#they were both the same age so that one had a deeper formative experience than the other does not hold water

[fideidefenswhore]

not for this to be the hill i die on or whatever but oh my god, ‘her parents were the catholic monarchs’ is not an argument. what is there to suggest her parents were any more against sin/more pious than arthur’s? catherine would later complain that during fasting periods at the tudor court, you could not receive meat to consume ‘even if you were dying [...] they look upon anyone that eats it as heretics’ , which suggests the early tudor court might have been even more rigorously catholic than her parents by comparison, at least in some respects...

[thebomb-thebird-andtheburntbitch]

w.count: 900+ - 'growing old' w this god of old :') (mentions of death of old age!)

morax was a god able to change and alter his appearance at will. he had done so in the past several times. the whole reason he was able to appear as he does is because he had learned to hide away his godly- or even previously lesser-known dragonic- features. of course, he could hide his horns, his tail, and his scales, but there's charactistics that are far more difficult to conceal with such magic. such as his golden vein that run along the expanse of his body. even his geo-darkened arms were able to be altered to the same shade of the rest of his skin.

still, when morax had 'died' and retired as rex lapis to live among his people as simply the wise zhongli, he didn't intend to alter his image for the foreseeable future.

you were the being that had changed his mind.

even though he was more than well aware that you were mortal and he would long outlive you, he never considered his own disposition and how it would look to outsiders. additionally, the thought that you would contemplate leaving him one day when your age catches up to you for that very same reason never crossed his mind.

"wouldn't it be for the best?" you ask him one afternoon when the light of the sun was bright in his golden eyes. "if people see me aging and growing older year by year, but you remain the same... won't that put your identity at risk?" it twists his heart. you weren't chasing him off, you were trying to be reasonable and prepare him for a possible future he couldn't avoid even if he wanted to. you only wish to protect him and his secret. he knows that, but still-

"that is still very far off, my dear," is how he tries to reassure you. however, after you had brought it to his attention, he already made a decision on the 'matter 'problem' which is your human life span. instead of leaving or relocating somewhere where people wouldn't recognize him before coming back in a set amount of time to start all over, zhongli already knows he would choose to stay by your side despite the risks.

zhongli never voiced aloud how the both of you would proceed with his immortality going forward again. he didn't feel the need to bring it up twice and you didn't have it in yourself to ask again; it wasn't like you wanted to leave him in the first place, so you just decided to let the chips fall where they land.

however, the first time you gleam into his own choices was years later. you didn't know when it happened, but somehow his appearance began to slightly shift and alter. along the course of your aging, he mirrored you.

crows feet crinkled in the corners of his eyes. smile lines formed deeper when his lips would curl. his brown hair would gain new grey streaks seemingly overnight. he would soon acquire a cane that would aid him in keeping his daily routine of walking around the harbor (as well as add a touch more elegance into his gait). the veins along his hands would grow to become more noticeable under his gloves as his wedding band continued to sit comfortably on his happily married hand.

zhongli was hardly an actor; but hearing him talk to those younger than you and himself like a proper old man was more amusing than you ever thought it could be.

that was another thing she slowly altered. his voice slowly began to gain more gravel than it did before. he would clear his throat of his 'older age' before speaking with a tone that sounded like a proper human man getting on in years.

it was a beautiful and soothing illusion he decided to show you. but even something kind and wonderful like spending your life growing old with the man you loved since your youth held its pains.

when you were ill, zhongli could do nothing but watch and hope his nursing and the skilled doctors in liyue could bring you back to health. when you got hurt, he couldn't properly relate to your pain as another mortal man could. when your body began to experience real, human pain from aging all he could do is feel like a fraud since all of his aging was just a fabrication of the real thing.

still, even when all those things happened and his identity as a god was thrown back into his face, you always thanked him for doing such kind things for you. you never once called him out for being a fraud, or faking being human. you never frowned at him or scolded his actions. you always just smiled.

even when he sat besides your aged, wrinkled and graceful body as you lay in your bed, you just smiled at him. his fraudulent wrinkled hand that held your authentically aged one still held the affection of a young man in love. the tears that gathered his still vibrant golden eyes still saw the person he loved years ago.

all he did was blink and before he knew it, the person he loved had aged and smiled their life away before his very eyes. the same eyes you begged him never to dilute the hue of.

it wasn't fair just how quickly the human lifespan comes and goes compared to his own. it takes zhongli several long years and another staged 'human' death as and 'old man' before he's able to stand before your grave with the same face you remember meeting a long, long time ago.

this new zhongli kneels before your resting place, fondly with your favorite flower in his gloved hand.

[eastern-lights]

Ok so we all know how amazing Baldur's Gate 3 is. I could talk for hours about everything it did perfectly.

But rn, I want to talk about what I think Dragon Age Inquisition did better. And this is not to judge which game is better overall, but what still makes DAI so special to me despite its flaws.

1. Voiced protagonist

Yeah, starting off controversial. I know some people prefer silent protagonists, but I just find myself wishing we could have a fully voiced Tav, even at the cost of fewer dialogue options. I'm sorry, but Tav's silent indifferent face just always breaks the immersion for me, especially when contrasted with the award-worthy acting and animation of the characters they're speaking with. In DAI (and DA2, although to a lesser degree) your character could be heavily customized, but they were always an actual person who fit in with the rest of the universe and flowed seamlessly with the story.

2. Mystery and dread.

BG3 is full of heavy, scary, traumatizing stuff hidden all over the place (or in plain sight). But it can always be explained in some way. There are dreadful things in Faerûn, but we always know what they are (mostly due to most of them having to have precisely given stats as the result of being based on DnD). We know what happens after death and what we can do to bring people back from it. The closest you get to truly dread-inducing mystery in BG3 is "Do Illithids have souls" and "where do illithids come from" and (at least in Act 1) "who is the Absolute".

In Dragon Age, the whole world is made of existential dread. What happens when you die? Dunno. Is God real? No idea and if He does, He hates you. What is the Blight? Are all darkspawn capable of independent thought? What is lyrium singing about? What happened to the titans? What happens when all of the Old Gods die? And this is just the Big Questions. There's a myriad of small things, small mysteries you encounter that just have no answers. Stuff that reminds me of those creepy Goldshire children forming a pentagram in World of Warcraft. While having an explanation for everything makes for deeper worldbuilding, a world full of mysteries without answers makes for a much scarier and, in some ways, exciting experience.

3. Group dynamic and party banter

I enjoyed the party banter in BG3. Hell, it had some of the funniest lines in game. But it didn't do enough to make the group dynamic feel any less Tav/Durge-centric. You hear the companions exchange banter, but you never get beyond stuff like "Karlach and Shadowheart both enjoy wine" and "Gale enjoys Lae'zel telling him about the Astral plane". The protagonist forms amazingly written relationships with each of the companions, but they never seem to have such a bond with one another. The closest we come to what I'd like to see is Karlach and Wyll's friendship, but even that's kind of shallow, I feel. The companions do comment on the others' personal quest, but it's always one sentence reaction, before going right back to being mostly indifferent. DA2 had the same issue, if to a greater extent (srsly, the companions had the same attitude about one another over the span of 10 years)

The banter in DAI was superb. It told a story. It had arcs. You could watch in real time as Solas and Dorian became friends over their shared magical nerd-dom. You could even take part in it, such as when telling Blackwall to stfu about jousting for a moment, or telling Sera that what you and Solas do in private is none of her business. You could see Dorian and Bull fall in love. You could watch Varric slowly chip away at Solas' worldview until he arguably came closer to changing his plans than Lavellan ever did. The relationships grow over the course of the story and by the time of Solas' betrayal, you're not just sad because he betrayed you, you're sad because he betrayed Varric, Dorian, Bull, Cassandra and everyone else. Because you saw how they cared about him, each in their own way.

There is nothing more heartbreaking than Varric's "Chuckles, what have you done?"

In BG3, the relationships are mostly left to your imagination, which has its perks, but still, the group dynamic feels more like a wheel with Tav at the centre rather than a web.

4. Having limits on the romance options

Let me start by stating what I am not saying: I am not saying that bi and pan people shouldn't be represented. Far from it. But I don't think making the whole group pan is the way to go about it. I can't help but feeling it is, in a way, pandering to players, making every single companion interested in them as long as they have a sufficiently high approval.

Making some companions explicitly bi, pan, gay or straight made for a more real experience. Getting rejected by Sera on the grounds of "We have a lot in common - we both like women" felt disappointing, yes, but also real. This also allowed the writers to make the characters' sexual/romantic preferences a part of their, well, character. We got Dorian's personal quest, which I think is great. Limiting Solas' options to just Lavellan allowed the writers to make it about him realizing that his people are not mere shadows. It allowed them to write the Vallaslin scene. None of this could have been done if he were romanceable to all races.

When you have diversity in romantic attraction among the companions, suddenly the pan and bi characters (in Bull and Josie respectively) feel like their orientation is part of who they are, rather than a game mechanic to prevent players from missing out on content.

[kirisakiss]

— hi guys!! i’ll be updating this every few days so check if you wanna know more! :)

Character profile (WIP)

“let our blood intertwine the way our love does.”

TW: Suicide mention, child abuse, neglect (?)

GENERAL INFORMATION

— KANJI: ヴァンソーン・ヒカリ

— RŌMAJI: Vanthorn Hikari

A living puppet, one of the many attempts of Karlheinz to create the perfect creature, Hikari was adopted alongside the Mukami brothers from the orphanage, but was kept locked in Rotigenberg for a long time as Karlheinz experimented with her. Lilith, he called her, his first prototype.

— ALSO KNOWN AS:

Lux Mortis (Real name) Lilith (by Karlheinz) Bitch-chan, Hypocrite-chan (by Laito) Lux (by Ruki and Azusa; her real name.) Hika-chan (by Kou) Hikari (by Yuma) Annoying woman (by Kanato)

— HER NICKNAMES FOR THE DIABOYS:

WIP

PERSONAL INFORMATION

— AGE: 18 (physically) — BIRTHDAY: January 25th — SIGN: Aquarius — STATUS: Alive — RACE: Human? / Doll? / Homunculus? / Humanoid thing? — GENDER: Female — SEXUALITY: Bisexual with no lean! — HEIGHT: 167 cm — HAIR COLOR: Brown (dyed), Bone white (natural hair color) — EYE COLOR: Turquoise — OCCUPATION: 3rd year High School Student at Ryoutei Academy — AFFILIATION: Karlheinz, Mukami Family — RELATIVES:

Karlheinz (Caretaker?)

— HOBBIES: Drawing — FAVORITE FOOD: Rice and Curry — CV: Saori Hayami

APPEARANCE

(insert an illustration i havent done yet !) WIP

PERSONALITY

WIP

HISTORY

Born to Lysandra Mortis, a woman renowned for her otherworldly beauty and rumored to possess magical powers, Hikari's early years were tainted by tragedy. 

Lysandra, a prostitute whose enchanting beauty captivated her clients, met a grim fate at the hands of one of them, leaving behind a small baby with eyes as bright as the stars. Lux, as she was named, was born into a country torn apart by conflict, and her mother’s death added to the countless casualties of the war. Her father was never in the picture; leaving her orphaned and alone at a young age. Lux was placed in an orphanage, where she endured years of neglect and hardship like the majority of children that were victims of the war. 

Lux inherited her mother’s rare beauty, which captivated those around her. She was considered a beautiful child, with bright turquoise eyes resembling gemstones and ivory, long wavy hair, decorated with a pale, almost doll like skin; which made her stand out among the multitude of children. 

Thanks to this, Hikari was given nice treatments, she was given beautiful clothes, toys, and delicious food that she had never even seen in her life; along with a room of her own that was in a better state than the others. However, her beauty became both a blessing and a curse when the orphanage's caretakers, desperate to make ends meet amidst the chaos of war, started offering children up as merchandise and "entertainment" for the aristocrats in the country. 

Lux was one of the first children to be offered, and she quickly became one of the most popular among the aristocracy to use. She quickly gained fame by being compared to her mother, some of them called her“little Mortis”, directly comparing them. They enjoyed seeing the bruises form in her skin, and the contrast the scarlet of her blood made against the white of her hair. 

Her innocence was ripped from her without a warning, leaving behind scars that ran deeper than the surface ones showed. 

Hikari’s only comfort was a small group of kids she met through Kou, a bright child that approached her one day in the aristocrat-filled clubs, a victim of the same fate she had endured. 

One day, a tall man with white hair, arrived at the orphanage, promising hope and happiness to Lux and her friends. Karlheinz was his name. He took Lux and four boys to the demon world, where Lux would see her best friends for the last time. 

Waking up in an unfamiliar room, Lux found herself alone with Karlheinz, who revealed they were in Rotigenberg, her new home. Karlheinz, aware of Lux's potential from her mother's stories, began experimenting with his magic on her. He gifted her a new heart crafted from his powerful magic, granting her abilities beyond those of a normal human. His plan was starting, and she was to be one of the first subjects.

However, as his experiments progressed, it became apparent that Lux's severe trauma rendered her unfit for the role of the perfect "Eve" he so craved. “Lilith” he called her. The original, broken one. 

Disappointed by his failed experiment, Karlheinz slowly withdrew his presence from Lux's life, leaving her alone in the tower where she had been subjected to his experiments.

The abandonment by Karlheinz, after initially showering her with attention and affection, shattered Lux's fragile state of mind. Faced with reminders of her past torment, she resorted to drastic measures to cope with her pain, including cutting off her long, silver hair that made all the memories from her childhood come back like a knife against her skin.

Years passed, and just when Lux had resigned herself to a life of solitude, Karlheinz returned with a new proposition. He presented her as a crucial component of his Adam and Eve project, a pawn in his game now started game with fate. He renamed her Hikari, meaning "light," perhaps as a cruel reminder of the beacon of hope she once represented. Desperate for a sense of belonging, Lux accepted her new identity and dyed her hair brown as a symbol of her desire to leave her painful past behind, she grew it again, but kept it shorter than it used to be in her childhood, and resorted to wearing thick chokers again. 

She had one mission, to serve as motivation for them to fulfill his plan. She was then sent to the Sakamaki mansion under the excuse of a new bride, her true motives hidden beneath a façade of compliance and obedience perfectly crafted to charm the potential "Adam"s.

RELATIONSHIPS

WIP

ABILITIES

Immortality - Hikari ceased to age due to Karlheinz's experiments, and cannot die of natural causes. Her immune system is almost perfect, so human illnesses don't really affect her, she can only die if the wounds are too much for her body to heal itself.

Faster Healing - Her body has the ability to heal from injuries at an accelerated rate. Wounds that would be dangerous to humans heal within a short moment for her.

Enhanced senses - Hikari’s senses are heightened to be more than a normal human's. She can see better, hear better, and moves with grace and agility that surpasses human limitations.

Magic - It's unknown if Hikari's talent with magic is due to Karlheinz own magic or due to her mother's supposed one; but it seems she has an easier ability to it than a common human.

ETYMOLOGY

Hikari's name is written in katakana, but can also be written in kanji as 光.

Both of her names Hikari (ヒカリ) and Lux (ルクス) mean "Light" - Lux being in Latin and Hikari in Japanese, her name just seems to be a translation unlike how the Mukami's have different original names. (Like Yuma being called Edgar and Kou Emilio).

Her last name "Vanthorn" (ヴァンソーン) comes from the word "Vanus" in Latin, which means "vain" and the English word thorn.

Her real last name, "Mortis" comes from the Latin word "Mors" which means death.

TRIVIA

WIP

[imawreck]

Cargo

Pairing: Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier x Original Character

Summary: After finding the secret Hydra experiment, Steve and Bucky return to Stark tower with the cargo. The team has a lot of concerns.

Warnings: Cursing, mentions of injuries

Word count: 1,382

Bucky-

The girl was compliant with any commands that I had given to her, but she wouldn't take any from Steve. The way she looked at him told me that she knew exactly who he was and, if it wasn't for my command for her to stand down, she would have gunned him down in that room without a second thought. We had cuffed her to the seats lining the walls of the jet as a precaution. Both Steve and I kept an eye on her though, both of us were almost certain she was enhanced. She pulled a goddamn bullet out of her hand without flinching. That's proof enough.

Her hand had stopped bleeding and there was already a half-formed scab over the entry wound. The bullet had lodged itself in the center of her palm, hadn't even gone through, which was hardly possible considering the close proximity the doctor had been standing when he fired the shot. We barely knew anything about her other than the name given to her by Hydra and that she was some form of super soldier weapon Hydra had been working on roughly the same time I was there.

I watched her stare at the ground the entire flight. I knew she wasn't really just staring at the floor but listening to anything and everything that happened around her. She had to be around my age, maybe a few years younger. She was small, dainty almost, with tan skin and stark white hair. I studied her Hydra uniform, much like mine, as I mulled over the events. The fabric was all black with the emblem embroidered into the shoulders. It was form fit but looked much like an older military uniform. If it wasn't for the absent expression she wore and the intelligence lurking behind her eyes, no one would ever take her as a threat. Her eyes were the palest blue I had ever seen in my life and when the light hit them just right, they glinted like moons.

She had shown us in the room that she had some sort of training and that she knew her way around a gun, and it wasn't impossible to assume she didn't know her way around various other weapons either. She also had to be well trained in stealth. I couldn't recall any missions where I had even suspected someone was tailing me. That wasn't saying too much though, considering my memory issues.

She had looked up in that moment, her eyes once more catching the light in an eerily predatory way, and she stared back at me. Her stare was void and empty, like she was a shell of a person, nothing like what I saw before when I intervened between her and Steve. She studied my face, my arms, making her way down slowly to my feet before back up again. Her eyes looked to my chest for a moment before flitting back to the ground.

My eyebrows scrunched and my brain reeled, "Do you remember?" The words were so quiet I was afraid she wouldn't hear me. Even I hadn't remembered it until I had seen her, the memory. There wasn't even a scar there. I almost thought she hadn't heard me before the slightest nod of her head caught my attention.

I sucked in a breath, "Tell me what happened."

Her shoulders tensed and she seemed to have to force the words out of her mouth, "Kazan Mission, target retaliated. Asset shot through left lung, critical condition." Her voice was flat and rough, deeper than I imagined it would be. "Target lost, mission failure." She said the last part through gritted teeth, her hands trembled as she clenched her fists.

When she looked at me again it was like looking at a different person. Her eyes were watery, but the steeliness was still there. It was different somehow, deeper almost, than when she was staring at me before. She looked like she wanted to say something before she thought better of it, shaking her head and relaxing her hands.

The intercom static caused her to jump, and the restraints groaned as she tugged against them. Steve's voice echoed through the Quinjet, "Almost home Buck, I've called in to let them know we have cargo."

I nodded even though he couldn't see me and set my attention back on the girl seated across from me. "No one we're about to meet will be a threat. Do not engage, understood?"

She nodded, shifting her gaze to Steve as the jet lowered itself onto the landing dock. She eyed him as he walked to the other side of the jet and released the back hatch to greet the rest of the awaiting avengers.

The team all stood around the jet ready to greet us when we exited. I worked at the shackles around the girls' limbs as Steve spoke to them. I was afraid meeting them all at once would alarm her, but so far, I couldn't sense any shift in her mood. I kept the cuffs on her, only releasing the chains that bound her to the floor of the jet. I motioned her forward to which she complied instantly, taking sure strides out of the hatch. She didn't even blink at them as she came to a stop behind Steve, keeping her distance. I caught her peeking over her shoulder at me as I came to stand at her side. I watched as the group tensed, watching her every move. Still, she waited.

Steve was holding conversation with Tony who was actively glaring at the girl standing motionless a good distance away. I was too far away to catch what they were saying even with enhanced hearing, but from the look on both men's faces it was a controversial topic.

Tony scoffed, throwing a snide comment towards Steve I'm sure, and made his way over to me. His face was twitching in anger as he approached but it quickly flickered to surprise as a figure stepped into his line of vision and my own.

The girl's cuffs clicked together as she side-stepped closer to my side, angling slightly in front of me. It was barely a shift in her footing, but it was enough to catch the whole team's attention. Her eyes were set on Tony, unwavering in their stare. Her feet were spread in a defensive stance despite being cuffed and unarmed. She remained stoic and didn't show any aggression towards anyone, but that one step said a million things. A silent threat.

"What is the meaning of this Barnes? Bringing a Hydra agent to the tower? Have you lost your mind?" He folded his arms across his chest and jutted his chin out. "You do realize you're putting us all at risk bringing her here."

I sighed, feeling a lick of anger brew in my chest. "I couldn't leave her there Stark, not when I know what they do to people left there. I figured that we could try undoing the Hydra programming like you're trying to do with me."

The muscle in his jaw ticked, "If it even works, Barnes! There aren't any guarantees, we know nothing about her or if she's stable enough to cooperate with us to even attempt to help her." He grumbled under his breath, "Another Super Soldier for Christ's sake!

"She listens to me. I don't know why, but she listens to me and I..." I cleared my throat and balled my fists, willing the words to come out. "I think I used to know her. I had a memory in the base, and she was in it."

Tony's jaw ticked again before his eyes drifted to the girl once more. "Take her down to the holding room and give her a change of clothes. Lock the door behind her and don't let this idiot in until we've had a chance to discuss this."

I saw her shoulders tense for a moment and her stare flicked to me. There was a hint of fear in her eyes, hardly noticeable for the second it had shown before she pulled the blank mask back over her features. I sighed, "Go with them."

Another moment passed before she nodded, watching as Steve approached her and motioned with his head for her to move. He followed her through the open doors and down the hall out of sight.

[md-confessions]

sort of in response to that one ask about doll not being 'uzi if she never met n.'

both her and uzi were changed through grief and disconnect from their peers even if it showed in different ways. both of them have themes of loneliness & both of them have an intense festering hatred that fuels their motivations.

the difference between them is that through the connections that uzi formed after being forced into a situation where she had to open up, she deterred herself from the path she was slowly going down.

like her quote en quote villain arc was stopped before it started because of the connection she formed with N but doll never had that.

doll refused to form connections despite the chances she was given because it happened too late. her anger festered for so long that she wasn't able to make a comeback. her hubris was her downfall. she became the very thing she sought to destroy.

the point of promening and her 'hypocritical murder plan' was that she was so blinded by her anger and hatred, she didn't really think too far about the logics of her plan; she probably fantasized killing v and then took the first chance she could to actually do it.

she has some kind of tunnel vision, focusing on her goals until she's gotten them; no matter the cost, no matter who or what she has to get through. (another similarity between her and uzi, imo.)

Uzi basically stated "hey we should stop fighting cause there's bigger shit at play and we can deal with it better if we team up" and Doll responded with "No I can do this on my own also die"

sort of. imagine you spend years upon years seething and imagining ways you're going to kill this sky demon that killed your parents in front of you and lead to the activation of a virus that has plagued you for years since that point. you have to actively kill and eat people from a young age & you are alone in your struggles; presumably the singular person who is aware of them finds your trauma humorous to an extent, and even if she sticks by your side, you feel like she doesn't really get it. i reiterate; you are alone in your struggles.

one day, you finally get your chance. you fantasize this moment for years, to the point where it becomes the only plausible solution to your problems. you don't plan it out thoroughly, because you know the universe will deal its hand correctly and allow you catharsis after years of festering that hatred. it finally happens. you have her in your sights, you have her pinned, she knows who you are now and you're about to kill her, to inflict all the pain on her you have wanted to for years; no matter who may have gotten in your way, you will have this, it's all you want, its all you HAVE wanted.

and then someone stops you. she tells you some things that if you were in a clearer mind, you would have thought deeper about, but you're so fucking angry right now and you want her to get out of the way. you don't listen.

you fight. you lose. you come back.

she has the same virus as you. you're not alone anymore. and that's when the conflicting feelings start. but despite that start, they never quite come to any meaningful conclusion because you have more important things to do. perhaps she inspired you a little to understand that the fate of the planet is more important than your fantasy for revenge, but you're so set in your ways you can't quite admit it yet. and again; when you get that chance again, to enact revenge, you take it.

and in the end, it ruined her & she died. she died as she lived; alone.

essentially, 'doll is uzi if she never met n' doesn't mean that exactly; it means doll is uzi if she never formed meaningful connections. the friends she had in school don't count in my eyes. literally the very first proper interaction we see between her and lizzy is lizzy playing doll's traumatic experience off as a joke. no hate towards lizzy also just to specify i love them as friends i just don't think it is on the same level of healthy as n and uzis friendship is?

okay.. i can't add any more to this it's so fucking long also it's 1 am GOODNIGHT i hope this doesn't look weird or aggressive

.

[jemstone55]

Avatar twow various x Nezuko!reader

Y/n has the opportunity to move to another planet. Her older brother ,Tanjiro ,is one of the good scientist that got a chance to go to Pandora.

Y/n wears a mask that is actually a special made mask for her to be able to breathe Pandora's air. She never stays out under the sun for too long,she has Polymorphous Light Eruption,a form of sun allergy.

When she first walk onto the planet,she and her brother were very surprised to see her allergy not acting up but it did when she was under the sun longer than 5 hours.

But she was still so happy being able to be under the sun like any normal people. The siblings at that moment begins to think this place is magical and spectacular.

She would always go out enjoying the sunshine and explore the new place. She always looks in awe of the plants and creatures within the forest.

But lately,her brother noticed how the more she walks outside,the longer she was able to stay under the sunlight without her allergies acting up. He told his sister about this discovery with happy tears, he felt so immense joy for his sister as he knows how much she had wished to be able to enjoy the sunlight on her skin with no problem. The siblings begins to think the planet is even more magnificent and feels very thankful to be here.

One day,Y/n was walking around,exploring the forest again,but this time feeling more adventurous,she went deeper than before and got lost in awe of the beautiful sceneries that surrounds her. She didn't notice two presences just close in the area infront of her. Two eyes watching her as they heard her footsteps coming closer to where they stand. The two na'vi went into hiding in a bush just near them. They continue watching the girl with caution,they were curious on the newcomer's appearance,they have never seen another human much less almost their age around here. They watch the girl intentively with interest growing inside them. When the girl was closer enough,they were filled with awe by the beauty of the girl,her beauty is undeniable striking, her form looks very tiny in their opinion but that just makes her looks so vulnerable and adorable. They both thought she looks so cute with her awestruck face watching the beautiful nature of their place. They then started to follow the girl as she continues walking more and more further into the forest,this made the boys felt a bit worried seeing the girl alone and walking into an unknown place where dangerous living creatures could attack her at any moment. Surely the girl wouldn't be that oblivious of the dangers within a forest,right?

Wrong-

After following the girl for a few moments, multiple viperwolves suddenly appeared out of no where aiming towards the girl.

But fortunately,the older brother got right on time running in front of the girl stopping a viperwolf's attack, he began attacking the animal while shielding the girl behind him. The other brother went ahead to attack the remaining viperwolves as they were going to attack his brother at the same time.

Y/n watchs with fear in her eyes as she watch two blue tall aliens attacking some kind of wolves while protecting her from any of the wolves. She then felt gratitude for them saving her from a near-death experience. She turned her head away from the violent scene as she couldn't stand to watch the animals being killed in front of her. She knows that the wolves were going to attack her but killing them was not something she would wish upon them.

When the fighting sound stops and something that sounds like praying was heard. She hesitantly turn her head back towards the front and saw her saviours praying to the dead animals, after praying they sat on the ground breathing a bit heavily while resting. The girl stares at them in wonder, she hesitantly steps closer wanting to see their face clearly as their head was bow down. The boys snaps their head up as they heard the girl's footstep. The brothers and the girl stares at the other species in silent,not knowing what to say or what to do next.

The girl comes closer to the boys (surprising them) and kneel down next to the one who looks like the younger brother (who stares at her shamelessly),seeing how they have similar features she assumed they are brothers, the boys watches her wondering what is she going to do, then she took out her handkerchief and a mini medkit she always has on her and begins to clean up the small wounds on the younger brother's hands and cheek,making the boy blushed with how gentle her touch is and how close she is to him. Y/n didn't notice his blush as she kept her head down concentrating on treating and bandaging his hands.

Neteyam watch the scene with jealousy brewing in him,this surprises him as he doesn't know why he would feel like this for just a human girl who is also a stranger,but then he begins to wonder why he and his brother helped the girl. But he didn't get to continue his thoughts when a small soft hand was placed onto his own and he looked towards the owner of the hand, seeing the human girl looking at him in concern. It made his heart skipped a beat,trying not to blush hard at the adorable face looking at him in the eyes. He coughed a bit then asked the girl what her name is.

Y/n was taken aback being asked for her name by an alien but she answered him as she thinks he isn't a bad guy as he had just save her life. Then the boy introduced him and his brother as Neteyam and Lo'ak.

Since that day,the brothers began to hang out with Y/n . Shortly after a few days,they introduced their sisters and friend to the girl.

The girl was then introduced to the clan as the kids wanted to show her their home.

The clan were skeptical of the new comer but weren't really wary as the girl looks so tiny in their eyes and how adorable she is,her personality is so sweet and gentle.

Neytiri was bit mad that her kids met a new sky person without telling her and was thinking about how the new sky person is not gonna be great but that thought quickly went away when she met the girl face to face. The girl is a literal sweetheart! Neytiri couldn't help but soften up towards the small girl. She would be protective of the girl after just one day of getting to know each other. Mama mode on-

Probably take the girl under her wing, she thought that Y/n needed some help to get toughen up. But would do things together with the girl like making clothes or hunting.

Just like mother daughter bonding.

Jake is nice to the girl and he enjoys the girl's company. The girl helps around the clan and is really close with his kids,she is fitting into the clan like it's natural for her to be here. He would want this girl as a daughter. He would pat her head a lot seeing how she likes getting headpats when he did it the first time. He will pat her head to show care and proudness while smiling down at her.

Kiri would do almost anything with the girl. She likes the girl's calmness and her responsibleness. They could talk to each other all day and about anything or everything. They tell each other's secrets and grew a really close bond between them. Kiri would also have a sense od protectiveness towards Y/n. Y/n just looks like a girl who couldn't really fight in her opinion,so that's why she takes it upon herself to take care of Y/n whenever they're together. Tries to make clothes or hats that can cover up Y/n whenever they go outside. Or she'll ask her grandmother to help her create a kind of cream or medicine to help the human girl to be able to walk under the sun longer without allergies acting up.

Tuk looks up to Y/n a lot because of how Y/n would take care of her and play with her anytime she comes visits. Y/n would never left out Tuk whenever she hangs out with the older Sully kids. Tuk felt so happy about it and grateful for Y/n's thoughtfulness.

She sees Y/n as a sister figure. Would hold Y/n's hand when they go out into the forest together.

Spider is a bit cautious when he heard about the girl for the first time when the Sully brothers talked about a new sky person. But his cautiousness was gone when actually meeting the girl for the first time,she was as sweet as honey like how the Sully brothers described. She was really gentle and bubbly which melted the boy's heart. He thought she was really pretty at first glance. He couldn't stop staring at her when they first met. He did felt embarrassed by that-

Lo'ak would feel a bit envy with how Spider looked at the girl and then suddenly have a thought that maybe Y/n would prefer Spider more as they're the same species and how she probably wouldn't like a blue colour hybrid alien. But the thoughts went away as quickly as it comes when Y/n had once said she doesn't really care about difference in appearance or species as love is love and all that matters is on the inside.

P.s Lo'ak isn't the only Sully who felt relieved to hear that-

When he knows about Y/n's sun allergies,he will asked the scientists many times if they have any cure or things to help someone with sun allergies. He just wants to help the girl.

Neteyam finds the girl's adoration and affection towards her brother is really precious and endearing.

He would also want to be someone she admires as well. Protective of the girl just like his family. He would take her hand in his while walking around in the forest, it's just an easy way to not get separate he said. Will feel flustered and flattered and smug everytime Y/n compliments him or tells people good things about him or just proudly say his accomplishments in front of them all. He will try to impress the girl even harder and even more. Is an absolute gentlemen for the girl. Almost everyday he is worried about the girl being under the sun for too long as soon as he learns about her sun allergy. He becomes even more protective of the girl. He will try to not let Lo'ak take Y/n out a lot,but as usual, he couldn't really stop his brother.

Lo'ak will always take Y/n out into many different parts of the forest and show her around on his ikran too. He loves to hear the girl's laugh especially when it's because of him like his jokes and stuff. He loves how the girl wouldn't pick his brother over him like many people do. She will always stand by his side and never stops comforting him anytime he feels down. It makes him so happy that the girl plays with his fingers and say he is very special and how they have the same hand making them feel so similar and close. The girl will always treat his wounds form any of his reckless antics. Her worrying and gentle tone when she talks to him made him smitten hearing how she cares for him. At first he was baffled by the girl having a sun allergy,he never thought that there's actually an allergy towards sunlight. Will get protective of the girl whenever they walk under the sun,will take a big leaf to cover the girl like an umbrella.

The clan would warm up to the girl within about three days. Many of the people would miss her when she didn't come for a day or two. They love having her around. The adults and elderly adores the girl with how responsible and cute she is. The kids admires and loves her a lot,she would also tale care of them most of the time she visited. Everyone especially the Sullys were mindful of Y/n's sun allergies,they would always tell the girl to sit down inside their home and worrying about her as they tell her to don't overwork herself under the sun.

After weeks of visiting the clan,she had introduced her brother to everyone. They didn't really expect the brother to be such a sunshine,his smile was very blinding. The siblings being in the same place makes everyone's day even more brighten up, it was no surprise that Tanjiro got accepted as well into the clan. The siblings were so popular here.

During the fire,her brother died when he was saving a few na'vis from the fire. Y/n felt so heartbroken when she never saw her brother coming out of the fire alive. She cried and cried for a whole day,mourning for her brother,she cried herself to sleep that day. The sounds of her cries broke the clan's hearts as they saw how kindhearted was her brother to risk his life saving their people,seeing the girl lost another yet also the last member of her family also made the clan feeling more sympathetic towards the girl,they accepted her into their clan hoping to heal her pain and be there for her as family as a way to repay her brother and also because they have love the girl's bubbly and kind personality making it easy for them to accept her as family.

The Sullys took her in, Jake also realized that the girl is almost like him,he could understand the pain of losing a sibling. Neytiri had already accepted the girl as her own before the fire,a motherly instinct always came over her when it comes to the girl. The girl having to lose so much makes her sympathize with the girl. She could also see how much her older kids likes the girl maybe even more than friends but she didn't care too much of it seeing how the girl makes her children's day brighten up everytime the girl is with them,it makes her happy if her children is happy.

Jake holds a softspot for Y/n,he thinks of her like a daughter, he was very willing to take in the girl as his own. The girl was so helpful and sweet,he likes how the girl could handle his sons'(especially Lo'ak's) antics,she could help him "tame" the troublemaker as he would like to think of it like that.

Neytiri would talk to Y/n about her past and how she understands Y/n more than anyone,she will always welcome her to talk to her about anything and whatever thoughts she has. This made the human girl cried and lets out her grieve and everything. Neytiri even hugged her as she sobs. After a few days,they got even more closer making Neytiri adores and be protective of the girl even more.

The Sully kids stayed with Y/n like everyday,trying to comfort her for her loss. They tried everything they could to cheer up the girl,seeing her sad face makes them sad as well. The girls just wants to cuddle the human to death and pamper her with all their love. The boys would do anything to distract her from her sadness. They would talk to her about multiple things or bring the prettiest stuff for her or make accessories with her etc. These did cheered up the girl as she starts to smile again. She appreciates the love she's been given by the Sullys and feels even more grateful for how the clan has accepted her as their own.

After almost a month,the girl was back to her usual self,she would sometimes miss her brother but she still keeps moving forward for her brother. She knows her brother wouldn't want her to be sad forever because of him,he would want her to live her life fill with happiness.

When they moved to the metkayina clan.

The leaders didn't notices the human girl at first because of how small the girl is compared to them and also because the Sully family protectively surrounded the young girl,shielding her away from the distasteful stares. When the leaders and people finally did noticed her,things got complicated.

The girl frowned upon seeing the hostility the Metkayina clan have shown. She'll be sadden by the way the people looked down on her. The Sully kids would sympathetically looked at her and tries their best to comfort her. But what they didn't know was that two metkayina boys thought the "demon" was cute and beautiful when they first saw the girl.

A beautiful na'vi had set her eyes on the human girl when she first saw the girl. She also noticed how the human girl was staring at her in awe when she came out of the water. When they suddenly made eye contact, the human gave her a shy adorable smile before turning away flustered. She giggled with amusement at the adorable shyness of the girl.

After a few discussion,the leaders accepted the family and the "demon" to stay. Ronal was reluctant to accept the "demon" staying with them but she'll just have to accept it.

The clan was not much different from the Omaticaya clan, they quickly grew to adore and accept the "demon" within just two days. The girl's charming personality alone just won the hearts of many,children to adults to elderlies. Rotxo was able to become great friends with the girl during their first lesson. She was so sweet and cute,his heart melted at her cute antics. She would take his hand and put it on her head,it made him flustered at her actions but he'll comply giving her headpats and praises whenever she did good in her lessons. Seeing how happy his actions made the girl just makes him praise her more than enough.

Y/n and Tsireya are like the best of friends. Tsireya would always go look for Y/n to hang while Y/n would also go look for Tsireya because she likes Tsireya so much. Tsireya is so kind and nice to her,it made her thought of her older brother sometimes. Tsireya would be a bit upset when Y/n says she's like her big sister figure. Tsireya from that moment on is determined to change the way Y/n view her while trying to win her love!

Ao'nung would be like a tsundere,on the inside he thinks of the reader a lot and admires her beauty and personality from time to time but on the outside he'll act like a bully,taunting the reader for being a "demon" and always denies how he truly feels. Sometimes Y/n isn't really affected by his words but sometimes he would go too far with his words and action that made her cry. He felt so bad about those time he made you cry. He'll immediately panicked seeing your teary eyes and try to apologize or something like giving gifts in secret and "threatens" you to never tell anyone. The way he "threatens" you is weirdly sweet?

Here's how it went down:

1. Pulls you into somewhere private.

2. Gives you the gifts.

3. Gives an apology in a small guilty voice.

4. Grabs and cupped your face with his hands, squished them and pinched them while acting tough saying if you tell anyone he'll make you regret it or say something like he'll make Rotxo and Tsireya stop hanging out with you.

5. Then gently pat your cheeks and walks away.

Idk-

Ao'nung and Rotxo would want to impressed you with their skills like hunting or swimming or riding their ilus. Basically anything to be honest.

Ao'nung would be protective of you secretly and would take responsibilities whenever it's something that has to do with you. Like teaching you how to ride an ilu or helping you adjust to the new environment.

He would take his responsibility more serious to show off to you. He would stop bullying you after seeing how his friends likes you and how his family and clan warms up to you to even have people adoring ans admiring you. But that doesn't stop his taunting on the Sully kids. But he'll bully them only when you aren't around to see it.

Tsireya and Rotxo would take you around the clan, introduced people or metkayina things to you, do activities together etc

They wouldn't fight for your attention but they will if they think you hang out too much with the other.

The Sully kids were jealous or envy at how much time you would spend with the Metkayina kids and especially how you go looking for Tsireya almost everyday. You would tell them about how nice and cool the people are and how beautiful the place is. They would feel saddened at how you seem to replace them, you started to notice how sad they seem to be when you mentioned anything about your new friends,after a bit of thinking, you then realised how it might've seems or sound like you were replacing them. You confronted them about it and said how sorry you felt and how they could never be replaced by your other friends. You began to hang out with them almost everyday again after knowing the problem. They felt so happy about it and would rub it into the metkayina kids' face ,especially Ao'nung's.

Probably the Sullys and the metkayina kids start fighting about who gets to spend time with you,who gets to hug you,who gets to hold your hand or who gets to pat your head.

Tonowari would be like Jake,he enjoys your company and how you seem to make Ao'nung more mature or responsible.

Also the girl's adorableness and kindness did soften up Ronal's heart but she'll never admit it.

Jake feels so happy with how Y/n is fitting in without much problem.

Neytiri would be proud with Y/n being able to win the hearts of almost everyone with just being herself.

To be continue...

I just mixed the human Nezuko and the Demon Nezuko together.

That's why she sounded occ. I'm sorry.

[amaiguri]

Yssaia

⚜️NaNoWriMo WIP 2024⚜️

"All promised heroes burn. Who are they now?"

In a world of fated heroes and abyssal machines -- born both of Kings and Philosophy --, a burned assassin girl must find new purpose when the War ends.

Untitled Yssaia Game will someday become a narrative-focused, hand-drawn adventure. Navigate an assassin through her delicate, brutal world after the War annexed her homeland. Delve deep into political dealings, your past trauma, and the Abyss beneath the world.

...but for today, it's still just a very large Reedsy document, some art, and a handful of songs.

🏆THE CHALLENGE'S OBJECTIVE🏆

This NaNoWriMo, I just want to write every day. I don't have the time or breakneck pace to do the traditional 50k words. I also want to log my progress cuz every year, I don't journal as much as I should and every year, I regret that. My memory and sense of time is better when I journal. So, we gotta get back into it, once again.

In terms of my current progress, there are about 245k words in this wip -- though it has multiple story arcs. We'll see what the market says to do with it, as we get closer to video game form... I have done a round or two of editing maybe? It doesn't feel like it but I also spent since February of last year editing. I thought it was going to take a month. It did not. 😭😭😭 Now, I am back to drafting -- thank God. Right now, I'm drafting a story arc about my protagonist struggling with her new relationships, falling into old toxic patterns, and discovering the enemies of her enemies -- the Gods.

🧑‍🧑‍🧒CHARACTERS🧑‍🧑‍🧒

Yssaia is multi-POV and has a lot of perspectives with unequal time. If I were a perfect creator, I'd give them increasingly equal time throughout the work -- and end the story with characters taking turns between paragraphs in the battle against the Gods. This is all part of a giant experiment in which I fight against Great Man History. We'll see if it works lol cuz it sounds insane but that's legitimately why I'm showing so many different perspectives.

Naturally, there are many more characters and POVs than the ones pictured here.

The characters all have a lot of anime influence -- not just in their visual language, but also in their characterization -- but they also take a lot of influence from those Literary Fiction short stories I had to read in college. They're all written in a retrospective first person and verb all their nouns and have some sort of linguistic quirk for their POV. I mean like "One POV has 2nd person" kind of quirk. I love playing with form. I don't WANT you to feel like my work is super easy to read -- I want you to THINK about it.

🌩THE GODS OF YSSAIA🌬

The currently fighting Gods of Yssaia are basically representing Connection, Conquest, and Despair. Something something thematic arguments for a modern age but ALSO "use the power of friendship to kill God." The Gods all have what I like to call "humansonas" (think like the Christian Jesus) whom are represented below:

🗺THE WORLDBUILDING🗺

I have been working on Yssaia since 2018, so the worldbuilding has only gotten deeper and deeper. While the shape of the world and the general cultures have remained the same, they've all gotten a lot more nuance and geographical fidelity and also, conlangs: I have conlangs for every culture in the language and I'm very proud because language and power is one of the themes I like to play with. Yes, that's an IB thing. If you're interested in worldbuilding or conlanging, I actually run a worldbuilding YouTube channel so come check it out.

But if I had to summarize it, my world building is "Fantasy 1880s-1910s with a melancholic but whimsical feel and cute eldritch horrors. All the cultures are a mixture between Asian and Western cultures" (like Chinese Vikings, Japanese French-Mafias, Communist Grecoromans, and Slavic Indians, etc.) I have endeavored to ensure there is something about each culture that is "my favorite" -- ama about my worldbuilding 🥺💜

Follow for Part 2, when I talk about the game design someday!

[yaradiaz]

julia dalavia / twenty - four / cis woman — have you noticed that YARA DIAZ is back in town? the FIREFIGHTER & WAITRESS AT MOONRISE DINER is apparently pretty SEDULOUS, but SHE can also be a little CLOSED-OFF. SHE is always blasting MARINADE by DOPE LEMON, as it makes them think of something from their past. i hope the ARIES has a better time here than most.

stats .

name : yara elliana diaz

age : twenty - four

date of birth : march 25, 1999

hometown : hail, ontario, canada

occupation : firefighter & waitress at moonrise diner

orientation : homosexual

status : single

parents : mateo diaz & fernanda blanco

siblings : n/a

history .

tw : substance abuse.

yara's parents were only seventeen when they found out they'd be having a baby. both were about to graduate and head off to college, leaving little time to learn the ropes of responsible parenting. income was tight as well, making it all the more challenging.

they dated on and off until their early twenties, never quite finding themselves on the same page. most nights led to arguments, either over money or problems in their relationship. over time, it became clear they would never be able to build a future together, much less offer a stable, loving home for their daughter.

their only saving grace was mateo's mother, alma. the woman worked tirelessly to put food on the table and provide a roof over her children's heads. once fernanda entered nursing school, yara's grandmother became her primary caregiver.

days as a housekeeper were long and strenuous, so it wasn't uncommon for mrs. diaz to bring yara and her two younger children with her when she worked nights or weekends. she'd often leave them at the diner for a few hours to do homework, where the owner was a trusted friend of hers and could keep an eye on them.

mateo began working in construction to help pay the bills, leaving less time to spend with his daughter. it also drove a deeper wedge between him and fernanda. she was close to finishing school and had come to the realization she'd never be content in their small town. the day she left would haunt her father for years to come, even if yara was too young to realize they'd been abandoned.

a few years later, mateo suffered a serious injury at work that kept him out of commission for months. during that time, he became reliant on prescription opioids, eventually leading to addiction.

yara continued to stay with her grandmother while her father bounced in and out of rehab. he'd return every so often to plead for money, claiming it was for rent or utilities, only to blow it on more drugs. when alma finally put her foot down and cut him off, he started turning to yara for help.

at only 16, she didn't fully grasp the seriousness of his condition. her first job waitressing, she gave what little she earned in tips to him. a part of her felt sorry about what had transpired and hoped he might turn his life around. he never did, of course. and each time, her belief in him waned, along with her trust.

as yara grew older, she became more privy to his lies, unable to decide who she was more disappointed with. her mother—for leaving—or him, for staying and manipulating her.

yara opted to attend trade school after graduation in search of greener pastures. she needed time away from hail, even if her absence was only temporary. while there, she pursued a degree in carpentry, always liking the idea of taking something broken and mending it. it was a passion spurred by her uncle, who grew up fixing dirt bikes in their garage.

when yara returned home, she began working part-time for a local contractor. the pay was nice but jobs weren't guaranteed, so she had no choice but to seek other forms of work. luckily, she found a job with the fire department and joined when she was 22. it wasn't something yara ever saw herself doing, yet the experience turned out to be a gratifying one. having spent most of her life feeling undervalued, she was grateful to be making a difference.

since the fire, she's gone back to waitressing at the diner to help out an old friend. a lot of people lost their belongings in the fire, including the establishment's owner. she was someone yara held a lot of generosity towards, thankful for the times she'd snuck her free blueberry pancakes as a kid.

yara does what she can to help out the community, oftentimes stretching herself too thin. her social life is pretty grim at the moment, but she's making a concerted effort to find time for her hobbies again.

personality .

yara's grandmother raised her to be strong and independent. she emphasized the importance of hard work, knowing that nothing in life came handed to you.

witnessing her parents' relationship up until the bitter end made her cynical about love. she's dated in the past, but the notion of finding someone to be your life partner sounds a bit naïve to her.

it's very difficult for her to let her guard down around people. she can come across as cold or distant but will show she cares through her actions.

beneath her tough exterior is really a girl who wants to feel acknowledged by the people in her life. her parents' neglect stems deeper beyond a need for validation. she wants to believe desperately that her life has purpose.

[jackienautism]

The saddest thing about the quarry not getting a proper ending is that we’ll never get to see Ryan and Caleb talk about All That because they’re supposed to be close friends, almost family, and yet not once does Ryan show any reaction to finding out he’s a werewolf and (albeit unintentionally) caused the most traumatic event of his life. This should feel like the upmost betrayal but we get absolutely nothing for these two and it makes me want to bite someone. Like, the fact Chris trusts Ryan enough to keep everyone inside the lodge but Caleb doesn’t even say bye?? Does he not trust him enough to keep a secret? Is he afraid he won’t take it seriously and get himself killed? *grabbing the devs by the throat and shaking them like a rag doll* What is their relationship like?

i've never really thought about the potential of their relationship tbh, especially the potential of it after ALL THAT happening... and i mainly blame the devs for that. for like, throwing in ryan's relationship with the hackett kids seemingly last second. and because we actually dont get to SEE how close ryan is with them, it's hard for the viewer to care? if that makes sense? and that's something i feel the game really struggles with....... they LOVE telling but not showing and it really affects how i view relationships within game

and speaking of, it SUUUCKS so bad that kaylee is killed no matter what you do within the story. and this is coming from someone who doesn't care a whole lot about the hackett family. out of them all i absolutely feel the worst for caleb and kaylee, so it's sad that only one of them has the opportunity to live depending on yr choices

youre absolutely right about it being a disappointment though... in regards to ryan not reacting more, i mean. because there's no way he never like. reflected on past experiences and finally pieced together just what on earth was going on with both him and kaylee in the past. dylan describes them as strange and reclusive kids (iirc) and its safe to assume now that their demeanor were heavily influenced by them being werewolves. which makes me wonder. how long has ryan known chris? was it before they got infected? was it after? when did ryan first arrive as a camper anyway?

it's definitely sad but youre right in ryan probably feeling betrayed. of course, caleb and the hacketts in general really had no other choice i suppose but. as you said, ryan saw hacketts quarry as a second home, he absolutely saw them as family. so to now know just how much he DIDNT actually know about his second family, it must be so. man. i cant even imagine what ryan will eventually go through

i think as the hacketts dove deeper and deeper into shit, they sort of couldnt tell anyone outside their immediate family about the situation they were in. even someone as close as ryan. due to how.... legally messy and whatnot it all has become. i don't think it's not that caleb didn't trust ryan, i think it's just that, at this point at least, he physically couldn't tell him anything without there being huge repercussions. which is unfortunate, because we know how much they probably wanted to tell ryan

and in relation to chris, i think it was a bit dumb of him to relay something as heavy and important as THAT to ryan. it of course shows how much trust he actually has in him, but at the same time, the chances of the rest of the group actually listening to ryan is slim. and that's like. that's what we see happen. at the least, chris himself telling everyone would've (hopefully) increased the urgency of the situation. not that they wouldve listened to him either though, i just think there probably wouldve been more second thoughts hearing it from chris than ryan. aka. someone else their age / someone they view as an equal

a bit off topic from the previous thought but. can you imagine how ryan would react to finding out that kaitlyn was the one to kill caleb? sure it was caleb in his werewolf form and in the moment, kaitlyn and dylan really had no other choice, but. there's no way that doesn't eat away at him. knowing that 2 of his friends were basically the cause of another close friend's death

long story short. now that you mention it, it is dumb how we never got more of ryan w/ caleb and kaylee, considering the amount of focus they put on his relationship w/ the hacketts in chapter 1

[like-a-dragon-residence]

Hi yea. Its Alley. I'm here to ramble about a book but swear this post will actually be about Yakuza in the end so stick with me.

Reading a book and it's this brief moment just a few exchanged lines between these two characters but I just know how deeper it goes for the one and the significance of what he said.

Basically, the one character took in a kid and it's been a rough time not only suddenly finding himself thrust into parenthood but also the care of a kid traumatized by the same events he also experienced and so unhealthily wants to bottle away. A friend asked him how the kid was and he very joyfully replied "She slept though the night last night. All by herself" which this isn't stated but like its a big deal for a kid adjusting to a lot of life changes thanks to bad things happening around her. The nightly fight both kid and adoptive dad fight is a battle of the age between her not able to fall asleep and nightmares, ect. For her to sleep though the night? That's a big win! And then the friend sorta just throws at him "yeah but don't all nine-year-olds do that?" and okay moment is gone.

So onto Yakuza now. Both canon and fandom kinda brush past somethings even with the want to see more parent Kiryu and more young Haruka. But I just realized myself thanks to that other unrelated random thing that oh yeah yikes there is a lot of unspoken stuff going on especially in that early time of them together. Kids even in the best of circumstances have nightmares. We all do. But for someone who's seen so much death and danger? And a young age? Yeah, no kid had issues for sure. Haruka definitely had nightmares. But to what extent? How bad were they? How frequent were they? Did she wake Kiryu ever on accident or on purpose? How did he deal with all this? Was there more than just the nightmares? For reference it's not just nightmares that someone can experience in that situation it's trouble falling asleep or going off to your room on your own as a form of seperation anxiety, trouble staying asleep, sleepwalking or talking, screaming without memory of a bad dream, even bed wetting. And these are just night responses.

The nightly battle was certainly real for them. It's just as much a part of Kiryu and Haruka's story as it is for the characters in that book. So all this rambling to say I pictured Kiryu in that scene. Just tired yet still well-rested face beaming as he exclaims she slept through the night... And no one in the room but him understands why it's such a big deal for a nine-year-old to sleep through the night. But it is. It's a huge deal.

[fineartsjournal]

213341 Art Studio IIIA ⋆ Week 1 - Project Outline

Semester one was my space to toy around with facets of the artform, presenting methodology first, contextualization taking a backseat to the abstract. This semester will see me place deeper intent within this process but retaining the creative actions of sample ‘plundering’ as my avenue for messaging.

In the first semester of 2023, a perverse interest into the oversaturated visual culture of YouTube ‘thumbnails’ leant itself to a series of satirical response pieces, which soon transitioned into a general commentary on modernised visual culture by the second semester. The culmination of this was in the BRAZEN FUCK OBJECT (and children), a lumpy, three-legged sculptural beast of cardboard, spotted mass; a texturally overwhelming amalgamation of all things accelerated and visual – warped beyond recognition into an alien presence.

My work this year, while taking a step back from the distinctly visual – spiritually picks up where the concept was left off, now borrowing from, and rearranging the ever-growing expanses of man-made sound into something of a shattered, mosaic replica. Much the same in the world of music as with visual culture, the accelerating catalogue of past creation poses new challenges for the future. Specific movements are harder to pin down, motives see a greater focus on profitability than practicality, speed and quantity are key to material success. The capitalistic, slow death of the artisan permeates both years of study as such, and much as stripping away and re-meshing visible pieces of online culture bore a dystopian parody of what seems to come, to undergo a similar conceptual action in the collage of music is to bear fruit of similar flavor.

Last semester saw me tucked away at home, accessibly experimenting within the limited capabilities of a YouTube player and Audacity, a free sound-editing software. A CD player paired with bargain-bin CDs put the actions of transforming source material to the forefront. However, the overarching intention was to utilize what I aimed to be the workhorse of this year’s projects – a vintage Boss SP-202 sampler, purchased from eBay back in February. While a small, ‘lo-fi’ piece of machinery, it brings with it a method of creating deeply rooted into the mana and artistic history of plunderphonics. As much a plaything as an instrument, my (later than expected) use of the machine was a step outside my comfort zone, but the break has given me some time to familiarize myself; to which I’ll be making much greater use of it throughout this semester.

With the actions of sampling established, from here I can use sampling as a tool for remembrance, reconstruction, and illustration. Being from 1998, the SP-202 has 2MB of internal memory. But what I can evoke from using it fits on so much more.

With the imperative to find a group for an eventual joint exhibition later-on, fellow artists Olivia, Ruby and Steevee were on radar, with our works each following a method-focused, anectodally-driven interpretation of past media.

Anya was initially in our group too, but split off not long after.

We jointly created a group chat, as well as a Google Slides document for compiling notes. This was my moodboard going in:

From left to right, these interests are: My SP-202 sampler, a materially stripped-back approach to making (exemplified by Alan Vega from the band Suicide), Age of Empires - a game I have fond childhood memories for, the concept of nostalgia (or generally making fun of it), the album Replica by Oneohtrix Point Never, and Super Mario 64. More on that.

Over the past two months, I’ve had rough plans (and a little bit of working) towards a sample-based album entirely composed of audio taken from Super Mario 64.

When it comes to online sentiments, nostalgia is a driving factor to defining the now; and the associations of a ‘then’ manifest in cultural snippets (samples?), or as is often the case, specific published forms of media seeing a resurgence through childhood re-ignition.

This can be a means towards many things - a sentimental return to an old enjoyment, a reconnection with a newfound audience to share it with, and new media produced in admiration of such. 

It makes money, too. Pokemon and McDonald’s as brands are fully immersed in the value that nostalgia plays in securing a loyal audience, with the latter being a chilling example of how brand recognition can be ensnared in those valuable childhood experiences, to where you’ve guaranteed lifelong loyalty from the customer.

Video games are just one of many, many avenues for nostalgia to run free among a user base, in this case, perhaps a little more prone to bigotry. Indeed a familiar anecdote found in fan base communities of the ‘old being better than the new’ can turn concerning when faced with any degree of social progress within and around the game since.

Super Mario 64, like numerous other ‘childhood greats’ in the video game sphere, saw a return to popularity in the late 2010s, its every element picked apart by a now-adult audience, keen to re-immerse into naive wonder. 

I’m no different, my work leans into the growing concept of ‘liminality’ (concurrent with a return to remembered spaces of any kind). The game was released seven years before I was even born, and it’d be another nine until I would play it. Well, the 2004 remake, that was, but I begged my parents for the Nintendo 64 console so I could play the original. It never happened, but for a while I made sure I learned as much as I possibly could about it. To this day I’ve never played the original, and any nostalgia I have is as an outsider, absorbing an experience second-hand from YouTube gameplays. 

Perhaps this distance contributes to a somewhat aloof sound I’ve adopted in the audio portions I’ve pieced together so far, and of a general message to ‘go outside’. Now that I find myself in a group exploring similar concepts, I’m presented with the opportunity to resume work on the project, now with the grounding of research, plenty of written references, and bouncing off the exhibiting ideas of the others in the group.

The SP202 - a self-proclaimed sampling ‘workhorse’ for last semester’s work (which in fact only saw limited use from May onwards) will be returning, now with extra practice and me NOT nearly burning the house down with an incorrect adaptor. The Plunderphonical Chronicle will also return, picking up right where I left off, with the late 90s-present still yet to be covered. Stay tuned!

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I surprisingly had less time over the 'holidays' to work on my music than I do in Semester 2, but what I was able to make, mainly came from sessions with Audacity, as well as the SP-202.

The goal was clear, to compose ENTIRELY from music samples, with not a finger to a keyboard note. Note the lack of a detailed categorization with these, I have no idea in which order I made them...

My pride and joy from these sessions would have to be "GETUP", a 1-minute house loop that uses 7 samples and took 2 hours to make!!

Samples used:

Jammin Gerald - Pump that shit

LVL1 - GOBL1N

Stock fire alarm sound

Jimmy D - Rescue Me (Imagination)

First Patrol - Get Up (Have Some Fun Tonight) (Acapella)

Shante - Big Mama (Acapella)

Fatboy Slim - Gangsta Trippin

There's a couple more, but Tumblr has an Audio upload limit.

[skaldish]

1. Animism is the acknowledgement of the interconnected nature of all things, and that all things were, are, and will continue to be part of the same greater ecosystem. Everything both seen and unseen is part of it. For this reason, “the spiritual” and “the mundane” are not viewed as separate things in Norse Heathenry, but rather as phenomena occurring within the same environment. Any lines we draw between them are purely interpretive.

Most definitions we might find of Animism characterize it as "the belief that everything has a soul or vital essence to it," but this is somewhat of a faulty definition, because it’s describing how Animism looks within a Christian paradigm rather than describing how it functions as a stand-alone model.

2. If I'm trying to think through a complex problem using just visuals and feelings, my mind will end up producing an symbolic representation of that problem through a "hero's journey" arc of experience, or similar. I think about the problem in a spatial sense, rather than a conceptual one, and it manifests allegorically. There's a limit to how much this thinking can quantify, but you'd be surprised by just how much it can.

3. Believe it or not, I remember the womb. It's not a memory that's stored in the visual cortex department, but rather the nervous system. It manifests in the comfort that warm baths provide, and the way feeling super cozy by the fire feels. Whenever I want to curl up and go to sleep like a wee Beatrix Potter mammal with his nightcap and quilted duvet, my body is recalling the memory of the womb.

Now, to be fair, this memory gets a lot more distal as we get older, but for babies and toddlers it's very imminent. We may not know what "a womb" is at that age, but everything that the Norse creation story talks about would be familiar to our nervous system anyway: The heat meeting the cold, the gap of endless potential, the three days it takes the cow to lick Buri out of ice resembling three contractions, the gods forming the world in a way that resembles how our own brains learn to organize information when we're infants, and so on. Even the name of the primordial giant, Ymir, sounds like the cry babies make.

4. Oh boy would I love to. One day. One day.

5. This all started because I learned some very successful cognitive resourcing methods from a very niche and new form of trauma therapy. It allowed me to walk past the black wall of death in the back of my mind and literally carve new neural-pathways where I want them. However, resourcing isolated parts of my limbic system allowed me to unlock memories and modes of thinking that were "offline" prior, and also gave me an intuitive understanding of what that part of the brain is doing.

And then I just...kept going deeper. The more areas of the brain that I've unlocked, the more the Norse myths have started to make sense. (I'm not at deepest parts yet, but I'm getting close since I'm working on the nerves now.)

What made me suspect that cognition had something to do with understanding Heathenry and the Norse myths, is the fact that every Scandinavian I've met—heathen or otherwise—thinks about and views the world differently than I do, and in ways I couldn't understand at first. I saw it in the way they talked about trolls, about hygge, and about the Norse gods, and now that I'm bridging that understanding in my own mind, I'm beginning to see what they see and put it to words for Americans—because that's ultimately my goal here, is to provide context on Heathenry for Anglophones that we have been lacking up to this point.

There's also a few other influences that went into me getting on this brainwave: I was advised to decolonize my mind during the George Floyd uprisings, and decided to take it seriously. Also, psychology just fascinates me in general. Also also, there's something about talking to gods directly about these things that shifts your paradigm about the world.

So basically...I started studying this because I picked up a thread and started to follow it.

Alright folks. Here it is, my theory of what Ragnarok actually represents. It is very messy and I'm not sure I'm going to be able to actually convey my understanding clearly like I try with most things, because genuinely this is shit I would write a doctorate-level thesis on.

But we're going to try anyway.

So. After doing a lot to try to replicate animistic thinking, as well as taking a VERY deep read of the Norse myths, my theory is that Ragnarok is specifically allegory for societal collapse—the "end of the world" imagery and such is meant to convey what this feels like.

Recall what Odin says in Grimnismal. It goes something like this, since I can't be arsed to find the exact quote:

Huginn and Muninn fly over the world every day; while I fear Huginn ("thought") may not return, I fear Muninn's ("memory's") absence most.

When a society collapses, so does it's memory. It loses its technology, its methodologies, its paradigms, and everything it has learned about the world up to that point. Gone. Entire chapters of history erased.

What causes societal collapse is not always a conquering force, but is oftentimes the result of circumstances that a society orchestrates for itself. Think Rome.

People who have gone through societal collapse will probably develop an invested interest in figuring out how to prevent it entirely, so they don't have to start society all over again.

It's one thing to preserve the memory of "things collapsed and here's why" using a story. But it's another thing to do what apparently the Norse people did, which is cultivate a methodology for cognitively hardening their own society against collapse, using stories as a way to do it.

Like...I'm not kidding when I say they legitimately knew how the human mind works, and then built an entire system of stories and narratives that intentionally support the mind's freedom, cultivation, and agency. I can only convey a fraction of how this works in this post because the rest requires a deep-dive into behavioral psychology and neurological development.

All the tales leading to Ragnarok demonstrate various instances where the gods choose to follow their own agendas at the expense of the real people and forces in the world. All of these little things contribute to the magnitude of the event that is Ragnarok.

The tales represent these transgressions using allegories rather than literal events. This is because these stories were designed for children, who don't process information through a prefrontal cortex like we do as adults. They don't have them yet. But this gives kids an intuitive understanding for how circumstances of collapse feel, so they can recognize them in all their forms.

Loki is an allegory for the mischief we feel as children, and for the behaviors we demonstrate before we get to the age where we start valuing cooperation. In the myths, every time Loki causes mischief in ways that creates problems, the gods get mad at him and threaten Loki's life until he fixes his mess. Loki eventually becomes vindictive, kills Baldr in a jealous fit, and then is punished by being bound and buried beneath the ground, only to fight against the gods in Ragnarok.

The surface-level takeaway is a lesson in parenting: If we punish kids for their mischief, they're going to become vindictive adults, and these adults are going to have it out for the rest of society because they've been disenfranchised.

But it doesn't just end here. Consider how we punish ourselves for our own sense of mischief, beating ourselves up for having "problematic" thoughts and trying to bind and bury those thoughts in the depths of our mind.

These thoughts come from a place our mind known as the limbic system, which is focused on avoiding pain and seeking pleasure, and—most importantly—does not understand the world or make decisions using logic and reason, but in terms of what feels enjoyable and what doesn't.

We tend to call this system our inner child.

When we punish our inner child, that child starts doing exactly what Loki does and resorts to malicious and petty tricks. We can hold this behavior at bay until something causes us to "snap" (like Jörmungandr's tail does) and out comes the malice of the disenfranchised inner child, which creates a terrible cascade of social consequences for us.

Now, if we were to listen to these stories as kids, we would naturally be very upset whenever Loki was threatened of punished, because we think out of the limbic system at that age and Loki is meant to represent us—specifically, the state of being a kid. We would see what comes to pass, with Loki being imprisoned and fighting the gods against Ragnarok, and it would become clear to us that there's consequences for punishing mischief AND also causing too much of it.

Now I don't know about you, but I was very motivated by a sense of justice as a kid. Hearing Loki's arc would have inspired me to learn how to be friends with my sense of mischief while also learning to use it in ways that were cooperative and social, because this would have been how I could right the wrong I felt was done to Loki. It would also mean my own limbic system will not fight against me in the future, but be a modality of thought I can always access. (This is the beauty of the way the Norse myths are crafted; they are designed to instill knowledge of the world using mechanisms that reinforce one's own sense of agency and competency, so rather than being told the moral of this tale, it sets me up to run right into the conclusion it wants me to draw, but in a way that makes me feel smart and therefore inspires me to value it.)

The binding of Fenrir serves a similar allegory. When we become explosively angry in the way that Fenrir represents, it consumes our wisemind the same way Fenrir consumes Odin during Ragnarok. But this only happens if we bind Fenrir/our anger. By demonizing this nature of ours simply for existing, it will not only refuse to listen to us, but also turn against us. Remember that Fenrir was willing to socialize and cooperate with the gods before his betrayal.

(Honestly, I believe this is why ulfheiðnar existed the way they did. Even though the animalistic rage of ulfheiðnar was too terrible for domestic society, it was not demonized, but instead given a social function. People would learn to understand and partner with their own sense of rage, and I'm guessing this is also how they were able to keep their sense of reason and priorities straight even while going berserk from psychoactives.)

These two examples serve to illustrate how societal collapse stems from binding or punishing our own natures. But also fearing our own nature as mortals factors into it.

For example, Naglfar. This is a ship constructed of dead people's fingernails, and its completion is part of what signals the beginning of Ragnarok. But as the story goes, we can delay Naglfar's construction by trimming the nails of the dead before we bury them.

Naglfar represents "neglect for the dead," and this is significant because the act of no longer viewing the dead as people is sort of like the canary in the coal mine for no longer view each other as people...and no longer seeing people as people is what defines Ragnarok.

A society is at peace when its people have no fear of death, and having no fear of death comes only by incorporating death as a normal and familiar part of life, just like we do with birth. Our relationship with death is a litmus test for our relationship with our own humanity—if we fear the dead and cannot see them as human beings, then we are always going to fear a part of our own humanity, and be at war with it. The simple act of keeping the nails of the dead well-groomed because it stalls Naglfar's construction was a way to remind people why such a simple act was profoundly important.

And these are just the things that I can think of off the top of my head that are the most obvious examples. There are—and I shit you not—multitudes of these things laced within the Norse myths.

(I haven't even gotten to the part about how the Norse creation myth uses what the womb feels like to characterize it. Telling this story to very little children helps them establish a sense of familiarity, belonging, and secure attachment with the entire world from the get-go. If they learn the world is everything they've already experienced, then their bodies will never be afraid of it, because nothing about it will feel unknown or unknowable. Like, how fucking dope can you get.)

So here's where we get to the really dense irony of all this: Why we don't pick up on all these nuances as Westerners and have so far missed this entirely.

It is for two reasons.

The first is because our society values the things that the Norse people identified as contributing to societal collapse—namely, the act of conquering/competing against other forces and conquering/competing against our own natures. The transgressions of the Aesir are not things we register as problematic because to us they're normal.

The second is that we don't think animistically. The way we are taught to convey, interpret, and transmit information is designed PURELY by and for the prefrontal cortex, with neglect to everything else (if you ever wonder why Americans look weird in how we behave, this is why). But because we only prioritize communicating this way, we're missing out on all the context added within the Norse myths. These myths function the same way Old Norse kennings did, in that they are designed to speak to ALL areas of the brain at once and in tandem, but if we only engage with it using one part of the brain, we're only going to get a small piece of the picture and the rest is going to look weird.

(Little experiment for you: Try to logic something out in your mind or think through a complex problem without using words or sentences to do it. Use any other kind of thought-process besides language. I promise you that not only is this possible, but it yields a completely different kind of experience and conclusion than you might otherwise reach.)

Honestly, I don't even think Snorri himself fully understood what he was looking at when he was recording the Norse myths. I think he was just writing them down according to how they were told, word-for-word. But his cluelessness is our good fortune now, because he not only preserved the cultural stories, but also what I consider an entire cognitive technology.

And every time I look at it, I can't help but think about the generations of people who sat around the fire in the dead of winter, weaving, crafting, and figuring out better ways to fortify their society, raise kids so they became fine and truly fearless people, and conserve information. This is, as far as I'm concerned, real magic.

They knew some shit.

[pyrrhiccomedy]

is there anything remotely constructive one can say in response to a middle-aged lesbian TERF who thinks that saying "date whoever you want, but if you're closed to dating whole groups of people like black, disabled, trans, you should examine your biases" is a form of (quote) rapey coercive conversion therapy that likens lesbians' sexual orientation to racism and is the same thing as homophobic harassers telling lesbians they should try dick?

Is there anything constructive to say to a TERF-terf? Like an actual terf? Like they call themselves a terf openly and tweet about how transgendered women are peeping at them in the bathroom? No. Those are kissing cousins to fascists. Lost cause. Move on.

Is there any way to have a constructive conversation with a middle-aged lesbian who is asking the question you have here, but has not been fully radicalized yet? Like, they are asking a very terfy question, but they actually might be willing to engage in a conversation with you in good faith? Yeah, I think so. You just have to come at it strategically.

So let's set the parameters for what we're talking about here carefully. I'm gonna say the word "penis" a lot, so brace yourselves for that.

We are not talking about non-lesbian terfs. Our demographic is a middle aged lesbian on the brink of being radicalized, but who is still willing to engage in a genuine conversation about her ideas.

We're also only going to deal briefly (in this very paragraph) with the use case of lesbian terfs who make no distinction between trans women who have fully medically transitioned, and trans women who still have dicks. Because like, if you just think a person assigned male at birth will always be male no matter what their body looks like or how they feel on the inside, the problem isn't so much that you're a terf as it is that you're a gender essentialist. Like, you can definitely be both, but the gender essentialism is the deeper issue, and that's a harder one to talk people out of because you start getting into a lot of science. Your question mentioned dick, so our use case here is a lesbian who doesn't want to date a trans woman because she doesn't want to touch a dick, and she perceives being asked to consider why she doesn't want to date trans women as pressure to put herself into a situation where she might interact with a dick.

Step one: engage your own empathy first.

The question being posed here logically holds together. You need to recognize that before you can engage with this person productively. Like, you know that this question is terfy as fuck, and that a trans person would probably feel bad hearing it, but the question in and of itself is not nonsensical. There's an "If A then B then C" happening here that holds together. "If a trans woman has a penis, and I, a lesbian, don't want to touch a penis, then by encouraging me to be more open-minded about dating trans women, you are exerting social pressure upon me to touch a penis." That tracks. It's not a kind or enlightened or nuanced way of looking at the situation, but the problem is that it is defensive, not that it is nonsense.

The second part of your empathy homework is to understand that middle aged lesbians have by and large had experiences that give them reason to be defensive. Lesbians who came up in the 70s and 80s faced way more pressure than most of us ever will to "give dick a chance." So while you see their question as a terfy dog whistle, they see your question ("why not consider why you don't want to sleep with a trans woman?") as an anti-lesbian dog whistle. Because when they were coming up, it would have been! You know that you don't mean it that way, but they have probably earned the right to assume the worst.

The third part of your empathy homework is to stop accusing this woman of being a terf unless she is an actual, out and out, radicalized terf (in which case, you can stop reading, because that's not what we're talking about here). Saying "that's terfy" or "that's a terf argument" or "you're really sounding like a terf" makes people SUPER DEFENSIVE. You are trying to make this woman feel less defensive, so she will allow herself to be more open to your ideas. You're not wrong! But you're also not going to get anywhere, and you specifically asked for how to have a productive conversation.

Okay, so empathy engaged. We have acknowledged that her question is not inherently spurious. We have acknowledged that she has a right to be defensive about her unwillingness to touch a penis. We're not going to call her a terf while we're trying to make a connection. Step two.

Step two: recognize that your argument as you've posed it here kind of sucks.

"if you're closed to dating whole groups of people like black, disabled, trans, you should examine your biases" STOP stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop. You are comparing three things here that have nothing in common other than that people are prejudiced about them. Not wanting to date black people is completely different from not wanting to date disabled people, and both are completely different from not wanting to touch a penis. Conflating all of these things makes it incredibly easy to sidetrack your argument. Literally all I have to say is "so you're saying that not wanting to touch a penis is just like being racist?" and you are never going to get the conversation back on track. Those things are not the same. Leave racism is out of this. Leave ableism out of it too. Like, if you're comparing apples to oranges, I could add "children" to the list of 'whole groups of people I'm closed to dating,' and like - I shouldn't even have to continue this line of thought, this sucks, this is a bog, get out and never go back in. Not wanting to touch a penis isn't like anything. Stop comparing it to other stuff.

Step three: disrupt their way of thinking.

You're going to do this by asking questions. We're going fully Socratic here. You're not going to tell this woman anything. You're not going to 'invite her to consider' shit. You're going to listen, and you're going to ask questions, and that's it.

Here are some good questions to ask:

If a person looks 100% like a woman, like you can't tell at all that they're trans even if they're totally naked, and they think of themselves as a woman, and they act like a woman so completely that you'd never guess they'd ever lived as a man, does it actually matter that they're trans? Like if there's no way of telling unless you draw a blood sample and test their DNA?

This question is, first of all, to make sure sure sure that we're not talking to a gender essentialist. If they answer "yes," you can follow up with:

So do you just think they have, like...a male energy or something that you'd pick up on?

And if they're like, well, no, that's nothing, then you can keep asking questions until they grant you that a trans woman who is functionally indistinguishable from a cis woman is, like, not the problem, and you can continue. If they say some shit about chromosomes, we're in gender essentialist territory and you can mildly ask them if they might be willing to read some scientific studies you've found, and drop the conversation for now.

If she's agreed that a 100% cis-passing trans woman is not the source of her unease here, you can cut to the chase with:

It's the dick, right?

And then stop talking for like, five fully uninterrupted minutes, while this woman goes on a rant about how YES, IT'S THE DICK, SHE DOESN'T WANT TO TOUCH A DICK, IS THAT A CRIME? IS THAT A CRIME NOW? ARE YOU SENDING HER TO JAIL?

Let her get it all out of her system. If you can bring yourself to do it, crack a couple of jokes, because of course it's funny to imagine someone going to jail for not wanting to touch a dick! It'll let the tension out of the argument, and make her feel more like you're on her side.

Once she's fully wound down about this, you can pause for a moment, thoughtfully, and then ask:

Okay so...but...are you a lesbian because you love labia? or because you love women?

This can go a couple of ways:

1 - "Yes, I am just wild about vulva, that's my whole thing." okay cool! nevermind! you're never gonna be sexually satisfied with a trans woman who hasn't had bottom surgery then, no stress. We can drop this whole conversation, just...

But you don't think it'd be weird if a lesbian was more into women than labia, right? Like, lots of lesbians do sex stuff that doesn't even involve direct pussy contact, we're a famously creative bunch of outside-the-box (ba-dum pshh) thinkers. So like, if that woman were willing to view a trans woman's dick as just like, an unwanted but tolerable lil clump of skin on the body of a woman she's otherwise very attracted to, you wouldn't condemn her for that, right?

If she'll give you that, cool, case closed imo. You're a lesbian who loves pussy so you don't want to date a trans woman, but you won't judge another lesbian for dating a trans woman. And peace on earth returns.

If she won't give you that, you can keep asking questions about why, and the conversation is going to turn in a more "why exactly do you feel like you need to judge other people's sexual practices when everyone is a consenting adult" direction, which is way less fraught than the terf conversation.

Okay, moving on:

2 - "Of course I love WOMEN but I want a WOMAN woman."

This is easy. Now we're back in "so is there some kind of magic 'male energy' you're picking up on, here?" territory. Keep asking questions until this breaks down or turns into gender essentialism again.

3 - "Uh...that's a good point kind of except I'D STILL HAVE TO TOUCH A PENIS."

This is the one time I'm gonna tell you to make a statement instead of asking a question, because the point is still just to keep her talking. The statement is, sagely:

A penis has way more emotional power than like, somebody's elbow or something.

That's it. Now you're just gonna let her talk again. She's going to talk for a while about her feelings about penises. This is a really important time to empathise. She might have trauma. She might have righteous anger. She might share a fucked-up conversion therapy anecdote. This is your time to be a good friend. Lots of women, lesbians and otherwise, have negative associations with penises, and the reasons for that are usually painful. Like if she's just "yeah yuck ew gross gross hahaha I hate them they're so weird looking," that's fine too, but prepare yourself to listen.

Anyway, whether it comes out as "ew penises gross" or a thirty minute conversation about deep personal trauma, a time will come when you can, oh so gently, like you are cradling a fatigued bumblebee in your hand to carry it to some sugar water you've set down in the shade, ask:

Do you think maybe you've given the penis too much emotional power?

And then stop talking again. Be genuinely curious when you ask this question. Does she think that maybe she's allowed the penis to loom overlarge in her connotative universe? If so, is that something she's interested in changing - not so she can date trans women but just like, in general?

From there you should be good to just...talk. Don't expect a capitulation right there in that very conversation. The goal is "you've given me some food for thought," not "oh, wow, you've opened my eyes to what a bigot I've been." Don't push too hard all at once. Let her go away and think about it. In a few days or weeks - whatever feels right - bring it up again and ask if she's thought at all about it since the last time you talked. Keep asking questions.

Good luck.

[tteokdoroki]

saccahrine sundays | k.bakugou

♡ pairing: katsuki bakugou x fem!reader.

♡ word count: 5.3K

♡ rating: mature, 18+, mdni.

♡ genre: pro hero!au, married!au, fluff + smut.

♡ summary: katsuki can never find enough time to get some sleep. between being a full time pro hero, a father and a husband— hours of rest are hard to come by. unless it’s one of those sweet, sweet saccharine sundays.

♡ warning(s): please read ! heavy smut, pwp ( characters aged up to late twenties ), somnophilia, unprotected sex ( wrap it before you tap it, kids ), fingering ( female recieving ), tummy bulges, mating press, pregnancy!kink, daddy!kink, breeding!kink, light!exhibitionism, cumplay + needy bakugou has a praise!kink... <3

♡ author’s note(s): brrr hey guys! it feels like forever since i last posted a full fic, january was bleh so im happy to get this out !! special thanks to @greenchild for feeding me this idea and thank to all of you for your love, support and 2.8K. i love you all, enjoy <3

♡ masterlist | requests

katsuki bakugou couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten a full nights sleep. between being a pro hero and family life, the full eight to nine hours of pure rest wasn’t easy to come by— now he wasn’t complaining, he was far too grateful for the life he lead to whinge and whine about the finer details. bakugou was right on track to becoming the number two, he had a beautiful wife who loved him and supported him no matter how reckless he might have been and two little brats that he adored more than anything. he was miles ahead of his high school classmates, never letting up or resting so like he said, there was no room to complain.

but even as the faintest wisps of light slip through drawn curtains and a vermillion gaze settled on the old all might digital alarm clock ( reading 9:01 AM ), katsuki bakugou can’t help but feel grateful for the sleep he just had. no interruptions from wailing toddlers or infants who need changing, no late night call ins for patrols— none of that, just an arm around his wife’s waist and the soft sound of her breathing to coax him out of his sleepy state.

bakugou remembers now, a distant yet far from faint memory of where he and his wife spent two days of their honeymoon under slumber’s spell, having ravished each other the very night they arrived in paris for their honeymoon ( all mina’s idea, she had told katsuki it was the perfect destination for newly weds in love— and whilst the several districts his alien friend recommended did appease you, the blonde had promised to take you on a more luxurious getaway when he was hire up in the hero rankings ). of course that very honeymoon lead you to fall pregnant with your first little miracle— taiga bakugou, the very spitting image of her father except or the slight tilt to her nose and the sparkle in her eye that only her mother possessed.

raising her had proven to be both an enjoyable and exhausting experience for katsuki, with a matching explosive personality to rival even her daddy’s— there were many restless nights the pro hero spent butting heads with his daughter while his sweet spouse was away on missions and getting used to the field again. even during the pregnancy, full nights of rest were little to none— the cravings taiga gave you were almost unbearable for the blonde, not to mention the 2AM labour his little girl put you through...and yet he would repeat the last four years of lack of sleep all over again if it meant reliving every single moment with you. raising tatsumo was much better; however.

so as the weight of well deserved slumber lifts from katsuki’s shoulder’s he’s forced to deal with the memories of your sweet cries from the night (or rather, nights) he made you his wife. he stirs under cotton sheets, a familiar hardness pressing against his inner thigh as he recalls the way you tightened around him— “honey baby,” the desperate whisper tastes foreign, bitter across his tastebuds as he licks his lips. katsuki was usually much more composed when it came to sex, he could hold out for hours while you pleaded and begged of him to give you more. but this morning was different, very much so.

skilfully, the ash blonde slips a hand between your sheets, finger tips calloused with years of training and battle, dancing up your bare thighs from where you wear only his shirt and a pair of panties. the fingers trail up to your underwear, pressing them against your cunt as bakugou watches your face for any reaction— you twitch once before falling back into a deep slumber, letting your husband know that he can continue. he peels like orange silk away from your core and down your legs, half resisting the urge to sniff your undergarment like the dirty man he is but he decides that he can longer wait, already turned on by the feeling of your bare pussy against his hand.

the pro knows exactly how to turn you on, dragging is nails down your thighs just an inch from your wetness and his mind fogs with lust at the thought of the sounds you’d make for him if you were awake...not yet, he says to himself. his next move is to fuck your mouth, two of his digits sliding past parted lips from where you snore— gathering the drool that pools on the surface of your tongue. back and forth; move bakugou’s fingers until he’s satisfied with how wet you’ve made them with your spit. returning those very same fingers to your cunt, he parts your folds— already slightly sticky and hot with the nectar he’s used to savouring. if this were any other time, bakugou would be eating you out like a man starved of his last three meals but the rising sun tells him that his moments to fuck you are very few.

so now, he slides those lubed up fingers right into your tight little hole, shuddering under the sheets at how you automatically clamp around him— even while you sleep. katsuki’s vermillion eyes seek out your face in the warm light of the dusk, watching as your expression contorts into that familiar look of pleasure— lips blossoming into a cherry pout, brows furrowed as if you’re focusing on the way your husband makes you feel.

“fuck, honey baby, so good ‘n pliant for me even when yur fuckin’ sleepin’,” katsuki slurs against saliva that slips along his tongue, he’s hungry to fuck you, make you moan and scissors his fingers deep inside your obedient cunt in away that makes your slumbering body jump. pressing a thumb to your neglected clit, bakugou twists his fingers in search for your g-spot, pumping them into you with vigour. “gonna make you cum angel, baby, please cum while you’re like this s’you can take my cock.”

if there’s one thing pro hero dynamite knows, it’s that your body is a slave to him, no matter what state it’s in. your thighs part instinctively; giving your husband room to curl his fingers and press down hard on your pleasure spot— gummy walls sucking him in deeper. he makes you cum while you sleep, juices staining  your supple skin, honeyed from the warm light outside.

“atta girl, cummin’ for your husband like that even when you’re sleeping— so fuckin’ naughty...” katsuki grunts, locks of sun kissed hair beginning to plaster itself against his forehead. his body shakes with the desire to be inside of you, his internal temperature rising with every second that he’s not sheathed within your walls. pulling his fingers away from your twitching mound, bakugou slides them, cum soaked and all, into his mouth to taste your very sweetness. “would eatcha out like a starved man, honeybee, but we don’t gotta lot of time left baby...”

with that, bakugou shuffles his sweats down enough for his cock to spring free, tip bright red and leaking against his toned, scarred abdomen. with practised ease, he hooks your right leg over his waist and positions your dripping cunny right over the head of his length. it takes everything katsuki has not to plunge deep inside of you, to abuse your tempting cunt until it’s formed into the shape of his cock but for once he wants to take you slowly, enjoy his time with your limp body at his disposal.

pressing his girth against your slick entrance, your husband sighs, coating himself with the remainders of your delightful release. the mess you made just for him, makes it easier for him to guide his cock between your velveteen folds that take him so well. his free hand comes up to brush over your cheek and even in the depths of your rest you manage to nuzzle into katsuki’s palm and make his coo— what a precious little doll you are, so good for him and always so obedient no matter what state you’re in. fuck, it drives him so insane that he can’t even think straight.

“...suki....”

fucking hell. the way you sigh out for him so mawkishly whilst you dream makes him twitch, not even half the way inside you.  “c’mon honey baby, don’t go moanin’ my name like that when i haven’t even had a c-chance to make you mine yet—“ the blonde shudders, eyes screwing shut as he finally bottoms out inside of you. katsuki let’s out a choked moan, from deep within his chest while you welcome him into your lethally syrupy cunt. “ohh, fuck, that’s the stuff, good girl...”

bakugou’s thrusts start slow yet, forcing your limp body to jolt up the bed and your tits to bounce in tune with the rhythm of his hips— your little hole sucks him in so greedily, so selfishly, clamping down on him as if to prevent him from leaving your body as a whole. pro hero dynamite is shaken to his core, how can his precious baby take him so darlingly while she’s asleep, refusing to let go of him and keep his cock tucked away inside of you.

shit, shit, shit.

he wants to defile you, asleep or not, ruin how pure and angelic your body appears even after years of being together. it’s your fault he’s like this anyway, you deserve to have your pussy destroyed no matter the circumstances— ruby framed eyes threaten to roll back into his skull while bakugou picks up the swirl of his hips between your sticky thighs, you flutter and squeeze around the girth that’s stretched you out so many times before and yet you still remain a tight hole designed for your husband and your husband alone.

lips map their way up the column of your neck, committing every dip and scar and blemish to memory even though katsuki knows where each of them are. the amber colour of the morning sun highlights each of your marks, your husband giving you as many lovebites to match each one. “nn, suki...more..” you whimper, so quiet he almost misses it underneath the sound of wet skin slapping against wet skin. could you feel how he deflowered you in your sleep? ruining such a good girl while you resting? he wants so bad to corrupt you from the inside.

static stretches across katsuki’s brain, crackling as his neurones fire and dopamine fizzes in his veins. cum. cum. breed her. it’s too soon but the blonde can’t help it, pent up and high on the morning sunrise— addicted to the taste of your skin licked with light perspiration. it’s been ages since he’s had you like this, can you blame him for not hanging on so long? bakugou lifts your thigh higher on his waist, using it as leverage to plough into the deepest parts of you, his precious wife, desperate to cream inside you before wake up.

“mm, know you’re close lovebug, won’t you cum for me suki?”

katsuki’s gaze hones in on you, vision blurred and hazy with lust from his impending orgasm. your own eyes are heavy with sleep but the soft smile on your face is filled with a familiar adoration and saccharine love that the blonde can never get tired of. he knows that you know your voice alone is another to send him speeding off of the cliff of release— your hole squeezing around him, beautiful hips that once brought his children into the world gracefully moving up and down to coax his girthy cock to its final release.

“honey baby,” katsuki whines like a broken man when you cup his face, hot puffs of air warming up the space between you.  his hips don’t let up though, driven by the way you move against him beneath the sheets, he’s so close he can almost taste it. “c-couldn’t wait for you to wake up, needed you so fuckin’ bad...”

your mouth hangs open in a quiet groan, getting lost in the claps of sweaty bodies against one another and katsuki latches onto your lower lips to swallow your noise— breathing it in and letting it spread through his body like oxygen. “oh, lovebug, y-you don’t...” you pause, eyes rolling to the back of your head as the angry tip of your husband’s cock grazes against your gummy spot, sending your walls into a flurry of flutters that make katsuki twitch. “ ...you don’t ever have to wait with me, d-don’t hold back, kay?”

you’re a breathless mess, a sight to behold and he can’t take not having you filled with his seed any longer. the lazy push and pull of your bodies smacking wetly against each other become erratic thrusts, heat pooling in the abdomen of the pro hero boiling him alive in feelings of desire for you and you alone.

bakugou quivers from his lips to his toes when he cums, filling your slippery walls with a creamy white and lining your insides with the claim of your man. your man. your husband. “fuck, fucking hell,  h-honey, gimme that pussy...gimmie that fuckin’ pussy,” his groans linger in the crisp early morning air, dancing with the static while he orgasms within you, endless bouts of white stuffing you to the brim. you kiss in an attempt to calm him, squeezing around his thick cock to ride out his high. you taste of orange liquor  and manuka honey, addicting while he sucks lavishly on your tongue and spares you the air you need to breathe. ‘cause at the end of the day call you need is him.

“did you cum, precious one?” ever the gentleman, katsuki has to ask but even you can see in his blood red ruby eyes ( no matter how tired they may seem ) that he’s gearing up for a second round, shallow thrusts pushing his own release  deeper into your fertile womb. there’s about thirty minutes until the kids wake up, but your lover can make you see stars in fifteen.

you shake your head once as bakugou rolls you onto your back— strong arms caging you into the prison if his love. large hands dance tenderly up the back of your thighs and you meet his eyes with such a saccharine smile his heart bursts at the sight of you. “you’re insatiable, lovebug,” the tingling notes of your moan caresses bakugou’s cheek as he manoeuvres your legs to fold you into a mating press, shifting his weight above you. “did you really need me that much, daddy bear?”

“think y’already know the answer to that, honeybee,” katsuki drawls, tripping over his words filled, oh so generously with blazing desire. he still remains sheathed inside you, a darling whine dripping from his cherry lined lips— the ones sore from kissing you— as he gives an experimental thrust into the tight heat of your core. you accept him willingly, opening up for him like a blossoming flower which makes katsuki’s hot breath stutter from the overstimulation. neither of you can look away, sharing the intimate moment of his length sinking into you— katsuki groans as you suck him in inch by inch before leaning over and attaching his lips to yours, licking at the seam of them in order to coax them open. his wife is a tease however; denying him the pleasure of sucking on her tongue...for now at least.

but it’s all worth it, for katsuki wants to burn the erotic sight of you beneath him into his mind forever. your skin shines like it was kissed by the setting moon, eyes hooded and holding a lust that only burns brightly for him while your chest heaves in anticipation of your husband claiming you for the second time that morning. “m-move suki, please—c-can’t...” the tail end of your pleas fall away with the fading night sky.

the man doesn’t need to be told twice.

save for a few shallow thrusts to get going, katsuki soon finds himself pistoning into you at an unruly, god speed pace. the blonde revels in the way one hand of yours twirls strands of his hair between your fingers whilst the other digs crescent moons into his blemished honey skin. helpless huffs and candied cries tickle bakugou’s ears while he presses your body flush against his and pins you down with his hips.

their movements don’t ever waver, cock catching on every ridge your damp pussy has to offer him, each thrust calculated amplify your pleasure that rolls in heatwaves throughout your body. katsuki’s mind grows blank, thick with the mirage you’ve cast over him from the way you push back against him, taking more of his inches into you.

“ngh, lovebug,” you say, high off of euphoria while katsuki’s leaking cock bears down harshly on your g-spot and you smile up at him deliriously— looking like the eighth wonder of the world. you grab the hand your husband uses to keep your thighs up and bring it down to your tummy for him to feel what you feel. “can feel your cock inside me, love, so big...makin’ my tummy bulge like a good daddy bear...”

something snaps within katsuki at the sound of your breathless praise; a feral blaze setting alight deep inside his chest— spreading throughout his body as his cock drives deeper and deeper inside your spongy, wet cunt— just about breaching the gates of your cervix. breed her. fuck her. make her swollen with your cum. bakugou can’t even think straight; intoxicated by the way you move against him, the way you look so full of him and his thick length.

he wants you to look full all of the time. so katsuki does with the only way he knows how. dropping his head to your neck, sharp attack your neck with blossoms of bruises forming under your skin in the name of love— you whine, a gorgeous symphony of his name against his ear while you tangle your fingers in the baby hairs at the nape of his neck. “y’can’t jus...jus say stuff like that to me, honey...” bakugou croons against your skin, screwing his eyes shut while his hips pick up the pace and plunging his length right into your womb. the sounds of your arousal wetly spill into the sex scented air— fuelling katsuki to thrust into you faster. “not if you...n-not if you don’t want me to fuck another one of those shitty brats into you.”

as stuttered as his words are, bakugou means every single one of them. a primal desire activates in the back of his mind, overriding every single of senses. just the thought of lining your womb with his pungent seed, making you pregnant once again and seeing you round and full with katsuki’s child is enough to drive him off of the rails. And the pro hero knows that you feel the same, he can tell by the way your heat clamps down on his cock and strangles him, as if to milk him of every ounce of his cum.

“yes, want you to make me pregnant suki, make me a mommy again, please—!”  you simper out loud, desperate tears springing to your eyes while the bed groans beneath you. visions of you round and swollen with a baby drives him to thrust into you harder, faster so that more and more of his precum spills into you. “know you want it, want it too...your cum, deep inside me—ohmygod suki—yes!”

bakugou slaps a hand over your mouth, watching as your sweet doe eyes brim with tears at the languid roll of his hips against yours. “careful honeybee, don’t want the kids to...fuckin’ hell... h-hear—“ he stutters, eyes rolling, limbs shaking violently. his other hand drops between your conjoined bodies, drawing vicious circles into your swollen clit to draw you closer and closer to the edge. star dust is littered behind your eyes, the bright white signifying the race to your high that only katsuki can give to you. “or do you want to be heard, you want everyone to hear how full you’re gonna become when i get you pregnant again. how you’ll whine and beg me to suck on your tits when you start makin’ that sweet milk for our baby. is that what you fuckin’ want, yn?”

you can’t help the way your pussy flutters around his cock that brutally grazes your g-spot— the dirty words your husband speaks like music to your ears. a symphony with his moans and the sounds of his balls slapping against your bare ass.  “oooh, shit baby, you must do with the way your lil cunny clamps down on me—just like that...”

“oh god, lovebug please...cum...cum! need it daddy bear—can’t take it anymore,” you babble against katsuki’s hand, brain turning to mush at the unbearable pleasure. the knot in your tummy becomes tighter, close to snapping as the white light of pleasure clouds your view.

patterns drawn diligently against your clit speed up; turning to quick figure of eights to tease your orgasm. “‘course you fuckin’ do honey baby, my little breeding bitch. my sweet little wife who can’t wait to be a mommy again. take this cock, you dirty whore. take it and I’ll give you my fuckin’ baby.” bakugou slurs, losing all control as the pace of his hips begins to falter. you can feel his dick twitching inside of you, tip pulsing with the need to paint your insides.

your gazes lock within the frenzy, while your back arches and hips lift to take your husband deeper inside you. dynamite is feral like you’ve never seen before; an animal reduced purely back to instinct. unfocused red eyes become teary like your own with hot pleasure while they lock onto you but you know that behind lust; loved the adoration and love your husband holds for you. thats all you need to reach the edge and tumble into your orgasm,

it takes but a few more thrusts and a pinch to your clit before you’re cumming— release squirting out and splattering against bakugou’s toned abdomen.

the blonde never lets up while you cum undone on his iron hot rod, letting him pump into you with unrelenting feverishness. katsuki is desperate, needing an extra push even with you strangling his cock with your insides. “s-say you’ll make your daddy a daddy baby, say you’ll give me another fucking kid. fuck, fuck yeah...please honey baby—“ bakugou damn near sobs, trembling violently above you as his breath hitches with ever hiccup.

smiling gently, you pull his head to your neck, cradling your husband while his pace slows to circular grinds. “i’ll make you a daddy again, you can cum for me now lovebug...”

“shit, shit, oh god— cummin’...” thats all bakugou needs to hear before bottoming out inside of your abused hole—  screaming against your bitten flesh and forcing his cock into your fertile womb as he sprays with his thick, sticky seed. white coats every ridge and crevice of your pussy while impatient thrusts slow to sensual grinds. you feel the tears of neediness soak the supple skin of your neck, rocking your hips against katsuki to milk his cock for all it’s worth— even if slow waves of his cum seep down your folds and to the sheets below.

“g’morning, katsuki,” you sigh blissfully, fingers combing through your lover’s sweaty mop of sun kissed locks. the pair of you lie still, limbs still intertwined as you catch your breath under the orange hues of the light outside.

your husband shifts his head to look at you, eyelids heavy over blood red eyes with a satisfied look on his face. he’ll never get over having you all to himself first thing in the morning— katsuki bakugou will always consider that a luxury and as he looks to you, a great smile soon takes his features. “yeah...good fucking morning to you too, angel face,” bakugou doesn’t dare pull out of you, intent on keeping his word. “love you yn, you’re always so good to me...”

katsuk’s lips mould into a pout as you continue your earlier ministrations of brushing back sweat slicked hair away from his face before pressing a chase kiss to his lip and making his cock twitch from over sensitivity, inside of you. he was always a sucker for the romantic moments after a passionate round of sex, he was a domestic, love struck son of a bitch what could he say? “suki...lovebug, you know you can pull out if it’s too much,” you remind him, the sound of your voice pulling his attention back to you. as he stares; katsuki maps out every detail of your face, the way your eyes glitter in the mellow light that peeks from between closed curtains or the slight dip across your cheek in the form of a scar from where you’d been injured on the field— he spends time committing it all to memory as if it’s the last time he’ll get to witness such beauty. “you’re staring, bug.”

“nuh uh, not pulling out.” huffing, bakugou leans up for another kiss, which you happily provide him with as he curls up onto your chest like a kitten seeking warmth. “keepin’ you plugged full s’you can get preggers like i fuckin’ promised.”

“you were serious?” you question him first, earning yourself another grouchy huff before your eyes roll and a comfortable silence sweeps across your bedroom, periodically interrupted by the morning birds waking up and chirping. “always a man of your word, huh bug? don’t worry, we’ll make you a daddy bear soon, but i’ve got to clean up before the kids wake up.”

“don’ you fuckin’ move— leave the dumbass kids, they’ll be fine on their own.”

“not with taiga’s quirk coming through, now move, you’re heavy.”

with that, you manage to shove bakugou off of you and he only hisses lightly as his softened cock hits the cold air, already missing your heat. the banter between you both as husband and wife is always light and you always win; he wants to bite back but anything he says will be soft on his sharp tongue. damn you and you being the love of his life. bakugou watches as you fix his shirt over your frame and head to your en-suite bathroom to make yourself more presentable to your kids— mumbling something about how many times katsuki came inside of you.

sure there was a lot of it, but he’d only cum inside you twice and he was trying to give you a baby. again.

the shower turns on and he can hear the sound of water running but it doesn’t cover your sweet voice as you call for him. he could never miss that. “katsuki bakugou, you horny bastard, i love you, my daddy bear!” you sing for him; making the blonde smile.

“i love you more, honey baby,” he chuckles back, tucking himself back into sweats before settling back into the ruined sheets.

bakugou was so luckily to have you and you’re beautiful children— he wouldn’t trade any moment of his life for the world except for maybe more time with you. he swore, he’d spend forever loving you if he could.

“daddy?” sweet thoughts are cut off by the groggy voice of bakugou’s eldest daughter, taiga, who stands in the doorway of his bedroom rubbing her cherry red eyes.

the blonde grins, rising from his place in bed and crossing the room in three short strides. he quickly crouches down in front of his little girl and ruffle her unruly mop of matching blonde hair. “g’morning brat, what’s up?”

taiga clutches her shoto plushy tightly, the one uncle todoroki had gotten her for her first birthday ( the one that bakugou hated because it was his daughter’s favourite— kirishima hated it too because he had always thought he was the favourite uncle ), and pouts down at her father, scowling sleepily. bakugou knows if you could see the two of them now, you’d be saying she was the spitting image of him. “tatsumo woke up n wouldn’t stop whinin’, fink he’s hungry, daddy!” the little girl grumbles, clearly still reeling in the after effects of her sleep that got cut short.

“how about we go get him and make some pancakes then?” katsuki suggests softly, hauling his daughter onto his bare shoulders and being mindful not to drop her stupid fuckin’— i mean her plushy to the ground. “y’gonna help me mix up enough batter for ya ma n’ brother, you got that brat?”

taiga squeals as at the new found height, wrapping a singular chubby arm around bakugou’s head for support, making his heart burst at the tiny hand that grips his chin. fuck, he loved his life. “only if we can add choco chwips, daddy!”

“oi, don’t you push your fuckin’ luck with me brat, ya mommy might let you get away with eatin’ shit like that but not me—“ bakugou makes an attempt to scold his daughter while they make way towards his son’s room, but he already knows he’s going to give into her. he can’t say no to taiga.

“i’ll tell mommy you cursed at me!”

“why you little sh—“

“careful, katsuki, if you keep cursing her out i might have to put you on punishment later,” taiga bursts in to wriggly giggles on bakugou’s shoulders, making it harder to keep her in place as you brush past him to grab tatsumo from the nursery.

“daddy’s gonna get in trouble!”

the teasing tone to your voice lingers in the air while you fetch your son, who seems groggy and pouty when he comes into katsuki’s view— wrapped up in your arms while you wear a cleaner shirt of his. there’s that glint in your eye, similar to the one your children posses when they’re doing something mischievous. and  that alone tells the ash blonde he’ll be getting punished in ways that could lead to another little one rushing through your house.

bakugou can roll with that.

but for now; he reaches up and pinches taiga’s nose— telling her to stop running her mouth and sending you into giggles while you carry your children downstairs for breakfast. katsuki bakugou couldnt remember the last time he’d gotten a full nights sleep, but what he did know is that he’d always remember the very saccharine mornings he’d get to spend with you and your beautiful children after.

bonus:

“taiga, did you put chocolate chips in the batter even though i told you no?”

bakugou had turned his back for but a mere second to grab some milk for tatsumo; who played happily with smooshed bits of banana in his high chair— and suddenly, the batter was littered with the offending, tiny pieces of candy.

“no, it was mommy!”

“yn...”

you quickly throw your hands up in the air as defence, dropping the packet of sinful treats to the counter. “what? i’m having cravings, bakugou!”

“you’re not even pregnant, yn!” the man himself raises his spatula at you accusingly with a scowl, biting down on his tongue to prevent himself from cursing again.

you smile up at your husband, knowing he can’t stay mad at you for long. “but i will be, katsuki, it’s the thought that counts.” your eyes flicker up as you wipe the melted chocolate on your finger tips off with your tongue before moving to settle your daughter down for breakfast. bakugou splutters, cheeks flaming with a reddish rose at the thought of your soon to be baby and all the activity that comes with making one which makes you laugh. “oh and lovebug? your pancakes are burning.”

with a jump, katsuki turns to flick off the flame and save his batch of pancakes while you tend to your kids— leaving him to contemplate over your chocolate chip breakfast, how lucky he was to have you.

“i crave chocolate, can i get a pregnant?” taiga squeals shortly after.

“not a chance in hell, brat.”

♡ taglist:

@ozzy-bozzy @bakugous-mamas @meg-mystic @runningon-5percentsleep @cyans-bliss @husband-to-tomura-shigaraki @paintedr0ses1 @69meggg69 @sapphoscolonoscopy @toshidou @saucey-kneecapzz42020 @candybabey @alrunemara​ @greenchild​

[roger-that-cap]

wildest dreams

witch!wanda x reincarnated!reader 

summary: wanda had walked around the earth for centuries with no magic and hardly any soul left after losing her soulmate. she thought that her lover would never return and that the only reunion they would have would be in the afterlife, but a run-in with bucky changes everything after he insists that he met the long gone y/n at a fountain in the park. 

yet another au by me... 

word count: around 6.5k?

imma tag one person bc she gets upset when she isn’t tagged- and idk if anyone else would actually be interested?

@teenwonder

also this picture is not mine, and the dividers are by @firefly-graphics !!

without further ado, it’s almost 6 in the morning but i give you this!!

She held you tight, fingers digging into your skin as she trembled above you. The rose bushes were rustling in the wind next to you both, the sweet smell of the flowers contrasting with the moment. You were halfway gone already, eyes far off but trying to swim back to the surface, wanting to look at her one last time before the inevitable happened. 

  “S…” you tried to say, but she hushed you immediately, tears falling down on your face and mixing with your own. You shook her head at her as hard as you could, begging for her to let you continue. “Say you’ll remember me,” you ground out, fingers tightening around her hand. 

  “What?” Wanda asked, voice already thick with grief as she tried to decide whether or not it was better to keep the knife lodged between your ribs inside of you.

“When I come back-” you cut yourself off by coughing up blood, and Wanda didn’t even wince when it splattered on her cheek. “Back for you, promise that you’ll remember me.” 

 “Darling,” Wanda whispered back, her voice cracking as she bent over and rested her head on your stomach for a moment, hiding her sob. She could feel her magic tingling inside of her; under her skin, in her bones, dancing on her fingertips. “I wish I knew- I wish I just knew how-”

  “Please.” You said, a desperate look in your eyes as you halted her words, already knowing what Wanda wanted. But natural magic was nothing to mess with. She sobbed again with her lips pressed together, no sound escaping her. You squeezed her hand tighter as the sun started on its routine descent, basking the two of you in an orange glow that you would have stopped to admire in any other moment in time. But Wanda would grow to hate that shade of orange with every breath in her. “Please.” It would always remind her of the sound of your begging, voice reaching for something that she couldn’t see. 

Maybe it was the desperation in your voice, or the way that she just knew that you were well within your last moments, because she looked up at you one last time. “Of course I’ll remember you, darling. I couldn’t even dream of forgetting you.” There was a wheezing sound that came from your chest as you cracked a bloody smile, and then you gave one last squeeze before you looked away from her, your soul settling in the afterlife. 

  Wanda Maximoff would never forget it. Suddenly, her previously  irrational fear of losing her magic became real, but that feeling didn’t even come close to the one she got when you grew lifeless in her arms. 

Ever since you knew what a normal person was supposed to be like, you had identified that you, in fact, were not the normal person that you were probably supposed to be. Normal people didn’t daydream to the point where it felt like their bodies weren’t in the present anymore. Normal people didn’t have birthmarks under their ribs that aced and burned. Normal people didn’t feel out of touch with their world, like they weren’t even meant to be in the century they were in. Normal people didn’t feel like they were searching for something tirelessly, something just under their noses. And normal people surely didn’t dream of the same set of hands, same pair of eyes, or the same voice over and over again, a new setting every time, but always the same, faceless person. You either drew the same faceless person or rose bushes, and every sketch book you ever had was full of them. 

At first, you were sure that you were going insane. Every time you closed your eyes, you would see a flash of reddish brown hair, or the same set of eyes, or the same pair of pale hands. You kept seeing this person without ever seeing a face for nights at a time before you went to see a therapist, who just ended up telling you that worrying about it was only going to make it worse, whatever it even was. But eventually, you learned to get used to it. 

Acceptance turned into expectancy. You went to sleep knowing that there was going to be a pair of hands accompanied by the same slender fingers as always before you, sometimes intertwined with your own. You knew that there was going to be a set of eyes on you, watching you intently with no ace to go with them. You knew that you would hear whispers of the same voice, speaking so clearly in a language you didn’t even come close to understanding, and soon, you were craving to see and hear those things. And wanting to see them led to something that you never told your therapist; drawings. 

You drew nearly every day under the sky, trying to find different park benches to see the sun rise and set at different angles for inspiration. You loved the sky, moon and stars alike, but there was something special about sunrises and sunsets. Sunrises and sets both meant new beginnings to you, out with the old and in with the new, and each rise and fall filled you with a strange feeling of nostalgia. You were watching the sunset on a park bench by yourself, a sketchbook sitting on your lap as you held an idle pencil, still thinking about the way you wanted to draw the hands. The birthmark between your ribs started to tingle, letting you know that it was about to burn again. That damn birthmark. You dropped the pencil and scratched at it, trying to beat the annoying feeling at its own game. You cursed the mark, but your eyes didn’t leave the sky, and you noticed your heart swelling in your chest, faint despair in the pits of it, churning around like the middle of the deep sea. 

 You shook your head and put your pencil in your hand again, brain not even having to work hard at all to see the features of the faceless person who was in your every dream. 

Even before she ever met you, Wanda didn’t sleep well. She would toss and turn for at least an hour before she finally found some temporary, flimsy form of peace. Her sleep was always light and she hardly ever had dreams, which was customary for a woman like her at the time- an un-blossomed witch. 

It was hard for her to remember the time where she didn’t have magic, but that time certainly existed. It lasted nearly thirty years. She never aged a day past twenty one, time moving past her without a care in the world. She was stuck right there, no magic except for the little bit in her bones that was keeping her young. And then she met you. 

You were the person that kicked her magic into gear. You were her kindred soul, her other half and the power to her magic. Meeting you had flung her right into the world of magic and spells, things that she only watched others do, but even as she was introduced to an entirely different world, she could remember only really wanting you. Her heart and soul called to you far louder and stronger than spells called to her eager mind. When she met you, it all fell into place. It was an easy love, one that was never going to be disputed or questioned, and loved it. She was prepared to move heaven, earth, and the gods for you, if she had to. Your arrival into her life had caused her to finally blossom. 

But now, she had bloomed and flourished and wilted all the same, and she was just waiting to decompose. 

“Have hope,” was all that Bucky, a warlock who had been tortured enough in his own way, would tell her. “Have hope that something good will come to you, and it will.” 

She never had the heart to tell him that good things hardly came to those who waited. He himself was a product of waiting, and it had served him well. Before he met his other half, he was taken by a rival clan and experimented on with spells that were so far past illegal that they made the casual witch shudder. Eventually, he was broken out and the rival clan was defeated, but he returned to them as an empty shell of a man. But then, Steve came, and then the man was nothing but a ball of light. His magic grew to be strong and so did Steve’s, and together they became known as some of the strongest practitioners of magic in the world. 

 But what did Wanda have to hope for when you were gone? What did she have to wake up for and smile at when she knew that she had buried you hundreds of years ago? It wasn’t even about the magic. She couldn’t care less about the way she felt the energy leave her- and it was dramatic- leaving in a singular burst of light the second you left. She only knew that you were gone, and that was the only thing that mattered, and it seemed to be the only thing that she even really felt. 

Well, she did feel one other thing. Exhaustion. Exhaustion caused by the lack of you by her side. And exhaustion was exactly why she assumed that she was hallucinating when she felt a small tug at her heart, in a part of her brain that had been dormant for years and years. She shook her head and tried to take her thoughts away from you and the nagging feeling in her gut. 

“Oh, no…” you exclaimed, voice tapering out into a whine as you watched the ruined paper sink deeper and deeper into the fountain, a fist clenching at your side in disappointment when you realized how many hours were lost, just like that, and then even tighter when you realized that part of you wasn’t even truly upset about the time spent on the ruined art. You were mostly upset that you lost the only vision of the hands that you had during the daytime. 

You were on your knees, sleeves still all the way down as you reached into the water frantically, causing the paper to move even further away. You weren’t even worried about your sketchbook that had fallen open onto the pavement, more focused on the rapidly deteriorating piece of paper. You hardly even noticed the man who knocked into you talking, trying his hardest to make the situation better. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, is there anything I can do?” 

“I mean,” you breathed out, taking the nearly disintegrated paper from the water and grimacing. When you realized that the man was fumbling to say something from behind you, celery apprehensive over the fact that you were upset, you took a short breath and turned around, giving him a small smile. He had dark brown hair that was cut short and crystal blue eyes that were striking, but you knew that they held thousands of stories by looking just once.  He was holding your sketchbook, and by the way he was gripping it tightly, you could tell that he had flipped through it for a second. “It’s just a drawing. I guess I can make another one.” 

  His eyes widened. You saw his jaw slacken and his neck stretch out, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He blinked three times, and his parted lips trembled for a second before he slammed them shut. You cocked a brow at him, your sadness about losing the drawing being replaced by a weak feeling of uneasiness. “Sir?” 

  “Knew it.” His face was clear from any type of emotion as he watched yours, and when you opened your mouth to ask him if he was okay, a grin spread across his face. “I’m Bucky, what’s your name?” You furrowed your brows at him, asking what the hell had just occurred without saying a single word. “I’m sorry, you just looked really familiar.” 

 Just like that, you smiled. You knew that feeling, you felt like you got deja vu far too often to be normal. You hated when people made you feel strange for it, you always had, so you tried your best to ignore it with him. “You’re fine, don’t worry. I’m Y/N.” You extended your dry hand for him to shake it. He stared at it for a moment, and then with an eagerness that made you smile, he shook your hand. 

“‘I’m Bucky.” 

  For a moment, you could have sworn that you had done more tha just seen him before. Could have sworn that you had shaken his hand, met him before, been at the receiving end of his blinding yet somewhat shy smile. It flashed through you warm and bright, and you cleared your throat before pulling your hand away and realizing you had held it for too long. You cleared it again when you saw something flash in his eyes, a weak smile lifting on your lips.

“It’s not her.” 

Wanda was furious. She was insulted more than anything, really, angry that Bucky could even mistake the light of you for someone else. She knew that you would never grace the earth with your presence again, and she was so used to the fact that she was going to have to die before seeing you again. And for one of her closest friends to try to convince her that you were back? 

 “She would have already found me.” And Wanda believed that with her whole heart. You had asked her so long ago that you remember her, like she could ever forget. Your scent was so flowery that whenever she walked past a growing garden that she smelled you, your smile was so bright that she saw it in the way the rays of sun came down on the earth. She heard your laugh in the chirping of the birds every morning, and she saw your playfulness in the running waters of the stream by the cabin. She could never forget you, because everything was traced back to you. And you would never return without finding her. 

“I don’t think she even knows it yet, but she is looking for you.” Bucky insisted, stepping forward and receiving Wanda’s burning glare while Steve stepped to the side and let it happen. “I bumped into her and she dropped her sketchbook. I saw her drawings- she drew your eyes.” 

  Wanda’s heart skipped a beat. “What?” 

“She dropped the drawing of hands in the water, but I saw she had drawn eyes that looked just like yours, hair the same shade as yours, even drawn the necklace you used to wear. She draws roses, too. I swear to everything above, it’s her.” 

She could feel herself getting warm, the sort of emotions stirring inside of her that had the potential to turn into a singular weapon. The thought of a rose bush made her sick to her stomach. “It’s not her.” 

“You forget that I knew her, too,” Bucky stated, and Wanda’s desolation was replaced by some ancient feeling of possessiveness. “I could never forget her face, and that was it right there. That was her face, without a shadow of a doubt, And her voice-” 

Wanda’s face curled into a snarl. “Stop talking about her.”  

“Hey, Wanda, take a deep breath,” Steve cut in, ever the mediator, but Bucky was hardheaded. If he thought something needed to happen, he was the one to push for it to happen, and he needed her to see. 

 “She looks the same as she did the day she left.” Wanda let out a choked noise. For a second, all she could picture was her lover dying by the blooming rose bushes in the sunset, ruining two of the most beautiful things in life at once. The third (but first) was you, but not even your horrible death could taint Wanda’s memory of you. You would forever be the brightest and most beautiful thing to grace the earth. “I got her number, we’re meeting at a coffee shop a few blocks away.” 

“Leave her alone.” Wanda said through gritted teeth, tears welling up in her eyes. When she saw the brunet’s eyes widen and his mouth drop open, she spoke before he could get a word in. “Just stay away from her, Bucky.” 

All she could think about was your death. The way you choked on your own blood. The way you cried and looked up at her, but still managed to smile. And as she was consumed by rage and memories, the only other thought in her mind was that she was yours and you were here, and that she couldn’t save you then. But she was surely going to preserve your memory from Bucky’s mouth. 

  “I know you feel it coming back. You haven’t felt it in so long, but it’s warm, right? It’s powerful. You always were the strongest, and you’re not dormant any longer. Stop lying to yourself and depriving yourself of love, Wanda. You know Y/N-”

  She saw red. Red as red as the fires that burned in the magma underneath the ground, as red as embers in a fire. “You don’t get to say her name.” She saw so much red, so much hot anger that hardly covered her sadness, that she didn’t even see the way that she had her hand out red coming from her palm as she lifted Bucky right off of the wooden floor of their shared home. “You don’t get to talk about her.” There was a warbling noise in her ears, whispers that sounded like her name, getting louder and louder until she finally realized it was Steve trying to get her attention. 

  “Wanda.” 

Instantly, she dropped her arm and watched Bucky fall to the ground, landing in a crouched position. She watched him catch his breath on the ground. She opened her mouth to apologize, to say that she felt terrible and that she had no idea what happened, what took over her, but she was stopped by the brilliant smile that came onto Bucky’s face. 

  “You used magic.” He said, slowly and steadily, not a hint of hesitance or animosity in his eyes or voice. Instead, he seemed more proud than anything. “You can’t deny this now, Wanda.” 

She was hyperventilating, the pain in her chest intensifying as she tried without any results to get the right amount of air in her lungs. She felt her knees hit the ground before she knew that she did, her hands covering her face as she sobbed into herself. Her heart ached, tugging in so many different directions as her brain fought to rationalize what everything meant. She had used magic,  and that meant that you were back, in one way or another. She was in disbelief. She was in despair. She was in shock. 

“I know you do, I know you do,” It was Steve’s arms around her, and Steve’s voice in her ear, and she realized that she had been saying I miss her, I miss her, over and over again until the words jumbled. “We know you do, Wanda. We miss her too.” 

But he didn’t understand. He hadn’t lost Bucky since he had found him. He hadn’t walked the earth for centuries after losing the only thing that mattered to him as an empty shell of the person he used to be. He would never understand, but that wasn’t his fault. In fact, she prayed that he would never understand. 

“I’m sorry I approached you like that,” Bucky said, crouching down and hugging her just as Steve was, enclosing her into a hugging circle. They were coven, related by magic, and just being around them made her tears subside. “But you know that I would have never said anything like that unless I was one thousand percent sure. I would never do anything to hurt you, Wanda. All I want is for you to be happy. And I know that I found her.” 

And how could he want anything but the best for her? He knew her just as much as Steve did. Just as much as she probably knew herself. He and Steve were the ones who stormed the coven that took you from her by her side, and they were the ones that helped her send them to their graves. They supported her through thick and thin, through revenge and peace, and mostly, they loved you almost as much as she did. Why would Bucky lie? 

Wanda blinked, staring down at her hands in fear and wonder as her heart beat started to get away from her. Steve’s warm hand landed on her shoulder, and she flinched from the sudden touch after such a rush of power. 

“I think you should go with him, Wanda.” Her heavy breathing was all that filled the air for a moment. “Just take a look at her from outside so you can leave if he was wrong without anyone knowing, but you should at least try. I think Buck’s right.” 

Wanda’s breaths were still labored. Her hands trembled as she moved hair from her eyes, and her lip quivered before she found the strength to mutter a few words. “Will she- will she remember?” 

“I think she will,” Steve said softly. “But she’s probably just a human. It may take more than just seeing you for her to remember everything.” 

 Her eyes were wet with tears, and her heart was so big with warmth and need that she was scared that it would burst open at the seams. But she was even more terrified to lose the idea of you. Slowly and shakily, she nodded, her head bobbing up and down as she sealed her own fate. “I’ll go.” She saw Steve give her his fatherly and supportive smile, small yet full. “I’ll see her.” 

You didn’t know how you were gently swindled into giving Bucky your number. You knew that it was nothing but friendly, but he was so charming that you felt like you could never not know him. In fact, it felt like you already did know him. He said something about maybe commissioning an artwork of yours, and of course that excited you. You were going to meet him at a coffee shop, in a public place even though you weren’t the slightest bit afraid of him. But something felt different. 

 It started once you got into your car. You were driving to get to the shop when tingles came down your spine, and bumps raised on your arms, like someone was whispering against your skin. You started to feel warmth come and go in waves, brushing against your mind and then retreating again. You shook off all of the strong feelings as you turned your car off, parked in front of the coffee shop while the music from your speakers filled the silence, soft piano music that was perfect for the weather. 

  It was drizzling, the kind of weather that you liked to call a “lover’s drizzle” because of how often it was seen in romantic scenes. Scenes of confession, of reunion, of desperation between two lovers- more often than not, they had the mild rain to stand in. You turned the music down before shutting your car off and then stepping out, closing the door and locking it immediately before walking briskly to the entrance of the coffee shop with your recent drawings in hand. 

 Bucky wasn’t there when you arrived. In fact, hardly anyone was there besides the few employees, who smiled at you when you entered but otherwise fell back into conversation amongst themselves, which was fine with you. There was one beefy blonde man who was sitting with a laptop and a ball cap on. He glanced up for a moment and then took a double take, blinking hard at you with a star struck look on his face, and then he shot his gaze back down and went back to typing.

You sat down at a table for two, the only type of table that was there besides the long, awkward study tables that they had set up in the center of the room. You would much rather take the intimate setting of a two-seater than to sit in the middle of the shop, so you did just that. You flipped through your work, looking at it closely now that you had the time. He had mentioned something about possible portrait work for a friend of his, so you naturally brought most of the drawings that you had done with hands, arms, eyes, hair, nearly everything that was the closest to your heart. You rested your palm on top of them and watched your fingers trace the slender ones that you had drawn in what felt like by memory at the time, like you were just remembering the way an old friend’s hands used to look. You peeled that one back and looked into the eyes, the strangest and prettiest light green color that made your heart pound every time you looked at it. You took a deep breath in.

  “That’s gorgeous.” You jumped in your seat as the chair in front of you pulled out from under the table, and there was the charming brunet that you had met by the fountain, giving you the same welcoming smile that he first granted you. You smiled back without hesitation, your heart warming at the sight. “You sure can draw.” 

  “I try,” you joked, your grin nearly splitting your face. “Do you drink coffee?” 

“Nah,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “But I like tea, though.” You gave him a thoughtful look. 

“Are you into herbal healing?” 

You could have sworn that there was some sort of excitement in his eyes, but you weren’t sure enough by the time he opened his mouth again. “Yes, actually! What, does it look like I’m into it?” 

“No,” you answered, and it was true. Bucky was huge. He had the kind of build that intimidated other guys at the gym, the kind that made athletes jealous. He looked like the typical meathead, but he was sweeter than you could have imagined. But he looked nothing like a man who would be into herbal healing. “Just a guess.” 

“Pretty good guess,” he mused, and you grinned back. Your head was in the clouds of some strange deja vu when he asked you if you wanted something, and the entire exchange of whether or not you were going to pay was on the back burner as you sifted through your thoughts. By the time he came back, you noticed that you must have told him that you liked hot chocolate, and that he must have paid. You scolded him before he sat back down, waving you off. It was silent for a few moments as you looked out of the window, the rain still steadily working through the atmosphere. The cup was comfortingly warm. 

“Can I ask you something?” 

  With any other man, you would have immediately told him no, or at least have your guard up. But there was just something deep down, so buried that it was faint, but it was there, that told you that he was nowhere even close to being a threat. “Yes.”

 He nodded, taking a sip of his tea and then putting his cup down gently before giving you an intense look. “Who’s the girl?”  

You frowned. “What girl?” 

He raised a singular brow. “The one you draw.” 

Your breath hitched in your throat. You blinked twice, and then tilted your head to the side. “I don’t draw just one person,” you said slowly, the lie dragging its way out of your mouth and through your teeth. “They’re different people.” 

“Oh,” he said, but the smirk on his face told you that he knew you were lying to him and to yourself. You sipped your drink and something tugged at you, telling you to look out of the window and into the rain again, just one more time before you spilled your guts about seeing things- and then something caught your eye. A flash of a familiar reddish-brown. You turned your full body to look that way, and once you did, you nearly dropped your cup. 

  There was a woman staring back at you, eyes wide and full of so much emotion that the artist in you wanted to rush to make an unworthy attempt at capturing it. Her lips were parted in pure shock, but you were watching them tremble even from far away. She was getting slightly damp in the rain, but she stood there like it didn’t even matter, just locking eyes with you and sending your heart rate through the roof. When your eyes finally came back to hers after looking at her for what felt like the quickest eternity, you gasped. You knew those eyes. 

  If you weren’t so deep into gazing at the woman stuck behind the glass, you would have noticed the pleased and content look on Bucky’s face, and the look that he gave the big blond sitting with a ball cap on all by himself. You would have noticed the way that the blond man was turning his body towards your table, watching with the same amount of anticipation as Bucky was. You tried to understand why she looked so familiar, why she was scratching the part of your brain that always tried to convince you that you were much older than twenty something- and then it hit you. 

  You had been drawing this woman. And you had been thinking about her ever since you knew how to think. It was just the first time you were ever seeing the full picture. “I-” you muttered, eyes stuck on her and the way she looked like she was about to topple over from emotions. The words got stuck in your own throat as you weakly tried to get your mind to take you back to the conversation. “I- excuse me. I have to- I’ll be back- excuse me.” Your chair made a loud noise as you stood from the table in a haste, pushing the door open and walking towards the woman who was still standing on the sidewalk, dumbstruck. 

Before you even knew you were outside and into the rain, you were standing not even four steps away from the woman, who was now looking at you with an incomprehensible look on her face. You couldn’t even feel the rain on you. All you could feel was her gaze and the warmth that was settling in your stomach and chest, and the same intense familiarity that was hitting you when you looked at Bucky. But it was so much stronger. 

“I-” you frowned, taking a step closer and resisting the urge to reach out and touch her. “Do I know you? Have we met?” You had to have met. You had seen her in your sleep, in your daydreams, in your sketchbook. And still, you never could have imagined how beautiful she was. 

She was silent. 

“I know this is random and that I just bum rushed you, but, did we go to school together or something?” You were embarrassed. You had never begged someone to remember you before, but this woman was different. She hadn’t said a word to you, and you didn’t even know her name, but you were enraptured. You swore you knew her. You swore you saw her eyes glaze over for a second. 

“You really don’t remember, do you?” Her voice struck something familiar in your chest, something warm and comforting. It was so familiar, so far back in your memory that it felt like home. Her accent, her inflection, the way she spoke slowly yet deliberately. It was all there in your mind, but you just couldn’t figure out how you knew it so well. “You don’t remember who I am?” 

 That had you closing your mouth. You tilted your head to the side at what could have been a hostile question, but her tone made it sad. Did you forget a high school friend? “Oh, um, I know you from somewhere, but I can’t really-” 

 “Think.” The desperation in her voice made your knees shake. If she were anyone else, you would have told her to go away, but you couldn’t. You didn’t want her to go away. But you couldn’t quite place her either, even though your own heart was screaming at you to remember. 

  “I’m sorry,” you said, a hurt expression on your face. You braved yourself to leave, taking a deep breath and giving her a weak smile that embarrassed you even further. “This was weird of me. I’ll just-” 

 She was reaching for you. Time started to run slower as her pale arm extended towards you, long fingers that you had committed to memory and to paper a thousand times outstretched. Your mouth dropped open ever so slightly as you stood in place for a second, body still until you subconsciously leaned forward, your nerves buzzing under your skin. 

  For a second, the only thing you could do was look at the point where her skin touched yours. 

  You had seen magic before. You had seen it in movies and at theme parks and when miracles happened, but nothing ever like when her skin touched yours. You swore that the warmth that your body had been feeling kicked in even stronger, surrounding you in comfort. Her hand was wrapped around your arm, gentle yet begging, firm yet wishing all the same for something you couldn’t quite see yet. You looked up and into her eyes, the eyes you had drawn and seen so many times, and then you saw it. 

   You saw it in more than flashes. They were coming in at the speed of light, but somehow you were able to catch every moment and every feeling that came along. You heard her voice as clear as day, ringing with laughter. You saw the two of you attempting to skip stones. You saw her enchanting your stones behind your back to make you think you had actually done it. You saw her mouth brushing over your cheeks, your mouth, your forehead. You could feel her hands on you, holding you, protecting you, cherishing you all the same. You could remember the way that you felt when you saw her standing in traditional witch’s clothing, being inducted into her coven as a blossomed witch. You saw everything and nothing, and you remembered it all. 

Wanda. 

A strangled sound escaped your body, so feral that it scared you, but you didn’t care. You pulled her forward, your head clashing against her chest. You could feel her shaking, like she wanted nothing more than to hold you just as tightly, but she was hesitating. “Wanda,” you called out, hugging her tighter, and then, like something in the universe stretched too far and then snapped right back into place, she was returning the embrace. 

  “I thought I had lost you forever,” she said, her voice hollow yet so full, so expressive. “I lost you, darling.” 

  The memories were all there, like all it took was a touch, but you were still coping with the knowledge. You had been murdered. Murdered by witch hunters, way back when witches were known and feared. That had to have been hundreds of years ago, you knew it. But still, your focus was on Wanda. It always would be on Wanda, forever and always. Just like hers was on you. 

“You didn’t,” you managed to say, your own voice thick with emotion as you buried your face into her neck, finally feeling the texture of the hair that you tried so hard to get right. “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere ever again.” 

“I’m sorry,” she said, suddenly sobbing in your arms. You had no idea how you weren’t being interrupted in the crowded streets, but when you took a look back inside of the cafe to see the men who you so clearly remembered as Steve and Bucky, you knew it had something to do with them and their fulfilled smiles. “I wasn’t able to save you. I let you die, and I’m so sorry, darling. I’m so sorry.” 

  Her words brought you back to the present. “Wanda, no. No, no, no.” You wanted to pull away and look at her face, but the second you started to, she held onto you even tighter. You leaned your head back onto her chest. “It wasn’t your fault. There was no way any of us could have known, and no way that you could have saved me. It was beyond us.” 

  “Nothing should have ever been beyond us.” She argued softly. “I’m so sorry.” 

“But it was,” you said. “And now it’s behind us. Don’t apologize, Wanda.” You wiggled around and got free enough to look up at her teary face. “I may not have recognized you, but now that I do, I can’t believe that I ever forgot you.”

   “A new life will do that to you.” 

“Is it really a new life if I remember everything?” You said softly, the rain long gone as you stood with each other, bodies nearly molded together with how close you were. 

  She pulled away to look down at you, her eyes and overall expression tense, and then there was a look that you recognized from a long time ago. It was a look of sweet desire. You closed the cap between the two of you, pressing your lips to hers in a way that proved that you were both two lost souls who had wandered their way back to their other halves. 

“It can be whatever you want it to be, darling.” Her lips brushed your again, soft and tender and eager for more touch. “As long as you let me be in it.”