#they were childhood sweethearts

[divineandmajesticinone]

"I can't go back and fix it..."

[ghost-bxrd]

Prompt:

The first mission the Court send their newly minted Talon on is an assassination attempt on the ward of one Bruce Wayne… Dick Grayson.

Calvin— can’t kill Dick. He can’t.

He didn’t know it would be the boy he grew up in the circus with they want him to murder in cold blood. He didn’t know— didn’t recognize him until the knife was already at his throat.

But he remembers now. And he won’t do it. Never. Never.

He’ll run. Disappear. Dick doesn’t know who he is, it’s better that way, and if he’s lucky the Court will be too busy hunting him to care about the failed assassination.

Unfortunately for Calvin, Dick does remember; Recognizes the Talon.

And he’s not inclined to let his childhood best friend slip through his fingers again after years of believing him dead.

[arathejedi394]

[minecraft villager voice] hmm...

imagine a soulmates a/b/o world. when you're born you get your finger pricked and it goes a database and magically finds your true match then the database spits out a name and address, as long as your true match is in the system. secondly, paganism didn't get stamped out so badly. that's not really a huge detail more a flavor one. okay, that's the context. this is long. keep reading.

now imagine it's 1717. the true match finding system for children is really only used by rich people bc it be expensive. king and queen of a tiny province in southeastern wallachia near the black sea George and winifred barnes had all their kids tested at birth but their firstborn ickle james buchanan barnes's blood sample doesn't get matched until after his 4th birthday. the magic system pops out the name Stiofán Mag Raighne Ruairí II ("that's a mouthful" George says) the newborn grandson of ireland's brand new independent king. see, Ireland just won a like 50yo vicious war with the English over their independence. Stiofán Mag Raighne Ruairí I is now the king of Ireland, having begun fighting for Irish independence at age ten. more on that in a bit.

so george and winifred go to ireland with their kids and entourage, arrive around five months after stiofán is born, and they're like "hello sarah ruairí and husband joseph who married in and comparatively is as about as important as the wallpaper, this is is our 4yo stop picking your nose james who's destined to be your infant son's soulmate james I said stop picking your nose don't wipe your boogers on your clothes no don't eat them either use a hanky" they introduce james to stiofán. stiofán is 5 months old and has not fully formed a personal concept of human existence yet, so has no opinion of the pink blob in front of him. james is 4 years and 9 months and thinks stiofán looks like a potato. winifred then tells him that stiofán is going to be his very best friend when they grow up and that they'll always be together and they'll always love each other, and they'll never be alone bc the other one will be there in their hearts. james understands best friend and is happy to see his new potato buddy. they prop ickle james up on a sofa and carefully let him hold 5 month old stiofán who looks very unhappy about everything happening and they take a picture.

"aren't they just darling!" sarah says "the most precious" winifred agrees. stiofán sneezes in james's face. james begins to wail. which makes stiofán start screaming. it's a great start.

winifred from then on takes james to Ireland every summer, to spend the month of july there (it's the 18th century, it'll take 3 months to get from the black sea to the coastline of France where they then have to take a boat which takes another month, so yeah just one month in Ireland, and they spend pretty much the end of march to the end of june traveling, then the beginning of august to the end of November getting back). once stiofán learns how to talk, he renames james bc he has a lisp the letter J is additionally too difficult to pronounce. he is now bucky. newly minted bucky refuses to answer to james anymore. it is a problem bc he doesn't ever correct people he just ignores them until either they magically guess he now goes by bucky or someone else tells them. once stiofán learns how to stand up, he's immediately able to run, and this is also a serious problem. the two of them combined are a menace. sarah and winifred try to get them to behave like noble children and they go "MLEH!" while spitting raspberries then produce pop rockets out of their grubby candy-filled pockets scare the shit out of their mothers and all the nursemaids then vanish in the ensuing chaos. things are great. until stiofán's seventh birthday.

remember the english? yeah.

july 4th, 1724. stiofán gets a music box from bucky that year (okay his parents got it and then put bucky's name on the gift label and told him to hand it to stiofán) and it's custom-made. it's round and squat, a gold case with little clawed feet, and the sides and top are inlaid with bright blue opal with lots of fire inclusions. it only opens with a key, of which bucky's parents had two made they're also gold little skeleton keys on a chain for safe keeping with small blue fire opals in the handles, round domed ones, and when the key is inserted and turned counter-clockwise (you have to turn it a bunch like a normal music box crank to get it to stay open and keep playing) the lid rises and out comes a little rose quartz figurine of stiofán and bucky, as they look at ages 7 and 11, standing together like they're dancing but they're wearing adult clothes bc they're actually playing; bucky's figurine is wearing an adult man's tailcoat with a full skirt that's almost touching the ground and a grown man's buckled shoes, while stiofán's figurine is holding up a lopsided adult omega's wig and wearing a ball gown with the waist around his knees. the ball gown's skirt then wraps around their legs, but you can still see bucky's rose quartz feet in their too big shoes. the figurines spin slowly with the music, which is the melody from the song that sarah and winifred had already had commissioned to play during bucky and stiofán's first dance at their wedding, sometime after stiofán presents probably around age 16 his doctor says. stiofán has never heard the melody before. he loves the music box more than any of his other presents.

as he's watching himself and bucky carved in rose quartz spin, the party is crashed by the English!!! dun dun dun!!! the guests flee and winifred escapes with bucky (also his three sisters they were there too bc they whine if they get left behind when bucky goes to Ireland) and bucky escapes with the music box as well as one of the keys, but the entire ruairí family, all of Ireland's brand new royals, are captured and killed.

bucky is traumatized. he is now moody, sullen, prone to isolation, hot-tempered, and most especially hates the english. it is considered bad form for a person whose true match died to marry someone else but winifred and George reluctantly start looking for a new bride bc their heir needs to be able to have heirs. bucky grows into his bitterness and anguish instead of out of it, then when right after turning 24, he shocks the whole of wallachia by abdicating the throne out of nowhere, then he seemingly vanishes off the face of the earth.

he moves halfway across the globe to new york city, specifically Brooklyn, where he sheds his blueblood life for a blue-collar one. he fortunately educated himself in steam mechanics prior to leaving europe, so he becomes a boiler man at a factory. after a few months, he's out of money and his salary isn't enough, so he starts moonlighting as a bartender at a "gentleman's club" called the big apples.

which is where he meets steven grant rogers. 20 years old, a male omega, blonde, freckled, blue eyes, slight Irish accent, has lived in Brooklyn for 14 years. is 6'2" and built like a brick shithouse, does not look like an Omega. very hot. yes, exactly, it's stiofán alive by some miracle and in Brooklyn, new york.

one problem. bucky doesn't go by bucky anymore. people call him james again. second problem, steve was fucking 7 when he last saw bucky so he doesn't remember that bucky is a nickname and not his actual first name given to him by his mama on his day of birth. and third problem neither he nor steve look anything like they did when they were 11 and 7yo respectively. well, when you put a picture of 11yo bucky next to 24yo bucky it's obvious they're the same person but 7yo steve looked completely different he had chicken limbs and was too long while at the same time being very short for his age. and as an Omega in the early 18th century he ought to have ended up between 5'6" and 5'8" (no serum. he won the genetic lottery.) there is no recognizing Steven Grant Rogers, XL fairy punk who spends half the time in remarkably convincing drag, as Stiofán Mag Raighne Ruairí II.

steve is a regular dancer at the club, but he turns french tricks, too. he and bucky become quick friends after steve asks him to fill in as bouncer by the back rooms one night, then after the club closes, they stay back and get drunk together, then they kiss and steve goes back with bucky to his apartment, but they're so drunk they fall asleep the second they're in bed. they wake up the next day both of them still fully clothed and steve's makeup has rubbed off on one of bucky's pillows. bucky is like "hey no offense that can't happen again" "eh your loss." steve later offers bucky a discount bc he's got a crush on him and bucky says "I still haven't gotten over my childhood sweetheart so no thanks" and steve's like "baby that's depressing just fuck me" "sorry no" "ugh"

their friendship continues. they do not kiss again. does bucky mention what happened to his childhood sweetheart? no. does bucky still have the music box from steve's seventh birthday?

yes.

alas he never wanted to hear the song again so he sold the key when he got to Brooklyn. he keeps it in his nightstand and looks at it every night before he goes to sleep and the first thing he does when he wakes up is pick it up and hold it for several minutes of silence. unless steve is there. bc somehow steve keeps ending up sleeping at his apartment, in his bed, eventually just leaving much of his clothes and even his makeup and toiletries there. they do not fuck. they do not kiss again. steve tries very hard, tho. bucky is politely oblivious.

july 4th 1732 comes around and bucky takes the night off to be depressed. only steve crashes his own deathday party, guest count one. he's like "wtf are you doing why are you drunk in the middle of the day c'mon it's my birthday you're going with me to the theater" and bucky's like "absolutely not it's my childhood sweetheart's day of entrance and his day of exit I will do nothing but sit here and consume that entire case of whiskey staring at this music box" and steve's like "dollface that's depressing get -- wait a second" and he points at the music box "where did you get that"

bucky's like ??? "i've always had it you've seen it before" "no no, I've seen it tucked into the nightstand drawer before and it was not that specific music box it was just a random blue thing in the shadows now where the bloody fuck did you get it" "none of your business!" "does it still work???" "does it -- what do you mean?" "it's a music box does it still play?" "I don't know it doesn't open without the key and I don't have that anymore I sold it last year how the hell do you know it's a music box???" and then he goes to put it away bc he's possessive of the very ghost of Stiofán Mag Raighne Ruairí II but steve suddenly gets all angry he says "give it to me!" and bucky is very offended "no!!!" "james you give me that music box right now! you don't know what that is!" "I know what it is!" "it's mine!" steve declares.

bucky's like "..." steve says "that's mine i lost it when I fled Ireland in 1724 it was a present from my alpha's parents they made it for me special and you have no right to even have it let alone keep it from me, so give it to me now, right now!" "no..." bucky says "the omega this was given to is dead, the English killed him and his entire family!" "my mother and I got out" steve says "but I dropped my music box and my alpha picked it up and that was the last time I ever saw him or it" "impossible!" and then steve pulls out a gold skeleton key on a pewter chain, having sold the gold one it came with long ago, set with a blue fire opal in the decorative handle that matches the music box's opal inlay and the decoration on where the key inserts, and he's like "look see this is the key to it please give it to me where did you even find it???" "I picked it up" bucky says quietly. "where?" "when he dropped it" "then give it to me!" steve insists and he even tears up a little "I haven't heard it play in 14 years I don't remember what the song is" "does the key turn left or right?" bucky asks "left" steve says "were you sitting in your mother's lap or your father's lap when the english crashed the party?" "my mother's how would you know that" and bucky is like "dumbass... I gave this music box to Stiofán Mag Raighne Ruairí II for his seventh birthday and if that's you, that means I'm your alpha" steve's like "??? my alpha's name is bucky!" "dumbass! my first name is james my middle name is buchanan!!! bucky is the nickname you gave me when you were 2!!!" "no!" steve insists "no my alpha's first name was.... well it was long for bucky!" "it's long for buchanan and it's my middle name because you had a lisp and couldn't say the letter J either!" bucky shouts. "oh" steve says "that's true" "..." "..." "bucky?" "Stiofán Mag Raighne Ruairí II????"

they spiderman point at each other for like a minute. then steve's like "okay but I literally can't remember our song play the music box" so bucky takes the key and cranks it counter-clockwise. he hasn't listened to the song in like 3 years, steve hasn't heard it in 14. steve tears up and bucky kinda just awkwardly puts the music box down then takes his hand and his waist and starts shuffling like he's trying to waltz in his shoebox studio apartment, where suddenly they're the ones too big for the dancing scene. steve instead bear hugs him and kisses him. both of them cry yes. when the music box stops playing bucky cranks it again and they sort of just sway in circles for hours listening to it play.

"do you have a blue dress?" bucky asks in the morning "a real nice one?" "yeah" "go home and change, then come back here and we'll go find a preacher." "okay." so they hunt down somebody to marry them, and even though they don't have a chupah and a ketubah like winifred and George once wanted for the wedding and even tho they can't have a big crowd of guests to block the way between bucky entering the church and steve at the altar to then also rob him blind for the people's bridewealth as he literally fights his way through them for the chance to marry steve like sarah and joseph had insisted on, it's the perfect wedding for them. they don't have a honeymoon, they spend their wedding night turning the key on their music box over and over so it never stops playing.

"you know you gotta stop turning tricks now right" "ask me again when you have a bigger salary" "I'll just write my parents they'll be so thrilled I'm still alive let alone you that they'll dump buckets of money on us" "your... wait... have you been dirt poor this entire time by choice?" "..." "???" "yes?"

their first marital fight is fought with pillows.

[waitingtobebroken]

As promised, the next instalment of the Ineffable Meet-Cute series is now here!

Late Night Visitors (Rated T, 3.9K Words)

Summary:

Crowley has come to Aziraphale's bookshop, very drunk and very intent on seducing himself an angel. There is only one problem. Aziraphale is already married. To Crowley.

And just a taste of the fluffy silliness you should expect,

"Angel," Crowley whispered, more a sigh than an actual word. Perhaps, it should have been his first sign that something was very wrong with the other man. It should have, except the decades together had done nothing to dull the sheer love in Crowley's eyes, whenever he looked at Aziraphale. The warmth in his touch, in his gaze, whenever he reached out for him. So when his husband called out to him, voice soft in reverence and awe, Aziraphale did not suspect anything, even for a moment. He did try to put a stop to the answering pull of his own lips, clamping them shut, lest they let something equally love-stricken tumble out. He was angry. And he was going to be angry for a very long time. Or, at least, the next few minutes. He couldn't promise himself anything more, he wasn't that strong.

[yolyoola]

[xhellodollyx]

Okay but these scenes from Bride and Seed especially showing Chucky and Tiffany like a very real couple are way better than any scene written of them in the show 😭 and Don worked on the script for BOTH these movies, so what in the WORLD happened

[abyssalzones]

Hiii

Do you have any headcanons about Tate or Emma-May Dixon?

I have to admit I haven't thought about them as much as characters as I have in terms of their relation to fiddleford or ford's accidental homewrecking of the entire mcgucket-dixon family. I also keep changing my damn mind on things which doesn't help (so literally just ignore anything I've said before this point). but here's a couple:

emma-may was another student attending backupsmore, specifically a genetics major interested in medical research.

tate was a test tube baby

[temsikghosts]

Reposting my fiansissel design so she appears on the new tags.

More info on her bellow the cut!

Sissel had always lived with her widowed father. Her mother died when she was still an infant from a decease, but she is always wearing her late mother’s scarf in her memory.

Sissel was a child when she first met Yomiel. They both attended the same school and she always felt bad for him, seeing how he was always so lonely and was always being bullied by other kids in school, so one day she defended him from the bullies who were tormenting him and introduced herself. Since Yomiel never had any friends, they quickly became very close friends and they spend the majority of their childhood together. But then she had to move to another country after her father got transferred for his job and they were forced to separate. She gave Yomiel her late mother’s red scarf as a way for him to remember her until she returns and Yomiel promised her he would give her the scarf back when they see each other again. (You can read the fanfic here! )

She came back years later, when she met Yomiel again, now as a teenager. Their friendship still remained strong, but it soon turned into something more as puberty hit them both and they started to see each other as more than just friends. Sissel started to find Yomiel’s clumsiness and awkwardness near her really cute and she finds his intelligence to be very attractive. She is really impressed at his great skills with computers and she often teases him about it. She also became quite popular in high school, attracting the eyes of many boys, but she only has eyes for her best friend, Yomiel. She often defended Yomiel whenever a bully mistreated him and she suports Yomiel with his family issues and is always there for him whenever he is feeling depressed about his family, serving as an emotional support for him. 

Sissel knew of his troubles with his family and often tried to help him out. Even her father would help him sometimes, since Yomiel and his mother had finantial difficulties from time to time. The bullying he suffers in school didn’t help him with his mental health either.

Her friendship with Yomiel soon blossoms into a teenage love and they start to date as soon as they graduate from High School. She pursues a career as an art teacher while Yomiel studies to become a Systems Engineer.

In their adulthood, Yomiel asks her hand in marriage and she accepts, but her father gets really ill and dies shortly after, leaving Sissel in a state of deep depression, since she was very close to her father, leaving only Yomiel to comfort her.

In the bad timeline (the one in which Yomiel dies after being struck by the Temsik meteorite) she can’t stand to live in a world without the man she loved ever since she was a child and being in a state of depression after her father’s death and now Yomiel’s, she can’t bear it anymore and commits suicide to join her beloved in the afterlife, without knowing of Yomiel’s undead status.

In the good timeline (averted fate) she is upset to learn about Yomiel’s arrest, but she still waits for him because he is the man she always loved ever since she was a child, even going as far as to break ties with the rest of her family for disapproving their union (since Yomiel became a “criminal” for taking a little girl hostage, her family now hates Yomiel and disaprooves of their union)

But she’s still really vulnerable because Yomiel just got arrested, almost lost his life in a terrible accident and she’s still trying to deal with the loss of her father. But luckly, that’s when Alma kicks in. Alma tries to comfort Sissel when they met in the hospital and Jowd encourages his wife to get close to Sissel and comfort her in any way she can, since Jowd now knows of Sissel’s suicide thanks to Yomiel and he’s afraid of what might happen to Sissel if she’s left unsupervised. So Sissel and Alma become really close friends during the time Yomiel is in prison, since Alma is always there to show Sissel her support, knowing how much the woman is distressed about everything that’s going on in her life right now.

So, Sissel in general is a really caring and loving woman who loves too much. Her love for her father was so great that when she lost him, she only had Yomiel as a support and when she lost that support too in a short time period, she became so desperate that she didn’t see an alternative and chose to end her life and rejoin her beloved in the afterlife. She relies on people close to her for support and she loses that support, she is in complete despair. But luckly both Alma and Jowd supported her when Yomiel was in prison and helped her along. She also waited for Yomiel, just like when they were children and Yomiel kept his promisse to wait for her. Her love for him is that strong, though I still believe that if she knew the truth about that night, it could still stain their relationship a lot, since she knew him from childhood and never would expect him to do the things he did. (And that’s why I prefer her to never find out about it in the first place. Let her live in sweet oblivion!) ‘Cause like, I can’t really imagine a good outcome if she knew. She would probably refuse to accept it and well, when she is in the bottom of despair, we know what happens to her life so… yeah, I prefer her not knowing.

Since it is stated in canon that she killed herself for him, I always assumed that, for her to be in this kind of despair (and also for Yomiel to name his cat after her and be so desperate over her death) that their love started when they were both really young and has lasted for most of their lives. And also that she was already suffering from a previous trauma (like her father’s sudden passing) because for a person to think about suicide as their only option, they must be REALLY desperate and with no one to support her… You saw what happened.

[milliesfishes]

watching the disney robin hood with the foxes and ohhhhhh all I can think of is Billy in that sitch 😍

[pabotofus]

young and he fine and he tall and he handsome

[skyburger]

WHAT THE HELL NOBODY EVER TOLD ME TWO OF MY FAVE VILLAGERS GOT A LINE STICKER TOGETHER. ive loved tabby for YEARS like since 2019 at LEAST. and these stickers are from 2018 how did i not know !!! i love tabby and boots so much 😭😭😭 TABBY AND BOOTS ANIMAL CROSSING I LOVE YOU SO MUCHHHHH OOMFS FOREVER AND EVER

[laniidae-passerine]

I have never been and never will be my dad’s special little girl. I am not precious to him. I am his only daughter and he would have been happy with none. it is a grief that will always haunt me and the worst part is I am not the only one.

[carewyncromwell]

Carewyn felt like her heart was being squeezed. “Orion…”

She shifted forward and almost made to get off the bed, but Orion quickly knotted the bandage on her hand and clutched it between both of his. He raised his head to look her in the eye.

“I can’t act like I knew, or even thought seriously, that our stars would align again…but even with that…I’d imagined a life much better than this for you.”

Carewyn’s eyes grew a little smaller upon his face.

“…You thought of me?”

Something flickered at the back of Orion’s eyes – was it uncertainty? His gaze flitted back down to their hands.

“…Yes,” he murmured. “Not…constantly, but…the memory of your voice was very soothing, on the most restless nights at sea.”

Carewyn stared down at Orion. The faint shyness in his expression, for the first time, made him suddenly look just like that boy again – the bruised, scared, trembling boy she’d tended to and sang to sleep…

“I suppose…that was what I’d imagined, mostly,” said Orion, his voice lower than ever as he looked up at her again. “That you’d have married a man who you’d look after and sing for.”

~POTC AU, Part 2: A Maid in Bedlam

 x~x~x~x

Ahhh, my kids!! My pirate kids!! 🥹

Ahem. Yes, a while back, I did the top sketch as a “redo” of the original drawing from the section cited above, back in April...and I figured I’d not only color that sketch, but redo the other part of that original doodle, likewise in color! How much progress can happen over the course of two and a half years!

I actually am working on a little prelude fic focused around that fateful first meeting of Carewyn and Orion’s during the POTC AU, which I’m hoping to have finished before the end of next week. It’s been really nice to revisit this AU again after so long, since even if I’ve become more thorough with the AU’s I’ve written since, I have such a soft spot for both the time period and the roles my kids play in the plot. ^.^ I mean, come on, Orion was practically born to play witty (Captain!) Jack. 💚

Look alive, mateys! Have a magical day! xoxo

[windwakemeup]

Yet another self-indulgent wallpaper, this time of Gladiolus!

Shoutouts to Telvanni wizards in mushroom houses, gotta be one of my favorite genders

[petrichorium]

Was on the fence abt adding “it was an arranged marriage” to the bg of my ex fiancé jing yuan series that none of you will see for another two months when I finally manage to finish this svarog fic and then mao mentions arranged marriage w him and now I simply have to do it

[moonystoes]

How can anyone fumble this?