can't interfere with work and you're completely responsible for it

you'll probably be able to sway him on taking in ONE (1) stray cat if it has the right temperament, quiet and won't interfere and more on the independent side. there are a lot of strays in the neighbourhood as is, he figures having a cat in the house won't be much more of a stretch than you looking after the cats outside

he reasons that for himself too because he loves cats. he'll let it sleep on his chest and he WILL take it for walks on a lil kitty harness do NOT test him, do NOT fuck with this guy while he's walking his cat

he also thinks tarantulas, scorpions, and reptiles are cool (reptiles would love him he's so warm!!!) but maintaining a terrarium is a lot of work

prosciutto 🚬

no. he will answer firmly, no. you both know how busy you are

he tries to reason with you every time you cry over a stray: you can't adopt them all, you know it would be a disservice to the animal to take on that responsibility only to find you can't balance it, i know it's sad but you're only one person with a very difficult job you can't overhaul the shelter system overnight. he'd try to help you toughen up for your own sake, not that u have to love animals any less but he doesn't want u burning out emotionally and he doesn't like seeing u cry either

if u bring home a lost pet, he will also insist you take it to the shelter. if u have a staredown about it (the shelters are so busy already and what if they can't find its person!!!!), it will be a LONG staredown. but if u promise to take full responsibility and find the owners asap he will relent BUT DONT MAKE IT A HABIT. if he has spare time he May help you with finding the owners, mostly to speed things up but it does also make u happy

might also accept one (1) cat with the right temperament but it's YOUR responsibility. if you're prepared to take on the commitment urself, he can coexist with a chill cat pretty easily. he will give it pets if it curls around his legs. if it wants to curl up in his lap, as long as he's not busy, well..... he would allow it

(the cat definitely grows on him)

he supposes he wouldn't mind fishes or a reptile but again, your responsibility

pesci 🎣

he thinks ur so sweet and he has a very hard time saying no to you

as long as ur managing your time and energy right he doesn't think it's so bad!!!! will defend you if the others try to tease you or get on your case

he will help. he might not mesh well with very rambunctious and outgoing animals tho. he may get nervous about caring for them right (is this food good for them? how do i hold them? what if they get sick?) but if u show him how and reassure him and he gets reassurance and affection from the critter too he'll probably cry

he would, of course, love a fish tank. he gets really into arranging and rearranging the setup and caring for ur fishies. he could watch them for hours and also defends them against people who say they're boring (THEY HAVE PERSONALITY)

he would say no to arachnids or other bugs and no to reptiles and amphibians (cause they eat bugs)

formaggio 🧀

HES RIGHT THERE WITH U

cats are his favorite even if he is not cats' favorite. he looks after the strays with you and will comfort you when you cry about them

if you find a lost pet he'll help you hide it (probably make it smaller) while you team up to secretly care for it and find the owners

'formaggio what the hell is that sound coming from ur room' 'oh i just fell asleep with the tv on' '..... and it's still making the same sounds 3 hours later?' 'ITS A LONG MOVIE'

HE WOULD LOVE TO RAISE A CAT WITH U. two cats would be great too but you do both have busy jobs. cool with rodents too, would be cool with a dog or parrot in theory but in practice they take a lot of work and require a lot of social time and y'all are pretty busy being assassins.

illuso ✨

he will gently tease you for being a softie (the keyword here being gently because he loves u) but he's honestly a little endeared

he's trying to befriend the flock of crows around base so they'll be his little minions so u spend time together leaving them snack offerings

for trying to actually get a pet tho? ur on ur own

if you find a lost pet he may offer to hide it in the mirror world while u search for the owner BUT he will require payment. whether that is a kiss or you do his chores for a week. and he doesn't really do well with animals cause he just doesn't know what to do with them but he will do his best to help care for them in the mirror world if u can't be there because it's for u (and contrary to popular belief he's not completely heartless)

no. no strays in the house. i know it's cute and sad but it's all dirty, you don't know where it's been. but then you start tearing up and he's like ah fuck okay FINE tidy it up and bring it to the shelter but im outtie

he does find cats and snakes very graceful tho and may be open to having one as long as it's a good fit personality and needs wise and it's mostly your responsibility

melone 🍈

he finds it adorable. he loves how sweet u are

he loves hearing about his partner's interests so he will talk about cool biological and developmental animal facts and how u can learn a lot about human behaviour by studying the nature around us

doesn't see the harm in helping out any strays or lost creatures u may find and is totally down to help

he will remind u that pets are a lot of responsibility tho!!! if u want one u have to figure out how to balance other responsibilities with it but he's cool with co-parenting

he thinks reptiles and amphibians are really fucking cool. he'd probably be interested in a bird too cause he has the patience and creativity for them but ur also both busy people. he'd LOVE having sweet rat babies b/c they are so smart!!!

ghiaccio ❄️

he LOVES everything cute and soft and fluffy so he understands but also you can't rescue every stray or adopt the whole shelter we are assassins,

you befriend the neighbourhood cats together and build squirrel feeders. sometimes you'll go to the park just to cry about how cute all the dogs are

if you find a lost pet he may try to be like ugh.... do we have time for this....... but he caves VERY fast. will whisper-yell at anyone who tries to give you grief for it because he doesn't want to startle the poor creature. will help you find its owner if it'll get the others off ur back

he would very much want to raise cute animals with u. you have work to think about but if u had a rather independent cat that would work. he'd also love rats and hamsters

starts dreaming of retiring with u one day so u can have a bunny and a yappy little pomeranian he can wear matching sweaters with

sorbet and gelato 🔪🍦

they think ur utterly adorable. ur their sweet beloved third and they dote on you and would love to be involved in/support ur passions

they will help u look after the strays and may point out like someone's cute dog that they're walking just to see ur eyes light up and hear u gush

they Will smuggle lost pets inside the base for you and they Will help you find the owner they don't care about getting in trouble with risotto they're in trouble all the time anyway it's their jobs

would very much like to be pet parents with u and it might honestly be easier to manage between the three of you

they'd do very well with rats, they could handle high energy pets like ferrets, parrots, and dogs, but y'know u do all have work and stuff. they are determined to find the right fit for all of u b/c ur so cute they can't NOT indulge u

maybe one day the three of u can retire on a heap of money and adopt an older cockatoo and harness train it so u can all go on adventures together, that's the dream!!!!

[avengersassemble-fics]

Stark's Girl

part 015/015 "the real hero"

previous part

masterlist

word count nearly 9k whoops

an: okay so... this is long and honestly... be prepared for an ending that took me days to write. i do not take any ownership on dialogue/scenes used from endgame, and i tried to make it original as well... anyways, here's the final part, and i can't wait to see what y'all think of the ending :3 oop i cried three times in this so be ready.

Was this actually going to work? Were the Avengers really about to get everyone back? According to Tony.. No. There were too many factors against it.

You tried to talk to him about it that night, but Tony avoided the conversation like the plague. By the morning Tony had disappeared and you were set to head back to the Compound that evening. You hadn’t heard from anyone if they had gotten anywhere beyond Tony’s involvement but it raised the question.. Who would even be able to make it work besides him? Hank Pym had been blipped, and as far as you knew this must be outside of Banner’s expertise. Tony was avoiding you, and that bugged you.

You understood the hesitation, but you knew how tore up he was about losing the Parker kid, even to this day. Morgan and Pepper were his world, this was his fresh start, so if it didn’t work then it was all for nothing. But what if it did? Then everyone would be back, and things would go back to how they were.

You zipped your bag shut and reached for your phone that laid on the bed. There were no new messages and you couldn’t help but sigh when there was a light tap on the door frame behind you. You glanced over your shoulder before tossing your phone into the bag and picking it up, and facing your brother fully. “Look who decided to say goodbye.”

“Got everything?” Tony asked and motioned his hands. “Clothes, toiletries-”

“I have everything,” you reassured him. “Was that all or.. Do you wanna talk about it?”

Tony sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets. You dropped your bag to the floor and sat down on your bed, and pat the spot next to you. Tony pushed himself off the door frame and ended up by your side, and you hit him with your shoulder. “Go on old man.”

“I hate it when you call me that,” Tony grumbled before he sighed and looked at you. “I just don’t see it working. And I can’t risk losing all of this.”

“I get that Tony, I really do,” you replied. You slid closer to him and snaked your arm through his and rested your head against his arm. “What you have here it’s.. Well I haven’t seen anything like it since mom and dad.”

“But you want me to figure it out,” Tony said. You sighed and looked up at him.

“I just.. I want to know if you really think it won’t work.”

Tony sighed and shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know.”

“It’s never been explored, I get that,” you told him. You unlatched yourself from his side and stood, and grabbed your bag before placing a hand on your brother's shoulder. “I have to get back and see what they’ve come up with though.”

Tony placed his hand over yours and gave you a tight squeeze. He spent the rest of the day with one question on his mind.

Would it work?

When you got back to the Compound the sun was nearly setting, and you sat in your car after switching the engine off. You pulled out the velvet box from your bag and ran your thumb over the top a couple times before pushing the lid open and staring at the contents. The ring inside still had a gleam to it, and you smiled a bit at it. You snapped the box shut and got out the car with your bag in tow, and headed inside. There was a strange brown van parked in the large hangar that made you slow your pace a bit, but you shook it off and continued on your way to the common room. As you got closer you could hear more and more chatter, and prepared yourself for what you were about to walk in on.

“I only have enough Pym particles for a few more goes,” you could hear Scott saying. “So I hope you were able to figure it out.”

“I got it down.. Mostly,” another voice said. It sounded almost like.. Banner?

When you came around the corner you were met with what looked like equations, workarounds, and everyone’s back to you. You had heard about “Professor Hulk” (that’s what his students called him at least) but you hadn’t seen Banner since after the blip. It was definitely, well, something. You came to a halt and couldn’t help but smile. “I see you guys have made progress since I saw you.”

Everyone turned around and Natasha approached with a smile. “Did he come around?”

“No,” you admitted. “He has a family now Nat, they mean the world to him.. And he doesn’t think it’ll work.”

“Well,” Nat looked back at Banner before he moved out of the way. “We might have a start.”

Bruce (Hulk?) explained everything. Tomorrow they would attempt time travel by sending Scott back to the 1950’s, and pull him right back. He said it would be easy, and checked his work multiple times to prove it. It sounded plausible, but until the morning no one would really know if it could work. Your nerves were shot at just the thought of it, and decided to make yourself some tea. You weren’t a huge fan, so as you dipped your tea bag into the hot water of your mug, the smell made you shake your head.

“You should try adding some honey.”

You glanced up from your mug at Steve walking into the kitchen. He stopped at a cabinet and pulled out a container filled with golden honey. He made his way to your side and set it on the counter, and you graciously took it and swirled some of it into the steaming cup. You lifted the cup to your lips and took a small sip, and turned to rest your hip against the counter and face Steve. “You think it’ll work?”

“It has to,” Steve said. His hand came up to rub one of your arms. “We owe it to everyone we lost to at least try.”

You nodded at his words and tapped your mug lightly in thought, and something surged through you. You set the mug down and reached into your pocket and pulled out the velvet box he had given you just days prior. Steve felt his heart stop at the sight, and his stomach twisted as you placed it on the counter between you both.

“I know you said you’d give me as much time as I needed, but.. I don’t need time to decide my answer.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve mumbled. “I guess I read too much into things-”

“Steve,” you cut him off from even finishing that thought. You placed your right hand up on his cheek, and Steve met your gaze. “The answer is yes.”

“Yes?” He asked quietly, and you nodded.

“Yes,” you repeated, and couldn’t help but giggle when a smile spread over his face. Steve pulled you into his arms like you were going to disappear right in front of him. When he set you back down you watched as he grabbed the velvet box and opened it, and pulled the ring out. He gently grabbed your left hand and as he slid the ring onto your finger, it felt like both of you weren’t breathing. You held your hand up to look at the gold band and diamond on your finger, and Steve’s smile fell.

“Are you okay?”

You met his gaze again and nodded. “I just never thought this would ever happen for someone like me.”

Admitting that to him felt like a weight had been lifted off your shoulders. Steve’s look turned more understanding and he took your hand and placed a chaste kiss to your fingers. He pulled you into his embrace and your arms wrapped around his waist and head laid on his chest, while his arms held your body close. You had the sneaking suspicion the last few months that Steve did know what had been running through your mind, and this felt like confirmation. Your confession was absolute, and Steve understood it. And he would spend everyday making sure you knew you were worth it until the end.

It was the first night you spent together, welcoming one another’s embraces in a quiet and tender moment. To you, you had felt like it would be one of the last quiet moments before finding out if time travel was possible, because from there it would be non-stop until they got everyone back. You knew it, and Steve did too. One last night of quiet, then one last time saving the world. So Steve took residence in your room once more, sharing your bed and holding you so you knew you were worth this.

The next morning came too soon, peeking through your shades until FRIDAY opened them higher like you had scheduled. Steve traced his fingers up and down your arm that draped across him for awhile before duty called. Begrudgingly you both changed and went to the hangar hand in hand, only separating when you got in view of everyone. Natasha though never misses anything.

“Good morning love birds,” she quipped while typing away on a computer near Banner. As you two neared you came to her side and nudged her with your arm gently to take over.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you replied back and met Steve’s gaze with a little smile.

“The ring on your finger says different,” she threw back your way. Banner looked down over the exchange and saw what Natasha had been talking about.

“What? Since when!” He asked.

“Recently,” Steve offered. Banner tapped his rather large hand on your back and shot a finger Steve’s way.

“I always knew you two would work it out, congratulations.”

“Speaking of working out,” Natasha cut in. “Are we ready?”

“Almost there,” Banner said as he worked on a couple more calculations. “I’m going to go over this with (Y/N).. Cap do you mind setting the breakers and getting the emergency generators ready just in case?”

“Got it,” Steve said. With one final glance between you both he casted a smile and walked back into the compound. Banner hovered over your shoulder and walked you through the equations running through the sequence, and also working in the Pym particles into that. You followed it for the most part, but for some reason something didn’t add up, you just couldn’t put your finger on it. Tossing caution to the wind (you weren’t a genius like Banner was of course) the sound of footsteps echoed in the hangar, and Steve made his way back.

“Alright, here we go. Time travel test number one. Scott you can fire up the uh, the van thing,” Banner instructed. Scott, in what looked like a retro Ant Man suit, powered up the Quantum tunnel and you double checked Banner’s work.

“Breakers are set, emergency generators are on standby,” Steve said as he walked back to your and Natasha’s side.

“Good. ‘Cause if we lose the grid I don’t want to lose Tiny here in the 1950’s,” Banner said lightly. Everyone’s gaze went to him in shock.

“Excuse me?” Scott asked from near the van.

“He’s kidding!” Natasha told him, before turning and whispering to the group. “You can’t say things like that!”

“Yeah, just a bad joke!” Banner said loudly for Scott, and offered him a thumbs up. Scott nodded hesitantly and smiled nervously.

“You were kidding right?” You asked. Banner lowered his voice again.

“I have no idea. We’re talking about time travel here. Either it’s all a joke or none of it is,” Banner explained, though it didn’t calm any of your hesitations. Banner looked back to Scott and gave him a nod. “We’re gonna send you back a week, let you walk around an hour, then bring you back in 10 seconds. Make sense?”

“Perfectly not confusing,” Scott tried to level with humor.

“Good luck, Scott. You got this,” Steve offered in encouragement which Scott gave a more confident smile.

“You’re right. I do, Captain America.”

You met Scott’s gaze for a moment before giving him a nod of approval, and with Banner’s direction you pressed a button and Scott disappeared into the tunnel. Silence fell over the group, and you exchanged glances with Steve, who put his hand on the small of your back. Banner, with his arms crossed keeping track of time on his abnormally large watch gave you a nod.

“On the count of three. Three.. Two.. One!”

In the same sequence as before you pressed the button and the Quantum Tunnel spit a figure back out… But it was not the same one you sent in. They were younger, and your heart dropped as Banner moved you out the way.

“Guys? Uh this doesn’t feel right,” the teen said, and everyone’s attention shot to Banner.

“What is this?” Steve asked.

“Who is that?” Natasha asked next and Banner mumbled to himself.

“Jesus, is that Scott?” You asked this time and Banner huffed.

“Yes, it’s Scott!” Banner exclaimed. Before anyone could get a grasp on the situation, Banner hit buttons and teen Scott was sucked back into the Quantum Tunnel, only for an older man to be spit back out.

“My back,” the old Scott said and Steve shuffled next to you to face Banner fully.

“Can you bring him back?” Steve asked and Banner tapped the buttons furiously.

“I’m working on it!”

Tensions were high as old Scott got sucked back in and in a flash another body was spit out. The Ant-Man suit had fallen to the floor and inside was..

“It’s a baby,” you said matter of factly.

“It’s Scott,” Banner countered.

“As a baby!” Nat said again, matter of factly.

“He’ll.. Grow,” Banner offered and Steve shook his head.

“Bring Scott back!” Steve ordered. And Banner looked to Natasha and motioned to the generators.

“When I say kill the power, kill the power,” he instructed her. Natasha nodded before rapidly walking towards the generator and grabbing a hold of the lever. You came up by Banner’s side again to see what he was doing and he pointed at Nat. “Kill it!”

Nat pulled the power and out shot regular Scott, which made everyone sigh in relief. Scott, on the other hand, stood there in disbelief and admitted something quietly. “Somebody peed my pants.. But I don’t know if it was baby me or old me.”

You glanced Steve’s way and offered a sad smile. Tony was right, this wasn’t going to work. Natasha came back to the group and mumbled a thank god, while Steve wrapped his arm around your shoulders.

It wasn’t going to work. It was a grim thought, and everyone got their hopes up for nothing. Though Banner still tried to remain optimistic, and threw his hands up in triumph.

“Time travel!” Banner exclaimed, only earning a few shakes of the head. Steve motioned his head in a direction and off you two went, leaving behind Nat and Banner, and Scott who didn’t know what to do about his situation.

Steve had led you outside into the sunlight, where he removed himself from your side and let you walk out of the shade and close your eyes. He felt defeated, and took a seat on a hard surface and casted his gaze to the ground.

There was no victory, not even an opportunity for it. He had to once again come to terms with the fact he would never see Bucky again, or Sam, or Wanda. Wakanda would never get their King or Princess back, and the kid from Queens would never get to step foot back in the city. Steve was so lost in thought he nearly missed what you said.

“Holy shit,” you said out loud. Steve averted his gaze back to you, only to see what you had referred to. A car was fast approaching, and he knew just who was behind the wheel. Steve was by your side before the car came to a halt before you and the window rolled down.

“Why the long faces?” Tony asked.

You couldn’t help the smile that broke out over your face. There would only be one reason why Tony would come here (voluntarily)... He figured it out.

“Let me guess.. Lang turned into a baby,” Tony said and you covered your mouth to hide your grin. Steve nodded beside you and shoved his hands into his pockets.

“Among other things, yeah. What are you doing here?” Steve asked. Tony removed his sunglasses and tossed them onto the passenger seat before stepping out the car. He walked around the back, and opened the trunk.

“That’s the EPR Paradox. Instead of pushing Lang through time, you must’ve pushed time through Lang. It’s tricky, dangerous even. Somebody should’ve cautioned you on it,” Tony went on explaining. Steve smiled a bit and nodded at him.

“You did,” Steve admitted and Tony put his hand over his chest, acting shocked.

“Did I? Well thank God I’m here,” Tony replied while fishing something out of his pocket. It looked like a funky little watch, which he promptly tossed your way and you caught easily. “Regardless, I fixed it. That is a fully functioning Time-Space GPS.”

“Son of a bitch,” you mumbled to yourself looking at the device in your hands.

“And don’t think I didn’t notice that,” Tony pointed from where he was. You looked at where he was pointing and smiled at the sight of the ring on your finger. “I just want peace, if you’re okay with it.”

“Of course I am Tony,” Steve confirmed and Tony sighed as he lowered his voice for the two of you.

“We got a shot at getting these stones, but I gotta tell you my priorities. Bring back what we lost? I hope so, yes of course. Keep what I got?” Tony paused while focused on you and nodded at him. “I have to, at all costs.. and maybe not die trying would be nice.”

“Sounds like a deal,” Steve agreed and offered Tony his hand, and you watched them shake on the promise. Tony pulled one last thing from the trunk of his car and Steve looked uncertain to take it. “Tony-“

“Why? He made it for you,” Tony insisted. And finally.. Steve took the shield once more.

“Looks good, Cap,” you commented, earning one of those looks from Steve and Tony shut his trunk.

“Ew. Please I don’t need to hear that.”

The Compound was about to be bustling once more. It was one of the more festive dinners the Avengers compound had seen in awhile, nearly every seat occupied and chatter among everyone. Pizza was the easier choice for the evening, and you had found yourself looking for a seat near Nat, Tony, and Steve who had engrossed themselves in early talks.

Clint had proven that Tony’s way of time travel worked, though it had taken a couple weeks to get it ready. You learned the calculations for entry points and exits, then re-entry back to the present. It was confusing, but the thought of getting the world back to normal was worth the late night lectures with Tony.

So now it was down to figuring out where and how to get all the stones as they are scattered throughout time. There wasn’t a clear path though, not yet anyway. But as you came up to the trio you could hear them still discussing it.

“I’m so glad we have the Three Stooges figuring this out,” you commented as Steve welcomed you to sit in his lap. Tony tossed a napkin your way and you chuckled before taking a glance around the room. “It’s nice to see all these faces again.”

“Hopefully soon it’s everyone,” Natasha offered. Her hope never died these last five years, and it made you nod in agreement as you bit into your slice of pizza. One of Steve’s hands ran up and down the side of your hip, and everything felt a little more normal.

“Lang only has enough particles for ten round trips, one for each of us,” Tony went on about, though you quickly swallowed the bite of pizza you had to inject.

“What about me-“

“No,” Steve and Tony said in unison. You narrowed your gaze at them both and took an angry bite of your pizza. It was ridiculous that they made the decision you were to stay here and track them on the time heist.

“Thor and Rocket could go for the Reality Stone in 2013,” Steve offered.

“Clint and I can get the Soul Stone, Nebula and Rhodey can handle the Power Stone.. We know where those are in 2014,” Natasha said out loud.

“That still leaves three stones and four of us,” Tony sighed. You shrugged your shoulders and took a bite of the crust you had left.

“I mean if you pick the right year, there’s three stones in New York,” you said off the top of your head. When silence fell among the group and you looked up to see them all staring at you you raised a brow. “What?”

“What did you just say?” Tony asked and you blinked at him.

“I said if you pick the right year there are three stones in New York?” You replied and when everyone still looked confused you sighed. “The wizard had the Time Stone, you guys had the Space Stone aka the Tesseract, and Loki’s scepter had the Mind Stone.”

It was silent, everyone seemed to be processing what you said when Banner came up to the group, but Tony was already in motion. “There’s only one pizza left can I have it-“

“Jolly Green take a look at this,” Tony said as he whipped out a small device and displayed images in the room. His actions made everyone else look on as he moved pictures, air typed words, and took a step back to show everyone. Tony put his hands on his hips and Banner looked surprised.

“Shut the front door.”

“This is it,” Natasha stood and looked on. “This is how we get all the stones in one go.”

For once you were glad to have caught up on all those confidential SHIELD documents on what you had missed.

No..

No no no. No it wasn’t supposed to be like this. This wasn’t supposed to happen, no one was supposed to die.. This was supposed to fix everything, but not this. No.. No it wasn’t true. What Clint was saying couldn’t be true.

He fell to his knees, he had to be picked up from the floor as he recounted what happened. A soul for a soul, he said. It shouldn’t have been the price but it was, he said.

It couldn’t be true.

The thought just ran over and over again in your mind the rest of the day. Everyone had gone to the lake and discussed it more but that one line just kept running over you. Clint insisted there was no other way, there was no give backs.

She bet her life on it.

Tony crafted a gauntlet to house the stones in. He carefully placed each like where Thanos had them originally. He was precise, this was delicate after all. Someone died to make this happen.

Steve was distant. You chalk it up to being focused on the situation at hand.

But who should snap?

Thor offered but was met with (quickly) apprehension from everyone. Tony said he was in no condition to do so, so Bruce said it should be him.

“You saw what those stones did to Thanos. It almost killed him. None of you could survive,” Banner said.

“How do we know you will?” You asked. It was one of the first times you had spoken up in days, and seemed to shock everyone a little bit.

Honestly, you couldn’t handle someone else dying right now.

There was no way to know for sure, but it was time to find out. This time you weren’t letting anyone tell you not to join, and you grabbed the nano suit attachment Tony had made for you. The chest pendant stuck to your shirt and like a second skin it dispersed the suit over your body, leaving your face still exposed.

You came up by Steve’s side and he glanced your way and sighed. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“Let me be here for this,” you said lowly. Steve didn't question you again, and strapped his shield tighter to his arm as Scott came to his side and gave him a ready nod.

“FRIDAY do me a favor and activate Barn Door Protocol will you?” tony asked.

Barn Door Protocol was simple. There were protective blast doors that closed the Compound in the event of a catastrophic event. It protected every square inch of the facility-

You get the point by now. It’s in case some shit goes down.

The room got slightly darker, and Tony gave you a nod across the room and both your helmets covered your faces. Tony projected a shield before him and Clint, and you shifted in your place.

This was it: one last mission.

Banner slowly put on the gauntlet, the metal growing over his enlarged hand, and when it fit snugly the stones began to glow and you could see their power begin to surge through him. Suddenly, Banner fell to his knee and grunted in pain.

“Take it off!” Thor hollered.

“No, wait,” Steve called over the chaos. “Bruce you okay?”

“Talk to us, Banner,” you tried to reason over the conflicting voices.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” Bruce reassured everyone and even attempted to give a thumbs up. But the scene unfolding told you (and probably everyone) that Bruce was not okay. He screamed in pain, holding his hand that housed the gauntlet and just when you thought he was going to pass out from the pain he was in--

-- He snapped.

Bruce fell to the ground and the gauntlet slid off his hand and Clint kicked it away. Steve rushes to his side and you move to do the same but Tony stops you.

“Don’t move him,” Tony instructed and Bruce gripped onto Steve’s arm.

“Did it work? Bruce asked immediately. Everyone glanced around, unsure if it did or not.

Nothing felt different, nothing screamed yes it worked. Tony iced Bruce’s affected arm and just when the dust was settling-

A bad choice of words. Suddenly everything evaporated around you. Explosions, debris, rock and dirt flying everywhere. Everything was disorienting, nothing truly felt settled for minutes. You weren’t sure how long time had passed, but there was chatter in your ear and you gasped back to life.

“We’re drowning! Does anybody copy? Mayday!” Rhodey’s voice rang a little choppy.

You groaned as you pushed yourself up, feeling the same water building around you. Rhodey, Rocket and Hulk came into view and you forced yourself up, having to crouch because of the fallen pieces of cement. You rushed over as water continued to fill the small cramped area, and came to Bruce’s side.

Your boots cemented themselves to whatever ground you stood on and helped push the cement that was threatening you all. “I got you, big guy.”

See you on the other side, man,” Rhodey said to Rocket who was next to him. The water was quickly rising, and this didn’t feel real.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Bruce and you couldn’t bear the weight, not with the water circling your necks. It was an ironic death, because your life did flash before your eyes. Seeing your parents death, seeing Tony again, that date with Steve where he kissed you in the rain, then the flashes of Siberia, Natasha’s last smile.. You wouldn’t admit this to anyone until much later, but you welcomed this ending.

Suddenly something cupped you all and air rushed around you. The large hand hugged you all carefully, and when they released you the scene of the outside world was a punch in the stomach, but there was no time to reflect. You could see that Purple Titan from this far, and you could also make out the size of his army.

And by the looks of it, Bruce’s snap worked.

Bruce leaped out of Scott’s hand and Rhodey, back in his suit hovered with Rocket, and you landed by his side. The chants of the Wakandan tribes ring in the air, but one voice cuts over the comms in your suit and you clutch your fists.

“Avengers!” Steve calls out.

“Assemble.”

Both forces charge one another, Thanos still on the battlefield pointing his legion on. You had flown in with Rhodey by your side as both sides met in a chaotic middle, and landed before one of the ugly Sakaaran aliens and ricocheting them backwards with the repulsors in your palm. Asgardians, Wakandan forces, wizards, and fellow Avengers fought all around you. Landing by your side, your brother shot another alien backwards past you.

“You alright?” his voice projected into your suit. An alien charged you and you grabbed it around the neck and propelled yourself upwards before using the momentum to slam the body back down to the ground.

“Oh just the usual Tuesday,” you replied before someone landed beside you two.

“Mr. Stark! Hey! Holy cow-” the young kid started. You gave your brother an understanding nod, and flew back up into the air, eyes landing on an incoming Leviathan, heading straight for Clint.

“Anyone have my back with the big space worm?” You asked over the comms, while cycling through the weapon options of your suit quickly.

“I got it!” Scott called over the comms and you took a play out of your brothers book. Scott was charging forward and as the Leviathan came near the forces fighting below, he punched the space worm, and with your charge ready, a small missile shot out from your suit and into a now exposed piece of flesh and exploded the Leviathan. Scott continued on, but in your state of distraction one of the Chitauri from the ground leapt up and pulled your downwards.

Shocked, the alien slammed your back down to the ground, and with a scepter like device flourished downward to pin you. You stopped the scepter just before impacting your chest and huffed and you tried to push them off, but they’re a lot heavier than they look. Before you have time to panic, the alien is thrown off of you, and a couple shots ring through the air.

Standing above you is Bucky Barnes.

Barnes lowers his gun and looks down at you, before offering his exposed vibranium hand for you to take. Without hesitation, you grip his hand and he pulls you up but not without lingering his hand in yours before letting you go, and you give him a nod.

“Thank you,” you tell him. “That’s two I owe you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Barnes replied. Both of your attention is pulled away when chatter erupts in your ears.

“We have incoming!” Someone shouted. Everyone turned their attention above as the looming ship Thanos arrived in began to fire. The same explosions that rocked the Compound hit the ground in the same destructive way, but the wizards (you really needed to learn the correct term for them) began to make shields to cover the people around them. You projected the shield Tony had integrated into these new suits and held it above you while Barnes shot at a couple more aliens who were still attempting to attack.

“Guess that’s only one you owe me,” Barnes said next to you and you let your helmet disappear to look at him fully.

“Did you just make a joke?” You asked and he shrugged.

“I do that sometimes,” he replied and you smiled a bit before your helmet reappeared over your face.

Above, you could just barely make out the Spider kid with the gauntlet being carried away on a Pegasus before you see them get knocked off the winged horse. But there was no telling how to get the ship to stop firing on both forces below, and that started to sit badly in the pit of your stomach. But in near perfect timing, the cannons stopped, and everyone around looked at one another in question (including you and Barnes). Your shield disappeared and the cannons moved to point upwards, and shot into the sky.

“What are they firing at?” You asked over the comms, before FRIDAY answered that something was entering the atmosphere.

In a blazing ball of glory shoots down from the sky and into a part of the ship, straight through, and then back in, all before shooting out as the ship began to crumble below her. You smiled behind your helmet before refocusing on the scene before you.

Get the gauntlet to the brown van, and put an end to Thanos once and for all.

“See you on the other side, Barnes,” you commented to him before shooting back off into the thick of it all. In a matter of seconds Thanos threw his sword towards the brown van and almost in slow motion, the gauntlet is lost in the dirt. You land besides Steve, who seemed to have almost forgot you had been here during this.

“(Y/N)-”

“We can’t let him get that gauntlet again,” you said to him, your eyes trained on your brother who was heading that way. “We can’t lose anyone else.”

Instead of arguing with you, Steve nodded in agreement and he outstretched his hand, and Mjolnir flew into his grasp, his shield on the other arm. Side by side you charged towards Thanos just as he smacked your brother away, Thor arriving at the same time. The two men teamed up to distract Thanos, and you focused your attention on the gauntlet, whose stones shined under the grim that now governed it. You could see Thanos overpower both Thanos and Steve, and with no one else in sight you picked the gauntlet up and back into the air you went. But you didn’t get very far, a large hand grabbing ahold of one of your legs and pulled you backwards, and for the first time you came face to face with the Titan who ruined everything.

Thanos used his free hand to grab a hold of your neck and released your leg, and you felt the metal of your suit dig into your sin as you gasped for air. Thanos looked you over, as if he could see your frightened expression behind your suit, and with his free hand he plucked the gauntlet from you and looked it over. His hand still was tight around your neck, and your vision began to fade before he looked back at you.

“Pathetic,” he muttered to you, before tossing you away. You weren’t sure how far you landed, but the impact shocked your body. You could feel yourself come in and out of consciousness, hazy vision of the dark clouds in the sky moving ever so slightly each time you came too. It wasn’t until the snarl of an Outrider nearing you did you finally find the strength to push yourself up, but before it lunged at you.. It disappeared into the wind like dust.

Pushing yourself up, you watched as all around all of Thanos’ different forces began to crumble away into dust. The Chitauri, the Sakaraans, and the Outriders all disappear before your very eyes in the same manner half the world did five years ago. You pushed yourself forward, over a heap of debris in what seemed like just enough time to see Thanos sit himself down in the middle of an open area. Thunder crackled above, and Thanos crumbled away into dust as well.

It.. It was over. It was really over.

Your helmet disappeared so you could see the spectacle for yourself. The only people still around were the Avengers, and everyone who helped that day (you would call them Avengers as well). You smiled a bit as your eyes landed on Steve who was focused somewhere else, but then he looked around frantically before spotting you. His expression made your chest hurt as you looked to where he had been staring previously.

No..

You could see Tony fall to the ground and people begin to surround him. There was an urgency in each step you took and when someone tried to stop you you pulled your hand from their grasp to get closer. You needed to see your brother, he had to be okay.

He just had to be.

When you finally got to his side you felt your heart stop. Peter was being pulled off the ground by Rhodey, while Pepper took his spot. She was stroking the side of Tony’s face, and whispering something to him you couldn’t hear. You found yourself taking in every detail, but still you couldn’t believe what you were witnessing. Tony stared off into the distance, his body was… It was just completely eaten up from what you knew were the stones. He was the one who snapped, and you shook your head in disbelief.

He was supposed to go home after this.

People looked at you, and Pepper glanced behind to meet your gaze. She held out her hand and you took a heavy step forward, until you kneeled down in front of your big brother… But his eyes held nothing in them anymore. Carefully you grabbed his hand that Pepper wasn’t holding and you gave him a squeeze, not really sure what to say.

With a shaky hand you reached out to stroke the side of his face that wasn’t burned, but your touch did nothing to get a response from him. You could feel the tears fall down your cheeks as you watched him barely breath, and you shook your head.

“I love you so much,” you managed before the sobs in your chest ached to be released. “I love you-”

Just as you were struggling to get the last words out, the light of his arc reactor went out. You gasped lowly as Pepper fell forward to sob into Tony’s shoulder, and someone pulled you off the ground as your sobs were just starting. Steve had pulled you into his embrace as you cried, and the somber feeling carried through everyone else.

You had lost the last piece of family you had left.

Uncertainty. That was the one thing that had settled into your life those days between the battle and Tony’s funeral. Those of you who needed it found yourselves in a hotel in the city, and each of your days blended together in the same way. You slept all day, most of the time waking up and opting to stay in bed and stare ahead.. Your eyes burned, and you didn’t know what to do with yourself.

Steve stayed with you, though it was hard on him. When you first arrived, you nearly immediately got into the bed and under the sheets, and he couldn’t coax you out for two days. He opened the blinds to the windows, but you stared blankly out, and when he came with food you told him you weren’t hungry. He tried to help, but he didn’t know how.

The day before the funeral, when he finally got you to eat oatmeal (even if it was just a couple spoonfuls) and managed to get you into the shower, he tucked you back into bed and you went to sleep once more. He stayed in the room for a while, his own thoughts heavy on his mind, before going to the one person he knew would understand him the most.

When Bucky answered the door, he gave him a sad smile and let him into his room. Steve walked in and stopped in front of the windows overlooking the city, which was now bustling with life again. Bucky came up behind him, and Steve could hear him open the mini fridge in the room and pull something out.

“How is she?” Bucky asked. Steve sighed and turned back to face his friend while crossing his arms.

“I got her to eat a bit, but Buck… I’ve never seen her like this and I.. I don’t know what to do,” Steve admitted. Bucky sat himself on the edge of his bed with a water bottle in his hand and sighed.

“You just have to be there for her, Steve,” Bucky offered. “No matter how long it takes.”

The guilt on his conscience was too much, and Steve nodded in response. He took a seat in the chair across from the bed and rubbed his hands together, all while Bucky took sips from his water and watched him closely. Bucky knew he was holding something back.

“Steve.. What’s going on in that head of yours?”

Steve looked up to meet his best friend's gaze, before looking back down to the ground. “I… I don’t think I belong here anymore, Buck.”

Bucky’s brows narrowed as he looked at his friend. Where was this coming from? Hethought you two would’ve worked things out in the five years he was gone, Bucky had only assumed so since Steve was by your side during this.. He thought Steve moved on from this kind of talk. “What do you mean Steve.”

“What if I should go back?” Steve asked him, meeting Bucky’s gaze again. “There’s a way now and… And I saw Peggy-”

“You saw Peggy?” Bucky asked, and Steve gave him a nod. “Steve now think about this… I thought you were over this, I thought you were set on making things right with (Y/N)-”

“I was,” Steve cut him off this time. “But Buck when I saw Peggy… There’s something telling me that… That it was always supposed to be her.”

“Yeah, maybe back then,” Bucky conceded. “But Steve think about now. You’re here for a reason, not back there… I thought you passed this.”

“Maybe I never was,” Steve asserted. Bucky looked over his friend, and he shook his head and stood up again.

“I think you should consider this a lot more than you have… Because there is someone really hurting right now, and she needs you,” Bucky told him. “I don’t know if you two worked it out over these last few years but Steve you need to think about this.”

Tony was… Exceptional. He was what you had always wanted to be when you grew up. And maybe that was more true now than ever.

You found yourself unable to do a lot of things the last few days, including dress yourself for this funeral. You felt sickly, but the cries had drawn themselves out and left you too tired to continue today. You were there for the entirety of Tony’s message to his family, and Steve was still by your side as Pepper set a wreath with an old arc reactor into the lake by their home.

You felt empty. Emptier and more alone than you had ever felt.

When you managed to be alone you had wandered off by yourself to Tonys’ work shed and pried it open. Dust lingered in the air, and you entered slowly with hands shoved into the pockets of the coat you had been wearing. You were chilly, probably getting sick, but you ignored the thought as you turned the light on to see better.

What you had been searching for was staring at you like it had been weeks ago. Slightly discolored, the photo of Tony and you from when you were younger screamed at you of a feeling you’d never feel again. You reached out for it with a shakiness you couldn’t control and grabbed it, and traced your fingers over the glass front before holding it to your chest in an effort to comfort the pain in your heart.

The floor echoed as someone entered, and you wiped the tears from your face as they came up behind you. They didn’t sound like Steve’s footsteps, and you turned to face the person who must’ve followed you out.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Bucky Barnes said to you. You found yourself nodding and looked back down at the photo you were clinging onto.

“Me too,” you admitted quietly. When you met Bucky’s gaze again he looked like he wanted to say something, but Steve came up behind him and the moment was stopped. Steve glanced between you two before refocusing on you, and he cleared his throat.

“Happy has something for you,” Steve admitted and you gave him a nod. Steve waited for you to pass him before Bucky turned his way and gave him a knowing look. Though they hadn’t discussed it since, Bucky hoped Steve had come to his senses.

Things never felt normal for you, not as soon as people seemed to hope it would. You tried to be more.. Enthusiastic. But how could you just be okay after that?

Weeks had passed since the funeral, and you didn’t feel any better. Happy had given you a drive with a message he said Tony had left for you, but you couldn’t seem to bring yourself to listen to it. Not yet, maybe ever. It was hard enough seeing his face plastered on the news, and in depth reporting on the Stark legacy, with people questioning what you would contribute in the family’s wake. Even Steve had asked you about your commitment to one another… You hate to admit it but you told him you couldn’t right now, not with this pain in your heart. He told you he understood. You weren’t sure if he noticed, but you tucked the ring he had given you back into the velvet box, and then away safely.

But things were uneasy between you two, and you did what you always do. When Bruce called with work, you accepted it. Anything to get you mind off the thoughts that ran rampant. There was one last thing that needed to be done: the stones needed to be returned.

You had memorized every detail of Tony’s work when it came to the Quantum portal. Bruce and you had replicated one in record time, and on a sunny day you stood there beside him double checking the trajectories. Steve had volunteered to return the stones, with no arguments from anyone on the matter.

“Now, remember,” Bruce explained to Steve. “You have to return the stones to the exact moment you got them. Or you're gonna open up a bunch of nasty alternative realities.”

“Don’t worry Bruce, clip all the branches,” Steve said as he messed with the com in his ear. You were too focused on the conversations that unfolded, your mind drifting off for a moment before being pulled back with Bruce setting his hand on your back.

“You okay?” He asked, and you nodded and returned to finalizing the jump.

“I’m fine,” you reassured him and looked up to see Bucky and Steve hug for a moment. Steve stepped up onto the platform and the familiar Quantum suit appeared over him. He picked up the case that had all the stones, and Mjolnir as well.

“How long is this gonna take?” Sam asked.

“For him? As long as he needs. For us? Five seconds,” Bruce explained before meeting Steve’s look. “We’ll meet you back here, okay?”

Steve looked at you, with a look on his face you couldn’t quite place. Your stomach felt like it was twisted in a knot, even though he gave a nod and looked back Bruce’s way.

“You bet,” Steve replied.

“Going quantum in three, two, one..” Bruce counted down before Steve disappeared. You intently watched his stream disappear on the monitor you had before you, and Bruce started counting again. “And returning in five, four, three two, one-”

When Steve didn’t reappear you frantically looked for his stream location, only to see it shoot past his return point. “He blew right past his time stamp-”

Bruce moved you out the way and your gaze focused on the empty Quantum portal, and you shook your head a bit. You could hear the conversations around you, but couldn’t quite make out the words being said. All you knew was Steve didn’t come back. When everyone went quiet your attention went to the three men who were focused in the distance, with Sam heading towards a figure who hadn’t been there before.

You stepped off the platform you had been working on and took a few steps in the grass closer to where Bucky was standing and watching whatever was unfolding. You had your disbelief, but that was crumbled the minute you saw Sam take the shield, and you could now make out it was an old man.

When Tony died time had all but warped together.. But what you were seeing right now had felt like the ground was taken out from under you. The older man had stood and shaken Sam’s hand, and when they looked back at Bucky, when you could see those eyes even from this far you stumbled backwards. They were Steve’s eyes.

Confusion… Panic… Hurt. Everything coursed through you at once, and ignoring the calls from whoever tried to get you to stay, to probably talk about it, you turned away from the scene and pulled the arc attachment from your pocket and desperately threw it onto your chest. The suit that you hadn’t worn since the battle appeared out your body, hid your face behind a helmet and you shot off from the ground with only one destination in your mind.

You had never used the fastest flight power Tony’s suits had to offer but you did that day for the first time. You needed to get back to the hotel you had been staying at quickly, and when you landed on the roof and your suit disappeared as you ran for the entrance to the building, you needed to find it.

Out of breath by the time you made it to your room and threw open the door and it shut behind you, you overlooked your room and couldn’t get your mind together. You hurried over to the bedside table you had hidden what you were looking for and pulled it out the housing completely, only to find it empty.

A frantic panic flooded you, and in a matter of minutes you had nearly destroyed the hotel room, overturning every piece of furniture, overlooking every crevice you could find. You rested your back against a wall and breathed heavily, before sliding down and for the first time in weeks, fresh sobs left your body.

Steve Rogers had taken his ring back. And now you were truly alone…

...In 1974, Howard Stark was going to unveil his City of the Future to the world, but was having a hard time coming up with the right words. Tony had interrupted him once, though he couldn’t hold it against the kid, he was only four and Howard worked late nights. With Maria talking about wanting another kid, Howard was doing whatever he could to set them up for success, and here he was, getting ready to record a message for them.

He just needed to get something off his chest, and he leaned back against his desk with his arms crossed before him, and searched his mind for the right words. He tapped his foot lightly before sighing under his breath.

“I’ve never been a man of many words, as crazy as that sounds. But trying to build all of this, I’ve had to put my best foot forward,” Howard started. He touched the model beside him and looked at the camera. “You don’t know it yet but your mother is talking about having another baby, and I’m… I’m looking forward to that, when it happens.

“Tony, you are too young to understand this right now, so I thought I would put it on film for you. I built this for you, and by the looks of it your brother or sister, and some day you two will realize that it represents a whole lot more than just people's inventions. It represents my life's work. This is the key to the future. I'm limited by the technology of my time, but one day you'll figure this out. And when you do, you will change the world.”

Later on Howard would go on to edit this message, just weeks before his death, to include another message. This one would go unheard for years. Until you were ready, this message sat alongside Tony’s on the drive he left for you.

“You turned five this year. When someone told me that I would become a sucker for my little girl, man did they mean it,” Howard chuckled. Something caught his attention off screen, but he looked at the camera he had set up in his study and on a rare occasion he smiled. “With Tony, he became my vision, the reason why I wanted my work to make the biggest impact on the world… So that he would have the best future. But you? You’re my aspiration. And just like Tony, I know you’re going to change the world… If you both sat through these messages, I just want you to know one last thing.

“What is, and always will be, my greatest creation... is you two."

- - - - - - - - - -

taglist // message me to be added or feel free to add yourself!!

@elliee1497 @iizabxlla @bulbasor-charmander-2020 @littlemoistcarrot @dottirose@meraki–mei @littledaph @fckdusername @bisexuwhale9669 @mottergirl99 @vxidnik@anabutnotpro @ilovesupersoldiers @incorrect-artist @caseymcflurry@robindoesntloveme @cherryara @fightforspring @annetries @petlaufeyson@weasleyisourjedi @loganrwebb @marinettepotterandplagg @snarky–starky@emotionalcal @feelmyroarrrr @chewymoustachio @cass4nova @holy-rosewater@natdrunk @botchedzucchini @booksarebae2000​  @chelseaxaz @stealapizzamyheart @iamninaanna @xoxonotme @chrisevansiseverything @stupid-simp33

[softcallofdutyimagines]

Stay | Russell Adler x fem!bell!Reader

Summary: Despite having developed deep feelings for you after all this time working together, Adler takes you to antarctica like he was told. The only issue is... Things aren't as they seem when he finally confronts you.

Aka, sorry Treyarch, but this time the thotlers win.

SKSKSKS I ONLY MADE THAT POST TO TEST THE WATER, SO THANK YOU @smokeywhalee FOR ASKING FOR THE FIC. I ACTUALLY WROTE THIS WHOLE ASS THING LAST NIGHT SO COME GET THIS FLUFFY ASS BREAD Y'ALL AND ENJOY

Tags: fluff, angst, and angst with a happy ending

Warnings: some strong language and you might need a tissue box bc I sure did 😭😭

"Nothing like arctic air, eh?"

Russell Alder stands just a few feet away, hands resting squarely on his hips, looking out over the cliffs.

"Sure", you smile tiredly, a little sleepy from the long flight, as you walk up beside him. Without needing permission, you slip your pinky around his as he loosens his grip to allow you to do so.

Adler takes a glance down at your intertwined hands. He can't keep you in the dark for long. But still, he's afraid to tell you...

You move to lean your head on his shoulder, only to be left alone as he wrenches himself away.

"Listen Bell, there's... There's something I need to tell you", he refuses himself a glance at you. It would hurt him too much. You make an inquisitive noise and a long silence passes.

Perhaps it would be best just to get the hard part over. He was never one for beating around the bush anyway. "They sent me out here to kill you, Bell"

His voice is hardly audible, a clever trick to disguise the hurt in his voice. He grits his teeth, wondering if you really needed to know that, but then he remembers... He's done lying to you. You deserve to know.

Adler braces himself for the backlash, perhaps even a bullet in the back. Instead, he's met with a whisper.

"I know"

Your voice is only audible thanks to the bitter wind helping it along to his ear, leaving a ghostly caress as it passes him by. Russell turns around this time, almost disappointed to see your back still turned to him.

"How d-?"

You turn slowly, and even from there he can see the tear rolling down your face, "Why else would we be out here?", you gesture around to the great nothingness enveloping you both. You sniff and swipe a hand across you cheek, a joyless laugh escaping you, "Besides, you never take me anywhere nice"

In any other scenario, it would be playful and teasing, just like he knows you for.

Adler huffs a half hearted laugh at that, before tearing his gaze away. "Bell, I..."

"Oh, cut the shit Russell. Just do it, alright?", the tears flow freely down your glassy eyes now, "I know you have to... Really, I get it. A-and it's alright, you know? I-"

By now, Adler has made his way across to you. Even now, he hates to see you so upset. He gently grips your arms in his strong, steady hands, hoping against hope to give you some sense of ease. He needs to finish what he has to say.

"Bell..."

He then tries to say your name, but you won't allow it.

"Just shut up, alright? God, I hate you! I h-hate you..."

You struggle in his grip, beating weakly against his chest as your body becomes wracked pwith sobs, voice trailing off pathetically. Adler pulls you close, just in time, as you collapse into his arms.

"God, why? Why why...?"

You're choked up with hiccuping sobs again as Adler lowers you both to kneel in the grass. He squeezes you tighter, comfortingly he hopes, and if nothing else, to keep him from allowing tears of his own to fall too.

With a ragged gasp, you find your voice, allowing your anger and frustration to seap in at last, "After all I did for you people... This is how yo-?"

But you're cut off, and suddenly all your senses are overwhelmed with... Him.

Adlers lips crush into yours, the eagerness with which he kisses you is enough to erase all the fear, and pain, and sadness. At least, for the moment.

The crisp arctic air only accentuates the musky smell of his cologne, infusing every breath you breathe with its familiar scent. Charred birch and a hint of cigarettes. You almost smile at that.

He's been trying to quit, per your request, but... Old habits die hard.

The uneven stubble of his scarred chin tickles as he works over your lips, sucking gently, but adamantly once, then twice, before sustaining one long kiss again.

At last you part, lungs burning for air. Small puffs of condensation intermingle between your mouths as you catch your breath.

Adler takes one last gasp for air, to steady himself more then anything, before delivering one more kiss to your forehead. He knows he doesn't deserve to think such things, but...

You have no idea how long he's wanted to kiss you.

A few more tears start up from you again, but in that moment, he decides once and for all to commit to all the promises he's been wanting to make to you. He's done watching you suffer, and it's time you knew.

"I'm not going to kill you Bell...", he whispers against the warm skin of your forehead before pulling you to the crook of his neck.

You sniff, instantly frozen as you try to make sense of what you just heard. Too soon, faster then your mind can catch up, you search for words, "Wha-? Why? How? Russell, if they find out they'll kill yo-"

"Shhhh, they're not going to find out. I'm defecting. Right here, right now"

"B-but, why? I already told you, it's o-"

Adler moves his hands to cup your face, training your gaze to be all on him.

"No, it's not ok Bell. What we did to you... What I did to you... Was fucked, and unfair, but... it was for the greater good. But this? No."

"W-well ok... but-?"

"I'm doing this because I love you Bell", he barks it out, almost angrily, but even behind those old tinted aviators, you can see his expression soften almost immediately as he gently strokes your cheek with his thumb, "I love you... So much. Do you understand?"

He pauses for a moment, and his grand show of steely emotions breaks as he removes the sunglasses to wipe away his tears. And when he looks back at you... You're surprised at the reminder of how beautiful his eyes are.

"And... I'm... sorry I never told you before... Well, this"

Your mind is reeling at the rush of information. This... confession, isn't exactly news to you, but to hear him say it...

With one more sniff, Adler manages to pull himself together for a final moment of vulnerability, "Look, I know this is... a lot, but I was thinki- I...", he sighs and takes a deep breath. This is it.

"Would you... Come away with me? The CIA is going to be looking for both of us, and, well... No body and all, so I was thinking... We could find somewhere... off the grid, just you and me, start fresh? I know it'll be tough bu-"

"Yes!"

"-t I can protect you an- Wait... Yes?"

"Yes!", you seal the statement with a quick kiss. A promise. Then, you grow serious, "There's nothing left for me out here Russell... You're my only choice"

"...I'm sorry to hear that"

You cup a hand to his face, a tiny glimpse of that beautiful smile he loves so much peeking through, "No no, I didn't mean... This is a good thing. I meant to say, I wouldn't want to choose anyone else"

Adler sniffs and huffs a laugh, rocking gently as you pull in for an embrace, "Well in that case... I'm sorry to hear you have such terrible taste in men"

That earns a genuine laugh from you, and to him, it sounds like music.

You slip your hand into his, holding on just by the fingers before reaching up to plant a kiss over the scar on his jaw. You always rather liked those scars of his, no matter how much he wishes they never were.

But then again... He loves the way you use them to make him feel handsome, and he'll never understand how you do it.

After a few moments more, Adler gets up, pulling you to your feet as well. You wipe away the last of your tears, and as you glance up at him, a look of uncertainty crosses you.

He knows he has no right to ask you to trust him. Not after all the lies and the manipulation that got you and him to this point. But even after all that... The fact that you're willing to give him a chance humbles him to no end.

Adler looks back at you, and wishes for nothing more then the ability to make sure you never have to worry, or hurt, or live in fear ever again. But if there's one thing he does know, he'll be damned if he doesn't try.

"Come on kid", he rubs some warmth back into your arms, then kisses the top of your hair, "let's get out of here, huh? I've got just the place in mind..."

And just the place indeed.

A few months of preparation go by first, but at last you've managed to escape to the Swiss country side. Fields and fields of vibrant green grass and small wildflowers pass you by as Adler drives along, the great alps standing tall and strong just in the distance.

The sun glows warmly over head, and a little sparkle catches your eye. You look down and admire the ring on your hand once again, turning it this way and that, before stealing a glance at Russell's matching one.

With a couple more twists and turns, Adler asks you to close your eyes. A little while more, and the car comes to a stop. "Hey, don't open yet!", He hurries around to help you out, guiding you along want feels like a gravel path.

He puts his hands over yours, "Ready?"

You nod, the suspense absolutely eating you up. Finally, he moves your hands aside, revealing a small, brightly painted house before you. A stone path leads up to a white fenced porch complete with a swing for two.

The whole thing is practically overgrown with wysteria, coiling in and around the pillars and walls, and out front a wild garden stretches up towards the sun.

It's perfect.

You whip around, finding yourself unable to speak. But, he already knows. Adler sweeps you up off your feet and gives you a little spin as you shriek in surprise, melting into a fit of laughter as he sets you down.

He leans in and kisses you, just another of countless more to come, before pulling back. You have no idea how much it means to him to see you this happy....

"Welcome home"

[sigmaleph]

@serinemolecule asked me for hot takes on this 2006 article on Argentinian food, which I am now reorganising into a proper post for y'all's consumption. you're welcome.

First of all: the titular thesis that you should eat two steaks a day. I am forced to clarify that as 'should's go you should eat zero steaks a day, but this is ethical rather dietary advice and I don't follow it as well as I should, so, y'know. I would engage with this on the level it was stated, but I actually have no opinion on it. Moving on...

Argentine beef really is extraordinary. Almost all of this has to do with how the cows are raised. There are no factory feedlots in Argentina; the animals still eat pampas grass their whole lives, in open pasture, and not the chicken droppings and feathers mixed with corn that pass for animal feed in the United States.

This is, as it happens, completely false. There absolutely is plenty of feedlot beef being eaten in Argentina, and this was also the case back when this article was written. There's grass-fed beef too, and maybe the writer structured their life around only eating those, but the claim that there are no feedlots is just not true.

if you let them make the call, you get a two-inch thick of meat[...]The Argentine steak stands alone, towering three inches over the plate,[...]This gorgeous specimen is called a lomito; it's a standard lunchtime steak, clearly so thin that the Argentines are embarrassed to send it out into the world without a protective wrapping of ham and cheese

I have no idea what their obsession with steak thickness is; meat exists at various levels of thick and thin to suit various tastes. If you like yours thick that's fine but quit the projecting, y'know.

As you might expect, vegetarians will have a somewhat rough time here. For most people in Argentina, a vegetarian is something you eat. One's diet will accordingly lean heavily on pastas, gnocchi, salads, and (for the less squeamish ) fish. Vegans will not survive in Argentina.

This is, unfortunately, true (well, hyperbole, but). Rinna had a rather bad time trying to find vegan food when fae came over for visits. The situation is improving slowly, at least.

The homemade cookies bought in the minimarket downstairs taste of steak. [picture of alfajores de maicena[

Jesus. Find somewhere better to buy your snacks.

It should be no surprise that the land of beef also has excellent milk and butter. The milk comes in plastic bags that would give any American marketing department a heart attack. They proudly advertise "GUARANTEED 100% BRUCELLOSIS AND HOOF-AND-MOUTH FREE". One brand even brags that its bacteria count never exceeds 100,000 per mL, and prints daily statistics to prove it (only 82,000 bacteria/mL on Monday! mmm!).

Are you under the impression American milk doesn't contain bacteria and that when it spoils it's because of the molecules' sheer willpower? Or do you just object to the reminder that they exist?

This menu is delicious, but with rare exceptions it is all you are going to get. People coming for more than a few weeks are advised to bring a discreet bottle of Tabasco sauce.

Eat at better restaurants.

With any order from the master menu comes the Bread Basket, which should be treated as you would treat a basket of wax fruit, that is, as a purely decorative ornament. It is considered bad form to actually eat anything from Bread Basket

What are you talking about. Do all your dining companions just suck, eat some bread.

Dulce de leche is a culinary cry for help. It says "save us, we are baffled and alone in the kitchen, we don't know what to do for dessert and we're going to boil condensed milk and sugar together until help arrives". This cloying dessert tar is so impossibly sweet that you wish you were ten years old again, just so you could actually enjoy it. It is everywhere. There is a special dulce de leche shelf in the supermarket dairy case, and the containers go up to a liter in size. Even the churros are stuffed with it - the churros, Montresor!

It is rare that I feel insulted for the sake of my country, but this? How dare you.

Yes, of course we fill churros with dulce de leche; the real question is why anyone doesn't, short of dietary restrictions. Finding out that people do otherwise was like learning that in other countries, "sandwich" just means two slices of bread. Live a little. Eat a real godsdamned churro.

I spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out how meals work in Argentina, and they remain a mystery to me. Dinner is clear enough: people tend to go to restaurants beginning at ten o'clock (for those with small children), with the main rush around eleven, and dinner is pretty much over at one or so in the morning. And breakfast - or rather, its absence - follows as a logical consequence of eating a steak the size of a beagle at midnight. But I have yet to figure out whether people eat some kind of meal in the afternoon, and if so, when.

At... noon? Like. We eat lunch. Usually somewhere around 12:00. I am eating lunch right now, and I have done so essentially every day of my life. This is just baffling.

I've come to think the culprit in the missing Argentine lunch scene is yerba mate.

how.

Where the ignorant foreigner may see just another kind of herbal tea (yerba mate is a very unassuming shrub that grows in the northern parts of the country) the Argentine sees a taste treat of unimaginable subtlety, and a tonic for all his problems. The Wikipedia article on proper mate preparation should give you a warning of the level of obsessiveness attainable here (the Urugayans are even worse). To the virgin palate, mate tastes like green tea mixed with grass clippings. The beverage is traditionally drunk out of a little gourd, through a metal straw called a bombilla, with hot (but not boiling!!) water poured into it (without wetting the surface!! clockwise!!) from a thermos.

Yeah, this is accurate. Well, not the clockwise part, never heard anyone complain about that and I can't imagine it mattering.

What distinguishes mate from coffee and tea is the social context - two or more people share a gourd, with a designated pourer in charge of refilling it with hot water after each turn. The ritual is low-fuss but indispensible. You can buy mate gourds and thermoses in any grocery store, and get your thermos filled with hot water at any convenience store or gas station, but you will never see mate served in restaurants or sold in little disposable paper gourds, to go. it's not that people refuse to drink mate alone - anyone working a solitary shift will have a gourd in hand - but that the concept of being served mate by someone who does not share it with you seems impossible.

This is also true. Attempts have been made to sell to-go mate but it's never very popular, the social ritual is important. Also unfortunately a disease vector, I haven't had any mate in a year and a half.

Mate aficionados will tell you that mate contains a special compound, mateine, that serves as a tonic and mild stimulant, promoting alertness without making it hard to sleep, reducing fatigue and appetite, helping the digestion and serving as a mild diuretic. Scientists will tell you that mateine bears a suspicious resemblance to a chemical called caffeine. Mate aficionados will then grow indignant, explaining that mateine is really a stereoisomer (mirror image) of caffeine, with different effects, which will in turn irritate the scientists, who will snap that caffeine doesn't have a chiral center, so it can't have a distinguishable mirror image, and why don't the mate aficionados just put a sock in it.

The first part of this is true; some people definitely think "mateine" is different from caffeine and it absolutely isn't. Never heard the stereoisomer claim before but googling it does confirm some people say so.

still have no idea what any of this has to do with lunch, though. I promise you nobody skips lunch because mate is just too filling.

The wine here is very good (something has to stand up to that steak), but Argentina has no liquor to call its own, relying on whiskies like Old Smuggler and the low-maintenance Don Juan cognac to carry the flag.

There's a fundamental omission from this list and it's called fernet.

Beer is ubiquitous and comes in a bewildering variety of sizes, although there is a skittishness about the full-on liter. Things level off at 970 mL. In my case, it means I end up drinking 1940 mL of beer as a kind of personal protest, and all is well with the world. To make up for the abundance of sizes, beer comes in only one variety, Quilmes, which inevitably comes served with a tripartite platter of snacks - nuts, salty cylinders, and aged potato chips.

I never had trouble buying beer by the litre, but I confess I never tried to do so in 2006 on account of being under 18 at the time.

Anyway, beer comes in a lot more varieties today, thankfully, because Quilmes sucks. I'll never be a beer person, but at least these days there's options I tolerate.

[original post]

[mellometal]

Is it time to tear ANOTHER Dhar Mann video to shreds? YOU BET.

I've been sitting on this one for a bit because I wanted to make sure I talk about this tactfully. The subject of parents abandoning their disabled children is a very touchy one.

Parents abandoning their disabled children simply for being disabled is way too common. Like, I understand that not everyone has the resources to care for a disabled child (which is why you reach out for help, and why people like me, who work with disabled people, exist), but it doesn't mean you just walk out of their life. There are exceptions, like if you truly didn't want children or something like that, but just flat-out walking out of your kid's life BECAUSE they're disabled is fucked up.

I know someone personally whose biological mother abandoned her when she was born. Why? Because she's disabled. Physically, and mentally, to a point. I work with this woman on a daily basis. I don't really know WHY exactly her biological mother abandoned her, but I do know that her being disabled was part of it. It's sad. It doesn't affect her, thankfully. I'm happy that she's got her biological dad, her brother, and another maternal figure in her life, at least.

ANYWAYS. Before we get to the topic at hand, I need to put an obligatory trigger warning, like I do with EVERY Dhar Mann post:

This post will be talking about parents abandoning their disabled children simply for being disabled, treating disabilities like they're tragedies (in this case, we're talking about autism...again), divorce, and some SPICY ableist bullshit from an allistic (nonautistic) PIECE OF SHIT.

If any of this triggers you or makes you uncomfortable in any way, you don't have to read this post. This isn't worth putting yourself in a bad state mentally. I would never ask for any of you to put yourselves in that position all for a post. Put your mental health and well-being first. Consume media that sparks joy for you.

As far as my response goes, it's definitely more calm than normal. Funny....since this video is about autism spectrum disorder again. (Third time's the charm, huh, Dhar Mann? NOT.)

LET'S FUCKING GET IT.

The video starts off with these two parents (Gwen and Allen) in a psychologist's office. The psychologist tells the parents that their son (Chance) is autistic, and she tries to explain what autism is to the parents, but Allen cuts her off. Why? Because he teaches at a prestigious university, so he AUTOMATICALLY knows what autism is from that fact alone.

Um, excuse me? Just because you're a teacher at a prestigious university, it doesn't mean you're an expert in everything. It doesn't make you an expert in ASD or anything like that. Unless you SPECIALIZE in that area. Even then, shut the fuck up. The people who know about being autistic are AUTISTIC PEOPLE THEMSELVES! SHOCKER.

Hey, Dhar Mann! QUIT WITH THE VIDEOS ABOUT AUTISTIC LITTLE WHITE BOYS AND YOUNG WHITE AUTISTIC CISHET MEN! I'M SICK AND TIRED OF IT. It's annoying, ignorant, and it feels like you're doing this on purpose at this point to piss people off. If you're so uninformed about autism in women and girls, FUCKING ASK AUTISTIC WOMEN AND GIRLS! DO BETTER RESEARCH THAT DOESN'T INVOLVE AUTISM SPEAKS. The Autism Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) and the Autistic Women and Nonbinary People Network (AWN) are great organizations to go to for any kind of research on ASD in women and girls. STOP GOING OFF OF THE BRAINS OF AUTISTIC WHITE BOYS AND AUTISTIC WHITE MEN.

I don't feel I need to go too deep into the fact that autistic women, autistic girls, autistic nonbinary people, autistic BIPOC, autistic AAPI, autistic LGBT people, autistic teenagers, and autistic adults exist. Y'all already know.

Gwen asks the psychologist if that means Chance isn't healthy. (I understand not knowing about autism, but don't treat it like it's a terminal illness. Please.) The psychologist tells her that Chance is fine, but he just learns differently and might need more support compared to his peers.

Yeah, autism can affect how you learn about certain things (limited and repetitive patterns), but there are other disabilities that can affect learning as well. Like how dyslexia can affect your ability to read, dyspraxia can affect your ability to do math, and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) can affect your ability to focus or on impulse control. Autism affects how your brain is developed, it affects you socially, behaviorally, and how you communicate.

Allen is upset, says that he can't have a son "with a learning disability" (ASD is a neurological disability, not necessarily a learning disability), and treats Chance like he's stupid for being autistic. Gwen tells her husband that autism doesn't make you any less intelligent, WHICH IS SO FUCKING TRUE. ABSOLUTE FACTS. I was totally with her until she began that little monologue with "Just because a person HAS autism". SAY "JUST BECAUSE A PERSON'S AUTISTIC" INSTEAD! IT'S NOT HARD. PERSON FIRST LANGUAGE ISN'T WHAT EVERY DISABLED PERSON PREFERS. Allen says that "they could have another kid" and "put Chance up for adoption". Gwen obviously wasn't down with that. Allen gives his wife an ultimatum that it's either HIM or their son Chance. Gwen says that she can't choose between the two, but she will stand by her autistic son. Allen gets up and leaves the office, saying he wants a divorce.

Years pass by, Gwen is single and taking care of her autistic son Chance, and Allen has a new life with a ✨perfect son✨ (Samuel). He never mentions the son HE abandoned (Chance). He's completely forgotten about Gwen and Chance. (YOU OWE SO MUCH CHILD SUPPORT, ALLEN.)

Hey, Allen, how much do you wanna bet that your ✨perfect son✨ Samuel is autistic too?

There's the SATs, they're announcing a winner, and guess who it is? IT'S OBVIOUSLY CHANCE, OF COURSE. He's got the highest score in the country, with Samuel in second place. Allen is PISSED.

Chance gives a speech about how his mom really helped him, he struggled with autism, how Allen LITERALLY ABANDONED HIM, and THE CROWD GOES FUCKING WILD. Samuel, instead of being a sore loser, APPLAUDS FOR CHANCE. Stay humble, Sam.

My thoughts on the video? If you cannot tell by my tone throughout this post, IT WAS DOG SHIT. This video was insensitive to the true reality of parents abandoning their disabled children just because they're disabled. What do I expect from Dhar Mann at this point?

Here's my response to his video below. Don't worry, I will fully type out my response soon for anyone who cannot read the screenshots easily. It's a lot easier for me to do that on the desktop site than it is for me to do it on my phone.

For anyone who can’t read my response, I’m typing it out for you. Like I said, it’s easier for me to type it out on the desktop site than it is for me to type it out on my phone. It’s a real royal pain in the ass. But because I’m trying to make my posts easier to read for people, I’m doing this anyway. /lighthearted

First, second, and third screenshots (broken up into paragraphs):

Hey, listen, I appreciate the message you’re trying to go for, but can you please stop putting autistic people into a box? Can you stop treating being autistic like it’s a tragedy? Not every single autistic person is a little white boy in elementary school who’s considered “wild and unruly” or “super quiet and makes no friends”, nor are they a young white cishet man who’s a super genius or is how Chris Chan was before she came out as trans. (For anyone who doesn’t know about Chris Chan, there are many documentaries people have made on YouTube, and I highly recommend Geno Samuel’s docuseries, if you’re really interested in learning about Chris Chan.)

Autistic women, girls, nonbinary people, BIPOC, APPI, LGBT people, teenagers, and adults all exist too. 

It’s very apparent now that you get your resources from Autism $peaks, a hate group that spends the vast majority of their money on funding eugenics instead of helping autistic people like they claim, claims that only little white boys and young white cishet men are autistic and ignores all other autistic people who don’t fit that description, have no autistic people on their leader board or on any board for that matter, have members who have actually fantasized about k1lling their autistic children, treat autism like it’s a tragedy or a disease someone can catch (completely false), act like autism should be cured (there is no cure, and ABA therapy is a total shit show in itself), and treats autistic people like they’re broken and need to be fixed. Also, not every autistic person is a Super Genius(tm). That’s so demeaning to autistic people who aren’t seen as intelligent in any way. I’m autistic and seen as smart; however, there are subjects I’m stronger in than others.

If you can’t handle the possibility of having autistic children, or just disabled children in general, DON’T HAVE CHILDREN. If you can’t handle working with or alongside disabled people, including autistic people, maybe find a different profession. Even if you do that, you’ll never get away from disabled people. Disabled people aren’t a disease. We’re human beings just like neurotypical and able-bodied people.

Fourth and fifth screenshots (broken up into paragraphs): 

I would highly suggest getting resources from reputable organizations for ASD, such as the Autism Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) and the Autistic Women and Nonbinary People Network (AWN). Talk to any autistic person who isn’t a little white boy or a young white cishet man. 

Instead of using the puzzle piece, which is a symbol that many autistic people, myself included, are offended by (because of Autism $peaks and other organizations before them using it, plus it symbolizes that only autistic children exist and that we’re “missing a piece” like we’re broken), use the rainbow infinity sign (for all neurodivergent people) or the red and gold infinity sign (just for autistic people). Instead of “lighting it up blue”, light it up red or gold. Do both if you want. 

I’m actually really sick and tired of seeing just autistic little white boys and young autistic white cishet men being represented in the media, and y’all manage to fuck that up too. 

Before anyone mentions Sia’s movie “Music”, that’s also very poor representation of autistic girls. Besides, the actress who played the autistic girl isn’t even autistic. She MOCKED autistic people. I know she’s a kid, but that’s still super fucked up. I hope she’s able to turn that around. 

If anyone would like to discuss this topic with me or ask any questions, feel free to. I’ll answer as best as I can. Thank you and have a good night.

Before I get attacked for mentioning Chris Chan in my response, I bring up Chris Chan because allistic people think that every autistic person is like her (especially before she came out as trans). That person is part of why I wasn't open about being autistic or talking about my diagnosis until this year. I didn't want to be grouped up with Chris Chan because I do have very similar interests to her, I've been seen as cringey for having said interests, and just the way Chris treated autistic people who were formerly diagnosed with A$p3rg3r$ $yndr0m3 (like I was) really made me feel even more alienated.

Also, S1a supports A$ (Autism $p3aks). She's not a very good person to support. Some of her music is good, but her as a person....no. Her movie "Music" was gross, from what I've read about it and seen pictures of.

If you've read this far, thank you so much!

[concubuck]

So you have gotten pregnant? and can also get others pregnant at the same time... Are condoms not used at all in hell? I understand that it seems to be a failed birth control but does anyone use condoms down here?

((I'd like to point out that Alastor has not said he got pregnant; he has only said he might have gotten other people pregnant. It might make sense for a sharp listener to wonder whether or not a potential failure in his birth control might mean he could have gotten pregnant—but like, as far as what anybody who can only see what he says ICly knows, he hasn't actually said anything like that

I realize I'm getting on ur case a bit anon, and I apologize for that—it's because i feel like saying "please stop" is rude/unhelpful if i don't try to help you understand why I'm making that request, so i wanna try to explain! And, because of the plot I've got going on here, it's important to me to keep OOC information and IC information separate.

I, as the writer, want all y'all readers to know the whole story, so I've been showing y'all everything, including his pregnancy test and taking you along to his doctor appointments and all.

But Alastor, as the character, has been trying VERY hard to keep this secret, and one of his big concerns right now is "how will people react when they find out? how long can i keep this secret? how will i reveal the information in a way that protects my reputation? or can I keep it secret until the bitter end?" The fact that his pregnancy is still secret weighs HEAVILY on him and is a major factor impacting his current emotions.

So I don't want to blur the lines between IC knowledge and OOC knowledge by letting someone who's talking to Alastor-the-character just already know. Because if somebody just KNEW he was pregnant he'd panic and wonder which doctor he needs to murder for leaking that info!!

And I'm making a whole big post about this not because I wanna yell at you, anon (sorry about that again!) but because I'd appreciate it if anyone writing in, like, bears in mind what the current status of IC knowledge is? Some RP blogs are willing to play loosey-goosey with "if it's been discussed on the blog in any context, then my character will accept it if an anon asks them about it." But on this blog, when I get an anon talking to Alastor rather than talking to me-the-writer, I treat them like that's another person living in Alastor's reality—another sinner or demon in Hell who's a fan of the Radio Demon's online modeling—which means they wouldn't know things about him that he hasn't broadcasted.

ANYWAY, i know i just wrote a big wall of "please don't do this," so lemme make it up to you by giving an OOC/worldbuilding answer to the other half of your question:

Condoms ARE available in Hell—and even though it's Hell, some people even use them!—and i figure the quality of production is a lot worse in Hell, but I imagine sometimes they even work lol. Alastor, though, rarely uses them.

This is because condoms are used for basically two reasons: to prevent the spread of disease and to prevent the spread of babies.

I headcanon that lust demons are almost completely invulnerable to STDs, because they're not a normal creature that STDs could have evolved to target; they're supernatural creatures that were designed to tempt humans into committing sins of lust. If they could spread STDs to partners, that would make committing lustful sins seem less appealing, and so that would contradict their purpose. So they're magically designed not to catch STDs. So Alastor doesn't need to worry about disease.

And Alastor was on 6 forms of long-term birth control, each one of which had from 91% to 99% effectiveness. Taken all together, that means that like,, 99% of 99% of 99% (etc) of potential pregnancies will be blocked. We're talking over 99.999% effective. In real life, people don't even DO that! No actual IRL human being is on as many birth control methods as Alastor is using. At that point, putting on a condom to prevent pregnancy is like opening an umbrella to block the rain... when you're sitting in the living room of a house with a sturdy, waterproof, leak-free roof. Like, why bother? You're not getting rained on anyway.

So Alastor rarely uses condoms—pretty much only if his partner asks for one—because they're just not necessary. ... Or so he thought.

Although let's be fair here; I put him on 6 forms of birth control so that I could undermine them and surprise him with a pregnancy anyway. Even if he'd been wearing a condom too, I'd have had it leak. No condom can save you from a malicious god.))