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bratshaws · 1 year ago

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through the hourglass 219. brb x oc

a/n: no rooster in this one but for a good reason (comments and reblogs are super welcome and encouraged!)

pairing: plus size!oc x rooster

warnings: none uwu

goodness gracious (pls read this one to know more what this fic is about!!)

chapter

/180/181/182/183/184/185/186/187/188/189/190/191/192/193/194/195/196/197/198/199/200/201/202/203/204/205/206/207/208/209

/210/211/212/213/214/215/216/217/218

(pls let me know if you want to be added to the taglist! )

taglist: @mirandastuckinthe80s @roosterschanelslut @wiipes @lcahwriter @novastories @gretagerwigsmuse @frenchtoastix @lizzie-rdj @fanboyluvr @atarmychick007 @comebacktoearthpls

@peachiicherries @mak-32 @lizziespidiepridie @roosterswifey @ollyoxenfrees @piceous21 @sqrlgrl22 @hofficoffi @lexhalstead3 @lorilane33 @legendarydreamersharkparty @luckyladycreator2

@emilybradshaw @j-6o @louisahale @leobabbyyy @booklover2sblog @winter-run @ktjmac @graciereads @bigpoppajes @taytaylala12

@caitsymichelle13 @becks-things @caatheeriinee07 @fanboyswhore9 @jesfreedark @katiemcrae @lilmonstrjedi @hobiismyhopeu @teacupsandtopgun @insominac23 @gh0stsgoodgirl @mygyn @chavivaelisheva @kmc1989 @enchantingharmonyalpaca

She missed the Hard Deck, truly, she really missed this place. She runs her palms over the wood, nicked because of drunk patrons or just her and Shells carrying heavy stuff inside only for Penny to sigh when she notices it. In reality, she knew her maternity leave was still going, but she’d love to return.

Maybe that’s why Penny asked her to come right?

To return?

Not that she’d mind waiting a bit longer, but her mind needed a bit of a break from the constant fear and anxiety that climbed up her brain like a spider monkey ready for a bite…weirdly specific. She left Nikki with Michael - ‘I’m going to take her bank robbing’ ‘Michael,no’- while she came over, hopefully it wouldn’t be long, Mike had no work and Hannah was going to show up later to check on him so her daughter was safe.

Beatrice looked up at the door, blinking when she noticed a camera looking down at her, the whirring of the zoom hitting her ears before it turned away. Beatrice then walked inside, inhaling the smell of known lemon scented products hitting her nose, she remember how that smell used to burn her nose when she started, “Hello?” she calls, placing her bag on one of the seats as she walks further.

She could hear the ice machine on the back,followed by a quiet - yet known - curse, “Shells?�� she calls, looking in the direction the voice came from, “You here?”

“Yeah!” her friend replied, “Can you help me with this? This ice machine is making me regret ever ordering it.”

She couldn’t lift heavy stuff and she voiced it to Shells, only for her friend to reply, “It’s nothing like that! Come on! Rooster won’t kill me because of it.” and so she went. There were new glasses on the shelves, new mugs - undoubtedly some were broken in her absence - and a brand new keg in the back. One she couldn’t help but admire it.

But as Beatrice approached the location where the ice machine was, she just stared at the thing…it was open, very open and Shells was crouched next to it, “...hi…” she points to it, “Are you…fixing it?”

Shells, crouched beside the open ice machine, looked up from her task when she heard Beatrice's voice. Her eyes widened in mild surprise, and a bright smile crossed her face. She wiped her hands on a nearby rag before standing up.

"Hey, you made it!" Shells exclaimed, her tone a mixture of genuine pleasure and slight relief. "Yeah, I'm trying to fix this contraption," she gestured to the open ice machine with a chuckle. "I mean, I didn't want to bother you, but I've been wrestling with it for a while now, and I thought maybe your expert eye could spot what's wrong."

“My…expert eye?’

“I also wanted to gossip,come on.”

Beatrice couldn't help but laugh at Shells' admission. She approached the ice machine, her hands instinctively moving to her hips, "I’m not the best at this,Shells,I’m not sure what I’m looking at.," Beatrice said, her tone lighthearted. She bent down to peer into the machine, her fingers tracing over the exposed components. “In fact,I don’t even know why you called me when Penny could do it.”

Shells made a noise through her nose, lying down on the floor to unscrew something out of Beatrice’s sight, "Well," Shells began, her voice slightly muffled as she worked, "Penny's great with tech stuff, but she's been busy with some security upgrades around here. Plus, I want your company."

As Shells continued to tinker with the ice machine, Beatrice couldn't help but feel a sense of nostalgia wash over her. The familiar scent of the bar, the sound of Shells cursing playfully, and the sight of the Hard Deck's interior all brought back memories of her time here.

"So, how's everything been going?" Beatrice asked, her tone casual. "While I've been... away."

Shells glanced over at Beatrice as she continued her work. "Oh, you know, the usual. We've had some rowdy patrons, a few broken glasses, and one memorable night when someone decided to try their hand at bartending, aunt Penny tossed him out. Let's just say it was an adventure."

Beatrice chuckled at the mental image of Rooster behind the bar. "I can only imagine. And what about you, Shells? How have you been holding up?"

Shells paused in her work, looking thoughtful for a moment. "Honestly, it's been a bit different without you around," she admitted. "But we've managed. Penny's been a huge help, and Jessie too but…It's not the same, though."

Beatrice smiled warmly, touched by Shells' words. "I've missed all of you too," she confessed. "But you know,” she shrugs, “I can’t come back so soon.”

“Yeah,I know.”

‘I thought Penny wanted to talk to me too?”

Shells made a face, then let out a ‘oh!’ “Yeah,something about,” and she tugs a wire from the outside, holds it in front of her eyes and mutters ‘eh,we won’t need it’ before tossing it away, “About something she saw? Not sure,she didn’t tell me.”

“Something she saw?’

“Yeah,’ she gestures around the bar, “I’m sure you noticed the amount of new cameras we got all over, aunt Penny is getting…a bit paran-well, not paranoid. I think she’s being careful, more than normal. Those corpo guys really fucked her mind up.”

"Yeah, I saw them," Beatrice said, her expression thoughtful. "I guess it makes sense, especially with everything that happened. But if Penny wants to talk to me about it, I'm all ears."

Shells nodded in agreement. "Yeah, I think she just wants to fill you in on what's been going on, get your perspective maybe." she shrugs, “Dunno.”

Beatrice considered this for a moment. She knew that her time away had created a gap in her knowledge about the bar's operations and the current state of affairs. It might be a good opportunity to catch up and see how she could help, even if she wasn't quite ready to return to work full-time.

Or how she could help in any way.

"Alright, I'll talk to Penny when I get the chance," Beatrice said with a determined nod. "In the meantime, let's see if we can figure out what's wrong with this ice machine. Two heads are better than one, right?"

Shells grinned. "Absolutely. And if all else fails, we can always call in the professionals."

Beatrice chuckled. "You mean Penny?”

“Yeah, of course.”

As Beatrice and Shells continued to work on the ice machine, the sounds of laughter and camaraderie filled the Hard Deck once more. It felt good to be back, even if it was just for a visit, and Beatrice couldn't help but feel a deep happiness in being around the same surroundings as before.

She sits on one of the chairs and helps Shells by handing her over tools while watching - ‘you are not going to lie down or do anything, just stay put will you?- hands on her knees and head tilted as she paid attention to what was going on, “So, besides that, how’s your life?’

“Wha?”

“You know, your life,” she smiles, “With Bob, how are you two?”

Shells whole demeanor appeared to change, which was odd because she never seemed nervous talking about Bob, “Well,” she laughs nervously, “He uh, mentioned kids a few weeks back?”

“Oh?”

“Yep.” Shells mutters, “I told him that,well,kids aren’t in my schedule right now and honestly I thought he felt the same way about it. Then we uh…had a bit of an argument? And now I’m just, staying with Penny for a little bit.” considering how much Shells loved Bob it was surprising how she wasn’t just breaking down and crying.

Even more surprising was that she didn’t call Bea! She parted her lips, “Shells! Why didn’t you tell me??”

Shells, still focused on the ice machine, sighed. "I didn't want to bother you with my problems, Bea. You've got enough on your plate with Nikki and the twins and everything else."

Beatrice reached out and gently placed a hand on Shells' shoulder, giving it a comforting squeeze. "Shells, you're not bothering me. We're friends, remember? I want to know what's going on in your life, especially when it comes to something as important as this."

Shells finally turned to look at Beatrice, her eyes filled with a mix of gratitude and sadness. "I know, but I didn't want to add to your worries. And honestly, I didn't know what to do. I care about Bob a lot, but I'm not ready for kids, not yet."

Beatrice nodded in understanding. "It's okay to have different priorities and timelines," she said gently. "You and Bob just need to have an honest conversation about what you both want and where you see your future together."

Shells nodded, her shoulders sagging with relief. "I know you're right.I know that…we just,didn’t come to a consensus, per se.” she flexes she fingers, “Also…it’s kinda weird being the one friend without kids, yknow? I mean,I love being the crazy aunt, don’t get me wrong, but…I mean,holy fuck, it’s weird.”

“Oh,ah,” well, she didn’t know how to reply to that, “Well I–”

"Nah,Bea,” Shells waves her hand, ‘Don’t worry about it, we’ll resolve this one way or another.”

Beatrice nodded, understanding the complexities of the situation. "I get what you mean, Shells. It's a big decision, and it can feel like you're swimming against the tide when everyone around you is on a different path.”

“That’s kinda deep,huh?”

“ But you're right; you and Bob will find your way through this together. And don't worry about being the 'crazy aunt.' You're an amazing friend, and you've got plenty of time to figure out what's right for you."

Shells offered a small but genuine smile. "Thanks, Bea. Your support means a lot to me. And I know you've got your own challenges to deal with right now, so I didn't want to burden you."

Beatrice squeezed Shells' shoulder again. "You're never a burden, Shells. And besides, catching up with you and helping with this ice machine is a welcome break from my own worries."

Shells chuckled. "Fair enough. It's good to have you back, even if it's just for a little while."

"It's good to be back," Beatrice replied with a smile. "And who knows, maybe I'll be able to come around more often soon.”

“Really?”

“Well,” she sighs, her shoulders dropping, “I’m not sure…I want the twins to come home, you know?”

“...right…how are you and Rooster dealing with it?”

Beatrice purses her lips, “Well…” she smiles, ‘He’s just…amazing, you know?”

Shells looked at Beatrice with an knowing smile. "I can imagine he is.” she leans down to pick something from the ground, “You two are gross.”

Beatrice nodded, her eyes distant for a moment as she thought about Rooster. "He's been there for me through everything, especially during the pregnancy. It hasn't been easy, but he's made it a lot more manageable."

"That's love, Bea," Shells said softly. "Real love." and she sounded serious.

Beatrice's smile grew warm and affectionate. "Yeah, it is. I'm really lucky to have him in my life. And he's been amazing with Nikki and the twins. They adore their dad."

Shells chuckled. "Well, of course they do. He's a great guy. And you're a fantastic mom, Bea. You're doing an incredible job."

Beatrice's expression turned slightly wistful. "Thanks, Shells. It means a lot to hear that.”

“And,don’t forget I helped,” she points it out, “If it wasn’t for me and aunt Penny, you two would stay ages pining for each other.” she pauses, “Wanna know when I noticed he liked you?”

“...well...yes.”

She was bored, she took her time to drink some water when she was outside the Hard Deck. Beatrice was doing good, she’s been with them with a few months and she managed to get the hang of it.

“Shells.”

She sips her water, nodding at the tall pilot, “Rooster.”

“Are they inside?”

“Yep, they never miss it do they?” she teases, nodding towards the bar, ‘Go on, my aunt is going to see you in a bit.”

Rooster nods, about to go in - his hand is on the door- but he stops and he’s looking at something, better yet, someone inside. Shells noticed his pause, then slowly turned to see where his gaze landed and she slowly lowered her bottle.

Was he looking at Bea?

Oh, ohohohohoho!!!

Shells looked like the cat that just found out the cream was chilled and had pieces of fruit in it, because her gaze moved from Rooster to Bea and vice versa, only to stop at Rooster. He was a statue, a living statue, his jaw was clenched a bit and even if his eyes were hidden by the caravans, it was still obvious where he was staring.

She clears her throat once, nothing, then twice, still nothing, only when she coughs right by his side is that the pilot moves - jumps,more likely. He gives her a confused stare and she smirks ,”Well,aren’t you going inside?”

Rooster blinked rapidly, as if snapping out of a trance, and cleared his throat nervously. "Yeah, yeah, of course," he stammered, taking a step back from the door as if he had been caught in the act of something he shouldn't be doing.

Shells couldn't help but chuckle at his reaction. It was clear as day that Rooster had been caught staring at Beatrice, and she was going to make sure he knew it. "You know, Rooster, you can go inside. I won't tell Bea that you were checking her out."

Rooster's cheeks flushed a deep shade of red, and he scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "I wasn't... I mean, I was just... um..."

Shells grinned mischievously, her eyes dancing with amusement. "Uh-huh. Go on,Chanticleer, go on.”

Rooster's embarrassment seemed to increase, but he managed a nod and a faint smile. "Yeah, I will. Thanks, Shells."

With that, Rooster finally entered the Hard Deck, leaving Shells outside with her victorious grin. She couldn't resist a little teasing now and then, and now…now she had something to work with.

“Ohhh,” she rubs her hands like a villain, “This will be great.”

“Wait.”

“Hm?’

Beatrice holds her hand, “Wait, when was that??”

“Like,what, three,four months before you two actually talked?” she shrugged, licking her lips as she sits up,smirking at Beatrice’s face,”You knew he looked at you then,Bea, why are you so surprised?”

"Three or four months? Seriously,?"

Shells shrugged nonchalantly, her smirk still firmly in place. "Well, I did tell you about some stuff but you didn’t want to hear it back then.."

Beatrice shook her head in mock exasperation. "Well,fine, you are right…I didn’t see it. I didn’t want to see he was looking or noticing me.”

Shells grinned. "Oh, he noticed you, alright. Couldn't take his eyes off you, in fact."

Beatrice chuckled, feeling a warm, happy glow inside. "Well, I'm glad he did. Otherwise, we might have missed out on something really special."

Shells nodded in agreement. "You two are a perfect match, no doubt about it. And it's about time you got some happiness in your life, Bea."

Beatrice smiled at her friend, feeling grateful for the support and love she had received from Shells and everyone else at the Hard Deck. "I couldn't have done it without all of you. You've been like family to me."

Shells leaned in and gave Beatrice a one-armed hug. "That's because you are family, Bea. And we're here for you, no matter what."

While the conversation was really sweet and thoughtful, it was Penny’s heavy footsteps that broke it, when she stood by the bar and saw the two her smile - while still present - was strained, ‘Girls,” she begins, clapping her hands together, “...can we talk in the office? Really quickly?”

“Wait,”Shells begins, “Us? Both of us?”

Penny inhales shakily, “...yeah, both of you.”

#bradley rooster bradshaw #rooster bradshaw #bradley bradshaw x oc #top gun maverick #bradley bradshaw x reader #bradley bradshaw x female reader #bradley bradshaw x named reader #tgm oc #tgm fic #tgm fanfiction

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housewarningparty · 1 year ago

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3 and 19 for the end of year book questions?

3. What were your top five books of the year?

Keeping this to five is so hard. Hmm. I'm going to confine this to standalone works (+ one prequel that technically can be read as a standalone)

1. A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon - Excellent prequel to The Priory of the Orange Tree. This one gave me pretty much everything I wanted - I loved the characters, I loved how much this expanded the world of the Priory. Also, I'll be real, I had a truly horrible March this year and one of the only highlights was coming home exhausted and sad and stressed out every day but knowing I could read a few chapters of ADFN before bed to unwind. Blessedly immersive. It helps that this book was fucking massive, too.

2. Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez - another big book! My favorite horror read of the year, hands down. Epic in scale, the examination of power and privilege and cruelty was compelling on its own but using the backdrop of the Argentine dirty wars and framing the story around an extremely troubled familial relationship made the whole story feel so bloody and grounded and real even during the moments of cosmic spectacle. Haven't really stopped thinking about this one since I finished it.

3. The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez - This one was also huge and epic in scale, centered on issues of family legacy and oppression. It does some really interesting things w POV, the language is beautiful. Dense, tbh, and I struggled a bit through the first 200 pages but after that I was completely enraptured. Jimenez is such a powerful writer.

4. We are Here to Hurt Each Other by Paula D. Ashe - the only short story collection to make it into my top 5! (I should probably get back into reading more short fiction tbh). This was my first time reading Ashe but it definitely won't be the last - some of the most beautiful, visceral and genuinely upsetting horror I've ever read. This is definitely the classier end of the spectrum for extreme horror but it still is Extreme (seriously - imagine a taboo, it's in here). Despite the vileness of its contents the prose is gorgeous and nothing feels exploitative. Also the final story in the collection

5. Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky - okay yeah it's a classic of the genre. Deserves every bit of hype. Really did blow my mind - getting to the end of the novel and feeling that kind of zoomed out existential 'whoa' is a feeling very few books manage to evoke in me. I was surprised at how good the character work felt and how gritty and grounded the world felt, despite the fantastical nature of the science fiction elements. It was also really rewarding because I've experienced a lot of fiction heavily influenced by Roadside Picnic/Stalker so finally reading the source kind of retroactively enhanced some of those other narratives for me.

19. Did you use your library?

Yes! Mostly for ebooks and audiobooks though. I should get back in the habit of going there to check out physical media more often tbh

End of Year Book Asks

#ask games #explosionreads #thx blake ❤️❤️❤️

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seasideretreat · 1 year ago

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Reflections

I know y'all want to hear from me, so I put my pen to paper again, or rather I sit down behind my computer again, to write. I am actually entirely uninspired, or rather I have no method. But that's no matter. I can do whatever I want. I can write pointless, meandering things that are about nothing, and I will still be happy - I'll be happy, darnit! You know what it is, sometimes we wonder so bad about something that it seems the whole of existence, but when we look at it more closely, it really doesn't matter at all. Still, we don't want to zoom in; we don't want to look closely. We just want to survive and live and all that crap. It ain't realistic. It's foolish.

We are reminded here again of Hemingway's saying that writing was just sitting down and bleeding. You know, I never believed this, because I knew you got to be able to say something - you know, force yourself. That is the essence of acting. However, yeah. That's science for ya. I like science, but I am a humanities man, I am learned, not skilled. A humanities man thrives on wisdom and learnedness, whereas a STEM-guy thrives on skill and intelligence. You got to be skilled to do physics. It's not really a matter of knowing many things. Humanities ain't either about knowing many facts, but it is more about quality rather than quantity, in every way; and that's what my primary school teacher said about me: he's quality over quantity. I suppose that's surprising for someone stumbling unto this blog, seeing all those words - not much quality there. But the truth is, I can't write much more during the day than this. You know, there was a Dutch author who said he wrote only 200 words per day. That seems a little few. He said he used to write more, but back then he didn't know what writing was. You know, that really pisses me off. I can write an infinity of words, but it'll all be meaningless; still, it might be writing in some weird sense, because there's words on paper, maybe that's enough. You know, Stanley Kubrick said that at this point the best thing he could think of for a young filmmaker to do was to pick up a video-camera and just film something. Doesn't that fill you with wonder? Everything is worth a movie!

You know, writing really fills me with peacefulness and joy. I like coming up with things to write, and I like to express myself I suppose. I'd say I like the process. What else is there to any activity? You know, I was thinking of Peter Parker's scenes on the motorcycle, I think in Spider-man 2. It's really cool. Peter Parker is a science egghead and he's a superhero in his free time, but meanwhile he makes ends meet delivering pizza. Now does he like the process of delivering pizza? It's a bit of a no-brainer. He doesn't. He probably likes the money. Maybe he liked that it puts his mind off things. You know, but sometimes we don't have a process, that's bad right. When we do something, and we know it's gonna work, but there ain't no process and we just end up with a lacklustre result immediately. That's terrible. Anyway, I was really inspired by Peter Parker. There's something nice about science, but weirdly enough if you know nothing about it it's not so fun, you know, because we like to discover new truths, we like to understand perhaps, you know, but that's all trivial. I used to enjoy reading about vulcanic eruptions and so on when I was a child, but I don't think I was ever instilled with an awe for science. You know, I even read Leonard Susskind's Physics: The theoretical minimum (I forget if that's the exact title) but I did not read it attentively, so I didn't get anything from it. I don't even remember what anything in it was. But obviously Peter Parker wasn't even a physics guy I think, he's more a biogenetics and chemistry I think, although he might be a kind of all round science guy. The thing is, I used to be on my way to become a well-rounded, grounded guy when I studied City Planning in Breda, but I left that all behind because I was seduced by the image of being a wise and learned scholar. Now what makes a scholar? "A specialist in a particular branch of study, especially the humanities." says the dictionary. Now I am bit of a stoicism scholar, but I wouldn't call myself a specialist by any means. Also, all my work at the university was on other things. I tried to deepen my knowledge of post-colonial theory - you know, it stimulated me, the terminology, the writing style, the eloquence, but I kind of hate stuck up immigrant writers and minority spokesmen. In other words, it didn't do me any good to study post-colonialism. But it kind of suits me. I also write weirdly sometimes, just like those guys. You know, I suppose we live in an age where the work of the mind is greatly underrated. But then, what does a scholar have to contribute to the modern world? Now I guess it was never easy, but scholars have always been very important in the world, but nowadays everyone is isolated. On the internet, everybody is a goddamned scholar. You know, everybody likes history, so history remains a very vivid field for scholarship, but the problem is that when we discover something about history it is usually not all that ground-breaking; whereas if you discover something in physics, it is very groundbreaking. You know, it's like we're saying: I want to understand nature. It's a bit silly actually. You don't say: I want to understand reality. That sounds very different. People see a tree and think: hey, nature! But your computer is nature too. A tree is alive, but that's biology. What does physics even really study? You know, we learned calculus in school, and I suppose that was like a really logical step for the educators, but I look into calculus and I really don't understand why I still don't know a lick about stuff like number theory, arithmetic or whatever. Why do I have to learn calculus when I will never be a mathematician? Or rather, why don't I learn what mathematics means for the independent thinking person? But I suppose school is not focussed on making us independent thinkers, it is just meant to prepare us for the job market, although I doubt you really use calculus there at all. And I am a mailman now. What was the point of all that education when I can't even find a decent job?

And I can't help but think that school is just a nice pastime for the kids, but nobody structures it that way; and I never thought about the future when I was young.

#rambling #nonsense #absurdity

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the-mortifying-ordeal-of · 2 years ago

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Are you there, recovery? It's me, relapse.

Welp. Got my ass back in AlAnon. Really, if I'm being fair to myself, I never left recovery. Basically since February of 2016, I'm been clawing and scraping my way to a healthier life.

February 2016: Joined AlAnon, attended 1-4 times weekly for 14 months. November 2016: Started weekly, then biweekly, then monthly therapy for 3.5 years. April 2017: Quit AlAnon (still deeply in therapy) February 2020: Went back into AlAnon, attended for a few months, then Zoom AlAnon died out. April 2020: "Graduated" from therapy (knew I needed a female therapist to work on sex trauma) and Zoom therapy sucked. May 2020: Started meditating ~sometimes, still going! August 2021: Tried AlAnon in new city, only attended a few meetings. September 2021: Started 200 hour yoga teacher training, finished in February. January 2022: Started biweekly therapy with sex trauma therapist, still going strong. June 2022: One-month sabbatical from my partner. November 2022: Back in 3rd city AlAnon, 2-4 times weekly, now living with my mother (temporarily?)

Meanwhile I've read a kajillion books and articles, listened to so many podcasts, attended numerous trainings, and have had a million conversations with people in an effort to deepen my authenticity and connections. I really am healing. I went back on my primary blog to see if I wrote about why I quit and gee whiz did my attitude suck. My attitude sucks now but not nearly as bad.

But ok, yeah, so here I am journaling. Because I don't want to do therapy AT my relationships, my actual therapist can only do so much (especially if I spend the whole session just regurgitating stuff to feel Heard when I could process here), and I have a lot to work through. I know that writing does a lot of good for memory and behavioral activation, especially after I flood myself with new information. I need to synthesize, process, rehearse, plan, set goals, and check in on myself.

It turns out I'm still deeply codependent with my partner, I rarely experience confidence, I experience deep shame most of the time that I open my mouth, I take personal responsibility for how people feel about me and around me, and if I'm being honest, I have flippant suicidal thoughts a little too often. I quickly spiral into despair, overwhelm, and hopelessness. It's possible the reasons I feel so terrible after dancing, talking, drinking, sharing, or having sex is because most of those are spontaneous, vulnerable expressions of myself and I feel like I am gross, bad, and wrong at my core. I only feel "confident" when I followed rules or a script well.

Financially I would like to stay with my mom a while longer, or maybe move in with my BFF, but I have a savings account and this might be a season of my life that requires drawing on it. Even though I have spent so much on teacher training, my master's certificate that I never finished, and my car might die soon. I want to hoard my safety net. My breathing gets tight when I think about money and the future.

However, I know I need to live alone. I'd like to find a nice little studio or one-bedroom here in my family's town, but I might go live in the big city with my other BFF if she separates from her partner, too. I need to figure out how much it'll cost to break the lease in our current place in Nowhere. God money stresses me out. This wasn't supposed to be a planning post but clearly I'm preoccupied.

I have a racial justice meeting in 30 minutes that I want to want to do, but I mostly want to flake. It asks a lot of me and exposes vulnerabilities and that's why I should lean in and grow through them, do my exposure therapy, but oooh the temptation of cancelling plans.. I know I usually feel better when I do things. God but I was up at 3:30am for work.. but also be the change you want to see in the world (and yourself) and I wanna be the kind of person who shows up. But boundaries! But sometimes self care is doing the hard thing...

I dunno man. I'm scared. I feel small and bad and overwhelmed and a little alienated. I have fabulous people in my life, I do. I have so much ego to dissolve, though. I also wanna explore at some point if my gratitude and encouragement practices are actually fawning or attachment/unhelpful ego reflections, versus actual non-violent communication offerings.

I'd like to write here at least weekly, maybe to discuss what I learn in therapy, in AlAnon, or do some structured journal prompts from all the things I've learned. I'd like an AlAnon sponsor once I know where I'll be. I'd like to read my daily literature at least every-other day, and meditate most days. I liked going to my mom's exercise class, she has a WiiFit, I always love going to my friends' in-person yoga classes, tis the season for indoor YouTube yoga too, and there's a walking track here I can use. I also found out I love hiking int he cold, as long as I'm dressed appropriately. I'm so grateful my car is still going - it's an anchor in a period that feels like homelishness.

I am good, I think. I do think I belong here, probably. Affirmations don't feel right and I'm very confused but I'm gonna keep trying and showing up. Ugh and I'll probably do that racial justice thing tonight too. It's about faith, so that'll be neat.

Future Me, I hope I'm doing ok. I hope you're doing ok. I'm sorry for my imperfections; please love me, understand me, forgive me. I'm trying to get there, but I'm also trying to enjoy here. We've been so cruel to Past Me and I want us all to be good, be ok, be whole. Be safe, be happy, be healthy, live with ease - you know? Thank you for looking out for me. We can do this, because others have and others will, and we belong with them. We belong. Everything is fine. All of it was good, right?

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dumbbitchenergy17 · 2 years ago

Text

Fallen Angel Part 3

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Words- 8.2K

Pairings: Izuku Midoriya x Reader, Hawks x Trainee!Reader

Warnings: Fluff, violence, stalking tendencies, (TW: Child Abuse- with an adult to the reader, Psychological abuse, emotional abuse), later chapters will have more triggering content

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First Name: Y/n

Last Name: L/n

Age: 16

Quirk: Angel Wings (With wings that resemble an angel, she can use them to fly and fight, she can fly up to 200 mph the fastest she has ever gone is about 300 when racing Hawks. She can also use her wings as a shield against attack by slightly hardening the feathers, but if enough damage can fail on her. Unlike Hawks she can’t remove her feathers to fight so has incorporated a staff in her fight style; melee combat)

Hero Name: Halo

Affiliation: Student at U.A. and Hero-in-Training (Under Commission)

Family: Unknown

BY CLICKING KEEP READING YOU UNDERSTAND THE TRIGGERING CONTENT THAT MIGHT BE AHEAD

Your winter break comes and goes and you watch the time hit midnight making it the new year and the next morning you are thrust into your Work Studies. You wake up taking a quick shower and getting dressed in your hero costume, with the weather you had your costume modified to handle it. Instead of the costume being sleeveless it now came with a white cropped jacket that had built-in heat and cooling to keep you warm but also modify if you were to become hotter.

You head outside onto your balcony looking at your phone and you see a text from Hawks “Musutafu, come now.” He also sent his location. Why was he over there if his patrol area was here at Fukuoka and the message was very short? Was he in danger!? You put your phone in your jacket pocket zipping it close, you put in your headphones and glasses before leaping off the building taking off quickly to his location. With worry about your mentor you practically zoom over there, if there were sky police you would be pulled over for how fast you were going.

You see more familiar characteristics of Musutafu as you fly past buildings. You see on the roof of one build a pair of red wings hunched over and you land quickly.

“Hey what’s wrong are you okay?” You ask urgently going towards him. He turns around with the stupid smile he does when he finds something funny, “What’s so funny?” You say confused and he laughs. He laughs at your face almost in tears thinking your worry for him is funny.

“Haha...Look at your...face you look so scared.” He cries, calming down his laughter and wiping the tears from his eyes, “I got food for us.” He tosses you a wrapped package of milk bread and a canned coffee.

You catch them with ease, giving him a glare before sitting down next to him, your legs dangling over the ledge of the building. You eat your food quietly, opening up your coffee you take a sip already feeling the caffeine hit you. It is quiet between you two as you look out at the city and you turn and see him reading and you look away. Wait reading, you snap your gaze back on him.

This man hasn't read in his life, looking at the cover you see the title ‘Meta Liberation War’.

“Isn’t that book just full of propaganda for how the author tried proving his terrorist acts?” You question curious of all books this is the one Hawks would read.

He shrugs flipping a page, “Yeah but some people still believe in it, just wanna see what the people find so interesting in it.” He smiled at you but with how focused he was reading before it seems almost as if he was hiding something about it. You perk up when in the distance you hear screams and car alarms going off. “Oh dear...such bad timing.” Hawks sighs putting the book away and you both turn towards the sound.

Hawks take off with you following closely after, following the destruction of missing windows and turned-over cars you see heroes already helping with the evacuation. You see Hawks turn sharply down the street and coming out of an alleyway, Starservant, a villain that can manipulate glass and close behind Endeavor. You're surprised to see that before Endeavor could get attacked by three other men you see a sheet of ice coming from Todoroki as well as Bakugo and Midoriya about to strike the villains. However, before the two boys could Hawks shot his feathers out swooping right by stopping them before they could.

“Huh? Oh work-study students?” Hawks says looking at the two boys as he flies past them, “Sorry, I was just a little faster.” You roll your eyes at his behavior. God, what a showoff. He quickly disarms the men pinning them to the ground as he lands next to Todoroki and you land next to the villains as well, already contacting nearby heroes and police. “I thought Endeavor was in trouble.” Hawks says looking over at the flame hero.

“Did it look like I was in trouble?” Endeavor glares at Hawks while tying up Starservant.

“It did, didn’t it? Shoto.” Hawks smirks, turning over to the dual hair student.

“Sure..” Todoroki says.

“I thought I told you to let me know when you were coming.” Endeavor says looking at your mentor.

Hawks shrug, “Well, we just happened to be in the area. Right, Halo.” He calls out to you and you glare at him, not in the mood for his cocky attitude as you talk on the phone with the police. You see Bakugo glaring at Hawks for stealing his win and Midoriya is smiling at you giving you a quick wave which you nod in return. You all leave the small street where the police and heroes easily find you all, and Starservant and his group are quickly arrested. You watch as the police take them away and you hear Hawks coming over towards you all.

Midoriya turns around his face getting all excited, “N-nice to meet you. I’m in U.A. High’s hero course, Class 1-A. My name is Izuku Midoriya!” Hawks glances at you knowing this is the guy you hang out with all the time, before looking back at Midoriya with a smirk.

“I know. You’re the kid who destroyed his fingers.” Midoriya looks surprised that Hawks knows him. “I’ve heard about you from Tsukuyomi. Man, I wanted to work with him again, too. I’ve also heard maaaanny things about you from my little chickadee.” He grins looking over at you and your face is bright red from the stupid nicknames he calls you.

“Why is L/n here with you? Where's Tokoyami as well? Isn’t he continuing his work-study at Hawks Agency?” Midoriya was confused about why one of his work-study students was with him but not the other.

“He’s working back home with my sidekicks. This one’s here due to breakfast. I’m too busy, so I feel bad.” He rubs the back of his neck.

“Yeah after scaring me half to death.” You mumble and he turns over to you, “Huh is that my dearest student, saying she cares for me?” He smiles and your glare deepens.

“Fat chance you overgrown pigeon.” You hear Midoriya stifle a laugh not wanting to offend the number two hero.

“Earlier, I was faster than you.” You hear Bakugo say glaring at Hawks.

“I wonder about that.” Hawks teases the blonde.

Endeavor comes over ending Hawks prodding, “Well, What do you want, Hawks?”

“I don’t want anything, but Endeavor,” He takes out the book from earlier showing it to him, “Have you read this book?

“What about it?” Endeavor says wanting to get to the point.

“Well, you know, it’s gotten really popular recently. It’s from a long time ago, but it has predictions about the present. ‘If you give freedom to a limited number of people, then the negative consequences will go to the others.’ ” He flips through the pages quoting an excerpt from it before slamming it shut. “If you don’t have time to read it all, I’ve highlighted some parts for you. So you can read those parts. The leader of the Meta Liberation Army, Destro, ultimately wanted, you know. A society completed by personal responsibility! It goes with the times!” He smiles talking about the book and you feel slightly uneasy at the fascination he has as he talks about it.

The slight glow in his eyes as he talks about it. He says it was just old propaganda but now he’s telling Endeavor all the highlights and thought he put in. Was he really that interested in the Meta Liberation Army, even though he told you he wasn’t, would he lie to you for your own sake?

“What are you saying?” Endeavor says confused.

“If it comes to fruition, then we’ll have time on our hands.” He says holding out the book to the hero. As you watch the interaction between the two you notice his face is more serious now than before almost as if he’s trying to pressure him to take it, you’ve never seen Hawks this serious about something before and it made you nervous.

Hawks places the book in Endeavor’s hand still giving him that look, “Please make sure you read it.”

“The book the number two hero is pushing! I should read it, too. Maybe the secret to his speed is hidden in it!” Midoriya says all focus and you slap your hand against your forehead, this kid is so bright but also so dumb.

Hawks stiffens before turning to the four of you, holding three books in his hand with a smile on his face, “I brought these just for someone like you!”

“So prepared! Where did they come from” Midoriya exclaims.

“That’s right! It’s the age of the Number Two! If you’ve got speed,” He zips over quickly, giving a book to the three boys and then back to where he was standing before, “I think the power to predict what’s coming ahead goes with it!”

“He’s even too fast at passing them out!” Midoriya is in awe of your mentor.

“You really love this book, huh? To have so many copies...” Todoroki says, looking up at him.

“I think it’s so he can spread the word about it.” Midoriya turns to Todoroki.

“That’s right! I’ve been recommending it to all my friends and all the heroes across the country. I think there will at least be the groundwork for liberation ideology.” He says, opening his wings, and getting ready to leave. “You should look over at the parts that were highlighted. I recommend the second part.” He says looking back at Endeavor.

You get ready to leave with him when you feel your blood run ice cold. Across the street amongst the crowd was him, he seems to be watching the whole interaction from afar, but his focus was on you. He lifts his hand making the signal of a phone and it went off at that moment. Pulling your phone out you see a message from an Unknown number,

“Phone call in ten minutes, you better pick up.”

This was the first threat you have received in all the texts you got. You look across the street again only to find him gone, and a hand snaps in front of your face.

“Hey, chickadee ready?” Hawks gives you a look, and he is looking over your face at your sudden pale expression.

“Yeah you go on ahead I have to make a phone call.” You say lying through your teeth, hoping the very skilled hero would believe you, “It’s for the commission.” He seems to look deep into your soul before nodding and stepping away.

“I’ll see you later.” He says and you nod quickly feeling your hands sweat as you clutch your phone in one hand. He flies up a bit before turning towards the five of you, looking at Endeavor's group. “Do your best with the work studies all four of you!” He gives you one last glance before flying off.

“Even though he’s still young, what he looks at is completely different from us. He’s only twenty-two!” Midoriya says as he watches him fly off.

“Only six years older, huh?” Todoroki says.

“You must be lucky to have him as a mentor huh, L/n.” Midoriya looks over at you and you give him a brief nod, hoping you could leave faster in fear of what would happen if you don’t answer in time.

“He’s annoying!” Bakugo spats.

“I should head off now, got patrols to do back home and all. Great seeing you guys.” You say giving very fast farewells before turning to leave.

“Yeah, that’s right.” Endeavor says to himself flipping through the pages, before turning to you. “Halo.” He calls out to you and you freeze just wanting to leave, go how long has it been yet? You turn around to face the flame hero.

“Yes, sir?”

“You would know if anything was different about Hawks?” He asks and you nod, “Probably I’ve known him basically all my life.” You say and you feel your phone buzz again.

“Five minutes left, don’t keep me waiting.” Included was a picture of you back towards the camera.

“I’m sorry Endeavor sir, I really must be going.” You say and he seems to stare at you and unknown to you he can see the fear and worry in your eyes, which makes him question both you and Hawks. He nods and you bow slightly before waving goodbye quickly to your classmates, practically booking it out of there. You take off quickly from the street, some feathers being left behind on how fast you flew, and you fly for a bit before landing on a rooftop that has no doors leading up just leaving you up there. You glance at your phone feeling hours tick by before your phone goes off a call from Unknown.

You don’t want to answer but know better otherwise bring the phone up to your ear.

“Hello..” You whisper and you hear a deep chuckle come from the other end making you completely frozen in your spot.

“Gosh you know how refreshing it is to hear your voice again.” He says and you wrap your wings around yourself feeling like his eyes are on you.

“What do you want?” You say trying to keep level-headed and not show your fears to him.

“Many things in this world darling, money, fame, power, but right now I’ll settle for you.” You shiver you can almost picture him smirking on the other end of the line.

“I’ll go to the police, they will find you.” You say and he laughs,

“You go right ahead and see how that turns out. Your friends at U.A. you wouldn’t want them getting hurt, would you? Especially that boy that seems so fond of you. Really it killed me watching you with him, but I was able to satisfy myself that guy at the arcade you race him remember?” He asks and you remember he was so sure of winning going as far as pulling your wings in an attempt to make you lose. “God you should have seen his face begging for his life, but he touched something that didn’t belong to him. He won’t hurt you now.”

You feel your throat close up at the realization of what he says. He had killed someone just because they touched you, he was dead because of you.

“Now if you don’t want that happening to your friends or that mentor of yours, you both are awfully close you’re going to listen to what I say. You won’t go to the police, ever. If I find out you did, I'll kill everyone then you. When I call you, you pick up, when I message you, you answer it. Understand.” He says his voice like a noose getting tighter around your neck with his words almost killing you.

“Who are you?” Your voice is weak and you feel tears start to cloud your eyes not spilling over.

You hear him let out a small laugh and it’s like he’s right against your ear, “Your worst nightmare darling. See you around songbird.” And with the line goes dead.

Your legs are shaky and you feel the bile rise in your throat and you rush towards a secluded area of the roof and empty your stomach. There wasn’t much except the small breakfast you had as you cough the rest out. You get up on shaky legs putting your phone away, you manage to get home, on your weak stomach and the dark thoughts circling you.

You get on your balcony quickly getting inside, locking the door behind you, closing every blind blocking the outside view inside your home. You collapse onto your couch looking around your home feeling yourself slowly go crazy. What if he was in here, waiting for you to come home and take you away!? You feel yourself getting hot and you struggle to get your jacket off feeling like it was suffocating you, feeling your whole costume choking you. You rush to your bathroom stripping your costume off you leaving you in your sports bra and the spandex shorts underneath. Resting your hands on your sink you look into the mirror, your face is pale, your hair all crazy from the wind, and the scars littering your body seem to pop out more with your drained complexion.

You drag yourself out of the bathroom into your room closing the door behind you. You felt as if his eyes were still watching you and you were too exposed. You lock your bedroom door as well as push your dresser in front of it as another defense. You collapse on your bed, feeling exhausted from your empty stomach and you felt physically sick. You lay in your bed allowing your thoughts to take over and drown you until you fell asleep trapping you instead of dreams but nightmares.

At Endeavor’s Agency, Endeavor scans through the book trying to find any information in the book. It doesn’t make sense. He thinks back on times when he and Hawks had any conversation about the future and compares it to the recent one. It’s too different from back then. It was like he was saying the complete opposite now. Bragging with a smile on his face as he said what he really thought. In front of him, at least, Hawks always seemed like he was joking. He continues to turn through the pages hoping to find an answer. The complete opposite. Look over the highlighted parts, especially the second part. That was an unnatural way of speaking he thought looking over at the highlights in the pages. There’s something he can’t say, but even so, Hawks is trying to tell him… ‘The Second Part’... Looking at the phrases in front of him each section means something different and makes no sense in a code of something. That was until it hit him, his eyes widen as he focuses on the pages in front of him

“The enemy is..” The second word! The second words from each highlighted part… “The enemy is the liberation” ..are connected! Each phrase builds him the sentences he needs as he unfolds the clue by flipping through the pages. “The enemy..is the liberation army. They number...over a hundred thousand. In four months… to action.” Endeavor is in shock over the information. There were more pages to look over and he continues to decipher the ending. “Before that.. I’ll send a signal.” Is he secretly investigating the enemy? ”In case of...failure..more manpower…” That is when he thinks back to the meeting he had with the president of the Hero Commission. Getting the Work Studies back up to have the students have more experience with villains. Looking through the book there was more, “The halo..is watched by the...league. Flames will swallow...her whole..must protect.” He seems confused by the statement. ‘The halo?’ Was a halo, a symbol or code of the liberation. Then it hits him that girl, her name was Halo. If the league was watching her, it meant for a reason. Is she used as leverage against Hawks as she is his protege? Flames will swallow her whole, there is only one fire-quirk user that is part of the league, and if this girl is a key in all of this. He will do everything in his power to keep this girl safe.

Hawks back at the Paranormal Liberation Front worry if Endeavor was able to decipher the message he sent him. He knew somehow they would use you against him as a way to keep him in place, but he needed to make sure the Number One knew as a way to protect the people as well as protect you.

“It’s Izuku!” Toga cries out excited to see a photo of him during the battle against Starservant.

“From what I saw, they haven’t grown much.” Dabi says to him looking over the photo.

“They are just students.” Hawks smiles, they were truly underestimating them.

“Well, except that one girl, she’s crazy strong. She’s a bore.” Twice says complimenting her before quickly insulting the girl.

“Ah yes, she has quite a fighting spirit. Halo was it? She seems to have plenty of potential.” Dabi says swiping to see another photo, it was you on the phone with the police. You were facing the camera slightly as you looked somewhere else. Hawks felt his jaw tick, and he held his tongue not wanting to make matters worse.

“She’s still learning.” Hawks grits out his eyes sharp as he glares at Dabi who wears a smirk on his face. Dabi knew he was walking on thin ice mentioning you but he couldn’t do anything against him knowing that she was a weakness to him. When those four months come and spring does arrive, he hopes you all will be smiling after.

When you woke, you were covered in sweat and you felt weak while moving your body. You push your dresser a bit away from your door allowing you to unlock it and slide out. You head to the bathroom seeing your costume still on the ground as you take a shower hoping the cool water would wake you up more and try to wash the sick feeling off you. Getting out and brushing your hair and fixing your wings, combing through fixing bent feathers, or taking any loose ones out. Getting dressed in your hero costume, looking in the mirror you see dark circles under your eyes despite being asleep for the entire day yesterday. You head downstairs towards where Hawks’ sidekicks were.

You see Tokoyami already dressed in his hero costume as he listens to what one of Hawks’ sidekicks says. Going over to a table you give your ID and they give you a commlink connecting you to the agency to listen to any calls you might get.

“Good morning Tokoyami, how are you enjoying your work-study?” You greet him and he nods.

“While I haven’t been able to see Hawks I’m still able to train more and get more experience in hero work. Do you go on a different shift with other sidekicks? I saw you weren’t with us during patrol.”

You nod. “Yeah usually I’m with Hawks if we go out but because he’s been busy I go out by myself, it’s easy for me to work. I’ve been doing it since I came here and working with the commission.” You explain and he greets you. An alarm went off making everyone get ready for the call.

“Hit and run off 83rd street for Tsukuyomi. Halo robbery at a bakery on West Street.” Someone calls out and everyone gets going.

You turn back to Tokoyami, “Be safe out there.” You say and he nods. “You as well.”

You slide on your glasses putting on your headphones before heading towards the open doors and taking off to go help. Your day so far has been quite uneventful, as you complete more work doing your job as a hero in training. You knew that the section you were watching over just got a shift of heroes coming in and you decide to indulge yourself just flying around as no calls came in.

You continue to fly, not even realizing how far you had flown until you saw you were back at Musutafu. You land down walking through the city no one taking mind of you, used to heroes showing up most times. As you walk up ahead of you at the busy intersection, you see a lady walking across the street with her child, the child drops their toy and they rush back to grab it just as a truck is hurtling down the street. You run into the street taking your staff from your belt as it extends, chucking it to where the truck would be as you use your wings to pick up your speed you grab the child shielding them with your wings when the truck hits your staff embedded into the street.

You wince slightly when some pieces of metal hit you but you're protected by your hardened wings. Looking behind you to see that the truck had stopped and the hood and bumper were extremely dented curving slightly around the staff in the ground. You feel a large amount of heat landing next to you and you turn and see it was Endeavor seconds too late after you. Looking at the girl in your arms she opens her eyes, seeing she was okay. Putting the kid down you hand her the toy she was trying to pick up.

“You okay kid?” You ask and she nods and she is quickly scooped up by her mother who was crying holding her thanking you profusely. You nod as the driver of the truck comes over and gets on his hands and knees apologizing a bunch to the woman. You pull out your phone already contacting the police about the incident, before putting it away.

“Seems you were able to be there just in time.” Endeavor says in what you think is his way of thanking you, and you nod going over to the truck grabbing the staff from the ground, and pulling it out. You see that most people on the street stopped seeing what happened and there they all were with their phones out filming the entire interaction. You hated that when things went wrong or someone was in trouble everyone pulls out their phone to record hoping to get the next viral video instead of helping.

“Sorry to steal your spotlight Endeavor.” You say getting ready to leave when he stops you.

“I assume Hawks will be following behind you any minute?” He questions ready for the other winged hero to show up and practically smother you with compliments and praise telling you how you're growing up and him being so proud of you.

“Nope he’s off doing his own thing, I was just out on patrol and ended up over here without noticing.” You explain and you now see your classmates behind him, Bakugo was looking at you jealous that you were doing more hero work than him, Todoroki didn’t have many emotions to show which was normal, and Midoriya was in complete awe of you. How you didn’t even hesitate in saving that girl, the skill and raw power you had to do all that and tell the Number One hero that you, a first-year student, were just patrolling on their own cause they could.

“The police should be here soon to deal with the rest of this.” You say looking at your phone and seeing a message sent from him.

“Nice save songbird.” You still looking around the area could he be here right now, you could get him and all your problems would be solved. You hate that you have to respond to him knowing it was just what he wants in holding power over you.

“Thanks.” Short and simple.

You clutch your phone in your hand almost about to break it, not realizing Endeavor watches the entire interaction, though he didn’t see who was messaging you he had a pretty good idea that it might be the league.

“Everything alright Halo?” He asks, trying to see if you might reveal anything to him. You nod though you wished you could tell him what was wrong.

“Everything is alright. I do have to go though.” You say pushing your glasses on you, you didn’t want to worry him about your problems if you comply no one gets hurt that's all you had to do. You don’t even acknowledge your classmates flying off and heading back to Fukuoka to get back to patrolling.

Your work studies went by you went on a few patrols with Tokoyami giving him tips when he uses Dark Shadow to fly and other things about his quirk. You haven’t seen Hawks since the day with Starservant which makes you worry a bit but he’ll send you a text sometimes asking about your day or to show you this crazy thing he saw. And with that, your work studies were over and you were back in school. You walk to class putting away your glasses and headphones, you see your classmates entering as Iida very energetically greets each classmate.

“Ah L/n it is great seeing you!” He chops his hand in the air and you nod entering going over to your desk. Putting your bag down you scroll through your phone looking at any news involving Hawks with him being M.I.A.

You see you receive a message and your decent morning is ruined by a message from him, “I’m disappointed I won’t see you more now that you're in school.” You feel disgusted but slightly relieved that he can’t watch you now that you were at U.A. Iida and Momo stand at the front of the class as the bell signals the start of homeroom.

“An auspicious New Year to you all! In today’s class, we’ll be giving status reports. We will share what we learned, accomplished, and experienced over winter break.” Iida explains to the class. “Everyone, please suit up and report to ground Alpha!” Iida was very lively and he usually had a serious stickler attitude.

The door slams open and it’s Mr. Aizawa holding a sleeping bag “Alright wrap it up-” Mina rushes out the door holding her case.

“Happy New Year, Mr. Aizawa!” Everyone grabs their hero costumes and you head to the changing rooms. In the locker rooms, you all get dressed into your costumes.

“Is that a new costume, Ochaco? It looks great on you!” Hagakure compliments the brunette who smiles.

“Really think so? Thanks!” You pull on your jacket stretching your wings fixing the crooked feathers.

“Y/n I saw online you did a lot during your work studies, there’s this video going viral.” Mina says to you and you turn around to face her.

“I saw it too, you were so cool saving that kid.” Uraraka says and you nod.

“Just getting the experience as Iida said.” You say and you finish zipping your boots.

“Hey Y/n I believe you dropped this. “ Momo hands you the bracelet that Midoriya got you and out of the corner of your eye you see Mina give you a smirk, her eyes full of mischief.

“Is that from who I think it is?” She says, grabbing your arm and taking a better look at the bracelet.

“It’s not that big of a deal Mina, it's just a gift.” You say slipping your bracelet on your wrist tightening it so it doesn’t fall off. Mina gives you a smile bouncing up and down in excitement.

Now outside you all head to Ground Alpha, you are walking between Mina and Kaminari. “I’m just saying if you gave me some of your feathers do you think I would be able to fly?” Kaminari says and you weren’t sure how you were entertaining this conversation.

“Kaminari my feathers are useless when they are removed, so you won’t be able to fly.” You say and he pouts at his now flightless future, “Will you take me flying.” He says with such excitement you really couldn’t refuse to nod and he did a little dance all excited.

“Symbol..of...Sweets!” You hear All Might say very dramatically and there he was holding a cotton candy machine, everyone was confused or didn’t understand the joke he was trying to make; that being you and Todoroki.

“Huh? Where’s Mr. Aizawa?” Someone says and All Might deflate and is upset his joke didn’t work.

“Hey guys. C’mon, I put all my might into this gag. Get it cause I’m called ‘The Symbol of Peace’?” No one says anything and he put the candy machine down, “Anyhow, Aizawa was just called away on urgent business.”

Each group and the agency they went with showed off the skills they learned while fighting the U.A. Villain Bots. Aoyama, Hagakure, and Mina worked under the No. 9 Pro Hero Yoroi Musha, coming up with new plans and combos to keep up in battle. Ojiro and Sato worked with the No. 13 Pro Hero Shishido, showing off their attacking speed and predictive abilities. Jiro and Shoji worked with the No. 12 Pro Hero Gang Orca, showing off their enhanced search techniques. Kaminari, Sero, and Mineta worked under the No. 23 Hero Mt. Lady and her team The Lurkers showing off their teamwork and group moves. Iida worked with the No. 222 Hero Manual, showing off a looser approach to battle. Koda showed off his improved communication skills while working under the No. 8 Hero Wash. Both you and Tokoyami showed off your skills against the robots, taking them quickly with your quirk and fighting style and Tokoyami’s Dark Shadow. While Hawks was there to mentor you both increased in skills and raw power while there. Kirishima returned to the No. 58 Hero Fat Gum’s agency, showing his improved skill in making villains lose their will to fight. Uraraka and Asui returned as well, to work with the No. 10 Hero Ryukyu both showing improved determination. Momo worked under the Pro Hero Majestic showing her improved predictive abilities and her skill to act efficiently. Finally, Bakugo, Todoroki, and Midoriya showed off what they were working on under Number One, Endeavor. Bakugo and Todoroki show an increased skill in their quirks through power and speed while Midoriya has improved control over Blackwhip.

You remember during your training together after school, that you both worked together to help with getting his quirk to work, and simple things such as pulling over water bottles. It made your heart swell with pride seeing how far he can go with his quirk. The three boys came over back to the class and they were bombarded with compliments.

You see Midoriya looking over at you, “L/n!” He calls out coming over to you, and Mina elbows you in the gut making you give her a look.

“I wanted to thank you for helping with my quirk and giving me the confidence that I need.” He bowed slightly and you just nod.

“It’s no problem, both of us are getting stronger, which means we are closer to becoming heroes.” You say and he nods.

“One step at a time.” He says holding his fist up and you're confused at the gesture. “You hit my fist with yours, it's a fist bump.” He says and you bring your fist up bumping it with his and he smiles which makes you smile as well.

“Okayyy. It seems you’ve all learned a lot, out in the world,” All Might says, clapping his hands together bringing attention to himself, “I’ve recorded class today so Aizawa can watch it later! Keep giving your all during your work studies! Aiming ever higher.” He says and you all went on to continue school. When school had ended you thought you were going to get a call from the Commission needing you for training or just to bother you but they’ve been radio silent since the beginning of your work studies.

“Hey Y/n!” Mina calls out to you coming over followed by Kirishima, seeing you standing by the front gates of the campus, “We’re throwing a Hot pot party for the class, wanna come?”

You look back at your phone before putting it away, “Yeah sure.” Mina cheers, looping an arm with yours as the three of you make your way back to the dorms. You were helping Mina bring food to the table, you had taken off your school jacket, leaving you in the button-down shirt and your skirt. You see both Bakugo and Midoriya coming in, Sero and Kaminari saying something to them and Bakugo yells at them while Midoriya rushes to help. With everything set up you all dug in ready to soothe your hungry stomach with all this food.

“Nothing beats a hot pot on a chilly day.” Kirishima says, stuffing his face with meat.

“Once it’s warm again we'll be second-years.” Jiro says.

“Before we know it, yeah.” Asui says and Uraraka sighs “What a rush this whole year’s been.”

Looking at your classmates, they all went through so much while you just joined in. Though you may have more experience in training and working hard, you lacked what they had which was a close-knit bond with each other. Yeah, you would say they are your friends, but they went through much more together. They shared everything with each other making their bond closer while you were stuck holding back from letting them know everything. You could tell them how your parents left you as a child and you were tossed around in foster homes, none of them great times, then being found by the commission and training to meet Hawks. When you would have conversations about your connection to Pro Heroes they always say how lucky you are to know such famous people and your training helped you become the person you are. The commission is your life. They gave you everything now and they used your vulnerability and molded you to become a soldier that they could use.

“Hey we get to meet the new first-years.” Mina points out.

“But since the Hero course doesn’t have clubs we won’t interact with them much.” Momo says and Mina sags.

“A whole new crop of hero hopefuls? Love it!” Iida says, “We still have three months remaining! Don’t forget about the final exams standing in our way!”

“Cut it out Iida! Your nagging is gonna ruin the food!” Mineta cries out shooting Iida a glare.

Todoroki looks down at his food confused, “It doesn’t taste any different to me.” and Mineta’s eyes widen as he yells at Todoroki.

“Listen you! Enough of that overly literal airhead shtick!!”

Jiro laughs, serving herself, “Panicking about exams, Har-dee-har.”

“Speak for yourself!” Mineta yells trying to get his point across but everyone just laughs. These past couple of months have gone by quite fast but you wouldn’t change it at all. You hear your phone go off signaling a call before it stops. Placing your food on the table you pull your phone out and your heart drops seeing the multiple messages and calls that you missed all coming from Unknown. All of the missed messages are getting more aggressive, the last one sending a chill down your spine.

“You’ve got blood on your hands now.”

Standing up abruptly startling Jiro who sat next to you.

“Hey, Y/n you okay?” Jiro asks, getting concerned about your facial expression as you keep looking back at your phone.

“Yeah sorry I forgot I was supposed to call someone for where I was supposed to be.” You apologize, forcing a smile onto your face. Some of your classmates were looking at you concerned about your sudden action. “I’m just going to go call them, I’ll be right back.”

Jiro nods slowly and you turn walking past your classmates as many of them go back to eating and chatting. When you turn the corner away from their gaze you sprint to a secluded room unaware of one person following after you. Going into the first empty room which was a study area, there were some tables and a small couch in the room. Quickly dialing the number you hold the phone to your ear, your other hand holding your elbow as you pace the room, hoping he would pick up.

“You really know how to push someone to the edge, you know that.” You hear his voice growl through the other end and you let out the breath of air you didn’t even know you were holding in.

“Please stop it, I’m sorry.” You feel tears brim your eyes and he laughs.

“You’re sorry? That’s cute really. You wanna say sorry to the people who are dead because of you.” He spat and you close your eyes hoping this was just a horrible dream and you would wake up. “Come on songbird, you’re really sorry. They were a nice innocent family that didn't do anything wrong to the world.” He says and you let out a choked sob and he laughs at you.

“Don’t hurt anyone else.” You beg you knew he could do anything he wanted if it meant having a hold over you.

“Begging really. You’re resorting to that.” He sighs and you look down feeling sick to your stomach, “You have twenty minutes to be at this location. Don’t make me wait.” The call drops, and your phone buzzes again and it's a location in the middle of the city.

If you left now and hurried you would be able to make it. Wiping the tears from your face you shove your phone leaving the room. As you walk out a hand lands on your shoulder, and you flinch, gripping their wrist twisting it over your shoulder pulling their body over completely flipping them over standing over them holding one hand against their throat the other pulled back in a fist. You see it’s Bakugo who is underneath you gasping from getting the wind knocked out of him. You pull back holding your hand out to pull him up.

“Bakugo why the hell would you sneak up on me?” You say, pulling him up to his feet.

“Jeez you’re a superhuman freak, birdbrain.” He insults you, rubbing a hand against his back.

“I don’t have time for your insults Bakugo, I have to go.” You say leaving when he grabs your wrist.

“Who were you on the phone with?” He questions you and you pull your wrist away,

“That’s none of your concern.” Going to leave but he gets in front of you stopping you from moving.

“It is my concern when I hear you telling someone not to hurt someone.” You froze, he heard your conversation, was he going to tell?

You push past him, “You didn’t hear shit Bakugo, mind your business.” He grabs your arm pulling you back and you turn around throwing a punch at his face which he blocks.

He swipes his leg under you and you jump back spinning around kicking him in the chest and sending him back. He rushes at you, his hand letting out small explosions popping when arms wrap around you and you end up far away from Bakugo. You turn and see Midoriya holding you, the green lightning surrounding him disappearing, Kirishima was holding back Bakugo as he struggles in his arms telling him to let him go.

“Come on what’s all this, why are you two fighting?” Iida says looking at the two of you all of the class over here now. You pull away from Midoriya who frowns and you go over to the couches grabbing your bag and jacket, and slipping on your shoes.

“I gotta go.” You say and your classmates cry out trying to get you to stop, some of the boys already scolding Bakugo for making you feel like you have to leave.

Already halfway out the door a hand grabs your wrist and you turn to see it was Midoriya who looks worried, “Hey you can tell me if something is wrong.” He says and you felt yourself feeling bad and ruining the night.

“I just have something I have to do,” You pull your hand out of his grasp pulling on your glasses and headphones, “Sorry for ruining the party.” You take off into the sky, the wind blowing Midoriya’s hair back as he sees you quickly disappear into the night. You felt as if time was ticking down as you flew, with the fight with Bakugo you were nervous you were going to be late and you didn’t want to picture what would happen.

Looking at your phone you see you’re right above the location, you head down to the street seeing a crowd as well as red and blue flashing lights that shine against you. The crowd is held back by a strip of police tape as well as some officers as people are yelling questions at them. Getting to the side of the crowd where you saw in the alleyway they were blocking made your stomach churn. There were people placing tarps over a family of four. They were all brutally burned blood everywhere and the light they shine to give them a better view there was one specifically pointed to the wall.

Written on the wall in what you hoped wasn’t blood, “Too late songbird”

You felt the dinner rise. You cover your mouth not wanting to throw up in the street. You turn away from it feeling horrified, this was all your fault. If you saw your phone, that family would still be alive happily heading home not dead in an alleyway.

“Quite a shame really, seemed like a nice family.” You hear someone say as they place their hand on your shoulder. Looking up you are frozen in fear seeing him staring at you, he wore a hoodie shielding his face from most people but the flashing lights gave you a clear view of who was standing next to you.

“Poor thing isn’t it songbird~” He smirks at your fearful expression. You want to run, run very far and very fast but your feet feel as heavy as cement blocks. “Come on, let's go walk.” He does give you much room to argue, wrapping his arm completely around your shoulder and leading you away from the crowd.

Your heart beats faster as he turns to an alleyway leading you into it the sound of the passing car and people quiet down as you lead down this path of death. He stops leaning against the wall, he pulls out a cigarette and you see a blue flame come from his finger as it lights. He has a fire-based quirk, this guy knew what he was doing. While your wings are strong and all even stronger when hardened, flames leave you defenseless and at a disadvantage.

“You look a little tense there, songbird.” He points out taking another drag of the cig blowing the smoke out of his nose.

“I’m completely at a disadvantage against you, and I don’t know whether you want to kill me.” You say you scan this entire area as you were walking in. It was a dead end. The only way out is from where you came from or up, but he could easily burn your wings so you can’t fly, and even if you try to run he’ll probably be able to catch you or just burn you.

He chuckles, taking another hit, “Thinking like a hero isn’t going to get you out of this, I’m not gonna hurt you.” He says and you hardly believe him.

“Why are you doing this to me?” You know it sounds horrible but you rather have someone else be the one of his attention instead of you.

“Here’s the thing songbird,” He stomps the cig on the ground walking over to you, you take two steps back for his one step. You hit the other wall of the alleyway as he towers over you, you could smell him from how close he was to you, he smells like smoke and burnt leather. The scars littering his body made him look more intimidating with him this close to you. “I’m not doing this cause I’m getting paid or whatever. I’m doing it because I can. Nothing you say or do is going to make me stop. I control every aspect of your life, you probably let yourself die if it meant saving the people you love.” He slams his against the side of your head blue flames coming off his hands and you jump your wings closing to your body. “Beg all you want darling, but I’ll stop when I’m dead or I’ve killed every single person you care for then you. I own you!” He yells and you close your eyes, tears spilling down your face.

You feel his hand trace your face making you flinch trying to pull away but he grabs your chin making your eyes snap open. His cerulean eyes seem to light with fire as he looks at you.

He pulls away, turning around and heading to leave the alley, he stops right before the street and turns his head to the side, “I’ll be seeing you real soon songbird.” And then he disappears into the street, fading into the people walking by. The streetlights don't help you find him again.

Your legs feel weak as you slide down the wall sitting on the floor and you get all choked up. Why is this your life, god you’d rather die than have this pain. You cry in that alleyway for who knows how long lifting your head from your knees your head pounds from your crying. Getting up on shaky legs you see where you stood were two large handprints burned into the brick. You surprised yourself heading home completely exhausted that you collapse on the couch once you walk in.

This was the spark that lit the flame as his aggression grew stronger.

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butterfluffy · 2 years ago

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HI FLUFFFFF!! ITS BEEN A WHILE! congrats on 200!!! so happy for you!! I've been gone so ill read what you've written so far 😳👉👈 hope you have fun on this event!! honestly i wasn't gonna send in anything cuz I've been listening to Japanese songs recently but then yt recommended a song that made me go !!

anyways, do you mind me asking for portgas d ace x male or gn reader with the song "I was made for lovin' you" by KISS? i just think ace would def sing this song on the top of his lungs when this song comes on if you catch my drift, fits him well i suppose!.. go crazy on the scenario, i wanna see what you'd make of it, have fun!!

“made for lovin' you”

⠀⠀ੈ♡˳· singing you a song, ace proved to everyone that he truly is made for lovin' you, and only you.

⠀⠀➧ r. fluff | p. d. ace × gn!reader | oneshot / song fic

⠀⠀➧ warnings — none! mistakes and swearing may be present though.. so do ignore them, thanks! ah, and ‘girl’ is used to call reader, bcs of the song.

⠀⠀➧ requests are closed until further notice!

⠀⠀꒰ 🍨 ꒱ notes: welcome to my “sing me a song” event made to honor this account reaching 200+ followers! visit it to see my other works on this special!

reqested by: @maaarshieee — thx for the request marhal koh, and yeah, after listening to the song, i confirm that ace will defo sing this song on the top of his lungs. 😚💋

Having a party held to have fun, music then blasted from the speakers, voices of the Whitebeard Pirates filling the Moby Dick with noise.

“Marco, can ya press 11419 for me? I'm gonna sing, hehe!” Thatch exclaims with a big smile on his face as he held the mic in his hand while the phoenix did what he ordered.

“Alright, here's "I Was Made For Lovin’ You" by KISS, now get into singing, yoi!” Cheering for his friend, Marco then grabbed himself a pint of beer, waiting for the song to begin as he sat beside you and Thatch who vibed with the background music.

“Wait,” You suddenly mutter, eyes squinting to read the song title flashed on the screen. “..I Was Made For Lovin’ You.” You read, soon later being struck by a realization.

“Holy shit, Thatch... That song...” Looking at him with eyes filled with shock, you then looked around, searching for your lover, Ace, who doesn't seem to be anywhere near the karaoke.

“Okay, it's not too late, stop the song now, please...” You plead, only to be shrugged off by the man beside you who already started singing. “No thanks, I'm singing, hehe!”

“...Mmm, yeah! Tonight, I want to give it all to you~” He sung, ignoring you completely, just grooving with the music, causing you to face palm, knowing what's gonna happen soon later...

“In the darkness, there's so much I want to do..” Cheers surfacing by the man's singing, you slowly shook your head. “And tonight, I want to lay it at your feet..~”

And just as you expected. He's already here. The second division captain is here. Ace, your lover is. He's practically zooming towards you three upon hearing the familiar song on the other side of the ship.

“Ah, Ace, hey—HEY THE MIC!” Thatch exclaims as soon as the mic in his hand disappeared, being snatched by the raven-haired male that took a deep breath, looking at you with a big grin in his face.

“'Cause girl, I was made for you.. And girl, you were made for me..” He continued for the brunette man, eyes locked with yours as he sung with a husky voice.

He's serenading you, and it honestly is lovely, yet embarrassing—obvious from your face that flushed red all over. Though you admit, Ace does have a great voice.

“I was made for lovin' you, baby, you were made for lovin' me. And I can't get enough of you, baby, can you get enough of me?” Taking your hand, Ace then pulled you close to him, making you two the spotlight in this party.

“Tonight, I want to see it in your eyes,” Making your hand touch his chest, Ace then smirked. “Feel the magic, there's something that drives me wild...”

“And tonight, we're gonna make it all come true,” Tapping his feet on beat, Ace jumped up the stage, lifting you up as if you were air and making you stand by him as he sung.

“'Cause girl, you were made for me, and girl, I was made for you...~” Placing a quick kiss on your lips, Ace smiled, making you feel the music flow through along with the heat of his kiss that lingered on your lips.

“I was made for lovin' you, baby, you were made for lovin' me..!” Head bobbing, he then started dancing, hands on your hips, not leaving it as you sang along your lover.

“..And I can't get enough of you, baby! Can you get enough of me~?” Teasing you with another kiss and suddenly pulling your body into his, the crowd that formed around you two ran wild, with cheers of playful ‘ooh's.’

“I was made for lovin' you, baby, you were made for lovin' me—c'mon babe, dance!” “Alright, alright...!” Swaying your hips, Ace made you dance with him along with the crew that joined in, also singing and dancing together with you two.

“And I can give it all to you, baby, can you give it all to me..!?” Spinning you around like a top before giving you a light push to lower your body close to the ground then catching it, sending a wink at your gasping self. “Ace..!”

Oh, can't get enough, I can't get enough, I can't get enough...

“Damn you, Ace, I was supposed to be the one to sing that!” Thatch argued, voice drowned by the background singers that were singing on behalf of Ace who was busy admiring you.

“Well, Thatch, this song is mine. And only I can sing it for my one and only—Y/n!” Chuckled fire-fist, embracing you tightly as he spoke proudly, ticking his fellow division captain that sighed in defeat, crossing his arms with an eye roll. “..Tsk, yeah yeah, you sweet-ass couple.”

Head turning to each other, you and Ace soon bursted laughing by Thatch's comment before returning to the mic that is in the middle of you two.

“..I was made for lovin' you, baby!” Ace exclaims before he turned the mic for you to continue what's next, “You were made for lovin' me..!”

“And I can't get enough of you, baby—” “Can you get enough of me?”

Having a duet, you and Ace exchanged lines from the song—

Oh, I was made

You were made

I can't get enough

No, I can't get enough—

...Before singing together on the iconic part of, “I was made for lovin' you, baby, you were made for lovin' me! And I can't get enough of you, baby,”

“Can you get enough of me?” Ace ends with a whisper, eyes looking through yours—staring at your soul that is tied with his, slowly closing them before landing his lips on yours, proving that he truly is made for loving you, and only you..

#ੈ♡˳· butterfluffy #ੈ♡˳· fluff reaches 200 followers!#ੈ♡˳· fluff's milestone event!#portgas d. ace x reader #ace x reader #ace one piece x reader #ace one piece #portgas d. ace #fire fist ace #one piece #one piece oneshot #one piece fanfiction #one piece x reader #one piece songfic #one piece scenario #ੈ♡˳· “sing me a song” · event

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hood-ex · 3 years ago

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how would you like to wrtie dick's death scene and people's reaction to it? Also do you know good fanfics about this topic, i am in a mood to cry so lol

Dick's death scene hm... I don't know exactly what I would do for it, but my mind is telling me it should be something equivalent to Hiccup and Toothless defeating the huge dragon and then falling prey to the flames after saving everyone. The angsty part of my brain is pointing back to the time when Dick told Bruce he would die for him 😈.

Instead of people's reactions at the scene of his death, lemme tell you how the events surrounding Dick's funeral should be done. If I had it my way, I would do something big like a mini-series with 200 (or more) pages. I'd give a section to the batfam, Titans, JL, some of the Teen Titans, and civilians.

Bruce and Alfred would get the longest time to reflect on Dick throughout the years and to express their grief over his death. The siblings and other members of the batfam would also get time to reminisce and grieve. I really wanna see Selina having a flashback to Robin Dick. That would be special.

The Titans would be a big ole mess. Fuck why am I getting teary-eyed imagining Donna looking through all the pics she took of Dick?? And her eyes getting so watery she can't even see, but she'd be staring at Dick's face in the pics, and she'd be talking to herself like, "Who's gonna listen to me complain about boys now?" or "You're supposed to be here to hug me and tell me I'll be okay. You'd always do that. Who's gonna—who's... 😣"

Kory. Whew. No matter what you say about her romantic relationship with Dick, she was also one of Dick's best friends who knew him so well. I didn't mind her reaction to Dick's death from Injustice 2. I'd love to get another quote from her similar to, "Dick Grayson. He was my starcrossed soulmate. He will never be replaced."

Yada yada. There are too many Titans for me to go through right here. You get the picture. They'd all be very weepy and thinking irrationally (like Wally who would say to Roy, "What if I reversed time...")

As for the JL, I would definitely want Clark's thoughts on it, especially something like, "Dick was more than a hero, he was my friend." I would also want to overhear Ollie, Arthur, Barry, and Dinah talking about Dick always getting into trouble with Roy, Wally, and Garth. And I'd want Clark and Diana talking to each other about keeping a close eye on Bruce.

I'd want to see the Teen Titans/YJ talking about Dick as well since Dick impacted everybody. I'd want to see them worrying about Tim too.

"The way Tim used to talk about Nightwing... I feel terrible for him."

"Yeah. He looked up to Nightwing since he was a kid."

"This fucking sucks."

I think it would be cool as hell to see some of the civilians Dick has saved in the past reacting to Nightwing's death. Kids he saved, too. Like the girl he saved who said maybe she could grow up to be a Lady Nightwing. The kids that Dick saved from the fire at the circus. Yada yada. It would be heartwarming to see them thinking, "I wish somebody could've saved you the way you saved me."

Oh, and Damian? My boy would FINALLY get to grieve for Dick. His reaction would be the kill that would make everyone cry. I want that kid spraying Dick's cologne on his sweatshirt because he finds the scent comforting. I want him stealing the golden bat buckle from Dick's Batman suit so he can use it kinda like a worry stone. I want it to end with Damian in Dick's apartment. He'd have some papers clutched in his hands, and he'd read them. First, he'd look shocked. Amazed. We'd even see a smile on his face. But then his face would slowly crumble until he was sobbing, and he'd sink to the floor. The panel would zoom in on the papers, and we would see that they were adoption papers dated back to when Dick and Damian were living together ✌🏻.

#hm i can't think of any fics rn. if i do then i'll put them in a separate post.#Dick Grayson #death hc #anon

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dorianpavus · 3 years ago

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ughshdglkwegoisglkh....

so one of my closest friends is getting married, but... i have kind of mixed feelings about it because i’m not sure... like....

for the longest time, my friend wasn’t happy in her relationship, and she and her boyfriend broke up over and over again (my friend always the one doing the breaking up)... for a lot of reasons that i won’t go into because i could write 10 pages on it

and for YEARS i’ve sat beside her while she’s cried over this relationship and been unhappy in it, which is heartbreaking for anyone, but especially when it’s one of the best people you know. and part of the problem was that she’s very insecure and she didn’t think anyone else would want her (even though she’s legitimately the catch of the century), and also she wants kids and she’s in her mid-30s now so i think she feels like, this is her only chance?

so when she told me she got engaged, i just felt this horrible chill, because... i was worried she was settling for an unhappy relationship, and she deserves so much better than that (and also her fiance does too, although every time she broke up with him he pretty much ignored it, so i guess he doesn’t agree...)

but. it’s not really my place to make that judgment for her, you know? if this is what she’s decided is right for her, then i just want to be there for her and support her as much as i can. and we talked about it when we hung out a few weeks ago, and my friend was like “it’s totally good and fine now” but i’m kind of.... worried that she’s lying to me, because now that she feels like she’s getting married, she can’t badmouth or say she’s unhappy in her relationship? like she’s picked her fiance’s team, so she can’t open up to me, which just... worries me, i guess. i would feel better about it if it felt like she was being completely upfront and sincere with me (warts and all), but... like, i get it, i guess.

so. i already have a lot of mixed feelings about the wedding itself, yeah?

but also... it’s... so... fucking expensive. and i have. so little money

i had to pay for a 200 dollar dress and accessories, gas money to drive hours and hours away three separate times in the next few months, a hotel (probably for two nights because it’s gonna be a road trip just to get to the venue for the wedding), and now i need to buy presents too and i’m just like. on the verge of tears!!!! i can’t afford this!!!! i wish i had enough money where i could buy my friend lovely things but instead i’m panicking and dreading how much money all of this is costing me

and my brother told me that i should just write her a very nice letter and basically be like, “i will take u out somewhere really nice to dinner when i have more money” which i think my friend would understand, but i’m not sure if her fiance would (and also i don’t think... i think he knows that i “don’t like” him which is really just that i know that my friend was unhappy with him, so i’m not the biggest fan of their relationship, and it’s prompted this weird like... vibe to our interactions dglkhwgegiowigsldgkh god idk. not from me, but from him. he’s kind of passive aggressive sometimes, and i know one time he was arguing with my friend and said that i was like TRYING TO POISON HER AGAINST HIM????? i literally just sit there while my friend cries over you, how is that MY fault guwheogwlgweghiosdgslkgdsgdhsdg)

but also i’m supposed to be going to the bridal shower soon and everyone opens presents there and the idea of like, giving my friend an i-o-u in front of this whole crowd of people or whatever is so humiliating...

aaaaand on top of all of that. THERE IS A PANDEMIC. and with the delta variant i’m so fucking anxious all the time about going to all these things, especially with her family and i don’t know if all of them are vaccinated? i don’t think they are??? like originally when i said i’d go to all of these things it was pre-delta variant when everyone was getting vaccinated and it seemed like it would be okay, but now i’m just....

so full of dread!!!!! and so stressed about money!!!! and the wedding in general!!!!! and i’m so unhappy about it and i don’t know what to do and i just. lskghslgsghk 😭😭😭😭😭

if i had my way, i would call in for the bridal shower and stuff on zoom (avoiding the bulk of her unvaccinated family as much as i can) and talk to my friend privately about things but.... i hate the idea of disappointing her so much, she was SO HAPPY when i said i’d be there and support her and stuff, and she’s seriously one of the best and most incredible people i know and i want to be there for her. but. at the risk of getting covid and passing it on to my family? and also when i have so little money to spare? i don’t knowwwww

if i get married one day. i want a potluck with a lot of booze and i will get speakers and we can just have like a house party and enjoy the company of my favorite people and shit... all of this traditional wedding stuff sucks so much when you aren’t rich i don’t know why people spend so much money on it all sdlkghsldgkhslkgh

ANYWAY i just. really needed to vent. if u actually read this i love u, thank u 😭😭💖💖💖💖 i hope you are having a very lovely day!!!

#don't mind me just venting about some stuff under the cut 😤😭#personal spam

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magicianapprenticelyra · 3 years ago

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Day 2: Touch(y)

@sweetalnazar

Featuring Lyra Nguyen and Asra Alnazar; Modern AU

(Close Friendship, Pre-Romantic Relationship)

“How long do you think she’s going to be angry at me?”

“Asra, she has no right to be this pissed at you.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I’ll probably know for sure in about . . . two hours?”

Asra winces at that assessment, barely able to prevent himself from tripping over a tree root in the sidewalk as Lyra continues ahead.

“It’s not your fault!” she calls back, slowing down enough for him to finally catch up.

“Wh-when you said that your mom can blow things out of pr-proportion—” Asra chokes on air, coughing. Lyra reaches into her drawstring bag, handing her friend a plastic water bottle. Asra takes it with a quiet thanks, waterfalling the contents into his mouth.

“This is actually mild compared to the other bullshit she’s pulled.”

Asra grimaces, struggling to keep up with her when she resumes power walking. This situation is flipped from when Asra wanted to go go go somewhere; he didn’t like this one bit.

“Where are we going?”

“I’m going to stuff my face with food,” Lyra replies simply. “There’s a small Vietnamese place that cooks the best popcorn chicken with their rice down this way—” Lyra walks on, rattling on with commentary about a third of the menu before she stops and turns to face Asra again, giving him a small smile. “I’ll even pay for whatever you want to get, too. Cap is $200 altogether, for the both of us. Is that okay?”

“Y-yeah . . . no, no problem . . .” Asra's breathless. He gets properly upright once at the door of the establishment. When Lyra opens the door, the bell above clangs into the metal frame it hangs off of.

The smell of good food welcomes them both.

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

Later . . .

Asra, having the end of his chopsticks hovering close to his lips, watches Lyra consume another bowl of fried rice and a side of dumplings. The aisle-side of the booth’s table has a wall consisting of plates, bowls, and various utensils. Asra looks to the busser, sympathetic when they stop by the table for the third time to clear it. He places his chopsticks horizontally over his bowl of phở, exhaling softly.

“Ly?”

“Mmph?” Lyra stops eating, one cheek full of food as she looks at him. Seeing his expression, she carefully turns to the side.

Shielding the lower half of her face with her hand, Lyra quickly chews what’s in her mouth. With each swallow, she chases it with her tea, wincing at the heat. Once she’s done, Lyra quickly grabs tissues from the napkin dispenser against the wall. With one hand, she works on getting rid of what’s leftover on her mouth and lips. Her other hand rubs the area under her hyoid bone.

“Ow . . .” she rasps.

“You’re not Faust!” Asra teases, but there’s still that edge of worry in his voice.

Lyra glances at him, her dark brown eyes unexpectedly meeting Asra’s own. Her eyes widen, taking in the brown curls framing his face. She quickly averts her gaze to the table itself. Her eyes bore into the resin tabletop.

“Do you think you’re done?”

She nods.

“Okay. You still want to pay for all of the stuff we ate?”

She nods again, taking the table’s number stand with her as she goes to the register a ways behind Asra. He finishes up his bowl of phở and leaves a hefty tip on the table when the busser comes. He thanks them, getting to his feet when Lyra returns soon after.

After they box their leftovers, the pair walk single-file out the door. Outside, they maneuvered themselves to walk side by side.

“Where do you want to go next?”

“I don’t wanna go back to my uncle’s yet,” Lyra murmurs.

“I know . . .”

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

Lyra is much, much slower with a stomach full of food. Asra's relieved, especially since he has an inkling he might have pulled something while tripping over the tree root earlier.

"How are you feeling?" Asra asks, looking over at her.

"Not that good." Lyra hugs herself around her abdomen, looking a little green.

Asra winces. He looks around them, immediately spotting a bodega up ahead.

“Ginger ale or—?"

"The lemon-lime one this time, please," Lyra rasps, swallowing thickly.

He's off like a shot, making Lyra laugh when he zips past the front door. In a few moments he zooms back to her, quickly wiping the top of the can with his shirttail before passing it to her.

Lyra gently taps the top of the can with a fingernail. She holds it away from herself, tugging on the pull-tab before shuffling to the side of the sidewalk.

The both of them stand under the awning of a boarded up building, graffitied with all sorts of art.

"No 'splosion," Lyra exhales in relief. She carefully sips on the drink, lightly coughing.

Asra nods, barely able to hide his concern as she closes her eyes.

Lyra was prone to eating her feelings. That wasn't the surprising thing. Asra has seen her stress-eat during final exams back in high school, but this was something else.

Bzz. Bzz.

"That's you," Lyra murmurs.

You left your phone back at your uncle's? Asra didn't voice these thoughts, instead checking on the messages he's received. As expected, they were all from Lyra's family.

🏒Neha: Where are you guys?

💻 Walt: Still a bit dicey back here. I think you kids can come back around 4 or 5 o'clock though.

🍰 James: Bao and Mai are still yelling at each other. Going to be a while yet. Everything ok?

Asra answers them all to the best of his ability, immediately pocketing his phone.

It's only just after 2 p.m.

"What they say?"

"Your uncle and mom are still discussing things—" He blinks in surprise when Lyra snorts derisively, shaking her head.

"Well, what do you want me to say about it?" Asra shifts his weight from one foot to another, assessing her body language.

"I know they're at each other's throats still. You don't need to protect me from that." Lyra gives him a rueful smile.

"I'm sorry,” Asra murmurs softly.

Lyra gently nudges her elbow to his upper arm. "It wasn't my fault, much less yours."

"She got really angry today."

"We were just snuggled together—" Lyra stops to scoot back from the sidewalk, allowing a parent and their gaggle of children to pass before continuing,

"—we fell asleep watching t.v. in the living room. Mom didn't have to surprise us with a visit."

"It's just her up here, right?"

"Mhm. Vinh is back with Theodore. I'm just happy my mom didn't hit you with anything more substantial."

Asra laughs. "The pillow was within reach—better than the lamp on the side table.”

"I would feel terrible if she did."

"She didn't though."

Lyra nods, exhaling softly. "I'm sorry I freaked you out earlier. I must've looked like a Sarlacc pit."

"You're nowhere near that" Asra nudges his upper arm against hers. "I don't blame you for what happened."

"I still say she's blowing it out of proportion!"

“Perhaps, but she wanted to protect you.”

“She assumes the worst in everyone around her, Asra. Theodore is the only one that’s not subject to it anymore. It’s really not healthy. Aside from my father being a major part of why I left, why do you think I wanted so badly to stay with my uncle?”

“Mmm . . .” Asra hums, exhaling.

He scoots back over to her, positioning himself so that shoulder to shoulder, they’re touching. In turn, Lyra leans over just enough to have the side of her head rest upon his shoulder.

They still had a few hours to kill. There weren’t any NO LOITERING signs nearby, either. For the time being, this was a perfect spot to rest in.

A/N: I took it in a bit of a different direction. (^w^)

Context for who is who in here—

Lyra Nguyen is related to her uncle Bảo through her mother, Mai. Theodore is Mai’s current significant other, but not married to her (yet). Vinh is Lyra’s biological younger sister.

Walterine Aster is—from the canon Arcana timeline—the aunt Ly inherits The Shop from in Center City. In modern AU, she’s a single mother who has a daughter named Neha. She’s known James and Bảo for years, having met the former back in their college days.

James Cionaodh is Bảo’s partner (married). These two live with Walterine and Neha because living where they are—modern equivalent to San Francisco—is expensive as all hell.

Neha is roughly the same age as Vinh in this modern AU. She is technically Ly’s cousin by marriage from the canon Arcana timeline (long story), but in that timeline they’re essentially sisters, at least Pre-Red Plague and post Upright/a few Reversed timelines.

I’ll probably need to make a separate post for this but, thank you so much for reading!

UPDATE JUNE 12TH, 2021: [NEXT]

#The Arcana #asraweek2021 #fan apprentice #Asra #magicianapprenticelyra #the scribe writes #Uncle Bảo #Neha Aster #Walterine Aster #James Aster #OCs #modern AU #AUs

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bitch-im-your-biggest-nightmare · 4 years ago

Text

Parenting 200!

Hey people, its ya boy, the bitch. I’m making another one of these cuz someone asked and YES. Corpse Husband x Son yes. Tags: @save-the-sky @alilshit @whatifwedo @hughugh20@fleurmoon @bi-andready-tocry @itsminniekat @yoongi-holland@loraleiix @hacker-ghost @fanworrior @marvelous-musicals @annshit @unknown-and-invisible @letsloveimagines @babyhoneystvles

--------------------------

Corpse was running some errands (which he really didn’t wanna do) with Tyler (that's what we calling him)- his son. Y/N was home relaxing and doing her thing, she already did enough. She cleaned the entire house, woke up early to make them both an amazing breakfast, did the laundry, and made sure Corpses office space was nice and well kept so he could be in a nice area to record and stream. Corpse told Y/N that she needed to get some rest when she said she needed to go out to run some errands- he also made the mistake of deciding to bring a literal toddler around with him.

Now don’t him wrong- He loved Tyler more than he loved himself, but Tyler can be a little shit sometimes. This child has gotten into a rainbow of different substances.

Vaseline. “What the hell- what is that- what is that on your face?” Corpse asked, though he already knew. “Baseline.” They said, rubbing their hands together.

Coconut butter. “You know better than this Tyler! Now you look all shiney!” Corpse said as he washed coconut butter off of Tyler. “Iz fun.” Tyler replied while Corpse just let out an exasperated sigh.

Baby powder. “Tyler what the hell!-” Corpse yelled as he walked in and saw Tyler pouring baby powder down his pants. Tyler looked up at him and said “go way.” ANd when Corpse just stared and then Tyler yelled, “go WAY!” Cake. “Sweetie! That was for your father!” Y/N said as she saw Tyler sitting on the ground shoving his face with chocolate cake. His hands were covered in it and his mouth was a mess. Tyler looked at her innocently and said “Izs mine!” Corpses clothes. Corpse walked into the closet to put some brand new hoodies away when he saw none other than Tyler chilling there covered in Corpses clothes. It was a mess. Corpe just stared and shut the closet door, not wanting to deal with that just yet. Y/Ns clothes. Y/N walked into the closet to see the mess. Tyler was putting on her heals and wearing her scarfs. She sighed and took a picture of a very surprised Tyler. Then she went to go yell at Corpse. Deodorant. “No no no no no NO NO NO!” Y/N yelled as she pulled the deodorant away from Tyler's hands. He was crushing it all up and smearing it on the floor. “It smell gud.” Tyler said innocently as he was picked up. Soap. “Tyler no no no! Take that out of your mouth!” Y/N screamed as she saw Tyler put dish soap in his mouth. She panicked and immediately told him to spit it out. Not even a second later Corpse came tripping into the room asking what the hell happened. Y/Ns pads. “Tyler no-” Corpse said as he wheezed. Tyler was sticking Y/Ns period pads onto his body. “They stickers!” Tyler laughed, opening another one. Corpse fell onto the floor in sheer laughter, not being able to breathe. Corpses Stream. Corpse left to take a quick pee while he was streaming with his friends. While he was gone, Tyler snuck into his office and joined in as a replacement. “Haii” Tyler said, causing laughter. “Whos this?” Sykkuno asked. They all knew Corpse was a father but never heard anything else about him. “Tyver.” Tyler said, making everyone nearly cry from the cuteness. When Corpse came back, he sighed and took his headset away. “Uhm-” Corpse was cut off, “HEY WHAT ARE YOU DOING PUT TYVER BACK ON!”

They were all memories. Some good, most bad. None in the middle. He was currently in the store grabbing some things for Y/N. She got her period like just this morning and she was running out of pads so he needed to cop some of those and the more important things. Every female reading this oneshot who has gotten their period will understand the following. He threw oreo cookies, red velvet oreo cookies, hershey's chocolate chip cookies, more cookies, two whole bags of snickers, three whole bags of kit kats, chocolate milk, and a chocolate cake into the cart. Then lastly, he awkwardly strolled into the feminine product isle where two other females were. Tyler was jumping around looking at everything and Corpse was avoiding eye contact.

One of the girls looked at his cart, looked at him, looked at Tyler, looked at the cart, and back at him and said “She hit it hard didn’t she?”

Corpse looked at her and sighed, “Yeah...” then he picked out the kind he always saw in the bathroom and then dragged Tyler away and out of the isle.

“Nooo! Im still looking!” Tyler whined.

“Well you’re done looking.” Corpse said, walking up to the check out area and checking his stuff out himself. He already felt enough anxiety today so all he really wanted to do was go home and cuddle with Y/N and watch Shrek for the fifthteenth time with Tyler.

After he bagged everything he pushed the cart out of the store and towards their car. Tyler was jumping around again and being a little shit, so Corpse had to pick him up and hold him and load groceries into the car one handed. Painful. After loading the groceries he set Tyler down and went to bring the cart back.

On his way back, Tyler latched himself onto Corpses leg and cried. Good lord. “I want icereeeeem!” Tyler whined as Corpse sighed, dragging him around.

“Tyler we already spent enough! Mom will share some of her food!” Corpse said, tugging Tyler off of his leg like a cat and walking him to the car. Tyler kept complaining and screaming, but Corpse did his best not to listen. But while driving home, the screaming got worse, and Corpse gave in.

“FINE DAIRY QUEEN IT IS!” Corpse yelled, immediately apologizing for yelling. Then he took a sharp turn and headed to DQ to get this toddler an icecream cone (And Y/N an oreo blizzard, but don't tell). He really didn’t wanna pull into the drive thru, but his anxiety said indoors is worse so he pulled into the line. It was November so Corpse did not understand why there was so many people in the line. Corpse sighed, trying to ignore Tylers whining. “I know it’s long and annoying but we have to wait Tyler.”

“I want icecreeeemm!” Tyler whined, and Corpse began to grow frustrated. He loved Tyler, but he really wanted to get home. Y/N was probably scrunched up in agony with her period pains and when he gets home shes gonna be fucking dead. Yes you heard me. Dead. Corpse didn’t want to go to court for being blamed of his girlfriend's death.

During the wait he actually got a call from Y/N. He instantly picked it up, saying hello.

“Where are you?!” Y/N complained. She was hungry, in pain, and worried. Corpse and Tyler should’ve been home an hour ago. But instead they were stuck in a DQ drive thru.

“Dairy Queen. Tyler wants an icecream cone.” Corpse sighed, “He’s been a pain the ass so far...”

“He’s always a pain in the ass but we love him.” Y/N chuckled, “Can you get me a cookie dough blizzard?”

“Oh. Ok.” Corpse was surprised. Y/N always went for that legendary oreo blizzard. Guess he’ll get it for himself then. “Are you feeling ok?”

“Mmm no. Periods suck. Men will never feel real pain.” Y/N groaned, and Corpse rolled his eyes playfully.

“Say that next time people are calling me sus in Among Us.” Corpse laughed, “Oh- I gotta go, this lines finally moving.”

“Ok, bye love you~” Y/N said.

“Love you too.” Corpse said before hanging up. He got up to the speaker and breathed in, trying to order his food without getting nervous. Social anxiety sucks, I don’t recommended having social anxiety. He stuttered a little, but it wasn’t too bad. When he got his food, he quickly got the fuck out of there and zoomed back to his place.

When he got to a stop light, he handed Tyler his ice cream cone. Almost immediately he began to chow down, his teeth didn’t even seem sensitive at this moment. It impressed Corpse. His boy was something else.

When he finally made it home, he had many things to do. He got Tyler out of the car safely and picked up all the bags full of food with one arm. On the other, he held Tyler and the ice cream. From there, he made his way into apartment building like a goddamn champ. Sure, he was in pain, sure his muscles were gonna burst, but this, this guys, is what real men do. He is a super dad, he will do what no man ever dares to do.

People were looking at him, it made him uncomfortable. He was glad the apartment had elevadors. Tyler kept eating his ice cream loudly, which made Corpses pain ever worse. When he finally got to the door, he lifted his already weakened arm and turned the doorknob, shoving himself into the room.

“Honey I’m home!” Corpse said tiredly, dropping the bags on the floor and lightly setting Tyler down. He walked over to the living room, seeing Y/N laying in a mess of blankets and pillows on the floor. She was wearing one of Corpses hoodies that were way too big on her. She looked distressed, but when Corpse put a cookie dough blizzard in front of her, she looked up and took it.

“You look like a mess.” Y/N laughed, sitting with her legs crossed and beginning to eat.

“I’ve had a long day.” Corpse chuckled and sat next to Y/N in the mess. “Tyler seemed to have fun I guess.”

“What do you mean I guess?” Y/N chuckled into her words.

“Oh you know how Tyler is baby.” Corpse took a big bite of his blizzard, “I bought everything you will need for a week.”

“Great!” Y/N leaned in and kissed Corpse on the cheek. Corpse blushed a little, but smiled. Next thing they know, they are cuddling against each other and eating their blizzards. This was the only way to make Y/N happy while she was on her period.

Then heard a loud crash.

“waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!”

“God fuckin’ damNI-”

#corose husband #father corpse husband

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twinklelilstarkey · 4 years ago

Note

hi i don’t know if you write about mental health problems or anything but if you do, please could you write a billy butcher x female reader where you’re his gf and it’s gotten really bad but he takes care of you ?? sorry i know it’s a bit much but i’m going through it tbh ://

A/N: You and me both, my love. Hope everything gets better for you.

I wrote this based mainly on anxiety since is the one I’m most acquainted with.

Words: 1.9k+

Summary: Billy gives you advice on your anxiety.

Warnings: Female!Reader. Mentions of anxiety. Mentions of stress over college work. Slight age gap is mentioned, but you can imagine it as big or as small as you want, literally, anyone can be a college student. College Student Problems!

You have been having an extreme hard time with college. Teachers like to believe that any student can easily work under extreme pressure, so they like to schedule all tests and essays in a space of a week and a half.

With all of that, it means that you need to study with many weeks in advance and hope that you won’t mix all the information in your head and get confused. As well as... Take as less breaks possible.

That may sound ridiculous to many, and you’re 100% sure that any doctor would yell at you if they had heard you say that, (since breaks are ALWAYS NEEDED), but you just can’t bring yourself to take breaks.

It’s both mentally and physically impossible. You already can’t sleep that well; you can’t eat that much or even focus on other things other than your notes and books (you had previously grabbed at the library).

Everyone that hangs out with you knows that you’re a very anxious person by nature, but they never saw you like this. And if they had to admit, it is quite scary.

Your boyfriend, Billy, who also lives with you, has been blind to it all. It’s not his fault. You try to hide it as much from him as possible. And he’s also out of the house for most of the day and only sees you when he comes back before dinner.

He has noticed your jumpy leg under the table, bloody bottom lip (from you biting it) and especially how less you eat. But like I said before, you’re an anxious person by nature.

Billy doesn’t see your daily mental breakdowns or hears you giving yourself a pep talk when in the shower, because he’s almost never present whenever something important happens between the boys.

But everything will change today.

And that is because today is a Friday that Billy decided to take off ‘work’ to stay home and relax, while you, on the other hand, will spend it with online classes and studying.

You lean back on your desk chair, finding it awfully uncomfortable after so many days sitting in that same position, and sigh loudly while looking at the PowerPoint that is being projected on the Zoom call.

Your webcam is on, yet your microphone is off, making your sounds of pure frustration be silent to others that could possibly see you.

The TV in the other room is on by what you can hear over your headphones, and you’re pretty sure that Billy is sitting on the couch bingewatching a random ‘police drama’, as always.

He has made his appearance at least once on the background of your screen, which caught some people’s attention. But other than that, he has been leaving you in your corner to peacefully have your class.

You continue to take notes of what your teacher is saying silently as your mind runs miles an hour, always taking your attention somewhere else.

“You alright there?”

You turn your chair a bit to the side and look over your shoulder at the doorway behind you, looking at the owner of the deep voice and the British accent.

“Yeah” You say with a quick fake smile before turning back around to look at the screen.

“You sure?”

You nod, knowing that he can see your head (the chair’s back is not that tall).

“Alright,” He says before walking off to somewhere in your apartment.

(...)

Lunch went rather well. You ate as much as you could, which wasn’t a lot. But Billy’s cursing at the news were enough to keep your mind occupied for that short while. Other than that, your day has been like any other day of this week.

You’re officially done with your online classes for today, but unfortunately, you still need to study.

You have been reading your notes and small bits of the books the teachers told you to study with, for the past… what you believe, hour, but nothing seemed to make sense.

You’ve tried changing up a few words in the sentences, for simpler words, in hopes that your brain will soon catch the meaning as it sounds simpler... but nothing of the sort is happening.

Your eyes have filled with frustrated tears at least 10 times since you started, making the reading quite difficult. But as for right now, you are letting those tears roll down your face in complete defeat.

People do say that you shouldn’t hold back your tears, right? That it will always feel better once you stop?

Yeah, that is true. But they forgot to mention that it only lasts 10 minutes.

You sniffle while wiping the tears off your face, throwing the pencil down at the desk in pure frustration, before leaning back on the chair.

“Are you okay?” Billy asks from behind you, probably on his way to the bathroom.

“Yeah, yeah” you say while wiping your tears quickly, “My nose just started running for no reason”

A silence is set and for a few seconds you believe that he has walked away, but that was until you felt his warm hand rest over your shoulder.

“Runny nose that created tears?” He asks in a slight ironic tone.

You don’t answer him, yet his hand gives your shoulder a small squeeze.

“Get up, let’s go to the living room” He says in a whisper.

“I can’t” you say, not taking your eyes off your notebooks, “I need to keep studying”

“I’m sure you can take a break”

You sigh loudly, trying to rearrange your feelings before looking up at the older man.

“I need to keep studying” You repeat.

Your sad tone was way more noticeable to Billy this time, and he caught it right as you said the first word.

“How long has it been since you took a break?”

“I’ve been here since lunch”

Butcher’s eyes widen at your words and his mouth falls agape.

“It’s almost 5pm, what do you mean since lunch?”

You shrug as an answer before taking a quick look at your phone, checking if Butcher isn’t lying about the time, and he’s not.

His mind runs with thoughts about you probably feeling exhausted, while yours just run around the idea of another day almost being over and you haven’t even started to understand this new chapter.

You try to grab your pencil back from the table but Billy, in that same second, snatches it off your hand and puts it back down.

“Get up in your two little feet and walk your arse over to the couch”

You, surprisingly, do as told, once noticing his change of tone, as well as his change of facial expression. He looks slightly annoyed, but also, worried.

You walk off the bedroom, Billy right behind you, not even a meter away.

Once your body collides down into the soft surface of the couch, Butcher lets out a loud sigh, also taking his seat.

“Have you been doing this routine every day?” He asks, looking over at you.

“Yeah. I mean, kinda,” you answer, shrugging again, “it depends on what classes I’m having”

“Have you eaten anything since lunch?”

“No, I’m not hungry”

“How? You almost didn’t even eat anything today”

“I just feel nauseous every time I smell or see food, I can’t eat, Billy” you say, with a sadder expression taking over your face.

“And why do you not take breaks?”

“I don’t have time for breaks”

“Honey, 15 minutes wouldn’t hurt you” he says, making you look away, knowing that he won’t understand your side, “You know that”

“Yeah, I know that. But what are breaks when my mind just stays on that stupid piece of paper the whole time?” You ask, “I’ve tried everything to keep my mind occupied with something else, believe me! I just can’t relax until I got all of this sorted in my head”

“I get it, love” He says in a calmer tone, as if he was trying to calm you down with his voice, “But you know that if you’re non stop studying, at some point, your brain just wont grab anything that you’re reading, right?”

You stay silent.

“I’ve studied for college as well. No degree is easy, love, that’s for sure. I know how stressful it is, and how it feels when you don’t have your own stuff under control” His hand rests over yours, “But you don’t have to destroy your mental health because of it”

“What if it’s my mental health destroying itself and not me destroying it?”

“Well… You are sure helping it” He admits, “If your mind is worried about something from when you wake up to when you go to sleep, all you could do to relax is get a distraction, right?”

“Yeah, but I’ve tried everything”

“I’m sure you didn’t try everything, babes” He gives your hand a little squeeze, “There’s millions of options. Try not to read if you space-out too much, and try, I don’t know, watch one of those highly chaotic videos you like to watch. I’m sure those one’s will leave your mind more than occupied”

A small smile grows on your lips as you hear his words and you take a deep breath.

“And what do I do if I continue to not be able to understand anything?”

“I’m sure you understand something. You take notes like a mad woman when in class” he says with a joking tone.

“I’m serious”

“I know you are, princess. But this is not the first time you’ve felt this much pressure because of school, is it?” You shake your head, “And every time you lived past this type of shit, you were able to do every test and every essay right on time. And most of them with fucking amazing grades!” He says with a smile at the end.

There’s some silence between the two of you.

“I know it feels like it’s impossible to live through this right now, but believe me, there’s always someone in a worst situation than you, yet still is able to live their lives with smiles on their faces. If they can do it, I’m more than fucking sure you can do it 200 times better”

A silence is set between the two of you again, this time, a little longer than before.

“Why don’t you take the rest of the day off? I know it sounds impossible right now, but just try and focus on something else. Leave all of that for tomorrow”

As good as that sounds, you feel a little hesitant. Billy lifts his hand from yours and brings it over to your head, caressing it as you look down at the ground.

“I’m just scared that I won’t be able to pass these tests”

Butcher, with your words, leans forward and presses a kiss on the side of your head, over your hair.

“I would offer you my help if I could” He says making a sympathetic smile appear over your lips, “But I don’t even understand a word from what you write down”

A chuckle escapes your lips and you look back up at him.

“I can always ask Hughie for help” He offers.

“I would love that. Thank you.”

You wrap one of your arms around Billy’s torso and lean your head over his shoulder. Butcher responds quickly to your actions by wrapping his own arms around you, pulling you closer to him.

Billy leans his head to the side, laying it right on yours, and you snuggle closer to him once feeling his warmth envelop your colder body.

“Here” He says, before passing you the remote.

As soon as you start surfing through the channels, Billy remembers something.

“Start thinking about what you want for dinner” He says, “You’ll be eating a whole 3 course meal tonight, young lady”

- - - - - -

Hope you liked this!!!

#billy butcher #billy butcher x reader #billy butcher x you #billy x reader #the boys #the boys imagine

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wearevillaneve · 4 years ago

Text

Luke Jennings Spills the Tea on how “Codename: Villanelle” became “Killing Eve.”

(photo: Nick Fallowfield-Cooper )

Last week, Luke Jennings, the journalist and writer whose Codename: Villanelle Kindle novella’s spawned the BBCAmerica television hit, Killing Eve, joined a Zoom chat with the Killing Eve Facebook Group to field questions about his creation and colorful characters. Near the end (fast forward to the 1:13 mark) of the chat, Jennings was asked by one of the moderators, how Codename: Villanelle morphed into the radically different name of Killing Eve. “What happened for ages, Phoebe and I and the producers just talked about Villanelle. That was what we called the project.”

“When BBCAmerica commissioned it they said two things: ‘Eve has to be an American in the TV series. The Brits can have the psychopath. She can be a British actress, but we have to have an American actress as Eve because ‘Eve is good. Eve must be an American.’

The second thing they said is ‘Eve’s name must be in the title. It must be something with “Eve.”

None of us had considered that. Phoebe and I had two days to come up with a title and we literally went though every single kind of combination of things that you could do with the name Eve.

Eventually, on the second morning I just wrote down the words, ‘Killing Eve’ and I sent it to Phoebe.

I said, “I have no idea what this means, but what do you think?”

She said, “Yeah, I don’t know what it means either, but it’s right.”

“That’s how it came about. What “Killing Eve” actually means people have all kinds of theories, but Phoebe and I just thought it sounded right.” And there you have it from the man himself. The fandom can and has debated, analyzed, theorized and waxes poetic on what the “Killing” in Killing Eve actually means. Is it the metamorphosis of the nice, normal and boringly heterosexual Eve Polastri, into the not-so-nice, abnormal, slightly murderous and not as straight as she thought she was Eve Polastri, who emerges with the hots for a blonde assassin with delicate features and developing a kink for knives and crushing the ribs of old women?

Or is Killing Eve simply the best idea Jennings could come up over 48 hrs and it sounded catchy when you say it out loud?

There are laboriously elaborate master plans that spool out over time and succeed beyond the designer’s wildest dreams. Then, there’s those happy accidents when your back is against the wall and you just have to pull something out of your ass and hope its presentable. This is a case of the latter, not the former. Jennings is incredibly lucky to be one of the select few writers who not only get a work of fiction brought to life by talented people like Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Sandra Oh, Jodie Comer, Fiona Shaw, Kim Bodina and too many other writers, directors, technicians, and actors to mention as well as producer Sally Woodward-Gentle and former AMC president, Sarah Barnett. He had the inspiration, but it’s a collaboration that brought it to creation. More than a few authors have been public with their displeasure with how their works turned out in the jump from the written word to the lens of the camera, but unlike Stephen King, Alan Moore, John Grisham or Anne Rice, Jennings isn’t going to raise hell over the drastic changes made to Codename: Villanelle. It’s a clunky, cliched title, and BBCAmerica chose to make the protagonist the agent instead of the assassin. We can argue if that was really the right way to go, but from the results, the show itself doesn’t seem to have suffered from the asinine assertion by some suits that because Eve is the “good” one, it is mandated her name goes in the title, because she’s the “hero.”

Eve is nobody’s hero.

But does it really matter? Jennings created something more than a variation on the old spy game trope. He created the basis for a global sensation that has inspired art, prose, video and a worldwide fandom that didn’t even exist four years ago. He revived the careers of Oh and Shaw and set Comer on a path to superstardom. As accomplishments go, that’s not too shabby.

Killing Eve has eclipsed the success of its source material, but if not for the active imagination of one British dance critic, you wouldn’t be reading this because I never would have written it.

“You’re never going to love everything you see, but it takes 200 people to make a TV series and one person to write a novel, so it’s a very different kind of animal.” Jennings said in an interview with The National News.

“There comes a point when you simply have to let go and let the TV series become what it’s going to become.”

#Killing Eve #Luke Jennings #bbc america #bbc killing eve #Phoebe Waller-Bridge #codename villanelle #name of the game #ke analysis

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botanyshitposts · 5 years ago

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pls explain the news in laymans terms 😭

okay lads buckle up, this is gonna be a long one. the paper is “A phylogenomic analysis of Nepenthes (Nepenthaceae)” from Murphy et al. i’m gonna link it here, and i encourage anyone interested to read it for themselves and draw their own conclusions, but otherwise i’m gonna give an overview as i understand it.

if you do not want to see 394023 words of in-depth carnivorous plant genetics content you should start scrolling now.

so. Nepenthes is a carnivorous plant family colloquially known as ‘asian pitcher plants’ or ‘monkey cups’. it’s one of the largest carnivorous plant families in the world, and without a doubt one of the most diverse, but we’ll get to that in a minute. these plants have pitchers that fill with fluid and digest bugs alive (important note in terms of nep anatomy 101: unlike venus fly traps or sundews, Nepenthes are passive traps and don’t move or curl up or anything, just sit and watch it all unfold). their range has china and korea on the northern edge, the tip of australia on the southern edge, and most of indonesia, the philippines, and most associated landmasses encompassed between. there are a couple outliers, but for the most part these are jungle plants with a vining growth form that weaves through trees and just….eats.

now, putting aside the fact that they’re carnivorous, one of the biggest points of Nepenthes is their diversity as a family. if anyone out there remembers the term ‘adaptive radiation’ from an intro bio class, Nepenthes is THE family of adaptive radiation. in addition to common species that grow everywhere in their range, these lads can be so specialized that there are species you can only find on single specific ridges on single specific mountains on single specific islands; as you can imagine, this makes them especially vulnerable to climate change, habitat destruction, and poachers.

the most obvious point of diversity here is the pitcher traps themselves: there are hundreds of different pitcher morphologies, ranging from special peristome adaptations to bizzare patterns and colorations to the addition of fang-like structures and symbiosis with bats, ants, and rodents. the list goes on. these lads are so specialized it’s unbelievable. one might think that, in terms of figuring out how these different species are related to each other, that it would be pretty obvious, since everything is so distinctive.

but there is a problem.

they fuck.

Nepenthes as a family is established to be one of the oldest carnivorous plant families, but the 200+ species identified over the years are suspected to be the result of very recent (in evolutionary time) modern radiation. one of the most common definitions of what a ‘species’ is that i see circulated is the idea that something is a species when it can no longer breed with another species, but it’s important to realize that this is one definition of what a ‘species’ is. in the case of Nepenthes, the knowledge that a bunch of scientists have decided they are different does not stop them.

it was hoped, with the advent of DNA testing, that maybe we would be able to assemble a semi-full map of how all these species relate to one another and how they came to be (a phylogenetic tree), but as it turns out the lads fuck so much between themselves and other Nepenthes species that figuring out how they became the species they became, even with DNA, is extremely difficult. ‘breeding complexes’ not too different than what i wrote about in the fern sex triangle post a while back are a very nepenthes-esque thing to have happen.

a quote from the paper:

“These uncertainties are not unique to Nepenthes but various factors make them important in this group: the frequency of natural hybrids and apparent lack of intrinsic reproductive barriers between taxa, the extent of intraspecific morphological variation and the reliance by taxonomists on the pitchers.”

in short, these plants have no control. they are not practicing safe sex. they are living lavishly in their own tropical jungle paradise with as much hedonism as a plant can muster as botanists try to connect how one pitcher might be the evolutionary origin of another while somehow all the pitchers are either functionally the same or radically different.

which brings us to this study. when people compare DNA, they’re rarely comparing the entire genome (although that can be done), but rather they identify a set of consistently mutable genes that are present across an entire subsection of life, and look at just those genes at just their locations on various chromosomes. instead of trying to find a couple genes fit to compare plants across the Nepenthes genus, as past studies did, this study took and applied a set of DNA probes developed previously to compare 353 genes present across the entire subkingdom of flowering plants.

as you can imagine, this provides a significantly larger set of data to work with. sure, it’s not perfect and this take will need more research to confirm (basing the entire Nepenthes phylogenetic tree off of a single study is a dangerous game, especially when things are so saucy in the forest), but it’s significantly better than the results past Nepenthes phylogenetic analyses generated, where researchers were able to see some general outlines and attempted to sort the genus into a few groups, but were ultimately unable to see where species themselves split and what their relations to each other were (you know, because of all the sex).

so. this paper:

-obtained samples from 151 different Nepenthes species from different collectors, herbariums, and conservatories. for those familiar with Nepenthes as a hobby, Andreas Wistuba might ring a bell; he contributed some samples from his plants to this study. otherwise, the KEW botanical gardens is more ubiquitously recognized donor.

-for more common species, more samples were taken from different places to account for different populations.

-another quote from the paper that i think is interesting on multiple levels: “We also include two unpublished species, N. sp. Anipahan and N. sp. taminii. The former, from Palawan, is discussed by McPherson (2011) and may be a synonym of N. leonardoi. The latter is an undescribed species from Sumatra that has been circulating amongst Nepenthes growers and resembles N. rhombicaulis but is perhaps distinguished by its leaves. Also sampled here are N. echinostoma Hook. f., a commonly collected plant usually considered a variant of N. mirabilis, and a sample we liken to N. angustifolia Mast., a species usually considered synonymous with N. gracilis.”

i mentioned earlier that previous molecular analyses done by other people were able to see a general outline but weren’t able to see anything more distinct; the results of this paper for the most part confirm these general outlines, which means that if nothing else we have strong support for the relationship the entire Nepenthes family has to other, more closely related plant families, which the paper resolves in this tree:

note that the above tree describes the family’s relation to various other families, followed by ‘Nepenthes clade 1′ and ‘Nepenthes clade 2′. these two clades contain most of the Nepenthes genus sampled; the six species shown in red, according to the results, are considered sister species to the entire rest of the genus, separate from those two clades.

now, what personally gets me the most excited here is the plant they confirmed as being the sister species to that subsection of sister species, effectively making it the outgroup to like, literally everything else: Nepenthes pervillei, from the republic of seychelles.

yeah. you know back at the beginning of this response when i said there were some exceptions to the Nepenthes habitat range? this would be one of those exceptions. the republic of seychelles is off the coast of africa, closer to madagascar than indonesia. to be fair, there are also Nepenthes along the eastern coast of madagascar, but because Nepenthes is so strongly geographically coordinated (this paper goes on to describe clades literally just named after the countries they’re in) this is pretty goddamn cool. this species got cut off in the middle of the ocean and now looks…….like a Nepenthes, but just off enough to be kind of weird (the biggest thing i realized just…staring at pictures of it is that it doesn’t seem to have wings down the front, which to be fair isn’t required of neps but makes it look super naked as a result). forbidden uncanny valley Nepenthes cast from the fuck zone. i love it.

the other main outgroup species (the sister species to all the ‘typical’ asian species, specifically, aka clades 1 and 2) they identified was Nepenthes danseri, which is native to waigeo island in indonesia (that’s in the fuck zone, for those keeping score at home) and, i would argue, has the same kind of thin-peristomed, simple-ribbed kind of look to it that pervillei has, but it definitely looks more traditionally Nepenthes-like.

now, with that, we really get into the meat of their results here. this is the full phylogenetic tree with all tested species laid out according to their results:

i….have no idea if tumblr will let you zoom in on this pic so im just gonna write down some notes.

the color-coded names on the tree to the right match their respective habitats down in the map on the bottom left, which is neat, but it’s also interesting to see how some of these species have apparently been fucking between islands. i know this is gonna be low-res but look at this swath at the top, some of what they’ve identified as being ‘clade 1′ (mostly common, widespread lowland species):

- man………. i mean, first of all i wanna point out the lone bicalcarata branches at the top #representing, having somehow maintained their chastity despite being the sexiest of the Nepenthes.

- hookeriana being the outgroup for ampullaria seems to fit well by adorable chubbiness factor alone.

- one thing that seems weird but not totally out of character is that halfway down in yellow we see mirabilis in multiple populations in yellow, then down from there a little ways we see different mirabilis populations in green and purple and red, all but N. echinostoma and N. orbiculate, which are both outgroups. i knew it was a common species, but for some reason i wasn’t expecting it to be like………that (there’s an entire second section of them in red just below where this screenshot cuts off). like, good for them.

going down the main tree, we get into clade 2, the more specialized highland species, which are always very exciting.

there’s my personal favorite, N. villosa:

not surprised at N. edwardsiana’s relation, because how else would you be able to achieve such absolutely enormous teeth, but N. macrophylla surprises me. it’s got good teeth, but both edwardsiana and villosa are like, TEETH, you know? i guess it makes sense that it split from villosa, though.

moving from that, VERY glad that the littlest known lad, N. argentii, made it on here. i know i’ve talked about argentii on this blog before, as the Nepenthes species that was so tiny the paper describing it’s discovery warned that population counts could be skewed by the plants ‘hiding under bushes’. their tinyness, which kills me every time i look at an image of them, is somehow weird in terms of being related to N. graciliflora, which is…..pretty normal sized. same with N. armin. makes me wonder how the hell they got so tiny.

of course we can’t leave out the group with the largest currently known species, N. attenboroughii. the hilarity of the smallest and largest Nepenthes species being a single clade apart, if not very distantly diversified down their respective evolutionary lines, is not lost on me.

N. palawanensis is a chonker, but i gotta say i wasn’t expecting it to be the sister species to the one and only megachonker, the plant literally famous for its sheer chonk. imagine being that overshadowed by your sibling.

on a more general note– the paper noted this, too –it’s interesting to see how the lowland species seem to be happier about jumping islands and being promiscuous than the highland species, which seem to clump together by location. i guess it’s not surprising, knowing how specialized some of these highland species can be; villosa, for example, is native to a single side of a single mountain, and is positioned so that the populations are hit by cool wind coming up from the sea. still, lowland species need hot and humid environments, and can be just as picky. it’s gotta be a matter of isolation.

anyway, there’s probably more i could talk about here but…man there’s a lot of data. the paper goes in-depth with how they constructed the more problematic branches, and trouble they had with some over others, confirming that we shouldn’t take this phylogenetic tree as 100% correct; things will almost certainly change or become clearer as more research is done, and phylogenetic trees in particular are known for being constructed and reconstructed time and time again.

still though, it’s like…to see these relationships at this resolution for the first time is just really fucking cool, man. this isn’t even all the species. i remember i went to a carnivorous plant conference two years ago now, and there was a lecture by researchers attempting to untangle the phylogeny of Nepenthes and coming up short aside from a low-resolution tree of some of the more major species and the relation of Nepenthes to other families, their science blocked by the sheer feral chadness on display in the tropical jungles encompassing the land between china and australia. like, i really just want to take a moment, as an end note, to appreciate that these plants fucked so much in the past couple million years that it took multiple major advancements in technology and the examination of hundreds of genes just to get an approximate look at the phylogeny. like, that’s an Isoetes level power move and im not over it

#Anonymous #long post #me reading a new nepenthes paper: *sight narrows into a tunnel* *writes for two hours*#nepenthes #carnivorous plants #asks #plont asks

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