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valentinetypewriter · 9 months

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Me and My Husband-Chapter 1

Summary + series masterlist

Main masterlist

Chapter 2 / chapter 3

This is a slow burn wolfstar x reader/arranged marriage au

Word count : 2,724

The Marauders had all piled up into a carriage of the Hogwarts Express, sweets and lollies littering the seats and floor as they talked all about their break from school. Sirius had of course spent most of his break with the Potters once again before having to go back home before the start of their new school year. "We went to this muggle movie theatre and it was amazing, I've never been to one before" Sirius was currently spouting out about all the things he had done with James, not having a chance to do those kinds of things in his own home. "It was quite fun until we almost got kicked out because Padfoot here wouldn't shut up!" James spoke up with a humorous tone. "Well enough about that, how did your guys break go?" Sirius asked the other two boys after giving James a slight shove. Remus spoke up first "I went to visit my grandparents, they live out in the countryside, so it was nice to have some peace and quiet finally" Peter timidly spoke, a hint of concern in his voice. "Did you handle the full moons alright?" Remus gave a slight nod "it's a pretty secluded area, plus lots of room to run around" He gave Peter a smile to ease up any concern he had for the young Werewolf.

The rest of the trip was filled with mindless talk about more stuff that happened during their break, what kind of pranks they were planning this year and of course relationships. Sirius seemed to stiffen as soon as the topic had been brought up. Peter droned on about his new hufflepuff girlfriend he had gotten at the end of last year before asking the others if they had any crushes or anything. "Well I can't say I have one yet, but who knows this year I might get lucky" James said with a huge dorky grin on his face. After being rejected by Lily Evans far too many times the boy had decided it was best to move on, and now without the constant attempts to gain her affection they had become close friends. Sirius hadn't contributed much to the conversation though, in fact he hadn't spoken a word since Peter had brought the topic up. Although James and Peter didn't notice, the two boys continued with meaningless conversation. Remus on the other hand had noticed how Sirius was unusually quiet, his stormy eyes didn't look away from the window he was leaning against until the scarred hand of the tall boy touched his knee gently "you alright padfoot?" Remus's soft voice had always been pleasant to his ears. Sirius gave a small nod and faked a smile, though Remus could always tell when someone was faking a smile he just always knew, tilting his head as his eyebrows furrowed, clearly not believing what he had said. It scared Sirius just how much of an open book he seemed to Remus, though he guessed everyone felt that way about the tall boy. He knew Remus knew he was lying, he leant down towards him "I'm here if you need anything Sirius" giving him a soft smile, everything about Remus Lupin was soft, his hair, his voice, his warm skin and even the sweaters he always wore. Thankfully though he didn't press on, just leaving his large warm hand on Sirius's knee.

The train ride had come to an end soon after that, the four rowdy boys rushing off the train. All laughing like madmen at some stupid joke James had said. "Let's get to hogwarts quickly I'm starved" Sirius said with an over dramatic and drawn out sigh, James slung his arm around him as a laugh was drawn out from him "yeah because you totally didn't have enough from the trolley" Sirius elbowed him in the side, although that did nothing to discourage James. "Yeah padfoot you would've brought her whole stock if Moony hadn't stopped you" Peters jab had James cracking up all over again. Even Remus let out a small laugh, though Sirius just huffed "you're all the worst" shaking his head at his three friends. "Yeah but you'd be lost without us" James stated, ruffling up the hair of his best friend. As they continued walking Sirius caught sight of the one person he dreaded seeing around the school other than his younger brother, Y/n l/n, or as he referred to her since their last meeting during their break, the absolute bane of his existence. The sight of the expensive jewellery she wore on her hand made his thoughts bubble with anger, she was just as pompous and up herself as ever. He quickly dismissed the thoughts of her, not wanting to think more of it.

The four friends eventually found their way to the great hall, watching on as new 1st years were getting sorted. The boys were certainly the loudest when new students were sorted into Gryffindor. After the sorting and the same speech Dumbledore gave every year the feast had begun, everyone digging in and talking loudly with the people around them. Once the boys had finished eating they rushed to their dorm room, already excited to start planning out pranks for their last year. They all fell asleep quicker then they had initially planned on, the adrenalin wearing off as they started to crash out, barely out of their clothes or under their covers. Remus fell asleep sitting at his desk, his head leaning against his sweater he was using as a makeshift pillow. James was sitting upright, leant against the headboard of his bed, Sirius had crashed out at the end of James bed, his legs dangling off the edge of the bed. And Peter had fallen asleep on his own bed, though lying on top of the covers in nothing but sweat pants he had changed into.

They woke up later than usual, all stiff and sore from the uncomfortable positions they slept in, except for Peter, he was just cold. They all got dressed and decided to go down to the courtyard, they had the entire weekend to settle back in before 7th year classes started. Which they were all eternally grateful for. The Marauders made their way outside, laughing and joking around as usual. Finding somewhere nice to sit they picked back up their conversation from last night. "So this year everything needs to be bigger and better boys" James announced, clapping his hands together "I was thinking that prank we did last year on Snivellus, when we turned his uniform bright pink for the whole day, was pretty good but we could definitely top that". As soon as he finished the four boys all had that same classic Marauders look on their faces that screamed they were up to no good and to steer clear. Sirius shot up "how about we make it rainbow and glitter" Peter laughed and added on "yeah we could even add frills this time" that sent the boys into a crazed fit of laughter all except Remus. It wasn't that he was against the idea, it was more that he had something else in mind "or we could turn his uniform into the girl's one" despite his voice not being as loud as the others, their laughter had completely stopped. Wide devious smiles quickly covered the shocked looks they gave him "Merlin Remus you're a bloody genius!" James shouted, as he ruffled his hair up in approval.

They continued talking about how they'd pull it off when James noticed none other than Lily Evans walking through the courtyard "hey Lily!" James shouted out without a second thought. Lily's head shot up and she smiled at the boys walking over with one of her friends she had been talking to. "Hello boys, I hope the break treated you all well" the boys responded with simple answers of head nods and even a thumbs up from Remus. Sirius had finally noticed who Lily just so happened to drag along with her, of course it just had to be her, Y/n. "Mind if we sit with you guys?" Lily asked, her tone as sweet as always. Sirius would have denied her, almost saying how they were planning some 'Marauders' stuff. But of course James beat him to it "of course not, go for it ladies" he smiled at the two girls as they sat down. Sirius was angry at this, not at James for letting her sit with them, but at Y/n for thinking she could just sit near him so casually.

Sirius couldn't help the hateful glare as he watched the girl in front of him, seemingly avoiding conversation with the rest of the Marauders. All he could focus on was the girl he deemed to be the bane of his existence talking away with Lily, the two only met because of Lily's best friend Severus due to the two being in Slytherin. His stormy eyes held a gaze with the glittering gem on her left ring finger, acting as a constant and cruel reminder of his unwanted fate. Remus of course had noticed, he always did when Sirius's mood suddenly changed. The Werewolf leant down to whisper into said boys ear "You know if you keep brooding at her you're going to burn holes into the back of her head" he let out a soft huff of amusement as the boy looked back over at him, an incredulous look on his face "I'm not brooding, I just don't like her" Remus had that look on his face, the kind of look that said yeah that's totally it. The boy shook his head leaving the over dramatic boy to continue his not brooding session.

Y/n knew Sirius was glaring, she could feel his eyes on her as soon as she sat down with Lily. She tried to ignore it, instead choosing to focus on her conversation with said girl about their breaks, the muggle born witch always asked about the balls and events Y/n went to. Neither minded talking about it, Lily got an inside view of what rich and exclusive Pure Blood gatherings were like and Y/n was able to boast about the overly expensive dresses and jewellery she wore to each event and how pretty she felt in them. She was able to ignore the glaring eyes that seemed almost harsh enough to feel in her skull, until Lily had pointed it out "you know Sirius has been staring at you this entire time" the Slytherin didn't spare a glance at the mentioned boy "I'm well aware, he's been doing that a lot lately, I have no idea why" she let out a scoff at the end of her sentence. As much as she liked to talk about every little detail that happened during her break to Lily. The one thing she just so happened to leave out was the meeting between both her family and the Blacks. When Y/n's left hand combed through her hair brushing it back giving Sirius a perfect view of the beautiful ring he had come to hate, and of course he had taken it as a personal insult, as if she was flaunting the expensive jewel on her finger to dig the knife deeper into him. And that kind of insult wasn't something he had taken very lightly as something seemed to snap inside him, the black haired boy stood up abruptly walking over to the two girls "may I have a word with you l/n" his stormy grey eyes filled with hatred and disgust met the dull and harsh eyes of the girl he stared down, awaiting an answer from her. "With all due respect Black I'm currently busy" despite the two seeming to hate each other's guts, they always still acted formal with each other, years of being raised by pure blood families leaving its mark on the two teens."Yes well it's a very urgent matter Y/n" at the use of her first name she sighed and stood from her seat next to Lily, Sirius had only ever seemed to use her first name when he was beyond angry at her "i'll be back soon Lily" the girl just smiled and nodded joining the conversation with the rest of the marauders as Sirius dragged her away. Remus noticed the tight grip his friend had on the girl's wrist, he felt a tinge of worry creeping up on him, though he seemed to be the only one who noticed, not even Lily had noticed how Sirius pulled away the girl she was just talking to a second ago. Remus knew he was overly perceptive sometimes to his own detriment, so he softly interrupted the group's chatter with the excuse of going to the bathroom. Only to follow the two teens who had just left, stopping just before turning the corner peeking over slightly to see the people he was looking for.

Sirius had cornered Y/n against the wall, not wanting to let her leave until he spoke to her "do you seriously have to wear that stupid ring everywhere" he scoffed down at her, disgust clear in his voice. The Slytherin rolled her eyes at the boy "my parents wanted me to, it's not like I could say no to them, you know what will happen if Regulus finds out you're not wearing yours, do you really want your parents to find out" it was now Sirius's turn to roll his eyes "that doesn't mean you have to flaunt it around and keep reminding me of it" the girls face morphed from slightly irritated to furious "Excuse me! You think I'm flaunting it, as if I ever wanted this, as if I like this any more than you do!" Her voice kept rising in octaves as she yelled at the boy in front of her. "All I'm saying is you seem far too comfortable wearing that to be too upset about it" he leaned down into her face, it was clear to Y/n he was trying to intimidate her, there was a pause of silence before a loud slap rang out in the empty corridor they had found themselves in. Sirius's hand shooting up to hold his now reddening and sore face "you prick! Stop speaking to me like that, as if you know anything about me, it's like you think it's my life's dream to be betrothed and bear children to some moronic teenage boy I hate, simply to uphold our stupid pure-blood lineage!" Sirius was too stunned to speak, he didn't know if it was because of the slap, the angry words the usually quiet girl had yelled at him, or the tears that were now violently streaming down her face. Y/n turned away from him, face red and hot from her anger and tears, in doing so she had locked eyes with none other than Remus Lupin who was standing at the end of the corridor in shock only slightly out of view, both their eyes widening as their eyes locked. Y/n letting out a shocked gasp had alerted Sirius, whose head shot over to look at Remus, the tall Werewolf looking between the two, a slight bit of fear etched on his face at being caught. He looked down "sorry, I didn't mean to overhear anything, I was just worried about you" he didn't say who exactly he was talking about, eyes locking onto the floor. Though Remus himself didn't know who he was talking about either, only looking up when he heard the sudden movement of feet, watching as Y/n shoved Sirius away from her. Finally being freed from against the wall, she took off in the other direction, unable to contain her violent sobbing. Remus looked awkwardly at Sirius as he slowly made his way over, the taller boy staying still in his spot "you can't tell the others about this, can you promise me that Moony?" Remus seemed shocked, while he looked at Sirius. He seemed so vulnerable and scared, almost weak even as a few tears leaked down his face "I- I promise… I won't tell anyone anything" he gently put his hand on Sirius's shoulder. Said boy leaned into the touch of his friend, he sniffled slight before speaking "thank you Remus"

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the5n00k · 4 months

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An observation about TGAMM The End

Big big spoilers ahead, click away if you aren't caught up

This is also my first NEGATIVE TGAMM analysis post! Wowie! So if you don't want to see me bitch, also click off now

The End and how Molly McGee's character was disrespected

The End is. An episode. I have many MANY thoughts about it but it would be far too long to put in one post so I'm going to explore one of my more reoccurring opinions. This episode recontextualized a lot of things but I'm going to talk about how it recontextualized Molly as a character. Most importantly as a MAIN character. A TITLE character. A character with her own past and personality and feelings. All of which this episode completely stomped all over, handed her the check, and said "figure it out"

I want to apologize to my friend who called this so SO much earlier into the series and that he had to listen to me watch this show on lethal amounts of copium. You were right but I knew neither of us wanted you to be.

Now let's get into the meat of it, shall we?

All throughout season 1, Molly's history and relationship with the concept of friends is always treated with complete sincerity and the emotional pause it needs to sink in with the audience that she's been through it. Moving away and leaving friends is why she put so much importance on the "forever home" in the first place because she's had to leave so many people she loved. She had a rocky beginning with Scratch during the early season but quickly became on equal footing with him as they began to understand each other and their boundaries. Because she genuinely cares about him. Similarly, season 2 explores the boundaries of their friendship and shows Scratch more willing to participate in whatever Molly is doing, even begging sometimes to be included. And Molly is very patient and kind with him all throughout trying to help him regain memories of his past. And Scratch actually reciprocated a few times like helping her learn Thai and working with Libby to set her up with Ollie. They're the closest they've ever been and something I can confidently call true best friends, possibly the closest and healthiest friendship I've seen portrayed in media. Season 2 showcases how far either of them are willing to go to help each other.

Then The End happened.

Molly is the same understanding and supportive friend as she had been all season, almost to a fault. She encourages scratch to go back to his life, knowing the risks that come with it. Why did there need to be the risk of forgetting her when his spirit didn't immediately forget his living life? Don't know. Something to do with an unreleased episode although I doubt the rest of season 3 would have sweetened my opinion of this episode. Only she knew he was about to do this, she didn't talk to any of his other friends or family before he went out to Todd's house. They only found out after the fact and the next morning is when he left. None of them had any time to process that they just lost a family member, especially not Molly.

The scene where he's talking to her on the bench breaks my heart. Knowing your friend is no longer there and is replaced with this stranger. So much of this episode would have been fixed to just let him keep his memories. Considering how hard it was to pull his living memories out of his spirit, it's very likely that even the small fragments of her he remembers will slowly fade away. She had to do the one thing she never wanted to do again and repeat the same pain that's plagued her for the entire series. And it sucks! Why doesn't she get a happy ending? Hell, I'm not even convinced this was a "happy ending" for scratch since he can't remember any of the people he just spent the last two years with.

The biggest slap to the face is when Libby, Geoff, and the McGees come up behind Molly and just act like all of this is fine? They're treating scratch like this wild animal that deserved to be released into the wild because he could never fit in with society when he was PERFECTLY HAPPY with the McGees. He proudly displayed to the entire ghost world that he was an "honorary McGee" and told a ghost hunter to his face that him and Molly would do anything for each other despite their differences. Was all of that completely pointless? Because it sure feels that way. He had this entire new "life" he just completely abandoned because oh I guess I'm not really dead. Guess I better go reconnect with my childhood friend I haven't seen in person or had any meaningful conversations with in decades!!! See ya, chumps, hope you weren't attached to me or anything!

It's so disrespectful to the audience's investment in Molly and Scratch's friendship, the themes of friendship overcoming all odds and lasting forever, and Molly as a character. And to a lesser degree, it's even disrespectful to Scratch since most of the season he spent brooding over the fact that he didn't remember his past! Now he's forgotten a large portion of his "life" all over again. Now he's going to have to live with this nagging itch at the back of his mind that he's forgetting something until he manages to completely repress it too. And to rub salt in the wound, the credits don't have near sight nor mention of Molly McGee outside of a painted portrait of her and (spirit) scratch. All this does is tell me a LONG time has passed and neither of them have managed to successfully contact each other. The dream team is gone, this is a story about a girl and a ghost and none of it meant anything.

"he'll remember when he dies again!" Where does it say that

"he didn't forget, he said Moll! That means something!" The longer he spends away from the McGees and Brighton, the more likely he is to completely forget them altogether. The vague memories will eventually fade away and every "forever memory" will be worthless.

"it doesn't matter, this is Scratch's story" then why isn't it called 'scratch and the human girl'? Or 'the scratch show'? Why is Molly a title character if she's nothing but a plot device for his character development.

"Molly had to learn how to say goodbye." No she didn't. She's been doing that her entire life. She's pretty well aware of how to say goodbye. Making her relive 13 years of trauma from the other side of the vehicle doors is not a useful life skill. Pain is not necessary to grow up.

I don't care what the excuse is. This was a terrible ending for both characters and no amount of "he's happy now!" coping from both the fans and the writers is going to get me to see this any other way. If you enjoy the episode, great! I'm happy for you, there's a lot to love in the music and voice acting and breathtaking animation. But none of that could save me from this abysmal attempt at a series finale. I was so viscerally disgusting by this as a finale that I spent a good two days completely nauseous thinking about it. What a disaster. The sad part is I like the story potential! Him reuniting with Adia is what I've wanted for him all season so he could get closure. Molly and Scratch having to say goodbye is heartbreaking but understandable, a lot of shows nowadays end that way and I half expected it. But him completely forgetting the girl he owes his new lease on life to? My gosh it's just a deal breaker. It is such a cruel end for these characters and I cannot wrap my head around why they thought it was a good idea outside of cheap angst.

I wanted to like this episode and I still do. But they just did so much wrong when one thing could change and it would have completely flipped my opinion on the episode and series in general. But what do I know, I'm just a negative nancy.

Anyway idk how to end this off, justice for Molly McGee, Scratch deserved to be called Scratch McGee, kill Todd Mortenson, peace out

#the ghost and molly mcgee #tgamm #tgamm season 2 #tgamm spoilers #molly mcgee #scratch mcgee #anyway so im rewriting this episode in my image #if anyone's interested i may post it #but i also may not idk it features a few things i may need to add context for #but these characters deserve a better ending #a happy ending #fuck you *refinds your family*#btw this is not an attack at the crew or anyone who likes the episode #these are just my thoughts #signing off

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 3 months

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WIBTA if I played the last game by myself? to find it-> 🎮👾🕹️

So I [26NB] and three of my friends have been playing this game series for a while now it’s been probably a little under a year at this point that we’ve been chugging through these games (there’s, I believe, five games in total with a spin off and each game has multiple parts/chapters). We’ve been setting aside a day every week depending on our work and life availability to play through it. Normally getting a chapter a night or half a chapter depending on the length. Of course not every week we can do it cause of life and that's totally fine.

A little extra info on the games because I find it relevant. So the first game I actually played by myself cause the other three started without me (this was their thing they planned and invited me into later when I showed interest in the game) and I spent that time working to catch up to where they were in the game so I could join them. I did have a lot of fun playing the game as the game play is just as fun as the story to me and even when I get stuck the walk throughs are really easy to read and helpful. I'm not known for my gaming and actually watch playthroughs for stuff instead of plaything them myself cause I just all around suck at video games but this is one of the few games I like playing personally.

Once I played through the first game I hopped onboard the group plays with the other three to hang out and play together. Two of the friends have already played the whole series (lets call ‘em Lucy and Zeref) and know all the story where me and the third friend (let's call them Gray) didn't know anything at all about the series before we started playing. Part of the joy of these games for the both of us is getting to experience the exciting story in real time. As these games actually have a fairly large following and are pretty popular but some how both of us have gone most our lives with little to no spoilers for the series. This game is also full of crazy twists and turns that are VERY exciting to experience live.

Because of this fact I've also spent so much effort and time staying away from spoilers but still trying to interact with the fandom which is where not impossible just kinda frustrating cause there's a lot of art and fics and convos I'm missing out of because of it. I've even made another friend outside of this small group who ALSO likes these games but we don't talk about them much cause they're afraid of spoiling things for me by accident. Which, while very kind of them, is also in it's own way kinda frustrating.

We are currently on the fourth game and, honestly I've been thinking about just playing the last game and the spin off by myself at this point. There's two reasons for this. The first is that the games are just dragging on far too much to be fun anymore for me. I think it’s a mix of the fact that this fourth game is apparently one of, if not the, longest in the series and also that because of scheduling changes our weekly get togethers are much shorter now. Both of these factors causing us to take much longer to get through the chapters and this game. It’s really making it much harder to enjoy and even my roommate last week said I looked really tired and seemed burnt out during the session. It also doesn’t help that these meetups are online so I also don’t get to physically play the game myself and I can’t just ask to have the controller for a bit cause all of us are states away.

The other part to this is that, honestly, me and these friends have not been talking as much. Something happened around the time we started the fourth game where I had a bunch of huge life changing events happen to me and I was severely depressed and grieving because of it. Due to some mixed up emotions on all sides and miscommunication, we had a hiccup in our friendship. There was a moment where I was genuinely scared of losing them but we talked it out like adults and things were better. However, ever since then it really does feel like the three of them talk a lot less to me now. I, at first, believed it was just my imagination. I do have some issues with my perception of reality due to mental heath but I always keep a very strong foot on the ground and go to people when I really feel like I can’t tell if I’m being crazy or not. So I chalked it up to me having a Moment(™) and just kept on like nothing was wrong. I even threw myself into DMs and out a lot more to try and make up for it. Instead of hiding away and being sad I tried to get them to interact with me more by really engaging in our friendships and chats. Unfortunately this hasn’t really helped the feeling of growing separation and light (possibly even unconscious) ignoring on their parts and I’m really feeling weighed down by it these days. It’s making these sessions even harder for me because no matter how much fun I have with them it makes the silence outside of the calls even more hollow and gut wrenching.

A while back I did actually go to Gray and talk about my feelings mostly towards the way us playing the game is taking so long and causing burn out, and even suggested that instead of leaving the game nights completely, just playing the rest of them on my own and still hopping in with them when they do it. Gray was really sad with this cause they really enjoyed how both of us were going in blind together and they didn’t wanna be the only one who didn’t know anything while everyone else did. I understand that and felt really bad so I kept playing with them as a group. But the above feelings just got worse and worse.

To top it off, Lucy has stopped coming to the game nights all together and I don’t really know why. As far as I’m aware they haven’t said anything at least not publicly in our chat about it and I didn’t feel it my place to pry. They also just haven’t been talking in the chat at all which feels extra bad cause I’ve always felt closest to Lucy and Gray at the end of the day. I’ve been chatting with Lucy in DMs here and there and they never seem disinterested in our conversation or like they no longer wanna be friends or anything. But it’s still really saddening as I am not really the DM type of person and am better at interacting in group chats and the like. So I feel like our already dying friendship is just going down hill faster.

I just really wanna play the games and get it over with. I miss being able to play them physically and these game nights are starting to just worsen my mood as we go. I’m really not sure what to do cause I know Gray (and probably Zeref a little too) will be real upset if I drop out completely or if I play ahead of them. A part of me almost thought about playing the games in secret and pretending like I didn’t to spare their feelings and still make it fun for them and relieve all this stress off myself which I don’t know if that would be better or worse

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

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samynnad102687 · 25 days

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A New Pet

@struttingstag

April 30 Prompt: A New Pet | Jegulus | 1888 words

James wanted to do something special for Regulus' birthday but he didn't know what to do. He knew that Regulus didn't really like parties and hated surprise ones even more so that was out. He could get him something but what? Regulus had a lot of jewellery already and James didn't want to get him a new ring until he got him that ring, which he was already planning for but that was a whole other decision.

"Ugh," James threw his hands up in the air as he sunk further into the couch.

"What?" Sirius asked from beside him.

"I don't know what to get Reg for his birthday."

"Oh, yeah I can't help you there. Reggie typically hates what I get him," Sirius laughed lightly.

"Yeah, because you keep trying to piss him off with your gifts. I swear your goal is for him to tell you not to bother anymore."

James glanced over at his best friend who looked like he was trying not to confirm that that was his plan.

"You are, aren't you," James asked as he pointed at Sirius in indignation.

"Not really. I just want to see if he will actually tell me that he doesn't like them," Sirius shrugged.

"I'll be sure to let him know when I get home," James deadpanned before he stood up.

Regulus would be getting home from work shortly and James wanted to grab dinner on the way home. Maybe he would come up with an idea on his walk. He still had a week to figure it out though. Sirius only lived ten minutes away from James and Regulus and there was a small family-owned cafe in between them.

"Are you leaving already? You just got here," Sirius complained.

"I've been here for five hours," James laughed.

He came over after lunch and they spent the rest of the time watching movies and just hanging out like they used to when they were teenagers.

"Besides, I need to sober up a little before I get home. I really don't want another lecture from your brother about getting drunk in the middle of the afternoon."

"You are twenty-six years old. You're allowed to drink if you want to. What's he gonna do anyway? Make you sleep on the couch?"

"If I'm lucky. He threatened to kick me out of the house last time I came home drunk. Said if I was more concerned with getting plastered with you than remembering that we were supposed to go to a dinner party with a couple of his colleagues then I could just stay with you."

"Well, it's not my fault that you forgot." Sirius shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly.

"The hell it isn't." James scoffed. "If I remember correctly, I told you that I couldn't drink but you decided to be dramatic about not having anyone to drink with since Remus was out of town. You basically guilt-tripped me into it."

"Meh."

James grabbed the pillow and smacked Sirius in the face with it before he stuck out his tongue and ran out the door. He could hear Sirius' shriek about messing up his hair as he left but James was too far down the street for him to attempt to chase him down for it. James slowed down his steps as he rounded the corner and saw the cafe in sight. He would grab a coffee for himself to sober up and dinner for both of them. Regulus had been stressed at work lately and James didn't want to add to it by making him think that he needed to cook dinner too.

"Hey, Andy," James beamed when he walked up to the counter.

"Hey, James. Picking up?"

"Yeah. The usual, please and a coffee while I wait, if it's not too much trouble."

"Not at all. Does Reg know that you were drinking with Sirius again?"

"No. He knew I was going over there but then again I didn't know I was gonna be drinking until I got there," James replied with a shrug. "How did you know?"

"You only ask for coffee after you've been with my cousin."

"Oh."

Andy laughed before she handed him a coffee and went to the back to put in the order. James found a seat at an empty table by the window. He liked to watch everybody who walked past on the quiet street. Although, it was busier around dinner time when everybody was getting off work. As he was watching, he saw the cutest black cat across the street and it seemed like it was watching him too. Maybe Regulus would like a cat for his birthday. He had mentioned wanting one as a kid but his parents wouldn't let them have any pets.

A little while later, Andy came back out with his food. James paid and bid her farewell before he finished walking home. When he left, the cat was gone and he was a little sad that he didn't get to pet it. It didn't take long to get home after picking up dinner and the coffee definitely helped sober him up enough that he could get away with saying he only had a beer or two.

"Reg?" James called when he entered their modest two-story house.

"In the office," Regulus called back and James smiled.

He brought the food to the kitchen and set it on the counter before he went to the office. Regulus was standing at his desk and looked like he was trying to figure out the cure for world hunger as he stared at the papers in front of him. James leaned against the doorframe for a minute before he entered and wrapped his arms around Regulus' waist.

"Hey, love," James whispered into Regulus' hair when he relaxed back into James' arms.

"Hey."

"What are you working on?"

"Just this stupid deposition that they insisted needed to be finished tonight so I brought it home instead of staying at the office."

"Oh." James kissed him on the top of his head before he turned him in his arms. "They work you too hard, love."

"Yeah, well. It's a part of the job, Jamie."

"Hmm, maybe. I just don't want you to get too stressed out before you make partner."

"I won't be, not as long as you're here to help me destress," Regulus smirked suggestively.

"There is that," James mused with a light chuckle. "Maybe after dinner though. I picked up Andy's"

"Good. I'm starving and didn't feel like cooking. How is Andy?"

"She seems good. I didn't stay long."

"And how is my brother?" Regulus asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Sirius is... well, Sirius," James said with a shrug.

"Hmm. And how much did you drink this time?"

James looked at him for a second and wondered how he knew before he shook his head. He figured that Regulus just knew everything and he just had to live with that, not that he was really complaining. James sighed.

"I don't know," James responded honestly. "A few I think, but Sirius was making them strong this time. How did you know we were drinking?"

"Would you believe me if I said I just know?"

"Honestly, yeah but seriously, how?"

"Sirius told me he wanted to see if he could get you to try some new drinks," Regulus said with a shrug before he kissed James on the lips.

"Of course, he did. Would have been nice if he told me that you already knew?"

"I told him not to tell you."

"That's not fair."

"Oh well." Regulus shrugged nonchalantly before he wiggled out of James' arms and headed for the door. "You passed, by the way," Regulus said as he threw a smirk back at James.

It took James a little longer than it should have to figure out what he was talking about, but when he did he was both shocked and not shocked all at the same time. It wasn't the first time the brothers wanted to test him about something. Although, James wasn't sure why they were testing him now.

James left the office and Regulus was in the kitchen, pulling out the food and dishing up the plates. He handed one to James and they sat at the table in comfortable silence for a little bit before James couldn't take it anymore and had to ask.

"Why were you testing me this time? Did I do something?"

"No, you didn't. It's nothing bad, I just wanted to see if you would lie to me."

James wanted to ask more but something in Regulus' tone suggested that it would be better to not ask any more questions about it. He learned that tone a few years ago after he pushed Regulus too much and ended up on the couch for three days.

"So, what do you want for your birthday?" James asked, changing the subject.

"I don't know. I like everything that you get me," Regulus replied with a small shy smile.

No matter how long they have been together, eight years, James would never get tired of that smile. Honestly, he would never get tired of any of Regulus' smiles but that one was always more pure than the rest.

"Okay."

James had thought about it all week and he was sure that Regulus would love the gift that he got him. James was sitting on the couch when Regulus came home from work. He was watching something on the telly and pretending like it was any other day. James had given Regulus a small gift that morning and figured Regulus would probably think that was all he was getting him this year.

"You're up to something," Regulus remarked after he toed off his boots and stared at James.

"Why would you think that?"

"You're too quiet."

Well, shit.

"Hmm. I was just thinking," James mused.

"About?"

"Something for dinner. I was thinking we could go out tonight."

"Can we do it a different day?" Regulus asked with a sigh. "I'm tired."

"Yeah, that's fine. Why don't you go lie down and I'll whip something up for dinner and bring it to you."

Regulus stared at James for another minute before he shook his head. "Okay."

He walked towards their bedroom and James waited for a minute before he got up to follow. When he made it to their bedroom, Regulus was standing in the doorway and staring at the bed.

"I thought you were going to lie down, love," James said with a slight smirk but he changed it to a gentle smile when Regulus turned around.

"I was but it seems that something has claimed our bed."

"Oh, yeah. I forgot to tell you that your birthday present was on the bed."

"What?"

James walked around Regulus and picked up the small black kitten that was curled up on the pillow. He brought her over to Regulus who instinctively reached up to pet her.

"You got me a kitten?" Regulus asked with awe coating his tone and James could see the tears welling up in his eyes.

"Yeah," James said nervously. "Do you like her?"

"I love her."

Regulus kissed James on the lips before he took the kitten from his arms and cuddled her in his own.

"What's her name?"

"Luna."

Also posted on Ao3: Regulus' Birthday Surprise

#marauders fandom #dead gay wizards #regulus arcturus black #james fleamont potter #marauders fanfiction #regulus x james #sirius orion black

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youremyheaven · 1 month

Note

Hello, Purva bhadrapada, Leo stellium native here, I also wanted to add that I think purva bhadrapada, since it is Brahmin caste is probably more prone to this, then punarvasu and finally vishaka, who in my experience is the most materially/self interested Jupiter nakshatra, which is why we see it in so many celebrities compared to the other two, especially purva bhadrapada.

I've always been at the role of teacher/smart one since I was a little girl, I've always been a bit parentified and I think that comes out a lot in my relationships with nodals, since I'm the one who has to keep things in control, now that we are on the topic, I'm gonna trauma dump about my Magha sun, mula moon friend 😭

I don't want to bad mouth her since I do still have affection for her, but this woman put me through so much. One time she face timed me whilst she was drinking, she got so drunk and then started driving! She face timed me whilst she was drunk driving talking about how sad she was, all whilst I could hear all the dangerous turns she was making, so I called her mom to come get her, I couldn't do it myself cause I live too far away. The next day she wouldn't stop complaining about how pissed she was that I called her mom on her, talking about how she got in trouble, but what was I supposed to do? WATCH HER DIE ON CAMERA?! She made me the villain and not our other friend who she also face timed, who is also nodal.

Another time, she was dating this dude and SHE ALWAYS DID WHATEVER HE SAID FOR NO REASON, one time we were all hanging out as friends, a whole ass group of people, and this girl started sucking this mans dick in front of us 💀😭 like they were not slick in the slightest, I caught sight of it and then I tried to politely tell them to stop before the others noticed, she did not stop and others caught them, to which they all collectively said "Wtf? Stop please" AND THEN SHE COMPLAINED TO ME ABOUT THIS? HOW DO YOU WANT ME TO TAKE YOUR SIDE? 💀

Another time, I was really busy with some work but she texted me about how suicidal she was feeling and how she wanted to attempt, I stayed with her the whole night trying to talk her out of it until she just stopped talking to me all together, I panicked and spent hours debating whether to call someone, since I don't know if she really attempted something, but I didn't want her to be mad at me again. It was one of the most anxious nights of my life. Eventually, she called me and said she was fine 💀 I SPENT ALL THAT TIME WORRIED AND SHE DIDNT SAY ANYTHING! that was my breaking point and I just cut contact with her after that

The worst part of all of this is that she never took any interest in my emotions or any of the problems I had, in all the years of friendship we had I only opened up to her twice and I regretted it immensely both times. She never took any time to take care of me, and would always accuse me of telling her what to do after giving her advice THAT SHE ASKED FOR!

Anyway 💀 yeah it was traumatizing

💀💀💀💀 I'm glad you've cut her out

My Swati Sun, Magha Rising ex was somewhat like this. He texted me saying he's having a panic attack and does not know what to do (at like midnight) and then after I text & call him mad worried, he does not respond. He texts me back the next day afternoon saying that "it was just a spur of the moment thing, I'm alright" like wtf??? He always kept me on edge with his mental health stuff and I was always made to feel like I'm on suicide watch only for him to turn around and be like "oh I'm over it now bc I've drunk away the last thought I had in my head"

He once video called me at 8 in the fucking morning because he wanted company while he smoked

Let me just say that there was a clear imbalance in our relationship bc I had to watch out for him while he did batshit stuff and I could never do the things he did and expect him to have played the supportive role 😒

There was another Magha Moon girl I used to know who completely did unhinged shit, she jumped from man to man every week (not slut shaming, just pointing out poor choices) in India, the arranged marriage system prevails and she received a proposal from some 5'2 30 yr old (when we were like 21) who was loaded 💸and her family rejected the proposal and she was already dating some deadbeat loser. Guess what she did after she broke up with the deadbeat loser many months later?? She started talking to the 30yr old guy who came to her house with a marriage proposal 😭and literally 2-3 weeks later he publicly announced his desire to marry her at the wedding of a mutual relative and she said "I'm not interested in marrying you" PUBLICLY, it was super shameful for the families and all parties involved bc like ??? what on earth was she thinking??? he made his intentions clear from the get go??? did she think she could hook up and rebound with the guy who contacted her family with a goddamn marriage proposal??? and she played the victim when in reality throughout their 3 week tryst she led him on and on and on, why didn't she say she would never ever marry someone like him?? so embarrassing lol

There was a Magha Moon guy who I had mutual friends with and he's a complete deadbeat loser. He hasn't finished his degree (he was my senior at uni) he's broke as hell and all he does is go on road trips and drink till he drops and he had the audacity to ask my friends if I'd be interested in seeing him and I was like 🤢🤮ew no and he literally repeated this process every month no joke. He's asked me out more times than I can count, he's made our friends ask me on his behalf a billion times and I'm like ??? how oblivious or lacking in self awareness do you have to be?? He always told them that he thought I was "hiding" my interest in him 🤮🤢🤭so idk I feel like Nodals can be supremely delulu

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dcawritings · 5 months

Text

Twinkle Twinkle (Little Star)

Rating: Teen

Relationship: Eclipse/GN!Reader

Summary:

In the quiet emptiness of the hallway, it's all too easy to get lost in your own thoughts. You stare down at the collection of items in your hands with only the soft echo of Christmas music coming from the end of the hall leading to the living room — soothing, but distant. It has been playing since you woke up earlier that day and the sound has all but fallen into the background of the afternoon chill. (A story in which you get ready for Christmas with post-ruin Eclipse and slowly realize that you love him.)

Author's Note:

While this may be a little late for a traditional christmas fic, this is for @murasaki-rose from the DCA Secret Santa 2023 event! I hope that you find this as cute and fluffy as I did while writing it -- Eclipse is an absolute sweetheart and I love any excuse to write him being domestic :3c Thank you also to @solar-synapse for all the feedback to help make sure this piece was as polished as I wanted it to be! ;w; Your advice and writing help is invaluable!

In the quiet emptiness of the hallway, it's all too easy to get lost in your own thoughts.

You stare down at the collection of items in your hands with only the soft echo of Christmas music coming from the end of the hall leading to the living room — soothing, but distant. It has been playing since you woke up earlier that day and the sound has all but fallen into the background of the afternoon chill.

In one of your hands are several old shopping bags stuffed with ribbons, tape and various other supplies for wrapping gifts that you've accumulated over the years. In the other is a relatively small bundle of multicolored lights that have seen far better days. The strands are criss-crossed over one another in giant knots of plastic and unlit bulbs. Is it worth it to untangle them...?

Normally, your answer might have been a solid 'no'.

It isn't because you dislike the holidays or the activities related to them (absolutely not!) but simply because you rarely have a need to pull much out. Ever since moving to this apartment on your own, you didn't exactly have much of a reason to decorate for the holidays — less so after leaving the Pizzaplex when bills got heavier on your shoulders and another job offered higher pay. It was an at-home job doing database work, but... you missed seeing other people. With friends and family so far away, it meant a lot to have even a stupid little holiday party with faces you were somewhat familiar with, even if the pizza and copious amounts of Fizzy Faz served were convenient tax write-offs.

The last two Christmases were spent alone, so you never bothered to pull out much more than a small, cheap tree and some ornaments to decorate its scraggly limbs. It wasn't lonely per se, but...

A loud crash pulls you out of your thoughts. Dropping everything in your hands, you run out of the closet and immediately start to think the worst. There are plenty of boxes in the room you'd sent Eclipse to look through, and if he managed to topple them all...

"Are you okay?" you call out, hurrying down the hallway to find where your housemate had been rummaging through the rest of your old decorations. Worry starts to well up in your chest when you don't get an answer. "... Eclipse?"

"Y-Yes yes! I am alright!" a familiar, bright voice all but chirps before stepping around the corner. He looks entirely unfazed, outside of being covered in several long strings of Christmas lights and smiling like an idiot. "There was a lot of stuff to go through in your office — you had lots of boxes stacked up veeery precariously! But don't worry-"Eclipse gestures to the big tub of loosely packed ornaments he holds like a treasure. "-we made sure these didn't hit the ground!"

Relief flickers across your face for a moment before you start to laugh, the sound filling the air around you and echoing within the snug space of the hallway.

"Oh, those are all plastic ornaments," you say, patting one of Eclipse's arms. "It will take more than a little fall to break them. I think I keep the good ornaments in my bedroom closet."

Eclipse peers down at the container in his arms, then tilts his head curiously. It isn't hard for the animatronic to look endearing, but the fact that he is entirely covered in tangled lights is only making it worse. You reach out and gently try to remove the strands caught between his rays.

"I assume you found all..." you gesture at his entire body and the lights dangling over his face. "All this in there too?"

"Yup!" he nods, smile never fading. "The lights were on top of the box in a big big bundle and... well, it fell down, but we saved these since we thought they were important..."

His expression droops for a moment, but you gently pat the side of Eclipse's faceplate. His eyes lift and meet with yours and, for a breath, you feel your heart begin to race. It takes several seconds before you realize that your fingertips are lingering against the cool metal. You pull them away abruptly, heat spreading across your cheeks.

"That... was very considerate of you," you say with a smile, words honest and praying that he wasn't paying too much attention to the fact that you couldn't quite meet his glowing gaze. "I haven't actually pulled these out in a few years. I... I think they'd look really nice on the tree, if you want to help with that."

The animatronic instantly beams with joy and sprints to the living room before you even have a moment to try and untangle the lights from his body.

Christmas Eve comes and goes with very little fanfare, a lovely and peaceful evening spent in the company of someone you cherish. A friend — and nothing different, though your mind often wandered back to the moment of brief intimacy shared in the hallway; the way your eyes met with his like a spark of electricity, and your heart felt all too tight in your chest.

Just friends. Companions of fate so tightly bound together that you still wonder what possessed you all those months ago to climb through the crumbling skeleton of the old Pizzaplex.

Was it guilt? Curiosity? You'll never quite know the answer, since whatever compelled you was quickly overwhelmed by the shock of seeing the daycare attendant still functioning. Mostly functioning.

You and Eclipse spend the evening together in the living room, gazing at the tree and reminiscing about inconsequential memories of the old Pizzaplex and daycare alike. It was unknown for a while after taking him home if Eclipse could even access Sun and Moon's memory; he explained early on that he himself was something of a backup subsystem, almost like booting up a computer in a safety mode to diagnose errors and issues plaguing it otherwise.

It had been awkward for a month or so, but the two of you grew close rather quickly — especially once time allowed memories and personality quirks to seep into Eclipse's own sense of self: Moon's soft but mischievous nature, Sun's near-overwhelming need to be helpful. It shouldn't have been surprising how they fit so well together, but you still often found yourself wondering about how it all worked inside of the animatronic's mind.

You take a slow, careful sip of the hot drink in your hands. It's sweet, the aroma filling the air as you raise it up to your lips and let its flavor settle over your tongue. It's a nice contrast to the stark chill outside your apartment, making its heat feel all the more comforting as you stare at the tree.

"I think we did a good job!" you finally say, tilting your head just slightly to the side. "And the ornaments are only a liiiitle crooked."

"Are they?" Eclipse asks, tone sounding almost worried as he brings a hand up to the lower half of his faceplate. "We can adjust them again if you think-"

"Eclipse no, no I don't-" you laugh, managing to reach an arm out to keep the bot from moving off the couch beside you without choking on your drink. "It was just a joke. Promise. Besides, it's nicer if things aren't perfect."

He looks at you, silent for a few moments, then slowly leans back into the couch again. That's Sun for you, eager as always to jump and fix a problem...

The lights twinkle in multicolored splendor across the deep green of the fake tree, accented by bits and bobs of ornaments you had collected over the years — many of them were hand-made, either gifted by friends or given to you by the children of the daycare back when you managed that part of the facility. While time has blurred the memories, there are still a couple you can remember clearly, though that might be due to the fact that the ornaments are labeled with the kids' names in various colors of marker, paint and glitter glue.

"Pretty..."

Eclipse's soft whisper catches your attention and makes you giggle. "Yeah," you nod in agreement, turning and looking towards him. "The lights are really-"

Oh. He'd been looking at you.

Both of your gazes lock together for a moment before the bot averts his eyes quickly, the entire exchange only taking a moment or two but feeling almost like an eternity as heat rises up into your cheeks for a second time that day.

"I uh." You try to collect your thoughts, then nod towards the tree. "I think you did a good job on getting those lights untangled! I would have just tossed them out."

Eclipse hums, gaze trailing towards the tree. "Thank you," he says. "It wasn't too hard to do! Just takes time to unravel everything properly."

You feel impressed for a few moments before remembering that Eclipse — Sun and Moon, to be specific — are likely programmed with enough patience to tolerate such a herculean feat. When compared to dealing with a horde of small children on a daily basis, untangling a few sets of Christmas lights is nothing more than child's play (pun certainly not intended).

You sip your drink silently, trying not to think about how gently he had looked at you.

The evening is peaceful and sweet.

"Merry Christmas!"

Eclipse's voice is a bright ray of warmth amidst the frigid backdrop of winter.

You almost don't see him as you step into the room, bleary eyes blinking away the last drops of sleep; you might have slept a few hours longer if Eclipse hadn’t sent you a flurry of text messages begging you to wake up.

The bot looks at you from the other side of the couch, rays twitching with excitement. He leans forward on his knees as if eagerly waiting for your reply.

"Merry Christmas to you too, buddy," you murmur with a smile. After a moment, you narrow your gaze and raise a brow. "Have you been... sitting there all night?"

"Not all night," he corrects, glowing eyes glancing off to the side. "We needed to spend an hour or so in the kitchen to charge, but... well, we were just too excited! We want to open open open the presents under the tree!"

He shifts more onto the couch, making your face crane upwards to keep his gaze. It's easy to forget how tall Eclipse is when he's almost constantly hunching over or sitting on the floor beside you. He's simply excited, so the looming shadow overhead is hardly frightening even as he claps his hands together with a loud metallic thunk.

"And we want to watch you open your present too!"

The gesture brings a smile to your still-tired lips. Glancing behind him at the multicolored shapes sitting innocently beneath the belighted tree, you have to wonder, what in the world could he have gotten for you? It's not as if Eclipse has the ability to leave the house to purchase a gift, and you haven’t noticed him working on anything recently...

Curiosity wins out in the end, though you wouldn’t be able to deny the over-enthusiastic animatronic such a simple joy for long, especially not with that adorable, pleading look on his faceplate.

After all, had the animatronics of the Pizzaplex ever truly been able to celebrate the holidays? Outside of trying to sell something, of course — the Fazbear Corporation wasn't one to let a chance at profit slip away from them so easily — you don't recall there ever being a lot of opportunities for Sun or Moon to get into the spirit of things themselves.

Sure, there were special crafts for the kids and a change in the decorations strewn about the facility, but… In a way, this really is Eclipse's first ever Christmas.

"Let me get something warm to drink," you finally say, smile never dropping from your lips at the thought. "And then we can open presents, m’kay?"

The bot's excited shouts echo into the kitchen as you step through the archway separating the rooms. It doesn't take very long to prepare something hot to sip on, yet by the time you return to the living room, Eclipse is already sitting beside the tree and staring intently at the wrapped gifts beneath it.

"They're not going anywhere," you tease as you step around him and sit down on the couch. The cushions sink pleasantly beneath your weight, soft and warm, and it's only then that you realize just how cold the air feels; you’ll have to get up in a bit to make sure your heater isn't acting up again. "You'll survive waiting just a little bit longer, you dork."

It's hard not to feel amused by the way Eclipse looks at you, annoyed and restless, so much like a child told to be patient. He's all but leaning against the side of the tree, waiting for the first syllable of permission to grab the golden-wrapped box nearest where he's sitting.

"We've been waiting for exactly ten hours and thirty-seven minutes!" he says pointedly. "And technically you are the one who's late to opening the gifts. I had to wake you up!"

You lift an eyebrow as you sip the hot liquid. "... And what happened to 'not being up all night'?"

Eclipse makes a low, scoffing noise but otherwise doesn't offer an answer. He simply turns his attention back towards the presents and stares at them again, so hard that it's almost like he’s trying to see through the obstructive layers to the gift within.

There's a soft whisper in the back of your head idly musing to itself — how long can Eclipse be patient? You have half a mind to find out, perhaps even making him wait until you’ve finished your drink and gone to check the thermostat, but... No, you're not quite that cruel.

"Alright then," you giggle, setting the mug down and climbing off the couch to sit cross-legged on the floor beside him. "Pick out a gift to open up." Beneath the fake green branches are a variety of boxes decorated in several different kinds of wrapping paper, so you take a moment to direct Eclipse's excitement by pointing them out. "Yours are wrapped in the sparkly gold paper, Sun's is the yellow polka-dot, and Moon's is the dark blue with the little stars."

You'd almost feel a little silly in wrapping their gifts up individually if you didn't already know how much Eclipse appreciated the distinction. Sun and Moon's individual processors and coding are still in self-repair mode, but you like the idea that they could still enjoy the holiday through Eclipse's eyes when they finally ‘wake’ back up.

"Can I... can I open them all?" Eclipse asks, picking up one of the blue boxes and giving it a gentle, experimental shake.

You nod, feeling more and more embarrassed as the words fall from your tongue. "Yeah! I figured that as long as they could like, see through your eyes when you opened the presents that it would... I dunno, I hope I didn't misunderstand when you said you could recall each other's memories..."

"Oh! No, you didn't misunderstand!" Eclipse sets the gift down and reaches out a hand to touch your cheek. The gesture is meant to be reassuring — he tends to use physical touch a lot when comforting someone — but his cool silicone fingertips feel like ice against your searing hot skin. "We just want to make sure we're following correct traditional expectations. On the internet, it said that it's rude to open presents for other people on Christmas."

You blink. Though you feel almost endeared by how sweet and polite he is, a detail sticks out in Eclipse's words that gives you a moment of pause.

"The internet?"

Eclipse's expression freezes. He pulls his hand back after a moment, looking decidedly more sheepish than before as his eyes flick back and forth to little parts of the living room that certainly aren’t as interesting as he makes them seem.

"Eclipse," you say gently. "Since when did you have access to the internet when I’m not around?"

After recovering him from the broken facility, you took every precaution to keep the animatronic safe — and that included the possibility of him getting a virus from a direct connection to your home's internet. Sure, you have a great anti-virus, a strong firewall and VPN since your job requires it, but you aren’t sure what kind of security programs Eclipse himself has onboard his processors.

Though there is a good chance that Fazco outfitted all of their animatronics with something to keep their software safe, you can't take any chances. You know of only one old programmer that had worked on Sun and Moon before the fire. His contact number is safely tucked away on your phone, but you don't want to know how much he'd charge to repair Eclipse if the bot stumbles into the dark corners of the web.

It’s why you prefer to let him use your phone or tablet to amuse himself when you can keep an eye on him. More often than not, Eclipse was entertained by pet videos and video game playthroughs, so it never occurred to you that he’d try to connect himself directly if he had no need to do so.

You must be staring at him pretty hard while everything parses through your brain, because after a few seconds Eclipse starts to tilt his faceplate this way and that, his body language growing jittery in the same way that Sun’s does when he's nervous. Wringing his hands together. Unsure where to let his eyes fall. Anxious.

"We didn't connect directly to the internet, for the record!" the bot finally exclaims. "No broken rules whatsoever! We just..." he pauses, then quickly grabs a box wrapped in red and white-striped paper. You know it's one you didn’t wrap even before seeing the little tag taped in the corner with your name on it.

Though a part of your mind would like to continue questioning his little internet secret, curiosity has been gnawing at everything since he mentioned there was a gift for you. Even if it was little more than a kid's art project, the gesture alone makes you feel almost giddy. He went out of his way to make sure you had something under the tree, even though you had told him many times over that it didn't matter — you have the financial stability to get yourself something nice every now and again, and it was more important that he had something to look forward to. That he got a really nice Christmas experience. For all that Eclipse has been through over the last several months (perhaps even years) it's the least that he deserves right now.

So to be genuinely surprised by a gift is... really nice. It makes something twist up gently in the center of your chest that you can't quite identify.

"Alright, alright," you giggle, shifting so that you can set the box down over your crossed legs and start tearing the thin paper away in long strips. Unsurprisingly, a simple cardboard box lies beneath, easily opened with a few careful tugs at the folded flaps.

Initially, all you can see within is a small mountain of bubble wrap. It takes a few seconds to pull most of it out, but eventually you reveal a shiny metallic form hidden within one last layer of bubble wrap carefully packed around it.

Pulling the item out and unrolling the protective layers, you realize that it's a music box sitting in your palms. It's relatively small — barely larger than a fist — and it looks familiar.

There used to be a gift shop at the Pizzaplex, and this one almost resembles the little music boxes sold there, but not exactly. Those were minuscule things, cheap to produce and capable of playing a thin, tinny version of various jingles heard around the facility, one of them being the Superstar Daycare theme, but… you had really wanted one of them. Silly, yeah, but you often caught yourself thinking ‘I’ll buy one with the next paycheck’ whenever you passed by the shop, and then coming across another bill that needed to be paid first.

This one mimics the overall design of a jack-in-the-box, with a bent handle jutting out of one side and a flat top that looks like it might open up if you start to wind it. A few tiny marks of imperfection speak to it being handmade; the metal is bent a little too much on the edges, and there are places where the paint hasn’t been applied smoothly. It's colored red on one side and a deep navy blue on the other with little stars speckled across the entire thing, though it's the carefully embossed shapes of a sun and crescent moon that catch your attention most.

"It's... beautiful, Eclipse. I love it."

Your words are little more than a soft whisper, stilted despite your attempts to hide the emotions plaguing them. There's something so personable about the gift that you can't quite put a finger on, and it weighs pleasantly heavy in your hands and heart alike.

Movement in the corner of your eye pulls your attention away from the item in your hands. Eclipse has shifted quite a bit closer to you, so much that when you look up, you find his faceplate barely more than a few inches away from your face. He reaches down, one palm cupping around the back of your hands to stabilize the music box while his other hand slowly winds it up. All the while, your thoughts linger over how gentle and large his hands are, practically engulfing yours against his flat palm.

The sweet sound of the daycare jingle fills the air with gentle, dulcet tones.

"We made this," he says so quietly that you might have missed the words if he wasn't so close to you. "It took a long time. You said you liked being in the daycare, that you wanted one of the music boxes so... we thought you'd like to have your own."

There are layers of meaning in those words; nostalgia for a time when things were less lonely, bitterness for the fact you'll never be able to experience it again, and an overwhelming sense of heaviness that you can't begin to decipher properly. What... is this feeling? It makes your chest ache and your eyes start to water, wet heat building up behind your sight until you realize that everything has started to go blurry.

That heat bubbles up until it's too much, then starts to roll down your cheeks in heavy droplets.

Ah. That's what's happening now, huh?

"Eclipse..."

You truly don't mean for your lip to quiver when you say his name. Nor do you mean to look so pathetic when his gaze meets yours — just a few inches of space between you both. Close enough to see the way his mechanical irises twitch and focus.

The bot suddenly freezes in place at the sound of your voice, entire body going stiff as ice for a silent heartbeat before his words start to run into one another.

"O-Oh my— We're— we're so sorry, sorry we didn't mean to make you cry oh goodness no we're so sorry starlight we didn't realize-" He fumbles his hands around yours as if to take the offensive item away, but you wrap your fingers so tightly around the metal shape with firm denial that it almost hurts.

"N-no!" It's hard to sound convincing when tears are actively dripping down your cheeks. "It's okay. I promise. I'm just- It's a really, really sweet gift. I wasn't expecting it to... hah, I'm just a bit more emotional about it than I thought I'd be."

A bit more emotional is a severe understatement, but it's hard to pinpoint why something so simple makes you feel as though your heart is about to burst right from your chest. It takes a moment, holding tight to your assurance and the music box both before Eclipse's body loosens up.

"It's... it's good?"

You nod. "Yeah! It's such a thoughtful gift, you... obviously put a lot of work into it." More work than you thought he'd be able to do, given the fact that you didn't have any metalworking tools available in the house. Or paint. Actually... "How in the world were you able to even make this?"

Eclipse is silent for a moment, still for just a breath before his fingertips begin rubbing idle circles into the back of your hands. He looks sheepish and fidgety again, but this time, you genuinely want to know what he's trying to keep secret and aren’t afraid to push the question.

"Eclipse..."

"So, you know when you take trips into town to do your errands?" he offers after a moment.

You nod. Even while working from home, you still need to get groceries and take care of the random tasks that come up every now and again. "Well, we... We found out that the library down the road has a little workshop. A-and the people who work there are really, really nice!"

Oh.

Oh god.

"You left the house?"

Eclipse immediately lifts his hands and waves them apologetically. "W-We didn't go far! Not far at all, just a few minutes walk away! W-we even made sure it was okay, emailed the librarian and asked if we were allowed to use the workshop!"

You groan. Eclipse is half-right on where your worry lay with him leaving the safety of your house, but he doesn’t seem to grasp the fact that he is a seven-odd-foot tall animatronic with no ability to pass as human. Granted, Fazco was all but driven out of town after the fire decimated the old facility, but you can’t risk someone identifying Eclipse and trying to claim him as company property.

The music box is still playing, though the tune has slowed down slightly. Maybe it's the soft sounds, maybe it's the heat in your chest — maybe it's the way Eclipse is looking at you with such wide, sad eyes that it's hard to stay mad — but you feel your anger yield to weary amusement.

"So you actually snuck away every time I went to get groceries?"

"Not every time," Eclipse denies. "Just... here and there since you mentioned wanting a music box." His words and expression grow warm, and for a moment you can almost swear that his faceplate is radiating heat. "Everyone there was really nice to me. Promise! When we told them what we were trying to do, they even showed me how to use the equipment and gave us materials to use since we said we, uh, didn't have any money."

"Well," you sigh, "I'll have to thank them sometime." And make sure nobody is going to report this to the police, or worse, a company lawyer.

As the tune of the music box winds down, finally going silent halfway through its melody, you come to realize that Eclipse hasn't moved. He's still hovering, faceplate so close that you can see all the little movements of his lips, as if there's something else he wants to say.

In fact, he's close enough that you can...

It all happens faster than your brain can process. Your body leans forward, face tilting up, lips parted ever so slightly. Eclipse's mouth is made of the same soft silicon covering his fingers and hands, made to be flexible and resilient so that he could be expressive and friendly-looking. You once wondered what those lips might feel like against yours, but nothing in the world could have prepared you when you close the inches of empty space between your faces.

Soft. They feel so... soft. And warm too, since you were absolutely right about Eclipse's faceplate heating up. Though you desperately want it to be anything but, the kiss is quick and awkward. It's only when he moves against you that reason and logic catch up with instinct and impulse.

You pull back suddenly, eyes wide and cheeks hot as fire while your brain desperately tries to come up with a worthwhile reply. Broken noises are all that falls from your lips however, bits and pieces of his name intermixed with something vaguely sounding like an apology.

Fear clutches your heart as it starts to race. You begin to push away, hoping that space might help you process your swirling thoughts, but Eclipse swiftly wraps an arm around your waist, preventing your escape.

"No," he says, plucking the music box from your hands and gently setting it down beside the two of you. Though his words could be considered shy or bashful, Eclipse's tone is firm and low. "Do that... do that again?"

You can say no.

You can tell him to let you go, and there's not a doubt in your mind that he would do so instantly. But... there's a part of you that doesn't want him to, a part that's been worming through your mind and in your chest ever since the first night he'd been with you — his hands on your back and his voice in your ear, soothing you through one of the most terrifying nightmares you'd ever had in your life.

Instead of saying anything at all, you simply lean forward and press your lips to his again.

This time it's less awkward, one moment blurring into the next as he learns how to reciprocate the motion and allow his mouth to meld against your own. The kiss is a little wetter than you expect, but that's only until you realize that there's a tongue gently pressing at the seam of your lips. You part them instinctively and allow Eclipse to taste you, one hand still on the small of your back as the other reaches up to cradle the back of your head.

It's so hot, so soft, so... so nice, actually. Your own hands are grasping at the loose shirt he wears, some old hand-me-down piece that fits him better than it ever did yourself. The fabric crumples in your fists and helps to anchor you while emotions swirl around like a storm.

And then, slowly, it's done. Eclipse pulls his faceplate back and looks down at you with half-lidded eyes, their glow so bright that it's as if you're looking into the sun itself, but they dim quickly, blinking as the two of you let the moment catch up with your bodies.

There's a quiet emptiness in the living room, the air still around you and Eclipse both. It settles for a few seconds, then fills with warmth that seems to emanate deep within your chest and lifts the corners of your lips into a shy smile.

"... Merry Christmas?" you finally offer, hoping the words could break the silence — and they do, leaving everything feeling cozy and comfortable as you allow Eclipse to hold your body up. He simply giggles, a smile mirrored on his expression as he looks down at you like you are the most precious thing in the world.

"Merry Christmas," he murmurs, then kisses you again.

#dcass2023 #fic #eclipse fic #sfw #sfw fic #fnaf eclipse #fnaf dca #fnaf daycare attendant #dca fandom #fnaf dca fandom #writing #twinkle twinkle (little star)

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michaelmilligan · 8 months

Text

Midam Appreciation Week Day 1: Can't Spell 'Illusion' Without 'Us'

„Adam?“ Michael asked, the couch dipping lightly as he sat down on it.

“Mh?” Adam made, not looking up from the Switch. He had just cleared another gym and was now checking the map to see what else was close. There was a Team Star base not too far off. Or maybe he should fly back to the school city and go out the other direction, do something there...

“Adam,” Michael said again, a little more sternly.

“Hmmm?” Adam blinked and looked up from the game while it was loading, flying him back to the city. “What's up?”

“You know, when you were so excited and said you would play for days, I didn't take it quite this literally.” Michael raised an eyebrow at him, looking about equal parts annoyed and amused.

“Well, that's kinda on you,” Adam said, but he shifted into a more upright position where he had been slumping against the back of the couch before. He hit the menu button when his character had landed, effectively pausing the game. “How long has it even been?”

Another raised eyebrow. But deep inside Adam, where Michael's grace sat snugly around his soul, there was a twinge of something... almost disappointed?

“Two days, three hours, and fifty-three minutes,” Michael said dryly.

“Oh geez. I really spent a lot of time catching those Pokémon, huh.” Adam's felt a little bad. But only a little. After all, his goal was not only to win every fight in the game, but also to 'catch 'em all'.

“You get very absorbed in that game,” Michael said, and Adam couldn't really interpret his tone.

“Yeah, I mean. It brings up memories from when I was a kid.” Adam shrugged. “And it's a good game.”

Michael made a non-committal sound.

“You're not jealous of the game, right?” Adam asked, and had to suppress a smile when Michael huffed.

“Of course not. That would be stupid.”

Adam bit his lip to keep himself from sighing. That was Michael's catch-all argument against accusations of being jealous, lonely or needy – that it would be stupid.

And yeah, it would be. After all, Michael was literally his best friend of over a thousand years, his match made in Heaven, and the guy who lived in his chest cavity.

And yet.

“You know, I've been thinking,” Adam said, because he couldn't let this stand, and also because yeah, he had been thinking about it. The plan had been pretty vague, but he supposed they could always wing it.

Heh. Wing it. Adam grinned, feeling Michael's wings rustle in suppressed agitation.

“Is this like the last time you had 'been thinking'?” Michael asked warily, wrinkling the nose of his projection. “I'm not going to clean up a bathroom flooded with milk again.”

“Oh come on, that was one time! And you can clean it with a snap of our fingers.” Adam snapped his fingers for emphasis, which of course did nothing for him. “And that's not even what I wanted to say.”

“So enlighten me, oh wise one.” Michael gestured for him to go on.

“Alright. So remember how in the cage, you made games for me to live in, like that farming simulation?”

Michael raised an eyebrow. “You mean the several farming simulations. You always wanted to change locations and NPCs.”

Adam gave a lopsided smile at the memory of trying to change or remove datable characters. He'd never cared much about the romance aspect of those games as a kid, and besides, he'd already had someone living with him on the farm: Michael.

But he hadn't exactly been able to tell Michael that he didn't want to date anyone there because he already had him.

“So could you do that, but for Pokémon?”

Michael's wings shifted in surprise. “But... we're in the real world now. On Earth. With actual people, and things happening.”

“Yeah, I know.” Adam shrugged, and looked away. “But I kind of miss when it was just us. When everyone else wasn't real, so we could just erase them from the world when we didn't like them.”

Michael looked at him for a long time. “I can do it, of course. But is that really what you want?”

Adam looked back at him. “Michael... You know that living in the Pokémon world was literally my childhood dream, right? The only reason I didn't ask for it in the cage was because you said you could only make things that you've seen before. Fields. Buildings. People. I figured that excluded any made up monsters from a children's game.”

Hesitantly, Michael nodded.

“Now that you've seen it all – and don't tell me you weren't watching while I was playing – you could do it, right?” Adam asked hopefully.

Michael hummed. “I could, though you can hardly say that I've 'seen it all'. This is the only of those games you've been playing, and there are many more, right?”

“Well, yeah, but we don't have all of them.” Adam frowned when Michael rolled his eyes.

“You can have everything you want forever,” Michael said, reminding Adam that he only needed to ask.

It felt wrong, though, to ask Michael to give him everything. And not just because Adam had no idea how it worked – did Michael steal a copy of the game from someone? Was it plucked from a stack in a store?

Adam supposed the latter wouldn't be so bad – no one would notice if one measly copy got lost.

But Michael wasn't his servant, or his tool. Sure, it was nice that Adam could rely on him when something went wrong (like said accident with the milk bath). But when Adam said 'Jump', Michael's response wasn't supposed to be 'how high?'. It should be 'But don't you want to cuddle me more?'

“We can do research,” Michael said, nodding. “We tube.”

Adam let out a sigh so long and deep that it could have killed someone who actually needed to breathe. “It's 'YouTube', Michael.”

“Yes, but we will be tubing together.” Squeezing himself against Adam's side, Michael fished their phone out their pocket. “There are those... 'Let's Plays', yes?”

“Dude, yeah, let's watch some nuzlockes!” Adam pulled up the page of one of his favourite groups of streamers. They should have covered most of the older games – he'd seen the video thumbnails, but hadn't had time to watch any of it so far. “This is gonna take us a while, you know.”

Michael butted their shoulders together. “You're the one who just wanted to spend untold hours in a projection.”

Adam elbowed him back. “Hey, that wasn't a complaint. Besides, I wanted to spend untold hours in a projection with you. Don't forget that.”

Michael blinked at him, and his wings rustled shyly. “We- we should be able to set these videos to double the speed, yes?” he eventually asked, managing a scowl again. “You should still be able to understand those.”

Adam couldn't take his eyes off his archangel, projection or not. “Don't worry about me, silly,” he said, a hand on Michael's thigh.

They spent days together on the couch, at some point switching from the small screen of their phone to their laptop. Sometimes, Adam had his head on Michael's shoulder, while other times, Michael's head was in Adam's lap.

It was a good time. Just watching and sometimes commenting. Relaxed. Happy. At times, it felt almost like back then – like they were the only two people in the world, and no one else mattered, or ever would matter again.

“Alright,” Michael said after the last video ended. “I think we have enough data.”

“Mh.” Adam wasn't too hyped about having to get up, or having to disentangle himself from Michael. But then Michael just told him to lay down on the couch.

“Are you ready?” he asked, his face far too serious for what they were about to do.

“Born ready.” Adam grinned when Michael rolled his eyes, and Michael made his projection vanish.

Close your eyes, he said from inside their head.

Adam followed his lead – and felt his consciousness fade away from their body.

When he blinked his eyes open again, he was somewhere else. In a room that looked oddly familiar...

There was a Pikachu plushie on a dresser, and several posters with Pokémon and items on them lined the walls.

Grinning giddily, Adam turned around to where he knew Michael would be standing – and was greeted by several balloons and a party horn almost hitting his face.

“Happy birthday, Addy,” Michael said softly.

Adam stared at him. The last thing he remembered was that it had been the middle of September – apparently, they had been watching those nuzlockes for a bit longer than he'd thought.

“And happy birthday to you, babe,” he said back.

“I wasn't born,” Michael recited their age-old argument, rolling his eyes.

“No, but it's your Feast Day. And what's the day that we feast on?” Adam said, also not for the first time.

Michael sighed. “Our birthday,” he completed their routine grumpily. “Fine. Now go get your Pokémon.”

“Only me? What about you?” Adam checked that he had everything – the obligatory bag, and the phone that would probably get updated with a Rotom, if he understood the newer lore correctly.

“I already have a team, of course, since I'm a lot older than you,” Michael said smugly. Then he strode out of the room – and Adam followed with an indignant gasp.

“How dare you! I'm over a thousand years old!”

“Exactly. You're basically still a baby.”

“Oh, honey, are you leaving?” a voice asked, and Adam stopped dead in his tracks on the last step of the staircase.

“Mom?” he asked under his breath.

“Oh look at you, baby, all grown up.” His mom came out of the kitchen and took his hands. “Ready to become the champ.”

“First, he will have to beat eight gyms,” Michael reminded them both.

Kate cupped both Adam's and Michael's face with a hand. “I'm so glad you'll be there for him,” she said. “I would be worried to death if Addy went out alone.”

“Moooom,” Adam complained. He knew that this wasn't his actual mom, since she was still in Heaven. But his indignation was real. “I'm not a child.”

“I know, baby.” She went on her tip-toes to kiss his forehead. “Now go meet the Professor.”

“I'll come by again afterwards,” Adam said, taking his mom's hands. “I promise.”

“Baby, I'll always be here when you want to come home.”

Adam squeezed her hands. Of course she would be there, he told himself. The mom was always home in the games.

Though of course, his real mom was always there, too, when he wanted to see her in Heaven.

He dropped her hands and gave her a smile. “I'll be off, then.”

“Be safe.” She turned to Michael. “Both of you.”

“Always.” Michael squeezed one of her hands too before they left, walking down the dirt path to the Professor's house.

Adam wasn't going to mention that his real mom wasn't quite as enthusiastic about seeing Michael than this one. In turn, Michael wouldn't mention that he was the current champ of this region.

Adam would find that out soon enough, anyway. And until then, he had a childhood dream to fulfil.

#HELLO did you know it's Midam Appreciation Week? :3 #Now you know #Adam is a 90's kid your honour #Midam #Midamap2023

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keithisbae1 · 4 months

Text

Modern Sasuke X Shippuden Sakura - Part 4

It wasn’t fair.

Those were the three words plaguing her mind now, how could this be fair?

They had spent years trying to find a way to bring her back to her own world, but Sakura had long given up after two years. No doubt she would either be considered missing or worst case scenario dead. Unless the other Sakura had taken her place, in which case wouldn’t she have gotten used to living there by now?

A big assumption on their part but it made sense right?

Still, the dream of going back home. Of seeing her Naruto, her friends, her Sasuke… they were long gone. She learned to adapt and play the role of the other Sakura… even if Sasuke was still teaching her how to live.

Sasuke.

That was another thing as well, she didn’t have to feel alone.

He knew of her, that she wasn’t her and in a way he had to grieve himself knowing the one he loved (even if Sasuke would strongly deny it) was never coming back.

Knowing she could be herself around him and didn’t have to pretend gave her a sense of relief. Like how she accidentally ended up destroying a forest to prove to him how strong she was.

Her chakra may be non-existent but it seemed her strength was still the same and far different from modern Sakura. To say Sasuke didn’t expect it was well… putting it lightly but the news that covered it referred to it as a ‘mini earthquake.’

They both laughed at their attempt to cover it and Sakura found herself blushing because she had never seen Sasuke so carefree and relaxed before. A rational part of her was telling her not to get too attached, this wasn’t her home. How was she supposed to find a happy ending here?

Yet after so many years Sakura finally gave in and adapted to this life and now arguing in front of her were the two Sasukes. She didn’t know what was happening given she was further away at the time but caught sight of her other self and Sasuke?

Then she heard shouting and screaming, the young woman was in between and tried to stop them.

Sakura immediately let go of her carrier bags running up to approach them. And that was when she caught the words modern Sasuke had uttered.

“You’re in love with her aren’t you?” He was up in his face, almost looking like he wanted to punch him with the way one of his hands had gripped his shirt.

“Don’t tell me you think you can actually make it work.” It was a cruel and mocking tone and it hurt because was he… was he jealous? The other uh her own Sasuke didn’t even say anything, there was nothing in his eyes she could decipher.

“It is true?” The three of them seemed to snap out of it hearing her voice clearly not noticing her presence and that only irked Sakura more.

Admittedly, she didn’t know which Sasuke she aimed that question at, but did it matter?

They were both in love with the other Sakura.

There was something wrong with her, there had to be.

“Sakura-” This time it was ‘her’ Sasuke who spoke first. How long had it been since they met? So Naruto managed to get Sasuke by himself? How? Why?

Okay, perhaps he wasn’t alone…

“Well?”

“We were looking for you-”

“I call bull! We haven’t seen each other in years and the last time we met you tried to kill me. You expect me to believe that?”

“It’s the truth!” The other Sakura nodded to confirm.

“It is, I wanted to back. I couldn’t stand being in the other world. There just… wasn't a lot of time with Sasuke and well um…” She wasn’t really sure how to explain it. In the other world, she (as well as some of their friends) was put on a special mission for her. To bring their Sakura back.

Meanwhile, everyone else focused on Sasuke. Then the attack o the village happened with Pain, Sasuke being considered a criminal and then the war-

To put it simply too much was happening at once.

She didn't have any time to find out how to get back, even when she desperately wanted to.

Sakura didn’t want to hear it however, this only confirmed her thoughts. Her fears, everything… clearly they weren’t meant to be.

Although she will give credit where credit is due, it was weird that the 'other woman' was herself?

So many mixed emotions were welling up inside.

Why was this happening now?

What did she do to deserve this?

Did that mean Sasuke did like her? Even partly or is she hoping for too much?

It didn't matter, right?

Because they were both someone else.

She turned to leave only to be halted by the modern Sasuke who grabbed hold of her arm. He looked like was trying to say something, anything.

More like to come up with an excuse for what he said earlier.

“Let go, I want to be alone.” Her voice was defeated and tired. Her heart was broken, twice. Can’t they give her some space?

She got out of his hold making a dash for it, even with the other Sasuke calling her name.

“Sakura-” But he was also stopped by his other self before being able to reach for her.

“She said she wants to be alone!”

“You don’t know what we’ve been through.”

“Oh? You mean like how you left her on the bench? How considerate of you.” The two men glared at each other, both annoyed at how the other wanted to get in their way.

“Boys! STOP!” Modern Sakura looked at the two frustrated.

“Your both infuriating, you know that.”

#sasusaku #sasuke uchiha x sakura haruno #sasusaku drabble #my fanfiction #modern sasuke X shippuden sakura AU #sasusaku fanfic #ssfanfic #sasusakufanfiction

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jennyboom21 · 1 year

Text

Dianna Agron is running late — she’s stuck on the subway. I have no problem believing this because I am on the exact same train a few cars away, as we learn when she sends me a heads-up text. My phone slowly receives a selfie of Agron waving through a grainy train window, face curtained by long light-brown hair, along with another message about how tickled she is that we’re sharing a classic New York experience. And it’s one we continue when we finally make it to The Odeon, the iconic Tribeca bistro. “It's been a staple since the 1980s, which is what I love about this place,” she says in her lilting voice as we mull over the menu. “This is a place that was happening when I was born and didn't even know that it would be waiting for me when I moved to New York City.” We get two dirty martinis and a plate of fries before gleefully cheering to being in our 30s. “I love this time, though,” she adds.

Agron has been thinking a lot about her 30s, and not just because we’re meeting up two weeks before her 37th birthday. Her new movie, Clock, out now on Hulu, is a sci-fi horror film that explores the immense societal pressures women, in particular those without children, face in that decade of their lives. But the film’s messages about making your own choices also resonate within the arc of her career. Agron spent six seasons on the pop culture juggernaut that was Glee — and enduring the intense public scrutiny that came with it — before more recently finding acclaim with a string of indie movies like Shiva Baby and Novitiate. With Clock, Agron pushed herself again. There are big action scenes (hanging from cliffs, elbow-deep gore), as well as dark emotional depths (involving painful family secrets coming to life). “Collected experience really does add up,” she says. “And I think that the life I've lived the last 10 years in some ways has been more magnificent and more challenging than my more formative years.”

Lanvin coat, SKIMS bra, Talent’s own trousers, Pamela Love earrings

Agron never thought she’d try her hand at horror, but the Clock script hit too close to home to resist. She plays Ella, a 30-something who doesn’t want kids but eventually gives into the pressure of prying family and friends and enrolls in an experimental clinical trial, under the leadership of Dr. Simmons (Melora Hardin), that promises to help women who don’t experience having a biological clock. “The moment I turned 30,” Agron says, “the amount of questions that I felt were far too personal — and from truly everyone — just intensified year by year.”

Even for an actor who came up in the Perez Hilton era of celebrity blogging and is used to skirting prying questions, Agron still finds herself surprised sometimes. Just last year, she was on a red carpet at the Tribeca Film Festival promoting the sci-fi drama Acidman when a journalist asked her out of the blue if her mother’s name, Mary, would be “top of the list” for her. “I truly had no idea what she was talking about, so I asked for clarification and she said, ‘The top of your baby list,’” Agron says. “I said, with all of the kindness, ‘You have no idea what my personal journey is. And I'm quite surprised that you asked me that at my workplace when I'm here to discuss a film that I'm in.’” The message didn’t land. “She had no remorse. She just bopped along to the next question.”

Michael Kors Collection clothing and belt, Agmes earrings

Clock only took on more meaning throughout production. Agron was in Texas shooting the last day of principal photography when the draft Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade leaked. “It did not feel good, that's for sure,” she says. “But then felt in some ways good that we were making [a movie that speaks] to some of the perils of being a woman and making choices that are more aligned with your own sense of self, as opposed to making choices for other people.” She dips a fry into one of the many condiments we’ve ordered. “All it takes is a film or a piece of journalism [for people] to open their eyes to different experiences that they could never imagine for themselves and have no personal touch points for. As a woman and one who very much loves women and loves the immense and enormous abilities that we have to carry so much, I wish that we had to carry less.”

When writer-director Alexis Jacknow was looking to cast Ella, she knew what she wanted: “It was very important to me that that character just already have a natural, grounded nature, a gravitas to her.” And she knew right away after meeting her that Agron could deliver. “There was absolutely nothing she wouldn’t do,” Jacknow says. “She pushed me, and there was just no hesitation on her part. She showed up every single day, 110%, and gave us everything.”

That is not an exaggeration. During one scene, Ella cracks open eggs into a frying pan and begins to eat them raw with a spoon. Jacknow didn’t want anyone to flaunt food safety guidelines, but Agron thought the only way to sell the scene was to actually do it. “Beef tartare, a whiskey sour,” Agron says, listing all the indulgences with raw ingredients she already enjoys. (There are reasons those are safer than raw eggs, but just go with it.) Jacknow proposed a compromise: Agron could put the raw eggs in her mouth as long as she spat them instead of swallowing. Agron agreed — or at least pretended to. “I winked at our [director of photography] and motioned at him like, ‘Don’t cut,’” she says, laughing. “I go to pick up the egg, I swallow it and go to take another bite. And I just hear, ‘Dianna, what the f*ck?!’”

Dries Van Noten clothing, Khiry earrings

Agron hasn’t always felt such autonomy in her career. When she was in her early twenties, she booked a role in a “big studio film” that, though ultimately a positive experience, involved an eye-opening screen test. “It was like, ‘We don’t like her hair like that, we need her to be more girly. We don’t like those clothes,’” she recalls. “I kept getting moved off set, changed, put back on stage, taken off again. I didn’t feel that I had any say in the matter, even if I had suggested something nicely. I was just a product at that point.”

Glee did not exactly help things. Agron says she was the last person cast for the show and describes getting the job as nothing short of fate. She grew up watching musicals with her mother in hotels on account of her father’s job as a manager at Hyatt. “Look, I moved to Los Angeles and I set out to find a musical. They were my absolute bread and butter. I told anybody that would listen to me, ‘I really want to do a musical,’” she says. “And [agents] were like, ‘No, try to be on Broadway.’ I just had this staunch faith that I was meant to be in Los Angeles and I would find a musical. And then it happened.”

But while she credits the show with changing her life, the show’s explosive popularity tested her boundaries. “There was a moment in time where there was not only a lack of acknowledgement in respect to personal space, there have been times where I've been put in a headlock and kissed on a plane. There have been times where mothers were grabbing you by the arm to meet and take a photo with their child,” Agron says. “There were so many personal attacks in a way that are just truly not what you do to a human. That feels specific to that time and that intensity of the feelings that people were feeling watching the show.”

So she moved to New York in 2016, eager to escape Los Angeles and its “predatory nature of people with lenses down there that just doesn’t exist in the same way in other places.” For a few years, she split her time between London — from 2016 to 2020, Agron was married to Winston Marshall of British folk-rock group Mumford & Sons — but now calls New York “my only home.” “Following my personal life is really not going to yield anything that interesting,” Agron says of public attention. And it’s true, the few times I tactfully (I hope) bring up topics that might lead Agron to open up about other aspects of her personal life, she gently deflects them. It’s clear she’s figured out a way to maintain her privacy while still being incredibly personal in the context of her work.

In New York, she’s able to follow her muse more freely. She’s reconnected with music through a string of residencies at the famed Café Carlyle, where she’s performed jazz standards and ‘60s covers. She served as a producer on Acidman and would like to do more behind-the-scenes work. And she’s relishing the chance to be a “waving the Jewish flag” kind of actor, choosing projects like Shiva Baby and As They Made Us that let her honor and explore her heritage. “I went to Jewish weekend school and Wednesday school for my entire upbringing up until my Bat Mitzvah and spent a lot of time with Holocaust survivors,” she says. “So it was a weird experience to then have many people say [in Hollywood], ‘You don’t look Jewish.’ It is weird to have somebody deny you your own personal experience.”

Next, she’ll make her return to television with The Chosen One, a multilingual adaptation of Mark Millar’s American Jesus comic book that follows a 12-year-old boy who gains the biblical powers of Jesus after a freak accident. She’s bonded with the younger actors on the show who have asked her for career advice — a full-circle moment for the now bonafide industry veteran. They’ve even watched Glee and marveled to Agron about how young she looks and seems. Her response? “I am!” she says, laughing.

By this point, our martini glasses have long been empty. Neither of us want to brave the train again, so Agron walks me up the street and, like a true New Yorker, gives me directions with a McNally Jackson tote slung over her shoulder. She gives me a hug, then turns to head deeper into Tribeca, forging a path all of her own.

#this could explain Taylor’s delayed tweet lol #Dianna Agron x photoshoot #dianna Agron x bustle 2023 #dianna Agron x fashion #swiftgron

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bi-bard · 10 months

Text

I Guess I'm Trusting That There's Such a Thing as Elegance in Dissonance - Karen Sirko Imagine [Daisy Jones & the Six]

Title: I Guess I'm Trusting That There's Such a Thing as Elegance in Dissonance

Pairing: Karen Sirko X Reader

Based On: Page 28

Word Count: 2,230 words

Warning(s): mention of unhealthy relationship(s)

Summary: An old friend of the original Dunne Brothers finds their way to the band's doorstep. At one of the worst points of their life, (Y/n) is forced to reevaluate their life so far. The biggest question is where (Y/n) is going to end up once they get through all of their self-reflection.

Author's Note: I love her so much.

Part Two of "August" [Release Date: 8/13/2023]

Part Three of "August" [Release Date: 8/15/2023]

YEARBOOK - SLEEPING AT LAST WRITING CHALLENGE MASTERLIST

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Arriving at that very crowded house in Laurel Canyon was met with a mix of emotions.

There was the anger and sadness over the circumstances that got me here. The slight excitement over finally seeing some of my dearest friends again. The anxiety over what was going to happen when I saw them again. It was all sitting there. A weight in my chest.

I felt like I spent hours staring at the front door. I don't know what my goal was. Maybe I wanted to change my mind. Turn around and leave and decide that I could deal with it all on my own.

But I couldn't.

For the longest time, I stood at that door. I was unable to get myself to knock on the door or walk away.

A heavy sigh escaped me as I finally lifted my hand and knocked on the door.

The next few moments felt like a blur.

The door slammed open and I was suddenly getting swept into a tight hug. I heard a laugh and a cheer in my ear. It didn't take long for me to recognize Warren as the person hugging me.

A chuckle escaped me as I hugged him back. "Hi, Warren."

"I've missed you," he muttered to me. He stepped back and dragged me inside. "(Y/n)'s here!"

"Warren, my bag," I shouted.

He turned around to grab it for me as the rest of the group came running in.

"(Y/n)!" Eddie pulled me into a tight hug as soon as he saw me.

"Hi," I mumbled.

Graham was right behind Eddie.

Behind Graham was a woman that I had never seen before. She was beautiful. Incredibly beautiful. It was enough to almost pull me into what felt like some kind of trance.

When Graham stepped back, he must've seen me and the woman staring at each other.

"(Y/n), this is Karen," he said. "She's our new keyboardist. This is (Y/n). They're an old friend from home."

"Nice to meet you," Karen grinned at me, holding out a hand for me to shake.

"You too," I replied, trying to ignore how warm my face was.

I had a million and one other things to be worried about. The last thing that I should have been focusing on was this gorgeous person in front of me.

Before I could spend any more time focusing on Karen, Billy and Camila walked into the room.

Camila's smile only seemed to widen as she hugged me. "How have you been?"

"I'm alright," I quietly promised as I hugged her back. She knew more than the others. She was the first person I had called when I felt like everything was going wrong.

I stepped back and smiled at Billy. He carefully passed their baby over to Camila so he could hug me.

"How are you doing," I asked.

"I'm good," he replied as he stepped back. "Better than I have been in a long time."

"Good," I nodded.

Camila spoke up again, "Well, I'll be honest with you, we don't have a lot of space in here. You have a few options. There's another bed in Graham's room or the couch."

I looked at Graham. "Do you mind?"

"Not at all," he shook his head.

Camila may have been who I had called first, but I had been friends with the Dunne brothers before anyone else. Our families had lived next to each other for years. While they were running off and chasing their dreams, I got stuck at home.

That's all to say that I didn't have any trouble staying in the same room as Graham as long as he didn't mind having me there.

I tried to hold onto the idea that staying with the band was a temporary arrangement. Just a way to get on my feet.

They were all kind to me.

They acted like no time had passed at all. Like they had no idea what had happened. Camila was the only one to ever ask about my life while they were gone, and she understood when I didn't want to talk about it much.

It was simply easier to pretend that those years between seeing each other just never happened.

I did my best to adjust on my own. I thought that everything that had happened to me was private. It was my problem to deal with. Telling anyone else would just be me burdening them with something that they didn't deserve to be burdened with.

That desire to fix myself and to avoid pushing my issues onto anyone else led me to spend a lot of time on my own. There were only so many times that you could do that in a house with so many people in it. Late at night.

I would spend a lot of my nights sitting out on the patio or simply on the couch. I would draw some new sketches when I had the inspiration. I had started writing down my thoughts. I needed to be able to release my emotions somehow. That was simply my solution.

A few weeks after I had moved into the house, I was sitting out on the porch. I was looking out over the view. My book of sketches was sitting open in front of me. I had started off drawing, but I was having trouble continuing. As if drawing was actually becoming exhausting to me.

I heard the floorboards creak behind me. I turned my head to see Karen standing nearby.

"Hey," she greeted. "What are you doing up so late?"

"I could ask you the same question," I replied.

"Well, you could, but I asked you first," she shrugged.

I chuckled and shook my head. "I was drawing. Got distracted by the view."

She hummed as she stepped forward. Her hand grabbed the book before I could even think of stopping her.

"They're nothing special. Just clothes," I explained, downplaying the entire thing.

"You were drawing clothes," she asked.

I nodded. "I have been for years now. Well, I did. I just recently started again."

"Why'd you stop?"

I paused. The emotions and panic behind why I hesitated must have been clearly written on my face.

"Sorry," she added. "It's just that these are really good. I didn't mean to be invasive or anything."

"It's... It's alright," I replied. "I... I stopped when I got engaged."

"Engaged?"

"You didn't think that I moved out here just for the fun of it, did you?"

"I... I thought it was because these guys were your friends."

There was something incredibly comforting about knowing that Camila hadn't gone around and shared my personal business with everyone. I didn't mind them knowing but it was hard to talk about.

"You don't have to tell me anything," she continued. "It's your business. You've known me for a few weeks. I'm not going to sit here and force you to tell me-"

"It's alright," I stopped her. "I was engaged for a while. It was why I never came out here before. We had met in school, dated. It was... It was all very normal.

"And then, after we got engaged, something just... changed. I kind of stopped existing, if that makes sense. I became an extension instead of a whole separate person. I stopped drawing, I pulled away from my friends... I was lonely and empty.

"I thought about leaving for a while. We had been fighting about everything. When I finally felt like I could, my parents made it very clear that they saw the entire thing as selfish. I knew that staying there after it all ended would lead to nothing but more pain and guilt and... I couldn't do that.

"I called Camila and told her everything, which I hadn't done yet. She talked to the guys, called me back, and told me to pack my stuff and get out there. I left in the middle of the night. I called my parents from a payphone somewhere but that was it. And now, I'm here."

Karen sat in silence for a while.

"Sorry," I said after a while. "I know that it's all a bit much-"

"You have nothing to apologize for. What happened to you was shit."

I felt a shocked chuckle escape me. "Alright then."

"You know what," she seemed to regain whatever confidence had been lost earlier when she first heard my story. "You need to put down some roots. And have some fun."

"Is that right?"

"Yup," she nodded. "I propose a deal."

"Oh, God-"

"Come out with me for a night and I'll wear...," she paused to flick through the pages of my drawings, "this shirt here."

"This deal sounds like a win-win deal for you... you get a night out and a free shirt."

"No," she shook her head. "I get to bring you on your first night out in the city while you get a chance to rediscover something that you clearly love."

I felt a smile pull at my lips. "Fine. Get me the fabric and I'll do it."

"Deal."

Karen placed my book down before going to walk back inside. I let out a quiet breath as I thought about everything that had just happened. How had I walked into that situation?

It took a little while to properly get the shirt made. It was an easy enough product to make but getting it to fit Karen the way that I wanted it to was another problem. She was patient. She would stand still and compliment my work enough that I would have to sometimes take a moment to step away to calm my nerves.

When it was finally done, Karen excitedly dragged me out for the night.

It was a better night than I could have anticipated.

There was something about being around Karen that made me feel so different. I finally was with someone that could connect me with more than who I was before moving.

And Karen was right. I needed this.

I needed to have something new and separate.

It made me feel whole. It was the first time in ages that I truly had fun.

At the end of the night, I felt like I had weight rolling off of my shoulders. It was everything. I had been under the impression that spending my time like this was selfish and foolish. A waste of precious time. But it was anything but.

And I had Karen to thank for all of that.

She grabbed a hold of my hand as we walked to the car.

For the first time in what felt like ages, I was walking around with a large smile on my face. One that didn't feel forced or like it was hiding something or like it was merely happening because I was avoiding something. It was a smile for the sake of smiling.

"How are you feeling," Karen asked as we made it to the car.

"Good," I replied, nodding. "Really good, actually. Great."

"Good," she chuckled at me.

"Thank you." I grinned. "For everything."

She tilted her head a bit. Could she not see what all of this had done for me?

"You're the only person in the house that doesn't look at me like I'm some wounded animal," I explained. "You respect me and my work and it is just really nice to have someone do that."

"Oh," she muttered. I didn't think it was possible for Karen to be speechless, even if it was for a matter of seconds. "It was worth it for the clothes."

I scoffed. "I'll make you all of the clothes you want after tonight."

"Is that right," she asked jokingly. I laughed a bit and looked down for a moment.

I looked back at her as my laughter died off to see the most genuine look on her face. One that felt like it knocked the breath out of me. I couldn't tell what she was thinking or feeling; I just knew that it was overwhelming.

"You deserve it," she said after a moment. "All of it."

I let out a small breath as the words sat in the air between us. It felt as if the remaining air was sucked out of the space between us. All that was left was this silence that refused to be moved by anything that we could do or say.

I don't know what compelled me to move forward. I just knew that I suddenly felt a need to. I leaned forward and pressed my lips to hers.

It lasted a matter of seconds. And those seconds were some of the most peaceful I had ever experienced up to that point.

Karen pulled away suddenly, eyes wide and jaw sitting open.

I immediately felt a shred of regret stab into my chest.

"We should... We should head back," she muttered after a moment.

I nodded awkwardly. "Yeah, yeah, that's a good idea."

She walked around to the other side of the car. I closed my eyes and sighed before going to get into the car. I knew then that the drive home was going to feel incredibly long, incredibly quiet, and incredibly tense.

And throughout the very quiet, very tense car ride, all I could do was hope that I hadn't screwed up the best thing I had found in years.

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Navigation Guide

What I Write For

Some Original Characters

#fanfiction #x reader #imagine #karen sirko x reader #karen sirko fanfiction #karen sirko imagine #daisy jones and the six fanfiction #daisy jones and the six x reader #daisy jones and the six imagine

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chocobo-latte · 10 months

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"You've Always Been My Home"

Having a family of his own had never really occurred to Kenma before. The thought of caring for children was nerve-racking; anxiety-inducing even. They screamed and cried, and they got snot and candy on everything which included gaming systems and Kenma did NOT have the patience to keep that from happening. It wasn't that he disliked dirt and messes, he just didn't want his gaming equipment ruined.

Plus, he wasn't even the parenting type. He spent all his time gaming or working, went to bed at ungodly hours, and didn't do anything that would cause him to unnecessarily use his limited amount of energy.

That, however, changed when Kuroo came back into his life. It'd been three years since he'd seen his best friend, the older male having moved away when he started college. They'd kept in touch via texting and phone calls, but then they'd both gotten busy, and the texts and calls had started happening less and less. So Kuroo showing up at his door with a fourteen-month-old in his arms had been unexpected, to say the least.

They'd needed a place to stay and how could Kenma say no? He had been his best friend after all. Kuroo had told him that he'd tried Akaashi and Bokuto, but they had their hands full with their three kids, two of which were under the age of one.

So they began staying with him, moving into the extra room in his apartment. And weirdly, things were fine, much to Kenma's surprise. The first few days his anxiety had been on high alert, but after seeing how calm and well-behaved Akane was, he'd begun to relax. She did from time to time, reach for his Switch or his Playstation controller, but her hands were never usually sticky or wet with drool when she did, and if they were, Kuroo would stop her and wipe her hands first. He'd tell her "you can't touch those with dirty hands,' and soon she was going up to him when they needed to be wiped.

That had definitely helped Kenma relax even more.

Kuroo promised they would be out of his hair soon, but that had been six months ago. He kept saying the same thing about once a week. He didn't leave. Didn't make a move to do so. Kenma wasn't sure why he was so eager to find a place. It couldn't be too hard for him to find a place, he knew he made good money. He couldn't find himself caring. Kuroo could stay as long as he wanted.

He didn't want to admit it, but he was glad that Kuroo seemed to be putting off leaving. He knew he wouldn't be able to live without him AGAIN. And he and Akane had begun to bond, much to the blond's surprise. They'd shockingly become close, Kenma thinking of her as his own child. Thought of all three of them as a family. He wouldn't be able to live without her either. And he knew if Kuroo moved, things may end up like they had last time; losing touch, never speaking again. So he kept silent.

He kept silent until a month later. Kuroo had given him the same 'promise' once again and Kenma's curiosity had got the better of him. So he asked, "Are you just saying that or do you mean it?" That had come out a lot harsher than he'd meant it and he didn't miss the way Kuroo winced.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, you've been saying the same thing at least once a week for eight months, but you never make an attempt to leave." Kuroo opened his mouth to respond, but Kenma quickly stopped him by beginning to speak again, "It's not that I don't want you here, I do. I love having you and Akane around, but I just don't know what YOU want. You say one thing, but then do the opposite."

"Have you considered there may be a reason?" At Kenma's blank face, he continued, "I can't stand the thought of losing you again, Kenma. Do you know how miserable I was when we weren't talking? Or that I was so far from you to begin with? Nothing ever felt right without you. Nothing. But now…being here with you, everything just feels right again. Maybe that’s why I keep putting off moving out."

"You were miserable without me?"

"That’s what you focus on? Yes, Kenma, I was miserable without you. Wherever I was I never felt comfortable or happy. The only bit of happiness I felt these past few years was when Akane was born. But everything else? No. None of it made me happy and it was because I wasn't with you."

Kenma gulped, mouth having gone dry. "So…what are you saying?"

"I'm saying I love you Kenma and I've loved you for so fucking long. And I don't want to be without you anymore. I keep putting off moving out because this is my home, you're my home. You've always been my home…"

Kenma didn't even let him say another word. He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around his neck, pulling him down so that he could press his lips to his.

"Then stay. Don't ever leave me again."

#haikyuu #hq #kuroken #hq!!#kozume kenma #kuroo tetsurou #my writing #and here we have day 3 <3

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roppongi-division · 3 months

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Kai's Thoughts on Suginami Division

Ryuko Umemoto

"I've only had one encounter with this guy in the past, and that was one encounter too many. It was about a year after we had just opened Gypsy's Palace. This guy was part of a Yakuza gang, and they came here to Roppongi to file a "complaint" with our club. Apparently, because it was so popular, it was reaching people as far as the city of Suginami, which they didn't like, apparently. So, to "compensate" them, they either wanted us to close down for a few days, or have some of their men work as security. ...Really? Threatening me and mine in our own establishment? And here I thought things like this only happened in America!"

"I told them that we would do neither of those options, which they didn't like. But before things could get to hairy, my wife phoned the police. The leader of the group mentioned this wasn't over, and he and his boys ran off. Over the next few weeks, they apparently came around here to Roppongi to start some mess. And more often than not, I saw this guy in the group. They thought they were being smart intimidating us, but they failed to realize just how popular Gypsy's Palace is. A lot of folks around here weren't happy to see their favorite nightclub in so much trouble, so when they came around here the following week, they weren't expecting a bunch of us to actually fight back. After seeing us all in front of our club ready to throw down, I guess they figured this was more trouble than it was worth and left."

"I hadn't seen this guy for years after that, but wouldn't you know it? I happened to meet him one day when an agency asked me to make some songs for an animated TV series. Apparently, he had put his life as a thug behind him and was now working as an animator. If I had a sense of humor, I'd have certainly laughed at that. I told him while I still wasn't happy for the mess he and his "friends" gave my wife's club a few years ago, I said I was willing to bury the hatchet with him so long as he didn't do something like that again and kept that temper of his under control. He didn't like being told what to do, but eventually agreed."

"So for that reminder of time, we worked in the studio together, though in different parts of it. Despite his horrid disposition, he had his moments of politeness. He even came to me once after a recording session and stated the music for one of the battle scenes was quite good, which I thanked him for. The guy can be quite civil when he wants to be. If he does something with his attitude, he'd be an even better person."

Maki Umemoto

"If it weren't for the fact that he and his younger brother share the same last name, I'd have never thought that they were related. ...Though I guess them sharing the same facial features should have been a hint. After all, Japanese with pale white hair isn't exactly a common sight. I know there's him, his brother, Samatoki, that young Criss girl from Akihabara, and... unless I'm mistaken, I believe that that's all of the well-known ones."

"As for the man, himself, I know little about him. He serves as one of Zakari's teachers, but other than that, I know little else. He seems to be a stark contrast to his brother, though. Not really surprising since siblings rarely have anything in common save the same parent(s). If you don't believe me, look no further than me and my sister."

Shuu Edogawa

"Investigator Shuu?" *Sighs* "Yes, I know of him personally, as does my wife. How exactly? Our security caught him skulking and sneaking around the club on more than one occasion once. Apparently, he was on a case where a mother had hired him to find and bring home her wayward daughter after she had ran away from home to live with her boyfriend. When we asked what they had to do with him snooping around, apparently it was cause the girl and her boyfriend spent much of their time here. I didn't really care about the details, to be honest. I just wanted the guy out of my club so I could get back to work. Eventually, my wife settled it and that was that. I've not seen him inside the club since."

Sazanka Zombeez

"...Not to be rude, but words fail me with this team. A former Yakuza-turned-animator, a history professor who serves as one of my son's teachers, and a private investigator. A very mix-matched rap team, wouldn't you agree? ...Still, I suppose there are worse teams out there. I don't know how much of a threat they'll be, but... well, we'll wait and see, I guess."

#hypmic #hypmic oc #hypnosis mic #hypnosis mic oc #hypnosis microphone #private party #roppongi division #kai quinlan #suginami division #sazanka zombeez #ryuko umemoto #maki umemoto #shuu edogawa

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kinomiakai · 5 months

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I spent some time reflecting on this past year of writing, so here's the breakdown and a bunch of my thoughts, haha. It's been a really busy year!! You can tell where my life got a little more chaotic, in both good and bad ways - I had to skip some pieces of some months, but I did all I could to anticipate or make up for those pieces as they came. I did some more rambling about my thoughts on the things I wrote (and there's links to everything there, too) -I'll put that under a read more, because it got pretty long. Regardless, I just want to say that if you've read anything of mine this year, thank you. A big, big thank you.

The big WIPs:

The Forest (original) - 49,200 words - Okay I'm just linking to my big list of writing so you can read the summaries without patreon telling you to go away, but this is my original fic featuring Braith, Fern, Fae & Lola, a human, an elf, a fairy and another human. It's wlw & mlm and it's full of warm and colourful things and maybe some healing trauma because let's face it. What else do I write. Full word count is currently at 161,688 so far!

Two is a Crowd (sns fanfic) - 53,965 - my big canonverse introspective healing trauma fun times fiasco. Full word count is currently at 91,209 so far and yes. Yes it is slow burn.

The One-offs:

Winter (Fake)ation (original) - 9,635 words - I'm linking to the list of fics again but it's just under The Forest. This one is nsfw & fun & involves an exhausted & overworked Felix being taken on the closest thing to a vacation he can go by his very sweet best friend. She builds a beach in his room. It doesn't work. They go out. They meet Arlo. It's all mlm from there!

Irreversible (sns fanfic) - 2,136 words - I wrote this one for the my one, my only zine and it was really fun!! I haven't been in a lot of zines so it felt like a really big moment for me :)

SNS Month: 38,383 words - I'm linking to the collection here! It has all of them.

tied up and fallen loose - 2505 words - did you expect me to pick the bondage prompt? I didn't, but here it was! nsfw, obviously. the heat after battle - 2,177 words - who said all my fantasy writing has to have 10k words of worldbuilding backstory before we get to the good stuff. who said that. Nsfw!!

Fear. - 4,841 words - Sasuke always has to go through it, poor guy. like he hasn't been psychologically messed with enough. (I still think this was one of my favourites but I think it's because I like exploring and messing with conciousness vs. subconciousness) keeping busy - 4,483 words - Sasuke's gone & Naruto needs a million things to get his mind off of that.

Meet Your Match! - 7,010 words - a modern au, roommate au, collage au!!! It feels like it's been so long! with a fun little Valentines twist.

beds and lack thereof - 3,542 words - Naruto decides they're living together and Sasuke cannot figure out what the hell that means or if the idiot even knows what he's doing or why

how not to fix your sleep schedule - 3,739 words - a cute little imagining of the boys' life on a cabin by the ocean.

I’ve been gone a week. - 2,147 words - letters!! fun letters back & forth between the boys that ask you to picture what happened in between them :) this was a fun writing challenge. to possess; to have; as belonging to one - 2,514 words - this one was fun. Sasuke's back & he isn't going to let Naruto dodge questions anymore.

in nightmare and in health - 5,425 words - another soulmate AU, a bit more sad though! Cathartic, maybe?? It's a sort of reincarnation AU & does involve description of major character death in a past life.

Aaaand that brings our total word count to: 153,319! Which is a lot more than I expected, if I'm honest. It really felt like a scramble to find the time at a lot of points of this year. But I'm relieved to see I still managed to write quite a lot. A few years back I would never think about hitting these kinds of numbers, haha. I don't want to take that for granted, so I'll ride it out as long as it lasts.

If you've read this much, you are so sweet, thank you for indulging me :) I appreciate you. I hope the new year treats you well, and I'll keep writing to try to be part of that for as long as I can.

#writing year in review #textpost #longpost #kinomitalks #fic year in review #year in review #2023 writing summary #mywriting

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idyl-hummingbird · 1 year

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What Happened to Heartbeats?

Well, so. Here we are. Nearly 5 years since I first started Heartbeats, and almost 1 year since the last chapter was posted. How did we get here? It may surprise you, but I actually have an answer. Or several, really. It's more than one thing, as life is never that simple. Some I never predicted, but one large thing that I'd be lying to you if I said I didn't know about it from the very beginning, a thing that I hoped by ignoring it would make it go away (spoiler: it didn't). So, let's talk about it:

Part 1: Life changes

Ironically this part in my mind falls under the "things I never predicted" category. Which is silly, of course I knew my life would change; I just didn't foresee the ways it would affect my fic writing.

To understand what happened with Heartbeats, I need to step further back for comparison. I need to talk about Just Hold On. My predecessor to Heartbeats, my first multi-chaptered, poly ot7, fantasy themed fic. My magnum opus, to be perfectly honest; in my view of my small little corner of this gigantic fandom, I believe it is what I'm most known for. And I'm perfectly happy with that. I'm proud of that fic; if it was my peak, it was a pretty darn good one.

But why bring up Just Hold On when this is about Heartbeats? Because of this single fact: I uploaded a new chapter of that fic on a weekly basis until it was complete. Weekly. I recall that in amazement sometimes, marveling at how I possibly could do that--

But then I remember that I know exactly how.

I was in grad school when I wrote JHO. A time that I often cite as frankly the worst years of my life. I lived in an isolated town, far away from friends and family. I was struggling with my identity, what I wanted to do with my life, who I wanted to be. I had an extremely minimal social life. Outside of working on my degree and my role as a TA, I spent a majority of my time alone. And a lot of that time, I spent writing.

But, as BTS reference in Spring Day, my winter didn't last forever. I graduated with my masters, left that small town, and shortly after, I started writing Heartbeats.

For as self-important as this post is coming across, I'm actually not here to share my life story with you. But just know that in the years between finishing grad school to now, the years of Heartbeats' creation, I have faced the most change I've ever encountered in my life. I became an adult. I've had multiple full time jobs, lived in different cities and states. I met the love of my life and we're getting married next month. I'm far happier and fulfilled now than I was sitting alone at grad school.

Do I miss having that level of efficiency, that amount of time to just write for hours on end? Sometimes, yeah, I honestly do. But I'd never want to go back to the life I had that gave me that time, and I think that's part of facing adulthood. Things change, priorities shift. It's neither good nor bad, it just--is. (And it's worth noting that I do still find time to write, even if it is more limited. So then where're the Heartbeats chapters? Where have you been? Well, I said it was more than one thing. The next, I really didn't see coming...)

Part 2: Oops I joined another fandom

Yeah, this one blindsided me too. Had I always casually enjoyed the show Stranger Things? Yes. Had I always been exceptionally fond of the character Steve Harrington? Yes. I'm a lesbian, so I love a good himbo; it's just nature. Did I anticipate that season 4 would introduce another male character that would allow Steve to interact with the first ever guy his age in the show that didn't want to punch him in the face, and that would subsequently lead to an ideal character to ship him with? Of course not! But it happened and something clicked in my brain and next thing you know I'm writing about Steve and Eddie instead of Jimin and Yoongi. I don't know, man. This one really stumps me, too, but I think if I really deep dive into it, the truth is that I was burnt out on BTS content. I'd been writing them for years, it became routine. Steddie was refreshing; it was new and exciting and allowed me to try new things that didn't fit as well with BTS.

I think it was an unfortunate combination. More fandoms with less time to write has meant that I need to pick and choose, and I've picked what I've been excited about--for the past 6 months, that's been steddie. I've really enjoyed writing them, and it'd be a lie to claim I won't want to write more of them in the future. But I also want to write more BTS, and my excitement has started to shift back to them. I think this waxing and waning is just something new I'll have to learn to navigate in my fic writing and fandom interests.

Part 3: The Truth

Okay, I've stalled long enough. Here's the truth, the thing I knew from the beginning of Heartbeats' inception, that I tried to ignore and hoped would solve itself but never has. The probably number one reason why I have not been able to finish it:

When I started this fic, I did not know how it was going to end.

Okay, wait, let's pump the brakes. It's more complicated than that. Let me explain:

I saw a comic the other week that was actually the inspiration for me wanting to make this post.

It's of a stick figure looking over at the other side of a cliff, with a huge chasm between them. The chasm is labeled "the plot" and the other side of the cliff is labeled "that one specific scene I really want to write."

As someone who struggles with plot, I relate to that comic a lot, just in general. But if I apply Heartbeats to that comic, a heartbreaking truth reveals the biggest answer to my radio silence, my lack of updates:

For heartbeats, that "one specific scene I really want to write"? I've already written it.

When I first conceived the idea of Heartbeats, there were a few scenes I was really excited about: the swinging bandit trying to kidnap Jin, Jin saving Hobi's life, Tae growing his wings back. But there was one part of that fic that kept me going, that I was so fucking hyped to write that I couldn't wait to get there:

Namseokkook in the siren domain. Jungkook going back to face the sirens, namseok learning of Jungkook's past, JK getting the key and the three of them narrowly escaping. Writing those chapters was my big moment.

The chapters that followed, I could stall. I had decent enough ideas for the other keys that I made it work, and once they were all back at the safehouse, it was a good time to pause from the action. To sprinkle in some fluff and hurt/comfort, my bread and butter.

But then what? The part of the plot I was most excited for was done, yet there's still a whole world for them to save, an even bigger villain for them to defeat.

I think every writer has their own process. Personally, it's not unusual for me to only have a vague idea of a plot, and not have the exact ending in mind; it's why this fact didn't stop me from starting to write Heartbeats in the first place.

Going back to JHO again, I didn't really know how I'd end that one either beyond a vague idea. But I pushed through and made it work--that's what I initially thought would happen with Heartbeats. That's why I kept writing and ignored the problem.

I brainstormed, and I still do. I knew about Ren's big reveal from the very beginning, which is why I was able to write the last two chapters. I know generally how I want the fic to end and I have an idea for its epilogue. The problem is, I just don't have a clear picture on how to get us there.

And now with 5 years passed, with people waiting, there's pressure. I think in the climatic chapter of JHO, you can go back and see in the ANs that I was unsure if the plot would be disappointing. To this day I genuinely do think it's a bit underwhelming. But it works, and since I was in such a rhythm of writing back then, I accepted it was the best I could do, and I posted it.

Not to mention, the stakes in the two stories are quite different. JHO is about seven boys and a girl they found. Heartbeats is about the fate of the whole world--talk about stakes! I think that also adds to the pressure. With so much on the line, can it really be resolved so swiftly? It might have to be, if that's all I've got in me.

Years have gone by, and even if the words aren't on paper yet, I have been mentally working on it. I can, and will, come up with an ending to Heartbeats. I probably will find it underwhelming, and that makes it difficult to start putting the words to paper. But it deserves an end, and maybe even one that's not as bad as I fear. People love JHO not because of the climax, but because of the characters and the world building. I think that's why people love Heartbeats, too. I need to remember that, and I need to just keep writing, in the smaller increments of time I have, when I'm excited to do so. It'll probably still be awhile, but maybe 2023 is the year I finally finish Heartbeats.

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