#evaluate us for whatever fucking reason and the fact that we have to do a
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School gives me such bad anxiety and i dont even know why 😭😭
Like. I think the occupation is enjoyable for the most part i love the kids really even when theyre rowdy or rude i still love them i dont know what it ISSSSS. I just wanna go back to being a student who only has themselves to worry about like i miss just being a student so bad but its 3 more months of this 😭😭😭 and im so scared too like what if this means i actually dont want to be or CANT be a teacher like why is this little internship already giving me so much anxiety
#it hasnt been this bad in quite a long time#since my own school days i think i havent had this super consistent prevalent anxiety#im just soooo . soooo thrown#i dont wanna do this#i know logically its completely normal to feel insecure at first and you need experience#and of course i know that theres many more factors like the fact that we dont get paid or that we will already have people coming to#evaluate us for whatever fucking reason and the fact that we have to do a#a research project simultaneously and lets not forget i also have to actually work and earn money#its just too much for me rn and when the kids dont listen i just get progressively more overwhelmed#and i dont know what to do bcs i also cant establish myself as a teacher yet cause im not doing all the things a teacher does#its just not a good situation rn guess i just have to endure this constant thrum of fear and panic until February hahah#wish i could just pass out mentally for the next 3 months that would be so awesome
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Having finished A Study in Drowning, hopefully to the amusement of you all, here's my final review:
My biggest props to Ava Reid are as a promoter of her own work. Those Instagram posts with elegant posters of each of the colleges at the university--which by the way we never saw, because we left the university after two chapters. The character profiles telling us about the height and star sign of each of the mains--redundant, considering the fact that both of the men are tall and Effy is TikTok girlie Tiny™ never influences either the plot or any of the descriptions. The moodboards and the Taylor Swift "cardigan" music and the choice quotes--they all painted a much more immersive world than she actually delivered. In that, I give her 10/10.
As for the novel itself? It's a trauma story more than anything else, portrayed through the plot of Possession by A.S. Byatt. I always find it hard to evaluate books like this in the whole, because on the one hand, I don't want to be one of those people saying that the trauma in question is "incorrectly" portrayed, or that the author is a "bad" survivor or something. But this reminds me of when I read My Dark Vanessa and realized that there is a difference between writing an experience of trauma and writing a novel. A novel demands arc, contrast, catharsis, and all of these things need to be earned. Often, real life doesn't provide those things, but that's why we go to fiction. Sometimes it doesn't do to write a novel that's "too" true to life (I feel like this is a Dean Priest quote but whatever).
But even beyond this, there's something sloppy about the entire execution. The characterization is patchy at best (I'm going to have a whole 'nother post drubbing down Ianto) and everyone uses the same metaphor of the sea and water and drowning ad nauseum. The prose is a bit affectedly purple. The ending was painfully predictable. It had to be a YA, as I said before, because it couldn't be a grown-up novel, but it reminded me so much of Reid's Juniper & Thorn, which trammeled over much of the same territory (a bit better, I'd say, though I think they both suffer from the same flaws).
We're meant to believe that the love story between Preston and Effy is healing and cathartic and the way Effy regains control of her body and desires, but also--they knew each other two weeks. Even though they attend the same university, they have never spoken before they decide to join up on this literary analysis crusade. This is not a long-term, friends/acquaintances to lovers situation where you assume a deep measure of trust and affection could be reasonably built on an existing relationship. It reminds me of the critique of the central romance in Juniper & Thorn, where there was a complaint that it's less a romance than a trauma bond response. It's written sweetly, but considering Effy automatically flinches away from the presence of every man, it's kind of unbelievable that she would lower her guard so immediately for this boy.
The two week span of the novel is also problematic considering the aforementioned problem that academic work takes A FUCKING LONG TIME. Even if you have a ton of primary sources, this isn't the kind of thing you can produce overnight. This isn't the kind of mystery you can solve overnight, either, especially if no one has ever thought to probe that deeply before.
Basically, this novel was trying to do too many things with far too limited a vocabulary to execute it. Lowkey, I feel like Reid would be a better short-story writer than a novelist. She can be very good in small doses, but over the expanse of an entire novel, it just gets...dull.
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See, like, normally I know it’s not worth the effort and energy to interact with The Stans, but like I mentioned about that anon who basically said it’s okay if soldiers die because they’re not innocents, there’s a line to be drawn in a discussion of fictional media and people being so thickheaded and hurtful/harmful that they actually cause legitimate grief to others.
Even if people think it’s stupid that they have views that basically erase her of any wrongdoing, there’s a point where I have to stop and evaluate, is this actually them defending a favorite character or is this how they actually think and like her because of that.
Like I said in that ask, the anon I once got that effectively told me it’s okay for soldiers to die doesn’t know me or my life. They didn’t know I have a sister who used to a sergeant in the military. They didn’t know this woman has kids, and at the time had three very young children (they’re teens now, but when she was deployed they were a lot younger and still just kids). That’s not counting the rest of the family of course, but it says a lot when their ask implied to me that a soldier is no longer a person with a family but just an expendable device to be eliminated for warfare.
And that’s the problem with a lot of these people. They defend their extreme, terrible views by saying extremely moronic shit without applying it to real life and realizing how disgusting they actually sound. When my nonnies and I were discussing why we didn’t enjoy GW, that was just discussion and disappointment of a great character being altered in another game. It was harmless discussion and we weren’t sending people comments that might actually upset someone.
I know some of these people do it on purpose, and then there are the people who genuinely just don't seem to realize how stupid they sound. It’s one thing to explain why you love a favorite, but imagine if I actively defended Jarod from RD simply because I enjoy his character. If he were real, I’d probably hate him. In a video game he has funny one-liners and says some badass things, but he’s completely willing to murder innocents, children and elders simply because lolz they’re from Daein and that makes them worth being killed. Imagine if I defended that viewpoint, simply because Ashnard, the previous king of Daein, started a war! Because some of its citizens were in fact trash! But suddenly, all of them are horrible! Mind you, this is what The Stans do regarding Faerghus. If you’re living in Faerghus, off with your head, in their eyes.
That’s why I need to draw a line between “this is just another annoying person on the internet” and “okay, this is actually rude and if you believe this applies to real life too then you are literally a fucked up person”. I didn’t reply to that ask I got from that anon bc it would not have been nice, it would not have been polite, and it would have definitely been a response without the boundaries of just fiction. I did laugh at how stupid they are on my blog, but the reason I didn’t directly reply to it is because it was not just stupid, but extremely insensitive.
Imagine if Dimitri had stans like that who said it was okay for all of EdeIgard’s siblings to be used in experiments and tortured until they died simply because they were her siblings/royalty from a particular nation.
That’s the shit they do to fans who just don't like their favorite character. You don’t even have to have Dimitri as a favorite, but just not like her. It’s just that Dimitri fans don’t like her because his and her views and goals are so extremely different and on the opposite end of everything that they can’t see eye to eye, and the reason his fans usually don't like her character is precisely because of that: they like Dimitri’s story and character, but it’s too opposite of hers. That’s okay. That’s fine.
It’s not okay or fine anymore when people start acting like they can say whatever they want to justify their pixels, no matter how horrible it is.
#DCB Comments#also for the nonnies that mentioned I should change the name I use for red emp don't worry! I did!#I use a capital i instead of a lowercase L since I had a friend recommend that to me#I'll change it again if the crazies somehow find us with that change but for now that's what I've been using in any of my posts
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🦋If you get this, answer with 3 facts about yourself and send it to the last 7 blogs in your notifications, anonymously or not! Let's get to know the person behind the blog🦋
Hey! Thanks a lot for this ask. Sorry I let it sit for a bit because it's a bit similar feeling as when new teacher asks you to say few words about yourself and you promptly forget everything there is and half the class then goes with 'my hobby is sleeping' :D (real thing that happened, including me of course:P)
sooo.... hehe, why don't use this for a bit of rant (sorry)
1. I have no irl friends outside of family (which sucks majorly)
(I changed school at the edge of puberty and feels like I haven't recovered ever since - had 1 or 2 friends at high school and none since then.)
2. For tenth birthday I chose my present - 1000 pcs. puzzle just to see if I could do it. Turns out I could, with the help of family, and then several times by my own (different puzzles of course.)
3. I am apparently "interested in ideas"
...
Does this sound so pretentious and insufferable to you? Well, good news, you're not alone. That is something that was told to me with a straight face.
Ohooo I wanted to rant about this for the longest time. Sorry.
So, in the last year of high school we were made to take this personality/iq test which consisted of millions of questions that kept repeating themselves apparently trying to catch you lying. Which offended me massively along with the fact that the very first question was 'tell something that is important to know about yourself'. Which again, teenage me was offended - if you want to asses me, analyze me, then figure it yourself, duh. So I am sitting there looking at blank page, chancing side look at the class mate who's writing - I kid you not - two full pages of who knows what.
Anyway. Those test were supposed to help us with choosing school/career after high school. Which, you guessed it, did nothing of the sort for me. After the tests were evaluated, several days later, we had a meeting with the dude - still not sure who he was. Some kind of psychiatrist, psychologist maybe? Maybe not, who knows. And this is what he tells me.
That I am "interested in ideas". And I am sitting there bit anxious, 'cause duh, you're supposed to tell me what to do with life and I am immediately stunned, slowly realizing that this isn't going to help me to choose school, thinking to myself who isn't? Like c'mon.
So I say OK. Or good perhaphs.
What is that even supposed to mean? Interested in ideas. Pff.
And this is not where it ends. Do you want to know what more he tells me?
That I am "cold".
I kid you not. He tells me I am cold.
So here I am, saying OK or equivalent of it, 'cause what the hell you're supposed to do in such a situation. And that's probably not the reaction he's going for, because he immediately starts defending himself as if I accused him of something. Which I did not. He starts telling me that that's not what he himself is saying, that's what my test is saying, that that's how people perceive me.
(Which, he might not be entirely wrong in hindsight. Sigh.)
But really? Wtf dude? Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you for ever thinking this is OK to tell to teenage girl. Fuck you. Even years later - fuck you.
(At any given moment I am like 5 seconds from crying and you tell me I'm cold? wtf? I am awkward. When I don't know how to react - which is often - I just don't. React. Fuck you, man.)
Anyway, I thought this is where I'll stop but - ah, whatever. I'm gonna spill all the beans. Cause this whole meeting was certainly an experience.
So anyway, on the test, one of the questions was - circle what careers you're interested in. So cue me circling military career among the others. (Mind you, I'm not complete idiot, these are the times of peace, when everything looks OK and any conflict is just a bad dream.)
Single reason for it is - they retire early. I am not working at this point but I am pretty sure I don't even want to like ever, so if I have to, it should be the shortest possible time, right? They retire at what - like forty? Some of them choose to work for longer because they are bored. Can you imagine? So that's my thought process behind it.
And the dude goes, there you circled military, it doesn't really check out with the rest, why you did that. And because I am an idiot at last, I say because when you want to throw over a government you need military :D And he goes, hm, yes, interested in ideas...
So anyway, I'm pretty sure they still have that record on me somewhere :D
(But tbh I am still kinda proud of my non-reaction when he told me I'm cold. Kinda wish I was this sassy on purpose and not just awkward but well, I certainly do hope the dude got the same whiplash from meeting me as I got from him. )
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愿景想法一二
Hmm. I didn't have time to formulate resolutions last week. And now I still haven't gotten the time to write about them in Paradehyde. I put some down on Commonest, but the elaborations are in my head and getting in the way of my focus. I should put them out here because I'm already on my computer. If I have a record of them, they no longer bother me by forcing my brain to retain them, and maybe new ideas and directions can come up. I can mull 'em over later.
Fionn's resolution is to "continue pursuing equanimity." That's mine too, then.
I also think I wanna consummate my Anapanasati training this year, because man, how is it that I'm still not as good as I should be? I've got Fionn as my teacher and practice-partner! How many years has it been since the earliest Lyn takes this up? A decade ago? For someone who's been practicing for so long, the fact that I still haven't gotten good at it is just... another testament to me being bad at the things I claim to like, isn't it? Hahaha!
Sigh. if I really assess our mental predilections—the fact that even as a child we've been good at discerning the formation and cessation of mental processes like emotions and thoughts—then I, as the latest Lyn, should have been way better than I am right now currently due to the accumulation of experience + natural (genetic?) inclination, right?
Hmm... /pouts.
The bigger picture here is: how do I quantify these two?
Forming an intent is easy, barely an inconvenience. Making resolutions though necessitates more concrete feedback. Something quantifiable. Something I can measure or record. Experiential data. It's like saying "I wanna be better at being a friend!" and then... not actually coming up with a feedback mechanism to see if you have, indeed, been "a good friend." Okay. More concrete example: "I wanna be good at running!" and then not create a feedback framework to access that progress.
Anapanasati has one feedback standard that has been used traditionally: attaining jhana. The problem? I don't know what the fuck that's supposed to look like or feel like. It sounds so damn close to the whole spiritual bliss whatever thingy and I already know, based on reports from previous Lyns, that we cannot feel this kinda shit. 無理だ。I cannot use this. Fionn can, but I can't.
Okay, so I should take a step back. What's the bigger picture? Why did we take up these two? Why is it important?
Hmm... It's really to regulate our actions, I think. No, not just actions. It's to refine our thoughts too. Hmm... Not just that. It's to refine our input mode or perception! There you go!
It's part of the whole ethical framework we adopted. You cannot know what skillful action to take if your perception and intent are unskillful in the first place. A hungry person sees everything as either something that can satisfy their hunger or an impediment to satisfying their hunger. A gung-ho businessman hellbent on making billions more money evaluates everything on whether it can make him more money or hurt his profit margin. Perception and intent are key, and they influence each other. If I intend to satisfy my hunger then all of my perceptions will be filtered by that. If I perceive something as "good for money-making" then my intent will be shaped by that.
And both of them influence actions, and actions cause effects. And the effects will come back to influence perception and intent. Over and over, a cycle.
Oh, it's so delightful when your ethical framework is backed by scientific data from neuroscience and psychology and cognitive science as a whole. I mean, why else would we take it up? Science and reason is our bedrock, after all! Always has been, haha! The Past Me had said it before and I think they're right: If the Buddha were to be born now, at our age, bruh would be a cognitive scientist first and a philosopher later. Oh, but he'll be some sort of teacher. Lecturer!
Anyway, the point is that the reason why we took up Anapanasati is because it's useful training to be more attentive to one's own perception and intent. Buncha people take up all sorts of meditations for their own reasons, but this has always been ours. None of us ever cared about spiritual bliss or union with the universe or unlocking whatever human potential of the week is supposed to be. Everyone else can get high on transcendence for all I care. And we aren't doing this to help with mental health, either. Even when we were in the throes of the worst turmoils in this whole life, none of us ever used Anapanasati that way. To us, it's always been training. Not a clutch or a relief. Not a springboard to get closer to... feelings of divinity or however people describe it.
In that case, can't we just formulate a feedback mechanism based on this?
Hmm...
Maybe... A feedback assessment based on fine-point attention to my mental state in my day-to-day life? For example! I'm thrust into a rather challenging situation, like a confrontation or someone being agitated and picking up a fight. Oh, and then I can watch the change in my perception and intent! Am I starting to see them as hostility? Am I starting to search for reasons to sock 'em in the face? Am I starting to figure out which part of their face will hurt the most if I sock it? Am I intending to murder them?
Then I can regulate these processes. Watch the initial responses wane and modify my perception and intent. They are just normal people, you know. They are just acting out of agitation. Where did that come from? Can we alleviate it? If we can, then hey, they won't feel like taking their steam out on me anymore, innit? Not everyone is aware of their own hidden goals or sources of emotions at moments of passion. But if I can be attentive enough to help them find out, or even to help them alleviate it, then...
So, if I can actually think this much and restrain myself this well, then it means I've improved in my Anapanasati session and gained a tad of equanimity, innit? If I can even remember to control myself well enough to remain sangfroid and think rationally under pressure and without compromising my principles, then it means I've already improved.
Hmm. Sounds pretty good for a feedback check! Tee hee! I'm quite unabashedly delighted to receive a compliment from you!
Oh, but an important thing for all Lyndises in 2024 (and you too, Fionn. You have the same issue): we are still struggling with the issue of attachment. I.e. the fine point between apathy and non-attachment. This is a pretty important issue pertaining to equanimity, y'all. You can't be equanimous if you can't be non-attached. You also need to be very fucking careful not to mistake apathy for non-attachment!
Cracking this should be part of the year's resolutions too; the feedback used to gauge our progress is similar to the one above, but more specific to attachment. Are we attached to someone such that we keep thinking about them not interacting with us and getting distraught over that ("Aaahhhh! They hate me! They HATE ME! WHY ELSE WOULDN'T THEY TALK TO ME?!")? Are we getting attached to a desire that really isn't possible to be realized and/or important to our well-being? Are we feeling reluctant to leave something nice (games, talking to people on Tumblr and Discord ahahahhahaah, etc.) to do something that needs to be done, like... work (Choke! Gag! Pui!!!) or helping someone with their homework or talking to our middle sister?
If there are fewer and fewer moments of experiencing dukkha formed specifically from an attachment, then that should indicate improvement.
----
Oh, we need more materialistic resolutions. Because they are easier to complete! Than whatever the fuck those above are!
I was thinking... 5 books! Finish 5 books this year. I know, it sounds soooo few. But bruh do you know the speed of us finishing a book, even the ones we genuinely adore? We have finished neither Behave nor Buddhist Ethics and we LOVE those two books. It's because we are so slow at thinking! We can't just read stuff without making notes; that's not Right. So we make notes. But then we start to think and add our thoughts, and that takes even more fucking time because it could very well become a ramble of its own. Lyishere has laughed at our speed more than 5 times already...
Anyway, 5 books minimum. More than that is great, but let's be realistic here.
I also thinking about getting better at archery but trying to quantify "better" here is hard. I can only shoot whenever we go to that specific range. I don't have anywhere else, or the equipment, to practice. That means our practice chances are hella limited. How about... uh... 5 bulleyes in 100 shots? Let's aim to reach that, and then we'll scale it up accordingly. If I can practice weekly I can at least make my resolution "20 bullseyes in 100 shots." Actually, this sucks; in Fire Emblem parlance I'll have like 20% HIT rate only. Some archer I am!
Write 10 high-quality rambles on any given topic? Fiction stuff definitely, but I think stuff on science and whatnot should also be counted. In this case, I have done one such ramble for the team already. I wonder if I should count this as one, but there wasna any citation on it. It should therefore not be counted. But then again, I wasn't half-assing anything there either! I thought hard and wrote! Does that count? Gah, Schrodinger's quality.
The reason why rambles are even part of the resolutions is because they are incentives for me to learn more and make better notes and think better. Link stuff together. See the connection! Recognize patterns! Make better inferences! Be meaningful in your speech! Teach other people something! All these are skills. I will lose them if they fall to disuse.
Hmm... what else?
Should I make "creation of my first but very modest terrarium" a resolution? Uh. Put that on hold.
Aha! Successfully cultivate some lotuses and chamomile! As in, if they bloom, I win! No, Fionn, it's not as easy as it sounds. You can, I can't.
Oh, yea! Finish my Fushi doll! Holy shit. This one is just... a long time coming, goddamn it! I want to snuggle with the doll already! Also—
Because then I can work on Friendship Maturation Gifts. I need a lotta time for even a single gift, and that's especially since my artistic skills are horrible. My sewing is terrible. Fuck, can I stop being bad at the things I like?
Maybe I should also add "be a good friend" to the list. Not a "better" friend because I don't think I've been a terrible friend last year. "Good" is challenging enough—especially because in our mind, everyone is a friend of different degrees. No such thing as "parent" or "siblings" or "cousins." Those are merely conventional terms adopted to ease communication with other humans. So that means being a good friend to everyone. That's actually momentously difficult...
Unfortunately, this would also mean coming up with another feedback mechanism to check my progress. This is tough; how am I supposed to remove factors I cannot possibly account for, such as random life events and friends' own personal events ruining their mood or something, to see clearly if I had been a good friend? Actually, this is a stupid question. God, Lyn of Seconds Ago. Discernment, hello? Discern for yourself if you've been good even with unaccounted events, dumbass!
We can do that questionnaire again like we used to back when we were in elementary school! Or in middle school. Or university. One of us almost created that questionnaire and sent it out to every poor sod who became our friend or has been our friend last year, simply because we were a lot more social and so warranted that feedback. She balked at the last moment.
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We Are Not Immune
“Believe Survivors” and similar rallying cries were never invitations to forget all critical thinking and evaluation skills. They were pleas to take us seriously in a culture that refused to- and there’s a huge difference.
For example: I’m Queer. When I, as a Queer person, say that something is (for example) homophobic? Then that should ping heavier in your radar because I am a member of that group. And as someone who is a member of that group and has experience homophobia in many forms throughout their life? My experiences and words should reasonably have more weight in the conversation than a non-member.
Recognizing this fact is integral to doing any of the work necessary to correct homophobia and similar problems faced by the MOGAI community within our society. HOWEVER being Queer doesn’t mean I’m automatically 100% right every single time, no questions asked, by default, just because I'm Queer. And neither is anyone else, from any other group, on any other topic.
Being based in direct experience ... Pinging heavier ... Having more weight ... The fact that our voices should be prioritized in conversations about us? Absolutely none of that means that in-group members can’t ever be wrong or screw up; that you should just blindly believe whatever in-group members say, or whatever information they give you; that you shouldn’t- or can’t- ask questions, ask for sources, fact check, or even disbelieve them (especially when something doesn’t add up).
Anyone who acts like members of marginalized groups must always be believed under every circumstance; who acts like you can’t ever challenge or question members of marginalized groups; who acts like members of marginalized groups can never be wrong under any circumstances; or even tries to convince the world that you’re automatically and unequivocally [x]phobic or [x]ist because you questioned them (and not because you actually did something that was legitimately [x]phobic or [x]ist)? Should absolutely be looked at sideways.
Why? Because members of marginalized groups can still be wrong. Like ... That’s it. That’s the tea. Them’s the facts; absolutely none of us are automatically right by default- sometimes even about our own experiences (emotional distortion of our perception is an incredibly powerful thing)- simply because we are part of a marginalized group; we can absolutely fuck up and should be called out and held accountable when we do, whether that’s by in-group members or outsiders (though in-group correction should always be prioritized).
This is an opinion piece. If you found this helpful or interesting, please consider Tipping or Leaving a Ko-Fi (being Disabled, even $1 helps); you can see my other "Original Content" here.
#Personal#Old Blog Reposts#2020#2021#No Gender Only Frog#Being A Better Human Being#Original Content#Original Life Content#Oklahoma
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Knave of Hearts: Last but not least for this round, and I'm sure our dear Mr. Greenwillow will get this; What is the Wild Hunt?
Jeremiah: I'm going to ding in. "Lord of the Hunt captures and releases a bunch of interesting creatures and he and his friends to go out hunting them.
Knave of Hearts: I am afraid that is incorrect.
Jeremiah (OOC): Hold on a second, is that not what it is?
DM: *shakes head*
Jeremiah (OOC): 'Cause Jeremiah would know this.
DM: Yes, it is not actually the Lord of the Hunt.
-joint realization washes over the lot of us-
DM: Whatever happened to you, happened to you for a very different reason.
Jeremiah: What?
DM: This is not the Wild Hunt. That is not what the Wild Hunt is. The Wild Hunt is not put on by the Lord of the Hunt.
Tark: Tark starts cackling! He doesn't even care about him being in last place, he's cackling and he's like, "You dumb motherfucker."
Hunt: And Hunt is just looking at him like, 'Oh and you just kept talking that shit.' she's not saying it, she's just looking at him like that like, 'Wow'
DM: So not to invalidate your backstory, but something did happen where you were caught up in essentially an approximation of the Wild Hunt. The Lord of the Hunt does in fact hunt creatures in the Feywild, but it is not, he was born of the Wild Hunt but it is not his event.
Tark (OOC): Ohhh. That's actually interesting though.
Hunt (OOC): Yeah.
DM: I purposely didn't correct it because I was like, I didn't know if you were lying or if wanted it to be more personal, so I let it ride. But Jeremiah was hunted by the Lord of the Hunt if you want that to be canonical or he could've been lying.
Jeremiah: Yeah.
DM: Yep.
Tark (OOC): That's interesting.
DM: So that's up to you, we can talk about that later, but it is in fact not the Lord of the Hunt's event.
Tark: Would---
Jeremiah: Jeremiah looks like he's re-evaluating his entire life.
Hunt (OOC): Yeah.
Tark (OOC): Okay.
Hunt (OOC): All we know of the Wild Hunt is what Jeremiah told us and apparenly that's wrong.
Tark (OOC): He's wrong. (IC): Since he was a fey and didn't know that, we wouldn't have any idea would we?
DM: I will let you make an arcana check.
Nathaniel (OOC): Is this an open arcana check or just Tark?
DM: If you are trained you can do, I will say either Arcana or maybe Religion for folklore style stuff?
Tark: *rolls* It would be the same either way. I got a Dirty 20.
Nathaniel: I rolled a 10, never mind.
Hunt: I don't think I can roll on this.
Eudora: I got a 10.
DM: Okay, Mary do you want to roll and see if you know?
Marigold: I'm not trained in either of those things unfortunately.
DM: Okay, in that case, but Tark you did do research into the Lord of the Hunt and into fey.
Tark: I did. That's why I was asking if---
DM: This is true. I will send it to you and there you go. You remember as Jeremiah says this and goes, 'Oh no,' you go, 'Not the Lord' and you remember, 'No, not the Lord' You read about this when you were doing your research and you were reading that book of fairy tales that you fell asleep on.
Tark: Yes!
DM: You were like, 'I was on that page! Wait a fucking second!'
Tark: And Tark dings in, "It's an event in which Summer Court goes hunting usually pursuing trespassers into the Feywild as well as free-folk with no affiliation to the Courts and various animals.
Audience Pip (OOC): [in chat] you fell asleep on a book of fairy tales *cry laughing emoji*
Knave of Hearts: Correct.
Hunt: *mouthing* You bastard.
Jeremiah: WHAT?! I'VE BEEN FUCKING HAD!
Hunt: No shit!
Knave of Hearts: It is in fact correct.
Hunt: No- and you didn't think about that?!
DM: Your friends ain't your friends, these are your new friends.
Tark (OOC): Mm-hmm.
Hunt (OOC): This is what Hunt was thinking about! She had a feeling they were fucking with him. (IC): Hunt's like, "Wow! How did I see this coming? Wow."
Tark: Well.
#D&D mischief#Relni campaign#Relni Recap#Relni Chapter 36#I freaking called it that Jeremiah's info was wrong#I felt Hunt didn't have a strong interest in the fey or its folklore even though she's trained in Religion#Gavrill did at times read fey fairytales to her and Carver when they were children#but she never delved into the lore herself#I was so suspicious of the Summer Court#and how Rymer at first turned down Jeremiah at the first mention of the Summer Knight#Rymer better be coming up with a fucking escape plan before the Summer Court decides to conduct another Wild Hunt#which I have a feeling might be soon
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Follow you - Chris Evans smut
The one where Chris becomes your roomate and finds out he has a domesticity kink... and more
Warnings: Smut, breeding kink, domesticity kink, friends to lovers, rommates au, pandemic mention, hair-pulling kink, daddy kink, cockwarming, kind of allusion to an age gap, but can be read as reader being into teasing chris
Word count: 4.1k
A/N: Thanks to @mollygetssherlockcoffee for reading this over and helping me make it better! You’re the sweetest person ever! this is for my own birthday celebration challenge! Like I explained here, I’m going to try to fill every single AU I listed with the characters I picked for the challenge, and since the deadline if May 27, these fics will be posted randomly, as I finish them. Hope you guys like it!
Chris’ P.O.V.
“C’mon, sweetheart,” I’d been trying to convince her to close her laptop for the last two hours, unfortunately without any luck. She just glanced at me before returning to her document, and I groaned as I left the living room in search of what I knew we needed.
“Close the laptop and I’ll give you a sip.” This time when she looked up, she found me holding a bottle of my most expensive whiskey, the one she’d been dying to try ever since she first got invited to my place.
It was a tense moment of evaluation while she took in my offer and her workload, her head turning from her computer to me and then back to the device again, and I found himself growing anxious because of how desperately I wanted her company that night.
“Please?” I tried to convince her, even going so far as to pout - which at least earned me a giggle. I considered it a win, especially with the way it made my chest warm up. “C’mon, we deserve it! After the week we had?”
She frowned when she thought back on the stresses we had confided in each other for the last couple of days, and I watched with glee when she slowly closed her laptop, prompting me to wave my arms around in victory. “We?” She teased, getting up to stand before me with her arms crossed in front of her body, making me laugh.
“Alright, so maybe just you.” I couldn’t really deny that my work “problems” paled in comparison to hers. “Listen, I’m only trying to help.” She narrowed her eyes at me, reaching out for the bottle and unscrewing it before taking the sip I’d promised.
“Shit, this really is good.” A smug smile took over my face as I wrapped my arms around her, walking us back to the couch before making us fall over it.
“Only the best for you, babe.” I watched her roll her eyes at the pet name, snickering at how it affected her. I knew it made her giddy and she hated it, it’s why I insisted on doing it - or so I told myself.
Something deep inside of me whispered differently, though. I tried to ignore it. She was my best friend and we were going to be living together for the foreseeable future. No one knew when this pandemic would let up.
And lord knows that nothing positive had ever come out of my investments in romantic relationships. So every rational thought in my mind was begging me not to overcomplicate this. I couldn’t stand to lose her friendship, anyway. That’s why I had invited her to spend lockdown with me - my need to know she was okay, and be able to have her around whenever I needed to vent.
She was the only one outside my family who got my anxiety well enough to help me work through it when I was feeling bad, and she had even been able to prevent me from having panic attacks more than once.
I just couldn’t imagine going through this with anyone other than her. I simply hadn’t anticipated how fucking horny this period of forced sexual privation would make me, and I never expected her to become a willing victim to my needs.
But boy, once the liquor hit and she ended up over my lap, shivering as she rode my thigh without a care in the world, was I glad that she did.
“Is this what you like?” I asked, looking up at her with my mouth hanging open, unbelieving of how fucking sexy she looked as she used my body for her pleasure. I didn’t even care that my cock was straining against my jeans, begging me to move her on top of it. As long as I could keep enjoying the show, being a part of it, I was satisfied.
“I wanna learn it,” I pressed, moving my hands to hold her ass, squeezing it the way I’d always wanted to do but never allowed myself to dream about. “I wanna learn how to please you.” She made me feel something I hadn’t felt before, in any of my past relationships. There was attraction, of course, but there was also this deep, familiar feeling that made me feel at home. It made me feel safe, and with the help of alcohol, I was desperate to explore it.
“Ugh,” she groaned, letting her head fall back, drawing my attention to her breasts, the way they bounced in front of my eyes, unfortunately still covered. My mouth watered at the sight of it, wanting nothing much than to strip her bare and wrap my lips around one of her nipples.
“Don’t say stuff like that, Evans.” The comment threw me off, making me frown as I took a hold of the hair on the back of her head and yanked her to me, devouring her lips. They were soft - so much softer than I’d ever allowed myself to imagine.
“Why not?” I panted against her mouth once I was forced to separate from her taste of whiskey to search for some oxygen. She kept moving, her eyes hazy and glossed over, and it sent a pang of lust straight down my body when I realized it wasn’t completely due to the drinks we shared. There was also desire in there.
“You want to learn?” She asked, hands bunching up my shirt as she used her hold to grind against me faster. “Then fuck me, Chris.” She molded her body to mine, engulfing my lips once more as I laid her down on the couch, excited to have her underneath me - excited to see her naked body, explore it, get to know every little thing that made her tick.
I knew it would be a moment I’d forever remember, regardless of the amount of bourbon in my blood. I just never expected it to become something I was so eager to relive over and over and over again.
It was supposed to be a one time thing. When I woke up in the morning, I was ready to go back to being roommates. We were good at that. She was a morning person, by the time I woke up every morning, she already had breakfast ready for me, and then we’d go out to the backyard to let Dodger out together.
We’d sit and talk and then I’d go for a run - she’d have done her yoga already, while I was still asleep - I’d answer some e-mails, she’d work on her laptop by my side and the silence was just as comfortable as all of our late night conversations.
She’d sneak out to the kitchen and come back with a few sandwiches for our lunch, and then the rest of the day would go by with us doing whatever mundane task we had in mind, together even if we were doing separate things, and I didn’t feel suffocated.
I didn’t even run out of things to say. By the time dinner rolled around and I followed her back to the kitchen, cleaning up the dishes while she fixed us dinner - I wasn’t allowed to cook in my own stove, mostly because she was terrified of my food but hid it under the excuse of that one time when I started a fire - then we’d eat together, watch a movie together, talk until we fell asleep - always together.
I was shocked. It’d never been this way in any of my previous relationships. In fact, I was certain it was the reason why they had never worked. I’d given up on any realistic expectation of settling down precisely because of this: I just never expected to find anyone with whom a day-to-day life wouldn’t eventually grow boring.
It’d been three months and I still loved to wake up to her coffee. We still fell asleep every night side by side, too tired to move into different beds because we had laughed our asses off after skyping Scott.
And now that sex came into play in our relationship? I just knew there was no way I’d ever go back to being nothing but friends - or living in a place where she wasn’t the first person I saw when I woke up.
It sucked that it took a pandemic and a night of alcohol to make me realize that, but damn, was I grateful that I decided to open a bottle of whiskey that evening.
I kept waiting for the catch, the moment it would all go to shit, but it never came. Our lives resumed to how they used to be, only now I had this ongoing inner battle to not just bend her over the nearest piece of furniture when we were busy, and the ability to do exactly that whenever there was nothing else to do.
And for a while it was bliss. There wasn’t a nagging voice inside my head questioning this arrangement because it was theoretically perfect. I had a best friend, a roommate and a fuck buddy, all wrapped into one single person that I adored.
Life couldn’t possibly get better - until I realized that I wanted more. Talks of lockdown being over started and she had plans of going back to her place, of course, but I couldn’t stand the thought of being away from her.
I wanted to see my family too, but I wanted to take her with me. Introduce her to my mom, see her get along with my sisters. Witness how she’d be with my nephews and nieces - I knew how much she loved kids. And that’s when it hit me.
I’d given my heart to her. Somewhere between the morning coffees and afternoon runs, the nights where I’d rant about all of my silly problems and she actually listened to them - really listened, never making me feel bad about what could only be described as rich people problems.
All the innocent little gestures, and the not so innocent ones - when I discovered she was exactly the nasty slut I’d always dreamed of, the way she would randomly drop to her knees and suck me off, even while I was on the phone. Most times she didn’t even let me repay the favor. She just genuinely liked to blow me.
She also liked to play with me randomly, like when we were watching a movie and she mindlessly reached for my crotch, rubbing me until I got hard. It almost always ended in sex, and I just loved it.
I loved it, and I loved her, and the idea of her ever sharing this idyllic lifestyle with anyone else made me irrationally jealous.
And that’s how I knew it. I didn’t want to mess it up. But how could I not fuck this up?
Xxx
“Chris…” Her sweet voice called out to me, reaching my ears while I was hiding in my office, trying to get my thoughts in order so I wouldn’t just randomly blurt out what I was feeling for my best friend to my best friend.
To her credit, she didn’t try to force me to keep her company - but that only made me fall even deeper for her, leaving me a complete and utter mess while she went about her day as if nothing was wrong in the world.
“Yes?” I looked up to see her by the threshold, clearly reticent about invading my privacy. It made me smile, thinking back on all of the times my exes hadn’t been as understanding, even after I let them clearly know what I was needing.
“I made cupcakes, do you want me to bring you one?” The thought of her in the kitchen, baking a sweet treat just for me had my cock twitching in my pants. Biting my lips, I pushed away from my desk to finally get up and stretch my legs, taking advantage of the monitor to hide my hard-on.
“No, I’ll come eat them downstairs with you.” She smiled before leaving, and I soon trailed after her, walking into the kitchen to find the most delicious-looking little treats, just waiting to be devoured.
Much like her, I supposed.
I was reaching for one of them, already licking my lips in anticipation when something caught my eye, prompting me to raise my gaze and look at her again, but really look at her this time.
She was wearing an apron.
There was nothing inherently sexual about the damn thing, but the way she looked with it, going about her business in my kitchen like she owned the place… It just felt right, seeing her there.
And suddenly I couldn’t hold back anymore.
“Y/N…” I started, leaving the cupcake back on the counter and brushing off the crumbs as I circled the kitchen island to go stand in front of her. She hummed before turning to meet me, smiling slightly to signal that she was listening to what I had to say.
But I didn’t know how to say it. So we just stood there, staring at each other until eventually her smile became a frown. “Chris, what’s going on?” I still couldn’t speak. Much to my absolute surprise though, she just sighed, wiping her hands on the apron while shaking her head, a knowing smile on her face.
“You’re stressed, aren’t you? You’ve been working so much, that’s why I thought the cupcakes would be a good idea,” she explained nodding towards the tray where her sweet treats laid. “They’re a reward and a break all wrapped in one delicious cake.”
The comment was like a punch to the stomach - or a scalding wave of desire rushing through my body, straight to my groin. The idea of her thinking about my needs and catering (quite literally) to them just did something to me, and I didn’t know how to explain it - I don’t think I understood it myself.
“But since they didn’t work…” she continued, blissfully unaware of the conundrum she had put me into. “I know something else that will definitely work.” And just like that, the woman dropped to her knees in front of me, reaching for my sweatpants before I could find a way to close the mouth that was hanging open.
“I guess I’ll grab a sweet treat for myself.” She looked so devious, small hand encircling my already pathetically engorged member, that all I could do was whisper an, “Oh, shit,” when she immediately wrapped her lips around it, starting to suck me off without any preamble.
My fingers were white as I held onto the counter behind me to keep myself up. She looked so good, staring up at me with her lips wrapped around my dick, I felt like I was about to blow already.
Why did she have to be such a fucking tease?
“Oh, God,” I moaned when she managed to engulf the entirety of my member inside her throat, the choking noises getting to my head. My hand instinctively laced with her hair, first to hold her lips close to my navel, then to pry her completely off of my member.
“What’s wrong?” She questioned once she was able to speak, surprise written all over her features while I was still staring down at her slightly teary face and trying to find my voice.
“I-I have a problem.” There. I said it. I had finally made some progress in my goal to let her know what was going through my head. Only instead of curiosity, what I got was a confused expression from the woman still holding my dick, her eyes darting from my own to the member throbbing between her fingers.
“No, you don’t!” It would have been funny if I wasn’t so fucking frustrated. Yanking her by the hair, I complained, “Not that kind of problem!” pulling her to the living room so I could throw her on the couch, trying to ignore her moans of pleasure in the process.
I’d figured out pretty early on that she had a pretty serious hair-pulling kink, and if my plans of sitting down and having a level-headed conversation were ever in motion, they surely went out of the window the second she pulled my body down to cover hers and adjusted my cock so it would easily fill her.
“Son of a…” I groaned, letting my head fall down against her chest as the little vixen gleefully giggled underneath me, legs wrapped around my torso as she tried to thrust up and tempt me to move.
“Just wait a second,” I managed to reason, but she just shook her head.
“Fuck away your problem, Chris. Use me. I want you to.” Motherfucker. I really couldn’t catch a break with her. Just as she started to make me move again, my hand instinctively wrapped around her neck, lightly squeezing it just enough to get her to shut up.
“I wanna start a family with you,” I finally spilled, looking deep into her eyes as I tried to ignore that I was still balls deep inside of her. Her eyes widened, and now her mouth was the one hanging open.
I couldn’t really relish in it because she looked absolutely delicious and she felt stupidly heavenly to my throbbing dick.
A few seconds went by without as much of a reaction from her and I was about to pull out - despite still being achingly hard - but her legs held me tighter, stopping my plans of leaving her tight haven.
“You know…” She started to speak, a little out of breath, catching my attention as I finally gathered the courage to look her in the eye again. “When I first met you, I thought you were the epitome of a fuckboy.”
The unexpected sentence had me snorting, and then I just couldn’t stop laughing. Finally pulling away from her, she fixed her hair when she sat up and I did the same, shaking my head slightly as I rubbed my eyes.
Our own relative nakedness - well… mine, she was wearing her usual dress with no underwear under the damn apron - didn’t affect anything when I pondered over her words, until I decided to break the silence.
“I mean… I think I was?” She chewed on her bottom lip as she took in my response, analyzing it, weighing its validity in that gorgeous head of hers. I was nervous, but she hadn’t blew me off yet. And quite honestly? I’d do anything for that little hope that was growing inside of me.
“What changed?” Was her question, so unexpected I couldn’t help but question, “Huh?”
“What made you change?” It wasn’t an unwelcome inquiry, especially when the response became clear to me, lighting up my brain and warming my chest, spreading all over my body until I had no choice but to voice it.
“I realized I could have a future with you.” My smile was vulnerable but honest, and in her eyes, I could see that she knew that. When she threw one leg over my lap, straddling my hips, I allowed myself to breathe deeply again, leaning on the soft cushion while taking a hold of her ass.
“So, how are we gonna do this?” She non-nonchalantly asked, slowly rubbing herself against my still half-hard member. I groaned when I realized the implication of her words, knowing that the meaning paired with the feeling of her wet lips dragging along my cock would get it back up in no time at all. “You wanna do me right now?”
The brashness of the question made my eyes light up, as weird as it may sound. In that moment, it became clear just how perfect for me she really was, giving me what I needed exactly in the way I didn’t know how to ask for it.
“See? This is why I’m in love with you.” She rolled her eyes at that, making me laugh. I’d anticipated the gesture, I knew it’d take her longer to say it, but it was alright. The fact that she was willing me to give me a child was more than enough proof of her feelings for me, if her entire behavior ever since she moved in wasn’t already.
“Shut up and fuck me, Evans.” Throwing her back against the couch, she yelped in surprise when I took off my shirt and slapped the inside of her thigh, assuming my usual position of hovering over her smaller frame.
“Spread your fucking legs, darling. I’m gonna fuck you real good.” The way she bit her lip as I slowly penetrated her again showed me just how excited the prospect got her, and as I started to make good on my promise, her moans told me just as much.
“Holy fuck,” she commented as I pounded her ruthlessly, weeks of frustration and the rush of anticipation getting the best of me, and I was glad for the feeling of her nails biting into my skin because otherwise, I’d probably run over the edge of not even caring about her own pleasure as I chased mine.
“You gonna cum inside of me, honey? Make me a mom? Finally fulfill your dream of becoming a daddy?” Her words detracted me from my task of sucking bruises on the skin that was now mine to bruise, mine. I threw my head back, yelling a, “fuck yes,” as my hips sped up, desperate to fill her up, but I was determined to get her to cum before me.
“Say it,” she ordered, small hand circling my throat as best as she could, a throwback to what I’d done only moments prior. It wasn’t enough to choke me, but it did catch my attention. “I wanna hear you say it.”
Tears escaped the corners of my eyes as I blinked, the intensity of the moment overwhelming in the best of ways. “God, you are such a fucking tease…” She chuckled underneath me, giving my throat a squeeze before she raised up on her elbows to kiss my jaw.
“Better get used to it… daddy.” And just like that, I realized that I had yet another kink I hadn’t known about before her. Or maybe it was just her, and I was obsessed with the damn woman, painfully turned on by every little thing that she did.
“I’m gonna cum deep inside your little pussy, sweetheart,” I finally gathered myself enough to do as she asked me to. “You’re gonna belong to me forever now. Give me kids, make me happy. How do you like that?”
The mischievous grin she gave me told me everything. “I love it.” I knew this was her way of saying what she couldn’t yet voice, and I’d take it. I’d take anything she gave me, any chance I got to love this wonderful woman.
We came together, both riding our highs in deep ecstasy. I moaned when I felt myself empty all of my seed inside of her, incredibly excited about the prospect of starting our future together right then.
“You’re so fucking beautiful.” I cradled her face in my hands as I struggled to catch my breath, but she turned it to the side and pressed a kiss to my palm and I was breathless all over again. It was such a simple action, why did it get to me so much?
“You’re not too bad yourself, Chris.” I didn’t want to part with her warmth, so I just adjusted us on the sofa in a way that kept me inside of her, sighing contently as I realized I’d never have to sleep away from her again.
“I’m gonna stay right here all night.” I adjusted myself so I was resting my face on her boobs, perfectly happy to do just so, but by the tone of her voice, I knew she had a teasing smile when she called me an, “Old man.”
“And here I was, thinking you’d be able to go again.” Warmth filled my chest at the realization of just how badly she wanted me - just as much as I wanted her too. I was so damn ecstatic. Not even her pokes at my age would be able to affect me.
“Oh, darling… better get ready,” I warned as I adjusted myself to hover over her again, taking notice of the excited glint in her eyes, the way she bit her lip as she stared back at me. “I’m never gonna get enough of you.”
The next morning, I added a new kink to the list of random bits of information that were driving me slowly insane as I felt the overwhelming need to bend the woman that I now got to call ‘mine’ over the nearest piece of furniture and rail her until I had cummed deep inside her pussy: seeing her in my shirt while cooking breakfast.
Yeah, I was going to live a happy life by her side.
#my 2k challenge#chris evans smut#my fics#chris evans#smut#roommates au#friends to lovers#chris evans x reader#chris evans reader#chris evans reader insert#chris evans reader inserts#RPF#chris evans fanfiction
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Hello, darling! I was wondering if you could right some Bucky x reader, where the reader worked along Sharon during Civil War and she meets Bucky. Then she runs always with Sharon and meets Bucky again in Madripoor and continue their story. I hope that makes sense. Thank yooouuuu✨✨✨
hey babes!! yes i absolutely can! i kind of gave more background than i meant to making it way longer, but i hope you enjoy it anyway! i do want to continue this story and most definitely will be so be on the lookout for the other parts of it lovie <3. i hope you still enjoy it even though it isn’t quite what you asked for yet :)
A Friend of Yours
FATWS SPOILERS
warnings: not much, canon lvl violence, some suggestive stuff closer towards to end, language, i think that’s it
word count: 6140 i went a bit overboard, it’s fine i’m totally fine
a/n: i got this request and then didn’t stop writing all day. i didn’t get anything else done all day. i got home at like seven-ish? and i’ve been sitting on the floor of my bedroom just writing this fic (for context it is now 12:47 pm where i’m at)
check out A Friend of Yours - pt. 2 and A Friend of Yours - pt. 3
p.s.: this is the first fic that i’m writing with an actual ‘x reader’ i’m so proud
xoxo ray
ray’s m.list
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You grew up with Sharon, the two of you were best friends from birth it seemed. Honestly, Peggy raised you more than your own parents did. When Aunt Peggy got Sharon her first thigh holster, she got you one too. You enlisted together, moved up the ranks together, everything. So, it was of no shock to anyone that after the fall of SHIELD, you both moved together into the CIA’s Joint Terrorism Task Force.
You were inside the hotel with Sharon, Steve and Sam when the bombing on the UN took place. The look of unbridled fear that fell over Steve’s face as they announced Barnes as the primary suspect was heart wrenching. You weren’t able to watch it for long because your phone was already ringing off the hook.
“Look, you need to get me more information, and now.” You gritted into your phone speaker before quickly hanging up the phone and turning to a crestfallen Steve who was still watching the news casting. Sharon ended her phone call and turned to you.
“We have to go to work.” A few short hours on a jet later, you and Sharon were coordinating the operation. Close by, Steve and Sam were awaiting new information. Steve had this insane plan to find Barnes before the whole rest of the world did. Like that’s going to happen, it took the world 70 years to find Barnes. Of course, Steve and Sam are going to find him in about half that time.
You followed the blonde woman into a busy coffee shop and up to the counter. She slid a manila folder over to a well disguised Captain America. “Tips have been pouring in since that footage went public. Everyone thinks the Winter Soldier goes to their gym. Most of it’s just noise, except this.” Sharon was talking quietly, trying to not draw attention to the fact that she was committing a serious offense.
“We have to give the briefing, like now Shar, so we have to go.” The two of you pushed off the counter and you turned quickly to say one last thing. “And you better hurry. They’ve given the order to shoot on site.”
You left the shop quickly and made your way back to the white tent, passing the redheaded spy who was watching you like a hawk. A look of understanding crossed her features as you kept a calm facade. She fucking knows, how the hell could she read you that easily?
*********************************
The next time you saw any of them, they were exiting the back of an armored prison van. It was no surprise that his eyes flitted over to his best friend from childhood. You glanced over at Barnes, who was strapped in all different ways, and your heart hurt for him. You tried not to pity him, you know you would’ve gotten a slap on the wrist from Aunt Peggy about it.
Bucky must’ve felt you looking at him because his steel blue eyes locked with your pair. This was the first time that you’ve ever actually seen the man in person. It was startling, in a good way. You grew up going to the Smithsonian and hearing Aunt Peggy’s stories about the great James Buchanan Barnes. You never thought that you’d get the chance to meet the man you did a history report on your freshman year of high school.
“Y/N?” Sharon’s voice cut through your thoughts, recalling you to reality and out of your past. “We have to go. We’ve been assigned to monitor Steve and Sam while they’re here.” Sharon was clearly not a fan of this, which made you laugh loudly.
“Oh, score! We get to babysit Captain America and the Falcon!” You spoke in an unnecessarily upbeat voice and then clapped your hands together. “Our dream job! Let’s go, Shar!” She stared at you for a millisecond before slapping a hand on your shoulder.
“Let’s go, you fucking dork.” You followed her through the office building into the control room where you observed Tony talking to Steve. Apparently, the conversation was not going well because both their faces held angry glares. Eventually, Tony left the room, leaving Steve alone with his thoughts and that can never be good.
“How you doing, Cap?” You asked as you less-than-gracefully plopped yourself into the chair across from him. He looked over at me and released a heavy sigh.
“Honestly, Y/N, not that great at the moment.” He looked at you with his iconic mom Steve stare. Wow, so that’s what it’s like to be on the receiving end of that. Sam walked in and sat next to you. You drowned out their conversation as your gaze focused on screens outside of the glass office.
The video feed of Barnes in his metal cage was displayed on a TV screen. How is this considered humane? Obviously you knew that the CIA had pushed boundaries in the past, but this was just insane. “Are those restraints really necessary?” Sam seemed to be just voicing his thoughts, not expecting a response back.
“Well, he is considered an international terrorist, so yeah, they’re kind of necessary.” You said quickly and then muttered under your breath, “No matter who thinks that it’s excessive.” Steve’s gaze met yours and he was about to speak when Sharon walked in and dropped a paper in front of Sam.
“The receipt for your gear.” A scoff sounded from Sam as he glared at Sharon.
“‘Bird costume’? Come on.” Always quick to defend your best friend.
“Hey, we didn’t write it up.” It came off snappier than you had meant it. Sharon shot you a look, signaling you to back off. You raised a brow at her as she leaned over the table to the intercom buttons.
The audio from Barnes’ evaluation echoed through the glass room. Everyone around you was unsuspecting the four of you listened in. The psychologist was talking to Barnes, who seemed incredibly closed off. Who could blame the guy though?
“I’m not here to judge you. I just want to ask a few questions. Do you know where you are, James?” The psychologist paused for a second, looking down and off to the side. “I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me, James.” The caged man spoke for the first time.
“My name is Bucky.” His voice was rough from not being used. A look crossed Steve’s face and he turned to Sharon.
“Why would the Task Force release that photo to begin with?” Sharon’s body turned to face the man speaking to her. Her brows furrowed while she answered.
“Get the word out, involve as many eyes as we can?” Your head tilted, trying to follow Steve’s train of thought.
“Right. Good way to flush a guy out of hiding. Set off a bomb, get your picture taken. Get seven billion people looking for the Winter Soldier.” Oh shit.
“You’re saying someone framed him?” You wanted to believe it with every fiber in your being.
“Steve, we looked for the guy for two years and found nothing.” Sam reminded in a calm tone.
“Yeah, you didn’t bomb the UN though. That turns quite a few heads. Especially if prominent people like King T’Chaka end up dead because of it.” You made a good point, but there were still pieces missing.
“That doesn’t guarantee that they would find him. It guaranteed that we would.” Sharon and Steve began examining the room around them. Your attention returned to the audio emitting from the intercom.
“You fear that,“ the doctor paused, “if you open your mouth, the horrors might never stop. Don’t worry.” He glanced down again and moved his hand to swipe something away.
“Guys?” You pointed to the screen as the doctor held up his pointer finger.
“We only have to talk about one.” All of the sudden, the screens went dark and the lights flickered off. Secretary Ross was yelling at technicians to get his video back. Tony was speaking to his AI, Friday, about locating the source of the outage. Steve and Sam tensed at the thought of what could be going on with Barnes.
“Sub-level five, east wing.” was all Sharon said as the pair ran off. You looked at her and threw your hands in the air.
“What the hell do we do now, Shar?” She glared at you as she started reasoning with you.
“They’re stronger than we are. If they can contain whatever the hell is happening down there then great. In the event that they can’t, we’ll be up here with Natasha and Tony to deal with it.” You nodded quickly as you both ran out of the room.
You quickly followed Natasha, Tony and Sharon to the main level of the building. Clearly Steve and Sam were unsuccessful in containing the situation because Barnes could be seen through the glass, fighting his way to his destination.
Tony stunned Barnes with a previously concealed Iron Man glove. Barnes started towards Tony and quickly attacked. After Barnes bested Tony, it wasn’t long before Natasha rushed the man alongside Sharon. It wasn’t hard for Barnes to throw Sharon across the room. Natasha took the opportunity to launch herself onto his shoulders, which caused Barnes to slam her into a table with his metal hand wrapped around her neck.
She mumbled something to him as you kicked his ribs, releasing his chokehold on her. He stumbled backwards, his hard gaze landed on yours as he approached. Your eyes locked on his as the two of you traded blows.
They weren’t the same eyes as before. Those eyes were soft and remorseful, these were hard and unattached. There was no emotion behind the pair staring at you. The fraction of a second that you were analyzing his eyes in your head was enough for him to catch you off guard. His metal fist landed in your rib cage. The opposite hand jabbed at your face, busting your lip and sending you flying backwards.
You hit your head on the concrete below, making your eyes roll back. The wind left your lungs and you gasped to get it back as Barnes and T’Challa fought in the background. It was a few minutes later that a concerned Sharon made her way over to you.
“Are you okay?” You looked her over as she did you, checking for any severe injuries. You offered a small nod, not wanting to shake your head too much in fear of a concussion. “Let’s go check in with Ross.”
******************
“And how the hell did Rogers and Wilson even know where to find Barnes?” Ross’ voice boomed through the office. No one said anything, not wanting to incur the wrath of Secretary Ross. “I’ve already allowed Stark 36 hours to find them and bring them back here.” Ross turned to you and Sharon standing in the corner of the room. “If they contact any of you, report it immediately.” Rounds of ‘yes, sirs’ bounced around the room, then chaos ensued as everyone got back to trying to clean up this mess.
“Carter. Y/L/N. Elevator now.” He raised two fingers to point toward the elevators before walking into one. It was just the three of you in the enclosed space. He clicked the button for the ground floor. “I know you have some kind of connection to Rogers but do not let that cloud your judgement. The both of you are CIA agents first.”
“We understand, Secretary.” The elevator doors opened again and you went to step out when Ross stopped you again.
“I mean it, girls. This is your job on the line here.” You and Sharon shared a look before continuing walking. Did he just call us girls?
“Do you think that was supposed to be intimidating?” You laughed under your breath as you went out to the parking lot. Sharon sighed and shrugged her shoulders.
“Probably.” She looked at you over the top of her car. “You don’t have to come with me.”
“Where do we start?”
****************************
Getting that fucking shield and bird suit wasn’t easy. They had moved it from the Joint Counter Terrorist Centre to the US Embassy to await transport back to the States. It made it easier but still damn near impossible to get. Thankfully, you and Sharon are good liars. Skills of a misspent youth.
The two of you walked in the front door and displayed your badges. “We’re here to pick up Captain America and the Falcon’s effects.” The man behind the counter didn’t even question it. Man, they need better people at the Embassy.
“You’ll have to sign some paperwork saying you picked it up.” There it is. You both flicked a brow and Sharon held her hand out for the clipboard. Small scratches from the pen in her hand were echoing throughout the empty building.
She handed the clipboard back to the man behind the counter. “Okie dokie, just pull your car around to the side of the building and we’ll get you loaded up.” He shot them a small smile and turned around to file the papers.
“That was easy enough.” You whispered to Sharon as you left, not wanting your voice to carry. You walked to your car that was parked in front of the iron wrought gate. Pulling your car around to the side of the building, you popped the trunk. The gear clad Embassy soldier carelessly tossed Sam’s suit inside before gently placing the shield on top of it.
“Hey, if there’s a scratch on that suit, it’s coming out of your paycheck buddy.” You held your pointer finger up to the man’s unimpressed face.
“Y/N, let’s go. We’ve got to get these to the jet or Ross will have our heads. Remember it’s our job on the line here.” What Sharon said made you laugh big while hauling yourself back into the driver’s seat of the car. As you pulled out into the street, Sharon was typing away on her phone and pushing it to her ear.
“This is a secure line but I don’t know for how long, so don’t talk just listen.” She took a deep breath and then continued. “We want to help. Meet us under the bridge on Route 6. We’ll be there in two hours.” She ended the call quickly and threw the phone outside the car. Glancing over at you, she nodded and sighed again.
“We’ve gotten this far.” You had one question burning in your throat that you were afraid to ask.
“Where do we go after they’ve gone?” She looked at you and she was biting her lip, something she only did when she was incredibly stressed.
“I don’t know yet. Do you have any ideas?” You smiled and thought of the one place that you wouldn’t be followed.
“Yeah, I’ve got one, but it’s rough.”
***************************
The drive to the underpass wasn’t a hard one. You had beat the boys there so you and Sharon were sitting in the car. You had the radio playing softly in the background.
“Who the hell do you know in Madripoor?” You laughed and shrugged.
“I’m supposed to tell you all my secrets for free?” You shook your head and shifted in your seat to face her fully. “I was tasked with tracking some artwork down there. One of my assignments when we went through initiation for the Agency.” You picked at the holes in your jeans. “I thought it was just all fake stuff, but I researched it more and more. Turns out, the underground artwork dealing is really lucrative over there.”
Sharon stared at you in amazement. “What did you do, Y/N?” You smirked.
“I haven’t done anything.” You held her gaze, “Yet.” She released a small laugh and her mouth hung open a bit. “I may have a warehouse out there.” You squinted one of your eyes, and leaned forward. “And the apartment above it.” She was going to say something when an old ass blue Beetle pulled up behind you.
“Now how the fuck did they all fit in that tiny ass car?” You both laughed as you stepped out of the car with big smiles on your faces.
“Not sure you understand the concept of a getaway car.” Steve walked up to Sharon and they began talking as she popped the trunk, revealing their gear. Your attention was on the men in the car behind them. Barnes was stuck in the back away from cameras and Sam was lounging in the passenger seat. Your eyes met Barnes’ again, they were back to the remorseful pair you saw the first time.
“You know he kind of tried to kill us.” You waved your hand in gesture to the man in the car.
“Sorry, I’ll put it on the list too.” He glanced back down at Sharon, who had migrated closer to him. “They’re going to come looking for you.”
She nodded, “I know.” Then the most awkward kiss in all of kissing history took place. Your brows shot up then furrowed quickly, a small wince overtaking your face. They pulled apart and traded more words. Sharon began walking back to the passenger side of the car.
Steve turned around and you looked back at the two men in the car. Both of them were wearing proud, smug grins. Steve threw his head back as if he was berating them.
“About damn time, Cap! She’s been pining over you for God knows how long now.” The windows were down in the Beetle so the other two heard you shouting at their friend.
“Y/N!” Sharon was a bit embarrassed.
“What? It’s the truth, Shar!” The two of you began bickering like an old married couple as you started the car again. Steve got all he needed from the trunk and shut it quickly, slapping it twice. You began driving off with Sharon giving you directions to an airport on the opposite side of the country.
***********************
That was the last time you saw Steve. Last time you saw anyone for a while. You had been dusted in the Blip. Sharon had followed you to your apartment in Madripoor. The two of you were able to figure the city out pretty quickly. Learning the ins and outs of the island, where to go, who to sell to. One afternoon, you and Sharon had been surveying a Van Gogh piece for your gallery when you flew away. In the middle of a fucking deal, what perfect timing.
Five years later, you were reunited with an even more successful Sharon. “I kept your room the way you left it.” She said as she led you through your shared home. “I figured that you’d be back and you’d be pissed off if I fucked with anything.”
You smiled at the woman gratefully and hugged her. Neither of you let go for a while. When you did, she started filling you in on everything. She had continued to split all her profits and had been depositing the money into your account. “Even if you didn’t come back, I could’ve used it if I needed to bug out. Win-win.” She explained with a smile.
The two of you had about six months of getting back into the groove of things. It was quickly cut off by a ping of your phones one day. A look of confusion and anger crossed her face, “Are you fucking kidding me?” She locked eyes with you and told you to get your gear.
“Where are we going?” She threw her phone at you and you looked at the screen. As soon as you read the notification at the top of it you understood. Repeating your question from before, you tied the knots on your Converse. You followed Sharon to the Low Town side of the island.
“Now what the fuck are they doing here, do you think?” The two of you camped outside of the Brass Monkey nightclub, ready for whatever came your way. Deciding that you were too visible to everyone else, you moved to the building across from the club. Something is bound to go wrong and the first place they're going to get ran to is this dead end alley.
Sure enough, not even ten minutes later, Sam, Barnes, and Zemo got cornered in the alleyway. Sharon had decided to stay on the ground floor next to the door. You shot two of the assassins following the group of three and Sharon took out the final one.
You made your way back down to Sharon, who was still holding her gun up. “You cost me everything.” She focused her gun on Zemo.
“Sharon, wait. Someone recreated the super soldier serum and Zemo had a lead.” Sam remarked calmly, trying to diffuse the situation.
“Explains why you guys are here and Selby’s dead.” Your brows shot up at that, must of been new information that she got while you were upstairs.
“Why are you here, Sharon?” Sam questioned.
“She was one of the ones who stole Steve’s shield, remember?” You stepped forward, raising your gun to gesture to the men in front of you. “And the wings, so your ass,” you waved at Sam, “could save his ass,” at Barnes, “from his ass.” You lowered your gun and stepped in front of Zemo, staring the man down. Your fist balled and you launched it at Zemo, landing a solid hit to his cheekbone.
Barnes grabbed your hand, twisting your body to slot against his with your arm bent behind your back. He leaned close to your ear, breath making shivers trickle down your spine. “I only let you do that because I’ve wanted to for a while now, so don’t get any more ideas.” Your breath hitched because of the proximity of the man behind you.
“Alright, give me my Y/N back.” Sharon said, lowering her gun to holster it. Bucky held onto you for a few more seconds than necessary and then pushed you towards Sharon as he released you. You scoffed, then shoved your gun into the waistband of your jeans. Sam and Sharon had already started their own conversation by the time you calmed down enough to face Barnes.
Sharon bobbed her head to you, an unspoken language between the two of you. After bringing them into your home, Sam began admiring the artwork in the first floor gallery. “Looks like breaking the law is treating you two well.”
“Before even graduating into the Agency, I had a place over here. Never had any intention on using it, but here we are.” You started, “Then, after having to flee Berlin, for you,” You shot a look at Bucky, “we figured if we had to hustle, might as well enjoy the good life. Do you know how much we can get for a real Monet?”
“Deactivate your hustle mode. You sell fake Monet’s.” Sharon shot him a look, about to defend us when Zemo cut in.
“No. She means real. This gallery is specialized in stolen artwork. Monet. Van Gogh. All the classics.” Sam made a face of disbelief.
“It’s true. You know, half the artwork in museums like the Louvre is fake. Real stuff sits in places like this.” Bucky gestured to the gallery. Sam pulled his phone out of his suit pocket.
“Okay, guys, I see what you’re doing. You’re more worldly than good old Sam.” He was typing furiously as he spoke. Bucky passed him, soundlessly following you and Sharon to the upstairs apartment.
“Yeah. What’s Google say?” Once the five of you got upstairs, Sharon began walking them into her office, telling them that they needed to change because we were hosting clients. It didn’t take long for the men to switch outfits. It was refreshing to see Barnes in something other than combat gear or a torn Henley. Sharon followed you in the office, making a remark at Sam while he apologised.
“Look, you know the whole hero thing is a joke, right? The way you gave up that shield, deep down, you must know it’s all hypocrisy.” She said as you plopped yourself on one of the plush chairs across from the couch, holding a clear glass full of whiskey.
“He knows. And not so deep down.” Zemo added quietly, since when is Zemo informed? Sharon glazed over his comment, opting for asking about the new Cap while filling a glass for herself.
“Don’t get me started.” Barnes spoke for the first time since being downstairs. You narrowed your eyes at the man.
“Please. You buy into all that stars and stripes bullshit.” You swung your glass to Zemo, “Before you were his pet psychopath, you were Mr. America! Cap’s best friend.” His gaze darted over to you, nose wrinkling at your comment.
“Do you know who I am?” He tried to be intimidating but it was just funny to you. You were taking a drink to moisten your throat to fire back a witty comeback, when Sharon spoke for you.
“Oh trust me, she knows. She did a report on you freshman year of high school.” You started choking on your drink as Sharon smirked from the couch next to Barnes. His brows raised and a smug smile graced his face.
“She did now?” Clearly he was a different man from the last time you saw him. Meeting his eyes for the fourth time ever, you were surprised with what you saw. There was almost a hunger lingering behind his eyes.
“Most definitely. I don’t even know how many times she went to the Smithsonian to see the exhibit about you.” You glared at Sharon, who continued to talk, unbothered by you. She raised her own glass to her lips, speaking into her cup, muffling her words. “Honestly, think she developed a little crush.” Barnes’ eyes never left your face, his mind racing.
“Wait, so the entire time you were helping me and Steve, you had a crush on Tin Man?” Sam interjected, wanting to be included in the conversation. You rolled your eyes and gave a subtle nod to Sam. The action wasn’t missed by Bucky.
“Which is why I think it must’ve been really hard for you to ask him of all people for help. They comin’ down real hard on you out there?” You asked Barnes with a smirk and a head tilt towards Zemo. “I know he fucked you up real good, triggering the Soldier, Barnes.”
Sam laughed beside him. “Dude, that’s basically what you told Walker.” Barnes threw a glare at Sam, who had clapped a hand on his metal shoulder. The conversation dissipated after your comment, guess you killed the vibe.
Sam turned to a relaxed Sharon, “We need your help.” Her body tensed, neither one of you was ready to throw yourself back into enemy territory. “I can get your name cleared.” He dangled a huge bargaining chip in front of her face. You knew Sharon was eager to get back to the States. She misses her dad. It was unfair of Sam to use that as a way to gain her favor.
“Haggling with someone’s life like that isn’t okay, Sam.” You said quietly, focusing your gaze on the glass in your hand.
“It’s not like that, Y/N.”
“Yes, it is, Sam.” You said firmly. “You can’t just say something like that. I know you’re an Avenger. That’s great shit, but you need to realize that if you can’t deliver on your word, we go to jail or worse. You know that.”
“I don’t trust charity, Sam.” Sharon said from beside Barnes.
“All right, a deal then. You help us out, and I get your names cleared.” Your nostrils flared and you shook your head. Sharon agreed, blinded by the possibility of seeing her family again. You don’t doubt that she thought through all the outcomes, it just wasn’t the route you would’ve taken.
“We sell to some pretty connected people. Lay low, blend in, and enjoy the party.” She got up, exiting the office.
“Try to stay outta trouble, boys.” You said placing your glass on Sharon’s desk as you left. “We’ll see what we can find.”
*********************************
You were standing next to Sharon when the three men joined the party. Leaning over to Sharon, you told her you were going to get a drink from the bar. You pushed your way through the crowd, planting yourself on a stool in front of the countertop. Nodding your head at the bartender, they passed you a bottle of club soda.
“Not drinking tonight?” A raspy voice questioned over your shoulder. You turned to face the owner as you shrugged your shoulders.
“Already had my fill. And technically, I’m supposed to be working, Barnes.” Your eyes met with his again. You couldn’t tell if it was the light in the room or if it was just him, but they were a deeper shade of blue than before. He leaned his weight on his elbow that was resting on the bar top next to you. He was so close you could feel his body heat rolling off him in waves.
His eyes roamed your face, stopping on your lips as he spoke. “You know you can call me Bucky, right?” You made a face, bringing your bottle to your mouth. He watched intently as your lips wrapped around the opening.
“We’ve never had a single conversation before today. And the first time you actually met me, you twisted my arm behind my back because I punched the dickwad standing next to you.” You took another sip and his eyes drifted down to your throat. He watched as it bobbed when you swallowed.
“So, yeah. I’m going to call you Barnes.” You leaned closer, “I’ve never been given permission to call you anything else.” You could tell you struck something. Something that he didn’t even possibly know about. His face heated and he had to clear his throat before speaking.
“Um, okay. Well you can call me Bucky or if you want, James.” Your brow quirked and you pulled back to take him in fully.
“How many people have you let call you that since you got your free will back?” Your tone was serious, but your face held a smile.
“None, doll.” His eyes ran over your face again. “I just want to hear how it’ll sound coming from your mouth.” One of his metal fingers came up to rest on your bottom lip as your smile grew.
“James.” You whispered, just for him. What he was giving you was a privilege, one you were going to revel in. One corner of his mouth tugged upwards.
“Again.” He growled as his finger remained on your lip.
“James.”
“Again.”
“James.” The party around the two of you faded away. In your reality, it was just you and the man in front of you. A peaceful place, where nothing could change what was happening right at that moment.
Of course, reality is a bitch. And you never got what you wanted. Your jaw clenched as soon as your phone pinged. James dropped his hand from your face as he read the text with you.
Found Nagel. Meet us outside and if you find Bucky, tell him too.
You scrunched your nose and bit your lip. James’ hand was quick to pull your lip from your front teeth, before resting there for a second as he studied your face. He stepped back quickly, nodding his head for you to follow him.
**************************************
You don’t know how the hell Sharon managed to find him, but she did. You were in a shipping yard for storage cars. “Madripoor could give New York a run for its money.” Sam said as the five of you weaved your way through the containers.
“With a bounty on your head, the longer you’re in Madripoor, the less likely you’re ever leaving.” She glanced down at her phone in her hand. Nodding toward a red container, “Alright, he’s in there. Container 4621.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out five earpieces.
“We’ll keep watch while you guys talk to Nagel. But hurry. We’re on borrowed time.” You said as you watched everyone situate their pieces. Sharon turned around and began walking down an aisle not far from the container Nagel was in. You stopped James before he could go anywhere.
“Hey, be careful.” His eyes met yours and they were back to the normal steel blue. “Don’t forget who you are, James.” Something flashed behind his eyes, but his face showed no change.
“You too, Y/N. Don’t make me come out here and save your ass.” His eyes flicked down quickly and a smile spread quickly. “I mean, not that I would mind.” You rolled your eyes and shoved his shoulder, turning and walking down the aisle Sharon did.
“So,” She was leaned against a rusted container with a smug smile. “You and Bucky, huh?” You groaned and stood next to her.
“I don’t know, Shar. Neither one of us should be in a relationship. Especially since we’re both Enemies of the State, well one of us is, the other one was.” You turned your head to look at her. “What do you think about all of this?” She opened her mouth to speak when you both heard something ricochet off a metal wall.
She raised a finger to her mouth and crouched down before pressing that same finger to her earpiece. “Guys, we have company.” She took off down one end of the aisle and you down the opposite, ready to attack from both sides. There were three men walking towards Nagel’s container, you shot a look down to Sharon and she nodded.
She came from the back with a baton, whacking the last guy once in the knees and once in the head, disarming him. When the front man turned to help his comrade, you did the same move to him with your own baton. You both continued trading blows with the men. You had effectively taken out the first man, using his thigh to latch yourself to the third man’s shoulders. Situating yourself to use your body weight to flip him over, definitely knocking him out.
“Every bounty hunter in the city is here. We gotta go now, boys!” You yelled to your earpiece as you watched Sharon fight off another opponent.
It wasn’t until the gunfire started that Sharon said something else into the piece. “Guys, we’re seriously outta time here.” You both split off, out of each other’s view, battling your own demons. You were currently dealing with two of those said demons, when a third approached from behind. Locking you in a chokehold as the other two continued punching your ribs.
One of the hunters was suddenly ripped away from you. Punches were landing and groans were echoing through the alleyways. You threw all your body weight forward, throwing your assailant over your shoulder. Two gunshots rang out and then a third one, which landed a bullet hole between your aggressors eyes. Your head whipped around to face James, whose arm dropped back to his side.
He walked towards you, putting a hand on your back leading you to where Sharon and Sam were standing. Zemo pulled up in a blue convertible car, “Supercharged.” was all he said. Sam pointed his finger at the man in the driver’s seat.
“You’re going back to jail.”
“Do you want to find Karli or not?” James sighed heavily, his shoulder sinking with the action.
“He’s right. We need him. And there’s two of us, and at least twenty of them.” James got in the front seat, leaving the door open for Sam.
“Fine. But if you try that shit again--”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Zemo raised his hands in surrender. Sam turned to Sharon.
“Well, that was one hell of a reunion.” You leaned over the open door to talk to James. He looked at you with a sad face.
“Why don’t you come back to the States with us?” He tilted his head. “We could clearly use your help, doll.” You smiled at that and licked your lips before responding.
“You know we can’t. Not yet anyway.” He placed his finger back on your bottom lip, maintaining eye contact. “This isn’t the last you’ll see of me, James. That I can promise you.” He smiled and dropped his hand back to his lap.
Sam climbed into the seat behind James. “You’re not going to move your seat up, are you?” James smirked before replying.
“No.” You watched as they drove off, desperately wanting to see James again already.
You turned back to Sharon and the two of you began walking back towards High Town. “I think you should go for it.”
#bucky x reader#bucky x you#bucky x y/n#bucky barnes x reader#bucky barnes x you#bucky barnes x y/n#bucky barnes fan fic#bucky barnes fanfic#bucky barnes fan fiction#bucky fan fic#bucky fanfic#james buchanan barnes#james buchanan barnes x reader#james buchanan barnes x you#james buchanan barnes x y/n#james barnes x reader#james barnes x you#james barnes x y/n#Sebastian Stan
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April 19th: How do you feel about self diagnosis?
Straight-up it is more valid than professional diagnosis
That’s not to say if you are professionally diagnosed it’s not trustworthy; positive professional diagnosis (i.e. you’re evaluated and they tell you you do have autism) is like pretty much never wrong from what I’ve seen
But
Negative professional diagnosis (i.e. you’re evaluated and they tell you you don’t have autism) is EXTREMELY extremely likely to be incorrect
If you’ve brought yourself all that way and they tell you you don’t have it
More than likely they’re just fucking wrong
Trust yourself before you trust a professional
I’m not even gonna say “do your research” because I guarantee an autistic person will do enough research to be accurately informed before they make any certain claims
That’s just how we fucking work
Oftentimes it doesn’t even feel like research so it can turn into impostor syndrome because we don’t feel like we’ve put enough effort into it when really we just naturally fucking research things without giving it much of a second thought
We constantly scan the world around us and collect data from it and our beliefs are infinitely more likely to be fact-based than, idk what the alternative even is, bias-based? Judgment-based? I don’t wanna say feeling-based but I guess it would kind of apply
But my point is
I didn’t suspect I was autistic because I wanted to be special or have a label or whatever the fuck the reasons would be to suspect you’re autistic other than you actually are; genuinely I can’t think of any. Cannot begin to conceptualize it
I suspected I was autistic because I spent the entirety of my teen years observing and analyzing the people around me, making note of their traits and behaviors and idiosyncrasies and communication methods and fashion choices and manners of speech and bodily movements and backgrounds and histories and commonalities and relationships and diagnoses and all the rest of it.
I catalogued all of this information in the “human understanding” section of my brain.
I made the scientifically obvious connections between certain characteristics and the way they were treated by their peers, teachers, family, friends, etc., and the classes they took and the grades that they got and their strengths and their struggles and their reputations and their needs.
And I analyzed my own traits and behaviors and experiences in the same manner, and I noticed many of the same patterns repeating within myself. And, scientifically, I came to the conclusion there was something about us that was similar.
This didn’t feel like research at the time. It just felt like life. That was just how I experienced the world. It still is. I don’t know anything different.
And so, when I eventually came across the autism label, I really did not need to do much extra research to see that it was exactly descriptive of the experiences I’d scientifically studied and drawn conclusions about. I was already a fucking expert; articles and papers and all the rest of it were far more confirmation and validation than explanation.
This experience is not uncommon. We’re told we don’t do enough research and we can’t know more than a professional, yet for all intents and purposes, we ARE the professionals. People don’t see the amount of work and research and analysis and fucking agony and effort and scientific method application that we pour into it, because they don’t fucking know how our brains work.
I can remember learning about the scientific method itself for the first time in school, and looking back it was the same feeling: “ohhh, so there’s a name for that!” and not … I don’t even fucking know what the alternative would be actually. My brain doesn’t really speak words when it has to wrap itself around a new concept. It doesn’t have the energy for that. But let me tell you, putting labels to the steps of the scientific method did not take a whole lot of fucking energy.
I’m not saying any of this to brag. It doesn’t feel like a special skill or talent to me. It’s just… life. It’s the only thing I know. It’s the only way I function.
So if you’re autistic, and you’re self-diagnosed, and you’re pretty damn sure about it in your heart of hearts but the doubt society is laced with is getting to you, stop. Don’t let it. Trust yourself. The world doesn’t understand us and it leads to gaslighting on a global scale. It’s nobody’s fault. But it’s just the truth. We’re trained not to believe ourselves. We’re trained to doubt our perceptions and discount our experiences.
Stop.
Don’t.
Don’t let them get to you.
Trust yourself.
You know yourself better than any allistic ever fucking will. Don’t let them tell you otherwise. Even if they have a PhD in autism studies and have talked to every autistic person in the world. Even if they seem to get it, they will never have lived it.
And it’s great if they do get it! They are capable of believing us! They are capable of getting on roundabout the same page! But even then, they can still miss the mark sometimes. They simply just don’t have the experience to draw from that we do.
So if any of them, no matter how much they seem to “get it,” ever tries to tell you anything that makes you start doubting your own life and self, stop. Don’t let them. Trust yourself.
They can never know you better than you know yourself.
#30daysofautismacceptance#30daysofautismacceptance2022#actuallyautistic#autism#autistic#actually autistic#2022
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Andrew Ryan vs. Robert House
On almost every House post I make, someone in the notes will reliably reference Andrew Ryan. I totally get it - they look similar, they're based on the same guy, the parallels are so clear that the NV dev team added an achievement for killing House with a golf club - but I think these commonalities tend to engulf both characters, blotting out some of their more interesting ideological/personal differences. It's useful to examine them in relation to one another, but part of that is figuring out what distinguishes them, which is just what I’ve attempted to do.
It's difficult for me to talk about Randian objectivism because I don't think it's sound enough to address on its own terms, but considering this is the philosophy Andrew Ryan has adopted, I kind of have to. What I’d identify as the core premise of Randian ethics is this: altruism is a moral wrong. Some Randians have argued that isn't really what they believe - that the real point is anything resembling altruism is self-interest in disguise - but they're departing from the beliefs of their icon when they make those claims. Per Rand:
The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute is self-sacrifice – which means self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction – which means the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good.
The way Rand defines altruism is by linking it to self-sacrifice, which she uses to differentiate it from kindness or benevolence. Aiding others at no cost to yourself is benevolent, but not altruistic, and therefore not evil. Sacrificing your happiness to help another human being is, from Rand's perspective, evil, as is any philosophy that prioritizes the other at the cost of the self. This whole idea has been broadly rejected by most scholars on account of it being really fucking stupid. What justifies the leap from "man is naturally selfish" to "selfishness is good"? If selfishness is moral, wouldn't the most moral behavior be to exploit others through whatever means necessary, favoring force over the market? Rand defines happiness as "using your mind’s fullest power," achievable only when you "do not consider the pleasure of others as the goal," but why is this the only definition? What if your only options are self-sacrificial in nature? How do you weigh them if neither sacrifice is linked to values, individual achievement, or "your mind's fullest power" at all? Rand didn't care because she was too busy trying to ethically justify cheating on her man with her best friend's husband, but nonetheless, this is the philosophy Andrew Ryan’s adopted. He claims that "Altruism is the root of all Wickedness," in what's almost a direct quote from Rand herself.
To that end, Ryan builds a system that doesn’t just accept selfishness but actively incentivizes it. Every other principle he expresses is subservient to the ideas that selfishness rules man, and that for Ryan to act on his own selfish impulses is the highest good in the world. His lesser political principles (individual liberties, negative rights, the creation of a stateless society) don’t matter to him as much as the central precept from which they stem: that selfishness is his moral imperative.
What is the greatest lie every created? What is the most vicious obscenity ever perpetrated on mankind? Slavery? The Holocaust? Dictatorship? No. It's the tool with which all that wickedness is built: altruism.
It doesn't come as a particular surprise to me when he starts imprisoning dissidents or executing rivals or banning theft (standard practice in most societies, but not what an egoist would pursue; if you can get away with taking it, you deserve to have it, or so the thinking goes). I’ve seen him described as a hypocrite, but I don’t think that’s necessarily true considering everything he does is in line with his opposition to altruism. He'll adhere to his other principles only if they don’t sabotage his pursuit of personal power. This is evident in the fact that he only adopts a negative perception of Fontaine when his own interests are threatened, but doesn’t give two shits what Fontaine might be doing to sow conflict and harm people before that point. A guy named Gregory asks Ryan to step in against Fontaine early on before Fontaine's fully established himself as a threat to Ryan's power, and Ryan's extremely blase about it.
Don't expect me to punish citizens for showing a little initiative. If you don't like what Fontaine is doing, well, I suggest you find a way to offer a better product.
Contrast this with how he reacts when Fontaine has risen as a genuine business rival. This is from the log titled "Fontaine Must Go."
Something must be done about Fontaine. While I was buying buildings and fish futures, he was cornering the market on genotypes and nucleotide sequences. Rapture is transforming before my eyes. The Great Chain is pulling away from me.
This double standard is the natural outgrowth of his prioritization of self-interest. If your most deeply-held belief is that you should never give up your interests for others, ancillary rules become flexible in times of personal crisis, and Bioshock makes the case that putting someone like that in charge of a city will leave you with a crumbling, monstrous ruin.
Superficially, House has some similarities. Ryan executes political rivals; House has you blow up a bunker of his ideological opponents. Ryan is the highest authority in Rapture; House is the absolute monarch of Vegas. Their goals and moral codes, though, are almost diametrically opposed. When you ask House why you’re expected to trust him when he’s openly admitting to installing himself as the despot of the New Vegas Strip, he says this:
I have no interest in abusing others... Nor have I any interest in being worshipped as some kind of machine-god messiah. I am impervious to such corrupting ambitions.
Most of his resources are devoted to large-scale, impersonal projects, aimed either at building the power of Vegas or securing his long term goal of “progress” as he sees it. He’s rejected selfishness as a moral good because House is very far from Randian objectivism. He's a Hobbesian monarch.
In that respect, he shares an outlook on human nature with Ryan that I deeply disagree with (that human beings are essentially selfish), but in terms of what that means for the structure of a utopian society, House takes a very different position. From his perspective, human nature breeds suffering, not industriousness, and the only way to stamp out conflict - and, in a post-nuclear age, ensure the continued survival of the human race - is through a strong sovereign. The purpose of a state as laid out in Leviathan aligns very, very closely with the one House expresses.
...the foresight of their own preservation, and of a more contented life thereby; that is to say, of getting themselves out from that miserable condition of war which is necessarily consequent, as hath been shown, to the natural passions of men...
The monarch's successes are reflected in his society and the well-being of humanity as a whole. To subvert his goals is to subvert society's goals, and to doom humanity to the war, death, and suffering that exist in a state of nature. When you destroy his Securitrons/kill him, he doesn't plead for himself or get offended on his own behalf. He accuses you of betraying not him, but mankind.
Single-handedly, you've brought mankind's best hopes of forward progress crashing down. No punishment would be too severe.
Fool... to let... personalities... derail future... of mankind? ...Stupid!
Slavery... the future of... mankind? What... have you... done?
An important corollary of this idea which again distinguishes House from Ryan appears in Leviathan’s description of the political/moral responsibility of a monarch to his subjects:
...that great Leviathan, or rather, to speak more reverently, of that mortal god to which we owe, under the immortal God, our peace and defence. For by this authority... he hath the use of so much power that, by terror thereof, he is enabled to form the wills of them all, to peace at home, and mutual aid against their enemies abroad.
Hobbes and House give the monarch virtually unlimited power but match it to the monarch's duty, which he lives to fulfill. His obligation is to speak for the people, act for them, and protect them from all threats, internal and external. House generally abides by this, orienting his decisions around his goals for society irrespective of the personal cost (the negative consequences of his actions are a product of his fucked evaluations of what’s best for society, not personal greed). It’s not just a departure from Ryan’s philosophy but a complete refutation of it. He's almost died for what he's misidentified as the greatest good.
Given that I had to make do with buggy software, the outcome could have been worse. I nearly died as it was…. I spent the next few decades in a veritable coma.
This is not the behavior of an egoist. This is the behavior of an extremely arrogant but marginally altruistic (from a Randian perspective lmao) guy. This is some distorted “from each according to his ability” shit if you’ve managed to convince yourself your abilities exceed those of everyone else who has ever lived and that you can get the Mandate of Heaven by being really good at statistics.
The reason these guys develop such similar structures and hierarchies despite the ideological gulfs between them is because both of them are elitists who’ve experienced a massive failure of self-consciousness. They’re unable to conceive of other people as being fundamentally like them. Ryan separates people into the clearly-delineated classes of “producer” and “parasite,” ignoring the fact that everything he’s ever “produced” was reliant on a huge, coordinated effort between workers, architects, accountants, middlemen, and others, all of whom, in conjunction, contributed more to the realization of his dreams that he ever could have alone. Rather than realizing his own position is more parasitic and reliant on other people’s labor than that of anyone else in Rapture, he adheres to his doctrine of selfishness even when it’s not reflective of reality and is ruining the the lives of an entire city of people. He deludes himself into believing he’s a superman among ants instead of one flawed man who is reliant on the goodwill of others to help him survive, as are we all.
House, too, thinks he’s exceptional. Unlike Ryan, he acknowledges the necessity of the worker to a functioning society, but while he’ll accept his reliance on that labor, he doesn’t trust the laborer enough to share political power. House knows he’s invested in humanity’s survival and the creation of a better world, but he refuses to consider that he might not be alone in this goal. He chalks up the existence of the Legion to fanaticism/the ambitions of a sultanistic dictator and attributes everything the NCR has done to greed, without it ever occurring to him that the massive harm these nations have done was partially motivated by the same goals he’s devoted himself to - and that the atrocities he’s committed since his rise to power are, in some respects, very similar. House knows himself to be invested in the well-being of humanity, but he’s too arrogant to ask himself if his methods are wrong or trust other people to build a new path, one that doesn’t necessitate his complete control over the land and people of the Mojave. Ryan and House’s worldviews are distinct, and their flaws, as highlighted by their respective narratives, say some interesting things about how each set of devs view power and the pitfalls of elitism.
Anyway. If you put these two men in a room, they would probably try to murder each other, and I think that’s great.
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The Mighty Nein have exactly three ways of dealing with enemies, and that is so fascinating to me.
Befriend. Between Essek and Isharnai, this has been pretty front-and-center lately, but it’s not actually a recent development. The M9 have been cozying up to potential threats and making nice as far back as Zadash, when they first discovered the Gentleman’s operations and then promptly decided to go to work for him. It happens in Hupperdook, when they spend all day swearing bloody murder and hunting down the pickpockets who robbed them, and then promptly adopt four more children and nearly die getting their parents out of prison. It happens in the Bright Queen’s throne room, when they walk into the innermost heart of the nation they’ve been told for fifty sessions is their enemy, and become heroes of the Dynasty. There’s a tribe of giants who owe them their home and their gratitude and a band of no-longer-bandits who owe them their lives and their pants-wetting terror, because sometimes that is just how the M9 roll.
There are so few people this party actually has a stake in killing. Monsters, whatever, needs must, but like--who the hell are they to judge? (The first monsters and enemies they ever made friends with, after all, were each other.)
All-out slaughter. When the Nein do decide they really want to kill someone, they fucking go for the jugular. True, murder is pretty standard in D&D, but the Nein often throw both caution and reason out the window when something hits their kill button. This is almost everything about the pirate arc, starting that day in Nicodranas where they tried to talk threateningly to two guys and ended up committing domestic terrorism and then also murdering their way into ownership of a ship, ending that time they got kicked off Pirate Island in less than 24 hours because they decided to rend Avantika asunder the first instant they had the chance. It’s their entire brief enmity with Lorenzo--they would not wait, they would not plan, they would not stop, and they would not under any circumstances, no matter what Matt wanted of planned, let him go.
Hell, this is how ‘prank call Essek in the middle of a dinner party’ turned into ‘paralyze, kidnap, and interrogate’ in the first place. This group does not do long games if they can possibly help it.
Absolute avoidance. There are, sometimes, enemies the Nein dislike too much to befriend and aren’t strong enough to kill. U’kotoa. Trent Ikithon. These opponents are relatively rare, because the Nein do absolutely everything player-ly possible to distance themselves from them at every opportunity. Don’t want to unleash an immense immortal sea serpent? Fuck just saying ‘no’, we’re headed to the opposite side of the continent from the ocean, and then we’re going to yeet that magic sword directly into a volcano for good measure. You can’t threaten or blackmail me.
This party is very, very good at avoidance on both a personal and collective level. So much of the early game was built around getting the fuck away from the entire concept of war and law in general, once upon a time. They have all of them stayed away from their own families, steering clear around Felderwin and Kamordah until they couldn’t any more, putting off visiting the Menagerie, sleeping on the boat instead of going back to Marion’s for one more night. They run away from their own pasts and selves and inner demons. They are not all entirely fond of mirrors.
The thing is, I’m always so fascinated by the moments when the party seems to surprise or vex Matt by derailing his plans, and while he’s generally so proud of them for it, what I’m thinking about tonight is his endless, futile attempts to give them a fucking nemesis already. I’m thinking about why it just keeps not working. And I think it’s this!
This three-pronged approach to dealing with enemies, avoid-befriend-destroy, is basically a three-step guide to making sure you don’t have enemies any more. In fact, I would say not-having-enemies-anymore is one of the highest priorities the M9 hold, and it has been, almost accidentally, since before the game even started. The M9 have since the very beginning played what I can only describe as an extraordinarily defensive game. They don’t go looking for trouble unless it’s specifically connected to some immediate threat to themselves or someone else. The handful of mercenary contracts they’ve taken have almost universally been about, “hey, let’s do this thing for the Gentleman so he doesn’t decide to mistrust and kill us,” or, “let’s do this thing for the Gentleman so we can get the fuck out of town before they start conscripting to fight the Krynn Dynasty,” or, “hey, let’s do this thing for the Krynn Dynasty so they don’t decide to mistrust and kill us.”
And it’s not about trying to thwart Matt! It’s about a party of characters who are all extremely defensive and avoidant in their own ways. Some of it’s about the sheer trauma of everything to do with Molly, and some of it’s probably about the sheer trauma of everything to do with Vax and Raishan and Anna Ripley and every C1 mistake or villain that ever came back to haunt them, and some of it’s just baked into these new characters. Everyone in this party is so fucking hurt and defensive before they even start. The only thing that’s changed so far is the bit-by-bit careful broadening of their circle of ‘who to protect’ to include each other, and their friends, and maybe more or less half the world.
The one exception here is, of course, Obann, who has them on the ropes for almost 20 episodes--who they could not kill, and tried, and he had Yasha and they could not possibly join or befriend him, and he had Yasha and they could never forgive or ignore him, and he had Yasha and they could not kill him. And the thing is, all I can remember right now is how painful so much of that arc was. Everybody was so desperate. Everybody was so miserable. And still, and still, they could not think how to go around this problem any back way, could not recruit allies or head it off. They could only just distract themselves with brief side quests in hopes that it might help them next time they hurled themselves head-first into trying all-out slaughter again, and again, and again. It wasn’t like the Chroma Conclave. They didn’t back out of the first desperate battle and decide to take the long way around on purpose, to measure and trick and evaluate and gather specific resources and plan. They were so utterly lost. They were so desperate.
I think that probably, Matt’s hope for Essek was indeed that he’d become the party’s long-term nemesis that Lorenzo and Avantika didn’t have the chance to be. I think he was hoping the other night for Essek to get away and leave them all feeling suspicious and betrayed. I think he was hoping a month or two ago that the M9 would head off away from the peace talks and never even find out about Essek until he tried to call in some of those favors for increasingly suspicious things or it all came back around to bite them in the ass. I think he hoped for a very long time, maybe even a year ago when they met Essek in the first place, that this traitorous mole would become their Anna Ripley--the cold dark super-intelligent mirror to their own broken super-intelligent knifeblade of a friend, someone they could loathe and fear and despise and eventually, eventually destroy.
But the M9 don’t do nemeses if they have any way whatsoever to help it. Good luck, Matt. Pretty sure for this crew it is Trent Ikithon and U’kotoa and Tharizdun himself, and absolutely nobody else is big or bad enough for them to actually run up against for more than a single rematch, unless you get real fucking creative.
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10. What does denial look like for you?
11. What are some denial busters that work?
Right, so, good questions. We got over the worst of it around the end of last summer, actually, but there were a few stages of it that we went through before finally moving on.
First, there was the, well I'm just imagining this, right? I'm just desperate for a way out - wouldn't fucking anyone in our situation want to have people who are with them, who are there to help, who stick together? Wouldn't anyone want to be better versions of themselves, somebody else with a different name, different looks, a different story, someone more interesting, than what "I've” got going on? So, we made a friend, who slowly started separating into a bunch of friends. What if we just want to fit in? A friend suggested it might be our BPD acting up, making our fragile sense of identity mold to better match with the new guys. Like there's so many easier, better explanations to what "I" am going through than multiplicity. That's for people who aren't me, people who are somewhere else, right?
Okay, but, yeah. Turns out we don't even have BPD. Got that diagnosis wiped off the face of the earth after a few months of therapy and two second opinions. It's been DID all along, babe. So that was one thing, entering therapy with a trauma/dissociation specialist and have her long-term evaluate our symptoms, the continuity of our presentation, our history and so on against knowledge of our prior diagnoses, working through what's there and what isn't coming to the conclusion that it's not BPD, but it definitely is depression, generalised anxiety, and DID. So we're diagnosed with DID.
A bit after that it was like, what if we just wanted the diagnosis, and made it all up to fit the criteria? (We have a tendency to not really trust the evaluation of professionals when it comes to our condition - a natural conclusion to come to when you've been misdiagnosed some ten times in the past with whatever the hell happened to kind of, sort of match the description.) But no, our therapist treats plenty of people with DID, we're pretty typical in many aspects, we fit the criteria, so that kind of means we do have DID, right?
Finally, it was like, so what if we do have DID - but the system we've got is made up. Like, we've actually got a system somewhere in there, but the cool guys club we've got fronting is just made up for comfort and status (with... who the fuck now?) Maybe we secretly have a bunch of guys who explain all of this fluctuation and so but "we" don't actually know who they are, can't communicate with them, and the rest of us are just active imagination and hopeful thinking.
And yeah, at this point, we knew this was a stupid thing to be thinking, but denial doesn't tend to be really reasonable. Guess it was a bit of a struggle with just coming to terms with some sort of survivor's guilt, too, since we love each other, we work as a team, we're a family to one another, and then there's so many DID systems who hate each other to the point of wanting each other dead, who can't stand living together, who can't even communicate but keep doing everything in their power to trip each other up and sabotage progress - and we'd never, right? So maybe we're imaginary.
What really fixed the whole cycle for us was just accepting that ultimately, it doesn't fucking matter if we have DID or not. It doesn't matter if I'm a fucking DID alter, because I'm around anyway. Like, the exact specifics of the psychology that leads to me being around isn't as important as the fact that I'm around no matter what, and I have my own shit to deal with, and we have our collective shit to deal with, so whatever you call this doesn't matter and is pointless to debate about - what matters is that the treatment works. What matters is that we're living in a way that makes sense to us, and helps us move towards recovery, helps us live for the first time ever. Because the treatment is definitely working, we've never been this well off before and I mean that. Ever since we grew a sentient brain, we haven't been doing this well, and it's all because of the DID treatment. Acknowledging each other, respecting each other, working on our relationships and needs together, and being in therapy for our own individual problems as well as our trauma history and collective issues. Like, if it's working, what the hell do the semantics count for? Nothing. Removing our diagnosis and calling us a singlet normie won't actually make us into a normie singlet. So it doesn't matter. It's pointless.
That's where the denial ended.
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This is just too long and nuanced to get into in one go, when I don’t have the time. But it’s something I’ve been thinking about. I’m a bisexual who dated guys as a teen, then mostly dated women in much of my 20s and 30s, and there are huge reasons I didn’t date men. Then in my 40s I got with the dude I’ve been with for the past 5 years (longest relationship) but it followed a completely different pattern and set of expectations than any other relationships I’d had with men, and I’m reflecting on this a bit.
Part of the reason I didn’t date men is because I liked being in a social dynamic with both women and men where I wasn’t seen as a potential hetero romantic partner by men - part of me felt like I could be seen as a potential partner OR seen as an equal, but not both. (This was especially bad when I was younger. It got better over time.) But even more, I wanted to be seen as off-limits to men by the women that my male coworkers were married to. I liked having actual platonic friendships and professional associations with men and being able to have intellectual conversations with them, and I liked women not seeing me as a threat. It’s weird that I feel like I identified as a lesbian for a long time at least partly for the benefit of heterosexuals.
But the biggest thing was that I just didn’t LIKE dating men. It wasn’t that I didn’t like individual men so much as all the SOCIAL STUFF that ANY men just came wrapped up with and part of it is because of the weird mores of my family.
The thing is that dating men was just so FRAUGHT. It was wrapped up in all kinds of public moral performativity in my family and older people of my culture and local community, and it didn’t help that my mom was surrounded by gossips.
Because my family refused to talk about or acknowledge the fact that I was dating women, it meant that dating women was treated as something relatively private and *for me* and that my family didn’t in any way intrude. It somehow didn’t seem “real” to them.
Whereas men were wrapped up with all kinds of weird, fraught traditionalist moralist stuff and dating any man (somehow, even if I lived a hundred miles away, if my family at all knew about it) meant that my family poked their nose in and felt it was Their Business.
I’m realizing that some of the weird mores I grew up with around breakups (you shouldn’t be on good terms or even associate with an ex or be in a place where an ex is) and dating seem to be heavily based in the idea my mom had and some elders had where if sex happened in a relationship and the relationship broke up, or didn’t result in marriage, then this meant that the woman in the relationship had been “used.” Breakups were treated as something always Very Humiliating and not just relationships not working out. And that people would see the woman as slutty and that this was bad.
Basically it all revolved around having to pretend to be a virgin, or to be as close to a virgin as possible.
Also, the idea that it was humiliating to be a woman over 25 and be known to be unmarried, that if you were in a relationship (with a man, specifically) for a long time but weren’t married then it Looked Weird and other people Cared Very Much about how it looked.
And any relationships a woman has that aren’t marriage Make Her Look Bad. 1) Like she wasn’t Good Enough to be a wife. (We need to talk about this because there’s a lot of hidden social class stuff in here. There is a lot about being “high class” enough to get married and it being seen as “low class” to NOT be married, let alone to be partnered but not married.) 2) Like HE wouldn’t marry HER (what if SHE was the one who didn’t want to get married? What if they love each other but just aren’t getting married for whatever reason? This was never considered. Marriage was ALWAYS evaluated like it was a woman winning a prize, or something a man offered a woman, and not a mutual decision between adults.)
All of this is hardcore old school stuff.
A lot of this is why despite being bi, it was just much easier to date women. There is a lot of stuff I was able to keep out of my head dating women that I wasn’t able to while dating men. For one, my mom had absolutely no interest in any “non-conventional relationship” I had, absolutely didn’t want to hear about it. But my family intruded with men I dated like whoa, it was Very Much Their Business because they saw it as being their business who did or didn’t join the family and or how my behavior was going to make them look. (Somehow, being an androphile but not A Good Girl or properly married off, was morally worse than being in a queer relationship even though the whole reason a lesbian relationship was not seen as “the real thing” or the same kind of social threat was tbh homophobic.)
Something changed in my 40s and all this social noise about marriage, who I was supposed to marry, etc, just evaporated. Suddenly I was free to date or fuck whoever I wanted to date or fuck. People just got off my case all of a sudden.
The dynamics in my relationships with men changed overnight as soon as 1) I was no longer expected to be a virgin, 2) I was old enough for my teen/20something past to not matter (it was now half a life ago), 3) people no longer even expected me to get married.
What’s more is that people stopped even asking me when I was going to have children, or if. Everything I do stopped being evaluated in terms of what kind of example I might be setting for children that I’ve never had and will never have.
And poof, just like that, in my 40s, a ton of hangups and cares evaporated.
I’m sure that 40something hormones may have something to do with it but I feel as if there are just a lot of social pressures that women in their 40s get let off the hook for. It’s only in my 40s that I feel like I’m free to be a fully sexual human being or own my sexuality or my body in any way, and it’s interesting to think about.
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My Boys
Chapter 13
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 14
Pairings: Steve Rogers X Reader (Best Friend) Bucky Barnes X Reader
Word Count: 2063
Warnings: Swearing, bit of violence if you looking very closely
Summary: After being abandoned by her parents in Brooklyn in 1929, y/n makes a living for herself by working for the Црни лабуд gang until she meets two boys in a back alley and her life slowing begins to change.
Ey up my Loves, so we’re back and kicking ass! Quite literally in this Chapter, I’ve been going back over my previous chapters and I’m considering rewriting them to fit my new style. Let me know what you all think, do you prefer them as they are or would you want them to match my new style ? Anyways without further ado here's chapter 13, enjoy everyone! <3
3rd person POV
Years have passed since that moment, time brought changes to the trio, what was once a childhood crush developed into a fierce love that neither of the pair wanted to acknowledge or admit in fear of loosing the other.
As you can imagine both Steve and Becca were ready to rip the heads off of their dumbass siblings.
6 years is a verrrry long time to put up with long looks of pining and repressed feelings, but unfortunately for the Brooklyn natives, y/n and bucky were about as stubborn as each other and refused to listen to the reasonable, sometimes frustrated, rants of their best friends. So much to the utter frustration of Steve and Becca, the two young lovebirds lived in a state of denial and attempted (the keyword being ATTEMPTED) to move on with their lives.
Naturally, someone as charming and handsome as James Barnes seemed to have a never-ending line of girls begging to be his, it had become a common occurrence for him to have a new girl on his arm each week, not that Steve or Y/n approved of his behaviour but hey Bucky can be a real big dumbass when he wants to be. Y/n did try to hide how much it bothered her, thankfully not only was Bucky a dumbass he was also completely unaware of her feelings and simply chalked it down to her being the unapproving sister, but to Steve it was a clear as day. He could see it in her face every time Bucky left to take the new girl dancing, or when she’d finish work early only to see Buck and his new girl on a romantic date in the Café opposite the dinner she worked at. The bright light behind her eyes always dimmed a little and she wouldn’t talk for hours, which for anyone that didn’t know her was enough to ring an ambulance and arrange a mental evaluation.
Now that’s not to say that Bucky was any better, the look of absolute utter rage that covered his face when another man called for Y/n was enough to make Steve and Becca completely loose it and simply laugh at his misery, neither of them felt bad because they’d been telling him for YEARS to man up and confess his feelings. Occasionally the pair did feel a slight twinge of guilt towards their brother, like the time the trio went to Y/n’s house to surprise her after work, only to see her kissing the cheek of a guy they’d never seen before, just like his other half Bucky did try to hide it, but the flash of pain that crossed his face was impossible to miss.
It’d gotten to the point where Steve wanted to lock em both in a closet til they finally admitted their feelings and put themselves out of their misery, though the fact that he had all the physical stats of a toothpick quickly nipped that idea in the bud.
Cut to today, for once it looked like it’d be a fairly normal day for everyone, boys were off doing god knows what, knowing those two it’d involve a punch up started by a small blonde idiot and finished by an even bigger idiot of a brunette. Though the same couldn’t be said about their girl, ever the more responsible one of them all Y/n had agreed to work overtime in the local dinner over on main street, meaning that she’d be the one closing the place down at 9pm.
Y/n didn’t even wanna think about what her two idiots would get up without proper adult supervision, though over the years she’d learned to expect that it would more than likely be something illegal.
Thankfully, it wasn’t something she had to worry about for the next couple of hours, though 9 times out of ten she’d be the one cleaning up the cuts and bruises only for them to come back the next day fresh wounds. As much as it did on occasion piss her off to no ends, Y/n wouldn’t want it any other way, they were and always will be her boys.
Y/N’s POV
Well, that was an absolute shit show of a day.
I mean you’d of thought that I was common knowledge not to put ya hands up a waitresses skirt, but nay some men didn’t seem to have got that memo, ever the public servant I made it my job to enlighten then with a hot cup of coffee to the crotch. How I’ve not received employee of the month is beyond me, what’s not to love ? I’m a fucking delight!
Thank god it’s home time, if I’da stayed in that place any longer something would of happened, knowing my crazy ass it’d of been something violent but in my defence….okay I don’t have a defence, but men can seriously suck ass when they wanna. All I wanna do is have a peaceful walk home, ignore the homeless guys that like to gawp at my ass and run a big old bubble bath whilst relaxing with a decent book.
Naturally, that didn’t happen.
Now, If ya spend as much time around a bunch of over aggressive monkeys that love jumping into fights as much as I do, you’ll probably get real good at recognising the sounds of a fight. And I’ve got a pretty good idea who the two dipshits are that started this pissing contest.
The sounds of shoes scuffling across the pavement were pretty much impossible to miss now, that along with the grunts and groans of a bunch of guys smacking the absolute shit outta each other tipped me off to what was happening around the corner. Everything in me screamed to carry on my merry way and let these morons sort out whatever beef they had in peace and believe me I was so close to ignoring it and walking past em, but it’s kinda hard to do that when ya hear ya best mate scream “come at me motherfuckers!”.
I couldn’t help the frustrated sigh that came outta my mouth but come on guys! This is the 5th one this week!
Very reluctantly I doubled back and went to help my idiotic boys out of whatever trouble they managed to get em selves into, and boy I’m glad that I did cause they were losing. Badly. It would seem that Steve’s request was met for them to “come at” him, cause one of em had him by the arms and was pummelling the life out of his small body, and Bucky wasn’t having any better luck either. Buck was in the same situation, but he had the pleasure of two guys restraining his arms whilst another two took turns in kicking him in the stomach, I mean I was already pissed off at what was happening to Steve but now, I’m beyond pissed and IF I’d of taken the time to calm down for a few seconds I’da thought of a better plan than this.
“Man…I really liked these shoes”.
In my defence, I didn’t mean to throw them as hard as I did, I was hoping to distract them for a couple of seconds so I could get the jump on the guy beating the crap outta Steve, instead I hit him square in the back his head and knocked him the fuck out. Any other time I’da been wetting myself laughing, but instead it seemed like time slowed down as the assholes holding Steve up froze and made eye contact with me, even the guys on Bucky stopped to see what had happened, all four of em had a look of complete and utter disbelief when they finally saw me. Not that I really cared, all I wanted was for em to get the fuck off of my boys.
Nobody seemed to wanna say anything for the next couple of seconds, the assholes beating up Bucky and Steve were still trying to wrap their heads around what just happened, and my idiots were looking back and forth between the guy on the floor and me, not even taking the time to try escape their holds. How the hell they manage to survive all these years without me is beyond my understanding.
“Sup my dudes, my names Y/n and I’ll be kicking ya ass today”.
I think it’s safe to say that I snapped everyone out of their shocked states, cause the guys holding both Steve and Bucky dropped their asses to the ground and instead focus on me, which is pretty fair considering I did just knock their mate out with a 2-inch healed shoe.
“Do ya know what we do to girls that don’t know their place round here? Cause ya about to find out girly” why is it always the ugliest motherfuckers that try to act tough, I mean look at this guy! he’s got more stains on his shirt than he does teeth, and about as much hair as a furless cat, I’ve been more intimidated by a group of 12-year-old girls in the dinner than I have him!...teenagers are fucking scary don’t judge me.
Right back to this absolute shitshow of a ‘fight’.
Mr ‘I’m only 30 years old and I already need dentures’ swung his arm out towards me in a pathetic attempt at a punch, which massively backfired on him cause I threw that dumbass over my shoulder and ‘accidently’ knocked his last 4 teeth out. That left me with the rest of the hounds, two of em were rushing at me the second I let go of their newly toothless friend, the one on my right missed me completely and fell over a fence, dumbass. The dude on my left though, well he didn’t miss I’ll put it that way, he fully rugby tackled me into the car behind me, knocking the wind outta me and leaving me dazed for a few seconds.
But just like the first guy, his ‘punches’ were about effective as a marshmallow. Pretty embarrassing for him really, I mean you hate to see it.
“Okay no, give me your hand I’m gonna teach you how to punch cause this is just embarrassing for you dude, first don’t put your thumb at the bottom cause ya gonna break it, second don’t just throw ya arm forward and hope it hurts, use your body weight cause ya got a lot of it and throw it into the punch.”
At that point I’d pushed him off me and the car, his form was absolutely terrible so I went ahead and corrected it for him, found out his name was Eric, which was pretty interesting, gave him a few practise shots and then let him hit me for real, and I must be a fucking amazing teacher cause that one hurt!
“Really Doll?”
Let me tell you, I’d never seen Bucky so unimpressed in my life, his face was completely deadpanned with only his eyebrows raised, Steve wasn’t too impressed either, his infamous mum glare was in full force as I sheepishly backed away from my new best friend.
“In my defence, you left me unsupervised, and Eric’s form was absolutely atrocious, wasn’t it Eric my lad ?”
“….She’s a pretty good teacher to be fair”.
“See? I’m a good teacher! Suck it Barnes!”
Bucky Knocked Eric the fuck out in response. I think you can all understand how heartbroken I was.
“What the hell Barnes?! If it weren’t for me you and Steve would be dead!” I’m pretty sure I looked as insane as I was acting, Steve was full on laughing his ass off behind Buck, I mean if I weren’t so annoyed by them both right now I’d be on the floor with him just dying of laughter. But nay, I had a bone to pick with the both of them, which I think they both realised considering they both went pale before turning around and bucking it to my house. What you need to remember is that these are fully gown men, running around a Brooklyn neighbourhood screaming bloody murder, with a much smaller y/h/c lass running right behind them brandishing a pair of heels, fully intending to murder them both.
How we’ve gone all these years without being arrested or locked in a mental asylum astounds me.
So hopefully you all enjoyed this, let me know what you all think, we’ve got about 2 more chapters left of my boys then we move onto Captain America the First Avenger!!
lots of love
Rose xx
#winter soldier x reader#winter soldier#captain america x reader#captain america#bucky barnes x reader#bucky barnes#steve rogers x reader#steve rogers#mcu#fanfic#reader#reader insert#sebastian stan#sebastian stan x reader
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Text
Hopeless
Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Klaw Craig)
Words count: >1.7k
Category: Angst
Warning: none
A.N: Well as per your request this is the awaited fic for you and maybe you didn’t expect it to be such this angsty. Let me know what do you think. This event starts after this post for everyone who’s not familiar with it.
———————————————————————
Klaw had never ran so fast in her life like now.
She had to do something.
Something to stop Simon from telling Dr. Ramsey about the Instagram photo she posted. And the reason?
Simple. After Dr. Ramsey admitted to her the infamous patient Mr. Nigel Platt- nothing went normal as she thought at first. Nigel had several symptoms that none of them concluded to a specific illness but leading to more questions than answers. Again this wasn’t the real problem.
Nigel’s attitude against her while questioning her abilities to handle this case, made her blood boiled despite she held a great poker face to him that everything seemed to go flowing. It was ironic this kind of situation happened again to her- when she confronted the mafia man Miles in her first day, the latter doing the same thing as Nigel. With all of her anger and frustration she blamed Dr. Ramsey for this and decided in a drunken state to create an emoji and to show off to people on Insta what an asshole he was. But when she got sobered like today, she was pleading that everyone would get it as joke and not something that should be taken seriously. Because it was a moment of anger okay? She didn’t know how to revenge to him because he was her attending after all. She couldn’t file a complaint to him. Right? After finishing this case she wanted to have a man to man talk and to understand why he assigned this kind of patient especially to her. Did she do anything wrong?
If yes, what?
Because of Dr. Banerji’s secret?
Her mind was fogged up with lots of questions while she was running in the halls of fifth floor- where his office was. When she turned the corner she bumped into nurse Sarah and apologised.
“Sarah do you know where’s Dr. Tennant?”
“Oh. I saw him with Dr. Ramsey while exiting the Diagnostics Office.”
“Shit.”
“Something wrong Dr. Craig?”
But Sarah didn’t have an answer as she saw the young intern run again. Klaw knew where the diagnostics was and her breath hitched when she saw the two doctors conversing with each other in such seriousness that made her shivering from fear. Then she saw Simon slipping from his white coat his phone and telling something to Ethan. But before that she lunged forward while shouting.
“STOP!”
Both attendees flinched when they heard her frantic voice and saw her raised hands while shaking. They frowned in confusion at her as the baritone voice asked.
“Dr. Craig what is this? Another stunt of yours?”
“No no please just hear me out because I know that I owe you an apology Dr. Ramsey.”
He raised a cold eyebrow. As always he would never change that reflex she thought. “Pray, tell.”
“Well... I think that you’re quite aware now what I’ve done so far and... I’m truly sorry for that. I mean... who in the world does the mockery of someone in social media that everyone starts to make fun of it? Me with a whiskey around yesterday decided to throw that thing but I fully regret it. So... I’m saying it again Dr. Ramsey that I’m sorry I posted that photo on Instagram and I promise to delete that immediately.”
“What’s that photo?” He asked in confusion while shaking his head. “Because I didn’t get this Rookie. Would you like to explain to me what the hell is even the Insane thing?”
“But weren’t you seeing it with Dr. Tennant right now? He was showing it to-”
“Uhm-” Simon cleared his throat. “Klaw, I was showing Ethan the tomography of our patient after we diagnosed him.” He turned his phone to her and immediately she wanted nothing more than to burn herself or hide somewhere because now she felt so screwed. “I wasn’t going to tell him y’know.” Then he snorted when he finally realised what her intention was.
“Excuse me, can someone right now tell me what in the hell is going on?” Ethan glared at them when he felt his anger building up seeing the interaction between these two and the fact that they were sharing a secret made him raged.
The young doctor gulped hardly when she lit up her phone, opened the app and showed it to her attending. But what made Ethan even more angry despite he was remaining calm all the time was the description she had written:
Ladies and gentlemen I present to you the icy blue-eyed Dr. Ethan Ramsey in his usual mood- killing the interns.
Even though it may sounded funny to someone’s else ears, he wasn’t killing anyone. Especially when he wanted to push her to be the best doctor and to learn by hard. But clearly to him, maybe it was a mistake for picking her so that was his final straw.
“My office.”
He gave her phone back while trailing off and Simon gave her an encouragement smile as if meaning that it was the usual one of the many Dr. Ramsey’s moods but for Klaw this was unusual.
Ethan didn’t even let the door open for her as he did always and slammed it forcefully in her face. And that was her final straw.
“What the fuck?!”
“Language Craig!”
“Do you even know moral codes or what?”
“I’m not going to learn from you because you clearly have absolutely no knowledge about them.”
“Are you really worried for such a stupid little thing? I told you I was drunk!”
“Do you really think that I care that much for an animated figure which clearly doesn’t represent me but just another stupid jokes of yours?”
“Well my jokes are better than your dryly and sophisticated ones.” He scoffed unbelievably, not seeing that his words were actually hurting her. “I want to be taken off the PITA’s case because in my opinion there’s nothing left for me to do with a man who doesn’t respect me as a doctor and doesn’t acknowledge my work showing his belligerency and rudeness.”
So that’s why she was angry at him. But that didn’t even make him change his mind. He wasn’t surprised to see her in this state of rage and for a mere of seconds he thought how cute she looked when she was serious and flushed. Ethan gave her an unamused smile, not interested in what she just said. “No.”
“I beg your pardon?” Her right pupil dilated slightly while she was frowning.
“You’ve had difficult patients before. Keep trying.”
His calmness was making her even more furious and before she could stop herself she came forward and slapped her hands in his desk, while facing him with a shaking breath. This of course caught him off guard and stood up from his chair doing the same as her.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Why are you punishing me?”
I’m not punishing you. I would never do that.
“Or is my saying right- that you enjoy to kill interns and make us suffer huh? Do you enjoy that?”
“You need to keep your personal feelings separate from your professional feelings Dr. Craig.” She tried to reply but was cut off. “I’d think very carefully before you say something to embarrass yourself.”
“Then why have you selected me this patient? For what reason?!”
“To challenge you, to push you to be the best doctor you can be! Don’t you get it already?”
Despite the closed door their voices could be heard loud and clear from outside. Their faces were in a close proximity without breaking their gazes to each other. Icy blue could see in dark fiery browns the embarrassment and the astonishment when she received his words. She understood now. It was never about Naveen’s secret that they were sharing. It was about her development that even after all of this he still thought of her.
For her best.
As a real attending should.
He sat on his chair with his crossed arms whereas she backed off a bit from his desk only to hear disappointment from him.
“When I make my evaluations every year... every intern that I’ve chosen were the best amongst the best and for that-” he flickered his eyes to her again with the coldest expression on his face that she had ever seen and shivered. “- I believed I saw a potential in you. It’s very rare that I’m wrong Rookie. But I’m willing to admit when I am... and I think I might have been wrong about you.”
The final words left her not only speechless but also breathtaking. She couldn’t feel her lungs as if everything stopped in that moment. Her heartbeats were giving her aches in her chest as she stared right back into his eyes- regret and pain. Ethan Ramsey regretted his intern right in front of her just like a slap in her face. That was the final cue from him that she wasn’t the best intern he had thought because this intern (she) had let him down.
Klaw shifted her left shoulder and broke eye contact with him while Ethan quirked sadly his mouth knowing her fully well anytime she got that nervousness. He got used to her and he hoped that these words would encourage to be better or otherwise- worse than now.
Deeply ashamed she couldn’t say another word and left his office without glancing back. She was determined to solve that case whatever that brat had and to prove once again that Dr. Craig or Rookie was the best intern he had chosen for the program.
Ethan sighed heavily when he opened his drawer to reveal her file that was the first of many others and stared down at her CV photograph that showed- bravery.
“You can do this Klaw.” He whispered to himself and for the first time he said her name which in Ethan’s horror wasn’t something good. He closed the file with a thud and put it back on his drawer while getting up from his chair to take a look in the window. He could feel his heartbeats quickening when he saw Klaw leaving with his patient Kyra who was trying to console her. At least she had friends to look after her.
Stop it Ethan. Stop thinking about her.
Reluctantly he pulled away from the window to busy himself with other important tasks so he would forget about piercing brown eyes.
#open heart#open heart fan fic#open heart fan fiction#my mc#klaw craig#ethan ramsey#klaw x ethan#ethan ramsey x mc#my writing
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