#also sorry I’m still learning how to draw them Traumatized

[strawberri-draws]

“You’re family now.”

#my art #fanart #strawberridraws #the owl house #toh #the owl house fanart #toh fanart #toh spoilers #I would die for them #their sibling bond is the best dynamic fr #also sorry I’m still learning how to draw them Traumatized #hunter your mullet will endlessly confuse me I’m sorry to say #anyways they need a hug and deserve all the happiness

[kywaslost]

What’s up. I too have gotten hooked on Black Butler. After 3 years of not being in the fandom anymore. I have a fanfic idea for you.It’s a Ciel x reader so it’s going to be more on the angst side but still fluffy and funny if you look at it from an angle. It’s Ciel. C’mon.

So basically the reader is very similar to him. Being that she also has intense trauma and is extremely stoic and cold. On the other hand she’s also considered eerie and ominous looking. Soon Ciel after a while starts having feeling for the reader, he sees her as someone who understands him completely and fully. Ciel starts showing that he’s interested in being in a more intimate relationship with the reader other then just being partners. The reader of course rejects all these moves even though she also likes him, not only because he’s engaged but because she knows he’s a manipulator. After a long time of driving Sebastian insane with the pinning and rejecting, Lizzy finds out about Ciel’s feelings for the reader and confronts both of them. She’s lightly bitterly and is crying at first but she does want Ciel to be happy and is good friends with the reader (and she’s an Angel) so she doesn’t hold him back. Now the reader and Ciel are in a situation where they can show there feeling for each other freely but have no idea where to start.

Just so that you have a small reference to what I mean by a stoic and eerie looking reader I have a drawing of my Black Butler OC that you can take notes from (you don’t have to just here if you want lmfao)

Thank you, hopefully it’s not too long or complicated. You don’t have to write this if you don’t feel comfortable enough just tell me if you’re not going to write it or not. Have a good day!

Troubled Love - Ciel Phantomhive

A/N: I’m so sorry this took so long! This is a long one that I wanted to take time on and work on when I felt like I could write this to the best of my ability. First of all, your drawing is ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS!!! I’m literally in love with it! I hope this turned out ok! I also completely skipped over the part where the reader is an angel and didn’t see it until I finished this, so I hope it’s ok that I left that bit out. Let me know if you’d like me to rewrite this properly <3

Warning/s: mentions of night terrors, mentions of panic attacks (no descriptions)

You had met the Earl Phantomhive around the time his parents had passed. You had met the Phantomhive through the grapevine of the Queen’s ‘guard dogs’, and didn’t really get to know the young boy until he returned, demon butler by his side. It was then the two of you were paired for missions. The Queen saw similarities between the two of you, and thought it would be well for you to become friends with the Earl.

You see, due to your past, you weren’t the most sociable person out there. You preferred to keep to yourself, and refrained from interacting with others as much as you could. It played in your favor that most feared you, both due to your reputation with the queen as well as the way you presented yourself. It was almost as if no one could touch you.

Until you officially met Ciel. The two of you worked well together. What you lacked in skill and intelligence, he made up for, and vice versa. It also helped that Sebastian was there. In fact, the demon butler and his master took a liking to you, even going as far as inviting you to stay at the Estate when they learned that you didn’t have an official residence. You agreed hesitantly. While you were comfortable around the two, you couldn’t bear the thought of being vulnerable around them. You were traumatized at a young age, leaving you plagued with nightmares and flashbacks from time to time. Opening yourself up to Ciel was a huge step for you, one you were unsure how to handle.

Ciel, on the other hand, was ecstatic. He’d never admit it, partially due to his personality and partially due to his engagement to Lizzy, but the Earl had begun developing feelings for you. It was more than a petty middle school crush that other boys his age experienced. He had been feeling this way for quite some time now, and couldn’t quite name his emotions until he spoke of it with Sebastian. It was worth the endless teasing that lasted weeks, but Ciel had now finally realized how much he truly loved you. And now you’re going to be living with him.

Ciel was unsure of how to show his love for you without a) making it obvious, and b) letting Lizzy know. Don’t get him wrong, Ciel truly did like Lizzy and he didn’t want to do anything to hurt her, but he loved you more than her. The boy opted to spend time with you doing small things, such as reading together or just simply sitting in the same room as you as the two of you worked separately. You were hesitant of all this at first, because you were used to being alone so often, but over time you became more comfortable.

This time spent between the two of you went from silence to small chatter. Ciel would ask how your day has been, and you’d answer then return the question. It took months of living together and getting accustomed to each other’s emotions to begin discussing deeper topics. You were both severely traumatized children who never learned how to cope with said trauma. Sure, Ciel had Sebastian, but he was a demon and therefore was incapable of feeling human emotions. So he tried talking to you.

Ciel wouldn’t ever say much about the death of his family or the events that came afterwards, but he wanted to be vulnerable around you. The boy hoped that this would bring the two of you even closer, and then he’d be comfortable enough to confess his love for you. Except every time he tried to have a deep conversation, you would turn him down almost immediately. There was one week in particular when you were having vivid night terrors, causing you to get only a few hours of sleep a night. You would wake up screaming until you couldn’t anymore, and often suffered intense panic attacks afterwards. Usually Sebastian would try and help but you would only push him away, barely muttering about how you were alright and didn’t need any help.

These night terrors always woke Ciel, and after the third night he came bursting into your room in the place of Sebastian. He desperately tried to calm you down, to try and talk to you, but you refused his help. It broke his heart to see you this way, and to know that you were unwilling to accept his help hurt him even more. How could the two of you be together if you wouldn’t let him help you?

The next day during breakfast, Ciel offered to let you speak to him anytime about anything you needed. Whether it be to get something off of your chest, or just to rant about anything, he would be there for you. You weren’t sure how you felt about his offer, so you only nodded and took a bite of your food.

The Earl Phantomhive invited you on an afternoon walk after dinner. At first you hesitantly agreed, only because Sebastian would be following closely. Yet once you saw the extravagant clothing the boy was wearing, you quickly retreated back to your room and feigned illness. It took some convincing, but Ciel finally left you to ‘recover’. In reality, you curled up on the floor, leaning against the door as you silently cried to yourself. 

You were so torn between your emotions. It was blatantly obvious that Ciel saw you as more than just a friend, and he wanted to take your relationship to the next level. You wondered if your own emotions were just as easy to see. You wouldn’t admit it just yet, but you were beginning to fall for Ciel yourself. Although you hadn’t opened up much to the boy, it was easy to feel comfortable and see him. The two of you shared similar pasts, and you hadn’t met anyone else that made you feel as safe and comfortable as the Earl did. 

Despite your feelings for the boy, there was one major red flag following closely behind him. Ciel was a master manipulator. It was clear as day that Ciel knew just how to act to get what he wanted, knew what to say to get his way. You weren’t even sure if he had manipulated you at some point, he was that good. Oh, and he’s also engaged.

You wanted to take Ciel up on all of his romantic gestures. You wanted to go on late night walks with him, go to balls (even though neither of you particularly enjoyed them), or even just spend the evening together almost every night of the week. Yet you couldn’t bring yourself to give in to the urge.

This carried on for months. Ciel would ‘discreetly’ ask you out on small dates, and you would turn him down and most commonly retreat to your room. Once you left, Ciel’s small smile would fall and he would immediately turn to Sebastian with downcast eyes.

Sebastian was the only one Ciel could confess to at this point. He couldn’t go to Izzy, obviously, and he couldn’t go to you, so he was left with his demon butler. It was a part of their bedtime routine now. Sebastian would dress Ciel for bed, asking him about his day and his plans for the next. Ciel would grumble about paperwork before quickly changing the subject to his failed attempts of asking you out. He’d seek advice from the demon before turning in for the night. 

It wasn’t until six months after Ciel’s first attempt to ask you out that Lizzy was caught in the crossfire. It wasn’t intentional, and Ciel would have never said anything if he were aware of her presence. 

Lizzy had planned another surprise visit and stay at the Phantomhive Manor. She had arrived later than expected due to an extreme thunderstorm causing a delay in travel. Upon arriving at the manor, she let herself in and immediately ran to where she assumed Ciel would be in his study as her maid carried in her baggage. Lizzy quickly but silently ran to Ciel’s study, throwing open the door.

“Ciel!” she squealed in the highest pitch her voice could achieve. “Supri– oh.” Lizzy frowned slightly when she noticed the empty room. It looked as though Ciel hadn’t been there in a while. Shaking her head, the girl grinned widely yet again when she could hear faint voices coming from down the hall. Upon further expectation, she realized the voices were coming from the library. 

Elizabeth wasted no time in bursting into the room rather loudly, causing you and Ciel to quite literally jump out of your seats with fear. Ciel’s hand even ghosted over the firearm he had tucked into his boot. 

“Ciel!” Lizzy squeals again. She runs over to the two of you, about to tackle the poor boy in a hug before realizing what was going on between the two of you. 

You had to admit, this wasn’t the ideal position to see your fiance and your best friend in. It wasn't anything too terrible, but it could definitely raise some questions. You were practically laying in Ciel’s lap, your legs draped over his as your head rested against his shoulder. A book rested against your legs where Ciel was reading to you a mere moment ago. You both were dressed in your night clothes, and overall this was a very rare sight of Ciel. 

Lizzy’s smile immediately dropped to a deep frown, her bright green eyes welling with tears. “Y/N? Ciel? What’s going on?”

You jumped out of Ciel’s lap and to the other side of the couch. Your heart was beating out of your chest, fear coursing through your veins. This is exactly why you never wanted to act on your feelings for Ciel, for fear of ruining not only his relationship with Lizzy, but also your own. “Lizzy,” Ciel says quickly, standing and tossing the forgotten book onto the couch. He tried to reach out to the girl but she only took a step back and wiped at her eyes.

“I should have seen it coming,” she chokes through a broken cry. “I knew this day would come.” It takes a moment for Lizzy to calm herself down, but she wipes the last of her tears away as Ciel tries to comfort her.

“It’s ok,” she cuts him off from his senseless babbling, pushing his outstretched arms away. “I’ve known for a long time that this day would come.” Glossy green eyes met your e/c ones as she smiled softly. “I can see how much the two of you love each other,” she confesses. “And as much as I love the two of you, I can’t bear knowing I am what is keeping you from being together.” Lizzy’s gaze shifted to her fiance. “I love you Ciel. So much that I want you to be happy.” Her warm hands slowly reached for his own, giving them a gentle squeeze. “So I’m ending our engagement.” Pressing one last kiss against Ciel’s cheek, Lizzy let go. 

“I can only hope the best for the two of you.” Just like that, she was gone.

You and Ciel couldn’t bear to look at each other, let alone speak. You weren’t sure how to feel. You finally had the freedom to be with the man you were learning to love, yet at what cost? Did you just lose your best friend? What do you know? Ciel was asking himself the same questions. But it didn’t take long for him to drop beside you back on the couch, slowly turning to you. 

“What do we do now?” you asked, voice barely above a whisper. 

“I don’t know,” Ciel confessed. “To be honest, I think I need some time to process this.”

You nodded, then stood quickly. “Of course, I understand.” You retreated back to your bedroom as soon as possible, diving under the covers and staring at the ceiling. You were finally free to express your love for Ciel, yet unsure what the next steps were. It was going to take time to figure out your relationship status with the Earl, and what to do next, but it will be worth the wait.

#ciel #ciel phantomhive #ciel x reader #ciel phantomhive x reader #black butler x reader #kuroshitsuji #blabk cutler #black butler ciel #black butler ciel phantomhive #lizzy midford #sebastian michaelis #comfort #platonic #x reader #black butler fanfiction #black butler sebastian #black butler #ciel fantomhive #ciel phantomhive x reader comfort #ciel phamtonhive

[fruityfroggy]

Remember Hecate, my ts Li oc that I’ve only briefly mentioned before because I can’t draw her? Probably not, but that’s alright. I’m just in the mood to spread some propaganda about her rn.

So if any MCs are curious about a tall, goth, phantom-harpy woman, keep reading!

These are some interesting things about Hecate, and you should know them!

She lives in a house in the woods of an alternate dimension. It’s the dimension where she made a deal with Lucifer (how she got her beast form), and she’ll let you stay in her gothic house as a bed and breakfast if she likes you enough. Who needs the Wet Wick when you have the luxury to stay at her place any time? Just don’t question where she goes when midnight arrives…

Her dark red eyes can glow in different brightnesses, depending on the negative emotion she’s feeling. This is an interesting way to take a peak at how Hecate truly feels about someone or something. For example, her eyes glow a dim red light when she sees Mhin. There’s some tension between the two at the moment, but her eyes aren’t glowing bright enough for it to be anger towards them. She’s…sad about it. About what happened...

SHE GIVES YOU BAKED GOODS AND PASTRIES (as long as she likes you of course). She does this mostly because my desire to give Mhin sweets made me do it, but it adds to the appeal, right? Plus, SHE HAS A PASTRY POCKET. A POCKET THAT SHE USES TO CARRY AROUND HER PASTRIES (and baked goods, but pastry pocket sounds better)! Idk why I’m so hyped about this idea (maybe because of the gap moe of it), but it did make me design a belt for he pocket to go on

But basically, all the other Lis and MC will get their share of Hecate’s goodies when she bakes a fresh batch (not Leander tho, she refuses, so he’ll just have to beg the others to share some with him). Once you get close with her, she’ll also come out of random alleyways to specifically give you certain sweets!

Hecate has the most similarities with Leander, funnily enough, because she fuckin hates this man’s guts. She wants to kill him, he’s trying his hardest to change her mind. But fortunately, her curse helps her learn his exact intentions, and if getting executed by the Senobium didn’t teach her anything about manipulators, then I don’t know what will (so it was…kind of a good thing she died?). Anyway, let’s talk similarities before I forget!

Their major similarity is how they’re both unaffected by your curse. You can touch them with your bare hands all you want (they both secretly like it...for different reasons though). This brings us to their second similarity, which is their powerful magical ability. Just two mages who both have a source of power that’s hard to access (as well as their overall skills in magic), making them more powerful than most. The last one is one that all of them have to some extent (so Hecate kinda had to have it), which is the different (almost opposite) sides to them that obscure their true nature.

She knows the secrets of everyone else (the other Lis AND you). Hecate has a curse that automatically forces information on whoever she meets for the first time, into her brain. Specifically, info on everything that has happened to them and everything they've done in life (I called this " the ability to read life force" the last time I talked about it, which doesn't make any sense, so it's a curse now). She's fine with it since it is quite helpful in a place like Eridia. But, having memories that aren't yours can be quite terrifying. Especially traumatic ones...

So, even if you're not romancing Hecate, it's still best to keep her on your side and at least consider her warnings and advice (especially the ones that she repeats).

That'll be it for this nonsense post! If you're still here, then...I'm kinda sorry lol. But yeah, hope I didn't bore you.

Just one question tho...would you choose Hecate's route?

#why did I make this post when I know that I'm awful at explaining my thoughts? #idk #I just felt like it #sometimes you just feel like talking about your ocs #but feel free to ask questions if you have any #Hecate: The Magic-Ridden Phantom #touchstarved oc #oc lore

[acourtofquestions]

The Assassin and the Desert

— (thoughts while doing my first read) —

Is Ansel the person referenced in Crown of Midnight? The one who taught Celaena about the witches? Does that mean SHE will be the betrayer??? … is this the same person she said “she’d kill” if she ever saw again?!? (These are rhetorical thoughts; more theory than question😂).

The entire time Celaena is talking about these shoes shoes (and really it’s written like poetry; when she compares them to calligraphy👌👌👌) but all I am picturing is green Elf style curly shoes🤣🤦‍♀️… then again those would make a statement sooo…

“and why Arobynn had thought he'd need three seasoned assassins to restrain him that day.” — YEAH I THINK ABOUT THAT TOO CELAENA (Sam🥹😭… ugh this angsty/pining true-soulmate childhood love trope is going to BREAK MEEEE🖤)

Wait… is this where we learn the Asterion Mare tale?!

“Saying that she was sorry didn't feel adequate. She knew what this sort of loss was like, and words didn't do anything at all. ‘Where do men find it in themselves to do such monstrous things? How do they find it acceptable’” — The way Sarah writes sisterhood & female friendship is very special; honestly one of my favorite parts of her books & writing style. She hits the nail on the head 👏EVERY🥹DAM🥰TIME😭 — (not me crying cause Celaena isn’t under the stars sad and alone this time) … this is why Nehemia mattered so much😭

— also if I had a nickel for every time she said “silver lined eyes”🤣

Celaena taking the blame for Ansel because she thinks she doesn’t have a purpose but Ansel does🖤

Every time Celaena flinches I both want to hug her, hug Sarah, hug younger me, (kill Arobynn… I’m with ya Sam😅) and then thank all of them for the trauma representation; heartbreaking as it may be it’s pretty real for a fantasy series, and their is comfort in shared trauma through that lens.❤️‍🩹

EVERYTHING HAS A PRICE (giving me Ruin & Rising levels of fear here Sarah😬) — “but I’ve seen this episode and still loved the show”

It’s lovely to see Celaena be young & normal-ish; like she’s still a teenage girl in this book, she’s mortified over her first kiss, obsessed with shoes, making new friends, recklessly having fun… smiling for once… there’s an innocent joy in this book; one we never see in the post-Assassin’s Blade series…

… I think reading it post-Crown of Midnight (when I am) is especially perfect because you understand her & the books better (including tiny references like the Ironteeth witches & Asterion mares) … There’s also a sense of grief seeing her before it all “ended”, you already understand her now & now you do then too; which makes her make EVEN MORE sense; its not quite a “lost humanity”, but a grieving of lost innocence. — Despite all she had already been through, there were still these little pieces of life kept for herself back then; and something preciously heartbreakingly accurate to girlhood within them.

Despite having never been in love and not known much love Celaena seems to understand it better than most… there’s a special thing to that within her character; her joys resilience, drive for love, and draw toward goodness.

She finally feels safe… at peace🥹 (if only Sam were there… it would be home🥹😭💔)

Oh NO; normal teenage girl drama fight, meets highly trained traumatized assassins; this feels dangerous!!!

NOT FAERIE WINE AGAIN🤦‍♀️… wow if only Celaena had a nickel everytime someone tried TO POISON HER😅😱🫥

THE STOLEN RING DETAIL/CLUE

Celaena is giving Ahsoka vibes

THAT damned gloriella AGAIN

Her, seeing The Master trying desperately to save his son; doing what a good father should. Meanwhile in opposition her “father figure” Arobynn who was the one to first draw blood

“Wincing as blood from her face dripped to his white clothes” — “A pang of guilt at the sight of her blood staining Arobynn’s exquisite red carpet” — One my heart broke at these lines; she literally feels sorry for bleeding! Two the difference within the Master in white (unstained, untouched, pure) clothes and the Master with red (already red like blood) RED carpet; that she still feels sorry to bleed onto… it’s ALREADY red—he’s the one who drew blood—& yet she’s the one who feels guilty.

Is the foreign language he reads & speaks Wyrd?

SHE WAS NOT AFRAID!

… don’t tell me she gets back and Sam is a Courtesan (or some form of indenture) that’s going to require her gold & stop her from leaving😅PLEASE😅I HAVE A BAD FEELING ABOUT THIS😬

The note of the silent Master’s footsteps & lack of cruel punishment, in comparison to Arobynn’s fear invoking silence & unjust cruelty… the fear she feels just standing in front of him once again, feeling little again within minutes of coming back from months of near-freedom… barely a few pages in to The Assassin and the Underworld and I can tell it’s going to crush my heart — isn’t it?!

#The Assassin’s Blade #The Assassin and the Desert #Celaena Sardothien #Adarlans Assassin #Aelin Galathynius #Novela #Prequel #Sarah J. Maas #Maasverse #king of the assassins #Arobynn Hamel #Ansel #Sam Cortland #Ilias #The Mute Master #silent assassins #Adarlan #Red Desert #Wyrd #Asterion Mare #Nehemia #Adarlans assassins #first read #reading reacts #current thoughts #theories #fangirling #crying screaming throwing up #the assassin and the underworld #break my heart

[bookishdiplodocus]

How to convey information through dialogue without shoehorning it in

So you have information you want to plant into your story, and you would like to do that through dialogue. Naturally, you'd want to make the dialogue look natural, so that it doesn't scream -> This Piece Of Information <- Will Be Relevant To The Plot Later!!! I never saw any writing advice about this subject, so I thought I’d write up a post about it.

Say, for example, you want to plant the information that Barney is afraid of fridges. Fridges? Jup. That's weird. Jup. Which makes it all the more difficult to bring up in a scene. And what makes it even more difficult, you decided you want this dialogue to take place before the Thing With The Fridge Happens later on, so you're in a pickle. How do you bring up a fear of fridges, when there are no fridges around?

First, I'm going to show you how shoehorning the information in a dialogue would look like.

Don't do this:

Annie and Barney are in a scene that has nothing to do with fridges.

Annie: "By the way," she asked casually, "have I ever asked you what your worst fear is? Since we’re on this quest together, we should know these things about each other."

Barney: "Fridges. They scare the bejeebers out of me."

Annie: "Fridges?" She laughed incredulously. "How come?"

Barney: "Well, one time my brother locked me into a fridge, and I've been afraid ever since."

Annie: “That makes sense, Barney. I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

Try to avoid using things like “by the way” or “suddenly” in this part of the dialogue, because that’s a shoehorn red flag.

Instead, you want the conversation to flow from something inconspicuous to the information you want to plant and then into at least one other topic.

Do this:

Annie and Barney are in a scene that has nothing to do with fridges, for example they are thrown into a snake pit during their quest.

Barney deals with venomous snakes without a second thought.

Annie, in the corner, trying to get a hold of herself: "I can't believe you're not afraid of those snakes."

Barney: "You just got to know how to handle them."

Annie, in awe: "You're fearless."

Barney, laughs: "Trust me, I'm not. You should see me around fridges."

Annie: "Fridges...?"

Barney: "My brother locked me into one when we were little. I almost suffocated. Never trusted them ever since. Nor my brother, obviously."

The conversation continues about his relationship with his brother, making it seem like that's the important bit. You sneaked the information about Barney's fear for fridges into the dialogue about snakes and his brother.

Let’s break that down, shall we?

This conversation has three topics: snakes, fridges, and Barney’s brother. The snakes and Barney’s brother don’t really matter. They could just as well be completely different topics. (I'll show you later.) Their only function is to ease into the conversation about Barney’s fridge fear and ease out of it without drawing the reader’s attention to its importance.

Topic 1: Something present in this scene that has a thing in common with topic 2

Discussing the snakes feels organic and natural, because they are kind of hard to ignore in this scene. Make the first topic something related to what the characters see, feel, experience in that particular scene… Write a piece of dialogue about topic one.

Topic 2: The information you want to plant

Then transition into the topic switch. How? The topic of fridges and the topic of snakes have one thing in common: fear. Specifically, Annie is afraid of snakes and Barney isn’t, but he is afraid of fridges. Bringing this interesting bit into the conversation changes the topic again, because how can you not go into a sentence like this?

Topic 3: Anything related to topic 2 you can latch onto

The topic is changed yet again after the information you planned to plant. Just let this part of the dialogue run its course. It doesn’t matter much what you do with it, as long as you don’t stop the dialogue right after the moment you delivered the line you needed to deliver. The trick is to make the conversation flow to and from your chosen topic.

Let’s look at another example, something more realistic. You still want to convey the fact that Barney is afraid of fridges, but this time, Annie and Barney are not on a quest, they are in a romance novel.

Barney and Annie are looking out over the ocean. She brought a bottle of wine, a light breeze cools their skin, in the distance, a cargo boat slowly glides along the horizon. It seems like a perfect moment.

Barney raises his glass and compliments Annie: “You pick great wine.” (topic 1)

Annie: “Thanks. I did a wine course last year in my local community center, a series in which we learned all about the different kinds of wine and what to pair it with.”

Barney: “Sounds like fun. You should teach me sometime. Did you get to taste everything?”

Annie: “Yeah, of course. That was the main reason I joined. What about you? Which wine do you prefer?”

Barney: “Oh, I’m not a connaisseur. I like anything but white wines.” (change of topic)

Annie: “Why not?”

Barney, embarrassed: “Red wines are usually kept at room temperature, and white wines go in the fridge.”

Annie, after a second: “I can’t see the problem there.”

Barney, embarrassed: “Ah. Well. I don’t like fridges. Like, not at all. My brother once locked me into one, and – well, let’s say it was a hugely traumatic experience.” (boom, there it is: topic 2)

Annie, confused: “But – How do you keep your food fresh?” (change of topic) (doesn't necessarily have to happen so soon after The Line)

Barney, still embarrassed: “I go to the supermarket every other day.” (topic 3)

The conversation continues about going to the supermarket every other day and foods that Barney can't eat because they spoil too fast outside of the fridge. Annie is surprised to hear how many things can be kept at room temperature for a day or two. (topic 3,5)

That's it, folks :)

I hope this was helpful. Don’t hesitate to ask me any questions, and happy writing! This post was inspired by a question from @therska.

Follow me for more writing advice, or check out my other writing tips here. New topics to write advice about are also always appreciated.

Tag list below the cut. If you like to be added to or removed from the list, let me know.

@therska @writingwordsanddrawingpictures @the-words-we-never-said @writingwhithotchocolate @i-rove-rock-n-roll @maskedlady @no-time-like-write-now @timefire25 @black-lakritz-dragon @nzmayart @fandomrandomness-stuff @dangertoozmanykids101 @anaestheticdisaster @storytellingofravens @purpleshadows1989 @mathematicpony @i-don-t-know-words @notquitenovelist @coffeescribles @reffaces @livingthelovelylife @katsglabella @lokitty-is-my-spirit-animal @thefallenbibliophilequote @watchmewritedumb @sting-the-scribe @kais-writing-shit @dameschnee123 @curiosityonmars @oodlittlething

#writing advice #writing tips #writing #writeblr #writing tip #dialogue #dialogues #planting information #writing dialogue #writing problems #writer problems #sanne #how to tell me a story #bookishdiplodocus #exposition

[married-to-google-translater]

How do you think the boys would handle an MC that went mute for a bit as a coping mechanism after .... you know ... that😳. In grade 12 I had selective mutism as a result from something and aparently it’s a rlly common coping mechanism when trying to process something , did not know that . It varies for each person on how long it lasts, mine was a month ish. You work is *MWHA* so damn good holy DIAVOLO

(I stan belphie I’m not coming for him I just think a lot of mcs would’ve been at the very least temporarily traumatized)

I make this for all brothers... this is part 1/3. I write this now for Satan, Mammon and Belphegor. I hope you still like my work's...

In this writing, Mc is unable to speak if any of the brothers are in demon form or use a loud voice.

SATAN

Satan has read about mutism sometimes so he knows what to do.

He tries to explain the matter to the other brothers calmly.

Towards the end of the explanation, he strangles Mammon because he asked too many stupid questions.

If you want a professional therapist, go talk to Satan.

He can listen to your concerns and try to help you recover.

He will also hold your side when Mammon's "tolerance treatment" and Belphie's constant apologies start harassing you

( That is, he goes to beat them)

Satan hundred encourages every little step of your progress and does not put pressure on you.

With him, you can move at your own pace

MAMMON

Mammon is hurt that Satan strangled him.

How could he have known that mutism is not a fruit, an animal, or a new shop?

Mammon wants to help you get back to normal.

So he thinks it’s a good idea to give you tolerance treatment i.e. to speak out loud and be much in his demon form.

( Mammo's logic is perfect XD )

And because of this, Satan strangles him again.

Mammon believed he understood all your needs because he is your first.

But with this case, he learned that always what he thinks is best is not it.

This will help him listen to you and learn the best way to help you.

He often draws circles on your back when you have a hard time.

Mammon enthusiastically encourages you.

He wants you to be happy.

BELPHEGOR

During Satan’s lecture, Belphie feels great guilt because your mutism is his fault.

He wants to show you that he is sorry and regrets his actions.

And because he thinks that verbal apology isn’t enough, Belphie starts giving you gifts, doing services and spending a lot of time with you.

That’s not the best idea because his companies are starting to quickly stress you.

You feel like you don’t have time to recover from what happened but you don’t dare tell it to him.

It is only after Satan’s beating that Belphie realizes how he has ignored your needs and gives you more space.

He doesn't want to make your situation worse.

When you are sure to accept his apology, come and talk to him.

Belphie is waiting until then

#obey me #obey me imagine #obey me imagines #obey me headcanon #obey me headcanons #belphegor x reader #belphegor #satan x reader #satan #mammon x reader #mammon headcanon #satan headcanos #belphegor headcanons #mammon

[wolfstar-in-color]

July Colorful Column: Remus is a Crip, and We Can Write Him Better.

There is one thing that can get me to close a fic so voraciously I don’t even make sure I’m not closing other essential tabs in the process. It doesn’t matter how much I’m loving the fic, how well written I think it is, or how desperately I want to know how it ends. Once I read this sentence, I am done.

It’s written in a variety of different ways, but it always goes something like this: “You don’t want me,” Remus said, “I am too sick/broken/poor/old/[insert chosen self-demeaning adjective here].”

You’re familiar with the trope. The trope is canonical. And if you’ve been around the wolfstar fandom for longer than a few minutes, you’ve read the trope. Maybe you love the trope! Maybe you’ve written the trope! Maybe you’re about to stop reading this column, because the trope rings true to you and you feel a little attacked!

Now, let’s get one thing out of the way right now: I am not saying the trope is wrong. I am not saying it’s bad. I am not saying we should stop writing it. We all have things we don’t like to see in our chosen fics. Maybe you can’t stand Leather Jacket Motorbike Sirius? Maybe you think Elbow Patch Remus is overdone? Or maybe your pet peeves are based in something a little deeper - maybe you think Poor Latino Remus is an irresponsible depiction, or that PWPs are too reductive? Whatever it is, we all have our things.

Let me tell you about my thing. When I first became very ill several years ago, there were various low points in which I felt I had become inherently unlovable. This is, more or less, a normal reaction. When your body stops doing things it used to be able to do - or starts doing things you were quite alright without, thank you very much - it changes the way you relate to your body. You don’t want to hear my whole disability history, so yada yada yada, most people eventually come to accept their limitations. It’s a very painful existence, one in which you constantly tell yourself your disability has transformed you into a burdensome, unworthy member of society, and if nothing else, it’s not terribly sustainable. Being disabled takes grit! It takes power! It takes a truly absurd amount of medical self-advocacy! Hating yourself? Thinking yourself unworthy of love? No one has time for that. 

Of course, I’m being hyperbolic. Plenty of disabled people struggle with these feelings many years into their disabilities, and never really get over them. But here’s the thing. We experience those stories ALL THE TIME. Remember Rain Man? Or Million Dollar Baby? Or that one with the actress from Game of Thrones and that British actor who seemed like he was going to have a promising career but then didn't? Those are all stories about sad, bitter disabled people and their sad, bitter lives, two out of three of which end in the character completing suicide because they simply couldn’t imagine having to live as a disabled person. (I mean, come on media, I get that we're less likely to enjoy a leisurely Saturday hike, but our parking is SUBLIME.) When was the last time you engaged with media that depicted a happy disabled person? A complex disabled person? A disabled person who has sex? No really, these aren’t hypothetical questions, can you please drop a rec in the notes?? Because I am desperate.

There are lots of problems with this trope, and they’ve been discussed ad nauseam by people with PhDs. I’m not actually interested in talking about how this trope leads to a more prevalent societal idea that disabled people are unworthy of love, or contributes to the kind of political thought processes that keep disabled people purposefully disenfranchised. I’m just a bitch on Tumblr, and I have a bone to pick: the thing I really hate about the trope? It’s boring. I’m bored. You know how, like, halfway through Grey’s Anatomy you realized they were just recycling the same plot points over and over again and there was just no WAY anyone working at a hospital prone to THAT MANY disasters would stay on staff? It's like that. I love a recycled trope as much as the next person (There Was Only One Bed, anyone?). But I need. Something. Else.

Remus is disabled. BOLD claim. WILD speculation. Except, not really. You simply - no matter how you flip it, slice it, puree it, or deconstruct it - cannot tell me Remus Lupin is not disabled. Most of us, by this point, are probably familiar with the way that One Canonical Author intended One Dashing Werewolf to be “a metaphor for those illnesses that carry stigma, like HIV and AIDS” [I’m sorry to link you to an outside source quoting She Who Must Not Be Named, but we’re professionals here]. Which is... a thing. It’s been discussed. And, listen, there’s no denying that this parallel is a problematic interpretation of people who have HIV/AIDS and all such similar “those illnesses” (though I’ll admit that I, too, am perennially apt to turn into a raging beast liable to harm anything that crosses my path, but that’s more linked to the at-least-once-monthly recollection that One Day At A Time got cancelled). Critiques aside, Remus Lupin is a character who - due to a condition that affects him physically, mentally, emotionally, and intellectually - is repeatedly marginalized, oppressed, denied political and social power, and ostracized due to unfounded fear that he is infectious to others. Does that sound familiar?

We’re not going to argue about whether or not “Remus is canonically disabled as fuck” is a fair reading. And the reason we’re not going to argue about whether or not it’s a fair reading is because I haven’t read canon in 10-plus years and you will win the argument. Canon is only marginally relevant here. The icon of this blog is brown, curly haired Remus Lupin kissing his trans boyfriend, Sirius Black. We are obviously not too terribly invested in canon. The wolfstar fandom is now a community with over 25,000 AO3 fics, entire careers launched from drawing or writing or cosplaying this non-canonical pairing. We love to play around here with storylines and universes and races and genders and sexualities and all kinds of things, but most of the time? Remus is still disabled. He’s disabled as a werewolf in canon-compliant works, he’s disabled in the AUs where he was injured or abused or kidnapped or harmed as a child, he’s disabled in the stories that read him as chronically ill or bipolar or traumatized or blind or Deaf. I’d go so far as to say that he is one of very few characters in the Wide Wonderful World of media who is, in as close to his essence as one can be, always disabled. And that means? Don’t shoot the messenger... but we could stand to be a tiny bit more responsible with how we portray him. 

Disabled people are complicated. As much as I’d like to pretend we are always level-headed, confident, and ready to assert our inherent worth, we are still just humans. We have bad days. We doubt our worth. We sometimes go out with guys who complain about our steroid-induced weight gain (it was a long time ago, Tumblr, okay??). But, we also have joy and fun and good days and sex and happiness and families and so many other things. 

Remus is a disabled character, and as such, it’s only fair that he’d have those unworthy moments. But - I propose - Remus is also a crip. What is a crip? A crip - like a queer - is someone who eschews the limited boundaries placed on their bodies, who rejects a hierarchy of oppression in favor of an intersectional analysis of lived experience, who isn’t interested in being the tragic figure responsible for helping people with dominant identities realize how good they have it. Crips interpret their disabilities however they want, rethinking bodies and medicine and pleasure and pain and even time itself. Crips are political, community-minded, and in search of liberation. 

Remus is a character who struggles with his disability, sure. But he’s also a character who leverages his physical condition to attempt to shift communities towards his political leanings, advocates for the rights of those who share his physical condition, and has super hot sex with his wrongfully convicted boyfriend ultimately goes on to build community and family. Having a condition that quite literally cripples you, over which you have no control, and through which you are often read as a social pariah? That’s disability. But using said condition as a means through which to build advocacy and community? Now that’s some crip shit. 

Personally, I love disabled!Remus Lupin. But I love crip!Remus Lupin even more. I’d love to see more of a Remus who owns his disability, who covets what makes him unique, and who never ever again tells a potential romantic partner they are too good for him because of his disability. This trope - unlike There Was Only One Bed! - sometimes actually hurts to read. Where’s Remus who thinks a potential romantic partner isn’t good enough for him? Where’s Remus who insists his partners learn more about his condition in order to treat him properly? Where’s sexy wheelchair user Remus? Where’s Remus who uses his werewolf transformations as an excuse to travel the world? Where’s crip Remus??

We don’t have to put “you don’t want me” Remus entirely to bed. It is but one of many repeated tropes that are - in the words of The Hot Priest from Fleabag - morally a bit dubious. And let’s face it - we don’t always come to fandom for its moral superiority (as much as we sometimes like to think we do). 

This is not a condemnation - it is an invitation. Able-bodied folks are all but an injury, illness, or couple decades away from being disabled. And when you get here, I sincerely hope you don’t waste your time on “you don’t want me”ing back and forth with the people you love. I’m inviting you to come to the crip side now. We have snacks, and without all the “you don’t want me” talk, we get to the juicy parts much faster. 

Colorfully,

Mod Theo

#wolfstar #disability in fandom #disabled remus #crip remus #please write me some crip remus #I beg of you #fandom meta

[deceitfuldevil]

Hot and Cold

Pietro Maximoff X Reader

Summary: After defeating Ultron and getting the chance to formally meet the new avengers trainees, also known as the Maximoff twins, you became quite close to the pair in a short amount of time. Of course Wanda took an immediate liking to you for saving her brother's life, and Pietro took a liking to you for. . . other reasons. Wanda always called you two yin and yang, mostly because even though in many ways you two were total opposites, you were always around one another in some form or another. But your thing with Pietro started about two months into knowing him; you were always cold, and you soon came to realize he was always hot. The solution to this? Cuddling. Both of you expressed that it was completely platonic at the beginning, but as time went on you guys didn’t express this nearly as much. . . as your actions proved more and more romantic.

Warnings: mentions of nightmares & childhood trauma, briefly.

Word Count: 2,002 (my birth year:)

Same old, same old. You wake up sometime around 3am with a jolt, another nightmare. In the past few months they’d been about the usual topics, your traumatic childhood, losing your powers, and so on. But after a bad mission about 3 weeks ago, the nightmares have been almost purely your subconscious taunting you. Steve gave you hell on the way back, even called you sloppy. You didn’t go to training for a week afterwards because you were so depressed. Tonight’s nightmare involved you losing your powers and ultimately your entire team. The voices ringing out to you, “This is all your fault,” rang over and over until you woke up gasping for air. You sat up, and after catching your breath, you decided there was nothing better to do than get something to drink.

Taking a sip of the cool water only made you shiver more. Why did Tony line the whole kitchen with freezing marble floors? Taking another sip you looked over at the commons area and saw Pietro, shirtless, sitting in front of a fan watching a movie on the couch. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before, and it was something he frequently did when he was too hot. Deciding to surprise him, you carefully walked up behind him on the couch and placed your freezing hands on his bare shoulders. But instead of jumping up and screaming at your touch like you thought he would, he sighed contently and mumbled out:

“Ahh, hello ledyanaya printsessa” (ice princess in Russian)

Although you didn’t speak Russian, you’ve learned a few key words from Pietro and his sister. Like dragâ meant dear, printsessa meant princess, dorogoy meant darling, and of course suka meant bitch. Beyond that if Pietro or Wanda said something you didn’t know, you’d either ask or use context clues to figure out what they were saying.

Although at first you were shocked he didn’t jump at your touch, you smiled to yourself as you used your cold hands to slowly massage Pietro’s broad shoulders; he groaned lowly as you slowly worked out the tension in his shoulders.

“Feels so good, dorogoy. But do you know what would feel even better?”

He questioned, his voice low and raspy, sending a chill down your spine. You only hummed in response, not trusting your voice to push out a solid reply.

“This.”

With one very quick motion he flipped you over from behind the couch and into his arms. His face was just a few inches from yours as he looked down and smiled at seeing a shocked expression on your face.

“What? You didn’t see that coming?” He grinned, his accent rich and thick as he said his now infamous line. Initially he just said it because it pissed Clint off, but soon it became his “catchphrase”.

But you didn’t respond, you just looked into his bright blue eyes. You felt your heart beating so hard, almost sure he could feel it too. You know what you wanted to do but didn’t know if you had the courage to do it.

Silently, Pietro gently brushed a hair out of your face and tucked it behind your ear, and kept his rested hand on the side of your face. His eyes flicking from your eyes to your lips, you licked them to draw more attention to them and to see if he would do the same. But he one upped you and moved his face impossibly closer to yours, your lips now mere centimeters apart as his hot breath fanned over your face.

“Dragâ, have I ever told you how beautiful you are?” He inquired, his voice now a hushed whisper. You only shook your head a small yes in response.

He shook his head slightly and sighed. “Well have I ever... shown you?” He asked, gently caressing your face.

Your eyebrows stitched together in confusion. “Pietro what do you—“ but the words died in your throat as Pietro pressed his soft lips to yours in a tender kiss. Pulling away after a few seconds waiting for your reaction. You only opened your eyes and grinned as wide as the sun and placed your lips back onto his, more passionately this time.

For the rest of the night, kisses were shared almost everywhere. Pietro went the extra mile, and as he was giving you slow and soft kisses on your neck he said, “I should’ve *kiss* done that *kiss* sooner *kiss* ...no?” You giggled and turned his face towards yours and with your lips practically touching his.“Way sooner.” you said with a bright smile as you kissed him as you both slowly started to drift to sleep, not particularly caring or realizing the team would see you in the morning.

---

Later that day around 9 in the morning, F.R.I.D.A.Y awoke Tony with a message. “Good morning Mr. Stark, you owe Captain Rogers twenty dollars.” He tiredly laughed and said smugly, “oh do I? And why’s that F.R.I.D.A.Y?” “Because of the agreement made on March 6th, about 37 days ago,” and then F.R.I.D.A.Y played an audio of Steve and Tony talking about you and Pietro:

“Tony, you can’t tell me you don’t see the way those two kids look at each other.”

“Sorry Cap, I think they’re strictly businesses with each other.”

“Have you ever even seen the security camera records of them cuddling together late at night?” Steve asked.

“Okay now you’re pulling my leg old man.” Tony laughed.

“I’ll bet you $20 they’ll end up together within the next 90 days. If I’m wrong, I’ll pay you $40.”

“You’ve got a deal Rodgers... but you do know that’s just pocket change for me right?”

And with that, the audio clip F.R.I.D.A.Y was playing ended;Tony never rushed out of bed faster. He ran down to the main commons area where Nat, Clint, Wanda, and Steve were already gathered; they shushed him as he neared by. Clint and Nat already had their phones out taking pictures of the pair, who Tony looked at and sure enough, they were fast asleep cuddled in each other’s arms. He sighed as Steve nudged him and held out his hand. “So where’s that $20 you told me I’d never see?” Tony rolled his eyes and told Steve he’d be making a trip to the bank.

After a few more minutes of somewhat creepily watching the pair sleep Tony broke the silence and asked, “Okay, do we have enough pictures to blackmail them if needed? Because if so I’m waking them up.” Clint and Nat nodded and slowly stepped away. They assumed Tony would start blasting music or something to that effect. But instead he stood in front of you and Pietro and made sure to take pictures of you two with the flash ON... to wake you up in the most embarrassing way possible of course.

You were the first to notice the bright flashes of light in your face and groaned softly, thinking it was the sun and the first thing in the morning You turned your head over and called out to your cuddle buddy.

“Pietro... I think it’s morning.” He started to rub small circles on the small of your back as he slowly opened his eyes to see a gleeful Tony Stark with his phone camera inches from his face. He quickly looked around and saw the other avengers and even his sister.

“Sukas!!“ he shouted as he put his power to good use and in the blink of an eye, he picked you up and carried you to your room. Only then did you fully open your eyes to see Pietro holding you in his arms, a little breathless.

“What happened?” You asked tiredly.

“We slept in and well... the avengers caught us,” he said dreadfully, his voice still tired and thick with his accent you adored so much.

“Well at least we have nothing to hide from them now, right?” You tried to put a happy spin on the situation.

“They got pictures of us cuddling, dragâ.“

Your eyes blew open as you jumped down from Pietro’s arms and ran back down to the main commons area where now most of the facility was gathered and you guessed it... sharing pictures to one another.

“Whoever has ANY pictures of Pietro and I is to immediately delete them or face the consequences,” you said gleefully, but your words with true intentions. Only no one really took you seriously. In fact, Thor let out a small laugh and said, “What could a hero still in training do if we do keep such pictures?” A few others laughed along with him.

“No no I guess you’re right Thor, I’m only capable of doing things like this,” you said, catching him off guard and giving him a swift kick to the torso, knocking him over. You flipped him over and pinned his hands behind his back. Even Tony and Steve backed away, not thinking you had the power to pin down a literal GOD just quite yet.

“So, does anyone still have any pictures of us on their phones?” You said with a dangerous smile, thinking no one would doubt you now. But Clint was cocky and told you, “the only way you’re getting these pictures off of my phone is from my cold dead hands sweetheart” as he waved his phone in front of you. But before you could jump at him, a flash of blue light came flashing by and was now holding you back as you struggled to go after Clint for his comment.

Pietro whispered in your ear “he isn’t worth it darling,” slowly calming you down in the process. Eventually you stopped fighting Pietro’s grip on you and the urge to kick Clint in the face and turned away from the rest of the team to hug your new boyfriend. You and he started to slowly walk away from the team, but not without saying to Clint, “only I can call her sweetheart, Capeesh? Otherwise I’ll run circles around you while she does more than take those pictures off your phone, old man.”

The group let out a collective “ooohhh” as the two of you headed off back to your room. Tony broke the silence by saying, “so is no one going to mention that she just pinned Thor down like one of the test dummies?” But Thor only scoffed and claimed that you had caught him off guard, which everyone knew was a load of bullshit.

Back in your room, you and Pietro went back to cuddling and just talked about your feelings and what this all meant. But truth be told the whole conversation was mostly soft kisses amongst other things. For the first time in a very long time, you finally felt content, happy, and most of all, loved.

—

Hi everyone!! this is my first imagine of 2021 ahhh!! it’s only put out a day after when I posted my first imagine in 2020. Anyways I’m hoping this post will do well as I’ve never written for this character before... and he's not that popular since he's a little... dead. But we don't talk about that :) Since WandaVision has come out and *spoiler alert* Pietro has returned... somewhat, I’ve realized my appreciation for Age of Ultron Pietro... and fallen heads over heels for the dead man. I’ve rewatched Avengers: Age of Ultron three times in a row for the past three nights now, so it’s safe to say I’m a little mentally unstable. Okay now we’ve dived deeper than any of you care to hear. Anyways I hope you all enjoyed this imagine and constructive criticism and feedback is always welcomed!!

Much Love,

—Skyler

(2/15/21)

#pietro maximoff #pietro #quicksliver #Avengers #avengers age of ultron #age of ultron #Arron Taylor Johnson #mcu #marvel #wandavision #fluff #fan fiction #fan fic #fic #love #cute #oneshot #one shot #imagine #au #x reader #reader insert #:)

[lepusrufus]

sorry if this is too much but i’m 👀👀👀

2,11,13,21,26,44,46,48 for Anita abs Daniela

Oh my, I'll add a read more to this one so I don't spam my followers too much~

02. What is one of your character’s biggest insecurities? Are they able to hide it easily or can others easily exploit this weakness?

Anita: the mutation causes some... physical changes to her that she's not extremely happy about. To any outside eyes, it's nothing too severe but it takes a while for her to come to terms with it

Daniela: while she loves her and her family's lifestyle, there are times when she feels utterly unlovable and is afraid that nobody could ever see her as anything other than a monster.

11. What is something that would make your character fly into a rage?

Anita: in her case it's not necessarily something specific, as she's a very patient person that tends to just let things go. But as they say, even the kindest people snap and gods help you if you're in their way when that happens. For example, there was only so much bullying from other maids she was willing to take before slyly asking Daniela if she has a say in who gets eaten next. It wasn't rage per se, but a calculated anger

Daniela: again, don't mess with the family. I may sound a little like a broken record by now but at the end of the day all these women have something in common, and that is having fled from a shitty life and having found a new loving home that they'll die fighting before losing.

13. What are your character’s sleeping habits? Heavy or light sleeper? Blanket stealer? One that always rolls onto the floor? Pushes their lover onto the floor? Sleep talker or walker?

Anita: she tends to starfish on top of Dani and could sleep through an apocalypse. She sometimes drools in her sleep if her head is positioned weirdly

Daniela: actually sleeps like a corpse, or alternatively holds Anita but doesn't move too much in her sleep, a trait all sisters share. She also gets quite restless after her needed 4 hrs of sleep and almost always gets out of bed early to do stuff™, but will come back later if possible to give Anita her good morning

21. What is one of your character’s biggest fears? How would they react when dealing with this fear?

Anita: getting kidnapped. Again. She got to the village by randomly stumbling across the barrier surrounding it and got promptly taken to Miranda before be sent to the castle. It was quite the traumatic experience for her and if it repeated she would probably just shut down

Daniela: actually terrified of dying, so the cold months have her feeling quite tense. If she's feeling particularly paranoid she won't even venture into the colder parts of the castle despite being reassured that the heating system is functional and not letting the temperature drop under comfortable levels anywhere.

26. What is their lover like sexually? How do they feel about their lover’s quirks, needs, etc?

Oh my. Contrary to popular belief, these two are actually the freakiest. They really like getting creative and Dani has a drawer with a decently varied collection of toys. Anita taught her how to do some proper tying, a few more intricate than others that they both enjoy, and therefore Daniela also procured a few different kinds of rope for them. As far as needs go, Anita wants to always feel her touch no matter what they're doing while Daniela likes to be at least somewhat in control even when bottoming (anything that would completely restrain her is out the window).

44. Is there a particular event that would emotionally devastate your character?

Anita: Accidentally hurting someone she loves. Like real bad

Daniela: her whole family dying and her being the only one left. She would probably go into hysterics and throw herself in the chilly winter air outside.

46. What is some random affectionate thing that your character always does to their lover?

Anita: when wifey is in bit of a mopey mood she will ask a maid to draw a hot bath for the both of them and then use Dani's favorite bath products (girl loves her almond shampoo) and make sure Dani is totally relaxed.

Daniela: really loves to spoil Anita with random gifts. It can range from a cute necklace she made herself to an expensive dress tailor made for her dear wife. Dani also took like two months to pick out engagement rings to surprise her with.

48. Is there anything in particular that would ignite your character’s jealousy? Or does your character not get envious?

Already answered this one for Anita ;)

As for Daniela: uhhhh... she's a bit unpredictable here. She gets jealous rather easily if another staff member gets a little too friendly with Anita. She does learn that ayo that's not good after a stern talking to, but getting a little envious is still in her nature.

#asks #soft bby anita #daniela dimitrescu x maiden

[jitterbugjive]

Something I wish more people would understand is how unhealthy and misguided I was in my early 20s. I came out of a life of mental and sexual abuse, for a bit I had a much older boyfriend than me that I didn’t realize until fairly recently was grooming me since I was 14. I was a hyper sexual teenager due to the exposure I had in childhood and I sought people out constantly to ERP with, even adults, without really thinking anything was wrong with that. I had an old friend who started running away from home to look for random adult men to sleep with so my understanding and feelings towards that kind of situation got all twisted and confused and I didn’t know how to help my friend. I had another friend who was pulled in to a 3 way by another minor and an adult, and the other minor was also the sort who actively looked for adult men who would be sick enough to sleep with her. And my best friend had a sister who was also exhibiting this behavior despite my friends’ many protests, because their mom didn’t give a single fuck about anything. I had an older babysitter, by older I mean in his 60s, who would bring up conversations about sex with me and show me porn on TV from when  I was 10-13. I was dealing with unchecked PTSD which made me overly reactive, prone to fits of anger and anxiety.

My point is, back then I didn’t have any kind of professional help or anywhere I could go for answers on things I didn’t understand or had a limited understanding of. When I ask the question ‘what do you do if a kid is seeking out adult sexual attention’ it’s not because I’m trying to blame kids for this, it’s because it scares me when kids are unknowingly, maybe even knowingly, exposing themselves to danger for whatever screwed up reason they may have. And no one wants to talk about that kind of situation, so I couldn’t find any answers. I couldn’t find an appropriate way to process my feelings on the matter, my understanding of it, the way I viewed it, I couldn’t find what the correct way to feel or deal with it was. Again, because no one wants to talk about it. With my naivety and personal experience, I at first held resentment towards kids like that, because I remember being put in danger because of them or they put my friends in danger, and those kids seemed very sure of their choices even when they were perfectly aware it was wrong. One of them I knew, even as an adult, didn’t ever think anything was wrong with what they did, they didn’t come with that regret you hear most people talking about. I regret the way I’ve reacted to these situations and I regret the way I phrased things when I was trying to come to terms with this issue that I’d been honestly traumatized by.

Another thing I didn’t understand in my early 20s was appropriate boundaries, because I wasn’t given appropriate boundaries as a kid I only knew one big basic thing: Don’t do anything sexually explicit with minors.

And when it came to RP, I thought that meant PG13 content was okay. I thought if there was a fade to black, or a time skip, or an implication, it wouldn’t be a bad thing. Now, there are literally only 2 instances I can think of where there was any sort of implication of sexual acts between characters with a minor, I still made sure nothing explicit was shown or explored and I was of the impression that I was just letting the other person have fun because that’s what they were in to. And that was a mistake. Not as big of a mistake as it could have been, mind you, but I’d never cross that line. I thought I had a good line drawn in the sand but I didn’t really understand where it was supposed to be. Because if we’re gonna be honest here, looking back I know now even romantic fluff RP between an adult and a minor isn’t okay, even if it’s through characters and not as ourselves.

I know now how much of an emotional impact RP can have on a person, considering most of my romantic relationships started with RP. When you have a character you deeply connect to interacting with someone else’s character, it’s really easy to start mistaking your character’s feelings for your own. You could believe because your characters get along so well that maybe the two of you can get along romantically too. I’m not saying that RP shouldn’t lead to romance, but that it can easily blind a person from how their RP partner really is. So it’s dangerous to RP with kids like this. I should know, my abusive ex that groomed me until I turned 18 in order to date me certainly had me convinced we were meant for each other just because our characters clicked and my character happened to be a representation of myself.

Something I’m really ashamed to admit as well is a serious misjudgement on my part, where for some reason I assumed bodily fluids weren’t NSFW. Probably because I’ve seen people get away with censoring out naughty bits but leaving the spunk in an image, or just drawing the character with spunk on them or something. Point is, people were getting away with it not being flagged as porn, and my dumb brain was like ‘okay so it’s not that bad’. I need to make something clear here, I don’t entirely remember what happened or why it happened, but it’s true that Bedeviled Derpy had a post that showed spunk in 2 of the images and it was drawn from some sketches of mine by a teenager. I don’t believe I would have requested such a thing, I certainly didn’t script it to say ‘draw spunk here’, in fact the sketches don’t show any indication of a mess anywhere. I just remember being given the finished images with the spunk being added, and I was dumb enough to think “oh yeah this is totally okay for a SFW blog” and my brain didn’t even register like ‘hello yes a child drew this maybe ask them to remove the spunk also spunk isn’t sfw or child friendly in any way shape or form’

Some people, maybe only a handful, or more, I don’t know, but some people have this assumption that my mindset in all of this was like “Hahaha I’m taking advantage of a minor” and that’s just... not it?

I’m a colossal dumbass, I admit that, and I was really irresponsible, but it was NOT because I had any intentions on preying on a child. I just don’t do that.

The things I said and did, I did out of ignorance, and most of the bad stuff people talk about me saying was from 5+ years ago, before I got any help, before I had anyone to walk me through these incredibly complex emotions and opinions that were ingrained in my head since childhood.

I just wish that people could see I had no malice or ill intent, I wish people could realize they’re way overthinking my actions and taking things a lot more personally than they were ever meant to be. Maybe if they could see this for what it is rather than assuming I’m a villain who purposefully did everything wrong, they could learn to move on in a healthy way.

I understand I did a lot of harm and there’s no undoing that.

But I do NOT deserve to be accused of pedophilia. Pedophilia has literally ruined my life and my perception of the world. I’m a victim too, and just because I became an adult doesn’t mean I suddenly know right from wrong. That’s not how becoming an adult works. You’re allowed to make mistakes as an adult, being an adult doesn’t mean you won’t make mistakes any more. Yes it’s easier to say to someone ‘you were just a kid, it was a mistake, you didn’t know any better’, but adults have a hard time knowing ‘any better’ too. We’re always growing and learning and I’d like to think people are smart enough to see that I have grown in to a better person.

I hope people can find it in their hearts to forgive me, but I fear some people are too far gone down the rabbit hole of being convinced that everything was on purpose and from malice, that I’m some evil mastermind who thrives on manipulation and taking advantage of kids. I’ve only ever associated with 2 minors since becoming an adult and I have no intention of associating with any more that aren’t directly connected to my family or my friends.

Anyone who actually knows me would know I have a 0 tolerance for IRL pedophilia, when I found out a member of one of my groups was showing nudes to minors he was immediately kicked out and I kept tabs on the situation to make sure he’d be caught by police. When a member in my server was exposed for ERP and orbiting with a minor, I kicked him out too.

I worry about kids to a point that it’s part of my PTSD, I have anxiety attacks just worrying about how a kid might be getting harmed, the last thing I want to do is bring harm to them.

And I did cause harm, I didn’t know that was what I was doing, but I did, because I wasn’t mature enough to understand how to interact with kids as an adult. And again, I’m just incredibly sorry things had to even come to this. I’m not lying when I say I think about this every single day, and sometimes spiral in to really bad anxiety because of it. It affects me heavily.

I want to move on.

And I want the people affected to move on too.

Because dwelling on this isn’t going to do anyone any good.

#apology #important

[inamindfarfaraway]

Luke Castellan Headcanon

Luke continues to write in the diary Halcyon Green gave him. He records he and his family’s life on the streets, like battles with monsters and developments in their skills and his and Thalia’s powers. The page where he recounts his disastrous first meeting with Hermes is tearstained. He’s thoroughly convinced his father doesn’t love him. Grover’s appearance and the news of Camp Half-Blood, a safe haven for demigods, give him hope and he can’t wait for them to finally have secure, relatively normal lives.

The day Thalia is transformed is marked by a two-page spread of furiously scratched black pencil. The next entry takes place weeks later.

The tone slowly lightens as Luke settles into camp. He makes many new friends and enjoys the activities. Swordfighting and campfire songs are his favourite, and soon he’s popular for the first time ever. He’s very proud of Annabeth as she grows and finds herself (although her developing crush on him disturbs him, with him loving her as a sister). There are still plenty of times he has to comfort the lost, lonely and traumatized younger campers, especially the unclaimed kids in Cabin Eleven, and melancholy reflections on the implications of that. One of the unclaimed, a young boy named Ethan Nakamura, admires and forms a strong friendship with him. He also laments that he would now never get the chance to act on feelings for Thalia, and misses her terribly in general. Following the first such entry are a series of lovingly accurate drawings of her, in different poses and emotional states, from different angles and distances. It has the caption, ‘I never want to forget any of her.’

Over the years the diary increasingly becomes an outlet for his rage against the gods. The beginning pages Halcyon Green wrote in are frequently reread to remind himself of the gods’ cruelty. One day Ethan confides in him his plan to run away to discover his real godly parent, since he’s sure they aren’t an Olympian and none of them know much about the minor gods. Luke wants to join him, but reluctantly decides he is more needed by the other campers. He does promise Ethan he’ll find him again someday. A couple of months later he gets his quest. He pours out his feelings of tentative excitement before and hollow disappointment and anger after it. The regular entries continue for a few weeks, noting a weird whispering voice in his dreams. Then they stop.

Pledging allegiance to Kronos is evidently very distracting. The rest of the diary is a disordered miscellany: drawings of Thalia’s pine tree, Annabeth, Backbiter and sword fighting forms with it; a list of potential allies within camp, Silena’s name circled and ticked; a spider diagram of quotes from May, Halcyon, Hermes and Chiron regarding his mysterious destiny in an attempt to piece it together; frantic sketches of the nightmares Kronos sends to punish him or keep him in line and scrawled reminders to stay on the titan’s good side. There are even regretful observations of new arrival Percy Jackson and how similar he was to Luke at his age. His guilt over having to betray his younger siblings is a constant theme, Annabeth most of all. If you look closely, you can still see tearstains on the earlier of these pages, though he soon learns to better suppress his emotions. These scribbles are usually done during the night, often after waking from one of those nightmares.

Moments before setting up his assassination attempt on Percy, Luke writes a neat, dated entry for the first time in two years, takes the diary to Half-Blood Hill, and buries it in a small box next to Thalia’s tree in solemn silence. The entry is below a final, beautiful drawing of the tree at sunset. It says: ‘I’m sorry.’

Years later, a savage rainstorm hits camp while the Hunters are staying. Capture the flag is cancelled. But Thalia lingers outside to practice her weather control. A little rain could hardly bother a daughter of Zeus. She visits her old tree and spots something sticking out of the ground, where soil turned to mud has been washed down the slope. She pulls the box out from between the tree’s tangled roots. Strange. Thalia returns to her friends Percy, Annabeth and Grover in the covered pavilion, excited to see what poor past camper’s embarrassing secrets she’s unearthed. Instead the book inside is hauntingly familiar. Hands trembling, she starts to read.

#“family luke you promised” #luke castellan #pjo luke #pjo #pjo headcanon #sad headcanon #the diary of luke castellan #luke x thalia #thaluke #found family #annabeth chase #broken trio #is that what they’re called?

[thepapergirlandthespiegelman]

Castlevania Season 4: I’m not mad, just disappointed

Season 4 is poorly written fanfiction, which is...better than a lot of things could be, I guess.

Spoilers below the cut.

Content warning: trauma, sexual assault, psychological manipulation

The Gods Have Had a Change of Heart

Or, “Season 3 Blocked and Ignored”

Season 3 felt like the fabric of the universe had been twisted just to inflict additional pain. Season 4 overcompensates in the other direction; trauma evaporates, and good things happen for no other reason than to make our favorite characters happy.

The Season 3 finale left two characters in particular totally devastated: Alucard and Hector. Alucard is violently betrayed in a horrifying sexual assault by the first two people he’s spoken to since Trevor and Sypha left. He ends up killing them in self-defense and puts their bodies on stakes outside the castle, alluding to his father’s habit of doing so and potentially hinting at a turn toward evil. Hector is seduced by Lenore and then enslaved using a magic ring.

Yet at the start of Season 4, it’s as if these things never happened. Alucard is troubled, but not totally devastated, certainly not evil. Taka and Sumi are referenced in exactly one conversation with new character, Greta, in which she says the rather tactless throwaway line, “I had a boyfriend and girlfriend at the same time once. But they never tried to kill me.” Hector is nominally imprisoned, but immediately seems highly agentic, perhaps even more so than before. He studies, lays traps, and makes secret plans with other people. Furthermore, his relationship with Lenore is completely transformed. From falling to his knees in abject horror and despair at being enslaved, he suddenly switches to light banter, in what is apparently a basically okay, mutually enjoyed romantic/sexual relationship. Manipulative, selfish Lenore is now a sympathetic character struggling to reconcile her own role and feelings with Carmilla’s plans.

The events of season 3 happened, remaining canon in the most basic, literal sense. But the emotional weight attached to them has disappeared into thin air.

Not gonna lie, I did breathe a sigh of relief when I saw that Alucard and Hector were okay. I’m soft-hearted! I don’t like seeing characters I like suffer! I mean, conflict is important, and I can deal with (or even enjoy in a certain sense) seeing characters suffer if it makes sense and serves a narrative purpose. But as far as I can tell, the season 3 finale was nothing more than lurid, meaningless violence. I probably wouldn’t have continued watching the show if it devolved into nothing more than finding novel ways to torture the characters.

Still, it doesn’t feel quite right to pretend like nothing happened either. Or, really, not that nothing happened, but that those things didn’t matter, didn’t hurt, didn’t leave lasting scars. That’s...almost kind of worse.

But, I thought, I can sort of forgive this sudden shift in the stars, given that there may have been some sort of change in creative direction relating to Ellis’ decreased involvement with the show.* Plus, season 3 was insanity. It’s not like it was full of great writing choices, so if we quietly ignore some of them, maybe that’s for the best.

*I only later learned that Netflix actually chose to continue with Ellis’ season 4 scripts. It is not lost on me that maybe Ellis doesn’t know how to write about the lasting effects of traumatic sexual experiences or how power dynamics can make a sexual relationship problematic because he doesn’t understand that those things exist.

Characters Being Nobody and Nothing Happening

Pretty Pictures, Not Much Else

Unfortunately, the disconnect between seasons 3 and 4 isn’t the only problem with this season. Although I felt that season 4 was a bit less boring than season 3 (I particularly enjoyed some of the earlier episodes of season 4), it suffers from the same basic problems of Characters Being Nobody and Nothing Happening.

None of the characters experience any significant development, let alone any sort of coherent arc. Sypha has changed slightly, becoming more rough and jaded. I did really like the scene where she talks about becoming the kind of person who says “shit.” I think it really speaks to how entering into a relationship with someone means taking on aspects of their lifestyle, and how that can change you in ways that you can’t predict and therefore can’t exactly “agree” to. Sometimes those changes are good, sometimes they’re bad, sometimes they’re neutral, and sometimes it’s difficult to know. But you have to accept that you’re sacrificing some aspects of the person that you could have been if you chose to live completely independently, or with someone else.

Trevor really hasn’t changed since season 1 when he first decided to take up the mantle of hero again. Likewise with Alucard. Hector and Lenore change, as previously noted, but that change is sudden, jarring, and occurs completely off screen in between seasons 3 and 4. Carmilla dies as exactly as she lived: bitter, angry, and violent. Saint Germain just kind of...gets fucked over in a nonsensical subplot, which is its own whole can of worms.

We also get several new characters in season 4, none of whom have developed personalities or motives, nor do they develop any of those things over the course of the season: Greta, Zamfir, Varney, Ratko.

And nobody. Does. Anything.

Trevor and Sypha spend the entire season trying to explore and aid Targoviste, which comes to absolutely nothing. They’re unable to help anyone, Zamfir dies, and they end up just jumping through a magic portal to the actually relevant subplot in the finale. Carmilla literally does little more than draw maps until she’s ultimately killed. Hector plays a minor role in Saint Germain’s extraction of Dracula from Hell; otherwise, he and Lenore basically just exchange banter. Saint Germain does sort of do some stuff? But it’s often unclear how he’s made his connections, who the people who are helping him are, or what exactly he’s doing in terms of his magic beyond “whatever it takes to get back to his lover.”

Sure, there are fight scenes, but they feel meaningless. There’s no context, no stakes. There’s also a LOT of dialogue, and it is. Not well written. Exposition is embarrassingly clumsy at times, and the philosophical musings are cliche at best, muddled and confusing at worst. There’s just not all that much going on.

That is, except for Isaac. But more on him in a second.

What Kind of Show Is This?

When the plot line adapted from Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse ended with season 2, the show struggled to establish a new identity.

Despite nominally dealing with themes like whether humanity is inherently good or evil and how to cope with wrongdoing and loss, seasons 1 and 2 ultimately boiled down to a pretty generic action-adventure/fantasy plot with found family/power of friendship elements. Main characters Trevor, Sypha, and Alucard don’t really wrestle with big philosophical questions or suffer any major defeats. They know that they have to take down Dracula for the good of the world, and they work together as a team to do it, with a little character development relating to their various backstories sprinkled in.

Then season 3 happened, and things got weird. The trio is broken up for what feels like a pretty trivial reason—Alucard has to protect the castle and Belmont hold, I guess? And the result of that decision is that the dynamics for the three main characters are completely unbalanced.

Ellis openly admits that he basically went feral with the writing of season 3, and it shows. The messaging in seasons 1 and 2 was cliche, but consistent. The message of season 3? Anyone’s guess.

Season 4 reversed the darkening of tone from season 3, but shares its inability to pick a story and tell it.

Isaac is the Main Character

Always has been.

While I can’t say that his character or arc are perfect, I can say that he actually has a character and an arc. He starts off motivated by his fierce loyalty to Dracula, then has to struggle to find his purpose once Dracula is gone. He goes from subservient to agentic. He goes from fully endorsing the genocide of humanity and not caring about his own life to seeing some worth in humans and genuinely wanting to live. He has an interesting moment that deepens our understanding of what night creatures are, while also serving as an exploration of the meaning of one’s fundamental nature. Most importantly, these changes happen naturally over the course of the show. They never feel forced or out of the blue, and while I feel like even more could have been done with Isaac’s character, there’s a lot to appreciate about what is there.

If there’s any thread holding Castlevania as a single, coherent work together, it’s Isaac. Not only is his character the best executed and the most coherent over the course of the show, his character explores themes that are larger than himself and relevant to the show as a whole, like those mentioned earlier: misanthropy versus a belief in the value of humanity; the ability to go beyond one’s “nature” or initial circumstances; and how to respond to being wronged or losing something important to you. Exploring the individual lives of characters is great, but really good writing usually requires going beyond that to reflect on broader questions and ideas. Isaac is the only character here that serves that larger purpose.

Sorry...I Just Don’t Buy It

The season 4 finale is crazy, although in a different way from season 3′s.

Varney being Death makes no sense on several different levels. I’m not going to spend a lot of time picking that particular plot twist apart, but I will talk about why I think it doesn’t work at the largest scale, and how I think season 4 might have been done better.

Last minute twists with zero foreshadowing are rarely a good idea, and this is no exception. Why introduce this “Death” entity at the last minute to be the most important battle of the season? The finale of the entire show, even? Besides the lack of logic or emotional buildup, this robs the show of the opportunity to make use of the antagonists that it already has. Since Dracula died, Carmilla has been the obvious choice for a new big bad. Why hasn’t she done more?

Season 4 feels crowded with characters and plot lines that amount to nothing. Why not bring some of these characters together? If Carmilla is the main antagonist, how come she never meets any of the protagonists (except Hector, who is a pretty minor player in this ecosystem) or even affects them in any way?

Season 4 feels like maybe it was trying to make something out of season 3 and the model that it presented, but it ultimately fails to do so. The writers throw the trio back together at the end anyway, so why not have them rejoin sooner and work together? Maybe Sypha and Trevor’s past experience with Saint Germain could have helped Alucard and Greta piece together what he was plotting sooner, rather than all four of them being completely blindsided by it in the penultimate episode. (Sypha and Trevor know that someone is trying to resurrect Dracula, but they fail to find out any actual detail about the plans, despite their supposed attempts.) Have characters actually do stuff, figure stuff out, advance the plot!

Likewise, maybe Carmilla becomes aware of Saint Germain’s scheming, sees it as a threat, and tries to take him down. Maybe she tries to get involved and somehow use alchemy or the Infinite Corridor to her own benefit. What does it look like when power-hungry Carmilla, who wants to rule the world, finds out there’s an entire multiverse out there? That could easily set her up to be a foil to Saint Germain, causing him to realize that what he’s doing is wrong.

What actually ended up happening in the show feels disjointed and often empty. In particular, most of the events that happen in the last two episodes just don’t really work for me. I didn’t like Trevor suddenly sacrificing himself to this random, new, super powerful enemy, or how the gems and dagger that he found just happened to be the perfect weapon to kill this new enemy, or how he inexplicably returns from the dead.

This kind of thing is what I mean when I say that this season feels like fanfiction. Trevor comes back from the dead for no discernible reason other than that it would really suck if he died. Greta as a character seems to literally only exist to be Alucard’s girlfriend and support him so that he doesn’t have to continue to be alone and potentially turn evil. Alucard’s trauma from Taka and Sumi and Hector’s trauma from Lenore are both conveniently erased. Even Dracula and Lisa are resurrected somehow and get their happy ending. And it’s like, I guess I prefer deus ex machina to the opposite (Does that have a name? When everything is going well but then something terrible happens for no reason other than to make things worse for the characters?), but they’re both bad writing.

God. This isn’t even getting into what happened with the Council of Sisters. And I don’t even really like those characters, but that doesn’t mean I want to see their characters handled poorly.

I’m not sorry that I watched until the end, but I can’t in good faith recommend the show as a whole. If you’ve yet to watch Castlevania, just stop at the end of season 2. While there are some shining moments in seasons 3 and 4 (4 more than 3), it’s just really not worth it.

#review #thoughts #television #animation #adult animation #video game adaptation #fantasy #Netflix #Netflix Original #Castlevania #storytelling #writing #characters #plot #character development #vampires #Isaac (Castlevania)

[yongtxt]

turn back time [taeyong]

word count: 6.2k words

characters: amnesiac!taeyong x girlfriend!reader ft. doyoung

genre: angst [meant to be just melancholic so no crying !]

warnings: few mentions of a car crash and some wounds. taeyong suffers from amnesia.  it’s a couple trying to learn how to love again.

author’s note: yesterday was my first year anniversary here on tumblr and i give you a short angst fic of the first nct member i wrote for as a present. anyway. i need a break from angst after this also i need to stop writing people getting hurt/wounded???? [stream turn back time by wayv later <3] / unedited

Taeyong awoke to harsh fluorescent lighting filling his vision, a throat so dry it could compare to a desert, and the muffled cries of his lover.

His arms ached, muscles extremely sore that it hurt him to even lift his limb. He wanted to reach out to you, to run his fingers through your hair, and to tell you that everything was gonna be okay—he would work it out with you, together.

You had Taeyong’s hospital gown clutched in your hands, soaking the fabric with your weeping. WIth your face buried into his blanket, it took you a second to realize that your boyfriend had already woken up from his deep slumber. Your cheeks flushed at his intense gaze, dropping your hold on him almost immediately as if it was hot to touch.

“You’re awake!” You exclaimed, voice cracking. Fumbling to wipe your tears, you scrambled to your feet. “Let me grab some food, okay? You must be hungry.”

Taeyong did his best to shake his head, “No, you don’t have to. Please just stay beside me.”

A beat passed and you could only stare at him. The hesitance you exuded didn’t pass unnoticed, you sat back on the stool beside him and stayed tight-lipped. Taeyong sighed through his nose, a bubble of nervousness growing in the pit of his stomach. He couldn’t even look you in the eye, his attention darting everywhere but to you.

“How are you feeling? Do you think you can move better now?” You asked, soft and wary—afraid of what his response would be and he didn’t like the sound of it not one bit, but he didn’t let it show.

“I can move my head better than yesterday.” Taeyong pointed out, craning his neck enough to prove it to you. You couldn’t help the smile on your face and his chest floods with an unfamiliar warmth. He added, “My joints just hurt since I’m kept on bed rest all day.”

“Well, you’re getting released tomorrow.” You said, subconsciously outstretching your hand to brush off the fallen lock of his hair from his forehead. He blushed at the contact of your fingertips and you immediately retracted it back. “Uh, your doctor wanted me to tell you that you should start walking around again if you can to avoid using crutches.”

“I’ll try to go for a walk tonight.” He nodded his head, staring at his lap as if it was the most fascinating thing in the room. “Can you help me drink some water?”

“I’m sorry, of course.” Your cheeks reddened the same way his were, fumbling to punch in a straw inside a bottle of water as you propped it up for him to sip on. Of course he was thirsty, he had been asleep for almost half the day.

Your fingers were trembling, he noticed. Before he could point it out, the door slammed open and you were forced to draw away his drink. You haven’t been told of anyone visiting so it came as a surprise to see your boyfriend’s childhood best friend panting in the doorway, holding himself up on the frame while he gawked at Taeyong’s wounded form.

Bruises of varying sizes littered across Taeyong’s pale skin and a bandage was wrapped around his forehead, his bleached hair peeking out from the bloodied cloth. A large gash can be seen trailing along his jawline and although it had been healing nicely, a mark remained. He had dark circles under his eyes and his cheeks were sunken from fatigue and a lack of nutritional intake, much like you.

He didn’t look well, Doyoung thought with a pitiful gaze Taeyong was already too familiar with.

“Aren’t you gonna come in?” Taeyong chuckled, grinning at Doyoung who frowned at him. He rushed to his side and mindlessly took him into an embrace, cradling his bandaged head into his shoulder. You felt hot tears pool into the corners of your eyes but you blinked them away before they could see.

He berated him, the way he always would when Taeyong got himself into trouble that could’ve been easily avoided if he would just think straight. The blizzard, Doyoung kept bringing it up, he shouldn’t have driven when the weather was too dangerous.

“I’ll try to remember that next time.” Taeyong said, reassuring him before Doyoung could burst into tears. He wouldn’t know how to handle him if he got too emotional, he doubted you’d be able to.

“Why were you driving, anyway? What was so important that you had to risk your life to travel?” Doyoung huffed and you rose from your seat from instinct, about to insert yourself into their conversation when Taeyong grasped your fingers.

You stared at him and you were suddenly reminded that he must’ve put himself in pain to stop you. You sat back down and he smiled, he wanted to say it himself and you could only respect his wishes. You hadn’t been able to inform Taeyong’s friends about his car crash as it had been only a week since it happened, all of your time was spent tirelessly tending him back to health. You didn’t have the time to share the unfortunate news.

“Apparently, I was on my way back to Seoul from visiting my family.” Taeyong said, gently grazing your skin away from his best friend’s sight. At Doyoung's confused knot on his forehead, he continued, “My mom told me that they couldn’t make me stay because it was the night of my anniversary with my girlfriend.”

“Taeyong, why are you talking like that—”

“The doctor said I hit my head on the steering wheel pretty badly.” Taeyong laughed mirthlessly, and you subconsciously squeezed his hand. “Bad enough that my memory got a bit fuzzy. Retrograde amnesia, I think that’s what they called it.”

Doyoung blinked, lips gaped at Taeyong who only smiled at him. He looked up at you, a sudden onslaught of anxiety coursing through him that you could just see him almost shake in worry. He whispered to you, “Amnesia? How far back can he remember?”

You bit your lip, turning away and loosening the grip you had on Taeyong’s hand, but he held it tighter with a strength you were sure he was only forcing. You said, “The beginning of third year in college.”

“What?!” Doyoung choked on his spit, leaping from his seat in shock. You offered him an unopened bottle of water but he shook his head. “You’re already a working man, Taeyong! We graduated two years ago, man!”

You did your best to calm Doyoung down, much to Taeyong’s appreciation. You knew where his emotions were coming from so you had to explain why it happened in a manner he would understand. You said that the blizzard was so strong that the roads had iced up and due to the speed he was driving, the car had slipped and crashed into a tree. He hit his head and the sheer impact caused trauma to his brain and made him lose his memories.

The doctors diagnosed him with retrograde amnesia, a form of memory loss that occurs from a traumatic brain injury. It prevented Taeyong from remembering what happened prior to his accident. His recovery was supposed to be gradual, it will take time for him to regain the memories he had lost but it wasn’t assured.

Taeyong doesn’t like telling what happened because people’s first reaction to his amnesia was to resort to aggression. As if their anger and frustration could magically make him remember what he had lost. You didn’t think of it that way, on one quiet night you told him that maybe it was just their desperation to bring him back to the person he was.

He thought it was selfish of them, but you kept your lips shut and refused to tell him that losing two years was a big deal to some people. Although he was still himself, quirks and habits are the same as you’ve first witnessed them, little aspects of him were different; some just different enough that others would do a doubletake to make sure it was really him. The person he is now just wasn’t exactly the person he used to be.

A slightly-off Taeyong, he grimly made a joke about.

You wanted to reassure him, comfort him that he didn’t need to try so hard to be who he used to be. You know despite all of his nonchalance and soft smiles, he was hurting. He instilled it in himself that he disappointed his loved ones by being a person they weren’t accustomed to. But you couldn’t, you weren’t in the place to when his last memories of you were when you have only first met during the anthropology class in your third year of college.

“God, that means you can’t even remember your own girlfriend.” Doyoung mumbled, mostly to himself but you heard it clearly enough as if he personally made it a point to stomp on your heart. Taeyong frowned.

“Shut it, Doyoung.” You grumbled, tears threatening to spill again. You and Taeyong have been so emotionally exhausted that having another person in the hospital room usually would lift both of your spirits, but Doyoung proved himself to be a disturbance instead.

Hours were spent lounging around with Doyoung talking Taeyong’s ears off with stories that he had missed in the past two years, how he was the one who had forced him into the class he shared with you and how coerced him into asking you out before he graduated; a bunch of stories that it almost made Taeyong wish that everything could just go back to the way it was.

He wasn’t the Taeyong they speak so fondly off, he was merely just the shell of him. Still, Doyoung had brought out a smile that you had been unable to make and for that, Taeyong gave him his thanks. You glanced at him from the corner of your eye and sniffled.

Doyoung left not too long after, but he promised to visit soon. He knew you needed the support. You were left alone with your boyfriend again and the silence envelops you whole. When you excused yourself to grab a much-needed coffee, Taeyong sank to the hospital bed and succumbed to his tears.

This was his last night in the hospital and it had felt like the longest. He was out like a light but you stilled in your chair beside his bed, fumbling with the ends of his blanket in worry of tomorrow. Not much had progressed in your relationship with him. He was still embarrassed, timid in how he acted around you. You asked if he wanted to go home with you and he reassured you that he would be fine with it, but the panic you felt was still prominent.

Morning came and after what seemed like hours of finishing what was left of Taeyong’s documents in the hospital, it was time to finally leave. You hailed a taxi and you couldn’t help but notice your boyfriend’s sudden rigidness inside the vehicle. Swallowing your reluctance, you took his hand and forced his attention on you throughout the entire drive. He was thankful that you were able to distract him.

The apartment you shared with Taeyong was small but humble, the third unit in an old building that you swore was built in an era before the current. Thin walls and a poorly constructed floor, it was all both of you could afford when you’ve decided to move in together fresh out of college. Despite its imperfections, it was home as long as you had him with you.

With the creaky sounds your front door made, you heard the familiar sound of soft thudding of feet run across the wooden floors to welcome your arrival. Your heart leaped at the sight of Lala, the three-year-old Labrador you adopted with Taeyong, bolting towards your direction with her tongue sticking out.

Taeyong trailed behind you, drinking the place in. His gaze kept on darting from one place to another, his lips parted in amazement at the thought that he really had the courage to move out of his parents’ house to live with his girlfriend. It looked lived in, bits of his and your personalities showing in the way it was decorated and cluttered. The clashing of color schemes and wood tones almost made him want to laugh over how it was clearly furnished purely on indecision and compromise.

He was too busy familiarizing himself to notice that Lala had jumped on him. Your heart squeezed at the sight.

You crouched down to your knees, reaching over to scratch the back of Lala’s ear. You chuckled at Taeyong’s confusion on how to approach the hyperactive puppy, “Her name is Lala, she’s three years old. We adopted her on your birthday last year.”

Taeyong nodded with widened eyes, getting down to your level to attempt to pet her. He commented offhandedly, “Good girl, Lala.”

“She definitely prefers you over me, too.” You mumbled, watching Lala cave into Taeyong’s touch. She hadn’t seen him in a while so you wondered if her attachment to him would waver but it seemed to only grow stronger, the same way you were with your boyfriend. “I had my friend take care of her while we were gone.”

Taeyong kept his quiet and you swallowed the lump in your throat. His doctor told you to treat him especially kindly since he was in a vulnerable state, but you should instill a sense of normalcy. You were instructed to treat him as you normally would, he needed to be reminded of the lifestyle he used to have little by little.

The idea of having to consume copious amounts of medicines every day was already exhausting and gruesome, he even had the bandage around his head to deal with. He had a lot on his plate, you wouldn’t dare add to it by pressuring him to become the adult he doesn’t remember that he was. In his mind, he was still twenty years old and was living in a rickety dorm with Doyoung; it will surely take time for him to grow out of it.

You told Taeyong to go sit down on the stool across the island, to make himself comfortable while you prepared dinner—attempt to prepare dinner. Racking all the recipes his mother had taught you over the years, you wanted to cook a meal he would enjoy and reminisce over.

“Doyoung told me you didn’t like cooking very much.” You heard Taeyong’s voice said, a voice free of malice and full of genuine interest. He said, “It makes sense that I should be the one making food for us right now. You know, for all the trouble I’ve caused you the past week.”

You shook your head firmly, turning around so your back faced him. You didn’t want to let him see your ever-growing frown. You sighed, “Don’t worry, I can handle this. Do you want some coffee?”

“Yeah, sure.” He mumbled, pressing his cheek against the palm of his hand. He wished he could do more for you, but you weren’t letting him; you had your wall up as high as he had his.

Shuffling to where your coffee maker was, you quickly fixed a cup of coffee for him as if you moved purely on instinct. Taeyong watched you in amusement as you slid a blue mug to his way. The paint of its design was chipping off the edges and it had a small crack on the handle, it definitely had seen better days but he felt oddly drawn to it.

You saw him eyeing it out and you chuckled, “We went out on a pottery class for a date once and I made that mug for you. You refused to drink coffee without it, but I think it’s time for us to throw it out and buy you a better one.”

“No!” Taeyong interjected almost immediately, waving his hands to dismiss your idea. “I like it. We’re keeping it.”

Your chest ached, but you were unable to pinpoint the feeling that made it so, “If you say so.”

Taeyong was a picky man when it came to his coffee. He wasn’t an avid drinker of dark and rich brews, often preferred the sweeter and creamier side of the spectrum. The drink you made for him tasted just right, the perfect balance, and he was overwhelmed with gratitude. It made him laugh, how his taste in college didn’t seem to change in his twenty-three-year-old body.

“You can go look around while I cook.” You remarked, jutting your chin towards the rest of the apartment that he has yet to see as you run your hands under the running water. He followed your gaze and shook his head. You quirk an eyebrow, “You sure? It’ll take a bit before these noodles cook.”

Lala encircled his feet before cozying herself on top of his shoes, refusing to leave his sight. He laughed, bending down to pick her up and place her onto his lap. With his hands deep into the puppy’s golden fur, he asked, “Is Lala supposed to be a reference to the Teletubbies?”

You turned the stove on and plopped in the boxed pasta you retrieved from the pantry, “Your nephew loved the Teletubbies at some point so we made him name her.”

A visible twinkle appeared in Taeyong’s eye at the mention of his nephew. He’d only seen photos of him recently, the last he remembered of him was that he was only an infant cradled in his sister’s arms. And as if a barrier was put down, he asked if you could tell him more about what he had missed in his personal life. If Taeyong from the past trusted you enough to move in and adopt a dog together⁠—which he couldn’t believe he was able to do in college, he had to trust you, too.

You gladly entertained his curiosities while you prepared a mediocre version of his mother’s Jajangmyeon. As obscure some of his questions were, you were as honest as you could be. From how he managed to pass his senior year to how he got the job at his company, he asked it all while stuffing his face with dark noodles.

In your eyes, he looked like a kid who wanted to know what his older brother did, to follow in his footsteps and be just like him. He wanted to absorb so much information, it almost pained you to look at him listening to you with an expression so clearly resembling envy.

He cut you off and called out to you with a voice lower than before, sadder but still hesitant. You glanced at him in worry that you were rambling too much. He averted his attention away from you, “You’re crying.”

Raising a hand to your cheek, it was wet. You coughed in embarrassment, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He mumbled, meekly offering his half-empty drink to you.

You hopped out of your seat beside him, carrying your empty bowl to the sink. You stayed a bit longer away from his line of view, wanting to keep your emotions in check for Taeyong’s first night back in the apartment. You didn’t want to scare him away, he was getting more comfortable and you succumbing to your feelings would ruin everything you’ve worked so hard for.

You turned the tap on and cracked your neck, “I’ll clean up here while you can go take a bath. The bathroom is next to the bedroom.”

He let out a breath and nodded, lingering for a moment before ultimately deciding that it would be best to leave you be. He didn’t know how he could comfort you when he was the reason for your distress, it would only hurt you more if he tried to console you of things he didn’t know of.

He spotted a box on the coffee table on his way to the bathroom, a bright red box with doodles scribbled onto its sides. Glancing at you, he was about to ask what it was inside when he clamped his mouth shut. He sat down on the couch and let his curiosity get the best of him, reaching to fiddle with the latch that sealed it closed.

Inside were piles of polaroid films, photos were not only of you and him but also of his friends from college and people he had yet to remember. An assortment of knickknacks filled it to its brim, variations of trinkets that included movie tickets and receipts. It was a box made to help Taeyong remember the memories he had lost, the connections he had with people that he had forgotten.

Taeyong bit the inside of his cheek, it must’ve been your doing. You probably asked around for others to help assemble the box, his heart swelled at the thought. You were working hard to make himself and his environment feel normal after losing a good chunk of his memories, he had to work hard as well.

His fists were shaking, his knuckles turning a shade paler than it already was. Lala snaked into the crook of his arm and whimpered at her owner’s change of composure. He laughed humorlessly, scratching her belly in appreciation.

Shutting the box closed, he sighed. He made his way towards the unfamiliar bathroom and filled the tub. Doyoung always told him that a bath could melt all of his troubles away, and how he wished it was that easy.

Taeyong came out of his long bath with nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist, blushing as he hastily pulled on the clothes you had prepared for him in the bedroom. You remained unfazed as you waited for him in a change of sleepwear, he realized that you might’ve already seen him naked before and the thought of it only worsened the state of his cheeks. He perched on the edge of the bed once he was finished.

You grabbed his ointment and attended to the injury on the side of his head, a gash that the doctors had sewn back together. You had a light hand, he noted, but the ache persisted. It burned when the tip of its applicator grazed along the stitches. He reached out to toy with the hem of your shirt, to divert his attention from the pain. You wrapped a bandage around his head as quickly as you could.

You mumbled, “It’s all done.”

“Thank you.” He smiled up at you and you returned it halfheartedly. “Let’s go to sleep, yeah? I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“No, don’t! This bed is yours, too.” You said, holding onto his wrists before he could make a home on your busted couch that functioned as Lala’s chew toy half the time. “I know how much your back hurts because of the hospital bed so please, sleep here.”

Taeyong looked at you with a conflicted expression on his face but after seconds of contemplation and mental debate, he relented only if you’d use the bed as well. You sighed and caved in.

He crawled to his side of the bed, making you wonder if there was an inkling of a chance that he remembered how much he preferred his half that faced the windows. You shuffled to your side, mindful to not cross any boundaries. This would be his first time sleeping next to you and you didn’t want him to feel uncomfortable by being too close for comfort.

You switched to your side, away from his sight. The awkwardness was suffocating you, it seemed like you were the only one affected by it because soon you felt his side dip as he made himself more comfortable while you were frozen like a statue. You were nearing the edge of the bed, so far the end that one wrong move would make you fall out of it.

“Taeyong, are you asleep?” After an hour of silence, you spoke up but in hopes that he was already sleeping.

Unfortunately for you, he hummed in response. You could feel the blankets shift, making it known that he was facing your direction now that you’ve called him. At your lack of reply, he must’ve thought you didn’t hear him so he cleared his throat, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, look. I just want to say that if you want to break up with me, I’ll understand.”

“What?” He slowly sat up in confusion, hefting himself up with his elbows. You refused to look at him, gnawing on your lips and your eyes squeezed shut as if you were a kid caught by your parents awake past your bedtime.

“This situation we’re in, you don’t have to force yourself to be with me if you don’t want to.” You managed to choke out, choosing your words carefully. “I want you to continue living who you are now, I’ll just hinder you from moving on if I only remind you of the memories you lost.”

He called out your name, much sterner and different from the gentle tone he always used on you. You were suffering worse than he was, that he knew, but he didn’t know just how much until you’ve finally cracked—the insecurities and worries you’ve hidden from him, pouring out all at once and he didn’t know what to do with it.

You were sobbing into the sheets and he could only rub circles onto your back as a failed attempt at comfort. He wanted to tell you so many things, to reassure you that he wasn’t thinking the way you assumed he would be.

Taeyong thought of you so highly. You were someone who carried all of his burdens and stories that made him the person that he was, someone who had so much love for him despite not having it reciprocated back, someone who just wanted him to forgive himself for not being who he was and to start living again. You weren’t just some stranger to him, but the world had robbed him of you.

He ignored his hesitance and whispered under the blanket of the night, “You might’ve lost the Taeyong that you love but I promise I will spend the rest of my days proving to you that I’m worthy of the same love you’ve once given to me.”

“Taeyong—”

“It’ll take some time and I can’t assure you that things will be the same as it was but I swear, I will never forget you again and we’ll be happy.”

There were a lot of things to do, but none of those things were as important to him as lying here next to you, to pick up what remained of you from his ruins. He knew full well that he wasn’t the only victim. He was aware that you were also trying your best for him, to hold onto what’s left of the pieces you used to love about him.

“I really want this to work out.” You admitted amid your hiccups and sniffles, his heart broke at the sound of it. “I know I haven’t lost you yet.”

“Thank you for not giving up on me.” He mumbled, running his nimble fingers through the locks of your hair as a serene silence filled the room as you didn’t say anything back. After a week of being in the hospital, your heavy breathing was enough to lull him into his sleep.

You glanced at him for the first time since you had laid down, observing his furrowed eyebrows and pursed lips. A small smile appeared on your face, he looked tired even though he was already deep in his sleep. You whispered in the dark, “Sleep tight, Taeyong.”

The cold of the night renders you restless once again, your eyes brimming with a bright red hue and utter exhaustion. You swung your legs to the side of the bed, careful enough to not wake your boyfriend who was already asleep. His gentle snores filled the room and you made your way towards the balcony connected to the bedroom with your phone in hand and a blanket draped around your shoulders.

It was another starless sky, you looked up and the absence of the twinkling lights comforted you. You pulled on the blanket closer as you fiddled on your phone, tapping on an option that directed you to a phone call.

“Don’t you know that it’s two in the fucking morning? What do you want?” Doyoung’s voice replaced the monotonous ringing, sounding raspy from what you assumed was his sleep.

“I wanted someone to talk to.” It was your honest answer and you knew he wouldn’t judge you for it.

He yawned, and for a moment you felt a twinge of guilt but it dissipated the second after, “How is Taeyong doing? You brought him back home earlier, right?”

“He’s okay. He’s passed out on the bed right now.” You said, stealing a glance at where Taeyong was sprawled across the bed. A weak smile tugged at the corner of your lips, you haven't seen him more at peace. “It kinda sucks, you know? I want to be strong for him but I don’t know how long I will last.”

“You love him, right?”

“I do. So much.”

“Then just be patient, please. You’re the only person he can truly rely on right now.” Doyoung sounded like he was almost pleading with you, entrusting his best friend to you for a second time with the first was when you agreed to be Taeyong’s girlfriend. He said, “The love you shared is very strong, it conquered many hurdles and it will overcome this.”

You nodded your head, but you remembered Doyoung couldn’t see you. You whispered, “I’m scared, Doyoung.”

“Of?” He asked as quietly as you were being as if you wanted the conversation to only be a secret between each other.

“What if he never loves me again?” Your nail was shoved in between your teeth, your leg anxiously bouncing against the floor. It was a thought that had flitted about your mind but you have shoved it so far back in an attempt to ignore it but it demanded your attention, to face its possibility.

He scoffed at the other end of the line, “It’s Taeyong we’re talking about here. If he could fall in love at his first sight of you in college, he could easily do it again.”

You let out a shaky breath, “Thanks, Doyoung. I needed that.”

“Alright, good night. Take care of yourself.” He said, dropping the call when you didn’t return his farewell.

You bent over the railing, tilting your chin up to face the night sky once more. You scoured the endless dark for even just a glimpse of a shooting star, for a chance to wish upon the universe to end this nightmare of yours. Your boyfriend was right there with you, but you have never felt more lonely.

Shutting your eyes closed, you let out another sigh. You were so tired of crying but it felt like the only thing you could do. You wondered just how much an average person could cry, maybe you’ve exceeded their record.

You left the balcony not too long after, padding back to the bed with a heavier heart. You sat on your side and twisted your body to face Taeyong. His mouth was parted and his cheek was pressed onto the pillow he held onto, a chuckle rolled off your tongue. Before you could even think of stopping yourself, you leaned onto him and placed a kiss onto his forehead.

A familiar heat rises to your neck at what you have done, you jumped from where you sat and raised a hand to your lips as if you’ve been burnt. You hadn’t been this intimate to him since the accident happened.

You grabbed your blanket and bolted to the living room, making do with the couch for the rest of the night as you forced yourself to sleep. Lala sleepily watched you in confusion.

Days passed and things have gone relatively the same as the first time Taeyong returned from the hospital, but you noticed the tension has lifted ever-so-slightly. You finally stopped crying yourself to sleep and eventually he has grown enough courage enough to express his affection—discreetly holding your hand and tugging you into his arms late at night to cuddle.

He was forced to stay at home for the remainder of the month while he recuperated, family and friends have visited from time to time to keep him company while you returned to your job. All the stories he’d heard about the two years he’d forgotten about, all of them were linked to you one way or another and it sparked a familiar surge of jealousy he had over his own self; that his past self made so many good memories with you that he could not never experience again.

His feelings for you were growing steadily, dare he said that he may have grown a crush on you. He could never admit it aloud for how pathetic it was, to have a crush on your own girlfriend. But it was your soft hair, your gentle hands, and your never-ending love and patience for him—these were some of the things he could not believe he had forgotten the existence of, how loved it made him feel, and he was ready to drown himself in it again.

Taeyong received a package when you were still at work one day, the label of his hometown address stamped at the right-hand corner indicated that it was from his parents. He ripped off the packaging tape with Lala nuzzling into his side.

He looked inside and saw his luggage. When he was rushed in an ambulance after his crash, his parents were the firsts to arrive at the hospital so the nurses had entrusted to them his belongings that were found in the wreckage. They failed to return it to him once he regained his consciousness as they hurried home soon after you had arrived, unable to stay much longer for personal matters.

He supposed that he only had clothes in it for he was told that he came from his hometown for a week-long visit. Rummaging through his clothes, he was surprised to see a velvet box hidden underneath the pile.

He took it out and gaped at it with owl-like eyes, he fumbled to flip it open. A shiny sparkle of a diamond reflected a faint rainbow from the sunlight that poured from the nearby window, he stared at it for what seemed like an eternity. Chuckling softly, he held the engagement ring close to his chest with a newfound source of encouragement.

You returned home that day to a romantic dinner. Candles of different scents were lit up and a torn picnic blanket covered the dining table, you took off your shoes and followed the scent of your boyfriend’s familiar cooking and spotted him in the kitchen. He donned a suit but he had on an apron to protect his front, busy with whatever meal he was preparing to see you peeking in from the doorframe.

“What are you doing?” You asked, and Taeyong swore you had on the brightest smile that he had seen in a while.

He turned off the stove and threw aside his apron, he strode his way to you and wrapped his arms around your waist. He placed his chin on top of your head and said, “I want to get to know you better.”

“You didn’t have to do this.”

“But I want to take you out on a first date—well, not out out, but you get what I mean.”

You giggled, pressing your cheek against his chest but you suddenly drew back, the worried expression you had taking him by surprise. Raising a hand to his forehead, you asked, “Your heart is beating really fast. Are you okay? Do you want to sit down?”

He stared at you incredulously before bellowing a laugh, a hearty laugh you’ve never heard before. Shaking his head, a small hint of a smile appeared on his lips. He gently pried off your hand from his face and placed a kiss onto the back of your hand. He said, “I’m okay now.”

You were unconvinced that he was, but his sudden affection made it easy for you to ignore it. He leaned down and stole a chaste peck onto your reddened cheek. He put his hand inside the pocket of his suit and nervously fiddled with the velvet box.

Taeyong lost so much of his memories, but he was ready to make new ones as long as he was with you. He will learn to love you again as much as he did before, if not more as long as the universe allowed his heart to.

#neowritingsnet #taeyong #lee taeyong #nct taeyong #nct #nct 127 #nct au #taeyong au #taeyong imagines #taeyong scenarios #taeyong timestamps #taeyong fluff #nct timestamps #nct imagines #nct scenarios #nct fluff #nct dream #wayv #taeyong angst #nct u #superm

[twdeadlysins]

not the same

pairing: loki laufeyson x reader word count: 1.5k+ summary: you’re used to death because you can see the dead, but nothing prepared you for this. // set during infinity war  warnings: infinity war spoilers,  major angst, a hint of fluff if you squint, usual marvel themes, and possible typos by yours truly  a/n: get the tissues bc this one hurts my soul 

gif is not mine 

He won. 

Thanos won despite all your efforts — despite all the small victories along the way. It really seemed like you were winning and getting the advantage, but maybe you let that get to your head too much. 

Maybe, it just wasn’t enough. 

No matter how hard you and everyone on your side tried. 

Vision died at the hand of Thanos while fifty-percent of the population turned into dust, some right in front of your eyes that were soon blurred by tears. 

How were you going to get them back? 

Your knees had given out and collided with the ground after witnessing Bucky turn into ash and his gun meet the dirt. 

Staring at the spot he once occupied, you even didn’t comprehend Steve trudge over to where his best friend had once stood until he called out your name. You averted your eyes to the blonde with a tear streaming down your dirty and bloody covered cheek, mouth slightly agape with shock and realization at what just happened to all your friends — to your family. 

“Y/N, can you see them?”

Attempting to blink the tears away, you sharply inhaled and wandered your eyes around frantically before peering back at the captain with a shake of your head. He combed his fingers through his locks with a defeated sigh as he moved from his crouched position to sit down and hang his head. 

The power you had wasn’t exactly the most helpful in fighting bad guys, but it proved handy only if the person no longer existed. 

Seeing the dead wasn’t something you were born with, it occurred when you had a near death experience. 

Kinda ironic. 

The city was under attack and there was an explosion at the cafe you regularly visited. You had flat-lined twice on the operating table and when you woke up, you were met with Tony Stark. 

He felt responsible since he couldn’t prevent the explosion and wanted to make sure you were okay. You were in shock, not only because the Tony Stark was in your presence, but your deceased father was in the room.

Tony wanted you to be a part of the Avengers, promising that he and Bruce could aid you in learning and adapting to your new ability. You didn’t think you and your new found “superpower” was worthy of being part of the team, but you accepted nonetheless. 

Figuring out your ability was when you also met Loki.

In order for him to stay with the Avengers, he was forced to work with you, Bruce, and Tony in your training and experiments as some sort of punishment.  

At first, Loki was a bit of an annoyance, always making snide comments since it was obvious he didn’t want to be there — but they were never directed at you. With the help of the God, you eventually learned that you could summon the dead, but only if they allowed you to — they could choose to stay or leave. 

Although most of the time, it was out of your control. 

People would show up out of nowhere and you had to concentrate on shutting them out — to decide on whether or not they could be there. 

Eventually it was a two way street, either you both agreed to see each other or one of you declined. 

During your training sessions whether it be sparring or the fact that you could see the dead, you grew fond of the mischievous man. The two of you soon spent time together outside of your work, learning more about one another and it led into something more — a bond — an undeniable connection — love.  

Loki understood the thoughts and concerns you had about seeing ghosts, and the emotional toll it brought upon you. He helped you in any way he could and you did the same for him when he was fighting his demons and his past. 

He wanted to be a better person — for you. You were his motivation — his light at the end of a dark and seemingly never-ending tunnel. 

“Y/N?”

The blank stare you had on the ground jumped up, orbs searching your surroundings with confusion and desperation. 

It was Loki. 

Thor had come down with a strike of lightning in the midst of battle, accompanied with unfamiliar guests to join the fight. Loki must’ve been with him and you didn’t notice somehow. 

“Loki? Where are you?” 

“Right here, my love,” he softly called, causing you to zone in on his figure with a relieved smile that he wasn’t gone like the rest of them, missing the way his voice was filled with sorrow. 

“Thank God.” Placing a palm on your knee to stand up, you whimpered at the ache in your muscles, and the pain of all the cuts and bruises you received, especially where a deep slash was made on your bicep. 

Before you could trudge over to Loki, Steve spoke up, now standing with a bewildered expression. 

“Y/N, you see Loki?” 

The bizarre question felt like someone swung a metal bat to your gut as you halted your movements, peering at the captain who searched in the spot where the man you loved was. 

“Do you not see him?” you asked, glossy orbs bouncing between the two men. 

Steve shook his head and a strangled sob left your lips as you glanced over at a pained Loki. Your knees gave out once again, stating that he was in fact there before your very eyes — that he had to be.  

A pair of cold hands grasped your wrists that were entangled in your hair and you gasped, seeming to be in a ship with Thor, Loki, Thanos and his goons. 

There was a quick white flash and next thing you knew Thanos had his gigantic hand enclosed around Loki’s throat, cutting off his air supply.

Another flash and his lifeless body was lying there, face blue and eyes soulless. His brother gripping his form, mourning the loss he witnessed — and now you did.  

Flash. 

Your wide, traumatic eyes met Loki’s worried ones, not knowing what just occurred.

That had never happened before — seeing someone’s death — seeing it so vividly as if you were there in the flesh.  

“Thanos, he kil- he killed you,” you cried, squeezing your eyes shut, letting the tears spill. Your hand was against his chest where his beating heart would be pumping for you, but it was hollow — like the way yours felt. 

He was a ghost. 

He was dead. 

“How did you-? Did you see what happened?” 

You nodded your head, breaking down even further, unable to steady your breathing.  

Loki pulled you in, wrapping his arms around your middle as you wept. “Love, I’m so sorry you had to see that.” He cradled your head as you angrily balled the fabric of his clothing in your fists, grieving at the loss of who you believed to be your soulmate.

“Although I’m not physically here, I’m still here with you, dear,” he assured, drawing away to hold your battered face within his delicate hands, making you look in his eyes.  

“It’s not the same,” you murmured, voice broken along with your heart. “You’re not actually here — not with me. You’re gone and I’m the only one that can see you.”

He was aware of how you felt about that. That you couldn’t live your life talking to the dead or you’d go crazy. You wanted to surround yourself with life — with the living, not the dead. 

And now he was the dead. 

“But that doesn’t mean I’m going to give up. I’m going to get you back, Loki. I need you.” 

He couldn’t help, but smile. He also couldn’t help the thought of you letting it consume your life, to become so obsessed in getting him back that you didn’t have a life of your own. 

Stuck and unable to move on, to grieve properly. 

But that was an argument for later. 

“I love you, Loki,” you exclaimed, holding back a sob as he kissed your forehead before pressing a chaste one on your lips. His lips felt so cold and you would give anything to experience the softness and warmth of them again. 

“And I love you. Summon me whenever you’d like, love. I’ll accept it.” 

He was gone when you opened your eyes. 

Steve’s heart ached even though he couldn’t see or hear Loki, your side of the conversation was enough. Thor and Nat finally stepped up after watching from afar, not wanting to interrupt, and the latter sat down next to you, enveloping you in her arms. 

Nothing could prepare you for today. 

Losing the battle. 

Losing your friends. 

Losing your family. 

Losing your soulmate.

All at the hand of one person. 

Thanos.  

“We’ll get everyone back. We’ll get him back,” the Black Widow reassured while you glared into the distance, clutching onto her arm as water pooled from your eyes. 

The captain was already peering at you with remorse when you connected your orbs to his. As you wandered them over to the God of Thunder who felt responsible, you uttered something that caught his attention. 

“Whatever it takes.” 

taglist:  @gruffle1​ @mysterious-398​ @impala-1979​ @sourwolf-sterek32​ @imnotrevealingmyname​ @therantygeek​ @alwaysasadaesthetic​ @tallyovie​

#loki x reader #loki laufeyson x reader #loki odinson x reader #marvel #marvel fanfiction #mcu x reader #mcu fanfiction #loki fanfiction #loki fanfic #loki angst #loki x you #marvel x reader #loki oneshot #f. #loki #loki laufeyson

[meggannn]

shepard/garrus?

oh boy, sorry for the late response! I always end up posting these things and then going to read/take a nap/play a game or something. anyway writing this up took two hours, i hope it is even slightly interesting to read. cut because this is looooooong

What made you ship it?

I think I was interested in this ship before I even played ME. I was just like “I know Shepard is a character and an alien named Garrus is a character, and people draw porn of them together.” because I think it’s reasonable to say it’s one of, if not the most, popular ship in the fandom, or at least in ME’s tumblr fandom? and the way people talked about it, I knew their tropes were #banter, #battle couple, #partnerships, and... and as we’ve learned from royai, I am a bit weak to those tropes (assuming I like both of the characters). the way people talked about them also from a “best friends” angle—which is sort of forced in-game in a way that seems strange to me now—was also a plus in its favor at the time. (if they get together, I do see their friendship/companionship, in whatever form, in some ways integral to their romance—unless you’re playing full far-right renegade who’s like a xenophobe and hate-fucking Garrus, I guess?—but Bioware also kind of shoehorned Garrus into that best-friend role and that’s a topic for another day.)

What are your favorite things about the ship?

(my friend will hit me if I say “partnerships” again) I’m gonna talk about the way I play my Shepard now, because so much is dependent on the unique Shepard. for Lydia’s journey over the series, I see a large part of her journey as basically a study of her (often self-inflicted) loneliness. and she never entirely breaks her habits of self-isolation, but the events of the series force her to be vulnerable in a way she would prefer not to be in front of a crew, or, y’know, ever. Garrus becomes an integral part of that story to help her break her out of these bad habits (all of the crew does, particularly also Ashley for my Shep), but to my eyes, the story of “Shepard and Garrus’s relationship” is also one of mutual respect, burden-sharing, and sanity and morality checks.

I don’t think of their “mentor” relationship in ME1 very often mostly because I don’t think it was done particularly well, but for all its faults, I do like how naturally the jump from “subordinate” in ME1 to “ally” in ME2 felt; once you meet Garrus on Omega you feel more on the same footing as two friends greeting each other because you’ve both recently been through trauma and the sight of a friendly face in a station full of hostiles is so unexpectedly welcome that it lets them both hope things will be okay for a minute. starting from that moment, Garrus becomes one of the few people who can see “under” her mask, I guess: partly because he’s one of the few combatants from the SR-1 who knows Shepard well and sees who she is both on the field and onboard the SR-2, with the ability to compare both to the times of “before you died”; partly because he has trauma response training and recognizes it in others even if he doesn’t in himself; partly because his loyal personality makes him sensitive to wonder how she’s dealing with being resurrected; and also partly because they’ve both gone through similar things. namely, getting your squad killed and blaming yourself for it, and it possibly being your fault (BioWare is inconsistent on what Shepard’s role was on Akuze, but in ME1 she has the chance to reply that she was responsible for getting them out safely, and failed).

necessity forces Shepard to adapt to things like being effectively forced to work for terrorists; being isolated from her support system; being resurrected and feeling like a stranger in her own body; later, getting decommissioned for making an incredibly difficult call to save the galaxy; watching your homeworld burn; being forced into a political role negotiating high stakes you don’t know how to play; being told you’re the spearhead of a galactic war; doing all of this without a full crew complement; the list goes on. those are all, on their own, incredibly isolating, traumatic experiences, and my Shepard’s not emotionally sane at the best of times. (emotionally stable, perhaps, only in the most literal of terms, at least on the surface. she’s like a rock when shit hits the fan. emotionally sane, no, for that reason and more.)

the tables have turned, and Garrus ends up becoming a large part of helping her regain agency in most if not all of those things: in ME2 he was a former crew member she trusted, and he was eager to work for her and be distracted from his failures on Omega. over in the battery, he is himself recovering from a major injury (like Shepard) and going through the aftermath of a bloodbath he feels responsible for (like Shepard), working on a crew that holds him at arm’s length, that he also... arguably... didn’t have much choice in joining (like Shepard—I’m assuming he wasn’t held hostage and joined voluntarily after waking up, but lbr this is unconfirmed). their reasons are different and varied, but they don’t realize until much later that they have found each other at the most opportune time, providing a sense of stability for each other, and also, frankly, sanity and morality checks.

in ME3, he steps into this role more fully because he’s become more disciplined, is doing work firmly in his wheelhouse, and paired up against Shepard struggling with their positions somewhat reversed from ME1: him more confident and her now completely out of her element, floundering with her place on a galactic scale. without Garrus—and Chakwas, and Joker, and Tali, and later the loyalty of the entire SR-2—the story of ME would be a tragedy, and it would end shortly in ME2; it’d be the story of how my Shepard slowly went insane being forced to fight boogeymen under a terrorist banner. Garrus isn’t, like, the keeper of her sanity, but their ability to check each other, and see themselves in the eyes of each other, provides stability and occasionally a bit of a wake-up call to both of them. when they’re both vulnerable, they both feel most seen, and most understood, by an alien that listens.

one angle of this ship that highly interests me at the moment, along with the above, is that while it’s not illegal for them to be together, it’s still... a really bad fucking idea lmao. (I could make the argument that it’s a bad idea for Shepard to be in any relationship with their crew but I think there are a few ships—Garrus, Tali, any Alliance crew at all—that realistically would be huge political clusterfucks.) so overcoming personal insecurity and fear of the unknown to acknowledge interest in each other, and the desire to become an item, getting roadblocked by a reality wake-up call with the fact that 1) she’s his boss, 2) Garrus comes from a society where station matters, like, sort of a lot and it even determines your job and how much legal power you have, 3) the potential political blowback (which would be ENORMOUS because lbr the hierarchy may not care about what turians do in off-hours but they WOULD care about the superior/subordinate thing, the human thing, the fact that they’re doing this while a war is going on. basically one of their best agents is on the Normandy to negotiate their interests and they’re basically at the whims of their relationship the whole time)... it’s a lot! all of that sort of makes it tragic, but I’m curious to see how they’d overcome it.

anyway, all of that is where I’m coming from when I think or write about this ship, but there’s a lot more I’m not mentioning here. there are a lot of juxtapositions that in my head that I’ve either added or extrapolated from canon that also interest me about this pairing. Garrus is a former cop, as is his father; Lydia is a poor kid who used to be in a gang out of necessity. Garrus is a turian with often traditionalist thinking; Shepard is a human who has much less sociopolitical power than him, even if she is his superior on the Normandy. both of them are roughly as old as the First Contact War, when their people were at each other’s throats not thirty years ago. Garrus idolizes Spectrehood while Lydia hates it, feeling it was forced on her. they can’t eat the same food. and yet despite all of that, and the fact that they need translators to communicate, they manage to understand each other when a lot of the world around them doesn’t.

god this is not even the full list of it. anyway I could go on but I’ll stop there lol.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

oh jesus, so much. I’m a grouchy and picky shipper, be warned.

pining can always make my ships more interesting, and imo it’s a consistent part of any ship of Shepard’s, considering it’s wildly inappropriate and unprofessional for her to be fucking any subordinate, so I think more consideration could be given to shakarian in the “we shouldn’t be having a thing and oh also you’re an alien and I’m kind of scared of both your government and your body” angle! I hope to explore that a bit with a fic I’m writing (if I ever finish it, god).

I hate the flavor of fandom!shakarian where Shepard romanced Kaidan in ME1 then felt “betrayed” when he’s confused and hurt on Horizon, so she gets with Garrus as like... revenge? idk. and then Garrus usually develops this bias against Kaidan as a sort of author mouthpiece (which is inconsistent with his characterization cause Garrus is nothing but pleased to have Kaidan back on the SR-2 in ME3!) and takes up the anti-Kaidan crusade cause K ~questioned the commander~ (since when does Garrus fall over himself defending a superior from criticism?) like, idk. I think Garrus can be sensitive to the fact that that reuniting must’ve been painful for Shepard, but also be aware that it was also really painful for Kaidan because all of Kaidan’s complicated feelings about Shepard’s resurrection were, realistically, things Garrus should’ve felt too! this trope is very popular but just feels like manufactured drama for drama’s sake, idk, I’m also not big on love triangles so. I would much rather people just rescue Ashley on Virmire and avoid the whole thing rather than have previously-romanced Kaidan around in ME3 for the sole purpose of forcing him to watch Shepard/Garrus being happy together tbh.

I think full goody-goody paragon Shepard is too preachy to make a good partner for Garrus and full shoot-anyone-in-my-way renegade Shepard encourages and emboldens his worst tendencies (and Castis Vakarian is right to disapprove of them). most people end up playing some combination of both, or if they do settle in one camp or the other, usually there is some sense of realism where Shepard doesn’t play nice/naive or play mean all the time, so it’s rare I see either of those kinds of extreme Shepards depicted, but in general if there is a Shepard that is so far in one direction it seems illogical to me that they ever stay together.

I think wanting a mShep romance for Garrus is a pretty welcome idea in fandom, but adding onto that, I think Garrus should’ve been romanceable in ME3 for players who changed their minds on other romances or want to play slow-burn romances! we had it for Kaidan—and should’ve had it for Ash—so (pounds fist on desk) Garrus too imo!

I hate the canon get-together because Shepard walking into the battery and asking “do you want to fuck” feels very tailored to the players who want to romance Garrus, not to who Commander Shepard is, imo. it lacked all of the subtlety and depth of some other romances—until the scene of Garrus coming to her cabin with a wine bottle, at least, cause I do like that scene, but anyway, I dislike the actual get-together.

just in general, I’m a stick in the mud, so my favorite iteration of this ship is where Shepard is resolutely professional, and the challenge of it becomes him getting her to open up, not the other way around. like, I think on some level every iteration of Shepard is a bit of a lunatic/eccentric, because you have to be to do the things they do, but I like to see their flirting with less of her calling him “big guy” (not sure where that came from, is that in canon? I must’ve missed it, but personally I don’t like it) and more of Garrus making wisecracks in the canteen while he’s talking to Joker, but he’s looking at her out of the corner of his eyes and he really said his joke with the aim of making her laugh, and as she’s reading her datapad she hears him, and even when she wants to chuckle she stops himself and just smirks cause she doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction of a laugh, but he sees her lips twitch and feels his heart flutter. that. I want more of that.

oh lastly, I hate “Shepard takes Vakarian clan markings” in any iteration. there is no canon relation to turians being poc—in fact I’d argue they have sociopolitical privilege real-world bipoc do not—but the concept of social face markings, face tattoos, etc., is rooted in non-white cultures and with the fact that 1) turians had a literal civil war over the territories those markings represent, 2) we don’t even know if marriage is how markings are shared or if non-turians are ever invited to wear them in the first place, 3) most of the art of this trend, lbr, is of mostly white Shepards in wedding dresses and blue face paint... all that combined just makes me frown and scroll faster every time I see it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bipoc Shepard with Vakarian face markings in fic/art, and that to me is very telling (not because they should have them, but because bipoc fans who make bipoc Shepards usually recognize when a racially-coded trope is uhhhhh not so great to appropriate for someone not of that group).

#megan does memes #marisjellyfish #shakarian

[octbrsaturn]

REPENT - ARVIN RUSSELL PART 2

note: I AM SO SORRY THIS TOOK FOREVER !!! i’ve been so busy the past week with moving houses and work, it’s been crazy and i’ve been ridiculously tired. also keep in mind that i’ve officially changed her name to y/n, this way it’s easier for you cuties :) THERE WILL BE A PART 3 !!! i’m not leavin y’all hanging after sticking with me for so long ;,) ily guy and all the support i’ve been given, you guys are the best!

please enjoy!

GIF DOES NOT BELONG TO ME !!!

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PART TWO

"Dean," Y/N nodded, turning back to her paper and continuing to draw. Arvin once told her that ignoring people was like putting water in a fire - it started to douse them out. It was entertaining them (talking to them, laughing at them, any attention in general) was what fanned the fire. So Y/N tried her hardest to ignore Dean. But the problem with Dean was that being ignored only pushed him to try harder for attention, whether it be good or bad.

Dean stuck his hand in through the car window and grabbed onto Y/N's chin. He roughly turned her head to look at him. "How've you been, Y/N? I've not seen you in a while. I missed you."

Y/N pulled her head away from Dean's grasp and continued to ignore him.

"She's still not very obedient," Dean's friend, Jack, said slyly. "Maybe we should teach her a lesson."

"I'm startin' to think you're right ... " Dean answered. "The thing is, Jack, that colored girls like her ... they're real pretty sometimes, but not very smart. So truly, they're only good for one thing." He gave Y/N a fake frown, making it seem like he didn't want to do what he was about to do.

Y/N could feel her heart drop into her stomach, but she still tried her hardest to ignore them.

Please hurry, Arvin, please ...

Inside the diner, Arvin was stuck talking to Sandy Roberts, one of the girls from his class. She had long, blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She was nice enough, never said anything rude, kept to herself. Arvin didn't hate the girl, he just wanted to get back to his sunshine to celebrate her passing her test.

So as Sandy spoke, Arvin didn't listen very hard. Every once in a while he'd let out an 'mhm' or a 'sure' but he didn't contribute in the conversation at all.

"And I was thinkin', maybe sometime soon, you and I could go check out a movie? Or maybe go dancin'?" Sandy asked with hopeful eyes.

Arvin's eyes, however, were trained in his car. He squinted but he couldn't make out a figure in the passenger seat. Y/N knew better than to get out, especially since this diner was still desegregated, but didn't welcome people of color all too well, so where the hell was she?

"Arvin?" Sandy asked, trying to get his attention again.

"Huh? Oh, uh, sure," Arvin didn't remember what he was agreeing to. "I've gotta go, I'll see you later, Mandy."

Before Sandy could tell him that her name wasn't actually Mandy, Arvin was out of the door. He looked in his car to make sure his eyes weren't deceiving him, and when he realized that Y/N was gone, he went into full-on panic mode.

Arvin looked around, his head whipping in every direction, trying to find anything that could help him find her. He finally decided to walk around the building, hoping that maybe she'd decided to take a walk? Even though that wasn't like her at all?

Arvin walked around the building, looking for anything to get him to her. His eyes finally landed on something that made him see red immediately.

It was Y/N - his Y/N - on the ground, scooting back into the wall as far as she could, fear dripping in her eyes. Arvin looked up to see none other than Dean Cooper standing above her. His pants were around his ankles and one of his hands were flat against the brick wall, trapping Y/N. His other hand was working on pulling down his underpants, but before he could, Arvin was already on top of him, beating the shit out of him.

"Didn't you learn all those years ago?!" Arvin screamed out, relentlessly striking Dean's face in. "Leave her alone!"

Arvin was then tackled to the ground by Jack Willows. Arvin could feel his stomach get kicked, but all he could seem to care about was Y/N. He looked up through hooded eyes to see her tear-stricken face, screaming for Dean and Jack to stop. She stood up as best as she could with shaking legs and tried to pull Jack away, but he only reared back and smacked her across the face.

When the boys had finally decided that Arvin had enough, they stood up. Dean turned to Y/N with a bloody smirk. He leaned down and kissed her cheek, despite her cries for him to leave her alone. His lips lingered near her ear as he whispered, "I'll see you around, sunshine."

As soon as the boys were out of sight, Arvin crawled over to Y/N and gently cupped her face. Her eyes were wide with fear, barely blinking. "Sunshine - sweetheart, can you hear me?" Arvin asked urgently, trying to decide what to do. He knew of a few black hospitals around the area but didn't know if he should take her. She didn't look too hurt - just a few scratches and a torn cheerleading outfit. But her eyes ... Those scared Arvin. She looked traumatized. Like she was never going to forget what just happened to her.

"Y/N, baby," Arvin gently shook Y/N's head with his hands, trying to get her to look at him. Y/N's eyes were trained on the ground, she couldn't seem to let her eyes wander away from one specific spot. Arvin continued to shake her, trying to get her to look at him.

"Please, look at me! It's me, sweetheart, it's Arvin! I'm right here, baby, I'm right here ... " He gently pulled her face into his chest and hugged her close, like he always did when she needed him to. "I'm right here ... I ain't goin' nowhere."

"I'm going to kick his fuckin' ass," Arvin told his grandmother, Emma. Y/N was now at his house, sitting with Lenora. He left her there with his step-sister so he could talk to his grandmother, but he had now decided that he'd instead go and find Dean Cooper.

"Hold on a second now," Emma stopped the boy. "I don't even know what happened. How'd she get like this?"

"Dean fuckin' Cooper and his buddy Jack is what happened. They dragged her outta my car at the diner and were about to ... to ... " Arvin couldn't even bring himself to say it. He couldn't even think about what they would've done if he wasn't so damn busy talking to Sandy Roberts. If he had waited even a minute longer, Y/N ... No. He made it in time. She wasn't hurt too badly. She would be okay.

"Well, I'll tell you this much," Emma Russell told her grandson. Her eyes were trained on Arvin's knuckles that were clenched so tight, Emma was sure that his hand would break any moment. She reached forward and grabbed onto Arvin's hands, knowing that would help him calm down a little bit. But another part of her knew that there was only one person who could truly calm him down ... and she was in his room at the moment, crying. "Goin' out right now and hurtin' those boys ain't gon' take back what they did to her."

Arvin looked up at his grandmother. Sure, she was right, but Arvin couldn't stand around and do nothing. He had to go now - when the time was right. If he waited, then he may miss his moment. "Grandma - "

"Y/N is in there right now," Emma pointed to Arvin's room, where Y/N was currently crying on Lenora's shoulder. He could still hear her gasping for air. He could hear Lenora gently telling her to breathe and that it would be okay. "And no matter how much she loves her, Lenora ain't the one that she's needin'."

Arvin looked at the ground, tears threatening to fall from his eyes.

"She needs you, Arvin," Emma steps forward and gently cupped his cheek, wiping away an early tear. She knew how much Arvin hated to cry, especially around people. The only person he'd ever cried around that wasn't family was Y/N. "So go help her."

Arvin nodded at Emma and turned, opening the door to his room. He saw Y/N crying with her head in Lenora's lap. Lenora was gently playing with her hair and shushing her as she cried. The girls looked at Arvin as he walked into the room. Lenora stood and let Arvin take her place. Arvin sat down where Lenora was but quickly scooted back, laying down and letting Y/N rest her head on his chest. His hands rubbed her back gently. He kissed her head every few minutes, letting her cry everything out.

"You're safe now," Arvin whispered. "I'm so sorry I didn't come back sooner."

Y/N only continued to cry.

"I love you, sunshine," Arvin kept talking. "I love you so much."

Y/N finally replied. "I love you, too."

Emma had already rung up William Lewis, letting him know that Y/N was going to stay the night at her house for the night. William was used to it at this point. He figured she would anyway. William trusted Emma, knowing that she was just a good of a guardian as Willard and Charlotte were parents (honestly, even better).

After Y/N had finally calmed down, she was only hiccuping against Arvin's chest. He hadn't stopped rubbing her back once, whispering sweet nothings into her ear until he felt her breathing start to slow. Y/N looked up and into Arvin's eyes. "I'm ... I'm sorry."

Arvin shot up at this, leaning on his elbows for a moment before sitting all the way up. Y/N stayed where she was, though, her legs straddling Arvin's waist. Normally, he'd be a tad flustered at the girl's position, but he was too fixated on her statement. Y/N's eyes were cast down at her lap, watching as she timidly played with Arvin's fingers - something she did a lot when she was either nervous or comfortable. Arvin guessed that maybe, at this moment, she was feeling the former.

"Why're you sorry, sweetheart?" Arvin asked, gently moving his hands to hold the girl's hips steady so she didn't fall off of his lap. He caught himself rubbing her skin softly with his thumbs as he patiently waited for her to reply. When Y/N's eyes didn't look up to his, he moved his head down a little so he could look in her eyes. "Look at me."

Y/N did so, her eyes flickering up to Arvin's. He didn't look mad, he looked concerned. Y/N sighed. "I didn't want to get out of the car, I really didn't. He threw the door open from the inside and dragged me out by my hair. I just ... I'm sorry."

Arvin shook his head almost the second she had started talking. He didn't blame her for a second - no, he blamed himself. He shouldn't have been talking to that Mandy girl. He should've kept his eyes on Y/N like he always did when he left her in the car. He would've seen Dean Cooper walking up to the car, he would've seen him drag her out by her hair, and he would've stopped him before he could do anything else.

Arvin kept one hand on her hip, the other shot up to the girl's cheek and gently cupped it. His thumb rubbed tiny streaks along her cheek. "It ain't your fault, sunshine. I've not been mad at you for a second."

Y/N nodded softly. "I can't believe ... after all these years, he's still out to get me." Her head moved forward, resting itself on Arvin's chest again. She sniffled a few times, hiccuped some more, but she didn't start crying again. "Why can't he just leave me alone?"

Arvin sighed. "I don't know, baby. There's just a lot of no-good sons of bitches out there."

Y/N smiled gently at the words Arvin used. The same words his daddy used to say to them all the time when they were kids. She tried not to believe it - she refused to believe that every person was just one-sided. Everyone had a good side and a bad side. They all had motivation for what they did, too. But now that she was older - maybe she was wrong. Maybe Dean Cooper truly was one-sided. Maybe he was just a no-good son of a bitch.

"Hey," Arvin whispered. Y/N looked back at him.

"Yes?"

"Maybe I can go get some food, and we can go see a drive-in movie like you wanted?" Arvin offered. He knew the girl wanted to get back to her day, and not dwell on everything that happened.

Y/N perked up. "That new Beatles movie s'posed to be out! I've been wantin' to see it for a while now!"

Arvin groaned. "You and them damn Beatles, sunshine." He rolled his eyes, but knew that he couldn't say no. "Fine. You go hang out with Lenora for a little while, I'm gonna go get the food. You want a burger?"

"Yes! With extra pickles and a side of cheese fries!" Y/N answered, though she already knew that Arvin knew this. He nodded, not moving the girl from his lap. He stayed sitting there, staring into her eyes. He knew that he was going to do something soon - something bad - to Dean Cooper. That guy could not get away with what he'd done to Y/N. No. She didn't deserve a second of pain in her life. She was his sunshine. She'd always been a constant positive in her life, and seeing her in trouble or hurting was something that Arvin worked every day to prevent. And this was just another prevention.

After Arvin got the food, he pulled back into the driveway to his home. He honked the horn of the car three times, and after only a moment, out came Y/N with a smile on her face. She had changed into one of Lenora's old dresses that fit her almost perfectly. The two were about the same height, so the dress went down to Y/N's knees, but Y/N was known to be a little curvier than others, so the dress was just the least little bit tight on her.

Y/N shut the door behind her and closed her eyes in glee. She took in a deep breath through her nose and let it out through her mouth happily. "I'm starved. Let's hurry up an' get there, I can't miss Paul!"

"Who?" Arvin asked, putting the car in reverse and driving them off towards the drive-in theater.

"Paul McCartney, bubba!" Y/N laughed at Arvin. "He's one of The Beatles? C'mon!"

"I'm sorry, you know I don't listen to that crap," Arvin grunted, taking out a cigarette and placing it between his lips. Not a moment later, he felt a punch on his right arm, causing him to swerve on the road a little. "Jesus, sunshine, you're gonna kill us!"

"It'd be worth it!" Y/N yelled out, crossing her arms. "The Beatles are not crap, they're amazing! You mark my words, Arvin Russell, those four are going to be remembered forever!"

Arvin scoffed. "Whatever you say, sunshine."

Around thirty minutes into the movie, Y/N glanced over at Arvin. His eyes were trained on the giant screen, but he didn't look entertained. He looked bored, honestly.

Arvin, who honestly wanted any reason to stop watching this movie, turned to Y/N. "Yeah?"

"Thank you for earlier," Y/N said softly, looking down at her lap. "I-I don't think you realize just how grateful I am for you. You literally do so much for me - you always have. And I guess I just ... thank you."

Arvin felt his stomach drop. Not out of nerves, but just from how much he loved this girl sitting beside him. He couldn't even express just how much his heart felt for her - though he wanted to. "You know I'd do anything for you, Y/N."

Y/N looked back at the screen. She was definitely interested in it, but she couldn't get something off of her mind. "Hey, Arvin?"

Y/N nodded. "And I'd do anything for you, too. Just lately, it doesn't seem like I do too much for you."

"Are you kiddin' me?" Arvin almost laughed. He sat up a little in his seat and turned towards Y/N. "You do so much for me! You ever think about why I call you sunshine?"

Y/N shook her head. "I figured it was just a nickname."

"Well, it is," Arvin nodded. A part of him didn't want now to be the time to confess. But another part of him knew that another time might not come. He needed to stop letting moments like this pass him by. He needed to start living - he was going to tell this girl exactly how he felt. "But ... "

"Arvin?" Y/N asked. "Is everything okay?"

Maybe ... Maybe now wasn't the time to tell her.

Y/N reached forward and grabbed Arvin's hands. Her thumbs ran over his knuckles gently as she waited for him to be ready to talk. And just like that, Arvin's fears went away again. He felt his heartbeat rise, but not out of anxiety, it was more out of excitement. He was braver than he'd felt in a long while.

"Sunshine ... " Arvin whispered. Y/N didn't speak - she just let Arvin continue on his own time. "I call you sunshine because that's what you are."

Y/N felt a ghost of a smile fall on her lips.

Arvin continued. "You're my sunshine, Y/N. You're just ... you're just this ray of light that literally brightens my day, even when you're not with me. Just the thought of you makes me so happy. If I'm havin' a shitty day, all I have to do is think that maybe, maybe I'll get to see you later and that instantly makes my day so much better."

Y/N could already feel her eyes welling up with tears. Ever since she could remember, all she wanted was for someone to care about her this much ... it was what she aimed for at school, though it didn't get recognized as much as she hoped.

But Arvin, her best friend, was sitting right here and telling her how much he cared for her. And Y/N didn't know what to do.

She wanted to reach forward and give him the biggest kiss she could muster. She wanted to wrap her arms and legs around his body and say that he meant the world to her. She wanted to tell him that she loved him more than any friend could love someone. But she was too scared to. The last thing she wanted was to be rejected, especially by Arvin.

"Arvin ... "

"What I'm tryna say is," Arvin trailed off, glancing down at their hands that were still holding each other. "I love you, Y/N."

"Oh, Arvin, I love you too," Y/N replied, smiling softly back at Arvin.

"No, Y/N, you don't get it. I love you. As in, I think I'm in love with you," Arvin shook his head, squeezing the girl's hands harder. "No, I - I'm sure I'm in love with you."

Y/N blinked. Was this finally it? Was Arvin Russell really admitting that he loved her more than a friend?

Arvin continued. "And if you ain't feel the same, I completely get it -"

Y/N leaned forward without a second thought and smashed her lips onto his.

.

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@art-flirt

#arvin russell imagine #arvin russell x reader #arvin russell x black! reader #arvin russell #the devil all the time #tdatt #tdatt fic #repent #arvin russell x reader angst #angst