#went on here to get references and their post was literally the first one i saw sksk

[funnier-as-a-system]

Hey, um... This ain't exactly.. An easy thing to say but, uh..

.._I SCARED OFF MY HEADMATES._

I JUST REFERRED TO THEM AS "THE VOICES" BECAUSE. WELL. I DIDN'T KNOW SHIT ABOUT THIS STUFF THEN!! AND ALWAYS DISREGARDED THEM WHENEVER THEY SPOKE [THEY ARGUES A WHOLE LOT. LITERALLY COULDN'T DO ANY WORK FROM THE SOUNDS OF 0NI, D AND COMPLEXITY ARGUING ALL THE TIME-]

Ok.. Calm calm.....

So. I never ever listened to them and sometimes also arguing with them tried my best to ignore them.. Yelling "SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP" repeatedly usually got them to... Well, _shut up._

But just. We had another argument together. After _STARSCREAM_[don't even ask me how she got in here I don't fucking know] decided to act all mighty and shit another yelling match started that I just.. Couldn't take it anymore.. I had some.. Uhm, "quite the words" to say the least. They silenced for the day after that..

And then the next morning they just.. Weren't there when I woke up. At first I was, well, glad! It was finally quite for once! I could do things that normal people did! But uh.. After the second day it was far too quiet for my liking.. And.. It's been a month now. It's still too quiet.. Starscream[why HIM instead of others I have no idea] came back for 20 minutes a week ago.. I was glad to have at least SOMEONE back but she went away again..

I learned about this whole "system" stuff thanks to a follower saying "oh this is such a funny post as a system!" on a reblog I've done. --Which led me here. I've been... _Learning_ the past few days.. And. Well. Things really do fit me well and.. I'm not sure if I hate that or not...

I.. The reason for this _ask_ is because.. I wanted to know if others had this.. Well, "_experience_" too? Like.. I.. I miss them, alright? It suddenly went from 7 to 1 in here and it's far too quiete!!! I just.. I wanted to know if there was possibly a way to bring them back..?

I understand if this isn't the way to go for this typa stuff but... I.. I really don't know _where else_ there is.

Welp. Thanks for.. Having this account and all I suppose. Were a real help in things and, the posts are quite funny as well..! [Sigh..]

- @blog-bites-eats-u-violently

Hey, there. It sounds like you've been having a rough time lately. You have my sympathies for that. I won't give too much advice on this situation you're in – I don't feel equipped to do that – but you're not alone in this experience, anon. We went through a very similar situation a few years back, actually.

At the time, we'd just recently made our then-host (as in, the headmate who was our host at the time) aware that they had others in their head, that they were part of a system. We had... a rough few months after that, filled with fear and doubt. And at one point, our then-host became overwhelmed, and ended up driving away the headmates who were talking to them.

The silence lasted for about two days before another headmate of ours stepped up to talk to our then-host, helping them work through their issues and reconnect with those they'd run off. From what they can remember of the event, it was mostly a matter of mentally "reaching out" – consciously trying to connect to the ones they'd driven off so they could apologize. None of us are sure how it worked – best we've got is that we've always visualized our communication difficulties as walls that we have to get our internal communication/messages past – but it did, and we're all chill now on that front.

So, yes, others have had this experience before, and your headmates will likely come back to talk to you again. I can't promise anything, but if my-our story is anything to go off of, even situations like this can be recoverable. It just may take a while for all the hurt to be worked out.

[thebrookesnook]

Yeesh, imagine making an entire blog just to insult windbre and nii-sensei like talk about embarrasing yourself 😮‍💨.

It so obvious you're obsessed.

[youremyonlyhope]

I really should know better than to watch dumb romcoms while I'm 90% sure I'm ovulating.

This time it was Netflix's Love in the Villa trying to make me cry.

[niteshade925]

April 20, Beijing, China, National Museum of China/中国国家博物馆 (Part 1 - Dehua white porcelain exhibition/德化白瓷展):

Aaand finally, the National Museum of China/中国国家博物馆! I was lucky enough to see the famed Dehua white porcelain exhibition/德化白瓷展 here. Some of you may recognize some of these pieces already, since pictures and shorts of them have been circulating online way before I went on this trip, but there are many many other pieces too. The pieces I post here are only a small portion of the entire exhibition, so if you ever get a chance to see the exhibition elsewhere in person, don't hesitate. This stuff is amazing.

First up is one of the two that has been gaining popularity online, the piece named 神话 or "Legend".

The first time I saw a porcelain piece like this, I thought that the clothing part was made with paper? But no, the light fabric of the clothing, the hair, it's all porcelain. Keep in mind when looking through these pictures: every part of every piece is porcelain.

This piece is the other one that was becoming popular, the piece named simply 纸, or "Paper". If you don't look up close and see the glossy surface, you can't tell it's actually porcelain. I cannot for the life of me imagine the kind of magic that was used to turn clay into this

Anyway, this is a good point to introduce Dehua porcelain a little bit. Dehua porcelain is a regional specialty of Dehua/德化, which is located in Fujian province, and is known for its expressiveness and white color. For this reason it's also known in the West as "Blanc de Chine" (French: "white of China"), and this should be the reason why this exhibition is named 中国白, which basically means the same thing. The history of Dehua porcelain goes back to Song dynasty (960 - 1279), and it is still being produced today. Many of the pieces I'm posting here are modern pieces.

But Dehua white porcelain can be colored too (I imagine the color must be painted on later, because the white comes from the clay itself), and when it is colored, it looks like it came right out of a painting

This piece is especially amazing to me. Look at the texture, look at those details. Zoom in and you will find that there are actually a bunch of porcelain ants on this porcelain tree stump. Porcelain ants. I never expected to use porcelain as an adjective when describing ants. Wtf. It's like a manifestation of a scene from an older animated movie.

Peanuts are called 花生 in Chinese, which literally means "flower grow", and because it also has a long shelf life, it symbolizes longevity and a happy marriage. Also a fun fact: because Watson of Sherlock Holmes is usually phoenetically translated as 华生 (huá shēng) in Chinese and sounds similar to 花生 (huā shēng), you will find that many in the Chinese SH fandom refers to Watson as "peanut".

This piece is titled 春色满园, or "garden filled with spring scenery". This is also a common 4-character word used to describe gardens in spring. I'm guessing the figure depicted here is one of the flower gods. It is one of my personal favorites because of its superb depiction of movement, it's as if the flower god will really fly away on clouds at any moment

More depictions of traditional Chinese deities, specifically Chang'e/嫦娥, the moon goddess. That moon rabbit is too cute.

Depictions of what I'm assuming is the Four Heavenly Kings/四大天王, based on the items they are holding. The Four Heavenly Kings are Buddhist deities.

Look at her clothing! That porcelain is so thin it's almost see-through! Also is it depicting Li Qingzhao/李清照, the famous female poet from Song dynasty? She does have a famous ci poem that's about paddling a boat in a lake full of lotuses while drunk

The piece titled 锦绣前程, or "future as vibrant and prosperous as silk brocade". This is also a common 4-character word used in well wishing. The figure in this piece is holding a xiuqiu/绣球, a ball made of silk, which was usually seen as a token of love

Somewhat more modern-themed pieces:

Among the hundreds of amazing pieces, this one caught my attention for its unique texture. When everyone else was trying to turn the clay into these thin sheets representing fabric or paper or flower petals, this artist took the noodle approach. Not many visitors seemed to like it, but I think it's pretty cool

Piece titled 运势如虹, or "fortune like the rainbow", also a 4-character word used in well wishing. Traditionally horses symbolize vitality and success, hence why many people use the words 马到成功 ("horse's arrival brings success") and 龙马精神 ("vitality of dragons and horses") in well wishes during Year of the Horse

Stay tuned for Part 2 of the Dehua white porcelain exhibition!

[galactic-rhea]

WDYM Anakin is Luke and Leia's dad

I dunno if this post will reach the Star Wars fandom but I hope it does because I'm sure you all will get a good laugh at me.

As of recent I have developed a good hiperfixation for Star Wars, the thing is I knew nothing. NOTHING about Star Wars besides the fact it had aliens and...a war...in space? And funny swords. And main character is Luke or something, I spent over 20 years ignoring anything about Star Wars and somehow missing most references out there.

And recently, literally less than a month ago I saw a gif and said to my partner "oh this guy this guy looks cool, this gif looks nice" and he said "Oh well, he's a good character." And it all developed into me watching Clone Wars, the animated series you know and...and I was kinda blown away, on my opinion the show IS GREAT. And I love every character and their interactions, I love how much they focus on side characters, and they all seem very well written. I got hiperfixated really fast and saw Anakin and I was like "Omg, babygirl. He's a blorbo now."

And because of the show, this was super unexpected, but somehow I also got, really got, into the ship with Padmé because omg, cool woman. Literal happy squeaky noises of someone who was in a bad state and needed some good ol' distraction and comfort.

Now, like I said I knew nothing about Star Wars as a whole. And I still haven't watched the movies, besides the ocassional gif?

So imagine my shock, my surprise, my...bewilderment when I realized.

"Wait a minute, LUKE IS ANAKIN'S SON?! HOLY-"

Ladies, gentleman, and others, I think I came very late to this party and I don't even know how it took me so long.

Not only that, but because of this sudden love for the series, I went to my friends circle like "BESTIE, GUESS WHAT, I HAVE A NEW BLROBO AND A NEW FAV SHIP AND EEEP"

And my friends are like "omg that's amazing, what is it?"

I tell them, and of course they all know these characters and they all react like they know this very bad secret fact and I got told several times already "Please, don't watch the episodes 2 and 3 alone, it will hurt."

I feel like blissfully walking among rainbows and blue skies while everyone else know that my future is doomed. Somehow.

(Uncomfortable silence)

Not only that, but then I spent a whole deal of time thinking "Where the heck I have seen these guys" cus there was some fmailiarity I couldn't just point out and then one day I woke up, brushed my teeth and of all sudden I realized and it was such a shock.

Do you know how SURREAL is to get very into a character, and into a ship, and then realize they're the same from that super widespread meme that has been around for who knows how much time?

I swear I thought that meme was from some old medieval fantasy movies or something.

But alas, Star Wars now is EVERYWHERE. People do references to Star Wars ALL THE TIME and it's just now I'm catching them.

I got spoilers. From a meme. In a youtube review that had nothing to do with Star Wars hah. Everything is a spoiler, the world is an apparent spoiler. Now I'm here, trying to avoid spoilers from something everyone seems to know, even my family knows. It's so surreal and I wouldn't have it any other way 😂

Anyways, if you read until here, know that a wild ride still waits me, cuz I'm only starting Season 3 of Clone Wars and I don't plan to watch the movies until I finish the series.

And yes, I made this blog just to ramble freely about SW and draw stuff because it sparked my inspiration after a long art block.

Have this doodle I drew after watching the two first episodes, my offering for you reaching this far.

Note: Wouldn't Anakin and Padmé's ship name be Animé? Cuz that's hilarious.

[lactoseintolerentswag]

Rise Characterizations

Last month I did an in-depth re-watch of rottmnt s1 to take some notes on writing the characters of rise from their perspective and such. Figured I'd share what I found, but I'm also posting this bc my docs have a nasty habit of blipping out of existence.

We'll start with Raph bc he's the oldest of course, but I'll post the others sep. bc this is gonna get long!!

Raph Character Notes

Language Habits:

Catchphrases: "like a boss", "smash"

Verbalizes his attacks such as "smash", "knuckle sandwich", "power smash jitsu", "tonfa power jitsu", "mystic punch jitsu"

Uses older song titles for surprised exclamations or in place of cursing, most notably "jumping jack flash!"

Uses aave/bae, For example: 'em instead of them, 'ey instead of they, 'cause instead of because, forgoes the g in ing words (going becomes goin')

Uses less and less grammar the more he's stressed, and his voice will come to a higher pitch

Will speak in a softer tone to his little brothers if he's concerned about hurting their feelings. Aka babying them

Mixes up both metaphors and idioms. Would be one to say how the turn tables unironically

Does say "hero" a lot, lost count, especially in phrases like "hero town"

Refers to his brothers as "boys" or "fellas"

Refers to Splinter as "pop(s)" most often

Refers to strangers he's directly talking to as "bubs" or "hoss"

Personality:

Protective of his family

Plays up the hero act/has a strong sense of duty and justice

Impatient, rushes in without a plan (pre-movie), doesn't finish books until the end, falls asleep during "boring movies"

Oblivious, doesn't read into things beyond surface level. Struggles with empathy when something is beyond his understanding, but is still very emotional

Center of responsibility for his brothers, but also has a reckless sense of fun. As long as it's him doing the stupid unsafe thing it's fine

Carries the weight, in a literal sense he piggy backs his brothers, but will also use his body as a shield from danger. Unfortunately this also means he takes his brothers a little less seriously (Mikey the most common victim), and will try and either protect them from everything or as an oldest sibling everything has go "his way"

Doesn't do well in solitude. Needs to be looking after people to feel functional, and needs to be around people to feel safe

Clumsy, "takes horrible pictures", isn't very good at hiding, he's a big guy so it probably took a lot of time to find balance

A sweet guy who still won't shy from making fun of his family. Leo tends to be the brunt of his teasing since he is the most annoying, but he will also poke Donnie on his dramatics

Likes cute things!!! Has a teddy bear collection and loves animals. It's so cool how this isn't played off as a joke and he's still just as masculine for liking pink and cutesy stuff

Likes fighting!!! Gets a lot of energy out defeating bad guys (where he directs his anger towards), the one who is shown to train the most, and also weight lifts in his spare time

Doesn't do well under pressure, here the anger comes out the most. He gets stressed when it's all on him, especially since he tends to mess up the most in these moments

Miscellaneous:

Second to unlock mystic powers

Nicknames/codenames: "raph-a-doodle" by leo, "red rover" by april, "red king" by donnie

Teddy bear names: Doctor Huggenstein, Captain Snuggles, Cheech

Stinks: fear stink, amazement stink, sneaking up on people stink, victory stink

Seems to be less afraid of rabbits and more afraid of puppets

Went on his first solo mission at 13

Cannot lift a bus, at age 15

Thought about discussing fighting style, but I'm not as familiar with that concept and I've seen a couple posts dissecting such topic. So we'll end here for now. Hope this was helpful!!! I'll post the rest of the boys later and link here

Leo is up!!

Donnie is up!!

Mikey is up!!

Splinter is up!!

April is up!!

Cassandra is up!!

Baron Draxum is up!!

[szynkaaa]

The Shape of Monkey

EDIT 22/01/2025 @blackknight-kai has made some additional interesting observation about the shape of monkey and their fur placement with things that I previously missed, please check out her post for the details

xxx

Some of my friends were talking about the monkey design in Black Myth Wukong, in terms of how much of monkey features the DO/SWK has, and how we wished they devs added a bit more "monkey" ness to the DO, which then made me realize, the devs did do that, but just not for the "normal" game model that we use to play.

The anatomy here is pretty much very normal, the only few traits pointing at him being a monkey are his feet, tail, his face and his fur.

My friend (who doesn't even play BMW or knows about JTTW but is a certified monster fucker) said she doesn't count him as a monster because his shape is too human LOL

This is how he looks in Chapter 5 ending animation:

very human shaped.

which brings me back to the monkey that looks more like a monkey in the game

The Stone Monkey is a two phase we fight in the final boss battle, after we defeat him he breaks and out comes the Broken Shell of the Great Sage

After you finish the first playthrough, you get the Stone Monkey as a transformation, called the Azure Dome.

If you do the True Ending, you transform into the Azure Dome for the first time towering over monkeys and beat the shit out of the four heavenly kings and Erlang. Great fight 10/10

proprotionally speaking, his arms seems a bit longer, or least looks like it due to his big hands. His tails is also longer (don't have a screenshot of that unfortunately), and his ears are pointed. I also think that his mouth structure is a lot more monkey like with it being more pointed forward than his normal model.

Canonly, SWK can change his size into very big or very small, but I don't think in JTTW it was ever described that he had a Stone Monkey form. He is a stone monkey, or monkey born from stone.

I really love that the devs took it literal and created a form and transformation that looks like a monkey and you can see from his tecture that he is supposed to be made from stone

He punches people and also when he dodges he walks on all four. So I guess that is the closest to a monkey we will get from DO/SWK

Chapter 6 ending animation also goes with a more "monkey" like anatomy for Wukong's design

point ears, longer limbs, shorter legs. I love that they added the red face blush here too. His tail is never shown in the animation, but looking at his pilgrim outfit set and the pulge in his pants (no not that one), he probably hides his tail inside his pants. it's kind of a cute detail

The Old Monkey we see also has more human like proportions:

all the other monkeys in the background (beside DO) are more monkey.

Here are the models I pulled from the game

I also love that each monkey has a different fur "pattern", gives them more variety

This one we only see when you reach the normal ending, when the DO did not break the cycle and the headband is put back onto his head, we see this monkey in the fetal position and then it zooms out to the stone egg and sad credit song plays. You can watch the clip here.

I think it's clear that the devs are trying to show an unbron monkey still in the womb, the stone egg/birth stone being the womb in this case, waiting for the next DO to come and finish SWK's revival.

I guess the stages of growth could be like this:

Why did Game Science went for a more human-like approach for the Monkey in terms of design?

We don't know the answer, it was never mentioned anything in the game about it and I have not come across any interviews about it yet.

I do think that the choice to make the Stone Monkey more monkey like and the "normal" monkey more human like was a deliberate choice by the devs.

For the animation, I believe the Game science gave the studio some references on "hey this is how our monkey looks like" and then let the studio do its own thing style-wise, hence why in Ch. 5 animation monkey has a more human like anatomy but ch. 6 comes with more monkey like anatomy

My personal HC is that SWK has a more human-like anatomy to show that he has a high level of cultivation maybe? We have seen in the game there are few yaoguais that are able to take on human appearances, such as the Pingping and the 5th spider sister. And yes, I also hc that SWK does have a monkey-form too that he can transform into.

I'm really begging for Game Science to release an artbook with concept art and background info on why they did this and that

[landoslvr]

MRS CLARKEY | g. clarke

summary: a scroll through your internet presence as 'mrs clarkey'. [social media AU.]

pairing: fem!reader x george clarke

faceclaim: steph hui

notes: first piece for mrs george out of the wag universe. steph is gonna be the main fc I use for mrs clarkey, hopefully you like it! this is the longest one I've done so far.. definitely want to do a fic for their first meeting and for the useless hotline podcast- maybe even the ski trip!

liked by user, user and 37,923 others

yourinstagram happy halloween 💋💋

view all 281 comments

user you're literally so hot y/n

user I want to be you so bad

user how can I look like that

user jeez u flexible or something baby?

user the dress? the hair? the makeup??? unreal

yourinstagram thank you!! I did it myself xxx

user shes godly

user have fun tonight!!

user she's the only girl I know to have an impromptu photoshoot and then go out drinking

yourinstagram gotta take the outfit for a spin!!!

liked by chrismd10, arthurtv and 58,283 others

georgeclarkeey you should've seen the other guy!

view all 198 comments

user george wth

user its the vomit on the cheerleading outfit for me

chrismd10 looking good mate

wroetoshaw nice eyebrow....... eyebrow singular

georgeclarkeey yes I got that thank you

user AS IF Y/N FOUND HIM ON HER NIGHT OUT

user I KNOW!! I came from her tweets after everyone tagging this guy

chrismd10 you getting referred to as 'this guy' on your own post is so funny to me

georgeclarkeey well, you're huge aren't you?

imallexx loving the new look mate

user waiting for y/n to join the comments 🫣

user me too 😶😶

yourinstagram its great to know what you look like with both of your eyebrows george! a pleasure to have met you, despite the circumstances...

georgeclarkeey my left eyebrow was too intimidated by seeing betty boop in the flesh it ran away!

user my heart 😭

liked by georgeclarkeey, max_balegde and 37,192 others

yourinstagram went on the useless hotline podcast this week to talk about me saving the george clarke! thank you very much for having me boys 🤍

view all 302 comments

user she's just so pretty

user as if model queen y/n saved youtuber george clarke 😭 not over that at all

georgeclarkeey always a pleasure, you're welcome back anytime you feel like scraping me off of the pavement

yourinstagram anytime you need me, I'll be there to call the ambulance

user LOVE that coat

georgeclarkeey also feeling something.. or someone.. is missing from this post?

yourinstagram idk what you want from me here clarke

max_balegde ahhhhhh!!!!!! such a pleasure to meet the woman that singlehandedly saved my co-host from death <3 thanks so much for coming on, martini besties for life now

yourinstagram call me anytime you need multiple olives!!!

max_balegde three olives, extra dry!!

user stop I hope they all stay friends 😭

liked by georgeclarkeey, chrismd10 and 39,219 others

yourinstagram casual 'saved your life/face' dinner post

view all 331 comments

user nahhhhhhhhh because this is a date

user y/n looks so good 😭😭

user lets not ignore George Clarke wearing something other than a t-shirt

chrismd10 impressed you managed to get him in slacks!

georgeclarkeey your mum brought them for me

user THAT DRESS

user I just wanna be you y/n

user George has major cake its not funny

max_balegde literally should be criminal

georgeclarkeey you saved my life I am eternally grateful

yourinstagram 👽👽👽

liked by georgeclarkeey, chrismd10 and 40,938 others

yourinstagram visiting the mountain tops with some new friends x

view all 370 comments

user bitch we know that's george clarkey, fess up

max_balegde the love of my life really tbh, you look sooooo good

yourinstagram max I'll cry

user drop the link for the jackets!!

user that is george clarke's watch missy

user so you just so happen to be on a ski trip at the same time at george and his friends?????????? coincidence? I think NOT

user I know george is using ever fibre of his being not to comment on this right now

liked by yourinstagrm, miniminter and 59,902 others

georgeclarkeey there's 'snow' way it's this cold in the mountains

view all 286 comments

user Y/N TAKE OF THE SKI MASK COWARD

user we literally know it's her

chrismd10 handsome fellas

user literally just tell us you're dating guys

wroetoshaw high altitude my friend

user love these pics of the boys together

arthurtv distinguished skiers and snowboarders

charliehutchens really good ones too

user do you think y/n had to throw her phone out of her hotel room to stop herself from commenting?

user yes, yes I do

liked by georgeclarkeey, wroetoshaw and 37,981 others

yourinstagram out and about ✈️🗺️

view all 320 comments

user should we tell y/n that she posted a picture of George in the 4th slide and then proceeded to cut his head out of the 6th one????

user let her live in peace I guess

user wow no one is immune to stupidity these days 😭

user can't believe they took her so young

georgeclarkeey you're not getting that poster back

yourinstagram if you dont return my harry styles poster I will sue

georgeclarkeey I live with a lawyer, so good luck with that darling

user DARLING???? LITERALLY JUST PUNCH ME IN THE FACE NEXT TIME GEORGE

liked by yourinstagram, stephentries and 61,192 others

georgeclarkeey chris informed us that you all know we're dating so no more discreet photo dumps I guess?

view all 401 comments

user WAR IS OVERRRRRR

user quick everyone act like we didn't see this shit coming

user the way he tried to do her dirty in the last 3 pics but he literally can't

user she's just so pretty

user I wanna be her

max_balegde mrs clarkey!!!!!!

yourinstagram !!!!!

chrismd10 you're so welcome mate

user she's so gorgeous

user kills me

user george x y/n girlies won today

yourinstagram 🤍🤍🤍 love you big stupid idiot 🤍🤍🤍 once I posted the invisalign it was over..

georgeclarkeey guys gotta eat

liked by georgeclarkeey, arthurfhill and 43,938 others

yourinstagram casual 'I can finally post my boyfriend' post!!!!

view all 493 comments

user guys I love today

user this makes me so happy

chrismd10 the power of drunken lime bike rides!

yourinstagram thank you lime bikes

user the alien picture kills me

max_balegde can't wait to have you back on the pod as mrs clarkey

yourinstagram a promotion, for me???

user george is so cute, I envy y/n!

arthurtv it's about time tbh

user I've been waiting for this one

georgeclarkeey was worth losing half of an eyebrow I guess

yourinstagram maybe the eyebrows were the friends we made along the way?

[mujeans]

MY ONLY LOVE, MY ONLY ONE ✦ LCY

SYNOPSIS ✦ you and anton’s relationship through the years - because maybe not all love has to be young.

“if we’re both still single by the time we’re thirty , let’s get married.”

TAGS ✦ anton x f!reader, one-shot, angst, fluff, non-idol au, yn has mommy issues, slice of life, bffs to lovers, slow-burn

WARNINGS ✦ mentions of drinking at a bar, reader isn't really referred to as y/n or _, just "you" 😭

WC ✦ 4k

PLAYLIST ✦ only by leehi, still into you by paramore, every summertime by niki, toothbrush by dnce, bad by wavetoearth

AUTHOR'S CORNER ✦ was originally meant for heeseung, but i changed it lolz also ik i said i'd post it in a few days but i finished it early and wanted to put it out so i hope u enjoy!

13

snobby, proud, self-centered - these were the words that described anton's first impression of you.

he'd just moved to town, tagging along with his parents to the local mall when his mother stopped in her tracks, causing him to nearly walk into her. he looked at her confusedly when she suddenly gasped, and squealed someone's name, before she practically ran up to another woman, who he'd soon find out to be your own mother.

"guys, this is my old friend from college," she'd told him and his dad. "and this is her daughter," she said as she gestured to you.

you'd been few inches taller than him, so he was intimidated by you and immediately got the impression you were looking down on him. (well, you were, literally.)

"why don't you two kids go to the arcade? here, my daughter has a game card," your mother spoke as she ushered you two away whilst the adults went somewhere else to catch up. anton and you awkwardly stood next to each other as the parents left you two alone.

once they were out of sight, you seemed to deflate; the intimidating aura wiped and replaced by a more relaxed and amicable ‘you’. somehow, you felt more human, and he let out his own steady breath when you smiled and held out your hand for him to shake.

“sorry, my mother can be a lot to handle. you play DDR?”

turns out, you were way more fun when your mother wasn’t around.

16

holding hands was something you two did often.

your friends would often tease you two about it, but neither you nor anton thought much of it. it was completely platonic, right?

but nonetheless, you two were relentlessly asked if you were dating, even when one or the other was in a relationship with someone else. in fact, your closeness had led to your first and most recent boyfriend breaking up with you.

"can you believe it? everyone knows we're literally just friends," you ranted to anton later that night. "so what if we're close? he himself had his own girl best friend - several in fact!"

anton hummed to let you know he was listening, busy working on an assignment that he'd spent far too long procrastinating.

"i mean, how insecure can he be? is it really that unbelievable for a boy and a girl to have a completely platonic relationship?" you paced around his room, not caring whether or not he was listening. you just needed to get the day's frustrations out - and where better than anton's comfy and personalised room?

something about the hanging leaves, band posters, the warm lamp in the corner lighting up the room, it was your favourite place to hide when your mother would be in another one of her moods.

"i'm never going to date again. ugh."

"you sure about that?" anton half-heartedly asked.

"yes. if i have to sacrifice our friendship to kiss some guy, then no thanks."

anton turned to you with a smile playing at his lips. he didn't take you seriously at all.

"anton..." you whined. this wasn't funny to you.

"sorry, sorry," he said, but you could still hear the laugh in his voice. instead, he took your hands in his apologetically, the warmth a familiar gesture.

"if you never date again, then i won't either."

"anton, you've never dated."

"well, it's like you said. if i have to sacrifice our friendship to kiss some girl, then it's a no for me too."

he stared at you sincerely. you guys knew you both would probably still go on to date other people, but the promise felt real anyway. what with the way he was staring up at you.

"swearing yourself to celibacy for me? how sweet," you relented, sitting down on his bed, your hands still clasped in his.

suddenly, an idea popped into your head.

using your linked hands to pull him closer, his chair rolled over, knocking against your knees.

"anton, let's make a pact: if we're still both single by the time we're thirty, then let's get married."

18

graduation came faster than anton expected, and he only realises then that he's known you for five years now.

as expected, you and him had taken lots of photos together (wait, when did he get taller than you?), and eventually your families decided to dine together at some fancy restaurant after the ceremony. it a celebration of the two of you leaving high school, and moving onto the next chapter of your lives: university. something you were particularly stressed about.

"why is applying for uni so hard?? i'm just a girl - just accept me!"

anton could empathise with that sentiment - he'd been an exceptional student, yet his lack of curriculars had ended him up on three waitlists, and with one rejection. not to mention how complicated the process was, what with all the different requirements for every university. honestly, he felt like he'd been lied to by all those people telling him not to worry.

looking over at the parents busy in conversation, he noticed that the both of you had finished your meals already.

"can we go? i'm gonna take her out for a drive," he asked them, gesturing to you.

surprised by the sudden plan, you looked to your parents for approval.

"aren't you going to stay for desserts?" your dad asked.

"i'm sure we'll find something sweet on the way," anton replied simply.

"well, i'm okay with it," your dad agreed, looking at anton's parents who nodded back.

you watched him turn to your mother, a silent argument spoken through their eyes. she reluctantly sighs, a sign of surrender, and you cheered on the inside as anton pulled you away and out of the restaurant.

going for drives was something you and anton always did when either was stressed or upset. windows down and music blared as the sky turned an array of colours, it really felt like the movies in moments like this. you sighed contentedly, head propped up on your elbow as you stared outside. the wind combined with ONLY by LeeHi being the only sounds between you and anton.

"ah, i'm not sure if i can do this whole university thing," you confessed your thoughts. "if applying is already this hard, i can't imagine the real thing."

"it won't be this bad. c'mon, we'll be together, right?" anton's voice replied.

"always."

silence engulfed the two of you again.

"i want to do something crazy. something that'll make her mad."

"yeah? any ideas for this crazy plan of yours?"

"hmm... what about..." you trailed off, thinking for a while.

"what about a month-long trip around europe?"

anton's head snapped to you, eyebrows reaching his hairline.

"seriously? she'll actually lose it."

"not that she already hasn't already done so several times before," you grumbled into your elbow. "besides, i'm always sticking to her stupid rules. i just want to do something 'rebellious' before we get thrown back into classes and assignments and homeworks and blah blah blah..."

a pause. then, “let's do it. where do you want to start?"

"really? you'll do it with me?" you perk up, finally looking at him.

"duh," he rolls his eyes, as if you ever leaving him alone was such an unimaginable thought. "let's figure out those visas first though," he added as an afterthought.

19

2 Notifications yn : you free later this week? yn : feels like i haven't seen u in forever

anton sees the notifications later that night, and sighs as he pushes his hair out of his eyes. he takes a quick look at his monthly calendar.

to be truthful, the two of you had been swamped with finals and work this past semester, so you hadn’t been able to hang out as often as you used to.

seeing that the next part of his coursework wasn't due until next saturday, he decided he had just enough time.

anton: what about tmrw? 12pm at café bleu

"i was thinking..." you started. "what if we do another month-long trip this summer? like we did last year.”

anton grunted at the thought.

"honestly, i've stayed up countless nights this sem for this stupid assignment. i wanted to catch up on sleep thus summer.” i don't think i really have the time for another trip.

"oh. that's okay! we're both going back home anyway, so i'll just come over to yours like always."

"sure, if you want to watch me sleep all day."

but the way he said that - it was a clear no. he didn't have the time, not when he was going to spend all summer trying to catch up on missed sleep.

"never mind, then."

the waitress placed your orders in front of you, and the two of you began to eat in terse silence.

looking at him closely, you notice the darkened eyebags, the pale skin, the way he hadn't even bothered to wear a nice outfit. anton had been pretty cold towards you lately, and he felt guilty, but he couldn't help it. stress was a bully everyone was a victim of.

seeing the way your demeanour seemed to shrink, he was hit with a wave of shame and regret, and took hold of your hand.

"hey, remember that show we watched in senior year? it has a prequel movie coming out soon. we should watch it together."

you perked up immediately. "really? when?"

"november, i think."

he frowned when you faltered, but then you said something that completely sent his heart to the ground.

"i can’t. anton, i'm going on a study exchange programme."

19

talking to jake was easy. talking to him was nice.

in the three months since jake arrived from australia, anton and him had quickly become good friends, (although he would never be able to replace you). so of course he's sad that the exchange programme was coming to an end soon, and jake would have to leave for home.

however, that meant you'd be coming back too, and he was far more excited about that. the past three months had felt empty without you, even if you were a bit absent from his life for some time before the programme started.

so anton finds himself at café bleu in the same spot you'd told him about your plans, but this time with jake on the other side.

"we'll stay in touch though, yeah?" jake assured him. "i'll definitely come visit some time, this place is really great."

"i'll be looking forward to it."

"i think you're more looking forward to me leaving though, aye? what with your friend coming back too."

at the mention of you, anton couldn't stop the smile from spreading on his face. he really did miss you.

"yeah, she's my rock. always there for me - well, except for these past three months. hopefully you'll get to meet her when you visit."

"i'd love to meet the girl you've been talking about this whole time!"

"you'd get along well," anton nodded, imagining the three of you sharing a slice of cake at this very café. "hey, why don't i call her right now, and you can meet her? although it's just online."

jake nodded eagerly, "why not?"

pulling up his phone, anton quickly swiped to the favourites tab on his contacts app, and called you. after just two rings, you pick up.

"hey! what's up?" your voice greets him, bringing an instant smile to his face.

"nothing much, just wanted to introduce you to jake - he's the student who came in your place as part of the exchange programme," he introduced the guy, turning on his camera.

"oh, hi!" he hears you say after he turns the screen to face the other.

"hi! nice to finally meet you. hope australia treated you well,” jake starts smoothly.

"trust me, it has. everyone so nice and welcoming, i just love it here."

"sounds like you've settled in nicely, i'm almost sorry you'll have to pack up and leave again. but hey, you'll be back home and reunited with this guy, right?" jake laughed.

"well... about that."

anton knew something was up - your voice had that same tone as when you dropped the bomb that was you leaving for the next three months. just before you said your next line, anton felt his heart sink again like it did the first time.

"i've decided to transfer here.

"anton, i'm staying in australia."

22

once again, anton finds himself in a graduation gown. but for the first time, you're not at his side.

looking at the photos his mother took of him on her phone, he couldn't help but feel a little upset by the lack of you next to him. for the past nine years, he's never had much solo photos; you were always with him, sharing these moments.

but this time 'round, he's completely alone, and your friendship has devolved to instagram mutuals, reduced to liking each other's posts and reacting to stories. the thought leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

surprisingly, your mother still came to watch him graduate, even if he was only ever just her friend's son.

"oh, anton. you've grown so much since i first met you."

"thank you, auntie," he says awkwardly.

"you know, i miss the two of you. my daughter's all the way in another country, so i barely see you anymore..." she trails off in thought. in the past few years since you left, she seemed to soften up in your absence, no doubt missing you despite the strained relationship between the two of you when you left.

"oh! have you seen the photos? she just graduated herself last week," she fished for her phone in her bag, and began to swipe through her camera roll to show him.

"i wish i could've been there, but i'm not sure she would've wanted that. she's lucky her dad attended instead."

anton shakes his head. "not true, i'm sure she would've wanted you there."

but he wasn’t sure. have your feelings about your mother changed? or were you still upset with her? he doesn’t know. he hasn’t known much about you in a long time.

"i guess we'll never know, will we?"

swiping through more photos, anton's eye caught onto a few of them, where you were standing particularly close to another guy.

"auntie, who's this?"

"ah, him? why, that's her boyfriend, of course." she then turned to look at him oddly. "hasn't she told you?"

he frowned, and shook his head. he's a little off put by the fact that you didn't bother telling him, but then again. you two haven't exactly been friends in a very long time.

and just like that, memories of a pact resurface in his head. it was never going to come true, wasn't it? but if you ended up marrying this guy, anton could never bring himself to watch.

the sound of his friends' voices brought him back to reality. "hey, anton! come over here-" and he forced himself to shake off the thoughts, joining the group instead.

24

anton had been learning to live life without you for the past four or five years now. he had a new friend group, a nice job in the city, his own apartment, all without his best friend. it was hard to unlearn all the mannerisms he didn't even realise he had for you, not until he would get home from the grocery and realise he bought two boxes of sushi like you used to share, or when he'd almost bought a second, folding mattress for when you'd come over for a sleepover, or even just holding an extra hair tie or two on his wrist in case you needed one.

and that was all in the past now, he's finally began to move on from mourning the loss of your friendship. he only thinks about you once in a blue moon, and his life feels like it's no longer on pause.

but you were always cruel to him.

"wait, what?"

right when he'd begun to move on, you came back.

anton stared at you in shock; when he heard the doorbell ring that day, he'd never have expected you to be on the other side. an intelligent 'wait, what?' was all he could muster when he finally registered just what, or who he was seeing.

"hi," you say in that familiar voice of yours. and you almost sound out of breath, although its clear you hadn't run there.

he finally lets you in after a moment, and you explain how you're moving back, and starting at a local company. you tell him about life back in australia, the friends and experiences you made. you tell him about the past five years of your life as if it was just any normal day after high school.

as if you hadn't just completely left him on his own, his other half gone with you.

although the conversation is stilted and awkward, and theres a gap between you that feels wider than the distance between australia and home, anton's still glad to see you. it almost feels unreal, and he wouldn't believe any of this was real if he couldn't feel your weight pushing down on the sofa, or the very essence of you in his living room.

you and anton agree to get coffee some time after you've settled back in, and he asks if you need any help.

"yes, please! its like i brought my whole life from australia back with me, what with all the boxes i need to unpack."

and so, leaning against the door frame, anton watches you walk away again, catching himself wondering if it would be the last time he'd see you again in a while. he had to keep reminding himself that you were back for good.

"oh, and me and my boyfriend broke up."

anton sucks in a breath, and slips his hands in his pocket to hide the shaking. he wasn't sure how he was supposed to feel - angry? relieved? sorry? anton hasn't known how to feel in years.

"just wanted you to know," you spoke into the air, after you received no response from him.

so with an awkward wave, you leave him once again, with a promise to see each other soon.

27

"happy birthday!" people greet as they enter the bar, giving anton a quick hug.

"thank you," he smiles back. "wow, twenty-seven. i feel so old."

"twenty-seven isn't that old," you tell him, hugging him from behind as a surprise. he chuckles and holds onto your arms clasped around his middle for a bit before letting you go sit across him.

"think about it, we've been friends for longer than we haven't!"

"including those four or five years we barely spoke?" you raised an eyebrow at him, taking a sip from your glass.

"shh, what years? we've always been as thick as thieves," anton grins, pinching your cheek.

after you moved back, it didn't take that long to rekindle your previous relationship. somehow, you two picked up right where you left off, like there was never a period in your friendship filled with almost radio silence.

"you two," eunseok sighed with an exasperated but fond tone. "if i didn't know you guys were 'just friends', i would've thought you were dating."

"or married!" sohee shouts from somewhere.

you roll your eyes at your friends and coworkers, the guests. dating allegation were nothing new in your relationship, having suffered from them for over ten years now.

"we have been friends for a while now, huh? fourteen years is pretty crazy."

"i honestly can't remember a time when i didn't know you," anton agrees.

"being 'friends' for longer than you haven't is quite the achievement," wonbin remarks with a knowing look. "personally, i don't have toothbrushes and extra clothes at my house for my friends though."

all this talk of friends and friendship was making your head hurt.

"anton, remember the pact we made at sixteen?"

anton looked at you sharply, knowing exactly what you were referring to, but asking anyway. "no. remind me again?"

with a scoff and a smile, you said, without regard to the fact that everyone was half-listening, "when we promised we'd marry each other by thirty if we were both still single?"

clinks of glass and utensils falling around the two of you, your friends were suddenly more invested in the conversation, not even trying to hide their curiosity.

"you really want to talk about this right now? in front of everyone?" anton murmured, voice low enough just for you to hear.

you stared at him, and then continued.

"well, looks like there's three years left to our promise. three years left to run away from me." that pulled out some laughs.

anton just stared at you with a mix of surprise and uncertainty.

"well, i haven't run away for these last eleven years since, have i?"

whoops and cheers filled the bar; you yourself were surprised with anton's boldness and honesty. you always did wonder why he barely ever dated, only ever having a few flings here and there.

suddenly, you felt a little flustered by his bold declaration, and the implication that he'll wait out the remaining years.

"i..."

suddenly, anton's face morphed into a smirk as he took another sip from his own glass, eyes still on you.

"what's another three years?"

30

"ah, my mom keeps asking when i'm going to settle down," you whine to anton, sitting in his living room as you two share a late midnight snack.

something about it all feels nostalgic, whining and complaining about your mom to him, sitting in his comfy room (or this time, his apartment), with a vinyl record playing in the background. this is home, you decided.

what you don't tell him is that your mom had been more specific with her words.

(when are you and anton going to get married and settle down?? i want grandkids, you know!)

anton laughs lightly, feeding you another sushi. the whole atmosphere was quite domestic, and you wished you could spend the rest of your life like this; with him.

"some things never change, do they?" he remarks with a fond smile. and your heart melts a little.

(hopefully soon, mama.)

"isn't sushi a little heavy for a midnight snack?"

"well, it's not just any midnight, isn't it?" anton asks.

and he's right. it's actually a special one - the night before your birthday.

looking at the clock, you see that it's almost twelve, and you find yourself thinking back on the past twenty-nine years. anton's in most of the memories, something you weren't particularly bothered about. when you two spent that day at the arcade together, something about it all just felt right.

you've always loved change, always wanted more experiences. but one thing you wanted to stay the same forever, was anton being by your side. when you'd gone to australia, it was a slow realisation that some part of you was missing. only when you reunited with anton did you realise why that was.

the soft beeping noise of a clock brought you back from your thoughts, signalling that it was finally twelve o'clock. that you were finally thirty. hearing shuffling behind you, you turn to look at anton for the annual hug and cheer that made your whole birthday.

but instead, you watched in shock as anton sunk onto one knee, and pulled out a box.

"don't look so surprised, now," he chuckles awkwardly. "this was a long time coming."

"i know... i just. i didn't expect you'd do it as soon as i turned thirty," you laughed. "looks like someone couldn't wait any longer."

"can you blame a man who waited fourteen years?"

you shook your head before anton called our your name, even though he already had your full attention.

"my only love, i don't have to hide my feelings anymore. i love you."

with a deep breath, filled with years and years of longing, he finally asked.

"will you marry me?"

TAGLIST ✦ @yoursyuno @totheseok

[dixons-sunshine]

js read your shopping spree and dying for your haircut fics and omg

can u pretty please, with a bow on top, write another part to that series or like an au where they get separated at the fall of the world and a few season later (preferably that prison era of daryl he was so fawking sexy there like omg) they found each other again and i want some build up to their reunion yk like someone else finds r and brings them in and some ppl kinda chatting abt the new girl or wtv and dars not rlly gaf cuz he kinda getting tired of trying to find r (realistically i don’t think he’d give up easily but let’s js pretend yk) but then they see each other and they’re like omfg the love of my life’s here and safe and like i need that glenn and maggie type reunion but like tenfold bc r and dar alr loved and knew each other before the fall yk and like yeah😣

idky but i’m a sucker for “r and daryl had a relationship beforehand, got separated, and reunited” trope (?) fic, blurb shit and you’d literally be godsent if u wrote this oml

I Found You | Daryl Dixon x Fem!Reader

Summary: When the dead started to rise and the world went to hell, Daryl got seperated from you, the love of his life. After over a year of searching for you and finding no evidence of your survival, Daryl was beginning to give up and count his losses. One day, Carol stumbled upon a wounded woman while out on a run with Glenn, and the two of them decide to accept you into the prison. Little did they know, that would end up being one of the best decisions they could've ever made.

Genre: Angst to fluff.

Era: Prison, pre season 4, post season 3.

Warnings: Swearing, blood, death, mentions of attempted sexual assault (not descriptive)

Word count: 4.3k

A/n: Thank you so much for the request! I've decided to write the au since there's already a part three for the SSHD (Shopping Spree, Hangout Dreams) universe in the works, but this request was way too good to not write. I hope you like it! And I absolutely agree with you. There's something about prison era Daryl that just hits different. He was on another level completely.

As always, my requests are open for any TWD requests.

(Just thought I'd say that both third- and second person is used. I referred to the reader in third  person when Glenn and Carol first met her, but it soon shifts to second person when she introduced herself. Just thought I'd let y'all know the shift is intentional.)

—

“Okay, so I can't guess what you did before all of this correctly, but I bet there is something that I will be right about.”

Daryl looked at Zach skeptically as they trudged through the abandoned store, looking for supplies to bring back to the prison. “Yeah? Wha's tha'?”

“You're brooding, quiet, you like to keep to yourself,” Zach started, leaning nonchalantly against one of the shelves while he watched the archer place multiple different packs and boxes into his bag. “The way you act most of the time would suggest you've never been in a relationship before, but there are clear signs that you were with someone before all of this.”

Daryl stiffened for a moment, his hand lingering above a pack, before regaining his composure and continuing his task. “Wha' signs?”

“Well, for one, you know exactly what kind of tampons and pads to get for the ladies at the prison. I would've just dumped everything in and have them sort through it, but you are only taking specific brands,” Zach pointed out, motioning to the box of tampons Daryl had just put back onto the shelf.

When Daryl didn't reply, Zach took that as his cue to continue. “And while we're on the topic of periods, you seem to know exactly what to get the girls for the pain and what to do to curve their bad tempers. What guy would know that if he didn't have a girlfriend before all of this? And to top it all off, and this is totally unrelated to everything I just said, I've seen that locket necklace you keep in your pocket. It's pretty worn out and faded, but you can definitely tell it's something from this generation, so it can't be something that was passed down from a relative, so that brings me to my conclusion. You, Daryl Dixon, had a girl before all of this.”

Daryl sighed, shutting his eyes tightly as he willed the onslaught of memories away. Memories that were too painful to think of, memories that did nothing but remind the archer of his failure. His failure at finding you, the love of his life, after the dead started walking. A failure he had to live with for as long as he remained alive.

Daryl opened his eyes and turned abruptly, leaving the young man behind him as he stalked towards the exit, his bag slung over his shoulder. Zach hurriedly caught up to him, struggling to keep at a steady pace beside him as Daryl strode quickly, wanting to put some distance between him and Zach.

“Woah, man! Slow down!” Zach complained, jogging to keep up with him. “Was it because I brought up the girl thing? I didn't realise it was a touchy subject.”

“It ain't none of yer damn business,” Daryl grumbled under his breath, stalking over to the truck him and Zach were using that day.

“Daryl! Come on, man. It's not that deep.”

Daryl gritted his teeth as he opened up the driver's side door of the truck, throwing his bag into the back before climbing inside. He started up the truck and revved the engine, a warning sign to Zach that he was about to leave, with or without him.

Zach hurriedly scurried into the passenger seat, barely having time to close the door before Daryl started speeding off. He gripped the edge of his seat, sending Daryl an exasperated look.

“Daryl, what the hell? Calm down!” he exclaimed, unnerved by the archer's sudden burst of fury. He'd seen Daryl angry before, but it was never directed towards him. It was downright scary.

“'M calm,” Daryl replied through gritted teeth, his hands gripping the steering wheel tightly.

“That's what you call calm?!” Zach exclaimed, motioning out towards the road. “You're driving like a maniac! Slow down!”

Daryl simply ignored the man, keeping his eyes trained on the road. Memories of you unwillingly flooded his mind. Memories of your smile, your laugh and your beautiful eyes. Memories of the calm mornings you'd spend with the archer in your shared sad excuse for an apartment where the hot water was a joke. Memories where you'd both stand under the cold water of the shower, Daryl embracing you from behind in an attempt to make the cold water bearable for you. Memories of your loving touch on his skin, your fingers lightly tracing over the scars on his back as you whispered reassuring things into his ear, assuring him that his father's abuse had nothing to do with him, that it wasn't his fault that any of that happened to him.

The more Daryl's mind wandered, the more he remembered some of the bad memories. All those arguments you had with him over some of his escapades with Merle, telling him that it would only get him into trouble, flooded his mind. One of those arguments ended up being the reason he got seperated from you in the first place.

Merle had wanted to go do some drug deal and had barged into your apartment, practically dragging Daryl from your bed. You had begged him not to go, arguing with him that it was a bad idea and that something would go wrong this time. He remembered being so angry at you for insisting during that argument that Merle wasn't good for him, that he needed to cut back on seeing him or set some boundaries with him. He had stormed out of the apartment without so much as a goodbye, and now he regretted it more than he's regretted anything before in his life.

Daryl blamed himself daily for not having listened to you that day. If he had, he never would've been seperated from you and you would've been safe by his side. He longed to have you by his side again, to tell you that he was sorry and that he loved you. However, even after all this time of searching, going out for extended periods of time to look for signs of you, it was to no avail. You were gone, and it was all his fault.

“Daryl? Are... you okay?”

Daryl snapped back to reality at the sound of Zach's concerned voice. He felt a droplet of water roll down his cheek and he hurriedly wiped it away, realising that he was crying. He hadn't even realised that tears had started to well up in his eyes, so immersed was he in his own thoughts.

“'M fine,” Daryl insisted, wiping his eyes hurriedly as he willed the tears away.

Zach furrowed his eyebrows, before realisation dawned on him. “You did have a girl before all of this. You lost her, didn't you?” he asked sympathetically.

Daryl hesitantly nodded, swallowing in an attempt to get rid of the lump in his throat. “I didn't lose her,” he began, bringing the truck to a halt in front of the prison gates as he waited for someone to open them.

“I don't know if she's even dead at all. She's just... Gone.”

—

“What are we looking for, exactly?” Glenn asked Carol as they scanned over the shelving of an abandoned pharmacy, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

Carol sighed as she looked upon yet another empty shelf, its medical contents a thing of the past. “Anything medical. With all the new people we've been taking in, the supplies we have aren't going to be enough.”

“Okay,” Glenn drawled hesitantly. “But it doesn't look like there's anything worth scavenging here.”

“Let's just do a once over before we check the back. If there's nothing, we head on back. It's getting late,” Carol instructed. Glenn nodded, and the two of them dispersed to sweep through the small store once more.

“So,” Glenn started. “Is it just me, or has Daryl been more grumpy than usual?”

Carol hummed in agreement. “He has. He gets angry at the smallest of things lately.”

“Do you know why?”

“No,” Carol said, shaking her head. “I've asked him, but he won't say anything. Just tells me to mind my own business. It's really odd. He's more like he was back at the quarry. More closed off and snappy and I don't know why.”

“It's ever since he came back from that run with Zach a week ago,” Glenn replied, meeting up with the Carol again to go into the back room. “I've asked Zach if he knows why, but he refused to say anything. Says it's not his place to say.”

Carol frowned, opening the door that lead into the back room. “That's odd. So that means something—”

“Stay right there. Don't move another inch or I swear to god I'll shoot.”

Both Carol and Glenn froze in their tracks. They looked up and locked eyes with a woman, who's eyes were fiery as they darted between them.

“Names. Now. And weapons on the ground.”

“Okay, alright,” Carol responded, trying to diffuse the situation. She slowly lowered her gun and knife to the ground, urging Glenn to do the same. “I'm Carol, and this is Glenn. Now before we answer anymore questions, what's your name?”

The woman hesitated for a moment. “Y/n. What are you doing here?”

“We were looking for some supplies,” Carol spoke truthfully, eyeing the gun aimed at her carefully. “We're running low on medical things.”

After a couple of long, tense moments, with you scanning them from head to toe, you nodded to yourself after spotting something. Deciding to trust them for now, you slowly lowered the gun. However, you quietly hissed in pain, quickly clutching your side as you stumbled to regain your balance. After you steadied yourself, you limped over to your bag and grabbed a few things before handing them over to Carol and Glenn.

“Here. Hope these help. The place was ransacked when I got here. Wasn't a lot left to clear out.”

“Thank you, but we need more than this. This isn't going to last us long,” Carol responded, placing the items into her bag.

“No offence, lady, but I think I need the supplies more than you do at the moment. And I gave you more than half already. I can't spare more,” you said, clutching your side tightly.

“What happened?” Glenn asked, pointing to the your side, unable to stop his curiosity from seeping through.

“Flesh eaters,” you replied nonchalantly, shrugging your shoulders. “I was fighting a bunch of them when one lunged at me from the side. It toppled me through a broken window, and a shard sliced me.”

“Don't you have a group? Couldn't they help you?” Glenn questioned.

“Nope. I've been on my own since this whole thing started. I guess I should probably find a group, though. Things like this wouldn't happen if I had backup.”

You gingerly lifted your shirt, and both Carol and Glenn grimaced at the painful sight. The wound was deep and oozing blood. It would definitely need stitches, as well as someone to remove the remaining fragments of glass that still painfully stuck out of the wound. It was terrible. You wouldn't be able to get it all out without a professional.

Suddenly, an idea struck Carol. “You gave us some of the supplies you scavenged without even knowing us. Why?”

“Well, you didn't try to kill me, even after I held you at gunpoint. And by the looks of it, you guys have a group and are set up somewhere. Figured I should do the honourable thing and offer up some medical things if there's kids involved.”

“How do you know there's kids?” Glenn asked, confused.

“I can see the toys in your bag,” you pointed out, motioning to the toy truck that stuck out of the top of his bag. “Figured that adults wouldn't be playing with toy trucks while the world was ending.”

“Still, why would you? You don't owe us anything,” Carol questioned, though her mind was already set on one thing.

“Some might call me naive, but I hope that by doing some good in this fucked up world, karma will decide to do something good for me. That probably makes me stupid as shit, huh?” you replied, laughing before wincing at the pain that shot through your side at the small action.

Carol smiled at you. “We have a group set up not too far from here, at the prison. You can join if you want, but you have to answer three questions first.”

You raised your eyebrows at her. “Three questions? That's it?”

“Yeah.”

You shrugged your shoulders. “Alright, shoot.”

“How many walkers have you killed?” Carol began, watching you closely.

“A lot. Too many to keep track of at this point.”

“How many people have you killed?”

You hesitated for a moment, guilt creeping up on you. “Three.”

“Why?”

“Two of them were bit. They asked me to kill them. The other one... That bastard tried to rape me. I wouldn't let him.”

“I'm sorry,” Glenn said sympathetically.

“It's fine. I'm fine,” you waved him off, before turning your attention back to Carol. “How'd I do? Satisfactory enough?”

Carol nodded. “For me, yes. You'll still need to meet the leader and have him evaluate you, but I think you'll be alright. You'll fit in just fine.”

“Hopefully,” you laughed nervously, instantly paying the price for it with a sharp pain shooting up your side, making you visibly wince.

“Come on, let's get going. We have a doctor who can get that checked out for you,” Glenn prompted. He walked over to you and grabbed your bag, stopping your protest instantly. “It's fine, I've got it. One extra bag won't kill me.”

Together, all of you made your way out of the pharmacy and over to their car. You got settled in the back while Carol and Glenn got into the front, and before long you were setting off to the prison. Your eyes were beginning to droop, but Glenn seemed eager to get to know the new recruit better.

“What were you doing out there on your own anyway?”

“I was looking for my boyfriend. I was hoping that he might still be alive.”

“No luck?” he asked.

“No,” you shook your head, pursing your lips. “I'm beginning to think I might never find him, if he's even still alive.”

“Never say never,” Glenn encouraged you. “You'll find him someday, I know it.”

“I really hope so.”

—

“Have you seen that new chick Glenn and Carol brought back? She's a real looker.”

“I know, right? You think she's into blondes?”

“Even if she was, I doubt she'd go for your scrawny ass.”

“Easy, boys. She might not even be into guys. I could have a shot with her for all you know.”

Daryl groaned inwardly as he entered the cellblock. The new girl that Glenn and Carol brought in the day before was seemingly the hottest topic of discussion amongst everyone and he couldn't escape it, no matter where he tried to run to. Nobody, apart from Glenn, Carol, Rick and Hershel have officially met her, yet everybody had seemingly already formed an opinion about her. Although there were a lot of different opinions, everyone seemingly agreed on one thing; the new girl was hotter than hell.

Daryl was the only guy in the entire prison that hadn't seen her yet. He was out hunting when Carol and Glenn brought her back and he hasn't bothered to go out of his way to introduce himself to her ever since he got back. He'd meet her soon enough and he wasn't hoping to make friends with her. The more people he managed to keep at arm's length, the better.

“Yo, Daryl. What do you think about the new chick?” a guy called Mitchell asked him, snapping him from his thoughts.

Daryl shrugged. “Ain't met her yet,” he replied, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Okay, but have you seen her?” another guy called Ronnie asked. “I'm telling you, man, hotter than the sun on a summer day. I'm hoping she'll let me hit at least once.”

“How 'bout ya leave the poor girl alone?” Daryl snapped, turning to face the group that was walking with him. “She ain't even been here two days and y'all are already ogling her like she's some prize to be won. Have some more respect.”

“Jeez,” Mitchell whistled. “What's got your panties up in a bunch?”

“Nothin',” Daryl muttered angrily, turning around to walk further into the cellblock. “Jus' wanna get this fuckin' job done and all y'all can do is yap 'bout some girl ya dun' even know properly. I dun' give two flyin' shits 'bout who or wha' ya talk 'bout, but do it after the job's done. Y'all ain't free loadin' here. Do yer job, earn yer keep.”

“Sorry,” a girl called Ariana muttered, sending him an apologetic look. “What do you need us to do?”

“Take those planks over there and take em to the guard tower. Rick wants to fortify it and wants it done by the end of the week.”

“What are you gonna do?” Ronnie asked, crossing his arms as he sized Daryl up.

Daryl glared at him and squared his shoulders, looking down on his shorter, scrawny frame. “Hershel needs help with somethin'. I believe ya can understand tha' if the doctor needs somethin' done, it's considered top priority?”

Ronnie shrunk under Daryl's intense glare, nodding quickly. “Yeah, of course.”

“Great.”

With that, Daryl turned on his heel and set off to find Hershel. He didn't have to search far, however, because Hershel halted him before he could go outside.

“Daryl, over here,” the old man called after him, halting him in his tracks.

Daryl turned and walked over to Hershel, nodding at him respectfully. “Wha' ya need, Doc?”

“I'm sure you've heard of the girl Carol and Glenn brought back yesterday by now?” Hershel questioned, chuckling at the slight groan Daryl emitted.

“Who hasn't? Apparently she's really good lookin'. Her looks has been all people has to say 'bout her.”

Hershel nodded. “Unfortunately, that is true. Only Rick, Glenn, Carol and myself has had the pleasure of meeting her personally up until this point. She's a lovely woman. Had no problem that there wasn't anything to ease the pain when I had to stitch her side and she's more than willing to get up and start working to earn her keep. She won't be able to for at least another day or so since her side needs to heal up a bit first, but Carol and Glenn did good with bringing her back. She'll fit right in.”

“Good,” Daryl nodded. “She a good fighter?”

“From what I understand, she's been out on her own since the beginning. She's not dead yet, so I'd say she's alright,” Hershel replied, adjusting on his crutches.

“Alrigh', now enough 'bout her. Wha' did ya need me to do?”

Hershel gave him an encouraging pat on the back, confusing the archer. “You're going to be one of the very few people who gets to say they met the new girl for the next couple of days. I was hoping you could help her fix her bunk? One of the legs on the bunk broke and she's dead set on repairing it. She won't let me help because she keeps insisting I've done enough for her, so I told her I would send someone else to help. She'll be expecting you.”

Daryl pursed his lips but nodded, parting ways with the older man. He walked over to the cell that Hershel had pointed towards and stopped at the doorway, hesitating to make his presence known.

You had your back turned towards the door, hunched over as you inspected the leg of the bunk. You weren't aware of the archer that stood a few feet behind you, engrossed entirely in your own thoughts. That was, until he spoke up behind you.

“Hey. Hershel said ya needed help?”

You froze at the voice, willing the supposed hallucination away. You slowly rose to your feet and turned, locking eyes with the one person you've been searching for since the world went to hell—your boyfriend, Daryl Dixon.

The moment Daryl locked eyes with you, a whirlwind of emotions flooded his being. Relief, love, happiness, wonder, sadness, confusion and so much more that he couldn't decipher. Although his first instinct was to wrap you in his arms and never let go of you again, he hesitated, refusing to believe you were real. He took a step back, his eyes wide as he looked at you.

You stared back at him with equal amounts of disbelief. You took a hesitant step forward. “Daryl?” you whispered. The man in front of you looked slightly different; a little bit older and his hair was longer, but there was no mistaking it. The man in front of you was Daryl.

Daryl remained silent, his eyes locked on you as you continued to take agonizingly slow steps towards him. He watched as you stopped in front of him and hesitantly raised your hand, bringing it to rest on his cheek. Daryl instantly melted into your familiar soft touch, and that was all the confirmation he needed. Without another thought, he gently grabbed you and pulled you into his arms, tightly clinging to you as he pressed multiple kisses to the top of your head.

“Yer real,” he whispered, a laugh of amazement falling from his lips. “Yer real. Yer alive. Yer actually still alive.”

You laughed quietly against his chest as you held onto him tightly, never wanting to let go ever again. Your laughter soon turned into sobs, tears of relief and happiness falling from your eyes.

“I thought I'd never see you again,” you whispered through your tears, burying your face into his chest. “I thought you were dead, Dar.”

“'M here,” he whispered into your ear, a few tears of his own falling from his eyes. “'M alive. Yer alive. 'M never lettin' ya go ever again. 'M sorry I ever left tha' day in the first place.”

“It's okay. I'm sorry, too. I never should've asked you to cut Merle out of your life. He's your brother. It was unreasonable of me.”

“Nah, it wasn't,” he denied, placing another gentle kiss on the top of your head. “Ya were jus' lookin' out fer me. I never shoulda gotten mad at ya in the first place.”

“Let bygones be bygones?” you whispered against his chest.

Daryl chuckled before nodding. “Yeah, of course.”

The two of you held onto each other for a couple of moments longer until you pulled back. Daryl was about to voice his protest until you pressed your lips against his in an urgent kiss, wrapping your arms around his neck. His arms settled on your waist, pulling you closer into him as he kissed you back. There was no lustful hunger behind the kiss—there was only love and longing, two broken parts finally reuniting and mending together as one.

Daryl pulled back and placed his forehead against yours, closing his eyes. “I missed ya so much,” he whispered, willing the lump in his throat to go away.

“I missed you too. More than you even know,” you replied, cupping Daryl's cheek with one of your hands. “But I found you. I finally found you.”

Daryl leaned into your touch before turning his head to kiss the palm of your hand. However, he soon pulled away from you and strode over to your bag, slinging it over your shoulder.

“C'mon,” he said, taking your hand in his as he pulled you to walk beside him.

“Where are we going?” you questioned, falling into step beside the man you loved.

“There ain't no need fer ya to sleep in there. Yer gonna sleep with me in my cell,” Daryl said simply, pulling you along to his cell.

You giggled but said nothing, silently following him into his cell. When he placed your bags down on the floor, Daryl placed a soft kiss on your lips before stalking out of the cell.

“Where are you going?” you called after him, furrowing your eyebrows in confusion.

“'M gonna find tha' prick who objectified ya and teach him a lesson. Yer hot as fuck, yes, that much I can accept people sayin', but Ronnie implied he wanted to sleep with ya outrigh'. He's really gonna regret sayin' tha' in a few moments. Dun' even try to talk me outta it.”

“Hey, Dar?” you called after him, halting him in his tracks. “I love you.”

Daryl smiled at you. “I definitely love ya more.”

[emeryleewho]

My latest book is live on Kickstarter with a full cover reveal!

Here are 10 Reasons you should pledge to my kickstarter (or at least reblog this post!)

If less than 0.5% of the people who've bought my previous books pledge to the paperback tier, this book would be over-funded, so it's a very doable project but I need help finding those readers again!

I launched this Kickstarter because despite being award-winning and making impressive sales, I wasn't offered a living wage for my next YA book (which went to auction) so it felt counterintuitive to sell this adult book to a publisher that doesn't appreciate me.

The book is VERY queer! It's literally a drag queen romcom. Like, come on.

If you read Meet Cute Diary or Café Con Lychee, you'll get to revisit some characters you love in this one! If you haven't read either, you can still enjoy this one because it technically stands alone!

If we get enough backers, I can upgrade everyone's copies to include more art and higher quality editions!!!

Despite doing this entirely independently, the DDTO eBooks are MUCH cheaper than what's offered for my first two books by a major publisher, and if we get this Kickstarter fully funded, I should be able to offer my paperbacks cheaper too! More access, woo!!!

Helping indie creators achieve their goals is just cool. It's innovative.

The book has Studio Ghibli references and other nerd culture! I get to name drop Lil Nas X! It's just a fun time okay!

There is a nonbinary, trans masc character that I am 99% sure Tumblr is going to lose its absolute mind over, but WE'LL NEVER KNOW IF THIS DOESN'T FUND!

Seriously, let's just stick it to the multi-billion dollar corporation that begged me for my "Meet Cute Diary" sequel only to not even offer me a living wage, like how funny would that be y'all?

Anyway, we only have until Friday October 11th to get this funded so spread it far, spread it wide, spread it through the countryside, just help me get the word out pretty please? <3

[tomiyeee]

donnie had. SO. much concept art lol. i really enjoyed the whole design process though. his base design is very difficult to work with because of the battleshell, but it gave me a lot of chances to get creative and i'm happy with the results :)

(also as a disclaimer so i don't get asked about this: i don't have motivation to finish raph or the wish art for donnie, so i'm just posting what i've got)

i didn't annotate these as much since there'd be a lot to write, but i'll write out some of my thought processes and go into some detail about his final design below the cut if you're interested! (it's long. i'm talkative 😔)

1st row - first iteration; much more literal 1:1 translation of his design into a fantasy setting. very steampunk-y. ended up completely scrapping it because, simply put, he looked more like an npc than a playable character. obviously, several features did still carry over throughout the design process :3 also wanted to imagine his attack pattern cuz i thought it'd be fun to incorporate his spider arms.

this was actually the first design of any of them i'd come up with! i've definitely learned a lot about genshin's character design style since then and i think it shows 😂

2nd row - playing around with the idea of a floating battleshell (rather than a backpack-like one in the the show & first version), inspired by nahida's cape. also hard light constructs/attachments. was leaning too into the sci-fi and rectangular motifs with the design, but i liked the idea.

3rd/4rth rows - concepts for his final outfit and shell designs (the colored/more-detailed pics are the more finalized ones). took a lot of inspiration from sumeru this time around. it's a lot sharper, shinier, and less rectangular than his og aesthetic, but i think it's more in-line with genshin's design philosophies.

5th row - not entirely sure why i went through all the trouble of making a 3d model for this. i mostly just thought it'd be fun and good for reference. i was right, but i don't know what to do with it now lol. can't be bothered to be a perfectionist about it though, so don't look too closely at it 😭

6th row - incomplete thumbnails of his burst/wish art. not super sold on that "wing" design in particular, but i do like the idea of his shell splitting and deploying hard light weapons/rocket launchers/etc sort of like in canon.

battleshell/misc notes - i'm thinking his battleshell is controlled using the pink sensor on the back of his coat, possibly in combination with his headset. it floats behind him by default and is sturdy enough to protect his back, but he can also freely fly it around like a drone if he wants. the holes on the side are mainly for the spider arms and the banners(?) and handles(?) with the blue/pink gradient are made of hard light and only appear when the shell is in use.

i imagine like in the series, his tech here isn't necessarily very reliant on his vision/powers; much of it he likely made himself long before he received a vision and he just uses his vision to enhance it.

his burst is a barrage of missiles from his shell that lock onto an enemy and deal a large burst of electro damage in an AOE. not sure if i want his skill to be a deployable or some sort of electro-infusion/boost 🤔 maybe something that involves deploying his shell to boost his damage while leaving him vulnerable, like a glass canon? though i'm not sure he'd be that sort of risk-taker... 😅 dunno! his signature weapon would totally be his tech bo though.

that's about all i can think of. thanks for reading!

[jade-len]

i adore how mxtx sorta flipped the idea on the whole top/bottom thing with svsss, and just BL relationships in general.

making bingqiu very open to switching, not making the "bottom" super feminine and actually leaning more to the handsome side compared to the "top", how luo binghe is manipulative sensitive and cries easily, etc. one of the main themes in svsss is literally about sexuality (and possibly even about gender roles).

as a queer asian man myself, i absolutely despise the "yaoi archetype" and it was one of the reasons why i avoided consuming BL media. hell, years ago when i first saw heavens official blessing, i mentally groaned and went, "ugh, let me guess, the bottom is super feminine and innocent, while the top is masculine and experienced." of course, that's not the case now, but it's disappointing how that thought was there purely because of the god awful way fetish-y media portrays homosexual people and couples. because, believe it or not, we are not assigned male/female typical gender roles just because one likes to top/bottom (and even then, it's not even like that! some people have preferences, sure, but it's not so strictly "i'm top/bottom")

so, while i absolutely LOVE the english novel designs (especially luo binghe's cute curly hair, gongyi xiao, etc, and personally believe a lot of the takes from the western artist on the designs are an improvement), i am greatly saddened by people subconsciously assigning shen qingqiu as someone more delicate and feminine and luo binghe as someone super masculine and muscly. like, if you're going to have luo binghe depicted as the western design (i believe this stems from binghe being applied to more western ideals for men, and, admittedly, i actually really love his design), at least don't make shen qingqiu feminine and delicate? don't have his appearance play into the stupid yaoi thing?

i get that people have different takes on svsss, especially how the western version depicts it. but, people just... seem to very over exaggerate the top/bottom roles when it comes to bingqiu (again, these two are, canonically, VERY open to switching).

it's weird, it's uncomfortable, and it comes across as, "so, who wears the pants in the relationship?"

so, can we please have more canonically handsome shen qingqiu? canonically beautiful and pretty boy luo binghe (they literallly state that binghe looks EXACTLY like his mom, su xiyan! while a more handsome woman, is still very beautiful!! plus it is stated several times that binghe is slim, and that shang qinghua made him that way!) or at the very least, a BL couple who actually look like normal people (ok thats a little hard considering binghe is literally supposed to be perfect) and not just a stupid fetishized version of themselves.

and no, i'm not saying that queer men shouldn't be feminine or men who are feminine shouldn't be in a relationship with guys who are masculine, etc.

TLDR: please stop twinkifying shen qingqiu and going against what mxtx defied for us queer men (the stupid yaoi roles). and for the love of whoever you believe in, do NOT think that i hate the english design or people's personal interpretation of characters, i just hate the subconscious assigning of gender roles to bingqiu and how media portrays and fetishizes LGBTQ+ relationships in general.

edit: also i love teardrew's (check them out on twitter!) interpretation of shang qinghua. while i do really like the the eng novel design's tiny scared hamster vibes, teardrew's version just radiates "up to no good, paranoid but suspicious looking bitch" rat man and i love it so so so much. i'm not gonna repost their art bc i don't know how they feel about that but perhaps you can search up "svsss designs" on here, you'll see it pop up eventually lol.

edit 2 (1/16): i just saw someone reblog a post (that im pretty sure was referring to this one because, well, if you saw it i think it'd be a little clear kahxj) that was about how bingqiu switching and completely eschewing traditional top/bottom dynamics was a fandom idea or smth? so now i'm wondering, since i swear i remember that they were open to switching, but it's just that sqq preferred to bottom and/or was just a little too lazy to top. plus, sqq is a pretty unreliable narrator who says he doesn't want something one moment and then he does. how could he say no to bingbing? esp if he seems to wanna try bottoming too. perhaps i'm mixing things up though, idk? so if anyone can find that passage that says he only and strictly wants to bottom or whatever please show me! but i think the point of this post still stands haha (i wanted to ask about it, actually, but when i clicked on the og post's user it turned out that they blocked me ? so that was a little surprising oops. hey if ur somehow reading this, im... sorry for making you want to block me bc of this post? akdhxjj)

[mistydeyes]

a panacea

┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊

pan·a·ce·a noun

a solution or remedy for all difficulties or diseases.

summary: In pharmacy school, patient interaction was a core part of the curriculum. You tirelessly remember long, coffee-fueled nights going over your notes for each Professional Practice Skills class. The 141 boys make sure you can exercise these communication skills daily.

141's medical file reference

pairing: Task Force 141 x pharmacist!Reader

warnings: medical/pharmacy terminology, medical inaccuracies, swearing, depiction of wounds and needles, fluff, flirting, and mutual crushes

a/n: i'm an american pharmacy student so sorry for some inaccuracies about how pharmacy across the pond

┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊

As you walked into the pharmacy and began your shift, you paged through a few recent scripts and checked in with your technicians. Your graduation from university, years of clinical experience, and now your more recent military training seemed like a distant memory. You would constantly see a variety of service men and women every day without much thought. Yes, there were some repeat individuals but overall everything seemed to blend. 

Despite this, you still attempted to form a meaningful interaction with each patient regardless of what they’d be picking up. Doctors were constantly bothersome with questions about the recommended treatment and asking for a drug not listed on the formulary. Patients were different though, you would always try to have a friendly conversation and wonder what missions they would be deployed on once they left the queue. As you prepared to work through today’s prescriptions and tackle a new medication supply, you reminded yourself that today was filled with a new set of faces to meet.

price

The members of 141 were all too familiar with a distant employment in a foreign country. It was part of the job description, something you do without question. However, some countries had the luxury of also having medication to take for the duration of the trip. Malaria is no joke and you always had to ensure you ordered an abundant supply of antimalarials for the soldiers constantly going around the world.

Today was no exception, your new order had literally been flying off the shelves. It was the post-breakfast rush and you had a few boxes left of atovaquone/proguanil (Malarone). Although the frequency of taking these was a pain, you loved the easy verification and packaging of the box.

As you continued to provide the queue with their prescriptions, a familiar face and hat made its way to the front.

"Ah Captain Price, back again?" you grinned as he approached the counter.

"Back too soon," the man chuckled, the deep baritone of his laugh bouncing across the walls. "I believe I have a couple of things to pick up from you, love."

With that, you pulled his file up and confirmed his array of medications. Generally, nothing out of the ordinary you noted and acknowledged the new addition of Malarone.

"Yes just give me a moment," you replied as you went to grab his bag.

As the bottles rattled around in the bag, you took a peek and counted the correct number of bottles/boxes, and verified their appearance.

"Now are you going for leisure or work? I saw the newest order for an antimalarial." Secretly you knew the answer but there was always the possibility that the Captain was going on leave.

He let out another small chuckle, "I think you know the answer to that one, doll. Duty calls."

You smiled back, the small inclusion of pet names brightening your day. "Alright then, and I'm assuming you know the regimen. This isn't your first rodeo."

"Yeah, take one for the next day, every day there, and for the week when I get back." You hummed in agreement with his response and he gave you a quick thanks before turning to go.

"Oh but while you're here, any interest in some smoking cessation recommendations!" Like before, you knew the answer. This man was loyal to his country and even more loyal to his cigars. The air filled with the fragrance of musk and cigar smoke whenever he came in definitely made an impression on you.

With this last comment, he let out a final, breathy laugh before responding, "You are many things, Captain, but that's a fucking miracle I don't believe you can pull off."

soap

Infections were no surprise to you. Especially working in the military, there was plenty of incidence for it. Most of the time and even after the doctor patched them up and directed them on proper care, there would still be a select few that would return with an infection.

The rest of the morning was quiet, you were able to catch up on some documentation and had time to pop into the medical wing to provide your pharmacist expertise. That's why when everyone's favorite Scot came by to pick up his antibiotic you didn't mind the company.

"Hi gorgeous, I'm here because of some doc's slipshod job stitching me up." He beamed as he raised his forearm to reveal new stitches and a clearly red, inflamed area. You quickly pulled up his file and your suspicions of an infection were confirmed.

"Sure, MacTavish. I completely believe that the medic specifically botched yours out of the whole team," you sarcastically replied. You served multiple tours with the "guilty" medic and knew they were of equal expertise to you. There was a reason they were performing surgeries while you provided insight and the medication. "I also trust you managed to keep the wound clean and didn't do anything stupid like, I don't know, training instead of resting," you finished as you raised an eyebrow.

He looked like a child who got caught with their hand in the cookie jar. "Ah good one, Doc, I guess nothing is getting past you."

"Mhmm, I'll make you think twice about negatively referring to my colleagues. And again, you know I'm not a doctor. If I were, you know I wouldn't be so willing to stitch you up and send you on your way" you jokingly threatened. He shuddered slightly, he wouldn't want to imagine a world where you were his medic on the battlefield. But then again, his constant injuries would mean frequent visits.

"But I would get to see that gorgeous face of yours more," he joked and you could feel your face flush. His flirty antics and your eye rolls were a staple of this relationship.

"Do you talk to everyone this way?" you countered, "I bet your superiors love the constant flow of compliments and just blush at your tone."

"Oh yes, they do. My Lieutenant turns into a giggling mess underneath his mask. Do you know he's bloody handsome under that? You should try flooding him with pet names and admiration to see for yourself." He responded, a clear sarcasm in his voice evident even with his familiar accent.

"Will do, MacTavish. Now will you let me get your medication so I can return you to your loverboy?"

"Of course, Captain" he saluted exaggeratedly as you walked to the rows of shelves.

You opened the bag and then placed the verified medication into his hand. "You know the routine and for the love of God, please finish the amount in here. I don't want to be seeing another order for Augmentin from you any time soon!"

"Yes, love, but nothing can stop this machine from gathering more illnesses and wounds requiring your expert care." You rolled your eyes as he explained and gave a cocky gesture showcasing his chiseled injured body.

"Don't mess with me, you know I can easily sneak my way into the med ward and make sure you go nighty-night." You were bluffing, the Hippocratic oath painfully engraved in your mind. But it didn't hurt to joke back.

"Oh I'll be sure to watch out for you, scary legal drug dealer." With this last jab, he walked out and left you chuckling to yourself at his antics.

gaz

The flowers and trees were in full bloom around the base. It reminded you of the days studying outside and crying over learning your Year 2 immunology coursework. However, just like immunology, pollen just made your job more difficult. It seemed like the scripts for nasal sprays and allergy medication were endless. Day after day you would go to work with your technician as you helped their workload by filling the myriad of prescriptions.

Following the quiet lunch hour, the pharmacy quickly became flooded with people. As a younger soldier presented to your counter, you could immediately guess what they were here for.

Although he was not one of your repeat offenders, his watery eyes and the constant flow of sniffles made it clear that he was another victim of the unrelenting pollen.

“Garrick, Kyle,” he said and you couldn’t help but feel bad for him as he stood there a sniffling mess. You typed his name in and checked his credentials as he turned to sneeze.

“Ah yes, you have a nasal spray and another prescription here. Just give me a moment.” You walked away from the counter as you heard him chuckle and call out, “You wouldn’t happen to have a panacea back there would you?”

“Unfortunately I do not,” you said and frowned upon your return, “But just take these once a day with water and use the nasal spray as needed. One puff in each nose should do the trick and don’t forget to shake it!” You explained. Holding the small container of pills you noted, "Plus this is Piriteze, so you won't feel tired after taking but I usually recommend taking a half hour before you know you're going outside or having any interaction with pollen."

He nodded in agreement and took out a tissue to blow his nose for the hundredth time today. This action didn't relieve his congestion. Allergies were really the bane of everyone's existence and you felt for him as he let out a couple of sneezes and apologized.

As he took the bag you gently said, “Sometimes something spicy really clears everything out. Spice has the benefit of being both delicious and working as a decongestant. You’ll definitely need some tissues but it’s worth it in my opinion.” With that, you offered a wink and sent him on his way.

"You're truly an angel. I'll be sure to update you, love," he beamed at you with a dashing smile. You would be flattered if it had not been for his subsequent barrage of sneezes.

A few days later, a pleased Gaz returned to you and explained your life hack had worked. One half bottle of hot sauce later and he had been congestion free. Brushing your astonishment at his spice tolerance aside, you explained that it had been just the medicine. However, Gaz would soon be giving everyone an earful of your non-conventional methods. Although his mates constantly joked about the image of him drowning in snot (a picture gracefully captured by Soap), he was thankful for you, the pretty pharmacist, and the help.

ghost

You could feel the headache forming from the fluorescent lights and the busy day you were currently having. This morning new missions called for you to enforce the regimen of taking antimalarials and in the afternoon, returning soldiers required pain medication and antibiotics (although you were thankful these were tablets and not through IVs). However, this was no challenge to you and you were further encouraged by the recent positive interactions you’d been having.

Just as you stepped away for a water break, your desktop notified you of a patient awaiting their prescription. You sighed and walked over to see the patient file as well as what medication they’d be receiving today.

You read the name carefully and slowly, partially because of your tiredness as well as your irrational fear of giving the patient the wrong medication.

“Riley, Simon” you mumbled and kept repeating the name as you walked amongst the rows of bags to retrieve the medication.

Just some routine painkillers. You examined the container to verify the oval, white pills of paracetamol.

As you notified the waiting soldier, your computer showed a reminder that they were due for a flu shot. You smiled, immunizations were often done routinely through a clinic but sometimes, you would get a break from your day and be able to administer one.

You acknowledged the reminder just as the soldier walked up. Tall, brooding, and donning a unique balaclava, you presumed this was Simon Riley. Your earlier conversation with Soap made you realize that this was the man who put up with all of his antics. You wondered if the paracetamol was for an injury or his raging headache from his Sergeant.

Recognizing his rank, you greeted him warmly and went to verify his patient credentials. He was a quiet man, only replying to your necessary prompts. This further added evidence that the medication was because of Soap, the chatterbox that he is. As you handed over his prescription, you let him know the bad news.

“Unfortunately, you are due for a flu shot but I can have you out of here in less than 15 minutes if you’d like?” you smiled, "or you could always just have me refer you out to get it while you're on leave."

"I'll do it now, don't know the next time I'd be returning," he spoke lowly. You wondered where he would be off to next as he pocketed the medication and nodded in agreement.

You motioned for him to sit in the designated area and prepared the necessary materials. As you walked over to the vaccine area now occupied by the large man, you positioned yourself to the side of him. You performed your typical routine of verifying the prescription and noting the necessary numbers before you felt the need to break the silence.

“You know, I used to be terrified of these as a child. I hope you didn’t have the same experience, Lieutenant,” you chuckled as you began to clean his bicep. You admired the tattoo on his right arm, so intricate and beautiful.

“I’ve had much worse, trust me,” he replied and you could almost hear the smile in his voice. Well, I guess the man of few words has a sense of humor.

“That’s good to hear! You wouldn’t imagine the number of recruits that squirm even before I’ve begun to prep their arm. I thought all that training taught you guys to be tough.” With this, you both laughed and you began to position your hand ensuring the needle was going into the proper area.

You felt him slightly tense under your touch but you gave him a reassuring pat on the hand. You knew as a child that the best way was to finish the vaccine before they even had time to react.

“You can hold my hand if you’d like,” you joked, not realizing that he was pink under his mask. "Or you could be a good little soldier and I might give you a lolly" you continued further, teasing the man. He was so glad to have the safety of concealment as you were really rubbing it in. He waved you off with his other hand and you went about a quick administration.

“See that’s not so bad,” you smiled and you went to apply a bandage. Unfortunately, you realized you were out of your typical issued bandaids and quickly grabbed a colorful, neon star one.

He glanced down and responded with a low, “What the hell is that?”

“I’m sorry it’s the only one I have at the moment, but you should be able to take it off before bed tonight!” you apologized and you fastened it onto his strong bicep.

Little did you know that your small talk and neon bandage had endeared you to the Lieutenant. Your reassuring touch and soft actions made him believe you’d be a better fit for a position in pediatrics than here. Although he would have to explain the ridiculous stars, he found himself wanting to get all of his vaccines from you.

┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊

first time writing and posting here in like forever! hope you enjoyed this mw2 content :)

[ladyofthebookcase]

i need to yap about cultural nudity in nine sols NOW. context for new followers is that i watched kill la kill this summer and really enjoyed it and the commentary it made on nudity and the desexualization of the naked body. not sure how i want to structure this so i'll just kind of block it out based on the three main characters that are relevant to this. also when i say "the text" i mean the game of nine sols as a piece of media, like how english majors would refer to the book or movie they're studying. im not an english major but i could be.

goumang: my initial reaction to seeing her was to be like "huh she's not wearing any pants that's weird", followed by "well that's probably normal for solarians, they're cat people after all so it's probably less of a big deal in their culture" and then i just didn't care about it for like the rest of the game until i replayed it and got to her again and went "oh that's right, no one else has their pussy out like that. i guess that's just a goumang thing?" and, while i think it IS probably just a goumang thing to some extent (see the post about her being pussy out because of furgonomics basically/it's comfortable for her bird legs), an interesting thing to note here is yi's complete lack of reaction to it. goumang doesn't interact with any other characters in this outfit (the jiangshi don't count cus they can say like 2 words ok), and it could be argued that yi simply has bigger priorities/is not into women, but i do think it's notable nonetheless that literally zero acknowledgement is made to the fact that goumang is just walking around pussy out. not even non-diagetic elements interact with that at all; she's never censored in her manga cutscenes or posed in a way that either hides or exposes her. what this means is that her nudity isn't really treated like nudity. the text completely ignores it! now, we also know from a dev comment that solarians are matriarchal, which i think definitely ties into the different treatment of goumang and jiequan in this regard (i.e. why he's censored and she's not, from an in-world perspective, probably is similar to the way "women's" chests are censored in our world, although non-diagetically we know why he's censored lmao.)

jiequan: ok hmm. i'm no jiegolar, so i'm open to input on this one, but the element here i find significant is that jiequan is seen interacting with another person (aside from yi) while being naked. the fact that ji is hidden behind a screen is most likely just to obscure their identity (specifically his tall form) from the viewer, since they don't seem to have a problem also going around essentially pussy out the entire game; this is to say, it's not because jiequan is naked. i will say that the jiequan naked scenes have quite a different Vibe than the goumang and lady e scenes (no seriouesly why is that one cutscene so sexually charged help) but i think it's reasonable to chalk that up to 1) jiequan is a freak and 2) he's obsessed with yi so that changes the overall vibe of their interactions as opposed to, say, goumang. yeah i don't really know what i'm saying on this topic i don't have enough jiequan brainrot experience for this really. it does kind of give the vibe of like an emperor chilling in the nude in his palace and he's allowed to do that because he's the emperor though.

hm. yeah let's move onto something i've thought a bit more about.

lady ethereal: now THIS is really interesting to me for a few reasons, the first of which being that yeah, she's hot, and the game treats her as such! and yet at the same time it doesn't oversexualise her, or portray her as attractive at the expense of her personality. in fact, once again yi makes zero acknowledgement of her nudity-- his focus is on her, and that something strange is happening to her. yi also shows no discomfort or shame about entering the hot spring-- there's no "wait, you want me to get naked?!?!?!" moment that some media might have had, and i think that's really good not only because im a sucker for different cultural and hypothetical-cultural interpretations of nonsexual nudity, but also because a moment like that would have been cheesy and annoying and made the scene less serious. the focus of that scene ISN'T that the hot lynx woman is hot, it's that there is something mentally wrong with the hot lynx woman. the fact that these scenes take place at a hot spring without the text ever interacting with the nudity of the characters is to me a really strong argument for the idea that nudity is fairly normal and definitely not inherently sexual for solarians. the idea that it is inherently sexual is a very historically recent and western thing anyway and maybe i just haven't consumed enough media where it's not portrayed that way but i found this portrayal really refreshing ESPECIALLY WHEN ITS WOMEN ok this isn't even in a gay way i literally don't care about bodies like that. i dont having sex. i just think it's really really refreshing and nice for women to be, like, able to have these kind of scenes and character moments without the text reducing the entire scene to "ohh look boobies lol". without them being censored or hypersexualised or made into a joke. rips off shirt to reveal a tattoo on my bare chest that says "I FEEL STRONGLY ABOUT AFAB BODIES BEING TREATED LIKE THEY'RE INHERENTLY SEXUAL AND THE STRONG EMOTION I FEEL ABOUT THIS IS THAT IT FUCKING SUCKS". thank you for reading my essay.

[thecapricunt1616]

BlueBell (c.b. one-shot)

𝓢𝓷𝓲𝓹𝓹𝓮𝓽 (𝓶𝓸𝓻𝓮 𝓑𝓣𝓒): When Mikey killed himself.. it was easy to say you were a mess. Mikey was the one who coaxed you through Carmys leaving, letting you know it was ok, that he was just ‘bein’ a lil’ bitch’ and he’d come to his senses soon enough. But he didn’t. And Mikey got sicker. And no matter how much you tried, how many times you called Carmy after a hard shift, or after stumbling into Mikey in the back freezer with a fucking disposable tourniquet tied around his arm, nodding off, begging Carmy to come home through your tears. Pleading, sobbing into the phone for minutes at a time that his brother was fucking killing himself - you never got a call back. 

♡ O/S Inspo: Bluebell - Luck, truth and friendship. Incorporate into rituals to comfort those left behind and ease their sorrow. ♡ Summary: Your childhood best friend comes back to Chicago to take over the restaurant that had caused a rift in your friendship, and wants to make it better. ♡ W/C: 4.6K ♡ Posted Date: 05/26/2024 ♡ A/N: Heyyyyy!! Here is my technically second request for my 200 follower celebration that can be found ♡ Here ♡ based on this request from an anon :) please get your requests in folks! This celebration will be running Today (05/26/24) to next Sunday 06/02/24! I am still working on my first request (First date w/ Carmy) the writing bug just bit me in the butt for this one and I haven't ever written for childhood best friend Carmy it was very fun!!! Anyhoot- I hope you enjoy :D ♡ Warnings for BTC: Angsty (but comfort too!) Not edited, No use of y/n (reader is referred to as 'squish'), No use of skin colors / descriptions for reader (pics are for purely vibes!), Typical TW's that come w/ TB (speaking of suicide and all that), reader feels nauseous but never throws up!oh and not all that edited woopsieee haha sorry yall know the drill btp

♡ 𝐌𝐲 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐬 ♡ ➵ 𝐂𝐡𝐞𝐜𝐤 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐦𝐲 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭 ♡ ➵ 𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐲 𝐨𝐧𝐞-𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐭 𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐚𝐠𝐞 ♡ ➵ 𝘊𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘬 𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 / 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘵 ♡ ➵ 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐬 ♡

You had known Carmy a long time. Too long, was what you’d have said when he first moved back to Chicago. He kept in touch with you up until he left, and then it was simply every time your google search alert went off, you got a warmth in your chest knowing he’d accomplished something else. 

It felt strange, not talking to him every day. You'd had a huge fight before he’d ran off to Paris all alone. That was what baffled you, Carmy and alone - didn’t go in the same sentence usually. All middle school, all high school - he was glued to your side. Any time he needed a new assignment because he lost his, you’d go up for him and ask the teacher for a new one. When he needed to return an overdue library book, you’d face the librarian, claiming he’d forgot it at your house and you were too lazy to bring it in until then. Even going up in the fucking lunch line - he literally gave you his lunch pin so he didn’t have to face anyone unnessisarily. 

He’d meet you in the back of the football bleachers, cigarette between his lips that he’d throw out as soon as he saw you (he took to heart how you despised the habit- and he strongly disliked disappointing you) but with a mother, older brother, father, and older sister that smoked nearly a pack a day? He was doomed to pick it up himself. 

“I heard this mornin’ it was-“ 

“Chicken patty’s” you grimace handing him over the foil covered sandwich. “I didn’t get the fries - the geese are gonna have heart failure cus’a’you” you teased, opening your own and digging the 6 crumpled ketchup packets from your pocket, handing him 2 (you got the extra to wolf down the public school garbage because you made the walk up to the line, and all the way outside for him) 

“They deserve a little happiness y’know?! N-no worse than bread- vegetables are healthy!” He teased, taking the sandwich and muttering a little “Ugh” as he unwrapped it and smeared the 2 packets under the bun before closing it. “After school you wanna go T-T’the restaurant w’me?” He took a big bite. It was shit but it was something that got us through the grueling, sticky Chicago spring schoolday. 

“Mmhm” you hummed “parents outta town- Y’can sleep over if you want after. “ you nudge his hip with your own playfully. He’d been content with staying home lately, for whatever reason, but you wanted your Carmy time back. You’d figured you’d give it one more try 

“Uh-“ he started and you took a deep breath, eyes fixed on your dirty old black and white converse “N-Nat needs help w-with-“ 

“Save it” you snip, leaning against the bleachers and staring out at the pond next to the soccer field. He’d been doing this for the past months, when he used to be at your house every day, making up stupid games together and showing you how to cook his family's favorite recipes- lately, he’d just been going straight home after school and didn’t tell you why. 

“H-Hey-“ he reached out, touching your arm gently and you jerked it away. While his touch used to be comforting, now it felt like it burnt. You’d been having a crush on him for years and it felt like the ultimate knife to the gut he couldn’t see it, and didn’t reciprocate it. It hurt even worse it felt like your best friend in the whole wide world (and your only friend) had recently started ignoring you.

“Just don’t, Carmen.” You muttered, taking another bite of your sandwich. “Gotta get t’health.” You said after a few beats of silence, heading back to the school. It was one of the 2 classes once a week you didn’t have together due to your last names, and usually the worst periods of the week. But this time, it felt like a relief. 

That was the last time you’d ever met him for lunch. 3 months before the end of your senior year, and 7 years of being attached at the hip somehow fizzled to nothing more then longing glances in the hallway, and staring eachother down at graduation. 

Your mom and dad were ultimately confused when you told them you wanted to leave as soon as you’d walked the stage, not caring in the least to go to Carmys grad party - and that confused them even more. It just turned into a bratty screaming match started by your teen self, telling them how they had to ‘butt out of your life’ and to ‘Mind their own stupid business!!!’ Even though they were just concerned you were now completely ignoring the boy they had taken in as a son, and were giving him the cold shoulder when since the sixth grade the two of you had been nothing short of inseparable. 

Then - when you had started working at The Beef - as a favor for Mikey, when he had called - asking if you needed a job your first summer off from college, of course you said yes. And then Carmy took that news…. Worse then you could have ever thought. 

The fight you had the night he’d found out in the back alley of The Beef was burned into your memory since it happened. The angry accusations of you ‘having a crush on his older brother and wanting to fuck him since you were in school’ or ‘trying to weasel your way back into his life when he’d made it clear he hated that you were so ‘obsessed’ with him’ it had literally made you throw up in frustration and sadness and utter disbelief when he stomped off, face red and veins bulging in anger. 

The 5 words though that were seared into your brain ‘How fucking could you?, squish?!’ nearly choking on your childhood name, Tears streaming down his flushed pink cheeks. You never knew it would hurt him so badly that you worked at The Beef, you truly thought you were just doing a good favor for a man who was a big brother to you. Not betraying your best friend in the world, the boy you’d loved for so many years. 

You’d tried calling Carmy, only to be met with the generic voicemail message each and every time. Tears rolled down your cheeks as you wished him well, told him how much you missed him, missed your stupid inside jokes - you missed your bear. 

When Mikey killed himself.. it was easy to say you were a mess. Mikey was the one who coaxed you through Carmys leaving, letting you know it was ok, that he was just ‘bein’ a lil’ bitch’ and he’d come to his senses soon enough. But he didn’t. And Mikey got sicker. And no matter how much you tried, how many times you called Carmy after a hard shift, or after stumbling into Mikey in the back freezer with a fucking disposable tourniquet tied around his arm, nodding off, begging Carmy to come home through your tears. Pleading, sobbing into the phone for minutes at a time that his brother was fucking killing himself - you never got a call back. 

The day Carmy had come home, well - the day he started working at the beef. You were there early, per usual. You liked the 6-3:30 shift as you were out before the busiest time of day, and had maintained this shift since college. You had your degrees, you were going to be leaving after you’d graduated to start a real adult life instead of slinging stupid beef sandwiches for less-than-favorable pay - and then Mikey died. And you were the only one who knew how to do the books at the beef, before you taught Natalie. 

It wasn’t a surprise that Mikey was laundering money through the place, but what was a surprise was he left the place to his idiot little brother who’d abandoned his whole entire family to go do his stupid Executive chef-de-bullshit while everyone drowns in Chicago without him. You highly doubted that he would be able to manage the moving of money Mikey had taught you, but Nat was the only sister you’d ever known- so when she sobbed to you after mike died and she found out it was left to Carmy, and begged you to teach him how everything works- you couldn’t deny your big sis.  

“S-squish?” You heard behind you, and you nearly dropped the entire pan of beef you’d chopped into the large pan you were holding to marinate for the day. Your heart felt like it had been replaced with a hummingbird and its wings were beating so hard against your chest you were sure if you turned he would see it in your throat.

“Uh-“ you started, deciding it was better to not look at him, since tears would likely spring to your eyes. What did he look like in real life now? Was he really so…big? Was he really no longer that skinny, awkward little bear you once knew? “N-no one really calls me that- anymore…only Richie.” You grabbed the bowl of pre chopped onions that you’d grabbed from the fridge, tearing off the plastic wrap that had yesterdays date written on it, crumpling it up and dumping the vegetables over the meat before grabbing the bowl of chopped green peppers and doing the same. 

“So I can’t call y’the name I gave you?” He chides, that old edge of playfulness to his tone you missed so much. It made your heart clench. 

“The last person to use that regular was your brother” you said and that quickly shut him up as you mixed together the meat and veggies with a large spoon after adding the pre made spice mix, the last of the pre made spice mix that Mikey had left, tears brimming your eyes at the realization, shaking your head a bit hoping to will them away. 

“Fuck” he said, barely audible. There was a sadness to his tone, easily picked up by you. This was your first love. How could you not remember every single thing about him?! “Squish I’m-“ 

“Just save it. You’re here to work, right?” You looked back at him finally, and your breath nearly got caught in your throat. He was so… tall. You always teased him that he was just a late bloomer, and would grow into himself just like Mikey did - but he would constantly deny it and tell you he’d just be stuck being ‘a shrimp’ forever.

But fuck had he grown. And he has grown well. He finally grew into his nose, which you wanted to immediately poke fun at him for, his lips were still the same pouty thin ones you’d remembered - but his body. It made your mouth water. 

You’d seen it once, as he’d seen yours. You were sophomores in high school, awkward, fumbling teens that agreed to lose your virginity together. But back then he was lanky, hairless, soft. Now? He was a full grown man. 

“Mmhmm” he hummed, sounding like a child scolded but you could barely recognize the tone of his voice now that you’ve met his face. A man. 

“Carmen” you said softly and his eyes met yours again, recognizing the tears in them 

“Don’t cry, squish” he said just above a whisper, “M’sorry…” he admitted, carefully reaching up and thumbing away your tears. 

“Oh Carm” you broke down, dropping the spoon you were holding onto the bowl and practically collapsing into his arms in choked sobs. 

“I know” he said quietly, gently petting your hair just like he did when you were little. 

“He’s dead Carm, where were you? Where the fuck were you? I called you, Bear! He was sick!” you sobbed mercilessly into his shirt, letting everything out you held in at the funeral to maintain your cool for Donna and Sugar since they were blubbering messes.. You could hear the thick tears in his voice when he whispered a strained 

“I’m so fuckin’ sorry, Squishy- So sorry” 

Your little moment was interrupted though, by a small voice - 

“Hi! Hey- uh..Hello- sorry- I was um…I got a call - yesterday, about an interview, for an um- a Sous position?” your head shot up from Carmys shoulder, seeing a tall brown-skinned girl with braids smiling awkwardly,  eyes flickering between you and Carm, clearly looking uncomfortable. You would be too, you realized - if you walked in to your supposed-to-be interview, to see your potential boss being cried on by one of his employees.

“Shit- uh” he pulled away quickly, walking up to her and extending a hand. You decided to go to the back of the kitchen to the changing area to have a few swigs from your water bottle and calm down. You didn’t need to relish in the sting that was him dropping you so fast for another girl, even if you were short staffed and you did need the help.

You shook your head, wiping over your tears and taking a few large gulps of water. Teach him how to move the money, and quit. Thats all you have to do, easy right? 

No.

Not at all, actually- fucking impossible. 

Carmen had been bad at math, horrible at it  - actually, so teaching him how to run the books - with Richies explicit instructions to not make him aware his Uncle and Brother were washing blood money through the restaurant - so to try and explain why the electric costed 120K a month for a hole in the wall like The Beef was getting frustrating, because when Carmy didn’t understand something- he asked never ending questions until he got it. Thats what had you and Carmy, sitting in the back office together at nearly 8 PM, going over the books for what felt like the millionth time.

“So - so the General electric, lets go over one more time squish - I’m still.. Why would Mike have done that? An-an’ why we payin f’r a system that y’say isn’t workin’ anymore? Cant we just like- negotiate? Ask uncle jimmy t’fix it?” he tapped his pencil on the desk absentmindedly as he looked over the spiral notebook you’d written the monthly ‘bills’ on, trying to explain it to him without giving away anything he didn’t need to know like Richie instructed.

You groaned, rubbing over your face frustratedly and rubbing your temples. He was gonna give you a migraine asking these same god-damn questions. “Bear- i’m tired- my shift ended like…four hours ago! I was supposed to be on a facetime date” you groan, dragging your hands down your cheeks dramatically.

“The hell is a facetime date?” he asked, that gigglyness in his voice he’d take on when he was making fun of you when you were little.

“You lost the privilege of fucking with me when you ran away” you look over at him, a frown unknowingly etched in your features.

He met your eyes, biting at his lip the way he did, blinking a few too many times as he looked down at your lips before meeting your eyes again. “I never was running from you, squish” he said, his voice taking on that softness you fucking hated because you loved it so much.

“Yeah? Sure fucking felt like it- and for your information, a facetime date is a date you do when someone isn’t close enough to go on a real date. So…yeah. Anyway- like I said - the arcade costs-” he cut you off

“So…where’s this guy live?” he questioned. “You really can’t date a guy in Chicago? Y’gotta go f’r long distance?” he asked, a little smirk on his face. The kind that would have had you wanting to crash your lips into his when you were teens, but now it just made you want to cry at all the lost time, what you could have been if you just told him you’d loved him that night, that the reason you accepted the job was so that hed fucking look at you again. 

“Why the fuck does it matter to you? You stopped giving a fuck about me - what, Tell me fancy pants CDC? How long has it been since you gave a fuck” You got up, grabbing your jacket. “Like I fucking said, Carmen, My shift ended hours ago. I’ve explained this to you multiple times. If you’re still too focused on Paris, or- or Copenhagen - Or fucking Noma- to not understand how to run your familys piece of shit? Isn’t that what you called it- huh? Why don’t you go and ask the fucking sibling you have left how to do it, yea? She’s been trying to call you, We all were- but it’s not like you give a fuck- like I said- figure it out, Bear- and consider this my formal fucking 2 weeks. I’m done in this shithole” you threw your wadded up apron at his chest and slammed the office door shut behind you, stomping off to the lockers to gather your things and go the hell home. 

The next week and a half of work felt much like high school. You and Carmy were in the same exact room, forced to work together most of the time - but not a word was exchanged that wasn't absolutely necessary between the two of you. It wasn’t until the night before your last day, he was brave enough to say something to you. It was after closing, you’d picked up a double since 2 line cooks had called out and you already knew how to hold up pace without any training. You could use the money anyway, the pay was absolute garbage - the only reason you ever put up with it was because Michael was family to you. “So uh…” Carmy starts as he put on his plaid coat, shoving his work clothes in his backpack “How was y’r um… facetime date?” he asked, shoving in his chefs clogs last before zipping the bag shut.

You bit your lip, continuing to fill your tote bag with the remainders from your locker. You wanted to just leave as soon as the clock struck 3:30 tomorrow and never look back, forget Carmen was ever a part of your life. Being around him again brought back that sharp ache deep in your chest that you’d picked up in school when you began ignoring eachother, for why? You cant even remember- other then him shrugging you off to hang out that one last time, and you ignoring him the rest of that week, and it just kept going. You realized the first you’d spoken since then was his first day back, and you couldn’t get that fact out of your head. 

“He never texted me back so- yeah” you folded up a pair of work jeans, shoving them in the bag

“Oh- shit- m’sorry, squish. Guys can be real assholes” he replied. And while you know it was supposed to be friendly and him just trying to console you, It really just pissed you off. 

“Yeah- You would know” you grate quietly, continuing to pack your bag. He frowned in that cure Carmy way, shutting his locker and putting his backpack on his shoulder. Luckily the two of you were the only ones there tonight, so no one had to be present for you unpleasant bickering.

“Are you ever gonna hear me out? Er’ you’re just gonna freeze me out forever?” he asked, his voice laced with genuine hurt. But you couldn’t help but laugh coldly, shaking your head.

“Freeze you out? Freeze you out? Well if this week has been anything like the past few years? I hope it feels half as shit as I’ve felt. Glad you’re finally getting the message, I want nothing to do with you. I don’t stay where i’m not wanted, plus- aren’t I just a whore who took a job to make passes at your older brother- who by the fucking way was literally nearly 10 years older then us? That is just…gross Carmy! Mikey was as much an older brother, a fucking protector as he was to you, and to Nat- as he was to me- I loved you! I fucking loved you, Carmy! And you-” You took a shaking breath, turning to look at him and he was pale as a ghost at your admission.

“And you froze me out first, you- you stopped calling, in school carmen all those fucking years ago? You stopped, and - and when I didn’t come to the bleachers you didn’t try to find me! You just-” you met his eyes once again but couldn’t find them as they were squeezed shut and that 17 year old was right back in front of you, nervously shaking his hand and tears streaming down his cheeks. “Fuck- Bear I didn’t mean t-” 

“D-Don’t” he brushed past you, the familiar smell of smoke and pine and sandalwood hitting your nose, the same Cologne Mikey wore. 

“Carmy” you rushed after him as he made a b-line for the office. 

“You’re right, Squish- go home” he rasped, his voice thick with tears and regret. Your heart broke in that moment. Your chest also bubbled with anger, because - you were right?!

“I’m right?” you asked and he sniffled, attempting to shut the door on you but you shoved it open “Look at me - Look at me and fucking tell me that you meant what you said Carmen!” he sat at the desk, burrying his face in his hands and rubbing over it. 

“Just fuck off Squish! I mean it- go!” He was getting louder now, but there it was again, Squish.

“If you meant what you said- call me by my name” You challenge, nudging his sneaker to get his attention, just how you did when his head would be down in english class when he didn’t want to be noticed so he wasnt picked to read out loud.

“What?” he looked up at you finally, his big blue eyes red and tear stained, rims watery and long sandy colored lashes clinging to stray smaller tears. He looked so sad, and you thought again for the first time since he left that night all those years ago, that you wanted to kiss those tears away.

“You- you keep calling me squish” you shrug a bit “If you really mean what you said - if- if you think I got this job to whore around with Michael?! Call me by my real name. The name the rest of the staff call me- the name people who aren’t a fuckin’ Bear call me.” you challange, a lump growing in your throat as he stared you down.

“Did you mean it?” He asked, voice just barely above a whisper. You knew exactly what he meant, and you were pretty sure your heart was gonna fly out of your throat any second- or you were gonna throw up all over the floor and embarrass yourself - 50/50 

“You- you go first, I asked first” You said and he ran a hand through his hair, greasy from the day before digging in his pocket and pulling out a spare quarter 

“Heads er’ tails?” he asked, and you couldnt help but crack a tiny smile. This- this was normal. In high school, when you’d both ask eachother a question and neither wanted to answer first - even though technically the person who asked first should be the first to get an answer, you both decided to let the universe decide who’d be the first to get an answer.

“You gotta be kidding- you remember that?” You leaned on the desk and he looked up at you, panic mostly gone from his eyes and you knew you still had your bear-taming charm as Mikey called it when you were kids, since you were the only other person to be able to calm Carmy down.

“Are you kidding? I remember everything” he retorts “I call heads then” he flipped it and you gasp, smile growing a bit and you nudge his knee with yours, the gesture causing warmth to flood his cheeks as he flips the coin 

“I thought it’s always ladies first?” you teased and he flipped it on to his hand, keeping it covered. 

“Y’re too slow” he cracked a small smile, before revealing the quarter was heads side up and looking up at you expectantly. That heartbeat that could also be vomit reappeared, and your chest got tight. 

“Yes” you said simply, realizing you’d said loved - not love, not a current state of being, even though it never really went away. When he came back that first day, and you were right back to using all your old coded language and laughing over old jokes - you’d realized the love never really died, you’d just shoved it down as deep as it could go.

“Of course I didn’t mean that bullshit, Squish. I was….so fuckin stupid- I was - I am a fuckin idiot. I- I changed my fuckin number and I didn’t bother to load my contacts cause…I thought you hated me - But I- I never stopped…” he met your eyes again. 

Oh god, your heart was really coming out of your throat right now

“Never stopped….loving me? You- you loved me?” you asked bravely, feeling as if you might pass out - or die - or both if he said no. 

He nodded silently, his gaze fixed on the floor ever so shyly, Classic Carmy, the Cowardly Bear

“Well- which- which is it?” you asked, you weren’t going to let his shyness cheat you out of a real answer.

“I- um…I never stopped” he finally met your eyes.

You felt as if you still may pass out, or die, or both at this admission. 

Instead of that though, you leaned in, cupping his stubbly cheeks. His breath hitched, so did yours - you weren’t even sure you were breathing, the last time you’d been this close was - well, Sophomore year of high school , when you both vowed to never speak of it again, since you were both unsure how the other felt - and much too shy to say anything about it in case of rejection or being viewed as ‘weird’ by one another. You leaned in, the smell of cigarettes and mint on his breath from the gum he would chew instead of eating on meal breaks after a cigarette. 

His eyes fluttered shut “I’ve thought about this every day” he whispers, breath fanning your lips gently. You rest your forehead on his, closing your eyes and your noses bumped sweetly. “Can I please kiss you?” he asked, his voice soft and wanting. 

“You don’t have to ask” you said and leaned in, finally meeting his lips. He pulled you closer, you were practically on his lap. It felt as natural as falling into bed at the end of a long day moving your lips with his, your fingers easily finding his curls and combing out the little knots from the day, causing him to groan softly into your mouth. You smiled a bit, straddling his lap and wrapping your arms around his neck. 

You sighed in relief as he wrapped his arms around your waist, slipping his tongue over your bottom lip, you hummed- opening for him and moaning softly as he ran his tongue over yours, enjoying your taste as well as you were enjoying his. He was the same as you remembered, you’d fantasized about doing this with him again every time you got off - or just every time you were daydreaming in general. You weren’t sure who broke the kiss first, but you both needed to breathe, so it was for the best.

“I still love you, too”