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ameliawarnerr · 2 years ago

Text

Getaway Car

Chapter 6

Pairing: Jake x MC

Trope: Enemies to lovers

Overview: To catch a thief, you have to become a thief. So to catch a hacker, you had to become one.

Previous Chapter: here

MC’s Pov

A regular window has suddenly caught my attention. No, actually the sight of the outside world that it presents me has caught my eye. Jake did mention we were somewhere solitary and perhaps something about being in woods. These two pieces of information are enough to give chills to someone. But that depends on how you imagine it. Like right now, the sight of the woods is nothing like I imagined.

The greenery spreads to every corner of the scenery the window manages to show. It's a shade closer to emerald green. The light of sunset is making it only better.

A thud brings me back inside. Then, his voice sounded as if it's covered with honey. “I agree that's quite a scene outside but I’d have you not distracted if that's possible.” He has kept a bundle of blank sheets on the table.

I asked Jake to allow me access to one of his computers to do my share of investigation on the family who controls Seraphic. Their last name is as exotic— Meadows. Then, I asked him to get me a notebook or something to write on. I can't remember things well until I have written them somewhere. And to my surprise, he doesn't pass any stupid comment and gets me the sheets.

“Thanks.” I say, taking one of the sheets from the bundle.

Jake sits in front of the largest monitor. I'm sitting at the table that is slightly behind Jake's and it gives me a good view of his screen. I can definitely keep an eye on his work from here. I can even do it at the moment but my eyes are lured back to the window.

A few moments pass before I hear an audible sigh from Jake. When I look at him, he is already looking at me with his intense glare. Then, he rotates his chair and folds his hand, keeping his eyes on me. “Should I draw the curtains? Would that make you feel a little productive?” He warns. It's a warning to get me started on my work that I should be taking seriously but all I can think of is how his voice would sound with a British accent.

“Can I go outside?” Sitting in that obnoxious room made me forget how it feels to walk around without looking behind for the potential tail. Falling into the chasm of the dark web has certainly deprived me of simple rights of life. And I know Jake is someone who can understand that well.

Perhaps, he chose this place for the same reason.

Jake blinks and averts his gaze before saying, “No.” He turns away.

I curse at myself for forgetting that Jake might be someone I can relate to but that doesn't make the distance between our souls vanish.

If I ever fall, I can imagine him having a flicker of sympathy and still walking past me. Probably while laughing at my incompetence.

That fact does not stop me from pushing further. After all, this is a brilliant opportunity for me to test how long he can deny me while I plead. And maybe I catch a weakness or two. I change my voice, making it light. “Ten minutes, max. You can put a timer. I'll be back before you hit the timer.” As much as I hate this pleading edge to my voice, I love the fact that I can use it even when I am not even a bit desperate.

He doesn't stop moving his fingers on his keyboard.

“Jake, please.” I add the magic word at the end and it holds its significance. Jake stops typing.

He turns. I can tell by the look on his face that he's going to deny.

“Do you want me to write it down for you?” He nods at the sheets. “There will be at least something written on them.” And he turns towards the screen again.

Alright. Maybe the lighter voice and the magic word aren't enough. I'd have to throw in a little bit of logic. “You’re the only one who knows the way out of the woods, right? That's what you told me. There's no way for me to escape. So why not let me go out for ten minutes?”

He calmly reasons, “I can't let you go outside. It can be dangerous. Inside, you're safe. Outside, I guarantee nothing.”

I snort. “Hell would have frozen to make Jake Donfort care about my safety.”

“You are my partner. Of course, I care about you. What good would it do me to find you torn into pieces by a wild animal?” Then he shakes his head. “This is stupid.”

I shake my head to myself. His words might sound like a thread pulling me towards trust but I have to remind myself that once he's succeeded in fooling me, he’d let go of the thread.

“Fine. Then why don't you come with me? I'm sick of sitting in this house.”

“I’m busy.”

“Please.” I throw that word at him again, this time extending it. “I’ll make you coffee?” I tried my best to convince him.

A pause. Then, “How good?”

A bright smile appears on my face, unforced, and I'm surprised as I hide it back. “The best you'll ever have.” I assure him.

He throws his head back. “Your stupidness is contagious.” He mumbles. Then he turns around and looks at me with the same intensity. And I wish I had the ability to not look into his eyes. Then, the end of his lips tugs up. “Say please, once again.”

I'm already reconsidering going outside. It was different when I say it. It'll be different when I say it after he asks me to. Obeying. Sounds much like that.

“You know what? It's not really that captivating.”

“Is it not anymore?” He taunts as he gets up from his chair. His steps directed towards me. It would have sounded better with a British accent, for sure.

“No but try that with a British accent. Might change my mind.” My hand move as words slip out of my mouth and that only happens when someone’s getting on my nerves or

Or when I can hear my heart beating.

He stops only when his feet touch mine. I have to stretch my neck to look at his face and I just know how good it makes him feel. Looking down on me is just the very thing that’ll make his ego boost.

He starts to bend and resultantly, I move my face as far as possible but it's not long before the back of my head is pressed against the pillow fixed on the chair. He places his hand merely away from the pillow when his face is in front of me. And I am holding my breath with my lips turned into a thin line. I do not let myself break eye contact.

“British accent can change your mind?” He smirks.

“I’m not changing my mind, Jake. I don't want to go out anymore.” I proclaim.

“Oh. That's a shame because I was almost convinced to take you out to see,” He turns my chair until I'm facing the window. “the greenery outside. And I assure you that's the least attractive part of the wood you see from here. Are you sure you don't want to see the rest?” He speaks near my ear.

If that’s the least attractive part then I cannot wait to see the rest but I know he might as well be lying.

“Come on, MC. I thought you were wise. That's a pretty fair deal. Say please and I’ll give you a tour myself.”

I exhale. “Fine.”

He meets my eyes.

“Please.”

A wide smile spreads on his mouth. “Now, was it that difficult?”

“As difficult as you.” I smile in return. “Now, let's go.” I hurriedly force myself up the chair desperate to put some space between us. I pass by him.

“Wait.” He stops me by wrapping his hand around my wrist. He proceeds to go to his chair and grab his grey jacket hanging on his chair. Once he gets it, he throws it at me. I catch it and stare at him.

“Put it on.” He orders.

I raise my brow at him.

“Put it on, MC. Don't make me repeat myself.” He says calmly.

I am amused as I put the jacket on. “Hell must have really frozen, Donfort. Maybe you should pay a visit.”

He gives a wry laugh. “Yeah, it can freeze for all I care but I don't want you frozen in the woods.” I stop with my hand half way through the jacket. Warning him with my eyes to stop with his sweet yet hollow claims. “Should I say that with a British accent?”

I laugh, sarcastically, putting the jacket on and fixing my hair. “I am putting three cubes of sugar in your coffee.” I tell him, I have no idea if he actually hates sugar in his coffee exactly like I have no idea how I came to that conclusion.

But I am amused as Jake passes by me, saying, “Cruel. Do you want me dead?”

I follow him outside. “I can't believe I won you over with a little please and a cup of coffee.”

He's walking in front of me as he says, “You didn't win me over anything. I am letting you have it. You're welcome.”

I ignore him as we exit the house.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jake's pov

The coffee is the perfect mix of bitterness and sweetness. I didn't really believe her when she claimed that it’d be the best coffee I'd ever have. It is, by all sorts.

I exhale but keep my expressions grim as she stares at me expecting a review. I put the cup down.

She's looking at me with eyes similar to that of a puppy waiting for his master—

I'd prefer to stop right there, yes.

We’re sitting on the couch with our body turned slightly towards each other. The night is as quiet as it has ever been but chaotic at the same time.

I’d rather pretend to vomit than accept the coffee being good. I put my hands together. “It was fine, truly. You’d have to work on it if you're going to offer that as the end of your deal next time.”

She snorts. “Seriously? You don't have the nerve to accept that it was actually good? It's written all over your face, Jake.” She argues.

“I don't remember my face being a blackboard.” I argue back.

She rolls her eyes. “It was good. Just say it.”

“With a British—”

“Shut up about it already.” She snaps. I’ve been bringing up the British accent in the middle of the conversations with every chance possible. It riles her up. I think she has a thing for guys with a British accent.

My phone rings when I am about to reply. It's Noah. Noah Meadow.

She steals a glance at the screen before I pick it up. Her eyebrows rise in confusion.

“Hello?” I begin.

“Hey, Jake. How are you doing?” He asks, his voice cheerful.

“Surviving.” I say, looking at MC. “What are you so happy about?”

“Nothing. It's just, do you remember Camilla?” He starts spilling.

“Yeah, the girl you have been trying to get with for like a decade.”

“Yeah but that might change soon. My family is organising a party tomorrow night. She's cancelled all the events where she might find me but guess what? She's coming tomorrow. And I called you to invite you. So will you come?”

I smirk. “Of course. Why, the party though?”

MC looks down, thinking. Trying to make sense of this.

“It’s for the return of my big brother. Hold on, I have another call.” Three seconds and he's back. “Right, Jake. I gotta go. Ah fuck, what was I going to say? Right, the theme is enchanted forest, there’ll be dance, games, then a special after party only for people of our age. And yes, a lot of pretty girls.”

“Prettiness in vain, though. I’ll be bringing my own date.” My date’s eyes snap to me.

“Even better, see you tomorrow.”

As soon as I disconnect the call, she throws her questions at me. “Noah Meadows? Is it the younger son of the family? Are you kidding me, Jake? You didn't think it was necessary to tell me that you were friends with him? How on earth did you even manage to befriend him? I thought you were incapable of making friends.”

I point my finger at her before she can go any further with her questions. “Stop. First of all, harsh. Secondly, I didn't befriend him. I merely put him in a situation where he needed help and then I helped him. So yes, I might not be as incompetent with people as you might have imagined.” I explain.

A pause. “You have a way inside the house. Tell me about the party you were speaking of.” She orders and I don't fail to notice the change of her voice as it becomes a little course. Her productive and scheming mode has been turned on. Very well.

“Meadows are organising a party tomorrow night. The theme is enchanted forest, your type, I assume. I have a rough schedule for the night. I am invited and as per our deal, you are going as my date.” I move my hand as I explain.

She pauses, considers and nods. The lack of words she gives me when thinking is uneasy at times.

I continue, “There are arrangements for dance and games. There's also an after party.”

“They’re celebrating what, exactly?”

“Their elder son, Jameson's return to the country.” I answer.

“Alright, what's our plan, then?” She asks.

“It's nothing solid but vaguely I can tell you. We enter the party, stick around with Noah and let him introduce us to as many people as possible. At that time around, the dance would have started, we’ll dance. There must be an interval before the games start, according to what games they have planned, I’ll let you know if we are going to play or not at that time only. After that, we seperate. You’ll target Olivia, Noah’s sister and try to find something about the files. I’ll stick with Noah and his older brother. Our motive will be to find out the location of the files.” I explain her the plan that came around my mind as soon as I heard the details.

Again, she's quiet. Then, she goes, “Do we really have to dance?”

“Yes. Every person with a partner will be dancing, I assume. If we don't, that’ll put the spotlight on us. More than we need. We need to camouflage.”

She rubs her hand on her neck. “What type of dance?”

I shrug. “The theme is enchanted forest, what do you expect? It’ll be a couple dance as much as my imagination runs.”

“Ah.” She looks away. “Do you know how to dance?”

I smile as I realise the cause of her uneasiness. “The question is, do you?”

She looks at me. I'm already looking at her. I raise my brow. “You don't.”

Then I'm laughing.

“Yes. I'm extremely sorry to disappoint you. And anyways, I think it will be better to look around at that time since most of the people will be dancing and the people who won't be dancing will be looking at the ones who are so that's the perfect opportunity for us to sneak around.”

“No, we can change partners when we dance. I can get to Olivia, you can get to Noah or Jameson. We can try to befriend them and if that doesn't work out then we are already having you befriend Olivia. And Noah already considers me a friend so Jameson wouldn't doubt much.” I argue back. “And about the dance,” I stand up and offer her my hand. “I’ll teach you.”

She stares at my hand then at me. “Absolutely not.”

She denies but I have figured out a potential weakness of hers and this is the perfect time to test it. “If I ask nicely, will that change your mind?” Her eyes are slowly widening. “Very well. Will you dance with me, love?”

The prettiest shade of red spreads over her cheeks. On second thought, I might have found a weakness of my own. “You can do a British accent.” She wonders loudly.

I gesture my hand. Surprisingly, she takes it without protesting.

My palm wraps around her small hand, slowly guiding her to an empty space with the minimum light. This idea might not be as wise as I thought. Once on the right spot, we turn to face each other. Her eyes bore into mine with anticipation.

Her voice lowers. “Which one of my hands goes to your shoulder?”

“Either. It doesn't matter.”

She steps closer and places her free hand on my shoulder. I move closer, wrapping my hand around her waist as her breath hitches. Her face angles up and I find both weariness and confidence in her stare. My hand moves at a slow pace to her back to pull her even closer. “Closer.” I whisper.

This closeness is not necessary and might even turn out as a disaster if she has to dance with someone else. They might get the entirely wrong idea and I think she’ll enjoy the look on my face then.

“Take a step back, then to the left and to the front again.” I guide her swiftly. Her eyelids lower, looking at our feet. She moves stiffly. I rub my thumb on her skin. “Ease your body.” I instruct. She obeys moving slow yet smoothly. “Right. Now it's the same to the right.” Her eyelids rise but not much to give me a look at her eyes. They are fixed on the spot where her hand touches my shoulder. “Eyes on me, MC.” I tell her. “It is good for confidence.” I add.

Her eyes meet mine again and I am suddenly moving a little fast and hastily.

“Now, you take a turn.” I twirl her around, letting her body go for a moment and then her body is back again. Flushed against mine. Her hand rests a little lower now. “Another one.”

This time, I take a step back as she takes a turn and we step towards each other at the same time. Both of our breaths caught as her face came dangerously close to mine. One moment we are looking in each other's eyes and the other our gazes descend to each other's lips. Her hand is inches away from my chest and if she moves it any lower she could feel my heart thumping. She opens her mouth a little as she exhales. I feel her breath on my neck.

It was a bad idea all along.

But I can't stop.

“Another one.” I say, my lips touching her nose as they move.

After she takes a turn, her body is back against mine. Her hand against my chest. And her lips against mine.

Our lips move slowly and smoothly like we were dancing a moment ago. Eyes closed as I move my hand to her neck, angling her face up. My tongue grazes her lower lip as anticipation radiates from her body.

Somewhere in between, we stopped dancing.

Her hand moves slowly to my neck and then to my hair. She pulls my hair. The harder she pulls, the harder I kiss her.

We pull apart, unable to open our eyes. Breathing heavily as we process.

Her eyes glisten with expectations making me want to give in again. But it's gone as she blinks and steps back.

“We shouldn't do that.” She breaths. Unfamiliar disappointment jerks me back to reality.

I gain control over myself again as I say, “Why, I thought it would be perfect practice for tomorrow.” I step back.

Now, she matches the disappointment. “Right. That's enough practice for today, I guess.”

She walks away. I follow her with my eyes as she walks to the stairs.

“Try not to compete with my insomnia tonight.” I call out from my spot.

She stops and turns to look at me. “Then, how about you sleep on the couch tonight?”

I assume she's merely joking but then she enters my bedroom and I hear the lock of the door. How on earth did she manage to get my keys?

~~~~~~

Next chapter here

First of all, I know NOTHING of couple dance so don't look much into Jake's instructions.

As always, let me know how you felt about this one. I love reading your comments/replies, really.

Thanks for reading.

Love y’all

;)

#duskwood #writing #duskwood fandom #duskwood fanfic #duskwood fanfiction #jake_duskwood #jake x mc #duskwood jake x mc #dan duskwood #jessy_duskwood #jake duskwood #duskwood jake #mc x jake

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wordsandrobots · 7 months ago

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For the writer ask meme: 3, 7, 14, 16, 20, 27, 34, 35, 40, 44, 61, 74 (❛ں❛ )✧

From the 'Get to know your fic writer!' ask game.

3) Describe the creative process of writing a chapter/fic

Typically, I'll start with the overall structure. Where the section breaks go, short summaries (maybe just a couple of phrases) of the contents of each section, placing any scenes I've already started in their proper context, and establishing where I'll swap to a different character, if I'm doing that. Then I'll most likely start at the top and write it through to the end. I can write chapters out of order but find it easiest to take each individual chapter in narrative order. Sometimes I'll have pieces I'm joining up, though, so it's not always a strictly linear process.

And then when I'm done, I'll go over it again and again until I'm happy, cutting the text down to what is absolutely necessary to get my point across: I overwrite a lot on first draft, so there'll always be pruning to do!

7) How do you choose which POV to write from?

Switching character point of view is usually a structural conceit: I'll use it to guide the reader through the different angles of a situation, slowly filling in their understanding of what is going on. It's a great method for creating cliffhangers and sudden twists without being cheap (there will always be an explanation, but POV management allows me to keep it in reserve until the correct moment).

But sometimes there are parts of the story or emotional beats that only make sense from a particular character's perspective. Which is not always the one who is experiencing the beat directly, mind you. When I decided to have show what the new Ryusei-Go was capable of in Fata Morgana, it was because I thought that would be most impactful from an outside POV. Yeah, that's a really intense moment for the pilots, but by showing it at a remove, I was able to focus on how preternaturally effective the combination of developed skill and fine-tuned machine really was -- underscoring the thread throughout Wishing on Space Hardware of how damn scary Tekkadan's legacy is for everyone outside their bubble.

14) how do you write emotional scenes? Do you ever feel what the characters feel? Do you draw from personal experiences?

I don't exactly feel what the characters feel. They're not really feeling anything, they're words on a page. What I'm generally doing instead is looking for the right words and tempo to hit the pitch of an emotion. It's almost like music, I think, in that emotions have a rhythm to them that alters the character voice, and it's a question of tuning the scene until it conveys the right quality. Even something as simple as how the sentences are laid out can have an impact on that.

So for me, it's an exercise in finding the best combination of tricks and description to hit the note I want to convey. And yeah, a part of that is always going to be drawing on my own experiences and trying to capture what those feelings were like. But that's not always as helpful as you'd think. I happen to know exactly what cold fury feels like, for example, but I'm not sure I could describe it beyond simply saying 'cold fury'. That being said, sometimes that's OK. We have these common turns of phrase for a reason, and coupled to the right cues, they can be very powerful.

16) How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Share one of them?

Lots of ideas, always, but functionally I am currently working on two things. One is just -- all the Yamagi/Shino/+ smut I can think of and think is worth actually attempting to write. Currently a prospective six chapters of various lengths, a variety of situations and additional factors. It'll hopefully be a good time!

The second is, surprisingly, not the mooted Wishing on Space Hardware future-fic. That's still percolating as I try to draw together my ideas on it into something concrete. No, I got hit by the urge to invent some entirely new OCs and have them do a heist story.

The basic concept is a twin brother and sister who join a military company some years before everything kicks off with Tekkadan. They have the Alaya-Vijnana surgery and while it works for the sister, the brother is left paralysed from the waist down ala Bilth. Their dynamic follows from this with them swearing to do absolutely everything to stay together (this group isn't the CGS and doesn't throw out the 'failures' but they are not expected to survive long), with the brother, Kais, eventually becoming a strategist while the sister, Inas, being the obligatory a mobile suit pilot. Fast-forward to three or four years after Tekkadan's final stand and they're planning to rob Gjallarhorn on the eve of Martian independence.

I think it'll fun to explore* and ease me back into writing for characters the reader won't automatically know everything about, after several years of just doing fanfic.

*Bear in mind that 'fun' here involves me looking up the Bolivian Army Ending trope, so pitch your expectations accordingly.

20) Have you noticed any patterns in your fics? Words/expressions that appear a lot, themes, common settings, etc?

I'm quite fond of a smile that isn't a smile, or isn't quite a smile. I have a thing for performative characters, and the act of shaping oneself to a particular end in general, which leads to toying with what an expression mechanically is and what it is actually conveying. Smiles are just the lowest-hanging branch there, since they are very easy to turn unsettling.

Themes . . . well, I'm not not making a habit of poking at the wider political implications of settings, either to jab at what they're saying or just to find the potential plot-hooks that fall out of events, that the original piece of media didn't find time to explore. It wouldn't be accurate to say I set out to produce political fics: I like the aesthetic of political manoeuvring more than I care to write tracts. But I do enjoy thinking through the hows and whys of a fictional society, and contrasting different levels within it.

And if it can be called a common setting, then I will be found writing exclusively in the one from canon. I just don't really do AUs, certainly not the kind that transpose characters somewhere vastly different. If I like something, I will generally like it on its own terms. I think it's an admirable skill to be able to pull off setting or genre transposition in a way that makes sense, but I'm not interested in trying it myself.

27) What is your most and least favorite part of writing?

I'm not sure how to answer that.

For least, it's less any one task and more reaching the point of having done it so often that I get fed up with it. I will edit until I'm sick of the sight of my own words, or wear myself out of writing for spells at a time. But neither of them are tasks I find onerous in their own right.

For most . . . I think I just like being in the flow of writing, whatever particular task I'm working on at the time.

34) Five years from now, where do you see yourself as a writer?

Not a damn clue. Better than I am now, hopefully. That's all I can wish for.

35) What is one essential thing to remember when writing a villain?

That they're people too.

Proper villains, those who deserve the title and aren't merely antagonistic forces, should act with the same level of interiority and depth as protagonists. They should have desires and motivations, aims they want to achieve and personalities that shape their actions.

They can absolutely be shallow, vain and cruel, but those are all things real people can be and it's always worth asking, as you would of any other character, 'how did they get to be this way?'

Nobody wakes up one day deciding to be evil. There's always a yesterday that made it seem like the best option.

40) If someone were to make fanart of your work, what fic or scene would you hope to see?

Aye aye. Coming from the person who's done the most (i.e. any) art influenced by my writing, I can't help feel this is a loaded question! :)

Honestly, there's a whole bunch of characters I'd love to be able to draw myself, or failing that, get commissioned one day. Almiria's gang in particular -- I know Almiria's costume looks like a mix of McGillis-as-general and Relena from Gundam Wing in her Sanc Kingdom outfit, and that Almiria grown-up takes after Gaelio, but it'd be nice to be able to render that in something like IBO's actual style. Similarly with things like post-everything Shino (purple jacket and all), Yamagi in the pilot-suit with short hair, or the Goibniu pilots. I think I just want to be able to draw anime stuff at all, honestly!

Scenes though . . . hmm. For the purposes of structuring my thoughts, I'm going to take liberties and go through all of WoSH in order to see if I can work out which scenes I'd like to see the most.

A Handful of Rusted Petals: Almiria and Bael.

The Grandmaster: This doesn't actually have any non-canon scenes per se, but I'd be interested in what someone might draw based off it, as a concept.

To Catch a Falling Star: Any (all?) of the reunion scenes.

Fragments of You/Pieces of Me: The end scene in bed, where Shino is asking if Yamagi just made a dick joke (he 100% did).

Let Sleeping Angels Lie: Eugene walking in on Shino while Shino is topless and showing Sri his arm.

Between Family: Again, the final scene, mostly for grumpy!Yamagi puncturing the heartfelt conversation.

The Ares Affair: The moment Ride shows up.

The Haunting of Takaki Uno: Takaki confronting Elion, specifically when he asks directly about Galan Mossa.

Frozen Sunlight: The Turbines' games-night.

Of Obsessions and Erotemes: Iverson in cold storage, looking at the bodies.

Revolution for Beginners and Polyamory for Dumbasses: The training scene with Trow, Ride and Hirume. (There's obviously a bunch of stuff in this, but I think that's the one I'd enjoy seeing.)

Under a Crescent Moon: Just anything with Ordsley struggling with everything.

Eugene Sevenstark and the Hesperus Treasure: Oh, the moment everyone has to run away from an avalanche of Haros, absolutely.

Hope Against Hope: The scene with the mirror, I think.

Love, Death and Cannoli: Probably Shino being dumbstruck by Yamagi in the pilot-suit (though I am very fond of Shino getting bullied by the Turbine kids, too).

Fata Morgana: Argi dealing with a drunk Kim.

We Three Kings: Oooo. I can't choose for this one. At a certain point, this is all a series of really big important moments. Probably the fight in the office or the confrontation in the council chamber, if we have to narrow it down, though there's also Lin and Almiria.

History of a Catastrophe: Embi and Asher in the garden, definitely.

Ragnarök in G Minor: Oh, you, specifically, will absolutely know it when we get there. (But also this one is chock full of climactic confrontations so there's dozens I'd love to see in image form!)

Day in the Light: Not posted it yet, but the penultimate scene of WoSH is a very fun one that I'd love to see drawn.

44) What mistakes do you keep making no matter how many times your beta corrects you?

Most often cludging a sentence in the edit. I have a bad habit of missing words, or otherwise reading what I think is one the page, so it's nice to have someone to catch those!

61) Why do you continue writing fics?

You can . . . stop writing them?

74) You’ve posted a fic anonymously. How would someone be able to guess that you’d written it?

I think it'd basically include all the answers to question 20. Bonus points for extended exposition scenes that double as character interactions, doppelgangers of some description, and being a post-canon continuation.

-----

Phew! Thanks for asking and asking so many!

#words in answer #ask game #writing #fanfic

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leejenowrld · 10 months ago

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i really wanna know how they would decorate their house when they move in together hehehe!!

also, imo i would say i prefer jeno’s pov > alternative side of the fic bc i feel like the latter would change my (and probably others) view of the current loving jeno we have 😣 but its really up to you as i’m sure you have many great ideas <33

omg i love this!!! it’s gonna be long and filled with descriptions and some cute behind the scenes facts so stay tuned!!!! you will fall for yn and jeno even harder ugh

(also i might make a jeno pov but show some unwritten/unseen scenes that can make me explore a different side to his character, maybe his conflicted side idk i wanna do smth fun hehe)

ok so some fun facts, jeno basically built this house for her when they grew older 😭 i’m talking like 24-27. seeing as though he has a strong background in architecture and engineering, he knows about all this stuff and idk he just had a lot of input in the building of the house and he designed everything. it’s so sweet :( jeno worked his ass off in so many jobs at one time just to be able to do this

yn had no clue this was happening. it was genuinely a surprise and he had it hidden for so many years, imagine the reaction when she found out?? safe to say she was crying to him all night long in their new and beautiful room in their new house 😭 they both work incredibly hard, have good jobs and worked their asses off in education and their grown up jobs so it’s safe to say they deserve and have earned this luxurious house. also since yn didn’t know about it, jeno did design the layout and most of the interior, he knows what his girl likes :) he designed it for her, her style and her color schemes, his style is different but he honestly didn’t care. he wanted to do this for her, he’s so endlessly in love with her and just wanted to do this for the love of his life :( he wanted to build her a home that she loved and that they could grow up in its so fucking cute

let me start off with they’re rich rich like they’re both hard working so i imagine their house to reflect that

ok ramble after. the house 🖤🖤

i’ll start off with their shared bedroom.

it’s very minimalist, very blue color scheme that they both vibe with. this is really the only room that doesn't scream 'girly' because it's also his room and idk i just think it makes sense to have their shared master bedroom like this

they have a very luxurious en suite

they have the best view, jeno knows that yn is a sucker for views and pretty scenes so you’ll see that around their house. the neighbourhood they’re in is filled with nature and pretty sights

they tend to people watch from their view in their shared bedroom and it’s so mf cute. yn will be standing in front of the window and jeno will come up behind her, back hug, so close to her (kinda same vibe as the ending of mfal) and he will kiss her cheek so softly and whisper sweet things into her ear 🥹

they also have those windows that people from outside can’t look into so you bet jeno has her pushed up against the windows screaming his name more times than none ;)

yns ‘girly room’

he built yn her dream room 🥹 it’s a girly and pink room, she’s just a girl. it has all her cute skincare and her vanity and her makeup like you might not think it but she loves this type of stuff!! she’s a whore for it, her and retail therapy go hand in hand and jeno knows that and made sure to give her a room that it just her, a room where she can wind down in. he put the most effort and thought into this room, he wanted it to be perfect for her. it also has her book shelf!! and her cute reading sofa. it’s her safe haven. it’s a good place for her to chill in when she needs to get away and when she feels anxiety and that’s exactly why jeno made it for her :(

it’s kinda a private room for yn lol like she likes to keep it away and keep it to herself because it’s just the biggest gift jeno has ever given her (the entire house is duh)

but she loves to chill with jeno in here 🥹 they’ve had their softest sex moments in here

as well as their rough sex!! hell yeah. this is the room where yn keeps her lingerie lmao

the kitchen

i’m not completely satisfied with the photos i found but oh well, just the vibe is that it’s very girly lmao. keep in mind jeno designed this, he did it for his girl ❤️ he truly doesn’t give a shit like he put what she wanted above his own needs, he thrives off that shit, he loves giving her love and just giving. he is so in love i can’t express it enough

yn can’t cook for shit so he is always here making her meals and food :( he will always ask her what she wants for dinner, he will always make what she wants above what he wants

imagine him as a dad cooking for his family, making the pancakes in the morning 🥺

imagine how much sex has happened in this room… fucking insane

living room

one of my faves, it just screams home. i don’t have much to say to say about this room, just enjoy the pics 🫶

just imagine the fluffiest and biggest and comfiest sofa, the cuddling and sex that happens on there 🥺

the movie nights man!!! they invite all their friends too it’s the cutest shit ever

the garden

so girly

so many flowers

it’s just beautiful

so many butterflies come in aswell 🥹

jenos camera roll is just filled with photos of yn in this garden like he’s obbessed

#fic mfal #fic mfal yn #fic mfal jeno #leejenowrld asks #fic mfal visuals

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lordisitmine · 7 months ago

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TTNBD BLOG PART FIVE

Covers chapters five and six of Though the Night Be Dark

These two chapters were originally supposed to be one, but I split them so I could keep the posting going faster and because the scenes shook out into two neater separate sections. But I’m doing the commentary together because my brain still has them linked.

CHAPTER FIVE: HOMECOMING

Back at it again with the Abberline POV. I started using his perspective for situational observations in TTEOE and got a little addicted to it tbh… I love a good outsider POV. Something about a character who has no idea the true gravity of the situation seeing bits and pieces of the main character’s story- delicious.

Nice day for a funeral. I’ve actually never been to a funeral in the wintertime, but Abberline’s observations about death seeming more natural during the colder months are in line with my own thoughts. When the earth is slumbering, and the trees are feigning death until spring, death itself seems less absurd, if not any less saddening.

I had a ball writing Francis Midford in this scene. As we know, she’s usually very calm, bordering on cold- a level-headed somewhat stern woman who isn’t at all prone to wild displays of emotion. However, all bets are off when one has lost a child. They say it’s the worst kind of grief a person can experience. I think that warrants an outburst or two.

Of course, it’s not Abberline’s fault, what happened to Edward- and Francis knows that too- but anger is natural, of course, and I just like a good shocking slap across the face moment. Too bad it was at Abberline’s expense. He blames himself, even though he shouldn’t, and Francis’s whole freak-out certainly hasn’t helped. Thankfully, Lizzy is much more reasonable. Probably because she knows a little bit more about the situation than her mother does, though she’s not ready to share that information with anyone just yet- except maybe Sybil.

Poor Abberline will have to remain in the dark for a little while longer, it seems.

Back to the boys- coming ‘home’. It’s not really home anymore. I don’t think Ciel ever had a home, at least not one that was a place. He thinks it himself- that Sebastian is more of a home to him than anyone or anywhere or anything else. They’re two halves of a whole.

Sebastian reverting back to butler mode and taking care of everything when he can sense that Ciel is uncomfortable or overwhelmed has been checked off the sebaciel bingo- I have a running mental list of tropes and lines that I want to write for them, and this was one of them.

I’ve read some really great fics where their dynamic is so much more hostile and yet equally as romantic- I might try my hand at it some day. I know the way I write Sebastian and Ciel may seem out of character to some, but I really can’t stop, and I won’t apologise for it! I trust my gut and if I can hear the words in the character’s voice, I’ll write them. I can’t resist the idea that Sebastian is only really capable of genuine love and tenderness when it comes to Ciel and no one else 🥹

Time for my favourite scene in this chapter! It’s Benjamin the paper boy! Have you ever seen Newsies? The Disney musical about newsboys in 1890’s New York? You should, it’s a cute little story about kids unionizing to fight the corporate man and get better pay for their work *insert long rambling talk about socialism and how I love it so much*. ANYWAY, I needed a minor character for plot reasons, and a newsboy seemed like a perfect fit. And it gave me an excuse to write Sebastian and Ciel interacting with a kid, which I love, for some reason.

(source)

I had to learn about how money worked in Victorian England. Well, I didn’t have to, I could have just bullshitted the few lines about them bribing the kid, but I wanted to have a tangible sense of how much money was actually worth and how the pound breaks down into shillings, sovereigns and guineas etc. I hope all the values work out and make sense because Holy Shit is this the most insane way to break down money. It hurt my head just thinking about it. Not to sound American (I’m not even American) but I’ll stick the good old 21st century 100 cent dollar, thank you very much 🤣

More cutesy stuff in the hotel- I’m writing this in April, four months after the chapter was written, and reading it back for the first time in quite a while is fun. I was giggling at my own writing lol. I love these two so much. It’s a problem.

Poor Lizzy!!! Thinking Ciel died for nothing when he didn’t actually die at all. Imagine basing your entire grieving process on a lie. Oof. It’s gonna be one Hell of a shock for her when she finds out she’s spent the last four years operating on false assumptions.

Thankfully, she has Sybil, who has some secrets and false assumptions of her own.

And last but not least, the meeting of the Evil Dudes. These scenes are so hard to write because I don’t want to describe characters too vividly or put names to any of them, it’s like building a model plane or something, you have to be very intentional and delicate about what pieces (words) you use and where you put them. All of writing is like that, to an extent, except for those moments when it flows super smoothly, but even then you have to be deliberate with your editing. Writing is hard work! I love it so much, though.

CHAPTER SIX: DESPERATE TIMES

Let’s talk briefly about Frederick Abberline!

A portrait of Frederick Abberline, 1885. (Wikipedia)

Fredderick Abberline, as you may or may not have known, was a real historical figure! He was born in 1843, which would make him about fifty-seven at the time of TTNBD. That’s not how I picture him at all, of course, because in the Kuroshitsuji anime he’s depicted as a much younger man than he would have been at the time, as he often is in film and television shows.

I choose to keep a slightly aged version of the anime Abberline in mind when writing, but I like to think of him as having some variation of the facial hair that he does in the picture above- such an undeniably Victorian mustache. And I think with his promotion he wouldn’t want people to think of him as being so young, and he has such a little boy face without it 😌😆

Abberline is of course most famous for his work as the lead detective on the Jack the Ripper case, which is why he’s usually featured as a character in television shows/movies about the Ripper. Though the Ripper was never caught, Abberline was known to have many theories in his time on the case, including the idea that the killer might actually be a woman. *side-eyes Madame Red* 👀

The real Fredderick Abberline was married twice in his lifetime- he married his first wife, Martha Mackness, in March of 1868, though she died of tuberculosis two months after the wedding. Then, in 1876, he married Emma Beament. They were married for over fifty years until his death in 1929 at age 86. Emma died three months after he did, and was buried with him at Wimborne Road Cemetery, in Bournemouth, England. They never had any children.

His grave is marked by a headstone erected in 2007, and I think it’d be neat to visit his grave some day, if I ever get the chance to go to the United Kingdom (it’s at the top of my list of places I want to go).

I’ve referenced Abberline’s personal life a couple of times- he mentioned Emma in his diary entry back in chapter one, and it’s walked about how he likes to spend mornings with her on the weekend. Obviously, not much is known about the details of the real man’s personal relationships, but I like to think he and his wife loved each other very much, because there’s no evidence to the contrary and it hurts no one for me to believe that. Abberline works hard and he’s a good guy, he deserves happiness.

Quite rude, then, for someone to make him get up at the crack of dawn on a Saturday to solve a murder. Even worse, Alois and Claude are here! So we get some more wonderful outsider observations from Abberline, and he of course can’t help but compare their dynamic to Ciel and Sebastian’s, which means I get to vicariously get to wax poetic about my thoughts on the matter.

Meanwhile, Sebastian and Ciel are perched on a rooftop, quite literally eavesdropping. Imagine their surprise when a young lord shows up- with his demon butler in tow.

Ciel: That bitch stole our look!

Sebastian: We wore it better.

😂😆

Unfortunately, Ciel decided he was going to follow Claude and Alois around- but he isn’t as good at staying hidden as Sebastian is- he doesn’t have the experience, and I personally think he doesn’t have the same affinity with the shadows that Sebastian does- so Claude catches his scent rather quickly.

And Claude is a thirsty hoe. It makes my skin crawl, writing the things he thinks about Ciel. But that will make his inevitable demise all the more satisfying, I hope. I took his obsession with Ciel straight from the anime and just cranked it up to ten. I don’t know if everyone reading this story has seen season two- I know a lot of people don’t like the liberties it took with canon. Alois and Claude are characters completely made for the anime, and I think that makes them perfect to muck around with. There’s so much less established canon for them, I can just chop and screw and remix it however I want. It’s a fic writer’s dream.

After finishing To the End of Everything, and describing Ciel’s grave, I realised that as a member of the nobility, it’s more likely he would have been buried in a mausoleum, a stone building with niches in the walls for the caskets of the dead, where members of one family are interred. But I had the idea for Ciel’s tombstone and the engraving on it from the time I first decided to write TTEOE, so I wouldn’t change it even if I could.

And maybe an in-universe reason for it was that Ciel had decided to do things differently, maybe putting in his will for him to be buried like that was a final act of rebellion. And in the end, there was no body there anyway. Humans and they death rituals, putting markers on empty graves. I find it fascinating.

Changing topics: one thing that I hade to get used to was Sebastian calling Ciel by his first name. you’ll notice he doesn’t do it super often. He can’t call Ciel my lord or sir anymore. I mean he could, but that would be worse in my mind. He’s not really Ciel’s servant anymore. But I have Sebastian use Ciel’s name sparingly. Partially because it still feels a little weird and because I find it WAY more likely that Sebastian would be hitting Ciel with the terms of endearment, which you’ll notice I have him to constantly. A: because he loves Ciel and is stupid about it and B: because even though Ciel is used to it, and even likes it, it probably does still annoy him Just A Little, and that’s also too tempting for Sebastian to pass up.

Sebastian is no stranger to committing crimes in service of Ciel’s investigations- now he’s going around stealing records from the government, which is probably the least of his illegal actions. The Public Record Office is a real place, and in 1900 it was indeed located in Chancery Lane, in London. It was established in 1838 to house and catalogue all kinds of court/government archives, documents, things like that. I don’t think it had any archive specifically for newspapers, but let’s just all collectively pretend it did.

“I can’t believe I married a criminal” will forever be one of my favourite lines to ever have written. Ciel’s romantic side is very suppressed, but it’s there, so the times when I get to make him verbally reference Sebastian as his lover, husband, mate- those are particularly sweet to me. Even if he does immediately follow up by calling Sebastian a dog and a scoundrel, which, to be fair, are also accurate things to call him.

Writing a sex scene is the most intensive part of the craft for me. The thing I spoke about earlier, about being surgical and methodical in word choice and grammar- that’s dialled up to eleven when I’m writing a sex scene. So sometimes I fade to black. Although, that can be nice too- leaving things to the imagination. Also, it means I have the option to come back some day and write them out huehuehue 😏😌😉

I have never attended a séance. I was raised in a rather conservative Christian household (and look at me now) and I was always taught never to mess with that stuff, that it might invite evil into one’s life. Due to personal experiences among other things, I still have a belief in the spiritual aspect of existence- maybe not demons and ghosts per se (though I do have stories of ghost encounters in my past), but that there is such a thing as the soul, and life beyond death, and forces beyond what we humans can fully comprehend or control.

Though I’ve left behind almost all the beliefs I was raised with, at least one remains: I don’t fuck with séances or Ouija boards or anything that could accidentally bring something bad into my space. You would never catch me in a horror movie scenario, is what I’m saying 😆

However, the realm of fiction is fair game. Especially for the sake of the narrative.

Séances in film always seem to be done slightly differently- usually there’s a table, and a candle or something- I kind of just set up my own scenario.

Someone asked me why Lizzy and Sybil didn’t just try to summon Edward’s spirit right away- to be completely honest, it’s mostly because it didn’t occur to me 😅. But I also think that Lizzy wasn’t ready to confront whatever truths he might have to tell her- or that the grief was still so fresh, she wouldn’t have been able to bear seeing him- or not seeing him, if it hadn’t have worked for whatever reason.

Instead, I chose to tug on a different heartstring entirely and chose to have them summon Tanaka. Tanaka is beyond old, and I think after Ciel died and the manor burnt down, he finally allowed himself to put down the burden of being a steward to the house of Phantomhive. He deserved a rest. I think his death would have been painless- he probably went in his sleep. The Midfords would have taken good care of him.

And of course, he would be against what Lizzy is doing. Not angry with her, but worried- he would want her to move on, to put everything behind her and live a normal, happy life. But she doesn’t really have a choice at this juncture- desperate times and desperate measures and all that. I knew from the beginning that Tanaka wasn’t going to be alive in this story, but I still wanted to give him a cameo, however bittersweet it may have been.

I do hope the séance scene was sufficiently eerie- I don’t really write horror, or anything that’s meant to be all that scary, but I did try to give this scene a little bit of a spook factor. One of the ways I try to do that is by limiting descriptions of things until the moment after they happen, and

Paragraph

Breaks

As a way to control the pace and rhythm of the scene. Prose is like a rollercoaster, or a run on a treadmill. You must have moments when your heart rate spikes and in between periods to cool off. I try to do that- I’m not sure how well I always achieve it, but that’s the idea.

One of my favourite things I like reading in readers’ comments are the reactions to the revelation of new information, i.e. that Sybil’s mother was a witch. The burden of being the writer is knowing things ahead of time, and not getting to discover them at the same moment your audience does. Coming up with the idea and executing it is its own reward, but sometimes I wish I could read my own writing like it was something I’d never seen before. That would be so cool. So know that as a reader, the best thing you can do is comment your reactions on stuff because it’s the closest that authors can come to that feeling!

Lizzy and Sybil trying to summon Ciel and not being able to because he isn’t dead was another idea I had right from the inception of this story. Since Ciel is a demon, however, and is therefore connected somehow to hell, or the afterlife, or the supernatural world in general, I imagine the séance would have some sort of pull on him, which is why the interjection of him waking up in bed feeling like someone was calling his name.

Lizzy and Sybil complete each other- they have the idea of summoning Sebastian at the same moment, and even if they hadn’t, one of them will always end up enabling the other. Heaven help anyone who gets in their way, they just won’t be stopped 😆 😆 Even if it does eventually get them in over their heads. But that’s another chapter for another blog.

See you next time!

#ttnbd #fanfiction #commentary #black butler #kuroshitsuji #sebaciel #about writing #lord speaks

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her-canine-teeth · 5 months ago

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Isobel by flower face - notes

pov jackie blue, pov shauna red (not rlly pov but. idk when its abt them)

You’ll never learn to lie

technically she lied to her pretty often so this is just not true. but it fits w the melody idk

say your French goodbye

idk how the French say goodbye. but shes like literlly saying her goodbye here and i think its funny bc nélisse is can french

Stay up in the blue glow, try to rearrange

theyre both staying up and its blue. jackie is trying to rearrange whats happening; she imagines shauna coming outside when, in reality, shauna is going to sleep.

All your insecurity and encyclopaedic rage

by rearranging what happens she automatically has to change what came before; the argument. put it in a context in which shauna is still her friend, still loves her, still comes outside and gets her. still cares for her.

ultimately she doesnt. (cant)

Do you still think you’re a killer?

shauna thinks its her fault

Or that you could be if you tried?

refers to jackie trying to banish shauna from the cabin and therefore out of her life (in a sense), which is p sure as close to killing for them as it gets I imagine. (codependency captial letters)

Always thought that you could do it if you couldn’t see their eyes

she did know that she loved shauna. didn't know how much, didn't know (or wasnt fully aware of).

she might've thought that she'd be able to get shauna to go one day, or to let her go; (she tried to, during the argument. personally i think she can't let shauna go farther than that though.)

as in; she wasnt aware of her codependency, and wouldve said that shes able in any way to cut shauna off but! she literally never thought about that being an option, or a possibility like ever (she literally had their whole future - together - planned out) so. do with that what you will

[talking]

its supposed to be a flashback idk if thats obvious; ties together what both of them think about (the arguing scene); what haunts them, both of them, for the rest of their lives (though Jackies is significantly shorter.)

Do you still wake up reaching for an empty space?

she does probably

Do you start to miss your sadness when it goes away?

jackie stays after her death. shaunas not allowing herself to move on, forever doomed to not only like have ur bff die on you which is honestly bad enough but to see her physically. not bc she wants to in that sense but bc she has to (needs to. cant live without her, though she never really lived all that much with her neither)

Do you wish your parents gave you someone else’s name?

doesnt have much to do with the scene. BUT their names have the same meaning. do you wish your parents gave you someone elses name. do you wish we werent connected from birth. do you wish we wouldnt share such an important aspect of our self. do you wish you never knew me (like you did). do you wish we were never best friends. do you wish we never met.

Do you scratch another line out for the same mistakes?

cheating.

You used to hold your body like a gun

turning away from shauna/rejection (physical. as soccer players their body is like prettyy important to them, and on top of that is their physicality with each other and yk. being teenage girl i guess anywaysss i thinj all of that sorta amplifies to The Body being v v important also for whatever theve got going on GOD i cant think)

Now you give yourself to anyone

(shauna pov but its abt jackie) condemning her bc shes with travis. 'anyone' inn the sense of 'anyone other than me (shauna)' or maybe 'who the fuck is travis' (hes not important. a faceless shadow in a crowd consisting of only him)

Are you right back where you started,

pining over jackie

Or have you found another way?

consuming her completely. without any objections

Sugar rush, a stranger’s backyard, the devil’s holiday

yeah idk

You watch yourself in fragments, amongst the leaves,

'yourself' because. they're one.

And you conclude that you never were much more

Than a reflection in a pool

the power shauan had over jackie; jackie asking herself who she is without shauna. If she is without shauna. if she ever was even with shauna, or not; never more than a reflection of her, a poor imitation, bound to break on the smallest ripple.

Do you still wake up reaching for an empty space?

Do you start to miss your sadness when it goes away?

Do you wish your parents gave you someone else’s name?

Do you scratch another line out for the same mistakes?

Do you still wake up wrapped around an empty space?

Do you only know the good days once they’ve slipped away?

Do you wish that he would call you by another name?

Do you pour another drink out for the same mistakes?

#mitos incredible life #long post #jackieshauna: The Shark In Your Water #jackieshauna: The Shark In Your Water - notes #THIS WAS SO HARD TO EDIT BTW very much interpretation. i hope i got everything #bc i edited this literal months ago but i want to fnish this sooo

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altruistic-meme · 3 months ago

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oh you KNOW i gotta ask 10

and also 11 cause maybe talking about it would help

you are one cruel, cruel fiend, milo. why would you do this to me.

10. 🤡How many Wips are you actively working on?

alexa play "oh my dear lord" by the unlikely candidates

okay. okay. so in the interest of trying to limit what we consider ACTIVELY working on, i'm going to exclude fics that i'm not really sure if i'll ever finish and fics that i haven't actually STARTED writing, but i'm still going to include fics i know i'm going to return to even if i haven't touched them in a while. so let's check the WIP list...

3 for All for the Game (why is there) joy in this poison, Figurative Ghosts, go low

2 for Young Royals Dare(d) To Do It, Not Supposed to Know*

1 for Captive Prince laurent stabs damen

9 for Bungo Stray Dogs blackhole time fuckery, will you be mine? (no sir), The Port Mafia Boss's Most Loyal Dog, me-ow, dazai's job, abo au, outsider POV of corruption, who tf is slug????, not really a college au,

so that is... 15 TOTAL, most of which are currently bsd fics bc i have been bouncing between all of the WIPs there with incredible frequency cus my brain refuses to just STAY PUT ON ONE.

*techinically i haven't actually written anything for NSTK, but because it is one half of the Parallels AU and i have written for Dare(d), which is its partner fic, i'm still counting that as having worked on it. especially since they're 2 POVs of the same story, which means some of the events in Dare(d) will be shown in NSTK as well, so the same dialogue will be used in both for scenes they share.

11. 🛠Is there a scene or anything in the WIP you are struggling with right now?

oh this is about to be so long im so sorry

i think there's something im struggling with with all of my bsd WIPs right now, which is probably part of why there are just so many that i'm actively working on bc if i get stuck on one i can just move to something else for a while ;;;;

largely, i feel like im struggling a lot with figuring out Dazai and Chuuya's characters which obviously affects all of the WIPs since they're all skk-centric!! but they're both such complex characters with a super complex relationship with each other and i really love that about them and i want to be able to get that across, even in the shorter fics!! (this was also a struggle with the torturing kunikida fic, though since it was from Kunikida's POV it was a little easier bc i could show the contrast to what he expected of skk vs. what he saw that day to help get that across)

but just. characterization is ALWAYS an issue for me, especially when i first start writing characters. and i know that it'll be fine bc it always is, i think my anxiety about it causes me to put in the effort to really make the characters work and people usually really seem to enjoy them?? it is one of the things about my writing that people mention most often (and i will never tire of that, see: lots of anxiety about it) so i know i should calm down about it but HHHHHH

on the brightside(?) i do have a WIP that's still very much in the planning stages that will allow me to look at and play with a lot of the more toxic/codependent/generally unhealthy aspects of the two of them + their relationship while also giving me some more wiggle room in their characterization, which i think will be a fun way to help curb some of that anxiety when i actually start writing it.

and outside of that, looking at a specific WIP for an issue im facing currently: Loyal Dog is giving me SO MUCH TROUBLE bc i know what needs to happen and i know overall how the story is going to go and what the main points in it are. but actually figuring out how to write what i need to get down is. a struggle.

like it's just. i know the main plot and the main points and some of what needs to be done to get there. but the finer details are tripping me up. this time i think the outsider POV is working against me here, but also having it from an outsider POV is necessary to the story as i want it told!! idk. it's a LOT stupid little details that i need to plan and decide on while trying to make it plausible that's stressing me out more and hhhhhhhhhh

[ writer WIP asks to help me procrastinate writing ]

#milo you know i have an unseemly number of wips why would you make me say that outloud #also i want to make it clear i don't have an alexa that was just for the bit #the question mark by the 'brightside' is bc that fic is. not going to be a happy fic. in fact if it turns out anything like #how i want it to then it will easily be the darkest and angstiest fic ive ever written #which yeah its meant to play with the bad parts of skks partnership and relationship so like. sorta expected.#but also i feel like im generally well-known to be a writer of fluff and hurt/comfort more than anything and that fic #will be. NOT THAT. though i DO want it to have a happy ending. or at LEAST one that is bittersweet. we'll see how it turns out #it's more concept than anything resembling plot rn but #ANYWAYYYY #i will stop rambling in the tags now. love you even if you bully me MWAH #askers #ask game #cozy-fish-crow #shh ac

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productofbridgerton · 2 years ago

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Polin Playlist 💛🐝

Songs that I think best fit Polin with an analysis as to why. If you got any more ideas or suggestions pls share! I love doing this hehe 🤭

I mean come on. This song is *chef’s kiss* 🧑‍🍳👌 especially when looking at it from Colin’s POV.

“They said the end is coming, Everyone's up to something, I found myself a-running home to your sweet nothings”

Colin returns from his travels and everyone in his family is up to something: Marriages, children, getting ready for the season! And everyone inquiring on when he’s finally going to settle down. And through the chaos there is one person he really wants to see. The person (who’s letters) kept him company during his travels when his own family barely wrote to him. His little piece of home, his Pen 💛

“All that you ever wanted from me was sweet nothing”

The only this Penelope wants is for Colin to be happy (even if it’s not with her). And even when she finally had him. She didn’t want him to feel trapped or obligated to help her. She wanted him to have his love match. She was the only one who never made him feel like he had to do anything he didn’t want to. She appreciated what she could have from him. 🥹

Alright this one feels like cheating but COME ON. Everything leading up to that scene in the S2 final. When Penelope had her moment.

“Can't you just make it move faster?, Lovely to be sitting here with you, You're kinda cute but it's raining harder, My shoes are now full of water, Lovely to be rained on with you”

This is just all the fluff you know? The dances they have with each other, the bickering with Eloise, “you’re special to me”. All the cute moments they had when it was just an oblivious (or so we think) Colin and a sweet Penelope with a silly little childhood crush.

“You're kinda cute and I would say all of this, But I don't wanna ruin the moment, Lovely to sit between comfort and chaos”

Colin holds her hand and leads her outside, where she confronts her uncle. He defends her honor and follows it by telling her he’s always protect her. And for a moment she feels like maybe…just maybe he might feel the same way. And with all the stress of her family not having money, whistledown being hunted by the queen, and Eloise being right in the middle of it; it’s a breath of fresh air. But…

“But it's not real, And you don't exist, And I can't recall the last time I was kissed, It hits me in the car, And it feels like the end of a movie I've seen before.”

And there it is. “I would never dream of courting Penelope Featherington.” 😞 and whether you’re basing it on the show or the books this is where the idea of coming changes for Pen. He does not and will not see her the way she wants him to. In fact, this kind of starts to crack that image she had of him. To be so cruel after promising her to always look after her. In the books she puts on a brave face in front of the brothers and in the show she runs away in tears, but either way this is a pivotal moment for Polin. 😕 she doesn’t know him the way she initially thought.

When Colin has those longing, and agonizing dreams of Penelope. This song best fits what I think dream Penelope (aka Dream Pen*) is like.

Note* Dream Pen is the Penelope he seems in his dreams that Colin’s subconscious created to come to terms with the fact that he is having “more than friends” feelings and that he probably messed up that relationship big time.

Basically Dream Pen haunts his dreams 😏👀

“You can pretend that you don’t miss me, you can pretend you don’t care, all you want to do is kiss me, but what a shame I’m not there.”

She’s very seductive in these dreams because Colin is starting to realize (not that he loves her…yet) but he is very much attracted to her. Dream Pen knows this and while taunting him she is also indifferent and insensitive because Colin’s insecurities and ego pushed her away and he feels guilty about letting those feelings overcome him. He feels deep down that she has a right to be angry with him.

“What is it you want? You can lie but I know that you're not fine. Every time you talk, It's all 'bout me, but you swear I'm not on your mind.”

Penelope may not know every about Colin but she does understand him better than anyone else. So Dream Pen is essentially telling him “you can deny your feelings all you want, but in here (his dreams) you can’t hide those feelings like you do to the rest of the world. You talk about never wanting to court me, but that you care for me? You talk about finding me a proper suitor but we both know that’s BS because the mere thought knowing I could be like this with another man kills you.”

“Somebody new is gonna comfort you, Like you want me to, Somebody new is gonna comfort me, Like you never do”

Dream Pen keeps reminding him (in a not so gentle way) that at the end of the day he is the one who pushed her away. And these dreams are basically Colin’s nightmares. As each night he wakes to the fear that lost Penelope forever due to his huge insecurities. This Penelope in his dreams (that he lusts over!) is haunting his every thought.

—————-

IVE BEEN WORKING ON THIS FOR OVER 4 HOURS. IT WASNT SUPPOSED TO BE THAT SERIOUS. I GOT CARRIED AWAY.

So I’m gonna end it there cause this is getting kinda long. I have a few more if you guys want a part 2! Or if you guys want to add anymore feel free. I wanna see what you guys come up with 🫣

#The things I do to pass the time till S3 😒#bridgerton #polin #polin bridgerton #romancing mr bridgerton #penelope featherington #colin x penelope #colin bridgerton #polin playlist

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masakousuke · 1 year ago

Note

Fanfiction Prompts #6, 27, 79!

Thank you for sending in the ask!!! I like the questions you picked eheheh c: Gives me a chance to talk a little ^^

6. What’s the last line you wrote?

"It wasn't long before the cold finally got to him and the naivety of his t-shirt, and forced him back inside and under the sheets of his freshly made bed."

This one is from the July fic I've just started writing. The theme is Stars and uh the working title is a reference to Dante's Inferno. I know.

I'm struggling a little on this for multiple reasons, but, hey, my beta reader seems to like this first bit I've written, so that's something ^^

27. What area of writing do you feel strongest in?

Mhhh, that's a tough question in the sense that it can be interpreted in multiple ways. So I will respond in every way I can think of >:)

It's hard to say anything without sounding conceited or full of oneself, probably, so let it be known that I'm not trying to say I'm a master in any of these areas.

In terms of styles, I believe that what I'm best at are one-shots of about 10-30k. Chaptered stories naturally come harder to me, since they require actual planning. I believe it worked out well enough when I tried with "As in spring on stems the petals", but it was a month long effort and it was, at times, very frustrating. I write as I write, I'd say, I make no stylistic effort in the prose outside of setting a theme for myself and, at times, attempting to reflect certain specific types of storytelling (there was the case of the fairytale with "The Lucky Man" and one I have planned that would read like a script for a play) so I'd say that I'm a prose person. Long and thick prose. Long sentences and an abundance of descriptors. That's what I like to write.

Genre wise, it's very easy. Character studies. I feel like all that I ever write are character studies with extra steps. So that and romance, of course.

In terms of parts of the prose itself, I want to say I'm decently good at dialogue and character interactions, since I overthink so much in my daily life that I just have a library of exact feelings and situations that kinda feel natural and pleasing to write. I think I'm good at that, making characters more human than they are characters, since that is what they are to me. I like to give them worries that go beyond the scope of the story while still tying into the themes and make them speak like human beings who live their lives like their actions and words have consequences. Everyone has more than just "things they would and wouldn't do", they also have "ways they'd do and say things" and, sometimes, that is what one should consider first and foremost. A good example of writing that makes me want to die, actually, is the: "You look like you want me to fuck you," scene in hmh.

That's another thing. I'm good at reinventing ways to quote that thing to poke fun at it.

I think maybe I'm good at writing Kousuke and character povs in a way that feels organic in general. I'm working on making a good unreliable narrator out of everyone!!!

79. Do you have any writing advice you want to share?

That's an interesting one, because writing is something that kinda comes naturally to me? Not to say that I am a natural at it, just that I write as I would speak if I were properly eloquent and that I have no particular method outside of writing what sounds good to me, both meaning and sound wise. Of course I have some ideas as to what makes good writing and how I approach things, so I'll talk about that a bit.

I think writing is essentially very simple, when one isn't trying to make it into a more abstract art form, but rather using it as a means of communication. We're writing fanfiction and, yes, it can be incredibly elaborate in its own right and I've seen people craft stories that were incredible both in content and in form, but, at its core, you will be telling a story. You can relax and just write.

Writing as it comes can be better than trying to sound good, so that is something to consider. Scavenging for words you'd never use only makes sense at times, and is entirely not worth it and overall counterproductive in every other case, I feel. I personally like words a lot, I like thinking in terms of sound, I like considering the subtle differences in meaning between one word and its synonym, but that is essentially a matter of personal taste and I never spend that much time racking my brain for words. I just kind of write as I'd speak, yes. I'm just a linguist, in that sense.

Oh and it doesn't matter if English isn't your first language and stuff like that. Most native speakers butcher their own language like nobody else ever could. A special fuck you to the person who treated me like I was lesser for that at some point without even reading anything of mine.

Write what you think, write what you feel, write what you know. Your brain is more of a resource than you think. Use the internet to fact check, use it to do research, yes, but ultimately relate everything back to that which you understand. What you have to tell, in that way, will always be worth reading, because it will be true and felt on some level.

Rapidfire round.

Purposeful repetition is good.

Grammar only matters to make things comprehensible, fuck people who say you can't start sentences with "and" and "but".

Spacing stuff is nice, but if your fic looks like single stray lines on a piece of paper I will kill myself before I can say I've enjoyed reading it.

Long sentences are okay. People are supposed to be reading the words to understand them anyways. People skimming isn't the author's fault, it's theirs.

Inspiration doesn't exist. Just write. Of course there are good times and bad times (ex. Your dog died: you do not write, my brother in Christ, not unless it helps you get through it), but there is no inspiration you can wait for. Just write if you want to. Don't if you don't.

Writing doesn't have to be fun. Any reason to write is good enough.

Don't rework your stuff into oblivion. Sometimes the first is good enough.

Write as only you would because other writers are doing that. Emulation can only bring you dissatisfaction in the face of what you've written not being "yours".

Watch movies. Read books. Read manga, watch anime, look at people in your local grocery shop, talk to human beings, feel things for yourself. Write what you know is only a limit if you don't make it your purpose to know what you write (aka the world around you).

For dialogue: how do you talk to a stranger? Awkwardly? Write that. How do you talk to your friends? Without any proper grammar? Write that.

Making characters bond and showing the chemistry is better than saying they are attracted to one another.

Write what you want to see written, even if it's just for yourself. Someone just might think it as important.

Don't overwork yourself. You're a hobbyist. Stop treating everything like it's the sole purpose in your life (looking straight at myself on this one).

Longer isn't better (stop competing with your own WCs Ulri).

Don't overplan, not if it turns out to be restrictive. Just write.

Write anything and everything on a blank page. Starting can be easy if you just let yourself.

If it doesn't come straight away, try and then come back to it later.

Ultimately, you are in control of what you write. Whether it's good or bad, if you made it and saw it through to the end, that's an achievement.

Okay. I'm done, I think.

#long post!#tagging as hmh because I'm a hmh writer.#hitorijime my hero #hitorijime #fic writing #writing advice #writing #writing this was fun and cathartic.#i am an amateur like a complete amateur #don't think i said anything rude but sorry in advance if so.

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allandoflimbo · 2 years ago

Text

Take It Back: His Story (5)

Sequel to Take It Back

Previous Chapter

Summary: You and Bucky. It was supposed to be a happy ever after. Your story, home, and love was near perfect. After all, you had worked so hard and suffered so much to be where you finally were. But behind the scenes, Bucky had been dealing with more baggage from the past than he had been willing to publicly share. Steve was always the second best when it came to him and Bucky. From Nat, to you, and maybe now, even someone else. It’s been seven years since Ashlyn cheated on Bucky, but nine since she first fell in love with him.

Two years after their public divorce and after starting therapy, she holds onto a dangerous mixture of jealousy and strength. With new friendships and new love on her side, she knows she should let Bucky go. But should is so hard to do when she loved as hard as she did.

A/N: I know the pacing of this up until now has been a little...strange, maybe tedious, but trust my process. This was the only way it would've worked to tie everything in together. It was a hard outline to get on paper, took many drafts of getting it just right, but this is the way it works. I apologize if the back and forth was whiplash, but trust me. It'll make sense looking back. From here on out, the timeline and pacing will be more straightforward to follow. Basically, it'll be Take It Back but from Bucky's POV, the scenes we never saw, stories we never saw, emotions we never saw, (I'm talking that year gap where Y/N and Bucky fell in love while he was still with Ashlyn) and eventually it will go into the present where the continued story will...well, continue. Trust. Also, please let me know your thoughts. I beg you to even spam me. Your words encourage me as you read. Thank you.

WARNING:

This story will contain sex; oral, m/f penetration, anal sex, dry sex, rough sex, shower sex, masturbation, mutual masturbation, porn watching, and soft sex. Very strong language, strong adult content, use of drugs/alcohol, sensitive topics like marriage trouble, illnesses (both terminal and mental), one incident of almost non-con, college frat parties shenanigans, and emotional angst.

Story will take place TWO years after Bucky and Y/N got married but will also do flashbacks to the same time line as Take It Back 1 and their college years.

Rating: Rated R. 18+ ONLY. 🔞 no minors.

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Masterpage for Take It Back: His Story

After much work, and many planned events, they came to a conclusion together.

“Do you want to come inside to talk?” He can sense the slightly hesitation in Natasha’s tone, “My roommate won’t get back till tomorrow.”

“Yeah.”

They had spent all of winter break together in the city trying to rekindle the romance in their relationship.

He looks over at Nat as he turns the car off. The heat is barely off for a few seconds before the cold temperature from outside already starts cooling the car again.

Bucky unlocks the car doors and they both get out.

They’ve been stalling around the inevitable conversation for a few weeks now, but it was time to finally lay it all out.

Nat opens the door to the backseat, grabs her bag, and swings it over her shoulder.

The walk to her room is quiet.

She sits down on her bed and Bucky takes a seat in her chair.

He turns to look at her, both elbows on each knee and hands clasped in front of his face.

“So…” she starts.

“Yeah.”

“We’re great together, right?”

“Of course. You make me happy.”

“You make me happy, too. And I love always being there for you just as much as you are for me.” She responds.

Bucky nods. They both look down, debating how to carefully say the next few words.

He reaches forward and takes her hand gently into his.

“You helped me in ways I can’t put into words. You still do, and I want to always have you in my life. You, Sam, and Steve, even Connor, are the best people in my life right now.”

Nat nods her head, a small smile forming on the edges of her lips.

“But we’re not in love.” She says.

Bucky shakes his head back and forth.

“No, we’re not.” he pushes a strand of her hair behind her ear, “But it is a different kind of love we have. Our friendship.”

“We can’t force it just because. Maybe the first few weeks we just had to get it out of our system. But aside from the physical—“

“Exactly.” Bucky lets out a chuckle and nods, “We’re good friends, Nat.”

Their eyes meet once more, this time their face becoming serious.

“We’re both okay with that? Staying friends?” She asks.

“I’m more than okay with that.” She runs her thumb over the back of his hand. He watches her movements closely.

“You know I’ll always be over protective of you right?” Bucky smiles as she responds, “Probably more than Steve. I’ll always want what is best for you, for all of you.”

“Thank you.” he says. She looks up at him when she feels his hand on her face. He leans forward and places a small kiss on the apple of her cheeks and then running his thumb over that same spot, “Really. Thank you for everything.”

They stay like that quietly for a few more minutes.

Bucky bites at his bottom lip and then looks away from Nat, debating if he should bring this up now.

His hand drops off her face.

“I need to say something, and maybe it’s not the best time to ask this,” He searches her eyes for a few moments, “I spoke to Steve a few weeks ago.” Nat’s eyes drift down briefly at the mention of Steve’s name and this does not go unnoticed by Bucky, “I won’t go into detail, for the sake of both your privacy and because it has nothing to do with me, so it’s not my place to get involved,”

“Bucky—“

He smiles and shushes her.

“It’s okay. But I do need to say this,” He can see what may be a glimmer of tears on Nat’s eyes. He wonders what the hell happened between them, or more importantly what it was she was thinking, “Steve is a great guy. If there’s something you need to say to him, or something you wish to work out with him or explain, you should do it. All you have to do is talk to each other.” Nat swallows thickly, “Okay?”

They stare at each other for a few more minutes, a look he’s never seen before in Nat’s eyes is there. He wonders what that is.

She eventually nods.

“Okay.”

Bucky hangs his head down, relieved.

“Okay. Good.”

They spend the next few minutes talking about mundane things like their classes and how Bucky’s Steven King binge is going.

When he leaves her room, he feels light.

It wasn’t because him and Nat broke up, but because something great came out of that room.

Understanding, respect, and a continued friendship.

Sitting back in his car, Bucky pulls out his phone and sends Steve a text:

It’s done. We agreed to stay friends. It ended well..

——

Present

“She never did, did she?” Doctor Raynor asks, “Nat. She never spoke to Steve about it.”

Bucky shakes his head back and forth.

“No. Not that I’m aware.” He says.

Raynor purses her lips and nods.

“What happened after that?”

Bucky takes lets out a deep breath as he leans forward in his seat.

“I mean, it was college. It was normal. We all stayed friends. Nat and Steve didn’t talk as much as you’d think, but I remained friends with both of them, and I included both of them for everything. As well as Sam and Connor. I continued doing my gigs during Christmas. I haven’t touched a guitar since, though. But it was just that; college.”

She types.

“How was your relationship with your father?”

Bucky bits his bottom lip as he looks down at the tips of his shoes.

White Nikes.

“It was surprisingly well,” Raynor raises a brow, “And I only say surprisingly because of judging off what we know now. But at the time, it was just as you’d expect. He was a good dad to me. Sure, we had different values, but he was my father and he treated me well. After senior year, that summer I finally took up the internship at the company.”

“What did you do there?”

“I was his assistant for four months. Come end of September, he started taking me with him to his meetings to learn the ropes. Nat and Steve applied, too. They got in but I got the classic nepotism treatment. I started getting cliental on my own by second year. Not high profile. We all worked together. George started to become a little more assertive towards me at the end of my first year. It was obvious he was trying to make me his carbon copy.”

“What was—”

“I was too broken. I was too nice,” he spits out cutting her off, “I was a pushover as well as a sensitive little punk. I was nothing like him. He was a great CEO. If there’s one thing I won’t deny until this day about George is that he was good at what he did. Our firm became the biggest and more reliable representation for the biggest cases in the city because of him. He built the name. Even more so when he and mom got involved in politics. Trying to run a senator campaign and all that. Barnes Enterprises didn’t do proceeding pro se, so even with my Juris Doctor I hadn’t gained his full confidence or respect. I don’t think I was ever truly made to run a law firm like he was. CEO’s with legal background are always preferred, like George. But a lawyer isn’t always a CEO. It’s a different Carreer path. Steve was a different story. He was good. He is good. He was even better when George start getting involved in sketchy shit.”

“James—”

“Again. I was never good enough. I’m still not.”

Doctor Raynor moves up in her own seat and looks Bucky in the eye.

“Have you ever spoken to Steve about any of this?” He looks at her bewildered.

“No.”

“Maybe you should. About all of this.” Raynor types on her laptop. “How do you think the relationship between you, Steve, and Nat influenced your future relationship with Steve?” She asks, pushing back the previous conversation for now, but hoping the new question would make him realize on his own how important it was for him to communicate with his friends.

“I’m not sure I understand what you mean.” Bucky says slowly and calculating.

“How has your relationship between you and Steve been since you and Y/N got married?”

Bucky thinks for a second, truly thinking about it, and his eyes drifting downwards.

“It’s been fine. Maybe not how it used to be, but it’s fine.”

“How so?”

Bucky groans.

“I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know what you want me to say,” his tone is almost annoyed at this point, “We’re still friends, if that’s what you’re asking. We keep in touch every once in a while. We try to.”

Raynor is unfazed by his sudden sharp temper, knowing she struck a nerve worth striking.

“Does it come easy?” She asks in a monotone.

“Sometimes, I guess. Part of it,” he clears his throat, “A lot of trust has been lost with me as a friend. He’s been nothing but good for me and time after time I just, I feel like I’ve always let him down.”

“Did you ever ask him what really happened between him and Y/N?”

Bucky scoffs, gently running his hand over his black wedding band.

“No,” he says it like it was an absurd question, "It’s in the past. Plus, most of it was forced on his part. He really wanted something that she wasn’t fully in all the way. She didn’t want it as much as he did.”

The clock on the far left quickly becomes of interest to Bucky.

“If that’s the case, do you think maybe that’s the reason things are tense now? Maybe when he found out about you and Y/N it reminded him of him and Nat. Is there a part of you that ever considered that possibility?”

He ticks his sharp jaw. His blue eyes dart back to his therapist whose eyes are starting to sink into his deepest souls.

He hated it.

“It’s possible. I never spoke to him about it. It doesn’t help that we have the same women involved in our lives.” He says it without thinking.

Dr. Raynor nods. She pushed her laptop away and leans her arms on her table, hands clapped together.

She was relaxed and trying to make this more genuine for him.

“I have two more questions for you. Was there ever a part of you that maybe became curious to know if maybe what happened with her and Steve wasn’t fully unrequited? And I don’t mean that she was okay with dating him, but maybe she was okay with more with him, deep down? At the time.” Bucky doesn’t like the questions she asks, “Maybe his emotions and feelings towards her and towards you were justified and that’s what contributes to the continuing of this lingering tension between the both of you?”

Bucky clenches his teeth and looks away from her.

“I have. But it’s not my place to ask.” He mumbles.

Sue him for not obsessing over the inappropriate idea of the past relationship between his wife and his best friend.

“You asked him that same question more than ten years ago when he was with Natasha. This is no different.”

Bucky glares at the doctor, a snarl on his lips.

“Y/N is my wife. This is different. And it won’t change anything.”

“Of course it won’t change anything between them, and it won’t brew anything, but talking about it will fortify your friendship with Steve, which would be a great step in the right direction. I think you should listen to his side of the story, too. For the sake of making peace. Closure.” Bucky doesn’t say anything to that, “as for the second question,” She clears her throat and turns her computer back to her. She types something briefly, “Ashlyn.”

There’s silence.

Bucky’s eyes hesitantly meet hers, and just like that, the look in his eyes almost convey a whole different man. It belonged to a man who had been betrayed. An ex-husband.

What was once bright and bright blue were now dark and stormy.

She continues.

“What is it that still bothers you that you’re afraid to say?” She asks quietly.

He can feel his hearth beating away rapidly in his body, and not in that good way. It was the kind that made him see fiery red and want to rip everything apart.

Bucky looks at his fingers and picks at their tips.

His licks his bottom lip and furrows his brows.

What is it that he was afraid to say?

He doesn’t realize he says it out loud.

“I love my wife very much,” he whispers gently, “The love we share is indescribable. She knows this and everyone does,” he takes in a deep breath and closes his eyes tightly together.

“Go on.”

“But the complexity of which it happened, we happened, when we both found out how we felt about the other, it was—“ he looks up and meets the doctor’s eyes. She can see the sorrow in his own, “it was inappropriate,” he moves up in the leather chair again, as if moving up was the only way she could hear him and now raising his voice, “I cheated on Ashlyn. Let that sink in. I want for one second, for that just to sink in. I cheated on her emotionally, mentally, and physically. And I’ve heard it a million times, especially by the tabloid that loves rubbing it in everyone’s faces, especially hers I’m sure. I’ve heard the retaliation sentence: yeah, but she did the same to you. If not, worst. She was a gold digger and she cheated on you, too. I’ve heard it already. Like a broken record to my ears.”

He takes a deep breath to continue.

“But here’s the thing,” his voice breaks slightly. Saying things he’s been holding in for years was making him emotional, “There is absolutely nothing pretty, nice, or justifiable about that comment; about that statement. There is nothing about that sentence that makes it better or makes what I did, or she did, okay. Whenever I would hear it, the hurt and torment that went through me was unbearable, and it also made me beyond frustrated because everyone loves rubbing Ashlyn’s face across the mud and making me the good guy.”

Raynor tries to keep her face without showing biased emotions at his words. He was surprising her.

“Before I fell in love with Y/N, I loved Ashlyn,” she can see the genuine tenderness in his face as he says it, “I loved her and she did love me. That’s what they don’t understand. It was not fake. Not the beginning. I’m not sure when it stopped but it was real.” His voice soften towards the end.

“The public, meaning my friends and family too not just the media, underestimates the love we shared. They seem to forget that she was a good woman, in a different sense that I understand than they do, because they only saw one part of it all. What they see is an unfaithful wife who wanted money, what I see is Ashlyn. My ex girlfriend, my ex-wife, the mother of my unborn baby,” the tears in his eyes are heart shattering, “It bothers me so much every time I see something awful written about her because of what she did, meanwhile I almost did the same thing and I get categorized as a good man,” he licks his lips and sits up taller, “But these are things I can’t tell anyone, because they would get the wrong idea.”

“But here’s the thing, it’s not about having the wrong idea, and it’s not about me saying I still have romantic feelings for her; it’s not, because I don’t. This is about the simple fact that everyone needs to have a reality check that they’ve only ever heard one part of a story and that they seem to forget that we were in love and that what she did to me killed me! I love Y/N so much, but in the beginning, I was consumed with guilt for so long because of it! I could’t look Ashlyn in the eye because of my cowardliness. I had moved on from her, shit I was ready to abandon her,” his voice breaks again, "and I loved her sister, but it still bothered my conscience. Meanwhile, she was sleeping around hurting me and it seemed to not even have bothered her, when we had shared the love we did for as long as it did. I don’t give it a crap if it makes me sound like a hypocrite, but her cheating on me killed me.”

“Not only my heart, but my self confidence, my trust for anyone, my feelings of capability as a man!”

He takes in a deep breath to calm himself. His voice is somehow still vibrating off the walls, even though he stopped. He sniffs and looks down once again.

“When me and Ashlyn were together, I tried my very best to try and continue to make it work between us, and people ask me why, why would you want to continue to make it work?” He looks up again until blue meets brown, and he scoffs, “Maybe because we were in love at one point? Maybe because I didn’t expect her to be cheating on me the whole time? Maybe I didn’t try hard enough? Did I do something wrong? Did me and her do something wrong? I know she messed up, but why? Why did she do that when I know she loved me? I know she did. Am I doing something wrong now? Maybe it hurts because at the time I wanted to make it work. Maybe because I knew a side of her nobody else did. Maybe it was because I was part of that relationship and they weren’t. They only ever saw a small part of it.”

“And those memories of our relationship; knowing she took that and destroyed it, took it for granted, hurts me. It changed me. I’m a hypocrite and I know it, but knowing that part of me felt like I wasn’t good enough in the beginning undid my entire morale as a man. Knowing that I felt what I did for her for so long and then slept with her sister does bother me. I was never that kind of man. But, all of this, I’m telling you - they don’t know that. And it doesn’t surprise me because they don’t know our side of our story. It’s not their fault.”

“And your biggest fear of telling it to your wife—“

“Not only is it unnecessary, but it’s because I don’t want her to get the wrong idea. I don’t have feelings for Ashlyn anymore, I stopped before our engagement, but those memories and the remembrance of what I did feel will forever stay with me.”

He wipes under his eyes after a tear manages to leak out.

“I still don’t know any of the details of her affairs or why,” his voice is even quieter than earlier, “Three years ago, when I found out she cheated on me, we had a big fight. There was screaming and yelling, I called her a whore, almost called her a worthless piece of shit and a bitch; it was on the tip of my tongue. But I did call her a whore, and I put my hand on her wrist. Then, I walked out. I had Steve hand her our divorce papers. To this girl I was once cherished. I haven’t spoken one word to her since that fight. I never asked her what the hell happened. What did we do to destroy us?”

___

Inside, the coffee shop is almost empty, minus three other people and two baristas. The weather was dark outside and it made the orange glow inside the shop captivatingly warm.

"What do you want? I'll grab it for you, you can take a seat wherever you want."

Ashlyn tells him her order and she makes her way to the window seat.

With one last look over his shoulder, he finally gives the barista is full attention, giving him their order.

He waits patiently at the cash register, two arms out in font of him, left food bouncing up and down.

He was nervous.

This girl was gorgeous and he felt something when he met her.

He starts tapping his pointer finger rhythmically on the counter. A few minutes later, the barista turns to him with a small smile.

“Here you go, sir.”

Bucky smiles back, taking both white mugs.

“Thanks so much.”

Turning back to the table against the window, his stomach flutters.

Ashlyn’s in a trance as she looks out the window, admiring the snow fall.

He can’t help the chuckle as she startles when the mug lands on the table with a soft clink.

“Did I scare you?” “A little. I was just to captivated by the prettiness of it all.” She motions in a circle with her right hand, perpendicular to the glass. She turns to the cup in front of her, giving it her full attention, “Thanks.”

“Of course.” He responds.

They they a few sips.

“I don’t think i’ve ever been in the city during a snow storm.”

“Yeah? It’s alright,” she raises a brow at his answer, “Not to crush on your New York City winter wonderland dreams or anything.”

“Why only alright?”

“I mean,” he looks out the window and smiles. He tightens his right hand around the cup, letting it warm him, “It’s beautiful. For the first few hours, especially at night. But in the morning? Unless you have a complete white canvass out your window, you’re looking at black and brown slush and a severe slipping hazard.”

Her smiles slides off slowly.

“That stinks.”

“Yeah, but like I said. The first few hours make it worth it.” His response makes her smile.

They take more sips of their hot chocolate.

“So you’re from upstate? I don’t go much.” “Really?”

“Yeah, not unless I’m going hiking. We sometimes go to the Catskills in the fall to see the foliage, and this other park up near Poughkeepsie.”

“That’s a nice area. I live a little closer though, in Hudson Valley.”

He narrows his eyes at hers and leans back in his seat.

“Let me guess; Westchester.”

Ashly lets out a laugh.

“Yep, that’s home.”

“That’s not too far.” He takes another sip of his cocoa, “I have an apartment here with my roommate Connor, but when I’m not in the city we mostly stick around the L.I. at my dad’s place.”

Ashlyn is the new to lean back now in her seat with a smile.

“Let me guess: Suffolk county.” The edges of Bucky’s lips perk up and he bites it, “What? Am I wrong?”

He shakes his head with a bigger laugh and drinks more of his cocoa.

“How about you? Are your parents in the valley, too?”

Ashlyn’s eyes drop solemnly and her finger runs over her mug. Bucky realizes his mistake immediately. He’s seen that look. He’s been on the receiving end of it before.

“No, they aren’t with us anymore. They passed away. It’s just me and my little sister.”

“I’m sorry.” “It’s fine. It’s been a few years now.”

“How much younger is she?”

“Three years.” Ashlyn’s eyes soften, “She’s gentle. I’m trying my best to be what I can for her now that they are gone.”

Bucky nods.

“You guys are close?”

Ashlyn tilts her head to the side and crosses her arms over on the table.

“We were. When she was in middle school, we were close. I did’t have many friends so when I got home, I always looked for my parents and her. In high school, since she was younger, we didn’t have the same experiences at the same time, but I always tried to include her. I fear I came off as uncaring or cold. But I was just protective. But we were always a little different, especially me,” she takes a sip, “And I don’t mean in a good way. I was very uptight, closed, and to myself. I guess it’s my own fault, partially. When mom and dad died, it got quiet between us again. It was hard on us. It was a bad car accident. It was a head-on collision-”

“I’m so sorry.” His voice was soft, caring.

She looks down at her cup and then out the window at snow still slowly falling from the sky.

She did miss them. She just never said it enough. She never liked showing her vulnerable feelings for your sake. Death made her uncomfortable. She’d rather think about the good outcomes.

Maybe I’ll see them again one day.

With Bucky Barnes in front of her, something felt right in the world, suddenly.

She jumps slightly when she feels his hand on hers. It all felt so surreal.

“My mom died right after I came back from Afghanistan. They had chased her down after they found out and I had made it out alive, and they wanted revenge on our family. It took the officials months to find her.”

She knew the story, but him telling her directly was different. They talk for a while longer before they finally decide it should be time to head home.

With the snow piling up, Ashlyn was scared it would stop the trains earlier and she had to get home to you.

Bucky walks with her to Grand Central station, holding her shopping back from Zara for her the whole time; because he offered to.

She prints out her ticket and then finally turns to Bucky to tell him goodbye.

“Thank you again, for the tour, and for the drink,” she takes the bag from him, “It was really nice meeting you.” “When can I see you again?” He doesn’t even hesitate.

Ashlyn gapes up at him and then swallows hard.

This was happening.

“Uhm.” she’s at lost for words as he waits patiently for her response.

His face falls slightly.

“I’m sorry if that was strong, I just really like you. Figured I could offer taking you out on a date, if you say yes, of course. It’s okay if you’re not interested.” He starts taking a step back.

“No, no I am,” she says hurriedly, a small chuckle escaping her mouth as she goes into her purse. She pulls out her cell phone, “What’s your number?” Bucky smiles and tells her, “I’ll send you a text on the train. Promise.”

He walks through the entrance of his apartment door when he feels his phone vibrate in his jeans pocket. He pulls it out and unlocks it.

Hey. It’s Ashlyn. Just got on the train. Let me know when you’d like to meet up. I had a great time. Thank you again bucky

“The hell are you smiling about?”

Bucky’s head shoots up towards Connor who is sitting on the couch that faces directly towards the door.

Bucky rolls his eyes as he closes the door behind him.

“This girl I just met.”

“Is she cute?” “Yeah, really cute. Sweet, too. I think you’d approve.”

_____

“It’s about time you got back!” You shout from the Kitchen as you mix your greens in your pot.

You hear the door close shut, followed by footsteps approaching the entrance to the kitchen.

“I’m sorry, I lost track of time.”

You smile softly. “I’m glad you had a good time, though. Did you at least find the shirt you wanted? Only you would go shopping when you knew we would be getting a snow storm.”

Ashlyn chuckles.

“Yeah, it was nice.” She says gently.

It’s quiet for a few more moments before you cover your pot, and turned it down to a simmer. You turn around to see her smiling, her head on her hand looking at you.

“Are you okay? You’re scaring me.” She nods.

“Yeah, I’m good.”

You squint your eyes at her.

“What happened?”

“I met this guy.”

You smile and roll your eyes.

“Should’ve known that’s what it was.”

“He is so hot, and he’s a gentleman, and my god, Y/N, it was like out of a fairytale!”

You smile again and make your way to the other side of the island, sitting down in the barstool that faces her.

“What’s his name?” There’s a twinkle in her eye.

“That’s the thing. It’s Bucky Barnes.”

You squint, your head suddenly in a swirl.

“Why does that sound familiar?”

“Because it is. You know, Bucky Barnes. George Barnes’ son, from Barnes Ent—”

“Wait, no way.” Both your brows raise as you remember how he’s literally a famous lawyer, “Ashlyn, there’s no way.” You say, smiling even more wide now.

“Yep. He looks exactly the same in person. We’re going out again.”

“That’s amazing,” you sighed resting your own head on your hand, “I wish I remembered what he looked like. I just remember the article a few years back about his mother, but that’s it. It was really sad.”

“I”ll introduce you to him. You’ll love him.”

______

Their first date is at Bucky’s apartment for dinner.

Connor was out of town for the weekend visiting his family in Michigan.

After dinner, Bucky took her hand, and asked her to join him in the middle of his kitchen for a slow dance.

As the song neared its end she turned around until she was facing him.

Their eyes met in an intense heat. Bucky swallows hard as he gently pushed her hair back.

Closing his eyes, he leaned down and placed a soft kiss on the top of her head.

Ashlyn feels her heart swell.

"That's our first kiss."

"Yes, it was."

He sighed contently as she wrapped her arms around his middle.

“I want to take you somewhere.” He mumbles.

“When?” “Right now.”

She pulls away from him and gives him a confused look.

“We already ate.”

He smiles.

“It’s not a restaurant,” he looks over towards the coat rack, “Come on, bring your coat. It’s not far.”

He was right. It doesn’t take longer than twenty minutes for them to get to their destination.

She shouldn’t be surprised that he’d this cheesy and unbelievably romantic, but she is.

He’s got his chin rested on her right shoulder and his arms wrapped around her torso.

“It’s beautiful.” “Still can’t believe you never saw it.”

The Christmas tree at Rockefeller.

“Yeah, well.” Is all she says. She smiles contently, allowing herself to be swayed by him.

After a few moments, she feels a tug on her waist; his hand. It’s turning her around to face him.

She’s barely faced him all the way, her hand just almost cupping the side of his neck, when he leans down and kisses her deeply. A real kiss this time.

And just like that, it starts snowing again.

____

It was the best date of her life. Like a true gentleman, after they leave Rockefeller, he drops her off at the station, staying with her until her track is called, and kissing her goodbye.

The train ride home is quiet and content, but her thoughts are anything but quiet.

She’s not sure if it’s everything happening so fast and if it was because luck was finally on her side, but she feels a sudden fear.

She’s scared that what she is going through is too good to be true, just like it was when she had her family after school.

She was terrified that she couldn’t hold onto this feeling forever; happiness.

But for some reason, she also felt empowered. She never felt that before. She never had the confidence to feel like maybe she could actually do something for herself.

For the first time in her life, she feels inclined to take life by the balls and enjoy being happy and maybe doing something for herself.

She even considers the thought of maybe finally moving out. A fresh and new start. She spent so long not wanting to move on emotionally after her parent’s death, maybe it was now time. Her only concern was you. You were younger. Your safety came first.

She would discuss it with you when she got home.

She’s texting Bucky the entire ride home, telling him how much she cares about him and he tells her he feels the same. It feels like a fairytale.

What are you doing when you get home?

Bucky asks.

I might stop by to get milk real quick. I need to check with Y/N if she needs something from the store actually

Ashly says.

Be safe. Text me when you get there.

I will.

Laying in bed, he closes his iMessage app and opens Instagram.

He finds Ashlyn and starts snooping through her photos. He only recently followed her and he hadn’t had a chance to see any of her pictures yet.

They were simple and he could tell she didn’t spend a lot of time on social media. She only had twelve posts.

Most of them were scenic; photos of a park and a beach. The others were regular candid shots of places and some of her in the photo posing. Most of them were between a year and a year and half old, no more than thirty likes on each photo. He clicks randomly on a picture of a cute border collie laying on her lap.

He reads the caption.

Was nice making a best friend here in PA! We’ll be back, pretty Mia. @miathecollie @paairbnb @y/l/n_y/n

That must be Ashlyn’s little sister. He clicks on the last @ and it takes him to your instagram page.

You’re private but he can see you in your profile picture. Now he could put a photo to the name. He doesn’t request to follow you since he hasn’t met you yet, but he knows he will eventually.

He exists out of the app, and when Ashlyn texts him that she’s in town, and eventually goodnight, he quickly falls asleep.

Next chapter

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#Bucky Barnes #Sebastian Stan #bucky x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes smut #bucky x you #y/n #marvel #mcu #marvel fanfic

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