#the most long winded fucking vent ever

[anathemacore]

in 2017 my mom got pregnant and i was thrust into depression like i had never experienced before and that's when i first started actively wanting to die.

in 2018 my sister was born in the spring and i was constantly punished for my frighteningly severe anxiety that caused me to have insomnia and get a stomach ache whenever i ingested anything because my parents decided that it was an attitude problem. they told me i wasn't allowed to confide in anyone or tell anyone my feelings or how i was doing and that i had to come to them of i wanted to do any of that. i was thrust into the most crushing obsession with a person i had ever had then and nothing really has matched it since. my parents staged several interventions because my drawings were "too dark" (they were very tame for someone who grew up in a kjv only household and was watched R rates movies starting at 13 years old). they looked through all of my belongings and read all of my journals and i was none the wiser because it was not a thought in my mind to feel violated. i was their property after all.

in 2019 i finally broke free of the debilitating mind encompassing infatuation, only to fall into another one which was not as bad technically but hurt exponentially worse when it also ended. i got to go to the closest thing i'd ever get to a public school. i lost my best friend to her boyfriend and my mom had convinced me to gaslight myself into being the perfect cheerful daughter who wore colours that she wanted me to be.

in 2020 i made two friends, and after i spent the day with the one i was closer with on the day school closed down she never talked to me again and i never knew why, so i clung to the other one for dear life and accidentally?? fell in love with her. i also went from wanting to die and passively thinking about suicide to wanting to kill myself and actively thinking about how. of course i put this on her. i didn't know what else to do and she was all i had. i honestly have no idea when my parents found the time to raid my room and read anything and everything in it as often as it seemed considering how up to date they apparently were at any given time. so my mom got me a therapist against my dads adamant objection, verbatim she said she was "disobeying him". the therapist was basically useless but she said to go to the er if things escalated. and so they did, in not very much time. i spent several months being abused by clowns cosplaying as "mental health professionals" so that the last thing i would ever want to do for the rest of my life is reach out for help.

in 2021 my friend was slowly catching on to how i felt about her and distancing herself. she said she felt used because of how often i went to her for emotional support and i cried so hard i got a migraine and slept for an entire day and thought that maybe my stuffed animals and blankets were also sick of me and didn't love me anymore. my parents fought all the time and i wished they would just split up already, and they finally did. me and my mom and my sister got an apartment and for a second i felt like my life was finally okay. then i officially stopped talking to my friend while i had been making some online ones, and my mom got a cat even though i expressly told her i didn't want one. it caused me to have ocd meltdowns so i never left my room.

in 2022 this made her mad at me because she insisted that me being in the only place i felt safe in all the time was unhealthy. at the height she invaded it and slept in my room and threatened to take my door off. among this my therapist of over a year decided to abandon me because i "wasn't trying hard enough". mad that her being insane didn't magically make me well adjusted and not mentally ill, my mom kicked me out at age 17 because me having problems was "too stressful" for her. completely heartbroken after years of her insisting that she loved me while doing everything someone who does not love me would do, the illusion of my mom being loving or caring in any way that a mom should was shattered. i starting living with my grandparents. in spring i went to the hospital again and while not nearly as abusive as the other one it was nevertheless insanely traumatizing. i got a third utterly useless therapist, turned 18, and finally got a driver's license.

in 2023 i had a short lived relationship with someone who thought they wanted a romantic partner but actually wanted a sugar momma fuck buddy. forum drama caused me to make a cut deep enough to sever an artery and i got stitches for the first time (there had been other less deep cuts in the past that er doctors had said should've gotten stitches had i come in sooner and this one they also had said they wished i'd come in sooner but it happened at night and i insisted on coming into work the next morning, and ultimately i went to the hospital because my best internet friend insisted). a week later i was admitted to psych and was mocked and made fun of by the doctor and treated like a subhuman criminal for being a mentally ill adult, and swore that i'd never again allow myself to be admitted to psych, voluntarily or otherwise. said internet best friend (my moms age so in their 30s) then decided to take it upon themselves to attack me (18 years of age) for breaking up with my girlfriend, and tried gaslighting me into believing that i was in the wrong even though they had never met my girlfriend and knew absolutely nothing about her.between the stitches and the breakup i also rolled my car into either a shallow ravine or a very very deep ditch and totalled it and got a concussion and a huge hematoma. all the nurses at the er were like why the fuck wasn't an ambulance called (only a policeman was called and he didn't give two shits about the fact that i had just hit my head on the ceiling of my completely trashed car). i had hung out with my uncle and ended up telling him that my dad molested me because i wanted him to understand where i'm coming from because he thought i was being too harsh on my feelings about him. that was a stupid thing to do because my uncle is known for being a blabber mouth so he told everyone what i said, effectively demonizing me to the entire family (basically all of which i wasn't talking to anyways). my mom who had gotten back with my dad and decided to have another baby with him came after me saying that i was making him look bad, and also dropped the bomb on me that HIS dad was a registered sex offender for molesting my aunt. i was enraged as i had just seen him at my sister's 5th birthday party not a week before and he had very present in my life since i was very young. she stood by her decision to kick me out, her rebuttal to me saying it was illegal being "well you going out past curfew was also illegal". i effectively cut her off until further notice. then i went to la which was amazing and wonderful and perfect except that within hours of being there i lost my stuffed animal that i had taken with me everywhere every single day for the past eight or so years. it was very well established i simply could not live without him. effectively, the only "person" who i had ever felt loved by and the only one who had been there for me through everything (or anything lets be honest) had just died, on the trip of my dreams. needless to say it overshadowed the whole thing and while of course i made the most out of the trip, but thinking back on it and reminders of it is incredibly triggering and bittersweet. leading up to this my job became more and more difficult for me (both because of the work and my obnoxious coworkers) and i was burning out hard and fast. i worked ten hour shifts and i never had the energy to do literally anything after work. i ran myself straight into the ground with record force. a couple weeks after my trip in the wake of everything in the middle of my shift i simple couldn't bring myself to work another fucking second, i was dead. i cleaned up my station, told the lead i had to go, left a message for the supervisor (because i worked weekends), and left and never came back. i still mourn that job and the coworkers that weren't horrible. in theory it was a perfect job, but in reality i physically couldn't do it and i could only force myself for so long. i really don't enjoy being a disabled person who can't have an income.

this year has been mostly uneventful except for my last ditch effort to get help, which resulted in the therapist saying that i need a higher level of trauma care than she can provide despite being a trauma specialist, and handed me a flyer for a place identical to the hospitals i had been to that cause me to have a panic attack whenever i'm in a medical or medical adjacent environment for too long, and a note that said too look for therapists on psychology.com (which my grandma has already been doing for years at this point).

i say all this to say, when will i get a fucking break.

[rotisseries]

i don't read enough loz fic to know what the popular fanon is so maybe this already exists but there should be a revali and zelda besties agenda i think it would be good for them

[teeny-tiny-revenge]

Came across this in a fic again and I have to vent for a moment here: Ed's hair isn't unclean or not taken care of. Ever. Even at his lowest, in the first two episodes of season two, his hair is light and blows with the wind, it's got perfect waves, there is zero grime in it. Impossible Birds Ed hair has clearly been fairly recently washed, combed out and conditioned. Ed canonically loves soap, and you don't get that hair without owning a comb or brush and frequently working oil into it. He's at sea! The air is salty! It'll dry out your hair, but Ed's hair doesn't ever look dried out. The day he decides to commit suicide he puts his hair up into a lovely bun, with whispy stands framing his face. I have no idea what some people are watching, because Ed taking meticulous care (and most likely also putting pride and love) into his hair is clear, on-screen canon.

Like, if you want to write about how he was neglecting himself in his depression Kraken era? There's plenty there for you on screen as well! He sobs all night, probably sleeps on the floor if he sleeps at all. He doesn't wear his knee brace. He drinks and does drugs (and admits to that being poison to Frenchie!). He's pushing everyone away, he's pushing himself hard into a role that made him passively suicidal even before the breakup depression. He doesn't watch his back during raids At All. There's so much self harm there to address. If you want to, it would probably be plausible to add him not bothering to properly care for any wounds he might obtain during a raid. But he clearly doesn't neglect bathing and hair care. They're probably the only elements of self-care he actually still does during this dark time!

Even rock bottom Ed doesn't neglect his hair. And that says things about him! It's also something I'd love to see actually addressed in fic (will probably write it myself one of these days...): Taking good care of his hair, putting on jewelry, doing his makeup, these are things that seem to bring Ed joy or relief in his darkest moments. Where's my fic about these quiet moments of self-care being a straw he clutches to when everything else is terrible?

I love a good bathing together/doing each other's hair fic. It's intimate and loving! And Stede and Ed are prime material to write a mutual caretaking and bonding over it couple! Ed canonically loves soap and taking care of his hair! And Stede brought an entire fucking bathtub on a ship, the wonderful madman. S1 Stede's hair is always carefully curled, and we know that's not its natural state (it's wavy but not in this manner) from seeing him in S2, away from his certainly plentiful bath and grooming equipment. Stede probably has an hour of daily hair routine! We know he has nice smelling, probably expensive soaps. Where's the fic where they share in this?

There's so much potential! They can show each other their favourite care products! Sometimes they'll work on each other and sometimes not at all! Ed's rich hair oils will make Stede's hair all sticky and weird! Ed will think it's hilarious and adorable, he'll try to ruffle his hair and make it stick up worse and Stede will pout! 🥺 He'll look like this, just with weird spiky hair! One ill-advised day they try putting Stede's curlers in Ed's hair and then they almost can't get them back out because Ed's hair is so long and has lots of natural wave and it'll cling to the curlers and it's awful (they laugh about it afterwards, once Ed has very carefully brushed his hair out again and it no longer pulls at his scalp).

Makeup was a thing done by men and women at the time, especially for aristocrats (as seen in Episode 5), so Stede will know his way around hoity toity makeup, meaning rouges and whites (contained lots of lead, yuck!). Meanwhile Ed does pirate costume makeup for Blackbeard endeavours, that's a whole different thing. And both of these are makeups they don't actually enjoy doing (Stede avoids heavy makeup for the party, and Ed's Kraken makeup is part of his whole Everything Is Awful And I'm Making Myself Feel That look). But we see Ed do nice makeup that seems to be him! On his supposed to be final day on Earth, he cleans away all the Kraken coal, he cleans up his cabin, he gets rid of drugs, booze, Izzy (everything that was harming him), he does up his hair really nice and in a style that's very much Not Blackbeard, and he puts on a gorgeous bit of eyeliner that really brings out his eyes. And now that they're safe and happy together, when Ed decides he wants to look pretty today, not only can Stede lose his marbles over the look, Ed can also show him how to make his own eyes pop like that. They can stand in front of their mirror together, giggling and trying not to poke anyone in the eye.

Like. This is a fancy bathroom items for fancy bathroom items couple. They will bond over their love of bubble baths and nice smelling soaps and soft oils for hair and skin! They will learn each other's routines and how to do them just right for them. Let Stede learn that Ed loves his baths scalding hot (Stede has to wait a while for it to cool before he joins him in the tub because he'll get all pink and lightheaded). Let Ed learn how to put in Stede's curlers for him if Stede wants his hair to look extra fluffy the next day. Let Ed learn to massage Stede's back and Stede learn to massage Ed's knee. There's so much potential for loving caretaking with this ship. The trope doesn't at all require Ed to not know or not want to take care of his hair and hygiene. Fuck's sake.

[softgreengrass]

would you be willing to do a sad nat one shot? sorry I just need to feel something 💀

Punishment

Natasha Romanoff x reader

Summary: you are dead (sorry) and nat has to live with that 😞 (most of this takes place inside of a dream hopefully it’s not too confusing)

Word Count: 1.2k

Warnings: death,, referenced torture

Author’s Note: sorry this is on the shorter side! tysm for requesting ☺️ i also use fanfiction to feel so hopefully it’s sad enough for you

It’s a nightmare, like always. You’re there, like always.

“Nat!” your voice rings out, light and sweet in the hazy morning light, and Natasha rolls over, burying her face in your side of the bed. It’s still warm. “Nat!”

“Five more minutes,” she grumbles back.

Your footsteps come to a stop next to the bed. “I made cinnamon rolls, you know.”

Natasha smiles to herself. It all feels so, so real. The sheets smell like your lotion, and the sun is pale through the curtains, just like it always is in winter. How it was the last winter you were with her.

You poke her shoulder. “Aren’t you supposed to be a superspy? Get up.”

“I’m off the clock,” she says, sitting up anyways. The glimmer in your eyes looks so real. Her lungs tighten at that, and she wraps her arms around your waist, hugging you tight.

You laugh and run your fingers through her hair. “Missed me that much, huh?”

She closes her eyes and sinks deeper into you, praying as hard as she ever has. Begging for just one more life with you. She remembers how to breathe again as you scratch her scalp gently and lean into her embrace, and she inhales you again.

After far too little time passes, you rest your hands on her shoulders. “Come on, baby. They’re gonna get cold.”

She lets you lead her out of the bedroom, hands intertwined. The apartment looks just how you left it. Because it’s so easy to, she slips back into routine. Like you’re there every day when she wakes up. She tugs open the blinds over the sink and waters the plants on the windowsill; you pour two cups of coffee. You sit down at the table together like it’s any old Saturday.

“What’s with you today?” you ask with a slight smile, immediately pulling a cinnamon roll from the pan.

“Me?” Natasha replies.

“No, the milkman.”

She grins, shaking her head. “Sorry. I don’t know, I’m just out of it.”

“Well, you’re not too out of it to talk crossword, right?”

God, she had forgotten about that. You’ve been on a crossword kick lately, though you heavily rely on Natasha’s knowledge bank of language and policy and science. Really, you mostly cover the pop culture clues. “Never.”

You spread the newspaper out between the both of you and drop a pencil in front of her. “I’ll start with down, you’ll start with across?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

You scribble down some answers, eyebrows furrowed.

Natasha stands up for a moment, just to get the cream, but when she turns back around she’s not in the kitchen anymore. She’s strapped to that chair, staring at you in that cell. Your eyes are bloodshot. The dreams always wind up here, no matter how innocently they start, and Natasha’s stomach churns.

“Nat,” you croak, and her heart shatters for the millionth time.

She thrashes against her restraints, but they must be made of fucking vibranium because they cut into her wrists without budging. She doesn’t have any tricks up her sleeve — she’s in her pajamas, for God’s sake. No widow’s bite or portable EMP. Not even a way to signal Clint.

“Nat, please,” you beg, your voice as raw as the bruises on your face.

“I’m going to-” she says, struggling against the restraints again. “I’m going to get you out.”

But of course, she can’t. She might as well be a bronze statue in that chair. They’re going to make her watch you die again.

She racks her brain for as long as she can, fights the excruciating dejá vu. Maybe something will be different this time. Maybe she can get someone’s attention, some lackey she can convince to let her out. She’ll murder them all, then. Murder them and take you home.

A vent catches her eye, in the corner of your cell. You don’t have much at your disposal, but there’s a food tray on the floor that might work. She has to say your name three times before you recognize it.

“What?” you ask suddenly, eyes wide.

“I need you to try something, okay?”

You’re weak. You’ve been there for days at the minimum, been under intense interrogation lights and an array of torture methods. Natasha was the one trained for that, not you. “I don’t know…”

“Please.”

You swallow iron-tinged spit.

“Can you break that in half?” Natasha whispers, flicking her eyes to the tray. She doesn’t remember if you’re under surveillance or not. She figures you must be.

Your hands shake as you reach for it. It must be tin, that’s how flimsy and light it is, but you know you don’t have the strength to break it by hand. That ship sailed about three gut punches ago. You’d vomited out everything but your will to live, though that was fading fast too.

“Use your legs,” Natasha hisses like she can read your mind. “Stick it under something, get leverage.”

The sight of you stumbling to the bunk sends fire up her throat. She’s going to burn them all alive.

You wedge the tray under one of the bunk’s legs and pull up on the other side before stepping down on it as hard as you can. All it does is fold in half.

“Fuck,” Natasha mutters. “Can you rip it? With your teeth or something?”

You’re pretty sure your teeth would fall out if you so much as bite an apple, so you drive the tray down on the sharpest edge you can find: the corner of the tiny sink. Later, Natasha will think about how strange it was that the cell had so many amenities. She’ll come up with triple the ways to escape. All too late.

The corner pierces it, and you claw at the hole until the tray is split in half. It slices your fingers in more places than you can count.

“Use it on the vent,” Natasha says. Despite herself, she feels an ember of hope in her chest. You’d never gotten this close before. She can barely watch as you balance on top of the sink, trying to shove the sharp little metal sheet into the seam between the vent and wall. It’s slippery with blood.

A door in the cell she hadn’t even noticed swings open. A man in black storms in. Before she can get a word out, he grabs you, throws you to the ground.

Natasha recoils, forcing her eyes back open as quickly as possible. He kicks you, over and over, and you cry for mercy.

Her restraints seem to tighten. They cut off her circulation, so that not even dislocating her wrists would let her save you. She’s absolutely helpless. You sob and curl into yourself, and she’s sure she’s never felt such anguish before. But she has, and she certainly will again.

Her eyes shoot open to dark ceiling. She’s in the living room, using the couch like a cot. She still hasn’t brought herself to touch the bed you made. She probably never will.

She drags herself to her feet and shuffles to the kitchen counter, turning on the electric kettle. Only chamomile helps her breathe now.

All those people she’d managed to kill. All those missions she’d executed to perfection, for the Red Room and HYDRA and Fury. All of the people caught in the crossfire of her tunnel vision. And yet, in the single most important moment of her life, she had failed. Failed.

She figures it could’ve been karma. A cosmic punishment for the arrogance of trying to wipe her slate clean. With that much sin to atone for, she shouldn’t be able to live happily. That’s what the universe seems to think, at least.

[frost-eyed-autumn]

Its been a long and winding year returning to tumblr in a more dedicated fashion for the first in a long while (not since 2019, yeesh! Time flies), but I can't really say I regret it at all!

With all its ups and a couple of downs, I've regained some of that old spark I used to have being in the RPC again and I really just wanted to do something paying it forward even if just in a small way -- so I'm doing a little something that used to be a common end-of-the-year tradition back during the golden years of the old RPC I used to romp in!

There's nothing anyone else has to do in return, this is just me giving a little bit of appreciation to all the people who have given me a reason to be here and really let me enjoy myself here again!

So one way or another, this is just a thank you to ALL of my mutuals who've made my time here a little bit brighter! Here's to a hopefully even better 2025!

@starsburned / @stormslullaby / @eiinn-ulfr

Cor, my bruhloved. Every list has to have you on it, naturally. I wouldn't even be here writing right now if you hadn't been the one to convince me to pick up Chuuya. Its hard to believe how close we're getting to the 8 year mark since we've officially become friends. I genuinely don't know where I'd be without you. You helped pick me up when I was at my lowest in the old fandom where we met, and that first time you let me vent to you, I really just thought you would be another person who was here today, gone tomorrow. But now you've woven yourself so deeply into my daily routine that I can't imagine anything less than having you part of my life. You're such an amazing person despite all of the absolute bullshit you've gone through daily that no one should have to suffer through, and I'm proud of you for still chugging along no matter how hard everything gets and how much you've grown and continue to grow. And more than just that, you're such an amazing writer to boot. You dedicate so much to every muse you pick up, whether it be a canon or an OC, and craft every one of them masterfully. From Rune to Dazai to Verlaine to Mori and all your other billions of muses (you fucking muse gremlin(affectionate)), none of them ever disappoint and I love seeing how passionate you are about all of them, whether it be in your writings or just your daily ramblings. Nothing would be the same without you here.

@memoryextrction

Things are still a bit new between us but I can say with full, genuine honesty you are one of the most pleasant people I've had the pleasure of getting to know! And I've had a lot of people come in and out of my life, most of them people that quickly showed they weren't good for me, so that's a compliment that doesn't come lightly from me, distant and critical person that I am about new faces. Even if I'm old and tired and can't always keep up with your energy, I always love seeing your messages and interacting with you, and just your overall maturity and decency as a person despite how young you still are and all of the shit you go through and struggle with on a daily basis. I only wish there were more people who could bring your kind of wholesome vibes to the world because the world seriously needs more people like you. And of course, your writing! The thing that got us interacting in the first place. I love our interactions so much and how much passion you put behind your muses, especially the characters who basically had nothing in their original series and really made them your own. I love the nuance and complexity and love you breathe into your 2-minute-screen-time muses and really give them the attention they deserve, and by god do they make for some of my favorite interactions of all time.

@nohumaen / @crimcpnish

We've only really begun to start talking in earnest, but I'm glad we have! Its rare that I'm pleasantly surprised by people, especially in dealing with tough situations, but you are one of those few people, and its a real breath of fresh air, let me tell you. I'm genuinely happy to have started writing with and getting to know you, and not just because your Kouyou (and Higuchi, and Fyodor) is fucking amazing, although that certainly helps! Your humor always gives me a good laugh, and overall I just really enjoy your company and don't regret at all bringing you into our little circle of friends. I'm wishing the best for you and those you keep closest!

@vulpesly

We don't write nearly as much as I'd like to these days, but just having you still around and part of my experience at all means more than I can rightly express. I always love our small exchanges and seeing Jono and Tachihara on the dash, and just how much care you put into your portrayals! Even just seeing your little rambles about other things like video games lightens my day a little. Thank you for allowing me to be part of your experience as well.

@inciteafflatus / @skilledsenses

Tenka! The bonafied cryptid of my circle of people. Its always a pleasure to see you around and your Ranpo is always so *chef's kiss* (even if Chuuya wants to yeet him through a ceiling every time). You're always so funny and pleasant to talk to, in the rare instances you make your cryptid appearances, and I'm glad to know you and always share in a good few laughs!

@ripheart / @beastlit

I know this year has been pretty rough on you, and I'm holding out hope that things get a lot better moving into the new year! I've really enjoyed what few exchanges we've had when we both have the energy to carry a conversation, and your amazing writings always leave me biting at the bit waiting for your next carefully crafted reply! Your Yosano is so beautifully portrayed and on-point I could swear she was written by Asagiri himself, and I really look forward to seeing more of her when life finally cuts you a break enough to return!

@eternalstarlights

Going to be honest, at one point I wasn't sure if we were ever going to meaningfully interact, but now that we have a couple things started I'm really glad we do! I'm really enjoying the little things we have going on between Kunikida and Ember and I especially really look forward to seeing how things develop with Ember because she and Chuuya honestly just seem like such a natural-born team to have working together and bonding over blowing things up!

@flamesignite / @hughesxmaes

We don't do a whole ton of direct interactions but seeing the constant shenanigans and total crack energy on my dash (at poor Roy's expense) is always a fun time even from the sidelines and is just about always guaranteed to get a laugh or two out of me. Keep doing what you're doing cuz its honestly such a joy to see!

@kitxkatrp

I'm really enjoying the little interactions we have going so far between Chuuya and Dazai and Mori! Its always fun having Double Black stirring up shit with each other and I definitely never have any complaints getting to throw Chuuya at a well written Mori!

@gyofukuki

Its a bit of a shame we don't get to interact more cuz you honestly just give me lots of good vibes whenever you're around! Though I totally get it with not being able to be around as much as you'd like to. I haven't forgotten the couple of things we managed to get started and I'm really looking forward to continuing them when you do manage to find the time to be back here properly!

@galaxy-0f-muses

It took us a while to really kick things off but I couldn't be happier that we finally have! I'm super enjoying the little thread we have going with Atsushi and Chuuya right now and I'm definitely interested to see how things will play out with Yosano once that thread finds its stride too! Here's to some hopefully fun, ongoing interactions because I'm really digging them so far!

@frozcnlight

We've only just started to really get things rolling, but I'm already enjoying the dynamic going on between Chuuya and Miran quite a bit! She's such an interesting contrast to Chuuya in a way that's bound to spark some interesting interactions between them. What those interactions will be, I'm not really sure yet, but exploring that and seeing where it goes has definitely caught my interest!

@spezialistin / @kokyuchusei

I always love seeing people giving some of the less recognized / appreciated characters of a series some love and attention, especially some of the strong female characters, and so far you really do immense justice to writing Higuchi! We may only have one little thread going at the moment but already it has me rolling around a ton of possibilities and ideas that I'm really looking forward to playing around with and hopefully I can inspire the same!

@ofdraiocht

Its good to finally get the ball rolling on something after being distant mutuals for so long and I'm definitely enjoying and looking forward to the interaction we have going between Chuuya and Odasaku! I always love playing around different timelines like Dark Era and what Chuuya's relationship might be to some of the characters we don't really get to see him interact with much in canon.

@voracitys

Its always nice to have a new face to write with and explore new possibilities and I definitely haven't been disappointed! I know Gin is still a bit of a new muse for you trying her out but what little we've written so far I'm really enjoying and love how you write her and look forward to seeing how these two develop! Especially being both Chuuya and Gin coming from somewhat similar backgrounds, even if she doesn't realize it yet, so there's a whole lot of potential there for the both of them that I'm eager to see play out!

@koriningyou

We're still kind of finding our stride in actually writing something together and kind of talked about that already, but trust me, I notice all the little Likes you leave on my posts and I really appreciate those small, daily affirmations that you're reading and wanting to interact! And I seriously appreciate it every time and look forward to once we get some momentum going on IC interactions as well!

@muses-of-kira / @alchemic-elric

We haven't really gotten to write much yet for obvious reasons but that doesn't mean I don't look forward to it! I'm wishing you a speedy recovery for your hand and I look forward to being able to write something once its better!

And just for following back this silly blog of mine at all, even if we haven't really interacted much (yet!)

@cursedlane || @seraphynm || @fullmxtal-elrich / @zodixcsorangekxtten / @cryptxd-laboratxry || @bookmcde || @doppogin || @cherrygardn || @pocketfulofgalaxies || @diverse-hearts-ocs || @rowanberryhub / @goeticedda || @ficryfingcrs || @paramythas || @avarlclouss || @mused-like-roses || @devouund / @vieaccorde / @straypaged / @yashabana || @teruoku || @hellshovnd

[onestepbackwards]

It would be so funny if the player could still send texts on their arc phone and decided to send every complaint directly to Arceus

Everything from "Those ungrateful bastards banished me" to "My tummy hurts :("

Bonus points if they hand the phone over to Volo or Ingo and let them rant at god for screwing them over

Tbh if it were me I would let Arceus know every single inconvenience I had with being thrown into the past with no warning.

You let Arceus know no peace, making it very clear of your feelings on the matter.

[There is a leak in my room. You know what didn't have a leak? My old home.]

[They deadass are sending me into the wild??? On my own?? Assuming I have no experience?? They want me dead, Arceus.]

[THEY DONT HAVE COFFEE]

[Why do I have to fight the big scary pokemon?? WHY IS IT A STRANGERS JOB-]

[I think Cynthia's ancestor is stalking me.]

[I REACHED TEN STARS FUCK YEAH]

[WHY do I have to solve this village's problems. How am I the only one doing anything to help here.]

[WHY IS THE TRAIN GUY FROM UNOVA HERE.]

[ANSWER ME ARCEUS.]

[ISNT THIS GUY A CELEBRITY???? ARCEUS. HOW LONG HAS HE BEEN HERE-]

[When i invent mac n cheese, its over for these assholes.]

[Do you think I could piss Cyrus off by adopting his great great grandmother as my own mom?]

[They fucking banned me, Arceus.]

[AFTER EVERYTHING I DID-]

[Volo is def stalking me btw. WHY is he the only one wanting to help me besides the nice lady who also looks like Cynthia-]

[THE SKY IS RED.]

[Did Kamado seriously send Beni to assassinate me or did I just hallucinate that whole encounter.]

[WHY IS IT I KEEPING MEETING PEOPLE WHO WANT TO DELETE THE UNIVERSE WITH GIRATINA]

[If i had a dollar for every time this has happened, i'd have two dollars. It isn't a lot, but its weird its happened twice-]

[HOW COME HE GETS LIKE THE EQUIVALENT OF 8 POKEMON AND I CANT]

[If you had just said hi to him we could have avoided me almost dying TWICE.]

Arceus almost never responds unless you have a genuine question, or need help. But you do find solace in complaining to it.

You later tell Volo that hey, like, you know things are kinda awkward, but you have a means of directly messaging Pokemon God-

He's shaking as you hand him the phone and show him how to use it. At first, Volo for once, doesn't know what to say. He had dreamt of unloading his problems onto Arceus many times, but now?

He is almost at a lost for words.

That is, until you reach around him, showing him your previous conversations.

"Yeah, see here? I kinda bitched at Arceus last week because I'm still not allowed to go home yet. I kinda just use the chat to vent about things most of the time."

Volo stares for a moment, until he's furiously typing. He doesn't stop typing for a good few minutes, sending one very long, winded message, before handing the phone back to you. It's the longest message you have ever seen sent on your phone

The merchant is awfully quiet after that for a little while.

[shadowsxgwynriel]

The Wolf and His Vixen

Day 12: Mates @gwynrielweeksofficial

After witnessing his brothers find their mates, Azriel finally finds his.

Word Count: 1,343

Read on AO3

Azriel was starting to feel more restless lately.

He knew the reason was because both of his brothers had recently found their mates. And while Azriel was happy for Rhys and Cassian, it was also driving him insane. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Feyre and Nesta, but that the constant smell of the mating bond was driving his wolf into a frenzy.

Wolf shifters didn’t always find their mates. When they did, however, it was hell for any unmated males in the pack due to the pheromones that a mated pair produced. It made their inner beast yearn for their mate, which sometimes resulted in them going feral and completely overtaking the human side. And since their pack only consisted of the three of them, plus now the two she wolves, it wasn’t like Azriel could vent his frustrations. There were no males to spar with or females to fuck. Though the latter could be fixed with a quick trip into town, but that didn’t really appeal to him—he wanted his mate, not a temporary bed partner.

Run, his wolf urged him.

It wasn’t like he had much of a choice. His brothers would be locked away with their mates for who knows how long, and the smell of sex wasn’t going to help his mood.

With an ease that was second nature, Azriel shifted. His wolf was as dark as the midnight sky and had the same hazel eyes that he did, but his wolf was very much it’s own entity.

Azriel let his wolf take over the run and he ran with exhilaration. There was no clear destination in mind. His wolf just wanted to feel the wind in his fur and Azriel just wanted to release some tension.

They ran for miles and probably would have kept going if it wasn’t for the tantalizing smell that caught their attention. It was the most delicious aroma ever. His mouth watered for a taste.

His wolf lumbered toward the scent, coming across a diner. But it wasn’t the smell of food that had him going crazy.

Mate!

He changed back and stood at the edge of the woods completely naked. Like most shifters, Azriel wasn’t embarrassed to be naked, but he also knew that there was a time and place, and this certainly wasn’t the time nor the place.

“Hey, buddy,” a man called. Judging from his scent, he was a coyote shifter. “You can’t be exposed like that. We got a lot of civilians inside.” Meaning there were humans around.

“Clothes?” Azriel asked. Most establishments were run by shifters and they often kept clothes handy just in case someone needed them.

The man disappeared for a second then came back with a shirt and some sweats. He tossed the fabrics at Azriel and turned while he got dressed.

When he was done, the man handed him some slip on shoes. “We don’t have any other kind of footwear, I’m afraid.”

Azriel didn’t care. He walked pass the man straight inside the diner and looked around. The only thing that he was concerned with was finding who that scent belonged to. She was a shifter, he could tell that much, though not what species due to the interfering smells of other people. Not that it mattered to Azriel. His woman could be a bunny and she’d still be the Queen of him as far as he was concerned.

“I’m Donny, by the way.” The man had followed him inside.

“Azriel,” he mumbled in return, still scanning the diner.

Finally, he spotted her. He knew it was her just with one look, because he couldn’t take his eyes off of her and his heart felt like it started to beat anew as he stared at her. She was the most beautiful female he’d ever seen.

Large teal eyes, hair a pretty shade of reddish-brown, freckles adorning her face and hands. She was exquisite.

He also knew now that she was a fox. And his sweet little vixen was aware of him too. She lifted her cute nose when she caught a whiff of his scent.

Azriel felt an internal pull toward her, like an invisible force guiding him to her. Fate itself. Because he was made for her and she for him. They were destined.

Go talk to her, his wolf demanded. Go and lick her sweet cunt—

“I see that our waitress has caught your eye,” Donny said. Why was he still here? “She’s a fox,” he continued, confirming what Azriel already knew. There was also clear disgust in his tone, as if he thought she were beneath him.

Kill him, his wolf snarled. Rip his heart out and gift it to our sweet little mate.

Azriel ignored his inner beast and grabbed Donny by the throat. He applied enough pressure to make his eyes go wide in panic. “Are you looking down on my vixen because she’s a fox?” His tone was calm and quiet, the opposite of how he felt.

Donny’s panic turned to fear as he realized the seriousness of the situation. “She—she’s your mate?” he gasped out. “I—I didn’t know!”

“Even if she wasn’t, what gives you the right to look down on anyone?” he snarled.

Donny let out a pitiful squeak, drawing the attention of a few patrons. Nobody moved to help him, though. The humans were likely scared and shifters knew not to get between a predator and their prey.

“Um, excuse me?” A sweet voice said, causing Azriel to release Donny. The man immediately scampered off, but Azriel forgot about him in an instant.

His vixen was standing before him, no doubt having also felt the pull of the mating bond.

”Let’s go talk outside,” she said, leading the way and Azriel dutifully followed after her.

“What’s your name?” Azriel asked gruffly once they were outside.

“Gwyn,” she told him.

Gwyn. What a beautiful name. It was now his favorite name.

“And yours?”

“Azriel.” But you can just call me yours.

Mate her, his wolf snarled impatiently. Let everyone know she’s ours.

Azriel had to admit to liking the way his wolf thought, but he wasn’t going to take his mate outside of a diner where anyone could see them. Even if it was a tempting idea.

Some human women walked by them. A few gave Azriel brazenly lustful stares, and he almost gagged at the unpleasant scent of their arousal.

Gwyn, also smelling it, turned her head to snarl at the women. They hurried inside the diner.

He didn’t bother to hide his smile as she frowned after them. Azriel had no interest whatsoever in other women, yet he admittedly thought that her possessiveness was fucking adorable, especially since he felt the same way.

Gwyn saw his amusement and rolled her eyes with a smirk on her succulent lips that he suddenly wanted to taste. “So it seems that you’re my mate.”

He nodded his head. “I’m yours,” he agreed.

Her eyes flashed. It appeared that she and her fox liked hearing him say that he was hers. “What happens now?” He didn’t miss the breathy tone in her voice, nor did he miss the scent of her arousal.

And while Azriel very much hungered for a taste and undeniably wanted to seal the bond between them, he held himself back. His wolf did not approve, but Azriel found that he wanted to talk to Gwyn. He wanted to learn more about her and who she was as a person, because he didn’t want their relationship to be driven by just sex. He had heard stories about mated couples who got so consumed by lust that they had nothing to talk about outside of the bedroom.

Azriel wanted Gwyn for more than just sex. He wanted a friend, a lover, an equal. He wanted her completely.

“Now,” he said. “I’m going to ask my beautiful mate out on a date and then I’m going to court her like she deserves.”

Gwyn reached out and took his hand. “I’d like that.”

[tokiro07]

Once again vaguing so as to maintain my "talk no shit on what people like" policy while also being able to vent about what is, quite possibly, my least favorite game of all time

This is...the single most tedious gaming experience I've ever had. I thought at first it was just that the controls were unresponsive due to some hardware limitation on the Switch port, but even ignoring that, what the game is literally asking me to do is absurdly repetitive

The actual challenge is decent, though a lot of my deaths have been pretty cheap in my opinion, either blindsiding me due to how poorly contrasted all of the background and stage elements are or landing cheap shots because I frequently respawn on top of enemies or directly in their line of fire. If regular stage hazards didn't actually cause damage and instead just reset me, like in say Hollow Knight, I would find this a lot more bearable, but because I lose health to the platforming and not just the combat, I often don't have enough health left for the combat, which wouldn't be a tremendous issue if the enemies weren't spongey as hell!

The fact that I keep needing to redo long platforming segments because every mistake drains my extremely shallow health pool or because long-winded enemies keep getting placed along the path makes for a ludicrously slow and repetitive experience in what seems like it's meant to be quite fast-paced

The boss fights compound on this by having multiple lengthy phases that end up feeling predictable because they go the same way every time, and generally have oddly long cutscenes to load in the new movesets. I understand not letting me skip phases I've beaten before, I can't think of too many games that allow that, but the earlier phases of any given boss fight become sooo boooring after you've beaten them 50 times, and the latter phases that throw a ton of bullshit at you when, again, you're constantly fighting against the controls themselves just become super annoying!

At the very least, don't put a long, empty path between a checkpoint and the final boss! I should be able to just walk straight into the boss fight from the checkpoint, not hold down a button to carry me there with enough time to think "maybe I don't want to try again." Which is what happened, by the way! I'm writing this now because the game gave me the opportunity to say "y'know what? Literally fuck this" and throw my system down to complain about how dogshit this game is!

And people like this game! It's getting decent to great reviews from what I can find! No one has any of the problems that I do, which again, made me think that it was just the particular port I'm playing, but no, these are all structural issues with the game's design! How is no one else upset about this??? How is everyone else able to accept this??? These are practically ancient design flaws at this point, relics of arcades past, why am I still being asked to put up with this in 2024, and why doesn't anyone else care???

I see what people like about it, I really do, it's just that those elements a) have been done a thousand times better in the games that this game is clearly trying to emulate, and b) are getting bogged down by other design decisions that I don't believe would have been too costly to fix

The only reason I'm still playing this game is so I can have a complete understanding of the sorts of design decisions I should avoid if I ever make my own game, and literally every single minute I spend playing it makes me regret that line of thinking. I have never been so abjectly miserable playing a video game before when this is supposed to be a fun hobby. The only solace that I can take aside from the game being quite pretty is that at least I'm not brain-dead bored. However, in a way that makes it worse, cus if it were completely unengaging I could at least turn it off and not feel like I'm missing something. Instead though, I'm mad, and that makes me feel like if I turn it off and never look back that I let my inability to meet the game at its level beat me, like I wasn't good enough to do it. I know that's a fallacy, since again I'm at the final boss (or at least the Normal Ending final boss, I can tell there's a True Ending I haven't done the work to unlock yet), but if I can't beat it right at the end it's just going to weigh on my mind for the rest of my life like when I didn't finish Magical Vacation

The real question is whether or not I should go ahead and collect everything for the True Ending now so I can just do the final boss fight once and not worry about it, OR should I get the Normal Ending then watch the True Ending online? Both feel wrong and incomplete, but like I said, I hate this game and want it to be done so I can at least feel some semblance of catharsis

Either way, I hope to be done this game no later than tomorrow so I can delete it from my system and actually play something that brings me joy

[catboyklug]

aghghghgg

Summary: sunrise vents. like, in among us. Characters: Sunrise (he/xe/they); Eternal Anomaly/'Ternal (it/its); various extras Word count: 1483 (1k!) Warnings: alcohol usage; drug mention; implied abuse or neglect (extremely vague); ableism (against self).

Well. He couldn't say he didn't expect this.

But that didn't stop it from sucking ass.

It was December the 20th, exactly eleven days before the godforsaken holiday known as "Christmas", and the exact day of Sunrise's birthday.

And Quiet's, of course.

By freak coincidence, the siblings had been born on the same day, five years apart.

And today, Sunrise couldn't forget that fact.

The noise from the other rooms was deafening, Quiet apparently having brought every single friend of eirs in the entire city to the tiny apartment the siblings had to live in.

Ey had been out all day, drinking or doing drugs or whatever it was that Sunrise's older sister had been doing, while he stayed here, cooped up and bored out of his mind thanks to a lucky cold he got.

If it were any better than it was, Sunrise probably would've forced himself outside. But he could barely see, his nose was utterly backed up, and he didn't really want to risk it on the icy roads with the brainfog he got to begin with.

However, with the party coming inside of his fucking house, xe was beginning to reconsider his earlier decision to stay at home for his safety.

Sunrise crawled out of bed once the party had reached its heights, determined to get out of her before everyone crashed. Dead on xyr feet, xe wrapped xyr blanket up and shoved it in a bag xe had sewed a few years back during some workshop event.

Headphones like a helmet on xyr head, it was time to exit this damned house and go elsewhere.

Pushing the door open, xe was met with a ridiculous amount of lights from god knows how many mini disco balls. Though the birthday girl was nowhere to be seen, the place was packed with some of the most annoying people Sunrise felt he would ever have the displeasure of coming across.

A couple sitting next to the fridge, blocking him as he tried to open it; someone making what was most likely the worst-looking meal Sunrise had ever seen right next to the microwave as xe put a cup of milk in; someone who ended up laughing after noticing Sunrise was microwaving a cup of milk, of all things.

...Which was deserved, but not any less annoying.

After pouring the milk into a thankfully-clean thermos, Sunrise secured it in his bag, put his boots on, and walked outside to the car, more than happy to get away from the mess that was once probably his apartment.

Outside was cold, but his car's old, homely leather interior was far more comforting than anywhere else he could think of.

He sat at the wheel, bag on the seat next to him, trying to think of where exactly he could run off to.

Though he was tempted to run off to his employer-turned-friends-with-benefits-turned-greatest-ally's house, Sunny was almost definitely asleep at this point.

There was only one person who would let him crash so late at night. Considering she didn't really sleep, it was his best bet.

So, off to 'Ternal's he went.

It was a long a drive as ever, but thankfully more than worth the time spent.

Though the exterior of the factory seemed cold and unwelcoming, Sunrise looked upon it as if he was a hiker lost in the snow and it was the first warm cabin he had seen in years. (lmao)

Xe grabbed xyr bag and xyr keys, zipped xyr bomber jacket up fully, and walked out into the snow, almost cheerful despite the cold wind blowing right through his already very ill bones.

The factory was massive, and that fact was somehow even more apparent inside, despite how messy and cluttered the area was. Tubes and wires and nozzles and beams that initially looked useless but disguised arteries and veins and *bio-wires* were littered around the ceilings, large "arms" near them to allow the resident mechanic access to these delicate systems whenever they needed repair.

As xe walked through the now very familiar halls, the various systems around him reacted in interest to his presence, clearly not expecting him this late after-hours.

"Sunrise?" called out the mechanical multitudes of the factory's collective voice, "Isn't it midnight in your human time? And you have some mortal illness."

"'S not mortal, if you wanna be technical with it. And hello t' you too, princess," xe replied, grinning.

"That doesn't answer my question," the machinery makes a sound similar to huffing, "Why did you come here so late?"

. . .

Logically, Sunrise knows that the world's most autistic computer would probably understand the concept of "extreme sensory overwhelm" and "deep, petty jealousy" (xe already knows it does), but, somehow, xe feels reluctant to tell it exactly what happened.

"What, you don't want me here, 's that it?" xe teases, getting xyr blanket out of xyr bag as xe makes it to the main control room, "Can always leave and head for Sunny's place..."

"NO-"

The factory exploded into a cacophony of flustered machinery, grating against itself in a state just below panic before it finally, and to its great embarrassment, realized the lighthearted intent of the statement and calmed down.

Sunrise giggles, now thankfully more than used to the once horrible noise, as the factory attempts to explain itself, trying in vain to play it cool.

"I want you here," it insists, truthfully, "But humans need sleep or something. Especially you, if you want to stop being sick all the time."

"Right..."

What else was there to say without completely revealing what had happened? Ruminating on this black-and-white, entirely internal scenario Sunrise had created for xyrself, xe gets the thermos with the milk out and pours enough bourbon in that it's an even split.

Despite the factory currently not having anything one could consider to be eyes, xe can feel it staring at him.

"Is that... 'alcohol'?" it asks, in a 'voice' indicating suspicion as much as intrigue.

"Yeah. Wanna try?" xe jokes, immediately putting the bottle away before the machine can respond, "'S not th' healthiest thing in the world, but... better than whatever Quiet was passing around at that stupid party."

At the mention of literally anything that could have been the source of Sunrise's troubles, the factory's figurative ears perked up.

"'Stupid party'?" it interrogated, "How... stupid are we talking?"

"....Really stupid," xe finally admitted.

And thus, the floodgates began to break.

"'S Quiet's birthday, I guess," xe said as if xe wasn't dreading this day for almost an entire month since it came, "So they've got every person in the city in *my* apartment making th' place smell like weed t' 'celebrate'."

"And you've-"

"Tried murdering them?" Sunrise interrupts, "Trust me, would love to. But I'd rather not get in trouble with th' law. Already skirting it just by being here, really..."

Recognizing that continuing to suggest what it views as the most logical thing would probably serve only to upset Sunrise, 'Ternal lets it go, and Sunrise takes a swig from his half-assed cocktail.

It's warm. Nice. Sunrise can feel his head loll to the side as xe drinks further, and xe nearly forgets how angry xe feels.

Until the memory of the gross, sweaty apartment comes back like a hunting boomerang, and xe feels his face get hot with rage.

"Fuckin' assholes," xe grumbles, "...Mean..."

Before 'Ternal can quiz him on exactly what that means, he sobs.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid, st-stupid," xe repeats, "Stupid, petty, idiot..."

Not having any idea of how to respond to his outburst, the factory tries, "...I was worse."

"N-no," he sniffles in response, "You're jus' hungry. 'M... stupid. Asshole. Awful. Stupid..."

Tugging at xyr hair, xe takes another swig from the thermos.

"Sunrise," the machine says, almost quietly, "You need to stop drinking that."

Simply shaking xyr head in response, xe closes xyr eyes, hitting xyr leg in overwhelm.

"Stupid, freak... should've jus-" xe hiccups, "Shoulda jus' accepted 'm a lowlife. Don't deserve friends. Stupid, fucking, r-"

Suddenly, before Sunrise can even begin forming the following word, several metallic "arms" surround him. Hug him.

Xe opens xyr eyes. Blinks. Despite being made of cold metal, the arms are the warmest thing he's felt in weeks. Warmer and kinder than the cocktail in his thermos, not to mention.

Even knowing 'Ternal, - actually, truly knowing it - xe was surprised with how utterly kind it was.

Burying xyr face in some of the metal, xe muttered a tiny "th'nk you", getting relieved, almost happy whirring in response.

The cold, the alcohol and finally his breakdown having exhausted him completely, Sunrise drifts off a bit, only vaguely aware of another few "arms" coming to gently lay a blanket on him to keep him warm as he slept.

And, though it was a bit embarrassing, the factory was very deeply glad it didn't have to talk him through anything.

[yikes-ajax]

Yikes! No blog intro? No longer!

What's UP my DUDES, it's time to sit the FUCK up (seriously, straighten your back you animal) and LISTEN UP. I am the MOST disinteresting person you will EVER meet and yet here we are. My name is AJ or sometimes Roary (if you know you know, hey besties) and have the stupidest cat ever and that's IT. But to fill the void in my metaphorical and dead heart, and really just to appease my need to feel special, here's the basics.

I am:

- An adult (aka throwing more temper tantrums than I did as a kid)

- Bisexual

- Genderfluid, literally any pronouns are fine (just nothing dehumanizing, if you care)

- American (insert sigh here)

- Disabled (mobility and neurological)

Blog Navigation

Main: 🌟 You're here!

Sims blog: @yikes-a-simmer

Vent blog: @yikes-ajax-thats-sad

Trauma blog: @puppydog-eyes-kittycat-claws

Dogboy blog: @weewoof

Under the cut is just some extra info if you really feel like boring yourselves ↓

The

Nitty Gritty

For those who care about the details for some reason??

- I alternate between canes, crutches, and a wheelchair (my dad once called my car a medical store) so when I make stupid jokes about being crippled or shit it's because I'm disabled and don't know how to cope

- You don't need my health records (I am a simp for my neurologist and don't need your opinions from five minutes of searching google), but what I occasionally talk about and am comfortable sharing is that I have functional neurological disorder (fnd), non-epileptic seizures (thanks fnd), poor mobility (thanks again fnd), and so... So many mental issues, as you can probably guess, such as PTSD, the spicy kind of depression that needs 3 different meds to stabilize, a sensory processing disorder I was diagnosed with so long ago I don't remember the name of (is that mental or physical??), and other bullshit

- I've got severe social anxiety but I'm trying my best to get out of my shell, so don't hesitate to interact, just forgive my rambling and nervousness

- Surprise, surprise, I have dissociative identity disorder (did), and yes, I'm traumagenic if you really must use such stupid terms. I don't give a fuck about dumb syscourse, I think endos are offensive af but what do I know, I can't even parallel park and know how to stay in my own lane. I've been in the DID community, you can probably guess who I was if you do enough digging but I have no interest in revisiting that side of the Internet, it is the most toxic community I have ever seen

- I sometimes go dark, but I'm fine, I'm likely just busy or obsessed with a video game and my queue has ran out

Current interests (stuff I post in-between cat pics when I feel inclined): Critical role / dnd, star wars, crochet

Video games: Ark: survival evolved, star wars criminals, Minecraft teehee, Red dead redemption (1 and 2, yeehaw), skyrim

The

Cast

Rosie (the reject) and PJ (the pacifist turned genocidal but still total baby)

Rue (the mean ass) and Allie (the bottom of the food chain that is in perpetual fear, but hey, she has an extra toe so that's cool)

Meadow (weapon of mass destruction)

And me, AJ (the bitchass blog runner you'll hopefully never see the face of)

Do not interact:

My neighbors cat 😤😡🖕😾

Encouraged to interact:

Aliens, goblins, werewolves (hey mamas 😎), marine biologists, people who ever feel like a plastic bag drifting through the wind, little guys, little clown guys (THIS IS A SAFE SPACE FOR CLOWNS, I REPEAT, SILLY LITTLE GUYS ARE WELCOME!!), those discontent with their mortal flesh and wish to break to endless spiral of human destruction, little meow meows, anarchists, Dr. Gregory House (please fix me sir), that one hot chick from that one show I watched that one time, DILFS PLEASE, and stupid little fdufcking.. stupid little bitches

All in all,

I'm just here to have a good time and bring some laughter to anyone who wants it. My favorite thing to do is laugh and crack jokes, and if I can make someone else laugh with me, then my purpose here on earth is done. Though, I have a very dry and sarcastic humor that I know can sometimes be hard to read, so please just understand that I'm usually just playing around! I promise I'm not as mean as I seem!

You don't need to worry about anything upsetting here, I try not to post or reblog anything that could dampen someone's day, because not only are y'all here to escape, I am too. This blog will always be safe, I have no interest in discourse, don't care about a DNI, and rarely bother checking who follows me unless you're talking to me. Anonymous asks are on for fellow socially anxious lurkers that wanna talk, but be warned— don't diss my cat 👹

Thanks y'all, love you guys. Stay safe and sleep well ❤️

[commanderquinn]

Good Space Chapter 2: Man On The Moon

! i dont! keep these posts! updated! like i do! ao3!

that means you're going to find typos and shit (and possibly minor detail changes) that don't match the ao3 version! that's because im not going to bother fixing the tumblr posts until i finish good space as a whole. im only uploading them here as a backup tbh

—

master list / ao3 chapter link

—

warnings: lotta swearing and usual heavy pstd bucky stuff. also!! im giving sam's story a little bit of author bias/culture venting. this wont read like canon FATWS sam, though i am trying to honor their show where i dont hate it. i love sam's journey to cap, even if ken doll was nauseating (whats funny is i didnt know his actor's name is wyatt until halfway through THIS chapter when i googled something. oh well lmao im sure he's a perfectly nice dude. the wyatt in this fic is My Baby) plus the trump era commentary was completely toothless imo. and the fact that james buchanan barnes acknowledged in episODE T H R E E of the series that he'd take the shield before letting it fall???? even through all his self-hatred?????? get the fuck out of here that desTROYED ME i hate this fictional man with a passion

song: this one's by kid cudi!! 🥰

its time for the l o n g i n g to start ❤️ grab tissues!! first biggie angst so i had to put it behind our resident teddy bear's pov 🥺 you KNOOOOW i had to finish up this update in time for stevie’s birthday 🥰

—

October 3rd, 2015

Samuel Wilson was not disillusioned when he walked into his first recruitment office. There were no patriotic stars in his eyes, no lotto number clutched painfully between nervous fingers to drive his feet up to that kiosk. He wasn’t foaming at the mouth to earn career-establishing stripes in a timely fashion. All he had to his name was a high school diploma and twenty-three bucks in his pocket. He didn’t have any big dreams for the desert rocks to tear a hole through. 

Sam was a kid back then. One who wanted to build a life, and the GI Bill offered to make that happen. A solid, steady income with the vision of a college education somewhere on the horizon. Not a lot of other options for someone like him, no matter which familiar corner of the country he looked at.

It took a long time and the right partner for the Air Force to talk him out of his combat objections once the ANG got wind of him. He turned the experimental program down flat twice; Pararescue was his focus for a reason. They had to bribe him with cutting-edge tech and the authority to refuse an assignment just to get him to agree to a first flight. The words never found their way onto an official record, at least none he knows of, but Sam had relentlessly insisted that he wouldn’t be volunteering as the next Indianapolis. Getting pushback on that assertion was when the anger first set in. The first crack in the armor of his career.

There were a lot of better angels within the service; it took most of them to get him home, tape-free, after Riley’s death. By the end of it all, it felt like every last one of them was outnumbered fifty to one. Nothing felt right anymore, including the idea of leaving the family he found in the sand to fend for themselves. The only thing that felt survivable after the world finally stopped tilting was dedicating himself to the VA.

Living for the memory of the ones he lost helped him find other reasons to want to be a person again. From there, it was mostly helping other people find reasons of their own that drove him forward.

It’s why he’s willing to delve into some shithole facility in the middle of nowhere Russia for a guy like Steve Rogers. And, on some levels, he supposes, if he absolutely has to, for a guy like Bucky Barnes. Even if he is the grouchiest motherfucker on the face of the Earth.

The lumbering moron hasn’t said a word all morning, no matter what small talk Steve tries to open with. And he’s tried everything, ever since they landed. Sam’s responded to a few of the openings himself just to try to fill the silence. He hopes it’s helping. It’s been hard to get a detailed read on the other push-pop’s triggers so far. Steve hasn’t signaled for him to stop, so.

“Cryo is through here,” Bucky rumbles under his breath. They’re the first words he’s spoken since the Quinjet.

“How many should we be expecting?” Steve asks almost as quietly.

“How many people am I asking you to put a bullet through, you mean.”

Steve stops halfway through the door Bucky’s directed them to. “We haven’t decided if that’s what we’re going to—”

“Maybe you haven’t decided. I’ll do it if you won’t.” The former sergeant doesn’t turn around. He keeps walking, getting closer to the stocky metal pods.

Sam already hates this. He already hates this a whole fucking lot. Captain America coming to him with a request to take the headcase to Russia was always going to get weird; he knew that. But he’s been very clear on what he’s down for, and now they’re in murder and war crime weird. He’d like to start slowing down the crazy train—

Steve holds up his hand. “Bucky, listen, it doesn’t have to—”

“Fuck off. You have no idea what it’s like to sit in this hell. You two can wait outside if you’re so uncomfortable. I’ve got it from here.”

Mmm. That’s the voice of a guilt-ridden survivor. Sam recognizes it well. At least it’s giving him a bead on where today’s drive is coming from. “You mean the hell we pulled you from?”

Steve’s head whips around, with righteous, territorial anger in his eyes. “You’re right, Buck; we don’t. But—”

“But you don’t know what they want,” Sam forcefully finishes, staring back at Steve. He banks on the fact that, technically, they’re not really disagreeing. Steve’s trying to back him down, too, in his own way. “Taking away their chance at the same new life you’re getting isn’t—”

Bucky’s cybernetic fist comes crashing down on one of the corroded desks, making the rusted metal whine in protest, deforming to the shape of his fingers. “You two don’t fucking get it.” He turns, angrily tugging his hand back to his side. The assassin doesn’t advance, but his posture is more than ready for it as he glares at them with pure contempt. “You think you’re going to find people in those tanks—humans, with hearts and minds and hopes and dreams. There might as well be skeletons getting freezer-burned in those goddamn caskets because that’s the only salvageable thing you’ll find. You fucking—”

He laughs, the sound empty, and turns back around to send his fist into the side of the table, knocking it across the room. He doesn’t face them again. “You fuckers! You take a fucking look at me. Take a good, long look. I am half alive. I had a radiation-free knockoff keeping me upright through their bullshit. You wanna know what they had? Something that might as well have been piss mixed in some fucking snow. Worthless trash those Nazi bastards bottled up and stuck in a needle.”

“Bucky—” Steve tries to calm his best friend as the man’s voice breaks. Sam could tell him from first-hand experience how well that’s going to go over.

There was a lot of screaming in that desert. A lot of grief disguised as anger. A lot of old ideals leaving newly-shattered men one seething tear at a time.

“They were zombies by the time HYDRA was done injecting them. Do you get that? Are you two grasping the concept? They were rabid dogs I trained to respond to whistles. Rotting corpses that I taught how to aim. And that was before their brains shorted out on them. I looked into every single one of their eyes. I saw what looked back. Fuck species—what was in there was not fucking alive. Fuck you—fuck you so fucking much for even fucking suggesting I should leave them like that—like animated fucking cadavers—hooked up to some fucking machine just to breathe—”

“James.”

Bucky’s flood of words finally cuts off, and Sam isn’t sure if it’s because of the use of his first name or the way he swallows as if he’s choking. His flesh hand comes down on the back of the chair that started out tucked under the table. It keeps the guy upright while he pulls in a few breaths that look painful, even through the curtain of dark brown hair.

“Let’s see what’s what first,” Sam suggests as diplomatically as he can manage. He doesn’t take a step forward, mostly because he doesn’t see Steve take one. “Then we go from there.”

“You’re going to hate what you see.” Bucky scoffs bitterly. “You think you know, but you don’t. You’re going to hate me for bringing you here. For the rest of your lives.”

Steve moves forward, finally, but he stays a few feet to Bucky’s seven o’clock. “I’m not dumb enough to make you any promises about not hating what I see here. I haven’t even looked in one, and I already know you’re right on the money when it comes to that. But I can promise that you’ll always be wrong about me hating you for any of this.”

“So can I,” Sam assures. There’s not a doubt in his mind now that he understands where they’re at.

—

Bucky’s up at 0500. 

He hasn’t slept a minute later than that since the first night his body adjusted to New York’s timezone, no matter what hour he falls asleep. He doesn’t attempt more than upright power naps on away missions. They’re the only thing that gets him any rest outside of his room in the tower. 

It’s the same every morning. First, he works on his back, popping away the stiffness one awkward bend of his limbs at a time. From there, the extra thick comforter gets picked up off the floor, then the blanket and the lopsided pillow. They always get tossed on top of the bed he’s never used. Except on Saturdays, when he does his laundry. That’s when they get put in a basket to be taken to Natasha’s room. She won’t let him have his own washing machine until he starts using the bed.

So, every Saturday, he shows up with his little pile at 0800 because Natasha won’t unlock the door until then. A pillowcase. A blanket and matching comforter. Two shirts, usually henleys, five black tanks, and two different tactical pants. One pair of gloves. His singular monkey suit gets taken to the cleaners whenever he’s forced to wear it, which thankfully isn’t often.

His dress uniform hasn’t come out of the box Steve dropped it off in after getting it pulled from the goddamn Smithsonian. Bucky hasn’t laid eyes on it since 1943.

While he’s working his hair up into a serviceable bun, he thinks about Natasha’s recommendation to start braiding it before he sleeps. He doesn’t like the idea of something that tight sitting against his head, especially at night. Maybe if he lets his hair grow out a little more. He wants to keep the shoulder length it’s at now, though. It looks good on him. He wants to know what asking someone to pull on it feels like. Eventually. 

Online dating has been… overwhelming, to say the least.

He’s reaching for the medkit in the drawer under his bathroom sink when the mental image of Ava creeps in. He isn’t trying to blow off the hippie’s orders. Honestly, the thought of their deal hadn’t crossed his mind until he got to this part of his day. Resisting the urge yesterday had been difficult. He knew ahead of time that today was going to be much worse. It means pushing through a repeated break in his pattern.

That voice, the one that insists he should tell Steve to fuck off much more, rears its head. His flesh hand twitches with the reflex to finish his usual routine. To show up late to her office with some blase excuse about doing it out of habit. He could sell the lie without even trying. Entire countries have fallen thanks to his expertise with it. She wouldn’t have a shot in hell at knowing the difference.

He could work his way out of this with ease. Steve already feels guilty about making him pull a hard stop during his first visit, even if he won’t say the words. It’s the perfect opening to establish a line and push it away to give himself some room, one step at a time.

With a decisive flick of his wrist, Bucky shuts the drawer holding his medkit. For the second time since he was allowed to travel without a handler, he walks away from his morning routine without treating the cybernetics on the back of his neck.

It makes his skin feel wrong—off, unsettled—as he gets his standard gear on. He’s still grounded, thanks to Steve, so it’s the version he’s got closest to fatigues. He hopes the doctor doesn’t mind rolling down a polyester turtleneck to get at his brain port. He almost skips going to the gym for his workout, but that would worsen the off feeling. And he’d have to sit around with nothing to do for hours waiting for their first scheduled maintenance. 

He slides his phone into his back pocket, intent on heading to his standard morning haunt. A few hours of going through his paces in the gym will help his nerves. When his mind offers up the suggestion that a workout before seeing the cute doctor could be—advantageous, he tries not to linger in it. 

The idea certainly doesn’t make him feel bad. It’s even sort of... motivating in its own way. It... contributes to his reasons for doing a few extra sets on the bench. And adding a quick rock wall climb. There are others, of course. Being chained to the tower like a toddler in timeout because his best friend is an asshole is certainly one of them. He tacks on more time at the reinforced, Super-Soldier-proof punching bag to ease that particular frustration.

Even with the additions to his cardio, he’s still got an hour to kill before their appointment. He fills it by heading for the roof of the tower. It’s not even 0900, so no one but a few graveyard stragglers are out in the open space. SHIELD agents like him that are married to the job, catching a glimpse of the sun and a few puffs of nicotine before going to crash. Bucky stops to help one of them struggling with her lighter, offering up his spare Bic. The other agent smiles at him in tired appreciation before hovering the end of her cigarette over the flame. He counts it as contributing to his social life. He’ll figure out how to phrase it to get his therapist off his ass later. 

The brain trust’s space is, unsurprisingly, effortless to find. Ava wasn’t kidding; it’s actually tucked away in one corner of the roof, hidden along the wall that extends up to the tower’s executive launch bay. Bucky had expected them to claim a spot overlooking the Avenger’s balcony. Then again, he’s heard she’s pretty close friends with Tony, so maybe he shouldn’t have. She probably knows better by now. 

There’s another collection of gargantuan chairs, this time made out of wicker and upholstery that feels soft when he runs his fingers over it. A tapestry rivaling the paint swatches at Steve’s supply store is mounted to the wall behind them. Two poles hold it at the opposite corners, keeping it blowing slightly in the wind as it hangs over the collected seating. The coffee table in the middle has a lockbox sitting on it, with SHEILDs insignia embossed on the lid. 

He’s got level seven clearance these days. He could still easily get through that lock, even if he didn’t. It’s going to drive him batshit, not knowing what’s in it before she takes him up here herself. 

Bucky turns around and gets halfway back to the door to the stairwell before the buzzing in his neck builds too much for comfort. He grinds his teeth through the sensation. He even manages to force himself another few steps forward. But, ultimately, the buzzing wins out, and he spins again with a vicious curse. 

The confirmation chime of his clearance override feels too loud, even out here in the open. The top of the lockbox rolls back, revealing a set of playing cards, a jumbled collection of stress toys, a SHEILD standard medkit, and some candles. He almost leaves without checking the medkit. He’s so close to being able to stomach the idea. 

Almost. 

There’s nothing sinister to be found in it once it’s open. It’s stock issue. Not one of the item counts is off, but the lot numbers don’t match, meaning she maintains it regularly. Knowing that information feels invasive, despite being convinced she wouldn’t mind how he got it.

This. Isn’t. Siberia. Ava Ryder is not going to put a gun in his hand. She is not a risk to him. 

Bucky leaves the roof, headed for her lab. He’s going to tell her he went snooping. He can do that, at least—a bare minimum level of respect to offer her. 

She’s not in her office when he gets through the painted door at 0857. Only one of the doctors is behind the glass today. It’s the other woman—the American-born German. Hannah. Her head is down, focused on a tablet under her hands, with wireless earbuds peaking out from her dirty blonde hair. A hologram of a brain Bucky doesn’t recognize is running next to her. It’s not his; there’s no spider webbing. One of their other patients then. 

He takes a seat in the same chair he used during his last visit. “JARVIS?”

“Good morning, Sergeant Barnes,” the AI responds with nothing but tranquility. “Something you need?”

“Can you tell the doc I’m ready when she is?”

“Of course. Dr. Ryder has not yet entered the building. I’ll let her know you’ve arrived.”

Bucky frowns. “Ah—cancel that. Is she—“ Don’t ask him to track her, you dumbfuck. That’s weird. “Never mind. I’ll wait.”

This is New York. He’s not even sure what part of the city she lives in. For all he knows, she could be stuck in a cab uptown. He can pull the stick out of his ass long enough to give her room to be human. 

He sits there in silence, sunken into pillows with his leg bouncing rapidly, and talks himself up in his head. He’s not uncomfortable. He’s not going to bullshit his way out of this. This is good; it’s going to help him. Bucky is happy about that. It’s a relief to be facing this after a lifetime of running. 

By 0901, he wants to leave. The urge is nearly overwhelming. He makes it to 0904 before he stands up. It takes until 0906 to convince himself to sit back down. 

“I have an incoming message from Dr. Ryder if you wish to hear it, Sergeant Barnes,” JARVIS tells him eleven minutes after the appointment was supposed to start. 

Thank god. “Play it.”

“Morning, JAR!” Her voice is muffled in the recording. She’s got something in her mouth. She’s also in the most broken-down piece of shit in the city by the sounds of it, so not a cab. The subway, maybe? It should be a lot louder than that. “Tell Bucky I’m about fifteen minutes behind and that I’m very sorry. Oh—and tell him to pick the candle!”

His eyebrows lift in confused surprise. “I’m picking a candle?”

“Choosing a candle to burn is part of the daily routine of lab 5923. Dr. Ryder and I usually decide on one, but the option is left open for patients. You will find a box behind her desk; there is a wide array to select from.”

“You pick it together?” Bucky prods, the corner of his lips twitching as he gets back up to check for said box. 

“She enjoys having someone to banter with about them. Dr. Schuster doesn’t usually have anything to contribute to the topic. Dr. Combs only has so many opinions on the matter. He is not overly particular about the olfactory state of the lab.”

“Is Ava?” It’s getting easier to refer to her by her first name alone. It helps that it’s made her smile the handful of times he’s done it. 

“Not especially. I would call her enthusiastic. She finds the options comforting, and there are very few that she doesn’t enjoy.”

“No kidding,” Bucky mutters as he pulls open the top of a very large box. He smelled the thing long before he picked it up, and looking at what’s inside confirms everything the AI’s telling him. There are dozens of them in here, and most of them are unburned. Various shapes and gimmicky scent names stare back at him. Not a lot of Bath & Bodyworks, he’s noticing. 

The hippie is a small business aficionado. How utterly shocking. 

He pushes around the amassed jars for a few minutes. His mind files away a few options he wants to try for later if they don’t get used up on the days he won’t be here. Definitely before he finishes talking her out of demanding these appointments. He picks up one that claims to smell like cranberries and peppermint for a test sniff. 

Thanks to the combination, the barest hint of the ghost of a memory comes over him. One that whispers the name of his mother. This happens sometimes. A fragment that’s still hanging on by a thread will float by. They never have much context, not anything he can typically extrapolate on, infuriatingly enough. Just his mind taunting him that something should be there, but it isn’t. 

He picks that candle, and it doesn’t make him sad as he lights it. None of his pieced-together memories of the life he never got to finish do anymore. He takes them in stride and tries to enjoy what he can. 

That’s what Ma would have wanted.

—

Ava hip-checks the door to her office somewhere around 9:30. 

This is already shaping up to be a terrible second impression. All that grief she gave Bucky about leaving things in her capable hands, and now here she is, showing up late and half-showered to the appointment that’s supposed to finish acclimating him. 

“I am so sorry,” she rushes out, dumping her bag on the closest available surface. It ends up being one of the novelty end tables tucked between the consultation chairs. At least she finally took the one shaped like a leg home. “I completely overslept, and then I wanted to grab you something from my favorite bagel place—do you want one, by the way?” She waves a finger at her bag, then at Bucky, who watches her as she walks and talks her way to her desk. “They’re in that side pouch, the ones that have cream cheese are wrapped up separately. I didn’t know if you were a plain butter kind of New Yorker. Anyways, there was this mouth-breathing dickhead who—” 

She stops and takes a deep breath in when her over-taxed mind finally registers the smell around her. 

“Good morning,” he says from the chairs, amusement coloring his tone. 

She spins on her heel, her glasses jostling with the motion, chuckling softly. “Good morning, Sergeant. Sorry. This is what happens when you talk to me before the coffee finishes evening out in my bloodstream. Fantastic choice, by the way. What is that? It’s peppermint—something.”

“Peppermint and cranberries.” His lips pull up into a half-smile that absolutely sells her on the idea of him being a serial heartstopper in the 30s. “Advertised in what looked like a mushroom cloud.”

Ava’s chuckling turns into an outright bark of laughter as she pulls her work tablet from behind her keyboard. “Yeah. That sounds about right. One of the candle makers I buy from is an anarchist working out of a garage. Great stuff, even if you do have to listen to the most ass backwards view of free trade to get the guy to send you his stock. Good morning to you, too, JARVIS, now that I’m not babbling around a mouthful of food.”

“No need to worry; I’ve become very fluent in your language of scarfing,” JARVIS assures. 

“My mother would keel over if she heard you say that.” Ava waddles over to her latest patient, tablet in one hand and medkit in the other. She puts the kit down on the arm of his chair, in the same spot she put the scanner case last time. He looks much less nervous now, and she gives him a warm smile to encourage that. “I know you don’t want me talking your ear off, and the breakfast offer can wait until we’re done, so let’s get down to this.”

Bucky’s mouth opens. There’s a moment of hesitation before he says anything. She doesn’t try to rush him through it. “What’s the plan, doc?”

“Paige won’t be back from the field until later today at the earliest, so I don’t have anything new for you to test. I passed along your request for the field kit dimensions. She says making something that portable shouldn’t be a problem.” Ava taps on the black sleeve of his shirt. “How comfortable are you with the idea of using nanotech?”

“As in the tiny robots Tony’s always testing?”

“Mhmm.”

“For what? My neck?” He raises his hand to the general area of the port, and she hears him scratching at the fabric over it. “I don’t think it’s—I thought this kind of opening couldn’t be—”

“I don’t mean for closing it off,” she corrects quickly, wanting to avoid a misunderstanding that might get his hopes up. “I want to program a batch specifically for daily care of your implants. The port and your shoulder. Something you can keep in safe housing for use in the field. Now—I want to make sure you understand something upfront. This won’t change my professional opinion; you need to have a specialist looking at this on an extremely frequent basis. However, I would prefer it if you had the nanotech as a safety net. The more of this that we can automate for you, the better.”

“I can agree to that. I’m guessing the bug bots don’t come with a manual.”

Ava moves behind him, mostly to hide how the grumpy old man routine is making her grin from ear to ear. “They usually don’t need one. I’ll be making you a checklist to go over if that makes you feel better.”

“You don’t—that’s—” He hesitates again, making her stop before she can make contact with his neck. “You don’t have to keep... doing stuff. Like that. I’m alright with trusting the bug bots.”

Another piece of Ava Ryder’s heart breaks for Bucky Barnes. “That's great to hear. But, just so you know, I’m going to hand you a checklist anyways.”

“Alright.” His head barely nods; she’s guessing because he can feel her fingers hovering. The evaluations of his senses were so off the charts it set a new testing standard for SHIELD. “That’s—appreciated.”

“You don’t have to worry so much about the manners.” Pressing down with a disinfectant, she circles her thumb around the port, wanting to get it done before moving to his shoulder. That’s going to need a shirt removal. She leans down and shifts to a conspiratorial whisper. “I’m not reporting them back to Steve.”

“Don’t worry; my work wife will come to weasel it out of you or JARVIS all on his own.”

Ava giggles quietly, her eyes honed in on clearing the excess buildup. “You’re not having fun being married to Captain America?”

“Oodles,” he deadpans, making her giggles worsen.

She gives him a break from the small talk while she finishes working on his neck. At some point, she’ll need to put together a specialized blend for loosening up the scar tissue; the skin around it is dried to hell and back from years of sterile wipes. She doubts comfort has been much of a concern, and she’s not about to recommend putting generic lotion over it, but this is ridiculous. There’s no reason for him to live with pain like that.

“I don’t suppose a man from the 30s is going to appreciate being given a moisturizing routine.”

“Nat’s going to be thrilled.”

“She’s your work husband, I’m guessing?”

“She likes to act like it.” Bucky turns his head to glance back for a split second just as she leans forward to swap out for an ointment. The way his head jerks back into place lets her know he got an eyeful of cleavage on the journey. It perfectly mirrors how his eyes snapped up from her chest when he first walked in. She’s not exactly embarrassed about it, but she does feel bad watching him shift around nervously. “But I’m not dumb enough to argue. About that. With her.”

The awkward charm is starting to make her cheeks hurt. “Sounds like a reasonable choice. I hear arguing with Russian women isn’t a smart idea in general.”

“Not if you want to keep your limbs attached.”

“Is it too early for me to start asking for state secrets? Like, say, if the Winter Soldier happened to get his ass handed to him by a former commie?”

“I’m pretty sure she was still a commie the first time.”

“The first time?” Ava asks with excited delight, her hand pausing on his shoulder.

“There were a few run-ins. She’ll remember more of them.” Bucky grimaces with annoyance. “Worse, she’ll be willing to tell them to you.”

“Would you be willing to let me hear them?” she goads.

His shoulders lift with a strained sigh. “Sure, let’s call it willing.”

“You’ll have to remind me if I’m lucky enough to meet her.” She drums her finger on his mechanical shoulder. “Gonna need you to take this shirt off, superstar.”

“Off? Wait, what did you just—” Bucky shakes his head with a quiet huff of laughter. “I’ve got the arm covered.”

“I know, that’s the problem.”

“Alright, smartass. You know damn well what I meant. I took care of it before I came here; it wasn’t part of our deal.”

“Does gross puss leak out of it?”

She can see his eyes roll, even with his head only partially turned. “You know it does.”

“And is it attached to your brain?”

“Ava—really, I’ve got this.” His head turns all the way, and the smile comes back, in full force this time, and oh. Oh, she can absolutely believe that he broke half the hearts in Brooklyn during his reign of terror.

She leans down into his space, letting her arms rest on the back of his chair. “You know what I’ve got?”

His lips purse in resigned amusement. “Multiple medical degrees?”

“You betcha. They were stupid hard to earn, too, so I’d appreciate it if you could start taking that into account.”

“I’m not trying to dismiss them—”

“Just the expertise that they gave me.” When his smile turns guilty, she shifts her weight as naturally as she can to push her chest against her arms in compensation. She doesn’t miss the way he blinks a split second later. Such a gentleman. It almost makes her feel bad. “I don’t mind you arguing the point of your independence. I’m glad for it, Bucky. It tells me that you really want this to work. I hope you can start trusting that when I suggest against it, I’m doing it with your health in mind. Nothing more. You can tell me what you’re comfortable with from there.”

He stares at her like he’s in pain. For an almost uncomfortably long time. “I broke into your lockbox.”

Ava blinks at the sudden shift. “Okay. Wait—my what? Are you talking about the candle box? That doesn’t even have a lock—”

“Your stuff on the roof. You keep a SHEILD issue safe up there. On the table. I used my override.”

It takes a moment to piece together what he’s getting at. She’s been running late since she woke up on Paige’s couch at 7:50 something. The only thing in her bloodstream right now is caffeine; there was no time for a wake-and-bake. “Oh. Oh, oh, that’s just... it’s not locked locked; we don’t really care if anyone uses the stuff in it. We just needed something to put it in that the weather can’t get to.” She smiles at him as his shoulders relax. “You went to see our little corner?”

Bucky shrugs. “I was around.”

“Mhmm, I’m sure. And bouncing off the walls with Steve’s lockdown, no doubt. The faster you get that shirt off, the faster you and I can iron out a plan to get you back in the field. Work with me here, Barnes.”

Bucky stands up with a sigh, and his hands move to his shirt. He pauses while they cling to the bottom of it, his arms crossed. Once again, she doesn’t push him through his hesitation. “I don’t mind if you talk about things. Steve only said that shit about being direct to keep me from stalling my way out of this.”

Ava’s eyebrows pull in while she thinks over the words. “Is that the only thing he’s lied about? I don’t care if you two keep secrets, but you can’t bullshit about your mental health with me. I need to know what makes you uncomfortable; otherwise, I can’t do my job.”

“That’s all I can think of,” he assures her, and she believes him despite the wording. 

“In that case, you’re kind of stupid, full offense.”

It’s Bucky’s turn with the blinking. “Excuse me?”

“You signed yourself up for morning appointments, and you just gave me permission to talk your ear off. You’re an absolute moron; now take off that shirt so I can make sure your brain doesn’t melt.”

—

She has a pet cat named Oreo, of all fucking things. 

It’s hairless. And dumb as a box of rocks, according to her. The name comes from the huge black spots in its—pattern. He can’t exactly use the word fur. She was highly offended when he called the cat a ballsack while she was showing him her lock screen. He got smacked on the arm for the comment.

It’s not her first pet. She got it partly to mourn the snake she adopted in college, a rosy boa called Sayer that finally died at 32. She used the reptile as companionship and motivation to push through her first PhD. The one letting her work on his brain now. It was named after the lead character from her favorite medical movie, Awakenings. When Bucky mentioned that he’s never seen it, she made him swear up and down that he’ll text her his honest reactions if he ever dares to rip his own heart out with questionable ethics.

So now he’s got her number saved in his phone. It’s the 11th one he’s added. Two of them are therapists. None of the others are people outside of SHIELD. He’s pretty sure one of the therapists is a plant from Natasha, so maybe he should start counting them toward the SHIELD column.

There were only nine others over the course of his online dating attempts. None of them stayed on his phone for more than a month before getting deleted. He wasn’t about to let his therapist catch their names on his contact list.

Bucky switches the grape-flavored lollipop in his mouth over to his right cheek. Ava gave it to him. Bopped him right on the nose with one and then let him pick from an array of five like the blatant bribery it is. The good doctor smiled at him while she did it, too.

May it bring you back in good spirits and better health.

It’s the nicest way he’s ever been told to fuck off for being a grouch. It made him smile. Him. James Buchanan Barnes, in the year of 2018.

She’s.… Christ, calling the woman a handful in this day and age feels insulting. He’s not put off by it. Overwhelmed a little, maybe, but he gets the feeling she’s alright with him taking time to warm up to it. Hell, he gets the feeling that not much bothers her at all. It makes him envious. 

He likes the way she speaks. Not just the crazy and the swearing, though that’s its own comfort. There’s a—it sounds so stupid, but there’s a kind of music to it. She always talks in the same calm rhythm, despite the chaos usually found in her words. He didn’t notice the way it makes his foot stop bouncing until halfway through the appointment.

Bucky scowls. “Davis. Why am I looking at a lost signal?”

The level four analyst Steve’s been telling him to ease up on lately freezes in his swivel chair. His head turns, nervously searching the wall of security feeds. Bucky doesn’t offer up any help. “Sorry, sir, I can’t seem to spot which—”

“Third row from the top, eighth from the left. The one I’m supposed to be monitoring for an illegal exchange of nuclear materials, so if you wouldn’t mind—”

“Yes, sorry, restoring connection now. Apologies, Sergeant, I’ll—keep a closer eye on it.” The agent starts mumbling the rest of his intended sentence, mostly about how many he’s keeping track of, when he cuts himself off. His shoulders pull in a bit, almost chastised. It always takes people a minute to remember the super hearing.

He could let it hang. The feed is fixed; he can go back to staring at an empty lot without interruption.

“You’re doing fine.” Bucky feels bad because he’s having an unordinarily good day. That’s all it is. Nothing more. “Restructure your feed priorities. You can hand most of these off to JARVIS; that’s what he’s patched in for. Focus on the ones your gut doesn’t like.”

“Thank you, sir. I’ll start on that now.” The words don’t even sound spiteful.

Bucky sits back against the executive bench of the Datacrux. The stiff leather creaks with the motion, the rigid frame under it keeping him grounded. He tilts his head from side to side, letting it crack and readjust incrementally. His neck doesn’t feel as tight as it should. When he touched it in Ava’s lab, the skin felt even softer than it did after her first round on him. He’s trying not to touch it now. He doesn’t want to irritate it. This is the best it’s felt in—

He doesn’t have a year, he realizes. He can’t remember the one he woke up to cybernetics in. He has no idea when his first taste of cyborg life was. There’s a vague lead, a number written out on paper to fill in the blanks of what’s been destroyed. An estimation anchored around the last day of his former life. But he doesn’t know.

At least you’re still breathing, the better angel in his mind coaxes.

Switching which leg is balanced on which knee, Bucky settles back into his work. It’s been six months since the last lead on his responsibility. There’s been no chatter from the known HYDRA cells, no underground protection contracts with suspiciously good track records hitting Natasha’s web, no suspicious Black Market transfers that scream safe house establishment, nothing. Wherever the Soldats are, they’re being kept under wraps. 

His hounds wouldn’t be able to be contained for anywhere near this long. They’re dead or sedated, no matter where they were smuggled. Otherwise, they’d have surfaced already.

Bucky tries not to think about what a life of not knowing will feel like. He doesn’t know if that’s worse than the idea of burying them. They’re certainly not staring down the barrel of a happy ending at this point. How do you mourn—a situation like that? He can’t even figure out how the hell he’s supposed to be fixing it.

Somewhere out there are the last ravaged pieces of a serum that never should have been made. It’s floating, cobbled together and left to rot, in the veins of men and women who didn’t know what they were signing up for. He remembers having to hold their shoulders down whenever the survival instinct kicked in during the first few injections. He remembers watching their faces as they screamed for a mercy no one in that facility was ever going to grant them. He remembers carrying the bodies of the ones that died in the night, over and over for months, all the way to the incinerator.

Bucky tosses the tablet in his lap off to a spot next to his leg out of disgust. His eyes shut, and his hands come up to rub them hard enough to hurt. He needs sleep. Good, honest to god, medication-induced sleep. He hates relying on those damn pills—it’s not as if they help the other half of his problem, anyhow. Falling asleep is only the start of it. The real kicker is staying unconscious, and nothing he can find, even behind the counter, is going to work on his system for that long.

He needs it, though. It’s been weeks since he got more than a handful of hours at a time. Months since he slept for longer than eight. Steve always talks about crashing for ten at a time after an extended mission, and it makes him want to punch his best friend’s lights out. He’ll never say that out loud, of course, but god. If fucking only.

None of his anger toward Steve ever feels fair. The guy had the world’s worst life before the serum, and he’ll bare his teeth at anyone who tries guilting the captain out of the notion. None of them understand what kind of fresh hell it was being Steve Rogers, and all his undying spirit, while trapped in a body with ten billion health issues. If ever there was someone who earned the responsibility of that serum, it’s him, and Bucky’s damn proud of him for it. He spends his days trying to live up to it himself.

He looks over at the back of the analyst with a guilty expression. People used to dismiss Steve the same way he dismisses people now, whenever the anger simmers. 

“Davis, pull up your priority flags.”

The level four glances back nervously, then clears his throat and refocuses on his terminal. “It’s alright, sir, I’m working on sorting them now—”

“I know. That’s what we’ll be going over.”

“I—” Davis hesitates for a long moment. Bucky stares at the back of his head. “Sergeant Barnes, I’m very sorry about the—”

“This isn’t a reprimand.” Bucky clears his own throat, trying to knock the aggression out of his tone. It’s. A lot more difficult than he was expecting. “You’re new here, so I’m gonna give you the crash course. I’m in here a lot, at all hours. You won’t get a heads-up about it; I’m just going to show up. When I do, there are certain hotspots I’m going to need you to keep focused on. They’re not going to be tied to any active case. You’re not going to be able to tell which ones I need. I’m going to tell you what’s already on my radar, and you can establish your own categories from there. I’ll tell you what else I need you to add as it comes up.”

“Oh.” A little hope is entering the analyst’s tone. “Yeah, that—you know, that sounds like what I do for Romanoff already.”

Bucky frowns. The hell it does. She has exactly three people on the face of this Earth that she trusts to handle something like this for her. He’s willing to do it for convenience, and because he doesn’t give a shit what SHEILD sees him prioritize. He worked very hard to not give a shit about it, too. But Natasha doesn’t work like that; she’s very particular about her web of information—

His face goes completely slack as the connection finally happens in his mind. He’s going to kill her. No—actually. He’s never going to bring it up, ever, and they’re both going to die before a word ever gets said about it.

That’s just how their brand of family works.

“Yeah. Exactly like how Romanoff has you do it. Pull up her file structure; let’s go over what I’ll need you to change for my end.”

—

“Bitch! It feels like I haven’t hugged you in a year!”

It’s the only warning Ava gets before she’s tackled from behind. She braces her hands on the engineering bench in front of her, barely catching herself from crashing into it. “Two weeks and three days, but who’s counting? How was the flight home, whore?”

Paige leaves a loud, sloppy smooch on her left temple before backing away to let her up from the attack. “That part was fine—it was the team I got paired with, ugh. You’d have hated the guy runnin’ it.”

“How bad are we talking?”

“Eh, your typical good’ ol boy. Mister my way or the highway, with an ego the size’a the fuckin’ Potomac to match. You know the type. Spent the whole mission criticizin’ my tech.”

She looks over at her in surprised confusion. Paige taking shit from other agents is nothing new; that comes with the territory of her personality and most people’s assumptions. Her work is usually the one thing they leave alone. “How critical are we talking?”

“That was the thing—it was the dumb kind. The kind that could’a been avoided if he’d maybe RTFM.”

“And he made it your problem?”

“Over and over. Every ten minutes, it was—” Paige shimmies her upper body dramatically, her voice going low and gravelly. “Why can’t my AIO do this? How do I make it do that? Rogers’ team gets the reliable gear; why are we always stuck with the second rate?”

“He said that to your face?” Ava’s about ready to march through the tower to find the prick herself.

“Not that last one. That was to his buddy when the dipstick thought his comm was off. I got a half-baked publicist apology over it, and I’m pretty sure he only did it to save face in front of the team for leavin’ the mic open.”

“Report his ass.”

Paige waves a hand dismissively, then dumps her go-bag unceremoniously on the workbench. “I ain’t gon’ waste my time. I’ll let him hang his own noose; I’m sure he’ll get around to it with that attitude. Oh! I’ve got a mock-up for your pretty boy.”

Ava smiles, tossing one of her best friend’s rolls of duct tape between her hands. “I didn’t say he was pretty.”

“Puh-lease. You texted about his hair.”

“With the amount of shit man-buns have taken, it was surprising to see on a guy from a less than accepting decade.”

“You only notice stuff like that when you’re lookin’.” Paige tips her head forward, letting her heart-shaped sunglasses fall to the end of her nose. Her eyebrows waggle enthusiastically. “Is he as big as Rogers? I can never tell in the press photos with him always loomin’ like a gargoyle.”

The smile turns deviously smug. “He’s a little smaller than your not-so-secret admirer. You gotta figure that’s expected without the Vita Radiation.”

Paige reaches out to shove at her shoulder. “I don’t think Rogers has really nailed down what modern flirtin’ is yet. Ain’t fair to pin that on the guy. He’s so sweet! And I give him art projects! And anyhow, he rushes outta here like his ass is on fire most of the time—”

“It’s so weird how that happens whenever your dad shows up to hang out.”

She gets a very unimpressed look in response. “You’re readin’ int’a things.”

Leaning in close, Ava squints and whispers, “You’re being oblivious.” She backs up, her smugness returning. “So, I take it our friendship never comes up while you’re giving the captain art projects.”

“I... hmm. Not that I can remember. Why?” Paige looks over suddenly, then back at the bag she’s unloading with more than her usual level of interest. “Did he bring me up durin’ the visit?”

The glitter-sniffing demon not being allowed to communicate with her has been utter hell for two weeks and three days. But it comes with the upside of getting to drop this bomb on her all at once. “No, but I brought you up during Bucky’s first visit. That’s when Rogers realized he’d read your best friend the riot act the week before.”

Paige’s eyes go saucer wide. “You’re kiddin’. You got chewed out by America’s Sweetheart?”

“Funny enough, I called him the same thing while he was huffing and puffing in my office.”

“What the hell happened while I was gone? Did—” Her head swivels around, checking who’s around them. “Did? Y’know?”

Ava shakes her head, then hikes herself up to sit on the workbench next to the bag. “Nothing like that. Turns out he was going for a trial run, trying to see how well I hold up against a bad episode. Stormed into my office, playing up the asshole captain routine just to see what I’d do. Apparently, Tony set him up for it by not telling him about my VA work. He let out the hot air the second I called him on it. He’s pretty cute when he’s blushing, by the way.”

“Oh, tell me about it,” Paige mumbles happily, proving the accusation of obliviousness entirely right.

“The blush or the huffing?”

“I already know about the blushin’, even if I am ready to hear it again. But over dinner tonight. What’re we thinkin’?”

“You’re the one who’s been living off MREs for two weeks. What are you in the mood for?”

“Fuck, that’s a great question. Indian, definitely. No—wait! Sc-ratch that! I want Vietnamese. Actually, I want both.”

“Take-out picnic, got it.”

“And Italian donuts.”

“Okay, but I’m bringing half the order to work tomorrow. They’ll get stale if you pull an all-nighter to catch up.”

“Fiiine. Take my victory donuts to the masses, y’dirty Marxist. Lemme show ya what I worked on for Barnes before I forget.”

The field case she’s designed is cylindrical and shorter than the phones SHEILD issues most of their agents. Definitely something he’s going to be able to carry around with ease. The applicators that hook to the interior are simplistic and utilitarian. They’re entirely mechanical, with no chance of an EMP being able to disable them—a request from the Sergeant himself. 

“Tony says I can requisition some nannies whenever—I just gotta get your signature on the form since they’re medical grade.”

Ava tosses an olive from the jar she keeps stashed in Paige’s mini-fridge into the air. She catches it in her mouth on the first try for once. “You have one filled out already? I can sign it now; I know you like putzing around with them for a few days ahead of time.”

“Eh, it’s a standard cleaner tag; I’m not gon’ sweat it. I know you’re all worried about his brainstem and whatnot—”

“That’s usually part of my job description, yeah.”

“—but I feel like sterile’s sterile. Ain’t no way I can make the man cleaner than clean, y’know? Now, if you wanna talk settin’ ’em up for emergency maintenance, that’s a different story—”

“Your not-crush just walked into engineering,” Ava interrupts lowly, wanting to avoid the enhanced hearing even from way the hell over here.

In the most conspicuous way imaginable, Paige whips her head around to stare directly at the bay’s front entrance. In a rival amount of obviousness, Captain Rogers slowly works his way through the amassed benches, his gaze landing everywhere but Paige’s station. 

Ava’s eyes roll so hard it’s physically painful. It’s been one thing hearing Paige talk about getting drop-in visits from the super soldier who just so happens to enjoy the blueprints framed over her workbench. It’s another to see it play out in person. 

“He’s prob’ly here to check on the kit for Barnes,” Paige whispers back, tugging off her novelty shades.

“Yeah, that’s definitely why he won’t look at you right now—”

“He’s takin’ in the work goin’ on. He’s a curious guy, you know that—”

“And why he’s walking slow enough to trip over his own feet.”

“He’s admirin’ the—”

“He’s working up the nerve—”

“If you don’t fuck off with that, you lunatic—”

“Alright, now you’re being hopeless on purpose—”

“Good afternoon, Ms. Findley. I hope the trip was—oh.” Steve stops dead in his tracks, three feet from Paige’s farthest desk, his eyes finally landing on Ava. He smiles sheepishly. “Hi there, Dr. Ryder.”

Her grin feels positively carnivorous. “Hello, Steve. Come to welcome home our resident space cadet?”

“Hiya, Rogers,” Paige responds, turning with a smile almost as bashful as the captains. She spins back around, busying herself with the mess of wiring she’s pulled from her bag. “Don’t pay her any mind; she’s in a mood.”

“Something happen with the appointment today?” The concern that immediately surfaces knocks some of the teasing out of Ava. 

Some.

“No, Bucky played nice, I promise. I even brought him bagels to make up for being a half-hour late. Come to think of it, that’s probably what made me a half-hour late.”

Steve’s eyes go a bit wider, his smile softening. “You two had breakfast together?”

“I ate mine in the car. He took his with him. But I like to think we did so in spirit.” Her head tilts to the side innocently, refusing to let him off the hook. “So. What brings you to engineering?”

His hand comes up to the back of his neck, his expression getting… close to nonchalant. “I had some time on my hands—don’t wanna run off on a mission with Buck being a grump about medical orders; he might sneak out. Take your time with that, by the way. It’s impossible to convince the guy to take a day off. You’d be doing him a favor if you dragged your feet a little more.”

Using a best friend for deflection is a social skill Ava mastered years ago. He’s going to have to try a lot harder. “Who wouldn’t want to kill time in engineering? The wrench monkeys get to have all the fun. Maybe you should bring Bucky next time—”

“Oh, that’s—you know, I don’t think that’d be a real—he’s very particular about where he—I think maybe—”

“I think the sergeant would love to meet you,” Ava tells Paige, who’s biting back a grin with her head pointed firmly down at her workbench. “I was telling him some stories about you this morning. I think he might share a few of his own with some time.”

“I wouldn’t mind that,” Paige offers, still not looking up.

Steve lets out a nervous chuckle. “That’s—yeah, it’d—it could help out with his attempts to be social, and—you know. Hey, how was the mission, by the way? I forgot to finish asking.”

“It went just fine.” Paige shrugs, and that’s when it clicks for Ava why she was willing to jump topics so fast. Agent Dickhead really did hurt her feelings.

“Towanda,” Ava says plainly, calmly.

Her best friend’s eyes lift to hers. They stare at each other for a long moment. Paige goes through a silent argument that it’s not worth it; Ava silently insists that it very much is. It all happens through shifting eyebrows.

After a moment, Paige’s shoulders deflate, and she looks back at her work with a sigh. “You do it.”

Looking back up at a confused Steve, Ava crosses her arms over her chest. “You’ve got a real cunt running one of your away teams.”

“Oh, sweet lord,” Paige groans, her head falling into her hands with her elbows braced on the workbench. 

The captain’s eyebrows go for his hairline. “I’m sorry—I have a—I’m going to need a few more details.” He shifts his attention to Paige’s back, and his expression gets worried. “Did something happen? Who was your lead? JARVIS, can you grab me the associated reports on Ms. Findley’s latest away mission—”

“You don’t have’ta do that—“she tries to assure, her head coming up with blazing red cheeks. She hates confrontation. Absolutely despises it. 

Ava used to avoid it. She doesn’t bother much these days. “Actually, your name got thrown into the mix, Captain.” 

“Heeere we go.” Paige takes a deep breath in.

“Thrown into the mix of what?” Steve’s tone is shifting into the sub-zero range. 

“I’m not sure what Agent Fuckwad’s name is, but apparently, the guy thinks it’s not his job to understand his equipment. He also thinks it’s super cool to talk shit about the engineer that designed what he can’t wrap his head around. On an open comm. With her on the other end.”

“I have the mission data ready for transfer to your private feed, Captain Rogers,” JARVIS reports in. Ava doesn’t miss the smugness sitting in his tone, making her smile. She’s betting the AI has been fuming over this in his own way. He’s been protective of Paige ever since her first all-nighters in engineering.

There’s a boiling rage sitting in Steve’s eyes, one that’s rising by the second. When he steps up to tap the side of Paige’s arm with the back of his hand, it’s entirely held back from his voice. “Are you alright with me handling this?”

It’s Ava’s turn to raise her eyebrows in surprise. Extremely pleasant surprise.

“I—oh, fuck me runnin’.” Paige lifts her hand to scrub at her face. “Look, Rogers, I’m not tryin’ to get anyone in trouble here—”

“There are ways to go about this without leaving you holding the bag from a reputation standpoint. If the guy’s a—a... I tried, I’m sorry, I can’t get the word out—the point is, I can handle this in a way that doesn’t blow back on you.”

“Let him do it for the other people the dickwad is going to end up being a cunt to,” Ava suggests helpfully. 

“Exactly,” Steve agrees easily. 

Paige groans, shifting her weight back and forth. Finally, she nods with an uneasy sigh. “Alright. But—maybe just have it be somethin’ found from the logs? I really don’t wanna write up a—”

“Your name won’t come up. I’ll take care of it.”

Ava smiles, tossing another olive to catch in her mouth.

—

September 20th, 2015

Sam balances the plate of sliced sough dough and fresh fruit on top of a can of grape Fanta. He keeps his eyes locked on the way it wobbles back and forth as he makes his way down the hallway of the rented house. Propping the bundle of still-warm linens on his hip, he shimmies his hand off them enough to grab at the handle to Sergeant Miserable’s room.

The sack of personified despair is exactly where they last left him, hunched in on himself in the corner of the room. The pile of blankets under him used to be on the perfectly nice bed sitting in front of the window. The one with an unbelievable view of Finland’s countryside hidden behind tightly drawn curtains.

Their resident vampire, un-fucking-surprisingly, fled from it as fast as he could. Steve’s been grumbling about stealing the curtains while he’s asleep just to force the guy to look out the window on the way to the john.

Sam’s decided to start handling the food deliveries alone. It’s time to start pushing, even if Steve’s not entirely ready for it.

Bucky watches him move through the room, never saying a word. Not even when the plate of food gets put on the nightstand next to the bed, where they always leave it. He leaves them empty outside the door at night, so they know he’s actually eating. Poor bastard never looks angry, more just anguished. 

Sam sits on the side of the bed slowly, as gently as he can. He keeps his posture relaxed, his expression passive, and looks up at the newly freed prisoner of war. “You and I gotta come to an understanding on somethin’.”

Bucky’s eyes start out mostly hidden, thanks to the angle of his head. The shadows consume them entirely as his eyebrows come down. “What.”

One-word answer. That’s good. It’s a verbal day. “We gotta figure out where we’re at. Steve is too close. You’re gonna need someone pushing you on things he can’t. Things you need help with.” 

It’s not a subject he’s brought up with Steve. Being blunt feels like the better option here. He’s guessing the captain’s appeasement is starting to grate on nerves going through this much culture shock. Plus, there’s no pep-talk like a military pep-talk. 

“Do I strike you as an invalid?”

“You might not wanna—we’ll work on that. Point is, you need to start gettin’ comfortable with the new reality. Suck it up, Buttercup, the sky didn’t actually fall. The world’s still spinnin’. None of the big baddies who still know about you have the juice to catch you—”

“No, they don’t,” he confirms aggressively.

Sam rolls his eyes. “Yeah, whatever, you’re huge and scary. You’re also an idiot sitting around wasting a full pardon. No one’s expecting you to start doing a press circuit. If you wanna walk off into the sunset and go find a picket fence to park your Transylvania routine behind, we’ll help you pack and send you postcards. If you wanna do what Steve did and pick up a life in SHEILD, let’s get you fitted in some Kevlar and find you a therapist. But let’s get you outta this fuckin’ room.”

Bucky’s eyebrows stay firmly set, keeping his eyes shrouded. “Why.”

“Oh my god, could you be more dramatic? Like, shit, if you really tried?” He stands up from the bed, headed for the door, his eyes rolling again. “You wanna know why? Because that’s what people do, Bucky. They hit the ground, they figure out if they’re still breathing, and then they get back up to fix what broke. You keep going for the ones who didn’t survive the landing; because they’d hate your guts if you laid down and died over them. Your friend Steve can tell you all about that if you ever feel like giving the man the time of day. No one’s asking you to do this alone.” 

Sam stops at the door, raising one finger and pointing it back accusingly. “You know what— I’m asking you to go outside long enough for a beer in three days. Besides that, it’s up to you how slow you wanna take this.”

“What’s in three days?” The comment is thrown out on a grumble, right when Sam’s nearly got the door closed.

“My birthday, asshole. I’d like to spend it somewhere outside of this house. And, believe it or not, I’d like you to be there.”

—author end notes—

idk abt other ppls trauma foods, but man when im Goin Through Shit all i can ever stomach is bread and bubbles so, for sure inflicted that on bucko. plums i feel like are His to pick up, y'know?

im putting the idiots in my own couples counseling since im robbing bucky of his best FATWS moment so far (yes it is the wrong about me line ty for asking). i also want it on record that grammarly tried to get me to change "the 30s" to "his 30s" and i had to be like no actually i just jacked our leading man from the restricted section of the smithsonian, thanks tho babe

and now you've met paige!! the storm in a bottle herself!! she gonna smooch the shit outta stevie. gonna try to do our babe peggy proud and have her knock that dweeb off his toes at every turn (not hard). still no clue if ill do a spin-off series for them since they're just background here, but i do know im doing some kinktober stuff for them. they get 10 of the days so far (yeah. yeah, its gonna be 4some territory in the last few days, but have no fear, the main fic((s? series maybe? look man im makin a plan as we go. all i know right now is good space and kinktober)) will stay monogamy focused). so, fans of super mega dirty steve, might wanna Check Back Later for those posts 🥰

[tomb-bloom-noctem]

Seeing mutuals say how good they are at emotional repression/control has me feeling like I must be the most goddamn embarrassing mutual ever not gonna lie. My emotions dictate everything. I have to fight them so hard because they're so strong. I can't repress them for too long. I cry at everything. I blow up too easily. I have extremely strong rejection sensitivity dysphoria that sometimes means I wind up in huge meltdowns over the dumbest of things. I have all this trauma I haven't worked through yet. I get discouraged so easily. I get anxious FAR too easily. I cry when I wake up from a nightmare. I cry when it's too hot outside or when my head hurts. My depression overtakes me and paralyzes me. I write my characters so weepy and full of emotions because I literally don't know how to otherwise even if it doesn't really fit the canon character...etc. etc. etc.

I come onto tumblr and I vent my feelings and it must be embarrassing to see. Especially if I'm the older one. Fucking hell. I'm sorry.

[lesbianpoptartsphd]

I have been trying to write thoughts here and they devolve into indecipherable journal entries each time so page break

but at the end of the day I just keep feeling like: I'm tired of having unexpressed love inside me. I want to be more vocal in my "love languages". I know that concept of "languages" is bullshit, and that (happily!) means there is no end to the plentiful, meaningful ways humans can resonate with certain forms of displays of trust, affection, gratitude, love, and appreciation. I want to explore those more for the people in my life who use them by other means.

I'm a deeply "wordy" person already, so that means a lot of my super deep, innermost feelings are expressed at length in the form of long letters or poems. It surpasses what is achievable in text, a lot. I need to start writing more mf letters to people. Normalize not seeing how people respond or giving them pressure to respond lol! But I want to *do* that more, and this weighs hard on my mind because that "form" of "love language", if you will, is one of my favoritest kinds in tandem with my other favoritest kind that I have only just *realized* how strongly it's there (physical touch), and both of these are things that my best friend is um. A little adverse to. Not super comfy with. Not that he rejects the love, or me the messenger, just...the messaging, I guess. In the whole time I've known him, like I swear 10 years at this point, he's only ever consented to hugging once. I tell him I love him, and he doesn't say it back. He doesn't really message me stuff that's like, this ~emotional~ look into how he views or feels about me or our friendship. None of that to say that he doesn't show affection or love. He does, and I feel it! But I want to show it to him, and IT'S GETTING WORSE bc my love for him and our friendship only grows stronger! And I only feel safer and more gratitude that he is my friend! Which makes me want to express my thoughts verbally/written in long-form-long-winded-ass-poetry lol even more! /And ngl I am dying a little bit inside that I can't *touch* him!!/

I've considered, just.. fucking.. /at length/, how alterous attraction plays a role in my relationships with others (i.e. I can't really find where platonic or romantic begins and ends and I feel a desire to just do kinda whatever with anybody) as well how being in a "touch-starved" mode has impacted this.. but none of these realizations ever lead me to conclude an easier way to fulfill that part of me that just feels a little empty all the time at not being able to express it in the most natural way for me to.

It'd be like if you were an artist! A painter! And you really deeply wanted to paint pictures for everybody in your life that you love. How you fantasize about them wanting to pick up some colors and maybe paint with you sometime! But everyone in your life just does not really care about paintings or see in them what you do. You know, rationally, it has nothing to do with you! And they do show their love for you through telling you, letting you feel safe enough to vent to them, sharing their vulnerable thoughts with you, thinking of you and giving you gifts, etc. The love is there and you feel it, but at the end of the day, are you not still in love with painting, and cannot help but see the golden thread linking your love of art to the way you can't help but see art in everyone you love, and see them standing under lamplight and envision what colors you would use to paint them right now, and that you would want nothing more than to labor for hours on a piece of artwork and bestow it upon them for them to see how beautiful they are to you? Are you not still a painter?

To divulge for a second, I never really realized until now how much I care about physical touch in platonic/romantic relationships bc on one hand I just want to cuddle my friends, play with their hair, run my hands along them because I love their skin and shape, etc because I think all humans need that & find that bonding and I'm pretty sure it's baked into our DNA to do that regardless of what commitment label we most sacredly reserve for some special others. But on the other hand, I realize now that there is a sexual component there that is like, very much desired, too. Like not just un-actualized bc *ahaha virgin* bc there's nothing wrong with not having had the genuine opportunity to do sexual stuff in a way *you* find fulfilling, but I mean like....Is there really a requisite "amount" you can get in the first place, and that means anything about the way sex shows up for you as a need? Like I feel like people view sex sometimes as like a meter. That you have to have filled up like you're a sim. And when it dips low you need to have sex and it'll fill back up. That's certainly not how I'd describe it, bc it's not like just getting to orgasm with someone; to me it's functionally a method of expression of all the aforementioned trust, love, gratitude, adoration, appreciation, safety, etc. That's the core of it - to me, it's just another expression of a love language! (I gotta admit I feel silly saying this bc I feel like everybody else feels that way tbh & already figured that out, but sadly I've never had the opportunity until as of just a few years ago to explore what sexuality even is.) But in essence: what if, for me, having sex was just as fundamental an expression of love that is uniquely authentic to me and my brain, that it is a need in my relationships the same as just...hugging? Or to bring it back, just saying with words how I love people?

Not to say that I would EVER even broach that consideration in clearly defined relationships where that carries an inherent romantic intent for people. I just mean like...Is our human need for expression of love, say, in showing how we feel in general, ever relegated to a simple meter of + / -? Or our personal needs, such as physical needs, ever entirely divorced from our sociability as a species & inherent capabilities/needs to express sexuality with our connected social bonds? Sorry I know that's weirdly psychological/sociological, but fr.

That's what makes this shit harder. Everybody tells me hey, you're just touch-starved and horny, just download Tinder and hook-up with people. I cannot even begin to express how much that makes me want to punch them in the face. This isn't a fucking meter that is something like "oh just get your pussy wet and get dicked down or eaten out and you'll be good" IT'S AN ENTIRE DIMENSION OF MY BEING THAT I LONG TO EXPRESS AS A FORM OF LOVE and that requires people to express it *to* that feel the same ---- does nobody see how strangers are not that person? That we don't have a relationship like that? I mean no, I do get what they're saying in a way - it's just to have a mutually consenting fun time! It's pleasure, man, and humans can have that great intimacy with anybody! I do see that. But it's not like "oh this is touch starvation, just go touch and be touched and it'll go away :P" no because it's a function of unexpressed love in me that manifests through connection in my relationships and that I feel desire for in every context in which I love someone and happen to want to show it to them or feel it with them that way to be closer and let them know I love them; it's a function of how I want to move through the world to have sex as yes, at the end of the day as just for how it's pleasurable, but I don't want to do that with just anybody! That's not sex at that point for me, it's just like - idk, masturbating with another person. No matter how much I go out there, it will not ever quell the inclination or instict in me to want to express physical affection with the people I love. I could go out and fuck somebody new every night and have sex upon sex and never, to put it how it's put to me, "fill that meter".

It's, on god, just intimacy, man. Don't know how to say that different. But I hate how you say the word "intimacy" and people only think of like "aww you're just sad and vulnerable and touch-starved and need to be showed you're loved" or like "oh no you are so loved and so desirable and worthy of a relationship and intimacy, you need to get out there and start looking for the one and fall in love! <3" like no, I AM loved. A whole ass dynamic relationship is a different thing to want for different reasons, in my head. Maybe other people don't separate the two because they don't think of physical affection as a thing between just anybody they care about, but not for me. A lot of this is about me SHOWING love. To people, mind you, I already love!!! And I want to FEEL loved, from them, in THIS SPECIFIC WAY, like an artist and their art with no care for making art just for the world at large to see but because it's how they see life through such a more lovely angle through that medium and yearn to show their loved ones the same, and the urge grows deeper the more they feel happy in that relationship, and it has very little to do on their end with platonic or romantic, either.

That's why I have zero qualms about hooking up for the sake of "oh but it feels so different with another person and way more mind-blowingly pleasurable!" like please I promise you when I am in my bed and I've got the toys and I've got me and know exactly what I like and I can easily devote hours to multiple orgasms like, it's plenty pleasurable that I don't suddenly feel like "OH MAN THAT WAS ASS I NEED TO GO FIND SOMEONE FR." No the motivation to do that is because ****intimacy*** is a connective experience shared between people. You see what I mean like, I have no problem masturbating and getting pleasure-needs met. /I still die inside because I can't wrap my mind around the fact I want to have physical touch in general and to have sex in specific with someone I love and care about so I can use this "delivery method" that feels so natural and good to me to deliver the message of how much I care about them and it can be platonic or romantic ultimately but it cannot exist in strangers with no connection/.

Does this make sense to anybody-fucking-else? Probably not.

Did this become another indecipherable journal entry again? Yeah. Fuck it we ball ig im tired of rewriting this

Edit: none of this is to suggest either that i shouldnt get out there. I do want a relationship. I do want to be with women lol. Badly. I just resent the response i get about the solution being hook ups and the never ending way i still feel like i want to show physical affection to my loved ones bc again. Even if i get a relationship. Its not like its a "cure". A relationship is not a cure!!! And theres also nothing wrong with me!! I just have no idea how to add physical touch as a love language in my life. And i resent the idea of having to wait for this one type of situation to come along for me to be able to indulge in that love language. And for the end of all time theyre the only one who i ever get to hold or cuddle with ig. Idk. If i were to get into a relationship i would hope that i would not stake all of my physical needs onto that person as their responsibility to fulfill or encouraging dependency on them. End post

[pathfinderyderss]

Probably the funniest vent you've ever seen under the cut. Tldr: ryder whines about having to watch new anime

I am my schools anime club advisor and this year I decided to do all new anime, ya know, for funsies, across a bunch of different genres. So we're watching Frieren, MHA, A Sign of Affection, Mashle, Oshi no Ko, Spy X Family and I was like "oh a bunch of kids really love the sports anime! Lemme throw two of those on." And Blue Lock has a new season coming out this fall so I picked that one and Haikyuu!

This weekend I watched Kaiju No. 8, which was fine. A solid 7/10. And then I watched Wind Breaker. And holy shit. That may be in my top 2 anime of the year. It was so good, so enjoyable, hits a lot of the tropes characterization I enjoy.

AND I am EMOTIONALLY DEVESTATED that it only has 13 episodes. BUT FUCKING BLUE LOCK IS 24 EPISODES LONG AND IT IS THE MOST MENTALLY GRUELING SHOW I HAVE EVER HAD THE DISPLEASURE OF WATCHING.

I want to like it lads. I really do. Bachira may be the most character ever. And I love him very much. But like. Holy shit. I hate almost every other character. Also. I am so over the Protagonist who is actually super shitty at their craft. I hated Deku, couldn't put my finger on why until I watched Kaiju No. 8. And the MC there has the same thing. And then SAME WITH BLUE LOCK. Like sopping wet pathetic male mcs just don't do it for me.

And I promise. I. Promise. This is not a dig at people who like Blue Lock. Y'all are stronger than any us marine. I just. Holy shit. It contains not a single ounce of dopamine for me specifically. I have tried to watch it for like two months now. And I'm only 11 episodes in.

I watched all 26 combined episodes of Kaiju No. 8 and Wind Breaker in like 36 hours.

Someone who likes Blue Lock. Tell me ur secret. Tell me how I can watch this show without wanting to throw these boys across the room at Mach speed. Bc I can't figure it out.

[stolas-number-1-vents]

CW: Long winded vent post, just stuff I need off of my chest.

Life's been shit as of late.

Honestly it might be my fault, or might as well be. I can't seem to cry anymore, seems my body is too tired for that emotion. But what's worse is that I feel numb emotionally speaking. I'm irritable by even the smallest things like the wheel of my chair catching on my desk's leg and not letting me push myself closer to the screen or hell even messing up a sketch line while drawing.

It's awful, I don't like not feeling things but at the same it's almost better than feeling things because I don't have to feel. My laughs are genuine, my smiles sometimes are, but more often than not I find myself just sleeping to pass the time as opposed to more productive things and for some reason the thought of that scares me, that I'm simply napping my early adulthood away (18). Graduation is right around the corner so anxieties were already high as it were and now the realization that I'm falling in to my old self destructive tendency of sleeping the days away simply because I'm too mentally exhausted to fathom anything else.

And worse of all, it all stems from one person, one. Their name won't be disclosed for anonymity's sake, and they're my ex (They/Them). We dated from January to March until they ended up finding someone new that was in closer proximity. I forced myself to be okay with that and then when I had the chance to date them again I jumped at it because even though they'd broken my heart choosing someone else, they were the only person who I'd managed to let my guard down for.

Unfortunately things weren't well and around December 5th last year me and them split for good and sent each other final paragraphs. I ended things civilly, them not so much. They told me I said 'I love you too much', that I was too flirty with them, and that I made them uncomfortable. Now I knew I was innocent because I'd given them multiple opportunities to tell me to stop or to tone it down. Not once did they ever vocalize to me that I was being too much. But worst of all they accused me of pushing them into the relationship and giving them no choice but to date me, which is what fucks me up most and continues to.

Ever since they said that, not only have I been just generally diverted from looking for a relationship almost entirely but I've been driven to point where I'm afraid I'll end up doing that to someone else, or worse, making someone else a rebound.

And while yeah, it's not exactly good to date someone to find a meaning or purpose in life, it feels like it's the only thing that'd help me, and yet I'm too socially awkward to talk to someone irl, not to mention that I have to go through the trial and error of finding someone that at least likes some of the things I like. But I also don't want anymore long distance relationships. They're utterly draining, regardless if I'm head over heels for them like I was with my ex. I guess it's true what they say about first true loves being the ones that hurt worst to lose.

Anyway, that was my vent, a long one too.

[seikumo]

Loss

Nonfandom, grief, under 1k, self insert, previous character death, vent piece

The moment Tix died, Andania stopped. Every scrap of color in his life was sapped away in an instant, and now there was no one capable of painting something new in its place. Tix had always been his hero, his guiding light, and his occasional partner in crime. Tix had given him his name, a new identity to create when he'd first started to realize who he was, and in turn he'd named Tix when she started out on her own journey.

The two had been inseparable since their first day of kindergarten, and Andania wasn't sure what he was meant to do now. They'd always assumed they'd go out in a blaze of glory together, or at least part ways when they were old enough to have a proper mid-to-late-life crisis over it all. Old enough to spend the rest of their life traveling and making and doing stupid shit until they finally met up again. But Tix was dead now, and Andania was barely in his early twenties. Twenty years was a reasonable amount of time to spend mourning your soulmate. Eighty years was not.

Tix would want him to figure out a way to manage, at least. Would want him to make friends and learn new skills, to find things to show off when they finally met up again. Would want him to look at it like a long separation rather than death. Today, though, Andania didn't think he could do that.

Tix would understand.

His family, however, was much less understanding.

They were trying, Andania knew, but none of them seemed to understand just how deeply he was hurting. To them Tix was 'just a friend' and 'you would have started growing apart soon anyway.' They'd never been romantic, and they certainly weren't married, and as far as his family was concerned, that meant he should be moving on already.

'We would have been,' Andania wanted to scream. They were never interested in romance, but they'd agreed they would spend the rest of their life together. And why not tie the knot at that point?

Amongst everything that had been left to him, the ring made him cry the hardest.

Tix was his soulmate, platonic or not, and even three months later he struggled to just live through his daily routine without her. He'd been trying, slowly but steadily, to force his previous interests, keeping notes and diaries to read to Tix when he saw her next, but it was agony. He was trying though. He was trying so fucking hard.

That was how he ended up uncomfortably hunched over in a chair at Ironwrought books for the third time that week. He couldn't focus at home, and he couldn't focus in the more comfortable chairs inside the building, (where they'd fought over their favorite recliner, where they curled up on the couch and told each other stories, where Tix had become *Tix*,) so here he was. Curled up in the most uncomfortable metal chair the ever exist, shivering in the slightly-too-cold wind and trying to focus on a book when he couldn't even remember what genre it was supposed to be.